Caustic Yoda

Manly man - part 2

2012-02-15T15:00:00.006+08:00

I do not know whether to laugh or cry at the increasing usage of English in China these days. I just read an editorial in China Daily defending the country's veto of the UN vote on Syria.

But a much scarier (mis)use of the language occurred at lunch. The waiter, after taking my order, came back to ask smilingly "how old are you?" I was immediately on guard. Gamely, I smiled and asked him what he thought, to which he accurately guessed my age. I think this was the Chinese secret police hinting that they follow me and my inner-Lama closely. Please see previous articles to understand my inner-Lama.

Anyway, after this, he went on to comment that I looked like a "man's man." Confused and panicking, I looked around for the nearest exit, in case I was propositioned, and asked him in a croaky voice what he meant. He then gestured, swiping both hands parallel to the sides of his head (presumably implying I need to start a dyeing regime), and some vague gestures suggesting perhaps that I am fat and or I have broad shoulders. He gave a thumbs up and smiled encouragingly. Thankfully he then left.

So there you go. English has arrived well and truly in the Chinese capital. I am now looking forward to going to the gym, dyeing my hair and making more than eye contact with the previously ignored, largely tongue-tied waitresses. Anyway, frankly, I think it comes down to facial hair.

On a serious note, as with everything else, moderation in scale and pace is important. When you see Indian women with piercings or Bangladeshi blue-collar workers in Singapore walking hand in hand or a Chinese waiter making small talk in English, not knowing the cultural context can be confusing.

1-9-99

2012-02-15T14:53:00.003+08:00

So much for the 1% cowering at the protests of the 99%. I think the key figure might be 9%.

Yes. That's right. The august body that publishes the "Australian Romance Report", somehow linked to the purveyors of the Mills and Boons crap, have said that 91% of women prefer not to get e-mail or text messaged "I love you's". Such is the joy one is force-fed on Valentine's Day, which was roundly protested, as usual in many parts of the world.

But kidding aside, do you see the silver lining? 9% of women are satisfied with a not-in-person "I love you". Woohoo.

But then reality sets in. Discounting the too-young, the too-old, the too-stupid and lesbians, I artbitrarily arrive at 1% as the number of appropriately-aged, smart, sexaaaay and straight women that readers and writers of this important news-related website can pursue.

The human race is doomed.

Going Greek!

2012-01-24T19:32:00.002+08:00

At the Acropolis yesterday, my middle-aged and temperamental guide, after explaining the Roman theater (or odeon, which finally explains why so many cinemas in the world are called Odeon... Not sure about why many others are called Eros, though) said "That's enough about Romans, now I'm going Greek." I almost fell off: clearly the woman didn't know the lurid-ness of that phrase, though it is not unreasonable given the old Greek proclivities dating to Alexander.

Alexander. There is one name that you hardly hear mentioned, forget about proudly mentioned. His tyrannical style never fit with democratic Athens, which after sinking into obscurity through the Roman, Byzantine and Turkish occupations, finally emerged as the capital of the Greeks. It makes you wonder why the Greeks even fight over FYROM - they never seemed to have much liked Macedonia, not the Athenians at any rate.

Makes you wonder why India views the Mughals as dear sons of the soil rather than the abrasive interlopers they were, Babur forever lamenting the torpor of this land, contrasting with the cool mountains and (adopted) Persian culture and finery.

The similarities hardly end there: Greece vs Turkey, formerly a mostly-Hellenic region and population converted into a new identify, hating its progenitors, and finally the population exchange... Anyone with half a brain can see the similarity with the subcontinent. The one difference is that coming out of partition the Hindus outnumbered those who had turned during the long occupations. Apart from that accident, there is no binding ethos, and what is left is being chipped away daily. Where is the Smithsonian Institute of India? Where is the concerted effort to rediscover and shepherd the multi-faceted Indic legacy that goes beyond lip service to the Indus civilization and a few Sanskrit books? What an enormous waste.

Contrast this with the way the Greeks tie their free new country to their rich legacy, even as they are the poorest in Europe - the rightful re-appropriation of the West's traditions, the deep sense of history and even the resurrection of their pre-Roman, pre-Christian past, as embodied in the terrific Acropolis museum.

We could all go Greek, a bit, actually.

Sent from my iPhone

Enough Idiocy!

2012-01-10T16:47:00.004+08:00

Much has occurred recently with trains failing and taxi fares rising and the ensuing public debate shows some confusion around concepts such as competition, and the rights and accountability of private enterprises.

Contemporary economic theory, used to justify liberalizing and privatizing services worldwide, also includes the concept of "rent seeking". The sole train operator and all the taxi companies in Singapore are effectively protected from competition and work closely with public agencies such as the LTA and PTC precisely because they are not "normal" private enterprises that can seek to maximize profits. Consider this: if several new parties were allowed to build their own train networks, there would be massive disruptions and a loss of the advantages of scale from having a single operator. Likewise, we do not allow everyone with a car to operate "gypsy cabs" to protect consumers, instead requiring taxis and their drivers to be registered, certified, etc. Thus the entrenched position of the incumbents, particularly the sole train operator SMRT, gives them a rent-seeking opportunity, manifest in a range of models from oligopoly to monopoly.

Given this background, the public has the right to know the reasons for, and beneficiaries of, fare increases; and to expect better service levels in general and, particularly given the recent train fiascos, of what happens when those are unmet. This is the price of living a coddled corporate life. We do not begrudge Mr Bill Gates or Mr Sim Wong Hoo their fortunes because they built their companies in the face of free markets and competition. Our public transport operators cannot cloak themselves in similar corporate garb and deny us answers or avoid meaningful penalties. [According to Mr Lui Tuck Yew, quoted in the ST on January 10, 2012, the bulk of new train purchases are ultimately funded by us, the taxpayers, through the government!!]

So it is time the CEO (both former and future) of SMRT committed herself/himself and her/his company to longer-term service level standards, and to clear personal and corporate penalties if those are unfulfilled. Likewise, the taxi operators must give a clearer accounting of the impact of their fare increases on various stakeholders - including shareholders and drivers - and let the public decide if the increases are justified. I for one do not begrudge cabbies taking home more, but I would take umbrage if (private) shareholders profit from the privileged position of their rent-seeking enterprises.

Step 1 of 12...

2011-12-28T11:17:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, I took my first step toward overcoming a pernicious vice that has all but destroyed my life.

Oh I see: you think I'm a wino and since I gave away all my booze I must be a struggling alcoholic. You fool. Cirrhosis pales in comparison to carpal tunnel syndrome and the dreaded internet addiction. Specifically, I am talking about Facebook.

I admit it: I am hooked to my various electronic devices which are no doubt rendering me infertile as I type, frying my crown jewels with assorted radiation of various wavelengths. I look at my Blackberry if I wake up at night, and check my iPhone for email and open the FB app several times an hour.

The worst part is - no offense dear "F(B)riend" - I don't give a shit:

- where you "checked into" ("Tyler is at the bodega with Allyson picking up a box of wine!!")

- what you do ("Kelly is chillaxing by the pool at Bali"), where Kelly is a desperate crone that is past her prime and inviting melanoma or a pear-shaped loser who just bought his first motorbike and sold his second home to pay for a divorce. I would like to pole-axe posers who say things like "I'm chill-axing".

- who you just "friended" or whose feed you "follow" ("Omar subscribed to Mark Zuckerberg")

- your utterly repugnant life events ("Jamila is curing her warts with some liquid nitro at the clinics")

- the crazy capitalizer post ("Congratulations, I am so happy about your Marriage. God loves You. I hope you have a Blessed Life.")

- about your inane hobby, photos, next Jaeger-bomb party, or a hundred other completely worthless pieces of shit.

Can you imagine where this could lead one day when they say our thoughts can be read? We'd not even have to fumble with the smart phone to update our statuses, our minds would feed in automatically:

- Pedro is having sex. (30 seconds later) Pedro just had sex.

- Martha is chillaxing. (Gets fired after 5 minutes later when her boss, at the office busting her chops, finds out this slacker is not working from home as she is supposed to)

- Rupert is out about town (Gets burglarized that evening. If you don't already know this: a great many people getting burglarized are having their Foursquare status checked to ensure they are not at home).

- Pedro likes Rupert.

- Martha has broken up with Pedro.

- Martha is waiting for Rapture.

The only reason I am on FB is because friends that I do give a shit about have begun using it as the primary medium to share information about themselves and in this case I find the site useful: someone's child's graduation, another moving town, a serious event in someone's life, pictures of something meaningful in someone's life. For this reason I do not hide feeds, because you never know who may post something that is actually of interest or even concern.

But the fact is none of that stuff happens several times an hour or even hourly.

So I haven't opened FB even though I am at my PC now typing this out. In fact I haven't looked at FB on any device for about 3 days now. And guess what, the world has not ended.

Likewise, I shall look at my blackberry no more than twice a day this vacation-week. And I will use the phone only to answer calls and maybe check my personal mail a couple of times a day. And it is going great so far. I have so much more time to:

- enjoy time with the family. Even if it means a lot more noticing all the things that used to drive me crazy before I could escape into the infinite world of FB and the Internet through just a palm-sized device

- go out and meet people. Just as soon as I can get them to join my "offline world" so that we stop meeting at Starbucks to look at our individual iPhones for status updated, sometimes about each other, and instead look at each other and eventually drive ourselves nuts not knowing what to say and possibly commit murder.

- smell the roses. You fucking kidding me, this is Singapore. It is uber-pragmatic and there is no room for roses. Also, I do not want to get pricked by a thorn on my nose and die of septicemia.

- say "hi" to strangers. Finally, I can once again pull myself out of my engrossing iPhone and shout at strangers for blocking me on escalators or in the doorway of public transport. Ok, more like "haieee" followed by an imaginary karate chop against stupidity, but close enough to "hi".

Future cirrhosis, presently gone

2011-12-24T14:36:00.010+08:00

Finally, the once-beloved mini-bar is all gone, given away. The final tally included:

- Reds: I liked them full-bodied, just like I like my... Dosas. Ahem. The Malbecs would have been especially nice.
- Whites: there were only a couple of bottles. I learned to appreciate whites, previously considered sissy, only on my trip to NZ in 2008. Hence the disproportionately small horde.
- Vodka: ah to be young and stupid. That is what vodka evokes. Several flavors of Absolut, out.
- Cognac: giving away some Martell, I kicked myself for not having tried (or did I...?) Armenian "cognac", which Churchill supposedly drank exclusively. Just as well, he was a major asshole.
- Rum: including silly Malibu, Bacardi white and gold, and Myers dark. Having "Malibu" in my bar was reason enough to dismantle it. Geez.
- Gin: staple Tanqueray and my very special cache of Hendricks. It was like imagining giving away my daughter at her wedding. I hope she elopes.
- Whiskeys: including bourbon and a heavenly single malt - Laphroaig - the only whiskey I've ever liked.
- Mixers: no bar is complete without some good mixers. I never built a complete line, but did have Cointreau (representing the triple sec family needed for, among others, margaritas) and several bottles of sweet and dry vermouth (Martini!).
- Liqueurs: mm-mm, Drambuie.
- Asian fare: sakes, sojus and makgeoli.

There you have it. I may have missed a few things, but I blame it on the dead brain cells. Which will happen less on future.

As someone disgusted by this overtly commercial and covertly propagandistic time of the year, I'm torn about wishing you season's greetings. But hey, even the Humanists were partying for the Winter Solstice (seriously - at the Mint bar on Seah street yesterday)... after all celebrating the solstice long predates the season's arbitrary appropriation by an organized faith. And therefore, much more meaningful, not to mention having a scientific and astronomical relevance.

... So happy holidays everyone! Go pagans!!

Mow Job

2011-12-03T01:05:00.007+08:00

Today, we will learn the hirsute history of the mustache, which is: From Monkey to Mustache: the Back-to-square-one History of Man. In short, having one is a bad idea.

Or is it?

Isn't the vast numbers of mustachioed villains (Hitler), clowns (Chaplin), dictators (Saddam), comical detectives (Poirot), creepy artists (Dali) et al enough proof that having one will only bring third-party ridicule and first-party itch?

Apparently not. Middle-eastern and South Asian men in Singapore, for example, go around scaring the living crap out of the less-hirsute Chinese with their thick mustaches. "He looks like Saddam," is one oft-quoted comment I have heard. Hey, once is once too many, and counts as "often."

So in summary, I was going to submit this vast body of scientific evidence to make my case against the mustache.

Then I learned of "Movember," which is a movement that appeals greatly to me in the sense that it puts the fear of the proctologist in every man. That's right, it is a campaign to create awareness, and I think raise money, for male illnesses like prostate cancer. Women get a cute pink ribbon campaign, we go pick a fucking mustache.

Anyway, as I live life on a lark, I decided to give it a go. Immediate social pariah-hood ensued. Family members applied for restraining orders; colleagues tried to push me down elevator shafts; I suspect arsenic in my salad dressing at the regular place; entire train carriages and buses opened up for me, as if I was Moses in the Red Sea. I was in the depths of despair, shamed and shameful.

Then I landed up in India and everything changed. "You look wiser," said a learned economist, who in all the time I have known him, has sported a thick beard. Taxi drivers appeared to think very hard before inflating my fare. I stared down countless uniformed security guards who may actually be robots programmed to annoy entrants into office buildings by asking "Where are you going?" And most heartwarming of all, the female species seemed to smell blood, or pheromones, or something. Score! I have had to lock myself in my hotel room for fear that wild females may start behaving lasciviously with my mustache. Life is tough, in a good way. I finally, almost see the value of having what looks like a dead caterpillar stuck above my upper lip.

Unfortunately, very shortly, I will leave India, entering a plane where no doubt I will immediately be pounced upon by the air-marshal and handcuffed for looking like a terrorist. I suppose therefore I have to bid farewell to my itchy growth.

Which brings me to one of my most memorable moments: a warm, lathered shave from the sharp end of a cutthroat at a corner barbershop in Kars, the Kurdish corner of Turkey, one fine afternoon a couple of years ago. Now *that*, ladies, is what a man wants, not a sissy "facial" in a "spa." So for your husband's next birthday, don't give him a tie, take him to a fancy barber or get him something from the Art of Shaving. And follow it up with a surprise visit to the proctologist. He will appreciate it as soon as he regains the feeling in his...

And if you do not have a husband, I am available for the next half hour. Hurry, limited time offer only!

You gotta like Sydney!

2011-10-22T17:32:00.003+08:00

Anthony Bourdain, Asshole.

2011-10-19T00:49:00.002+08:00

"They make for bad travellers and bad guests...you're unwilling to try things so personally and so are proud of and so generous with. I don't understand that, and I think it's rude."

Chef Anthony Bourdain on vegetarians.

Talk about lack of perspective. It's all about "them" and "their fault".

Fly Spanish

2011-09-20T01:02:00.000+08:00

Today, I will review some recent movies that I watched on Singapore Airlines.

Volver: I am not sure I have ever seen anything of note with Penelope Cruz in it. Granted, this is a major chick flick, but it has some hilarious moments as well. I gained quite a bit of respect for Cruz and Almodovar. Especially the scene where she belts out a gitano tune whose subject revolves around "volver", or "to return". And you thought this would be a lascivious post on her looks. But by god, the woman is striking AND a good actress.

Para que sirven un oso: An extremely funny Spanisih film tackling existentialist issues of mid-life crises, love, career and a bit of romance all through the eyes of two dysfunctional brothers and their even more dysfunctional governess. The delivery of the dialog, the acting and everything else was really quite excellent. It almost makes me regret not having liked living in Spain that much.

X-Men: First Class: Not bad. The mystery of Magneto's ridiculous helmet is solved.

Blitz: This Jason Statham movie is no Transporter and apart from the gratuitous vengeance and violence, best avoided.

Harry Brown: Same as above, but worse, as it has an old Michael Caine playing the avenger. He really was a rather good sort of actor.

Tea Lanka

2011-09-20T00:53:00.000+08:00

Over the summer I decided to get another stamp on my passport. That's right, I admit it, I only travel to add notches to my bedpost, so to speak.

So why not Sri Lanka, and I went there. I have several caustic observations to make, so be prepared.

First my summary points:

- Colombo: beach smells of fish, also the hotel. I am talking about the old wing of Galle Face.
- Habarana: Cinnamon Lodge - nice resort, but you can either enjoy all the resort facilities or see something outside
- Ancient cities: a whole lot of Buddhas, interspersed with Lingas. As our guide said, "Our kings always married South Indian (Hindu) women".
- The president: I think they should get a better looking stand-in who can smile.
- The language: an incredibly strange mix, sounds closest to Malayalam but is apparently Sanskrit-based
- The history: shrouded in mystery and unclear who the Sinhalese are.
- The women: buxom.
- The tea: generally quite excellent.

As it happens the most enjoyable part of my trip was in the high country near Nuwara Eliya, at a place called Hatton, specifically in the Dickoya estate. A pleasant bungalow, two Tamil-speaking staff (one an amazing cook), set amidst tea plantatsions complete with friendly stray dog at the entrance. I managed to enjoy this trip primarily by not taking my Blackberry along.

Tea plantation tips:

- Helps to be Tamil. The area is nearly half-Tamil. This made certain members of my party very happy, and every meal was an Indian-like curry.
- Do not be alarmed by the dog. Even if they get excited that you made eye contact and jump on you with their fore legs.
- Take deet. There is a dengue situation in Sri Lanka and I have no idea how I did not manage to get it as I tried to maximize my verandah time requesting copious amounts of tea served in very nice looking china.
- Take a book. The quiet, the weather, the verandah, the lack of a Blackberry all conspire to make for an ideal time to actually read more than two pages, which in this Twitter-age is my concentration threshold.
- Do not be afraid of death, however strange. This is because there is a tin shed with an official board stating that it is the "Office to investigate strange deaths" or something to that effect. It's like CSI before CSI.

I rather think I'd like to go back for along weekend every year. I feel sorry for the country, coming out of its long and tortured past. That is for another post, but for now, I can say that Sri Lanka has lots more to offer than tea, and I will be sure to write more in the coming days.

Tap Tap Stop Stop

2011-07-01T10:30:00.003+08:00

I was walking around Puebla and ended up in the old mercado, since cleaned up and now filled with shops selling everything, a kiddie playground, an an arcade. Every here and there was a table with a concerned-looking man explaining insurance and auto mortgage to puzzled and concerned couples.

As I passed the arcade, there is was - the "dance dance" machine or whatever it's called. It had a tall, young, floppy-haired kid. The sensor-floor was like a trolley, with the handle at the back. The kid was leaning backward on it, bent at the hip almost in a semi-seated position, and with increasing speed - or desperation - stepping on the colored squares. If he was practicing for his prom, he'd be the laughing stock. Leaning back and stepping around, he looked as if he was putting out a fire - or an army of Mexican fire ants. It was surreal and hilarious. Thank god there is no Mexican "So you think you can dance?". Frankly, thank god those pants didn't fall off.

You know how serious that can be - a man just got kicked out of a flight in the US for wearing boxer-baring low-hung pants. Explanation - can't run in an emergency.

I'm with the airline on this one.

We're all brown

2011-06-26T13:23:00.005+08:00

There is a theory that one day there will be no distinct races, and humans will evolve into an indistinct sort of brown or beige.

We see this in many places - India, Brazil being prime examples of incredible mingling. Not to forget Central Asia and the Middle East, what with their alternative plundering and being plundered.

So let's talk about Mexico. I read a quote that the fall of Tenochtitlan was neither victory nor defeat, but the sad birth of the mestizos. Mexico is a blended mix that sometimes looks Indian, sometimes Filipino, occasionally Eurasian, now and then practically Western European - the still evolving result of European and indigenous mingling. And what a heartbreaking story the fall of Tenochtitlan is - but that is for another article.

Once in a while you see very interesting people. There was a short woman with the sloping eyes and longish nose, straight out of an Aztec relief, holding the hand of a little darling with rosy cheeks who could have been at home in Chengdu; the chubby pre-teen with the most intelligent eyes that could have a Chennai native, if she traded in for a silk skirt; the pretty short-haired beauty who had an enchanting guile-lessness as she threw her head back and laughed baring a full set of pretty teeth at Pura Corazon; the cute little boys (brothers?) who played with their PSPs, each other and generally created mayhem on the flight from Newark into Mexico, but in their innocence, not one moment of annoyance, each looking different. The sweetheart clutching two plastic or perhaps clay dolls, blushing when an older woman (the object of snogging by the tight-shirted man in the previous article) pulled her to an empty seat. The stocky men with wrists the size of my arms and the voluptuous women whose oft-exposed bosoms heaved and rocked to every shake of the metro...

And I have not even left the city to see the amazing people out there, children of the Aztecs and all the other native tribes, in their colorful clothes, still speaking Nahuatl and for all we know, still laying the foundation of every church with a relief of an old Aztec god who must always connected to the earth.

Smog city, snog city

2011-06-26T12:52:00.004+08:00

My sinuses haven't hurt this bad in a while. That's what Ciudad Mexico does to you. It is not very obvious - the view from my room this morning was sunny and bright with good visibility - but I have highly developed olefactory apparatus. And they hurt.

