Traveling with Skeptics

By Ken Ewell

Traveling with Skeptics is the much anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed book, Traveling with Philosophes. However, due to the authors honest and straightforward portrayal of the people of France, he has incurred the wrath and condemnation of the French literary and intellectual establishment, with many persons voicing harsh opinions as regards this unique and insightful work.

Insignificant writers cannot be crushed, they lie too flat beneath the foot.

Honore de Balzac

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. Clearly, this most presumptuous writer believes in nothing.

Gustave Flaubert

Since a person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance, this writer must be the happiest man in the world.

Anatole France

As soon as he ceased to be mad he became merely stupid. As soon as he ceased to be stupid he became merely this writer.

Marcel Proust

This author should be deconstructed with the aid of a guillotine.

Jacques Derrida

There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is this authors suicide or murder.

Albert Camus

If Hell is other people, then this writer can go to Hell.

Jean-Paul Sartre

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 20, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440180774

Ken Ewell

Ken Ewell is a San Francisco writer who has written four travel books on Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and France. He’s also the author of the sequel to this novel, The Philosophical Investigator, a travel story set in Paris.

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Copyright © 2009 Ken Ewell

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-8076-7 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8077-4 (ebook)

iUniverse rev. date: 09-30-09

Contents

Second Layabout

Seventh Walkabout

Eighth Walkabout

Ninth Walkabout

Tenth Walkabout

Eleventh Walkabout

Twelfth Walkabout

Final Walkabout

Reliable Sources

Acknowledgment

Dedicated to Voltaire and Mark Twain and

other members of that near extinct species

known as Homo Skepticus.

Second Layabout

The Anthropological Traveler

You don’t know me without you have read a book by the name of Traveling with Philosophes, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Ken Ewell, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. - Huckleberry Finn

At the beginning of the final walkabout of Traveling with Philosophes, I wrote: Over the next three years I enjoyed a few more walkabouts, though I’ll leave those particular travel tales for another time and another place. And since this is another time and another place, it seems only right and proper to finally tell the reader about those particular travel tales. However, I should warn the fellow traveler that while on those walkabouts I not only pondered way too long and way too hard on the philosophical matters that my four Philosophes spoke to me about, but also on what a whole lot of other skeptics spoke to me about.

The Anthropology of Squares:

Union Square

As a still budding travel writer in San Francisco, over those three years my mornings were mostly filled with writing up all the walkabouts in Traveling with Philosophes. But every afternoon and similar to the philosopher in Denis Diderot’s story, Rameau’s Nephew, "it was my regular habit to go and take a walk around Union Square. I can be seen, all by myself, dreaming on Herb Caen’s bench. I discuss with myself questions of politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to follow any idea, wise or mad, that may come uppermost. I chase it as do our young libertines along The Embarcadero, when they are on the track of a courtesan whose mien is giddy and face smiling, whose nose turns up. The youth drops one and picks up another, pursuing all and clinging to none: my ideas are my trollops."

Shame! Come Back, Shame!

The fellow American traveler to Europe will well remember the profound feeling of superiority that he or she returned home with, and it was a feeling that lasted for some weeks, if not a month or two. I suppose a sense of European snobbery is inevitable, especially after exploring the great capitals of the Old World, after traipsing through famous museums and around ancient monuments, and after enjoying fine meals and exotic elixirs.

Fortunately, for most travelers that profound feeling of superiority dies away after a short period of time, though in some individuals that is most definitely not the case. In this latter instance, the traveler has graduated to the higher status of snobbery observed by William Makepeace Thackeray in The Book of Snobs.

There are relative and positive snobs. I mean by positive, such persons as are snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, from youth to the grave, being by nature endowed with snobbishness - and others who are snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of life.

Not surprisingly, after spending so much time in Europe I graduated to the status of positive snob, and so spent every afternoon looking down upon my fellow citizens and their lack of class and manners.

Case in point, this American deficiency in European refinement is forever tragically on display at the recently renovated Westfield Shopping Centre, the spelling of which indicates that only those of a certain English sophistication should contemplate shopping there. However, in practice nothing could be further from the truth, for that architecturally stunning emporium is inundated with all the low-class Jerry Springer rejects that plague every other mall in postmodern America.

