Wanderlust Kings

I have begun to feel that the adventurous mind is a diseased mind. The adventurer sacrifices safety and comfort for the perilous, often dangerous. They seek to pit themselves against odds stacked against them, they like to walk as close to death as possible and come back to share the story. How then can such people be thought of as reasonable, even cultured. Of course there are many types of adventurer, there are the mad, the vainglorious, the courageous, the list could go on and on. However it is the willingness in most to strive beyond normal goals that makes them so intriguing.

Of course fame and privilege is a powerful motivating factor in many such people, they will only leave their doorstep if it means they will come back with money in hand. I am more interested in the people who trek without expectation of reward or recognition, they plunge head first into the wild places to see them. Though now we live in a culture that thinks that adventuring is a cathartic process, meant to be an almost religious experience, a person communing with nature. I don't like that idea, when I explore a new place I look at it in wonderment, I marvel and consider who went before me. To hope for an afterlife for myself would be to surrender to the possibility that I can see all of this when I am dead, to put off what I should do in this life for another, to surrender to the fear of the unknown.

I am so badly inflicted with this disease, this need to explore I am certain it would be the death of me in any other time. If a person suggests that a passage is impossible I will be the first to volunteer to conquer it. Is it though, conquering, do I seek to subjugate, or control what is deemed beyond me? I think I want to show the limitless potential of humanity, a path deemed unworkable has its way, we need only apply ourselves to it. I burn with the desire to shuffle off the trappings of society, the pathetic joke that is 'modern life' for the places rarely seen, the mile just beyond the horizon.

Perhaps this isn't a disease, a corruption of thought. Perhaps the explorer isn't a vestigial part of society, in a world downloadable to a desk top. Perhaps we simply too keenly feel the need human urge to learn, to know. I want to see the world, but not as a tourist, I wish to see the peoples and culture, I wish to understand their society and their history, swim in their lives and envision their history. I am not the Victorian explorer, I can't judge the lives of those I meet by my own standards. We cannot discriminate against the cannibals and naked peoples of the Amazon or East Asia. We are only worthy of viewing it, containing our fear or misunderstanding and returning to the world and informing. I want to fill in the blank spaces on the map, though non are left, they are the holes in my map, my understanding of this world. I want to see the crown jewels of Europe, the seats of Empires long laid to waste by time and environment. I wish to pass through the deserts of Arabia, to feel the blistering heat of the Nefud, so I can understand what it meant to those who would dare to have done it. I wish to see the decadence of the oil barons, their poor hidden from the rich contractors, man made islands, like Ozymandias warning against the desire to be timeless. I want to see the spice markets of India, the open sewers, and the jungles in the north that hid the Thugee from British view. Nepal, Burma, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Ulanbatar. I want to ride a train into Siberia, and ponder on the Romanov's, visiting Moscow I would look for black cats and checkered suits. Africa, the jungles and gorillas, the booming diamond industry, the crushing debt and fear of witchcraft. Name the town and I wish to see it, no matter how small or far removed ask me to go there for a day and I will, so that I can tell the world what lies just outside their border.

The rainbow array of flags, tied to the mountains, when each one blows away a wish is granted. Gold hammered day and night into thin strips to be applied to statues of the Buddha. the bones of Saints and pieces of the 'true cross, in reliquaries, thousands passing by in reverence. Xingu tribesman, sitting in a canoe, fishing with a string and hook, a trick they learned from a dead Englishman eighty years ago, they store the catch in ceramic pots, identical to ones they made seven thousand years ago. I am desperate to not read these stories, you cannot hope to ever know it all, but knowing even a fraction of what it means to see the sun rising over Alexandria, Tokyo, Kinshasa or the Mato Grosso can sustain a soul their whole life. The search is endless, the empty space in a persons knowledge can never truly be filled, but it is the journey that makes it worthwhile.

I cannot be one of those who satisfies themselves with stories, with imagined empires, I cannot sustain my being with mere illusions as so many do, with games, movies, half hearted promises. I fear I will burst if contained too long without the road before me, locked in a job, locked in a life not even worth contemplating. I live only in fear that I will never leave these shores, or that if I do, I will never come back to tell my story to my close few friends who would care to hear it. i sit now, looking out the window at the trees, blowing in the wind. In my mind I am floating past them, over them, looking forward, traversing the miles in seconds. Rushing over everything, taking it in and I am seeing the world fly by, the people, the animals, the rugged mountains and soft green hills. Yet I am here, and must remain here, with this one tree. To me now, the rest of the world is as distant as the Moon, visible, but too far to touch, to see the powdery silt of its surface fall through my hand and fall like a microscopic snow. This is the anguish of an explorer, to know that there is a beyond, but to not have the means to attain it. It is what brought Walter Raleigh to the executioners block, it sent Magellan to his death at the hands of natives, it guided Percy Fawcett to his unmarked tomb in the Amazon. So it is for the explorer, let the mind perish with inactivity, or send the body to perish in pursuit of the next horizon.

