The art of writer's block

Ukraine: Part Three

2009-09-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

At times I can’t seem to praise this program enough because it would provide elemental learning experiences for absolutely anyone, not just those seeking a career in international relations. Hell, maybe this program should be included in our public school curriculum: Once Little Billy’s done Social Studies, send him on the next plane to Ghana to discover a human condition other than his own. When the world’s becoming a tighter network what’s the harm in people trying to become less alien to one another?

We Canadians gained invaluable insight through absorbing various degrees of culture shock provided by our counterparts and host-families. All of us probably felt one step closer to becoming true-blooded cosmopolitans as we spoke in nothing but parables to loved-ones back home; so many stories of delightful madness … reading through my journal, I realize my abattoir of bizarre anecdotes will likely become indicator of a swift decent towards senility come my golden years…

Experiencing the lifestyle was just the first step to this brilliant social experiment! The most enlightening aspect was our weekly group discussion. We would have been shut off from one another a generation earlier, but now as Canadian and Ukrainian participants we were able to sit down and scrutinize various issues surrounding us. An exchange of different perspectives to broaden our minds and better understand our foreign brethren… this exercise proved difficult when Canadians began addressing the more troubling aspects of Ukrainian life. In other words, we couldn’t avoid mentioning the prejudices we’d been noticing.

…some of my most interesting stories raise this touchy issue, which hasn’t made them any easier to discuss years after the program –an element of controversy sure to make any grandchildren think I’m certifiably bat-shit crazy and warrant an early check-in at Shady Acres, where ‘pirogue-night’ will have to be discontinued after instigating many of my discomforting rants.

Now as I flip through page after page of notes I come across one brief instance that begins simple enough but takes an odd turn for the worst:

My counterpart and I would frequent his grandparents’ apartment. Initially, I was uncertain how I’d be received as an outsider by people possibly of an older soviet mindset, but his grandfather and I ended up getting along famously; it felt as if we'd known each other for years. Who knows, being a very successful businessman himself maybe any Westerner with an affinity to free enterprise was no stranger.

This was the place where I rubbed elbows with Ukraine’s high-society. During a dinner party with his family, friends and other aristocrats I sat next to a woman who was a judge for the Supreme Court of Ukraine. This was a surreal opportunity not only because I was in the presence of someone who played a pivotal role in the revolution but someone who attained prestige within a profession not known for gender diversification. I asked whether she faced any obstacles in her career being a woman. She explained how, despite her success, she encountered many stereotypes which made it difficult for Ukrainian women to move away from the traditional roles set out for them; Stereotypes that weren’t overtly disrespectful, just persistently discouraging.

As we spoke, the grandfather had grown concerned watching me use a fork and knife to eat a piece of salted fish. He urgently interrupted the conversation.

“He says only a little girl wouldn’t use her hands to eat that,” my counterpart informed me.

I looked around the table and expected to see at least one smirk reflecting the facetiousness of this remark, but there wasn’t the slightest reaction from anyone. This comment wasn’t a little off-colour… no?

The man wasn’t fooling around. He watched me silently, waiting for me to drop the cutlery and save what manhood I had left. He was patient because he really didn’t want to resort to calling me a pussy in front of everyone.

So… my ability to brave greasy hands was what separated me from a female? A little girl none the less: the epitome of sissy-dom. Was this worth the interruption and having me reprimanded? I wondered what trouble I’d cause if I had tampons fall out of my purse at that moment. Would he immediately phone the circus to report a fugitive?

His insular comment couldn’t have been better timed to illustrate his indifference towards this woman’s issue. He was genuinely oblivious to providing case-in-point which was a shame he couldn’t appreciate being part of one of the finest examples of irony.

The room fell silent and everyone’s eyes were on us. A cross-road had been reached between two old friends. Was I going to let my testicles descend so I could finally finish my meal? Why was I having dinner-table stare-downs with so many people in this country?

I have other stories related to prejudices I’d encountered, some far more drastic that could paint Ukraine as some sort of bigoted backwater, especially for those accustomed to more politically-correct overtones. These instances might be worth mentioning, but I can’t help worry that by simply reciting them there’s the danger of stepping atop a moral high-ground… and missing something… something important. Or should I just go with my instinct and play the critic and provide my diatribe of Ukraine? Don't I deserve to? I am Canadian after all, a people renowned for tolerance.

Any doubts, just look how we’ve been brought-up by the greatest teacher of the Western World: television. When we witnessed the inner-city children of Sesame Street living peacefully amongst multi-coloured puppet monsters with crippling neuroses, we believed all levels of acceptance possible. Any of us left doubting the senselessness of hate were at least instilled with the fear of Gene Hackman in Mississippi Burning. We were educated to say no to discrimination with the same determination we were supposed to say no to drugs… Well, the older I got the more I realized this campaign was just as fail-safe as the other. Let's just say our PC mantra can become a thin veil to our own brand of prejudice.

I met many Ukrainians who told me a series of jokes intended to insult the intelligence of citizens from one neighboring country. Someone asked, “How does a Moldavian cook an egg? He throws it against the wall and then irons it. ” Unbeknownst of the stereotypes of this obscure nationality, the only thing I could appreciate was the absurdity in such unbridled maliciousness. After hearing several of these jokes I had to laugh and ask, “What the hell has a Moldavian ever done to you?” But switch-up Moldavian with any familiar ethnicity and haven’t we all heard this joke a million times before?… well, not specifically about cooking an egg on the wall, I still don’t know what the fuck that really means.

As I’ve mentioned before, it becomes reflex to point out and even dramatize the unfamiliar – and a new tone of prejudice can be as potent as an unrecognizable body odor! Self-reflection can be neglected just as easily in a place as distracting as Ukraine, so I must remind myself that stepping atop higher ground while discussing intolerance would be removing myself from an issue I know all too well, every Canadian does. Canadian participants lent just as much insight into the topic as Ukrainians. We could even play on irony just as well as my counterpart’s grandfather.

This doesn’t really surprise me because I believe absolutely every single one of us is fully capable of gross generalities, prejudice, discrimination and being overtly racist, homophobic or sexist. Aversion is a rigorous process of self-policing because we can fail to recognize our own unhealthy preconceptions when the harm they have on other people isn’t as obvious as say, lighting a torch, tying a noose and joining the late-night Welcome Wagon.

So how does such a brief story about a dinner party raise so many questions? Well when I think of stories that could instigate discussion I can’t help but refer to one of my oddest experiences… at the banya.

It all began at the house when I was sitting around the kitchen table with both my host-brothers and their friends from out of town. It was rowdy night of drinking and talking shit about those wily Russians.

Suddenly everyone wanted to move the party elsewhere. I heard the word banya being tossed around. My counterpart wouldn’t explain what this was because he was too busy shaking his head. I was just told to bring a bar of soap and a pair of sandals. Soon we were marching through town.

The banya could be considered a sort of spa or bath house, where men sat in an absurdly hot sauna (wearing pointy felt hats so their hair wouldn’t singe) and then they’d step out and dive into a deep, stainless steel vat of ice cold water. After this it was back into the sauna where they’d repeat this process until their body began feeling the euphoric sense of shock. This was considered to be healthy for some reason, maybe because it conditioned the body to handle extremes in temperature. If we weren’t doing this we were showering or sitting around drinking tea. Most importantly, all of these activities were done bare-assed naked.

Needless to say this was a confusing experience. One moment, we were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking our faces off like a bunch of ruffians then, an instant later, we were at a different table, naked and quietly sipping tea. I’d never imagined twenty minutes could provide such a drastic transition where my primary thought-process of, “I sure hope I don’t feel sick from mixing vodka with beer,” could immediately turn to, “I sure hope I don’t spill any of this hot beverage on my balls.”

With no escape in sight, I overcame my fear of exhibitionism by trying to think of this moment as just another unique cultural experience. I’ll admit, after a while there was a strange sense of freedom in being able to shamelessly wear our skin like poorly fitted suits; elation familiar to elderly men meandering locker-rooms the world over… but everything was soon spoiled by some weirdo sitting across from me.

This guy started looking down at my business. After having a good long look he looked me in the face momentarily only to look back down again. He repeated this several times and began smiling to himself. Aware of the difficulty in establishing dialogue, I gave him the universal “can I fucking help you” look. Once this failed to deter him I noticed everyone staring at my penis, even my host-brothers were catching the quick glance while whispering to each other.

I’d become anxious to figure out why I’d become lead spectacle in this freak-show. Firstly, I thought people were amused with what I’d been born with, but this didn’t seem the case amongst so many other show-stoppers. Then, I worried whether it was because we were worlds apart in relation to body-hair grooming. As negligent as any traveler, I looked as if I were auditioning for a skin-flick circa 1967 and, being the ambitious method-actor, I was trying for the part of the homeless man… well, everyone else looked to be waiting outside the same casting office so that wasn’t the case either. THEN WHAT THE HELL WAS IT? People were acting as if my penis had suddenly become animated and started telling dirty jokes.

Then it suddenly dawned on me: Everyone was still wearing their turtlenecks; not one trouser snake had its collar hemmed; no one had ever seen Private Johnson still wearing his helmet while ‘at ease’ – I could attempt making analogies for circumcision all day.

So that was it? That was what was causing me so much attention? The idea of such superficiality caused me to develop an unabashedly pretentious air; walking around while shouting in my head, “Look at it all you want assholes! For the longest time I thought smegma was a name for some sort of soup!”

Passing through the locker-room I encountered one guy who looked at it, looked me in face with intense disgust and turned away abruptly. A reaction like this felt like a swift kick to the stomach. It seemed a little extreme for someone simply disliking the aesthetics of it. I had to double check whether he’d read something personally insulting tattooed above my groin. What the hell could invoke such a reaction from someone? Well, this nude exposé proved circumcision wasn’t prominent amongst the majority of Eastern Orthodoxy nor the secular crowd in Ukraine… so did that just leave a Jewish affiliation? This reaction made a little more sense considering that anti-Semitism was still alive in Ukraine.

A short walk through the woods near my host-family’s house quickly turned into a horrific history lesson when I stumbled upon a mass grave where 2,500 Jewish citizens of Ostroh and the surrounding area were assembled for execution by occupying Nazi forces. Those who had once made up sixty per cent of Ostroh’s population were now reduced to several families.

Ukrainian Jews have experienced a history of devastating pogroms long before World War Two. Long afterwards, cultural sensitivities in Ostroh amounted to bulldozers clearing away headstones at the Jewish cemetery to make way for a park. An ancient synagogue with a mystical history was now nothing more than a refuse dump. Taking a trip to the western city L’viv, Canadians could easily see where prominent Neo-Nazis left their mark. A grievous conversation with some Ukrainians could easily entice an anti-Semitic rant. While all of this seemed overwhelming to Canadians, we had a chance to discuss the matter with our counterparts.

Now, one thing I should mention about our group discussions was how they could be… well…. complete fucking disasters!!!… when all fore- and afterthought was left by the wayside; when debates digressed into pissing matches; when emotion trumped reason and all productivity came to a grinding halt. At times we were nowhere near reaching any understanding... these moments were goddamn frustrating!

… Although… in retrospect I appreciated the genius of this exercise all the more because it showed us the pitfalls of diplomacy firsthand. I walked away with new insight into the dangers of misunderstanding, wondering whether shit ever got that petty at the United Nations.

– Sure, there are times when it seems like this program offers nothing but a grim reality-check, but I still think we should put Little Billy on the next chartered flight. He’s already dealing with more disconcerting allegories in English class. Weren’t we all handed Lord of the Flies to read in our youth? Our teachers’ way of saying, “This is what you pubescent piss-ants would do to each other if left to your own devices and don’t think things change once you get older, so whoever relates to Piggy better shape-up before the real world eats you alive.”

Due to my own weaknesses I hadn’t grabbed the conch near enough. Upset and confused I spent too much time trying to rationalize my aggravation to a dog with a broken leg. Now that I’ve had time to internalize what happened I hope it’s not too late to share useful perspective.

Well, one such car-wreck of a discussion combined the complications of language barriers, age-old questions of Jewish identity and quick tempers. It started when Ukrainian participants mentioned a distinction between being Ukrainian and being Jewish. This knocked the wind out of all of us Canadians considering the unfounded marginalization of Jews throughout history, especially in Ukraine… hell, most of us had seen Fiddler on the Roof.

“How can someone not be considered Ukrainian simply because of their religion?” Someone asked.

“Ukrainians are Ukrainians and Jews are Jews,” was the explanation reiterated to us.

However, the Ukrainians were speaking in the broader terms of ethnicity. Jewish identity wasn’t always exclusive to religion; there were many believers and non-believers who consider themselves ‘a people,’ just as many Ukrainians weren’t restricted to nationality; as their culture had been established long before having an independent state.

