I was up at 2am in Bangkok. It took two quick cups of coffee before my eyes began to focus. Soon enough I achieved full binocular vision. We were to leave the hotel for the airport at 3:30. A plus of arriving really early was that I was able to get one more cup of coffee, this time a good latte. In due course we flew out, taking Bhutan Air. Our flight paused in Calcutta, which has been... Read more
With a single day left I decided, against much good advice to go to visit the Grand Palace. The other day as I was driving with my Bangkok friends we drove by the imposing campus that has served as the official home of the kings of Siam since 1782. They said as wonderful as the campus is, the tourist crush is unparalleled. But. Its also the location of the Emerald Buddha. So… I joined a small gang from our... Read more
When I learned I would have this opportunity to spend a couple of days in Bangkok I immediately had two hopes. One was to visit the site where Thomas Merton died. And the second was to visit the grave of John Blofeld. I was able to do both. Not without a lot of effort on the part of a number of people, only a handful of whom, I knew. I just want to thank first Justin Whitaker, a... Read more
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in... Read more
I had trouble sleeping, still adapting to the humungous time zone shifts. But, up early. And then an adventure taking a taxi to the Airport Rail Link. After all the warnings about being ripped off by taxi drivers, I was relieved he immediately started the meter and was straight ahead. At the station I was, again, confronted with being an illiterate. But also as an old guy, a young woman saw me staring in confusion at the... Read more
Here I am. In Bangkok. That was the longest flight I’ve ever taken in my life. Fourteen hours in the air from LAX to Taipei. Flying Eva Airlines. A three hour layover. And then another four hours to Bangkok. I still can’t figure out how I’ve lost a day in that trip. But, it is Friday the 27th back home in Long Beach and Saturday the 28th, here in the Big Mango. I arrived just ahead of midnight. Passing... Read more
Here I am ensconced in Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. I’ve made it through security. Apparently the heavy lifting will be on the other side when I arrive (by way of a three hour layover in Taipai) in Bangkok some twenty-one hours from now. If I am lucky once I make my way through customs I will be greeted by a driver from the hotel. This is all adventuring for me. I’ve rarely been abroad.... Read more
“If you spliced the genes of Hillary Clinton, Madonna, Heidi Fleiss and Margaret Thatcher, you might have someone like Victoria Woodhull.” Atlanta Journal & Constitution I shared this a couple of years ago. I thought it worth sharing again. So, I’ve tweaked it a bit, and here it is… Victoria California Claflin was born the seventh of ten children in Homer, Ohio, on this day, the 23rd of September, 1838. When she married just shy of two... Read more
Wrote this a couple of years ago. Lightly edited and reprinted… Leonard Norman Cohen was born on this day, the 21st of September, in 1934, in Westmont, an English-speaking enclave of Montreal. His mother was the child of a renowned rabbi and scholar, his father the son of a founder of the Canadian Jewish Congress and its first president. The family was Orthodox and the themes of Judaism would become currents that informed his full life. The family... Read more
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