"Performance Anecdotes"

  Lately, I’ve been thinking about the debate between civil liberties and civil rights. It's hardly ever a civil debate, is it? Why do some people watch their dogs deposit their doo squarely in the footpath of a sidewalk without making so much as an effort to clean up the offensive mound? Why do some owners bring their pets into restaurants, or institutions, where there are signs expressly forbidding the entry of animals? Who draws which lines as to what is appropriate behavior? Tolerance is a pretty big concept for a world that keeps shrinking. Why is it correct, for some, to eat chicken but not dog? Vegetarians don't agree with carnivores. Carnivores eat vegetarians. Smokers and non-smokers. The debate over the right to life. Euthanasia. Capital punishment. One's preferences can infuriate people who think otherwise. How can a man have sex with a man? Or, how can a man have sex with an animal? How do we reconcile breeding life forms for human consumption?

  I had just met a beautiful, creative, musical couple, while visiting Hanoi, Vietnam. Lam, a beautiful woman with a phenomenal singing and speaking voice is married to Trung, an talented and well educated composer and jazz pianist. They'd just treated me to a wonderful dinner and I offered to return the favor, take them out, and where would they like to go?

  “Have you ever eaten dog?” asked Trung.

  “Dog?” I asked. “No, at least, not that I'm aware of. Is it good?”

  “Oh, very good,” they both assured me.

  “Okay."

  Two days later, we took a taxi toward the part of town specializing in dog. We passed a very high class neighborhood which is situated on a lake called West Lake. In an area where every sign advertised “Dog”, we stopped at the most famous “dog restaurant,” which looked like a home, not an eating establishment. There was no attempt at decor, just wooden benches (the kind one would see in an underprivileged kindergarten class) and low tables. Lam placed the order. Seven different preparations of dog meat. Dog in sauces, sliced like roast beef, canine sausages, dog kebabs, and a dog-leg drumstick soup. I admit to feeling a bit queasy at the sight, even though I knew it was a social discomfort I was feeling; one brought on by the thought of what I was eating rather than the way in which it was served. Hey, I'd eaten other animals before, so what was the big deal? (Perhaps memories of Giaour, my childhood dog.) The meat was tender, mostly, though some dishes were a bit chewier than my liking. Not surprisingly, I wasn't very hungry and didn’t eat as much as the rest. When we'd finished, we were taken to the back where there was a very small cage in which about seven or eight medium-sized dogs were sitting quietly. A little like Lassie. Tender, tender Lassie...

  ...And speaking of dogs, there I am sitting next to a table of a woman speaking of her somewhat intense attachment to her last pet. Her dog had died two months prior, and unable to let go, she put the lifeless carcass in her refrigerator and greeted it each time she went for food. Our interactions with animals say a lot...Where is the line drawn...what's tolerable? Flies? Mosquitoes? Ants and spiders? Snakes?

  As I brushed my teeth one evening, I noticed a small scorpion above the bathroom door. It was with an idealistic and benevolent spirit that I went for a jar to trap it and put it outside. (I’d done this with scorpions in the past.) But the mouth of the jar was a bit small and the scorpion kept evading capture. In my attempts to be humane, and force it into the jar, I turned the creature into paste. A two dimensional splatter on the floor. A couple days later I open the downstairs door and a scorpion, A LOT LARGER THAN THE LAST ONE, scurries under the door. "Scorpion 2, Return of the Sting!" I try moving the door so that it goes outside, but it pauses under the door frame and then scurries back inside the house.

  “This is my house!” I scream. In my mind, I'm communicating with the creature, and my logic transcends debate. “This is my house!” Unlike the last time, I’m not looking for a jar to transplant the little shit. I’m using my foot to squash him...I mean...guide him...It is, after all, my intent...I’m guiding him, that’s what I’m doing, when my foot slips and I’m uncontrollably squashing him...”This is my house!” And it refuses to die and I’m thinking, what can I use to put this half-expired soul out of misery? The bug repellent I find is so old that when I depress the button only the exhalations of my kill-energy are heard. Frantically running around, I discover mosquito repellent and, what the hell, it’s toxic, so a lot of this would probably finish the fucker off, and I’m spraying a puddle of OFF! down some crack in the wall into which the crippled creature thought it had escaped. Our fears can turn us into monsters. How does a benevolent, idealistic spirit, become a scorpiocidal, dog eater, the next?

