Gluttony

Sometimes I find myself pondering my relation to the 7 deadly sins. I readily admit guilt in all the sins of incontinence, so I'll one day be residing in one of (or perhaps all of) the upper four circles of Dante's Inferno. And that's actually not so bad. I'm averse to sins of violence and malice, so I don't think I'll be forced into real estate below the river Styx. You see, In Hell, that's like living on the wrong side of the proverbial tracks. The uppermost layers are much more pleasant. I'll have interesting neighbors with whom I can commiserate; we get to watch the pennant race in the Vestibule of the Futile; and we can poke fun at the bloody fools across the river. It's kind of like my current situation: "Yeah, it sucks being in the U.S. right now...but at least I don't live in a red state!"

Last night I ate dinner with my Thai friends and this morning I suffered the after effects of Gluttony. Puki cooked and as always, it was delicious. As always, the copious amounts of chili melted my internal organs and forced humors to the surface...tears squirted from my eyes and my skin flushed beet red. The Gewürztraminer wine I bought specifically to counter the spice didn't help at all. So be it. I finished off the nuclear feast with a slab of delicious taro-flavored cake leftover from Niki's birthday and, after I drove home, an entire bar of Valrhona chocolate. Speaking of godfodder (the scientific name of the cacao tree, so dubbed by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, is Theobroma Cacao -- which translates from the Greek to "food of the gods"), right now I'm finishing off a bar of GUARANDA varietal from Ecuador (71% cacao). It's got a "perfumed aroma with fruity, acid notes and floral tones of acacia honey, with milky and exotic wood nuances". Yes, I'm a chocolate fiend. One more reason to find me guilty of gluttony.

New Buzz

I've spent most of my online time in the past week and half updating my photoblog at Buzznet. New stuff includes: more galleries; many new photos have been added to the London, Thailand, Portugal, Prague, Cambodia, Paris, Amsterdam, and Holga galleries; older photos from those and other galleries re-uploaded at a higher resolution; different gallery themes and header images. I'm not yet finished with the revamp but my tax preparation procrastination is getting sad. I've got to get crackin' on that business.

I also started work back at Morgan Creek this week, on this movie. I may be there for a month or so. I'm not passionate about it, but it'll help propel me into the future, and my next retirement. I seem to swing from one retirement to the next, like Tarzan on a vine. Last Sunday I went back to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Science Center. I think I liked the first round of bodies better -- there seemed to be more interesting poses and body types. But this time there was a hands-on section where I got to pick up a real brain and a liver. The brain was smaller and heavier than I'd imagined.

This week has also been interesting on the female front. There haven't been any developments to speak of, but lots of internal ruminations. I won't go into it now, but there are some issues I need to work through.

Okay, before I start work on my taxes I'm going to power through some more scans for Buzznet. Don't make me do all this work in vain! To borrow a phrase from my friend Caleb, who runs TheLaptopTraveler.com, I'll like you better if you visit Xopher.buzznet.com.

Birthday weekend

Friday I went to the Lakers' game: these guys suck. A night at the Staples Center is always fun, though, and my friend Jon almost put the smackdown on an incredibly annoying Pistons' fan sitting next to us. Saturday was my birthday: I went to Kokekokko for dinner with a new friend. They'd run out of hearts, gizzards, skin, and liver so we only got to eat the boring parts.

Sunday morning I got to attend an Asian Film Foundation screening of Stephen Chow's new film, Gong Fu (International English title: Kung Fu Hustle). The U.S. poster art is ridiculous and the trailer isn't all that seductive either, but ignore them both and go see this movie when it's released nation-wide in late April. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard in a movie theater, and the kung fu was top-notch. For me, this movie cements Chow's reputation as the worthy successor to Jackie Chan. Stephen Chow has been starring in mo lei tau ("slapstick" or "makes no sense") comedies in Hong Kong since the early eighties and began directing his own successful films about a decade after that: the top four boxoffice earners in Hong Kong in 1992 were all Chow vehicles. He is arguably Hong Kong's biggest star and Asia's highest paid actor. Never heard of him? I'm not surprised. His only U.S. release was Shaolin Soccer (a.k.a. Siu lam juk kau), (2001). Here's where this blog gets nasty.

