Ellis Island Immigration

Ellis Island Immigration: An envious, romantic look at old-time travel

"In this room," spoke the crazy eyed park ranger at the Ellis Island immigration center, "more than two thousand immigrants would be processed each day. The average expected wait for each immigrant was around three to five hours."
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 12, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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The crazy eyed ranger then went on to tell us the procedures which immigration at Ellis Island was carried out between the years of 1892 and 1954. "Over 98% of the immigrants who attempted to come through this building were processed and sent on their way to the interior of the United States. . . . Immigration was even easier to get through in Boston and Georgia."



Immigration hall at Ellis Island

During the first half of the 20th century, 98% of people who wanted into the USA, could. A half century ago borders were as permeable as the arbitrary lines on a map they actually are. It is a novel concept to me that such a short time ago a person with the means could seize the self-determination to go just about anywhere on planet earth they wished and attempt to make a living. It is a common practice for societies to romanticize the past, but as I listened to the park ranger speak of how the masses of the world moved between countries, I must admit to feeling a slight tinge of historic envy.

Immigrants at Ellis Island

It only took three men at Ellis Island's immigration center only three to five hours to process thousands of foreigners wishing to enter the USA. I, with a US passport, have waited far longer, in far shorter lines, than this at many immigration booths around the world for measly tourist visas. And, for the record, I know that I have often waited for over an hour and a half to be processed back into my own country.

Ellis Island Immigration Center

What has happened over this past century? In this new world of instant global communication systems, air travel, international trade pacts, and world political dialogue and organization, how have borders become so think? How has it become so difficult to pass from one point to another? As I stand on the precipice of an age of technological and scientific light, I am ever called backward by the notion that society functioned smoother centuries ago.

With each step forward a society takes, it seems as if a dozen rattraps are put up in everyone's way. Only a century ago the people of this earth could pretty much go and come as they pleased; passports were not necessary and people were trusted to take care of themselves. Now travelers need to fill out mounds of forms, pay money, and wait in line for hours as the rusty gears of the computer-age churn with screeching imperiousness. It is funny to me that a person can now travel to the other side of the world in less than a single day, but it is never certain if they will be allowed to land.

We call this progress.

It is common in the folklore of many Asian cultures and religions to regard the past with reverence. Perhaps the past is ever idealized in these worldviews as a device from which contemporary society can gauge the shortcomings of the present. Perhaps an idealization of history is a way of providing a temporal impetus which states that the present can always be better, that the past was once greater, and that this greatness can be obtained once again.

Or, perhaps, the ways of the past really were freer, more enlightened, healthier, and wiser than today. Perhaps, in this instance, folklore should be read literally.

From where I am standing, the world seems to be rapidly rolling down a long hill into the depths of societal wretchedness.

When I am interrogated, poke, and prodded at immigration points around the world by stern-faced and heavily armed officials, I feel wretched (and the privilege of the Golden Eagle generally procures for me a comparatively timely and hassle-free immigration experience). I hate to think of what the travelers from less prosperous nations with less impressive passports must have to go through to engage in the timeless act of going from point A to point B.

Are people really so much worse, so much more untrustworthy, so much more suspicious that our walls need to be so much thicker?

The history of humanity is a history of migration. To stand in the way of migration is to obstruct the flow of history.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Mexico City First Stop in the New World
• Journalism Mission
• Global Economy and Speculation

Ellis Island Immigration: An envious, romantic look at old-time travel
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Mexico City First Stop in the New World

Mexico City- First Stop in the New World by David Lida

"Mexico City is poised to be part of the vanguard of this century. Culturally, economically, and politically, it can be seen as the capital of the Spanish-speaking world."
-David Lida, First Stop in the New World

David Lida's book, First Stop in the New World, is an anecdotal joy ride through Mexico City at street level. Told in short glimpses, Lida pieces together a rich menagerie of life in a city that is predicted to bloom, prosper, and grown out of control in the 21st century.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 10, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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"The capital of the 21st century," reads the byline to the title, and this prediction is the heart and soul of the book. By showing the highs and lows of life in Mexico's capital, Lida sets out to pave the way for the world's acceptance of Mexico City as the next global capital of culture and commerce.



Lida writes that First Stop in the New Wold is, "a journalistic, anecdotal street-level panorama of Mexico City. The book highlights the place’s paradoxes – that it is home to the richest man in the world, but half of the population lives in poverty; that criminals and cops are difficult to distinguish; that consumerism is ostensibly shunned but outwardly embraced. It journeys through the realms of sex and crime, money and religion, politics and entertainment, art and soccer."

I am unsure if Lida has his blinders off when making the claim that Mexico City will become the world's next cultural capital, but the stories that he tells in this book are highly enjoyable to read, regardless of whether they prove any off-handed prophecy.

Lida writes that, ". . . by 2050 the city will expand some forty miles west to envelop the city of Toluca, about sixty miles due south to swallow Cuernavaca, and another sixty miles to the north to absorb Pachuca, resulting in a gargantuan entity of some forty-five million inhabitants."

In lieu of this pervading onslaught of urbanization, I feel that Lida's book has come at the perfect time. Mexico City is now on the precipice of rapid change, and Lida's book stands as an indelible snapshot of a city that is caught perilously between the actions of coming and going.

