GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT!

First off, in case anyone was concerned, I am alive and well and more than 2,000 miles away from the fires in Victoria. They are pretty horrific. Nearly 200 people have died already. Australians aren’t very used to large-scale natural disasters, and this one is hitting home hard. It’s nice to know that my current job has contributed to the relief efforts, but we’ll get to that in a bit.Where were we? Ah, yes. Darwin.

Darwin was getting way too hot and boozy. Before I left the Top End, I took a three-day tour of Kakadu National Park. I expected to encounter all sorts of freaky Aussie critters, and I was not disappointed. We saw frilled lizards, emus, pythons, crocodiles, dingoes, and wallaroos (too big to be a wallabie, too small to be a kangaroo). But the creatures that I will remember most from my Kakadu experience were the thousands upon thousands of flies that were buzzing around my sweaty head at any given moment. Australian flies crave the salty goodness of human perspiration. It is widely known that I am The Sweatiest Man in the World, and when The Sweatiest Man in the World went to Kakadu, The Sweatiest Place in the World, a perfect storm of Sweatiness erupted. The flies of Kakadu greeted me like manna from heaven. From dawn ‘til dusk, they never left me alone. They didn’t bite. Instead they just buzzed and crawled all over my face, occasionally creeping into my eyelids as I tried to appreciate ancient Aboriginal rock paintings (many of which are sex education literature in hieroglyphic form).Still, Kakadu was pretty awesome. We did some nice walks and took lots of dips in spectacular swimming holes. The highlight of the trip was our first night of camping, when I ate kangaroo meat and played a didgeridoo under a full moon while dingoes howled in the distance – my most quintessentially Australian experience so far. I barely got a wink of sleep and the tour group was kind of lame, but it was still a good time. It was our tour company’s last trip before they shut down for the wet season, and our guide made no secret that he was trying to score an English girl from another tour group at the campsite as a year-end bonus. Not sure if he succeeded.After several farewell drinks with my Darwin friends, I took to the skies and flew to Perth. Flying over the vast expanse of Western Australia was humbling. Gazing out my window, I could see astoundingly little evidence of human development – just miles upon miles of desert punctuated by the occasional mine site or dirt road to nowhere. The in-flight movie was “Mamma Mia,” so many of my future reminiscences of the Outback will be scored not with “Waltzing Matilda” or “Blue Sky Mine,” but with “Waterloo” and “Dancing Queen.” Thanks, Qantas. And for the record, Pierce Brosnan can’t sing for shit.

If Darwin is Australia’s version of a Texas oil rig town, then Perth is an Aussie San Diego – nice weather, great beaches, suburban sprawl, a mellow populous, not a whole lot of character, but still a nice place to live. My buddy Sam got me my current job, which involves me standing on the street and encouraging strangers to donate money to charitable organizations. It’s not as hard as it might seem (I got promoted!). You just gotta learn to deal with constant rejection. If I get four sign-ups a day, I’m doing well. The easiest people to sign up are recent African emigrants, and there are plenty of them in Perth. I’ve signed up folks from Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe (I had no idea there were so many white people from Zimbabwe). Black, white, male, female, old, young – the Africans are very charitable and generous. Without a doubt, the hardest demographic to sign up is suit-wearing, white dudes. Shocker.

I suppose that I can’t get through this entry without mentioning the election of Barack Obama. I watched the results come in at The Fox Ale House, one of the pubs I worked at in Darwin where my buddy Carboni was nice enough to let me put on the big screen TV. A girl from California strolled by the pub and watched it with me. As nice as it was to hear Australians cheering and applauding the speech of a soon-to-be American president, it was great to be able to share that moment with a fellow Yank. Hope home is treating you well, Marie! As for the inauguration, I was at a hostel in Busselton where I had to wake up at 1:30 AM to watch live coverage. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a live inauguration, not even for Clinton. I was hoping for some momentous “The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself” quote from Obama, which never really surfaced. But I suppose the fact that such a seemingly decent, intelligent, charismatic and inspiring person who just happens to be a black man became the president of the United States in front of a crowd of millions of proud, hopeful and motivated Americans speaks for itself. America, FUCK YEAH!!!!

Back to Australia…

Perth was Heath Ledger’s hometown. As big a city as Perth is, its isolation gives it a small-town familiarity, and all the locals seem to know someone who actually knew Heath or at least knows one of his family members. His Academy Award nomination for “The Dark Knight” came on the anniversary of his death, and made front-page news here. Assuming (and it’s a safe bet) that he receives a posthumous Oscar, it will be interesting to see how Perth reacts. I wonder what it must be like for his family to walk around Perth, where “Dark Knight” merchandise is inescapable, looking at images of their boy and his now iconic incarnation of The Joker displayed on posters, DVDs and t-shirts in every other store window. If any Ledgers are reading this, you have my sympathies.And if there are any Academy members reading this, how the hell could you not nominate “The Dark Knight” for Best Picture and Best Director? What the fuck is wrong with you people? The movie is beloved by audiences and critics the world over. It has a great story, terrific acting, and superlative technical artistry. It is now the second highest-grossing movie ever made. You gave the film eight other nominations, but just couldn’t see it in your crooked little hearts to give it the big ones, presumably because it is based on a comic-book character and therefore must be kid stuff - incapable of exploring significant psychological or dramatic terrain. That attitude is snobby and retarded. Why does Stephen Daldry have three (THREE!!!) Best Director nominations to his credit while Christopher Nolan has zero? The man has never made a bad movie. You weren’t even this mean to Spielberg in his early days. Wake up, douchebags!

Ah, well, at least some other genuinely decent movies got nominated, and it will be fun watching my former boss tackle the hosting duties.

Perth will most likely be my last major stomping ground in the Land of Oz. My vague plan is to save up money here, see a bit more of the outback (not sure where or what exactly – somewhere ABBA-free, if possible) and then head homeward in April. My big dilemma now is deciding which way to go. Next time you’re near a globe, find Perth and then find Boston. I am nearly as far away from home as the North Pole is to the South Pole. I could go east or west and spend about the same amount of money and travel time. As nice as it is, how the hell did I end up here?

Shameless Self-Promotion Alert!!!!

Click here to view the trailer for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," the movie that completely consumed my life just a year ago. After all the hard work that thousands of people put into the production, it is hugely gratifying that the trailer looks as good as it does, biased as I am. I was physically present for pretty much every shot that features a motorcycle, helicopter, explosion, mountain scenery and/or Hugh Jackman fighting with Liev Schreiber. When I was a kid and fantasized about making movies, this is the kind of stuff I saw myself working on. The movie will be released on May 1st, and I hope it lives up to the trailer!

In the meantime, dear readers, I hope you all survive the Global Financial Crisis with your life savings intact. For those in the movie biz, try to get gigs on funny flicks – Hollywood thrived during the 1930s thanks in great part to cheaply made screwball comedies. To all my “Pineapple Express” buddies, keep Judd Apatow on speed dial, and please put in a good word for me!

TROPIC THUNDER

It’s been a long time coming. Here goes:

Got a job at a resort near Port Douglas in northern Queensland. Lived in the jungle for 6 weeks and damn near lost my mind due to isolation and immobility. It was pretty, but living there was akin to living in Jurassic Park without any dinosaurs to make it entertaining. Made some friends. Had some laughs. Got outta there. Got a bus back to Cairns. Didn’t like it there, either. Flew to Darwin. Darwin is hot. Really hot, and I don’t mean Paris Hilton’s definition of hot. Darwin is closer to the Equator than it is to Sydney. Since my arrival in late August, we have been experiencing “The Build Up” which is the transition period between the dry and wet seasons. That means that every day it gets a little more oppressively hot and humid until the big rains come. Mother Nature’s got PMS, and we’re all feeling the wrath.

