Beijing, China (2006)

This appears to be a pretty cool picture of me standing, sweating, outside the Forbidden City wearing a hideous t-shirt I bought at a local open aired market.

I wish I still had that shirt. I can’t believe I tossed it.

But is this picture all that it appears?

Of course not.

China is one of the most populated countries on Earth.

Do you think their major tourist attraction is going to be devoid of crowds?

Of course not.

Over the month I was living in the China World Hotel in Beijing, I used my poor man’s PhotoShop skills to cut and paste pieces of the photograph over the people who were ruining my picture.

I can still spot the slight variations in the clean lines of the fence where the cut and paste job didn’t exactly line up.

I guess I’m just another white colonizer erasing a marginalized minority and appropriating their culture.

Blacksburg, Virginia (1989)

This was the ingenious bunk bed system New Mal and his father designed and built that he brought to our dorm room my first morning there.

I’d driven up with my parents the day before and after depositing my belongings and saying goodbye, I rode my gray and black Huffy to a party on Lower Quad that was completely off the hook.

I wasn’t even 19 and people were handing me beers left and right.

At 2 AM when the party finally ended, I was so fucking hammered riding home on my bike carrying a 12 pack of beer that I could barely stay balanced.

When I got to the top of the hill near the War Memorial the beer carton split open and the cans went rolling everywhere, including downhill.

I tumbled off my bike and began giggling stupidly while trying to pick up the cans.

New Mal and his family must have set some sort of land speed record from Yorktown because there he was, standing over me in my bed, at 7 AM, laughing and slapping me on the back telling me what an amazing year we were going to have.

I was holding my head to keep my brains from falling out and all I could think was how I’d never been so hungover and now I was going to have to live in the same un-airconditioned room for a whole year with this crazy jackass.

Blacksburg, Virginia (1989)

This is my freshman roommate, New Mal.

That means “New Animal” but came from the radio jingles circa 1988 for the New River Valley Mall, or “New Mall.”

I couldn’t stand him at the time, despite the fact we were so putatively similar.

He was a party animal from Yorktown and a former wrestler.

We tussled one time and he was freakishly strong.

But he had a penchant for smoking pot and strolling the halls of Major Bill in a pair of brown tighty whities (brownies?) strumming an acoustic guitar.

I made the mistake of showing him a few chords. That was a huge mistake.

I’d hear him at the end of the hall, stoned out of his gourd, mangling Tom Petty and substituting his own ridiculous lyrics.

“Cause I’m free!
FREE BALLIN'”

And then laughing maniacally.

I still can’t hear that song without substituting those words over the chorus.

“Let The Day Begin”

From Wikipedia:

“The Call was an American rock band formed in Santa Cruz, California in 1980. The main lineup consisted of members Michael Been, Scott Musick, Tom Ferrier and Jim Goodwin. The band released nine studio albums over the next two decades before disbanding in 2000. Their 1986 song, “I Still Believe (Great Design)”, was covered by Tim Cappello and included in the 1987 film The Lost Boys. The band also achieved significant success with “Let the Day Begin” in 1989 which reached No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Mainstream Rock chart and was later used as a campaign theme song for Al Gore‘s 2000 Presidential Campaign.

Been’s son, Robert Levon Been, is the frontman for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Michael Been was heavily involved in BRMC as their sound engineer and toured with them.

Been died at the age of 60 on August 19, 2010, in Hasselt, Belgium, of a heart attack while at the Pukkelpop 2010 music festival where he was on-tour as a sound man for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.”

Vienna, Virginia (2011)

From FB:

“I am a warlock level genius. I built my own pull-up bar.

You know, for when I’m doing laundry and feel like knocking out a set or two…”

Diogense

From Wikipedia:

“Diogenes was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea coast of modern-day Turkey, in 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC.

Diogenes was a controversial figure. His father minted coins for a living, and Diogenes was banished from Sinope when he took to debasement of currency. After being exiled, he moved to Athens and criticized many cultural conventions of the city. He modeled himself on the example of Heracles, and believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory. He used his simple lifestyle and behavior to criticize the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt, confused society. He had a reputation for sleeping and eating wherever he chose in a highly non-traditional fashion, and took to toughening himself against nature. He declared himself a cosmopolitan and a citizen of the world rather than claiming allegiance to just one place.

Diogenes made a virtue of poverty. He begged for a living and often slept in a large ceramic jar, or pithos, in the marketplace. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts, such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for a man (often rendered in English as “looking for an honest man”). He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having mocked Alexander the Great, both in public and to his face when he visited Corinth in 336 BC.

Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold into slavery, eventually settling in Corinth. There he passed his philosophy of Cynicism to Crates, who taught it to Zeno of Citium, who fashioned it into the school of Stoicism, one of the most enduring schools of Greek philosophy.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

From FB:

“March 12th commemorates the martyrdom of Hypatia of Alexandria. Born in 370 CE, she was dean of a Neoplatonic school there and considered a universal genius. A famed astronomer and mathematician, she was the first female mathematician whose life was reasonably well recorded. Although she herself was a pagan, she was tolerant towards Christians and taught many Christian students, including Synesius, the future bishop of Ptolemais. Ancient sources record that Hypatia was widely beloved by pagans and Christians alike and that she established great influence with the political elite in Alexandria.Traces of rumors that spread among the Christian populace of Alexandria before her murder alleged in his Chronicle that Hypatia had engaged in Satanic practices and had intentionally hampered the church’s influence over the Roman Emperor.According to Socrates Scholasticus, during the Christian season of Lent in March 415, a mob of Christians under the leadership of a lector named Peter raided Hypatia’s carriage as she was traveling home. They dragged her into a building known as the Kaisarion, a former pagan temple and center of the Roman imperial cult in Alexandria that had been converted into a Christian church. There, the mob stripped Hypatia naked and murdered her using ostraka, which can either be translated as “roof tiles” or “oyster shells.” Damascius adds that they also cut out her eyeballs. They then tore her body into pieces and dragged her mangled limbs through the town to a place called Cinarion, where they set them on fire. According to Watts, this was in line with the traditional manner in which Alexandrians carried the bodies of the “vilest criminals” outside the city limits to cremate them as a way of symbolically purifying the city. Hypatia’s murder shocked the Roman Empire and transformed her into a “martyr for philosophy.” During the Middle Ages, Hypatia was co-opted as a symbol of Christian virtue and scholars believe she was part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. During the Age of Enlightenment, she became a symbol of opposition to Catholicism. In the twentieth century, Hypatia became seen as an icon for women’s rights and a precursor to the feminist movement.”