The Bali Diaries: His Little Instruments

That angel at Mango Tree, an actual angel she is.  Not romantically, but in that Biblical sense.

"Pagi," I said to her.  Good morning.

And "pagi," she said to me.

"How is your day so far?"

"Busy!" she says, "Busy! Busy! Busy!"

"Oh, no! Already?" It's not yet 9:00 in the morning.

"Yes," she sighs. "Or just lately."  I touch her on the shoulder and tell her it will be all right, to just breath in deep and let it all go.  She takes a deep breath and smiles.  "How long are you here for?"

"Well, the blond guy leaves in a week, but me and my other friend are here 'til the end of October."

"Oh! Well, lucky you."  Her hands are already back to work sorting through bills.

I smile.  "Yeah, kinda. We're running out of money though," I say, and I manage a half laugh.  "Hence the hot water refill in my coffee," with Nate's old coffee cup raised.

She puts the bills down and before I turn to leave she puts her hand on my shoulder to say, "Listen, if you ever need a coffee just come ask or tell my staff it's free."

"Really? Oh, you don't have to do that."

"It's no problem. Really."

"Well, thank you. Terima Kasih." I mean it.  I hope she knows that.

As I turn to walk up the stairs to the top balcony where I like to write, she calls after me from the counter, "Brian! Remember this. Money is like a beard (she motions an Abe Lincoln fully), once it's gone it always come back."

The Bali Diaries: A Rooster Story

"Courage ain't nothin' but the belief that you have it."

It's a Western because why not.  But really it's all the same so it could be anything - an old 50's greaser tale, a modern dystopian, hell, even some way off in the future sci-fi.  I've always liked Westerns though.

I imagine many of the writers of old stories spent their time, or just some time at least, around animals.  Watching them.  Seeing them day to day and routining their actions.  Getting into their heads and into their thoughts (if they have those).  I don't know.  Maybe the old misers just gave them thoughts, but those animals definitely live out their stories.  And they're rough and real, and there's no filter or etiquette and no rules.  Nature's law reigns and the biggest and strongest and meanest always prevail.

That's why every story has a hero.  That X factor.  To raise up the weak and fight the status quo.  He's from out of town (it's a small setting).  He's Shane, he's the Man With No Name, or he's my personal favorite, Russell Crowe's Ben Wade.

Here's the players as I see them now before me in rooster form (their names will probably have to change):

There's Robert Redford. He's all salt and pepper so he looks older and maybe he is older.  He's the black sheep and he's smaller.  The other's pick on him, fuck with him, and try to separate him from his family because yes, he has (I think) the prettiest hen and a small flock of chicks.

Then there's Rex.  He's the big red one.  The head hauncho of the land, the big prick, the asshole.  And he's got two bitch hens too.

There's also Reginald.  He's the stupid French one with white spots on a black breast and a red neck.  He's about as big as Robert, but younger and devious and conniving in his scheming.  He's a loner, no hens, but when Rex is picking on Robert, so is Reginald.  He's a weak mind and a coward.  I fed him a couple times and then he'd crow everyday at our step expecting food pretentiously.  That's Reginald.  (Redford never crowed for food when we fed him; we mostly just feed the chicks now).

Finally, there's the outsiders, the out-of-towners, Mike and I.  We're un-natural beasts among chickens.  Mike likes to feed everyone, good or bad.  He's across the board, and wants everyone to like him and trust him in the chicken kingdom.  I try to bring some morality to a world without it, some balance.  When the roosters pick on Rob, I run out and roust them and I feed the chickies because they're cute and I want them to grow up strong and I want the best for the Redfords.

It's the standard outsider tale, I guess.  We come on a scene of injustice and out of, well, boredom sometimes we try to make things right as we see fit when we're around, and the Redfords are grateful and Rex is angry and vengeful eventually.  We can't stay forever though so we try to give Robert the heart he forgot he had and the courage to stand up to Rex for his family.  We make him a fighter, or at least try to, and hopefully he survives our departure.

The Bali Diaries: Fatima

A postscript means everything sometimes.  A short second afterthought, five words can change the tides and push the seas back into the soul to fill it once more with the life of the world.

Then one hears the soft wind through the leaves as it kisses the skin and the construction, the cars, the motorbikes, the loud music coming from the kitchen at Jiwa Juice are all a faded far-off background.  It brings an unexplainable, almost intangible feeling - not even a feeling really, but some sort of focus or filter that makes everything beautiful, even tremendous hardships and disappointment.  The worst of things are no longer chances of bad or good worthy of a woe-be-me, but simply a rock on the path to pick up and learn from.

Change pace.
Walk around it if need be.

A rock is not good or bad.  It can't make you sad, or mad or curse the stars unless you're not looking where you're going.  It's only a stone really, to be stepped on or stepped over, depending on the size, and if one takes the time to see it - really see it, all its porous grains or smooth sides, its rough edges and hard points - takes the time to feel its texture and judge its weight, then, as Lennon the Sorcerer once told me, that focus, the knowing of a thing - anything, a rock, a mountain range, a sunset, a stubbed toe, a quick wave, a callous tone, a sickness, a setback, anything - the knowing of that thing to be so can make you whole.  Just see it, see it's beauty (everything has a beauty about it, no matter how fucked or depraved, after all, Scarface is a beautiful movie, is it not?), understand it, understand its energy and draw from it with a deep breath.

The Bali Diaries: Science of Coincidence

Nate said something today at breakfast that was right along the lines of my thought as it (not this) happened.  He said, "It's funny - well, I guess not funny but... well, you know what I mean.  Its strange.  Yeah, strange that you should come here to write and have something spill on your laptop half-way through.  Isn't it?"