First Stop in the New World starts out with a description of the urban stage upon which the stories of the book play out. Lida gives an introductory explanation of the "Hypermetropolis" - a word that is often used to describe what Mexico City is rapidly becoming - and how the eyes, and money, of the world are gradually drifting towards the urban heart of Mexico. He then shows maps and explains the genesis of the city that was once the capital of the Aztec empire, complete with an explanatory time-line of how it developed into the urban monster that it is today. From this starting point, Lida then leads the reader on a journey through the the highs and lows of Mexican City life.

Talks about globalization, sexuality, the Mexican media, art, gentrification, customs, slang, religion, work, and oddities formulate the backbone of First Stop in the New World. Lida digs deep into the meat of the city with the razor scalpel of a journalist, as he cuts out anecdotal descriptions of the people and places in Mexico City. Taken as a whole, this collection of short literary time-bombs provide the reader with a rather complex, though complete, impression of the the people of Mexican metropolis stand at the beginning of the 21st century.

Lida, who has lived in Mexico City for the better part of the past 18 years, has obviously had the opportunity and willingness to befriend all levels of the urban social sphere. From the grossly rich to the dire poor, Lida interviewed, conversed, and befriended businessmen, prostitutes, professional wrestlers, street vendors, and seemingly anyone else who could serve as an instillation in his non-duel portrait of Mexico City.

From First Stop in the New World:

"The clock behind the bar at El Nivel, the oldest cantina in Mexico City, runs backward, an apt metaphor for the spiritual condition of two of its clients on a recent Friday afternoon. Fiftyish, rumpled, crooked smiles on their faces, they sat with their arms around each other's shoulders, not only as a gesture of solidarity, but to keep from falling on the floor."

The above quote is a taste of the colloquial, friendly tone that Lida maintains throughout the book. It was written as if Lida was having a simple, warm conversation with his readers, and he openly invites us to walk through his door and really experience the vibrancy and depth of Mexico City and its people.

First Stop in the New World is truly a great primer to prepare for a trip to Mexico, or a book that will pull at the memory cords of even the most weathered traveler. This book was written from the street, and leaves a tangible record of a city that carries high promises through the gates of the 21st century.

Blog of David Lida

Riverhead Books, First Stop in the New World

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Journalism Mission
Global Economy and Speculation
Editor Eats Article

Mexico City- First Stop in the New World by David Lida
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Journalism Mission

Journalism Mission

One night while growing weary with my task of copy editing an issue of Cafe Abroad InPrint, I came upon the following quote:

"There is another concept of journalism . . . it's engraved on a bronze plaque on the south-east corner of the Times Tower in New York City."
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 10, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I then shoved my papers in a mess off to the side of my desk, woke up the Dinosaur, and headed out to find this Other Concept of Journalism, which, in my state, was sorely needed. I did not find the bronze plaque or anything resembling the wisdom that could free me from the shackles of copy editing, so I returned home to my desk with my tail crooked up between my legs.

Another Concept of Journalism

After airing my woes on this travelogue, I soon received a firestorm of assistance from the backing hand of Vagabond Journey. Motorcycle Bob and General McArthur both provided the background research and clues as to where I may be able to find this plaque.

Motorcycle Bob found the inscription on the internet that I was probably seeking:

"I want to always fight for progress and reform; never tolerate injustice or corruption; always fight demagogues of all parties; never belong to any party; always oppose privileged classes and public plunder; never lack sympathy with the poor; always remain devoted to the public welfare; never be satisfied with merely printing the news; always be drastically independent; never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission

Now I just had to substantiate this quote in the touch and finger world to be sure of its "existence."

And a solid lead soon came from General McArthur as to where I may be able to find the much coveted bronze plaque that had this Other Concept of Journalism etched upon it:

"The address should be 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10036"

So, while in the midst of another mission, My Friend and I just happened to come across the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, and could not help but to try to find this magical plaque of bronze wisdom, whose importance has exponentially grown.

1211 Ave of the Americas was the General's lead, and I took it.

I found:

The headquarters of Fox News.

True, this may have been the fountain head of Another Concept of Journalism, but it was surely not the one that I was searching for.

I think the General may have pulled a fast one on me.

Still searching fruitlessly for Another Concept of Journalism. A simple quest that has taken on the proportions of a monster with each gnawing notion of ill-success.

Next step:

Write a letter to the editor of the New York Times to see if he even knows where the hell he keeps his stupid bronze plaques.

The mission continues.



The only bronze plaque at 1211 Ave of the Americas, the headquarters of Fox News.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Global Economy and Speculation
Editor Eats Article
Urban Hermit

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

Global Economy and Speculation

Global Economy and Speculation

On the premise that stocks are not real, money is not tangible, and the ebb and flow of the state of modern humanity is based on the tidings of economic speculation, it seems as if the world is dooming itself through its own prophecies of the future.

In point: if it is thought that the global economy is going to crash, then it will.

Economics is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To these ends, Andy the Hobotraveler issued the following request to news media around the world:

I am Asking a Favor of News Media

I would like to ask a favor of the News Media of the World, whether it is Television, Newspapers, Radio, Bloggers, or any other of mass information broadcasting system. We must as a world and nation stop using words that scare the public; this is causing a panic and making this financial situation worst.

I could have used the word “Crisis,” however, it is not a crisis, it is a difficult situation, however if the New Media continues to use these types of words it will become a crisis.

The whole world is ok, the world is good, all is great, however restraint is needed.

