Macau - Sunday, October 17

Sunday represents the adventure part of the title of the previous post, though it wasn’t the crazy, rollicking, danger-filled sort, replete with black humor amid scads of gore. That was at Pacific Place, when I shot the mall up and dressed myself in Hermes and Burberry, remember? Man, I shot the shit out of that mall.

I woke on time – sort of – and dragged my ass a little bit. If one has no granola, putting Cheerios in one’s yogurt works just fine, in case you were wondering. I always want something salty, though, even at breakfast – after a bowl of cereal and a Cheerio-laden container of yogurt, I still had to stop myself from making a plate of cheese and crackers or even cooking up some soup. Perhaps I’m diabetic after all. Or maybe I just love food.

After packing a bag for Macau (a task that, as you know, was drunkenly started the night before, when I continued to ride the Carnival party train to the cleaners, department store, and my apartment), I walked over to the ferry terminal and bought a ticket in Super Class. I just wanted to see what Super Class was all about, and I knew I would be riding in economy class for the trip home, and I discovered that there’s not much difference save for the food (you get none in economy, unless you wanna purchase it) and the fact that you get to disembark first. Whoop-de-fuckin’ doo. Glad I paid double. Actually, it was kind of cool – more leg room, and you are seated up in the front of the boat, which is a huge tri-foil (like a trimaran hydrofoil) that rises up out of the water once it gets going. The boat is a lot like an airplane, down to the sound of the huge engines powering up as we sat at the dock – there’s a seat belt, tray table, evacuation instruction card, and barf bag. The snack consisted of a couple half-sammies (one tuna and one salami and cheese), a freaky cake-type thing, two huge red grapes, a single cherry tomato, and this strange, gelatinous, opaque, neon lime green pudding – some bizarre blend of pudding and gelatin, I don’t know – that tasted like…I’m not sure. I think this is what Hello Kitty would taste like if you could taste the essence of Hello Kitty. Or like dessert on a spaceship in the future, or on one of the Matrix ships or something.

Ok, so back to the jetfoil thing. We slowly cruised out of the harbor and then opened it up. Once this thing gets going (about 60km/hr), it destroys everything else on the water. Really moves. On the way home, we passed another one of the same type going the opposite direction, and they look pretty cool, all up out of the water and skimming along on the three keels, tearing a wake through the relatively calm seas. To our right – er, starboard – we saw green, rock-strewn islands ringed with huge, blond boulders. It reminded me a little of the West in the USA. A resort or two popped up along the way, but for the most part the islands looked completely uninhabited.

The trip takes about an hour, give or take a few minutes, and you enter Macau Harbor under a huge, modern suspension bridge. Once there, you zip through customs and the ever-present temperature screening zone with the workers all masked up, and head to the bus and taxi area. I was immediately hounded by pedicab dudes who wanted to take me somewhere, and I briefly considered getting in one and saying, “Hac Sa Beach” just to see the look on his face (Hac Sa is a long freakin’ pedicab ride from the ferry terminal. Let’s just say that it might have taken until sunset and killed the guy anyway). I walked over to the cab stand and grabbed one to Hac Sa (“black sand”) Beach, hoping to get in some good sunning time on the beach. Dig – the taxi doors open and close automatically via this little mechanism that the driver operates. It’s not that amazing, but it was kind of cool for a slightly crappy car. I was looking for the handle and boom! - the door closed on me.

During the drive over, I saw the ancient buildings and mansions and all that, the casinos, the tower, the two huge bridges that connect Macau (the main island) with Taipa and Coloane (the two smaller islands that make up the rest of Macau), and the vast harbor leading out to the South China Sea. We drove along a beautifully manicured and landscaped causeway that had huge statues of the various animals of the Chinese Zodiac – leastways that’s what I thought they were. Dog, bull, monkey, ram, you get the picture. They were mostly carved of some sort of whitish stone and were about twenty feet tall. The merging of the two cultures – Portuguese and Chinese – was evident everywhere, from the architecture and landscape to the food and customs. The signs are all in both languages, with a periodic nod to English here and there, and traffic circles abound.

We reached the beach in about 15-20 minutes and the ride cost me 80 bucks – about ten dollars US including tip. Much more expensive than the bus, but what the hell. The same ride in the five boroughs would have been about 30 or 40 bucks. Shit is so cheap over here. I walked down to the beach and discovered a beautiful little inlet, about a half-mile wide or so, with a row of cute, identical homes to the right and a huge Westin resort off to the left in the distance. Families were playing in the surf, laughing as the waves rolled in and splashed their rolled-up pants and shorts, though no one was actually swimming (the red flags were out, signaling dangerous conditions, though it looked fine to me. Perhaps there was a real bad undertow or something). The interesting thing about this scene – well, there were two interesting things: first, everyone was having a really good time just splashing in the surf, which seemed odd to me since it’s just a flirtation with the ocean as opposed to a full-on make-out session; second, people ovah heah don’t really wear beach clothes to the beach. They wear jeans and dress slacks and dress shirts, and the most casual outfit is comprised of shorts and a t-shirt. No bare chests, no bathing suits except for one or two toddlers. And I’m serious about the dress slacks – older cats were just out in the surf with honest-to-God polyester dress slacks rolled above their knees. I slugged some water, shed my shoes, and joined them in the strange reverie. It was nice to dig my toes into the sand and make contact with the ocean, however minimal; it reminded me of swimming in Thailand and thinking to myself, “Damn, I’m now swimming in an ocean on the other side of the world.”

