I find my usual foolishness interrupted this week by a story out of America -- the senseless shooting at a Denver, Colorado premier of the latest Batman film wherein twelve people were killed and fifty injured.
Shortly after the start of the special midnight showing of the film a masked gunman stepped in front of the screen, released a canister of noxious gas into the aisle and began firing into the sell-out audience. His weapons were an automatic rifle, a pistol and a shotgun.
Barely three years out of America, I read these reports with a sinking sense of déjà vu, with a sadness that seems to remember itself and that aches anew in my heart like a keen recollection of a tragic loss, a complex admixture of sorrow and regret and bafflement and anger and hopelessness and malaise.
What has happened here? And what is happening again and again in a country that once was and should always have remained a beacon of encouragement and hope, order and safety, strength and well-being -- an example to the world and a model for mankind? What is the disease that has infected a nation’s psyche and spread through the years like a malevolent cancer -- from Gacy to Dahmer, from the son of Sam to the hillside strangler, from the zodiac killer to the Columbine teens -- this miasma of recurring madness from the darkest side of the human condition that births and rebirths itself so prolifically?
It becomes less than shocking. It becomes familiar. It becomes predictable -- again, like a cancer -- such that we find ourselves reading the same news, viewing the same network broadcast. The dates and places have changed, the various particulars, the number of deaths -- but it has happened before, and then again and again, and we know by now, in the most unsettling way, that it is sealed in the land and that it has spread to the core and that it is killing us little by little by little. We are all in that audience, we are all of us victims, we are all of us murdered by the hand that we cannot stop, nor indeed so much as comprehend. What fertile soil has been provided in America, and why?
I am an American -- and I am discouraged, I am ashamed, I am lost, I am heartbroken, I am afraid, I am remorseful. I despair. Three years in Bali, three years from my home, I had almost begun to forget, had almost begun to heal, had almost begun to feel proud again. And now this. Now this.
We see violence in the world, we see violence in Indonesia, we see intolerance and bigotry and cruelty and murder; and we tend to respond with a moral surety, somehow conferred by the western lands from whence we came. We judge from the lofty seat of freedom, tolerance, democracy, social equality and the rule of law.
And yet as a least denominator of reason we cannot fail at this point, having been reminded in this one sad incident which yet remembers the many, that political, that religious, that cultural violence all arise from some concept, some reality which, though hateful and unwanted, yet lies within the realm of sanity. Yes, there is a reason for these more common sorts of deaths and the reason is well within the grasp of the common intellect. Papuans are killed because of political unrest, Ahmadiyah sect members are killed because of apostasy, Moslems in Myanmar are killed because of prejudice, Christians in Jawa are killed because they proselytize, villagers in Bali are killed because of a land dispute, seamen in the South Pacific are killed because of an oceanic dispute. And so on, ad infinitum.
It seems somehow sadly, ironically comforting to know that violence with reason is still the norm, no matter how abhorrent such a norm may be. We are relieved to know, God help us, that people kill with explicable intent. But what is there to say about a lunatic in a mask, a psychotic young man in full body armour who imagines that he is the Joker in a Batman movie, who imagines God knows what of his innocent victims, who arms himself with rifles and pistols and bombs over a period of months, planning, preparing and finally hatching his idiot masterpiece of incomprehensible insanity? What foundation can we invent, what mission devise, what ambassador can we send to the womb of madness?
What to do but wonder and puzzle? What to do but weep, if still able. What to do but query the deaf heavens -- What in God’s name has happened to America?
Visits
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
In Defense of Machineguns
In the JCO parking lot there is a man with a machinegun. He is dressed all in brown and is wearing a brown beret. The machinegun -- or I suppose we would call it an assault weapon these days -- is slung from a strap on one shoulder while the weapon itself is cradled on one hip, stock up, barrel down. You see them in the parking lot, in the shopping mall, in the grocery store and on the street. Men with machineguns, crisply dressed, tidy in their uniforms, tucked and polished right down to the boot toes.
It’s one of those things that make Indonesia beautiful -- from the school girl in blue skirt and white blouse, bobby socks and tennis shoes to the beige and gray clad Barbie Dolls at the Matahari store to the jogging, singing soldiers all in khaki fatigues to the parade of Hindu celebrants marching in white linen. Everyone has an identity, each person his place in life, this daily procession of regimen and community, character and conformity. I am a student, I a soldier, I a civil servant, I a clerk -- and we all, one and many, are the citizenry of vast Indonesia.
The man with the machinegun strikes a pose, feet parted just so, firearm secure, shoulders squared, beret on right tilt, eyes on stolid, patient alert. He has been trained this way, and inspires -- what? Confidence? Assurance? With a dash of apprehension? This is, after all, Bali -- the land of suicidal motorbike drivers, the land of the perennially unlicensed and unlearned, where flying by the seat of your pants is the preferred lifestyle -- don’t worry, be happy, just do it Bali where rules are rumours and laws are idle gossip. Is it really a good idea to put a weapon such as this in the hands of generally questionable authority? Not a popgun, mind you, not a Billy Club or a tazer or even a six-shooter, but a machinegun -- a thing that would seem to be of some import on its own merit.
An automatic weapon on public display tends to be automatically unsettling, especially to those who are newly arrived from the West. Has a war broken out? Civil unrest? Are we invaded by Australia, or is the Al-Qaeda snake slithering nearby?
But in fact it is no big deal; and after three years or so the novelty, the anxiety, the surprise wears off, inspiring thereafter but a passing glance, if even that much. It is one of those things about this far flung island that shock at first sight -- an uncommon, eerie, somewhat frightening sight, such that the wide-eyed newcomer is wont to exclaim “My God, that fellow has a machinegun!”
Now admittedly, policemen in America carry handguns, but these are almost always holstered and look not nearly as impressive as a machinegun. A difference, however, may lie in the actual use of the weapon -- for while I have not seen, nor indeed ever heard of one of these Balinese officers actually using his weapon, the pistols carried by their American counterparts seem to be employed on an alarmingly regular basis, which itself seems generally consistent with an all-American love of bullets and loud noises.
