An Attempt: Part One

I begin this story from a bed on the ground of a third floor studio apartment. To my right there is a dirty plate and glass; to my left is a blank wall.
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January 4th, 2013
I have just spent my first New Year's in Los Angeles. While it has only been four days since my arrival, my nerves are on the rise from a lack of work. I have not been working since November; I have yet to receive an email even remotely alluding to work. I am starting to panic.

That evening I decide to try something, something which I had intended to save for (at least) a little while longer. I can't, however, wait.
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June-July 2012
I am spending the best, albeit, last summer of my college life in Italy with my girlfriend, Ella. While the schoolwork is trying, the experience of traveling across the Italian countryside with new friends is something I hope never to forget.

The other kids in the program are of a mix of backgrounds, and almost all of them are great. My three roommates, Alvaro, James, and Andrea, are the nicest guys-- and I hope we stay in contact.

While there, I made a friend who told me that her father is a Gaffer. I, naturally, was very intrigued.
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January 4th, 2013
I decide to email the father of my friend from Italy. His response is short and to the point, "Let's try and chat Monday or Tuesday. -Jay"

I instantly feel a surge of anxiety. I don't know what to say or how to handle talking to this man. He knows as well as I do that anything he does for me is a risk for him. 

I collect myself and await his call.

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Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

I am sitting with Ella at a local Japanese Market called, Mitsua, when my phone rings. Immediately, I run out to my car and answer, trying my best not to pant from the 20 yard dash. 

We talk...

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Back at Ella's house, I pace back and forth. While on the phone, Jay put an idea into my head. He told me that he is going to New Mexico at the start of February for a feature. He lamented that he could only hire locals. It was then. 

We had been discussing other options prior to this. He had suggest moving. He said Los Angeles was in no shape for a kid like me, wanting to get on Union shows. He said New Orleans or Georgia would be his move.

I then spat it out. I had asked him if he would hire me, if I was a local in New Mexico. His response was a laugh and an, "of course." He didn't think I was too serious.

Ella is with me-- 100%

She says that I would be an idiot to miss this chance and we start looking into its probability.

We come up with a plan:

I go to New Mexico, work this job, get into the Union. Then I change my mailing address to a P.O. Box and head back to Los Angeles. Any time there is a show in New Mexico, I can come work on it. Any time there isn't a show, I'm in LA with all of my best friends.

Within five days, I have been approved for an apartment in Santa Fe.

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Sunday, January 20, 2013

I had planned to leave sooner, but it didn't make sense. Had I left, I would have arrived on the weekend and none of the businesses would be open-- Leasing Office, DMV, etc.

I say goodbye to you guys, and I say goodbye to Ella and her mom. 

The road trip begins.

adrian asking if clubhouse has volleyballs:

"Hi do you have any volleyball...balls?"

My Weekend With Jesse; Part Three: Friendly Toast and Max Brenner

Sunday morning we slept in and met Kaitlyn and Chiara at the Friendly Toast around 12:30. It was neutral territory, and everyone was down to met and get good food and talk. Kaitlyn was friendly towards me, and even went so far as to express to Jesse while I was in the restroom, "I'm glad to get to spent time with you while Joseph and I aren't fighting". So apparently we weren't fighting anymore. I'm still bamboozled at this point because I don't even know what I did. Overall, the brunch was pleasant, the food was great, and Chiara and Jesse didn't especially hit it off.

The mildness of the brunch made the previous night's brawling seem silly to me.

We parted ways, and that afternoon the girls had work to do, I had a three hour Mercutio meeting to go to, and Jesse went to go see a movie.

After the Mercutio meeting, and while Jesse was in the last 45 minutes or so of the movie, I met Kaitlyn in her room in the Little Building, and we had a huge fight. After an hour and a half, we emerged victorious, complete resolved, and both feeling great. And then I was overcome with the massive guilt of having not been present with Jesse with entire weekend, because my thoughts were always half with Kaitlyn. (Except for Salsa, that was dope). Poor Jesse, who had been sitting at Maria's Taquerias waiting for us to be done, met us in front of the LB.

Very excitedly, Kaitlyn and I explained to Jesse that we've fucked up, you deserve better Jesse, you just fucking didn't deserve to put up with our shit, (you deserve to go on a date with Chiara and it was go fucking welllllll), and we love you, Jesse, and we're sorry. We said that even though we both have class early in the morning, we were willing to commit super hard to this sunday night and go on whatever crazy adventure Jesse wanted to go on. Because that's all poor Jesse wanted. To have a dope ass adventure. Jesse accepted our apology, and we started brainstorming.