Disney-owned Miramax acquired the U.S. distribution rights to both this film and Zhang Yimou's Hero (Ying xiong) in 2002 and proceeded to sit on both films for two years. There were rumors that the Weinstein brothers delayed Hero's release because they didn't want it to compete in the Oscars with some of their own productions, such as Gangs of New York and Chicago, but they also believed the films were "too Chinese" to achieve any commercial success in the West. They tinkered with both pictures extensively: dubbing English dialogue, cutting scenes, adding western soundtracks, and holding multiple audience test screenings. Finally, Quentin Tarantino himself convinced Miramax that Hero (which by this time had broken box-office records across Asia) was actually a good film and should be released intact. Miramax still wanted a hook, so they asked Tarantino if they could attach his name to it. It was subsequently released here as "Quentin Tarantino presents Hero" even though he had nothing to do with it, and it was still cut down to 1 hour 38 minutes. Shaolin Soccer didn't fare nearly as well -- it only got a limited release as a poorly dubbed print, and was edited from 112 minutes to 80 minutes. Even so, it received positive reviews: an outstanding and extremely rare average rating of 100% on RottenTomatoes.com.

Alienated by Miramax, Stephen Chow has taken his latest offering to Sony Pictures Classics for American distribution, but that's no guarantee of non-intervention. We'll have to wait until April to find out how Sony treats Kung Fu Hustle. Until then, go rent the uncut Shaolin Soccer or any other Chow film and enjoy the mo lei tau!



After the movie/moderated discussion, Jon, Kama and I drove to Venice. We had tea and cakes in the garden at Jin Patisserie, another westside gem.

Myspace Migration

Today is my last day at Morgan Creek...for now. I just returned from lunch at Echigo (I could write an entire blog on this place), and I'm in the process of rendering my final shots and cleaning up my desk space. Not a huge job, considering I've only worked here for a little over a month. Today I've also finished setting up this blogspot site. All the posts you see south of this one were originally written on my Myspace Blog. Over the past few weeks, however, I've grown to admire my friend Kapooch's weblog so much that I decided to migrate over here myself. (Thanks to Kapooch, as well, for aiding me with my Blogspot html question. My site is now the doppelgänger of hers.) I finally canceled my old Earthlink service and pointed my domain name to this site, so as of now www.NineDragons.net should lead you here. The result of all these online hijinks? A consolidation of my online presence: less loose ends, less unused threads dangling from the worldwide web.

Okay, I can't stop thinking about my fantastic lunch. If you live anywhere near the wesside and enjoy sushi, you owe yourself a lunch at Echigo. The lunch special, featuring the chef's choice of 6 servings of buttery fish on tiny beds of warm rice is only $11. Come early, though, and I would avoid Fridays. This joint is no secret and the overworked waitresses will close off the line earlier than the 14:00 cutoff if it gets too long.

I don't got your back

From the New York Times, 18 February, 2005:

"The People's Republic of China," Mr. Rumsfeld said, "is a country that we hope and pray enters the civilized world in an orderly way without the grinding of gears and that they become a constructive force in that part of the world and a player in the global environment that's constructive."

The hubris of this myopic fool continues to amaze me. China is the oldest living civilization on the face of the earth. It is a country with 3,500 years of written history -- and for most of that era China was outpacing the West in artistic and scientific developments; a country that, while slightly smaller in size than the U.S., boasts more than four times as many people; a country whose GDP has quadrupled since 1978 and is set to overtake our own within ten years; a country that now exhibits a sometimes alarming growth in nationalism; a country whose naval fleet will be larger than that of the U.S. within a decade; a country which Dummy Rummy writes off as if it were living in the Bronze Age. How very "constructive" of him.

Regarding Europe in 1914, historian Barbara Tuchman wrote that, "like the Visigoths for the later Romans, [Germany felt for England] a contempt combined with the newcomer's sense of inferiority." Germans at the time were, in the words of Thomas Mann, "the most educated, law-abiding, peace-loving of all peoples, [who] deserved to be the most powerful, to dominate, to establish a 'German peace'". Many Americans, Rumsfeld apparently included, now feel exactly the same way about their own fatherland. Though I doubt that an inferiority complex is to blame, the insolence of a smaller, newer country toward a potentially more powerful, older one could be viewed unkindly by future historians, to say the least. Look at what the end result of the German ego was.

