Fish on a Pole
25 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 7 years ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsHomepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
The Curious Case of the Ephemeral Beefcake
April 19, 2017 18:30Turns out DC has a storytelling scene because at this point having one is like having a music scene: it's a question of flavor rather than existence. Spectra and I have been to a few shows at a few venues and it tastes very familiar. Once again, anthropology 101 teaches us "people, any people, are far more alike than they're different." Why is this lesson so difficult for me to absorb? A question for a another time. This story is about the time I was featured in a pin-up boy calendar. If you...
Farewell My Target Shop Assist: ペチャクチャ style!!!
April 07, 2017 18:05You know that speaking format where a person presents 20 slides that auto-advance every 20 seconds? It came from Japan and is called ペチャクチャ which translates to "chit-chat" but is better known by the Japanese which sounds like "pecha kucha." For reasons I won't delve into here because Spectra's parents will read it, that sounds weird to me in an English context. Whatever you want to call it I did once about my beloved and brief stint working in the downtown Minneapolis Target. Here it is.
Moth Story Slam Final (22 Jan 2016 edition): the story I told
March 18, 2016 03:24I'm the guy in front.
#8 Bangkok Doghouse: that dang song was right
October 08, 2014 20:29When we got back from Southeast Asia I didn't feel like telling any stories about it or anything else. But then I was struck by a whim and one thing led to another that resulted in my telling a story last night at Story SlamMN about how Bangkok kicked my ass. NOTE! This is an actual recording of me telling the story in public. The quality isn't great but it isn't awful either. This may or may not show up on iTunes at some point because I always forget all the persnickety steps required but...
Evidence of Absence
July 29, 2014 22:18On the off chance you’ve been hoping I’d write some sort of farewell post about our time in Thailand or Southeast Asia, I’m apologizing to you. We’re back in Minnesota but I’m too depressed or too overwhelmed or too reverse culture-shocked to be able to be able to come up with anything to say. At the moment I feel like I don’t have anything to say or maybe even that there is nothing to say. Frankly, I’m a miserable git right now. I presume this is a temporary condition and that in time som...
Grenade Go... Boom?
June 18, 2014 17:18If you are like me—at least in this one small way—the first time you heard gunfire in real life you were disappointed. In movies guns sound menacing. The bass heavy impression of movie gunfire is the bark is only slightly less fearsome than the bite. In reality gunfire is more treble than bass, more pop than BOOM because it sounds like what it is: firecrackers configured to propel a projectile. I've only heard the sound of small-caliber guns—pistols, rifles, shotguns—so maybe it's different w...
Thailand: land of something, anything other than avocado
June 03, 2014 17:50I think I mentioned this at some point in the past, but the idea of Thailand as the “Land of Smiles” is overblown. I don’t mean that as an insult. It’s just that the reality is Thai people are human beings and like all human beings they are living lives that are rooted in reality. Some days are good, some bad, and not every moment warrants a smile. Do I encounter more smiles on a daily basis in Thailand than I do in, say, Japan? Of course, but that’s not saying much. This is the land of Thai;...
Three Convesations With My Students That Buddha May Have Overheard
May 28, 2014 15:12[WARNING: This post includes an uncharitable hyperbolic depiction of Christians. If this is the sort of thing you’re inclined to be offended by I recommend skipping this post, or at least the section titled "They are sneaky, Needle. Keep your eyes open."] Recently the subject matter in my tutoring has taken a turn for the, uh, less straightforwardly academic with three of my students. This happened all the sudden, at pretty much the same time, for reasons I can’t fathom. I’d say it’s simpl...
The Chiang Mai Enigma: death, bliss, same-same
May 23, 2014 14:19Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city and often billed as an antidote to Bangkok (a diiiiiiiiiiistant second, with about a million versus 13 million people). One is overwhelming, hot, and garish. The other is charming, temperate, and quaint. Several people who’ve traveled in Thailand told us they didn’t care for or even disliked Bangkok but loved Chiang Mai. When we first arrived in Thailand Chiang Mai was high on our Must Do list. For a variety of reasons it fell into the Nice To Do...
