Category: Life

As I exited the plane doors in Bangkok, Thailand, I realized I was probably the most unprepared I had ever been for any of my travels. I was armed with a small backpack that would last me two months, several stories from a few friends about places to go and how to get mugged and lose all my cash, and a Lonely Planet book ‘Southeast Asia on a Shoestring’ which is intended to get you around to all the countries in the region and thus only provides few details of each country and adds a few kilograms to any backpack. While in the customs line getting hassled for my passport and being sent to the back of the line for some reason I will never know, I befriended an English guy named Johnny who had reservations at a hostel somewhere so I followed him with his permission. My first few days in Thailand were in Bangkok and I thought I would be lazy and quote from my journal from the time of these days as it is not the intended story of this entry and then I will get to the point.

From the journal…

July 10th at Big John’s hostel on Sukhumvit in Bangkok. Apparently Sukhumvit is the longest road in the world leading into Cambodia from here. Could be a lie.

Got duped by a guy in a golden Buddhist temple as he warmed us with talk of the ‘middle way’ and then moved on to talk of Knoglee suits which apparently are the best. Then we get taken to this suit place which looked the same as the rest. Didn’t buy any but got a free Pepsi out of it. But seriously, recruiting tourists at a Buddhist temple?

Have befriended an English chap and we plan to move up north. I have no cover for my bag and my mosquito repellent isn’t strong enough by at least 32.5%. Malaria can’t be that bad.

Only a few nights here and saw the same tuk-tuk guy, Tony, and same cheating little thumb wrestling kid. Tony let me drive the tuk-tuk which I almost crashed but I was the fastest on the road.

Saw the entire town by boat. Maybe too much. A lot of walking. As expected.

Saw some girls open a Pepsi bottle with their pussy and then pull 20 feet of rope out of that same pussy, amongst other things. I even stuffed a ping pong ball into a girl’s vagina, it smelled like rubbing alcohol. She was going to shoot it into my mouth but I pussed out, no pun intended. Got a few drinks out of it and a few dick grabs.

Red Bull out here is definitely full of speed. I want to try 3 all at once and see what happens.

I am fed up with Bangkok. It reminds me too much of Tijuana. Tonight we ride a sleeper train up north. Hopefully I am not robbed and can find a cheap bottle of wine. Can’t wait until Ko Tao. Now where are my socks? Oh right, the night of Muay Thai fighting, the long walk there, met some English, got drunk, Burger King and 5 people in a tuk-tuk to sum up the night.

It is likely that if you go to Bangkok you will do all these things whether you want to or not. So then Johnny and I got on this sleeper train to Phitsanulok which he had convinced me to go to. I had no idea what was there but he told me there were some wonderful ruins and temples there and it was not as well-touristed as other places so I agreed as I rarely say no to anything. A sleeper train, I have alluded to before in other entries, but these are 30-car trains that have bunks up and down each side that move very slowly through the countryside and stop a hundred times throughout the night and your main fear is that a herd of small children do not run onto the train at one of these stops wielding clay knives sharp enough to rake an eye out and slit backpacks while they release chickens in the air to promote confusion. I am not overly tall at about 1.8 meters but these beds are designed for Thai people. It would be one thing if I was much taller but my bed was only about 10 centimeters shorter than I was so I was forced to sleep in a very awkward position which kept my legs bent and half leaned over while my back was twisted and one of my arms hugging my bottle of wine and backpack at the same time. At 4:30am I was abruptly woken up by Johnny and we got off at our town with only two other people who were not very friendly. I immediately had this incredibly debilitating limp and all I could think of was that I had slept on my hip funny. I struggled on as it is the backpacker code to leave the wounded and slow behind. The town we had come to, Phitsanulok, was not a tourist town at all, in fact it was barely a town. There was no one out to rob us or say anything to and we basically wandered in a direction looking for accommodation. Ghost town. We found a place, paid our $1.75 for a double room and immediately both laid down to go to bed. And here is where my night began…

The hostel itself was lovely and very well decorated. All sorts of drapes with dragons on it and Buddhist symbols and knick-knacks. The room was the same and had one large double bed with a large floor-to-ceiling window with a small patio that hung over onto the alley outside. This alley must have been the main through-way for the town because even at 4:45 in the morning, people were flying up and down this alley and like all good countries outside of the U.S., no one uses mufflers. Johnny went to sleep immediately but I just laid there sweating in the 40+ degree heat wincing in pain as my aching hip would go from severely hurting to intolerably hurting. In this sort of heat you must have the window open which invited mosquitoes. I covered myself several times in repellent but I would lay still and feel it start to melt and then freak out as I thought it was a mosquito. That buzz you hear as one approaches your ear is bone-rattling. I would watch in the shadows as one would land on Johnny, spend a good five minutes sucking his blood, and then struggle to fly off and I couldn’t understand how he was not affected. Here was my journal entry during this time…

From the journal…

July 12th. At London hostel giving up on sleep in Phitsanulok.

I don’t know if I have insomnia but when it is this hot, with a hard bed, and a window to the road, it just is not possible. Currently have 1 hour of sleep in 38 hours. Geckos crawl all around me and mosquitoes just wait for the lotion to be sweated off. Very good sting on left thigh right now, wonder if I now have malaria? My leg hurts bad and I don’t know why and my throat is really sore. No wonder those punk kids in Bangkok were trying to make me buy Halls medicine. Now who’s laughing, Luke? 2 hours until air-conditioned seats. I will try my hardest to guarantee an air-con room from now on, why not?

