Corporate Adventures

Kuala Lumpur sounds like the name of some kind of skin disease doesn't it? I'm imagining furry cysts -- are you?

This city is almost exactly what I expected. It's gone through startling rapid cosmeticpolitan restructuring in the last 10 years or so and everything smells like it just came out of the styrofoam. Since the Formula 1 Grand Prix is beginning tomorrow, the boutique malls are having BMW showcases, a Ferrari is parked in front of a mall called Lot 10 (which the writer Zia Sardar said sounds like the name of a gravesite), and TAG Heuer is screaming about their limited edition Monaco watches. Like TAG, the city finds its glory in the successful accumulation of the best parts and elements from around the world while being, itself, not much more than an assembly plant: fancy, decorative, but without soul.

Still, there's something I like about the place, which is that it is the perfect city for corporate tourism. It's with some unhealthy pleasure that I enjoy sitting at the LaVazza coffee stand and watching the businessmen banter with eachother, each vying to be the center of attention and nobody really listening to one another. Or watching the destitute older Englishman with his sleave cuffs rolled up to the forearm, running a hand through his hair and staring wide eyed into the distance, ten feet past the end of his rope with the workaholic's variety of delerium tremens. At the skybridge between the Petronas Towers -- tallest twin towers in the world -- I spent most of my time looking at a guy on the fifty-second floor talking on his cell phone and paid little attention to the hazy half-city / half-jungle scape. How do they live this life of business? What do they think of us from the outside world?

Do your people use Wi-Fi?

My first day here I accidentally ate half a chicken. It showed up in a big bowl, much bigger than I had anticipated for the price, probably meant for a small community or the break fast for a couple of hunger strikers. As passerbys looked at my plate and then up at me: "that's right," I said, "I'm going to eat all of this." And I did.

This is also a Muslim country, Malaysia, which makes me a bit self-conscious about being Jewish AND American. I thought I was busted today when I guy stopped me in a mall and started staring at my face, floating his head around like he was peering at me from behind a boulder. He later told me he was an astrologist, numerologist, and face reader and that I was a very lucky man. "I see it in your face" he said drawing circles around his own nose, "right here." I guess my luck is as plain as the nose on my face, like my ethnicity. But he didn't mention it. He just told me that my luck was going to end and did I want to talk about it.

No. I don't want to talk about it.

Tonight, my new friend Hunch, who works at the visitor center at the Petronas towers is going to take me to a happening night club so I can see a traditional ceremony of the corporate people. It's also ladies night -- if I can find a burkha maybe I can get my free margarita.

Tomorrow it's off to the Formula 1 track to see cars go fast. I hope I'm dumb enough to appreciate it.

Friend Hunt

Sadly, Nuan Pranee Guest House has been changing in the last week. Three of my friends have left. Martin and Aurora the Canadian couple have returned to the icy glacial lakes of Annapolis Nova Scotia and Parker, the cool and enigmatic California shaman is following his impulsive curiosity to Australia.

Parker played an interesting role here at the guesthouse. He had a lot of battles with the landlords. He refused to have them tile around the sink in his bathroom, as they did for every one else, which created a bizarre tension between the two parties. He was also proud of the fact that he had stolen so many towels behind the owners’ backs. Or so he thought, since the owners were fully aware and even asked me one day why Parker was always stealing towels.

We talked for about an hour before he left. He told me basically that his plan is to live in such a way that he can exist without letting anxious, guilty, or just inconvenient thoughts get in his way. To live without having to constantly worry about goals and achievements. In other words: to do nothing. To happily exist, travel, wander where his interest is keen and simply enjoy life without being bothered by the burden of ambition. He supports himself with property that he owns and rents out in Austin Texas, using the money to push himself along like a lonesome cosmic prairie weed.

The change left me pretty depressed for a few days as I realized that friends without demons (or at least with benign lazy demons) were hard to find. Every time one of the good ones leaves you know its going to be another long recruiting process for the next play pal:

"So you’re from?"

"England" (-1)

"You know anybody in Thailand?"

"Yeah I have a few Thai friends" (+1)

"How do you know them?"

"From having sex with them, mostly" (-3)

"OK here’s a scenario, it’s 10:00 in the morning..."

"Why the fuck am I up at 10 in the morning?" (-3)

"You just woke up"

"Not bloody likely" (-3)

"Well pretend you did. What’s the first thing you do?"

"Have a beer?" (-3)

So, I stick to the routines that work: swimming, coffee, writing, and now: playing dominoes with Billy and the Thai ladies down the alley. The game sounds like this: "Why you try to cheat old man?" – "Hey, no talking Thai at the table!" – "you too old to think so much old man" – "not too old to count how much money you owe me." It’s like a cross-cultural version of "Crossfire"and just as monotonous and pointless.

Luckily I have also found a new bar. It is owned by an American (+3) and called the Pirate’s Cove (+1000) it is also very close to where I live. It just opened and celebrated the event with an entire roast pig which was spitted and cooked on the sidewalk in front of the bar. My kind of place.