That's coincidence, I suppose.  Not it, but that just then.  Him saying that.  To have the same thought as I at the same moment when I'd all but forgotten.  Or maybe it's just like minds.  Or hell, maybe it's not coincidence at all, because now the more I think about it the more meaning there is in it.  I wouldn't be writing about it now if that weren't the case, and in coincidence there is no meaning, just silly afterthought.

Like seeing Woody Allen throw around the name Stravinsky quite randomly in the randomness that is Side Effects (the book I stole from Jordan), not a week after I'd spent two hours trying to name and place and process that ridiculous fountain by the Centre Pompidou.

Silly coincidence.

[I still have no idea who Stravinsky is other than he wrote some concert piece about springtime.]

The Bali Diaries: Lucky Strike

My mind hasn't been molded, really truly molded in quite some time.  I feel as if the older we get so too does the clay go dry and harden like ceramics.  But here in Bali there's always a sweat on the brow or a salt water wave breaking over it, and in that way maybe the clay stays moist and a little malleable, and a strong hand can still change its ways, still make a firm impression.  It has to be firm though because, after all, I'm not so young anymore.

The athletes on TV and the stars in the magazines are now younger than I am, some of them anyways.  There's no longer a dream to be them, only a will to see them succeed, or I guess crash and burn depending on the player and the team.

Fuckin' Steve.  These sports metaphors are all a product of his coffee, vodka, and Bin Tang high for the Dodger playoffs.  Game 1 in Atlanta, but here in Bali it's not yet 11:00 in the morning.  Still, he spats off play-by-plays from his phone with a crack happy whoop and a holler and a smile because the Dodgers are up in the 7th.  Mike's drinking a Bin Tang with him and Nate's on his fourth cup of coffee for the day and's already been surfing (it was shitty 3 ft. Ulus), and he's having his second breakfast to go with my first, and we're all set here at one of the square tables out front at Jiwa Juice.

I drink my tea and the glass of orange with slow deliberate swallows, trying to saturate the very top of my throat and the very back of my nasal passage because it has that dry sickly feeling I assume is from all the salt water getting way, way up there last time I surfed.  The Lucky Strikes I bought last night surely didn't help any though, because the phlegm my nose is flushing out isn't clear anymore.

Whatever, last night was a whirlwind of seafood BBQ and Bin Tangs and cigarettes and reggae music in Bingin and Polish girls, California girls, and Brazilian girls.  And in the wind of it all I got kicked out alone and biked home and nearly finished the Alchemist before I tried to sleep, through restless legs and midnight squats, and tossing and turning and pained breathing, and a sweat on my brow and my neck.  Sweat from all pores and the corners of my eyes.  A wet mind, most impressionable it's beginning to seem when under distress or duress or both, and with a strong hand like the Alchemist's I feel like I can turn to wind as well or at least wish I could feverishly so I could blow across the sea to see sweet Caroline.  And I wondered where exactly the treasure was.

I finished in the morning in bed and found out.  It wasn't at the end of it, but way back at the very beginning.  And at that there's her smile and a long look in her eyes and a kiss.  And bacon pancakes.

Maktub.

The Bali Diaries: Alchemist

"That's strange," said the boy, "I've been trying for two years to read this book and I never get past these first few pages."

How funny that this should be The Alchemist.  I must've read Part One three times since it was first handed to me in Paris.  [Keep writing even though there will be no typing this next month.  Just write, write, write, write.  About Paris, but also about everything, but don't forget to write about Paris.  It's this season's namesake].

For having just re-started it not but a few days ago, I've been strangely watchful for signs lately.  A meaning behind certain somethings.  I like to think that the way the universe works is, for each individual, that either everything means something, or everything means nothing.  We can't pick and choose our signs, we can only recognize them or miss them or not believe in them at all, in which case they don't exist.  Personally, I think they do, and they occur whenever things are starkly un-routine or out of the ordinary or even if something randomly should happen to just grab our attention.  It could be anything and it happens all the time.  Daily.  So keep a sharp eye and a sharp mind.  And for fuck's sake keep writing.

The Bali Diaries: Uluwatu

I feel as if I haven't written about surfing yet, and it's been a month nearly so I'll try and start now.

First and oh, so foremost at the western tip of the Bukit Peninsula is a menage of peaks that break off a wide reef affectionately known as Uluwatu.  I say affectionately out of charm, or cuteness, or whatever.  I'm not sure really, but the more appropriate word would be respectfully.

The waves at Uluwatu, all of them - Temples, Bombies, Outside Corner, Racetracks, and of course the Peak - all of them demand a certain respect.  It's a respect of all the water moving because at times and in certain places it can be a rushing rapids.  It's a respect for the shallow reef sitting serenely and razor sharp just below your toes in the line-up.  So serrated that when I tapped it with the top of my foot after foolishly pulling into a barrel form behind, I came up with a sharp pain, and when I looked down there were chunks of meat missing that showed white and lacerations through my toes.  Out of the water, the white and everything else turned rouge red with the blood streaming out.  Respect.  Pay it or pay for the lack thereof.  People get wrecked out there, so I always try to surf it on a higher tide (that means there's more water, and hence, the reef is deeper).

Don't get me wrong though, the wave's probably the best and most consistent in Bali and there's almost always guys out, and to surf there just before dusk is a thing of beauty.  The sun sets big and red out way off over the ocean and seems to be its biggest and most vibrant just before it leaves.

The waves weren't that epic for the one particular session, but it's one that I won't ever forget, waiting for Steve to get out with my feet still in the water in the cave, with the sun slowly fading, but not so slow because like that, it was gone, like a beautiful Keyser Soze sunset as Steve picks and slips his way across the low tide reef.