On
The Road
You’re
Travel Essay
Not the Stupidest Man in the
World, (But Occasionally You Do a
Very Convincing Impression)
By Rock Han
To most of my fellow Americans, travel is thought
to grant many alleged superpowers. For instance, it
often inspires the good grace not to bitch at
locals about their crappy everyday conditions; and
hopefully, seasoned wayfarers may even grasp this
gnomic molecule of folk wisdom that nothing takes
the fun out of whining about slow internet
connections like poor people. Travelers also gain
a generous license to gloat, and will subject
anyone in their august company to an incontinent
accountancy of places visited and sites seen, thus
rendering tourism into a game of tag writ large and
arousing in their audience the welcome state of
petrifaction. But the one undisputed merit of
travel, too often overlooked, is that it provides a
wider stage than any one place can furnish to make
an utter fool of yourself.
"
This has to stop. Now if there’s one thing I
can’t stand, it’s Americans who willingly embrace
foolishness and advertise on foreign soil their
distorted image so unlike what Americans are really
like in television and movies. There comes a time—
and I believe this is one of them-—when a really
great man, whose importance in the cosmos is
unquestioned, must present to a bankrupt world the
charity of his higher example. And while only
certain unique circumstances truly offer the proper
forum for the full range of my skill set—-for
instance, a zombie apocalypse, or an invasion of
aliens declaring genocide against humanity and
barring these con F