The sand here is not all silvery black, like the northern beaches of Maui; rather, it’s a blend of tan sand and black sand, interwoven like the way a black-and-tan pint looks when poured properly, the colors slowly shredding each other into a sort of tiger-stripe pattern as the two beers mix. Oddly enough, the sand at the water’s edge is very fine, while the sand farther up the beach is a) quite grainy and b) all tan. I think it has to do with land reclamation or something, since that’s how it is in Miami Beach and those beaches were built back up using dredges back in 1980 or so. At this end of Hac Sa, the pine trees shade most of the beach except for a small strip near the surf break, so I decided to walk down toward the Westin where the beach was more expansive, laid bare to the sun’s rays. I saw all sorts of children at play, climbing and exploring among the rocks that formed the seawalls and steps, making sand castles and little estuaries, shit like that. I reached a remote area upon which to display my white tubby glory and set up my little towel. I sunned myself like Jub-Jub at Troy McClure’s pool for about an hour or so and just listened to the surf crashing on the shore. Nice. I was a little too lazy to put on sunscreen, but I managed not to burn myself. There were a couple gnats here and there, but other than that, everything was perfect. Except, of course, for the unavoidable yet quite manageable fact that I was alone. I mean, that part was slightly wack, but only slightly.

After getting my sun on for a while, it was time to check out Fernando’s, a restaurant which came highly recommended by my colleagues and gets rave reviews on the web. People be talkin’ like it’s the best restaurant in Asia, so you know I had to find out whether it was better than the burgers and fries and shakes at Wanna’s Place on Ao Nang beach. Ha ha. Seriously though, people cannot get enough of this little shack of Portuguese culinary love, and it was a big reason for my journey to Macau.

The restaurant consists of two breezy indoor dining rooms with wood tables, checkered tablecloths, and wrought-iron lighting, separated by the kitchen. The kitchen is bordered by a garden of sorts on one side and a large outdoor dining/bar area on the other. There are a couple foosball tables set up in a breezeway.

I walked to the back, where most of the action was, and took a corner table. The clientele consisted mostly of tourists, and there was even a table with a black transvestite. Tons of silver jewelry, huge hoop earrings, a long skirt and long yellow headscarf, a black leotard top, sunglasses that never came off, and these traditional shoes that curl up at the toes, like a Mongol-type shoe. You don’t see many black folks out this way, and certainly few who rock it like that.

The menu is only in Portuguese, but I figured my way around. It’s not that hard to figure out fish, shrimp, pork, veggies, and so on. They only serve one kind of beer, but the wine selection is extensive (not listed in printed form, however; you can peruse the shelf for something interesting or have the waitress recommend something. Portuguese wines only).

I ordered the Portuguese salad, a simple salad consisting of lettuce, onions, huge beefsteak tomatoes, and a simple vinaigrette. The tomatoes were a rich red color and tasted like heaven – and I don’t even like tomatoes. Take that, single cherry tomato on the boat! Hiii-yaaa! I also ordered the prawns with garlic sauce – huge prawns sautéed whole in tons and tons of garlic, served over some greens. Delightful, wonderful, truly heavenly. The bread, baked on the premises, was warm and soft inside with a nice crispy crust – perfect for dipping into the salad dressing and the garlic sludge. I ate it all, including all the bread. I couldn’t stop myself. I was too deep in the throes of gastronomic ecstasy to feel lonely at that point – I had the lovely prawns to keep me company, though their numbers dwindled fast. Insert appropriate Homer drooling onomatopoeia here.

After dinner, I decided to just grab a can to the ferry and head home. I considered checking out one or two of the other sights, like the Church of St. Paul or one of the forts or museums, but you reach a point at which the more stuff you do alone, the more you actually court loneliness, and I needed none of that. Moms wants to check out Macau, and we’ll get a chance to go all those places when she comes to visit this week. I had accomplished the primary goals of the beach and Fernando’s anyway.

The ride back in the taxi was swift, this time over the other huge bridge, and I made it back in time for the 5.05pm ferry. I settled into my seat, threw on some Harder They Come at nap volume, and drifted off into a nice little nap as soon as the boat left the harbor. I woke at one point to the sudden rise and fall of the boat, something that hadn’t happened on the way out – the seas looked calm, but perhaps we traveled over the wake of a ship or something. The boat was lurching by several feet, creating the sensation of a rapidly dropping elevator or a plane in turbulence. Most folks found it more fun than scary or annoying, and it was kind of a funny way to wake up. I still felt like I was halfway in the zone of Morpheus (the real one, the god of sleep, not the dude with the blue pill and the red pill); it’s such a pleasant, delicious place to be. I love sleep, and so do may others, but you don’t enjoy it when you’re actually unconscious. It’s the half-awake state, that moment of falling into or emergence from the depths, that one finds so wonderful. Freakin’ sweet-ass sweet.

I made it home by 6.30 and proceeded to get into some pure victorlicious chilling (no alcohol, thank you, just the pure flow). Took some Macau notes for this blog, did some ironing…just the random Sunday evening crap. Oh! I forgot one random thing from the end of the trip. As we’re disembarking, this little kid who isn’t paying attention to the swinging glass doors just takes one of the doors to the face. BAM! He immediately starts bawling, and I thought he had cut himself or at least bloodied his nose, since his mom had a cloth to his face when I walked past – but as I rode the escalator (something you do a LOT in Hong Kong), I looked down into the crowd and he was thankfully fine. I think it was just a minor head –smash. It was a little comical, though. I kind of wish the door had made that “duhduhduhduhduh” sound like in the cartoons.

Anyway, that’s it. I highly recommend checking out Macau if you are ever over this way – it’s beautiful, clean, and cheap, and the beaches are better than most you will find in or around Hong Kong. The trip over is only an hour long and costs about 17 bucks in economy class. Can’t beat it. I’m sure I will have more to say and describe when I go with moms and check out the old parts of the city center, the churches and temples, and all that other stuff I skipped.