I remember one incident in which a mentally ill man, just recently discharged from the hospital, ran afoul of the law and was shot 29 times while standing on his own front lawn. He was armed, as I recall, with a table knife, and so was deemed a threat to the safety of the public and of the officers on the scene. Whether these 29 bullets (not counting the misses) proceeded from one gun or from 29, I do not recall. I do remember the incident causing a bit of an uproar. And it occurs to me just now that one man with a machinegun could have achieved the same result with considerably less effort, less cost to the taxpayer, and without having to reload.
Reported recently in the local newspapers of Bali was a curious incident wherein a bank guard suddenly drew and discharged his sidearm several times after being startled by his own cell phone. Happily in this case no injuries were inflicted, except to the ceiling. It could have been worse. Just imagine if he had pointed his pistol at the cause of his alarm. And just imagine if it had been a machinegun instead of a pistol!
I suppose there’s something to be said for both types of firearm; but all considered I believe I prefer the machinegun, as long as it comes with the snappy uniform, badges and the boots. It’s killing power alone may deter its actual use, whereas the pistol may appear somehow more likely, and thus more dangerous. But in the end, of course, it’s not the weapon that matters but the man with the weapon. Here in Bali the machinegun remains a striking accessory. God forbid that it should someday become useful.
It’s one of those things that make Indonesia beautiful -- from the school girl in blue skirt and white blouse, bobby socks and tennis shoes to the beige and gray clad Barbie Dolls at the Matahari store to the jogging, singing soldiers all in khaki fatigues to the parade of Hindu celebrants marching in white linen. Everyone has an identity, each person his place in life, this daily procession of regimen and community, character and conformity. I am a student, I a soldier, I a civil servant, I a clerk -- and we all, one and many, are the citizenry of vast Indonesia.
The man with the machinegun strikes a pose, feet parted just so, firearm secure, shoulders squared, beret on right tilt, eyes on stolid, patient alert. He has been trained this way, and inspires -- what? Confidence? Assurance? With a dash of apprehension? This is, after all, Bali -- the land of suicidal motorbike drivers, the land of the perennially unlicensed and unlearned, where flying by the seat of your pants is the preferred lifestyle -- don’t worry, be happy, just do it Bali where rules are rumours and laws are idle gossip. Is it really a good idea to put a weapon such as this in the hands of generally questionable authority? Not a popgun, mind you, not a Billy Club or a tazer or even a six-shooter, but a machinegun -- a thing that would seem to be of some import on its own merit.
An automatic weapon on public display tends to be automatically unsettling, especially to those who are newly arrived from the West. Has a war broken out? Civil unrest? Are we invaded by Australia, or is the Al-Qaeda snake slithering nearby?
But in fact it is no big deal; and after three years or so the novelty, the anxiety, the surprise wears off, inspiring thereafter but a passing glance, if even that much. It is one of those things about this far flung island that shock at first sight -- an uncommon, eerie, somewhat frightening sight, such that the wide-eyed newcomer is wont to exclaim “My God, that fellow has a machinegun!”
Now admittedly, policemen in America carry handguns, but these are almost always holstered and look not nearly as impressive as a machinegun. A difference, however, may lie in the actual use of the weapon -- for while I have not seen, nor indeed ever heard of one of these Balinese officers actually using his weapon, the pistols carried by their American counterparts seem to be employed on an alarmingly regular basis, which itself seems generally consistent with an all-American love of bullets and loud noises.
I remember one incident in which a mentally ill man, just recently discharged from the hospital, ran afoul of the law and was shot 29 times while standing on his own front lawn. He was armed, as I recall, with a table knife, and so was deemed a threat to the safety of the public and of the officers on the scene. Whether these 29 bullets (not counting the misses) proceeded from one gun or from 29, I do not recall. I do remember the incident causing a bit of an uproar. And it occurs to me just now that one man with a machinegun could have achieved the same result with considerably less effort, less cost to the taxpayer, and without having to reload.
Reported recently in the local newspapers of Bali was a curious incident wherein a bank guard suddenly drew and discharged his sidearm several times after being startled by his own cell phone. Happily in this case no injuries were inflicted, except to the ceiling. It could have been worse. Just imagine if he had pointed his pistol at the cause of his alarm. And just imagine if it had been a machinegun instead of a pistol!
I suppose there’s something to be said for both types of firearm; but all considered I believe I prefer the machinegun, as long as it comes with the snappy uniform, badges and the boots. It’s killing power alone may deter its actual use, whereas the pistol may appear somehow more likely, and thus more dangerous. But in the end, of course, it’s not the weapon that matters but the man with the weapon. Here in Bali the machinegun remains a striking accessory. God forbid that it should someday become useful.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
How I Became An Unpaid Employment Agent
In our continuing search for the cheapest cup of coffee as well as the cheapest mug of beer in Sanur, depending upon the time of day, my friend Mick and I happened one day upon a certain restaurant-slash-bar at the north end of town. It is a rather large place on a rather busy corner just off the bypass, and the establishment itself was rather empty, as most places in Sanur are.
Without going into undue detail on a peripheral matter, I will simply suggest that this is because there are far too many restaurants in Sanur serving far too few customers. The choices grossly outnumber the choosers, such that people, especially those who are on holiday and are thus experiencing a hunger and thirst for the greatest variety of experience that can be crowded into a limited number of days, find themselves faced with nearly inexhaustible options (and we’re talking about Sanur alone, without mention of Kuta, Seminyak, Jimbaran, Nusa Dua and so on). So why not choose that one around the corner today, or that other one down the road a piece. Variety, as the saying goes, is the spice of life -- as well as the lifeblood of the seven day vacation.
Add to this the sad fact that most of the restaurateurs hoping to serve the vacationing bule population have jacked up their prices beyond any reasonable measure -- even for the bule with the legendary bulging pocketbook -- and what you get are restaurants and bars, one after another, attended in the main by their own lonely staff members -- young women who stand or rather wilt at the entryways, cradling menus and smiling sweetly.
