Lyon… France

 I know it’s bad form to offer advice, but after three weeks in France, I recommend y’all spend as many lazy days in Lyon as you can afford. The food! Holy hell, the food. Paul Bocuse, freshly baked croissants, ateliers, brassieres, boulangerie, cafes, Bouchons, seaweed salads, Dim Sum, tuna risotto, burgers, truffle fries, homemade fat noodled Chinese soup, American style sandwiches, French tacos, Brazilian meat with just a little European funk but tastes incredible, chocolate cookies, white and dark, chocolate chaud, tea from Taiwan, Chai glacé, Chai latté, macchiato Latté, matcha latté, latté fucking latté, Swifties invading like locus, mint lemonade, fresh iced tea, cocktails at The Bathtub, arguing about French brandy and blue rubber duckies, Michelin rated pepper steak with servers wearing t-shirts, freshly cooked boba, what?! Boba is cooked?!, beef carpaccio as wide as my arms, and that’s just what I can remember off the dome. Ten euro bottles of wine that would run you a hundred bucks in a Chicago steakhouse. The walkability and public transport in a town that has two rivers. The Rhone and the Saone; when one grows old, hop the ‘almost island’ to imbibe a different perspective of the city. Views of the basilica on the hill and a Roman, 10,000-seat theater ruins. The bridges filled with statues, parks filled with statues of dead French men, and little versions of those statues in the gift shops. Red-pathed walking bridges light up at night—thin dirt paths under sprawling Linden trees. Spry elder folks playing Pétanque (French bocce ball). One lady has a silver magnet on a black nylon cable to help pick up the balls so she doesn’t tax her back. All the runners wear these tiny vests for their water bottles and keys—teeny, tiny vests. 

Knowing people obviously helps. My opera-singing girlfriend got us into all sorts of enriching predicaments. A play turned into an opera in an abandoned church on the grounds of a mental hospital while actual patients in scrubs meander around a goat farm between buildings that felt oddly similar to Auschwitz. Another opera written by a Jewish composer in 1938 called Brundibár; the author was sent to the Czech concentration camp Terezin and still somehow produced 55 shows with the children from the original cast and was used as evidence of how well the Germans were treating the Jews. As the cast got sent from Terezin to Auschwitz, they had to keep re-casting new children as they arrived. Puts everything into perspective quickly. Saw Furiosa with Ema, and as we exited the movie theater, we stumbled into a protest brimming with French twenty-year-olds about what seemed like many, many different political topics. Public bitching thrives in the French DNA. Viva la bitching!!!   

If any of this sounds tasty, egress the comforts of home cooking and tramp yo ass to France. If done right, it’s not as expensive as you might imagine. 

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Flickered

“I used to live across the street from this giant old church, and it had a light on the front that always flickered. You couldn’t see it during the day, but at night it was annoying. It didn’t bother me for the first few months, but after a while, I felt like the light was trying to get my attention. So I learned Morse code off of the internet and spent two entire nights writing down the message,” Adam says, holding his newborn son. He shrugs and walks away.
“So, you’re… that’s it? You’re not going to finish the story?” I ask.
Adams stops. He speaks over his shoulder, protecting his son from the wind, “I’m not going to insult you; you know how it ends.”
“I do?”
Adam closes his eyes and nods.
“You wrote down everything, and it was all gibberish and gobbledegook? The light doesn’t mean shit. There is no supreme being, life is a meaningless pit of despair, and everything we do is motivated by the simple need to either eat or fuck. Something along those lines?”
“Yes!” he laughs, “No, I mean, yes, to the eating and fucking part, but I told you about the pesky light because it helped me understand the lie we were all sold. Nobody is coming. Whatever sign you’re waiting for won’t show, and religion is there to help us cope with that Truth. We’re on our own. Oh, there’s a God, but you won’t find the Almighty in a church. For millennia, God was our best guess, but we’ve evolved, and now we need better stories.”
Adam keeps walking.


