More absurd than miserable

A number of you threw brickbats at me for sullying the high-art of ballet. To all of you, I virtually moon you.

Speaking of absurdities that pass for art, I also watched some time earlier a movie - nay, a musical - by the name of Les Miserables, whose pronunciation remains a mystery to me to this day.

No doubt this was a masterpiece by Victor Hugo, and I am certain it makes for gripping prose. But the minute it transcended into the musical genre, it went Twilight Zone.

Sure the acting was great, and the gaunt Hugh Jackman laid the male audience's insecurities to rest - at least initially, when he was gaunt. Russell Crowe played himself, i.e. a douchebag asshole. Anne Hathaway did some convincing numbers. 

But why must they carry to absurd lengths the setting of everything to a tune? Yes, there are some nice songs - reasonable lyrics set to good music. But why, oh why, must even the quotidian banalities be sung? Can't Cosette simply call Jean "papa" instead of singing even those two syllables? I'm sure even Beethoven took breaks from composing.

But wait, anticipating the next round of brickbats, I do grant that I am being too harsh here. On second thought, I do realize the potential for immense daily pleasure this approach to life can offer.

Scene one: a ho-hum dinner in a middle-class 4-room HDB apartment. Imagine the following exchange, both lines sung to "So long, farewell" from the Sound of Music:

Ah Boy: Mama! Mama! I want to go and play-ay!

Mother: Sit down, shut up and eat your bah kut teh-eh!!

Father: ***** (fits nicely into "Cuckoo")

Scene two: flight from Singapore to India (any city)

Drunk passenger: AIR-hostess! AIR-hostess! (sung to the opening bars of Bicycle Race by the Queen)

(entire flight thumps on its collective tray)

Drunk passenger again: I want to have vis-KEE-so-da, I want to have it when I like! (sung to the mellow second line of the same song)

And when you see me next, please call me "Caustic Yoda" (sung to the tune of "Call me maybe"). Don't be shy, numbers welcome.

Future cirrhosis, presently gone

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!!

Food for thought

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?

Shake those maracas!

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.

Open bar

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.

Sent from my iPhone

In search of meaning

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.

Sent from my iPhone

Delirium tremens

When you are febrile, drugged and possibly delirious, you should never live on the edge. By this I mean the edge of tastefulness, not necessary the jaunty edge of reason.

I of course refer to an unfortunate episode of channel-surfing that led me to dwell, ever so briefly, on Singapore's "Vasantham" channel. There was a man in atrocious batik, a haircut from a 1970s Indian movie and a moustache - or, what I call the "terrible trifecta".  He was apparently polishing something invisible roughly a foot from his abdomen. He was adopting that circular hand movement that children associate with a train, and apparently polishing this invisible thing thoroughly, now the right hand a few inches higher than the left, now the reverse. I think he was attempting to "dance".

Oh, amidst all this, he was lip synching. To what presumably was his own, abysmal, recorded voice. I watched, mouth agape, unable to preserve my normal deadpan, and could feel myself slipping down the rabbit-hole of horror.

Thankfully, the remote fell out of my hand, changing the channel,  and I came out of my reverie and on to a posse of meerkats on Animal Planet. Those little buggers!

But coming back to the point - I know these performers are not exactly Milli Vanilli, disappointing millions with their lip synching. But what kind of feeble mind actually *believes* this is art? And more importantly, what kind of feeble minds actually *watch* this "art"?

As luck would have it, I do not have to dwell on these grave questions because I have a date with a bottle of cough syrup. "May cause drowsiness". The best kind.

PS: Delirum tremens can mean a couple of things: the literal explanation and the much more fun version.

Mind eraser

A long time ago, I used to frequent with my friends a place called Deborah, an excellent restaurant on Carmine Street in the Village, with interesting cocktails such as the "Mind Eraser".  I bring this up because of late, I think my mind has been erased as well, hence the lack of any articles.

Recently (by which I mean some time in the last 12 months), I had a little birthday gathering that ended with some very drunk women forcing me to knock back absinthe. This was an excellent party, with past, present and future love interests gathered in one place. and no men in sight. Yes, I know, my middle name is "Danger".

Back to the story - absinthe, as I might have mentioned, is made of aniseed, which belongs to the "Satanic" food group (or at least the Satanic condiment group). They always serve this at the end of a meal at Indian restaurants and it is nasty stuff. Especially when it is liquid, green and called "Green Fairy". I was drinking "Green Fairy". Good lord, if that is on Youtube, I have to resign life.

However I was pleasantly surprised at the very mild hangover the next day. My first encounter with this stuff was not so benign, back when I lived a humble student's life in Barcelona. The Iberian peninsula was probably the only place where absinthe was legal. After a night of carousing - or a regular night, by Spaniards' standards - we ended up at a bar downing this stuff, sugar cube and all. I never understood how they did it - dinner at 10pm, party till 4 am and turn up in school at 8 am. The only way I could handle that is by losing my mind/brain, sending my liver to find it, while also giving my duodenum a holiday.

