nwoT eikgnoH Hongkie Town

I think I mentioned this before. Everytime I travel, I forget one thing. If it was the same thing each time, that would be easy, I could come up with a system. But it's a different thing each time. And since I do an average of about 20 trips a year, well, one would think I'd be better at it by now, but I'm not.

I have a packing list and last night I checked off everything against that list. Feeling confident.

Now, the street where I live, you can't get taxis until well after 9:30 in the morning, unless you've called to book one in advance. Every taxi coming up my way has their off duty sign on display - they're on radio calls. And there are lots of people in the streets hoping for that one stray empty taxi. No busses but we have minibusses but they are usually full by the time they get anywhere near me.

And I'm a little late getting out of the house because I decided to do a quick usenet check before leaving. Oh spit, there's a clean copy of Hot Fuzz, which I've been dying to see. So I gotta download it and get it on the PMP before leaving so I can watch it on the plane (which I do - maybe it's not quite as wonderful as Shaun of the Dead but it's still splendid and has some great lines ... one roughly "if we don't crack down on the clowns we'll be up to our balls in jugglers.")

Which is to explain why I decided to drive to the airport. So I'm in the car, get about halfway to the western tunnel, and I realize what I forgot this time - my mobile phone. I've got my blackberry but I don't give that number out. And all my notes and shopping lists for the trip are synced to the phone.

Now I'm in this peculiar maze around Sheung Wan and environs west where there are no U-turns, no right turns, no easy way to get back to my street. From the time I realize I don't have the phone until I can get back to my building is at least 30 minutes. The clock is ticking. Flight time is approaching.

Now it's way past 9:30. I could park and get a taxi. And probably get stuck with some 80 year old guy driving 20 kilometers per hour, stuck on Queens Road heading to the airport express station. That doesn't seem like a plan.

So, drive to airport. 150 kph in 80 kph zones (except for the tunnels). I'm chain smoking, speeding and having a heart attack at the same time. I'm mentally trying to work out options if I should miss the flight (I already know that the other flights today are full, this is the only one).

I haven't driven to the airport in a long time. Signs indicate that the covered car park that's right next to the terminal is now short term only. I have to get to P2 for long term and I miss the turn off and have to come back around. And finally get to the lot where you don't just grab a ticket out the machine, some security measure they have, there's some guard there who first confirms that you want long term and then slowly writes your license plate number on your ticket and on a sheet of paper. Quick grab a spot.

Now I gotta run through the parking lot, through the brand new bullshit terminal 2 (which has no actual gates, just more shops - oh, the CX magazine on the plane has a write-up on this new terminal. They mention that the restaurants feature "authentic Italian food such as New York pizza." Exsqueeze me?)

Well, somehow, I make it to check-in with half an hour to spare. I even have time to go to duty free, the magazine shop and smoke one and a half cigarettes before boarding the plane ... which then sits there for half an hour before we take off.

Well, I'm here now, I'm relaxed now. Thank fucking goodness. And I like Singapore. I don't live here so I don't have to put up the bullshit, I get all of that in HK. Here all I see are the good bits - clean, safe, people speaking English and the women, oh yes, let's not forget those.

Meeting Expat@Large tonight. He's rounding up a couple or few other bloggers and I'm sure I will have a nice evening. Anything will be better than my Saturday night, my Sunday night and my Monday morning.

P.S. Okay, gotta share this with you though it's not the sort of thing I'd normally post any more. I did write about how bad Saturday night was, yes? Now, what about Sunday?

See, there's this Filipino girl, and she's gorgeous but I'm sure she's lying to me about absolutely everything. She seems to have some hidden agenda, something else going on beyond what these girls normally have. And she's been bugging me for days to see her and I've been putting her off, if for no other reason than I don't want to let her get too close and I don't want to start developing any feelings for her. Since I'm not meeting anyone "normal" right now and have the patience of a 5 year old, I'm well aware that I could get into another relationship along the lines of the one with T if I'm not careful.

But she says Sunday is her last night in town, it's my last night, so I tell her I'll meet her. Meet a friend for dinner first. She says she'll wait for me in Laguna. I get there, she's not there. She says she's "leaving now" and then a few minutes later she says she's "walking over." After half an hour I don't see her, I send a message that I'm leaving. She says I should wait, she's there, but I don't see her anywhere. My friend and I leave.

Now especially after Saturday night I'm not in the mood for games, especially from a working girl. And I'm convinced that at one point she was in the bar waiting for me, got grabbed by someone else for a short time, and was hoping to get out of the love hotel and squeeze me in as well. I don't need this in my life and it's a reminder of why I'm happy now that I'm going to Wanchai less and less - it's not completely off the menu yet but it is lower down, believe it or don't.

Monday I have an SMS from her. You ready? "Oh darling, last night the battery on my phone ran out. Have changed my flight to tomorrow because I have to see you before I go."

Now, on top of everything else, she'd told me she only got 4 days when she arrived here, and she said she arrived on Tuesday. Based on that, she should have had to leave on Saturday, no? I don't ask her about this, it just tells me I can't believe a single thing she says and she's stupid enough to think she can play these games with people who live here as opposed to some guy here for the first time for a convention who would be so blinded to her youth and looks (and large breasts, did I mention she had large breasts?) that he'd believe whatever she says. I like to believe everyone is honest. I hate it when they're not. Naive? So fucking what?

Wow, this post is running long, ain't it? I'm one verbose mother fucker. Well, I gotta head out and meet the krewe soon. More on this later, possibly.

Decision made, bookings made, Monday morning off to Singapore. Armed with the video from when Bourdain ate there for Cook's Tour and with a copy of Makansutra to be purchased on arrival, I plan to attempt a good deal of eating, a little bit of shopping, some sitting by a pool and reading and, well, you know me, probably up to no good at night.

Will return on Thursday and hoping to organize some friends for some food/drinks celebrating the day my mother gave birth to me, which was immediately followed by the doctor pointing at me and telling her, "don't do that any more, ok?"

Well, no, it wasn't quite paradise and I didn't go near there for the last 20 years, but doing a big of googling to kill time brought me to this bit of news:

Vinylmania Records Closes Its Doors

Vinylmania was a piece of NYC music history which was also an important spot for me for about a decade. Opened on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village in the late 70s, in the 80s it was known as the shop where all the DJs shopped and at least one guy who worked in the shop, Manny Lehman, used it as a springboard to fame himself.

See, just like every other Greenwich Village record shop, it was getting by on selling promo copies and UK imports. I would stop there every Saturday to shop, bought more than I could afford each week, and got to be friends with owner Charlie Grappone and his staff.

Charlie soon opened a second store down the street selling 12 inch singles. The legendary Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage, which was just around the corner, was a big customer. Every DJ in NY shopped there and their fans followed them there. Madonna did her first in-store appearance there. By 1986 or so, they'd even started their own label.

Around 82 or 83, I ended up driving a taxi cab and not being happy about it. Charlie went partners with another guy to open a video rental shop nearby and asked me if I wanted to work there. It got me out of the taxi, so I did that for the next 2 or 3 years, until I had the idea that a record store selling only CDs might work.

So Charlie and I became partners and in 1985 we opened the Vinylmania CD Shop on Carmine Street, across from his 12 inch store. It was tough going for the first six months but then my import business started to take off, eventually doing so well that I was selling wholesale to shops outside of New York City. I had steady customers coming from as far as 90 miles away on a regular basis. I'd also introduced the notion of buying and selling used CDs. Basically anything I could do to compete with Tower, which was just a few blocks away.

But those were the days of parallel imports and the RIAA got wind of the shop - we always suspected it was via a rival shop owner who didn't have the sources I had and so he couldn't get the imports as quickly or sell them as cheaply. Threatened with legal action that we couldn't afford to defend, we stopped the import trade and business fell overnight by 2/3rds. Without going into any details, the partnership fell apart soon afterwards and I helped start the CD Hotline along with two of my customers.