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TWO HITS OF ACID IN CAMBODIA (Prologue)

I’m naked. I hover my quivering anus over a toilet with no seat, in a ten-dollar-a-night hut, on an island surrounded by glow-in-the-dark plankton off the coast of Cambodia. Moonlight illuminates my edges while humidity runs roughshod on my sinuses. It’s over a hundred degrees, yet I shiver. Where are my clothes? How’d I get back to our hut? My last vestige of stomach bile rudely departs from all available exits. We paid an extra 8,000 Riel ($2 US) a night for Trip Advisor’s 2017 #4 ranked Koh Rong open-air concept, which means the crapper is outside, exposing me to fourteen million dive-bombing mosquitoes. Why am I alone? I’ve never heard this many bugs, much less smelled their oppressive density. I should be grateful; much of this country reeks of motorbike exhaust and damp trash. I pin my right thumb on a greasy aerosol can of Vietnamese brand bug spray, blasting the onslaught with an illegal-in-America amount of DEET. My insides, the color of contaminated river water, rocket past my teeth.

A fresh bamboo needle tattoo of an inky lotus flower bursts from my left bicep, growing thick roots that burrow into my sunburned flesh. Vines slither from the brush, crawl up my trembling legs, and engulf my torso, pulling me to the ground as a tribe of screaming stump-tailed monkeys stampede toward me through the jungle canopy. 

I heave, flexing my gut. Nothing. With my cheek against the dirt, I jam my finger down my tired throat. I’m hollow, alone, and on the other side of the planet, lying in a pool of my own sick. Is this it? My cold hand warms against my bare chest. Each heartbeat a reminder, delivering life back into my exhausted body. 

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The Problem with America

The problem with America isn’t straight white men; it’s straight white religious wealthy racist men and women who’ve convinced low-income, middle-class, and upper-middle-class white people that they’re better than other races. Hating each other because of race distracts us from the ruling class’s stranglehold over our government and every citizen.

Yes, George Washington was straight, white, and male, but he was also Warren-Buffet-level-rich and designed our country to benefit him and other land-owning white men that were anti-Catholic Protestants, in favor of limited rights for women, and bigoted toward Black, Irish, Italian, and Native Americans (at minimum). As the great-great-grandson of Catholic Italian immigrants, I believe that continuing to weaponize white guilt blanketly will keep America broken. As a straight white male who treats people based on the content of their character, doesn’t come from generational wealth, and finds religious dogma stale, I would like to say that not all white people have the same privilege. Again, not all white people have the same privilege.

The inheritance of America’s racism is an albatross around the neck of every citizen outside of the ruling class; it has hung around like rotten cologne, and if we want to remove the stench, maybe we need to specify who owns the dump.

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I went to the opera, so you don’t have to—a review of New York City in 2024 by A.I. Vorderbruggen

NA & EK @ NYT

Ah, New York City, Disneyland for intellectuals. Where the city lights are brighter than your Aunt Mildred’s teeth after her latest whitening treatment. Recently, I embarked on a cultural journey that left me more entertained than a cat chasing a laser pointer. Here’s a hilarious recap of my escapades into the Big Apple’s artistic wonders:

1. The Met Opera: Opera or Not Opera, That is the Question

As I entered The Met Opera, I couldn’t help but feel like a fancy penguin infiltrating a black-tie gala. I’ll be honest; I don’t speak Italian, so I was basically there for the dramatic hand gestures and those high notes that make your dog question its life choices. My favorite part? The elaborate costumes. I’ve never seen so many people dressed like they just stepped out of their royal portrait. To fit in, I wore a bedazzled snuggie, and I felt like a true diva. Note: Dress code might be slightly exaggerated.

2. Sleep No More: The Haunting Hilarity of Interactive Theatre

Now, onto Sleep No More, where the Shakespearean drama meets a haunted house on steroids. It’s like Hamlet decided to throw a masquerade party, and Lady Macbeth misplaced her dagger – chaos ensued. Picture this: I’m wandering through dimly lit rooms wearing a creepy mask, and suddenly, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are having a domestic spat, and I’m just there trying not to spill my popcorn. Tip: If a ghost hands you a prop skull, just go with it – it’s Shakespeare, darling.

