East Village, Sept. 2007

My blog pal Reya asked me yesterday why I joined the Peace Corps in the first place. Kind of a long story!

I joined in 1992, after about three years working for a mid-size newspaper near Tampa, Fla. I had grown up near Tampa, went to college in Tampa, and I’d never been out of the country except for a week in the Canadian Rockies a few years before.

But as a kid, I’d collected stamps, and those stamps got me dreaming about all sorts of exotic destinations, from Albania to Zimbabwe. I knew there was a whole world out there that I wasn’t seeing. I also felt frustrated in my job and unhappy with a relationship I had at the time, and I felt the need to make a dramatic change. I wanted to rough it for a while, get away from my cushy American existence, learn and grow.

Helping people, to be honest, was almost a secondary motivation. It was part of the equation - I liked that I could be of help while challenging myself too - but mostly I wanted to shake up my own life.

Peace Corps requires a two-year commitment for most jobs, so this was no small step. I applied in summer of 1991, and drove down to Miami for an interview with a recruiter. I told my bosses what I was doing; they were supportive.

Being a language person, I thought I would wind up teaching English. But the recruiter said the teaching programs required more experience than I had, and suggested I pursue health instead. She said I could get qualified for health by volunteering at a local hospital and getting CPR training.

So I did that. I worked in the Emergency Room at Tampa General Hospital for about six months, and took a CPR course. In the spring of 1992, the Peace Corps invited me to Morocco. I had told them I’d go anywhere in the world, but I really wanted Africa - so Morocco sounded great to me!

And it was exactly what I wanted. It was challenging in ways I’d never expected, and helped me grow dramatically. I had the true “mud hut” experience, living in a one-room rock house in a tiny village that had no electricity or running water. I loved it - the simplicity of my life, the long days just hanging out with the Moroccans, the excellent food and amazing hospitality. I did a number of projects with another volunteer living nearby and some on my own, and traveled a lot in Morocco and West Africa. My world grew exponentially!

Bushwick, Brooklyn, Sept. 2007

When I was wandering around Bushwick a couple of weeks ago, I saw this bicycle leaning against a signpost and thought it was sort of picturesque against that stark wall. It wasn’t until I raised my camera that I noticed the red “sign” on the signpost. Definitely not a street sign -- but what was it?


It was a piece of street art painted by GoreB. Several New York artists produce “boards” like this that they bolt to signposts. Somehow the boards remain without getting stolen, which always amazes me - I guess it’s just hard to get them down. They’re always fun to find, though sometimes hard to photograph.

Last night I went to a meeting of gay Returned Peace Corps Volunteers - yes, there is such an organization here in NYC, though it seems pretty loose-knit. There were about seven guys there, and we just talked and compared notes on our Peace Corps experiences. I was shocked to find that one guy who had recently served found Peace Corps to be a homophobic environment - I think that's the exception rather than the rule. (I'm talking about the organization itself, not the people in the countries where volunteers work - in that case, it all depends on local culture.) I detected no homophobia within Peace Corps at all, but I did not come out to the Moroccans with whom I worked - only the Americans.

I just finished an excellent book: “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson. It’s about the creation of the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, and a mass murderer who was on the loose at the same time. A great read!

Hell's Kitchen, Sept. 2007

I'm having one of those weeks where I feel like I am perpetually behind. So, unfortunately, I don't have much to contribute today to the national discourse. Must be off!

Bushwick, Brooklyn, Sept. 2007

You may have heard about Sally Field’s remarks at the Emmy Awards. But you may not have heard the remarks themselves, thanks to the Fox network.

In her acceptance speech, Field praised the mothers of the world and suggested that if mothers were in charge, there “would be no goddamn wars in the first place.”

Fox blanked out not only the cursing, but the whole latter half of the sentence, thereby ensuring that no one heard Field’s anti-war sentiment. Funny how that is. Except, of course, that it’s not funny at all - and I'd say that no matter what political opinion she expressed.

Completely unrelated: Yesterday someone found my blog through a Google search for “boy scout paramilitaristic.” I’m always glad when I can raise the profile of the Boy Scouts!

East Village, Sept. 2007

The weather was so cool yesterday that it was almost chilly - people broke out the jackets. Fall is upon us!

In fact, it was great running weather. I hadn’t been running in more than a month - I’d done the Stairmaster at the gym, but somehow I got out of the running habit. So yesterday, I took off down the path along the East River, thinking I would take it easy and not run my full route, which goes all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge. (Between five and six miles round-trip.)

At first, it was tough going. But about a quarter of the way I hit my stride, and found that I could run the whole distance. It was almost like my body just had to remember what to do. It felt so great!

Bushwick, Brooklyn, Sept. 2007

I found this post-it note on the subway yesterday:

Nice board dude. Big wheels. So I take it you cruise. So do I. Mine is the same way.

I'm trying to imagine the circumstances under which someone would write such a note. I'm guessing it's about a skateboard. Did the writer and recipient know each other? It even sounds a little like a come-on, if you ask me.

Last night I went to see "Across the Universe," Julie Taymor's movie about the '60s scripted entirely around Beatles songs. It's surprisingly good for what's essentially a jukebox musical, with psychedelic film effects and trippy sequences featuring animation and giant puppets. And I am a hard-core Beatles fan, so I wouldn't be saying that if I thought the movie disrespected the songs in any way.

I wish we had some of that '60s idealism and passion these days. Not that it wasn't misused, even then, but now people seem awfully complacent and cynical - me included, sometimes!

East Village, Sept. 2007

Sorry about that photo yesterday - I thought it was kind of motivating, but apparently some people found it depressing. I didn't mean it that way, honest!

Moving a little slowly this morning. I was out last night until 1 a.m., which is utterly unheard of for me. (I'm such an old fogie.) I went to see the brilliant Teddy Thompson at the Bowery Ballroom, at the suggestion of a friend. Teddy is the son of folkies Richard and Linda Thompson, and he put on a great show. His musicianship is impeccable, though his material is a little too "country" to be ideal to my tastes. I also really liked his opening act, Christina Courtin - even bought one of her CDs. She had a kind of Bjork-like voice, I thought.

We also went to Moby's tea cafe, Teany, where I had the most interesting chrysanthemum tea - there were literally little chrysanthemum flowers suspended in it. Very subtle, and such a neat change from my old standby, coffee!