I wish I had known about this sooner, because the closing came about a week after my most recent NYC trip. Had I known it was coming, I would have stopped down there for a bit of nostalgia and wool gathering.

Anyway, that's what happens when you get older, chunks of your past disappear.

Up until 4 AM, I would have said I'd had better nights, I'd had worse nights. After that, things went rapidly downhill.

I wasn't even sure I wanted to go out tonight. But finally, bored and restless, I set out around midnight. After a stop for some food, I looked around, thought about it for a bit, and went into Neptune although I soon realized I wasn't in a Neptune mood.

I just kinda sat there, looked around, had a drink or two and said, well, maybe I'm in a crappy mood but I'm wide awake, might as well stay here, listen to the music, enjoy the view.

At some point, some guy came up to me and asked if I was Spike. I didn't ask how he recognized me, just said yes. He said he was a reader and occasional commenter and said something about how he liked my taste in music and my lifestyle. Fair enough.

Some other guy admires my Ramones t shirt and says too bad there aren't more people wearing this shirt in HK and I agree with him. But then he adds that it's too bad they're not playing gigs anymore and I say that could be because most of them are dead.

At 3 I went into Joe Bananas, vaguely dying down. At 3:30, I went into Amazonia, but unfortunately it was the last few seconds before the band was taking a break. Amazonia's a weird place but I do like the bands that play there - Filipino cover bands but with a harder edge than in the surrounding clubs.

So after 15 or 20 minutes, I head out and walk down the street towards Fenwick, not sure if I will go in or just get in a taxi. I see this guy and girl walking down the street and all of a sudden the girl starts calling out my name.

She's a local girl, F, she used to work with my ex-wife. I have not seen her in about 10 years, so she doesn't know we've split up. F and I have some history - not exactly what I know you're thinking but in that vein. The fact that she asks me for my number right in front of the guy is not a bad sign, either. And I'm thinking, the fact that we did like each other and we've run into each other after all this time could be meaningful.

The guy she's with has picked her up in Carnegies. I let the two of them drag me into Mes Amis. Now at 4 AM, the guy is telling me his life story and the entire business model of his company. He's someone who has been here for two years and I suppose has swallowed all of the worst aspects of the HK lifestyle.

F is drunk, clearly. She says that she never thought that my wife and I would split up. She asks me what I'm looking for now. She says she's out drinking because she's lonely. She says she wants to get married and have kids - as many as she can and she knows I can afford it because I'm rich. (Yes, clearly drunk.) At some point, F starts talking about god! She says my wife told her I'm not religious and I have to go back to god to find happiness.

When she asks what I'm looking for and I say I'm looking for a girlfriend, she says she doesn't want a one night stand, she wants something permanent. I tell her I'm looking for something permanent too because she is really pretty though the whole god thing is putting me off. There is little doubt in my mind that if I felt like exerting myself, I could pull her away from this guy. And like I said, she is really pretty but the god thing .... well, I decide not to exert myself.

F lives quite far from Wanchai and I tell her, as a joke, that if she wants I can drive her home. But finally after god and business plans and drunk yuppies crashing into me, I've had all I can stand. I ask her if she's okay if I leave her with that guy, she says yes, and I head home.

I'm not home 5 minutes when I get an SMS from her asking if I would come back and get her and drive her home. I reply, asking if she's serious and she replies that she's "begging." So I say okay, 5 minutes, grab the car, drive over, park outside Mes.

I call, tell her I'm outside, she says she will be out in a minute. I don't go in because I don't wanna have a scene with Mr. Businessman. Two minutes later an SMS that she will be out, she promises. Two more minutes, I walk over to the bar. They're closing, they won't let me in.

I call, she doesn't answer. I look in through the window, some guy has his arms around her and is putting the moves on her - hard. I don't see her fighting him off. His arms are around her, his hands on her thighs, pushing her skirt up. Now I'm getting pissed off. I call 2 or 3 more times, finally the phone is answered but by the guy who says, "is this Spike?" I disconnect the call.

I go back to the car. Two minutes later, she comes out of the bar with the guy, his arm around her. And they walk down the street and turn the corner towards Neptune.

Now I'm thoroughly pissed off. Who needs this shit? But I'm not going to go into Neptune, I don't need some confrontation over this dingbat. So I head into Fenwick, take a look around, sit, realize I can't drink because I've got the car, have a smoke, come home.

Now, if I can possibly clear my head, I will go to sleep.

Have not gone out yet. Having trouble getting started. Just that kinda day.

5 days till my birthday.

Last year on my birthday I reached 200,000 hits. (Page hits, not unique visits, of course.) Then I dropped most of the sex stuff from here, readership dropped by around 50%, I stopped looking at the hit counter. Just took a look, seems like I'm closing in on 400,000 now.

Why the fuck am I being so indecisive on this whole vacation thing? Seems like Bintan ain't gonna be what I want, or only partly so, and do I really wanna go to Singapore for a few days just cause I like a bookstore and the food there? There are worse reasons to go somewhere, I suppose. The alternative now seems to be Thailand - a few days Bangkok, a few days elsewhere - I do have an idea for a new tattoo, might have mentioned that before.

Last night watched a movie worth recommending somewhat - Exiled. Directed by Johnny To, it stars one of my HK faves, Anthony Wong Chau-sang, and a few others I like - Francis Ng, Roy Cheung, Simon Yam. Josie Ho looks properly bedraggled as Ho's wife and also nice to see Ellen Chan (and one of her breasts) looking great in the role of Hooker. It was nominated for a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

I was a bit nervous at the start because the opening credits didn't include one for a writer. At the end, screenplay was credited to two writers plus "Milkyway Creative Team." Movies written by committee are never a good idea, and Exiled has its share of lapses and poor logic, as one might well expect.

It's set in Macau in 1998, just prior to the handover. But you won't see any casinos or nightclubs here. This is a very different, back streets kind of Macau. As the story opens, two hitmen from Hong Kong knock on a door, looking for a guy named Wo. Then another two hitmen show up, in order to keep the first two from killing Wo. And then Wo shows up. In typical HK movie logic, it turns out that all 5 are childhood friends.

Simply put, the opening 20 minutes is almost pure Sergio Leone, which is not a bad thing. When the action starts, you'll see elements of John Woo and Ringo Lam and the end borrows in many ways from the Wild Bunch. To has breathlessly winked at, cited, homaged, borrowed and stolen from so many directors that the more you know about cinema, the more you'll love it.

I suppose it would be worth spending a bit of time on the political implications here - setting this in Macau in '98, characters who for various reasons have left Hong Kong. But I'm feeling lazy, haven't done that. The film is rated Category III, presumably because of its depiction of triad activities, lots of violence (most of the blood is CGI) and a brief flash of nudity.

Well, that's it, gonna head out, do a spot of shopping, walking, usual Saturday crap.

Kinda thinking now that if I split a trip between Bintan and Singapore, that'll give me both ends of the spectrum - something resort-y plus a chance to spend an afternoon at Borders Books and several meals in Singapore's great hawker centers. Have been to Singapore dozens of times, have never been to Bintan at all. Any tips?

Previously I knocked the SCMP's coverage of that killer cop story.

Today I clicked over to an article on Asia Sentinel, in part because it's written by someone I met once, in part because of what he wrote about it himself on his own blog, and when reading the article, I learned something important that I did not already know:

Thursday’s lead headline on the front page of the South China Morning Post summed it up: “Jury finds Tsui unlawfully killed three.” But nobody bothered to mention that an inquest jury has no place ‘finding’ such things at all. The purpose of a coroner’s inquest is to determine when, where, and how a person died, and who that person was. What such an inquest cannot do is apportion blame or denote liability. That is the arena of a criminal trial.

The jury’s verdict in this inquest wasn’t just unusual – it was unheard of. This was the first time in Hong Kong that an inquest sought to identify a killer.

Read the entire article here. See if you don't get upset about yet another underhanded game being played in HK by the powers that be.

(And I want to add, Asia Sentinel has been in my RSS reader almost from their inception. There has yet to be an instance where I've clicked over to read the full content of an article and been disappointed. It's a great alternative news source - and it's free!)

So far I have never met Warren Lieberfarb, who was president of Warner Home Video for about 27 years and can be co-credited with coming up for the concept for the DVD. Back then, there were also going to be two competing formats, but such was Lieberfarb's standing within the industry that he was able to get everyone to agree on a single format.

Warren was no longer president of WHV when the Hi-Def battles started. It's hard to say if he would have been successful in avoiding a format war a second time. I'm sure the other studios have had some degree of jealousy watching all of that DVD patent money flowing in to Warner and Toshiba.

Of course now we are stuck in a Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD format war, which only serves to confuse consumers who are already unsure if they should go the High Definition route. Sony/Columbia is only releasing Blu-Ray, Universal is only releasing HD-DVD, the other studios by and large are supporting both formats equally. It's a mess for the studios and for retailers that will not be resolved for some time.

Warren is a visionary in his field and I always find what he has to say worthwhile, so here are some excerpts from a current interview with him in Variety:

In the world according to Warren Lieberfarb, the schism between the two next-generation disc formats shouldn't have happened.

In Lieberfarb's view, the right aggressive moves could've prevented Blu-ray and HD DVD from befuddling consumers when those formats hit store shelves last year with two separate offerings.

"It was clear to me that a cartellike consortium was being created for the purpose of forcing a de facto standard on other manufacturers," Lieberfarb says.

Lieberfarb had hoped that all of the parties working on next-generation DVDs would continue collaborating on standards within the DVD Forum, a group that had been created in 1995 to foster discussions among studios and electronics makers.

Lieberfarb was so concerned about the activities of Sony, Matsushita and Philips that he asked Time Warner's outside antitrust counsel to explore strategies for getting the U.S. Dept. of Justice to launch an inquiry. But Time Warner had other priorities, and at the end of 2002 Lieberfarb was axed.

He says that if the studios had been less focused on creating bulletproof copy-protection and more fixated on getting the discs into the market more quickly, the work being done on HD DVD within the DVD Forum would've proceeded more quickly.

And with that, HD DVD might have beaten Blu-ray to market by an even wider -- and perhaps definitive -- margin. (As it was, HD DVD rolled out in the spring of last year and Blu-ray during the summer.)

"The studios were in denial or ignorant as to when DVD was going to reach maturity and when the growth rates would significantly slow down," Lieberfarb says.

Now that Blu-ray equipment is duking it out with HD DVD equipment in the market, Lieberfarb sees only one potential solution to the conflict: aggressive price discounting.

But consumers' confusion could prevent high-def discs from ever gaining the kind of foothold DVD has enjoyed.

"The longer these guys battle now, the more that Bill Gates, networked media, personal video recorders and satellite become the rival format to high-definition DVD," Doherty says. "Hard disc drives and fast network connections win in that scenario, not HD DVD or Blu-ray."

By the way, while the only Hi Def discs available in HK up till now have been imports, two of the local companies are going to start rolling out local Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs next month. This will force the local affiliates of Hollywood studios to follow suit. Which should mean we'll start seeing cheaper discs available locally in the very near future.

However, I think analyst Richard Doherty may be on to something in his comment.

I have said many times that the reason CDs succeeded over LPs and cassettes is because when you went in the store, they looked drastically different from those other formats. People would go "what's that?" and you could give them the sales pitch and demo to get their interest.

The same could be said for the victory of DVDs over VHS.

SACD and DVD-Audio both failed in the marketplace because 1) the qualitative difference over CDs was not that drastic, 2) they required the consumer to purchase new hardware to use them, 3) there were no computer drives for these formats, and 4) they did not look any different from regular CDs, so the mass public was never even aware they existed.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are doing a bit better. There are computer drives and game machines that play them and a lot of money is being spent on marketing. But the marketplace itself has changed. Downloading from the internet and streaming to your TV as well as over-the-air HD broadcasts (in most civilized countries, but not in HK of course, not until Li Ka-Shing figures out how to get a piece of the action) combined with hard disk recorders could be the consumer choice for the future. Not to mention the fact that DRM is a horrendous invention that is only hurting honest consumers (recent Sony DVD releases such as Casino Royale that featured a new attempt at DRM wouldn't play on a large variety of DVD players in the US - this after Sony infested millions of computers with viruses after putting some vile DRM on some CDs a year or so back - they never learn).

I don't think we'll see a change where the #1 consumer format becomes atoms instead of bytes overnight, but I do expect to see it within what's left of my lifetime.

Wanna know how to take a multi-billion dollar company and make it look tiny and petty? Here's how:

British Airways cut a cameo by Richard Branson from its in-flight version of the latest James Bond film and blurred out the tail fin of a Virgin Atlantic plane seen in the movie. BA's entertainment team cut a cameo appearance by the Virgin Atlantic chairman that appears in the original version of ``Casino Royale,'' a spokesman confirmed Saturday. In the original film, Branson can be seen turning around after walking through a metal detector at Miami Airport.

Are they thinking there's no such thing as bad publicity? Do they feel that the general public is so fed up with Branson that the pledge of a Branson-free flight will increase business?

Does the phrase "shit for brains" come to mind? Why, yes!

You can always tell days when I actually read the SCMP because those are the days when I get pissed off.

#1 - HSBC is the 800 pound gorilla of personal banking around here. They're the ones who have ATMs on almost every corner and a branch in almost every neighborhood (except the poor ones, something other local bloggers have covered quite well).

One popular account they offer is called PowerVantage. It's an integrated series of services including savings, checking, phone and internet banking and other crap. I was a bit behind the curve and found out today that they are raising fees on the PV accounts. How much of a raise?

Currently, if you maintained an average daily balance of HK$100,000, the account is free. If you dip below, there is a monthly service charge of HK$20, roughly US$2.60. That's quite reasonable IMHO.

But now you will need to maintain an average daily balance of HK$200,000. And if you dip below, the monthly fee will be HK$120, roughly US$15.60. That's a huge freaking hit!

So I went to my local branch, went to the customer service desk and asked if this was true. The guy immediately got that look on his face that said, "I've been asked this 100 times today, here comes another one." Tough luck, dude, that's your job.

He gritted his teeth, smiled, and said yes they are raising the fees in order to provide better services. I said, are those services going to be 600% better? So he whipped out a brochure to show me those new services - all of which are ones I think I have today, related to investment advice and stock purchasing. "But I'm an American, you won't let me use those services, so where is the advantage for me?"

He then mentioned that I get to stand on a "special line" when I need to use a teller - which happens about twice a year. I looked over at the counters and said, "There are 3 windows for PowerVantage customers and 5 people on line; there are 7 windows for ordinary customers and 10 people on that line. Please do the math and tell me the difference."

At which point he finally told me about the new SmartVantage account, which is basically everything the old PowerVantage account was, minus the "special line." This account charges HK$60 if your average daily balance falls below HK$10,000.

Now I could switch to another bank altogether. I'd really like to. Except I know that with the lesser ATM coverage and fewer branches that Standard Chartered, Citibank, Bank of China, Dah Sing, DBS, etc. have, I'd end up paying more than $100 a month in ATM fees.

So I guess I'll be switching to a SmartVantage account.

#2 - The lead story, with tons of sidebars, in the SCMP today concerns a posthumous inquest into the actions of some cop who shot three people and then was himself shot (or did he shoot himself? I didn't bother to look at the details). This is the kind of sensationalist story that everyone seems to love even though it has zero impact on the lives of 99.9% of the people who will read it. Ooooo! Guns! Blood! Exciting! Fuck off.

Buried further back, and also buried on the web site, is a more important story. Important in that it sheds a lot of light on the "people" who are running Hong Kong:

Universal suffrage should be introduced "the later, the better" because rushing it would "mess up" the economy, says tycoon Lee Shau-kee (Henderson Land Development's chairman). "If we rush to introduce universal suffrage and mess things up, we will end up even worse than now. I don't dare say [2012] is too soon, but the later, the better." Asked whether electing both the chief executive and all legislators by 2012 would "mess things up", Mr Lee replied: "I don't care. As long as you do not mess up the economy and the market, it is very good. Maintaining the status quo is enough."

See, billionaires like Lee don't give a shit about people, except insofar as those people continue to have enough money to buy their overpriced overvalued services. He enjoys direct access to Donald Tsang and benefits from HK's uniquely non-competitive environment that favors a handful of billionaires over the public at large. If Hong Kong had a democracy, if Hong Kong had leaders who were directly answerable to the public, then we could end up with laws that would actually favor the people.

Lee comes right out and says it. He has a pocketful of cash and a say in how things are run. He does not believe that you or I should have a say. Maintaining the status quo is enough for him because he knows that democracy will lead to an end to the competitive advantages and ludicrous amounts of money that he enjoys today.

The funny thing is, this is exactly the sort of asshole whom Beijing would term a "patriot," even though he is operating from a position of 100% pure self-interest. And probably a good 30-40% of the HK population looks up to this guy and nods their head in agreement when he says, in essence, the public are idiots and will fuck things up and I'll lose money.

And that's why we don't have democracy. Because a good 60-70% of the population probably can see through this person and would do something about him if given the chance.

Which has nothing to do with the rest of this post, just an old Joe Ely song that I enjoy from time to time.

Well, I used to chew 'em off
I was nervous over you.
I missed that clickin', tickin' sound,
Honey, what I'm gonna do,

I keep my fingernails long
So they click when I play the piano
I keep my fingernails long
So they click when I play the piano
I'm gonna keep 'em that way
Till the swallows get back from Alabama.

To answer some of the comments regarding the blogger meet, yes, there will be more. This went well and I can't imagine not trying to build on the little bit of momentum we've got. But future ones will not be publicly announced (at least not on this blog). I currently have a list of 61 English-language HK-based blogs and the email addresses connected to 37 of those. (If this gets big enough and regular enough, perhaps I can ask some bar if they want to "sponsor" us - toss in some free snacks or food in return for being our host?)

Search that led someone to this blog today: on ask.com, "where can I find a video on how to give a hand job?"

I feel like I'm coming down with a cold. Which would render the entire question of where to go this weekend moot. Though at this point I'm ready to give up and just say Samui or Hua Hin or even (gasp) Phuket. But the thought of several days of pure Vietnamese food goodness is still in my mind.

Brit mag Restaurant lists their world's best 50 restaurants 2007. I have not been to any of them, though I did stand outside of one of them and think, "holy fuck that's expensive!" No suprise El Bulli is number 1. Nothing in East Asia at all. 1 from India, 2 from Australia.

Oh I've been to #69 though! No, seriously.

One place from HK in this group, Caprice at the Four Seasons Hotel.

There's something somewhere in the SCMP today that suggests that DVDs of Spiderman 3 are already on sale in China, in advance of the movie's general screening. Sony has gone to the trouble of issuing a press release stating that the DVDs being sold with Spiderman 3 artwork either contain Spiderman 2 or simply don't play once you get them home. Sony also announced that there are no pirate copies available for download on the internet. Of course you can expect this situation to change by next week.

A potentially interesting film opening in September is Across the Universe. Directed by Julie Taymor, the film is said to be a Moulin Rouge-style musical, a love story set in New York City during the Vietnam War, with the soundtrack consisting entirely of Beatles songs. The film stars Evan Rachel Wood and has cameos from Bono, Salma Hayek, Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard and others. The problem is that there are two versions of the film. The first is a 2 hour 25 minute cut turned in by the talented Ms. Taymor. And there is a second "more commercial" recut done by producer Joe Roth. No one is sure which version will be released.

Johnny To's Election and Election 2 have simultaneously opened in NY, with the second film screening as Triad Election. A.O. Scott reviews the first one in the NY Times, saying, "for about two-thirds of its running time, “Election” is witty, convoluted and impersonal ... By the end, Mr. To has proven himself to be a genre hack of uncommon intelligence and soul."

Election 2 didn't do so well in HK, which could be why there was no Election 3. But Manohla Dargis, reviewing for the NY Times, saying it is "a metaphor about capitalism, men and meat that is perfect in its simplicity and barbarism." She also calls director Johnny To " One of the greatest action directors working in the world and one of the most excitingly prolific."

I do think the first one is better and in no small part because of the way it fools you on first viewing and deepens on subsequent viewings. The second one is under-rated and deserving of a wider audience, but it's not as good as the first.

On the front cover of today's SCMP is an ad for a man's watch with the headline "Often Seen on Stewardesses' Bedside Tables." The inference being, if you wear this ridiculously expensive watch, you can fuck flight attendants. Actually, if you can afford that watch, you probably can score some stews, even if you are otherwise lacking in the personality department, and it will have fuck-all to do with the watch. You'll stand around in Dragon-I in your Ermengedildo suit and your fancy watch and tell girls about your Aston Martin and eventually one of them will be greedy and stupid and drunk enough to go home with you and your expensive watch, suit, car, flat and 2 inch dick. This ad pisses me off.

Stopped by the local branch of Travel Expert today. They are the mega chain for travel agencies here. They never heard of Hoi An. The only way they can get you to Danang is to transit in Singapore. I did not make any purchase from them. And I'm still undecided about where to go and for how long.

Decent turn out. People seemed to enjoy.

Lessons learned for future ones:

1 - Switch to different night not conflicting with Bulldogs quiz night

2 - If I'm going to drink for 6 hours, I should try to ingest some solid food at some stage. Earlier is better.

3 - People from Virginia can drink a lot without the benefit of solid food.

4 - A mobile phone can be handy when you need a flashlight and don't have one, but it only goes so far.

5 - If you're gonna wear your favorite earring and drink for six hours and not eat, expect to have to decide on a new favorite earring the next day.

6 - It's very difficult being humorous, ironic or cryptic the morning after a night like that.

Don't ask me where I find the time ....

I've compiled a list of 56 HK blogs. These are pretty much all of the active, English language blogs that I know about. (If you haven't posted in more than a month, you're not on the list.) This is regardless of if you link to me or not, if I like your blog or not, just that you're out there and I know about you.

Of those 56, I have the email addresses for 28 bloggers. Do I have yours? Well, you would know if you have an email link on your blog or on your blogger profile page.

I'll maintain a list on some site like evite and then can send out announcements of where/when/what without having to publicly post the details here. As long as there remains some level of interest in this.

If you want to be sure you're included, you can send an email with the relevant info to hongkietown at gmail dot com. And if you want to make sure you're NOT included, you can do the same. I know that at least several bloggers strive to maintain their anonymity, some better than others, and can certainly respect that.

Chinese language bloggers are of course welcome!

I am not going to publish, sell, publicize or in any way share the list with anyone (except if at some point some other blogger either takes over doing this or shares responsibility with me for it).

Following the good response to my earlier post, I'd like to suggest we do it this Tuesday, 24th April, 7:30 PM - I want to get this going now because if we just sit around and dither, we'll never get it going. My suggestion is that we meet at Dublin Jack at Lan Kwai Fong. I recall that DJ is usually calm enough to actually be able to hear people talk. And we can always move onwards from there should the mood or inspiration strike.

Please pass this along to other bloggers you know - I know there are lots of people out there who don't have the time to follow my silly little blog regularly - and perhaps even post a notice yourself or a link back to this post.

I'll be easy enough to recognize. As of now I plan on wearing a black t-shirt that says NY Yankees (though there is some chance I could forget this by then).

Whether it's just a couple of people or 20 showing up, I'm sure a good time will be had. Stories will be told. Beverages will be consumed. And all that stuff ...

A chill out Sunday, starting with late yum cha with a friend at the branch of Tack Hsin in Wanchai. 8 or 10 dishes, nothing remarkable there but they are consistent and everything was decent and the price is cheap.

Relaxed at home and one of my dogs seems ill. He threw up twice - couldn't quite identify the non-food item he'd eaten, it was so shredded, but clearly he picked up something that she shouldn't have. Later, when walking him, there was blood in his stool. If it continues tonight and tomorrow, it's gonna mean a vet visit. My two guys are both celebrating birthdays this week - Spikey will be 7 and Bogey will be 4.

Went with a friend to try Cafe de Paris on Elgin Street for dinner. 27 degrees coupled with 79% humidity and even though the walk there was all downhill, I was sweaty and grateful for air con once we settled on this place and sat down inside.

Now I'm certainly no expert on French cuisine but, my gosh, everything really hit the spot here. I liked the fact that they had a fairly small menu. To me that says they are concentrating on trying to do a few dishes right rather than a lot of things poorly. The food itself bore this theory out.

I had escargots and an angus rib eye with cafe butter, served with a nice salad, steak frites and decent mini-baguettes. My friend went for the onion soup and an entire sole sauteed in butter and lemon. I had a glass of Bordeaux, she went for something white, and everything seemed just right. The place wasn't too busy - the crowds on Elgin on a Sunday night were in the Italian places. I intend to return.

Had some invites out tonight but am just gonna chill, watch some TV, maybe do some writing. Stopped off on the way home to get some Krispy Kreme because if I am gonna write tonight, I'm gonna need the sugar rush to keep going.

In need of some distraction, last night I said the hell with it and went down to Wanchai and plunged into Neptune, except that as soon as I got there I got an SMS from a friend who knew I needed some cheering up. She said she was over at the Captains Bar at the Mandarin with her flatmate and that I should join them there, which I did.

Sitting at the next table was the entertainer that evening, some American guy whose name now escapes me, apparently won some Grammies or nominated for some - he's worked with EWF and some other stuff, sort of a Randy Jackson with talent. He played piano and sang with local guys on bass and drums, some jazz, some pop standards, some old show tunes, very entertaining.

As his set neared an end, a big group came in and the singer said that the legendary Samson family had arrived. Three women, Asian, middle aged, came up and sang some old style close-harmony pop while another member of the group played piano. One of the women sang solo and then all six of them did a slow song with very intricate harmonies. I don't care for this style of pop music but seeing these guys get up, completely impromptu, and sing perfect five part harmony - that was impressive. The only reference to them I can find is a link on Google to a podcast on a web site that's no longer there. This is the cached reference, which says they are "musical greats living in Canadian obscurity." Any old China hands know of them? Some people in the crowd clearly did and were very excited to see them. The camera phones were working overtime while they were singing.

Following that, the girls suggested that we move on to a Wyndham Street bar and I joined them. The conversation in the taxi (between the two of them) seemed to center around using suppositories when having anal sex. Oh, gosh, I think I haven't lived.

Sitting in that bar, the two of them, both in short dresses, got up and started dancing, arms in the air, hips working in ways that are illegal in some countries around the world. But as that bar emptied out, they decided they wanted to head to Drop. I was invited but I decided to head elsewhere because there's only so much a man can stand, ya know?

(Okay, okay, someone is bound to ask why I'm with two gorgeous hot wild girls and leave them on their own and the answer is that they are only interested in me as a friend and I'm not gonna spoil the friendship by trying to push for something that ain't gonna happen.)

May I just say that I'm kind of surprised at the total lack of comments to the last post? Or are you all just so used to me being a drama queen that you've given up?

If Thursday was not an all-time low for me, it definitely ranked near the bottom. Today, nowhere to go but up, even a little is enough.

Last night I fell asleep around 6:30 in the morning. Up at 10, worked a bit, did the necessaries, before a visit to the doctor where he reminded me that the pills he prescribed for me won't work if I don't take them.

After that, visited H&M and HMV because their names are almost the same and they're just two sides of the same coin anyway, ain't they? I found the clothes at H&M to be basically cheap and cheerful but completely unremarkable aside from the cheap price. Nevertheless, I found a couple of shirts that were not too objectionable and a pair of socks with a bunch of skulls & crossbones on 'em that matched both my mood and my t shirt (description several paragraphs down).

HMV just for magazines and the listening station. I do not buy CDs or DVDs there. They are ridiculously overpriced. Mags probably over priced as well but don't know where else to go to get Q, Mojo, Uncut aside from the airport.

Up da hill (not backwards) for a late lunch at Insomnia. I ordered the tandoori chicken salad (misspelled on the menu). As soon as I ordered it, this French woman sitting at the next table asked what the little bowl of sauce was that she had and was told it was mint sauce and she said it was awful and I realized I had just ordered what she was eating but I was okay because she had poured the mint sauce over the salad as if it was salad dressing - yikes! Ya know what? For 60 smackers, it was far from sucky - a really huge and varied salad with like six kinds of lettuce plus spinach and cherry tomato and onion and maybe some sprouts can't really recall with a decent portion of chicken (that obviously wasn't really tandoori but was okay) and some papadums. I was satisfied.

Further up da hill, being lazy took the elevator through the LKF hotel, walked by Pickled Pelican and saw Sunny in there, working early. Always a very reliable ear to bend, so I did.

At one point this couple came in, white guy around my age or so and a seriously beautiful Chinese woman. I looked at her and could swear I had dated her a couple of times three years ago. Her face showed no hint of recognition. And I'm pretty sure she never wore anything like those tight jeans when she showed up to meet me back in the day.

Quickly ran over to 7-Eleven to restock on smokes. Some guy in there was getting his cellphone battery recharged - I didn't know they did that! He noticed my Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof t shirt (see, now you know, just as promised several paragraphs above), asked if I'd seen the movie, we spent 5 minutes discussing it before I returned to PP.

Got a call asking me if I want to go see the Cranberries' lead singer in some kinda showcase here next week and said yes. And then remembered that I'd seen the Cranberries live in HK around 95 or 96 and they really sucked huge chunks of ass at that show. So this time I don't think it could possibly be worse. Then again, haven't heard the new songs yet. If they suck, do I have to linger?

The place started to fill up after 6 - seems like it's a hit. I ended up sitting there for three and a half hours, drinking 5 or 6 whiskey sodas, smoking an entire pack of cigarettes but as the bar filled up with bankers and traders in suits smoking fat cigars and blocking my view of the street, I went home and went to sleep.

A call from friend B woke me up and lured me back out. I joined him and a group at Devils while they ate and watched cricket (a sport that makes no sense to me at all - if they have an over why isn't it over? do they have unders? "well let by" but then again, it did result in a great Roy Harper song) but I was not yet ready for solid food. B left to go back to work and I decided to leave as well. Some SMS's from J, who did not want to hang out, just saying hello, and K, who wanted to hang out but not in Wanchai and I didn't feel like going elsewhere, especially as my clothes were more appropriate for where I was and not Soho or that vicinity.

So I stuck my head (and sundry other parts) into Laguna. Sat there, not drinking, and did not feel in the spirit to join in with the general festivities and frivolities there. Some girl came over to me, sat on my lap without asking, asked why I was alone, and when I told her I was fine and wanted to be alone, she would not leave, so I did.

Some quick food at Cul de Sac. Stuck my head into Neptune. Still not in the mood. Walked over to Fenwick. Not even in the mood to go in. Hopped (not literally, okay?) into a taxi, came home.

No, really, I am in a better mood today. Thanks for asking.

Early today I wrote that I was feeling unsettled. Tonight I feel like home made shit.

(One bright spot, the only bright spot today, is the responses to far to my idea of a bloggers' meeting. This could be very cool and I'm looking forward to it.)

I don't wanna seem overly morose but when I feel this way, usually there's a Dylan song that captures my mood. It's utterly ridiculous that this should happen and the only person I'm pissed off at is myself.

Shadows are falling and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well, I've been to London and I've been to gay Paree
I've followed the river and I got to the sea
I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here against my will
I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Blame it on Gomes if you wish, this is something that's been in the back of my mind for a long time.

I've probably met more than half a dozen of the HK bloggers listed over on the left in my links section. We seem to get along well enough when we meet in person.

So I'd like to suggest a monthly HK blogger meet. On a weeknight. In some spot in Lan Kwai Fong or Soho which has beverages, some food, and not too noisy so that we can talk for a couple of hours and then those who wish can adjourn elsewhere.

I'll propose the last Tuesday of each month, so we could start next week Tuesday 24th April. If a different night works better for people, that's fine with me.

No agenda, no discussion points, we just get together and see where it goes.

So ... anyone else up for this?

There's this guy I know here in HK. I've known him more than 10 years and consider him to be at the least one of my best friends in town. Younger than me, we met in a professional capacity and then started hanging out. For awhile he led a life that was kind of out there, wild like mine but in a different way. And then he settled down, married someone beautiful and smart, and their first baby will be showing up next month.

I haven't seen him in many months - not at all in 2007 as it turns out. I figured between business, the wife, the baby, he's been busy. But I called him yesterday, just to let him know I was thinking about him and hoping everything was going well. I left a voice mail, he returned the call this morning.

"When's the last time we spoke?" I asked. "I dunno, probably before Christmas, you were going to be living with that Thai woman." "Oh, we broke up." "Good." And several minutes later, he asked if I wanted to meet for lunch next week. And we set a day and time.

It does get one thinking. About a lot of things. Some of them perhaps not immediately obvious.

============================================

Among the things that caught my eye this morning was a bit in Billboard, Costello Revisits Back Catalog With Reissues.

On May 1 his first 11 albums will be reissued, along with two compilations, now on one of the Universal labels. For the first 30 days the albums will only be available on iTunes; after that they'll be in stores. "My Aim Is True" will be re-released in the fall in a "30th anniversary deluxe edition with demos, alternate versions and live tracks."

In 1993, Ryko and Demon reissued My Aim is True with 9 bonus tracks. In 2001 Rhino reissued My Aim Is True as a 2 disc set with the same 9 bonus tracks and 4 additional ones. Now six years later they're doing it again. What else is left to add? How much is too much?

Costello is in my personal pantheon but this is just getting silly.

=============================================

Oh, apropos of nothing, music on my Macau run ended up being Besnard Lakes, Duke Special and a new Dylan playlist I put together. I've got a new column due for BC soon and that means that a lot of the more recent stuff is gonna get deleted after one more listen and some scribbled notes.

My birthday is exactly two weeks away and I wanna be someplace else then but haven't booked anything. I'm having trouble remembering my age now, something that should be fairly simple, but every time I think of it I have to do the math. Clearly I am in denial. The mind is the second thing to go.

Someone who reads this blog whom I know in "real life" has accused me of meandering lately. As you can see, things are not improving yet.

Feeling unsettled today in general.

Just one of those nights. Was going to write this down as soon as I got home but for some reason had trouble sitting up and so ...

Met buddy B at some fish and chips place called Chippies (why not Fishies?) off Wellington St. B, who is more expert on these matters than I, said the combination of frozen fish + fresh batter = soggy instead of crispy. Taste was okay, not objectionable if you're there and you gotta have it, but definitely not worth a special trip. Went out without my glasses last night, first time in a long time, not smart.

Tired. Just wanted to go home after dinner. B insists that we should at least take a stroll down Wellington and see what's what. Not wanting to be rude, I agree. We make it as far as Pickled Pelican. There are people there we know. Someone who manages one of the (vaguely respectable) bars in Wanchai is there drinking with friends. And two members of the staff are people who used to work at Maya. We enter. I figure one drink won't hurt. They buy me five. Or maybe ten.

The view along Wyndham Street is excellent. Much better than on Lockhart Road, or not, but definitely very different and unobjectionable. It simply makes me want to see someone I know but despite or perhaps because of a series of SMS's of decreasing legibility and intelligibility, 'twas not to be.

We close PP, Wagyu is also closed, still something of a crowd by Tivo but we go over to Coconuts. Something happens there, I'm not sure of the details, I didn't see it and have it described to me and it's, well, odd and, actually, well odd.

Round the corner, most places are closing up, the only option is Insomnia. Some guy comes up to me, a bloody tourist from bloody Chile, and tells me that if I'm looking for girls I should go to "George Bar." I tell him I live here, he becomes my friend, or my slave, or something like that.

I start smoking two cigarettes at a time. It seems to make as much sense as anything else. B starts talking to some local girls who are out late, living dangerously and hold no appeal for me whatsoever (and probably vice versa).

Finally I leave B to his own devices and stumble out of the bar and into a taxi around 3. I had some really brilliant thoughts last night and it would have been great if I had been capable of sitting up so that I could write them down.

And somehow at some point I managed to turn on the alarm on my phone. It went off at 7:20 and then every 5 or 10 minutes for the next two hours. I've had better mornings. I don't have a headache and can open my eyes but my stomach isn't too happy with me.

Last night, as Fragrant Harbour already reported, I attended a free dinner held by some PR firm for HK bloggers.

Going there, I was wondering if they were just including us gwailos or if some of HK's many Chinese-language bloggers were there. On showing up, I was pleased to see that they were represented. I sat on their end of the table, hoping to find out more about them and their blogs (which unfortunately I cannot read) but was rapidly instructed by our hosts that they wanted to segregate the Chinese from the westerners "for translation purposes." Which is a shame in my opinion.

But I did finally get to meet Fragrant and Ordinary Gweilo, which was nice because they have two of the better blogs around these parts. Once Roland showed up, our host seemed to devote most of his attention to him. So we just settled in and enjoyed the food at Wooloomooloo, always reliable.

(Do check out Fragrant's post on this topic, including the comments.)

Following that, I went to Jem, a small bar hidden away on a side street to have a couple of drinks and a chat with a friend. We've both been through a lot in the past several, both survived it in good spirits, and it was a nice way to spend an hour before heading home.

Today I took a vacation day and went over to Macau for just a few hours to meet a friend for lunch. In the 90s I used to go to Macau all the time. I stopped once I started going to Shenzhen - quicker and cheaper to get there, cheaper once you're there. I think it's been at least a year since my last Macau visit and as I rode in the taxi, there was so much new stuff I barely could recognize anything or figure out where I was.

I met the friend for lunch at the coffee shop at the old Lisboa. This used to be a tacky, horrible place with bad food and filled with Russian hookers taking a break in between clients. Like the rest of the public areas there, it has been extensively remodeled and upgraded. I went for this dim sum combination - ten items, one each, served in a steamer, for just M$48. Each one was perfect, artistically finished, beautifully arranged in the steamer, and as good as any dim sum I've had anywhere. Quite the pleasant surprise.

Following lunch he gave me a tour of the new Grand Lisboa and yes, it is grand. Stanley Ho followed the examples set by the western-run casinos that have opened and come up with a beautiful ornate temple of gambling, with all the same amenities that you'd expect to find but that never existed in his older places.

I found I had no desire to sit at a table or drop some money in a slot machine - gambling holds no allure for me any more. On the other hand, a weekly poker game with friends, that could be fun.

Oh well, time to watch American Idol. Is this the week Sanjaya will finally be voted off? As bad as he is, there are still one or two others there who annoy me even more. And I think the show, amazingly boring this year (not that it's so great in previous years but, like a train wreck, I cannot turn away), will be even worse without him.

I've been a fan of Bryan Ferry's music for more than 30 years. Not so much a fan of the man though. In a recent interview with a German newspaper, he was quoted as saying "The way that the Nazis staged themselves and presented themselves, my Lord! I'm talking about the films of Leni Riefenstahl and the buildings of Albert Speer and the mass marches and the flags. Just fantastic - really beautiful." He has since apologized but WTF was he thinking when he said that - well cleary he wasn't thinking.

In India, people are now burning Richard Gere in effigy - not because of bad movies or those maudlin Visa ads but because he kissed Shilpa Shetty on the hand and face at an AIDS rally. This is the country that came up with the kama sutra and is famous for its dens of prostitution and yet if you kiss in public or on screen it's practically a hanging offense. WTF, don't these people have anything better to protest against? Like poverty, starvation, religious intolerance, etc.?

And one non-WTF item. The 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Music went to Ornette Coleman and his most recent album, Sound Grammar. “I’m tearing and I’m surprised and happy — and I’m glad I’m an American. And I’m glad to be a human being who’s a part of making American qualities more eternal.”

Last night a friend and I checked out Cecconi's, a new Italian restaurant on Elgin Street. No idea if this is related to the restaurant of the same name in Melbourne. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it perhaps a 6.

My friend is someone who has spent a lot of time in Italy and really knows Italian food. I've never been there and grew up on American Italian food, which is about as authentic as American Chinese food. So I guess it's fair to say that I come in with lower expectations and am more easily satisfied.

Service was oddly haphazard. In an interesting touch, the menu mentions that they offer unlimited bottled still and sparkling water for $38 per person. I had arrived first and asked for some water. First they brought a glass, then the bottle and then later came by and dropped a lemon wedge in. When my friend arrived, they poured a glass of water for her but never delivered lemon. And they also didn't bring a menu over for her until she requested it.

Salt and pepper mills were on the table - when they brought my appetizer, they asked if I wanted pepper and then did the pepper thing for me. When they brought our mains, no similar offer made.

We were amongst the last to leave (the place closes at 11) and as we were sitting there, talking and slowly drinking the last of our wine, a waitress who was clearing nearby tables looked at us and asked, "do you have to be someplace else?" which my friend found strange but I wrote off to the waitress's command of English.

I had carpaccio which was nicely done but nothing unusual, followed by roasted snapper over risotto with chorizo. Quite tasty but the snapper was very dry. My friend also had a fish dish which seemed a little better than mine.

The wine list is both extensive and expensive, a nice selection of wines by the glass, but most of the bottles were over $400, with prices up to a couple of thousand or so. I was hoping for a larger choice of Italian wines - there were a few but the emphasis seemed to be on Australia.

Dinner for two with a bottle of wine (just one starter, no desserts or coffee) came out to around $1,300. I've had better, I've had worse, I don't think it will be a priority for me to return here.

After that we went around the corner to a new place that should fill in a badly needed niche in SoHo, a lounge bar called Peel. Walked in and was greeted by name by the hostess - I couldn't quite make her out in the dim lighting and after half a bottle of wine but soon realized she used to manage Maya before it was sold.

She paid for the first round of drinks for us and even sent over a couple of slices of gourmet pizza, which we didn't touch because we were still quite full from dinner. My friend only wanted the one drink but I felt we couldn't come in there and not buy something after getting the first round on the house, so I drank a bit faster and a bit more, not exactly a hardship.

Very comfortable spot, nice music, relaxing and they're planning on adding a second floor soon. I hope this place is successful because it was exactly right for what we were looking for - a nice quiet place to sit, drink and talk following dinner.

Music notes and mental meanderings ...

Thanks all who responded to the blooz and jazz posts. All of your comments have been noted and will be researched. One issue for me is that I do have a lot of the stuff in one format or another but haven't played it in so long that I forget which tracks stood out for me. Examples - Bill Evans, Art Tatum, Roland Kirk, Lester Young, some others. But I'm working on it.

This morning, went to sync the iPod, add in the new Patti Smith, Gruff Rhys, Feist, some other stuff. And when I popped the thing in, I got a box that said "your iPod is in recovery mode, you will have to restore it." Argh.

So first yanked the iPod out and put it back. No good. So did the restore. And it came back with the same error message. Uninstalled iTunes, rebooted. Panicked. Because I was doing two things at one time, before I did the uninstall I hadn't first exported my playlists or saved the underlying reference files that iTunes uses. Would my playlists be gone, and I'd need to reconstruct hours of work? No, lucky me, iTunes came up, the playlists are still there, the settings are still there, now slowing reloading 8,387 songs into the iPod. Phew!

During the past week, following my break-up with T and the aftermath of that, I did find some time to think about the kind of woman I want to be with next. Some kind of mental checklist, if you will. Age is not a factor, ethnic background is not a factor, religion is only a minor factor (in that, as an atheist, I could not be with someone who wouldn't at least not try to convert me), language skills a factor.

But most importantly, the attempt to find someone who already knows and enjoys the same cultural touchstones and landmarks that I do. Someone who, when we see a movie, the subsequent conversation could be more than just, "I liked it." Someone who reads (and something more than just Stephen King, not that there's anything wrong with him, except as an exclusive diet).

And because of the timing, I was thinking to myself, it would be so great to meet someone who is excited that there's a new Arctic Monkeys album out, as opposed to someone whom I'd need to explain the Arctic Monkeys too.

Well, now I have met someone like that. Excited about the Arctic Monkeys. Impressed that I know who they are and like them. It may "only" turn out that I've made a good friend. Don't wanna be all Little Mary Sunshine but I'm kind of enjoying things right now.

Patti Smith - "Twelve" all covers. Covers albums are generally tricky things, most often a holding pattern in a career, some product to keep your name in the marketplace while you work your way through some creative drought. Now Patti Smith is one of my gods (or goddesses, if you insist). I haven't played this all the way through. With the opening track, Hendrix' Are You Experienced, she truly does make the song her own. But the next track, the odd choice of Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants to Rule the World, she does nothing with it. She should be able to kill with Gimme Shelter, but she doesn't. Soul Kitchen is a great choice for her, and she does an okay Smells Like Teen Spirit. But I think that in the future, when I think of those songs and want to hear them, I'll be cuing up the originals.

Watched the recut version of Bugsy yesterday, about a week after watching the new edit of The Natural. Both of these films work much better for me in the new versions. I can't specifically go back and point out what's changed, just that they each flow better and make more sense. Both were directed by Barry Levinson, who debuted with one of my all time favorite films, Diner.

In the 80s Levinson did Diner, Natural, Young Sherlock Holmes, Good Morning Vietnam, Rain Man. A progression of increasingly less personal films, more commercial, things that connected with a mass audience.

In the 90s, despite Bugsy and Avalon, there were some real stinkers - Toys and Sphere. This decade, even worse with stuff like Bandits, Envy, Man of the Year. How does this happen?

One song I keep going back to on the iPod, Van Morrison from his live A Night in San Francisco set recorded in 1993. A 16 minute medley of Brook Benton's I'll Take Care of You and James Brown's It's a Man's Man's Man's World, with some other stuff thrown in.

I love how this kicks off, with Morrison saying, "I first heard this song by Bobby Bland in 64, then I heard it by Junior Wells later on, so work it out for yourself." He plays around with the James Brown part a bit, changes to the melody and the phrasing. The thing is, when I wanna hear I'll Take Care of You, I'll just as often go to the Morrison version as I will to the Bland version, because Bobby Bland's version is brilliant but Morrison takes the song and owns it.

After this track there's a 14 minute medley of Lonely Avenue and 4 O'Clock in the Morning, with bits of Be Bop a Lula, Family Affair, You Give Me Nothing but the Blues, When Will I Become a Man, Sooner or Later, Down the Line all thrown in.

The album ends up with a kick-ass 11 minutes of Shakin' All Over and Gloria, and John Lee Hooker comes out for Gloria. Morrison is loose, joking, obviously enjoying himself, and you know why he did it. Back in the 70s I worked for a really grumpy very-often-drunk Irish guy, I suspect the personalities are similar.

My ex-wife hated this album, perhaps that's one reason I love it so much. She also hated Exile on Main Street, maybe that's when I shoulda known it wasn't gonna work out.

All of the above is me procrastinating, trying to put off doing actual work, but guess I gotta do some now.

Sometimes simple lyrics are the best, here's the lyrics for I'll Take Care of You:

I know you've been hurt by someone else
I can tell by the way you carry yourself
But if you let me, here's what I'll do,
I'll take care of you

I, I've loved and lost, the same as you,
so you see I know, just what you've been through
But if you'll let me, here's what I'll do
I just got to take care of you

You won't ever have to worry,
you won't ever have to cry
For I'll be there beside you,
to dry your weepin' eyes

So darling tell me that you'll be true
For there is no doubt in my mind,
I know what I want to do
And just as sure as one and one is two,
you know I'll take care of you


And then, just cause I feel like it, here's a bit o' Dylan:

Our conversation was short and sweet
It nearly swept me off-a my feet.
And I'm back in the rain, oh, oh,
And you are on dry land.
You made it there somehow
You're a big girl now.

Bird on the horizon, sittin' on a fence,
He's singin' his song for me at his own expense.
And I'm just like that bird, oh, oh,
Singin' just for you.
I hope that you can hear,
Hear me singin' through these tears.

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast
Oh, but what a shame if all we've shared can't last.
I can change, I swear, oh, oh,
See what you can do.
I can make it through,
You can make it too.

Love is so simple, to quote a phrase,
You've known it all the time, I'm learnin' it these days.
Oh, I know where I can find you, oh, oh,
In somebody's room.
It's a price I have to pay
You're a big girl all the way.

A change in the weather is known to be extreme
But what's the sense of changing horses in midstream?
I'm going out of my mind, oh, oh,
With a pain that stops and starts
Like a corkscrew to my heart
Ever since we've been apart.

It's 4 AM and I really should be in bed but I'm blogging now because I wanna capture this while it's fresh in my mind and maybe also capture a little bit of my mood right now. This was one of the best nights I've had in ages.

Keep in mind that last night I only had 4 hours of sleep and by all rights should be a zombie today. Nevertheless, I met up with two of my occasional readers, one of them being "anotherego," who'd left a comment offering to be my "wingman" in my hunt for a "normal" girlfriend. The other was a guy I'll refer to as K, a long time resident who really gets things here, understands what it is to live here having done it in a real long time, and inexplicably says he's in a similar situation to me.

K and I met at Pickled Pelican, a new pub on Wyndham Street. We ordered some drinks and he attempted to explain cricket to me. At any rate, eventually we found anotherego next door at Tivo, a new bar and restaurant that was just packed. She'd brought along two female friends who are visiting HK for the weekend.

Now I'll digress for a second. I'm sure a lot of you who read that post and read those comments were wondering about her, someone who'd post that, what she's like, is she for real, etc. I'm not going to go into great detail so suffice to say that she's not only incredibly good looking (and the way she was dressed emphasized that) but also really smart, well educated, good job and could talk for hours on a range of different subjects. Everything I hate because everything was so perfect!

Tivo was quite nice. The place was so busy that the crowd spilled out first to the sidewalk and then even into the street. Wagyu across the street had a similar situation. We talked about this and decided that people who actually live here are sick of Lan Kwai Fong, looking for a different scene, and all of these new places along Hollywood and Wyndham are that scene, at least for the moment. I saw so many good looking women everywhere - Chinese, Indian, white - almost all laid back, relaxed, enjoying the Saturday night.

I got into conversations with anotherego's two friends. This is the important stuff here, okay? These were great conversations. We got into talking about things like American and British politics, Richard Dawkins' new book The God Delusion and the impact of religion on current affairs, 9/11 theories, all over the map. These were true conversations. These women were intelligent and attractive and I wound up pulling out my phone so I could jot down some of their recommendations.

And the point is that while talking with them, for the first time I knew I had done the right thing in breaking up with T. We could never have conversations anywhere even close to these. And despite four hours of sleep and a few glasses of whisky I felt energized because I felt so engaged in what we were talking about.

Jetlagged, those two ladies headed back to their hotel. I found myself saying to them, "I so wish you lived here, I've enjoyed talking with you so much, I want to do it more."

So I now was operating on a double high, first from the people I was with and what we were doing, and second because of this revelation and confidence that I did the right thing.

Anywho, anotherego and K and I went across the street to dragon-i. A famous DJ from the UK (I think) was there spinning tunes, and the three of us found a comfortable place to stand and talk. I have to say I really liked the ambiance there - we stood in the outdoor section, talking and looking at the crowd. The place was busy but not so packed to become uncomfortable.

Around 2 AM, K took off. Anotherego and I stayed there talking. The night flew by and before we realized it, it was almost 4 AM. Again, great conversation on a wide variety of topics and I just felt engaged and energized in a way I haven't felt in a very very long time. I put her in a taxi and then hopped in one myself. The taxi driver berated me for being with such a beautiful woman and not bringing her home with me.

Now, to be completely honest, I could have chosen to go to Wanchai at that point rather than home. I didn't specifically because the thought of going to Fenwick or Neptune seemed so completely antithetical (is that the right word?) to the rest of the evening. It just would have erased everything I'd done up to that point. Does that make sense?

No, a leopard can't change his spots but I'm an old dog ready to learn new tricks. (Ugh. That reads horribly. I'm leaving it there because it's right even if it's tacky.) I wanna spend more nights out with these new friends, and more time around this scene.

I know tonight I did the right thing. I have a better idea tonight of what I want in a companion/lover/friend. That doesn't mean I know how I'm gonna get there but at least now I have this clearer idea of the direction I need to be going in.

Yeah, okay, when reading all of the above, keep in mind that at the moment I'm operating on 4 hours of sleep, 6 glasses of whiskey and 4 glasses of bourbon ....

And so, my droogs, the dogs are asleep on my bed and it's about time for me to join them. Merry April 15th US Tax Day to all, and to all a good night.

A lot of errands and walking around, with my new Sony DSC-T100 in hand. I have to say I am not impressed with this camera. Small and easily pocketed but picture quality varies a lot and it only seems to function well under limited circumstances. I don't think I'm going to be keeping this one a long time.

Stopped into the Oriental 188 Mall on Wanchai Road. Usually notable as a video game center, there is now an explosion of shops selling used goods. Used cellphones, used ipods and accessories, used CDs & DVDs, dozens of shops. One notable used product is the PSP - they are marked with which version of the OS they contain, and older ones go for higher prices because they are more hackable. A used one with version 1.5 sells for $1750, while relatively current ones go for around $1250. There's also a section of one floor selling original locally designed clothes - t-shirts, jeans, sneakers. It's really a fun mall for killing a couple of hours.

A bit of old HK in Wanchai, this sort of thing isn't going to be around much longer:



No exclusive for realtors leads to a plethora of signs nailed to this empty storefront. Which one would you call?



At the Bowrington Road Market, as fresh as you can get it:





Outside Times Square. Almost always a good "view" but this time just a few notables: