Oh Shit, Osheaga

I have this thing where I like to talk about how I may be approaching 40 but I still feel like a 20-something inside. Like, I still dress the way I did in college and I like the same things (video games, rock music, drinking) that I did in college. That's what I kept telling myself as I traipsed through Parc Jean-Drapeau this past weekend surrounded by girls in bikini tops, cut-off shorts that left their ass-cheeks hanging out, shirtless bros, tank-top bros, and tons of other people who looked like they'd been transported from the set of some MTV Spring Break show. The unfortunate truth though, was that age gets you. Despite how "young" you feel inside, shit changes and it's often in a really surreptitious way. Suddenly you find yourself annoyed by shit that the carefree, young person you think you are wouldn't be. Bros and bras pushing their way to the front of the crowd as if the rest of you aren't there to see the same thing. Lack of toilet paper in the port-o-potty. That kind of thing.

It sucks to realize you're old in the middle of something like Osheaga. I think if I had had that realization earlier, I would have adjusted my expectations and my subsequent actions. I would not, for example, have attempted to roll deep into the crowd for some shows. I would have been that person with a blanket sitting on the hill far enough away to avoid the crowd but close enough to see the performer on the screens and hear the music. Maybe.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as too young though. I saw peeps there with their newborns, and toddler-aged kids, and I was like, "...the fuck, dude?" I kinda get it. My kid is 4 and I remember schlepping her to restaurants and stuff like that hell bent on proving that having a kid doesn't in fact mean the end of You. Except, it kinda does. You can put hearing protection on your kid (kudos to the ones who did that btw) but you can't block their nasal passages from inhaling tons of second-hand smoke from Senior Tobacco and his whacky cousin, Tobacco Loco, both of which were in abundance and pretty unavoidable if you were anywhere near a crowd of people listening to music.

So, what was Osehaga?

It was fun in that I got to experience a bunch of bands that I either would not have gone to see on my own or that I had simply never heard of. For example, I'd have to be mental to even attempt to see Tyler the Creator (and also I simply wouldn't pay a lot of money for that shit), but I got to see him at Osheaga from a safe distance. I've missed Father John Misty when he came through town and thought nothing of it, even though a friend recommended him. I saw him at Osheaga and damned if I'm not a believer. I hate St. Vincent's music, but I saw her stage performance because one my buddies is in love with her and it was actually interesting and entertaining. She's an amazing guitarist (but I still hate her music).

It was frustrating at the marks of entrance and exit, because there were sooooo many people there. Trying to get in and out of that place was an exercise in supreme patience...which a lot of people lacked. During the day people entered the festival in waves, so while there was ALWAYS a mob getting onto the train, trying to squeeze through the station exits, through the security checkpoints and finally into the festival, when it was time to leave it was pretty much everyone doing this at once. It was miserable. We shuffled shoulder to shoulder, ass to front like a wave of drunken, tired zombies. At least some of us did. Others of us thought that we deserved to get to the front no matter what and just tried to shove our way through.

This leads nicely into my biggest issue (and why I probs wouldn't go again)...

Holy entitled white girls, Batman!

Ahem. Sorry. But look man...you know who I'm talking about. If you've ever been to a concert and seen the girls dancing and sashaying their way through the crowd, drink held aloft and "woooos" emitting from their mouths like some sort of It Girl siren, you know them. Or maybe you met their slightly lower key sisters, the ones who come plowing through the crowd with their hands firmly clasped together saying, "My friends are up there." What do you call them? Bras? Broettes? Bro sisters?

Whatever the term, those bitches suck.

It's really annoying to be standing in a tightly-packed crowd watching a show, and having people continuously shoving past you searching for that mythical "extra" space ahead. It disrupts your enjoyment of the show and for me, fills me with a white hot rage at the notion that they think the tickets they purchased somehow hold a larger cosmic value than mine. They're the kind of girls who would look me up and down and say some low value shit like, "Whatever, you're just mad because you're fat and I'm hotter than you." Well sure, being fat and unattractive makes me mad, but it doesn't somehow absolve you of the fact that you're a bitch. The two don't cancel each other out or anything. It's cool that you're hot (or that you believe you are), but how about using your powers for good instead of evil?

