I'm a lucky guy. I have a pretty good job. Not as good as some, a little better than others. In fact, crazy as I am, I'm grateful to have a job at all. Many folks don't have work at all or have work that's backbreaking. Hard work to me is hot-tar roofing in the winter in Brooklyn, something I did for a while back in the 80s. Factory work is hard. Farm work is hard. Retail is hard, too. I guess that's why it's called labor. Believe me, I'm not complaining. My job today is nowhere near that hard.
One of the conditions of my line of work is that I, from time to time, travel a lot. This has been a most rewarding fringe benefit and a curse at the same time. The curse part is that I really love my life at home. I miss it when I'm gone. I like consistency. I like the people in my life, my friends and associates and I like the activities I participate in. I like sleeping in my own bed. Fact is, I'm 57 years old now and "getting in the van" just doesn't have that magical attraction to it that it did when I was a bit younger. That, and the fact that international travel kicks my ass, it usually takes two days to regroup.
I have been able to see a fair amount of the larger world we live in, other countries and cultures. I still haven't seen Africa or China or the Middle East (although a trip there is in the planning). I also have never been to Russia or Singapore or Hong Kong. But I'm still healthy, so there's always the possibility & I bring this all up because there are places where people do things different than we do here in the United States. I like the experience of this. Sometimes it's the high-ticket items, like refusing to go along with the illegal and immoral Iraq war George Bush and his gang have perpetrated. And other big-ticket items like national health care come to mind.
I was recently in Finland and one of my prescriptions cracked open in my luggage. (At my age these are the drugs that are important, not the oh so passé cocaine/heroin/booze. Bladder, kidney, nasal, vision, etc. are my drugs of choice today.) Anyway, I walked around the corner from my hotel to a local hospital, explained my dilemma to the emergency room doctor who sent me to one of his colleagues who took my info, looked up the Finnish equivalent of my medication and wrote me a prescription.
When we finished, I asked what I should pay him and he said he wasn't sure and would check. He returned a minute later and said "No, there's no charge." Can you imagine that happening here? Free health care&for a foreigner! (By the way, this doctor had no idea who I am or that I sing and play the guitar.)
Sometimes the differences are the smaller things, like how people greet each other. The Brazilians are really into kissing. It's kind of nice. I'm a pretty huggy fellow but the regularity of all that kissing took a little adjusting to. Americans are generally a little too uptight for all this affection.
Then I got to thinking. Living in the U.S. can give a person a distorted view of the rest of the world. Not that most Americans ever consider what the rest of the world might be really like, but America is really an island on earth happily cruising along under its own power, oblivious to anyone and anything that doesn't touch us personally or at least show up on our TV screens. Sometimes I think people are more affected by TV than their real lives, which is a testament to the power of creative marketing.
Much of the rest of the western world has CNN too, but there's something else going on out there that Americans miss. It's each other. The rest of the world has a sense of being connected to other countries and other cultures. They have a feeling for their neighbors. The English have been vacationing in Spain forever. The Germans are traveling all over, the French come to America (then go back to Paris and bitch about us). An acceptance of other cultures is admirable. They have their differences but the truth is they are all more alike than unalike. They all seem to live together with their differences.
Same with the Brazilians. I'm writing this on the plane returning from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Sao Paulo dwarfs most American cities. I did a little research on the Net before going. I had heard the reports about crime being out of control down there and how gangs of police are murdering street children, etc. I am susceptible to the media too. I saw "City of God" and "Pixote." What I found was a city and a people who were much the same as my fellow Angelenos and me. Sao Paulo is one big-assed, hard-charging and very alive town full of ambitious, smart and creative music and film fans who are actually into the doing part of work.
LA and Sao Paulo are almost the same size (12-14 million populations in each). There is a kind of TV/movie created mindset that I hear from friends around the world about Los Angeles. They think the city is non-stop drive-by shootings and gang bangers on every corner. To be sure, Sao Paulo was funkier and more extreme, but it definitely wasn't the living hell I thought it was going to be. I'm not saying that you're any more secure walking down a dark street at 2am in a bad neighborhood in Sao Paulo than you are in Paris or Athens or New York or Detroit, but let's not be pollyanish. For Christ's sake, let's use the brains God gave us. The image I had of Brazil before I actually went there versus the reality of the place was really enlightening.
Just before I left the States, there was a report in the NY Times that Brazil had found a way to make ethanol out of sugar cane and, in the last 20 years, had reduced their dependency on Arab oil by 50 percent. 50%! They have also reduced emissions and improved gas economy in the automobiles ahead of the U.S. Of course, this is way too radical of an idea for the oil interests around here. Yesterday I read a report that the President's new energy bill will exclude the biggest SUVs from new emission controls. Like we really need those Hummers and Escalades. If you can afford them, good for you, but to give them a pass is another typical concession from the White House. The administration has also has banned importing Brazilian sugar cane, which is no surprise since we're not really looking for a way to cut down American dependence on Arab oil. Plus, when I remembered how Brazilian health officials stood up to the big U.S. drug companies about the cost of AIDS drugs I liked the Brazilians even more.
