I'll be whatever you want me to be, just not that.

My mother leaned into the patio table as she said the following words, punctuating each syllable with breathless urgency. “Remember one thing, Cammy, if you ever get into a tight spot...”

She glanced at Kelly and Stephanie, then whipped her head back to me.

“You’re a Canadian.”  

My flushed, boozy cheeks collapsed into a frown. “I am no such thing, and I will never say that. No offense to Canada.”

“Do it, Cam,” piped in Kelly, her curly strawberry-blonde hair tapping her shoulders as she nodded in agreement with my mom.

She was supposed to be my ally here.

Kelly is an FBI-agent, formerly stationed at the Sacramento field office and working the field of counter-terrorism. 

Before her gig at the Bureau, she worked for the UN, helping to rebuild police forces in war-torn Bosnia.    

A killer patriot from North Dakota with brilliant comedic timing, a love of running and the best Ghiradelli brownie recipe in the northern hemisphere, Kelly shuffles calls on her Nextel walkie between informants and babysitters. 

How on Earth could she condone me putting on a charade of being “not an asshole American” to soften the ire of some pea-brain who hates my country?  

It was the night before my big move to Copenhagen, and I was enjoying one last hurrah with my close girlfriends at my parent’s house. The patio smelled of citronella oil mingling with lemon as we sat by the pool under the glow of white lights draped on the balcony above us.  I took a sip of my homemade limoncella, letting the sweet liqueur take over my mouth.

“I’m not sure I can do that,” I said stubbornly. “Only a coward and a traitor to her country would take the easy, Canadian way out.”

I looked over at Stephanie taking a sip of her 2003 La Crema Pinot Noir. I love watching Stephanie drink wine. There is something painstaking in the way she slyly takes each sip, swishes the wine around in her mouth while making sure no one's watching when she swallows. Each sip is savored, sinfully delicious. Stephanie is a born Mormon and as such, was raised under the beliefs and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith who forbade the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes and drugs among his flock. She’s a rebel Mormon though, caught between the old rules and traditions of her Church and family, and her latter-day proclivity to push boundaries. She will probably never not be a Mormon, but she’s made peace that she will be one who questions protocol and persnickety canon that forbid her from having innocent fun. Every weekend Stephanie and her husband Chuck — whom she met at BYU after he had returned from his two-year church mission abroad — drop their kids off at church, waving goodbye as they peel out of the parking lot and head up the street to Starbucks.

Stephanie piped in, “Your personal safety will have to trump your need to be patriotic and proud.”

To them, it was all rhetoric. Be a Canadian: no harm, no foul. Just insulate yourself if you ever feel in the presence 

At Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum   

of someone who really “hates us.”  I’d heard on the TV all about how much “they hate us” from pundits like Bill Maher and Whoopi Goldberg.                             

It was late August 2006, the dog-days of summer and the heyday of Bush-bashing.  I couldn’t help but think that shedding my Americanism to blunt the edge of sharp Euro-criticism would be tantamount to letting “the terrorists win.”

That statement has become a favorite of mine in recent years. If we don’t [fill in the blank here], then the terrorists win. We’ve heard it in presidential speeches; heck, I’ve written it in gubernatorial prose myself, that if “we don’t continue to travel, or if we don’t keep our resolve, if we succumb to fear” then “the terrorists win.”

On a recent business trip to Manhattan, when I forgot to put into my checked baggage my purchase of a large bottle of designer Glow Fusion self-tanner, which ended up in my carry-on baggage – in defiance of the ‘no liquids policy’ – I told the TSA Security Agent that if he threw out my self-tanner, then the terrorists win. He chucked it in the trash, unamused.

This is what our country of America had become. Pale, feckless wannabe Canadians. 

Because people like Sean Penn and Barbara Streisand had gone on parade telling red-blooded Americans that “everyone hates us.” Nevermind that the press conveniently crops Hugo Chavez or Saddam Hussein out of the image of Sean wheezing those words, lest we see that it’s his chummy friends who have penned his talking points.

