Over Yonder in Dortmund

It's Saturday night. Time to catch up.

Yesterday, Friday, I checked out of my hotel in Frankfurt around 11:30 AM and headed across the street to the train station. For lunch I got a Frankfurter:

That's one weiner folded over. They put mustard on top. It was gut.

While waiting for my 1:22 train, I saw this on the platform. Mind the gap, bro!:

My train departed on time. It's final destination was Hamburg. I found it interesting that my reserved seat had my starting and end points:

Truth be told, I was kinda glad to leave Frankfurt. Wasn't too impressed. Maybe because it's a financial hot spot, that's why it felt like a city without a soul or even an authentic identity.

The train ride to Dortmund took about four-and-a-half hours. About the first half ran along the Rhine River. Beautiful! There were some castles. I probably should've taken some pictures, but I'm sure I'll come across other castles in the next week.

I took a cab to the hotel. Much nicer than the cozy one in Frankfurt. Lots of room here and I have two beds. It's gotta be a four-star joint.

For dinner I walked about a quarter mile away to a quasi-fancy place and ordered pasta, which came not in tomato sauce but with an oily sauce and parmesan cheese on top.

I spent the rest of the night just hanging out at the hotel.

Saturday I got up around 8 AM and went downstairs for the hotel's breakfast. Because it was €19 I ate three mini-sausages, a slice of bacon, and a croissant, and drank a glass of OJ . . . unfortunately they didn't have pancakes.

Around 9:30 AM I hopped on the nearest subway stop and headed downtown for a Germany national football team jersey. The store that the front desk recommended had the jerseys for about 10 euros off, so they were €70. I decided to wander around a little for a better sale.

I stumbled across the Germany Football Museum (das Deutsche Fußballmuseum), which is across the street from the train station I arrived in yesterday afternoon:

A ticket was under €20. Oddly, some Aryan asshole wouldn't let me in to the actual museum with my jacket on. Pissed me off a little 'cause I like putting my iPod, phone and passport in my jacket's two zipper pockets.

After throwing my jacket and hat in a locker downstairs for €1 (which I got back when I left), I checked out the museum. It was interesting. A lot of it I didn't get because I don't really follow national teams too much. But it was a few years ago, so it's pretty modern. It was cool seeing some old shots of Bastian Schweinsteiger, who used to play for Manchester United and is now with the Chicago Fire in the States.

Next, I walked around outside in the shopping area and saw an inside mall. In there I found an InterSport store. They had the German national football jersey for the same price as the other store, but I went with the version from a year or two ago for €40 -- I like how it's got the colours of the German flag on the collar.

By then it was a little before noon. I chilled out on a comfortable black leather seat next to an escalator.

For lunch I hit the food court and got a salad wrap. I think it had some goat cheese in there. If unsure, best not to ask. Ignorance and all that. . . .

I hopped on the train for Signal Iduna Park, where I'll see Dortmund play tomorrow. They only have two tours of the stadium in English, and I wanted to make the 1:40 PM one. When I got there and bought my ticket for €12, I told the cashier I tried buying it online Friday night and Saturday morning, but my credit card wouldn't go through. I think she said that's intentional with foreign credit cards. Whatever.

The tour lasted about 90 minutes and was pretty cool. (The only other stadium tour I've done was at Manchester United.) Signal Iduna Park holds over 80,000 and is the biggest Stadion in Germany. Pretty funny: the stairwell to the visiting team's locker room has 13 steps and Dortmund's stairwell has 12 steps; apparently players are superstitious, so visitors will skip the last step.

Part of the tour went through Dortmund's locker room, so I took a pic of Pennsylvania's own Christian Pulisic's locker:

In Dortmund's locker room there are two hair dryers. Apparently after an international match, UEFA sent them to be put in both locker rooms. As part of "psychological warfare", said the tour guide, a maintenance worker put both dryers in Dortmund's locker room. The only player to ever complain was Cristiano Ronaldo. Twice.

Next to the locker rooms were ice baths and pools, which were blocked off. The tour guide was pretty entertaining. He said the pools were, I think, 99 centimeters deep. "This being Germany and our love for regulations, if they were 100 centimeters, we'd have to have a life guard."

Another part of the tour took you by the teams' boxes. The seats in Dortmund's box are always heated, but the visiting team have to request their seats be heated -- more of that "psychological warfare". Here is the visitors box (most of the 40 people on the tour were lounging in Dortmund's box):

With the stadium tour concluded, I tried walking back to the hotel, since it's only about a half-mile away (one kilometric for you metric heads out there), but I got really lost. Not a big deal. It was a gorgeous sunny day; must've been around 66 degrees. I eventually had to take the subway into the city centre (about a 10-minute ride) and hop on another train to get back to the hotel.

For dinner I walked to a restaurant more than a half-mile away, past the place I had dinner on Friday night. I got grilled squid -- not sure if I ever have it before; I know I've eaten octopus -- skewered vegetables, and potato wedges. They also gave spinach in a bowl with melted cheese on top. I told both the waiter and server I didn't order it, but they wouldn't listen. When my check came, the server admitted his mistake, so I wound up paying for it. Not a big deal because it all came up to €27.50 for four courses and Earl Grey tea, though I only left a 15% tip because in addition to the spinach mixup, there was a black hair on the squid plate . . . it wasn't near the food so I didn't complain.

On my way back to the hotel, I found the path to the stadium for tomorrow's match. Also, I noticed that across the street from the hotel is the soccer team's headquarters:

Indigestion in Frankfurt

It's Thursday night, around 8:30 PM. Thought I would catch up with what I've been up to.

