Tropical Funk

Do you remember the days when sleep was the enemy? I do. I recall the strangest of psychological pathologies we sometimes call wide-eyed wonder that made me fight off the dropsies, you know, when your eyelids are heavily dropping and your head is too and your chin hits your chest and you force your leaden eyelids open again for fear of missing even a little of the miraculous stuff of which existence is composed? Do you remember getting up early when you didn’t have to? I do. Bolting out of bed to meet a new day open to all of the stimulation that life has in store for you.

I bolted out of bed today. One of the cleaners at my kost had put a key into the keyhole of my door. They do that, about once a month, when they have decided to clean the room for me. I have taken to leaving my key in the keyhole for this reason. They cleaner’s key won’t go in all the way so he knows I am home and he doesn’t need to clean. Not that the place couldn’t use it, I just feel helplessly awkward hovering over the guy as he scrubs my mold, slime and build-up off the toilet, sink and shower floor. As he sweeps my hair, dead skin, food particles and the occasional finger or toenail off my floor. And especially when he strips the bed of sheets, pillow cases and the superfluous blanket all soaked in the tropical funk that every pore on my body exudes during sleep here in Indonesia, air conditioning or no. Though I have grown accustomed to the staff here, and vice versa, I bolted out of bed saying, “No, no! No cleaning!” because I’d really rather not have them walking in on me in my old and holy Kiss drawers and nothing else.

Ha ha. “Tropical funk.” Sounds like a new kind of music. I’m picturing Phil Bailey from Earth Wind and Fire doing a reggae song in his super high voice. Ha ha ha. Tropical funk.

While I HAVE grown accustomed to the cleaning and security boys here, I am still a long way from growing accustomed to the heat. It’s just hot. Every day. And now, in the rainy season, it’s hot and more humid than usual. Rainy season trumps the Christmas season. At least it did this year. The yuletide joy and festivities aren’t really observed so much here. When I was a boy pretty much right after Remembrance Day till the second day of the new year it was extreme bolt-outta-bed season. What holiday event, TV show, TV commercial, decoration, food, observance, tradition, visiting relative or whatever might make today exciting? That’s what charged me awake and opened my eyes with an electric jolt that bypassed the morning dreariness and launched me straight into activity.

This morning I got up, stayed in bed rubbing my eyes and trying to keep myself from dozing off again for about an hour. Then the bladder more than joie de vivre encouraged me to face the day somewhat upright. I sat at my computer, my all but decorative, wifi-less computer, and caffeinated while checking the internet connection. Every single weekend the internet is jammed here. I don’t know why but I’ve grown accustomed to that too. I reluctantly added shorts and my Hard Rock Café Fukuoka T-shirt to my holy Kiss gotch in order to exit my room. I grabbed both of my plastic, made in Malaysia, Lock & Lock water containers. The 1.2 litre I carried in my left hand and the 1.5 litre, still with a swallow of water in it, I tucked under my left arm like a football. Then I bent over to pick up a previously tied off grocery bag of garbage and the swallow of water went all over it and the floor behind the door. That happens more than I’d care to admit. Still, I can blame it on the morning groggies.

I opened my door and made my way to the community kitchen. I dropped my dripping garbage bag next to the kitchen garbage can and proceeded to the water machine to fill up on water. I need a lot of it here in Indonesia since I turn so much of it into sweat. On the way back to my room I ran into one of the Nigerian dudes who lives upstairs to me and we exchanged cordial greetings. I put my water containers into the door of the fridge in my room, then went back outside my door to tend to the router. I am just tall enough to reach it on its elevated, wall mounted platform. While the cleaner guy had a cigarette and watched I took the router down, pulled out the power cord, counted ten and plugged it back in. Time to get on Facebook and check on my games, do some online fishing and maybe comment on a few posts or chat with someone. These are the things that sometimes DO get my lazy ass, (or my lazy ass ass), outta bed on the mornings I don’t have to work. This is one of them. December 29th. It’s a Monday. I would normally have some classes to teach but not this holiday sandwich Monday. In fact for me it’s a job sandwich Monday. I am down to my final client with the place I'm working. I’ve talked to the boss and he knows I’m moving on to greener pastures. I’m still not sure if I will teach Mr. Yoo, my last client, into the new year or not. I’ll have to talk to Mr. Yoo and the boss man about that. I will also have to find out from Herry, the guy who lets me stay in the room I am in, when I need to vacate it.

Last I heard Herry had relatives coming who needed the room in January sometime. I have another friend/benefactor named Rica who has a house that she has offered to me rent free whenever I have to leave. I’m just trying to prep for the move in any way I can right now. You know, not buying much food, especially heavy stuff like cans; collecting boxes and bags; throwing out useful but unnecessary things that have built up like glass jam jars and other such containers. I can rebuild my supplies in the new place.

Then there’s the concerns about upcoming interviews and job changes. I really won’t be doing anything until well into the new year about these things so I should just relax and try not to worry. I should keep some Tropical Funk song like Phil Bailey singing “Every leetle teeng gon be alright ya’ll…” in my head. But I’m like the sheep herder played by Seth MacFarlane in his movie “A Million Ways to Die In the West.” Traffic? Glacial internet? Lack of noise bylaws? Heat? Sweat? Crappy phone service? Crappy taxi service? Crappy service? Hello? Is this thing on? Am I the only one? Then somebody in the bar stands up and says, “Why don’t you shut up?” and slugs me. I fall through a window out onto the street and rub a little blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my wrist. Then I smoke some weed with a friend to relax while listening to “Every leetle teeng… gon be alright, mon.” and I get even MORE paranoid! “That rat that crawled out of the open roadside ditch there? See him? He KNOWS!!! HE KNOWS EVERYTHING!!! I’m not swallowing right…”

I could make a movie. Heh heh. But seriously, I have done a little bit of Christmassy stuff here. The day before Christmas I was invited to a karaoke party by my friend and former co-worker, Tessa. I didn’t go because I had to play Santa the next afternoon at the Shangri La Hotel and wasn’t sure I’d be able to sing anything without some irresponsible drinking. Hindsight being 20/20 I realize now I should have gone and just sung in my best falsetto, “Don’t worry… about a teeng. Every leetle teeng… gon be alright, mon.” But I didn’t want Santa to be the stereotypical down on his luck boozer just picking up some extra holiday hours as Santa to finance a few bottles of holiday cheer. Hmmm…

Anyways, I didn’t go to Tessa’s party and I was bright eyed and bushy tailed for my gig as the Santa at Shangri La. My former student, Rica, has a sort of party planning business and she suggested that I be Santa months before this. I had expected more than 3 hours of work but one thing led to another and three hours at the Shangri La was all I got. Now I was treated to a GORGEOUS buffet at the Snangri La Hotel early on in my stay here by Annemarie. You may remember that blog post with the bad oysters. Poor A.M…. heee heee hee. It’s a very nice hotel. Upscale. And I’d been told that I would be spending most of my time indoors. I was going to be Santa for 3 hours at a special kids party where kids, (of well-to-do parents), have activities, games, toys, crafts, snacks and a bit of a party and they have Santa and Barney there too. So I assumed there would be air conditioning, and there was. In every corner of the recreation room we were using there was an air conditioner. But they were all off! I saw some of the KIDS sweating in this room! And, hey, Barney was a skinny, young, Indonesian dude and he was sweating like a madman too!

I’m wearing a red velvet, well lined Santa suit that had fur all over it and would have sufficed for an Everest attempt, plus all the beard, mustache and head hair, PLUS a furry, well lined Santa cap on top of that. I think the suit was for an outdoor Santa. Outdoor in Christmas-like conditions in a Christmas celebrating country that is. There I was in the hot, and rainy season humid, air trying to be jolly while hoping the copious lining would soak up the sweat and people wouldn’t see salt stains on the Santa suit. Seriously I had to take off the white gloves half way through because they were soaked in sweat and people were no longer shaking Santa’s hand. My glasses were fogging up and probably worst of all, my bottom lip was getting numb. I have heard this mostly happens to children but it’s a sign that you are dangerously dehydrated. I had a piece of gum so that Santa’s breath wouldn’t stink but the beard and mustache hair had already mixed with that. Combined with the numb bottom lip I was saying things to the kids like, “And wblere you a good blwoy blwis year?” Which shouldn’t have been TOO bad because some of the kids spoke only Indonesian, but, being children of the better off parents of Indonesia, and some of them being kids of foreigners, I’d say 90% spoke English. To make matters worse there was ANOTHER Santa wandering around the place. I didn’t see him but a lot of the kids saw him when they were outside in the fishing pool, riding horses, swimming, in the bouncy castle or on the merry-go-round. Apparently he was a huge guy! Bigger than me and much different looking. And probably better able to enunciate. So the kids knew that at least ONE of the Santas was fake. One little boy looked at me and said, “You’re not Santa.” I tell you what, if I DID go to Tessa’s party the night before I would have sweated out the hangover even before the halfway point!

