Pilots...I study your styles/behaviors

I feel like when most people get on a plane, they either fall asleep immediately or start praying.
It's crazy.  How, when stepping foot onto one of the greatest man-made machines ever, could one enter a state of unconsciousness?  The question referring to both of my observations.
An airplane ride is something to be marveled.  I remember my first airplane ride.  I was something like five or six years old.  It was a Cessna, flying out of the Kent State University airport.  My dad wore a multi-colored stripe tank-top.  I believe my mom was in purple.  The pilot, a middle-aged man with a tan, dirty blonde hair and glasses, let me take the controls.  I saw my hometown in a way I've never seen it before.  The propellers whirring in my ears the whole time.
If you think I'm making this shit up...I'm not.  Being in a plane is that important to me.  Every memory I have of flying in a plane is so vivid.
Catching the connect from Atlanta to Miami International before boarding a cruise to the Bahamas..it was Ludacris on repeat, nodding my head as I watched the Southern sun pierce the cumulus clouds.
Snapping photos through Wayfarer lenses with a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in my lap and a quarter of fine herb in my wallet while sitting on the runway  for the flight to Vegas.
Playing Solitaire with a real deck of cars, holding my piss against the window seat, watching the Rocky Mountains pass underneath me while the boring married couple slept next to me on my first solo flight at age 12 to LAX.
Fuck, planes are a beautiful part of my life.  When I'm on em, I get the GIGGLES.
Pilots, this is where you come into play.  I pay attention to you.  When I get the chance, I talk to you.  You are fascinating people.
To look into the cockpit of a commercial airliner is mystifying.  And to think, those two people know what every one of those gadgets do, blipping and whirring, blinking and beeping.  Marvelous.
I wonder what the conversation is like with flight command..
"Looking good out there cap.  The plane looks solid.  Are you ready for air.  I've got a 747 on the C runway blasting in two minutes.  You're up next.  Safe travels.  Enjoy the view."
Or is it more serious than that?
The two pilots, locked in their cave up front, with 270 windshields and control of Rolls Royce supercharged twin turbine jet engines.  Only they know, through the privacy of headsets and the best secret keeper ever, Mr. Black Box.
While the plane stages, like a top fuel dragster perching itself at the tree, and the people around me adjust their wrap-around neck pillows and i-pod volumes, I fix my view out the window.  I feel the engines fire.  I can sense the pilot's hand on the throttle, controlling the vortex of energy.
I hear the conversation in the headset with flight control...I know when it's time.
There is no sound like those Rolls Royce engines firing hard, revving and sucking air so fast.
When the plane makes the turn from approach to the runway, a new level of power is achieved.
The captains hand, steady, dry, pushing on the throttle with authority, accelerating 100+ people to 300+ MPH in seconds.  With grace.
I laugh, I can't help myself.  Ever.  Watching the still world, concrete and grass, turn into a motion blur,  a camera trick, before my eyes--I can't control the laughter.  My forehead pressed hard against the quadruple thick, pressurized, air-tight, oval window.  Whirring.  Louder.  Rubber.  Getting Hotter.  Metal, shaking.  Wings, bouncing.  Then.  Weightlessness.
Floating.
Silence.
Liftoff.
I watch the flaps on the wings manipulate physics.  I imagine my arm braving highway speeds from the passenger side window in my Dad's Chevrolet Blazer at age 10:  Angle the palm upwards, the hand takes flight.  Angle it down, it is reflected in the side view.
I'm still giggling.  People are snoring around me.  A woman clutches a rosary.
Then you see the world like never before.
Detailed leaves turn into green swatches of color.  Single roads transform into a grid system, grey separating various shades of greens and tans, earth tones popping against man made.
The clouds are above.
Then they are eye level, making the planes wings shake.  Woman clutches her rosary harder.  My forehead leaves an oil mark on the Plexiglas.
Then the clouds are below.  The plane is at cruising altitude.  The clouds look like an ocean of cotton or endless snowcapped mountains born by the brush of the late Bob Ross.  It looks not real.
You can see the earth is actually round from this place, like a wide-angle, fish-eye lens, bending the world at the corners so the hot blue shifts to a violet hue.
You learn a lot about yourself up here.  You learn how to read, draw, write, think, talk to strangers.  And eventually perfect your drinking.
And, before long, all the sounds from takeoff reverse.  The whirring, winding-up of the engine becomes a reverse cymbal, the air being let from a balloon slowly.
The wing flaps push against the ground.  Earwax and snot readjusts to the shifting altitude.
The pilot speaks:  "We've begun our descent into (insert destination city).  We'll be on the ground shortly, as quickly and safely as possible."
This is where a pilot shines.  This is where a pilot earns my respect.  The descent.
It can't be too fast, something that will pop the blood vessels in your nose.
It can't be too slow, like the ground will never get there.
A good descent is like a long escalator ride, you let your weight lean hard on one foot.  You relax and watch the landing get closer.
If you listen closely at what looks like about 1,000 feet from the ground, you can hear the mechanical buzz of the landing gear growing from the undercarriage of the craft.  You can hear ground control:  "We see the landing, gear, Cap.  You're clear for touchdown."
Then, there is the moment that separates the pilots from the people who just fly planes.  The moment where the ground comes into focus and the plane,  with all its tons of steel and wires and people and their people shit, floats over the ground.
I've been slammed into runways.  Touchdown in Austria from Kosovo felt like someone dropped the plane from 5,000 feet and let projectile motion take over, a long jump skier with a death wish.
A good pilot will trick you, make you think the plane will smash the ground and send rubber particles and smoke from the runway.
Then, just before contact, the motion stalls.  The wings float up towards the sky one last time.  The ground becomes static.  Finally, you feel the soft squeal of the tires touching down..  The hundred+ people moving at hundreds of miles per hour just slow down.
"Welcome to (insert destination city here).