But on to more interesting topics. There is a lot of snogging in this city. I once read a comment somewhere that Mexico's national pasttime is cheating. I don't know about that, but on the sidewalk, waiting at the metro stations, in the metro, in restaurants, couples were at it. Gays and lesbians too, in the zocalo, where they were milling about after their parade, dancing to techno.

What was most interesting is that most of the action was by couples in their 40s or 50s, not the horny teenagers you expect.

I'm retiring in Mexico. I hope the smog's cleared by then.

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless.

CY-tings: Mexico City

2011-06-26T12:44:00.003+08:00

Accidental participant in the rainbow parade this afternoon ending at the Zocalo.

This shows I am a man of action. Yerevan Day parade. The signing of an agreement on opening the borders between Turkey and Armenia the day I went to Armenia. Facing off the anti-Zionist parade in Turkey. Attending the nadam outside Ulan Batar or Kharkhorin where I was told on-stage was the Mongolian prime minister. Walking 60 blocks up Manhattan in the great blackout of 2003.

Maybe not the last one.

I assume the parade in Mexico City today had something to do with New York legalizing gay marriage. I have nothing against the idea but frankly, I'd give my time, energy and money to the bottom of the Maslowian pyramid. There are hundreds of millions living in poverty, begging, being trafficked - somehow I think that is a tad more basic a fight - and more important.

Hawaii Ai-yoh!

2011-05-25T00:43:00.003+08:00

What is it about travel, hotels and TV that alternatively provides unexpected pain and succour? Recently, I did some channel surfing in Macau. First, for a fancy hotel, the Four Seasons does not have HBO. They will never get the corporate business of my future 100,000-people strong Nasdaq-listed corporation. Grr.

Then we switched back to the faithful AXN. For once I actually watched a partial episiode of "So You Can Dance" because there was a deaf person and he was very good. The judges were not, and I killed them in imagination-land. Star Movies was playing "Half Past Dead 2", which was so bad even Steven Seagal had refused to act in it. I toyed with watching Fashion TV. I surfed around and came back to AXN to watch the travesty known as Hawaii Five-O. Ai-yoh.

There is one consolation in the form of that plain but attractive Asian girl. Lissome and fetching. But otherwise, it really is rather like Baywatching in Hawaii.

What is much worse is that the channel keeps showing the "original" Hawaii Five-O, which is all the above plus a smarmy looking prick with an awful smirk and a bouffant hairdo from the 1970s that, along with the unfiltered 70s sun, just blinds you a hundred times over like Medusa.

Ai-yay-yoh.

Porn Laden

2011-05-14T16:43:00.005+08:00

No, that is *not* the description used by the police when they confiscated my hard drive.

As I recently reported, Osama bin Laden had porn stashed away in his hideout. This raises many grave questions of much import. (There is a place in life for tautology)

What would constitute Osama porn? A full ninja-suit with a hint of the ankle or the wayward, exposed chin? Or perhaps a full ninja suit with just a hint of flashy pink lace on the hem? Pretty boys (I am being neither facetious nor insulting: read this)? Goats? What is the appropriate role for an AK-47 in this kind of porn? What will constitute the "money shot?"

In that lone picture of him watching something on TV, sitting on the floor with his back to the camera, he looks a tad chubby. I bet there were some Big Beautiful Latinas porn DVDs there. I bet it was volume 7.

The tragedy is that, had it been known that bin Laden was porn laden, some bunch of men - American marines, Pakistani intelligence agents, Afghan goatherds, possibly even boy bands - would have found him *way* earlier.

There are other questions, too. Why would a man with three, or possibly five, wives need porn? Perhaps this is a pointless question as the right answer is that men will always letch and ogle.

Bye now, I am stepping out for some letch and ogle.

Troll model

2011-05-14T15:52:00.006+08:00

I may or may not have strong feelings about the man formerly alive as Osama bin Laden. But once again, in someone's death, we find the basic bonds of humanity that... well... bond us together.

Pornography found in Osama hideout

Excerpts include:

"The pornography recovered in Osama's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive..."

and

"Specifically, the officials said they did not know if Osama himself had acquired or viewed the materials." To which I say, what are the officials smoking? Of course he did.

and further on

"Reports from Abbottabad have said that Osama's compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography." Are these people morons? There is nothing that will stop men from gaining access to porn. Why did you think men - yes, I am sure in these cases it was men, not women - invented the telephone or the television? For heaven's sake did Graham Bell want to speak to his deaf mom? No, he wanted to hear the heavy breathing of his neighbor, babysitter or possibly somebody running for vice-president.

The only thing that makes money on the Internet is porn. Definitely not highbrow tattling, such as this blog.

I rest my case.

The confession

2011-03-27T01:18:00.006+08:00

After a lot of unnecessary wandering around, I finally found my way to the Wenshu temple, home to the Manjusri monastery. I was hoping this would be the highlight of my visit to Chengdu, which is pretty far to the west in China and has a sizable Tibetan community. In most taxi cabs hung golden medallions featuring some Buddhist deity or another, that's how poorly Mao failed at sterilizing a couple of millenia of old beliefs.

Purely by happenstance, I found the little hole in the wall dispensing entry tickets for 5 kwai. I quickly got inside and walked the corridors of this beautiful temple, stopping at each of the main halls (no photos allowed) to say hi to the various Buddhas they had - seating, reclined, etc. I might as well have been in Sikkim, Bhutan or even Tibet - close your eyes and imagine a bunch of Indians instead of Han Chinese, and the temples and their Tibetan-ness remain unchanged.

People were out in spades, it was a sunny morning. They dutifully filed in to the kneeling-stools in front of the deities, waving their joss sticks (provided free at the entrance) and very sincerely praying. An old man crossed a courtyard diagonally, sullen and smoking a cigarette. Kids were being kids, playing in the courtyards and taking pictures, running about holding hands and pulling hair. I was deeply engrossed in reading some old fables on a wall when from somewhere came a sound: "hello!" A quick look around, and nothing. A little later "How are you?" or something like that, and so on it went for a while. Little kids from around the corner were peeking out, shouting the English phrases they knew shyly - or mischievously - at me and receding back.

On the side of another open courtyard, I saw a ping pong table. I went and circumambulated it, thinking back to dorm days in high school that consisted mainly of useless TV sitcoms, late night ping pong with the highlight being a cold, frothy Coke. Occasionally, we mixed it up and had a root beer. Presently a young monk came by with a couple of paddles. He left one and went in through a door nearby. I held the paddle - it was good quality - and waited for him to emerge, giving up. A while later, I walked by and he was at it with a bunch of other monks. I should have joined them, but I walked on, taking pictures.

I bumped into the teahouse in the temple, which was an amazing cacophony. People were sitting around, sipping tea, and chatting in that loud Chinese fashion. It reminded me of the time my cabbie in Beijing missed a turn to the hotel and seemed to be yelling at me as he drove around back to it. Turned out he was just talking normally, possibly even apologizing, as he tried to give the doorman some money back for having driven me around unnecessarily. Anyway, families were sitting about, lots of peanut shells and shells of other seeds careless tossed all over the floor. I got some curious looks.

Finally, I entered one of the main halls - they had three or four - and went way back to see a beautiful reclining Buddha made of some white material - perhaps marble? It was quiet. I had had a long week and anyway was feeling like life ought to give me a break. I looked around and sank to the ground, kneeling on the stool. I stared at the Buddha, and a strange feeling engulfed me. I've always considered me a live-by-the-rules - man's rules - sort of guy, not so much into the divine. So, I was a little embarrassed of what I was about to do, and looked around again.

Then I took a picture.

Chengdu: Death By Hotpot

2011-03-27T00:06:00.008+08:00

I was tempted to make the title "Beavis and Butthead do Chengdu". So, you can already guess the tenor of this post.

My friend - let's call him "P" - and I landed in Chengdu late on a chilly Friday evening. After letting ourselves get jostled by blithely indifferent Chinese men and women at the baggage carousel and the taxi stand, we finally boarded a taxi and turned up at our very nice hotel, the Buddhazen. Any hopes of this being a zen evening were quickly shattered as the gregarious P convinced a couple of the hotel staff finishing their shift to join us for a hotpot.

After a quick check-in and wash-up, we went downstairs to find the girls, smart as they were, had decamped. We managed to get ourselves a taxi to "Jinli", which was about the only thing we knew, both of us having flown in after work not having researched our destination much.

Jinli street turned out to be a tourist-trap (we'd confirm this during the day subsequently), greeting us with a Starbucks right at the entrance - and why not, they have one at the Forbidden City - and karaoke bars and what not. Famished, we finally found a place that said it had food - only to realize after starting on our drinks that it had run out of grub. Bait and switch!

I was impressed by the waitresses' faltering but eager English. This was so different from the China I used to practically live in a decade ago, godforsaken Guangzhou.

Anyway, after shelling out for an overpriced drink, we decided to find a place to eat. I had noticed a rather crowded (for past midnight) restaurant on the way and we flagged a random trishaw dude, who seemed content with what few bucks we thought he deserved for the ride. We navigated to the restaurant through the sophisticated, universal human language of... pointing fingers.

Once again impressively, the restaurant offered us an English menu. By now P was extremely jaunty and adventurous and I let him suggest the "chilly oil" hotpot or something of that sort. We picked an assortment of ingredients and waited.

The ritual began, with a rectangular steel basin, and a smaller, inner one - the outer one looked like a prop from a crime scene TV show, all red, while the inner one was seemingly bland water.

After things reached a boil, a kindhearted waitress came and explained the order of things. We swiftly started dumping stuff and munching on them. So far, so good.

I was extremely proud of myself for coolly fishing stuff out of the pot and even having some of the gravy. The inner pot of blandness was clearly for losers. Bring on the "spicy Sichuan", was how I was feeling.

Amidst all this, P and I were both shocked that the tofu tasted good. To this day I suspect it had something - placenta, hasma, maybe even melamine - added to it, for tofu is the evil-lest food that exists, beyond redemption. Satan wouldn't feed it to the denizens of hell.

A few courses later, we dunked the mushrooms and waited for them to cook, which they presently did. One bite and I spontaneously detoxed - all my pores opened up immediately, my tongue went numb and tingly at the same time and I was sure I was dying. I gamely tried again with the same result. P bravely carried on but soon gave up. Neither rice nor water nor beer seemed to stanch the fire on my tongue and the sweat on my skin. I was fishing drab tofu out of the inner-pot-of-blandness - I was desperate. Frankly, I was considering eating the wet napkin.

Meanwhile, the group of Chinese at the next table with their own drama were not helping. Apparently the flame was not coming on, so for whatever reason, they decided to move the fuel cylinder kindly all the way over to just next to me. Some guy got down on all fours and started sniffing the tube connecting the cylinder with the hotpot. This was really not helping. First incinerated from the inside by the fiery Sichuan pepper and now the threat of getting blasted into outer space by a hotpot fuel canister.

And I had only been in Sichuan for a couple of hours.

Thankfully everything settled down. We just stopped eating, leaving the cauldron of hell to boil away as we sheepishly sipped on cold water. The next table settled down without blowing up anyone. We got the check - RMB 91 - and decamped quickly.

The chilly air was not so chilly now.

We flagged down a cab and headed back to the hotel.

Mad, Nomad

2011-02-22T22:32:00.003+08:00

After a long hiatus, I am on the road again. In this episode of the "Around the world in eighty channels (give or take a few)", we explore being stuck on a cold, hazy winter night in a hotel in... Beijing.

If you don't already know, most foreign channels are not available for the common man in China, typically only so in hotels etc. Just as well. because we would not want 1+ billion Chinese people a) incessantly flipping channels and destroying the world economy by goofing off and, b) inevitably and eventually losing their minds because of the drivel that passes for TV. Here is a sampler:

All news channels: the earthquake in New Zealand. Not drivel, but do we really need a dozen feeds of the same scene? How many ways can you have your news? It is news.
HBO: Some movie called "Beyond Borders" starring that despicable female called Angelina Jolie. It just shows that even the most discerning men can be fooled by pretentious sultry looks (anyone can narrow their eyes and pout, though most cannot afford that much collagen). The opening scene featured wretched children in some poor part of the world, and we have all seen that movie in Jolie's real life, so we moved on to...
Star Movies: Slumdog Millionaire, the sorriest and crappiest "Bollywood Crossover" movie possibly ever released, complete with feel-good ending and distinguished only by starring a rather skinny female lead. I read recently that Latina women in NYC get cosmetic surgery to put meat (or perhaps silicon) *in* their butt, rather than get it sucked out. Indians are like that, traditionally fond of curvy women. After all, we invented trigonometry before anyone else, and I am sure bosoms and bottoms inspired the sine and the cosine. Feeling my blood pressure peaking, I flipped channels to
AXN: At various points, this staple of a channel was showing things like "So you think I can dance". Since I can't, I swiftly moved on to
Star World: Glee. As a friend recently commented: "I don't get it". I really don't. What is the premise of this show and why do people like it? And how is it correlated to a declining culture with poor math and science scores where half the population is overweight? Not wanting to ponder these questions, I decided to try the Asian offerings.
KBS: This Korean channel at the very moment was featuring a young man splattered with blood taking what seemed an interminably long time to die. There were one (or maybe two) doe-eyed maidens looking at him with pathos. Flashbacks... flashed in the background. If this is how painfully slowly Koreans die in real life, I am afraid "Li'l Kim" Jong Il will be around for way much longer than we'd want him around. With this depressing thought, I came to some domestic offering.
CCTV: If you don't already know this, there are a dozen or two CCTV channels in China. I don't know the difference and don't want to know. "Why?" you ask inquisitively. I was really in no mood to see the documentary about the Chinese village where women were raving about their shoes made of straw. It depressingly reminded me that there are people in Haiti eating mud. This called for a lightening of the mood, immediately achieved by...
TV5 Monde: Ah, the French. It had a young girl in a nightdress cheerfully turning down her lad's wedding proposal and telling her neighbors, also cheerfully, that she just had. Nevertheless, Frenchwomen speaking French. This was good enough.

I stayed put for a bit. Then I switched back to AXN, where they were showing "Lost", which is precisely how every single person who has every watched this serial has ever felt, but is too ashamed to admit. I believe this story was written by twelve lost monkeys, no relation to the pretty good movie "Twelve Monkeys".

I have an early morning, so good night.

Caustic Digest

2011-02-14T00:10:00.003+08:00

There has been a surfeit of news to be caustic about:

- Women over 50 think men ignore them: 7 out of 10 think this. 8 out of 10 think the fashion industry ignores them, which seems rather a good thing unless we want a posse of skanky and bulimic grandmas snorting coke.

- Women's breasts are getting bigger: Obesity and hormones in the food take the blame. But I once read the guy who writes the cartoon strip "Dilbert" that affirmative thinking is very powerful i.e., will, or wish for, something to happen, it does. Men have been willing women to be bosomier since time immemorial. For heaven's sake we (men) coined "The Big Bang" to describe the Beginning. The emergence of Pamela Anderson was to this simmering, subliminal consciousness what an alien probe is to the average backside - cathartic, catalytic and ushering in a new era. As an additional attraction, the article uses this brilliant new mantra to further this phenomenon: "small in body, big in bust". A mouthful compared to "Aum", but I think it is worth it.

- Discount airlines wants to give cows for royal wedding: Following the African tradition of "lobola", the South African airline kulula.com wants to present cows to Prince William and his fiance Kate Middleton. What caught *my* attention in this article was the chummy usage of "Wills" to refer to the Prince. I wish only to point out that the breast-research mentioned above was done in Britain on British women...

- China restricts smoking on films and TV: Actually, I really would rather they really restrict it in *real life* because second-hand smoke on screen really does not bother me.

- Dirty little secrets of search: A naive article about Google and how search results can be manipulated by the so called "black hat" tactics of "search engine optimization". The article is nevertheless quite fascinating. Google is fast getting to be a useless search engine that, thanks to the hit-driven algorithm, is fast losing common-sense in its results. In addition to getting snookered on its algorithm, Google has some entertaining predictions, which start predicting your search based on the first word or two, based on the most popular searches starting that way. Here is a window to the world, then. Google predictions are italicized:

How to grow taller - apparently there is a glut of midgets at this very moment.

How not to live your life - what is astonishing is that right below this were rather useful suggestions such as: (How not to) get drunk, be lazy, fall in love, be jealous, get pregnant, procrastinate.

How the hell can paper beat rock - speechless!

Why does my mom turn me on - I am not making this up. Someone should trace the IP address and nail the creep(s).

What not to wear - apparently it is prom season somewhere.

What not to do on a first date - dereliction of parenting duties was never easier than in the Internet age.

What to do when you are bored - ironic, isn't it?

Food for thought

2011-02-04T15:46:00.006+08:00

Recently, I came across this piece in the New York Times. Nothing here is special or new, especially post the era of Michael Pollan and his books. Anyway here is the Opinionator piece:

A Food Manifesto For The Future

Reading that, I was led to think of how simpler and healthier life was not too long ago, even in something as simple as food.

Thirty years ago, my grandma would dispatch me daily to the store. I carried a cloth bag (no plastic bags to throw out), picked up fruits and vegetables that were (probably) trucked in daily from the region. They were indeed puny compared to the specimens found today at any supermarket, but I imagine they were so because the soil that grew them was not taxed and injected with chemicals. (Lets not get into GMO).

We carried glass bottles which the shops filled with unrefined, flavorful oil, the cold-pressed kind that has since become something premium, rather than de rigeur. Meat eaters ate the stuff once or twice a week, and it was a precious commodity. Even processed foods like baked goods were locally made and one hopes free of the additives and stabilizers needed to sustain the packaged product of today that the best and the brightest market (those not taking their completely justified pound of flesh in the financial services industry, that is). For heaven's sake, the booze was fresh, natural and organic, tapped as toddy everyday from our very own coconut trees.

Today the country I left suffers more cardiac diseases, diabetes and hypertension than almost anywhere. Processed, packaged food is de rigeur. Natural oils like coconut, sesame and mustard that shaped the genes for generations were swiftly replaced by well marketed, "golden", refined bleached and deodorized oils. One-horse villages sell imported leeks. Cookery programs showcase meat - the aspirational pinnacle of quotidian "nutrition" being marketed to 1.2 billion. I am no Luddite, but is this progress?

I learned my lesson the hard way. I today do not eat meat; cook more; have almost banned packaged food and beverages from my life; use natural oils; graze the once-reviled salad-bar like an ungulate; and... am paying more to do all this, just rewinding to what should always have been status quo.

In summary, we are idiots. We deserve everything because we sold our health, ultimately, willingly. I'll leave you to figure out - to whom? And really, for what?

Putting the Rex in Durex

2011-01-30T14:48:00.009+08:00

Rex: It is of Latin origin, and the meaning of Rex is "king".

Readers may note that there is a lot of sex-related articles of late, but this just reflects the preponderance of such news.

It definitely does not reflect my sex life. It is very healthy, thank you, in the fashion of famous Hollywood movie "Me, Myself and Irene". With the focus on the (illustrative) "Irene", although I frankly think Renee Zellweiger is a tad beady-eyed. Perhaps that was a bad movie name to use as an example. Just as it was extremely ironic that the following piece of news is listed under "Breaking News" today:

Souvenir condoms rolled out for UK royal wedding

An uncensored excerpt:

Hugh Pomfret, a spokesman for Crown Jewels Condoms of Distinction, insisted they were 'a unique way to remember this great British occasion'.

'In years to come, they will be a timeless memento of a magical wedding day.' Presented in regal-looking purple and gold, each pack bears a picture of the couple gazing into each other's eyes, saying it contains a 'triumvirate of regal prophylactics', which are 'lavishly lubed' and 'regally ribbed'.

'England boasts some of the finest lovemaking in the world, with a tradition of coitus going back generations,' lovers are told. 'Combining the strength of a prince with the yielding sensitivity of a princess-to-be, Crown Jewels condoms promise a royal union of pleasure.'

I have enough for a one way ticket

2011-01-30T14:37:00.004+08:00

Life has a way of rubbing one's face in the mud. We never get what we want and suck at what we do. Great writers stuck writing dense business reports (ahem!), for example. Instead you have horrible journalists and newsreaders who are only there because they read Woodward and Bernstein growing up, or think they have a "TV face" or something like that. Like that awful woman on Channel Newsasia who either walks out to read the news without showering or doing up her hair or just fellated her producer in the backroom. Other candidates that come to mind include:

- Most younger-generation "pop" and "rock" singers. Better music emanates from my bathroom. Why can't they just stay at home and "sext" each other? Jonas-es, I am talking to you. (Disclosure: I don't know who they are, actually)

- Complete assholes - like Michael Schumacher - becoming champion race car drivers, threatening their teammates with their massive jaws and completely taking the sport out of sport. When in reality, the really good drivers are always avatar-ing as my taxi drivers. In every part of the world.

- Really good cooks and chefs slaving away at home for no pay or at shitty eating houses for little, when half-assed jackasses cook up salads that make you long to step outside and graze. Les Bouchons Rive Gauche, you pretentious restaurant with the worst service and forgettable food, I am talking to you.

- Fashion designers. Seriously. Just because you "want" that concept involving building materials and tannery by-products to succeed, there is no chance that any sane human being will ever,*ever* touch it. The woman who alters my pant-cuffs is a better couturier.

If everybody in the world only did what they were good at, it would be a productive place. If what everybody's good at coincides with what they want to do, that's be heaven.

