Nipping a Problem in the Marijuana Bud

Let’s apply time-management techniques and
 team-building
to control a potentially chaotic situation

The thing I like about blogging, aside from having a great excuse to avoid doing chores around the house, is that I get to dream up bizarre ideas and run them past you, my readers, to make sure I’m not totally crazy.

This past week, for instance, an idea came to me as I listened to news that Colorado and Washington legalized pot use for pleasure, nudging the nation into uncharted territory. Already two dozen states allow medical marijuana, and New York State may not be far behind.  Taken as a whole, these moves could open up the floodgates to millions of new weed smokers. And therein lies the conundrum.

Sure, state legislators are treading carefully. They’re debating how to measure people’s blood levels if caught driving stoned. But they’re missing the larger impact of potentially millions of Americans losing their grip on reality. Which is what could happen when inexperienced users get high for the first time – or existing stoners smoke far more regularly because they no longer have to sneak around.

It’s not hard to imagine America taking a major hit to productivity and the efficient functioning of society. It’s not hard to imagine stoned CPAs messing up on tax returns. A truck driver delivering sausage to a shoe factory. A plumber forgetting to install the flush mechanism in toilets. A resort operator with the munchies deciding to build a Dunkin Donuts in the middle of the advanced slope at Vail Ski Resort. Insanely smiling cops telling New York City drivers to stop on green and go on red, traffic backed up for miles. Stoned spouses too spacey to have sex.

And that’s where my idea comes in – a corporate-style solution with potentially broad appeal that applies high-level organizational standards to a chaotic situation.

Here’s what I propose: a pot-smoking group that uses time management techniques, role playing and sweat lodge retreats to help stoners live more fulfilled, productive lives through weed. (Devoted readers may recognize this as the plot of a future novel of mine; click here).

A bit extreme, you say? Well, bear with me. Unlike alcohol, which drink by drink makes you louder and less coordinated and less careful, just a few hits of pot can distort our spatial perceptions and wreck our short-term memory (so I’ve read in several scientific journals).

Granted, the examples of potential problems I offer are extreme. But now’s the time to act before they get even worse. Shouldn’t we nip the problem in the marijuana bud, so to speak, before stoned bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration mail out disability checks to several million deceased Americans? Before NASA sends the next multi-billion dollar Mars Rover to Venus by accident, where it abruptly disintegrates upon entering the boiling hot atmosphere?

Before a wasted president of the United States, God forbid, mistakenly presses the button instead of the letter “T” on his keyboard?

As its first major activity my group – tentatively titled, Pot Smokers Unanimous — would dispatch a nationwide network of marijuana coaches to help stoners create pot-smoking schedules, built around times during the day when they must function normally, and other times they can “check out.”

The schedules would be enforceable. Errant pot smokers who go “off schedule” would lose their weed privileges. Those who adhere would be rewarded with more flex time.

PSU would offer group therapy meetings for members to practice memory exercises and visualization techniques to teach them how to act normal while wasted. How to keep a coherent conversation and tell a joke without forgetting the punchline. How to give a lecture, say, before a Computer Programming Conference on how the forces of genericity and indexing balance each other, simultaneously promoting and controlling generality in programming. Without cracking up in the middle.

During PSU therapy sessions, joints would get passed around, clouds of smoke drifting across the room, as mentors test participants’ ability to counter-argue and keep track of talking points, all while incinerating lungfuls of weed

It’s a tricky situation, for sure. Intrinsic in the THC experience is chaos — the opposite of order. We all seek the mindful blur but are hard-pressed to see past it.

But my corporate-style approach, I believe, could have broad bi-partisan appeal – especially with Tea Party conservatives pissed over the electoral swing toward a drug they publicly despise. They’re in a bind over not wanting to take sides with liberals, but clearly wouldn’t want to miss out on millions of stoned voters.

By uniting in a coherent fashion behind this contentious issue, let’s find a solution before it’s too late. The time to act is now.

What do you think? Am I totally crazy? I’m eager to hear your comments.

David Kalish is the author of the comedic novel, The Opposite of Everything, which will  be published in March.

