Hello Dalai, and other Stupa Party Jokes...and Survivor III....

Well, yesterday Liza and I went with Tony, our photographer friend from Toronto, to Bouddanatha; one of the most sacred Buddhist temples in Nepal. And this being Losar, the Tibetan New Year -2128 if you're counting, the year of 'The Iron Snake' to be exact) In fact many of the people who live around there are Tibetans in exile, just like the Dalai Lama (who of course lives in India when he's not jetsetting in New York or San Francisco or on Larry King Live. I'll never forget the time, last year, Larry's guests where His Holiness The Dalai Lama, on a feed from San Francisco and Deepak Chopra who was Larry's instudio guest in L.A. Between Deepak, in his three piece pin-striped suit and Larry King in his ubiquitous suspenders and blue dress shirt get up and His Holiness himself in his purple and orange uniform, it was a strange gathering of the tribes indeed. I'll never forget Larry turning to Chopra, in his gruff, old newsman's voice and asking 'Deepak, is this man [The Dalai Lama] the most holy man on earth or what?' and Chopra being as kind and gusihing as ever, and knowing the gig implicitly,'Oh yes, Larry, and the fact that this man does not consider himself to be special, only shows how special he is...'

You haven't seen such a love fest on television, unless you count the old days when Sammy Davis, Jr used to come on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day (sic) telethons back in those 'Candy Man' days of my youth. To top it all off, Larry's cut aways to commercials where revealing of the, shall we say, eclectic nature of his show. 'We'll be right back with Deepak Chopra and His Holiness The Da;ai Lama, and don't forget Wednesday ,Madeleine Albright will be here for the full hour, then Thursday Dustin Hoffman and Friday it's Hugh Hefner and Darva Conger to talk about her nude pictorial in Playboy'. I'm not makin' this stuff up by the way, that's verbatim. But as I say...

I DIGRESS...the Bouddanatha, oh yes, was very special indeed. Liza and I were pleased to discover that the amount of hawkers and sellers of cheapery was very slight, in fact the only things for sale seemed to be strictly religious; prayer flags and the like, incense etc. We had to pay 50 rupees to get into the square where the 'stupa' is but that seemed above board and reasonable for the upkeep of the place. The Stupa is a huge white dome, that I'm told is solid and not hollow like some religious shrines,there are many Stupas dotting the Kathmandu region. Yes, and the other day, and I've done my homework since I last wrote, Barry took us up to the Swayambhunath Stupa just on the west side of town. That was the one where we had to climb about 400 steps up a mountain, lined with monkeys. Mangy, one eyed monkeys, but monkeys nonetheless. As Swayambhunath there was also a distinct lack of commercialization, but a ticket charge to get up to the Stupa, although you only buy the ticket when you're almost at the top stair, imagine if the CN tower made you walk all the way up the staircase and then asked you to pay just to go on the observation deck, but hey the money seems to go toward the upkeep of these religious landmarks so I'm happy to part with a few well intended rupees. The Bouddanath was a little more down to earth, altitude wise, but apparently closer to Heaven so to speak. Which reminds me, this internet cafe was just playing Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven' which earlier in this trip I chose to dedicate to Itchy our late cat, and now they're playing the MTV Live Album by Nirvana. Heaven. Nirvana. This is why we've come to Kathmandu I guess. (Attaining Nirvana is much easier these days, thanks to the proliferation of bootleg CD's here...)

A word on TV. Gladly, there is not an MTV Asia available in the hotel. There is however something called STAR TV which shows Movies, and AXN network which today provided us with our first ever glimpse of Survivor II The Australian Outback. We, and I say this with no shame whatsoever, were glued to the first Survivor and I dont care who knows it. So we were kind of curious about this one. I think it was week 14 and Kimmi got voted off in the tribal council by the way. And last night on BBC World, what a treat for this Musician in exile. The Rock Years documentary series, back to back episodes, first Dancinng in The Streets the history of Pop R&B soul music from Berry Gordy's Motown to Stax Volt and Muscle Shoals sessions with artists like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, the end of the show was a real tear jerker with the death of Dr Martin Luther King, Aretha singing at the funeral and then the riot ending set by James Brown ('I wanna get up and do MY thing...')

Episode Two was the history of New York Punk, featuring The New York Dolls, Television, Richard Hell and Voidoids, Johnny Thunders, Blondie, The Ramones and Talking Heads. Boy was Tina Weymouth ever bitter sounding, David Byrne by contrast seemed contrite and apologetic for whatever transgressions he had, um, transgressed in his youth.

But it was a great show and covered everything that my current issue of MOJO magazine( talks about, so it was a great accompaniment to that.And thank you again for that Mojo Mag, Linda, and yes you are missed dearly here, let's see you soon)

Well we have to go find out what camping supplies we dont have for our outing to Namsaling, Dr Barry's village in Nepal. Talk about Survivor II, I think we may get voted out of our tribe yet...

Namaste eh.