But as for the  best hangover-free drink, I have been made to discover the "Jaeger bomb". Another product from the evil aniseed family, this is a shot of Jaegermeister served with red bull. Now, Red Bull is not to everyone's taste, but it is to mine, and the good thing is it kicks in at roughly 7 am guaranteeing you will not lose the rest of the day to a hangover.

Back to absinthe - the reason it was banned for a long time involves the role of the (supposedly hallucinogenic) wormwood, traditionally used to make the absinthe barrels. The interesting conclusion to this article is that the other mind-erasing, liver-obliterating, stomach-churning but thoroughly enjoyable drink - the martini - makes use of Vermouth, whose name is a derivative of  "wormwood".

Small world.

Spanish at all time low

Major fiasco at "eight". iPhone rescues. Beer does not. Nine leaves me in knots. This only strengthens my resolve to viajar. Cuba! Here I come. Well, summer-ish.


Sent from my iPhone

Yoda educates

I returned to my fav dive bar in Tokyo - Bar Deuce - and ordered a dirty martini (after the customary Guinness of course (which authentic Irish company says sucks outside of Eire)) and he didn't know!! So I whipped up my fav BB and got hom to make one.

He also didn't know Vaya con Dios or Nina Simone - Nina, imagine that - and there was some educationalising, as W would say, going on.

As if - I only discovered Nina in '09 - so dear readers, take my snobbery with a sack of salt, for after all I am a kid from Malgudi.


Sent from outer space.

Deja vu

Tokyo. You know what that means - gratuitous bowls of ramen unsolicited by hunger and Brussels at Kamiyacho.

Sent from outer space.

Bonding part 2

At the Serbian bar discussing the Fall of the Wall with a girl from Dresden, and a Swiss-born Italian, who considers French his mother tongue and speaks Croat, his wife's first language. Phew. This night has been worth it. Debating China's totalitarianism - good or bad?

Sent from outer space.

Bonding with the Serb

Of all the places, in Shanghai.

Fear not, MM (not Manic Mom), your place in my heart is irreplaceable ;).


Sent from outer space.

Here we go again

As part of my public service mission - you know how seriously I take that - I announce to beer-lovers that there is a Belgian watering hole in an old courtyard in Shanghai, called Kaiba at 528 Kangding lu. At the entrance is a bar/restaurant run by a Serb; then a Basque pintxos place; and a wine bar.

I call it the "cultural exception alley".

Sent from outer space.

New Rule #116

The world should adopt the hooker code of conduct.

Here I am sitting with my drink and tapas, and a woman eases next to me at the bar, and asks for a drink. You know how I can never say no. She is Amazon-esque - tall, fairly svelte and with characteristic brown teeth. Linda, from Beijing. Breaking down all barriers of lookism, ageism and racism, she offered a massage, she'd be my "new Chinese girlfriend". I am sad to say I did not establish the market clearing price. But you gotta admire the non-discriminating philosophy on life.

Her colleague, after several passes, gave up - "Indian? Don't want to
waste money", she said.

Well perhaps not that open-minded, after all.

Sent from my iPhone

Various

iPhone: bought

Testing testing: certain videos (ahem) don't play (update: iPhone does not support Flash)

Streaming: oh yeah. Strangely enough not an MP3 in possession (a few at the other home, but not immediately accessible) so I have been streaming via Youtube:
- Hot Hot Hot (Bina Mistry, Bend It Likme Beckham)
- Chunari Chunari (Monsoon Wedding, but turns out it's from a movie of uber-dolt Salman)
- Vachikava ( The remix, of course)

Peace. I need that after the Kamikazes ("we only serve them in pairs") at Attica 2.


Sent from outer space.

How to feel special

As I was walking around Khor Virap (literally: "deep pit"), an excited but slightly skankily-dressed Armenian girl of perhaps 15 requested through my guide that she's like her picture taken with me. This is surely a sign of great things to come, but alas I fear this dream will dissipate along with the rest. The girl at the museum (they have lots of excess manpower hanging about everywhere) also excitedly confirmed how much Armenians love Indian culture, courtesy Soviet-era adoption of Bollywood as non-propaganda entertainment.

Finally, my (reasonably) cute guide Gayane, on the second of our two-day trip down south to Goris, had invited me and our driver for lunch to her grandma's house in the village of Shinuhayr, where she had grown up. The smart girl, god bless her, had called ahead to inform them I was vegetarian (note the tone of sarcasm). Anyway we were met by an old, sweet crone clad in black, slightly hunched with a headscarf - the matriarch. It was my guide's mom's mom. In the family were her uncle, his wife and two kids; and her aunt, whose husband "works in Russia" and whose 3 daughters were married and gone.

