You Are Here

I'll never forget the day I first went to the bus stop just down the road from where I lived with my brother Andy and family in Victoria. Langford to be exact. I was waiting to take the bus to a shift at my new job as a security guard working the 7 PM to 7 AM shift guarding two office buildings and the Save On Foods strip mall. I didn't have the usual experience with vagrancy or poverty-induced crime that one might expect as a bus station story. There was a map of Langford bus routes at this particular bus stop. On the map was a circled star marked, "You are here." On the sidewalk just outside the busdriver shack there was a corresponding circled star marked, "You are here." I saw the pavement circled star before the map circled star and it blew my mind!

"You are here." I remember at first standing there staring at the circled star at my feet and thinking something pretentious to myself, (how bad a person are you if you are self-pretentious?), like, "How existential!" Oh ho ho ho. "Pretentious? Moi?" I chuckled aloud at my rapist wit. (a little Dumb and Dumber to lower the brow of the humour)

But then, as I am wont to do at the beginning of what I am positive will be a long, long night guarding empty buildings and walking empty streets and parking lots, I pulled the starter chord on the old neurons and started hammering this thought around in my head like it was a raquetball... ball... and my skull was a court. "I AM HERE!" (Italics mine) "I'm not anywhere else as far as I know. I'm here. Now. Right here. Right now. And right now you should listen to Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo." Actually in the video, (for Van Hagar's "Right Now"), it says, "Right now you should pay attention to the lyrics." And the lyrics that followed, if I may, were, "Miss a beat, you lose the rhythm. And nothing falls into place. Only missed by a fraction. Slipped a little off your pace. The more things you get, the more you want. Just trade in one for another. Workin' so hard to make it easy. EASY! Woah! Got to turn, come on, turn this thing around right now! Hey, it's your tomorrow. Right now. Come on, it's everything. Right now. Catch that magic moment. Do it right here and now. It means everything."

Yeah! Inspiring! It DOES mean everything! "Why am I working this job I hate, for people I hate and sometimes WITH people I hate?" I thought. "Is THIS my tomorrow? I'm workin' hard but I'm getting 120 bucks for this shift while my boss is getting 5 grand! No matter how hard I work for a prick like that it won't get easy. It'll never get easy. In fact as the cost of living goes up and my salary doesn't, it's just going to get harder." And I was pretty sure being right there, right then I was not going to be catching any magic moments. It was not my tomorrow. I had missed a beat and lost the rhythm. So I turned that thing around and got outta there. Eventually I ended up in Indonesia. I really loved teaching English in Korea but I found myself shooting for a goal that was monetary there. I was making my fortune and not my future. I was pretty sure there were no fortunes to be made in Indonesia and sitting here with about 50 bucks to my name I can honestly say I'm back in the rhythm. Hoping things fall into place.

I also trust that writing will figure largely in my tomorrow. It's my real vocation. Teaching English just pays the bills. JUST pays the bills. This is my work on this earth. It certainly won't strap me with the burden of becoming acquisitive and wanting more and more stuff, replacing one thing with another! I just moved a couple weeks ago. In a taxi! One trip!

So the other day I had a sort of deja vu. I was standing on the streets of Jakarta looking down at my feet as though there were a circled star at them. There wasn't, but where I was and what I was doing right there and then got the old neurons firing. I was waiting to cross the street on the way home from teaching my two seven-year-olds Ah In and Joon Ah. They're so cute! Anyway, there was slow moving traffic stopping me from crossing but I noticed that it did nothing to dissuade the locals from crossing. They just threw up their hands in a combination sorry/thank you wave if the driver stopped, and head protection if the driver did not stop. I was determined to test a theory. Ghandi-like, I waited and waited receiving one odd look after another from the people who had taken their lives in their hands and crossed in front of me. I knew what those looks meant. They were aspectually, (is that a word?), informing me that I should just do what they had done because nobody was going to stop and wave me across. But I have high aspirations for the people of Indonesia. Some of the people of Indonesia might say they're too high, but I remained undaunted. I was determined to give some motorist the uplifting feeling of proffering kindness onto another raising his status from stranger to brother. I've been saying for blogs and blogs that we should all at least try to act more like brothers and less like competitors in this human race. I'll repeat: "Proffering kindness onto another raises his status from stranger to brother." What a wonderful world this would be if we all kept this in mind, no?