3. Django’s Jazz Club: Where Music and Martinis Collide

After surviving a Shakespearean ghost tour, it was time to unwind at Django’s Jazz Club. The saxophones were wailing, the trumpets were trumpeting, and my dance moves were… questionable. The atmosphere was so lively; I half expected Jay Gatsby to stroll in with a glass of champagne. Note to self: Attempting to dance the Charleston while sipping a martini might result in spilled drinks and confused glances.

In conclusion, my trip to NYC was an absolute riot of culture and chaos. I laughed, cried (mostly from laughter), and may or may not have started a jazz band with some fellow confused tourists. If you’re looking for a hilarious cultural adventure, forget Broadway; hit up The Met Opera, Sleep No More, and Django’s Jazz Club – the trifecta of New York entertainment that will leave you questioning your life choices and possibly donning a bedazzled snuggie. Cheers to the city that never sleeps, but apparently sleepwalks through operas!

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Child Magician Becomes Man of His Word… kinda

In the Fall of 1999, the shooting star of the Upper-Midwest sleight-of-hand and magical arts scene, Nicholas Anthony, was looking to make a name for himself and had a dream. So the young magician prodigy boldly claimed—to a non-Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist—that he would make Minneapolis’ famed Spoonbridge and Cherry disappear. Well, he was half right. 

The iconic art piece has been a fixture in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden since 1988 when artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen constructed the project. But on Nov. 16th, 2021, the cherry disappeared. When asked how he achieved this miraculous Houdini-level feat, Mr. Anthony responded, “No comment.” 

Then, true to the Elk River Senior High grad’s claim, on Feb. 18th, 2022, without praise or fanfare, Mr. Anthony returned the cherry to its original position (freshly painted). When again asked to comment, he humbly said, “Stop calling me. I haven’t done magic in years. Geez, sometimes people say dumb shit when they’re 17.” 

Next time you visit Minnesota, make sure to stop by and take a picture with the heartbeat of Minneapolis’ art scene, but wait a few months; the February cold will brainwash you into being fake-nicer and thinking that jumping in an ice-cold lake naked is a good idea. 

Photo cred: Michael Anderson Imagery

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How I un-stole my bike and got COVID —a short story

It’s 10:37 p.m. on December 15th, 2020, and I stand in a Subway sandwich shop off Crenshaw and Obama Blvd ordering a tomato basil chicken wrap. I usually go with a spinach wrap, but they’re out. What used to be Rodeo (south of the 10 Freeway) is now named after our 44th president. I turn my head toward the glass door to make sure my bike is… fuck.

List of things that 2020 has taken: my job, my freedom to travel, my fiancée, any sense of normalcy, and now, my bike.

I sprint out of the store, leaving the sandwich artist baffled. I turn right down Crenshaw, and a young guy on a bike is fleeing at top speed. Is that my bike? I run after him. “Hey, that’s my fucking bike.” What could I say to stop him? Threaten him with the police? Scream-offer him money? I’m powerless, yet I maintain pursuit. My grey sweat pants and tattered Zoo York hoodie catch too much wind to be effective athletic wear. If not for the chin strap, my bike helmet would dance off my skull. The choice of flip-flops keeps me from optimal speed, so I kick them off mid-stride. I’ll regret not having stretched later. My bare feet slap against the filthy Los Angeles sidewalk while the cool night air flushes through my nostrils — my lungs are pissed.

The thief takes a right turn down 30th. It takes me two full minutes to get to the corner. I slow down and find nothing. My heart pounds; I can’t catch my breath. RuRRruruRuruRur, two slobbering Dobermans scare the marrow out of my bones from behind a rusty rod-iron fence. “Shut up, dogs,” I say, meaner than I would like. I look down the palm tree-lined street and shake my head. The thief is gone.