More later,
Chucky

Weekend of pain, loss, and adventure - October 16-17, 2004...

I'm sure that sounds a little dramatic - not to worry, folks, it's all good. I had a great weekend, even though my neck still hurts from all the head I was giving. Just kidding.

I decided to lay low both nights, having lots to do before Mom's arrival this coming Wednesday. Friday night I hit the gym, took the usual steam and sauna, and went home and sort of accidentally got drunk. I used to do this in New York - make a list of things you need to do at home and try to get as many of them done while drinking away mas rapido. It was fun yet predictable - some chores, some story notes, that kind of crap. Nothing major to report, really. Crashed around midnight, I think - can't really recall. Maybe 1am.

I woke on Saturday ready to go to war with the 'to do' list. I went grocery shopping, dropped off some dry cleaning, bought a coffeepot for mom to use while she was here, then hit the gym. There was a yoga class going on when I got there, so I couldn't use the big room to stretch and shit, but I had a good session with the weights and confirmed that I'm a weak bitch, but stronger than some of the sucker MCs in there. In the locker room, I ran into the yoga instructor, a classic Indian yogi - nice big tub, friendly, peaceful demeanor, flowing orange robes and orange t-shirt. He introduced himself as Swami and explained that his style was transformational yoga - integrating not just mind and body, like the Hatha yoga I mess with in NYC, but mind, body, breathing, emotions, and spirituality. He teaches Saturdays and Mondays at this gym, and I may give it a try if I have time.

Anyway, afterward I went to this center on Des Voeux Road called the Accupressure and Foot Reflexology Care Center of the Blind. In essence, it's a massage joint where blind folks provide some serious accupressure massage. It's a lot cheaper than my gym - at $240 an hour, it's about half that of my gym and more in line with NYC Chinatown prices (roughly $30 bucks an hour) - but man, it makes the Fishion sessions in Chinatown feel like a cake walk. This cat worked me from here to Albuquerque, to once again borrow from Ice Cube. I mean, the shit hurt - I knew it was good for me, and I felt good when I left, but daaaamn. Next time I'm getting a half-hour and naming like 40 parts of my body that need attention so he can't linger too long on any one area.

You are let into a room by a woman, then the dude comes in later with her and you tell her what you need to have done and she passes that information on to the dude. Then he sets this talking timer - you know, this electronic voice that says "forty-five minutes to go" and so on, and it's all a little ghetto, like the Chinatown joint. I could hear a dude snoring in another room (separated by curtains, not walls), and phones ringing and all that, but it was a good find and I'm glad I went. Threw him a nice big tip, left my name for future appointments and went off to Lan Kwai Fong to get some food. It's about 2pm right by then - I needed something mellow after my blissful torture session, so off I went with Stevie Wonder in the ipod.

Well, what should I find in Lan Kwai Fong but gobs and gobs of chavs and whores. No, of course not, it's the middle of the day! What I did find, however, was this massive Carnival festival in full swing. You know those street fairs that NYC has here and there throughout the year? It's like that, except Brazilians organized it and there are fewer stalls selling screwdrivers and socks and stuff. This one is all food, drink, insane decorations, magic, mimes, dancers, and music blasting out of speakers placed on every corner. I wanted to get some photos, so I ran back home to grab the camera, stopping first to grab a few samosas (I know, shocking, just shocking. Chucky and samosas). When I returned, things were still in full swing. Like most celebrations of this sort - remember the lantern festival? - it's got a real family vibe, but there were pints of Carlsberg on every corner, and I decided to let the day take a detour and leave the chore list behind for a few hours. The food being sold was truly diverse - in addition to the usual fare of hot dogs, sausages, and pizza, one could eat Indian, Korean, Japanese, a wide range of Chinese food, Thai delights, and some other foods whose country of origin I could not divine.

After a couple pints, I was feeling groovy. In honor of my mischievous mood, as well as Redman's 'Let Da Monkey Out', which I had been listening to earlier, I decided to get a henna tattoo on my forearm of a Chinese character - the monkey. The woman asked me, "You were born in monkey?" and I just said, "Naw - other reasons." Can't really do the "oo! oo! aa! aa! aa!" like in the song without everyone around me thinking I was nuts, so why explain? Shit looks good, though, especially when I flex my not-that-huge forearm. It was about that time that I realized that my phone was missing. The shitty one that the firm issued me, thank God. So there's the "loss" part of the post title (being tortured by a blind man, in case you did not deduce, was the "pain" part of my day). I was a little bummed, not because I lost the phone, but because I was thinking that maybe I got my pocked picked. I can't believe that I did, but who knows? I'm sure it's possible. I'm hoping it's at the massage joint, but I went like five places that day, and maybe the lifter chose that pocket because my other pocket with the ipod had the cord coming out of it and shit, and that might have complicated a clean lift. So I lost the shitty phone and kept the wallet, knot, and pod - no big deal. I was getting pretty nice and monkeyfied at that point, so it didn't really faze me. Whatever. It's a first for me, so I don't really care.

Watching the people was probably the most fun, other than getting nice. There were babies everywhere - on leashes, in strollers, in harnesses, and even some in stomachs. Watching the locals crowd around the Carnival dancers was real funny. I mean, everyone was buggin' - taking photos with phones, cameras, and video cams, taking photos of their elderly mothers posing with the dancers, just flipping out. I took a couple myself, but I just couldn't wedge my way in through the crowd and had to merely chuckle and move on to the next pint and some pizza. The pizza joint had this dish with a pig and two other pig heads resting next to it - got a shot of that. One of the three pig heads is looking right at the camera. Freaky deaky. What else - little girls getting face painting, a stilt dude, a funny mime, a drunk guy who got up and did this crazy dance on a platform, then stepped down and walked on as if everything was perfectly normal...I watched a little girl, maybe four years old or so, mezmerized by a juggler, and I thought about how they were both completely focused on the same thing - one the actor, one the observer. Behind them, construction workers went about their business like any other day, renovating a storefront. I also saw a little red-haired girl dressed like a devil, walking around with her nanny, and it somehow made me feel less lonely - I mean, damn, her folks couldn't even make it out with her, and she was stuck going to Carnival (no 'e' in Carnivale over here) with her nanny. Bummer. She seemed like she was having a good time, though, and so was I. Devil on, little girl, devil on.

At a certain point, I decided it was time to roll out of there. I picked up some dry cleaning that was ready at 5pm and walked to a department store to buy a blanket. Who knows what the clerks thought of me over at the Wing On store, all drunk and welling up from a conscious dive into melancholy with some 'Pictures of You' action on zee ipod...oh, the places you'll go when you're litacious. Finally, I headed home and...drank more beer, packed a little bit for the Macau trip the next day, took some drunken notes for this blog, had some soup and about 2 liters of water, and crashed around midnight.

I think I'm going to do Macau as a separate post since blogger.com has been acting up - it's not showing my previous post about books for some reason, and I had to retype a bunch of this one (which is fucking neat, let me tell you), so I'm going to end this one and start a new one. Peace!

Chucky

Books

Read a couple more good books lately. First one is Las Cucarachas, by my boy Yongsoo Park. I grabbed this one before I left for Hong Kong and just never got around to it until a few weeks ago, despite it being a fairly quick read. I liked it well enough, though I think I liked Boy Genius more. That is Yongsoo’s first book. They are very different books, however, and should not be compared solely on the fact that I read them and that I have different opinions of them (though critics do it all the time). I’ll just do my usual ramble and a little mini-critique.

Las Cucarachas is set in NYC in the 80s, and anyone who lived in the city then and was even remotely in touch with youth and popular culture will take a nice trip down memory lane. To some degree, Park lets the setting, more than the characters or even the plot, drive the story, and this makes for a mellow, almost existential pace that at times can be frustrating. I mean, nothing happens for a while, and some events seem to be replays of previous ones. However, this pace allows the big movements of the story to shine more and hides the more subtle, genuine developments that are occurring -- in a very pleasing fashion. It’s an excellent portrayal of the moral conflicts and challenges of maturity that a young man in his early teens faces during a certain time in his life as well as the ambivalence with which young men sometimes approach these challenges. The central character, Peter Kim, is growing up and he doesn’t even know it – this slow-cooked evolution is also not made quite apparent to the reader until one reaches the end and contemplates the protagonist’s whole life, his situation in its entirety. In some ways, it has the quality of the films Welcome to the Dollhouse or Napoleon Dynamite – the cameras seem to turn on at a certain point in the character’s lives, then just as arbitrarily turn off. Conflicts emerge without the commensurate resolutions. Things happen to the characters which can often be viewed as being of little consequence, but you come to realize that they are part of a broader, deeper development which is too large to capture in a couple hours or a couple hundred pages.

There’s a character in Las Cucarachas who, in my opinion, gets too little time in the story, but his significance in the story and his impact on Peter’s life cannot be overestimated. Mr. Schnell, who is a neighborhood retiree and chats with Peter now and then, periodically gives him books including The Old Man and the Sea. Peter thinks that the story is somewhat dumb, alleging that he doesn’t understand why the guy would go to all that trouble just for a carcass of a fish, but by the end of his own journey, Peter has come to recognize the central themes of the Hemingway tale and has related it to his own challenge – in this case, finding out who burglarized his house, regardless of the futility and difficulty of the search. This is subtly and masterfully done, and Park captures these low-frequency but highly resonant transformations of youth in a way that few writers are able to pull off. The book does get a little repetitive at times, and one finds himself yearning for something – or something different, rather – to happen, but it’s all part of the technique in my estimation, and Park pulls it off nicely. (Yongsoo, I’m no critic, so just ignore all the crap I wrote that you don’t like, WHAT!!! I’M NEXT, DAMMIT!)

The other book I just finished is titled The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. It’s about a judge in the South, a man who has a lot going for him but isn’t terribly satisfied by it and has often struggled with the somewhat mundane path he has taken with his life. He has lost his sense of faith, wonder, and spirituality, and while it is his brother whose favorite saying is “whatever”, it is the judge who is more ambivalent about life.

Anyway, he meets a woman who makes him an offer that he, his brother, and some friends decide to take her up on (I know, terrible grammar), and they go on a rollicking adventure that allows for the emergence of more zany folks with their own agendas, issues, and flaws. What I like about this one is that the characters drive the story – a style or approach which I find is natural, organic and unassuming yet also rather dynamic. It allows for a more seamless integration of the plot – you know, the actual things that happen – and the themes and messages within. The characters become the bearers of both plot and theme and carry them in the same sack, pour them into the reader from the same bucket. The characters are well-drawn and engaging at all turns. The other thing I liked about this author’s writing style is the mention of small details that draw the reader into the scene – a wooden stick used to stir coffee, the metal box that surrounds a payphone, a glass requested for a beer that is left unused. Ah, it’s good stuff. I really enjoyed this one. And it’s got that notion that Sagan writes about in Contact: the notion that faith is something which cannot be measured or proved – it’s simply something that one discovers and experiences and brings to life simply by believing. One can discover all sorts of things in faith – strength, redemption, renewal, wonder, freedom…it’s just a matter of one’s willingness to believe and just let that shit flow, learning to let go of certain conventions or self-imposed boundaries. A great read.

Ok, more later. Got a bunch of shit to do tonight and it’s already 10.25. Peace!
Chucky

Sandwich

What is the best sandwich ever? Email me and tell me what you think the best sandwich on earth is. I got to thinking about this one when I was eating quite often at a place called Pret a Manger, which has tasty sandwiches to go and salads and things like that. I was talking with a reporter who said that Pret was all she ate for a while in London and it was a lifesaver. “The Coronation Chicken…” she said. “God, I loved getting the Coronation Chicken sandwich. Ate it all the time.” Well, I had decided to try every single Pret sandwich (there are only about ten different ones, so it’s not an insane goal), and the other day I had the Coronation Chicken. It was not that tasty to me. In fact, I was a little mad at the reporter for having spoken so glowingly about it. It was a little boring and a little messy without the commensurate satisfaction that comes with eating a messy sandwich.

But there you have it. It’s all a matter of personal preference, doyyyy. I still believe there are some contenders out there that would earn high marks against many others. Roast beef and plum tomatoes with red onions and horseradish on a baguette, for example. That’s unfuck-wittable. But you got your Reuben, your submarine sandwich (hoagie, hero, etc, depending on where you are from) with the Italian dressing soaking the bread and marinating all the meats and vegetables, your steak sandwich in all its simple, heart-clogging, two-fisted, blue-collar glory….there’s the Cuban sandwich – Good God, that could be the one for me – with the pork, ham, cheese, mustard, and oh yes, the pickles. Fuck I could eat one now and I just ate lunch a little while ago. There are international flavors, like a steak torta or a banh mi or a pita stuffed with lamb or falafel. Variations of bread, meat, cheese, vegetable, dressing, spice, preparation, temperature…all those kinds of mustard….heealalllgghghgghgh (Homer drooling).

And there are plain old sammies, like black peppercorn turkey on a roll with lettuce and mayo, or an egg salad with lettuce on an onion roll, or ham and swiss on rye with mustard. Or tuna on rye toast, something I used to eat with great frequency at the diner on 15th and 8th in Chelsea. I think it’s gone now. While these sandwiches in my opinion can’t hold a candle to some of the aforementioned creations in the previous paragraph, the mere fact that someone might put them up for contention is proof that the question cannot be answered. Plus, you know, what if the best sandwich you ever had was this quick creation that someone made for a drive to Maine, and it’s got no name, no country of origin, no children? What if the situation made that sandwich the best sandwich ever? Isn’t it great to ponder? The question just cannot be settled with a single answer, even for one person.

However, it can be a good way to find out my friends’ and readers’ favorite sammies. “Saaaa-myyy, sammy bay-ay-byyyy…Sammy…I wanna eat you tonight..” Wait. That’s Cherie.

Bought a copy of the Bad Boys II DVD the other day. I wanted something dumb and action-packed. Michael Bay currently sits atop the pile in that regard, and the film was indeed as dumb as it was action-packed. I think it was about an E-trafficking ring (or, as they quaintly call it, X – who the hell says X anymore? It’s all E and rolls and shit), but toward the end of the movie I became convinced that it’s about 1) dead bodies, lots of them, and 2) how long Will Smith’s arms are. I know that remark reflects the type of smug hipster cynicism that made me want to punch Goebel - whose only critique of Casino was “It was a vehicle for showing how many different wigs Sharon Stone could wear in one movie” – but it’s ridiculous how many scenes there are in which Smith spreads those arms, burner in each hand, like a black gangsta Christ.

I was thinking about doing a blog posting that was a fake QA directed at Michael Bay, since the suspension of disbelief is beyond anything I have seen in a long time – maybe since Armageddon (another Bay film). Even Armageddon – in which people land on a jagged asteroid hurtling through space, for God’s sake – is almost more believable. A few examples from Bad Boys II: Powerboats that elude Coast Guard helicopters with a simple nylon cover, despite the longtime existence of thermal imaging. Black men who infiltrate a Klan meeting, and crab traps that stop bullets. Guns where there were no guns in the previous shot. A fully loaded tractor trailer that catches up to an SUV that had a 30-second head start - and in that same scene, a Ferrari, for fuck’s sake, that somehow takes forever to catch up. And on and on and on.

I’m not doing the post for a few reasons: I would have to sit through this crappy movie again, the QA would only state the obvious, and there are more interesting and funny things to write about. But damn. How fucking stupid does Bay think the average American viewer is? “Just spray enough bullets around, they won’t notice.” One of the funnier considerations is that, despite the movie being rife with dead bodies of various sorts, police are only injured in a chase scene that includes a boat’s stern going straight into the passenger compartment of one police car and another police car completely blowing up – I mean, engulfed in flames – and ending up on its roof. Oh, thank God that propeller through the head is just a flesh wound! Now, some of you are familiar with my problems with suspension of disbelief – ‘what did you expect, Chucky? But I can’t do it over and over and over, every 5-10 minutes and at times every 30 seconds. We’re not all 13-year olds with hard-ons and X-Boxes, Bay. I have to consider whether the only thing that kept him in check – barely – in doing Pearl Harbor was that he needed to maintain some semblance of historical accuracy. That the attack was brutal and bloody and full of explosions was helpful, and he could take plenty of license with the love story. I read this really interesting Rolling Stone article about Bay that drew some psychological conclusions about his early childhood, parental relationships, and resulting style of filmmaking, and it was a compelling argument. His films are bathed in superficial ethos, representing basic human emotions like love, revenge, and loyalty in the broadest, most ham-fisted way.

Well, that’s it for now. Just thought I’d ramble and vent about Michael Bay. I am reminded of a line from The Warriors: “You’re just a part of everything that’s happening tonight – and it’s all bad.”

