Captain One-Eye's prostitution problem

“We don’t sign contracts or any of that nonsense. Here, you give your word and shake hands. If you keep your side of the deal, no problem. If you don't? Problem.” Saying this, the salty Colombian sailor made a shooting pistol gesture with his hand, squinting the eye that wasn't covered by an eye patch as he took casual aim.

Our passports weren't ready, nothing to do but come back later, but the Cartagena heat was enough to melt the most ardent of itineraries, and what would be a better use of time than lolling around a crumbling yacht harbor, listening to an eye-patched sailor anyway?


He was explaining that Colombia is a culture of honesty. “If we make a deal, and I cheat you? Que me jodes. If you cheat me...” a shrug of the shoulders. Clearly there would be no other option than reliable-calliber justice, if you cheat Captain One-Eye.



He went on to explain that this was the problem with Obama and the prostitutes.


“Obama and the whatnow?” I asked, having been completely out of touch for 5-to-50 days.


The scandal of Secret Service members contracting with prostitutes in Cartagena had broken a week before my arrival in the city. In the US everyone was (pretending to be) shocked that Secret Service agents, single young testosteroney men pursuing a cinematastic career that is remarkably boring despite the constant possibility of death and/or glory, who suddenly found themselves in a place like Cartagena, had gone dancing and come back with hookers. How astonishing!


In Colombia, on the other hand, no one cared a whit that they had gotten hookers. That was uninteresting. The scandal in Cartagena was that they hadn’t paid up as agreed.

The story was that the agents has misunderstood the price, so when the time came to pay up, some of the agents reneged on their agreement. This was unacceptable to el Capitan. “You get a woman, you pay the woman. If you don't understand what you agreed to? That is your problem, you agreed.”


He sat back in his seat, disappointed at the failure in etiquette. I felt embarrassed for my countrymen, and apologetic. “I'm sorry Captain, I'm sure next time they'll be paradigms of moral virtue, and pay for their prostitutes like good, respectable men.”




Did I mention you encounter other perspectives when you travel?

Unfair advantages?

Looking at a few blogs while I chewed through my breakfast granola, I passed one that's a series of photosfrom her day. (And if I've gotten confused and you/he is a dude, I apologize, it's happened before.) I've checked out her site in the past and liked it a lot, and this post is beautiful too, but there is something a bit different about this one...

She has it set to play that song from American Beauty, you know the one, that super-pretty but so dangerous to over-use piece, actually titled Any Other Name but you might recognize it as “The Plastic Bag Theme” (which must piss off Thomas Newman immensely).

The photos are very good, some of them are gorgeous and should be hung on the wall, but....with that song...everything is stunning.

Is that cheap? Is that skill? Marketing? Art?

Sometimes I see something and want to photograph it in black & white, but B&W seems like such a cheap way to fling gravitas onto an image. Even though my own photographic talents are admittedly minimal, I still dream of images that stand up for themselves, even in boring old color.

Or in this case, gloves drying on the street in Hong Kong.
It's not a very good picture, but with B&W, it's closer to good.

In color, it's a shoe.

In B&W, it's like...every shoe, man, that ever walked through a day, you know?, that carried the weight of dreams, the hopes of humanity, and the sweat of love, you know, man? This shoe, like, did things.

Looking through my own pictures is usually an exercise in disappointment (but that intersection looked so cool at the time!) but I think if I set up a gallery, lots of B&W, and had that song playing? People would buy them. Then maybe they'd take them home, and in the sterile lack of music they'd look at them and say “Wait, was this the one we picked?”

But there's a better question. If a song like that adds a readiness for reverence, an ease of admiration and propensity for esteem...what if you just lived that way? All the time. Would it cheapen and wear thin? Or would you reach a nirvana of awe and respect for...everything?

Captain One-Eye wants to show you something

I hear “yacht harbor” and think elegant buildings, fancy facilities, and perhaps a cravat or two tied around the neck of pretentious men who call themselves “Captain” and still expect to be taken seriously. With the possible exception of the nickname, nothing on that list was in Cartagena’s yacht harbor.

Unfortunately I don't have any other pics
of the yacht harbor itself.

Instead of marble counter tops and basin sinks in air conditioned bathrooms, there was a porta-potty next to the dusty concrete slab, where our cracking plastic lawn chairs were clustered under a well-punctured tarp. Around us were heaps of bent and rusty rebar, spilled like intestines out of the shattered ribs of half-built concrete pillars that stood in the sun, resolute and confused.

They had been part-way through the construction of a new bar/restaurant when the money ran out and the project was halted. Four years ago. Now it was a construction site with no construction.

A few people moved among the boats, but nary a cravat was to be seen. The young wore bikinis or board shorts, and had tan skin glowing almost orange on lithe bodies. Their elders wore faded Hawaiian shirts barely buttoned over paunches that hung over belts, and had the blotchy wrinkled skin of people who have spent their lives in the direct sun, curly chest hair bleached golden by the elements and eyes squinted shut against years of reflected glare.