I waited and waited...

What does it say about yourself and your culture if you don't expect kindness from other people? Because you expect them to be too selfish to stop and let you cross the street, then catch up to traffic in a few seconds, essentially losing NO time at all on their trip but saving you some time on yours, you actually repay their selfishness with some of your own by jumping in front of them and forcing them to stop for you? Is this what the old pioneers and explorers termed, "unrefined," "uncivilized," even, "savage" behaviour in the people of newly visited lands?

What do we mean when we talk about "civilized" society? Are we talking about refined, well-mannered, well-educated, elegant, erudite, polished, urbane, sophisticated, intrepid, suave, debonair David Nivens or Catherine Hepburns? Or is it something else? Well ask yourself this: would David or Catherine ever jump out into traffic in order to cross a street or elbow their way to the front of a line-up? I submit to you that finishing school and proper breeding notwithstanding, pretty much anybody would do either under the right, (or more to the point, WRONG), circumstances. Would Catherine or David ever blow a fart in public? You fill them up with Indian food and trap them in an elevator I could see either of them lighting up a cigarette, (in a long holder of course), and saying, "I appologize profusely and preemptively for what I am about to do," before gracefully currifying the elevator air. Afterwards there might ensue a truly enlightening discourse on gastro-intestinal functions and their necessity to personal health and well being.

I waited some more...

I'd say it comes down to something as Harper-supporter simple as the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. There are variations of this in every culture and country. It's not a secret. Why then is practically the whole world pretending that the golden rule is "He who has the gold makes the rules?" Why are we working harder and harder for less and less? Isn't this exactly what our forefathers and foremothers worked and fought so hard to insure us against? The people I'm talking about ACTUALLY fought. In wars. Were they fighting for some abstract concept like freedom, justice, or the other crap we're told to think? No. They wanted their kids to have it easy. They figured that by now we'd have so much wealth that we'd all have VERY nice houses, several cars, swimming pools and such and all on the income of a single breadwinner working a 10 hour week. They were dead wrong! Weren't they? Well it turns out they were right on the money. There IS enough for us all to have the good life they worked and fought and died for. In America there's enough for every man woman and child to get over 200,000 a year. Imagine how much that's gonna be if there's only one breadwinner per family!

So what happened? Who highjacked the dreams of our forefathers and foremothers? I want to know why when I live in Canada, for which my ancestors worked and fought many years, why I have to work 7 PM to 7 AM for minimum wage. I'm educated. I'm a good worker. I'm smart. I want to know why I don't have the good life my ancestors earned for me. I want to know why the hell I don't have a swimming pool!!!

I continued waiting as the cars and motorbikes slowly passed.

I thought of Canada. In my country you can stand on a street and expect a motorist to kindly wave you across the street in front of them. In fact I think it's practically a law. At least it's understood and widespread driving etiquette in Canada to do this. Canadians must be a genteel and superior people!

After many years in Asia going back to Canada for a couple years, THIS was one of the hardest things for me to get used to. I would be walking and I'd have a road crossing carefully timed. Right after this car passes in front of me I'll have an opening and I'll make it easily. Then the car slows down and stops completely closing the opening and making other motorists stop on your account unnecesarily. And admit it, Canadian motorists, it may not be the human decency in your soul but actually the rule or the law that makes you stop and wave me across. And while I'm walking you may not say so but I can sense you thinking, "Come on, move it slowpoke! Knees and elbows! Get the lead out, I didn't stop so you could sashay across the street like you're on a catwalk. Yeah I'll wave back to you. You're welcome. You're welcome to hurry the hell up!"