Thanks...Goodbye...Hello

It's 3:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.  I'm sitting in what will soon have been my bedroom for the past five weeks.  I'm showered, partially dressed and prepared to leave promptly at 4:00 a.m. to go to the Quito International Airport.  From there, I fly to Houston, where I'll surely be bombarded and suffocated by the torrents of Thanksgiving Day travelers and forced to drink no fewer than three alcoholic beverages while waiting to board my plane to Cleveland.  Then I'll be home.  And this experience, physically, over.

I'm keeping this brief.  I just wanted to say thanks to all my friends, my family, my teachers back home and my new circle of friends and family in this diverse and intricate pocket of the world I've spent the last five weeks.  Your support, encouragement, kindness and love have given me strength and motivation in many ways...to pursue adventures like this one, which is coming to an end, and to seek out others in life, so I never become a dull, boring bastard.  That is what you all do for me...keep me young and satisfied.

And I hope in some crazy way, I return the favor, that our relationship is symbiotic.

So thanks, once again, everyone, for everything.  Goodbye Ecuador...for now.

Ticking and tocking till...hello Ohio.

Cheers.

The most important songs...Pt. 1 of ???

Some days, you wake up, and you feel like you might have been crying in your sleep.  You feel the sticky, transparent, salty residue on your cheeks...but don't remember how it got there.  What dream created it?  From there, know that the day will be an emotional day. A day when laughter and sadness can come hand in hand, for no reason at all.  Days like that, songs will tap the emotions hard.  Hit them rather, like one of those sledgehammer games at the fair.

I love music.  I love how songs and sounds create feelings.  I love what music can do to educate us, as people, about ourselves and each other.

I want to compile a list of influential, powerful, meaningful, fun songs...with help from you of course.  The list will grow infinitely. It's exciting.

So, to make this work....post a comment here, or on my Facebook saying what song means the most to you and why. And I'll add it to the list.  Let's see what kind of playlist we can create!

  This is song number 1:

Colors of The Wind from the movie "Pocahontas."

You think I'm an ignorant savage

And you've been so many places

I guess it must be so

But still I cannot see

If the savage one is me

How can there be so much that you don't know?

You don't know ...

You think you own whatever land you land on

The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim

But I know every rock and tree and creature

Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people

Are the people who look and think like you

But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger

You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?

Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest

Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth

Come roll in all the riches all around you

And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers

The heron and the otter are my friends

And we are all connected to each other

In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?

If you cut it down, then you'll never know

And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned

We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains

We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still

All you'll own is Earth until

You can paint with all the colors of the wind

Those are some powerful lyrics to go along with a beautiful melody and composition of instruments.  Having been in Ecuador for the past 5 weeks, I've been exposed to the culture of the indigenous people.  There knowledge of the physical world, their use of nature for everything--like the woman I met who makes medicines from plants to keep her Diabetes in check--to the stories about mountains, lakes, clouds, the sun...it's all fascinating.  And in stark contrast to the mindset of many people in many places--lets build a commercial shopping or housing development where the beautiful woods are.

This could lead to song number 2--that song by Joni Mitchell, I don't know the name, and I'm not going to look it up...I just know it goes like this:

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone.  It could be paradise, and they put up a parking lot."

Religion: The opiate of getting things accomplished in the free world

I read this editorial one morning on CNN.com.  And I liked it.

Then, a girl whom I went to high school with, Britni Tozzi, posted the link to the article on her Facebook news feed with this message accompanying it:

 "As a person of deep faith and spirituality, I am truly appalled by the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington's announcement / threat toward passing the same-sex marriage bill in D.C. Faith and the acceptance of others go HAND in HAND."

 After reading how it affected her, I was inspired to act, vent, rant, share some opinions, briefly, about the overarching topic of the role  religion plays in the democratic process.

I've wasted much breath and even more brain power on this issue.  Frankly, it makes me sick.

The intrusion of religion in the collective political consciousness and unconsciousness of many Americans is a defamation of the democratic system and an inhibiting, limiting factor to The Constitution.  Especially when the close-minded bigotry of bible-thumping ass holes, who just so happened to do well in law school or know somebody in some high place who controls some aspect of the political system,  makes its way into the law-making process.

When this happens, the metaphorical soap-box transforms from a pearly-white object to intelligently voice one's opinions to a fiery pulpit, a pulpit which basks in the sweat and bile of Satan.  From this hellish lectern,  The Devil, stroking with his scratchy tongue the thoughts and egos of the people speaking hateful rhetoric, empowers these callous opinion leaders.

The funny thing is, these politicians/lobbyists/activists who are against same-sex marriage and equal partner benefits use religious rhetoric to defend their position.  They call on God and Jesus to set straight, literally, the sinful ways of homosexuals.  Then they use their vehicle of politics to oppress accordingly.

In my opinion, like I said, they are speaking with the devil in their hearts and their words.  I'm not even religious, I claim no faith and worship no holy book.  But if there is an evil under lord who tempts us earth dwellers daily, he surely has infiltrated the religious-based politics many Americans subscribe to.

Irony, enter the picture, please, share your humorous ways, soon.

I'm reminded of Nietzsche's work "The Anti-Christ" when I think about this issue.  Since Nietzshe penned the ideas brought forth in the book, they have been misunderstood and used as a catalyst for evil.  Hitler used the text to defend his attempted genocide.  Hate groups latch onto the ideas of self-determination and the uberman Nietzsche presents.  But Nietzsche was not writing a text to glamorize or empower evil.  In fact, he was doing the complete opposite.  Sure, he denounces the existence of God, which is the reason for the title.  Then, he paints a picture of humanity without religious forces, rules, dogma and doctrine crippling the minds and hearts of Earthlings.

One conclusion of the book, among others, is that Jesus was a man of  flesh and blood, simply and entirely.  And he was a perfect man, a superman, a man by which to mold your life after.  But he was no God, and no son of one either.  Jesus was simply a man who had charisma and passion to help others in need.  He was a teacher.  He was a friend.  He was not afraid to tell you when you did something wrong that it would be accounted for and there would be consequences.  "The Anti-Christ" really is an inspiring tale of what mankind could be, given we all follow the  laws of humanity, in the example of Jesus or Buddha or Muhammad or Krishna, knowing there is no heaven after we die, no repentance, no final chance to say sorry for the bad shit we did/do.  You must make the best of this life now, without moral superiority or dominance over friend or foe.

Then there is the Bible, testaments new and old.  The oh-so holy word of God,mostly narrated by Jesus' followers, his disciples, to educate all Christians on how to live their lives properly, as to attain access to heaven, the Kingdom of God, upon death.  Since it's been written and translated and implemented or forced onto various people of various cultures, it too has been used to justify and defend evil.  Surely, that was not the point of the text, a text that blatantly states the Ten Commandments as a basis for all of God's teachings--Love thy neighbor as thyself, don't steal, kill, fuck your friend's wife, etc.  Good rules.  Great principles to ensure one leads a good life.  Yet, in the name of this holy book, war has been waged, blood spilled, territories conquered, populations and cultures decimated.  There was the religious extremism in Colonial America, witch hunts, casting out evil spirits from Puritan society.  There were the missions to Latin and South America, the Caribbean islands, Hawaii.  There were the Crusades and the Conquistadors.  Roe v. Wade.  George W. Bush and his God-inspired politics.

Now, there is a war being fought in the polling centers across America.  A new era of civil rights is among us, an era that began when, perhaps, Harvey Milk fought against bigotry in California for many, many years, and finally won.  Or it could have began when Oscar Wilde was ostracized from English society because he acted just a little too fruity and had some queer thoughts he decided to write about.  Either way, the movement is on for the LGBT community...but it looks like one step forward and two steps back.

Step: Coming out of the closet is OK, a era of acceptance is here.
Back: Matthew Sheppard.
Step: Gay couples openly wed in some states.
Back: State university employees in same-sex relationships are denied benefits.
Step: Barack Obama is elected president, victory for civil rights, promises for gay rights.
Back: Proposition 8, Maine, Washington D.C., Ohio....

I'm feeling nausea.  I'm feeling tears.  I'm feeling anger.  I'm reading the column that inspired this rant one more time.  I'm breathing easier now.  I'm laughing at what I'm about to write...

"The Anti-Christ" could be the best political doctrine for America, a book that denounces God's existence, yet gives a blueprint for living a positive life, a motivated life, a life absent of judgement and prejudice, a life of acceptance of one's neighbor, a life to be proud of.  And its teachings can be adopted to politics.  Hitler did it,   albeit for pure evil and torture, but he did it. Surely the brightest political minds in America could find it in themselves to find the positive teachings in the book and implement those into the political rhetoric, quoting passages, rallying the voters behind its message.

But the title, Good God the title...I can feel the shivers running down the spines of most of population of the Midwestern states, the states where the Bible rests on everyones' nightstands, and where the Lord's Prayer hangs triumphantly in the bathroom, just above the shitter.  The Bible, a hand rested upon it when the president is sworn in to office.  The Bible, a hand rested upon it when O.J. Simpson swore he didn't murder that white woman.  The Bible, a book filled with lessons of life, which oozes fear and superiority, speaks in symbolism and imagery; for the weak, the flock,; the strong, the shepherds,; the evil, snakes and wolves.  It's the book which has been at the heart of law-making in America since America was born, hypocrisy and all.

So the constitution preaches life, liberty, happiness.  All Americans entitled to those inalienable rights as Americans because they are Americans.  Yet, those rights are threatened every time a religious-minded activist/lobbyist/law-maker gets atop his evil soap box and rallies his flock to go vote against the constitution, voting against equal rights for all citizens in a country supposedly founded on those principles.

The propaganda machine churns hard, preying on emotion, evoking morality, pitting good v. evil.  What these warped-minded politicians want is action from the flock. They demand its votes.  Votes to limit, bar or strip the liberties of other American citizens.

All this in a country where the problems could be solved if people would stop judging books by the covers.

Things, which define us...

Thanks to the materialistic nature of Americana, people own things.
One, or more, of those things may define who the person is.
The spectrum for this idea is vast--from the douche bag who lets his/her material things represent their vapid personality, to simply owning a prized possession, something that holds a place in your heart.  And, in a creative writing sense, that thing thinks the same about you.
I fit into this spectrum. I am a noun in the machine known as Americana.

I owned a hat.
I own many hats--beanies, baseballs, fedoras, my Fresh Prince flipped-bill tribute.  But one hat was my pride and joy.  One hat had a special place atop my head and in my heart: the tan scout hat.  It was military-esque.  It had a short brim.  It was molded to my head in such a way that it belonged nowhere else.
Now it's gone.  Lost, by me, in a fit of haste, a rushing down a bus aisle to finally escape the hours of claustrophobia and nauseating twists and turns through the mountain roads of Ecuador's high sierra.  I left it on the seat.  Or maybe it fell off my knee while I was napping, and it slid beneath the seat in front of me.  Who knows?
The point: It's gone.

One could think me shallow for this confession--"Prissy baby, whining about a lost hat, writing about it like a teenage girl in her diary, confessing to your materialistic weakness.  Grow up."
That person would be correct.
That person would also be a person who doesn't know me very well, or know my relationship with this head wear.

I remember the day I bought the hat.  Mike Robinson, a close friend of mine for many years, and I decided to make a trip to Crocker Park, an outdoor shopping mall just West of Cleveland, Ohio.  It was early summer 2006. We took his Jetta.  We listened to the new Gym Class Heroes CD and old Saves The Day songs.  When we got to Crocker Park, we went from store to store, looking at overpriced shit neither of us would buy.  We window shopped LaCoste and J Crew. We wandered into H&M.  We made it to Urban Outfitters.
Urban Outfitters is a cool store, not only do clothes live there, but home decor, books and music, too.  We stayed for a bit.  I ended up finding the clearance rack.  There were some hats.  One grabbed my attention, a tan scout hat with a short brim.  I tried it on. It was kind of small, made my head look big.  It was $4.  Couldn't pass up a deal.  That hat was the only purchase I made that day.  We slammed towards home in the Jetta under a balmy June sunset with the windows down, the music up and the ruffle of a plastic bag in the wind.
I didn't wear the hat.  Ever.  I thought it looked weird, so my self-consciousness prevailed.  I preferred the shimmery look of gelled, spiked hair.  That was my comfort zone.
Until one day, one random fall day when everything changed.
I got out of the shower, did my hair as usual.  Then, I saw the hat sitting under more hats on my dresser.  I grabbed it, put it on.  I let it rest high on my head, the spot where a girl would push a headband to.  I cocked it sideways just slightly.  I liked it.  That hat accompanied me out that night.  Compliments were given.  A new relationship was formed.
Before long, the hat became an extension of my being.  It was synonymous with me as a person.  People knew me by the hat--"Darren, we saw you coming.  The hat."  People told me it wouldn't look right on anyone else.  They told me that it fit, me.
The best thing about the hat is what it did to an outfit, how it cultivated an attitude clothes couldn't achieve on their own. It gave a sense of completeness.  To jeans and a T-shirt, the hat added a burst of color on top.  To  pants and dress shirt with a sport coat, the hat added a sense of style, an edge.  In the summer it kept the sweat out of my eyes on the golf course.  In the fall it looked great peaking its short brim from beneath a hood.  It was fashionable and practical.  It was perfect.
And it traveled well.
The hat was my companion on the road.  It came with me when my band, Babybear, took our weekend trips to play a show out of state.  It was thrown into the luggage when I went on extended stays.
Sweat stains permeated the fabric, which was so crumpled and broken in after about a year.  Sweat from Nashville, sweat from Athens, sweat from Nassau.  There was Macedonian sweat, Serbian sweat, sweat from Kosovo, Turkey, Pennsylvania, Montenegro, the Greek isles.  Sweat so ingrained, unmovable salt lined the perimeter.  Salt that remained after the hat floated in lakes and fell victim to torrential downpours on hikes.  Just like the memories I've made in that hat, the salty sweat was unfading.
The hat has seen love and heartbreak, all the same.  It's hovered above my head, like in a cartoon, when my lips have touched one of the many girls of my dreams' lips.  It's fallen off my head and landed in the back seat of my car when I've passed out there after a drunken night's fight.  It's heard the echoes of screaming, crying, vomiting.  It's been knocked off my head, the receiving end of a slap across the cheek.
Damn.  So many vivid journeys.  To the roof of the abandoned hotel in downtown Kent, Ohio.  Through the cliffs and caves of Hocking Hills.  Competing with the jagged, razor sharp stone and holly of the Adriatic coast.

Its final journey was a good one.  In Ecuador, it found a place on my head at 3 p.m. Friday, November 6, 2009.  It accompanied me to the home of a man named Patricio, a farmer who I would be accompanying all weekend while he went and worked on his farm.  I was documenting him for my project with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.  Patricio and I caught bus number one near his home, taking that bus to a connecting point in an old section of Quito, Ecuador's capital.  We hopped bus number two, which took us to the Nacional Soccer Club, a major bus hub.  We chased bus number three down the road, sprinting to catch up to the man hanging from the door who was shouting at the driver to slow down so we could board.  We got comfortable and rode for about 5 hours through the mountains of Ecuador, watching snowy peaks pass our windows.  We felt the gravity and inertia of the curvy mountain roads, which spit gravel and dust from the bus tires. That dust found its way through every crack the bus had and eventually into my mouth and lungs.  I chewed the grit as the chilly mountain air transformed into sticky humidity.  The bus left the mountains behind, entering the eastern Oriente and a city called Tena.  Tena is at the fringe of the Amazon Rainforest, it is the last place with concrete and ATMs.  Beyond Tena, one is consumed by the sprawling, tangled green of the jungle.
That's where we ended up, Patricio's farm, a place that occupies more than 200 acres at the edge of the Amazon.  The flora and fauna were an endless array of massive palms, yellow birds, red birds, white birds, singing insects, spiders dancing atop standing water, fresh papayas, mangoes, lemons.  Patricio and I worked side by side during the day, hacking away at invasive plant life that threatened the feed crops for his 70 cows and bulls.  At night we shared beers, cigarettes and conversation.
The hat never left my head the entire time.
By Sunday I was whipped and craving the luxuries of Quito--hot shower, internet, soft bed, lack of flesh eating mosquitoes and a decreased threat of yellow fever.
We caught the bus in Tena at 2 p.m. I removed the hat from my head and placed it on my knee.  I drifted, hour after hour, in and out of sleep.
"Darren, wake up," Patricio said.  "The stop."
"Huh," me, wiping crust from eyes.
Patricio was already half way down the aisle before I gained some sense of awareness.
I checked my back pocket for my wallet, grabbed my bag and raced up the aisle, making sure not to hit any elbows with my tripod or the cow shit encrusted boots I had strapped to the side of my bag.
Our feet hit the street, and soon I was back at my host family's house, showered and happily asleep.

Monday morning.  Sunlight pierced eyes at six.  Woke up.  Pissed.  Staggered back to bed.  No electricity in the house. Decided to unpack.  That's when it hit.  The hat was gone, not with the rest of my stuff.  I remembered racing off the bus.  I remembered my knee.  Sadness.  Fuck unpacking. I went back to sleep.

Tuesday morning.  Reluctancy.  Denial.

Wednesday morning.  I make my first confession, admittance.  While talking to my beautiful girlfriend, Kayla, on Skype, I told her I lost the hat:

      Kayla: AHHHH like the one you ALWYAS wear??
      Darren J. D'Altorio: yes
      Kayla: OMG yeaaa i bet you feel like lost
      Darren J. D'Altorio: left it on the fucking bus coiming home from tena
      Darren J. D'Altorio: i'm so broken by this
      Kayla: awwwww D!
      Darren J. D'Altorio: that hat has literally traveled the world with me
      Kayla: i was just gonna say that
      Kayla: well maybe this is a sign

This is why I love my girlfriend:  "That hat is your traveling hat," she said.  "It's meant to stay in one of your destinations...forever."

Kayla was leaving New York City that morning.  After a long and strenuous job hunt, which has led her from coast to coast, forced her to spend way to much time sending E-mails, gotten her hopes up and broken her heart, she finally has a very promising interview with Abercrombie & Fitch in Columbus, Ohio.  New York holds an immense place in her heart though.  She found herself in that city.  She's lived and breathed its energy. Having lived there for almost a year doing internships and studying fashion design, every time she goes back it's like her homecoming.  Every time she has to leave, it's heart wrenching.  She told me going back was like picking up right where she left off, like she never left at all.  She said she knows it will be the next place she lives, even if it means working somewhere not so ideal for two to four years, gaining experience and saving up money.  To do it, that's what it will take.  But for now, she has to say goodbye.
I told her it was a day of coming to terms with losing something material, inanimate.  It's a day to acknowledge the impending void, but understand that it's just meant to be.

Call it justification, call it whining, call it whatever, but know that materialism has a soft side  And the things we own do become an extension of ourselves.  This is one of the powers of commercialism, a byproduct of capitalism, an unconscious element of consumerism.
In this case, I was taken over.  For the best.

Some Blah Blah Blah

To write, or not to write?  That is a good Goddamn question.
For is it better to sit and think, ponder the happenings of the day and the tribulations of the mind for the sake of doing it, or for the sake of doing it and sharing it on a blog where people probably won't read it and don't give a FUCK?
These are a portion of the things which concern my brain.  These are a few of the trite toiling(make plural) of my mind.
For my ass is numb, having been rooted to a chair for some hours now.  And my fingers, why, minds of their own they have, clicking, clicking, clicking away at useless cyberspace buttons.  They--my fingers mind you, not my ass--move with purpose, they make decisions.
My ass moves with purpose and makes decisions, too.  But that, my dear friends, is for another conversation.
Of course, there is a neural pathway, binding my eyes with my toiling brain and my dutiful fingers, and this pathway creates an avenue for the decisions my fingers take liberty in executing.  This picture here?  That picture there?  Does the color fxfxhp#1 match the hue uhfid#48?  Does typing the word FUCK too many times dirty the road connecting the fingers, to the eyes, to the brain?  Interesting questions?  Interesting indeed? Are those questions?  We shall see.
Answers?  I have not.  Questions, toiling, burning, ravaging questions....I have many.
Somehow, keep this in mind dear reader, noble reader, reader possessing questions and toiling(make plural) similar to mine, reader of scholarly integrity, reader of purpose and diligence:  THIS MEANDERING PROSE IS FOR YOU, FUCK GOLLY FUCK FUCK, FOR YOU.
It is for your whimsical entertainment.  It is for your brain to feast upon.  It is so you may enjoy a clickty-clack upon your mouse and a rousing upon your iris(make plural).
For I know you must feast on intellectual banter to satisfy your insatiable yearning for knowledge.  And knowledge is what you shall find here.  For here exists knowledge in its purest form, extrapolating your brain to new limits, pushing the boundaries of your worldly thought to new, extreme heights.
Sequester yourself, just momentarily--for I know you are busy--with you thoughts.  Take the airy time-space continuum and harness it, just for now, just to feel it in your fingertips.
Did you feel it?
It feels like an ant crawling into your naughty parts, yeah?
It feels like swallowing a swallow as it claws and vomits inside your esophagus, yeah?
It feels like giving birth to a Cadillac Seville, which is transporting your grandmother and her groceries, yeah?
AHHHHHHHHHHH......cherish that moment.  It won't come again soon.  Strange and peculiar world events will need to take place for you to experience that feeling again.
A holy man in Bangladesh will need to shit fire and write FUCK in his holy book for this moment to come again.
I bet that won't happen soon.
Alas, toiling(make plural) aside, thank you for accompanying my brain, my fingers and my eye(make plural) on this dastardly journey....to the depths of our minds.
I think?