The adventure we had wasn't crazy, but it was very fun. We walked in the cold to Max Brenner's at around 11:45pm, and one of my friends working there got us free chocolate fondue. We hung out there, left around 12:30, ran and caught a bus back to central, and stayed up drinking beers and talking. This morning at around 7:45 am, Jesse gently laid on top of us, said his goodbyes, and went to south station to catch his bus.

--

This three part post has been a love letter. A love letter to Jesse for coming to Boston to hang out and for forgiving me for not always being able to be present with him. A love letter to Adrian and Argentina for still being friends with me even when I didn't put as much effort as I should have in hanging out with you guys for our last semester together in Boston. And this is a love letter to Scott and Josh because we've allowed our friendships to kind of float away a little bit, and that's bullshit.

I hope this post hasn't ended in a lame way, because I coming from a place of just fucking missing everyone. I hope everyone is doing fucking awesome, and I've had an hilarious time catching up on all the blogging I've missed.

My Weekend With Jesse: Part Two; I slammed Jesse's head against a wall

That evening, after we had all recovered from the massive cookie intake, we were ready to try and have a good time. We had beers, we had weed, we were eager. We set ourselves up for success. We had a couple great hours and continued catching up, story swapping, general updating, which was all well and good, but we wanted to go out. We called Josh and Evan, and there were close by in Davis Square, and told us they wanted to come over. Twenty minutes later they were there, and the four of us hung out in the kitchen and caught up for a couple hours. Took a hit, drank a beer, it was nice. But we were still in the apartment, and it was already 11pm, the pressure was on. Josh and Evan needed to head for wanting to go home and chill reasons, so we walked them to the T, Jesse got a falafel, we came back. 11:30, Saturday, don't know what to do.

Jesse pulls a bold move and starts texting Chiara and Kaitlyn. Turns out they are out at a party somewhere drunk and dancing. Jesse's eyes light up because he wanted to get with Chiara. My stomach turns because Kaitlyn and I are fighting and I don't even know what the fuck it's about, and I don't want to see her. We debate it for a bit and I start texting Kaitlyn, but that line of communication quickly goes dead. Jesse is texting Kaitlyn and Chiara trying to make some magic happen. We find out that there are partying way in the South End. We look at the clock and it's about 12:15am. I insist that it's not possible. (By this time Alex is in the room and he is getting a huge kick out of our inability to decide what to do. He goes back and forth, saying, "I know you want to get with Chiara dude, but Kaitlyn and Joe are in a big fight, and that's unfair to throw them in the fire" and then a minute later saying, "Joseph, get over it dude, don't you see Jesse needs to get laid!?". What the core of the problem was this; Jesse wanted to get with Chiara, but Chiara and Kaitlyn weren't about to part ways that night. It was all or nothing. If Chiara comes over and crashes (we didn't even know where her and Jesse were going to sleep), Kaitlyn was going to come too, and Kaitlyn and I were going to be trapped in a cage match of relationship fighting. In one room, Kaitlyn and I would be fighting with our relationship on the line, and in the other room, Jesse would be sleeping with an incredibly beautiful girl. The stakes were fucking so high, and neither one of us were willing to back down.

Before anyone knew how or why really, Jesse and Alex were pinning me down on the bed, Alex trying to reach into my pants pocket to get my phone to text Kaitlyn, "Hey baby! I'm sorry I'm an insensitive idiot. Whatever I did was totally my fault. Come over and bring Chiara!". Jesse had wrapped around my back like a fucking sloth with my arms pinned, and Alex was trying to crush my legs, fingers trying to pry into my pocket. We were wrestling in the way twelve year old boys wrestle when they start pushing each other and no one wants to puss out. We were wrestling in the way where everyone was exhausted, red-faced, and hyper-ventilating but no one stopped. We were wrestling in the way that the immense, unstoppable desire to have sex with a beautiful woman collides head-on with the confused, angry pride of a man whose girlfriend is shaming him. My abs were tired, my arms were sore, my head hurt from head-butting Alex. Suddenly, Alex emerged from the brawl with my phone, and Jesse still had me pinned. In a desperate final act, I rolled backwards and slammed Jesse's head into the wall.

The room was at a stand-off, with Alex holding the phone. I cowardly threatened Alex that our friendship would be dented if he text Kaitlyn a lie, and he backed down. I crossed the line, and have been apologizing to Alex profusely ever since it happened. I knew that Alex would never want to disrespect my relationship with Kaitlyn, but I threaten him to try and get him to understand how high the stakes were for me. Either way, it a foul move, Jesse released me and we sat around panting. No one had won. We calmed down, drank a beer, listened to music, and went to bed...