I am not an ordinary man.

History! 4/14/09

Could these get any more boring? So why do I continue? Because I will it.

1775 (starting off a bit late huh) the first abolitionist group is founded in America, Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, otherwise known as SRFNUHB, or Surfin' A Bee (all lies). The founding members were Benjamin Rush, and Benjamin Franklin. Franklin did it to get laid, Rush did it hoping he'd get some of Franklin's left overs.

1846, the Donner party leaves Springfield, Illinois on their way to kick ass California. 150 years later elementary school children everywhere will recreate their journey with the only fun educational game in existence, Oregon Trail.

1865, an actual important event and I'm glad I brought it up. I should probably make an individual post about this as well. Our 16th President Abraham Lincoln is shot at Fords Theater by the assassin John Wilkes Booth. Right now it is about 9:35 back East, and at this moment Booth is waiting at the theater. He arrived 30 minutes earlier and, because he was once an actor he is waiting for the right moment to climb the stairs to the Presidents box. At 10:15 Mary Todd, Lincoln's wife, will note that he is holding her hand, and asks what Miss Harris (a guest of Lincoln's) will think, to which Lincoln will say "She won't think anything about it." Moments later, during an outbreak of laughter from the audience (timed out by booth) Booth will shoot the President at point blank range in the back of the head with a dillinger. Major Rathbone, soon to be husband of Miss Harris, tries to grab Booth, but is stabbed. Booth attempts to climb forward towards the railing, but Rathbone grabs him again, and is rebuffed by Booth's knife again. Booth attempts a graceful leap from the Presidents box to the stage, but his riding spur catches the American flag bunting on the box and he lands awkwardly, breaking his fibula. Limping forward he turns to the audience and shouts "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" Latin for "thus always to tyrants!", the state motto of Virgina. He then fled the stage and made good his escape. Lincoln, now is non responsive, but a group of three doctors are quickly on the scene and after removing a clot from the wound he is moved across the street to William Petersen's Boarding House. Lincoln is placed on a bed there at an angle because he is too tall to lay straight up and down. At 7:22 am, on April 15th (3:22 am our time) Abraham Lincoln passed away, United States Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton was there and commented "Now he belongs to the ages."

I'll throw this up now and follow up with more in a little bit.

History! March 20th!

I don't even know why I write these, no one reads them. Except you, which is actually me, simply re reading them later. So today we are going to jump into that slimy swamp called history and pull up some catfish.





1602, we see the founding of the Dutch East India Company. this is where things start falling apart for the world. The DEIC is the first multinational corporation, as well as the first megacorporation. The Company was given a 21 year monopoly over trade in Asia, and was the first company to issue stock. how weird must that stock market be.





"So what's up today?"


"Dutch East India Company."


"What can I buy?"


"Dutch East India Company."


"Anything else?"


"Not till GE is invented."


PARADOX!





Also they had the ability to strike their own coin (make their own currency, ala Disney Bucks) and wage war. We'll see a steady increase in Piracy right after the formation of this and the British version.





1616, Walter Raleigh gets released from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment. Raleigh had spent quite a bit of time wandering around the Tower before. During Queen Elizabeth's reign he had a knack for charming her into not killing him for making mistakes. He was involved in the colonizing of Virginia, and when he got home he promptly married one of Elizabeth's assistants, which is something you don't do without permission, which is exactly what he did. Quite a few people believe Raleigh was involved with the Queen in one way or another, which I tend to support based on his smarmy habit of getting out of trouble by telling Elizabeth how great she was all the time. Anyway, back to the story, Walter gets thrown in jail with his wife for a few years, then get released, he gets bored, starts telling people that there's a city of gold in South America. He keeps an eye on the royal household, which proves pretty bad for him because Elizabeth croaks and James I takes over. James hates Walter, probably because Walter tried his smarm tactic on James and James took offense. So James hurls Walter back into the Tower because he is convinced that in spite of his service to the country in the past he was probably involved with some protestants who wanted to replace him with a Spanish cousin. So on this day in history Walter was released again. His next stop? South America!





