The King of Kings, Lords of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah's Toilet.

And how I sat on it last week in Ethiopia.

Such an awe-inspiring word mixed with such an awe-deflating word. It's just funny to picture "The Emperor" having to wipe.

Sometimes, you don't even need words. You just know.

"This is what I'm thinking, and this is what he's thinking." Making eye contact is only a confirmation; it's not what triggers the thought.

There the two of us were, alone in the fifties style bathroom of the former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I. Not even a fake razor or bar of soap, or even an empty roll of toilet paper was inside with us, much less a guard. It was just me and my friend Bino. The only thing keeping us from doing what we knew we weren't supposed to do was a single piece of white string acting as a cordon, and the honor system.

"Yes," Bino said.

"No," I answered, envisioning the living conditions of an Ethiopian jail. "No..."

Then we made eye contact. Life only gives you so many opportunities to add to your "Amazing Conversation Starters" collection, and the window of opportunity for picking up a gem such as this was closing fast. Time and again in my 24 plus years on earth, reminding myself of that fact has led to me doing something my father would shake his head at; this moment was no exception.

"...Yes." And I pull out my camera from my pocket. I never leave home without it, and it is for reasons such as this. I hand the worn, black Lowepro case to Bino, who wastes no time opening the Velcro flap.

"Go tell Mary to watch the door," he says.

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Bino swears it was the first time he had been there and not seen a guard in the bathroom keeping watch. The reason he's been there multiple times is because he lives in Ethiopia. Bino's real name is actually David -- my former roommate. David Rabinowitz, pronounced bih-no, not, as The Bob likes to think, in a more Southern Texas accent than usual, beye-no. Just wanted to get that straight before we proceed. This was the fourth time I have seen him since we graduated in May 2006: Dubrovnik, Prague, Arusha, Addis Ababa. But it was the closest we had ever been to the toilet of a former monarch.

"Please Do Not Touch," in Amharic. (I assume).

Or the bed of a former monarch, for that matter.

Where the magic happened with his busted wife

Why security would leave those two places unwatched is a mystery to me. They were all over me downstairs, when I was first told that photography was not allowed, despite the fact that I was merely taking pictures of some of the placards describing bits of general Ethiopian history from the reign of His Imperial Majesty (H.I.M.). Just after snapping this shot, I was caught and reprimanded.

"You no peek churrs."

If you read about the insane level of pomp and protocol and unyielding deference to His Majesty in Selassie's court, as described in Richard Kapuściński's The Emperor, you would probably agree with me when I say that I would not be surprised at all to discover that H.I.M. had a toilet paper bearer to hand him his TP in a similar fashion.

"Why?" I asked, genuinely puzzled. It's not like I was harming anything; there was no flash, and I wasn't standing in front of the Mona Lisa or the Rosetta Stone, or anything like that.

The guard, shockingly, had run out of words in English. He was unable to explain the reason for their policy against cameras, unless I was prepared to learn Amharic in three seconds. Me asking "why" was pointless. I should have saved that question for when I got to the bedroom and bathroom, when I found myself completely left to my own devices. As in, "Why would you leave me to my own devices with such a temptation as this? Adam had a better shot in that garden than I have now of resisting."

They're just lucky I'm not a voyeur, because I would've clearly tried to have a go at it there in the "king" size (hi-ohh!) bed with Mary; if I was a gay voyeur, I probably would have made a pass at Bino. But since neither of those labels apply to me, I went for the conventional next best thing: sitting on the Emperor's throne.

The honor system worked at UVa; it did not work here.

Especially for anyone with a remote interest in reggae music. For people like these, pulling your pants down and sitting bareback on the former toilet of the Ras Tafari -- Selassie's name before his coronation as Emperor in November 1930, which explains the origins of the dreadlocked Jamaicans who first described themselves as Rastafarians -- is indirectly touching butts with a legend. If you've talked to me for five minutes, chances are you figured I have a remote interest in reggae music. And by that I mean I am obsessed with it. I am not, however, a Rastafarian. Why? I don't think that touching butts with H.I.M.'s throne is indirectly touching butts with the living Christ (even though Selassie is reputed to have died in 1976, allegedly strangled by the very man who deposed him, Colonel Mengistu Haile Maryam, true Rastas believe that "Jah [still, more than 30 years later] live!"). But I disagree; I don't think H.I.M. was God, or even "Jah." Not any more than I believe every one of us to be God, or Jah, at least. But I understand that some Rastas could/definitely would take my actions as blasphemous or disrespectful. For that, I apologize.

(If it makes you feel any better, I make fun of all religions equally. Except for Islam; I don't wanna get Danish Embassied, after all.)

The exhibit is without a doubt the highlight attraction of the entire Museum of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. It is, after all, probably a place where Selassie spent a lot of "Haile Time." And as one of the rare Ethiopians during his reign (1930-1974) to be literate, the thought that perhaps he may have read about himself as Time's Man of the Year in 1936, while dropping a fat deuce, thanks to some delicious key wot and injera, is just too delightful to even stand.

