Dear Lovies: (as they say in England)

The last ten days have been a whirlwind. As I type, roosters a cockadoodledoo-ing at 1:30 am. Wild dogs, doing the same. I don’t know if their internal clock is off, or there is some weird Indian breed of rooster who crows when the sun is down instead of up… Everything else is “backwards” here, so why not add farm animals to the list.

I arrived in Oxford, via Heathrow ten days ago and stayed with my friends Christina and Brian, of new baby fame. Their six-week old bundle of joy is named Jasper, and we shot the shit (metaphorically and literally) all week. We all laughed and played and I learned that much of the external Harry Potter scenes were filmed right in Oxford. Which is why I kept expecting to see the students pull magic wands out of their matriculation robes and say something Latin-sounding, and no, not the salsa kind of Latin.

Visited Avebury, an energy center similar to Stonehenge, but way quieter and way cooler. Went to a local sustainability conference and festival. Ate amazing beef lasagna (even though I don’t do that.) Roasted a chicken for the first time.

In London, I hung out with friends I met last year at Sivananda ashram in India. I went on a date with a cute Irish guy (whom I’d met on the plane when I was coming home from Costa Rica.) Navigated the Tube, ate apple cinnamon cake with clotted cream.

Did TWO comedy shows in London–thanks to my friend Paul, who I met in India. One was at a pub in the theatre district, one was with some really good comics in East Dullich (sp?) ALso had a drink at the famous Ivy Room (though I didn’t spot any celebs) with a theatre producer before flying out to Bombay in the morning.

Last night I flew into Bombay at 12:30 am. Negotiated several hours of immigration lines, security checks, swine flu checks, and then night time in the city that’s never sleepy–my taxi driver didn’t know where Thane was–or speak English–or have a mobile phone–so every few minutes we’d stop and ask some more rickshaw drivers where Thane, Balkum, and Runwal Garden City are. I was about to give up and look for a hotel instead of trying to get to my friend Sam’s house when a guy on a motorcycle led the way and we finally arrived, sans cell.

The most amazing thing here has been not having a cell phone for the last ten days, and having sporadic email access. It’s so freaking liberating. Of course I’m aware of how much I use my iPhone. Every four minutes, I check something. What to do without all the checking? Without Googling something when it comes up and I don’t know the “answer”. Just something to chew on… I’m hoping that when I return, and set up a new place to live, I’ll create a new structure for my life, with my new home as my alter, and my iPhone as my bitch. And not the other way around. \
Oh, BTW, I just did “Eat, Pray, Laugh!” in Bombay tonight with my fellow comic Sam Koletkar at the Jewish Community Center here in India, and we rocked it! What awesome fun! All the bits I was scared they’d be offended by were the ones they laughed the hardest at! (Pics to follow–it’s hard to upload on vacation.)

Namaste,
Alicia

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Dear Fellow Humans from the year 2009,

As 2008 passes like a gall stone, I’m laid up for the first day of the new year, high on early episodes of The West Wing and the belief that the inauguration of our new president will rescue this country from free-fall. It’s been an endlessly interesting year for us all. Electing our first black president, losing 40% of the capital in the stock market, seeing Tina Fey look so much like Sarah Palin, I can’t tell who’s who.

Personally, I’ve had an interesting year as well. It began with a ten-day silent meditation course in India. You all followed my travels throughout India, Thailand, and Cambodia for three months starting last February. I gathered parts and memories of myself scattered in many lifetimes during that trip. I returned home with a powerful sense of independence, maturity, and knowing that no matter where I am in the entire world, I can take care of myself and be happy. Then I came home and saw my parents. (And forgot again. Ha!)

I also joined a year-long training course for life coaching and workshop leading in August, and began coaching people in creativity and spontaneity. After doing standup, working and playing with others to break through to what is most true for them is my favorite thing to do. And after almost two months of work on my solo show, “The Punchline,” I played to sold out houses at the Fringe Festival. It was an honor to win Best Female Solo at the Festival and be selected for the Solo Show Festival in Marin in February (the 24th.)