Like Natalie Portman.

Anyway, even as I hear that "marriage is the end of sex" from many peers in my age group, here is a Turkish man lamenting he can't get *away* enough:

Man seeks protection from sex-mad wife

Here are choice excerpts:

"The weary man claims he had been sleeping on his sofa for the past four years in an attempt to avoid his wife who has an insatiable appetite for sex. According to the AFP, the exhausted husband went to police for help on Tuesday and plans to file for divorce with his wife of 18 years and mother of their two children."

An alibi for all seasons...

2011-01-22T00:51:00.003+08:00

... and for all the wrong reasons.

Recently seen in the newspapers: Semen Allergy.

A-ha, you think, I am going to make some misogynistic and sick joke. No! Apparently some men are allergic to *their own semen*. Furthermore, this is the cause of something called "post orgasm illness". Choice excerpts include:

"Men with the condition, known as post orgasmic illness syndrome or POIS and documented in medical journals since 2002, get flu-like symptoms such as feverishness, runny nose, extreme fatigue and burning eyes immediately after they ejaculate. Symptoms can last for up to week."

"... that a treatment known as hyposensitisation therapy can help reduce its impact."

"(Men in an experiment) agreed to undergo a standard skin-prick allergy test using a diluted form of their own semen. Of those, 29, or 88 per cent, had a positive skin reaction indicating an auto-immune response, or allergic reaction."

You can see the fertile possibilities, pun very much intended, this opens up in everyday life.

Scenario 1: Conversation with Johnny, 13 years old

Parent: I know what you're up to locked up in your room. It's disgusting. You'll go blind!

Johnny: But I am just hyposensitizing myself.

Scenario 2: Johnny's frat house at college

Co-ed chick 1: That Johnny's so weird. He threw up after we fooled around.

Co-ed chick 2: Eww.

Johnny (eavesdropping): But I am allergic to my semen.

Chicks (chorus): We are too!!

Scenario 3: Random post-coital conversation

Female: Darling, why don't you want to cuddle?

Male: I'm feeling ill. It's not you, it's me. I think I'll roll over and sleep it off. Or maybe watch some contact sport involving masculine butt-touching.

Scenario 4: Q&A with famous, yet anonymous, celebrity blogger

Question: Why do you blog so much?

Answer: Due to my allergy, I cannot have sex, so I pour all my creative juices into writing. If not for this condition, I would of course make monkey love to all the attractive women, who, like, are attracted to me all the time, even though I never go out, exercise, shower or enunciate.

Alternative question: Why don't you blog any longer?

Answer: I am depressed, because of my allergy. It is very depressing not to be able to have sex. If not for this condition, I would of course make monkey love to all the attractive women, who, like, are attracted to me all the time, even though I never go out, exercise, shower or enunciate.

Scenario 5: Highly scientific research institution

Scientist: Now, to test you, we will prick your skin with this diluted semen

(Test subject socks the doc in the eye)

Be open to new things

2011-01-16T15:58:00.002+08:00

Or not. As the new year brings me another inch closer to prosthetic teeth, bones, whole organs etc, I came across this:

The male chastity belt: CB-6000.

I am speechless and have gone for a drink. Bye now.

Sign of the times

2011-01-16T15:52:00.004+08:00

I was recently at a birthday party, where I learned an important life lesson: make sure you have a clause in your pre-nup that you will not, even under pain of death, be required to hang out with your girlfriend and her crazy friends whom you don't know, don't share an umbilical relationship going back 20 years and especially as your girlfriend's friend is unveiling a birthday present - a vibrator - on her birthday. In fact, I strongly recommend completely staying clear of anyone still in touch with their high-school friends, and indulge in "zany antics".

This was prompted by the (I assume) boyfriend of a girl, a dear friend of the birthday girl, who in turn is the dear wife of a friend. The poor bloke (the boyfriend, not the husband) was looking listless and wandering as if he was practicing to star in "Moses and the 40 days". I felt rather sorry for the him.

Next, this was no normal vibrator, but it could somehow commune with an iPod or an iPhone. I do not know what that means, especially if you are playing "Push It" on the iPhone. But, as this gift-getter's husband lamented, it's got music and it's got mojo - where does that leave men?

I was going to let him commiserate with me, but realized the dangers of hanging out with high-school friends from 20 years ago and quickly left the building.

Shake those maracas!

2010-11-04T22:52:00.007+08:00

Recently, I was asked about my taste in music. I was auditioning for the Bachelorette. I kid you, I was rehearsing for a job interview. I kid you again, I was... never mind.

Anyway, this set me thinking about a little episode in Trinidad, Cuba. It is so vivid in my mind I do not even have to refer to my notes.

After arriving in Trinidad by bus, a nice lady picked me up from the bus stop - I mean, she was holding a placard with my name on it. As I approached her, she stoically told others touting their casas that I was with her. She was white, clad simply in a t-shirt and shorts, and we walked the very short distance to her casa, conversing in Spanish. It was a nice place, a living room, a courtyard beyond that on the right with the kitchen and a couple of rooms on the left and another small open space way out back. She lightened up when I said I would have breakfast (extra revenue) and firmly told me that I could come and go as I pleased but strictly no chicas. Sigh.

Just across from the cobbled street from their house, about 20 feet to the right was a bar called the Canchancharra. I scoped it, went for a walk about and a couple of hours later stepped in on the way back home. It was a long corridor, nearly 40 feet long, with an open courtyard on the left and a covered portion on the right with long wooden benches to sit on. A bunch of mainly white tourists were sitting agape. The band was at the very end, a door to the right just in front of it leading to the "bar", where a forlorn man was serving up the house specialty: canchancharra. Here is a link on Trinidad that mentions the bar, here is a video, and here is a definition of the eponymous drink.

Then there was the band. I had seen this outfit earlier that afternoon at some other watering hole. It was 7 or 8 pieces and I have the most vivid memories of two things: the wind instrumentalist and the female singer.. The guy could play practically all wind instruments with aplomb - flute, trumpet, saxophone. It was quite amazing, really, how talented he was.

The singer - phew. She was a rather plain, fair woman in a very simple sleeveless tight top that held up a rather fetching bosom and simple shorts with a hint of cellulite, and sporting very large eyeshades. She held in each hand a maraca, an amazing instrument that sets the rhythm for any salsa song. She was good at shaking her maracas, both pairs, ahem.

I ordered the house drink, the canchancharra, which effectively is rum, coconut water and a glob of thick honey oat the bottom. It took forever to stir it. But I did and went on to order another, listening to the great band in the cool shade of a rather torpid afternoon in Trinidad.

I miss Cuba.

Warning: the gym can be hazardous to health

2010-11-03T23:58:00.005+08:00

We have previously seen how dangerous a visit to the gym can be here, here and here. Here is one more reason: Cosmo.

That's right. In my marvelous gym today, I made the mistake of checking out the reading material. Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to the catchy cover of a magazine, which I realized too late was Cosmopolitan.

What I learned depresses me enormously. There was a detailed, graphically vivid article on how to spice up your man's sex life: hand job. I kid you not, ladies - it apparently brings back the anticipation of one's adolescence. Frankly, as far as I am concernedand as things stand, it is more anticipation than I can handle. The ladies were warned that this is an area that guys are, ahem, familar with - duh. Therefore the educational article stressed the importance of novelty, creative hand-positioning (One hand?! Or two?!! Turn to page 131!!), speed, rhythm, soda water, safety razor, dumbbell(e)s, gerbils and goggles were all explained.

My knees went weak. It was not the weights I was lifting, I tell you. I wished someone would have given me a hand.

(That was bad, yes)

Contagious consumption

2010-10-23T16:38:00.002+08:00

A trip to the soon-to-be erstwhile superpower USA will never be complete without a taste of the American consumer's appetite. It used to be all about "conspicuous" consumption, but of late, the phenomenon has become so ridiculous and pervasive, I strongly recommend supplementing any trips to the USA with some time in front of the TV, watching some penniless tribe in the Amazon or the Masai on National Geographic. Because you will surely need some perspective when you see the following in a Delta Skymall catalog (my comments in italics):

For the consuming pet:

- The indoor dog restroom. Need I explain?

- Best-in-class orthopedic Comfy Couch and Bone Pillow a dog will really dig. I hope not "dig into", at that price.

- The ultrasonic barking dog deterrent - this ingenious device, shaped like a cuckoo clock, will emit inaudible canine-irritating frequencies which will eventually create the Pavlovian response of shutting the dog up. As alternatives, I suggest a) shutting the door / windows b) killing the dog. It is apparently in a stiff competition with the "Indoor barking dog deterrent", which looks like a boombox, which of course is the human deterrent.

- Pet ramp and staircase: you know, for your retarded, dysplasia-ridden mongrel to clamber up your bed with its filthy paws.

- Ceramic pet fountain. Because the old water bowl is of course bad karma.

- Canine genealogy kit. I thought this was a winner, but it does need you to take a swab from inside the dog's cheeks. If you can survive the inevitable dog breath, you will have to fight with the dog to get it out - have you ever tried wrestling even a chihuaha for something that is already in its mouth? Is all this worth it to know who Spot's mom was, when we al know she was a skank?

- Indoor / outdoor dog bed, elevated to keep your dog comfortable and dry. Do these people even know what a dog is? It is a critter than digs the ground up on a hot summer day so that it can nestle in the resulting, cool cavity. Its idea of comfort is turning around to licks its itchy balls.

- Litter Kwitter - "potty train your cat faster than most people can potty train their kids". This is plain bullshit, cats even cover up after they're done, for heaven's sake, and are not even comparable to blubbering human young ones that leak out of every orifice.

For the consuming head:

- A natural "boar hair bristle" especially for thinning hair. I suggest a razor, shaving foam and a spring in your step instead.

- Spray-on hair. See above.

- "Hair laser". Really? Does Darth Vader know about this?

Other

- Underwater pogo stick. My mind boggles, too.

- CD / DVD rack - store over 2250 CDs and DVDs. Duh, how clueless is the chief strategist of this one? Has s/he heard of the iPod?

- Stamp out identity theft - use this handy stamping thingy, which uniformly inks out your personal information. "No shredders, no scissors". Wouldn't shredding or burning actually be easier and cost nothing?

- The original sleep sound generator. It does not say zzzz.

- A whole lot of golf crap, sports crap, home improvement and gardening crap and other useless items.

For perverts:

- Video recording sunglasses. Uh-huh.

- The world's smallest camcorders! Record without ever being detected!! Apply for anticipatory bail now!!!

- Spy pen: carry an eyewitness in your pocket. The memorable moments at the divorce hearing will eliminate any regrets you'll have about buying this in the first place. Not to mention, its close competitors the Video Pen, voice activated to boot. You might as well say to it, "Incriminate me!"

Now the winners:

- The Slanket - stay cozy and keep your hands free. Bingo!! Have you even been on a cold flight and wanted to change the channel but then the blanket slides off you, exposing your muffing top and butt crack, causing alarm and potential pandemonium all around? Exactly. Instead of selling the Slanket, Delta should be giving them out on flights.

- Automatic Wine Opener: effortless cork removal every time. Don't worry, it said "cork", not cock. I think this is a great improvement over using your Swiss knife and eventually straining your wine through a perforated cork. Again, "cork".

- Dog ramp: So that your dog does not have to try the doggie high jump to get into your fucking SUV, you obese, inconsiderate retard.

- Two-way shoe stretcher: As the impulsive buyer of a pair of shoes half a size too small, I can assure you this is a winning product.

The unbearable annoyance of being

2010-10-23T12:28:00.005+08:00

A quick trip through India and one is bombarded with way too much of the present continuous. Here is a short guide to correcting or pre-empting the most common pitfalls using the English language dedicated to my Indian friends:

1. Having: as a verb, this can only be used in the following sentences:

- I am having a migraine

- I am having sex

- I am having fun. Lots of fun.

- I am having a baby (applicable only to females - explanatory note below)

- I am having an argument (possibly involving sharing domestic chores)

- I am not at all having fun

- I am having a stroke / cardiac arrest

- I am not having you at my funeral
- No, I am, *not* having a breakdown

Note the clever chronology involved. You cannot be having anything else. Also, "We" cannot be having babies, unless "we" are a lesbian couple, and undergoing synchronized in-vitro fertility treatment. Under normal circumstance, while the women are pregnant, the men are having fun, out with the "boyz", no need to drink wine coolers or white wine or some other sissy stuff to keep you company and chomping on a stogie because you are throwing up and ill at home having a... baby.

2. Liking: do not use this as a verb. Period.

- If you are a woman, you can have a liking for me. It is entirely natural. If you are above the legal age of consent, I encourage you to immediately contact me and get it over with.

- If you are a man, you will have a liking for women, sometimes many at a time throughout your life. You must practice being untruthful.

Speaking of "being"...

3. Being: as a noun, this has many applications - e.g., every one is a lesser being than me. As a verb, the only allowable usages are:

- I am being courted by large publishing houses

- I am not being gullible - that letter looked really authentic
- You are being totally unreasonable / childish
- What do you mean I am being ridiculous?

- You're just jealous. I am being punished / persecuted for my intelligence / wit / wisdom

In addition, please stop using "yesterday night", "today morning" and do learn to pronounce "development". What's that? No, I am not being very annoying; you are.

Thank you.

Rhymes with hobo

2010-10-22T01:11:00.003+08:00

Spoiler alert - but probably redundant

Recently I went to watch the movie that has apparently taken India by storm. The movie is called Enthiran, which is Tamil for Machine. Hence its alternate title Robot, except it is pronounced in the sophisticated French way and rhymes with "Hobo". I will therefore annoy you by referring to "Robo" for the rest of this article.

The movie starts with a hi-tech lab where the hero is putting Asimov to shame. Unfortunately, the opening scene featured a retard - who would proceed to provide an annoying "comedy track" with a fellow retard - in a shapeless pair of trousers and un-tucked, short-sleeved shirt that looked like someone had vomited Bolognaise sauce and melted Velveeta through a pasta maker on to the fabric. Even in the age of Robo your Indian family and friends, apparently, will still torture you with garish color schemes without the fall-back excuse of color-blindness. This is why I regift all items of clothing I have the misfortune of receiving as gifts from the Peeps.

The male lead warmed my cockles. At 61, he proved that men can always get to prance and carouse with women half their age. Sorry, ladies, it's unfair but so it is. Tough luck. This being a movie about a Robo, it featured the inevitable break dance bit with the "Robo" movements etc. My enthusiasm for the future sexagenarian me dipping my wick in some hot piece of ass was somewhat diminished by my fear that the hero - the star, nay, The Megastar - might at any moment keel over from hip dysplasia (for added entertainment, click on the "Canine" Wiki link). Let's just say that the actor's dance steps are more "jerky" than "smooth". Perhaps he was just slyly mocking the abysmally forgettable songs to which he was, er, "dancing".

The heroine was a sight to behold. Gratuitous shots of her in tight pants and bending over after a sprint (but in perfect makeup) were much appreciated, though the straggler fanatic-morons in the empty cinema reserved their occasional clap or catcall for the hero's utterance of signature hand gestures. I desperately wanted to catch them as they stepped out to the restroom - the movie was 3 hours long - to explain that the actors could not actually hear them. Anyway, the heroine also could not dance, and thank god the Ms Universe finale did not involve a test in this area (she won it a decade ago).

The coup de grace of the film was that not that the Robo was created and eventually lightning-bolted into a touch of human-ness, with icky feelings etc. It was the amazing ways in which, after plugging into a power outlet for 5 minutes, the Robo could practically fly to the moon and back. It will be some time before the laws of thermodynamics can catch up with the new-found expertise in CGI graphics in the land of Indian cinema, where logic is for fools.

Various stereotypes and retrograde, anachronistic subplots were at work. The Robo saves a bathing girl from a raging fire, and she promptly commits suicide from the shame of her nakedness - what fucking stone age are the producers living in? Indian women are bonking like rabbits and the only shame is that I am not the counterparty - or is it counterbunny? Why can't an Indian movie or soap just once show a groom demanding dowry being handed over to the police; a tortured woman walking out with a divorce in one hand and a strapping young hunk in the other; a widow or a divorcee remarrying; a man having a peg without getting theatrically drunk; or any such socially progressive idea?

An atrocious supporting cast and storyline round off this dismal movie best vaccinated against to prevent infection. This has been a public service post.

Expo'ed

2010-09-27T20:18:00.004+08:00

That's right, ladies and gentlemen: on a rainy Sunday recently, I visited the World Expo in Shanghai.

First, what or who is the "Expo"? What is its mission? More importantly, what *is* it? An outfit like the International Olympic Committee, raking in a cushy living in the form of bribes? A cynical organization that takes elementary school exhibitions and science projects to a global scale, laughing at it all, us all? Perhaps a Masonic outfit or some other secret society which forms grist for the mill of conspiracy theorists? Which raises the questions: "What the heck is grist?" and "Can someone please medicate the conspiracy theorists?" We all saw what happened to Mel Gibson - don't tell me Conspiracy Theory had nothing to do with that.

Ok, no more digression. Thanks to some powerful string-pulling, a bunch of us, mostly foreigners, sashayed past the teeming masses lined up in front of the various pavilions. Equality, Made in China.

First, the Taiwan pavilion. It involved getting on a glass platform *inside* a dome on which were projected various images. It was billed as a 4D experience, and I am still not sure what the fourth D was. Then we went to stare at the *outside* of a dome on which we launched "virtual lamps", which, at the press of a button, rose to the heavens carrying with one of 12 pre-selected wishes spanning the inane to the sublime: Succeed in Examinations, A Soaring Economy, Cross Straits Peace and Prosperity, Peace and Happiness. I looked for a plug to pull, but alas found none. The pavilion visit ended in an cozy little room constructed I believe from bamboo or thatch, in which they served us excellent Chinese tea, and they let us take home the cup to boot. I demand that we recognize Taiwan immediately. They are too nice.

Next, again sneakily, we went into the Chinese pavilion. It was less a pavilion and more like the mother of all stadiums. There was a truly spectacular blow up of an ancient 11-meter scroll, except this painting was *animated* and spanned what must be 50 meters of wall. I felt slightly agoraphobic - it was crowded like crazy. We then went into various other parts of this pavilion of which I understood nothing: a children's section with posters of cartoons and comicss, a section with clean technology devices, what seemed like a green house, a themepark-like ride etc.

We then walked by the India pavilion which looked exceptionally retarded: there was an arched entrance of some sort made of thatched material. Seriously, Mr. Seventy-year-old-bureaucrat - that endearing, halcyon Malgudi image just doesn't cut it any longer. There was a large hemisphere of some sort, which had vegegation - multicolored vegetation - growing on it in weird patterns. It looked like a dinosaur testicle which had been creatively shaved or perhaps been overrun by intelligent-design fungus.

Finally, we went to the Saudi Arabia pavilion, which as you know cost $100 million. I am not kidding. We walked up several flights of spiral ramps, showcasing the first thing about the Holy Kingdom - a whole lot of nothing to do but wandering. Then there was a song and light show that put the Taiwanese one to shame, but frankly there was nothing substantial to it. Islamic motifs, the king scaring the crap out of everyone in his hand-raised-like-a-jedi pose sporting jet-black facial hair (not sure which is weirder), and - shockingly - two or three women shown veil-less. They also had a rooftop "oasis", which today remained rained out. I was not sure if the date palms were real. I mean, they made milk out of melamine in the host country, so anything could be possible.

I thoroughly shamed myself by taking plenty of pictures on my phone. My fucking phone!

The Force has left the building

2010-09-19T11:09:00.002+08:00

Yoda discovered recently that the Force is not with him.

Specifically, the force called gravity, because of which my laptop, perched on an armrest despite repeated warnings, fell. To the ground. And the hard disk has now crashed.

Well at least that is what I am telling people: for all I know ants have colonized the inside.

So, I think longer articles will have to wait.

Sent from my iPhone

Can't be arsed

2010-09-10T21:36:00.005+08:00

Can't Be Arsed, by Richard Wilson, is an excellent read. I bought it once, but promptly lost it at a bar. I wasn't arsed enough, I suppose. The book is a rant against "tossers" with bucket lists and a serious case of one-upmanship. He particularly hates "travelers", of which I sadly believe am one, as defined by him - scouring the earth looking for new places, people and adventures, waiting for a chance to bestow the ultimate appellation, "awesome".

His simple point is that we might as well enjoy just where we are instead of chasing one list after another. I am contemplating agreeing with him, whiling away my time on an easy-chair and satisfying myself with watching Globetrotter Ian Wright.

Also, this all reminded me that one day I might keel over dead and they will find inside my chest an emaciated heart, thanks to chagas disease. It was bad enough that I was in the dreaded Amazon without malarone - promptly losing them after ingesting just the first pill, exposing myself to malaria. Now I find out I might have been exposed to other annoying - and it turns out deadly - bugs. Luckily, I had several cans of Deet with which I sprayed myself liberally. Liberally enough, I hope. Whoa, did my heart just skip a beat?

Speaking of the dreaded Amazon, I did get down and dirty in the Rio Negro at a sandy beach at one point, largely to ogle the girl in the black bikini. Now I belatedly find out it is the favorite stomping ground (water?) in the fucking Amazon for the candiru fish. At least on this count, I can safely, ahem, say that I was not a victim of its shenanigans. The very thought makes a man's crown jewels want to seek asylum somewhere way up in thoracic country.

