The viability of an 'Aquaman' movie -- I thought about this while swimming last night. There's just something so cool about swooshing your hand through the water, watching the waves cascade through your fingertips. As a kid (and, um, okay, as an adult, too), whenever I was on a boat I'd lean over the side and stick my hand in the blue and pretend that I was shooting water out of my fingertips, controlling the oceans, summoning the dolphins. And such effects are totally cinematically possible, me thinks, and I think it's high time (or is it high tide) that Aquaman got the big-screen treatment he deserves. I mean, c'mon -- the dude breathes underwater. I'm sure with all the CGI available today they could do a decent job of an underwater Atlantis. I'd heard rumors that they're already considering a Sub-Mariner movie -- the Sub-Mariner being Prince Namor, another citizen of that lost city of Atlantis, albeit one featured in a rival company, Marvel Comics (Aquaman's published by DC). That would be cool, too, although Namor is a bit more, well sinister; he's sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes a friend of The Fantastic Four, and sometimes a foe.
What old people say to younger people -- For some reason, maybe it's because I'm teaching again, I found myself remembering what my third year Creative Writing teacher said to us -- that most novelists don't publish a book until they're well past forty, that most writers are depressives and alcoholics, and that it's almost impossible to make a living from writing, so don't even bother. And there I was, young and idealistic and trying to write novels on the side. I don't fault my teacher, who's a good man and a good writer; he was just trying to inject some pragmatism into our veins, which is probably a good thing. But I wonder. When you're young, you don't know shit, and you tend to look at and up to those who do. It's the job of the old to caution the young, I suppose; but it's also the job of the young to disregard such cautions whenever possible...
All the books I want to read -- A new biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Laurence Leaner. The new novel by Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J.Sawyer (www.sfwriter.com) A book on the history of baseball I picked up in paperback over here. (I don't like watching baseball all that much, or playing it all that much, but I do like reading about it very much. Go figure. And I like reading about how things work, whether they be corporations or governments or sporting leagues.) A new novel called Mafia Summer by some dude who was TV producer Aaron Spelling's right-hand man for many years, simply because the way that he came across when being interviewed by Larry King, and the story that he told, of his friend who didn't make it out of the streets, in real life and the book, made both him and the book seem humane and true. From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas Friedman, which is about fifteen years old, but I'm hoping that it explains the Middle East situation in a way that is comprehensible to me. And, most importantly, the new John Irving novel, Until I Find You, because, well, it's the new John Irving novel.
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal -- It's supposed to be set up sometime soon, but they've been saying that for years and years, so I'll believe it when I see it. I have the gnawing feeling that the whole thing will take place when I'm gone from Cambodia, which will be somewhat ironic, because I think the tribunal will then put Cambodia back in the news for a little while. (Actually, is that ironic? Maybe not. Must have been listening to too much Alanis, don't you think...)
Whether or not Wayne Gretzky will coach the Phoneix Coyotes -- Because if he does, everytime he comes back to Canada to coach against the Leafs or the Canucks or the Canadiens or the Flames or the Senators or the Oilers he may very well be the first coach who is asked for more autographs than the players. (Because Wayne Gretzky, like Mario Lemieux, is basically God in Canada. If Wayne ever ran for Prime Minister, forget about it. He'd win in a landslide. Probably do a pretty good job, too.)
The fact that it's the beginning of August, and it should feel like summer's winding down, but it's always freakin' bloody hot over here, so there's absolutely no sense of seasons passing, which is kind of neat at first but which gradually, almost insidiously gets somewhat spooky after one or two years -- Self-explanatory.
The way that some strangers don't say 'thank-you' when you 'god bless' them -- Pisses me off.
The essential goodness of Rocky II -- Because each of the characters sacrifices what they want most for the desire of the ones they love: Rocky's trainer, Mickey, who wants nothing more than to see Rocky kick Apollo Creed's ass in a rematch, tells Rocky, overcome with grief at the fact that his wife, Adrian, is in a coma after giving birth, that he will train him, yes, but if he wants to blow it, well, they'll blow it together, the two of them, sitting in church, day after day, praying; Rocky, whose whole essence is that of a fighter, tells Adrian, after giving birth, that if she doesn't want him fighting, they'll figure some other way to survive; Adrian, after hearing Rocky's offer, telling him that there's nothing else she wants him to do but win. They all love each other so much that they give up what makes them happiest for the hope of happiness in the other. Beautiful.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
A HARSH, DANGEROUS WORLD POPULATED BY, UM, PEOPLE WHO BUTT IN LINE? or A LESSON IN CROSS-CULTURAL TOGETHERNESS
I knew he was going to butt in front of me. Knew it. I waited for it, was ready for it, and dealt with it accordingly.
(This constitutes 'drama' and 'confrontation' in my life in Phnom Penh.)
I'm used to 'cultural differences'. Living in Japan for four years was a megaton-level wake-up call for this Ontario small-city boy as to the convoluted societal regulations inherent in a millienia-old society. To even begin to list the intricacies of Japanese dos and don't would take pages, possibly volumes. Irritating, yes. Annoying as hell, sure. Comprehensible? Sometimes. But after awhile I grinned and bore it. There was nothing else to do. Especially because they were, and are, so damn polite about everything -- and really, how angry can you get at somebody for being too nice?
Things are not quite as a complex here in Cambodia. Don't get me wrong. I don't begin to understand much, if anything, of what Cambodia is truly like, even after living here for two years. (Think about it -- do you really, truly understand your hometown, let alone your country? Can you even figure out what the rationale behind what occurs at your local Wal-Mart? Trying to do psychoanalysis on a Southeast Asian country just doesn't cut it.) Cambodian people are a lot more, well, open than the Japanese. (Which is not a value judgement, by the way.) They smile and laugh and get pissed off quite easily and openly. You may not always know where you stand with them, but you know where you don't stand. If that makes sense.
But there are some things about Cambodian life I still haven't quite gotten the handle on. Pissing in the street, fine. No big deal. Refusing to admit that they don't understand something, even though they say they do -- got it.