Territorians, as the locals are known up here in the Top End, have a name for the craziness that everyone feels this time of year. They say that someone has “gone troppo” if he or she displays strange and/or violent behavior. I’ve seen plenty of it first hand. It’s not just the heat. The history, geography and social structure of Darwin all contribute. The Northern Territory is sort of an Australian Texas. Unlike the rest of Australia, the NT is not technically a state, something of which Territorians are quite proud. There is very much a frontier element around these parts, and no wonder. The local ports and military facilities see hundreds of sailors, miners, soldiers and oil rig workers come and go every day. There’s a crucial shortage of ladies up here and bars are packed every night with sexually frustrated dudes knocking back pints, anxiously waiting for the wet t-shirt contests to begin. Flashings and fisticuffs are frequent. Darwin has beaches, but it’s not safe to swim this time of year thanks to deadly box jellyfish and the occasional crocodile. If there’s a public pool, I haven’t found it. Chilling out in Darwin is a challenge.

That said, I still kinda dig the place. Right next to my hostel is Crocosaurus Cove, which houses “the worlds largest collection of Australian reptiles.” They have all sortsa beasties in there, including an albino croc named Snowy, even though he’s really a pale shade of brown. A couple of weeks ago, I got to escape to Litchfield National Park, where there are some awesome croc-free rock pools and waterfalls (too bad it’s an hour and a half drive from here!). I managed to get a decent job at a bar and have made some good friends. As usual, most of them are Irish. Are there any young people left in Ireland? The Union Jack in the Australian flag should really be replaced with the Emerald Isle’s green, white & orange. Every Sunday night, some buddies of mine would play traditional Celtic music at a local pub, and all of Darwin’s Irish Diaspora would show up. Good times! Sucks that The Galway Boys are leaving for the East Coast this week. Gonna miss ya, lads!Oh yeah, I turned 30 a few days ago. I got the whole weekend off. It was, um… well it was fun. I think. Yeah. Pretty sure it was fun. Anyway, my current plan is to work 2 or 3 more weeks in Darwin, check out Kakadu National Park, and then find my way down the west coast to Perth where friends, gainful employment, and swimmable beaches await. I’ve heard that Darwin’s gender imbalance is reversed there, so that’s another selling point.

When I first decided to go traveling two years ago, I figured that I’d do one year in New Zealand and then come back to American reality. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Recently, I decided to ditch my open-ended ticket home (which expires November 4th) and use up the rest of my Australian visa, which is good through late April. Much thought and consideration went into that decision. The toughest thing about traveling has been missing big events back home, be they happy or sad. I’ve missed Christmases, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, births, and, worst of all, deaths. To all my family and friends back home, I want you all to know that I think about you every day and love you all so much! There will be much catching up to do when I get back. Take care of yourselves and be well!

Until then, vote Obama and enjoy the video below, which manages to be sexy, funny and inventive whilst making a statement about censorship. I promise it will brighten your day!

The BPA - Toe Jam Featuring David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal
Uploaded by TheBrightonPortAuthority

CELTIC PRIDE, REEFER MADNESS & INDEPENDENCE DAY

Enough with the cunts.

While I sorted out the replacement passport and credit cards, I settled into a semi-comfortable existence at Noah’s Backpackers on Bondi Beach near Sydney. It was a fun place with lots of cool people and just a couple minutes walk to the ocean. The place was bursting with travelers from all over, but mostly Ireland. I met more Irish than Aussies in Bondi and learned some valuable bits of Celtic slang:

“What’s the craic?” = “How’s it going?”
“Your man” = “Some guy” or “That guy”
“Moik, ya cunt!” = “Mike, my friend, it is good to see you!”

I guess I wasn’t done with the cunts. At least they were friendly cunts.Irish backpackers are in such great numbers around Bondi that many of the locals have taken a dislike to them. Never in my lifetime did I expect to encounter “No Irish Need Apply” hiring practices, but I did in Bondi. Here’s a brief transcript of my interview for a bartending gig:

BAR MANAGER: So, Michael, where are you from?

ME: From the US, outside of Boston.

BAR MANAGER: And you’re backpacking around Australia?

ME: Yes, but I’m going to need to work for a while to finance more travel. It will take me some time to save up enough cash, so I’m looking for something full time.

BAR MANAGER: Well, let me be frank. I’ve had bad experiences with backpackers. I won’t hire Irish anymore because they’re so unreliable.

ME: Ah, well my name is Moran and I’m Irish-American.

KIWI BAR MANAGER: Well, you’re more American than you are Irish.

I was a bit stunned by those last couple lines of his and didn’t really have time to process them, so the interview continued. He ended up offering me a trial shift, which I didn’t show up for. I may never have been to Ireland, but for that guy to say that I’m “more American than Irish” took brass ones. To take that job would have been spitting on the graves of my ancestors. Instead, I embarked on a series of “labouring” jobs. These included holding up paintings and sculptures at art auctions, mixing cement, digging holes, and shoveling various materials. I also helped an old Iranian guy build a porch (“Why, OF COURSE I have construction experience!”). The cash slowly added up, and I escaped north to Airlie Beach.

Airlie was a nice, if not overly friendly town where people book boat trips out to the Great Barrier Reef. I signed up for a 3-day trip on the Pacific Star, and it was great. We left the marina at night and motored out to the Whitsundays, which are a gorgeous group of islands between the mainland and the reef. On our first morning, we did a quick hike to stunning Whitehaven Beach. It was a bit cloudy, but the beach was nonetheless gorgeous. I have never felt sand so soft. My feet sunk 2 inches with each step. I also spotted a stingray just offshore. Pretty damn cool.The next day, we made it out to the outer reef. And yes, it is amazing. We hooked onto a mooring and stayed there all day. The water was dazzlingly clear and innumerable fish swam all around the boat. I did three dives that day, where I saw all kinds of fish and coral. The coolest dive was the night dive. We jumped in the water just after sunset and stayed down for about half an hour. All we had to light our way around were some flashlights and a light from the boat. So spooky and cool! We spotted a sea turtle sleeping on the bottom and huge fish would drift in and out of sight. It was like a submerged haunted house, but with friendly ghosts. Awesome stuff. On our final day, we headed back to port with some quick snorkeling stops. We’d spot turtles and manta rays just off the boat and some humpbacks breaching in the distance. Getting back on dry land was a bummer!

There aren’t too many work or accommodation options in Airlie, so I took an overnight bus to Cairns (rhymes with “cans”) to do some job hunting. It’s a relatively small city that mostly exists as a gateway to the reef and the tropical north. I’ll most likely get a gig here or do some fruit picking, if it comes down to it (I hope it doesn’t!).By the way, the 4th of July totally sucks in Australia. Granted, there aren’t too many Americans in this part of the country, but in a city overflowing with backpackers you’d think at least one of the numerous bars in town would have some kind of Independence Day celebration. Some of the bars in Airlie had Canada Day parties a few days ago. No such luck for the Yanks. The closest I could find to an American party was a bunch of drunk college kids from Maryland running around the streets with sparklers. They were nice enough, but 5 minutes was all I could tolerate with a bunch of hammered 18-year olds. Instead, I did my patriotic duty and got a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese McValue Meal®. A nice surprise came in the form of a Samuel Adams Boston Lager, which I found at a local bar. Those of you who know me know that I loves me some Sam. It had been nearly 2 years since I’ve tasted my favorite beer from home, and it went down nicely (but not cheaply - $8.90!!!!). God Bless America!Oh, yeah! Congrats to the Boston Celtics! Once again, my home team has won a championship and I am thousands of miles away and unable to watch! Not that I’ve ever been a big basketball fan, but it would have been nice to see. I have some very faint memories of their 1986 victory, mostly germinating from the giant Kevin McHale poster that adorned my childhood wall and charted my growth. That was kind of cruel, in retrospect. Why give a kid with insecurities about his height a life-sized poster of an NBA player complete with measuring marks along the side? There should have been a word bubble coming out of Kevin’s mouth reading “Little Michael, no matter how much milk you drink or how many jumping jacks you do, you will never be as tall as me. In fact, this poster will give you an exact figure as to how tall I am versus how short you are. Try gymnastics.” That would have better prepared me for the realities of life. Oh, well.

