THE REUNION SPECIAL

I have survived the return journey back to the beautiful Western land that birthed Marilyn Monroe and John Steinbeck. On the 14 some hour flight, I had a window on my left and an empty seat and an empty aisle on my right. I felt blessed like royalty.

Upon landing safely home with my packable treasures and packable memories, my Dad greeted me outside and my smiles were wild and free. Uncontainable. As I stepped out of the airport and took in breath after breath of sweet Indiana air ... I pictured the now tangible inevitable ... the soon to be realized ... me running across yards and yards of naked grass, sucking in barrels of uncrowded air ... my dog bouncing at my side with his tongue bouncing out of his mouth ... me gorging on a giant bowel of shimmering macaroni and cheese ... THE LABYRINTH and other comfort food playing on my television set on repeat ... me playing SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2 ... my dog laying under my legs with a bone under his paw ...

It's time to recalibrate and ground myself back to my reality, float down from my Eastern high.

Above you welcomed voyeurs can see a candid photograph of a vulnerable man reuniting with his beloved animal companion. At last.

If I had stayed in Beijing for another two months or so, homesickness would have hit me like an Adam West smack. I would've desperately clawed my way back to familiarity. As I feel now, it wasn't always warm and fuzzy, but I attempted to soak up Chinese culture undeterred by thoughts of home. It was memorable adventure after memorable adventure with the always predictable existential anxiety eating at my edges from the inside. Memories were born that I'll carry across time and space.

I will miss Beijing. Mostly though, I'll miss the brother burrowed deep into that city's heartbeat. I love the guy. It'd been a long time since we were standing in apartment 511 at 2069 Argyle Avenue, me preparing to jump on the 101 headed towards Graduate school. It was great living with him all over again in a completely different setting, albeit brief.

I thank my brother and his girlfriend for keeping me from drowning, for showing me a sketch of Beijing. I thank you all for reading my ramblings, ramblings that I'm sure, at times, were easily perceivable as pretentious gobbledygook. I hope you were entertained on some level. Baudrillard and Virillio tell me it's time to focus on my thesis research now like green sticks to grass. Leave your goodbyes in the comment section and let's get together soon, yea.

CLIMBING AND JUMPING AND RUNNING: THE GREAT WALL

THE GREAT WALL, was, of course, unavoidably epic. Epic is China. Much like all the many historic structures I've visited in Beijing, at THE GREAT WALL you feel faintly connected to an unidentifiable history.

In a parallel reality, once upon a time in the East, I was a sun sore warrior perched on THE GREAT WALL ... drinking sparkling rice wine ... straddling my canon ... watching out for Mongolians ... hunting wild animals out of sloppy boredom ... making costumes out of dead wolf ... trading my popular wolf wear for rice wine refills ... living the dream ...

Above I can be seen harnessing the power of THE GREAT WALL ... stealing a quick charge from it's endless glory. Aileen had the camera, so you are unfortunately blessed with a handful of photographs featuring me playing supermodel in a collared shirt I'm beginning to notice I wear all too often. If you remember, faithful reader, I packed limited options. I promise it's washed.

If you take a moment to pause, to become an open vessel, to breathe in the vast structure unfiltered, you are overwhelmed. Your muscles tighten as your toe tips tingle and question after question slides up and down the juicy center of your brain.

To distract myself from being crushed by the experience, I focused on an opportunity to sweat like Ric Flair under a spotlight. All the visitors that I walked by, by all appearances, also seem to silently make this same decision.

I challenged myself to climb to the highest point, to march across the stretching endless, to the point where tourists cannot cross. In the photograph above I can be seen over halfway to my objective, my lasers targeting my finish line. Tower 23.

After we thoroughly dominated THE GREAT WALL, Aileen and I literally hopped over the side of the wall and walked down some half tamed trail towards escape. Aileen may have injured her foot in the jump. It will heal. I was unharmed, but damp from heat.