But having said that, I still think it's a positive thing. Even though Canadians mostly do acts of kindness and gentility through force of law or convention, at least we're doing them. And before long we get used to doing them. And isn't that nice for everyone? I don't know how often I really took notice of the manners and courtesy, fake or genuine, that we have the luxury of practicing in Canada. I know they were more appreciated after many years in Asia. But this is not to say I believe Canadians are superior folk, (though I might hee hee), I believe it has a lot to do with one factor that Canada has going for it that most Asian nations don't: proper population density. I don't care what Apu Nehasapimapetilon thinks, ("I've noticed that America is dangerously underpopulated!"), Asian people need to put on a condom once in a while! TOO MANY PEOPLE! And one of the seemingly unavoidable biproducts of overpopulation is the rude, selfish, screw-everybody-but-me driving and walking styles. Is it self-preservation or are people just too lazy to practice common courtesy? Just look at the Chinese!

Oh, and by the way, Canada, take advantage of the common courtesy we have in our country now because discourteous walking, driving, (and other things), styles of other countries are some of the things we get with the massive immigration policies in Canada. What do you think will happen, Canadians will influence newcomers to walk and drive politely or Canadians will be influenced by newcomers to walk and drive like selfish madmen? I wonder if this Thai lady didn't eventually shove her way through to get her refund...

I waited some more. Then I waited some more...

I was at the Lotte Mart yesterday. Right in the mall where I live. It's SO convenient! I don't even have to go outside to get groceries! I went to get butter. That's all. Just butter. It's a far cry from what shopping was before I moved here! I'd make sure the cupboards were empty before shopping. Now I just go for a pound of butter. Half pound even!

So anyway, I see a check out counter with a pretty short line-up and start walking towards it. As I am doing so, a lady in the line-up for the check out counter right beside mine notices the short line. Then she notices me. I don't know if this Indonesian lady had ever played football in her life, probably not, but she was like a running back who saw a hole and she made straight for it like Tony Dorsett. I believe if I had not slowed my pace as she cut in front of me I would have receive a Walter Peyton stiff-arm too! So now I have to grumble under my breath and act like she hasn't committed an etiquette attrocity against my person, and she has to stand in front of me and pretend like she STILL doesn't know I exist. It could have gone differently. We could have met half way to the check out counter and one of us could have acted in a distinguished and unselfish manner offering the spot to the other. Then we could have engaged in conversation. We could have discovered that we both live in Gandaria Heights. Maybe we would have chatted about the facilities and our conversation may have come around to the gym. She would have mentioned that she works out and I would have mentioned tha I do too. We could have become exercise buddies, and, who knows, possibly long-time friends. One simple act of decorum is all that it required.

I was starting to get a little impatient, but waited some more...

I got to wondering how often social connections are sacrificed in modern society on the hollow altar of survival of the fittest. I thought of all the energy expended on the ratrace that we believe is just a sad fact of life but which is just a hamster wheel our owners have put into our cages so they can have the pleasure of watching us waste our time and energy while they get rich. Life doesn't have to be like this. We could have kindness, courtesy, brotherhood, genuine friendships with our neighbours and we could have to leisure time as well as the money to nourish those friendships. All we need to do is expend a fraction of the energy we use now eking out our livings, and put it into some national and international money and resource equitable re-dispersal. It would only take a few really determined and patient people to start a movement such as this. Funneling all the money to the very few people, the super rich, at the top of the capitalism ladder has made this world more stressful, selfish and UNcivilized. We do not behave as gentlemen and gentlewomen to each other as our ancestors wanted. We have progressed backward into a state of perpetual competition with even close friends. Our behaviour to each other is sickening, and it only feeds the very few at the top. Who are the people who will start the revolution we so desperately need? Who will civilize an uncivil civilization?

I jumped out in front of a car flailing my arms and forcing it to stop while saying aloud, "Bunch of savages," and I continued on my way home.