I ask the reader, do you remember a bygone era when retail therapy wasn’t a hostile encounter with loud techno music forever reverberating in the ears, but instead was a pleasant experience with the soothing strains of a Baroque concerto flowing through one’s mind? And do you remember when shop-girls knew their place and only spoke when spoken to, and when shoppers left their flea-infested dogs and overly large baby carriages at home? And do you remember when shoppers took some notice of their dress before being seen in public, and when they knew how to sit and eat in a proper restaurant, not a food court, which is the urban equivalent of a rural pig trough? And do you remember when the underclass left the use of course language at the entrance to the mall, if they were even allowed to enter it in the first place other than to deliver a box or two? Sadly, you can bring Bloomingdale’s of New York to San Francisco, but you can’t bring to the West Coast its easterly class. Shame! Come back, shame!

Of course, the Westfield Shopping Centre isn’t the only recently renovated place in San Francisco that forever lacks in class and manners. For every afternoon from my bench in Union Square I watch parade before my eyes the ugly panorama that goes by the descriptive, Postmodern Urban America. Every afternoon I see parade before me the destitute homeless as they meander aimlessly and panhandle along to the city’s official song, I Left My Cart in San Francisco. And every afternoon I see parade before me the Scientologists in front of the now bargain basement known as Macys, as they try to pickpocket the unwary by convincing them that aliens inhabit the human body - except the enlightened ones that have shelled out the required dosh. Shame! Come back, shame!

Continuing on, every afternoon I see parade before me the young denizens of Generation Latte. Unfortunately, San Francisco reflects more than any other city the rather disturbing direction that the country, and the world generally, is taking as it plunges headlong into an uncertain and uninviting future. I usually begin my passing of societal judgment - an unlawful practice in ever so non-judgmental San Francisco - by observing the dress, if one can even call it that, of the adolescents and twenty-somethings that call this town home. Needless to say, this city is the very epicenter of the Grungification of America. Shame! Come back, shame!

The general disregard for their appearance by the young is almost worthy of our esteem, for who would have thought that anyone not living through the Great Depression would take pride in wearing such an array of dilapidated clothing. And the concept of wearing the crotch of one’s pants at the knee - simply because some high school dropout instructed one to do so - and waddling down the street like an inebriated duck is almost beyond belief. Shame! Come back, shame!

Then there’s the flaunting of the midriff, which on most American girls over the age of thirteen is sadly swollen to Biblical proportions. Without a doubt there is no woman in America that can or should wear a midriff, for the flesh of life rather oozes over the edge, reminiscent of a muffin-top. Perhaps the Kingston Trio should write a new song, Where have All the Mirrors Gone? And even more pathetic is the sight of middle-aged or pregnant women flaunting their dry and patchy and marked midriffs, a sight that only the British can describe properly: Mutton dressed as lamb. Shame! Come back, shame!

As if their dress isn’t bad enough, the young of postmodern America also add a few accessories to make their appearance look even more like the starving peasants of Third World countries. Take for instance the piercing of any part of the body with rings, an addition that makes the more attractive ones appear ridiculous and the less attractive ones appear grotesque. And then of course there are the ever-present tattoos, which admittedly once looked manly on a mate that had courageously sailed the high seas or on a soldier that had fought bravely for his country. But now anyone is proud to cover their hide with this horrible body-art, and to look as if they’ve just stumbled out of a trailer park. It’s especially sad to see attractive women covering their bodies with, as a mate recently put it, tramp stamps. With this in mind, perhaps the reader can appreciate a thought of the French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau: America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization. Shame! Come back, shame!

Along with observing their rather horrid general appearance, listening in on the intimate conversations of the so-called future of America is a mind-numbing pastime, one that often results in my wishing for the end of the world … immediately. For if couples aren’t both rudely listening to music on different mePods or both speaking to others on different cell-phones, then the latte-ites are searching MySpace or Facebook for the absurd ruminations emanating from their twittering minds. Shame! Come back, shame!

I remember listening in on one particular woman who was reading to a friend a new addition to her site on MySpace: I enjoy sipping port in Seville. Unfortunately, the poor thing had probably never been to Seville, otherwise she would have known that one sips sherry in Seville and one sips port in Oporto, which is located to the north of Lisbon, not even in Spain. Needless to say, Charles Luckman was undoubtedly correct when he observed: The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide open spaces surrounded by teeth. Shame! Come back, shame!

Of course MySpace and Facebook are merely two of the latest examples in the continuing line of BAD examples brought to us by postmodern technology, though I’ll let Paul Fussell in his hilarious and insightful book Bad, or, The Dumbing of America define what is meant by BAD.

What’s the difference between bad and BAD? BAD is something phony, clumsy, witless, untalented, vacant, or boring that many Americans can be persuaded is genuine, graceful, bright, or fascinating. For a thing to be really BAD, it must exhibit elements of the pretentious, the overwrought, or the fraudulent. Being alert to this distinction is a large part of the fun of being alive today, in a moment teeming with raucously overvalued emptiness and trash.