TOMATO/TOMAHTO

“Cunt” is a loaded word. In North American English, there is probably no more offensive word, with the possible exception of a few racist slurs. It is strictly feminine, and used only to degrade a woman in the worst possible verbal way. Having grown up in a feminist household, I was taught to never, ever use this word… even though I’ve heard my sisters use it to describe some of their female co-workers. If a man uses this word publicly in the USA, he runs the risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit and/or getting a slap.

In the rest of the English-speaking world, they throw “cunt” around much more freely (no pun intended). It can be feminine or masculine, an insult or a vulgar term of endearment, similar to the way we Americans use “bastard.”

i.e.: “He’s a funny old bastard/cunt.”

No matter the context, “cunt” still carries a bit of tastelessness. I don’t think anyone of any nationality would say it comfortably in front of their grandmother.

It has been 18 months since I left my homeland, and there are certain words and phrases I have added to my vocabulary due to cultural osmosis. I catch myself saying things like “no worries” and “sweet” in the surfer-influenced Pacific Rim manner. When you’re away from home for this long, it just happens. Somehow, though, I had avoided the casual use of the word “cunt.”

Until now…

To the person who stole my American Express card in Thailand and went on a shopping spree… you, sir or madam, are a cunt.

And to the person who stole my daypack from my former hostel in Sydney which contained my passport, work visa, Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate, sunglasses, notepad, and (worst of all) my beloved Nalgene water bottle… you, sir or madam, are also a cunt.

And to the money-grubbing slumlord proprietor of the aforementioned hostel who didn’t see the need to equip his/her rooms with lockers or electrical outlets, or security cameras in the kitchen from whence my bag was stolen despite posters that would indicate the contrary… you are a cunt, too.

That is all.

MISTY MOUNTAIN HOP, SIAMESE DREAM, & THE MERRY OLD LAND OF OZ

I’ve covered more mileage in the past month than in any previous month of my life. I’m in a new city in a new country where I’m searching for a job and a semi-permanent place to crash. Therefore, my editorial skills aren’t up to their usual standard. Here’s the shortest version of my latest journeys that I can muster without leaving out key details.

Brace yourselves.

We finished work on the movie. Well, to be more accurate, the 2nd Unit of the New Zealand crew of The Movie About A Famous Comic Book Character With Claws finished their work. Many hundreds of people will continue to work on the movie on sound stages in Sydney and special effects houses in Los Angeles for the next several months. It’s a big damn movie!

Once the wrap-up partying subsided, I began tying up loose ends in Queenstown. Naturally, that involved a bungy jump and a trek through the wilderness. The bungy jump was the world famous Nevis Highwire Bungy. The Nevis is a 472-foot jump with 8 full seconds of freefall into a rocky chasm. Remember that scene in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey” when they’re falling and screaming on their way to Hell, pause quietly for a moment, and then start screaming again as they continue to fall? The Nevis is just like that. You jump. You scream. You stop screaming. You realize that you’re still falling. And then you scream again before you bounce back up a few hundred feet. My hands were shaking for 10 minutes afterwards. It rocked, and thanks to my flatmate Matt, I got a 20% discount. Cheers, geeza!
The aforementioned wilderness trek was the Routeburn Track. The Routeburn is a 3-day, 24-mile hike through the mountains, gorges and rainforests of the South Island of New Zealand. The first day was great. Sunny skies, fresh air, stunning mountain views and amazing stars at night. The next two days were… not quite so enjoyable. It rained. A lot. And it was windy. Very, very windy. Everything got soaked. Several times, I had to walk through raging streams on steep slopes that could have sent me plummeting down the mountainside a-la “Romancing the Stone.” Didn’t happen, thankfully. The moment I finished the track, the sun came out, and I successfully hitchhiked back to Queenstown (a 3-hour trip). It amazes me still that the two German guys who gave me the lift didn’t kick me out of the car, ‘cause I smelled so horrible after three days in the mud. Danke, dudes! Muchas danke!

After some farewell drinks with friends, I began the very long trip to Bangkok. Many means of transportation were involved in this endeavor. First was the 8-hour bus ride to Christchurch (an interesting city that I wish I saw more of - rent “Heavenly Creatures” someday to see why). Then there was the 6AM flight to Melbourne, where we were meant to have a 4-hour layover. Due to technical issues, we had to take a different plane and spend 14 fucking hours in the Melbourne airport terminal. Jetstar, which is Australia’s answer to Southwest Airlines (you know – Ghetto Air), did their best to compensate us with “refreshment vouchers.” The terminal had no proper restaurant but did have plenty of beer on tap, so basically the whole plane got drunk. Once we were airborne, everyone applauded and then passed out. We landed in Bangkok at 4:30AM. I got a cab to Khao San Road, which is Bangkok’s Backpacker Central. All tolled, from the time I left my cabin in Queenstown to the moment I checked into the D&D Inn in Bangkok, I had been in transit for 52 hours.

Ah, Thailand! You giant nut job of a nation! Bangkok is insane. It is a sweaty, seething, sprawling metropolis that seems to stretch out forever. If you want peace and quiet, do not go to Bangkok. Everything, and I mean everything, is for sale. Everywhere you look are cars, tuk tuks, pushcarts, Buddhist monks, prostitutes, transsexuals (or “Ladyboys” in the local parlance), aged hippies, food and drink vendors, Siamese cats, lactating dogs, counterfeit merchandise, Indian guys relentlessly selling cheap designer suits… it goes on and on. And it’s hotter than the surface of the sun on the muggiest day of all time.

I did my share of cultural stuff. I toured Wat Pho and the Grand Palace, both of which reminded me of World Showcase at Epcot Center. The temples were so astoundingly colorful and opulent, they just… I’m sorry… they were just very Disney-esque. Wat Pho had a 200-foot long golden Buddha laying in a pose that bore a striking resemblance to a reclining Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate.”

“Mr. Buddha, you’re trying to seduce me… aren’t you?” Everything comes back to a movie for me. And I know “The Graduate” is not Disney. But if Walt Disney had directed “The Graduate,” the Robinson’s house would have looked like Wat Pho.

If there is a Buddhist Hell, I’m sure that I’m on my way there thanks to those last few passages.

Anyway, Bangkok was wearing me out, so I took an overnight bus and a ferry to Koh Tao. Koh Tao is a tiny island in the Gulf of Thailand where lots of people go to get cheap scuba diving certifications, myself included. Scuba diving is awesome! It really is like being an astronaut. We saw coral reefs, anemones, stingrays, giant clams, spiny sea urchins, and hundreds of schooling fish. It was fantastic, and I can’t wait to do it again.
My arrival in Koh Tao coincided with Songkran, the Thai New Year. Songkran is crazy. Everyone in the country spends three days dousing strangers with water. Dozens of children, teenagers, and responsible adults were lined up on the side of the dirt road near my dive school with buckets and super soakers. Whenever someone walked or drove by on a moped, they got soaked. As the day went on, it escalated and escalated. I hopped on the back of a truck with about 20 other people. It took more than an hour to get the 5 miles from our beach to Sai Ri, where most of the partying was going on. I have never seen anything like it. Hundreds and hundreds of strangers soaking one another and laughing their asses off. I wish I had pictures, but there was no way I was gonna risk getting my camera saturated. Good times.Scuba certification involved a lot of homework, so once I finished, I decided to move on to a new location for some unadulterated fun. I suppose that I could have headed up north and gotten more of an immersion into Thai culture, but hey, this wasn’t a National Geographic expedition. I was on vacation, so there. Off I went to the party island of Koh Phangan. Koh Phangan is just south of Koh Tao, and backpackers from around the world know it as a massive playground for tropical debauchery. It is home to the world famous Full Moon Parties that take place on Hat Rin Beach. Nearly every night is a party on Hat Rin Beach, but the Full Moon is really huge. Thousands of people rocked out ‘til the sun came up, and then they kept going. Everyone was a little nervous when it began. At the February party, an English guy went missing and was never found. And then in March, a 14-year old Thai kid stabbed a reveller to death. Nothing bad happened this time, thankfully. There was music everywhere, twirling fire sticks, bodies undulating, drinks flowing, 8-year old kids selling seashell necklaces at 3am, dudes pissing in the ocean as others swam in the darkness… it was massive, awesome and exhausting. Again, good times.

