Tuesday, November 12, 2024
The wine of Golem
Another Tale From Luxembourg 11-11-2011
Later on that gray autumn morning in November 11, 2011 after the ceremony for the American War dead, the dignitaries drove to attend the Ruhe Tag or ‘Quiet Day’ ceremony for the fallen German soldiers at the close-by Sandweiler German War Cemetery, a separate and smaller cemetery. Shaded by the trees and dark as a forest. Many of the tombstones are unmarked, as the corpses had been recovered from mass graves well after the Battle of the Bulge.
The cobblestone path led to a large cross on a monument. two lines of stones formed the image of rail tracks. The heavy gray tombstones were reminiscent of Wehrmacht uniforms.
Over ten thousand German soldiers were buried here. Many were SS and had been buried one top of the other and the German ambassador explained that was so they would be close to their comrades. I thought the two to a grave policy had been to save space.
I stood next to the American ambassador. He was Jewish. His unease was obvious. Neither of us were here to judge the dead and we showed his respect during the somber rites for the dead.
I had earlier cried seeing the rows upon rows of white crosses at the American cemetery. Flowers were laid at the monument and a band played a dirge. I suspected that Germans had many of them. I shed no tears here.
I slipped outside the ceremony and an old man in a good suit was smoking a cigarette by an iron fence. The Battle of the Bulge was sixty-six years ago. He had to be in his late eighties. in 1944 he had been very young. He still stood erect. I asked him for one in German. He gave me one and lit it for me.
“Du kennst hier jemanden?” Did he know anyone here. My high school German was still stuck in my head thanks to Bruder Karl.
“Viele Kamaraden, du?” He smiled and sucked on his cigarette.
“Ich war damals noch etwas jung.” I hadn’t even been born in 1944.
“Du bis rechtig.” The old man laughed with a tobacco cough. Maybe something worse. “Ich bin alt. Sehr alt.”
“Aber nicht tot.” We were both old at different ages, but neither of were dead.
“Das stimmt. Du bist Amerikaner?”
I nodded yes.
“Guten Soldaten.” He nodded in appreciation of the Yankees’ valour and stubbed out the cigarette. “Guten tag.”
I said the same and he walked away, as I finished the cigarette. I didn’t go back inside the cemetery. I knew no one inside. I was better off outside and happy to be so. Every day above the dirt is a good one for the living. The good, the bad, and the in-between.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Journal Entry – November 11, 1995 – New Delhi
The Aeroflot flight from Moscow must have arrived for crowds of badly-dressed Russians throng through the market buying cheap clothing to sell for a tidy profit back in the ex-Soviet Union. Finding large clothing isn't easy, but the Indian merchants of the cheap tourist hotel district know their market. It is now apparent from the swift collapse of the USSR that the CIA lied about Communist's hold on their regime, although the Russians freed Europe from the Nazis.
Throughout my stay in New Delhi Indians have asked why the USA sold F-16s to their subcontinental adversery Pakistan and I said, "The Pentagon does not win wars which are used to grind profit fromcivilians and solidiers to earn profit for the military-industrial complex.
No one mentioned Armistice Day.
The War to End All Wars.
I walked to the train station and bought a one-way ticket to Goa.
Peace reigned there.
Hippies love peace.
11/11/1918 - The Last To Go
Published on Nov 11, 2008
My grandfather and grandmother met in France. The year was 1917. They served together in a frontline hospital for the Royal Canadian Medical Expedition. Neither had much use for God after witnessing the carnage of trench warfare. 90 years ago they were sitting along the Marne for the Armstice. It was signed at 5am, but didn't take effect, until the 11th second of the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Up to that moment the guns along the Western Front unloosed their last cannonade. The 11th second came and went without any abatement in the fury. Soldiers on both sides still had ammo and they weren't taking it home from 'over there'.
It is estimated that over 10,000 men were killed or wounded between 5am and 11am.
The last casualty is reputed to be a Canadian, Private George Lawrence Price.
He was struck in the chest by a German sniper at 10:58am.
One of the 60,000 dead from the Great North.
Pacem in Terrem.
I asked a number of New Yorker about Armstice Day. It's a national holiday. Out of twenty only two could say why they had a day off from work.
"As you get old, you forget. As you get older you are forgotten."
FALLEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN by Peter Nolan Smith
On November 11, 2011 I accompanied the British and the American ambassadors to the US military cemetery outside Luxembourg City. Luxembourg was a small duchy. I looked out the window of the Jaguar, as we exited from the city. The morning sun struggled to break through the low fog. It would have little success on that day as it had at the end of 1944.
In December of 1944 over four thousand American fell in the Battle of the Bulge. Our troops had stopped the Nazis by Christmas, but the savage fight had been a close thing.
The German ambassador waited at the gate of the American cemetery. He had come to lay a wreath in honor of the dead. Beyond him thousands of white crosses marked the graves of my fallen countrymen.
I got out of the British ambassador's Jaguar and walked away from the assembled dignitaries like the old man at the beginning of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
"Are you okay?" The American ambassador caught up with me at a wall rusty with autumn leaves.
"Yes." There were tears in my eyes. These men were from my father's generation. I knew men who had fought here. "I'm surprised by it all."
"I felt the same way the first time I saw all these graves." The ambassador was a few years older than me. "Let's walk to the back of the cemetery."
The dewy grass wet our shoes, as we checked the gravestones for names, ages, and states. 
Each one had died in the bitter cold of December 1944. They hailed from every nationality. Most had been in their twenties. More than a few were from my home states of Massachusetts and Maine.
We arrived at the last row and returned to General Patton’s grave, who laid forever at the head of his army.
I got some more dust in my eyes, as a lone bugler played taps. The American ambassador patted my shoulder. We didn't have to say another word, just nodded to honor the dead
The next day I traveled to Charleroi and mentioned this visit to an American friend. Vonelli poured me a glass of Orval Beer and we sat by the fire in his living room.
"My father had been with the artillery in the Battle of the Bulge and my old man never got over the horror of that winter."
Vonelli was a veteran of a colder war from the 70s.
"Every morning the platoon commander held a lottery, which picked the forward artillery observers from the ranks. After the results the chosen men would shake hands with their friends, knowing their chances of coming back in the evening were close to nil."
"And they went?"
"It's what they did," Vonelli said with reverence.
I thought about the graves that the ambassador and I had passed yesterday and seeing those marked unknown.
"They were the best of the best." We could only honor their sacrifice.
"That they were."
Maybe the dust in my eye had had something to do with the lump in my throat, because those men had been us once and I am eternally grateful in the Here-Now as well as dedicated to keeping the peace in the Here-Beyond.
It's the least I can do for those men.
NOVEMBER 7, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE
Election Day in New York.
At stake is the governorship of Albany.
Hugh Carey is the narrow favorite over his GOP opponent.
I can't vote for either and will cast my ballot for the Communist Party candidate Jarvis Tyner.
It's 11am. My coffee is finished and I will leave the apartment shortly to vote and work for Mark Amitin. I wish I didn't have to work for anyone, except bills necessitate a job.
LATER
It's certain that whatever I'm trying to say has been loss to general amnesia. I know the past and present, however the future remains a cloud of uncertainty and this despite being born with the 'Caul' or Uterus wrapped around my head at birth. The sign of sight to the Irish.
I can read palms.
Never my own or Alice's hand.
Not certain of my power of predestination. My predictions sometimes come true, but mostly are forever false. My dreams are sleeping movies without any message.
Time to vote.
Workers of the World unite.
FOOTNOTE - Mount Kilimanjaro March 1 2021
David finished his call and asked, "You know about Covid?"
