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[[A recent telling exchange:

Family member: "Did we get an e-mail from Jason today?"

Another family member (vexed): "No. We got a BOOK."



What's more expensive than the Concorde?

What's the most popular food in England?

Are The Boys breaking up?

Who's not Polish?

...those answers and MORE in today's book:  ]]



MY SOUL IS MADE of Legos. I keep being torn down and rebuilt in a new color

scheme. The last time I was here, in May, people asked me: Was I here on

holiday?  This time, though, the question is: Am I here for work?  I'd like

to plumb why I'm now legitimate, but that feels useless since the true

answer to both questions remains the same: I'm traveling around the world,

blah blah blah.



Americans are coming up to me and asking me directions. I give them in a

fake accent. It's pretty awful, but they can't tell.



On days like these, as I ply London on creeping double-decker buses and

spend minor time with people I like, when I speak of my "round the world"

scenario, it feels painfully dull.



Oh, the many side effects of extended travel. It's about faking a niche.



I WAS SHOWING MY friend Chris my travel diary. It says what I've done on

every single day since I left. 

"What were you doing three weeks ago yesterday?" he asked.

"Let's see. Jerusalem. The Old City. Dome of the Rock, the Muslim Quarter.

The Wailing Wall. The Mount of Olives."

"And yesterday?"

I flipped ahead. Sighed. "I went to Tooting and bought some Chinese food."

He fell over laughing.

Come on, now -- every day can't be an adventure.  Can it? 



I HAVE BEEN DOING some fun things.  Just low-key fun.  Putting my finger

into my "London A to Z" and choosing a new monosuburb to explore. Looking

for bargain used books. Going to a few plays. I'm soaking up my friends;

after I leave here, the only people in my life will be new people.  That's

not bad, of course.  I just know I'm going to miss being able to turn

around and say, "Remember that time when..."



When you come down to it, low-key fun is the best kind when you're

traveling.  I'm not doing anything touristy!  Which must mean I'm no longer

a tourist. I'm a traveler.



The fact it's London, which to me seems more American than Dallas, makes me

feel like I'm cheating a little.  But if that's where my friends are...



HERE'S MORE WONDERFUL NEWS: Another of my songs has found its way onto a

CD!  That's good for me -- even though I wrote the song 3 years ago it

sustains the illusion that I'm actually being productive whilst I travel.

It's also good for you -- the CD is FANTASTIC. I've listened to it about 20

times this week. It's by the flabbergastingly jumpin' goodtime Brendan

Milburn, and it's called "Brendan & the Extenuating Circumstances."  You'll

love his music.  It's like early Elton John, or Billy Joel, or Ben Folds,

or Bruce Hornsby with seven extra fingers. Happy stuff! Buoyant stuff!

Smart stuff! Groovy stuff! You can find out how to get it at

www.groovelily.com (the info site for the band he formed with his

gigatalented wife Valerie) or, allegedly, someplace called www.ab-cd.com,

although I went there and couldn't find it.  Everybody loves Brendan's

music. You will too!  I can't gush enough.  And you know that Jason doesn't

gush unless he MEANS something.



I REGRET TO REPORT that I've had to replace one of The Boys. My daypack

wasn't cutting it; he isn't waterproof and everything bunches up at the

bottom. I went up to the proto-mod shops of Camden Town (universal rule:

immigrants sell purses) and bargained 'em down on a roomy, rust-orange

Caterpillar bag that I've had my eye on since Florence, where my traveling

companion of that era had one.  Now the water just beads right off.

Despite the membership shift, the new Power Pack combo will still be called

The Boys.



I CHANGED THE BATTERIES of my Discman on the Central Line of the Tube

yesterday. There was no place to throw the old ones out, so I had to take

them with me. One the escalator out (and London's escalators are many and

mighty), I noticed that the ends of the batteries could make marks on the

road-rubber handrails that go round and round all day. At first I couldn't

think of what word I wanted to leave behind. In the end, I wrote: GERMS.



HERE'S A FUN FACT: It costs more to go a mile on the London subway system,

the Underground, than it does to go a mile on the Concorde. I am serious!

London is painfully expensive. Numberwise, everything costs as much as it

does it New York City (KFC chicken sandwich, 2.19), until you realize that

given the exchange rate, everything really costs 2/3 MORE. I wish I were

the Japanese.



