What is the Sound of One Hand Blogging?

If a person writes a blog, and there is no one there to read it? Does it exist? Perhaps not.

Perhaps blogging is the ultimate in Information Age solipsism. I keep an online journal to be read by others under the assumption that I am important, but as my thoughts are not important, even to people who know me, the posts go unread. They exist, floating around on the Internet, in the Ether, in a non-tangible state, unseen by all but me.

Which gives me the ulimate freedom. Like a maniac standing in the middle of Wembley Stadium at night, jumping up and down, naked, screaming that the Kaiser is coming to eat my donuts, I have a public forum all to myself to say whatever I want, and the best part is that no one can hear me.

I can say that the center of the Earth is a molten core of nacho cheese and marinara sauce, and that volcanic eruptiosn therefore feed whole villages. I can claim to be able to walk through walls dur to anomalies in space-time on the quantum level that exist only in my bathroom, opening endless portals to me into parallel universes.

If conscience is that which keeps you from behaving badly when no one is looking, then shouldn't mine needs a tune up, beacuse I believe absloutely in my freedom to behave with absurdity when no one is looking.

No one is looking. I'm naked in the middle of the empty sports arena and it's mine, all mine.

Now the real fun begins.

Aw, Shit, Just Go to Miami, Willya? Top Ten Reasons NOT to Vacation in the Third World

10. No, its Not Your Imagination, Everybody Hates You: Whether it was the Americans, the Brits, the Germans, the French, or whoever, at some point in type the people living in the country where you are so blithely vacationing are descended from people who were having a perfectly lovely time until all these fucking white people showed up. Things are usually not much better for them now than they were in the Age Of Discovery, and no matter whether you embrace being an Ugly American or you’re trying to be all hip and liberal, the locals still wish that you and everybody like you were dead.

9. Whaddya Mean, You’re With the Death Squad? Many developing countries, as Europeans and North Americans now call them, to assuage their guilt, have a high incidence of social unrest. Which is to say that at any given time there are one or more guerrilla armies of poor, desperate, really fucking pissed off people who may be high, Marxist, religious monkey nuts, rebels against the current government, parishioners of voodoo, crazy white people who have gone native and are financing things and will be macheted as soon as their travellers checks run out, or some combination of the above. Your scenic trip through war-torn Guatemala on a bus that was built in the Ford factory in Nazi Germany may be cut short by machine gin fire if your are lucky. Should you be unlucky, you could face death by machete. Should you be extremely unlucky, you may be kidnapped. This may result in flogging, beatings, rape, torture, forced marching, robbery, rape, having electrical devices applied to your naughty bits, being sacrificed, organ harvesting, ritual cannibalism and, oh yes, rape. They really know how to have a good time South of the Border, yes indeedy do.

8. Right On! Kill the White Capitalist Pig Motherfuckers!: Ummm, hey, Fidel? You ARE the white capitalist pig motherfuckers. Or, should you be a tourist of another race, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad. Whether you’re a neo con or a liberal progressive or a quasi-Marxist anarchist who secretly gloats over the idea of blood in the streets and cites on flame, you’re still the enemy, and you’re still toast. Even if you’re a wild-eyed Marxist radical, you’ll only be around until your credit cards are maxed out, my friend. The only real way out of this situation would be to produce the machine gun you recently bought at a quaint marketplace while all the other tourists were buying chullos, blankets, and coke and start wasting your fellow explorers. Then shoot the rebels. I know, I know, it’s mean, it’s unfair and its against your principles. Righties won’t want to shoot whitey, and lefties won’t want to murder their comrades. But, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. And besides, depending on your political agenda, you can go on either Fox News or CNN and blame the horrible massacre on the group of dead people of your choice. Now, kill the bus driver, steal the bus, wait till night-time, drive to the next town, abandon the bus and calmly walk to the nearest hotel. The authorities will think that the guerrillas killed everyone. Still just to be on the safe side, it’s best to blow up the bus.

7. Dude, I Feel Your Pain. I Got, Like, Three Bob Marley Albums. Wow, are you an asshole. Listen, Skeezix, be you a frat boy or a trustafarian, your ownership of Legend and Exodus is not as interesting to the Rastafarian guy with his dreds pulled back into a ponytail who is carrying your Eagle Creek matched luggage to your hotel room as you may think it is. He’s agreeing with you about how Bob’s music speaks to you as much as it does to him because you’re going to give him a tip and it’s his fucking job. And don’t say “Jah Rule” to the poor man. And unless he askes you if you want to buy some dope, keep your mouth shut. Try and be cool. After all, he’s not laughing at you with your sunburn and your strawberry blond dreadlocks. Shut your mouth, slip the guy a twenty, apologise to him for being such a dumb white motherfucker. He sees your dreds, he’s met a million assholes just like you. Don’t embarrass yourself too much.

***ADDENDUM*** Should you happen to be black, remember, you’re still an American. Say something unkind about white people, and leave it at that.

6. Gee, I Didn’t Know That “Authentic ” Meant Without Toilets and Electricity: Wow, are you cool. You’re not going to stay at the Hilton or the Holiday Inn with all those plastic people, you’re going native. You’ve got your backpack and your digital camera and you were totally outfitted by National Geographic’s website and you’re going to the rainforest SEE THE TRUTH. Uhhh…you can’t handle the truth. Or the giardia. Rainforest means “jungle”, dipshit. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that Sting is at the Hilton. Your best hope is that the town or village you stumble into after backpacking your pasty white ass through some tropical vegetation and having to abandon most of your useless shit because your food spoiled, you got lost and you unpacked that extra canteen to make room for your GPS/Camera/Binocular device is contains decent, generous folks who are used to looking after stupid tourists who are surprised that they have telephones and electricity and vehicles to take your dumb ass to the hospital.

5. Spring Break! Spring Break! Man, I’m Soooo Drunk, I Don’t Know Where I Am! Precisely, dear boy. Uhhh, couldn’t you have got shit faced, puked on your shoes, fucked an ugly stranger and got an STD at home? Or someplace in America, at least?

4. Oh My God. These People’s Shit is Fucked Up! I Had No Idea Things Were This Bad. Oh, really? What, you don’t own a TV? Never been to the movies? Dropped out of school in the 3^rd grade? Didn’t you ever see one of those Save The Children commercials? Even our craptastic media and shitty movies and lousy educational system acknowledge that for the average person in parts of the third world, especially the touristy parts, things are really unpleasant. These people are really suffering. Some of them don’t have good jobs, enough money, sturdy houses to live in, enough food, rudimentary medical care. I mean, look around you. Do you really want to put your money into making the corrupt governments that are bleeding these poor bastards dry even wealthier and more corrupt? All politics aside, how can you stand to live it up, lunge by the pool and dance the night away when right outside your resort people are poor and sick and hungry and desperate? You can’t. Good. I couldn’t, either. Congrats on having a conscience. Change your plane ticket to the next flight out, hand out all your money you planned to blow on bullshit to the starving homeless families begging in the streets, and get the fuck home.

3a. Africa- White Edition: What? What? What the fuck is your white ass doing in motherfucking Africa? Go to the fucking zoo and see the goddamn African animals. They won’t be able to eat you, there! No, seriously, I am almost 100% sure that the last thing ANYBODY in Africa wants to see is another fucking white face. Seriously, what the fuck is the matter with you? Haven’t white people had enough of fucking Africa in the ass, yet? Pull your dick out, honky. Go someplace else. Anyplace else. Get the fuck out of Africa, will you?

3b. Africa- Black Edition: An obscenely large population of sub-Saharan Africa has AIDS. Malaria is still around. Not to mention ebola and African sleeping sickness. You got civil wars, tribal warlords, death squads, corrupt governments, starvation, poverty and wild animals who don’t mind eating the occasional person. Watch your ass, man. And if you see some Hollywood star shopping for little black babies, be a hero for America and for all black people, everywhere. Kill the bitch. Who’s gonna know?

2. Oh No! FUCK NO! I Just Ate What?: Okay, by and large, here in the US of A and over in the EU, dogs, cats, monkeys, maggots, spiders, cockroaches, worms, ants, and the odd bit of long pig (hint: it don’t oink), not to mention body organs like guts, stomachs, and raw brains are not on the menu. That’s not so, everywhere. So unless you just figure, fuck it, it’s all protein, gimme another slice of Old Yeller and a side of ant larvae soup and some chilled monkey brains for desert, yummy, I hear McDonald’s is everywhere. Have the McNuggets. Beef could be anything. At least you know the McNuggets are chicken, plastic, and soybeans.

1. Man, I Do Not Feel Too Good: Don’t you? Didn’t you wonder why you had to have ten million more shots than you had to have that one time you went to Toronto to see the Rolling Stones? Did you know they still have bubonic plague outbreaks in parts of Asia? You really should have packed that bug repellent, huh? And wearing shorts on that Rainforest Exhibition you paid for was a real bad idea, I guess. Haven’t you ever heard of the Texas Two-Step? Montezuma’s Revenge? Dysentary? Giardia? Cholera? I guess you thought that was a big joke about not drinking the water. Or putting ice in your drink. Or washing your hands a lot. Or eating at the hotel with the other tourists. Maybe you should have got those extra vaccinations the doctor suggested. No, I have never seen puke that colour. Yes, I think that bite on your leg that’s now the size of a dinner plate is serious. Yeah, you really should go see a doctor. And next time you want a tropical paradise, go to South Beach or Key West. The hostels are cheap, the Cuban sandwiches and coffee are awesome, and the food in the Latino markets is reasonable. And the beach is beautiful. Minus the cocaine death squads and the uncontrollable shitting. Unless you go to parts of downtown Miami. But that’s another story, altogether.