Intuition

Some time before I left for my trip to Europe, I was listening to a program on NPR that was speaking about the defining or pivotal moments in the lives of successful people. I was quite surprised to find that a majority of them were almost random or completely arbitrary decisions. I have found this to be a common theme during my travels, in that seemingly, completely uncalculated deciscions turn out to be fundimental and crucial events. I always liked the introduction to Phil Lesh's Searching For The Sound when he makes a metaphor between musical form and the series of events within life itself: "Music can define life itself, and it has indeed defined my life. In life, as in art, there are recurring themes, transpositions, repetitions, unexpected developments, all converging to define a form that’s not necessarily apparent until its ending has come and gone."

So I will share just a handful of certain seemingly inconsequential decicions which could not have been better orchestrated.

1. Im in Munich, and happen to not have hostel accomodations for my next night. With this knowledge I amble down the street to another hostel to inquire about my next night's reservations and while doing so get passed a flier for a free bike tour. I eventually go on the bike tour which does a round of various Beergartens in the area. Theres a pretty cute american girl who works for the US Peace corps in Senegal that I am talking to during the trip but she is being hounded by a bleached blonde Australian dude such that he is physically geting in the way of me talking to her at all. Rather than dealing with this hassle, I sit down next to a bearded guy with a full slab of ribs. Turns out the fellow is from New Zealand and we become fast friends. He in turn introduces me to a team of New Zeland rugby players who take me out drinking and fun is had by all.

2. I'm in Cleveland and feeling thorougly bummed out. I have an offer to go see a concert downtown, and though its late and far I decide its what i need to knock me out of my funk. I go and enjoy myself thorougly and in so doing by chance become re-acquainted with a friend of a friend. This friend of a friend later invites me to a party which I gladly attend and during which I casually meet a girl named Alex. A few days later, an old tree leans into some power lines on my street thus stranding all the residents on the street. My mom happens to be one of the stranded people and ends up talking to the same girl I had met a couple nights beforehand and during the conversation it was revealed that we are both going to be in Florence at the same time. We make plans to meet up and have a great time, climbing the Duomo, eating food drinking wine and all of that wonderful stuff and eventually we decide we should drink a beer. We amble down a series of streets, poking our head inside of different establishments, being underwelmed by a majority of them until we finally settle on a pub with a decent selection of beers on tap. We decide that it makes sense to sit directly in front of the tap and order two Hefeweizens. A friendly looking american starts to make conversation with us. We mention that we are both from the cleveland area, he says that he used to have family in a suburb with a bunch of white, wood panneled houses. I infer that he is talking about Shaker heights, and I am correct. He mentions the name Muprhy. I say "Ben?" which is the correct response. I then tell him that Ben Murphy was my best friend in Junior High and the original rhythm guitarist in my band Aranka Fabian. He is familiar with the band and has one of the lighters in his pocket. I also mention that it happens to be my birthday, he shows us around venice and good times are had by all.

3. I wander down a series of crooked streets and find myself attracted to a collections of very dignified looking violins in a nearby shop. I find out that the place is a local ticket office for concerts in Venice. He mentions that tonight there is a special on a ticket to an Verdi Opera (la Traviata) performed in a converted 16th century Venecian palace. Good times are had by all.

4. I get lost and stuck in the Rain in berlin and arrive tired and defeated. Just as I sit down I am cordially invited to a drum n bass party by a visitor to the hostel. Good times are had by all.


You get the idea.

Quick Update

Hey there everyone, just want to touch base if anyone is paying attention.

Thus far I have been in Amsterdam, Berlin and Munich where I am at the time of this writing. After this I will be stopping in Interlaken, Switzerland for a few days before heading to Venice, Florence, La Spezia, Rome and Barcelona.

I think I have time to tell one story

After a failed attempt to catch a concert by a once famous Berlin based Krautrock band, I came back to my hostel and sat at the bar. It just so happened that I was placed in a room with a touring british rock band that also was sitting at the bar. We hung out there for a bit, talking about various things tangentially related to making music before eventually improvising a short duet of guitar and ukulele. As we were playing, a guy came over and befriended us. His name was Rene, and one of the more interesting people I have ever encountered in my life. Rene is black, his father is from the States and his mother is from Ghana but he was born and raised in Berlin. Eventually the topic of conversation drifted towards the concept of freedom, and freedom within a society. Rene said that he has been everywhere and he thinks that Berlin, ironically enough, is the freest city in the world. From what I experienced, I don't think that the statement is innacurate. Since freedom is the rallying cry and central tenant of all things done in America, inevitably we fell into The Amercia Conversation. What he said, his sentiments may have been a central turning point in my life.

I haven't encountered any real anti-american sentiment and I think it is because I think there is a great degree of understanding abroad about complexity of our political situation. What I mean is that from the perspective of a European who encounters travelling Americans, there appears to be a serious disconnect between the public dialoge in the media (with its gross oversimplication, reductionism and sloganing)and the dialoge of real Americans. From what I have heard, the sort of Americans who travel and wish to engage into political conversations during their trips tend to be artliculate, contrite and generally well-informed. John Edwards campainged on the idea of there being two Americas and I tend to agree with him, though not in the sense he was talking about. There seems to be a particular breed of Americans that have escaped. I dont mean that in a literal sense, I mean that there is a horrible churning mass of shallow materialism, ignorance, religious fanaticism and racism that seems to suck in a large part of the population. The ones who are able to swim free from all of this look down upon the whole mess with disgust but gain a kind of sweetness from the struggle. If I may quote my Australian friend Keppie:

"For every truly beautiful, inspired person I meet, I encounter 10 who talk and think in a string of clichés and appear to be living according to television scripts. And the two things are connected. When the culture and government are so shrouded in layers of deception and attempts to stultify and homogenise people’s interests and tastes, the kind of people whose intellectual or creative buoyancy lifts them above it are generally more intense, more angry, more passionate, more subtle, more invested, and have such an acute love for humanity, than I think is produced by most other Western cultures."

And that is the pride that I feel as an American. I feel such an intense bond with these particular brand of people and I wish to express this America as I travel .

Anyway, the thing that Rene said to me was this:

"I know that you're intelligent and you're sorry and Bush probably, no definitely stole the election twice but Bush is still your president. Two times. Two fuckin' times. No matter what, that is what people will think when you say you're an American. Two fuckin times. So you got a decision to make, you're still young. If thats your America then say it loud and clear, 'Two fuckin times!' Two fingers doen't mean peace it means two fuckin times. If that's not who you are then you got some thinkin to do. Now I was raised in Germany, but I'm not a german. That's not my identity, I am a human being. But that's not to say I don't love this place, I feel free as a bird here. I love this place NOW. Things change, idenities change, you don't gotta have pride for something if its hurtin't you. Have pride in being a human being."

I liked that.

Takai

Takai 5, originally uploaded by SortaLucid34.

Here's one of the recently posted shots from my photostream. Its a picture of the traditional Takai dance done in Tamale (Northern Ghana) taken this past summer.

Stopping In

Hey Ya'al

I'm leaving on Monday Sept. 10th for Europe where I will be for about 6 weeks. Hopefully I will be adding frequent updates while I am there. I have meant to post a number of things about my trip to Ghana this past summer but between it's profundity and my sloth I haven't been able to muster the energy to write about it. I did, however finally post many of my pictures and a few videos. You can view them at my flickr photostream. Please stop in again and see what's up in my world.