I WALK THE STREETS of London during the afternoons and watch the Suits

shuttle obediently from office to train platform. They have nice shoes. It

makes me think of the throngs of dusty Cairenes as they strive to cram

themselves into rusty ghetto-bound buses.  And I think, "Is there anyone

more deeply unhappy than the British? More deluded by the opiate of order?"



London can be a sea of monotony and purpose. Everyone does as everyone

ought. If I see one more fresh-faced 19-year-old bundling through the City

in a three-piece suit, chasing his future all the way to his grave, I'm

going to start looking for someone to blame. (Talk like this is why I'm

currently unemployable.)



I NOW OFFICIALLY KNOW London better than almost any American city except

New York.  I think I've even edged out Chicago, where I went to college.

Hell, I've even been to Eltham.  Twice!  For pleasure!!  (If you were

British, you'd be laughing by now.) 



DID I MENTION TO you the story of what happened to me in Florence?  It

seems that many nightclubs in Europe make you pay their cover charge when

you LEAVE rather than when you enter.  If you pay the market-cornering

prices for drinks, the cover charge is reduced.  Well, me and a friend made

the mistake of entering an outdoor club outside of town (called Central

Park in a Tuscan stab at sophistication) somehow completely missing the guy

who hands out drink tickets. Since the joint was packed with grease,

hormones and an unfavorable gender ratio, we immediately tried to leave.

My friend Peter, slick Aussie that he is, just slipped out the door, but

the doorwoman cuffed me and said that I had to stay until someone paid for

us both.  Feigning ignorance -- no, I WAS ignorant -- I said I had to

follow Peter and I left.



We almost got away with it, too!  But a few minutes down the road, two

enormous Italian-speaking bouncers, who were like 250-pound slabs of beef

with nipples, surrounded me (me!) and using the internationally understood

signal of standing in my way and glaring, convinced me to return to the

club. Peter, good sport that he is, was also obliged to come back.



Back inside with the cranky female bouncer, I pled ignorance again -- I

can't read Italian so I didn't know the rules.  She said (in flawless

English) that she didn't care.  An unhealthy little lawyerly voice in the

back of my head told me I was now being held against my will and to defend

my civil rights -- the sweaty, looming presences of the still-hovering

Slaughterhouses 6 and 7 be damned. I admit it was unlike me, but

unfortunately, the lady and I had words.  Mine were stronger.  She in turn

yelled at me, turned an illuminating shade of red, began insulting my

mother (whom she doesn't know) and gave me the xenophobic command to "go

back where I came from." And I said -- I couldn't think of anything better

-- "I live here!"  It was the lamest comeback of my entire life, but I was

under pressure. I'm just glad those two glowering smokestacks didn't

understand English. Anyway, my wit had failed me. We were stuck back in the

club.



Fearing death at the hands of Florentine bouncers (who really wants THAT on

their tombstone?), Peter dragged me to the front gate -- yes, we went back

where we came from -- and suggested this time HE do the talking.  At first

the bouncer at the front was unsympathetic. But I stood idly by, my mouth

literally hanging open in the valiant attempt to look dense and ugly and

exactly the type of dolt they wouldn't WANT in their club.  I played my

role to the hilt, but nothing seemed to work until Peter told them we

didn't have any money.  Ali Baba couldn't have done it better.



How's that for a first; I was bounced back INTO a club. Can you imagine

what the bouncers would have said if they could have spoken English? "And

don't ever let me catch you OUTside this club again, or I'll kick your

butt!" Screwwwwwwy!



IT WAS A RAINY Saturday today and a few of us sacked out in a pub drinking

beer. Sam asked to give me a palm reading.  She told me that a line on my

pinky meant I have the gift of See, that I could do more to build up my

creativity line, and that I have "very severe" emotional problems.  As I

started on my second pint of Guinness, I thought, wow!  My two palms,

together, are as big as my face, and yet I know so little about them!  In

one effortless monologue, Sam managed to make both my mind and my body

strangers to me.



ONE OF THE NICEST things about traveling -- and maybe a subconscious goal

of it -- is that you can become anyone you want to. No one knows you.  And

because no one knows you, every time you meet someone, conversation tends

to be a string of not-so-graceful self-definitions. You say things you

would never say in Real Life, as if every new acquaintance is an interview: 

"I live in New York but I'm not a 'New Yorker', if you know what I mean." 

