Artwork by Steve Williams
Xpat Magazine September, 2006

*All answers are true George W. Bush quotes. A complete list of ‘Bushisms’ available online at www.about.com.

Xpat Magazine: How did the political forecast look the day you were re-elected?
Georgie Boy: There’s no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead.

X: I’ll say. Do you think that you’re a good president?
GB: I think I am...and, if not, that’s just the way it goes.

X: Everyone says you’re stupid. So, before we get into the heavy stuff, I just want to quiz you on a couple of things. Who was the first president of the US?
GB: That’s George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three—three or four books about him last year. Isn’t that interesting?

X: Um, no. What’s closer to California: Washington or Texas?
GB: I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It’s pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California.

X: Wow. That’s two for two. You’re not nearly as stupid as people say. Do you think you get a bad rap?
GB: No. I’m the master of low expectations.

X: Is that so? That’s very unique. What’s your defining characteristic?
GB: I’m also not very analytical. You know I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.

X: It would appear that way. Do you have any personal goals?
GB: I aim to be a competitive nation.

X: What was your greatest achievement in office?
GB: I’ve coined new words, like, misunderstanding and hispanically.

X: What? Are you high? Have you been huffing gas?
GB: No comment.

X: Do you ever talk to the paintings of past presidents in the Oval Office?
GB: In this job you’ve got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don’t have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, ‘How do you think my standing will be?’

X: How do you like the Oval Office?
GB: (laughing) The Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they’re getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed by the atmosphere, and they say man, you’re looking pretty.

X: Has office changed you? Are you still friends with the same ‘ol hillbilly buds you used to go huntin’ with in Texas?
GB: I like my buddies from West Texas. I liked them when I was young, I liked them then I was middle-age, I liked them before I was president, and I like them during president, and I like them after president.

X: Now, lets get down to brass tacks. Do you think that by killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and forcing democracy on every country in the world, you can achieve world peace?
GB: Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

X: The United States is a free nation. You attack other nations and develop weapons of mass destruction.
GB: See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

X: George, that doesn’t make sense. You’re just repeating your freedom bullshit. It sounds stupid.
GB: See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

X: Ah, I see, kind of like Hitler. Many people have compared you to Hitler: an Australian Politician, Fidel Castro, hell, the North Korean public schools even teach that America is the modern Nazi Germany. How do you think history will treat you?
GB: You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you’re gone.

X: Iraq’s a pretty big mess, huh? How do you think things are going?
GB: I think – tide turning – see, as I remember – I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of – it’s easy to see a tide turn – did I say those words?

X: How do you feel about the abilities of the Iraqi rebels? Pretty crafty?
GB: Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

X: So, what kind of Iraqis are you after?
GB: The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world and we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.

X: So, where’s the next big project? What country do you plan to free from tyranny next? Iran? Somalia? North Korea?
GB: One such goal is a democracy in Germany.

X: Do you have much in common with your friends’ wives?
GB: My friend, Sen. Bill Frist… he married a Texas girl…a West Texas girl, just like me.

X: So, does being a woman affect your domestic policy?
GB: I’m going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess it’s the mother in me.

X: What’s one question that people don’t ask often enough?
GB: Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?

X: (laughing) At least not by literate people. How do you keep up with the times?
GB: I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves.

X: Remember when I stole your nose before the interview and you chased me around the block before realizing I couldn’t really steal your nose? Look! (reaches over to GB’s face) I got it again. I got your nose! I got your nose!
GB: (angry) There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.

X: I’ve heard that you’re a visionary when it comes to human relations with aquatic life. What’s your view on this?
GB: I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.

X: Wow, man. That’s deep. Hey, you eying-up the gas tank on my motorbike? Let me open it up for you there. Have at ‘er.
GB: Thanks.