I’m an American living in Denmark going on the record to say that they don’t hate us. They didn’t hate us when Bush was President, and they don’t blindly love us because Obama is now. Whatever their capricious love/hate whims, whether anyone in Europe or the rest of the world blindly loves my country or hates my country is of no concern to me anymore. 

Frankly, I don’t give a damn. (Coming from a make-up’d, Jimmy Choo-wearing, former-sorority-president who cares about what people think, I’ve made a staggering leap).

What became crystal clear to me recently during a discussion with a powerful film producer in Copenhagen is that it would be a huge miscalculation to presume the citizens of any other country but America would honestly root for a thriving America. As I was telling this producer juggernaut, “If you look at the times in history when America has thrived the most — economically, culturally, politically— it was - ”

He cut me off.

“But don’t you see? We don’t want America to thrive and be successful.”

It was like a ton of foam bricks falling down on me, completely stunning and altogether painless.

It hit me how silly and naïve I’d been, paying so much concern as to whether the country I had a crush on, Denmark, loved me and my country...or not. When the very premise for that anxiety was flawed. 

Why would any countryman truly cheer for the excellence of another country? Duh.

That last night in California was almost 3 years ago, and I’m proud to say I’ve never had to work my killer Canadian accent while ‘aboat’ in Denmark. For now, America’s leadership is doing a bang up job placating the critics and apologizing to countries that hate us at every corner of the world.  

Living as an American abroad, maybe that should make me feel safer. Somehow, it doesn’t. 

*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of my friends.

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version

Slumblog Extraordinaire!

   I had the incredible opportunity to travel to India recently, Mumbai specifically (henceforth called Bombay – the preferred name among the locals). The firm where I work has a client that recently launched a natural mineral water product, bottled at the foothills of the Himalayas. I am on the team helping to brand “QUA.” 

We were there for a week, and stayed in the Churchgate neighborhood in the southern part of Bombay, on a street parallel to the beach...The Intercontinental Hotel on Marine Drive.

Basically, it takes about 60-90 minutes of driving to get from southern Mumbai to mid-city Mumbai. The city is a long strip of an island divided by north and south, and surrounded by the Arabian Sea. It is a huge, sprawling and traffic-jammed metropolis. Though you’ll find some towering skyscrapers, they are scattered about without much pre-determination, as far as I could tell. Most of the buildings share their worn-out facades and open wounds quite plainly.

India left a deep impression on me. Before I left on the trip, everyone asked me if I had seen “Slumdog Millionaire.” I hadn’t. I wanted to see it, just never got around to it. I’ve always been keen on the Bollywood film movement. The way they play out serious dramatic genres by employing the same tricks you’d find in The Sound of Music is a cinematic feat. First there is a conflict, then they break out into song, dance a jig, touch each other’s cheek, then conflict’s resolved. The whole cast lines up – like the way our robot-troopers do in Star Wars – to dance in synchrony an elegantly choreographed routine.

That’s my vision of Bollywood. Not to say I was expecting to see dance routines on the streets of Bombay – in between stalls of “homes” in the slums – but maybe part of me would have welcomed that sight.

I’ll be blunt and honest now in how I describe one of my impressions of India. It’s not easy, but the most important lesson Denmark has taught me is to rise up and be honest. Even if it means hurting feelings or being un-P.C. Here goes. India has a lot of poor people. They have even more weak and deprived beggars who, through no fault of their own, had the unfortunate experience of being born outside a caste. This group of people used to be called “untouchables”, but today, the term is dalits. I didn’t know this until I got there, but there are about 180 million people (in a country of 1.1 billion) who are below poor. That is, they are so poor and under-privileged they don’t even qualify to fit into one of the 4 levels in the caste-pyramid that rises above them.

The caste system was outlawed in India sometime in the 1950s, but it seems, in too many ways, to be alive and well still. According to the Hindu religion – to rudely reduce it to a pithy upshot  – those “lowest” people were likely bad-ass sinners in their previous lives, so they got what they deserved in this one.

But while I launch into a ‘poverty tirade’ as my first descriptor of India, I should add that Bombay is a vibrant, hopping, fantastic city that is in no way awash in misery. I saw more smiles, hearty laughing, jumping, dancing and hand-holding in Bombay in one week than I have seen in Denmark in two-and-a-half years. 