Peace
Chucky

Postscript: Dudes! I just checked his filmography to make sure he directed the films I mentioned – guy went to Wesleyan! Fuck this noise, I’m writing a screenplay and blowing up. This is nuts.

I’m feeling a little better than I did when I last posted – it’s the afternoon now, and my headache, shivers, queasy stomach and nasal stuffiness has receded and melded into simple fatigue and some sore throat-type symptoms. Had some McDonald’s at lunch today, so I am surely back over 180 lbs, and now I have to worry about avian flu and BSE. Wait. A meat-borne illness and a chicken-borne illness, John? But that makes no sense, unless…. Yes. Don’t ask. Both were consumed. And they still cook the fries in beef tallow over here, so…ah, fug it. Whatever. Last month’s Vice interview with Nate Dogg was lazy as shit, so I get to be lazy and trail off sometimes too. Not that Vice is the benchmark, but like I said…whatever. The workers in this particular McDonald’s had a Western theme to their attire – black denim jeans with ‘M’ stitched on each back pocket, and pale yellow/blue/white plaid cowboy shirts. Cute. Yeee-haaaa!!

So, I think I am a little behind in recounting what I've been up to, though you haven't missed all that much. The following post was written before I headed out last night, so it mentions trying to see the Thursday DJ thing at Chapter – didn’t make it. I was LIT again last night. Da-runky. This is going to sound like a dumb ‘Deep Thoughts’, but sometimes I wish it was still the Old West days, when you could be in a bar and you’d be putting a bottle to your lips and suddenly there would be a gunfight and a bullet would ricochet off something and shoot your bottle into a million pieces just as you’re taking a drink. Because then you would at least have some outside force preventing you from drinking that one drink. You might be drunk already, but you would be at least one drink less drunk. And less destroyed the next day.

Two Saturdays ago I had a pretty good day - haircut, shopping, gym, a little mo'sage at the gym, and then a trip up to Victoria Peak after pricing some Tag Heuers. I think I'ma get the Carrera Automatic with the black face - dual time, black crocodile band...oh yeah baby. Gonna be sweet-asse sweet. That band jacks the price up another HKD1000, but damn, look at the alternative - this rubber racy-type thing with the holes in it. Supposed to be reminiscent of driving gloves. You know I(ceCube) can't be havin' that, G! A little reference to Amerikka's Most Wanted. Yes.

Anyway, I suppose I'll be getting into some trouble over the next few days, but the only thing from the past week or so that's worth writing about is my Friday night last night. Didn't have plans, but didn't want to sit around the apartment getting drunk with the TV, so I got dressed and headed out around 10pm. I wanted to find a bar that wasn't totally packed and had a seat for me. You feel, and appear to others, so much more alone when you go to a packed joint, squeeze in between revelers sitting at the bar, get your drink, and just stand there between the bar and the banquette, trying to figure out a way to break into some convo. It's much easier to strike up a conversation with one person or two than a larger group, anyway.

I headed into Soho and found a place that looked pretty mellow. Had a bourbon and ginger - my first ever (in HONG KONG, that is! hahaha!) - and chatted with the manager, a young guy who seemed to have little to do. Asked him what spots start jumping off in this area and he named a few. Finished my drink and headed to a cool underground joint called Chapter (not one of his suggestions, just looked dope from the outside), a hip, modern place with lots of red lights, stainless steel, and high plush banquettes lined with tall circular tables. Two small lounges in the back for larger groups were full of couches and cushions. I took a seat at the bar and struck up a chat with one of the waitresses, a Filipina who does freelance graphic design during the day and works/plays at Chapter most of the rest of the time. We talked about how long she had been here, the US (she has relatives in Cali, Chicago, and one other place which I cannot recall), and where she lived. She had some funny tales about getting stuck in the city after partying too late and having to sleep in a tree until the buses started running to the country again in the morning ("That's when I realize - I love city, I have to move to city so I don't sleep in tree no more!"). She told me about a DJ night on Thursdays where different DJs take shifts - I'ma check that out tonight after drinks with some reporters to see what it is like. Based on the guy who was there, I'm thinking about buying another ipod so I can hook up both pods and school these suckers. I mean, dig - the guy played "Mr. Wendel", or however you spell it - remember that one? Arrested Development? Jesus.

I ended up having three more bourbons, at which point I decided that I wanted one of those sick blue drinks. The cocktail menu was diverse, and I ordered something with lemon vodka, blue curacao, amaretto, and some other crap. You know l like the sweet drinks, WHAT!!! That sent me over the edge - the victor was proving to be something of a sleepy-eye generator more than anything else at this point (ok, I know I have been hangin’ with Victor a lot, but I haven't seen him since that night and it's almost a week, so I'm, like, practically a monk by now), and I was feeling super-nice. Nice yet sleepy-eyed are the feelings that held me to just one more drink - a safe, unassuming San Miguel - and I headed out and home before I was carried out. I think the DJ was playing "My Band" or whatever that D12 song is. I kind of like that song, mainly because it indicates that Eminem is going back to being kind of happy and funny. Remember the days of Rawkus Records and "Any Man"? Anyone? Anyone? "Last night I OD'd on rush, mushrooms and dust/Got rushed to the hospital to get my stomach flushed/Shucks...". I like to call that period his “Hello? Hi!” days. But for a while there, it just seemed like all Eminem was doing on his records was yelling at me. So I’m pleased to hear him being kind of silly and funny again. He’s such an interesting cat to consider – I mean, part of his success lies in the fact that he possesses some marketable gimmicky qualities, but at the same time he has serious skills. He can flow, he’s got a mastery of cadence and precise matching of lyric to meter that’s on the level of the likes of Dead lyric writer Robert Hunter and Frank Sinatra, and he can freestyle with the best of them. He’s like, I don’t know…Sugar Ray meets Sugar Ray Robinson. Some shyte like that. The thing is, though, he sings. I mean, damn. He sings. That’s when you know a dude done got carried away a little bit.

