www.moderngonzo.com
Carl reflects at the bar.
He's got my hat on his head, a cigarette in one hand, an almost-empty bottle of
Corona in the other.
His chest towers over me like a personal guardian. Charlotte is standing next to him,
beaming in her freckled fashion. I met Charlotte in Peru, traveled with her for a
week, and last saw her about 16 months ago on Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
"London is bittersweet,"
says Carl. He's had a
rough couple of years, made all the more harder simply because he has chosen to
live in London in the first place.
"Life is bittersweet," I
follow, which is the kind of thing you say after a hard day of drinking under
the hot sun of a summer festival.
"London is life," says
Charlotte, or me - it didn't really matter.
"It's been emotional,"
concludes Carl, and that was that.
Between four days on a
stopover in London, and a few days in Vancouver, this was supposed to be my
week off. No reports, no
gallery, just catching up with friends and family, finding my breath before
Montreal breaks my liver, and the West Coast Trail breaks everything else. I lived in London for two years,
so writing about my time here would be like writing about my life in general,
transforming Modern Gonzo into a personal diary, which quite frankly, isn't
very interesting. So
why are you reading this?
Well, Minesh remarked that he'd love to read my thoughts on the weekend,
even if it consisted largely of sitting in a park surrounded by 30,000 people
drinking from a fountain of Pimms and lemonade. London was "emotional" for a number of reasons, and I'll
gladly spare you the drama (or "draamar" as a London drama student might say)
suffice to say that I saw friends and family I had not seen for many, many
years, visited old haunts to see the ghosts of my past, and met three dozen new
friends who I quickly annoyed by asking them to finish my three sentences.
I arrived somewhat bothered
by the fact that, according to a popular web forum, I am a racist. Some silly argument about Gonzo
journalism had come up, and someone had suggested that Modern Gonzo is "travel
writing with the flair of Hunter S. Thompson". Obviously, I would never make such a claim myself, but a few
hundred people did click on the link, leading to a comment accusing me of being
a racist. To my defense,
someone replied, "that's quite the accusation! What makes you think that?"
"Dino213b", who no doubt takes
life awfully seriously, lifted a
passage from my report in Kuala Lumpur in which I ponder hotel toilet phones, and
how they might be used to conduct important business while you're "dropping off
the Cosby Kids". Now, I'll
be the first to admit that the joke defines toilet humour, but you have to be
pretty constipated to connect it to a general hatred for all things
non-Caucasian. I should have asked
big, black and beautiful Carl what he thought, but he was too busy using his
considerable arms to give Charlotte and I a simultaneous bear hug in the dance
tent. Having
encountered many wonderful people of white, brown, black, pink, yellow,
turquoise, red, green and blue persuasion on my travels, it irks me that
"Dino213b" sees me as white supremacist. Perhaps I'm just being overly sensitive that this
flaking mooch with halitosis and a small penis might call me racist. Especially after talking to
a few black guys in St Petersburg and listening in horror to their stories of
being beaten up and persecuted by local men (the St Petersburg Times reported
that six Russian guys were acquitted after beating a Congolese student to
death!)
"I regret studying here,"
says Morton from Zambia.
Adds his friend Kabunda,
"These people hate us like
nowhere else in the world.
It may be unsafe for a black man in Russia, but I believe in finishing
what I start." His courage
is inspiring, and I hope he survives getting his degree. "Dino213b" is not the first person
to get offended by Modern Gonzo, but calling me a racist is like calling scary
hairy Bill Bryson a transvestite sex god. Uh oh, that sounds homophobic!
My host in London was
Minesh, who I had first met in Chile when the two of us volunteered to fetch a
crate of beers for an impromptu hostel party in Valparaiso. Coincidentally, we had both
departed on one year round the world adventures on February 25th,
2005, albeit in different directions. So we kept in touch, and reconnected in
Southeast Asia where we ripped a new hole in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
"Remember that time we went
to the night market in Laos, and Jess was worried about bargaining? 'You're with a Jew and an Indian, for
fuck's sake, don't worry about it!'" Minesh recalls in a fit of laughter. He's always had an uncanny knack
of putting everyone at ease immediately.
Mins had come down to London from Northampton so we shared a lounge in
his impossibly accommodating sister Cookie's apartment in Northolt, which is
not far from Staines, and Ali G's Westside Massive (wicked!) Says Charlotte, "that's
hardly London, my dear!"
I was more than happy to
stay in Zone 6, lounging on the couch, watching bad television, skinning up,
and eating enormous breakfasts at the corner greasy spoon. The Dream Cafe
served up enormous (non-greasy) breakfasts, and when I ordered a can of Lilt
that was out of stock, the owner popped next door to the Tesco Express and
picked one up for me. Having
suffered a few weeks of bitter Russian service, I was speechless. After traveling hard for six
weeks, there was mammoth pleasure to be derived from the simple act of
loafing. And when Minesh took me
to Sakonis in Harrow, surely one of London's best Indian Veg joints, I tasted
spice and mouthwatering flavour for the first time since leaving Malaysia. I gorged on the buffet until I almost
threw up my poppadams.
Fortunately, it was
Fruitstock weekend - a free, family orientated festival now in its third year
in Regents Park. A couple years
ago, some banker-finance types decided they were tired of greasing the evil
machine and wanted to do something worthwhile and tasty. So they fooled around with some
smoothie recipes, and decided to let the public decide. They set up a stall at a music
festival, with a very big sign stating something like this:
IF YOU THINK WE SHOULD QUIT
OUR JOBS AND SELL SMOOTHIES, THROW THE EMPTY CUP IN THE "YES" BIN
Needless to say, the Yes Bin
was overflowing, jobs were quit, the Innocent Smoothie Company was founded, and
today, Innocent has sales in excess of 30 zillion pounds. They promote healthy living, the
environment, organic foods, and naturally, everyone loves their yummy product. Like the company, their Fruitstock festival has grown
exponentially, and there must have been 30,000 people enjoying the music, the
carnival atmosphere, and the blessed summer sunshine. It was the perfect place to meet people, both
old and new, and so it came to be that we brought along 7 bottles of Pimm's,
beer, wine, and more than enough snacks to celebrate Cookie's birthday, my
arrival, the summer, and life itself. I met five new cousins under the age of nine, fellow
world travelers, people from Brazil, Israel, South Africa, Ireland, and Siv,
who could be Stevie Wonder's younger brother "if only he could see me!" It has been almost eight years since I
was last in London, and my glazed memories of the late 1990's were thick and
bittersweet - so many good times, a couple of challenging ones too. When we revisit the lives of our past,
the passage of time becomes almost painfully physical.
The taxi drove past the BBC in White City where I used to
work (oh boy, don't tell "Dino213b"), near Warwick Avenue where I once shared a
digs with ten travelers, including one Australian guy who paid rent to sleep in
the closet under the stairs!
Once again, I found myself eating late night donor kebabs with hot chips
soggy in vinegar, listening to hip club music on the radio in the afternoon,
minding the gap in the underground.
There were new additions to London's eclectic skyline - the Millennium
Wheel, that weird purple building that looks like a swelled condom, and the Arch
on the new Wembley Stadium. I
didn't want to see too much because the London in the library of my mind has to
be different from the London of today. I didn't want to see that bar in Piccadilly where
someone spiked my drink, or green Hampstead Heath where I would take romantic
walks in summer, or The Reliance on Old Street, where I would inevitably drink
too many Hoegaardens and be busting for a pee by the time I got on a tube
home. Still, if you're going to
pick at a scab of memories, best do it surrounded by friends, family, and fresh
smoothies.
"There's a reason we're
single," says Minesh, after I elaborated on the latest romantic implosion in my
life. Gus, blue eyes beaming
from Ireland, is sucking back a tall can of Stella as the three of us sit on
the locks of Camden. We
missed the last tube, and had fallen in with some drunken Polish guys and a
girl with a huge tattoo on her back. One of guys has passed out on the lock wall, and will
eventually be abandoned by everyone, save the night wolves of London. "We are charming (cough)
world travellers, in our thirties, full of stories of inspiration, yet we're
incapable of finding lasting relationships. This holds the same with TJ, and Phil, and [insert various
names here until the original point of inserting names is almost
forgotten]...why?" "Because we are vagabonds,"
says Minesh, although it might have been me answering my own question
rhetorically. vagabond, noun,
adjective, verb. noun 1. an idle wanderer;
wanderer; tramp. (SYN) vagrant, nomad,
hobo. 2. a good-for-nothing
person; rascal. (SYN) rogue. This led to an earnest
discussion (as you do after a weekend booze-a-thon) of what constitutes an
ideal partner, and what vagabonds might consider the ideal spouse. For
prosperity sake, (and also because those of you hoping to get my thoughts on
London have probably moved on by now), here is our 5 Point Checklist of Love,
placed in whatever order the individual prefers. Attractiveness: Includes physical, and sexual Personality: Includes intelligence, humour, and
commonality of taste (style, movies, politics, food) Connection: Includes mutual recognition,
understanding, and approval, i.e. two people who simply "get" each other. Stability: Includes emotional, familial, financial
Potential: Includes long-term viability,
sacrifices and compromises Or, SCAPP, if you were
watching Countdown, which has been running five days a week on British
television for twenty years, with
the same hosts!
Apparently Carol Vorderman, the Vanna White of the show, has one of the
highest IQ's in Britain!
Anyway, there was hardly a moment this weekend when my hand did not have
a cup of Pimms and lemonade, sprited up with some fresh mint and soft
strawberry. Consuming large
amounts of the ultimate English summer drink, I developed an upper crust
English accent; the way one might develop the plague in London, 1662. "Thing is chaps, I have met
several lovely ladies who have passed the SCAPP test with flying RAF colours,
and yet, here I am, with, dare I say it, you losers." "That's because you're a
good-for-nothing person, a rogue, an idle wanderer," says Gus, or at least he
would have, if he knew the definition of vagabond I just stole from my
dictionary. Vagabonds of the 18th
century encompassed freethinkers, travelers, thieves, artists, madmen, witches
and poets - basically, many of the same people who had hung out at Fruitstock
that afternoon. SCAPP
remained a topic of conversation until we realized that we had to get back to
zone 6 with a dodgy cab, which Minesh expertly negotiated (the driver worked in
IT and drove like a high speed processor). Siv Wonder is having a
blinder! We're in the
hopelessly overcrowded and understocked Green Man Pub on Great Portland Road,
and together we start grooving to our own version of Ebony and Ivory. Everyone's in stitches, except
"Dino213b", who is most likely filling out an online form for a penis enhancement
cream in his mom's basement.
It takes us a fair while to get home, where six of us are crashing in
Cookie's tiny one bedroom apartment.
Siv has passed out before the kettle is boiled, and everyone is
completely exhausted from a day of loafing. Tomorrow, we'd be going back to Regents Park for
a further day of idleness, as befits our vagabond status. On the telly, the remote stops on the
very serious documentary series, The World at War, which happens to focus on
the London blitz. In light
of being in London, and on the latest mess in the Middle East, I was riveted. Did you know that Hitler's
Luftwaffe bombed London for over 70 consecutive nights? Did you know that English
howitzers were powerless to defend the city? 40,000 people were killed, including 3000 people
in just one, awful night. It's a
wonder that anything survived, from St Paul's, to the Tower of London. When Churchill said, "We can take
it!" the people pulling their dead from the rubble were not so sure. The
English were all but defeated, but Hitler strategically miscalculated and chose
to focus on Russia, where the harsh winter ultimately defeated his armies, as
it had done to Napoleon's forces over a century earlier. Click. Channel 82, Sky News. Over 450 people have been killed in Lebanon after four
weeks of Israeli bombings, and a dozen or so in Haifa from the indiscriminate rockets of Hizbollah. A
horrific figure, but compared to the carnage of war six decades ago? Well, let us hope Beirut
recovers, and Haifa recovers, and we recover, and Israel finds peace with
its neighbours. That's' all we can hope for.
I'm 40,000 feet above Baffin
Island en-route to Vancouver, and my explanation of why I'm not writing a
report this week seems a little silly now. All I can say is, there's no place like London, and
there's nothing like good friends, family, and the passage of time to make you
realize it. See
you in Montreal. BA 085 Seat 35F 3581 Km from Vancouver