And yet, time and time again, month after month, I'm baffled by this:
Standing in line at a convenience store. Waiting for my change at a grocery shop. And here comes a Khmer, stepping in right in front of me.
I don't mind if people don't see me, are half-asleep, are blind, whatever. Sometimes mistakes are made. And I'm not sure if this is strictly a 'foreigner' thing, though I doubt it, because I've seen the same thing happen at the snack shop on the Cambodian-Vietnam border, where a Cambodian dude just blatantly ignored the long line, took out a dollar bill, and walked to the counter, waving it in the air like a bullfighter taunting his animal.
But it happens all the time. People just walking right on by me and placing their goods down and generally ignoring me.
I honestly don't get it. Do they think that because I'm a foreigner and they're a Khmer citizen that lines are thus not for them? I know that, in general, most Cambodians don't really follow the whole 'line' thing -- but how can you just cavalierly sidestep someone who's directly in front of you?
So this particular time, the other night, at BB World, after ordering my #1 combo, I refused to back down.
A young Cambodian kid, in a rush, was coming up behind him. He brushed by me and literally pushed me aside with his shoulder and shouted out his order.
I, feeling royally ticked off and pleasantly pleased that my prediction had come true, pushed him back, slightly, with my own shoulder, a move I have not made on anyone since I used to (attempt to) bodycheck people during hockey games all those moons ago.
His reaction?
A sheepish grin.
He knew he'd been caught red-handed in the act. (Khmers tend to smile and grin nervously whenever they're nervous, unsettled, embarrassed or ashamed.) I was left alone to finish my order in peaceful bliss.
I felt vindicated. I felt stupid for feeling vindicated.
And yet, I suppose it's alright, this peeve of mine. In this sense: in a world of terrorism run amok, where people are willing to maim each other and kill each other because they disagree with somebody's principles and way of life, I suppose there's some small form of comfort in the fact that the biggest criticism I can think of regarding living in Cambodia is the fact that people sometimes butt ahead of me in line. In today's world, in fact, I suspect a minor infraction like that could even be deemed somewhat, well, quaint.
(This constitutes 'drama' and 'confrontation' in my life in Phnom Penh.)
I'm used to 'cultural differences'. Living in Japan for four years was a megaton-level wake-up call for this Ontario small-city boy as to the convoluted societal regulations inherent in a millienia-old society. To even begin to list the intricacies of Japanese dos and don't would take pages, possibly volumes. Irritating, yes. Annoying as hell, sure. Comprehensible? Sometimes. But after awhile I grinned and bore it. There was nothing else to do. Especially because they were, and are, so damn polite about everything -- and really, how angry can you get at somebody for being too nice?
Things are not quite as a complex here in Cambodia. Don't get me wrong. I don't begin to understand much, if anything, of what Cambodia is truly like, even after living here for two years. (Think about it -- do you really, truly understand your hometown, let alone your country? Can you even figure out what the rationale behind what occurs at your local Wal-Mart? Trying to do psychoanalysis on a Southeast Asian country just doesn't cut it.) Cambodian people are a lot more, well, open than the Japanese. (Which is not a value judgement, by the way.) They smile and laugh and get pissed off quite easily and openly. You may not always know where you stand with them, but you know where you don't stand. If that makes sense.
But there are some things about Cambodian life I still haven't quite gotten the handle on. Pissing in the street, fine. No big deal. Refusing to admit that they don't understand something, even though they say they do -- got it.
And yet, time and time again, month after month, I'm baffled by this:
Standing in line at a convenience store. Waiting for my change at a grocery shop. And here comes a Khmer, stepping in right in front of me.
I don't mind if people don't see me, are half-asleep, are blind, whatever. Sometimes mistakes are made. And I'm not sure if this is strictly a 'foreigner' thing, though I doubt it, because I've seen the same thing happen at the snack shop on the Cambodian-Vietnam border, where a Cambodian dude just blatantly ignored the long line, took out a dollar bill, and walked to the counter, waving it in the air like a bullfighter taunting his animal.
But it happens all the time. People just walking right on by me and placing their goods down and generally ignoring me.
I honestly don't get it. Do they think that because I'm a foreigner and they're a Khmer citizen that lines are thus not for them? I know that, in general, most Cambodians don't really follow the whole 'line' thing -- but how can you just cavalierly sidestep someone who's directly in front of you?
So this particular time, the other night, at BB World, after ordering my #1 combo, I refused to back down.
A young Cambodian kid, in a rush, was coming up behind him. He brushed by me and literally pushed me aside with his shoulder and shouted out his order.
I, feeling royally ticked off and pleasantly pleased that my prediction had come true, pushed him back, slightly, with my own shoulder, a move I have not made on anyone since I used to (attempt to) bodycheck people during hockey games all those moons ago.
His reaction?
A sheepish grin.
He knew he'd been caught red-handed in the act. (Khmers tend to smile and grin nervously whenever they're nervous, unsettled, embarrassed or ashamed.) I was left alone to finish my order in peaceful bliss.
I felt vindicated. I felt stupid for feeling vindicated.
And yet, I suppose it's alright, this peeve of mine. In this sense: in a world of terrorism run amok, where people are willing to maim each other and kill each other because they disagree with somebody's principles and way of life, I suppose there's some small form of comfort in the fact that the biggest criticism I can think of regarding living in Cambodia is the fact that people sometimes butt ahead of me in line. In today's world, in fact, I suspect a minor infraction like that could even be deemed somewhat, well, quaint.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
NOW IS THE TIME WHEN YOU GIVE ME SOME MONEY
“ Now is the time when you give me some money.”
Those words, spoken to me by a Cambodian policeman who was helping me deal with replacing my lost passport, seem to symbolize something about my Southeast Asian experience up until now. I wouldn’t say that it’s representative of the people of Cambodia or the culture of Cambodia or anything beyond my own, individual encounters with those institutions that are -- on paper, anyways -- supposed to be bastions of diplomacy and fair-play.