Now, I’m not an economist by any means, but I cannot help but think that a surplus of one thing in coincidence with poverty in another (seller to buyer, that is) should result in a lowering of prices across the board. Who, in hopes of attracting a greater share of customers from a limited pool of the same, raises prices? Well, everyone, it seems. Less than three years ago the price of Bintang, for instance, hovered around Rp. 19.000 for the large. Now you find it ranging between 24.000 and 35.000 and more, and the price of a meal has experienced the same sharp increase. Where is the logic in this scheme?
But let’s return to the point from which we began -- to that large empty restaurant-slash-bar on the busy corner in north Sanur. Upon entering therein my friend and I did not find low prices, but did acquaint ourselves with the two pretty waitresses who worked there. I will call them Ani and Ayu, from Java and Bali respectively (some names and places have been altered to protect the innocent from my wife). For some time -- perhaps two weeks’ time -- I and Mick returned often. During this period Mick obtained from Ayu an agreement to marriage (leaving marginally problematic matters such as love, a common language and the fact that he was already married to be sorted out later), and I obtained from Ani a rather astounding tale of robbery and squalor. In short, I was told that these delightful young women were working seven days a week, from 8 o’clock in the morning till 11 o’clock at night, for a grand total of Rp. 500.000 per month.
Is it possible! Is this not slavery? Is this how such establishments stay afloat -- by paying paltry wages to desperate young women who perhaps don’t know any better, or else wise believe that they have no choice? Dastardly! Shades of Charles Dickens and the 19th century -- alive and well on the island of Bali.
Yes, but our meals are included, Ani told me. Not from the menu, mind you -- but of rice and chicken and maybe some veggies.
Well, my first thought was that these girls needed new jobs -- especially Ani, who had no proposal of marriage, spurious or otherwise -- and so I set out in search of the same. For this purpose, our habitual canvassing of culinary establishments in Sanur became at once quite useful, for I had acquainted myself with the ownership of more than a few restaurants and was generally in the know where staffing deficits are concerned. Ani entered her number into my phone and I began my new job.
Straightaway I found a suitable position and shot an SMS to Ani detailing the good news. Her wages, should she secure the job, would be nearly one million a month, and she would work 6 days a week, eight hours a day. Ani’s response to this news, however, proved a bit less than blissful. There were problems. She had no motorbike, for instance. And she did not know where the restaurant was located, for she had been during the year of her residence in Sanur only to her workplace and back home again to her Kos in Denpasar. Moreover, and most importantly, she was “takut” -- afraid -- and would need additional assistance in overcoming this condition. In short, I must personally pick her up, convey her to the employer, and all but hold her hand during the application process.
Ah well, so I did, and the job was secured.
Two days later Ani called me again with news of another friend in dire need of employment.
So it began, so it persists, so have I become a man of repute -- the unpaid personal employment agent of Sanur and South Denpasar.
Without going into undue detail on a peripheral matter, I will simply suggest that this is because there are far too many restaurants in Sanur serving far too few customers. The choices grossly outnumber the choosers, such that people, especially those who are on holiday and are thus experiencing a hunger and thirst for the greatest variety of experience that can be crowded into a limited number of days, find themselves faced with nearly inexhaustible options (and we’re talking about Sanur alone, without mention of Kuta, Seminyak, Jimbaran, Nusa Dua and so on). So why not choose that one around the corner today, or that other one down the road a piece. Variety, as the saying goes, is the spice of life -- as well as the lifeblood of the seven day vacation.
Add to this the sad fact that most of the restaurateurs hoping to serve the vacationing bule population have jacked up their prices beyond any reasonable measure -- even for the bule with the legendary bulging pocketbook -- and what you get are restaurants and bars, one after another, attended in the main by their own lonely staff members -- young women who stand or rather wilt at the entryways, cradling menus and smiling sweetly.
Now, I’m not an economist by any means, but I cannot help but think that a surplus of one thing in coincidence with poverty in another (seller to buyer, that is) should result in a lowering of prices across the board. Who, in hopes of attracting a greater share of customers from a limited pool of the same, raises prices? Well, everyone, it seems. Less than three years ago the price of Bintang, for instance, hovered around Rp. 19.000 for the large. Now you find it ranging between 24.000 and 35.000 and more, and the price of a meal has experienced the same sharp increase. Where is the logic in this scheme?
But let’s return to the point from which we began -- to that large empty restaurant-slash-bar on the busy corner in north Sanur. Upon entering therein my friend and I did not find low prices, but did acquaint ourselves with the two pretty waitresses who worked there. I will call them Ani and Ayu, from Java and Bali respectively (some names and places have been altered to protect the innocent from my wife). For some time -- perhaps two weeks’ time -- I and Mick returned often. During this period Mick obtained from Ayu an agreement to marriage (leaving marginally problematic matters such as love, a common language and the fact that he was already married to be sorted out later), and I obtained from Ani a rather astounding tale of robbery and squalor. In short, I was told that these delightful young women were working seven days a week, from 8 o’clock in the morning till 11 o’clock at night, for a grand total of Rp. 500.000 per month.
Is it possible! Is this not slavery? Is this how such establishments stay afloat -- by paying paltry wages to desperate young women who perhaps don’t know any better, or else wise believe that they have no choice? Dastardly! Shades of Charles Dickens and the 19th century -- alive and well on the island of Bali.
Yes, but our meals are included, Ani told me. Not from the menu, mind you -- but of rice and chicken and maybe some veggies.
Well, my first thought was that these girls needed new jobs -- especially Ani, who had no proposal of marriage, spurious or otherwise -- and so I set out in search of the same. For this purpose, our habitual canvassing of culinary establishments in Sanur became at once quite useful, for I had acquainted myself with the ownership of more than a few restaurants and was generally in the know where staffing deficits are concerned. Ani entered her number into my phone and I began my new job.
