Interjecting

Sorry to bust in on this travelogue / narrative of the Borderliner's journey through the physical and cultural environment of the islands, which I am enjoying immensely and very much appreciate. I just thought it might be an opportune moment to interject.

I have never been to the islands, but I would love to go. Whenever my wife sees pictures of the less developed islands on TV she asks where it is, and says that it looks like Cape Coast or El Mina, coastal Ghanaian towns, and she's right. I wondered how close of a connection there may be between the islands and Mother Africa.

Anthropologists return to the sites of origination when attempting to recreate civilized situations no longer in existence. For example, the answer to the question of what happened to the Maya is that they became the Central American people of today, and there are Maya ritualistic mimes in contemporary Central American societies. The same can be said of the Romans becoming Italian, and the indigenous religions of almost anywhere becoming Christianity.

On to music. There is a traditional Highlife musician from Ghana named Nana Kwame Ampadu who is not only a bandleader, but he is also a Ghanaian music scholar. We all know that the Bantu people of sub-Saharan Africa (the linguistic groups that originated in the Niger river basin)have a common culture that spread over tropical West Africa and into Equatorial Africa. Common mimes to these societies include music as well as methods of farming and matrilineal succession. Indigenous West Africans had a six string instrument played with two hands. The name of it escapes me right now, but if you listen to the AfroPop edition of RevoFest (the Ghanaian festival of the revolution) then you will hear it played and get the name. Nana Ampadu played an example of the old "Palm Wine" style of music using the six stringed instrument. The Palm Wine style gets it name from the palm wine drinking session that ensues when the palm tree tappers return from the bush. The longer the attendants sit, the harder the palm wine becomes. It is said to be healthy but I know from experience that it can sure give you a healthy buzz, but I digress. Palm wine music lyrics are a repetition with call and response, allowing a palm wine player to improvise lyrics as he plays and allowing the audience in the circle to interact and be involved in the performance. To me, unequivocally, the instrument sounds like Mississippi John Hurt on the guitar and the lyrics sound like the island born calypsos of the early twenties.

The African ingredient in the northern mainland music became the seminal blues, the basis of rock-n-roll and hip hop and in the southern music contributed to the creation of calypso, samba, and reggae. Scholars of West African music point out that the creation of drum machines and easily fabricated rythmns and beats has stopped the evolution of popular West African music or ballads. To hear some of the old style vocal recitations from West Africa, listen to the orthodox religious chants of the True Belief sect of Christianity, which is the indigenous religion with a Christian mask.

Once again, I've run out of things to say without actually coming to a point.

Tell us, what happened after the rum cake on the boat?

Rum? What Rum?

Lighthouse Villa, Cane Garden Bay, Tortola

That is our place, the white building above Quito's (yellow building). We had the 'penthouse' suite, top floor.

Cane Garden Bay, Tortola

Conflict in Tortola with a Native Son

So how does this affable if slightly silly American tourist on the West End pier in Tortola turn into a raging adrenaline-shakes monster, ready-to-do physical violence upon the man, or the woman frankly, on the other side of the plexi-glass at the Native Son customer service (bwaaahaha) booth at Red Hook pier in St. Thomas? Whoo!

Answer: We weren't supposed to be in Red Hook, but in Charlotte Amelie.

First. Set the stage:

It was another brilliant hot day in Tortola as we returned our rental car. The rental car people were distant rather than hostile. Always a plus on this vaca. We spent most of our remaining cash filling up the tank. The gas station took only cash.

I was left with a $10 bill in my pocket.

No problem. There was an ATM machine at the pier in the West End. Wrinkle: The ATM machine at the shops in West End accepted neither our ATM cards, nor our credit cards.

We had no cash, and we had to get the ferry to St. Thomas, and a taxi to the airport.

No Problem!!

In West End, we checked first thing at the ferry terminal, and were assured that the Native Son ferry was running both to Red Hook and Charlotte Amelie, where we needed to go. We had just enough time to make connections and catch our flight leaving from there. Once the ferry arrived, we would have just enough time. In the meantime, we decided to walk to the Jolly Rodger for a lunch on the credit card. Oh and DRINKS! When in doubt drink. Hard.

Couldn't check the bags, so lug them down the dirt road with us to the bar. Food was good. Rum was better.

Next. Upon review, we remembered that we had luckily(?) purchased a return ticket on Native Son ferry three days before on our ferry over.

All good, right?

Taxi to the airport? We could use the ten-spot, or just have the driver bring us to an ATM machine first.


When it came time to board the ferry, a press of people had materialized on the small loading dock, many dressed in Sunday best attire for an excursion to St John or St Thomas. I happened to ask the ferry worker beside me: this ferry does go to Charlotte Amelie, right?

Yes yes, stupid you.

My wife independently asked him again and he assured her, yes.

On the ride to St John, we opened a bottle of rum that was to have been a gift and poured stiff shots into our cans of Diet Coke. We were seated on the upper deck, in the open air, but the ferry was packed and I could smell the rum.

This is illegal of course, I thought. OhmyGod. What the hell are we doing. Just when we had settled down a bit from anxiety over the ferry and our connections, all my personal and cultural paranoias seemed to culminate at that moment and press upon me. The well-dressed lady beside me was about to rat me out. She had been making eyes through the window of the pilot's cabin at the first mate, and now she got up and moved forward. Of course she could smell it. Everyone could smell it. And me. Forget the coke can. I had consumed so much rum in three days it was coming out of my pours. My breath was sour fire. The whole assembled patrons of Native Son to Red Hook and Charlotte Amelie were going to rise up in mutual cultural disgust at the offending Yankee and his wife--open beverages, drinking on a Sunday, cowboy hat--and haul our asses overboard or into the brig for later arrest.

No Charlotte Amelie.
No taxi.
No flight home.

I jest, but for a moment a felt real, terrible, irrational fear.

But the woman beside me returned from the cabin without comment, and another well-dressed woman in the seat in front of us chose that moment to open a tupperware box containing some delicious heavy, laden, rumcake she had saved as a ferry treat for her day out. The woman beside us teased her about the treat, then in a moment wrinkled her nose and said: "Girl, how much rum did you put in that?"

We were saved. But I did my exhaling toward my wife and over the rail into the wind for the rest of the ride.

continued

Loyalty, Fidelity, and Balto

While watching Disney's Balto with my kid's the other day, I was struck by the unexpected ending. The animation ends and we see a statue dedicated to the team of dogs that actually brought critically-needed medicine to the remote Alaskan(?) town, in the 20's.

The motto read 'Fidelity, Courage, Intelligence'.

I got to thinking about Fidelity. Diction: Fidelity. It struck me as different from loyalty in some important way. Sure, they were synonyms, but . . .

In our explorations of bi-culturalism and belonging, concepts of loyalty naturally interest me a lot.

So I went to the dictionary. Ah ha!

Loyalty: 1. The state or quality of being loyal. Gee.

So, Loyal: 1. Steadfast in allegiance to homeland, government, or sovereign.
Double Ah ha!
Ah ha! Ah ha!

There's that whiff . . . Smacks of conformity, somewhere in there, hidden within the virtue.

Now. Fidelity: 1. Faithfulness to obligations, duties, or observances; loyalty. Well, okay. But number 2: Correspondence
with fact . . . verity; truthfulness.

THERE is the difference, what I was feeling: Correspondence with truth or fact is often very different from loyalty.

I have a favorite new word. The first line of attack against an individual often comes in discrediting his or her loyalty.

Fidelty is noble; loyalty is corruptible. Fidelity is a trait of the individual; loyalty of the group man. Fidelity will probably cause conflict--individual v. society; loyalty conforms.


Or, as Friar Lawrebce reminds us

Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied

Some cool stuff

Great (!) all-in-one printer/scanner/fax: Canon MultiPass MP390. <$150. For the love of God, don't buy an HP 5x00 series. Look at the forums!

My browser: Firefox. Duh.

Email: Thunderbird.

Password Manager: KeePass (not KeyPass). Yes, it has autofill. But the best is, you can run it right off your USB Jump Drive. That is:

1. Store all your passwords in an encrypted database
2. Keep KeePass .exe application on your USB jump drive with the database file.
3. Plug in anywhere, execute KeePass, and access your passwords--all without loading the application on the computer.
4. Use password, Pass Key file, or both
5. Did I mention it was encrypted?
6. Did I mention Autofill for forms?

Awesome outlining/writing software: Keynote. Multi-layered, rearrangable word processing documents, in one file. Have three ideas? Maybe they are related, maybe not? Don't use three Word files. Keynote is perfect. Write/brainstrom now, organize later.

Antivirus: AntiVir. Awesome, easy, non-invasive (hello Symantec), not a system hog.

Firewall: (Get a router!) Sygate.

Active anti-trojan: ewido security suite.

Also: Ad-Aware, Spybot (with Tea Timer running) and what the hell, Spyware Blaster. Spybot also has a file shredder.

If you are running XP Service Pack 2, I would also download Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta.

And, get Crap Cleaner.

These are all free.

Mordecai Richler

I've just finished two novels by the Canadian writer Mordecai Richler:

Son of a Smaller Hero and A Choice of Enemies.

The latter is set in the expatriate American/Canadian community in 1950s London. This group for the most part is in flight from the McCarthyist oppression and conformity of North America. I stumbled upon Richler when surfing for 'cultural conflict' writers. A Choice of Enemies is a somewhat rambling and definitely scene-driven novel. It has problems with plot structure. But dialogue and characterization are excellent. The (anti)hero, Norman Price, realizes his 'enlightened' circle is as close-minded and orthodox as the system they have fled or from which they have been chased.

I read Richler with hope of inter-cultural conflicts and insights, and in this respect, Son of A Smaller Hero, although an inferior work (juvenilia), proved more to the point. The story involves a young hero from the Jewish Quarter of Montreal, trying to break free of the parochialism of his community (in the 50s), only to find that loyalties and meanings are more complex than his vain and somewhat naive 'truth seeking'.

Here's a quote from Richler himself I really love. Loyalty is a tricky thing. True loyalty is not what most conformists would champion. This quote expresses something I wish I had. I think the quote especially apt for the Irish-American experience: that is, a commitment to conforming, a denial of anything most in need of being addressed in family or interpersonal matters, and an excess of gooey goshandbegorrah sentimentality.

I am actually quoting this document:

it is pointed up in Richler's comment that he is especially interested in criticizing "the things I believe in or I'm attached to" - liberal values, Jews, Canada .2

And another quote from the same document: "liberals of the best traditional sort: undoctrinaire, hypersensitive of conscience, self-questioning."

Amen.

A quote. Why not?

William James, [Principles of Psychology], 1890:
"A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind."

Camouflage

This is a short comment in the "vain" of a person's costume affecting how others interact with the wearer. Today I dressed as a conservative white collar business man and walked around the center of the city. I did that because that is how I dress for my conservative white collar business job, and I got up too late to make a lunch this morning. While I was out getting lunch I ran an errand for my wife, and that errand took me right by the Big College campus.

There was a protest going on. A very small horde of hippies was protesting the destruction of mountaintops in the mining of coal in West Virginia. These hippies were all hipped out, right down to the fashionably bloodshot eyes. I had to jostle my way through them to get to the African store. I felt like I was back at the Dead show at Saratoga in '86.

But none of the hipsters felt like I was. They gave me obvious sneers and a wide berth. I think I heard, "narc" from under someone's breath. Wouldn't you have to be the stupidest narc in the world to dress like a banker to catch hippies with drugs?

I had to laugh to myself. I felt like telling them not to judge me by my appearance. Ironically, I had the same sentiment at Saratoga in '86, and so many other shows and occasions, but I was the hippie. I wondered if I ever truly learned anything at all. I wonder how many other conservative business men I sit across conference tables from are really open-minded, values-oriented, continually learning consciouses in disguise?

I got into the African store and there were a bunch of hipsters buying zig-zags and smelling all of the incense and browsing the "detoxifying" agents. I spoke to the man behind the counter in my wife's language (which I guess is also mine inasmuch as I have co-opted it) and told him that I had to send money to my in-laws but that I didn't have a lot of time left on my lunchbreak. He called me over to the right machine in front of the line. The other patrons may have been indignant but they didn't say anything, perhaps because they had no idea what transpired in our conversation. The man asked me how the protesters could really be angry if they had never truly been hungry? I told him that mountains are worth saving, and took my leave.

I wondered if they would fight as hard for the people who live in the mountains as they did for the mountains themselves. Especially if they wore white shirts and maroon ties...

Cowboy Hat Tortola Continued (in which the word Ubiquitous is bandied recklessly about)

I am guilty of the vanity of considering myself something of a world traveler. Or at least a veteran traveler: Able and willing to adapt, eager for experience, open to and understanding of differences, and of course, well-liked in such settings as a result.

This is a vanity born of early travel: By 12 I had been to Ireland 14 times, as well as Peru and Hawaii. The trips were personal visits to relatives, and you can soon feel superior to 'those tourists' on 'package tours'. Sometimes I think the travel itself, the rituals of airports and customs and time zones and idle chatter with different folks is as exciting as the in-country travel. All of this gave me an advanced perspective compared to my other 5th grade friends.

Somehow this attitude of enlightenment has stuck with me even though I am among 5th graders no more.

It's a bit silly really. I need only look to Traveler's rather more extensive experiences to remind me that mine are really limited to Ireland. Sure, I've been all over, but not extensively. Because I succeed swimmingly in Ireland, I convince myself I am a world cultural success.

Enter Tortola.

Beautiful BVI vacation spot hardly makes for convincing world traveler testing ground. This only makes our foibles there, and there were a few, all the more ridiculous.

Let's start with the World Traveler Corollary Vanity: Disdain for Souvenirs. Pooh-pooh to tourist bling. I am of the cultural experience, I don't want a tacky, fake, artifact of it. Man.

This is all a precursor to the purchase of the Cowboy Hat. Talk about an item that not only has nothing to do with Tortola, but with me or my life. It resonates affectation!

But it is vivid presence in our encounter with Tortola. Many of the white yachties, and other tourists on the docks and beaches sported them. I would almost call them ubiquitous.

This is what initially put it into my own head to get one on it. Because despite my obstinate nature I am actually a too-easily influenced namby-pamby.

I wanted Cowboy Hat.

And I thought I'd look good in one , too . . . Memory of pictures you have just viewed on this blog: Erase erase erase.

Sahara Wind sunset

Sahara Wind Sunset 

I've left this dark to protect the anonimity of the subject, but you get an idea of the dramatic sunsets and the sky filled with sand literally from the Sahara. Talk about global migration.

Cowboy Hat

Cowboy, baybee 

Does anything say Yankee so well as a cowboy hat? If you are really from Texas you can be forgiven. It is your native headgear. But of course if you are from Texas then you may be exuding an exponentially greater nativistic chauvinism than the average American, so that the hat is more the crowning statement, if you will, in the overall package of hubris, than the defining one. Yankee.

Just kidding.

Still cultural stereotyping is the topic of exploration for the next few posts.

A while back I promised more about our trip to Tortola. The best laid plans . . .

Now I intend to catch up. Suddenly I find myself with a fractured left hand and no ability to play guitar or record, or even do summer house projects (This bums me out most. Really.)

I've never had a broken anything before, except nose! Losing my left hand is like losing well, my hand. Really, two appendages: hand and guitar.

In an effort to deny the long dark teatime of the soul, of a month or more without playing, I am going to blog, man, blog.

Have thumb, will hunt and peck.

Now as for cowboy hats, the vanity of tourists, and cultural conflict
in Tortola . . .

Racial Identification

My wife and I brought our daughter to register for kindergarten. It is a big step. I'm sure all of you with children know how a parent can fret on a child's behalf. I was concerned that she would be able to meet the right friends, that the new class would be accepting of her as a new student, being that she comes from the north and will talk differently from the other children. We still have these concerns because school hasn't started yet.

The school exceeded all of our expectations for a kindergarten as far as the physical aspects are concerned. It is a beautiful, well funded, well cared for facility, and the staff obviously care deeply for the school. That is, I think, why we needed to get notarized affidavits proving that we truly are taxpaying residents in good standing in the community. There are people trying to get their children into our school system even though they don't live here because the schools are so good. I'm well pleased about that.

What I find a little weird is that at the end of the registration process the woman assisting us asked what race our daughter is. My wife was standing on the right and I on the left with our daughter in between us. I pointed at her and said that she could see her clearly right between us. It made a cozy tableau, Mom, Kid, and Dad; black, brown, white. The woman became a bit flustered, clearly not wanting to offend, but not wanting to make a decision on how our daughter should be categorized. She started talking very quickly and gesticulating in fluttering movements with her hands, explaining at an un-Southern speed that the categories were used for certain census and commonwealth reports, blah blah blah.

She eventually wrote our daughter down as Black. In the car on the way home I mentioned to her that she had been turned black. She thought it was odd, because she didn't feel any different, and kept holding her arm closer to the window to see if she were indeed any darker. It was a cute thing for her to do- my daughter is a cute kid.

This was funny, too because we were watching the BET award show the night before. My wife is a sucker for awards shows, I don't know why. They started the show by saying that it was time for a black award show that was on par with any "white" award ceremony. Then they brought out Halle Berry and Alicia Keys and other mixed race talents and identified them as solely black. I pointed out to my wife and daughter that these people were mixed race, and my wife said something to the effect that the dancing was beginning, so I should stay quiet and enjoy the dance.

My wife was clearly focused on the talents of the entertainers, and the fact that they deserved awards for their talents and hard work, not their racial identification. It is no wonder that she, my wife, found the kindergarten assistant's discomfort amusing. In the car after I had told my daughter that she had been turned black, my wife said that the kindergarten people need to stay quiet and enjoy the dance too, and I knew exactly what she meant. My wife is a cute kid too.