A Conversation with My Main Character

How I make my characters come alive on the page

In my last post, I talked about how tense I felt about my book tour this spring. I half-jokingly mentioned I’d love to hire my main character to impersonate me. A more confident, smoother version of myself, who wouldn’t mind getting up in front of a book crowd.

Well, you can imagine my delight this week when my publisher,WiDo Publishing, managed to arrange a meeting between us!

So on Tuesday, I took an Amtrak down to Manhattan and we sat down for an hour at a bar on the Lower East Side, where my character, Daniel Plotnick, knows the bartender and gets his beers for free.

Here’s how the interview appears this morning in my publisher’s blog, entitled “A Matter of Characters,” exploring the interesting and sometimes contentious relationship between authors and their characters:

WiDo Publishing: Welcome, both of you! It’s a pleasure to introduce not just the author but the main character of the book he wrote.

Daniel Plotnick: Well, it strikes me as bizarre, to say the least.

David Kalish: It’s my pleasure to be here. I’m so honored.

WiDo: To start off, David, why don’t you tell us a little about your book and why you chose Daniel Plotnick for your main character.

DK: Be happy to. The Opposite of Everything is a comedic twist on my own struggles with disease and divorce. The book started out as a memoir, but morphed over the years into comedic fiction. Early on in the writing process, I found I needed to distance myself from material that otherwise might be too overwhelming for me to write about. So I changed the facts, stretched truths, made up new names, and invented impossible scenarios.

Daniel Plotnick, my main character, is a prime example. He goes through what I went through – cancer, marital collapse, treatment and renewal. But he’s a zany, more hapless version of myself. He’s so traumatized by his problems he goes gothic. Wears a nose ring. His father accidentally pushes him off the GW Bridge. He decides that, in order to survive another day, he must do the opposite of everything he did before.  Thus the title of the book.

DP: Wait a second. You make me sound like your developmentally disabled brother. A real nut job.

DK: Well, I didn’t mean to. I wanted to make you a more interesting version of myself. You take risks. You go off on philosophical tangents. And if it’s any comfort, all my characters are a bit extreme.

DP: Yeah, but I’m the main one. Why pick on me?

WiDo: OK, let’s move on. Can you give us some examples, David, of how you stretched reality for comic effect?

DK: Be happy to! In my novel, Daniel Plotnick meets the woman of his dreams. But he’s so obsessed with making his second wedding the opposite of his first – to avoid repeating his failure in marriage — he cancels the caterers, corrals guests to help cook, and replaces the priest with Buddhist monks. Another example of something I made up is when Plotnick’s father and his second wife try to help Plotnick and his second wife conceive a baby. None of this, of course, actually happened to me.

DP: Yeah, but it happened to me. You used me as your whipping boy.  Couldn’t you have picked on someone else?

DK: Sorry. Most of the bad things I make you go through are to help you develop as a character. By the end of the book, you’re a lot more expressive and introspective in a wise way because of everything you’ve gone through.

WiDo: Let’s move on here. David, I understand your book tour starts in March, shortly after release. You’ve got a pretty busy schedule – Saratoga on March 20; Brooklyn, March 27; Saratoga again in April. Boston in May.  Are you stressed out?

DK: Stressed out is understating it. I’m not really a public person. That’s why I became a writer in the first place. In fact … (DK pulls out a sheath of papers) … In fact, I’d like Daniel Plotnick here to pinch hit for me.

WiDo: What a great idea! That would be the first time one of our authors teamed up with a protagonist on a book tour.

DK: I figured if Plotnick is crazy enough to wear a nose ring and go goth then he should have no problem presenting my novel to a crowd, risking his dignity.

WiDo: Well, Daniel Plotnick, how do you feel impersonating the author who invented you?

DP: This is news to me.

(DK shows DP the papers)

DK: I have a contract for you to sign, Daniel. It states you agree to play me in all public appearances – “including but not limited to book stores, libraries, and conferences” — promoting my forthcoming novel,The Opposite of Everything.

DP: (laughs). Give me a break! No way I’m getting up in front of a crowd. I’ve got enough problems with cancer, divorce, and all those other problems you gave me. It’s not easy being me.