The citizens of Bombay enjoy life and living, and they treat their fellow brothers and sisters (laterally, across caste) like gold. 

In some ways, I feel like I may have more in common with a middle-class, educated, city-dwelling Indian woman my own age than I do with a Danish person of similar qualifications. Those Indian kids also grew up speaking English; they also watched Sesame Street in their youth; they know what pineapple sorbet from Baskin-Robbins tastes like and their Hindu values are more chaste and puritanical like my own (Catholic) ones, than the all-secular, hyper-hippie, anti-religion, “me-centered, blended-family” values that I see informing Danish youth. So in some ways, I feel akin more to them.

But not entirely.

On Friday, India began its month-long election process to elect a new government. Mostly likely, they will wind up with another coalition government. One of the candidates spoke out against the middle class, accusing them of being the true perpetrators victimizing the poorer classes.  Hmmm. Food for thought. I’ll let him say it, but I’ll add that I agree. There is a huge population of citizens who benefit to startling heights by having 180 million massively deprived poor people who can provide them with cheap labor. There are no minimum wage laws in India, so quite a few middle class, Indian 22-year-old blokes in college have a 1) chauffeur to drive them to parties, 2) dishwasher, to clean up the mess  3) a personal cook to make sure they never get their hands dirty. They may not be full-time employees, but this kind of ‘cheap labor support’ is easily accessible and comes delivered.

Now, as an American, I would be careless to not admit that in the good ol’ US of A we have far too many poor people too. Phil Donahue once called it the “Mal-distribution of wealth.” As if wealth should be doled out and distributed. But all I can say — and this isn’t a game of one-up-man-ship, because I love India— but all I can say is that America doesn’t treat its poor and weak like that. We don’t think it’s okay that certain people have lesser opportunities. Certain people do, but it’s not okay. We search for ways to rectify these injustices; we elect leaders who campaign on platforms that speak eloquently for the charitable, hard-working middle and working class. We protect vulnerable children, and we dispense healthcare to anyone who stumbles into an emergency room (it’s the law). The very core of America are freedom and opportunity – and most Americans agree that without those at our foundation, we have nothing.

I get peeved when I hear Earth-loving, open-minded Europhiles describe the poor of America and India in the same breath. Some of these people embrace India for its rich culture, lovely people, its beautiful cotton textiles, Darjeeling tea and its spiritual zen/yoga-side, while speaking derisively about America’s mistreatment of the weak. Without paying proper heed to the systemic corruption, neglect, and malfeasance that ensures certain Indian-born babies grow into penniless, uneducated beggars. Or servants, if they’re lucky.

All I ask is that we all be honest. Every country needs to improve, not just America. And not just Denmark, though I tend to pick on her more than what may be deserved. And if I am my own island-nation, navigating the tricky waters of Scandinavia, I am 100% red-blooded and in desperate need of improvement too. And some diplomacy.

On the plane ride back to Copenhagen, I finally watched Slumdog. What a lovely little film – it’s the Mumbai I saw and loved, from Juhu Beach to Bandra West. The film may be a bit more polished around the edges, but the visuals rang true. And apparently, the most beautiful little kids are born in India.

Now, I offer some fun facts about India:

• India has the largest English-speaking population in the world.
  
• Most people speak both English and Hindi, but in the southern parts, it may just be English.
• Only 2% of the population pays taxes. 
• Religious life is a secular experience in India. While there are tensions like in any country, people in Bombay typically get along across religions or creeds.
• Half the population is under the age of 25. 
• One-third of the population is under the age of 14.
• While the majority are Hindu, with a population of 1.1 billion and 12% Muslim...India has the largest Muslim population in the world.
• Within 25 years, India will have the 6^th biggest consumer economy in the world.
• India is poised to do incredible things on the world stage. A real sleeping giant.

     

Happy New Year! Godt Nytår!

I’ve broken a cardinal rule in being a blogger. And for that I’m deeply regretful. Consistently updated entries are the single most important part of maintaining a blog, and alas, I’ve let weeks turn into months with nary a prosaic peep from me.

To my readers back home and maybe in Denmark — both of you — I apologize!

