I developed tinnitus at a young age, coinciding around the time my dad took me to my first monster truck rally. I was around five years old. From that age till the moment I learned of soundless chambers and the impossibility of silence, I dreamt of hearing absolutely nothing, and thought that I once had the opportunity and had lost it by way of disability. Still, despite that, it's a fantasy of mine to find the most quiet place I can, where I could hear the next best thing: almost nothing.

And it's that fantasy, partly, which has brought me here to Lasqueti Island, a place without centralized power, highways, a population over 400, or any police for that matter

Of course though it's not as quiet as that space in my dreams (though moving my tent away from the bullfrog pond helped), it has a sort of mental silence. Not that my brain has shut up, heaven forbid, but it is simpler. I wake up. Meditate. Have breakfast. Work (usually skinning fir trees, kitchen stuff, moving lumber, etc), meditate, have lunch, work, meditate, have dinner, read a bit and then pass the fuck out. Sometimes there are variations but not many.

I came here to learn how to dance a new dance and change up my boring predictable life a bit. I was worried this place would be populated by new age weirdos, the bad kind, and maybe soon it will be but the owner is sarcastic, down to earth and maybe even a bit cold at first. Awesome. My co-interns are all great too, none of them obnoxious, which is a great relief.

The studio itself is a work of genius. I tried to make a video of it but I'm an awful camera man so whatever. I don't know how it's standing, or how it's stood for more than a few months, but it's pretty freakin amazing.

It's almost too idyllic, the other day me and the others were jamming Leonard Cohen and just cleaning but it was so nice. But it's not perfect, I have my fair share of bruises, cuts, scrapes, etc. And there are meat animals on the property which I think sucks.

There are a mama goat and her kids here too. The mama, Nema, loves headscratches. Her kids less so. I love them.
(UPDATE: The cutest one, William, has gone missing. He probably fell off a cliff. I have a vid of him doing a cute thing, maybe the last cute thing he did, but I don't know how to upload it. The other was eaten (by humans))

The dance is weird. It's called contact improv and it's very new to me. I've only had a few classes but when it works it feels amazing, very playful and fun, the high you get from it is pretty incredible. When it doesn't work it feels like random rolling around, like I'm being way to intimate with someone I don't know for no good reason. As a touchy person who is shy with touch, and as someone who likes to dance more than anything else, it seems like a pretty good outlet. I'm pretty jazzed on it.

I've only been here for a short while but so much has happened, or at least it feels like it cuz it's so different from my previous life + island time. I'm adapting to it quite well though, who needs modern amenities outside of a home theater system and drinkable water?

I'm learning a lot. From inner space stuff to a dance miles away from any dance I'm used to, to axe handling, to begrudgingly accepting that maybe, to realizing that maybe, just maybe, the first black eyed peas album is actually pretty good. And I'm here till Sept, I'm sure I'm gonna learn a whole lot more once things get into full swing.

Sometimes tho' it's really quiet and I still try to find that space with no sound. It's involuntary at this point. Haven't found it yet but we're getting close.

canada

more from panama

RAVE BUS


aaaaand, a tupac bus!!!!

sonora

Leave everything
Leave Dada.
Leave your wife, leave your mistress.
Leave your hopes and fears.
Drop your kids in the middle of nowhere.
Leave the substance for the shadow.
Leave behind, if need be, your comfortable life and promising future.
Take to the highways
-Andre Breton

back in canada, wondering why i'm not in the sonora desert. i need to go back there to find out why i was there in the first place. why did i ever leave? i need to get drunk.

i used to play video games because i really craved adventure. or maybe i crave adventure because i played so many video games. what a completely boring thought loop. anyways, i always wanted to feel something new. i wanted adventure. so i started experimenting with drugs, hoping in a flash of lysergic light i would be whisked away into glorious insanity, insight, somewhere new, be it physical or mental...and it worked you know, but not really how i wanted it.

travel works a lot better. i've gone crazier, woken up in more unexpected places, and gained insight beyond whatever the lords of cough syrup can teach. no diss to drugs here. but. travel works a lot better.

i feel like i am on the cusp of something big, that i am about to fall into something serious, something either terrible or wonderful, yet, what's changed?

so it goes!

panama's last picture

let it be said that i am someone who only does things in halves.

from santiago i get a ride immediately to panama city, something i don't remember too much about. i don't remember much about santiago either, except for this place:

since then in my sleep i am visited by bulked out marlins...i've also had strange urges to get big muscles...only in writing this have i put the two together. thanks blogger!

my first time in panama city and i'm shocked. i have no idea what's going on. i've not seen skyscrapers in latin america since mexico city, and before then, not once. this place looks like a shitty mix of san diego and edmonton, and i hate it. i quickly get out and hightail it to san blas.

