“This redbone mishmash has me forgetting the slushy confines of winter in the Twins. This morning I almost left my coffee behind. I spoke to the Big Boy cup as if she were a woman who missed me and was so so sad that I had almost abandoned her to slowly grow cold on the […]
Words
Nobody Speak, Nobody Get Choked
Life is a strange strange thing and it’s hard to sometimes stay rooted in place and believe that all of this, and you, and me, are anything more than figments of a grander imagination. Of my imagination. I once tripped acid beneath an ancient oak tree on a small mountain in California. At times, it […]
Winter
Even this season will go by too quickly. Have we gone sledding enough? Why haven’t we hit up the frozen lakes with our skates yet? Will the crows come back and roost in our trees, silent and communing, or was my chance at seeing them, taking their picture, imbibing them that one night when the […]
Semiotics and Screenface
Got this new day job. I dress up real nice most days, sit in a cubicle like I swore I never would. and. stare … I hear things will change once I go through training, but for now, it’s just screenface all day. There are people who say you can get a lot done at […]
The Sliver of a Moon
A waxing crescent above Lake of the Isles and the sky drifts towards darkness, crimson pink purple and orange on one side, the first stars in the blackening blue on the other. There are not enough breaths in the human day to take it all in, and even when I do, I’m still not sure […]
It’s April Again (Redux)
I spent most of last year refusing to look at this blog, while it festered away in purgatory, punished for being a low priority. For being ugly and unwieldy and not what I wanted it to be. But now it’s back, and looking clean, and pretty close to what it should be. Some things to […]
It’s April Again
Today I smoked a joint and walked around the Gulou area, and thought about many things. People everywhere, great clumps of pollen swirling in a funnel right above my head. Bright sunlight through the little olive leaves onto my face. I thought of my old professor, Moses. He lives in Beijing and so far has […]
Telling my kids about Winter
I think I may have missed the chance to do so this year, because I was too busy to spend the proper amount of time with my two boys during these cold winter months. I did manage to get the tree decorated and the presents laid out underneath, but the rest sort of fell by […]
Chongqing’s Cheating Heart
Ok now I am going to get into some hater shit. I watched an old Katt Williams special last night and he was talking about Star Players and Haters. This essay is actually an older one that’s been in my Stuff Folder for a while, but as I was cleaning up my desktop in preparation […]
Juvenile
A long long time ago, a girl told me to keep my voice. That was back in January of 2008, when I was writing this. I swear i remember absolutely nothing of the book that captured my moments and displayed them in a crystal case held up to the rays of an Amsterdam sun. Five […]
Flashlights in the Dark
I have to admit, I haven’t read a single story about foreign journalists with China visa problems. I found them all to smack of the same droll, insular, looping urgency of first world problems. If all of the reporters were white, I would just say “privilege” and dip my face back into the Stream and […]
Tumblr Aint Just for Porn
Got this slick new Tumblr Blog that is fun to play with and fun to post on. It’s actually much easier than this blog, because you can drop stuff in a heartbeat, whereas with WordPress I feel like I have to write something long and important or it doesn’t make sense. Guess I have been […]
Book Review: Hawkins, Sagan, Zinn and Thompson
I have been tearing through books recently, due to my snazzy iPad Mini. I did a review a couple weeks ago, and I like that type of post, so here goes another one, this time 4 (5?) books and not three. I will review the first three here, and then do the last two – […]
Shame, the movie, and how Porn is killing the World Soul
Shame is best left chained to a wall in the basement of an old lighthouse, and occasionally sung to. Arias only. Disfigured disfiguring a weight on the whole family, the wet chupa in the middle of the floor at a house party when the lights go on. Or a movie about a sex addict, America […]
Sticky Post: About this Blog
I’ve kept this blog since 2008 and it was and still is a source of great catharsis for me. It is not a CV and should never be misconstrued as such. The things I write in here reflect my opinions only, and not those of anyone who employs me, hangs out with me, saw me […]
Insomnia
Sometimes I can’t sleep at night, I toss and turn, alarm bells and laughter going off in the street. Honking cars in my dreams. I can’t get no peace. So I get up and get dressed and toss on my shoes and walk through Hongpailou. Sometime I remember to bring my camera. These shots were […]
Do you remember?
It is never too late to send love out to your people. It is never too late to reply to a letter. It is never ever too late. Check out these Letters in the Fiction Section which I will be updating from time to time.
Resist the Worst
“When you think about the worst that could happen, you should resist this temptation to make yourself the centre of the world. Turn away from the injustice of being falsely condemned or the despair of being utterly alone. Quash the thought of losing a child. On this melancholy subject, at least, I am with Smith […]
Gibbering again
My vision of myself rarely coincides with the vision others have of me. When people think highly of me, I hear the sniveling thief gibber inside; when people think low of me, I feel the warrior stir. But not just in reaction to what others think. It’s almost as if praise comes exactly then, when […]
These are my last words
the things I’ve seen in life will make you gasp in surprise like a pod of dolphins dancing in the ocean at sunrise preventing my demise a healing salve for my eyes regenerate on a daily basis refusing to die i put my nose to the wind and smell a burning red robe charred and hanging in […]
Sovereignty
Recently we’ve been treated to a few events that have brought out the reactions of Chinese netizens across the spectrum of opinion, from the reform-minded to the nationalistic, and what we have read in the state-owned media and in the comments on Sina Weibo helps to shed a bit of light on Chinese society. Chinese […]
Pragmatic above all things
I know a girl named Color who stopped me on the street one day and said, I am different from every other Chinese girl out there. I think deep, she said, and I question everything. Everybody thinks I am weird and I have few friends. I say strange stuff like, Why would you do that? […]
Escaping the China Winter
It’s amazing how winter in most Chinese cities cancels out the sun. The skies seem to turn gray across the board, from Jiangxi to Sichuan and Guangxi to Harbin. Only a few pockets of sunshine are immune to the meteorological oddity known as “China Winter” and I am in one of them now, the tiny Bai […]
That cess in yer chest
Tell me how to keep the smile on my face when I start every morning hacking like an old revolutionary until lung butter splatters the toilet bowl like adolescent lust. And clings to it like a first crush. Every morning ya’ll. I quit smoking and I remember someone saying that the first few weeks/months after […]
A many headed troll at the helm
Imagine a four-headed know it all troll with a broad streak of arrogance at the helm of the Gray Pearl in the midst of the Perfect Storm, the End of the Known World dropping off into Nothing on one side, the whirlpool that almost got Ulysses on the other. If you were a hand on […]
Dying Cultures
I often wondered if generations before us have felt this same sense of impending doom that our epoch currently feels. I don’t wonder about it anymore because I have come to the sad conclusion that, yes, of course past peoples felt the dark hand of Death coming for them … because it was coming for […]
Ode to Third Ring Road
You can catch me on the Third Ring Road, zipping down the sideline on my Bad. Moduh. Scooduh. I’m on there enough to have found myself a little community, people who all come from different backgrounds but share one thing in common every time they slip onto the Third Ring from some obscure exit choked […]
Blinded by the Web
I’m going to switch gears and talk about my own country for a second here. Hitting out at China is actually too easy. There are a bunch of problems in the country and, for the most part, the propaganda and methods of the state are so crude that ridiculing them is like shooting the proverbial […]
Excerpts from an Interview with Luo Fahui
This is a companion piece to ChengduLiving’s Portrait of a Chengdu Artist: Luo Fa Hui. Here I put together some excerpts from an interview back in October. Stay tuned next week for more Chengdu artist love, both here and at ChengduLiving.com On China’s Future: -有希望。中国朝着良性方向发展，不是以前那样封闭。现在我们很多人，都有机会和权贵坐在一起。这是大趋势，不是一个政党可以控制的，所以这个是个很大的希望。现在慢慢的改变，慢慢开始尊重人权，尊重人的思想，自由度，精神上的，越来越宽。首先是看着这30年的变化，亲身体会，当年是怎么样，现在是怎么样，随便怎么比。 There’s hope. China’s is moving forward in a good direction, […]
There might still be blood ….
