Smellin' the barn!

january 15th, 2008

Kneeling style for the Bangkok "fancy lady" Erawan shrine

C'mon baby, light my incense..Erawan shrine, Bangkok

New contemporary style San Phra Phum, Bangkok

New contemporary style San Phra Phum, Bangkok

I promise that this won’t be the epic that the Burma blog was….

The last days in Asia were to be spent tying up loose ends like shooting the famous Erawan Shrine and also finding this new style glass spirit house and then meeting up with new "old" friends, Satayaphorn, Roland, Patrick Durand and (get this name)..Bob Livingston. He actually lives in Austin and is one of the few musicians who can claim the title of a founding father of the “cosmic cowboy” music scene in Texas in the early 70’s which is responsible for making my experience as a fun loving and usually stoned teenager in south Texas a musically fun one. Those were some really happy times for me and he was helping supply the most appreciated soundtrack..Thanks Bob, that was some great music...

He played with many of the era’s greats like Michael Murphy and Jerry Jeff Walker. Bob is a good guy with lots of interesting stories to tell… He and his son Tucker have a cool gig with the US State Department playing their music at different US embassies around the world. When I met up with Bob at his hotel, he was wrestling with the disaster of replacing his freshly snapped guitar neck…

Trans culture
San Phra Phum & Christmas tree at Bob Livingston's hotel, Bangkok

It was fun (for me) cruising around on the wild goose chase of locating the only decent guitar in Bangkok, which was a Martin 00-28 that he could use for his big gig at the US ambassador’s house party the following night.

(The other) Bob Livingston, not so lucky...yet

Ben and "lucky" Bob Livingston in Bangkok at "Yellow Momma" Guitar shop Bangkok, Thailand

Bob was nice enough to get me invited and I was really excited about the opportunity too cut loose with one of my dreamy Benny Goodman style kazoo solos but unfortunately, I fell sick and had to bail.. from all meetings. What a bummer.

Taipei

Today will last for 36 hours.

They’re wearing Levi’s and non- counterfeit sweatshirts in “earth tone” colors with recognizable or no slogans here. Gaudy-Chinese styled, half worn out sequined flip flops have been replaced by expensive Ecco and hip “animal friendly” Dansko shoes…I am sitting by two other white guys who look like they’ve never missed a meal. And just like me, they are focused on their virgin white Mac laptops…No doubt, this is the right gate for San Francisco.

I woke up at 3:36AM on my watch’s time, and now, by that same time, it says that it’s 12:06PM, Sunday, 1-20. The time that I am fixed on though, is the one back home in Texas that I am closing in on, one second, one minute, one hour at a time until the wheels of my plane touch that Austin Bergstrom tarmac at 4:45PM and right now in Austin, it is only 11:…oh my God, I swear I just looked at my watch and it turned to 11:11PM.. I swear to GOD! Really it did!

That was a love letter from home if I ever did see one. Thanks Patti! (In case you didn’t know, we were married on 11-11.)

Okay, now it’s 11:13PM and that means that it’s not even midnight last night yet in Austin…That’s okay, I’m going to try and sleep on that clock once we get in the air.

Only 17 hours to go!

I remember when it was 24 hours to go, this seems like a lot less now that the first leg is done and people are speaking English on their cell phones.. I know this because I have a bad habit of eaves dropping on everyone around me..I can’t help it.. I don’t even enjoy doing it.. In fact I find it disturbing and definitely distracting to be getting all of those signals coming in from everywhere all the time. Did you see “wings of Desire? It’s a little bit like that. That’s one of the great benefits of a foreign language speaking destination for me. I’ve said it before. It’s very comforting for me to not understand what anybody’s talking about..

There is a big quarantine thing going on here in Taipei. They have big carpeted areas that are marked “disinfectant” and all of these stations that ask for you to stop and get checked out if you are feeling ill. I wonder where the post complaint aisle takes you? Maybe a big cell where Lysol spritzes on a big crowd of hypochondriacs…Nothing too special about this place except that it seems a lot quieter and cleaner than the mainland ROC. I did notice a billboard where Taiwan was pleading to be recognized by the UN..I don’t know what that was about, Whatever..

Over the Pacific Ocean…

Before takeoff, I always like to perform a rather extraordinary Qi Gong procedure (that I learned from two great teachers of mine for whom I am forever grateful, Don Zhang & Ed Fleischman) which I adapted to look after the airplane and passengers on a flight, where in meditation, I spin up a ball of chi inside my belly until I feel very good inside and full of energy, as though there was a bright light glowing inside of me. Then with my mind I guide that bright light up into my solar plexus and let it glow for a while. Then I move it through and around the ribcage, down and back up my spine, all the way up into my head. As I begin to feel a pressure of that light building inside my head, I will actually see something that looks like an fiery red-orange ball that seems to be projected and undulating inside of my forhead..I love that!

Then I open up my the meridians of my body and flood my entire skeleton with light. Now THAT is an awesome feeling!

When that kind of pitch gets going, I know that I have generated enough energy to project it out from myself and envelop the entire airplane in a really beautiful golden white light of protective chi, wings, fuselage, wheels, pilots, passengers and all. I find it a really lovely thing to do. I’ve never been involved in a crash so I guess it’s working so far. Funny thing is, is that the other day at the airport for Inle Lake when our plane’s electrical system failed, that was the only time that I’d forgotten to do it.

The Dramamine is not strong enough to keep me asleep anymore but I am definitely without an edge.
It’s 6:07AM in Austin, and we just crossed the international date line a little while ago. We are somewhere in between Alaska and Hawaii. I have no idea what time it is right here, right now, but suddenly it’s yesterday and the thing says that we still have over 2600 miles to go to SFO. That’s about 4.5 hours. We’re over the half way mark so that’s good!

I hope that they are kind to me at customs in San Francisco, because I am assuming that I will be really tired and I have a lot of stuff to go through…

Back to the present…There is a Chinese chick who’s got her head cocked back and is sound asleep next to me. Unfortunately, she seems to have a cold and is a mouth breather. Her breath is terrible, and to make matters worse, she just finished off a nasty 25 cent bowl of dehydrated ramen that United Airlines realizes they can get away with serving (just add water.)

It’s like she just shoveled more bio hazardous waste into the stinky factory.…Oh man, I am really missing the green green grass of home!

HAZMAT 9-11!

I wonder if she’d notice if I lobbed one of my “Rabbi strength” Tic Tacs into her fuming pie hole??

LOL!!! That was a good one, wasn’t it? God, I am getting really dingy…

I have to say that as of smelling the barn about a week ago, I’m not quite the Asia-file that I was before that. Maybe it’s because I have been privy to seeing past the jovial veneer that is designed for tourists. Maybe it’s more like I am feeling “done” and homesick.

Lately, I have been thinking more about this time over here in Asia, and what it really is about, what I might have learned. What does it represent in my life experience?

I have been a very busy reporter processing all situations through my personal filter and then spiting it out on MS word almost like a flowing art exhibit.

I have to say that as far as a documentary is concerned, I am very satisfied, if for no other reason, it is very much from my heart and I am proud of my unusual tenacity in pulling this “thing” off.

But now it feels more like a time for reflection, and that is bringing me to a place where I am happy with where I have arrived at in my life as I approach my 50th birthday. I have created a rare opportunity to observe my maturation process without distraction and to take stock of how it’s working “in here” as it’s happening “out there”.

My life within has always been a bit of a struggle, not in a bad way, just always “me going through something” as Patti says. But actually, it’s more like something’s going through me. I feel like I have always been in what seems like an almost constant state of process in one way or another. It’s just my lot.

Looking back, I can see that I worked really hard in my younger years struggling to support an ego that was quite a delicate “house of cards.” I was very concerned with appearances. I’d observe people who interested me for whatever reason, and I’d try on pieces of their personality in order to enhance my own. I guess one could say I wasn’t very comfortable with myself as I was always making adjustments like that... Aparantly, I was driven by deep longing for acceptance by others and looking back, that’s a really tough job trying to fill that bottomless pit.

