March 31st: long Thursday averted and first day of shorts

Day 196

My first class, the Ultraman class, was a delight as usual, but only set up my dread for the three in a row after lunch. I went to the plyaground, but no soccer and no kites. I went to the primary wing, no Erin. I went to the arts building. No free piano. I tried going to the roof of the administrative tower. The upper floors were locked.

So, I rode out to the "Aptach" canteen and got an ice cream bar. I was about topay for it and some smoker dude walked up and examined it, set it back down roughly. A little too roughly; I opened it and it was bashed apart. Good one, guy. I got another and started riding off, the sunshine causing it to melt with a quickness. I had to catch half of it in my hand, then haphazardly put it back on the stick to finish it. Some primary kids watched my ordeal with their foodholes hanging agape.

When I got back to my room, the phone rang. it was Rose saying I had no first class in the afternoon. Sweet news. Now I only had two classes to get through. Things were looking up. Rose called back in five minutes to say I had NO classes for the rest of the day. Best! I asked her why and she said something that sounded like "memorize the dead." I asked if it was tomb-sweeping day and she said no, repeated they had to "memorize the dead." I wasn't about to ask a third time. I had the day off, do I really need to know why?

I got my shorts out of mothballs, rode out to the middle school, got many giggles and pointings at my legs. To the Chinese eye, I must look like a satyr or perhaps Pan himself. I went to the roof and sunbathed for a while. Heather came up after her classes and we went to Times for highball supplies. It turns out Tang makes lemonade mix, so we got that and some iced tea for pickled golfers.

Mike joined us for a badminton tournament, but the wind was brutal. We decided it would be better to fly Jeni's kite. Heather and I took the field, raised the kite aloft, our treelong shadows trailing out behind us in the waning afternoon. Once the sun did its cannonball behind the skyline, we went back inside, had a long discussion on the gaps in science, coincidence vs. a "path" you meet halfway, choices as stepping stones, childhood memories that didn't happen in this lifetime, the silly human drama and how caught up in mortality we get, etc. I suspect I was getting perhaps too heavy for a Thursday night and brought the topic to something lighter just as Jeni came in.

We ate at the tree dumpling place (all but Mike who rode to KFC), then all piled into Heather's bed to watch "Monsters Inc." I think my brain was still reeling from the conversation earlier and I caught myself blanking out a few times. Eventually I was down for the count, surrendering to the confines of blanketdom.

RIP Mitch Hedberg

Sad Christmas: Mitch Hedberg died.

Crap.

If, like many, you don't know him, try this.

--montana--

yay for weird crimes

in China, no less.

Online Gamer Stabbed for Selling Cyber-Saber

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Shanghai online game player stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword, the China Daily said Wednesday, creating a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons.

Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after
he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon saber," used in the popular online game, "Legend of Mir 3," the newspaper said a Shanghai court was told Tuesday.

"Legend of Mir 3" features heroes and villains, sorcerers and warriors, many of whom wield enormous swords.

Qiu and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan (US$870), the newspaper said.

Qui went to the police to report the "theft" but was told the weapon was not real property protected by law.

"Zhu promised to hand over the cash but an angry Qui lost patience and attacked Zhu at his home, stabbing him in the left chest with great force and killing him," the court was told.

The newspaper did not specify the charge against Qiu but said he had given himself up to police and already pleaded guilty to "intentional injury."

No verdict has been announced.

More and more online gamers were seeking justice through the courts over stolen weapons and credits, the newspaper said.

"The armor and swords in games should be deemed as private property as players have to spend money and time for them," Wang Zongyu, an associate law professor at Beijing's Renmin University of China, was quoted as saying.

But other experts are calling for caution. "The 'assets' of one player could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just data created by game providers," a lawyer for a Shanghai-based Internet game company was quoted as saying.

smart.

i'm sure some churchy buttholes will make some point about playing devil games.

March 30th: parcels and Monkey defense

Day 195

Lessons went well, even the Junior 2 kids are getting into the song and they're well nigh impossible to enthuse. Jeni stopped by for tea again and we sat on the sunshiney stoop, chatted about stuff and things. I got a phone call, which is rare, and it turned out to be Jenn and Sara Jett. I sure love my friends. Sara was calling to make sure I was going to be back for her "moving to NY" party. She wants me to not only attend, but perform. I have a gig lined up already.

In between third and fourth class, I have an hour break, so I played soccer with some primary kids and thir fleet-footed PE coach. I wasn't able to shut down his advances as much as I'd liked, but then he had cleats and I didn't. The grass is slick.

After working up a good sweat, I had to go teach the Monkey and Harry class. Rose walked by and I thought she would say soemthing about my raggedy T-shirt appearance, so I tucked it in, put my sweater back on. I filled up my water bottle in the teacher's office and she told me, "I have your parcel on my desk." Awesome! I ran and got it, promised my students if they were good, I would open it at the end of class.

The "fool Mr. Willis" part of class lasted so long, we didn't even get to the song. Once they found out candy was doled out as a reward for fooling me with their lie, students were begging for another chance, especially Emnite (whom I named after M. Night Shyamalan which he resembles slightly.) I started opening the package at the end, which had maple nut goodies, a Napoleon Dynamite magnet (Tina! Eat your food!), water balloons, etc. but they mobbed me, so I put it away to the tune of their loud protesting.

At recess I had noticed Monkey crying. I tried to ask him what was wrong but he just looked down and shook his head. I think he gets picked on more than I had realized. I think for the students, the moniker "Monkey" is more teasing than nickname. At the end of class, I gave him a caramel apple sucker and the otehr students started holding their eager palms out. I told them, "Monkey is my favorite student. If you are nice to him, maybe I will give you something. He is very cool. you need to be nice to him, ok?" Monkey looked at the sucker, humbly said, "Thank you."

He always has a rascally grin, always says hi to me in the dining hall, sits and eats with me frequently. I even taught him to "hit the rock" (a kind of urban tuffguy handshake). Even though his English is limited, the little guy's trying, you know? It breaks my heart to think he's getting grief. By saying he's my favorite, I may run the risk of inadvertently causing more teasing his way, but that's only what American kids do. These kids are different, and plus I'm a badass teacher. My praise holds water.

I rode up to the middle school and we had a badminton tournament on the roof while Jeni played some Phillip Glass on her pipa. The wind certainly gave a handicap, and we played until dusk robbed us of the ability to distinguish shuttlecock from white paint and sky.

We went downstairs, had a couple highballs, walked to get Muslim noodles. Mike had too many scotch and Cokes, had to exit as the food smells and bright lights were muddying his buzz chi.

After dining, Heather, Jeni, and I watched "A Bug's Life" (first time for Heather) and then I pedaled home, listened to the new Zero Seven disc (cheers, Jenn) showered sweatcakedom off myself, curled the blanket over me like an ocean wave and plunged into dream aquatica.

Boy Scouts & child porn... Like Nel Carter and Twinkies

memorize this guy's face:

and then if you see him on the street, punch him in it.

Boy Scout director charged with having child porn

Organization 'dismayed and shocked ' by news

DALLAS, Texas - The national director of programs for the Boy Scouts of America has been charged with possession and distribution of child pornography, the U.S. Attorneys said Tuesday.

In charges filed by federal prosecutors on March 21, Douglas S. Smith Jr. was accused of receiving images over the Internet in February of children engaging in oral sex, intercourse and other sexually explicit conduct.

Sources in the U.S. Attorney's office told NBC that Smith, 61, was expected to plead guilty.

Law enforcement officials indicated the pictures did not show boys who were with the Boy Scouts organization, said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America, which is based in the Dallas suburb of Irving. He said Smith "was not in a leadership position which involved working directly with youth."

"We are dismayed and shocked to learn of this," Shields said in a statement. “Smith was employed by the Boy Scouts for 39 years and we had no indication of prior criminal activity.”

ugh. i sure hate people.

March 29th: fool lesson and youth chrysalis

Day 194

This week I'm teaching stuff about April Fool's Day, make the students tell me three things about themselves, 2 truths and 1 lie. If they fool Mr. Willis, they get a piece of candy. I had to strike the subject of sports, age, and relatives as options because that was just dumb. Tomorrow i may have to do the same with dogs, watching TV, and computer games.

A couple students gave an answer something to the effect of "I'm interested in killing people" and it wasn't the lie. Troubling. For the last part of the lesson, I teach them a silly song (that a fool would sing to a king and queen to make them happy) called the "Wishy Washy Washer Woman," a camp song classic of olde. It occured to me that I have all the skills necessary to be a camp counselor.

After classes, I played soccer with student Mike and his class, although it was bloody difficult to tell who was on what team since they all had a fondness for navy track jackets. More often than not, I passed to an opponent. Charlie was on my side, a heftier student by Chinese standards and every time I passed to him I couldn't help but bellow "Charlie Murphy!" in a Dave Chappelle voice. I was able to set him up for a goal one time that was a near-perfect reenactment of the time our team (Crystal Tissue from the S.A.Y. days) made it so Josh Hoag was able to score. Who'd have thought just kicking around with a bunch of Chinese teens would conjure such nostalgia?

The game was short-lived for me, as more people with soccerballs took the field, their games bleeding over into ours, balls from everywhere coming into play. When running downfield, my breakaway was ruined by getting clotheslined by some kitestring. Chaos. It was like the ADD Olympics all of a sudden. After that I had to be the authoritative eye, making sure my boys didn't get hurt, either by errant balls of downed kites or meteors or whatever else tried to get onto this peril-magnetic soccer field.

I rode up to the middle school and engaged Heather and Mike in frisbee, their field emptier both of students and grass. The wind was playing havoc, so it didn't last long. I went to Times for supplies to make pickled golfers. (A pickled golfer is gin, iced tea, and lemonade. An arnold Palmer with gin.) One snag: China doesn't believe in lemonade. I went with the old stand-by: orange juice.

Mike and I played badminton on the roof while the new drinkables chilled. We had enough daylight to get in a 20 minute volley, called it quits to wet our whistles. Ah, gin. It's been too long. There is no way to make martinis here either, though when I go to Nantong this Saturday, perhaps the Metro will have the crucial vermouth and olives.

Heather and I had tree dumplings and cucumbers, then I rode back to my place. Erin and I watched "The Truth About Charlie" then I went with her to the hotel, since getting in three rounds of exercise in one day had boosted my appetite some. I got a ham and cheese sandwich that came with those triangular potato wedges instead of fries. Talk about throwback to the grade school days: the smells of pencilwood and damp cardboard from miniature milk cartons, odd lunch business like salisbury steak, thinking of nothing better than getting home and watching cartoons like Woody Woodpecker eating an oatmeal creme pie, maybe playing some Atari. (Is my age showing?)

We rode back, I downloaded a new Radiohead song, listened to it a few times before retiring, my head awash in nostalgia. That young man is still in me and that ethereal bridge between the inhibited, quiet "shy me" and the present lunatic artist "confident me" was almost visible. I'm still not sure exactly what age it happened or what event caused it, and perhaps the metamorphosis was too subtle to pinpoint. I'm thankful for whatever triggered it. Had I remained that taciturn meekling, I would have missed out on hundreds of adventures, including this one.

Miss McDonald's LiveJournal

check it. miss mcdonald loves the Ronald McDonald character design, and posts pics of herself wearing this costume.

it's a bit unsettling, but you can see that it's not some weird fetish thing. i can identify; i'm a big fan of buckethead, and his own character design is quite good.

March 28th: badminton on the roof and gutrot on a stick

Day 193

Woke, wrote, caffeinated myself, ate lunch in the dining hall, rode out to see about buying an old skool soccer ball, but it was 2.5 times more expensive than the other ones. Apparently traditional ones are a collector's item now. I rode to the DVD place, exchanged two with no English options for two Pixar films.

The day was brilliantly sunny, so ofcourse I went to the music shop to practice the catalogue. I think I finally have the chorus to "Sober Me Up" sounding solid. Afterwards, I went to the middle school, went with Mike to Times to go soccer ball shopping, and ended up getting outfitted with badminton, the most modestly priced set.

On the way out, we got meat-on-a-stick, my first try of the stuff. We played on the roof, laughing our asses off at the shuttlecock's refusal to be killed. We would hit it as hard as we could and it would still gently float down. It took some getting used to. A few times the 'cock went over the side and we watched as students tried to throw it back to us in vain. One kid was very clever and put a rock inside to give it weight and was able to throw it into Andy's window.

We played until the sun went down, watching as the cheap racquets disintegrated with the force of our blows. Oh well. They were maybe 50 cents US. Heather had taken a bike ride into the country and gotten strawberries. We went into her room and had some before pedaling to the hotel for sustenance. Mike had his heart set on a chicken sandwich, but they had none that night. He finished his beer and went on to KFC.

We sat for a long time waiting for Heather's sandwich and while we sat, my body began to reject the meat-on-stick from earlier, with a vengeance. I excused myself to the WC, bless the hotel for having Western toilets. I sat and felt like a manager seeing an unpleasant guest out the door.

Me: "Ok, thank you, meat-on-stick, for trying us out. I'm sorry we weren't to your liking..."
M.O.S.: "Well, I never...."
Me: "Once again, we're very sorry..."
M.O.S.: "I'll never stay here again. I can't believe (grumble grumble)
Me: "Ok, I hope you find better accomodation somewhere else..."
M.O.S.: "I'm going to write a letter to the owner..."
Me: "Would you just LEAVE?! We don't want you in here either!!!!"

Then I realized there was no toilet paper. Oh god, no. They have these little steel canisters that make it impossible to see if there's any in there and I hadn't the time to check beforehand. I entertained the idea that if I sat there long enough, the girls would send Rhys in to check on me and I could have him pass soem TP under the door. But no, that might take a while. I decided to duckwalk to the next stall, but then some guy came in and started barking into a cell phone.

I stood at the ready by the door, but when he left, another gent came in. Gah!!!! When he left, I swiftly moved to the next stall with spy prowess and finally was able to finish my toilet. Relieved and spent, I rejoined my friends at the table and we finished our drinks, left.

The beautiful day was gone and a damp, windy haze was left in its place. I pedaled back to my place, found a bag of strawbereies on my door. Heather is a sneaky fruit fairy. Erin and I watched "Night Shift" and then mutually turned in. I dreamt about some weird boat cruise and I was floating in an inner tube swirling in a rapid eddy somewhere near Albany. Erin and some woman who was our cabinmate collected me in the lifeboat and we all got back on the ship. Weird.