Before living in Cambodia, I never gave much thought to government structures, both physical and symbolical. Roads were roads. Schools were schools. The idea that government itself had something to with these commonplace institutions was surely somewhere in the back of my mind, but I’m not exactly sure where; perhaps locked away in those portions of the brain that scientists claim we so rarely use.
Ah, but to lose a passport, and to lose it in a place like Cambodia, forces you into manuoevers and machinations that are not sufficiently dealt with in the Ontario school system. I was never taught about the protocol for bribing a police officer; I must have missed that particular Social Studies class.
Cambodians themselves didn’t miss that class, because they don’t NEED that class. They know that you can’t trust the police, and that the people in power are not there to serve the people. This is not necessarily a hypothesis; in desperately poor countries like Cambodia, it serves as a fact, and it is a fact that you learn quite young here.
Let’s start with the schools: woefully underfunded, criminally underdeveloped, with a pay for teachers that starts at a whopping twenty bucks a month. A few times I visited a few of the high schools here in Phnom Penh, along with the marketing head of our university and his assistant (the same chap, Veasna, who was killed by a drunk driver a month or so ago), hoping to drum up interest in our school. Let me tell you. Can I tell you? Let me tell you. It was like something out of a Van Damme movie set inside one of Thailand’s premier kickboxing arenas. I shit you not. Video games down in the dusty, darkened entrance, food being cooked, chickens running around, cramped classrooms with fifty students and a teacher standing on a box clutching a squawking microphone that whined in and out of sonic audibility. And this was one of the good schools. Gotta love that Ministry of Education. No money for books or renovations, no, but boy, their cars sure are spiffy.
When you have to bribe a teacher to go to school, something’s fucked up within the system. When the politicians drive Mercedes Benz around town while most people can barely afford a moto, there is, most certainly, a ‘cancer on the presidency’, to use an old Watergate quote. (Okay, okay – Cambodia doesn’t have a president, only a prime minister, but ‘cancer on the prime ministership’ doesn’t sound boss…)
Sometimes I’m left reeling here. Not only by what I know about Cambodia, firsthand, but what I read about the rest of Asia, secondhand. The latest issue of THE ECONOMIST features a headline that reads: “How To Save Myanmar”, another corrupt military regime that does jackshit for its people and has no intention of altering that present state of stasis. The newest news out of the Philippines details yet another corruption scandal involving their leader, Gloria Arroyo, and protesters yet again demanding a better, stronger, fairer government. A recent article I read regarding the situation in the Philippines made an interesting point: Fillipinos have to learn to trust their institutions, and not their leaders. By investing so much energy into a savior who will lead them to the economic promised land, they are inevitably setting themselves up for failure, because that’s what people do – fail. It’s only the system itself that can endure. (But at least they’re protesting, one could argue. I view, from a distance, the recent corruption scandals in Canada, and I realize: The reason why there aren’t mass protests is simply because, by and large, more often than not, people are doing all right. Even look at some of the recent news coming from Sony; they paid off radio stations and their employees, offering them cash and vacations, in order to play their artists. Nobody on the streets is rioting. Why? Because they are surviving. The politicians may or may not be corrupt, and the corporations may or may not be on the take, constantly, consistently, and the businessmen and governors and premiers may or may not be lying through their teeth, and hockey may have been missed for a year, but, in the end, life is good. Ah. Inertia. You wonder why most of the world seen on your nightly news seems so, well, chaotic? Why the people seem so angry? Because the leaders are corrupt and the system itself is fucked and it’s the people that pay. Almost everywhere. Throughout the world. I feel like I’ve seen it, lived it, felt it. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.)
It reminded me of what Al Pacino says in The Godfather III – as a young man, he thought that the higher up he climbed, the more moral and humane the system would become, only to discover otherwise. How much do we trust our institutions? How much do we trust the people running them? At a certain point, no matter how high you get, will it always come down to a man in a back room with faulty air conditioning saying: “Now is the time when you give me some money”?
I don’t know.
Growing up, I trusted the people at the front of the room. The ones wearing glasses, with the ties and the nifty pens. They seemed to know the deal.
The scary thing is, I’ve now become one of those dudes – wearing glasses, standing in front of a whiteboard, saying this and saying that and trying to look, if not credible, at least intelligible. (And sometimes even succeeding.) I had the good fortune of being an ‘individual consultant’ with a UN agency for an extended period of time, and I gradually realized that, despite an institution’s size or gravity, people are people are people are people. You can be flattered by the logo on the shirt, awed by the mural on the wall, but there are people inside, and they are often noble and scared, passionate and exhausted, and they are sometimes confused, and they are trying to do their best, the only way that they know how. (Kind of like the Duke boys in Hazzard county, though that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow…)
Sometimes that is a recipe for progress, development, innovation and growth; often, it is a recipe for incompetence, stall-tactics, justifications.
So, yes. I think that’s what happens. As complex and convoluted as the world and its many corridors are, there is a similar process that opens the lock each and every time. You are taken into a back room, and money exchanges hands. Perhaps not literally, no, because we in the west are more subtle than that, more careful than that. But at a certain point, somebody in power has something that you want, and you have to do what you have to do to get it. That could mean cash, or cheque, or a slow and steady compromise of your principals – the tie you don’t want to wear at work, or the little white lie you have to tell your client every now and then. It may be more gritty and blunt over here in Cambodia, and you may feel the sweat of the palm you’re greasing a little more easily, but that’s just a matter of degrees. Plain and simple, isn’t it?
But sometimes I just wish it wasn’t so complicated.
Those words, spoken to me by a Cambodian policeman who was helping me deal with replacing my lost passport, seem to symbolize something about my Southeast Asian experience up until now. I wouldn’t say that it’s representative of the people of Cambodia or the culture of Cambodia or anything beyond my own, individual encounters with those institutions that are -- on paper, anyways -- supposed to be bastions of diplomacy and fair-play.
Before living in Cambodia, I never gave much thought to government structures, both physical and symbolical. Roads were roads. Schools were schools. The idea that government itself had something to with these commonplace institutions was surely somewhere in the back of my mind, but I’m not exactly sure where; perhaps locked away in those portions of the brain that scientists claim we so rarely use.
