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You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America
From Machu Picchu to a cocaine purchase in a Bolivian jail―and beyond!
How do you rough it in extreme South American travels and still dare to be different? You Can Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America follows the intrepid and fantastic―and totally true―adventures of flamboyant gay men through the gritty rough and tough of South America. Author Jesse Archer and his American boyfriend Zane spent nearly two years traveling the continent in search of adventure. And find it they did. Discover incredible individuals like Patricia the pink lady, the Wolfman of Borneo, and Santusa the fanged Chola of a different color. Thrill to the astounding experiences of dodging crocodiles, doing a striptease for a Colombian bathroom bitch, admiring exultant transsexuals caught in a rainstorm, and navigating the most dangerous road in the world. This wild travel chronicle takes you through the real South America with wit, wisdom―and a hot pink wig!
An excerpt from You Can
Gerardo runs off to buy the meat for baiting piranha and then we're in his tin boat out on the choppy Amazon. The humidity and heat on the earth's surface here seems to bounce back into the sky and burst, returning a downpour of rain. Luckily Gerardo's tin can has a roof. Yet for some reason we aren't headed to the jungle, but downriver to a shantytown along the bank.
I ask where we are going and Gerardo feebly utters something in Portuguese. I can't make it out. Zane is now convinced I've employed a waterfront gangster. We pull up to a shoddy pier of three planks supported by timbers that rot in the lapping water.
“We should have gone with the other one!” Zane decries my flagrant frugality. “See? There's his accomplice.” When Gerardo reappears outside the shack with another man Zane announces he hates to be killed with a cheapskate like me. “I'm gonna die, washed up over there with all that trash, my body all white and fat and . . . bloated!” zane has exercised too much in his life to die bloated. Dying bloated has just become the worst of all fates. Zane gasps earnestly to his active imagination. “Oh God, please not bloated!” You Can Run is a funny, piercing, and poignant examination of memorable outcasts in the third world. Follow some of travel's most different adventure seekers―extreme travelers with a lot of sparkle!
How do you rough it in extreme South American travels and still dare to be different? You Can Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America follows the intrepid and fantastic―and totally true―adventures of flamboyant gay men through the gritty rough and tough of South America. Author Jesse Archer and his American boyfriend Zane spent nearly two years traveling the continent in search of adventure. And find it they did. Discover incredible individuals like Patricia the pink lady, the Wolfman of Borneo, and Santusa the fanged Chola of a different color. Thrill to the astounding experiences of dodging crocodiles, doing a striptease for a Colombian bathroom bitch, admiring exultant transsexuals caught in a rainstorm, and navigating the most dangerous road in the world. This wild travel chronicle takes you through the real South America with wit, wisdom―and a hot pink wig!
An excerpt from You Can
Gerardo runs off to buy the meat for baiting piranha and then we're in his tin boat out on the choppy Amazon. The humidity and heat on the earth's surface here seems to bounce back into the sky and burst, returning a downpour of rain. Luckily Gerardo's tin can has a roof. Yet for some reason we aren't headed to the jungle, but downriver to a shantytown along the bank.
I ask where we are going and Gerardo feebly utters something in Portuguese. I can't make it out. Zane is now convinced I've employed a waterfront gangster. We pull up to a shoddy pier of three planks supported by timbers that rot in the lapping water.
“We should have gone with the other one!” Zane decries my flagrant frugality. “See? There's his accomplice.” When Gerardo reappears outside the shack with another man Zane announces he hates to be killed with a cheapskate like me. “I'm gonna die, washed up over there with all that trash, my body all white and fat and . . . bloated!” zane has exercised too much in his life to die bloated. Dying bloated has just become the worst of all fates. Zane gasps earnestly to his active imagination. “Oh God, please not bloated!” You Can Run is a funny, piercing, and poignant examination of memorable outcasts in the third world. Follow some of travel's most different adventure seekers―extreme travelers with a lot of sparkle!