As an aside, if the reader has never visited these websites, then it’s important that he or she do so, for that is where the observer of the American scene will find evidence of the excruciating pretentiousness of the members of Generation Latte. I guarantee that after a brief look at this supercilious nonsense, one will surely wonder why these people take life so seriously, when it’s clear that life will never take them seriously. One can only shake one’s head and agree with an observation of Sigmund Freud: America is a mistake, a giant mistake.

Then again, we can’t completely blame these infantiles for their alarming narcissism and shameful ignorance, for the schools of America are in large part responsible for the pathetic state of postmodern society. And for those readers who aren’t familiar with the current trends in American education, it may be instructive to offer a few thoughts from Maureen Stout’s The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem.

This is what professors of education believe schools should be like: places in which children are insulated from the outside world and emotionally - not intellectually - nourished. We should expect nothing of them but give everything to them. They should be cared for, counseled, and analyzed, and the whole school environment should be centered on their needs.

Schools are no longer for learning essential skills or acquiring knowledge but for cultivating ‘emotional intelligence’: the ability to get along with others, understand one’s feelings and one’s emotional hang-ups, and generally figure out how to deal with others effectively. This attitude explains why my colleagues always referred to the importance of making kids feel good about themselves but rarely, if ever, spoke of achievement, ideals, goals, character, or decency. It was all about ‘feelings.’ It was all about ‘self-esteem.’

Now while I’m just as in favor of self-esteem as the girl next door, I had always labored under the assumption that feeling good about oneself - the essence of self-esteem - was, or should be, the consequence of hard work, achievement, learning from one’s mistakes, giving to others, trying to be a better person, or other similar endeavors. It had never occurred to me that I could bypass all that and just wake up and decide unilaterally (or with the help of my teachers) that I was a superb human being. I didn’t realize that just by being in the world I was special, special enough to deserve grades, respect, and opportunities without ever having to earn them. But this is the dominant view among not only professors of education, but their students - our children’s future teachers.

With her disturbing but accurate thoughts in mind, I’m certain that the reader will enjoy a little ditty I made up for postmodern school kids to sing to the tune of Frere Jacques.

I am special, I am special,

Look at me, look at me;

Everybody love me, everybody love me;

Look at me, look at me.

Fortunately, and despite my observations thus far, I never felt alone while looking down upon life in Union Square, especially after opening the pages of a wonderful book, Mark Twain’s San Francisco. This collection of newspaper and journal articles from 1863 to 1866 paints a fascinating portrait of life in the City by the Bay, as well as of the folks that lived in the city so many years ago. And not surprisingly, those folks haven’t changed all that much over the last one hundred and forty-some years, at least if Mark’s description from the June 26, 1864, Golden Era article, ‘In the Metropolis,’ is anything to go by.

The birds, and the flowers, and the winds, and the sunshine, and all things that go to make life happy, are present in San Francisco today, just as they are all days in the year. Therefore, one would expect to hear these things spoken of, and gratefully, and disagreeable matters of little consequence allowed to pass without comment. I say, one would suppose that. But don’t you deceive yourself - anyone who supposes anything of the kind, supposes an absurdity. The multitude of pleasant things by which the people of San Francisco are surrounded are not talked of at all. But it is human nature to find fault - to overlook that which is pleasant to the eye, and seek after that which is distasteful to it.

Of course some individuals are more adept at seeking after that which is distasteful in life, and that was especially so for an English visitor by the name of Fanny Trollope, who wrote a charming condemnation of America’s lack of class in a travel book, Domestic Manners of the Americans. This very good and astute woman began her travels abroad in New Orleans in November of 1827, and from there she traveled up the Mississippi River to Cincinnati, where she settled for two years.

What’s fascinating, in fact remarkably so, about her account of this nation is how very little the manners of Americans have improved in the almost two hundred years since this dear woman’s visit. For example, one of her first observations was of a most disgusting American habit: I hardly know any annoyance so deeply repugnant to English feelings, as the incessant, remorseless spitting of Americans. Shame! Come back, shame!

Of course she wasn’t the only person of English feelings to comment upon this loathsome behavior, for Charles Dickens noted precisely the same thing in his American Notes during a trip to the northeast in 1842.

As America may be called the headquarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognized.

In some parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social life. The stranger, who follows in the track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness. And let him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.

