I have no idea where I got that 'lucky sevens!!!' thing - I have more posts than that total, more than seven in HK alone, so I think I got fooled by the "Total posts: 6" on the Dashboard of my little blogger page. Props to www.cityrag.com, T'in C of mothafukin' B in the NYC, who keeps me in touch with the city I love and has decided to perhaps add me to her lists of blog links. I suppose I need to now put in some more serious stuff, or at least write about other things besides what I have done and how drunken I was when doing it, so now is a perfect time to vent, philosophize, etc about one of my most long-standing and deepest passions: hip hop.

I will probably ramble a bit, but I have a lot to say about the current state of the musical form. All these rappers and magazine covers yelling "Rap is dead! Rap is Dead! Rap is Dead!" should take notes from the monarchies of old and follow this cry with "Long live rap." Rap is hardly dead. It's not even sick. I mean, you've got a multi-billion dollar industry that can now hang with the former Big Boys of music, Country and Rock (or Pop, depending on how cynically you look at it), and anything that makes that much money ain't goin' nowhere. The contention that the money is killing the music is merely another indication of the immaturity of artists and editors who are just now realizing that cash really does rule everything around them and it's not a death knell by any means. What, you thought it wasn't about money all this time? You're just now facing the fact that artists are whores for the industry just like in rock, R&B, country, pop, and so on? Did you think it was different for hip-hop because it's from the streets or something? Not to sound like KRS-One - you know, that guy you've been ignoring who knew the whole time - but wake up and read a book instead of watching Menace 2 Society for the 40th time. This industry is no different from any other, musical or otherwise - a valuable commodity will be exploited and leveraged as far as possible and beyond. What you regard as a death sentence is business as usual.

Can hip-hop fade away and 'die'? Sure, absolutely. We saw grunge come and go, and in some ways, what happened to rock (and some of rock's children - heavy metal, grunge, etc) is happening to hip-hop now. New approaches to creating the music are diversifying the form and opening up new avenues of evolution that may eventually replace hip-hop. Some purists - the really stubborn ones - would argue that it is not diversification we are seeing but dilution: the rap/rock combinations, increased use of technological advancements and approaches formerly relegated to club DJs, reliance on radio hits that are essentially crap with a hook, and - heaven forfend - a truly skilled white rapper who, by the way, is now honing his skills on both sides of the control room glass - are all, to them, signs of the apocalypse. Rap is dead, and the sky of course is also falling, but not before Puffy invented the remix.

But when one reads about their reasons for thinking that rap is dead, one is at a loss as to why this is a valid contention other than that it sells magazines. Things have never - NEVER - been more healthy and alive. The South is a perfect example; though it still produces some of the least intelligent, creativity-free music out there and still, after 20 years, relies on catchy hooks combined with profanity-laden choruses, the South has evolved from the days of the 2-Live Crew (and, later, 95 South and such) to a multi-headed monster worth millions of dollars and with dozens of hit rappers coming from every major city in the South (and even some smaller ones). In addition, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the hip-hop coming out of the South is still pretty juvenile and uninventive, we also see pockets of extreme creativity and intelligence never seen before in the South, best exemplified by the likes of Nappy Roots, Goodie Mob, and of course OutKast. The latter two groups have been putting out this sort of music for a while, but they nevertheless remained relatively unnoticed - and certainly less noticed than the quantity-over-quality onslaught of albums that were released under Master P over the past 6 or seven years. But crap sells, and keeps the industry hale and hearty. Britney puts out crap, and you don't hear Madonna lamenting the death of pop. Master P was on the Forbes '40 Richest Under 40' list when I was still working at Salomon Brothers in '98. One spot ahead of Michael Jordan, too - I loved that. So the dough has grown, the diversity of the form has grown...what's the problem here? Oh, right. Magazine sales.

Anyway, I should end this one and take the issue up later, but my essential point here - other than that rap is not nearing its old age and demise - is that the musical form needs to get more comfortable with growing up and dealing with the attendant responsibilities, new challenges, and the aches and pains that come with maturity. On top of that, I'll also argue that the industry needs to not only get more comfortable with growing up, but it also needs to put a little damn work into the process. You can't rap about rims forever - I have already read that 24s can irrevocably damage an SUVs chassis, so actual physics is already closing out the opportunity to rap about your 25s, and your 30s and whatever dumb-ass rims you have on your stupid ride (ah, do I smell I segueway into my next topic? yes, I smell it - I have been cooking it in the tandoori oven of my brain for weeks!). And you can't expect to keep using synths and hooks and choruses like "God-DAMN, mothafuka, mothafucka, God-DAMN!" or some variant forever, either. The other voice of hip-hop - the editors and writers - need to think a little farther past the ad revenue and fashion layouts and, yes, the idiotic proclamations that carry no weight. One month I gotta "Recognize" DMX. Next month I gotta "Represent" or something, who knows. Next month they're gonna tell me I "ain't never heard skills like this." Right. And rap is dead. Of course.

And Puffy invented the remix.

LUCKY SEVENS!!! The seventh post, the roll of the dice in the hopes of avoiding...craps. Crap.

This one is going to be the Randomness Post. My moms calls leftover night "Clean up the kitchen night!", and this one is surely going to be a 'clean up the blog notes' post.

1. Send me your lists if you want anything. I'm prepared to ho myself out for any item, big or small - I may have to ship it if it's really large. Drogas included, though I will slam but not swallow, and only cheese. ha ha. No slamming of cartons of cigarettes...ow. Counterfeit stuff is cheap over here, and real stuff is cheaper than US but not a massive bargain. Maybe there should be a 'p' in that word, just to make it interesting..."counterfeipt." Like receipt.

