Two Vagabonds Lobby the US Congress

Two Vagabonds Lobby the US Congress

After leaving the office of the Quaker lobbyists in the hotbed of Washington DC, Chaya and I did not have much of a care in the world for anything, especially politics. We learned a few lessons, but I cannot say that we were inspired by the blue shirted, warheaded lobbyist to actively participate - or even have faith in - the US Government. Then Chaya's phone rang, and our happy ambivalence was about to be challenged.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 30, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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She answered her cellular telephone and spoke in Spanish. I became curious.

"Do you want to go and lobby congress?" she asked me upon hanging up.

"Sure, lets do it," I answered without any real clue in the world what she was talking about.

Apparently, the phone call was from a group of Maine political organizers from some Sister Cities program who pressure the US Congress on behalf of the people of El Salvador. This group somehow knew that Chaya was in town (maybe she told them, I don't friggin know) and invited us to charge into Maine congressman, Michael H. Michaud's, office and kick and scream about El Salvador.

Or at least this is what I thought we would be doing.

Chaya asked if I wanted to help translate. I gurgled some meager response. The Spanish that rattles out of my mouth is good enough to get me across continents, though not good enough to get me across to other people. I knew then that I was going to have to sneak into the rear seat on this venture.

I do not really know how these things happen.

Chaya and I just happened to be standing a block away from the official congressional building, in which Mike Michaud's office is located, when she got the phone call, so we stormed over to it and through the gates. It was a big, marble white building that stank of sterile governance. After removing all of the metal objects from my body - which is often a big chore - we made it through security. Luckily, I had kept my loaded machine guns at home.


On the other side of security we found a smiling, blueberry white, blond haired young woman from Maine; a lanky, blueberry white, young man from Maine; and two Salvadorian men. We all shook hands. They all smiled at Chaya and looked at me as if I may have been a little weird.

Maybe I was a little weird.

But I was going into Mike Michaud's congressional office anyway. To these ends, I walked right behind the troupe, rode the elevator to the fourth floor, walked down the hallway passed the offices of congress men of this and that state, and stopped at the door of the man from Maine: Michael H. Michaud.

I was told that Congressman Michaud was a good guy and, for some reason unapparent to me, really cared about El Salvador. I assume that all lobbyist like to believe such rants, but this one may have been valid, for he had provided the Salvadorians with visas to the USA. But anyway, for the record, I think that politicians are androids, and I have not seen evidence to the contrary yet.

The group of Salvadorians, Blueberry Mainers, and Chaya and I stood in a circle in front of Michaud's door and looked at each other. I looked at myself and was quickly taken aback at how dirty my shirt was. It had shit all over it. I began to wonder if anyone else noticed such things.


We then went into the office and the secretary inside asked something to the effect of, "Who are you?" I wanted to answer that we were the dance party, but I think that went without saying. The Blueberry Mainers took the helm and introduced their organization, saying that they had a meeting with some legislative aide and that they had previously worked with Michaud before. The secretary politely informed us that the legislative aid went to the other side of the world to avoid this meeting and would not return until we had fully dispersed. But, as a consolation prize for coming all the way from Maine, she did provide the lobbyists with stand-in aide to talk at.

The stand-in aide smiled a well manicured robot smile and knew how to sound nice. She also had the privileged position of being able to say that she knew nothing about anything, which seems to me the best stance for a political person.

We were then lead into Michaud's lyre.

Maine congressman Mike Micaud's DC office is small, square, and brown. There are small, square, and brown picture frames all over the walls that show congressional people doing congressional things, airplanes, battleships, and flags. I am under the impression that the pictures may have come with the office.

Chaya's friend, the blond haired Blueberry Mainer, began talking to the legislative aide about issues in El Salvador and what she wanted done about them. The aide listened politely and interjected the words "I know nothing about this issue" in all the appropriate places to make the conversation run smoothly. I took pictures and played with a toy truck that sat on a coffee table next to me. Chaya was genuinely interested, the Salvadorians said lots of thank yous, the lobbyists lobbied, and the aide responded to everyone with, "I know nothing."

So this is how government works.

The dedicated lobbyists then shook their fists in the air undaunted by the aide's lack of knowledge: "The 2008 elections in El Salvador will be wrought with fraud! There needs to be a separation between the armed forces and politics in El Salvador! Arrr!" The lobbyists then stood up and bashed in the legislative aide's chunky pumpkin head with their chairs, as the Salvadorians scooped up her blueberry brains with maiz-flour tortillas and promptly ate them.
It was viva la revolucion! at its finest. What started out as an example of sterile governance soon became a real fiesta.


But in reality, the lobbyists just said a lot of thank yous and offered to give the aide written information about their cause. In reality, the aide said, "There is so much paper that flies on the hill that we don't know what is going on."

Now that is something we can all believe in.

Related Pages:
How to Lobby Congress
Vagabond Goes to Washington
Travel to DC and Richmond VA
Code Pink Congress Lobbying Washington DC Photos
Speak Badly About the USA

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• How to Lobby Congress
• Vagabond Goes to Washington
• Jocelyn Lieu Interview

Two Vagabonds Lobby the US Congress
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

How to Lobby Congress

How to Lobby Congress

"We did this job by walking across the street and saying, 'We think this is a bad idea."

I was sitting with Chaya in the office of an organization of Quaker lobbyists in Washington DC. A man with a cone-head and bright blue shirt walked into the board room and introduced himself as a lobbyists who worked on arms-control issues and petitioned congress to do away with nuclear warheads.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 30, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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It may have been just a startling coincidence, but his head just so happened to look very much like a warhead. I typed a note of this on my Alphasmart Neo, as the lobbyist introduced himself.

"Warhead, warhead," the lobbyist spoke.

"I think this guy's head looks like a warhead," I wrote, and then shared my observation with Chaya. She did not crack a smile, for she knew better than that. I knew that Chaya thought that I was funny, but she knew that if she even giggled slightly, I would have lost control and found myself convulsing in a sea of laughter, which probably would have been the end of our interview.

So in the face of Chaya’s stone-face I pulled myself together and listened to the warhead lobbyist continue talking about what he does - nuclear warheads - and how he squashed an arms production bill. In actuality, this fellow's job is to walk over to the Longworth building, which houses the offices of the US congress members, and talks with their snot-nosed brats about his issues. In his case, he would chat them up and inform them about the particulars of nuclear warhead production.

"When I first went into a congressional office, I was like, 'These kids are younger than me, and I am not sure if they know more than me,'" spoke the lobbyists with no small amount of excitement in his voice. He was totally into his job, and this came out in every word he spoke and every exclamatory expression on his face.

But his words were true. I have known plenty of legislative aides- the people who are responsible for briefing politicians on issues and influencing the direction of their vote - and they tend to be very young, snot-nosed, and only moderately educated. The blue shirted Quaker lobbyist, who was in his thirties, laughed as he spoke, and I began to realize that, even though he had a funny shaped head, he was actually showing himself to be a decent guy. He was clearly not a goon, though I am unsure if he fully meets the requirements of being human.

“So do you ever take these legislative brats out to dinner and try to loosen them up to the issues that you are pushing? You know, do you ever grease the gears a little?” I asked, thinking that this would be a good idea.

“That is the way that things use to be done, but not anymore,” the lobbyist replied, as he went on to explain how he attempted to influence congress.

He told me that he makes an appointment, talks to a legislative aide, and attempts to inform them of the issues at hand. This is all in the hope that the aide will somehow be influenced by his words and convey his influence onto the congressman that he works for. The Quaker added that it is the aide's job, and not the politicians, to find out the information behind issues and to determine the direction that votes should be placed. So therefore, I was informed, the aides are really interested in what the lobbyists have to say, as they are one of their biggest sources of information.

Maybe so.

This all sounded a little too idyllic to me. I could not believe that the people at the source of government could actually think that a lobbyist was anything other than an inconsequent geek. But perhaps this is just me. It was becoming evident that I had a lot to learn about government.

“Do you ever stomp into congress yelling hell-fire and grab those little goonie aides by the neck and tell them what is going on?” I asked with a good amount of humor.

The lobbyist laughed at my askance view of his job and told me that he did not really do this. "This is a long term thing,” he said, “I want to see what is in their head.”

I stopped short at these words, for they actually meant something to me. The lobbyist sometimes has to keep his opinions and words at bay in order to gain access to information that would assist him in his further mission. I knew then that I could use this indispensable tactic just as well in journalism:

People and their words are bridges, they can either lead you forward or break and drop you into the river below; they can carry you across to the other side or they can leave you stranded with nowhere to go. I realized that I was indirectly being taught a lesson by this lobbyist just by riding on his train. If I were to hold hard to my position - that lobbying is an overwhelmingly self-delusional tactic - I would have knocked myself off the train to be stranded. By smiling and making jokes, by really listening to what the lobbyist was saying, I was being lead to other places.

I had no idea then, as I was interviewing the Quaker lobbyist, that within a half hour’s time I, myself, would be sitting in the congressional office of Maine congressman, Mike Michaud, with a group of illegal Salvadorian immigrants, lobbying one of his aides about immigration rights and the pending presidential elections in El Salvador.

I am slowly learning how to get somewhere.

Related Pages:
Vagabond Goes to Washington
Travel to DC and Richmond VA

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Vagabond Goes to Washington
Jocelyn Lieu Interview
Travel to DC and Richmond VA

How to Lobby Congress
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Vagabond Goes to Washington

Vagabond Goes to Washington

I am told that policy decisions made by the government of the United States of America are highly influenced by issue-based lobbyists and snot-nosed legislative aids. It has been suggested that the politicians that Americans vote for are often times nothing other than smiling faced, figure heads of the political machine, who essentially know very little about what they speak of. I am surprised to find myself suspecting that there may be a rhyme or a reason behind this government, so I went to Washington DC to figure out how decisions are really made.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 30, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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Is this whole lobbyists folly-dolly really worth its salt? Or is it just the self-perpetuating lip-service that a bunch of goons made up just to grant themselves a biweekly paycheck that is constituted from the pockets of otherwise well-meaning donors?

For the sake of this story - which will be published in four travelogue entries - I sometimes found myself having to clutch with both hands at my throat in an all out effort to prevent my gag-reflex from shooting projectile vomit all over myself. For the sake of this story, I played nice and kept my mouth shut and my ears open. I know that I am perhaps a cynical fellow who sometimes may not be able to hold his tongue when he has something to say.















But I was surprised at what I found in DC. I expected to go into the city, meet some political super-goons, and write about these goons and all the goony things that they do. Rather, I did not come across many goons; I did meet a few pseudo-humans, but no goons. Perhaps I was just not looking in the right places. I am sure that there are a ton of goons piled up the DC mole-hill, but my reporter’s instincts did not lead me into their lyres.

Rather, I met an entire host of people who energetically engaged themselves upon their projects, people who were excited about what they were doing, driven, and a whole bunch of silly folk who really believed in some backhanded notion of democracy. Though the slight aroma of naivety was ever-present, my grouchy cynicism also rose to the surface to be seen for what it was. This trip to DC found a meeting point between my staunchly a-political tendencies and my extremely vehement revulsion to anything associated with politics of any kind. This trip to DC served to remind me that political people could possibly be considered human, however, the bounds of the definition may need to be stretched a little.


While tallying up my impressions I found that I can not write badly about the people that I met on this run to Washington DC. I met people who love what they do - even though it seems to be a miserable and miserly head-butting way of life - and it made me pleased to be in the company of people who think they have a purpose.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Jocelyn Lieu Interview
Travel to DC and Richmond VA
Multicultural Multi Ethnic New York City



Vagabond Goes to Washington
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Jocelyn Lieu Interview

Jocelyn Lieu Interview: Another Concept of Journalism



"If you are going after the news, you're working 60 hours a week, you're drinking hard. I think I burned out a little bit. But I took away the feeling that the news was useful. . . . I knew more and more of the truth but I couldn't quite convey it. The news became inadequate to me as an artist. That is how I came to fiction writing. . . . That was the beginning of my writing life." -Jocelyn Lieu on becoming an author

She strode through the doors of the Mission Cafe in the Lower East Side of New York City like an un-gated racing horse: she was full of spunk, confidence, and smiles. Her name was Jocelyn Lieu, the author of Potential Weapons, What Isn’t There, and other great works of fiction. She recognized me immediately and flashed me a huge smile followed up by an even bigger hello.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 29, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I was sitting in the back of the cafe with my interview regalia fully set up: a reporter's notebook, a tape recorder, pens and pencils, a huge mug of steaming coffee, and bottles of beer sat upon the table, ever ready to do their part in recording the story of this creative author and wild-west journalist.

Jocelyn walked up to me quickly and shook my hand with a start. "I assume that you are Wade," she rhetorically questioned as she ordered some kind of weird drink and sat down next to me. She carried herself with a cheerful presence, and I was nearly taken aback by her charm.

I had previously only known Jocelyn through her books, internet photos, and the bits of information that I strained out of the anthropologist, Kathleen Modrowski, who served as our mutual contact. Jocelyn had a Chinese father and a white mother, and therefore had long, straw straight black hair, tan skin, East Asian eyes, and smile that could not contain her mouthfuls of joyful laughter. She appeared pretty culturally ambiguous, and would have looked at home amongst the indigenous people of Mexico, Alaska, China, or even Hawaii.

After making a few jokes into my tape recorder to break the ice, we jumped intothe interview smoothly.

The Becoming of a Writer:

"I want to know about your life as a writer, how you began writing, and how you became successful," I told her.

Jocelyn smiled and began speaking without pause or delay.

"I had pretty much always wanted to write," she said, "and by always I mean since around seven [years old] or so, because that is when writing really becomes interesting and fun. But I think it began earlier because I'm a daydreamer, and you dream up stories. So I can't really remember not imagining things. . . In elementary school I began to write little stories. I called them novels . . . and I would never finish any of them." We laughed at this and Jocelyn went right into talking about how she completed her high school course early and then began her wanderings and, in time, university studies.

"I went for a year to the New School, which at that point was very wild [and] resembled a stationary Friends World. We [the students] were screaming at each other from across the table. There were a lot of crazy young professors who had been outcast from other institutions. From there I went to Yale. I don't know what I was thinking, [but] I got my degree in English from Yale."

"This was right at the cusps of change of mainstream and Ivy League education, and there was a cultural shift. We were still riding the 70's but it was turning into the 80's. What that means is that some of my friends were wild, acid dropping, poetry writing hippies [and others] were wearing ties and dresses and went off into the business world. It was strange to see what happened."

Upon graduating from Yale, Jocelyn took to the Road and ended up in New Mexico. "I went on the other path," she explained, "I went off to New Mexico with my then boyfriend, and we didn't have any money. We lived out of a car. I became a journalist. It was the first job I got, but it was certainly one that I think I wanted."

Wild-West Journalist:

Now in New Mexico and working for the Rio Grande Sun, Jocelyn began to etch out a life for herself writing newspaper pieces, tramping through the southwestern desert, and fighting corruption:

"The editor [of the Rio Grande Sun] was a Southern Colorado white man who had been trained as a journalist with the populous newspapers of the south. He really passed on that training of the populous division: the job of the newspaper is to hold the public officials accountable as to how public money was being spent. He said, 'Get the story, the full story. Stop at nothing to get it.'"

"Every story was investigative journalism," Jocelyn continued, "We were an anti-corruption newspaper."

"A lot of the journalist then were characters. Something of the wild west was still alive in Santa Fe. We moved from job to job, it [journalism] wasn't the sort of ... career that it is now. We'd get tired of working and say, "Fuck this job, lets go down to Mexico for three months." We would do that and then we would come back. . . There was a group of really dedicated journalist who were also people who didn't like bosses saying anything to them, and we would gravitate to the good editors, and the editor had to earn our respect somehow or we would quit."

"You're a quasi-public figure when you are a journalist," Jocelyn Lieu continued, "So we would sit at the bars, and the people that we would interview may walk by, and we would heckle them. They might join us, or they might cross the street to get away from us. You were definitely kind of a quasi-public figure, and I think we did consume a lot of alcohol. We couldn't be in a bar after 10 o'clock because someone would throw a chair at us."

These stories about being a wild-west journalist, running for the border, fighting with editors, digging deep into stories, exposing corruption, and being, in a very real sense, a free-running outlaw, stimulated my imagination. Jocelyn's story was very much one that I wished to tell, although the world of on-the-table journalism that I have been exposed to seemed to be a far away from that life that she described.

"Has journalism gone sterile?" I asked bluntly.

"Yes," Jocelyn replied, "I have seen an erosion of the news for too many reasons to go into now: the corporatizing of the media, the lack of independent media. You don't see that type of hard hitting print journalism so much anymore."

Transition to an Author:

"If you are going after the news, you're working 60 hours a week, you're drinking hard," Jocelyn spoke these with exasperated hand and facial gestures, "I think I burned out a little bit. But I took away the feeling that the news was useful . . . [but] the news became inadequate to me as an artist. That is how I came to fiction writing. . . . That was the beginning of my writing life."

"One of the things that I would do when I would quit [a newspaper job] would be to go to Central America or Mexico or some other cheap place [where] you could get an adobe house for 100 bucks a month. I would write; I would write fiction or I'd travel or I'd do both. And then my money would run out and I'd get a job. So I think the transition [between being a journalist and a fiction author] was gradual because it [journalism] was a very hard-burning job."

Jocelyn’s stories of populous journalism, of traveling on the written word, and living and dying by the pen danced upon my imagination. Writing again seemed exciting to me as I listened to her speak, and the world of sterile copy-editing, unimaginative editors, and the rest of the confines of modern journalism seemed far, far away.

Jocelyn Lieu showed me the other concept of journalism that I was looking for.

Related Pages:
Full interview with Jocelyn Lieu
David Lida Interview
Vagabond Journey Travel Articles and Interviews
Another Concept of Journalism
Editor Eats Article
Travelogue Journalism Label

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Travel to DC and Richmond VA
Multicultural Multi Ethnic New York City
Independent Study and Multicultural Education

Jocelyn Lieu Interview- Another Concept of Journalism
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Travel to DC and Richmond VA

Travel to Washington DC and Richmond, Virginia

Made a quick run down to Washington DC and Richmond over the past five days. Did a bunch of interviews with writers, poets, and lobbyists, activist, and political weirdos, met a bunch of good people, had a stupid adventure crossing the James River like a moron, and have a few stories to tell.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 28, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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But today I am in bed with a groggy head and a body that wants to curl up in some blankets and rest. So that is what I shall do.

But tomorrow, oh tomorrow, I will get back to the grindstone and reply to emails, answer travel questions, and publish travelogue entries.

Spare me one day, friends, I will be back tomorrow.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Multicultural Multi Ethnic New York City
• Independent Study and Multicultural Education
• Drunks Drop Money- Travel Tip #15

Travel to Washington DC and Richmond, Virginia
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Multicultural Multi Ethnic New York City

Multicultural, Multi-Ethnic New York City

New York City makes me want to go to other lands. Yes, the cultures and people that are resplendent here present a good cross section of planet earth. My early assumptions were correct, New York City is a hotbed of everywhere else, and, as such, just being here makes me want to jet off to a dozen different parts of the world every day.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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My Path took a major turn in coming to NYC, and I am now of the impression that this stop will be one in which I can always turn and look back upon. A huge detour was taken, I was pushed to the verge of collapse, and I felt as if I was hanging on by only a thin thread. But walks through the far away, never, never land representations of the world's cultures saved me and put a smile right on my face.

In New York City I can choose what country I want to travel in on a daily basis. New York City is giving me a view of the world in some odd sort of mixed up, kaleidoscopic microcosm. And I am beginning to like it:

Ethiopians pound drum rhythms on empty five gallon buckets next to Beijing Opera singers in full Old China regalia in the subway for spare change. The languages on street signs move from Spanish to Chinese to Arabic to Cyrillic to Hindi depending on the duration and direction of your walk. Food is true smorgasbord, as I know that I can eat any kind of food from anywhere in the world relatively cheaply.

I went up to the Indian district in Queens last night and ate real Indian food at a dirty restaurant and then watched a Bollywood moving in a theater. It made me miss India.

A week ago, I went for a long walk through Spanish Harlem searching for Salsa Lazano. Being around all of the Latinos in the streets and hearing a half dozen different dialects of Spanish being spoken made me want to go back to Latin America.

A few days ago I went down to the ocean front at the south of Brooklyn in the Russian district. Trying to sound out all of the Cyrillic signs and looking at all of the fat Russian women made me want to go to Russia.

And, as always, walks through Chinatown make me want to go back to my surrogate homeland: China.

Sikh man walking in Indian district of Queens.

Manhattan Chinatown vegetable market.

Russians in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Indians in Queens.

Good, dirty, cheap, authentic Indian restaurant.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Independent Study and Multicultural Education
Drunks Drop Money- Travel Tip #15
Travels New York City

Multicultural, Multi-Ethnic New York City
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Independent Study and Multicultural Education

Independent Study and Multicultural Education

The following is an interview that Verge Magazine , out of Canada, did with Vagabond Journey on the importance of independent study and international/ multicultural education.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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1. What kinds of travel experiences have you had as part of independent studies or projects (“independent” meaning a project that was not already a prescribed part of a standard curriculum set out by your school; a project that was self-directed or that you designed yourself)?

I did my undergraduate studies at Global College, Long Island University, which is a four year, accredited, international studies program, with centers in Costa Rica, South Africa, India, China, and Japan. A large part of the curriculum of this school is based upon independent study projects that students carry out with the assistance of an academic advisor. As for myself, I focused the majority portion of my studies on independent projects that I carried out in Japan, India, China, Morocco, and Portugal.

For one semester in Japan, I took 9 credits of independent study, and did two major projects. One was a very in-depth investigation into traditional Japanese tattooing and the other was a study of haiku poetry and its symbiotic relationship with Zen Buddhism.

I studied in China for one year, and focused my independent projects on Tang Dynasty poetry, contemporary Tibetan nomads, and martial arts. For the Tibetan nomad independent study, I went out to Qinghai province in the west of China to conduct my investigation. The Tang Dynasty poetry project cumulated in a journey into the TianTai mountains in search of the 11th century poet, Han Shan's, hermitage.

I then studied for a semester at Global College's South Asian Center in Bangalore, India. Here I began my study of journalism by formulating, with the assistance of my academic advisor, a course called Ethnographic Journalism (which would eventually become my formal area of concentration within Global College). In this independent study, I went into the Chinatowns of India, a Tibetan refugee camp at Bylakuppe, and wrote articles about many aspects of Indian society. The Tibetan refugee article was published by Abroad View magazine, and I am currently re-working an article on traditional Indian woodcarvers for publication.

From India I went to Morocco and Portugal for a complete semester of independent study. My main focus was on journalism, and I wrote pieces on Moroccan culture and society - focusing on the Ramadan celebration - as well as an article on graffiti artists in Portugal that was published in Cafe Abroad InPrint.

3. What did planning for these independent projects involve? For example, did you work with a faculty advisor? When did the planning process start? Did you have to prepare proposals, hand in progress reports? What steps did you have to take before you began your project/study?

The independent study projects that students do in Global College, Long Island University must be well researched in advance and proposals need to be submitted and approved by the student's academic advisor before they can begin. Throughout the semesters that I studied independently, I worked very closely with my advisers to optimize the results of my work.

4. What work did you complete?

If you go to this page, Travel Articles, you can browse the bulk of the work that I accomplished while studying independently.

5. What did you learn?

The most important things that I learned while studying independently were the more subtle, person skills that derive from designing and carrying out large research projects on my own volition. Skills such as self confidence, determination, and inter-personal communication are cultivated through independent study. Though I think the most important skill that I gained while studying independently abroad was that I was able to learn how gain access to people, places, and experiences that I need to carry out my research. Independent study teaches students the HOWS of life, and not just the whats, wheres, and whens.


6. Did studying independently allow you to do things you wouldn’t have been able to do through study in traditional courses/programs?

Yes, definitely. I came to Global College (previously called the Friends World Program) because I was worn out and jaded with the structure and limitations that are inherent to the conventional education model; I wanted to get out in the world and take control of my own education and to shape my own knowledge and opportunities. I found sitting in a classroom, far removed from the source of what I was studying, unbearable. I needed to go directly to the spring of knowledge, and quench my curiosities for myself.

8. How did studying independently allow you to have meaningful experience in a way that traditional courses/programs may not have allowed?

Through studying independently I was able to escape the cage of the classroom and experience my education for myself. Global College provided me with a way to study independently in virtually any country in the world that I wished to travel to, investigate what I was passionate about, and produce work that I am still proud of. I could not have done this through doing the redundant dittos and busy-work assignments that are the hallmark of a conventional university education.

I was also able to make many friends and contacts through studying internationally and doing independent projects that I would not have been able to make if I sat sedentary in a US university for four years. I know that I will always utilize the contacts that I made and the experiences that I had while studying independently with Global College. In point, independent study enabled me to grasp my research topics in both hands and to really make something of my university education.

9. What are the disadvantages of studying independently? What is difficult about it?

The main disadvantage of studying independently is that it is the student needs to be responsible for their own education. Simply put, the student must be their own teacher and come up with strategies to seize the information and knowledge that they desire. During the course of an independent study semester, a teacher or an adviser can only guide the student toward their goals, it is up to the student to take that guidance and make something of it. It is my impression that if a student is not passionate about their studies and they are not driven enough to make contacts on their own, then their independent studies may not come to fruition. When you study independently, you essentially throw yourself out into a middle of a sea of possibility, and you have to make it back to land by way of your own guts, determination, and ingenuity. Studying in this manner is a great way to cultivate essential life skills and experience that you can take with you for the rest of your life, but, if you sink, nobody will be there to pull you back afloat. Independent study is a good litmus test for a student to check if they are able to face the world beyond the university gates. From my experience, independent study is a slight risk, though I feel that it is one that is worth taking.


10. Anything else you would like to add?

Yeah, for examples of the projects that I did while studying independently with Global College, Long Island University, please visit, http://www.vagabondjourney.com/ or http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travel-articles.shtml

And go directly to Global College's homepage, http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/globalcollege/

Related Pages:
International Study and Travel
Global College Long Island University
How to Finance Travels and Study Abroad
Scholarship for Travel
Global College China Center
Global College Costa Rica Center
Global College Japan Center
Global College South Africa Center
Global College South Asian Center

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Drunks Drop Money- Travel Tip #15
Travels New York City
David Lida Interview

Independent Study and Multicultural Education
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

New York City Photos

New York City Vagabond Journey Photos

The following photos were taken in New York City during the late summer and early autumn of 2008. They cover Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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Click on the following links to view the photo pages:

Photos from New York City

Chinatown New York City Photos

Herman Melville Grave

Bridges Between Manhattan and Brooklyn

Coney Island Brooklyn

Ground Zero Rebuilding Photos

Ground Zero Rebuilding Photos 2

New York City Vagabond Journey Photos
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

New York City Photos

New York City Vagabond Journey Photos

The following photos were taken in New York City during the late summer and early autumn of 2008. They cover Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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Click on the following links to view the photo pages:

Photos from New York City

Chinatown New York City Photos

Herman Melville Grave

Bridges Between Manhattan and Brooklyn

Coney Island Brooklyn

Ground Zero Rebuilding Photos

Ground Zero Rebuilding Photos 2

New York City Vagabond Journey Photos
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Drunks Drop Money- Travel Tip #15

Drunks Drop Money- Travel Tip# 15

This is a fact: large assemblages of drunk people, who are repeatedly reaching into their pockets and withdrawing money, oftentimes drop un-claimable bundles of cash upon the ground.

Drunks drop money. A sharp-eyed vagabond can easily make up a few days of bean money by just strolling through the action of drunken fest with their head down.

This is Vagabond Journey.com travel tip number 15.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I needed to get out of New York City, so I hopped a train to Long Beach on Long Island to go to the ocean and sleep out on the beach. I needed some fresh air and to reacquaint myself with the stars and night-time sky. So I packed up a sleeping bag and took the Long Island Railroad to the end of the line. $7 was all that was needed for this escape.

There was an Irish festival going on in Long Beach when I arrived in the early evening, and the train platform was strewn with beer cans, bottles, and yelling drunks wearing green - I think they thought green would make them Irish or something.

I followed the parade of drunks from the train station to the town, and then set my own course for the beach. The day was just coming down and there was a breeze coming in from the sea.

I felt real life again: I smoked a pipe and watched night fall in bright orange blankets over the eastern sea.

As night hit, I went over to the Irish festival. The drunks in green were really drunk and they were, of course, yelling. I kept my eyes to the ground in search of dropped, un-claimable, bundles of cash. I looked in between feet, in front of beer store entrances, and near the bars themselves.

I found:

A wallet with money in it.

A digital camera.

These were not the spoils that I was looking for. I returned the wallet to the police station, and the cop promptly removed the money from its interior right in front of me (I highly doubt the money was ever relayed on to the proper person). I let the digital camera sit where I found it until morning, in hopes that its owner would return to claim it.

After sleeping out on the beach until a five AM shower woke me from my slumber, I walked back to where the camera was. It was still there, sitting out in the rain. I figured that if its owner abandoned it outside to be consumed in a rain shower, that it was not really a valued possession. I scooped it up and made it a gift to a friend.

Although I did not find what I was looking for at the drunken Irish fest - money - what I did find is testament enough to the fact that travel funds be picked off the ground like apples from a tree.

Drunks drop money; travel funds sometimes fall from the sky.

Keep your head down, travel on.


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Related Pages:
Vagabond Journey Travel Tips
Debit Cards for Travel
Label Travel Funds
Long Beach New York Website
Irish Anniversary Festival

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Travels New York City
• David Lida Interview
• One Week Two Laptops Broken

Drunks Drop Money- Travel Tip# 15
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Travels New York City

Travels in New York City, September to October 2008

The following is a subway map of New York City that shows the extents of my wanderings from September to mid- October, 2008. The New York City part of my travels should be completed by early December, after which, I think that I may do a loop down through the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and Mexico before returning to my journey to the Middle East in January.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 20, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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The circles on this map shows the parts of New York City that I have shed some boot rubber walking through:

New York City subway map.

Click on the map for a larger view.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
David Lida Interview
One Week Two Laptops Broken
Vagabond Journey Mission Statement

Travels in New York City, September to October 2008
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

David Lida Interview

David Lida Interview

"And then I realized I had to get out of the house, and walk around the city. I had lived here long enough to clearly identify what I knew and what I didn’t know. I had to be on the street with all of my senses engaged, talking to strangers, going to neighborhoods where people warned me not to go, wearing out the soles of my shoes to get it right. I had to drink in the energy of the city every day, so that I could go home and then transmit that energy in the writing." -David Lida on writing, First Stop in the New World



David Lida is a Mexico City based author and journalist who wrote the books, First Stop in the New World, Travel Advisory, and Las Llaves de la Ciudad, as well as a plethora of magazine articles about Mexican culture and society. After reviewing his book, First Stop in the New World, which is a "street-level panorama" of life in Mexico City, I found his writing to be highly engaging, unpretentious, and, simply put, written from the ground up. I admire these qualities in a writer, and, to these ends, I sought to do a follow up interview with Lida to further delve into his world as a writer working from the streets of Mexico's capital city.

What were your initial impressions of Mexico City when you first went there 18 years ago?

My initial impressions were … impressionistic. You can find nearly all of them in the first paragraphs of the introduction in the book.

I actually first arrived in 1987. I had a layover of a day and a night. I had a rather long night that night. Something which didn’t make it into the final manuscript of the book, is that I went to the Teatro Blanquita. At the time, they still had vaudeville at the Blanquita, and I saw various comics, chorus girls, singers and dancers, as well as the orchestra of Pérez Prado, the king of the mambo, a couple of years before he died. Another performer that night was Sasha Montenegro, an Argentine of Yugoslavian descent who moved to Mexico in the early 1970s and became the star of a series of sex comedies. She sang a little, danced a little, but mostly pranced around the stage nearly naked, assisted by a pair of diminutive, male, sexually ambiguous assistants.
Somehow I knew I was in the right place. Mostly this was an intuitive reaction, and I couldn’t really explain why I knew.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 20, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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What makes you think that Mexico City has the potential of becoming the cultural capital of the 21st century?

I call it the capital of the 21st century (rather than the cultural capital) for the following reason. More than half the people in the world live in cities. And most of us do not live in neat, orderly cities like Paris or London, New York or Toronto. Most of us live in cities that have grown in an ad hoc, willy nilly manner in the last few decades, with populations that have ballooned to 10 million or more, with little or nothing resembling urban planning: Shanghai, Beijing, Sao Paolo, Istanbul, Lagos, Mumbai, etc.

I am not saying that all of these cities are alike. Each deserves its own book. But if you understand how Mexico City works – economically, socially, culturally, politically, sexually, etc. – you will at least have a clue, or a window, as to how much of the world works, and how many of these city dwellers survive.

I am impressed with how you intertwined the anecdotal nature of First Stop in the New World in a way that comes together to reveal a holistic view of Mexico City. How did the structure of this book come about?

There were two moments which I consider key in the three-year journey from the inception of the idea to the bound book. I worked for the first six months or so at home, trying to write what I already knew about. And I despaired because it wasn’t working. The material I was accumulating seemed static to me.

And then I realized I had to get out of the house, and walk around the city. I had lived here long enough to clearly identify what I knew and what I didn’t know. I had to be on the street with all of my senses engaged, talking to strangers, going to neighborhoods where people warned me not to go, wearing out the soles of my shoes to get it right. I had to drink in the energy of the city every day, so that I could go home and then transmit that energy in the writing.

The worst thing that one Mexican writer can say about another is escribe con las patas – he writes with his feet. I actually wrote this book with my feet, walking around and then coming home to sit at the computer.

The other turning point was when I came up with the idea of interweaving long, analytical chapters with short vignettes. Initially I had only planned to have long chapters. But I realized two things. First, there are certain topics – like the Centro Histórico, for example, or the wrestling matches – that I could either try to capture as a succinct snapshot in five pages, or else I would have to write a 300 page book. There is no way that I could imagine doing 30 pages about the Centro.

Secondly, I believe that these short takes and anecdotes truly reflect the fragmented nature of experience in Mexico City. Or at least the fragmented nature of my experience here.

Could you tell me a little of the trials and errors that accompanied your journey to becoming a professional writer?

I’m not sure how much I would define them as trials and errors as I would as ups and downs. I got my start on a daily trade newspaper in New York that services the fashion and retail industries. I began as a copy editor and five years later I was editing the arts page. The paper was widely read by editors of women’s magazines, so when I quit and became a freelance they all gave me work.

I thought it would be smooth sailing from there on in. I figured that in a couple of years I would find three or four editors who would give me lots of work on a regular basis and that would be that. In fact, within a couple of years all the editors who had been giving me work had either quit or been fired, and I had to start from scratch. And that is pretty much the way it has been for twenty years. I’ve had to reinvent myself constantly.

It has helped that I learned to write in Spanish. This expands my chances of getting published at all. I am especially happy about Las llaves de la ciudad, a book that came out here in Mexico at more or less the same time as First Stop in the New World. It’s a collection of magazine pieces about Mexico City, mostly profiles of people (from a guy who claims to be the D.F.’s first private detective, to a deaf-mute transvestite who has created her own sign language, to one of the city’s most notorious socialites). I wrote all of it in Spanish, and the response here has been extremely positive.

Having said that, I believe it is harder and harder for a freelance writer to survive in the world. I want to keep writing. However, one of the reasons that, in addition to writing, I became a mitigation specialist (there is a little bit about this on my web site, www.davidlida.com) is that I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life hustling magazine articles in an increasingly hostile market.

Do you have a crazy or funny personal story from Mexico City that you could share that was not included in First Stop in the New World?

Whenever I feel I have seen everything here, I walk through some door and am surprised. A few months ago I was in the Plaza Garibaldi, an area notorious for mariachis and dive bars, with a friend. She insisted on going to a table dance bar, where women strip and dance for an exclusively male clientele, with the exception of the occasional adventurous woman, like my friend. In any case, we went in there and saw a woman dancing who was clearly, visibly pregnant – I’d say she was four or five months along in her term. That was certainly a first for me.

Related Pages:
David Lida's Homepage and Blog
Vagabond Journey Review of First Stop in the New World
First Stop Amazon Page

Links to previous travelogue entries:
One Week Two Laptops Broken
Vagabond Journey Mission Statement
Downfall of the Maya

David Lida Interview
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

One Week Two Laptops Broken

One Week Two Laptops Broken

Whenever I find myself in times of trouble, I make an attempt at self-consolation by repairing my travel gear.

I cleaned and mink oiled my boots and vest today.

My two laptops are both broken.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 20, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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The first, Old Faithful, my old Dell, was leant to my parents, who wanted a smaller computer to set up in their home instead of their humungous desktop PC. I offered it to them, but it did not last long. A mug of coffee laying within far too close a proximity to the computer was dumped upon the keyboard by my baby sister.

Two traveling laptops broken in one week.

After two years of international travel, after two years of holding up to the rigors of the Road, Old Faithful was fried in the comfort of a highly domestic and static home. The irony almost made me laugh.