WiDo: Perhaps I can interject here. Mr. Plotnick, as you know, the book tour is important to selling books. If no one buys Mr. Kalish’s books, you will be as anonymous as he. Your stake in this is as great as him.

DP: I don’t care about the book tour. Besides, this so-called contract is just another way for Kalish to control me. He thinks he’s God and I’m his sock puppet. It’s enough he took away nearly all the exclamation points from my dialogue. Now when I talk I feel blah.

WiDo: Er, removing those exclamation marks was our suggestion, Daniel. It’s part of the copy editing process. There were 884 exclamation marks in David’s novel. Way too many for a 200-page novel.

DP: So I’m the happy victim? I’m tired of being controlled!

DK: I’m pleading with you, Daniel.

DP: You dug your own grave, bro. I’m not subjecting myself to yet another stressful experience. It’s enough you named me Daniel Plotnick. Where’d you get that dweeby name anyway?

DK: It just came to me. I was lying in bed dreaming, and your name spoke to me. I could hear it when I woke up. Daniel Plotnick. Daniel Plotnick. Daniel Plotnick.

DP: Really? My name came to you in a dream?

DK: That’s right. You’re everything to me, Daniel. Without you … I’m just an ordinary person.

DP: I’m flattered. But I’m still not getting up on stage for you.

WiDo: Well that about wraps up our interview today. Check out the blog post at “A Matter of Characters,” featuring author David Kalish and his hapless protagonist, Daniel Plotnick.

DK: So you’re not going to help me? What am I supposed to do? Take public speaking lessons?

DP: My suggestion, young man, is to start drinking. Heavily. Here. Have a beer. It’s free. I know the bartender.

David Kalish is the author of the comedic novel, The Opposite of Everything, which will be published in March.

Confessions of a First-Time Author

Coming March 11:
The opposite of what I expected

This month I enter the final stretch before my novel, The Opposite of Everything, is published on March 11.  I’d be dishonest saying I wasn’t nervous going into it.

I’m holding my book launch on March 20 at Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga. Another launch event at Powerhouse on Eighth, a Brooklyn bookstore, on March 27. On April 10, I’m booked in an hour-long event at Saratoga Springs Public Library. In May I’m hosting a panel at a writer’s conference in Boston, and another book event at the Golden Notebook in Woodstock, N.Y. There are others. Click here for more info.

Thinking about the zillion details – getting the word out, planning and hosting the events – keeps me up at night. Fact is, I’ve never gone on a book tour, let alone organized my own. I don’t consider myself a highly organized person. I’m not naturally drawn to public speaking, which is partly why I became a writer. I’m a bit of a technophobe, afraid to press the wrong button, and every day I must use the Internet to spread the word.

I’m stepping way outside my comfort zone.

I reassure myself I’ve overcome many challenges thrown so far my way. It took me thirteen years to write my novel, a comedic fictional twist on my real-life journey through cancer, divorce, treatment and renewal. It took several hundred rejections by literary agents and publishers. I rewrote the darn thing several dozen times, guided by fellow writers and teachers at Bennington College, where I earned my MFA.

Then the real challenge came last spring, when I finally found a publisher that accepted my novel. Signing the contract, I was forced to shed my naïve notions about the journey to the bookshelf. Successful authors, I once believed, focused on what they did best. They rearranged words on the page. And once their first novel was accepted for publication, they’d pop open the champagne, do a couple of book signings, and work full-bore on their second novel.

That was in my younger and more idealistic days. Since my novel was acquired, I’ve barely touched my second. Instead I’ve plunged into social media, a requirement for first-time authors like me. My online presence used to consist of a barebones Facebook page. My incoming Facebook invites went straight into the spam folder, and one of those invites was from my wife. So I gritted my teeth and googled “book promotion plan,” cobbling one together. I reached out for help from people who knew a lot more than me. Today, I spend oceans of time blogging for the Times Union and harnessing Facebook and Twitter. I participate in Goodreads. I update my author Web site. I solicit reviews, sending emails to bloggers, Amazon reviewers, and traditional media reviewers to see if they want an advance review copy when it comes out later this month.

