M had a tendency to be melodramatic, in a cheesy way, unlike C and S, my next door neighbors, also from England, who were much more authentic in their sentimental vein, especially C, who openly liked corny Holywood movies and obscure romantic novels. I liked her, though, she was a fun person and had no qualms whatsoever about putting her person out in the open. M was the opposite. From the way he dressed and walked to the way he talked, I had the impression it was all studied.

And still, I enjoyed his company. He knew a lot about movies and we talked long about it. It was probably the only type of intelectual conversation we had, but even his unintelectual conversation was pleasent, in spite of being frivolous. He came many times to my room and often we played chess. Some times we just chatted and smoked (I smoked then, a lot). I smoked roll-ups, so I always had paper. For this reason, both M and S used to come to my room the borrow paper for a spliff, and often share it with me.

I was more into my studies than M. If for nothing else, just because I had a Ph.D. to finish and he was simply on an exchange program. At some point he started hanging around with an italian physics student who became completely crazy with M’s crazyness. They started doing heavier stuff, and when I saw the italian guy screaming from a window on Telegraph Ave. “Super chicken!” and laugh a crazy laugh (in broad day light) I started to detach from that group. They almost convinced me once to go to the Park and have some mushrooms with them. They must have had a blast in the city, but I’m sure it would have been to much for me, and I don’t regret declining it.

The last time we talked they were both planning on hopping on a boat as handymen on their way to Asia. The similarity with “On the road” strikes me that that was another of M’s poses, and I doubt they went through with their plan. But they were just crazy enough to do it.

The first part is the longest, but I went through it fairly quickly. However, the initial thrill quickly wore off. I can’t claim the same kind of experience, of traveling across a continent with no money, but I can relate to the feeling of coming to unknown places with no money, to the feeling of raggedness and sleeplessness, of dirty shirts and weariness. One thing the novel has going for it is its genuine appeal. The story of a lonely guy, despite his myriad of “friends”, who in the end is actually only looking for a nice girl with beautiful eyes to fall in love with, and who, in the end, is made a cuckold by his “best fried” Dean, the one who abandon him in Mexico City with a high fever to keep going on the road.

It’s such a beat life that halfway through the second part of the book I am feeling as tired as any of them on their worst nights. I can’t relate to the characters or their grievances. Their long discourses, especially Dean’s are, well, long and boring. They have no interesting insight except for their being beat and lost—it reminds me too much of my own embarrassing pseudo-philosophical discussions as a teenager. The amazing thing is that in the middle of mindless drugs, trips, girls and whores, unbearable heat and sweat, among all the rolling action comes across a depiction of America which is both unusual and romantic. A picture of things that exist no more and of things that join dots in the image I have of the America today and of almost 100 year ago.

Reading this book brought afresh other memories to my mind, memories of the Dean Moriarty of my life—we all probably have a Dean Moriarty in our lives, “the holy con-man with the shining mind”. In fact, there is probably more than one in my life. The particular one that popped in my mind was M, whom I met at the I-House, my first year at Berkeley. He gave the first taste of the American “beat” feeling, and come to think of it, he was probably emulating Dean.

(I got this from ZNet’s website.)

But I digress. The US is, of course, an extreme case where presidential elections are more useless than in other countries. In Europe there is generally marginally more “representation”, more diversity of opinion, and this is generally good. Spain is a bad example of a nearly bi-party system (the extreme case being the US, of course) in that basically only the extreme right or the Social-democrats (self-called Socialists) hold real power (ok, I admit I am simplifying a bit, because the regional parties have some local influence, but not a tremendous one on a national level). A bi-party system is the less democratic of the so-called “democratic” systems for this reason. This is still not the case in Portugal (or Germany), where there are five parties which are in a position to elect a significant number of MPs. Even not identifying with any of the parties, I recognize the advantage of diversity.

There is paradox in “democracy” which is transversal to most its flavors, English, French, Spanish, whatever, and that is that the parties themselves are not very democratic structures and are plagued by intriguing, lobbying and corruption. I remember watching coverage of party conventions on tv as if it were a big show, with mysterious plots and twists of fate; with “fraternal” back stabbings and unexpected rise and fall of “statesmen”. These I also find disgusting, and the result is the following. In most countries (even in Portugal) there are but two parties with possibility of forming a cabinet. The person who becomes PM is effectively being chosen from a set of two (one for each party) who in turn were chosen by the will of private interests and lobbies during party conventions—and of course, we’ve all seen how politicians and private sector CEO/advisors/etc. come and go from politics to private life. We are even sometimes made to believe that people coming from the private sector are making such a big sacrifice to dedicate themselves to public life (and not that they are swapping chairs on their scheming the public off their money)!

Television, mainly, and the mainstream media in general play a big roll on all this, and surely, they represent big interests also. This is one of the features where Europe was very far “behind” the US, but has been catching up quick; The difference between news casts in Portugal 20 years ago and today is so big, that it is hard to make anyone believe it’s in fact the same country. Today the prime time news can go on for 45min exclusively with local crime stories. Nothing about places where real tragedies are happening (I refrain from naming them). I have no words to classify this media behavior. On the positive side, there are few (maybe one or two) more serious news casts in less viewed channels, but not as obscure as good news casts int the US (maybe I’m being unfair to Democracy Now! I think they might be quite big by now. Go Amy!) One other positive point is that (in general) news casts talk about all contending parties in fairly equivalent measure. The Left Wing Bloc gets as much air as the Christian Democrats of the Communists. This does not happen in the US, where serious people are outright ruled out by the media if their opinions are too extreme (Denis Kucinitch is but one example)—in the US if someone is saying the right things to the people, and hence is undesirable, he is just silenced. Simple.

One thing that gave me great joy was shocking some people in the US saying that the communist party in Portugal was the 3rd party with most seats in the parliament. I should point out I am not communist myself, but it was so great to see the terror in their eyes!

What will happen in Portugal? Most probably the social-democrats will have the most seats but not a majority, so they will have to reach agreements with other parties to pass their laws. The fact that TV covers all parties gives a broader spectrum of ideas and makes extremist positions less likely. Even if the next government is in part a result (and it will be) of lobbying, corruption and private interests, the fact that other voices are heard and people are more aware (just because more real issues are discussed), will make them have to pay some attention to what people want. And this makes us (still) a bit more “democratic” than the US.

Being clueless sometimes helps. Another key interview was at V’s daycare, for his admittance. We had no idea how hard it was, and probably still is, to get your child admitted to the University daycare system. We were called for the interview and we went there thinking it was something else. I don’t remember what my ex thought, I thought it was just to fill forms or some other bureaucracy. When people congratulated me effusively for V’s being admitted it sank in that we had been very lucky. Maybe it wasn’t just luck; we just went there being ourselves and they took V. Luckily, because we wouldn’t be able to afford any other daycare.

Not long after my interview with J we were offered an appartment up on hills. The view to the Bay, the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz was simply amazing. I never thanked that guy. Moving there made my life better a thousand fold. He was also responsible for saving my neck a few other times, I’m not sure how many. My scholarship money was paid to me back home and then my mother would wire it to me. Sometimes it would come late, and in anycase I was always short at the end of the month. I often did not pay the rent on time, but was never given any warning. On the contrary, a few times that I was particularly late with the rent, maybe twice or three times, when I came to the cashier with a check, they told me I owed nothing. The first time this really puzzled me, but I thought I had forgotten I’d already paid. I’m pretty sure it was J who wiped my debt, but I only started suspecting this after a conversation with a neighbor, I still remember her words, “Oh J, he is such a great guy! He has such a big heart!”.

1) The Arab states managed to have the Assembly General of the International Atomic Energy Angency (IAEA) aprove a motion calling on Israel to open its nuclear facilities to UN inspection and to sign the non-proliferation treaty. I found reports about this in a portuguese newspaper and on the Al Jazeera website (I search the BBC, The Guardian and The New York Times for this even without success).

2) On the same day the front page of The Guardian reported that a “secret report of the IAEA” found that “Iran had worked on a nuclear warhead”. The New York Times, citing Reuters, has denied this fact the day before.

3) The US envoy to Israel, George Mitchell, failed to convince Netanyahu to stop the illegal construction of settlements in the West Bank. Of course the US could have Israel immediately stop the construction (and a lot more) if it were to put real pressure on–we just have to remember that Israel the by far the largest recipient of US money and armaments. This is also reported by BBC in its usual bland way.

4) What the BBC does report on is Israel’s rage at the UN human rights report condemning Israel for its “alleged” war crimes in the Gaza strip last winter. At the same time we learn from Amy Goodman that the US is “very concerned” about the mandate that given by the Human Rights Council, which they say is “unbalanced, one-sided, and basically unacceptable”. Meanwhile, Amy goes on, a UN report shows that “Gaza’s underground water system is on the verge of collapse”, and that Palestinians could loose access to a safe water supply at any moment. This is not reported anywhere else I looked.

All this is very sad, of course. My office mate would probably not be convinced by my arguments, as he always played them down. He might have been convinced by Noam Chomsky if I could have ever convinced him to read his views on the “conflict” in this excellent interview about the aftermath of the war in Gaza where the he explains media bias in his usual cristal clear way. I highly recommend it.

(The title of this post is a quote from Israel Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan, reffering to the Palestinians in Gaza and how they’d be able to survive there).