Permission for Sedition

I tried to take a vid of my new apartment and post it here but failed. Anyhoo, I'm now in my 6th place already in my 10 months in Jakarta. With any luck I'll be in number 7 within about a month. Hang Tua Hotel in Sudirman for 5 days. Gandaria Kost off Haji Nawi for a month and a bit. Then moved in with Matthew and Abbey in the same Kost but different unit. I think about 3 weeks I was there. Then I moved to a crappy Kost behind the Four Season Hotel in Kuningan. Two months I was there I think? Then I moved to the Gardenia Kost in Cipete in Herry's room, (201). Herry's family came to use the room so I moved down the hall into 209. And now I'm in the Gandaria Heights, which is attached directly to Gandaria City Mall. Hmmm so I guess this is my SEVENTH place! Crazy!

It's convenient though. I don't even have to walk outside to get to the mall! There's a health club and swimming pool I'll be able to use starting tonight. Mr. Jang has requested another access card for me. He's got Erna, the maid coming three times a week. And Mr. Jang pays her well. She's not one of those maids working for peanuts. She's nice. Washed my clothes without even asking me. Does the dishes. I'm loving it here!

Here I've been going to bed at decent times and getting up refreshed in the morning! Like 7 or 8 o'clock! Even though I don't have to! I can't wait till I get my passcard so I can put that energy to good use and get to the gym! I've exercised but haven't been to a gym in a long time. It'll be good to get into better shape. Then place number 8 will likely be something similar to this. I've heard that there's a good place right across from the place I'll be working. It's more pricey than I've been paying here, but I'll be gainfully and dependably employed so I'll probably splurge. It's got a gym and a pool too so I hope to carry on with a healthier lifestyle once I get working with Wall Street again.

Wow!!! How brainlessly positive is THIS post so far?! Why is it stupid for me to be positive? Well if you have to ask, you haven't been following. Probably what will happen is the apartment management will charge extra rent even though this is a two bedroom apartment and even though there are some two bedrooms with 4 people in them and their rent is lower. And probably the cleaning lady, who is already working the mother of all cleaning jobs in this country, will ask for more money now that she's cleaning for two. I've been washing my own dishes and cleaning my own laundry. Sweeping up and that. Actually doing some of Erna's work for her. But my experience with Indonesia so far tells me that she'll hit Mr. Jang up for more dough. He pays her 700 a month. That's the average price for maids over here. Actually I think it's a bit higher than average. But that's what they'd make in a big house with a family of 5 working 7 days a week! Mr. Jang only has her come in 3 days a week.

The apartment is probably paid for by Lotte, Mr. Jang's employer, so it might be harder to charge more rent now that he has a houseguest, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen. Maybe management won't actually do it but an enterprising, young clerk might sharpen her pencil and see if he can skim a little off the top.

"Oh Dave, you're so negative!" Not so! I'm just not a dummy though the world insists on treating me like one. Trying to give me an opinion through spurious arguments like "Anti-vaxxers are wrong or right." That's like saying "Animals are dangerous or not dangerous." There are many vaccinations and anyone who is trying to keep us from judging them on individual merit is trying to sell us something. Then you have these chowderheads who continually bombard us with the soundbites in the media calling terrorist actions unexpected, unwarranted, out of left field, cowardly and unprovoked, things like that. These are the people who think that continuous bombardment is the way to go and this is what they expect as their bomb recipints' reactions:

I watched the Canucks beat the number one team in hockey this morning, (winning goal by Kassian set up by Dan Hamhuis), and the TV commercials! I'm almost speechless. Or I guess, typeless? Unable to type anything about them I'm so gobsmacked. ALMOST unable, that is. An old couple getting tested for cholesterol and the old lady narrating, "We had high cholesterol. Then we went on a program of regular exercise, eating right and Perco-cell Margarine. Our cholesterol went way down! Thanks, Perco-cell!" It probably wasn't the margarine, you demented old bat! It might have had a little bit to do with eating fruit and veggies instead of triple fried potato chips dipped in bacon grease. It might have had something to do with the fact that now you work up a healthy sweat doing sit-ups and speed walking in the cool, bracing air instead of working up an UNhealthy sweat sitting up, taking speed and walking to the Frigidaire.