"I'd like to think that my writing is like Vonnegut's or Irving's; cynicism

with heart, celebrating the unexpected links between all of us." 

"I tend not to eat meat, but I have no moral problem with it." 

"I love rivers and believe I have an innate spiritual connection to water's

flow."

Who talks like that? I have this secret fear that God is keeping

transcripts of everything we're saying, and one of the biggest sports in

the afterlife will be to laugh ourselves silly over the self-referential

comments we work into conversations with other people. My dialogue will be

a bad read.



Except for the lies.  Because traveling is a constant exercise in

self-definition, as well as a never-ending super sampler of other ideas, I

tend to tell fibs.  Usually, they're harmless biographical refurbishments,

told to people I don't expect to see again. Sometimes to protect myself, or

to keep conversation rolling, or to avoid explaining the actual truth. But

often the lies I tell turn out to be wishes.  I tell people things I WISH

were true about myself.



Like when I say how long I was in a certain place, sometimes I make up a

number. Don't know why. But almost every time, the duration I invent is

pretty much how long I WISH I'd spent there. (Morocco: Three weeks. Turkey:

One month. Israel and Egypt: Three weeks each.) I don't know why I do it!

They just come blurting out. I'm learning so much about myself this way!



Here are some of the inexplicable versions of me wandering around the planet:



"I'm Canadian."

"I'm from Australia."

"I'm from Poland."

"My mother is English and my father is American."

"My mother is Irish and my father is English."

"My parents are from the Netherlands... but I can't speak Dutch."

"My brother lived in California once."

"I have a sister in Chicago."

"I hate chicken."

"I have a girlfriend back at home."

"I used to smoke, but once I had an asthma attack that nearly killed me."

"Yes, I went to Dahab." [Then, quickly:] "How'd YOU like it?"

"I'm allergic to shellfish, thanks."

"I'm 24/25/30."

"I'm claustrophobic."

"I weighed 250 pounds when I was 16." [This one FEELS true.]

"Alzheimer's runs in my family."

"I have this album at home."

"Yes, I've gotten lucky on this trip."



I've also spoken in a variety of unconvincing accents (to foil merchants,

swindlers and America-bashers), flattened the keen of my USA drawl, and

adopted such words as "pram," "prawn," "to-MAH-to," "petrol," "football"

for soccer, "aubergine," "council flat," "M.P.," "lift," "SHED-ule," and so

on.  If you "rung" me right now, I'd probably answer the phone sounding

like some Back Bay socialite. I justify it by telling myself that using

these words removes the culture-gap hiccups from conversations with the

natives.



Lies all.



I'D SAY EIGHTY PERCENT of the people in the West End speak with American

accents.  This place is infested with tourists!! Meanwhile, in the "native"

parts of London, everyone's from Bangladesh, India or Pakistan!  Something

like 20 percent of Londoners! (In fact, did you know that the most popular

and common type of food in England isn't fish and chips?  It's Indian food

-- by a mile.) There's less English being spoken here than in New York

City.  The only person speaking the Queen's English is Liz herself.



FATE HAS CHOSEN THIS week to throw a hissy fit. I guess my personal demons

had to work double-time to make up for my relatively snare-free journeys

through the Middle East. Earlier this week, the moon and tides conspired to

ruin me. As I stood by helplessly, a series of disasters befell me:



* My beloved round-the-world watch broke

* My Moroccan necklace broke

* I opened a new contact lens and discovered it had been sliced up in a

factory accident

* I waited an hour for tickets to a play and the unappreciative Australian

in front of me got the last one

* A turnstile ate my subway ticket and then acted like it was my fault

* We ran out of tortilla chips



I decided to stay indoors until the psychic storm system passed. I had to

anyway, because I was waiting for a FedEx box that took a four-day sojourn

in Memphis on its trip from New York to London. Yep. It's a good thing I

put off my flight to Johannesburg.  Can you imagine arriving in Africa with

THAT kind of mojo going on?



London!  For someplace so modern, it sure can be a hassle just getting

through the day. Even a trip one mile as the crow flies can take just shy

of an hour by public transportation. It makes you wonder yet again about

the true effect of technology. I'm beginning to think that places like

Morocco have the right idea.

