Haaaa-watatatata. Another night of complete drunkenness on Saturday. Why do I do this to myself? Ah, yes – fun. The problem this time is that we weren’t eating until about 9.30 and met at a bar at 8pm, so by the time the food arrives, you’re on your 5th drink and then it’s over. 5 or 6 more and you can’t even remember the salient differences between the first and second bars in Wan Chai. I mean, shee-it. Thass fugged up. Met at Loft 9, had a few, then had dinner at a Chinese place in Lan Kwai Fong. Good food, good company – a guys’ night out. Then off to Bar George, which was surprisingly whore-free this time (perhaps they were driven away with samboks and pushbrooms) but still full of expats dressed normally and dancing hilariously. Fuck, I’m so glad I’m a decent dancer. Even doing my Super-Schaub Deadhead dance or my Farndoodle hustleshuffle or my Funky Chicken, I’m still packing major flavor.

Anyway, then we went to Wan Chai and that was pretty good. Hit one bar that was packed, and Umesh met up with us there. Good guy, as I’ve said. The Stella was flowing as usual, the dancefloor was packed, and honeydips abounded – well, they didn’t abound, but they were around. After that we hit another bar and man, I can’t remember that one at all. At all. Well, not how it differed from the other bar, anyway. It was time for a cab. Hailed one, used my little Central 88 ‘Take me Home’ card for the first time (it basically says, “Take this drunk person to Central 88 at 88 Des Voeux Rd, Central” in both English and – here’s the important part – Chinese) and looked up and we were back at the spizznot in no time, which gives me the impression that I passed out for part of the ride. Damn, I can’t wait to dry out when I return. Or maybe this week.

So, I go upstairs and make some food and start pounding water. I swear to God, that makes you so much more lit. I popped in some Spider-Man 2 just to occupy space and keep me focused on something, anything…ate the food and next thing you know, it’s 4.30 and I’m waking up in a sitting position on the couch. The movie has ended, and the big ‘RASONIC’ default DVD bluescreen is staring at me. I somehow find those moments more funny than pathetic, though they score high marks in both categories; I sometimes envision the DVD as a living entity like myself, and it’s amused and frustrated by my inability to come through on my part of the bargain. Spider-man and Ock and Mary Jane are all doing their best to grab my attention – “HA! I’m on the roof now! Watch me catch these pizzas! HO!” “Ha-WAZA! I’m attacking Aunt May now! Check out my freaky arms!” “WAZA! Look at me, I’m hot and in love! I love Spider-man! Now we’re in trouble! Hey! LOOK AT ME!!” – and I’m all, “Bleeergbbgbgglleerrrzzzzz…. snrtzzzz…” It makes me think about that girl who comes out of the TV in The Ring. Yeah, good luck bringing me to a level of consciousness that might allow for fear. I need to set up a webcam or something to see how all that actually goes down when I’m back in New York.

Yesterday, needless to say, was a bit of a wash, but I pulled off some gym and shopping, and started another book called Holidays in Hell by PJ O’Rourke. It’s pretty funny. It’s about his travels to various hot spots in the world – Lebanon, Seoul, El Salvador, etc – and it’s black, dry humor at its best. Well, maybe not its best, but it’s good to be reading this while I am in a foreign land. Makes me want to put on a helmet and go cover some liveness in Iraq or something. Problem with Iraq is that they kidnap the crap out of people over there, which is distinctly different – and much, much less fun – than getting stuck in a student demonstration-cum-riot in South Korea. I mean, tear gas is one thing, but a full-on beheading is not cool. It’s harder to write and live.

I’m having a couple suits made at a freakin’ sweet tailor. They are going to look so, so dope. Oh my God. There will ain’t be nobody dope as me. In these duds I will be so fresh and also so clean. Starky Love gonna be killin’ ‘em when he gets home.

Chucky

Oh, man. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I had a lot of (wild) turkey last night. I didn’t feel like going to some restaurant by myself and eating their stupid Thanksgiving dinner special – that would have made me pine for home even more and I would have felt like a total loser, so I just ordered some food in and had some beers, then called victor up and hit the town. I was looking for trouble.

What a bust, though! First, I went to Chapter 3 because they have this DJ night on Thursdays. Well, HK magazine makes it sound like a few different DJs get an hour each and they bring their friends and compete for a steady, paying gig. So I’m thinking it’s going to be jumping off, right? Throw on the Fly-Rite t-shirt (REP YO’ BOROUGH!!!!) and the fly New Balance and pop on up the escalators to SoHo.

Place is freakin’ empty. Empty. There’s a couple in the back, who soon leave, and one guy at the bar – the DJ! So he gets up to start his session, telling me that he’s the only guy on tonight, and now I’m the only one in the place. What a bust. I finish my bourbon and head back out. Walk down the street to this place called Alibi or Apres or something – some shit that starts with an ‘A’ - and have another bourbon and soda. Talk to this cat Chris, who’s a Filipino biker dude and has – dig this – a girlfriend, an ex-girlfriend, an ex-wife, and a fiancée. I’m like, Jesus, 29 year old braceface, you do well for a bellhop at the Shangri-La. Actually, I said something like you do well and left out the braceface/bellhop thing. Anyway, that place is a bust too – just not that many people. Two gay couples and a gang of Filipino dudes. So off I go to find another spot – this time, it’s Loft 9. But dig this before I take you on to the Loft. This cat Chris tells me a story about how there was this Filipino ladyboy from a rich family who went to the US and dated one of the Baldwins for a while. There was a video floating around the Philippines a couple years back that showed them making out and all this stuff, and the Baldwin cat never found out because the ladyboy was all like, “No, we can’t mack it, we gotta get married, I’m from a strict family” and all this. So then he comes down with something and returns to the Philippines ‘cause he’s sick, and he joins like a Bible club and gets all religious and goes back to being a straight man or whatever and now has a family. Crazy story, huh? Guy said it was big news back home a couple years ago.

