Thursday, July 14, 2005
reinvigoration
hmm, there seems to be an uproar for more, so i will oblige. however, not much has happened since hong kong. there is a terrible backlog of information to share, however, so i'll hit you with that.
i think i'll craft an amalgamate of nights for this blog. sew together the thick threads of a couple of shanghai evenings to make the one cloth look all the more interesting. here goes:
let's try my birthday, shall we? i had been chilling with daniel colvard for a week or so, doing my best to show him around the town but basically leaving it up to him, as i had office hours to attend to. early that afternoon i dropped him off at the train station on his way up to beijing, passed between friends around the china table. yifei and i were at a loss for what to do, until she piped up with the thrillsome idea of going bowling, something i had yet to do in shanghai.
and it was all i imagined it could be, and oh so much more. but bowling is pretty boring to describe. i didn't bowl amazingly, but i did put on a nice performance at the end with Dee MacMahon. we were stationed on abutting lanes and my bowling side was a little slower than his. so he finished in the lead with 108 (again, not phenomenal, but none of us had been bowling all that year. forgive us our diminished natures) and i was simply worried about breaking 100 at that point. on the tenth frame, it all became clear. i had a spare and then needed a strike to TIE him. i couldn't even beat him, but i lined it up and struck. the crowd goes wild and all that jazz, but it did feel good. 108 = 108 Dee and i were destined to be equal in more respects than bowling that night, however. (to note: a lot of people came out bowling. don't think that was due to my birthday, but more to the utter brilliance of yifei wang.)
we went then to a club called Harley Bar because we had heard that some bands would be playing. there was a pretty weak band on at first, followed by a strong one, and then capped off by the weakest one ever. i'll focus on the strength in this blog. can't tell you their name (owing to the forgetting nature of the night) but they were superb. a punk band with a lead singer who was one of the strangest, yet most electrifying, lead singers i've seen to date. he would do anything for the crowd. to start, he had tissues stuffed in his spandex biker shorts (all he was wearing) which his guitarist would grab to wipe off the sweat of the performance (it was hot, fuh real). he at one point licked the sweat off his guitarist's face and then licked his own sweat off his own body. from... interesting places. deep, dark places that would scare children. and since there are no children reading this hopefully, his butt crack. quite the performer i tell you. he did this awesome screamed cover of a popular song in china (S.H.E. = you are my superstar) that brought down the house. by this point i and catherine and dee had jumped up into the moshpit and i was pushing around folks singing along. it was just one of those nights. and they kept coming back for encores, thanks to my calling them back enthusiastically i say bigheadedly. whoa, too many adverbs. on to the next section>
the followup band blew, so we skedaddled on to... more different pastures. we went gokart riding. [this is where the faint of heart might want to hang up the ol mouse and head for bed] those puppies are fast. i may have talked about this before, but i'm gonna go into it again. we're talking mach 3 here. breaking sound barriers and other barriers as well for the virginal gokarters among us. and i don't really mean anything hymenal by that, but i'm sure that's been breached on that course before. dee and i seem to always be at odds and here we had never raced one another before. a date with destiny which turned out to be an ugly one with lots of drama.
out on the course: cars flying, turns whipping, metal crunching, sissies screaming, and finally, blood flowing. it is most exhilirating to go full throttle into a turn, hearing your tires squeeching beneath you begging you to slow down, but still continuing on, through, out. but even through all that exhiliration, please remember to fasten your seatbelt tight enough elliot, jeez!
i was stupidly trying to pass dee on the inside of a turn and he cut me off into the wall. i jerked forward, not stopped much by my slack belt, and hit my head on the steering wheel. yeah, i feel stupid. but would i do it again?
anyway, i first checked my teeth, cuz i'd hit my mouth on the bottom rung of the wheel. all checked, go, i took off, determined to catch up to dee. but my sweat kept pouring down the side of my face, annoying the heck out of me. i wiped it away, then noticing the interesting deep muddy red color of my sweat. odd, i thought, but no matter, keep going. a couple more turns and my brain kicked in and i slowed the car down to check for cuts. all i found was more blood. not coming from my ear, or my cheek, but from the top of my head. always a bad sign, i took it for that, and pulled the car over to the pit, the employee graciously pulling the barrier aside to allow me entrance (with a slightly panicky look on his face). at the bar (yeah, they have a full bar at this place) they gave me wet rags and some water. to save you the suspense, it was just a scalp wound - long, but not deep. i survived and didn't have to go to the hospital across the street (yeah, conveniently located - coincidence, no doubt). and to answer the question, yeah, i did it again. two rounds later. but i was a tad bit slower, if you know what i mean. and certainly more tightly strapped. my green shirt was festively decorated with a nice wreath of red splatter around the neck. oh, what a night!