Haile Time...'s Man of the Year

Do I feel special? Yes. Because I am willing to bet that not even Josip Broz Tito, the Father of Yugoslavia got to park his can where I did.

"And in case you have to go, Druže Tito, this spear also acts as an arrow pointing towards the guest bathroom."

The Emperor's real imperial throne was made of wood and ivory, rather than light blue plastic -- (But I mean, can we get the man at least a little gold on that thing, perhaps on the flusher? He's the freaking anointed ruler of the Ethiopian Empire; he's got roots tracing back to King Solomon! Hook a Hamito-Semitic brother up!). That baby was stolen by the Italians during World War II and not returned for a few decades. These days, it's sitting, un-sat upon, in the main display room of a different museum down the road, the National Museum of Ethiopia.

Sitting at the right hand of the Rastafarian Father would seem a little humbling, wouldn't you think? (Someone suffered from Napoleonic syndrome, though, eh? Selassie was around Tom Cruise's height.)

(The National Museum, in case you were wondering, is normally where a replica of Lucy, the 3.5 million year old Ethiopian chick known locally as "Dinquinesh" - "Thou art wonderful" - is on display. But these days, she's in .... are you ready for this? .... Houston, Texas. My hometown, of all places. I actually got to see her [I thought it was really her, and not a replica, though I could be mistaken] last January at the Museum of Natural Science, only hours before I went to the airport to fly back to Tanzania. Neither Mary nor Bino have been so lucky. To be from Texas, and to see Lucy.)

While the "real" throne was off limits, the one used for Haile Time in what used to be the Gannana Leul Palace, but which, along with all its surrounding grounds was donated to the then 12-year-old Haile Selassie I University in 1961, was left as wide open as Plaxico Burress in the end zone in Phoenix. (The school and museum are now situated on the campus of the rechristened Addis Ababa University.) Bino says it was because the power went out that the guard temporarily disappeared. I don't see how that would be the case; but I have no alternative hypothesis that sounds any better. All I know is that we had a window. And that we only had a finite amount of time before that window shut.

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"Wait," I said, considering a last minute abort as my heart rate quickened and my breaths became short, "what about a surveillance camera?"

"They don't have any cameras in this country*," Bino shot back, omitting the, "you idiot" finisher to that sentence, a truth he figured was self-evident. There was one camera, however, in that bathroom -- in Bino's hand -- and it was now on and ready to go. Mary was guarding the entrance from the master bedroom. They were all waiting on me.

Here were the four scenarios that were causing my heart to beat as rapidly as it was at that moment, any of which were likely should I get caught red handed, or pants down:

a) getting beaten to a pulp
b) getting beaten to death
c) getting thrown in Ethiopian jail, or even worse,
d) all of the above.

But the more I stalled, the higher the chance was of a, b, c or d coming to fruition. So I just did it; I undid my belt and pulled down my Carhartt's, quicker than the man who engaged in the quickest quickie in the history of quickies.

And I took my seat on the throne, ready for my coronation. Don't be fooled by the stupid look on my face; I was as paranoid as a red-eyed Rasta in an airport metal detector.

Soon to be framed on my parents' infamous "Wall of Fame," in the downstairs bathroom at their home in Houston.

If only I had had the hot dog suit.

If only I had had to poop, really. WOW, that would have given the story a little extra oomph! And let me tell you, with the way my body reacts sometimes to the Ethiopian cuisine, mixed with Ethiopian coffee, I could have left a serious mark in the blink of an eye. And you know I had toilet paper with me -- this is Africa, y'all. You never assumed a place is going to have it, because they never do. Even in the Emperor's former palace!

It's probably good that I didn't have to go, though. As it stands, no one is the wiser that this sacrilege even took place. But had I, as The Bob would say, "crossed the line?" Forget the obvious evidence that would have been left behind -- where would I have left the TP? Ethiopia is unique to all the countries I've ever visited in one respect: you don't flush toilet paper down the toilet. You throw it away. It's a testament to the incredibly shitty (hi-ohh!) pipes they've got transporting their shit to the sewers -- that's what Bino says about Addis, at least. My CouchSurfing friends that Mary and I stayed with in Gonder, Ruhan and Karlijn, say it's because they've got a direct link up to a septic tank that isn't designed for any .... non organic waste.

Thus, "the green bin."

ALL* (*underlined) TOILET PAPER IN GREEN BIN PLEASE :)
Really, though. All.

Judging from the color of the little pond outside the main entrance to Selassie's old palace, I wonder where exactly the imperial poo was being sent to whenever he flushed his non-gold flusher.

Gyewww.

Just a theory.

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P.S. In the same museum, a close No. 2 on the coolest exhibits is this, "Banna tale: Not knowns what should be known."

I'm assuming it sounds more poetic/is much more profound in Amharic.

Let me type it out for those of you who have a hard time reading:

Once upon a time a husband and his wife lived together for a long time without children. In their old age they had a son. When he grew up they decided that their son should be married and they found him a girl that might be suitable. He then married her. After they were married they didn't know how to go about making a baby. One day, when his mother was climbing a ladder, the son who was lying on the ground noticed something between his mother's thighs that he had not seen before. He asked his mother, "What is it?" When he was told that his wife also had that thing, he argued that he had never seen it.

