We’ve hit this patch of grey skies and humidity a bit early this year, haven’t we? I was expecting another month of comfortable temps and blue skies. Ah well. It’s been a weird and tiring week overall and I suppose the crappy weather gives me an excuse (as if I needed one) to spend the day in front of the computer doing meaningless crap to take my mind off stuff.

Earlier in the week, Dusk Till Dawn had their 10th anniversary party and it was a good one indeed. Tonight The Bridge celebrates its 7th anniversary and a good chance I’ll be there. OOPS – it’s March 7th, my bad.

A blog I just found – Never Get Out of the Boat! Yeah, I presume the guy’s an Apocalypse Now fan, but that’s not the purpose the blog. He’s hosting links to some amazing archival material – some bootleg, some pirate, some stuff he assembled himself – 9 hours worth of rare Dylan songs that at one point or another were available on Dylan’s web site; 15-1/2 hours of Dylan B-sides, compilation-only tracks, soundtracks; out of print comedy albums by Albert Brooks and Lenny Bruce; rare Zappa; 6 volumes of Richard Thompson rarities; the list goes on and on and on. There’s so much there that I’ve actually ponied up for a RapidShare account so I can grab this stuff down in a reasonable amount of time.

A few weeks ago I came across a couple of articles that mentioned that HK architects were complaining that building codes in the SAR were preventing the kind of creativity one sees in major cities in the PRC. At the time I thought they were probably right but that there are far more urgent items to deal with. I thought of those articles when I came across this thing on Gizmodo about some new towers planned in Shenzhen:

Rooftop garden ponds to recycle rainwater, solar tracking screens around the buildings’ exterior and circular footprints for the towers, enabling wide-open social spaces to face the sun. And of course the position of the buildings, arranged in a horizontal linking pattern so they double as giant sun umbrellas for the Stock Exchange. The buildings will be linked by underground rail as well, so the only time you’ll have to venture outside is to partake in all the rooftop garden festivities.

Hmmm, my mouse is blinking red, needs a recharge, time to take a break from all this ….

Since both E@L and Phooey have blogged about our meet last night, I suppose I ought to mention it as well.

Since E no longer lives here and I knew we’d have just a short time to get together, my idea was to bring him to some place relatively new and not one of the same old hangdog hangouts. I’ve been to Uno Mas a few times since its opening and have enjoyed it each time, so it seemed a good choice, and I’m happy that my friends agreed with me.

One thing is bugging me about the place. They have a jamon iberico plate, two sizes, $188 and $388. And they have a charcuterie platter at $188 that includes some of the jamon, some salami, some chorizo, one other bit of meat, some pate, a bowl of olives. So:

First time to order charcuterie platter – there’s a healthy helping of the jamon iberico.

Second time to order the charcuterie platter – there’s just two thin strips of jamon iberico.

Last night, ordered the $188 jamon iberico platter; later we order the charcuterie platter and it had the same amount of of jamon iberico on it as the individual order.

I don’t think it’s nitpicking to ask them to use the same amounts of an ingredient each time they serve the same dish. However, last night, I’d had a bit too much wine and beer to even think of how to mention it to the manager. The thing is, you go to a place and you enjoy the meal and you want the same quality level each time. It’s a failure to maintain consistency that leads to so many HK restaurants opening strong and then fading quickly.

I have to wonder … the mid and upper tiers of the restaurant scene in HK are ruled by corporations. It’s one thing if some French guy comes to HK and decides to open a French restaurant – he knows the food, he’s committed to it, he sticks to it. But a corporation opens 10 different restaurants, each a different style that they hope will catch the mood and be in fashion, and six months later they shut them down and convert them to the new flavors of the month. The results are just not the same.

Later, E@L took off to meet some other friends while Phooey and I hit a few more spots. It was a good night for me, one in which I managed to not think too much about the rest of what’s going on in my life at the moment … with the exception of an increasing stream of SMS messages from my gf, who is out of town and gets worried when she hears that I’m frequenting bars in a certain district here. But my goal is not to do anything that I can’t tell her about afterwards, and I think I did relatively okay last night.

