Loose Cans

I've hit my highest pill ingestion rate since I got out of the hospital in 2003: 12 asacol, 3 prednisone, 4-6 advil and a multivitamin. It's not as drastic as it was back then (when it was like 12 asacol, 6 prednisone--not fun--plus iron pills and others), but it's still a cheery process. The intestines finally appear to be coming under control for the first time since the flareup in April that sent me to the hospital in Dublin--China was torture, too--and we're about to add a new drug, Curcumin. Extract of Turmeric. It's apparently been really successful, and has next to no side effects. So that's two more pills (and these are a gram apiece, so horse pills). I should start selling my body to science. Beats paying for it.

The advil are because I went back to training all at once after not doing anything for a month. Between a session at Master Suh's in Astoria (always punishing) and a merciless class at Premier (I went to check out my friend Maria's teacher, who I've been hearing a lot about, not all of it good; I was not pleased) which was all upper body work, which I'm unaccustomed to, my back's a twisted mess. So now I have to go back to Suh's tonight, broken or not, because according to the Times two days ago, rest doesn't help. I'm not taking a month off ever again.

Hopefully I should be behind the bar at the West End next week, when school kicks up again. Will keep you posted.

I just want you people to know that I am studying for tomorrow's Chinese final the only way I know how: writing a great walloping e-mail (yes, in Chinese) to someone. It's working out fairly well, actually: it's almost 1200 characters three times longer than anything else I've written, and I'm just throwing every grammar construction and idiom I know in. I've even given directions from my dorm to the West End, because that's on the test. This is like when I studied for my Critical theory final in Dublin by writing a gonzo essay on Deepthroat--which, incidentally is being published on Friday by Columbia's pseudo-porn mag, Outlet. I'll link to it when it's up. Here's the guy I'm writing to:





That's Qiang, my bartending buddy in Dublin (actually, my lifesaver, but that's a very long story--summarized here in very brief detail, but I do like the phrase "Jesus fuck."), who invited me into his home in Dalian, a small town of 6.5 million people no one never heard of. Here are two more pictures, because I don't show you guys nearly enough love anymore.





That's Li Baba on the right, Li Mama on the left and off to the side is Li Nainai (paternal grandmother). Clothes for the men are strictly optional; I was in my undershorts as well, and Qiang's briefs were even briefer than his father's. It was hot out. On the table are many very very tasty things, not including jellyfish soup, which was served the previous night, and which was the very first dish with which I was presented in China that I refused to eat. The night before that, I had happily put down pig ear, duck brain (absurdly tasty, like foiegras), spicy frog (unsurprisingly excellent, just far too spicy even for Qiang) and, of course, the infamous live shrimp. All washed down with two pitchers of beer. Per person. And so I don't think it shameful or dishonorable in any way that I felt no burning compulsion to try the jellyfish soup. I can handle a lot at this point, but I feel I am particularly susceptible to 口感, or "mouthfeel," and of all the textures I actively hate, jellyfish ranks right up at the top next to yak butter tea (which is Tibetan for "rancid snot"). So I passed.

This did not bother them; they knew they'd run me through the gauntlet the first night. But they weren't going to let me off the hook so easy, not after Nainai found out I'd sung "The East is Red," the great Communist anthem, at karaoke that night--very, very much against my will. She had missed it, though, and was not going to let the chance to fuck further with the foreigner slip through her fingers. Her bony, gnarled fingers. Might I add, I was the first foreigner Nainai had ever seen with her own two eyes. This is the result:





I'm writing this, I think to remind myself why I'm half killing myself to learn this language in the first place.

First of all, yesterday was Jacob's birthday. He's legal to smoke, buy porn, get drafted, vote and be tried as an adult. Welcome to the party.

I am feeling very proud of the once and future Baby Benito, though: today, he had his first major college paper returned to him. The paper, however, was for a graduate-level conservatory seminar in the History of Opera, which he magicked his way into at the beginning of the semester. We are not talking Physics for Poets here. Knowing only that he knew nothing when it came to writing graduate-level essays, especially for a music class, he slaved and wailed and broke his brains in working on this paper all in the ardent hope that he might eke out a C.

不知道怎縻搞的, but he got an A.

92.6. Don't ask me how one gets a .6. It doesn't matter. We are "literally astoundished." The boy is seriously good at what he does. And we are very, very, very proud.