Wednesday morning I got up at 6 AM, had breakfast in Vienna at the hotel, and played it safe by getting down to the train station around 8 AM for my 9:15 train to Frankfurt.

On the train there was a lady across from me who pecked away, for the most part, on her Mac laptop. Eventually (I'm assuming) a grandmom and her 11-year-old grandson joined us.

I thought this was funny. In case of an emergency, you have to smash both panes of glass with that red contraption:

Around 10 AM I grabbed a double Snickers bar and a bottle of Coke from the dining car. Around 1:30 PM I bought from the dining car a chicken tandoori sandwich and apple juice. Turns out the latter was a seltzer. I don't know if it was the apple juice-seltzer, or a combination of my mid-morning snack, late lunch, lingering jet lag, and the moving train, but around 2 PM I felt really ill. It took a lot of effort to hold my lunch down -- I couldn't even nap.

With the six-and-a-half-hour train ride over, I walked across the street to my hotel. Not nearly as nice as the one in Vienna, as evidenced by my view:

Yes, that's a steel shutter you're seeing, along with barbed wire. According to my travel book, this neighbourhood is the worst one in the city. That would explain all the porn around here. My favourite name of one: The Sex Inn.

After checking in, I took a little nap, since I still wasn't feeling well. I got up around 5 PM and walked around the 'hood for something to eat -- didn't want to spend the night on an empty stomach. I got a avocado pita from a local fast food joint on a street corner. Most of it I didn't eat 'cause it didn't pass the eye test (shredded white lettuce, purple cabbage, and a slice of eggplant that looked like a tongue). I did eat the pita, though.

I spent the rest of the night either watching TV (flipping mainly between 1980s music videos and Al Jazeera . . . their Witness documentary series looked at a remorseful Bosnian war criminal) and wandering around the neighbourhood for Rolaids or Tums. Couldn't find either. I did buy an Oreo ice cream sandwich, which settled my stomach for a while.

I didn't sleep well. With my indigestion and the neighbourhood I was staying in, it was hard to catch any zzzzz's.

I got up around 7:30 AM today (Thursday). I didn't feel like paying $15 at the hotel just for toast, since my stomach still wasn't feeling too hot, so I went across the street to the train station and got a bagel -- couldn't find toast in there.

I hung out in my hotel room until 10 AM, waiting for someone to fix the safe; it was locked. They never showed, so I walked about a half-mile to the Städel Museum. Here's the bridge to get there:

They have an exhibit on Peter Paul Rubens. Good stuff.

I stayed at the museum a little longer than expected because it was raining. Once it cleared up I picked up an avocado sandwich and a lemonade at the train station. I ate in my hotel room and noticed they finally fixed the safe. I threw my laptop in there.

I took a cab to the European Central Bank:

I would've taken a tour, but you need to book it at least four weeks in advance. Funk that!

I then walked about a mile to the city centre, Altstadt. Frankfurt's streets are serpentine like Vienna, but it's harder to get lost here, probably because it's a fairly small city (only 775,000 residents). Anyway, Alstadt is a little touristy. It has a medieval area called Römer:

I then headed back to the hotel and hung out until 5 PM. I walked about to Römer and ate dinner at Haus Wertheym:

I ordered breaded pork schnitzel, which came with fries and salad. It was delicious! And the restaurant had a nice vibe. Tons of German beer mugs decorated the pillars.

The walk back to the hotel was shivering one. Temperature really dropped. Felt like it was 50 degrees. My Philly Union barely kept me warm. Maybe I should've brought my coat. Nah. Too much too lug around on those days when it's a high of 61 degrees.

I got a little lost, but the route was scenic. I was in some outdoor plaza that was pedestrian only.

Around 8 PM I hit the train station for a little ice cream sandwich and spent the rest of the nite writing this. Tomorrow it's off to Dortmund!

1 Full Day in Vienna

So, today, Tuesday, was my full day in Vienna.

I got up at 6 AM and had breakfast in the hotel. Not sure what I ate. It was a little on the sweet side, as well as yellow and chilled. I didn't want to ask in case it had eggs in it -- the mere thought of eggs would've made me nauseous. I chased it down with grapefruit juice.

Afterwards I hunted around for a pharmacy so I could buy toiletries (didn't bring them 'cause the TSA might trash 'em). Since I'm in a ritzy tourist area, they were 40 euros. Pricey.

Before I bought them, I took a picture of Saint Mary's Church, which is close to my hotel:

I showered at the hotel, then walked to Hofburg Palace:

I was going to take a tour, but they didn't start till the afternoon. Maybe I would come back.

I walked around some more, trying to find a store to buy a fußball jersey of Austria's national team. Couldn't fine one and by then it was lunchtime. There was a nearby outdoor food market. I got a falafel wrap and a can of Coke.

Next, I took a cab and asked him to drop me off at the nearest InterSport store. He deposited me in front of a store called Sports Direct, which used to be an InterSport. They didn't have any Austria football jerseys.

I found a taxi stand, but the cab driver never heard of InterSport, so I walked around and took another cab to my hotel. There, I wrote down the addresses of InterSport and the Sigmund Freud Museum.

I took a taxi to the latter:

And here's a close-up of the plaque with overhead flags:

The museum is where he practiced and I think lived at one time.

From there I took a cab to a Puma store because they Austria's football jerseys. They were a bit pricey, so I went to a different Sports Direct from earlier in the afternoon and bought the jersey I was looking for. It was on sale for 36 euros, I believe.