Straightaway I found a suitable position and shot an SMS to Ani detailing the good news. Her wages, should she secure the job, would be nearly one million a month, and she would work 6 days a week, eight hours a day. Ani’s response to this news, however, proved a bit less than blissful. There were problems. She had no motorbike, for instance. And she did not know where the restaurant was located, for she had been during the year of her residence in Sanur only to her workplace and back home again to her Kos in Denpasar. Moreover, and most importantly, she was “takut” -- afraid -- and would need additional assistance in overcoming this condition. In short, I must personally pick her up, convey her to the employer, and all but hold her hand during the application process.
Ah well, so I did, and the job was secured.
Two days later Ani called me again with news of another friend in dire need of employment.
So it began, so it persists, so have I become a man of repute -- the unpaid personal employment agent of Sanur and South Denpasar.
Monday, July 2, 2012
A Dog Story
I like dogs. It may be that I like them better than I like people. I make no apology. I’ve never been done wrong by a dog, save for the one that bit me in the nose when I was 5 -- though in all fairness, he was an older dog, likely faint of sight, and may have mistaken the nose for a sausage or some sort of savoury biscuit. Aside from that isolated incident, however, I’ve experienced nothing other than companionship and love.
So it happens that I often find myself saddened by the lot that has fallen to Bali dogs. It’s a dangerous place for dogs, is Bali, and they often run afoul of various hazards. One dog I had struck up a friendship with was later poisoned by angry people whose motorbikes he had chased too often. Another more recent friend fell into the unfortunate habit of harassing the neighbouring farmers’ chickens. Well okay, he ate a couple. And now he has quite disappeared from the face of the earth. One can’t help but suspect foul play.
One has to harden his heart. What else can one do?
I had a dog in America. His name was Smokey. We had to leave him when we came to Bali. I remember him now, how he would run in circles when someone came home, his own dance of joy, his expression of love. He was 3 years old and never got over peeing on the floor when he became overly excited.
We tried to find an owner for Smokey before we left, but could not. He was a big dog, a Labrador, with enormous paws and strong wide shoulders, and he laughed and played and ran like the wind.
We took him to the Oregon Humane Society the day before we left for Bali. The people there said that they place 99 percent of their dogs, and if there is a dog that they cannot place, they send him to an alternative home until someone will come and see him and love him and buy him.
I remember pushing Smokey from behind while the woman there in the Humane Society pulled him by the leash in the front.
Don’t do it, Smoky said, don’t do it, don’t make me, I want you, I love you.
And I said It’s okay, you’ll see, it’s okay.
Smokey was my friend. He was the best dog ever. When I was sick, when I was hurt, he was with me, and if I was cold he would sleep with his back against my chest. He was warm, and heavy, and so very present.
Smokey had a brother, a Chihuahua named Coco. It was easy to place Coco because he was small and cute and stupid while Smokey was large and rambunctious and devoted. He used to play so very carefully with Coco, letting the little dog bite his ears and nose. Sometimes he would hold Coco down with his forearm and put the little dog’s head inside his mouth. One time he picked Coco up by the back of his little dog shirt and carried him around the house from room to room as if he had found a pet of his own.
He loved that damn stupid little dog.
And he loved my wife’s ex-husband, Albert, because Albert would walk him two and three times a day, and they would wrestle sometimes, and Albert would buy him large bones from the butcher shop and bring them home in greasy brown paper.
Smokey never barked at people he knew except to say Hello my friend.
When my wife returned to Oregon for a time, I kept asking her to find out about Smokey. She said she had tried but could get nowhere. She said Just believe the best, that he is happy, maybe living on a farm with lots of land for running, with other dogs as friends, and maybe sheep, maybe cows, maybe horses, and children.
And so I called Albert instead. I asked him to find out about Smokey. And he did. And he told me.
Smokey loved children. He always wanted to be part of whatever game they were playing. He ran behind them, tried to join in as best as he understood how, and even when they shooed him and said Go away, Smokey would persist, because he loved to have fun, and he loved the way children themselves were like puppies. This anyway is what I believe.
I believe that dogs must surely go to heaven, although I have heard some people say it’s not so. And yet I believe that if God is love, He must love dogs very well indeed. I believe because I must, and must because any other alternative is unbearable. I believe that Smokey is waiting even now, and loves me still, and with the unquestioning devotion that only a dog can muster.
I dreamed of him after moving away to Bali. I dreamed of him often, and then the dreams suddenly stopped. I dreamed of Smokey running to me, jumping up to my chest (my heart) as he so often had, happy, happy, so large, so strong, so very present. There never was a better friend.
And so I wait now as Smokey waits, to embrace again, and wrestle, and play, and then sleep in warmth and comfort and safety when the day wanes to night and the night to slumber, and neither man nor dog must part or ever again wake to tears.
So it happens that I often find myself saddened by the lot that has fallen to Bali dogs. It’s a dangerous place for dogs, is Bali, and they often run afoul of various hazards. One dog I had struck up a friendship with was later poisoned by angry people whose motorbikes he had chased too often. Another more recent friend fell into the unfortunate habit of harassing the neighbouring farmers’ chickens. Well okay, he ate a couple. And now he has quite disappeared from the face of the earth. One can’t help but suspect foul play.
One has to harden his heart. What else can one do?
I had a dog in America. His name was Smokey. We had to leave him when we came to Bali. I remember him now, how he would run in circles when someone came home, his own dance of joy, his expression of love. He was 3 years old and never got over peeing on the floor when he became overly excited.
We tried to find an owner for Smokey before we left, but could not. He was a big dog, a Labrador, with enormous paws and strong wide shoulders, and he laughed and played and ran like the wind.
We took him to the Oregon Humane Society the day before we left for Bali. The people there said that they place 99 percent of their dogs, and if there is a dog that they cannot place, they send him to an alternative home until someone will come and see him and love him and buy him.
I remember pushing Smokey from behind while the woman there in the Humane Society pulled him by the leash in the front.
