Travel

Straight to God's Ear

Dogs howling at the moon. I roll over and from bed I look up to eighteen thousand feet of snow-covered peaks, shimmering in the moonlight. Shit, I gotta catch a plane! I throw on my clothes and race down the stairs, grab my last pair of underwear off the clothes line, stuff them in my pocket, throw my bag on my head, stumble through the turnip patch and onto the trail. I drink in the vista one last time. Fields of blooming mustard greens tint the valley a hazy yellow, tall poplar trees line the paths, and every little house sports a well tended vegetable garden.

The stream that winds its way through Leh and past the giant prayer wheel nurtures it all. In this remotest corner of India, one spin of the wheel and your prayers go straight into Gods ear. Beyond the village, as the stream peters out, the view is a vast barren moonscape of chocolate mountains, where not so much as a blade of grass grows. In the distance on all sides, the biggest platinum mountains I’ve ever seen. I lope through the village at dawn, past the monastery and the stark grey palace carved out of the hillside in the center of town. The air is thin, the bag is heavy and I’m out of breath. I flash a smile at my taxi driver and he waits while I duck into the bakery to grab a cup of Ladakhi tea, brewed from toasted barley and fermented yak butter. Its hot and salty, and it feels good on my dry lips.

This past weekend I was in San Francisco for The 8th Annual Sketchfest. This was a two week long Comedy Festival with comic performers ranging from Stand-up, One Person Shows, Improv Groups, Sketch Companies and then there were shows that sort of defied description. Some of those were the ones I took part in. 

I was lucky enough to see a few shows besides our own.  I saw The Lampshades; the best fake lounge act I’ve seen in a long time.  The physical work they do is sublime and hilarious. I took a peek at 2-Headed Dog, but they were doing a sketch that had three men running around in their underpants and little else. They were dancing in a manner that had their peculiar distributions of body fat jiggle in a way that caused me to run out of the theatre.  I’m not saying I’m the Venus DeMilo, but I don’t choose to subject anyone to the sight of my sorry flesh sac.

The Theme Park Improv Show had Scott Adsit from 30 Rock and Oscar Nunez from The Office. They were outstanding, but what was really impressive was two of the performers in the troupe were the event promoters. You just never figure people that talented would have it together enough to pull something like this off. They did some of the best improv I’ve seen in a long time.

We were married in the garden of my parent's home in Palm Beach and then hurried to a Norsea 26, the small sailboat my wife had purchased before our marriage, waiting at the dock on Palm Beach's Lake Trail. Nothing in the City of Light could promise to be more luminous than our island home.

Wild parrots, raucous and fast, lived in Palm Beach also. They had moved here from the south and formed a colony. When they landed at night in a park or neighboring tree, it was like emerald rain. I would go to Kay Rybovich's clapboard house along the Intracoastal Waterway in the early morning for coffee when I was growing up. She and her husband John had owned a marine works, and made fishing craft for Hemingway; Kay and John would motor them to Cuba, and she told me about fishing with the author and of marlin and swordfish that rose from the sea like gods.

Ann and I clambered aboard her boat, and lazed north. We stayed close to shore. If there were great shadows in the foliage and the shadows were silver and wet in the morning from brushing against leaves, they were Florida black bears. When they lumbered from their feeding place, spoonbills burst above the trees.

New Orleans, founded in 1718, has many long standing traditions. During the holidays, many of these still exist and there are even a few new ones! There is always a reason to have a celebration in New Orleans but from November - January, traditions and celebrations truly shine.

The sound of the trumpet heralds the opening of New Orleans' holiday season at the Fairgrounds Race Course on Thanksgiving Day. The Fairgrounds is the third oldest and continuously operating thoroughbred racetrack in the United States. It's first race was in 1852. Turkey, hats, horses…it's off to the races!

The Roosevelt Hotel opened in 1893 and has seen a number of famous people walk through it's lobby from politicians to royalty. Beginning in the 1930s, The Roosevelt Hotel became a destination of delight for children and parents alike with their beautiful lobby filled with holiday lights. At one end of the lobby is Domenica Restaurant run by Chef Alon Shaya, an Israeli-born chef who has created a special Hanukkah menu for the holidays. Shaya's latkes, short ribs and Hanukkah doughnuts are a new tradition not to be missed.