We might have not agreed with what we were hearing, but we should note how much of what you read on Ukraine cast its Jewish population among its ethnic demography, so Ukrainian citizens consider themselves many things including ethnic-Ukrainians, ethnic-Russians and ethnic-Jews. Maybe there was underlying ethnocentrism that demanded serious questioning, but I didn’t think we were hearing signs of malevolence from our counterparts.

Hostility arose from several Canadians, the severity of which depends on who recounts the conversation, but it was undeniable judgment had been passed on the Ukrainians. They defiantly felt it and thought it was cause of a major sore spot on group relations. Was this our innate reaction to speak out against what we thought were signs of intolerance? Well whatever it was it came off as alienating.

Not long after this discussion I joined a Canadian participant, and good friend of mine, for drink. Several seconds into our conversation I was reminded of our own home-grown bigotry with the most racist comment towards First Nations I’d ever heard… and I’ve encountered plenty of racism towards Aboriginal Canadians through various lines of work. Racism that transcended tasteless jokes and ignorant stereotypes, constituting a level of contempt I thought could only be expressed from underneath a white hood. While my friend’s comment made my skin feel as if it was crawling off my body, it wasn’t surprising because I’ve known many good people who try passing-off sentiments typically published on the stalls of public toilets as casual conversation; Rational people unknowingly proving themselves as social liabilities. Well, we Canadians not only have the tact, but we have the dark history to boot.

While growing up I had to pass a residential school every time I went into town. I paid little attention to the big redbrick building, except when it was time for its elaborate Christmas light show. What happened behind its walls became of interest after reading a book of testimonials from former students. These schools were established across the country during the late 19th century and the last one closed down in 1996 (Gordon Residential School, Saskatchewan.)

These under-funded joint-ventures between government and church were notorious for decrepit accommodations detrimental to children’s health; over-working children on farms that provided a supplemental budget; providing minimal food that led to malnourishment; denying proper medical care to the sick. This created prime breeding ground for the school’s tuberculosis epidemic of the early 20th century, resulting in an overall death rate that has been estimated at forty two per cent. Some cite this figure as much higher considering how few records were actually kept. (At one point, File Hills Boarding School in Saskatchewan had a death rate of seventy five per cent.) Parents who refused to put their children at risk couldn’t contend with the fines or prison sentences coupled with compulsory attendance.

Despite wide-spread knowledge of the problems nothing was done, “The deaths, and the conditions of the schools pricked no collective conscience, wrought no revolution in policy, or even any significant reformulation,” explains John S. Milloy, professor of Native studies at Trent University and author of the bestselling book, A National Crime.

The inaction to prevent infection amongst students had been deemed criminal by various inspectors at the time. To the discomfort of Canadians, people reviewing this history today have been using that controversal G-word many consider too generally defined.

These children were put under the guardianship of the government and measures were enforced to distance them from the “backsliding” influences of their parents. Some parents were left to question not only how their children died but where their unmarked graves were. "They have been buried without the knowledge of their parents, in places that their parents cannot visit or get to … many children simply disappeared."

The extent of physical and sexual abuse within these schools hasn’t been revealed to the general public. “There was a pronounced and persistent reluctance on the part of the Department [of Indian Affairs] to deal forcefully with incidents of abuse.” Producing evidence for review was often futile as “excuses” from principals “backed by their churches would have greater priority.” There are personal accounts of torture and murder that will hopefully be addressed during Canada’s South African style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. [Kevin Annett is an activist that has been compiling testimonies.]

Results of an indoctrination designed to “kill the Indian and save the man” are broken homes and a culture put to shame. What consequence does this have on a people? These aims of “elevating” Aboriginal Canadians to their white contemporaries have failed, as now there’s a massive disparity between cultures. Third world conditions exist on numerous reserves that face contaminated water supply and over-crowded housing, sustaining a life expectancy five to seven years below national average.

But was the intention really to create equals? Many civil rights for Aboriginal Canadians came after the international pressure that followed Canada’s signing of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human rights in 1948. Not until 1951 was it finally legal for Aboriginal Canadians to perform culturally vital ceremonies such as Potlatch, and hire lawyers to deal with treaties. Aboriginal Canadians couldn’t vote in federal elections without having to renounce their status until 1960.

This is not distant history by anyone’s standards. So is there reason we do not educate young Canadians of the history of these discriminatory policies? – Not to create a guilt-complex but an awareness of how easily this could happen and become ignored.

I can only imagine how all of this sets-the-stage for further misunderstanding during times of conflicting interests as seen at Oka, Restigouche, Ipperwash, Caledonia and elsewhere. Despite how Canadians may understand these situations, we should recognize the rest of the world might not agree with us. In 2007, Canada stood by the few who refused to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I imagine if we were to explore these issues during group discussion we might very well bear the brunt of judgment.

So Ukrainians and Canadians had different minorities they discriminated against… well we weren’t lost of all commonality…

After Canadians took to confrontation some Ukrainians figured we’d be unwavering proponents of tolerance during further group discussion… but that role could never be so clear-cut; many issues still fall into grey throughout the world. When it came time to discuss homosexuality, we shared just as much ambivalence as the Ukrainians. Was this surprising? Not really. Didn’t people start feeling uncomfortable once they began suspecting Bert and Ernie were pushing their beds together?

— Canada has reputation of leading the way for gay rights but this hadn’t come without serious controversy. Our 2004 federal election saw debate over the legality of civil marriage make top agenda —

We broached the topic since there was a possibility of Ukrainians having gay host-family members when in Canada. One discussion had everyone share their personal feelings towards homosexuality. The Ukrainians were divided and the Canadians unanimously endorsed acceptance, but some were quick to emphasize their apprehension. I found this curious because over the years I’ve engaged many Canadians in similar conversation and this same underlaying theme comes up most the time: “I’ve got no problem with homosexuals… but the idea of homosexuality really bothers me.” After hearing this so often, it begins to sound as if people are swallowing some pride in accepting and if this is the case, I can’t help but think there’s much confliction and reservation that still exists.

No one should have to apologize for their taste, however, in a time when sex removes itself from taboo and becomes a fundamental recreation and marketing engine I wonder if people recognize the irrelevancy of their taste. An irrelevancy better emphasized if their displeasure was directed towards the unconventional heterosexuals who rub them the wrong way.

To help put this into perspective imagine if I approached a straight friend who was a sexual libertarian; I’m saying, a Saturday night for him and his girlfriend usually consists of setting up video-cameras and slipping into crotch-less gorilla suites just before they start priming their Ass Blaster 5000. Now imagine if I told this friend that I was ashamed of what he was doing and I think he should be ashamed as well. I let him know he’s heading down a slippery slope because who’s he going to take the Ass Blaster to next? His own sister? I explain how he shouldn’t have the right to marry his girlfriend because he’d be shitting on the principles of everyone who’s a Justice of the Peace, including those at Papa Pre-Nubby’s franchise of Drive-Thru Wedding Chapels/Cold Beer and Wine Stores. I also mention how he’ll be stepping on the b-line straight to hell and not because he decided cleanout his garage on the last Sabbath.

After my friend laughs this off, then slowly realizes that I’m serious, he’ll be quick to remind me not only what a complete fascist I’m being towards matters that don’t concern me but how disparaging I am to all things that make life interesting and possibly enjoyable. Maybe he’d have a point. The reason I’m not reminded of this from my homosexual friend is because he’s probably resigned after knowing so many who approach homosexuality with a blinding sense of hatred, shame and fear.

While amongst the mob of ruff-necked nudists in the sauna I wondered what would happen if I were obviously gay. I suspect there might be trouble considering these guys probably believed they’d never met anyone homosexual in their lives. I thought there was something paradoxical about this idea.

That’s when he approached me, the brutish stranger whose body flaunted the timely ravages of testosterone; dreaded prevision along the path my own body was traveling. He inquired whether I’d be a Good Samaritan and give him a beat-down with bundles of wet weeds people were using on each other. As he lay down I heated the weeds over some coals, then I proceeded to tenderize him like a blob of hairy meat. Soon he insisted it was my turn. Why the hell not? I’ve abused my body thus far. I took the standard position of lying on my back and cupping my hands over my genitals. He beat me from head to toe – kind of felt like being belted with razor wire.

After explaining this to my male friends back home they stared at me wide-eyed, as if I’d just recounted my experience being molested in a Ukrainian prison and concluded the story by asking them for a kiss. It’s understandable; the banya would typically exceed my comfort level with naked men. How were these Ukrainians able to do this when strong homophobia still exists in Ukraine?

Then again, I had never held hands with so many men walking down the street then when I visited Tanzania, Africa, where homosexuality was illegal. It was customary for men to hold hands, particularly when one was giving the other directions. This was challenging but, just like the banya, there were no erotic intentions behind it… the banya hadn’t threatened my sexuality, just my privacy.

Growing up, I saw our arbitrary nature in distinguishing homoerotism. I remember high school and the clique of up-and-coming beer-league pro-stars who’d jokingly slap each other’s asses in the shower after gym class: the same guys who’d slam the effeminate kid into the lockers because he was shit at ultimate frisbee and hence, a queer. Not only does homosexuality balance on the thin line between acceptance and rejection but everyone has drawn their own thin line between good-clean-fun and foreplay.

We Canadians might have come a long way, but I wonder if we pat ourselves on the back while still keeping a watchful eye over our shoulder; wasted effort when we don’t even know what we should be afraid of.

Anyways, after long-term exposure to male anatomy I began thinking of women as even greater anomalies considering their attraction to such flawed design…. Although, there wasn’t sign of any women nearby, maybe they all had the sense to stay away from this sausage parade.

My host-brother had arranged for me to have a massage, so I knew of at least one woman here. Grabbing a towel for cover, I went to the masseuse only to discover I had to wait my turn. While in the lobby the manager approached me and insisted he take me somewhere I could stave off my boredom. He lead me through an entrance next to a sign saying “BAP” which I should have recognized as Cyrillic text for “BAR.”

I walked into a bar where a group of women were socializing and I was suddenly conscientious of the towel barely covering me. I struggled to cinch what now seemed like a hand towel around my waist as the manager pulled drinks out of the cooler asking, “Cola? Cola?” In my best Ukrainian I said, “No!... no thank you!.... no money! No! No!” Needless to say this incited much laughter from the ladies.

This would have been a devastatingly humiliating circumstance, but I was reconciled to bearing the justice of karma because only days earlier I had made a similar intrusion into a women’s sanctuary, causing just as much humiliation… but not on my part.

This relates to Ostroh University’s infamous no-smoking policy exclusive to females. During our orientation, prior to our departure for Ukraine, we were forewarned by past participants that any girl needing a drag near the university should do it in hiding — the washroom was recommended as her best bet.

I was walking home with a Ukrainian participant who wanted to have a smoke. She had a hideout in mind, so I followed her along a muddy path up a hill behind the university cafeteria. We reached the remnants of a brick wall where six women were crouching in the mud, smoking. I recognized some as the cafeteria staff. Once they saw me they extinguished every cigarette simultaneously and filed down the hill in embarrassment (such skill manoeuvring stilettos on loose ground.) With the hideout all to ourselves, my friend sought cover behind the wall and lit up. The mud was littered with hundreds of butts; sign of an underground society who just wanted a smoke free from a scorn reserved for those harbouring ovaries.

Many students told me any female caught smoking could damage her reputation at the university which could have drastic consequences. What about the men? Well, there was a canopy set up for their smoking-pit next to the entrance. This wasn’t the attitude of the university alone; women who smoked anywhere in Ostroh were frowned upon.

The point of this one-sided policy was divulged during the rector’s introduction, when he lectured all female participants of the adulteration smoking had on their god-given grace… a man of this status must have his word travel far…

“Women who smoke are disgusting,” a student was explaining to me while smoking in the local pub.

“Yeah, but you smoke,” I remarked.

“Yes… but women who smoke are disgusting.”

“So do you. What does that make you?”

“I don’t know… but women who smoke are disgusting.”

This logic was frustrating but how far was it from the rector’s own rationale which was predicated on women conserving an image? For whom were these women upholding their image? Who were the real beneficiaries?

“Yeah, but you smoke!” I wasn’t giving up so easily since beer was the equivalency of ninety cents Canadian.

“Yes. I smoke.”

“So are you disgusting?”

“No…. you don’t understand: Women who smoke are disgusting.”

Were women doing it for this asshole?

The purpose of our program was to help us become culturally understanding, but one Canadian raised an interesting point during group discussion. He mentioned the drawbacks of this resolute sensitivity. What if cultural differences challenged our very morals? Do we accept perspective and policy, despite being discriminatory, just because they’re part of someone’s culture? Do we tolerate the intolerant?