We shall reap what we sow, please do not encourage confusion or search for blame, please do not cause people to argue. Now is the time for sound minds to raise their voice and help, it is the time when the leaders should lead by example.

---------------------------------
Fukuoka, Japan
Tuesday, October 8, 2008
Blog of Andy HoboTraveler.com --- Add a Hotel --- Travel Bag Design Survey --- Professional Traveler Bag
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The use of sensationalistic and doomsday words need to be avoided for the good of the world. To use these words is a form of greed, think about it, becuase it is greedy to feel you need to be the first to tell information. This lack of responsibility for our actions is what has caused this situation, always the words,

“It is someone else’s responsibility, not mine.”

What did John F. Kennedy say,
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.“

Andy Graham or HoboTraveler.com
Fukuoka, Japan October 8, 2008

I would appreciate if you would emails this, or tell this to anyone you know in the News Media and try to convince them to lower the level of their reports to a moderate level for the good of the world.

I am Asking a Favor of News Media

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Editor Eats Article
• Urban Hermit
• Ground Zero Photos New York City

Global Economy and Speculation
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Editor Eats Article

Editor Eats Article

I returned to the USA and had my first real chance to browse through some of the articles that I had written in a few penny and nickel print magazines. I had the notion that I may be able to land a job here in New York City off of them, and sought to put them together into some odd sort of portfolio.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City - October 9, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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So I ripped my articles out of their respective magazines and stuffed them into a postage envelope. I carried these articles around like this for a few days without really finding the urge to read them. I had written them, worked through the editing process, and took it for granted that they would be published as they were when I received the final OK from the editor.

I assumed far too much.

I sat in the room of a friend reading my articles aloud in a silly attempt at showing off. I read through one, then another, and when I got to the third I realized something:

I was reading words that were not my own.

What the hell?

My name, Wade P. Shepard, was at the title header, I could vaguely remember writing an article of a similar topic, and being paid a big $50 for my effort, but my words, tone, and voice were sorrowfully mangled beyond my recognition. Yes, they were mangled, garbled, and eaten horridly. I looked down upon the page and could only see the discordant and fully severed arms and legs of my article stuffed haphazardly into a five and dime casket.

My article looked like crib death.

The editor had obviously broken into the cookie jar and went crummy-faced-wild on a middle of the night snacking spree, as he gobbled down my article and spat it out onto the printed page. My eloquent first person narrative about war and revolution was soon chewed down to a gimpy pile of discordant third person nibblets and left to fester like rat-crumbs.

I stopped reading this article promptly and returned it to the postage envelope without much mention. I was still trying to impress my friend, and wished to avoid any wanton embarrassment. I was embarrassed.

The next day I stormed into the Global College office and laid bare my tale of woe to my academic adviser. I held in one hand a printed out copy the way my poor article should have appeared in the magazine and a Xerox of the mutilated corpse that was published. I wanted to know why, I wanted to know reasons, I wanted to see if she had any idea why another human being would chew up and spit out the heartfelt work of another so ruthlessly.

My adviser looked at me with dispassion.

"That," she said slowly, "is journalism."

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Urban Hermit
• Ground Zero Photos New York City
• Vagabond Not a Drunk

Editor Eats Article
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Urban Hermit

Urban Hermit

A man could walk through the streets of New York City with a merry-go-round on top of his head and nobody would take much notice, let alone bother him about it. So I suppose it is a good thing for the merry-go-round headed that New Yorkers tend to ignore each other.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 7, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I walk through these people strewn streets spinning my cane and trying to act very much like some weird sort of prince of Thebes. "When you get to New York, walk with a swagger in your step and you will be alright," I was told before I entered through the gates of this odd sort of pre-assumed Leviathan.

I found myself beginning to like this joint, as you can be just as anonymous in New York City as in the deepest, darkest of forests. A hermit has no better abode than then heart of a big, modern city:

Orthodox Jews walk the streets with huge, two and a half foot wide hockey puck like things masquerading as hats upon their heads, black men tie up dreadlocks with Africa colored cloths a half meter up off of their melons, and the worst comment that I have yet received for my somewhat pompous top-hat is that I look like a leprechaun.

I probably do, and therefore affirmed the gesture.

But the city is eating away at me. People energy is superficial, and I am not subsisting off of much. My energy is draining.

The faceless crowds still have faces, but they are not seen in the zebra-striped menagerie of the landscape. Skyscrapers cut off my connection with the sun, buildings my ability to feel the wind, city lights opaque the stars, and exhaust fumes taint the air. I am living in an artificial hybrid sort of life, and am beginning to feel terrible.

Walking the streets as another be-masked, faceless, and scarcely noticed drone. The feeling that I need to get out of here is becoming ever present.

I need to get back to being The Foreigner.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Ground Zero Photos New York City
Vagabond Not a Drunk
Cockfight Culture and Tradition

Urban Hermit
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Ground Zero Photos New York City

Ground Zero Photos New York City

"Giuliani proclaimed, "We will rebuild. We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again."
-Wikipedia

"Goldberger is the author of "Up From Zero" about the rebuilding process.

"In the first year, it looked as if we were really gonna aim for the highest thing possible. And then, gradually, sort of like the waves eating away at a sand castle, you know, they just wore away, bit by bit and it's gotten more and more ordinary," says Goldberger.

"And the high expectations for this site sadly, they're mostly gone," he says."
- Rebuilding Ground Zero

The plan for rebuilding Ground Zero

I Visited ground zero in Manhattan a few days ago to watch the rebuilding process. Seven years later it is still a hole in the ground.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 7, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I picked up a little brochure describing the plans to rebuild the wreckage, plans to build a great monument to show the strength of my country. All I found was a squabble of opinion and a still gaping hole in the center of the proverbial financial district of the modern world.


Photo of Ground Zero being rebuilt.


Photo of Ground Zero being rebuilt with something?

A gaping wound still festers.

Plan to Rebuild Ground Zero

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Vagabond Not a Drunk
Cockfight Culture and Tradition
Traveler Returns Home

Ground Zero Photos New York City
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Vagabond Not a Drunk

Vagabond Not a Drunk, Sometimes Unfortunate

I am not a drunk.

I say this with an odd sort of unfortunate reverance.

For sometimes I wish I could drown sorrows in a tub of whisky and stumble on into the next morning light.

But I can not.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 7, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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Alcohol and tobacco are for the good times, when there is a smile on my face and few thoughts in my head. Befuddled thoughts become even more befuddled behind a drunken smile.

There is a jug of Jim Beam sitting beneath my bed. But it just sits there looking at me as I look at it. I know that it is not going anywhere anytime soon. I think we are going to sit this one out together and wait for the storm to pass.


Lonely Bottle, Empty Glass

We both know that smiles are made from the inside out.

Looking upon the bright sun of the new day.

Paths leading ever onward to horizons.

Strawberry fields forever, you know.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Cockfight Culture and Tradition
Traveler Returns Home
Words of the Buddha


Vagabond Not a Drunk, Sometimes Unfortunate
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Cockfight Culture and Tradition

Cockfight Culture and Tradition Banished

I received the following letter from a reader who is concerned that their cultural tradition has been unjustly trampled upon by the ideas and actions of an outside group:

Hello Wade,

My name is XXXX I enjoyed reading your article and applaud you for printing it. I am from New Mexico and I am a cockfighter it has been in my family for 6 generations it is a proud and honorable tradition for us. Last year Animal Rights Activist felt that this was cruel and helped outlaw it in New Mexico. (with large sums of donations to legislators) It was a very sad day. Your comment "This is how traditions and cultures disappear" this is very true because of a groups opinion my tradition and culture is now illegal I feel this is wrong.

The person that commented about female genital mutilation is comparing young women to CHICKENS how outrages is that. We eat CHICKENS they should not have the same right as HUMANS or the same WORTH.

I hope you continue to print the truth about various cultures and injustices around the world. Good Luck to you.

Links to related pages:
Cockfight video censured
Of Men and Cocks
At the Cockfight

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Traveler Returns Home
Words of the Buddha
Living Off Psychological Research

Cockfight Culture and Tradition Banished
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Traveler Returns Home

Traveler Returns Home

"A traveler soon becomes the Path that he travels."

I traveled the 600 km up from Brooklyn to visit my family in Upstate New York for the weekend. It is always a sudden shock when I walk through the open doors of my youth. For no matter how far away I wanders, when I returns home I am again treated as the same old kid that I was before setting foot off the farm.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- october 1, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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"Travel makes the mind," Bruce Chatwin once wrote somewhere. Experience, impressions, confusion, and new horizons make a life. It is my experience that traveling causes a kaleidoscopic stream of contrasts, customs, cultures, and colors to ever wan in and out of your consciousness. Some of these impressions - some of what is learned from these impressions - make indelible changes.

Perhaps the traveler's mind is like a supple plod of silly-puddy, always willing and wanting to be molded into something different, something changed, something new, all while staying solid as the same physical mound of goop.

It is my impression that these observations and impressions from the Road – the molding of the silly puddy - can provide a unique window from which one can look back at their own culture from the outside.

Smooth lines become abstract, the unnoticeable becomes conspicuous.

Once the traveler has the opportunity to see this vision, he is finished.

For he will never be able to stop traveling.

The cultural strings are now severed and the traveler becomes an untied free floating sort of aardvark misfit. No culture can contain such a monstrosity.

I can remember the first times that I was able to view my own culture from afar, and I felt the homespun roots - the universal seeming givens - that I was acculturated to accept as fact severed and without basis. This was all OK, until I came home.

The year was 2000. I had just returned to my first leg of international travel in South America.

I again returned to my box, and unfortunately saw it for what it was.

There were expectations wrought upon me, I was expected to do things that I did no longer wished to do.

I was no longer any good at any of this.

I had to escape again. I did, and continue to escape.

I could not accept the conflict of past and present expectations. I felt as if I was a façade: my face told my family that I was the same big headed kid who would play football in the backyard, but my experience had changed the ways in which I expected to be treated.

So it has always been a funny feeling to momentarily return to my social box after wandering around the world - doing almost exactly what I want whenever I want to - for extended periods of time. Almost a decade later there is still usually a transition period when I visit my family, in which my mother makes damn sure that my rough edges are again polished smooth and that I am re-civilized.

But I now know that I must momentarily exchange one pattern of living for another. I am home again and must code-shift into compliance. If I act this part then everything is smooth.

I like being with my family. I like how solid and good things are. Food comes from here and heat comes from there - change is blasphemous. There is no foraging, no hunting, no wondering where you will sleep. The patterns and symbols of life are set and arranged. It is nice to stop and rest in my paternal home, but for a traveler to reenter into this pattern of living, after having it cut and severed, is near impossible.

It is interesting how traveling becomes a pattern, how change becomes a constant. I become what is regular, through the fact that my landscape is dynamic.

But I sense that something funny is starting to develope: my family is beginning to take me – Wade - as "Wade the traveler." There are signs rising to the surface that they no longer dream of me staying home and following the pattern that was set out for me in youth.

I rest content that my family is beginning to accept this ever wavering Road as acceptable, constant, and perhaps even redeemable.

I go home and it is known that I will soon leave. It becomes conversation:
"Where are you going next? What are you going to do there?"

I talk of working on the Open Road as my father talks of working in the metal shop, I talk of constructing websites and journalism as my mother talks of occupational therapy. This is nice.

I think that I may, once again, be becoming a real man.

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Words of the Buddha
Living Off Psychological Research
The Book Agent

Traveler Returns Home
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Words of the Buddha

Words of the Buddha

Complete Action:

To act fully, completely, without hesitation, without regret.

Complete Speech:

To speak fully, completely, without hesitation, without regret.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- October 1, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I have forgotten the lessons of my youth. I have slipped, strayed from the Path. I have allowed myself to become confused: ever thinking and rethinking and crashing up into decisions that have become as permeable as brick walls.

I have made more seemly mistakes in the past season that I have in half a decade.

I have been thinking far too much, deciding far too often, walking a direct line far too little.

But it is now a new season. I am stepping back and looking at myself and am ashamed. I have been stutter stepping and stutter speaking my way to a horizon that is shrouded in haze.

I made a big mistake.

A gaze fell errantly and a prophesy was fulfilled.

In my hast I momentarily forgot that once your feet are set a walking, they will take you where you need to go.

“Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries – stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water . . .”
-Moby Dick

Links to previous travelogue entries:
Living Off Psychological Research
The Book Agent
Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission

Words of the Buddha
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Living Off Psychological Research

Living Off Psychological Research

I have been living off of doing university psychological studies in New York City.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- September 29, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I go into a room, look at pictures, write about them, do silly computer tests, and fill out mounds of questionnaires and I am handed a $10 bill. Not bad. $10 will cover my expenses for two days.

But sometimes I have to answer questions about my deepest darkest memories.

"Think about the worse thing that has ever happened to you, think about the time when you felt your worst," the researcher instructs me as she dims the light in the room and pauses a few moments for my memories to take effect.

"Now, answer these questions."

I am unsure if this is worth a $10 bill.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• The Book Agent
• Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission
• Another Concept of Journalism

Living Off of Psychological Research
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The Book Agent

The Book Agent

While riding on the Q train from Manhattan to Brooklyn one night a sort of wobbly looking man wobbled over to where I was sitting and took the seat next to me. The train was comfortably full and most people had a place to sit. I was in the process of taking a survey of the book titles that New Yorkers read in the Subway, as I have been putting together the bases of a small social theory:
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- September 29, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I do not believe that the majority of New Yorkers who have their faces in books on Subway trains are actually reading them. Rather, I think they carry and pretend to read books because it gives them a place to focus their attention away from the other passengers. This, essentially, allows them to ride from point A to point B in a social bubble of their own creation, much like driving in a car. The book is a tool for social withdrawal. I know this because I use them as such (very often). Books are also a much cheaper alternative to an automobile to ensure that you will not have to interact socially on your ride to and from work.

And I shall try to prove this theory by recording all of the book titles that I come across people reading on the subway, subjectively rate their quality, and thus state that there is no way that so many people can be really be reading so many awful books at any one time. It would simply not suit the ebb and flow of the cosmos.

I was interrupted from carrying out my oh-so-serious social project by the wobbly man coming and sitting next to me. This was a good thing because I was getting weary of crooning my neck all around the train just to jot down titles like Bookends by Jane Green, Austirlitz by G. Sebalk and some medical book being “read” my some medical student.

In the hands of the wobbly man was a stack of papers with evenly spaced typing running neatly over their surface. I read over the man’s shoulder. It was a novel; it was not very good; it was a manuscript. The man sitting and reading next to me was a book agent – a book goon.

I looked for a moment at the side of his head until he looked at me. “A manuscript?” I asked. He nodded his head in the affirmative in a friendly manner. “So you destroy dreams for a living?” I continued with a smile.

The Book Agent laughed. He may have been a goon, but he did not really seem to be that bad of a fellow. Anyone who laughs at one of my pale and dry jokes cannot be that bad. So we continued talking.

“Yeah,” the Book Agent continued, “it is a really hard job, I often feel really bad about it.”

I then asked him if he gets a secret, vindictive joy out of rejecting manuscripts.

“No, no,” he replied, “but I do have to reject most of them. You know, for every one yes there are ninety eight nos.”

I pondered this for a moment about what becomes of the remaining manuscript, but then I thought it futile and dug into the Book Agent a little more.

“Were you a failed author yourself?” I asked bluntly, thinking that it would be rather poetic for a writer who had his dreams squashed by book agents to become a book agent himself just to squash the dreams of other writers.

But I was wrong about this theory. The Book Agent who sat next to me said that he came into the profession strictly from the legal field.

He smiled at me, I smiled back at him, and we said farewell as the subway train reached my stop. I momentarily thought about dropping him a VagabondJourney.com business card, but I stopped short:

For I did not wish to show my face to the enemy that easily.