I am sure this sounds negative but the learning moves on. I wish I could dream an unconscious dream right now. So thirsty…

I would get up and try to keep myself busy by taking some really nasty trips to the bathroom. The Thais have the bathroom sorted out. It is always a hole in the ground with foot holds on the side, you sit down and let loose. Your butt cheeks are in optimal position to not receive any particulate and that position promotes the body to get rid of more than you would sitting on a toilet. The toilets there always have a fancy way of providing water into a bucket that you use to flush. Water will trickle off the roof collected from cow sweat, hit a bamboo bucket held up by a monkey used only for this reason, who tips the bucket into a beaker lighting a torch which pops a balloon, that then scares a bird to fly over and hit a domino that cascades into others as it turns some faucet on to fill up your bucket. That night, I watched all that happen maybe 5 times. Be sure to bring toilet paper to Thailand if that is your thing.

I tried to go back to bed and lay there. I harnessed my chi and allowed for any movement on my skin to just go on and I succumbed to malaria if that was my fate. My hip hurt so bad that I had to whimper. I know that sounds rather wimpy, but I had no alternative. I felt depression for the first time in my life and there was nothing I could do about it. The time was moving in reverse and I saw no end in sight. It was too hot, I was hurting too much, and I was in a place I did not want to be. And on top of it I had to watch Johnny sleep happily and listen to him snore to make sure if my sleep was to happen, it would be with more noise than the raging vehicles outside.

In the end I never slept, I wiped my tears and limped the next two days and then my hip was magically restored just in time for some intense Takraw action. I did find out that the fan had two more speed settings which would have helped immensely and I also believe that this night was the first night that caused my hip problems that I have today which I will have to write about in another entry.

Charlie, this story is dedicated to you as I can half sympathize with your nights in Istanbul. Thanks again for the good times in Turkey!

I find that being extremely inquisitive is one of the most rewarding things about being a person. By taking on this attribute, you can learn until your brain explodes. You are only limited by the vastness of your creativity which is the key to extract the information you are thirsting for. Sometimes, I have found, inquisitivity can be very disconcerting for certain people around you as you dive deeper and deeper into subjects that might make someone uncomfortable. For myself, however, I am just enjoying the lesson I am receiving by watching that person squirm. Sometimes people will think I am challenging them and ‘taking the piss’ but almost always I am very genuine. I will say that I am observant of someone who is bothered by my questions and I do enjoy testing the limits. So moving on to the point… for various reasons, I do not have too many fat friends and I would like to play out half of one of these conversations that might make someone squirm. I think many of these questions are for the extremely large people that need to live life a little differently than the rest due to their condition.

I must have this answered because I have heard one solution that I am not so sure seems to make sense. How do you have sex? I can understand the liberal use of toys and all that but that can only last for so long. Eventually you are going to try and make the natural connection. Someone told me that you can use a sturdy piece of wood to move the skin out of the way however my concern with this solution is friction and keeping it in the right place all the time. I hope you are getting it sorted out because sex is a really good thing.

When you sit in a chair that you are wider than, do you notice the handles digging into your skin? Like on an airplane, you don’t have a choice, so you just squeeze in, but what I wonder is, are you really “squeezing” or does the feeling just not register since it is really fatty skin? I would think you feel it but are just forced to deal with the situation.

Are you aware of how wide you are? Do you frequently knock cups and things off tables walking around? Reminds me of a cat. Their whiskers will always grow as long as the cat is wide to make sure they don’t stick their head inside things that the rest of the body won’t fit through. Do you have an equivalent? I think whiskers are also used for balance as well which brings to mind the idea of whether you have a consistent shifting of weight or would you say it is more reminiscent of a fluid going back and forth. Imagine a ball half filled with water and you were trying to roll it around.

I am no doctor, but I am almost positive that the asshole should not grow proportionately with your weight. Are your shits extra long or large to accommodate the extra food? Does it drag along your ass skin as it drops into the toilet? Would you prefer a big-basined toilet bowl to help allow yourself to spread your butt cheeks apart? Do you have an arm extension to be able to wipe your ass? Sort of a trash picker-upper thing but with a double bend in it is what comes to mind. Guess this could double as a back scratcher as well.

Do you get random chafing on parts of your body from skin rubbing next to each other? And how do you stop this? Probably just use small bits of lotion or Vaseline in the high-friction areas.

Can you apply deodorant in an armpit with the same arm if the other one doesn’t reach over? I think an easy solution to this would be a deodorant stick but not the kind of stick that is advertised on TV. I am thinking of a stick with an adapter to put any type of deodorant on the end and it sticks about 3 feet up in the air so you can just walk over to it and apply to each arm by rubbing down on it with your arm in the air and the other arm free to do whatever.

Is it more comfortable to sleep on your front or back?

Are you proportionately strong?

Do you agree that you should pay more for your clothing since you are using much more material than a smaller person? They are doing this in England but with bras.

Have you ever been to the top of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona?

Is it hard to swim? I am thinking that it would be but maybe it is easier to float.

I can think of more but I am sure I have offended a lot of people especially considering that a third of the American population is considered clinically overweight. However this is not my intention and I would really love some honest straight answers to my very honest and sincere questions. The English like making fun of me because us Americans are fat, according to them, which may be half true, but it doesn’t help that they say this to someone who is almost always skinnier than they are, and they have such lovely foods like eggs wrapped in bacon and then deep fried, or deep-fried fish and chips served in a whole newspaper to absorb the grease, or desserts covered in triple cream, or milk with an inch of cream at the top of the bottle before you open it for the first time. Just get your heart rate above 160 for 30 minutes a day people and you can eat whatever you want. Salud!

A while back I wrote about an interesting story of how, with the help of my fresh-off-the-boat Swedish roommate, we effectively gave a cat an abortion, which according to some, she did not want. I wanted to revive this story so I can respond and defend myself because although it may not be clear from my original post, I love cats and I feel I am getting a bad reputation from that post.

First I would like to say that I am pro-choice when it comes to human abortions. How dare you impose your beliefs on anyone else. If I imposed many of my beliefs on you, you would freak out and want to write some nasty comments like some of the people on my original post. I understand the argument of late-term abortions, in fact YouTube can be very helpful on explaining how they actually do this. I watched one that was a cartoon that actually showed the cartoon baby make a wincing face as they stuck the needle in the back of its neck/head. Having said that, the mother needs to be educated about her situation and make her own decision. Maybe give her this cartoon flip book or something, but at least it’s better than these stories you hear of babies left in dumpsters.

