pills, thrills and foreign pharmacies

i see buying somewhat illegal narcotics abroad as an entitlement. it is a human right violation that i can not purchase tylenol with codeine in the states and by god i am going to exercise this right given to foreigners as much as eating a croissant in montreal or drinking shiraz in australia. in fact, i am going to purchase as much as the pharmacy will allow me. so what if I am carrying 5000 codeine tablets across the border, i earned them.

when entering a foreign pharmacy, i put on my best innocent face and try not to look like the lecherous drug hound that i am. chris always gets embarrassed and tries to pretend he doesn't know me. recently in quito, ecuador i found a very accommodating pharmacist who was willing to let me purchase as much valium as i wanted. i asked for a box, and he came back with a huge green box. when asked how many pills were contained inside, he said 500. out of the opposite corner of the store, i hear chris yell “no.” i understood this very strong “no” to mean chris did not want to travel around with a valium drug mule. i bought a respectable 20.

unfortunately, due to a harrowing bus ride through the andes on mud roads and steep deadly cliffs, 20 pills were not enough. while back in quito, i tried another pharmacy to score some more. this time they were not so accommodating and the pharmacist tells me to speak to a doctor. when i ask where you can see a doctor (calling their bluff and trying not to look like a total crack head), they say they can get one and all of sudden i am being led down a long hallway and end up in an office telling some foreign doctor i need a script cause i am going on a 3 day bus ride to la paz and don't want to freak out. he gives me the script and i have it filled and leave the pharmacy 20 minutes later to a very upset chris wondering where the hell i was.

chris is not the only one who becomes ensnared in my exercise to purchase fun white pills abroad. during a very long road trip with my father through the southwest, i bullied him to about 15 mexican pharmacies in the border community of cuidad juarez, which should be called cuidad shitty, searching for anyone who would sell me vicadin. i eventually scored some, but didn’t have enough money, so i had my father buy them for me.

the lesson of the story is, if you are abroad with me, i will stop in the local pharmacy. traveling is fun, but traveling on an assortment of colored pills is just a little more fun. i can’t wait for southeast asia.

américa del sur, primera parte

Note: I sent this by email to many of you before – although frankly it was way too long and I would be shocked if anyone had the time (patience) to read about my gallivants. I broke it down (because i know you all have attention disorders) and edited it for your reading pleasure – because it’s all about you.

we touched down in bogotá about 2 in the afternoon. i was thrilled and could not wait to start our 16 (later adopted to 17) day tour through bogotá, colombia and a good cross section of ecuador.

when we got in the cab to be taken to the hostel platypus, i felt immediately we were no longer in the usa. our taxi driver pimped out his ride with some booming speakers and one of those tiny steering wheels that look like it belongs in a go cart rather than a car - which actually made some sense since the car was the size of a go cart. he then tore through the city streets barely missing other cabs, trucks, meridians, light poles and pedestrians. i began my foreign country taxi buddhist chant:

"thedriverdriveseveryday….iamsureheknowswhatheisdoing….andknowshewon'tkillthatchildontherightside"
or
"ohmygodohmygodohmygod…stoplookinginthefront…justlookthesidewindow"

the bogotá 500 ended at our hostel which lonely planet describes "the kind of backpacker mecca..." thereby insulting Muslims everywhere. Although it wasn't the crappiest hostel i have ever stayed in (that award goes to the china train station hostel in hohot which did not charge extra for the feces on the floor), it was no mecca. it’s the type of place where you wear your shower shoes in the bathroom and for that matter, you never take off your shoes at all, and pray you don't get bed bugs from the college futon bought in 1984 which you now call your bed for three nights.

we quickly escaped to grab some food and the closest place turned out to be an israeli owned cafe l'jaim which was to have some awesome typical latin food of shwarma. since i am an awesome new jew, i was all for it. i kept saying we are going to la ham in which chris was quick to correct me saying it probably stood for l'chiam. i never said i was a good new jew.

my expectations of bogotá or should i say my stereotype was a bunch of coke smugglers funding their guerrilla war to smuggle more coke. okay, maybe i wasn't that stereotypical, but what i found in bogota is one of the most charming cities i have ever been in. it is a complete cafe culture with many people on the streets strolling the cafes, shops and outdoor markets. the first evening we stumbled upon a street fair complete with a transvestite comedian (comedy loses something when you only understand every 30th word), jugglers who set fire to tennis rackets, and traditional dancing. it was an amazing stumbling find - the kind that makes you want to travel forever.

the only downside was my street meat envy. bogota had huge chorizos on a stick topped off with a potato rolled in rock salt. YUMMY! i avoided this because my intestines are a fragile flower that I must tend to or they will pluck me out of the country. Other street food I passed on to not be airlifted from yet another continent included homemade donuts with glowing goo dripping from their powdered sugar middle, grilled corn with kernels the size of my thumbnail, and special herbal tea which I thought smelled wonderful and chris believed it was made from sewage.

more in the next blog....