Luckily, at around 38 years old, a couple of stupid ass arrogant Neurologists couldn’t come up with anything better than telling me that I had Muscular Dystrophy and the fate of that nonsense broke my unconscious stride of immortality and down that house of cards came a fallin’.

With a lot of help from help from my friends, It’s been an amazing and circuitous route coming to terms with myself and this wonderful world that resides inside and out.

From that place and as far as the Spirit house “book” idea is concerned, I suppose it’s only natural to be asking myself why? What is it about these Spirit houses that intrigues me enough to want to go to all this trouble? The original answer was simple and unrefined..”There was no book on the subject, so hell, I’ll just go and make one”..

Using business speak, such as ”filling a nitche in the market” is always a great excuse and justification enough to shut down most questioning in the western world. That was the “classic” that would always excuse me from family obligations in the past because parents push so hard for their kids self sufficiency, it’d be very counter productive to question the “workaholic, as they are the modern “martyr” of the family.

As long as we’re “doing business” it’s amazing what we can get away with both ethically and morally in this undeveloped society of ours. “Hey man, don’t take me fucking you over personally, that’s just business.”

It’s a rare person (including myself ½ of the time) who understands the value in what one might just be drawn to do for no particular reason…”Just because” ishould be reason enough…

I’d convinced myself and those around me that because I was going to “fill this nitche in the market” I was on some kind of self-imposed business trip. Hey, that ought to elevate me as an artist into an elite class of "author", not having to answer to anyone, buy cool camera equipment and write stuff off on my taxes and so forth.

In retrospect, this all sounds like great excuses that I made up to keep myself going on a mission that I had no real idea about, but just obsessively horded inertia for…I still don’t know why, except that in the past whenever I am so directly driven like this, a perfect answer always eventually presents itself. Like Dan Morris says, “sometimes you shoot an arrow at one target and hit the bulls eye of another.”

A great example would be my buying the house I live in for the simple reason that I didn’t want to drive all the way out to my lake house after late night domino games in town. Little did I know that the fate of that new house for me, lived in the house next door…

That’s where Patti and Autumn were living…The rest is history, present and future. Now there’s a spirit house….

In a land there’s a town,
and in that town there’s a house,
and in that house, there’s a woman.
And in that woman there’s a heart I love,
I’m gonna take it with me when I go.

Isn’t Tom Waits great!


Back to why?
I thought it might be interesting to link a metaphor to one’s “inner Spirithouse”..That sounds all poetic but I’m not convinced that that really matters that much to me. I am fond of the idea as far as to what my former self might call a “hook” but personally, it’s just not resonating..That sounds more like the old “me” thinking that others will think I’m a more prestigious or interesting person if I’m writing a book… Oh brother..

My answer to that is: You know, I really don’t want to write a fucking book anymore, not without a good reason…I have no palette for cheap wine that is made just to sell. That would demand so much more of my energy than I am willing to give to an undefined project and furthermore, that, as an end in itself continues to beg the question: WHY? What’s this need for a product?

Oh by the way, did I mention that just last Wednesday, I went into “Asia Books” in Bangkok to have a look around as Satayaphorn had suggested a month and a half ago…Low and behold, there they were, not one, but three books on Spirit houses right there on the shelf.. My heart sank for about an hour, until I poured through the one that I felt obliged to buy, and I noted how cold it left me.

Maybe I’m burnt out on this stuff, I don’t know, it’s too soon to tell. Or, maybe it’s just that that “something”, has gone through me.. Maybe, I’ve unwittingly done just what I set out to do… Now there’s a lucky strike!


There’s a lot to learn
From wasting time
There’s a heart that burns
There’s an open mind.

There goes that Neil again. Thanks Neil.

Now that I have written on line in such an organic fashion, it seems that that actually publishing a book is a very finite concept. However, what is great about a book, is that it is a document that doesn’t require electricity or an internet connection. That’s important, especially if you are in a place like Myanmar.. (which is a place that it would never be allowed).

If it were to become a book, I’d have to say that short of a good cleanup and editing job, I am very satisfied and feel like I am almost finished with it just as it is..