Growing up I was around many animals and especially cats thanks to my mother. I had a crow that ran away because it could not fly and one day it was gone. I had an African grey parrot that mimicked the sliding glass door opening in the middle of the night and the phone ringing and hated men. I had a cage full of ring-neck doves that my cat could figure out how to get into on occasion and close the door behind him. I had a three-legged cat we got at a garage sale. I had a cat that I specially fed to make it very large. I had a horse that would scale vertical walls while you held onto her tail as she pulled you up. I had a white cat which I loved tremendously and after taking her to a vet to remove the cancer in her ears, which brought her back with a shaved head and no ears (quite the spectacle), she violently shook in my arms and died looking at me as if I had done something wrong from the medicine they had given her. At one point we were breeding ragdoll cats, famous for being completely double-jointed and outrageously stupid. If you have ever dealt with pure-bred animals and their breeding process, you might know that on occasion the babies are not normal. I have seen kittens being born, completely joyous on seeing the outside world, but half their innards were hanging out of their stomach as it had not closed entirely. I hate to think what the haters of my previous post would say if they knew that these kittens were held under water until their suffering was ended. In this case, would abortion be acceptable? I am all for pre-birth analysis with X-ray and DNA tests and all that but please allow me to send the bill your way.

There is a reason cats have litters. Litter being a bunch of kittens, sometimes 2 sometimes 8. It is because for whatever reason, it is tough for cats to get to the age of procreation whether it be cars, coyotes, people named nuthead, early pregnancy, cannibalism, feet, or whatever. On top of that, a cat can have a litter every 2-3 months and is happy to take the demanding sex life to accommodate this. The other day I was walking to these ruins in Ephesus, Turkey. On the way there, the path was filled with thousands of little frogs hopping only 2 or 3 times before they got tired. This made for a very treacherous walk as I do not like to step on baby little frogs. However, there must be a reason that one little frog birthed hundreds of babies. Because they die easily. By the end of the day when I was walking back, there were tons of dried up frogs that could not get over the curb or some freshly squished ones.

To Jennifer who wrote “you’re a murderer of poor helpless innocent kittens… and you’re smug about it.” …Yes the kittens were innocent but they were not able to move too much to really be able to do anything that would make them guilty. They were not poor. I am not smug, I am being straightforward and honest. I am sure if you asked Mussolini if she thought her still-developing vagina and womb could accommodate 4 kittens, she would have said no.

To Alysha, I really hope you keep googling cat abortions or however you found this blog the first time and see this response. Please don’t use capital letters, it does not emphasize your point, I can assure you. All it does is bring a hilarious image to my mind of you stomping away at your keyboard with one finger as you hold the shift key since you likely do not know about caps lock. My cat was a whore and the whole neighborhood knew it. Neighborhood, I am sorry for the weeks of torturous cat moans that you had to endure while she gallivanted around. If you look up the word neutered on Wikipedia, you can see the definition to be “Neutering, from the Latin neuter (of neither sex), is the removal of an animal’s reproductive organ…” So Alysha, for that, go neuter yourself.

To Kourosh, Johan and I were acting on the instructions of certified veterinarians. Johan does and says weird things but he is not at fault in any way in this situation.

To Steve, thank you for understanding and I hope your situation was as equally hilarious and emotional as mine.

OK, with that done, I would like to admit the following. The cat was obviously emotionally altered after this incident and it was clear she knew what had happened. For that, Mussolini, I am truly sorry. The problem with a feral cat is that they must have babies, that is in their genetic programming. Mussolini was a pro-lifer and unfortunately for her, I don’t agree with her philosophy and more importantly, I was paying the bills and buying her food.

So in the end, I am arguing for education for all women around the world and for all species as well as prenatal tests that can eliminate unwanted pregnancies and genetic deficiencies.

My family in England is so good about sending letters and disappointingly I have never reciprocated their efforts. I have always opted to use electronic methods which I argue allow me to convey a lot more information. But just like those elementary school Valentine’s Days when you were so happy to receive a handwritten valentine from the cute girl in the class, I can’t help but be ecstatic every time I get a handwritten letter in the mail. Especially since nowadays the mail generally only brings bad news of debts and bills and opportunities for trips to Vegas for “free” or get another credit card.

Well I was particularly touched recently when my dear cousin Jak, in bloody old England, sent me an email with an attachment in it. The attachment was a digitally transcribed handwritten letter from Jak’s brother Rob. The digital transcription was provided with Jak’s Livescribe pen that I had bought him in the States and then shipped to him since it wasn’t possible to purchase in England and ultimately cost Jak some $400 for a freakin’ pen. He likes writing. Cool gadget though to get your writings into your computer. Anyway, here is the letter.

Well Rob, thank you very much! I have purchased your request although I highly doubt I will fit a 5kg bag of mate in my bag. I refuse to send it in the mail so I will be in England after June 1st when I get back from Turkey. I have used it a few times though, you know, break it in. And the bombilla is different but there we are.

If anyone else cares to write to me I will be happy to consider any requests.

I am not a huge concert goer but I do thoroughly enjoy good music as well as putting myself into situations I will likely never be in again. A Radiohead concert in Buenos Aires seemed to fit the bill. I really had no expectations going into this and in fact was prepared to fly solo up until a few weeks ago when I found out that an ex-classmate of mine also had tickets.