- GenresLGBT
244 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 2007
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July 2, 2009Sometime you wonder how much of the character there is in the actor who played it. Jesse Archer is the actor who played Luke in two romantic comedies, Slutty Summer and A Four Letter Word. Luke is a burst of colours, someone capable to love to an extreme level without the necessity to change his lover, probably since he himself is not someone who wants to change, not even for love.
You Can Run is the journal of Jesse Archer's adventure in South America, from 1999 to 2001, when he was in that phase of life where you decide what will be your future: a degree in hand you have a lot of possibility in front of you, but all of them expect you to settle down and decide something. You want to be an actor? You can, go to Los Angeles and work hard waiting table or doing something else while attending every possible audition. You want to be a writer? You can, go to New York and work in some related fields, learning the job and spending night after night writing the next Great American Novel. Or, in alternative, You Can Run, from all of this and from any possible commitment. But if you are Jesse Archer, you can't simple run with a backpack and two pair of shoes, you have to do that with style... and so I believe that Jesse Archer and his travel companion are the first persons I heard that start a trekking in South Africa with wine in the backpack instead of bottle of pesticide.
At 24 years old Jesse is on an on / off relationship with Zane. He loves Zane, but as you can love someone that knows you well, that was there with you when you were developing the man you are now. It's not brotherly love, since it would be border on incest, but nevertheless you know that it's not your true love, also since you still don't know if true love exists or if you are ready for it. But still Zane is the only man who will follow Jesse on this adventure without questions. If you are expecting reading this journal to discover that Jesse was wrong and that Zane is his true love, you are wrong. Since Jesse was not wrong from the beginning, he has no open ends with Zane, the basis of their relationship are clear: they are travel companion and when they are not travelling, they can have separate lives, always knowing that, when one of them is starting the travel again, the other will be ready to follow. It's not love that bonds them together, it's the travel. And when one of them is starting to be too serious with someone else met during the journey, it's not the betrayed lover who is jealous, it's the abandoned travel companion.
There is a logic time sequence in all the chapters, but not a continuum. It means that every single chapter is an independent little story, a little piece in the whole puzzle that was the entire journey. Sometime the story concerns a character, sometime a place. Hardly a place recurs for more than one story, since it reflects the fact that Jesse was often in motion, hopping from one place to the other, and the discontinuous trend is well reflected from that, at the end of a chapter Jesse is in a country, and at the beginning of the other he is in another one, the reason why he left one to move to another one seldom are explained, as often are not detailed all the work he had probably done to settle in a new place. It's like being inside Jesse's mind, reading is memory, and so, only the more important things are available; Jesse chose to "run" not to write a travel guide, but to live, and I don't believe he spent most of his time taking notes of what he did or what he saw, probably he filled a journal of what in that moment made a great impression to him, and when years later he went through that notes, he filled the gap with something else from his memory. The result is a travel journey that maintains the eclecticism of the man who did it.
A bit of stability in the instability that essentially is Jesse, is given by the men in his life... how strange isn't it? But actually they are the only constant in his life and they are basically two. As I said before, Zane, his travel companion, that sometime took his own path but always came back, or Jesse went to him: their relationship as travel companions was like their relationship as lovers, in and off, open or exclusive, always without regret. There is a moment in which I wondered if Jesse or Zane said something, maybe that relationship would have changed in something else, but no one said something, and Zane took a bus headed on a direction opposite to Jesse, and that bus in a way set the path for their future life; it was not a physical farewell, both of them knew that they would meet again, but it was the definitely farewell to their relationship as lovers.
More or less at the same time of this farewell, maybe since Jesse felt "free" (you can say with your mouth that you are not committed, but your heart maybe has other idea...), Jesse meets the second important man of this story, Walter. Walter is Argentine, and for a bit he will replace Zane; again for Jesse is not a real commitment, and again I think that if it was, Jess would have run on the opposite way. Even if Jesse is enjoying his time in South America, I always felt like this was a "foreign" adventure for him, and that, sooner or later, he would return in the United States, leaving behind all his "temporary" bonds, like Walter. Walter stands out from all the others only since, like Zane, he hops in and hops out from Jesse's life in more occasion than one, and Jesse considers himself "involved" with him for more than a passing adventure, but on the contrary of Zane, Walter doesn’t conquer a special place in Jesse’s life; Walter represents the moment, Zane is the past, the present and the future, a future that is all to write.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/156023654X/?...
You Can Run is the journal of Jesse Archer's adventure in South America, from 1999 to 2001, when he was in that phase of life where you decide what will be your future: a degree in hand you have a lot of possibility in front of you, but all of them expect you to settle down and decide something. You want to be an actor? You can, go to Los Angeles and work hard waiting table or doing something else while attending every possible audition. You want to be a writer? You can, go to New York and work in some related fields, learning the job and spending night after night writing the next Great American Novel. Or, in alternative, You Can Run, from all of this and from any possible commitment. But if you are Jesse Archer, you can't simple run with a backpack and two pair of shoes, you have to do that with style... and so I believe that Jesse Archer and his travel companion are the first persons I heard that start a trekking in South Africa with wine in the backpack instead of bottle of pesticide.
At 24 years old Jesse is on an on / off relationship with Zane. He loves Zane, but as you can love someone that knows you well, that was there with you when you were developing the man you are now. It's not brotherly love, since it would be border on incest, but nevertheless you know that it's not your true love, also since you still don't know if true love exists or if you are ready for it. But still Zane is the only man who will follow Jesse on this adventure without questions. If you are expecting reading this journal to discover that Jesse was wrong and that Zane is his true love, you are wrong. Since Jesse was not wrong from the beginning, he has no open ends with Zane, the basis of their relationship are clear: they are travel companion and when they are not travelling, they can have separate lives, always knowing that, when one of them is starting the travel again, the other will be ready to follow. It's not love that bonds them together, it's the travel. And when one of them is starting to be too serious with someone else met during the journey, it's not the betrayed lover who is jealous, it's the abandoned travel companion.
There is a logic time sequence in all the chapters, but not a continuum. It means that every single chapter is an independent little story, a little piece in the whole puzzle that was the entire journey. Sometime the story concerns a character, sometime a place. Hardly a place recurs for more than one story, since it reflects the fact that Jesse was often in motion, hopping from one place to the other, and the discontinuous trend is well reflected from that, at the end of a chapter Jesse is in a country, and at the beginning of the other he is in another one, the reason why he left one to move to another one seldom are explained, as often are not detailed all the work he had probably done to settle in a new place. It's like being inside Jesse's mind, reading is memory, and so, only the more important things are available; Jesse chose to "run" not to write a travel guide, but to live, and I don't believe he spent most of his time taking notes of what he did or what he saw, probably he filled a journal of what in that moment made a great impression to him, and when years later he went through that notes, he filled the gap with something else from his memory. The result is a travel journey that maintains the eclecticism of the man who did it.
A bit of stability in the instability that essentially is Jesse, is given by the men in his life... how strange isn't it? But actually they are the only constant in his life and they are basically two. As I said before, Zane, his travel companion, that sometime took his own path but always came back, or Jesse went to him: their relationship as travel companions was like their relationship as lovers, in and off, open or exclusive, always without regret. There is a moment in which I wondered if Jesse or Zane said something, maybe that relationship would have changed in something else, but no one said something, and Zane took a bus headed on a direction opposite to Jesse, and that bus in a way set the path for their future life; it was not a physical farewell, both of them knew that they would meet again, but it was the definitely farewell to their relationship as lovers.