Taking all those taxies was cutting into my cash, so I tried walking back to the hotel. I got lost, which isn't that hard because Vienna streets are serpentine and maze-like. After about an hour, I gave up when I wound up at the main train station, which I'll go to tomorrow morning for my trip to Frankfurt.

Before I hopped in the cab, I took these two pictures. I thought this was cute at a small supermarket where I bought a clementine:

And here's St. Charles Church:

Back at the hotel I took a 20-minute nap. For dinner I went to an Italian restaurant around the corner and got spaghetti with meat sauce, and black Earl Grey tea. It was delicious!

After that, I saw this store front for a crystal joint. Pretty funny -- bedazzled household products:

At the hotel I counted my money. Out of the €1,000 I brought with me from the States, I'd spent €320 in Vienna. Yikes!!! Gonna have to take it easy in Frankfurt. Fortunately, the train station is short walk to the hotel.

Around 8 PM, I headed out to have my first Gelato. Make sense since Italy is south of here.

On my way back to the hotel, this made me smirk. No tobacco, just straight nicotine!

Vienna Calling

All right, it's Monday, 9:40 PM. Thought I would recap my trip so far.

Got up on Sunday at 5 AM. My sister drove me to the airport. I took a 10:35 AM to Toronto via air Canada. Below is a pic of the plane I was on.

I had about a five-and-a-half hour wait until my 5:55 PM flight to Vienna. The Toronto airport is pretty upscale -- reminds me of Paris' airport.

I ate lunch in a restaurant, LEE Kitchen. I got a bacon cheeseburger, which came with generous steak fries. Before I ordered, I double-checked with the waiter that I would pay in USD. He said yes (God bless Canada!) and when I requested the burger be cooked well-done, he said a government regulation has all meat cooked that way. Some Americans have stormed out of the restaurant when they can't get their meat pink or medium-rare. Fuckin rednecks.

I chased the burger and fries down with a large OJ. I was afraid indigestion was gonna set in, but my stomach was A-OK for the rest of the afternoon. That's how you can it's some good eats!

While waiting for my flight, I read a little and walked the terminal, which wasn't that big. I think it was only for international flights. I still can't believe on the plane from Philly to Toronto, the stewardesses had me fill out a Customs form -- nobody asked for it once I debarked.

I took Austrian Airlines to Vienna. Really nice airline. Not a lot of legroom, but they served pretzels and a beverage; a meal (I got pasta with a roll and chocolate dessert); and a muffin right before we landed.

I had an aisle seat. An Albanian, who lives outside of Toronto, had the window seat. He was a bit of chatty and had a serious case of halitosis. He watched the recent Star Wars movie with Luke Skywalker and kept asking me all these questions . . . he kept getting the Emperor from the old movies and the old guy from the new movies confused.

I took a cab to my hotel, Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth. Got there around 10:30 AM. I had finished on the plane, which touched down at 8:30 AM, the book I was reading, Lisa See's Shanghai Girls, so I walked to the Post Office to mail it to the coworker who lent it to me. I sent it economy for €10; it's supposed to take two weeks. If she gets it before I'm back in the States, I wonder if she'll notice the two Canadian coins I threw in there because she loves the hosers up north so much (the coins were left over from when I ate lunch in Toronto).

It's a national holiday here in Austria. Thankfully some places are open. I'm in the Innere Stadt of Vienna. It's very touristy. I ate lunch at NORDSEE, which is a little on the fast-food side. I bought a pre-made avocado wrap and washed it down with stilled bottled water.

Afterwards, my room was ready. Check-in time was 3 PM, but I was able to go in there around 12:30 PM. The hotel has an 18th-century composer vibe going on. I napped most of the afternoon, since I'd been up for about 24 hours and hadn't really slept on the plane.

I rolled out of bed at 4:44 PM. A little before 6 PM I went around the corner to Kartner Street, which has a lot of boutique shops.

I ate dinner at this place:

Here's my receipt:

I got a giant piece breaded veal, a huge bowl (for me, anyway) of mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower -- I didn't eat the cauliflower 'cause I was stuffed). I drank a bottle of stilled water with it.

Hung out in my hotel room for a litte bit. Around 8 PM I went back out. Since a lot of places are closed, I went to a McCafe and bought a McSloshi, I think it was called: vanilla yogurt with berries, and you mix in nuts. It was pretty good, I'm ashamed to say. Afterwards I came back here. It's 10:35 PM. I'm going to bed. Have my alarm set for 6 AM. Lots to cram in tomorrow because the following day, Wednesday, is a travel day to Frankfurt . . . train leaves around 8:30 AM.

Auf wiedersehen!

Shikoff's sneaker suggestions

Been meaning to post this a while, in case I ever misplace the slip of paper from my podiatrist with his suggestions for crosstrainers:

Nike Air Crosstrainer Monarch IV
Reebox DMX Crosstrainer
New Balance 623
Asics Gel Crosstrainer

(and Rockports for work)

Over the Union

I went to the Philadelphia Union match last night. It may be the last one I go to, at least for this season. For months I was looking forward to seeing Chicago's Schweinsteiger play, since I'm a ManU fan, and I knew he wasn't making the trip for an alleged calf injury, but I went anyway, though I shouldn't have 'cause I was in Marlton, NJ in the morning to help celebrate my mom's birthday, and I was in West Philly in the afternoon for a side job -- long day.

I was kinda pissed about the ticket the box office sold me. I asked for the North End, but the inexperienced Union employee put me in the nosebleeds and I had to peek around a VIP building to see a corner kick.