But, as you know, I’m a complainer. I’m sure it wasn’t nearly so bad and some folks might even say I did an okay job as Santa but afterwards I felt much like I had run a marathon. I was sweaty, consuming liquid non-stop and just really really happy it was over. And I got some money from Rica for doing it so that made it okay. The funny thing was at one point I wandered over to the buffet and I suppose because they weren’t expecting Santa, (and hadn’t paid for him), people went NUTS for pictures! It was the highlight of the day for me! I think it was just nice to be appreciated so much. Santa really didn’t have too much in the way of loot to hand out to the kids so they had better things to do. But it sure didn’t hurt that most of the people I was posing for pictures with at the buffet were the hot wives of the guys who could afford to go to the Shangri La buffet! A couple of them were wearing Christmas finery that was so sexy and low cut that they might have a pic or two of Santa’s eyes where they shouldn’t be! It was in the final hour of my time as Santa so I was too sweaty for them to get TOO cozy with Santa. Probably a good thing.

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, since the World Jrs. was still a day away, I decided to make some Christmas cards for my two benefactors, Rica and Herry. I drew a Homer Simpson Santa Claus and wrote Merry Christmas Herry, and Rica and then wrote on the inside how it was a time of year to give thanks and I gave them thanks for being so nice to me. It was about 2 PM when I finished the cards and decided to walk to their places, (not that far away), and hand deliver the cards. I looked out the window and the clouds were threatening so I put the cards into a plastic bag and put on a hat. No more than a couple minutes after I got outside and en route to Herry’s it started just POURING. Remember, it’s the rainy season. But this was not a bad thing. You see when I go for a walk when it ISN’T raining here I get soaking wet. With sweat. This was actually quite nice! It kept me relatively cool and I wasn’t a whole lot wetter than I would have been if it were a clear, sunny day. Herry wasn’t home so I left his card with the doorman. He was laughing because the rain was torrential by the time I got there. Many people in shelters alongside the streets were saying stuff to me, waving, laughing and such. But I didn’t give a rip. It was a nice, pleasant, not sweltering hot walk. Rare around here.

Unfortunately, I had worn my sandals. They were good for short, dry walks but because they are not to be worn with socks and because of the Velcro straps that keep them on my feet, the exposed Velcro rubs my feet every step. Now this is not too bad even for a long walk when it’s dry. But when it’s wet and the foot skin is especially soft the Velcro rubs right through it. By the time I had reached Rica’s place I had two pretty blistery feet. She wasn’t home either so I left her card, plastic bag and all, in the handle of her apartment entrance. I hope it was still there when she returned. I still haven’t heard from her or Herry since.

When I got home I had 6 or 7 pretty nice raspberries on my feet but since I had exercised, and since I needed to nurse those raspberries, I just watched movies all day long. Some Christmas movies, some not. I really liked the movie “Nightcrawler.” I think Jake Gillinhall could get an Oscar for it. He was creepy! I also liked “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”

So anyway, not a whole lot of action here to jolt me out of bed in the morning/afternoon. It’s kind of between seasons and jobs and nothing much is happening right now. Most likely the calm before the storm. And the storm should start right about New Year’s Day. I’ll probably blog you all about it. Meanwhile I'll try to keep some Tropical Funk in mind. "Don't worry. About a teeng. Evy leetle teeng... gon be alright."

Take care my faithful readers!