Wearing a bike helmet without a bike makes me feel preposterous. I track down my flip-flops and sulk back to my apartment. When I moved here from Minnesota ten years ago, this was a rough neighborhood, but now it’s just another gentrifying part of the city. A handful of street people mill about. In the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been exposed to their 24-hour presence — a constant reminder of my luck.

That bike cost me around $250 at the beginning of COVID, now, it would be more. The all-black frame and matching wheels gave it a slick look. It had a fixed gear and was 58 centimeters tall, the first bike I’ve ever purchased appropriate for my height. I couldn’t afford to rebuy it. Tonight was also the first time I used my new lights. I love riding in the city at night; fewer cars, the streets feel like mine. Damnit, add those lights to the list of things I’ve lost.

I storm upstairs to my second-floor apartment, find a bottle of water in my fridge and chug it. This can’t be the end of the story. I put on comfortable jeans, an old pair of running shoes, and a Twins baseball hat my mom bought me. I also grab my mini-Louisville Slugger, put in my earbuds, and call 911. It rings and rings. A woman finally answers and puts me on hold. I get in my white, 4-door Hyundai Accent and head toward the Subway. I know the chances of finding my bike are low, but I have to try. Trying is who I am. I don’t even know why I’m calling the cops; there’s nothing they can do. Running on pure instinct, I drive past the sandwich shop and turn where I think the thief may have turned.

“Los Angeles Police department, how can I be of assistance?” a young male cop says in my earbuds.

“Hello, um, my bike was just stolen from the Subway off Crenshaw and 29th. Is there anything you can do to help me,” I say and turn right onto Jefferson.

“Do you have a pen and paper handy, sir? I can give you the website so you can report the theft.”

“So, you’re not going to do anything?”

“Sir, I’m giving you the information so you can report the incident.”

“Look, please shoot me straight. In this type of situation, does anyone ever get their bike back?”

“Sir, filling out a police report is your best chance of — “

“I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m not going to do that. Please just be real with me. Is there any chance of me getting my bike back?”

The young officer doesn’t know what to say.

I turn right onto La Brea. Traffic is minimal.

“Could you at least send an officer to the Subway to take my statement?”

“With COVID, we try to limit physical interactions,” he says.

I pull up to the corner of La Brea and Adams. I’m at least a mile from my apartment.

“I get it.” This isn’t the cop’s fault. I should’ve used a lock.

On the sidewalk is a young guy in his twenties on a bike. He wears ripped skinny jeans and a faded black denim jacket. I look closer — holy shit, that’s my bike. I figured the chances of finding it were ten-thousand to one — finally, an opportunity to take something back.

“I think I found the guy who stole my bike,” I say to the cop.

Without hesitation, I swerve my car in front of the guy, blocking him from crossing Adams Blvd.

“Where are you, sir?” the cop asks.

I park, grab the mini-Louisville Slugger, and explode out of the driver-side door. Time simultaneously goes in warp speed and slow-motion.

“That’s my fucking bike.” I point the small wooden bat at the guy.

He freezes in terror. The joy of his new toy is replaced with the fear of assult from a miniature souvenir baseball bat. I run around the back of my car. “Get the fuck off my bike.”

“I just bought this bike for a hundred bucks,” he claims while scurrying around the front of my car with wide eyes.

I get to my bike and realize the guy is on the driver’s side of my car, with my door open and the engine running. Oh no, I’ve check-mated myself.

My earbuds blow up. “Sir, what is going on? Where are you? Do you want me to send an officer?”

“Yes!” I say, grateful I still have a move. “I’m at the corner of La Brea and Adams.” I make eye contact with the thief. “The cops are on their way, motherfucker.”

“Man, I didn’t steal shit,” he says. “I just bought this fucking bike like twenty minutes ago.”

I give him credit for coming up with a story that quickly, but I don’t believe him. I examine the bike. “Where the fuck are my lights?”

“I don’t know.”