Though I’m still afraid to push the wrong button, I’m less afraid than before. I keep coming back to writing – reminding myself that’s why I’m doing all this stuff. One thing that overwhelms me is the idea of presenting my novel at book events to a crowd. So I’m crafting a “stump speech” – something to use again and again for presentations at book events, with minor tweaks – that weaves in my journey as a writer and how that influenced my novel. The thing that got me here in the first place – my writing – will also save me. When I talk publicly I will be writing in the air. I remind myself I’ve not strayed too far from that which I know.

I’m here toward the end of a long chapter in my journey because this is where life has led me. My first poem was in kindergarten: Days pass, nights too, every day, there’s something new. In one form or another in my life, I have danced on stage naked and lived to tell about it. Research and preparation and good will and networking are my allies. I know too that talking about my fears helps. For that I thank my blog readers. Thanks for listening. Each of your comments, and visits, keeps me going. I hope I’ll see many of you at my launch events. The satisfaction of meeting you would make me realize that this whole trip has been worth it. I’ll be giving details of the events in coming weeks in this blog and through other social media. And you’re all invited.

You can do it, I tell myself. I repeat this to myself a lot.

To blow off steam I fantasize about hiring someone to impersonate me. Who’s a smoother, more confident version of myself. But then I realize my launch budget could never afford it. Instead, perhaps I’ll impersonate myself. Sort of how I hired a character to play me in my novel. A more hapless, zanier version of myself. Someone who’s crazy enough to get up in front of a crowd and dance naked on stage.

One day, for sure, I’ll finish my second novel. It will be easier to sell because of my first. By then I’ll have paved a rocky path through social media to the bookshelf, whether virtual or bricks-and-mortar. Between now and then, I’ll try not to grit my teeth too much. And hopefully sell a lot of books.

David Kalish is the author of the novel, The Opposite of Everything, which will be published in March

On the road to Ibagué, a detour into the past

Coqui and Ingrid, after eighteen years apart

Last week, my wife Ingrid and I drove an hour through a fertile basin of the Andes to visit Coqui, a friend she hasn’t seen in nearly two decades.

Despite the years and distance between them — Coqui lives in the central Colombian city of Ibagué, Ingrid in New York — they have a staggering amount in common. Both of their fathers were murdered in violence in Colombia.  They went to medical school together. And both are doctors now, having recovered from personal tragedy to live full, stable lives.

On the road to Ibague, Colombia

Last month, on a whim, Ingrid touched base with Coqui (her nickname) for the first time in years and proposed a get-together during our annual vacation in Colombia. As she hung up the phone, it occurred to her why she’d reached out. She felt strong enough in her own life — emotionally and economically — to reach back through time to share her accomplishments with Coqui. To see how Coqui was faring — to renew the friendship that once gave them the strength to make it through the tough times.

But as we neared Ibagué, followed by Ingrid’s family in another car, my wife grew sad as she pointed out changes in the scenery along the highway. Business and housing developments had sprung up, pushing into farm fields. The highway was smoother – a toll road now — having lost some of its charm.

Big box stores come to Ibagué

It reminded Ingrid of the distance between she and her old friend. Would they rediscover the familiarity that drew them together? Or feel awkward because of changes wrought by time? Ingrid’s anxiety increased as we drove into Ibagué. Her memories of the place were wiped clean. “It’s not a town anymore,” Ingrid said, simply. “It’s a city.” Where were the simple neighborhoods, with small family houses and uncrowded streets divided by islands of trees? Exito and Homecenter, Colombian big-box chains, had sprung up out of nowhere. Roads had widened, open spaces paved over with well-to-do housing developments.

I did my best to reassure Ingrid that all around Ibagué, wherever we looked, the Andes mountains jutted up in the distance, as ever – green and craggy and indomitable. A record of the past that can never be swept away.

Ingrid’s memories of Coqui are mostly happy ones.

They met at medical school in Bogotá in 1985, where they sat next to each other for six years in class, since their last names began with “B.” Coqui was pretty – the sister of a Colombian beauty queen. This thrilled Ingrid. She and Coqui became fast friends.