I arrived at Adam’s house around 3pm with my ticket in hand and a classic looking outfit of light blue and white including a light blue headband to hold back the burgeoning hair. We made some quick calculations in the bus guide and determined that we would need to take bus 59 down Libertadores to get to Club Ciudad which was on the complete other side of the city. Truth be told it is impossible to make “quick calculations” in the Guia T bus guide. Buenos Aires is absolutely enormous and buses (colectivos) are the main source of transportation for most of the city. The Guia T is a small pocket book that is the definitive guide to tell you how to go wherever you need to go in the city by bus. However, unless you have 34 fingers to keep track of pages, a magnifying glass, a chalkboard with green chalk, and several friends hovering over you suggesting alternative routes or methods of transportation, it can be very difficult.

We decided to head to the Alamo figuring the high ticket cost ($100 US) would promote a large foreigner gathering and the Alamo is supposedly for the foreigner. We found no one but ourselves but happily drank our 4-litre bucket of beer and chatted with the owner who taught us about DirecTV ambassadorships and the way to make money was to rob the keg trucks since they only operate in cash. We also learned that the extremely young (18) bartender was being agitated by the noise-making device that was placed outside to keep teenagers away. I refrained from making any comparisons to dog whistles to this somewhat attractive barmaid.

After 4 litres of beer it was decided to abandon our sober preparations and use the subte which would leave us with a 12-block walk afterwards. En route we purchased another litre of beer each and Adam purchased a small glass flask of whisky. We had heard there would be no booze sold in the stadium (which turned out to be true) and he reasoned with me that if he turned sober halfway through a concert he was liable to go haywire and start screaming curse words in his newly learned language to the Argentinian teenagers. He told me that he would put it in his shoe to which I replied that he should get two flasks so his weird-looking gait would be equalised. He only bought one.

We joined the growing herd of people obviously taking the same route as we were. On the way, while Adam urinated, I made friends with a Uruguayan who was kind enough to share his mate with us which could not have been better at this time and place. He did not have tickets but enjoyed being among the crowds and chatting to people like us. I shook his hand, kissed his cheek, thanked him for his kindness, and wished him luck in life.

I did not bring my camera as it said not to bring cameras on the ticket, as well as the fact I had heard stories of the recent Manu Chao concert where everyone left the place with their underwear missing and cameras on display in the shops across the street before the show was done. Although I did have my phone on me which did have a camera. Adam had followed suit but was also sporting a gnarly cerebral palsy limp as we walked through security which turned out to be a bunch of drunk locals wearing yellow jackets. Unfortunately for Adam, the walk to the concert area was maybe 300 yards and his absurd walking posture was getting worse by the moment. He pleaded to stop but I convinced him it would not be a good idea at this point since no one else was stopping and there really isn’t any better way to draw attention to yourself than to act like a severely handicapped person and then fall down or require assistance only to have your helpers realise you are sneaking in $2 whisky. In hindsight I wish I had brought the camera and I am sure Adam wished he had listened to my advice to get two flasks.

The venue was a giant flat field with a main stage far in front and 5 big screens dotted around. We had met up with a few of Adam’s friends and decided to plant ourselves far in the back in front of one of the screens as the front had filled up already. There were two opening bands but we had missed the first. The second was Kraftwerk, which I had heard of from Coachella. I arrived to their song “Tour de France” which basically is some sort of promo they did for the Tour and it brought my excitement to a new level. I was transfixed to the screen and was at a loss for words. I realised then that at some point I needed to improve my cycling to the point that I could race in that race.

Adam foolishly decides he needs to go to the bathroom. That was the last I saw of him until after the show. I remained with his friends for the rest of Kraftwerk and then we decided Adam was a lost cause and decided to head in further to get closer. I thought this was a bad idea as we had claimed a great spot in front of this screen but in the end it was the right decision as the entire place would soon fill to ludicrously above fire-code capacity levels. The three of us followed each other through the crowd battling to move forward. We would take turns being in the lead trying to pry through couples and groups with a leading shoulder and a goofy smile on your face which was supposed to explain to the people you were harassing that you knew what you were doing was ridiculous but you were going to try and go forward anyway. Every now and then you would hit a jam and could not move any more and you could just feel the hatred of the people around you who were thinking “who the fuck is this guy making my 10-inch square of personal space now only 8 inches?” The Argentines are very comfortable with touching and being in close quarters and this crowd proved it. You could see multiple streams of through ways through the masses trying to worm their way closer. I caught sight of a train of guys guarding a group of girls moving forward with some speed and decided to ditch Adam’s friends, knowing that a lone crowd-sneaker is much more effective. At that point I decided that I was going front row. It took me almost three quarters of the show but I made it to within 15 feet of the front rails and it was all worth it. My hands were locked in front of my chest and my movement was dictated by the collective consciousness of the mob. Every now and then there would be a strong heave from the back and I do remember thinking that I might not make it out of this. Fortunately for me I tend to be taller than many people in this country and at 15 feet I could make eye contact with the band and make sure my completely soaked armpits were smashing into the face of some guy to my right. The heat in this type of crowd is incredible and was likely the motivation for the energy theory in the Matrix movies. Everyone was completely soaked as well and it was all sweat, I hope. After 20 minutes you just don’t care.

The stage reminded me of a reverse Bellagio fountains. They had these hanging crystals above the stage that would change colours with the music. Amazingly effective. It made me wonder what bands are out there that have musicians as well as visual artists in the band because the visuals were as tantalising as the music.

The music itself was second to none. They played every song you would want to hear from Radiohead and the Argentines knew every one of them. My friend Pat was explaining to me when he was at the Obama inauguration, he was overwhelmed with the feeling that everyone there was concentrating on the same thing and having the same wavelength of thought amongst millions of people. I have also heard this from a Muslim guy I met on a Barcelona beach one night who made the same point with reference to every Muslim on earth pointing in the same direction and praying every day. Well, although on a smaller scale, it feels amazing to be in a heaving crowd who are all focusing and thinking and singing the same thing. Gives you the chills.