Well, maybe we had good intentions when confronting Ukrainians about Ukrainian Jews, but I found it strange how we let that issue became an elephant pissing in the corner of the room when we didn’t address this bullshit smoking policy. Sure it’s a habit worth discouraging, but it was also a glaring double-standard an establishment like Ostroh University should’ve recognize. I was sensitive to the fact that the university was kind enough to host us, but if we were in the game of pointing out prejudices such was the more obvious.

The troubling thing for me was… it hadn't occured to me to raise the issue. It would have been easy but now it’s nothing more than an afterthought. Why didn’t I? I don’t know. All I do know is men throughout the world spend their life obsessing over women but most often fail to pay them respect somewhere along the way.

So what am I getting at with all this? Well someone back might very well say, “Ukraine eh? I here there’s quite a bit anti-Semitism over there. When it comes to women’s lib isn’t it a throwback to the 1950s? I bet if you’re gay you sure wouldn’t want to visit.” Sure there was evidence I could cover but failing to mention what I’d learned from Canadians would be hypocritical. What can I say, other than, it was very revealing to see this broad cross-section of Canadians aginst a backdrop like Ukraine because it proved that timeless cliché about all of us “being the same” still applies when we don’t want it to. Standing back and looking at both camps of participants our most glaring discrepancies were our accents and haircuts.

I image this sermon of mine might piss-off some people, but I hope I've made my criticism as constructive as possible... because only we ourselves can change the way we think and act.

Ukraine: Part Two

2009-01-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

Sitting with my back turned, I watched the table of Ukrainian girls behind me at the other end of the pub.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” My friend, a fellow Canadian participant, asked me.

I turned back around to face him and the other participants at our table, “Lots. You’ll have to be specific,” I replied.

“You and I are going over there,” he demanded while those beside us listened intently.

“I’d rather not.”

I went back to watching the nine girls across the room who were absorbed in their jovial conversation and when they burst into fits of laughter the prospect of interjecting became even more terrifying. I didn’t know the first thing about hitting-on one complete stranger let alone an entire group. I could only refer to my strategy for confronting black bears in such a state of anxiety.

“What are you afraid of? We’ll just go over there and say hello.”

Was it so simple? My inner alpha-male was telling me this situation should be paralleled to some death-defying feat straight out of a shitty action film: My friend was the fearless maverick who’d flown this mission many times before, but he was still in need of a seasoned wingman to fly perfect formation and engage all targets… I guess my friend’s figurative air-force was having something similar to a bring-your-child-to-work-day.

His mind wasn’t changing, “Get up!”

“I don’t seem to have my balls on me today. I think they fell off this morning and rolled behind some furniture. Tell you what, I’ll go home and have a look. When I find them, give them a quick rinse and figure out how to reattach them, I’ll think about joining you next time we’re here.” At this point he was standing beside my seat, “… ALRIGHT, I’M UP!”

We stood at the end of the girls’ table with all of them staring at us. It was up to my friend to justify our intrusion, “Hi, we’re Canadian. Can we sit down?”… I wasn’t sure whether I’d followed Tom Cruise into battle or a hell-bent kamikaze pilot. To my surprise his ambiguity worked like a charm.

Smiling, they made room for us and insisted we have some cake since we’d caught them celebrating a birthday. Their university coordinated our exchange program so they’d seen us around campus and wanted to know how we were enjoying our stay. They were part of the massive student population inhabiting the small town of Ostoh and, like the many people we’d met, they were hospitable and genuinely interested in getting to know us.

My friend led the conversation beautifully while I sat perfectly motionless in attempt to reduce my visibility and eye-balled the girl sitting next to me so, if she were to make any sudden movements, I’d be ready to run outside and climb the nearest tree.

Without warning my incontinent friend was up and off to the washroom, leaving me to fly solo. I thought I was taking things slow and easy by discussing music, but the moment I unknowingly mentioned several of these girls’ favorite bands they startled me with a loud cheer of recognition. I turned to see if anyone witnessed this overreaction and everyone back at my table looked just as shocked by my charisma as I was. Instilled with new found confidence, I asked them what I really wanted to talk about… the Orange Revolution: A country-wide uprising that embroiled many outside interests and became an international media extravaganza in 2004-05.

… I’d never experienced such a complete turnaround in a conversation with people I’d been so new acquainted, where any formality requiring us to uphold innocuous small-talk was completely disregarded. I was now in a forum where these girls held no reserve expressing their raw emotions.

“It makes me sad to think this has happened,” someone expressed, “I’ve given up. We have no control.”

“We are good people! We don’t deserve this!” someone else mentioned.

For Ukraine, the disintegration of the soviet empire didn’t elicit the upheaval seen in other satellite states: East Germans emigrated in droves once crossing their borders no longer entailed passing patrol officers’ cross-hairs; Embattled Romanian citizens stormed government headquarters to dispose their stubborn dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu; Protesters in the Baltic States withstood Soviet tanks that had come to clarify the limits to Gorbachev’s “restructuring;” Once the empire lay in ruin, Ukrainians voted for independence and their old ruling elite half-heartedly stepped from one model of government to another. No longer taking orders from Moscow and out from under a one-communist-party-system, this oligarchy was still uninspired to take democratic reform beyond learning a new political language.

Corruption became increasingly prevalent throughout all levels of society as opportunists strived to benefit from compounded economic turmoil and weak political opposition; this meant anything from paying bribes to avoid police harassment to hearing about vote-rigging come election-time. These similar problems had long plagued Romania, Belarus and Russia and Ukrainians were growing tired of following suite. In 2000 the death of Ukrainian journalist, Georgiy Gongadze, murdered shortly after criticizing President Leonid Kuchma, was indication to many Ukrainians of the consolidation required in challenging a corrupt authority.

Presidential candidate, Victor Yushchenko, hoped to represent frustrated Ukrainians during the 2004 elections. His alternative was looking west for a leading example. Many nations that had struggled coming out from behind the Iron Curtain found promising opportunity integrating into Europe, so Yushchenko set his sights for joining the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization rather than focus on maintaining strong ties with Russia.

Vladimir Putin, well versed in geopolitics and looking to renew Russia’s prominence in the world, became placid with concern watching his neighbours turn away and NATO moving closer to his doorstep. Ukraine was of particular concern because the fate of Russia’s western naval front in Ukraine’s Sevastopol was under question, most gas-lines sending Russia’s chief export to all of Europe bypassed Ukraine and there was still significance in Kyiv being epicenter of Russian history.

So Putin and his administration put their stamp of approval on Yushchenko’s opponent, Victor Yanukovych: protégé to outgoing president Kuchma and likely to continue operating Ukraine within Russia’s sphere of economic and military influence. Yanukovych was endowed with strategists and funding from Russia, the only problem was that many Ukrainians would no longer stand for the electoral fraud required getting him into office.

These girls I spoke to had joined the hundreds of thousand other Ukrainians who’d camped for days, weeks or months at Kyiv’s Victory Square during the winter of 2004 and 2005. They refused to recognize Yanukovych’s victory in a runoff election after a blatant show of voter intimidation and ballot-stuffing.

“We were angry about Yanukovych, but we were also happy Ukrainians were coming together,” someone recalled her week in Kyiv. “Knowing we were going to finally change things was exciting.”

Student movements helped bring citizens from across the country to the street in demand of another election in spite of, what most believed to be, an attempt on Yushchenko’s life. Earlier that fall, he nearly died of dioxin poisoning after having dinner with Ukrainian Security Services officials.

Just as Gongadze was for Ukrainians, Yushchenko’s scared face was a wakeup-call to the international community, causing many world leaders to denounce Ukraine’s election results. The prospect of Yushchenko making a slightly larger and friendlier Europe was appealing to the Western World at a time when a pro-active Russia was inducing memories from the Cold War.

During the 90s Boris Yelson’s foreign affairs looked more like a harmless transcontinental pub crawl, now an ambitious and calculative Putin stood-by Yanukovych to recognize his stolen presidency. No one was proven responsible for Yushchenko’s poisoning, but it seemed like a maneuver straight out of a KGB handbook. Yushchenko conjured massive support from western leaders who remembered the comfort in establishing buffers between them and an unpredictable Russia.

Pressure mounted as media from around the world came to broadcast the community of tents in Kyiv while the Ukrainian military stalked the periphery. Once a new election was agreed to, legions of international monitors came to ensure its fair conduct. Yushchenko won with 51.99 per cent of the votes over Yanukovych’s 44.19, without further crisis.

This was the point in the story where I'd left off two years earlier. I was fascinated by the extensive media coverage the revolution generated in North America. While it was an uplifting story for viewers it was short lived. International headlines were quick to change topic, possibly leaving those who did’t comb the back-pages to assume there was betterment forever after.

Now it was 2006 and these girls were disheartened by Yushchenko failing to fulfill his promises. Ukraine was no closer to an EU membership because corruption was still rampant within government. In-fighting had divided the champions of the revolution, giving Yanukovych the clout he needed to be appointed prime minister during the 2006 parliamentary elections. Concessions Yushchenko made for constitutional reform after the revolution came back to haunt him because it was now undetermined who would hold greater power, president or prime-minister. In other words, Yanukovych took his tug-of-war with Yushchenko off the streets and into office.

“What was the point of it all when we wanted to keep Yanukovych out?”

“Yushchenko has been a disappointment.”

“You have to be patient. Too many people are angry because they expect results immediately,”

“One good thing is there’s greater freedom of speech.”

Once my friend returned from the washroom and listened to the girls’ frustrations he appeared to panic internally. He probably figured the worst outcome of having me fly this mission was watching me get shot-down; little did he know I’d be dropping a cargo of chastity-belts and leaflets preaching the virtues of abstinence. Leaning towards me, I could hear the urgency in his voice as he whispered, “Can we please talk about something else?” The mood changed the moment the subject was dropped, like the topic had never been mentioned, and we all enjoyed the rest of the night as carefree young adults.

The immediate charge of this conversation was surprising to me but I would soon realize discussing the revolution usually struck a nerve with Ukrainians; tapping into an overwhelming reserve of sentimentality that could change the tide of any conversation. Testing the political atmosphere in 2006 was opening a door to let a hurricane through the room. This excited me because I figured pandemonium usually provided the most immediate learning experience.

Well… the first thing I learned was how to come to terms with my limited understanding. As an outsider, dealing with a convoluted issue only widened the disconnection between me and my surroundings. Conclusions became harder to reach. Language and cultural barriers already led to my misunderstanding of others, but an impassioned discussion could really amplify people’s erraticism to the point where reading people became an act of inventing fiction. When things got too strange all I could do was fall into the warm embrace of confusion, especially when dealing with my host-family…

By simply opening a door I immediately came face-to-face with what my host-father must have looked like thirty-five years ago. This was surreal enough an experience I questioned whether I just stepped out of the bathroom or some decrepit time-machine my host-father constructed so he could finally beat me down and haul me off to the tool-shed for interrogation. This stone-faced young man looked me up and down.

“Meet your host-brother,” my counterpart introduced us, “he has come from Kyiv for a visit.”

His cold and inquisitive eyes locked onto me as we shook hands – mine still wet after washing them. He seemed in search of anything that would assist him in shaping a first impression and, with the little trust established between us at this point, I probably brought him to the conclusion that all Canadians couldn’t refrain from splashing around in toilet water. I couldn’t have come up with a more suiting introduction.

When there’s more eye-contact than dialogue between two people they’re most likely in a showdown rather than a conversation. That was my thinking, as I sat opposite end of the kitchen table from host-brother. His deadpan stare hadn’t averted from me after we’d joined my counterpart and host-mother for dinner. He must have learned the art of intimidation through years of stink-eye staring contests with his father. A look that intense can trick the brain into believing its telepathic capabilities: “Why are you really here? Couldn’t my mother just have gotten another cat?... the moment you look away I’m coming over this table to attack you with a flathead screwdriver.” I could only stare back in shock.

Tarzan’s aimless meandering began annoying my host-mother who was busy cooking. I pulled him against me so he was out of her way, hopefully averting a full song and dance.

“Stupid dog,” my counterpart scolded – He held little regard for the smaller creatures incapable of walking upright and earning a decent income.

With the articulation of a two-year-old, I said, “My favorite dog, Tarzan,” in Ukrainian.

My host-mother and counterpart laughed and shook their heads. Looking at my host-brother I saw he now had a coy smile. Did I just prove myself a simpleton in his eyes? He didn’t waste any time in finding out. He leaned forward and finally spoke.

“He wants to know if you know anything about the Orange Revolution,” my counter-part translated.

“Sure…. Yushchenko… Yanukovych.” I replied.

My host-brother’s facade instantly melted as if I’d said the magic words. Suddenly we had a lot to discuss.