More or less at the same time of this farewell, maybe since Jesse felt "free" (you can say with your mouth that you are not committed, but your heart maybe has other idea...), Jesse meets the second important man of this story, Walter. Walter is Argentine, and for a bit he will replace Zane; again for Jesse is not a real commitment, and again I think that if it was, Jess would have run on the opposite way. Even if Jesse is enjoying his time in South America, I always felt like this was a "foreign" adventure for him, and that, sooner or later, he would return in the United States, leaving behind all his "temporary" bonds, like Walter. Walter stands out from all the others only since, like Zane, he hops in and hops out from Jesse's life in more occasion than one, and Jesse considers himself "involved" with him for more than a passing adventure, but on the contrary of Zane, Walter doesn’t conquer a special place in Jesse’s life; Walter represents the moment, Zane is the past, the present and the future, a future that is all to write.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/156023654X/?...
March 27, 2021
Clearly, the author is a good writer. But that did not make me come away with a feeling of liking him -- he is too often unkind in his adventures. Also, in my view, he paints a very unattractive picture of travel in South America that is unfortunately tied too often to use of illicit drugs. There is almost no part of his travel narrative that made me desire to travel to any of the places in his book.
May 11, 2022
This book suffered from too little travelogue and too much early-aughts token catty gay commentary. Could've been a gem!
February 27, 2013
I liked it, I didn't love it.
I picked this up for the blurb by Josh Kilmer-Purcell on the cover.
This book promised hilarious and didn't really deliver. There were some amusing stories by the author. Part of what I liked about it was the South America part, I have no real idea of day to day life there and no real intention to visit, so that was interesting.
Some of the less good parts were the drug use, which was very casual, and the vanity of the author. There were moments where he had an emotional connection, but far more where he relied on his youth and looks.
Overall I don't know that the author comes off that well, and this is from his point of view, so was it worse in real life? When we treated his boyfriend badly and then ripped his favourite Casper shirt, I was kind of glad I don't know him personally.
I get that we all do drugs and are a little self-absorbed when young, but I don't really need to relive that.
I picked this up for the blurb by Josh Kilmer-Purcell on the cover.
This book promised hilarious and didn't really deliver. There were some amusing stories by the author. Part of what I liked about it was the South America part, I have no real idea of day to day life there and no real intention to visit, so that was interesting.
Some of the less good parts were the drug use, which was very casual, and the vanity of the author. There were moments where he had an emotional connection, but far more where he relied on his youth and looks.
Overall I don't know that the author comes off that well, and this is from his point of view, so was it worse in real life? When we treated his boyfriend badly and then ripped his favourite Casper shirt, I was kind of glad I don't know him personally.
I get that we all do drugs and are a little self-absorbed when young, but I don't really need to relive that.
September 10, 2010
If I could review this book in one word, I would say: Hilarious! Jesse Archer is a great writer, and reading his book is like going on a trip with a close friend. The story does lag in a few parts, but that is made up by the amount of humor, because when it's funny, it's downright hilarious. I actually laughed out countless times. Jesse has no shame, and spares you no details, which is what makes this book so lovable. From his descriptions of all the different men and boyfriends he has, to the crazy trips and things that happen to him, you just can't help but be charmed. You will laugh, you will smile and I highly recommend it.
July 14, 2010
Clever, insightful and always amusing, You Can Run chronicles a gay man's wanderings around South America -- boyfriends, casual hookups, drugs, and lots and lots of truly gritty accommodations and bathrooms!
January 2, 2008
Borrowed this book for my trip to Argentina. I had no preconceptions, but I have to say it was unexpectedly well written--and absolutely hilarious.
June 12, 2008
Hilarious! I really liked this book
April 9, 2009
Jesse is my friend. This book is a hilarious and heart warming read
September 27, 2012
If you love to travel or have ever wanted to this book is a fantastic look at a gay man traveling through South America and living moment to moment! A quick read but well worth it!!
October 5, 2015
Excelente libro escrito parte en mi casa por mi amigo Jesse Archer cuando vivimos juntos.
Recomendado.
Recomendado.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews