the prize banana

like i said, its green, theres rocks. rents cheap. foods cheap. lifes hard. weeds cheap. lets go!


the price of banana. oh sheesh.
im here. that'd be home. and my hair smells like shampoo which is something i absolutely do not know what to do about. except maybe smile. because after 4 months and 11 days with want of a nice conditioner, to use one and feel that prickly dead hair on the back of your neck at night turn into silk is like a dream. im not exactly departed from america nor arrived here. nor do i think i was ever truly arrived there. i took my shower and i kept all the water in the bottom of the tub for a while (or maybe its still there ?) because it seemed like such a shame to lose so much water. i asked myself questions such as "where in the world does the heat in this water come from?" (first hot shower in 4 months is a big deal) and "does anyone know how many buckets this could fill?". oh lord.
my cousin said the culture shock could last a week. i week of soaking up all this excess. after that awkward open mouthed crawlspeedstroll through the entire airport in Amsterdam and then sitting down to weep in public about things like lollipops and stuffed bears and that stupid donate your pennies to the orphans box. you know the pennies left over from buying yourself an extra souvenir, and hey why not a bottle of whiskey and a oprah book club book you'll never finish. all the more pennies. i cried today in a room filled with more people than have probably ever seen me cry in my entire life. If the whole airport counts as a room.
America = Enough ++
Library books, birth control, dolls or even food are not going to balance this world out. If a continent could sink by the weight of its own feasts and excess I'd have had nowhere to land. This would have all sunk into the ocean, as it should.
I read most of my blog a few days ago. Everything but the most current month, in order. I realized only how little I'd actually exposed when i thought it had been so much and also an ass i sound like.
I left on 11/11. i guess im lucky. wait i know im lucky.
It dawned on me yesterday how controlled an airplane environment is. We are all so soulless and sleepless we never even notice. It(wa)s my secret belief that they keep the air conditioning on because they have some company policy that they have to throw away all the pillows and blankets from every flight whether opened or not. instead of letting themselves feel really wasteful they just try and make you really cold. It also occurred to me that they turned on the lights at some ungodly hour, not because now a decent majority of the populace was awake but because now, somewhere on their schedules it was penciled in "feeding time". So we are all baby birds inside this mother bird waiting for her to puke up stale biscuits from the depths of her very controlled and cold bowels so we can grunt, wrap ourselves in our little blankeys and got back to sleep. note to self: cynicism doesn't win you any friends.
Any seedlings of ideas that I held in my stomach that justice was a real thing died today in the Schiperol Airport. I saw all the toys set out for Christmas. All the white angel babies in outfits that cost 3 weeks dinner whos parents would surely buy them all these toys. I thought of Chausiku, whos got to be about 5. How she doesn't eat every morning, how she wears rags, how she wont go to school and how she begged me please just send me one dolly. one dolly, two hotwheels for the boys and a plastic gun for Kili. better than Christmas. What is this shit? How do we really live in this world?
I encountered more in that airport then a beautiful African child can dream of in his life. here the fat use machines to help them walk. The excess is a big stinking bag of waste. It felt like watching a rape. How can I/we be a part of this. Fuck enough of this quiet bystander shit. I don't want to swallow any of this world as the way it is. I dont want to swallow this any more than I do tree branch welts. Let my anger find me soon.
Anarchy seemed absolutely urgent this morning. Strolling the airport, looking at the everyman, his rich coat and I thought - he doesnt even know. He certainly didn't decide this world "order" The leaders made it this way. Every president we've ever had and Afrikas still throwing all their chips at Obama. Voting is being a pillar that supports the way the world works. Or you do it every day in a hundred other ways.
I went to Africa and so much of me was always somewhere else. Now its gone from me and it feels my skins been ripped off.
Forgiveness is a load of crap. I want to tear down this society with one hand and build up theres with another. I want to send enough dollies for Chau and every girl on that street. I should have sent Stan back here instead of myself. We disguise how well we rob Africa, so well the African can gawk at all we have, where did it all come from? Your soil! We're just stock pilling our selection of your soil.
A sign in the airport warned me of the lurking CCTVs. So good to be back in the land of big brother, always on my side. I couldn't help but wonder, are the cameras in the Christmas trees? He knows if you've been sleeping, he knows if you're awake, he knows if you gave your pennies to the orphans or just bought yourself a bagel. This place is a landslide.
Theres not a lot in an airport to ease roaring compassion: I can read a book by the Dali Lama, or donate my nickels to orphans. There is a lot to fill the hole in me where all my sins should be - booze, hoarding, cigarettes, diamonds, gluttony, sex - okay maybe not sex- but aren't Ads porn? A fake blond woman surveyed me today. The point being to see how much stuff I bought, I think (like are all these swirly dizzying ads enough or should we up it a notch?) I must have failed. I said I had no money to even buy food. "Ha!" was the response I got. Let me be here just long enough to gather my friends and then we will leave again.
We must be so cheap. rich and cheap. shallow as a puddle. The flat puddles out on the tarmac. I thought I was going to cry of happiness to get back to all this Convience and Choices (Laziness and Excess).
I'm afraid I've swallowed it. When I first arrived I feared to take my ipod out of my ears (yeah i see the irony) Had to hear the same Wooden Wand songs over and over becuase there seemed to be no other option. Once in the pause between songs I heard "She really sprayed him with perfume?!? Oh brother!" A family joking but at the time I didn't understand any of the words so i just walked slower and hated more. Maybe hate is a heavy thing. I dont really know for now its all gone out of me. In the airport before sunrise, crying and raving up a storm. Flipping off Jack Johnson on the radio, George Bush on the TV and Barbie smiling in the shop window. And now its all gone. Although my hungers still here. I'll give it a month to see if my soul dries out like a raisin under the burning sun of greedy capitalism and a hundred billion automobiles.


i had planned to add a lot more pictures. but since i first arrived ive had that extreme salivating going on that happens only just before you puke, it comes it goes, right now its here. no puke yet, i dont think theres anything any me. two days of airplane food? or two days without sleep? is the pain in my stomach really only hunger still? looking into a cabinet and realizing i can just take something made and eat it without any effort is still to mind boggeling to participate in, although i things will eventually resolve themselves on a side that makes my belly happy.
goodnight.