He, like the majority of ethnic Ukrainians in Western Ukraine, had his heart set on Yushchenko’s plan for modernization, particularly obtaining that EU membership meal-ticket. Unlike the girls at the pub, he didn’t seem disillusioned by Yushchenko’s failures, rather, he felt increasingly perceptive to Russia’s hand in Ukraine’s politics, that is, spotting the strings leading from Yanukovych’s appendages to Putin’s hand. My host-brother was on one side of a growing divide between western Ukrainians and the large minority of ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Maybe, if I were on the other side of the country I could have met the mirror image of my host-brother. Someone who spent the revolution in counter-rallies supporting Yanukovych, was suspicious of western persuasion, considered the abolishment of communism as one failed experiment in westernization too many, remembered NATO as an instrument of the Cold War. When this person described Yushchenko as “western-friendly” it was probably euphemism for “puppet, pawn or stooge.”

Did my host-brother’s contempt for Russian persuasion have foundation? The days when Ukrainians endured Soviet misconduct wasn’t distant memory to my host-brother. Many of his generation suffered health problems resulting from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 when a Kremlin cover-up left citizens unaware of their exposure to fallout from a nuclear power-plant meltdown north of Kyiv. After several days the truth surfaced with the gradual infiltration of outside media reporting a massive nuclear cloud spreading across the globe. This has left a lasting embitterment not only towards the pretense of Gorbachev’s “openness” but Russia’s underhandedness in general. However, these were the days before drastic reform. Was my host-brother seeing Russian coercion?

Earlier that January, my host-family was of many who went without heating for several days when Russia’s state controlled Gazprom cut gas supply to Ukraine. This was when contention between the two countries over gas-prices finally peaked. It started when Russia raised Ukrainian’s gas prices to European standards preceding the revolution, causing many to revile this as a bullying tactic in retaliation to Yushchenko’s installation. Defiance ensued and Ukraine was accused of it stealing gas on transit to Europe. Russia’s reluctance to continue subsidizing post-soviet states led to similar rows with Georgia and Belarus.

My host-brother and I talked all evening. My interest in the revolution was of great interest to him and I was happy to have cleared-up my misconceptions of him so quickly. It was late when we shook hands, said goodbye and he left the house. I was under the impression our discussion was finished for the night.

After I’d settled into bed my host-brother burst through my door and turned on the light. He was waving CDs in the air.

“Uh,… hmm… uh, revolution!… uh, uh…. hmm… revolution!” his struggle for English didn’t damper his excitement. It was just as unnerving to have him now embrace me in camaraderie. What the hell did he want? Did he think he found a new camping buddy for pitching-up outside parliament?

My counterpart wasn’t far behind him, “He wants you to listen to some bands that played for the revolution.” Was my bedroom now a revolutionists’ hideout? Walls can begin to close in very quickly. My counterpart saw Tarzan was in the room and became angry, “Tarzan… out!”

“The dog stays!” I snapped.

Now my host-brother’s coy smile seemed one of understanding as he nodded to my counterpart to forget about the dog.

I turned to ask Tarzan what we’d gotten ourselves into, but he was preoccupied with chewing off his new cast, consisting of a Coke bottle and nylon-stocking.

We sat around a ghetto-blaster and listened to music like one of those nuclear families seen in 1950’s stock-footage who gathered around to watch their radio as if it were a television, except I was in my pajama bottoms and my host-brother in his winter jacket.

He was still buzzing from the excitement of the revolution while describing the performances he saw in Victory Square. Political change might not have become reality for him but he saw a newly instilled sense of unity between Ukrainians. These were his days to feel good about being Ukrainian and that hasn’t been easy.

Throughout history imperial Russian resorted to campaigns of violence to prevent nationalism and to ensure unity within Soviet sates. Ukrainian nationalists weren’t exclusively persecuted, particularly during the Stalin years; it was common for poets, teachers or anyone advocating the Ukrainian language to be exiled to Siberia.

Independence in 1991 was opportunity for ethnic Ukrainians everywhere to distinguish themselves from being ‘little Russians’ who spoke in their obscure dialect. Nowwhere was there a more distinct Ukrainian identythan the wester provinces which had known brief tastes of cultural freedoms under European occupation before World War One. The days of Russian assimilation now over, Ukrainization efforts were left to contend with a prominent Russian pop-culture.

My host-brother could easliy give the impression that even today simply 'being Ukrainian' constituted having a stronge indignation towards Russia. Even his lessons in culture somehow digressed to Russia's inferiority. The language barrier made it difficult for me pick-up his finer points, but his sentiment was vague enough to seem familiar…

“He says he doesn’t like George Bush,” my counterpart translated.

“Huh?... ok... he remembers that I’m Canadian right?”

“He remembers.”

My host-brother awaited my response, as if looking to find a mutual distain for an overbearing neighbour. He wouldn’t have to look far to meet a Canadian who was generally indignant towards the US. His rant was just as subjective as many of the rants about America I’ve heared back in Canada. Maybe this tableside banter was typical everywhere in the world where there was a more powerful country nearby. I just become alarmed when I’d hear such impassioned generalities go beyond the table.

We participants sat in an auditorium listening to the official greeting from the rector of Ostroh Academy National University.

This university was a recreation of a famous 16th century academy and staunch defender of Ukrainian identity - We Canadians were reminded of the faux pas of speaking Russian in its halls. During the revolution the university was a strong voice for Yushchenko - A staggering majority of students attended protests.

After the pleasantries the rector addressed one of his concerns, “I’ve known many Canadians who come here and like to drink. Know there are sever problems with alcoholism in Ukrainian society, so out of respect, please avoid drinking excessively.”

I was following this line of reasoning until his conclusion, “…alcoholism hadn’t been part of Ukrainian culture until Russia brought it here through years of occupation.”

It was strange enough such a strong accusation came with no pretext, but my biggest concern was figuring out the point to his last comment.

What was this supposed to invoke, especially with Canadians? Was this line of reasoning useful in deterring Ukrainian youths from alcoholism? How did it make the participants who could be considered more ethnically Russian feel? Was there a cost to this logic? Was this perpetuating resentment? Where is the line between patriotism and chauvinism?

It felt as if I’d been sitting at the table listening to one of my host-brother’s more impassioned rants. What kind of history makes for this kind of animosity?

History became relevant with a simple ride through the country and watching people living amid the apocalyptical remnants of a different world. Soviet statues left standing for no other reason than neglect. Everywhere massive factories, once making Ukraine leading manufacturer in the Soviet Union, stood empty, gradually disassembling themselves.

While walking through a park in the nearby town of Rivne, several participants and I came across a group of elderly men bustling around benches and tables in the cold. From a distance they looked to be some determined chess club, but when walking amongst them we saw they were selling a vast collection of soviet relics, primarily war medals. Tables were covered with a variety of awards brandishing pilot-wings, red stars or hammers crossed with sickles; all intended as high achievement at one time. Some things told direct stories of people’s lives, such as the pictures of long-lost relatives on military identification cards, but everything shared a common story about time served under an old empire. It was as if, for the sake of a couple of hryvnia, they were absolving themselves of their past just as someone in Canada would be freeing himself of clutter in a yard-sale. Was this indication of desperate times or deep-seeded apathy… maybe both? It was a shame these old-men weren’t congregated here for the sake of healthy competition, so then it wouldn’t have seemed a show of total defeat.

I bought one medal that had caught my eye. It was a medal celebrating someone’s accomplishments in collective farming, a policy that made for one of the worst memories in Ukraine. The Kremlin enforced the collectivization of Ukrainian agriculture for distributed throughout the empire but there was a gross discrepancy in what Ukraine gave and what it received, leaving millions to starve to death in a famine of 1932-33. Declassified material shows Stalin’s brutal regulation measures and his general contempt for Ukrainians. Ukraine has now declared this event as a genocide, which Russia refutes.

This medal celebrated a staple of the Soviet system that had such dire consequences here. I couldn’t even imagine such a history.

Ukraine: Part One

2008-04-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

In the winter of 2006, I took part in an exchange program that sent young Canadians to small communities in developing countries to participate in volunteer-work in hope of somehow improving the living-conditions of its citizens. How this worked was each Canadian participant got paired up with a local counterpart and the two of them lived together with a host-family unfamiliar to them both. This process was repeated during a second phase in Canada.

If nothing else, this program familiarized its participants with the virtues of cultural sensitivities. There was a strong emphasis on demonstrating the dangers of culture shock breeding misunderstanding and how any initial reaction from confronting the unfamiliar should be rigorously self-examined. I thought this could be a good idea.

I arrived in a small town called Ostroh in western Ukraine. Ukraine is a young country that has been in the process of extensive transition since its independence from the dissolved Soviet Union in 1991; this has not been easy and there are plenty more challenges yet to come.

My counterpart and I lived with a family consisting of an older couple who had two sons living in Kyiv. None of them spoke English so I had my counterpart to thank for his tireless translation. I was absorbed into the family for two months; nowhere near enough time to absorb the torrent of information that came my way, so I returned to Ukraine a year later. This time I traveled across the continent so I could meet all the neighbours I heard so much about. Many of these countries were pivotal in shaping Ukraine’s past and forming its future.

The more I learned the more I realized I was nowhere near coming to understand this fascinating country because the questions just kept mounting. There were so many facets of Ukrainian life: the people, culture, history, revolution, reformation, nationalism, comradeship, divisions, devotion, corruption, poverty, optimism, defeat, compassion, intolerance, Cossacks, funny hats, alcohol poisoning and public nudity.

Now, as I flip through two notebooks from both trips I read stories with very little context and realize that explaining what I’ve learned is going to be an arduous task, especially since I’m still in the process of figuring this out. My amalgamation of memories, full of many colourful people and illuminating situations, should be situated along some sort of discernable timeline, but at this point it resembles a tangled ball of Christmas lights. I suppose there’s no better time than now in trying to make sense of it all.

So I guess it all begins with… well… my host father’s insanely massive hands… and how I sat at the kitchen table and watched this aggressively animated man toss around these bulbous appendages hanging from each wrist. They were these gargantuan contraptions made of leathery flesh and jagged knuckles that seemed to dwarf his otherwise proportionate body. My eyes wouldn’t risk blinking as they watched these two monsters crush walnuts with the ease of a vice crushing eggshells and I felt like diving for cover when his hands began conducting his incessant shouting of unintelligible Ukrainian. This man made my nerves go bad even though I knew he wasn’t shouting out of anger, but just reinforcing the Ukrainian stereotype of speaking RIDICULOUSLY LOUD!

My host-father then grabbed a loaf of bread and began cutting it mid-air. After slicing several pieces proved to be too much of a struggle, he threw the knife down in frustration – understandable; the utensil must have seemed microscopic to him. His final resort was using his hands to tare off large chunks of bread and handing them to me. At this point I was ready to invite any peace offering, but this one came at a cost because his hands were perpetually filthy looking, as if his day entailed completing a series of tasks which might have included disassembling a diesel engine, disposing harmful chemicals, crushing whole trees into mulch and then taking time to unwind by playing in a sand box. It looks like he’s been doing this every day for the past 50 years.

I knew it unwise to decline this potentially soiled bread because I would have to continuously explain myself to my host-family. Bread was a common a side dish in Ukraine, particular in this house, so my refusal concerned my family to the point where I thought they were questioning my sanity. To better understand the severity of the scene I would be causing I tried paralleling this to another meal-time faux-pas I was familiar with. The only thing I could come up with was if I were to arrive at someone’s house for dinner, sit at their table, compliment them on the appetizing quality of the food in front of me and then proceed to slam my face into my plate repeatedly, until I eventually topple-over unconscious.

I always considered mealtime to be a delicate situation because it’s when hospitality lies in the delicate balance of a host trying to satisfy a desire to please and a guest trying to suppress the gag-reflex. It might even be the most opportune moment to offend anyone of a different culture — people can avoid discussing politics and religion but eventually most people have to sit down and eat. No matter how liberal an eater, no one is ever exempt from a real challenge; I kept this in mind as I chewed the bread and smiled even though I thought I could taste the sandcastle my host-father might have made earlier that day.

He suddenly turned towards me, rested his hands on the table and began speaking to me quietly. It was a needed calm in the chaos of his demeanor and through mere eye contact I was reassured that he found me just as much an anomaly as I found him. I smiled and listened to him but I become increasingly suspicious the longer he spoke because he was aware of the fact that I hardly understood a word of Ukrainian. Things became awkward once I realized he wasn’t talking to me, rather, he was talking about me to others at the table— You know you’re out of your element when you start envying the family dog for having a better grasp of the local language.