Boring you with excuses, I’ll admit that I’m working a lot, traveling much, and saving very little time for personal creative writing projects. I’m writing full-time now ‘for a living,’ so my allotted ‘writer’s-block-hours’ are earmarked just for private stuff. That’s how professional I am.

On to not-so-juicy personal news, I’m still living and breathing in Copenhagen. I’m living in a flat tucked sweetly behind Amalienborg Castle, the palace residence of Denmark’s royal family. From the living room (or stuen, in Danish), I can see into Prince Joachim’s quarters. Nothing juicy is happening over there either, and I check on a regular basis. The prince and his new French bride, Marie, are expecting their first baby together. Word has it Marie doesn’t speak a lick of Danish yet, but she is ‘trying.’ Probably as hard as I am.

That is the royal poop.

Taking stock of all that has happened in 2008, I can describe a few personal highlights and lowlights, in general terms that have semi-relevance to the world around us.

I’ll start with the Bad list, which I’ll call:

Not Good in 2008

• Too few great films were released.
• I started to see the cracks in Denmark’s beautiful façade.
• I learned way too much about Spencer and Heidi than is healthy for a normal person.
• The economy went in the crapper, Dad’s 401k became a 101k.
• I got homesick.
• I worked on holidays.
• Many doors were slammed in my face. (Literally. In DK, basic street manners, like holding the door open for the person behind you, are unheard of).
• Brilliant shows like “Pushing Daisies” got the ax (thanks, striking writers of the WGA).
• I heard too much ignorant political ranting from a propagandized population who all think alike.
• Lance Armstrong came out of retirement and returned to the noble profession of bullying riders under the guise of curing cancer.
• Embarrassingly small quantities of writing or reading

Great in 2008

• America elected a new President and has a renewed sense of hope.
• I discovered a truly loving, wonderful, sensitive Danish man.
• I lost weight by not exercising so much and eating whatever I want.
• The US Ambassador to Denmark taught me how to lighten up, listen, laugh and embrace the naysayers.
• Mad Men – America’s brilliant 60’s-era TV show about advertising
• I got to work with the most talented, fun-loving, kindhearted colleagues in the advertising industry.
• Facebook helped me reconnect with friends from the Governator’s office.
• Hiking in pristine Lake Tahoe
• I realized how much I adore my 3 sisters.
• A baby was named after me. ☺
• I rediscovered my love of pilates.
• The fuller eyebrow made a comeback.
• I started saying no.
• The Power of Now imparted its timeless wisdom.
• I started appreciating gorgeous Danish design (lamps, sofas, chairs).
• I realized just how American I am. And that it's okay.

I wish you and yours a 2009 full of growth, learning, great clothes, good food, good friends, family time and lots of love and adventure. May the year ahead be your best one yet.

XO
Cammy

I wanted a bike that no one would steal...

        So I bought a pink one. The old Cammy would have been embarrassed to admit that pink was her signature color -- but Camryn 30.0 celebrates it. It's a great set of wheels,  and scoots me around town in style. 

Stay tuned for my Swedish-design white bike basket. It's conceptual and looks like lace. 

*Hip Hop Republican*: The Democrats' Missing History

*Hip Hop Republican*: The Democrats' Missing History

Not everyone knows this...

But there is an official state religion in Denmark. People are slightly fanatical about it, and they’re not afraid to tell you.  

You see it described in their Facebook profiles, and it's obvious when you visit any ‘house of worship’ Sunday morning. It’s organized and it's everywhere, and frankly, at times, it has me taking a step back. 

The religion is called atheism, and it operates within a brand of fundamentalism. You can find many mainstream atheists - those who don’t sneer at others – who welcome conversation with persons of a different faith. But frankly, they don’t run in my circles.

On one of my 4 recent business trips to the U.S. in the last 5 weeks, my colleagues and I were seated on a flight next to a Danish missionary. 

He was a real live one – a Christian something (not sure which denomination). This thin, 30-something man with a receding hairline, an overbite and pink gums that were

          

revealed every time he smiled (about every 5 seconds) was a real talker. Curiosity shone in his eyes when he learned we were from an advertising agency. “Heck, maybe he wanted our service in helping to brand God,” laughed a board-room full of colleagues a few weeks later.

