Robbery, Kidnapping, and Saving the King of Thailand

Vol. 1 Issue 28

Another week, another not knowing what to write. What’s up with that? Well, I’ve finished half the rough draft of my screenplay Omophagia, and apparently I only have so many words in me per week, so…

I’ve been trying to think of more bad travel situations. What I would really like to write about were the times I got robbed, the times I got arrested, the times I got kidnapped, or the times I saved the King of Thailand’s life. Unfortunately for my story writing, none of these things ever happened. I’ve been tons of places and realize, boringly, that I never really got into any serious trouble in any of them.

I did see the King of Thailand once. Well actually it was just his motorcade. Ok maybe, now that I think of it, the King of Thailand’s motorcade would probably not have been composed of a lone dude riding a motor scooter naked down Sukumvit in Bangkok, yelling “I am the King,” but, in retrospect, there is just no way to know for sure. It is literally impossible to be certain.

When I was backpacking in Europe, before I got kicked of the train in Genoa, I almost got arrested in France. I was riding a bus in Versailles, which is just outside the city limits of Paris, at least as far as transit is concerned. I had an unlimited metro card, un Carte Orange, and of course, I did not want to pay the fee upgrade for the Versailles bus, so I didn’t. 

Some cops came on the bus, found out I didn’t have the ticket, and told me I had to pay a fine right then and there, or else. I pretended not to understand what they meant. My French was even worse back then, but they didn’t believe it. Either I pay, or I get off the bus and go with them somewhere. To jail I guess. I didn’t have my passport or any ID. It was back at the hostel, so I was willing to take my chances. I thought, “Suckers. They can’t charge someone without a name!” My plan was so foolproof, so totally flawless, that I still truthfully believe that had I been able to enact it, I would have become rich and famous in the country. France cherishes intelligence.

One of my fellow hostel companions had accompanied me on the trip from our Montmartre hostel to Versailles, and before the cops could slap the cuffs on me and take me away jail forever, my companion forked over 50 Euros. The cops took it, and left the bus without taking me to jail. This pissed me off, because even though it was a very sweet gesture, I was obligated to pay this girl back, and so the cops ended up getting their 50 Euros from me in the end. Les bâtards! Really I was just being a bastard myself, a cheap one, but in retrospect I have no idea how I traveled so much with so little money. I had like 1200 bucks and lasted almost 3 months. I did do a lot of couch surfing and once slept in a park in Madrid, so maybe I wasn’t being a cheap bastard, but just a one of a more regular nature.

I once slept outside in the middle of winter in Calgary, so bastard or not, sleeping in a Spanish park was like the Four Seasons compared to that.

Like This, Or You're Insane

Vol. 1 Issue 27

I can’t really think of anything to write about this week. Usually my creativity level drops as the weather gets nicer, and this year is no exception (sorry to the Canadians who are still in the middle of winter). So this is just a list of random stuff:

-Saw some good conga players on the subway today. I feel like I should record the most interesting subway performances I see. I’ve become totally desensitized to the whole thing by now.

-I want to start taking more photos. I think I’ll dedicate my summer to taking photos, still with my old point and shoot camera. In a previous blog I wrote about all my bad photos, and my bad photography skills. A word of advice: don’t erase all those crappy photos you take! I realize now that I erased all the worst of the worst, and in a way, this means I erased the best of the best.

-There is a nice cat in the convenience store down the street that I want to bring home.

-I’m officially bored of my favorite sushi place.

-I’ve wondered for years, if you eat your own hand would you gain weight? It seems like you wouldn’t, but what about escaping gases?

Also, I have recently re-discovered this video. I’d seen it a few years ago and often thought about it, but never looked it up until now. It hardly needs my endorsement; with more than eight million views on YouTube it even has its own merchandise. Anyway, it is recognized as “Classic Fenton.” Watch for yourself. It might just be the best video, if not the best overall creation, in human history. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU

If you liked that, you must see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9w7I507D6E

If you didn't like either, you must be insane.

Trance (Film Review)

Vol. 1 Issue 26


I went to see a new film by Danny Boyle called Trance. This is the guy that made Slumdog and directed the London Olympics opening ceremonies. I thought Slumdog was okay, and since I don’t care for much for ceremonial BS, I think his best work came earlier in his career, specifically, in this order- Trainspotting, 28 days later, 127 hours. He’s like almost a famous respected director, but I don’t think he really gets true credit for being an “artist” from the critics in a way that say, Von Trier does. But I think he makes great, big budget, quasi- mainstream films. Trance is not one of these, but in a good way.

I am part of this type of film’s built in audience. Just by the fact that it is psychologically manipulative means I like it. The way that the film distorts time is excellent. The first half is straight forward, but the second half starts shifting all over the place. It’s almost completely non-linear. Because of the heavy emphasis on hypnosis we never know if what we are seeing is reality, dream, trance, past, present, future. It is a big, flashy, colorful film but it’s only out in limited release and it’s not very well advertised. After I saw it though I could perhaps see why it didn’t garner too much mainstream attention.

I heard the late Roger Ebert say what makes a great film is when it does what it sets out to do, with excellence.  It needs to be an example of greatness in the category of itself. What this to “do” is is very difficult to define. Is Trance a thriller? It has a heist, it has physiological manipulation, and it has an unorthodox love story, all elements that can make for great thriller, but as they occur on screen they seem too contrived, almost satirical. There are unrealistic, sometimes goofy flaws in the acting and in the characters, and it is not until after the film has laid all its cards on the table that all the little slips that have been happening are forgiven; they make sense in context, but this is a risky move. It requires the audience to recollect. It almost doesn’t work.

Trance is like a mix of the Inception and Eternal Sunshine, but Trance does not succeed in achieving excellence in the same way these films do; however, it does do something else. I don’t think that Inception or Eternal Sunshine take the chances that Trance does, and so neither of these films make any of the same mistakes or flubs, but this also makes Trance really entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny at times. The problem is that only in retrospect does the film really make any sense. Trance requires a certain level of forgiveness from its audience, and a truly great thriller, I think, would never require such forgiveness.

The coolest thing about seeing this film on opening night was that Boyle himself did a Q & A afterwards. He took technical questions: Do you prefer film or digital? He likes both, but sees digital as the future. Political questions: Do you think gun violence in film perpetuates real gun violence? He does, but relies on tragic paradox- the fact that we derive satisfaction from tragedy- to justify that we need these stories to be told, and sometimes, they happen to involve guns. Controversial questions: Does the UK (he’s British) do music better than the US? Yes, but since the UK does very so few things well (his words), he has no problem admitting this as one of those few.

I wanted to ask him what he looked for in a script and if he had any advice for scriptwriters looking to get their scripts made, but he only took questions from the first few rows of the audience, and as usual, I was sitting way at the back.

Some Kind of Mid-Flight Teleportation Situation

Vol. 1 Issue 25

What is it to be definitively, officially unpopular? How unpopular is that actually?  First, to deal with the super obvious: this is not a question to be asked of someone who may be in transition and is perhaps in a place where they simply don’t know anyone. At least I don’t think it is. Such persons may be in situations such as starting new jobs, starting at new schools, or moving to new cities. Assumingly, these situations should resolve themselves. The person in transition eventually settles into a place, both in their life and in their transition, that being that they are no longer in one, at least as much as is theoretically possible, where what they at first may haven mistaken for a bout of unpopularity, was actually just in fact a simple case of not knowing anyone.

I’d like to parallel this with horrendicity briefly. Drawing parallels is something you’re supposed to do, and is very highly regarded in the literary world. In my blog Getting Kicked Off the Train in Genoa (Part One), where I don’t write about a Genovese train, or getting kicked off of one, if you will recall all that stuff about environments and experience, those were parallels to psychology I think. And if you’ve noticed all the italics, good for you. You are very observant. Italics are highly prized in the literary world too and so I’m using them frequently to show that I’m a real pro, just in case you haven’t already figured that out.

As we know, being horrendous at something is not the same as just not knowing how to do something; likewise, being unpopular is not the same as just not knowing anyone. Ex.- I don’t know how to fly a plane, thus my level of horrendicity at this particular activity remains undetermined, even though I would almost certainly be horrendous at plane-flying if I were put in the cockpit this very moment. If it were some kind of mid-flight teleportation situation where I was teleported onboard and the real pilot was teleported off board, that there particular plane would probably crash. Although my piloting ability screams horrendous, and that still may yet be proven, as of now it has not been. It just looks that way; I just don’t know how to fly a plane.

Now tennis on the other hand would be something that I just suck at. I know how to play, but I suck (still better than my Vietnamese though). So when is it determined that someone is truly unpopular vs. just being unknown? First, there is the problem of the usage of un- in the word unpopular. Truly, the use of un- is an serious everyday problem. To be unpopular is to allude that one was once popular and then became unpopular. Framed in this way, unpopular would mean something like to fall out of favor, or become disliked, as Tiger Woods was for awhile, or like George W will probably be forever . In reality, both individuals are actually still very popular in that they are known. For them to become unpopular in the way I’m interested, people would have to actually un-learn that they even know Tiger Woods and George W. exist.

Take unsweetened iced tea for example. The fact that it is called un-sweetened iced tea implies that by its very nature it was at one point sweetened, and then at some point went through a process of un-sweetening whence it became: unsweetened. The un- implies that sweetened is the natural state of the tea that is to become unsweetened, just as the un- of unpopular implies the natural state of the person who is to become unpopular is popularity. I’m not so sure about this whole natural-state business.