Killing Batteries

Bucharest was pretty dreadful, but I’ve had worse. Naples comes to mind - and that hellhole Andorra la Vella. Or that time in Los Angeles, when I drove from UCLA to Orange County… Nevertheless, I won’t be buying property in Bucharest soon or even investing in a 10-ride metro card. In many ways Bucharest is like a port town, but without the port. People arrive by plane and train, then promptly flee for more agreeable destinations.

I’ll grudgingly admit that there are worthwhile things to see here, but having visited every notable patch of grass in Romania, I can say with complete authority that anything and everything in Bucharest exists in much better form and surroundings at several other places in the country. If you’ve only got four days, fine, stay in Bucharest, if not, you’re doing yourself a disservice by lingering here.

Though not nearly as demoralizing as driving in Bucharest - which has unbelievably gotten worse in the past three years - five days on foot in Bucharest could break the patience and love of Gandhi himself. Hell, just sitting on a street corner can drain the hardest man’s will to live. The incessant car horns, the dense pollution, people screaming at each other, half-dead dogs and filth… Vlad Tepeş wouldn’t last 10 seconds in modern Bucharest. The first time someone drove by with a cigarette in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, splashing him with a totally avoidable puddle, he’d completely lose his shit. If only skewering wrongdoers from asshole to neck was still legal, people would probably have better manners around here. (more…)

Actually, I don’t really have anything else to say to you guys. I board a flight in just over 24 hours and as soon as I touch the ground in Bucharest, I’ll be a blur of over-Red Bulled, under-rested, stress-addled, bilingual jabbering motion for the next four weeks. I could promise to submit trip reports here at least once a week, but I really have no idea if that’ll be possible. On the surface, this research trip appears to be a cakewalk, but this is a Romania and Lonely Planet perfect storm we’re talking about here. Two entities that on their own virtually guarantee unpredictable chaos. When put together, be terrified (on my behalf). Be very terrified (on my behalf).

For you guidebook groupies, this research trip is only to update the chapters on Romania and Moldova for Lonely Planet’s Eastern Europe and Europe on a Shoestring books. So while the total number of pages that I’m writing/updating is far less than if I were also researching for the Romania & Moldova book, the geographic area that I’m covering has nearly doubled (I didn’t cover Bucharest or Transylvania last time, that was Robert’s job). So, while there’ll be less facts to check in each city and therefore less time spent pounding the pavement, there’ll be more time driving and as I’ve already testified, despite improvements in road conditions and driving behavior, driving in Romania and Moldova largely remains white knuckle, ass-tightening anarchy.

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Although it breaks all the rules of travel writing – I say that like I ever learned them in the first place - I’m going to start this destination report on a negative note, so I can get the bad juju out of the way and spend the rest of this space talking about fun stuff like white beaches and Happy Ending massages.

The fact is that I’ve been struggling with an awkward ethical dilemma while writing nice things about Saipan. I liken it to writing nice things about breast implants. Saipan is really nice to look when it’s under clothes or in a scandalously small bikini, but when viewed up close and naked, laying hands on the real estate if you will, it suddenly becomes less sexy.

Why am I being so helplessly judgmental about beautiful, interesting, affordable, gangs-of-fun Saipan? Mainly because I’m still a little web-shocked after having read Saipan Sucks from top to bottom. Talk about an ass-flogging smear campaign… I thought I was pissed off about stuff. I don’t have anything on that Saipan Sucks guy (or guys as they want us to believe).

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Yes, I’m finally posting what may very well be my least useful destination review ever: Guam.

Something like 1.8% of all annual visitors to Guam are Pinkies and having checked my blog visitor stats from the past week, I know that 0.0% of you are visiting from Asian countries (where 95% of Guam visitors come from), so the chances of any of you actually benefiting from the information contained in this post are virtually nil. But I wrote it anyway. Why? Because I’m a stud, that’s why. Also, I can work my mouse by clenching it between my pecs, a trick that never gets old at my house.

Furthermore, I apologize in advance to my non-US readers for the tone of this American-aimed post, because let’s face it, the precious few Pinkies that do make it to Guam are virtually all Americans. Let’s begin.

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Yeah, yeah, I’m posting twice this week, so just get over it already. Take your non-mouse hand, reach up and close your mouth before something flies in there and dies.

This relative flurry of posting is partly to make up for my rare, if ever, post frequency while I’m in Romania for four weeks in May and partly because I’m consumed in a stuttering rage of pissed offtitude!! If I hadn’t already launched my stress toy out my 26th story window during last week’s anti-travel writer BS, I’d be liquefying it right now as I transform into the Incredible Freelance Writer Hulk. Yeeeaarrrrgggjackhole!!

The incapacitating feelings of wrath that I’m experiencing right now are heightened because I feel obligated to be pissed off on behalf of every established and aspiring freelance travel writer in regards to the self-righteously obtuse comments recently made by New York Times travel editor Stuart Emmrich about their policy of not accepting stories that were written on the strength of any complimentary services (airline tickets, hotels, meals, etc.). Furthermore, he highlighted a point that I wasn’t aware of previously, that being the Times won’t accept any stories from a freelancer who has ever accepted a comp in modern history! Are you f*cking kidding me??

Well, to be fair, there were caveats. Like say the freelancer in question was bitten on the face three times by a Burmese King Cobra, in which case the Times is willing to overlook that the freelancer didn’t crawl out of the jungle, down the nearest village, hand over his emergency c-note to a black market money-changer so as to pay for the antidote out-of-pocket.

This is an old peeve of mine that has intensified as I’ve become crabbier and devoid of all empathy in the past few weeks, but it’s being especially tweaked because it’s coming from someone that I’d hoped would know better. Further to Mr. Emmrich’s comments, in case a hapless freelancer has any questions or needs clarification about possible loopholes, the Times has posted their ethics handbook online. Fair enough. For most forms of journalism, particularly for salaried employees, you gotta have something like this. But when dealing with freelancers, particularly in the arena of travel where research expenses are prohibitively high, you’ve gotta find a middle ground.

I don’t know what the Times pays for one-off articles, but I know the national average paid by newspapers is $200-300. I’ll give the NYT the benefit of the doubt, since they’re the Times and presumably have a little bit more money to throw around, and just guess that they pay $400-500 per piece. (Anyone that knows better, please comment below.) Nevertheless, this compensation doesn’t come anywhere near covering the expenses of, say, a five night trip to Copenhagen ($1,500-2,000), never mind the freelancer’s time investment (let’s call it six days of travel and two days of writing), which should be, at a minimum, $25 per hour (or $1,000 per week), what with the self-employment tax and other cruel penalties freelance writers have to deal with like costly individual health insurance that I swear I’ll look into just as soon as I get back from Romania, mom.

I point this out this no-brainer fact, because on the subject of pitching the NYT, Emmrich innocently offers that “The Travel section needs reporters to identify these stories and ferret them out, not people who just want to write up their vacation experiences.”

Oh really? Does it get a little exasperating that all you receive in your submissions inbox are hacks traveloguing their trip to Colonial Williamsburg? Are you wondering why most of these submissions are unprintable, clichéd amateur nonsense? Well since you seem to be genuinely baffled, I’ll tell you: it’s because any idiot can see that it’s mathematically impossible to make a living pitching to you. You can’t expect a professional writer to pay for expenses out-of-pocket for all of the trips they take year round, and then turn around and pay them the shit fee you pay for one-off articles. Maybe a hungry newbie will eat a $700 one-time loss for a NYT byline, but not a professional who has the rest of the year(s) to think about.

So, now that you’ve alienated 98% of the people that have the skills and qualifications to produce a NYT-worthy piece with your sanctimonious ban on comps, please don’t act surprised when all you receive are missives fired off by ambitious stay-at-home moms. (Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that. I love stay-at-home moms, particularly when they stay at home with their shrieking two year olds, rather than sitting next to me on a trans-Atlantic flight.)

To sum up, you can’t have it both ways. Either you’re gonna have to accept stories that involved comps - and have faith that the writer has the capacity to objectively review a comped service - or start reimbursing freelancers for their travel expenses. Or pay an upfront fee large enough that the writer actually has something left to buy groceries when all is said and done. We’re talking upwards of $1,500 for a short domestic destination piece and $3,500 or more for international destination features. If you expect everyone else around you to bow down to your rules on comps, you’re going to have to start putting out.