2. The money here is a little annoying for a playa like me. All different sizes. The tens are about the size of Monopoly money (a little bigger), the twenties are about the same size as USD, and the 100s and 500s are real big. My knot looks all crazy over here. And don't get me started on the coins - they got coins for one, two, five, and ten dollars, plus the centavos, so I gotta be carrying around all this change now. More dimunition of my flavorful steez. Dammit.

3. Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, and Brian Blade playing tomorrow. Best seats in the house are HKD400 - like 50 bucks, even for the front row. Freakin' awesome - except they are sold out! Catch them if you can, though some people are saying that Herbie is mad boring now and plays elevator music. Sheee-it, I still would have gone.

4. Doctor's visit, first consultation: HKD1500 (around 192 bucks). Meds, HKD125 (about 16 bucks). Completely the opposite of my steelo in NYC, where I pay 5 bucks for the visit and 90 for the meds. Crazy.

5. Check out Reefer Madness, by Eric Schlosser, that Atlantic Monthly cat who wroteded (ok, I'll stop the ghetto stuff) Fast Food Nation. Good exposition and analysis of three features of the underground economy in the US - weed, migrant labor, and porn - and of course this guy is just a great writer. The weed section is perhaps the most compelling, since the rationale behind criminalization is so illogical and the laws, sentencing guidelines, etc across the country are so disparate, though the migrant section is at times heartbreaking. The porn section, the longest by far, is also fairly intriguing, but only because I had never heard of this one man who built the biggest porn empire ever. Check it - a good read, and a quick one at that. Tell me if you think Schlosser is proud of his photo on the back (I think it's a good one - you just know he was psyched with how that one turned out).

6. Cell phone walking speed. I'm sure you know the walk - it's real slow, and people walk that way when they are having a conversation on the mobile phone. In New York, it's usually just one person on the whole block who is doing it - "Chauncey? How aaaaare you, ohmigod! I'm sooo glad to heaar from you! Have you seen the new Prada ballsac holders? You. will. die. They are soo" etc etc. Over here, due to the high population and the ubiquity of mobile phones, those people are all over the place. Well, not those people exactly, but...you know what I mean. I can't go two blocks without getting stuck behind someone cruising at cell-phone walking speed. Come across them all the time, like 4 or 5 during a short 10-minute walk to work. Driva me crazy.

7. A diary entry to round out the 7 Wonders of Randomness in the Purging of the Blog Notes. Sunday I went to the gym, jerked around the 'hood for a while, bought some veggies, and went to this dope Indian place for dinner. No one was in there, which made me psyched because it SUCKS to eat alone, even with reading material, and I was, uh, alone. Had some samosas (so many of you are dying of shock reading that, I'm sure) and an amazing vindaloo that was rich in color, complexity of taste, and punch. Kapow. Read an oldish New Yorker and laughed a lot. Walked out of there so full that I had to shake all the lovely honeys' gazes from the bars to the left and the right (ok, just one bar, on the right - that's it) and make my way home. You know how you can get so full that walking past a real stinky, hot Chinese food joint is just murder? That smell hits your ol' (dirty) factories - your nose, that was a bad pun - and your brain just panics and says, "Oh, no you ain't! You AIN'T eating more! I'ma make you thr- don't mess with me, I will make you throw the hell up if you don't keep walking!" I was like that.

ok, peace.

More later,
Chucky

Ach - Internet Explorer had to close (big surprise), and I just lost my whole draft. Neat. Well, here's a chance to write a better post. I'm not really in the mood to rewrite what I was working on before, so I'll tell you another drunk tale. This one is unremarkable save for the vast quantities of alcohol that I and some buddies consumed on Friday night.

I planned to meet my friend R and another reporter, A, at a bar in Lan Kwai Fong, that area a little east of Soho in Central where I first went drinking with some of these cats. It's a fun area, and, as I mentioned before, there are lots of places to eat and drink. I arrived at 7 and, not seeing R, had a couple beers and tried to raise him on the mobile. He showed up a few minutes later and we were joined shortly afterward by a hardcore longtime expat who is also a reporter. We'll call him Nate-dogg. At that time, the drinks were 2 for 1 for happy hour, and we proceeded to launch into a steady, deliberate, college-style imbibing session. R and I drank San Miguels, while Nate had some pints of Carlsberg. At some point - around 10pm or so - A finally showed up and started putting in work, and we managed to shout (it's really loud in the bars) and drink our way through a pile of beers. The receipt shows 26; however, 5 of the San Miguels and 2 of the carlsbergs were 2 for 1, so we're looking at around 33 beers total - only a small portion of which A played a role, since he arrived so late. Nate was telling me some crazy tales - a woman who got busted trying to bring chiva into Japan and ended up doing about 8 years in a Thai prison (they got her leaving, before she made it to Tokyo), another woman who was murdered by her American boyfriend up in Chiang Mai in Thailand somewhere (he did time too), and the ways in which you can get out of jail if you are in a situation like that. Nate-dogg has done a lot of living over here - a LOT - and he had all kinds of history in him compared with the relative newbies with whom we were drinking, myself included of course. I mean, A just got here a week ago and is still looking for a place, while Nate has been coming to Asia on and off for about 15 years. He wears that raging on his face, too - some things just do that to you, I guess.

The bar, called California, was ok - a little more cheesy than the first bar I went to and chock-full of expats in an annoying way - but it was pretty cool to hear Fannypack playing all the way over here in Asia. They may not have blown up, but they sure went global - a sure sign of the power of word-of-mouth, both within and in the market created by the DJ community. The receipt shows me checking out at 11.53 and, if the way I wrote the tip is any indication, I was completely pissed, as they say over here. Not that I need the receipt to tell me that. Yee-ha.

I walked out and down the hill - crazy scarecrow man again - and rushed home to start repairing the damage. I heated some water for a cup o' noodles, started pounding gatorade and scarfing crackers, and turned on the TV. God bless - the original Bad Boys was on. Y'all seen that film, with Sean Penn going to juvie jail? It's great, and it's an excellent early indicator that he was going to be a fine actor. So many of us first met him at Ridgemont High during the fast times, but this is pre-Fast Times and he's still a little raw but demonstrates genuine talent. I burned the crap out of two of my fngers trying to pour the water into the cup and ended up spending a little time chasing a tiny ice cube around the apartment as it repeatedly slipped from between my pinky and ring finger (yeah, I burned that webbing at the base - owwww). I wisely decided that the pain was not worth a vicodin after eight to ten beers. "I am so smart, S-M-R-T..."

Anyway, I settled into Bad Boys and tried as hard as I could to reach my favorite part - the part when he's filling up that pillowcase with soda cans and preparing to take out the two thugs who run things inside. His cellmate says, "Do you need help? Want me to stay?" and Sean just says - with this perfect blend of fear and confidence - "No, I'm fine. It's okay. Just get out of here." Ah, it's so good - it's up there with my all-time favorite lines/moments in movies.

Sadly, I didn't make it to that awesome part. Woke up at 3.30 sitting upright on the couch and God knows what was playing on the television at that point. I noticed that I had some noodles left, ate them, and got to bed as quickly as possible. Those are the times when I wish I had a webcam or security camera to see myself slowly emerging from my passed-out state, looking around a little, looking at my watch, looking at the TV, then at the noodles, polishing them off, and scurrying around the house turning off lights and locking doors and such. Might be a little unsettling, but sometimes I just get annoyed by the fact that I know nothing of the past few hours. I wanted to know what woke me up. Plus, the sitting up thing - man, I must have looked funny.

The next morning I managed to pull myself together and get on a bus to a town called Stanley, on the south end of Hong Kong Island. I made sure to take the bus that wound its way around the mountainside rather than going through the boring tunnel, and it was worth it despite my periodically wanting to heave my noodles from last night. We headed east through Wan Chai, through the little interior decorator district and up onto the highway. We passed a steep, terraced graveyard, all sorts of apartment buildings, condos, and mansions (all with pools), beautiful beaches, and lots of amazing views. I sat on top of the double-decker to get the full effect of the insane, twisting journey, and there were a couple moments when I found it truly regrettable that I did not bring with me a sturdy plastic bag. Not totally regrettable, though - my tummy and I managed to deal just fine, even though I had to grip the seat bars a few times to minimize the jostling.

Stanley was really beautiful, but there's not much to tell. The horizon was dotted with windsurfers in the foreground and huge freighters in the background, and there was even a kayaker out there doing his thing. A little indoor/outdoor market sells clothes, art, jewelry, and the like, and they were just starting to sell ski gear - bibs, gloves, the whole thing. It was strange to see those products in a hot, sunny market, but it's no different from the US, I suppose. I had a burger and fries - ah, the hangover diminisheth - and bought a couple t-shirts. Headed back on the bus and got off a few blocks from my house so I could do some more browsing, shopping, etc. Picked up another t-shirt that says, "I Love Hip Hop!" and "I'm here for the music!" along with an image of a little baby wearing an ornate headress. Who knows... I love it.

More later,
Chucky

Friday afternoon...things have slowed at work a bit, so I have decided to just post some random stuff. I would like my homies back in the US to do the following for me, so that I may live vicariously through you as you enjoy the things I miss:

- eat some US-style seafood.
- drive a car somewhere - damn, I miss driving...
- pet a dog or cat. Why? well, I miss my cat, and on top of that the dogs here seem scarce and the cats have now been identified as being yet another carrier of the potentially deadly avian flu. I'm not dying to pet too many animals over here, but I miss doing it.
- hit the Tainted Lady Lounge and raise a glass or two. I think I get like one penny for each beer, so make me rich and have, like, four beers.
- Ride a bike - I miss that a lot. Wear a helmet, dammit. You know how much you have invested in that brain? Put a bucket on it, for God's sake!
- pull a fat tube or use your preferred delivery mechanism; I'm glad my head is clear, but I still miss the mcherbals!
- Listen to 'Anything', the remix of the SWV song with Wu-Tang. I love that song.
- go fishing. I'm not good at it and don't even particularly like it, but it's a lovely meitative practice, you're out there listening to the surf, and you will enjoy yourself even if you don't catch any fish.

That's about it. Random piece of news: some of the cans here (some sodas and beers) still have the old-school pop-top - you know, the teardrop-shaped joints with the ring, the kind that Jimmy Buffett stepped on after he blew out his flip-flop, forcing him to cruise on back home? I haven't seen those things since I was a kid! I mean, did they even still have them when I was in junior high? It's still satisfying to pull one of those suckers off. Pearrtrtch - that's my onomatopoeia of the pop-top coming off.

Oh yeah, one other thing. I've been thinking lately that Nas is probably soft. I don't know why I'm singling him out among all the other rappers, but my feeling is that, after years and years of hiding behind the relative safety of burners, slugproof vests, bodyguards and gates and all that, he's probably pretty soft when it comes to throwin' knots. I think that he probably fistfights about as well as I do, which is to say pretty damn crappily. Well, you never know until you try, so I'm officially challenging Nas to a fistfight when I get back to NYC. Little punk prolly gonna show up with a burner, two guards who can mash my face in, and a boxcutter for good measure.

In which case I will back down. I will have proved my point (well, technically, he will have proved my point). Nas, y'soft!! Soft like butter at the Swanson house.

ok, more later - enjoy your weekends, everyone. Miss you all.