Here’s a piece I did for the current issue of BC Mag on Corea/McLaughlin, written before the concert, so it’s a review of a CD, along with a hopefully funny tale about seeing Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 70s. My first feature article for BC should be appearing in the next issue. It’s a long time since I wrote something aside from the column and the blog, and my first time to write a piece based on an interview conducted via email, so I hope people like it.

Just watched this week’s episode of No Reservations and it is easily one of my favorite episodes of the show ever. And where is it set? Tokyo? Mumbai? Paris? No. New York City. Bourdain visits a bunch of places that represent the old school New York, “the golden age of Manhattan,” places that are rapidly disappearing. Where does he go?

Esposito’s Pork Shop in Hell’s Kitchen
Manganaro’s Grocery
Keen’s English Chop House
Russ & Daughters Appetizers
Katz’s Delicatessen – back in the days when I drove a taxi, I used to pray that I’d have a fare that would put me near here during lunch time. Those days when my prayers were answered AND I could find a legal parking spot, those were some of the best days in some damned dark times.
Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop
Schaller & Weber
Hop Kee in Chinatown for old school American Chinese food
Le Veau D’Or for 30s style French cuisine

These places are all at least 50 years old, some of them 100. I could think of some places that he missed – but you can’t fit everything into a one hour TV show and besides, some of those places I remember are probably gone now. They do have a shot of McSorley’s – the real 150+ year old McSorleys, my college hangout, not the faux Irish burger joint in Soho here – but they don’t go in. Yonah Schimmel’s ain’t on the show, but one of the guests on the show wears a Yonah Schimmel t-shirt, so that’s sort of something.

The final stop is Sophie’s, a dive bar in the East Village with writer Nick Tosches. Some of the best quotes in this episode come from Tosches – “These days, I mean, there are bars that I go to in the morning, bars that I go to in the afternoon, they’re sort of like, for me, compromise bars, For me, most of New York exists only in my memory, my fading memory.” And, “What disheartens me most about the loss of the New York I knew is like, it seems that the forces that be have no sense about what should have been or should be preserved.”

Jeez, he could be talking about Hong Kong with that last line, couldn’t he?

That’s why I can never go back to New York. The New York that I remember simply doesn’t exist any more. It’s been replaced by plasticized, homogenized, franchised, bastardized places for tourists and kids who simply don’t know any better and don’t care.

And lemme ask you, are there any real bars in Hong Kong? Certainly not in Wanchai or Lan Kwai Fong, where it seems every bar has to have a “theme” or a “gimmick.” Okay, I’m old, but I’m tired of the faux Irish bars and British pubs, the discos where the music is so loud you can’t possibly have a conversation, even with yourself. And the Chinese bars seem filled with karaoke, dice games and cheesy house music, at least the ones I’ve tried. I want something old school, some place where I can sink in, slowly drink myself to death (“Drown in a vat of whiskey? Death, where is thy sting?” – W.C. Fields), like every song I hear on the jukebox, something Mickey Rourke Barfly style (and was it really Bar-fly, or was it barf-ly as in “he was feeling kind of barfly”?).

Like McSorleys. No jukebox. No TV. No pinball. No one sitting there with a fucking laptop computer or looking at their Blackberry every two seconds or texting on their cell phones (okay, it was the 70s, I guess if it’s still there it’s changed at least in that way). No designer burgers. You had a choice between porter and stout, nothing else!, and you grabbed at least a couple of them at a time because they were cheap and the mugs were small, or at least they seemed small. Ham and cheese on rye bread lathered with British mustard and a really sharp bit of onion. You could talk to anyone in there or no one. A single communal bathroom where women had to push past you while you stood at the urinal to get at the booths (well, they didn’t let women in there at all for the first 90 years or so). You’d go in there and time would stand still, time just didn’t exist. You didn’t need all those modern distractions.

I’m not saying Hong Kong bars are bad. And I’ve certainly drank my fill in more than just a couple of them. Guess it’s just my mood tonight.

Penelope Cruz’s Oscar acceptance speech:

I always felt that this ceremony was a moment of unity for the world. Because art, in any form, is, has been and will always be our universal language and we should do everything we can to protect its survival.

From Wikipedia:

“The Serenity Now” is the 159th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the 3rd episode of the 9th and final season. It aired in the U.S. on October 9, 1997. Frank is advised to say “serenity now” aloud every time his blood pressure is in danger of going up, but he yells it instead.

I’m going to be saying it a lot today.

Only bright spot so far on a very bad morning – hard to believe but a previously unheard Beatles track all over the intertubes last week, “Revolution Take 20.” Extremely awesome.

This is the newly-surfaced 11-minute stereo version of Revolution.

This track (presumably not speed corrected) is taken from Revolution… Take Your Knickers Off, a two-CD set from His Master’s Choice, which has just been released.

Not that I delude myself into thinking that this blog is your first choice for news, but in case you haven’t seen it anywhere else, here are the Oscar results. As expected, a big night for Slumdog, winning in 8 of the 10 categories in which it was nominated. Actually, the only thing close to a surprise was Waltz for Bashir not winning foreign film.

Picture – Slumdog Millionaire
Director – Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Actor – Sean Penn, Milk
Actress – Kate Winslet, The Reader
Supporting Actor – Heath Ledger, Dark Knight
Supporting Actress – Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Original Screenplay – Milk
Adapted Screenplay – Slumdog Millionaire

Documentary Feature – Man on Wire
Foreign Language Feature – Departures (Japan)
Animated Feature – Wall-E

Cinematography – Slumdog Millionaire
Art Direction – Benjamin Button
Costume Design – Duchess
Make-Up – Benjamin Button
Visual Effects – Benjamin Button
Sound Editing – Dark Knight
Sound Mixing – Slumdog Millionaire
Editing – Slumdog Millionaire

Original Score – Slumdog Millionaire
Original Song – Jai Ho, Slumdog Millionaire

I haven’t done much of anything yesterday or today and I’m tired. Meanwhile Leonard Cohen just kicked off a North American tour. He played for three hours (including intermission). He didn’t just sit at a piano for 3 hours – “Leonard Cohen kept returning to the stance of a supplicant at the Beacon Theater on Thursday night, dropping to one knee, or both, to intone his wry and ruminative songs. … He literally skipped offstage at the end of each half, and after each of his several encores. He sashayed back on, with the slyest of grins.” Oh, yeah, he’s 74 years old.

Steering clear of my RSS reader for 9 days has left me with this huge backlog of reading. Since Google’s reader doesn’t display numbers over 1,000 (just 1,000+), I think I’ve got somewhere in the range of 3,000 unread items. 406 unread items in CrunchGear, 452 in Engadget, 519 in Gizmodo. 1,000+ in Huffington Post. 1,000+ in new iphone apps. My mouse keeps moving itself to the “mark all read” button. Maybe that’s the only sane way to catch up.

Last night, unable to convince myself to anything remotely useful, I was browsing Facebook, finding people that I haven’t seen or spoken to since high school (grad. 1971) or college (grad. 1975). I’ve sent friend requests to them, they’ve responded, but now what? What do you say to someone you haven’t seen in 37 years and who lives on the other side of the world? “Lotta water under the bridge, eh?”

Reading more about Amazon’s Kindle 2. Since I have a US credit card and US shipping address, I could get one. Last week in Manila, I got so frustrated going into bookstore after bookstore with my little list and coming out with zero each time. I ended up placing two orders with Amazon. The notion of getting instant delivery instead of waiting two weeks, of getting books at a seriously lower price, of being able to tote my entire library along with me wherever I go – it’s extremely attractive. But the price is way wrong – US$359. Sell the thing for $199, make it a loss leader, make back the money on digital book sales (give the razor away for free, make a mint on razor blades) … that’s what I’m waiting for.

