We begin today with my ode to Berlin and what remains a city with real heart despite all the speculators and grifters doing their best to co-opt that beautiful soul. Then its over to a modern classic that I finally read/listened to: Tuesdays with Morrie. There is something so profound and very relevant to our current status as people on this planet, Morrie’s words are still well worth hearing. And even more fun we can hear them in his own voice. This leads to an examination of the power of the mind to create so much in our lives. And lastly I will be returning to Japan in less than 2 weeks, hear all about it on this podcast. —
Tag Archives: books
Roadrunner in Each of Us
It must have been spring of 2007 when I saw the incoming chat on my skype window: Dilip saying hello. A quick call – he’s in the US traveling around. Somewhere near New Orleans if memory serves. He asks me about my own travels and we disconnect pretty soon thereafter. The details of his adventures I would happily follow on his blog as I had since we first met online for a podcast interview some years before.
Dilip’s blog first caught my attention for both its style and its subject matter. Reading his words I recognized the thoughts of someone who could look critically and creatively at his own home country of India. He would also use this way of comparing specific regions or stretches of road in India, to places he had seen himself or heard about from traveling friends. Even beyond the critical analysis and the historical references, these were the words of a born traveler.
Over the course of 2010 I traveled with his book in my backpack. Through Siberia and Mongolia, hanging out in Vienna or Lisbon, on those sleepless nights in Tokyo, and when Kabul would go almost completely dark, I would slowly read and re-read chapters from Roadrunner.
I say slowly because having been raised on computers and the internet, I take forever to consume a book. But I say read and re-read because each chapter in Roadrunner is itself a story. One that I might tell a friend over dinner, or try to re-create on my next trip back to the US.
Just like the writing style that I’ve long enjoyed on his blog, in his book Dilip combines stories from traveling in the US with stories from India. Two lands that on the surface are often said to be very different, but looking at it through his eyes, there is no shortage of similarities. And just as one can point out the social-political problems in India and the US, Dilip also constantly describes beauty that both places share.
Being that my own specialty and passion revolves around human stories, Roadrunner had my undivided attention with each unique individual Dilip would run into as he rambled into yet another forgotten American town. Good and bad experiences alike, his words taught me new things about the very country I was born and raised in, while also showing me things about a land I greatly admire and wish to visit one day soon – India.
When all is said and done, in Roadrunner, the never idle traveler in me immediately recognized the wandering words of another fellow traveler; tired, full of stories, and already thinking about the next adventure.
Dishwasher Wisdom
Dishwasher Pete is a friend of mine. Like me, he’s an American who moved to Amsterdam. Like me, he’s also a European of another country living here in Amsterdam. And that is only the beginning of what he and I have in common.
Pete had gotten in touch a few days ago about getting help posting a video from when he was on Letterman. See Pete’s book has just come out, and the buzz coming from both sides of the atlantic is that DISHWASHER is a smash-hit. I’m two chapters in and honestly, I already knew the thing would be good because only inspiring things can come from the mind of such an excellent person.
As I was sorting out the video issues with him, he asked that classic question, “So hows it going.. are you able to live off your website?”…. I’m sure I’m misquoting him, but I know the question well.. as Im lucky enough to have concerned friends everywhere.
But the great part was his answer to my answer. I told him, “At this point, no… no I can’t. But I don’t care, this is what I want to do.” (something to that effect) Pete responds very quickly and calmly with his great brand of wisdom — “Just keep going. Keep doing what you’re doing. Corporations and media groups can’t make the type of connections with an audience that you’re making. Keep going… you’re building something very special…” (again I’m misquoting, but I remember the good parts)
Then I remembered, just as he reminded me… before the whole book thing.. Dishwasher Pete had a zine and a dream. He published a zine and traveled from state to state, washing dishes. He had amazing experiences, and saw the entire US is ways that the average person will never get to. And throughout that experience… plenty of people cast doubt on him… but he kept doing what he was doing.
I digress, Pete is not my idol (though maybe he should be!). But it was his way of reminding me and assessing my goals… one of those moments that reminds me of how far Ive come, and where I’m going.