March 27th: Easter and mallization

Day 192

After the morning routine of coffee and writing, I rode out to meet Heather and Mike for noodles at the sausage place (next door to the sheep place.) On the way over, I noticed Dongzhou Park had a smattering of kites on display outside, so after gestation we rode over to browse. It came down between two kites: an eagle (with fun flapping feathers and slatted wings) or one with a tremendously long tail but had a distinctly Elmo-looking face emblazoned on it. The eagle was nice, but I wanted something more Chinese, and with a tail.

We rode to the park by the river, which my students had tipped as a hotbed of uncensored kite action. They lied. A mother told us of a small shop nearby to the West where she procured hers. We rode in a wide circle over the bridges, found nothing. We stopped by a mom-n-pop that had a couple ratty-looking kites hanging in the doorway, shrugged, bought an ice cream. There was no wind anyway, so even if we had bought the perfect kite, there was balls-all we could do about it that day.

We pedaled back, prepared the egg-dyeing activity for Heather's students. I was somehow made chief alchemist measurer, eyeballing 2 tablespoons of vinegar, half a cup of water and such, without the aid of lined cookware. The bike ride and overcast front rolling in sapped my strength, but luckily Heather's students were mellow and their energy wasn't too suffocating. After a while they wanted to combine colors so I had to protect the yellow by keeping an egg in there, guarding it with the palm of Fatima.

The eggs weren't white to begin with, and it gave the colors strong earth tones: Moab dirt red, sulphur yellow, asthmatic robin blue, etc. Towards the end of the proceedings, they became more interested in putting candy in the vinegar dye and eating it. Chinese kids.

They left as quickly as they came, and as quietly. After cleaning the platic bags off the tables, Heather, Mike, Andy (self-invited) and I walked to an outdoor walking shopping center under the shadow of the TV tower. Expansive mazes of shopfronts-to-be, needless and bewildering. If the shops in Haimen can't stay open as it is, what hope does this new bumper crop hope to achieve? The novelty of buying the same old shit in a new plaza will wear off after a bit and then you have a big concrete temple to failure where a field once stood; a field that could have been used for cropland, shortages of which are always being reported in the papers. It all made me a little depressed. Rampant spending and development without forethought is the recipe for disaster. China is spreading itself too thin, as the gambler at the roulette table who constantly bets everything with each spin, who's begging for a cosmic lesson with anchor-dropping ferocity, China is scrambling to put its head and economy under the looming shadow, thinking the shade is enjoyable and safe.

After Mike and Andy nought some liquor, we walked back through the emptiness of Haimen's next great shopping hope. Heather, Jeni, a freshly-shaved Rhys and I dined at the tents. I think Heather and I were having a joint sugar crash from the jellybeans, cookies and cakes at Easter egg fest earlier. Our chopsticks were practically needed to prop up our chins.

I rode back to my place, gave Erin and Matt some Kedu wine, and we watched "Shaun of the Dead," which brightened my spirits. Nothing like a little British zombie comedy to chase the world's woes out of my skull however temporarily. Tucking myself into my bunk, I dreamt of high school reunions.

March 26th: more soccer and unicorns

Day 191

Wrote, showered, and it became 3:30 before I realized it. I rode to the hotel for "Dish for People with Strong Taste" and after a longisd wait, brought all the courses at once. I hurriedly ate it so I could make it to the soccer field. My student Mike from Thursday classes told me they would be playing at 4.

I rode back and found the field overrun with kite flyers. I watched and students filed past, making comments about my lack of beard. "Yeah. Boo yao hoozi!" I told them. I ran into Harry and asked him about getting a football and he led me to the PE teacher. He gave me one under the condition I return it by 5pm. I coerced Harry and his cohort to abandon their basketball plans to join me in some soccer.

My efforts to get a group together worked a little too well. I went from five boys to 30 as all the kiteflyers mobbed me and soon I was overrun with chattering excite youths who wouldn't line up or form teams. I shrugged, tossed the ball into the fray and hoped by some cosmic chance that something resembling a game would form. Eventually it did when kiteflyers resumed their activity and some burgeoning rain weeded out the casual football enthusiasts.

Kids kept changing sides and teams at a hat drop, and no one was doing throw-ins to get the ball back into play, but somehow it all got sorted. It did make it difficult to pass the ball, not knowing if the lad was friend or foe that minute. The rain made the field slick, and I nearly ate shit when I slid. I caught myself with my left hand and managed to keep both trousers and jacket dry.

5pm, and thus dinner time came and I lost my players en masse. The rain was pissing on the proceedings anyway. I rode up to Dongzhou and then to the DVD store with Heather, picked up a few watchables (hopefully).

We had some wine, went for Muslim noodles where an extended infomercial on herbal breast enhancement was playing. Afterwards, Jeni, Heather and I watched "The Last Unicorn" which I only bought because I thought Jeni had mentioned it. I am on crack. She knows nothing about the film, nor has her name ever been Lori. If you've never seen "The Last Unicorn," she's not the last unicorn, merely the only one who hasn't been caught and forced to float in the ocean for a sullen king's amusement. At one point a magician is nearly smothered in an anthropomorphic tree's cleavage, the scene that Jeni came in on.

We got through five minutes of "Convoy" (whoof) before deciding on "Shrek" which we wouldn't have cared about passing out to since we'd all seen it numerous times. I was lulled to the shores of sleep via red wine's dulcet lullabye.

2005/03/25: NYC, part 1

here's the first installment of my NYC trip. i didn't really take many pictures, but i'll put up the ones i did get.

i got up friday morning, and sara picked me up in her car at 7am. we needed to be in dayton by 8am, so that her dad could take her car in to get an estimate on some damage, so to meet him by 8 means we leave early. we arrived at his place and he took us over to her mom's, where we each promptly napped a few hours. i slept particularly well, apparently, because while i was asleep, (a) a new refrigerator was delivered, (b) the furnace guyts banged around and power drilled the crap out of something, (c) some sort of wild animal was scrabbling about in the attic space, and (d) the wild animal wrangler was searching for said wild animal.

no problem for me, though: i slept through it.

the three of us made a lunch stop at Friendly's, where we did not have a reese's sundae. then on to the airport, where we got our boarding passes, emptied our pockets, removed our shoes, and waited for the lady to look through my backpack. she couldn't tell what was in it with xray machine, since i had SO MANY METAL OBJECTS in there: discman, palm pilot, spare batteries, watch, cellphone, etc. sigh.

then began the Time of Long Waiting (tm). our flight, due to the inclement weather, was delayed by an hour, so that by the time we arrived at laguardia, we were behind schedule. we didnt really have a schedule, mind you, it was just the principle of the thing.

the original plan (which was somewhat ingenious) was that eddie (see pic, stolen from a website because i never got to take one of him the whole weekend) left a spare set of keys and a copy of my ID nextdoor at a business, the Polish Gazette, which has someone there 24 hours. theoretically, this would free him (and his roommates) from needing to be at his apartment, where we'd be staying for the bulk of the weekend. this was good, as eddie would be working that night (and, as it turns out, nearly the entire weekend).

however, the flaw in the plan was that the polish gazette actually lost his keys (and, presumably, my id...), so when we landed an hour late, i had a message on my phone from eddie explaining the situation, and that his girlfriend stockton (who is one of his four roommates) would be at home when we arrived.

we took a cab to eddie's apartment in williamsburg, and stockton let us in. we met tobias and anna, two more of eddie's roommates. they're german, and i found out later that anna was high school friends with one of my favorite german rappers, ferris mc. small world.

stockton was quite helpful, despite having worked solidly for a few days with no sleep. she loaned us her keys, gave us maps, and recommended a few vegetarian-friendly restaurants for us. we ventured back out, with another cab, since we weren't ready to tackle the subwayon an empty stomach.

only a few minutes later we were eating at vera cruz, a great mexican restaurant on bedford. as the review says, it was very nicely priced, and quite good. i got vegetarian enchiladas, and sara got a vegetarian burrito. both were great, though sara likes her food to be a bit less spicy.

satisfied, we walked along bedford, just enjoying being in new york city. it being friday night, the hipsters were out in full force, really reminding me that a lot of the rockers in cincinnati just want to live in nyc. then again, so do i, so i guess i shouldn't talk.

we stumbled on a cool coffee shop called The Read, where david and i had sat enjoying the coffee and mocha back in june. sara and i sat, me with my mocha and her with her hot chocolate. i flipped through the village voice, mainly checking for must-see shows that weekend. there weren't any, but i definitely had wanted to check.

the read closed at 11, so we were back out, ready for the subway this time. it was really very simple, just two stops on the L train, but you never know. we did it just fine, buying 7 day passes so that we wouldn't have to worry about it again all weekend.

once back at eddie's, we opted to stay in, as we were quite tired from the trip. we met keith, eddie's 4th and final roommate. he was, as all of the roommates were, quite nice, and we chatted with him for a while before crashing out.

March 25th: kite quest and beard funeral

Day 190

Friday once again arrived on swift wings. Classes went well. After lunch Jeni stopped by for tea and then we went on a quest for kites. We rode up to Dongzhou Park, as per my students' advice.

I was unable to find one with a long majestic tail, but Jeni got one with a fu manchu beard and Chinese opera face. Very cool, colorful. We attracted a gaggle of onlookers, including one chap who knew enough English and pantomime to harp on us about locking our bicycles even though they were in plain sight. We relented, if anything to shut him up, proceeded with our kite business.

To transport it back, I stuck the kite in my backpack and it hung over my left shoulder like a cannon barrel. I rode past people closely, "inadvertently" poking the end of the kite in their face, cracking myself up. We got to the field and were mobbed by primary kids all giving their two cents in Chinese about how to fly it.

The wind was terrifically strong. No sprint was needed to get it in the air. The effort was in reeling the bastard in, and Jeni was hearty. She may have discovered heretofore unknown seafaring skills in herself. I had to cut kite time off to teach the last two classes, and after those I did something drastic: I executed the beard with extreme prejudice.

The main reason is this: there was a patch near my chin that was brittle and kept breaking off. The longer the rest got, the more it would look like I had mange. A 9 month beard would have been cool, but not with a huge hole in it. For chrissakes, I was starting to do a beard combover in the mornings! Times supermarket has shaving cream now, so I won't be marooned in stubbleville.

It also occurred to me I might have been subconsciously "hiding" in the beard. How brave am I in a strange new country where uniquely "me" things such as my dimples are safely bunkered? Call it a Samson test. Also, I'm in China and can get away with the most ridiculous facial hair ever. Why limit myself to a beard? I can rock a handlebar mustache, muttonchop sideburns, whatever tickles my fancy. I'll be stared at with equal curiosity. Plus, when the weather turns warm I won't be uncomfortable, nor have a fucked-up tanline. (I won't get hassled at airport security now either.) So, apologies if I let anyone down who wanted to see it in the flesh. I didn't want to be Mangeboy.

All of us (even Andy) went to the sheep place for la zi ji ding and we let off fireworks on the way there; those whizzing bombers with report. All six went off, huzzah! We feasted, listened to a rockabilly sampler I'd brought along, swapped student stories. Mike, Andy and I ganbei'd a pepper at the end that left us euphoric afterwards. We got some ice cream on the way back and mine had a corn-shaped, corn-flavored cone wrapped around it that actually wasn't too bad. Andy swore his mushed pea popsicle was decent but I didn't try it.

Another batch of fireworks were bunk, so Mike and I took them back to dude and he gave us a fresh box. This time, all of them worked. Happiness. Jeni, Heather and I had wine and chocolate, watched Ice Age. We had originally planned on going to the club, but somehow an hour and a half got devoured on the way back to the school and the club would have been closed. I quickly became a bed burrito.

March 24th: authority issues and soccer

Day 189

The Ultraman class was delightful as usual. I showed them the St.Patricks' Day picture (since last Thursday classes missed out) and when I pointed out Tom Willis, they went nuts. "Oh, very cool!" They held up their notebooks with the Paperback stickers on them and cheered. Some told me they've been going to the website. Get your visas, boys. Looks like you may have to tour here. The power went out for the last part of class, so I lost my overhead projector abilities. I held up the pictures of the vocab "over my head", so I guess I was still overhead projecting.

After lunch, the power was still out and I was going batshit from boredom. I risked going over to the arts building to play piano, and luckily found a room open. I played both albums and started redoing a couple songs when Feng Jao Li came in. I asked her (in grunts and pantomimes) about my dictionary and she said she'd have it tomorrow. From the awkward non-exchange that one could file under communication in a Dian Fossey environment, it's evident she's not using it anyway.

The next class was very bad. Everyone was chiseling away at little stone obelisks with scalpels, some sort of art class project and I had to stop class, tell everyone to out them away or else they became Mr. Willis's. Not a minute later, a kid in the back was back, chiseling away. I went back, demanded he give it to me, and he pretended he had nothing, pointed to his eraser. I took that, went back to the front of the class, sighed in disgust. One student said, "Don't cry." That cut it. I wrote on the board, "20 lucky things." After telling them to shut up, I ordered them to take out a piece of paper and write down 20 things that are lucky. They sat quietly and I was able to have some peace and order. My dude in the back wasn't writing anything and made it clear he wasn't about to. I told him, "You have not written anything. You do not want to be in this class, so you must leave the class. Go to the teacher's office." He avoided eye contact in hopes that would thwart me. I got in his face, said, "Go to the teacher's office. Now." He had the nerve to tell me "No."

"Ok." I went out of the room to the next class and motioned for the teacher to come over. I'm not sure she understood what I was saying ("I have a very bad student. Can you take him to the office?") but followed and nodded anyway. She stuck her head in the window and the kids filled her in via pu tong hua. She exchanged a few lines with the bad kid and then he got up and went out. There was a barely audible "ohhhh" from the other kids. "Now,"I said, "Anyone else want to be bad?" No one else wanted to be bad. They started turning in their lists of lucky things. Some kids had the right idea and had curious concepts of good fortune: "Bring Bush to tea," "Bush cooks for me," "play with snow," "drink seawater." Most of the class missed the point and just made lists of English words: monkey, sheep, flowers, matchbox, lantern; the strangest of which was "luster." Reading and laughing at these got me in a good mood.

My next class was all about "play football." I told them if they were good, we would go out and play football. They were, and we sped through the lesson and we went out to the field. They kept saying things in Chinese that I knew to be "pass to the lao wei" and I kept correcting them,"Boo shir lao wei. I am peng you or may guo ren. Lao wei is bad." They kept letting it slip. It was fun playing soccer again and a comfort to know my skills were still there even if the energy is decreased. I still know how to trap, dribble, and I got in a midfield header. I'd say my years of hackey-sacking improved my skills, too. Crazy. Were it not for the language barrier, I'd love to be their soccer coach. Right now, they mostly have enthusiasm. A few fundamentals and drills could get them decent.

The power came back for the last class, so I had overhead capabilities again. Another long Thursday put to bed. Huzzah! I rode up to Dongzhou, collected Heather and we went to the music shop so I could get in some more "playing in front of other people" time. The light didn't work, and I was running out of daylight.The last two songs I played through squinted eyes. We went to Kedu for more wine and such, and to write down the funny Chinglish on certain products. Some highlights: "That is the best laugh with someone because you both think the same thing is funny." "Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with." and lastly, these sound eerily like Fudgie and Fufu lyrics: "We like the new taste. We need the quality. And we need the best food. You will find what you want. Cool fashion need cool taste. You are the new man. How delicious and can not fotget (sic), special taste, return the turn falvour (sic)--."


Rhys, Jeni, Heather and I had tree dumplings for dinner. When I was attempting to pay, a guy berhind the counter noticed my wallet and I pointed it to him, said "Eat My shorts." He nodded, repeated "Eat My Shorts" with a quiet reverence that we all found hilarious. (For those of you who don't know my eccentricities, I make wallets out of cereal boxes and my current one is made from "Eat My Shorts" cereal, a Simpsons cereal I found in the UK, featuring syrup-flavored multi-grained shorts.) When we sat to eat, I went over and ganbei'd him by declaring "Eat my shorts." The only problem was, it wasn't him. I toasted some starnger an inside joke I'd made with another gentleman. A few minutes later, he sent his son over with a tiny glass of beer and hetold us, "Next year I will go to Dongzhou. I look forward to learning from you. I hope we will be good friends." Cute. But now we had to be on our best behavior.

Afterwards we drank wine and watched "Napoleon Dynamite" again, laughed ourselves silly. Tiredness and wine spun me in its soporific web and soon I was fast asleep.

my VP's cellphone ring, and its effects on me

so, i don't normally even mention work on here, as i'd rather not get dooced. However, i think this is worth a mention, and totally not about work, so i'm safe.

i sit sort of next to the VP over my area. he just got a new cellphone in the last month or so, i think, because suddenly i've been hearing his various ringtones, which i didn't hear before, and i've been sitting close by him since like november.

anyway, his newest ring is this little ding-dong sort of ring that reminds me of the tone and the first couple notes of the Fudgie & Fufu classic "Surrender Your Panties".

apparently, though, it puts the song in my head. not a good thing at work, especially since, on a conscious level, i block it out. now what happens is this: (a) the phone rings, (b) i hear it or not, depending on whether i'm tuning out my surroundings at the time, (c) unbeknownst to me, the song gets stuck in my head, (d) i'm wandering around the office singing "you gave me not one cookie but three" and "all i wanted from you was a roll in the hay".

damn you fudgie & fufu.

March 23rd: kites and Kedu vultures

Day 188

Padding the lesson with St. Patty's review helps, along with the mouse/mouth drills. I now make them say the ridiculous sentence "There is a mouse in my mouth." I also had to work on cup/cap, really nail the vowel sounds, make them different. One class was really excited about flying kites, so we sped through the lesson and went out to the field the last ten minutes of class. I wanted to reward them for being good and using English.

They had some really unique kite designs and told me I could buy them at Dongzhou Park. I might try to pick one up this week, one with a fantastically long tail.

After classes, I rode up to the middle school. Heather, Jeni and I went to Kedu for discounted wine and tea bisquits. While in the wine aisle, one woman was inquiring about a wine I knew to be bunk and I was finally able to use my favorite Chinese phrase in context: (phonetic spelling) "Jigga bee nigga how" which means "This one is better than that one." She thanked me, said my Chinese was very good while Heather just giggled herself silly.

On the way out of the store, we saw a woman's sweatshirt which curiously read: "The more it does, the more the taste comes out." Ah, China; ever the wellspring of accidental humor. We ate at the tents, got the usual fried rice and hash brown thing. Mr. Yeah was sadly absent. Ever since I took a picture with him, he seems to have vanished.

Afterwards, Mike and I went to Times in search of bourbon, but all they had was Scotch. We tried in vain to think of the other liquor for a Rusty Nail before shrugging and planning a weekend jag to Nantong for more Wild Turkey.

Heather, Jeni, and I watched "The Ninth Configuration" and had wine. It was even better the second time. I absorbed the film on a different level and it was supremely satisfying. I gave a lecture on the history and merits of Love and Rockets, gathered my procured goodies from Kedu and pedaled home, dreading my looming long Thursday. Sleep came like a chloroform-soaked handkerchief.

pratt and brats

So it's been awhile, yes. Well I made it in to Pratt and I'm shocked and happy. . . . . . and terrified and excited. I leave I think for NY at the beginning of august so Aaron you need to get your ass home before then. I have photos for you. Aaron email me. And where hats in June. I like socks and skeleton mittens and Kittens with gloves. Aaron seriosly email me.

Hearts to the fans!

The Best 90 Minutes of My Life

The Best 90 Minutes of My Life

Thurston Moore wrote a nice article about the power of mix tapes, and touches briefly on their relationship to modern mp3/cdr trading.

inadvertent gmail humor

this made me laugh like you would not believe just now:

yes, i'm a simple man. making fun of my brother does it for me, i guess. ;)

by the way, if you have your resolution set

to 800x600, you probably can't read the blog

now. sorry about your luck. you shouldn't

have it set there, anyway. ;)

March 22nd: Easter lesson and S vs TH

Day 187

This week is the Easter lesson, which I thought was going to be gangbusters. With the first class, I got through everything and still had half the classtime to fill. I tried to find an online Easter game we could all play and I ran out the clock doing that. I worked on pronunciation for the second class and filled the time better. After lunch I got the St. Patrick's Day pictures from last week and added a "review" period at the beginning of the lesson to eat up time and practice their comprehension.

Jeni dropped by for tea, then got hit hard with a napping fit. She grabbed some winks while I wrote and listened to Ben Neill's "Tryptical." I woke her at quarter after one, and she dashed off to class.

In the apathy crew, one kid told me he would hide the Easter eggs in "his mouse." I drew a mouse on the board and looked at him puzzledly. He pointed at his mouth. "Ah," I said, "Mouth." He wouldn't say it correctly. Then he wouldn't say it at all. He stood and banged his ruler on the desk and looked around thinking I would get bored and move on. He was wrong. My job is to get students to speak correctly. I took a chair and waited for him to say it up until the bell rang. "S" and "TH" are not interchangeable. Let's say he went to America and told a girl he was going to "pleasure her with his mouse." This could cause some problems. Either she'd leave the room in a huff, or excitedly grab some PVC pipe from under the bed, but either way, our little friend said something he didn't mean.

Dinner was a little unsatisfying, so I got some vegetable snacks with "black pepper taste" and some peanut butter/chocolate Oreos (does Terry Willis know of these?) and ate them all. It was the damned MSG, I couldn't stop eating. For the next couple of hours I felt the food as a rock in the center of my chest.

I rode up to Dongzhou around 8ish to join Jeni and Rhys at dinner (not to eat, mind you). We sat at the blue pacman place and were subjected to a kung fu TV show that was more full of verbal-sparring than actual combat. Lots of "ha-ha-has" and head-throwing back. If I could write in Chinese, I would send a letter to the producers: "More whupass, less posturing. More Karo syrup trickling from the corners of mouths and less laughing. K? K."

Rhys and I went to Kedu, which rumor has it is closing. The shelves were half-full and people swarmed the check-out queues. Apparently, everyone had heard of the 25% storewide discount. I picked up some coffee for Erin, then headed across the street for sugar at Times. The dude wouldn't let me in with my backpack. There were no more lockers to put it in, and beyond that, Rhys and I are the most conspicuous men in Haimen. With eyes on us at all times, what could I hope to shoplift? I left the bag with the liquor counter girl and we made our rounds.

I dropped some juice off for Heather, who had been asleep all but four hours that day. She's a bit under the weather, poor lamb. I rode back, gave Erin her coffee and DVD player. She had been stricken with napping fits today as well. Perhaps this is where all the women will give birth to weird platinum-haired children with spooky powers like "Village of the Damned."

I wrote for a bit, retired to my cozy bunk.

I told you she was going to Moab

i hope that image shows. let me know if it doesn't.

March 21st: rainy bends and the Ninth Configuration

Day 186

The turned cold and damp again. My heater was wonked so I kept drinking tea to stay warm. I spent the first part of the day listening to the Bubbles in the Think Tank audio stream from Cincinnati. Very odd to listen to a midnight radio show at 1pm, half a globe away, hear my friends' voices broadcast. Globalization is such a headscrew sometimes. I got a shoutout from JF, though more of a good-humored roast: "....I did 'Summer Nights' karaoke with stupid McDeviltoast..."

I then chatted online with Montana, watched videos of people hurting themselves. I turned on "The Ninth Configuration" which was a very odd and engrossing film, with hilarious dialogue: "I'm afraid the end of the world has come for the bag of Fritos in my pocket." "What if God is just an all-powerful, all-knowing foot? Can you prove there's a Foot?" "God should either shit or get off the pot. There's a long line of diuretic gods waiting their turn." It's written and directed by William Peter Blatty and is a "theoretic thriller" in comedy's clothing, taking place at an asylum for deranged Vietnam vets. I need to watch it again.

When night fell, I rode out to Dongzhou, for human company more than nourishment, since I had already had a bried repast at the dining hall. When I arrived they were still engaged in the battle of who could be the biggest dining martyr ("Oh, I don't care where we eat, you decide.") so I, the least hungry one declared Muslim noodles to be the evening's feature. I wasn't in the best mood from riding in cold and rain, but I managed not to take it out on anyone. What good is it being angry at the weather? It doesn't affect the outcome whatsoever, and no one can predict exactly what it will do.

Jeni asked me what was wrong at dinner and I told her it was barometric bends, something I hadn't really realized until I said it aloud. Just knowing a symptomis physical and not mental is enough to change one's mood. ("Of course you're angry, Mr. Phelps. You have three broken ribs." "You mean I'm anot a rageaholic nutball?")

Afterwards we hung out in Heather's room, had a nightcap, some baked goods and ice cream (comfort foods to be sure). We listened to The Beach soundtrack which always conjures vivid memories of Moab: the sunny days where clouds looked painted on a window pane, driving along the winding river road to Castle Valley, hiking in Arches, looking up at the stars by myself outside of a party smiling and taking mental snapshots, all the faces and accompanying laughter of my extended desert family, the scent of sage, Bill Viavant telling stories, the way the red cliffsides gleam like a penny in the blazing sunset, the vastness of sky, the quiet, the blanketing peace that fills my heart to bursting. I can't wait to be there again even if it's only for an all-too-brief two weeks.

I rode home with a buoyant heart and a flood of images before my eyes. I pecked away at my computer nostalgic and sighing until I folded myself into a blanket cocoon, shut my eyes and let the slideshow take over.

03/20/2005: cleaning, billy connelly, and steamboy

I saw the Haywards last night, as I mentioned in the last blog entry. I was a bit displeased -- I probably shouldn't have gone. There are a couple reasons.

First, Greg (the drummer) was playing a full drum kit, which David never let me do. Second, they played a cover, which David was always reluctant to do when we played. Third, and most important in my mind: they rocked out. Dammit, every time I got the least bit "rocking", David always chastised me. Grr. Oh well. I'll just start a metal band with Tom Willis and rock out ALL the time.

I didn't do much interesting today at all. I made a quick store run to pick up a few food items (mostly cereal), and came back and ate those food items. I started again on the apartment organization, which will take a while but will be necessary for when the Toast moves in.
I started to watch THX 1138, but after about 10 minutes I realized I wasn't in the mood, so I watched a two hour live standup show of Billy Connely's in Ireland from a couple years back. That guy kills me; I was laughing out loud a LOT. I wish I knew more about vcd/dvd/mpg editing, so I could have saved it, but the file was much too large and long.

I also went to the esquire to see Steamboy, the latest anime film from the guy who directed Akira. It was good, with loads of action and though the physics were a bit off, it was at least enjoyable. The concept of steam engines powering huge machinery was pretty cool. It did make me want to watch Akira again, though.

I went home, and while purchasing gas I realized I'd left my debit card at Crush last night from when I'd opened a tab. After a quick jaunt downtown to retrieve it, I spent a couple hours chatting with the Toast, watching weird videos on the interntet, and just generally relaxing.

I'm heading to NYC this coming weekend, so this may be my last chance to relax.

here's one for stAllio, to remind him how cool Indiana really is.

Pet store owner: Satan's image on turtle's shell

March 20th: the revenge of Pat Benatar

Day 185

Rode back, caught up on riding, showered, rode back to Dongzhou. Got some tree dumplings with Heather, then she, Rhys and I went to the music shop. Rhys canceled his erhu lessons, I went upstairs to practice. They had switched pianos on me and this one was drony and muffled. While playing I got a brilliant idea.

For some reason I decided to find a practical use for the Icy Mint Sprite. It occured to me that one could use it as a base for mohitos, thereby eliminating the need for soda water, sugar, and mint leaves. We could mottle some strawberries, add rum and it would be on. I ran to Times and picked up some Icy Mint and some Sprite On Fire. (I wanted to test another theory.)

I played guitar on the roof and caught some rays for a bit, waiting for the soda to get cold. No clouds spoiled the sun, but the wind made the temperature plummet. Heather got back and we tested the mohito, it was a success. Then I had the not-so-brilliant-in-hindsight idea to combine Icy Mint and On Fire with rum, inventing a highball called a Pat Benatar (after her song Fire and Ice). Curious tasting. I didn't hate it, but I'm not sure if I liked it.

