the not so Quiet American.

The entire time that I was in China in 2001, I tried my best to be a good representative for America. I was polite and respectful of cultural differences, and only a few times did I truly descend into the classic, loud American that is the reason why so much of the world thinks we are all like that.

There are times, however, when one cannot help but be yet another belligerent tourist in a strange land, and give people the wrong ideas. This is one of those magical times.

The evening started out like most of the others, with several bottles of Steinlager and the careful selection of music to take out on my nightly skating trips. After deciding on Portishead, I grabbed my board and headed out into the night.

Everything was going smoothly, skating past ancient walls and tiny shops selling trinkets and food, until out of nowhere I was lifted up and off of my board by a taxi cab. As I flew over the hood and then the roof of the crazy fucker’s automobile, I remember thinking “I really hope to god that my beer doesn’t break!”

It did, all over the concrete. And so did my wrist, in a few places.

As my dignity sped away with the taxi, I started realizing that no amount of sitting there would alleviate the pain in my strangely crooked wrist. I picked up my skateboard and went back to where Seth was busy not getting hit by cars or breaking limbs.

“What the fuck happened to you?!” he asked me

“I don’t. Fuck! I think that. God damn mother fuckers!” I replied, in the strange poetic way of speaking that eludes all but the most severely injured. “Fucking taxi hit me and shit!”

“Maybe you should go see a doctor or something” He suggested.

“No, fuck. I’m fine!” I said, as the internet café people looked at my bleeding hand with a look of shock. “I just need to sit down.”

“No really, your hand looks pretty fucked up and you're bleeding all over the floor. At least get something for the pain”

So we hailed a cab, and somehow made it to a pharmacy. Now at the time this happened, I had a job back in Portland working at a pharmacy, so I had a pretty thorough grasp of American pharmacy laws. I was just hoping that in China they were more like the mythical Mexican drug laws where you can just waltz in and demand anything you want with no hassles.

After finding the correct section of my phrase book, I started asking them for everything from Morphine to Vicodin. They refused them all, and offered me a package of ibuprofen and a bottle of water.

“I am a young American doctor!” I screamed at them. “Hippocratic oath and all that shit!”

Seth was looking noticeably uncomfortable, and suggested that I purchase the ibuprofen and that we maybe head back to our room in the compound before the pharmacists got angry with my increasingly erratic behavior.

The last thing that I said before he physically dragged me out and into the street was “Do the words ‘Doogie Howser’ mean anything to you motherfuckers?!”

the morning after a long evening in my nineteenth year...

“…So they found your cell phone in Washington Park last night.” My mother informed me.

“Oh great!” I said, even though I had just woken up in bed with two girls, and hadn’t really noticed it was missing yet.

“Yes, apparently it was in the pocket of your pants." She said, as though this was a completely normal thing to tell your son at 7 o’clock on a Saturday morning. "Next to your shoes, socks, underwear, shirt, hat, two dresses and three empty bottles of wine.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really know what to say at that point. “Okay, well. Thanks for letting me know. I guess I’ll go get my phone then.”

Meanwhile, high above the Pacific Ocean...

In 2001, after a chaotic two months that involved everything from 9/11 occurring while in the midst of a severe tequila hangover haze to my friend and I accidentally becoming illegal immigrants in China due to an unfortunate Visa error, I was finally on a plane back to America.

Since the flight back is incredibly long, and Seth wanted to sleep, I gave him some Ambien. Within about 10 minutes, my traveling companion was exhibiting the typical signs of being deeply asleep, and other than the occasional required shrug to dislodge his snoring and drooling face from my shoulder, he stayed completely motionless for several hours.

After a few too many hours of the artificial night that comes from everyone shutting their blinds at the same time and pretending that it’s not sunny outside, the flight attendant came by and asked if we would like some breakfast. I said that we both would, and she dropped off two trays of food and two cups of coffee.

After drinking my cup rather quickly, and realizing it would be a while before she would return with a refill, I switched cups with Seth and drank his as well. I really didn’t think he’d mind. After very quietly trying to rouse him from his slumber, I took it upon myself to decide he really wasn’t hungry, and would probably just like to sleep. So, after placing a knife and fork in both of his hands and tucking a napkin into his collar like a bib, I switched our trays and proceeded to eat a second breakfast.

The attendant came by when I was halfway through Seth’s tray and asked if we’d like a refill on our coffee.

“You bet I would!” I said with a smile. “And my friend here would probably like some as well. He looks like he could use it!”

She stared down at Seth, and seemed to be putting a lot of thought into how someone apparently woke up, drank a cup of coffee, ate an entire tray of food, and then passed back out while still clutching his utensils, and who now was in dire need of a second cup of coffee.

“I’m a slow eater.” I said, while nibbling on a piece of fruit.

She poured the coffee and continued on her refill route while I thoroughly enjoyed my 3^rd and 4^th cups of coffee. Seth, of course, kept on with his morning routine of snoring, drooling on his bib and holding onto his knife and fork.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” She asked when came back by, obviously ready to clear everything away.

“I’m fine, but he might want something” I said, nodding towards Seth.

