you stink of taiwan

it is true that we wear our travels on our faces and we carry stories with us like an endless journal. the places we have seen become like new tissue in our skin and we begin stories by telling the place before telling the time and date. out to lunch i went with a friend of mine today and i had good thoughts about what it means to be a traveler. meeting with other travelers and breaking bread with them proves to be not only dawning of new friendship but it also brings useful information about other countries which is much more practical than google or lonely planet. you get to break bread with a person who has actually lived somewhere else and in that conversation you really get to see what its like to experience that culture.

my boy had lived in taiwan for god knows how long. its cool to hear about taiwan because i never really had any interest in going there and places with that qualification usually turn out to be the most interesting places. when we travel like this we enter new places and start from the beginning. we do not speak the language but we have enough experience with people to walk into unfamiliar places to put ourselves in situations where language manifests inside of us. there are good tricks for this. go to a store and ask questions about everything. read newspapers, go to a religious service, find a girlfriend from that country, talk to bartenders (thats a good one).

and its funny to watch us interact and avoid comparing. the hardest part is not to apply cultures which you are used to upon the place you live now. so many times i've wished they speak spanish in turkey but its unheard of here. so its cool... my boy harvey lived in taiwan, jayson lived in bolivia for a while, kim has been all over turkey and i believe a bit of africa, homeboy greg lived in vanuatu for a year, yeliz lived all over europe, normal chris has been all over the place for the last few months and i believe he is the proud owner of a ticket to india after we get back from egypt. moreover the slew of people i have met in my travels have continued to circumvent planet earth in a humble and respectful way. in one way or another we are conquering this world peacefully without leaving any footprints. we move onward and share stories with each other sometimes crossing paths. its even come up that a person i've met in one country has crossed the sacred path of another person i've met in a different country.. thus there is a bless-ed connection.

its a strange life that i lead and sometimes i wonder if i've swam too deep to remember the what the surface is like. my only view into the world i once lived in is through the soulless void of god's internet and even though sometimes the right song brings me back i continue to look forward.

2010 is coming up.. i've completed my favorite year and in the bless-ed interconnectedness of things i find myself teleported to whiskey, scars and electric blankets. its going to be a slap around of existentially beautiful chaos next year and i am ready for it.


ps

dear trouble,
you are an old friend of mine and although we've had our differences you always seem to be there for me and you always lead me to really cool shit. i'll stop questioning you, i promise, i know you know these things better than i do and maybe i'll really understand what you are all about. alas, you are a close friend of mine and you are never a stranger. happy holidays, i'm going to egypt tomorrow so i guess i'll be seeing you when i get back (if not, of course in egypt).

in on this

its a seat in my window,
cold outside so nobody knows
i'm sitting up here looking down below.
walking with faces to the ground they dont look up.
whats another five minutes in this moment?
i'm in a good place.
i wont chase feelings i've had before
when the world is mine to explore.
but i wonder, if i'm getting any closer by moving farther and farther away.
will my friends still be there when i come home that day?
a view from space.
a love so thick i can taste.
a pair of shoes walking to their own pace.
the look on your face.
she wont run away with me so in turn i run away.

in my window this cold and happy day,
i wave to the people with fewer words to say.
i dont speak your language i only know 'hello'
but you never see me smiling at you down below.

-mookfish

once i loved a sailor once a sailor loved me

i sit in a filthy post-apocalyptic apartment beaten to hell by a wild party last night. i've been a traveling man for quite some time now and this year especially i have decided not to be still. that is until now when i lay my head on the first pillow to belong to me since January 2nd this year. last night's party was evidence that i officially 'live' somewhere and the feeling is quite nice. i've always been a person to make new years resolutions and actually keep them. this years new years resolution was to take traveling to the next level and it has been a perfect year for it. next year's resolution is already in the front of my mind: to be better. just better. better at everything. i'm over the whole self-destruction leads to self-improvement thing and now i'm onto the path of discipline. i've got a lot to live up to.

this begins with meditation, both in the traditional and non-traditional way. after i return from egypt i will likely have a long stretch of time that i will not be traveling outside of istanbul. i was originally frustrated by this and perhaps i will be again before long but in this moment i would like to see the advantages of being a hermit for a while. my travels to kyrgyzstan next year will not be easy and i could use this time to focus my energy on the future. in that time i must become better. when i return to the states after all of this is said and done i will lay on my parents' floor and rest my tired body. i will see my friends again and my eyes will be bigger and my heart will be fuller.

morning, morning.. if i only knew that cool warmth was morning..

dear james brown,

something big is going down and the forces working against me are stronger than ever. like a 'who will help me stop MookFish?' mentality. yet you dont speak to me anymore. you once called to me from far away. we survived an ocean together. did i wait too long for pancakes? 2 years is a long time.. i knew that the first time.. whats another 2? the love hate love that sworn me away and chased you twice begging to explain myself.

Egypt 1928

yesterday was dedicated to painting my new room and drinking beer. ipod set to random and paint-fumes set to extra intoxicating i turned my bedroom from a gross baby blue to a creamy tapioca. this ipod is the same ipod i've had for years even back in the time of living in leulumoega and the music that has found its way onto this tiny device always seems to bear significance to that time in my life and everything in between. i was grooving on this and smiling to myself the memories of the friends and travels i've come to know in the last few years and suddenly like an emotional ninja i was attacked by a song that always does it to me. it was 'denia' by manu chao. immediately i felt the rush of joy i felt when i first returned from samoa to the hero's welcome given to me by my tribe in detroit. i seemed to talk slower back then and i was afraid of cars. although i didn't know it at the time, that song became like background music to the bridge i was building between two far off worlds. it was the sacred jam of boypile in the early days of that first winter in eastern market and it was the late night/early morning final jam at smith lake parties and it united us. it was the song i told kait to listen to while passing through argentina. it was the song i first heard again from my rooftop when i lived in taksim coming from the hallowed emptiness of some unidentified turkish disco.



i know the dangers of listening to the same song on repeat but yesterday it didn't matter. it reminded me of matt and neal and everyone from back home. then the worst thing happened.. it got old. i switched to mushroom jazz 6. danced on my bouncy bed with a paint roller in hand never spilling a drop. i felt like partying that night and that's just what i did.



there are those of you who really respect what i do. i get letters and emails from people i would have otherwise hardly spoken to back home in other circumstances. i keep these well wishes in my heart and use them as medicine for my spinning brain when things turn to chaos. i'm really far from home. i have no signs of stopping and god-willing i will walk this earth until i die. i hope my friends in detroit know that i miss them like hell. sometimes i hear hints of rumors of people coming to join me but it seldom happens, if ever. however, to those of you who cannot be still - we walk this earth like it is ours.













fuck it.. 'machine gun' came on next. that did it ten-fold.

bulgaria part 2 - compliments of christopher graham

bourgas, varna and veliko tarnovo - pics from christopher graham.. for the entire collection go to
http://picasaweb.google.com/chrisgraham.umass/20091201?authkey=Gv1sRgCMmItOnojrPh7AE&feat=directlink

bulgaria - compliments of my new friend mr. paolo negro

photos stolen from paolo.. i have a few more rounds to put up soon - this wave is from a castle in Veliko Tarnovo which is probably the best town ever and a 700 year old monastery 7km outside of the city limits.