On the right of the dirt track (literally - some water and attempts at resurfacing with mud had created a quagmire) were a few 3-storeyed Soviet-era blocks of apartments reminiscent in style, color and decrepitude of any building in Chembur - or Marine Parade for that matter. The ancestral home was thankfully a one-storeyed house with slooping metal roof, with a large metal gate and a courtyard.  We entered a very small square area on the left, turned left and were at a mid-sized room with a TV and hi-fi system at one end, windows on three sides (including the wall separating it from an interior room) and a table laid out with a feast: green peas (tasted canned, but by far my favorite course of the day), some reddish pickled sort of veggies, fried potatoes and onions (with a side of poultry), some other weird greens, boiled pumpkin, salad etc. I was offered a shot of mulberry vodka ("Home made - stronger but better!"), of which I finished half and finally realized why on my second day in Armenia I had felt a strange sensation that my brain had become unhinged and was floating about (I said"brain" not "mind") - I'd had a shot of pear brandy the first evening. Some raspberry juice (home made, what else). "Foreigners can't drink our vodka", the man of the house was translated saying.

The uncle was a big man, with a head the size of a football and body that may have been used in Star Wars as Jabba the Hut. His fingers were the size of my forearms. He was apparently quite the wit as he was saying things that caused everyone to squeal. Clearly many were at my expense. The boy turned out to be 17, although based on the size of *his* fingers and his monobrow I had guessed him to be 18-22; then I had to guess Gayane's and she turned out to be 26, a little older than I had said (but about where I truthfully thought it would be).

Gayane was given a large plastic bag of fruit, picked from their backyard one assumed. The aunt and the female cousin jumped into the car for a ride till the center of town. We dropped them off and began the long drive back to Yerevan.

Finding my inner lama

It was with high hopes that I proceeded to McLeodganj. I was sure this would be it. Some random yellow-and-maroon clad monk would no doubt recognize me as the first of a new series of Lamas - "Super" Lama perhaps, or even "Caustic" Lama, as The Reader suggested. I would vex China with my measured doses of sarcasm and there would be world peace.

Alas, it appears my inner Lama has abdicated: eloped with the 6 Martini sisters: Dirty, Dry, Lychee, Peacock, Pomegranate and Concrete Floor.

HH Dalai is nowhere in sight, and I was told in a "vision" that he is keeping a safe distance from my karma. The vision may or may not have involved the Martinis, some large G+T's and a whopper of a check.

Mix tape

Coming from a musically giifted family, I of course love Mariah Carey.

That was a joke. Mariah is terific wriggling on screen on mute in a skimpy top, and possibly as a weapon against the dengue fever - for only mosquitoes could possibly hear her high notes, and they would of course be immediately repulsed, and head for the nearest rojak stall to die at. (Self-congratulatory snigger)

Anyway, as readers may have noted, I seem to have lost my "edge". Partly, I am trying a new narrative style characterized by contrapuntal sentences and mixing the sensational, the sarcastic and the quotidien; partly because NY will always create a certain state of mind (does anyone even remember that song?); and just a bit because massive quantities of alcohol and large, powerful sunshades were involved.

Anyway, equipped with my wireless headphones from the inimitable Yodobashi in Tokyo (Motto: Weep, Mustafa, Weep), the courage to buy songs from a dubious Russian website for 10 cents a pop, and my faithful phone / "portable music device", I am now in serious music gathering mode. I have Nina (Simone) on repeat; (Louis) Armstrong trumpeting La vie en rose; Dire Straits singing about your latest trick; Daft Punk's been heard many more times than just one; and Alice DJ gyrating her beautiful Dutch torso. Oh wait, that last one is an apparition. A good, non-scary apparition.

The old stereo has been brought out of storage; cables bought to hook up the phone to the amp; liqor cabinet stocked - TWO bottles of Hendricks!! Everyone is invited.

But, let us focus here - remember the mix tape from high school? It was the symbol of undying love, "forever and ever". Snort. Well, I am tempted to make one. Or several.

Bartender! A kamikaze shot please. Or several.

Post Bar

I stopped by for a post-work quickie G&T at my regular bar. I don't do this often, only 7-8 times a week..

The bar seemed especially busy, and the regular barkeep was busy avoiding eye-contact, making a drink. I walked around to the far side, the better to practise misanthropy while letching from a safe distance.

I barely sat down, and out came my G&T, on a freshly banged-down coaster. "Tanqueray and tonic", he said, with a smile. I sat there marveling at the whole thing, sipping it slowly.

Time to go, and I asked for my check. I decided that I would tip more than I usually do - when in Singapore you do not have to tip at all, as service charge is automatically included. I waited. Uniformed staff looked at me, smiled, giggled while the barkeep went missing.

He came back and I asked for the check again - and he said "Don't worry about it. It's taken care of". I protested vainly, and he said "We want to see you come back here".

You bet your ass I am going back there, and not expecting free drinks, either. There are many who bitch about poor service, but I suppose it's all about a little give and take.

Five stars to the Post Bar for service!