The Far-Out Factor: Los Alamos, CA

I stopped in Los Alamos trying to find a hamburger place and wound up booking into the cheapest motel in town … The Alamo. A shower. A bed. After sleeping in my car at a music festival campsite I needed that.

I also still needed a hamburger. So I crossed the street to one of the town’s three bars – the only place apart from Subway that seemed to be serving food. You can see the lights of it to the left of the motel sign.

A basic American Motel. $55 a night. Comfy and relatively quiet except that it’s next door to a party with live tuba music tonight. Not complaining – I don’t mind noise so long as it’s not a lawn mower or a car alarm.

It’s a classic old place, called 1860, run by two very nice people. The woman is called Ana. The guy’s name escapes me. The Barman, Manny, is awesome. It’s a genuine old saloon and the hamburger was amazing. They have local craft beer on tap, and fast internet. After 36 hours offline during a time when I can’t really afford to be, it was incredible to be clean, showered, fed, sheltered and drinking cold brew.

Local people at the bar were friendly and through my travel-tired haze I managed to carry on a kind of conversation about whatever… you know. Touch typing. South Africa. The World Cup. Music Festivals. Motels. Beer. I was pretty happy talking to strangers and catching up with friends on facebook.

That is, until the town drunkard decided to take a seat next to me. He was drinking something bright red and seemed to have nothing better to do than ask me inane questions.

“Working hard?”
I shake my head and smile.
“No, facebook,” I say, ruefully, guiltily.
“Having fun, sweetie?”
His breath smelled of 20 toasted cigarettes and stale booze.
I smile nervously, and turn back to the screen, hoping he’ll go away.
He leans in, reading past my shoulder, one of the posts on my page.
“Why do you have it at that angle. Can you see better?”
His nose is packed with popping veins from what appeared to be his primary social activity: Drinking heavily.
I realise I have to answer him, or seem rude.
“No, it’s just to keep the light off other people, and for privacy.”
He scowls at me and almost shouts: “I wouldn’t want to look at that stuff. Why would I?”
So why do you? I want to say. Instead I just say “Okay.”

He keeps going, with one dumb comment after another, touching me sometimes as he speaks, and is really beginning to remind me of one of those old men who stare at your tits when you’re jogging and call out: “Having fun?”. I always want to stop, and say “No, but I’m glad YOU are!” And then smash their testicles with a rock.

I realise he’s not going to quit, so I wave at Manny for the check and shoot my boyfriend a quick message: Being harassed by a guy here, so going to go back to my motel. Will reconnect there. Small towns… ha.”

Distracted by another (very nice) old guy to my right, I lose track of Red-Nose Redneck for a bit. Next thing I know I catch his hand on my keyboard. He’s pulling a maniacal face and miming banging on my keyboard. I slam it shut. “Stop it!” I say.
“You stop it. Sitting here playing games and talking to someone in FRANCE. That’s not real life” he shouts.
His equally booze addled old buddy joins in: “This is a bar, not a coffeeshop”.
“I don’t think that means I have to talk to you,” I say. “Just leave me alone.”
“That’s not life,” the guy keeps shouting.
“So what is? Alcoholism?” I ask.
And that sends them both over the edge.
Manny tells me to take it easy, and them to leave me alone.
They ask for the check and say they’re never coming back. I ask for the check.
They keep shouting at me. I keep telling them to leave me alone. Assholes.

Manny brings me the check.

I pay and find myself suddenly in tears as Red-Nose Redneck leaves and his creepy old friend stays and keeps hurling comments at me. I shout back, calling them assholes. Why didn’t I just laugh it off? Don’t know. Overtired, I guess. And surprised. I know the type, you see, the type who’d call you rude for refusing to talk to a smelly old stranger in a bar one minute, then accuse you of being a slut for speaking to him at all the next.

Ana the host and the owner tried to persuade me to stay – and drink a beer alone in a lounge. Last thing I felt like… sitting in bright light alone. They’re sweet people though. Not their fault who drinks there.