And they dance into the night...

The night was quiet, another Thursday in Pristina, Kosova. But the sounds of voices began floating through our curtains, disrupting the peace. A few of the kids in the group - Justin, Anna and Lauren - came into Austin's and my room asking if we know what was going on outside. Austin and I had no clue. We, along with Lauren, just finished a run through the city, which led us up Mother Teresa Boulevard, down a few side streets and eventually to a city park that was beaming with life - children playing soccer and basketball, locals sitting on benches sipping drinks and talking, couples sprawled across the grassy coves whispering to one another and kissing as if no one could see them. So, we jumped from our idle positions and looked out the window. A mob of bodies was forming, congesting the streets and all entrances to the hotel. Mercedes Benz SUVs, Volvos and Audis fought their way through the mess of people, horns blaring. From our fifth floor vantage point, we could see young men in suits and sequins from girls' dresses sprinkled throughout the mess of people. We had to find out what was going on.
I took a quick shower, grabbed a notepad, a camera and went to work.

Justin and I entered the lobby of the Grand Hotel. Through the sliding glass doors, we saw hundreds of bodies, all packed together behind yellow ropes wrapping the perimeter of the carport of the entrance to the hotel. We went outside and immediately felt hands grab our shoulders. "Get back behind the ropes," a man in a dress shirt and argyle sweater said to us. "We're staying here," we replied. He was instantly apologetic as a smile crossed his face. He told us these kids are crazy, gathered here to celebrate senior prom for the graduating classes of two high schools in Pristina. In the crowd are kids ranging from 10-years-old to adults in their 40s and 50s. And the noise keeps growing louder as more bodies join the mix.

When you hear about Kosovo in the states, it's the stereotypical rundown - war-torn, impoverished, scary, third-world. At least those were the images and associations presented to me from many people. But this scene was anything but that. Luxury cars, designer clothes, jewelry, cameras, every aspect of a commercial pop culture was present outside our hotel. It looked like the Grammy Awards or the Oscar's, not a high school prom. But the more I learn about this place the more sense it all makes...




...Family is everything here. You don't see homeless people on the streets because, as a girl with golden bangs (who I will get to in just a bit) told me, people always have a family to turn to in times of need. So, families turned out en mass to celebrate their loved ones' transition to the next tier of life. They cheered and screamed, knowing this group of youth will be entering a newly-free nation as graduates. This is the second graduating high school class who will know what it feels like to have real opportunity in a political and economic sense. Yet, the statistics are working against them. As I mentioned in "Culture Shock," Kosovo's unemployment rate is soaring, approaching 50 percent. They have the highest unemployment rate in all of Europe. And these kids are left to deal with that, to embark on a new chapter in their life with that in the back of their minds.

But fuck that, for now. On June 4, 2009, these kids wanted to party, forgetting about the harsh realities of the world represented by statistical bullshit. "We're going to party all night!" one kid said to me when I asked him what the celebration was for. "We graduated. This is our night." And who can argue with that? Who can remind a fresh-faced young man with a beautiful girl on his arm that this world is full of political nonsense? Not me. Not that night. I told them to have fun. And if security would let me in, I'll be dancing right along side them.

In a city pummeled and crushed only 10 years ago by rockets and bombs, this is a perfect juxtaposition. Now, they are deafened by the cheers of friends and family and blinded by flashing camera bulbs...

What to expect?

It's 12:30 a.m. in Kosovo. I am in prayer position - knees on the floor, elbows on the bed - with my laptop opened in front of me. In 8 hours I'll be going to my first day of work at Kosova Live, the country's first independent media organization, as a reporter. But for now, it's time to reflect, it's time to think about what comes next.

I'm pretty sure my roommate Austin is doing the same thing as me right now, blogging. What are we writing about, I ask him. Observations of the past few days, he responds. And I suppose that's valid subject matter. These past few days have been a trip. A full day's traveling. No sleep. A plane crashing in the Atlantic a few hours before our flight departs over the blue beast. My luggage lost somewhere in Vienna, Austria. Beers at the airports. Beers in the hotel lobby. Conversations over beers with my new colleagues and friends. Those are some tidbits, but they are nothing out of the norm. I don't know if I'm experiencing culture shock, but I just don't know where to begin with my thoughts.