While I eventually came to know my host-father as a kind and generous man, his personal brand of erratic behavior seemed amplified because it was so novel to me and it initially drowned-out many of his milder qualities. I knew my fixation on his rougher-edges had been rash… but he was still one of the hardest looking bastards I’d ever known. I imagine it was years of working hard labor that left him so gruff and calloused. When Stalin propagandized the concept of the “perfect worker” to inspire higher productivity from masses, images of Hollywood-types were used to represent the working class heroes but if he really wanted to expose the outgrowth from living a life of toil then my host-father would be the more accurate poster-boy.

I didn’t know much about the man other than he had been driving trucks much of his life and he spent long periods of time away from home. Since the Ukraine’s independence he’d been driving within the confines of his own country but at one point he had to drive the extent of the Soviet empire; traveling as far as Georgia and Kazakhstan. He already spent long periods away from home as it was, so I couldn’t imagine how longer shifts would have affected his family life, especially with both sons living at home at the time.

With a career in maintaining a homestead that no longer housed any children, my host-mother had to come up with devices to stave off loneliness. One of these devises was adopting stray cats, so a swarm of mangy cats milled around us as we sat at the kitchen table, each watching for an opening to jump up and grab some fish. My host-father was continuously waving them away like he would a swarm of flies, but they must have been hungry because creatures of such size should have easily recognized those hands as a force not to be reckoned with.

My host-mother was a sweet woman and she did an outstanding job in assuring my comfort in a place devoid of certain luxuries I took for granted in Canada, but even she, with a mild stature of five-foot and a humane disposition, could completely transform into an omnipotent force on the drop of a dime.

Many a morning I’d usually be the first to enter the kitchen and find what seemed to be every neighbourhood cat that found their way into the house during the night. Approaching these skittish creatures I urgently whispered, “Get out. She’ll be in here any second. She’ll kill every last one of you when she—” before I could finish, what resembled Mr. Hyde in a kerchief burst into the room, shouting and waving her arms. Pandemonium ensued once she began diving for these animals that scattered in every possible direction and with lightening-fast speed she easily grabbed two fists full of cat. The older slower ones were the first to be hauled off by the scruff of the neck and tossed out the front door, but on the way out they cried warning to the younger ones who attempted to squeeze themselves into impossibly small crevices. I felt like diving behind the stove myself if it meant saving myself from her wrath.

I knew she cared for these cats like no one else and wouldn’t dream of harming them but this commotion seemed so overwhelming at the time I wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly adopted the booming cackle of James Earl Jones and began downing whole kittens by the handful as if they were in easy-to-swallow gel capsules. Once the dust settled the only thing left was me standing paralyzed in the centre of the room. She looked at me like she would look at a traumatized child: wanting to give me a hug for reassurance but holding off in expectation of that wet spot that could materialize on the front of my pants at any moment.

Eventually, she allowed the cats to remain in the kitchen because I insisted I liked her animals. This compromise came easy for her because it seemed she was grateful for my company, as if I were a valuable learning experience. Maybe she knew the world was becoming a smaller place and she thought the next step was getting to know someone on the other side of it. While she put plate after plate of food in front of me the mountain-of-a-man stared at me with his dead pan expression along with the legion of cats around him.

Oh, how the times must have seemed to be a-changin’ for my host-father. Communism had collapsed no more than fifteen years ago; the system he had known his entire life had been turned upside down in an effort to attain the advancements of the Western World. The immediate result for this country, already well-acquainted with poverty, was crippling inflation lasting throughout the 90s. This was surly not the kind of bounty that was promised to make life easier for my host-family.

I couldn’t imagine the struggle my host-family had to endure along the way. Most of all, I couldn’t imagine the kind of hostility that could arise from the seeming rhetoric and empty-promises coming from many reformists - reformists who were commonly accompanied by foreign figure-heads and organizations willing to voice their support for their platform. We, Canadian participants, were praised upon our arrival by the rector of the Ostroh University for simply being citizens of a country who sent members from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to help facilitate reform during the Orange Revolution of 2004 (a non-violent social-uprising which lead to the election of “western friendly” president.) While most of the Canadian participants remembered the revolution on the news, most of us didn’t retain a single detail that would justify any intelligent opinion on the matter.

How has my host-father reacted to all this continuous change? Did he feel alienated or even disenfranchised by the optimism of a younger generation; those who still had a lifetime to wait for even more anticipated change? Was he set in his ways, like some other older post-soviet citizens I met?

How did he see me as a sojourning Canadian? Was I just another part of a larger advocacy group; someone straight from the source?

Another factor to consider was how my host-father had grown up on the other side of a major ideological war. I’ve seen the indoctrination of the baby boomers from my own continent, but what was my host-father taught about “our kind?” What were his preconceptions of the sinister capitalist? Were there any lingering impressions from those old political cartoons he’d seen during his life; ones depicting the soviet worker kicking the caricatures of either Uncle Sam or Monopoly’s Uncle Penny Bags off the greens fields of a collective-farm? Such powerful suggestion is a hard thing to shake. Hell, I might have easily been crass enough to have mistaken my host-father as strong-armed James Bond villain at first sight. Did he just see me as an unfortunate by-product of some world he resented?

There were far too many questions to ask before I had him pegged down. The only thing I was certain was the iron curtain lifted and he found some gangly Canada sitting at the end of his table, showing his big toothy grin like a halfwit, eating his food and having just enough language skill to contribute, “yes… tasty… yes” to every conversation. I hope he was able to have a laugh at my expense at some point because there’s no better way of making light of any misunderstandings about a person than by taking the time to ask, “What the hell was that guy on about?”

Maybe I was just considered another stray brought in by my host-mother? …The only real reason I tried to psychoanalyze my host-father was because I wanted to know if one of those meat-hooks of his was ever going to swing towards me like they swung past the begging cats.

Looking at my counterpart on the other side of the table I felt somewhat relieved in knowing that I wasn’t the only sign of change within this house.

When the time came for many throughout the Soviet Union to find a sustainable role to play in the volatile world of free-enterprise, a vigilant kind of entrepreneur came out of the woodwork. During times of scarce commodity goods and thriving black-markets, survival wasn’t certain for the working-class of old state enterprise but more likely for whoever was quick to embrace the basic instincts of the middleman — It wasn’t the machinist who had worked in the country’s once leading industry for the past thirty years with initiative to make real money in the future; it was the kid peddling foreign blue-jeans, or whatever happened to be in high demand. — Nobody embraced these instincts more enthusiastically than my own counterpart, an economics student at the local university and already a savvy hustler at the tender age of 19.

During the end of our second phase in Canada I sat on the end of my bed in our shared room and watched my counterpart packing four Teflon frying pans into his suitcase. He eagerly described the killing he could make if he were to sell these pans on the street back home. I didn’t doubt such intention for this undertaking because I already saw him make a sizable gain by selling cheap Ukrainian vodka and cigarettes for inflated prices while in Canada. When I had met his father in Ukraine he thought I was crazy because I declined to take his whole-sale back to Canada for myself.

My counterpart and I couldn’t have had more differing outlooks; I spent my life living off the fat of my land without a second thought while he saw life as a constant struggle in mastering the basic art of buying low and selling high… however, he had the rare exception of having absolutely no necessity for doing so because he was extremely well off. He would inherit his grandfather’s meat-processing plant one day and until then he was taken care of by his father who owned a successful business of his own. Did he feel that the real experience necessary for bigger things lied at the grass-roots level? Did he play the game just for sake of playing the game? I have no clue, but something was hard-wired in my counterpart early on. When he looked at his toy abacus as a child he must have envisioned limitless opportunity for tabulating net-profit. When I looked at mine the only thing I saw were deliciously colored beads that could be pried off their wires and swallowed.

I can easily imagine a scene from my counterpart’s childhood where his father walks away from Gorbachev on the TV discussing glasnost and perestroika, infamous policy that would bring about a new world order. He then bends down to my counterpart playing in his crib and whispers, “Remember, no opportunity will be too big or small. Keep this in mind and you’ll be assured what’s coming to you.”

Now my mind switches to a random scene from my childhood where my father walks away from the credits of Different Strokes rolling on the TV. He then bends down towards me sitting in my crib and says, “Remember the part when Arnold set Willis straight? ‘Whatcha talk’n bout?’ Ha! Now, that’s the kind of material that will never grow old… hey, why are there brightly colored beads everywhere? Where did you get those pliers?... Not again!”

My host-father and counterpart were on the opposite ends of a generational gap and it seemed both were living lives worlds apart. Ukraine had seen immense changes in an unbelievably short period of time and the aftereffects were distinct almost anywhere I turned. Hell, even a little kitchen table in rural Ukraine served as a perfect exhibit to this particular phenomena. Despite this divide between my host-father and counterpart, they hadn’t lost all commonality; they were still able to look across the table at me and see someone who was alien to them both.

I smiled at my host-father as he squinted at me and then I asked my counterpart, “What is he saying?”

“He just said how he doesn’t like George Bush.” My counterpart replies, “How he makes trouble in the world.”

“Yeah, ok… he knows I’m Canadian right?”

My counterpart began speaking Ukrainian to my host-father, making hand gestures that looked as if he were indicating where Canada was situated on a map and shaking his head whenever my host-father voiced a misconception. My counterpart turned back to me and said, “Yes, he knows.”

My host father shrugged at me and I shrugged back. I just wanted to dodge that bullet at all cost. I was glad to break the tension and turn my attention to the family dog, who had his head on my lap.

The dog’s name was Tarzan and he felt like my one true counterpart, my other half in this parallel universe. I loved this dog because we had one thing in common; we were both way-in over our heads in a world neither of us quite fully understood. Many times I sat at the edge of my bed and confided in Tarzan. I didn’t mind putting all the effort in our conversation and it never hurt my pride when he would suddenly cut things short to move on to more pressing matters, namely, licking his nuts. His easy going nature instilled strength in me and I knew I would get-by just fine if the both of us were to stick together.

Tarzan had the sweet life for a dog in Ukraine because most dogs I saw were either homeless or used to guard a two foot radius the chain around their neck allowed them to roam, but not everything was milk bones and belly-rubs for Tarzan. Just before I arrived in the country his leg was broken when he was hit by a car and either due to a lack of local veterinary service or because of its extortionate price, my host-mother took it upon herself to construct a new cast for Tarzan every night. If Tarzan wasn’t licking himself, he was chewing off his cast and no matter how many times I pushed his snout away from his efforts, he eventually succeeded and began chewing his bare leg. I knew his foolishness prevented the slightest chance of healing but at the same time I admired this dog for his ability to endure harder times.

There were points where I felt like Tarzan and I shared the same mind process when faced with daily absurdities. When the beast within my host-mother became frustrated with Tarzan’s loitering about the kitchen she grabbed a crudely constructed broom that was twice her size and had a mass of crooked sticks on the end of it. I admit, she didn’t seem as threatening with this weapon. She looked more adorable than anything else because the giant broom made it look as if she shared a similar proportion to a child wielding some oversized prop in a school play. I don't think the broom was harmful because Tarzan didn’t even blink when it came crashing down on his head. He just furrowed his brow at my host-mother’s song and dance and eventually became so perturbed he felt it necessary to leave the room.

After finishing up my meal I stepped outside the kitchen to meet Tarzan. We stood there looking at each other as if to ask the exact same question, “What the hell was that all about?”

I'm now for sale!

2007-09-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Friends notice my digression as a writer and remind me, “If you ever want to be a freelance writer, you have to start writing material that is actually publishable.” This logic is really starting to sink in because I can’t think of any publication that would buy my material and I’m fully aware that a freelance writer needs to develop a robust portfolio of material that has graced the pages of magazines and newspapers if he or she wishes to further his or her career. Writing for someone other than myself seems like an intimidating process due to two personal anxieties. The first comes from doubting whether I’m knowledgeable enough in a particular subject to justify selling an article about it. I don’t want to pawn off something completely ludicrous. The second comes from the fear of having to write in a different voice other than my own. I don’t want to be the robot I was in school; churning out formulaic garbage devoid of any personality in order to please my professors. However, I do recognize these anxieties as being irrational and it’s time I write something that panders to a specific market.

What I have come up with is a piece that could be considered a form of travel writing; an area that I have always dreamed of dabbling in. The piece concerns a technique I invented and practiced when I traveled across the USA by bus and I figure it could be made into an informative pamphlet, distributed throughout tourist offices and travel agencies across the country. Here it is…

________________________________________________
It’s understandable that you, as a traveler, do not feel comfortable carrying large sums of money because of the risks of theft. Many of you resort to other forms currencies; such as bank cards, credit cards or even traveler’s cheques. While these items do offer some degree of security that prevent others from tapping into your travel funds, there is a cost to using them; such as extra fees for using your bank/credit cards in foreign countries or having to waste valuable time in obtaining and cashing traveler’s cheques.

If you are brave enough to carry any substantial amount of cash, you will probably resort to using a conspicuous money-belt. However, there is a new way of enjoying the perks of carrying cash while still feeling secure; it is called the money bandage.

This technique is pertinent to all you travelers, no matter what your itinerary; whether your trip involves: soaking in the sun on a sandy beach while indulging on flavorful cocktails; wandering an exotic street market to bear witness to its vast mosaic of sight and sound; watching a stomach-turning act of bestiality on stage in a shady back-alley nightclub; or taking part in a rare and exhilarating hunting expedition where you have the opportunity to take down some of nature’s most dangerous beasts, including the ‘HUMAN-BEING.’

Anywhere you go and anything you do, you will face the threat of being mugged. There are juvenile delinquents everywhere in this world; just waiting to smack you over the head with a lead pipe so they can steal your money and blow it on video arcade machines, shiny new sneakers, base-ball cards or LSD. By hiding your cash under a tensor bandage on your leg, you can now fool those beady-eyed, little fuckers. Here’s how you do it…

(You need a sandwich bag, roll of medical tape, tenser bandage and a fat wad of cash.)

Step 1: Put the cash in the bag and tape it to your inner thigh

Step 2: Wrap the bandage around the bag that is tapped to your inner thigh.

Now it doesn’t look like you have a money-belt but a horrible axe wound. You can even put some fake blood on the bandage add to the effect—be creative. Just in case the thief finds the bandage be sure to have it situated high on your leg (as close to your genitals as possible.) Knowing that you’re a traveler, the thief will assume you haven’t showered in the past week and won’t want to stand downwind from you let alone touch your bandage. If you’re still worried about the thief frisking you, just remember that it’s scientifically proven that 70 per cent of the world’s population is hideously unattractive; so don’t flatter yourself.

You can’t solely rely on the money bandage because anyone who mugs you will become suspicious of why you’re supposedly carrying nothing of value. So you need a decoy that will distract a thief from becoming frustrated and searching you. A dummy wallet is perfect, but it has to be full of something, so be sure to fill it with useless items such as library cards, discount grocery cards, your social insurance number or even monopoly money.

Here is an illustration for those of you who have difficulty forming a mental image.

The money bandage allows you easy access to your money at all times. All you have to do is find a public washroom stall (no matter how small or disgusting) unwrap the bandage, rip the tape off your flesh and, once you’ve retrieve the appropriate amount of money, simply re-tape and re-bandage it again. People might be knocking on your stall’s door because you’re taking a long time or they’ve become concerned over the sound of you stumbling around and smashing into the walls, but a simple phrase that will buy you more time and privacy is, “I’m masturbating!” And if they continue to be bothersome you can add, “to pictures of your mother!” for good measures.

These are some of the commonly asked questions that arise when considering this method.

Q- Are there other effective decoys I can use to accompany the money bandage other than a dummy wallet?

A- Any receptacle that usually contains money and is typically found on a tourist will suffice. A dummy money-belt or a fake bag/purse could be useful.

Q-How big does the tensor bandage have to be?

A- As long as the bandage conceals the money it’s fine. You can find these bandaged in a variety of sizes at your local drug store.

Q- I find it uncomfortable to have a bandage around my leg. Wouldn’t it be easier if I hide the money in my shoe?

A- No, the bandage technique is superior… maybe you shouldn’t put the bandage around your leg so tightly… next question.

Q- Is there a specific age or sex I have to be in order to use this method?

A- … Of course not, what a stupid question… I’m not trying to peddle a new form of birth-control here. It’s a way of carrying your money….NEXT QUESTION!

Q- Can’t I just get traveler’s cheques. Where ever I go there seems to be a bank on every corner?

A-Why would you even bring that up when we’re specifically talking about this technique? Are you just asking these questions to be a pain in the ass?.. You better watch your mouth before I slap it.

Q- What if I’m a black-belt in taekwondo and I’m in no danger of losing my money.

A- What the hell is wrong with you?

Q- What if I’m having intimate relations with the person who mugged me and, while lying in bed, she or he asks to take a peak under my bandage to see my alleged scar?

A- That’s it! Question period is over!

________________________________________________

Celebrating the anniversary of SO WE SAYS TO THE GUY... but mainly celebrating its death

2007-08-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.rossandjeff.blogspot.com/ was a collaborative writing experiment Ross Lockhart and I created over a year ago and it quickly became our very own Frankenstein monster that we took pride in nurturing, but we now both agree it is time to finish it off once and for all. It’s quite an understatement to say we’re putting it to bed, because we’re actually sneaking up behind it, jumping on its back, smothering it with a handkerchief soaked in chloroform, putting it in a burlap sack and holding it under the brimming water of the bathtub until the lethargic flailing of limbs subsides. Why are we doing this? Well, as soon as this experiment stopped being enjoyable for the both of us, we knew it was over. As we both stand next to its casket, I find myself coming to terms with the situation and realizing that I refuse to mourn its death, but I will, however, celebrate its life.

Of course we haven’t written anything for the blog in ages and it’s quite understandable if our three readers have long forgotten of its existence. To some its funeral might seem as tragic as Gatsby’s; both of us reading our eulogies to no one other than ourselves. However, the procession isn’t as destitute as some might expect, especially when I begin stuffing my pockets with as much food as I can scam from the catering table and Ross starts playing with the corpse in an attempt to reenact his favorite scene from Weekend at Bernie’s 2. This sendoff is our attempt at trying to amuse ourselves one last time and it goes to show how dearly we held this experiment at one point.

One thing that is in order is to salute Ross. His writing has been an inspiration to me and his influences will linger in my own writing. I will always look back to the teamwork we once had.

One thing that would ensure the quality of my own blog would be to continuously refer to the writing process Ross and I refined; our methods were down to a science.

After I finish writing a post, I will then ask the pertinent question, “What would Ross think about this?” Of course, even bringing up this question is nothing more than a formality because I can easily predict his answer being, “This is wank Jeff. Total wank,”

Then I would usually reply, “What do you know? I’m not changing it! I’m not changing it for anyone!”

He would flip over the coffee table and demand, “Why do you ask for my opinion when you don’t even listen?”

I would say, “Oh believe me, I do listen! I listen to what you have to say and then I do the contrary just in spite of you!”

He would retort, “And that’s why Mad Magazine will never hire you!”

Then, in a fit of rage, I would slap him across the face and, after a brief pause of disbelief, he would run out the front door in tears, with me calling after him, “I’m sorry! Forgive me!...... sometimes I just can’t control the demons!”

Yeah, these were our most productive times.

One very appearant thing he has done is make me into a better speller… wait… appearant?... No, it’s apparent… Ross you asshole you haven’t done shit in that department.

I do have my doubts as to whether we’re doing the right thing by killing this site because I feel like our writing dynamic might be something that’s worth keeping alive. Maybe I might just continue our blog without Ross; find a substitute for him and go about our typical antics.

Then again, maybe not.

Part 3 - Wild-Land Firefighters: Let's Go Save Some Babies.

2007-06-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Our brigade of trucks sped towards the U.S border and I sat wide-awake the entire trip, anxious over what the day had in store. My crew-boss seemed unconcerned over my inebriation but I broke a sweat whenever someone lit a cigarette in the truck because I was questioning just how combustible I was with my current blood-alcohol level. I had nothing to keep my mind off the thought of perishing in blaze of glory, except watching a few of the guys in my truck fiddling with their cameras, probably in preparation for obtaining their long awaited hero-shot.

In the morning, we arrived at the camp on the outskirts of some small town in Washington and as soon as we began pulling our bags from the back of the truck we were told to go replace our local counterparts on the fire-line. They were a chain-gang of convicts who were commonly hauled out of the penitentiary to fight fire and then make our meals back at the camp. Not only was this my first year firefighting, it was my first fire in the U.S so I was a little surprised stepping onto the set of Cool Hand Luke. The idea of these workers possibly being considered expendable by those in charge of the overall operation made me question what kind of situation we were about to find ourselves in. I expected their primary strategy to involve us being covered in fire retardant, flown up and then dropped over the fire. No sooner had I shrugged off this idea as being ridiculous, my crew and I were standing at the edge of a massive gully a kilometer away from the fire and being instructed to build a fire-guard down one slope, along the bottom of the gully and back up the opposite slope.

Instantly thinking back to the month of training I underwent to get this job, I remembered something from a lesson on fire behavor about how a gully is a particular land formation that makes for dangerous situations when near a fire— something about how a concaved structure has a higher wind velocity that perpetuates the… burning ratio… of… creating the vacuum effect that…I’m no scientist… Hell, maybe there was no danger. I can’t be certain at this point because I did end up wasting most of my time in class trying to master my ability to keep my eyes wide-open at all times, rendering those around me oblivious to the fact that I was fast asleep… I was not successful… But even if it had worked, I would still need to keep the outbursts of screaming fits, induced by my day-terrors, relevant to the topics being discussed some how and I could only imagine how difficult that would have been…

(Instructor)
“Now, hoses come in a variety of sizes. When connecting a hose to a pump make sure it has a diameter of an inch and a half because—”

(Me)
“AHHH! THE FIRE IS FAST!… RUN!…RUN RIGHT AWAY!”

(Instructor)
“…Hmmm. Excellent point; fire does travel at amazing speeds. Thank you for bringing up the issue of running. Now remember everyone, you should not run because using your fire shelter is your safest bet. It is when you—”

(Me)
“SHIT! I’M FALLING! FALLING TOWARDS THE FIRE!… OH! HOW THE FLAMES BURN MY SOUL!”

(Instructor)
“… Yes…Ok. You should always try to have sure footing because falling can be hazardous and having good boots is key… Although, I’m not sure what you’re referring to in terms of—“

(Me)
“AHHH! HERE COME THE ZOMBIE DOGS!… I’LL SAVE YOU!… QUICK, JUMP ON MY UNICORN!”

(Instructor)
“What?…. Jeff, get it together; you’re drooling all over yourself.”

Anyways what I was getting at, before this neurotic digression, was that no matter what kind of terrain we’re on, we will face numerous flare-ups all around us because sparks travel great distances from the fire. We have to build a fireguard by digging a wide trench that will intersect the fire’s path and cut down any trees overhanging this trench to stop the fire from crawling forward, and then we extinguish any flare-ups on our side of the fireguard. The problem on this fire was that our only water supply came from two helicopters that would drop buckets on any immediate threat. Their resource was a lake a few kilometers away and because it would take them ten minutes to be any help, we were left to fight the fire with dirt... that's right... we would be throwing dirt on the fire. Unfortunately Ol’ Strong-armed McGee wasn’t on our crew that day to throw a shovel-full of dirt up a 40-ft tree that was candling.

With all of these factors, I formed an equation in my head: Being as expendable as we were + the fact that I wasn’t actually hung-over, but still drunk + the death trap we were about to climb into = A situation ripe for a fuck-up. However as soon as I remembered the most important factor - a hefty paycheque - I forgot my troubles, grabbed my tool and made my way down the gully.

My exploits from the previous night wasn’t the only thing attributing to my discomfort that day, there were other issues. One was fact that my uniform was three sizes too small because I wasn’t quick enough in raiding the company’s wardrobe. Now, I assume those who hold the typical perception of the firefighter might think of a firefighter in a tight uniform somehow alluring, but it wasn’t. I looked like an eleven year-old boy who had some how magically transformed overnight into a twenty-one year-old boy. With the expression of dread on my face, someone might have easily assumed that I also had no idea where I was or how I got there because the last thing I would have remembered was falling asleep while reading a comic book on my bunk bed.

While I’m on the subject of metamorphosis, I should mention this last analogy isn’t all that far from the truth because I did grow into my body far too quickly as a child. Due to this blessing I still find controlling my body as easy as riding an electric bull while having a seizure. Stepping onto an escalator is a life and death situation for me, so I always find climbing down a steep gully with a bunch of gear a particular treat.

We began working and my headache took form once the sex stories started following one after another; all seeming to perfect the art in being completely irrelevant to the situation. Each story topped the last but the unspoken rule of never calling anyone’s bluff, no matter how ridiculous the story, still held strong. At least I assume that was the rule because I couldn’t image anyone believing half the shit being said. When someone told me a story, they always put a substantial amount of energy in telling it and I always found it frustrating in trying to figure out what reaction they wanted from me. Maybe, “Dude, you are an animal; a tiger to be exact. Wow! I can’t just picture you doing that in my head right now… There we go… Lookin’ good tiger.”

I guess I’m also concerned for these guys, because if they ever decided to trade in their blue collars for white ones, their conversational skills might not serve them well in an office.

(Employer)
“Hey new guy.”

(Employee)
“The name’s Carl sir.”

(Employer)
“Carl, I’m going to need 50 copies of last month’s fiscal report on my desk by the end of the day.”