Instead of staying to please them, I walked back to the motel, calming down realizing that tonight’s drama had brought me full circle. I needed really badly to get away from technology for a while. But the thing is, there’s only one thing worse than the constant assault of information, the noise of constant communication signifying nothing, the gaggle and the disconnect, and that, unfortunately, is being around people who use it as an excuse for their inability to function, who never WERE ON the grid, who haven’t liked a new song since they turned 30 – who’ve become their grandparents.

I hope that when I get really old I’m not old that way. I hope I don’t simply reject whatever I don’t understand.

Writing in the sky

I saw it too late to read it. I hope it’s not important.

Cause I’m dead if I find what I’m looking for: Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree isn’t my favourite U2 album. Boy is. But it has a song on it that means as much to me in my thirties as it did when I was a teenager. It’s like the Teen International Anthem (and just as cheesy.)

It’s like the Karoo. You can see forever. And there’s nothing.

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.  When I thought I had, I always turned out to be wrong. So now I assume I haven’t and, when I remember, I keep looking.

The danger of film school is, well… film school. You get so obsessed with making films that you forget that you need to keep experiencing life, keeping your eyes fresh, so that you can make films worth watching. At least that’s the theory – I may have just been skiving off from writing my thesis feature screenplay when I signed up for this day hike. And I don’t know yet whether any of the images I absorbed or stories I imagined will come to anything. But here, for the record, are a few of them.

If you’re trying to find what you’re looking for, Joshua Tree is a bad place to lose it. No water, spiky plants, hot hot heat, peyote… and it’s damn easy to get lost. Luckily that’s exactly what most of us need in a world jam packed with useless instructions.

At the base of Ryan’s Peak, people are encouraged to post haikus about their experiences. I nearly posted my favourite one, but it’s not related. Still here it is: Haikus are awesome / But sometimes make no sense / Refrigerator

OPEN HOUSE: Stunning views! A fixer-upper on prime real estate, surrounded by nature. Very private.

“Partially furnished.”

So… old burned out car. a tree. Some sand. So what?

Look closer. There’s a glove lying on the ground. What the hell is that doing there? Is it connected to the next photo?

… and if the glove IS connected to this photo… doesn’t that hurt?

The only thing still working here is the brakes. This is one of three cars we found abandoned in a 2 mile stretch of desert. Nearby to the house. And a broken wind-mill. And a failed mine. There’s a story in there somewhere.

Here is where Worth Bagly bit the dust at the hands of W. F. Keys May 1947.

“Desert rose, dreamed I saw a desert rose / dressed all in ribbons and bows / like the silence she called to me”

I didn’t quite make it up. I refused to take a hand-up – I’m like that with rocks. But I did discover something. If you put your ear to the rocks, it’s dead quiet inside them.

That’s not the only new thing. I saw my first blue jay (the bird) and my first chipmunk. I thought chipmunks were a made-up animal. Turns out they’re little grey things.

Isn’t that beautiful?

Anyhow. Against all odds, I wound up in Joshua Tree – a place I never thought I’d visit.

I’d forgotten how good walking was for my head. On the drive home, I dozed off in a state of semi-conscious bliss and coming home, solved a problem with a script that had been driving me insane for weeks.

And along the way, another story.

Not even in the town of Joshua Tree but about 3 miles outside it, stranded in the middle of nowhere… Sushi? It’s closed. And for sale. But someone thought they could persuade the people of Joshua Tree to eat Sushi. Someone had a dream. It’s like Salmon Eating in the Inland Empire. Just as crazy and beautiful.

I wonder if this is the secret of great artists – continuing the exploration and the journey. Now all I need is the great art to go with it right?

America rises above the bombers

Just finished a column for News24.co.za that makes me realise how different the America I arrived in is to the one I left, thanks to Obama.

Miss you. I miss you like I miss measles, acne, or broken bones, you spineless brat.