Some of the dudes were just as bad with that crowd-shoving shit, and harder to stop. The chicks are counting on their looks to stop people from saying anything —which works because Bros were like, "No problem" and actually stepping on people around them to make non-existent space because Hope— and Bros were counting on no one wanting to get stomped. I went to a couple of shows that I was sure would be Bro-free zones, but there they were. Florence and the Machine?! Why are Bros at Florence and the Machine? Surrounded by Bros and Bras alike no one catches the irony when St. Vincent says something like, "Hello to all the freaks and artists and queers and dominants and submissives", essentially giving a shout-out to the Others. Like...notice she didn't say "Hey Kappa Gamma Alpha Epsilon!" Or, "Hey gurrrllll!"

Whatever. I kept my cool and stayed at the back of the crowd. I drank away my old-person hang-ups about being pushed and shoved. That worked, except at the end of the second night when I tried to see Kendrick Lamar. That's gonna have to be a separate post though, because that shit was serious for me and I've tried to keep this on a light note.

Ultimately, Osheaga was fun and I'm glad I did it at least once. I got to see some awesome bands that I knew and others that I'd never heard of. I got to do the kind of thing I would have liked to have done when I was younger but was too broke to do. Although there were plenty of Bros and Bras, there were also smaller segments of hippie chicks and stoners and grown-ups and hip-hop heads and gay dudes and lesbians and other counter-culture types. We were just in smaller supply. Would I do it again?

Who's playing?

The Truth About the Backlash Against Rachel Dolezal

Rachel Dolezal, for those who have avoided the internet over the last week or so, is the head of Spokane chapter of the NAACP. Rather, she was. She just resigned. She resigned because rumor has it she was born a white woman but has been living her life as a black woman for the last 10 years. I say rumor has it because what we have to go on right now is:

1. Silence from Rachel Dolezal herself
2. Statements from her parents regarding her heritage
3. Countless blogs, articles, and random people who've purchased tickets for the Indictment Train

The silence from Dolezal herself is telling. I mean, let's be honest here: if there was no truth to this, she'd out in front fighting. That's what I believe. So, her silence is damning in and of itself and seems to hold up the contention that yes, she is indeed a woman who was born white and passed as black for years. Her parents? While I don't really believe they're lying (see my previous assertion) the fact that their relationship with their daughter is "strained" at best makes me wonder why they've chosen to come forth now to unmask her. What's their motivation? It's certainly not to mend any fences with her because this act is sure to alienate her further. There's some legal action happening between them; maybe they hope to discredit her for some sort of advantage in whatever legal proceedings are happening. Parents who would go out of their way to "expose" and embarrass their child though? They get a huge question mark in both the motivation and character categories from me. 

And lastly there are the people with pitchforks, ready to call down hellfire and damnation upon Dolezal's head. Let's get this straight, right here and right now: I have no problem with what Rachel Dolezal did. Not a one. The only things I have questions/concerns about are a) did she use "being black" as a leg up in some way (for example, let's get more info about her Howard scholarship), and b) did she do good works for the community in her role as NCAAP President? That's all that matters as far as I'm concerned. 

There are some in the community (and by some I mean the majority it seems) who are eager to throw around words like "appropriation" and "exploitation", etc. Any word that ends in "ation". I fail to see it. You know what I do see? I see the real reason black folk are upset about this. If anyone actually read this blog I'd get a ton of shit about what I'm about to say, but since no one does, I'mma have a cup of Feel Free and tell you why I think black people are really pissed off about Rachel Dolezal.

Traditionally marginalized groups say that we're fighting for equality and inclusion. At the same time though we take a certain pride in our otherness. We like the fact that there are certain qualities attributed to us that seem out of reach of "outsiders". We make these comparisons jokingly, but there's an underlying pride and truth in it. Dolezal knocked on the "Black Door" and gained entrance, and that pisses some of us off. She managed to become "one of us" and stepped right into so many things that we think of as intrinsically "Black". That's what has people tripping so hard. 

Go to Twitter. The #AskRachel hashtag was focused solely on her ability to fake "black knowledge". Do you know the theme song from "A Different World"? Can you tell us how many 'leven times the Yin Yang Twins been to the club (that one made me laugh)? Stupid shit like that. Testing her cultural literacy–her "black" cultural literacy. Never mind that the woman teaches Africana Studies; can you tell us what you do after you stop and drop*? On Facebook people are all aflutter about the fact that she had a small business doing black hair. How could she do black hair?! She's white! 

She knocked on the secret black door, got let in, and did "black" things—well enough to fit in! But—gasp—black things are for black people! If everyone is able to do them, well...we lose what makes us black. Y'know, because we define blackness by stuff like sitcoms and lyrics instead of ideology and roots. So when a white woman is able to mimic, replicate the things that we think make us inherently black (she rocked the shit out of those braids) it's threatening. It's the same reason people give so much shit to rappers like Iggy Azalea. It's not necessarily that she sucks–although I'm not particularly a fan—but it's more that this white, Australian woman has the audacity to try and take part in something that belongs to black people. 