Mike collected us at five 'til six. Apparently some gent who was interested in learning English was treating him to dinner and he said the more foreigners the merrier. I chugged the second Pat Benatar and soon regretted it. The gent and his female assistant Ada met us at the gate, drove us to Shishan Lu, went inside a fairly upscale restaurant. We sat and my stomach was tying itself in knots. I cringed and tried and took deep breaths, eventually had to excuse myself to the bathroom.

The last time I had felt something like this was my 21st birthday. Sarah Peters took me into Uncle Woody's and ordered a couple mint juleps. It's always a bad sign when the bartender has to look something up in the rolodex to see how to make it. I drank it a little too fast, and it was too sweet and minty. I was soon flat out on my back in the booth, looking like John Hurt in Alien, wishing the pain would stop. Water and a burnt quesadilla fixed me up that time. Dilution is the solution.

I had drunk my tea and decimated half the peanuts before I left for the bathroom, so I just had to wait it out. I kept entertaining the idea of splashing cold water on my face, but then my beard would be wet. When I returned to the table, I rode out a few more minutes and then the knot untied in my guts and I was fine. The food came: bowls of mutton, chicken, duck's blood and squid feelers in spicy broth, water chestnuts and mushrooms, tomato and egg soup, and a crab. I picked at it, since the guy who brought it opened it for me, and I felt obliged. Orange meat, similar in flavor and texture to a sweet potato.

After the dinner, we went back to Dongzhou, sent a cab to collect Erin and Matt at the experimental school, got a crate of Tsingtao, watched "Team America: World Police" and laughed ourselves silly.

The phrase "Don't take any wooden nickels" ran incessantly through my dreams.

March 19th: blue sky Saturday

Day 184

Woke, had some coffee and watched "Night Shift," one of my favorite Michael Keaton films. ("This is Chuck to remind Bill to shut.... UP!") Heather and I walked to Royal Young Coffee for company sandwich and take advantage of our VIP card, the discount for which was barely noticeable.

The day was gorgeous, blue skies and sun, but a little windy. It soured our frisbee plans. After throwing it around in the frustrating resistance, we gave up, decided to get some sun on the roof. After four minutes of that, some beautiful mattress cotton clouds blew in and smothered the rays. "Ok," I said. "What's plan C?"

That involved bread and cheese, having some highballs. I procured some On Fire Sprite (the arch-villain of Icy Mint Sprite) and mixed it with vodka. It tasted like slightly cinnamon ginger ale, a beverage made for Terry Willis if I ever saw one. (The man loves cinnamon almost as much as peanut butter, but I'd be surprised, and revolted, if I found Peanut Butter Sprite)

Mike, Heather and I ate at the Blue Pacman. I had some benign noodles since my stomach is still gunshy about fried dumplings ever since Guiyang. Afterwards we got some fireworks and I let one off in front of the store (at the shopowner's behest, mind you) and it was a whizzing banger that careened right back into the store and exploded against a massive set of finale-size boxes. That could have been the most dazzling and dangerous thing to ever witness. The shopowner casually stomped out the sparks, moved the box aside, and everything was kosher.

We went back to the school, decided we needed more fireworks and went back. We let some off out front of Kedu, but a few of them didn't ignite at all. It was slightly drizzling rain, which mildly dampened the proceedings. Passing by the tents, we learned there would be no more pumpkin cakes, for they were out of season. Sad Xmas.

Started to watch "The Ninth Configuration," but sleep won the battle for my attention.

2005/03/19: things and stuff

jf had driven me home last night, as i'd had quite a few very tall shots of vodka at wooley's, and so we'd made lunch plans for today, so i could get a ride back to my car.

we had lunch at jimmie john's, where i pretty much get one thing: #13, which i believe is called the vegetarian gourmet sandwich, or something like that. (a quick glance at their big Flash website reveals that it is the "gourmet veggie club".) of course, the cucumbers were left off, as i'm of the opinion that if adding vinegar to something makes it better (i.e., cucumbers » pickles), then i dont like it.

the sprouts on the sandwich smelled very "sprouty", reminding me of our practice space, a warehouse-type building where sprouts are grown on the first floor. the smell is intense, so strong that it doesn't smell like food.

i had their salt & vinegar chips, which i couldn't finish, as they were more salt & vinegar than chip. i held one up for jf to look at, and the smell from it made her eyes water. they were good, though.

she dropped me off at my car, and i went over the river to barnes & noble to pick up an italian phrase book, to suplement the italian audio lessons i'm listening to in the car. additionally, i picked up velvet goldmine and thx 1138 on dvd. i think i'll like velvet goldmine even more now that i'm a huge jobriath fan; apparently the film is heavily based on him, though the director, tood haynes, denies it. if it's not true, then explain this:

inner sleeve of velvet goldmine soundtrack


inner sleeve of jobriath's self-titled 1973 debut album

see any similarity? of course not. todd haynes didn't even know who jobriath was. (yeah right).

(pictures borrowed from a nice article on glam-ou-rama.co.uk.)

i'm going to see the haywards tonight. i used to play drums/keys in that band for a year, so i'm curious what they sound like now.

i also need to talk to tom willis about starting up that metal band....

what about love?

so montana and i have re-established the excitement of experimental karaoke night.
singing U2 and the police and prince last night was sweet!


and the official word on the street is that we are taking our heart duets on the road.
we need to practice some oooooh barracuda.


my blogging has been slacking.
apologies.
i got lots of stuff going on.
all good.
and yet very time consuming.


ok.
going to eat lunch with montana & then off to crush tonight with baby kitty, montana and rockstartomwillis to see the david.

maybe a nap in between.

Mach 18th: a very bad class and a pepper ganbei

Day 183

First class of the day was intolerable. They kept talking, wouldn't shut up despite repeated pleadings. One kid kept shouting something mocking. One kid up front was texting on a mobile, others were reading books, nobody doing anything productive. A couple kids in the back said "Go home." That cut it for me. I stood outside and seethed for a couple minutes, went back in. I asked a now silent classroom if their Chinese English teachers told them to misbehave in my class, or if they were told my class wasn't important. They said no, but I think they were just trying to give an answer.

I left the class fifteen minutes early, left them to sit there in dread while I left a note for Rose telling how rotten they'd been. At the next class, Rose apologized, told me not to be upset, said she'd notified the head of the department. Ha! Those bastards would reap the whirlwind now.

The rest of the day went well by comparison. Had noodles at the Muslim place for lunch, Erin rode on the back of my bike. We watched a horrendous car accident on the way up. This old man's antique stool fell off the back of his bike and a taxi ran it over, smashed it asunder. So sad.

After eating, Erin and I madly biked back to the school. Once there, I had five minutes to spare before the next class. After class, I rode up to the music store and practiced the catalogue until I ran out of daylight. Then, back to Dongzhou for vodka and Sprites.

We ate at the sheep place for la zi ji ding. A neighboring table of two guys kept looking over and the one who was drinking beer came by and ganbei'd us. I waited a few minutes, then went over and ganbei'd him...a pepper! His face turned a little red and every time I looked over he was waving his hand over his burning mouth. I went over and had his buddy pour some milk into my cup. I drank it, made a relieved face, implored him to do the same. He upended the carton, the poor bastard.

We got some fireworks on the way back, lit them here and there, cackling into the night. Heather and I watched "Blazing Saddles" until I was sucked down the pillow vortex.

2005/03/17 and 18: karaoke

on thursday and friday night both, we did some karaoke. thursday at the golden lions i did "hey you" and another song, but i can't remember which. not a bad time at all.

on friday, karaoke was at wooley's. my friend laura's birthday had been on wednesday, but she wanted to celebrate by doing the wooley's karaoke on friday.

it's the same karaoke lady, bonnie, from our thursdays at golden lions, but it's a different clientele, and a totally different atmos. fewer people, too, meaning i got to sing more times than i wuld have at the lions. i did "never tear us apart", which is in the new director's cut of donnie darko, so it was on my brain.

januaryfairy and i did two heart tunes: "alone" and "what about love", both of which were a real good time. this was really like shirley's used to be, back in the day. i'm excited for the toast's return.

2005/03/16: Berlin

sometime last week, baby kitty asked whether i'd like to go see Berlin on their upcoming stop in (of all places) dayton, ohio. i said sure, and got the tickets on monday.

after leaving work early, i picked her up, and we headed to dayton. we were running a bit behind (the website said show at 6pm), but there were two openers, and we were hungry. the solution was a quick dinner at Friendly's.

[ah, shit -- time to karaoke. i got distracted by watching the donnie darko director's cut with commentary. i'll finish later, and put up a couple pics.]

---

ok i'm back. a few days later, but i'm back. :)

Where was I? oh yes, Berlin.

After Friedly's (where i did NOT have a reese's sundae), we went over to the Dublin Pub. it was odd -- the show was in an outdoor tent, which was conected to the actual building. we went into the building first, as our tickets were on will call. no problems there, luckily; i'm always leery of will call tickets, but it was fine this time around.

we had missed the first opening band, who was apparently a traditional Celtic band. ugh. it was the day before st. patrick's day, though, and we were at an irish pub, so i supose it was to be expected. the second openers were cinci locals Shesus. i hadnt heard them before, which was odd, since they play in cinci all the fucking time. but yeah. they were ok, not really my style, though. very similar to Wire and Elastica, especially in the basslines. the crowd for the most part seemed somewhat unimpressed, with a few exceptions up near the stage. i think folks were there for Berlin and no one else.

after a while, they finished, and we waited what seemed like forever, although it was still fairly early in the evening. eventually some radio dork came up and did the stupid intro and the band tok the stage, initially withouth terri. the band was all young -- late 20s-ish, i'd say -- and all had spiky, LA-stlye haircuts, black with colors (purple/blue/red, i think) on the tips. they played some instrumental stuff for a few moments, then terri nunn came out.

first thought: wow, she still looks great! and as soon as she started singing, it was apparent that she still sounded great, too.

they of course played most of the well-known songs: "no more words" came early in the set, while "the metro" came a bit later. they ended up playing most of the first record, in fact.

the band was good, and the sound was as well. they played at times with a backing track, which had sequenced synth parts (especially the moroder-style fast parts)., but it didn't come off as lame, as bands sometimes can who play along with pre-recorded stuff.

a great moment for me was when terri announced that they were going to play a cover. at first, it sounded like duran duran's "rio", but as soon as the vocals started i realized that it was "big time", one of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs. awesome. it was at this point that was sure i hadn't wasted the $25 ticket price.

eventually, of course, it came time for them to play "take my breath away". as an intro, terri brought up a piece of paper with a seal (the gold foil kind, not the animal) on it. she said that the mayor of dayton had sent her this certificate of recognition for berlin's award winning song "take my breath away", which (i'm paraphrasing here) "would always remind listeners of military flight."

ugh.

i looked at baby kitty, and she was looking at me with the same disgusted look on her face that i was sure i had on mine.

it was time to go.

as we left, we heard the song's synth bassline fading behind us. too bad she had to sour things by reading the stupid letter she'd gotten.

the only song i hadn't heard that i'd wanted to hear was "sex (i'm a)", which i'm sure they saved for the end of the set, or even for an encore. it was no problem, though, as i'd definitely gotten my money's worth.

we drove home, and i called gabe, who'd said he was going to come over and watch the third season of oz with me. he said he was playing video games over at our friend steve's, and he'd come over in a couple minutes. a half hour went by, and i called to check on him. "sorry man. let me beat this level." i was tired, but i'd been looking forward to oz, so i said ok. forty-five minutes after that, still no gabe. it was now nearly 1am, and i was far too tired to watch anything. i called gabe to let him know this, but before i could tell him that, he told me he'd changed his mind and wasnt coming over after all.

grr. that's an hour and a half that i could have been sleeping. oh well. naturally, i crashed after that.

here are some more pics from the show:

this one's during "big time"






that's the singer from Shesus (though i don't know her name)




there's that letter from the mayor

dooce in moab

hey, looks like dooce will be in Moab. not that it's important at all, or even likely that she'll run into someone i know there, but still -- mcdeviltoast used to live there, and ambassador bc still does, so i thought i'd mention it. you know, kind of like a celebrity visiting your hometown, except it's not my hometown, and dooce is only sort of a quasi-celebrity.

[ i'm quite a fan of dooce's blog, though were my friends to read about it, they might assume i wouldn't be. ]

March 17th: St. Patrick's Day

Day 182

My St. Patty's Day off went thusly: Had coffee, wrote, tried watching "Ghost in the Shell 2" only to discover there's no English subtitles nor English track. Nuts. The animation's top-notch but I can't follow what's going on. It's like: I know she's explaining why he killed him, but I still don't know. Crap.

Had lunch and a lunch lady approached me while I was eating, rattled some Chinese at me, despite my "ting bu dongs" and eventually figured out she was asking if we had the vegetable medley I was eating in America. Minus the bits of hot dog in it, yeah. I nodded and said, "Shir. Jay ger 'succotash.'"
She repeated, "Succotash." I nodded, and she walked away, answer sufficient.

Jeni dropped by for a spot of tea and cheese and conversation. I finished my whiskey with some very flat soda. One bottle was from the day before spring holiday. Yech. I rode out to Times and bought some vodka and some Sprite, dropped them at Dongzhou, then went to the music store and ran through the repertoire. I still haven't been able to play "Sober Me Up" exactly the way that I want, but the more I chisel at it, the closer I get.

I returned, voice loosened up, high on creativity, like a muse I.V. We had some highballs in Mike's room, listened to a rockabilly compilation I let him rip, fiddled a bit on the guitar. I'm getting better at playing with a pick (all that plectrum practice with the ruan, I wot.)

Mike held court and discussed the seemingly unreal uselessness of his job. He's figured out that the Chinese English teachers have instructed their students not to listen to us. We're figureheads because it makes the school look important. So, in essence we're getting paid to fill an administrative void, be available for practice, and travel and party. Most people would kill for a job like this, but I know what he means. You want to change the world, give grades, see some concrete results. To date, I've taught my kids three Beatles songs which they love and I know they know how to say a hard English "R" even if they never put it into practice. I've reached them (I'll be leaving behind a legacy of Chinese kids saying "guy"). I made English fun for them, and I've learned a lot from them, too. I can be proud of that.

Erin rode up and joined us and we all went for hot pot on the corner, even Andy. It was the same kind of deal as last time: they gave us a pot of stuff told us if we ate that, then we could have hot water and what we ordered. I selected out the ginger and garlic cloves with extreme prejudice. A table nearby got into a ganbei war with us. A representative from our table would go over and toast them, then after a few minutes they would send someone from their table to ours. We were drinking Tsingtao and they had Reeb. When they tried to pour Reeb in our glass, we shook our heads, said "boo hao!" We pointed to our bottle said "hen hao!" We ate our hot pot, proceeded to get fairly lit.

Our rivals left for the disco first, we followed along after some fireworks. They had no more shuttles, so we bought some spark fountains that were disappointing. They sparked and fountained as advertised but we were after something that came with a report. You can't set off car alarms with pretty sparks. The bombers with report were a little more our speed, although if memory serves right, they didn't all have report.

When we got to the club, Rhys and Jeni were lagging behind. When they caught up, Rhys was visibly upset having seen a person sleeping on the sidewalk. He acidly lashed at the Chinese government, muttered about "socialist (something) can't even give him a bed?" We all embraced him, and it was a very human scene, exhibited just how close our group was. He dabbed at his eyes, smiled, called it a "Buddhist moment." The depth of his empathy was enviable and I think it made us all stop and consider our own humanity and luck.

Inside we shanghai'd a table from a couple girls, ordered beer and a fruit platter. The energy of the crowd was weird. There seemed to be a mob around our table. One guy told Rhys that his own cock was small and Rhys's was big. That made our girls leave. Some guy at the next table stroked my arm because it had hair on it. I showed him my chest, then he wanted to arm wrestle. We left early because it was just too odd. Our guys from the restaurant showed up near the end, wanted us to dance even when there was no music.

I bought some more bomber with report on the way back to Dongzhou, but none of them had a report. 7 of the 8 were duds that just didn't even light. Boo! Sleep arrived like an anvil.

March 16th: payday and movie night

Day 181

In two separate classes, when asked what they would buy if they had a pot of gold, students answered "Beauty." I'm not sure if they meant plastic surgery or if it's synonomous with "go to spa" but it was odd nonetheless. Apparently it's in the eye of the beholder and the pocket of the gold broker.

I got a call from Jenn which was nice as always, helps me feel connected. It keeps me assured I'm still known in the 275 loop.

I lost my patience a little with the last class, forever begging them to be quiet and even ranted a little under my breath, "Little emperors and little empresses. This is what happens when you don't have siblings to keep you in check, you become little fucking brats." They found it amusing to play with coins while I was lecturing, letting them fall to the floor and make noise. I began taking them away, and by the end of class, Mr. Willis had about five kuai.

Earlier I had asked Rose if I had to teach on Thursday since some students had mentioned they had exams. I did not. Good news, for that was my dreaded "long day." Now I had all St. Patrick's Day to do whatever. We got paid and went to the hotel for sustenance. The Dongzhou crew met us there, even Andy, and we ate, drank and laughed, vented about our bad students.

They cabbed it back and I rode to the DVD store to return the bunk copies of "Godfather II" and "Eyes Wide Shut"(it glitched about two minutes from the end credits), picked up hopefully better copies of the same, along with some others. Heather and I watched "Silver City," a decent if somewhat disorganized comic mystery that unabashedly lampoons Bush. Chris Cooper is spot-on as the "user-friendly" gubernatorial candidate, Richard Dreyfuss as the film's Karl Rove, and too many more to namedrop. Billy Zane is in it, but underused, but of course I'm biased because he's the rock star of the universe.

Sent a happy birthday text message to Tom Willis's cell phone, then folded into cookie dough blankets and snored away my cares.

March 15th: moldavite doorway to lucidity

Day 180

Taught the St. Patrick's Day lesson and talked about Tom Willis's birthday as filler at the end of class. I drew a leprechaun that the kids thought was "pie-pie" (Popeye). So then I had to draw Popeye next to it and do a comparison. I then made a list of lucky and unlucky objects and habits, implored them to tell me some Chinese equivalents. Appraently if your right eye twitches, it's unlucky but your left eye twitching is lucky. A bird WCing on your head is bad luck, too.

After class, I went to Dongzhou, threw the frisbee around with Heather and mike. The field was getting "watered" (random nozzles pooling water while the rest of the field stayed bone dry) so we had to throw it around on the track bend. Tiny painted pebbles make up the surface of the track and it's an injury waiting to happen. None of us Tim Krumrie'd though.

I played guitar for a little bit in Mike's room and it "only whetted my appetite without beddin' 'er back down" so I rode to the music shop, played for an hour. "Ultraviolet for the Mole" is a damn good tune and I'm getting decent at the falsetto vox. For dinner, Jeni, Heather and I ate at the tree dumpling place, punished some pork and mushroom dumplings and cucumbers. Rhys is still feeling under the weather, so Jeni got some dumpling takeaway for him.

Heather and I rode back to my place so I could do laundry. We started watching "Eyes Wide Shut" but then got into a massive conversation about enlightenment and the nature of energy. I got frustrated at myself halfway into it because I realized we weren't defining energy the same way. I told her about Bruce, Roy and I discussing the definition of evil for 8 hours, fun times in the desert, describing the way the gnarled rock and terrain can be touched with your eyes.

When she left, I dotted our foreheads with moldavite oil, which gives vivid dreams. After the badass talk, I wanted to continue the cerebral exploring. I did have odd, nearly lucid dreams. At one point I was riding in the back of a station wagon talking about going on tour, riding out I-70 toward the desert, talking with people from out there, meeting and hugging my brother's string bean son who looked like a clothespin soldier after his growth spurt and who doesn't exist in real life. My brother and his wife were in a police station, having cut their honeymoon short because someone at Tom's company died, and their wallets might have been stolen as well. I remember seeing a "Montana &McDeviltoast" sweatshirt in a thrift store, Middletown nearly flooding, crying from joy. I almost slept through my mental alarm clock.

2005/03/15: montana is behind in the blogging

Of course! 'm backlogged (backblogged?), so a few quick things:

• Last monday (03/07), Prantershifter with special guest DJ Empirical opened up for the Trevor Dunn / Shelley Burgon duo. How was their (Prantershifter/Empirical) set? It was a good time; loads of noise, and I thing people were amazed at the sounds coming out of the turntable.
• I actually missed the Dunn/Burgon set, which I had wanted to see. I missed it because I was downstairs at the show in the ballroom: Large Number, the nom de sonique of Ann Shenton, who was in Add N to X, a great electronic band. Her set was great: analog synth backing tracks with homemade noisemakers / theremin / sequencer nonsense. Good times. Plus, she was charming as all hell, and Marc (her company on the tour, the guy who owns the record label she's on, and I suspect her bf as well) was super-cool, too. We exchanged info; I think he'll be a good contact.

more to come later; i have to excape work. ;)

---

ok, i'm back. too much to go into...

• i just interviewed Roesing Ape for (hopefully) citybeat, who published my interview with spencer back in december.
• pink floyd: the wall is a great film that i've owned for over a year on dvd but not watched since the early nineties, at a time when i didnt really care about film or pink floyd. this weekend i've watched everything on the dvd, including videos and documentaries. you should watch it again sometime; with me, if you need motivation. :)
  
• i bought & watched the director's cut of donnie darko; i liked it. it's more of a "remix" (the director's word, not mine), but it is different enough that people are debating online whether it's better or not. i dont know about better, but i did decide to keep both versions.
  
• three cheers for Baby Kitty; she got accepted to pratt! of course, that solidifies her moving to nyc in september, which will be sad christmas for me & others here in cincinnati, but good news for her. she really is a great artist -- wait till she gets pratt under her belt!
• i'm going to see Berlin tomorrow. it should be fun, even if they end up not being too great. :)
  

ok, that has to be all for today -- time to straighten up the apartment.

March 14th: male periods and un-OK computers

Day 179

Rode back to the school, saw that the funeral thing was still going on. Caught up on writing, kept thinking about showering and doing laundry but never quite made it happen. Spent the day trying to shake the weird feeling I had. Kind of a crazy/depression/manic/impatience. My time of the month I guess.

I worked on vocab for my lesson plan, tried finding the words and chords to "In a World of My Own," a song from "Alice in Wonderland" I'd like to cover. It's a lilting swing number that lends itself well to a Syd Barrett interpretation. My computer was being slow and fussy. Frustration.

Heather came by with a few beers and we tried to watch "A Very Long Engagement" but it had no English subtitles, nor English language track. Disappointed. Watched "Mission:Imposible" instead since I had never seen it and I tend to dig Brian Depalma's stuff. It was ok. Seemed like he was waiting the whole film to get to the train sequence. Lots of his signature camera work, mostly overhead POV shots like in "Blowout" and "Snake Eyes."

I turned in shortly thereafter, Heather pedaling back in the stubborn March chilliness. I set my brain to wake at 8am, ready for another week of teaching.

stAllio!'s fancy bullets: do they work for you?

so, in designing the fancy new layout for this blog, stAllio! used some fancy new bullets for the list items to the right. these show up fine in Firefox (the browser you would be using if you weren't using Internet Explorer by default), but don't seem to work in IE.

In Firefox, the sidebar to the right of this blog looks like this:

See those fancy bullets? If not, let me or stAllio! know. He talks a bit more about it on his blog, too.

I'm keeping them, by the way. They look great to me.

[p.s., check out his mp3 of the week page for a new stAllio! tune every... well... week.
while we're at it, you should buy his true data 12", not because he redesigned our blog, but because it kicks major ass.]

March 13th: pasta under the cheshire moon

Day 178

Woke well rested, in a better mood, but confused by my surroundings. Not the hotel, but China in general. Dreams, even if nonsense, are still based in America and seem more real than the reality of being in China. In the bathroom was a rack of gender-specific mouthwashes and cleanser packets, the latter reading: For Man Only or For Woman Only. I flipped it over and it read: "For the washing of man genitals. Kill germs on contact." What the hell kind of place were we staying in? I then noticed the scuff marks on the walls, unmatching piecemeal carpet repair, errant screwholes in the ceiling. Everything looked fancy in the dark.

We cabbed it to Matt's dorm, then on to the Metro, a glorious supermarket, but only in the context of China. I wouldn't get as big a hard-on over going to Sam's Club in the states, but the rarity of Western foods here has elevated their worth to stratuspheric heights. I procured my cheese, mustard, tea, and some Tabasco for Mike.

The bus ride back to Haimen was an exercise in defining "capacity." People sat on plastic stools in the aisle, and still we crammed more folks in like a fraternity game. Matt and I discussed China's unabashed racism and homophobia. I theorized on the racism issue that since most Chinese never leave their own country, there is no urgent need for them to stop being ignorant. If you will likely never have contact with an African person, there will never be an opportunity to meet and thus change your passed-down ungrounded fears and stereotypes. That sucks. However, they are going to have to confront their homosexual hang-ups. Making it illegal won't change someone's orientation, and if they're hellbent on turning China into America Minus, that's one of the first things they need to work on. The equation of not enough women and too many "bare branches" is certain to at least up the curiosity factor.

After some Muslim noodles, Erin, Matt and I went back to the experimental school. I wrote for a bit, the Matt and I played frisbee on the newly tetanus-free field. The wind played havoc with our tosses, and after getting winded we went back inside for some Jack and vanilla Cokes. Matt taught me cribbage and we played a couple games. I showered, gathered materials for dinner, and we all rode to Dongzhou. On the way, we heard a great tribal drum and flute melee, and we rode by an outside gathering which Erin pegged as a funeral. It's weird to see white as the color of mourning, see vibrant decorations. It could have just as easily been a wedding reception, but none of the people seemed in particularly good cheer.

We rode on, had some wine and cheese, cooked pasta. "I just wanted to say while you're all gathered here that you are some beautiful amazing people that I'm proud to claim as my friends," I said. "I'm glad you're sharing this experience and I'm glad you don't suck." We all toasted to that. One of those sentiments that are often thought, seldom spoken. I want to change that. I'm going to miss this crew when I go back to the states. The next four months have to be appreciated to their fullest, for these times shall not return again. A similar version might occur, but these exact specific conditions, mindsets, and situations are all unique to this now. This now must be milked.

We feasted proper, then watched "Alice in Wonderland." The moon outside was exactly shaped like the Cheshire Cat's smile. With a bellyful of carbs and a headful of spirits, I was soon in my own wonderland of sleep.

Star Wars Episode III Trailer

Yes, here is is: the trailer.

I don't know. I'll probably see it, and it'll look really god, but I guess I just can't get excited for Lucas' stuff any more. I think the last thing he did that I still really like were the Indiana Jones films. Maybe Williow, too, but I haven't seen that one in quite a while.

Oh well.

I still need to pick up THX 1138... that thing was awesome.

stAllio! designed this new layout

stAllio!, of animals within animals, was kind enough to take a few minutes and design this sweet-ass new blogger template for me.

head over to his blog and tell him what a good job he did.

thanks man.

--montana--

March 12th: Nantong tomfoolery

Day 177

Pants dry, I rode home, watched "Dawn of the Dead" with commentary (can't get enough of this film lately), showered, went to the bus station bound for Nantong. On the ride over, I rehearsed lyrics while Rhys and Mike talked Civ III in the back.

Once in Nantong, we caught a couple cabs to Matt's dorm (it is forbidden to take five people in one cab, whereas scooters can fit a family of four with an infant resting on the handlebars and not be stopped by police.) Had a couple drinks with Ben (formerly Michael Moore of the Nantong Xmas party) and their prized pupil Bruce, a Chinese guy in his 20's with staggering English skills.

Another cab ride took us to a restaurant downtown, and we assembled around a large round table, next to another table also filled with expats, including Peter (John Wayne from the Xmas party) who either didn't remember that I was Uzbekistani last time we met, or just didn't bring it up to save face.

Bruce ordered for us, and we were introduced to a new dish called diamond potatoes, which had the flavor and texture of deep-fried pancake. They were a little too good. Ganbei-ing occured for every occasion: Erin's birthday, fellow British countrymen being well met, and Bruce practicing all the different ethnic ways of saying "cheers."

Afterwards we went to the DVD store and I grabbed the Kurosawa boxed set for Montana, some animated stuff for myself. Then it was on to the "Park Bar," a bar located in the middle of a park, replete with lagoon and boats and shitty cover band playing everything from S.H.E. to Avril Lavigne. Somehow our table got into a heated half hour debate about whether pantskirts existed or not. I met a Pole in the bathroom briefly and back at our table he interrogated Rhys and I with true Eastern bloc tenacity.