Ah, but to lose a passport, and to lose it in a place like Cambodia, forces you into manuoevers and machinations that are not sufficiently dealt with in the Ontario school system. I was never taught about the protocol for bribing a police officer; I must have missed that particular Social Studies class.
Cambodians themselves didn’t miss that class, because they don’t NEED that class. They know that you can’t trust the police, and that the people in power are not there to serve the people. This is not necessarily a hypothesis; in desperately poor countries like Cambodia, it serves as a fact, and it is a fact that you learn quite young here.
Let’s start with the schools: woefully underfunded, criminally underdeveloped, with a pay for teachers that starts at a whopping twenty bucks a month. A few times I visited a few of the high schools here in Phnom Penh, along with the marketing head of our university and his assistant (the same chap, Veasna, who was killed by a drunk driver a month or so ago), hoping to drum up interest in our school. Let me tell you. Can I tell you? Let me tell you. It was like something out of a Van Damme movie set inside one of Thailand’s premier kickboxing arenas. I shit you not. Video games down in the dusty, darkened entrance, food being cooked, chickens running around, cramped classrooms with fifty students and a teacher standing on a box clutching a squawking microphone that whined in and out of sonic audibility. And this was one of the good schools. Gotta love that Ministry of Education. No money for books or renovations, no, but boy, their cars sure are spiffy.
When you have to bribe a teacher to go to school, something’s fucked up within the system. When the politicians drive Mercedes Benz around town while most people can barely afford a moto, there is, most certainly, a ‘cancer on the presidency’, to use an old Watergate quote. (Okay, okay – Cambodia doesn’t have a president, only a prime minister, but ‘cancer on the prime ministership’ doesn’t sound boss…)
Sometimes I’m left reeling here. Not only by what I know about Cambodia, firsthand, but what I read about the rest of Asia, secondhand. The latest issue of THE ECONOMIST features a headline that reads: “How To Save Myanmar”, another corrupt military regime that does jackshit for its people and has no intention of altering that present state of stasis. The newest news out of the Philippines details yet another corruption scandal involving their leader, Gloria Arroyo, and protesters yet again demanding a better, stronger, fairer government. A recent article I read regarding the situation in the Philippines made an interesting point: Fillipinos have to learn to trust their institutions, and not their leaders. By investing so much energy into a savior who will lead them to the economic promised land, they are inevitably setting themselves up for failure, because that’s what people do – fail. It’s only the system itself that can endure. (But at least they’re protesting, one could argue. I view, from a distance, the recent corruption scandals in Canada, and I realize: The reason why there aren’t mass protests is simply because, by and large, more often than not, people are doing all right. Even look at some of the recent news coming from Sony; they paid off radio stations and their employees, offering them cash and vacations, in order to play their artists. Nobody on the streets is rioting. Why? Because they are surviving. The politicians may or may not be corrupt, and the corporations may or may not be on the take, constantly, consistently, and the businessmen and governors and premiers may or may not be lying through their teeth, and hockey may have been missed for a year, but, in the end, life is good. Ah. Inertia. You wonder why most of the world seen on your nightly news seems so, well, chaotic? Why the people seem so angry? Because the leaders are corrupt and the system itself is fucked and it’s the people that pay. Almost everywhere. Throughout the world. I feel like I’ve seen it, lived it, felt it. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.)
It reminded me of what Al Pacino says in The Godfather III – as a young man, he thought that the higher up he climbed, the more moral and humane the system would become, only to discover otherwise. How much do we trust our institutions? How much do we trust the people running them? At a certain point, no matter how high you get, will it always come down to a man in a back room with faulty air conditioning saying: “Now is the time when you give me some money”?
I don’t know.
Growing up, I trusted the people at the front of the room. The ones wearing glasses, with the ties and the nifty pens. They seemed to know the deal.
The scary thing is, I’ve now become one of those dudes – wearing glasses, standing in front of a whiteboard, saying this and saying that and trying to look, if not credible, at least intelligible. (And sometimes even succeeding.) I had the good fortune of being an ‘individual consultant’ with a UN agency for an extended period of time, and I gradually realized that, despite an institution’s size or gravity, people are people are people are people. You can be flattered by the logo on the shirt, awed by the mural on the wall, but there are people inside, and they are often noble and scared, passionate and exhausted, and they are sometimes confused, and they are trying to do their best, the only way that they know how. (Kind of like the Duke boys in Hazzard county, though that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow…)
Sometimes that is a recipe for progress, development, innovation and growth; often, it is a recipe for incompetence, stall-tactics, justifications.
So, yes. I think that’s what happens. As complex and convoluted as the world and its many corridors are, there is a similar process that opens the lock each and every time. You are taken into a back room, and money exchanges hands. Perhaps not literally, no, because we in the west are more subtle than that, more careful than that. But at a certain point, somebody in power has something that you want, and you have to do what you have to do to get it. That could mean cash, or cheque, or a slow and steady compromise of your principals – the tie you don’t want to wear at work, or the little white lie you have to tell your client every now and then. It may be more gritty and blunt over here in Cambodia, and you may feel the sweat of the palm you’re greasing a little more easily, but that’s just a matter of degrees. Plain and simple, isn’t it?
But sometimes I just wish it wasn’t so complicated.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
LANCE ARMSTRONG: GENIUS
Back when Lance Armstrong was just beginning to earn a name for himself as an astonishingly talented triathlete, before he switched to cycling full-time, during those hot and humid summers of the mid-eighties, I was already hooked on the Tour de France. My brother had recently taken up cycling, while I had taken up, um, the latest issues of G.I.JOE and THE UNCANNY X-MEN, but I did like Saturday morning television, and so it was that cartoons were temporarily pushed aside and we found ourselves glued to the set each and every weekend, mesmerized by the coverage of CBS Sports, energized by John Tesh’s electrifying score.