Chucky

Ok, so I said that I was going to be flowing some 40 wisdom at the start of each post, but I have decided that it's kind of corny and much better suited to my crazy wheat paste bombing project, which I really ought to get done in the '05. Besides, I think all of you already know that you shouldn't be buyin' no 85 thousand dollar car before you buy a house. That's just common sense.
Last weekend I had a lot of fun - went out both nights and took a sweet-ass sweet trip up to Victora Peak. I'll try not to be too journaly about it - "Friday I went here, then Saturday I went here..." - though that is to some degree what this blog is about, so...whatever. I'll start with the trip to Victoria Peak, which is the big mountainish hill directly behind the Central part of Hong Kong. I swear to God, this thing is such hill-mountain - what the hell do you call those things? I guess they call it a Peak here. But damn, you can walk up the thing in an hour, probably. Now I know that ain't no mountain, and I'm from Florida, for God's sake. But it's not a hill either.

Anyway, I walked over to the entrance to the Peak Tram, which is fairly touristy. There are ads and displays for the Madame Tussaud's and the Ripley's Believe it or Not! at the top - what up, wax Jackie Chan, lookin' good, dogg - and music and lines and all that. The tram has been in operation for 100-odd years and has not had a single accident. At the start of the ride, you cruise steeply up between heavily landscaped condos - for those of you who have been to the condo-and-hotel part of Coconut Grove, it's pretty much like that - and eventually the development falls away and you are surrounded by lovely greenery dotted with the occasional old-ass stone steps that the coolies would use back in the day. Before the tram was built, coolie labor would haul fat-ass British imperialist whitefolk up in sedan chairs in a grueling 3-hour journey. Nowadays, the tram just takes a few minutes to reach the top. For the journey up, I suggest "Beep Street" by Squarepusher - it's perfect for the solo vid and just about long enough for the ride up. Very trippy and journeylicious. For the ride down, I chose Terror Squad's "Lean Back" because, well, you uh, you lean back. I stood for the ride down in order to face downward (the tram does not turn around; rather, you just sit facing upward, same as the ride up the Peak, and ride down that way), and I really had to lean back. I wasn't dancin', just pulling up my pants'n doing the Roc-a-Wear, or rockaway, or whatever that chunkbutt says in the song.

Once you reach the top, there is a multi-level observatory shaped somewhat like a Chinese wok, designed by some cat that the Fodor's guide mentioned and whose name I cannot remember at the moment, and the views are spectacular. One can see all of Hong Kong (the city part, since 'Hong Kong' technically refers to the whole island), all of the harbor, Kowloon across the way, and the New Territories to the north, behind Kowloon. It's just a huge, massive, amazing sight to see. There's all kinds of crap up on the Peak, too - the tourist attractions and shops, several restaurants and snack joints (Broo-killin' Beer served at the pizzeria - so strange to see the Brooklyn Brewery sticker on the window up there), little mini-rides and such for the kiddies, all that stuff. I shot some photos and decided to take the Peak Trail around the Peak, which is a paved path with dense, lush forest on either side. Man, it was lush like....like...Barfly or some shit. Jesus, why can't I think of a famous lush besides Bacchus? Oh, sorry, Dionysus, oooh. I kept expecting Rambo to come jumping out of the bush with the AK and the bandana.

The walk around the peak is remarkable only in that the views continue to be stunning, and it's pleasant to walk around in the cool breeze at that altitude and check out all the different plants and trees and such. Apparently the Peak is an excellent habitat for butterflys, though during a different time of year. Here and there on the trail, there are mansions tucked away that are of course really cool, and on the back side there are a couple small clearings with parks and a vita-course in case you want to do pullups or some shit. I think that, since their emergence decades ago, vita-course are generally hated by all at this point. Can I get some love on that? Anyone like jumping and climbing around on that crap, then running to the next one?

Anyway, that's essentially Victoria Peak. I didn't eat up there, so I can't recommend a good restaurant, but you should absolutely make a trip up there if you ever go to Hong Kong. It's a tourist destination, to be sure, but for good reason, and you will not see a better view of the city and harbor than up here. It's cheap - HK$30 for a round-trip journey, which is just under four bucks - and you can just do your own thing up there. Going on a bright, clear, sunny day is of course a good idea, and you might want to spend enough time up there to let night fall (have a meal or something) because the view of the city is apparently just as spectacular at night. Moms and I are going to try that day/walk/eat/night routine, so I'll let you know what it looks like. A lot of the buildings here have pretty crazy lights, so I imagine that the city looks pretty dope after dark.

Anyway, I think I'm a make the weekend stuff a separate post - well, I'll put it in this one, what the hell. I'm not going to bore you with Saturday - went to see M. Shite's latest "whoa, man, that ending like totally freaked me out - again!" film, The Village, and got some pizza and drinks later, so nothing too interesting there. Friday night, however, I went to a pretty cool place that's worth a visit if you're looking for someplace mellow and vaguely New Yorkish. I met some reporter and a couple friends - two reporters and a mouse who works in the New Territories - at a place called the Frost Club. It's housed in this massive old building, obviously a remnant of the days iof British rule - that looks like a wing on Buckingham Palace or something of that sort. At street level, there's a gallery and open space with information on upcoming events, like an arts center in Williamsburg or a lobby at SVA, something like that - and upper floors have studios, another gallery sponsored by Apple, and an indoor bar with some tables and a couple separate rooms for private parties. There are also some tables outside on that level, and one more short flight up takes you to a large terrace with tables spread here and there, cute lighting and plants and such ringing the parapet, and an outdoor bar as well. There's also a grill going next to the bar where you can order these sort of Greek-style plates with skewers of either chicken or lamb and some salad, pasta, and a hunk of bread. Very tasty and perfect for downing many beers. They do not have a wide selection of beer here, or anywhere I have been so far - I have not seen more than five taps at any of the places I have visited yet - but this place did have the Tetley's SmoothFlow (Yea, LEEDS! - I guess) and some other tasty beers. I'm a big fan of Tsingtao, and you can obviously find that in abundance here in HK.