Something else that didn't sit well with me was their little marketing campaign for fans to re-up season tickets. The one poster has the executive Earnie Stewart under the word strength. I dunno, he hasn't impressed me with signing Jay "no goals" Simpson and Alejandro "overrated & overpaid" Bedoya, however, Haris Medunjanin and Jack Elliott have been awesome (the former has a great left foot and vision, while the latter rarely makes defensive mistakes). Plus, the front office boasts their academy is their future, but they only play the youngins in emergencies when older players are injured or sub them in super-late. Truth told, though, Stewart's just the messenger. The real problem is owner Jay Sugarman, who's tight with the purse strings. I think ESPN colour commenter is right: Bedoya is a TAM player and the Union need three real DPs.

Anyway, I left at the game at halftime. Part of the reason I split, besides my bad mood, was that I wanted to see if the shuttle left early so I could catch the 9 PM train. As I feared, the shuttle bus didn't go anywhere until the final whistle. Fortunately, a millennial who worked on VAR left early too because the MLS had called in too many VAR contractors last night. He let me hop in his Uber for the ride to the Chester train station.

Maybe next year I'll just watch matches that looking interesting instead of following one team for the entire season.

Karen Armstrong's A HISTORY OF GOD

Some sentences I liked:

Chapter 3, A Light to the Gentiles, p. 91, last graf: "...today: many of the people who attend religious service in our own society are not interested in theology, want nothing too exotic and dislike the idea of change. They find that the established rituals provide them with a link with tradition and give them a sense of security. The do not expect brillant ideas from the sermon and are disturbed by changes in the liturgy."

Chapter 3, A Light to the Gentiles, p. 101, last graf: "Human beings are aware that something is wrong with their condition; they feel at odds with themselves and others, out of touch with their inner nature and disoriented. Conflict and a lack of simplicity seem to characterize our existence. Yet we are constantly seeking to unite the multiplicity of phenomena and reduce them to some ordered whole."

Chapter 6, The God of the Philosophers, p. 194, 1st graf: "Most Western Christians had a very limited knowledge of Islamic culture and were ignorant of philosophical developments..."

Chapter 9, Enlightenment, p. 295, 2nd graph: "...under the old agrarianate dispensation, when law was regarded as immutable and divine. It was a sign of the new autonomy that technicalization was bringing to Western society: men and women felt that they were in charge of their own affairs as never before. We have seen the profound fear that innovation and change had unleashed in traditional societies, where civilization was felt to be a fragile achievement and any break in continuity with the past was resisted. The modern technical society introduced by the West, however was based upon the expectation of constant development and progress. Change was institutionalized and taken for granted. ... The old conservative spirt...had been replaced in the West by a desire for change and a belief that continual development was practicable. Instead of fearing that the younger generation was going to the dogs, as in former times, the older generation expected their children to live better than they. The study of history was dominated by a new myth: that of Progress. It achieved great things, but now that damage to the environment has made us realize that this way of life is a vulnerable as the old, we are, perhaps, beginning to grasp that it is as fictitious as most of the other mythologies that have inspired humanity over the centuries."

Chapter 9, p. 306, 1st graph: "Religion, however, like art often consist of a dialogue with the past in order to find a perspective from which to view the present. . . . Religion and art, therefore, do not work like science."

Chapter 9, p.322: 3rd graph: "Social historians have noted that Western Christianity is unique among world religions for its violent alternations of periods of repression and permissiveness. They have also noted that the repressive phases usually coincide with a religious revival. The more relaxed moral climate of the Enlightenment would be succeeded in many parts of the West by the repressions of the Victorian period, which was accompanied by an upsurge of a more fundamentalist religiosity. In our own day, we have witnessed the permissive society of the 1960s giving way to the more puritan ethic of the 1980s, which has also coincided with the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the West. This is a complex phenomenon, which doubtless has no single cause."

Chapter 9, p. 341, 2nd graph: "In 1729 Jean Meslier, a country priest who had led an exemplary life, died an atheist. He left behind a memoir. . . . This expressed his disgust with humanity and his inability to believe in God. . . . Religion was a device used by the rich to oppress the poor and render them powerless. Christianity was distinguished by its particularly ludicrous doctrines, such as the Trinity and Incarnation."

Chapter 10, The Death of God?, p. 361, 2nd graph: "A negative image of the Prophet Muhammad and his religion had developed in Christendom at the time of the Crusades and had persisted alongside the anti-Semitism of Europe. During the colonial period, Islam was viewed as a fatalistic religion that was chronically opposed to progress."

Chapter 10, p. 361, last graf: "Freud had wisely seen that any enforced repression of religion could only be destructive. Like sexuality, religion is a human need that affects life at every level. If suppressed, the results are likely to be a s explosive and destructive as any sever sexual repression. . . . Repression of religion can breed fundamentalism, just as inadequate forms of theism can result in a rejection of God."

Samuel Johnson

I finished W. Jackson Bate's biography on Johnson. Some selections that caught my eye:

The Seven Years' War had begun. In political articles, he strongly attacked the policy of imperial and commercial expansion. The quarrel of the British and the French in America, as he viewed it, was the quarrel of "two robbers" for the land stolen from the Indians. Of the two, the French had at least the credit of treating the victim -- the natives -- with more consideration.
(Chapter 19, section 4, 3rd graph)

The truth is that something very serious was beginning to happen to him, and he was quite aware of it. The general reconsideration of life so common in middle age and the problems inevitable to it were something he had foreseen long before this. He had taken them into account and half assimilated them in advance, in protective preparation . . . But now, as he was entering his fifties, he was more vulnerable . The larger part of middle age could seem already behind him, and instead of his life being half over . . .it could now, by any optimistic calculation, appear two-thirds over, and most of it could seem a waste -- a history of disappointments, frustrations, regrets, and mistaken choices, none of it to be blamed on the work but only on himself.
(Chapter 20, section 1, 4th graph)

"Work and love," said Freud near the end of his own life, in Civilization and Its Discontents, are the only ways in which human nature can come closet to happiness or at least avoid misery. Freud adds, of course, that far fewer people really "love " than think they do.
(Chapter 21, section 5, 1st graph)

[Baretti] was put in Newgate Prison, where a rival Italian teacher soon called on him saying he wanted to take over Baretti's pupils after his execution and asking Baretti to write him a letter of recommendation.
(Chapter 24, section 2, 3rd graph)

Morris Trump

I'm rereading Morris Berman's Dark Ages America, which was copyrighted in 2006. In Chapter 4, "Pax Americana", in the Hot versus Cold Wars section, there's this passage (page 130 in paperback edition):

[Voters in 1980] were drawn to Ronald Reagan, a man who saw the world in just such simplistic terms, and who pledged to make America great again.

Looks like Trump owes some royalties to Berman ;)

Juan Cole

I read this months ago, and it's been bee-bopping in my head recently. Just might be the best paragraph Cole' ever written:

It is downright weird that we haven’t been able to find any evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, given how old and big it is.  It occurs to me that carbon-based life may have a tendency to evolve toward an intelligent species that discovers how to manipulate fire.  But in each case, it isn’t quite intelligent enough to avoid burning so many hydrocarbons that it cooks its planet and causes its own extinction.  Hence, no radio waves from these serial hyper-tropical worlds. 

"LBJ: Architect of American Ambition" by Randall B. Woods

I recently read that bio. Two great passages in it:

Chapter 11, A Populist Gentlemen's Club, p. 246:
The North and Midwest viewed the Southeast as the most backward part of the nation, the most resistant to change, and the most out of step with postwar realities. Southerners viewed the Northeast as economic exploiters and racist hypocrites.

Chapter 39, Tet, p. 818:
Reform is rare and difficult in the United States, a deeply conservative country.

thriller propaganda

Interesting point in recent New York Times Book Review:

American political thrillers, like American politics, can be awfully jingoistic. In the works of Brad Thor and Brad Taylor and similar writers, a heroic America often comes under existential threat from a bellicose Russia or China or North Korea. . . .  American thrillers function as a kind of propaganda, demonizing foreign enemies. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/books/review/inside-the-list.html?_r=0

Mussolini

On the 1% chance Trump wins in November, I've been reading Christopher Hibbert's biography on Mussolini, because a couple pundits I trust predict a Trump presidency would be less like Hitler and more like the Italian fascist.

Anyway, there are a couple quotes that cracked me up because they're so absurd, despite the horrible history of WWII.

In the "Diplomat" chapter, section 4, p. 109, an Italian ambassador complains to the Germans about lack of openness on the Nazi's aggression plans, a Nazi diplomat says that decisions "were still locked in the Führer's impenetrable bosom."

Later in that same chapter's section, p. 112, Mussolini is bitching about the Germans: "Give them enough sausage, butter, beer, and a little car and they won't worry about sticking their bayonets into people."

Speaking of Nazis, I would argue that the current state of American/European neoliberalism is a distant second to the Third Reich, with our history of slavery and Native American genocide. Plus, capitalism exploits the worst aspects of human nature: cut-throat competition, wasting of natural resources, and the rewarding of greed. Not to mention that in a couple hundred years we've treated Mother Earth like shit so that by 2200 we'll probably enter another Dark Ages. Seems like the id of the human race always reigns supreme and leaves devastation as its legacy.

Portland, OR: day 5

I didn't do much on Monday. Like Sunday, there was intermittent rain all day.

For breakfast I went down to the Skipping Stone Cafe for another large single pancake -- I could only eat about two-thirds of it. I was talking with the waitress and I mentioned that the cafe was briefly featured in Friday night's episode of Grimm and she said the crew eats in there a lot.

Around mid-morning I headed down to Voodoo donut based on the advice of a coworker of mine from San Francisco. I got a Portland cream-filled donut. It was delicious!

For lunch I grabbed a salad again at the Fred Meyers supermarket.

I spent the afternoon back at the hotel reading Amelia Gray's Gutshot, a strange short story collection. I could've went to the Japanese Garden, which is only about a mile away, but when it rained, it was ugly, plus the only other thing I wanted to do in town here was go to Lloyd Center to hang out at the ice rink, but I'm saving that for Tuesday because I'll have tons of time to kill with checkout time being noon and my flight not taking off until 11 PM.

For dinner I went down to 10th Street (I'm staying near 20th Street). I was in the mood for a gyro. Haven't had one since I lived in Berkeley when there was a Greek restaurant around the corner from my cottage. I bought my $5 lamb gyro from an Egyptian food truck (way cheaper than Berkeley) -- the whole block was full of food trucks, most only open from mid-morning to mid-afternoon for the lunchtime rush. It was kinda cool how were all on the perimeter of the block, facing the sidewalk; the interior of the block was for parking.