Most people have had a friend at one time in their lives who liked to pick fights, especially if he knew his posse was behind him. I can't remember how many times in high school and college I would hear the phrase "You got my back?" right before one of my cohorts would yell something insulting and stupid to a complete stranger at a party or after a lacrosse game. Of course I defended my friends, but that was in a different time, when blind loyalty outweighed logic and reason. Not anymore. If my Secretary of Defense wants to insult other peoples and cultures, I can't stop him. I can, however, stick my hands in my pockets and declare myself uninvolved. The world is my country, you small-minded imbecile. If you continue with this "Old Europe" and "Uncivilized China" crap, don't look to me if, when you visit Asia later this year, you get the cold shoulder.



Your twin cobra fist notwithstanding, I doubt you can take on 1.3 billion offended people by yourself, even if you do have that village idiot from Texas behind you. If more of your "friends" called you out on your idiotic insults you might be saved some embarrassment, but I don't see that happening. I guess the moral of my story is this: if you run off at the mouth like a drunken frat boy, you have no right to complain to your peops if you catch a black eye.

KARATE FIGHTERS ONLY

I watch a lot of kung fu movies, as you can probably tell from my movie list. One of the plot singularities of these films that I love the most is when one guy is like, "Hey Holmes, I just learned a new fighting style" and his buddy goes, "Oh? Cool, let me try it", and they just go have a fight. Oh, nothing, just a kung fu fight in the courtyard or outside the hut or wherever. No big deal. Just to test out the technique, to see how it fares. I love how it's just a normal thing for them. Shit like that doesn't happen enough in the real world.

Every once in awhile my life turns into a movie, if only for a fleeting moment. On Sunday I was cruising around my hood with Chef Mel with our Holgas in tow. As soon as we step outside of my building we get accosted by a homeless woman with chicken pox and a handful of disposeable lighters. At least she said she had chicken pox. I was skeptical, but backed up anyway. She did have an incredibly thick lisp, though. Even though we continued walking while apologizing, and struck the head-shaking-with-hands-in-the-air pose (the universal signal for "You're not getting any money from me"), she continued stalking us, relating her chicken pox story and holding out her lighter-filled hands. Needless to say, it was extremely awkward. She reminded me of the beggars in Shanghai: some of them would follow me for blocks, supplicating and trying to hold my arms the whole time. Not in a threatening way, mind you -- at first I thought I was being targeted for a pickpocketing, but I was wrong -- they just don't have anything better to do and figure that eventually, to make them go away, I would give up a few yuan. But I digress.

Our escape route from Chicken Pox Woman led us behind the Japanese Cultural Center. I knew there was a cute little garden back there that I thought might offer some prime photo opportunities. As we speedwalked up to the gate of the garden, I was vaguely aware that there was a kid standing there. There were people all over the place actually, which isn't out of the ordinary for a cultural & community center, but this kid was standing right at the gate, just lounging. Like a sentry, or a GATEKEEPER. And just as I approach he sort of comes to life and goes, "Only karate fighters are allowed inside". I was completely dumbstruck. Did my life just turn into a movie? Was this some kind of challenge? What's going on? Is this guy asking to try my kung-fu right out here in the open, in my own hood? In MY OWN HOOD? This kid was like 12 and he was wearing thick spectacles; his slight paunch aside, he reminded me of a 12-year-old version of myself. My mind raced -- could a 12-year-old me beat up a 30-year-old me? Depends on how good his kung fu is. Does he know Drunken Praying Mantis Style? I sized him up -- he was scrupulously avoiding eye contact. Hard to tell what his technique is. Dangerous to try to read a book by its cover. I thought of looking at Mel to see if she comprehended the situation better than I, but what if he launched his attack while my back was turned? It was way too crazy.

Finally, I spoke. "Oh, really? Karate fighters only, huh?" I was stalling for time.