Mike met a few girls in the bathroom, and an obnoxiously horny gent named Dickie who had a sweet tooth for Anglo women. He asked about the marital status of all the girls in our group and Heather had me link arms and claim boyfriendhood to parry his lascivious scrabbling.

Next we went to City Hunter Pub, and made a run across the street to a place Russel claimed made badass chicken wraps. Russel didn't lie. One of the chaps behind the counter called me "bin laden" as did two people at Park Bar, so I'm now 5 Saddam/Osama comments away from losing the beard. "That's not nice," I told him. "I'm not calling you 'Zoolander' over here." His hair was spot-on and I started shooting looks like "Magnum" and "Le Tigre" at him.

Upstairs in the City Hunter, it was dim and warm and relaxing. I felt like I could pass out at any second but couldn't. It was torture. Also, Mike had stretched out at the only place available and mockingly napped in front of me. I was extremely tired and grumpy. I waited outside for the group to leave and Peter came out and started talking to me. I was in hell. I didn't have the patience to even stand upright and this guy wanted to make chitchat. I wanted to bite his forehead.

At last, everyone made it outside. Rhys, Jeni and Mike cabbed it back to Haimen, Erin and Matt cabbed it to the dorm, Heather and I walked in search of a hotel. We could have cabbed it back, but we wanted to hit the fuck-off supermarket the next day, get some cheese and such.

We negotiated with the clerk lady but she was playing hardball, wouldn't give us a discount, despite the late hour. There was only one room left and she almost started to give it to a couple that came in after us. Heather put a stop to that business, and soon we found oursleves in a suite with the most comfortable beds since Rongjiang. In short time I plummeted into unconsciousness.

March 11th: fireworks and fired weather

Day 176

Woke to find the internet down. My classes weren't as into the lesson as I had hoped. In the class before lunch, one guy said yes when I asked him if he was bored. I collected the cards, shook my head, explained to them that I tried to make classes fun for them and it made me sad they weren't having fun. "We are hungry," one girl offered. I shot back, "So am I but I still like to have fun. You guys aren't into it."

The girl behind bored guy asked what bored meant and I realized he ahd answered yes to something he didn't even understand. Christ. Jeni stopped by after lunch and we had tea and strawberries, chatted about our bad kids. Erin came in, announced she was going to Nantong early, meaning if no one else wanted to go, I'd have to get there by myself, which meant I wouldn't be going at all.

I was going on energy fumes for the last two classes, then had some tea and watched the "Dawn of the Dead" director's cut (which worked this time) and the bonus feature business. Heather called, then Erin called, Nantong would have to wait until tomorrow. I rode up to Dongzhou in weather so pathetically horrendous it was laughable. Headwind all the way, blinking through snowflakes going right into my eyes, growling every obscenity I could conjure through gritted teeth. Stupidest weather ever to merit a pink slip.

When I got to Heather's room, I stood with my hands up like I was waiting for the heater to return my high five. Jeni and Heather laughed. After the warming effects of some Tsingtao, my sense of humor thawed. We went out to Sandy's for some grub, but Mike stayed in where DVDs and warmth were; probably a smart choice in hindsight.

I got two packs of the "shuttle" fireworks, lit one while waiting for a cab and it zoomed right on top of the textile factory's roof and exploded. I couldn't have planned something that cool. We hailed a cab to Andy's club which turned out to be closed for a couple months. (Maybe they're renovating the suck out of it.) A few grey-suited cops on bikes were on the corner when we went up, they were gone when we came back. With the coast clear, we lit another shuttle that detonated a little too near a motorcycle and a newspaper kiosk. If it wasn't so funny,it might have been alarming. One shuttle was a dud. It seems in every pack there's at least one.

We cabbed it to the other club, let off another shuttle which in turn, set off a car alarm. I was only able to MC a little before the floor show, then lost my steam after. The guy who thought the British tobacco was something else "disagree" danced near me while I rhymed and I kept pointing at him going, "Disagree! Disagree to the beat! Say no! Say no to the beat with your cigarette! Smoke that cigarette and say no to the beat! Get it, son!" Then Marco put on this cartoony kidstuff saccharine house and I rapped, "E-M-A-S-C-U-L-A-T-E! That's what this song does to me!" and left my post on the monitor.

There was a catfight during the kung fu act where dude was stepping on broken glass and holding three guys aloft while he did it. I tried to ganbei with the gents at the next table but they were drinking green tea. No wonder they didn't have any women around. I said to them, "Come on, two of you guys have mustaches! You can't get a single woman over here? It's sausage fest! What's up?"

After we left, we set off another shuttle that burst right outside someone's second floor window. A few cops on bikes were nearby and instead of reprimanding us, they bade us to light another one. I love China. I let the other two off outside Kedu. I waited until the car alarm from the first one turned off before lighting the second one, effectively triggering it again. I am a bastard.

We got some dumplings at the tree place, which was miraculously still open after midnight. Our sauce gent spilled oil and vinegar both my pants and Heather's. Super. When we climbed the gate, police saw us and then the gate chap woke, so we fled. Heather put our pants into wash and I put on "Sea Change" by Beck until she got back, but ended up passing right out.

March 10th: hair cut and pyro indulgences

Day 175

Found a note under my door from Rose saying I was to be in a video that morning. I hastily showered, made some coffee, went to her office. The police station was making a video showing how satisfactory their processing of foreigners was. They filmed me walking in, and the lady said, "Welcome to here." To which I replied, "Hi, I'd like to get my foreign expert certification please." Then they filmed mesaying, "Their service was very satisfactory. The staff was very helpful." And that was it. They bestowed a couple odd keychains as gratitude and then we drove back to the school.

Classes went well, but in one class the CD player didn't work, so the lesson capper was shot. I sat disappointed and my students asked if I was very sad. I said yes. In all my classes they asked if I was cold. It was an especially warm day and I had broken a Hawaiian shirt out of mothballs. It's a cultural thing, the cold asking. Even the cops on the drive over to film asked me this, right after watching me remove my jacket. I went off on my last class for asking, I'm afraid. "No, I'm not cold! I'm very hot! If I was cold, I would have a sweater and a jacket and a hat on! I don't have them on, so I'm not cold!" Their answer: "Ting bu dong."

After classes I rode up to Dongzhou, met Heather, and we gave the money exchange thing another try. Rose had given me a copy of the contract with the added red stamps of officialhood. This time it worked even though it took forever for them to get my precious documents back to me. And then they asked if I wanted to convert the RMB to US dollars. Wasn't that the whole fucking point? I stopped to get my hair cut on the way back. I just wanted the back trimmed up a bit. That took about two hours. Heather stood sentry so I wouldn't be leaving with a big orange mullet.

We feasted at the tents. Andy crashed, then picked up the tab. I wanted to get some more fireworks, but we couldn't find the whizzers from last time. I got a 16 pack of comparable jobs and four little space shuttle thingies. The whizzers whirled into the air but gave no report. One was a dud and we kept trying to get it to light from the jettisoned flames of the working ones. No avail. One of the space shuttle guys refused to detonate as well. The other three worked just fine.They whizzed up in the air throwing off green sparks, but lifted only a little as if their payload was too heavy. Then, a thundering report. Those unassuming sonso'bitches packed a mighty whallop.

We were going to watch a film, but listened to Radiohead and fell asleep instead.

March 9th: bike dealings and bank hassles

Day 174

Classes went well. Steven sat in on his class, but the students weren't reticent with their speaking and singing like before. Right before the Harry and Monkey class, the teacher pulled a "I've got a meeting, can we switch?" thing again. To kill time, I rode to the nearest bike chap and attempted to get my back tire fixed.

He fiddled with it, disassembled, applied grease and fresh ball bearings, reassembled, and ended up making me late by five minutes. People stood around and offered their two cents while he tinkered, which may have contributed to the lengthy fixing time. As I rode back, it still wasn't completely fixed, but better than before, no outright rubbing of the brake.

In the Harry and Monkey class, one girl was stonewalling me, figuring if she kept looking around and not saying anything I would lose interest. She was wrong. I wouldn't let the class proceed until she answered and I wasn't going to let anyone else give her an answer. I had to throw chalk at one kid who wouldn't keep his stinkin' trap shut. All I was asking for was one English word that she didn't like (something she wanted "less of" in her life) After an agonizing five minutes, I coaxed "fish" out of her. Finally!

We sang the song and waved the cards like baptist church fans, then the bell rang. Heather and I went to the bank to try and convert some RMB to USD. After a lot of noise, they told us they couldn't do it because my contract was lacking a red stamp. Red stamp, red tape, red China. It's not about communism, it's about paperwork.

We swung by another bike chap's on the way back to Dongzhou and he fixed Heather's brakes, attempted to iron out my rear tire wobble. He got slightly closer to success than the first guy. For dinner, we went to the sheep place for la zi ji ding. It's too damn good. We also tried a new dish called "pork with fresh taste" that was mostly water chestnuts. The pork in it was sparse. It should have been called "fresh taste with a cameo by pork."

Since I couldn't breathe, I decided to eat a pepper. Then another one. The first was easy. The second was brimstone. I felt euphoric afterwards, though. We made a stop by the bakery on the way back and I got a cake shaped like a house. The cakes in China are not very sweet, nor is the icing. It's like they use all the sugar in the bread and then shrug when it comes to actual desserts.

I also bought some fireworks on the way home and we let them off in front of the school, 14 little whizzer guys shaped like butterflies. The first one set off came back at me because wasn't sure how I was supposed to lay it. Mike and I set some off simultaneously trying to get them to collide in the air. We failed, but came close.

Heather, Jeni and I watched "The Big Lebowski" while Rhys and Mike played Civ III. Following the film, sleep came in like the tide.

Six Perfect Sideburns in Five Minutes!

The best thing i've seen today: Six Perfect Sideburns in Five Minutes, which seems to me like some guy's get-rich-quick scheme. Sweet. Let's see whether one of the images will work here:



nice. maybe mcdeviltoast could use that when he decides to spurn the beard.

oh snap! there's video!



hot.

March 8th: a river ride and a spell of gluttony

Day 173

Taught the "All Together Now" lesson, which involves asking everyone what they would like a little more of, a little less of and whom they would most like to bring to tea. Then I pass out colored cards with letters, numbers, phrases from the song and when they hear what they have in the song, they hold up it up. When "All together now" is sung, we all wave our cards in the air like idiots. They had fun, although the third class got a little too into it and one kid threw his card out the window.

After classes, Heather came by and we rode to the river. Except for the tiny black insects that kept hitting us in the face and the surrounding farmers hellbent on filling the air with smoke from burning piles of whatnot, it was a pleasant ride. The river was hazed over with smoke and made an ethereal void where one could not tell where water ended and sky began.

Being riverside took me back to my days as a sullen teen down by the Little Miami hunting bottles, playing out little adventures, exploring. This was before the Middletown movers and shakers decided they needed their own Sawyer Point and trundled over my precious greenery with bulldozer treads, killed countless wildlife and uprooted countless more, and to what end? Lake Middletown, which is neither a lake nor Middletown. Many years later, the greenery is back, but now there's a walkway leading from the commemorative bricks to a poorly planned stage/pavilion overlooking nothing; beyond, a barely noticeable aneurysm in the riverflow upon which no imaginative mind would hang the moniker "lake." I strongly suspect money laundering, investment embezzlement.

We searched in vain for suitable skipping stones, found a few, but they lacked the weight to stay level in the wind. The conversation turned to languages, Alainna exiting. What is it about some people who will not let themselves be happy and try to sabotage others' happiness around them? I suppose the ethos is if you make yourself unhappy, you maintain the illusion you have some control over how you feel, and you find a sick contentedness in "choosing" to be unhappy. In a state of unhappiness, there is nowhere to fall. Going from a state of happiness to unhappiness is more of a drop, and some people can't take the impact even though neither state lasts very long. Everything's transition.

We rode back, picked up three bags of strawberries on the way back from a roadside vendor. We had a highball, ate strawberries, woke Erin from her nap. She had forgotten the secret knock and she had me open her bottle of wine. When she went back to her room to retrieve a glass, the knock was different. I called out, "That's not it, but close enough." Nigel came strolling in with a letter for me. D'oh!

He rambled about a new Canadian teacher guy in town who was looking for some cool people to hang out with. We said ok, and I gave him my email address to forward to the gent. It took another seven minutes for Nigel to leave. He kept finding new ways to say the same three sentences. He's talented that way. A walking thesaurus of banality.

We headed out to get Muslim noodles behind Dongzhou. I was struck with a spell of gluttony that rivaled Rhys. I finished my noodles, Heather's and started in on Erin's. We went back to the school, dropped off a book and some strawberries to Jeni (who's under the weather right now, poor lamb), headed off since Heather had her dizi lesson.

I bought a pack of Lovely Puffs and punished those on the ride home, then ate the sanctioned snack o' the day before starting in on the candy. What the hell was wrong with me? I supose maybe the bike ride burned up more fuel than I realized. My back tire has a brake solidly against it at all times, so everywhere I ride, it's like going uphill. Must get that fixed. Erin had emails to write, but she donated the DVD player so I could watch some "Dawn of the Dead" and "Maverick." Slept.

March 7th: errands in the sun

Day 172

Woke and rode home, caught up on writing, had strawberries at lunch. The weather keeps getting better. I rode my bike to do errands in short sleeves. It was almost not warm enough to do that, but the sun felt too good. I pedaled to the paper shop to get some construction paper for my lesson, then rode to the music shop and practiced. My voice was in fine form for having eaten cheese lately.

Afterwards, I hung out on the Dongzhou roof waiting for my mates to get out of class. I basked in the sun and jotted some notes for this week's lesson. It felt amazing to drink in the vitamin D, to have shirts-off time after such a strange Chinese winter. The weather is returning to what I experienced when I first got here. It's making me happy, but also reminding me that my time here is running out. These next 17 weeks are going to breeze by.

Mike, Heather, and I played frisbee for a while, then sat inside and caught our breath, wet our whistles. We started talking about lawn chairs for the roof and got worked up to ride out and find some. Really it was just an excuse to be outside getting more exercise. We tried a couple outdoor places but they were charging too much. Plus, the Dongzhou liasion was supposed to provide roof materials. I'm envious of their roof. I suppose I could go to the top of the administrative tower at the experimental school, but it's a long climb and it's likely too windy to be enjoyable.

We swung by the sheep place on the way back for la zi ji ding, then pedaled back in the growing dusk. The days are getting longer again. The sun used to set at 5, now it's nearer 6:15. I can only hope the spring is mild. It's taking pure stubbornness to keep the beard. Intense heat could sway me in an instant.

Since they had a Chinese lesson, I rode home, watched "Finding Neverland" with Erin. It was alright. That Depp is a good time. I prepared my lesson, stretched the frisbee kinks out, retired.

2005/03/06: a quick one

i had made plans with gabe to have brunch, but he called me at 4:30pm to say he'd overslept and that he had to go to work. suck. oh well, at least i'd gotten that long circus blog entry out of the way while i'd waited.

i cooked some ramen and was about to watch jacob's ladder when lyndsey called. i ate while i chatted with her for a few minutes, catching her up on things in the last couple weeks since we'd spoken. i got a call waiting beep, and when i flashed over i heard a familiar "mr. boyd!", which was my friend andy action, formerly of the band 2 skinnee j's, and currently of the fantastic band cardia. i'd called him earlier in the weekend looking for possible places to crash in nyc for the then-possible-now-definite trip there in a few weeks. he said that he lives in staten island now, a long trek on public transit to do anything at all, so it was probably out of the question. oh well; at least he said he'd probably make some time to hang out. sweet.

i watched about an hour of jacob's ladder, but at 8pm i went to meet with jim from chalk about the collaboration tomorrow night between jim's prantershifter and the QEG's dj empirical. the two of them played for a couple hours, and worked out some material for tomorrow night's set. i have to say that i'm quite excited, and the fact that they're opening for trevor dunn and shelley burgon is incredible as well.

after that, i picked up baby kitty from work so she wouldn't have to walk home in the dark, then hung out with her and listened to the bubbles in the think tank show on WAIF. donald spivak called in, but didn't know shit about 70s music trivia. that's cool for him, but sucks for his entertainment value calling in.

back home at 2am, blogged while listening to a live patton/d.e.p. show, and then watched the rest of jacob's ladder. i forgot how hot elizabeth peña is!

time for sleep.

[ p.s., i slightly altered the blog layout. did you notice? now the "posted by" is much more prominent, which i like, and the text at the bottom of each post is a little different. ]

March 6th: looming spring

Day 171

Rode home and caught up on writing. The weather has been getting steadily better. Spring is not quite here yet, but it's stretching out, preparing for its unveiling. These days you can almost see it running around the track. "Hey Spring, when's the big day?" "Pretty soon, pretty soon. I've gotta be able to go all day. Need more training...."

I grabbed the two blocks of cheese Erin got for me, headed back up to Dongzhou. Mike, Heather and I tossed around the frisbee a while. Heather had to call it quits early on because a fierce toss jammed her fingers in. We kept trying to perfect different catches like the"castrati," the "prison bitch," and the "Doc Holliday."

Heather went to practice her dizi while Mike and I ate chips and salsa, drank Wild Turkey and watched "Point Break." Halfway through, we went to Kedu for some crackers and such. We swung by the tents on the way back, got chicken on a stick, and a pumpkin cake for Heather. A couple Chinese girl students were standing there and Mike engaged them in English, of which they had mad savvy. Mike picked up the tab on their chicken sticks as reward and encouragement.

Cheese and cracker fest commenced, then the next feature was "O Brother Where Art Thou?", more Tsingtao. The spring vibe was in the mail. Soon would come that almost detectable smell of sunshine, of grass, the magic sounds of distant woodworking, a pandemic of smiles, the ultraviolet vitamin D cleansing furrowed brows and stagnant spirits. It's like having tickets to the circus, but knowing it's still weeks away. Don't drag you feet, Spring. Let's see some hustle.

All but Mike went to the tents for sustenance (he had to iron out the week's lesson plan) The light bulb strand that was hanging haphazardly from the iron frame of the tent kept going off and on with the gentle breeze. "It's going to have to flash a lot faster if you're trying for a rave," I joked.

Mr. Yeah came over, said "Yeah", tried to give us all cigarettes. My fried rice was ruined by the cameo of a chicken bone. Rhys punished a repulsively large bowl of noodles, which when flipped over could be used as a midget's World War I doughboy helmet.

Our endurance sapped from all the fresh air, exercise and alcohol, we retired.

2005/03/05: the circus

despite having gone to bed at almost 7am (note the time on my prior blog entry), i woke up at my usual saturday noon-ish. after showering (note: shower music was Mushroomhead's Superbuick), i remembered that i needed to get, among other things, a new black printer cartridge, as mine had run out earlier in the week.

i made a quick jaunt to target (which i'm not fond of, but at least it's not wal-mart, and it looks better/less trashy), where i quickly found the cartridge i needed. this is quite different from my experiences with previous printers i've owned, where often i've struggled to figure out (a) which cartridge i need, and (b) where i could find it.

additionally, i picked up a particular spongebob dvd for baby kitty because it contained our favorite episode, "Sailor Mouth" (which we've incorrectly been referring to as "Sailor Talk" all this time). in it, spongebob learns a "dirty word" which, since it's a kids' show, was "bleeped" out with a dolphin sound, making for a particularly funny sequence where half the dialog is dolphin sounds. in much the same way that full nudity can be less sexy than clothing, censored dialog can often be funnier than if the words were really there. (for reference, compare the censored/uncensored versions of the dvds of The Osbournes).

i watched it while she got ready for our evening. a couple days ago, she'd asked me whether i wouldn't mind going with her to the circus, and, being the good friend that i am, i said yes. i'd purchased our tickets online friday afternoon (yay modern technology!), and so we were good to go.

traffic downtown was atrocious; it reminded me why i don't do concerts larger than bogart's size (about 1200 people capacity). after loads of driving, and even more not-driving, we finally found a parking lot only a block from the big huge place where the circus was. it only cost $6 (which, for you brits, is probably about 12p right now), which i thought was not bad, considering.

we made our way inside, past kiosk after kiosk of merchandise for sale (not to mention the food counters as well). it was nearly all the same stuff at each counter, too, which was weird and quite disorienting -- we were walking through a crowd along the outside of a great circle, passing the same kiosk many times, like some crappily-animated 50's cartoon or something.

i noticed from the merchandise that this was something like the 134th ringling bros and barnum & bailey circus. my quick math made it clear, then, that this had been going on since the civil war. pretty crazy stuff.

a testament to how small a town cincinnati actually is came in the form of noah sweeny, aka 'nati kid from the animal crackers, a cincinnati hip-hop dj crew. we'd been there only a short while and i ran into someone i knew.

we found our seats, naturally flanked on either side by families. in fact, as you'd expect, we were the odd ones out, as a survey of the crowed showed families everywhere. i made a mental note to try to contain my own "sailor mouth".

our view wasn't bad -- we were on the corner of the rounded-rectangle of the floor, at about row "t", meaning we were 20-odd rows up. when the lights when down, it was a sea of twirly lights, one of the many overpriced items at the ubiquitous kiosks. here's what i mean:

the crowd

yes. those things were $16 to $18, depending on the variety, so that pic shows about $1000 in the pocket of the circus and the big huge venue we were at. amazing.

a couple quick notes:

• my digital camera is not the best. these pics are going to be somewhat grainy and all that, and blurry, too, where there's motion. i know most of you won't mind, but if you don't like it, buy me a new camera. (please.)
• i am almost certainly violating copyrights by posting pics. i don't care. they can eat me. i figure, for $25 per ticket, i get to post pics on my website.

the first bit of action was right in front of us: a man and a woman, each on their own tall pole, which had a ring at the top. the poles swayed back and forth, and the crowd ooh-ed and aah-ed appropriately.

the pole climbers

the woman was hot, by the way, except for the ugly yellow sequined costume.

what i found more interesting, though, was the shadow of the pole climbers cast by the spotlight onto the crowd.

the pole climbers' shadow

baby kitty got a phone call around this time:

baby kitty on the phone

she was actually able to say someone, "no, i'm at the circus, i'll have to call you back." i'm jealous. incidentally, later on that evening i heard the little boy in the family next to me say the same thing into what i'm assuming was his parents' cellphone. seeing an 8-year old say that into a phone was funny as hell.

after that, there was the requisite trapeze act, which pretty much did what every trapeze act does.

the trapeze act about to begin

oh yeah, there was a magician guy too, but the pics of his didn't come out all that well, and it was really only funny if you were a kid, i guess. speaking of kids, i stole a pic of the kid behind us playing with his $18 light thing.

some kid and his lightup toy

i'll bet it broke later that night at home.

next were the horses, which baby kitty of course loved. i personally am not so into horses, but here's a pic anyway:

horses

pretty much that pretty girl just led them around and made them switch directions and that sort of thing. i was more marvelled by the training that the feats themselves.

another quick note here: i personally am fascinated by "process". by this i mean, how something, a piece of art, perhaps, gets to where it is. thus, the above comment on the training. in fact, much of the time i was watching the rings where the action was not, becuase to me, the action there was also fascinating: setting up the next act, tearing down the previous act to make room.... that stuff is great.

so, the next act, which i watched them set up, was this huge spinny thing with a dude in it, kind of like a hamster wheel on a rotating mechanism. ah, screw the description; here's what it looked like:

spinny thing

it's blurry, of course, so just in case you can't tell, the yellow blur in the fat end is a guy. he basically made the thing spin about the center by crawling forward in the hamster-wheel part. after a while, during the descent of the rotation, he would jump or do flips. all this was pretty impressive, but then he got out of it and got back on it on the outside of it:

spinny thing

wow. he did somersaults and stuff on the outside, too.

time for another quick note: the last time i saw the circus i think i was maybe 10-ish. it was in the 80s, definitely, and before 6th grade. one of the things that has happened since then to change my view of circus acts is that i earned a bachelor's degree in physics. so, i'm watching this guy run around on the outside of the thing (wtf is it called?!), and while everyone else is thinking "ooh, i hope he doesn't fall!", i'm figuring out where he has to stand so that it's perfectly balanced. (it's right about where the big hamster wheel part meets the frame.)

next were the elephants, which pretty much did a variation on the horse act.

elephants

it was cool though.

oh, and there were also some musical acts, which i felt neither the need to take pictures of nor the need to remember, so (obviously) this isn't a full recap of the show. i hate musicals, for the most part.

here are some more elephants, though, to make up for it:

more elephants

in addition to the musical numbers, there was also a high wire act, a clown act, and a little comedy-music thing which wer only mildly entertaining. the one remaining cool thing, though was the motorcycles in the ball-shaped cage:

a ball of motorcycles

you can't tell all that much from the picture, but that sphere has three motorcycles driving around inside it. this never ceases to amaze me, though now that i'm older i understand better how they keep from running into each other.

oh, and there were some chinese acrobats, too, but i figured i had pics of chinese acrobats on my hard drive that actually came from china, so i was not bothered to take pics.

so yeah. there's the circus. i actually enjoyed it, and baby kitty had a great time, so that was cool.

afterward, we went to york street to try to catch my friend todd's band black magic rhythm, but after being there for a while, we realized we hadn't eaten all day (except for the cotton candy) and so we took off. sorry todd! we went to shanghai mama's, a great chinese restaurant downtown. the orange faux ribs (vegetarian!) there kick major ass.

March 5th: queso dip and mulled wine proper

Day 170

Woke, Heather and I went to the bakery restaurant for some pizza and ginger coffee. The sun had come out again, but it hadn't warmed up much. We walked around the corner to the DVD place on Shishan Lu, picked up "Maverick," "Finding Neverland," and "Napoleon Dynamite."

Went back to Kedu, got three bottles of wine for another shot at the mulled wine business, a double batch this time. Then, over to the music store for more practice. To warm up my fingers I played my forever work-in-progress concerto jokingly titled "Butta con Fuoco in D minor." Played all of one album, and Heather made me play "Novelty Rush" twice. The catchy factor on it is high and it's really fun to play. I ended with "Sober Me Up" and "Blue Star."

We returned and Heather napped. I went out to the field and Mike and I punted the football around, switched to frisbee when I proved inept at catching the pigskin. I attribute soccer and hackey-sack instilling my instinctual "no hands" modus operandi sportswise.

After securing a crate of Tsingtao, I started the wine process, Mike began the queso dip. A parcel from Texas came and he had a can of Ro-Tel peppers and tomatoes, a block of Velveeta. The tortilla chips had been smashed to oblivion, further leading us to believe that whatever box China Post doesn't open outright, they stomp the holy hell out of in steel-toe boots. We used potato chips and they worked just as well.

I kept the lid on the wine to prevent evaporation, and all of it was consumed this go 'round. Once full of warm cheese and wine, we settled in and watched "Napoleon Dynamite." The fifth time watching it was still just as funny. Huzzah! Mike retired, having been up since the early am to help Alainna with her bags at the bus station. The rest of us continued debauching, watched "Snatch," and then turned in.

2005/03/04: not much at all, except pics and hackers

shower music: KMFDM "Split/Piggybank" single. So good.

i stopped by Sitwell's for a mocha, and by the Esquire to say hello to Baby Kitty. she said she'd call after she got off work.

i went home, but i felt a bit like crap, so i took some aleve and crashed for an hour. when i woke up, i called my friend Elizabeth and had a long conversation: nearly three hours, i think. i've got some shit going on, and so does she, so it worked out for both of us. she's a great friend, and i've known her for years -- since college, so upwards of ten years (yikes! i hadnt thought about that before). she lives outside of chicago, and i miss her. i need to get up there some time.

feeling much better, i realized that i hadn't received a call from Baby Kitty, so i gave her a call, but to no avail. she must have just gone home & crashed herself. i don't blame her, as she got up at 7am this morning.

what to do now, though, as i'd been stood up? the answer: finish watching The Big Lebowski, which i'd begun the night before. it's an amazing film, quite well written, and well acted, too. plus, i have big hearts for julianne moore, so it's even all the better.

after that, i figured i'd put up some of the Toast's many vacation pics. for background, i put on High Fidelity, a film that's great, but that I knew inside and out, so it wouldn't distract me too much. there was a time when i watched that film every night; on top of being a great film, it really helped me through some tough things that were going on back then. (some of those things were topics of the three hour conversation with elizabeth from earlier.)

High Fidelity ended, but i was in the groove uploading the pics, so i glanced through my discs trying to find another film thati enjoy, but that wouldn't distract too much. i found one that i hadn't seen in a while: Hackers.

ok, here's the deal: i know this isn't a great film or anything; i just enjoy it. there are, however, some things about it that just suck ASS.

• First, and in my mind the hardest thing to overlook: Lorraine Bracco. I knew her originally as Tony Soprano's psychiatrist, though this came a few years earlier. She is, and i'll stand by this, a horrible actress. she was my least favorite character on The Sopranos for a long time, and not because of the character, but because she just sucks. Yes, in Hackers she's saddled with some crap dialog, but seriously: watch the scene where the hackers are doing their thing in grand central station, and watch her in action. actually, just wacth any scene with her in it. whoof. does being married to harvey keitel just get you gigs or something?
• Next, the script. Again, whoof. A quick glance at Rafael Moreu's filmography will probably give you some insight as to his skill level. This film is written by someone who knows nothing about computers for people who know nothing by computers. Seriously. "Set your laptop to receive a file." What is that? Come on. They couldn't hire someone to fact check? That's probably good, though, as that would have spawned a rework of the ENTIRE script, since nearly everything is factually incorrect or at least dissimilar to reality.
  
• Plus, in addition to the factual errors, there's the AWESOME dialog... that is NOT present in the film. "You're floating... and I'm going to FLUSH you!" Awesomely bad, and unfortunately representative of the film.
• Let's not forget the CG representations of the hacking -- the little symbols that fly around while the hacking is going on are really fucking lame. seriously.

I think those are my major beefs (beeves?) with the film.

Johnny Lee Miller is ok, but is way better in Trainspotting. Angelina Jolie is, of course, way hot, and i think hotter here than anywhere else i've seen her. And Matt Lillard is real goddam good, too. It's fine, i got it for $5 -- leave me alone. :)

--montana--

McD Pics from 01/21/05

huangguoshu: motel


huangguoshu: vista


huangguoshu: cliffs


huangguoshu: roadside lagoons


huangguoshu: cliff cave


huangguoshu: stone garden


huangguoshu: skywater


huangguoshu: pointsettia trees


huangguoshu: reflection


huangguoshu: more reflection


huangguoshu: heather n azure water


huangguoshu: canyon pools


huangguoshu: grifter guide


huangguoshu: sheetfalls


huangguoshu: sheetfalls


huangguoshu: secret buddha


huangguoshu: grifter guide


huangguoshu: action cows

McD Pics from 01/20/05

huangguoshu: heather


huangguoshu: tent meal


huangguoshu: toast on bridge


huangguoshu: bonsai garden


huangguoshu: gardens


huangguoshu: grandfalls distant


huangguoshu: grandfalls sideview


huangguoshu: statue facing falls


huangguoshu: toast n darby


huangguoshu: cliffs


huangguoshu: grand falls


huangguoshu: seedeaters


huangguoshu: elder portrait


huangguoshu: motel

McD Pics from 01/19/05

still more.


guiyang: hotel room


guiyang is detroit


huangguoshu: mountain vista


huangguoshu: misty terraces


huangguoshu: more misty terraces


huangguoshu: terrace valley


huangguoshu: winding road


huangguoshu: more winding road


huangguoshu: banyan tree


huangguoshu: more banyan tree


huangguoshu: valley floor


huangguoshu: valley waterfall


huangguoshu: more valley waterfall


huangguoshu: tent meal


bus: toast n cool old dude

McD Pics from 01/18/05

a few more from the toast.


train: toast heather jin nan


train: foster


train: mike / dr. thumbwars / toast / esteban

McD Pics from 01/17/05

more shanghai and bus pics from the toast.


shanghai: toast n chris


shanghai: mike n heather


shanghai: chris


shanghai: heather n chris


train: heather


train: begins 32 hours


train: jin nan


train: auntie n dr thumbwars


train: toast in bunk

McD Pics from 01/16/05

the toast slammed me with his pics from the trip. rather than put them in with the posts, which might take a REALLY long time and you may not even notice, i'm posting them here.

these are Shanghai pics.


freezing bus: matt n erin


freezing bus: heather n mike


shanghai: toast n skyline


shanghai: coolass building


shanghai: malatong eatery


shanghai: suy


shanghai: aitar

oldtana & olddeviltoast

here we are in 30-40 years:

Oldtana


OldDevilToast
creepy, huh? make your own here.

oh, and cincinnati bell decided to let me have internet access today after all.

DJ Empirical to appear with Prantershifter monday evening. And CinciBell sucks.

So, Cincinnati Bell is dumb and screwed up my phone service, including the internet service.

Bastards!

So, Montana has been even more absent than usual. sorry. more monday, when the outside world will come into the QEG compound again.

speaking of monday night:

DJ Empirical will be a special guest during Prantershifter's set on Monday night at the Southgate House, opening for the Trevor Dunn / Shelley Burgon Duo. Exciting! Check the SGH site for details.

--montana--

March 4th: elusive monkeywrench reminder

Day 169

Classes went decent, didn't have to yell much. Jeni came by and visited after lunch. We listened to Rasputina and I left her to catch up on BBC news, for my last two classes started a half hour early.

After those, it was sunny yet windy and I collected my bike from the hotel, rode to the music shop. I went through the entire catalogue, and when I left the weather had done a 180. No sun, I could see my breath, and holy jesus, was that snow in the air?

I went to Dongzhou, now a bit underdressed, but the conditions were more suitable for the mulled wine we were about to make. Jeni and procured a couple bottles from Kedu, began the process, (which is dumping in spices and honey, bringing to almost a boil and waiting.) Jeni and I drank the leftover half bottle, waited for the others. The plan was to go to the sheep place for la zi ji ding, but none of us ever quite got there.

I ran into Mike in the hallway who was in the throes of intense hunger and had to get Muslim noodles. Alainna heard voices and came out of her room, chatted with us about how Penny still had her passport and she needed it to go back to the states (she's breaking contract early and Rhys is filling in for her starting Monday). Penny arrived shortly thereafter with Heather and Andy, victims of some championship ganbei-ing. Heather kind of slumped against the wall, while Andy repeated ad nasuem, "I'm fucked, I'm fucked" as if the listener wasn't interpreting these two syllables correctly and the fate of the free world rested on this phrase. Aggravating.

Heather kept apologizing, Mike teased her and hit himself in the head with an inflatable baseball bat all while delicious mulled wine wafted down the coridor. Almost a David Lynch scene in terms of weirdness. I had brewed the mulled wine too long because I wanted the maximum flavor, so most of it evaporated. One and half bottles ended up yielding a whopping two cups. D'oh!

Since Heather and Andy had already eaten and Mike went for noodles, I was starting to get let down and famished. I tried to wait for Rhys to get dumplings, but Alainna was filling his ear with chitchat and I hadn't the patience for it to play out. I walked down to the tree place, ate two orders of juro jiazi, drank a Suntory, tried to sort through my feelings. It's a trait I get from my mother, always the big host, jazzed up about things; inflating situations to heights that can never be measured up to. I was disappointed I fucked up the wine. I was disappointed the sheep place didn't happen (I had even packed some CD's this time so we wouldn't be subjected to Mariah Carey Christmas) I was disappointed the plans for the evening splintered, but I think mostly I was cranky from hunger. After gestating, I felt better, got my sense of humor back.

I took over for Jeni in taking care of Heather. We watched Euro Trip, a Tsingtao in my lap, a red basin in Heather's. Halfway through, she relieved Rhys of the "make sickums from over-imbibing" title, the least coveted prize in partying culture. But after, she felt much better, though she swore off BBoss for good. (we'll see how long that lasts.)

The weather was still shite, so I slept over.

March 3rd: double dose of chats and bonding

Day 168

In my first class, several seats were empty. Lu Jian, my best student in there, told me "They are ill. In hospital." Then he made an I.V. pantomime. Jesus, what are these kids sick with and damn am I glad they're not near me. He may have been exaggerating to drive home the point of "ill" and "hospital" despite those being words in my native tongue.

They were good, so I gave them Paperback stickers, played them "The Heist" and "Cake Eater." I don't think any of them had ever heard any rock that hard, so they weren't sure how to take it, but they smiled and nodded.

I got strawberries at lunch! Huzzah! Jeni stopped by for tea time and we had a chat about books, biology, yelling at kids. When I went to my next class, my bladder told me I had drunk too many cups of tea and chai. Right at the finishing bell I ran back to my place to urinate, then dashed to the next class. Why didn't I use the school bathrooms? The ammonia-like urine fumes are like a force field I can't even penetrate. Secondly, there aren't sufficient washing-up facilities. Think Howard Hughes' worst nightmare, add some Chinese teens.

After teaching, Erin and I met Heather and Jeni at the hotel for food, Tsingtao and conversation. We discussed most embarrassing moment stories. Mine: In high school, I was in marching band and tripped over an upheaval in the sidewalk, tumbled over my bass drum right in front of some drunk cackling fratboys, which may be why I have such an intense hatred of them. In grade school I we had to partcipate in a video for a kid who fell out of a tree and I had to breakdance to Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Keep in mind, this was from my introverted era. Halfway through, I ran and hid under a table.

Mostly the ladies talked about menstruation, the drawback to dining with three beautiful women. I was admonished for trying to suggest pads shortened the timespan of flow, not because I was right, but because they "feel like diapers."

Afterwards, we watched "The Incredibles" again at Heather's, yet our hostess didn't remain conscious for the duration of the feature. She had been imbibing since 4pm, she was entitled. Erin and I scaled the fence, caught a cab, retired.

March 2nd: back in the fiction seat

Day 167

First class sucked. I had to scream repeatedly for them to be quiet about seven times in a row.The next class missed the point of the game, but at least they were speaking which is the real goal. Felt like I was on auto-pilot all day because of the overcast "might rain" conditions. Stupid barometer.

I started working on a story after dinner, a concept I've been floating around for years now. It's not completely forged yet, but it has to do with time travel and murder, sociological and psychological experiments of indulging violence with no consequences or ramifications. Like my screenplay "The Phillip Experiment" it involves a crew of five college students in a dangerous project that gets out of their control. I chipped away at it for a while, enjoying the feeling of an idea growing and weaving its tendrils all over my brain. I imagined it as a short story, but I think it's bigger than that now.

I rode up to Dongzhou and met Heather where she was looking up something she ate in the dictionary. It was described to her as "like a frog but bigger and grey." Go China!

Mike was having alone time, so the rest of us watched "Intacto," an odd thriller about lucky people and the underworld bizarre games of chance they play like putting molasses on their head and bet whose head a big green insect will land on, or running blindfolded and handtaped through the woods to see who won't eat shit into a tree. The final game is playing Russian Roulette with Max Von Sydow. Go Spain!

I rode home afterwards, preapred myself mentally for the long Thursday. The three classes in a row after lunch are grueling.

this page is shorter now

due to the loquacious nature of both aaron and myself, i've limited this front page to fourteen posts.

you can still access the archives via the links on the right, but this page will (hopefully) load faster.

--montana--

Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies

This has the Toast written all over it.

This link goes to a generator of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. Eno developed a set of cards that, when you're stuck with something (e.g., writer's block), may help you think in a different manner and get around the obstacle.

March 1st: valentine game and the joys of "defilth" tea

Day 166

Slept in hour bursts, my internal alarm clock working like the timer on my heater. Since I didn't get to the game last week, I'm recycling it for this week. I review the Valentine themed vocab from last week, then divide the class into two teams, have them ask opposing team members "Do you have a ___?" and responding with "Yes, I have a ____." or "No, I do not have a ___." It went well except in the apathy crew class. Mary showed his card to the other team, so of course they won. When we played again, his other team members pummeled him with rolled-up notebooks like a scene from "Full Metal Jacket." He tried to stonewall me by continually mispronouncing "frown", so I had him repeat it until he got it right, which he didn't to be funny, and then the class ran out of time.

At lunch I was late and missed strawberries because I was recounting the cards, three of which had disappeared. I had to make new ones for the post-lunch classes.

At the second class, Rose had a box for me and I gave all the students Paperback stickers, showed them the CD. "See? Tom Willis. That's my brother."

They repeated "Tom Willis." One kid piped up, "Your brother is a superstar?"

"Yes. Yes he is."

Heather came by and we tossed the frisbee on the track, watched a weird routine of some kids taking down the flag, marching around with it, then hanging it back up, then taking it down again and starting the process over.

Afterwards we had a highball, looked through pictures, listened to Paperback's "Let's Go Ride Bikes."

Erin joined us for a drink, but being full of peanuts, decided to stay in for dinner. Heather and I had discussed finding new small eateries and that I thought some were around the corner from the hotel. We pedaled out there, didn't find much so we pressed on, attempting to find the restaurant I used to yell at drunkenly coming home from Andy's club. It turned out to be a Muslim noodle place. Pretty tasty.

It didn't quite fill me up, so we went to Royal Young coffee for a banana split. I also had some "osmanthus defilth tea" for curiosity's sake.


toast defilthing


heather defilthing
At an adjacent table some men had what looked like a giant margarita glass filled with ornage stuff and had a Vegas headgear amount of foliage sticking out of it. The main stalk kept falling over as they brought it from the kitchen. We watched three aborted attempts to carry it over before success was achieved.

One of the men looked back, stared at me, then came over to the table as I laughed and made gargle-throttle noises. He stood over us and said, "Do you know me?" I thought it was a passive-agressive statement, kind of like a "If you don't know me, then why the fuck are you looking at me" kind of thing. I said no, and he cocked his head a little. Suddenly: "Oh! Principal Shen!"

D'oh! I had only met the man once, give me a break. I introduced him to Heather, still smiling and being a little silly, asked him what they had on their table: "Watermelon."

"It looks very strange. We did not know what it was."

He gave us two gold VIP cards for Royal Young Coffee, gestured that the woman at his table was the manager here. Sweet! I still felt a little sheepish. What did they put in that defilth tea? I shook his hand and said goodbye to the table before we left, but just wanted a better look at their fruit tower.

We rode to Heather's, then to Times for some beer, watched a Russian copy of "Ocean's Twelve." All the screen text was Russian, but we had English language. Rhys and Jeni brought over "tartan-flavoured cookies," one variety of which was onion. Onions and cookies do not mix. I tried it anyway, since I was goaded.

Following the film, I rode home, watched a little BBC, retired.