CHEAP HOLIDAYS AND OTHER PEOPLES' MISERY

Cable Onda gives me the Erie, PA, feed of the CBS affiliate, and for weird reasons I had some time on my hands around 12:30 AM Thursday. So, I watched Colin Ferguson and was happy to note that John Lydon and Steve Jones are back on the senior tour and after the exhibition Nassau against Tom Kite and Loren Roberts at Ponte Vedra, will play CBGB (Las Vegas) and Max's Kansas City (Davenport, Iowa). Cereal, I have to give those guys a lot of credit just for living long enough to make the senior tour. The Pixies individually and collectively made more money in their first three months of their first year on the senior tour than either or all made in all of the previous years COMBINED. So, good on the Thompson's Water Seal(tm)Pistols. They deserve to get paid for one near-perfect LP.

I was killing some more time reading THE LONELY PLANET GUIDE TO PANAMA and damnit if I didn't flash IMMEDIATELY on "Holidays In The Sun." I must say that I now have new-found respect for the nouveau riche who like to stay in nice places when they travel, for developers in general and for the "pro-business" policies of President Martin Torrijos. I am looking forward to a little "pub-debate" with the next eco-tourists I encounter. I doubt it will happen anytime soon, because I like nice places and either really good restaurants or McDonald's, by personal preference. The mere thought of sight-seeing throws me into a state of Nausea in the Nausee or Asco sense. Just the THOUGHT of it drops me in a crippling pool of anomie.

The LONELY PLANET GUIDES, in general and for Panama specifically, are just an abomination of all that's light and good. Just how many would-be Kiplings are there out there? The Panama edition begins with a theme that is carried consistently throughout. I'll give them that. It was published just after Torrijos and the PRD beat Moscoso for the Presidency. The LONELY PLANET authors were rather concerned about how Torrijos's "pro-business" policies will affect the environment and the indigenous peoples. The issue is not the environment or indigeneous people. The issue is how will his policies (very intelligent pro-business and ultra-liberal social) might affect the broad range of interest groups. Of course. Hindsight's always right but no one's complaining about 3 straight years of 10+% growth. And Ms. Moscoso is far to Torrijos's right. She's a Bush supporter. Hating development is sneakily fascist. In the soft fascism of the LONELY PLANET GUIDES the American and British children of them that got get to enjoy unspoiled nature and fuck the rest. Torrijos merely wanted to get Panama into the first world and build a socially-aware MIDDLE CLASS which is the sine qua non of any advanced nation.

The most offensive and silly aspect of the way the LONELY PLANET people approach these countries is this emphasis on "eco-tourism" and all things ancient and folkloric. That shit isn't for me, but it surely has a place. With a growing economy, developers can buy STANDARD LUMBER CONTRACTS instead of having to buy old-growth wood on the black market. Pretty basic stuff. I'm not saying that I LIKE deforestation. Hardly. If the budget has all sorts of aid for indigenous people, medicine, housing, education, etc., I say "AWESOME, OH BABY I LOVE IT!" LONELY PLANET cares fuck-all about the indigeneous people that way. They merely hope that the mintrel shows and folklore and handcrafts will be available for their tourism. Oh, the wailing about going to little fishing villages and seeing the kids wearing U.S. pro and college gear and listening to rap music! Never mind that the water's clean for drinking and washing and single-payer health care is available. That sort of stuff doesn't count.

OK, my tastes aren't everyone's. I understand that I'm a city boy. And I don't like deforestation yet I do think anybody who enjoys "eco-tourism" and folkloric shit and the hand-crafts are more than welcome to enjoy themselves whereever. But when they use -- just as David Horowitz did during Islamofascist Awareness Week -- an anti-sexist and anti-homophobic slant to trash a pretty evolved country, it's just foul. The get themselves all worked up about the machismo and homophobia and sexism (the wolf-whistles, of course) in Panama without realizing that they've just disproved their case by discussing Moscoso's presidency and listing 3 good gay bars in the capital. As a resident, I will assure my millions of gay readers that they should feel free to come and enjoy Panama. Gay and straight mix completely normally without any bullshit (way less than in the U.S. to be sure; gay marriage is legal). In my circles it's completely mixed to the point where nobody notices one way or the other. Someone's sexual orientation is just another fact about that person or way to describe him or her to distinguish him or her from someone else who has ths same first name. When the U.S. has a woman president (!), can get the pay-gap to Panama's level and liberalizes its family-planning laws to Panama's extent, we can have the sexism argument.

Sorry, LONELY PLANET, young people like rap and trance and house music way more than they do salsa. And this isn't a fucking minstrel show for your entertainment. It's a modern capitalist, democratic republic. You want to be "liberal" and "in touch with the culture"? Hang out with Panamanians. And be respectful.

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