well. easier said that done. i make it to the road to san blas...40km of the worst hills, all throughout the jungle. i see a man standing on the side of the road selling water, at least, he says he's selling water but when i ask him for some and he walks to his water truck, turns some knobs, and says something i can't understand, but doesn't sell me water. i try to talk to him and he just murmers some weird shit that i don't really understand without making any facial expressions, which i figure is my que to stop bugging him, and i march up a gigantic hill. i start to wonder. one thing the man told me was that there was absolutely no traffic here. lovely. i keep walking. and walking. i have no food and two bottles of water. i keep walking.

sun sets. the jungle sounds like a million sonjas making jungle sounds. who would have thought? it's still really warm out.

the night is long and i wake up multiple times (did i ever fall asleep?) listening to the sounds which now have changed to what sounds like john cage's reinterperatation of bad rave music. one frog (what else could it have been?) has a dubstep wobble as a mating call and some stupid birds have the hoover synth built right into their throat, everything playing out of time, howler monkeys, ever present but never seen, screaming like dying pigs from behind trees, almost danceable beats forming for a bar or two and then disappearing for an hour, nothing making sense...

i wake up (or do i just stop dreaming?) and i decide that walking isn't going to help me much. i can't walk 40k on these hills so i sit under a tree and be the Buddha for a bit, waiting for somebody to serve me a bowl of rice or at least a ride, and it's not happening. waiting. waiting. waiting. suvs pass me and each driver ignores me, even with my tried and tested praying hands motion which works so well down here...the first couple hours are spent bored but that passes and i enter a realm where boredom doesn't exist. soley paranoia, strange thoughts, old thoughts, morphing sounds, oh the sounds, every gust of wind through the leaves of these massive jungle trees transformed into a different truck just over that hill over there, yes, each a different pickup truck with a back full of fruit and just enough space for me...the fruit is ripe and the drivers will look at me with a smile, yes, of course you can have some! it's just over that hill over there...

more hours and my dreams come half true. a truck full of half ripe plantains, with just enough room for me...going half way to san blas.

the plantains are not even half edible. i try to eat one, they won't miss it, right? my mouth goes numb as that time i ate colombian coke and it tastes worse. i realize i am not that hungry.

dropped off in the middle of nowhere, i find an old school phone booth it which provides protection from some nasty rain. i try to call some friends and say "yo, i am stuck in the jungle! but that means i'm almost in colombia! so it's alright!" but the phone is busted, not that i expected anything different being where i was.

another truck comes and picks up the plantains to bring them to san blas and i ask the driver if he can take me and he apologizes and says no, not enough space.

i hang out in this spot for quite a while. i think i went crazy here. or at least did some weird things that i don't usually do.

at some point i saw a baby jaguar. it runs away from me and i grab a big stick and run away, in case la madre is around.

another night.

in the morning a truck picks me up and takes me to the docks of san blas. woooooooohoooooo! i think to myself. all i have to do is ask around and magically some captain will welcome me aboard his boat and i will be in colombia and i will do lots of pure and then go to chile! yes!

no.

i am greeted by some kuna lads. this is how the women dress:

(not my piccie)

pretty cool

but anyways.

the dudes. yeah, these dudes. they were drunk but they don't call it that. they call it happy. and oh boy, are these guys happy. they quickly start fighting over whose house i will stay at tonight and get me wasted. i spend hours playing chess with them, one of whom is actually really good.

"so is this some sort of, uh, ceremony?" i ask.
"yes. we've been celebrating for six days! it's a ceremony for--". i can't understand what it was for. but. it involves lots of sugarcane liquor.

i'm hanging out with elith and marcos and they introduce me to this wise looking dude reading a book. apparently this guy is the teacher of culture. he starts telling me about the kuna's original culture, and my spanish isn't good enough to understand most of it but i like the picture book he's showing me. we drink more and more. elith's dad comes out, already weary from six days of ceremony.

"yo soy...EL PADREEEEE!!!!!!!" he spits out. i smile. "si?" not really knowing how to respond to that.

i guess that wasn't good enough. he says it again. and again. i start talking more to elith and i can hear this dude constantly yelling, to me or to the culture man or to god, I AM THE FATHER, over and over.

we get progressively happier and elith and marcos are falling over themselves reading me kuna poetry in...the kuna language. i tell them i don't understand. they don't care. this goes on for hours, with the dad occassionally interjecting to say that he was indeed the dad. marcos looks at me and says "yeah, he's the boss!". padre looks happy and yells his one and only truth louder.

i take a quick break to ask everyone on the island about the boat situation. nope. looks like i'm fucked for about a week according to some dudes. on guy tries to take me to "colombia city" for 50 bucks. where is colombia city, i ask him. it's the capital! he tells me. i tell him that there is no colombia city (wait, looking it up, there looks to be a colombia village, which is completely landlocked). he keeps on insisting there is. i didn't go with him.

later, back at elith's house, elith is happy as hell and telling me about how we are brothers, and it's honestly one of the most heart touching things i have experienced. this dude is awesome. but it's not long before he starts screaming JESUS CHRIST!! IN!!! MY HEART!!!!

