Shopping, or The End of the World as we know it.

People think that writing is easy. Someone once said, "Writing is easy. Just cut a vein and bleed the story." I'm doing my best to write a good script. I get 10 pages done, show it to the boss, and then discover that I have to rewrite it, even before I come to the next idea. It's more difficult than it looks.

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Back in Mexico, life was easy. I have my regular job at the University. I work a few hours a day and have time to eat lunch with my wife Aurora, play the Ukulele, hang out with friends. I even do a little painting. Why am I doing this crazy world tour?

It's hard to explain. This blog is my attempt to understand it myself. The best I can do is say, "It's my karma," or "I'm fulfilling my dream." Maybe I'll have a better handle on it all after we finish the journey, but the journey itself is worth it. The call to adventure doesn't come too often in one lifetime. Shakespeare says, 

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

It's not often that someone offers you an around-the-world ticket based on your writing, or past-life abilities and skills. So when the mysterious Russian Swami, Avadhuta Maharaja asked me to fly to Thailand and Russia and work on this movie, of course I said yes.

 So, I miss Mexico, but I feel that Krishna called me here to Thailand.

Land of orchids and elephants, to fulfill an important purpose. 

And so each morning I meet with Avadhuta Maharaja to go over the script. 

We sip cold juice from the green coconuts, and go over the literature. I feel quite unprepared to take on such a complicated subject, so rich in meaning. Each morning our talks range from the scope of the Khmer empire to the distinction between Vishnu worship and Krishna consciousness, to the Vedic Cosmology as it was seen a thousand years ago in Cambodia, to practical considerations like what the characters in the script say while riding elephants or dugout canoes on the Mekong River. Mostly we're in the planning stages.

A Cool One, Thai style: the juice of the green coconut.

We realized that our source materials were lacking so, I was dispatched to the local shopping mall to buy some guide books and coffee table books on Angkor with plenty of pictures, maps, and diagrams.

And it was strange, after contemplating the ruins of Angkor, to see these megastructures dedicated to consumer capitalism with families shopping for the after-Christmas bargain. Will these buildings stand in ruin centuries from now as mute witnesses to the great petro-civilizations of rush-hour traffic and nuclear missiles?  When there's no more oil to power the escalators and keep the lights on, what will archeologists make of these temples of exploitation, hundreds of years hence?

Empty suitcases

Empty Shoes

Empty Shopping Mall near the Airport in Chiang Mai.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it all seems so empty, so purposeless. I miss Mexico with its color and vibrant life, its scandals and fiestas.

Cavalcade in San Miguel de Allende

But for now it's back to the bamboo by the little stream in the jungle.

Here in the jungles of Chiang Mai, life is quiet and contemplative. The trip to the big city was jarring. Outside my door I hear the sounds of children running, the gurgle of the fountain in the fish pond. It's a good place to write and meditate.

 We found some good books in the Airport Mall, and now I'm back to work on the script, trying to imagine a place I've never been to.

That's all for now. I'm going to study hard and see if I can make progress on the script. Thanks for checking in. Dandabats all.

Influences

Now for a little geography lesson. To get some perspective on where I am and what I am about to do, I checked the map. Here is Asia with the Indochinese Peninsula highlighted.

Zoom in a bit and we can see how close India is...

...to the Indochinese Peninsula...

You can see that Bankgok and Angkor are not far apart, perhaps 300 kilometers or so in a straight line. I'm in Chiang Mai, in the North, close to the border with Burma. The goal is Angkor Wat. 

The story of my fascination with Angkor Wat really goes back in time to the 60s. The Vietnam War was just heating up. But I knew about Angkor through my first real teacher.

My first spiritual preceptor was an old Chinese man, born in Indonesia. He had been a Buddhist monk before converting to Catholicism. I met him when I was just a kid, in California.

Just a kid, thinking about life...

I liked to think about things, and as I was growing up back in the sixties, I had a lot of questions. After our family moved to California, we lived in the Mohave Desert in a little town called Pearblossom. Close by was a Benedictine Monastery, St. Andrews Priory,  where I met this man.

Father Thaddeus Yang at Valyermo   http://www.saintandrewsabbey.com/category_s/79.htm

By this time, I was around 11 or 12 years old. In those days, the Benedictine monks were supposed to do some work or service apart from saying prayers and offering Mass. Father Yang used to make sculptures in driftwood. He would find an interesting tree branch fallen in the desert and sculpt it with a blow torch, finishing it with sandpaper and finally polish the work with the sweat of his fine oriental fingers. 

I would take long walks in the Mohave Desert, looking for cactus for my cactus collection, or rocks for my rock collection. At the end of the day, I would find Father Yang, standing over an enormous driftwood horse, his black monk's habit moving in the wind. In one hand he slowly waved his blow-torch over the wood. In the other was the ever-present cigarette. "Camels" was his preferred brand. He would weave the magic of fire and Chinese wisdom over the blasted wood as it gradually took shape. 

Driftwood horse

Then he would quench the flame of the blow-torch, drag on his Camel, and say "Yes, my son. How can I help you?" 

Somehow tea would appear and we would sit and sip the smokey Lapsang Souchong tea and discuss the secrets of the universe. I asked him, "How come Adam and Eve only have two children, Cain and Abel. And Cain kills Abel, so where do all the people come from?" He would smile wearily, puff on his cigarette, and say, "Ahh yes. But it never says there is only one Adam or one Eve. There may have been many Adams and many Eves. It's a metaphor, my child."

Father Yang always had me thinking. One day I asked him where he was from. He was Chinese, after all, but he had been born in Siem Reap, Cambodia. I had a lot of questions, so I pressed him to tell me more stories. He told the story of an ancient city where thousands of people came together with a spiritual purpose. He told me the story of Angkor.

Giant Head at Angkor.

It all seemed like science fiction at the time, but later we moved to the Pacific Palisades. My brothers and I would go to the beach,swim all day and hunt seaweed, underwater treasure,  and bottles we could return for the nickle deposit. If we returned 5 or 6 bottles we had enough for candy and a soda pop we could split. It was paradise.

We could walk to the beach from our house. We spent long hours playing on the beach and stayed in the water until we turned blue. But when I was interested in deeper things, I turned to another man who was a great mentor in my life. My Grandfather, Clinton Stoner.

Clinton Stoner

My grandfather was a mysterious man with a long career in Hollywood. He designed costumes and wardrobe for MGM and Warner Brothers back in the glory days of Hollywood. But one of the things that amazed me about my Grandfather was his library. He had thousands of books: UFOs, Dolphins, Telepathy, Telekineses, Lobsang Rampa, the Third Eye, Bhagavad-Gita, Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet, hundreds of old magazines called Fate Magazine, and a book by James Churchward on the Sunken Continent of Lemuria and the links between the Mexican Pyramids, Lost Lemuria, and the ancient city of Angkor Wat. I couldn't believe my eyes. Here were actual photos of the lost city spoken of by my eminent preceptor, Father Yang.

I was stunned. I began reading all the books I could on ancient civilizations: India, Greece, and Egypt. When the Tutankhamen exhibit came to the Los Angeles Museum of Art, I went again and again to visit. I saw the golden mask of the Egyptian boy-king. I wanted to know more about the original civilizations of this earth: how they saw the world, how they lived.
More later. Thanks for reading.

We Vishnu a Hare Krishna...

Here in Gupta Govardhan, every day is a communal feast with friends from around the world sharing conversation and the sacred food called prasadam at the long wooden table next to the kitchen. We dined on Russian Piroshki, Chinese noodles, Indian dahl, and even an American grilled cheese sandwich. We washed it all down with a tall class of Coconut water, and drank our health in Russian. Vash-Zdrayoviya.

After a long day sweating over a film script, there's nothing like a hearty meal with the friends. 

Some of our friends couldn't be here with us, but they are here in person, so we salute our special friends in Moscow, Petersburg, Kiev, Cancun, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and Soquel, Santa Cruz, and San Jose, California, and all the friends and family in Salt Lake City, Utah and around the United States. Hare Krishna, God Bless All, and peace.