I am deeply ashamed that I linked that NYT article. If you read it (Hi Mom!) then you noticed how the voice was decidedly not in favor of the protestors and focused more on the restoration of order. It wasn’t the piece itself that made me link, but the news that it carried with it: […]
Up for Grabs
I spent a full year under the harsh lights of Ctrip’s corporate glare and I wrote a lot of stuff for them. It seemed like pissing into the wind, for the most part. I met great people there, but the Chinatravel.net site for which I worked is the mortally wounded man doggedly clinging to life, […]
Support Broke Writers
Raglitmag is a webzine of short stories that you can check out on your E-reader as a pdf. They pay pretty well for a rag these days, so the writing they have is pretty damn good. I have a story in the first edition, “The One Legged River Ho,” based on Chengdu truth. Check out […]
Giving notice
I worry about my writing a lot. Its the only thing i can claim as my own and its probably my only legit ticket out of the rat race. My only honorable ticket i guess, cuz if something else got me free of the race and in the cottage by the sea, I would die […]
Poo issues
All last night i pooped out water and wandered between dream states with these lines from J-Dilla’s Jungle Love going through my head over and over ” … i won’t take it like Shaq from three … with out that loot ya instrumentals stay instrumentals” But now daddy has the house to himself, the AC […]
Recent news and other tidbits
Once again, i have neglected my own personal blog in favor of other “cooler” spots that either pay me or raise my exposure level up a micron. Unfortunate, but a lot of it has to do with fatigue and time. With two sons (pic post coming up later, don’t worry) a brother truly has no […]
Syed Saleem Shazad
I read Shazad’s writings on Pakistan and the Taliban for years. Every single story of his informed me as to the real, on the ground situation. Never once did I close the Asia Times window and not sit back and think hard on what I had just learned from Shazad. Often I wondered how in […]
Fast, Cheap or Good: You can only have Two
Rumor has it that Tom Waits once said this to Jim Jarmusch over whiskey and pop tarts, but it could have been Ben Franklin. I find it to be a pretty decent appraisal of what is possible in today’s world. In the US, I believe people chose “fast and good” whereas in China people chose […]
Into a groove
When it comes to blogging and just writing in general, its important to get your groove on. For a while there I was writing wak destination guides using bad reviews from the web and memories — either mine or some one elses. That actually hasn’t changed. part of my job is still exactly that: armchair […]
I should be armchair travelin’
but i’m surfin instead. The other day my man Charlie got the China Blues, you know, when it dawns on you that all of the things that you heard about China as a kid actually don’t exist anymore and have been replaced by “ignorant drones on autopilot” … happens to all of us here. I […]
My wrist hurts
And when I was in Chengdu a few weeks a go I told my shifu Li Cuan about it and he made me pound on the iron circle for a while. it felt better afterwards. i am back at the 9-5 grind after a few weeks on the road filming stuff for the China Travel […]
/facepalm
Man everywhere i look the oppression is just getting deeper and deeper — at least when I peep the news. there is China doing all it can to keep dissidents either silent or dead or scared out of their wits there is Iran, hailing revolutions one day, torturing them the next there is Libya and […]
Ctrip.com Youtube Travel Video Channel — Get Some!
Some new ish here for everybody to check out and pass around the campfire: Travel videos for Ctrip.com … these are the first two and we’ll have more coming up over time. Leave a comment or just pass it around … cheers
Visa Issues
I made a very big mistake and assumed that I could re-new Dorian’s visa in Germany. His visa expired while we were in Germany for Christmas (close enough) and my plan was to apply for a tourist visa to China in Germany and then re-apply for a relative visa once we got back to China. […]
Access Divine
Access Divine Access Divine Access Divine God is Everywhere Just have to open your eyes Look Inside You’ll be so surprised Love is Everywhere Little Leaves In Sunbeams Inside your Dreams I can do things no one has ever concieved of behold what does that say about you Live life Live life Live life
One Second Encounters
I can only remember a few, but my mind swims with them in the hours before i rise and after the alarm has already been silenced. I remember the little Chinese meimei sitting with her grandmother on a bench in Chengdu, on Renmin Road South. I was walking along with Heather from Proximity Butterfly. Heather […]
Horses and Tea and all manner of Roads
I’ve been up and down the “horse and tea trade route” a few times. basically the road from Chengdu south to Bangkok, as far as I am concerned. It extends west all the way to Lhasa and beyond and north to Xi’an, but basically the middle half (Yunnan and Sichuan) is where a lot of […]
Song I bumped in Nicole’s basement
This is a track i tend to listen to from time to time that is Stinky-related. Corny?