I know readily enough that I will surely get dismembered as soon as it is my turn to rise up upon the chopping block.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission
• Another Concept of Journalism
• Businessmen Cellphones

The Book Agent
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Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission

Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission

Yes, when I woke Brian the Dinosaur up to go on the fruitless mission to find some dumb quote that is posted on the Times Tower he initially said to me:

"Why don't you just look for it on the internet?"

Of course, I said no way, and something about the internet being the slayer of missions.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- September 24, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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The Dinosaur and I could not find the quote anywhere we looked, but Motorcycle Bob came to the rescue and did find what we were looking for:

"I want to always fight for progress and reform; never tolerate injustice or corruption; always fight demagogues of all parties; never belong to any party; always oppose privileged classes and public plunder; never lack sympathy with the poor; always remain devoted to the public welfare; never be satisfied with merely printing the news; always be drastically independent; never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

He found it on the internet.

I must sadly tell the Dinosaur that he had the right idea.

It is a sign of our times - and perhaps a sad state of affairs - when it is far easier to find information on the internet than it is at the grassroots source; when the virtual world is far more easier to use than the real one. I went to the place were this quote was written, I looked the Times Tower up and down, asked a dozen people, and could not find it. Whereas Motorcycle Bob gets wind of my hunt and does an internet search and, what do you know, he completed my mission from the comfort of his own home.

Motorcycle Bob is in Connecticut, I am in New York City.

Irony.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Another Concept of Journalism
• Businessmen Cellphones
• Cockfight Video Censured by YouTube

Motorcycle Bob Completes Journalism Mission
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Another Concept of Journalism

Another Concept of Journalism

I was knee deep in my first day of horseshoeing horseshit - copy editing a prospective magazine article about sexism in Jordan as written by a Western feminist - and was growing weary very quickly.

Copy editing, I suppose it was bound to come to this. I am now on the other side of the journalism fence; I ply the heavy hand of a fledgling editor. I can now reconcile my preciously retained notions of self-pity and allow them to fly freely. The magazine editor is a man in a pitiable situation. In the unspoken words of all writers: "All editors suck." I truly do pity my own copy editor, the man that horseshoes my horseshit, and I really wish that he would spare himself the pain and leave my horseshit to stand on its own four wobbly legs. Yes, Captain, let my articles stand like a newly born colt, fresh out of the rear end of a fat momma horse.

But that would not be journalism.

That would be horseshit.

I take a break from editing and read from a book:

[Quote] There is another concept of journalism . . . it's engraved on a bronze plaque on the south-east corner of the Times Tower in New York City. [End quote]
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Brooklyn, New York City- September 23, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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It was by now far into the night and I was in Brooklyn. But, in all definite terms, I was truly in the need for another concept of journalism. So I woke the Dinosaur from his slumber in the bed which stands behind my desktop Headquarters.

"Hey Dinosaur," I said, "Lets go on a mission."

The Dinosaur groaned, but rolled out of bed anyway. The fact that he is a dinosaur does not seem to damper his love for middle-of-the-night missions. Soon we were out the door and riding the Q train in to Times Square, where, I assumed, we would find the Times Tower and the much sought wisdom of the bronze plaque.

As the train rolled on I took notes in my little bent up, beaten and battered notebook and the Dinosaur tried peering over my shoulder to watch the scrimshaw show at work. If, somehow, he could read my chicken-scratch I am quite sure that his expectations were not adequately satiated. I was probably writing about boobs.

But boob writing or no boob writing, I tried to interject the occasional funny comment into the living ether of human conversation as the subway rolled through the dark tunnel into Manhattan. I am unsure if my jokes tickle the Dinosaur where they should, as he usually seems to take me seriously and, all too often, returns my senseless banter with attempts at intelligent discussion. But I could not blame the Dinosaur for trying, he has yet to fully recognize that my talk is, more often than not, only about boobs.

The Q train soon came to a screechy halt and the Dinosaur lead the way up and out of the station and into the melee above. "34th street, Times Square." This is where the new year's ball drops and billions of tourist-ants seem to be in a perpetual year-round search for it below. (Well, they seemed to be searching for something, anyway. Perhaps we were all just drawn to the bright lights like flutter-bugs on a dark night.)

There was no shortage of bright lights in Times Square, but I am unsure if they were working properly. Even after looking at them - and the advertisements they radiated - for a reasonable amount of time, I still did not feel the urge to dig out the sole $5 bill which was tucked loving in the liner of my vest. Perhaps the engineers need to make these shining beacons of commerce shine brighter; for the bacteria milling about beneath seem to have grow resistant to their consumption provoking power. Or maybe it is just me.

I followed the Dinosaur as he lead the way through the blinky, blinky, bright Times Square night. The sidewalk was packed with people moving everywhere very quickly as if they were stand-ins for some NYC fast paced action movie. The Dinosaur and I politely kept to our respected walking lanes along the pavement as we were carried on by the tidings of the human sea. Suddenly, a 10 foot tall wobbly stick-like tower sauntered about before us. We stopped in our tracks.

It was a fashion model.

She stopped walking directly in front of the Dinosaur and asked him in a think Eastern European accent if he had a cigarette (he did, dinosaurs are just like that, you know, handy fellows to have along). Waiting for her cigarette to be fished out of the pack she peered down at me from her towering height. I peered up at her from my sullen depths. She was wearing a long tube like thing which masqueraded as clothing. She looked very much like this:


The fashion model soon enough received a cigarette from the Dinosaur, but her wobbly, wind blown head was still pointed downward in my direction. I began thinking that she may have been weird. The three of us stood unmoving upon the sidewalk in the center of the flowing tide of humanity as a large boulder in a river.

"I like your style," she finally spoke down to me.

She was weird.

My top hat, vest, pipe, and suspender combination should have been enough to make any fashion-ready human cringe in repulsion and perhaps dribble vomit upon themselves, but I was surely forced to admire her comment by the strength of its own ludicrousness.

"Thank you," I replied with a tip of my hat. "I like your style too, in fact, I look up to you."

The humor of my reply seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in between the gutters from which I spoke and the sky-high ears of the fashion model. My joke fell back to earth perilously defeated and maimed - its back was broken and its head was bashed.

Needless to say we walked away from each other, she was a weirdo, you know. But I must say with pride that I held my tongue from making a joking reference to the irony of a fashion model telling me that she liked my thrift shop/ Moroccan market fashion until a later time in the evening.

For the Dinosaur and I had a mission: to find out what was etched into the brass plaque at the south-east corner of the Times Tower. But first we had to find the Times Tower. Now, was the Times Tower the one that drops the big ball? Or was the Times Tower the building that the New York Times is in? Neither of us could solve this riddle.

So we went to the ball drop tower first and circumambulated it to our discontent. The only plaque that we could find was made out of plastic and said:

Michael Garver
General Manager

This was clearly not the plaque we were looking for.

So we tried to find someone to whom we could ask directions to the New York Times building, but our gazes only fell upon chubby folks with cameras. They certainly did not live in New York City and their directions could not be trusted.

But alas! there before us on the sidewalk was a Statue of Liberty doing a street performance for the tourists! He would have to do.

"Hey Statue," I called up to him. He was standing on some sort of pedestal and was holding an American flag. The Statue looked down at me. "Do you know where I can find a brass plaque on the south-east corner of the Times Tower?"

I could tell by the look on the statues green face that even though he made a career of welcoming the poor, the downtrodden, the meek, and the tourists he did not know anything about brass plaques. He lowered his spiky crowned head down to me and I re-asked my question into his green-painted ear. It soon became evident that not even the Statue of Liberty could be of any help to the Dinosaur and I, so we left him behind to continue being a statue. The tourists were delighted.

The Dinosaur then pointed out a couple of police officers across the street. The police in tourist districts of New York seem to be set up on each street corner more to give directions than to arrest felons. They are actually known in these parts as mobile gun-totting tourist information booths. From my travels I know that officials love nothing more that to feel officious, and usually delight in setting straight a bewildered tourist or a couple of men on a mission.

The Dinosaur and I were on a mission.

I asked about the plaque and the New York Times.

"42nd and 8th."

We now had a good lead and ran to the specified corner. There, standing behemoth before us, was the tower that housed the majestic works of the New York Times. After an accidental awe-struck moment, I regained my composure and withdrew the compass from my vest pocket and followed its lead to the south-east corner of the tower.

There, beneath the huge glass monolith that housed the pre-eminent newspaper on planet earth, the Dinosaur and I found:

Nothing.

Yes, nothing; just a big glass wall with a revolving door that led into a sterile looking, wood floored lobby with a grumpy sentry posted at the gate. That is right, there is nothing etched into the bronze plaque on the southeast corner of the Times Tower. There is not even a bronze plaque.

Just nothing.

Perhaps this truly was "another concept of journalism."

Though it is a concept that every rag tag journalist who has ever poured his life, mind, guts, and toes into writing a magazine article already knows: the great words on the page today are the trash, bum-blankets, and papier-mâché of tomorrow.

Journalism is an all for nothing kind of game.

I did not have to lure the Dinosaur out of his den to find this out. We went home. I returned to copy-editing and the Dinosaur to his bed which stands right behind my desktop Headquarters.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Businessmen Cellphones
• Cockfight Video Censured by YouTube
• Wisdom of China

Another Concept of Journalism
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Businessmen Cellphones

Businessmen on Cellphones, or The Rage of a Sleepy Traveler

I hate business men. I hate them not for who they are or what they do - I do not care who they are and have absolutely no desire to learn about what they do - but, rather, I hate them for how they sound when talking loudly on their cellular telephones.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in on train from Rochester, NY to New York City- September 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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They seem to think that their wheeling and dealing impresses the general mass of the population, and perhaps they are correct. But I know that nobody else in airports, trains, or in the streets are as insolant about forcing everybody within ear shot to thoroughly learn the lessons of their phone conversations. I am not impressed. My ears and mind does not function properly when the man sitting near me on the train yells out one half of this conversation:

"Hey there, Gab, I heard you had a dandy-o time with your hotel! Do you need some more RGBHB cables for your project? Ok, I will send them right over. Yes, yes, that is true and it will pay for the return trip on the train. How about those girls in Puerto Rico?"

"So it is like the dump of dumps, it is like the worst hotel ever!"

"Ken's working on it"

"Today is going to be one of those days, I thought I was flying out of LaGuardia but I am flying out of Newark. I don't know if I can make it with the business meeting I have this afternoon."

"I never been in that part of New York [referring about my back-country homeland] and now I know why . It was . . . uh . . . unique."

"Hello Gordie, I have a 5 - 10 our of Newark. It is going to be close."