(Employee)
“Sure, and hopefully I’ll also have that sweet-assed secretary on your desk by the end of the day; fiscaling her report.”

(Employer)
“What?”

(Employee)
“You know what I’m talking about, now don’t leave me dry and give me some skin up high [extending his hand above his head, waiting to receive a high-five]”

(Employer)
“[Quickly picking up the nearest phone] Security, come here immediately. I think I’m about to be sexually assaulted by the new guy.”

Since so many firefighters seemed to continuously talk about women, one might figure there would have been unwavering tolerance working alongside women, but fuck no. Having to listen to the typical complaints about the mere existence of female firefighters was just angering.

I admit, my story doesn’t take any female firefighter into account and therefore I write this as strictly through a man’s perspective; that’s because as soon as I realize women are not in this line of work to attract other women, I lose all understanding. What’s their underlying ambition? Challenging themselves to become better people?… Yeah well, I want no part of that shallow world.

Several times I heard the argument: “When it comes time to strapping a 80 lb pump to someone’s back and having them haul it up a hill, a woman wouldn’t be the one to do it.” But as I understand it, most people don’t carry the pump because they (man or woman) will avoid doing it at all cost. Sure, I’ve never seen a woman carry a pump up a hillside solo, but I’ve only seen the same three men do it every time and when one of them was me, I felt like going to collapse in tears because the thing was slowly breaking me in half. Therefore I think a slightly less disdainful statement would be, “ When it comes time to haul a 80 lb pump up a hill, anyone who isn’t built like a brick shithouse or isn’t as crazy as a rat that lives in one, wouldn’t be the one to do it.”

I’m not just saying this to avoid generalization; I’m saying this because I’ve seen zero evidence of a woman’s abilities being inferior to that of a man’s. I’ve known plenty of truly hardworking women… and some who were lazy, but there wasn’t a discrepancy between the sexes that justified this thinking.

There were only as select few who brought up the issue of women in the workforce, but sometimes the grievances became so passionate and trivial that I began to feel as if I were stuck sitting at the dinner table with that angry, drunk uncle who’s a common archetype in every family. He’s the guy who constantly wants to elaborate on his theory of how the world’s problems are the fault of those who are born without testicles or those who have no trouble keeping a tan throughout the winter. I get a little antsy when I have to listen to this because I never know if the rant is meant to be nothing more as an amusing anecdote or a cue for the S.S to burst through the door.

While all of this typical bullshit was frustrating me that day, nothing compared to working with this one particular guy. I understand that as soon as you give anyone who aspires to be the comic relief a stage that is safe, be it free from heckles or in front of an audience that will feign the slightest interest, that person will want to perform to his or her full potential. Unfortunately this guy’s audience happened to be a group of people who would be stuck in the woods together for the next three weeks and his show didn’t provide a single intermission. It was like having to work along side the lovechild of Bobcat Goldthwait and Sam Kinison and all I wanted to do is crawl under a rock.

He would REPEATEDLY do this thing that could be referred to as a catchphrase and I might ruin the intent of his joke by attempting to put it to writing, but I’ll try anyways. It begins with him arbitrarily insulting anyone who’s not present and then following his comment with a quick shaking his wrist (as if having a mighty wank) and squealing to a crescendo. It sounded something like, “Meeeeyaaa-SPLOOGE!” So here’s a random example, “No, I wouldn’t say Stevenson is the worst choice to be running the saw, but I would say he’s a writhing douchbag… meeeeyaaaa-SPLOOGE!”

… Yeah I don’t get it either. Don’t blame me, you now know as much as I do. It wasn’t listening to this every five seconds that was painful, it was trying to figure out why everyone else found his banter so endearing. My bafflement caused me to start second- guessing myself, thinking, “Maybe I should be laughing with him. This might be my fault because I don’t understand his humor. I do suppose Stevenson IS a douchbag… but wait, SO IS HE!…. Ah! This confusion makes my head hurt!”

After hour-ten I entered a limbo between inebriation and being hung-over. I noticed our fire-guard extended all the way down the gully, but it was no more than a foot wide and for some reason we hadn’t been cutting down any of the surrounding brush, despite the fact some people seemd more than happy to be lugging around the heavy chainsaws. The fire wouldn’t even flinch when crossing it.

If those in charge decided to bring in a bus full of professional mimes to do this job, they would have gotten the exact same results as they had gotten with us. The productivity of both parties would be comparable if the mimes gallivanted down the gully and put on a spectacular show; swinging their invisible axes and shovels while wearing those renowned grins that teeter on the line between idiocy and insanity.

As soon as the first flare-up happened a few of us quickly went over to it, not to put it out, but to get a picture along side it. Everyone’s enthusiasm didn’t seem to properly coincide with their lackluster imagination because they merely positioned themselves next to the flare-up as if they were posing next to a really big fish they just caught. Now, I don’t consider myself avant-garde when it comes to setting up the perfect hero-shot, but if I were to get the supreme shot it would involve me foaming from the mouth, being bare-assed naked and throwing an axe into a 45 foot wall of flame while a pack of exiled timber wolves huddled behind me for protection… No wait; make that a family of some indigenous hill-tribe…. I would also be carrying the severed head of some mythological creature pertaining to fire…. Oh! Maybe the head of the Greek god of fire, Flamius! (Don’t worry about the authenticity; I’m a wiz with papier-mâché.)… What else?…. I’d also be shooting ice beams from my eyes because that would be my superpower… I think I would title the photo “Just another Tuesday.”

At first there were not enough flare-ups for everyone to pose next too, but soon enough another one popped up and then another, until everyone had a chance get a shot next to their prized sturgeon. We were scattered throughout the gully when each flare-up conglomerated into a wall of fire dividing our crew in half.

If someone were to create a parody of the chaos that ensued it would sound something like, “[Sound of fire burning]…Oh man! Where is everyone?…EVERYONE PULL BACK!…. This totally reminds me of that time I was banging this chick in her kitchen…PULL BACK!….No man, you have to manually focus… Meeeeyaaaaa SLOOGE!…. Come over here!… We were going so crazy on each other that we didn’t even notice the stove bursting into flames… The flash didn’t go off. Are you sure you took it?… Hey, you guys over there. Get your asses up to the road… Meeeeyaaaa SPLOOGE!…. The room was burning all around us and I just kept givin’ it to her from behind…. This shot isn’t that exciting. Maybe it would be better if I were on fire… We can’t reach you. We’ll pull back here… Meeeeya SPLOOGE!…. Goddamn, I love givin’ it from behind. Who’s with me? … I’m not talking about being engulfed in flames, I’m just talking about my uniform being on fire a little bit… Just go! Quickly!… Don’t take another one! I haven’t lit my shoulders yet…. Oh yeah well that`s nothing, one time I was going so hard on this chick the friction burned all the hair off my balls …. Meeeeeyaa—SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET MOVING!”

Half of the team ran to the top of one slope, where our trucks were parked on the road and the remainder of us, which included me, ran up the opposite slope where we found a large area that had been previously burned-over. We became trapped as the flames spread throughout the whole gully and started reaching some pretty impressive heights, however, I want to emphasize that we were not in any danger because this burned spot we were on was large enough to set up three carnivals featuring this clown show. The helicopters quickly came to extinguish our escape path, but they only ended up fanning the flames even higher. Figuring that this would play out to be a long and arduous process, I immediately lied down in the ash, put my pack behind my head and passed out. It was the sweetest six hours of sleep I’ve ever had, even though I awoke now and again to those in the grueling process of trying to set up their slightly more elborate pictures. I wished someone had taken a shot of me at that point because it would have been a great hero-shot of me curled in the fetal position, with the only resources we had in the air, stoking the fire.

Now, I don’t want to give anyone the idea that going to the fire in such rough shape was anyone else’s fault other than my own. I admit it was because of my own stupidly that I didn’t second-guess my own actions and I shouldn't have been relying on the idea of some sort of all-rational authority that would keep my foolishness in check. The most practical thing for me to have done would have been refusing to go to work the night before, but no; I did what I was told, I folded, I rolled over, I was a lackey, I was a mindless drone. Sure, when it comes time when we’re living in an oppressive dystopia, I’ll be the first one to be seen on the streets, soliciting state propaganda with a glazed look in my eyes, but as soon as someone orders me to go fight fire in a gully somewhere in Washington, I’ll be the first one to lead the resistance (garbage cans through storefront windows and all.)

Thinking back on all of this now, I realize that for all its flaws, these were some of the most exciting times of my life and it was enjoyable working with the majority of these people. I would not trade these memories for anything.

It’s a strange thing to consider, but I guess I can say that I’ve reached some sort of milestone because no matter what I do for a career from here on in I can always sit back and point out the hero-shot above the mantle every time my children start complaining about hard times. This is the equivalency of having one of those college football trophies that qualify middle-aged men who are handicapped with hobbled knees to shout constructive obscenities at T.V. every Sunday. Of course, I will have to be careful as to whom I have over for company because as soon as a fellow coworker spots it, he or she might expose the real story behind the photo… unless they become distracted by the really nice picture frame I have it in.

Part 2 - Wild-Land Firefighters: We Save Babies

2007-03-01T00:26:00.000-08:00

Now I’d like to tell the story of my most exciting experience while wild-land firefighting.

After returning home from a 21-day tour in Northern Saskatchewan, I decided not to join my crew for the standard homecoming celebration; instead, I waited one week so I could celebrate with a different crew that was coming back from Alberta. It’s not that I didn’t want to spend that extra night with my workmates because we weren’t getting along, it was because I had already surpassed my threshold for consistent bonding-time with these people and a few drinks could have caused me to finally snap, where I might have resorted to beating the smallest one of them to death with my left shoe.

It must have been one of the most prosperous seasons I had ever known because the company treated the crew returning from Alberta to a night out at a pricey restaurant. During the celebration, none of the higher-ups noticed I wasn’t part of this crew and I only intended on getting some free drinks and a meal. Half way through, the owner of the company, King Misfit, stood up at the end of the table to give one of his ritualistic speeches.— I take the time in describing this character because he embodies much of the senselessness involved in firefighting and I like to think he’s effective in foreshadowing any protagonist’s misfortune.— He was a boisterous and ambitious soul who at first glance could be likened to Santa Clause, but as soon as he opened his mouth he revealed an embitterment that Santa could only have developed had he been shot down over Vietnam and taken as a P.O.W. at some point during his career. I found his arrogance genuinely concerning because it caused me to contemplate all other possible realities if he were living under different circumstances. For instance, had he been born in a developing country with the slightest political instability, his skills in power-tripping his childhood ant farm might have led to a career well beyond the scope of dictating his own fire crews. His zealousness in keeping us in-check through continual, unjustified, public tirades gave everyone a new perspective on tough-love. I never understood what he expected to inspire when he felt like busting everyone’s balls.

Ever since grade one I’ve had a dislike for people speaking to me like I was still in kindergarten and whenever Saint Nick decided to speak to us like we were some little league sports team holding him back from the peewee championships, I had a greater urge to play my assumed roll and embrace incompetence; maybe eat a box of crayons, take off my pants on a whim, or go into a spontaneous temper-tantrum where I cry with such intensity I throw up; Bring out that overgrown four year old inside me just in spite of him.

Anyways, before my own bitterness upstages his any further, I’ll move along and mention that this night was the first time we weren’t scorned for abusing company equipment, but praised for a season nearly well done.

‘“Rumor has it we’ll be going to the States soon boys!” he raised his glass. “Yup, anytime now! Be sure to have your gear packed and ready!... Until then, drink up!”

This news sent many into an ecstatic frenzy of high-fives and joyous obscenities because going to the U.S. meant our wages escalated slightly. However, I refused to believe this news because I was familiar with his reputation for making false assurances for upcoming work. His details and self-convictions were so outlandish, I figured that the only way his stories contained the slightest shred of truth was if he were planning on setting the fires himself. After working for him for some time, no one would have raised an eye brow had he explained, “Rumor has it we’ll be going to the moon boys! For years scientists have been telling me there’s no source of revenue up there, but they’re full of shit! You all better start training underwater!”

Despite all of this I tried to focus my attention on consuming as many free drinks as I could. After all, I was still shocked by the boss’s insistence that we “drink up.”

Imagine how a beaten dog cowers at the first sight of his master’s extended hand, but once realizing that the hand is merely trying to offer food, the dog instantly consumes everything before there’s a chance of it being taken away. Just like this dog, I saw the beer situation as uncommon generosity, so I tried drinking everything I could at the speed of wind.

When the night started getting messy, we left the owner at the restaurant and sauntered up the road to a nearby club. It was a typical night of us making fools of ourselves until 11 o’clock when the music came to an abrupt halt and the DJ announced that all firefighters need to meet outside immediately.

