france – Page 11 – Citizen Reporter

Bye Rube!

Lots of bloggers were inspired by him. Not enough journalists were. Lots of pieces will be written about what he meant to them and how sad his death was. Madame Levy wrote the first one I saw when I rose from slumber this mornin. – Fuck. HST croaked. I should’ve poured a glass of whiskey and sparked up just to pay my disrespect.

But the almost-sherrif of aspen wouldn’t have wanted that. He would look at my blogpost and tell me to fuck off and go enjoy myself in Amsterdam and write some shit that exposes the bastards… cause the bastards need exposing. Followed by a kick to the groin and an eye-gouge.

The year was 2000, and my priviledged bee-hind was sipping cassis while studying the geriatric socialist parties of Europe, in Proven?e. (south of france to those outside the KNOW) D-Rock was in Amsterdam, probably sipping on his drink of choice and gettin educated in that very exchange student way. I hopped on the fancy TGV, had passionate conversation hours with a mademoiselle, and when I finally came to, I was in Amsterdam. D-Rock introduced me around, got me a bike, and helped me blend into student life.

It was right about then when an American student from… chicago or texas or both, says to me “you study politics and media? So you must know HST?” And BAM — nothing was ever the same. I went home wondering who this man was and what the f is gonzo journalism? I picked up the Fear and Loathings, I put them down because they gave me a second hand high from all the drugs he was taking. I learned why and how to really hate nixon, not to mention the entire incestuous crack-whore world of American politics. Never able to really get into journalism, I was ruined for life.

Mohalo?

Oh yeah, I once googled gonzo blogs, and by some magic, I discovered mr TPB Esq!

Today’s Sounds: Jimmy Eat World – Futures

Et puis ?a

Yesterday’s cliffhanger about dinner with Texan students actually concluded swimmingly. I found that they handled indonesian food with healthy curiosity, i guess they appreciate good eatin’. There were in fact no political debates, and I’ll admit I was seeking to avoid them if they weren’t necessary. At some point I mentioned Condi Rice, but when I did it I put my napkin in front of my mouth and I was leaning close to the one guy who was actually from NY state. We were discussing her academic career for whatever reason, I thought it was ironic that in a group of non-northeasterners with one exception, I spend most of the evening talking to the exception. He was in fact an immigrant, so we understood each other right away. (thats how it works with me) I even recommended that he take his upcoming date to my favorite eclectic restaurant that serves up a mean veggie couscous.

How did the evening’s conversation carry on, you might wonder. Well, in fact I do have something in common with texans. I guess most of the world has this now: an encyclopedic knowledge of Seinfeld and the need to quote it verbatim. Annoying? Not to me. Though if I heard a recording of the evening I’d probably kick my own ass.

My most lovely and dynamic dinner company asked me one of those “make you think later” questions tonight. We were polishing off a big plate of Ethiopian… fingers sticky from all the alecha scooped with scraps of injera, when she asked “what do you think you’ll be doing.. five years from now.” Classic no? But I hadn’t thought about it in a while. My answer?: Finished with my PHD and looking for a teaching gig somewhere interesting. Of course always keeping my home base as the ‘dam.

What I forgot to mention? Raising chitlens, riding in my own faux tour de france, and starting my world-wide bicyclemark speaking tour. Which in fact has already begun, details demain. Hooray for podcasting sunday.

Today’s Sounds: RFI – La Radio du Monde

De-Liberations

December seems like a month where, besides celebrating a whole lot of birthdays, we also pause and remember some of the worst atrocities the earth has ever seen. I love using big phrases like that, cause then someone will think “you say tomato, I say tomato sauce,” and who am I to argue. Just a blogger folks. Just a blogger.

Back to the point, before I do the usual drifting like Tom and Huck, Dec. 11th 1994 was the anniversary I wanted to point out; Ten years to the date, when the rusty Russian war machine invaded the Chechenskaya Respublika. I’m not here to try and debate why they did it or who was wrong, for me there is no debate. The images and statistics that so much of the world have ignored: 50,000 killed in the first war alone, air strikes that bombed Grozny back into the stone age, the (now repeated in Iraq) acts of rounding up all the men older then 16 and imprisoning them. I’m sure it was worth it… this liberty and freedom from terrorism that Moscow promised. So much of the population had to be wiped out, so you had to do some torturing/raping, and then maybe you had to destroy everything in site… it’s all for a better future. Trust mother Russia, and her friends in Europe, US, and around the world, who – if they even noticed- spend those years doing business as usual.