“I will fuck you up if you don’t give me my lights back,” A dry threat. It’s all posturing at this point.

“I don’t have your fucking lights, man.”

“Then, get the fuck out of here. The cops are on their way.”

Under his breath, the young guy mumbles as he jogs away. “I just bought that fucking bike. This is bullshit.”

Why am I not more afraid? I’m Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Adrenaline. Cars line up behind me; I’m blocking their turn lane. I need to get my bike home, but it won’t fit in my car without taking off the front tire. I shove the bike in my back seat and drive home with the passenger side door ajar — my mind chews over the events of the evening. Two cop cars fly in the opposite direction with their lights on and their sirens blaring.

I pull into the garage behind my apartment and bring my bike upstairs. I come back down and sit on the last step. Nervous energy shakes through my chest into my arms. One of these days, I’m going to get myself killed. I need to call someone and tell them what happened. Suddenly, my phone rings. A (213) area code. I don’t recognize the number. Is it the thief?

“Los Angeles Police Department, is this Nick?” a female officer asks.

“Yes.”

“We have officers at the corner of La Brea and Adams. Where are you?”

“I’m at home.”

“Can you describe the gun?”

“What? I never said anything about a gun.” Did someone report the baseball bat as a gun?

“Ahhh, well, there was a report of a robbery,” she says.

“Yeah, but there wasn’t any gun.”

“Oh,” she says, conscious of the difference in severity, “Do you still want me to file a report?”

“No, I’m good. I got my bike back.”

“Oh, okay. Well, have a good night, sir.”

A gun?

What if the cops would’ve arrived when I was chasing that guy around my car? I had a weapon. We both could’ve been shot. The image of George Floyd’s head pinned to the street by the knee of that brutal cop floods my mind. Did I do the right thing? The onlookers at the intersection probably thought I was the one stealing his bike. I can’t believe this got so out of hand. All I want is to punch the dash of my car till my knuckles bleed. The same week I watched Minneapolis burn itself down because a man was unjustly murdered, the relationship with my fiancée fell apart. Everything felt like it was on fire.

My stomach creaks, still empty. I drive back to the Subway without my hoodie and enter wearing a black Miles Davis t-shirt and blue medical mask. My hair is wild from the chaos of the evening and months of pandemic growth. Although it’s only been an hour since I bolted, the sandwich artist doesn’t recognize me.

“How’s your day going, man?” he asks with a smile.

“Not great… man. I just had my bike stolen.”

“Oh,” he says, oblivious.

Back at my apartment, I eat my tomato basil chicken wrap in a tub full of bubbles. My mom texts: You awake? I call her and tell her the story. She can’t believe it. “Son, I’m proud of you for getting your bike back. Most people wouldn’t have even tried.” Her response surprises me. My head swirls with emotions; pride is not one of them.

The next day I have a cough and a sore throat. The day after that, I drive to Dodgers Stadium and wait in a two-hour line behind a sea of cars to take my first COVID test. A few days later, an email informs me that the test was positive and that flying home for Christmas is no longer an option. If I’m lucky, this will be the last thing 2020 takes from me.

I lie in bed — an hour of sweating, followed by an hour of shivering repeats for five isolating days. On the sixth day, I stand in my kitchen, weak, wearing an open bathrobe, drinking tap water, and eating saltines. Going after my bike was reckless. I shake my head, thinking about the unlikeliness of getting my bike back, and paranoia creeps in.

Am I sure that was my bike?