Maybe Wilson has a point about all these zany "travel" crap that people - including me - get up to.

Notes from the field, part 127

2010-09-07T22:00:00.005+08:00

I believe the best and worst, the top of the heap, the genuine stuff of any nation is to be found in its newspapers. Here I bring you the state of the Chinese nation.

First, just as I plan to board a flight, we have: "Many airlline pilots have fake credentials". Apparently, more than 200 pilots falsified credentials, with more than half working previously at the parent company of an airline involved in China's worst plane crash in several years. If this were a movie, it would be called Two Left Wings.

Next, "Public worrys (sic) about safety of hairy crabs". I think the hairy crabs about to be devoured worry a far lot more. No matter, coming back to the matter at hand, apparently they are feeding the crabs excessive amounts of antibiotics and hormone-based contraceptives. First, let me point out that I admire moderation, rather than absolutism, and it is heartening to note the debate is about "excessive" use, not about use per se. Furthermore, I think oysters are passe - the way to go is to get some hairy crabs, boosting your immune system and fortifying your date with some contraceptive hormones. You can never be too sure.

Next up, we have "Lady collecting garbage for 20 years says it's a hobby". Apparently she feels this will prevent people from mocking her for having nothing, and considers the garbage hill in her home to be her property. I quote: "A physician said Wu may have a psychological problem and suggested she get professional help". Uh-huh.

From the west of China, we have a lonely man "Driving around town in search of a girlfriend". He drives around with a lonely heart advertisement on the rear window of his car, and 50 women have called him in two days. Lucky bastard, he has a car and a headstart on me. Me, I am in deep depression because Craigslist has closed down its "Adult Services" section. Sigh.

From the north, "Lottery jackpot rips marriage apart". A couple could not decide how to spend the lottery they won and their arguments progressed to violent fights. The judge ordered them to split the pot in half. It was RMB 100,000 or about $15,000. I believe divorce attorneys from Vegas are moving into Inner Mongolia in hordes for a shot at cheap divorces.

Finally, from the east of China, "Woman, 81, flees home to escape 'caring' daughter". She was found sobbing in the middle of the street 30 minutes after running away from her overprotective daughter. Her daughter had insisted she put on a jacket in response to the cool breeze in the courtyard.

Is it still better to die trying?

2010-08-11T13:34:00.004+08:00

Once more, an article on mankind's premature death. And only man-kind's.

Mate search shortens men's lives

"MEN who face plenty of competition to find a mate have slightly shorter lives than those who don't. New research shows that gender imbalance, when men outnumber women, affects male longevity by an average of about three months."

A little later, this:

"After calculating the gender ratios for each high school class they noticed that 50 years later men from classes with more boys than girls did not live as long as those from more balanced classes."

By now you know the routine: Caustic questions, considerations and suggestions:

1. Send your boys to all-girls schools. It is all about probabilities. But do not, under any circumstance, allow them to get involved in "fashion". If they use "fashion" and "design" in the same sentence, disown them. FYI, when I was really small, they sent me to an all-girls school because they let boys in just for kindergarten. Ha! I bet I have a couple of years right there.

2. I am sorry for all of those of you who went to boys-only schools. For your early death and all the time you spent playing "Soggy Biscuit".

3. Did the study take into account the trauma faced by 11-year old boys bullied by their much larger female counterparts thanks to earlier puberty, armed with dangerous new weapons such as "breasts"?

4. Has the study taken into account *quality* of life, instead of just the number of years? I believe that when they tested the Large Hadron Collider, they discovered that Dark Matter is made up of Life that has been sucked out of men after Marriage.

5. I hope for your sake you did not compete in "The Bachelorette". I don't know what it is, but assume it is a "reality" show featuring several men chasing one bimbo. On the other hand, perhaps it is a great demonstration of Darwinian mechanisms in action.

6. Finally what does this mean for men who *do not* want to find a mate and refuse to engage in the "rat race", so to speak? Will they live longer than those that die (sooner) trying?

PS: "I will live forever or die trying" is of course protagonist Yossarian's quote from Catch-22. Read it if you have not already done so.

How biblical

2010-08-09T22:03:00.002+08:00

What was that about vengeance, eye-for-an-eye and all that balderdash? I find this piece of news ironic and uplifting. Pagans of the world unite!

Dancers from Ohio strip club protest at church

Excerpt: "The owner of an Ohio strip club and some of his dancers have been protesting at a church that has done the same to them for four years."

I completely agree

2010-08-08T18:05:00.005+08:00

A women's group wants British prime minister Gordon Brown to enforce a law that labels pictures of women as "natural" or "airbrushed".

Airbrushed pictures targeted

Brilliant, I say. I propose additional categories: natural, airbrushed, enhanced (silicon), enhanced (other), out-of-date, unrealistic (for women readers) and unattainable (for men).

And they are not talking about sex

2010-08-04T16:30:00.004+08:00

From the beloved NYT:

Be sure exercise is all you get at the gym

Excerpts:

"When you go to the gym, do you wash your hands before and after using the equipment? Bring your own regularly cleaned mat for floor exercises? Shower with antibacterial soap and put on clean clothes immediately after your workout? Use only your own towels, razors, bar soap, water bottles? If you answered "no" to any of the above, you could wind up with one of the many skin infections that can spread like wildfire in athletic settings."

"(A wrestler) noticed a pimple on his arm last winter but thought little of it. He competed in a match on a Saturday, but by the next morning the pimple had grown to the size of his biceps and had become very painful.... Two days later, he learned he had MRSA, the potentially deadly staphylococcus infection that is resistant to most antibiotics."

Gee. This brings to mind several questions.

1. Does this make *any* difference to ogling shapely women at the gym? The correct answer is "No". That is never a crime, under any circumstance, including if the shapely woman is god.

2. How can a pimple become as big as a bicep? I don't know the answer to this.

3. If a pimple is as big as a wrestler's bicep, can it still be called a pimple? Should it not be called something else, more worthy of its bad-ass status?

4. Does the pimple-and-acne cream industry know about this? I smell a stampede.

5. Forget about your own towels, how can people use gym-provided apparel? Yech. This happens at my gym.

And outside of the gym, does your partner wash her / his hands before she / he gets it on with you? Holy crap!! MRSA on your @#$*!!!

Or as I call it, Our Daily Dread

2010-08-03T19:08:00.004+08:00

Resistance to entering the building. Cowering. Avoiding people. Whimpering.

Army dog suffers stress trauma

Excerpts: "(the dog) returned home to Colorado (from Iraq) cowering and fearful. When her handlers tried to take her into a building, she would stiffen her legs and resist. Once inside, she would tuck her tail beneath her body and slink along the floor. She would hide under furniture or in a corner to avoid people.

Direct marketing

2010-08-03T15:32:00.004+08:00

Am at my $10 barber, the ambience enhanced by a Venga Boys CD. A standing ad offers me choices that make me realize and rejoice in my free will, like no born-again evangelist ever could make me.

For $388 I could get *unlimited* sessions of underarm hair removal. Specifically it was phrased "unlimited underarm sessions". What am I, a minor goddess? Unlimited arms and underarms...

Furthermore, I can sign up "any large body parts" for hair removal. Yes, that is plural, not my typo. Do any of you have any to spare? Is there a potential business opportunity for Jack the Ripper?

And what is a "large" body part exactly? If it is signed up, will it take a taxi to get its hair removed? Must it be clothed? Accompanied? How will potential conflicts between body parts in the waiting room be resolved? Will there be any discrimination - say of the sagging (but big) breast or the bulbous belly?

So much to contemplate. I don't even want to know what the "complimentary large body parts" could be.

Banned in Beijing

2010-07-27T13:26:00.003+08:00

Or at the very least, missing, are the following:

- Sun. As I almost always remember Beijing, it is shrouded in haze and when the sun is visible, it appears to be a feeble orange orb. Itchy eyes, scratchy throat and rebellious sinuses. Brilliant.

- Facebook. LIverjournal. Google. Blogger - I can't read my own blog! And of course various other websites

- Manners. You think you are at a nice 5-star hotel waiting for a cab, when pushy assholes blithely walk right past you.

Your withering look has no effect and neither will your planned, pointed, sarcastic remark in English.

There is a bonanza of other bans in the press recently.

1. Floatopia parties banned: People were boozing up off the shore of San Diego floating on inner tubes - YES, inner tubes. And it has been banned before I could even try it. I feel like I just died a virgin.

2. Islamists ban TV sets: From Somalia, which the latest issue of the Economist labels a "failed state". But I think the Islamists are on to something. I think there is only a place in the world for one thing at a time: TV sets or guns. Stuck here in Beijing, with almost nothing to watch on TV - not even FTV - I am glad guns are banned. I am this close to shooting myself. Ah, those Islamists!

3. Bull fights in Catalonia: Not yet, just maybe. Theme song: "Ai no corrida" (explanation: "Hay no corrida", pronounced the same way, would mean "There's no bullfight"). Yay. I am proud to say I *never* visited a bull fight even when I lived in Spain, not even invoking the Cultural Exception Clause. About fucking time - Catalonia bans them. I wonder how much of this is to distinguish themselves from the Castillano-speakers and thus make the case for sovereignity stronger.

Gunga didn't, and never will

2010-07-24T15:40:00.035+08:00

Some people are social butterflies. I think of myself as more of a social caterpillar, or perhaps pupa, existing in a cozy cocoon of imagination and sarcasm. Once in a while I (am forced to) get out.

Recently I was at a place that was very communal. Families were sitting cross legged on the ground. Middle-aged men sat around reading magazines in the shade, away from the mid-day torpor. Couples sat here and there holding hands. Young boys roaming around with mobile phone (theirs?), no doubt sexting. Young married couples were showing off their little kids, festooned in curious baggy pants, doubtless designed by a color-blind man with OCD, for he could not decide between pink, white and yellow stripes running vertically, horizontally or oblique, and so decided on all. Comely women fled in all directions as I approached or even just walked by them, even though I had buttoned up all the way to my neck.The breeze blew now and then. Live music: a wind-instrument and percussion that packed a punch.

Ah, it sounds like the backdrop for some smarmy commercial set in Central Park (except for the missing French bull dogs and Chihuahas) with a Louis Armstrong soundtrack, doesn't it? It's a wonderful world. Actually, this was a Hindu temple in Singapore just past noon.

Amidst all this stood out a lone man. He was clean-shaven, well-groomed and had a calm, placid look on his face. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt of some sort, and perhaps reflecting his genteel upbringing, it was even tucked in. Tucked into his boxers. I kid you not, I tried to discreetly verify if they were cheaply-made-in-Bangladesh bermuda sborts, but I am sure they were boxers. I suppose all are welcome in the house of god.

I was in this predicament because my cab-driver had decided to drop me off here, and I had time to kill, so I decided just as well to say hi to my estranged childhood friend, a.k.a. god.

I was making my observations sitting in front of the main god, after a cursory circumnabulation. Shortly, someone was serving rice out of a large vat, and unbidden, people had formed a line. This was a classic case of nature and nurture working together: the Indian gene, used to famines and forever craving a calorie, no doubt led to a magical gravitation to the rice bowl where just earlier were 40 people lounging about with no purpose, in a sort of Brownian non-motion; and while this may have led to a mob frenzy in India, good old Singapore training had made it simply a matter of getting into line, orderly and sheep-like. I wonder if it is a good idea to still wash down Hindu gods with full-fat milk and offer them rice cooked in clarified butter and loaded with sugar...

Me: Hi, god.

God: Howdy? Things going well?

Me: Could be better, you know how it is. Oh wait a minute, you probably don't.

(Embarassed silence)

Me: Coffee?

God: Sure.

Me: Sugar?

God: No, I'm Indian. (Sheepishly) Type II diabetes. I wish they'd bathe me in matcha and switch to sucralose. And while at it, some soy-sundal as well.

Me: My friend is here. I must go. (start sidling off)
God: For two thousand years I have been eating curd rice for lunch. It's a nightmare. I'd give a shower of gold for some gobi manchurian. Don't even get me started on pizza.
Me: Take care now, buddy. Ciao!
God: And for heaven's sake, would it kill them to put a Bordeaux in my hamper? Zeus and his buddies make fun of me all the time. The Druids are even worse, insufferable. I feel like the guy who orders milk at a bar.
Me: (Hailing a taxi)
God: As for my sex life...
Me: (Jumps in front of bus)

Anyway, I had my face-down with the powers that be. I am not really sure what people hope to accomplish with the various perceived mechanisms when dealing with the higher power:

-Bribery: Please get rid of my wart and I will offer you a goat. Really? Heaven must be terribly overstaffed if this request succeeds. Time for Bob and Bob.

-Flattery: Please give me a promotion, because you are the real god. The others are all fake, like silicon breasts. I can't believe some people fall for it. Lots of people. (Fantasizes about Pamela Anderson, wakes up with a start and repeats prayer).

-Addiction: I am so devoted to you, I will do anything - love, lust, money you name it. I am not really sure what I want, but I like my bald head with the little tuft.

-Rebellion: Screw you, I am going over to Satan. He was handing out spliffs outside school yesterday and said masturbation is ok. I think he has even had "sex". Kewl (eyes glaze over in awe).

In my case, as always, I looked god squarely in the eye - well, not really in the eye, there was a lot of jewelry covering up the face, and when I think about it I am not sure I looked at god at all, because it may have been just a mound of flowers and silk - the priest swiftly drew a curtain, interrupting my would-be reverie.

I went looking for some women who would scurry away from me.

PS: The title of course is a reference to Rudyard Kipling's poem. The question to ask oneself, I think, is not what's the route to absolution. It is not even whether one is a better man (or woman) than another. I could tell you what I think, but I need to set up my cult and its bank account first.

Post PS: The title is, somewhat atypically seriously, a philosophical question on the practice of absolution - be it a dip in a holy river, a confession or a ritual killing.

Finally, work safe intellectual stimulation

2010-07-20T19:47:00.002+08:00

You know, I read it for the articles.

Playboy launches work-safe site.

Dutifully free of intelligence

2010-07-20T18:56:00.012+08:00

"I'm ~~learning~~ reading on a jet plane

Don't know when I'll be sane again"

Sung to the tune of Leaving on a Jet Plane.

No, I have not lost it, rather I have gained valuable new insights into the ways of the world. This was done in the face of some stiff competition in the form of cute stewardess Maria Halim, but with alacrity running away from some work-related word-processing.

The insights came from Krisshop, the inflight shopping magazine for Singapore Airlines. No, I did not buy some stupid gizmo or doodad or jewelry. But I did stumble upon an excellent summary of Duty Free Allowances by country. I bet you did not know that...

Most countries are sane, and have language that reasonable quantities of stuff will be allowed in, in some cases clearly stating such quantity - such as 200 cigarettes or 1 liter of spirits. However, there are some exceptions.

Dubai: If you are a non-Muslim, the best place to get drunk and acquire lung cancer is Dubai. 2 liters of spirt PLUS 2 liters of wine and TWO THOUSAND cigarettes. What could one do with all that many cigarettes? Is this part of Dubai's cynical plan to ensure none of its non-Muslim expats live long enough to cause trouble, demand citizenship, property rights etc? How do you transport 2000 cigarettes? How big a suitcase would you need to carry that many? How many camels do you need to carry 2000 cigarettes? How many cigarettes can you carry or hide in an average kandura? The mind, it boggles. All because I am non-Muslim. It is never too late to appreciate the subtle offerings of religion, I suppose.

Duty-free cashier: How may I help you?
Non-Musliim foreigner: Here are 10 cartons of cigarettes, each with 200 cigarettes.
Duty-free cashier: Would you like a plastic bag?

Customs official: Sir, what is in your too-big-for-the-cabin suitcase? Do you have anything to declare?

Non-Musliim foreigner: 2000 cigarettes.

Customs official: Of course, silly me. Welcome to Dubai. You may proceed. Is that your wife and daughter? They too have quotas, just a friendly reminder from this great duty-free city.

Turkey: You may recall I had made a snide remark of Turkish men and body odor. I was certainly on to something. Turkey allows you to bring 1.2 liters - LITERS - of perfume, and it says rather cryptically, "Nett weight will be calculated".

Customs official: Sorry sir, but you cannot bring that magnum of champagne into the country.

Traveler: Oh, but it is perfume, not booze.

Customs official: But of course. I hope your hotel has a nice bath tub. Have a nice stay. Say, what kind of perfume?

Traveler: Old Spice.

Customs official (frantically into his walkie talkie): Code Red. Old Spice alert. Request hazmat team and immediate deportation.

Germany: Leaves nothing to chance. I quote verbatim: "1 liter spirits over 22 volume, or non-denatured ethyl alcohol with more than 80 volume or 2 liters spirits or aperitifs made of wine or similar beverages less than 22 volume, or a sparkling wines or liquer wines or a proportional mix of the products and in addition 2 liters still wine". Likewise, "200 cigarettes / 100 cigarillos (max 3 grams each) or 50 cigars, of 250 grams smoking tobacco, or a proportional mix of these products".

Customs official: Anything to declare, sir?

Traveler: No. Here is a large bottle that has, mixed in the right proportion, liquers, champagne, wine and spirits. And in this shoe box, what looks like dried cow dung is actually cut up cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars and some smoking tobacco, also proportionately mixed.
Customs official: Are you sure?
Traveler: Yes, I used a vernier caliper.

Customs official: Very well, you may go now. Say, may I borrow your calculator, abacus, slide rule, logarithmic tables and while you are at it, you too? I need some help with my tax returns.

So there you have it. One is never too old to learn something new.

FAQ

2010-07-18T01:15:00.004+08:00

A conversation with a campesino

2010-07-18T00:46:00.012+08:00

(Warning: lengthy article follows. If I could only write about one story from all of my time in Cuba, this would be it.)

After a night of revelry in Trinidad - that post will follow - I woke up late and tired the next day. I found myself something to eat, sat out the rain and was walking up the slope toward the Plaza and to my casa, for a nap. I was walking along the pavement on the right, when a man with a cigar dangling from his mouth and sporting a straw hat across the road hailed me, or at the very least hailed someone. Wary of being hustled yet again, I almost walked on, but for some inexplicable reason, I braved the puddles in the middle of the road and crossed over. He wanted a light. I gave him one, and was about to rush off with it, before being pitched something, when he perhaps sensed my hesitance and bellowed "Soy campesino!" (I'm a farmer). All that follows is translated from the Spanish:

Rafael - for that, I found out later, was his name - took his time, lighting his cigar for maybe 30 seconds, turning it around, puffing away as it he were setting fire to London or Chicago.

He returned the lighter and as I tried to hurry off, he said, "I'm just a farmer. I am from the farms, in the mountain. I don't see tourists, I don't get to speak with tourists". All said in a tone and demeanor that said he knew I was trying to wriggle away, but not offended, nor exactly in a hustling manner: maybe just a touch of amusement. This somewhat set me at ease. "Where are you from?" he asked and upon hearing the answer asked me "Is that near Africa?"

What the hell, I thought and gave him what turned out to be the best hour of my trip.

Rafael lived in the mountains about 5 kilometers outside of Trinidad. He owned various types of trees (arboles). Early on in the conversation, he looked at me, then pointed to his blue cloth bag and said something about pesa (weight) - I mistook this word for peso (money), and tried to pre-empt any sales transactions from happening, but he clarified that what he meant was that his mangoes weighed more than a kilogram each. He casually looked at me and asked me how old I was, and upon hearing my answer, cheerfully declared, "I bet you can't carry 30 of my mangoes". Clearly he did, into town, possibly every day. Including that day. As I write this, I feel insanely happy that his sack was empty. I hope he'd had a good day.

Rafael suggested sitting down, and we sat at someone's doorstep. He needed the light again. I let him light up, and told him to keep it, to which he said "You have a good heart". He politely returned it.

I looked closely at him - he was a handsome, ruddy man, almost certainly of pure Spanish stock. He had piercing, light gray eyes; reddish complexion that bespoke of decades spent in the harsh Cuban sun; and the straw hat, slightly eaten away here and there. His clothes were a bit tattered. He was not very tall, but built well.

He hardly looked his age - he told me he was 67 years old. He had not sold much for the past two years, he said, and I would only understand the significance of this statement later. He had no transportation, and there was only a dirt track to his village / farm. Not even a bicycle could go on it, he said. Thus he walked every day. He pointed to his shoes, which were in poor shape.

Rafael talked in earnest, as if he was on Larry King and the whole world was his audience, hanging on to his every significant word and utterance. He occasionally looked at me, but mostly looked at the ground or somewhere else, his eyes focused and passionate about the useless nuggets he was delivering to no one in particular. But to me they were fascinating - and I sat there riveted by this dignified campesino.

Rafael's mom was 27 and his dad 34 when he was born. Six months later his father died. "She was much younger than him", he declared, "but she never loved another man. She never married!". He declared, an emphatic shake of his head. He was a little kid - un pocquito chiquito, he said, an endearing turn of phrase coming from a sexagenarian - when his mother went to a rich farmer in the neighborhood. "He had lots of cows", Rafael said. His mother had asked him for milk for her little boy, and he apparently said no, supposedly telling her the milk was only for animals - the dogs and the pigs. "He was an evil man", Rafael said disapprovingly, shaking his head yet again, a touch of sadness but no malice in this recollection, which in any case would have been his mother's for he would have been too small.