They had hard times at medical school, known for tough classes many students didn’t pass. But they also let off steam together. Since Coqui was from outside Bogotá she had her own apartment, a precious commodity at school, where most students lived with their parents. Coqui hosted more than her share of parties, inviting students who sat near her in class — whose last names began with A, B, C, and D. The parties were a time to unwind from the stress of studying. Lots of frenetic dancing to salsa, merengue, and other music of Colombia.

After the murder of Ingrid’s father in 1989, Ingrid and Coqui drifted apart. Ingrid worked three jobs as a doctor to make ends meet, supporting her widowed mother and two younger brothers, trying to keep her father’s factory afloat. She didn’t have time for socializing.

Coqui, meanwhile, went through her own rough patch. The last time Ingrid saw her was in 1995, at Coqui’s lavish wedding – a marriage that collapsed just a year later. A few years later, Coqui’s brother was almost murdered in a kidnapping attempt.

For her part, Ingrid fled the instability of Colombia and moved to the United States, where she met me, married, bore our daughter, and opened her own medical practice.

As we wended through traffic in Ibagué, so many landmarks were gone from the city that Ingrid got lost, and kept circling back. We were late. We finally came to the gated community where Coqui lives with her second husband and three sons.

Outside Coqui’s home, mountains as indomitable as ever

Coqui was waiting for us outside their spacious tile-roof home. She had olive-toned skin and black hair, slender in her dark dress, as beautiful as Ingrid’s memory of her. She and Ingrid embraced with smiles and glistening eyes, but no tears. “Hey you got lost!” Coqui laughed. The first thing out of her mouth was a joke, which instantly relaxed Ingrid.

She welcomed us, and Ingrid’s family, into her house. We sat in her patio overlooking her small backyard, filled with a large Nativity scene. Her husband Marcelo arrived home. He is a tall handsome businessman who used to be Coqui’s boss, which is how they met.

Our family and hers chatted over lunch of sancocho, a soup rich with meat and potatoes and

Catching up on some much-needed sleep

plantains, and a side of arroz con pollo, Ingrid and Coqui talked as if they’d never been apart. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to keep up, and I took a well-deserved nap after lunch. But Ingrid later told me they spoke little of their fathers’ deaths, which is perhaps as it should be.

We said goodbye a few hours later, hugged, and promised to see each other next year – or, at least, before the next eighteen years go by. As we drove away, the city of Ibagué seemed a little less foreign to Ingrid, the changes having settled in. Because sometimes we revisit the past, to reality-check if the memory is accurate. To see how time has colored our recollections.

Ingrid received confirmation last week.

David Kalish is the author of the comedic novel, The Opposite of Everything, which will be published in March.

Awkward Situations in Colombia, Solved

Enjoying my daughter's new underwater camera

GIRARDOT, Colombia — On Christmas Day, as I lounged poolside in this hot tropical town, sweating and reading Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October, an email popped up in my iPhone. It was the foreign editor of The Gringo Herald-Tribune.

He sounded desperate. Readers were barraging the newspaper with questions in response to my interview with the newspaper last week – just before I left with my family for our annual vacation in Colombia. I’d offered tips for Americans considering a similar trip, and now the newspaper’s email inbox was flooded. Readers referred to me as “The Gringo Guru.” Would I be so kind, the editor asked, to take a look and send answers via email to the GH-T,which would then publish them?

I hesitated. Here I was, a week into my vacation, full of good cheer from Christmas Eve. The night before, the nine of us – my twelve-year-old daughter, Colombian wife and her family — had spent a decent evening around the tree, unwrapping several hundred presents and dining at midnight, per tradition, on arroz con pollo. What I really wanted to do now was jump in the pool and cool off with my daughter, who in that moment was snapping underwater photos of her cousins with her new Christmas acquisition: a waterproof camera.

But curiosity gnawed at me. I read a few of the reader emails. A wave of empathy washed over me. I realized I’d become some sort of go-to guy on how to endure awkward cultural situations. And my readers desperately needed help.

Hardly realizing it, I began typing responses.