THE ^KAPOW^ THEY SHOULD'VE RAMBLED ABOUT

Today, I present a collection of visual moments lost in the mix. Random moments of intrigue. Consider this the infamous clip show thrown on air near the end of the season. Give it a fancy, enticing name: THE ^KAPOW^ THEY SHOULD'VE RAMBLED ABOUT.

Transporting money. I've never been so close to a live, ready-to-dominate-flesh shotgun. As I walked by this loaded weapon, warm chills pinched the back of my ears. I contemplated making a grab for the shotgun ... to feel its promising power.


The subway serenade. Nothing like a man carrying a guitar and a miniature amp to help soothe escalating claustrophobia. He had a backpack full of donated RMB and a bad haircut. I like to occasionally reward beggars that put in an honest effort. His song made me smile. I contributed 1RMB to the backpack.

The ironic honey collectors. The uninhibited one breathing on the faces of a bee army had no protection. The observer purposelessly walking safe distance circles around the man hugging the bees had a special net mask. I had no net mask when I sprinted by the skin hungry swarm of buzz.


The 3D television experience. At a Sony store in Xidan they had a 3D television showcase. COMMENTARY: I don't know if the mainstream is ready to greedily snatch up this product, they are still quietly transitioning from Standard to BluRay and High Definition and Digital Cable... or have just freshly transitioned and are getting comfortable with the NEW. It seems too quick to roll out another MUST HAVE! GAME CHANGER! Time will tell. The 3D visuals were fun, lots of potential to enhance the videogame experience. Aldous Huxley predicted and dissected this inevitable movement in entertainment back in 1931.


Kid in tree. Guard picks ass.

THE BLUE MONSTER

One major observable contrast between my perception of Beijing and my perception of the States is 'VISIBLE CONGREGATION' versus 'APPARENT ISOLATION'. The difference might not be as extreme as the impact of these two opposing word combinations, but the difference is extreme. I will briefly attempt to elaborate on my possibly pretentious labels.

In the States, outside of the University zone, if people are gathering for genuine face-to-face communication and socializing, you would need binoculars and X-ray goggles to notice. It may or may not be happening. In Beijing, the people brashly congregate on the streets like Bees congregate on bunches of nectar plump flowers. The people will sit and stand on the sides of every open space in union for hours and hours and hours and hours ... playing cards ... drinking Tsingtao ... eating snails ... debating ... observing ... pulling on poles ... ((Every morning I walk by an old woman hopelessly tugging on what looks like a concrete pole at least 30 inches in diameter and ten feet high.))



Everywhere you go in Beijing, you collide with groups collected to entertain one another through shared, exposed, 'classical' interaction. As seen in the photograph above of me surrounded at the TEMPLE OF THE EARTH a week or two ago, if you are interested and can communicate somewhat coherently, any and all of these groups appear open to welcome you into their warmth without blinking. Even acting as a temporary member of this culture, day and night, I find myself thrown into more face-to-face interactions with people in public spaces. I'm not burrowed into this or that comfortable hibernation hole. This is good and bad for the extrovert and introvert in conflict for my soul.


At the park a week or two ago, in the exercise quadrant, I was surrounded by intrigued Chinese men. A retired engineer knew basic English. He practiced his English on me with question after question, always grinning and grinning. Aileen also acted as translator for some others eager to spill wisdom into my dry palette.

The man pictured above tells me to avoid drinking GINSING tea. I tell him it is a favorite. He tells me it's powers are targeted at people his age. The retired engineer asks me if I like Opera in soft English. The man above interrupts my answer to begin telling me the history of the park. Aileen translates. A retired circus performer, pictured below, begins smiling at me, pointing at his eyes and then pointing at my eyes. Aileen translates. The retired engineer asks me if I like baseball in soft English. Grinning. The man pictured above tells me I need to talk to older people; they have much to teach. A modest plug for his generation. Aileen translates. I promise to stay connected to the generations above me on a regular basis. I tell him I try my best.

The retired circus performer begins performing. I applaud him over and over, encouraging all around to applaud with me. A close few humor me and join in smacking hands together.


They called me THE BLUE MONSTER. I'll take the name. Something to do with my eyes. The color. The intensity.

ONE NIGHT IN BEIJING

The Internet at my brother's place flatlined for the last several days and I haven't been able to post any random adventures for your random gorging. I apologize to my loyal subscribers. I hope I haven't lost your eyes. I have random stories stockpiled and will now happily resume posting regularly with a renewed fury. (Alliterations are addictive.)

I wish I had a Super 8 camera with me to capture motion portraits of this city. Raw close ups. Grainy dutch angles. Friday night I saw a four foot tall Asian bouncer with a sick mohawk. He was litterally mock practicing karate in the streets in a tight tailored suit. No exaggeration. Too surreal to be unreal. He was guarding a superpowered Russian night club called CHOCOLATE.


It was 2AM when we went inside CHOCOLATE ... down an escalator ... into neon blasted sin. Beijing nightlife appears to ramp up late and push forward until you find the sun. Above you can see the only photograph I was able to aimlessly snap before sinking neck deep into the glamorous cheese of this dance club.

CHOCOLATE force feeds you a sleuth of random hedonist treats.

Faces of all shapes and sizes blow Hookah fueled smoke rings on repeat. Every other table has prostitutes dancing in slow motion, sniffing out 2,000 RMB for a night of capricious abandonment. Purple velvet sofas stare at your backside. Stripper poles beg for attention on the checker colored dance floor. Strippers stay all too close to naked, while never being naked, dancing on sporadically placed pedestals. At the core, a live Asian male pop band continuously spikes the room to techno flavored peak after peak.

The atmosphere was overwhelming compared to the typical low key dives I generally gravitate towards.

Every table vibrated with a different language. But it doesn't matter what language you speak when you're speaking through dance. So I danced like Cyndi Lauper live in Japan. Look it up. The band was singing in Chinese, but my body was singing something universally accessible ... and universally laughable ... and universally declinable. I welcomed getting lost in the noise and the motion.



The above is a photograph of me the morning after exploring Beijing dance clubs. The above is a photograph for those of you that miss the bottom half of my face.

TRANSCENDING THE LANGUAGE GAPS: PART FIVE

I never used to sing Karaoke ... until an exotic night in the Fall of 2007. I remember the night well. THE PRIMETIME BAR infected me with the 'Karaoke Fever', another guilty pleasure on the uncontainable list that comforts and embarrasses me across time and space.

Fortunately for those lost in translation, sharing in some ear banging cackling can transcend the language gaps. Understanding the meaning of the lyrics can be happily sacrificed to enjoying the ridiculous joy of amateur howling.

Karaoke gets serious respect in Beijing. Tall hotel structures are devoted solely to congregating for Karaoke. The lobby of the ever indulgent Beijing Karaoke hotspot, MELODY, can be seen in the picture above. The immediate aesthetic shamelessly shoves electric cool into your face.

There are several corridors and stairways that lead to many, many comfortable rooms. You walk down hallway after hallway. Left and right, every room appears devoted to sharing intimate Karaoke sessions with a circle of judiciously selected friends and colleagues.

Here, you are not an exhibitionist in a strange bar full of volatile strangers, but are a group of acquaintances jammed into a glowing room with glowing screens and thy thumping speakers.

The room kept getting smaller, but the brother and I couldn't be stopped. Like a tornado in the middle of a movie theater, we destroyed Prince and Bono and Billy Joel. The night ended with a bottle of Glenfiddich and three kids riding a cab home across the sunrise.

THE LAST WEEKEND OF MAY

It all started with an apple soaked mojito and Ennino Morricone playing on the speakers at an inspired lounge spot called WAITING FOR GODOT. Too ironic and too predictable that I would gravitate to a place named after a favorite Samuel Becket play. The Absurd follows me everywhere.

The above photograph is me waiting for Godot. The above photograph marks the beginning of the beginning of the whirlwind.

I could write a stream-of-consciousness, self-indulgent novel based on the last weekend, inspired by the joy and the chaos, my version of a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

For now, however, some adventures are best lived and best untold.