Panic set in because we realized that not only was the omen quite real but it was to happen far sooner than anyone could have expected. Some of us sped around the club aimlessly, bumping into each other shouting, “OH MAN, THEY’RE SENDING US NOW! HOW CAN THEY DO THAT? I CAN’T DRIVE TO THE STATES! ... Oh quick, look behind you…… Hi ya ladies. We’re just on our way to make war with the elements. Care to help us in our quest to extinguish some burning-hot lodgepole pine wood... in our PANTS! HA! [Both firefighters high-five each other, unaware of the self-depreciating nature of the last comment]”

Eventually we all found our way outside where several of our crew bosses, who hadn’t attended the festivities, were waiting. “They wanted to send our crew to Washington in two hours.” One of them said, “But they realize you’ve all been celebrating tonight, so they’ve decided to send the other crew tonight and then the rest of you tomorrow. So I suggest you all go home and get some sleep.”

I was amid the shit-storm of high-fives when one crew boss confronted me, “Jeff? You’re not part of this team,”

“No… no, I’m not.” It slowly dawned on me, “No… No they can’t!” I pleaded.

“Your crew’s heading out right now. You better get to the office.”

If, instead of breaking this news to me, he suddenly decided to empty half a can of bear spray in my face then continually kick me in the ass as I stumble around, I would have faired a far better mood. Hell, knowing the alternative I might have been able to shrug off those actions as quirky, lighthearted humor, “Oh boy, you got me-OUCH!...That was a good one-OW!... But in all seriousness, I better go home so I can get some slee— AH CHRIST!”

That night my brother woke up to a phone-call from an irate drunk shouting, “The States!… They’re sending me!…. This instant!…shit!…. Need to pack!… Please pick me up!.. Shit!..... SHIIIIT!” My brother picked me up in ten minutes and drove me to my parents’ house, where he thankfully helped me gather what I needed.

When I met my sober crew they were loading up the trucks outside the office and a few of them shook their heads, laughing at me. “Boy someone’s going to have a rough day,” someone quipped. Who ever said it was lucky my left shoe wasn’t untied because if I had easy access to it his funeral director might not have been able to conceal the Reebok emblem imprinted onto his forehead.

Once again, to be continued...

Part 1 - Wild-Land Firefighters: We save babies

2007-02-04T02:25:00.000-08:00

During the time I was making my way through university, I came across a situation that I found to be an amazing pain in the ass; I had to come up with a science-related article for my science magazine class. Quickly getting a hold of some of the class’s previous issues, I thought I would come to better understand what was entailed in receiving a passable mark, however, the only thing that proved to be worth while was coming across an article written by an old co-worker of mine. It was his first-person account of his heroic endeavors while wild-land firefighting and this interested me because at that time I had been working for the exact same contracting company as him for the past three years.

I can’t remember the exact details of his gallant fable but my own embellished summary goes something like: During another blistering afternoon in the wilderness of Alberta, the author and his crew worked a few kilometers away from a behemoth of a combustion that raged unremittingly amid the vast woodlands, all the while destroying its lowly inhabitants. The team frantically constructed a fire-guard by way of falling noble oaks and digging trenches with dimensions comparable to those of World War One. Suddenly, the firefighters’ radios spattered a broken message about the fire catching a second wind and mercilessly throwing its way towards them. Miraculously, their savior, in the form of a great chrome-plated sky beast, descended before them. Once they were all inside the helicopter, it began to lift off… BUT IT STRUGGLED! Slowly gaining altitude, the flames reached towards them, eventually licking the belly of their great beast. After tossing their equipment out the door to make for a lighter load they ascended over the dense tree-line. The author then leaned out of the chopper, ripped open his shirt to expose a tattoo of a flaming cobra and screamed at the fire as if screaming at mother-nature herself, “Come and get me now, you relentless bitch!”

After reading halfway through this I realized that the author was referring to a fire I had worked on; it was the House River Fire that had ended up destroying a fair portion of Alberta in 2002.

Now don’t get me wrong, firefighting wasn't all sleeping and playing cards in the woods. Sure, it could be full of exciting and dangerous moments. At House River, we were evacuated several times a week and we even had to leave our fire camp to be burned over. Firefighting has been one of the most fulfilling things I have done in my life and, to tell you the truth, I would love to get back to that type of work before I get too old and fat.

The problem I had with this article had nothing to do with the fact that the author got away with passing this course by submitting a fluff piece; Hell, I would have jumped on that opportunity if he hadn’t already beat me to it. What bothered me was that his story didn’t include any character flaws, any of the common fuck-ups that usually come hand-in-hand in this kind of situation… basically, he didn’t include any element of irrationality that makes working on a the fire-line a total gong-show—a big beautiful gong-show I have grown to love. The story was far too picturesque and if the end involved him cracking open a Gatorade and throwing it back I would have just mistaken the whole thing as just an elaborate advertisement. I understood that these elements had been sacrificed because it would have undermined any chance of the reader perceiving the author as a hero, but this reasoning quickly reminded me of an element you can’t seem to avoid in the world of firefighting… and that’s showmanship. I’ve got no problem with showmanship, but it was always my understanding that showmanship was purely a method for getting laid; strictly for bars and bedrooms, not for science magazines. Also, I think the ridiculous elements of the task were the most important and interesting aspects despite them tarnishing our image, which in my opinion wasn’t that well polished to begin with.

I’ll start by addressing those of you who are the most important people involved in this line of work: the ladies. So ladies, there will be points in your lives where you’ll be confronted in a night club by a guy who’s wearing a t-shirt that has some ambiguous literary reference relating to the dangers of fire, such as, “Fire is the majesty of the wilderness and we are merely her disciples.” The conversation he initiates will be awkward because he is too preoccupied with finding some opportunity where he can seamlessly explain his line of work to you. However, if he’s from out of town it will be cinch for him because he can simply jump in with, “Hi. I’m from out of town… Yeah, I’m just here to fight the big fire… Oh yeah, it’s coming this way… and fast. [He then looks away, as if distracted, with an expression of grave concern.]”

I’ll admit, I’ve been one of those dudes but I’m a little bitter that I never mastered my skills in conversation because I usually resorted to, “Hi. I’m a firefighter… I save wildlife… Particularly the adorable kind… Does, fawns… You know, shit that you see in Disney movies… Hell, I even save… human babies… Yup, save them from the raging flames caused by human carelessness… Say, I can’t help but notice you’re barely touching your drink. You going to finish it or can I have it?... What? Well, I don’t see the point in paying full price when you’ve already finished half of it… You know what, just forget it… [Turning to whoever was my wing-man] Let’s get out of here, looks like we went to another lesbian bar.” Ok, I never got that bad but the prestige associated with claiming to be a firefighter was always a tool that I never seemed to use properly; kind of like being a carpenter who was born without opposable thumbs.

Now I don’t intend on putting firefighters under bad light because I’ve worked with some truly amazing human-beings— some of whom I remain good friends with today— and I also can’t say firefighting is a job that can be performed just as easily by a well-trained monkey wearing an industrial-strength diaper, but I’ve worked with a fair share of misfits. Now when I say “misfit” I don’t mean it as a James Dean persona rebelling against conformity kind of misfit, I’m talking about a “hey, I once used a grocery bag as a contraceptive” kind of misfit. If the typical person who knew nothing about firefighters were to be exposed to some of these darker personalities the shock could be compared to reading a biography of a long-cherished childhood hero only to find out that hero is really just a fat, sleazy, womanizing drunk who spends his past-time skulking through alleyways in search of unsuspecting stray animals to kick, or jumping out in front of frantic mothers to viciously shake a baby carriage or two. Still, this hero might have done some important things during his lifetime but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a gloating, pompous, hate-mongering Nazi-sympathizer who probably makes methamphetamines in his mother’s basement so he can sell them to kindergartners and senoir citizens … Ok, I’m being ridiculous, but my point is; most of us were not the people many thought us to be.

While on the job there were many individuals who managed to manifest our doctrine of showmanship into this bizarre social behavior that involved one firefighter proving themself to other firefighters. It was reminiscent of what we all experienced in high school. We all remember those reassurances about the high school social complex ending after graduation… We’ll, it won’t if you end up either going to prison or firefighting for this particular company. Many believed that explaining the most gratuitous aspects about their personal lives to complete strangers, who usually couldn’t give a shit, was the best way to showcase their personality. For some reason I knew that certain people’s favorite position while making sweaty monkey love was “missionary” before I even knew their actual names. Hell, I started expecting this kind of information to be used as conversational icebreakers right after first introducing myself…

“Hey, nice to meet you my name’s Jeff.”
“Missionary.”
“What?”
“Definitely missionary… Or on my back… Oh, my name is Carl by the way.”

The best and most important example of our showmanship was that of the hero-shot. This was exactly as it sounds: Obtaining a picture of you doing something cool/dangerous on the job. While the best hero shot would involve you battling the fire with your bare hands, it would be extremely difficult because when things actually got nuts, there was no time to stop everything to take a picture. It took me three years to finally get a good hero-shot I was proud of and here it is...

This was right after I wasted an entire roll of film by holding my camera out at arm's length and snapping picture after picture of me trying my best at being nonchalant. Knowing the effort proved futile, I gave up and started brooding when my friend unexpectedly took a shot of me from the front seat of the helicopter.

I've known some people who've loved their hero-shot so much they've actually framed it and put it on a matel, wall or bedroom dresser. It's a strange thing to consider but there are people who wouldn't be caught dead buying a bar of soap in public because they have a feral reputation to maintain, but they're willing to wait in line at a checkout counter to buy a picture frame (Not for framming a head-shot of some sort of loved one, but for framing a picture of themselves.) Personally I could see making my hero-shot into a T-shirt for myself... but putting it on the mantel? Come on.

TO BE CONTINUED...

I'm not a specialist, I'm a journalist

2006-11-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Journalism: A line of work that entails submerging one's self in any situation, which happens to peak a personal interest, and putting the facts on paper so to give the public a general idea? So where do I sign up? Objectivity? Bah, I'll just work on that along the way. Throughout junior high school we've had Orwell constantly reminding us that objectivity will only become obsolete. When do we have till? 1984? Shit, I don't see the point in worrying about it now.

Anyways, since I've finished my training in the skills of journalism, I guess my current goal should involve finding a job that's willing to deposit a paycheque into my bank account in exchange for my efforts in writing the English language. I'm having difficulty fulfilling this first-step in all seriousness because I'm still laughing at the concept of choosing this as a career path for myself. Back in the day, if you had told me that I would become a journalist I would have told you, "What? You're the asshole! Wait, what's a journalist again?'

I realize that if I want to enjoy one of the greatest perks of this job (writing about what genuinely interests me) so soon in the game, then I really shouldn't expect to see any money come my way; at least not for a while. This concept doesn't bother me as of yet.

So this is my blog and I'm not trying to pass it off as some form of journalism; come-on, it's my blog for Christ's sake. But I hope it serves as a useful platform that gives me some sort of incentive to practice my writing because if I plan on writing for the rest of my life I better get off my ass and actually start doing it. I admit, I've had some trouble in following this principle and I guess this blog can be compared to an obese man putting on the track suit for the first time and going for that run at four in the morning. Sure this metaphor might get side-tracked along the way, but it will be a hell of an adventure because neither he nor passing spectators know where he'll go next. I will, however, try to pass this blog off as an experiment because I really don't know where I want to take it: whether to write long-winded, pretentious essays about anything that troubles me, or whether to to make a blog that's true to the sense of the word. Hell, I might just decide to regale you with the most gratuitous aspects of my life; maybe hire myself a stenographer so I can post all those morning conversations I have with my bathroom mirror. It's MY blog and if you don't like it then go fly a kite... and after you're done flying that kite, go fuck yourself - just kidding, calm down.

I feel like I should state, with all sincerity and hopefully without exposing an inferiority complex, that I'm not expecting to write anything all that insightful. Not enough to justify distracting anyone from downloading old, shitty sitcoms (that last comment wasn't mean to be derogatory. I still find myself captivated by how fast the cast of Of Wonder Years grew up before my very eyes.) I'd also like to add, without exposing a superiority complex, that I'm writing this for myself; for the sake of actually having a collection of written material.

Wow, with all this talk about personality traits you'd think that I was writing this for the sake of inadvertently resolving some kind of traumatic childhood. Not to worry folks. While this might turn into nothing but vainglorious tripe, I promise you it won't turn into some sort of cry-for-help. I assure you, the only person who touched me as a child was myself.

On that note I would like to take the time to sit back, think about the future and imagine myself becoming the ultimate journalist: having the credentials of Haroldo Rivera, the substance dependency of Hunter S. Thompson and the teenage heart-throbbing good looks of Walter Cronkite.