Note that despite the band’s best efforts, U2’s new album is already available via the usual sources on the Internet. How did it leak in advance? Apparently their record label accidentally put it up for sale digitally on their New Zealand web site a wee bit early. It was pulled quickly but not quickly enough. And now it’s everywhere. (Sounds quite good, too!) Oh, if you wanna be all legal about it, you can stream it now from their MySpace page.

Dumb joke that you’ve heard a million times already: If they make olive oil from olives and corn oil from corn, what do they make baby oil from?

Top Chef keeps getting better and better; Hell’s Kitchen continues to plumb new depths yet, like a train wreck, I can’t look away.

Last thing I wanna link to for now is this article from last week’s NY Times about the annual ice sculpture festival in Harbin, China. An annual tradition for 35 years, this year management of the festival has been taken over by a company that has decided to license images from Disney. Instead of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, this year there are sculptures of Mickey Mouse and Snow White. And oh, yes, the price of a ticket has doubled since last year. That’s progress for ya.

And here we go with the Boracay pics.

The left hand side of the picture shows West Cove, the right hand side is Diniwid Beach, where we stayed.

This is Diniwid Beach, or what’s left of it. This all used to be sand leading down to the water, but more than half has been washed away in storms the past few years and this wall was built in its place. A friend tells me he heard that the water level is rising here at the rate of 1 cm per year.

First night sunset, shot from our balcony.

My view for the next few days.

Blue skies, crystal clear water, can’t ask for much more, can you?

Plane headed for Caticlan airport, bringing more tourists our way.

This is the bit of Diniwid that remains a beach. This is about the largest crowd that I saw there; most people stick to the more famous White Beach.

That’s the Nami Hotel, cost about double what our place did, the restaurant there is supposed to be quite good but we never made it over there.

Peace, quiet, rest, stress-free.

Nice action shot of my gf.

This was a little weird. This group of Filipino women came down the beach, spotted my gf, they all wanted their picture taken with her. Then with me. Then with the couple sitting a few chairs away. Yes, they stuck around to chat. Yes, we got the life story of everyone in the group. That’s Philippines style for ya.

What a nice place for a day dream.

Another day, another sunset.

We had one rainy day while there. Hung out on our balcony, ran out to swim whenever the rain took a break.

Off in the distance, a ferry.

Yes, that’s right, another day, another sunset.

And the next morning ….

This is where we stayed, Artista Beach Villas. If you want to stay in a small place, family run, where they go out of their way to make you feel like you’re a part of the family, this is the place.

A new place under construction. To the right, Wahine Lounge, where we had lunch every day, and Diniwid Divers.

The water is really calm and also really shallow – you can walk out for quite a distance.

Nice clouds ….

More dramatic clouds

Our final sunset in Boracay … till the next time.

This is going in reverse order for no special reason … Boracay pics will come later on.

At the Caticlan Airport, notice that the air con will be upgraded, which doesn’t help anyone there that particular day, or week, or month, or year? Things move slowly in the Philippines sometimes.

Oh yes, and when they upgrade those air cons, it won’t matter, cause there ain’t no power.

Probably should have availed ourselves of a massage while waiting for our flight, delayed 2 hours.

Actually, I quite liked this handmade art on the wall. Seemed much more meaningful than some generic mass-produced poster. Like someone there actually cared.

And this cute little girl wandering around the waiting room.

In Manila, since we were on the top floor of the Shang, more out-the-window skyline pics.

Friday, second visit to my gf’s family in San Pedro Laguna. She asked them not to invite as many people as last time and mentioned that the videoke machine wasn’t really necessary.

Every family has a crazy uncle. My girlfriend’s family has at least two. This is Uncle Wacky, whipping up a huge batch of pancit for lunch.

I can’t resist the kids’ faces.

Lumpia, Philippine spring rolls, home made, can’t eat enough of these.