The seasoned traveler will undoubtedly agree with me, of all the Western nations, only in America is the practice of expectoration acceptable, even amongst the supposedly better citizens of society. Certainly the habit of spitting is displayed by the groveling peasants of the Third World, and also by those of them that wander unhindered into the First and Second worlds. However, only in America is this disgusting habit still practiced by graduates of better universities, which nowadays instill neither knowledge nor manners, but only the pecuniary training necessary to successfully accumulate capital in the postmodern marketplace. Shame! Come back, shame!

Not surprisingly, Mrs. Trollope’s complaints concerning American manners don’t end with spitting, but continue on with native table manners.

The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table, the voracious rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured, the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation, the loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our dresses, the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the whole blade seemed to enter into the mouth, and the still more frightful manner of cleaning the teeth afterwards with a pocketknife, soon forced us to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels and majors of the old world, and that the dinner hour was to be anything rather than an hour of enjoyment.

Also not surprisingly, Mr. Dickens voiced a similar complaint.

There is no doubt that the meal, at which the invitation was tendered to which has occasioned this digression, was disposed of somewhat ravenously, and that the gentlemen thrust the broad-bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further down their throats than I ever saw the same weapons go before, except in the hands of a skillful juggler.

Fortunately, the table manners of Americans have improved somewhat in the intervening years from when these two English travelers crossed the pond, though not by a terribly great degree. For even in the finest restaurants of San Francisco, I’ve observed individuals unable to properly use a knife and fork, or to avoid chewing food with an open mouth, or to dispense with belching aloud an incessant stream of gustatory noises. Needless to say, the eating behaviors of these people resemble less the refinement of gentlemen and gentlewomen, but display more the dining habits of the bovine. One does not mind a cow joining a dinner party, but the animal should remain on the plate and not sit at the table. Shame! Come back, shame!

Needless to say, it wasn’t only the incessant spitting and lack of table manners that insulted the genteel feelings of Mrs. Trollope, but also the low level of talk around that table.

There is no charm, no grace in their conversation. I very seldom during my whole stay in the country heard a sentence elegantly turned, and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American. There is always something either in the expression or the accent that jars the feelings and shocks the taste.

And as true then as it is now, most conversations revolve around one and only one topic.

I heard an Englishman, who had been long resident in America, declare that in following, in meeting, or in overtaking, in the street, on the road, or in the field, at the theatre, the coffee-house, or at home, he had never overheard Americans conversing without the word ‘dollar’ being pronounced between them. Such unity of purpose, such sympathy of feeling, can, I believe, be found nowhere else, except, perhaps, in an ants’ nest. The result is exactly what might be anticipated. This sordid object, forever before their eyes, must inevitably produce a sordid tone of mind, and, worse still, it produces a seared and blunted conscience on all questions of probity.

Perhaps this pursuit of the almighty dollar in America was, and is, best explained in a French travel book, Democracy in America, written in the 1830’s by Alexis de Tocqueville.

The Americans are a very old and very cultivated people who have fallen on a new and unbounded country in which they could spread out at will and which they could make fertile without difficulty. That is something without parallel elsewhere in the world. In America everyone finds opportunities unknown anywhere else for making or increasing a fortune. A breathless cupidity perpetually distracts the mind of man from the pleasures of the imagination and the labors of the intellect and urges it on to nothing but the pursuit of wealth. Industrial and commercial classes are to be found in other countries as well as in the United States, but only there is the whole community simultaneously engaged in productive industry and in trade.

To end Mrs. Trollope’s story, after those two years in Cincinnati she traveled on to tour the American northeast before returning home. And once back in England, she gave great thought to what the future might hold for the ill-mannered people across the pond.

If refinement once creeps in among them, if they once learn to cling to the graces, the honors, the chivalry of life, then we shall welcome to European fellowship one of the finest countries on the earth. Let America give a fair portion of attention to the arts and the graces that embellish life, and I will make her another visit, and write another book as unlike the Domestic Manners of the Americans as possible.

Unfortunately, it’s not yet the time for Mrs. Trollope to make another visit, nor is it yet the time for her to write another book. Shame! Come back, shame!

The Summer of Rousseau

While pondering on the vicissitudes of life in Union Square one afternoon, my mind wandered back to a San Francisco event that took place during the previous summer. But before going into a description of that rather peculiar affair, let me remind the reader about what occurred a few years back while touring the catacombs of The Pantheon in Paris.

It was Voltaire, who said while laughing, No, my boy, you are not suffering from a madness, though your mind does suffer from a certain ailment that afflicts most of the human race. And that widespread affliction is your inability to think properly, and by that I mean to think philosophically. Before continuing, Voltaire pointed in the direction of the other tomb in the East Gallery of the crypt. "That man over there is the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was awarded a literary prize by the Academy of Dijon in 1750. And he was given that honor for his essay, A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences, which was a paper that offered a philosophical view of the world that I fervently disagreed with then, and one that I fervently disagree with today."