Ok, so I took a piss – the first and only of the night; man, Victor is so strangely helpful in that way sometimes – and walked out of there. Despite being directly underneath the escalators, I decided to walk all the way home in some half-cocked attempt to burn off some of the alcohol. It’s all downhill from there anyway, and the escalators certainly weren't running downward at that hour. Had some late-night food and a ton of water and slept like a rock.

The next day, I did some major penance at the gym and walked to this big mall called Pacific Place, in a section of town called Admiralty. The one thing that most strikes me about the malls is how many high-end stores there are – Tiffany, LV, Burberry, on and on and on. It’s just not like an American mall at all, where the cross-section of society is represented fairly equally. You got maybe one or two nice stores, like the anchor on one end is a Nordstrom’s, but the anchor at the other end is a Sears and the middle is comprised of everything from Hot Topic to HMV to The Sports Authority and like that. Here, the social strata is represented by physical separation – in other words, the malls are for the rich and the street shops, open markets, etc are for the rest of us. At Pacific Place, there’s like one sporting goods store in a huge, five-level mall, but there are about eight jewelry stores. I don’t know - it’s just strange to go to a mall and discover such a preponderance of shops that I would not ever walk into.

I guess this is getting a little boring. So I took out my burner – my beloved S&W .357 with the Pachmayr grips – and started shooting the hell out of everyone. I was like Michael Madsen in the diamond exchange after someone tripped the alarm: BANG! BANG! BANG! And then I started going in all these expensive stores and buying all kinds of crap, and I put it all on to disguise myself, and printed out a nameplate for myself that said Ligma Sagbatch and pinned it to my dope Hermes scarf…and then…and then…and then…I got some food and went home to sleep for 3 hours.

Chucky

Good God – I’m poisoned. I went out last night like it was a weekend night – hundred beers, multiple bars, food too late, bed at 2.30am – and I am completely devoid of stability. I am not right. I’m not even going to recount the evening except to say that it was fun while it was actually occurring. Of course, all of that is lost now. The Excedrin is kicking in, but it seems to be doing nothing for the shivers and panicked considerations of whether to run to the bathroom and, once there, what to do first. Why, why did I do this? Oh, right. It was fun. On the way in to work this morning, I listened to E-40’s “My Drinking Club” just to be ironic and mean.

Gotta go down to Mix and get a big Blue Berrymore and something to eat. Dude, there’s a wrap at Mix called – I swear I am not making this up – Hot Beef Injection. There’s also Ike and Tina Tuna, and Good Thai Ming…har har.

Ok, off to shiver on the can and pray for a quick death. Hope all is well in NYC, NC, and elsewhere…actually, I hope you’re all suffering too. Just kidding.

Chucky

The Mid-Atumn Festival - Lantern Madness in Victoria Park, and the Galagranian Perplexion.

This week, both Wednesday (the day after the Mid-Autumn Festival) and Friday (National Day) were holidays, and though I knew I would have to most likely come into work for a couple hours each day, I knew that I would at least be able to sleep in on those mornings. Folks at work recommended that I head over to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay to check out the Lantern Festival. The central feature of the Mid-Autumn festival is the paper lantern, lit up inside with a candle, and huge numbers of people come out to carry their own little lantern but also to check out the huge lantern displays that are assembled in the huge open sports court of the Park.

After hitting the gym (I've been doing that a lot lately - finally hit the 170s, I fully rule the planet and I am a god), I made some dinner and underwent some rapid preparation since it was already after 9pm. Big San Mig, a little Anchor Steam mini-joint (what we call a 12-ounce bottle in the States) and a wee Victor to add a little vidliness to the experience. After putting on my most flavorful red bobo Stanley Beach t-shirt, chocolate pants and matching New Balance classicks, I loaded the backpack with my camera, a couple more big San Migs and a Gatorade. Gotta protect that liver at all costs, baby - especially with victor around. The ipod was charged and I was ready to go.

I left around 10pm, belly fulla beer and a backpack to match, and took the MTR (the subway) to Causeway Bay - about three stops on the blue line. The subway here is freakin' sweet - only about as extensive as the Bart in SF, but more efficient and modern. The cars are wide and clean, and the electronic maps on the walls, similar to the new cars in the NYC subway, show not only the next stop but which lines are accessible from each stop and there's an arrow that indicates exactly where the train is. In addition, it makes more sense than the NYC setup in that the stops you have already hit are lit, then there's the arrow, then the one you are headed to is flashing. In NYC, the stops you have yet to hit are the ones that are lit, which in my opinion makes no fucking sense whatsoever. The path from car to car is also wide, enclosed, and doorless, like the huge two-bus city buses that roam the city. I'm willing to bet that few of you know what the hell I'm talking about, but I have faith that you can imagine what the inside of a NYC bus looks like.

The train was packed with people headed to the park - mostly young people in their teens and early twenties, and - dig this - a bunch of them are chatting away on their mobiles. That's right - perfect reception fifty feet down on a moving train. Oh yeah, New York is the center of the universe, blah blahblahblahblah. There were some real vidly cats on there too - this one woman was all decked out in a miniskirt and crazy headwraps and white patent leather boxing boots that said "FUCK YOU Series" on the heel. Wild-ass makeup, the whole bit. 21st-century punk rocker. A lot of the young kids dress that way, though most of them look like regular teenagers. As we reached Causeway Bay, the train emptied out and I was feeling great. Had the Ghetto Prowler 2004 pumping in the ipod, everything in my belly was doing what it was manufactured to do, and I weaved my way through the crowds like water.