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My BARBIE film review (No Spoilers):

My expectations for this film were high, and the movie’s beginning met them, but by the second half, the premise felt stuck in a box, like the Mattel Executives, led by Will Farrell, used to trap Barbie (Bonus points for director Greta Gerwigs’s clever Proust reference). I absolutely loved the performances of the two leads, especially Ryan Gosling, who steals the show as Ken. Unfortunately, having Mattel as the real-life production company of the film kept it from being the cutting satire I was hoping for. As Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) comes to ‘the real world’ the commentary on current society is reductive and tired. Casting construction workers as heavy-set, horny, unkempt misogynistic men challenges no one since most would agree their behavior is abhorrent. The Lego movie, which could have fallen into similar legacy-branding traps, kept the promise of its premise and had surprising moments till the end because it was about the evergreen idea of embracing what makes you unique instead of playing out current gender politics. Barbie is a fun movie with solid laughs but, in the end, the themes don’t wrap into a satisfying story. It feels like watching the roast of a celebrity who got to make sure all the jokes weren’t too mean.

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“Pocket full of Crumbs” by: A.I. Vorderbruggen

I wanted to write a short story with the help of A.I. about a criminal who ignores his major crimes and focuses on the stealing of cookies from gas stations. Holy shit, did this shit get dark.

“Pocket Full of Crumbs” by A.I. Vorderbruggen

In the twisted corridors of my mind, I am the embodiment of malevolence, a shadow that thrives in the darkest recesses of society. My life is a symphony of crime, orchestrated with meticulous precision, and my name is whispered in fear – the Phantom. But amidst the chaos and carnage, there’s a peculiar quirk that defines my nefarious existence – an insatiable obsession with cookies.

As I execute flawless bank heists, leaving chaos and despair in my wake, my mind fixates on the sweet haven of gas station convenience stores. The aroma of freshly baked cookies beckons me like a siren, and I find myself unable to resist the allure of pilfering these innocent treats. In the aftermath of each ruthless crime, I retreat to the shadows to indulge in the stolen pleasures that momentarily ease the burden of my malevolent deeds.

The world sees me as a criminal mastermind, an elusive force that strikes fear into the hearts of the city’s inhabitants. What they don’t know is that, amidst the stolen loot and the bloodstained bills, I harbor a dark secret – a hunger that transcends the boundaries of morality. I am not just a bank robber; I am a killer who preys on the unsuspecting, leaving a trail of mutilated bodies in my wake.

Yet, in the distorted tapestry of my mind, the monstrous truth is overshadowed by the perverse delight I derive from stolen cookies. I revel in the sugary ecstasy that momentarily numbs the darkness within. The juxtaposition of my sadistic crimes and the innocent joy of pilfered sweets creates a twisted dichotomy, an enigma that only deepens my descent into madness.

As the city trembles at the mere mention of my name, I find solace in the simple act of devouring stolen cookies. The crumbs that fall from my lips are remnants of a façade, concealing the monstrous reality that lies beneath. The city remains oblivious to the true extent of my malevolence – a predator who not only steals lives but consumes the flesh of the fallen.In the dimly lit corners of my hideout, surrounded by ill-gotten gains and the echoes of my crimes, I savor the stolen cookies with morbid satisfaction. The world may condemn me as a heartless killer, but in the stolen sweetness of those pilfered treats, I find a perverted sanctuary, a temporary escape from the darkness that defines me.

So, the Phantom continues to haunt the city, a twisted embodiment of evil driven by an unholy appetite for both confections and skin. Cookies, once a mere diversion, now serve as a macabre reminder of the duality that defines my existence – a predator who revels in stolen pleasures while leaving a trail of devastation in his wake.

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Go Fill Up a Passport… By: N.A. Vorderbruggen

Back in November of 2017, I was sitting in the Singapore airport waiting to fly back to Los Angeles. It was my first time being in the city-state. I was fortunate enough to have just headlined their first full-time comedy club’The Merry Lion. Sitting across from me, in those massively uncomfortable airport chairs, were two older couples from Sweden. At first, I was annoyed because they had a nervous Scottish Terrier that wouldn’t stop whining. Airports are always a bit paradoxical; thrilled to be escaping but annoyed with all the micro-stresses that come with being cramped in with strangers.

Although these four fellow travelers seemed nice enough, they also had the air of money. I don’t love this about myself, but I have a tendency to hold people of wealth to an unfair standard. I’m simultaneously looking to be in their shoes and judging them for not having to feel the fear and pain of adventuring on the cheap.