If I might ask a question, Voltaire, I interrupted, a moment ago you mentioned that I needed to learn to think philosophically. But since it appears that Jean Jacques thought philosophically, why is it that you two gentlemen didn’t see eye to eye on matters? Is there more than one road to philosophy, and if so, how does a traveler know which path to journey down?

An excellent question, my boy, acclaimed Voltaire, "but the answer to your inquiry requires me tell you a little something about the controversial philosophy presented in Jean Jacques’ paper. The question proposed by the Academy of Dijon was whether or not the restoration of the arts and sciences had had a purifying or a corrupting effect upon the morals of society. Needless to say, throughout my life I believed that any increase in scientific knowledge would eventually promote an extension in moral philosophy, though of course any necessary and progressive changes might not occur until many years in the future.

"However, Jean Jacques approached the question from the opposite point of view from the Encyclopedists. During my lifetime I always encouraged the expression of controversial ideas, and I even told Jean Jacques on a number of occasions: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. But what is quite disturbing to me is that in his essay he cast dispersions upon the art of science itself, and those accusations have caused the main river of modern liberal philosophy to branch off into two opposing streams of thought. And sadly, that disbelief in the importance of pragmatic scientific thinking, in other words, in reason, haunts liberalism to this very day, and it is a split that forever aids the efforts of those conservatives who would return us to the dogmatic ways of the past.

"Listen to some of the thoughts contained in Jean Jacques controversial paper: Scientific ideas often stifle in men’s breasts that sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have been born, cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is called a civilized people. What a train of vices must attend this uncertainty! We shall no longer take in vain by our oaths the name of our Creator, but we shall insult Him with our blasphemies, and our scrupulous ears will take no offence. Our hatred of other nations diminishes, but patriotism dies with it. Ignorance is held in contempt, but a dangerous skepticism has succeeded it.

"Now, allow me to review his points one at a time, the first one being the notion that there was an earlier age when Man enjoyed a sense of original liberty. Clearly this was not the case in nomadic or agrarian societies, for the demands of existence within those highly-regulated social structures were and still are completely dependent upon forces outside the control of the individual. But astonishingly, just as Jean Jacques thought then, so too today, many persons who champion the liberal cause still romanticize the hunters and the gatherers and the tillers of the land. No, if freedom and liberty exist anywhere, it is within the more progressive societies, where civilized people have advanced through the application of scientific ideas.

"Now as to the notion that scientific knowledge causes people to question their god or their country, I say all the better. Every religion originated in an earlier time, and even if this or that metaphysical system gave life meaning then, the circumstances of modern life demand a reappraisal of all religious oaths, if not an abandonment of those tenets altogether. If that is blasphemy, then call me a blasphemer.

"As regards patriotism, is it not the love of one’s country above all others that causes many of the problems in the world today, as it did in my day? If that is treason, then call me a traitor. But also astonishingly, and also just as Jean Jacques thought then, so too today, many persons who champion the liberal cause wrap themselves up in their bible or their flag, and then demand that all their fellow citizens do the same. No, if scientific knowledge causes us to question the dogmas of the past and the present, whether they be religious or nationalistic, let Man forever increase his efforts in the cause of science.

And lastly, I must object to Jean Jacques’ view that skepticism in thought is a dangerous thing. If science teaches us anything, it is that the certain Truth of yesterday inevitably becomes the uncertain truth of today, and more often than not it eventually becomes the Falsehood of tomorrow. So if a man, in replacing his once accepted ignorance with newly found knowledge, finds himself in a world less certain, but more predictable, then let the skeptical minds lead the way. For truly, the dangers posed in life do not originate in those minds that remain skeptical of every answer, but in those minds that never ask any questions in the first place.

Now, back to the event I alluded to earlier - the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love. The first such event took place in 1967, the year in which San Francisco became internationally known as a welcoming home to your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, along with any high school dropout, lowlife deadbeat, drug addict or petty criminal.

Given my rather skeptical attitude as regards the first Summer of Unbridled Lust, the reader may be wondering why I attended the fortieth anniversary of that celebrated event. Well, the music, and one song in particular. For many years now I’ve remained completely perplexed as to how a musician managed to travel through a desert on a horse with no name. Although I admit to a profound ignorance as regards horsemanship and equestrianism, it always struck me as odd that a musician could travel by horseback through a desert and fail to find the time to come up with a suitable name for his horse. I mean, it’s not rocket science.

Needless to say, though again admitting my profound ignorance as regards this equine subject, I have to believe that any horse of normal intelligence enjoys having a name, and that any mount would be quite reluctant to travel across a desert without having a name. With that in mind, for many years it has seemed clear to me that the songwriter who went through a desert on a horse with no name was a completely irresponsible miscreant, one who lacked the good sense to properly take care of a horse. So to get to the bottom of this incident, I attended the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Unexpected Pregnancies to perhaps find this neglectful man and question him as regards his rather negligent behavior.

After tramping down the embankment and onto the Golden Gate Park field on which the Summer of Unceasing Nonsense was taking place, I found myself in the wheelchair access area that had thoughtfully been set aside for many of the casualties of the Sixties. And it struck me as interesting that all those misguided souls, who forty years earlier had popped hallucinogens to get away from normal, were now all popping Ibuprophen to get back to some semblance of it.

Once settled on the field, I watched the event given the perfunctory Native American - or is it Indian, it’s so hard to keep up - blessing by a group of local professional ethnics. It was at this point that I recalled a statement of Rousseau: Scientific ideas often stifle in men’s breasts that sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have been born, cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is called a civilized people. For you see, reader, it was Rousseau who came up with the rather preposterous notion of the Noble Savage, a point made abundantly clear by Gustave Le Bon in The Psychology of Revolution.

One of the most prominent was the singular conception of the nature of our first ancestors and primitive societies. Anthropology not having as yet revealed the conditions of our remoter forbears, men supposed, being influenced by the legends of the Bible, that man had issued perfect from the hands of the Creator. The first societies were models which were afterwards ruined by civilization, but to which mankind must return. The return to the state of nature was very soon the general cry. The fundamental principle of all morality, of which I have treated in my writings, said Rousseau, is that man is a being naturally good, loving justice and order.

Modern science, by determining, from the surviving remnants, the conditions of life of our first ancestors, has long ago shown the error of this doctrine. Primitive man has become an ignorant and ferocious brute, as ignorant as the modern savage of goodness, morality, and pity. Governed only by his instinctive impulses, he throws himself on his prey when hunger drives him from his cave, and falls upon his enemy the moment he is aroused by hatred. Reason, not being born, could have no hold over his instincts. The aim of civilization, contrary to all revolutionary beliefs has been not to return to the state of nature but to escape from it.

Needless to say, the Sixties glorified the People of Mother Mud close to an absurdity, a perfect example of which was the musical Hair, a performance in which grown people living in a most civilized city - New York - rid themselves of their clothes. Fortunately, the aging and sagging flesh of the leftover cast at the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Noble Savages kept their bodies well hidden so as not to offend the attendees.

The Summer of Ludicrous Sermons continued with another act that Rousseau would be proud of: We shall no longer take in vain by our oaths the name of our Creator, but we shall insult Him with our blasphemies, and our scrupulous ears will take no offence. Yes, reader, a brigade of bombastic born-agains paraded the stage to remind everyone that Jesus had yet to return … thankfully. It was at this point that I began to realize how closely aligned are the views of the Loony Left and the Righteous Right in America, but more evidence on this peculiar association momentarily.

The next act on the day’s agenda, and fortunately the only such act, was a group offering up a medley of folk-scare tunes, a form of music that almost single-handedly ruined the American sense of taste in song. Especially annoying in folk music is the dubious message about how common people are so loving and giving, when in fact, anyone who’s mistakenly visited rural America knows that the people living in the country are the nastiest and most bigoted people in the nation. Needless to say, the moral majority forever offers a blessed marriage of the Holy Bible and the Gospel of Hate.

Moving on to more evidence concerning the intimate association between the Aquarian Left and the Cancerous Right in America, the next speaker delivered a message from Thoreau: That government is best which governs least. Though conveyed by a member of the La-La Left, are these not the very words so often spouted by the Ra-Ra Right, except when they hope beyond hope to invade sovereign nations that don’t share our pecuniary views of the world? Of course, I won’t even bother arguing here the quite obvious notion that modern industrial societies require extensive bureaucracies to maintain acceptable living standards for all citizens. Unfortunately, this is a fact lost upon the vast majority of Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, as evidenced by the recent and rather pathetic debate concerning government-run healthcare.

As the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Vacuous Senselessness rolled on, the Poet Ludicrous of San Francisco arrived onstage to offer another dimwitted message: God save the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Of course the fact that those two documents - both of which now require serious modernizations - were written by skeptics, agnostics, atheists and other men of the secular Enlightenment didn’t appear to have dawned on the poet’s mind. Fortunately, with the empty-headed orations now at an end, the remainder of the day was spent listening to the more memorable musical groups from Sixties’ San Francisco - the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane to name but a few.