Recently I actually had a chance to hang out with my all-American peers. About forty people my age got together at the rooftop pool of the Hillside Condo, where one of the folks lived. It was a collection of English teachers, Peace Corps members, a Japanese map maker, international highschool students and international slackers partying like it was homecoming at Iowa State. I always had a suspicion that there was a large community of people like me living in Chiang Mai, making their own way, but the party showed the trend to be peopled en masse. There wasn’t a lot of talk about career this, and internship / fellowship that because I guess it was clear that to be invited to this party you must have sidestepped that route already.

But after figuring out with somebody that we had actually met five years ago in Princeton, the web strings came to tension. It became obvious that not only am I associating with this certain class of people right now, I’ve known them all my life, and they will be there throughout. It sort of feels like your being followed. Not in a bad menacing way; it’s more like you have a train of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe when you’ve just walked out of the men’s room: Makes you look back for a moment and realize where you’re coming from.

Or maybe I think too much like old man.

Slice of Pie

Nesting. It's gotten to the point where my room actually looks like somebody lives there. On the little balcony there is an electric wok that I really only use to boil water. There is art on the walls: a photograph of Elvis with the King of Thailand from some time during the Korean War. Elvis is sitting next to the queen and has shifted in his chair so that one leg is on the queen's chair and she has shifted away from him, she looks very anxious and it makes you wonder just what Elvis is pointing out to her. Looks like he might be saying "see that! Isn't that weird? What do you call that anyway?" The king is looking at Elvis with his jaw agape. I have a desk, with two wooden statues on it. Newspapers are piling up so the eccentric paranoid shut-in hermit look is starting to suggest itself, which is the basic gist of my decorating style. And I have two plants which, unlike every other plant I've ever had, aren't dead yet. So that's a plus.

But I was able to make it out of Chiang Mai recently by taking a trip up to Pai pronounced and from now on spelled "Pie". To get to this town you have to drive on Mobius strip twisted roads that wind through the mountains. I discovered the road when I was out prowling around one day in what I thought was a secluded seldom-tourist-reached area only to accidentally turn on to a well kept hightway with a lot of white people on it. Eventually the terrain levels out and you descend into a spread out, wide valley floor. A few farms are arranged around a thing stream. The main town is nothing but a collection of long dusty quiet streets. It is more like the American Old West than Tombstone Arizona. There are a lot of old dark saloons, and a few people stopped on motorbikes at one of the three traffic lights in town. There were some greasy white people drinking coffee, talking quietly and slowly eyeing the scene. A few dogs were nosing around some garbage. I found a gusthouse witha shady palm-tree garden and a front porch which inspired lethargy. Aside from the drug rumors, I couldn't figure out why people were always talking about this place.

Then I turned the corner.

This is where I realized that Pie is actually not in Thailand, but an hour or two outside of Santa Barbara. A flock of hemp shirts and sarongs squawked around bead vendors and cappuccino shops. The dusty road was trampled flat by the soles of many a stinking Birkenstock. An upscale restaurant offered California wine and an internet shop had bean bags instead of chairs. The hippies sat around gazing through their squinty weed-shot eyes and talked about massages, crystal healing and trekking.

I sat around reading In Cold Blood in front of a convenience store and was asked 5 times in an hour for a light, twice where the bus station was, and once where someone could find condoms. There was a lot of interaction in this tiny town and it was clear that some people had no intention of ever leaving.

I was handed a pamphlet with an calendar on it:

Monday: Guided meditation to discover original nature, with Stan. (I think Stan is the one that handed it to me: a man who simply said he was from Pie, in a way that suggested he was materialized here at the age of fifty-something and had never lived in Oregon or upstate-anywhere as I'm sure he did.)

Wednesday: Reiki Share. (Reiki is a kind of healing massage... I'm sorry, I meant happy hippy touching time)
this is followed by the Spaghetti Dinner & Music Jam

Friday: International Dinner with French Chef & Music Jam
This is hippy summer camp. I thought that life in Chiang Mai was too easy, but this place can really take the cynicism and sarcasm out of you right quick. I was a real thorn in the slip n' slide here. There is also a large constituency of gorgeous women all over the age of 40. Maybe it's the vegan diets or the natural soap or the white water rafting or circular breathing, it was an apparent trend.

At night I took the motorbike out of the city a little ways. It's not much of a city and to get out of it takes about 10 minutes. It was very cold, a welcome relief, and very dark, so I went searching for a good star view. With the spread out desert land, it was easy to find a place without too much obstruction. On the other hand it was hard to find a place without wild dogs chasing you.
I stopped the bike on one hill and took the keys out of the ignition. I was gazing up at the milky way and thinking all my profound thoughts: "I wonder what E.T. is doing RIGHT now?" When a dog poked its little yellow head around the corner at me. It cocked its brow and got a big doggy smile on its face. Then it started barking its head off. Another small brown dog came up and started barking at me. I fumbled with the keys, trying to find the ignition slot in the dark. More goddamn dogs. They started walking towards me real slow, like Puppy West Side Story. My hands were shaking, I finally got the thing started and tore straight towards them, breaking up the ranks and splitting the scene as I heard gates opening and people yelling at the dogs in Thai.

I returned to my allowed and alllowed the sweet sound of drunk bantering Israelis in the courtyard lull me to sleep.