"Why go and rip a rapper when he's flowin' like water?/I'd rather rush a television reporter..."

That's some old Public Enemy for you - "Move!" from the Apocalypse album. That's that song where he says something like, "With no complaint/Givin' uppin' I ain't/On the mike - like Karl Malone in the paint." That shit is hot. And the Mailman is still doin it. Shit. That's hot. Well, you gotta hear it to know that it's hot, I guess. I think that album is heavily underrated. The first track - which is just an intro - gets me more amped than any - I mean ANY - Jay-Z crap I can think of. That chainsaw bit, over and over? "And just in case you forgot - I PUMP IN KILOWATTS!" Terminator X doesn't get enough respect for his innovations in heavily textured, multisonic, high-BPM illness.

Ok, so back to Causeway Bay. I reach street level and the place was mobbed. The streets had been blocked off for pedestrian traffic, and I had no idea which way to head. I decided to walk left, and I was correct - the park was about three blocks down and right across the highway exit. The park had been completely decorated with colorful spherical paper lanterns hanging from the tall lampposts, both white and colored lights strung on wires from post to post, and hundreds of paper lanterns being carried by the revelers. On top of that, there was an abundance - I mean everywhere, peoples - of those little stringy neon joints that people were wearing or using in some other fashion. You know what I'm talking about - that lightstick crap, that can be blue, green, red, purple, pink, etc, and they last a few hours? People were wearing them as anklets, necklaces, bracelets, all kinds of configurations. I saw a little kid who had fashioned them into giant round glasses, Harry Potter style, and another boy had taken about twenty of them and made a little soccer ball that he was kicking around with his dad. It was all pretty cool, but, you know, not all that amazing.

The huge sports court area - about 100 meters by 300 meters - was bordered by info tents and first aid tents and stuff as well as little craft tents where kids were lining up to do face painting, weave palm fronds into little birds and shit, and stuff like that. I know, it sounds corny, but folks were on it - lines for every one, I'm telling you. At the center of the area on one side, a pop star was finishing up her set, and the crowd was most dense there, though there were families, groups of friends, and couples all over the place. With the Ghetto Prowler still blasting, I found my way to the first of four huge displays that were assembled here and there for people to check out. One was an enormous replica of a little lantern with a tiny train running around the top half and smaller lanterns hanging from it; another was sponsored by Hong Kong Disneyland (no idea when that thing is going to be built) and was a castle with huge mushrooms placed around it, all of it lit up from the inside. Damn, I need to get some Nikon software and a cable and load some damn pictures. A third display was a series of tall, narrow rockets with, like, big Saturn rings around them and little animals climbing up the rockets - a rat, a monkey, shit like that. I'm not sure what they were going for with that one. The animals looked happy as hell to be climbing up those rockets, that's for sure.

Ok, so the Victor is treating me just fine, and I am always amazed at its ability to make everything perfecto, but I had to find a restroom. I asked one of the info cats where one was, then asked him if I could drink alcohol here, to which he replied, "No, no alcohol here." Great. I was planning on just swilling and chilling, and now I've gotta get on some James Bond shit with the San Miguels. I found the loo, which had changing rooms, and briefly considered going into one to pound a bottle, but there were cops in there so I just took care of business in one of those stainless steel troughs like they have at some of the shitty college bars. Maaan, the last time I was subjected to that nonsense was in like '92, at some stupid bar near the Dunkin' Donuts and the Blue Route. I was with Fra, Fleming, Swanny, and Mario, and little Fra froze up - went in there and couldn't deal with the cattle trough pisser. Dying to piss, and couldn't piss. That was funny.

Anyway, I get done with that and find a spot where I can discreetly take down one of these bottles. I take some photos, check for 5-0, and pop one of the bottles and wrap the t-shirt that I had packed to keep the bottles from breaking around the bottle. And I pound the thing. Just pull and pull on it every time I pick it up. You know what it reminded me of? Being back in high school, drinking quarts of Bud and pretending to be Ad-Rock. Picked it up four times and it was empty. A tru tank warrior. I was laughing at the memory - it was just because of the bottle and all, feeling a little nervous and all that - ah, good times. I figure now's a good time for the Gatorade and the other victor, so down that goes and it's off to see the other side of the area and the last lantern display - a long array of ships, fish, and seaweed arranged along a backdrop of the sea. It was the coolest one in my estimation, though the huge lantern was pretty awesome too. Cameras and phones - and phones being used as cameras - are everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There were probably a thousand devices of that sort in the park at that point. I think I had moved on to MOP by then, and I'm just fully feeling it; I get to say all the lyrics out loud, including all the nigga this and nigga that (and believe me, MOP is fond of saying nigga to say the least), doing my little E-40 "Ooooooo" and "Unnnnnhhhh" and all that. It was great. I'm getting a lot more used to having fun on the solo tip, and I just wasn't feeling lonely - or even that alone - at all. Yeah, I know, the mood modification...you do what you can, I guess. But there's a certain clarity and level-headedness combined with some serious notgivingafuckness that the victor and alcomohol generates, and it's perfect if you're alone with an ipod and fat beats. I was loving it fo sho.

So things are starting to thin out, and I take the time to have another high school pull-fest with the other San Miguel and make my way home. A couple who had been sitting next to me during the first pull session - and English girl and an Asian boy - were still there, busily trying to attach those neon stringy thingies on every possible part of her body. I briefly considered telling them to hold off on the neon dress-up session until they got home - and naked - but thought better of it. To my right, a stray cat was warily grubbing on some food that revelers had left behind, and I took my last photos of the night. Put on Soundbombin' II and headed for the subway. All in all, a great night.

Peace to the gods and the earths,
Chucky