me and stinky passed out at the hospital
Me and Stinkumz got birthdays today. I turn 33 he turns 9 months. I was just telling my pops how he says DaDa now about anything he likes and when I come home from work he starts jumping and squealing and calling out DaDa. Pretty awesome. One of our favorite games now is I do […]
Time-Lapse Video in China
Here is a post for ChinaTravel.net about a group of (actually an individual named Joe) filmmakers who are doing some interesting work with time-lapse and tilt-shift video- and photography. The same guys who are in doing the time-lapse stuff are also doing the “Sole Man Project,” in which an Englishman spends one year shoeless in […]
Big Bosses
I got a new story up, a lil something about a big boss I met back in the day called: Boss Sung’s Wife. I met a lot of bosses during my time here in China. I wrote about some of them but I always loved the Boss Sung character. He was truly over the top. […]
Just in Case My Baby Calls
Bean made homemade hotpot two days ago and the last of it just got slurped up … I won’t tell you what’s happening now in the household, but just remember that every rose has its thorn. I took some pictures of our hotpot night and even though they are wak technically, they still manage to […]
New ish has come to Light
If you have not noticed, I have a few Fiction tales up. I won’t be posting a bunch of tales there, just a couple to whet peoples’ appetites. The latest one is called, “The Imam who Sang” and I like it. Check it out. I also just recently updated Nonfiction to reflect some work i […]
You might wanna ask Somebody
One my oldest brain patnas in the world, Tshisuaka aka aka aka has got some ish going on at CitizenMinneapolis.com This brother is a poet and a musician and his thoughts have been places. One of my deepest memories of this man is once ina studio when we were all wondering which way was south […]
New Gig
Hi Everybody, welcome to my new site. Its a little stark compared to my fluffy old Chachin Aint Easy, but hey. things change don’t they. So after a long hiatus, i just want to let you know a little bit about what is going here. I moved to Shanghai in August to take a job […]
Dream within a dream
Last night for the first time that I can remember, someone asked me what I was dreaming about in my dream. I was so taken aback that I answered Battlestar Galactica at first … for some reason i felt it was more appropriate to lie to the two men and two women at the baordroom […]
Digital Silk Road
Digital Silk Road From: plus8star, 1 week ago Digital Silk Road View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: japan korea) Presentation done at OpenWebAsia in October 2008 on Asia’s digital innovations and their potential impact on the West. SlideShare Link
HK Torch Relay II
Some words from a fellow laowai.
Sleeveless Tendencies
First off … looks like the fervor might be dying down. we shall see. Does anyone else see the parallels between the Games and the Primary? We are down to the last few states and it is getting crucial — for china they are down to the last few cities on the torch relay. But […]
good news
sites that have been blocked since i have lived here, wikipedia and bbc, are now accessible to the average wang and yours truly.
Chillin in the Sultan
I convince myself I am Turkish by wolfing down doener kebabs and smoking shisha. I have spent the past few days running every day and working out with my Shifu. He is headed to Shanghai later this week in preparation for the torch relay. He has been hired to do security. here is a good […]
God loves the Funk
I know some of these pics are sideways .. i apologize but there is nothing i can do about it. these kids are worried about girls and pimples and fashion and grades … not tryin to hate on anyone …
i am that i am
reading foucalt’s pendulum has been a three month odyssey through umberto eco’s dream library. i finally fell into the pace of the book, now, near the end. and everywhere i see lorenza, belbo — i am belbo, no i am aglie … the man with the scar was on my flight to chengdu. he chatted […]
Gettin Fat in Deutschland
Every morning i enjoy myself ritually with the bread slicer. I love the buzz and smell of good bread being prepared for my rumblin gullet. then i sift through the fridge. Lord, Bless my Mother with Peace of Mind and a Calm Heart! She maintains a fine kitchen. Teewurst, Leberwurst, Salami, Kaes’ and so on. […]