Here’s some excerpts from this morning’s edition of The Gringo Herald-Tribune:

 Dear Gringo Guru:

I’m not an arepa man. I’m a Dunkin Donuts man, trying to get by as a banker in Bogota. But last weekend my Colombian co-workers took me to San Gil to an outdoor market, where one of them bought a bucketful of what looked like very dark popcorn. He told me, in broken English, it came from a special native corn. Figuring he knew, I crunched down. My co-workers broke into hysterical laughter. They blurted out the Spanish word “hormiga.” Also known, in English, as ant. I immediately spit up, grabbed the closest water bottle, gargled. Spit. Gargled. Spit. Gargled. Spit. Gargled. Spit. My Colombian co-workers reassured me all I’d eaten were ant abdomens, since the local ant chef had snipped off the little heads and legs. I gargled some more. Spit. Gargled. Spit. Gargled. Spit.

Since then, I’ve had nightmares about vengeful insects eating me. The mere thought of popcorn makes me want to reach for the nearest can of Raid. I’m considering a transfer to another bank branch, perhaps in Miami.

– Sandbagged in San Gil

Dear Sandbagged:

In America, we have the saying, “Don’t eat the yellow snow.” This roughly translates, in Spanish, to “Stay away from black popcorn.” So chalk it up to experience. Then reward yourself with a dozen Dunkin Donuts. Colombia has plenty of ‘em.

— Gringo Guru

Dear Gringo Guru:

Thanks for those great tips last week! Would you mind sparing one more? Here’s the thing. I’m on vacation in Cali with my Colombian girlfriend at her family’s home. But their generosity is killing me! Her family insists on cooking for us morning, noon, and night, and won’t let us eat a single meal out. Yesterday they served cow tongue, and tomorrow it’s tripe. There’s no way I can stomach cow intestine, but I don’t want to insult them. Colombia’s a polite society. What should I do?

– Bob from Kansas City

Dear Bob:

When your hosts aren’t looking, nonchalantly slide your tripe into your girlfriend’s plate, hiding it under her fried plantains. Quietly tell her she better eat it or else. It will be a valuable test of your relationship.  And stop complaining about cow tongue! Once you get past the taste buds, it’s not so bad. My orthodox Jewish grandparents used to serve me tongue when I visited them in Brooklyn, and look at me, I survived.

– Gringo Guru

Dear Gringo Guru:

I’m just about at my wit’s end over the toilet situation. Every fifth bathroom stall I enter has a trashcan full of soiled toilet paper. Needless to say, I find this disgusting.

– Flushed away in Funza

Dear Flushed Away:

The Ruminator assesses the bathroom situation

Sure, the pipes in Colombia can have a tough time handling toilet paper. This happens all over Latin America. But let you in on a little secret. Even when a toilet says it can’t handle paper, it usually can. Here’s my advice, based on personal experience. Go ahead, toss toilet paper in the bowl, just less so than in America. As a general rule of thumb, don’t drop more than twelve squares of paper in the bowl. If you use three feet of paper (twenty squares) in America, I’d suggest half that amount in Colombia. Then cross your fingers and flush. If need be, flush twice. Think of it as a compromise between your needs and the local sewer system requirements. In short, learn to get by with less. That’s what adapting to a foreign culture is all about.

David Kalish is the author of the comedic novel, The Opposite of Everything, which will be published in March

Postcard from Colombia: City of Eternal Spring

MEDELLIN, Colombia – Just days into my family’s annual vacation in Colombia, I have seen butterflies with wings transparent as glass. Thousands of candles floating in the air above a rushing river, flanked by lit-up fairy tale homes. A park full of giant fat people, sculpted in bronze, in a city better known for beautiful slender women.

Blogging to you live from Medellin, the City of Eternal Spring, I can confirm that toilets do not in fact flush in the opposite direction south of the equator. But I’ve found the sort of spectacles I hoped for when I handed over the keys last week to friends housesitting our upstate New York home, and flew 3,000 miles south with my twelve-year old daughter and Colombian wife. Though we’ve visited my wife’s home country more than a dozen times, each visit we sift for something new, opening ourselves up to places and people we’d otherwise miss.