We also had chicken adobo, fish, rice. Followed up by cakes from Philippine bakeries Goldilocks and Red Ribbon (I wanted to bring Krispy Kreme but was out-voted, 1 to 1.)

One of my gf’s brothers (she has 2 brothers, 2 sisters) with the latest family addition. (Sister #2 is pregnant so yet another coming soon.)

This little girl, every time the camera is pointed at her, the “V” goes up.

The other crazy uncle, about to go to work. Both uncles helped take care of my gf when she was younger, so when she built her house, she made space for them. (Later she built an addition on the back for her 72 year old aunt.)

Night time shots of Makati. Friday night traffic far as the camera can see.

Also want to mention that on Thursday night we joined a friend for dinner, one who recently moved to the Manila area. This is someone who not only knows his food and his restaurants, he knows all the chefs and managers as well. So obviously we were going to let him pick the place, and he picked a fabulous one.

Chef Laudico – Filipino Bistro is a small restaurant located by the Fort. The chef is doing a modern, almost playful take on classic Filipino dishes. The restaurant itself is really nice, with some classic design touches. The service is first rate and the menu does a great job of explaining the dishes. Sorry I don’t have any photos but I knew we were in for a great meal when the starter, a take on rice noodle rolls that included seared tuna, a hint of wasabi, and other things that covered the full range of textures and flavors, served on six spoons – well, I could have just had a dozen more of those and been very happy.

We noted a dish called “adobo overload”, which if memory serves consisted of adobo rice stuffed with adobo chicken covered with adobo flakes and several other things. We didn’t go for that but my friend went for a Filipino steak, done with Black Angus beef, while my gf went for what is now my favorite crispy pata – this was melt in your mouth goodness, as complete and refined a dish as you could hope to have. My appetite was actually not that strong so I ordered a salad featuring some salmon, which seemed like the lightest thing on the menu. At 300 pesos (about HK$60) this salad could have served two and again, managed to hit all the right notes. It’s another addition to my list of favorite spots in Manila.

Coincidentally, just last week, Anthony Bourdain’s Philippines episode aired in the US. I can’t say for certain but it’s possible this is the first major show to feature Filipino food for an American audience. Now Bourdain loves his pork and when he says the lechon he had in Cebu was the best pork he’s ever had in his life, that’s a pretty meaningful statement. Honestly, the best episode of his show in the current series, which has had some great stuff (loved the Mexico City episode especially).

Friday night, at Gerry’s Grill, I took advantage of what I learned from that show and ordered sizzling sisig for the first time. In case you don’t know, I guess you could summarize this dish by saying it consists of chopped up pig face, fried in oil and garlic and served on a sizzling hot platter. (I can just imagine telling my mother I ate pig face for dinner.) Won’t say this is a new favorite but the crunchy bits were especially nice.

12 years ago when I started going to Manila, I knew nothing of Filipino food and thought I didn’t like it. I ate all my meals in Outback and TGI Fridays. 12 years later, when I go there, I’ve got a few favorite restaurants and dishes and never even think about eating at those American joints. And I’m far happier for it.

This was actually a pretty good visit to Manila, except for two very stressful days in our local office there. Traffic was never bad, weather was nice, food was good, what more could one ask for?

Sunday night the owners of Artista decided to try something new and invited the guests to a rooftop party. “We’ll supply the food, you will have to pay for your drinks.” So a dozen or so of us spent the evening getting happy, talking … how many hotels do that? I got more stories from Jimmy about the history of Boracay – including pirate attacks as recent as 10 years ago!

Monday, some unexpected excitement. We knew coming in that we had been given what the owners described as the “best” room in the hotel and that we had to move out for the last night. A couple was arriving on Monday and they’d reserved and paid for it last June, so not much we can do. I saw them arrive as we were sitting on the beach.

Later, as we were stretched out at Wahine having lunch, they sat down at the next table and said hello. “Hi! You guys got our room!” But I was smiling, wished them a great stay, we chatted a bit and then turned to our food.