Better yet, cut the diplomatic crap, stop pretend-coaching potential NYT submitters and own up to the fact that in a perfect world you’d rather not deal with freelance submissions at all. This way you don’t have to spend one morning every six weeks slogging through the submissions inbox, deleting all those stories about Orlando and Philadelphia’s cheese steak stands, and people won’t waste time and energy sending those stories to you in the first place. After all, as Mr. Emmrich happily admits in the same piece, he has an overflowing pool of gifted, NYT salaried writers on hand that he can tap if he’s ever in a jam and no one can deny that they’re a lot easier to work with than a hodgepodge of time-consuming, one-off freelancer pieces.

Finally, Mr. Emmrich, with all due respect, clearly you’ve enjoyed the security and bulging paychecks of the NYT for a little too long to be authoritatively disseminating sage wisdom on the subject of freelance travel writing. The next time you feel compelled to lecture aspiring freelance travel writers, it would behoove you to emerge from your insulated, salaried Editorial Fortress of Solitude and bring yourself up to speed on the realities of freelance travel writing of the current century. Thank you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business errands to run that cannot be done until I’ve pancaked over the alarming green tone my skin has taken on and replaced the torn rags that were perfectly presentable Old Navy clothes when I started composing this diatribe.

For f*cks sake. What is it lately with idiots in travel media happily volunteering details about their enthusiastic drug use?

First the most short-sighted travel writer in the history of the world - since the guy that moblogged the Crusades - regaled us with how he used/traded/sold drugs during his incredibly, remarkably voluminous down time while doing guidebook road research in Brazil. Now Richard Quest, host of “CNN Business Traveler,” a show I’ve deeply enjoyed, helpfully divulged to police this weekend that he was packing a baggie of meth when he was picked up for loitering in Central Park after closing. Why God, why????

One has to assume that Richard was in an altered state at the time, but for the record, I’d like to introduce him - and any other visiting media from the U.K. – to this wacky concept that we in the U.S. call an “evidence drop.”

Essentially, when you’re holding gear and doom is imminent, you simply hide/chuck/flush or otherwise dispose of your stash before the fuzz tackles you. Admittedly, this is easier said than done in some circumstances, say while you’re tweaking in a car traveling at 110MPH in broad daylight while being pursued by six police cruisers and a helicopter. Inevitably someone will notice the incriminating package being tossed out the window and spinning off into the ditch. If not that, then most definitely the pair of Glocks that follow it. But, people honestly, when you’re in a darkened park, late at night, between the moment when the cruiser spotlight hits you and the moment that you’re in handcuffs, there’s plentiful opportunity to fling drugs, weapons, your prize-winning cock fighters or just about anything into the bushes. Indeed, if you plan to make a habit of cruising major metropolitan areas with felonious material, this is exactly the type of maneuver that it’d behoove you practice once in a while.

Oddly, masochistically, even after all the bad press of the past week, I’m still inexplicably desirous of a book deal and/or TV show hosting gig. But now I see I’ve been going about it all wrong. I’ve been trying to portray myself as a stable, hilarious and devilishly attractive candidate, which I see now is for losers and failures. So to demonstrate to everyone that I have limitless untapped range, please refer to the following photos, previously kept quiet, that I’m releasing now as it’s plainly clear that material like this is key to my instant and wild success.

Incidentally, I never went to Romania. And I researched Tuscany from the kitchen table of a brothel on the outskirts of Livorno. And I was on opium the whole time that I got for free in exchange for a positive review.

Please send all offers of cash and fame to my agent. Thank you.

I bet you all clicked over here expecting biblical raving about what everyone else is raving about right now in the form of a “This is what’s pissing me off today” to end all “This is what’s pissing me off todays”. Well, you’re not getting it.