  I went to Guadalajara to buy my truck. One evening, Jeff, an English friend, and I ended up at a club called “Kaos”, after asking our taxi driver to take us to a disco or club where we could meet women. Specificity is a very, very important ingredient in communcation. Frisked for guns at the entrance, we're led into a stadium, of sorts. There's a stage, elevated some five to seven feet, surrounded by hundreds of tables. On stage, gyrate two girls clad, momentarily, in faux leather. The taxi driver reappears (what does this guy work here?) to ask us if we would like the loveliest girl in the establishment to come and join us. We say nothing. Nothing. He turns away and departs. Speaking is a very important ingredient in communication. Elizabeth shows up. Her personality is negligible. She's little more than an attachment to her oversized breasts. Jeff likes her. She's in his lap. I order drinks and, after a few sips, Elizabeth disappers. Jeff's a loner with a boner. She returns with “a friend,” (at times, symmetry is so common). The friend orders herself a drink, at our expense. She's a Cuban with long, dyed, blonde hair which is thick and Rasta-like in its matted state...beautiful green eyes. She had on something akin to shoestrings. I turned to the Cuban, and manage the following, creative opener:

  “Como te llamas?”

  “Sorpresa.” Polishing off her second drink with a rapidity that would have been enviable if it were cheaper, Sorpresa asked if she could have another. (My time in Asia, had almost enured me to being seen as nothing more than a portable ATM machine.) I hear myself say, “No,” that there's really no reason to continue buying drinks for her, that we’ve known each other for less than ten minutes, that our conversation is superficial, and since sex was out of the question, could she think of a logical reason why I should continue to finance her habit? Silence. Two minutes later, she and Elizabeth go backstage. Jeff's concerned that I may have scared off the girls. Elizabeth is the first to take the stage. Dressed in a gaudy cowboy outfit she barely moves to the music. As her feeble and uninspired attempt at dancing does nothing to increase our desire, she removes her top before the second number. By the time she's finished, Jeff wants her phone number. Then, Sorpresa takes the stage. What had, at our table, seemed nothing more than a (relatively) docile drinking machine, explodes into dance. She is raw sexuality defined. The crowd is going nuts. Now she's naked. Her pubic hair is shaved in the shape of a heart. Her breasts are lifted and jiggled and wrapped around the pole, which she climbs with the skill and strength of a firefighter. Locking her feet, she swings upside down and descends, slowly, head first. Men are on their feet screaming. A guy holds up an ice bucket, containing champagne, and implores her to drink. She takes a swig from the bottle, removes an ice cube from the bucket, places it in and around her vagina, and then feeds it to the man. He's in a state of ecstasy. Sorpresa takes the bucket and dumps the ice water over his head. Pandemonium. This is a pro at work. As the announcer repeats the name “Sorpresa” to the tumultuous applause of the audience, we make our way to the taxis. Jeff discusses air fares to Havana.

  Juan is big, burly. He could be mistaken for an American, or a Canadian. Though he comes from a very well-to-do Mexican family, he is involved in the industry of pornography. One day, he and his friends are at the border of the United States, on their way to a rock concert. They have about an ounce of marijuana with them. As they near the border, they notice the Mexican military stopping and searching every vehicle. Juan coolly puts the marijuana in the back of his underwear, gets out of the car, and proceeds to the bathroom. Once there, he flushes the contents down the toilet. Exiting, a soldier, mistaking him for a tourist, stops him, and in English, asks, “How long have you been here, amigo?” Jose answers, “Toda mi vida, pendejo!” Recognizing him, the soldier asks him if he's still polluting the country with his filth. "Vete a la chingada," is what Juan comes up with. The soldier begins searching him. Juan had forgotten to discard the small vial of cocaine in his shirt pocket. Smiling, the soldier says, “You’re mine now, fucker!” Juan faces the soldier, and says, “Listen here, you have two choices: I have ten thousand pesos in my pocket. I’ll give you eight, because I need two to get to where I’m going. That’s your first choice. Your second choice is to kill me, because I won’t let you take me to prison alive. I’ll fight you to the death.” Juan has lived to tell this story.

  Christianity is heavy metal, Buddhism is jazz. That’s what comes to mind as I settle into a humble room in Cuyutlan. Above my bed is a very large crucifix with Jesus attached. The craftsmanship is detailed. Thorny crown, steel nails, bloody face and hands, bloody chest and feet. I’m repulsed by the bloody image. The Christian mythology, with its sins, famines, pestilence, floods, miracles, parting of seas, fathers asked to sacrifice their sons as a show of faith...the whole story strikes me as melodramatic. Like a heavy metal concert with too much leather and the volume on the amp set to 11. The Buddha, sitting serenely in the lotus posture, blissful expression on his face, seems a more fitting example of what I perceive to be enlightenment and union with a “higher” consciousness. But, some people like heavy metal and other people like jazz.

  In a Chinese restaurant full of noisy people eating, men and women suck up snot in their mouths and spit directly onto the floor around their table.

  Behavior deemed rude in private situations is rampantly abused in certain public settings. Consider airline cabins, for instance. Do people's senses become crossed or their synapses misfire? How do they justify passing gas openly and frequently. Are they thinking that the noise of the engines will cover up the smell?

  A woman orders a margarita, insisting that the rim of the glass be well salted. When the drink arrives, she asks for a straw.

