Digging a hole all the way to…America

Colby Buzzell has an interesting piece, “Digging a hole all the way to…America” on China in this months Esquire. He writes about American flags Made in China, Starbucks, Wal-mart, and the great migration to China’s new megacities.

For the piece, Buzzell visits Shenzhen, which is very similar to Guangzhou (where I was) in its batty-ness over capitalism and, in fact, is only about 1.5 hours from G-zhou (that‘s what the cool kids call it).

Some interesting facts about the population of Shenzhen: In 1980 it was less than 100,000. In 1990 it was 900,000. In 2000 - 6.5 million. And today - 11 million.

This map about the great migration ran with the story. There are more than 90 cities with a population greater than 1 million.

Reader’s note: Buzzell’s writing style is very rough-edged type stuff, but the presence of drugs is kind of annoying. Is it really that surprising that you can find drugs in China? Or a foreigner selling drugs? Maybe it’s just the sheltered Ohio farm boy in me, but I always find that when writers are involved with drugs it’s just their attempt to show how gritty they are: “Look at me I’m gritty. Real gritty, like Hunter S. Thompson gritty.” If you wanna smoke a joint, fine. But does it really have any relevance?

Anyhow, you should buy the magazine and read the article (not available online) if you are interested in China.

Cosmo Kramer in Cambodia Contemplating Cosmos

Are you a celebrity? Did your image take a nose dive after you were arrested for giving underage midgets shots of Tequila intravenously while attending a folk music festival in Alaska? Or maybe you were doing stand-up and completely lost your cool stringing together a long chain of racial slurs captured on a cell phone?

Forget rehab? Travel. Get away, to somewhere exotic where you can talk to the press about things like the spirituality in stone and walk around the slums holding HIV babies.

Michael Richards is the latest celebrity to escape. I would be interested to know if the fella who wrote this story found Richards or Richards found him. Is Richards trip an image-cleaner campaign, a vacation, or spiritual search for the meaning of life?

Richards on the people of Cambodia and Angkor: “At first, I was a little bit struck by the poverty, but when I leaned in I could see how open-hearted the Cambodian people are, and I was touched by it,” Richards said. “I’d always wanted to take a trip to the Far East. It’s a place I’d never been. I knew of Angkor Wat and I’d seen pictures, so we decided, ‘Let’s go for this.’ It’s amazing: You can walk around and it’s all hands-on in the temples, it’s not roped off. Seeing spirituality in stone is inspiring.”

Ron Artest died for our sins

The Sacramento Kings Ron Artest is in Africa doing things and feeling good about it. In his own words (from espn.com):

“I am doing many positive things this summer. … Me, Maurice Evans, Theo Ratliff and Etan Thomas are holding HIV babies and walking around in the slums where kids have no running water or electricity and no shoes on their feet, feeding rice and beans to kids.”

Sounds like Ron might be onto something here. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all walked around the slums holding HIV babies? Really, wouldn’t it?

Ron’s cause might give my own NGO a run for its money and maybe even Kyle’s.

An elephant (IS or WAS) standing on my chest!

The sample chapter (is or has been) started.

Never has a blinking cursor seemed so intimidating. Normally, my writing spans 800 to 1,000 words – tops - and whenever it appears somewhere it exists for a day to a month. I usually bang out these pieces in a day and then revisit them a few days later to rewrite them. But writing a book…

So long. So permanent.

Yikes!

I’m a no-stress kind of guy, but that blasted blank-page cursor on Thursday gave me the ol-elephant-on-the-chest-feeling. Primarily, the elephant existed because of tense. I prefer to write in the present tense and often when I write in the past tense I’ll find myself switching back to the present. I usually frame a story on a single scene or a narrative and if I need to jump back to get some info I throw in a paragraph or two of past tense background. But maintaining the present tense in a book length narrative (seems or seemed or will seem) somewhat daunting.

I scared off the elephant, for now, with some pre-writing. By breaking down the Bangladesh chapter into workable parts, I feel much more comfortable. My plan is to frame each chapter on a specific narrative in the present tense. For Bangladesh this will be on my experience undercover as an underwear buyer. The rest of the chapter will be in the past tense, which will give me the chance for more reflection. In all, the Bangladesh chapter should be about 50% present and 50% past.

I suspect the next elephant will be a result of the question: Can the tense switching be done without confusing the reader?

But at a certain point in time no matter how many darned elephants are coming at you, you just gotta start writing.

I (am or did).

In the Dayton City Paper

I’ve been contributing to the Dayton City Paper since April. The column runs monthly and is supposed to be about the greater Ohio outdoors, although the editor asked me to write a story about the WAIW? quest. I just finished the story and will post it after it runs in the DCP.

I thought it might be difficult to sum up three months into 800 words, but I think I managed quite well.

Until then, you can read the introductory column below the cut.

Read more

The Office: A slob’s fight for survival

Annie had a surprise for me when I got home – an office. She painted the walls, strategically placed the bookshelves my parents contributed, bought a desk and did what Annie does best – made things tidy.

It looked perfect.

And then it happened. I came home.

I’ve always described my dream office as being lined with bookshelves and a place where I could put whatever I wanted wherever I wanted.

