John M. Edwards lucks out on a lucrative commercial gig at Australia’s awesome Uluru (Ayers Rock)—but with one problem: he was not actually cast to be in it! Celebration of a nation! Celebration of a nation! Let’s make it great . . . In 88! Come on and give us a hand! –“Australian Bicentennial,” Mojo Advertising Co. I lucked out finally while on a much-needed “smoko” at the Alice Springs Abattoirs, where I worked for only one day in the “Boning Room,” with its inevitable jokes among the disgruntled illegals […]

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PART I: QUEENSLAND I landed with a thump on a Quantus long-haul flight, back when smoking was allowed and drinking encouraged, like a character out of a Bruce Chatwin novel. I was ineffably in error while reading my Lonely Planet guidebook on the plane–thinking that “Cairns” was pronounced with an “r” in it, when to local “Aussie” cobbers (not “Ozzies,” a common mistake both of Septic Tank Yanks [Americans] and Bloody Pomes [Britishs]), it sounds like a famous film festival held by the Frogs. In Australia, though, anybody from another […]

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New Zealand’s Prized Sea Snails John M. Edwards voyages to remote Stewart Island to capture one of New Zealand’s most expensive endangered delicacies: paua. Finding no “paua” on the menus of New Zealand’s North or South Islands, a dirtbag backpacker and “stringer” correspondent was forced to go to way remote Stewart Island in order to find and forage some for his own in the wild. At this island outpost on Half Moon Bay, he thus discovered that the “South Sea Hotel,” which claims to be the closest pub to the […]

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A serious Interview with Bill Gaines John M. Edwards, as a snot-nosed enfant terrible, tries to get a job at his favorite magazine: MAD. A long time ago, when I was a young canny kid and a memorabilia collector, I was hellbent on getting the entire collection of valuable MAD Magazines back issues sheathed in plastic. (I already owned all the paperback collections which fit neatly into three wine boxes.) Unsurprisingly, I decided on a lark to visit the famous Madison Avenue address where my favorite mag was published to […]

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Caribbean Chic and Volcanic VIPS in the Dead Zone “Lifestyles of the rich and famous” spokesman Robin Leach has nothing on budget jetsetter John M. Edwards. A West Indies “Old Hand” — One who cannot sail, surf or fish – he still says Montserrat can’t be beat for ATMO. If you don’t mind destruction and destitution in the wake of a deadly volcanic eruption … Maybe Montserrat? You plan your next Caribbean vacay around a disaster of legendary dimensions, an “active” island of ashes and dust associated with flash jetsetters […]

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John M. Edwards tours the ambivalent history of terror in the Hungarian capital Outside the museum on infamous Andrassy utca stood a young Hungarian law student wearing an anachronistic frockcoat straight out of some 19th-century novel. He said his name was Andros and asked me for a cigarette. He then lit it and smiled pleasantly. “Did you know that there was a persistent rumor during World War II that our ghoulash bowls were full of human flesh from the torture victims killed here?” he said with a superior sneer. Hold […]

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John M. Edwards grabs his “Beachcombers Card” and does Divali (Festival of Lights) on delicious Mauritius, a paradisiacal Indian Ocean isle–once the roost of extinct dodos, now the boast of professional beachbums–which initially he can’t place on a map! “Incredible!” You are from New York?!” boomed Willy Van Damme, a friendly Belgian restaurateur and former soldier of fortune, in the sleepy resort town of Péreybere. “Very rare! We get almost no Americans, only French, South Africans, some Germans, English, and the odd Italian.” At a snap of Willy’s fingers, an […]

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Vietnam’s Traveler Cafes Offer Much More Than Just Joe WEASEL COFFEE: $300-$600 A POUND On the far shore of an artificial lake in Hanoi, Vietnam, I found a much-needed antidote to restaurant hell, with its reckless gastronomical woes on untranslatable menus (involving Indochinese delicacies like baked sparrows with the feathers still on, fried scorpions, sautéed snakes, roasted rats, and “No Cock, only Fanta Orange”). It was a coffee stand. But not just any coffee stand. Here they served the Vietnamese national drink and aphrodisiac: “Ca phe da.” Which is basically […]

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On a Mediterranean boat heading nowhere in particular but probably past Rhodes, an American backpacker wonders whether there is an alternate way to Iran, and if they play Uncle Wiggly in Tehran Once I met this rather good-looking and plucky Swiss adventurer who repeatedly kept trying to convince me to travel to Iran. He said he was treated very well there, and that I being an American, who had pretty much traveled everywhere on the planet, that they might in fact actually be interested in meeting me. He said, in […]

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John M. Edwards, the only smoker ever allowed onto the premises of snooty “Sooke Harbour House,” visits Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest on his own terms. As a paying contributor to “The United Negroe College Fund,” for sage reasons of philanthropy as well as tax evasion, I was a little surprised to find in the maritime city of Vancouver, British Columbia, absolutely no black people—only Commonwealthy Europeans and Asians, plus a few Native Canadian Kwakwaka’wakw Redskins. Still Vancouver is indeed an “international city,” on par with other slightly vanilla […]

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In Search of the Elusive Rare Blue Morpho Butterfly, Monte Verde Cloudforest – Costa Rica John M. Edwards compares Costa Rican ecotourism vs. narcissism I awake from a Magic Realism dream, evaporating. I am once again surrounded by evil anacondas in the charmed atmosphere of Costa Rica’s “Monteverde Cloud Forest,” breathing the bracing air of golden pre-Colombian pagan gods talking in exceedingly loud voices. I astounded myself by the fact that I had fallen asleep in my chair inside the hostel common room, filled with Canadian backpacker babes smelling like […]

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Bumbling into a Big Bird better than Popeye’s in a primary rainforest on a remote New Zealand isle, John M. Edwards raves, “Don’t mess with dinner!” Part I In Auckland, New Zealand, I was roosting in the common room of this crap budget flophouse, perusing my guidebook and gearing up to fly to Fiji soon despite a recent military coup, when the heated roundtable discussion of the relative cleanliness and cheapness of Kiwi backpacker hostels was interrupted by a scruffy young dolebludger: “Hey, did you hear about the Yank who […]

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John M. Edwards, a future inductee into The Napoleon Society, storms Martinique in search of his own Josephine. A huge fan of Napoleon Bonaparte, the hero of post-Revolutionary France, I left the U.K. Crown Colony of Montserrat in the days before their volcano blew up for the fatal shores of Martinique via a scary Island Air prop plane. Landing with a jarring whump, my galpal and I, along with the burdensome baggage of my Sistah Sah, then cleared customs and hailed a taxicab. Surprisingly, the black-looking driver said he was […]

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John M. Edwards takes the waters in the Czech Republic’s so-called West Bohemian Spa Triangle in order to spy out the local talent and bathe in the buff. . . . “Give me a place to stand on, and I will have the earth.” –Archimedes In the “West Bohemian Spa Triangle,” consisting of the old spa towns Carlsbad, Marienbad, and Franzenbad, now all hiding behind Czech names, I thought to myself that it doesn’t get any better than this! In over 100 everlasting natural hot springs of the real geographic […]

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Greetings from General Montgomery! ON a vacation island retreat, a young John M. Edwards rollies with a real live Rastafarian – and lives to regret it. “BOY! BOY!” I looked over at the sculpted resort hedge, shivering in the breeze like a wet Chia Pet and illuminated by a Tikki torch, and stepped uncertainly off the porch. I felt like a young adult waking up from a Frank W. Dixon Hardy Boys mystery. “Boy! Boy! Come here!” I walked over to the hedge, eyes adjusting to the androgynous gloom. Crouching […]

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