Head to Loft 9. Finally – this place has a scene. A few local cuties, some cuties behind the bar, and nice chaps as well. I met this one dude, a real nice Aussie named Bushie, and he and his girl just moved here to teach. They are having a housewarming party on Sunday night and he said he’d invite me. I gave him my card, and I hope he does invite me, because he knows the smooookin’ Aussie bartender at Loft 9. So I’m doing some hoping these days, hoping that he’ll call and invite me and hoping that she’ll be there too. Whatev, it’s all good. At least I got a chance to practice my horribly underdeveloped game with the various dips who were there. The DJ was killer here, too – really slamming house-type stuff that had the local cuties shakin’ they little (also underdeveloped) asses. It sure was a better scene than the bullshit that was going on at Chapter 3, which is an advertised event in HK magazine. What’s up with that?

By now I’m on like my fifth bucket of Turkey and everything is lovely. Victor holdin’ it down, the drinks flowing, the music pumping…and that’s it. That’s my night. Just like kickin’ it or whatever. I rolled home and grabbed some food and beer and ate and read (yes, I read – don’t ask how) and hit the sack around 3.

Today I’m pretty beat up for only, like, kind of a lot of fun, but not a lot lot of fun. I mean, I don’t regret it since I would have spent the evening in the apartment and going out is always a better alternative, and I think I did pretty well after Brian said he was going to lay low (forcing me on the solo journey), but it was on some objective levels a bust. I had to head all over the place to find a jumpin' spot, and in the end it wasn’t a mind-blowing scene anyway.

So that’s it. That’s my semi-boring post for today. This weekend is a Do Lots of Shit Before You Leave weekend – have a suit made, get new eyeglasses, buy shit for people, buy some shit for myself, eat some hairy crab (a seasonal delight), go to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island, hit the Happy Foot for some massage action, and hit the town some more. Got two weeks and two weekends left before Vietnam, so I need to put in some work. Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving weekend. Peace.

Chucky

Lamma Lamma Lamma Lamma Lamma Chameleon….you come and go…you come and goooo-oo-ooo-oooo…Lamma would be easy if the island were like my dreams…lik on my sac…lik on my saaa-aa—acc..

Ok, so I took it easy after Friday’s debauch and got up at a reasonable hour on Sunday. I was going to work out, then take some steam, then a little sauna, then back into the steam, then…ok, I’ll stop. I was going to work out, then head to Lamma Island, a little dumbbell-shaped joint just south of Hong Kong Island. It’s 18 bucks (about $2.25) for a 35-minute ferry to a beautiful, rocky isle that’s free of autos and heavy on the butterflies and seafood and shizznickle like that. Taking the advice of the guide, I took the ferry to Sok Kwu Wan and grabbed some lunch at one of the harborside restaurants. There’s a long row of them, right on the water, and they all have big tanks with snapper, garoupa, crabs, prawns, squid, lobster, and other stuff awaiting their fates. I had deep fried squid with black pepper and spicy salts, lobster with ginger and scallion, and some killer fried rice with pork and whole shrimps. Throw in a big Tsingtao and you’re still coming in under 30 bucks – and I’m sure there are better deals that that, believe it or not. Good stuff. I had decided to eat a) after working out but b) before the hike so as to ignite the old afterburn effect, and I was glad I did, because once I started looking at the simple yet delightfully tempting menu, I realized how hungry I really was. I was ‘bout it.

After lunch, I walked to the end of the harbor and across the low tide area, a wide field of wet sand on which people were playing and a solitary black dog was running, seemingly entertaining himself. He would haul ass toward the water, stop short, sort of look around as if he thought someone was watching him, then start off running again. A short way up the path were the kamikaze tunnels, so named because the Japanese were going to hide men and boats in there toward the end of the war, waiting to attack US warships if they sailed close to the island. The caves were probably only wide enough to house a few longtail boats, though, so it surely would have been a suicide attack. Let’s put it this way: no boat made of steel was getting in those caves. You couldn’t explore them, though.

Farther up the trail there lies the Lo So Shing School, this little school (about six classrooms) set into the hillside. Kind of cool. They had a little basketball court and a pingpong table and some gardens off to the side, beyond which was a long field of dense vines and ferns and low shrubs. Butterflies flitted around, doin’ they little pollination thang…really serene. Good stuff. I followed the path to Lo So Shing beach as well, but there’s not much to report. You could already see the massive power station in the background, and it pretty much maintained a presence in every westward view from that point forward. I also walked off the main trail to the To Pagoda (or some shit), a scenic overlook, and had to snap a couple pictures of the power station because it’s just so huge. I mean, it is gargantuan.

The path continues along a grassy, exposed hillside before descending into Yung Shue Wan, the island’s main town. It’s much larger than Sok Kwu Wan, with a long beach, dozens of restaurants and shops, and even some apartments and condos. There’s a fairly sizeable expat community here, though the guide says it has dwindled somewhat after the handover. It’s got something of a hippie feel – very laid-back and groovy, with guys playing drums on their porches, cozy little cafes here and there, restaurants situated under huge banyan trees, and things of that nature. I could definitely see myself getting comfortable in that town. You would have a hell of a commute unless you worked right near the ferry in Central – which, of course, I do. But Liz came by with the baby today, and by all accounts it looks like she is returning, so no super-groovy life in Lamma for me. That’s for another lifetime, I guess.

I had finally reached the far end of Yung Shue Wan, and the ferry terminal lay ahead. All told, a lovely 2- hour breezy stroll up the center of Lamma island and some excellent seafood to boot. I really felt far from the bustle of Central, and that was the goal. That’s the cool thing about these islands (Lamma, parts of Lantau, Cheung Chau) – most of them can be explored in a half-day or, at most, a day, and the great seafood just adds to the experience. Next weekend, I think I’ma go see the Big Buddha on Lantau – that’s more of a hike, so perhaps I’ll enlist someone from the Reuters or Euroweek posse to join me. If you want to get away, but don’t have the time or funds to make it to Macau, Lamma is a quite enjoyable alternative. Very compact and pretty (save for the concrete factory at one end and the power station at the other), and you can even take your folks. In fact, I met some older folks on my walk, some English and Irish women who had lost their companions. I joked about being happy to be far away from Bush and the falling dollar, and we got into a funny conversation about the various presidents and candidates (“Clinton, well, he was a sinner, but he was just so charming!” “Yes, I did like him the most, but I wouldn’t trust him past the front door.” “Oh well, he was certainly a naughty one, but good for the country” and so on).

