October 31st: chinese halloween

Day 44

Woke groggily a half hour before lunch, BBC still on. Erin and I rode out to get her bike fixed, walking up the "lower east side" and arriving at a bike chap's two blocks before the one to which I was originally headed. He changed the rear tube, merely reinflated the front one. Erin paid him and we pressed on, eager to get to the park.

Her front tire went flat again, so we circled back and went to the closest new bike chap, who changed the tube and put on a new tire. While that business went on, I went across the street to a bakery and bought a roll with lemon glaze on it. To my surprise and delight, it was filled with bean paste. Huzzah!

With a new tire, we pedaled toward the park, stopping at an outdoor market to get two small watermelons to carve. The lady tried to not let us buy the small round one because it had gone bad, but we assured her we weren't going to eat it anyway, and she relented.

I gave Erin a tour of the park and at one point we were mobbed by high schoolers who wanted their picture taken with us. We posed for about five different people combinations, and then the photographer wanted one.

At a square overlooking the pond, we carved our melons into little jack o' lanterns, quietly observed by some confused youths. Nearby, a couple men started playing music. The first man produced an ehru (a two-stringed Chinese instrument, played upright like a cello, with a base body like a hollow croquet mallet.) It had a most interesting tone, similar to violin, but more rustic. I want to get one. The other man had a wooden fife which he accomplished some uncanny pitch bends with. I studied his hands to see how he did it, but it remains a mystery.

The clock was ticking, Erin was expecting a phone call from Matt at 4pm, so we rode out. As we turned the bend to the homestretch, Erin's rear tire looked funny. I told her to slow down. It looked like she had ridden over a piece of gum. She stopped and I saw that a tube aneurysm had creeped through a gash in the tire. Seconds later, the thing popped with a gunshot report and Erin's bike fell over like a dead horse. We both laughed about it. No one seemed to take notice. Surely the loud noise and falling bike should have at least made someone grab their chest and laugh nearby. (In class, the Edward Scissorhands picture was almost a case for smelling salts, after all) Nope. Nothing. Perhaps the prevalence of bicycles and their associated maladies in their society has made them immune. Perhaps even, they know the sounds and sights too well. (Blocks away at a card game: Bang! "Hmm. Rear tire of girl bicycle blow out. Bad patch job. She should demand her 2 yuen back.")

We walked back, ate some dinner, felt loagy, entertained the idea of flaking on the coffee date. Erin knocked on my door at five after 7.

"She called. Told us to hurry."

"I guess we'd better go."

I had the flash of brilliance to give my melon o' lantern to them. Since I made it, I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do with it. I didn't need two. We caught a cab from the hotel again, shrugging off Mr. 10 Quai. Fuck that guy. We are not greenhornes.

When we got there, the girl and guy were very excited to see us and gushingly led us to the swing seats upstairs. I gave them the melon o' lantern and we both talked about how hard it was to communicate. We gave dude an English name after much deliberation: Christopher. Her English name is Kelly. Chris and Kelly were too cute. We taught each other words, phrases, drank coffee. Chris said he would try to "hook me up" (a new phrase I taught him meaning "introduce me to a girl.") with one of his "many beautiful friends." Really funny. We thanked them, eager to hang out next weekend, and caught a cab back.

I set out the jack o' lantern again as the students filed past. Two boys returned and unloaded two apples, lychees, and a few candies into my hands. It was so nice I wanted to cry. Erin's melon 'o lantern sustained a critical concussion in the bike incident, so she pitched it.Steven came by, spoke to us briefly about Halloween and other festivals and such, then pedaled off into the night to do whatever Steven does nocturnally.

I blogged, ate a couple PB&J's, thought wistfully of Halloweens past: the farm party Jenn took me to where I stayed in Raoul Duke character the whole night; the time I was Edward Scissorhands in Moab and out back of Woody's Brandy held and aimed my general for me, my hands duct-taped and useless; the time in 8th grade when I made a Ghostbusters proton pack out of a cereal box and surgical tubing; the devil costume that I wore at a church party when I was 6. Ah, so many memories. Favorite holiday. If it were up to me, it would be a weeklong festival, like a Chinese holiday. So many costumes, so many parties. Each night could be a different sort of event. Monday, tricks, scares and pranks. Tuesday, the Beggars Night trick-or-treat business. Wednesday, a jack o' lantern and cider parade. Thursday, house parties with "bobbing for apples" and "blind man's bluff" games. Friday, a masquerade ball. Saturday, decorating cemeteries. Sunday, the grand culminating bonfire and fireworks finale. Wouldn't that be so much better? Next year, I will be Jack Sparrow from "Pirates of the Caribbean" unless I think of something to top it.

October 30th: pumpkin quest

Day 43

Woke after having a dream about a Ron Howard-directed film starring and scored by Grandaddy’s Tim Lytle possibly titled “Jobe on the Road,” about a musician guy trying to move from somewhere in America to somewhere else in America and all the hardships he faces, including the girl he rides with getting abducted by her family and having his Ryder truck pushed off a cliff. If it comes out in the next few years, you heard it here first. (The final part of the film: I was riding shotgun and holding a Sharpie above a white sign which indicated our destination. I asked him what I should write and he paused. Fade out.)

Erin kept having bouts of PMS-induced narcolepsy, so I rode out in search of a pumpkin to make a jack o’ lantern. I visited a few different outdoor markets and showed them an illustration but they kept directing me to their watermelons (shook my head) and then erstwhile markets.

Up near the NGS, I stopped one girl and pointed at the drawing in my notebook. She asked her friend and her friend shrugged and in no time I had drawn a crowd of 20 all eager to see what the hairy foreigner was on about. I thanked them and pedaled on, feeling claustrophobic. I discovered a back alley market a la “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and had just parked my bike to have a look around when the girl I had asked before appeared out of nowhere and motioned for me to follow her. She and her friend led me over a bridge past the park where we met Peter and the armswinger. We turned left into an apartment complex and they led me up three flights to their flat.

We went in and I saw shoes by the door, so I removed mine, only the girls made gestures that I didn’t have to. They pointed to a small plastic pair of sandals and I scooted around in them. A mom holding an infant emerged from a back bedroom. I smiled, shrugged good-naturedly. The girls said something to the mom and then took me to the back balcony, where laid four or five gourds, none exactly round. I chose the one I could most easily carve, paid them 2 yuen, took their picture, thanked them and left. Good people. Quest fulfilled.

I pedaled back to the back alley market and on the way passed one of the gawkers from before, he said something, nodded questioningly and I pointed to the gourd in my bike basket, gave a thumbs up.

I browsed the wares for a bit, mostly baby clothes, blankets, yarn and such. I walked by a couple shoe places who really tried to rope me in, but I assured them they wouldn’t have anything to fit me.

I started to leave and a man at an open air pool hall hailed me. Erin and I had talked about billiards earlier, and I decided to try it out. 1 yuen buys an hour I think. I flipped a coin to the pool lad and the sportcoat guy who hailed me racked. I think someone got the schematics reversed: The balls were really small and the table was so big you could have reenacted a GI Joe-scale battle of Gettysburg.

The table was not exactly level, and the felt was loose. The third shot I made was a vertical punch to avoid a pillar and I sliced a two inch gash in the fabric. Not good. But then I noticed some stitched-up tears from games of old and didn’t feel as bad. Maybe if the felt was on tighter, this kind of shit wouldn’t happen.

My dude in the sportcoat won both games (even though second game he scratched on the 8 ball I wasn’t about to disagree with him in a different language.)

I thanked him, picked up some candles at NGS, pedaled on to check out the park on Civilized Landscape Street. It was amazingly huge, a sprawling gorgeous place just lurking under my nose. It was a little taste of Suzhou: bridges over waterways, rocky crags topped with pagodas, weeping willow groves, etc. Then there was also a pseudo-Santa Monica pier on a large pond where you could hire out boats bedecked with cartoon faces. I had ridden by this place many times and never would have suspected such magnificence lay beyond the urban façade. I was followed by two young girls who knew limited English, with a gaggle of dirty-faced children in tow.

I pedaled back and rode past the students doing their odd marching exercise. I told Erin about the park, ate dinner, carved me a jack o’ lantern.

When the evening classes let out, I sat outside and lit the jack o’ lantern. Varied reactions from the procession of students, all good. Some little bastards at the nearest dorm threw a couple tiny oranges at us, and I threw them back, pointed at them venomously.

After some wine and some political discussion, we caught a cab to the club. I played a few songs, then was bumped to start the hard-house. I danced, jumped on the mic for a bit (they whipped out that remix of Run DMC’s “Tricky” again). Erin had a conversation with four people who invited us to their apartment afterwards. They fed us fruit and poured some of that hellish Chinese liquor Chuck had warned us about. The flavor was like a beef sauce moonshine, fire going down. One sip was all I could fathom. We made plans to meet them at UBC tomorrow, then headed to the hotel to get some pizza in Erin, who suspected without it, she was going to vomit.

She was pretty feisty, pugilisticly talking at the three Chinese guys who were staring at her.
“Yeah? What do you want? What are you staring at?”

Once she ate, she felt better, and we staggered on home, talking about who knows what and looking up at the moon, which was directly above. I fell asleep with the BBC on, so Lord knows what subliminal jargon has seeped into my cranium.

October 29th: through a friday swiftly

Day 42

I was late for Chinese breakfast and it was all put away when I got there, but one lady went in the back with my bowl and returned a minute later stocked with rolls. They love me.
Every class I had this week gasped audibly at the Edward Scissorhands picture. Hilarious. My second class today was chewed out by one of the ladies from the English office, probably a warning not to be like the “bad class”. However, this class was bad in another way, they just didn’t speak. I would ask a question, yes or no, no one would say anything. I eventually had a mini rage.

“Hello? Is this thing on? Yes or no? Anyone? Class? Hello? Are you awake?”

I screamed and that got their attention,(fish in a barrel) but I could not wait to leave them.

My throat is still dry from the burning weed smoke around the campus. There’s a haze it’s so bad. I need a surgical mask, the air quality is probably like inhaling four cigars, but without the good flavor.

Thankfully the Pete/Jimmy/Simon class is the last one I have on Fridays. They’re my favorite and I told them as much. They always are eager to learn, energetic, always have questions to ask me. They were a little too fired up today. I didn’t have the voice to shout over them so I taught them the word “mellow” and instructed them to be so.

Great class. They didn’t want me to leave at the end. If I could teach only them all day, that would be just fine.

After dinner I played piano for an hour and a half. My hands hurt from the new song. It’s quite an octave-stretcher. The song is perfect, complete. The bridge is done, the structure is sound, it just needs words. Very fun.

Erin and I caught a cab to Ming Tien (used the meter: 5.60 quai) for ginger milk tea and company sandwich. (Company sandwich has at least one different ingredient every time I get it. They must constantly change the policy of company sandwich.)

I tried to read, but the piano player was right next to us and there were some little bastard kids running around, splashing in the fountain and such. There were a couple Arab men across the way, but still no sign of the Canadians.

We caught a cab back, discussed the decline of rave culture and how later on in life we’ll speak of it in “Woodstock” terms.

Turned in.

multi-tasking blues

Now that I have 2 jobs I think this whole planner thing might not be so bad. I went to hang my work up at this place in dayton last night. It was okay, but I just feel so over whelmed. So if I'm not seen for awhile I'm probably at studio, the cac, or the esquire. if you can catch me, bring coffee. Aaron you thingy is almost done. yay! I'm some how getting an A in my geology class and I have no idea what I'm doing or what the hell geology is about. But i dono. I'm going to try and convience this dude from sculpture to come and fix my blinds because his girlfriend bitched me out for hitting on him (which I didn't . . . . . come to think of it I don't even know his name), but I figure if I'm going to get yelled at for me something I didn't even do so that she can have drama, I'm going to just piss her off because it's fun and I think that it my be well spent free time. Fin.

October 28th: thursday blur

Day 41

Woke, deliberated getting out for the comfy bed for Chinese breakfast, decided to saw a few more logs. Taught the Halloween lesson, drank tea, (which every class was fascinated by, the third class to the point of asking me top open it so they could look inside.) The last class (the infamous cakeaters) I ran through quicker than I had anticipated and had to stall the last five minutes of class: “Uh, here’s that picture again. This was taken in Utah. Do you know Utah? (drew the U.S.A. map) Here’s Utah. This woman is wearing a Pac-man hat eating the state of Utah. This woman was almost Mr. Willis’s wife. She is wearing a Queen Amidala costume from Star Wars. Do you know American film Star Wars?” And so on.

Lunch was underwhelming, only to be undereclipsed by dinner. After lunch I ran an errand for Erin since her bike now has two flat tires. She entertained the idea of riding mine, but shortness aside, I am missing my right front brake pad altogether, so I just went for her. I picked up 56 toothbrushes and 56 lollipops and two bottles of wine (my fee) and pedaled on back.

After dinner, I went out to get a VCD to watch. The first place I went to had a limited selection and no matter where I stood, “Sexy Movies” were always in front of me. I left and went to the department store a few doors down. The sales girl who approached me rattled off some Chinese.

I retorted, “Uh, ni hue shou ienwan ma? (Do you speak English?)”

“Bo hue.(Cannot)”

“Ah. VCD?”

She led me to a nice big shiny row of VCD…..players. I gathered a horseshoe of salesfolk immediately extolling the virtues of the players in ebullient Chinese. I thanked them (Xie xie) and left hastily. I just wanted to watch a movie, not be a freakshow again.

I pressed on to NGS, the supermarket next to KFC, and went to the fourth floor, selected a VCD of “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World,” a fine impressive film, one that haunted six or seven of my dreams afterward, a film rivaling “Jurassic Park” for subconscious synaptic leftovers.

I got it home and #1 it was not widescreen. #2, it was all in Chinese. I decided after viewing to donate it to Steven as he was kind enough to lend me “Spiderman 2” without even seeing it himself. I hope he doesn’t already have a copy of it. Erin came over and watched pieces of it, in between wine runs and checking on email pictures from her brother. I drank my bottle of Tibetan dry red wine and afterwards looked up “swashbuckler” and “tomfoolery” on thesaurus.com, glad that we were fully able to appreciate the hysterical words of the English language, and once again amazed how fast Friday had arrived. (Tomorrow, already!)

I blogged, turned in, vowing to attend Chinese breakfast, lest my bowels go too long without their regiment of bean paste.

October 27th: throat and tire difficulty

Day 40

Woke for Chinese breakfast. My throat felt dry and swollen. Damn the weed burners! I used my Echinacea/golden seal throat spray and drank a mochaccino, then remembered the tea I swiped from the Suzhou hotel. I made a cup to go and halfway through the first class, I felt better and could talk easier.

My first two classes were good, they wrote and paid attention and such. And they showed me how to operate the overhead projector so I could show the photos without passing them around, thereby saving wear and tear from their grubby, corner-bending digits.

Steven was in his class to observe (after monkeying with the projector for me) and told me the difficulty I might have in requisitioning a pumpkin to carve. Outdoor markets might have them, but no supermarkets will. David, the boy who always eats with Steven, drew a skeleton on the board that put mine to shame. I later found out his father is a doctor.

In lunch queue, I asked Summer and Lily if they wanted to go to KTV on Saturday, and they were for it, as long as the other teachers were going. But if everyone feels that way, no one will go, so I suspect a roundabout “no” from all parties.

Simon ate with me, along with another fellow from the Pete and Jimmy posse. He spit out fishbones with grinning abandon.

I ran into Nigel on the way to lunch, who had an odd colorful fleece/windbreaker on. I complimented it and then he proceeded to tell me he bought it in England over 20 years ago. It must have been in mothballs for 18 of those years. It’s incredibly new looking.

I drank tea in my last two classes to ease my throat. The last class had their teacher looking in the window, so I didn’t show the Fudgie and Fufu costume picture with the “lady legs” sunglasses. (The class prior, I it and explained: “A costume is clothes we wear to be a different person. This is a Fudgie costume. This is a Fufu costume.” They repeated Fudgie and Fufu back to me. Very surreal.)

At dinner, I ate with a whole new posse, but I think they’re from Pete, Jimmy, and Simon’s class. I asked what the shredded green stuff was and they couldn’t say in English. They called over my translator girl from the second class on Tuesday and she didn’t know either. I asked Steven and he said “I think in English it is seaweed?”

Hot damn. A natural source of iodine to keep my thyroid going, aiding metabolism and fighting depression. Sweet.

After dinner, Erin and I decided to ride out to Ming Tien for some fries. We swung by the arts building first and I played her the new song which we’ll call “Dovetail” for now, since it’s too song pieces dovetailed together. She liked it, said it sounded similar to some Tori Amos she’s heard. I think it sounds more Queenish, Sheer Heart Attack era. It’s finished, I just need to write words for it, but I have absolutely no idea what the subject matter will be. It’s such an odd song, a kind of glam-ragtime.

Erin’s tire went flat halfway there, so we turned back, parked our bikes at the hotel, tried to get a cab to Ming Tien. The cabbie union was in full force, though, and each one tried to charge us 10 yuen.

We shook our heads, held up five fingers. “Five quai!”

They weren’t budging from their price (as the union no doubt taught them.) We decided just to go to the hotel’s lounge.

We sat and I said, “I think we just weren’t meant to go to Ming Tien tonight. If we went we would have been killed by a de-orbiting satellite or something. Your tire went flat, the cabs tried to overcharge, what other signs do we need?”

We talked about how awful William Shatner is and how he needs his ass beat.

“There’s a long queue, though (for the ass beating). The prefix of his last name is ‘shat,’ what’s he gonna do?” He can’t help but suck, it’s in the family name.

It was Anglo Saxon night in the lounge. Three other white chaps were in there, nationality German I think.

Erin discussed how KTV was 300 yuen and you got your own room and all like in “Lost in Translation.” That would explain why no one wanted to go unless EVERYONE was going. It would greatly reduce the “per person” fee with a large group. So maybe it wasn’t just a brush-off. A group of us would be fun and we wouldn’t have to sit through strangers doing sincere songs in monotone for their girlfriends like so many dumpy cowboys I’ve witnessed in Kentucky. There’s nothing worse than sincere karaoke.

After our refreshments, we pedaled home, retired.

Skinny Puppy Live

soon, i'll get to see the return of one of my favorite bands ever, skinny puppy. until then, i'll make due with these preview shots from the tour:

• 2004-10-16, Tempe AZ
• i don't know where these are from.... (Boston, I think)

This one's cool:

Welcome to CarlLewis.com!

Carl Lewis is my new favorite singer!

(not really)

A Couple More Things

np: Einstürzende Neubauten Perpetuum Mobile

So, I totally need to catch up, diary style, so this is going to have to be much less detailed than Aaron's blog entries (as mine usually are).

10/21 (thu)

Right after work, Gabe, David, and I went to the Southgate House (after collecting our gear). This was the Sound Off for Kerry benefit I mentioned earlier. Twenty bands, on three floors. I got some pics, which I posted on the Cincymusic Boards. The set was good, though I couldn't hear Gabe too well. (He said he'll be getting a compressor soon, which will help that.) Mike, as I suspected, didn't play with us.

10/22 (fri)

Though I intended to get a nap after work, it didn't happen, as I ended up staying a bit late. I met up with Gabe, and we ate some Indian food, then traveled with Baby Kitty and January Fairy over to the abode of VenomousValdez for the latter's bonfire party. I got the fire going strong (because I'm good at it), but we soon had to leave. (I did get some pics there, too.) Gabe and I went to a friend's birthday party, but left there after only a short time to go play Halo some more.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, though I did see I Heart Huckabees on Sunday. It's good, though I think at times it tries to be a bit of a funny Magnolia. I recommend it, though.

I also finished the audio books of Fight Club and Slaughterhouse Five. Now I'm listening to John Irving's Widow for One Year, on which the recent film A Door in the Floor was based. Early on (like, 10 minutes into the 24 hours of novel) I could see that the film is very different from the novel. So different, in fact, that it's not even interfering with my enjoyment of the (audio) book. (I do recommend the film, though.)

MNF

now playing: Tujiko Noriko's From Tokyo to Naiagara

It's amazing to me how much sports matter to the average joe on the street. i overheard someone saying how they were tired because they were "at the game last night". After a bit more explanation, he expressed that he felt as if he were a part of history because, for the first time in 15 years, the Bengals will host a monday night football game, and he had been there.

not only am i not interested in sports, i dont even watch tv, generally. apparently it was a big deal, though.

October 26th: halloween lesson and slacker come-uppance

Day 39

Woke for Chinese breakfast. They tried to give me four bean paste rolls again, but I only let them put in two. Then two of the sausage rolls and an odd round one with a red dot on it, which turned out to be filled with bean paste. D’oh!

I wore my new custom dress pants today which fit a little loose because I tried them on over a set of pants to begin with. I’ll have to gain some weight to properly fit them. (When will I ever be saying this again?)

The Halloween lesson was fun. I explained the holiday, went through some vocabulary like vampire, werewolf, witch, ghost, skeleton, etc. Every time I asked if they knew what the word was, they would say no. I eventually yelled at them (jokingly) “You liars! You just want me to draw them on the board!” They smiled, didn’t disagree.

I taught them the basics of trick-or-treating, how to make a jack o’ lantern, and what the game bobbing for apples entailed. I showed them pictures of my Edward Scissorhands, Raoul Duke, and McDeviltoast costumes.

The last class, the “apathy crew” really tried my patience. About four slackers didn’t write anything down after repeatedly being told.

I kept saying, “I don’t want to feel angry today. Please don’t make me feel angry.”

I had to tell “Mary” and one other kid to stop spinning their workbooks on their finger. By the end of class I was fed up and went to the English office.

I asked a teacher, “If I have bad kids, do I send them here?”

She shrugged.

“Oh, are you Chinese teacher?”

She nodded.

“Ni hue shou ienwan ma? (Do you speak English?)”

“A little,” she said. “I am just learning. It is very difficult.”

“Wuh hue shou edyar foh tong wah. (I know a little Mandarin.) I am just learning, too. I think Chinese is difficult.”

She referred me over to another woman whom I recognized from the dining hall. I explained the situation. Her eyes widened.

“You had bad kids?”

“Yes. They would not write what I write. They talked when I talked. I just want to know, if they’re bad next Tuesday, do I bring them here?”

“What class? 5?”

“Yeah.”

She marched down there and I continued my limited conversation with the Chinese teacher. A few minutes later she came back, preceded by two of the slackers, who hung their heads and tried to look as pitiful as possible. The rest of the miscreants had escaped to the playground. I was entertained as she bitched them out in a torrent of Chinese, then gestured toward me. They shuffled over, and stood hangdog in front of me. She barked something in Chinese which had to have meant: “Well, what do you say?”

“S-sorry,” they muttered.

“Ok,” I said (trying not to laugh), “Next week, write what I write, and don’t talk when I talk.”

They nodded and took their place in front of her as she laid into them again. She kind of bopped them on the head lightly, more symbolic than anything.

I felt relieved that this woman had my back should any other slackers try my patience. I walked downstairs and was hailed by Pete and Jimmy’s class.

“Willis! Willlis!” They waved for me to come in.

“I do not teach you today.”

Jimmy beckoned, held up a newspaper, pointed to a picture of a woman leaning over a student.

“Who is she?”

“Her? Is she American?”

Jimmy nodded. I thought maybe it was some celebrity but I didn’t recognize her.

“Your friend,” he said. “It’s ‘she.’”

“Who? Ms. Rock?”

Jimmy nodded ecstatically.

“No, that’s not Ms.Rock. It looks like her, but that’s not her.”

Their teacher came in and I waved bye, told them, “See you Friday!”

It was funny. Maybe all white people look the same to them.

Dinner wasn’t much better than lunch. Simon ate with us, but Pete and Jimmy were at another table across the way. Simon pointed out the math teacher and the man sitting with her as her husband. The math teacher must be every teen boy’s fantasy at the school. And she is quite lovely, though she rarely uncages her smile.

Erin and I pedaled to the supermarket and the wind had a definite autumn chill on it. I got some Pocky, red wine, Mochaccino, bread, and some variety pack of potato-based snacks. I reached my pizza-flavored Pretz threshold two days ago.

I played piano for a bit, working out the new one(even have a bridge now) and practicing some vocal bits to other tunes. I still haven’t memorized the words to “Flashpaper” a song I wrote the music for right before I left, and finished the vocal melody and words here.

I finished “The Sound and the Fury,” borrowed “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” from Erin after helping her with a computer problem. (Speaking of computer problems: To whomever designed the keyboard: Why in the holy fuck did you put the Insert key so insanely close to the backspace key? This was designed seemingly and cruelly to derail writers lost in their mental narrative porridge; whereas they suddenly look up and find the paragraph they thought they were adding to has disappeared except for an amalgamated accidental word at the end: Example: “close.onality.” It is the bitterest frustration at having to retread that thought which was put so perfectly just seconds earlier. The rewriting of such a thought, unconscionable, for that unique set of words were arranged in a fevered bout of sightless typing, where the monitor gave way to a black window of thought, every synaptic pane teeming with chimera and deep-rooted polysyllabic truth, never to come again, never to be as pure and kinetic as the first sure-tapped mapwork of fingerstrokes. For that reason, I give a hearty, cordial “Fuck you” to the designer of the computer keyboard. In the name of all my writing brethren who have stood at the grave of their short-lived brilliant nuances, haunted for all time by what could have been and left with a meager bastard of rewritten bitterness, forever clad, for the author, in a cloak of quasi-cliché, mourning the first-born who never saw the light of a reader’s eyes.)

Drank some red wine, watched BBC, called it a night.

October 25th: slow and rainy

Day 38

Woke, blogged, did laundry, chatted. Then the power went out for a while.

I walked over to Erin’s office and it was overcast and rainy, very Cincinnati. She was in the teacher’s reading room and a little girl there asked about my beard, examined my shoes, and called me a monkey. Erin and I tried to commit Eva and the English teachers to plans on Saturday. Tentatively, we will be doing KTV (karaoke). I can’t wait.

Lunch was blah. Dinner was blah. A boy from Pete and Jimmy’s posse has started talking to us now. We christened him Simon. I ate a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, played piano for a bit, although my voice is still cleggy.

Plans to go to the supermarket were scrapped from rain delay and Erin’s nap attack. She’s about to start her period and wanted chocolatey goodness but wouldn’t let me go in the rain. We stood on the stoop and shouted up to the students who were hailing us from the nearest dorm.

“Willis! Hello!”

“Give us some chocolate!”

Silence, then “Pardon?”

“Chocolate! Ms.Rock needs chocolate! Throw down some chocolate!”

Silence.

“Do you know chocolate? Hershey bar? Dove?”

Then it got too cold for the idiocy to continue. Erin gave me her last beer and we both turned in early.

more pics from aaron

ok, let's see whether i can get a few more of these up.

first, some buildings and assorted outdoor pics....

arts building


dining hall


our dorm


principal's tower


school front gate


morning exercises


more exercises


sports field


sports field again


park gravel trench


park tai chi


river barge


riverside

That's all for now. More later.

October 24th: UBC urchins

Day 37

Woke at 8:20 and there was no human reason to be up at that time, so I went back to sleep, dreamt of estranged family fighting over a dead relative’s cabin, the paint job and so forth. I blame “The Sound and the Fury.”

erin primping for ubc


important reading material

Erin knocked at 5 ‘til 11 and we went to an underwhelming lunch, then on to UBC for some coffee “milkshakes” which had no ice cream in them.

it brings all the boys to the yard

I tried to read, but the music in UBC was killing my hard-on. First, the Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More.”

I theorized maybe “sha la la,” “whoa-oh,” and “shing-a-ling” mean something else in Chinese. Maybe it’s a dirty Prince song once translated.

“Mr. Willis,” I ranted, “Your hard-on was reported DOA in UBC. Here’s the chalk outline. The perpetrators were a criminal duo called “The Carpenters” although no hammers nor wood were used as murder weapons. Seems they used…sound.”

trying to escape music thru unconciousness

Next was “I Will Always Love You,” the Titanic song, and then it was Zamfir, master of the panflute doing those same songs over again. They had run over my hard-on with a car, now they were spinning donuts on it. This was unbearable.

erin ponders her lesson plan

Afterwards we went to the supermarket by KFC for some stuff. Erin got her kids toothbrushes for Halloween this week, tempering the candy she was unloading on them.

“Their teeth are really bad,” she said, “I think because it’s a boarding school and there’s no parents to make sure they do it. I’m serious, big black holes.” Seems not even light can escape their cavities.

I procured more peanut butter, some vitamin milk drink, and a pair of scissors for beard maintenance. I can’t stand when the mustache gets so long that it creeps onto my lips.

The outskirts of the school have been busy with stooped-over folks in hats cutting weeds and burning them in a pile. This has cast a miasma over the school of the respiratory kind. It’s made my singing craggy and it smells like roasted hair.

Erin skipped dinner in order to do laundry and such. I ate with Pete and Jimmy, who asked me about my weekend.

The arts building was open, so I ran through my repertoire and practiced the new song with the dovetailed old loop. I figured out how to boogie-woogie the bass part and now it’s going to be an even bigger bitch to sing over, but it sounds great. I can’t wait to do a show at Northside Tavern or something when I get back. It’s like these songs were a car I’ve been working on and now that I’ve got it waxed and running well, I want to show it off to the neighborhood.

I watched Spiderman 2 again, had some Pocky, noodles, beer, a banana. Then to bed.

Dark Tower Flash Game

When I was a kid (in the mid-80s), we had this game called Dark Tower, which was sort of an electronic board game. It had a circular board/map, divided into four country-like areas, through which your character moved in search of keys. In the center of the board there was an actual tower, which was the electronic part of the game. You played your turns on the tower itself, and it determined which events happened to your character on each turn.

Let me see if I can find an image on the web...

Here's an image of the tower:

You can sort of see that the tower window had a central window, in which images would appear (backlit from within) dictating the events/outcome of each turn. [Jeez, in finding that image, i see the cost of a replacement tower is high -- $80 for one that's a bit scuffed, and $125 for one in near-mint condition. i think one of my brothers has our old one.]

Anyway, we loved this game, and played it often.

Where's all of this leading? Well, my brother Joe sent me a link to an awesome Dark Tower Flash Game, with the associated sounds and everything. I highly recommend trying it out, especially if you ever played the original. The only thing it's missing is the rumble of the internal shaft turning, which it did every turn. It's probably what wore out first on these things.

Oh, one other thing: it had this great art, done by Bob Pepper. It's pretty sweet. If you know what the name of that art's style is, let me know. Please.

a ton of Aaron's pics

Aaron went crazy sending me pics while i was out last night. I added the ones to the posts that i thought were directly related, but rather than try to puzzle out where the rest of them go, I'll just post them in their own blog entry/entries.

Enjoy the first now. I have to go pick up Baby Kitty from work at the moment, so the rest will have to wait.

Chinese breakfast

October 23rd: Saturday in the park

Day 36

Woke around 11am, threw on some clothes and sunglasses, languidly shuffled to the dining hall for spicy tofu, eggs, and ever-present rice.

I blogged, went to make myself a mochaccino, and realized I was out of water. I tookthe empty jug down the hall, but there were only other empty jugs.

I walked over to the sports field where a couple guys were playing basketball, but by the time I got there, the balls had been locked away. For the best, I should have been tracking down water, not participating in something that would dehydrate me further. Walking by the primary school, I ran into Eva, asked her if she and some of the other English teachers wanted to join us for coffee this evening. She said she had no plans, but that she would confer with the others and call us if so. This has come to mean “no” so I didn’t hold out much hope. I played piano for a bit, but my voice was rough. I still needed water!

I wandered around the junior block hoping to snag a full jug from one of the offices, but they were locked. I ended up just taking the one from the kitchen down the hall next to the nurse’s office.

The sun was shining, so Erin and I rode out to the park along the river with the neon palm trees. On the way out the gate, the guard hailed me, handed me a letter, (another from Jenn) with enclosed pictures of a beautiful azure sky over the Roanaoke. She’s the best.

In the park, three ladies were doing tai chi, with an older man following suit some distance behind them. An old man with freakishly long arms was marching to and fro, clapping his hands behind and in front of him, grinning like he just scaled the fence of the institute.

armswinger

Some people sat on the benches overlooking the river, others attended children, helping them ascend fake tree stump chess tables.

I practiced poi for a couple minutes, still not able to master the reverse weave.

Not a minute after I cracked my book, a young guy wandered up wanting to practice his English. We found out his English name is Peter, that he’s leaving to work on a cruise ship in California next month as a laundry attendant and he’s very excited. We asked him where to get dumplings, but neither the English word, nor our crude illustrations brought clarity.

The sun began to set and a slight chill set in, so we left and got dinner at the hotel. On the way we passed the wee man and I wanted to get my picture taken with him but I didn’t want people to think I was degrading him. (Although I think a bigger degradation is pretending he doesn’t exist.)

Erin got her usual veggie pizza, and I decided to try the “hamburger with steak and cheese.” What came out was a pork loin sandwich and the cheese was there only in spirit.

A trio of people nearby had an aggravating cell phone (a looped sample of video-game quality drum-n-bass) that kept ringing. No one at the table bothered to answer it, nor turn it off or set it to vibrate. Bad etiquette. I put my book down in disgust and glared at them with as much American contempt I could muster.

After dinner I killed both boxes of the gourmet Pocky (almond crush: dark chocolate and strawberry tea), blogged, had a beer. Erin was stricken with three bouts of narcolepsy. After the third time, we went to the club. I took my CD case and arrived a few minutes before the “raffle break.” The guy put on a CD of Eagles’ “Hotel California” and then Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” I couldn’t stick around for that.

I watched the raffle for a bit, explored the rooms upstairs (nothing unsavory, just families, but there were couches and the option of a closed curtain) then went back in and I asked the MC if I could throw on some hiphop. He gestured yes and I whipped out Grand Buffet, Unkle w/ Mike D, Beck, and MC Paul Barman, then Johnny took over and switched directly to trance.

I danced for a bit, but my leg started hurting again. I don’t know if it’s a muscle or the bone (it feels internal) but I may have pushed the physical limits of my left shin. I danced more with my upper body, kept my legs stationary.

Erin dragged me out to the main area, there was a midget belting out some song and striking rock star poses.

midget

I tried to get some pictures, but the flash was swallowed by people in the foreground. I circled around trying to get the best vantage point and I ran into Andy.

“This guy’s great!” I shouted.

“I will take a picture of you,” he offered, “on the stage.”

The little man, who is incredibly muscular, finished his set and I snapped a pic as he stepped offstage, then Andy got one of the two of us.

up close


aaron (left) and midget

Erin told me I had missed when he was balancing a chair on his chin. What a cool ass guy. I wonder if he knows any English.

Back in the dance area, I jumped on the mic for the last couple minutes, parlez’d some Chuck D over the throbbing kick drum. A thin striking woman came up to the stage, collected a stuffed animal snake and left. The MC leaned over and said “My wife.”

I pointed, raised my eyebrows. He nodded.

“Beautiful wife,” I said. He grinned. How old was he? He didn’t look over 20.

The lights went up, the staff started sweeping up, and Erin and I rode home, discussing dumplings and a girl who danced onstage tonight who had to be a stripper. There’s a fluid, but insincere flow that all strippers have, a contrived “relaxed” sexiness sprinkled with hairtosses and bending, and she had buckets of it.

Weird noises were coming out of the KTV (karaoke television) bar at the hotel when we rode by. Not as weird as the first time we passed it, which sounded like Eyes Wide Shut chanting, but a sound like an odd tone-deaf Chinese Elvis at his most inebriated state. We vowed to go there sometime.

I blogged, had Motrin, sipped water, eventually entrusted my head to the bosom of pillowhood.

October 22nd: TGIF'nF

Day 35

The week has flown by, (what, Friday already?) but I am also ready for a break. Every class had at least a few non-participatory slackers, despite my pleading with them not to make me feel angry.

The third class intro went as follows:

Mr. Willis: “Hello, class.”

Class: “Hello, Mr.Willis.”

Mr. Willis: “How are you?”

Class: “Fine, thanks, and you?”

Mr. Willis: “(sigh) I want to feel happy. My last class made me feel angry. They would not write what I write. They talked when I talked. But you are a good class, so I will be happy, right?”

Class: “Yes.”

Mr. Willis: “Ok, then,”

And sure enough, I’d walk around to check on their writing and two or three of them would have nothing written, or even have a piece of paper out.

The last class was with Pete and Jimmy. I gave them a couple Crack Heist stickers, and then I was mobbed by the whole class hoping to receive treats from my bag. I doled out the dead glow bracelets and then I had to shrug, tell them to be seated.

Rose told me every other Friday would be an earlier schedule: (1pm instead of 1:40), which I was grateful for, but halfway through Jimmy and Pete’s class, the eye exercise recording started and I had to talk over that, the students and try to get everyone writing. On top of that, I wasn’t sure what time class got out since the bells were out of sync.

I asked, “What time is class over?”

They would answer “yes.”

“No, what time?”

“No.”

After a few of these exchanges, I almost lost it. I wrote “yes/no” on the board and drew a nasty X across them.

“What time? Time! Not yes, not no. Class is over when?”

“Yes.”

“Not yes! Class is over at 2:00 or class is over at 1:30…class is over at…..?”

“2:30.”

“But it’s 2:40 now. So class is over?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. Thank you! See you next week. So long.”

Deep breaths. Laugh about it. Enjoy the weekend.

I pedaled to the post office to mail stuff to my parents and Sara Jett. I supplied my own boxes this time, so I wouldn’t be charged, but they just ended up putting my boxes into the other boxes. I filled out the forms, got exam cramp again, and then I realized I had switched the sender/addressee columns and had to do them over again. It was loads cheaper and more professional at this post office (the one nearer KFC) so I shan’t give the other one my patronage any longer.

I swung by the supermarket for beer, Pocky and a fruitless search for microwave popcorn. Downstairs, I got some bananas and the gent who weighed them laughed to his friend after I said “Xie xie.” I can’t figure out if they’re just tickled when a Westerner says “thanks” in their native tongue or if we’re fucking up the pronunciation. I think I’ve mastered it. It’s a subtle behind the teeth “sh” sound, like a round, hissing “h.” Challenging language, Chinese.

I kept my sunglasses on inside the supermarket because I had a sensitive day and it allowed me some space. I sang Radiohead’s “How to Disappear Completely” to myself and I was able to keep calm in the commerce chaos.

Outside, a man who was no bigger than a basketball had a metal tray begging for change. I’m not sure what malady he was afflicted with, but his head was the biggest part of him. Tiny limbs, a pleading face. He invoked a strange comic pathos. I wanted to put him in my bike basket, ride him around ET-like, give him some fun. All of this was thought of after I was blocks away.

A girl riding by looked at me point-blank and said, “May-gwah-hren!” (American person)

I said, “Correct.”

After dinner I gave Erin a surprise: We watched Spiderman 2 on my computer. Earlier at lunch, Steven stood next to me in queue, asked me about my weekend plans and I had mentioned going to the cinema, as Erin and I were both craving a movie.

“Oh, you can watch VCD’s and it’s cheaper than cinema.”

“I don’t have a VCD player.”

“Oh, that’s alright.You can watch on your computer.”

“Really.”

He asked, “Have you seen Spy 2?”

“No.”

“I have it at my dorm.”

Steven ran to get it while I ate, then found me and gave it to me.

“You may need to download VCD player for it.”

“Thanks, man.”

“See you next week? Enjoy the film.”

I hooked my woofer up to the computer and had to unplug one of the speakers so periodic Chinese dialogue wouldn’t kick in.

It felt good to watch a movie, especially one as great as Spiderman 2. Nobody but Sam Raimi could have done those films, and I love the “Evil Dead” nuances of the hospital scene, replete with quick-camera zoom edits and a chainsaw.

Afterwards we watched viral videos from ifilm.com, including the “he-man lebowski,” and Jon Stewart on Crossfire, but the constant rebuffering was frustrating.

I had a few beers and decided to go to the club, this time equipped with my CDs in case they wanted me to spin. I got there when the weird raffle was going on and the dance floor was playing the crap R&B.

They saw my CD’s in hand and motioned for me to go ahead. Ha! I threw on some Basement Jaxx, Secret Chiefs 3, Goldfrapp, Faithless, a Killing Joke remix, and then the gentle guy went on again. I went and got a beer, returned and spun De La Soul, Massive Attack with Mos Def and Asian Dub Foundation, then Johnny took over and I got my dance on.

I was behind the stage while Johnny spun and rhymed over what he played. The MC with the microphone smiled and I clapped him on the back hoping he would engage in some flow, too. He leaned in while I rapped and said, “I… DON’T KNOW.” I laughed. It’s funny. These guys are my friends and I’ve never really said anything to them. It’s a mostly nonverbal friendship.

djing at the club

After the club let out, I pedaled home tipsy and worn out, ranting to myself in English, asking random people smoking outside restaurants if they had dumplings.

I took a shower, blinked away the cruel realities of consciousness.

October 21st: an earfull of kids, a bellyfull of steak

Day 34

Woke too late for Chinese breakfast, and while I was emailing a knock came on the door.

“Hold on.” More knocking.

I put on some pants.

More knocking.

“Hold on.”

More knocking.

I opened the door on the two water heater guys. They did the rest of their work noisily while I typed. They have a strange insistent method of knocking. To the Western ear it would sound urgent, but deliberate. No amount of assurance that you are coming to the door will halt their rhythm. It’s like they don’t want to get off beat. The pattern will go on until you open the door and that’s just how it goes.

I grabbed a shower and realized too late the water heater did not have enough time to fill. At least it woke me up.

I got to confront the cake-eaters today. About five of them came up to apologize. I said it was alright, but I secretly wondered how five kids split two small cupcakes. It must have been a crumb frenzy.

I downloaded “Upriver: the John Kerry story” because I was jonesing to watch a movie and this one was free. It would take five hours to fully download, so I started it, taught, kept returning to check the progress.

Erin slept through dinner, so we went to the hotel. I got a steak to try and maintain some mass. Halfway through dinner a mob of small children flooded into the lounge area shrieking “hello” and gathering around us. Once Erin put her glasses on, she realized they were her students.

“Students, what are you doing here?”

erin is the tallest for once

It cracked me up the way she addressed them en masse as “students.” They asked what everything was in English (book, steak, pizza, beard), informed us that someone was “English smoking” behind us, then ran to the window to watch the sudden burst of fireworks from the fountain out front. I was as confused as I was entertained.

fireworks


more fireworks

They returned and bestowed Erin with a multitude of roses, procured from who-knows-where and we half-expected someone to approach us and demand payment for them.

erin laden with roses

There was another Anglo-Saxon behind us and he got mobbed with little faces and questions.

“Students!” Erin whispered, “Come here! I don’t know who he is!” They flocked over again. The gentleman seemed unbothered, but their energy was a bit too high for the lounge.

They picked up my book, my camera, Erin’s beer bottle, touched my beard, studied us and our plates, finished my fries for me. When at last they left, Erin said, “That’s what I go through every day.”

“No wonder you slept through dinner.”

Erin excused herself to go to the bathroom while I paid the tab. When she returned she had a business card from a couple Arabs staying in the hotel. They were on a business trip and were opening the biggest mall in the world next year in Dubai.

I felt compelled to speak with them. Erin pedaled home to get her lessons ready, I stayed behind to talk with Younis, Afmarahid, and their Chinese translator Tommy.

It felt like a scene from a film. I approached them holding the card. “May I join you?”

“Please,” they gestured for me to sit.

“I am a teacher at the Haimen Experimental School and I understand you are building the largest mall in America? (D’oh!) Er, the world! The world, yes?”

“Yes, in Dubai.”

They proceeded to tell me about the indoor skiing they were constructing and how since it was a temperature of minus 2 instead of minus 25, you could ski for a longer period without freezing. They explained they were in China as part of their housewares business, visiting factories and such (I had predicted they were outsourcing I-beams or something for the mall)

I asked if there might be any job opportunities for a native English speaker with customer service experience/hotel background with a degree in communication. They said yes, probably in the field of management or customer service training.

“What kind of pay package are you looking for?”

I gulped. Shit. If I underquote, they might hold me to that and grin at each other saying “Sucker.” If I overquote, I would seem like a greedy American. I couldn’t think, so I stalled.

“By the week, or…?

“By the month.”

“I don’t know, I uh….What’s the cost of living there?”

“Depends on if you are marry or single, one bedroom or studio, what kind of car…”

“Would I need a car or are there taxis, bicycles?”

“You would need a car, but a brand new Honda is $15,000. You get a living allowance, petrol allowance, health allowance…”

“On top of the monthly package?”

“Yes. Why don’t you email me your C.V?”

“Ok. My contract is up in July. When does the mall open?”

“September 2005.”

“Little under a year, wow. Ok, well I will email you my C.V, I have to get back to the school and prepare my lessons for tomorrow. Thank you very much, I’ll be in touch.”

I shook their hands in succession, took my leave. Even if nothing becomes of it, I’m glad I at least met the movers and shakers behind the biggest mall in the world. I was proud of the way I handled myself.

There’s something about being abroad that makes unlikely peers. Fellow travelers seek each other out, anxious to learn each other’s stories, sample the world vicariously. Would I have been compelled to speak to them if I saw them in Cincinnati, or they to me if I were in Dubai?

Probably not. On one’s own turf, you set limits on who you meet. We get caught up in maintaining our circle of familiarity, protect our routine in a way. How many conversations or great potential friendships have we missed out on, simply to continue buzzing like a bee, to “get our errands done” and return home where we can marinate in a loneliness that might have been remedied, if only we had the courage to ask a stranger to tell their story.

I got back, watched “Upriver” and was very impressed. It focused only on the Vietnam era of Kerry’s life and it was fascinating to see him evolve into a leader. However, at the end of it, I became acutely aware of the difference between the Kerry of 1970 and the Kerry now. The calm, focused, righteous Kerry of then is still in the Kerry of today, but it’s deep. Perhaps years of privileged life have smoothed the furrowed, determined brow; the tinnitus of firefights replaced by eardrums perforated from wine cork reports; army fatigues in mothballs as he cloaks himself in suits and smarm. Is he playing the part, letting the suit wear him, in an attempt to fill the expectations of what a politician paradigm has come to be? His set-jawed, cool intellect from 1970 mirrors the candor of Nader today. Has he vamped up the smile, suit and tie as a conscious decision to avoid the Nader stigma? Nixon compared him to Nader in the film, did it stick in his craw a bit?

I’m glad I’m out of the country for the election so I can get some objective news. The BBC takes no sides and gives each candidate equal airtime. Should there be a scandal (please, not again) I will have the privilege of getting a better grasp of the truth without entrenched media spin. And I’ll certainly share what I learn.

GD Ritzy's

Hey, just so's you know, there's a GD Ritzy's in Evansville, IN. I remembered the commercials from when I was younger, but it turns out they're still there. In fact, after a minor abount of searching, I see a lot of them in southern IN and northern KY. [No logo, though, to make this fancy.]

Apparently there's a Zantigo website, but it's not coming up here at work. Check out this site, though, where he mentions Zantigo's existing in Minnesota:

I am talking about the original, perfect creation.. the joy of my childhood existence... the one and only... all but wiped out by coporate shit heads and Challupa purveyors, the Zantigo's Chilito. According to chilicheese.org... Taco Bell killed off Zantigos, but ALAS, there is hope for Minnesotans. The original, wax paper wrapped chilito is still available. The website, listed as Zantigo.net, does not seem to be available... But you can still pig out at the following locations. If you're there around Christmas, I'm the guy with eight chilitos, a root beer and a bag full of Gap boxers.

So yeah, there you are, Erin: vindication.

Oh, and here's this one, too:

Not only is it still around, here's a list of locations.

Burger Chef is actually gone, though.

Meow

Aaron, I'm sewing and surprise for u! He, he, you will love it lots! okay. bye, bye!

Knifehandchop: Techno Gaiden EP

After owning this for a couple weeks, I've got to say that not only is Knifehandchop's Techno Gaiden EP worth getting, it's great!

Of note is the Com.a remix -- that thing kills. Kills!

October 20th: the homefront bugle call

administrative cuteness: rose in her office


cue a certain whitney houston song....

Day 33

Got a phone call from Jenn at 2am. I was half awake talking to her, I kind of ran to the phone thinking I was late for class or something. I can’t really remember what she said, but I told her to give my contact info to my parents. For all I know she could have brainwashed me and now I’m a Manchurian candidate. I really have no recollection. I was functioning on some reptilian instinct, drawing from a set of appropriate verbal responses while my brain churned out more dream industry.

Crashed out again, then woke from an upsetting poltergeist dream. It took a few minutes to shake the dreamfog from my brain and clear the false memory bank. Had Chinese breakfast again today. I might be over the bean paste rolls, one stage below being sick of them. They don’t taste like anything anymore. I got an email from mom, just when I had started to wonder if they were alright. I worry about them and that motorcycle. She said I looked too tired and was concerned for my health. I emailed back the theory that perhaps I'm not tired, just older. You know how you have an image in your head of someone and it doesn't matchwhat they actually look like? For example, if I picture my father, his hair and mustache are brown, with 1987 era glasses on, the “soccer coach” glory years, not what he looks like currently. So there may be a possibility that a warts-n-all current photo (after not seeing me for a month) contrasts with their established image. (I still picture myself as how I looked junior year of high school.) Of course I may just be tired after all, having to put myself on a total opposite schedule,like a 9 month graveyard shift. I chatted with Steve a bit, got an email from Tracy. When it rains, it pours, I suppose.

My classes went well today, no slackers really except for one kid in my last class. He acted like he was writing when I walked by, but minutes later that half a word was still there. At the end of class he wouldn’t show me what he had written. Little bastard.

Lunch was underwhelming: the chicken and green pepper medley, which I found a bone in, and the scary blue-brown soft-boiled god-knows-what-animal’s-ass-this dropped-out-of eggs, (and rice of course.)

Erin and I went to UBC for coffee and fries. On the way there, we checked the mail and I had a card from Moab, my friend Meghann. She enclosed a couple pictures that dug thumbnails into my heart. The desert is my love, everything else is a mistress. Were it not for Erin being there, I may have wept.

We talked about our students (she had to get mean today, which is a funny unnatural state),

erin's "mean teacher" face

discussed parents, reminisced long dead restaurant franchises. She swears there is still a Zantigo’s in Minneapolis. I told her Matt had to back her story. I thought they were all bought out by Taco Bell. A frivolous afterlife would be to wander the lane of lost franchises, sampling again the tastes of Burger Chef, G.D. Ritzy’s, Zantigo’s, Rax, etc. We got on the subject because of G.D. Ritzy’s shoestring fries: Erin is overjoyed whenever she finds an extra-long fry. (And what would Freud say about that?)

discussing the heyday of g.d. ritzy's and shoestring fries. (fires?)

I took Darby to my last class, tried several times to get a photo mid-flip but the batteries and my patience were both wearing out.

darby completing another flip in my last class

I ate dinner with Jimmy and Pete.

Pete asked, “Willis, where is ‘she’?”

“Ms. Rock? I don’t know. She might be asleep. I knocked on her door.”

We all shrugged and chewed.

I played piano for a bit after dinner, then watched a special on Asia Pacific about the origin of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” I was too comfortable apparently and dozed off for about ten minutes. A knock came at the door.

“Come in.”

Nigel poked his head in, strolled in, pointed at the hallway. “So much better.”

I thought he was talking about the kitchen floor again. Apparently Nigel and Chi want Erin and I to take turns cleaning the kitchen floor even though all we do in the kitchen is laundry.

I sat up. “What?”

“The saddle.”

“Oh yeah.”

“You saw it?”

I was confused. “Oh, you bought one?”

“Yes. I saw it on the way to get noodles and pulled off. How much did yours cost?”

I shook my head. “…..12 yuen?”

He pointed to the hallway again. “I talked him down to ten.”

“Huh.”

He turned to go and then turned again, “Your air conditioning also does heat, but don’t hang your clothes out if you do. It’ll blow dust all over them.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be turning on the heat anytime soon.”

“Your room is a bit warmer than ours. We’re a bit chilly.”

“Huh.”

He held up his palm, spun a military 180 and exited. I exhaled.

Later I felt the need for some air and knocked on Erin’s door.

“Hey. Did you get dinner?”

“Yeah,” she said, “We had that meeting today (in the primary dining hall).”

“You need anything from the grocery store?”

Soon I was off, assigned to get her lemon chips, grape juice and paper plates. I didn’t know what I was after, but eventually got some instant coffee packets, mochaccino-flavored. I looked in vain for some bulk-up malt drink of some kind. This rice-heavy diet is making me burn muscle since I have no fat. My ‘ceps and pecs are disappearing. Maybe I’ll have a steak this weekend.
I played piano for a bit more until a lady with keys kicked me out.

I went back, blogged, drank glucose drink, listened to Unkle, retired.

this pic is funny because it looks sincere. it's not.

This past weekend to present

first off: I'm listening to To Mega Therion, Celtic Frost's seminal 1985 album, one of the first death metal records. somehow i missed hearing this record, or any by Celtic Frost, though I do know "Propagation of the Wicked" as covered by Sepultura. I'm in the mid-'80s section of Sound of the Beast, a history of heavy metal. Not great prose (a lot of simple sentences and high school-sounding, flowery descriptions), but quite informative. Anyway, the bit about Celtic Frost just came up, and I wanted to brush up.

The album is ok; not great, but i like my metal tight, and these guys are a bit sloppy. It's good to hear them, though, and to hear where a lot of other metal bands got their sound. Oh, and dig the Giger cover!

So anyway, as i was up late Friday night, i slept a bit later on Saturday afternoon than i had meant to. you see, The Black Fives were slated to play at Recycled Rainbow 9.0 on Saturday in Cleveland, a four hour drive away. thing is, after Gabe's blowout on Thursday night, he needed two new tires. i called gabe, and we were at a tire place within an hour and a half. after another hour we'd fed ourselves at the food court of a nearby mall, he had two new tires, and we were on our way to Cleveland. rather than go into details about the evening, you can just check out the 10/18 entry on stAllio!'s blog. (it's worth keeping up on anyway; he's a cool dude. like billy zane.)

I will say a couple things about the performance, though. First, the instrumentation:

Harold Knockworthy (a.k.a. Gabe): Korg Electribe; throat mic through Korg Kaoss Pad
Donald Spivak (a.k.a. schädel, yours truly): MicroKorg keyboard; mic'd baby monitor; cd player through Korg Kaoss Pad II
[yes, we like Korg. they should endorse us.]

This instrumentation stemmed from our desire to bring as little as possible on the four-hour drive. We normally have a lot more equipment than this. In a way, it was liberating: no relying on the droney ambience for this set. It forced me to adhere to the RR9 theme, which was "classic literature". I must admit that i didn't really like it, but hey, that happens when you vote sometimes (see: 2000 US Presidential election).

So yeah, i ended up doing a lot of reading through the baby monitor. I had brought Finnegans Wake by Joyce and Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings by the Marquis De Sade. I've not done that before, and I'm not sure how well it worked. The Black Fives are primarily (though not exclusively) an instrumental act, and I've not been involved in the vocal pieces Gabe has done.

stAllio! seemed to like it, though:

we were at least 3 hours behind by now, as the black fives performed in the basement. quahogs played with a baby monitor, reading literature and generating feedback, while gabe busted out the beats: nice hard sophisticated beats, just the way i like 'em. very good. we ran out to the car after their set so i could trade grant (sic; he means "gabe") a copy of true data for a couple copies of the black fives/fudgie & fufu split 7".

praise from him means something to me. really.

so, yeah, i think we ended up leaving there at like 4am, got back here at 8am sunday, and i crashed. hard.

sunday evening, while my friends were in Cleveland doing the radio show, gabe and i beat another level of Halo. relaxing.

nothing of import yesterday, though i did hang out with Megan for a bit at the Golden Lions Lounge, where Gabe and Jaymie were spinning cds. We're still friends; that's a good thing. I'm proud of my ability to be friends with exes.

had a normal workday today (tuesday); after work i met Baby Kitty at her house for some spaghetti while watching the first 1/3 or so of Ghost World. We had to scurry though, as we were catching the 7:45 pm showing of Garden State. She hadn't seen it; I had. I still like it, though I'm not sure i'll buy it when it comes out. That being said, though, it's a phenomenal first movie for Braff, and I'm eager to see more from him.

After that, more Fight Club audio book, and I finally got to chat with the Toast, who's in the future.

Time is so fake.

October 19th: apathy and theologies

32nd day

Woke for Chinese breakfast. The ladies loaded me up with four bean paste rolls and two sausage rolls (which I’m actually starting to prefer more). Today’s lesson went fine except for the last class, the one with dude who wrote his name as Mary for his pen friend letter. No one really said the words with me, nor answered questions. A couple students just perused their textbooks the whole time. This class is now known as the “apathy crew.” I’m afraid I’m beginning to dread them.

After lunch I dropped off the Rose-issued cupcakes to Erin’s desk, she was once again napping. Her candy bowl was empty. The note she left, “Please help yourself to some candy” had the response “Ok, thank you” at the bottom. I bet 100 yuen Apple was the culprit. She’s batty. I told Erin she seems like the type of girl who would go out on a date with you and the next morning you’d wake up in a tub of ice with a kidney missing and a note reading: “Please to call hospital. I had fun last evening. Ok, thank you.”

I left Erin a note saying: “Here’s your ration of cupcakes. You’re out of candy. –A.”

I stopped by the arts building to play piano but Feng Jao Li was doing some slightly military exercise with a quad of primary kids.

feng jao li's special ops neckerchief battalion

I snapped a pic, then retreated to my room, watched the “Masters of Lebowski” video for the 20th time, laughed, then felt depressed and loagy.

My email box was empty as usual. After the one month watershed (today being the 32nd day) I’ve begun to feel cut off from everybody. I wondered why my parents haven’t called or how they’re keeping up with my progress with no computer.

I decided to get a caffeine injection and pedaled to UBC for an iced mocha and some “hiding from the world” time.

hiding from the world in UBC

I miss anonymity. I don’t want to be watched all the time, but I don’t want to stay in my room either. I wrote some lyrics down for the new song, satisfied with them. I tested them out after dinner (again we were joined by Pete and Jimmy and their less-than-loquacious cohorts. Pete has gotten used to calling me MR. Willis. Before he would just say, “Willis, do you know Feng Tung park?”)

While I played, Feng Jao Li stopped in only to grab something off the top of the piano, then beat a hasty retreat. I can’t figure that girl out. I didn’t have time to ask her the new phrase.

Sean had emailed me and it could not have come at a better time. I was able to sigh. Every tidbit of news he gave, every thought, every nuance made me feel connected via some technological umbilical to that concept of “home.” He’s working on music again, he’s doing well at the new restaurant, he heard from L.A, who is done with chemo, enjoys reading my journals and says hi. The Sundays of Debauchery are on hiatus due to Al and Gio’s financial wherewithal, so in a sense, I haven’t really missed any. I haven’t decided if I’m gladdened or greyed by that thought. Did I get out while things were on top, or did my leaving somehow facilitate the removal of some universal linchpin? Or do things change without the influence of a speck of dust like me? Yes.

Erin and I went to the Kedu grocery store, then to a backpack/bag store by UBC. She was determined to buy something for herself to cheer up the fact that Matt didn’t get the job at the middle school. Nevertheless, he is still coming on the 17th of November.

Erin haggled with the lady at the store, but she wouldn’t budge the price, so we walked. We went to another bag store that had very odd bags, one called “A Big Pig: I become large rapidly. I want to eat delicious foods a lot.”

odd odd bag

Erin didn’t buy it.

We headed to the grocery by KFC and I showed her the peanut butter / jelly / tomato paste / puree / mayonnaise endcap. Little taste of home. I bought bread, she bought wine, and we pedaled on to Ming Tien Coffee Language for some reading and imbibing. I ordered a “Beer Flies” out of adventure’s sake and Erin got strawberry toast, which turned out to be a big cake brick. My beverage was dark and I’m still not sure if it was coffee or a stout beer-mixer.

I finished the second section of “The Sound and the Fury,” floored by it. I wrote a couple passages down and had to close the book and just reflect on the power of a simple 19 worded phrase. The book is equally challenging, revolutionary, poetic, slight stream-of-consciousness postmodern-theaterish genius. I began to beat myself up for having not read it earlier in life, but then again, I’m at the perfect mindset to fully appreciate every aspect of the book. Could a half-budded flower fully embrace the rays of the sun? No, nor could my mind, even a few months earlier embrace Faulkner’s text with such untethered joy. Being in a strange land, I’m not given much book options besides the ones Erin brought. Had I picked up “The Sound and the Fury” in Cincinnati, with its noise, kinetic metropolitanism, dark cloud of cynicism framed by the 275 loop; could my mind have staved off the torrent of distraction? Could it have risen to the challenge of the text? Was the change of scenery, my renewed love affair with writing (thanks to this journal) and the limited choice of books the right combination to unlock this visceral elation? I suppose so. Whatever the cause, I hope it doesn’t let up. This book is rapidly shooting up my all-time best list.

My head still reeling, Erin and I pedaled home, discussing pressures of age set by prior generations. I turn 30 next year and I’m just now feeling sorted enough about myself to fully understand myself. My parents on the other hand, married when they were 20. I was completely lost at age 20. No wisdom, no self-concept, no bigger-picture perspective whatsoever, and this is the age where my parents decided to make one of the biggest decisions of their life? That seems insane to me. Then again, things were different back then. Certainly with each new generation, a different set of standards emerges, but the principles and timeline of the former emerge as a paradigm because they know no other way. The education system has declined through the years, perhaps fostering an extended “childhood” or “pre-adulthood” in our generation. College grads of the 1920s were ready to start their own law firm, grads of today are basically high school kids with sex and drugs under their belt, and no hope of the American Dream unless they’re willing to forego the workforce for grad school. Regurgitation and facts without a threaded “cause and effect” overview is not an education.

Couple this with the ever-increasing lifespan: more time to play, middle age is an extra ten to fifteen years later than in 1950. The prevalence of divorce; is this a case of sociological population control? Single parents, scores of step-parents; we’ve moved from a nuclear family to a quasi-tribe society.

In China, the “bare branches” (males with no hope for coupling due to the shortage of females) will certainly take its toll on the population, but perhaps it will also usher in a new age of woman veneration. The “ladies first” norm is non-existent here, but I’m introducing it slowly via the dining hall queue.

Valid discussions to be had on a new comfortable bike seat.

We weaved in and out of students once in the school, oblivious to Erin’s bell and my reports of “On your left.”

I practiced poi for a bit, nearly mastering the reverse weave. A teacher whose English name is “Dozen” (yeah, no shit) introduced me to a young woman named “Jilly Jen” or “Jennifer” as her English name. She wants me to teach her “oral English” and I said “Ok.”

Dozen asked, “Kung Fu?”

I held out the chains. “No. New Zealand poi. The maori. They light on fire, but I don’t use fire. I don’t like getting burned.”

He laughed, waved, then left with the rest of his group.

I practiced some more, clobbered myself a good one in the eye. I went in and blogged, drank my last beer and hoped none of the classes tomorrow would be like the “apathy crew.”

The Past Few Days

Last Thursday night was band practice for The Haywards, and it was the second practice with new member Gabe. Also, Mike Schottlekotte sat in, as he's apparently in the band now as well (or, "again", as he was in the Haywards a few years back). So, the lineup now is:

David: acoustic guitar, vocals
Gabe: electric guitar
Mike: 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars
Montana: drums and keyboard

We went throught the same set that david and i have played for a while now (almost identical back to when we played in NYC in january), with a few additions. mike played a little here and there, but he was really just getting the feel of the songs, as we don't have in our set any of the songs from his era of the band. Gabe, for whom this was the second practice, was still trying to work out what he should do and when. What he was doing (and Mike, too, for that matter) sounded good, albeit unpolished. This will (i think) turn out very well, once we get things down.

We have a show on thursday at the southgate house, in the lounge. i dont think mike will join us, but it should be good, regardless. the show is in support of kerry for president, and is actually put on by an organization called "republicans for kerry", which is in itself an interesting concept that really says something about our president.

Anyway, that was thursday. Oh, except that gabe had a blowout on the way back from practice, which ran late anyway, so i didnt get home until 1:30 am. no karaoke for me, i guess.

Friday after work i went to Shake It!, as they'd called me to let me know they had received the most recent Björk release on double import vinyl and were holding one for me. i picked it up (at a whopping $30), as well as Fahrenheit 9/11 and a used copy of Fight Club on dvd. i also got various pieces of vinyl, including a 12" of "Grab It" by L'Trimm and a late '80s 12" by Lords of Acid (on the Kaos label, even); i think it was this one, though it didn't have a picture sleeve, and the track list was slightly different. (if you really care, i'll check. :)

After Shake It!, I picked up Baby Kitty from work (she works at the CAC, across the street from a former employer of the The Toast). We watched Fight Club, as she'd never seen it. I like the film a lot, but I'm not really sure which parts are David Fincher (the director) and which are Chuck Palhaniuk (the author, though i can't be arsed to check the proper spelling at the moment). I decided then to download (uh... i mean borrow) the audio book to see (hear?) for myself (i like parenteticals, apparently) (that means bad form in writing, apparently).

After the movie, Baby Kitty went home to sleep, and I went to my girlfriend's apartment. We broke up.

More later; I have to work.

what do you mean? china is roaming or what?