A generation or two have been efficiently mindscrubbed into obedient beliefs in the corporations represented on their computers, TV's and cellphones that the one and only factor in conditioning, body-type, weight, appearance, happiness and cholesterol is the wonderful products we consume. Products lovingly brought to us and our families by the caring people of Screw-corp. "Screw-corp, leave the thinking to us." Screw-corp products may cause internal hemorhagging, temporary or permanent blindness, anal leakage, uncontrollable flatulence, spontaneous combustion, hallucination, calciphication, transmogriphication, muscle atrophy, leprosy, wonky eye, nasal blockage, or death. But thanks to this disclaimer, if you try to sue us for any of these, you're screwed because, hey, we warned you... in microscopic print and impossibly fast talking.

And political ads... Are they any different? Politicians are always heroically "fighting" for us regular folks. Ever notice that? Fighting for us because certainly we don't have the strength, (or in the egotistical, swollen heads of the whole political lot, the brains), to fight our own battles. "We're fighting for your rights and freedoms, Canada!" Well that may be the case but I think the expression might be artistically ambiguous. What they are doing is fighting US so that they, (the monetarily advantaged), can have our rights and freedoms. And what will they do with them? Why, sell them, or even give them away when and where it is deemed to be financially advantageous.

Case in point:

"UP TO $2.25 per million litres!" And they're paying zip right now! Have been for who knows how many secretive years? This is your government "fighting" for you! Why do water corporations pay less for swimming pools full of water than that reporter paid for the bottle of water he's holding. And these are water corporations based in France, the U.S., I think Nestle Group is based in Switzerland. Yeah, right! Not neutral in the Water Wars are they?

Nestle paid $3.71 in Ontario and only backed down during drought time because of a court battle fought against them by Wellington Water Watchers, Ecojustice, and the Council of Canadians. THESE are the folks who are fighting for Canadians!

Look, if we're Canadians and we've been somehow convinced by these same people that because of arbitrary geographic birthplace, we are obligated to pay taxes for Canada, then, by golly, we should be getting a little return on the resources that are part of this land we rent! Take a look at the Alberta oilsands.

Look closely at the first paragraph. Norway assumes that the oil underneath Norway belongs to the people of Norway. Canada assumes that the oil in the oilsands belongs to the company that extracts it. Do the PEOPLE of Canada assume this? Hell no! It's the independant, backroom dealing, citizen-opposing "leadership" we have ended up with in Canada.

These are just a few things they do behind our backs to ruin Canada. Don't even get me started with the Great Canadian Real Estate Giveaway! Canadians pay 70% on real estate capital gains. Foreigners? Zilch. "They're too hard to track down." The list goes on and on! And as it does, it only gets easier for our Crime Minister to do these things.

It's a wonder Canadians own ANYthing in Canada! And if we do it won't be for long. The time has come for some sedition in Canada. The innumerable treasonous acts by government is virtual permission for it. In fact it's almost as if they're daring us! We need more than just small groups like Wellington Water Watchers, Ecojustice or the Council of Canada. We need Canadians to stop taking shit from the government, get organized and do something. Positive signs are showing. I actually have hope that Canadians can do it. I think from a strategic standpoint right now, we gotta piss off the women! Canadian women are scary when they're united and pissed off. That's what's gotta happen. Like the women of Iceland.

You think our Canadian gals aren't as tough? I got news for you:

We can do it, Canada! Refine the oil in Canada and create jobs that way. Stop with the dangerous pipelines. And put some of the wealth produced by that oil into Canadian pockets. Same with the water. Get Canadian conservationists to determine safe ways of selling it, and make the greedy corporations stop selling us our water at a million percent profit! Prove to the government and the world we are not as dumb as they think we are!

Then maybe next... the whole world!


March 12: Well, guess what! The maid hit Mr. Jang up for more money and today, 9 days after I moved into this apartment, after several attempts by both Mr. Yoo and myself, my access card actully works! They still haven't raised the rent though so I'm 1 for 2 on that call.