He said he had not studied much. "There are so many schools nowadays and young people have education. In my days, back during Batista's days, no". Given this and the earlier story about the evil farmer, it was no surprise to hear him say that he had fought for the Revolution. He had fought in Trinidad and in Santa Clara. (I am now kicking myself for not having asked him if he had fought with Che. I am a moron.)

He said that the counter-revolutionaries had then come to his grandparents' house. He pointed to the top of some palm trees, so I can only guess that the house was thatch-roofed and it appears they set fire to it, killing them. "I had no family left, just me and my mother", he declared stoically but with a hint of sadness, and I could not help but feel a tug at my heart strings.

He too had married, or at least found a woman -"Right here, in Trinidad", he said with a wave and a nod to the street, with a distant look in his eyes. I was unable to follow it fully, but it appeared she had left him either because he was too poor and / or he would not leave his mother. "But I have only my one mother! How could I leave her?!" he asked plaintively, a faint look of incomprehension at how it could even be conceivable.

He had had a horse. It had died two years ago, aged 27 or 29. That's why he had had trouble bring his produce to town for the past two years. "I know a rich man - he's got a large house and several animals. I asked him if I could use one of his horses or mules, but he does not want to give it to me. He does not have heart. I told him I would pay the 35 CUC over six months if he let me use an animal for that time, for that would make it easier to sell my stuff. But he said no", he sighed.

His pension was 110 pesos, which is about 4.5 CUCS. A CUC is about USD 1.1, so you can see it was not very much at all. Even compared to the average Cuban who makes 10 - 20 CUC per month. His mother had no pension. Both had to live on his, and whatever else he made off his farm. Apart from mangoes, he had coffee trees. He loved his coffee, he proudly declared that he drank 7 or 8 cups a day.

(Now, you must understand something about Rafael - in that simple, unself-conscious manner of rural folk, he spoke earnestly, with no pretensions and often referred to himself in the third person. He almost always made his statements and his declarations in a manner that conveyed their importance to him - clearly a lot - but which would appear amusing for any third person. I, however, was not just any third person. Everything he said *was* important to me. I've never felt happier listening.)

He made his own coffee. "I don't like this Arabica or Robusta, just good old Cuban coffee", he declared again as if it was an important announcement. He harvested, pounded and roasted them himself. He said that people near his house smelled him making coffee and went "That Rafael, he must be making his coffee!" He chuckled. He had 150 coffee trees.

Once again in important-announcement mode, he declared "No sirree, I don't like this rum or beer. It is just coffee for me. Coffee and cigars - I can't live without them". But the cigars were too expensive. He knew a prosperous man, someone who apparently rented out rooms in his casa, and also worked in a cigar factory. Rafael, it appeared, traded his farm produce, like lime and fruit, for cigars.

His mother was old, 94 now. She had various ailments. He pointed to the ankles, knees and other joints and said something I think meaning that she suffered from pains or ailments there - arthritis, one assumed. She also had something on the back of her neck, which he said was because she had worked all those years as a farmer and a machetera in the sun. "He had taken her to the doctors and they had prescribed something for her. "Do you know what Omega-3 is?", he asked, all innocence. "Only international clinics have it, and it costs 6.50 CUC. I cannot afford it."

You're thinking, "Hehe, we know how this movie ends!". One of you even cynically told me, hearing this story, that it probably was a very elaborately crafted ruse by someone hustling. I beg to differ. I cannot imagine that man and his story being crafted to bilk someone. Call me a poor judge of people, but somehow I felt it was a genuine experience with a genuine person.

Anyway, he too had been a farmer. "Soy machetero!", he declared, and he had worked day after day cutting cane in the fields. He had gnarled hands, a full set of teeth stained dark brown at their roots, clearly reflecting his love of coffee and cigarettes.

Somewhere in the midst of this, the lady of the house opened her door. We stood up and separated to let her through, and he very politely said "Disculpa nos", or "Excuse us", to which she calmly said no worries and walked on.

"I don't like this two-currency business", he once again declared disapprovingly. He was not particularly happy that people in the city could rent out rooms to tourists and make money, while people like him were stuck in the mountain with no way of improving their conditions. "How can I?", he almost cried out. He had a small house, far from town. "I invite you home. You can meet Mother. She is old, but she has lots of stories - all in her head, not written, just her memories", he said.

He pulled out a bit of paper from his pocket. It said, in Spanish: "For cholesterol: statins and omega-3". "Not for me, for my mother, you understand?", he said. I didn't have the hear to tell him that a course of Omega-3 would not exactly cure his mother, they were just supplements to be taken long term. "Can you send me some from your country?", he asked. "I'll gift you my best coffee", and he slowly wrote out his address. Rafael O___ H___, (insert name of mountain), Trinidad, Cuba. That was his address. "We have two surnames, you know. How about your country?" he asked. I didn't have the heart to confuse him my telling him I actually do not have a surname. "Just one", I said and he seemed satisfied.

"If you send me, can you please pack them well", he asked. "The authorities, they will check packages and if they find something valuable they will take it. So please pack it well", he implored. "But would it not be easier for you to just give me some money? I can get the stuff and be back in 20 minutes to show you", he suggested.

This was my moment of reckoning. Maybe I should have just given him the money, so what if he was hustling me? But the indecisive demon in me prevaricated and I eventually gave him just a couple of CUCs. I know, I still curse myself for maybe I could have done something different, something better.

He was happy. "I'll bring you a bag of my coffee tomorrow", he said gratefully. I said I would leave very early in the morning, so no thank you, and he quickly agreed - not, I thought, as a way out, but being a practical man who could not possibly schlep 5 kilometers to get to me before 8 am.

We stood up, and we said good bye. I am not sure if I gave him a bear hug, but we shook hands and parted.

Simultaneously, my heart was the heaviest and lightest it had been in ages.

This was my conversation with a campesino.

Losing weight 101

2010-07-17T23:08:00.009+08:00

This post will be about the wonderful Cuban cuisine.

I was warned before I went to Cuba of a few things: it's expensive (it is, hideously so, if you choose to go to the touristy beach resorts or stay at hotels); people hustle you (they do, but it is harmless); and that the food sucks (take dry food, trail mix, energy bars, I was told).

Rubbish, I thought. The first two indeed turned out so - the casa particulares were warm and nice, and the people were a pleasure to interact with, even if they were prostituting themselves right in front of their extended families. Then there was the food.

Cuban food is terrific. I hope you are not a cretin, and are good with your advanced math to follow my reasoning: it is called "Combination", which is a less prosperous cousin of "Permutation".

Step one: pick one of the following methods of cooking: a) grilled b) all of the above

Step two: pick one of the following main courses: a) pork b) chicken c) fish d) one of the above but will taste like none of the above e) all of the above

Step three: add one of the following sides: a) shredded cabbage b) canned peas c) tastefully sliced, yet absolutely tasteless, carrot stamped to floral designs d) all of the above e) d + boiled f) e+ preserved in vinegar.

My entire summary of Cuban food is: 1-a, 2-e and 3-f.

However, breakfast was uniformly good, for a completely different reason - fruit! Freshest, tastiest, tropical fruit - papayas, mangos, melons, etc. Definitely made the case for vegetarianism.

PS: You cannot say "papaya" in Cuba, because it is slang for the female private part. The more private part, if you are confused. The appropriate slang is "fruta bomba". Which if anything sounds worse!

Salsa 101

2010-07-17T22:26:00.008+08:00

Using my acute powers of observation (or possibly just lacking the cojones to get on the dance floor, thus forced to watch) I dissected the art of salsa while in Cuba. Following are the main ingredients and their purpose.

Young, preening guy (YPG): This is the primary ingredient, if you are looking for entertainment value. Well-dressed, popular and capable of evincing high-fives from all and sundry. Screams "I'm cool". On the dance floor, regales with one of two primary styles. First, sticks butt out, keeps legs straight and somehow moves without bending the knees at all, or so it seemed. I think only a thermonuclear war could make him bend them in the name of running. Within these constraints, moves coolly back and forth with the woman gently but firmly grasped. You suspect he is occasionally, and gratuitously, fondling the woman but are unable to verify this. The head is always cocked just so jauntily, facing this way, that way preening literally like a rooster (well, I was gonna say "cock", but come on, how crass do you think I am?). Occasionally puts a hand on the crotch (his, not his partner's) and does crazy move. Does a Forrest Gump funny leg routine - but to perfect rhythm. I think there was a second style that included all this, but with the pelvic area closer to the woman, but at this point I am forced to switch to...

Sexy Woman (SW): While not as entertaining as the YPG, definitely more important for nocturnal fantasies after you get home. Glides delightfully. Size matters - the bigger, the better. Somehow does that undecipherable thing where the feet seem to effortlessly move to a rhythm that I believe is a variation of the Fibonacci Series. And, simultaneously sways voluptuous hips in a complicated and mesmerizing manner, which leaves me seeing stars, and which no doubt helped Einstein picture the four dimensions for his theories - though at four, he clearly only saw the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended). I never thought a curvy woman could be this sexy - well, ahem, maybe not *never* - but boy, oh boy! I am a changed and chastened man now. Leaves spectators dazed, confused and besotted with lust. Well especially...

The Tourist (TT): More often a woman who has a local partner she came with or gets asked to by a polite gent. The great thing is that this is a social event and it is ok for people to swap partners. Sort of like my ideal marriage, but even better because of the good music and the remote possibility of sex, or even just touching the opposite sex. Displays typical lack of aural-psycho-motor coordination, dancing better than a corpse, but not as well as a zombie. More forgivable if said tourist is white (usually is) for having the balls to try, unlike the cowardly me.

The Band: Somewhat similar to SW - feet, hips and head moving effortlessly even as they sing and play instruments, maracas swaying (oh god, did I just make that reference?), and generally leaves you blissful and hypnotized. I believe the key to successfully multi-tasking this way is connected to an intuitive understanding of the pi. The singer, possibly in order to get that high-pitched reedy voice, puts his jaw close to his chest, the very pose that you would avoid if you snore or have apnea. Unsure what is the status of his testicles - undescended, pincered etc - boy they do like singing in a high pitch. Maracas guy tends to be the most entertaining, with cool hand moves. Drums dude multi-tasks, and could probably play the polka on the pretty hip of the SW. Everyone multi-tasks. I wish my colleagues were like this.

Reign of gold

2010-07-17T21:28:00.006+08:00

On my very first afternoon in Havana, I did a long circuit of the Old City. It was like walking around Singapore - hot, sultry. Why pay for a sauna, when you can open up your pores walking outside?

I passed some of the classy bars like Cafe Paris and of course Anbos Mundos (of Hemingway fame). But on Obispa, I heard some terrific music from afar and walked toward it. A small crowd stood outside, I went into a not particularly crowded bar, sat my ass on a stool and ordered a beer. Wouldn't you know my luck, the band stopped playing. After a quick chug, I went to visit Museo Granma, and came back in time to catch the band playing.

The sign behind the bar said "Lluvia de Oro" - Rain of Gold. And man, the music, it lived up to it. And this was my first proper audience with a Cuban band - after all, I had been in town for just 4 hours.

Now, this place is not swanky and my (rather useless) guidebook described it as "rowdy and raucous". It was high-ceilinged in an old-fashioned sort of way, on the corner of two streets. You entered, a long bar to the right, a seating area with simple chairs and tables on the left and then the area for the band, with further seating behind and what appeared to be a kitchen behind. A ruddy woman who may have been pretty some time ago served with a hatchet face, although on future visits I'd see her smile and joke with customers and others. A bald, black man with a perpetual sheen of sweat behind the bar, and an older white gent who may have been the chief bar dude.

On this occasion, I am not sure I spoke to the band - I am sure I paid up the usual 1 CUC tip. I went there a few more times. Eventually of course I started making friends. The trumpetist was a Taino Indian, from Guantanamo Bay. A spirited discussion ensued about the fucking Americans illegally occupying his province, and he and his friend the singer insisted the US base was but a small part of that province. It transpired that the trumpetist had never heard Louis Armstrong, and he was rather puzzled by this name many listeners had apparently compared him to. I promised to send him a music CD with some Armstrong tracks. We discussed how that might be possible, given the potential for such packages to be opened up by the "authorities".

On my final visit, the short maracas dude with really greasy curly hair and the singer all also swarmed me. The former wanted to buy my camera. The latter wanted me to buy the band's CD. This charade had taken place on every visit. On this, I finally bought it for 5 CUC, half the starting price, which only goes to show that the real trick to bargaining is to not give a shit - i.e. not want the product at all. "It's good quality, we recorded at a great studio", the trumpetist said and indeed it is, as I listen to it on my portable music device.

Now for the band itself: it was a classic 5 or 6-piece - a singer, a guitarist, a dude with the maracas, a bassist, a drummer, a trumpetist and maybe one more. The singer would walk about and yell in that thin, high-pitched latino vocalist way without a microphone and I thought to myself that battery-powered-amplifier-used-by-tour-guides would have made his life easier. The guitarist was a young-ish dude with long hair who went into paroxysms of ecstasy when he got the rare chance to go solo. The trumpetist, I think, told me he was the manager, but he might as well have been the water boy, doing various other things as well. But it was a sight to see these guys - the singer, maracas dude and the guitarist lined up in front and syncing their steps even as each performed his respective role. Once in a while they would do a fancy step, sideways, forward, a leap, then back and sideways again.

I don't care what fucking Frommer's says - if you are in Havana, go to Lluvia de Oro. Great atmosphere, tourists and locals alike coming in, and hopefully you get to hear the band - I think they are called Havana Soul.

Enough!

2010-06-27T10:18:00.002+08:00

So just as you wonder why I have been rambling on depressingly, let me reassure you that I loved Cuba. One of the reasons the writing hitherto has seemed depressing is that it is literally just the first 6-hours' worth of notes.

When in Cuba, when you think fun, think the arts. Disregard the fancy beach resorts, where nary a local is likely to be seen, all-inclusive, no doubt serving fat American buffets at every meal.

No, the wealth of Cuba is in the people, in their smile, their hips and the gorgeous music they create out of nothing and nowhere. I will come back, despite all the hassle, just for the music. And maybe the next time I will actually have the guts to get on the dance floor.

Walking around Habana Vieja (literally, "Old Havana") – which is actually being restored to real beauty currently – music spilled out of everywhere. Every home, or every other home, god knows how, seems to possess some kind of music player and the appropriate medium. Music blares, music seeps, it soars and it weeps. On every street, every night, often even during the day.

People swarm on the streets as the sun sets. Families and friends get together at the doors of the ground-floor apartments, often in 2 or 3 storied buildings, some with huge doors and a large courtyard within, probably a single-home dwelling for the erstwhile sugar barons who ran the country, and ran it to ground.

Men and women lounge at the doorsteps, on the sidewalk sitting on rocking chairs, standing at the corners, swaying, in age-delineated groups. Chatting, no doubt sharing stories and finding ways to consolidate and acquire things, sell others.

On this first evening, I was just getting a taste of the music that lives in these people. Later in that evening, I was at Hotel Florida. After the initial brush with the gorgeous prostitute, I waited it out for the band. It did not start till nearly 11 pm. But I was glad I waited it out through my first, very weak, mojito and the second which I ordered stronger. The bar had remained fairly empty till about 10.30 pm and by the time the band started, there was a motley crew – what seemed to be a mix of local boys and tourist girls, a large group of 10 in 5 neat pairs; a fat man and his companion, who I though were from Miami for some reason. A skinny black man and his older, fairer companion (she was probably 60) in a jaunty yellow bandana and a black dress. He was later joined by an exceptionally seedy short, stout fairer man with a gorgeous – GORGEOUS - rubia (blonde). Sundry other characters, including the two white tourists, one of whom was chatting up my goddess-prostitute. (If I had been him I would not have waited 2 hours to bed her, by the way).

Anyway bear with me, for the cast is important. The 5 or 7 piece band started and the music was just amazing. The even more amazing thing is that I did not hear a band that was not amazing, at any point in my trip.

The skinny black guy and old-woman-in-black took to the floor and just glided away in mesmerizing footwork. The short man with the blonde joined and she – I am sure she was a tourist – shook it, heavy as she was, and I realized the beauty of a fully-fleshed woman for the first time. Well, er…, not for the first time, if you get my drift, but there is never a reason not to rediscover. The party of 10 would step out now and then, one guy with a girl, then swap and this carried on. The girls looked like sisters and ranged from the ugly-cousin-of-Sarah-Jessica-Parker to elegance personified, in terms of looks, and also correlating with their dancing abilities.

The 5 boys with them were probably just amateurs, but if I could pull them out of Cuba and bring them to Singapore, I would mint money running a salsa school. They were just incredible. As I was to learn over and over again, men doing the salsa always preen and cock and posture – it is clearly what god herself meant to be the mating ritual of the human species.

Not that there was any character to the place – it was an old fashioned room, a bar at one end, the band at the other, tables and chairs in between, incandescent lighting making it reasonably bright.

I sat there completely satisfied. My travails with the immigration, with the hustlers, with the heat and the humidity, witnessing the poverty and the inequality – all of it forgotten, when I saw these beautiful people doing what they could only do – and could only do, given what few other options they have for anything.

Cuba vive en su musica y su cultura.

An ignored – and ignorant – people

2010-06-27T10:17:00.004+08:00

We had a glimpse of how poor the Cubans are. But that's not all. There is poverty, rising inequality, but also amazing ignorance. I do not mean "ignorance" in a derogatory sense – there is no access to information. Personal computers are not allowed – i.e. no one at home is allowed to have PCs – and Internet usage costs some 6 CUC for 10 hours. Imagine that – how can someone earning 10 or 20 CUC get on the internet? Well they don't. It is probably true that there is 100% literacy and also that there is supposedly a surfeit of doctors and excellent health care – in theory, though lack of equipment apparently greatly constrains them. But imagine in 2010 a people completely cut off from the world.

But they are.

The sad reality – part 2

2010-06-27T10:16:00.002+08:00

During my amble in Havana on day 1 – literally within an hour or two of landing – I passed by what seemed to be a department store. I entered. Despite many Cubans telling me I looked like a Cuban – always referring my face and my skin, often specifically the color of my skin – clearly I stood out like a sore thumb. The store was maybe a 1000 square feet, probably less – the size of an HDB flat in Singapore. As I entered, I noted things arranged in a short of horse-shoe. It started with mayonnaise and other condiments on my right, food stuff, other stuff a freezer with drinks, and then on the left it ended with toys. There was a TV just before the toys and I was not sure if it was for sale or for displaying prices or something. You would pass by, now and then, little windows serving as outlets for the home behind, serving "pizza", exceptionally unappealing hot dogs and burgers etc. Except for the delectable, juicy fruit that I started having as breakfast later on in my trip, nothing in the island suggested a wealth of materials, or even if in dearth, health and substance.

Cuban women

2010-06-27T10:15:00.009+08:00

I noted my hostess Maria, in my first casa particular in Havana was a gracefully aged woman. She was clothed simply – in a sort of singlet and shorts, and she may well have bee in her 50s or even 60s. I have no problems imagining her dolled up for a night of salsa. This generally seemed true of Cuban women, either getting graciously skinnier or delectably voluptuous as they lose their youth. In their youth, of course, everything is on display, for despite the imposition of Catholicism on their native religions – which still survive as Santeria – there is absolutely no shame.

Girls were almost always inappropriately dressed, sometimes making me feel like an absolute prude. Spaghetti-strapped tops plunging into décolletages that simply mesmerize; gravity-defying posteriors that were not only suspended in mid-air themselves, as it were, but also had me suspending my disbelief – and covered in the tiniest shorts and skirts, to boot; ruddy complexions of varying hues. And when they dance – there will be a separate post on salsa, but when a woman of African heritage shakes her booty: that sight is inarticulable.

The men, in keeping with Latin culture, were shameless letchers. Constantly eyeing every passing woman, often loudly remarking or even propositioning. It is so common, there is a word for it in Spanish - propio.

It did not take me long to get with the flow!

The first encounter

2010-06-27T10:15:00.007+08:00

I spent most of the evening walking randomly, visiting only the Museo Granma, and skipping all other monuments pretty much throughout my trip. "It will be about people", I had decided. I eventually tired out, went home, and at the recommendation of my hostess, went to Hotel Florida to catch some live music and watch some salsa.

On the way there, already, I had my pre-encounter, when a meaty woman – Amelie - approached me, as usual asking my name, where I was from etc. I said I was up for a bite, and she showed me a plastic bag she was carrying – this is rice, come to my home, I will make you chicken with tomato. There was clearly a hint of more as well, and I was to realize much later on that it did not really matter much if she were actually living with her mom as she claimed.

Anyway she delivered me to the doorman at Hotel Florida, and I was ensconced on a bar stool after a 5 CUC cover, sipping my first mojito of the night and sizing up the 5 girls also at the bar. One of them was an absolute – ABSOLUTE – stunner, pure Afro-Cuban, tall, the flesh yet to even say hello to gravity, beautiful eyes, teeth, nose – she was a goddess. After a few minutes, she sidled up to me introducing herself and her coterie, and they all left her with me and retired to a table at the far corner, to the right of where the band would play. She asked for a, and we did the usual round of introductions.