I guess At this point, further pursuit comes with demand, so dear readers, let me know if you’d like to see this in print and if enough of you do, then I’ll keep it going. Otherwise, I have to get with the program, find a new studio and figure out how to rearrange my life as a working artist in Austin, Texas when I get home.

www.beneon.com

I am so grateful to my friends Trevor, Marica and Lynsey who, believe it or not, had to talk me into doing this blog thing. I have always been a compulsive journal writer when I travel and I have stacks of them to show for it, but online journaling is an incredible medium. It has introduced me to a phenomenal world of totally interactive and organic ways of writing and publishing in “real time”, which at any other point in time before now, would have been impossible.


With about 60 gigabytes of photos, and way over 30,000 blogged words behind me. I can at least say that if nothing else, the Spirit house has proven to be an excellent key that has unlocked so many doors that I never would have never even known about as far as Asian culture and rituals and the structure of human belief, which I have come to recognize as a necessity to our psychological survival as human beings. Many kind and receptive people have taken me in and so generously shared information about their beliefs and rituals which are so richly and intricately woven into their collective cultural tapestry.

The most consistent observation I have found throughout my travels in Asia leads me to this thought:

The greatest non fiction of all, is the fiction that we are taught to believe in.


It is now 7:43AM in Austin….and I’m gonna take a nap.

Oh my God, Lil' Ms. Stinky mouth next door just woke up and produced a box of Tic Tacs from her purse.. Hallelujah!!!


Now it’s 8:02AM in Austin, Shit, I gotta get some shut eye!

Well I managed to sleep a little and now I am here in the SFO airport food court. Had I not been stuffed like a foie gras bound goose on the flight over, this brick oven cooked pizza would smell even better.

The vibe here in America is so different. Suddenly a friendly smile followed by the words please and thank you is just not something I can to expect to see or hear anymore. I can’t help but to compare this to trying to exchange a smile with a lot of women in Austin, particularly at places like Whole Foods. They should feel safe enough to be friendly as their feminism is protected by a large politically correct community, but when I smile, what I get back is a look like I’ve just violated them or one of those “what are you looking at” kind of faces. Youth really is wasted on the young..

One would think that in America, people would be friendlier in a place that the world is dying to get to live out their “dream”, but that’s not the case..I guess it gets back to what my Burmese friend Roland told me about the real cost of a high standard of living that comes with high expectations rather than simply a “quality of life” that doesn’t.

It’s all about feeling threatened around here. “Homeland security – threat level ORANGE”…It’s really up tight and very expensive, but it’s what I know and I am still happy to be going home to Austin. I know one girl that’s gonna be smiling at me!


January 27th 2008

So now it’s a week since I got home. It’s cold outside in this Texas winter…Quite a switch from the sticky heat of Bangkok..
Jet lag lingers and my little internal German timekeeper is back in service, and is as usual, relentless. I am at Magnolia Café on Congress. I got here at about 4AM. It was really loud and totally packed and with a waiting list, I couldn’t believe it!

Now it’s 7AM, and the vibe has completely changed here. It’s not Saturday night anymore. The vampires and night beat policemen have all gone home and are all tucked in for a long day of sleep. Now that the Sunday paper has been thrown, and the sky is turning pink in the east, it’s quiet, the place has been vacuumed and there has been a shift change. The wretched looking speed freak from before, who’s hands trembled as she poured my coffee, has been replaced by a sweet caring young lady who is enjoying soft and unthreatening exchanges with and the older folks who (like me) wake up early and don’t know what else to do with themselves. I'd bet they even cleaned the bathroom which could only have been compared to a Chinese bus stop.

Now it’s 7:43AM and exactly one week later to the minute that that Chinese girl next to me on the plane from Taipei popped that fateful and fabulous Tic Tac in her mouth…

Like my dad used to say, “What comes around goes around"…It’s all good!

Now it's 9:35AM, Time to wrap it up and go home to bed..

Burma, "008" & "009" watching 007 on my laptop during another blackout.

Unloading those really great $5 "ant proof" Burmese water urns.

The dream that still is Shwedagon