Teach in China

I've said it before, I'll say it again. If you want to teach in China, particularly Beijing, please contact me (leave a message in the contact section below) and I'll give you the skinny on the school that hired you (if I can.)  I can't tell you how many times I've been screwed six ways to Sunday with local schools during my twenty plus years here: I've even had a massive meltdown with an international school--supposedly one of the good ones--due to a very dishonest person in one of the administrative departments. There are also some excellent schools and fantastic departments to work with, and if I can endorse anyone, I will do so. I might even be able to pass along some tips to help you navigate through the first week of teaching, so that you are not wasting your students' time. You might also need some help finding an apartment, or getting around. If it's going to make your Mamma feel better, knowing that you can contact me for the inside scoop, then don't hesitate to write to me via the comment section below. I live to serve, baby. 

Karma's a bitch and so am I

So, the other day I went to Girl's Street to do a spot of shopping. I parked my motorcycle in the designated spot--delighted to find a space directly in front of the alley I wished to shop in--and after locking my bike I was able to dash into the two stores I wanted to shop at, and returned to my bike in less than 20 minutes.

During that time not one but TWO people parked their bikes directly behind mine, making it impossible to leave the parking lot without first moving their motorbikes. Both were chained through their wheels, so I couldn't simply push them out of the way. Both were very heavy. And to make things worse, there WERE empty spaces not six meters away---the owners of the bikes had simply chosen to drop their bikes dead center of the parking spaces so they wouldn't have to walk a few extra meters. So, what could I do--sit and wait for them to come back, and then ask them meekly to move their bikes please? Hell, no: I was pissed. So I picked up the largest of the bikes and dragged it into the middle of the very busy road and laid it on its side none-too-gently on the ground. I went back and kicked the smaller bike out of the way and rode off. The security guard who watched the whole thing--including, I believe, the miscreant assholes parking their bikes where they did--gave me a sly wave as I took off, angry and triumphant and feeling very ticked off that I had to act this way to make my point. 

Crystal City: The Life and Death of an American Rock Band

This is a true story, or as true as I can make it. For one thing, these events occurred when I was a tender young thing of seventeen: now at fifty, I may have condensed some events, but upon rereading this, I don’t think so. Events are pretty much as I describe them below.

At seventeen I was cast into a play, written by a student for an assignment in Creative Writing class at the local community college. It was not as nearly as good as it sounds. However, due to a fluke in timing or taste, the local dinner theatre decided to stage it, and I was cast as the ingénue (although I had wanted the part of the bitch ex-wife.) I won’t describe the seven-month hell of rehearsing that play, including the requisite walk-out of half the cast two weeks before the debut, but it put me in touch with a group of people I did not know existed, underemployed musicians in their mid to late thirties who couldn’t keep a job or get a girlfriend.  I’m not sure what they lived on, besides hope, and the occasional Social Security payment for disabilities not obviously apparent to the casual observer. What I remember most about this group was the smell of desperation, almost but not quite masked by Brute and the funky smell of dime-store clothing.

At some point, one of them discovered that I could sing, and offered me a spot in their band. The two other young things that had been offered spots as well were massively pissed off that I joined; both were cute, good singers, pretty good bass players. It says a lot about these men that they had three people on bass and no one on drums, but I was too stupid to think about that. I could sing a lot better then than I could now, being a lyric soprano with a range of over three octaves, and this also makes me think, why would a rock band want a lyric soprano? The answer is simple: eye candy. Needless to say, I had an eating disorder and did some modeling: at five feet tall, with long blonde hair, I was a striking contrast to the other two female members, a tall busty brunette with dimples and a half-Japanese redhead with melting brown eyes. The costumes the men chose for us were the nadir of taste, a cracker’s wet dream of femininity, extremely short cut-off jeans and red gingham shirts tied up over our navels with ruffled Calypso sleeves. Between the French-cut Daisy Dukes and the gay Harry Belafonte/Farmer’s Daughters shirts (which we sewed ourselves) we looked awful. It was one thing to wear them for performances but the guys insisted we wear them at rehearsals, which was a bit off-putting as the shorts were cut so high that our modest all-cotton, Mother-approved white panties showed every time we moved, breathed, or stood upright. My mother, who is not even Catholic, crossed herself the one and only time she saw me in this get up.

So, if we young ladies were dressed as hookers, what do you think the male members of the band were wearing? Well, for rehearsals, they wore the same sad gear, badly fitting jeans and t-shirts and plaid shirts which fifteen years later became the grunge look, but which, in 1981, just meant  “poor.” The leader of the group, Will, was in his late thirties, medium build, requisite pot belly, completely bald on top but with a long fringe of light blonde hair flowing to his shoulders. Moustache. Bitten fingernails.  Hang-dog attitude. He had recently been dumped by his fiancée, who showed up at a play rehearsal once sporting the pirate look (again, it was 1981) complete with a sword. This was our lead guitarist.

Next in our line up, The Worm, the OTHER lead guitarist. He had a name but I can’t remember it. He looked much the same as Will, only twenty years older, with a bigger pot, longer hair, and more facial hair. He did not sport the same hang-dog attitude, but was equipped with a fierce sense of superiority which I understand now is a mask. At the time, though, I just thought he hated me. Last but not least---the leading man of the horrible play whose name was actually the name of a ladies’ sanitary product. I can’t reprint the name, so a substitute will have to do, as he is exactly the sort of asshole who trolls the Net looking for possible references to himself so he can sue for libel. (Gotta love the US court system.) He also played bass. I have seldom seen a less attractive man. Well over six feet tall, gangly, not into personal hygiene, with yellow hair, yellow eyes, yellow fingernails and yellow breath, he exuded hostility whenever he wasn’t actively hitting on us.  Let’s call him Dragon.  Oh, yes, he also limped, as the result of running home twelve miles from a disco in a pair of platform disco boots when a lady he asked to dance with him said no, as she was in early labour at the time. (“If I’d a known he had a Social Security check comin’ in every month,” she told me later, “I’d a said yes, but at the time I was just thinkin’, o Christ, my water broke.”)

So, three middle aged men, three very young women, one vocalist, two background singers, three bass players, and two lead guitarists. This was Crystal City, which incidentally was also the name of a very large record store in the neighboring city. This name evokes everything wrong with our band, from a lack of direction to a lack of knowledge about copyright laws. I’ll skip over the hell of our three rehearsals, when the original material written by the buxom lady was passed over for bad covers of Alice Cooper tunes.

And now—The Gig. Just as local playwright had lucked out with the local dinner theatre willing to host her play, we lucked out with a local tavern willing to host our debut. At the time, I didn’t understand what Open Mic night meant, but I do now. I did know rather a lot about staging, and listened to the very elaborate plans, which stopped just short of fog machines and fireworks, but which did involve a safety harness, flying over the heads of the audience,  and jumping off a platform, guitars in hand, to strike the first epic chord. So imagine my surprise when the ladies and I showed up to our gig, dressed in our horrible tiny cocktail-waitress-dating-her-daddy outfits and found out the following: first, we were not allowed inside as we were underage, and second, the much-vaunted venue was a very small bar, seating capacity no more than 75, with a stage the size of a grand piano. How all six of us were supposed to fit on there was a mystery, even without the elaborate choreography or even a drum kit. So, although we three weren’t allowed in, we were allowed to sit outside on the grass and watch the show.

We were upset, of course, but this fever pitch of teenage emotion was instantly quelled and replaced by a deeper and more intense horror when, with a scream of the engine and a puff of smoke, the tiny Pinto carrying all three men roared in the parking lot, and all three male members of Crystal City emerged. I have intimated that none were attractive—two short baldies with pot tummies and one very long tall piece of yellow string—but the outfits they wore did nothing to hide their figure faults or unify them as a group. The Worm and Will wore Lurex one-piece body suits with—very evidently—nothing underneath. Both of the suits had been purchased a decade or so ago when both men were considerably slimmer. They were sleeveless as well, and their chubby arms showed off flabby white chicken wings and a notable lack of tattoos, which, let’s face it, you rather expect in a self-proclaimed bad-ass. Will sported a top hat, and the Worm had a lurex cape as well. Will had an ok package going on—as horrifying as it was, there was still something there—but The Worm had a tiny little lump on the right side of his crotch which managed to give the impression of a floppy little earthworm even when he stood still. I cannot hear the term “member of a rock band” without thinking of The Worm, and giggling. But somehow these examples of sartorial splendor were eclipsed by Dragon, who was dressed up like a pimp from Starsky and Hutch Meet Saturday Night Fever, with a white suit with a black shirt, a fur-lined cape, the aforementioned white Disco stacked heeled boots which shot his height to well over seven feet even without the ivory-colored felt panama hat, bedecked with not one but three ostrich feathers—which stood straight up. Head to toe, he measured about eight feet in length and could be smelled at twice that distance with a heady mixture of pot, aftershave, dental plaque, and nervous perspiration.

We stood there in silence, mouths agape, our complaints about not getting in stuck in our throats (the way they had pictured us many a dark and lonely night, I’m sure) and one thing floated into my brain, the thought that perhaps I should be thanking God on my hands and knees that I wasn’t going to be seen in public performing with this lot. A similar thought must have crossed the minds of my two cohorts as they too stood silent, a silence mistaken by the men as profound respect and admiration.

“Couldn’t get in, huh?” Will said jauntily. “Yeah, we thought that might happen. Never mind, we (jaunty toss of his head to indicate The Men) have our own set.” And that’s when we found out that they had been practicing in secret, fearing that we youngsters, lacking their experience, might let them down. Liquor laws in the state forbade any minor from entering a place serving alcohol, a fact the older men knew and had pooh-poohed away when I brought it up. “You’re a rocker,” Will had said countless times, “And those laws are for pussies!”

We ladies sat on the grass in a state of shock, a bit envious of the swagger with which the men strode into the venue. We had enough money between the three of us to order a pitcher of lemonade (very good lemonade, by the way) and settled ourselves in for the show. Crystal City was the first in the line up, not with a one-hour set as we had been told, but with a maximum three-number set. We couldn’t see much of the stage, as small as it was, but we could see the men squabble over the placement of a large packing crate which they unearthed from somewhere and set on the stage, as well as much head-tossing of long stringy hair as they plugged in their amplifiers and sound-checked. I’ve never seen the point of a fifty-minute sound check for a seven-minute show, but there you go, that’s probably while they were onstage and I was sipping lemonade on the grass. Other people evidently shared my opinion as the other acts were arriving and objecting loudly to the length of time Crystal City was spending on tuning and checking.

I’m often accused of being a bitch, and sometimes with good reason, but in that moment, watching the men plug and unplug  and replug their instruments, I understood with blinding clarity that this sound check was their big moment, the moment when they were living their dreams and being everything they had thought they should be, but weren’t: sound check was the dream without the possibility of crashing, as they weren’t yet performing. I’d call it foreplay, but it wasn’t that, it was the taste of success without consequences, pure pleasure, pure expectation, the plunge of your hand into your Christmas stocking when hope is still very much alive, not yet doomed to disappointment at what you actually have, the hour BEFORE the big date which turns out to be a bust, but in which you still have an hour to dream that it’s going to be all right. 

As  they strummed and hummed and insisted that the sound go louder—louder—louder, I felt it: THIS was their big moment, not the show itself. This is all pre-Spinal Tap or else I might have made a joke about the sound going to eleven, which it pretty much did, but I said nothing. My two companions  were busy fending off hits from the sort of men who go to open mic nights, who were drawn by our obvious youth and matching outfits. Some asked hopefully if they were twins. No one hit on me, which I barely noticed, because I was caught up in watching the men set up, suddenly connected to them by a feeling I couldn’t identify but which I now know is compassion. Watching them set up and fuss and reset and fuss again, I felt a closeness to them that I have seldom felt with other adults, and when they finally finished their set up—more or less jerked off stage by the exasperated bar manager—they joined us on the lawn for a few minutes of head-tossing and stage talk. They were, of course several hours early, as were many of the other acts. I was concerned with how I was going to get home. My mother had dropped me off, warning me to get a ride home, and I was weighing the risks of pissing her off by calling and asking for a ride after all, walking the six miles home in the dusk, and asking Will for a lift after the show. I had the feeling I did not want to watch what was going to go down, however disloyal it might be to leave. I whispered my concerns to the buxom one, who told me I had to stay, that she’d kill me if I left, and that she would give me a lift home but I HAD to stay to see it through.

“Maybe they’ll surprise us,” she added. Truer words were never spoken. Maybe they would stand up and deliver tender ballads. Maybe they would pull their shit together and have a hard-rocking trio. Maybe Dragon would pull off that stupid fur cape—it was August—and strip off the Tony Manudo white jacket and the ten Bee-Gee gold medallions and sing…but maybe not.

I’d like to leave it to you, as you can probably guess what happened. When the time to go on came up, the band, deathly pale, nervously took their positions. By that I mean Dragon got on stage and Will disappeared behind the packing crate. He scrambled about and made odd noises and finally The Worm had to borrow a chair from the audience (oddly, there were lots of empty chairs) and drag it to the tiny stage. He hopped up on the chair (ewwww) and reached over the packing crate and helped to pull Will up on it. Will evidently had a fear of heights and he perched nervously on the crate, gee-tar in hand, refusing to straighten up, crouched and trembling so hard that we could hear it through the instrument. The Worm, meantime, had clambered off the chair, forgetting to return it to the audience in his haste to hit his spot downstage. Dragon was strapped into his bass, doing air licks and practicing his own dip and swirl movements which resembled not karate as he had hoped but the petit mal seizures one of my dogs has.

And at last—the show began. Will let out a horrific scream, hit a crashing chord on his guitar, then leapt off the packing crate onto the stage. The crashing chord was so loud that the first set of speakers on stage blew just like they do in the movies. The screaming continued while the band picked up off that first chord and as the smoke cleared it was clear that Will was still on the floor, having hit his leg pretty hard on the chair upon descent. The chair was upright, but Will was down. He continued to play while on the floor, squirming around as if he were some Rock God and trying to cover the fact that he couldn’t stand upright, or at least didn’t dare try in front of the crowd during the big number. Give him props for continuing the song. Within ten chords the audience began to boo. Within two minutes, the audience began to throw things—napkins, peanuts in the shell, French fries…and within ten minutes, the cops showed up and shut the show down for noise violations. They had to carry Will out to the grass, where one of the officers, trained in first aid, bandaged up Will’s ankle for him. Buxom took off in the meantime, leaving me stranded: I walked home, although in that outfit I had plenty of offers for rides.

My parents, tactful as ever, never asked me how it went, nor questioned why I arrived home well past midnight unescorted (and thankfully unmolested.) The only feedback I got came from my dad a few days later. Dad worked for the police department and part of his job was to type complaints into the system. He knew a lot about everyone and everything but never commented on anything he saw. This time, however, he saw fit to mention that the owner of the venue called in the noise complaint himself. I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t even sung that night, but he was smirking so much that the words died in my throat. It didn’t matter: no one had pelted me with peanuts and napkins and at worse I was only out of pocket for that god-awful outfit. If anything I felt that I had gained something, having had that moment of empathy for which I paid with a two-hour walk home in the dark.

