Robert C. Cottrell, �Izzy: A biography of I.F. Stone�
OK, so maybe I should try to have some semblance of incorporating the book into these entries, no?
Yeah, you're right. No.
Well, maybe. I.F. Stone was one of those legendary journalists that I really wish we had a modern-day comparison rather than these people with the bad hair and worse friendly banter. Or people who lose their shit. The Geraldo thing? Call me cynical (oh please, call me cynical!), but I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to get his own version of �Oh, the humanity,� like that Hindenburg reporter. What he didn't think of is nobody remembers who that reporter was. You know why? Because he wasn't a good reporter.
The local television news here is absolutely horrible. First off, the male newscasters wear aloha shirts. Somehow, I doubt that a guy in a lei and a flowery shirt is about to present some serious investigative journalism.
But then of course, I don't trust people in ties either, so I guess that's why I usually stick to newspapers. When I can afford newspapers anyway. Thank christ for online editions, even though my attention span seems much shorter through that medium.
It seems that with as much time as I've spent in the library, I haven't written much in the way of entries. It makes sense to me � after all, I've written about Hawaii on three separate occasions. What the hell else am I supposed to say?
It's almost the opposite from when I was in England and writing out e-mail dispatches all the time. But while I was there, I didn't have to get a job, my shelter and majority of my food was paid for, and the magazine that I worked for assigned me to go to various shows or bars.
But OK. Let me play reporter. What people don't realize is that Oahu is not exactly island paradise. Everybody who keeps insisting that they're going to come visit? A place like Kauai might be a better choice, because Oahu is basically a big fucking city. There are buildings everywhere. Enormous hotels line the beaches filled with fat sweaty Europeans in horrendous swimwear.
My street seems to be the one area where everybody goes to dump their unwanted furniture, and yet I can't find a decent bookcase. Graffiti. Brown lawns and dead grass. Two tons of traffic at all hours of the day, and most of the night. McDonalds restaurants that serve Spam. Overpriced drinks because all the fat sweaty Europeans in horrendous swimwear can afford it. Asparagus that costs $6.99 a pound.
This is an island paradise?
The crime statistics aren't much better. Honolulu is worse than the national average, showing their 2002 national average at 6360.38 per 100,000 people, while the national average at that time was 4118.8. In 2003, there were over 69,000 cases reported, covering both violent and property crimes. Of those cases, nearly 50,000 occurred in the city and county of Honolulu. This year, three rapes have occurred on my campus in March alone.
And before you say something snarky, this happened before I got here.
Of course, I'm getting all of these statistics by sitting in an air-conditioned computer lab on campus. I haven't been raped. The real way to find out about a city is to get out and explore. The problem is that I don't have any money to explore with. Even with the limited amount of credit I have left on my various cards, a lot of places either don't accept them, or have an unreasonable minimum charge. Thanks go to one Web-shy person who sent me a care package of money to buy beer and cigarettes. I bought beer.
Alternatives are needed, obviously, as everything on this island seems to involve money. I came across a flier announcing a Critical Mass rally. I hunt down the location as the flier has no information and dutifully show up ten minutes before the start time, and there's nobody there. I pedal around the capitol building a few times looking for other bikers. I'm used to San Francisco where you can't miss the crowd as most of them seem to be on six foot bicycles wearing sheep costumes with leather chaps. I don't see any of that here.
The flier says the ride begins no later than 5:30. It's 5:27, and I'm still by myself. Finally, one lone biker rides up to me.
�Critical Mass?� he asks.
�I'm not quite sure,� I answer. �Is it?�
�Well, we'll give it a few more minutes. If nobody shows up, we'll just call it off.� 20 minutes later, we have ten people all told, including myself. We ride through the streets of downtown Honolulu, taking over the far-left lane. Then two people start to cut in front of traffic, a cell phone is utilized, the cops come and ticket the guy who got mouthy and that was the end of our ride. Two people suggested the pizza place with the $8.00 pitchers of Newcastle, but I passed due to the lack of funds.
So let's see, with my current situation, all I can do is go to the library, go to school, go to the beach, and ride around on my bicycle hoping I don't get raped.
Except for the beach part, that's what I've been doing. In fact, I finally went into the ocean for the first time on Sunday, after being here for more than two weeks. But I have been on the bike a lot, which brings up the second most annoying question, after �Have you met Dog the Bounty Hunter yet?� which would be, �Do you have a tan?�
To answer both questions, as I know you're dying to ask. �No� to the first (he's on Maui), and �Sorta� to the second.
But see, I'm not the kind of person who walks around without a shirt on. Even when I was a little kid, I would keep my shirt on whether I was running around outside, swimming in a pool, or going into the ocean. It wasn't a body issue thing. When I was 16 and some girl mentioned that I had the physique of a heroin addict, I still kept my shirt on. I suppose I just didn't like the idea of showing the world my nipples.
My ass on the other hand�
Anyway, that's continued for most of my life. I think it's only over the last two years or so that I finally got comfortable about exposing my pasty white skin. But I would still rather keep a shirt on while around the general public. Therefore, even with the highest concentration of sunblock that I could find, a creme that makes me smell as if I've been marinating in bacon, I'm still showing the telltale signs of the T-Shirt tan.
You know what I mean. Brown neck, brown arms, blaring white torso and shoulders. After about three weeks of riding around in the sun every day, this has become fairly pronounced.
So yesterday with the holiday, I decided it was time to fix my costume. I had to break apart both robots to fit them into boxes before I left and with Halloween coming and me still having no luck finding a job, winning another contest may be the only way I can eat next month.
It was a nice day outside, if you can imagine that, and I decided to bring the materials out to our front deck. Since the area is enclosed by a wooded fence, I realized I could work shirtless out here and not have to worry about people staring at my nipples.
This may take some visualization so if you need to, go stand in front of a full-length mirror. Reach around to your back. Find the area where it's hardest to run your hands across.
Got it? Now pretend that you're gluing and fastening parts on something that's placed on a table about waist high. Bend forward and hold your arms in front of you. Look again in that mirror. What's the area that's most exposed to the sun?
That's right, the same area that you can't reach.
Anybody want dibs for the skin off my back? 'Cause I'm betting this will come off in strips. No freaky voodoo stuff though.
