Paranoia, Whores, Doctors & New Adventures: all part of the natural state of affairs really

Section I: Puritanism and paranoia

I recently had a chat with two of my best pals over how puritanical America is when it comes to nudity and profanity. We all tended to agree how ridiculous it is that profanity is censored on television and in print. Why on earth are words like ‘fuck’ rendered as f---, f***, f*ck or other such variants when (a), it’s damn well clear what the word is and how it’s spelt, and (b) these words are so prevalent in today’s society anyway that it seems pointless to censor them. The same goes for profanity-laden films shown on public television. By censoring the swearing, in some cases you’re subjecting your audience to an entirely different film. Die Hard, Major League and Top Gun immediately spring to mind as just three of the many films that lose a lot in translation when some of the juiciest dialogue is expunged (for example: ‘yippee kay yay, mother fucker’; ‘I say ‘fuck you, Jo Bu, I’ll do it myself’; and ‘Hollywood, whose dick did you suck to get in here?’ ‘The list is long and distinguished.’ ‘Well so’s my Johnson.’)

Anyhow…

So here I am sat at Newark International Airport, waiting through an interminable delay due to this ongoing ash cloud kerfuffle, when in the course of the past hour I can cite three examples of the puritanism and paranoia that pervade these parts. In fact, consider it a minor miracle that your dear author has managed to avoid being hauled off to Homeland Security and strip-searched.

1. I was innocently watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in a public area when an airport official of South Asian background (that detail is important), at the behest of a heavyset Nigerian woman, approached me, tapped me on the shoulder, and informed me that my film had offended the woman because of its ‘inappropriate’ content – a very brief scene of a woman’s breast. He suggested I either turn it off or watch it somewhere more private. I really should have suggested that the woman mind her own business and not watch my film. I merely moved to the other side of the table, from where I could glare at the woman, who left minutes later. However…

2. The same airport official, after I had minimized the film, asked me about the picture on my desktop: the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The following exchange thus ensued:
Airport Official: What is that, is it a mosque?
Darnell Pedzo: Yes.
AO: Why do you have a picture of a mosque on your computer?
DP: Uh, because it’s a nice picture and I like it.
AO: That probably isn’t the kind of picture you should show in public.
DP: Um, why not?
AO: Because it will offend some people and maybe it is suspicious.
(I love that: it WILL offend some people, he said.)
DP: Honestly, it shouldn’t offend anyone, it’s just a nice picture.
AO: No, no it isn’t, I don’t think you should have such a picture on your computer, not in public.
He then backed off to say something into his walkie-talkie.
AO: Perhaps you can hide it for now, then put it back later after your flight.
I then brought my film back up.
DP: I’ll tell you what. I’ll watch my film, there’s no one behind me to see it, and no one can see the mosque. Fair enough?
AO: [muttering and grumbling something]…Hmmm, okay. Be careful please. Have a nice evening.

[Had something like this happened a year or two ago, I would have been more perturbed then than I am now. In a sign of just how much I’ve matured, or because I feel the need to spout off about any little episode that happens to me, my first thought was, ‘hey, I can write about this in my blog!’]

Lastly…

3. I approached another airport official shortly after my film had finished to enquire about where I might be able to post it back to Netflix. She directed me to my airline and told me they would be happy to do it. They weren’t, due to security considerations, and so I asked the woman again. I told her that it was urgent. This raised her suspicions. She asked me what I wanted to mail. I told her. She asked me why I hadn’t mailed it before I got to the airport. I explained that I hadn’t had time to watch it. She then asked me why I hadn’t tried to mail it about 2 hours prior to that point, when I had first entered the airport. I repeated that I had only just finished watching it and attempted to explain the plot, when she rudely cut me off, radioed into her walkie-talkie for back-up, and told me to wait. A few minutes later, the same airport official who chastised me for watching pornography and spreading a radical Islamic message via my wallpaper, approached.

AO: Ah, you again. Now what are you doing?

Now I was beginning to get exasperated, but surely he could vouch that I had been watching the film just minutes before this exchange.

AO: Yes, he was watching a film, a very bad film, not very nice in the airport.

I was beginning to suspect that negotiating a passage through this Scylla and Charybdis of utter indolence was going to prove to be a futile and thankless endeavour.

AO: You shouldn’t watch films like that.

Full stop. Not in the airport, but in general. Who was this guy, the morality police?

AO #2: Why do you need to mail this now, you should have mailed it before.
AO: You should have watched it at home, in private. With your girlfriend. (with a chuckle and a cheeky grin)
DP: (agitatedly and sarcastically) Look, I didn’t have time, and because my flight is delayed, it seemed like the perfect opportunity, and I’m going abroad and don’t want to have to mail it from there. Anyway, never mind, I will mail it later, thanks anyway.
AO #2: No, no, it’s a security risk for the airport, you can’t ask people to mail packages, or next time we will call the police.
DP: I’m sorry, next time I’ll watch it at home, and mail it before I get to the airport.
AO: Yes, good idea.

I was tempted to prolong this a bit longer and have a bit of fun with them. But I didn’t want to push my luck.

(I can’t strongly recommend the film and book enough by the way: a moving, poignant, elegiac and inspiring story, tinged with pathos and humour; it really moved me. See it and/or read it.)

The offending picture

Section II: Wholesome whores and lascivious ladies of the night

While I should have been brushing up the lacuna in my historical background as continuing preparation for my teaching ‘career’ and devoting myself to more ‘academic’ works, over the past couple of weeks I instead partook in a fine little ditty of a collection entitled The Harlot’s Handbook: Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies (1757-1793). It is, essentially, a directory and review of all of London’s finest ladies of the night: the hottest harlots, the most slatternly sluts and saucy strumpets, the most tempestuous tarts and tantalising trollops, and the most voluptuous and vivacious vixens. The compendium features a rundown of each ladies’ appealing and not so appealing traits. I am told that this type of thing still exists today, no doubt somewhere in cyberspace, but I for one certainly haven’t taken the time to look. Any readers care to weigh in on this?

I thought I would share a sampling of my favourite entries. In other words, if I were a ravenous rake or roué of the 18th century, these are the girls I would track down for a bit of light evening’s entertainment. I’ve saved my top choice for the end.

Mrs Harris-n, next door to the Shoemaker’s Shop, Cleveland-street, New Moulton-street.

A pompous heroic girl, without either wit or humour, but fancies herself clever without any person acquiescing with her whomsoever. She is of the red-haired kind and very vicious, too fond of the male kind for her business, which is the cause of her not succeeding as she should do. Her person is extremely well made, good eyes, fair skin, and incomparable fine hair; never so happy as when in bed with a pretty fellow, altho’ she gets nothing by him – like the giddy girl, thinks of nothing but the present, leaving all future events to chance.

Mifs H-rington, Newman-ftreet

‘She spins her webb to catch male flies,
Like sportsmen’s black birds – by her eyes.’

A knowing one, lives in the first floor, has two or three gentlemen favourites; by giving a double rap, this lady will instantly make her appearance, and if she returns you a favourable glance, she will immediately conduct you in a very complaisant manner to a convenient sofa, and suffer you there to take a view of her haven of delight, where pretty ringlets hang in tempting curls over the cupidinous font, in return she likewise expects a view of nature’s gifts from you, which if she thinks clean and properly adopted, she will unload for two pounds two. She is rather a good figure, and about twenty-five, with a tolerable good complexion, in company chatty, witty and agreeable.

Mrs St-ton, at the Shoe-maker’s, Cornet of Upper Newman-street

‘All I ask of mortal man,
Is to ---- me whilst I can.’

A fine plump widow bewitched, as she says, she is the wife of a captain S-n, who is gone abroad; but her passions are not to be confined, and thinking life not worth her care, without the thorough gratification of that most noble sense, she gives an uncontrolled loose to all her desires, and places the tree of life into the garden of Eden, as often as inclination invites, and opportunity gives leave; and so exquisitely toned are the most sensible parts, that all the senses seem swallowed up at once in the gulph of Venus; she is good-natured, and does not seem to make money so much the object of love, if she thinks she has a flash-man who is a posture-master; but is not to be had by a queer-cull. She will not refuse a guinea from any man, and will take half sooner than go without. This jolly agreeable piece lives in the first floor.

Mifs L-w-s, No. 36, Wells-street, Oxford-street

‘By that smile that decks thy face,
By that dimple on thy chin,
By each loving sweet embrace,
Let me once more enter in.’

The prolific soil of Salisbury is reported to have given birth to this whimsical Cyprian Goddess, a more beautiful face we never witnessed, and to her praise be it spoken, she is not under the smallest obligation to any performer.

‘No artificial tint adorns her lovely cheeks’.

Pure nature and rosy health are her inseparable companions; her conversation displays so much artless simplicity, that we are positive any gentleman would conceive himself happy in having an opportunity of standing before this lady with a view to obtain her mark of pleasure. She has lately been in keeping with Ri-er, but we greatly fear he proved himself a bad horseman, as the lady will not, at this time, suffer him to enter her premises. Pecuniary embarrassments are the reasons assigned for his being depraved her present favours; her visitors must not be surprised if they are addressed with expressions of a simple nature from this votary of wantonness. She is very expert in milking a cow; we mention this acquisition merely for the accommodation of any gentleman who is fond of witnessing such sport; her panting delicate white breasts are tempting, firm, and elastic; twelve months are scarcely elapsed since her virgin rose was plucked. An artist of some celebrity is said to be the fortunate seducer of her maiden treasure; her disposition is extremely lively; she is blessed with a pair of the most enchanting black eyes we ever beheld. It is impossible to gaze at this fascinating female without being captivated with her delightful charms; she exhibits a neat leg and foot; good nature is a valuable ornament to this lady. Nineteen years is her real age, and two pounds two shillings will not be rejected as a reward for the disposal of her favours.


Section III: the state of health care in America

These days I’m generally quite apathetic when it comes to a lot of things that used to interest me, politics being one of them. And though I have been tempted from time to time to sally forth and offer my two cents on health care reform in the US, I have resisted. I will, however, say this (and this is as political as I’ll get): I find it utterly preposterous that in a country like America, a full-time student such as me is not entitled to any sort of health coverage or insurance. Nothing. Apparently, once you’re over the age of twenty-five, you’re pretty much SOL. I will desist from any further scathing commentary.

Needless to say, over the past 8 or 9 months, I’ve been shelling out a hefty monthly premium for health coverage. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much. After all, surely I can expect to get some of the best health coverage in the world in the US, right? It might be pricey, but at least these guys [appear to] know what they’re doing. Witness some of my more pleasant and sobering experiences from various locations:

• Nigeria: thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly, I never really got ill here, but at the makeshift hospital in the middle of the delta, I was asked whether I would prefer a clean needle to a previously used one. I’m not making any sort of joke about this – I had to pay the equivalent of about 40 cents for that needle, and it’s beyond tragic that the majority of the population has to think long and hard about this question. This saddened me then, and it saddens me to think about now.
• Ukraine: unfortunately, I never had to visit the doctor, though I did have a lovely young lady come to my house to give me a course of 20 ‘medical’ massages. I will leave it at that.
• Spain: serious shenanigans. Despite hardly paying a dime for the supposedly outstanding state coverage, one comedy of errors after another led to me being badly misdiagnosed with what turned out to be a broken metatarsal in my foot. They kept insisting I had tendonitis, even when x-rays showed what looked to be a hairline stress fracture. I then endured 4 weeks of physiotherapy, which probably only made it worse. I’m just glad it was ‘free’ health coverage.
• Latvia: I visited a few more doctors in hopes of getting my foot ailment healed. I had x-rays in a shoddy underground bunker-like dungeon adorned with, I kid you not, pictures of Chornobyl and the Soviet Union’s finest nuclear reactors. There were various diagnoses: tendonitis again, a shrug of the shoulders from another doctor, and one who said the problem was caused by the 3 inch birthmark on my leg interfering with the nervous impulses radiating outwards in all directions and concentrating in the area just below my big toe. I didn’t bothering following up with the skin specialist she recommended. I might add that she was the official doctor to the American and Swedish Embassy staffs.
• Latvia II: after the broken rib incident – which has yet to be divulged in full on these pages but will be soon, hopefully – I had a grand old time going to the massive state-run Soviet-era behemoth of a hospital on a Saturday afternoon, along with my buddy Michael, who was there ostensibly to help with translations despite speaking even less Russian than I. Still, I appreciated his moral support. The highlight of this excursion? Being pushed against the wall for an x-ray that was blasting at me from a machine some thirty feet anyway. When I motioned for some kind of protection for my, uh, important bits, the female attendant merely gestured to me to cover my whatsits with my hands. And so I did. No doubt I’m now sterile.
• Kyrgyzstan: as detailed on these very pages, I was prescribed a boiled egg to put on my jaw when I had an ear infection. I don’t think it helped.

So, instead of complaining about the excessive costs, I should have been thankful that for once in my life I was going to get decent coverage. Or at least I thought I was. More than anything I wanted to get my foot seen to once and for all. But because of other more pressing concerns I never got round to it, though I feel somewhat better knowing that very little can be done about my foot at this point.

Now, I don’t want to get too up close and personal here, but let’s just say for now I’ve had a few issues with a very sensitive part of my body that have caused me a bit of concern. So, for peace of mind, I got it checked out, though the whole process took a few months and cost me a helluva lot of money on top of the already steep monthly premiums. I’m telling you, health insurance is a scam. You pay through the roof yet still have to pay for so much more on top of that.

Fast forward through all the months of tests to my last round just over a week ago. Without going into too much detail, I had to have a very unpleasant procedure called a cystoscopy performed. I was not looking forward to this and was awfully nervous.

It didn’t help matters that the nurse sent in to clean and ‘prep’ me was a lovely young Croatian woman. Shouldn’t there be a law against this? I was supposed to be remaining calm and nonplussed. Suddenly my nerves intensified and my attempts at playful banter were awkward and embarrassing. She was a good sport, taking it all in stride, diligently going about her business with a smile on her face.

I know now how pregnant women feel. She had me put my legs in those stirrups that pregnant women use when giving birth, or being examined. Just I was thinking that this was completely unnecessary, the door opened and in walked in a much older, grumpier and larger woman (I could now relax a bit more) who immediately snapped at the poor Croatian and shrieked, ‘honey, why on earth have you got this poor guy’s legs up in the air?’ To which the Croatian replied, ‘what, this isn’t how you do this? I saw the other nurse do it like this’. This definitely instilled in me loads of confidence that I was in good hands, so to speak. Can I blame this on the fact that she was Croatian?

The rest of the procedure went off with hardly a hitch and I was certainly glad when it was all over.

I just hope I’ve got my money’s worth after all this.


Section IV: The next big adventure

Now that the drudgery of stale American suburb life has reached its merciful denouement, I’m ready to say goodbye to the ennui and move onto bigger and better things: my next, hopefully hair-raising, adventure. Which means I hope to have more exciting things to write about besides the antics of my students, trips to the doctor or rambling, incoherent diatribes about my inner states of torment. Never mind that far from mending my profligate ways, I’m instead being irresponsible and foolhardy once again, as I continue my ongoing quest to forge a glorious destiny for myself. Hell, I may drop dead in a few months so might as well revel in this exultancy while I can.

So what better place to seek adventure than the cosy confines of Eastern Europe? I am shortly off to Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, with perhaps a stop in Poland tacked onto the end (an exit strategy might be a good idea).

The truth is, though Romania and Moldova haven’t always necessarily been ‘on my radar’, there are few places out there that I’m not interested in seeing. The bulk of my upcoming trip is Ukraine (visiting some dear friends, some I haven’t seen since I left in 2006), so I reckoned these two would be good launching pads. After a fact-finding week of seeing how well Romania has adjusted to life in the EU (and of course to verify the countless claims I’ve heard that Romanian women are amongst the most beautiful anywhere), I’m off to the [yet another] former Soviet hellhole of Moldova. I had considered making a visit here when I lived in Lviv some 4 years ago but was put off by the visa and invitation hassles. Now that all of that rigmarole has been done away with, I figured I might as well visit as it’s en route to Ukraine.

I’ve never ever been one to merely visit places to ‘say I’ve been’ or for the stamp in the passport, and nor do I like to ‘do’ countries. I only go to places that I really want to go to. Russia has always been near the top of my list, but over the past couple of years, after spending good chunks of time in Ukraine, the Baltics and the Caucasus, I got a bit philosophical, as I’m wont to do, about my intentions and sort of decided that I was going to circumnavigate Russia by first visiting all the former countries of the Soviet Union. After last summer’s jaunt round Central Asia, I’m left with just 5: Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. I’m mulling over a job in Azerbaijan, which with its proximity to Turkmenistan means that, come the end of 2010, I could be looking at just Belarus and Tajikistan remaining. Hard to say when I’ll get back to Central Asia, so not including Tajikistan last summer when I traipsed round Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan could come back to haunt me. Visa and invitation hassles notwithstanding, Belarus is always in the geographical neighbourhood. Thus, I can hope to get to Russia by mid-2012, though that might be overly optimistic.

Even if, in some circles it’s ranked near the bottom of the World Database of Happiness or it’s been designated ‘Europe’s Poorest Country’, Moldova in and of itself sounds like a pleasantly charming place, replete with copious vineyards nestled amongst gentle rolling hills and valleys, with the Soviet-architecture-laden capital of Chisinau and it’s supposedly legendary nightlife screaming out for a look-see. But the ultimate vertiginous heights might only come when – or if – I make a stop in the breakaway enclave of Transdniestr, another in the long line of self-styled republics (along with Abkhazia, Ossetia, Dagestan, Chechnya) clamouring for independence and recognition (it made its break from Moldova in the early 1990s). It sounds like a bit of a banana republic, unrecognized by anyone bar Russia, with its own currency, army, police force and borders. It also sounds frightfully dangerous and hardly worth the hassle of trying to enter. But will that stop me? Hell no! It’s adventure I’m after, and it’s adventure I’m getting.

More than anything, I can hardly fail to visit Tiraspol, the capital of Transdniestr and home of perennial league champions FC Sheriff Tiraspol, after it featured as the answer to a trivia question posed on these very pages not long ago. For those who missed it the first time, the city features the only football stadium that ‘conforms to every single safety and security measure that [Uefa] stipulates’. So chalk up my upcoming visit as further investigative research.

But perhaps I ought to reconsider. According to some circles, ‘officially’ western tourists are ‘not welcome’, though the regions official tourist website – www.visitpmr.com – suggests otherwise, declaring Transdniestr to be ‘Europe’s hidden jewel’, and offering up a an interesting and skewed (?) version of its history. And here’s an excerpt from the Lonely Planet:

‘We receive continuous reader feedback reporting disturbing hijinks at Transdniestran border crossings, where organised intimidation is used to separate travellers from their money. Accusations of incomplete paperwork or invented transgressions (such as carrying a camera) lead to ludicrous ‘fines’ starting as high as $300. Some alleged offences border on the absurd, such as not having visas (unnecessary) or letters of invitation, acquired at the ‘Transdniestran Embassy’ (non-existent)…

Being invited into a hut with several looming, armed guards is not uncommon, where your infraction(s) is/are grimly pointed out in a farcically massive, ancient tome, written in indecipherable Cyrillic script. Then the haggling about your fine begins. You will be directed ‘by law’ to show them all your money – a brazen way for them to gauge the size of the fine they can impose. If you resist, a theatrical performance designed to heighten anxiety and break your will commences: ominous forms are filled out, your bags will be pulled off your bus, presumably leaving you stranded. Anyone without passable fluency in Russian is in for a hard time.”

How’s my Russian? ‘Passable’, perhaps, but nowhere in the neighbourhood of ‘fluent’. But considering I have a fetish for such off-the-wall places, because I want a funny and sordid tale or two to whinge (and write) about later, and mainly because I’m after a really challenging adventure, no matter how hair-raising, I’ll most likely visit. Unless I’m talked out of it by someone more sensible.

Besides, after the agony and turmoil of the past few months, could a bit of innocent border hassle possibly be any worse?