"Just what I've been reading over the last days."
"And what do you think?" David like many of the guides and porters trusted my eye on the weather.
"That we are in for a hard time, but not today."
Pendaeli, the Park ranger, greeted my arrival at Hurumbo with a broad smile. Basketball tied us tight. He was Lakers. I was Celtics. That night at dinner he whispered, "What do you think about Covids?"
I had been born with the placenta wrapped around my head. The phenomena affected one of 87000 births and the Celts believed the Caul granted the newborn with the gift of sight of the past, present, and future, but I had to admit to Pendaeli, "I see nothing."
FOOTNOTE NOVEMBER 7, 2021 - CLINTON HILL
Jarvis Tyner only received 14,000 votes in that election.
One of them was mine. Workers of the World unite.
11-11-11
On the 11th minute of 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 a permanent ceasefire was declared along the Eastern and Western fronts. Canadian George Lawrence Price was hit by the sniper's bullet at 10:58 and he has long been thought to be the last casualty of that conflict, although troops continued to shoot at each other for several hour after the armistice ended the four-year global conflict.
11-11-11 occurs once a year.
Someone in the armistice committee must have been heavily influenced by numerology to have chosen this powerful repetition of the first prime number to magically stop soldiers from killing each other.
Of course it could have just been a coincidences like 9/11/2001.
Today the major combatant nations of World War I commemorated their fallen dead.
Over 65 million soldiers participated in the struggle.
According to Wikipedia the last living veteran of World War I (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918) was Florence Green, a British citizen who served in the Allied armed forces, and who died 4 February 2012, aged 110. The last living combat veteran was Claude Choules who served in the British Royal Navy (and later the Royal Australian Navy). He died 5 May 2011, at the age of 110.
The last veteran to serve in the trenches was Harry Patch (British Army) who died on 25 July 2009, aged 111 and the last Central Powers veteran, Franz Künstler of Austria-Hungary, died on 27 May 2008 at the age of 107.
My grandfather and grandmother both served in France for the Canadian Medical expedition. As my grandmother was disembarking at Le Havre, she stumbled coming down the steep gangplank. My grandfather stopped her fall and helped her onto the dock They served as doctor and nurse along with my Aunt Marion at Epinay tending to thousands of wounded and dying. After the outbreak of Spanish Flu in 1917, the three of them returned home on an ocean liner together. Captain Smith and Nurse Hamblin married soon after their arrival in Maine. The two veterans lived together for thirty-two years. My grandfather died the year I was born and my grandmother twenty years later.
She was the last WWI vet I knew.
I love her always.
11-11-1918
Published on Nov 11, 2012 My grandfather and grandmother met in France. The year was 1917. They served together in a frontline hospital for the Royal Canadian Medical Expedition. They came home with German helmets, bayonets, zeppelin debris, and medals as souvenirs of that horrible conflict. Neither had much use for God after witnessing the carnage of trench warfare.
Today I toasted them both and thanked the stars that I’ve never had to fire a shot in anger and thanked the fallen for their sacrifice so that I remain a pacifist.
Almost a hundred years ago they were sitting along the Marne for the Armstice.
The truce between the Axis and Allies was signed at 5am, but ceasefire didn't take effect, until the 11th second of the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
The guns along the Western Front unloosed their last cannonade for six hours.
The 11th second came and went without any abatement in the fury. Soldiers on both sides had ammo and they weren't taking it home from 'over there'.
It is estimated that over 10,000 men were killed or wounded between 5am and 11am.
The last casualty is reputed to be a Canadian, Private George Lawrence Price.
He was struck in the chest by a German sniper at 10:58am.
One of the 60,000 dead from the Great North.
Pacem in Terrem.
I asked a number of New Yorker about Armstice Day. It's a national holiday. Out of the twenty I questioned only two could say why they had a day off from work.
"As you get old, you forget. As you get older you are forgotten."
But not by me.
I'm a true old git.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
30,000 Feet over Burma - May 5, 1990 - Journal Entry
Previously published May 24, 2023 My flight to Kathmandu was leaving this morning. Hot outside on Soi Duplee 94. The lobby of the Malaysia Hotel was comfortably cool. I told Dawn to wait a few minutes. My taxi was waiting outside. The desk connected me with a collect call to New York. I caught Richie at home. He accepted the charges and after hearing about the Bangkok nightlife he complained, “I haven’t had anyone to drink with since you left. New York sucks. The clubs suck. The drug sucks.”
"I drink with everyone. Irian Jaya, Bali, Sumatra, and Penang. I don't have to speak with them or understands them, but I still talk. It's still good fun. Especially here. The Thais love to have a good time." There had been other places. Pink Panther on the Jakarta docks had been one of my favorite. Wicked beyond belief.
"I wish I was with you."
"Maybe next year."
I didn't have any friends here, but Dawn waved from the lobby. I smiled. She smiled back.
"Seen any lepers?"
"I saw them in every country. Hiding from the sunlight. Stumps of hands and feet. Gnarled faces."
Sounds like New York."
50,000 beggars and madmen have been freed from the upstate mental hospitals, which the state are closing obstentively to bring them into outreach programs, but it was just to cut costs. The mad of New York have been ravaged by the wars, poverty, greed, and neglect. There was no saving them nor will Buddha save the desperate souls of Bangkok.
Luck had saved me from that fate. That and selling diamonds for Manny, Richie's father. A real job on 47th Street.
“When are you coming back?”
Maybe I’ll spend time in Paris and London.”
In Singapore I had spoken with Rick Temerian, my compatriot in lone male syndrome, on the Direct USA Phone. We planned to meet in Paris at the end of May.
I had no reason to be in America. The Knicks had knocked out the Celtics. I had friends in Paris and London. I had worked in both. I could work there again on my fake carte de sejour.
“But I seriously thinking about moving out here. If you want to join me next year, then start saving your pennies. Departure date. Jan. 2, 1991. Although I don’t know, if I can last that long in the USA. I’d love to leave forever.”
Not that anywhere else was better than America, however I knew its evils too well.
“Good luck in the Himalayas.” Richie laughed, "I'm stuck with my father and so are you. Your job will waiting here."
"Thanks." I kept it short having covered the reason for the call. Back in New York I still had a motorcycle, an apartment, and a job in New York.
I hung up and joined Dawn. The diminutive gogo girl had been a good companion. She actually looked sad to see me go. I slipped her another 1000 baht. She wai-ed me and said, "You come back. See me. Love you long time."
I wai-ed her back, wishing she was coming with me. I am a fool.
The ride to the airport through the traffic took an hour. I had another hour and a half until my flight's departure. I grabbed a Bangkok Post and a Singha beer in the lounge area. My wrist was itchy under the cast from the motorcycle accident. I couldn't reach the itch and downed another Dilaudid. Men were saying good-bye to girlfriends. Some are sad. Other men are greeting their friends. They are happy. This must be the Hello-Goodby Lounge.
The terminal loudspeaker called for all Kathmandu passengers. I finished my beer and proceeded through customs and passport control. None of the officials paid me any mind. Iwas just another farang or foreigner leaving the Land of Smiles. The Thai Air flight plane took off on time and I left Thailand for the first time. I would be coming back soon.
LATER
Eight klicks below are the arid rice fields of Burma, burnt brown and begging for the monsoon. The rumors of the military’s corruption, forced migrations, massacres, and starvation are not rumors. I had been on the northern Thai-Burma border. Drug lords and Karin rebels fight the junta. No one wins these wars, but there is too much is at stake to surrender. Neither Thailand nor the USA will cut off ties with Myammar. Heroin was why the French and America fought long wars to control the drug trade. They had never stood a chance of winning. These countries are not France or America.