Ok, that’s it. More later,
Chucky

Whew. Long weekend, but a fun one. Last weekend was somewhat similar yet uneventful, really. Went out Friday to celebrate some breezy's birthday and had a good time, though not much happened. Met at a bar in SoHo – Boca, I think, which is amusing since that’s the name of the bar I ended up at when I went on a pub crawl in Kowloon this past Friday – and then hit Lan Kwai Fong for some more drinks. Nothing too amazing. During my walk home, I had the bright idea of picking up a bottle of wine at the 7-11 (along with some ramen and ice cream), so that comprised the end of my night – some ramen, some ice cream, half the bottle of vino, and a drunken viewing of part of the last Lord of the Rings movie at 3am. I’m glad I didn’t get to that goddamn spider part, though I probably would not have remembered too much; the next morning I woke way too early and had to watch part of it over again.

Anyway, yeah, that weekend was kind of standard. I spent most of Saturday feeling lazy and hung over, barely getting anything done, and much of Sunday was spent sitting in a terraced garden reading this great book by Tobias Wolff called Old School. The tale itself is actually not that amazing, but he’s a great writer – deft and economical use of language which makes the book eminently readable. It’s about a young man who wants to be a writer (along with several of his other school chums), and it’s always interesting to read a writer who is writing about writing – about the processes and desires and self-inflicted roadblocks and all that. The guy just knows how to use words sparingly and well. It was a nice afternoon, full of breezes and warm sun and little kids running around with one sneaker missing and things like that. On my way home, I bought a couple pieces of amber with insects in them, just in case my writing dreams do not come true. I can then build Jurassic Park.

So…this past weekend was slightly more eventful. Went out on that pub crawl on Friday night and accomplished the dual goals of exploring Kowloon and getting completely smashed. Lit up like a freakin’ Christmas tree I was! Brilliant, just brilliant! I’m getting’ all Anglified over here. Basically it was an outing led by a local woman, a Reuters reporter named W who wanted to show us some of the nooks and crannies that you don’t read about in the tour books. Kowloon is essentially still part of the SAR (Speical Administrative Region), so it's not fully Chinafied, but it's the start of mainland China and it's definitely got a more Chinese feel than Hong Kong - more gritty and freewheeling, a little less Western, but still quite vibrant and perpetually full of action. This is where some of the reporters go at 2am when they're looking for coke and shit like that - you can probably get robbed over there more easily, but at the same time, the performing arts center is over here and so is the fancy-pants Peninsula Hotel and Felix, a high-end restaurant at the top of the Peninsula. It's hard to describe - its difference from Hong Kong is subtle but still sort of present and detectable, like a heat vapor.

I met my buddy (and W's colleague) B at Spot Bar in Soho, along with his buddy Dom Killa, and we had a beer before heading to meet the main group at a restaurant in Kowloon, on Nathan Street. It was a big crowd and the meal was a feast. We had prawns, clams - both sweet and super-spicy – the spicy ones were the bomb - veggies, crabs that were literally buried in piles of crispy flakes of garlic, big long clams...damn, I can’t remember what they’re called...and some chicken for the suckers. So good. Just a feast, on a huge lazy susan. U-Godd was there too, a great guy with whom to be out drinking, and I think the group totaled around ten or so. Let me see here…yeah, ten. What a meal.

After dinner we headed to a local bar that was obviously a frequent hangout for W – she knew everyone on the shift – and we continued to throw them back. It was at this point that half a victor snuck into my system along with a red bull for good measure. I recall talking to this guy about politics a little bit and just going off on all these things that happened during the election, what we need to do to win, all this stuff. He seemed to be genuinely interested, but who knows? Perhaps Victor and I were just bending his ear. This crazy Asian cat named A-Spears wanted to take us farther down into the bowels of Kowloon drunkery, so we walked off this way and that and ended up at a sick, rockin’ karaoke bar on the third floor of some building on a side street. It was like a college party in there – trampy waitresses slamming down buckets of beer and joining the table, blacklights everywhere, music blaring, the mic going from table to table…part of our table even got into a local drinking game using two sets of dice; among the din of everything else, you could hear the dice being shaken and slammed down on various tables. It was, in a word, awesome. Everyone kept apologizing and asking whether we gwailos liked the place; I had no complaints. I mean, shit. You can go to some stupid hipster lounge anytime. I even took a look at the songbook but it was all in Chinese. No “Ballaholic” for me that night. I was talking about politics in the US (yes, again) with someone at one point and S said to me, “you don’t sound drunk enough!” to which I replied, without missing a beat, “It’s the vicodin.” I’m not sure what she thought of that, but since I’m not the dork who is fucking her, I don’t really care. Her remark – and my response – also had the added benefit of reminding me to take the other half, so it was all good. Brilliant, just brilliant!

B, meanwhile, spent part of the journey to this bar breaking up with his girlfriend. I was wondering where the hell he was, and I figured something along those lines was occurring. He found us, though, and got back in to the mix quickly enough.

Now’s the bad time, as Henry Hill says. Things are starting to get a little hazy on the recall tip, and I’m not really sure where we walked next except that I think it was to Knutsford Terrace, where there is a big long row of bars. We found one that was still serving - the Boca bar I mentioned at the beginning of the post – and managed to knock back a couple more before 4am rolled around and people started talking about cabs. A-Spears, B and I (and maybe Dom Killa?) grabbed one bound for Central and bid the rest of the folks farewell.

The only person who remained apparently unscathed was U-Godd. The guy is a warrior. He drinks redbulls and vodka or vodka tonics all night long and just maintains throughout. What many people do not realize is that Red Bull is the most expensive mixer you can order, so the bartenders adjust for that by actually loading up on the liquor. It’s a really strong drink despite the caffeine blast. He just pours them down and keeps on chatting. Great guy, really. He’s the guy that B and I went drinking with that night we went to Bar George, Pizza Express, and Loft 9. Brian and I were hammered by the end of that session and he was like, “See you guys, anyone need a cab, who wants to go somewhere else?” It’s like he’s got a little internal vicodin dispenser inside him that just keeps him stable and able all night. Who knows, maybe he does start to get a little fucked up and you just can’t tell since you are pretty lit yourself. B and I have remarked on that quality of U-Godd's composition many times, however, so maybe he can just hold it down like steel. He’s got a few years on us, too, so perhaps it’s due to more practice or something.

A-Spears dropped B and I somewhere in Soho, and I bid B farewell and just started walking blindly downhill. I found myself on some side street with all these little shacks and tents and stuff and realized that I was in the wet market. Like a street fair that’s closed for the night, the wet market and its little narrow alleys and nooks and shit can be kind of unsettling and full of foreboding – if, that is, you’re not completely shelled from the multiple sorties. It was prime gwailo knifing territory, and this thoroughly knifeable gwailo could not give a shit. You know what my big concern was? That I needed to piss, and that someone was sleeping in one of the shacks, guarding their crap or whatever, and I was going to wake them. The bladder won that little argument right there. Time to take this leak. Word. For like a full minute. Of course, being on a hill, the piss ran right down into the intersection, basically keeping pace with me after I finished and began my downhill walk again. Then I’m doing a rapid zip-up and a couple appears on the street to the right. So there’s me, zipping up, weaving alongside my friendly little pee snake…hmmm, I wonder what he was doing? The woman said something in Chinese, and let me tell you, I really gave a shit.

I headed to the 7-11 and bought a couple ramens, a beer, and something else. You know, I really, really wish I could remember what that last thing was. I want to say it was water, but…well…who knows what it was? I can’t believe I bought that damn beer, too. It’s funny to be in that condition where you are totally set, I mean completely, thoroughly drunk, but you’re like, “Well, I don’t think one more will actually make me throw up, so what the hell?” It’s like, that’s your measure of whether to have a beer – not if you need one, but if you’ll boot if you have one. Such odd logic at 4.30 or whenever it was. “Heeey, what am I going to drink with this ramen anyway? Oh, right, the Tsingtao…”

Anyway, I threw in Kill Bill 2, which sucks a little no matter how drunk you are, and watched Pai Mei stroke his beard about 40 times and checked out Uma Thurman’s feet a lot. I wonder whether Thurman ever let Tarantino suck her toes.

Went to bed around 6 and slept until 12.30. Sweet-ass sweet. I’ll tell you about Lamma tomorrow. It’s a more boring story anyway (not that this was incredible either, but whatever. It’s the best I can do with no coke whores and AKs).

Chucky

Okay peoples. Check this letter out:

After stumbling through a few days of post-election disbelief, disappointment and denial, I now find myself feeling strangely liberated. I've come to realize I've been worrying unnecessarily about a lot of people - e.g., young draft age folks, people in poverty, soldiers in Iraq, women at risk for unwanted pregnancy, people without health insurance, etc. - who do not give a damn about themselves or others like them. As long as they can keep gay people from marrying, they're apparently content to live in ignorance, ambiguity and squalor, and have their children come home from Iraq without arms and legs.
When an anti-gay marriage amendment (which included removal of all civil union protections and legal rights for children of gay parents) can pass in Georgia by 79%, I can now stop worrying about helping people in that state. Clearly, the people in the "red" states have decided that poverty, war, illiteracy, job loss, no health insurance and no civil rights are less important than keeping Adam and Steve (or is it Steven?) from living next door. Alabama defeated a proposition to eliminate Jim Crow era segregation language from it's Constitution! That means the folks in Alabama are still undecided if African-Americans are actually people! When I learned that 99% of soldiers serving in Iraq voted for Bush again, I realized I can stop worrying about them or trying to bring them home. They are doing what they want to be doing and they voted accordingly.
If younger voters couldn't put aside their Playstations long enough to actually vote, then their choice will have consequences. If they face a draft, well, they can blame themselves. In fact, all of these groups will have to face the consequences of their choice to support George W. Bush. Thankfully, I can breathe a sigh of relief they will get exactly what they wanted.
I think us "blue" voters should stop trying to reason with the unreasonable and encourage like minded blue people to leave those red states. Let's invite them to California or to the rest of the blue states. Let them bring their creativity, economic clout, compassion, charity, tolerance, ideas, belief in Science, etc. to states which think rationally and leave the rest of the freaks to fend for themselves. What? Your trailer park in south Florida got swept away by a tornado and you need food, clothing and donations? Sorry. Don't look at me. Ask the red neck next door to put down his six pack and get you a money order and bail you out. We are often discouraged because we continue to look to these people to have a light bulb moment - but let's face it: it's not going to happen. There will be no epiphany. They will not realize their own hypocrisy. They will never realize that democracy applies to everyone. They will never understand that poverty and ignorance damages a society beyond belief. They will never acknowledge that a personal belief in God is just that, a personal belief, not a legislative one. They will never acknowledge that a single mom choosing between paying the electric bill and providing medical care for her child is not a moral failing on her part, but on society's. There's an expression that you should never wrestle with a pig because the pig likes it and you just end up getting dirty. Sounds a little crazy, right? I've never felt more free.

I think we have all had pangs of this sentiment at some point. The problem is that people who really believe in the inherent good in humankind, in the continued upward progress of society, in the notion that the United States of America was founded on sound and just values, cannot afford to take this route. We must continue fighting. The sentiments like the ones above will create another rift, another divide to contend with - in addition to the division between the two major political parties and the 'apparent' moral polarization that's occurring, we will have division within our own party, in our own camp. We will not only have to convince those who disagree with us that we are listening and that we want to find the common ground, but also convince those who share our beliefs that these are endeavors worth undertaking.

The letter above seems best suited for the Rants and Raves section of Craigslist, and perhaps it was meant to merely be a venting exercise (did it myself – you know, "gonna buy my .223" and all that nonsense); perhaps I've merely been brainwashed by my recent rapid-fire viewing of the three Lord of the Rings movies. However, one can never lose hope and integrity and determination; one can never turn away from the belief that there's good in the world and it's worth fighting for (I think I may have just bitten Samwise - what the hell have I become?). I’m serious, though - right now it looks like three hundred against ten thousand, and it sure feels like that, what with the two major branches of government under conservative control and the third about to become more conservative, and deeply so, in the next year or two. If, however, we remain strong and continue to fight for what is right - what is just and fair, as often as possible - then we will eventually succeed. We cannot even afford to think otherwise. Allow me to provide you with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, which he said (or wrote) in 1798 following the passage of the Sedition Act:

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. . . . If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

Principles do not have time for dismissals like the one above. We’re not supposed to become ignorant, stubborn jerkfaces with the the face of a jerk just because the President and some members of his Administration are so. Folks fighting in the military because that was their only option, the impoverished, single moms, victims of unwanted pregnancy…who will fight for them if we don’t? The people of whom this person writes “will never realize that democracy applies to everyone” only if we let that happen.

And the letter is so terribly reductive – does anyone really believe that young people didn’t put down their Playstations long enough to campaign and register and vote? Does the writer not know even one person who could face a draft (and the draft that’s been turning over in the rumor mill casts a wide net, believe me – no hiding in college, no dipping to Canada, none of that stuff). Does he or she expect the soldiers in Iraq to be wise, well-read, college-educated folk who learn about the nuances of US foreign policy in The Atlantic Monthly? Does he or she really think everyone in a red state is a conservative war-mongering redneck? Do you guys? Well, dig this excerpt from a guest column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution by Jamal Simmons, a PR consultant who has worked on several campaigns for Southern Democrats:

“For all the blue state rhetoric, it is the red states of Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana, Colorado and Kansas that currently have at least one minority or female Democratic governor or U.S. senator. If you include female Republicans, add the red states of Utah, Texas, North Carolina and Alaska. Yet, there are neither women nor minorities in those statewide offices in the blue states of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Those allegedly enlightened states all voted for John Kerry. In fact, the Massachusetts delegation doesn't even have one woman or minority member of Congress anymore.”

Aside from being – at least in part – ashamed of ourselves and of our hypocrisy here in blueland, we should reconsider whether our redland characterizations are even vaguely mature or based in fact any more than myth. And as I wrote above and in an earlier post, we need to listen. Mr Simmons continues:

“We need to acknowledge that red states are not filled with backward-looking "religious nuts," but instead with people who share our desire for equal treatment under the law and a secure future for their children. They want to be safe from the threat of terrorists, feel a little more financially secure and have a government that does not monitor their every action. We've all had time to attack the red states. Now it's time to start listening to them.”

In essence, you don’t refrain from wrestling a pig because you’re going to get dirty; you refrain because it’s a pig and you’re a human being (unless, of course, you’ve got a few beers in you and it seems like a good idea at the time. Then, you wrestle away). All jokes aside, though, we are faced with a challenge to be the bigger person, to face the problems and find a solution, not to give up and move to Cali.

I know I probably just preached to the choir here, and I’m having a little vent of my own. There are many, many things that are troubling to read these days, but perhaps most troubling is to read a call to apathy, a treatise on the freedom that retreat provides. Let’s listen as much as we speak, keep fighting the good fight, and take our country back.

Chucky

So I just found out that Ol’ Dirty Bastard died this weekend. 35 years old. Would have been 36 (a number of significance among the Wu brethren) today. Terrible news. As many of you know, I truly enjoyed his style and his music. There was a time when his first album was my favorite solo Wu album; I found it much more original and engaging than Method Man’s Tical, and I liked it even more than Raekwon’s first solo effort - a contention which was considered by some to be inexplicable and by others insane. But I stuck to my guns on that one – Rae’s album had some true bangers, but it was full of stupid skits and an unrelenting bravado that gave little hint that the man behind the record shared the insults and disappointments of life that, say, “Can it Be All So Simple” revealed. While ODB’s music also did not reveal this dimension of humanity, his steadfast resolve to do what he wanted to do, and his conviction that he was a great MC no matter what anyone said about his skills, made him more human than other Wu rappers and therefore more pleasurable and accessible. His skits (in addition to being more sparse) made you laugh and somehow identify with him – quite an achievement for a thug from Medina rapping to a white boy from Swarthmore.

And his songs were diverse in tone and tempo and texture, bumping and shoving and weaving and sometimes recklessly charging ahead toward an uncertain, unknown future. Such was his life as well, I suppose. Yelling one moment and softly singing the next, he never let on what the next track would bring, and this approach gave his albums something of a lasting originality. It was hard to play one of his records to death; his work defied boredom in a way that few artists achieve, and while ODB was certainly a particular and acquired taste, I liked his music immensely. And he was real in a way that few rappers suggest, or want you to think – he was himself; despite all the different names, the central identity never changed, and he was more real than so many of these bling-having idiots we have to suffer as a result of the explosion of popularity that hip-hop music has enjoyed of late.

While many bounced their heads to “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and “Brooklyn Zoo”, I was more impressed with tracks like the heavily bass-toned “Hippa to the Hoppa”, “Rawhide” and the frenetic, unrelenting “Protect Ya Neck II – The Zoo”, a true banger with his Brooklyn Zoo posse. His second album, Nigga Please, was certainly no masterpiece, but it held its own for the first several tracks and, at least on some songs, he stayed true to his promise that he would be singing on his second album. Love it. I’m not sure whether the singing was the result of courage or simply not giving a fuck – probably the latter – but you had to love it and admire it. “Got Your Money”, the album’s single, was a tight, hip cut with a skip-along hook and a fantastic Kelis chorus that caused both men and women all over the country to sing, “Hey Dirty, baby I got your money, don’t you worry”, which really made me laugh a lot. All these people telling Dirty they got his money. The inveterate jokester had pulled a little joke on us. The album at one point was going to be titled God Made Dirt and Dirt Don’t Hurt, which makes a line in the single, his alteration of that title (“God made Dirt and Dirt bust ya ass!”), something of an inside joke, and a cackleable one at that. Dirt bust ya ass, indeed.

His many names were one of the funniest and most endearing qualities, and they seemingly changed with the weather. He was Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Dirty, ODB, Osiris, Dirt McGirt, Big Baby Jesus (a moniker of which his deeply religious mother was not particularly fond)...his Five Percent name was Unique, and his real name was Russell Jones. If he had taken the route of so many other rappers these days and just gone by his given name, that one would have been pretty cool too. On the first Wu-Tang album, Method Man explains in a radio interview that ODB is so named because there’s no father to his style; how true that was, and is. Now it is his many children who have no father, and while whether or not he was truly a father to his children is unknown to me, their loss saddens me nonetheless. Based on what I know of him and what I have read of him, he could have a fierce temper, did not suffer whitefolks easily, and frequently fell prey to that seething, indignant animosity to which many rappers retreat when asked a question they do not like or deem worthy of response. But I also know that others thought him a kind and giving person, a man possessed of deeper values than the hyperclown he was most often known (and portrayed) as. I read an interview that included some comments from his mother, who recounted the tale of Dirty having his jewelry taken from him on the streets of his old neighborhood (a more common occurrence among rappers than they would have you believe), and his mother telling the interviewer that he came home and told her with evident disbelief, “They took my jewelry, mama.” You could tell that he felt belwildered, hurt, and betrayed, and he had turned to his mother for solace. While the actual experience of being relieved of a big pile of jewelry at gunpoint is certainly not particular to him or common to many of us, it showed that he was, at heart, just a regular guy like the rest of us – something unexpected and disappointing, even hurtful, happened to him, and he turned his bewilderment toward his loving mother. I’m not saying that he was this fragile, childlike person, and I don’t want to inflate the significance of the tale – I’m just pointing out that he was more like all of us than he let on and than we regarded him, and I’m sure that those close to him are feeling a deep, deep loss at his passing.

35 is too young for anyone, and while he is finally free from his numerous and varied demons, death is too high a price to pay for that freedom. Whether this was going to happen in a few years anyway seems irrelevant and cold-hearted to ponder; it’s a cynical way of looking at things and even someone like my father, who dislikes rap music and has no idea who ODB is, would agree that he had more living to do, whatever irresponsible form that living took. That he died of (most likely) bad habits and poor choices, like Pun, creates an odd frustration within me. If he had died in a blaze of gunfire, you could at least shift blame, despite the fact that the killers of most rappers elude identification and prosecution.

Sadly, I have no one over here in the Kong with whom I can discuss it. I feel that the blog entry is my only way to mourn, celebrate, and eulogize, and even then only some of my readers will have an idea of the loss of another amazing, unpredictable, and truly unique talent. Since I loved his music, and since I am a dorkus malorkus, I will listen to his music today as I walk around town and be grateful for the enjoyment he provided me. I will think of the midmorning sessions with Ramon where I made my eyebrow-raising claims that his solo album was the best of the Wu discography; I will chuckle at the memory of how Georgia liked her first listening of Dirty on a mixtape, but not her second or any future listenings; I will fondly recall his appearance on the SWV remix of “Anything” as well as the guest spots on his comrades’ records, and continue my efforts to seize the day.

I want to give a shoutout to FunkMaster Flex and all the DJs across the world
I want to give a shoutout to my nigga Luke
I want to give a shoutout to my nigga Suge Knight
To my nigga Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg
I want to give a shoutout to um, um, what's them niggas, OutKast
I want to give a shoutout to them crazy niggas in parts of the world that I never been to
I want to give a shoutout to the Eskimos
I want to give a shoutout to the submarines
I want to give a shoutout to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines
Know what I'm saying? Y'all playing my music in the submarines and the boats
Play that shit know what I'm saying?
It's called traveling music busting ya ass style
Yo Big Baby Jesus, it's One Love
I give a shout out to all the women
I give a shout out to all the babies, all the munchkins all across the world playin' hopscotch
I want to give a shoutout to all the school teachers
I give a shout out to um….ahhhh, myself..."
- ODB

Peace, Unique.
Chucky

Let’s see…I need to still do China, and I’m procrastinating on that one because we saw a lot and there’s a lot of other non-touristy, sort of sociological observations about China that I need to take some time with in order to do a good job. So I figured maybe I’d do Hallowe’en weekend and Macau and I’ll do China in a couple days.

You will note that I haven’t written anything about the election since it happened. I’m sure you all know how depressed and frustrated I feel, and others have written more eloquently than I can anyway. I’m still totally pissed as well, but I also recognize that we need to do both what the other party does and what they do not do – to wit, we must work hard to define the essential issues that guide voters’ decisions in this country (as the Republicans have done, incredibly successfully, this time around) and we also need to be the party that reaches out and works hard to bring unity to the country and find the middle ground (which the Republican party has not done, and intentionally so). I mean, there are lots of things we need to do, but those two are central to our success as a party and as a country.

I both enjoyed and suffered through this long debate via email – essentially a lot of ‘reply to all’ commentary – and it became clear to me that too many secular liberals think they know what’s best for the country and believe that it’s simply a matter of bringing it to the heathens in the desert, just a missionary exercise where we go out to the land of the Wal-Marts and conduct some conversions. It’s much more complex than that, obviously, and it’s apparent that we need to listen more than we talk and allow our cup to be emptied from time to time in order to make room for more tea. Telling someone that they’re wrong and stupid and ignorant over and over will not win anyone’s hearts and minds, and while this administration is deplorable, the Republican party is not evil in its essence. The party used to stand for small government and low taxes and other basic issues – y’all can’t tell me that, especially in light of the Patriot Act, you are not in favor of small government, and who the hell supports high taxes anyway? But this is the conundrum that the country and both parties find themselves in as a result of this administration – this administration does not represent the original essence of the Republican party. It is a fallacy and a trap to either vilify it or defend it as such. It’s like the Vatican – the Vatican does not represent the Catholic religion, the essential teachings of Christ, and the people need to take back the Church from the Vatican. Likewise, the Republicans must wrest their party back from this Administration and everyone must take their country back.Never mind the fact that this election looks like another theft – that’s another issue altogether, and is almost too devastating to contemplate. It’s hard to leave the country and renounce your citizenship, though. If y’all came to the Kongsfordshire like me, you’d still be paying US taxes (though you’d be saving a bundle and having a great time, let me tell you). Oh, by the way, buy Canadian dollars. The dollar of the Great White North is doing great these days and the US dollar is taking a fucking tumble. There’s no end to this spending spree in sight, and even one of my DCM bankers joked this afternoon about how there doesn’t seem to be any concern about fiscal policy in this administration, so convert your USD savings into Euros or pounds or Canadian dollars. You’ll thank me. Consult your financial advisor first, though.

Ok, so: Hallowe’en weekend. Hooray! My moms insisted that I go out if I had plans, and I sure did. Went out on Friday night with A and some other person and had a drunken time. Met A at Stormy Weather, this bar at the top of Lan Kwai Fong, and had some beers before heading over to the Foreign Correspondent’s Club to meet this other person, who is a member. Having treated A to about ten beers a few weeks back, and since this other person was a member of the FCC (no cash allowed), I didn’t spend a dime that night. We had some drinks and snacks, listened to some live jazz, and then A and I headed back to Stormy while this other person went to the computers at the FCC to email his mommy. He was a little pensive that night – not his usual ego-integral self – so we decided to stop bothering him, basically. Headed back to the Fong, got shellacked, and walked home. Fun, but unremarkable. I vaguely recall making soup at 12.30 in the dark, seeing only the big white potatoes in the manhattan clam chowder, while my mom asked how my night was and why was I making soup so late? The next morning she told me she could tell I was lit because she could hear me giggling constantly as I ate.On Saturday, mom and I headed to Stanley to shop, enjoy the sun, and have some yummy tapas at a place called El Cid. My buddy T doesn’t think the food is that great but I think he’s a little bit of a food snob or something – it was good. I wasn’t really sure what I could complain about. Tasty prawns, spinach and filo with cheese, beefy bruschetta, and some other crap I can’t remember. Calamari with a tangy remoulade, and one other thing. Oh! Gazpacho, very nice. And good sangria. We headed back in the afternoon and knocked out some more shopping – I got these fresh fuckin’ kicks (New Balance of course) and then we headed up to Victoria Peak around 7pm for a killer dinner at the Peak lookout. I had….vegetable samosas (ok, stop making fun of me) and a great Aussie Angus steak, and moms had some risotto goat cheese balls and, uh, fish I think. And a great bottle of Aussie shiraz. The Peak Lookout is a great place to go for dinner – all stone and lush landscaping and pretty lighting and great service. Very nice spot. It’s cooler up on the Peak too, which makes for a lovely dining experience. We ate outside.Then it was home to drop moms and off to a party in Soho on Elgin street – some friends of that aforementioned mommy-emailer and A’s named C and A. Great folks. I didn’t know anyone there (Emailer was going to be very late and A and some other people I met the night before had not showed yet) so I chatted with some nice strangers and tried to endure the heat. It was fucking hot in there. Tiny apartment, one AC, and thirty people crammed in there. Straight East Village style. Met a lot of nice folks, though, and some of the people I met the night before finally showed, including Charlie and Joanne, a sweet, super-friendly couple who just ran the NYC marathon this weekend. Hooray for them – they were running for the HK Cancer Research Fund and had raised over 63,000 HK dollars as of race day. Friendly, smart, nice people. I hope they did ok – Charlie is a total marathoner and adventure racer, but Joanne had only done a half-marathon before this race so she might have needed some encouragement toward the end there. I told them to put their names on their shirts – that shit is the bomb. They are probably the coolest couple I met in Hong Kong, and some of the friendliest people I’ve met in a long, long time.Jesus, I’m not even to Macau yet. Well, I left at 1.30, just as some Joker was showing up, and headed to bed since we had Macau in the morning. I wasn’t lit this time, just….nice.Sunday morning we got up and dealt. I felt pretty good since I had stuck to wine and generally took it easy after my dozen-drink night on Friday. The ferry over was mellow, and we first went to the Temple of A-Gao, the Chinese goddess of the sea and mariners. I think I may have broken this down before (maybe in an email to someone), but legend has it that this poor girl could not get free passage on any boats except for one with these two fishermen. They went to sea, and a typhoon appeared and destroyed everyone’s boat but theirs, and at that point the girl revealed herself as A-Gao. For their gratitude, they built this temple. And when the Portuguese arrived, they called it the Port of A-Gao, or Ma-A-Gao. Macau. Get it, suckers?

The temple was steep, with many levels and stone stairs carved into the rock outcroppings and boulders. There were little temples here and there where people could purchase and light long incense sticks and plant them in front of the temple and pray. Very serene and beautiful except for the throngs of people clambering all over the place. It was packed. We saw these huge hanging cone-shaped spiral coils of incense burning in groups of five and ten, hanging among the bamboo, and several of the large boulders had Chinese characters carved into the face which were painted in bright red. One stand of bamboo had graffiti carved into the stalks, and since they too were Chinese characters, it looked much cooler and more elaborate than your standard park-bench tapestry of “Joe + Kate”, “Fuck” and so on like you see in the US. I’m sure they said the same shit – but what if they didn’t? What if they were prayers or something? What, you think I’ma learn Chinese just to find that out? Shit coulda said “Gallagher likz da ballz” and I’m standing there taking a picture of it.

After the temple, we decided to walk through the local neighborhoods and sort of wind our way up toward the Ruins of St. Paul’s church. It was really amazing to get out of touristville and see the narrow streets with small, ground-level shops of every sort, telephone lines crisscrossing everywhere, and tall, narrow tenements with window grates, laundry, and other accoutrements des apartamentes. You know, when you’re a tenement, you gotta accessorize. We passed bakeries, seafood and meat markets, toy stores, paperies, repair shops, hardware stores, you name it. I could not help but think of the early tenement neighborhoods of New York, all packed in with shops at ground level and small living spaces above and everybody knowing your business. This version was more cozy than threatening, and no one tried to jimmy us on the head with a club and take our money, so it didn’t like, you know, completely remind me of New York in 1860, but you could feel it. The club, that is. On your head.The names of the streets and stores are probably the most perfect, succinct symbols of the melding of Portuguese and Chinese culture: Chi Seng Motocicletas. Edificio Kan Kei. Travessa de Chan Loc. Like the UK, Portugal has given Macau back to China, but like Hong Kong, the influence of the previous colonists endures.We passed a wet market, a huge open-air covered market in a warehouse that displayed all kinds of fruits and vegetables and stand after stand of whole fish and shellfish. Everything looked delicious, but as a Westerner you had to wonder about the frequency – or even existence – of the Health Department.

We continued our journey through winding streets, dodging scooters and hustling up steps, passing among churches and old theaters that were purely Portuguese and quite beautiful – soft clues and yellows, iron gates and shuttered windows…just beautiful. We reached a square leading to the church where we encountered once again the tourist life of Macau – from nameless shops to McDonald’s and Giordanos and shit like that. We made it to the ruins – basically a wide, tall façade of the church, since the rest of it burned during a typhoon long ago – and only spent about ten minutes there because there was not much to see and we were mad, mad hungry at that point.

It was time for another trip to Fernando’s.

We grabbed a cab to Fernando’s and had an awesome, well-deserved lunch; salad, the garlic prawns, some fried rice with peppers, pork, and pieces of prawn, and of course the killer bread. And a great bottle of Portuguese white wine. I had a beer, too, and moms and I ended up getting a little nice. We checked out the gardens and trees and such behind the restaurant, finished our beers at one of the outside tables, and took our buzz to the black sand beach where we took some photos and just got philosophical.

After a while, we decided to take a cab to the ferry and head home. It was a long day, with lots of walking and an afternoon of imbibing, and I slept like a rock on the ferry. We just had pizza and salad that night. It was a great last weekend of sun, laughter, and exploration, our final weekend together before work would once again make the days, and our time together, brief.

Peace.
CB

Just a random quick post since I'm all sick and can't quite deal on the big China post right now. The other dayI found myself chuckling at the funny spam messages - the names of the "people" from which they come are always a hoot as well - but I decided to cut and paste every spam subject header that was in my Deleted Items folder into a single paragraph, separated by periods (or their own punctuation if the subject had punctuation already). So, here's the freaky completed spam message:

Do you hate traffic cameras? You need a larger penis. 2 pharmacies here, 2day shipping. Valium for you, cheap Neilsen. Shed those pounds! Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the titanic. Write me back please. Are you looking for fisting sex?It's illegal to use hacked Microsoft office. Have pain medications delivered right to your door! Inexpensive Valium. Refinance or woo you. Make the banker woo you! Your mortgage payment is due. Warning: your membership expires August 18. Please confirm everything. Could this stock rock? The next grand slam stock? Women love men that take the blue pill - working! NewPumpkin loaf pan from Williams-Sonoma.

It gets a little boring but the first few 'sentences' and the last couple are pretty funny. Do you hate traffic cameras? You need a larger penis. Oh, of course! That would definitely diminish my hate of traffic cameras.

ok, so this one was weak...but whatever, I'll take my shit more seriously when I upgrade to Typepad. Someday.

Things are mellow here this weekend - went out Friday night despite a bout of bronchitis and had a pretty good time. Met B at Stormy Weather and had a couple beers, then went to dinner at California with his girlfriend, a few other folks from Georgetown (cool and friendly), and some other reporters from his company with whom B works, including this little hotty Thai chick who was visiting from another office. After dinner we headed to this cool little bar above Rat Alley (a tucked-away alley that is full of - I shit you not - restaurants) called Les Jardines, I think. That's when it got a little random - tequila shots, beers, champagne...I cackled at a couple who broke a glass when they were getting up to leave, then managed to do it myself a couple hours later when I reached too quickly for my beer. Neat. The details are hazy, but I had a nice conversation with B's girl and of course continued to make time with Madame Chow, to little avail. Whatever. She kept glancing downward when we talked, which I realized was just a little quirk of hers but it made me think she was constantly checking my gut. That's the kind of gut-check that one does not need.

I woke up the next morning with my clothes in a pile by the couch and my contacts still in. 8.30. Shit. The hangover prevented me from going back to sleep so I just started my day. Dude - I was so randy (I get super-randy when I'm hung over) that I grabbed this woman's card to call her. Fucking idiot. Thank God she didn't have a mobile number. So then I call B to wake his ass up - I have no idea why, I think maybe I was going to try to get her mobile from him - and I think maybe I pissed him off but fuck it. Like I said, I was in idiot mode. Managed to get a haircut ("you look very tired, do you need some coffee?"), do some shopping, hit the cleaners, and head to the gym for some steam and a kick-ASS massage. Damn, that shit felt good. I could not stop thinking about fucking, though, so I had to constantly do mental exercises to de-bonerize. My mind would drift back to the randifical thoughts, the engorgement would commence, and I would again have to think about car accidents or something to tame the wood. Oh well - I'm still not buying any whores, fuck that. No crack, no smack, no whores from the track. Three simple goals for a good life in Hong Kong.

Aight peace.
Chucky

Get out and vote today, monkeys. It's 4.40am on the East Coast right now. Wake up and make it happen.

Dudes! Long time no talk (blog? write?). Long time no talk for some of you for sure. Or email. Whatever. I have been to China, all over Central, and back to Stanley and Macau since I last posted – got moms in town, and we’ve been doing all kindsa shit – so I have been somewhat remiss in posting the blog. But I was in the steam room at lunch today and I realized that I had to post my little steam room moment.

So anyway, I sneak off at lunch to mack on a quick workout. Don’t have much time so I decide to do some stretching and hit the weights, which takes less time than the cardio action or a full-on class (which I don’t freakin’ take anyway cause I’m in jack shit for shape and don’t want to humiliate myself). Anyway, I do my little weights session, I’m the man, looking out the window at the harbor from the 37th floor and pushing up mad weight. Ha ha. Then I head to the locker for a quick sauna session – whoops, it’s closed to repairs – and head into the steam room instead, which is actually really small – only about 6x6, made of little light-blue bath tiles like a 50’s beach club steam room. Even the bench is made of these tiles, which can burn your ass right through the towel, let me tell you. The steam is fully pumping – place is just like full of steam. It’s, uh, a steam room.

About one minute later, this cat walks in buck naked, wearing only a huge digital watch and flip flops, carrying his towel. I’m not looking his way, but I see him holding something yellow, too. I glance over – guy’s got a banana. A banana, for God’s sake. He lays his towel down, puts his feet up on the bench and starts peeling and eating the banana. The sound is disgusting – I wish I could do it for you. Actually, you can do it yourselves! Go into a really, really quiet room with a banana and proceed to eat it in the noisiest, most grodylicious fashion possible. Instead of acting like you’re eating this soft substance, though, make like you’re eating an overdone steak that’s infused with big chunks of granola. It sounded like that.

Luckily, he dipped out of there as soon as the banana was done, but God, was that weird. Not only incongruous and grody, but of all things to be carrying when you walk into a steam room naked…what the hell?

Peace
Chucky