  In the bathroom, a man guzzles beer from a can as he urinates.

  People with children and pets have hearing with a higher pain threshold.

  Arriving in the United States, from Mexico, I am greeted by a drug sniffing dog. I think about the perverse attachment part of the world has with stamping out drugs. The idea that removing the effect will cure the cause is very aspirin oriented.

  The ego can be fragile. Jim once dreamt he had a girlfriend with whom he attended a concert. Her attraction to the singer on-stage made him sick with jealousy. Upon awakening, Jim wished he really did have a girlfriend so that he could be angry at her for the pain she caused him in his dream.

  I know someone that doesn't have a regular job, but believes she should be rewarded in this dimension for all the energy she expends working in the fifth dimension. Once, she promoted one of my concerts using her fifth dimensional being. Apparently, the twenty-four people who showed up for the show were sufficient to plant the seeds of my success. I paid her her fee in the fifth dimension.

  The world offers us such a rich and varied pallette. It infuriates me that the guiding principle of some factions is to mute that pallette. These factions, so ready to be offended, come alive censoring and minimizing the liberties of others. I'm offended by people who are offended.

The offended want it ended
They've had it "up to here"
Sayin', boys were not intended to be ladylike and queer
With indignance and persistence
They consistently express
Their passionate insistence that we like some people less
The offended have ammended
What's moral, pure, and right
Their war on gender preference is neanderthal a fight
They're offensive and defensive, the offended,
with their views
Fixations so intensive protest too much, it's true

  Cowboy films are “Westerns”. Why aren't Samurai films “Easterns”?

  What we hate, we love. Passion is born of love and the absence of love. A closed heart creates separation and isolation. Tolerance and openess promote communication and understanding.

  It was the summer of 1979. I'd rented a quaint, whitewashed room on the waterfront of the island of Ios. It was to be a vacation of deep meditation, writing, and relaxation. The setting was perfect. Or, so I thought. Dawn after the first evening found me moulding the pillow in an attempt to insulate myself from nature's demonic, two-legged alarm clock. The rooming house was a thinly insulated structure elevated by cement pylons extending over the ground below. Unfathomable logic, or a twisted sense of humor housed the chicken coop directly beneath my room. I did what any civilized city dweller would have done: hissed, spat, and threw stones at the insomniac monster. Dodging my volleys, he strutted about, turned his repulsive beak my way and crowed on. "Allright, buddy." I hissed at him, "you want a cockfight? You got it!" Taking hold of my bird (attent in his morning salute), I aimed and peed until all was quiet. Every morning thereafter, I got out of bed and earned myself a few extra hours of sleep on an empty bladder. But after a week, or so, I was fed up with this process and told Mrs. Katina, the landlady, that I was moving to another rooming house.

  "I can't take it any more," I complained. Fearing the loss of one of her renters, she talked me into staying, saying she'd take care of the problem. That night, I floated on dreamclouds in a soothing, rejuvenative slumber. Heat from the late morning sun awakened me. With a rhythmic pulse, the sea caressed the shore and welcomed me in. Natural splendor. The vacation I longed for. No schedules. No telephones. No cars. No rooster. After a lazy day of swimming and sunning, I returned to a smiling Mrs. Katina who invited me to dinner. Touched by this gesture of peasant hospitality, I graciously accepted. It was a sumputous feast of salads, beans, home-made red wine, and the centerpiece: the lifeless, baked rooster. The head had been left decoratively unplucked. Katina beamed as she carved the bird and loaded my plate. Grease dripped out of the side of my mouth as I bit into the flesh. The cock's gaze riveted on every chew. I felt guilty for having had the prized bird sacrificed. But guilt turned to nausea when I realized I was eating a meat which I had spent the last ten days marinating.

  I’m eating tacos with Karen and Diane, both from England. I ask the waiter to leave the pineapple off my tacos al pastor.

  “Oh, no Paul,” says Diane, “get' em with pineapple, and I’ll eat the pineapple.”

  “But I don’t want the pineapple adulterating the flavor,” I say.

  “Come on, just get'em with pineapple. For me?”

  “Diane, why I should I diminish the quality of my experience just to increase the quality of yours?”

  “You talk funny,” says Diane.

  “How so?”

  “Well, normally our friends would just say, ‘Get your own pineapple, bitch!’”


  A friend's mother prepared us a typical Luang Prabang meal, which included such specialties as river moss (dried, and then fried with sesame seeds...delicious) a spicy wood, the exterior of which one sucks and nibbles on as if it were bone marrow (spicy...delicious), fresh watercress, and sticky rice. We ate in the dining/living room, which was basically a table with some chairs, and a television set, which the rest of the family viewed while sitting on the floor.

  A parrot and man were speaking to each other on a Discovery Channel feature. The show was dubbed in Spanish, so some person imitated a parrot imitating a man. Put that in your resume.

 

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