Walking on Thin Ice

No blogging or email from Lady for the next two weeks. Camping in Northern England and I’ve found the Internet cafe here to be extremely expensive ($4/hour).

I’ll check my email for emergency info but I’m not corresponding unless I find some cheaper access here.

Peace,

K

today is 7.7.07 - the day we find out what the new 7 wonders of the world officially will be. here are my choices:

1) the gullibility of the american people in believing vice dick cheney and george mama-boy bush are honest honorable people - or in cheney’s case even people

2) the stupidity of the american people believing demoscams have a spine or are different than the republicrats

3) that the rich have 98% of all the wealth and the rest of us have 2% and we haven’t killed and eaten them in retaliation

4) the fact that anything at all works right considering everything is built by the lowest bidder or by friends and cronies of the politicians

5) the internet

6) the adventures of smith and lady in love as they travel about the world in search of truth, justice and some un-american ways

7) world’s tallest bridge in millau france 1,122 feet from the tarn river to the top of the bridge

gotta use up my left over notes before we head to the frozen tundra of northern england to camp tomorrow. in no particular odor -

taxi fares in marrakech for the same route same distance vary by 250% if you’re caucasian.

in marrakech the bigger streets have 2 car lanes and a bike lane - yet there are 6 distinct streams of traffic flow, all powered by car horns. driving is a cooperative collaboration. our taxi got impatient and decided to pass everyone by using the opposing traffic’s 2 lanes. you don’t need no carnival rides in marrakech - just take a taxi instead.

the seussian palm trees in morocco have huge grape-like sacks of yellow ganglia hanging from the palm tops. looks vaguely obscene. i was thinking of making large jockstraps for their swollen pollen sack packs.

the first two pound british coin we received in change here in london had this engraved on its edge: SO MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE. i don’t get it, unless it’s ironic.

it was 100 degrees fahrenheit when we left morocco, yet we saw folk wearing winter jackets. it was 66 degrees here when we arrived in london, yet we see folk in t-shirts and bare midriffs. i’m wearing an american black t-shirt, a grey long-sleeved shirt mother dwarf made me, a black french pull-over, a black croatian sweater, and a black korean hat - and i’m still chilled. can’t wait to get up north where it’s colder. last august in grassington england, i almost froze to death in a sheep shit sheep field camping with the rainbow people.

we spent most of august 2006 here in the lewisham neighborhood of south london. we blogged a lot of great fotos. now 10 months later, we’re back walking through our old fotos.

we find we’ve changed considerably. england was the start of our traveling - we landed in london august 2 2006. we were timid, unsure, confused, overwhelmed, afraid, and definitely not in shape. now we’re in our 12th month of continuous world travel. after walking everywhere for those 12 months and seeing england, the netherlands, england, poland, england, croatia, slovenia, italy, france, spain, morocco, and now england again, it’s a whole new easier world here for us. the first time we lived in london for 3 weeks, we loved it. when we returned to london for 3 days last october to fly to croatia, we’d been in poland for 7 weeks where we couldn’t understand the people or read the adverts, and london was loud, unpleasant, aggressive. this time after 3 months in morocco, london is much more pleasant, enjoyable, attractive. it’s all relative. can’t wait to see who we are when we return to cleveland to visit after 14 months of overseas travel. you need old places to see who the new you is.

one big change is our 1st trip to london we carried 75 pounds apiece in our backpacks - on this our 4th trip here, we carry 33 pounds each. lady wonders how her 33 pounds of backpack can be so heavy when she used to carry 140 extra pounds of her own flesh on her frame - told her it’s all what you’re used to and how it’s distributed.

and so tomorrow we’re off (some would say WAY OFF). we go to begin again.

Art I made in Essaouira, Morocco. I left it here. I couldn’t find any art supplies in Morocco. I would normally apply liquitex over the surface which would give it some rigidity; wax alone is too delicate to get through customs without breaking.

These canvasses were made for me by our guide, who is also a carpenter. Usually I don’t use canvas; I find plastic or metal to use as canvas from garbage bins or the side of the road. Canvas is not very strong; it moves and flexes and cracks can form in the textured surfaces I like to build. So I prefer to use garbage instead.