in the morning i look at my lifestyle down here, i look at my current financial situation and realize that i don't really even want to go to south america on no money. i can travel for free, the last two and a half weeks i've been doing it pretty well, but sometimes i like buying food, sometimes i like beer, and sometimes i would like to be able to have a hostel or whatever. and i look at my boat situation: i can't live on these islands for what i have for a week. i shrug my shoulders, hop on the boat back to that terrible jungle trail, and do it all over again. after getting searched by the panamanian military i got a ride out pretty easily, thankfully, straight to panama city, where i stayed in the ghetto, hung out with cokeheads, ate shitty diner food and found a love for that piece of shit. i love panama city. just saying.

i left panama city just as i learned there was a four day fiesta. SHIT. the fiestas down here...!!! i party for like, two hours with my backpack like an idiot and leave.

but hey. my first real adventure i traveled over 10,000km solely by thumb. i don't think i have ever had anything to prove, but now i know i don't.

but let it be said that i am someone who only does things in halves.

can i say even that? i never thought i could get to chile. fuck. i never thought i'd make it to mexico. i just told everyone and myself that to propel myself as far as i could, seeing just where the hell i'd end up. and panama wasn't too bad, honestly.

i've found a love for this place like nothing ever before. i left my heart in mexico (in many ways!) and the rest of central america wasn't bad, if not completely amazing. well shit. guess i'll have to do it all over again :)

my first expulsion

at the diner i saw some protests with some dudes in cool masks on the tv. i had no idea what it was about, but obviously people were getting rowdy over something. i dug it of course, not knowing what it was about but the underdog is always right (well almost always), and promptly forgot about it. after a long time no one was picking me up and i had no idea why, central america is the easiest place to get a ride and panama didn´t seem to change that rule. after hours of walking in the heat i this one hospital administrator, marvin, stopped me on the side of the road and ushered me into his car. he warned me that we could only go so far, that the indians were blocking the roads. good for them i say, and he gives me a worried look. we don´t talk about it again for a while, but i start to get confused. aren´t all these people indians?

night falls and we keep driving up to a huge line of cars. apparently it´s 20km on both sides. i see a way for marvin to keep driving forward.

"marvin, you must keep driving. i want to meet the indians. i want to tell them that i think they rule"
"what are you talking about?"
"i want to give them a high five. shake their hands"
"but why? look at this line!"


marvin looks at me and i don´t think he understands why this looney white boy he just picked up has any opinion on this sort of situation. he tells me to get out of his car and walk to them if i wanted to see them that badly. okay!

i walk maybe two kilometers and give up. there is a beautifully intense lightning storm in the distance and i set up my mat and watch it. the whole thing seemed so poetic...thousands of stranded cars, some dudes putting up a fight for their homes and maybe even winning, at least for a couple of days, amazing lightning, great weather, amazing view of the stars...wasn´t this the most perfect, romantic night ever? i contemplate dropping the guatemalan acid i have had in my pocket for weeks but then think better, realizing i was totally high on life. oh god, did i seriously just write that? but yeah. it was awesome.

later (not sure when) traffic started moving again and i felt a tinge of sadness, got a ride with some lunatic shirtless trucker, and woke up in santiago.


well. i guess you just had to be there.
info here

bus art in panama city

panama city is the shit. no, listen to me. it smells like piss, it´s ugly, it is super americanized (but not american, do you understand?). it´s like midgar from final fantasy 7 with more jungle and....okay, maybe not, but it´s great.



but the best part? the public transportation. when i first came to olympia, the first place i visited on this trip, i was immediately smitten. their public transit is cute, it´s mostly honest, no ads on their buses and at most some psas about washing your hands or condoms or something silly. i loved it, it was such a breath of fresh air, especially compared to edmontons ads over the windows, making it impossible to see where the fuck you were. now, why i am i so concerned over buses? fuck if i know, maybe i am autistic. buses are important. i liked olympia´s buses because of the room to breath. now, anyways, that´s pretty minor compared to down here. in panama (and other places in this part of the world, but so far panama has the best!) they don´t just allow room to breath: they exercise this idea that we up north always dream about: the idea of space for public art, at least on the buses. i think that panama is a fantastic (if absolutely ridiculous) representation of what could be.





. i am definitely for destroying uniformity and collectivizing the redecoration of our buses (and our buildings and our streets and our everything really). wizards smoking pipes everywhere. yes.



apparently there is a war to get rid of this art and standardize everything like a good american city. according to the internet it´s been going on for years, and according to some locals it´s going away in august (but who knows, really?). of course i am never coming back to this city if they get rid of it.




i´m not sure how they´re designed. obviously it´s not one bus per driver or what, there must be too high of a turn over rate for that. but some of it´s pretty personal, like portraits of mothers and children and shit. anyone (as if this blog has readership outside my circle of friends, hah!) who knows please tell me. i am terribly interested.