Anyway, the place is sort of cyber-hippie - it's not really hippie like we know it, but it's got this groovy, arty vibe that makes one feel very relaxed and comfortable. The scene itself is fairly expat - most of the Asians there are either professionals or the significant others of Western folks. The reporter's friends were very nice - knew a lot and talked about all sorts of things, from politics to 9/11 (discussed it just as we were passing midnight, into 9/11...I know, one of those not-that-interesting facts unless you're 16 and really puffed), to teaching Chinese kids in the New Territories. We asked Mousie, the teacher, whether she knew any Chinese, and she only knew two phrases: "Sit down" and "Don't cry." I figured maybe I'd learn them in case I needed to use them with the whores in Wan Chai.

So anyway, we had many drinks and nice conversation in the thankfully cool breeze outside, and it was a lovely change from being inside, freezing from the AC whose thermostat doesn't move an inch all year long. I was keeping my fingers crossed that one of the three remaining honeydips would take me home, but...dammit! They all went home with each other, and I walked home solo. S'all good. It was a long shot anyway.

More later,
Chucky

Well, I finally started receiving my New Yorker this week, which are being delivered to the NY office and folks are putting it in the HK pouch for me. The early pieces in the issue were pretty heavily focused on the Republican National Convention. The New Yorker gave the folks at the RNC their usual clever, subtle skewering, but I could not help but feel disgusted and a little depressed by the smug folks walking our streets and the convention floor that week. It made me consider whether this administration just decided at some point to go all-out to gather wealth and power, by whatever means necessary, to such a degree that the Dems didn't have a fighting chance this time around, thereby guaranteeing a second term. I mean, the GOP is papered up big time, and they receive hearty support from businesspeople of every age and industry, from the Coors dynasty to young dot-commers who "just don't want to pay taxes", scumbaggios peddling ketchup to children of the scions of Newport. Whew. Ugbo.

What is also frustrating is that they have done so many blatant, offensive, underhanded things over the past four years that many of us feel a deep sense of outrage and we really put our emotions into it - too much, in my estimation. It's a frustrating place to be, getting this angry but feeling like there is no other option. The dynamic that has been created is one in which we rant and rave and hold up our expletive-laden signs and chant offensive slogans, and they have the luxury of politely referring to us as liberal nutjobs and crackpots and the like. It reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons when Bart and Milhouse are running the comic book store; Milhouse gets more and more angry at Bart's laziness and abuse of power, raising his voice and getting all pissy, and Bart only enrages him more by saying things like, "No, use your indoor voice, Milhouse" and things like that. Of course, Milhouse loses it and attacks Bart, which we cannot afford to do in real life. We have, however, been put in this situation because of the callous, disingenuous behavior of this administration, and our anger and sense of outrage - moral and otherwise - is understandable.

The thing is, we need to suck it up a little bit. The Democratic party, and the voters who support the party, have indeed gotten smarter over the past few years, but we are starting out a little too late - well, a crapload too late - and now we are forced to play catchup. The progress we have made recently should not be underestimated; we are beginning to leverage the radio airwaves to a greater extent than the Dems have in decades (a strategy which the Republicans have been employing with great success for a while now), and I for one am willing to accept Michael Moore's own heavy spin tactics and loose interpretation of the facts in order to make his case. Lord knows that the Republicans and their supporters in the media have been pulling that stuff for a long, long time, and even basic psychology classes will teach you that nice guys absolutely finish last, so we need people like Moore in our camp to play the game their way. Too much is at stake, and we need to go all-out in this election and future elections if we are to level the playing field and start making real progress in the voting booth.

Going back to my earlier remarks, however, this is the lesson we need to learn if we lose this election (and chances are that we will lose by a fairly wide margin, unless Kerry completely schools Bush in the debates, which probably won't happen; Bush schooled both Gore and Ann Richards, and they are pretty sharp cats). We need to get smart and focused and all that, but we need to calm down and get our shit tight, so to speak. We need to spend less time on clever signs and cool outfits for the Critical Mass ride and really get a good grasp of the issues. We need to be able to put our emotions aside and engage an opponent in a calm deliberation of the issues, backing our claims with facts and statistics. We (including myself) need to know where Kerry's policies are similar to Bush's and where they differ, and be able to both call out the failures of the Bush administration and, more importantly, graciously acknowledge where Kerry's ideas fall short and require remediation. It's not enough to say that Iraq was a huge lie, and point to anecdotes. We can't afford to merely be armed with indignation, a raised fist, and some chant about the Fox News Channel. We must never, never lose our passion, but we must give our brains a few rounds in the ring as well. If we don't take ourselves seriously, no one else will - and in a country with so many (however inexplicably) undecided voters and non-voters, it is crucial that others regard us as passionate yet knowledgable and informed participants in the political process.

Ok, so none of that was about the H to the K, but I hope you don't mind. I need to get a little social life and travel update in before the next weekend hits, and perhaps I'll knock a little something out tonight. Damn I miss you guys sometimes - walking around Victoria Peak was mad cool, but like I said in a previous post, it's kind of a bummer when it's just you and the ipod and the camera, and all the ipod can say is, "REP YO' CITYYY! REP YO' CITYYYYY! REP YO' CITYYYY!". Actually, I didn't listen to that one up on the Peak, but you get my point.

More later,
Chucky

Pat yo rats on yo back/Take some time out yo waltz
And tell your loved ones that you love 'em every so often...
- E-40

That's from "The Story" which, as you will discover if you go on sing365.com and search for "The Story", is both a meaningful meditation on life, loss, and hope, but also a pretty damn common name for a song. Anyway, thanks to all for the props on the blog - glad to entertain you and stay in some form of 'touch' via the blog action. And now, let me list a few things from all of you for which I am thankful, 8 thousand miles away, in no specific order:

- Photos
- Kind emails and words of love
- Other people's blogs
- Dreamcatcher
- Instant messages
- Blank journals to fill
- Books
- Power adapters
- Beanie Pepe
- Dope hip-hop mixes
- Tour guides
- Vicodins
- Parking space
- Good times and fond memories
- Taking care of my life while I'm gone

Thanks, everyone. Ok, on to the next thing. I guess I should throw in a little something about work, since that's why I'm here. I think I'm going to also commence my 'random thoughts' insertions, a part of the blog when I just insert a random remark about something, i.e.

Random Thought: Tom Cruise is a dorkus malorkus, and so is Harrison Ford. Anyone who thinks it's a suprise that Ford is with Calista - man, the joke's on you. She's PERFECT for that cat. You ever see him get scared and tough, like that film in which he's the President? Well, the reason he's so good at being scared is that he's soft like butter, and that tough thing he does? Jesus! I think about dudes who are hard for real, like Ramon's boy Junior, and they must cackle when Ford pulls out that shit. They must just laugh like hell. For years, we all thought he was Han Solo and Indiana Jones and all that, but man, we got played hard.

Or like this:

Random Thought: The Village is wack. M. Shite Nyamalan is a one-trick pony, and The Village should be called Unwatchable 2: The Wackness.

On to work. I work on a really high floor, which is awesome. Still haven't gotten over the view. I can see my apartment window from the conference room - not sure why that is cool, but whatever. You can see all of Central and Victoria Peak, and to the right you can see a pretty good chunk of the harbor. When the sun sets, the reflection of the conference room windows shows three suns, and I once again (huh?) feel like young Luke Sywalker, standing atop the hill and being pissy about not making it to the Academy this season. Oh, why did I have to be a farmer...stupid Uncle Owen and his harvest...

The people with whom I work are very nice - level headed and smart and not at all neurotic or eager to push the panic button in an attempt to demonstrate conscientiousness. The work seems to go in fits and spurts - last two weeks were fairly mellow, but next week is full of deals and announcements and meetings - generally, however, the work flow is manageable and I'm learning a lot about business in Asia. I have already gone out for drinks with the CEO, who is an awesome dude. Anyway, he's a good guy, understands the value of press and what we do, makes himself available, and inspires loyalty without making anyone get all weird and cultish about it. So that's cool. Throw in some Aeron chairs, a fridge full of stuff to drink, and even a little housekeeper-type woman in the kitchenette who always keeps the tea brewing, and you've got yourself a pretty good setup. Oh, one more thing about the view: there are hawks (something big - not totally sure) that fly around right near the window, just cruising on the currents and periodically diving straight down to work and jerk something on the ground. I saw one perched on the building across the plaza, and it must have been right on the ledge outside someone's office. Very cool. They come within 20 feet of our building, and it's just another amazing little feature of the view. The setup reminds me of my old days at WTC 7. We could see the twin towers, the harbor and New Jersey, and we had a great view during Fleet Week when the ships would cruise up the Hudson to dock for the week. And the sunsets are beautiful - dropping down behind the high peaks of Lantau to the west.

That's quite enough of the work stuff, don't you think? I will move on to my emotions. As many (most? ALL? dammit!) of you know, I have been no stranger to the mcherbals over the years, and the past two weeks have been herbs-free for me. It has been an interesting and enlightening experience. I thought I was going to go through the usual agitation and restlessness and lack of appetite that accompanies a dimunition - or, in this case, elimination - of usage, but things have gone surprisingly well. Save for some troubling stomach pain during the first week, all is well and the shift has been an easy one. My appetite returned quickly, and my stomach problems have faded. As for agitation, I think I just had too many new things in front of me to be distracted by the addiction and I have been able to get to sleep quickly. Interestingly enough, even the crazy dreams were absent in the first week, though they sure are kicking it now! Over the past week, I have pursued a serial killer, been stabbed, have traveled all over the world, and even been a little boy again. What a trip. Some of you (what uuup, majik149!) know exactly what I'm talking about, and it just reaches a point where it can only be funny. You go to bed wondering what the hell adventure you're in for next in dreamland, and most of them aren't scary so it's cool.

But the one thing that is most blogworthy is the change in the depth of emotion that I feel. Being free from the mcherbals has instilled in me a degree of emotional access that is at times hard to believe. I stepped out on my first Saturday to go shopping and cranked up the ipod and found myself just reeling from a tidal wave of emotion - not happiness or sadness or anything specific, just a rush of emotion that nearly caused me to stop walking. Just...the whole shit, you know? I mean, I was brutally hung over, and I'm sure that played a role, but I was listening to some pretty upbeat music and I still had to fight back this powerful rush that filled my head and brought tears to my eyes. It's pretty cool, actually, and I hope that I never go back to that semi-numbed state in which I have lived for a while now. I went up to Victoria Peak yesterday and found that some things simply put a smile on my face; things that previously would have been kind of boring or unremarkable, like watching little kids slide down one of those inflatable slides (think Moon Walk, except a slide version), now made me grin widely and un-selfconsciously, and I felt like I was getting a little bit of my youth back. Ah, good times, good times. And for those of you who are saying 'duh, of course, nice discovery you brainiac', you can wait out in the car to tongue my balls, ya heard? Ok, just kidding, make fun all you want. I'm good like that.