Alcove where I left the art.

the worst examples of petty power-mad bureaucratic abuses i’ve met in our 11 months of travel come from the passport people at stansted and gatwick airports outside london england. the guy at stansted last october got snippy and sarcastic when he found out we were retired and traveling the world. before that, a woman at stansted threatened not to let us in because we didn’t have our exit ticket numbers with us. the guy this time at gatwick demanded our financial statements. told him we weren’t prepared to do that. said we’d better show them next time or we’d be refused entry. got snide when we told him we were artists. then he suddenly demanded to know what we did when we flew into england our third time last october. how the heck would i know what i did 9 months ago… my life since then has been too varied and interesting to remember what i did for 3 days while waiting for our flight to croatia. i just kept smiling and saying sure, i understand, these are tremulous times. sometimes it’s best to mollify small minds. i was afraid lady was going to explode - she kept saying afterwards that this wasn’t right. tried to tell her right has nothing to do with it - it’s just small dried-up people using their petty power to punish those with richer lives. seems now that i’m mellowing a wee bit, lady’s becoming more radicalized.

i see 5 possible reasons they dislike us: 1) lady’s young and i’m old… 2) we’re not working while we travel the world living our dream and having fun, while they sit at a crappy podium stamping pieces of paper for a living… 3) they resent americans because traitor dick cheney and war-time deserter george w bush are getting british soldiers killed in an illegal war… 4) they’re just pricks… the cheney bush beast told their british poodles to hassle us because of my anti-government comments on my website.

i must say though on our first entry into england last august, the passport people were pleasant, courteous, and fast. so that’s 1 nice to 3 rudes… or 1 civilized to 3 rubes.

we were greeted at our temporary london abode by our host’s black cat, a bunch of feathers, pools of fresh blood on the floor, and a large black bird huddled behind the door curtains. i let them out into the back yard so they could finish their play. the cat’s my friend, and i don’t think it’d be fair for me to take his prize from him - don’t believe the bird would live anyway.

re-watched 2001- a space odyssey. my 5th time. the first three times were the week it came out in 1968 - once on grass, once on acid, and once on speed. loved the movie. 4th time was 14 years ago when i bought a copy. 5th was last week in marrakech. there are 3 films which changed the face of science fiction film: 2001 (1968), star wars (1977), and blade runner (1982). can’t think of any since that have revamped our view. 2001 was revolutionary, a true to the facts sci/fi art movie. but it doesn’t hold up - 39 years later it’s creaky, slow moving, boring, and pretentious. in fact if i hadn’t read arthur c clarke’s paperback version of the movie, i still wouldn’t know what went on at the end. it’s sad losing respect for old friends this way. the more you learn, the more clearly you see.

we go up country to wordsworth/coleridge/rushkin territory tomorrow morning to live in the dirt for two weeks. lady calls this camping and says it’s fun. hmmmm.

morocco’s still trying to break our will, but won’t. gotta respect a country that won’t give up without a fight.

past few days we withdrew a total of 10,000 dirhams from bank money machines. today we tried to convert them into 1,000 euros so we could pay our london and france rents for august and september. bank said no, we had to go back to where we got the money and have them convert it. walked to western union. they said no, try the bank where we’d just been refused. told lady not to worry, we could always convert them in london. she said no we can’t - it’s illegal to take dirhams out of morocco. we’re looking at losing $1,200 american dollars because of money laws we knew nothing about. we taxi out to the airport to try their conversion office. man said sorry, you need the receipts of where you got it. told him we got it out of the ATM machines. he said those receipts would do. we’ve been throwing the receipts away, but searched her purse and found enough to cover it. gave them to him. he found out we were leaving tomorrow so said can’t be done today, come back tomorrow when we leave. i’m getting tired of bureaucratic backwash telling us what we can or can’t do with our own bread.

tried to taxi back from airport. our first night in morocco, as we walked to the airport taxis, a cabbie asked if we wanted a ride. said yes. he took us to his cab - which was at the back of the long line of waiting cabs. before we knew something was out of sorts, he’d thrown our backpacks in his trunk and told us it was150 dirhams. all the other cabbies descended on him screaming cursing yelling pounding the top of his cab.

so this time to prevent a ruckus we went to the taxi at the head of the line. cabbie said 120 dirhams. told him we’d just taxied the same distance out to the airport for 80 dirhams. he said too bad. asked other cabbies for 80 dirham ride and several said yes. they all started screaming at each other. we got in one cab and another cabbie came over, open my door and demanded we get into his cab. our driver started backing up, the other cabbie hanging on to the door… finally let go.

we caused a ruckus the first time by not knowing the rules. we observed the rules this time and still caused a ruckus. there’s no way to win in morocco. we’ve seen a dozen screaming mad shouting matches, and they’ve all been between taxi drivers. no physical violence though. where’s Travis Bickle when you need him?

as we leave morocco and fly to london, which is where we began our journey last august 2nd, there’s two framing facts of coincidence… flying to mid-60s weather in london last august, we’d left the 100+ degree heat of chicago, and flying into the mid-60s weather in london tomorrow, we’re leaving the 100+ degree heat here … and … my first day in morocco was spent with vomiting and diarrhea from food poisoning i’d gotten from eating at the madrid airport, and here my last day in morocco i’m again suffering from food poisoning and diarrhea. i love it when the author frames the action like that.

day after day after yesterday…
arrived london yesterday. passport control guy an arrogant rude snot. we smiled anyway.

woke up to a wall of birds chirping this morning at sunrise. tonight at sunset we heard them again. this place has an inner courtyard open to the sky and our window wall is 90% covered by ivy from the ground floor to the roof. we saw maybe 300 small finch-like birds fly from the sky and nestle in our ivy wall for the night. vociferous critters. they’re magic, right out of a fairy tale. that’s one of our open courtyards above.

lady k finished 4 art pieces in essaouira. they were too delicate to mail, so she left them on the ramparts by the sea to be taken home by whomever. this is her second free art offering - the other was pula, croatia. she’ll have her first solo gallery show this october or november in cleveland at the brandt gallery.

watched scorsese’s “aviator” film with leonardo dicaprio - great movie but sad. makes one wonder why anyone would ever want to be famous. the first dicaprio film to show me what a great actor he is. unlike any other film i’ve seen by scorsese.

used my usb memory stick at a marrakech cyber cafe and picked up 5 viruses. that’s 9 marrakech internet cafe viruses so far. good metaphor for morocco.

marrakech operates on a higher, faster, denser pitch than essaouira. of course marrakech is 22 times larger and more than 3 times older than essaouira. and this is a desert city while essaouira’s seacoast. more dirt, more poverty, more desperation, and hungrier more aggressive sales sharks here as well. marrakech is uglier, hotter, more demanding - depressing too. yet marrakech is much more interesting, packs more in each minute. shows you the dark side of the human soul.

i’m hashless in marrakech. was told one couldn’t walk anywhere without being offered hash, but i must look too old and lady too healthy for us to be approached here - although in essaouira we were offered drugs 3 times. maybe reality wants me straight. i could go to our ex-guide’s house and get some, but i don’t want to see him again after his show of greed our last day here 2 months ago. i’d rather be straight than enter that manipulative pit again. looks like my principles outweigh my need.

can’t wait to land in england tomorrow. of course that’s going to be a hassle too because england is on high terror alert, which means it’ll take an hour or more to get through passport control. our bags will be going around and around the baggage conveyor belt unattended while we wait to pass muster.

i’m off-flow today. the heat, the bad sleep, the greed, the need, plus moving to 3 hotels in 2 cities in 4 days have depleted me, have me thinking dark thoughts. my natural buoyancy is bounceless, my brain slow, my mind numb, my body sore, my will tired, my spirit less. the two bright points in my life right now are the lovely Lady K, and not being in Amerikkka - land of fascist KKKorporations, KKKristian fumblementalists, and KKKleptomatic war KKKriminal election stealing “vice” president and president pretend..

i am not inclined to eat in restaurants. i find the tables small and too close together, and the atmosphere false. but last night i found a way to enjoy it: get stoned before hand, then get to the restaurant early. our food and conversation were good, and we were 3/4s done before a second couple came in. two more followed. i’m an empath - i’m like a tesla coil for people, i pick up their discordancies. the more people around, the more turbulent the mental and emotional airwaves, the more i shrink into myself.

so tonight for our last night in essaouira, we got stoned and went to dinner even earlier. figured earlier in, earlier out.

sat down at 7:15. during our tasty waldorf-ish salad, a fiddler and 3 percussionists came in, started exotic ululating foot stomping song. waitress danced. band danced. customers danced. drummer ululated. we ate crab bisque soup during second song. whole band sang. bisque good. heavy drums in small concrete room loud. ululating loud. fiddle loud. ears ringing. conversation with my lady drowned out. dancer goes among tables extorting tips for band. at 9 our main course finally comes - tough tasteless fish and passable vegetable pastilla. cheese and crunchy sweet for dessert.

mediocre main course, lack of conversation, being held hostage for 3 hour dinner, and management making the fleeced pay for forced entertainment left a bored distaste in my mouth. did appreciate that between each native folk song by the band, the cook turned the radio on and played arabic techno. the band knew 3 songs. they played 6.

next day.
back in marrakech again. we found the ibis hotel too humdrum after what and where we’ve been, so canceled next 3 nights to stay in the shererazade riad inside the old city walls instead. by the time we start camping in north england next week, we’ll have changed addresses 5 times in the 9 days. bit much don’t you think. all the moving about coupled with the brutal marrakech sun has drained us. it’s at least 20 degrees fahrenheit warmer here than essaouira… saw one sign that said 113 degrees.

tried to buy straw hats because the sun here is so brutal. street vendor handed me 2 and said 140 dirhams ($16.47 US). i said too much, handed them back. he asked how much i’d be willing to pay. told him last time we bought 2 hats, we paid 40 dirham total ($4.70 US). he said ok, handed the hats back. because we’re gringos, he’d upped his price 350%. that one transaction pretty much sums up morocco.

must have had 30 friend requests on myspace today from false women asking me to pay money to look at naked pictures of them. told lady i had a load of slut requests… she replied “you have a slut glut.” say that real fast 5 times - it’s harder than “toy boat” or “rubber baby buggy bumper.”

next next day (july 2, 2007).
wrote down 3 lines to use later in poems - they’re almost a poem by themselves…

in the belly of the salmon
full moon in Marrakech
slapstick reality

lady cried today. walking around our last day on the west coast of africa, we came across 4 starving black kittens. could see their ribs and spine through their fur. they ran up to us pleading for food and affection. lady asked if we could bring them some food and water. i said no, they’re almost dead anyway, won’t do any good and might even prolong their suffering. lady sat on the sea wall, tears running down her face. i held her. the kittens came over and lay down at our feet. too much need and sadness for me, so i relented. we went and bought them some bottled water, 4 small yogurts, and 6 tiny silvery fish. came back, only 2 kittens there. their little teeth couldn’t get through the fish skin, so i placed the fish on rocks and stomped them with my heel to break the flesh. the kittens feasted away.

on the way back out, saw the 3rd kitten, so i found a plastic bag, picked it up and carried it to the fish. can’t touch the cats here because they’re all diseased. on our way back out again, found the 4th kitten. i left it where it was. figured i’d played cat god enough. the kittens took an hour of our day… it was a good hour. my rationale for helping the kittens is we made them happy and kept them alive for 1 more day… maybe tomorrow another soul will take heart and feed them again.

what a sad, unforgiving world this all too often is.

afterwards, we had coffee and pizza at an outdoor cafe. a pregnant black cat asked me for a bite. gave her a couple, and she lay down in the sun at my feet and slept. that’s 5 black cats laying at my feet today. sounds like good luck to me.

i constantly think i hear willie nelson singing here - the reedy slightly off-the-beat male arab singers sound very much like him. willie’s one of my 3 main want-to-dos - i want to get stoned with willie nelson, have bob dylan record one of my poems as a song, and do a word/foundsound collaboration with jack dangers of meat beat manifesto. it’s important to have goals - though my main goal is to make lady happy, and my second goal is to get our memoir of me published.

we have one small toke of hash left for today - i gave half of what we had to guests for their journey. looks like we’ll be hashless in marrakech tomorrow. or not - if we’re supposed to have some, it will appear.

the baby seagulls below are up on our hotel roof.

olkiklk;kil;kjukl;lkjn lok,.koijm

cleaning my keyboard created the line above. i figure it’s as germane as anything i write, so may as well leave it.