GI Joe

Watching the new GI Joe 3D movie last Friday night in a theater packed with Indonesians, many of whom would have been Muslims, struck me in some way as a curious experience. It's an All-American movie, of course, packed chock-full with All-American gung-ho ideas, and yet the audience seemed to connect quite comfortably with the ideologies and the characters. There's the power of Hollywood for you. In fact, despite religion, and despite official high-level distaste for American decadence and bravado, the common Indonesians love us. They love our violence, our guns, our technology, our irreverence, our opulence, our fantasy and our beautiful male and female stars. They identify with and honor the mythos without being a natural part of it. It is clear from all that crosses the big screen that Americans are strong and courageous, justified, predestined - a chosen race embued with with every coveted characteristic. Ah, to be an American!

The Hollywood movie may very well be the victorious politic of the future. They represent, for their largeness, for their color and sound, for their special effects and cliffhanger thrills, a fullness of practically irresitible propaganda that no single person or speech or policy could ever match.

Indonesians love everything American - and everything that think, insist, is American. Money, possessions, bright lights and glitter, rap music, rebellion, profanity, vulgarity, power, affluence, sex and adultery, diamonds, big cars, automatic weapons, nuclear missiles, and women with soap-white skin.

"I love America," they tell me. "I want to go there someday. Everything is clean there, and big, and easy, and everyone has so much money."

Nor are they deterred by my poor example -- for their dream, like the Hollywood movie, is bigger by far than life.

Puppy Love

We find ourselves with another puppy. This seems to happen on the average twice a year or so. In this case, we know where the dog comes from and to whom it belongs. It is his owners who seem to have forgotten. Having left our village a couple days ago for Kuningan celebrations, they have not yet returned, and so the puppy, using his own brain in what seems a more astute manner, has made itself at home at our house, just across the street from that of its absent owners.  He's a cute little fellow  -- milk white, except for various grey smudges of dust, and smart as a whip. He has not been long at all in the world, is still learning to focus with his eyes and walk a consistently straight line, but he picks up on things fast -- like where the food is kept, which room has the most stuff that looks like it could be used as a toy, the sounds of voices and who they are attached to, and so on. He even makes a fine attempt to stand on his hind legs for bits of chicken or cookies. What the owners thought the dog was going to do (or eat) whilst they were gone, I do not know. He started out with crying, loudly and at great length, until he discovered that he could squeeze himself under their fence, and now has not complained since. He is happy, as are we all (or at least should be) with friends and simple sustenance.

A Beginning and an End which Begins Again

It seemed that after more than 3 years of trying to sell my book, Everyone Here is Jim Dandy, to a publisher, the venture had finally reached an end, having exhausted all existing avenues as explored by my agent in America, who, himself, has now retired as well.

So I thought that rather than simply retiring the book straight away to the dustbin, I should post it in full here on Blogger. I had written the book in the first place in order to share my MS experience with others, and so in the end I attempted to do so in the only way possible -- that is, through my this blog by the same name. At least a few might read it, I reckoned, and maybe find something to identify with, or some small bit of humor to chuckle at -- or at least come away with the realization that we are none of us alone.  Life's setbacks, of every sort, affect every person at some time in life; and that is really what Jim Dandy is about. It's about change and challenge and adversity and overcoming.

Well, it does not seem as though many people read the book. I had, in fact, included my email address in the conceit that someone out there might want to connect, to comment, to share -- but, as it turned out, I received not a single comment.

Oh well.

So it's back now to blogging mostly about Bali, my experiences on the island, both of the absurd and the sublime (or at least marginally interesting) sort. For as long, indeed, and this itself lasts.

Forward, then -- ever forward -- never look back.

In the Land of Oz

At the Circle K store this morning, I saw a young man leave his laptop at the table outside while he went in the store to buy something. Later in the afternoon, at JCO coffee now, three women, sitting separately and each alone, left their purses at their tables while they went inside to buy their coffee and donuts.

Clearly, I’m not in Kansas anymore.

For this, in the western world, is unheard of nowadays. You leave it, you lose it. That’s the prevailing wisdom; and, sadly, all too often the prevailing reality. You are not a part of an honourable community, you are in the midst of a den of thieves; and if you are careless enough to give the thief an opening, you yourself are thought culpable, and at least half as much to blame.

This is the new standard. Suspicion and distrust. Don’t leave your bags unattended. Don’t leave your keys on the table or in the ignition. Don’t leave your purchases at the counter. Your brother is definitely not your keeper.

We are amazed, therefore, to see these things in Bali -- trust, community, morality, peace of mind. We remember them, re-experience, as in a glass darkly. Or those of use who are old enough do. And we seem to have come home, somehow. The world has missed us, and we have missed it; and we have lived long in fear and nagging distress.

So long have we lived in trepidation, so long in dread, that our extravagant inclination, now become natural, is to either warn these women about the risk they are running, or at least keep guard of their purses for them. The bogeyman is not only real, he’s common, and he’s everywhere.

And yet no one so much as glances at these purses. No one touches, or even seems to see the lonely laptop.

Do things ever get stolen in Bali? Sure they do. And when they do, you’re sure to hear about it. Everyone in the neighbourhood hears about it, and spreads the news far and wide to everyone he meets, as if this were something important, something particularly meaningful.

Because it is.

“Did you hear about that guy on the motorbike who grabbed a backpack from a tourist? He’s not from around here, I can tell you that.”

“Or did you hear about that guy who robbed the man at the ATM? Other people, neighbours, chased him down and beat him senseless by the time the police arrived.”

Stealing is wrong. It’s not normal, it’s wrong. There’s a consensus. It’s not something that just happens, oh well. It’s not something that happens if you’re careless, or failed personally in some way to take necessary steps. It’s not something that’s tolerated, thought to be just another part of life, like mosquitoes or rain or a flat tire. It’s a crime, and the perpetrator has betrayed the community in the most essential way.