The alpha of their group was a mid-sixties white man with no hair on top of his head, but a ring of grey stubble guarding the sides and back. He had a kind face; soft pink skin with small beady eyes and a tiny smile. He asked me if I was an American. At first, I thought it was a good guess, but then remembered I was a six-foot-two white guy, wearing a backwards baseball cap waiting for a flight back to America.

‘Yes,’ I said with a smile.
‘I’ve spent a lot of time in Louisiana. The company I worked for in Sweden had offices there,’ he said confidently, more matter-of-fact than braggadocious.

He asked me where I had been during my current travels. I had my passport in my hand, so I showed him the variety of different stamps and travel visas I had obtained from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. Having the evidence was quite satisfying. It’s one thing to tell a story, it’s another to have a passport that tells the story for you.

As a kid, I remember wanting desperately to fill up a passport. The first time I saw one was on the title sequence for the TV show ‘MacGyver’. To this day, every time I see a passport I think of that image during the show’s opening montage.

I got my first passport when I was eighteen and although I got some use out of it, it wasn’t as much as I would have liked. It had stamps from England, Amsterdam, Shanghai, and the Middle East, but I wanted more. Luckily, the passport I was currently holding was starting to become respectable.

My chest puffed with satisfaction as I showed the Alpha-Swede stamps from Aruba, Prague, Brussels, and Israel. Then, he pulled out his passport and I could tell with a glance I was about to be humbled. Almost every page was filled. I was impressed and critical at the same time because I assumed that most of those stamps had been obtained with the type of traveling you only get to do on a company’s dime, and he admitted as much.

The Swedish man showed me stamps from all over the world. South Africa to Brazil, Pakistan to Cuba. It was inspiring. He asked me if Americans still didn’t get their passports stamped when they went to Cuba. I told him luckily things were starting to change. The only place I had been where I didn’t get a stamp was Israel. I was told other countries in the region wouldn’t accept a stamp from Israel so it was smart not to get one. Part of me was bummed because on that trip I wasn’t going to any other countries in the region and just wanted the stamp to add to my collection. Sometimes world politics make me feel like I showed up to a party right after a fight and some people are mad at me because I happen to have on the same color shirt as one of the guys who started the fight.

Soon, everyone had their passports out. We were all showing off where we had been and how it was and how it made us feel. Before the internet, I imagine this was the way people found out where they would like to go on their next vacation.

I told the Swedes of my first experience seeing a passport with my own eyes. It was when my Aunt Julie, who had spent most of her adult life overseas, came home to Minnesota when I was a kid. She was in the Peace Corps in Morocco in her early twenties and worked all over the world for the International Refugee Committee (the IRC was founded by Albert Einstein in 1933 and has a 700 million dollar annual budget), so her passport was always stuffed. I remembered one time she had to get more pages added because every available spot had been stamped. In America, they don’t let you do that anymore. Now, the government makes you pay for a whole new passport.

Even as this interaction was happening, I had an acute awareness that waxing passports with these Swedish strangers, in the Singapore airport, was what traveling was all about. The Venn diagram between any two people on this planet is about ninety-nine percent the same, but for some reason, most of us tend to focus on the one-percent that makes us different.

If I would have allowed the fear of getting out of my comfort zone to keep me from leaving Minnesota when I was young, I never would have moved to Chicago and then, eventually, Los Angeles. I would have never seen the world for myself and I would have never met these curious souls in that airport that day. I believe that even if you love living close to where you were born, you should leave, even just for a while, so that when you return you can actually see where you are from with your own eyes. The more I travel, the more natural it is for me to focus on that ninety-nine percent that unites us.

My current passport is almost exactly half full right now. I’m sure I’ll be terrified when it actually happens, but the adventurous part of my mind can’t wait for that moment when I’m not sure if they’ll let me into a country because my passport is too full to stamp.

From my West Adams attic
3-19-2019

Edited by: Lacy Johnson

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