It’s 2022 and people still have the energy to be mad about furries?

We have entered the era when I exited the Hot 100 and all things Western world pop culture for 2+ years. Whatever happens here in TNO or in pop culture in general between now and December 2000 is mostly invisible to me, with the exception of phenomena so big, they could not be escaped (e.g. The Matrix, Britney Spears). I was in a different country, one so far removed from all Western culture, it was almost like being on a different planet.

Technically, it began during the reign of “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” – maybe kind of prescient. And kind of the reason I really can’t hate that song too much (but don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty bad).

In mid-September, I left the United States for the toughest job you’ll ever love – the Peace Corps.

I decided about halfway through grad school – around summer 1997 – that I didn’t want to enter the private sector, nor did I really want to work for the government. Somehow, I felt like the Peace Corps would scratch my itch to “make a difference” and still gain professional experience. I started working with a recruiter very early in the process, knowing I was planning to leave in summer 1998, just after I got my Master’s degree. There were four countries seeking an engineer starting at that time, and I had a month to think about it.

You see, in the Peace Corps (at least at that time), you can’t choose a country, but you can choose a region (Americas / Caribbean, Africa / Eastern Europe, or Asia / Pacific), and the countries looking for an engineer were spaced out between these regions. So I had a month to choose between:
·        Jamaica
·        Mali or Mauritania
·        Nepal

I wasn’t too tempted for the Sahara Desert, so I spent a month weighing the pros and cons of Jamaica vs. Nepal. In the end, I really wanted to get out of my comfort zone, so Nepal it was.

So I knew for about 10 months that I was going to Nepal – quite a way to live life, by the way, knowing you’re going to be gone is a great way to get over being shy and get out and enjoy life. I did a big road trip all across the United States with my buddy – 10,000 miles in one month, more than a dozen national parks, something like 18 states, camping out most nights, several amazing concerts along the way. After that, I worked at a summer camp and had a summer fling with another camp counselor. And on the morning I was leaving for the airport to start my journey to Nepal, literally right before I got in the car, I grabbed the basketball, launched one last three-pointer at my backyard goal and NAILED IT!

I took it as a good omen.

Had a couple nights in San Francisco to meet my fellow Nepal volunteers (45 in all) and start some early orientation, then we set out for Kathmandu. The giddy nervousness was bubbling over from me, from all of us, as we departed from US soil. The girl I sat next to and I laughed our asses off for the whole 12 hour flight from San Fran to Taipei, infuriating our neighbors on the plane. I don’t remember one thing we laughed about; I think we were just overwhelmed and this was how we dealt with it. One guy had done a previous stint in Peace Corps before in West Africa, so we peppered him with 1,000 questions on the flight, which he answered elliptically. Like what do you remember about your experience, and his reply was that his host family was always watching pro wrestling and asking him if it’s real.

After 36 hours and two separate layovers, we were in Kathmandu, and it was a whirlwind of vaccinations, prepared warnings about how to be safe and healthy (which can be summarized to Don’t drink the water unless it’s boiled and Don’t ride a motorcycle under any circumstances). After two nights in Kathmandu, we were loaded up in a bus and carted off to Palpa District, half of us to Tansen (a small city) and Madhanpokhara (a small village), for two months of intensive language, cultural and job training. We happened to get there just in time for Dashain, the biggest holiday in Nepal, and we got to witness a ritual animal sacrifice for the holiday about one week into the experience. A goat was decapitated and its blood was sprinkled on the engine of our Peace Corps jeep for good fortune.

Gulp!

Each of us was put up with a host family. Everyone was jealous of me – I was the only volunteer with access to a Western style toilet. However, I didn’t really connect with my host family for the most part. They seemed very money-oriented and besides dinner, I didn’t spend much time with them. However, I did hang out with the little brother in the family – about 18 years old – he listened to Bob Marley and Tracy Chapman, which was A) awesome as fuck, and B) the closest I got to anything resembling Western pop culture for my whole two years.

Eventually, I got into a routine – spend most of the day at the training site for breakfast, lunch and hours and hours of lessons. Hang out there with other volunteers until dark, playing music from homemade cassette tapes on tiny boom boxes, play hacky sack. Maybe go out for dinner in town with the tiny allowance we got for incidental expenses. Head back to the host family pad at dark, play more music on my Walkman and write letters to family and friends by the light of a kerosene lamp until I was ready to sleep. My music was frozen in amber at my taste as of summer 1998 and the numerous cassette tapes I made of my CD’s – mix tapes from friends, with lots of Phish or Super Furry Animals or Nick Cave or Widespread Panic. Which was just as well, because I was living through an emotional firestorm of culture shock and fear and giddy excitement.

The comfort of the familiar when NOTHING around me was familiar was valuable. My lived experience was all novelty – new friends, new sights and sounds and smells and tastes and people. Many countries have pop culture than can understood as derivative or connected to Western cultural influences. Nepal had practically zero Western influence. Lots of influence from India – Bollywood and such. But music traditions so different, you could not trace them back even thousands of years to a Western influence. Honestly, it was super refreshing to know that this exists – a world that is fully separate from Western influences (which are generally lowest common denominator and banal). But it was also disorienting.

So, this brings us to today’s column, the first song that reached #1 after I was Gone Daddy Gone from the US. I have no memory of this song, nor many of the ones that will follow, but I’ll use this opportunity to periodically share my experience in Nepal as we work through the next couple of virtual years.

More to come…

I’ll also be posting companion pieces on the sister site, tnocs.com, from time to time, so stop by for more tidbits and tasty morsels from the rooftop of the world.

“A lot of Car Seat’s music is furry adjacent because, when Will started, it was for that community of people,” dummer Andrew Katz also says. “So obviously a lot of the fans are furries and the rest know he’s a furry.”

…………what?!

In order to not offend the Brits, Lizzo will change the word sp*z to a word they have no problem with: c*nt.

Running Up that Hill being song of the summer is the only purely good thing about 2022

(And y’all better be ready to make that official when the poll drops)

In before someone gets super weird and mad about some pleasant indie girl pop.

When the last 3 minutes of DD/Killer Whales hits

You seem shocked. Perhaps you should lie down. You may need some FurSuit Bedrest.

i am watching