I Hate Tourists

‘Hey, Seb,’ I said, ‘how come you didn’t go travelling in South America after your time in Costa Rica?’
‘What do you mean, Seb?’ I asked. ‘You have a problem with North America?’
‘Well, I just thought that the usual route for people dismayed with the rampant materialism of Western society, that spiritual wasteland where people seek meaning in consumer goods and are increasingly isolated from each other, was to head South -or to Asia- in their search for something more authentic.’
‘Are you asking me why I didn’t go on the hippy trail?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘Because I don’t see how going to a hot country to see poor people and wear baggy trousers is authentic. There are plenty of poor people in North America, and they live right next to incredibly wealthy people, that’s authentic and screwed up.’
‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me next that people in poor countries don’t want to be authentic anyway, that they aspire to materialism and buying Mickey Mouse shaped candle holders too.’
‘Why yes. You know, it’s spooky, it’s like you can read my mind. So I just wanted to see new sights, visit friends, and have time to think. Is that OK?’
‘I thought you picked America because the shallow, keep-it-simple culture suited you.’
‘Like, screw you, dude.’

Lifestyles Of The Hard Working And Anonymous

I’m staying with some friends in Toronto.
My friends around North America have been very generous with me as I have been travelling around.
They have opened up their homes and I have been able to enjoy the lifestyles that they are working so hard to maintain but do not have time to actually enjoy themselves.
At least all that hard work is not going to waste.

Ask Questions Later

I’m sitting opposite an attractive French girl in the lounge area of a hostel.
We’re chatting about where we have been and where we are going.
I think to myself that I like her.
Then I think to myself if I like her because she is attractive, or if she is attractive because I like her.
Meanwhile, she gets up and leaves.

Quebec

Mon Dieu, quel accent!
If this is French, then I'm a Dutchman.

Just What She Carries

I’m in a hostel in the middle of Jasper National Park. It’s after dinner and a few of us are gathered around a fire, talking and drinking. It’s bear country but we reckon it can’t kill all of us, the fittest will get away. Natural selection.
A woman is talking. I watch her face in the glow of the flames. It’s an interesting face.
‘I’ve been on the road for sixteen years,’ she says.
Sixteen years! Christ, these days, I’m struggling after two hours.
‘I was in Chile for a few years,’ she continues, ‘but I would like to return to Guatemala.’
She makes and sells jewellery. When she has no money she barters for her board, doing odd jobs. She has just what she carries.
I wonder what stories she could tell. To have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands. Every day a new horizon. Every day a new challenge. Life as an adventure.
She pulls her shawl around her and tells us that she was offered a job in Jasper but she’s not sure she could settle down, fit back into ‘the system.’
I wonder if I could opt out of the system too, the straightjacket that makes us cogs in a machine, that tames the natural animal in us, but first I need to secure a pension that will pay for medication and care when I’m old and sick.
Someone hands me a joint. Fireworks go off in my head and I don‘t think of anything any much anymore.

Another Journey Into The Interior

‘Hey,’ I asked, ‘where are you off to now?’
‘Off into the interior,’ I answered. ‘That’s what they call it here: the Interior.’
‘Sounds ominous.’
‘Not really. Although a couple of years back, on a cross Canada Greyhound bus, some guy sawed another guy’s head off…’
‘Jesus. I know it’s a long way but there must be other ways of not going mad. Have you packed a sudoku?’
‘Actually, I’m going to ponder if questioning the conformity of modern consumer society is valid given that most people are trying to distinguish themselves by what they purchase.’
‘Jesus. By the way, you do know that you are talking to yourself, right?’
‘Who said that?’

Release The Hounds

I’m staying with friends in Victoria, British Columbia, and I’m walking their dog. I take him out in the mornings and we head into the park then to the coast where we watch ships sail towards snow capped mountains in America. The dog attracts a lot of attention. People smile, they stop and say hello, mainly to him although I take it upon myself to answer. Frisco doesn’t mind, or if he does he hasn’t said anything to me.
It reminds me of when I would take my little niece out in London. She would draw all sorts of attention, especially from women, they would smile, stop and say hello too. If a conversation started, I would strike an avuncular poise and throw in ‘I’m actually her uncle’ just in case, you know, said woman was single. Although said woman never usually said much after that.
So I’m walking Frisco -or he’s walking me, it’s not clear between us- and it’s another clear, crisp morning. I expound on the theory of Plato’s Cave, he expounds a steaming turd which I gingerly gather up in a bag. Frisco’s more the empiricist to my rationalist. We look at ducks, he bends his front paw at squirrels, people say hello. Then we pass an attractive woman.
She looks at me and says, ‘Beautiful dog.’
I blink and blurt out, ‘I’m actually his uncle.’
On the way home I expound to Frisco on the theory of how difficult it is to meet women.

The Value Of Doing Nothing

‘And what do you do?’
I think about this. I am asked this question a lot on my trip. Either because they are bad conversationalists asking the standard boring question or because they are really curious as to how I can be travelling for months on end.
‘I don’t do anything anymore,’ I usually say. Then I qualify this by saying what I used to do. By qualify I mean justify and explain, which I hate myself for doing, as if my present state is wrong.
‘So what are you going to do?’
I look at them.
‘What does it matter? A business card doesn’t define a person. It’s not what you do but how you do it that is the question.’
That's what I feel like saying. Or
‘What does it matter? Whatever I do, children will be starving in Africa.’
Or
‘What does it matter? I’ll doubtless have to smother any sense of purpose and do whatever it takes to pay the bills.’
But I usually just say ‘I don’t know’ and change the topic to a standard boring conversation about the weather.

The Society Of The Spectacle

‘Hey, so how you liking Vancouver?‘ I asked me.
‘It’s a fun city,’ I answered me. ‘I can’t believe they have beaches just off downtown.’
‘You been swimming or are you still swimming in your head?’
‘Actually, I have been wondering if not being true to yourself means that you are just faking a life. And then follows how you even can be true in this media saturated society of manufactured desires in which we are alienated from our essential nature.’
‘Water too cold was it?’
‘But then I met this guy who told me how he found out that his wife was having an affair, how she said that she didn’t love him anymore, how he was worried that he would lose his kids… He was in fucking tears.’
I stared at me.
‘The concrete took over the abstract, you know. What was I supposed to say to him: Sorry, mate, but your life in the suburbs was just a marketing man’s concept of a life anyway, now you can be true to yourself?’
‘Hm. So what did you say?’
‘Nothing. We drank beer.’
‘Glad to see your thinking is proving useful.’
‘Screw you.’