1815! Napoleon never liked being imprisoned on Elba, it didn't suit his ideas about what a "Good Time" constituted. So today after his escape and arrival on mainland France he arrives in Paris with a regular force of 140,000 and a volunteer army of 200,000. So begins Napoleon's 100 Days Rule. Across the channel the Duke of Wellington looks out his window and goes into a Dragonball powerup mode. When asked about his level he commented that it was "Over 9,000!"





1852, that bitch ass Harriet Beecher Stowe releases "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Stowe is a "Bitch Ass" because whilst on one hand trying to illuminate people to the plight of enslaved Africans she is also known to have spent time in Scotland and Ireland while writing the book and said that the Scots weren't much more than animals and deserved to be treated as such by their cruel landlords. Fuck you bitch.





















1856, William Walker is routed by Costa Rican forces. I would explain what that means more in depth but instead I will direct you to rent or purchase the film "Walker", staring Ed Harris, with cameo's by Joe Strummer, who also composed the score. Lets just say Walker was "President" of Nicaragua, and he denied a trading contract to a Vanderbilt (19th century equivalent of Bill Gates, only with the desire to see men die) who promptly sent Costa Rican troops and American mercenaries to oust him.



1916, Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity, to quote Bill Murray "Einstein did his best stuff as a patent clerk." SPECIAL CHALLENGE: Post the name of the movie this is from...SPECIAL SPECIAL CHALLENGE: It can't be Nate.



1933, Giuseppe Zangara is executed by electric chair in Florida. His crime? the attempted assassination of FDR. I highly recommend picking up a CD of the musical "Assassins", you learn quite a bit about this thanks to it.



1942, General Douglas "Douchebag" MacArthur lets the Philippines know that "I shall return."



1952, the US finally ratifies a peace treaty with Japan, as though in those intervening years we were worried they would hit a secret button and giant robots would shoot out of every paper house and blow up our carrier fleets.



1956, France finally lets Tunisia go, Vietnam on the other hand...



1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married. I'll say this once, I don't hate her, and I'm glad the Beatles didn't keep going so they could end up like The Rolling Mummies...I mean Stones.



1999, Legoland opens, tumble weeds blow through. A distant coyote yaps at the dusty sky.



2003, We start the bomb droppin', gas guzzlin', American youth killin', Civilian maimin' adventure called the Iraq War...I'm sorry, not war "Enduring Freedom Fries of Democracy Brought to You by Pizza Hut and the Good People from Boeing."



Also, today is the second day of Quinquatria, a roman festival celebrating the birth of Minerva. Today we would have gladiatorial fights.

History! March 13 2009!

Lets peer through the muted shades of time and find the events most interesting to have occurred since recorded time.

On this day in 1138 Gregoria Conti is elected Antipope. The antipopes are not to be confused with the song "I Am The Antipope" by Zlad! Antipopes originated in the fact that the Catholic Church didn't always do things in lockstep and every once in a while a Bishop would become Pope and the rest of the Cardinals and Kingdoms who cared would say "Whoah bitch! You'd better back up off my transubstantiation!" These indignant catholics would select a better leader, labeled an antipope. Gregorio led an interesting life as Antipope, however the details of this life are only interesting to people who really care about squabbling in the 14th century Catholic church, that is to say almost no one.

William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, his plan to draw the name from a hat backfires terribly after he refuses to accept the previously drawn names "Urectum" and "Urgay".

In 1862 Union commanders are ordered to not return any fugitive slaves, effectively negating the fugitive slave act of 1850. This will be followed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Oh lordy! In 1884 the siege of Khartoum begins. Britain had been mucking around the world for ages by the time the famed General Charles George Gordon was sent to the Sudan. Egypt had been battling insurrectionists in the country for years and an evacuation had been ordered, the plans for this were spearheaded by the British General Gordon (Egypt being a near colony of England at the time). Gordon was the most colorful General in Her Majesty's employ at the time, going by names such as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha and eventually Gordon of Khartoum. He had acquired these nicknames by virtue of the fact that when he arrived in a new country he automatically adopted the manner of dress of the locals, "going native" as it were. In the Sudan Britain and Egypt had been experiencing troubles with a local leader called The Mahdi. The Mahdi was in open revolt against the Egyptian authority in the Sudan and wished to spread Islam to all corners of the globe. Technically speaking "the Mahdi" is a term in Islam to describe a chosen one who is prophesied to arrive at the end times. Anyway, Gordon is ordered to evacuate and leave Sudan to the Sudanese, but decides that doing so would mean that there would be a spot on the map that wasn't under direct British supervision. so to force the hand of government in London he remained in Khartoum waiting to battle the Mahdi when he arrived. London went batshit. "Who the fuck does Gordon think he is, he knows the public loves him, and he knows how shitty this will get if he stays and we're forced to show up and hand people their asses. Fuck you Gordon!" Was most likely the conversation Prime Minister Gladstone had when he heard the news. So on this day in history, Gordon closed the doors, distributed the guns and waited patiently for the Mahdi to blow him the fuck up or the British army to crest the nearest hill and kill everyone with maxim guns. Oh yeah, you probably want to know what happened next...Gordon gets decapitated on the steps to his office, the Mahdi gets killed too, but a little while later when the British (surprise surprise) show up late. The Mahdi's one world Islamic revolution falls apart, most likely because he's dead for most of it.