Journalism - I'll start there. That's what we are here to do - report, write, edit, write, report, talk, write, edit, share ideas, write. The news cycle is upon us. Yet, I've encountered maybe 3 people in Kosovo who can speak English well enough for me to envision having a conversation with them. And I'm nervous about that. Today we talked about the role of a journalist for some hours amongst our group of 10, and the conversation was great. What came out of it was the concensus that to be a good journalist you have to remember what your mission is - to facilitate a conversation with the public, the audience, the people, to the best of your ability. You must tell them what is going on through description and observation. You must relate to them by interacting in a pure way, a way that lets them know you are a part of the conversation because you care, not simply because it's a job. There is an element of heart that goes along with this line of work. I thought I knew these things before I came here, and I suppose I did to a certain extent, but when you look down a street of foreign people in a foreign country, knowing they are your audience, your public, your conversations waiting to happen, the entire ideal notion, the formula of journalism, becomes a knot in the stomach.

Nervous - that's where I'm going with this. I'm fucking nervous. And I should be. Tomorrow I'll be an official employee of Kosova Live. I'll walk into the media building in Kosova, wave at the security guard while I say Kosova Live and he'll let me pass. That admittance holds some powerful realities, however. I'll be working for the number one independent news medium in the entire country. Granted, the country is small - two million people. And there are 10 other news papers generating content for that audience. Amongst Kosova Live and the 10 others, there is a divided circulation of 25,000 readers. That is pathetic compared to American circulations. My college paper reaches 10,000 to 15,000 people daily. But, this is a sign of the nature of this country.

Country - that word means something bigger than what the letters sum up to be. With the word country comes a sense of pride, spirit, autonomy, freedom. To be a part of a country is to have an identity within it. That is something that doesn't quite exist in this place. But it's trying to, and the people are helping. The people, Kosovars, are trying to build, from the ground up, a place where they can call home, not polarized by political bullshit, which has plagued any type of progress for centuries. This is a place where neighbors, who one time were perfectly at peace, turned against one another because of ethnic heritage...Serb vs. Albanian...And the scars still run deep. You can see the scars in the architecture of Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo, in the crumbling stadiums and sidewalks that were victim to bombs and rockets only 1o years ago. You can see the scars in the financial and economic statistics - 50 percent of the population younger than 25. Unemployment in Kosovo is higher than any European country. The culture is crippled by the stagnant economy. It's not that it doesn't exist, it's just that one must seek it out, because it takes place underground...There appear to be no plays, concerts, art galleries, sporting events....Just people scattered around the city, appearing to be doing something important. Or appearing to be doing nothing at all.

Appearance - this is a powerful notion for a few reasons. People judge things based on what they see, it's human nature. From selecting mates, to cars, to houses and everything else, appearance plays an utmost factor in the decision making process. And the appearance of Kosovo is worthy of talking about. Is it dirty?-yes. Is it crumbling?-yes, in places. Does it look like a postcard from commiville?-yes. But it's alive, moving. Like most European cities, the people make the place worth while, beyond the architecture and history. The people here are no exception to that Euro status quo. Girls are dressed to kill, wearing designer outfits, head-to-toe presentable, sunglasses, heels, vibrant dresses, scarves. And they walk with attitude, like they have somewhere important to be. Guys wear sharp suits, square-toe leather shoes, sunglasses. And they congregate in cafes and on street corners, smoking cigarettes, looking over paperwork, talking about things I can't understand because of this fucking language barrier...but it sounds important god dammit. But those statistics still linger, competing with the image, the appearance and what it projects---50 percent unemployed, the GDP per capita is 1,900 Euro, roughly $3,200, depending on the exchange rate. What are they talking about? Are they keeping up appearances? The country's main university, The University of Pristina, is directly across the street from the Grand Hotel, where we are staying. So, perhaps, these are students, killing time, wandering the streets, and I'm sure many of them are....but still. The statistics intrude on the hope these people have of making it.

Making it - Just over one year ago, Kosovo became an independent country with a brand new democratic constitution, bearing nearly the same rights and promises that we have in the U.S.A. Along with that comes the idea of manifest destiny...if you can dream it you can do it...there are no boundaries to success. And I want to believe the Kosovars think that, too. I want to believe they know this isn't a flimsy ideal, that when put into proper practice, the system does work. Only time will tell if it can in a place like this...a place truly trying to rebuild everything.

Time - my time here has been short, going on day three. I know nothing about the people or the place...All I can offer is my observations, my commentary with minimal facts to back them up. In time, however, this will change. I will get to meet these people. I will have meaningful conversations with many of them. I will try to pinpoint what the goals, dreams and aspirations of this society are. I will do my best to report what I learn, so, with hope, those perspectives motivate and encourage others to try harder, inspiring Kosovars to see what can be done to bring success and growth to their country. I will do a job. And in eight weeks I will leave. But hopefully the conversations I have the power and pleasure of starting in those eight weeks will carry on long after I'm gone. And one day, I'll be able to return to a transformed country and say...I was able to participate in this once upon a time.

That's what I expect.

Good night.