Aurora couldn't make it this time, but she's here with me in spirit. 

Merry Christmas and Hare Krishna from Buddhaland. Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll begin writing about the forgotten city of Angkor.

Merry Christmas: Memory Lane

My brother Philo sledding in the snow

.I remember Christmas in Connecticut. White snow, picket fence, fire in the chimney. Stockings hung neatly in a row. When I was a kid we used to have the perfect Christmas. Back in around 1959 or 1960. We lived in a prosperous home.

My mother would drive my step-father the Marquis to the train every morning. He worked in New York, at CBS back in the old days.  Television was good money. There was a Christmas tree and presents. We even got Christmas presents from our grandparents in Hollywood. Life was good.

Philo, Pierre, Mike, Wendy

We were the three musketeers, my brothers Philo and Jean-Pierre, and I. My sister Wendy was our nemesis, the wicked witch of the west.

Cowboys and Indians

In this photo, I am the great white hunter and these are my black african pygmies. We're planning our next adventure, perhaps in Angkor Wat. In those days, we didn't have iPads or cellphones, so we had to make up our own stories. As they grew older, the hunted became the hunters and got the better of me. But back then I was the boss.

Cadger in California

Of course no gang is complete without a trusty dog. This is our dog Cadger in California. He was our second basset hound. Cadger is a cockney word for "vagabond, beggar, or mendicant." Cadger was a humble mendicant of table scraps from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades back in the 60s. Actually this was our 3rd dog. Cadger's predecessor was also a basset hound, back in the Connecticut days.

Noel

Noel was Cadger's predecessor. She came at Christmas. In those days, dogs chased cars, and Noel was a car-chaser who gave her life in the pursuit of automobiles. But we had a lot of fun in the snow before that.

Ingo's Grave

Before Noel was Ingo. I took special care of Ingo. There's no photos of Ingo. Ingo was a boxer. My father named our dog after Ingamar Johanssen. For you boxing fans, Ingamar Johanssen was a Swedish Boxer who defeated Floyd Patterson. He was Heavyweight Champ of the world for about 3 months, before Patterson won the title back. After Patterson knocked his lights out, Ingamar was never heard of again. So, not such a good boxer. Our dog wasn't a great boxer either, but we loved him so much we made a special grave site for him and visited him on the 4th of July with an american flag. My brothers, as ever, accompanied me in the ceremony.

December always brings me back to thoughts of the White Christmases we spent in Connecticut. 

My sister and I with mother in the snows of Connecticut, 1950s.

It's strange to look back and reflect on all the snows that have passed since then.But whenever I think of Christmas, my thoughts turn to Connecticut in the 1960s and my brothers, and the good times we had playing in the snow.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Flowers, Tea, Elephants

The orchids at the Royal Gardens were breath-taking. I've never seen so many orchids. I have a friend in California, an old pujari named Ramai, who would be ecstatic to see these orchids. I know he would love to decorate an altar with these colorful flowers.

Near the Royal Gardens is a quiet tea house. We stopped there to talk about life and the fragility of our stay in this world. How strange that our time here is short, and yet we must be patient on the path.

We took photos by a charming Thai house made of wood. Lalita asked about old friends in St. Petersburg and I told of my adventures in the snow and ice, dashing between Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev. She's studying at the University here in Chiang Mai.

I like getting away from the ashram to see the Thai culture that surrounds us. As the deadline for my script approaches I'm trying to imagine how the people lived here long ago, what they knew and how they saw the world. Everwhere here there is a fascination with elephants. 

The elephant was not only a powerful mythological symbol as the carrier of Indra, Airavata, or the white elephant who carried Buddha from India to China. But here in these hills, the elephant was the beast of burden who cleared forests for tea-planting.

Today the elephants here are mostly for show. You can visit and play with them at the many elephant parks here in Chiang Mai.

Aurora with elephants, Chiang Mai 2013

The elephant is a symbol of strength and prosperity. I hope that all of you are blessed with much strength and prosperity in the New Year.