Military Declares Martial Law: We Debate Seeing Godzilla in "4D"
May 20, 2014 08:25A very brief post for nervous mothers and, perhaps, Beckett. You may have notice that martial law was declared in Thailand in headlines and articles that also often include the expression "coup d'état." Here is a verbatim exchange of texts Spectra and I had this morning in light of the news: SPECTRA: did you read about the military martial law? ME: Yep. You are living under Martial Law. The military says, "Don't Panic." SPECTRA: 5555* ME: No. They really did. They said, "Don't panic." A...
Truths and Lies about Thailand: “everyone” speaks English
May 06, 2014 17:52At a minimum, Americans (and Germans) have the sense that everyone in Thailand speaks English. Not literally, of course, but we do believe that wherever we go there will be Thai people who speak enough English to negate our need to speak any Thai. That’s pretty much true in the tourist intensive areas, but the moment you step off the Farang Trail the prevalence of English precipitously declines, and without rudimentary Thai you find yourself struggling to order even a cup of tea. This was a...
Thailand: it’s not America… or is it
May 03, 2014 09:38Thai schools are in the midst of “summer vacation.” Technically it’s spring, but this is the hottest time of year here so kids get a couple months off (kids in Thai schools, that is, kids in international schools get much shorter breaks). In practice that means lots of tutoring instead of school, but still they have considerably more free time these days. And what do they do with it? If the dozen or so young people I routinely work with are a fair representation, they do not spend much of i...
Ko Si Chang: [blank] Thailand Experience
May 01, 2014 16:47At some point in the last couple months Spectra and I passed into the realm of “subtle Thai experiences.” We’ve had our fill of massive, spectacular temples & sites, and Thai culture is no longer alien (although it’s still occasionally looking glass fascinating; I’ll get into an example in a future post). We’re now firmly into stuff that the very act of chronicling crushes. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but these are the kinds of experiences that would be best captured by haiku. I don...
Close Encounters of the "Timeline" Kind
April 19, 2014 18:00Perhaps you are familiar with my veneration of a little Thai film called Timeline? If not, I made my feelings clear in a post (one of my shortest, by the way). Anyway, Friday night (19 April) Spectra and I were with our friends Belle, Ning, and Mankato--in addition to some of their delightful friends--at the JJ night market. Who else should be at the market that night? None other than co-star of Timeline Toey Jarinporn. This lady: Ms. Jarinporn contemplates a future chance encounter. Belle ...
Songkran: praise Buddha and pass the water bottle
April 16, 2014 14:43Songkran, in very short, is Thai new year--by the way: welcome to the year 2557--and historically was a mix of Buddhism and one strain or another of ancestor reverence. I say “historically” because as far as I can tell it’s about as connected to religious beliefs as Christmas is to Christianity in America. Sure, some people take it very seriously, and many people put in an extra appearance at church/temple, but when you’re opening presents and drinking boozy eggnog, Jesus is the furthest th...
The River Kwai: I went down that river once as an adult
April 15, 2014 06:48Spectra and I spent the first two days of Thai new year (aka Songkran) on the River Kwai in a floating hotel deep in the jungle with no electricity. It was hard not to think many Apocalypse Now “Have you considered any real freedoms, Sawyer…” related thoughts on this trip but I won’t get into all that. This post is about my singular favorite moment on this trip. This is not to be confused with my favorite passage or thing about this trip. It’s just my single favorite moment. The hotel we s...
Wooden Toy Skateboards: I’m an errand boy, in search of a mockingbird
April 08, 2014 15:56If you are like me--and you might be (whether you know it or not; whether I know you or not)--then you’re looking forward to the one sublime moment where you feel like you’ve been shot in the head with a diamond bullet* as you realize that human beings are just fine, thank you very much, and don’t really need you. I imagine in that that moment I’ll feel a hand on my shoulder and it will be Buddha, or perhaps ¡SOLUSTRON!. I’ll look at her, she’ll look at me and give a single nod, maybe a lit...
