I like writing about my travels, but I don’t like the paperwork. So I blog It's digital narcissism. Literature in a hurry, right? Write. I shoot pictures and videos:
Welcome to the Hotel @nyware, located on Blogger, at the corner of Facebook and Twitter, right across from YouTube and Picasa
Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness
Addicted to
traveling” or for that matter “Addicted
to all-non working activities” shouldn’t be
a new reason for self-hatred or a diagnosis, rather a pursuit like the
arts and entertainment, that permit self-exploration and satisfy your
psycho-social needs.
You see, in general,
if a pastime is not classy, those who love it are labeled with the Dr
Phil-Drew-Oprah Psycho Babble rhetoric of “addict.” Opera and Symphony aficionados, on the other hand are “passionate” and "driven".
Loading the cultural dice in favor of
“reality” over fantasy, we get the sense of
adventure beaten out of us when we ask ourselves the most irritating of
the question words, “Why?” Why do I have
to live in the New York suburbs,where the weather sucks and the people are
rude, and there is nothing to do? Then we just tune in turn on the TV, and drop out, watching one of the 1000 channels
in a shared hallucination called the superstition of materialism, and fall
asleep.
Then you get
"The Call" and if you wake up
and answer it, and you begin the Hero's
Journey that Joseph Campbell talks about
in The Power Of Myth, with Bill Moyers, that PBS video series that's a must for all seekers,
and you follow your bliss-in most cases
your bliss follows you.
"There has never been a greater concentration of intellectual power here on board since Ed Reif dined alone." |
I started to travel, as a pastime, on a
shoe-string budget, labeled as a drifter, a bum, held in contempt by the uninformed, and over educated who find
themselves sinking into the
everydayness of their lives. And I didn’t care. I just did it anyway. The
Calvinists say work is prayer, so is permanent traveling.
In the old days,
habits of cultural consumption like listening to jazz music all day and night
were considered passions, or forever going to the movies or “The Theatre”,
allowing us to create new personalities
and use them to fulfill unmet psychological needs. Come to think of it, I think
I have an internet addiction too! Awesome.
Normally, you need
three things to travel-Time, Money and Opportunity. It's the way of the cynic
who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. On a ship, you have
this maliginent optimism
It has never been
about resources. You see, I am the Bobby Fisher of resourcefulness, the Cosmo
Kramer of planning , the Curious George of predictable unpredictability.
>note to self< Rock on man with the yellow hat, rock on.
No matter how low the
budget bar gets, I always manage to limbo my way under it. If you think about
it, I am the Wilt Chamberlain of shoe-string
travel. I'm putting up numbers so unthinkable that normals will never,
ever reach them.-300 ports in 365 days.
Why Be A Man When You Can Be A Success?
Margaret Thatcher once said "Any man beyond the age of 26 , who rides a bus, should consider himself a failure." I would add to that, any man working on a cruise ship.
It's good to know, however, that failure IS always an option! What is success, but continued enthusiasm despite failure after failure. Read more
As the Morgan Freeman
of travel writers , if you will. Everyone recognizes me but I never gain any
due recognition., Hotel @nyware hasn't exactly
been the Edgar Allen Poe of knock-outs, the Emily Dickinson of ground n
pound, the Robert Frost of ass-kicking.
It's just me, born
with a Ph.D. in throwing junk up against the wall, and seeing what will
stick.Looking back, it's been the Colonel Kurtz of experiences. I've gone
native and insane so many times, but in a Lance Armstrong Barbara Bush sort of
way. Sometimes I am the census taker, sometimes, the cannibal psychiatrist.
All boats leak
I'm reminded when I was sailing The Mexican Riviera in 2010 and I had a thinking problem, not a drinking one. I've been to Mexico so many times and taken life with a grain of salt and a slice of lemon and a shot of tequila. You know when Tequila is talking.where you drink triple, see double and act single. It has a very distinctive voice. Sublime is no longer something I choke on after one. I' I've gone native in a Col Kurtz sort of way, drinking tequila, and sporting a Hecho in Mexico Straw Cowboy hat.
Cruising is better than normal in the Mexican Riviera. It is abnormal. On a
Carnival cruise There is optimism and pessimism .. but most of all is alcoholism I've had my share of liquid vacations.
It's not a
spectator sport for cruisers/boozers; but a pay-per-view sport. And you drop
major coin on booze if you are a guest. For crew all-you-can-drink for $5.(on the ship).
Liquid Bread-Beer You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. The Cliff notes on Corona, the gold standard for Latin American lagers. Position in the beer category: Mexican Beer Slogan: Change your Latitude Mantra: Vacation, No Worries, Relax Corona's slogans (it has had so many) convey the feeling of the brand: vacation
A Carnival cruise inspires you to think less about life and more about thongs. I heard one guest say "Nice legs, what time do they open". Brilliant.
On the ship being good-looking isn't a passport to success, it's a Visa for free
drinks.
And English – Who needs that? I'm never going to
England! It’s purely Spanglish.
Tourists will
occasionally stumble over paradise in Cabo, but
most of the time they will pick themself up and continue on.Ah
Time flys When You’re having Rum ,Tequila and Corona .
Everyone likes a
little ass, but no one likes a smart ass.
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