While leaving the Summer of Undiminished Twaddle, I couldn’t help but think back to the war of ideas fought between Voltaire and Rousseau two hundred and fifty-some years before. Rousseau was sadly mistaken when he said: Ignorance is held in contempt, but a dangerous skepticism has succeeded it. Without that most endangered of species - Homo Skepticus - citizens of a democratic society get sucker-punched by the Right and the Left into believing the most outrageous nonsense, a fact duly noted by Harry Frankfurt in his wonderful essay On Bullshit.

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory.

Of course if our educational systems were to ever understand that their principal goal should be to induce learners to think skeptically and to question intelligently, the problem of bullshit might be solved once and for all, at least amongst the better-educated classes. However, Paul Fussell makes it clear that the dumbing of America will not end anytime soon.

About a century ago, Americans set out to experience the higher learning, but after a brief trial, they found they didn’t like it. It was too hard and serious. It seemed useless and ‘irrelevant’ as ‘role models’ for the main American activity, making money. An acquaintance with the principles of logic and evidence was found an actual impediment to enthusiasm and good fellowship, and skeptical studies in the history of popular error and the domination of societies by superstition and mobs seemed undemocratic, even ‘elitist.’

In short, it was soon discovered that real education was of little value in the American life of action, ambition, acquisitiveness, and getting-on. In fact, just the opposite: the development of intellect led only to an un-American life of study and contemplation. In the face of these discouraging facts, it’s no wonder that Americans devised a reformed system of higher education, one more in keeping with American desires, especially the urge to succeed in public, defined largely as making a pile and living a life untroubled by thought. Too remote to be useful anymore were history, literature, and philosophy.

Wasting Away Again in Martiniville

While observing the postmodern world from my bench in Union Square on another afternoon, an earthquake hit the city. Although not a strong tremor, it was big enough to cause me to fall off the wagon. Fortunately, the Gold Dust Lounge, located at 247 Powell Street, was there to catch me, so I made my way into that establishment devoted to the lover of boozy libations. According to the sign above the front door, the Gold Dust was founded in 1883 to honor the miners that established San Francisco in the middle of the nineteenth century. And the decor inside reflects those more manful times, with gold-velvet wallpaper, lavish picture frames, and a red upholstered booth along one of the walls. In addition, each night the Gold Dust offers entertaining Dixieland Jazz, as well as entertaining banter from the members of the band.

Along with the jazz and the banter, another reason to enter the Gold Dust is to partake of the best gin martini in the environs of Union Square. The most popular history of the modern martini relates that in 1911 at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York the head barman, one Martini di Arma di Taggia, mixed a drink consisting of equal parts of gin and vermouth, as well as a splash of orange bitters and an olive. Since those simpler times, the postmodern martini has become just about anything a barfly wants it to be, and a certain budding travel writer has even come up with a few libations of his own, using gin and a splash of dry vermouth.

Martini Americano: Served with a pimento-stuffed olive.

Martini Mexicano: Served with a jalepeno-stuffed olive.

Martini Italiano: Served with a garlic-stuffed olive.

Martini Greeko: Served with an anchovy-stuffed olive.

Martini Germano: Served with a blue cheese-stuffed olive.

As a note to the lover of martinis, there are two well-known problems concerning those wonderful elixirs. The first problem is mentioned in an old saying: One martini is just right. Two martinis are too many. And three martinis aren’t nearly enough. And the second problem concerns a physiological malady commonly referred to by the ladies as the Tini Wieni, but enough said on that small and at times embarrassing matter.

Needless to say, the Gold Dust attracts a number of local Bukowskis. And it shouldn’t surprise the reader that one of them was in the lounge that afternoon, one Henry Chinaski, a part-time writer and fulltime Barfly.

He is more weary than angry. If he is mad, then it is the madness of the disowned who lack interest in the standard way of life. Rather than enter the treadmill of society he has chosen the bottle and the bars. There seems little for him to do but sit and wait, but he is not sure what the waiting means. Drinking seems a way to hide. He fears the life of the dull and the damned, and the eight-hour jobs they hate yet must fight to keep. He is more sad than bitter, and like most desperate men he has some humor. It is as if he were saving himself for some magic moment, some magic time. Meanwhile, he drinks and drinks and drinks.

I only spoke to Henry once a few years back, but that chance conversation did leave me with a reality check as regards the writer’s life.

