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This coming Friday I’ll be leaving the United States indefinitely. I’m headed first to Indonesia, then to Kandy, Sri Lanka and finally to Mumbai, India. I’m sure this journey will bring plenty of interesting posts, pictures, and video.
Scene of the crime.
So I’m back in LA until Sunday, and drove by my favorite Indian restaurant “Gate of India.” I had to stop and snap a pic, because last year the greatest thing happened here.
I was eating a late lunch, and I hear tapping on the glass which looks out into the street. So I look over, and there’s a man beckoning for me to come outside. I shake my head “no” and go back to my Aloo Gobi. The man walks around the building and comes in, walks right up to my table (I’m the last patron left in the restaurant) and sits down.
“You want some food?” I asked.
“Nah. I just got out of San Quentin, you know, and I’m just here scopin’ out the neighborhood.”
I’m a little intimidated, and to make myself seem tough I lie.
“Yeah, that’s tough man. My brother’s doin’ 3-5 in Rikers, back in New York.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, it sucks. You sure you don’t want some of this food?”
The man stands up, and walks over to the front counter where an elderly 5′1″ Indian hostess is looking at a Punjabi magazine. The man puffs out his chest and clenches his fists.
“Give me all the money! All the money!”
The old lady closes her magazine, and puts it down behind that podium every restaurant has in their entrance. She looks up at him and shrugs one shoulder.
“No.”
“You understand me? I said I want ALL THE MONEY!”
She sighs. “No.”
At this point I’m standing with a table knife in my hand, and the two Hispanic kitchen workers come out to see what the raucous is about. Unarmed and outnumbered, the man looks at me, the kitchen workers, then at the old lady, and we all stand there motionless, in silence, for a good 10 seconds.
“FUCK!” The man spins around and runs out the door.
“Do you want to call the police? I can be a witness.” I ask the old lady.
“No.”
Washoe Indian Community where I grew up
Brandon
Recently my friend Brandon Perelman returned from serving in the Israeli army. He isn’t Israeli, just some kid from Philadelphia who believed so strongly, that he volunteered for one of the toughest armies in the world.
Every time I got to talk to Brandon while he was serving, it usually went like this:
“How’s training Brandon?”
“Great! It’s grenade week, and tomorrow I’m climbing the ‘Hill of Tears.’”
Well, three years later he’s home safe and sound. No matter what your political stance on Israel happens to be, you would have to be a complete asshole to deny that someone who would risk their life for another country’s freedom is a true hero.
Welcome home, Brandon. I salute you.
I had an interesting dinner conversation, and thought that I might share it with all of you. It was fun to discuss, hopefully it will be fun to read. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject.
Kyle
So let me process your words slowly, so that none of your stupidity slips through the neurological cracks. You are staying faithful in the face of temptation? A sculpted Adonis is knocking at your door and you treat him like a Jehovah’s Withess with swine flu?
Victoria
I’m in a committed relationship. What can I do? Two years ago I got drunk and kissed a boy at a party, and I called Samuel up the next morning and told him everything. It was horrible. I felt horrible. I’ll never do anything like that again.
Kyle
Why did you feel horrible? Was the source of your grief truly that you caused your adolescent boyfriend pain? Or was it that you felt ill toward yourself?
Victoria
It’s true. I felt like such a slut; like a really poor specimen of human being. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyway. I was actively immoral.
Kyle
Let me ask you something. If I were to, say, kill that waitress that spilled your tea, would that be wrong?
Victoria (laughing)
Maybe not terribly wrong.
Kyle
But in the conceivable universe, what is the absolute worst thing that I could possibly do? Let’s say I became the ruler of a country, threw the world into war, and launched a campaign of genocide that would kill 100 million people. That would be pretty bad. It’s hard to imagine myself ever obtaining that kind of influence, but it isn’t in the realm of pure fantasy. After all, there are always despots. Someone has to fulfill the role. Why not me?
Victoria
Okay, so let’s say you become like Stalin or Hitler or Mao. I get it, cheating isn’t as bad as that but…
Kyle
DON’T rush me. So I rise to power, and kill millions. So what?
Victoria
So what?
Kyle
Let’s go back to the waitress. I kill her. Maybe I get caught, maybe I don’t. The world keeps on spinning, and no one will remember either of us within a decade or two. Fifty years tops. In a very short period of time, relatively speaking, it will be as though nothing ever happened. In fact, there were probably millions of murdered waitresses, all documented and witnessed, over the last century that no one will think of ever again.