but it's not over. if you thought that mere blood loss would stop me, you were sadly mistaken. i was on a rare tear that was bound for glory (or gory) that night. we went back to my place> (cue suspenseful music)
and residing at my apartment, along with the dust bunnies and the large red headed chinese centipedes, was an intristing assortment of liquor. why not. patrick had had his parents in town and couldn't let them know he had anything as insidious as SNAKE WINE in his place, so he loaned it to me. daniel thought i needed an extra kick on my birthday, so he bought me a handle of black label. and china thought i was in need of intestinal problems, so there was some baijiu as well (chinese moonshine). have i set the scene? let's give some background on snake wine:
a large glass container with different ingredients floating in a red coloured form of baijiu, including, yes, a snake. actually, two. scott nicholson had problems seeing after imbibing a bit of it. most people fear to smell it. i, and others braver than i, usually just wake up in the morning stinking of it, sweating it out every pour and sticking to our mattresses. it's horrid, the devil's poison, meant to ensnare humanity and cause us to fall from great glorious heights.
dee and i were at it again, old competitors we. the black label was shared among the group of six or so, the baijiu disdained. the snake wine only gave its styxian kiss to two that night, and i bet you can guess. patrick was pouring the drinks, not nicely either. dee and i were eyeing one another and going blow for blow. we stopped after a while, but the serpentine tonic had other plans. dee began to speak gibberish, speculating on all kinds of amazing epiphanies that none of us could even come close to understanding, save through his overwrought gesticulations. my gesticulations, occurring a bit later, were of another sort. better they be called gastriculations, i think. i was very earnestly trying to convey to a pony that i was one of those long-necked bobbing birds, tilt-o-chirps, or whatever you call them. except i think they take the liquid out of the bowl.
the next morning i was fine and went to get some breakfast at rendezvouz cafe. dee, sadly, never emerged from his room that day. he had neglected to do as i did so early on in the night, and so was obliged to take the full consequental brunt of his actions. i felt for him, i really did.
too bad that wasn't every night in shanghai (or maybe for the better), cuz then i'd have a lot more stories to tell. maybe kunming's harvest will be more bountiful.
e
>dee has since forsworn snake wine.
i think i'll craft an amalgamate of nights for this blog. sew together the thick threads of a couple of shanghai evenings to make the one cloth look all the more interesting. here goes:
let's try my birthday, shall we? i had been chilling with daniel colvard for a week or so, doing my best to show him around the town but basically leaving it up to him, as i had office hours to attend to. early that afternoon i dropped him off at the train station on his way up to beijing, passed between friends around the china table. yifei and i were at a loss for what to do, until she piped up with the thrillsome idea of going bowling, something i had yet to do in shanghai.
and it was all i imagined it could be, and oh so much more. but bowling is pretty boring to describe. i didn't bowl amazingly, but i did put on a nice performance at the end with Dee MacMahon. we were stationed on abutting lanes and my bowling side was a little slower than his. so he finished in the lead with 108 (again, not phenomenal, but none of us had been bowling all that year. forgive us our diminished natures) and i was simply worried about breaking 100 at that point. on the tenth frame, it all became clear. i had a spare and then needed a strike to TIE him. i couldn't even beat him, but i lined it up and struck. the crowd goes wild and all that jazz, but it did feel good. 108 = 108 Dee and i were destined to be equal in more respects than bowling that night, however. (to note: a lot of people came out bowling. don't think that was due to my birthday, but more to the utter brilliance of yifei wang.)
we went then to a club called Harley Bar because we had heard that some bands would be playing. there was a pretty weak band on at first, followed by a strong one, and then capped off by the weakest one ever. i'll focus on the strength in this blog. can't tell you their name (owing to the forgetting nature of the night) but they were superb. a punk band with a lead singer who was one of the strangest, yet most electrifying, lead singers i've seen to date. he would do anything for the crowd. to start, he had tissues stuffed in his spandex biker shorts (all he was wearing) which his guitarist would grab to wipe off the sweat of the performance (it was hot, fuh real). he at one point licked the sweat off his guitarist's face and then licked his own sweat off his own body. from... interesting places. deep, dark places that would scare children. and since there are no children reading this hopefully, his butt crack. quite the performer i tell you. he did this awesome screamed cover of a popular song in china (S.H.E. = you are my superstar) that brought down the house. by this point i and catherine and dee had jumped up into the moshpit and i was pushing around folks singing along. it was just one of those nights. and they kept coming back for encores, thanks to my calling them back enthusiastically i say bigheadedly. whoa, too many adverbs. on to the next section>
the followup band blew, so we skedaddled on to... more different pastures. we went gokart riding. [this is where the faint of heart might want to hang up the ol mouse and head for bed] those puppies are fast. i may have talked about this before, but i'm gonna go into it again. we're talking mach 3 here. breaking sound barriers and other barriers as well for the virginal gokarters among us. and i don't really mean anything hymenal by that, but i'm sure that's been breached on that course before. dee and i seem to always be at odds and here we had never raced one another before. a date with destiny which turned out to be an ugly one with lots of drama.
out on the course: cars flying, turns whipping, metal crunching, sissies screaming, and finally, blood flowing. it is most exhilirating to go full throttle into a turn, hearing your tires squeeching beneath you begging you to slow down, but still continuing on, through, out. but even through all that exhiliration, please remember to fasten your seatbelt tight enough elliot, jeez!
i was stupidly trying to pass dee on the inside of a turn and he cut me off into the wall. i jerked forward, not stopped much by my slack belt, and hit my head on the steering wheel. yeah, i feel stupid. but would i do it again?
anyway, i first checked my teeth, cuz i'd hit my mouth on the bottom rung of the wheel. all checked, go, i took off, determined to catch up to dee. but my sweat kept pouring down the side of my face, annoying the heck out of me. i wiped it away, then noticing the interesting deep muddy red color of my sweat. odd, i thought, but no matter, keep going. a couple more turns and my brain kicked in and i slowed the car down to check for cuts. all i found was more blood. not coming from my ear, or my cheek, but from the top of my head. always a bad sign, i took it for that, and pulled the car over to the pit, the employee graciously pulling the barrier aside to allow me entrance (with a slightly panicky look on his face). at the bar (yeah, they have a full bar at this place) they gave me wet rags and some water. to save you the suspense, it was just a scalp wound - long, but not deep. i survived and didn't have to go to the hospital across the street (yeah, conveniently located - coincidence, no doubt). and to answer the question, yeah, i did it again. two rounds later. but i was a tad bit slower, if you know what i mean. and certainly more tightly strapped. my green shirt was festively decorated with a nice wreath of red splatter around the neck. oh, what a night!
but it's not over. if you thought that mere blood loss would stop me, you were sadly mistaken. i was on a rare tear that was bound for glory (or gory) that night. we went back to my place> (cue suspenseful music)
and residing at my apartment, along with the dust bunnies and the large red headed chinese centipedes, was an intristing assortment of liquor. why not. patrick had had his parents in town and couldn't let them know he had anything as insidious as SNAKE WINE in his place, so he loaned it to me. daniel thought i needed an extra kick on my birthday, so he bought me a handle of black label. and china thought i was in need of intestinal problems, so there was some baijiu as well (chinese moonshine). have i set the scene? let's give some background on snake wine:
a large glass container with different ingredients floating in a red coloured form of baijiu, including, yes, a snake. actually, two. scott nicholson had problems seeing after imbibing a bit of it. most people fear to smell it. i, and others braver than i, usually just wake up in the morning stinking of it, sweating it out every pour and sticking to our mattresses. it's horrid, the devil's poison, meant to ensnare humanity and cause us to fall from great glorious heights.
dee and i were at it again, old competitors we. the black label was shared among the group of six or so, the baijiu disdained. the snake wine only gave its styxian kiss to two that night, and i bet you can guess. patrick was pouring the drinks, not nicely either. dee and i were eyeing one another and going blow for blow. we stopped after a while, but the serpentine tonic had other plans. dee began to speak gibberish, speculating on all kinds of amazing epiphanies that none of us could even come close to understanding, save through his overwrought gesticulations. my gesticulations, occurring a bit later, were of another sort. better they be called gastriculations, i think. i was very earnestly trying to convey to a pony that i was one of those long-necked bobbing birds, tilt-o-chirps, or whatever you call them. except i think they take the liquid out of the bowl.
the next morning i was fine and went to get some breakfast at rendezvouz cafe. dee, sadly, never emerged from his room that day. he had neglected to do as i did so early on in the night, and so was obliged to take the full consequental brunt of his actions. i felt for him, i really did.
too bad that wasn't every night in shanghai (or maybe for the better), cuz then i'd have a lot more stories to tell. maybe kunming's harvest will be more bountiful.
e
>dee has since forsworn snake wine.
