Welcome to my diary...the goal is to share with you the sights, sounds, and yes, even the smells of what it's like to be an Imbrogulio in a foreign land.
We're back from Myanmar but am gonna hold off writing it up this week for two reasons. First, Betty is out of control with her camera and have north of 1400 snaps to go through. Second, something about the trip affected my soul in a way that I'm still processing and need to spend more time reflecting.
Some quick hits for this week. This news story must have dominated your feed this week. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups now come in two new flavors! One with extra chocolate and one with EXTRA PEANUT BUTTER. They don't offer any Reese's products here and my first stop upon hitting the States in June will be to get my lips around one of those.
One more news story from the local rag to share. Fight between drinking buddies leaves one man dead. This is your garden variety drunken altercation, but why I am sharing it is that in the man's confession, he shared that 'as the fight escalated, Hou began to choke Chang with a belt before grabbing a Tim Horton's coffee mug and bashing it into the old man's skull.". Where can I get a Timmy Ho mug in this dump?
Baseball season (for the school team) is heading into the home stretch and am out there with them 5-6 days a week. It must be weighing on my mind cause I am dreaming a lot about it. When I dream about sports, am always playing and never coaching, and my knees work and are pain free. Had one the other day where I am playing third with the boys that I'm currently coaching, and get called on to pitch. Somehow get into an altercation with the umpire and we're jawing pretty hard, but he hasn't thrown me out. I get with the catcher and tell him that I'm gonna burn one right at the umpire's grill and to let it go past him. He does and I do. Dream over.
Told you that a new band that I have been obsessed with was playing this week and mustered a good group to check them out. Korea's Say Sue Me. The opener was a local band called DSPS and they did a nice job in the role of Taiwanese Blake Babies.
Disappointingly, the show was poorly attended. Good that we had a ton of space and could wade right up to our preferred spots, but this town does not embrace guitar rock in any way. Waiting between sets for Say Sue Me to take the stager, our group of Gen X Westerners were amused at the locals penchant for sitting on the floor and ALL looking at their phones. We stand out.
A floor at a show in the States would be covered in booze, but suspect the phone usage would be similar.
I loved Say Sue Me. Tight, great pacing, cute as buttons and rocked us. Not a discouraging word post game from my buddies and even Betty approved.
Here is a picture of the setlist and suggest you create a Spotify playlist off of it.
I bought a t-shirt and poster and they all signed it.
A great night with a great band. I am smitten. Here is a short set from the American language Korean channel of theirs. Having everything with subtitles and listening to their lyrics and banter makes me love them even more.
Finally for today, please enjoy the trailer from Japanese B-movie RoboGeisha. If you do not laugh at least three times, what it the matter with you?
No post next week as we're heading out of town for a week in Myanmar. I was reluctant to going there for two reasons: it is gonna be roasting hot and the whole genocide thing. Betty really wanted this one and whatever the boss wants.
Music has been good lately. A new Meat Puppets album came out recently and more Meat is always a good thing. It's called Susty Notes an is worth a spin.
Was coaxed out last Tuesday to see Masego.
I say coaxed as hip hop is not in my wheelhouse. I listened to a bunch of his stuff and found it to lean towards funk. Since you can't be choosey when you live in a place that doesn't have a lot of options for live music, and the venue is a good one with good sightlines and a loud and clear sound system, off we went.
It was good...having a live band is always beneficial and they were solid. Hesitate saying this cause I fear it is a sign of cranky old guy, but simply do not understand the appeal of seeing hip hop live.. The songs rarely deviate from the beat or take interesting turns. I know it is supposed to be lyrically challenging, but I rarely find it so and am not a dude that gets a lot out of poetry anyway. And poetry about booties...really? I always forget but it doesn't take long after the show starts to remember what bugs me the most about every hip hop show I have ever attended. I am a religious skeptic and these performers have a move that reminds me of church that they fall back on all night where they tell you to sing this, jump now and the most heinous of tropes, put your hands in the air and wave them like you are a mindless idiot.
Please stop telling me what to do all gawdamn night long. You perform and if I enjoy what you've done, I will clap loudly and scream 'woo-hoo'. This is not an aerobics class nor am I being paid to perform.