This friendly missionary, who wanted little more than to hear about our work, elicited the scorn and fear of a group of educated, talented, self-professed open-minded adverts. ‘What a fool, that man.’ Clearly he didn’t get the memo that people in the Kingdom choose intellect over naiveté. And those who do not, apparently haven’t got the smarts to know better.

This sweet man, and all of our chatter, broke my heart. 

Many will huff that they have no problem with religion or spiritual persons– “just as long as they keep me out of it, and respect that I believe it’s a crock of shit” .... while not appreciating that such proactive haughtiness can be just as off-putting as any proselytizing sermon from a stranger.  

Organized religion is one of those grand narratives like the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, liberalism, conservatism, and Studio 54 that my knee-jerk reaction wants to reject. Wannabe postmodernist that I am. We tend to over-privelge meta-narratives at the expense of missing the smaller ones. Where pearls of wisdom and nuggets of nonsense reside. The poetics of postmodernism urge us to raise an eyebrow to grand narratives. But applying the inverse of that same logic, shouldn’t I look with equal suspicion on the grand rejection.

America is a spiritual nation, where Judeo-Christian values inform our lifestyles, our traditions and our modes of conduct. For better or for worse, it is ours to celebrate or denigrate, but thankfully, we have a well-constructed system that separates church and state, so that schools, government and the judicial system cannot infringe on an individual’s right to believe in whatever combination of deities they like, or not. A wise Danish thinker, Camelia, once told me that the interesting thing about America is that for every major movement that appears, so does its counter-movement. A concept like “intelligent design” gives me the willies, but most Americans don’t give it the attention it doesn’t deserve. For this naïve American, Copenhagen tends to feel like one big counter-movement, that has forgotten what it runs perpendicular to. What was once fringe-full and progressive has become fundamental and common. A bit monochromatic, I long for some bible thumping, some Hora wedding dancing, some sweaty “1-800-send-me-your-cash” preachers, and conversations somewhere in the middle, where the faithful person isn’t labeled weak or a dunce.

In the American paradigm, it’s easier for me to fight for the little guy – the quiet dissenter or the non-believer. Perhaps he’s looking for someone to have brunch with on Sunday mornings. But there was a time I was perusing an admissions book from Harvard Divinity School, to see if a master’s degree in religious studies was something worth pursuing.

Like many, I’m still searching for answers, but I’m not smart, wise, or arrogant enough to commit to any yet. It’s possible I was more interested in belonging to the Church of Harvard than any religious program.

But I admire those who have found their own belief system. It would be rude to call it simplistic or any easy escape. I’m happy America is built the way it is.

.........................................

Last spring, a talented and shrewd Danish professor told me that he knew the minute I walked into his classroom that I was an American. I found that odd. How could he know? He elaborated, “There’s just something in the gaze of an American.”

His words have echoed over the last 19 months throughout my tenure in Denmark. I’ve grown adept at picking out Americans on the street. It’s easiest to spot when strolling down the long shopping street of the Strøget. My success rate is about 95%, and when in doubt, I shimmy past the group in question to hear them talking. It’s not just the white tennis shoes or the track-suits that no one else is wearing, and it's more than the obnoxiously higher volume of voice. It’s something in the gaze of an American.

Maybe it’s faith. In something higher and bigger. Maybe its faith in nothing. Whatever it is, it’s palpable, and it speaks to other humans. 

Mostly, it's an attitude that says faith doesn’t necessarily transcend knowledge, but the two can co-exist. Intellectual rationalism is all well and good, but hampered by the capacities of our lowly functioning brains.

And on that note, I’ll suspend my ribbing of Denmark’s shabby chic atheism and try to understand it in the context of European nations who have seen bloodshed, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, the crusades, and much more, on their home turf, in the name of religion.   

The process of belong to a beliefs system is something I’m ill-equipped discussing. But it deserves its rightful share of discussion without derision. 

Likewise, so is disbelief. And that is another lesson Denmark is teaching me. 

If you have any answers, you know how to reach me.    

(Hermosa Beach, California - Sunday morning)