So...I'm thinking that I might save the update on what I've been up to for the next blog - will flow one in here soon. I have discovered some new places to eat and bars to drink - oh! Dig this, cats - the bars stay open all night, but it's a total pain in the ass to get food after like 12.30am! Totally not jivin' you. There's like one place in SoHo that serves pizza until 2am, and that's pretty much it. Of course, you can drink until 8am, so this is something of a Bizzaro World compared with NYC. And you can still smoke in the bars and restaurants here - it's a real tobaccan town. Nearly everyone smokes, even my homies who are planning to run marathons in a couple months. Speaking of that, can I get some love from my peoples out there who have never run one? I always feel chumpular when I'm around these people who have run a marathon because it's something that I cannot do, have never done, and may well never be able to pull off (I'm not even sure I want to), so spread love among those who have not, including some to me. And I'll throw some love right back, WHAT!!!

Love (see?),
Chucky

oooooo....but I ain't never been a sucka
No I never been a mark
I ain't never been a busta I ain't never been a simp
Potna I always had heart...
- E-40

Oh, would that were true....those of you who know me well know that I have, at one point or another, been most of those things! But, well, I like the lyrics. The world has much to learn from E-40, and that's why I'm going to force it on you many times over the course of this blog. Meng-Tzu once said (or wrote - not sure) that a great man is he who keeps his child's heart, and surely I have kept my child's heart - I'm obsessed with a rapper! I think I was supposed to stop doing that around the time that I was still listening to Iron Maiden. Ah, what can you do? I don't wanna grow up, I'm a E-feezy Fonzarelli kid, he's got the raps and beats and game and shit to really flip my lid....

Ok, back to Kongstein. What shall I discuss? Work? Nah - I'll get to that at some point. Let's talk about my first night out, last Friday, and the mildly amusing fallout. Earlier in the week, I had made plans to hang out with an Australian footballer named Buffs McGee, who used to play for the Metro Stars. Yeah, real interesting, Chucky. Anyway, my stomach had been jacked all week but I still wanted to go out, so we met outside my building at 7pm - it was a real pain in the ass trying to find him among all the other Australian footballers - and we headed to a part of Central called Lan Kwai Fong to meet some of his fellow footballers at a bar called Bar George. LKF is an expat drinker's playground - a P-shaped set of streets full of bars, restaurants, and clubs. It is second home to may of Hong Kong's hardcore expat ragers.

I met several people, most of whom worked for one football club or another, and proceeded to drain Stellas like they were ice cold beers or somethinwater. Great bar - lots of brick and dark woods, stone tile floor, soft lighting, and several areas divided into lounges, a bar, and a small dance floor in the back. Some plants here and there...classy enough but built for partying.

Ok, so New York doesn't totally suck. I have been a little harsh. The truth is, Hong Kong is an extremely materialistic city, but the expats themselves are not. For one thing, the community is too small for anyone to try to forge little mini-cliques and get their in-group thing going, and second, it's essentially the only community there is! In NYC, there are such high numbers of so many different types of people that one can enjoy the 'advantage' of having their little scene. As a result, one can actually afford to be superficial dickheads and talk about how much their lawyer husband makes or which stop on Metro-North they live on or whatever. Here, the world of the expat working in finance, or the media world that covers it, is all one scene, and a small one at that. Throw in the fact that everyone is pretty smart, and you've got a bunch of good folks who just want to have a good time. Every single person I talked to was super-friendly and welcoming. The conversation flowed easily from politics to drugs (there's more suga booga here than mcherbals - can you believe it?) to cheesy Van Damme movies without any concern about making the right impression or coming off as some kind of player. It was alllll good. The pints flowed like water - damn, alcohol is expensive here but they keep it damn cold, damndamndamn cold, as Bart Simpson would say, and everyone was having a great time. The place got packed, too - filled right up with an about even mix of expats and whores, who come in all dolled up like breezys at Webster Hall or something, and everyone got along quite nicely. No knuckleheads, no door bitch, no cover, just a great scene. The TV monitors were playing videos from the 80's, and I got to see - I swear to God - the video for "Stand and Deliver" with Adam and the Ants. Makeup, the two pistolas, the banquet hall - all that? Or maybe it was "Goodie Two Shoes" - not sure, now that I think of it.

Of course, I handily forgot to eat a damn thing, and by the time 12.30 rolled around, I was lit up like "a thousand points of light over Baghdad" - remember that one from the peace marches in 1991? Nah, you don't, suckers. It's cool. McGee and I left and parted ways somewhere - he lives in a huge, spacious apartment up the Peak, so it was uphill for him and downhill for me - and I proceeded to make that flailing, gangly walk that one makes when one is fulla beer and doesn't give a shit. Throw in the fact that I was walking down an incline and I was slangin' limbs around like an anorexic scarecrow with Down's Syndrome and a limp. No offense to anorexics, scarecrows, people with Down's or people with bum legs, ya heard? Thass how I looked. I made it back to the place and proceeded to dance around the apartment in my underwear with the ipod redlined, going from banger to banger (40, Raekwon, Mobb Deep), the ipod slipping out of the waistband of the tighty whities and down into my crack...ah, it was great.

Until I woke up in the morning.

I rose at about 11.30 after several hours of tossing and turning and some attempts at water consumption. Actually, I rose after a brief slug session - not because I was horny, mind you, but out of a desperate attempt to cull any endorphin rush I could out of my alcohol-poisoned body. Yeah, it was a pathetic wack, the kind where you actually feel like you're slugging yourself in the genitals - but I felt good for about two minutes afterward and I was going to take whatever I could get. I finally realized that I had to get out of the house and buy some fluids or I would be crippled for the rest of the day, so I put on some clothes and headed out to the Wellcome food store. no typo, it has two l's. The cart was filled with Gatorade, water, orange juice, and I even managed to spend enough time in the wine section to buy a bottle without heaving. Also grabbed some noodles, red grapes, cheese, and other crap a bachelor buys. I drank one of the gatorades as soon as I left the place - hell with refrigeration, colder fluids are slower to absorb anyway - and fixed a little bit of food. Now I was able to get some stuff done!

ok, gotta go get my laundry downstairs. More later,
Chucky

Kongsfordshire.