As I was finishing up my abysmally bad tuna sandwich – chunks of tuna with some mayonnaise (I think) on top – she approached again, asking for a light. The mojito was working, and this time I let on that I actually spoke Spanish. She didn't seem to mind that I had feigned ignorance the first time. Then it started: Are you here alone? Do you have a woman in Cuba? Do you want a massage? I give a really good massage. I wish she had just asked if I'd marry her, I probably would have.

She was nearing the end of her patience. She asked me why I would not, and I liberally lied and said I had someone in my heart, was in love. She said she too was in love, with life, and laughed hard, throwing her head back and exposing teeth, each one of which could be a poem. She eventually found her calling with two white tourist dudes on the other end (i.e. to the left of the band) and was seen leaving the bar with one of them much later, a little feather boa magically draped around her neck. She didn't say bye.

PS: There were several things to note. First, all the bar staff were white, or at least fair. The chief dude, a baldie, was not only white but was quite surely the pimp. He was bossing all and sundry and with a slight cock of his finger would have one of the working girls gallop up to him to take some instructions. What a strange world we live in.

The sad reality

2010-06-27T10:15:00.006+08:00

The truth is I had been the target – as will any tourist – of solicitations from nearly the first minute. No sooner had I stepped out of my casa particular, within 5 minutes of being in Havana, a crippled boy or youth made friends and had dragged me to the deep, dark back of a seedy bar a couple of blocks from my casa. "Won't you buy me a mojito?", he nearly begged. I am sure you can see through this scheme. It takes a lot of effort to keep saying no constantly. In other places in Cuba too, this would happen, over and over again.

You may wonder why. The average Cuban takes home between 10 and 20 CUC a month. The "CUC" is the convertible Cuban unit, equivalent to around 23 or 24 pesos, which is what the locals use as currency. You can therefore imagine what it means for a panhandler to get 0.25 CUC "for biscuits for his child" or whatever else. It is a huge deal.

But while there is poverty, there is also great inequality. A band will on average receive tips of 0.50 to 1 CUC from many of the dining or drinking parties. You can see that they may do quite well for themselves. Then you think about the casas charging 25 or even 35 CUC for a room per night. These guys are minting money, you think.

Not so. One of my hostesses explained that a licensed casa must pay 400 CUC every month to the government, regardless of whether anyone stayed and it was not optional to pay only for some months. Imagine that. So while they handle much more money, they too have to eke it out in the end, though one imagines they do rather better than the average campesino (farmer).

I have a story about a campesino I met in Trinidad, but I am not emotionally prepared to write it just yet.

Approaching Havana

2010-06-27T10:13:00.002+08:00

The approach to the city was strangely dead. It was as if I was in a taxi in some post-apocalyptic movie. There was hardly anyone to be seen for the first 10 minutes. The highway was quite nice, separated in the middle, lush verdant foliage on both sides recalling Singapore or India or any other tropical place being beaten to merciless death by an afternoon sun at its zenith. Occasionally we'd pass people on the side of the road trying to hitch rides.

I was to realize later that this was common and unfortunately just how people got around, given the crumbling infrastructure – or as Thompson and Thomson would put it, the lack of infrastructure, to be more precise. There were also large groups of people standing, sitting, biding time at bus stops.

We were practically inside central Havana, nearabouts the Capitolio – Cuba's grander version of the US Capitol – that I saw people up and about, like a real city. We reached my destination – a casa particular, literally translated "personal house or home". Maria greeted me warmly and within a minute I was out on her very large terrace looking at the spending view in front of me: the shimmering, blue sea and El Malecon to my left.

Maria, an Afro-Cubana aging gracefully, received me with a wide smile and kisses on both cheeks. No matter how snide and snippy I sound about the sometimes-exasperating hustling in Cuba, people are just friendly. Must be all that sugar they grew, and still grow.

Llego a Cuba

2010-06-27T10:12:00.002+08:00

Llegar (pronounced "yaegar"): to arrive, llego the simple present.

For a country of 11+ million people, one cannot quite imagine Cuba at all without going there. As the plane started descending toward Jose Marti International, the airport in Havana, all one could see was green (and occasionally red) fields, some trees here and there, clusters of houses with the occasional, ancient jalopy visible from even up here. No seething, sweating masses; no crowded tenements; "nothing" was the word that came to mind.

Anyway, after the immigration fiasco, I spied the young, attractive mom with the cute 3 or 4 year old curly-haired shy boy, who kept looking at me shiftily through the corner of his eyes at the Toronto airport, walking ahead. The taxi was a flat 25 CUC. What a rip-off. It was a large van of indeterminate vintage and brand, windows open that trundled with me into Havana.

Credit where credit is due

2010-06-27T10:11:00.002+08:00

Having started writing after a hiatus of nearly 3 weeks with a rant, I shall immediately redress it by praising Air Canada. As fine service as one could expect anywhere, and in stark contrast to what you'd get across the border, in the USA. I flew into Havana on business class (!) and was well taken care of, but also on the way back, they were very helpful with my check-in, baggage, assistance at the US immigration checkpoint in Toronto – that's right, in Toronto – and all in all, I was terribly pleased.

Does it strike anyone though that Canada might not be a real country. US immigration pre-clearance inside a Canadian airport is one thing, but the country does not have a country code – try calling it is the same international code as the US!!! Surely, this must be a pre-requisite to qualify as a real country?

The bitter, then the sweet

2010-06-27T10:10:00.002+08:00

Some of you – one of you – prefer that I do not rant. Unfortunately, my sensibilities have not caught up with my age, so I will do so now and then, but I promise, with cause.

Most of the articles that follow this will be about Cuba. I had a bittersweet time there, but only truly despised my experience at the airport, both on the way in and out.

To wit, the Cuban immigration officials may be best described as witless, tail-less, monkeys – not just any monkeys but Class Moron.

As I entered Cuba, I was approached immediately by a voluptuous woman (no uniform) in jeans and a white blouse and what appeared to be a large tropical flower growing out of her hair. She asked me a few questions, took my passport and disappeared.

At various times I found her walking purposefully to and fro, with my passport stuffed in her armpit, the back pocket of her tight jeans etc – I'd much rather it had been me tucked so. Anyway, at length I saw her hand it off to two goons who asked questions I could not really understand – something about "seguridad" and health – I started yabbering about vaccinations and medical insurance cards, which I had actually not brought with me.

Finally, possibly an hour later I was let through, with one of the goons handing my passport (with some sotto voce instructions) to a clerk who came out specifically to man one of the 20 stations, most of which had by now closed as all other passengers had left. She passed me through, not stamping my passport, but just the disembarkation form.

As I approached Customs a number of people were having their bags eviscerated, and as I thought of joining, one man said pass through Green Channel. As I started that, another very tall man commandeered me and yet again, my passport. He finally asked some intelligent questions – going to my expired US work visa page, he asked where I lived. When I finally explained that that visa was expired (the date obviously printed) and that I had left the US even before that, and currently lived in Singapore, he triumphantly turned to one of the goons and explained this. I finally left the airport.

Likewise, on the way back, the moron immigration official perused my passport closely, finally asking me to stand by and handed it off to a fat uniformed official. This time I decided to follow her to her room, where two morons, including her, were keenly staring intently at a screen (I could not see if it was even on) and a passport, not mine. The skinny woman whose it was was also standing at the door, I suspect Cuban and occasionally asking questions and answering as well. It appeared the problem was that she had two names, one during childhood and one later; and that there were one or two children involved. As one moron, presumably equipped with bionic laser vision continued the rigmarole of staring at the passport and the screen, the woman turned to me, exasperated, seemed to suggest they'd keep us till we paid.

Finally the Moron 1 passed off that passport to Moron 2 and came out to question me. I said I was a tourist, I had visited such and such places.\, and showed her the cards of the respective casas particulares I had stayed at. Then I went back to the same Moron Clerk and he morosely stamped me through. I'd told him earlier in Spanish to stamp my passport, but the Moron Clerk obviously thought I was asking him not to.

So dear readers, for all you know, I might be making up all my articles on Cuba, for I have no proof I went there. But I sure as hell am not making this bit up.

And from now on, no more ranting, at least regarding Cuba.

PS: It is very possible they were a) unfamiliar with a Singapore passport b) Thought I was a US resident and unsure what to do c) clueless. I'd put my money on all of the above.

Back from Cuba

2010-06-26T05:49:00.001+08:00

Stay tuned for rum-soaked travelogues.
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld from M1.

Sneaky fucker

2010-06-09T12:09:00.004+08:00

I wonder if I am a sneaky fucker. No I am not drunk, nor infected by Toxoplasmosis.

Thanks to the Economist, I have learned that there are two types of males in the world: the ones who show off and mate a lot; and the ones who do not show off and... mate a lot. But get this: the ones showing off - be it crowing, preening, growing nice feathers, keeping handle-bar moustaches or dancing in bell bottoms - apparently spend so much energy in, well, attracting the females, that their sperm are less viable than those of....

.... the sneaky fuckers. Well the Economist article labeled the less-flashy males spawning with the females "sneaking" and separately used the word "copulation", but we all know the writer would just have loved to say "sneaky fuckers". Anyway the thrust of the article was exactly what I have written, and it specifically refers to angel fish and how the not-so-flamboyant males "sneak" and perpetuate their genes. While of course it is incumbent upon boys to fuck around at 18, the male sexual peak, this is encouraging news for those who save it up to savor later in life, when everyone else in sexual Sahara, i.e. marital fizz.

As a modest, self-deprecative sort of person, this article has made my day.

The article is here: The hunk and the show-off do not always get the girl.

French intrigue

2010-06-09T09:19:00.006+08:00

No, not the name of a new line of lingerie.

Now, I have taken the piss out of the French all the time, but there is a scientific explanation for it all: the French are crazy!

That's right. An illuminative article in the Economist talks about Toxoplasmosis gondii, a plamodium that literally attacks the brain. The plasmodium has evolved to make mice go nuts so they act conspicuous, attract and are eaten by cats, get digested, are passed out, only to re-enter rodents to complete the loop.

So what the fuck has this got to do with the French? Apparently Toxoplasmosis affects humans too. We are obviously not food for large cats, so maybe there is no evolutionary purpose, but apparently populations with higher rates of infection - such as the French - score higher on the neurosis scale than say, the British, who have much lower infection rates.

You may be neurotic my French darlings, but it just makes me want you more.

The article is here: http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16271339. And it is worth a look just for the picture of the fuzzy cat in mid-spring.

Notes from a long flight

2010-06-09T09:04:00.005+08:00

Two words: Movie Marathon. I am especially proud of how many I squeezed in, though not particularly so about the selection per se.

From Paris with Love: One of the best movies currently around. Presumably brand new, as it is still being advertised on US TV. Travolta shines, Rhys Myers... nyah. Ok, a decent performance. Luc Besson rocks. The first action sequence was so good, I had to rewind to watch it over. Travolta has, as the trailer says, not been this good since Pulp Fiction. Possibly better, for I always felt Pulp Fiction was a bit more hype than it was good. The bit where he talks about his reputation for liking a Royal with Mac - nice touch. I strongly recommend this movie, for the guys at least.

Sherlock Holmes: Despite my reservations about Robert Downey Junior, this turned out to be a good caper of a movie. Largely because Downey succeeds in making a caricature of Holmes, previously always portrayed too smart, gentlemanly and perhaps even stiff - this portrayal of a more dubious Holmes is refreshing and cathartic. On his fours with comical expressions that only vaguely reminded me of howler monkeys - hilarious. The Guy RItchie touch is obvious. Rachel McAdams is absolutely delicious.

La Gran Final: A European-made movie about the attempts by three groups - one each in the Altai, the Niger and the Amazon - to watch the football World Cup Finals on TV. Felt almost like a documentary, but I believe it was completely fictional. The Mongolian bits and those in the desert with Tuaregs made me want to quit my job, as usual. The cast's portrayal of remote peoples and their casual, un-self conscious attitudes swung between "they're so good" and "are they being patronizing"? But a good movie.

Edge of Darkness: No, this is not a movie about loony Mel Gibson's current state of mind. He is actually pretty good as a deadpan cop throughout the movie. Maybe his increasing mental imbalance is the perfect foil for this role. But not a bad movie at all.

Sarumaru / Saru Lock: A bit of a Japanese action comedy that started out very promising but fizzled out. But of course it was worth watching for all the cute girls, especially the gym scenes, and for the comical facial expressions of the young cast, completely the opposite of real and imagined demeanors of Japanese people. The starting scene was so promising, when the cop friend describes his friend, the protagonist, a "sex starved idiot". You'd think a beginning like that could only get better.

And the best of the lot was...

RTT / Day off: A riotous French action / comemdy. Aaah, the French. It always comes back here. A not-so-hot man in pursuit of his ex-fiance, in cahoots with a hot, sexy thief. The great thing about the French is that they are so non-judgmental. The man never gets angry with his ex-fiance, even knowing she cheated on him. The man himself is far from hot, but eventually beds the hot thief. As for the hot thief, you are of course left rooting (also lusting) for her, against the cops, who, as usual, are the duds.

Fastholes

2010-06-09T08:40:00.002+08:00

Is my new term for fat assholes. I have nothing against fat people, and would gladly make a pejorative for skinny assholes, but I am afraid that term, "s**nt", is even more offensive.

As I eased into my long-haul flight, I notice a disgusting couple across aisle. The female was plain, Asian and at various points in the flight was all over her chubby, effete prick of a husband / boyfriennn / significant other. You're thinking "sexy Asian with a touch of Pinkerton Syndrome". No, this one was not worth a second look.

Neither was her partner, who generated enough disdain for the entire planet when he asked the flight attendant for a soft blanket, because the one behind his seat was not "soft enough".

Sometimes it feels so good to hate people.

Manly man...NOT

2010-06-01T21:34:00.005+08:00

I write this with a heavy heart and a drastic loss of self-esteem: I am not a real man.

I know this because "Real Men do Bikram Yoga". I don't. An anachronism in this age of synthetic life, I just do women - at least in theory.

I reach this watershed conclusion due to a large poster seen at almost everywhere in Singapore, with calm, sincere looking men from all walks of life, titled "Real Men do Bikram Yoga". No doubt shot by a sincere photographer and an impeccably honest and trustworthy advertising company. Here is the only picture I could find, though it is not the much more evocative one I have seen:

Now that I have admitted that I am not a real man, unlike the ones pictured here, I have several questions:

1. When did Bikram come out of the closet? Does Mr. Yoga Senior know, and does he have any comments?

2. Do all the real men do the same Bikram? If so, just how many times does he get done, say in the average yoga session? How does he handle the crush of real men? Is there a token system? Does Bikram serve multiple real men simultaneously?

3. Assuming there is more than one Bikram, is there a choice of Bikrams, from the Punjabi Vicky to the Bong Bikram? Could there possibly also be non-Indian Bikrams?

4. What will be the ideal number of Bikrams to satisfy all the real men in, say, Singapore, who do him for 1 hour per session, 3 times per week? A lucrative management consulting job awaits anyone who can successfully answer this case question. I promise.

As I mope, I will no doubt come up with more questions. Watch this space. Also, please help my time-machine project so I can go back to the Stone Age, where I could potentially do women, possibly multiple women, and feel good about it. Every cent counts!

Sick

2010-05-22T23:54:00.002+08:00

I am officially sick of ramen. Doner kebap satisfies the need for otherness. I don't know why my therapist wants to talk to me about "commitment".

Mini me, mini you

2010-05-22T23:52:00.003+08:00

Today't topic is miniaturization. The Japanese are amazingly famous for using their genius and making things deceptively small,

Take for example, the stupendously high heels that the average young Japanese female wears. I have it from a reliable source that it is actually a 5-foot stepladder cleverly shrunk to nothing. Likewise, today I saw a girl stuff a can of softdrink or coffee into a small hole in the wall of a mall, roughly the size of a can as well. I believe there is no trash receptable, but instead there is a can-sized cold fusion reactor which immediately disappears the trash and produces electricity. It may sound like overkill, but remember the central Tokyo area has enough neon to be seen from Alpha Centauri, so every nucleus counts.

Then, the Japanese are famous for utilizing space. For example, my current hotel - not the nice one I stayed in while on business - has a room the size of a shoebox. I am not sure how I am even able to stretch on my bed here, because I am sure this is the size of a matchbox, because shoebox seems rather liberal. Perhaps some clever use of the theory of relativity, time dilation, space contraction etc going on here. There are also entire restaurants - including stove, sink, beer cooler, chefs and servers - in spaces the size of... toilet cubicles in most other countries. The mind boggles. In fact, speaking of toilets, I believe the average Japanese toilet bowl has the computing power of 10 Deep Blues compressed into a panel on the side, all to control the temperature and pressure of the bidet. Amazing.

As you walk around, you see miniature dogs being carried around, often hanging out of expensive handbags. There is an entire industry of designer clothes for these things, sold in places like this [Photo will be uploaded shortly]

In fact, as I was sitting on the sidewalk at my favorite Belgian beer place - I am a creature of habit, and the waitress / manager is an absolute doll, too - I noticed several 3-wheeled scooter/vespa type vehicles complete with a glass ceiling and a box mounted behind the sole occupant. I don't know why the Tata motor company spent all that time making the nano, for add a wheel and I can see this become a complete family transporter for the average 4-member Indian family, complete with space in the boot for livestock or, possibly, the in-laws.

Birdspotting in the land of Hello Kitty

2010-05-22T23:43:00.003+08:00

I was tempted to go to the Sanrio Museum, but better sense prevailed. Instead, here are some random observations on Japanese dolls.

At Yoyogi Park, at the entrance from the Harajuky side, darkness has set in and teenagers are busy practising their skateboarding, often with a lit cigarette in hand. A chubby teenage girl is off at one corner, in loose clothes, trying out some stationary move on her skateboard. At another side, a tall, wiry, barebodied gent is trying to teach a female dilettante the proper method to jump, she in a diaphanous white top and jeans I think. On the hike up to Yoyogi just outside Harajuku JR station, two crazies skateboarding downhill, only to jump off the board every 10 yards, screaming, exclaiming to each other, and otherwise providing terrific entertainment.

On the train back to Akasaka, an exquisite - EXQUISITE - beauty with skin as pale as ivory and a face as sweet as any you can imagine, head bowed down, not demure but just concentrating on her mobile phone. At the other end of the carriage, three tubby teenage girls in that queer Japanese fashion, clearly out to crash a party or raise the roof, but insecure and excited all the same. At Yoyogi, hundreds of people pouring out of the Stadium, mostly women - the billboard said something about "Girls Award Night" or some such stuff.

The fasion trend of the day in Harajuku seems to be some kind of a hairband or ribbon with a bow on top, pointing upward, perhaps symbolizing a bunny or the devil.

Over sidewalk cafes and bars, more females were admired. A slight, pretty, young thing in her thirties in a black blouse and white and black silk skirt, carrying a little boy - maybe 3 or 4 years old - way too big to be carried. I never envied a little boy so much.

In scary news today...

2010-05-22T16:31:00.003+08:00

Please, ladies, calm down. I am still perfectly, ahem, okay and functional in every way. I am of course talking about my mean mac-and-cheese, and pay no heed to this piece of news on stud, bull and foot-and-mouth disease. Excerpt: "ONE of Japan's most prized stud bulls has been infected with foot-and-mouth disease". I do point out that I am not from Japan. I did make a recent joke about myself (the stud-bull) and dismal pickup lines (foot-in-mouth). But the world is fine, you can exhale now.

Next haven't we seen this movie somewhere? Mad scientist creates new life form, new life form goes berserk, world ends and Jesus, sadly, does not save any fucking body. Here is an excerpt: "The genome pioneer J. Craig Venter has taken another step in his quest to create synthetic life, by synthesizing an entire bacterial genome and using it to take over a cell". I am no luddite, but as we realize how layered and complex the genetic code is, thinking you have things under control because you created what you believe is a simple genome is the sort of recipe for a bad Schwarznegger movie. But then again, there are few bad Schwarznegger movies - they all go to van Damme.

Notes from an old country

2010-05-20T22:36:00.003+08:00

About another old country.

As I look at my notebook I realize there are things I did not write about from my Armenia trip. As with the Jews, the Armenians have had a very long presence in India, with Chennai and Calcutta still featuring an Armenian Street each (as does Singapore). From the guide, I learned that the first constitution of Armenia, as well as the first Armenian newspaper were printed in.... India. Calcutta I believe. There were a few pieces of ornate wood furniture from India as well. Apparently in the 18th century, there were records, or at least reports or rumors, of Indians in the Lake Van region.

Even further in history, Armenians have a myth about the twins Gisane and Demetrio, supposedly from India - predating Christianity (introduced 4th century AD), way back in the pagan days. It is said that even some of the doors at Echmiadzin, the mother cathedral for Armenian Orthodoxy, were made in India.

How interesting it would be to have a time machine.

Bukkake in Tokyo Midtown - explained

2010-05-20T22:31:00.005+08:00

Sadly, I must confess I am no John Holmes and there was not an orgy at the basement level of the grand mall called Tokyo Midtown.

I did have the pleasure of queueing up at the food stall with the longest que, an excellent udon place. At my turn, I ordered the 'Bukkake", Udon with special soy broth sauce. The girl at the counter cheerfully repeated my order for all to hear, and it gave me a sense of accomplishment. She clarified I wanted "sumaru", not "laju"; and gave me my change for the "faivu hunderedu"; and a cheerful thank you.

Best bukkake I have ever had.

Scenes from Tokyo Midtown

2010-05-20T22:29:00.002+08:00

With a two-hour window and nothing to do thanks to poor information, I was stuck in Tokyo Midtown, a champion shopping mall. Lots of bright light, and a huge outdoor atrium with a glass ceiling at maybe the 5th storey, which let in just a mist of the drizzle outside. This caused the wooden deck outside Starbucks to get wet and a cute young thing to slip and fall on her stilettoes, but gather herself quickly. A golden opportunity to take advantage of a damsel in distress wasted.

As I walked into the mall from the area outside Starbucks (where I did not have a coffee, thank you), a group of 4 women was walking out, including a chubby, puffy, rosy-cheeked sweetheart of maybe 3 or 4 years, cute as a dumpling and her tights stretched to bursting. She was accompanied by three old women and a middle-aged one - the doring grandmothers and the mother perhaps? I don't know, but this is one of the world's oldest countries.

Inside, more old women. In gaggles of fours and sixes, whispering excitedly walking by the shops or sitting on the ample wood furniture. Two old women steering a wheelchair seating a Jurassic gent. Besides light, the mall had great simple smoothly-hewn blocks of light-colored wood in wonderfully functional shapes: a set of cubes here with a dimple, as if a very heavy, large lead ball had been placed to leave its perfectly circular imprimatur; a set of cubes there, but twisted, so that the sides now were rhomboids; long planks gracefully shaped, like catamarans. Accompanying these were signs that said "Do not eat, drink and stay long please".

The grandmas did not care, and right outside the Suntory Museum of Art there were a few sitting on these wooden benches, whispering, talking, cacking, looking over an atrium from their seats through the glass dividers.

I entered the Museum, which was featuring glass. Yes, glass - Suntory is after all a beer company. More old women inside, with a smattering of younger females and the odd gent here and there. Many of the exhibits were from the 19th century, leading me to curse myself for having cleared the ancestral attic some years ago. In fact some garishly colored glass tableware looked like the stuff the previous occupant had discarded in one of the many apartments I have live in through the agess. The Kiriko cut glassware reminded me of a glass bowl that my grandma kept for loose change, which I used to dip into liberally for candy money.

The old ladies were excited, whispering to each other and doing that peculiar exclamation that Japanese do, starting low and ending higher pitched even as they speak. Arthritic knees creaked as one bent to get a closer look at some glass object, excitedly and simply talking to herself - there was nobody in a 5-foot radius except yours truly.

Glass was obviously big when it made it into Japan commercially, even though they trace its history to the 8th or 9th century. In the 18th and 19th century, it apparently made a commercial resurgence, with experts of the age reluctantly agreeing it was as good as "rock crystal". It went on to make sake "ewers", sake cups, table ware, and even combs and hairpins. Indigo was a popular color.

At their apogee, glass sake bottles were clearly sexy. According to one of the write-ups, it was common then to tell a beautiful woman her "face looked like a glass sake bottle turned upside down". Oh the golden age, when a man could get away saying stuff like that. Today, sued and keelhauled for that.

Interspersed were paintings of the era, including one that was titled "Modern Methods of Teaching Women Decorum", showing a woman in a kimono right at the top of a flight of stairs, dress slightly lifted to show naked feet and a bit of her leg, frontally. For all I know, she was mooning the people at the bottom.

I looked at the old folk. All said and done, twilight has been good to them - a better standard of living and more to see and do than most, I'd reckon.

Bukkake!!

2010-05-20T11:01:00.002+08:00

In Tokyo Midtown. Details to follow, when I finish.

Ra ra ramen

2010-05-19T22:35:00.003+08:00

After an uncharacteristic and unusual fuckup with the JR tickets, I finally got to my hotel. I already knew what I wanted my first act in Tokyo to be. First act, that is, after annoying and injuring numerous people dragging my suitcase inconsiderately, running over small mammals, expensive branded shoes etc. I am sorry Tokyo!

Anyway, first stop: ramen, by way of cultural exception. In Japan, cows were made to be eaten and women to be worshipped (If you read that wrong, or imagined a "vice-versa", that is entirely your fault). I kid you, there is a foot-and-mouth outbreak, and I do not mean my dismal approaches to women. Japan has never gotten to terms with cows - mad cow, foot-and-mouth etc etc. This must be troubling for a people who make everything work so well and look so good.

My hell will be full of fatty lamb with hot pokers and cuddly pigs with whips. Sigh.

Mile high flub

2010-05-19T22:29:00.007+08:00

After spending a flight under the influence of industrial pain-killers and wrapped up, head included, in a blanket, I finally got my wits about to start enjoying the fine Singapore Airlines service. Fortunately, the on-demand movie list did not feature Iron Man or its sequel. I went on to watch a decent Israeli move, A Matter of Size. Needless to say, there is the unwritten movie code that any movie about people who are fat, terminally ill, colored, gay, crippled, mentally retarded etc must end happily ever after. This was no exception.

There were nevertheless numerous funny moments causing me to burst out as is my wont. As my movie ended, so did that of my neighbor, and we began talking. What a doll! I mean the haircut, which looked as if a laser had cut the front of her hair into a perfectly straight set of bangs. And she was pretty, dressed classily including stiletto heels, had, to borrow a phrase from the movie, "meat on her bones" and a fetching smile and eyes that shone mischief and intelligence. The ultimate china doll.

We eventually got talking, and she spent the next couple of hours watching my movie recommendation. Out the corner of my eye, I saw she was thoroughly enjoying the Hebrew movie as well. Score! It mildly disturbed me that she was reading - or at least carrying - "(British) Glamour". She later explained that the magazine not only has pictures to flip through, but the occasional thoughtful article. Hugh Heftner would be proud. We were ambivalent about Sex and the City, in agreement over the greatness of New York, but the conversation almost ended when she expressed admiration for Robert Downey Junior.

We chatted after landing, but as we were disembarking, I lost her as she hung back to meet someone, get her stroller or whatever. Or maybe she decided to lose me. Maybe I can find her on Twitter.

Calling Shakespeare

2010-05-11T00:01:00.008+08:00

I challenge the bard to come back and drop some pithy verses. I am specifically thinking "To be or not to be". Today he may well say "To shop or not to shop". Or as I have it "Shop or die". Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Have you been lingerie shopping? Without admitting any guilt - I am learning from the banking industry - I will just say that it is a sure recipe for the doghouse. Date 1: "I don't want you to pay, I am a single, high-powered, ball-breaking executive". Fast forward: "Honey I like this thing in the La Perla catalog".

"Hmm", you think, using way too much brain power. "Is she trying to hint?", you think. If you do, your relationship is already doomed. You'll figure it out and buy it for her, only for her to parade it for her next beau after dumping you roughly 3 milli seconds (7 pints for the non-metric) later - the same amount of time lag before you cottoned on and said "yes" to buying it.

Then, the clever ones will figure it out and buy it pro-actvely, only to be eventually driven to suicide from being unable to find an acceptable answer to "Does this make me look fat?" Of course it will, it is roughly 3 micro-milli-meter squared, and will make Twiggy seem like she has too much flesh.

The right course of action is of course to swallow something classy (to avoid being featured on CSI: Moron), say a Godiva-coated walnut or an expensive diamond ring - I do *not* recommend a durian, lawyers please note - and necessitate the Heimlich. There is a *chance* of survival. Of your life, if not your dignity.

Now as a statistical representative of manhood, I can tell you "shop or die" applies to men too. It usually works like this. "My underwear has holes. All of it." In fact, it looks like the "after" recruiting commercial for the firing squad that misjudged gravity. Or is plain sadistic.

Grudgingly you go to the undies section where several female sales assistants will accost you and make disparaging remarks no matter what your size is: "So small?", "So fat?" etc. They were trained in North Korea, every single one of them. This is also why you find no help in any other section of a department store. They are all there to torture straight, non-metrosexua men shopping for their modesty.

Eventually, you furtively grab a six pack - a hangover from buying beer (haha, get it?). Next you think, "My collars look like they were hors d'ouevres for an upper-middle class family of rats. Let me buy some shirts".

Oh boy, are you screwed. The shirt section for men will present a vast array of colors belonging to the white and blue families, which are the Montagues and Capulets of the shirt mafia. You'll think you are color blind, but your rods and cones are doing just fine. Plain? Powder blue? Pinstripe? Something jaunty and oblique?

"Oxford"?!!! Did the fucking moron designer take the SAT? How can White, Powder Blue and Oxford even be comparable.

There's more: Aegean, Egyptian, cotton-rich or "Euro fabric"? You wish you'd paid attention in class - oh wait, nobody taught you this. Fat fucking lot of help your PhD does you now. You almost wish you'd answered the "Am I fat question", for if you had miraculously gotten it right - I estimate the same probability as virgin birth, but just remember that that actually flies with a lot of people - your woman could have helped you shop, proving forever that women *are* the firm and decisive sex. I truly mean this.

And then the pants - holy shit, you'd think simple enough, a dark color to mask beer stains. No! You have "fit" options ranging from "Bowling Balls" to "Nutcracker Suite". Apparently the store is afraid of being sued by men with hernias and undescended testicles. You proceed to hate political correctness with renewed vengeance.

But there you are alone and flummoxed. You finally use the sophisticated "Eeny meeny miney mo" method to pick your shirts and trousers, oblivous that you are on not-so-candid CCTV with a live feed to YouTube. You will have to quit your life the next day, take a vacation to Brazil for plastic surgery, get new papers in Ivory Coast and let your family cash in on the insurance in 7 years, when you will be legally presumed dead.

But the shame - it will live on in you. Forever.

Faking it

2010-05-09T01:02:00.005+08:00

Ha! You thought I was going to write an article full of sexual innuendo and double entendres. I was, but between you and me, there is this pesky lawsuit... just a matter of weeks, now.

Anyway, I have been mind-fucked by Indian TV. Specifically, I have to admit that the commercials on TV are in a class of their own. There is this excellent one for LMN, which, given the very Indian nature of the product, is almost certainly produced domestically. Then there are the series of ads for Polo, including this one and this one, featuring animals and creativity. Best not to watch if you are vegan. Then there is this terrific one, a testament to the Indian spirit to make fun of itself - once in a while. There is another great one with a dancing grandma and her blackmailing grandson (thanks "Oana"). Anyway, in this first part of the article, I salute the creative ad men and women, and perhaps marketing professionals in general. But they are still evil!

Unfortunately, while many ads in India abound with creativity, with and lots of tongue-in-cheek humor, almost anything with India's faux aristocracy - Bollywood actors and cricketers - sucks. I reserve comment, but here are a few: a biscuit ad, a cable TV ad (I think) and this annoying jewelry ad. And walking around a Food Bazaar - for research purposes, during work hours - I found a new toothpaste called Sach! It has famous cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's face plastered all over it. This asshole has been playing cricket since before I knew how the penis worked. A billion + people and one man takes up 9% of its cricketing capacity for 20+ years. He has a gazillion dollars and is vending toothpaste for 20 rupees a pop. And ad men are prostituting themselves for anything with a "star" in it.

Open bar

2010-05-08T03:21:00.002+08:00

Finally, the martini bar is open. Gin, check. Dry vermouth, check. Olives and brine, check. Cocktail shaker, no check - we prefer it stirred. Cocktail glass, check check. The bar's open and you're invited. Exceptions will be made for philistines on shaken vs stirred and gin vs vodka.

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Mumbai, shlumbai

2010-05-08T03:00:00.006+08:00

Driving around Mumbai last week, I had to play guide to a colleague less familiar with India than I am. In the land of the blind...

Inevitably eyebrows were raised passing by Dharavi, the largest slum in the world. We both agreed it was a great improvement over Rio in terms of guns and violence but not so on terms of sanitation and infrastructure. Here, I point out that, Indian people were entirely wrong to get worked up over Slumdog Millionaire denigrating India. Well, they should have been angry, but for the right reason - Freida Pinto may be eminently cute, but is an awful dancer. No wonder she didn't make it in Bollywood. This is also the only reason I did not ask for her hand in marriage.

On the recommendation of our rotund front desk sweetheart - "I'm Goan" - we went to Goa Portuguesa, a kitschy restaurant with good food and shamelessly self-promoting owners whose faces were plastered all over the menu. I invoked the cultural exception clause.

We finished up and went to the Blue Frog. The establishment is a recording studio, has an eponymous label and is also a restaurant / lounge / club.

We were immediately taken by the decor, quite impressively swanky. It did justice to the converted textile mill ambience. Pod-like tables were arranged, in descending levels from the groovy bar. We had one right in front of the stage. A woman who apparently was trying to mate with plants - talk about a tree hugger - was walking around with large flowers in her hair and a sadly anemic hair attachment. We were expectantly awaiting "Indian flamenco", the event of the night.

After an hour's delay, the event got underway. An invisible female backstage announced it in a titillating French accent. The walking bouquet turned out to be the performer, joined by a Afro-wearing tabla dude, a male and a female vocalist, a string instrument dude and one on the synthesizer.Apparently, not only were they late starting, but they had forgotten to rehearse. The dancer, grinning ear to ear a la Julia Roberts, would start clapping, only to have the tabla dude not pick up the rhythm. The smile would disappear, a frustrated look replacing it and she would shoot unabashedly annoyed daggers at him.

Eventually they got their shit together. She started doing, what to me seemed amateurish, flamenco. She was wearing a long clingy brown dress, with said flowers etc for accesories. Eventually she finished and came back to do an Indian dance, the Kathak, after a change of outfit; a Sufi-type dance attired in what my companion thought was a Bavarian outfit; and finished in yoga pants doing a very strange yoga-pose piece. I was reminded that I hate dance as a highbrow art.

Intermittently, she took over the mike, doing the indian vocal doo-wop (takadikafukabuka)at 72 rpm with the kind of self-enjoying wide-
mouthed, toothy, grinny expression of pleasure that I forgave her for the bizarre and amateurish performance that evening. Imagine the smile seen on the faces of synchronized swimmers, and then imagine it beging genuine because she actually probably believed she was doing something terrific and was probably joyful for that. Bless her soul. Meanwhile, my companion was rather taken by the wild swaying and facial expressions of the tabla dude.

Presently, an, ahem, acquaintance joined. I was happy I already had company, for I could leave them to converse as I exercised my brain deciphering anatomy during the yoga number. (To myself: "You can do *that*? That can touch *that*? But she told me last week that could be done!" etc.). Soon the first companion left us, and as I accompanied her to the car, we were accosted by an effeminate prick lounging outside who tried to air-kiss both of us and tried to ask for our opinions on the performance. He also wanted our emails to put us on their mailing list. Fat chance.

Soon another couple joined, and I bade farewell to the second companion as well, worrying if it was a good idea to take a cab at midnight. It turns out Mumbai is quite a safe place that way. Or maybe it isn't, since I have not heard back from her on my "I'm just checking on you" email. It's always better to blame the bogeyman than work on my charisma. Hurray.

The couple and I stepped out for a breath of "fresh air". Some drunk asshole tried to make small talk at our table and we shushed him away. Thankfully he was not a gangster packing heat. Some things are universal, eh? Eventually the staff all but kicked us out. I returned to my hotel, having sampled just a bit of the city I was born in.

I can't wait to go back.

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A night at the hotel

2010-05-04T03:00:00.003+08:00

This is going to be a long ramble. You've been warned.

As usual, your truly has been getting the star treatment at this nice hotel. I have especially taken a shine to the sweet thing at front desk in a suit; her sari clad sidekicks, all of them; - one must be generous, Gandhi and Jesus both said; the women I end up meeting on business; and the gang of 7 girls at the next table at dinner, which my colleague tauntingly pointed out were behind me, whereas she was squarely facing them. Sigh. Indian women are gorgeous.

You may remember some time ago I made some poor life choices at the fitness room of a hotel in Japan. I am not sure what my emotions are - sad, glad, disappointed - to report that I have not learned my lesson. You see I have been, as usual, upgraded to a suite, and mine has a Japanese-made "massage chair". I should of course have draped a sheet over it, knelt in front of it in propitiation, and possibly made a peace offering from the mini-bar. Hey, I am a pagan and proud of it. But no. I had to sit my ass in it.

I am doing this because I am too wiped out to be out meeting the hot young women of Mumbai one-on-one. Furthermore - you know what a movie buff I am, and what a pachydermal memory I have too - as I flipped channels, as is my wont, I saw on HBO, "Sudden Death" next.

Now anyone can separate the wheat from the chaff, but me, I know chaff from chaff. I immediately suspected this was a Jean Claude van Damme movie, but my addling brain was trying to challenge itself - perhaps, but just perhaps, it might be a Steven Segal movie. Oh the suspense. I had no choice but to see if I still got it, and so here I am an hour later waiting for van Damme to do his split. The man has the creativity of quick-drying cement.

Anyway, I am in my massage chair, which is just as well because my colleague told me the spa charges $100 for an hour's worth of massage. Even though this magnificent Japanese-made has English controls and display, I swear it has a mind of its own. Maybe it is angry I did not profer said offering from the mini-bar.

I pressed some buttons, and what appear to be two bowling balls have emerged. The balls are apparently especially angry at my non-offering , and have proceeded to punish me on either side of my spine with the vigor of a Korean drum dancer- except it is more of a Japanese (or Hawaiian or Mongolian) sumo grandmaster with a lot less finesse and a lot more rage. There were controls on strength of the masage, something called the "air massage" feature, "width adjustment" etc, but there seemed to be no difference to the pounding I got: either the Japanese engineers have a sadistic streak in them or The Chair is still angry that I did offer my soul to it.

After trying the "Whole Body", "Lumbago", "Neck and Shoulder" and "Executive" options - none with a happy ending, might I complain here - I ventured further - the manual options! I tried the "Leg and Bottom" feature, which did a good job pressing my calves, but not very much by way of kneading my butt, aching from the cycling machine earlier at the gym. Or it has a *very* strange idea of what "bottom" is, and I an only pity the wives and girlfriends of abovementioned Japanese engineers. I do not believe I need to explain further.

Thankfully, another thing that needs no explaination is a van Damme movie, so if you will allow me, I need to get back to the exciting finale. Maybe he'll do a split. In my movie, an angry Sumo wrestler will choose that very movement to give him a mighty whack right on his balls.

In search of meaning

2010-05-03T00:28:00.003+08:00

Here I am sitting at a bar and it suddenly hits me - I have to think really hard just where exactly I am. And this, *before* I have had a sip, let along getting wasted, on booze, as I did a couple of weeks ago, an event written into the annals of the Black Hole Chronicles.

No, here I am at the hotel bar and I had, for several seconds, no idea where I was. The barkeeper was speaking Hindi with his staff, so it can't be the South of India. Slowly I traced my weekend travel to Mumbai, where I am.

You'd think I'm gonna rail about booze. No, I'm gonna rail about the fun getting squeezed right out of life with all this business travel. Every hotel is the same, an every fake Irish pub samer. And the soul wrenching monotony and solitude.

I gotta get my riding breeches, find my goarherdess and go back to Mongolia. Sigh.

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Mission: Pantyhose

2010-05-02T03:29:00.002+08:00

The two Asian giants are fighting. I of course mean "Tiger" China and "Elephant" India. Who comes up with these monikers anyway?

Some time ago, India started banning things like Chinese toys (lead), dairy products (melamine), mobile phones (too easy for terrorists to use and discard) and sundry other stuff (too cheap for local producers to stomach). Just a day or two ago, the Indian government banned telecom products from China, which frankly I am shocked other governments have not done. Do not get me wrong - I have nothing against the Chinese people as a nation or as a race. But the Party is evil, and it is ridiculous to believe they will not pursue any means for their strategic objectives. For heaven's sake they hacked Google and refuse to tell imprisoned foreign executives what constitutes "state secrets", the ones said executives allegedly stole.

Sheesh.

Anyway, the Indian government would be well advised to set its sights on another massive social disturbance waiting to explode (mixing many metaphors here). Apparently, there is a global surfeit of long underwear in a variety of colors, largely in white, but also in black and other neutral colors, which has found its way into the Indian woman's wardrobe. That's right, instead of tailored or pret-a-porter "shalwars" - the pants underneath the long tunics, or "kameez", that the women prefer to wear [or maybe I am getting the two mixed up] - women, of all ages and body types, seem to have taken to wearing something that looks like pantyhose, only slightly thicker, appearing somewhat like tight long johns. And surely I cannot be accused of stereotyping when I assume these hideous abominations (the clothes, not the women) were made in China.

This *must* stop. It is the single most disturbing visual and every night it promises to strangle me in my dreams. Oh lord, save me. Bring back the decency in dressing. Fast cars, fast food, fast clothes, what next?

Baby achtung

2010-05-02T03:18:00.004+08:00

In a moment of carelessness, I booked myself into "death row". I do not mean it in that curious American parlance, meaning inmates waiting for their death sentence to catch up with them one fine day. No, I mean the row directly behind the "hell row", also known as the "bassinet row", in an aircraft.