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i believe religion serves many needs – good and evil. i also believe one of the most important needs filled by religion throughout history is entertainment . you’re bored working those salt mines? chant to allah five times a day. hot day in the rice paddies? meditate with buddha. tired of picking up twigs to keep your fires a glowing? worship the sun god. the list is endless.

what else did people have to do? theater – maybe on special occasions. parties – again something most peoples could not sustain everyday.

in the past century our entertainment options have multiplied, but one true option is worthy of worship. with the dawn of dvr or 1 ad (after dvr), my life begins again. dvr is my new god.

dvr lets me whiz through programming at the attention deficient speeds i demand. no more commercials, no more hosts introducing america’s funniest videos leaving me waiting to see an overweight housewife trip over her overweight dog, and no more five minute recaps of lost trying to piece together its absurd plot and multitudes of insignificant characters dying by mysterious fog, polar bears or that creepy leader guy with the bug eyes. dvr is efficient, it is personal, and it is glorious. all hail dvr.

now well into 2 ad, i have become addicted to dvr. i no longer can watch live television. even if i am watching a program live, i will tape it and watch something else, so that i may return to it when i am able to zip through it.

my mere worship had grown to fanaticism. watching non-dvr television is blasphemy and i firmly believe a hate crime. catholicism never really worked for me, but I am proud to say that the ideology of dvr fits my lifestyle just perfectly. so please excuse me, as i need to lay fruits around the dvr box and light a candle to chant that it’s little green light never burns out. Amen.

sometimes good friends go bad, then crazy

chris and i had a interesting 4^th of july in dc this weekend visiting my long time friend michelle. the weekend was full of weird moments flashing michelle's true crazy potential. she was stoned the entire weekend (putting a bowl to her mouth the minute she awaken) which you would think would relax her but in reality didn't seem to phase her; it just made her repeat things over a thousand times ('we have to go at 230pm to meet my friends' was vocalized about a dozen times - each time she would get more agitated and angry at us for reasons unknown). michelle also was unable to do one thing for more than 15 mintues without feeling the strong urge to leave or do something else. sometimes, if we were in a museum, she would text message me 100 times stating: she was bored, going out for a cigarette, where are you, bought a bracelet cause she was bored, standing outside, i really don't want to be here anymore, smoking another cigarette, do you want to go, where are you - all within a 20 minute period of time. she also can no longer hold a conversation for more than an hour without bringing up some horrible trauma in her life. on saturday night, we got in a confrontation at a bar which i (and therefore chris) walked away from her to go back to the apartment. that is when the real crazy kicked in - leaving her screaming "my mother was a heroine addict" and "i was molested when i was 9" in between throwing things against the walls.

chris and i decided to flee her apartment for a hotel room. michelle sums up her anger here in one of the many, MANY emails/sms messages to me (i have changed nothing):

“look, i didn't know i was offending chris. but the way you approached
it mike was way out of fucking line in my opinion.

my real friends tell me to my face if i am offending them. i HONESTLY
didn't realize i was doing anything WRONG.

was winning the game pissing him off?
was i being too whatever?

i asked you to come here so i could have a FRIEND around to get over
BRIAN and what do you tell me to do?

STOP CRYING BABY, GET A THERAPIST

GEE THANKS FRIEND. THANKS FOR THE HUG, THANKS FOR THE FUCKING SUPPORT.
THAT'S ALL I FUCKING WANTED. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU HAVE TO TELL ME
TO GROW UP AND STOP CRYING.
I DON'T STOP.
MY MOTHER IS A HEROIN ADDICT, MY BROTHER IS IN A HOME, MY FATHER IS IN
A HOME, I WAS SEXUALLY, MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY ABUSED BY SO MANY
PEOPLE YOU CAN'T COUNT THEM ON YOUR TWO GAY FUCKING HANDS. I FUCKING
HATE YOU. YOU ARE THE WORST FRIEND I HAVE EVER HAD.

I WENT TO FUCKING BRIAN'S LAST NIGHT CAUSE HE IS MY ONLY FRIEND WHO
WOULD HELP ME LAST NIGHT.

you have so many people that just love your funny nature so much but i
know the real ASSHOLE you are.
I hope one day you realize how controlling and what a fucking dick you are.
maybe not. oooh look at me, i am so cool i travel all over. ooooh
look at me. i am so awesome i get to go all over cause i am so
fucking great.

take a minute and think about what a jerk you are.
i know i have my faults. i don't deny them, i list them, i work on
them, i deal with them.

you, you laugh and make fun of everyone.
is that your defense mechanism to make fun of people who are NOT like you?

YOU ARE GAY. HA HA YOU'RE GAY. GAYS ARE RUINING THE USA. YOU WANT
TO HEAR THAT ALL THE TIME FROM YOUR FRIEND?

ALL I WANTED WAS A FRIEND CAUSE I WAS GOING THROUGH A HARD TIME WITH
LOSING BRIAN, BUT YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT FUCKING ANYONE BUT YOURSELF.

WHAT DID I DO THAT WAS SO FUCKING OFFENSIVE?”

needless to say, i don't think i will make it on michelle's christmas card list this year. i think the above sums up how our weekend was. although the fireworks were pretty awesome, as was the afghani exhibit at the national museum of art. ttfn.