At this point, I have to give a shout out to all those European girls who feel completely free taking their tops off on the beach. On Koh Phangan, it was like I won the Boobie Lottery. They were everywhere! Technically, they shouldn’t be taking those things out in Thailand, since Thais don’t do public nudity. Thais go swimming fully clothed when its 100 degrees out, for Buddha’s sake. Didn’t stop those Swedish chicks, though. Cultural sensitivity only goes so far when European breasts are yearning to breathe free and soak up the sun. One funny phenomenon I noticed – some girls would sunbathe topless for hours as hundreds of gawking guys would stroll by, but when these girls decided to go for a swim, they’d walk down the shore covering their boobies with their hands until they got into the water, as if they think guys only look at knockers when they’re in motion. Hate to break it to ya, ladies, but as long as you’re showing them off (and even when you’re not), we’re gonna look at your boobs – bouncing or otherwise. Sorry I have no pictures, but I'm not that much of a perv.

I must also salute Thailand’s fantastic army of massage therapists. I got four massages in Thailand (and get those dirty thoughts right out of your minds, people - they were therapeutic, non-sexual, and totally legit!). Each cost the equivalent of about $10, and they worked wonders. I had a knot near my left shoulder blade that had been driving me insane for five years. It’s gone now. The lady who fixed it had me near tears on the table, but it was all worth it. Yay, Thailand!

So, after partying for a week in Koh Phangan, I had to head back to Bangkok to catch my flights to Australia. Once again, that involved a night bus and a redeye flight. My layover in Melbourne was only delayed by a half hour. And I was headed for Sydney…Crikey! I haven’t been in a big, world-class “western” city for quite a long time, and Sydney impresses easily. Well, the city center is nothing special, but anywhere near the harbor or beaches is pretty awesome. Of course, I had to make my way down to the Opera House as soon as I could. It’s pretty damn cool, but a little smaller than I had imagined. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, however, is friggin’ huge. It’s like the Sagamore Bridge on steroids. I took the train out to the famous Bondi Beach and did a nice walk along the cliffs as thunderstorms and rainbows were forming out over the Pacific. Gorgeous stuff.

When planning my flights to Sydney, I had totally forgotten that my arrival date, April 25th, is ANZAC Day, a major holiday for Australians and New Zealanders. It is sort of their version of Memorial Day, and takes place on the anniversary of the siege of Gallipoli in WWI (Rent the movie. It’s good.) during which thousands of Australian and Kiwi soldiers died. Australia has troops serving and dying in Iraq right now, so this was a big ANZAC Day for them. All over Sydney, there were memorial services taking place. I hung out for one at Martin Place. Hymns were sung, prayers were said, and then the priest reminded everyone “that ANZAC Day is also a day to party.” And party they did. Every guy in Sydney put on a uniform (no matter how far removed from an actual military garb that uniform might be) and hit the pubs. I saw lots of 17-year olds dudes in ill-fitting suits getting turned away by bouncers. It still throws me when I see teens drinking, legally, in public places. So sheltered, we Americans are.

Australia’s criminal history has ended up effecting my arrival in an amusing way. As is turns out, there is an infamous Melbourne crime family named – you guessed it – Moran. There is a bestselling book about the Moran family’s nefarious deeds, and as luck would have it, the book was turned into a miniseries that is currently airing on local television. Thusly, the name Moran is very much in the Australian zeitgeist at the moment. One of the key figures of Melbourne’s Morans is “crime mum” Judy Moran. I have an Aunt Judy. Unless she’s leading a double life organizing the criminal element on Nantucket that I haven’t heard about, she probably bears as much resemblance to her Aussie namesake as I do to any local gangsters of note. Every time I check into a hostel and provide my name, I get second looks. They always check my passport twice and look me up and down. Imagine that I was an Australian backpacker checking into an American hostel under the name Gotti, and you start to get the picture. I suppose that it doesn’t much help that I bear little resemblance to my passport photo anymore. But then again, how picky can a former penal colony really be about such matters?So yeah, Sydney’s nice. It’s Fashion Week here, so there are lots of skinny people running around in designer clothes, making my grubby backpacker attire look all the more shabby (or is it Shabby Chic?). Gotta do some shopping. After the horrendous toilets of Thailand, I wanted to kiss the pristine commodes of Australia. I thought better of it, though. As for exotic antipodean animals, my one sighting so far has been a flock (if that’s the right word) of enormous flying foxes that roost in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Name me another city where you can casually stroll through a lovely park and happen upon hundreds of salivating bats dangling googly-eyed from the trees. You don’t see that on The Common. Other strange encounters include fellow crewmembers from the movie. One of the visual effects guys almost hit me with his car, and I ran into some of the actors in a café in Bondi. Small world. Sadly, the Australian crew is already in place for the duration of the shoot, so I won’t be working on the movie anymore. It would be cool if they let me crash the wrap party, though. That party will rock, I’ll wager. In all likelihood, I’ll have to venture back into Hospitality World. At least the wages are better over here than in New Zealand. They damn well better be, ‘cause Sydney ain’t cheap! Unfortunately, I’m a bit late for the peak beach season here, so I’m gonna have to head up into Queensland to get some decent fun in the sun.

So there you have it, folks – my current life in a nutshell. Once I’ve gotten settled and have hung out with some more crazy Aussie critters, I’ll let you know. Until then, as another International Man of Mystery so eloquently put it, I’m spent.

LORD, I WAS BORN A RAMBLIN' MAN

This is long overdue. The past few months have been insane. You might remember an entry I put up in December in which I ruminated on the World Series, foods I miss, and my new job working on a movie about a famous clawed comic book character. I took that entry down because I didn’t want to risk violating my scary and litigious non-disclosure agreement. I don’t think I violated it, but I didn’t want to run the risk. More on that in a bit…

I hope everyone’s holidays were fun. My own were spent with other goofball travelers. Parties at local hostels. Beer. Barbecues. Funny accents. Fireworks. Same shit as last year. I started early on New Years Eve and ended up falling asleep around 1:30 AM. Not since the late 1980s have I quit so early on New Years. Pathetic.

Another troubling thought – Here in New Zealand where the drinking age is 18, spirits can legally be served to people born in 1990, the year I began puberty. Had I put my biological developments to prodigious use and sired a child, I could now have a drink with him/her to celebrate my liberation from child support payments. Woo hoo! No more Baby Daddy drama!


I missed the Super Bowl. I guess you can’t have the Red Sox and the Patriots win within such a short span of time. When the Pats won in 2002, I was 2 blocks away from the victory parade in Boston. It was absolutely freezing, but that didn’t stop more than a million fans from celebrating in the streets. That particular victory was the first bit of good news Boston had heard in months. It was just after 9/11. Israel was blowing up. The Church scandals were finally coming to light. Anthrax was in the mail. That Super Bowl lifted everyone out of the mire. For the first time in months, everyone was happy (Pats fans, anyway). It would have been even better if my lame-ass boss had actually let us go up to the parade like every other sane boss in The Hub. What a dork.


