Sometimes the answer is right in front of my face but I keep missing it. Then suddenly I see it and slap myself upside the head and say “fool!”

I realized this week that the only thing that was still really bothering me was my back. The pain was constant. Couldn’t find a comfortable position for sitting or sleeping. Couldn’t sleep more than two hours at a time even with sleeping pills. I realized that unless this got dealt with, I would never get back to “me.”

I kept asking my doctor for stronger pain killers. He kept upping the ante, finally something with a bit of codeine in it, but wouldn’t agree to morphine. He said if it kept up, next week he’d send me for an x-ray. The massage I got on Monday helped for a day. Hot baths were giving temporary relief. Those heat patches they sell at Watson’s did practically nothing. I knew I couldn’t make it till next week.

And then Thursday night it hit me. I used to go see a chiropractor regularly when I lived in San Francisco and that guy worked miracles for me. I had to find one here. I found the HK Chiropractors’ Association web site and looked at the full list of practitioners. Some had web sites so I clicked on those links.

A lot of the people listed were working in Central, in buildings where I knew their monthly rents were probably more than the gross national economy of Guatemala. And I knew that would figure in their fees.

Finally found one, Causeway Bay. Educated in California, board certified in the US. Waited till start of office hours on Friday morning, called and was able to get an appointment that afternoon.

Did a couple of hours in the office, got some lunch, then over to his office. After questioning me closely and doing a quick physical exam, he sent me two blocks away for x-rays. This place (in East Point Centre, above Sogo) was able to take me right away and got the pictures done within 15 minutes. Back to the chiropractor’s office. He looked at the x-rays and then pulled out a pencil and started drawing on them, explaining to me as he went. Then he got out a little model of a spine and started twisting bits and pieces to show what was going on with mine. Very thorough and complete explanation and it was basically the same thing that the San Francisco chiropractor had told me 10 years ago. And that this was coming back to haunt me now after more than 4 weeks of laying in bed, slumping in chairs … basically I’d done this to myself.

So he gave me an adjustment and I started to feel a little better right away. Then he told me to get a heating pad. I told him I had those patches and he kind of made a face but said I could try those. “Honestly,” I asked him, “would a heating pad be that much better than the patches?” Yes, no doubt.

I told him I didn’t feel strong enough to deal with going through Sogo and he said he thought Watsons or Mannings might sell them. That was his only mistake of the day. I went to a nearby large Watsons and they only sell those chemical patches and hot water bottles. I had to go pick up something at Rock Gallery and remembered an “ergonomics” shop on the top floor of that mall, but they only sold chairs and pillows.

It was getting close to 7 PM, time to pick up my girlfriend and head home, but I wasn’t going to head home without a heating pad. But where to go? Then I remembered a medical supply store on the far western end of Johnston Road. Zoomed over there, praying they don’t close early, they’re still open. “Do you have heating pads?” “So many! What kind do you want?” Got an electric one, medium size. I have a feeling the price they charged was double what this would cost in the US but I wasn’t going to quibble. And while I was there, got a back support cushion for my desk chair at home.

So, ten minutes every hour with the heating pad. And taking that cushion with me for wherever I’m sitting. And the result is that today is the first day in weeks that I’ve had no back pain without the use of drugs. Maybe, dare I say it, I can sleep tonight?

One visit to the chiropractor + 1 heating pad and that’s it? Can it really be so simple? And I completely didn’t think about this for a week, 2 weeks?

So, I’m not 100% yet. Still need rest, the right food, etc. But this is the first time in a week that I feel I’ve made some progress against all this.

So … have a great weekend y’all. I ain’t pushing my luck, staying home and continuing to rest and take care of my back.

Last week we watched Taken. Co-written and produced by French (but I think he wishes he was American) auteur Luc Besson, starring Liam Neeson, this film was number one at the US box office earlier this year, thanks to an effective trailer and lack of competition when it was released. Neeson is ex-CIA. His daughter travels to Paris and within hours of arrival is kidnapped to be sold into the white sex slave trade. Neeson, once an actual actor, becomes a one man demolition squad, taking apart all of Paris in his quest to get his daughter back. It’s the kind of fantasy in which one man with a gun goes up against 10 men and kills them all without receiving so much as a scratch in return. But as grade B action films go, it’s effective and entertaining and at 91 minutes, it gets where it’s going quickly enough. Taken scored all of 40% with “top critics” at Rotten Tomatoes.

Tonight, without thinking about the connection, we watched Spartan. (Actually it was because earlier today we watched Untouchables and I was still in a Mamet mood.) This 2004 film starring Val Kilmer, William H. Macy and Ed O’Neill was written and directed by David Mamet. With a production budget of $20 million, it grossed all of $2 million in the US. It’s difficult to talk about the plot without giving away the myriad twists and turns and surprises, but it’s probably safe to tell you that the President’s daughter is kidnapped and sold into the sex trade. Or did she die in a boating accident off Martha’s Vineyard? The film is brutal, cynical, blunt. It’s very much of a piece with Mamet’s other “con” films including House of Games, Spanish Prisoner, Heist and Redbelt.

As a writer, Mamet has given us Glengarry Glen Ross, Postman Always Rings Twice, Wag the Dog, Ronin, Untouchables (among others).

Spartan scored just 53% with top critics at Rotten Tomatoes, though the NY Times said that it “is a vigorous and engrossing genre exercise that manages the difficult trick of being both logically meticulous and genuinely surprising.”

And it holds up to repeated viewings, too. You might consider renting it one day if you’re in the mood for something different.

Untouchables – Brian De Palma directing. Mamet screenplay. Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro starring. Ennio Morricone score. Costumes by Giorgio Armani! And who else but De Palma would have the balls to steal the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin? I love Vincent Canby’s review in the NY Times when it first opened – “of such entertaining order that it almost redeems Hollywood’s current reputation for idiotic profligacy and total irrelevance.” What would Canby have thought of Taken? Easy enough to guess.

Here’s my current situation …. as most of you know, I’m living in a village house in a small mountain town just outside of Sai Kung town. 2100 square feet plus a patio, two balconies, rooftop and a 700 square foot garden. The village is peaceful and quiet. I have a million dollar view. And plenty of room for my girlfriend, my helper, my two large-ish dogs and all my stuff. I love this house. My lease runs until March of next year and at the landlord’s request does NOT contain the standard two month break-lease clause, though of course there are probably ways around that.

My future …. as of November 1, I will be out of work. I will be getting approximately 1 year’s salary as severance pay. I do not collect the package if I leave before November 1st. I don’t know yet if at that point I will look to get another job along the same lines as what I’ve been doing for the past 23 years and, if I do, will I find something within two months, six months, never. Or, I could up the level of risk by attempting to start my own business.

Of course, one of the things I’m thinking about is economizing. What I can cut out of my life and reduce my monthly overhead. One thing of course is rent.

I’ve been looking at ads and seeing that, thanks to a down economy, I could get 2 floors (1400 square feet) in a village house for approximately half the rent I’m paying now. Going that route, I’d need to come up with two months’ rent for security deposit, 1/2 months’ rent for the realtor, and probably spend somewhere around $10k on the move. All my stuff won’t fit into 1400 square feet – I’d have to consider a combination of selling, donating and storing a large part of it. And that’s optimistically hoping that my landlord would go along with letting me out of the lease early – calling her “kookie” would be putting it mildly, calling her unbalanced might not be an overstatement, and I’ve got no idea how she’d react to this.

So on the one hand, it would kill me to get rid of stuff and move out of a house I love and then get lucky and find another job at the same income level within a matter of months. On the other hand, it would kill me to be paying out the rent in this house month after month and watch my savings dwindle as a fruitless job search continues.

So, hope for the best or expect the worst? Should I stay or should I go?

OR …. wait till November gets closer so I can judge the state of the economy and make a more informed decision?

Now that I’m in recovery mode, I have to be more careful about what I eat. I do have this tendency to be good for a few weeks and then fall back into old habits, but this time I’ve got some help and support and maybe I’ll do better.

I missed this post at Huffington Post – 33 of the Healthiest Foods on Earth – but found it eventually via Lifehacker.

Did you know that blueberries help prevent urinary tract infection? That red bell peppers can help prevent sunburn as well as reducing the risk of several types of cancer? Kiwis (the fruit, not people from NZ) lowers the risk of blood clots? Papaya reduces the risk of lung cancer and enhances fat burning?

Yeah, you probably all knew it, I’m probably the last one to find out. But right now, sitting in front of the computer, instead of a box of Chips Ahoy sitting within easy reach, I’ve got a plate of blueberries that I’ve just about devoured.

My dad swore by vitamin pills. He had a whole shelf full of books on the subject and took what seemed like dozens of pills every morning. Now scientists are starting to find that if you extract the vitamins from food and serve them in pill form, it may not do all that much good, that it’s not just the vitamins themselves but the natural interaction with other substances in the fruits and vegetables that help bring about the goodness.

And one thing I love about Hong Kong is the wide variety of fruits and vegetables available here and how cheap most of them are. When I was growing up, I never ate a fresh vegetable; everything my mother cooked came out of a can or a freezer bag. When you’re 5 years old and the only meals you eat are cooked by your mom, of course she’s the best cook on earth. In my case, my mother’s cooking was so bad that as soon as my father retired, he kicked her out of the kitchen and took over all the family cooking. And now I know that it takes the same amount of time and effort to prepare a fresh vegetable as it does to open a can and put that washed out shit into a pot and heat it up.

I learned long ago that in Hong Kong, you don’t buy your fresh produce from Park ‘n Slop or Hellcome. Their produce sections are the saddest things on earth. Or what? Go to City Super and buy those imported individually wrapped grapes for a thousand dollars a bunch? No, you go to the local wet market and the family in that little 10 foot stall lives and dies on the quality of the produce they’re selling – and the price is cheaper too. Sai Kung has the added benefit of several independent produce shops – no signs over the doors, a metal gate that rolls down at night, but during the day, boxes of beautiful fresh stuff priced right.

So I’m learning and I’m trying.

So … I know I’m not 100% yet. I can still feel my liver bulging through my skin. My right ankle and foot remain somewhat swollen. But if I didn’t get out of the house, I knew I was about to turn violent. Sorry if this has turned into the “Spike is sick” blog but I’m working on getting better, believe me!

So over to the office. People stopped by and stood in the doorway, some almost afraid to talk to me, wondering if I was alive. Lunch time, I didn’t feel strong enough to walk anywhere. Unfortunately the closest place to the office is DeliFrance, a place that I almost religiously avoid. I picked something almost at random from the brightly colored poster on the wall, “gammon ham with cheese on a croissant.” This is “Always French! Always Fresh!” apparently. One slice of ham. One slice of American cheese. One slice of tomato. A bit of wilted lettuce. No mustard, mayo, nothing. $39 bucks! People like this stuff?

Since I’d been working from home all last week, I just needed a couple of hours to sign and approve everything stacked up and sort of clear out my inbox, filing away about a hundred messages I’d already read and responded to. That was all I could take for one day.

Since my back and leg have been killing me, I thought I’d mark my first day out with a massage and fortunately, Lina over at Cherdchai was available. This woman is the goddess of Thai massage. I don’t think she’s an inch over 5 feet tall and can’t possibly weigh more than 100 pounds, yet she can hoist my legs in the air over her head and twist my back and crack my spine like no one else. I pointed at the places that hurt and she dived right in and went to work. I think I’ve been seeing her for three years now. “What happened to you?” she asked? What did she mean? “Usually your body is very strong, but today it’s like a different person.” That’s what a month of lying in bed will do to you. I tried to explain about my liver problem and when she ran her hand across my stomach and felt my swollen liver, she had a look of shock and surprise on her face. Yeah, I’m sick.

After that, just to make me feel a little better and look slightly more human, a long overdue haircut. And then picked up some take-away and slowly made my way home.

Tonight, so far at least, my back’s not hurting.

Today’s listening was the Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood double live CD from last year’s 3 night stand at Madison Square Garden. I didn’t expect anything revelatory from it, just something nice and comfortable. The song selection is a bit odd in spots (I really don’t need to hear Winwood sing “Georgia on My Mind”) but I gotta say that this set features some of the finest guitar playing that Clapton has released in years. Listen to him on “Double Trouble” and it’ll take you right back to the “Clapton is God” days. Well, it did for me anyway.

People who care about this sort of thing are expressing surprise and shock that Kris Allen and not Adam Lambert won American Idol. I wish I could have placed a bet on the outcome, I would have put whatever I could scrounge up on Allen.

Last week, when Gokey was eliminated, they announced that out of 65 million votes cast, Allen and Lambert were less than a million votes apart. It seemed pretty clear that whomever managed to attract the Gokey vote would win.

And here’s the thing. Lambert is from California, his background is in touring companies of Broadway shows. While he’s been coy about his sexuality, he projects an androgynous image, especially in terms of the heavy make-up he constantly wears.

Allen is middle America, squeaky clean, married. And he’s done international missionary work for his church. Gokey is a church musical director. Clearly the majority of his supporters were going to fall in behind Allen.

It really doesn’t matter. Over the previous 7 seasons, only two winners seem to have gone on to lasting musical careers. And some of the biggest successes have come from contestants who didn’t win – does the name Jennifer Hudson ring a bell? Chris Daughtry?

So they’re both gonna have a further shot. They’ll both get to do records. How long either of them will stick around, will be remembered 5 years from now, that’s an open question.

Speaking of a star-studded show, if you didn’t watch the finale, the guests included Queen, Rod Stewart, KISS, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Martin, Black Eyed Peas, Jason Mraz, Queen Latifah, Keith Urban, Lionel Richie, Carlos Santana. Of course all of them (except, oddly, Stewart) appeared in duets with contestants. But the show moved along at a pretty zippy pace and had the veritable “something for everyone.”

I suspect that when all is said and done, the American Idol finale will be the highest rated regular series broadcast of the year and, if nothing else, nice that the highest rated show was a music show.

In U.S. news today …. four people arrested in a domestic terrorism plot. These subhumans planned to bomb two synagogues in The Bronx and then shoot down military planes from outside an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York.

Last night they were arrested after parking cars which they thought were filled with bombs outside of two Jewish temples – the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Center. However, the group had been infiltrated by the FBI a year ago and the bombs in the cars were fake.

The four men arrested are all Muslims and at least 3 of the 4 are U.S. citizens. One of them, of Afghan descent, told police that he was upset about the war in Afghanistan and wanted to do something against America and that the “best target was already hit,” meaning of course the World Trade Center.

This hits me on a personal level because my first wedding was at the Riverdale Temple; I know the place well.

Results of the latest blood tests are in and while the numbers aren’t in the normal range yet, they are headed there. The doctor also ran some function tests on my prostate – because I’m peeing every hour – and those thank goodness are within what is considered normal. With my appetite back to normal, I’m feeling stronger and more alert every day.

On the other hand, I can’t get a decent amount of sleep. In part, that’s from waking up every hour to pee. But also continued lower back pain makes it almost impossible for me to find a comfortable position for sleeping – I’ve tried every different position, combinations of pillows, towels, propping up this, boosting that – and different pain killers and at most I’m getting three hours of sleep at a stretch, which of course is taking its toll. Add to that the fact that both of my feet and ankles have swelled up (more noticeably the right one), a side effect of hepatitis my doctor informs me. Doesn’t hurt so much but looks awful.

This is now my 4th week of being sick. I’m sick of being sick, pardon the triteness of that. The only benefit is that my gf has been going all out on the cooking. Two nights ago a wonderful chicken soup with pasta and veggies (soup stock made from scratch) and last night an amazingly tasty Filipino-style beef stew. Can’t wait to see what she’s cooking up tonight.

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I loved all the comments I got from my previous pizza post. Amazing that so many people here feel so passionate about pizza and that there is so little here to satisfy that craving.

Coincidentally, GQ’s new issue has a feature article by food critic Alan Richman on the 25 best pizzas in the US. (All of the above images come from that article.)

I think non-Americans might take issue with his opening statement:

Italians are wrong. Not about cars or suits. About pizza, and they’re not entirely mistaken about that, only about crusts and buffalo-milk mozzarella. They’ve got the tomato part right. Pizza was created by the Italians—or maybe by the Greeks, who brought it to Naples, but let’s not pile on the bad news. Right now it justly belongs to us. We care more about it. We eat more of it, and unlike the Italians, we appreciate it at dinner, at lunch, and at breakfast, when we have it cold, standing up, to make hangovers go away. Italians don’t really understand pizza. They think of it as knife-and-fork food, best after the sun goes down.

Pizza isn’t as fundamental to Italy as it is to America. Over there, it plays a secondary role to pasta, risotto, and polenta. To be candid, I think they could do without it. Not us. Over here, it’s one of the few foreign foods we’ve embraced wholeheartedly, made entirely our own.

Anyway, Richman sampled 386 pizzas at 109 different pizzerias across the U.S. Now there’s a writing assignment!

I tried Polish pizza in Chicago (not bad, except for the nearly raw egg on top), Indian pizza in San Francisco (pretty good, although reheated chicken dries out badly, despite the tikka masala sauce), Turkish pizza in New York (invariably called “pitza” and, because it’s made with pita dough, rather crackly), and Korean pizza in Los Angeles. (The Korean-style Hanchi Gold pie was topped with spicy bean paste, sweet-potato mousse, ground beef, onion, bell pepper, olives, corn, mushrooms, edamame, jalapeño, bacon, Cheddar cheese, marinated calamari, sour cream, garlic, and parsley, and when you have that much piled on, it’s hard to tell the potato mousse from the sour cream.)

Richman’s #1 choice is Great Lake in Chicago (sigh), a place where the Polish/Czech co-owner is also the pizza maker. At least he ranked New York as the #1 pizza city in the U.S. Sadly, I read through the list and realized I have only been to one of those places (Famous Joe’s in NYC, right down the block from the CD store I used to own, so I went there a lot) – and the odds that I’ll get to any of the others are fairly remote.

I was reading about a Burger of the Month club in New York, where each month a small group goes to an agreed upon restaurant to try the burger and then blog about the results and keep a list of rankings. Maybe we should do that in Hong Kong? Have a pizza of the month club & a burger of the month club?

Danger Mouse (aka one half of Gnarls Barkley) and Sparklehorse collaborated on an album called Dark Night of the Soul. Guest vocalists on the 13 song album include Wayne Coyne (of Flaming Lips), Black Francis, Iggy Pop, Gruff Rhys, Julian Casablancas, Nina Persson and Vic Chestnutt. Packaging was to include a 100+ page book of photographs by David Lynch, inspired by the music.

Well, Buddha knows why, but EMI Records has decided to scrap the release of the record. Contractual issues? Uncleared samples? Is it really scrapped or on indefinite hiatus? No one’s saying.

So Danger Mouse has decided to go ahead with the release anyway, in a sense. So you can buy the package, but instead of the album inside, there will be a blank CD-R labelled, “‘For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.”

The album has been streaming on the NPR web site and is, of course, available via the usual download sources.

I’m listening to it now and it fucking rules. Will probably buy the “CD” for the book of Lynch photos.

Sleeping’s not gonna be easy tonight, searching for distractions.

#1 – NBC is milking the season finale of 30 Rock for all its worth. Last week Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) finally found his father (Alan Alda) only to find out that he’s in need of a kidney. Rather than give up one of this own, he stages a benefit concert that’s a wonderful parody of We Are the World. Elvis Costello refuses to play along until Jack unveils his trump card – “Aren’t you really Declan McManus, international art thief?” Also along for Kidney Now! are … get this combination …. Steve Earle, Clay Aiken, Sheryl Crow, Beastie Boys, Michael McDonald, Moby, Mary J Blige, Norah Jones, Talib Kweli, Cyndi Lauper, Rhett Miller, Wyclef Jean and a whole bunch more.

Elvis: Listen, when someone starts talking in the middle of a song you know it’s serious.
Mary J: So give Milton a kidney. We all believe in this cause so much we’re doing it for free. Except for Sheryl.
Sheryl: That’s right. I’m the only one getting paid.
Norah: And only three of us are drunk.
McDonald: Milton Greene needs a kidney. Just like I need this beard. You don’t want to know what’s under here.
(Don’t recognize this guy): And while you don’t have two beards you do have two kidneys. Think of it this way: if I had two dollars, I’d give you one, wouldn’t I?
Cyndi: I’m one of the drunk ones!

#2 – This was a fascinating article, big excerpt from an upcoming book. My Personal Credit Crisis by Edmund L. Andrews. Andrews was one of those people who should have known better – an economics reporter for the New York Times. Who took a mortgage he couldn’t afford because he could get it and he was sure that things would work out.

The panic attack hit me around 2 a.m. on Patty’s birthday. It was Oct. 17, 2007, and I was lying in bed obsessing over bills that couldn’t be postponed and the money we didn’t have to pay them. Like many of my predawn fear cascades, this one had its start with a specific unpaid bill: $240 in traffic tickets — $140 for speeding, $50 each for expired tags and inspection. The fines would double if we didn’t pay them in less than a week. The tickets had uncorked the bottle on all the other “must pays”: the $400 electric bill with the cutoff date printed in red; the $220 cable/telephone/Internet bill for the past two months; the MasterCard and American Express bills — at least one of which had to be brought current or I wouldn’t even be able to travel for work. And of course, there was the $3,271 mortgage payment.

Oh yes, his monthly pay after taxes, alimony and child support was about $2,700 and his wife was out of work.