(Hey, I’m serious here! Before John Tesh became an Entertainment Tonight anchor, before John Tesh blessed the world with his musical compositions, he covered the Tour as an on-site reporter, and, in an odd convergence, he also composed the music for the TV coverage. Over-the-top it was, both his reporting and his music, but hey – at nine, ten years old, over-the-top is what you want. And when the aforementioned music was combined with commentator Phil Ligget’s breathless, dramatic delivery, forget about it.)
I didn’t cycle (still don’t), so it wasn’t the cycling per se that held my interest. (Full disclosure: I have no idea what the hell ‘per se’ really means, or where it comes from, but I use it anyways.) No, it was the scale of the event itself, the personas involved, the sheer heart and ambition and sweat that somehow seemed to make the TV itself sweat.
The enormity of the Tour is what continues to fascinate; over three weeks long, through hills and mountains, watched by spectators so close to the action that they sometimes alter the action, a marathon of cycling each day, ever day, with the fastest cumulative time winning.
Novelist Norman Mailer, once touting the superiority of the novelist over the practitioner of the short story writer, commented that a good short story writer only has to be good for one, two weeks, tops. A good novelist, on the other hand, has to be good day after day for months and months and years and years, never truly knowing whether the work itself will eventually collapse.
Same with the Tour, oddly enough. It’s not enough to be fast and strong for one hour, one day. You have to plot and plan and endure and react and triumph day after day, week after week. To win even one stage of the Tour de France is the dream of many a cyclist; to actually win the Tour itself, well, that’s entering into fantasy-land. To win it seven times, in a row, is well, plain ridiculous. Unless you’re Lance Armstrong.
But before Lance, there was Greg Lemond, America’s great cycling champion, and it was his battles with fellow teammate Bernard Hinault that made for riveting, heartwrenching drama. It was their battles that gave me respect for the Tour and awe for the Tour. Friendship and betrayal, lies and deceptions – the two of them battled each other for love and respect and victory. (Just go to www.wikipedia.org, type in their names, and you can read about their legendary battles.)
Lemond won the Tour three times – and, like Armstrong, he had his share of personal setbacks, to say the least. Like, getting accidentally shot by his brother-in-law while going out hunting, almost killing him and forcing him to miss the Tour (quite obviously). He came back and won the Tour two more times. At the time, America was more than a little indifferent to cycling, and I still think it is; what America likes is Lance.
In recent years, Lemond has been quite vocal in his suspicions of Armstrong’s alleged use of illegal performance enhancing drugs. I’m not naïve; I believe that a huge number of athletes in cycling and track and field, in particular, are on the juice. (Marion Jones, please step forward.) With Armstrong, however, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; I think, perhaps idealistically, that Armstrong is one of those humans genetically gifted from birth (with an abnormally large heart), and that, coupled with his ferocious drive and determination, he has been able to do the impossible, consistently. I also think of long-jumper and sprinter Carl Lewis as one of those chosen few who were blessed with physical gifts and then trained their asses off like no one else before them to actualize those gifts.)
What separates Armstrong from Lemond, however, aside from Lance's seven Tour wins to Lemond's four, is cancer. Getting accidentally shot while hunting is not something that most people can relate to, or worry about. (I can, however, being the son and brother of avid hunters, but that’s another post.) Cancer, though. Even the word is daunting. Everybody knows somebody who has cancer or has had cancer. Everybody worries that it’s a possibility for them, too.
Armstrong was given less than a fifty percent chance to live due to testicular cancer that later spread to his brain, a prognosis that even his doctors admitted was inflated so as to not make him overly depressed. Losing a year in cycling is not like losing a year in any other sport, according to Greg Lemond; the margin of error is so small, the competition is so great, that being thrown off your game, being robbed of your training for so long is tantamount to involuntary retirement. To beat cancer (if one can beat such a thing), to return to cycling, to win the Tour once – that, in and of itself, would have been something close to a miracle. To do it seven times, is, well...
Lance Armstrong.
David Foster Wallace, the insanely talented author of Infinite Jest, was once a pretty good junior tennis player, and he once wrote an article for Esquire profiling the tennis player ranked 100th in the world, whose name escapes me. Which was the point of the article, though; we think somebody ranked 100th in the world as being not that special, but as Wallace points out, somebody ranked 100th is amazing beyond any normal person’s rational ability to perceive. Think about being the 100th best person in the world at anything, Wallace posits; these people, these athletes, are operating at levels mere mortals cannot comprehend.
So when we try to appreciate what Lance Armstrong has done, we can’t. We literally cannot. Somebody once said: “Talent is doing what ordinary people find difficult; genius is doing what talented people find impossible.”
That’s the only way I can approach somebody like Armstrong. His cancer made him vulnerable, approachable, human – but the Tour has made him a genius in the realm of athletics and the realm of life, and, if not immortal figure, if not a mythic here, he’s as close, in this modern, cynical era, as we are going to get to one.
(Hey, I’m serious here! Before John Tesh became an Entertainment Tonight anchor, before John Tesh blessed the world with his musical compositions, he covered the Tour as an on-site reporter, and, in an odd convergence, he also composed the music for the TV coverage. Over-the-top it was, both his reporting and his music, but hey – at nine, ten years old, over-the-top is what you want. And when the aforementioned music was combined with commentator Phil Ligget’s breathless, dramatic delivery, forget about it.)
I didn’t cycle (still don’t), so it wasn’t the cycling per se that held my interest. (Full disclosure: I have no idea what the hell ‘per se’ really means, or where it comes from, but I use it anyways.) No, it was the scale of the event itself, the personas involved, the sheer heart and ambition and sweat that somehow seemed to make the TV itself sweat.
The enormity of the Tour is what continues to fascinate; over three weeks long, through hills and mountains, watched by spectators so close to the action that they sometimes alter the action, a marathon of cycling each day, ever day, with the fastest cumulative time winning.
Novelist Norman Mailer, once touting the superiority of the novelist over the practitioner of the short story writer, commented that a good short story writer only has to be good for one, two weeks, tops. A good novelist, on the other hand, has to be good day after day for months and months and years and years, never truly knowing whether the work itself will eventually collapse.
Same with the Tour, oddly enough. It’s not enough to be fast and strong for one hour, one day. You have to plot and plan and endure and react and triumph day after day, week after week. To win even one stage of the Tour de France is the dream of many a cyclist; to actually win the Tour itself, well, that’s entering into fantasy-land. To win it seven times, in a row, is well, plain ridiculous. Unless you’re Lance Armstrong.
But before Lance, there was Greg Lemond, America’s great cycling champion, and it was his battles with fellow teammate Bernard Hinault that made for riveting, heartwrenching drama. It was their battles that gave me respect for the Tour and awe for the Tour. Friendship and betrayal, lies and deceptions – the two of them battled each other for love and respect and victory. (Just go to www.wikipedia.org, type in their names, and you can read about their legendary battles.)
Lemond won the Tour three times – and, like Armstrong, he had his share of personal setbacks, to say the least. Like, getting accidentally shot by his brother-in-law while going out hunting, almost killing him and forcing him to miss the Tour (quite obviously). He came back and won the Tour two more times. At the time, America was more than a little indifferent to cycling, and I still think it is; what America likes is Lance.
In recent years, Lemond has been quite vocal in his suspicions of Armstrong’s alleged use of illegal performance enhancing drugs. I’m not naïve; I believe that a huge number of athletes in cycling and track and field, in particular, are on the juice. (Marion Jones, please step forward.) With Armstrong, however, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; I think, perhaps idealistically, that Armstrong is one of those humans genetically gifted from birth (with an abnormally large heart), and that, coupled with his ferocious drive and determination, he has been able to do the impossible, consistently. I also think of long-jumper and sprinter Carl Lewis as one of those chosen few who were blessed with physical gifts and then trained their asses off like no one else before them to actualize those gifts.)
What separates Armstrong from Lemond, however, aside from Lance's seven Tour wins to Lemond's four, is cancer. Getting accidentally shot while hunting is not something that most people can relate to, or worry about. (I can, however, being the son and brother of avid hunters, but that’s another post.) Cancer, though. Even the word is daunting. Everybody knows somebody who has cancer or has had cancer. Everybody worries that it’s a possibility for them, too.
Armstrong was given less than a fifty percent chance to live due to testicular cancer that later spread to his brain, a prognosis that even his doctors admitted was inflated so as to not make him overly depressed. Losing a year in cycling is not like losing a year in any other sport, according to Greg Lemond; the margin of error is so small, the competition is so great, that being thrown off your game, being robbed of your training for so long is tantamount to involuntary retirement. To beat cancer (if one can beat such a thing), to return to cycling, to win the Tour once – that, in and of itself, would have been something close to a miracle. To do it seven times, is, well...
Lance Armstrong.
David Foster Wallace, the insanely talented author of Infinite Jest, was once a pretty good junior tennis player, and he once wrote an article for Esquire profiling the tennis player ranked 100th in the world, whose name escapes me. Which was the point of the article, though; we think somebody ranked 100th in the world as being not that special, but as Wallace points out, somebody ranked 100th is amazing beyond any normal person’s rational ability to perceive. Think about being the 100th best person in the world at anything, Wallace posits; these people, these athletes, are operating at levels mere mortals cannot comprehend.
So when we try to appreciate what Lance Armstrong has done, we can’t. We literally cannot. Somebody once said: “Talent is doing what ordinary people find difficult; genius is doing what talented people find impossible.”
That’s the only way I can approach somebody like Armstrong. His cancer made him vulnerable, approachable, human – but the Tour has made him a genius in the realm of athletics and the realm of life, and, if not immortal figure, if not a mythic here, he’s as close, in this modern, cynical era, as we are going to get to one.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
EVERYPLACE IS SOMEPLACE
One of the intriguing aspects of living in a foreign country (or even your own country) for an extended period of time occurs when you begin to learn about its culture, language, people and customs, becoming, if not an expert, at least a competent amateur. The other development, running simultanously alongside the first, is the slowly dawning realization that nobody else gives a shit.
Well, that's not true -- at least not totally.
Take Cambodia. People currently living in Cambodia, people who have lived in Cambodia, people interested in Southeast Asian cultures and economies -- they might, in fact, be interested in Cambodia. They may sincerely want to hear about its people and its plans. Just today, in fact, I received an email from an old student of mine in Japan, who is intensely interested in world politics; his field of interest largely centred around all those '---stan' countries in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, et al. (And, oddly enough, it was his interest in those countries that prompted me to pick up a copy of a book called Jihad the other day, which traces the rise of radical Islam in those countries.) He wrote me an email asking for my opinions about various military and political theories, and whether or not they applied to Cambodia.
But the reality is, a lot of countries are off the map. The news doesn't talk about them. The media could care less. The only time Cambodia was in the major mainstream press recently was a month or so ago when a Canadian kid was killed in hostage situation up in Siem Reap.
Hell, let's forget about Cambodia for a minute -- what about Canada? The recent passing of gay-marriage legislation has put Canada on CNN's homepage quite a little bit, but other than that -- nada. Diddly. Squat.
Which is fine. More than fine, actually, because I've realized that if a country is not mentioned very much in the news, it usually means that's doing pretty okey-dokey all by itself. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada -- not much fireworks going on there.
And yet, the opposite is true, too. Some countries just are not very politically relevant to the major powers-that-be, and Cambodia is one of them. I had an interview with the UN Office On Drugs and Crime a few weeks back, and the dude there told me that the entire office itself might be shut down. Why? Well, because the U.S. is a big backer of the office, and Cambodia's drug problem, as immense as it is, as tragic as it is, just doesn't affect the U.S. all that much. As Deep Throat said all those years ago (in the movie version of the Watergate affair, anyway): "Follow the money." Truer words were never spoken, me thinks.
But in the end, conversely, it's not about the money. The world and the media may not be interested in your neck of the woods, but it's your neck, and your woods. Where you are is where it's at. Nobody else in the world may be interested in the fact that you're in Phnom Penh, Cambodia or Boise, Idaho or the eastern edge of Siberia -- but you may be surprised. After all, everyplace is someplace, and perhaps the greatest legacy of bloggers and blogging itself will be that it allowed average citizens to chronicle their specific place and point in time -- and allowed others, if interested, if intrigued, to become part of that world (which is really, the more you think of it, our world too).
Well, that's not true -- at least not totally.
Take Cambodia. People currently living in Cambodia, people who have lived in Cambodia, people interested in Southeast Asian cultures and economies -- they might, in fact, be interested in Cambodia. They may sincerely want to hear about its people and its plans. Just today, in fact, I received an email from an old student of mine in Japan, who is intensely interested in world politics; his field of interest largely centred around all those '---stan' countries in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, et al. (And, oddly enough, it was his interest in those countries that prompted me to pick up a copy of a book called Jihad the other day, which traces the rise of radical Islam in those countries.) He wrote me an email asking for my opinions about various military and political theories, and whether or not they applied to Cambodia.
But the reality is, a lot of countries are off the map. The news doesn't talk about them. The media could care less. The only time Cambodia was in the major mainstream press recently was a month or so ago when a Canadian kid was killed in hostage situation up in Siem Reap.
Hell, let's forget about Cambodia for a minute -- what about Canada? The recent passing of gay-marriage legislation has put Canada on CNN's homepage quite a little bit, but other than that -- nada. Diddly. Squat.
Which is fine. More than fine, actually, because I've realized that if a country is not mentioned very much in the news, it usually means that's doing pretty okey-dokey all by itself. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada -- not much fireworks going on there.
And yet, the opposite is true, too. Some countries just are not very politically relevant to the major powers-that-be, and Cambodia is one of them. I had an interview with the UN Office On Drugs and Crime a few weeks back, and the dude there told me that the entire office itself might be shut down. Why? Well, because the U.S. is a big backer of the office, and Cambodia's drug problem, as immense as it is, as tragic as it is, just doesn't affect the U.S. all that much. As Deep Throat said all those years ago (in the movie version of the Watergate affair, anyway): "Follow the money." Truer words were never spoken, me thinks.
But in the end, conversely, it's not about the money. The world and the media may not be interested in your neck of the woods, but it's your neck, and your woods. Where you are is where it's at. Nobody else in the world may be interested in the fact that you're in Phnom Penh, Cambodia or Boise, Idaho or the eastern edge of Siberia -- but you may be surprised. After all, everyplace is someplace, and perhaps the greatest legacy of bloggers and blogging itself will be that it allowed average citizens to chronicle their specific place and point in time -- and allowed others, if interested, if intrigued, to become part of that world (which is really, the more you think of it, our world too).
HE'S MONEY, BABY...
Is Vince Vaughan the new Bill Murray?
I wouldn't go that far, but he's close. In his own way.
I haven't seen Vaughan's new flick The Wedding Crashers (though I have no doubt that it will be available on bootleg DVD any day now in Cambodia), but his work in Swingers and Dodgeball and Starsky and Hutch is proof of a comedic mind that, if not equals Murray's own, at least competes in the same softball league.
Both share a certain laconic, dry humor that lends their everyday-guy persona a certain levity. But that levity is tempered by sarcasm, and cynicism, and weariness. The wisecracking Bill Murray of Stripes (which is Bill Murray in pure, crystalline form) has evolved into the slightly bitter, always cranky Murray of Rushmore and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (Understand that I'm talking about Murray's screen persona, here; in real life, for all I know, he could be as upbeat as Anthony Robbins.)
And yet, Vaughan, I think, has a darker edge. It's what motivated Gus Vant to cast him as Norman Bates in his remake of Psycho. (A film that was universally trashed by critics and audiences alike, but one that is far more interesting and adventurous than it's given credit for, simply in its' exploration of what cinema can and cannot do -- more in a future post...) It's what led to his playing a more than credible 'villian' opposite John Travolta in the otherwise frankly forgettable thriller Domestic Disturbance. There's a creepy little comedy from a few years back called Clay Pigeons in which Vaughan plays a creepy little killer, and there's a gleam in his eyes that is more than a little chilling. (Call Murray many things, but chilling isn't one of them.) In that sense, something about Vaughan reminds me of Michael Keaton, another actor with a slightly skewed comedic sense who went on to play convincing psychos. Something about their eyebrows and their eyes. Comedy is always balanced between levity and cruelty, and both Keaton and Vaughan somehow can twist the knife in either direction.
Something about his voice, too. I read an interview with him a few days back, and the interviewer mentioned how his voice is distinct, even unusual, which pleased Vaughan to no end, prompting him to relate how he did, in fact, have voice training for a few years. I think voice is underestimated in cinema, and Vaughan's voice -- gravelly, laconic, slightly uneven, deep but not deep -- has that unidentifiable something that great actors learn to wield. (Think of Jack Nicholson's voice. Or Denzel Washington's. Or Al Pacino, who did a marvellous thing -- as a young man, the strength of his voice was in its softness; as an older man, his voice, aged by alcohol and cigarettes, I'm sure, took on a graspy, gravelly edge, and Pacino, being the actor that he is, changed his performance style accordingly. Genius.)
I hope Vaughan doesn't get stuck in a comedic rut for the next few years. Don't get me wrong -- I think his turn in Dodgeball, not to mention Swingers ("You are so money") is classic, Murray-level comedy. But as he gets older, those 'goofy' parts will fade away, and I'm kind of hoping that that other Vaughan, the Vaughan from Psycho, the one with the edge, will show his face one or two more times.
I wouldn't go that far, but he's close. In his own way.
I haven't seen Vaughan's new flick The Wedding Crashers (though I have no doubt that it will be available on bootleg DVD any day now in Cambodia), but his work in Swingers and Dodgeball and Starsky and Hutch is proof of a comedic mind that, if not equals Murray's own, at least competes in the same softball league.
