The Occasional Blog of Jonah Weiland

When I was almost nine years old my parents took us on a crazy trip through the South Pacific, to the islands of Fiji, Tahiti, American Samoa and Western Samoa. We primarily stayed in villages, but in the middle of the trip our tour organizers arrange for our group to spend a handful of days on Toberua Island a luxury resort island off the coast of Fiji.

It’s a tiny little island– only four acres in size when the tide is in– but I remember it being one of my favorite parts of the trip. The ocean was warm, the weather was always excellent, the food was fantastic, the atmosphere on the island was just the perfect thing. And being that the island was completely safe, this little boy was able to explore without any fears or concerns (well, I did have to concern myself with the various poisonous crabs, but little boys like that kind of stuff).

This past weekend I was over at my Mother’s house looking at photos from this trip and all the memories of being on this island came flashing back to me. I remember spending a lot of time in the ocean, seeing flying fish swim by when I was out there or jumping on the swing and flinging myself into the water. It was a great time.

I decided this weekend that sometime in my life, hopefully soon, I’m going to return to Toberua Island. I just think it would be amazing experiencing the island again, but this time as an adult. Would it live up to my memories and expectations? I guess we’ll just have to find out one day.

In my short, but rather odd life, I’ve come to recognize definitively one thing about the female species– you sure do puke a lot.

I can’t explain it, but I’ve found that the women I know puke rather frequently. Suddenly one night they’re just feeling queasy for no apparent reason. Well, usually it has something to do with food, but why is it that men don’t get queasy all the time having eaten the same crap? What does this all mean? Is one of the species flawed and the other better? Is puking something men should do more of because it would bring us closer to our sensitive sides?

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but based on my brief inspections, interviews and investigations, women tend to boot every three to six months. It’s like if they don’t puke at all and suddenly day #180 comes creeping up, they automatically set the stomach churning for no good reason.

Can we get some answers please?

Every once in a while a picture taken with a camera phone turns out. This was a self-portrait taken last month while standing in the Taxi queue outside Montreal Trudeau Airport. I look significantly more badass than I actually am.

As you all know– due to my declaring war on the Canadian people– I recently made a visit to the Great White North. Montreal, to be specific. During the final hours of my trip something quite hilarious happened and I thought I’d share the story with you. My only concern is that since this story isn’t being told verbally that something will be lost in the translation, but I’ll do my best.

It’s 6:00 in the morning and I’ve got an 8:30 AM flight back to Los Angeles. I got only 3 hours sleep the night before and I’m fucking exhausted. But when you’re traveling, there’s no time for exhaustion. There’s just time for doing and in this case that doing was flying back to LA. The hotel concierge hailed a cab for me and we were off to Trudeau Airport.

I’ve been a passenger in a lot of cabs. Most of the time the cabbie wants to just drive and not talk to his fare. On occasion you get a very talkative guy you wish would just shut up. On even rarer occasions you get a talkative cabbie you wish would talk forever because they’re just that funny or interesting. This is a story of one of those funny cabbies.

I never got the name of my cab driver, but we’re going to call him Mario. Why Mario? Because, this guy had an Italian accent like he was one of the fucking Mario Brothers. I’m not making this up or exaggerating in the slightest, but imagine the most over the top, pizza flipping Italian accent you can and you’ve got this guy’s accent down perfect. I had to keep myself from chuckling it was so funny.

As we drive to the airport the two of us bullshit about the usual nonsense. How long were you here? What was the purpose of your visit? Did you like Montreal? Blah blah blah. At some point I decided to share the fact that the last time I visited Montreal marked the first time in my life that I saw it physically snow. This shocked Mario.

“Are you-a kidding? Noooooo,” said Mario in the ridiculous stereotypical Italian accent.

“Serious! Sure, I’d visited snowy cities before, but I never actually saw it snow until my last visit to Montreal.”

“This-a I don’t understand. How is it-a possible for a peoples to not-a see the snow? This reminds me of a storrrrry.” And we were off to the races.

“A couple of weeks ago, two Arab men get in my cab around midnight. Now, these-a guys, they very, very Arab. Dey have-a the full dress on and the hat thing and you know, dey are very, very Arab and a very, very wealthy. You can-a tell. So, dey say to me, ‘Cabbie, takes us to Montreal’s finest sex club!’”

I thought to myself, “Uhhh, what does this have to do with snow falling?” But what the hell, I was along for the ride.

“Now, let me tell you something,” Mario says. “Montreal’s strip clubs have some of de most beautiful women in da world. Oh, you don’t know! So-a beeeeeautiful! And you know? Is verrrry, verrrry liberal outside-a Montreal. At dese-a-clubs, dey do hand job, dey do blow job, dey do swallow – dey do everything!”

Again I thought to myself, “They do swallow? What the fuck does any of this have to do with the snow?” He certainly had my attention now.

“So, I drive-a dese-a Arab men to the sex club and dey say to me, ‘Cabbie, you wait here for us. We will be out in two hours. We will pay you for you time.’ So, I slept in my cab and waited for dese-a Arab men to come out. Two hours later, there’s a knock on my drivers side window. Issa one of the Arab men and he say to me, ‘Sir, it is amazing! It is a snowing! My friend and I, we have a never seen a snow before! We must play!’”

The cabbie tells me for the next 20 minutes he watched these two obviously wealthy, 40-something Arab gentlemen have a snow-ball fight at 2:00 in the morning, outside a strip/sex club. Close your eyes and just picture that for a while.

I laughed so hard at his stories I gave him a double tip when he dropped me off at the airport. He asked me if I had made a mistake and I told him, no, his story alone was worth the payment.

Best cab ride ever? Possibly, although there was the time in my early 20s when during a cab ride in San Francisco we actually got air, but that really doesn’t compare.