There must have been at least 20 guitars and all were used, each tuned in some magical way that made every song sound better than you knew it from the recordings. Thom Yorke is obviously an impressive musician and demonstrated his prowess on a piano, guitar, and bass. At one point I saw a guitar being played with a violin bow which was expertly done. At one point they also did this really cool thing where Yorke would sing something and they would somehow instantly record and then mix that over and over — I think someone told me this is called a chaos loop or something. But it sounded great and was being done using the pedals as one of the guys was on his knees playing the pedals with his hands. These guys are experts at what they do and there was no doubting that.

After 4 intense encore sessions that were initiated by some enthusiastic chanting, the show was over. The crowd calmly left the stadium and we walked for about 45 minutes until we found an available taxi. There might be 50,000 cabs in this city and none of them think to go to the stadium, especially the stadium that is far away, to make some good cash. I really liked Radiohead before this concert but now they are top of my list. Thank you Quilmes, although how stupid is it not to serve beer at your own concert?

For good or ill, gift giving amongst my male friends is not very good for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, Halloween, or any other occasion that normally requires a gift to be given. As far as I am concerned this works out just fine as long as everybody agrees to not give gifts. The moment one guy decides to give a gift to someone then they have broken the unspoken agreement and we are all pretty much confused as to what to do the next time. This story is about my effort to try and confuse the hell out of all my guy friends by giving my good friend Dustin an 18th birthday gift.

In the United States, a male’s 18th birthday is a significant one as it allows you to purchase cigarettes, vote, join the military, and go to (most) strip clubs. My friend Dustin was having a party at his house for his 18th and everyone was going. Early on there would be family members and close friends and the latter parts of the evening would bring the rest of the town to make sure Dustin began his adult life as a celebrity in Simi Valley, as he still is to this day.

Being a close friend, I was expected to arrive early and partake in the gift giving portion of the day. With about an hour to go I had no gift and I had no idea what I would give him. And then I had one of the greatest ideas I have ever had in my life — I would shit in a box and give it to him. The only way this idea could get into my head, I think, is that I was listening to Kevin and Bean a few weeks earlier and heard them talking to a guy who ran a service where he would mail the shit of his dogs to people and was making a lucrative living on the internet doing this.

In my head, here is how I saw it going down: I would shit in a large box filled with packing peanuts so Dustin would open the box, see the peanuts, and just start digging around with his hands until he eventually found the prize and then everyone would laugh and I would be the coolest person ever. But here is how it actually went down.

I had to find a box. The only box I could find of reasonable size was a box for a mini humidifier that was maybe 8 inches cubed and the cardboard was the same type of cardboard that they use to encapsulate VHS tapes or maybe a box of Oreos. So I went into my bathroom and hovered over my toilet. First off, it is difficult to be straining your quads and then take a shit. Second off, I didn’t realise exactly the direction that everything comes out when you are taking a shit. So I hovered over my toilet, held this box underneath me and hoped it would just land right inside. It ended up hitting the side and a little on my finger holding the box. Oh well. I anticipated there might be problems which is why I planned on showering right after. The box was maybe a quarter full — very good quantity as far as I was concerned. I put the box on the sink and jumped in the shower. My bathroom at this time was not that big and the heat from the shower collected easily outside, especially when you need extra time to wash the excrement off your finger after trying to shit in a small box. I got out of the shower only to find that my box o’ shit was starting to melt — not totally, but having the contents turn into liquid was definitely something I needed to deal with quickly. First plan of action was to put the packing peanuts in the box. Of course I had none, so I decided to take about 10 pieces of paper, rip them all up into small shreds and dump them into the box. This had the effect of giving the brown contents a sprinkle effect but in no way did it cover the contents or anything like I had originally planned. Whatever. So I closed the box and then needed to seal it. So I found electrical tape and wrapped the box. I used one really long piece to wrap it horizontally and another to wrap it vertically until I had this black electrical tape cube. I put the cube in a paper grocery bag and then covered that bag with another grocery bag. At this point I was feeling extremely giddy and was just grinning from ear to ear with visions of Dustin opening his gift. I sprayed the bag with a load of cologne, walked to my truck, put the bag in the bed of the truck, and drove to his house rocking out to some happy hardcore trance music.

I show up at Dustin’s house and run inside. I immediately find Dustin and tell him to open my gift. He takes the bag and is about to open it when some family member called him upstairs. He put the bag on the pool table, which was in the centre of the house, and said he would be right back. I was almost hysterical at this point. I waited outside on the back patio bouncing up and down and found my other good friend Joe. Nobody else knew about what I had done and I was overflowing with anticipation. I eventually told Joe of what I had done just to be able to share my feeling of extreme excitement with someone. Dustin was upstairs for ages. I remember hearing somebody inside say “What is that smell?” and I just started freaking out with laughter. For all I knew the shit could have completely melted and was liquefied being held in by about 100 yards of electrical tape. We were soon to find out.

Dustin finally came down and I immediately rushed to him and said that he had to open my gift because it was “time sensitive.” He grabbed the bag and went outside. Opened the bag and found a black electrical tape cube which was thankfully not seeping any substances from its cracks. He started removing the tape but it was proving to be difficult for him since it was two really long pieces of tape. A crowd had gathered at this point and everyone was curious to see what was in the black cube. His brother Zak came over to help. Zak held the box with his two fingertips while Dustin pulled the tape making the box spin really fast in front of Zak. At this point I almost fell onto the floor laughing. I had visions in my head as they reached the end of the tape and the box opening up and splattering shit all over Dustin and Zak as it spun around super fast because Dustin was pulling the tape so hard. Dustin noticed my condition and asked me: “Luke, what is this? Cat shit?” and I then proceeded to laugh even harder somehow sputtering out “No, of course not. Who would give their best bud cat shit?” And my answer was absolutely pregnant with truth.

Now I would like to write that my vision of the spinning box splattering open actually happened but it didn’t. Dustin slowed down right at the end and took the box from Zak. He opened it up and immediately freaked out and threw it against the wall where it did actually splatter but no persons were directly affected. Everyone around was screaming to know what it was. Joe and I were rolling on the ground struggling to breathe. I mean honestly, who shits in a box and gives it to their best friend?