I’m sending out this new year’s wish to you because I want to reach out and connect with you. I’ve been very affected by the intensity and fear of the world’s events–the end of easy oil, the reluctance of auto companies to completely re-invent themselves in order to protect the environment, the blindness and greed of the mortgage industry, and the sense of scarcity the downturn in the economy has had on us. And the message I want to convey is that it’s time to open our eyes to what’s really happening in the world. And to take a stand. To speak what we believe, and to align our actions with our values and our words. But I also want to say that there is so much more to life than the what’s in the news. Our own thoughts and actions are what truly build the fabric of reality, moment by moment. And together, we have the power to focus our thoughts to send an asteroid crashing into Bernard Madoff’s living room. (But read some of my beloved Krishnamurti and you’ll realize we are all Bernard Madoff.)

So stay tuned for info about my gigs, laughter yoga classes, and workshops in the coming year. I’ll be premiering the full version of Eat Pray Laugh! at some point, and I’m also putting together a down and dirty old-school standup set for the clubs.

To 2009, may all beings be happy.

-Alicia

http://www.aliciadattner.com
http://www.creativeheartcoaching.com
http://www.monkpunk.org
http://www.examiner.com/x-453-SF-Comedy-Examiner
http://www.youtube.com/AliciaDattner

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You caught me with my morals down.  I’m another relieved armchair liberal.  Yes, I’m going to keep buying organic produce, turning off the faucet when my boyfriend leaves it on for no reason, and only recycling paper bags by putting bottles and paper in them to transfer them to the recycling bin.  And I’m breathing a sigh of relief that maybe the next four years won’t be as terrifying as the last eight have been.  Did you read the salon.com article about how the Gen-X’ers are sorry for hating on the Boomers?  It was great.  And, yes, I do feel a swell of hope–hope that Barack will lead us, unite us, bring understanding and dialogue within the country as well as around the world.

I have hope that the crumbling of financial institutions lead to the kind of dissillusionment that real truth and real care for the land and people we need.  I have hope that the rise in oil prices will finally spark the development of alternative energy sources–that someday soon, they won’t be “alternative” sources–that solar and wind power will be the plain-old, everyday way we power up (kind of like when alternative music became mainstream and everybody in tenth grade, even the jocks, were listening to the cure and pearl jam and dying their hair black and this turned high school upside down.)  I want to turn high school upside down.

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So here’s what happened: John McCain launched an internet attack ad against Barack Obama suggesting Obama is not a suitable presidential candidate because he’s as empty a celebrity as Paris Hilton.  So, Adam McKay thought it would be funny if Paris Hilton ran for president, with the comedy logic that an intellectually capable Paris would nullilfy and make ridiculous McCain’s attack. (Pardon me for explaining the joke.)

So, Adam wrote a presidential candidacy announcement, got Paris on board and they shot it this week.  It’s the first time Paris really speaks publicly with any substance whatsoever, and she pulls it off pretty well.  But really, Adam McKay?  Your ghostwriting has Paris suggest an energy policy that’s a “combination of McCain’s and Obama’s” in which we do drill for offshore oil (McCain’s idea) “safely” (McKay’s idea) which will sustain us until we sufficiently develop alternative energy sources (Obama’s idea.)

First off, the idea of safe offshore drilling is dubious at best; no oil drilling is free of leaks, accidents, etc, and many of those problems are never made public.  Secondly, any offshore drilling started now won’t yield oil for another twenty to forty years–how does that sustain us or reduce gas prices now?  Thirdly, we’ve already got a host of alternative energies that are ready for development; this is the time to change.  LA Times journalist Carol Williams reported Schwarzenegger as saying, “Anyone who tells you [offshore drilling] would bring down gas prices any time soon is blowing smoke.”

If we don’t shift our energy use to alternative fuels in twenty to forty years, we’ll be much more likely to be gearing up to fight China for the oil left in the Middle East.  Our offshore oil should really be saved for the the next hudred generations of people, or sadly, saved in the case that we end up, say, waring with China for a hundred years, which would undoubtedly be directly or indirectly caused by fear and scarcity over resources.

So, thanks, Adam, for the good intentions, but it’d be funnier if Paris slammed down a hardcore energy policy instead of a hollywood one.