My Weekend With Jesse: Part One; Salsa Dancing and Giant Cookie

Friends, Romans, Senators, lend me your ears.

After an extended blog hiatus caused my distraction, forgetfully, and general doucheyness, I have returned. Allow me to offer this story as an apology for my absence.

It started with salsa dancing...

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Alex invited Jesse and I, as well as others, to a free salsa dancing class/workshop over at MIT. The class was from noon to 3pm, and we were going in a group of about seven. Chiara came to workshop, but Kaitlyn wasn't able to because she was at work. When we got to the class, everyone nervously hung up their coats, stowed their bags in the corner, and prepped for what some feared would be a hard-ass salsa class. Fortunately, the class was split up into beginners and advanced dancers, each group with it's own teacher. We all went to the beginner side, and joyfully spent the next two hours dancing in a big circle and learning an array of simple but fun salsa moves. While I enthusiastically struggled, Jesse fucking owned it. After a while Jesse, who never danced salsa, was teaching other people moves. Him and Chiara also got some sweet dance time together. And... well... I wouldn't say sparks were flying between them, but there were some embers, and everyone was on their hands and knees and shit trying to blow into the base of their romance. The third hour was "free dancing", which was just goofing around with all of our new moves we learned.

After the class we all went to lunch, and then went to Shaw's to buy stuff to bake cookies at home. We got back to the apartment, kicked up our feet, put on some music, and began baking cookies. (Chiara had left by this point because she had to be at work). We were baking one sheet of double chocolate cookies, and then another sheet was dedicated to making a single giant m+m cookie. In the middle of the cookie fun, however, Kaitlyn gives me a call.

I go to my room to talk to her in private and answer the phone with something like, "Hey baby! Are you done with work? How are you doing? Do you want to come over and bake cookies?". To which she answered with something like, "Joseph, I just want to let you know that I am very frustrated with you over something you did, but I don't want to tell you now, I just want to let you know that you're in trouble, and yes I want to come over, and no, we won't talk about it when I get there". As perhaps you might guess, I was fucking flabbergasted. I bit my tongue though, tried to think reasonably about the situation, and invited her over.

When I went back to the kitchen, there was a wild bet going on. The giant m+m cookie, having been brought out of the oven and half eaten, was lying on the table. Everyone was stuffed. Somehow the room agreed that if Lee can eat the second half of the giant cookie in the next 25 minutes, Emily, Kelly, and Michelle are going to show him their boobs. The race was on.

Just then, Kaitlyn arrived and I greeted her tentatively in the hall. I judged that my mysterious offence was not serious enough to talk about now, but that Kaitlyn was in a terrible mood. So I was in a terrible mood. Then she expressed to me that she really doesn't condone the cookie/boob bet. Without getting into details, we fought about it.

An hour later, Kaitlyn had left in a huff, Lee had lost and was unable to eat the cookie, and I was angry, confused, and guilty that I wasn't able to focus on spending time with Jesse. An overall tragedy...

a...anonymous?

so i was just web-cruisin and i came across some US government site that anonymous hacked? is this a thing or did this just happen? their statement sounded like they were threatening to detonate a warhead? what is going on? im too high for this?

Advice Blog: Blacksploitation

So I need y'alls' advice.

I have a friend at school and he has a script. He claims he wants all of us (my friend group around Emerson and my apartment) to help him fulfill his dream of making said film together.

He has had a lot of struggles and suffers from Bi-Polar Disorder and ADD.

I want to make this film. It's a blackslpoitation film and he has written all of his close friends a part in the movie. I want to DP this because it sounds like a grand fucking time.

That being said, he doesn't want my help. He's very cold towards me even though all I want to do is help. Even my friend Paige, who is supposed to DP it, wants me to DP it.

He wants it to be fun. And fun can still be had. But an ounce of seriousness could make this go from a waste of time to a fully realized idea. I don't have the time to be making this film for shits and giggles on weekends with friends.

It doesn't have to be submitted to festivals and it's not for classes, but I would love to be able to help perpetuate a project my friend group here will be proud of.

Do I voice my opinion about how this could go and what we would need to do when we have a "production meeting" this weekend? Do I go Douche City and give an ultimatum and walk out on it? At this point, it will never get made. I want it to get made.

What is the best way to go about getting my friends to be more serious about this project and also helping me perpetuate, DP, and add Black Wolf: Out For Blood onto  my resume and reel?

Leaving Germany/Remembering Morocco

It's 1am in NY. By 9pm NY time I will be home. In my German train station its 7am. That gives me twenty hours of travel. This is a lot of time. I'm starting this post by saying I have a shit ton of time to kill. Perhaps ill write a bunch of short stories from the trip, like one of those "best of" shows. At this point I have no idea what that would entail but I have time to figure it out.