Published under the pseudonym Salvatore Paradisio
Xpat Magazine June, 2006

My pop, or my pappy as I like to call him, had open-heart surgery last fall. He had, not one, but two triple bypasses. Then, about a month ago, he returned to the hospital for a pacemaker installation.

During his latter visit to the hospital he didn't hear from me. In fact, he hasn't heard from me since.

Based on my former letters, you're probably thinking that I hate my father and I'm about to tell you why. But you're wrong. I care for my pop a great deal these days. I probably love him more now than I have for most of my life.

You see, when I was 12 years old my father had an affair and, just before Christmas, he moved out. A short time later my parents were divorced.

Until then, I'd been my father's son. We played football and went on hunting and skiing trips. I wanted nothing more than to grow up to be like him. When I was seven, I even begged my barber to shave a circle on the top of my head just like my pappy's bald spot, and bawled when he refused.

After the divorce that all changed. Along with my brother and sister, I continued to live with our mother. But I wanted to live with my dad. Everybody (my parents, their lawyers, and my counselor) said it was my choice. But when I voiced this desire, I was met with a volley of torrid emotional retorts. My mother sobbed at the prospect of losing a son so soon after losing her husband. My brother and sister shouted what would become our broken-family in the following years; "He didn't just leave Mom. He left all of us."

Living in a household where slander against my father was slung like hash in a greasy diner, eventually I began to believe it. My father was a bad man and he'd done my brethren and me a grave injustice.

My teenage years were filled with unapologetic rebellion. Screaming arguments with my father were common, occasionally ending with me, face tear-streaked and red, starting the long trek back to the city from his rural home. I hated him and I told him so. I even told him he wasn't my father. After graduation I left my hometown, moved to a different city, and stopped calling him. He responded in kind. Our occasional visits, on holidays and such, remained tense and arguments were frequent. But, with time, our relationship gradually mellowed and then finally, one day several years later the teeter-totter tipped over. It was when my father made the long drive from my hometown to Vancouver to help me move home after my university graduation. I was not excited by the prospect of spending 12 hours in a vehicle with my father, but I had no choice. The first seven hours were tense, but eventually the monotony of the road eroded our aggression and we settled into an agreeable discussion, which after a couple hundred kilometers, turned to the divorce.

He told me about his and my mother's marital problems preceding his affair. I had been through a couple long-term relationships and I empathized.

On that drive I learned that his affair as less of an action of selfish gratification, and more the uncharacteristic act of a man in the greatest of emotional binds - one who wished to leave an unhappy relationship, but had no avenue for escape other than demolishing the family unit that he'd built to rear his children. Most creatures that feel so helpless, confused and trapped will lash out unpredictably, and so did my father.

A new fondness for my father was born in my heart. From then on our conversations
were amiable. Arguments, if there were any at all (at this moment I can't recall any), were seldom and inconsequential. My relationship with my father had finally returned to the glory of the old days.

So, dear readers, you must be wondering: how could your author be so unfeeling as to refrain from calling his father when he's in the hospital facing such physical peril as open-heart surgery?

My only excuse is weak and embarrassing, but it is my excuse nonetheless: I maintained silence out of habit. My father and I spoke so seldom for so long that even after our relationship was rejuvenated, our conversations were occasional. Birthdays passed without notice. Emails were exchanged every few months, and words even less often.

We became accustomed to silence. And now I'm afraid that it will one day breed in me a dark psychological torment.

Living in Taiwan and with this magazine, I'm so busy that I rarely see friends that live a few blocks away. Returning to Canada, even for a short visit, is unlikely. Meanwhile my father is in Canada and, considering his health, a trip to Asia sounds equally implausible.

So, as my father reclines on the beach chair of retirement in the twilight of his life, we find ourselves separated by a seemingly impassable ocean. It is possible that I won't see him alive again and, as I sit here writing, this fact a sears my soul with icy terror.

But it is not my father's death that I fear. I fear something much more terrifying -- regret. I'm afraid that when my father dies I'll regret our lack of communication and that such an irresolvable conflict would burn through my psyche like hot acid.

