Oh my head...

Well, the pub crawl went off without a hitch. Now, four or five pubs later I'm left feeling pretty crappy, and I've got a job interview at the Slainte in a couple of hours. The Slainte is an irish pub downtown that gets quite busy during the winter months. I'm not looking for much really....I don't want much responsibility at all, so it would be ideal to be a bar runner for a bit.

Time to shower now.
cheers
brendan

Pub Crawl Tonight Baby!!

I'm waiting now to go out our local/massive thirft shop, where I spend much of my allowance when I was younger. Value Village is the perfect place to find random t-shirts and the funkiest and funky pants. It's the sort of place where clothing finds a home to either those who can't afford to buy new clothes, or the young and lively who choose to not where all the big brands.

Friday night was very busy at the harrington house. From what I can remember I did nothing particularily special all day......I think I just hung around relaxing, reading and playing guitar. At night, however, my sister caroline came back from sarnia for the weekend. She's being working up there doing a co-op semester with esso canada, and still has to the 23rd before her contract is up. Caroline arrived home at about half five, and I quickly helped her move her stuff in the spare room, knowing that the other two would be home shortly. Steph and Josh came home about half an hour later with a load of bags, and the house quickly got much noisier. I think the last time all of us were together must have been four or five years ago. I stayed at home for an hour until my ride knocked on the door.

I bought a ticket to see Iron and Wine and Calexico at the Docks in toronto a few days earlier. Luckly an old friend, Steph say my msn name, which announced my wanting to see Iron and Wine...and also with good chance she was coming back from kingston the same weekend of the show. The last time I met Steph was probably the staircase a couple of summers ago, but neither of us could remember for sure.

Anyway, after getting a bit lost, and a call to montreal for someone to mapquest us back on track, we finally managed to find the docks. We hadn't missed much at all, as the show must have kicked off a bit later than schedualed. The Docks, for anyone who's never been there before, is in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, when you're driving down towards it's general area the buildings fall away and you can't help but feel you just purchased a joke ticket to a show thats never going to happen. Alas, after driving into the abyss for a while you do indeed reach the Docks.

It was an alright venue, though not particularly suiting for a fairly quiet artist like Iron and Wine. I had a lovely time watching a couple of bands, including one very unexpected though delightfully entertaining mexican artist. He must have been in his late forties, had long aging dark hair tied into a pony tail, and was boyterious and flamboyant to say the least. Awesome.

Saturday was steph's birthday, and caroline and I shared a laugh when we both looked at eachother with somewhat puzzeled faces asking, "did you get her anything for her birthday?" Of course the answer was, No. haha, It didn't even cross my mind to buy anything for my big sis's birthday. Oh well. I don't think she cared or even noticed. We had a great dinner that night, with the main course being my mother's famous home made lasagne. Steph had some of her friends come over for the festivities and it was a great night, full of booze, music and food.

Lauren and her boyfriend Ryan came over as well, which was great because I hadn't seen Ms. L in ages, and Ryan for much longer. I know the both of them from highschool though I never much spoke to Ryan, he's a nice guy, and the two of them get along famously. Ryan was driving so he had a drink, whilst lauren and I plentifully filled our wine glasses again and again. We caught up as best as we could. It's always tricky answering the question, "so, what have you been up to during the past year?" giving them enough detail to satisfy their query. I never feel much like talking about what I've been doing in Hong Kong, because really, no matter where you are it's always the same sort of routine. Time keeps on kicking, and before you know it your unpacking your sweaters for a visit home.

Last night I went out with Steph and Josh to the Casbah to watch a great local talent, Caribou. It's a three piece act but I think it's mainly just the one dude, who does most of the work. There were two opening acts as well. The first was a waterloo/dundas based act called Winter Equinox. They had a big post rock mellow flavour that did them well, though I wasn't too impressed by their whole set. The first two songs involved a lot of changing of instruments that gave me an ametuer choppy feel. The other tunes were much better, but they still just followed your standard song pattern of big, quiet, big, bang! or quiet, big, bang, quiet. Up and down, up and down, up and down.
The next act called, Holy Fuck were really good. The lead fella feed off his own querky, "i've done too much crystal meth" sort of stage presents, but all in all they did make a very interesting tune.
Crap, it's time to go to the wonderful value village.
So, to shorten this one up a bit, Caribou was fucking great, and I had the pleasure of running into my friend from hong kong, anna!! It was so nice seeing her again, and she looked great with her cool new short hairdo.

Alright, time to head out.
Cheers!
brendan.

I love Nintendo

If you walk so quietly...

I arrived back in Canada on Friday night. I've been meaning to update my blog during these past two days, but I haven't been able to get myself to sit down, in front of the computer until now.

First to report......It's cold here....really cold. I'm not at all used to the harsh winter winds, or the long waits for the bus. Hong Kong has made me soft. I can only imagine how fun it's going to be to tease Josh once he and Steph get here on this coming Friday.

My plane ride from Hong Kong was actually a great one. I never thought I'd ever have a good time flying in a place for sixteen straight hours, but then again, I have never had four seats all to myself before. I was able to lay down fairly comfortably with two pillows, and a blanket to keep me extra comfortable. Kit Ming, thankfully, got a hold of some natural sleep aids, which helped me just a little bit. I can never sleep on planes (not that I sleep much now anyway). These little blue pills seemed to give me just enough of a nudge to push me into the wonderful land of sleep. I think I got about four hours of rest throughout the flight.

My father (Pop's) met me in Toronto airport, and it didn't take us too long to make it back into Hamilton. I remember experiencing a lot more culture shock when I last returned in the summer of 2004. This time the dramatic change of scenery didn't seem too odd at all. I'm surprised at how much of my local geography I've become unfamiliar with, such as street names, and in general the location of a lot of bus stops.

Right now, I'm sitting upstairs listening to the sounds of my mum doing some christmas baking, while pop's and my brother, Ian, figure out how to record tv shows on our complicated cable box, without using a tape.

Friday night I spent relaxing at home, doing nothing in particular. I sat with pop's listening to my band Doublethinks' live recording, from our show last Wednesday. It was nice to just sit back not doing much of anything.

As I was going to bed Friday night I could feel the characteristic signs of my stupid reoccurring throat problem. So, I took a few antibiotic pills from my stash and lay down in my cold, cold bed.
I didn't do anything on Saturday but stay up late, play guitar, and eat a lot of delicious home cooked food.
Sunday night I met up with two hongkongy friends, ye ol' Melissa and the ever pleasant Laura at the Snooty Fox for some karaoke. It was a very nice night.
Before I left for the snooty fox I found Annie's old phone number and hoped that she was home. She was working on a piece for her jazz harmony class that was due the next day. We spoke for maybe ten minutes, having no trouble what so ever picking up conversation as if no time at all had passed. I told her about going down to the Fox and she said that she'd pop in, as long as she finished the piece she was working on.
I didn't drink much at all that night. I think I had about four pints over four hours. Annie did show up sometime around midnight and joined myself and a few of Melissa’s mates who drove down from Bolton for the night. Everyone was friendly and there was a carefree, comfortable atmosphere throughout the night.
I stayed at Mel's place in westdale, where she lives with three other uni mates. I woke up a lot during the night, but I didn't actually rouse from bed until Mel came back from her first class at half two. We hung out in her room for a bit, and then I took the bus just down the street from her place.

I was sitting on the bus for about three stops past, when a bunch of students from Columbia International College came on. Columbia's student body is pretty much ninety percent Hong Kong based. I was way too happy to hear cantonese again. It felt like a slice of home. After listening in to bits of a conversation that two people were having in front of my seat, I build up the courage to talk to them. I tapped the young guy on the arm, looking up at him from my seat and asked, "Lei hi mm hi Heung Gong yen a?"
Let me just say....I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH CLASSICALY DUMBFOUNDED FACES IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! It was so good. The guy I asked the question, "are you from Hong Kong?" was just gawking at me with a half open mouth, while the girl he was previously talking to stood there with nearly the exact same expression. Once again....IT WAS SO GOOD. The girl was the first to recover enough to answer my question, which she thankfully did in cantonese. I spoke to them for about ten minutes before the bus came to their stop, and most of our conversation was in cantonese, with partial bits of english to clarify some bits of my makeshift conversational skills. I ended speaking to three people by the end of the ride, and they were all genuinely nice people. They seemed eager to help me practice my canto, and I complimented the one girl on her english speaking abilities.
Definitely the best bus ride I've ever had in Hamilton.

Last night I got a call from CJ, and though I didn't at all want to leave my lovely warm house, I really wanted to see Carla. So, we agreed to meet at King and James st downtown for half ten. Being unfamiliar with the current bus times I ended up getting the 22 ottawa far too early, which resulted in my sitting on a cold bench for twenty minutes, keeping a look out for CJ. We hit up the closest warm place we could think of that was nearby, which, not so surprisingly, turned out to be a Tim Hortons. We didn't stay too long though. We ended up going back to her fairly new apartment that she shares with a friend Darcy, and another fella whom I don't know, Mike. Neither of them were home when we got there, so she gave me a little tour, and we made ourselves comfortable in front of a game of checkers. Checkers, by the way, is a terribly uninteresting game. Checkers is Chess for Squirrels. We originally wanted to play chess, but only half the pieces were in the drawer. Boo.
Darcy came home later in the night, and hung out with us, eating peanuts and goofing around for a couple of hours, before hitting the ol' dusty trail. CJ and I both hit the hay in the early morning, and grabbed a few hours rest before waking up at eight. She had things to do, and I was happy to be up early, depriving myself of sleep....I'm hoping that such choices will make me tired enough to put me to sleep at a decent hour tonight.
Speaking of tonight, I have no plans at all. I was thinking about heading down to the Casbah for a couple of solo drinks. They used to have this gig called, "Record Geeks Unite" every Tuesday in the lounge, just off of the casbah. That was always a great gig, having different people come up and spin for a bit. I used to love the casbah. I hope it hasn't changed much during the past thirteen months. They always had some local artists' work hanging from the walls, and the people were layed back and friendly.

That's it for now though. I'll update again soon, though I can't promise anything terribly interesting.

Cheers
Brendan

Back in the great white north 

An interesting conversation

"And that's where I was found, five days after I hit the ground."
Listening to Hayden always makes me think of two things. Hamilton and my song writing.

Not twenty minutes ago I said goodbye to a new friend, whom I'll likely never see again in my life. I was meant to meet Crystal last night, forgetting that I already had a date with kit ming, to go to temple street night market, I had to cancel our plans. We managed to reschedual another meeting today for lunch, which I've just returned from.
I ate before meeting her, as I was a bit shaky, having not eaten all morning, and we weren't meant to meet in quarry bay 'til quarter past one. After a quick pasta lunch with an iced cappacino with rob, I took the train with plenty of time to spare. I found a nice spot outside to sit and read my book, Norwegian Wood, by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Murakami does an excellent job of interpretting the lives of slightly askew young adults. Being with crystal seemed like one of those slightly odd meetings that I sometimes read about in novels. Norwegian Wood is full of those encounters. I'm not sure if I was nervous. Maybe it was a combination of a lack of alcohol, and a little too much coffee.

When we met I was sitting outside reading my book, and enjoying a good loud song by, every time I die. She said that she wasn't very hungry, and asked if I wouldn't mind grabbing a coffee with her from a nearby shop.
We spoke of relationships for a short while, but we had to change to something else, as I'm not sure where I stand on the topic. And she seemed to not understand my semi developed philosophy either. She said that I sounded like a man a couple of times. I'm not sure what was meant be that. I really don't know.
I told her about my highschool graduation, and how I wound up in the hospital with a bad case of alcohol posioning. To this day, my stomach is still really sensitive when I drink. If I stick to wine, or beer then I'm alright, but anything else leaves me in pain for the next couple of days.
I had mentioned last thursday that I have a big thing for asian girls, and she seemed pretty interested in discussing the topic today. Again, I wasn't able to give her a satisfactory explanation. Maybe it's the skin colour, maybe the hair. I told her I knew for certain that it wasn't the docile, compliant, sort of nature that's highly evident in alot of asian women. I like to be challenged. I don't want someone who'll always do what I feel like doing, and relys on me for comfort and company. I need flavour in my conversations, or else my life just glides into a too comfortable state, and my mind drifts away to other matters that aren't productive to think about. I think that's why I love meeting new people so much. Every time I go out drinking with friends, I meet new people with complete ease, and have a great time getting to know someone for just one evening. I've met so many people in Hong Kong, and for one evening shared with them nothing but fun and games, through a wide array conversations.

I was on lamma yesterday visiting my sister, Steph. She really wanted to go for a walk, but I was feeling pretty fatigued because a lack of sleep, so we went down to a small beach that hardly anyone visits. We sat in the sand looking out at the water, watching the occasional fish jump out of the water, probably trying to escape a larger, hungry fish. I'm not sure when it started, but for the past several meetings with Steph we've had some really great talks, that we never had before. Maybe the opportunity just wasn't there before; maybe it's due to what we've been reading lately. My mind was mainly occupied with identity.
We have so many identities, that seem to only restrict freedoms. I'm so used to saying, "I'm a Canadian; I'm an artist; I'm a teacher; I'm a musician." But I'm not any of these things. These are just things that I happen to do, or happen to appently be part of. What does it matter if I called a Canadian, or an American? It seems strange to me to say that I belong to a certain chunk of the earth, just because I happened to be born there. I know this is pretty fucking obvious, but in all ariel views of the earth I've ever seen, not once did I notice big black lines carving up the ground according to whatever government happens to be in place. These titles don't matter.....they're useless to whatever it means to be and exist. There are so many boundries and areas around the world that don't really make much sense. Does anyone really consider Russia as being part of asia? Europe, Asia, Africa, the middle east.... it's all connected.
Anyway, I'm loosing my train of thought now.
There are so many titles and questions from childhood, like, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"......It would be great if I had the clarity, and sense of understanding that I think I have now. I would have said something like this to the teacher, "Sorry miss, I don't understand.... What do I want to be? Well, I'm me already, so why do I have to be something else when I get bigger?"
My job isn't who I am, it's just what I do. There's a great bit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, when having been through a long series of dramatic changes in size, she's not sure what or who she is. She questions whether she's else from school, but says that she couldn't possibly be, because that other girl has such terribly long, curly hair. Anyway, it's a really funny scene.
I'd really like to continue a friendship with crystal, but I don't think she's so interested. There's something attractive about having a conversation with someone, when you really have to push to speak. I'm not sure how to express it....I didn't feel bored, tense, or awkward in any way...it was just interesting.
It was simply, different for me. Any I'd like to have the opportunity to look into it more.

This will likely be my last post in Hong Kong for a while, as I have a flight to return back to canada this friday. I should be back for about six weeks, in which time I'll complete a tefl course, and catch up with some old friends.

I look forward to seeing everyone again.

booya
brendan

See reverse side for details

The internet at my work has been down for a while, so this is the first opportunity I've had to write a new entry. I really enjoy writing, but it's easy to fall out of habit, even when concerning things I favour. So, I'm going to keep trying to update this here blog-o-mine in hopes that it keeps my fingers moving, and my pen scrawling.

Where to start?..... ah yes...
Thursday turned out to be a wonderful day. I spent the morning sleeping, because I had been up so late, and then headed to kit ming's place in ma on shan, for about five o'clock. She needed my help with a school project that her, and a few classmates had been working on. My job was to read over most of a 3000 word paper, and correct any errors should there be any. Oh yeah, there were errors alright. It took me a while but I really had fun doing homework again. For those of you who've known me since highschool, you probably remember that my grammer and spelling abilities were terrible. Well, it seems that two years of teaching english to chinese kids has done wonders for my grammer skills. I finished up at kit ming's around ten o'clock, and headed off for the train station. Whilst working on rewriting a few pages I was surprised to get several phone calls, from friends asking me if I wanted to come out for a drink. I don't usually get unexpected invitations to socialize. I ended meeting my lovely sis, steph, at c-club in lan kwai fong, but on the way there I ran into a new friend who I had only met one time previously.

I met Crystal a couple of weeks ago at the fringe club. I was there with a few others checking out my mate luke's solo act. Crystal is a friend of my mate Greg, thus we were loosely introduced. We seemed to get along really well that night, so we exchanged phone numbers under the guise of going out to do some street art. I actually didn't even notice her, though I walked right by her and her friend Bram. They were apparently waiting for someone, who turned out to be a no show, so they came along to c-club to join the gang. The gang being, the three of us plus, steph josh amra jill and her boyfriend adam. Drinks were cheap, and it wasn't too busy at all. Generally a great atmosphere. After about an hour Crystal and I both needed to go to 7-11, and by the time she finished a couple of cigs, the folks in c-club were taking off to dragon i. Crystal bram and I stood around on the street for a while, talking about music and whatever else happened to develope. Bram having an early morning meeting the next day, had to take off home, which left my new compadre and I standing about, thinking of how to entertain the evening. At that point I was inclined to cheap wine, and she to chain smoking. So, we went back down to sev's, bought the cheapest bottle of red, and a pack of marlborough lights.

Not too far off, we found a darkened niche of a closed cosmetics shop. It had comfortable enough steps, a wall to lean against, and nearby construction lights flashing out of sync provided the ambiance. It had been so long since I last bummed it out with some cheap booze, with someone I barely knew. I've always loved that sort of situation, where conversation has no end because you've anything and everything to discuss. The timeline at this point gets a little lost, as we both jabbered on (once again) about music, life direction, and a slew of authors. At some point during the night Crystal asked me if she could stain my jeans with some red wine, which surprised me a bit. Her wanting to pour wine on my pants didn't surprise me though, it was that she actually asked if she could do it. Rob and I, once upon a time, poured beer over each other's heads, and ming on a few occasions has poured champange all over my shirt. Clearly I had no objection to her request. Sadly, however, there's barely a stain on me. The only visible reminder of the act is a slightly darkened patch on my right pant leg. I was hopeing for much more.
After an unmeasurable amount of time we started wandering around towards sheung wan, looking for a more scenic place to carry out the night's festivities.
-----------------------------------------------
This is a good time to mention that I've been reading and writing more than ever, and I think the result is my dragging out every detail of an evening into the sunlight, and beating it over the head 'til it confesses it's sins.
This would also be a good time to mention an interesting little fact, that I learned from my good friend Osho, the other day. The root of the word, 'sin' means, forgetfullness, and the original meaning of the word, 'paradise' means, walled garden.
-------------------------

Realizing that no one will likely read this far into my blog, I'm going to cut the story short, and not go into every last detail.

Back to the story......
Crystal and I ended up sobering up, talking in complete honestly along the beautiful sheung wan harbour front. With our legs dangling over the water, we realized that it was nearly 6am and just about time to go home. I wasn't even tired actually. I felt obligated to sleep though, seeing as I had to work the next day.

Friday marked the beginning of the end. I finished my last friday ever at interkids, and celebrated by having a few pints at the whiskey priest, with rob and dave. We played jenga, and I actually got home at the resonable hour of one o'clock.

Saturday was easy breezy lemon squeezy. All seven of my classes went famously. I was in a good mood all day, thinking about how I'd never see any of my naughty students again. The one's I like are young enough, that they'll never remember I ever taught them. Some of the older ones asked for my canadian contact info, and my email address, which I gladly supplied.
Saturday night Rob and I chose to rally the troops at the woodstone. A lot of our friends showed up, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Sunday was spent in a very relaxing manor. Kit Ming and I woke up, had another pillow fight, and then we watched 'I heart huckabees' with shaun. We were both starving after the movie, so we headed out for something to eat. We ended up walking around, eating indian samosas and banana parathas for ages before we settled into a lovely/inexpensive soup noodle shop.
The band got together for three hours in the evening to make some noise in the studio. Ander's made great use of his new iriver, with the help of a great little recording mic, we put down some nice live material, and worked on a few beats that sounded awesome. We'll have one last practice, and then a gig this coming wednesday at the Wanch in wan chai.

Today is my last monday, and I've only one more lesson to go. My next class is good fun. The kids are only enough that we can just talk, and work on achieveing a natural, confident flow with their english.
It must be so hard to be a student in Hong Kong. There's so much pressure on children to go beyond all parental, and social expectations. I wish parents would realise that not every child can, or should be a doctor or a lawyer. Things would go seriously rye if such became the case.