Last night was another appearance by local star Yufu Chen and a bunch of us went down for it. Here are the photos...
There are none cause we all missed it. All the info showed that Yufu was the headliner, there were two bands and the show was from 8 - 10:30. Experience tells all of us that our act would go on a bit after 9p so we meet up for drink and head over only to see the man himself walk out of the club all sweaty and he tells us they are done. I've missed bands a couple times before due to being late (most famously to the Ramones twice in the same summer as their set was 30 minutes long and the folks I went with were slow ass bitches), but have been to hundreds/thousands of shows and cannot recall a miscalculation like this. Can't even blame a language barrier as there were fluent speakers in our midst and as we are breaking it down after, they are still unsure what happened. The other band was Taiwan reggae...including the sad Chinese violin. Gag me.
Coming up the Tuesday after we get home from Myanmar is a band I have been in love with making their first appearance in Taiwan. Busan, Korea's Say Sue Me. Can count on one had the acts I love that have been to Taiwan since we've been here: Dinosaur Jr., Kraftwerk and Yo La Tengo. Say Sue Me will be the fourth (in 7 years!) and have high hopes for that night. I have been diving deep on them and in reading some interviews, have been turned onto some other cool Korean bands like Dabda, The March Kings, 3Volt and Genius. The sound of most of those is 90's indie throwback and if they are 25 years behind the times, that fits me just right. One of my favorite Say Sue Me songs turns out to be a cover of Genius' 'One Question'. The Say Sue Me version is poppier while this original version is as dark as night. Love it.
It is also a great time of year as the sports wasteland after the Super Bowl ends next week with both the Opening Day of baseball and Opening Bounce of Australian Rules Football. Good times for yours truly.
In my continuing efforts to be a supportive parent and trying to appreciate the art of dance, went to a showcase at the school of the IB programs seniors dance pieces. The IB students choreograph dances for their senior project and recruit dancers to perfrom them with Babdydoll being one. I watched about 10 dances and before each, the choreographer will talk about the piece and give their inspiration for the movements. Words, a book, some experience in a desert...things like that, but when they were being performed I just cannot understand how the movemnts relate to the inspiration. You could tell me that they were inspired by The War of 1812, watching paint dry, or seeing their cat have an epileptic fit and I'd believe it. B-doll was quite good but am not comfortable with how the dudes put their hands on her.
Finally for this week, have to address the college admission scandal. We all know this crap goes on but the extent that this group of adults went to get their kids in schools is stomach turning. Is funny how this story resonated with everyone on some level. I'm at the kids school a lot and interact with a bunch of the staff. I've mentioned how that school is posh and position themselves within that world as an elite prep school. Most of the teachers hate it, but there is a not insignificant section of the community that sends their kids to tutors from early elementary school and to college facilitators and SAT prep boot camps as they approach High School. Learned a new term for an old scheme from this whole thing...when a parent donates a ton of dough to a school and gets their kid in based on that, the school justifies it by calling it "Institutional Advancement" Not gonna debate the ethics of any of that cause while I find it ugly, it is legal. In talking to many at our school everyone suspects that some families may be going further than simply pushing/torturing their kids. As for the kids themselves, their view of the scandal was "you can do that?" and view the revelations as a road map.
It is also a story that crosses generations. I ask Babydoll if she know this Olivia Jade character and of course she does. She knew her mom was some actress, but she doesn't know Aunt Becky and why would she. Lori Loghlin is 53 years old., just like me, so ancient history. Full disclosure...I never watched a single episode of Full House but of course knew of it and absolutely found Lori Loughlin super sexy. Great hair and had a bod that appealed to my senses, but there was something about her eyes that lent an air of crazy. Always trust the eyes. Takes a certain kind of monster to raise a certain kind of monster, but who would have thought it would be Aunt Becky? Anywho, it was a great opportunity to have a conversation about how shitty "people" can be at any age and about how one needs to be careful about the types of celebrities or role models one spends time following. This little piece of shit off of the steaming pile of crap was a perfect example of how awful the "influencer" culture is. In the Fyre documentary, they document how they paid that Kendall Jenner 250K to push it on her social media. You saw the crap that Miss Olivia Jade has spouted I'm sure. On one hand, sorta feel bad for these kids being outed for the spoiled idiots they are if they weren't aware of the behind the scenes shenanigans, but then you see how ugly their souls are... I pray that this adds a nail to the coffin of this little influencer cultural detour and hope that this will help B-doll choose her clicking more wisely.
One more 'finally' for this week...I am giving up my crusade against the word 'pride'. I feel no differently about it and can prove that 95% of the time people are using it to take credit for others accomplishments, but people seem to get really offended when I call it out. From now on when I hear it, will just roll my eyes in silent disgust..
Update on the hair project. As a brief recap, due to a long bout with a bad case of scalp psoriasis, was not able to have long hair, but it went away for some reason and want to see what it looks like grown out. Had a bush when I was little and the first nickname I ever had in elementary school was tumbleweed. As you can see, that moniker was well deserved.
It is longer now than it has ever been and am committed to getting it to ponytail length. It is drawing attention and receive comments from friends like, 'what's going on?' and even acquaintances like the ladies at the 7-11 are making gestures. Got to thinking about what it is gonna look like and Weird Al came to mind although his curls are tight. We met this guy at an Italian restaurant a few years ago and think it might be close.
It was the end of an era last weekend. We moved to Seattle in 1995 and one of the first things I did was scan the radio dial for sports talk radio. Soon found the fellas on KJR and listened all day. While most of those fellas came and went, John Clayton's Saturday football show from 9a to Noon has been a rock. He moved to 710 many years ago, but the show stayed the same with the weekly rotation of callers rarely changing: Commando Dave, Jet, Irish Menke, Raider Jim, JB in Renton, etc. The show became easier to listen to in podcast form and have been able to listen in Taiwan uninterrupted with it being my accompaniment on Sunday morning walks. Hard to think of a time I missed it in those 24 years and John and his cast of characters have been friends all that time.
Last Sunday he announced the station was cutting the show. He still does 2 hours daily and has regular spots on other shows on the station, but the Saturday show was all football and delivered in just the right way for me. John said that the reason the station wanted to change the programming is that they have young voices at the station and they needed a platform, and his show was the right spot to give them a go. Doubt I'll listen to it as it is gonna be focused on "all sports" including new ones like e-sports to attract younger ears. The obvious question is do younger ears even know what a radio is? If these younger voices are so hot and need a platform, why aren't they doing YouTube or whatever the kids use to intake their information. Sad and pissed in equal measure.
I hope to one day recommend a movie (or at least a Netflix series) that I am work shopping and it will star me or will cast someone like me (Weird Al?) to play me. Got the idea watching the Oscars and reading the fallout from the Best Picture winner the Green Book. . Have never seen that film, but envision this movie as a cross between it and Karate Kid.
The pitch... I am the driver and my passenger is an old Chinese woman. We drive around and I take her to places like the beauty salon to get her hair permed, ironically in curls like mine, or to the store to buy clothes made from bygone era man-made fabrics in floral patterns where the top and bottoms clash. We'll have conversations about our clash of cultures too. She will ask me if I have gained weight on a daily basis (yes, because I eat my feelings) and I will roll my eyes when I see her elbow her way to the front of the produce stand. We ultimately will find common ground over our mutual mistrust of an ethnic group to be named later. Coming soon
Mentioned before that there is a local Taiwan band that I really like called Crocodelia (they have an EP out on Spotify) Crocodelia has been on hiatus for a while cause one of the brothers is doing his service time in the military, but the other brother, Yufu Chen, is performing with a cast of characters and we had the opportunity to see them in a tiny basement club. The sound was absolutely atrocious but the talent of this guy still shined through. Hope good things come to them and have committed to seeing his stuff whenever.
Went with a couple of buddies who are in a band and we are waiting for the show to start and see the instrument that the lady is playing below.