"Yeah. Well, you can come in the garden, but you have to stay out of the building because blah blah blah". I didn't even get the reason because as I looked down where he pointed, I saw through the basement windows a room full of little kids, each one wearing a gi. It was all becoming clear to me. There was some kind of competition going on. That's why all the people were milling about in the plaza behind me. That's why some were wearing track suits and slippers. Why some kids were carrying trophies. Ahhh, soooooo. The moment devolved back into real life. The heightened reality dissolved. My life as a movie ended. It's a good thing, too, seeing as how I don't know the first thing about martial arts except for what I've seen in the movies. I would have had to fake the funk with The Gatekeeper, all while trying to keep my Holga undamaged, and hoping the resulting ruckus wouldn't draw the attention of Chicken Pox Lady. Which would have been completely different, and would have made for a really memorable Sunday afternoon.

Reality bites sometimes.

Thai Yo

I'm not talking about the sushi joint on Franklin.

A few weeks ago I posted that I still hadn't heard from Yo in Phuket and that I was worried: I neglected to post up when I DID finally hear from her on January 9 and that she's okay. (Thanks for asking, Harbour).

"I'm safe. I'm not get hurt  but my car downed in the see and can not fix it any more.I'm so sad for the big wave .It come so fast . In 10 minutes every thing gone. So ... Bangtao beach cottage damaged . Every one there get hurt , but it not to much. I hope every thing at here will be going on the good way.


Any way , How are you ? and where are you now? . What are you doing ? Do you happy in your life? I 'm sure you happy in your life.  Chris !  I don't know when I can meet you again maybe not . because like now at here not seam befor . I think you don't want to come here again .


Thank you to worry about me and I'm so happy to hearing from you. Take care of your self every thing in the world will be change or time .


Bye for now.


Yo."

Redux: The Saga of the OCTOPENIS

***Searching through all the old shit stored in the overcrowded attic of my hotmail account, I came across a few noteworthy emails from my past. I've decided to throw some of them up here because...well, because they make me feel nostalgic and they make me laugh; which is why I suppose I saved them in the first place. When and if I do this in the future I'll preface the blog with the word "redux", and post the original date. ***

On to the Flatmate, a.k.a. OCTOPENIS. In 2002 I was transferred to London to work on the latest installment in the 007 film series, and my company put me up in a posh 2-bedroom flat in Mayfair for about four or five months. The flat itself was amazing: a mere 2 blocks from Hyde Park, I lived next door to diplomats and aristocrats in the mews behind Grosvenor Square (I know what you're thinking, but just wait, for the other shoe will drop). My flatmate was another Hollywood transplant who I knew from work, but didn't really know. You know what I mean.

Anyway, all that was about to change. What follows are two emails detailing my first few days in London dealing with the alcoholic culture and the shenanigans of the man who I would come to call Octopenis, because he has more testosterone than eight mortal men, and his hands are like tentacles: always groping out for anything that looks remotely like a female.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 
The Flatmate

Date: 
Mon, 24 Jun 2002 12:35:32 0100

From: 
Chris Lance

Organization: 
Cinesite (Europe) Ltd.

To: 
mharbour@cinesite.com, cybele@cinesite.com


I feel like I'm trapped in an early 70's sitcom like Steptoe and Son or The Odd Couple.  The hijinks started immediately, haven't yet abated, and there's no end in sight.

My first night here I turned in early while The Flatmate was still out imbibing quantities of alcohol that would kill a small horse.  When I awoke at 03:30 and walked to the kitchen to get some water, I found him passed out on the couch in his underwear, in the fetal position with his hands between his knees, half a bucket of melted ice cream on the floor with a spoon sticking out of it, and a dirty brown towel spread next to that.  It was only the next day he told me that while trying to scoop the ice cream out he flicked a large scoop of it up in the air, and when he leaned back to see where it went, he ended up sitting in it.  Ice cream all over his back and the couch.  Does he decide to clean it up immediately? No, he decides to fall asleep in it. You may think this is funny, Harbour, until you realize that this is the couch you'll be sleeping on while you're here.