I know! Ill just tell y'all the hamam story, as well as update you about this extremely long travel day. It was our third day in Marrakech. The previous night Jeff began to feel sick. Surprisingly, not in a food disease kind of way but just a normal cold. That night Scott and I hung out with Patrick whom I've already told you about. During our very long conversation he suggested we go to a hamam. A hamam is a traditional Turkish bath. In Marrakech there are many, some of which are also spas. Throughout the trip Jeff had been saying how much he wanted a massage and Scott and I are intrigued by the hamam so we decide to do a spa day.
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Update: I'm fucked. My first train of the day was late. That alone would have made me miss my connecting train, thus fucking me. But instead I got off one station too late, fucking me further. The very direct German attendant explained the mistake and printed out a new route. This new route has 7 connections and gets me to the airport one and a half hours later than I should be there. Now I have to pray that with the snow the next 6 trains are on time and that I can make my connections, some of which only give me 2 minutes to transfer. On top of that I have to meet an unresponsive production company representative at the airport with a few thousand dollars worth of video equipment. Oh and if I miss my flight Scott will be left at the airport confused and without a ride. Now back to the show.
--

We ask our hostel hosts for suggestions of a hamam places. It's Friday, a holy day, but he remembers an open one and begins taking us there. In typical Marrakech style we are quickly accosted by two men trying to take us to different spas. After leading us there they will of course hassle us for money but we follow them anyway. We arrive and are led up into a small building and into an inscent filled room. We see an older couple in robes, a few very pretty spa girls and the spa madame. After haggling about prices, the three of us settle on a hamam and hour long massage. She throws in a pedicure while we wait for the hamam to be open.

Now, I've never had a massage, let alone been to a spa. I am nervous. I decide straight off that I will pop a boner during the massage, theres no question about it. It starts off, we are led into a small room where we are given four things: a robe, sandals, a man thong and a single glove. With man thongs on the three of us look right out of Jungle Book. We hand over our clothes and the pedicures start.

It's kind of painful, she's picking away at the skin around my nails and trying to get at gunk from 5 weeks of travel. At one point she can't dig deep enough and motions to another girl to get her a hammer, luckily it never comes. She washed our feet and gives them a little massage. After traveling this long, a quick foot massage and I'm in bliss. I start making some funky noises but luckily she cant hear me over the chill spanish guitar. Just as I'm getting into its over and we're sent upstairs.

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Update Cluster Fuck 2013: I had made all but one connection. On what should have been my second to last train I hear an strange announcement in German. Shortly after, the train stopped and everyone got off. I follow everyone onto the platform and inquire about the clusterfuck. It appeared our train decided not to go where it was supposed to. Instead it felt like stopping one station before the connection. Now I must make an extra two connections. On top of that the new train we're all supposed to catch is 15 min late. The fucking is in full swing. Back to the story.
--

We get led up to a patio on the roof and are told to wait. We immediately strip to our thongs and lay in the sun, it feels amazing. After five very comfortable minutes we are called over to the far corner of the patio. There we find a small, very steamy, tiled room. Inside that room was a very sweaty, sloppy Moroccan woman. Her hair is all kinked up from too many hours in the steam. Inside, our robes are removed and we're told to sit on tiny tiny stools (and by told I mean we were commanded in angry French). She turns her back to us. We wait in suspense as she mixes a bucket of very hot looking water. With one swift turn she throws the bucket of hot water at Jeff. Refill. And again she throws the water, this time at me. With a few powerful thrusts we're all soaked. She then calls for each of us to stand, one at a time. She takes out the glove.

The glove that was given to us is essentially a large sandpaper mitten. She dips the glove briefly in some black gunk and begins to scrape. She starts with our arms. dragging the glove over our skin. As our skin turns pink we can actually see layers come off. From our arms to our backs and chests to our legs and thighs. Every inch is scrapped and turning pink. She then take another bucket of hot water and throws it over our now very sensitive skin. It felt like she had poured boiling water on us. She then apply a black substance to our body's, rinses and then covers us in oil. Fully lathered we place out robes back on and are led back to the patio.

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Update: It appeared the same snow that delayed the German trains has also delayed my plane. When I get to the airport I have 35 min till boarding. Okay, I need to get the Royster bag of video equipment ASAP. I finally have Internet and am able to read where I am to meet him. "Walk to the bus stop and makes a left, you'll find some handicap parking where Ill be". Okay, I sprint! My thirty pound backpack makes it a very painful effort. I find the parking and wait, nothing. The meeting time has passed so I run back to the airport to use the wifi.

I get in contact with Royster who is in contact with the guy. Supposedly he's waiting there so I sprint back. Too much time has passed it's not looking like ill catch the plane. No one at the meeting spot. I run back. Royster tells me he is under the Panasonic sign, which is straight passed the busses and to the right! So I run in the other direction and stop under the sign, I wave my arms to try to make contact. Suddenly, a tall slender man in a black coat and hat emerges with a large black back. The man's hat keeps me from seeing his eyes. The street light illuminates my panting breath. "Royster?" "Yes". He lifts up the heavy bag in front of me without strain. My shoulder sinks from its weight. I look into the bag to confirm its mine. Before I could look up the man had turned and walked under the shadow of the flashing neon sign.
--

I'm the last to leave the small tiled room. I walk outside to the patio and somehow find myself alone. I wander around the patio red, greased and confused. After five minutes, I hear a woman's voice. I follow it to a set of doors.

The room is dark and tranquil. The smell of incense is instantly relaxing. Slow guitar music lays like a blanket. Three massage beds are evenly spread across the room. A beautiful Moroccan girl takes our robes and points the beds. We lay down thong up as the girl pulls a towel over us one by one. Swelled with relaxation, we wait. The door creeks open and two more girls enter. It begins.

First the feet and up the thighs. The back and the neck, arms and fingers. She pours on more oil, I sink deeper into a warm relaxation. Any of the chaos that Morocco had presented us burned away with the incense. She asks me to turn over and the process begins again. I nearly reach a tipping point as she takes my hand in one of hers and with the other pulls my individual fingers through her oiled palm. The hour feels like a week and yet is over too quickly. The girls ask coyly "okay?" and walk out of the room, leaving us to enjoy the calm for another half hour.

--
With Royster bag in hand I run back to the airport. I enter exactly as my plane's gate closes, I missed it. I go through the process of finding a new flight and book one for tomorrow morning. Exhausted, a part of me wants to give in and just stay in the airport. But I can't resist enjoying a bit more of Amsterdam before I leave. I head into town.
--

A different Moroccan girl comes into the room to stir us from our massage coma. We very very slowly walk outside and down into the main room. We decide to shower off the oil. With the man thongs now a thing of the past we venture out to the street for the first time since this morning. The rest of the day felt like floating in a bubble. Even the insanity of the square couldn't puncture our relaxation.

--
Back in Amsterdam, I head to my favorite falafel place and coffee shop. At the coffee shop I quickly meet a guy from Brooklyn, now living in Amsterdam named James. We talk for a long time. He tells me how he came to live there. How he decided not to return America. How he met his wife two months after moving. And how hash is made. The conversation is a final reminder of how life can change so drastically in such a short period of time, if you let it.

I ended up writing this post in three different countries. It began on the trains in Germany, the coffee shop in Amsterdam and finally here in my parents house in New York. The last couple days has been a reminder that there are a lot more journeys have and more stories to hear. Hope to hear some good ones once I'm back in LA.

The World at Large #1

I miss you all more than you could ever imagine.

LA was a paradise and now I'm back at Emerson.

But I would like to tell you all something. If you didn't notice, I was distant, even melancholy when towards the end of my stay.

It all started with the phone call I received at the Adrian's room. You both remembered that. Adrian asked if everything was okay and it was not. I had received a call from my mother that my grandfather, my only living grandfather, a man I looked up to, respected, and loved had just had a stroke. I didn't know how to react. I could have flipped. Instead I heard the distress in my mother's voice and started trying to comfort her.

I needed to keep it together and I tried my hardest. I thought I was going to cry in the car ride to dinner with my dad's friend, but I kept it together. I owe this to all of you guys. I had been so happy, seen the world I was about to start living in, felt the love of all of you. I think that if I had been home, alone, I would have broken down, cried my eyes out. But I thank you all for such a great time.

After dinner, I'm surprised with how high I was that I didn't get depressed. It was you guys again. I don't know. Y'all are the best.

But, I'm done depressing y'all. On my flight home, I met these kids and we were hanging out. At the end of the flight we started playing "Would you rather" loud enough for everyone to hear. Anyways, at the end of the flight I turned on my phone and saw a text message from my dad that said my grandfather hadn't had a stroke and it had been a medication mix up. So he is okay.

I guess in summation, my first post of this year is trying to say that without all of you, I am nothing. I love you all.

NO HATE 2013///:::\\\LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

interesting monk lecture

Morocco: Not My Story

Here on another RyanAir flight, this time piecing together four days in Morocco. There a lot of stories from the trip I'd like to tell you about (like going to a hamam, where a woman threw hot water on a thong wearing Jeff, Scott and I) but right now I want to share a story that was shared with me by Patrick.

I met Patrick on a bus coming back from a day excursion outside Marrakech. He and I were given the same seat number. Luckily there was a few empty seats and he and I ended up sitting next to each other. Once we sat down it became apparent that someone had vomited in the seat not too long ago. Joking about the horrid smell got us talking.

Patrick is 28. He grew up in Switzerland. He's been traveling for 3 years. He likes Bali the best. He had been in Morocco for two months. He studied economics at university. He lived with his girlfriend when he was 19 and thought he was gonna marry her. He only own a backpack and, at the moment, three surfboards. He says he's looking for answers. He thinks he wants to settle down eventually but isn't sure he could ever leave the freedom. He teaches me about hash. He tells me to go to India. He collects unemployment money from France. He takes a lot of pictures. The bus ride was three hours. He tells me about Arnold.

Patrick met Arnold two years ago. At the time Arnold was 83. Arnold is American. At the age of 16 he forged his mothers signature to enlist in the army. He was sent to China. There he learned Mandarin and traveled around Asia. By the time he returned to the US the 50's were ending and the hippy era was beginning. He began to work in journalism and travel again. There no knowing how many countries he's been to but at the time Arnold was fluent in 4 languages. He began in Europe and from his early thirties on he never stopped moving. On a hippy bus called the Magic Bus he traveled from Spain to India by land. There he met his wife, a photographer and fellow traveler. Together they roamed Europe and Asia. It was in Spain that they decided to make their home base.

From there they went on to travel the world. They made money where they could. Patrick told me about the ways life time travelers make their money. Many of them buy and sell goods. For instance they buy saffron from Morocco and sell it for more in Europe. One guy worked in precious stones and bought in Africa and sold wherever he went. Arnold and his wife did such jobs along with their journalism and photography. He never said when she died but he inferred that it was not too long ago.

Thirty years they must have spent traveling. Never settling down longer than a few months. Always moving. Never a resident. I've traveled six weeks and the affect its has on me is hard to write. I've seen many of the different ways that people live their lives but until I heard Arnold's story I never imagined traveling for a lifetime. After his wife died Arnold kept moving. Age hasn't slowed him down in the least. About ever two months he writes about his travels and email blasts all his family and friends. I wish I was on that list. Arnold like to organize spends card games with other hippy travelers from his era. To Patrick, Arnold is a spirit guide. He thinks of him often when considering his own life. The things he must have seen.

I had a lot of questions I felt needed answering when I left Los Angeles. My year in LA had filled me with doubt. I've spent a lot of time letting life happen. Pushing in a direction but without a clear reason why or who the person at the end of the journey is. What kind of person do I want to be? Is this industry what I want? What kind of personal life will it allow? What kind of personal life do I want? It was time to make choices. Now near the end of this trip I can finally close my eyes and see a person. It's someone I want to be. He's bolder than I am now but I'm working on it. He's smarter than I am now but I'm working on it. He's much more open with his friends and family but I'm working on it. He's not afraid to get hurt but I'm working on it. He's stronger in his beliefs and lives his life by them. I think when Patrick closes his eyes he sees a young version of Arnold. I definitely have discovered some wanderlust in me but I need my friends. And I want to build something big and worthy of pride. And I need my friends.

Wish I could stay but excited to be back soon.

Dumb Tourist VId

Berlin 1.1.13 12:20am

"The world just wouldn't stop exploding".

Palma: a fever dream

Sitting here on my $17 Ryanair flight I'm trying to piece together the last four days in Palma. Maybe it's the cabins dry 90 degree heat but my time in the tiny Spanish island only comes across as a blur. I guess I'll have to go through piece by piece.

After leaving arctic Berlin the three of us couldn't have been happier stepping off the plane into warm weather. At the airport we toy with the idea of a rental car but ultimately vote against it, to my disappointment. The bus took 45 min. It's a small island. As scenery rushes by we realize our hostel is no where near the actual city.

I step off the bus into an abandoned beach resort. The huge and very pretty beach is occupied only by two fat old Germans, Palma is mostly a German vacation spot. We get to the hostel and decide the situation is too absurd to survive 4 days. Five minutes on wifi, a quick lie to our friendly kiwi host and we have a hostel booked for tomorrow in the center of town. Only one night in ghost village. We head to town.

The bus dropped us in the city. It took a few minutes to get our bearings. Food was a priority and soon we find a Mediterranean place. The meal is harmless and we're ready to explore. Palma is bigger than I had imagined. The main port surrounds an old city with small windy cobblestone street and giant church, things we came to expect in places like prague or budapest. We trade stories about the last year as we walk around an old church (it's the first time we've all hung out alone since the oak woods). We walk and have a good time.