1900 sees the capture of a town by the British in the Second Boer War. this is a war in which we see the British battling Dutch farmers for control of South Africa. Britain built the first concentration camps for this conflict to house all the conquered farmers in blistering heat without food. You might also remember (probably not) that the First Boer War (previously the Boer War) was the engagement that featured fictional Doctor James Watson.

1921 Jesus. Mongolia declares its independence from China. You think you know Mongolia? You think its just yaks and plains? Fuck no, Mongolia is one of those places that creates fuckers like this! Baron Roman Nickolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg, go to wikipedia and look at his fucking picture, no wait I'll put it here...

What the fuck, you know this guys nickname, the Bloody Baron, you know why? Because anyone who looks at this picture and doesn't just kinda feel that name in the back of their head is just as crazy as he is. He is some of the crazy detritus that got launched from the wounds of the Russian Revolution. He wanted to restore the Romanovs as well as the Mongolian monarchy, however for lack of adequate living descendants of either he decided to exterminate Jews and Communists instead. Seriously, why is it when your crazy and born before 1950 the only answer to a question of leadership is "Do I kill Jews or communists today?"

"What are we going to do about the grain shortages Baron Unger-BloodTrough?"

"Hurm...we must eliminate the Jews and their intellectual allies."

"Okay."

Anyway this clown was crazy, crazy like real clowns are crazy, he would intentionally mispronounce his name because it sounded and I quote "to jewy". He loved nomadic peoples and fought in World War 1 where he was considered brave but slightly unhinged, which surprisingly hurt his opportunities for promotion. After the revolution he was sent with General Semanov to take control of the far flung Asiatic territories of the former Russian Empire. Backed by Japan he was given a chunk of land where he began to brutally repress his villagers. On top of these regular outbursts of lunacy he and Semanov hated the Blosheviks AND the White Russians, they were at war with both sides of the freakin' civil war! So pissed off that the world is moving forward to quickly he separates form Semanov and becomes a regional warlord, deciding that monarchies are the only thing that will save humanity from itself. He begins planning a restoration of the Qing Dynasty that will unite all of East Asia, to enact this plan he surrounds the Mongolian capital and at night lights a number of fires to convince the Chinese occupiers that the force is much larger than it appears. The following day he takes the city after a protracted and bloody fight. So today on March 13th he declared Mongolia independent, and named himself dictator. He led a reign of terror with his army that lasted all the way to August, when the Red Army, sick to death of his bullshit, captured and executed him by firing squad, bringing the number of people on Chris' list of "People the Soviets killed who deserved it" to one.

In 1925, oh fuck yeah, the Scopes Monkey Trial begins. We all went to high school, and we all read Inherit the Wind, the only difference between you and me is probably that I loved the whole thing and own the original film version plus the newer Hallmark series version. I also own numerous biographies of Clarence Darrow, on whom the character of Charles Drummond is based.

1930, stupid ass Pluto is discovered. Stupid stupid freezing space rock.

1943, Germany eliminates the Jewish ghetto of Krakow. There is nothing funny to say about it. I once met a man who was at Krakow and was then sent to Auschwitz, he was the one of the nicest people I ever met.

In 1962 Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman to the Joint Chief's of Staff for JFK offers up a nifty little plan called Operation Northwood. His awesome plan is to stage a fake terrorist attack on Gitmo which will give us a cassus belli to attack Cuba. JFK throws him from a window and includes a classic Kennedy one liner "Fuck off and die."

2003, in France scientists report that 350,000 year old human footprints have been found in Italy, science again subtly says "fuck along now" to New Earth Christians.

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History! Jesus there's a lot on March 12th!

Good Christ, who knew that some days in history would hold so much signifgance! Yesterday, being the anniversary of the beginning of the Flagstaff War and all, well that was like the most interesting thing to happen that day, but today, geez!