Don’t do it, Smoky said, don’t do it, don’t make me, I want you, I love you.
And I said It’s okay, you’ll see, it’s okay.
Smokey was my friend. He was the best dog ever. When I was sick, when I was hurt, he was with me, and if I was cold he would sleep with his back against my chest. He was warm, and heavy, and so very present.
Smokey had a brother, a Chihuahua named Coco. It was easy to place Coco because he was small and cute and stupid while Smokey was large and rambunctious and devoted. He used to play so very carefully with Coco, letting the little dog bite his ears and nose. Sometimes he would hold Coco down with his forearm and put the little dog’s head inside his mouth. One time he picked Coco up by the back of his little dog shirt and carried him around the house from room to room as if he had found a pet of his own.
He loved that damn stupid little dog.
And he loved my wife’s ex-husband, Albert, because Albert would walk him two and three times a day, and they would wrestle sometimes, and Albert would buy him large bones from the butcher shop and bring them home in greasy brown paper.
Smokey never barked at people he knew except to say Hello my friend.
When my wife returned to Oregon for a time, I kept asking her to find out about Smokey. She said she had tried but could get nowhere. She said Just believe the best, that he is happy, maybe living on a farm with lots of land for running, with other dogs as friends, and maybe sheep, maybe cows, maybe horses, and children.
And so I called Albert instead. I asked him to find out about Smokey. And he did. And he told me.
Smokey loved children. He always wanted to be part of whatever game they were playing. He ran behind them, tried to join in as best as he understood how, and even when they shooed him and said Go away, Smokey would persist, because he loved to have fun, and he loved the way children themselves were like puppies. This anyway is what I believe.
I believe that dogs must surely go to heaven, although I have heard some people say it’s not so. And yet I believe that if God is love, He must love dogs very well indeed. I believe because I must, and must because any other alternative is unbearable. I believe that Smokey is waiting even now, and loves me still, and with the unquestioning devotion that only a dog can muster.
I dreamed of him after moving away to Bali. I dreamed of him often, and then the dreams suddenly stopped. I dreamed of Smokey running to me, jumping up to my chest (my heart) as he so often had, happy, happy, so large, so strong, so very present. There never was a better friend.
And so I wait now as Smokey waits, to embrace again, and wrestle, and play, and then sleep in warmth and comfort and safety when the day wanes to night and the night to slumber, and neither man nor dog must part or ever again wake to tears.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Not Everything in the Waste Bin is Garbage
Found a rat in the outdoor trash bin this morning. At first I didn’t know it was a rat, for its body was half hidden within a Chitato bag, just one end protruding -- whether head or ass I could not on first inspection say. Clearly it was not a comely creature. I thought it was maybe a frog or a lizard or part of a snake or a very large cockroach or merely a banana peel (my eyesight is not good), but a brief conference with my wife concluded the thing to be a rat. Or not a rat, actually, but a similar creature known in these parts as a cucurut.
Having been thus identified -- his cover blown -- the cucurut and his Chitato bag began to move, and in this a second cucurut was disturbed and began to move as well, emerging from the deeper parts of the bin in what seemed a fairly lousy mood, such that it felt compelled to pounce upon the first cucurut from the rear. A brief scuffle ensued. I retreated a few steps whilst my wife retired to the living room.
“Should I let them out?” I called back to her.
“Just leave them.”
“Do you think they would bite me?”
“Just leave them.”
“But that seems so . . . hard-hearted.”
No answer.
So I’m standing there between porch and bin wondering how the critters got into the can to begin with. It’s a mystery not unlike another Bali mystery I have written of in the past -- to whit, how small frogs can end up on my front porch when the steps are far too high for them to jump. That, and now this thing with the cucurut, both seem to defy reason. They defy natural science. They defy physics and every other science.
Clearly the mouth of the garbage bin is far too distant from the ground to be attained by a leap from these diminutive critters, and the proof of the same, if it even needing proving, is readily apparent in the failure of their ongoing efforts to jump out of the bin from within -- which is something they are rather vigorously attempting to do just now. They leap, accomplish maybe half a foot in height, and then fall back to the padded floor of their prison, emitting little shrieks of irritation. In this last I note that these Balinese cucuruts are much louder than the common western rat, and that there seems something almost human in the tone of their frustration. Aduh!
So their predicament was not accomplished by a leap. No way.
What then? Tiny ladders they had constructed in advance? Roman-like siege towers? Ah, but where is the evidence of these ladders and towers? Ropes made of vine, grappling hooks, stacked doll furniture, miniature helicopters? Again, no such machinery appears. The bin is about half a foot distant from a stone wall, itself about seven feet in height, from which they may have dropped like paratroopers, I suppose -- but again, how might they have reached the top of the wall to begin with, and how pull off this seven foot plunge without serious injury, barring the use of tiny parachutes? No, a descent from above seems no more likely than ascension from below.
How then? I simply do not know. Perhaps they were deposited by human hand. Perhaps someone else had them at first in his own bin, did not want them, and so transferred them to ours (but that leaves, at the very least, the question of how they first got into his bin, doesn’t it?) It may be, as is the apparent case with the frogs, that they fell from the sky. It may even be some form of black magic.
In any case, the growing fever of these two little guys’ attempts to escape the pickle they’ve got themselves into -- their rattling and shrieking, thumping and scratching -- eventually chases away my preoccupation with the mere fact of their presence, and I begin to wonder again how I might free them, or whether indeed I should free them. It is not such a simple question. There are moral considerations involved. And there are personal safety issues as well. Do cucuruts deserve freedom? Do they even know what freedom is? And if granted their freedom, how will they use it in the future? Have they learned anything from this present experience? Can I myself, morally, ‘just leave them,’ as my wife had advised, knowing then that they must surely perish (unless somehow removed by the same magic that got them there)?
I approach nearby, peer into their personal pit of hell -- that same which must have seemed heaven in the beginning, now become a heartless grave -- and it stirs something in me, tugs a heart string, touches a nerve of commiseration .
Ah, there but for the grace of God go I.