I myself sat in the library of a tiny University in southern France when the second Chechen war broke out. I sat reading 4 newspapers per day, scribbling articles which I’d never have the nerve to send to a newspaper, other than my tiny column in my college newspaper in NJ, and then posting them on my geocities site, which later became this here blog. I guess I’m alot like certain governments and international organizations, I sat around talking a mighty talk and writing articles, and then at night I put it to the side and went to have another glass of wine at Les Deux Gar?ons. Which in retrospect may have not been a good place to meet women. (?)

I joke… cause well.. it’s part of dealing with all the bullshit. But still.. It’s a crazy anniversary… it was 1994, modern times. Now, with all the stupidity of the so-called war-on-terrorism, people who speak on behalf of Chechnya are suspect… dangerous. The government they elected , whoever still lives, is in exile in the US and UK. Hell, I’m sure Chechnyans themselves would tell me to shut up, cause they must be so tired of hearing about all these politicians with blood on their hands…just wanting to live a somewhat normal life. Whatever’s left of it.

So here’s to you Chechnya, in recognition of all the hell you’ve gone through (a reality I cannot even being to understand from my comfy seat)… the world governments may not a have a spine, but bloggers do, bicyclemark’s commmunique (and always has) recognizes the independent and sovereign Chechenskaya Respublika.. if there’s anything left to recognize.

Today’s Sounds: Curtis Mayfield – Best of

Tour Chicks

It’s a rainy saturday afternoon and I’ve done all the apartment cleaning one can possibly do within a 5 hour stretch; a good time for a trip down memory lane:

It was the summer of 99′, Bill Clinton’s library was but a faint idea, GWBush was on the 12-step program, Lionel Jospin was still popular in France, and one of the fastest rising NJ Ska bands of the third wave set off on the longest tour of their 3-year history. I remember it well:

I was entering the third year on my undergrad career, and One Cool Guy’s first EP was selling like hotcakes in the NY/NJ area. They never really told me the specifics about how much money was made or what was sold, all I know is that thousands of CD’s and a countless amounts of shirts had been sold. I myself couldn’t even get my hands on each of the different screenprints.

We set out from Jersey with one goal: to have a hell of alot of fun. OH yeah, and play music, promote the album, and reach new fans bla bla bla. And so we did, with the usual trials and tribulations: Being unable to find Athens, Georgia. Having a Gainesville, FL show moved to a Radical Bookstore, playing some sort of abandoned barn in whatevertown, Indiana. I can remember all 10 of us staying with some teenage fans house in south Florida. The mother made us brownies I think. I distinctly remember thinking “OK, nobody break any laws tonight.” Having found a corner to put my air-mattress, I was easing off to sleep, when a little girl stood over me smiling like I’m her new pet goldfish. “Goodnight” I said, pulling the blanket over my head. “Goodnight” she responded, I’m not sure how long she stood there watching me sleep. I awoke to find some other teenage girl with a backpack on, who greeted me with a cheery “goodmorning” as she went off to – i guess- summerschool.

But there were moments that still to this day leave me with a huge smile and sense of satisfaction: Arriving in Palm Beach (or something like that) and sitting on the dock of a canal with the horns, jamming like we own the state while the neighbors seemed to stop everything to listen. Or stopping along the highway to watch the Sunrise in Tennessee with Dan Skatalite, while the other guys slept in the back of Red Leader and Gold Dust, our legendary vans. I’ll never forget playing at a Laundromat in Cincinnati where my darling, Willie Nelson’s daughter, came to see us. And the best memory of all, returning home to NJ to a sold out crowd of enthusiastic fans at the Palace in BoundBrook.

Almost five years later, here I sit, trying to retrieve the memories from that cobwebby part of my mind. Scanning old photos. Making plans to see the boys when I’m in Jersey next month. Hell, I even got fanmail this week, ain’t that some shit?

I swear I meant to tell this story better, with more illustration, but in the end it’s one of those things that, well, you had to be there. And even then, you wouldn’t have believed it.

Today’s Sounds: Zero 7 – When it Falls

Feeling Ill

They stole my bike last night. Bicyclemark’s bike was stolen. -THE HORROR- I suppose they needed it. Maybe a junkie had to ride his sick mother to hospital, and my bike was the first one he saw, plus I probably didn’t lock it properly. So that’s how I’ll imagine it… my bike was stolen in the name of saving the sick mother of a junkie; a noble cause.

I’m not surprised it happened.. considering how distracted I’ve been this week. My mind might have been racing from the intensive catch-up session I had with the Torontonienne, who has moved on to another blog(a blog I also love). I can’t explain why or from where the feeling comes from, but I see our lives growing apart, and there’s a sadness there. Then again, I guess some birds weren’t meant to be blog-caged.

On the IM last night I spoke to J.J.legs my long-time college friend, artist, prankster and paraolympian. The man who made stale college parties and nights on the town worth while. One of those New Jerseans who I miss and look forward to visiting. He gave me the odd news that an old girlfriend, Miss America is do to be married. I guess lots of us have experienced that age, when the old significant others start marrying. Haven’t spoken to her in years, and it was odd news to hear. Still, I wish her best of luck with Mr. America.

And then Arafat died, and that’s a solemn and surreal thing to watch in the media. As the angry arab has said on his blog, “they won’t have arafat to kick around anymore.” I wonder who they’ll blame now when they refuse to seriously pursue peaceful solutions.

What has most left me dazed and confused this week, besides potent mat?, has been the siege of Falluja in Iraq. As I watch the videos, photos, and reports of what is happening there, I feel dirty. Like something terrible is taking place in my name and in the name of humankind. I wonder how others feel as they watch? All the explosions, gun-firing, talk of “controlling” the city… what good can come of such madness? Democracy by the barrel of a gun, leaves me quite sad. For my part I would choose neither a dictator, nor militarily-forced democracy… we should be more creative and innovative in our solutions to problems, instead of this archaic bullshit of bombs and armies.

Today’s Sounds: G. Love – The Hustle (Loving Me)

Cheers the Computerlab

An enthusiastic international student friend of mine walked into the fishtank in the wee hours of the morning, and greeted me as I was manning the bridge. He stopped and said:

You know BM, it’s always good to see you here when I walk in. It’s sort of.. comforting, like an old friend who’s always there.

I don’t usually think much of my fishtank duties at the international school, it’s certainly not the reason I work there, but at that moment – I felt like I was making a difference in people’s lives. No wait, I felt like Norm from Cheers, only without the beernuts.

This little “moment” reminded me of my days in Aix-en-Provence, at Spoiled American University. The most loved Internet Caf? was run by these two young, French, computernerds. Of course, I loved them. We all did. It was one of the best parts of the day, that initial walk-in conversation in French, usually consisting of:

Yeah well, I only REALLY learned to speak French in Lisbon. France was more like language training camp, and I was the recruit who kept falling in the mud-puddles. But that’s a whole other story. The point of this trip down memory lane is that I realized for this student, I was Bernard, so to speak; that young, potentially hip guy who lives and works in the country where you are temporarily studying. And just like I’ll always remember the French guys at the internet-caf?, some of these students will always remember Bicyclemark who worked in the Fishtank sometimes. I’m honored to be a fixture in people’s memories.

Freshly back from Paris, Jamie of The Known Universe came to the ranch for some conversation and whiskey. As he mentions in his post, we talked about everything under the sun, including my PHD plans of studying the Culture of Weblog Readers and Writers. He was clearly fascinated at the idea, never having given much thought to the idea of himself becoming the museum exhibit behind glass.

Please do not touch the blogger.

Please do not speak to loudly, as it will startle the blogger.

Notice his leather jacket and walking boots,scientists have yet to reach a conclusion of how this affects his writing.

I’ll be giving the tours of course, wearing a white labcoat and latex gloves.

Jamie and I spent some time talking world affairs, specifically about Ivory Coast. We worried about the safety of a journalist friend of his, and talked about how the situation will undoubtedly get worse. Reading the latest and watching the videos, I’m annoyed with both the French Military and the Ivory Coast. I knew Laurent Gbagbo was a dangerous manipulator, but I couldn’t predict this overtly colonialist behavior on the part of the French. They guard whatever the hell they want, they bomb whatever they feel is a threat to their presence in the country, and they act as if its perfectly natural to do so. Sound familiar? No surprise there I guess, for all their bickering France and the US have many similarities, as do Paris and New York.

Today’s Sounds: Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks (its been a while)