Nobody who can write worth a damn ever writes in peace. And as my hands drop a last desperate pen in some cheap room they will find me there and never know my name, my meaning, nor the treasure of my escape.

Of course another escape for barflies, especially ones that are also budding travel writers, is listening to the band in the Gold Dust swing into a little Frank Sinatra, who definitely understood the art of travel, for he was forever the Chairman of the Travel Board. And fortunately, he allowed all of us to join him on those many travels. Frank would sometimes prompt us to join him for a walkabout in the great American cities, especially when he sang New York New York, Autumn in New York, Chicago, My Kind of Town or L. A. is my Lady. And at other times he’d take us to more relaxed American destinations, places captured forever in the lyrics of Moonlight in Vermont, Blue Hawaii and Stars Fell on Alabama. Of course heading south of the border was always a distinct possibility for Frank, especially when he traveled Down Mexico Way or flew to Rio to meet The Girl from Ipanema while singing The Coffee Song.

Then again, Frank also enjoyed popping across the pond to London to croon A Foggy Day or A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square, or to the City of Lights for renditions of I Love Paris or April in Paris. However, if he needed a quiet holiday to soothe that broken heart of his, then why not join the French Foreign Legion on The Road to Mandalay. And needless to say, Frank never kept his feet on the ground, for he’d sometimes take everyone to our nearest neighbor, all the while singing Moon River, Fly Me to the Moon, Old Devil Moon, Oh You Crazy Moon or East of the Sun and West of the Moon. So whenever Frank was Swingin’ on a Star, the Chairman of the Travel Board never forgot that It’s Nice to Go Trav’ling, even when looking down The Lonesome Road.

Since life never got the better of the Chairman, Frank’s wisdom on surmounting life’s many obstacles - as chronicled in The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’ by Bill Zehme - should forever be kept in mind. And that’s especially so when ring-a-ding-dingin’: I’m for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniels. Or when dames, broads, chicks or birds are getting the upper hand in life: I think being jilted is one of life’s most painful experiences. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart. It’s happened to all of us and never gets any easier. I understand, however, that playing one of my albums can help.

Or when a man needs to pick himself up, dust himself off and start all over again: Sure, I’ve met Frustration, and I don’t like him. I know Discouragement, Despair, and all those other cats. But I guess I knew that sooner or later something good was bound to happen to me. Or lastly, when a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do: You’ve gotta love livin’, baby! Because dyin’ is a pain in the ass! And that’s why I never miss out on a chance to see Frank - and Deano and Sammy and Joey - whenever The Rat Pack is Back comes to town.

Needless to say, I’m not the only San Franciscan that ever loved lapping up his favorite elixir in the Gold Dust. One of those other barflies was the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Herb Caen. And I’d have to imagine it was while enjoying a glass of Vitamin V that Herb thought about his column for the newspaper edition of April 2, 1958, the one in which he coined the term Beatnik, a combination of Beat and Sputnik: "Look magazine, preparing a picture spread on SF’s Beat Generation (oh, no, not again!), hosted a party in a North Beach house for 50 Beatniks, and by the time word got around the sour grapevine, over 250 bearded cats and kits were on hand, slopping up Mike Cowles’ free booze. They’re only Beat, y’know, when it comes to work."

The Anthropology of Beats:

North Beach

With a couple of martinis now a beloved part of history, I considered calling it a day and heading home, which of course would have been the sensible thing to do that evening. Fortunately, I came to my senses just in time and so went about the business of enjoying a few more in my three favorite North Beach dives, Pearl’s and Specs’ and Vesuvio. And as it turned out, that was most definitely the wiser option in life, for the cats that I ran into that night sent me back on the road once again.

The Beerosophy of Pizza

After not finding any of those Beatniks slopping up some free booze, and before hitting those dives, I made my way to my favorite Italian restaurant, Bocce Café, located at 478 Green Street just off Columbus Avenue. And while enjoying my usual wood-fired pizza, I gave thought to what Dr. Nussbaum had written in The End of Beerosophy concerning the importance of that particular meal item in life.

Once there was a young man that knew nothing about eating pizza, nothing about the various sauces and cheeses, and nothing about the many toppings. But one day he began to think about eating pizza, even though he’d never even seen a pizza. He quickly discovered that it made him feel very happy to think about eating pizza, despite the fact that all the adults around him said that he shouldn’t think about pizza. Then one afternoon at school his teachers told him to stop exercising and to stop taking cold showers, activities that were designed to prevent him from thinking about eating pizza, and to go to the gym for a film on pizza.

Surprised