Having been thus identified -- his cover blown -- the cucurut and his Chitato bag began to move, and in this a second cucurut was disturbed and began to move as well, emerging from the deeper parts of the bin in what seemed a fairly lousy mood, such that it felt compelled to pounce upon the first cucurut from the rear. A brief scuffle ensued. I retreated a few steps whilst my wife retired to the living room.
“Should I let them out?” I called back to her.
“Just leave them.”
“Do you think they would bite me?”
“Just leave them.”
“But that seems so . . . hard-hearted.”
No answer.
So I’m standing there between porch and bin wondering how the critters got into the can to begin with. It’s a mystery not unlike another Bali mystery I have written of in the past -- to whit, how small frogs can end up on my front porch when the steps are far too high for them to jump. That, and now this thing with the cucurut, both seem to defy reason. They defy natural science. They defy physics and every other science.
Clearly the mouth of the garbage bin is far too distant from the ground to be attained by a leap from these diminutive critters, and the proof of the same, if it even needing proving, is readily apparent in the failure of their ongoing efforts to jump out of the bin from within -- which is something they are rather vigorously attempting to do just now. They leap, accomplish maybe half a foot in height, and then fall back to the padded floor of their prison, emitting little shrieks of irritation. In this last I note that these Balinese cucuruts are much louder than the common western rat, and that there seems something almost human in the tone of their frustration. Aduh!
So their predicament was not accomplished by a leap. No way.
What then? Tiny ladders they had constructed in advance? Roman-like siege towers? Ah, but where is the evidence of these ladders and towers? Ropes made of vine, grappling hooks, stacked doll furniture, miniature helicopters? Again, no such machinery appears. The bin is about half a foot distant from a stone wall, itself about seven feet in height, from which they may have dropped like paratroopers, I suppose -- but again, how might they have reached the top of the wall to begin with, and how pull off this seven foot plunge without serious injury, barring the use of tiny parachutes? No, a descent from above seems no more likely than ascension from below.
How then? I simply do not know. Perhaps they were deposited by human hand. Perhaps someone else had them at first in his own bin, did not want them, and so transferred them to ours (but that leaves, at the very least, the question of how they first got into his bin, doesn’t it?) It may be, as is the apparent case with the frogs, that they fell from the sky. It may even be some form of black magic.
In any case, the growing fever of these two little guys’ attempts to escape the pickle they’ve got themselves into -- their rattling and shrieking, thumping and scratching -- eventually chases away my preoccupation with the mere fact of their presence, and I begin to wonder again how I might free them, or whether indeed I should free them. It is not such a simple question. There are moral considerations involved. And there are personal safety issues as well. Do cucuruts deserve freedom? Do they even know what freedom is? And if granted their freedom, how will they use it in the future? Have they learned anything from this present experience? Can I myself, morally, ‘just leave them,’ as my wife had advised, knowing then that they must surely perish (unless somehow removed by the same magic that got them there)?
I approach nearby, peer into their personal pit of hell -- that same which must have seemed heaven in the beginning, now become a heartless grave -- and it stirs something in me, tugs a heart string, touches a nerve of commiseration .
Ah, there but for the grace of God go I.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
You Get What You Pay For
My wife believes in the power of money. It is a matter for her of the surest conviction and faith that any problem can be solved, any goal attained, through the expenditure of appropriate (or even inappropriate) funds. I will admit that this may in some cases be true, given a limited scope of predicament and cure. Say for instance that you’ve been arrested and jailed on a misdemeanour charge and bail has been set at five hundred dollars. Or say that you’ve neglected to pay your house mortgage for the last three months and the man from the bank is coming at 5 p.m. on Friday. Or say that you’ve been stopped by the Bali police and you don’t have a license or a vehicle registration or a helmet. In each case money is the answer, at least in the immediate sense. You pay and you’re on your way.
But when it comes to weight loss, I’m not so sure about the efficacy of the dollar to intervene in an equally successful measure. Call me callow, call me naïve, call me a cheapskate, but it seems to me that weight loss is a matter of personal commitment, grim determination, unwavering resolution, and not a little pain. It also helps to eat less. Is it too simple to say that a program of exercise and diet is the obvious solution in the desire to lose weight?
Not at all, my wife says. That’s why she needs that treadmill from Hypermart. That’s why she needs the HerbaLife Diet regimen. Exercise is easy with a treadmill. And it’s not as boring as these common, old-school type exercises, like sit-ups and crunches and jumping jacks. You can watch the TV while you exercise and hardly be aware of the exertion. The weight simply melts away while the CSI team solves another murder or Joan Rivers murders another Hollywood luminary. And the expense of that special, scientifically researched diet, medically approved by Good Housekeeping magazine, supplies its own incentive in the price alone. After all, who is going to pay that much money and NOT lose weight? It’s a matter of pride. It’s a matter of accountability. It’s a matter of responsible economics.
In short then, weight loss is firstly a matter of personal finances, not personal effort. The physical wherewithal of success has first to be put in place. My daughter once stated the case in a similar manner. She wanted a car but did not have a job, and she could not get a job because she did not have a car. One’s ducks must be in a proper row, you see; a foundational groundwork must be in place.
There are so many things in the world that come with a caveat, or so I have learned from marriage and children. As an example, my wife bought a bike a few weeks ago from our neighbour, for the same weight shedding purpose, and yet the bike has stood untouched in the driveway ever since. I wondered about this, and so I asked why. Having but half a brain, I had failed, as usual, to see the obvious. She could not possibly use that bike, I was told, before purchasing proper gloves, lest her hands end up calloused and thick as sweet potatoes. Note that I say “proper gloves” -- not mittens of the sort you see motorcyclists wearing here in Bali, but leather gloves with holes for the fingertips and a Velcro strap at the wrist.
I should say before going any further that my wife is not fat. She’s not really even overweight. She’s merely 35, and therefore fat in her imagination, overfed by the female fear of aging, suffering from the vague inkling that she cannot remain 25 forever, yet encouraged in the belief that there are ways around this dilemma -- exercise, diet, Botox, plastic surgery, tummy tucks, pills, and money. Mostly money.