I had seen one temple in Bangkok.
Wat Patpong. The capitol of the sex trade in the City of Angels. Go go bars, beer bars, and short-time bars. Short of 40 I'm almost a young man there.
Why did I leave the Malaysia Hotel and Dawn?
We had spent the last three nights together. $25 per evening plus bar fine for the mama-san of her go-go bar. She toured the city with me, but her main pleasures were sleeping and watching , while she watched Thai soap operas on TV non-stop, while I wrote. We didn't talk much, but last night when I said I'm leaving, naked in bed the young dancer had said, "Why go see mountains when you can see me."
I had enough money for another month with her. I hadn't answered, but I had been looking forward to seeing the highest mountains in the world. She wai-ed me, as I got into the taxi. I wai-ed back. Thankfully not shaking her hand. THe Thais are very shy.
"Come back see me. Love you long time."
I smiled and thought I hope I do.
LATER
Customs and immigration were easy. This is a small airport. A taxi driver shows me a card of a hotel. He will get a little money for bring me there. I found this to be a safe way to find someplace the stay. The guest house is mentioned in the Rough Guide. Driving down from the airport we passed a golf course, the grass withered yellow. Soldiers are everywhere. The pro-democracy wave has washed over Asia. Students are calling for the abolishment of the kingdom.
This evening at the hotel I met Lance. A New York architect. We have agreed to trek into the mountains together and hired a team of porters through the hotel. I sit on the roof, drinking a Kingfisher beer, watching the sun light up the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. One of them might have been Everest. I took out my Nelles map and looked again. there were too many mountains to count. I was in Kathmandu.
Dorge the guide, will arrange trekking permits in the next few days. He points out the peaks. We have a Nepali cook and Sherpa porters for an early morning departure in two days, which is a good thing, because I hear gunfire. The army are shooting the students. I leaned over the balcony. The soldiers were savagely beating protestors with long batons. More shots ring out. Close. A young bearded trekker pulled me away to safety.
He introduces himself and said, “You were stupid."
“How so?”
“You should have brought two go-go dancers from Pat-Pong.” Todd was from Hawaii. He stared at the cast on my wrist. I gave no explanation.
“So they can ask, “Where Tee-vee?” No thanks.”
I was here for the mountains.
The criminal paradise
Sex offenders usually have to register to live in a neighborhood? Does this rapist have to register in the White House?
I personally don’t consider these things when I vote for any public position, but the times and the norms are changing. You can be so proud. You voted for a sex offender.
And felons should not be allowed to run for political office, let alone President.
like they also shouldn’t be allowed to vote? In this democracy ten million convicts are denied the right to vote, mostly due to unpaid legal fees. Trump had boasted that he could shot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it. He was only telling yet another retched truth about America. A country founded on extermination, enslavement, and exploitation. The Land of the Freaked. I’d say revolt, but why bother since most liberals agree with the Beatles singing, “And if you want destruction, then count me out.” Complete sell-outs. Like us all. Get a bag of potato chips or else resteel yourselves for a real fight. Get ready for 2026. Damn first time I’ve typed that year. Enjoy the criminal paradise. Anything goes for them. So shall it be for us.
May 14, 1990 - Langtang Glacier - Nepal - Journal Entry
Published on: May 22, 2024
As promised by the guide the trek across the landslide was tricky. Loose shale and rocks under foot. Dorge said two houses had been swept away by the avalanche.
"No one was killed. One man still missing."
He said this with resignation to the danger of living in the Himalayas.
Another trekker Miriam picked her way across the wasteland. Her feet were bleeding and her partner, an older German, didn't look in any better shape.
I slid a couple of times as did Lance.
The porters handled the damaged trail like mountain goats.
Reaching the bottom of the valley we crossed the river on a derelict hanging bridge. The current was ever fierce. Falling into the water meant drowning and I was glad to have safely negotiated the span.
At the next village an older woman greeted our passage by sticking out her tongue. Another trekker Dice aka Todd commented that maybe it was part of mating ritual. Our guide Dorge corrected him, "Here we know that devils have no tongue, so villagers stick out their tongue to show that they are not demons."
"There are demons here." Dice laughed at such an idea.
"Everywhere on my travels across Asia, everyone had warned about the devils in the next valley or island. Upon arriving onward the people of the island or valleys warned their neighbors were evil. magic was everywhere. The worst demons are the royal troopsin Kathmandu repressing the democratic uprising of the people, but those are human.
"All the wooden masks in the villages are of demons." Dorge stuck out his tongue.
I've never seen any demons other than in human forms, but I have seen ghosts."
"You have???" Dorge was alarmed by this admission.
"I have and I'll tell you a ghost story this evening." Ghost stories work better around a fire in the dark. A glass of whiskey helped too.
A crowd of villagers waited by the school and motioned for my approach.
"They ave heard that you have medicine. None of them have seen a doctor in this life."
"I'm not a doctor."
Dorge shrugged with little concern for my being charged with malpractice.
"You have medicine. Only medicine here. Tiger balm."
I agreed to the deception and treated infected eyes and hands and feet with antiseptics. I lanced small wounds swollen with pus. They bore the pain without a whimper. I gave a bottle of antiseptic ointment to the teacher, who expressed his gratitude with a solemn bow.
"How much medicine did you bring?" asked Dice. He had attended Cornell for Hotel Management. I had attended Boston College. My major had been Economics and graduated sin laude, but my grandfather had been a Maine doctor. My Irish namesake had been a trolley man in Boston. My only medical training was at Boy Scout camp in New Hampshire. Thankfully no one had any broken bones or anything really serious.
"Enough to handle a hypochondriac's ills." I had enough to last me till the return to Kathmandu.
LATER
Resting by a prayer wall at another villager. I was a doctor again. Dorge explained that we are stopping too often, so I cut my clinic short by only tending to the children. Babies with coughs I gacve them a droplet of sweet syrup. They smile and wash their grimy faces. One old gent complained about a tooth ache. He opened his mouth to reveal rotten stumps. I gave him cloves for the pain and advised that he suck on them. He made a face tasting them, but upon my departure smiled with relief. They waved good-bye.
Ganchemao is the monster peak rising above the valley. Snow clumped in glaciers on the peak. The sun is torching my lips. Dice lends me lip balm.
"I have to take care of the doctor."
"Then you can be my nurse."
Later
I walked ahead of everyone. Even the porters. I want to be alone. The wind, the scent of pines and flowers, the world of sky peaks. I sneak peeks, because I am trekking on a narrow trail and pay attention to where I put my feet rather than trip and fall into a deadly valley. Lots of rocks. Twisting an ankle would be a disaster this far from the road. I stop and rest, regaining my breath. Our porters pass smoking cigarettes. I wait for a lagging trekker. Dieter is suffering from dysentery. He appears after fifteen minutes, looking like shit. I advise him to hire a porter. We are dismissing one at the next village. His pack is empty.
"You shits are only get worse."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look it, but up to you."
Miriam appears that she has abandoned the Sherpa way and is wearing her boots. A wise decision, but I can tell by her gait that she really savaged her feet. I offer to clean them and binding them with tape. She shakes her head not willing to admit she was wrong. Lance looks at me and we both shrug with no comment.
Best to let people do what they think is best.
LATER
We stopped for an afternoon tea. Each step up this valley transports us further back into medieval times. This could be 1452 AD. Yaks, the Sherpas' beast of burden lumbered up and down the trail under heavy loads of up to a hundred-fifty pounds. Three times more than the Sherpa porters. I'm carrying about ten pounds and every step is a struggle. Dice is much younger than me and is handling the ascent to Langtang glacier with ease. Lance and I are in the same shape.
