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Related: About this forumTime for an Introduction! A cosmopolitans story.
Some people call me a pirate. Others the Strider. Some even call me a wizard. One pet name I have been given from friends of mine in Malta, was Dr. Gonzo. During a time I was trying to get over a breakup with my ex. from Belfast, Northern Ireland, I went to Malta to write, and to rub some multinational betting company's nose!
I am a writer! I am a traveler! I have gone to high school in Kansas. I lost my virginity to an Italian girl at 17 in New York City. That qualifies me to care about what goes on in a country I once had this childish, romantic perceptions of. After that year, my feelings have cooled off a bit. After my year in the army, with a tour of duty in Bosnia, my journey over to the "dark pacifist side" being sceptically towards everything I once held dea. I studied philosophy and pol. sci. at the University in Oslo. But spent most my time drinking, and writing poetry to 19 year old girls. Dreaming about my next big adventure. My interest in USA was awaken once again after 9.11 and Billo's wakeup call from his screaming tower at FOX. I was thinking to myself - what the hell has happened to a country I once held in such high reverence? For years, I thought that USA was doomed, and all reasonable voices have been silenced for good. That's when I rediscovered Hunter S. Thompson and George Carlin. That's when Keith Olbermann came on the screen. It was fun following "my country" again. During the dark days in 2007-08-09, Keith Olbermann was a beacon of light together with the comical legend. Hunter was long dead. Yet no writer occurred until Matt Taibbi started digging into the Vampire Squid on Wall Street.
I have lived in 6 countries the last 9 years, including my country of birth. I have been to more than 50 countries, and still counting. I plan not to go back to Norway until I have been around this whole planet.
I have been to heaven and hell in Belfast. I have written a book called Belfast City Blues. I have been witnessing both the welfare queen from Buckingham and Obamanation in Dublin. I have also been homeless and hungry in Dublin. I have been living it up at large in Malta - with cash in my pocket, and women, booze and drugs to spend it on. I have been working for a mobile company in Dorset, England I consistently called THC!
Now, I live and work with internet security in Athens, Greece.
Got only a few stories from there so far. Mostly about how austerity affects people , and how you have a bunch of leeches in the Greek Orthodox Church, tax evaders, and how the banksters are screwing the people, demanding they take a pay cut, AND force the people to pay whatever they alleged the Greek people owe them.
I have plenty from my beloved Ireland. Though I am Norwegian at birth, I have been so long abroad, and specially Ireland, I feel more and more like an Irishman. And I learned how to sharpen birth my tongue as well as pen in Belfast-engaged to a Protestant woman. In fact TWO of them. They both broke my heart, but gave me plenty to write about, and a reason to continue writing.
I have my little gorilla blog. Rants, and raving. Few readers. But I really don't mind that. Too much attention is sometimes not good. Specially if you want to travel incognito.
The last time I was back in my own country, I had a choice. I could stay, and become a poet rock'n roll star, or go out and travel again, become a corporate gopher in Ireland - once more. After another 8 months on the Emerald island, freezing, starving, and living in darkness, I had to find a way out of there. And Greece offered me a ticket. So I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, a ticket in my hand, and 85 Euros in my pockets, I took the leap of fate in January.
Next year, I hope to be in either South Africa, or Argentina. I think I will call my travel book
Now, I am writing in Democratic Underground, hoping to share some of my experiences, and give some advice as well as getting information! I need to know if USA still has a hope, and if you are worth hoping for. And perhaps, I will come back to what once was "Land of the Free". Now, I see both Weimar, and a crumbling Rome.
My first advice!
Liberalism before partisanship and blind leadership mentality! When your own elected government transgress from their alleged values, and promises, you keep them accountable! Punish them!
"The most dangerous man to, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to he conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are."
HL Mencken
[link:https://www.youtube.com/user/bohemianwriter1|
[link:http://bohemianwriter1.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/greece-today/|