All of New Zealand was bummed out by the passing of Sir Edmund Hillary, co-conqueror of Mt. Everest. Up until the rise of Xena: Warrior Princess, Sir Ed was the world’s most renown Kiwi, and the national papers ran full page photos and articles commemorating his life and achievements. There is a movement to name a mountain after him, which seems appropriate. I wonder if there’s a Mt. Tenzing somewhere in Nepal. Maybe Mt. Everest should be renamed Mt. Hillary-Tenzing. Shouldn’t the mountain be named after the guys who first climbed it, rather than a former Surveyor-General of India? Compared to Hillary and Norgay, Everest was a punk-ass bitch. Why does he get that naming rights?


Bummer about Heath Ledger, too. He was one of the few young actors to emerge in the past few years with the potential to be a truly interesting and unpredictable leading man, rather than just another overly hyped pretty boy. When I heard he would be playing The Joker, I was fascinated. After such a brilliantly understated performance in “Brokeback Mountain,” I wondered what he would bring to one of the most over-the-top characters ever conceived. What the hell was he gonna do with it? How would he compare with Jack Nicholson? The fantastic trailer for “The Dark Knight” boded well. He looks wonderfully sinister, and I think it would have catapulted him to a new level of stardom. It always depresses me when talented people die too young. At least we’ll have that last glimpse of his talent. RIP, dude.


I managed to catch “Sweeney Todd.” As with any Tim Burton flick, it looks fantastic. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are terrific. But man, what a weird movie! It has nasty people living in a hellish environment committing horrific acts, but they’re constantly singing. I have nothing against musicals. “Moulin Rouge” still ranks as one of my favorite movies of the last decade. I thought “Chicago” was well made, even though it glorifies the kind of people I despise. “Rent” totally sucked. There has never been a musical like “Sweeney Todd.” There are no big production numbers, no dancing, and very little in the way of romance. It is a bloody tale of revenge. Really bloody. The first big throat slashing (and there are many) had me wincing. And they just keep on singing from one gory scene to another. The juxtaposition of form and content was baffling. I walked out a little depressed. I have a hunch that I’ll have to see it again to make my final verdict.

So, yeah. I’m working on a great big movie about a guy with claws. Most of the movie will be shot in Sydney, but there are several weeks of location work here in NZ. When I first started traveling 15 months ago, I never thought that I’d be doing film work. I figured that I’d tend bar or do whatever I needed to survive. Now I am halfway around the world working on a production bigger than any of the shows I worked on in my 3 years in Los Angeles. Isn’t it ironic (dontcha think?)?

At the moment, we are doing night shoots. 6 days a week, usually 14 hour shifts. It’s exhausting. My #1 task on set is to distribute and keep track of nearly 200 walkie-talkies and constantly supply fresh batteries. We’ve shot in magnificent valleys, forests, a mountaintop, and a very muddy lumberyard. We’re supposed to finish in mid-March, but you never know what could happen. If the writers’ strike is 100% resolved, revisions could be made. We shall see. I won’t get to see the Oscars this year, either. Kinda sucks, but I haven’t seen any of the Best Picture nominees anyway.

Until I finish the movie, I will have basically no social life. Once we wrap, I’ll need a week just to catch up on sleep. There are a few things I want to do in Queenstown before I leave, but I’ll be very eager to move on. I’m not sure what the first stop will be, but it will definitely look something like this:

YOU SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO, YEAH!

I turn 29 today. It’s my last birthday in my 20s. One year closer to responsible adulthood (hah!). This is the first birthday I have spent in another country. Interestingly, I have two new friends with the same DOB. First is my new flatmate, Sam. Like 90% of the English folks I have met on this trip, Sam hails from the Manchester area. I have met so many cool people from Manchester. They all talk like Daphne from Frasier. I really need to go there someday. Sam moved into the cabin a couple of weeks ago and keeps himself busy doing construction on one of several hotels going up in Queenstown. He turns 22 today. I remember my 22nd birthday, a huge letdown after the mayhem of my 21st. No one even bought me a drink. Buttheads.

My other birthday mate is Leon, one of my coworkers at Brazz. Leon is from Holland and is very, very tall. The Dutch are statistically the tallest nationality on Earth, and all the proof you need is to see Leon and his Beneluxian friends hanging out together. They are giants. My theory is that they have to be tall in order to survive the inevitable bursting of the dikes. I am very proud of that last sentence. Leon and I were both born in 1978. We did some figuring, and we’re pretty sure that I was born about two hours before him. Thus, I have God-given power over him despite both his occupational seniority and my own diminutive stature. New Zealand has become a more interesting place to live over the last few weeks. The major news of late was the elimination of the All Blacks from the Rugby World Cup by the hated French. This was a major blow to the national psyche, and the Kiwis were so pissed off and disappointed that reports of domestic abuse rose substantially in the days following their defeat. Sound a little crazy? Allow me to put this in perspective. Sports fans outside of North America are a different breed. Sure, in America we have loyalty to our teams and our cities and we get all wrapped up in it and it’s all well and good. We have our own sports and aside from an occasional game with a Canadian team, we don’t pay attention to any athletics outside our homeland. We kind of pretend to care about international events when the Olympics are on, but with no Godless Commies left as major threats the Olympics just aren’t as much fun as they used to be. We are perfectly content with our baseball, football, basketball and hockey. But for folks from pretty much every other nation on Earth however, sport is war. They all play football (don’t call it soccer) and quite a few play rugby, and some play cricket… for some reason. If you are a player for a national team, there is a chance that you’ll be going up against a team with players whom you may recently have met on an actual battlefield. Your grandma might have been thrown into the gas chamber by your opponent’s grandpa. Centuries of ethnic and national rivalries are played out. Lose, and you could face disgracing your nation, color and/or creed. Also, there is a chance that a team from a third world country could defeat the most powerful nations on the planet. So yeah, the Rugby World Cup is a big deal around here.

And just how enthusiastic are All Blacks fans? Here’s a snapshot. In New Zealand, there is no baseball, hockey, basketball or football as we know it in America. Imagine all the passion that Americans have for those sports, roll it into a single sport and a single team. Add to that the patriotic pride that we’d assign to an Olympic dream team. Then toss in the nationalistic fervor that other countries give their football (soccer) teams. Top it up by having what’s considered to be the best team in the world, one that is capable, favored, and expected to triumph over nations of greater political and economic standing. Factor in that fans are more than willing to wake up at 4 AM on a weekday to watch a game being played in Europe. There are only 4 million people in New Zealand, so players can’t just blend into the crowd. Everyone knows everything about every player. Lose, and players can’t just get traded out to Denver and live peacefully. They are more or less stuck where they are. So, if you’re an All Black, you don’t want to lose.

But lose they did. To France. I asked some French people if they care about rugby. Being French, they say they don’t (even though they are hosting the World Cup) which makes the defeat all the more painful for the Kiwis. Queenstown was dead silent in the hours after the game. The headlines the next day reminded me of the Challenger explosion (if not quite 9/11). It was a national tragedy and a hallowed symbol of Kiwi supremacy had been toppled. Reporters wondered how it would effect the economy, a legitimate concern in a small country where the players’ faces are plastered on every conceivable piece of merchandising and $50 million in tax dollars had gone into support for the team. Everyone (aside from visiting Australians) was bummed out for a few days. A couple of weeks on, they seem to have recovered and are trying to decide which country to support in Sunday’s final game – their old masters, the English, or their colonial brothers, the South Africans, a team with whom they hold a prickly relationship.

It’s all been fascinating to watch, and I have to work during the final at 8AM Sunday morning. We are already taking reservations. I can’t wait for it all to be over. Also, I am trying to convince my boss to play the World Series games when they come on in the following week (hopefully with a victorious Red Sox!), but it’s a tough sell to any non-American. I reminded him that there are tons of Americans in town and that baseball games are very long in comparison to rugby, which means more time for the purchasing of beer and ribs. We shall see.