Crap.
I had to switch pens. I gave away two to young boys.
This is as faraway from civilization as I have been in my life. Far from Boston. Far from New York. As soon as I put my boots on the trail I was transported to the 15th Century. No telephones, no radio signal. No electricity other than our flashlights. No subways. No bagels. No diamonds on 47th Street.
Dice, who retired from Wall Street at 30, joins me in a squat on a boulder, and asked, "What do you think these people think of us. Trekking through their villages without stopping for more than a cup of tea and sleep."
"They think of us a cash cow. Without us life would be even harder. They have been thinking the same as all travelers since before time. In good times lots of people. In bad times fewer and most of them bad."
"And these are good times?"
"Be more trekkers, if Kathmandu was quiet."
"My guide, Porterhouse, says nothing that happens in Kathmandu affects up here. Do you think these are good times?"
Nothing is burning and we don't see any dead people. I had seen the soldiers shoot into a crowd in Kathmandu. They weren't aiming over their heads. It's peaceful up here. Normal times. Nothing special."
We were surrounded by Rhododendrons. The huge flowers flourish in the high altitudes. I had won one in high school from a church raffle. The only thing I had ever won.
I looked up to the mountains, squinting in the high glare off the snow peaks. These villages weren't flush with money. They never had any. Bad things happened. Bad things happened a lot. A sick child. A sick parent. A sick cow. The King opened Nepal to foreigners in 1951. The 50s hadn't hit Langtang Valley yet. This trek isn't too popular, since it dead-ends at the glacier. There is no crossing into the neighboring Helambu Valley.
"Maybe in ten years this valley might improved, but the only transport are by your feet, on the sherpa's back, or a yak. These people are shackled to poverty, they are slaves to the lower altitude people, but they proudly live their lives as had their fathers and mothers. And do they want our lives?"
"I don't, which is why I quit Wall Street."
"Not after making a fortune."
"I was lucky and left the casino before I gambled it away."
"All the porters play cards. For their pay."
"To be blessed by luck."
"As are we all."
May 13, 1990 - Langtang Trek, Nepal - Journal Entry
Previously published May 20, 2023
I wish my camera was functional.
The scenery and people are amazing. I speak with two German trekkers. Dieter is in his 40s. Thin and fit. His hiking partner is Miriam. She has decided to not wear boots and go barefoot like some of our Sherpas. She attacks me for hiring them as slaves.Lance says, "We pay them so they can put food on their families' tables."
"I've seen where they live. They don't have tables."
Lance shook his heads.
Our first stop was a little tea shop with a Coca-Cola flag flying on a pole. Lance and I bought Cokes for everyone. They happily thanked us, then lit up cigarettes, inhaling deeply. Lance and I were still huffing from the lack of oxygen. The Sherpas have The trail climbed along a savage torrent of glacier melt.
This morning Lance and I were passing through a forest of tall plants. The porters were way ahead of us. I stared closer at some flowers. They looked familiar, because they were marijuana. Lance asked if we should take some and I shook my head. The families of this valley lived on less than a $1 a day. When we emerged from the reefer forest, a young boy ran down the slope, shouting, "Hash, hash, hash."
I was glad to have brought small bills and bought an ounce for $20.
His eyes were crusted due to an infection.
I pulled out my medicine kit. He seemed wary until seeing the Red Cross. I washed away the crud with antiseptic eyedrops. He smiled with gratitude and I filled a small vial for his future use.
"I'm impressed," said Lance.
My grandfather was a surgeon for the Royal Canadian Medical expedition in World War I." I doubted any of his knowledge had been passed with genetics, but I was a severe hypochondriac. My paranoia had killed me many time. Never with success.
At the next stop I showed the other two trekkers. Ty Spaulding and I smoke some at lunch. Lance refused, saying he needed his lungs for the next stage. smoker and neither was Ty's partner.
The hashish was fresh off the bud and strong, but probably not the best idea, since Dorge warned us that we were crossing a landslide after this.
I'm sure he's right.
He always is.
May 9 1990 - Kathmandu - Nepal - Journal Entry
Published on May 25, 2023
Kathmandu is a magical city filled with pilgrims traveling to the city's holy shrines and temples of the pantheon of Asian religions. I haven't seen a single church and with good reason. Jesus might have traveled to Kashmir after his crucifixition, but no one here worships him here. Certainly not this atheist, but I am in wonderment, when I stumbled on a procession for the Kumari, the living goddess, in Thamel. These young girls are chosen from the Newari tribe to serve as living vessel for the Hindu goddess Durga until menstruation. The word Kumari means 'virgin' in Nepali. They are revered for their purity, but soldiers disrupted the holy ritual as the government has outlawed the gathering of people, as the citizens clamor for democracy. The TV announcers are accusing the demonstrators of communism and godlessness. So far there is no bloodshed.
I walked to the Thai Air office on the main boulevard shaded by trees harboring thousands of sleeping bat. The ground is splattered with bat dung. I'm glad to be wearing my sneakers.
Last night after drinks at the Yeti Hotel Lance and I walked through dark streets. He was wearing flip-flops and stepped waist deep into an open-air sewer. Up to his waist. I pull him out. Cursing. I help him back to the hotel at a distance. He smells strongly of shit. I hope he doesn't get a disease from this dip in the city's waste waters.
This afternoon Thai Air wasn't able to confirm my flight from Delhi to Paris.
I might have to fly to Munich. It's been over eight years since I was in Germany. I left in December 1982 on an overnight train to Gare du Nord, having ended my working with the pimps at the BSirs nightclub. I wonder what would have happened, if I had stayed in Hamburg.
I would have continued my affair with Stephanie De Leng.
That year I decided after Christmas in America to return to Paris and work at the Bains-Douches. Stephanie wanted me to meet her in Amsterdam. I was too broke to buy a ticket. I crashed at Julie Cole's apartment with the photographer Arthur Gordon and his Doberman. A shabby apartment behind the Gare De L'Est. Stephanie and I later met in New York. The lingerie model had gained weight due to a chronic illness. I thought she was faking the sickness and brutally said so one night. She wrote me a scathing letter and my friend Andy read it.
"What did you do to this woman?"
"I guess I said the wrong thing." I had no sympathy for her and I remember my older lover Linda Imhoff in 1970, as we were laying naked in bed in my Shannon Street apartment, "You're dangerous, because you don't know what you are doing."
I was eighteen at the time.
I'm now thirty-eight. Stephanie could have been the one, but the only way I could get it up was to pretend she was a nun. I had no trouble with the one Patpong go-go girl I took to the Malaysia Hotel a couple of times. I haven't talked to any females in Kathmandu.
And certainly not the Living Goddess or a nun.
May 14,1990 - Langtang Glacier - Nepal - Journal Entry
Previously published May 23, 2023
2500 meters - Ghora Tabula
This morning Dieter woke up with vomit on his shirt. He doesn't talk about being gay or having AIDS, but he has said anything about spending time in Bangkok. I respect his staying in the closet and told him that we are all sinners. Dieter had been traveling the last three years on $250/month to see as much of the world as he could before his immune system crashed. Dice worries that the German could die on this trek.
"It's his choice. Life. Death all the same," says Dorge.
I tell neither of them of his deadly sickness.
The higher we climb the worst the sun.
Thankfully I have lip balm from Dice and sunblock. Lance's lips are painfully black and face scorched by the sun. I lend him mine. We stopped for lunch without any shade trees.The ports have rigged a shelter from tarps. The cook has once more provided a huge lunch. I had hoped to lose weight on this trek, but I think I've gained a few kilos. Dorge orders us to eat more to have energy. Our bodies are not used to this effort. The porters have been gorging on tsampas, daal bhaat, and Thukpa stew. Eating is the only fuel for our bodies. Our whiskey is finished and I've been sober for a few days.
The hippie teahouse trekkers regard us as heretics on the Asia on $5 a day guide book. All in our sherpas and guides and food cost us each $20 a day. Lance and I share our excess food with the children, who trail us from village to village. We only give Dieter food, because his body has been wracked by dysentery. He still refuses to turn back. Yesterday Miriam left him and attached herself to another group of backpackers.
Israelis.
These young men and women exit from their occupation service in Palestine with short hair. Their heads have sprouted Samson locks overnight. None of the teahouses will serve them food or allow them to stay in the rooms The Sherpas can't stand these long-haired ex-soldiers, saying that they steal and cheat villagers every step of the way like they had invading another country.
Earlier in the year I had read in the International Herald Tribune how Pakistani tribesmen had kidnapped a group of Israeli backpackers. One of them shem broke free, grabbed an AK47 and killed all the militants and a few of his friends.
At the age of 18 they are drafted into the Israeli Army of Occupation Their army time kills their soul and this afternoon as I drank tea one of them came over to demand some.
Fuck off."
I had heard how the Israelis on this trek all spoke of the Palestinians other than animals. I told this one that was the way the Nazis had spoken of the Jews during the Holocaust. The largest Israeli wanted to fight me. I held a rock in my hand. Lance defused the situation by saying we were all here to be one with the Himalayas.
After the dispute Dorge suggested that we avoid any contact and we let them tramp out of sight.
"Israelis always trouble." Lance, a New York Jew, agreed and doesn't have time for the either.
Miriam abandoned them and rejoined Dieter, who has employed one of extra Sherpas to carry his bag. The two of them would be perfectly cast as a gay monk followed by an insane nun in a medieval movie. It has been said that Tolkien's books had been inspired by the Himalayas.
Miriam attended to Dieter.
It's time for him to turn around.
He threw up blood.
Miriam is a saint for taking care of him. He is very brave to persist in this trekk. Almost as if will die when we reach Langtang Glacier.
Miriam kissed me after lunch behind a prayer wall.
"Thank you for taking care of Dieter."
When we returned to group, the German glanced at my crotch. My zipper was still down. The retired school teacher smiled at me like he wished it had been with him. My left wrist has been broken in a motorcycle crash on the Burma-Thai border. I was lucky to be alive as was Dieter. I had hammered off the cast in a Patpong go-go bar. I lifted my crooked arm. It hadn't healed yet I and said, "This makes everything harder."
"So I see. I'm taking your advice. I'm going back down. Miriam is coming with me."
"I'm glad to see you. Maybe we'll meet someplace else. Maybe Kathmandu."
"Vierleicht."
Lance and I gave them food and we shook hands. Miriam kissed my cheek. Her sweat smelled sweet in the rare air. The three of them walked out of sight followed by a young beggar. That was the last I saw of them.
May 12, 1990 - Langtang Trek, Nepal - 1990 - Journal Entry
Published May 30, 2023
The passing clouds obscure the 6000-meter snow-tipped peaks towering over the Langtang Valley, but the 5000-meter ragged summits cut through the mist with each parting of the clouds.
The tea house serves a good cup of yak butter tea. I'm not liking the salty brew, but it does provide warmth and nourishment. Dorzee our guide is inside the teahouse speaking with a female Sherpa guide and an Austrian woman fluent in Tuchin in Tibetan. I can only speak English, French, and German. I learned a little Bahasa Indonesian in Biak, Bali, and Sumatra. No Thai, Sherpa or Nepali.
Dorzee has been kind enough to translate for us.
He emerges from the tea house and bids good-bye, "Chag-po nang."
We proceed up the steep trail passing head-high prayer walls.
Garz-bo is steep in Tibetan.
I'm sure like the Eskimos the Sherpas have other words for steep.
I have three.
Steep, very steep, and very fucking steep.
English is my only usable language in this valley other than hand signals, which I use whenever I treat people for cuts, festering wounds, and encrusted eyes. My thermometer amazing them, since I have to put in in their mouth. I usually stick out my tongue to show that I am not a demon. The last of my patients at this rest stop are watching me wash my sox. All these young boys and girls are all barefoot eith busted toenails.
They waved good-bye, as we like every foreigner passing their village head higher to Kyangjin at the head of the valley.
We pass head-high prayer walls erected by faithful Buddhists. The porters mutter prayers and Dorzee says, "They not say these prayers. No one read Tibetan. Not read English. Only lamas read walls. No one here read. No one go school. Not have schools. Before we have many walls. Now not many. Everything not same. No grass, no yaks, no money, no carving."
Something was not right in the mountains. The monsoons came at a different time and the snows were always late. For some reason every year was warmer.
A platoon of Nepali soldiers pass us on the trail heading up to the glacier. The sergeant talks with Dorzee, while the patrol hikes forward. After the sergeant's departure, he says, "Still have trouble in Kathmandu. Most time never see soldiers up here. Government want to tell Sherpas they are in charge. They come and they go. They never stay."
The villagers are Sherpa, Tibetan or Gurkha. They live on the other side of time. Far from the world below. Once the monsoons come the trekking season will be over and the porters will return the shoes and warm clothing to the Kathmandu agencies, then return to up mountain. The villages will retreat into the security of a past lost to the now.
The poverty increases every step forward. Life goes on as it has for millenia. Everyone is uneducated, illiterate, unwashed, malnourished, sick, wear rags, but they always have a smile for us. especially when I give a pen and paper or a postcard of Bali or Thailand to the children. So little will make them happy. I also have sweets. Several Lonely Planet backpackers have ventured reproached me for distributing these candies to the locals. They give no one nothing. Lance tells me to ignore them.
After the next tea stop the porters light cigarettes, swing the packs onto their backs. The loads are getting less and their pace is twice ours. All for $5/day.
Thankfully they are getting all that money, unless they lose it in cards.
The sun is setting over the high rim of Himalayas. It is a little colder than before and Lance and I have decide to sleep in the tea house. Still cold, but it's out of the wind. We have run out of whiskey. Dice and I have switched to the milky millet beer. Tongba, which we drink around a blazing fire. Three cups and I'm feeling okay, glad to not humping on the trail and breathing easier at this altitude.
The porters are playing 'Jhyap', a take and discard card game whose which you play from the three best hands. Money is being waged by everyone. I have no interest n losing money and retire to my room. I am out cold at 8pm.
LATER
Dorge won seventy RPs. Labarai won even more from the porters and villagers. Two-hundred Rupees. About three days of trekking wages and the losers have been losers all the way up the trail. None of them have the sneakers I bought them, but they still have cigarettes
I've worked hard, but not like the porters.
Working at the diamond exchange I never break a sweat. The heaviest thing I lift is a pencil or paper. I don't want to work. I want to travel all the time, but I need money.
I wish I could sell my noVel NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD. Maybe I'll be lucky in Paris, London, and New York. Maybe I'll be able to sherry it to Monty. It really doesn't matter. I'm four days away from civilization.
On the Bowery 1977
In 1962 my father had a business meeting in New York. He drove us down from Boston and we stayed at the Manhattan Hotel on West 34th Street. Between meetings we went to the Empire State Building, the Rockettes, ate at Tads Steakhouse, and saw the Statue of Liberty. On the way back by Yellow Cab we rode along the Boulvard of Broken Dreams. A sunny day much like that of the photo.
Spotting a man sprawled on that narrow meridian strip, I asked, if he were dead.
“No, he’s just drunk.”
I knew what drunk was since an old man hung out at the gas station in our suburban town. Red Tate. A Korean war veteran. My father sometimes gave him a buck for a bottle of wine. There weren't many bums in my hometown. There were no liquor stores, but Red Tate always had his bottle of Thunderbird.
In the next block were three more collapsed men. Lost to oblivion.
I later lived in the East Village and frequented CBGBs, passing countless enlistees to a state of inebriation on the Bowery. I never joined them, but not for lack of trying.
May 12, Rinche - Lama Hotel - Langtang - Journal Entry
Published previously May 18, 2023
Day two and we dined with the Sherpa porters, cooks and guides by a campfire. There is no electricity in this valley other than our flashlights and my Sony World Band radio.I turn it on getting a scratchy Nepali station playing local music sounding much like Indian music. The Sherpa are happy and break out their cigarettes. Damn, they love smoking tobacco. I think about joining them, but my lungs are torched by today's trek.
There was no culture clash. We were hungry after the hard steep climb. The Sherpas seemed fine. It had been a hard trudge on the trail. They were carrying forty kilos each. Our load were small backpacks.
"The first thing a westerner learns in Sherpa is "Carry this." The next is "Carry me."
Dorge says tomorrow the trail will become steeper and we will have to cross a landslide. I wonder if the Sherpas have as many words for steep as the Eskimos have for snow.
Lance and I drank two glasses of whiskey. Dorge said none for the porters or anyone else in our crew.
After dinner we went to out separate rooms. Our legs are noodled and neither of us are acclimated to breathing at this altitude.
The trekking crew are gathered outside by a fire. They smoked heavily and play cards. Laughter and cursing. I can't decipher the swears, but I can tell that they are all in good humor.
Working in nightclubs had taught me the menacing tone of calling someone something bad.
I turn on my Sony Word-Band radio
Nothing, but static in this deep valley.
No one here knew nothing of the troubles in Kathmandu. Several nights ago Lance and I had stood on the roof of our Thamel hotel. The protestors ran down the narrow street. The police were behind them. The soldiers trapped them and started shooting. They saw people watching from the roofs and aimed up and pulled their triggers. The officers had told them that this was a communist uprising and they were going to kill the king.
Kathmandu didn't exist here.
There was the trail and the villages and the river and the Himalayas covered with snow.
After this I was flying to Paris with a stop-0ver in Frankfurt.
No one was waiting for me at either terminal.
I had friends in Paris.
I would call them once back in Kathmandu.
There are no phones here.
Only word of mouth.
All I am is a trekker in a lodge by a cataract raging through the valley. I open the window. A billion stars are overhead. Something strange about the ground. Millions of fireflies carpet the grass. Blinking like the stars. This place is magic. I breathe in the thin air scented by pines and fire. Only the earth, the river, and the smoke of a smoldering fire.
We're heading higher tomorrow.
No one on the way but us and Sherpas. Yaks too.
The poverty here is crushing.
Porters are paid $2 a day.
We're paying ours $5.
They're carrying forty kilos. I'm carrying five.
Just so I can see a glacier at the end of the trail. The room next door is quiet.
The crew has fallen asleep.
It's only 9.
I go to bed to join them.
Dreaming of the Cafe le Flore in Paris.
May 11, 1990 - Brabal - the Himalayas - Nepal - Journal Entry
Previously published May 17, 2023
After lunch on the trail I left the stop and continued up the path. The forest is thick and the ascent isn't too taxing. I've been at it for an hour and haven't seen a single soul. Waiting for the porters, Lance, and Dorge to catch up to me.
Maybe I've taken the wrong trail, except I see the bootprints of trekkers. The Sherpas are either in flip flops or barefooted. I had bought our crew sneakers, but they attached them to the loads, wanting to save them for sale back home. I don't understand a word, but they are carrying heavy packs smoking cigarettes and joking all the time. A cheerful crew.
It's forty-four kilometers to the Glacier. Thirty miles. We could probably make it in a day on flat grown, but Dorge said the trek will get much steeper tomorrow and no one is in a rush. I like this pace fine.
I wish my camera wasn't broken.
Altitude - 2100 meters.
May 10, 1990 - Syabru Besi - the Himalayas - Nepal - Journal Entry
Published previously May 17, 2023
Before leaving Kathmandu on the bus to Langtang Glacier, Lance and I dropped two valium each. The road was reputed to be extremely treacherous and neither of us wanted to experience the fears.
At Thamel the driver loaded about sixty Nepalese onto the bus along with our guide, Dorge. Our Sherpa porters were on top with the packs. People were leaving the city.
Last night the army had cleared the streets with gunshots. The pre-democracy forces were calling for a change from the monarchy. The generals understood change meant them losing money. A strict curfew is being enforced by the military. Protestors are arrested and shot at without warning.
Lance and I are glad to be leaving the city.
The bus headed north on a paved two-laner and climbed into out of the verdant valley into a narrow steep-sloped chasm. The road was one vehicle wide without any guard rails. Lance was out cold, but I kept looking over the edge. The drop was a cliff and I searched for any bus or car or truck wreckage. I spotted several far below the road. The Nepalese didn't seem to care about the danger. The Sherpas even less so. Lance remained in a blissful unconsciousness. I joined him.
We finally arrived in Syabru Besi.
Everyone got off the bus.
The porters were tossing down our gear. Dorge directed the effort. One grabbed mine backpack. He threw it to the ground. I heard a clink. I knew it was my A2 Olympus striking the ground hard. I opened the bag and checked the camera.
Broken.
I stuffed it back in the pack, hoping it might mend itself. The valium made delusion easy, as did the altitude. Lance stumbled from the bus. Drool on his chest. I pointed to the stain.
"Look at your shirt."
We were twins.
The Valiums had done their work. The New York architect blinked in the high sunlight. Sky scrapping mountains surrounded the small village. Dorge pointed to a restaurant. we were all hungry and the plan was to set out away after lunch. We walked up to a cafe. I couldn't see inside. Hordes of flies crawled on the glass.
"This place is filthy," I complained.
"Before filthy. Now only dirty," answered Dorge.
"Order food. We eat outside." I shrugged, because from here on in wew would be eating our own food. If we didn't get sick from this, we never would.
Another bus pulled into the village. Mostly Nepalese, but two more westerners. They were younger than Lance and I and looked in good shape and their equipment seemed to be their own, instead of rented like ours. We were far away from our homes and I ordered a beer. Lance shook his head. He was Jewish and the Tribe don't have a reputation for drinking like the Irish. We are always home as long as there is beer.
Altitude - 1400 meters
May 21, 1990 - Flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi - Journal Entry
Published Jun 17, 2023
30,000 feer over the Himalayas. Flight 205 Kathmandu to New Delhi. Mountains scrapping the sky to the north. The 727 landed in New Delhi. A six-hour lay-over in the transit lounge. Thankfully the bar had bottles of cold Kingfisher beer. Todd aka Dice gave me Newsweek, helping kill the wait.
When I originally set off from NYC I had John from PanExpress Travel add Dehli to my intinerary, I wanted to trek in the Kashmir, however the political situations heightened in the divided kingdom threatening war between Pakistan and India. Yesterday Indian security forces killed six Muslim militants outside Jummu. The Indian press are calling the dead 'terrorists' as is the practice for any nation seeking to legitimie their oppression of another culture. Doctors are on strike to protest the arrest of a compatriot who sympathized with the native inhabitants. A hypocritic President Bush who led the secret Iran-Contra war for Reagan, causing thousands of deaths of Mayans in neighboring countries has called for a truce. Each nation claims the high morale ground running into the Himalaya. They might not want a war, but they are spoiling for a fight. The monsoon season is over. It's all up to Ms. Bhutto. She is a good woman unlike her husband, and knows the risks, since her father was hung by the previous goverment.
LATER
$100 might last 10-30 days in Delhi. The temperature is 104F is in the shade. Plus there are too many people. 640 millions in total. The massive population of China is the reason why I didn't go to The Middle Kingdom.
Next year I will book another round-the-world ticket from John at PanExpress.
NYC-LA-Honolulu-Manila-Hong Kong-Nabgkok-Sri Lanka-Nepal-Paris-London-NYC.
We might have to return to Biak and Bali, although Sri Lanka might answer that itch to be in a Buddhist country as opposed to a Muslim land, since the religious strictures apply to everyone even infidels.
How and when I return depends on earning money this summer and fall. Over the phone Richie promised me a job in late August. A long time away and I only want to work three days a week now, while writing THE BEST IS YET TO COME. Then work like a dog in the fall to gather up $6000 enough to stay away from America for months.
May 21, 1990 - Kathmandu Nepal - journal Entry
The setting sun silouetting the Monkey Temple transports me evokes eternity. This city below the Himalayas was famously one of the great stops of the the Silk Road as well as the Hippie Trail through Asia; Kabul, Goa, Kuta, Koh Saen Road in Bangkok, and Bali. I've been to four of them. I can't find the hash I had bought at the trailhead of Langtang Glacier. Two grams. It has to be hidden in my bag and I'm worried that the flics will find it at Charles de Gaulle aeroport. Douane officers are skilled at finding thag which is not lost, but can not find. Hopefully I lost it, while I was straggling around the pitch-black street of the Thamel, where Lance once moe fell into the open sewer. Soaked in sludge.
This morning he threw away the clothes, since he was leaving for New York. The architect had been a good travel companion on the trek to the Langtang Glacier. I don't really like reefer, but I do like opiated hash. There is plenty of hash in Paris,but nothing as good as here.
I wonder if anyone in Paris will talk to me. It's been eighteen months since I was last in the City of Light. I called Olivier from the GPO and he replied to my request to crash with him with a warm, "Quais." but almost as if he had something to hide. Like Cindi had returned to LA or he was fucking one of my old girlfriends or he was snortinng heroin or didn't have any money. Not a problem since I could always work for Albert at the door of the Balajo.The uncertainty of what awaits in Paris has my mind working overtime. Is NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD my salvation?
Time will tell.
I read about the Yusef Hawkins trail verdict in the Herald Tribune. Joseph Fama was convicted of second-degree murder. White versus black. Race war. I haven't seen any of that out here, although the Nepali army responded to the call for freedom by shooting the protesters and the same had occurred in Bangkok.
Four months ago Andy drove me to JFK on the BQE.
Hopefully tomorrow there's a USA direct phone booth in the New Delhi Airport, so I can call New York. A six-hour lay over awaiting the Air India flihgt to London then back to Paris. No one will be waiting for me there. I have used New York City to gauge cities on this trip. the best were Penang, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Kathmandu. I was happy to pass fast through Jakarta, Medan, and Singspore.
Returning to the East Village isn't so appealing, but I have to renew my lease in August and pursue a literary career, instead of working on 47th Street slinging diamonds. I'm checking out of this hotel in an hour, having survived the attack of blood-thirsty mosquitoes. I must have killed a thousand lasst night, even though I taped over the windows and door with masking tape, leaving smears of blood from my smashing them ith a rolled-up Herald-Tribune.
A taxi will take me to the Kathmandu airport.
No more lepers, no more beggars, no cows wandering the streets in a bovine stupor, no distant drumbeats, no monks, no cremations, no raga dirges from the Moneky Temple, no naked fakirs, no communist rallies against the king, no smiling sherpas,no temples of the Dhubar Square, no glancing north to the gleaming snow peaks of the Himalayas, because today belongs to a plane.
Leaving Kathmandu.
May 19, 1990 - Kathmandu Nepal - Journal Entry
A sunny day in Kathmandu. I rose early and climb up to the roof to sunrise over the foothills. I am down to my last $100. If I had money, I would join Todd and fly to Bangokok, instead I'll catch a flight in two days to Paris. My last stop on my first circumnavigation of the world. My great-grandaunt Bert had sailed around the earth on her father's whaling ship in 1868. My uncle Dave had fought on a destroyer Biak in the Pacific War. My Uncle Russ had served in the Occupation of Japan, and my Uncle Jack had battled the Chinese in Korea as a Marine. My travels were strictly peaceful.
I'll try to show NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD TO some producers in Paris through friends, although it needs a serious edit. My typing is excretable. Back in New York I'll try to complete my comedy script THE BEST IS YET TO COME. I've basically been touristing since Bali. I had hoped my comedy about hopeless love would have been completed, but I hadn't prepared for the allure of the Orient; Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Penang, Koh Samui, Koh Phangghan, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, the Golden Triangle, Nepal.
I wish I could travel forever like a letter without an address on an eternity stamp.
Back in New York it will be time to work. To fill the coffers. To schlepp diamonds on 47th Street, while writing THE BEST IS YET TO COME in my spare time this summer.
If the muses are with me.
My writer's block builds a wall on e I'm down to my last c-note.
I am there now.
Curfew has been lifted and people are crowding the streets. Dorzee complained about the slow trekking season. I had tipped him an extra $20. Lance said our guide probably said that every year same as the diamond dealer on 47th Street remarked every Christms season.
Last night I went out drinking with Todd aka Dice. I told him to stay at the Malaysia Hotel in Bangkok, recounting the tale of Charles Sobhraj.
"He murdered travelers all along the hippie trail in the 1970s and stayed at the Malaysia. It's a fun place. Cheap and cheerful. I'll be there next year this time."
"It's a small world."
"And a long life."
"I'll be in Paris." He intended to learn French. I suggested going to the cinemas and reading the subtitles of French movies and sleep with French women
"Les dictionaires couchant. They worked for me."
I can't stay in New York. I was out of control there. Like there's no reason to live, but there is now.
There always was.
The road.
May 16, 1990 Langtang Glacier - Nepal - Journal Entry
Published on May 28, 2023
We have reached Langtang Village.
3500 meters.
This is the highest I've been in this life.
The porters and cook are busy smoking cigarettes and drinking hot tea heavily dosed with yak butter for strength and sustinence. Breakfast on the trail had been mostly oat porridge, eggs, chapati, pancakes with jam, or peanut butter for breakfast, while dinners have consisted of Hindu Dal Bhat, curry, pasta, spaghetti, soups, fried rice, and momos with the Sherpa favorite fried dried yak meat and yak cheese.
Todd broke open a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.
"This is high, but last month I climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro. 19,000 feet. I stayed an hour and came back down. Worst thing about being at that height was shitting below zero."
The nights along this trek have been cool, but the temperature has never been below freezing and during the day we are blasted by the sun. I never sweat, as the sun evaporates off any moisture from my body. I am constantly thirsty. My lips cracked by the sun. A team of film makers descend from the glacier. They have been filming Yuichiro Miura, the first person to ski down Mount Everest. Back in 1970. Their Sherpas are happy are happy to be off the ice fields. Too much sun to be safe. Dorge says they said nothing to the film crew and prayed not to die a movie. We give some of them a little taste of whiskey. All is better, especially when we give none to the film crew, but Yuichiro Miura got a full cup and I gave him my lip balm. His lips were bleeding. And this is only 3500 meters. I look up to the peaks. All over 6000. Dice and I look at each other and give up going any further. It's smart to know when to quit.
May 15, 1990 - Langtang Glacier - Nepal - Journal Entry
Published May 26, 2023
The trail has left behind the trees and flowers. Spring millet and sorghum fields surrounded the villages. Beyond this cultivation are rough pastures of high-altitude grass. Yaks lazily chomp their cuds under the watch of young masters. They gather the yak paddies to dry in the sun. The main source of heat in the Himalayas. We have been transported back five-hundred years. Still no sign of civilization, except for bottled beers. Not a single TV antenna spout over the sturdy stone houses. None of them are made of wood. I have no radio reception on my Sony Word Band radio.
At the first tea stop I wash my filthy sox in the raging river, careful not to fall into the savage torrent. Such an accident risked serious injury. Hiking with dirty sox in my boots feels like I walking in mud. I switch to flip-flops, same as the sherpas. The trail is easy as we have entered a broad valley.
My thoughts of losing weight by trekking were ruined by the constant eating to fuel the uphill trek. I have gained a few kilos and will have to be careful to not pack on more in Paris.
Still I'm in the best shape I'e been in after the months in Bali, Sumatra, Malaysia, and Thailand. My heart faithfully pumps blood into my oxygen-starved brain. I pissed and shit like a Sherpa. All my organs seem to be in working order and I've even relegated my brains down to my fifth favorite.
LATER
Another village. More doctoring. A lama has asked to see me. I go into a small house. the room is illuminated by yak butter oil lamps. Ancient prayer books and scriptures are stacked on the wood planked floor and the mud walls are covered with a pantheon of demonic illustrations. The lama is in his fifties, only a little old than me, but he looks eternal and serene.
Dorge translated his blessings.
"Some of the demons are good. Some bad. Nothing in between,"
"Like human beings."
He has heard of my quack doctor routine. No one I treated has complained of my remedies to infected eyes, festering wounds, or my other gentle minstrations. I try to gie the lama my flashlight. He refuses with a smile saying he doesn't want to defile the earth with discarded batteries. I'm probably one of countless foreigners who think giving is good, but there is no way anyone up this high could ever afford the batteries needed to use anything electric.
My father drove us a few times to Mt. Monadanock in lower New Hampshire. It's height was less than three thousand, however the top was above the treeline and the taller White Mountains were visible to the north. My father entered the summit hut and read my words. The Maine native was instantly angry by my writing in the humble mountain's guest book, "The view in for the birds."
My father was very straight and regarded my sentences as anti-social behavior. He was right. I was on the path to ruin. I had never been higher in my young life and was hurt by my father's lecture. The trails on Monadanock were well-traveled, yet every year someone dies stepping off the trail.
Here we are 3000 meters above the sea. Danger exists here from avalanches, falls, wild yaks, the winter cold, rock slides, and demons. I bow to the lama and step into the brilliant sun. Not a cloud in the sky.
I am a day's hike from the glacier.
Last night I could read a book by the starlight.
I am as far as I will be from civilization on this trip.
Yet I am no uncivilized by this trek.
I'm just glad not to be in the white world.
I haven't spoken to my family in Boston since calling them collect after my head-on motorcycle accident north of Chaing Mai. I said nothing about the crash. I chopped off the cast in Kathmandu and the morphine pills killed the pain. I still had a few, but I'm saving them for the long flight to Paris.
My parents didn't mention any mishaps on that phone call.
No bad here.
No bad there.
Whatever is happening in Kathmandu is happening in Kathmandu.
I intend on finish writing THE BEST IS YET TO COME this summer.
Maybe someone will read it, so my parents know there second son is not a ne'er-do-well. Then again thee people up here think I'm a doctor. As was my grandfather. I join Dice and Dorge and Lance. We set off for the last stage.
The Langtang Glacier.
May 18, 1990 - Dunche - Langtang Glacier - Nepal - Journal Entry
Published Jun 14, 2023
Back in Kathmandu at the end of the Langtang trek.
Before we reached the trailhead, Lance, Todd, his friend, and I bathed in a pool safe from the river rapids. We toweled off in the bright sunlight, glad to be clean for the first time in over a week. My towel bore the image of my dirty face like the Shroud of Turin. I gave it to one of the porters along with most of my filthy socks. They were stiff with sweat. I was sad about returning to the modern world. I wish I could have continued trekking into Tibet in search of Shangrillah. The mythical valley from the novel LOST HORIZON. I don't have enough money to keep in pursuit of paradise. After Kathmandu, a short flight to New Delhi and a long trip to Paris then London and New York. Around the world in more than eighty days.
Standing on the dirt road I heard a truck. The first mechanized noise in ten days. The tires crumbling over the rocks. A plumb of dust in the air. The modern world. The end of the illusion of another time. Lance said said that the land behind us had inspired Tolkien to write THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but the Sherpas aren't Hobbits. Farewell to yaks, Sherpas and the Himalayas. Next year I will be bacK.
To Annapurna and the rain shadow.
Saturday, November 9, 2024
May 13, 1990 - Langtang Trek, Nepal - 1990 - Journal Entry
Published May 29, 2023The passing clouds obscure the 6000-meter snow-tipped peaks towering over the Langtang Valley, but the 500-meter ragged summits cut through the mist. The tea house serves a good cup of yak butter tea. I'm not liking the salty brew, but it does provide warmth and nourishment. Dorzee our guide is inside the teahouse speaking with a female Sherpa guide and an Austrian woman fluent in Tuchin in Tibetan. I can only speak English, French, and German. I learned a little Bahasa Indonesian in Biak, Bali, and Sumatra. No Thai, Sherpa or Nepali.
Dorzee has been kind enough to translate for us.
He emerges from the tea house and bids good-bye, "Chag-po nang."
We proceed up the steep trail passing head-high prayer walls.
Garz-bo is steep in Tibetan.
I'm sure like the Eskimos they have other words for steep.
I have three.
Steep, very steep, and very fucking steep.
Friday, November 8, 2024
April 27, 1981 - NYC - Key West - NYC - Journal
April 27, 1981 - NYC - Key West - NYC - Journal
Leave the Mudd Club
Bag in hand
A cab ride
To the Holland Tunnel
A warming from a Transit Cop
I ignore him
A ride into Jersey
To the Vince Lombardi rest stop on I-95
Another ride from a trucker
To another truck stop___
Snow___
A ride to a shitty exit.
A ride to a shittier exit
The snow turns to rain___
I shelter beneath an overpass
Cold and wet
Jets overhead
I am close to the Philly airport.
I hail a taxi
The driver takes me to the terminal
I
Cold and wet
Buy a one-way ticket
Air Florida
Plan on hitchhike back to New York___
A two-hour plane ride to Miami
Outside
Sunny
I still wet
Not cold___
A bus to the edge of Miami.
A bus to Florida City.
A ride to Key Largo
Another to Marathon
The last to Key West___
Not wet
Only a little damp
A walk to Hilton Haven road
Friends waiting
One week in Key West
Pina Coladas
Weed
Drinking on Duvall Street
Swimming in shallow water
Watching the sunsets
A subchaser descending from the sky
Warm so warm___
Seven days later
Hitchhike to Miami.
Catch a stand-by flight to JFK.
A limo bus to 59th and 3rd
A taxi to the Mudd Club.
A walk home
I crash into my bed
Drunk and tanned
Dreaming on Key West
I will always___
Oh so warm
In my East Village bed
I think this was during the Mariel Boat Lift and the nearest navy base was visibly packed with ships and boasts piled on top of each other. Sitting at the beach at the eastern end of Duvall a derelict boat hoved into sight and rammed into the beach. A hundred-plus refugee jumped ship and ran into the scenery. The only sign of them after a minute the boat.
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