 If Crystal City ever rehearsed or performed again, I wouldn’t know, as no male member of the group ever contacted me after that. I moved on: I moved to New York, I moved to Tokyo where I sang Tiny Bubbles and My Way an awful lot, and I never tried to stage a grand entrance via a packing crate. I sing a bit at local venues in the city where I live. Sometimes the art and music flow through me and when it doesn’t, I am the pathetic older person singing to a too-loud guitar.  I am aware sometimes that younger performers look at me with that same clarity I experienced at seventeen, knowing that I’m just a black-clad oldie making up in sound for what I lack in talent. But that’s life, and that’s the circle of life, and someday they’ll be the old person on stage, wondering where all the music went. Let’s just hope they’re not wearing Spandex when it happens.

Recipe: Really Good Lemonade

I should mention here that through the usual small town connections, I did get the lemonade recipe.

Combine half a cup of white sugar with a half-cup of boiling water. This is a basic simple syrup. Stir until all of the sugar is dissolved, let then it cool on the counter. While it's cooling, juice two to three lemons. If you're feeling fly, add the juice of a small lime or small orange as a kick. You can also add mint, but don't add it with the lemon juice, add it to the hot simple syrup to help extract the flavor, or add springs of mint to the glasses later.  Combine the juice, syrup, four cups of cold drinking water (aka "a quart") and pour over tall glasses filled with ice. Best served fresh. Some like to add a tiny pinch of salt to the lemon juice. Delightful. 

First World Problems

The maid came too early. The maid--who had taken my dog back to her home 35 kilometers by public transportation--brought her back along the same route and arrived at my house at 7 a.m. sharp. And I'm COMPLAINING about it. Complaining about someone who has probably been up since five and who definitely left her house before five-thirty to get here. Jesus, what sort of person am I?

Am I such a horrible person? She did me a huge favor, taking Duchess Doggie to her own home so I didn't have to worry about three-time-a-day walkies while recovering from surgery. I did offer to pay for a taxi both ways, but she blithely slung Duchess into an oversized bag and took off (pocketing the taxi fare, I might add.) Duchess is used to it and has mastered the trick of hanging her head out of the bag and looking adorable and mild. While on dog-sitting duty she (the maid, not the dog) didn't have to come in, and as I lived off ice cream for the past three days, there aren't a lot of dishes to do or clean-up in general. And yet, I am pissed that she came so early.

I'm aware that this is like complaining that your Birkin bag doesn't match everything. It's just that I had hoped to get some private stuff done before she got here, as it's impossible to eat, brush teeth, or shower when she's here. An example: as she is cleaning the floors, she has stuff spread out in all the rooms. The kitchen is impossible to reach due to the number of buckets, basins, rags, brooms, and towels. If I say the hell with it and go brush my teeth, she finds it necessary to start a long conversation or possibly to scream, as the turtle moved ever so slightly in the tank and startled her. A shower? Forget it, that's the signal to stop cleaning the floor and move in to the bathroom to clean the toilet. While there, she will use the same rag she used to mop up the floor around the toilet on the wash basin (yeeech) while rearranging my cosmetics. The dental piks and q-tips which I had placed in demitasse cups will be tossed into a heap on one corner of the sink and she will take the demitasse cups back to the kitchen to be stored away, without washing, somewhere convenient, such as the back corner under the dripping sink.

I will be boiling hot as she has snapped off both the fan and the air conditioner ("You don't need them, they'll only make you sick,") and worse, she's cleaning the house clad in bra and panty, stopping occasionally to bring me an unsolicited glass of water. I fear it may have come from the sink. The guilt trip continues: if I'm typing away at my computer, I will be asked repeatedly what I am playing, and if I reply that I'm working  this reply is met with a sort of smirk. No, the smirk says, cleaning your damn floor is work, what you're  doing is for pussies.

 Normally, when I'm on vacation we reach a state of detente: I give her the time off, paid, so that I don't have to worry about being dressed and fed before six-thirty a.m. Ironically, according to my neighbors, she usually arrives around ten-thirty when I work. Lord. I just figured out the scam, and since this is the same maid who once safety-pinned me to the bed to help my sore back, she's bulletproof for life. Sigh. If I want a clean toilet, I will either have to resign myself to getting up at the crack of dawn, or cleaning it myself. Let me just be grateful that I have both a toilet and a choice, and quit griping about what are clearly first world problems.

Today's words of wisdom courtesy of Miss Suzy

Do Civilized BJ Men

My friend Suzy Q snapped this picture and posted it to her Facebook account. It is posted here with her gracious permission. She wrote something to the effect that the shirt says, "Do Civilized BJ Men" and while blow jobs do indeed tend to calm most men down, she'd rather just tip at Christmas. This is a sensible attitude and one I endorse heartily.

 A friend met me for lunch the other day and revealed that her teenage daughter had been caught giving a bj to a lad she knows. "The fool just wanted to be caught!" her mother fumed. "Or else she wouldn't have given head in a tent!" I couldn't help but laugh. These are words that never crossed my mother's lips: Darling, if you must give head, never give head in a tent, everyone will know what you're up to.  

Come to think of it, my mother kept strangely silent on that topic, possibly knowing deep down that any word she said might get posted someday. God only knows what I've said that will end up splashed on my daughter's FB page. Can't be worse than anything I post myself.

Growing, Changing, Getting Older But Not Getting Old

     I have no desire to get a prize for being a big-ass loser, so I'm not going to catalogue the many misadventures I've had this month, but let's mention a few highs and lows. High: quit my job on a Thursday morning at 8:30 due to a certain line being crossed, and had three unsolicited job offers by three thirty that same day. Yay. None pay as well as that job but involve far less hours and far less bullshit. At least with a Chinese organization I'm going to know when to bend over and grab my ankles and am smart enough now to bring my own lube. With the Brits, I was never quite so sure. Low point: giving a foot massage to a--ahem, friend--who promptly threw up. But at least he made it to the toilet first.

     For the second time in four months, I have sassed a man at a nightclub only to have him die suddenly within the week. So if you were planning to ask me if I want a drink, don't, unless you  have a pretty strong ticker and have had your cholesterol checked recently. The latest one was truly bizarre: it's someone I know through Mysterious Job Number Two and he asked me if he could buy me a drink. Since I knew he was dating Marcia Sue (speaking of vomit...) I declined, as she was there at the next table. He went home with someone else (neither me nor Marcia) and I thought that was the end of it. He died a few days ago, in this classic manner: suddenly, and with meat in his mouth. (Name the source, o ye classics scholars.)

     My partner Link had a gig with someone else this weekend (we each belong to a few different bands--we're the open  marriage of music) and it was decided in the expat community to have a wake for our dead colleague at this gig. Emails were sent, we all agreed to have a rip-roaring wake featuring rock and roll courtesy of Link's guitar, and we all showed up at the nightclub at the specified time. Yes, we showed up, only to find that the nightclub owner had decided at the last minute to have a comedy open mic night for Chinese comics and the nightclub was packed with the young hip crowd laughing hysterically at comrades doing imitations of key scenes from that classic TV soap opera, Huanzhu Gege. The comics were killing the audience and the comedy night went on---and on--and on. Finally a rather sweet-faced foreign boy was allowed to get up and play and one of his songs, he announced, was about Jesus. The crowd groaned. The comedy act in a foreign language they didn't know was one thing, but the missionary thing was another...to everybody's relief it was a very good song told from The Lord's point of view, featuring the line, "I get so tired of being right all the time." Don't we all.

     On a sadder note: two of my friends have lost their fathers recently to pancreatic cancer, and a third one is flying out shortly for the same reason, hoping to get home in time. I don't know what to say, as platitudes, however true, aren't really going to solve anything, or make anyone feel better. I wish I could do something concrete, but I can't. I don't have huge sums of money to fly my friend out faster, I can't keep his father out of pain, I can't give anyone a peaceful resolution. I have never gone through the loss of a parent myself and I can only imagine what any of it might be like. I think of all the stories my friend has related about his family and I think, how lucky you were to have had that! I'm not really mourning the men I sassed who consequently passed away, although I do honor their passing, but in my own way I am mourning this man I never met, who did such a superb job raising my friend.

     

Waiting waiting waiting working working working

I have had a heck of a spring and summer may shape up to be even MORE challenging. For one thing, between the two jobs, the singing, the filming of a pilot I wrote,  and the oh, GOING BLIND, I've been too busy to --and I quote-- "spend time talking on the phone" as much as Baby Girl would like. Hmm, two jobs...commute of over three hours a day...not allowed private phone calls at work...don't like personal talk in public on the bus that takes us all to work...getting an average of five hours' sleep per night and that includes weekends...and had a houseguest who was recovering from major surgery to boot.  I also had some plumbing issues, had to get dog registered, more dental work, more vision tests, dubbing, you get the idea. Busy. Not trying to blow anyone off, just too busy to engage for more than five unplanned minutes. So forget blogging--I've been rehearsing, or writing copy for a new project that will be filmed this summer (and not at my expense.) I ride my little electric motorbike to the bus stop, a distance of ten kilometers, and it's often the only fun thing I do during the day. School is out in a month and I can't wait for the chance to have a cup of coffee and a sandwich at home.

Directions

Folks, it isn't that hard to get around here in Beijing. Do you know how to tell north from south? You're on your way. As long as you can remember that Tian An Men Square is in the center of the town, you should be good to go. What's killer is the street names: Jianguomenwai, Jianguomennei, and Chang An are the same damn street, just different sections of it. For this reason, giving directions using street names of an inexact nature can be difficult. Most directions run thus: you know what street that starts out being called Jianguomenwai Dajie? Then it's Jianguomennei, then Chang An? Well, keep going down that street past whatever it's called once it's past second ring road west, and...

I first arrived when the subway was a very short stretch that didn't connect to anything. While the subway has grown tremendously over the years, I have tended to live an inconvenient distance from any stop, and have had no real time to fuck around getting to know the system. I work seven days a week, and I don't have a lot of leisure time. If I am going somewhere, I am going to take a taxi, or ride or drive my bike, period. Thus, if you tell me something like "It's on the number ten line" this is fairly meaningless to me. Although I tell people often, "Just give me the address, don't describe the subway stop to me," people still tend to tell me the name of the local subway stop.

Marcia Sue, who is one of those China Newbies who is just SO IN LOVE with it here, invited me over for dinner. Marcia Sue is the lady who passed out drunk at a gig and was taken back to my place to recover. These are the directions she sent me: Take line ten and get off at the stop after the airport transfer stop,  exit d, turn left at exit and walk down to corner and turn left.

Ok, and then what? What happens after I turn left? Will a rainbow in the sky direct me into a building? How about an apartment name, or number? Directions into the compound? Possibly an access code? Or will it be a case of "then text me and I'll get on your phone and tell the pedicab where to take you." Part of being a host is allowing the guest to get there in comfort. If subways are your thing, great. They are not mine, so please give me the courtesy of allowing ME to travel in the way that best fits my situation.

Mmm, given the choice between a crowded subway full of people spitting gobs of green phlegm and refusing to let the elderly sit in the few seats,  and a fairly clean and comfortable cab, I think I'll take a cab. Just give me the name of your building and I'll be there. 

What Not To Say to The Band

Actual comments from strangers following a gig:

You mean they let just anybody get up there and sing? My girlfriend wants to try.

Don't you know any good songs, like Titanic?

You have another job, right?

Actual comments from friends following a gig:

It was okay. Yeah, it was, uh, good.

Well, now I've seen you sing.

It was okay but you've ruined Avalon for me.

I can't believe you just get up there.

You know you're fat, right?

And my favorite: during a staff meeting, about 36 hours after a gig,  someone who had heard me sing turned to me and snapped, "Too much vibrato! Can't you try to control that?"

A few friends (musicians) have said the following and I think it's just about right:

Well done!

I enjoyed that!

Well sung!

They left it at that. That's fine by me. I don't want to discuss the line-up with everyone I meet: much of the artistic arrangement is a collaboration and I have more and more confidence in how we put things together. We have a new set and I think it's a killer, very diverse musically and with an interesting house-party approach to how the songs flow together. I haven't heard any other groups take this approach to music and I like the fact we're putting our own spin on things. We're not a cover band and I'm dead lucky to be working with such a talented guitarist who can play jazz, blues, lead guitar and straight out rockabilly--not to mention pick--with such ease. It takes a lot of rehearsal to build that sort of musical intimacy, where you can glance at each other and shoot off an improvisation that works, and we're finally there. My thanks to the audiences we dragged out there during the first few months--many moments were NOT pleasant to witness, I'm sure, but then again, birth isn't an easy thing to watch.  We're almost there. We've started getting paid gigs, and we're getting better all the time. I'm sure the weird comments will continue to flourish as I attract the crazies, but that's part of the deal. 

Putting Down the Doggy, Thrifty Chinese Style

Yes, it has been some time since last I blogged: I still have two jobs, I sing with two bands (one is over I think but I'm not sure) I've spent two weekends filming a pilot, still have two guinea pigs the size of overweight chihuahuas, but I have only one doggie, my beloved original model. The other doggy started having seizures--a hell of a thing to watch--and given his advanced age and the growth on his junk (his favorite toy) I took the horrible step of having him put down. 

The walk to the vet was a nightmare--my ayi disapproved of spending any money on putting him down, and offered to poison him for free, with a quick chuck of the body into the rubbish bin. Then, a stay of execution occurred when my Chinese granny's Peke passed away and she asked me to let Bobby live for another week or so as she couldn't bear to have two Pekinese doggies go to heaven in the same week. Finally, I knew it was time, asked Ayi to come with me, and set off in the rain with Bobby on a leash, trusting us and trotting along with his wide Peke smile. First, for some reason known only to Ayi, we began to trot in the wrong direction. "You'll see where we're going," she promised. We ended up at a dog grooming place where, on the doorstep, she asked the dog groomer (and I swear to God I am not kidding) if the groomer had anything to kill the dog with as (again, no kidding) "The vet costs 500 kuai and we're looking for a thrifty way to get rid of it." A thought ran through my head--this is not the woman you should run to with an unplanned pregnancy for sure--and even the groomer was appalled. After receiving a firm "No" ("Are you sure there's not a heavy brick or something lying around that you're not using?") we headed off in the cold and rain to the vet's office.

 I was furious and even Bobby lost his customary good humor and seemed to slink unhappily towards his fate. Once at the vet's office, Ayi explained what we wanted. I spoke to the vet, described the symptoms, and had the vet's approval --even approbation--for what we were about to do. They allowed us to stay with him while it happened, so we were holding him during the first injection which knocked him out, his head lolling like a sleepy teddy bear, and when the final injection was added and he passed immediately, without pain, Ayi reared her head back and howled, adding a heart broken wail of "Booobeeeeeeee!" I couldn't believe it--this is a woman who offered to cure his testicular cancer with two bricks and wanted to off him with rat poison, but there she was howling like a Klingon performing a ritual for a comrade killed in action. It was only fitting. There was some stir in the outside office (Look, a foreigner crying over her dog!) but to my surprise it wasn't like that,  it was more of a feeling of sympathy for us, and a wave of fear for the time when their own beloved doggies would pass. 

Princess doggie number one has felt a little lost since that day and we are not planning on replacing Bobby. I figure another rescue dog will turn up one day and I'm not in a hurry to replace my lovely smiling companion. He was a darling little thing and I am glad he's out of pain now. I sleep better without his grunts and snores under the bed, or the constant barking ("Someone's on the stairs! The stairs! The stairs! Now they're gone!") and I can walk around barefoot without someone trying to lick my feet. Still, a work to my friends: if I have seizures, don't let Ayi take me to the hairdressers, and check her hand bag for bricks. There is a thing known as being TOO thrifty and I am not taking any more chances.