On March 12, 538 AD, Belisarius (famed general of the Byzantine Empire, last of the true Romans) succesfully takes Rome after an extended siege. Belisarius was the single best general the Byzantines had and was pivotal in executing Justinian's plan to retake the former territories of the Roman Empire. It didn't happen, but Belisarius was cool.



in 1622 Ignatius of Loyola founds the Jesuits! This dude gets a sainthood as a result. the rest of the world gets an easily recognizable bad guy for any movie that predates Nazi's or America. Technically speaking Jesuits weren't all that terrible, unless you went to Japan where they lorded over trade and human life like kings.



1894, a personal favorite event, in Vicksburg Coca Cola starts manufacturing glass bottles for its delicious cocaine drink. This was the single best move for Coca cola ever, nothing is more refreshing than a glass bottle coke, made with real sugar, chilled to 34 degrees.



In 1918 those commie pinko bastards in Russia moved the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow, hey jerks! The Romanov's preferred St. Petersburg, say hi to your mother for me.



1930, motherfuckin' Gandhi does his march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt. On the way he eats twenty Big Mac's then buys a suit from Armani*.



1933, first fireside chat from FDR, he discusses important things rlating to the country, primarily about shanty towns, hobo beans and the nine ways to boil a cat for nutrition.



Does history ever stop marching?



NO! Fuck you!



1938 Austria gets annexed by Germany, guess what Poland, you're next! As for Great Britain and France, they don't have to worry because the guy who wrote Mein Kampf only wants some Liebenstrom, which is obviously smaller than all of Europe right?



The Truman Doctrine is announced in 1947, we are now poised to show Communism we aren't soft on them, lets keep 'em out of everywhere we find 'em! America!



That's about it, but lord, look at that history back there, just all piled up on the 12th. Also today we have a very special fictional birthday...


Rorschach!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU NUT!

*This probably didn't happen, but we don't have the time machine to prove it.

History! For 3/11/09, The Flagstaff War!

So on this day in history in 1845 we see the beginning of the Flagstaff War, a British affair with the Maori in New Zealand. The whole thing began when Britain (busily sailing around the world putting flags and bodies in things) arrived in what would become New Zealand. Noticing that there was open space with a handful of indigenous people on it the British got revved up and began settling, starting with a document called the Treaty of Waitangi, which was vague on a number of important points. Vague in so much as it convinced the British they could start emigrating, whilst at the same time convincing the Maori they could keep their land and heritage intact, well we all know where this going. New Zealand is annexed in 1840, which irks the Maori, then things start going downhill in the relations between the two "tribes". There were land skirmishes between independent companies in the region and the regular list of crimes to be expected in such an action, eventually one of the original signatories of the treaty, Hone Heke, a tribal leader was notified by the French and Americans that the British flag over the island meant the Maori's were slaves. Naturally Hone believed the other two imperial powers and took matters into his own hands.



Hone requested that a young girl from his tribe, who had been living with a butcher, be returned post haste. She refused, apparently enjoying her new found Englishness, leading Hone to march into town with a few friends and ransack the shop taking the girl back. On his way back he noticed the "slave" flagpole (which was actually a gift from him to the British) and chopped it down. This upset the British to no end, forcing them to send for the 96th regiment to handle the situation. The pole was replaced by Hone after some negotiations, then chopped down again after everyone realized there had been no trial of strength between the Maori and English, moreover there were now more Europeans than expected so things were getting uncomfortably "continental". The 96th arrived replaced the flag, only to find that this one was almost immediately cut down.



Then came this day in history March 11, 1845, the stubborn British replaced this third flagpole with one sheathed in iron and surrounded by guards, no fuckers come onto British soil and chop down the Queen's own flag, fuckers. Well the Maori came back...with a vengeance, incensed that their craftsmanship was not being appreciated they charged up to the guard shack killed the soldiers and chopped down the flagpole again. Meanwhile at a nearby settlement another tribe began burning buildings after a semi orderly evacuation of the premises. They opted to not burn the missions however.



With great jubilation Hone Heke watched as the H.M.S. Hazard departed with a few escorts, loaded with Europeans, headed for Auckland to get away from the flagpole haters.



The war continued naturally, it's not as though the 96th was going to sit idly by and watch British subjects getting evicted by people who didn't wear starched collars. The 96th returned on March 28th and burned a fortified village called a Pa. For whatever reasons however (to almost everyone in attendance's confusion) they burned the village of a Chief who was strongly neutral since the outset of problems and had even made efforts to bring more Europeans in to trade with his village.



The war went surprisingly well for the Maori in the end, in spite of suffering serious losses and a few villages (one of which was designed as a target for the British) the British accepted a ceasefire and left the flagpole down, and minimized their incursions into the Maori lands.