Not everything in Oz is good. There are at least two wicked witches. There are beasts in the forest. Lions and tigers and bears. And there are those flying, ill-tempered monkeys, perhaps worst of all. But there’s safety too, and order, and agreement, and colour, and kindness -- sound thinking, and compassion, and courage.

You can breathe again, sit back, relax, fill your lungs with the fresh air of simpler times. And you can leave your laptop, as I am doing just now, at the table outside, with your phone and your pack and your lighter and your glasses, to go buy a second cappuccino and donut without dreading what might happen while you’re away.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

I’m on the east coast of Bali, near Amed, at Katana Villa. I’m sitting in Matthias Hues’ rounded stone bath watching warm water cascade from the mouth of a dog-like statue. How did I get here? What am I doing in Matthias Hues’ bath? The answers are simple enough, and yet they don’t seem to address the real heart of the matter, this eerie sense of displacement that one encounters when he finds himself sitting in Matthias Hues’ bath.

I don’t know Matthias Hues, you see? I had never so much as heard of him until a week or so prior to this moment. Nor do I know his life partner, Leslie Carleton, also a Hollywood actress. I have seen a photo of her. A beautiful woman, tan, sleek, lying ever so photogenic on the beach. And now I’m sitting in her bath.

Matthias Hues is an actor as well, from Germany. He starred in the movie Star Trek VI. Or so I‘m told. I‘ve not seen the movie. Matthias is in Germany now, with Leslie, and I am in their bath.

Strange enough, folks, for a small town American boy to be living in Bali. But to be staying in a villa on the east coast of Bali sitting in Matthias Hues bathtub? That’s displacement beyond common definition.

Back-Stabbed

Better to have an enemy who slaps you in the face than a friend who stabs you in the back.

Well, I recently got a firsthand taste of that old saying after 59 years of being fairly blissfully ignorant. But I guess betrayal hurts just the same whether you're 9 or 59. I would suppose so, anyway.

This all began with a water leak in our bathroom. Sounds pretty simple on the surface,   but these snowballs do grow and get to rollin' downhill. The normal thing seemed to be to report this ever more gushing leak to the landlord with the expectation that some action would be taken. Silly me.

Yes, because, you see, Balinese landlords have actually nothing to do with their property. It's the renters responsibility. The landlord merely collects the money. It is the tennant who is expected to fix anything that goes wrong with the house. And I do mean anything.

As an example, our former landlord demanded that we replace the roof over the parking drive after it blew away in a windstorm. Of course you must, she said. After all, it was there when I rented the place to you,, and now it's gone.

Such, it proved, was the case with the leak in the bathroom. The old, rotting, deteriorating pipe behind the toilet was just fine when she rented the place, so if it was leaking now, it could only be our own fault.

Right. Well okay, then, at least send a repairman.

Ah but now she doesn't want to -- because I had insulted her by telling her the pipe was not in good condition, and could not have been in good condition for the past 9 years or so.

To this point, the story is pretty simple. A story of typical dishonesty and greed. Ah, but the plot thickens. It so happens that the landlord's husband is my best friend in Bali. I have known him for 3 years and we have visited daily. It so happens, also, that said husband and best friend has been basically estranged from his wife for the last year. They live in different parts of their house, they rarely speak, and he regularly refers to her as "the bitch". In fact, he appears to refer to almost every woman as the bitch, my own wife included.

Now, I've always let this pass, because he's typically an angry, curmudgeonly sort, like my first wife, and so I'm kind of used to it, and I think he has a good heart somewhere down there in the recesses of his chest or bowels.

I felt comfortable therefore, while discussing the leaky situation on Facebook cat, to myself refer to his wife as a bitch. I was angry, you see, and increasingly frustrated by the wasteful fountain of water coming out of the pipe in the bathroom.

But don't ya know, my 'friend' ran straight away and told his wife what I said.  A relationship leak has now become a disastrous flood. Next thing, the wife is on the phone with my wife complaining about the terrible insults I have cast upon her, while my own wife, ever faithful, begins to stoke the fire with further insults and counterattacks.

Gee, all I wanted was to get the water pipe fixed.

Well, next thing I know, Vick is sending me a message saying that "the whole thing has gotten out of hand" and that I simply need now to apologize to his wife and all will be well.

LOL.

Apologize? What, for the can of worms he opened himself? Apologize for what was very clearly never meant for the woman to hear, and for what she never would have heard but for the big, inexplicably moronic mouth of her husband? Apologize for using the same words, in a private conversation, which he himself regularly uses to describe both his wife and mine?

Good grief.

So apologize, I did. Though of course to no avail. What's done is done. The snow ball is rolling faster than ever, crushing everything in its path. And here I am standing with a knife in my back.

End result: I hired a man, got the pipe fixed, and paid the bill myself. And we are all now dire enemies.

Moral of the story. Hm. Trust no one, I guess, and especially a friend -- for one is never in greater danger than at the hands of a friend.

Black Magic

Our maid tells me just now, via telephone text message, that she will not be able to work tomorrow, as her 5 year old daughter has been incapacitated by black magic, such that she cannot walk or feed herself. She tells me that if I do not believe this, I may come to her place in person and see for myself. But no need for that. Of course I believe it. I believe it because I know she believes it -- and so there you have it, God help her. I wish I could speak Indonesian better, but I'm afraid that addressing such matters as black magic and bogeymen is quite beyond my limited vocabulary. But if I could speak, I would tell her this. That nothing - not life nor death, sickness nor health, powers in high or low places, can separate us from the love and power that is in Christ Jesus. No worries - if only she knew.