I took the gyro back to the hotel and ate it while watching the Manchester United match from Sunday. I don't know if I ate it too quickly or what, but I did not feel good for the rest of the night. I eventually had to go across the street to Walgreen's to pick up some Rolaids. I crawled into bed at 9:30, listening to some podcasts. Around 10:30 I crawled under the covers, praying I didn't have to fly 3,000 miles with an upset stomach. Does United tack on fees if you use more than one barf bag?

Portland, OR: day 4

On Sunday I went to the Chevron convenience store again and got a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. The rest of the morning I did laundry because when I travel for more than a weekend, I do laundry halfway through so it's less stuff I have to pack. What's awesome about the place I'm staying is that there is a laundry room in the main building across the street. Today was the first day raining, but it was all good -- the laundry was only $1 for the washer and dryer each, and somebody left detergent, which had more than enough for my three small loads.

For lunch I picked an Italian sandwich with Boars meat at the Fred Meyers supermarket. Washed it down with a 7.5-ounce Pepsi. I had picked up an eight-pack at Fred Meyers when I first got here.

In the afternoon I took the blue light rail for about an hour to the Gresham City Hall. During the ride I saw a couple tents pitched on the verdant hillside. Looked like people were living there.

After I hopped off the light rail, I took a bus to the only Planet Fitness listed as in Portland. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, going to the gym doesn't sound like much a vacation, but it was almost 90-minute trip to get there and I wanted to see the other side of the city. I think it would be called the southeast side (my hotel is near the northwest side, I believe). Though I think the Planet Fitness is lying a little. It looked like they're just outside Portland, in the suburb of Gresham.

I had left my keys with my Planet Fitness ID back in Philly, but fortunately the girl at the desk was cool enough to let me exercise. I did upper-body weights.

On the trip back, I got off about a mile before the hotel and picked up a Qdoba chicken burrito. This was around 5 PM. I wanted to get it sooner than later because they closed at 7 PM, and I assumed around closing time there would be slim pickings.

At the hotel I showered then watched the DC United match while I dined on my burrito. The rest of the night I just stayed in.

Portland, OR: day 3

It's Monday morning. Let's see if I can remember what I did on Saturday.

Because I thought the Skipping Stone Cafe might have a queue, I went to the Chevron convenience store around the corner and picked up a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

Then I hopped on the light rail to Washington Park, which is the same stop where the Oregon Zoo is at. I headed for the 4T trail. Here's the beginning of it:

It was about a mile march to Council Crest Park, the highest point in Portland.

I thought I could catch an aerial tram, but I had to keep walking the trail. I went about another mile on the trail, then took a shortcut on a roadway, though it didn't feel like a shortcut, 'cuz it went on for a while -- probably another mile.

I eventually found the aerial tram, it was next to a hospital. Too much information time: thank god the building the aerial tram was in had a bathroom. I had to go something fierce. I couldn't really find anything on the trail, and there were a fair amount of people on the trail.

Anyway, the tram was a short ride, no more than 2 minutes. I tried taking a picture of the approaching tram.

I thought the ride was free, maybe a service of the hospital, because the operator didn't ask for a ticket, but when I got off I saw a ticket vending machine. I didn't buy a ticket. Does that make me a bad person? But I did buy a ticket for the Portland Streetcar.

The Portland Streetcar isn't part of the TriMet network that runs the light rail and buses. The Streetcar takes you through downtown. The one I was on went through the university. One part was really neat, it cut through a shopping district where people were sitting, sipping on their java outside of a coffee shop. There weren't any barriers or anything. The Streetcar snaked over the red bricks a few feet from the shoppers and sippers. Pretty cool!

Eventually I got off the Streetcar and hopped on the light rail. I went to the Fred Meyers supermarket near my hotel and got a salad for lunch.

My hay fever was acting up, with itchy eyes to the extreme, so I took about a 75-minute nap in the afternoon.

For dinner I wanted to go to a local Italian restaurant, but you needed a reservation. So I stopped in at a local pizza joint, Hot Lips, but they were all out of meatball sandwiches. I checked out SFNY Pizza, where I some slices Friday night, but they didn't do meatball sandwiches. I settled on a BLT from Jimmy Johns; I really didn't want to eat there 'cuz I hit it up all the time in Philly, but I was running out of time. I picked up some Lay's BBQ potato chips at the Chevron too.

Around 6:30 I headed to Providence Park for the soccer game. The Timbers played RSL. Good game. The home team was down 2 for a while. The match ended in a draw.

Great thing about your hotel being several blocks from the soccer stadium is you don't have to worry about driving or waiting for the train. Woo-woo!

Portland, OR: day 2

Before I get started, I forgot to write up something that happened on my first full day here . . .  Thursday, was it? After eating dinner at Qdoba, as I was ambling around downtown, I was standing at a stoplight and the road to my left was blocked off except for light rail. Some sedan goes through the green light but didn't see the two concrete barricades until the last second. He hit the brakes, though they didn't screech or anything, and the car never stopped moving. The driver-side window has halfway down, and front passenger window was all the way down. The driver goes, "Whoa, whoa!" His girlfriend/wife in the passenger seat, who looked like the crazy sister upstairs neighbor on that Jessica Jones Netflix TV show, screamed at him, calling him a "dumbass". Oh, and I think there was at least one toddler in the back seat.

Anyway, on Friday I hiked down to the Skipping Stone Cafe again. I ordered sausage links and a biscuit. The biscuit was huge, probably equal to three or four biscuits you have at Thanksgiving. Should've taken a picture. I finished it and the three sausages, though.

Like Thursday, I caught the bus back to the hotel. The rest of the morning I worked on yesterday's blog post.

For lunch I hit that sushi place. It wasn't as good as the first time I was in Portland. Maybe because this time it was at the height of the lunch rush. They just didn't have the nigiri sushi I like. Everything comes around on a conveyor belt. I ate two shrimp, two tuna or salmon, and two octopus or squid. The lemonade I washed it down with was perfect -- not too sweet, not too diluted.

In the afternoon, I walked downtown and took pictures of the Portlandia statue.

Afterwards I saw this crazy traffic sign:

What's that noise all about?

Then it was off to the Oregon Historical Society museum.

It was nice. They had an exhibit on Chinese immigrants and the hardships the U.S. government put they through. Reminded me of Lisa See's Shanghai Girls. And sadly things haven't gotten much better with Hispanics at the latest scapegoat.

Several blocks away was the exterior they use for the Portland police station on the TV show Grimm.

Before heading back to the hotel, I took some pictures of the Timbers stadium, since it's a few blocks from the hotel. Can't wait for the game Saturday night!

For dinner there's a pizza place across the street from the hotel called SFNY, which stands for Straight From New York. They sell slices, so I got a plain and a pepperoni. It was pretty funny, when I asked for the plain, the cashier asked, "Cheese?" It's like they're speaking a different language out here!

After dinner I watched an episode of Grimm and read some of Stephen King's Cujo. I fell asleep around 10. My bio-rhythms are still on East Coast time. You wouldn't think that would be the case; after all, I lived on the West Coast for two years. Maybe I prefer the Atlantic Ocean over the Pacific. . . .

Portland, OR vacay: travel day, and 1st day here

It's about 11 AM on Friday, March 18. Thought I would catch up on what I've been up to. I'm a little rusty on writing anything outside of an email, so the prose probably won't pretty -- just the facts, ma'am.

Wednesday I got up and drove straight to mom's house so I could park my car in her driveway. I didn't want to leave my wheels in Manayunk because I'd be taking up a spot for almost a week when parking is at a premium there, plus there was a chance it could get stolen; somebody seeing it in the same spot over the weekend might deduct that I'm out of town.

At my mom's house, I was going to take the bus to the train station, since it's at least a mile away, but my sister's husband, Bill, was next door helping his dad brew some beer (his parents live next door to my mum) and he drove me to the train station.

I got down to the airport in plenty of time. For lunch I had a bacon cheeseburger at Chickie & Pete's. Never ate there before. It was pretty, pretty good.

The flight was supposed to take off at 2:25 PM, but it probably touched off the runway closer to 3. The connecting flight was in Chicago. For dinner I popped in a Wolfgang Pucks and bought a hummus wrap. Never had hummus before -- it was all right . . . tasted healthy.

I landed in Portland around 8 PM PT. Like when I spent a weekend here in September '13 (when I was living in Berkeley, CA), I took the MAX red line. It's a light rail. This time around I bought a weekly transpass for $26. Not too bad, it works on the buses too.

It's about a 45-minute rail ride to my hotel, the Park Lane Suites, in the city centre. I stayed here last time. There's the main building on the one side of the street, and more rooms in a separate building on the other side of the street. I'm in the latter. I just may be in the same room as I was last time, room 227 on the second floor (duh).

Yesterday, Thursday, I slept in a little then went to the Skipping Stone Cafe. It's about a mile from the hotel.

Back in '13 I tried a pancake and a biscuit. They're both huge and I only ate about half of each. This time I got just the pancake.

Crazy thing about Portland, it only costs $3. I still couldn't finish it, though I did get about three-quarters down in my gut.

For the mile trip back to the hotel, I didn't walk too far. I caught the 15 bus, which drops you off a block from the hotel. I didn't have to slide the transpass when I got on -- you just show it to the driver. That's one of the things I love about Portland! Things are simple here.

After showering I hoofed it about a mile from the hotel to Powell's book store. I picked up  a travel guide and a book about moving here, since I'm thinking about it.

I grabbed the 20 bus back to the hotel and for lunch I wandered around looking for a sandwich. I popped in to a nearby supermarket, Fred Meyer, but their sandwiches had too much meat on 'em for my tastes. Before I left security had to escort one customer out of the store. He was a white male, late 40s or in his 50s, about 6'5", bald on the top of his chrome, and he was no more than 20 pounds overweight, though it looked like muscle that had turned to flab. He called one of the Fred Meyers employees a bitch and told her to her job. He seemed a little unhinged. I thought a scuffle might break out 'cause he sounded unnecessarily angry, but he left without incident.

I eventually bought a ham and swiss cheese sandwich at another nearby supermarket. More upscale than Fred Meyers; I think it's called Zanders. It was $5 for a half sandwich. Overpriced, but it was good. I ate it in my room.

After lunch I watched the Manchester United and Liverpool UFEA match.

For dinner I walked a mile to the nearest Qdoba. Yeah, I know I can have their chicken burrito anytime in Philly, but it's soooooo good.

Afterwards I ambled around looking for a sushi place to eat lunch at the next day. One of the busy streets I went down (well, by Portland standards, it was busy -- 10 people on one side of the street) had a closed Subway. Apparently a customer threw a chair (I saw marks in the vertical part the counter) and tried stabbing the cashier. The attacker got away. I was talking to one of the bystanders and wondered if the knifer was the same guy from Fred Meyers this afternoon, but the bystander said the Subway cat was a black guy.

As I was leaving, I saw this same guy as the one outside the Powell's book store in the morning. White guy, he was about 6'3", thin, had piebald hair, was wearing a suit jacket and had, I would guess, at least $300 specs. He had noted my Timbers cap and claimed he had family in Manchester, England and played goalie there for a god awful team.