Tonight should be good. Rob and I are meeting our old friend Nancy, whom we rarely see for dinner. Then.........oh yes.......then........we go to bonkers.
That's right!! It's been ages since I last went to bonkers. It was the first place all the elta's ever got properly pissed at, when we came to hong kong. I'll be sure to have a moment of silence before tasting my first pint.

Cheers!
brendan (the warrior geek) harrington

Captain's Log: stardate 49361.5

Doublethinks' Yellow Ruby is now available for download at.....

www.doublethinks.com

Introduction:
This entry took place over two days, as I wasn't able to post yesterday because of sudden internet problem at work.

wednesday 22nd: A day of music and relaxation
I did very well for myself yesterday. I hung around all morning at the flat, reading various books, listening to music, and playing a lot of guitar. I had to go to wanchai at about half three to withdraw what was left in my LCH account.......once again things went wrong, but I don't really feel the need to dwell on it, because I needn't go back there for a long while.
Before I left for the bank I stuffed myself full of noodles and soup, and strapped on my acoustic, named Ho Wing Ka, after a funny little girl I used to teach ages ago.
So, off I went listening to music, reading my Osho book, Freedom (which I'm now nearly finished) to find a nice, quiet spot to play guitar for a while.

Luckily the spot I had in mind was, as per usual, not at all busy, and to my delightful surprise new benches were actually in place. For anyone who knows their way around hong kong island (especially those interested in performance theater) you'll probably know the spot I'm on about. It's just on the side of the Hong Kong Performance Arts centre, which is quite near the HKCEC running along the harbour front.
Anyway, as I was saying.... this place is quiet, with scarce few people passing through. There are a variety of trees poking up around the place, and every so often, you can find a lovely piece of bronze sculpture from a variety of artists. All around, a good little spot, that's easy to get to, and there's surprisingly little noise from the not too far off traffic below.

thursday 24: running down hill with a forest fire at my side
Last night after work, Rob and I decided to hit up our favourite little karaoke bar, Dundas. Dundas is by far the best watering hole we've found in Hong Kong yet. It's got everything we could ever want.....bad music, horrible singers, sociable locals, dice cups, a dart board, and it's all you can drink. Typically when we go to dundas, it's with the intent of drinking all we can, via drinking games such as russian roulet, liar, and the ever classic, internationally acclaimed JISH.

Jish is such a great game. All you need are some dice, some cups, and three or four willing participants. This is a game that Rob, Rod, Anders and I devised after a long night of careful deliberation at KK pub and cafe. It'd take far too much effort on my part (and I think my written explanation would lack the nessecary clarity to fully convey the beauty of the game) to do Jish any justice, so I'll just leave it at this... Jish is an awesome game. fun fun fun.

Rob and I ended up making our way back to sally and gabe's flat in sha tin, at around four in the morning. We took the mini bus home, which is always fun. I really do love mini buses. Their so cheap and the drivers are always a bit crazy with their driving.
After making it up to the flat, we decided it would be a great idea to drink all of gabe's delicious, Green Goodness juice and watch the first epsiode of Cowboy bebop. Definately a good idea.

Oh yeah, I only just remembered.... when we were drinking last night, rob and I got on the topic of what everything's going to be like, when we settle back into things in our respective countries. I mentioned something about how, from my perspective everyone back home (circle of friends) is still just as they were since the last time I was back, but that's clearly not going to be the case. People develope and change. This is obvious. Everyone is off doing their own thing, at various uni's, in a smattering of different towns and cities.
ahhh...
I'm having a bit of a communication breakdown here, which is expected because I'm trying to recall how this conversation unfolded last night, and writing from memory is a difficult task having just woken up not twenty minutes ago.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, all my friends back home, are still my really good friends, but I've been out of the picture for so long, that to them I must just be an old friend coming back home for a quick visit.
--------------------------------------
Actually, I don't care. Whatever has changed can not be such an obsticle that friendship is hindered. Relationships are part of the conventions of being.........they're meant to evolve. I need to stop looking for old familiarities and just do what I always do...go with the flow!

uble huble toil in bubbles

Signing off
Brendan (the warrior geek) harrington

I'm eating focaccio!

