One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only the expression of happy ideas. There's a whole range of behavior that can be expressed in a mannerly way. That's what civilization is all about---doing it in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which people said, "Why can't you just say what's on your mind?" In civilization there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we'd be killing one another.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners)

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I love life!

No one likes crazy people, least of all me, but sometimes at the risk of seeming crazy I allow myself to smile and beam aloud, I love my life. Looooove it! And I do.

I don't hold off from shouting this wonderful declaration. All too often I have to hold back shouting negatives - civility demands it - at every damn simpleton, asshole, nitwit and brat so to express, it seems to me, a life affirming idea should be a good thing for civilization. Who knows, maybe the positivity will spread to somebody who overhears it. How many times does one hear I love my life? How rare is it to hear (or say) I hate my life?

At any rate, I've known misery and despair; I know what it is like to be beat, broke and busted with nary a living soul to lend a helping hand. Hence am now in the habit of acknowledging, as it were, good times with an expressive, I love my life! I don't really mind if people look at me crazy. I don't mind most people anyway.

To express a life affirming idea should be a good thing for civilization....How rare is it to hear (or say) I hate my life?

Usually when am working-out and I achieve that good pump -  I love my life! -through each repetition feeling my muscles aching and growing; swimming out to where my feet no longer touch the bottom and on all sides of me except above is the warm, salty ocean -  I love my life! - where am merely a small splashing, frolicking, treading disturbance in the blue-green vastness; smoking a premium cigar or hookah pipe and taking quiet pleasure in the exhaled smoke - ( psst, I love my life!) - or walking down the street and stopping, actually stopping, to smell the flowers, visually eating the sunny landscape and palm trees and sand and incorrigible home structures, or looking out the window of the plane, train, Greyhound bus -  I love my life!  - watching that particular speck of the world literally go

by; getting paid always makes me happy; seeing fat or badly dressed or fat, badly dressed people and then looking at myself - I love my life! - my fist flies upward, Thank you Jesus; realizing the moment is quiet and peaceful or having cooked a delicious, wholesome meal or standing under a hot shower and feeling, truly sensing, the dirt and stress run down into the drain or even watching the tip of my pen complete each letter until the word forms. Or remembering a bad time and knowing that that time is not now.

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Guilty of procrastination but still rolling

After months of writer's block produced since my trip to Italy more entries will be published within the next couple of days. My apologies for the lapse. Some people have taken the time to write to let me know that they follow my web log and, so, I've re-energized myself to relaying mishaps and adventures of my travels. Feedback truly makes a difference.

I send a big Thank-you to those readers who wanted to know what's up.

Am currently in Mexico and will update this web log to include my travels from Italy to the present. Again, sorry for the procrastination.


Scholar Spartan

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Unfond memories of Maeva

This time last year I was beyond happy to have started working at Club Maeva. It would turn out to be probably the worst job of my life. I republish this earlier post as a celebration of having left that awful place with the hope of sparing would-be applicants one motherfucking demeaning job experience!

This all-inclusive beach resort is a very popular vacation destination in Mexico. One is located in Manzanillo and the other, Tampico. Club Maeva is a great place to vacation (if R&R is part of the goal otherwise the constant "animation" can be a bitch) but a far less than great place to work (if you're non-Mexican).

I had the experience of working at Club Maeva, Manzanillo, last November, and would forthrightly caution any foreigner considering emploment as a Maevamigo: supervisors are harsh, working environment is not fun, Mexican guests are pigs, stressful long hours.

The team leaders---wannabe "chiefs"---in step with the boss who is sychophantically referred to as Chief are high-strung, overbearing, loud, egoists whose reactions are often out of proportion and sometimes bluntly irrational. (With this as the accepted model of leadership is it any wonder Latin American countries keep electing strongmen to power?)

being a Maevamigo is a bragging right for Mexicans for whom $4000 pesos and degradation and a sense of belonging beats working in a warehouse

Working conditions are stressful and non-stop---and degrading: Most of the guests are Mexican and seemed to equate all-inclusive with servitude. They were always demanding I pose for their stupid ass photos and thought nothing of interrupting my or any other Maevamigo's work and rehearsels for it. Even in mid-swing during a game of ping-pong they were piggish enough to poke me on the shoulder for a picture. This happened more than once! During meal breaks, which the "chiefs" begrudgingly allow, Maevamigos must interact with the guests which often meant subjecting myself to more stupid ass snapshots, intrusive questions, crude and inappropriate jokes whilst the plate of food grew cold right under my nose.

The hours are looooooooong, running from possibly 7 or 9am to 11pm or 1am with nary a respite in between (revert to above paragraph) six days a week. Sports activities piggy back one after another; then there are dance and theatre rehearsals in preparation for the nightly shows and further entertaining ("animation") at the Tropical Hut after the show. On top of all this, the pay ranges from maybe to little: maybe you will get paid if the Chief likes you and extends a work contract after the first month OTHERWISE the company tries to screw you out of pay, arguing the illegality of paying for labor rendered sans an inked contract. Barring that corruption, the $4000 pesos is little for all the work and hours logged AND, worse still, was less than the advertised $5000 salary.

Oh, and the other departments---0% foreigner---especially dining services, are envious and resentful of the Maevamigos. Why? Principally because we had the task of humoring and entertaining their crude, fat, ignorant countrymen with song, dance, and posing for stupid ass pictures from morning to midnight. (Guests are audacious enough to ask you to work on your day off. Talk about no class!)

Sadly, but tellingly, being a Maevamigo is a step up, nay, a bragging right for Mexicans for whom four thousand pesos and degradation and a sense of belonging beats working in a warehouse or taco stand. For some peoples, any attention is good attention.

Personally, I cannot abide nor find anything endearing in ignorance, racism ("chocolate bar", "little nigger"), lack of privacy, whimsical job security, in-house animosity, or dressing in drag. And so I left. A boy gots to draw the line somewhere. By all means go as a guest but flee from any job agency's lure of working as a Maevamigo.

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Absent-minded abroad

Since coming to Europe in July I've either lost or discarded (mostly lost):
three pairs of sunglasses (but then I found a pair in an Italian post office which, three weeks later, I realize are Emporio Armani!); four hats; three jackets and hoodies; four pairs of pant; four dress shirts and a sport coat (I am a stylish man); two T-shirts; two pairs of footwear; three scarfs and sarong. And as if that wasn't enough for my grandmother to call me the absent-minded professor I just missed my return flight!!

Holy #%@!moly.

The former items' days were numbered anyway since I'm all about travelling light and would have put my rucksack on a strict diet before flying back to North America. But now the weather's changed back to chilly so...two days ago I bought a skull cap, a pair of jeans and a denim jacket. Hello!

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My President just won Nobel Peace Prize

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