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