I soon regretted the joke. Not five minutes later, one of the guys starts screaming, “Help me! Help me!” I jumped up, ran over to their table. The other guy was in the process of passing out and slipping out of his chair. Filipino but his skin had turned whiter than mine, his eyes rolling up in his head.

I helped grab him and keep him in the chair till a few guys brought a sofa over. We lifted him onto the sofa. The woman who runs the dive shop quickly called the doctor and wheeled over an oxygen tank and mask and strapped it onto him. The first guy started asking for ice but the girls working there were slow to respond, so my gf started translating everything and lighting a fire under them. She went to work rubbing the ice on the guy’s face, chest, hands.

The guy slowly comes back to life. His eyes open, he looks around, sees me and my gf, and the first words out of his mouth are, “We took their room.” Yeah, I felt really thrilled about my feeble joke.

Finally the doctor arrived. It turns out this guy had some food the night before that didn’t agree with him. He’d spent the morning in the toilet, purging from both ends, never ate anything afterwards, flew to Boracay. The sun, the heat, the dehydration, it all took its toll on him. The hotel staff carried him up to his room, the doc stuck an IV in his arm, and we went back to the beach.

That night, they wanted to buy dinner for me and my gf. I couldn’t accept. We didn’t do that much and we didn’t do anything that special, just stuck around and helped as we could. These guys are from L.A. so I told him the company I work for and one said, “Funny, I saw your t-shirt and thought you might be in the industry.” (I was wearing my Kill Bill shirt, but that’s not from my company, I just like the tattoo motif.) Well, I am, sort of, but for how much longer, I have no idea.

Tuesday morning, the goodbyes took almost half an hour. Jimmy, Nenita, the staff, all the friends we’d made, trading phone numbers & email, etc. Speedboat over to Caticlan Airport. We sat in the “pre-boarding” area where the air cons weren’t working. There were signs all over apologizing. “Commercial power” had failed and “local power” was overloaded, they’re “upgrading” so they can put in bigger air cons, thanks for your patience.

To make matters even happier, we saw no plane on the runway. And at 12:50, the time when our flight was scheduled to leave, they announced that our plane would be late, with no further details. I grabbed my smokes and went outside and asked at the counter if they had any more details. Nope. One hour? Two hours? They don’t know.

Go outside, grab a smoke, go back in, put my smokes and lighter on the conveyor belt and get told that I can’t have a lighter with me. It has to go in my check-in luggage. And I don’t have the luggage slips with me. So they escort me out onto the tarmac so I can point out our suitcases and they can slip the lighter in.

Back inside. An hour goes by. I grab my smokes again. I ask the guard who took my lighter if I can borrow a lighter and he grabs one out of the bin for me. I go to the Cebu Pacific counter. Any updates? Nope. Has the plane left Manila? They’re not sure. They’re not sure? Systems are down in Manila and they have no communication. Hello, you have mobile phones? Sorry sir. Okay, what about coupons for some drinks, it’s really hot sitting in that room? Sorry sir. I go back in, give the lighter back to the guard, get some Chummy prawn chips and a Gatorade and settle in.

Finally at 2:30, a Cebu Pacific plane comes in for a landing and 15 minutes later they announce it’s our flight. We’re in the first row. The first row faces backwards. The plane is half empty. I ask the attendant if we can change seats and she says we have to wait till after the plane takes off. Why? I don’t have the energy to ask. She hands me two barf bags.

Anyway, we get to Manila, drop off our bags at the hotel, wash up and head over to the Fort. I’ve got a list of books I want and, sure enough, Fully Booked, the largest branch in Manila, has none of them. The Kindle is starting to look better and better.

Then over to Abe, my current fave restaurant here. Crispy beef ribs, crispy pork adobo, some prawns in olive oil and garlic, some veg, some garlic rice, a mango shake, all is good.

Oh yes, six days in Boracay, I look like a lobster. Red. Bright red. Everywhere. As Woody Allen once said, “I don’t tan, I stroke.”