Well, Friday night's show turned out to be really fun, and it was actually our first paying gig. Seeing as Luke Chow organized the show, all earnings from the door were split equaly between the four groups.
The whole night was chalk full of confusion though. We were among the first to show up, though the guys from natural city were already there, they didn't take any initiative to get anything on stage organized. So, when we got there we had to sort out everything on stage, because all the equipment was completly disorganized. The drum kit particularly, was in three different piles....and that's just what we could find of it... I was pretty surprised that gabe didn't lose his temper at all, seeing as there was no ride stand, one of the tom's had a big hole it in, and during the show, the bass drum keep moving forward.
Anyway, because everything was such a mess we didn't get around to starting our first song til eleven o'clock. Luke looked a bit concerned because everything was so obviously behind schedual, and I'm sure we took a bit too long getting our volumns sorted; considering how unfamiliar we were with amnesia (we had never played there before) I think we did well enough.
I felt badly for Luke because there wasn't much of a turn out, and everything started off later than expected, but these things happen.......and i think it's safe to say that those who did stick around to the end of the night (about 1:30 in the morn') had a great time. Amnesia is a pretty good gig. It looks cool, decked out in black and red, the drinks are cheap enough, and there's actually a large enough stage to swing my bass around on....without knocking out kachun's front teeth.
Generally, friday night was fun. People were relaxed, and patient, which are two good attributes to have in an audience when things aren't going smoothly.

Three cheers for some girl name May as well. She's the first person to ever notice that we stole our name straight from George Orwell's famous novel, 1984. No one else had ever made the connection before.
For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of reading 1984, I highly recommend it.....it's easy to see why it's such a classic, especially when you consider that it was written in 1948.

Saturday's usual overly hectic schedual of back to back lessons was....very surprisingly, Easy.
I can't even remember the last time I had seven lessons pass by with such ease. It's fairly likely though that the only reason they went so well is because, I only have to do it one more time. Oh, how good it feels to say that I'm nearly finished teaching little hyper active, energy draining children.
After an easy day's work I spent much of the night at my mate chris' flat. He's just recently wrangled up a new flat mate, a talented photographer, and all around nice fella, Patrick. Even though the flat wasn't new to Chris, he never did have a house warming party untill Saturday evening. The theme was beach wear, but not many people adhered to that idea at all. Myself, Rob, and Shaun were all showing our sexy white legs with beach shorts and accompanying dress shrits. I opted for a pink scarf and my leapord skin cowboy hat to up the funky ante a bit.
I didn't stay too long. I left with kit ming around one o'clock, as we were both tired and wanted to relax back in central for a while.

Yesterday I was happy to wake up without a hangover, and had a pillow fight with kit ming. Then, i spent the day lazing about, went to lamma with nat and anders, and moved a load more of my stuff from steph's flat. Another easy, great day.

Cheers
Brendan

Dragon i, and Amnesia

We played a show on wednesday night at the Wanch, and for whatever reason I felt great. I was jumping around more than usual and had a great time. We met two fella's staying with our mutual friend/ musician Luke Chow, and I was really impressed with their stuff. All acoustic, up tempo sort of songs...a few originals, and a couple of brilliant covers. One, which I really enjoyed was a cover of Elvis Costello's, Watching the Detectives. Superb.
We played after they did and I suppose things went fairly well because just last night Luke rang me up and asked if we could play a show together.......friday night!
So, I called up the the fella's and I guess we're all ready to play for a good forty minutes tonight, at Amnesia in Central.
This place is literally a two minute walk down the hill from where I am now, which is very very nice.
Right after I got off the phone with Luke, yet another pleasant invitation appeared. Ming gave me ten minutes to get out of the flat and meet him and a few others outside Hong Kong's main vip club, Dragan i.
Normally I wouldn't have a single chance getting into dragon i but seeing as Ming knows the right people it wasn't much a problem.
Lane Crawford was hosting some private party for........something.....i don't actually know. Anywho, the whole thing ended up being free. Naturally, we all left several hours later, drunk.
All I can say really is that it's not my sort of place. There are way too many rich, model types, and aside from private parties the cost of a drink is through the roof, usuall about 60-70 for a glass of wine.
Well, I wish I had more time to go into detail but my breaks nearly over, and it's time to go.

Hopefully everything goes well tonight!
DOUBLETHINKS!!!

brendan