Author: Josh Philip Ross

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[revivifying the palaverist]

It has been brought to my attention that I did in fact once have faithful readers, and that they’re kind of disappointed that this blog has slowed to the point of nothingness.

So I came rattling back around in here and found that the place had grown a bit musty. For one thing, my about page still had me working at the South Korean Mission to the UN, a habit I gave up back in January of 2008. And the picture was in need of an upgrade. I’m much cagier now.

I’ve also decided to embrace modern technology — blogs are so early aughts! — by creating a Facebook page where you can become a fan and pick up the feed for this blog. (The Palaverist shall not, however, tweet.)

More than any of that, however, is a renewed interest in actually producing some content. So enough of this meta-content! On to the other kind …

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[it’s harder than it looks]

Rules: It’s harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10 people. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real…nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can’t use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name: Josh

2. A four letter word: Jolt

3. A boy’s name: Jesus

4. A girl’s name: Jessica

5. An occupation: Journalist

6. A color: Jade

7. Something you wear: Jodhpurs

9. A food: Jambalaya

10. Something found in the bathroom: Jars

11. A place: Jaisalmer

12. A reason for being late: Jalopy broke down

13. Something you shout: Jump!

14. A movie title: Jacob’s Ladder

15. Something you drink: Juice

16. A musical group: Jamiroquai

17. An animal: Jaguar

18. A street name: Joralemon

19. A type of car: Jeep

20. The title of a song: Just

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[josh needs]

More facebook memery:
Type in your name and the word “needs” in quotes (“[Your first name] needs”) INTO YOUR FAVORITE SEARCH ENGINE and see what comes up. List the first 10 and then tag 10 or more of your friends. Google seems to think I need…
1. A holiday or just a cuddle
2. To stop lounging on here’s [sic]
3. Help
4. A scolarship [sic]
5. Extra lovin’ to keep mind off ScarJo
6. To quit stalking Supermac
7. To explore the idea that Trojan War was really in …
8. Tips!
9. To visit Hawaii
10. To make me this super awesome owl cupcake for my bday!

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[things about me]

Yet another Facebook meme …

Place an (x) by all the things you’ve done. Then send it to your friends (including me). This is for your entire life!

( ) Been to South America

(X) Been to Europe (if you count Ireland)

(X) Been to Asia

( ) Been on a cruise

(X) Gone on a blind date

(X) Skipped school

( ) Watched someone die

( ) Been to Canada

(X) Been to Mexico

(X) Been to Florida

(X) Been on a plane

(X) Been lost

(X) Been on the opposite side of the country

(X) Gone to Washington , DC

(X) Been to Vegas

( ) Been to a lighthouse

(X) Swam in the ocean

(X) Cried yourself to sleep

( ) Seen the Cherry Blossoms in Washington , DC

(X) Played cops and robbers

( ) Flown a plane

( ) Owned a boat

( ) Recently colored with crayons

( ) Been to the Kentucky Derby

( ) Been to Key West

(X) Been to a rodeo

(X) Sang Karaoke

(X) Paid for a meal with coins only

(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t

(X) Made prank phone calls.

(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose

(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue

(X) Danced in the rain

( ) Written a letter to Santa Claus

( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe

(X) Watched the sunrise with someone

( ) Seen the green flash at sunset

(X) Blown bubbles

(X) Gone ice-skating

(X) Gone to the movies

( ) Owned a convertible

1. Any nickname? Joshy Teacher, Rooster, Ushua, Ush

2. Mother’s name? Pesha

3. Body Piercing? Left ear, now closed

4. How much do you love your job? A whole lot. A serious whole lot.

5. Birthplace? San Francisco, CA

6. Ever been to Hawaii ? Yes, as an infant

7. Ever been to Africa ? No

8. Ever eaten just cookies for dinner? Who can remember?

9. Ever been on TV? Yes

10. Ever steal any traffic sign? No

11. Ever been in a car accident? Yes

12. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? No

13. Favorite number? I dig primes.

14. Favorite movie? Barking Dogs Never Bite

15. Favorite holiday? Chanukkah

16. Favorite dessert? Chocolate with chocolate, dipped in chocolate, with chocolate sauce and chocolate on the side

17. Favorite food? Too many to choose just one, but I could eat San Francisco-style burritos forever

18. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

19. Favorite brand of body wash? Aveeno

20. How do you relax? I watch Simpsons episodes I can sing along with

21. How do you see yourself in 10 years? With a positive net worth, and maybe a Ph.D., or a nice State Department posting

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[25 random facts about me]

Note: This is a meme from FaceBook, thus the instructions are Facebooky. 

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to Notes under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people [in the right-hand corner of the app], then click Publish.)