Two weeks ago folks were falling all over themselves to congratulate Caitlyn Jenner on having the courage to be herself, to let her outside reflect who she is on the outside. People were also quick to attack anyone who thought differently about that. Now, work with me here for a moment. If we live in a time and society where we're attempting to understand and accept that people can be born into bodies that don't match who they are on the inside in regards to sex...is it not possible that people may also feel they weren't born into their proper bodies on a racial spectrum? I know, it sounds crazy, but if you had said to me 5 years ago that there were people who thought they were really the opposite sex I'd have said the same thing. Obviously I have no idea what Racel Dolezal's internal working are, or what her motivation for the last 10 years has been. I like to give her the benefit of the doubt and think that she felt no connection to her parents but a great affinity to black people and our community and simply wanted to be a part of it; in essence, that she felt "black inside". I don't understand why a journey to match your sex up with how you feel is more lauded and acceptable than a journey to match your race up with how you feel inside. It's all about finding ourselves, right, you hypocrites? 

So, an argument I've read as to why this is so "harmful" and "disingenuous" is that because she's white she has the ability to shake her black persona and reclaim the privilege of being white whenever she wants, and black people can't do that. I object to that simply because it's a gross oversimplification. We have historical accounts of light-skinned black people who could and did pass as white as the need arose, and could therefore move between cultures just as Dolezal can. Just because I, as a chocolate-skinned black woman, could never be mistaken for a white woman, doesn't mean there are not black people who can and are. So let's not pretend that that doesn't exist and that she has cornered the market on being able to pass. 

I finally got all of that off my chest. Y'all need to let Rachel Dolezal be. You have no idea what she's done, why she's done it...nothing. You've already tried and convicted her in the court of public opinion and it's stupid. Some of you are just mad because she's done more in her 10 years as a "black woman" to help/give back to the community than you have in your life. Others of you are, again, just mad because she gained entrance into a club that you thought had special requirements, but she can watch The Cookout with the best of us. 

Rachel, I ain't mad at you. 

*Shut 'em down, open up shop - Ruff Ryder's Anthem

Teflon Man

He's everywhere. Everyone who's had a job has probably run into this guy, and maybe been as frustrated as I am with his amazing abilities to deflect all responsibility.

Let me tell you of my latest run in with this Super Non-Hero.

I work in tech. We have a platform on which we process log lines from a web server. They go through a product called syslog, which in turn writes those logs to a central storage unit. All of our environments (Development, Staging, Production) go through this syslog server and writes to our storage. Teflon Man decided that this was affecting our production environment, slowing things down because accessing the storage was getting slow, so he had a plan to change the syslog service to send all environment log lines —except production — to another storage server.

During the work day he changed the configuration file for the syslog server, essentially stopping it from processing anything except the production log lines. He did not however turn off the services writing those log lines from the other environments, so they were still writing log lines to syslog; syslog just wasn't processing them. This meant that the syslog server was creating a queue of those files.

That evening he went in and created new storage areas for the other environments. He then turned syslog back on with a configuration change pointing those log lines to the new storage. Syslog started to process all of the backed up log lines, while also trying to process the current incoming production log lines. We started falling behind in processing because syslog couldn't keep up. The thing is, no one knew that he'd done this evening work. He didn't call anyone, didn't send out an email, nothing.

I was on-call, so I got an alert about the lag. I checked a bunch of system logs to see if I could figure out what the issue was. We were clearly having problems, but it was none of the usual suspects. Eventually I called Teflon Man and he said, "Oh, I did this thing." He explained what he did (see the previous paragraph) and I told him to go back and change it because it was fucking up production. He did so.

Here's where the accountability issue comes in. This morning I spoke with him and identified 3 things that I thought were problems:

1. That we did not have monitoring that helped us quickly pinpoint the problem. This was a team issue, not his problem, but I thought it was something we should work on because time to resolution was pretty long. This was a no-blame point. All of my team are on notice when it's a monitoring failure. 
2. That a production change was made at night without a head's up to anyone. 
3. That he didn't monitor after his change to verify that everything was working smoothly. 

He was able to agree with the first point because it was a team issue. He didn't have to take any personal responsibility for this failure. The other 2 points though? Oh, he had answers for those and at no point accepted that he may have done something wrong. Regarding making a production change at night he said, "Well, it wasn't a production change really. I was only changing Staging and Dev." The change was made on a production box; what part of that means it wasn't production? 