"Do you think we can start the meeting without Mike Parts? Has Mike Brown gone over his stuff?"

Bill Burnie, Mike Steve, Merril Lynch, where do they get these bread-mill names?

I would like to see the business man next to me throw himself from the top of a skyscraper on Wall Street and bounce when he hits the pavement. Yes, I hear that the bodies of businessmen first bounce before they splat when they fail to transact on the final investment.

I think they are robots or made of rubber or some other new synthetic material. I know that they are not humans.

Talk, talk, talking on his stupid cell phone so that the entire train can hear about RGBHG cables and how they are 140 GGB. I don't care about cables and this fellow who is sitting next to me gabbing about them in business man slang is making my stomach wretch.

If I had any food in my belly it would surely be on the floor by now. Which would be my only contribution to the cell phone business meeting that my proximity (should) make me a part of.

Why do I continue sitting here like an ass?

You know, I am the kind of man who prides himself on the fact that he will stand up and move to another seat on a crowded subway if the fellow next to him farts.

I should start applying the same rule to business men talking business on cellular telephones.

For they are nothing more than giant farts decked out in button down shirts, slick shoes, and cellular telephones. Fart-people discussing farts.

I am tired and grumpy. I stayed up until 2 AM working on an article for Cafe Abroad InPrint and work up at 3:30 AM to catch my train.

Riding the train back to New York City with the murderous rage of a tired baby.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Cockfight Video Censured by YouTube
• Wisdom of China
• Enlightenment at Ryoanji Rock Garden

Businessmen on Cellphones, or The Rage of a Sleepy Traveler
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Cockfight Video Censured by YouTube

Cockfight Video Censured by YouTube

As a part of my research on writing an article on Cockfighting in Honduras for Cafe Abroad Magazine I published a video of a cockfight on YouTube. For six months this video stood embedded on on the Song of the Open Road Travel Blog to illustrate to readers the reality of a cockfight. I just received an email from YouTube today stating that the video was disabled for a violation of the community guidelines.

My seemingly benign anthropological research was deemed offensive enough by YouTube to be censured.

To read the article go to, Of Cocks and Men: Notes on a Honduran Cockfight

or read the blog post at

At the Cockfight

Cockfight in Honduras Photographs
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Upstate New York, USA- September 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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Email reply that I sent to YouTube:

The video was a part of an anthropological research project on Cockfighting in Honduras that accumulated in the publication of an article in Cafe Abroad InPrint.

In addition to publishing articles in numerous magazines I run a variety of travel related websites and use YouTube to show my videos. I link very often to your site. If my content is going to be edited for minor moral issues that are tantamount to someone's personal opinion then I think that I may need to find another way to display my videos.

My video was of a cockfight. My job is to show the world as it it through writing, photos, and videos.

I cannot allow for my videos to be edited.

Please reinstate my Cockfight video.

Thank You,

Wade Shepard

It is not my impression that this video was offensive. The cockfight is a normal part of many cultures around the world. It never ceases to amaze me how people in western countries think that they own a standard of morality that should be imposed upon the entire planet. In Latin America, Spain, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, and many other large regions of planet earth the Cockfight is a community celebration; there is nothing inherently violent, offensive, or wrong about it. For YouTube to censure and delete a video of this celebration on moral grounds is to essential say that these culture are morally defunct.

This is ethnocentric.

My job is to show the world as it is. I try not to edit my work through a lens of western holier than thou mentality. If Cockfighting is a part of the cultures that I visit, then I will write about cockfighting. For YouTube to attempt to edit and stomp out certain major cultural practices on the planet is not only ignorant but culturally insensitive.

I do understand that YouTube is not my website and that they should have complete control of what content is displayed on their pages. But the fact remains that they offer a public service which thousands of people employ, and that deeming the cultural practices of some of these people as being morally superior to others is incredulously 19th century. I must remember here how many cultures have been wiped off of the planet through the moral spring-cleaning of dominant societies.

The cockfight video that I published showed no pornography, no profanity, and nothing that can pan-culturally be called violent. I only showed a video of a cultural practice that the Honduran people have been engaging in for hundreds of years.

In a world in which the long honed traditions of minority cultures are rapidly disappearing it is a slap in the face for my documentation - my attempt at cultural preservation - to be censured.

This is how cultures and traditions disappear.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Wisdom of China
• Enlightenment at Ryoanji Rock Garden
• Bicycle Luke in Istanbul Turkey

Cockfight Video Censured by YouTube
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Wisdom of China

Wisdom of China

In my travels I have put in a lot of time studying about China and everything Chinese. I now have the tendency of beginning statements of intentional wisdom with "The Chinese say . . ." or "The ancient Chinese believed . . . "

This is a bad habit, and one that was just imperviously pointed out to me by my sister - the Diamond Cutter of Wisdom.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Upstate New York, USA, September 21. 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I was drinking a beer and my family was in a discussion about the perceived harm and benefits of alcohol consumption. I had spent two semesters of my university education studying Chinese medicine and I was throwing out an entire wall of "The Chinese say this and that" at my poor family.

Finally, my sister Nicky put an end to this barrage by stating simply:

"If the Chinese are so damn smart then why are they so short and living in their own smog?"

The well traveled Chinese scholar found himself tongue tied.

The Chinese say that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Enlightenment at Ryoanji Rock Garden
• Bicycle Luke in Istanbul Turkey
• Worst Public Transport in the World

Wisdom of China
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