There’s just no point. I haven’t read the book, details leaked by lazy media hacks about the book are turning out to be wrong, the book’s scandalous anecdotes, it seems, are greatly embellished… I’m not gonna waste my time filleting rumors that are so thinly connected to reality. I’ll just do what every other LP author is planning to do: wait until the release date, walk over to my neighborhood Barnes and Noble, pick up a copy of the book, swing through the on-site Starbucks for a ginormous iced coffee, sit down in a comfy chair, read the good portions of the book, put it back on the shelf 20 minutes later, come home and go to bed confident in the knowledge that my memoirs, staged in over a dozen countries, illustrating how success at travel writing can be had with honest, hard work rather than passive-aggressive deception and lies, while being hilarious without resorting to cheap shots or sabotaging my colleagues’ repute, would have been about 1,000% better. Or thereabouts.

Honestly, it seems to be nothing more than a so-so account of a couple short trips, with liberal Hunter S. Thompson style-theft, exposing the supposed dark underbelly of guidebook writing, while detailing with baffling honesty why he’s the worst travel writer to ever do the job. Where’s the controversy?

Meanwhile, I have larger matters to puzzle over, specifically my new LP business cards. It’s not that I don’t like them. Indeed, they’re infinitely cooler that the old ones. One side has the usual contact info and the other side has our pictures!!!

Now, Lord knows I like to see pictures of myself, but large portions of a guidebook writer’s job requires them to surreptitiously enter, assess and review hotels, restaurants, etc, and it seems if we’re running around handing out business cards with our pictures on them, it might make it a little easier for proprietors to spot us coming down the road and quick repaint the walls and herd the family dogs out of the kitchen into the back alley. We might as well have an advance team, entourage and police escort since any semblance of anonymity will be completely erased as these cards proliferate around our research regions.

Don’t get me wrong, under the right conditions, I’ll take all the attention and notoriety I can get. Never mind the business cards, if the right tourism official/publisher/beautiful woman appears, I yank a rip-cord on my belt and a neon green, glow-in-the-dark, full-body sandwich board inflates in exactly 1.4 seconds that reads “Yes, I’m a travel writer!” Best $29.99 I ever spent.

That said, I’ve been proudly handing these babies out to every person even remotely tied to tourism in the past few weeks to resounding ‘ooos’ and ‘ahhs’. These cards are like little, instant celebrity bombs. Every time I hand a card to someone new, their mouths go slack, their eyes dilate and I can feel the recipient start undressing me with their eyes. That’s assuming I’m wearing clothes in the first place, which I often wasn’t on Guam and Saipan. Jesus, it was hot there.

While I struggle with the ethical dilemma of whether to use my new business card superpowers for good or evil, I’ve gotta do some actual work over here. It took almost a week, but I’m finally moved in and set up in my bitchin’ new condo. I’m sitting at an honest-to-Buddha desk for the first time in almost five years and I can feel a tidal wave of productivity gathering strength that I’ll harness to finally knock out this article about Guam/Saipan.

But first, maybe I’ll make an omelet.

Some of you may have noticed that yet another window has appeared in the left margin over the past week. The addition of the “Best of KB” window has made the margin well over two feet long now, but I believe it’s necessary for the benefit of the tens of thousands of new readers I’m expecting to get from the Travvies election process.

I’ve been meaning to do a best of thingie for a while. It’s simple bloginomics: What are the two things you want to see right away when you visit a new blog? What the blog is about and some of the blog’s top-shelf material, right? This is the internet after all, we want this information in the first 10 seconds, with about another 10 seconds to sort out whether or not we’re gonna like the blog. As such, so my legions of new fans can be instantly immersed in full-blown entertainment rather than sifting through two years of babbling, 2,000-word posts about the never-ending series of personal injustices I endure for my art, I’ve saintfully created said Best of KB window.

No doubt you’ve noticed that the list is pretty short. This is not because after two years of almost-award-winning blogging about travel and travel writing that I’m only proud of a few posts. The problem is that there are so damn many posts to sort through. I probably love to read my blog more than anyone on Earth, but even I can’t be bothered to spend more than 20 minutes or so clicking through the archives, looking for my best stuff before work/wine/women/swelled bladder lure me away. I mean, in the past two weeks alone, I’ve toured two jungle islands in Micronesia, traveled half way around the planet, consumed about 13 bottles of wine, closed on my bitchin’ new condo, moved into my bitchin’ new condo and I’m still assembling bitchin’ new IKEA furniture for my bitchin’ new condo (I’ve got Screwdriver Hand like you don’t even wanna know – my intern has to brush my teeth for me).