I am being too cruel. This time there was only one little tot, chaperoned by a rather comely (ahem) mom, the domestic help and a useless dad who wore a T-shirt that said on its back something like "Juicy hot dogs, beef jerky, tender burgers, super steaks" etc. , but was later found ordering the vegetarian meal option. Go figure.

Anyway, is it not amazing that at maybe 2 years, you are (just barely) capable of walking, make sounds that put you on par with small mammals, and yet you have three full grown adults doting on you. A full two of them women!! Not to mention the flight attendants hovering constantly - you'd think Dr. House was cutting somebody open in an emergency procedure to vent his misanthropy, but no, it's just "Is the water warm enough?", "Is the food mushy enough?", "Are the platic toys bisphenol free?" etc. I think I would be VERY embarassed if I were the mom, but this one was taking it all in stride. Unlike the bitch I have described previously, this one was nice to everyone, but, in my honorable opinion, did not show sufficient embarassment or contrition for soaking up all that attention with her little one.

Finally, the kid herself was a toothy-smiley sweetheart, so all is forgiven. This time. Growl.

Side note: I still have not settled the debate on whether Singapore Airlines stewardesses wear anything underneath their sarong-kebayas. It started with my room mate in high school insisting they do not, and continues to this day with my good friend, who insists the same. I am fascinated by how they magically produce writing implements out of their blouses. How come the plastic holder thingy of the ballpoint pens never sticks outside? Do they have a special inner lining? Is there a row of pens hidden away in there? What else do they have? Sandwiches? A nun-chuk? A cocktail shaker? Maybe a defibrillator? Oh, so many mysteries and so short a life.

PS: Achtung of course means Attention in German.

Poly roly

2010-05-02T00:59:00.003+08:00

"Parel" is a neighborhood in Mumbai. All said and done, not a bad neighborhood. The price-gouging taxiwallah drove us past a reasonably clean ad uncrowded "middle class" neighborhood. Lots of drug stores. Lots. I recently heard business acquaintance describe Asia as "over-medicated". Needless to say, there is tons of money going into healthcare in erstwhile healthy Asia.

Seedy hotels with names like Aroma, Shantidoot and Sharda. On balance, a fresh coat of plaster and paint could get at least this part of Mumbai looking good. And maybe just getting rid of the old model taxi cabs; and the drivers and pedestrians while at it; and somehow magically disappear the mounds of garbage. Who am I kidding.

Soon I spy the ubiquitous two-wheeler families. A woman pressed close to her man, hand not around him, but apparently on his crotch. Gives a new meaning to auto-eroticism. Hehe. But, it turned out she had her hand firmly on his thigh, just above the bulge.... Of his wallet. She's got her priorities right. There was another family where a little kid was so tightly sandwiched between mom and dad I almost missed him/her, were it not for a hand snaking out.

Another threesome, a chubby tubby family I have to say, had a rather old - say 10 year old - kid between mom and dad, fast asleep and leaning backward, much to my alarm and consternation. Furiously I was trying to figure out where exactly the center of gravity lay and how unstable an equilibrium it all was. No such thoughts concerned his mom, sanguine, and seen a few minutes later with him awake, commisserating and indulging the just-awoken. For all I know toothbrush and oatmeal followed suit.

Then the little kid with his backpack, hugging daddy tightly, both climbing a flyover at low gear, but fast enough to have the hair flying backward. That little kid was the most satisfied person in Mumbai last night. A smile of happiness and adoration for his cool-riding dad. I almost feel sorry for when he grows up. For his dad, that is.

Finally, home to cousins and curry. I found out on the way back that the onward taxi had only charged me 50% more than the meter charge. Chump change. Pun intended.

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Home is where the...

2010-05-02T00:44:00.004+08:00

Ah, Mumbai meri jaan. 'Tis wonderful to sweat into... er step into this city again. The motherland. Full of warm, smiling faces, familiar, at once embracing and making you feel at home. Perish the thought of strangerhood amidst such visages.

I am talking of course about the movie poster with Megan Fox's face on it.

Scenes from another concert

2010-04-25T23:27:00.003+08:00

We walked in, my nervous date and I, to the venue of the Tuvan throat singers' concert after a warm beverage. Ominously it said "free
seating" and and also "sold out" on the poster outside. Sure enough the room was packed and we barely found two seats in a corner.

The ensemble of four walked in, took its bow, and sat in chairs replendent in silk dels, clearly adorned with Mongol motifs and launched into the prayer song and then a heavy throat singing number.I wondered if anyone else had packed a stick of dynamite to blast themselves out if necessary. (I am sure you have googled and youtubed throat singing by now)

As always,I looked around at my fellow audience. A mied crowd, local, expat, young, old, kids. I wonder what brought them all here, for my motivation was clear. A lot of keen looks, arms folded, leaning forward; many slouched like me; several scratchig their ears; some
whispering, some even giggling.

Soon, regular, that is non-throat, songs followed, explained by the one English speaker: one about a sweetheart, another about a horse
- way many more songs about horses than sweethearts, might I add, a camel, ancestors, the Altai, the mother river.

The flute sounded hauntingly melodious, almost exactly like a northern Indian flute. The improviser (we found later) of the group knocked
something onto another apparatus tied to his knee to create trotting noises, while shaking what looked like a cassock - I learned at the
Q&A that the former were made with real horse hooves and the latter was a bull's scrotum filled with sheep bones. All males in the
audience cringed at that point in the post-concert information session, needless to say. The horsehead lute and a snakeskin banjo completed the ensemble.

I gradually realized, with mild alarm, that my neighbor (not the date, but on the other side) seemed to have a severe case of Parkinson's.
Surreptitiously I glanced but she seemed too young. Perhaps a very large and unpredictable nervous tick? Her arms were after all clasped
tight around her that of her date, who vaguely looked like a balkan war criminal. Perhaps flashbacks from a previous life as a large bird,
cocking its neck back and forth to regurgitate for the little ones? I realized later she was just "grooving." Apparently her sense of rhythm
was on permanent vacation.

The numbers turned out quite enjoyable, with occasional bouts of throat singing which were, ahem, interesting. Just like the ability to
cartwheel or touch one's nose with the tip of one's tongue - no doubt requiring genes, skill and practise but of dubious aesthetical value,
at least to the untrained and unaccustomed.
Post concert, I raised some hackles when I asked to compare Tuvan throat singing, and its broader culture and language, with those of
Mongols. It turned out Tuvans are Turkic, or at least they speak Turkic, though they share Tibetan Buddhism and shamanism with the
Mongols. Vigorous defence of the Tuvan origin of throat singing ensued. The lead singer demonstrated both types, the Mongol version disparagingly, and exulted at the superiority of the Tuvan version. I slunk into my seat.

Someone asked "how do you do it?", the dumbest question of the evening. The performers sincerely explained it was not formally
learned, but something the horsemen learned by observing their elders and peers and trying out. I thought a simple analogy - whistling. You
hear, see, try and presto! I feel compelled to share that I can wolf-whistle melodies using any pair of fingers of either hand. Yes, I am
full of surprises, just like an innocent-looking rash.

A dinner, drink and interesting conversation led to an awkward farewell. I demand that there be a UN convention on whether to lean
over and plant just one air-kiss on the cheek or two. It is all so confusing.

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Going godless

2010-04-19T19:17:00.002+08:00

I have proof against intelligent design. As usual, the revelation has to do with sex.

An engineer joke has the following punchline: god must be one in order to have run a recreational facility right through one for waste
management. Exactly.

Why could the sexual organs not be better positioned? There are many better options. For example, on the hand. This would make airtravel
more enjoyable, what with having to do it in the lavatory otherwise, not that it is spacious, but I suppose it is private. You could hold hands under the blanket and have sex even as the attendant serves you dessert. And you could have sex right there sitting on the couch and watching TV. Come on, admit this would be revolutionary. Business meetings would finally be fun, shaking hands and all that. Not to mention the ease of operation - I mean, there is no leverage when you go missionary. Not that I would know, since according to my religion I am still a "child".

Next, how about the head? Finally we men can stop lying when we tell women the dress does not make their ass look big, and anyway we realy like them for their brains (close enough). No need to struggle with zips, underpants etc. Just like kissing, but actually going some
place. (oh yeah, sorry ladies, we kiss only to open other doors). And finally the phrase "giving head" makes sense. (On a related note, why "blow" job? It seems to be quite the opposite, based on my careful Internet research) But that will rob the English language of the useful word "dickhead", so let us move on.

Maybe the leg? On the foot or on the knee perhaps? It may destroy the sport of football as we know it, but again, think how easy it would be - you've got to admit that it'd easier to go back and forth with a repositioning there, rather than the awkward pelvic thrusting that sex
today involves, unless you are Fergie or Shakira.

I am calling my cosmetic surgeon.

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Past imperfect

2010-04-17T22:44:00.002+08:00

I remarked in a car full of Eastern European women that I was considering a Tintin collection as a birthday gift for an 11-year old. There were chuckles and someone said, "Do you want it to be an investment"? I suppose it is a bit weird to have an abiding affection for an asexual (does he have an umbilical cord?) creature of indeterminate age that looks like a well-shaped amoebum (or maybe paramecium) complete with with a furry dog and filthy sailor for companions.

Then there are those dyed-in-the-wool Enid Blyton fans, including one who has been pestering me forever to write about her (Blyton that is, not about the pester-er). Where I grew up, this was de rigeur diet for the bookworm club, and even for the jocks. But the British saw blighted Blyton for what she was - George, we all know, was going to end up pregnant at 15, go through a Goth phase, briefly turn butch, like it so much and finally settle down with Ellen the Degenerate naked and hugging a tree. But the legacy is strong, and you can see Enid Blyton lined up in rows at Border Singapore. I know, I was just there today.

All this brings me to the realization that one must accept things and move on. Or else you will turn into hideous morons that I have had the misfortune of knowing. This always happens at subcontinental parties: someone is playing something nice, something from the last decade, French electro, or, god forbid, even house or Euro club. Many idiots are drinking "JD Coke" or "Red Label". Everyone is flush. Suddenly someone cries "Classic Rock"!! Next thing, it is a chorus and everyone is doing that completely stupid move where they raise their hands, with a couple of fingers sticking out, urging everyone to keep on rocking. Someone switches the music to "Scorpions", who are of course Still Loving Each Other. Peace reigns.

I meantime have vomited in disgust.

I am sorry to pontificate, but once in a while we have to move on. We need to maintain our curiosity and learn new things, to appreciate new music, literature, sexual positions and even things like fashion trends. I am talking to you, you there with a porcupine on your head - that hairstyle went out with the 70s Bollywood. We are all going to calcify after we die, figuratively speaking, for an archeologist to dig up eons from now. Why start the process now?

I think I'm gonna get the 11-year old something called "Diary of a Wimpy Kid".

THIS is reality TV!

2010-04-17T19:23:00.002+08:00

It appears we are in the midst of a new TV era, and I didn't even know. We are now calling TV shows by their ratings!

This is quite a program, this "Without A Trace". (Quite a pathetic program, in case I am being too obtuse...)

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Double whammy!

2010-04-17T18:23:00.002+08:00

I should have known better than to watch TV: Celine Dion on Oprah coming up some time. When exactly? That would be when I am on a remote uncabled mountain, far from transmitting towers. The only thing larger than life about Dion is her husband. Oprah is self sufficient, that way.

My weekend is now ruined, I think I will drink this scary specter away.

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Tuva in Singapore

2010-04-10T16:12:00.001+08:00

If I can't go to Tuva, you'd damn well believe Tuva is coming to me. The Tuvan throat singers are in Singapore! April 25, 2010 at the Esplanade.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian says: "The Tuvans will ride into your brain and leave hoof-prints up and down your spine".

Er... I think it will likely be interesting. Especially for those of us who have not seen/heard throat singing...

Comments, please!

2010-04-10T14:12:00.002+08:00

I did not realize that the Comment feature was faulty. I know not what I did, but it appears you can view and post comments again.

Fire away.

Humanity

2010-04-09T22:19:00.003+08:00

A sweltering Singapore afternoon. I was walking down Jalan Besar, in
the little India neighborhood. On one of the first cross streets
emerging into the road, from Serangoon road, a gnarled, wiry old man
was pushing a cart or wheelbarrow. Every sinew strained, his
perspiration poured out. He looked around to a few passers by, yours
truly included. I understood not what he said, but knew what he wanted
- help. He wanted to traverse Jln Besar while traffic stood still,
awaiting the green signal a few tens of meters ahead.

I thought not - I joined him, on his right. We pushed. It was hardly a
task - for me. We wound past stationary vehicles, passing a bonnet
here, a boot there. My usual caution left me, and I frankly did
not care if the signal turned and traffic awoke.

They all could wait. The cabbie looking to reject the next fare; the
brat in a car his/her dad paid for in cash; the pickup truck
spewing smoke out back from its exhaust, and up front from between its
driver's yellowed teeth; the bored bus drivers who meet a thousand
people a day, yet not really connect with one unspeaking droid.

We pushed on, reaching the other side. I wondered what else I could
do. The old man, proud and gruff, waved me away, face averted - from
me? The sun? The cruel, unfilial world?

I ran over back to the other side. Proud. Happy. Content. Sad.
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Dances with Death

2010-04-07T19:32:00.006+08:00

You may have missed this recent piece of news, but I am here to not only show it to you but also serve it with a side of "rant".

First notice that the news is from a website called "Overdrive". Newsflash: unless you have serious penis-envy, not everything "over" is good. For example, if you have buckteeth, it is called an "overbite". If you don't have enough money, you are "overdrawn". Large vehicles today are called "gas guzzlers", not "chick magnets" - well, not any longer. If you can't have enough sex, you are "oversexed". Waittaminute, that last one don't sound too bad.

(Apologies, it took 6 seconds to type that out, and as a man, I must think of sex once every 6 seconds. I think this is Newton's zeroth law or the Golden Rule or something. I almost remembered, but there, that was another 6 seconds)

Back to the point: I find the article rather ironic. For recently I took a drive through National Highway 45 (or NH-45, unofficially known as the "Death Waltz"), a premier roadway in India. I am still shivering from the experience, but on the bright side, it is safe to say that my plaque levels have not reached the point where extreme panic leads to instant death by cardiac arrest.

First, imagine a 4-lane dual-carriageway with a divider, entry/exit ~~lamps~~ ramps, fast, smooth cars - say Jaguars, lights, no speed limits, betel-nut girls - i.e. all the ingredients for a fine motoring experience. Now refine this image to one-lane in each direction, no divider, pitch darkness at night, no barriers to prevent human or animal pedestrians and, saddest of all, no betel-nut girls. Then imagine a speed-limit that could dynamically change, like the weather, only much more unpredictable - for example, now you are braking to zero to avoid the barnyard animal on the road; a little later, say 10 kph behind a file of lazy cyclists, in school uniform, riding 3-abreast; now you are chugging along at 20 kph, looking at the lungi-clad bunch of 30 men piled on the tractor ahead; now, a little faster behind the auto-rickshaw; now, the road is all clear and you are flooring it, but sadly your puny car has a mechanical limitation of not being capable of going pas 80 kph. Then zooms past you a huge car called "Sumo" or something at 120 kph.

All of a sudden, you don't think "Overdrive" is such a bad word.

But as a very responsible person - why do you make that face? I saw you roll your eyes. Do you need eye drops? I have some Optrex here. Hmmm, I am not convinced you had something in your eye.

Here we go again - being a very responsible person I ride shotgun, keeping my eyes peeled through the entire journey so that we would not be in/up/against the wrong end of, say, an elephant - I am not making up seeing one on the highway. (Not that I would like the wrong end of anything or anybody - or would I?). This means not only not being able to sleep during a noisy, tiring journey when all the coolant in the world cannot make the air-conditioning good enough; but it also means finding your heart in your throat roughly once every six seconds. That's right - the very second meant to fantasize about sex. Goddammit!

The driver always drives close to the center-line, just a tad into the other side to keep an eye out for an opportunity to overtake, say, the dog trotting along on three legs, showing its mangy rump. I do not know if it knows the phrase "Stick it to the man", but boy it does a good job at it. Sensing an opportunity, he will swerve out, only to find some other looming disaster, such as a merry band of men jaywalking from the other side. In their defense, they do raise a hand, palm outward while doing this, and if that is not a polite way of saying "slow down, don't kill me, and if you do my villagers will beat you to a pulp", I do not know what is. Finally, as you crawl past a big barnyard animal, heaving a sigh of relief that it you did not hit it, the driver says "Boy, if it shook its head, (its long, strong, pointy horn) would leave a huge hole (in the window)".

This leads to many new realizations:

1. The glass in the car is not shatter-proof.

2. What are his priorities, what are yours and how are they aligned?

3. These poor drivers dance with death everyday.

Status status

2010-04-07T13:48:00.004+08:00

In response to some pointed emails regarding the non-validity of pre-nuptials in Singapore, let me just say one thing: jurisdiction. For example, many wise men such as Mick Jagger, chose to get married on the so-called romantic island of "Bali". In addition to the pre-nup, the entire marriage ceremony conducted there can be declared null and void by other jurisdictions, leaving you scot free, forget that alimony.

I have often contemplated such a course of action myself, but as we all know the Balinese are out to fleece anyone who steps on their island, and the going rate for a wedding ceremony, I believe, is the first-born. There, now I have done my bit for the community this week, sharing this priceless and completely true piece of information.

Next, some of you ask why do I care about (relationship) "status" or even its perception. It is a matter of principle. Wake up, people! Status is important and I am very displeased at the sort of discrimination shown by important parts of the law-and-disorder community, such as Facebook.

Exhibit 1: On Facebook, there are statuses such as "Single", "Married" etc. I demand that there be a status called "Multiple". I do not believe I have to explain this, but hey! some of us choose alternative lifestyles. And no, "Its complicated" is not the same as "Multiple", in fact "It's not at all complicated" would be my ideal status / pickup line. In fact, there should be a status combining "Multiple", "Its NOT complicated" and "Simultaneously" all into one.

Unfortunately, Facebook rejected my suggestion in general and the specific term I suggested in particular.

In shock!

2010-04-07T12:50:00.004+08:00

Usually, encounters with women leave me stirred, but recently one left me shaken. On a flight, as I requested for two of something, the stewardess ignored the female seated on my right. She later was heard profusely apologizing to that female, saying she had inadvertently assumed we were a couple. I pretended to be asleep, but needless to say, reader, I was shocked!

1. Since when did I start looking remotely "committed", forget "married"? The facts are: I do not wear a ring (or have a "ring-tan line"); have a full head of hair; have my libido intact (though that is not obvious, and made painfully clear); and I work out and wear clean underwear, just in case I get laid or am caught in my underpants on national TV. In fact, I have a pre-nup with a clause that I am a) allowed to look good forever b) not ever allowed to answer the question "Honey, do I/does my ass look fat in this?" and c) allowed to keep a loaded shotgun by my bedside, and also a spare set of batteries.

2. Assuming that I do look like the married/committed sort, what does the episode mean? Do I look considerate or henpecked? Would I have led to additional stereotyping had I asked for a misogynistic-sounding alcoholic drink such as "Bloody Mary"? Would the Pope approve? Do I care?

3. Do I have to rent a baby, or at least a little dog, to overcome this handicap of the "married look", which I assume is costing me a gazillion romantic encounters? Is there a money-back guarantee for these arrangements? Has anyone run a controlled, double-blind, doubly-dumb statistically significant study as to the veracity of the oft-repeated claim that chicks just dig men in the park walking a dog or looking sufficiently awkward and helpless carrying a diaper-clad monster? What is Snopes doing about this?

4. Why did not the woman, of whom I could not get a closer look, blush, blanch, or display any sign of embarassment? What could *that* possibly mean? Is there a market for me here to act as "stand-in date/husband"? E.g., lesbians, unmarried women, corporate wenches and others who need a vanilla male companion to divert suspicion or avoid being hounded? Would that role involve free cocktails? And will there be any sex, or as the smart people call it, "upside"?

5. Why did not the *other* woman sitting to my other side, who should have expressed some interest in the whole affair, display none?

Recently learned - the deep end

2010-04-04T15:23:00.004+08:00

In this chaotic little town in southern India called Chidambaram, I
learned a deep dark secret from a sarcastic female: Celine Dion is
much more evil than I had ever thought.

You all know her, she tortured many of you - especially the men -
whining that darn song in the "Titanic". In concerts she looks like
her every muscle and sinew is straining itself to impart equally
horrendous pain on all and sundry. Imagine her with a conical hat, and
that elongated nose-to-jaw profile is clearly that of a witch - the
wicked witch of the (French Canadian) east.

Anyway it was revealed to me over a cup of coffee at Chid's social
capital of a restaurant: women apparently love Celine Dion's songs
when they menstruate. This is so obvious a sign of why the world
becomes a dark place for all during those few days.

But that apart, think of the marketing genius here. For a week a
month, women will listen to "Always love you" on repeat and enforced
by the right end of a revolver, if necessary. This is like cornering the
wholesale market for some vile addictive drug. There is of course a
cartel of which Dion is but a solitary member, but thankfully I have
built a wall of ignorance and refuse to learn the names of any whiny
singers. I just call them by my own orginally made up names. I am
afraid I cannot reveal those for legal reasons.

Where are the authorities when you need them?
Sent from my iPhone