"How come you do not know about this after all the years of marriage?" his mother asked.

"My wife shows me only her toes," the son replied.

"Tonight, check if your wife has the same thing as I have," she said.

The son went home that night and saw his wife had the same thing as his mother. He was happy and he kept watching over his wife day and night. One day war broke out in the area and all the inhabitants fled. So he also left with his wife. While fleeing he asked to his wife, "Did you forget to bring our thing?"

"I left it at home," she told him.

The husband thought it was true and, while running back to get it back, he was killed in the war.

Love, deceit, sex, looking up mom's skirt to catch a glimpse of her "thing." Ladies and gentleman, Ethiopian culture!

*A few days later, we went into a convenience store that had a surveillance camera.

"Dude, live it up. You guys are about to do more traveling in the next few weeks than most people do in their entire lives."

That's what Peter had to say yesterday over a cold Castle (pronounced Cas-tell by Wabongo) within one of the many Mzungu lily pad enclaves in Arusha. Hunter and I are men on the move, though not on the move in the same directions. We got down from Mount Kilimanjaro two days ago. I leave this afternoon for Ethiopia for three weeks; he's still got a little more time to decompress with his family, before Anne and Hank (that's right, they've finally broken me of my Southern affliction, addressing all wazee as "Mr." and "Mrs.", much like a six-month old puppy still chews on couch ends) head back to the States. That's when he and his sister Sarah will set off to do their thing in Rwanda and Uganda. Me? I'll still be in Ethiopia, a.k.a. Zion, a.k.a. the New Jerusalem, a.k.a. the place I've been wanting to go for muchos, muchos años, since long before writing my college history thesis on Jerusalem's role in reggae and Rastafari.

(hint: the reason those things are even remotely related has to do with a town called Axum, the epicenter of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, located in the north of the country near the Eritrean border. It is there that all Ethiopians and Rastafarians alike claim that the lost Ark of the Covenant resides, hidden within the holy of holies in the St. Mary of Zion Church. It is there that this guy is going to go. It is there that I will not be allowed entry. But at least I can say I came as close to the thing as I possibly could.)

These past few weeks have been crazy for me -- a week long safari with my family, the end of my job, a five-day hike of the tallest free standing mountain in the world. Oh, how I wish I had just one more day in Arusha, so I could write about them all, give them the attention they really deserve. But as Michael Scott once said, "No time! No time!" This Zion Train's got to keep on movin'. My time in Africa is winding down, fast. Real fast. And I'm sucking out every last drop.

I get back from Ethiopia August 1; I leave the next day for Dar es Salaam, from where I'm trying to catch a train across the interior of Tanzania to Kigoma, a town Che Guevara used to chill in during his days trying to spread the revolution to the Congo (the first line in his memoirs about his time there were, "This is the history of a failure," so I don't think he had very good memories of Kigoma). From there, there's a chance my friend is gonna hook it up for a chance to see some chimps -- she works for the Jane Goodall Institute, and for that week "so do I." A ferry across Lake Victoria to Uganda is in the works. I see Rwanda in the horizon. I see the River Nile. I see awesomeness. And I see the grand finale, Mount Meru.

Mount Meru is going to be the culmination. Hunter and I have been wanting to climb it all year. Every day it stares us right in the face, our hometown mountain, the center of the universe, or so the Buddhists say. When we reach its summit, only three days before we're supposed to leave this continent for good, well my friends, I think you could say that that is how the script is supposed to end.

When I get home, I have decided, I am writing a book. I no longer say the words "maybe," or "thinking about," or "we'll see what happens." That's loser talk; I am not a loser; and I only get to live one time, right? There's no point in not doing what I feel I need to do just because the odds are stacked against me. Ever heard of Kurt Warner? So I am writing a book, about the last two years of my life, mixing in my own personal experiences, anecdotes and theories with a healthy does of historical context.

I don't care if it gets published or not. I do, but I don't. Meaning, if it doesn't, I won't be mad. I'll just publish it myself, the beauty of the 21st century. To treat it as a glorified thank you note to send to all those who touched me along my way would not be a half bad worst case scenario. From England to Germany to Holland, Denmark to Norway to Spain; Switzerland, France, Italy; Hungary and the Czech Republic, to Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania; to Turkey, Singapore, Vietnam and China. But especially to those in Serbia and Tanzania. Those are the two places that really hold special places in my heart, til Kingdom come.

These last two years have changed me in ways that I never could have expected. I am a better person as a result. My eyes are opened wider. And I am going to make the most of what I learned.

You've got to start somewhere on your dream, right? It doesn't just happen to you. You have to grab it. Okay then. My dream is to be a writer of books, books that people read, about travel, about history, about funny things that happen along the way. And that is what I am going to do. Starting in September, when I'm back in Texas, with no money left in my bank account, with no plans on the horizon, but with a whole lot of stories to tell, I am going to get to work.

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p.s. Apparently the Ethiopian government has put the blogspot website on its websita non grata list, so, yeah. Wouldn't be expecting to hear much from me for the rest of the month.