Our wandering comes to a halt around midnight as we try and decide our next move/figure out where we are. This was when my stomach started to feel a little weird. I disregard it as being slightly irritated by a new region's food. We walk into a tiny alleyway to stop and look for street signs. Doing so we disrupted an attractive 40 something Spanish woman is entering her house. She asks us if we're lost. We tell her we would be if we knew where we wanted to go. She ask what we want to do and the conversation continues. We all got friendly in front of her door so she decides to take a walk and show us around.

Her name is Maria. She's been in Palma for 12 years. She takes us all around the old town for hours as she's telling us about the area. She doesn't really tell us what she does for a living or who she is but she's very friendly. During this huge walk the mild stomach irritation had turned itself into nausea. I'm sure it's just something weird in the food and it'll pass. Maria takes us to this incredible old windmill overlooking the harbor. It's an amazing secluded gem. There are candles and rose pedals from some seriously romantic shit that happened earlier. You could see for miles. We sit there for a while.

Maria finishes off the tour by showing us a few good bars to hit up the next couple of days. We say good bye and find a bus stop. After a long wait and increasing stomach discomfort and nausea we catch a bus to our secluded hostel. The bus shakes back and forth and back. Every time the bus breaks the sick feeling gets worse. I can feel the blood run from my face. I'm trying to hold on. I inform the guys of my situation. Try to hold on. We must be more than twenty minutes away now. Try to hold on. Can't do. Sitting in the bus I start to vomit in my mouth. I run for the door holding it all in. The driver begins to stop. I place my hands at the sides of the door. I watch as simultaneously the doors separate and a shotgun spray of puke flies onto the street. I stumble off the bus and continue like a loose garden hose for a good 5 min.

God that feels better! That shitty food is finally out of my stomach, guess it had to happen at some point. I got some water and we caught another bus. Back at the hostel we're all exhausted and decide to go to bed. I lay down feeling weak but peaceful. But after fifteen minutes I'm suddenly hit with a rapid and intense bout of nausea. Fuck! I jump over an empty bed and land my head in the toilet. When I finally turn on the lights and look into the bowl I can see blood. Fuck. My stomach feels empty so maybe that was it. But 15 min later it's the same story. And again and again. Five times. More blood. I'm fucked. I look up "puking blood" and every website says get help. It's 3am in an abandoned resort town forty minutes from town. I wake everyone up.

I'm so weak from all the vomiting I don't have the energy to panic of figure out what to do. Jeff gets the number of an international emergency line and we get the name and address of an open clinic. Luckily its only 2 blocks away. We get dressed and head to the clinic.

Two blocks towards the beach. Nothing. We try two to the west, then to the east. We call again. They say there people waiting for me and give use the same directions. Two blocks north then south. Scott and Jeff are running ahead of me cause I can't keep up. The nausea is still hitting. I go to puke on a wall on the sidewalk and a stray cat jumps trying to claw me in the face. It runs off when I try to vomit on it. It feels like we've been walking for thirty minutes, I just want to lay in the street and die. Two more blocks north and one west. I see lights on! I see the clinic!

Most of the clinic is dark inside, it's just one doctor (hopefully) and one nurse (hopefully). The doctor speaks okay English. I tell him everything and he examines me. I puke in his trash can, I think he gets what's going on. The nurse come in with a syringe. The doctor tells me I have a virus that's been going around the island and I need an antibiotic injection. I have no idea what he's giving me but I know this has to stop. I agree. The nurse stabs me in the ass.

Now when I was sitting in my bed, in between the nausea attacks, I looked up some info about international medical insurance. The healthcare i have under my parents will only reimburse me for international care if it was in the case of an emergency, which this was. But it still means I have to pay the full price in Spain before I get reimbursed. When I hand the doctor my insurance card he knows this. Maybe it's because he saw how much agony I was in when I puked for the seventh time in his trash, maybe he's just one of those doctors who got into it to help people, maybe he didn't want to do the extra paper work that goes along with charging someone with a foreign insurance policy. Whichever it was, when I asked him about payment he looked at me and said "no worry about it". No charge.

The ass shot did the trick. Back in bed I was able to sip water and have a semi-restful night.
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That was just the first night in town. Looking at how much I've already written I'm wary of trying to tell the whole story of my time in Palma. The details are almost endless. Granted I'm writing these partially as a person journal I still want them to be interesting to read. So I think I'll tell a super abridged version of the next days, mainly so I don't forget those days completely.
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The next day we got to the new hostel, which was just a dope rented apartment. Once there I stocked up mild food and water and spent the entire day sleeping and watching movies on Jeff's iPad. I watch "Midnight in Paris", "Attack the Block" and part of "Easy Rider". I must have slept for 15 hours that day.