I anticipated revenge but I have made sure to be out of the country for all of my birthdays since then and Dustin has never been able to get me back, although I am curious to know what he would do to top that one.

It was close to the halfway point during our Europe trip and we were all feeling a little weary. We needed a little rest and relaxation so we headed to Sweden. Sweden is mysteriously not included on the Eurorail route but our method around that was to just not buy tickets. The only problem with this is that you are on a train with assigned seats and you will need to move maybe a dozen times or more during the trip from Denmark to Stockholm. This wouldn’t be so bad normally, as long as the people are friendly — which they definitely are in Sweden — except for the fact that we had just slept in the park in Copenhagen playing a derivative of bat spin relay and we were very tired and slightly perturbed every time someone woke us up. We did try to play a game of chess with a homemade chess board and pieces out of paper which was ruined with a single cough. Or was it a sneeze?

The destination was Bro, a very small town about an hour outside of Stockholm. The Swedish side of my family has a very darling country house about an hour’s walk from this small town Bro, where Anika Sorenstrom is from. This is where I first tried out hitchhiking. The country house is a quaint little cottage split into two parts. One part has the living room and kitchen with a main bedroom and the other part has a room with two bunk beds and a dry shitter. A dry shitter is the technical term used for a big hole in the ground that has a toilet sitting on top of it and every now and then you need to churn the shit so the pile doesn’t get too high and threaten to touch your bits. There are a few neighbours who tend to stick to themselves. People tend to move to this type of place to get away from the crowd and avoid creating a crowd at all costs.

We would spend the days drinking low-percentage alcohol, cutting down a tree, killing bees, playing a form of bocce ball, and cliff jumping into the lake. Each of these activities is a story in itself but I do not want to get distracted from the point here. A problem I have always had is that I tend to wake up early, or at least earlier than the people around me. One of the mornings at the country house was no different. I awoke around 7 or 8 and it was clear I would be waiting for a while until the others would rise. I decided to go for a wash in the lake on my own.

This lake is magnificent. I do not know what it is called but in the early morning light with its extremely still water shimmering, the image is embedded in my head forever. It is a very large lake — many kilometres long and maybe two kilometres across. I stripped naked and jumped in the freezing cold lake, sure that there was nobody around. I climbed back up on the rock and basked in the glorious Swedish sun. Something we miss in California is the ability to gaze into a clear sky and peer into the horizon as far as the curvature of the earth will allow, unless you stand above 14,000 feet on the top of Mt. Whitney.

One problem with travelling the European continent with 4 other guys and sharing sleeping space with each other is that it can be difficult to find any “alone time”. Considering the beautiful scenery, the complete aloneness, and the early morning hour, I thought that this would be a good time. The warming sun on my naked body, the slightly slanting rock poising my body towards the large open lake — I couldn’t think of a better time or place. So I began.

Everything was going as expected. There have only been a few times in my life where things haven’t gone as they should during these moments but the people who caused these moments know who they are and they can write their own story. Then at the eight-minute mark, something happened. From across the lake, I heard the most aggressive laughter I have ever heard. Almost as if Santa Claus himself had heard the funniest joke in his life. It started low and steady and continued for about 30 seconds. I immediately stopped what I was doing and started to gaze across the lake. I couldn’t see anybody but it was definitely nerve-racking. Maybe they had a telescope or binoculars or something. I don’t know what could be so funny for a Swedish guy, likely portly due to the throaty laugh, at this hour of the day. Eventually he subsided and I waited for a minute or two. I expected to have some camera crew come up on me saying I was on candid camera or something but it never happened. I started again and finished in a rather disappointing fashion, not sure if the guy was still watching.

Later that day, with the other guys, as we were jumping off the same rock into the lake, I told them the story. They laughed equally heartily until I mentioned where they were standing.

I have always had this desire to have a flowing mane of hair. Unfortunately with my genetics, that is becoming less likely with each passing day. I have heard that a male’s hair gene comes from the mother’s father, in which case I am going to have a nice shiny head with a ring of hair wrapping the back and sides with outrageously bushy eyebrows. Interestingly, in the last few months I have had a random hair growing from my left eyebrow that is exceedingly long and a different color from the rest of my eyebrow hairs. If I pull it out, it grows back really quick so I choose to leave it in and tug on it in front of people to freak them out. But I digress — the following three-part story is about my effort to force myself to grow really long hair.

Part 1: Computer Science Class

Senior year of high school was a breeze for me. I had a free first and fifth period and played sports all year so my 6th period was either for practice or also free in the off season. Of my real classes, one was AP Computer Science with Mr. McDermott. The first 20 minutes of each class was us waiting for Mr. McDermott to figure out his roll call system that unexpectedly seemed to surprise him … all the time. I attended this class with a good friend of mine Pro Ha who took enormous horseshoe-size chews while I harassed the population while we waited for McDermott.

One day Pro Ha and I decided to grow our hair out. But to make sure this happened we wrote up a contract which unfortunately has been lost in the winds of time. The terms went something like this: if you cut your hair before the other you will get pepper sprayed. (Initial revisions of the contract allowed for the choice of a stun gun, the one that sticks needles into you, but we abandoned this idea.)

At some point we allowed our friend Rockero to join the hair cut bet. He was a ringer since he did not go to school, play sports, and he worked at Play It Again Sports. After months and months our hair was getting out of control. Much respect to the females for managing long hair all their lives. When prom time came around, Pro Ha could not take it anymore and decided he required clean-cut prom pictures. He cut his hair in secret to make sure that I would go to prom with my hair extremely long. I even saw him that day at the flower shop but when I tried to say hi, he ran away from me to hide what he had done.