I, too, have acquitted myself tolerably. I wrote a paper for Contemporary Chinese Culture on three novels, Shanghai Baby, Beijing Doll and Candy. These are the three most famous kiss-and-tell, masturbate-and-sell novels written in China in the past few years, and they're pretty roundly terrible. Sensationalistic and confessional, saturated with graphic sex and drugs, and extremely quick reads, Beijing Doll, Shanghai Baby and Candy were swiftly translated into English upon publication, and dozens of other languages besides. All three are barely disguised autobiographies, written in the first person by an attractive young woman who is very, very easily plied by the attentions of men, virtually all of whom are thin, brooding, long-haired, emotionally (and often physically) defective men with a large CD collection. The sex across all three is downright ghastly, with men using women's bodies like tissue paper, and inevitably growing cold and contemptuous afterward--which inevitably comes as a surprise to the girl, who begins to cry. Nor do any of the men exhibit any qualms about foisting themselves on grossly underage girls. Beijing Doll is especially gruesome: it's rare that you encounter something which is hands-down, no-contest, the very worst of its species. I mean, it's really rare. But Beijing Doll is without any doubt the single worst book I have ever read. Name a bad book. I dare you. I guarantee you Beijing Doll sucks worse. Two sample lines: "I like poetry, it's beautiful." "The air at Xidan was saturated with the smell of material stuff." In the first, she could have at least put a semicolon. Jesus. And don't go blaming this on the translator, either; it was translated by Howard Goldblatt, one of the best in the world. It reads like it was written by a retarded and horny 13-year old. In reality, it was a retarded and horny 17-year old. Charlotte Brontë, this one is not. Isaac discovered it in China, and his literary agency, to our enormous consternation, subsequently signed this woman. Her book is atrocious, but it's a the softest sell anyone's ever seen.

Anyhow, I wrote a paper on these books--and why they're such soft sells, despite sucking--without having finished any of them. I only read about 10 pages of Beijing Doll (it was on reserve at the library, God only knows why); Shanghai Baby and Candy I'd read about half of, but I hadn't looked at Candy since August. The paper was written at warp speed, was generally slapdash and trite, was handed in late and unedited and somehow I scraped out an A-. More pleasing than the grade is the comment: "Very interesting paper! You provide an excellent reading of Shanghai Baby and Beijing Doll and a fine reading of Candy..."

Laughing all the way to the bank, suckaz. We are back in business.

So what did we learn in school today? We learned that no matter what the class, or what the subject, never, never write anything but English papers.

It's pretty clear this blog is dying, but here's another quixotic attempt at rescussitation.

I think I might have mentioned a few months back that, on a lark, I put in a job application at the West End. Nothing ever came of it, though. Last wednesday, though, Nick and I decided to head over and scope it out--it's been redone and is now called Havana Central at the West End. It's supposed to be Cuban-themed affair, but as it stands, the dining room isn't finished, nor is the kitchen, and all there is is the bar in the front, which doesn't even have glassware yet, just plastic cups, and an insultingly paltry four beers on tap (Bud, Bud Light, Miller Light, Dos Equis). The night we went was karaoke night, and karaoke is something that should be done only by drunken Oriental businessmen or North Korean waitresses. Even then, it should never be allowed to dominate the central bar area; instead, it must be relegated to small and soundproofed private rooms. The whole operation was a disgrace, and Nick and I were accordingly outraged, and spent the night loudly giving vent to our displeasure.

So two days later they called and I start training tomorrow.

There has clearly not been enough irony in my diet.

I have a new computer, a bright and cheerful Macbook. My old machine was "an old bitch gone in the teeth," creaky and wheezy and liable to go at any moment. I am much pleased, mostly because I now have the ability to watch dvd's again (the old one's dvd player didn't just break, it held my dvd's hostage, stuck fast, and now it refuses to release the Unbearable Lightness of Being. More irony). So I spent friday night happily glued to old episodes of Julia Child.

If ever I write an epic poem, it will be an Ode to Julia Child. I firmly believe that the only culture a growing child needs is Prairie Home Companion, Julia Child, Calvin and Hobbes, Greek myths and Leonard Bernstein. All the rest is dross.

I need to learn about Chinese Civil Society now. I have a presentation coming up. So far I've got a pretty good idea of what "civil society" actually means. I think it's an important first step.

Throwin tha bumz out!

First off, big, BIG up to all the Missouri voters I know for the McCaskill win. My cousin Jason is especially walking on air today (and you all should be reading his blog every day, he updates a lot and everything he has to say is more interesting than what you might read here) because he and his wife's organization, Heartland Democrats of America has been working overtime on this one. Almost exactly a year ago, in a speech, he had this to say: "They will call us pinkos, commies, liberals, nay-sayers, tree-huggers, and traitors...but if we stay true to our values, they're going to have to call us the majority."

Fuckin' A, cuz.

But moving on! Onward, outward, upward! Webb v. Macaca in Virginny looks to be going to a recount, and Burns v. Tester in Montana is still maybe too close to call (unbefuckinglievable! Burns is armpit-deep in slime; that he's not in jail is a mystery, that he's even in this election is absurd), but Tester has a small lead. But DeWine is gone, and Chafee, too (I think everyone will agree that it's a pity that of all the Republicans that had to go, Chafee was among them)...but Santorum! Don't let the door hit your frothy mixture-loving ass on the way out!

And da HOUSE! Da GOVERNORS! Y'all know the story. I got no more time to write, got to run off to work...but HOT DAMN!


UPDATE: What do you say about Donald Rumsfeld? Perhaps a simple HAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK OFF AND DIE will have to do for now.

Plus the good people have Montana have finally gotten their shit together and they're officially calling it for Tester. All eyes on sweet Virginny.

My own personal grandmother, Ann Kander, turned 80 today. Show some respect.

I just think that every so often it's important to acknowledge it.