So what do I do? Do I call my father? I do not. Do I write him a letter? No.

Instead, I write this Letter from the Editor. Four thousand copies of this letter will be printed and distributed around Taiwan to be read by my xpat family. But, as you read this you should know that it isn't meant for you. Hell, I don't even care if you like this issue. Every story I've ever written was for my readers. I've treated every copy of this magazine with tender care for fear that I'd deliver a flawed product to my audience. But not this time. This time I made just one magazine and it's sitting on a desk in a study in a log cabin in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and you, dear reader, are reading a sad facsimile of that one.

'Cause this one's for, my pop.

Love and Respect,
Salvatore Paradisio

Published under the pseudonym Salvatore Paradisio
Xpat Magazine December, 2005

Ever since I arrived on this cursed island 14 months ago disaster has rained down on me like a subtropical thundershower. Xpat Magazine was borne of this disaster. But I will have to explain that a little later. As with all stories, I must start from the beginning:

I always wanted to write. After graduating from the University of British Columbia four years ago, I set to it. While working as a laborer in Vancouver, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. every day to write for an hour before catching the cross-town bus to work. When I lost that job, I went tree-planting where I spent countless exhausted evenings in my folding canvas chair slapping mosquitoes off the back of my neck with my left hand, while my right scribbled wobbly text across the pages of my notebook.

Whenever we had a day off I’d hitch a ride into town and head straight to the local Internet café to write freebie book reviews for a small website and feature articles for a youth magazine from my hometown.

Last year my girlfriend Tristessa and I decided to move to Taiwan. We came because we both had student loans to pay—but for me the money was just an added bonus. I was attracted to Taiwan by the promise of pay for my writing skills. Knowing that English is such a sought after commodity in Taiwan that schools are paying top dollar just to scrape a few teachers off of the bottom of the Western academic barrel, I figured that with my honors degree and background in writing I’d slide easily into a position editing or writing at a newspaper or magazine. Then, in my spare time, I could freelance, write a book, or do whatever else I wanted.

I was one wide-grinning sonofabitch that fair August day that we boarded our flight. When we landed I could finally write for a living.

My dream of literary employment was quickly snatched away. Our first two days in Taiwan were spent blundering through the streets near our hostel in Taipei in a frustrating search for English service and food. Then we went to Taichung where we stayed with Tristessa’s friend Leanne who hated Taiwan. She complained constantly. Tristessa, who was going through an emotionally difficult time for other reasons, caught Leanne’s Taiwan bitterness like a flu. She too began belching a river of complaints and, by the end of our first week, Triss had written off living in either of the two major northern cities.

Unfortunately, as anybody who’s ever looked for a job with a periodical in Taiwan knows, almost all of the publishing houses are located in Taichung and Taipei.

I agreed with Triss that Taipei was too big and expensive, but I felt that Taichung was an accommodating city. We had friends here, there were lots of English businesses, and I’d easily be able to find work editing. I tried to explain this to Triss, but it was like trying to argue the Theory of Evolution with the Pope when he’s drunk. There’s nothing more immovable than the spirit of a bitter woman.

So, grudgingly, I called some friends of mine in Tainan and arranged a visit. Tainan was splendid. It was full of parks, there were beaches nearby, and my friends had a massive modern apartment on the edge of town. To Tristessa it seemed ideal. I couldn’t talk her into living anywhere else. I had to either stick it out in Tainan, or leave her and abandon my dreams of white sand sunrises and palm tree shaded afternoons for us. So, I hung my head and answered her with a defeated, “yes dear.”

It was a concession I would never forgive myself for.

Aside from the blow to my writing career, things worked out well in Tainan. We both fell into good jobs. We found a big central apartment. She bought a scooter, and I bought a motorcycle. I started studying Chinese. We made an excellent start on our Taiwan life.

There was only one problem--we couldn’t stand each other.