A swarthy fellow with an eye patch came over to talk to us. Yes, an eye patch. The Australian father and son I’d shared a ship with didn’t speak much Spanish, so One-Eye zoned in on me as the translator as he pitched us a van tour of the city. When we didn’t bite, he moved on to apartments for rent, then to evening tours to “El Titty Bar.” We all just kind of looked at him on that one.

Captain Eye Patch’s Tour to El Titty-Bar? Almost worth it, just to be able to say "I did that."

Somehow from his Hawaiian shirt he produced a small case of emerald and silver jewelry, which sparkled in the patch of sunlight he expertly placed it in. QVC can’t make ‘em shine like that, but again, none of us were buying.

I was curious what the next pitch would be, from him or any of the other half dozen world-worn men sitting around, eying us like hyenas considering a bleeding zebra, when out of the cracked concrete Serengeti came Rudy, our captain, our lion, to save the day.

One-eye greeted Rudy, his body language clearly showing respect, but even a lion can’t stop a salesman.

One Eye: “My jewelry is very fine. Rudy knows. He bought my jewelry, isn’t that so?”
Rudy: “Yes. A long time ago.”
One Eye: “A long time ago.”
Rudy: “When I was a tourist.”
One Eye: (Gives a long appraising look, then laughs and shakes Rudy’s hand.)
Rest of us: (Glad we didn’t buy anything.)

Rudy and One-Eye talked yacht harbor shop (and gossip) while the Australians and I sat in our growing puddles of sweat, waiting to see if our passports had been processed, so we could stop being illegal in Colombia...

Reunited with one of my great loves

I was reunited with one of the great loves of my life this afternoon. My parents dropped her off yesterday, and her curves, lines, and quirks are as familiar to me, as nostalgic to behold, as the arrival (and departure) gates at San Francisco International Airport. I couldn't keep my hands off her, and this morning I woke with the question of where to take her for breakfast.

I had, however, forgotten about the rack she has now. Gotta get used to that. It totally changes how she looks.

This afternoon we went to the grocery store, an errand I remember with particular fondness in times and lands past...but today's trip was good too, just in a different way. I picked out jalapeño salsa tortillas, pomegranate berry yogurt, and dark chocolate coconut chews. (The store was magnificent, so impressive it was no surprise to see the wrinkles of discontent in affluent brows that patrolled the aisles, looking for things they could complain about not finding.) We danced together the whole way home, no need for music, we made our own rhythm and melody.

I bought her some new jewellery, to lock her down and keep her for myself. I asked the salesman where the best places to take her around here are, and was gratified to hear his answer, “around here, pretty much anywhere.”

We danced so much in fact, that the Voice of Responsibility in my head had to remind me to pay attention to the sluggish creatures sharing the floor with us; cars just aren't as graceful as the swoops and leans of my beloved bicycle.

Suddenly this city, not large in itself, but part of a metropolis that spreads far beyond each horizon, is much more attainable, and to my circumstantial delight I find it is crisscrossed with “bike route” streets which offer shady avenues with less autos to pass, more fellow cyclists to nod hello to.

Riding again, I just couldn't stop smiling. Sometimes I fear that a grin that just won't quit will sometimes drift down to a smirk, but I don't think that was the case today, as it evoked a succession of kindred expressions, until I was riding through a haze of happy, sparkling with smiles, warm September air, and a body moving in harmony with a machine, with itself, with a place.

God I enjoy bike riding.

What happens to men like Rudi?

Rudi worked as a truck driver for decades, meaning he was on the highways throughout the Sandinista-Contra years. In his mid-fifties he was laid off, and now no one will hire him because he is only four years from retirement, which a new employer would have to pay for.

“At first I stayed home” he told me. “But that was...no good.” He looked down at his feet when he said this, and his voice was quiet. “No good.”

He paused, looked around with tired eyes. His mouth moved a little, but no words came out. His cheeks were sun-lined and rough with a light growth of stubble, turning grey. He doesn’t shave every day anymore. His eyes were dark, watery, but looked at the world with the steadiness of one who knows what his life is, and does not run from it.

“So now I come here. Sometimes somebody will pay me a few cordobas to go pick something up, or take it somewhere...” He trailed off.

Another man, another park,
same Leon afternoons

We sat in silence for a moment, me trying to think of something to say, he lost in memories. Then a sound like violence annihilated the somnolent stillness.

Twice daily, 7:00 AM and 12:00 noon, the city of Leon pays tribute to the cotton factories of the past by blaring the air raid siren that used to summon and dismiss workers. The trees shivered and the pigeons scattered like shrapnel. I imagined the plaster must be flaking off the colonial facade of the cathedral behind me. Rudi and I looked at each other helplessly, eyes squinting shut against the aural assault. Just another thing to be endured.

After all, there's nothing like a mind-erasing factory wail to remind you that you no longer have a job.

Once the echoes in my head subsided, I asked my new friend where the best place was to buy a batido, the fruit smoothies that the gods gave to Latin America out of remorse for the heat, and invited him for one.

Leon's parque central where Rudi spends his days

We walked, Rudi’s steps slow and steady, no need to rush anymore, to a collonaded room where a bored high schooler stood behind a chipped white counter. We ordered two pineapple batidos and sat directly under the ceiling fan. We drank the chunky sweetness and conversed as well as we were able given that my Spanish was still dusting itself off, and he had the thick accent of an elderly local who has lived his whole life in the same place.

When we were done I shook his hand and said goodbye. As I walked away I turned to watch him for a moment and he shuffled back to the park. What happens to men like Rudi?

Lavender squirrels smoking cigarettes. (See, commas are important.)

I still forget, or maybe just don't believe, that I actually live here now. Live someplace now. How is that different from visiting it? Should I buy a map and study the streetplan? Do I walk around it less than if I was a visitor, or more?

In all honesty I can't imagine I will walk as much here as I did in Bangkok, Kuala Lampur, or Istanbul (I wanted to say “BangkoKuala LampuReykjavik” but that didn't turn out as intelligible as I'd hoped), but I can still take a wander around town.

Especially while the weather is this divine.

I'm not sweating, but I can still wear shorts and flip flops.

I never realized how little of Earth's surface permits this behavior.

Does it mean I'm getting suburban, that I want to talk about the weather?

The sun of an Indian Summer looks good on ginko leaves and lavender stalks, keeps hip art students warm while they take smoke breaks on their “Tobacco free” campus, and glows on the squirrels gathering nuts on the streets of Rockridge.

I can't remember what a Bay Area winter is like, but for now, this place is mighty comfy.

A new chapter, and feeling good about it.

The flight was smooth, the dogs were adorable, and the sunset looked triumphant. I met the new guy, to whom I am the New Guy, and ate tacos. Eight hours of sleep on a sofa saturated with canine, and then today started. And with it, presumably, a new episode of my life.

Had to go back to the old files for an SF pic

Because today I take up residence in a fixed place. That alone surprises me, but that it's in America? Shocking. As of today, I am a resident, more or less, of Oakland, California, just across the cold bay waters and whitecaps from San Francisco.

Oakland has a rough reputation, but I'm in one of the nicer areas (by quite a bit), where paint jobs are perfect, ornate windows reveal custom made furniture, and the yards are filled with organic heirloom tomato plants...in custom made planter boxes with perfect paint jobs.

I assume I'll be blogging about the beasts in the future,
but this is Miles, who lives on our porch, and has a certain
suspicion back at the neighbors.

When I came to look at the house a week ago, I stood in the nearest intersection and could see at least two Prius hybrid cars in every direction. In front of the house right now, four of eight vehicles are that model. This is one of the few renter houses on the block, and apparently the neighbors maintain a certain suspicion about us.

That's kind of awesome.

I don't mean to judge any of this, hybrids are great and lord knows I have nothing against tomatoes, but it's a helluva change from...everywhere else.

That's going to be true in a lot of ways. I'll do laundry whenever I want. My showering schedule will be regular and reliable. I'll get mail here. I can drink the tap water.

I went for a walk last night to explore the area. I wondered if the battered state of my clothes would gain me hipster street cred, but I suspect I still don't speak their language. Perhaps I should grow a handlebar mustache?

When I was ready to turn around I found a burger place, where I bought lemonade from a girl not wearing a bra, then sat to drink it while others came in and ordered “the vegetarian burger, with onions if they're organic and extra tahini” and “a cheeseburger with cheese.”

I passed restaurants where Young Urban Professionals sat their giant wine glasses on spotless white tablecloths, and thought “I will never eat there.” A dozen more steps and I passed in the door of a simple taqueria, spare tables and bright lights, where smiling women with rosy cheeks tended a clean grill.

That's when tacos happened.

I crossed under the BART tracks (think subway) and found the closest grocery store (where I went this morning to buy bread, hummus, cherry tomatoes and an avocado. Still on the list: a real towel, breakfast cereal, and laundry soap that works in machines).

There is no moping when these three
are watching you. And they are.

As my walk was winding down, I noticed I was slipping towards...what was this feeling? My god, it's moping. Gloomy unhappiness. What the hell?

My body remembered innumerable similar walks in my last US hometown, where I would pace the four sad blocks of the downtown drag, gradually growing less and less optimistic that something interesting would happen. But then I remembered, I'm not there anymore.

I'm in a new town. A new house. A new phase of life. And it's looking good. And I feel good.

I bought an ice cream to celebrate. It was delicious.