On the third point he had the same argument. He had checked to make sure syslog came back up after he restarted it (which was necessary for the configuration change to take effect) and that was it because, again, he didn't think he was affecting production. Ummm...you had to restart a service that pulls production log lines. How is that not affecting production?! 

Ultimately he blamed it on the technology. Syslog isn't robust; syslog couldn't keep up. It also turned out that after he restarted syslog it was still backed up with the logs from the other environments because the permissions on the new mounts weren't correct, so it couldn't write to the new storage location. Who do you think created the new storage locations? He did. You'd think he'd have checked to make sure they were writing where they were supposed to be, but no. 

He had excuses for everything: excuses for why he hadn't monitored production after making the change to make sure we were still processing properly; excuses for syslog wasn't working; excuses for why he hadn't checked the permissions. At no point did he accept responsibility for his part in the problem. I'm not saying some sort of groveling thing; I mean a simple, "My bad." I make mistakes and I own up to them. This dude? Nope. The email he sent this morning was like this:

It appears that syslog was behind transferring production logs due to issues with processing the dev, qa and staging logs. After disabling the non production environments in syslog the production files started transferring normally and the pipeline is now catching up and lag is now decreasing.

Nice generic email that at no point explains that it was his fault. My emails, when I fuck something up, say things like, "I did x and this happened. I fixed it."

Lest you should think I'm not a team player, let me assure you that that is not the case. When I gave a post-mortem to my boss this morning I didn't say, "Teflon Man did this." I said, "We made changes yesterday" and "last night the config was changed". I kept it vague, I kept it team. No one is trying to throw anyone under the bus. But within the team, when you've caused the on-call person grief, you say, "Whoops, my bad" and own up to your shit.

Not Teflon Man.

This is especially grating this week because I've had a shitty week which started off with a botched firewall deployment which was my fault, and I got grief about it. Direct grief, not vague team grief. I owned up to it with the boss and my team. But this freaking guy right here? Nope. And my boss won't hold him accountable in any way. He found out that Teflon Man made the changes and his response was, "I'm concerned that we didn't troubleshoot it correctly, that it took us longer than I'd have liked to figure out what the problem was." Really? That's what you've got? Someone made a change to the production system sans warning, sans input from others, and you're focusing on how long it took us to figure it out? That's all you've got? Not maybe that if we'd known about the change that would be the first thing we'd have investigated?

Ugh.

Car Trouble

We drive a 1998 Honda Accord, manual transmission. It's been a good, reliable car (as Hondas tend to be) but it's starting to show its age. The driver-side back door doesn't open from the outside any more; you have to reach around from the inside to open it. There's a very embarrassing clicking sound when you turn the wheel. I liken it to the sound you get when you put a playing card in the spokes of your bike—cute on a bike, not so cute on a car.

Wifey and I have different priorities for a car. It's the story of our lives really, so we have to work hard at compromise. For me, power and sexiness was key. I wanted a car that looked good and had plenty of pickup for those times I wanted to zoom around that fucking Prius that's in the wrong lane to be going the speed limit. Wifey is more concerned about fuel economy. She wants a hybrid ideally, but I'm kinda staunchly against the Prius so that cuts down our options. Have I mentioned I hate Prius drivers? Not for their ideology, but for the way they drive. They suck. I'd buy a Tesla in a heartbeat though, as would Wifey, but at $60k it's not happening any time soon.

We came up with a compromise list. About the only thing we could definitely agree on were that we wanted a manual transmission again (because they're fun to drive and damn sexy), and a moonroof. Essentially, we wanted what we currently have but in a newer car. The cars we settled on trying out were:

• Honda Accord EX, manual
• Honda Accord Hybrid
• Mazda 6

We struck out with every. single. one. We weren't asking for much: manual transmission, cloth seats (because Wifey is a vegetarian), and a moonroof. The exact same things that we have in our current Accord. 

We started out with the Mazda because it's a sexy car, has awesome ratings and customer satisfaction, and it's just something different than the Honda. The Mazda comes in 3 trims: Sport, i Touring, and Grand Touring. The Sport lacked a moonroof. The i Touring also lacked a moonroof, and it was only available in leatherette, which Wifey wasn't thrilled about even though it wasn't real leather. The Grand Touring would have, admittedly, gotten us everything we wanted—but it only came with leather seats. 

We moved on to the Honda. Safe, boring Honda. They've done a few things to the Honda since we got ours though, and the Accord is actually kinda sporty looking, and has a nice stick shift—a sporty, short one. It felt really good to drive. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the Hybrid was also a nice drive, despite the fact that it was a hybrid and automatic. Wifey was obviously very excited about the Hybrid too. The downsides to it? No moonroof, no manual transmission, and no trunk space. We were willing to overlook the transmission type, and even considered leaving the moonroof. The trunk space was the killer though. It's only about 12.7 cubic feet, which is simply not big enough. The back seats also don't fold down at all, so you only get that 12 feet—not a bit more. I'm a musician and have to haul gear around sometimes. It would be pretty tight to get my amp and guitar into a trunk that size. There's also the occasional Home Depot trip, trips to the Vineyard where we pack our lives up for a weekend, long road trips to Cleveland...you get the picture. 

The Accord EX was the only car we looked at that offered all the features we wanted. The only downside was that it came in all of two colors: light grey and dark grey. We were fine with this though. If we could get everything else we were more than willing to have our color prospects limited. We went through our local dealer who located two cars. We thought we were finally at the end of our journey, but those two were already spoken for and the dealer couldn't find anyone else in the area who had that exact model with those exact specs. 

We had struck out three times. 

Now we're kind've circling the wagons again, trying to figure our our next steps. We're extending our search to some other areas that we travel to from time to time. The Hybrid is still out, but we're hoping we can find the EX manual somewhere. The Mazda is likely out because not only does it only come in leatherette, it has no moonroof. 

Honestly, I don't get how fucked up these trim levels are. It's super frustrating. 

Streaming's Got Me Steaming

Friday night and I'm at home with The Kid because Wifey has a social engagement. I dig our Troublesome Twosome evenings because it's a nice bonding opportunity for the two of us, and often what I'll do is set up a movie night since we generally don't allow her a lot of screen time. We do it up: fun "junky dinner" (like hot dogs are something), popcorn, ice cream. The works. That night she asked to watch The Lion King. You remember The Lion King, right? "I just cant wait to be king"? "Kakuna Matata"? Came out in 1994?

So we hit the tv room and I prepare to search for it online. I'm used to this dance, y'know? It happens every time we want to watch something. I start off with Netflix and usually strike out because Netflix has zilch for movies. Then I move on to FiOS On-Demand because why not? Usually I can stop right there and get on with my evening. Not this night, my friends. Not this night. FiOS didn't have The Lion King. I move on to XBox and start searching their various video offerings for it, including Amazon Prime. Nothing. At this point I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I can find Big Hero 6, which was out not that long ago, but I can't find a decades old movie?  It didn't make sense to me. Unfortunately no amount of searching yielded the ability to stream The Lion King. So, we had to watch Bob the Builder episodes. A bunch of them. I fucking hate Bob the Builder. All of those construction vehicle characters have entirely too much hubris.

Later that night after the little one was asleep, I figured I'd treat myself to a little movie viewing. I had a desire to watch some super hero action/adventure, and I was kinda craving Robert Downey Jr. so I decided to look for a little Avengers. I followed much the same route as earlier (with the exception of the XBox Video because by this time I was laying in bed with my iPad). I started with Netflix, went on to Amazon Prime. Not available to stream. Netflix has some cute Avengers cartoons, but I didn't want cute cartoons. Okay, how about Iron Man? I'll even take the first one. Nope. At this point I wanted to throw something. So much content, so many services, and we still have really shitty selection. I honestly don't get what makes it so that I can't stream any of the Fast and Furious movies, or Spiderman or even Taken, but I can get Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Robocop? I can get something old as shit like The Fifth Element, but not The Lion King? Why can I stream Dirty Dancing but not Mannequin?!

I know, I know, there are complicated forces behind these things, legions of dark-suited media pimps haggling and bargaining across the biggest solid oak table you've ever seen. It just seems crazy to me that everything is not available to stream by now—especially the old stuff! Like, I thought Netflix was the Last Stand for some of these old movies. Who does it benefit to keep this stuff vaulted up? Surely you'd make more money letting a service offer all of this old stuff so that people like me can go traipsing down memory lane than by letting it rot in a vault? How about the fact that Age of Ultron is coming out soon? I can't be the only person who wanted to reacquaint myself with The Avengers so that I would be up-to-date when the movie releases soon.

I get that "they'd" much rather have you buy the DVD/BlueRay disc/whatever but surely there's a dropoff time where you reckon if someone hasn't bought it by then, they're not gonna. I haven't purchased Michael Keaton-era Batman; I doubt that's going to change now. So just freaking stream it!

I wound up watching Voltron that night. Voltron! I love Voltron, but c'mon. You have Voltron and you don't have Short Circuit?

Ugh.

The Oddity of Banking Security

I stopped into 7-Eleven today to buy a few things. I swiped my debit card and it said "declined". I tried it again. Declined. I checked my statement right there from my phone and it said I had plenty of money to make the purchase. I had also just bought a cup of coffee (medium french vanilla, cream and sugar if you ever want to buy one for me) and I seriously doubted $2.12 had drained my account. I feared my account had been compromised in some way so after handing back my purchases and slinking away in embarrassment I called my bank.

About my bank: I'd been using ING Direct for a long time. I loved their service. Even if there was no brick and mortar place for me to do stuff like deposit physical checks or whatever I never needed one, and since I use my debit card for most transactions I wasn't even put out by the occasional fee to withdraw from someone else's ATM. ING Direct got bought by Capital One and so now I have a Capital One 360 account. I thought it would be shitty because Capital One, but so far the differences have been pretty transparent

The customer service rep was really nice and I didn't even have to wait on hold for long. She looked up my info and saw the declines. Every decline gives them a code that tells them why it was declined so she was able to drill down and let me know what the problem was and fix it pretty quickly. According to her there was a suspicious transaction on my card that had caused a freeze to be put on my account. The suspicious activity was a $20 charge from Audiokite, a service that allows musicians to upload their songs and get it reviewed by x number of anonymous users. It's a pretty cool service and a valuable tool for musicians if you don't have the means/exposure to get official reviews from the press.

I totally get the need for security, and in general I'm happy that my bank is looking out for me (I mean, not actually looking out for me really but protecting their own reputation and interests, but it benefits me so I'm not going to quibble about their reasons), but the way they did this one baffles me.

First of all, Audiokite is based in the states, in New York I believe. I spent a week in the Dominican Republic and used my card to charge things and even to withdraw pesos from an ATM. At no time did they flag my account, contact me to report that my buying pattern had turned suspicious, or anything of that nature. I was in another country! Yet a transaction from a US company aroused their suspicion? What's with that?

Second, I asked the rep if they should have contacted me to let me know that they had frozen my account for suspicious activity. She said they should have, and a check of the record showed that they'd initiated an automated call to let me know. Well, in fact they did call me. Earlier this morning I received an automated call from a 1-800 number that went something along the lines of "We're contacting you about suspicious activity with your banking institution." I listened to that generic message, made from a number that did not match the one on the back of my card, and assumed it was some sort of scam or phishing expedition. I mean, you can't be too careful about that stuff and I get spam calls to my cell all the time. I told her as much and she chuckled and admitted that yeah, their calls do sound like scam calls. So...you know, would it hurt to say the name of the bank in the message, and maybe to specify to call the number on the back of your card for assistance so that you're not skeezed out by some random 800 number? Maybe?

Anyway, I got it cleared up but I went ahead and withdrew some cash because I didn't want to go back into 7-Eleven and try it again. Their eyes were so...judging.

Rollin' in Pesos --- But I Won't Be Back

I just spent a week in the Dominican Republic with Wifey and Princess Jr. We were staying with some friends who've been living there for a few years now. I'm about to tell you about that stay, and I want to acknowledge two things:

1. I realize that I can never really complain about being someplace where the weather is in the 80s and above all the time when the alternative was for me to be in Boston getting snowed on. 
2. I am about to speak from a place of extreme privilege, specifically American privilege. I find it ironic that can go to another country and feel privileged because of my American-ness, but I don't feel privileged in my own country even though I don't stop being American when I'm at home. That's another post for another day though. 

So, let me quickly note the things that were enjoyable about the DR:

• Our friends were there, and we like them, so yay. 
• Beaches. Lots of beaches. If you like beaches, another yay. I happen to enjoy beaches so that worked for me. 
• Some neat natural wonders that weren't hidden behind miles of rope. We visited Los Tres Ojos the day before we left, and it is amazing. Underground caves and lakes, and not a single security guard or rope or anything. You could dip your toes into the water, you could touch the stones and stalagmites—essentially you could interact with it in a way that you usually can't with US places of this nature. 

The reason you can run all over the place here is kind've the heart of the DR though: No hay reglas. There are no rules. It's like some kind of Mad Max world. That's probably why, as a person who kind've likes rules and order, I didn't dig it. 

Herein begins the rant. 

The country is filthy. I have never seen litter like in the DR. Seriously, I get pissed off at home when I see a candy wrapper or crushed beer can chilling in the grass because we've gotten to the point where litter is no longer the norm. They didn't get the memo in the DR. Shit is gross. You drive along the highway and there's this beautiful coastline with sandy beaches and grass, and you see all of this white shit dotting the grass and you're like, What's that? And then you realize it's styrofoam containers and bottles and plastic bags and all kinds of crap. And no, this isn't tourist detritus. These are people who freaking live here!! They give zero fucks about it. Remember how I said there were beaches everywhere? Well, with your white sands and blue water you're likely to also find someone's dinner remains. Zero. Fucks. 

Now, you can probably go to one of their all-inclusive resorts and have some pretty nice clean beaches. By far one of the best beaches we visited was Playa Coson, largely because it didn't lie right next to any major throughway or streets. Pretty much it looked like only tourists frequented it. It was removed enough that it was "unspoiled". The beaches that were more in the heart of things like at Las Terrenas or the beaches at Boca Chica though? Nope. I saw a dude walk right up to the shore on one beach and empty his pockets and walk away. No one gave him a second glance. He was a local. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the beaches the locals frequent, which were the ones we usually went to because they were closest to Santo Domingo, were the dirtiest ones. I actually found an interesting website with forum posts about the trash problem there after I Googled to see what kind of waste management system they have in place. In a nutshell: none. 

If you ever visit the DR and don't stay in an all-inclusive, i.e a place you won't have to leave, do yourself a favor and hire a taxi. Do not attempt to drive. I always thought Boston drivers were kind've lawless, pulling all kinds of stunts like creating lanes where there are none, cutting people off...just generally being Mass-holes. You've seen nothing until you've been in Santo Domingo-area traffic. There are no rules. It's a free-for-all, and as a result there is a lot of honking, a lot of standoffs, and a lot of crappy-looking cars. They're called Frankenstein cars because they're made from all kinds of random parts, put together and barely running. They break down so much that there are literally DR-equivalent AAA trucks just waiting around every few miles on the highway. Even the rental car we got from the airport was missing the original radio. It was some after-factory thing held in place in part by a piece of wood, and the oil cap was missing. I've seen bootleg cars; I grew up in the poor part of a major city. Some of family members are currently driving cars that should not be on the road. But I've never seen anything like this. 

People here are on the take. Everyone. Everywhere you go, they are trying to sell you a service or a thing or whatever. Wifey and our friends called them "entrepreneurs". I call them annoying and con artists. Dudes put on fake but official-looking vests with nametags and offer you services. You have to watch out for that shit. We parked at a restaurant on the beach at Boca Chica. We were literally less than 50 feet from our car and could see it perfectly. Dude offered to watch our car for money. I said no. We finished up, went to our car, and he approached us for payment. I was like, "No. I didn't ask you to watch it. I told you I didn't want you to watch it." He was pissed. Fuck him. I was at the end of my rope anyway. At that same beach we had people approaching us every 5 minutes, seriously, trying to sell us shit. "Want me to braid your daughter's hair?" "Want a massage?" "Want some of this fresh seafood I just caught today?" "Want a cd?" "Want some sunglasses?" "How about an inflatable ballooon for the nina?" And on and on and on. That can really put a cramp in a "relaxing" day at the beach. 

You go to a tourist attraction like Los Tres Ojos or the Colonial Zone and "tour guides" will offer their services to you. You don't need a tour guide for a building with one room and placards explaining everything. You don't need a tour guide for an attraction that comes with headphones and an audio tour. You wouldn't give some random guy off the street money to give you a tour of Anne Frank's house, but in the DR dudes disguise themselves you think they're official and part of the attraction. Language barriers aid that misconception, and they know it. I'm lucky I saw this in the guide book or I would likely have fell for it. 

At the airport for our flight back I attempted to get a cart to haul our luggage inside. The carts are free. Some dudes though, who I'm pretty sure are not actually employed by the airport, are standing around outside with carts and they claim you. They roll up to the side of your car as you pull up, they wait until you start unloading your luggage, and they start taking it from you and telling you that they'll help you. I asked our friend if I should let them or go get my own cart and she said, "Sure, but they'll expect a tip". She slipped a few pesos into my hand for him, hugged us goodbye, and left. The dude rolled the cart through the sliding doors right up to the checkin line...which was literally a few feet from the door. He then unloaded our bags in the line and looked at me expectantly. I was disgusted. I put the coins in his hand, he looked at them, and then he was disgusted. I have no idea how much she gave me, but I felt fine about him feeling stiffed because what kind of tip did he want for rolling our luggage cart 20 feet!? I could have carried all of our shit in there myself! Entrepreneurial my ass. 

I don't know if it's obvious to you, but this was by far the most annoying part of this country for me. 

The food sucks. It's bland and tasteless. The only dish I had that was delicious was something called boca chica, which is essentially deep fried whole fish. The best I had it was at a place called Soya Azul, which was another beachside restaurant that was maybe the second nicest beach we'd gone to. Only complaint I have about that beach were the rocks (ouch!) and a lot of seaweed. By the way, I had to Google the name of this place to make sure I had the right beach, and one of the results was a page of Instagram photos. This chick

was literally right in front of us on the beach while she was taking these. We laughed about it because you see pics like these all the time, and you think, Who are these people in bikinis making duck faces? And then there she was, literally doing it right in front of us. Good times. I have to show Wifey. She'll get a kick out of this. 

Other than that though Dominican food was pretty horrible. It's like the existence of salt hasn't made itself known over there. They really like Italian food though. You can find pasta dishes everywhere. Those aren't bad, but it's kind of weird to go to a country and eat another country's food, you know? Like, it's a rule of mine not to go to another country and eat some American chain food (although I was sorely tempted at one point). 

Also, beer. Would you like Presidente? No? How about Presidente Light? No? Welllll...maybe we have Corona. You'd rather do that than drink water from the tap in a country where maybe 49% of the water has been treated, and even then you can't be sure of the water treatment system itself. You can drink bottled water...but where was it bottled? Presidente is sounding good, huh? In the bottle. No hielo.  

Couple of other notes that are not vacation gripes but just general observations. People over there seem to either be really poor, or really "rich". I say "rich" because I don't know what rich translates to in pesos. Like, we went into a mall with a L'Occitane in it and that was supposed to be a place where "rich" Dominicans go to hang, but airports have L'Occitanes in them too. Any random mall over here could have one. My friends were like, "Yeah, you can go to that mall if you want to spend like 1000 pesos on a shirt." 1000 pesos roughly translates to almost $100 or something US, and there are definitely people I know who would spend that kind of money on a shirt, and I wouldn't consider them rich. I think DR "rich" is actually middle class, and they look rich simply because there is such a huge contrast between them and the lower classes. Like, there's a huge difference between driving a brand new shiny Mazda and a Frankenstein car, right? I drive a '98 Accord that has seen better days because I'm cheap, but I'm still in the same income bracket as someone driving a new Volkswagen. That doesn't seem to be the case in the DR. I saw most of this disparity outside of the city proper, along the highways. 

Dudes with guns. Lots of dudes with guns. Everywhere. At toll booths, at the entrance to apartment complexes, in strip malls. Big guns too. They looked like sawed-off shotguns, but I didn't exactly stare at them. They were in military fatigues and looked to be official, but it was difficult to tell if they were private security firms or members of the police force or army or what. Now look, I know that the police force around me in the States are obviously armed. The Bank of America building I walk past to work sometimes has an armed guard at the door. This is not news to me. Maybe it's the size of the guns, that they're so blatant about it. Maybe it's the casual nature in which they hold them. Maybe it's because they're everywhere. I've never driven through a toll booth on the Pike and seen armed guards hanging out there, protecting...something. Never had to walk past an armed guard on the way back from the swimming pool in a private building either. I mentioned this to my friend, and she said, rightly, "Would you rather you couldn't see them?". It made me very nervous though, especially after reading warnings on the US Department's website about dudes posing as officers to shake you down, and actual police officers pulling you over to extort you. I'll admit, visiting that site was not the best thing to do for an already nervous traveler. It made it seem like the DR was full of criminals waiting to snatch your bag, follow you to your hotel and then snatch your bag, or follow you to your hotel, rape you, and then snatch your bag. 

Also, just throwing this out there, but a black woman with short hair and more masculine traits (i.e. shorts, t-shorts, no make-up, baseball cap) traveling with a much more feminine white woman and a clearly mixed-race child? That gets attention, and not the positive kind. I can't tell you how many stares I got. Lots of eyeballs moving between me and Wifey trying to figure shit out. Homosexuality is not illegal in the DR, but they don't exactly like it. 

In short, if I were to ever return to the DR, I would stay in a resort. Fuck trying to experience the local culture. I did it and found it lacking. I'm ready to seclude myself in a safe, clean resort.