To make my own point then, in my customary curmudgeonly, parsimonious way, I decided to go on weight loss program of my own. There would be no great expense, and in fact I would save money simply by eating less. If our son fades away in the bargain for lack potable sustenance, well it’s all for a good cause. For exercise my plan is to use my own feet, legs and arms -- this amazing machine I was born with, and quite without cost.
Breakfast is one egg, one chicken bone, and a piece of plain toast, no margarine. The stuff they call margarine here is really only yellow car wax anyway. Lunch is potato chips and five cups of coffee, a combination that causes nausea till well after dinner, thus quelling any desire to imbibe the same. If I hunger by night, I allow high energy snacks such as Snickers bars, cookies, Ritz Crackers and such-like.
Where exercise is concerned I decided to adhere to the good old fashioned sit-up. No better way to tone and flatten the stomach right? But I find straightaway that something is wrong. This exercise was not nearly so difficult thirty years ago. What happened? Herculean efforts result in no more than three successful elevations from the floor, and then I’m on my back for five minutes of heavy breathing. I try again and my stomach muscles cry for mercy.
What does seem readily apparent after two days and two nights of this personalized program is that this is not working out well at all. I’m hungry, I’m in pain, and I’ve gained two pounds. Better to just surrender to the wisdom of my wife and go with that treadmill after all. If nothing else, it will make for a good towel rack.
But when it comes to weight loss, I’m not so sure about the efficacy of the dollar to intervene in an equally successful measure. Call me callow, call me naïve, call me a cheapskate, but it seems to me that weight loss is a matter of personal commitment, grim determination, unwavering resolution, and not a little pain. It also helps to eat less. Is it too simple to say that a program of exercise and diet is the obvious solution in the desire to lose weight?
Not at all, my wife says. That’s why she needs that treadmill from Hypermart. That’s why she needs the HerbaLife Diet regimen. Exercise is easy with a treadmill. And it’s not as boring as these common, old-school type exercises, like sit-ups and crunches and jumping jacks. You can watch the TV while you exercise and hardly be aware of the exertion. The weight simply melts away while the CSI team solves another murder or Joan Rivers murders another Hollywood luminary. And the expense of that special, scientifically researched diet, medically approved by Good Housekeeping magazine, supplies its own incentive in the price alone. After all, who is going to pay that much money and NOT lose weight? It’s a matter of pride. It’s a matter of accountability. It’s a matter of responsible economics.
In short then, weight loss is firstly a matter of personal finances, not personal effort. The physical wherewithal of success has first to be put in place. My daughter once stated the case in a similar manner. She wanted a car but did not have a job, and she could not get a job because she did not have a car. One’s ducks must be in a proper row, you see; a foundational groundwork must be in place.
There are so many things in the world that come with a caveat, or so I have learned from marriage and children. As an example, my wife bought a bike a few weeks ago from our neighbour, for the same weight shedding purpose, and yet the bike has stood untouched in the driveway ever since. I wondered about this, and so I asked why. Having but half a brain, I had failed, as usual, to see the obvious. She could not possibly use that bike, I was told, before purchasing proper gloves, lest her hands end up calloused and thick as sweet potatoes. Note that I say “proper gloves” -- not mittens of the sort you see motorcyclists wearing here in Bali, but leather gloves with holes for the fingertips and a Velcro strap at the wrist.
I should say before going any further that my wife is not fat. She’s not really even overweight. She’s merely 35, and therefore fat in her imagination, overfed by the female fear of aging, suffering from the vague inkling that she cannot remain 25 forever, yet encouraged in the belief that there are ways around this dilemma -- exercise, diet, Botox, plastic surgery, tummy tucks, pills, and money. Mostly money.
To make my own point then, in my customary curmudgeonly, parsimonious way, I decided to go on weight loss program of my own. There would be no great expense, and in fact I would save money simply by eating less. If our son fades away in the bargain for lack potable sustenance, well it’s all for a good cause. For exercise my plan is to use my own feet, legs and arms -- this amazing machine I was born with, and quite without cost.
Breakfast is one egg, one chicken bone, and a piece of plain toast, no margarine. The stuff they call margarine here is really only yellow car wax anyway. Lunch is potato chips and five cups of coffee, a combination that causes nausea till well after dinner, thus quelling any desire to imbibe the same. If I hunger by night, I allow high energy snacks such as Snickers bars, cookies, Ritz Crackers and such-like.
Where exercise is concerned I decided to adhere to the good old fashioned sit-up. No better way to tone and flatten the stomach right? But I find straightaway that something is wrong. This exercise was not nearly so difficult thirty years ago. What happened? Herculean efforts result in no more than three successful elevations from the floor, and then I’m on my back for five minutes of heavy breathing. I try again and my stomach muscles cry for mercy.
What does seem readily apparent after two days and two nights of this personalized program is that this is not working out well at all. I’m hungry, I’m in pain, and I’ve gained two pounds. Better to just surrender to the wisdom of my wife and go with that treadmill after all. If nothing else, it will make for a good towel rack.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Linguishtics
America has been called ‘the melting pot of the world,’ at least in olden time, for its invitation to people all over the globe to immigrate to its happy shores, but for me it can never hold a candle to the variety and variance of cultures and tongues one finds in the sunny environs of Bali. The trouble with America is that people soon become Americans, shedding the uniqueness of their heritage for a new skin, a gray flannel suit of conformity, such that the quirks and traits that made them foreign people soon no longer attain. I knew, for instance, many Indonesians in America, and yet knew not a single one until I came to Bali -- for they had all become Americans, you see? And no one loves America so well as expatriated Indonesians -- its anaemic culture, its disposition toward greed, its worship of money, its love of ‘things’ -- shoes, clothing, jewellery, cars. Charity, community, character -- all suffer under the stress of a rich yet reductive national ethos.