It has strings and keys and none of us know the name of it, but one of the guys says it is a panini press, which gives us a great idea. I have been to shows, and saw someone do this on Saturday Night Live recently, where they have a performer paint a picture during the song/show. It is a cool visual and adds to the overall experience, We think that an equally cool experience, and one that would activate another sense during a show, would be to have a person on stage making panini's during the set. They could put some flourishes to their efforts and hand the product to those in the crowd. Doesn't have to be paninis per se, but who is saying 'no' to that?
While I was typing the above, just got an alert that they are playing next Friday night at a place with an excellent sound system.
A brief follow-up to something that has been bugging me since 2018. When we were in Ireland, there were a ton of sheep and we saw many of them had paint on their backs.
Seemed like an odd thing as the wool is the product and thought it was a way to identify the owner. Had a rare window with time to randomly search the Internet and found this blog post that details why they are. They tie a bag of paint around a ram's neck and after he makes sweet love to a ewe, the farmer sees the paint on her back and knows to move her to another field where she can give birth to the next generation.
One more maybe not so brief follow-up to close festivities for today. Pride. Am on the offensive against not only the word but to get people to reevaluate the feelings of personal pride they have in other people's accomplishments for selfish reasons into just being happy for those people.
I don't know what the word for pride is in Chinese, but think it relates to their concept of 'face". In preparation for this rant, I looked at some articles and think this one does a nice job defining it and comparing to western ideas on the topic....guilt v shame and individual v group based cultures and this even uses 'pride' as one of its definitions of 'face'. Totally get it and with almost everything there are positives and negatives to each...whatevs.
Here is why I'm beefed up about face this week. Warning, when I go on a beef, the swears come out, The school baseball team that I'm involved with is newish....they played softball for 35 years and only changed to baseball 3 years ago and so do not have a deep history with it and worse, do not have the facilities on campus to play. We can practice but there's no space for a full field and we'd be knocking windows out in the neighbors apartments if we tried to hit. That means we have to look off campus at public fields and there are many along the rivers around town. The school researched and found some available and we reserved them for several nights of the week during our very short season. We show up for the first one, 30 kids and coaches on a bus that takes 40 minutes to get there as it is rush hour, and there are local teams playing on the fields. After more than an hour sitting on the bus waiting for the all the coaches and park officials to hash it out, they vacate and we get on the field. We come out the next night and the exact same thing happens. We are scheduled there the next few weeks but we decide not to pursue going there any more.
Here is how it gets explained to me. Yes, we reserved the field, which I must say are free, but these local teams practice there every week. They don't reserve them for whatever reason but just assume they are theirs cause they are there all the time. Turns out that in the disputes at the fields those nights, we call the city reservation desk and the clerk that takes the reservations confirms we have the field and tells the locals to vacate, which they do not do. The clerk then has to call her supervisor who has to get on his scooter and come down to tell the locals that the fields are ours. Me, very Western/white boy is livid. Our schools folks explain to me that we have to be sensitive to the local community. As tax payers, thought we are part of the local community, but they tell me that since we are the rich kids, have to be extra deferential. They go onto say that in the events of the nights we went out that the clerk lost face, the supervisor lost face and the local coaches lost face. That's a lot of face. Are we the rich kid school? Absolutely positively. We just want to play some ball, did the right stuff and we have to freaking suffer cause we don't want these folks, who all agreed on the facts, cause we don't want to cause someone to lose face? Think it is all for the best that I was not part of the negotiations cause I woulda been brutal and it crossed my mind to tell these local folks they should be nice cause some of our kids are in families that own the 7-11's and they will need jobs one day. Yes, it's no secret that I am a nasty asshole. Facts are facts and get the fuck off my gawdamn field.. Feels suspicious to me and that we are using this face to protect people from being accountable. We don't get the fields either way, so either the locals are gonna think the Americans are assholes for calling them out, or they are gonna think that we are pussies for not fighting for them. You know where I stand on the asshole v pussy debate. And if the Chinese are so worried about face, then why are there no end to shit on YouTube that shows employers humiliating their workers for poor performance. Here is one where the staff has to crawl on the street after poor sales.
And while this one is hard to believe, sales people drinking piss for not meeting their targets.
