T-minus 48 hours and counting, and believe me, I AM counting. I picked up the latest issue of Playboy (featuring Kristy Swanson, but it was the Willie Nelson interview that prompted the purchase) for a whopping 10 Euros at the Cologne Hautbanhof (train station). Both my pens are dying on me, and I'm down to 25 Euros now. Kirsty's got implants now, and posing for playboy remains the career equivalent of the second-to-last swirl down the toilet. Consider all those classic cameos and blockbusters that should-have-been! "The Chase", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Big Daddy"...

The gig is up. The quest is on to write something in six hours worth 50,000 won in prize money, but INSIGHT is hardly my domain. At best, I might as well attempt to finish off my Europe trilogy in adequate style.

Any writer worth his/her salt knows that 90% of what comes out of their pen is not ink, but horseshit. Half-thoughts, posturing, exposition, and (my favourite!) plagiarism. In other words, everything I know is the sum total of everything I've read, heard, seen, experienced, etc.

Bali... something like 180 people blown to bits in a nightclub, what a way to go. I see that there was a teacher from Pusan that I might have known who was one of the victims. Did she party like it was 1999? Did she know it was her last night on Earth? It's almost 2003 and mini-apocalypses can be found on any street corner, just waiting to happen. I'm thankful it wasn't me, but still saddened. The more personal the connection, the greater the grief, if any. What affects us personally will always mean more than the national level of 'suffering.'

Isn't that why we can't hope to cope with zealots? They're willing to die for things we'd rather stay alive for.

I turned my back on organized religion many years ago when I saw the Greek Orthodox Church in Canada was nothing but a collection of aged shrews spending their husbands' money on beauty products and jewelry, trying so desperately to look younger than their grandchildren. Guys I would regularly see whoring and drinking themselves blotto every week would make the pilgrimmage to church every Sunday for communion. It was pretty clear even at age 11 that most of the parishioners were using the lord's prayer to wipe their asses.

Yet even now, as a third-rate athiest, I can't discount the fact that faith (and money) built and inspired some of the greatest art and architecture that the world has ever known.

Take Stephensdom in the centre of Vienna, for example. One of the biggest Catholic churches I've ever seen, and at 10am on a Tuesday, jam-packed with people. Far too noisy and congested for my preference, especially in a place I would normally go to for peace and quiet, but it's still impressive.

Andre takes me to an open square in the centre of Cologne for some Kolsch, but there's some section of strings off in the distance. Sure enough, not too far away under the alcove of this relatively new shopping structure are three guys in their mid-twenties playing the shit out of their Julliard or Berklee repetoire. Some Bach, a little Dvorak I recognize, and in front of them, a viola case that's way too empty for the effort they're giving. I walk up during the performance and throw in some of my last Euro coins. A father gives his little boy some change to throw in not too long afterwards. Some grizzled old homeless guy gets up off his rucksack and plunks three bottles of beer in front of the guys. Lots of laughter and applause ensues, but they still haven't stopped playing.

This is the life, and I can't possibly capture it on film. I wouldn't want to.

Back at the airport; I curse myself for seeing some Arabic guys walking up the escalator and automatically thinking the worst, in my typically sardonic fashion. I curse all the war-mongering, tin-plated dictators who'd be better off along with the rest of us if their wives were in charge. Women have always been the nurturers, and men?

I seem to recall that the best part about legos was destroying my creations and starting all over again from scratch. I didn't curse, then.

I see thousands of people in the marketplace; all ages, all classes, all weight-classes, walking at different paces. Ten countries into the trip, and I decide to finally turn my music off, sit down, and watch. Better than any soap opera, and it's all REAL.

Blondie with the Bernadette Peters curls walks towards me dressed in a long trenchcoat, heavy mascara, droopy Lisa Marie eyes, Bettie Page hips, mother earth breasts, and Ann-Margaret lips. She's magnificent--an unreleased Otis Redding song. I can't help staring, as ungallant as it may be, and she knows it too, but enjoys it anyway.

With a careless flick of her lighter she alters her pace and lights up a cigarette. Our eyes meet for a second, and I can't turn away; I don't want to. Besides, I'm already in too deep.

Until she passes by, neither of us turns away. I look back anyway (knowing I'm hopeless), and sure enough, she turns around once more--right on cue, naturally--catches my eye for the last time, and grins like a cheshire cat.

It feels good, our little moment, until she walks well out of range. But the rest of the day, I can't help thinking about it and smiling a bit; life is damn good, and the best lessons always come back in the form of remedial silence. The suicide bombers have it all backwards. God or no God, life is too sweet for words OR the lack of them.

Now recall those twin fangs of Catholic or Orthodox guilt, which are sinking into the wrong necks. Within the boundaries of morality, there are all kinds of beauty, all kinds of goodness that people on their best days can only make a feeble attempt at attaining.

"A man's reach should always exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?" -Robert Browning

Make it a shine, a shimmy, or a glance. A sip, a whisper, a frown. Trip backwards, cut sideways, take a swan dive into measured obscurity. Your own revelations are STILL revelations. The verdict may still be out, but the book of Johnny is still very much in and IN PRINT.

In the name of the bothered, the shunned, and the solely spirited, AMEN! 

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