Victoria,
So basically you’re saying that something really bad like killing that woman won’t matter in the near future.
Kyle
In a way. Let’s go back to Kyle the Tyrant. I reign, I terrorize, I die of cancer or coup de’etat. Let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of Hong Xiuquan?
Victoria
No, who is Hong Xiuquan?
Kyle
The leader of the Taiping Rebellion in China, one hundred and fifty years ago. Twenty-five million people died violent, horrible deaths at the hands of this man, who thought that he was Jesus’ younger brother.
Victoria,
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
Kyle
I absolutely am not. And it wasn’t all that long ago. One hundred and fifty years. It was around that time Los Angeles was established as a city. Twenty-five million deaths, and the entire fiasco is nearly completely erased. The Chinese don’t teach it in their textbooks. We don’t teach it in our textbooks. In another hundred years there will be 200 academics worldwide who will even recognize the name.
Victoria
I had no idea! Jesus’s younger brother?
Kyle
Yeah, long story. But wartime bloodshed is boring. Let’s look at something more fun. Human sacrifice. We don’t do it as much anymore. Although in Northern India it’s estimated that four children are sacrificed per year. Usually they’re tied down and boiling oil is poured over their bodies. But you’ve never heard of that. Neither had I, until I actively wanted to know if anyone was being re-gifted back to the gods these days.
But not too long ago, about 500 years, after Columbus had already landed, the Aztecs sacrificed 18,000 people in one ceremony. They would march the victims to the top of the pyramid, hold them down, cut out their heart, and hold it in the air while it was still beating.
And when we think back on that gruesome, bloody day, do we exclaim “Oh no! They killed Xitalli! Not Xitalli! He was history’s best bartender!” We have ZERO emotional attachment to ANY of those people.
And 500 years from now, ZERO people will have ANY emotional connection to us. To anything we said, did, or thought. And if by some miracle one of us turns out to be the next Mozart or Kandinski, all one needs to do is extend the timeline! Extend that timeline enough and no one is safe. Not you, or I, or Mozart, or Kandinsky, or even Shakespeare. There will come a time when either no one will remember Shakespeare, or there will be no one left to remember Shakespeare.
So if there is some small, insignificant action that will make YOU happy, then sink your teeth into it. If this new guy who you can’t stop drooling over will give you sixty orgasms by the end of the semester, don’t make too big of a sacrifice to some nebulous, subjective moral imperative that doesn’t care about you. Think of morality as a neglectful parent.
And don’t worry so much about causing pain to your insignificant other back in Oklahoma. If he never knows, it can’t hurt him. And if it doesn’t hurt you, he’ll never know. And after you have turned to dust, no one will think any better or any worse of you based on your treatment of your first boyfriend.
Victoria
I’m still not going to do it.
Kyle
Yeah, it would be a bitchy thing to do.
T2M48WXED33X
Welcome to the 4th World Post. Bringing you street reports, uncut.
Network News is failing us, and newspapers are dying. Different forms of traditional and new media are merging, and we are becoming more and more responsible for our own news. Being informed, truly informed, is becoming an individual’s duty.
This project is an attempt to shine a spotlight on the gritty underworld that exists in every city, in every country. My name is Kyle Cashulin. I am a Sojo (Solo Journalist), and will work to bring you news from wherever I am.
I want you to help me. Hell, I want you to surpass me.
Every person knows a story that could impact society. An arc-welder in Alabama knows that the union boss is corrupt. A high school student in Nevada knows that the local sheriff has a personal agenda against immigrants, or beats skateboarders whom he catches with marijuana. A college student from Sivakasi, India knows that the factory in his town uses child labor.
If your city has corruption, abuse, poverty, crime, drugs, or disease you have an opportunity to document and spread truth. Bring to the world the reality of these conditions. Take pictures with your cell phone. Tape interviews. Make us see through your eyes.
There is an argument that unedited, “street” news is inherently flawed-that it is impossible to keep opinions and editorial out of our stories. This is perfectly true. But we acknowledge this, and read these stories knowing that we are looking through the eyes of another human being. We are individuals, from different worlds. We will definitely not be immune to editorial.
This is not a call for gossip, but a call for unity and truth.
These are your stories. These are our stories.
Information is power.