I was ready to cut my hair as it was becoming a burden while I played soccer in the hot California weather. I ultimately cut my hair several days later taking second place, meaning that Rockero had won — that bastard. We decided on a day to enact the consequences and the plan was for me to pepper spray Pro Ha and Rockero to pepper spray me right after.

This is all on video somewhere and if you happen to have these, please send them in. You know who you are.

I stood about 5 feet from Pro Ha and blasted him in the eyes with some pepper spray we bought at the swap meet. He fell to the ground instantly and was screaming, although not louder than the roar of laughter from all his friends! Unfortunately for Pro Ha he had his eyes locked shut and was not able to see Rockero stand in front of me and spray this foul substance into my eyes. It is really hard to stand in front of someone with pepper spray and keep your eyes open. It hit my eyes and they immediately shut with no chance of opening for about 45 minutes. I fell to the ground and started crawling around looking for the hose which Pro Ha was using himself. Definitely a funny sight watching someone on all fours staring directly into the end of a hose that is on full blast and listening to them try to explain how much it hurts. If you removed the water from your eyes, it would hurt worse than it did in the beginning.

We were told that highway patrol men need to get sprayed and then do an obstacle course which I find extremely hard to believe. I have also heard stories of people on drugs pulling up stop signs from the ground while getting doused with high-powered pepper spray and then still being able to beat up the cops. We also heard that a significant percentage of the population are not affected by pepper spray, as well as dogs.

Part 2: Luke goes to university to dupe some newbies

Move ahead one year or so and into the dorms at University of California, Irvine. I was describing this bet to my two good friends Pat and Geoff and we decided to do the bet again. I was coming off a second place in my previous bet which taught me to never lose this type of bet again. The bet had the same terms. Geoff eventually was excommunicated from the bet after we found out that he was trimming his hair ever so slowly to make it appear that it was never changing. To this day Pat and I still think we should sneak up on Geoff and douse the bastard! Pat started the bet with a two month head start of not cutting his hair but he was aware of his decision.

This bet did not last that long and I was ultimately the winner. Maybe Pat can fill in the real reasons for him cutting his hair but I think it was just because he secretly wanted to experience pepper spray. Now at this point I was experienced at shooting the pepper spray. Pat stood maybe 10 feet away from me but the distance did not matter. I zapped him in the eyes with the first pass from left to right and then I wrote my name in handwriting across his forehead and mouth making sure to have complete coverage. Pat had heard that in the previous bet we had dropped to the floor and found water instantly and he chose to try and avoid doing that to one-up us. So for about 5-10 minutes Pat did an amazing job of pacing back and forth in the grass with his eyes shut and spewing curse words about the accuracy of my shot and anything else he could think of. I am sure if he could see, he would have been throwing punches. Pat can be aggressive and with pepper spray filling his tear ducts he was like a wounded rhino in heat. Eventually he hit the shower and we all laughed about it afterwards.

Part 3: Luke gets his revenge

One night while I was visiting my friends back in Simi Valley and playing 100 club (100 shots of beer in 100 minutes), I was describing how I had got my friend Pat to feel the pain of the pepper spray. Part of my story was how I would never lose again, EVER. I would do anything other than get pepper sprayed. And then I said the sentence that kicked off the next hair cut bet. “I would rather eat my own shit than get pepper sprayed again!” And the bet was on between me and Helvig who had still yet to know what it felt like to have your eyeballs peed on by a volcano.

Circumstances had changed at this point. I was not playing soccer as competitively as I was before and Helvig had got himself a job at a bank. Unfortunately for him, those banker types don’t look well on someone with long shaggy hair slowly turning into a mullet.

For months we had the very gross conversation of how I would perform my penalty if I were to lose. Most of the suggestions had to do with my sobriety or what I would eat for a week before. It did not matter to me because I knew I would never lose. Eventually Rockero caved and he cut his hair. I pepper sprayed him good and well with an evil smile on my face the whole time. Oh the taste of sweet revenge, or in Rockero’s case, searingly hot revenge.

In Conclusion

I have pepper sprayed three of my best friends and I don’t have any regrets. I still will run like a ninny if I see pepper spray within 100 metres though. As I write this I have not cut my hair for 5 months and my reasoning now is to look more like the indigenous Argentinians as opposed to the gringo that I am, which I believe to be working. Any challengers out there?

4247 Gorriti
Capital Federal
Buenos Aires
Argentina

Your Honor,

On October 22nd I made a stupid mistake on my bicycle. Of course I know that bicycles are supposed to ride in the same direction of traffic and of course I know that to run a stop sign on a bicycle is also illegal. The fact that I did both these things at the same time while holding a steady pace of 25mph+ at a crowded intersection in Costa Mesa while riding a bike with little to no brakes is flat out inexcusable. I am not writing to you now to try and argue my case with an elaborate poster drawing of the intersection, by no means. However I do require your help in the most direst of ways.

Officer Dibble seemed to be quite impressed with the rate of speed I could move around town while wearing sandals so he was kind enough to give me the choice between the two violations described above. Dibble was not aware of the cost for either ticket and since I had heard of someone getting a stop sign ticket before, I decided to try something new and go with the ticket described as “Bicycle operation on roadway, same direction as motor vehicles.” In my opinion far less of a crime than flying into an intersection with blind corners and stray poodles with a bag of chicken bowl bouncing around your left wrist.

I went home and told my roommates about this situation and we argued about the cost and what I should have done. In the end a bet was made. I took the under on a $100 fine and my roommate took the over. Loser paid $100. Several weeks later the ticket came and it was for $118. Shit!

I intended to speak with you then regarding the cost of this fine however there was not enough time before I left for Argentina which is where I am now. I requested an extension online which was kindly given to me however it was only until February 22nd and I will not be back in the United States until May 1st. This deadline came and went and I have been recently sent a scanned image of a “FINAL NOTICE” going to collections type of letter unless I pay $453. I can understand the court’s concern for my absence but there is no need to get testy with the fine. I was riding a bicycle and in turn helping our fine city become better. In fact I am tempted to say that you should be paying me money but that can wait for another time.