I nudged him, and after much longer than the attendant probably wanted to wait, he finally opened his eyes.

“Seth! This lady wants to know if you want anything else!”

He stared at me, stared at her, and then stared at the now empty plate in front of him.

“I think I want some breakfast, and maybe some coffee!” he said, although gesticulating wildly while holding onto a fork doesn’t really do much in an effort to prove you haven’t eaten yet.

After the attendant said that they don’t normally give people two plates of food, and Seth trying to explain that he really didn’t think he’d even had a first plate yet, I had to admit that I had eaten everything. The flight attendant looked annoyed, but she came back and gave him breakfast, although I’m pretty sure his empty tray stayed there for nearly an hour after he was done.

Needless to say, she was really not too kind for the rest of the flight, and I certainly learned a valuable lesson about…

No, I really didn’t learn anything other than the simple fact that making people think, even for a brief and shining moment, that they have done something like eat and forget about it, is hilarious.

One night, about two years ago, I was sitting on the roof of a decaying house watching the lunar eclipse with my best friend of many years.

As we watched the darkness devour the face of the Moon; he slowly turned to me and asked: “Why is it that we so rarely hear about eclipses where the Sun passes in front of the Moon?”

I stared at him, mouth agape, and asked him to please repeat the brilliant query that had just passed from his lips and into my ears.

“I just think it would be more of a regular occurrence, don’t you?” he said, as though it was the most sensible idea he had come across in recent memory.

“So let me see if I understand you correctly.” I asked, as calmly as possible, and trying not to sound that condescending. “You are literally wondering why the Sun does not get between the Earth and the Moon more often?”

This back and forth of “How come?” and “Are you serious?” probably went on for a good five minutes before he realized just what he was asking.

“Why don’t we just pretend I never said anything” he said, as though I could ever forget about it. “Let’s just go back to watching the moon disappear.”

a friend asked me how my parents were doing, so I responded:

My parents are completely different than when you knew them. My dad gave up riding a bike so he could focus on his real passions: NASCAR, cheap fortified wine and cigars. He also burned his beloved piano one night in a drunken rage after a long night of shooting his shotgun at the moon and throwing rib bones for his favorite pitbull. That man sure does love his dogs, gun and liquor!

And my mom, well, she realized that art and food just don't cut it anymore, so she decided to become a full time bingo caller as well as running a full service male escort service out of their basement. It's a pretty ruthless career, but she's a real spitfire, so she holds her own.

Other than that, they're the same old Sarah and David that they always have been.

The Future of AntiSocial Networking.

EraseBook: The Future of AntiSocial Networking.

It seems that everywhere you look these days, you hear about the “Social Media Revolution.” With everyone focusing so much attention on this phenomenon, it seems like most people have lost sight of the fact that some people don’t want to reconnect with high school pals or compare how many friends they have in an online community of their peers.

And that’s where we come in.

Hello, my name is Brian Auker, founder and CEO of the future of internet non-communication. EraseBook: Where you can look up everyone you have ever known, and completely sever all contact.

Man with Less than Firm Grasp on Reality Starves to Death while Playing Café World on Facebook.

-Desmond Walker, a prominent visitor to the Central Library, passed away at his library computer on Tuesday. He was 43. A librarian noticed he wasn’t breathing when she went to tell him that the library would be closing in 15 minutes.

Mr. Walker, a local homeless man who people described as both quiet and easy to forget, had been known to sit for hours at a time in front of the public computer terminals, mainly using the popular social networking site Facebook.

“I talked to him last week about his plans for the future, and he seemed to have some pretty interesting prospects,” recalled Darren Winters, a volunteer at the library. “He told me that he’d been pretty wrapped in the mafia lifestyle for a while, and made it pretty far before moving on to more wholesome activities.”

Mr. Walker would often regale people seated next to him with his exploits, which according to some have spanned from a hired thug to his most recent job as the owner of an online café.

“The first time I met the guy we was talking about how he quit the mob so he could work on his farm full time,” remembers Leslie Delacroix, a retiree who frequents the library. “He was really proud about all of the gifts he gave his neighbors, usually when they didn’t ask for or even want them."

Last Tuesday, a virtual lifetime of digital achievements was extinguished when Desmond Walker somehow forgot to eat for what was apparently well over a week. He was so wrapped up in making the animated characters on his computer screen happy, that this peaceful benefactor expired doing what he loved doing best: making people who may or may not exist happy in their world.

...it's off to the show!

…and then I woke up and decided that if anyone was going to change the world, it might as well be me.

So I gathered my words and my pens and my paper. I gathered my friends and ideas and thoughts, and I set off to find the best way to begin.

I traveled the land and the sea and the sky. I walked among towers and valleys and towns, and still I knew not how to begin.

And then I found you, and I knew where to start, it was as simple as finding your heart. So I looked in your eyes and I whispered “I know!” And you whispered the same, and it was off to the show.

Not shows like the rows and the tents of a fair, but something much grander, much greater, more there!

A show of the weight and the wonder of life!

A show so spectacular, so splendid, so real,
That everyone, anyone can’t help but feel,
The rush of existence, the beauty of now!

And that, my dear friend, is all that we need.