There, your bus or the train may never arrive -- but since you already know

that, you don't mind.  Don't promise anything; it's hard to be disappointed

then.



I may adopt that into my personal life-view, too.



This pissy providence thing put me into a pretty testy mood, actually.  I

thought a trip to the supermarket might restore my faith, or at least my

cool.  All those colorful products clamoring for my love, the whoosh of air

conditioning, that reassuring brown-flecked linoleum. 



In truth, the grocery store was like a Coney Island house of horrors.

Children from age 1 to 16 were shrieking the ferocious shriek of one being

de-limbed by rabid dogs. Chubby, taffy-toothed British housewives, reeking

of sausage, leapt out of blind aisles with their shopping carts. Everyone

was snatching up junk with cheerful 1950s-style names ending in vowels,

made with aspartame and saccharine, costing quadruple what they should.



Has traveling in the Real World sensitized me to the barbarism of this kind

of culture?  I mean, I notice that EVERYTHING, from CDs to newspapers, has

a bar code printed on it.  Why didn't that bother me before?



In line at checkout, another fat mother (why is it that the mothers of

British toddlers look as ancient as grandmothers instead?) was unloading

her purchases and coddling her toddler into shutting the hell up. She began

singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" in that crunchy, clipped, Dick Van Dyke

accent that makes your teeth rattle.



"Let's! Gow! Floy! A koyt!

Up! Wheh! The eh! Is Broyt!"



I was disgusted by this.  Truly; I wanted to reach over and grab some hair.

It was an unreasonable impulse, I know.  It was just one of those moments

that make you bob your head and mumble, "Oh, the humanity."



I told my friend Anthony about it last night as we walked through Soho.

"Why did that bother you?" he asked.

We walked together in silence while I tried to attach words to my classism.

I said: "Because I know we're in a country where people read crap

newspapers like 'The Sun' and 'The Mirror' and 'News of the World' and

that's their only contact with the realities of the world."

"That's deep," Anthony said. I hope he wasn't being sarcastic. I'd deserve it.



ME AND ME FREIND Alan (who lives at the end of the Victoria Line, called

"Vickie" for short) have created alter-egos for ourselves.  I'm Captain

Innuendo, and he's my faithful sidekick, Smut Boy.  Our superpowers seem to

have bloomed and frozen in adolescence: We say things that seem to be

wholesome but can actually be interpreted as dirty.  I think it alarms us

both to learn we have a talent for this. It's the perfect marriage of

American brashness and British reserve.



I'VE DECDIED I'D LIKE to start working on something new.  It will take too

long to explain it fully, but I call it the Sociology of Celebrity.

Basically, it examines how being famous -- and the repeated message that

the goal of American life is to be famous -- messes with people's heads.

And how the American Dream is tied into our fascination with celebrities.

My friend Anthony, who's been in a few movies and the musical "Rent" since

the beginning, is experiencing his own celebrity and volunteered to talk

with me about this idea.  We sat up Wednesday night until 3 in the morning

and tape recorded two hours of discussions.  I can see already that even

though the subject is a tangled one, it's enticing.  I really want to study

it.  The dawn of something bigger?  I'm riveted!  More later.



MY NEXT BIG STOP will be Edinburgh, which I reach on Thursday of next week.

I'm gonna spend some time sampling the breadth of artistic offerings at the

gargantuan arts cornucopia they have.  There's the regular Edinburgh

Festival, plus a Fringe Festival, and a Film Festival.  Then there are six

or eight Off-Fringe and Off-Off-Fringe festivals and Festival Festivals.

I'm confused. The only thing Edinburgh lacks this month is beds.  I'm back

to hostel dwelling.



My planned departure to South Africa is on Sept. 4.  Mark it in your

calendars; it's like a deadline.  It's the last time long distance will be

affordable. The last time you can trust the mail.  It's my last gasp of

clear, jam-scented air before I plunge into the abyss of the Other World.



It's also when the Dispatches will start to get interesting again.



Off to Inverness, Scotland, today; I'll be at Loch Ness by tomorrow.  They

say it's deeper than a David Mamet play. Can't be drier.



Minding the gap,

Jase



Right now I'm in: East Ham (Beckton), London, U.K.     Day: 93

Words: 23,234,523,018