A Hostel is a Hostel is a hostel. . . .

To begin with, I found a place to live with a really cool dude in a fabulous apartment in a black neighborhood. I am beginning to become a WB sitcom.

But let us start with Hostel-ity.

There are two basic kind of hostels. The Serious Traveler and the Serious Partier.

That is also a lie, for there are never just ‘two basic’ anythings.

Not even gender.

But, it comes close sometimes.

The first Chicago hostel I patronized was a Serious Traveler. No drinking, guests are kicked out in the middle of the day, and the commons rooms are more like study halls. My current hostel is of the other type. Booze is allowed and drinking tours of the neighborhood bars are conducted regularly. The crowd at the Party Hostels are generally younger. Or is that too obvious?

Whatever kind of hostel it is there are some things they all have in common. And the international clientele sets the tone for every decision. Despite this, you must resist the urge to compare them to the United Nations or even The European Union. Practicality reigns at the hostel, and the gilded and carpeted halls where Earth’s diplomats eat gold and screw interns are on the other side of the mind entirely.

Picture it, bathrooms, showers, beds, toilets and kitchens must be accessible to Vietnamese, Austrians, Venezuelans, Japanese, Russians, Greenlanders and even Texans. And when you walk into a hostel at dinner high tide there is a euphony of dinner smells pouring forth from dozens of cooks from all other the planet. Especially in Chicago, as these guys can get a hold of their native cuisine with one train ride. And no, this ain’t just Ramen from around the world. A group of students from Viet Nam had come prepared, and every evening
we witnessed family style dinner with a line of bowls filled with beautiful food.

An odd thing about the smell. I have always been repulsed the odor if the combined KFC Taco Bell places. And once, when I went into a place that served both Mexican and Chinese food, I almost threw up from the violent riot of scents in my nose. These hostels doesn’t have that. Somehow the smells all work, they get along in a way that multiple foreign objects rarely do. Which takes us back the UN and all that is ‘other’ to it.

People here HAVE to get along. There are too busy, too poor and too alone to do otherwise. There are exceptions, but exceptions are exceptional ( Yes, the redundancy is important
here) and they are quickly ostracized or ignored. I don’t think I need to speak on this subject anymore to Chicago people. Here, elegant plumes of common sense in the shape of buildings, roads, trains and people fill the eye and mind.

So what is the difference between the UN and the hostel? Why are these two places so different? The UN exists to celebrate and defend the differences between people, the hostel forces you to find the commonality.

The last night I was in the hostel, I was up until 4am talking with a Chinese national, a Taiwanese and VietNamese and the occasional Brazilian about nothing BUT important topics. Can you imagine that? No small talk whatsoever, for even the most casual observances where lessons of English for them, and discoveries of knowledge for me. It was the kind of talk that makes you stronger, full of hope and less tolerant of the mean side of yourself.

Now it has to be said, communal living can suck due to sleep talkers, excessive drinkers and the strange smells that can come from the orifices of some folk of which good taste prevents description. However, I always feel like a better man every time I leave a hostel. And today, in a world of retail jobs and Republican debates, that’s a feeling more precious that Lady Gaga’s next hairdo.

NEXT WEEK:
ADVENTURE ON THE GREEN LINE! OR I HAVE MY FIRST REAL CITY DAY.

The magnitude of Justice

“Throughout the history of law the magnitude of the crime has been lessened by the magnitude of the criminal.”

P 28, Our Oriental Heritage, Will and Ariel Durant.



The proof of this lesson has a million legs, and it thunders like a herd through the annals of history, and any exception you offer would be swarmed and engulfed by the rule.

Let’s not engage in any petty listing of the wealthy and famous who have escaped justice. They suck, and that’s their mental enema to hold. They are not the problem. It’s all the people who just step back and let it happen that are the true problem.

Which people?

The Eskimos! They’re evil!!

That’s not true at all. I apologize to the Eskimos.

You and me are the people in a state of accusation here.

The blogger and the blogged.

But before I call you and me weak, vacillating weather vanes of morality, I should do some writer-ing to prove it.

“Throughout the history of law the magnitude of the crime has been lessened by the magnitude of the criminal.”

In the past, this Lesson would have referred to what we call the Lords of the Earth, those who owned the land and thereby also owned the right to say who lives and dies. As laws became written codes instead of personal whim, the last person held accountable by these new laws were these very same Lords. A marked sign of feudal kingdoms becoming modern states is the crisis where a Lord is forced to accept the same justice as a peasant; the beheading of Charles I is an example of this.


Meritocracy aside, legal theorists forced exemptions on behalf of modern lawmakers, to protect them from undue prejudice in passing laws. After all, if they actually had to follow the rules they set, no new rules might be passed. And without new rules society will. . . .that is without new regulations everyone will. . . um. . .be happy, content and self-reliant? It seems this legal theory is the opposite of the ideas currently dominating the management of children, lawbreakers, Heaven and Hell. Why congress commits actions exceptional to these things is a Historical mystery, but we know why they are allowed to:

“Throughout the history of law the magnitude of the crime has been lessened by the magnitude of the criminal.”


How many elected officials have been prosecuted for criminal behavior? How many have served time? How many have been served the same plate of justice that the poor man does when caught stealing food?


Why is this even possible in an age so publicly proud of its advances in social justice? It is possible by a little morality two- step jig we call The Lords of Ego Shuffle.


In the past a person would become powerful and thereby famous, but today a person can become famous, and then powerful as a result of the fame. This is a modern phenomenon. Antiquity and antiquity’s following decades don’t have the power-less becoming powerful as a result of their simply showing yourself to lots of people. Actual accomplishments were required, unlike today.


Lady Gaga is a good example. Nothing about her is original; an outlandishly extravagant pop star has been walking the stage since Sarah Bernhardt. The recent lawsuits brought by the 80’s Sarah Bernhardt, Madonna, further prove that even her music (which is the actual reason we forced to deal with her) is legally not different. So a we have singer who can’t sing without computer enhancement, who sings songs stolen from other music, and whose contribution to culture has been the ability to walk in heel-less high heeled shoes. Well, when she’s sober she can walk in heel-less high heeled shoes.


Her fans will bleat about the positive message of her music, which they claim is about love and acceptance of others and yourself. As an expression of this message, these fans call GaGa the Mother Monster, and they call themselves monsters. Do I have to even point out the lie here? Okay, I will. A crowd of people who emulate the fashion industries’ number one supporter are only Monsters in the hypocrisy of their actions and in their financial support of a person who would not piss on a guy in jeans and a t-shirt if he was on fire. Oh, unless that person had AIDS and there were TV cameras about.


Lady Gaga typifies the modern ‘magnitude’; a magnitude of nothingness.
These we will call Lords of the Ego. People like Oprah, Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen, P Diddy and Simon Cowell all contribute nothing to society but distraction and the hope to billions of sufferers of Capitalism that maybe, someday, they too will be paid three million dollars for two months work and not have to answer to anyone; although to do so goes against the ethics taught by every major world religion, just in case anyone was worrying about what the ‘right’ thing to do is.


Our civilization’s answer to this Lesson of History has not been to close the loophole, but to provide a way for the non-powerful to achieve this status, hence the creation of the Magnitude of nothingness and the Lords of Ego.

The masses will tolerate injustice, if they perceive they have a chance to reap the same unjust benefits in the future. Which is why OJ went free and Martha Stewart went to jail.

And, as the people agree to the Lords of Ego Shuffle, they can’t really protest when the wealthy and powerful escape responsibility illustrated by today’s Lesson, now can they?

Oh yeah, and just in case you were deluding yourself into innocence, you and me are those masses; even if you have a college degree.

People getting away with murder; as a metaphor or as a reality is frustrating as hell to witness, but it’s not impossible to fight. All you have to do is risk social standing, defy custom and refuse to yield to the Lords of the Earth and the Lords of Ego.

Which, though heroic, will not make you a hero.

It will make you a citizen.

It will be hard, and people will call you crazy for simply doing what all acknowledge to be the right thing.

But history is here for you, and so am I.