I have lots of bookshelves, but that’s where the dream ends.

When I got home I started to fill the space. I put books and knick-knacks such as my lucky Tiki statue, my S.S. Cookie Hut cookie jar, and my autographed picture of Punky Brewster wherever I wanted. I settled in.

Less than an hour later I returned to the room. Everything had a new place. The cookie jar was no longer on top of the last book shelf, but on the second bookshelf on the third row. The books had found new much more thought out, neater homes.

It was creepy.

My dreams of a cluttered work space had been ripped away, folded, and perfectly placed right where it belonged – just out of reach.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my new office, but I am a little concerned about my fiancé and the years of counseling that it’s going to take for her to deal with my stacks, piles, and heaps of books.

The battle for the bookshelves has ended. The war for the office is about to begin.

Wish me luck.

Transformers, Made in China

Would you pay $4,250 for Jetfire or Optimus Prime?

That’s how much they are going for on ebay. This makes me happy because I own both action figures. Sure, they aren’t in the box and have each have swapped some paint with the Deceptagons. But still, it’s about time the world realized the value of Transformers. Although, I think we’ve over-valued them a bit.

Even if my figures were in mint condition, I would not sell them. Not because I have some sentimental attachment to them (I do), but because I wouldn’t want to take advantage of some schmuck who would pay any amount of money to get his hands on an original Optimus Prime (OP, I’m down with it!).

Transformers only aired for two years in the early 80’s. Their resurgence in popularity reflects my generations newfound buying power. 10 years ago OP probably went for a few hundred on ebay, but now you could go to the car dealer and buy a real car for what he costs.

What torks me off is that some dork actually bought some of the original Transformer toys and didn’t play with them:

“Wanna come to my house? I got Optimus Prime for my birthday.” And once at the house, “No…No, don’t touch him. He’ll be worth a lot of money in 25 years.”

That’s the kind of kid that needs the crap kicked out of him.

Wired magazine has a pretty neat write-up on the cartoon and the toys. Apparently, the toys came first and the cartoon was a marketing idea. I don’t care. I still love OP and his loyal band of Autobots. Originally, they were made in Japan, but now, of course, like shoes, they are made in China.

Fiction vs. Non-fiction

It might set you free. Mark Twain said when in doubt you should tell it. And sometimes it just plain hurts.

But above all, the TRUTH is expensive.

Two weeks ago Annie and I drove to Kokomo to meet Science-Fiction author John Scalzi. Actually, I bribed Annie to come along with the promise of lunch, and afterwards, while I was in the book store chatting with John, Annie slept in the truck.

Meeting John and seeing his pile of books waiting to be signed and sold got me thinking. A large number of John’s books take place in his head. He doesn’t have to buy plane tickets and spend 3-months living in hotels and eating out. He doesn’t have to pay translators. He doesn’t have to get vaccines or buy malaria medication. He doesn’t have to be griped at by ill-tempered corporate Vice Presidents.

In one of my favorite Scalzi books, the Android’s Dream, he spends the first 4 to 5 pages on an international incident involving a farting device.

I like getting out to places meeting people and getting my hands dirty, but how nice would it be to fabricate entire worlds and their farting devices while sitting in my PJ’s in my office?

One of these days I’m going to have to jump genres to fiction. But first, I probably should write a non-fiction book, seeing how I’m pretty much genre-less at the moment.

That reminds me…I’ve got a book proposal to write. My sample chapter will be on Bangladesh. I’ll chime in with highlights as I go.

Made in China

My shorts, made in the USA

“I don’ feel real comfortable with this,” said Linda from Champion USA.

I have that effect on people.

I was asking Linda about my 1992 Dream Team shorts. They were made way back in the early 1990’s. So long ago, in fact, that they were actually Made in the USA. I told her that I was pretty sure that factory was not open any more given how the industry has changed, but I would like to know where it was anyhow.

“Perry, New York.”

That’s all I could get out of Linda. I tried to explain to her my quest, but I think it just makes my request to know where my shorts came from look crazier. In Linda’s defense, if some quack called me up and mentioned Bangladesh, underwear, and Tattoo from Fantasy Island in one breath, I would probably hang up.

Perry, New York, is located just south of Rochester. I hear that it’s lovely in early September.

Some would say that it would be a perfect place for a honeymoon.

Others wouldn’t. They might refer to the lack of anything romantic in the photo the city selected for the frontpage of their website (WOW! Cars and a street). Or they could point to Perry’s description of itself in which there is so much exciting stuff going on that they mention, “Municipal services include a police department, volunteer fire department and 24-hour emergency ambulance.”

Perry is pretty close to Niagara Falls, which is a favorite of generations of honeymoon goers. But still, it would be a tough one to sell to Annie:

“Want to go to Niagara Falls? It will be great. We’ll take a side trip to Perry. They’ve got a volunteer fire department and, you are going to love this, a 24-hour emergency ambulance! Woohoo! Can you imagine the time we’ll have there? We’ll even take a day or two and interview people who used to work at the Champion factory that closed leaving them jobless. It will be so romantic. I love you.”

Look out Perry! Here we come!