In other local news, we had a series of earthquakes a few days ago. The first hit at about 1:30 AM. Measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale with an epicenter about off the coast of Milford Sound, it certainly shook up the cabin. It lasted several seconds and woke me up, but didn’t throw me into a panic. Nothing collapsed or fell, so there was no damage. There were aftershocks at 3:00 AM and again at 10:30 AM. The 10:30 AM one was interesting. I was at work. Glasses started rattling and everyone just stopped what they were doing and stood completely still. There was no major damage, but it probably would have been smart of me to move away from the gas-fueled fireplace and giant plate glass window. These are my first earthquakes, people. The whole stand-in-a-doorway-or-jump-under-a-table instinct hasn’t been drilled into me just yet, so cut me some slack for my poor reaction time. I wasn’t nearly as freaked out by the whole thing as I thought I would be. Compared to jumping out of a plane, it lacked a certain urgency.

Around the same time as the quakes, the New Zealand government moved in on a bunch of suspected “terrorist camps,” mostly in remote areas of the North Island. Several people were arrested and weapons seized. Those arrested included members of all sorts of groups, ranging from Maori sovereignty advocates to environmental activists to wannabe anarchists. Supposedly, these people were getting paramilitary training and stockpiling weapons (or parts of weapons, and reportedly, not many) for various purposes. This has stirred up lots of tension, particularly in Maori communities. Civil liberty advocates are crying afoul. Declarations of racism are being shouted. The reports are all rather vague, and not many details have been divulged. There are rumors that one particular Maori group (and there are many) was planning an IRA-style uprising on their very remote home territory. Most people say the whole thing has been blown out of proportion and the busts were politically motivated to influence an upcoming vote in parliament. I don’t know. Territorial law is a very hot issue in New Zealand, dating back to the Treaty of Waitangi, which struck the settlement deal between the British and certain (but not all) Maori tribes back in the 19th century. Parts of the treaty are still strongly disputed. While the Maori have fared much better than most colonized peoples, there are definitely social and economic inequalities with their White countrymen. It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. And no, I don’t feel like I am in any danger. I’m more afraid of another earthquake than of some half-assed uprising in the rainforests of the North Island.

Back to the living situation. New flatmate Sam moved in two weeks ago to replace Theo, the weirdo from the Philippines. Theo got fired from his job at the local paper and took off to his family’s place in Christchurch. On his last night at home, he got completely wasted and threw up on the bathroom floor, losing his dentures in the process. He left the cabin toothless and hungover, but was nice enough to clean up the mess and leave a week’s rent. I can’t say that I’ll miss him much.

My friends back home are sending me constant reminders of my impending 10-year high school reunion. Sorry, guys, but I don’t think I’ll make it. My current plan is to save up for the next few months and then head over to Australia. I am in the process of extending my visa here, which required me to get a medical exam and chest x-ray. Roughly a week’s pay gone, but it will be worth it.

Go Sox!

SISTER SOULJAH

Sorry about all the griping. Things have improved vastly since my last entry. Back in July, I was very close to packing it up and leaving Queenstown without doing anymore of the local goofy adventure activities. Luckily, I got myself a new job and am back on the road to financial recovery and the occasional bungy jump (more on that later). Sure, my new gig is waiting tables, but it is full time and the place isn’t nearly as intense or pretentious as the last one. I now busy myself shilling ribs and beer at Brazz On The Green. We overlook a nice little park, so I understand the “on the Green” part, but I have no idea what “Brazz” means. Perhaps it is a clever play on “brass,” with Zs (or Zeds) replacing the Ss to juice things up a bit (everyone knows that Z and X are the coolest and edgiest letters of the alphabet). Not important. The people I work with are all very cool so far, and I haven’t once been publicly chewed out by my boss, so it’s a step up.A couple of weeks ago, I got a visit from my Big Bad Sister, Jessi. She was the first person I had seen from home since I left the real world ten months ago, and we had a blast. She bounced around New Zealand for a week before making her way down to Queenstown. Having Jessi around for a few days was the perfect excuse to blow a bunch of money on bizarre near death experiences. Our Sainted Mother made me promise to not take Jessi bungy jumping, so naturally that was our first stop. We caught a bus out to the historic Kawarau Bungy Centre (dating all the way back to 1988), which was the world’s first commercial bungy site. There is a museum there where you can learn all you ever wanted to know about the hallowed traditions of bungy jumping. A Kiwi named AJ Hackett was inspired by the strange rituals of the people of Vanuatu, who jump from towers with vines attached to there ankles to prove their manhood. Being a good Capitalist Honky, Hackett set up multiple bungy sites all over New Zealand and the rest of the world and is a millionaire now. I had already seen all that crap, so we headed strait for the bridge. They had a bunch of classic rock songs on rotation, all of them with words like “jump” and “fly” featured prominently. Jessi was the first to jump, and it was a little unnerving to hear Don MacLean singing “bye-bye, Miss American Pie” while my sister’s ankles were strapped to a cord dangling 142 feet over a river. No matter. She jumped like a champ and survived. So did I. That night, we went to see “Die Hard 4.0” (as it is titled outside the USA), which was goofy but fun.The following day, we went jetboating on the Shotover River, which was freakin’ awesome. Envision being in the fastest speedboat you can imagine going up and down rapids with jagged rocks on both sides of the river while your skipper does twists, turns and spins with spectacular mountain scenery around every corner non-stop for a half an hour and you start to get the picture. It rocked and I had a big goofy grin on my face the whole time. It was better than the best roller coaster I’ve ever been on. Kickass! That night, we took the Skyline Gondola to the top of Bob’s Peak and enjoyed a couple drinks as a snowstorm moved in. Pretty.On Wednesday, we woke up early to catch the bus to Milford Sound. I was a little wary of this since my original trip to Milford was, literally, a washout. Not this time. We had absolutely perfect weather with nary a cloud in the sky. On the same road where I last saw nothing but trees and the bottoms of waterfalls, I now saw the most awesome alpine scenery I have ever encountered. It was magnificent. Superlatives fall away in trying to describe Milford Sound on a clear day. Mitre Peak towers 5,583 feet over the ocean, with sheer rock walls from the snowcapped top to the watermark. All around us were green forests, waterfalls, and amazing rock faces. It is mind-blowing. Just go there, people. Thursday was hang gliding day. Jessi and I were picked up in town and taken halfway up the long, steep dirt road that leads to the Remarkables Ski Field. The hang glider dudes have a take off spot there with terrific views of Frankton, the Kawarau River, Lake Wakatipu and Coronet Peak. They put you in a goofy jumpsuit, harness you to the glider and tell you to run as fast as you can down the hill whilst holding on to the straps on their suits. It was fantastic and funny. Once second, you’re standing on the edge of a mountain, then you’re feeling the exhileration of flight, looking at the ant-like people and cars below, and trying to make idle chitchat with the dude piloting the glider (“so… how long you been in this line of work?”). The coolest part was when my glider dude made us do swooshing turns just above a bunch of trees. I think Jessi’s pilot did a few more of these than mine. Lucky. Landing was a bit less awe-inspiring as we touched down in a field of sheep shit. Poop not withstanding, it was about as cool a five minutes of my life as I can remember. I had to work that nite. No coffee was necessary. I had to work on friday, so Jessi went horseback riding in Glenorchy, which is a gorgeous little town up the lake that I haven’t made my way out to yet. Jessi said goodbye on Saturday morning and headed off to the first of four flights it would take her to get back to Boston. We had an awesome few days together and it was great to have someone from home visit. Now that I have most of these adrenaline junky activities out of my system (or, have they just entered my system…?) I can concentrate on working for the next few weeks. The weather is ever so slightly warming up, so living will be more comfortable. I am not sure what my next step will be, but I will be sure to let you all know. In the meantime, be sure to tune into the Rugby World Cup currently taking place in France, and support the All Blacks.