Handy-Dandy Energy Facts that Suggest Alternative Fuel Development is a Better Idea than Offshore Drilling:  US Vehicle turnover rate: 15 years
US Average age of vehicles: 9 years
Soonest possible time we’ll get any US offshore oil: 7 years
Number of oil spills for offshore drilling off the Texas coast: 187 spills of MORE THAN 2100 gallons between 1981 - 2005. That’s AT LEAST 392,000 gallons of crude oil, or roughly 16,000 gallons spilled every year.

With the US average vehicle age of 9.2 years, and average turnover rate of 15 years, in the time it takes to see any benefit from offshore drilling, we could be halfway to a green energy car fleet — which would drop the demand for oil and have the same price benefit for those still driving gasoline cars as increasing the supply of gasoline! (If that doesn’t make any sense to you, folks, please, PLEASE, go take an Economics 101 class at your local community college, or read Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan or Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner.)

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Calcutta, City of Kali

I leave the Sunflower Hotel in Calcutta (Kolkata) on Sunday, April 19th.  The day before I had visited the Ramakrishna Math.  Everything was wonderful except the cab driver, who was in a bad mood because I didn’t want to give him an extra 50 rupees.  The cab driver was a friend of the hotel manager.  When I ask for a cab for dinner that night, he calls the same guy, and the guy is two hours late picking me up.  I try to say, “Cancel–I find taxi.”  But they don’t speak much English, and they don’t have his phone number.  After the cab ride, he asks for more money again.  I tell the hotel manager I don’t want him to bring me to the airport at 6:30 am.  “Cancel car.  I find car myself.”  He says “Ok.” By this point I really don’t want to see him again, and I doubt he wants to see me, either.  In the morning I get dressed watching MTV India, pack my things, and walk downstairs to find a cab to the airport.  And there’s the same cab driver, ready to go.  I’m so annoyed I start laughing.  I remember to pack the chili powder in my checked bag, as it’s illegal to carry on the plane.

Bangkok

I arrive in Bangkok that afternoon for the first time dressed in the flowing white garments I imagine we’re all wearing when angels descend from the heavens.  My boyfriend’s plane is supposed to have landed hours ago, and he’s not waiting for me adoringly at the gate.  I leave a note at the information desk, and when he goes to the desk to announce my name, they recognize him from my description and get excited and hand him my note.  We finally find each other, and he’s grown this funky week-old goatee, and I’m trying to remember who he is after three months away.

We arrive on the first night of Passover.  My boyfriend shaves his “goatee,” and we head for the Chabad House seder, which is completely in Hebrew.  He provides a running translation.  We hang out in Bangkok for a few days to catch our breath and see some temples, and then take an overnight train up north to Chiang Mai.  

Chiang Mai

We learn to cook ten indulgent Thai dishes at the Siam Rice cookery school…  coconut milk soup, papaya salad, pad thai, pad see yiu, red, green, yellow, and panang curry, and best of all sticky rice with mango and pumpkin in coconut milk…

The Beach

We fly to the island of Phuket back in Thailand and head for the beach, which has been my initial goal all along.  They’re erecting a giant hundred meter high sitting buddha on the top of the mountain, and it glows white at night.  We take a ferry to Koh Phi Phi, a smaller island, and spend several days snorkeling, getting massages, and drinking coconut shakes on the beach.  

On the last day we rent a nicer room for 1000 bhat (33 dollars) with AC and a TV, which is timely because it’s pouring rain all day.  As we leave on the boat and but to Surat Tani and the 16 hour train back to Bangkok, we see a newspaper headline:  10,000 dead in Burmese cyclone.  The same weather system that poured buckets on Koh Phi Phi also wiped out so many lives and homes in the neighboring Burma.  We are very lucky that it misses us, and also very sad about the devastation, especially considering the already tenuous political situation.

New York

We fly back to NY.  I do standup at Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan, featuring some brand new material about India, which went over really well (with my whole family in the audience!)  

“Eat, Pray, Laugh!”

This summer I’ll be developing my new show about India and spirituality (sic) and putting it on in workshop form at 975 Howard in San Francisco.  (Of course) the title is “Eat, Pray, Laugh!

Tanks, Y’all

Alicia

P. S.

Oh, and I penned this silly phrase while doing some joke-writing in India:  ”People pleasers rarely do so, whereas people eaters do so rarely.”

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