On a mirador overlooking the city of Medellin

So far, this trip has not disappointed. After landing in Bogota last Wednesday, we flew, along with five members of my wife’s family, to Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city, known for its year-round spring-like climate. In a van on the winding road from the airport, we passed farms rising on green folds of land, ramshackle huts peddling everything from fruits to doghouses. Suddenly the city appeared in a valley, stuck between cloud-swaddled mountains, tall sleek buildings vying for attention with orange tiled roofs. It was morning; we’d been traveling by plane and vehicles since 4:30 a.m. We stopped at a mirador, or overlook, to check out the city below.

My wife, and a Botero sculpture

After settling in at the Medellin house of friends where we’re staying, we went downtown to check out a park filled with 23 bronze sculptures of fat characters created by Botero, the renowned Colombian artist and native of Medellin. The idea behind the permanent display was to rejuvenate the downtown, but there’s few signs of rebirth beyond the sculptures. The area is packed with unsavory characters, traffic, and thousands of small vendors selling everything from imported shoes to incense to drugs. We kept a sharp eye on our kids and wallets. Nevertheless, we enjoyed taking photos alongside the sculptures.

Soaring above Medellin’s poor communities, where Pablo Escobar once hired henchmen

On Sunday, we traveled on the Medellin Metro, Colombia’s only subway system, which in fact only travels above ground. Sometimes way, way above ground. Subway fare of 1,800 pesos, about a buck, includes a stunning ride on cable cars up a mountain crammed with poor neighborhoods known as comunes (in Brazil they’re called favelas). It was from here that Pablo Escobar once hired his henchmen. The eight of us squeezed into a cable car that slowly jerked us diagonally higher, soaring above tin roofs weighted with bricks to keep from blowing off, impossibly steep steps connecting unstable huts, and, implausibly, three cubic glass library buildings jutting out amid this mini-city of poor residences.

After a few miles up the mountain on the cable car the communes gave way to pine forest and we switched to another cable car section that took us to Parque Arvi, a nature preserve spread over hundreds of acres. It includes forest trails, a mariposario, or butterfly house, zip lines, and a small outdoor market of locally grown fruits, vegetables, and typical Colombian foods. It was inside the mariposario where we witnessed one of Colombia’s most striking butterflies – the crystal wing, with wings you can see right through.

Medellin is not shy about Christmas

After returning by cable car back down the mountain, we rested at the house of our hosts before returning with them by van that night to witness Medellin’s audacious display of Christmas lights. At 6 p.m. the lights come on around Rio Medellin, where candles suspended above the river glow between rows of illuminated houses. All told, some 27 million Christmas lights spanning 472 miles decorate the city, according to the Medellin public utilities company. According to my daughter, “They’re awesome.”

NEXT: We travel to the tropical city of Giradot, which has more swimming pools than Malibu

David Kalish is the author of the comedic novel, The Opposite of Everything, which will be published in March.

Before I fly to Colombia, some tips for gringos

Once a year, around this time, I travel with my wife and daughter to Colombia to spend the holidays with my wife’s family. On Tuesday, the eve of this year’s trip,The Gringo Herald-Tribune graciously asked to interview me about our plans. I sat down for a few hours to share my exclusive tips for other gringos considering the journey.

GHT: Thank you so much for taking time out before your flight! Honestly, Colombia isn’t a common destination for gringos. We’re dying to know more about why you’re going there.

Me: It’s my annual trip with my family, and I plan to blog all about it. We fly Wednesday to Bogota, the capital, where we stay in a small apartment with my wife’s aunt, cousins, brother, sister-and-law, niece, a big dog and several canaries. We’ll make a side excursion to Medellin, which once was Pablo Escobar’s native city, but now claims to have the most beautiful women in the world. We then drive to the tropical city of Giradot, a city with more swimming pools than Malibu, to spend Christmas together.

GHT: Interesting. What’s Christmas in the tropics like?

Me: Well, we don’t have Jack Frost nipping at our nose. But we can fry an egg on the street.

GHT:  Sounds like quite the adventure! But how does your family in the United States feel about you going? A lot of Americans worry because Colombia is still on the State Department Watch List.

Me: Fears about Colombia are way overblown. It’s a beautiful country with tons of variety and my wife’s family treats me like a king and pretends they understand my English. The country is way more secure than it was in the 1990s. Besides, when I first told my family in the United States we were going to Colombia, they thought I meant Columbia University in New York City. No, the main worry I have about Colombia is throwing out my back at the airport.

GHT: You mean, while airport security is patting you down?

Me: No, that’s not what I mean. I’m referring to the fact that some Colombians, such as my wife, take several fifty-pound bags resembling body bags when they visit their home country. These bags are filled with a gazillion items ranging from flip-flops to Lego sets to MP3 players, because to buy these imports in Colombia – where Marshalls and TJ Maxx don’t yet exist– is prohibitively expensive. After hoisting these behemoths from the rear of my SUV, I have written the heads of several airlines to lower the weight limit to something more reasonable. Say, 10 pounds. But no luck yet. I have also emailed the CEO of Marshalls asking they move ahead with plans to open one in Colombia.

GHT: Thanks for that helpful information, and good luck. While we’re on the subject, what should a typical American pack on a trip to Colombia? Drinking water, for instance, is a big concern for gringos in Latin America. Do you bring a few cases of bottled water with you?

 Me: I would, but my wife says there’s no room for that in the luggage.

GHT: Er …

 Me: No, the real thing I’m worried about in Colombia is, frankly, the crazy drivers and the air pollution in Bogota. Oh yeah, the lack of coffee lids. Outside of Juan Valdez, Latin America’s version of Starbucks, coffee lids are practically non-existent. You know how may times I scalded my hands crossing the street?

GHT: You’d think they’d have a lot of coffee lids in Colombia.

 Me: You’d think. But coffee lids could be a huge business opportunity for some smart gringo entrepreneurs.

GHT: What about the language? Can you offer any language advice to visitors?

 Me: If your Spanish is basic, like mine once was, restrain your urge to venture beyond simple statements such as Donde esta el bano? (Where is the bathroom?). Because you might accidentally ask to marry someone’s first cousin, Pedro.

GHT: Interesting!

 Me: It’s the equivalent of Latin American natives visiting the United States and saying, in broken English, “My English is good.  I just have a little problem with my bowels.” In short, don’t go beyond your ability.

GHT: Excuse me for sounding argumentative, but if people shy away from conversing with the natives, won’t they miss out on the cultural closeness one discovers by lifting the cloak off foreign customs?

 Me: Run that by me again?

GHT: Isn’t conversing with the natives the best way to feel accepted by a foreign culture?

 Me: For a newbie, it’s just the opposite. Once, many years ago, I tried to tell a group of Mexican men that I was hungry. But instead of saying, “Yo tengo hambre,” I said, “Yo tengo hombre.” Just a slight difference right? But my pronunciation made it sound like, “I have a man.” The Mexicans all moved away from me at that point. That’s how precarious the language situation is.

GHT: OK, let’s move on. Your wife, judging from the photo in one of your blog posts, is an attractive Colombian woman. Are you worried that Colombian men will hit on her? They have a reputation for romance and know how to dance.

 Me: My first time with Ingrid in a Latin country was in Dominican Republic back when I was on chemotherapy, white and hairless as a mole. As I stood in the shade of a palm tree, to avoid sun-burning my chemo-sensitive skin, I saw four shirtless buff young Dominicans approach her. I wasn’t sure, but they seemed to be flirting with her in Spanish. Occasionally they cast a glance my way. Perhaps they were saying to my wife: Why bother with that pale guy who lacks eyebrows? Come with us! We speak your first language, and we will fulfill your every dream. Ingrid, of course, admitted to none of this conversation.  But she still stayed with me anyway.

GHT: So in short, you feel secure in your relationship?

Me: Without a doubt.

GHT: Do you look forward to greeting the New Year with your wife’s family?

 Me: Quick story here. Last year, in the hot tropical town of Giradot, around 5 a.m. on New Year’s Day, loud drunk people paraded around the block and woke me from a deep sleep. They played trumpets out of tune and banged drums. Ingrid’s family also woke up, and I suggested we call the police. They laughed and pointed out that the police were in the parade. It’s a Colombian tradition.

GHT: Well, that about wraps it up. We look forward to reading your blog posts about your trip!

Me: Gracias.  

David Kalish is the author of the novel The Opposite of Everything,  which will be published in March 2014.