And no, I didn’t know that there was a Rugby World Cup, either. And Happy Birthday, Jess!!!

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT

First off, I must preface the following entry with the declaration that I have been having an absolutely amazing time since I arrived in New Zealand last November. I have had more fun more consistently than I have had in many years. I am fully aware of how lucky I have been and continue to be. In a world full of poverty, war, disease, famine and oppression, I have had it incredibly good. Compared to your average blind Afghani orphan, mine is an incredibly privileged existence and I have absolutely no business complaining about anything. But this is my blog where I do what I want at no cost to anyone, so I’ll bitch ‘til the cows come home if I so choose.

Since I arrived in Queenstown nearly four months ago, I have encountered obstacle after fucking obstacle that has made life Goddamn frustrating. Not Darfur refugee frustrating, but frustrating. The Kiwi Dollar has gotten very strong, so my American money isn’t going as far as it was just a few months ago (not good when you’re living in the most expensive part of New Zealand). Queenstown is a tourist town with a steady influx of adventure seekers from around the world. From far and wide, people come for the skiing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, skydiving, legalized prostitution, jet boating, and hang gliding. A few blog entries back, I bemoaned the lack of bartending jobs, which forced me to pick grapes for the better part of a month in order to survive in some level of comfort. At every bar that I attempted to drop off my CV (that’s what the rest of the world calls a résumé), I was told that they weren’t hiring and that I should “come back in June.” Well, June came and went without me getting a single shift as a bartender. Soon I realized why. All those people who told me to come back in June should have added “and be a mildly attractive female, no experience necessary.” I was at a pool hall with some friends recently and asked the chick behind the bar for a Bacardi and soda. I got Bacardi Black and tonic water. I was tempted to see the manager and say, “I know she’s kind of cute, but she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing and I need a job. Wanna hook a brother up?” Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

By the way, I have been lucky enough to try some Cuban rum. Holy shit, is that stuff good! Once Castro croaks, we really need to lift that embargo!

The only job I could get was waiting tables at a restaurant. I am pretty sure that my boss, an Australian, hired me solely because I am American. He told me “I love working with Americans because you guys understand service.” I wanted to correct him and say that we don’t understand service - we understand tips. New Zealand and Australia are non-tipping societies. There is no incentive for service industry people to put extra effort into their jobs, so your average waiter or bartender will give you pretty much the same standard of courtesy as a McDonald’s employee. Say what you will about America’s many flaws, but Goddamn it, we know how to run a restaurant. The host or hostess will seat you, the waiter or waitress will provide you with food, the bartender will fix your drink, and the busboy will clean up and reset your table when you are done, and you tip them accordingly. In New Zealand, the waiter or waitress will single-handedly host you, take your drink order, make your drink, take your food order, deal with the asshole chefs (why are chefs such dicks?), bring you your food, clean up after you, set the table for the next customer, and not expect a tip. Waiting tables in New Zealand sucks. Not only does it suck, but they are cutting back on my hours so I will have to get another job fast. GRRRRRRRRR!!!! I miss bartending!

A few weeks back, there was what New Zealanders call a massive winter storm. It was windy, the mountains were coated with snow, and about an inch or two accumulated on the ground in Queenstown. Chaos ensued. The local airport shut down for three days, something that hadn’t happened in decades. Snow tires are nonexistent around here, so drivers are required to put chains on their wheels when the white flakes start falling. This tore the roads to shit. Visitors to town had no idea about the chain requirements, so tons of them were pulled over and ticketed. They also couldn’t drive up to the mountains, so the ski fields shut down. This must be the only ski town in the world that shuts down when it snows. Since all the skiers were stuck in town, pretty much all they could do was hit the bars and get stupid. They did. There were record numbers of burglaries, vandalism, and public urinations. Yay, Queenstown!After the weather cleared up, Julia, my former flatmate from Paris, convinced me to try snowboarding. She assured me that since I know how to ski and liked surfing, that snowboarding would be no problem and that I would have lots of fun (I needed some). Never trust a French woman. I spent four hours falling, falling, and then falling some more. And I wasn’t falling on nice soft powder. It was rock fucking hard snow packed like concrete on the lamest bunny slopes imaginable. Back when I first learned to ski, I used to fall all the time. The difference was, back then, I was 11 and weighed about half as much as I do now. On several occasions I wondered if my pelvis had shattered. It hadn’t, but it still fucking hurt. Also, like Derek Zoolander, I am physically incapable of turning left. Think I’ll stick to skiing from now on.

I finally got out of Chateau Ugo. Thankfully, I never had to go to a hostel. Some wonderful new friends let me crash on their couch for 2½ weeks (!) while I searched for a new place. I almost wish I didn’t find my new place, because that couch was awesome. I had the whole living room and kitchen to myself, complete with fireplace, DVD player, broadband internet, X-Box 360 and a dishwasher. They even trusted me with their car! And rent free! I offered to buy them firewood and pay a share of the bills, but they refused. They were all fun to hang out with, too. I love them!

My new place is a cabin in a holiday park. I share it with a guy named Theo from the Philippines. He works days and I work nights, so I barely ever see him. I have a room with a full sized bed all to myself, thank God. There is no phone line, laundry, or internet, but we’ll survive. Miraculously, there is also no electric bill, so we can leave the heaters on day and night. You have no idea how much you’ll miss central heating until it’s gone.

Sadly, just before I moved in, I got a nasty sinus infection. I had no idea that my body could produce such vast amounts of day-glow green snot. Seriously, I could have bottled all the shit coming out of my nose and sold it as an industrial lubricant. It forced me to call in sick to work, something I haven’t done in years, just when I need hours the most. It also killed my three days off, each of which was spent at home with a stack of tissues, a Peter Jackson biography, and reruns of Tyra Banks’ talk show on the only channel with decent reception. A fine woman, that Tyra. I called the nice folks who let me crash at their house. It seems that half of them have caught my disease. That made me feel even worse. I am the fucking Outbreak Monkey.
So, my new mission is to find yet another new job since the restaurant is now only giving me two shifts a week. Those shifts will be five hours long at the most, and that just ain’t gonna cut it, even for survival money. Back in middle school, I enjoyed wood shop. The sconce and clock I put together still adorn the walls of my parents’ house. In high school, I eschewed wood shop for music and photography classes. Now I realize what an incredibly stupid decision that was. Had I advanced my carpentry skills, I could now be making $24 an hour in New Zealand. There is a shortage of skilled laborers in this country (tons of young Kiwi guys take off for Australia and elsewhere), and construction sites are crawling with well-paid foreigners whose only qualification is that they have some knowledge of woodworking. Why did I have to be all artistic and crap?!

So, dear readers, I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves. For those of you in the warmer parts of the Southern Hemisphere (Australia, Thailand, Argentina), enjoy the “winter.” For those of you in the God Ole Northern Hemisphere, enjoy the summertime and send me some warm vibes. In return, I promise to smuggle some Havana Club rum home for you. I’ll mix you the Mojito of your dreams. And go see “Knocked Up.” It’s funny.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

PART I: THE GOOD

I needed to get out of town. There had been a series of annoying events in my life (more on that later) and a change of scenery was in order, so I hopped back on the Stray bus for a four-day loop around New Zealand’s southern coast. It was a relief.

First stop was Milford Sound. The ride to and from there was astounding. We drove alongside Lake Te Anau and were soon surrounded by mountains and rain forests. Eventually we encountered enormous walls of rock with countless little waterfalls cascading down into the valley. Awesome stuff.

Milford Sound was one of the four or five places I promised myself to see while in New Zealand. Above, you will see what Milford Sound looks like in good weather (I did not take this photo). Below, you will see what Milford Sound looks like in a deluge, which is what I encountered. Instead of giant mountains next to the sea, I saw thousands of raging waterfalls. The area has one of the wettest climates of the planet (roughly 20 feet of rain annually) and we felt every drop. I could only stay on our boat’s deck for a couple of minutes at a time for fear of destroying my camera. It was impressive, but the rain was a bummer. Gotta go back on a clear day.

That night we headed for the village of Tuatapere – the Sausage Capitol of New Zealand. We made a visit to a local farm where the owner demonstrated how to shear a sheep. I didn’t actually do it, but I got to hold a sheep down and then shove it down a slide into the “shorn bin.” It’s much more humane than it sounds.

Next morning we were off to Stewart Island. To get there, we took an hour-long cruise from the tip of the South Island. The weather was unusually warm (70s compared to 40s in Queenstown) and I contemplated taking a dip in the nice clean water. Too many sand flies, though. There is a tiny village on the island that reminded me of coastal Maine, but a bit more modern. I bet it is a nice place to stay for the summer. The island is actually quite large and undeveloped. I am sure that there are some nice long hikes to be had. Some of the other Stray people went fishing, so we had a nice big fish dinner. Yummy.

Early the next day we took the ferry back to Invercargill. I haven’t gotten seasick since I was 13, but I did that morning thanks to an empty stomach and the winds of the Roaring 40s. Once I got some food in my belly on dry land, I was fine. We spent the day driving through a beautiful area called the Catlins. I haven’t been to Ireland yet, but the Catlins resemble what Ireland looks like in my mind – impossibly green fields rolling gently towards a rocky coast. Very few people live in the Catlins, so there is little to spoil the beauty of the place. It was the perfect antidote to the majestic but imposing landscape back at Milford. We stopped at a beach and found a rather surly sea lion on the beach. She had a tag on one of her flippers and kept shooing us away with sand.

That night we arrived in the city of Dunedin (pronounced dunn-NEED-in). I had been sleeping on the bus and it was a bit of a surprise to wake up in a city. Many of the local people are of Scottish decent and there is a definite Scottish feel to the place (Dunedin is Gaelic for Edinburgh). There are lots of gothic buildings and gargoyles. Also in town is the Speight’s Brewery. Speight’s is one of New Zealand’s top selling beers, and we did a brewery tour. I didn’t pay much attention to the process, but we got to do a tasting at the end. Again, yummy. I liked Dunedin and wished that we had more time there, but we were off early the next morning. We made a couple of stops along the way. One was a beach north of Dunedin where there are weird boulders that resembled the alien pods from “Cocoon.” The dead stingray was sort of cool, too.

It was a beautiful but long drive back to Queenstown. We made one last stop in the town of Cromwell where there is a bridge over a great big lake. Our driver told us that Stray staff members all have to jump off the bridge during their training trips and that we should all do it. I was a bit hesitant, as the water was freezing and the bridge was about 30 feet up, but some Dutch kid and I did it anyway. Below you will see the precise moment when we hit the water. Several gallons of water went up my ass. It still hurts.

PART II: THE BAD

(No Photos Necessary)

Here on the other side of the world, it is winter. It is cold. Not Boston in January cold, but cold. As I write this, a flurry is dusting the trees outside with snow. The surrounding mountains are magnificent. Down in Queenstown, the annual Winter Festival is in full swing with parades, concerts and other events. The ski fields (down here they call them “fields,” not “slopes”) are open and everyone in town seems to be in a good mood… everyone, that is, except the residents of Chateau Ugo.

Chateau Ugo is the name I have given to the house I have been living in for the past two months. It is named for Ugo, the Brazilian guy whose name is on the lease. Every Wednesday, my fellow flatmates and I give Ugo our rent money and he delivers it to whomever it is that actually owns the house. At first, he seemed like a nice enough guy. He appeared to be a laidback dude with decent taste in music. The other residents of the house were cool, and the rent was ridiculously cheap considering the house’s location. I figured that I had lucked out and made a terrific find. How wrong I was. Simply put, Ugo is a douchebag.

The shit really started to hit the fan when the refrigerator broke down. The moment I noticed it, I alerted Ugo. Seeing as the fridge preserved the food of five people, including Ugo’s, you’d figure that he’d do the responsible pseudo-landlord thing and call the refrigerator repair shop the next morning. Nope. For two long weeks, we went without a fridge. All of us had to completely alter the way we shop for food, being careful not to purchase perishables. I pressed Ugo on this issue several times. You’d think that in the age of cellphones he could have made a simple call on his lunch brake and have the whole situation solved, but no. I was the one who actually called the repair place to make an appointment. That appointment was eventually cancelled when Ugo decided to rent a new fridge instead of fixing the old one. Since all of us had to throw away a bunch of food, you’d think he might compensate us monetarily. Nope. Not only did he not give us anything, he decided that it made sense to charge us an extra $5 per week for the privilege of having a working fridge. We bitched and moaned about this, but he wouldn’t budge. Dick.

During the same time period, we ran out of firewood (I know that I griped about this issue in my last post – deal with it!). Neither central heating nor proper insulation come standard in New Zealand, so a regular supply of firewood is necessary to keep the house warm. We had no wood for two weeks and could see our breath in the living room. You think Ugo made the call for the eventual wood delivery? Of course not. That was left to Ivan, our other Brazilian roommate who was smart enough to jet off to Fiji because he was sick of Ugo’s shit. And it was I, not Ugo, who stayed home to receive the wood delivery when it actually arrived. Oh yeah, I was there to receive the $5/a week fridge, too.

Once Ivan left, Ugo decided that he needed to have another one of his countrymen in the house. Enter Jose. Jose was a nice guy. Another Brazilian, he was about 6’2” and had a gut that could gestate triplets. Unfortunately, his grasp of the English language was even worse than Ugo’s. Seriously, he didn’t speak a word. Verbal communication was impossible. At least with Ivan, I could talk. Living with Jose was akin to living with a Samba-obsessed Teletubby. Jose left a couple of weeks ago and was replaced by Tiago… Jose’s brother. Seemingly every night, we get a steady stream of Brazilians coming over to party with Ugo and Tiago. Guitars, smoke, and the Portuguese language blast through the halls ‘til the wee hours.

All this has taken its toll on my fellow housemates and me. Max (from Argentina) is leaving for Tahiti on Thursday (lucky bastard) and can’t wait to go. Julia (from France) has had it the worst. She’s been here for six months. Before I arrived, she had arranged to share her room with a female friend of hers from back home. Two days before the girl was to arrive, Ugo moved Ivan into the room without saying a word to Julia about it. Who knows what happened to her friend? One day, Julia closed a door a bit too loudly for Ugo’s taste and he threatened to throw her out on the street. Had he actually done that, I would have called the cops immediately. As usual, he was all talk.

The last straw was yet another goddamn issue with the refrigerator. Ugo tried to convince Julia, Max and me that since he bought the original fridge himself (which is laying dormant on the porch) and that it broke down while we all were living here, that we each owed him $40 because all of us could have done something to bring about its demise. Bull…….shit. We all refused. Julia and I both gave him our two weeks notice and announced our intent to leave the house. Julia is perfectly content to live in her car (she did it all winter last year) and I would rather be in a hostel than put up with this crap anymore. Since we gave our notice, the house has gotten even more Carnival-esque. I met the dude who will replace Max as my roommate. Three guesses which country he’s from. With all due respect to the millions of decent Brazilians out there (what’s up, Gaya!), if I wanted to party like I’m in Rio each night, I would have skipped New Zealand and stayed in Framingham.

I’m sure that it will improve around here, but man, it’s taking a long damn time! It’s been more than two months since I arrived in Queenstown, and I just now am starting a steady job! Starting this week, I will be waiting/bartending at a restaurant in town. I still might have to get another side gig to keep the money flowing. I’m looking at other flats now, and they aren’t cheap. It will be a massive relief when I get one. Expensive or not, it will be worth it.

PART III: THE UGLY

Behold John Travolta in "Hairspray." L. Ron Hubbard almighty!