The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

Americans are known as horrendous tourists. I’ve seen countless bucketheads taking a break from their guided tour of the Louvre to hector a Parisian waiter into speaking English. I’ve seen Americans scream because their hotel room didn’t come with a private bath or complain the elevator is too confusing because the first floor is what Americans call the second floor. They talk loudly in restaurants. They confuse Naples with Amsterdam and want to know why nobody serves pasta. They cuss the British because they’re almost run down looking left instead of right as they cross the street. They habitually stiff taxi drivers and porters and woe be unto the cafe or brassiere that doesn’t offer cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes.

I’m not sure why we treat the rest of the world this way. Perhaps it’s our long history of isolation where everyone else was “over there” and we were “over here”. Maybe it’s because Americans are taught from birth that they’re special and the world is theirs alone. Whatever it is, ignorance is at its core.

I’ve been extremely fortunate. I’ve been to 25 countries on every continent save Antarctica and Australia and to all 50 states and every Canadian territory and province except Nunavut. I can recommend a good restaurant in Paris and have seen two Buenos Ariens ask to feel my African American companion’s skin because they’d never seen an actual black person. I’ve seen the grinding poverty of Rio’s favelas and the fetid, cardboard shantytowns along the river in Asuncion. I’ve been present as history was made in Tehran and took tea and cookies in a small Turkish village. There was a Christmas Eve saved by the generous owners of a small German restaurant and a month made miserable by the blinding summer heat of Riyadh. I’ve even heard the soft applause of birds and visited Gitmo personally. I’ve been fortunate indeed.

Atoning for My Countrymen
I try to atone for my countrymen who push people around simply because they can. I’ve always tried, as best I could, to live like a local - taking meals at streetside vendors or trying as much of the local language as I could muster. In return, I’ve experienced many, many kindnesses from those “foreigners”. Even the famously rude Parisian waiters and cabbies are unfailingly polite to me.

Travel has given me the ability to see the world as a global citizen rather than a hubristic bully. Although proud to call myself American, I’m sometimes ashamed of my countrymen and wish they could see the world as I do. We consume the world like we consume everything else - large and in charge. It doesn’t matter if a country has oil, it’s ours. It doesn’t matter if they produce shoes, we’ll take ‘em - three pairs for $50 if you please. We convert the sweat and toil of peasants around the world into air conditioned comfort and wide screen, HDTVs.

However, there’s more to travel than simply setting foot in another country. A coworker once told me a story that perfectly illustrates the American ideal of travel and our power to consume.

He’d just returned from a trip to Egypt after flying there on an American airline and being met by an American tour guide who escorted him to the Cairo Hilton. The guide also escorted them to a cruise boat for a short trip on the Nile. Along the way to the river, my coworker marveled at Cairo’s tall buildings “just like we have” and all the prosperous people driving Mercedes. He arrived at the boat and found it more than satisfactory. “They all spoke excellent English and tea was wonderful, but they were almost 20 minutes late serving it,” he boasted. “Those people are so slow.”

Always Low Prices at Walmart
As they passed a small village, my coworker saw the villagers weaving cotton and probably correctly concluded that the woven linen would go to Singapore or the Dominican Republic where it would be “assembled” into a shirt ending up at the Des Moines Walmart on sale for $15.95.

My coworker was quite taken by this. As a bean-counter, he was impressed with the efficiency and the low cost. He raved about the shirt’s price and how much a person like him - with a six-figure salary - could save. “Americans just can’t compete against a system that efficient,” he said.

I’d guess former millworkers in North Carolina might disagree that it was the “efficiency” that made the difference.

“Of course you know that was a sweatshop,” I said. “Sure, its good for us and it’s good for them,” he said. “If it wasn’t for our sweatshops, they’d be starving.”

“So instead, they work 12-14 hours a day to make just enough money to starve, but only a bit more slowly,” I asked?

“Nah, people like that only need a few pennies a day. Do you know how much a good old American greenback is worth in Egypt?”

“Yeah you embarrassing asshole,” I muttered to myself. “It’s worth a hell of a lot, but it’s not worth working someone to death so you can buy a cheap T-shirt emblazoned with ‘I survived a trip down the Nile’ on the front.”

The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!

Page, AZ - I’ve always had a great love for travel. There’s something comforting about feeling the miles unspool under my feet. For me, the destination has no real point, I’m all about the journey.

Day-to-day life can be grinding. Too much stress and strife. It’s easy to forget - despite what may be happening - we are still a great nation. We live in a beautiful land of infinite variety. Our geography is perhaps some of the most beautiful in the world. But trips like this also help remind me that our people are as beautiful as our land.

An elderly woman asked where I was headed last night. When I explained nowhere in particular, she opened a conversation that was a nice break from the whole not-talking-to-anyone thing. Or the woman who helpfully offered two cents to the drugstore clerk when I had no change. Last night a waitress, easily 30 years my junior - called me “Hon”. If they weren’t so cynical, I think these small gestures would be the best thing about politicians campaigning.

The folks who offered these small pleasantries could have been serial murderers for all I know, but the things they said and did were still nice at the time. The point to what they said or did weren’t the real point, the journey that connected them with me is what they’re all about.

My motel room is only a few blocks from the Glen Canyon Dam. It’s wedged into a hole of incredible depth and sits there humming electricity and providing water for farmers and cities. Though not a WPA project from the depression, it carries the style and unmistakable grace of government monument building. It’s all sturdy concrete and decorative flourishes - what nature has joined together, man will cast asunder.

Some would argue this dam is an evil thing. They prefer a world in which water and electricity are second choices to the needs of man, or more correctly, appears without any footprint at all being imposed on nature. But, that cat was out of the bag long ago. Today there are millions depending on the dam’s water to drink and its electricity to keep things running. It’s going to be damnably hard to do what many environmentalists prefer - blow it up and let nature take the canyon back.

Man, like any other animal, always leaves a footprint. It’s impossible to do otherwise. We must have food and water and shelter, all things even the staunchest of environmentalists take for granted. The dam may have inundated the beautiful valley, but at least it’s a utilitarian act. Man built a beautiful structure and followed the ancient advice to build only that which we can use. The dam is curious like that. The destruction of beauty in the quest of utility. Making that decision repeatedly throughout our history, we have a mixed track record. Some things we killed for nothing other than greed or just because we could, but sometimes we did a bit of a good thing. We did some things that to the eye of the beholder are poxes on the earth, but we live in a country where you can speak out against it or in a country that sometimes values beauty, even the man-made kind. We could have done much worse. At least we did it with the best of intentions and to the benefit of many.

And that’s not so bad.

Beatty, NV - I left Visalia, CA this morning, intending to go to Las Vegas by way of Bakersfield (Dusty’s neck of the woods). When I reached Mojave, CA I stopped for gas and made an odd discovery - the site of the famous 20-mule team borax line is now occupied by a Kentucky Fried Chicken. It made me think of St. Ronald of Reagan’s old Boraxo soap show, and between the two it seemed an omen that I must visit Death Valley.

Death Valley is experience rather than a destination. From the moment you drop into the valley from the rim, you see it as both something beautiful and something worthy of scaring the bejeebers out of the pioneers. In winter - the only time I’ve ever braved the place - it looks soft and surreal. In summer, it’s downright dangerous, a fact that road signs keep pointing out. Towering mountains covered in snow frame the valley. Along the walls are dribs and drabs of vibrant color from the minerals Sir Ronny told so many cowboy tales about. Red, yellow, purple, copper, green; a whole riot of color leaking down the walls. As the sun moves, the colors change and shift. That green and red mountainside you saw just a minute ago has disappeared to be replaced by a mountain painted in copper with red and yellow stripes. (more…)