1. I have a teddy bear named Elver, which I thought was a perfectly normal name when I gave it to him, at my cousin Louise’s bat mitzvah. This bear is somewhere in my parents’ house back in California.

2. Throughout much of my childhood, I was deeply concerned with war. Specifically, the war between the good people of Planet Salvania and the bad people of Planet Alto Deto over the resource-rich jungle planet of Reorilia. I made this all up in my head, of course.

3. The highest place I’ve ever been (outside of an airplane) is Muktinath, a Buddhist and Hindu shrine in the Himalayas of Nepal.

4. In middle school I stayed back a year, repeating sixth grade by taking a year off from Hebrew school and going to the local middle school. That year, I discovered that I was a nerd and made the transition to wannabe, buying Bugle Boy jeans and T&C surf shirts and totally failing to fit in.

5. The first time I heard “Loser” by Beck, it was on my car stereo, and I actually pulled off the highway to make sure I wouldn’t lose the signal before I found out who the singer was. I felt like I had been waiting for exactly that song for years.

6. The first time I heard “Hand on the Pump” by Cypress Hill was at the Berkeley Square, a fantastically hip little club on University in Berkeley back in the day. It blew my mind so completely that I asked the DJ what it was. “Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of/Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of…”

7. The first tape I ever bought was Quiet Riot’s Metal Health. The first time I heard Quiet Riot was in the car with some friends, and there was heated debate over whether the singer was a boy or a girl.

8. I’m a big fan of a local Brooklyn artist by the name of Elyse Taylor.

9. I love the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and one of my absolute favorite works of art there is a miniature sculpture of the goddess Durga killing the buffalo demon, Mahisha (Mahishasuramardini).

10. When I decided to go to Korea, I had never even tried Korean food.

11. The first time I was given a seriously grownup book to read in English class, it was with Mr. Poirier in seventh grade. We read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. It was breathtakingly magisterial. I just reread it, and it wasn’t as brilliant as I remembered.

12. I like that breakfast cereal that’s made of oats and is super high fiber, and it’s kind of like square Cheerios made out of granola dust.

13. I keep my old heavy metal T-shirts in a trunk because they simply can’t be thrown away.

14. I’m an inconsistent meditator at best.

15. When I was little, I assumed that everyone wanted to write books when they grew up, and the only reason not everyone was a writer is that we need people to do other things sometimes. It was a shock to discover that there were people with no interest whatsoever in becoming writers.

16. I’ve always had a legalistic, argumentative streak, and for a while I thought I might want to be a lawyer.

17. My very first time on the Internet, I went fishing in Gopherspace and discovered instructions for seducing a horse.

18. I’m not sure I believe in God, but I pray a lot anyway.

19. I’ve always been fascinated by the exotic. When I was very little, I would imagine that my bed was a lifeboat drifting off to some undiscovered country. When I got older, I thought Ozymandias and Kubla Khan and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner were totally cool. I also really liked The Horse and His Boy, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite Narnia book.

20. I will contemplate the other desserts with due seriousness. Then I will choose the chocolate one.

21. My favorite pair of boots ever was the biker boots I got at Daljeets on Haight Street.

22. My first car was my dad’s old Toyota Corona, which burst into flames early in the morning of New Year’s Day, just after I’d dropped off my friend Teresa, having gone to a concert together that night.

23. I know that the battle sequence at the end of Star Wars takes longer than the time that’s stated in the movie. I know because I’ve timed it.

24. At various times, the Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, the Beatles, Metallica, Guns’n’Roses, Bang Tango, the Cult and Soundgarden have been my favorite band. 

25. Briefs.

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[en méxico]

So we’re in Mexico, my brother Effie and me. I flew into Phoenix on a delayed flight Saturday, slept a few hours, and got into the car for a long, hard drive down through Tuscon and Nogales and into Mexico. From there we pressed on to the town of Hermosillo, got lost crossing it, and finally cruised into the tiny coastal town of Bahía de Kino, driving dead on into the sunset and racing to get there before dark.

Kino is really two small villages. Kino Nuevo is a string of hotels and condos and houses for snowbird norteamericanos. It’s really nothing more than a strip against the water, behind which begins the Sonoran desert. Kino Viejo, the older fishing village, is more oriented towards Mexicans. There’s a small fleet of motorboats for fishing, a little pier, a few taquerías selling fish and shrimp tacos, the sole breaded and cooked over wood fires. It made a pleasant enough stopover for a day on our way further south. Amusingly, the best food in town was to be had at the Restaurant Trailer Park.

On Tuesday we took off before dawn, driving the entire day and finally arriving in Mazatlán as the sun was setting. It was exhausting, and it took a while to find our way to the beach, and then out of the Zona Dorada, a hideous enclave of package tourists, full of hulking mega-hotels and restaurant chains from America. We opted instead to stay at the Belmar, a 1950s-era behemoth on the beach in Old Mazatlán, where John Wayne supposedly used to stay, and where nobody has done any maintenance to speak of since. It’s musty and absurd, but it does the job.