Well, everyone was right - I am taller than most everyone here, and at a measly 5'9"! HA! Hong Kong is a most amazing city and, like the Grand Canyon, is difficult to describe to those who have not seen it themselves. However, I will try. Because, uh, that's what the blog is for.

Hong Kong Island is a relatively small island (you can drive all the way around it in about an hour or so) situated just south of the New Territories, which also comprises the Special Administrative Region. The city of Hong Kong, therefore, is just one part of the SAR, and the rest of the island is more suburban or even undeveloped. Due to the steep hills and peaks on all the islands, development is limited mostly to the areas along the water, so the center of the island is essentially forests and parks and such, and smaller towns and beaches encircle it along the coast. The city lies at the north end, and it is very close to the mainland - you can take a ferry to Kowloon which is only about a five-minute journey across the harbor.

The city itself is a dense, three-dimensional tapestry of tall buildings, new and old, rising up into the sky and up along Victoria Peak. At a certain point, however, the peak becomes too steep for development, and the city gives way to the green and rocky peak. The peak itself is only slightly developed, reserved for mansions that are surely worth a fortune. One can take a tram up to Victoria Peak, where there are observatories, some shopping, and paths around the peak that wind their way through the vegetation and along the entrances to the residences; from there, one can look down on the whole of the city as it falls to the waters edge. Beyond the city lies the massive harbor, filled with boats and ships of every type, and the New Territories rise up on the other side. Needless to say, it is an absolutely incredible view. Being from Miami, and living in New York, I am sure I have a special affinity for large cities that lie on the water, but I imagine that Hong Kong would impress anyone regardless of their city of origin. The density, height, and architectural diversity of the offices, hotels, and residences is difficult to describe. At night, several of the buildings light up in a most futuristic fashion, and if I am ever able to a) download my Nikon crap onto the laptop and b) figga out how to put photos on my damn blog, you will see it for yourself on...Press Five Now. Yes.

The city itself is a maze (though an easily navigable one) of wide boulevards, winding streets, suspended walkways, stairwells, and escalators. I get the impression that MC Escher and the guy who invented Chutes and Ladders got together to design this place, along with help from the Life-Size Human Rube Goldberg Machine Society. I find myself walking up and down stairwells, along an escalator, through a suspended shopping mall and across a suspended covered walkway, and down into more narrow, winding inclines. One can be walking along a busy street filled with traffic of every sort, mobile phone stores and department stores and so on, then walk a half-block north and immediately be on a packed, dense street filled with little markets selling herbs, vegetables, fish and meat, and lots of other food-type products, the identity of which I can only guess. I saw a lot of this in Bangkok, too, but not with the added element of a huge city - it's like Times Square has been seamlessly blended with Bangkok markets. New York has many of these qualities as well, but due to the flatness of the city and the lower population density, New York feels like LA - total sprawl. Imagine packing Tribeca, the Finance District, Times Square, Chinatown, and the South Street Seaport into an area the size of just one of those 'hoods, and that's an approximation of what the city is like. Except ya gotta make it all steep and shit too, and add mad walkways and stairs and stuff.

The city is also clean and safe; on my first night here, I unpacked and took a walk around the neighborhood at about midnight and felt completely safe. There are always people everywhere, no matter where you are or what time it is, and the numbers of homeless people seem very low relative to the overall populace. You see trash here and there, but people mostly take care of their surroundings and you can notice the difference between Hong Kong and your average US city. I mean, it's no Singapore, but at least you won't get caned for hocking a fat loogie on the street in HK. I think someone mentioned that you can now chew gum in Singapore - hooray! - but it has to be some kind of special gum. Boooo! Given how strict Singapore is, I'm thinking that the brand of gum that is allowed is not Bubbilicious, the Ultimate Bubble with, of course, the Ultimate Flavor. Remember that commercial?

But how could I forget...the heat and humidity? They are, at this time of the year, the city's best friends and confidantes, enjoying their last days of summer together before the heat and humidity go off to college somewhere and Hong Kong goes back to working for his pops. For some reason, I brought this red and beige checked shirt which, as I found out during the last Humbuckers gig at Teddy's, reallllly shows the sweat. It darkens like a mofo, and when I wore it out on my second day, my entire back was dark brown by the time I reached the top of the Mid-Level Escalators (I'll get to that in a moment). Having a big ol' gut as well, though, the front of my shirt got equally jacked. I must have looked like an idiot - but it's so much easier to not give a shit when you don't know anyone and you're not in pretentious-ass New York City (I'll get to that as well - I'm sorry to report that NYC, well, it sucks. The people in New York give a shit about stupid stuff, like what you wear, how much flava you pack, how big your ipod is, and all this other joke-ass shit. People here want to down pints and talk about whatever. Luckily, most of you readers do not represent this side of New York, but...yeah, NYC is about ten times more wack that it thinks, and it's really funny. I mean, the snottiest people at the bars here are the whores - I'm not shitting you - and you KNOW that attitude be changin' as soon as you start running some game with a breezy. No, I have not run any game with any ho-breezys - but I know what effect money has on a hizzno. They chat and do other stuff).

So yeah, it's hot as hell and I'm sweating in like the first 2 minutes of my (thankfully short) 7-minute walk to work. A-d0gg, it appears that our friend Ballsweaticus has been replaced by his brother Everythingsweaticus, better known to his main niggas as Allsweaticus. I have been informed by the expats with whom I drank on Friday that the heat is just a fact of life, everyone knows it, and body odor is just something you tote along to the bars without a hint of embarrassment or compunction.

Ok, I need to go to work for a bit. Sunday, I know, it sux. But only for a couple hours. Then it's off to Kowloon!

More later,

Chucky Brown, The Journeyman