An ex-girlfriend and I used to walk around the lake in Stanley Park; invariably around sunset and always starting and ending at the broken, birdshit-stained decking adjacent to the golf course. We would look out at the ducklings and their duck parents, ignore the litter our feet dangled above and talk into the relative prettiness of the wet horizon. Now, whenever I go home I walk my dog around an extended version of our old route, with something I can sing along to pulsing mercilessly through my earphones. Not so I can reminisce on love lost or what might have been, but because it's peaceful and it makes me happy. I sometimes take my camera too, but seldom capture anything worthwhile - what with Patch jolting the lead and all.
In Kathmandu they have this little girl that they call the Kumari. She's a child they keep in a tiny wooden palace with her family, and she's regarded as a goddess by all the Hindus in the land until she has her first period. Then they give the family some money and they kick them out, making way for the next one. The selection process involves a lot of Auschwitz-esque skull measurements and a bizarre dungeon animal slaughtering, all endured by the candidates to test their various levels of perfection and other worldly-ness. The Chosen One remains unfazed by any of it, and that's how they know. Well, once I stood in the courtyard and waved at her, and then I went out for my tea. I hadn't thought of it too much until now.
Last year, when I got broken, drunk and sad in lieu of my degree, I'd begun to write an analytical piece discussing the paradigms of selfishness and altruism in Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. The great American road novel, eh? Flitting between the subconscious, the unconscious, the sobriety of full consciousness - the possibilities of a consciousness expanded. Temptation and fate, death and guilt, redemption and throwing thousands of dollars at a problem - only half the time with the intention of fixing it. I never finished the essay, my own road trip, or On The Road. The latter because it's shite.
I think one of my favourite moments in the music of Tom Waits is in 'Kentucky Avenue' on Blue Valentine, where he proclaims, "I got a half-pack of Lucky Strikes man, so come along with me", because only Waits could offer up such a meagre date and make it sound not just accommodating, but irresistible. I don't know how he does it. It's not what I want to do, but I suppose it's what I'd love to be able to do, if things came down that close to the wire.
Smoking partners, road buddies, goddesses and dog-walkers of the world, hello. My name is Colin Cooper, and I have a myspace.
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