So in conclusion I am asking for one of two things:

1. Can you extend the time it will take until my case is sent to your collections vendor to allow me to come visit you in person at the Harbor Justice Center.
2. Could you just reduce the fine to $99 and we can call everything settled. I am coming back from a 5 month trip through South America and have been on a fixed budget for a while. $453 could get me to Antarctica and back and that would be a very cool trip. You should come.

I look forward to hearing from you with your decision.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Luke Ollett

A great question to ask somebody is “when were you most scared?” I find it can be a very revealing story and always interesting. I have heard stories having to do with being underwater for way too long, watching a loved one receive a serious injury, high-speed collisions, falls from tall places, animal attacks, waking up from bad dreams, and many more. Interestingly, many have to do with near-death situations. We are all terrified to die it seems — and quite rightly so when we have such a lovely world around us. I will have to elaborate more on my theory on death in a later entry, but now is no time for philosophy. Here is the time when I was most scared.

I was at my good friend Dustin’s house, which we called the Villa since his surname was ‘Villa’ plus another eight syllables. During high school we spent many a night partying, hanging out, playing games, being lazy, and finding trouble at the Villa. The convenient location and amazing parental units (thanks Debby and Tom!) never went to waste. This particular Saturday night was not a special night but there were probably 12 people in the house playing games and talking and generally keeping themselves entertained.

Early in the night Dustin and I were playing Tetris 64, I believe. We would play in these ridiculous hour-long games at a speed that was incomprehensible to our onlookers and impressive enough to make them watch Tetris for an hour. During the game I remember hearing one of the girls behind me say something like “OH MY GOD! I just saw the Scream mask outside!” (Like the movie.) We all laughed it off and said she was crazy — and she probably was — and continued doing what we were doing.

Maybe an hour later Dustin starts telling me about some video he got online which was a video of somebody getting their head shot off up close. We started arguing about whether it was real or not and eventually we go upstairs to his room to take a look at the video. Zak and Scott follow me and Dustin into the room to watch. Just to add some details to the situation: Dustin is a 6’9″ Jewish white guy. Zak is Dustin’s brother who was many years younger than us but bigger than the rest of us and just crazy enough that we liked having him around. Scott was (probably still is) a very well-trained army guy who was recently back from some deadly mission. So we are watching the video over and over again, pausing it at the most gory parts and staring at the screen very close trying to figure out if there is something in the video that would prove it to be fake.

CLICK! The lights turn out and the entire house goes completely black. The kind of black that is darker than the backs of your eyelids. Immediately I could hear gunshots downstairs, girls screaming, guys shouting, and people being thrown into the walls or something similar. Luke, with all his courage and bravery, decides the best option is to stay still and move against the side wall of Dustin’s room in an attempt to camouflage himself in the dark. I had no idea what Zak, Scott, or Dustin did. The commotion downstairs starts to be less frequent and eventually all is silent. A gunshot every now and then goes off followed by a scream. Luke is pressed firmly against the wall and trying to control his breathing and I remember thinking that my breathing sounded so loud. Then I started to hear footsteps walking up the stairs. No voices. Just slow and deliberate footsteps. I was on the wall adjacent to the doorway and with my back right up against the wall — if I turned my head completely to the left I would see whoever would walk into the room. The plan when that happened was never really properly thought out, however.

I stayed as still as I possibly could. I reduced my breathing as much as possible but this only made me breathe louder, I felt. My eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dark and I realised my plan to be camouflaged was just stupid. And then the footsteps stopped outside the door. This made my breathing even louder I think, and I am sure they heard it. Then a head peered in the doorway wearing some sort of mask. First it looked forward, then it turned to the left (away from me), and then it turned to the right, staring straight at me. Then the head pulled back and for a moment I thought I had escaped. Then all of a sudden the figure came into the room and put me in a headlock and bent me over backwards and said “Who is this?” I said “It’s Luke” in a somewhat childish voice. Then the person said “This is Brent and Brandon. We are playing a trick on you guys.” I knew immediately who they were and a huge smile grew on my face. I was overwhelmed with the situation and was pretty much just happy that nothing else had happened. I congratulated them on their good work and was truly impressed with the complexity of their “joke.” They asked me if anyone else was upstairs and I said I don’t know — and I also warned them that likely everyone had called the cops by now. With the lights still off I led the intruders into the upstairs bathroom where I thought Zak and Scott had gone. Right when I walked into the bathroom I was slammed into another headlock and bent over backwards and before I could say anything, the lights turned on. That snapshot in time needs to be documented somehow. Maybe Zak can draw a picture. Scott had bent me over backwards putting some hardcore military move on me and Zak was coming down on me with a 9-inch knife (he always had many knives laying around). And the intruders were behind all this just watching. So basically, had the lights not turned on, I could have been stabbed by “my own team.” For that moment I have thanked every god that our species has come up with.

Dustin had somehow got out of the house in three bounds with his long lanky legs. The people downstairs received a barrage of paintball gun shots to the face (no paintballs were used) while some of the guys were roughed up a little bit. Mainly Sven, since the intruders did not really like him. In the end, the girls were crying and the guys were pissed. I was chatting with the intruders asking them how they did it and having a general laugh. The Scream mask was used to scope out the “joint” beforehand and then they cut the breakers and entered from the back door. Apparently they had done this before but this was the biggest one. Some 6 people had called the cops and they were pretty much there immediately. All the guns and gear were confiscated. However the police were the parents of some of the intruders and I am sure they got the gear back.

I have many other fearful moments, but at the point in time when I was listening to the footsteps slowly ascend the stairs, I know of no other time when I had more fear building in my body. I am slightly ashamed for not pulling some ninja tactics and in hindsight I should have just climbed out the window, or at least hid in the corner of the room or under the bed or anything other than standing against the wall. Oh well, back to ninja camp for me.