What happened in Boston is terrible. The way America has responded, however, gives me hope for humanity. It’s like America has grown up. That’s what my column is about.

America: Bigger than Bombs

I at first assumed the bomb attacks in Boston would play straight into the hands of the Islamaphobes who’d love to just “kill ‘em all”. But it seems like Americans – in general – are rising above it.

“Al Qaeda is a real threat. But terrorism has no religion.” Well put, by Al-Marayati, a member of the Faith-Based Advisory Committee of the president’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. Of course, the people who really need to hear his words won’t be listening to them. Events like the Boston bombings play straight into the filthy hands of those who are longing for an excuse to attack or oppress muslims in the name of fighting terrorism. As news of the bombings came through, muslim Americans were not only mourning the loss of lives, but simultaneously praying: “Please, don’t let it be a Muslim.”

It hasn’t been posted yet, but when it has, you can read it here
UPDATE!!! 12.40AM FRIDAY

Seconds – not kidding – after my column went live, news came through on twitter about a gun battle with two very similar sounding suspects in Watertown, Mass. Some responses from twitter…

NidalM Abdullah Mohiuddin: “My reaction to hearing the names of the #watertown suspects:”

Terrible but true Relief for many here. Makes sense given the complete lack of responsibility taken. Al Qaida generally likes to boast. UPDATE: Turns out it was the work of two stupid kids who happen to be Muslim but weren’t organized. Of course, this makes the prejudiced types really gleeful.

Could be fake. I could fake this easily. But if it’s real it’s freaky.

Dutchguy000 Kristian Tuinzing  – “Bullet hole in my wall from Watertown shootout. My head was there minutes before. #watertown pic.twitter.com/mqtHREc2Rp”

America’s political confusions

I find myself confused today, about America. Surely by now, they must know what’s right and wrong? But no, they’re human too.

The Anti-War people. They’re not going to oppose the war, per se – that would never wash. They have to paint it as selfish or they’d be mauled. America has become more conservative in many ways than in was in the 60s (when it comes to this issue, not race, or gender, or sexual orientation.)

This means someone’s son or daughter is over there, dying for the cause of… please remind me what it is, cause it sure as hell isn’t freedom. It’s not me who’s being disrespectful here. It’s the person asking someone to give their life for no good reason.

 

The pro-war people. Do they seem to have more expensive banners – or am I imagining things?

A car in the expensive film school I go to’s parking lot. I thought, being left wing, that “Miss me yet” was sarcastic. Turns out it’s pro-bush. Ridiculous.

But I guess if you go ski in the aspens and your parents bought your car for you, you would be a republican.

Oh, and this is the same car. The guy is also anti-gay – unless he’s a pro-gay scout fan. I remember being forced to learn Die Stem at Brownies in South Africa. Whites only brownies. The Scouts should be ashamed of their history, but weirdly are not. If homophobia is timeless… I have no words.

 

Oh look, it’s the crazy Jesus people in their anti-gay scary-mobile!

Whatever you do, and whatever they offer you, DON’T GET IN THE VAN! This has got to be the creepiest Jesus van I’ve ever seen, and they get pretty creepy. This is the kind of van where you’d expect “corrective rape” and “reconditioning” to occur, in the parking lot of a Walmart, which funnily enough is exactly where the occupants were shopping at the time…

So we’re all going to heaven except for GANG, HOMOSEX and ABORTION. Whatever they’re good at, subject noun-agreement isn’t it. Oh, and HATE. So people who hate fags and women’s rights be in trouble with Jesus too? No? I guess you gotta make your hypocritical exceptions or it wouldn’t be a real religion, would it.

I have no words. And what’s funniest is the people who drove this van were SO CRAZY that they assumed I was taking photos of them because I approved of their insane religious-based intolerance of others. Then again, what should I expect from people whose license plate is customized to read WARNING.

Oh, and this is Bible verse they’re so sure is the word of God. It would just  be funny if the law didn’t entitle them to home school their kids in this kind of doctrine, and carry guns. And yeah, there are people like this all over the world. I just happen to live in California right now. So cool off, patriots.

Romans 1:18-32

New International Version (NIV)

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

Come on, people.

Nobody really wants to be fat. Not really.

Sure, ideas of beauty change, are constructed by society, and even the biggest supermodel will go mad if she compares herself to others in order to assess her professional worth. But you know in your gut if you’re just – I’ll say it – fat. Yes, you do. Oh, yes you do.

This is good to bear in mind. The so called hot people are freaks of nature. Most of us are just beautiful in our own ways.

I find it very hard to believe people who tell me they “love” their bodies just the way they are three times a day while hiding them under great big T-Shirts and refusing to go to the beach for shame. I also think we give ourselves a hard time about how we look for all the wrong reasons sometimes. I have no doubt that ideas of beauty are constructed. Yes, they’ve definitely changed. Allow me to illustrate:

Beautiful. These days she couldn’t get a modeling job – not even as a plus sizer.

Beautiful. But today she’d spend her life thinking she had “fat arms”. Which is bull.

Beautiful. In some times, places and cultures, some people still can’t see that. Like John Mayer for instance.

Beautiful. But when you google Meryl Streep the most suggested (i.e. poplular) search phrases are “Meryl Streep Young” and “Meryl Streep hot”.

But the fact that what’s considered “beautiful” in magazines changes doesn’t mean that doesn’t mean being so fat that you can’t walk to your car, or so fat that your knees are caving in, or so fat that you have veins in your ankles by the age of 25, is something anyone chooses.

There’s a fetish for everything, including dandruff. But I struggle to believe that the woman suffering from obesity pictured here actually wants to look like that, but more importantly it’s hard to believe that she wants to FEEL like that.

This isn’t beautiful either.

It’s become fashionable to cater for obesity, to treat it as if it is not a problem, the same way we cater to anorexia as if it isn’t a problem. Now, I know being mean to fat people wouldn’t help at all. But overeating is an addiction. So I’d vote for being nice to people who eat too much, just as I’d vote for being nice to heroin addicts. But I’m not going to pretend I think a giant camel-toe is attractive.

Fact is, getting fat happens slowly. I learned this recently, over the two and a half years I’ve lived in the USA. I arrived here at a healthy weight, initially lost a few kilos because I didn’t have a car, and then slowly but surely went from lean, to padded, to plump, to actually, very nearly medically overweight. I noticed when I went to the clinic for a checkup here in California. The doctor said nothing about my weight gain. I was relieved, until I realised he was just scared of offending me.

What was next? I wondered. Full-on obesity? Fuck that for a joke.

So at the risk of being politically incorrect, I’ve downloaded a calorie counting application for my cell phone and started exercising, eating healthily, and… yes it’s working. In about five weeks, I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror without wincing. In two months, I should be able to stand how I look in set photographs. The best thing about it actually is that it provides an outlet for my competitive, OCD nature, a focus for my stress about other things. Instead of wondering if I’ll ever make a truly great film, I just get to feel good that I had strawberries and yogurt for breakfast and it only cost me 200 calories. Silly? Yes. Shallow? Oh, most definitely. But sometimes it’s important to be shallow, like when you break your leg, or get maleria, or gain 8 kilograms your body really, really doesn’t need.

Enterprising South Africans in “Cuteness for Sale”

In the last few weeks, bad and good things have happened. Six people died: in Poland drinking infected vodka, in Pakistan in a bomb blast, in SA trying to get jobs – the 1300 people selected from thousands of applicants for jobs as Traffic Cops were asked to run 4km in 30 minutes in hot conditions. Six died of dehydration on the spot. One killed himself because he wasn’t picked. Another died later in hospital.

We’re certainly not lazy out here. And we’re good at finding new ways to make money, whether that be making Christmas trees out of wire or baskets out of plastic bags or … exploiting cuteness.

This is genius: Get customers at your restaurant to pay to feed your livestock for you! Later, you can eat the livestock.

Relatively cute bunnies. Who’s not going to pay R2 (USD .28c) for a child’s smile?

This tiger’s like “I am going to fucking kill you if you make me stand on this boat for ONE more minute while you paint me.” Accidentally hilarious art for sale in the same coffee shop.

And a giant pineapple? Yes, that’s a great idea. It’s surrounded by pineapple fields and if you wanna pay R10 you can climb up to survey the fields, or watch a video about pineapple farming. They also sell juice, jam, t-shirts…

Donald Trump, asshole extraodinaire, lurks in a corner of a pharmacy in California, representing a very different kind of enterprising.

Safe to love, not safe to love…

So we are clear: I don’t write about signs because I’m too stupid to realise that if I just posted pictures of cute animals I could have much more traffic to my blog.

It’s not like I don’t have ACCESS to cute animals.

See?

That’s a Cow and Calf in Nature’s Valley. Cute, right?

 

Og Moma! “Stay away from my baby” says that eye.

And here’s a ginger cat that will only drink mineral water.

This kitty at Wild Spirit Backpackers only drinks from the spring water tap. Such a clever kitty.

And here’s a lonely calf whose momma has been taken away…

Free range. But lonely! Don’t get too attached though.

Awwww. CUTE. This little calf hasn’t figured out that it can’t have it both ways and keeps trying to scratch its own head with its hoof while grazing.

What’s for sale? Is that a real kitty?

It’s a real cute kitty! In a basket. I have no idea what we did with these before we had the internet.

Awwwwwww…. cute. And with cuteness, of course, comes Jean Barker’s Little Lecture on Hypocrisy, customized for your displeasure.

That calf won’t have her momma for long. Even on a nice, organic farm, the male calves get taken away and fattened for slaughter, and the females get weaned and turned into milk cows asap.

Thinking about this, I realized why most Americans (as the most extreme example – it’s a general western thing) mind so much if you kill a dog and don’t give a fuck if you torture, and then inhumanely transport and slaughter, 10 million cows a day to McDonalds, Burger King and In ‘n Out: They / we maybe, have been taught that it’s safe to love dogs because they won’t be farmed for their meat. And cats are also Safe to Love, because although cats would happily farm humans for meat given half a chance, we aren’t going to eat cats, because they taste like crap. Same reason we don’t eat penguins. Dogs survive by sucking up big time.

And they know it’s unsafe to grow emotionally attached to a cow or a chicken or a pig (or allow your kids to) because that cute cow is gonna cop it. Self interest, as usual, explains our so-called morals.

So Americans call the Koreans and Chinese barbaric for eating dog, or become furious / feel nauseous when they see Cheval on the menu in France. Why can’t people see past the things they’ve been taught to feel and realise that feelings are not an indicator of right and wrong? Does the fact that I can love dogs AND consider eating them make me a psychopath – or the only sane person I know?

 

Thanksgiving: A truce, with turkeys

It feels to me like the world has stabilized just in time for America’s best holiday – thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, not being religious, is more unifying than most and easier for me to like. Also it involves food and I love, love, love food.

Just in time for tomorrow, we get a last-minute truce between Israel (final kill score, 144, 77 civilians including 36 kids) and Palestine (final kill score, 5 civilians). But South Africa’s winelands seem to have settled down as well, with government intervention in the form of more enlightened labor legislation saving the day.

Not everybody is equally lucky. I know that I’m more lucky than most. I’m grateful for what I have.

If you’re thinking of celebrating like me, by killing living things and eating them, here’s a cautionary song about turkey fryers from William Shatner.

Here’s another cautionary tale about Fried Turkey.

Cause today I even went out and bought my first Thanksgiving Turkey. And fresh cranberries. Which taste like those “chinese (are they?) cherries” that you find in hedges all over SA, only much less edible.

And I took a day to be grateful after a couple of shitty weeks when international, local and personal events seemed to be colluding to depress me.

Bought myself this crazily blurbed Korean film at Salvation Army, just for fun.