There are other more important benefits to understanding the human race tied to travel. One is that everyone in the world, as near as I can determine, wants the same things: To have a home and to be healthy, to have work and family, to be educated and to contribute to the world around them, to participate in the social fabric of their communities, to be part of something, to believe, or not believe, in the God of their choice. We have so much more in common with the rest of the world than most people think. It's a shame that so much is made of our differences. The differences are smaller than you might ever imagine.
And there are subtler benefits to worldwide travel and that's friends. One of the things I value most in life is my relationship with others. I have wonderful friends all over the world. Indeed, we are all part of a new world order, a new global tribe of artists and doers and thinkers and creative people who are trying to do things that matter. The Internet allows us to stay connected. We're always conspiring on some project or another. Many are business partners we've made over the years and will continue to be involved with as long as I live.
One of my smartest and most prolific friends is Julian Cope. We had a ball together a few weeks ago in Oxford, England at a DKT/MC5 show with a great support band Case Suitable for Treatment. Julian and his wife Dorian have a fascinating web site. Check them out here.
Like people everywhere, we talk a lot about the world we live in and I've found a real sense of disbelief among my friends --- and the public at large living outside the United States - when we discuss decisions made by the US government. People simply cannot grasp what has happened to America. I'm often asked by journalists as well, how and why we let the current situation get so out of hand? They're not America bashers. For the most part, they're not political radicals either. They are people who have admired America from afar. They love our culture and have wanted to do -- and be -- like us. The just can't get their heads around this president. When you see him through the eyes of another country that is not subject to the hyper-slick manipulations of the religious right political juggernaut, you can gain a wholly new view of the world.
On September 24th, in Washington D.C., I will join with United for Peace and Justice in a daylong event known as Operation Ceasefire at the Washington Monument to carry a message to the government that time has come to end the war. I will be playing with the mighty BellRays. (I am an honorary BellRay in at least a spiritual sense and this day I'll get to be a real one.) The list of other performers is growing daily, so check out the website for more info.
We're joining together with families of soldiers and with veterans of the Iraq war who are believe that the time to end this is now and bring their fellow troops home.
The struggle continues. You fight and lose, fight and lose, fight and lose. Then you win. Then you fight and lose some more. It's a never-ending thing. Democracy demands participation. It is required and it is the highest form of patriotism. We are not sheep and we will not go along quietly.
There is a big world out there and it's watching our country very closely.
Wayne Kramer
Sao Paulo to LA
August, 2005
One of the conditions of my line of work is that I, from time to time, travel a lot. This has been a most rewarding fringe benefit and a curse at the same time. The curse part is that I really love my life at home. I miss it when I'm gone. I like consistency. I like the people in my life, my friends and associates and I like the activities I participate in. I like sleeping in my own bed. Fact is, I'm 57 years old now and "getting in the van" just doesn't have that magical attraction to it that it did when I was a bit younger. That, and the fact that international travel kicks my ass, it usually takes two days to regroup.
I have been able to see a fair amount of the larger world we live in, other countries and cultures. I still haven't seen Africa or China or the Middle East (although a trip there is in the planning). I also have never been to Russia or Singapore or Hong Kong. But I'm still healthy, so there's always the possibility & I bring this all up because there are places where people do things different than we do here in the United States. I like the experience of this. Sometimes it's the high-ticket items, like refusing to go along with the illegal and immoral Iraq war George Bush and his gang have perpetrated. And other big-ticket items like national health care come to mind.
I was recently in Finland and one of my prescriptions cracked open in my luggage. (At my age these are the drugs that are important, not the oh so passé cocaine/heroin/booze. Bladder, kidney, nasal, vision, etc. are my drugs of choice today.) Anyway, I walked around the corner from my hotel to a local hospital, explained my dilemma to the emergency room doctor who sent me to one of his colleagues who took my info, looked up the Finnish equivalent of my medication and wrote me a prescription.
When we finished, I asked what I should pay him and he said he wasn't sure and would check. He returned a minute later and said "No, there's no charge." Can you imagine that happening here? Free health care&for a foreigner! (By the way, this doctor had no idea who I am or that I sing and play the guitar.)
Sometimes the differences are the smaller things, like how people greet each other. The Brazilians are really into kissing. It's kind of nice. I'm a pretty huggy fellow but the regularity of all that kissing took a little adjusting to. Americans are generally a little too uptight for all this affection.
Then I got to thinking. Living in the U.S. can give a person a distorted view of the rest of the world. Not that most Americans ever consider what the rest of the world might be really like, but America is really an island on earth happily cruising along under its own power, oblivious to anyone and anything that doesn't touch us personally or at least show up on our TV screens. Sometimes I think people are more affected by TV than their real lives, which is a testament to the power of creative marketing.
Much of the rest of the western world has CNN too, but there's something else going on out there that Americans miss. It's each other. The rest of the world has a sense of being connected to other countries and other cultures. They have a feeling for their neighbors. The English have been vacationing in Spain forever. The Germans are traveling all over, the French come to America (then go back to Paris and bitch about us). An acceptance of other cultures is admirable. They have their differences but the truth is they are all more alike than unalike. They all seem to live together with their differences.
Same with the Brazilians. I'm writing this on the plane returning from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Sao Paulo dwarfs most American cities. I did a little research on the Net before going. I had heard the reports about crime being out of control down there and how gangs of police are murdering street children, etc. I am susceptible to the media too. I saw "City of God" and "Pixote." What I found was a city and a people who were much the same as my fellow Angelenos and me. Sao Paulo is one big-assed, hard-charging and very alive town full of ambitious, smart and creative music and film fans who are actually into the doing part of work.
LA and Sao Paulo are almost the same size (12-14 million populations in each). There is a kind of TV/movie created mindset that I hear from friends around the world about Los Angeles. They think the city is non-stop drive-by shootings and gang bangers on every corner. To be sure, Sao Paulo was funkier and more extreme, but it definitely wasn't the living hell I thought it was going to be. I'm not saying that you're any more secure walking down a dark street at 2am in a bad neighborhood in Sao Paulo than you are in Paris or Athens or New York or Detroit, but let's not be pollyanish. For Christ's sake, let's use the brains God gave us. The image I had of Brazil before I actually went there versus the reality of the place was really enlightening.
Just before I left the States, there was a report in the NY Times that Brazil had found a way to make ethanol out of sugar cane and, in the last 20 years, had reduced their dependency on Arab oil by 50 percent. 50%! They have also reduced emissions and improved gas economy in the automobiles ahead of the U.S. Of course, this is way too radical of an idea for the oil interests around here. Yesterday I read a report that the President's new energy bill will exclude the biggest SUVs from new emission controls. Like we really need those Hummers and Escalades. If you can afford them, good for you, but to give them a pass is another typical concession from the White House. The administration has also has banned importing Brazilian sugar cane, which is no surprise since we're not really looking for a way to cut down American dependence on Arab oil. Plus, when I remembered how Brazilian health officials stood up to the big U.S. drug companies about the cost of AIDS drugs I liked the Brazilians even more.
There are other more important benefits to understanding the human race tied to travel. One is that everyone in the world, as near as I can determine, wants the same things: To have a home and to be healthy, to have work and family, to be educated and to contribute to the world around them, to participate in the social fabric of their communities, to be part of something, to believe, or not believe, in the God of their choice. We have so much more in common with the rest of the world than most people think. It's a shame that so much is made of our differences. The differences are smaller than you might ever imagine.
And there are subtler benefits to worldwide travel and that's friends. One of the things I value most in life is my relationship with others. I have wonderful friends all over the world. Indeed, we are all part of a new world order, a new global tribe of artists and doers and thinkers and creative people who are trying to do things that matter. The Internet allows us to stay connected. We're always conspiring on some project or another. Many are business partners we've made over the years and will continue to be involved with as long as I live.
One of my smartest and most prolific friends is Julian Cope. We had a ball together a few weeks ago in Oxford, England at a DKT/MC5 show with a great support band Case Suitable for Treatment. Julian and his wife Dorian have a fascinating web site. Check them out here.
Like people everywhere, we talk a lot about the world we live in and I've found a real sense of disbelief among my friends --- and the public at large living outside the United States - when we discuss decisions made by the US government. People simply cannot grasp what has happened to America. I'm often asked by journalists as well, how and why we let the current situation get so out of hand? They're not America bashers. For the most part, they're not political radicals either. They are people who have admired America from afar. They love our culture and have wanted to do -- and be -- like us. The just can't get their heads around this president. When you see him through the eyes of another country that is not subject to the hyper-slick manipulations of the religious right political juggernaut, you can gain a wholly new view of the world.
On September 24th, in Washington D.C., I will join with United for Peace and Justice in a daylong event known as Operation Ceasefire at the Washington Monument to carry a message to the government that time has come to end the war. I will be playing with the mighty BellRays. (I am an honorary BellRay in at least a spiritual sense and this day I'll get to be a real one.) The list of other performers is growing daily, so check out the website for more info.
We're joining together with families of soldiers and with veterans of the Iraq war who are believe that the time to end this is now and bring their fellow troops home.
The struggle continues. You fight and lose, fight and lose, fight and lose. Then you win. Then you fight and lose some more. It's a never-ending thing. Democracy demands participation. It is required and it is the highest form of patriotism. We are not sheep and we will not go along quietly.
There is a big world out there and it's watching our country very closely.
Wayne Kramer
Sao Paulo to LA
August, 2005
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