But enough of America bashing for the moment. What I want to say is that here in Bali the Brit stays British, the Aussie Australian, the Frenchman French and so on the wide world of immigrants over -- for in this far flung archipelago a nonnegotiable divide is encountered. The bule can hardly become an Indonesian, and so he must stay as he is, dragging along his cultural and linguistic peculiarities just as surely as his own skin. We don‘t put on airs, or join the PTA, or sit in the seats of government, or reside over Hindu processions. No, we remain perfectly foreign. We are neither consumed nor altered nor absorbed. Our essential frame of reference remains with the culture and character of our countries of origin, and we continue for the most part to speak in our native tongues and to employ our native idioms of language.
Which brings me to this concept of “ish” as employed by the peoples of some western countries to denote some peculiarly uncertain increment of time. It is a strange notion to the American, for we are precise sorts of people. For the American, eleven o’clock means 11 o’clock. Noon means noon. There is no “ish” about it. And yet for the Australian, for instance, and the Englishman and the Frenchman and the Italian, time is not so easily pinned down. It’s fluid, somewhat questionable, somewhat if-ish.
“Coffee at 9-ish,” my English friend says. What does this mean? Something like 9? Two or three minutes before or past nine? At some point during which the general atmosphere of the day seems to resemble 9?
I certainly don’t know, and so I arrive for coffee at 9. And of course my friend is not there. Nor is he there at 2 minutes after 9, or 5, or 10, or 20. I conclude therefore that the term 9-ish has nothing in essential to do with the actual fact of 9 o’clock. I note also that by 20 minutes past the hour I have already finished my cappuccino. Why were we meeting? For coffee, right?
It may or may not be marginally interesting at this point to note that the word “Ish” was one of the first words used to denote a member of the human race, and can be found, curiously enough, in various widely separated parts of the world -- from the Middle East to South America. Adam, in the Hebrew, was called Ish, and in his first words in the Torah he calls the newly created woman Isha. Clearly then, the term has been a longstanding one, and why it never caught on in America, I cannot say. Other well known ishes would include Ishrael, Ishlam, Chrishtianity, Ishmail, Ishstanbul, and Ish-Kabibble. As well as fishes, of course.
Shall we conclude therefore, given the modern use of the term “ish,” that there was something inexact, unreliable, unpredictable about man and the world and the cosmos from the outset? Or is it just the American expectation of precision that is fishy?
In any case, my friend shows up at 9:30 -- ish having meant, in this case, for this day, 30 minutes past the hour. Why did he not say 9:30 to begin with? Why say 9 if you mean 9:30? Ah, but there is that all important, intangible “ish” attached.
“Well hey, Mike-ish. Run into some trouble along the way?“
“No trouble. Why?“
“You’re a bit tardy-ish, that’s all.“
“Not at all. I said 9-ish, did I not?”
“But as you can see, my cappuccino is rather gone-ish.”
“Ah well, have another. It’s still early-ish, ish-n’t it?”
It is agreed then. Next time around I will plan to arrive for coffee late-ish.
But enough of America bashing for the moment. What I want to say is that here in Bali the Brit stays British, the Aussie Australian, the Frenchman French and so on the wide world of immigrants over -- for in this far flung archipelago a nonnegotiable divide is encountered. The bule can hardly become an Indonesian, and so he must stay as he is, dragging along his cultural and linguistic peculiarities just as surely as his own skin. We don‘t put on airs, or join the PTA, or sit in the seats of government, or reside over Hindu processions. No, we remain perfectly foreign. We are neither consumed nor altered nor absorbed. Our essential frame of reference remains with the culture and character of our countries of origin, and we continue for the most part to speak in our native tongues and to employ our native idioms of language.
Which brings me to this concept of “ish” as employed by the peoples of some western countries to denote some peculiarly uncertain increment of time. It is a strange notion to the American, for we are precise sorts of people. For the American, eleven o’clock means 11 o’clock. Noon means noon. There is no “ish” about it. And yet for the Australian, for instance, and the Englishman and the Frenchman and the Italian, time is not so easily pinned down. It’s fluid, somewhat questionable, somewhat if-ish.
“Coffee at 9-ish,” my English friend says. What does this mean? Something like 9? Two or three minutes before or past nine? At some point during which the general atmosphere of the day seems to resemble 9?
I certainly don’t know, and so I arrive for coffee at 9. And of course my friend is not there. Nor is he there at 2 minutes after 9, or 5, or 10, or 20. I conclude therefore that the term 9-ish has nothing in essential to do with the actual fact of 9 o’clock. I note also that by 20 minutes past the hour I have already finished my cappuccino. Why were we meeting? For coffee, right?
It may or may not be marginally interesting at this point to note that the word “Ish” was one of the first words used to denote a member of the human race, and can be found, curiously enough, in various widely separated parts of the world -- from the Middle East to South America. Adam, in the Hebrew, was called Ish, and in his first words in the Torah he calls the newly created woman Isha. Clearly then, the term has been a longstanding one, and why it never caught on in America, I cannot say. Other well known ishes would include Ishrael, Ishlam, Chrishtianity, Ishmail, Ishstanbul, and Ish-Kabibble. As well as fishes, of course.
Shall we conclude therefore, given the modern use of the term “ish,” that there was something inexact, unreliable, unpredictable about man and the world and the cosmos from the outset? Or is it just the American expectation of precision that is fishy?
In any case, my friend shows up at 9:30 -- ish having meant, in this case, for this day, 30 minutes past the hour. Why did he not say 9:30 to begin with? Why say 9 if you mean 9:30? Ah, but there is that all important, intangible “ish” attached.
“Well hey, Mike-ish. Run into some trouble along the way?“
“No trouble. Why?“
“You’re a bit tardy-ish, that’s all.“
“Not at all. I said 9-ish, did I not?”
“But as you can see, my cappuccino is rather gone-ish.”
“Ah well, have another. It’s still early-ish, ish-n’t it?”
It is agreed then. Next time around I will plan to arrive for coffee late-ish.
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