The day after we went to a small port town on the west edge of the island. The scenery was stunning. We hike the entire day and went from a cute town to cliff side views to wooded farmlands to mountainous meadows filled with sheep and trees out of a fairy tale to grassy
noels so green they looked fake to a stone wall and path that belonged in the Shire to an abandoned apartment building and back. It was a hell of a hike.

That night we met up with a bunch of locals Jeff and Scott met via couches surfing. That story is too detailed to get into.

The next day was Kings Day, which we didn't know until canons started going off and a giant parade throwing candy at hundred of kids emerged. It was in expected and wild.

That night I believe we left for Barcelona. The hike and parade and the locals is such a blurt right now. I think I'll piece it together for myself at some point but right now these mini notes will have to do. Thanks for joining me for story time. I know I started writing this when I was heading to Barcelona but I'm finishing it heading to Morocco, my first Islamic country. Expecting to loose at least one hand, sorry old lefty but I'm hoping it you. Wish me luck.

The Gayest Post

There have been a few bloggable moments in this trip so far but I haven’t had the time or internet connection to blog them. But I figure I’ll tell you those once I see you in LA since I can’t compete with Jesse’s storytelling prose. Instead I will write about something more sentimental that I have been pondering over the last few days.

As I have told you guys before, my family is HUGE. For the Christmas Eve party, there were 40 of us celebrating at my aunt’s house and that wasn’t including my parents, my sister, and anyone on my mom’s side of the family. It doesn’t matter how we are related whether we are cousins, second cousins, great uncles, cousin’s boyfriends, we are all just family in the end. To tell you the truth. I never really started making the connections of how we are related until now because I never felt the need to.

The one person I heard a lot about but never had a chance to meet was my grandfather, Moises, as he was called. I knew a little bit about him from the diaries he wrote that my grandma kept and the stories others told about him. He was a man with a great sense of fashion who always kept a comb in his pocket, a magnificent writer who never missed the smallest of details in his diaries, and the epitome of a family man.

Last week I was able to see him through a video that was made of his 60th birthday celebration. The celebration was at The Quinta that he had bought for the sole reason to bring the family together. The Quinta was therefore properly nicknamed the Moisheraton, a combination of Moises and Sheraton because of all the people that would meet every Sunday. The thing that stuck out about the video was how much people loved him. Like if I didn’t know any better I would think that he was a Godfather just like in the movie. People would surround him, laugh with him, kiss him, hug him, almost as if they owed him something. But he was just a man that wanted nothing more than to spend time with you, to share some laughs, to dance, and to just have a good time. It seems like he was the one that started the tradition of keeping the family together. He is the reason why our family gatherings are so big and so amazing.

I had always taken it for granted, that everyone had family gatherings like mine and that their cousins were their best friends. But I mean this in the most non-bragging way possible that I have a truly special family. I’ve heard many people say to me that they despise their family gatherings and I could never connect with that because family parties always trumped an outing with the friends.

But before I get too carried away and too boring (and you are probably not even reading this anymore), I’ll relate this back to you. You guys are part of that family. Never have I felt so comfortable to do and say whatever I think and know that you may actually like it. Each and everyone of you have changed me so much in these last 3.5 years. I would have never thought that I would be listening to The Beatles as I write this blog. Adrian has passed on to me his douchyness, Jesse his lazyness, Scott his Texan ignorance, John his love for alcohol, Joe his gayness, and Josh his shit. Now I’m truly an asshole. No but seriously just look at the music I listen to now, The Beatles (Adrian), Kanye (Scott), Yonkers (Jesse). Fuck, I just hope I was able to give something back to you guys. I’m a little bit scared that I might have just passed on bullshit.

In this new year I’m so pumped to see what’s going to happen. Can’t wait for LA, to be back with many of you guys, and to do some more fucking around. I’ll end this blog with a quote from my grandpa Moises as he blew out the candles for his birthday cake, “Thank you for coming, and thank you for being who you are.”

P.S.: Adrian and Josh have an amazing trip. Stay safe and can’t wait to hear about it!

P.P.S: Since for some reason it’s not letting me comment on the posts, Jesse that was an awesome story like always. Adrian: Is that realy puke?? and also nice poem.

starting 2013 off right

"that did not just happen"

-josh 25 minutes after we left Boston, 4 seconds after his failed attempt to vomit out the window on the highway