I’m getting by on what Spanish I can remember, dreaming now in Spanish, and wishing I could remember how to conjugate verbs in more than the present tense. In Mazatlán most folks speak at least a little English, because this is a town where cruise ships unload — we saw a group being herded into a crafts boutique, all wearing stickers saying,¨I’m ready to experience!¨ and being told by the tour guide that this place was ¨just like the West Covina mall.¨

But Old Mazatlán is lovely, and as my friend Patricia pointed out, the beach is always real. Typing on a Spanish keyboard is a little confusing, and Mazatlán awaits, so I’m off!

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[¡viva méxico!]

So I’m not going to Thailand. Instead, through the magnanimous gesture of canceling my ticket, I brought peace to that country, and instead I’ll be heading to Mexico.

It was over Thanksgiving weekend that it became apparent Thailand wasn’t going to work out. The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters — who probably don’t think PAD Thai is a funny joke — were digging in at the airports they’d shut down a week earlier. Reports were saying it would take as much as a month to clear the backlog of stranded travelers. Then someone threw a grenade at the PAD protesters who were occupying Government House in Bangkok, wounding 51, and the PAD response was to give up the Government House occupation and focus on the airports. (If you missed all this, it’s because it happened at the same time as the Mumbai attacks, and American news networks, like the human nervous system, can only focus on one painful sensation at a time.)

This all seemed like the ideal situation to not visit. And so, on Monday morning, I canceled my ticket and ate the change fee. That night — daytime in Thailand — the Thai high court told the government to dissolve, which it did, and the protesters announced that they would give up their blockade of the airports.

Dandy.

In the meantime, however, I hatched a different plan. Forget Thailand. Forget Asia. Instead, I would fly to Arizona, meet up with my brother, a student at ASU, and drive down to Mexico. I talked it over with him, and he seemed to think it was a great idea. Then I asked him what his financial situation was, and how much he could contribute to the trip.

“I have thirty dollars.”

Ah. Okay. Well, I decided to go ahead anyway. I’ll basically pay for everything. It’ll still be cheaper than flying to Thailand. The plan, subject to change as always, is to fly in on Saturday, December 20; leave early Sunday morning and head east, crossing the border at Columbus, New Mexico, a tiny town whose principal claim to fame is having been sacked by Pancho Villa, and whose principal advantage as a crossing point is not being El Paso/Ciudad Juárez; drive south through Chihuahua and Torreón; and spend most of our times in the central highlands, around Guanajuato and Zacatecas and San Miguel de Allende.

I’ve never really traveled in Mexico before. I’ve crossed the border twice, once into the tiny village of Boquillas, and once to spend a grotesque evening on foot in Juárez, trying to ignore the taxi drivers who kept offering to take me to Pusi — that’s the name of the local ruins, apparently — and to find someplace reasonably non-disgusting in which to sip Tecate. The sum total of my Mexican experience, then, is the equivalent to an evening in Newark and an afternoon in Antler.
I’m excited to experience Mexico as a nation, a destination, a place separate from the United States. Latin America has never been the part of the world that has most grabbed my attention, and I don’t know that this trip will change that. But it will hopefull broaden my perspective and stimulate a new curiosity. I don’t expect this will be my last trip to Mexico.
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[chaos in mumbai]

So when the situation in Thailand went pear-shaped, I started looking at other places to go. One of those places was Mumbai.

Then, of course, Mumbai was struck by a horrific series of terrorist attacks, which are still unfolding. They’ve targeted places popular with Westerners, which means places I’ve been. I’ve met people and relaxed in the Taj Mahal Palace lobby, even bought a shirt there. I’ve caught trains at Shivaji Terminus.

And Leopold Café! Friggin’ Leopold’s! For a New York equivalent, it’s as if terrorists attacked not just the Waldorf-Astoria and Grand Central Station, but also Katz’s Delicatessen. It’s just wrong — and yes, I know that the whole thing is about as wrong as can be, but bringing Leopold’s into it is so dementedly off-script for this sort of thing. It’s horrible, and I’m sad.

Meanwhile, Thailand seems to be moving towards a confrontation with the protesters who have shut down the airports. Will I still be going there? We’ll see. If there’s not any actual fighting, and the airport is open, I probably will. And if things suddenly get nasty again? Well, “I was trapped in a foreign land by a military coup” would be the most interesting excuse I’d ever given for missing work.

We’ll see.

Update: A Mumbai Chabad House has been attacked as well, and there are hostages inside, and probably some people have already been murdered. Horrible.