Anyway, outside of the Subway, he gave one of the bystanders the finger and said that guy was an asshole. I did notice that unlike in the morning he didn't have a leg brace on over his jeans -- you know the kind, goes from groin to ankle, with velcro straps. He still had his guitar case and supermarket cart full of crap and knick-knacks.

I eventually found that sushi place. I think it's the one I went to last time I was here. Then I headed back to the hotel. Really tired. All told I must've walked close to five miles. Plus in the afternoon I picked up some allergy medicine. My hay fever is acting up. When I was here in '13, I went back to California with some allergy where my voice was messed up for weeks. Could have something to do with my broken nose when I got hit by that car on March 1, 2012 and my deviated septum. Hopefully if I keep taking the Walgreen's version of Zyrtec I'll be fine.

and another excerpt from John Keane's TOM PAINE: A POLITICAL LIFE

Paine was not a pacifist.  He recognized that in politics "turning the other cheek" can be a devilishly self-contradictory ethic that enables the strong to outfox or destroy the weak.  Yet he was also convinced that an ethic of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" was dangerous, especially in politics, where its literal application invariably leads to mutual reprisals and escalating violence, thereby hardening the hearts of the combatants, destroying their civility, and forcing freedom into exile, condemning it to tramp other lands as a poor and hungry refugee.  Therefore, the use of violent means to defend liberty was only the lesser of two evils.

p.228, Chapter 7 (The Federalist), "Revolutionary Compassion"section

another excerpt from John Keane's TOM PAINE: A POLITICAL LIFE

Paine was no believer in self-regulating "free markets."  He was not an "ideological spokesman for the bourgeoisie."  He certainly believed -- in this he was remarkably modern -- that market mechanisms for structuring decisions about investment, production, and consumption through anonymous monetary exchanges could never be eliminated from the heart of civil societies without destroying the vitality and what Paine sometimes called "civil independent pride."  Industry, commerce, and agriculture regulated by means of money-based private exchanges were essential for a free civil society, if only to protect it from meddlesome state power.  But -- the qualification was of the utmost importance to Paine -- he refused to draw from this the conclusion that the various institutions of civil society should be ruled by impersonal "market forces."  Within this sphere, individuals should not be treated as private entrepreneurs whose talents and powers are presumed to be natural and whose conduct is guided by the bourgeois principle of differential cash rewards for workers and owners of property.  He was adamant that market exchanges must be controlled and nurtured politically.  A self-regulating market is undesirable.  It motivates individuals not on the basis of commitment to serve and be served by their fellow citizens, but through a mixture of greed and fear.  Market competition encourages citizens to see each other as threats and as sources of private self-enrichment.

p. 190, Chapter 6 (Public Insults), "Men of Wealth" section

excerpt from John Keane's TOM PAINE: A POLITICAL LIFE

...fear is a central ingredient of despotic regimes, in which fear of power always corrupts those who are subject to it and fear of losing power always corrupts those who are exercising it.

p.141, Chapter 5 (War), "The American Crisis" section, 1st graph

album review: HOME STREET HOME: ORIGINAL SONGS FROM THE SHIT MUSICAL

Shit musical, indeed.

NOFX's Fat Mike's musical is finally hitting the stage.  His label, Fat Wreck Chords, dropped the soundtrack on February 10.  And it's lamer than the transients lounging on Telegraph Ave.

Most of the songs are about drug-taking and the S&M scene.  I dunno.  I quit drinking three years ago, so my household ain't 420 friendly.  And as far as dating a dominatrix. . . .  Why?  Sex is awesome all by itself.  Why would you want to ruin it by adding torture to the mix?  Consequences of a post-9/11 world, perhaps.

And here's the thing: Fat Mike is a millionaire.  Him writing songs celebrating street life is like Stalin penning an ode to those victimized by empire.

But the million-dollar question is, "Who the hell would invest in this musical?"  Theatre productions are notoriously expensive, hence the astronomical ticket prices.  Maybe it's a vanity project for Fat Mike.  Gotta spend your Knob Hill millions on something, I guess.

The sad thing is what a waste this whole endeavor is (and the money I lost buying it).  Fat Mike has an unbelievable amount of talent rocking around in his drug-addled brain.  A cursory listen to NOFX's catalog proves he has an ear for harmony and melody.

If you're going to do a musical, how about one on the plight of today's working person?  With the 1%'s war on the middle and poor classes, a musical in that key could be what America needs right now.  Art should educate and engage, not simply entertain.  But, no, Fat Mike decided to salute the cult of self, glamorizing the pursuit of pleasure and the annihilation of brain cells.

It's not all bad, though.  Besides a kick-ass soundtrack title, Home Street Home (take that, Mötley Crüe!) has a few half-decent tracks.  "Three String Guitar" has witty wordplay, especially admirable given it's only 93 seconds long.  "Missing Child" is a beautiful ballad told from the perspective of a mother missing her runaway daughter (more songs in that vein would've been nice).  "Because I Want To" has splendid synthesizers straight out of an Epoxies outtake.  And while the last track, "The Agony of Victory", is a little too saccharine for my ears with its cliche "na-na-na" ending, it gives an excellent excuse to pull out NOFX's last great album, Coaster, which featured a far superior version.  Ah, to a better time, before a great American songwriter jumped the shark. . . .

new site

Hi, I'm now blogging at JohnStephenOsborn.com. See ya there!