the thing about sri lanka
I know I finished talking about Sri Lanka weeks ago, but I forgot something.
And I think it is fairly important.
Sri Lanka is not very American.
It was perhaps the first place I have ever been that didn’t feel like it had been roughly mounted by the great thronging testosterone of the United States.
Australia, England, South Africa, Poland and France are the places I’ve been for long enough to study this Americanism up close, and it is easy to see.
Not just in fast food, but in music, TV, fashion.
Somehow Sri Lanka has less of it. Almost none in fact.
Most of the music that was played on radio that I heard was from England. The only rap or hip hop I heard was Sinahalese, and that was only once.
I saw one person wearing a basketball singlet the whole time I was there. I never saw a yankees cap, no Hollywood style adverts, and even nike and things like nike were nowhere to be seen.
There was no graffitti, no real mention of American culture on the streets at all and even the advertising had little Amercanisms in them.
I can remember only one American program on the TV at any time, and that was a film, that I have forgotten the name of.
Even in the cities it seemed that America had little impact.
The only constant reminder of America was coke. There was a lot of coke.
It everyway it felt way more like an English and Indian hybrid that had once visited America but not really liked it.
With it’s history and proximity to India it makes sense to be that sort of hybrid, but Australia feels way more American than English, so while the English is still there, it has been covered and added to by Americans.
In Sri Lanka, they just seem to have ignored the Americans.
They have done this to such an extent that they even banned Akon (oddly popular hip-hop squeaker) from touring them.
I respect this very Americanless society.
Word up to my Lankan homies.
life in peckham
Due to test match sofa’s move to Nunhead, I’ve been spending more than a few moments in Peckham.
It is truly an urban wonderland.
Peckham is largely a market pretending to be a suburb.
The smell of rotting food is right there in the evenings, and disgustingly in the mornings so is the stench of fresh food.
At night the foxes eat out of the bins.
There are usually seventy different kind of bananas on show.
And the place is always packed with people.
One day, on a particularly people heavy day, I saw someone walking up the footpath with what looked like a large shopping trolley with a dead body in it.
It wasn’t, it was just a trolley of meat.
Now this was just a normal shopping trolley that could have been used by any supermarket in the world, and instead some butcher type fellow was transporting uncovered meats around the streets of peckham.
It was mad, and yet glorious.
I’m not sure how many vegans live in Peckham, but it would have been worth following this guy around just to see if one walked past it, shrieked and ran away.
Perhaps the fresh air from the 14 buses that drive through there smokes the meat.
It was big chunks of meat of too, like limbs of lamb or something.
The other moment I cherished was when the service finished one morning at the Peckham Rye Lane Chapel.
A weird little place wedged into Peckham between cheap phones and cheap booze.
I must have timed it perfectly as all the men from the church came out.
All old black dudes, all dressed like they were about to head to a Harlem speak easy in the 30s.
I’ve never seen so many classy hats in one place.
Almost everyone of them had a three piece suit on, and several were sporting very pimp daddy walking sticks.
I can only assume this was a men’s only service, or even a mens breakfast.
I’m not sure how I would go about getting invited into this, but I want it, and then I want to know where they all buy their clothes and hats.
On top of meat and well dressed spiritual men, Peckham also has a miracle centre, and not enough suburbs do.
pop condoms
Condoms aren’t exciting.
But they could be, if a boy band got involved.
Especially the runner up to an x factor from a few years ago.
The band is JLS, 4 young guys whose general appeal is that you could take them all home to mum, I spose they can sing, but I can’t recall what they sound like to verify that.
Being that they are a boy band, the average age of their fans must be about 12.
So them on condoms is an interesting choice.
Obviously teen pregnancy is a big deal, but it isn’t until a boy band (in the old days weren’t boy bands responsible for teen pregnancies?) puts their face on a condom – not literally – that you really notice the problem.
In the UK I haven’t noticed too many teen mothers, although I don’t go looking for them anymore.
While JLS are putting rubbers on youngsters with questionable music taste, what about kids who like good music.
Why not have a Fugazi condom for punk fans?
Since Fugazi once had an album called red medicine, you could probably get them involved with the STD side of it as well.
Ofcourse my major problem with the JLS condoms is it ruins my fantasy that all guys in boy bands are completely sexless.
Perahera
Perahera is a festival in Kandy to celebrate the fact that Buddha had a tooth and that Kandy has that tooth.
It might not sound that exciting, but Kandy adds Elephants, lots and lots of fully blinged up Elephants.
What you end up with is a few kids dancing, some fire twirling, and hours and hours of Elephants.
We must have been sitting out there for almost 5 hours in total.
Others stood in the rain.
Some watched from Pizza Hut.
But, it was a long haul.
Also, for Perahera, there is no alcohol permitted.
Now, I get that for religion’s sake alcohol sometimes gets the shaft, but if you are going to ask me me to be in my chair 90 minutes before an event and then have it start late, I think we should relax on the whole drinking thing.
But, Perahera was cool, plus I got to eat a late night buffet afterwards, which is always nice.
So here are the photos of blinged up elephants, teeth and fire.
The rain as we waited undercover.
While waiting for it to start I was taking hundreds of pictures of the guys selling the bright toys.
Then the fire twirlers came out.
Then the elephants came out.
And there were also some dancers.
The whole album is here.
Perahera is definitely an event, although I would suggest that you eat a pizza hut meal while they are being offered earlier in the night, as those Elephants move fucking slowly, and our event had over a hundred, I believe other perahera events have more.
And when you get hungry you start to abuse the slow moving elephants.
Literally
The Oatmeal, who you should all read, has got the best description of the word literally ever.
You should read it, it has a gayroller in it.
Really.
Quick, go read it.
Sri Lanka’s elephants
Had you asked me what I thought of Elephants before I went to Sri Lanka, I probably would have given you a blank look.
I had no opinion on elephants at all. Things have changed now.
Apparently there are about 3000 elephants in Sri Lanka, I felt like I saw more than that.
We saw them in the wild, walking through the city, about a million times at Perahera and even more at the Elephant Orphanage (which is not as sad as it sounds).
Everytime I saw a bunch of elephants, I thought I’d seen enough.
But then the next time I’d be happy to see them again.
I wouldn’t say I’m an elephant man now, although I am not sure what that would entail anyway, but I liked them, except the one who tried to take my camera.
So here are my elephant pics.
My favourite elephant sign.
The pensive big fella.
The Lovers.
The posers.
Elephant asses.
Mama and baby.
The bastard who tried to take my camera.
I definitely prefer elephants to squirrels.
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