A Little Thai Is A Dangerous Thing: 2 for 1
April 08, 2014 03:12I was at the hospital today having a mole checked out (and eyeballing the plastic surgery rates) and had some time to kill while my bill was being determined. This took a good while because in Thailand they don't go in for this "we'll sort it out with your insurance and send you a bill" nonsense. Oh, no, they'll sort it out while you wait so you can pay before you leave. I'd already been waiting about 20-minutes when the charming clerk lady said, "Maybe you should get some lunch and I'll call...
Money, It's Gotta Be The Shirt
April 06, 2014 15:54I’m a sucker for many things and I’ll cop to guffawing at a good t-shirt cross-cultural malapropism from time to time. As an American I feel fortunate because the United States and U.K. dominate this market; so t-shirt absurdity, intentional or not, is readily available to me and quickly absorbed at a glance, even in the chaos of a throng. Today, for the first time, one of these t-shirts stopped me in my tracks, literally, in traditional Thai life-is-for-stopping-on-a-busy-sidewalk-with-no-ro...
Slowly Losing My Culture: "seeing" street dogs and urinating in public
April 03, 2014 17:34This morning I was walking down the street and I had to avoid stepping in some dog excrement that someone else hadn’t avoided. There was considerable smearing and clear signs of deliberate scrape-age, so it took several steps to be safely beyond the scene of unpleasantness. During the navigation I was fully locked in on avoiding a similar fate, but after I was sure the danger had passed my first thought I was, “I don’t even notice all the street dogs anymore.” That was a mildly stunning re...
The Poetry of Vietnam: cromulent it is not
March 31, 2014 14:08I appreciate the aims and existence of poetry but have no taste for it. I’ve given reading poetry a go a few times in my adult life but haven’t been able to get into it. Opera has suffered the same fate. Prior to visiting northern Vietnam I hadn’t lamented this cultural gap, but now I’m kicking myself for it. A run-of-the-mill moment in Ha Long Bay {yawn} Spectra and I spent six nights in northern Vietnam: two nights in Hanoi, one night in Ha Long Bay, one night in Bai Tu Long Bay, and th...
We Were Popular Once; and (one of us) rich
March 29, 2014 14:32Frivolous Post: Spectra and I went to Vietnam last week and it was such an astonishing experience that I’m struggling to find an approach to write about it. I’m working on it but in the meantime here’s a silly little ditty. I had a new student. I'm going to call him William but that's not his name. He's a high school junior in the United States, was home for spring break, and all he wanted to work on with me was his accent. William is Thai and went to Thai schools (as opposed to internati...
Bangkok + English Tutor + Three Months = Vietnam
March 17, 2014 11:14This might be filed under Only Interesting To Me, but it’s short so it can’t hurt to share. On Wednesday Spectra and I are going to Vietnam for a week. We probably would have visited Vietnam on this trip regardless, but we’re going this week in particular because our three month VISAs are about to expire, so we need to leave Thailand to get them renewed. In travel parlance this is called a “VISA run.” I’m not sure when I first encountered this expression but it’s safe to say I was closer t...
Three Small Things: the rise & fall of an empire, laughing our way to the food court, and a cultural apology
March 14, 2014 03:49This Is WEDNESDAY! (but there's nothing to see) As I've mentioned in the past, Spectra and I take full advantage of Wednesday's 100 baht movies. The institution was nearly derailed by the lamentably stupid Shadow Recruit but we recovered from the setback and hadn't missed an available Wednesday. Despite the theater across the street having 14 screens we knew the day would arrive when there wouldn't be anything playing we were willing to see. I'd assumed that would happen through the proce...
Bangkok Normal: we just, kinda, live here now
March 12, 2014 02:50{pre-footnote: I'd forgotten the post preceding this one was about normality so I guess this is an issue that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind.} Last week Spectra and I independently had the same realization: we simply live in Bangkok now. We’re no longer wide-eyed tourists or explorers. We’re no longer frazzled immigrants, stumbling around in a daze. Our Thai, minimal though it be, is enough to navigate the vast majority of daily transactions (I can count to 100!). We're mysti...