In short, I’m distracted. But I don’t want potential new groupies to suffer because of this, so now I need a little help from you, my tens of regular monthly readers.

Apart from my limited reading/typing time, I’ve learned repeatedly that what I consider to be my favorite blog posts are not usually the favorite blog posts of people that are not me. Since the not-mes are in the majority in this case, I’ll acquiesce. So, I’m asking those who feel they’re qualified to suggest a post or two that you found particularly hilarious. Again, no need to root through the archives, but if one should just pop into your head, please leave a comment. If you don’t remember the title, just describe it a little. Maybe quote the part that brought coffee forth through your nose and short-circuited yet another keyboard. I’ll figure it out from there.

For those that are too new to have a favorite or are just discovering this blog for whatever irresponsible reason, you can get started with the posts to the left and hopefully my countless lurkers will be kind enough to drop a comment, if only to let us know they’re out there and read past the second paragraph on occasion.

Due to my grueling schedule of world class scuba diving and seven course meals here in Micronesia, I’ve only just learned that nominations for the annual Travvies blog awards opened last week! There’s only one more week to nominate me! Run, run!!!

For the second year in a row, the Travvies are being run by Upgrade: Travel Better, which is good news, because that means he can’t be nominated and boy do I hate competition.

If there’s any doubt about how to nominate me as much as possible, please read the rules. Otherwise, please feel free to stuff the ballot box for me in the following two categories:

Best Travel Blog
Best Single-Author Travel Blog

Now I lavishly whored myself out last year for the Travvies and I was handily defeated by some yahoo calling himself ‘The Cranky Flier’. My loathing for him would be all consuming if he didn’t turn out to be a really nice guy. God, I hate nice guys. So difficult to loathe…

So seeing as how Cranky is already dominating the nominations, and he’s still flush with pride from having been recently named as one of the ‘50 most powerful blogs in the universe’ or some such ego-trip, I think it’s time to take this guy down a few pegs. In the nicest possible way. Love you, Brett! You jackhole.

So please take 30 seconds out of your busy blog reading schedule to nominate me for both the Best Travel Blog and the Best Single-Author Travel Blog categories. In fact, I’ll make it easier for you and not run this post over 1000 words like usual, so you’ll have several spare minutes to nominate me and any other blogs you see fit while you’re at it. Except that Cranky guy.

Oh, he’s a little cranky, is he? Buddy, I’m full-on pissed off! Put that in your carryon bag and stow it!!

Sadly, this is only the beginning. After the nomination phase, there’s final voting phase, so I’m afraid I’ll be bugging you about this again soon. Think of it this way, the sooner you nominate me, the longer it’ll be before you have to go back and vote for me. See how easy I’m making it for you? One might even say I’m saint-like if one didn’t already know that I’m on the Vatican’s blacklist. Popes are so sensitive sometimes.

Greetings from the hot, sunny, duty free paradise that is Guam!

My five day “familiarization tour” is coming to a close. It’s been a lot better than I’d expected in virtually every way. Furthermore, I think I may have stumbled upon an earth-shaking revelation: I haven’t actually crunched the numbers yet, but I have a solid theory that a week in Guam is actually cheaper than a week in Hawaii, never mind the dry heave difference in plane ticket prices. At the end of the week, after you factor in accommodations, food, on-island transportation, activities and, of course, shopping, I think when you reach the bottom line the added expense of the plane ticket is equalized and Guam has the advantage. There’s still the little matter of it taking nearly two days to get here and back - two days that you’re not sitting on a beach with a primary-color cocktail in one hand and your sun reflector in the other - but that’s something to debate in another forum.

I’ve been treated very well on Guam. The natural friendliness and common courtesy of the residents has been vastly magnified by the treatment I’ve received at my “home,” the Sheraton Laguna Hotel.

The Guam Visitor’s Bureau is keen to boost tourist numbers from the continental US and my little but powerful magazine is a bull’s-eye in terms of hitting their prime demographic: moneyed, intrepid, frequent business travelers. The Sheraton concurred, agreeing to host me for an unheard of six straight nights. The Sheraton, just opened in April of 2007, looks new, smells of mahogany and natural oils and is operated by a staff with NASCAR pit crew teamwork and precision.

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