"Accidents happen," I told my mother without much real concern. My trusty Asus Eee PC was still running strong.

Not anymore.

For some reason my Eee PC keeps loosing the empty space on its internal hard drive. For the past two weeks I continually deleted programs and have not added anything to it. There should be more than enough space for it to run properly, but the drive keeps filling up on its own. I have gone through the game of deleting programs a half dozen times now, only to have it mysteriously filling back up again. I cannot delete anymore programs, but the hard drive is again full. I do not know why this is happening.

The main problem with this is that as soon as there is no more empty space on the internal hard drive Windows ceases to function properly. In point, my word documents are being permanently scrambled halfway through writing them, none of my remaining programs are working properly, and everything seems to be at the edge of all-out, total collapse.

I called Asus tech support, and, after hearing a string of technical mumble, I was told that the only thing that I can do is a complete system restore. The only problem is that the Asus Eee PCs do not have disk drives and, as I bought my laptop off of the floor of a Best Buy, I never received the restore disk.

The tech support guy lovingly told me that I can purchase the restore disk from Asus for $30, and I have no idea how much an external CD drive costs.

The only thing that I want is a computer that will work properly so that I can attempt to etch out a living publishing this friggin website. But I suppose life would not be interesting if it were not thick with trials, problems, and challenges. "Adventure only happens when things go wrong."

"Life is weird, you should not expect it to be any other way," the anthropologist, Kathleen Modrowski, told me this morning as I began to air my woes.

Another needless hurdle has just been set up for me to plow through like all of the rest.

But, as G says, "Don't feel sorry for yourself."

Two broken laptops in one week.

Bothered, but with freshly oiled boots and vest.

At least my AlphaSmart NEO is still kicking.

Taking the Asus Eee PC to the doctors.

Walking Slow.

Related Pages:
Asus Eee PC Initial Impressions
Asus Eee PC Travel Computer
Don't Buy from Buy.com
Asus Eee PC Popular with Travelers

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Vagabond Journey Mission Statement
Downfall of the Maya
Herman Melville Pilgrimage

One Week Two Laptops Broken
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Vagabond Journey Mission Statement

Vagabond Journey Mission Statement

Neither do I wish to present a polished view of the world, nor do I wish to present a polished view of myself.

I am an imperfect man writing an imperfect tale.

I know this; I do not need to be told.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 19, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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All too often, I read travel literature and travelogues that only show the bright, romantic side of traveling, and, likewise, the bright, romantic side of planet earth. This is bullshit.

Travel - if it is done right - is not always happy, not always enjoyable, and not always relaxing. A traveler is not always going to be amiable, excited, or open to everything they experience. Likewise, I want to read traveler tales that are not always feigning positivity. I think that it is really unfortunate that so many travel writers do not write of the times in their travels when they are less than heroic, when they are grumpy, and when they are anything but wise.

To these ends, I try to write whatever I feel, wherever I am. I have found this travelogue to be a good place to air out my dirty laundry.

I do not always intend to be correct in my observations, I do not wish to present myself as being fair, and I do not want to be taken as a source of objectivity.

I write what I honestly feel in the moment I feel it, and then publish it. This travelogue is a day-by-day account of my journey around the world. I intend to show the rubbish heaps that are upon the the planet - as well as those that are within myself - just as I intend to show the beautiful vistas.

It has always struck me as funny how the written word is taken to be so impermeable, so unchangeable. I know that my impressions change by the day, that my opinions are ever adapting to meet my experience. Just because I commit something to writing does not mean that I will always believe in it, it does not mean that I will always stand by it, and it definitely does not mean that I think that I am correct. I want to share my ideas and observations with other people, simply because I enjoy doing so.

I enjoy it when I get emails and comments telling me that I am wrong, un-objective, and not correct, because this is an indication to me that I am successful in my mission:

I am writing as a human.

If nothing else, I wish for this travelogue to be as askance as possible. I want the reader to see between the lines and find a weak and shivering little puppy that is just trying to learn about the world that it lives in.

The Vagabond Journey Travelogue is simply my impressions of the world as I move through it. A documentation of one man's dance, fist fight, and love affair with planet earth. The romantic can also be found in the real.

I am just a teller of tall tales.

(Psst . . . This is also a love letter to myself.)

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Downfall of the Maya
• Herman Melville Pilgrimage
• American Groovy

Vagabond Journey Mission Statement
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Downfall of the Maya

The following article about the downfall of Maya was published in Cafe Abroad InPrint, December 2008.

Oracle Bones: Lessons for Today from an Ancient Mayan Burial

White flecks of bone glimmered in the archaeologists’ sifting screens and the excitement among the crew was building as the remains of a human being would soon be unearthed after an undisturbed slumber of more than 1,000 years.

I watched as the old Honduran archaeologist scraped off the remaining bits of parched, baked soil from the surface of an ancient Mayan burial. A shallow layer of previously buried stones were now the only barrier that stood between us and the skeleton that surely laid beneath: a slim barrier between the world of the living and the dead.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York- October 18, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I recorded field notes into an old dusty notebook and prudently took measurements as the excavators peeled up stone after stone from the long-forgotten tomb. But, as we worked, I was unable to shake the notion that I was participating in the disruption of an ancient burial, and the cold blanket of scientific study did nothing to lessen my excitement. The skeleton that we would soon uncover, disassemble, measure, and coldly stuff into a Tupperware bin was once a living, breathing member of the greatest civilization to rise out of the jungles of Central America.