Both share a certain laconic, dry humor that lends their everyday-guy persona a certain levity. But that levity is tempered by sarcasm, and cynicism, and weariness. The wisecracking Bill Murray of Stripes (which is Bill Murray in pure, crystalline form) has evolved into the slightly bitter, always cranky Murray of Rushmore and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (Understand that I'm talking about Murray's screen persona, here; in real life, for all I know, he could be as upbeat as Anthony Robbins.)
And yet, Vaughan, I think, has a darker edge. It's what motivated Gus Vant to cast him as Norman Bates in his remake of Psycho. (A film that was universally trashed by critics and audiences alike, but one that is far more interesting and adventurous than it's given credit for, simply in its' exploration of what cinema can and cannot do -- more in a future post...) It's what led to his playing a more than credible 'villian' opposite John Travolta in the otherwise frankly forgettable thriller Domestic Disturbance. There's a creepy little comedy from a few years back called Clay Pigeons in which Vaughan plays a creepy little killer, and there's a gleam in his eyes that is more than a little chilling. (Call Murray many things, but chilling isn't one of them.) In that sense, something about Vaughan reminds me of Michael Keaton, another actor with a slightly skewed comedic sense who went on to play convincing psychos. Something about their eyebrows and their eyes. Comedy is always balanced between levity and cruelty, and both Keaton and Vaughan somehow can twist the knife in either direction.
Something about his voice, too. I read an interview with him a few days back, and the interviewer mentioned how his voice is distinct, even unusual, which pleased Vaughan to no end, prompting him to relate how he did, in fact, have voice training for a few years. I think voice is underestimated in cinema, and Vaughan's voice -- gravelly, laconic, slightly uneven, deep but not deep -- has that unidentifiable something that great actors learn to wield. (Think of Jack Nicholson's voice. Or Denzel Washington's. Or Al Pacino, who did a marvellous thing -- as a young man, the strength of his voice was in its softness; as an older man, his voice, aged by alcohol and cigarettes, I'm sure, took on a graspy, gravelly edge, and Pacino, being the actor that he is, changed his performance style accordingly. Genius.)
I hope Vaughan doesn't get stuck in a comedic rut for the next few years. Don't get me wrong -- I think his turn in Dodgeball, not to mention Swingers ("You are so money") is classic, Murray-level comedy. But as he gets older, those 'goofy' parts will fade away, and I'm kind of hoping that that other Vaughan, the Vaughan from Psycho, the one with the edge, will show his face one or two more times.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
OTHER POOLS, OTHER ERAS
Last night, swimming. Hotel. Under a Cambodian moon. So long, since I swam last. Over two years ago, in Japan, in a health club. Watching row after row of elderly Japanese ladies walk through the water, knees rising, smiles fixed in place. And me, sometimes joining the line. There is something oddly strange and comforting and familiar about walking through water. You are in motion, but barely. You are moving, but with difficulty. There is no pain, only resistance.
That moon. A remark I've remarked upon before, but it comes back to me. A Cambodian moon, yes, but also a Thai moon, a Fijian moon, a Khazakstan moon, a Canadian moon.
You can explain the physics of it, the science of it, the logic of it. I may even understand you, or at least pretend to. (I'm good at pretending to understand.) I know that when you are in a car, and the car is moving, and you look out the window, and you see the moon following you, possibly even stalking you, that that is not for real. I understand that. But as a child, in the backseat, I would close my eyes, wait a few moments, open them, and see if the moon was still there, gliding at the same speed of the car. And it always was.
But how can that be? I look up at the moon in the clear dark sky from the vantage point of a swimming pool in Cambodia. White mist shrouds that moon; the glow from the hotel's lights somehow adds its own, incadescent aura. And yet I know, I'm positive, that people in Thailand, in the same time zone, are staring at that same moon, just above their head. And back in Canada, where it's almost morning, the moon is a clear, gray orb, visible in the morning sky, a backdrop to a Canadian flag flutterling slightly in the summer breeze.
How is that possible?
I watched that moon for awhile. Swam for awhile. Swimming always makes me feel fluid, attached to alternate pools I've inhabited, in other countries. Other eras. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. North Bay, Ontario. Different versions of myself, younger, more agile. I remember one chilly March night in Myrtle Beach running with a bunch of others from the hotel pool and onto the beach and into the ocean, into the frigid water, and then racing back up the sand, up the steps, into the hot tubs, alive and well and laughing. A few days before we had been frozen in Canada, and now were swimming, at night, under the stars. Under that American moon. Remembering that I'd remember that moment. And I have.
That moon. A remark I've remarked upon before, but it comes back to me. A Cambodian moon, yes, but also a Thai moon, a Fijian moon, a Khazakstan moon, a Canadian moon.
You can explain the physics of it, the science of it, the logic of it. I may even understand you, or at least pretend to. (I'm good at pretending to understand.) I know that when you are in a car, and the car is moving, and you look out the window, and you see the moon following you, possibly even stalking you, that that is not for real. I understand that. But as a child, in the backseat, I would close my eyes, wait a few moments, open them, and see if the moon was still there, gliding at the same speed of the car. And it always was.
But how can that be? I look up at the moon in the clear dark sky from the vantage point of a swimming pool in Cambodia. White mist shrouds that moon; the glow from the hotel's lights somehow adds its own, incadescent aura. And yet I know, I'm positive, that people in Thailand, in the same time zone, are staring at that same moon, just above their head. And back in Canada, where it's almost morning, the moon is a clear, gray orb, visible in the morning sky, a backdrop to a Canadian flag flutterling slightly in the summer breeze.
How is that possible?
I watched that moon for awhile. Swam for awhile. Swimming always makes me feel fluid, attached to alternate pools I've inhabited, in other countries. Other eras. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. North Bay, Ontario. Different versions of myself, younger, more agile. I remember one chilly March night in Myrtle Beach running with a bunch of others from the hotel pool and onto the beach and into the ocean, into the frigid water, and then racing back up the sand, up the steps, into the hot tubs, alive and well and laughing. A few days before we had been frozen in Canada, and now were swimming, at night, under the stars. Under that American moon. Remembering that I'd remember that moment. And I have.
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