Tristessa hadn’t been able to shake her Taiwan bitterness, and, resentful for having been forced to move away from any chance of a writing career, I was unsympathetic. I did everything I could to keep myself locked in my office. I started writing frequently for FYI South — I took any assignment they’d give me. I wrote features for a magazine back in my hometown. I worked on short stories. I scoured the Internet for new publications to submit to. I used my work to distance myself from Triss. I figured it was fair. It was her fault that I had to go through the hassle of freelancing, so she would pay for it with my absence. All I really did, though, was make things worse.

After only four months in Tainan Triss moved out. To tell you the truth, I was relieved. I was distinctly less relieved, however, when she started sleeping with a friend of mine whom I had invited to Tainan and helped get set up just a couple of months earlier.

My trip had fallen into ruin. I came with dreams of tropical romance and print opportunities abound and watched it all crackle and melt under the friction of an imbalanced relationship. Suddenly, I had nothing that I’d come for. Several gloomy months passed as I struggled to keep writing and reconcile myself to my fate.

Then, one day, a fissure opened in the muddy sky and a shaft of light poured out.

I was in Kaohsiung writing a piece on a theatre. One of the actresses was a Taiwanese girl named Angel – and an angel she was. She worked at one of the only publishing houses in K-town. She told me they were looking for a full-time editor. Of course, I got her number and applied immediately. Angel’s boss was the one doing the hiring, but she didn’t speak English, so my interview was actually with Angel. By the end of our three-hour Saturday afternoon hiatus on a sunny pub patio, she assured me that she’d give me her full recommendation. The job was mine.

But a week later Angel backtracked and asked me for some samples of my work. She’d seen my portfolio, but it was all professional journalism. Her company published children’s books. They just wanted to make sure I could also write for children. Just send in the samples and, so long as nothing’s horribly wrong, you’ll have the job, she assured me. That same day I wrote two letter-perfect stories based on the samples she gave me and sent them back.

A week went by and no word.

Finally, I called Angel to see what was up. She told me that her boss had given her the assignment of hiring the editor and that now that it was her ass on the line she wasn’t willing to hire the first person that she’d interviewed. She wanted to talk to more people. She reassured me that it was just a formality, the job was still mine, and that I’d have the position by the end of the week.

One week turned into two weeks, and then three. Angel’s excuses piled up like lead bricks on my already trodden soul. A hot rage swelled in my gut. It finally burst during one Friday night conversation. Angel told me that, although she’d promised me her decision (again), she couldn’t decide until she received samples from another writer who’d contacted her. I could maintain composure no longer. I let the profanities fly. I called her incompetent. I told her that she was one of the most unprofessional employers I’d ever met and that I would never work for such a useless boss. She listened in silent, complacent agreement. She knew that she was an awful businessperson.

A couple of weeks later, after my anger subsided, I realized that during that game of editor string-along I had become very excited about the idea of attaching the ‘editor’ title to my moniker when I queried magazines. I still wanted that title. I became so wrapped up in the idea that I decided to start a magazine. I figured that if a gormless coconut-head like Angel could manage an editorial department, I sure as hell could.

So, last February I placed an ad on the local internet bulletin board to see how many contributors I could stir up, and Xpat Magazine was born.

It’s been 16 months since I first planted the seed for my life in Taiwan. A tree has grown. It’s not a pretty tree. It’s been stunted and twisted by harsh conditions, and nearly uprooted by disaster, but it’s survived and ready for harvest. If the fruit it bears is sweet then I can rest my tortured mind, vindicated by the knowledge that my time here has not been wasted.

So, gracious readers, as you browse this magazine you must be aware that you are not merely judging a magazine—you’re judging the outcome of my first 16 savage months on this sub-tropical island. You, my crucial readers, will decide if my time here has been a success or a disaster.

That being said, I hope ya like the mag.

Sincerely,
Salvatore Paradisio