Another good time was the night we all took Aimee Dadswell out for a fancy dinner at Asia de Cuba.  As the night wore on, The 'Mate ordered more and more wine until I believe he'd had at least two bottles himself.  You can tell when he's getting drunk because he gets this real lascivious look about him -- his eyes get beady and you can just watch him staring at the waitresses' breasts and ass.  I don't think it matters to him if he gets caught leering.  When I went to the bathroom I heard him come in right after me so I beat it immediately for a stall.  While I was in there I heard him talking loudly, but I didn't think he was talking to me, so I kept quiet.  He was mumbling about wanting to stick his cock in the bathroom lamp but it wouldn't fit and about all the fine women in the joint and a whole bunch of other unintelligible babble.  When I came out of the stall, there were two guys standing there waiting for him to vacate the area, looking at me like "what's with the dodgy bloke over there?", as he was still spread out covering both of the urinals, his head against the wall, booming out love-advice to the bathroom fixtures.  Needless to say, I've never washed my hands faster than I did that night, since I wanted to clear out before he turned around and they realized that we were together.  Back at the table, he assaulted our poor waitress all night with what I can only assume are Manhattan Beach/Marina del Rey pick-up lines while everyone else looked uncomfortable.  I was thankful that she was so adept at parrying his clumsy advances because it made the encounters less awkward.  At one point he said something like, "I could wait for you after you get off" to which she replied, "You'll be waiting a long time..."

These are just two examples, but something like the former or the latter happens almost every night.  You must remember that I don't despise The Mate for his shenanigans.  I just feel a mild pity for both of us, mixed with a fair amount of embarrassment or disgust, depending on whether or not we're sitting at the same table while out on the town.  But I must embrace him as he is and for what he is.  He makes me want to be a better man.  He completes me.  He is my other half, the id to my ego, the Moriarty to my Holmes, the Randy Quaid to my Chevy Chase.  He is the one and only Flatmate.
-- 
c       i        n        e       s        i       t         e
chris.lance lance@cinesite.co.uk 44(0)78.1728.8217
e           u             r          o            p           e


-------- Original Message --------

Subject: 
Flatmate Update

Date: 
Tue, 02 Jul 2002 14:09:41 0100

From: 
Chris Lance

Organization: 
Cinesite (Europe) Ltd.

To:[edited, because one of the addresses still exists]

I suspect the Flatmate is some sort of Bizarro-world Homer Simpson-esque beer-consuming robot.  I may start referring to him as The Machine instead of The Flatmate.  I've never seen anyone consume as much alcohol as he does and remain conscious (if you can call him that).  On Friday evening from 7pm until 5:30am he stood in line with a few hundred other people at Wimbledon.  During the course of the night, he consumed a case of beer.  He says he passed out around 4 a.m., but was up when the line started moving at 5:30.  He was up all day Saturday eating and drinking even more.  He came home on Saturday night, took a shower, and asked me if I wanted to go out.  Not one to ever miss seeing a train wreck, I went along with him.  Three pints of Guinness later, I was tugging on his sleeve begging for the sweet release of death.  My stomache was so bloated I looked like I was smuggling a soccer ball under my shirt, and my head reeled and ached from the smoke, alcohol, and live music (if you can call it that).  Meanwhile, he had outpaced me drinking Jack and Cokes and was still circling the ladies (if you can call them that) with a toothy grin.  I stumbled home holding my belly, and I think he followed an hour or two later.  Sunday was when I began to suspect I'm living with Beer Droid.  Out watching the Brazilian celebrations in the late morning, we stopped into a Japanese store to say hello to a friend and he comes out drinking a Kirin.  Then we lunched on Leicester Square, where he had another pint.  I had an iced tea, and a twelve-year old kid smoking a cigarette made fun of me as he walked by because I had a "girly" drink, which drew loud guffaws from the Flatmate.  I've now realized that I'm the one who is the stranger in a strange land.  I am the foreigner in a kingdom full of Beer Droids: the Flatmate has found his people.

Harbour came in last night, so he and the Flatmate, D.Rey and I and a few other people went out to the pub.  My face is now green and my head is swollen.  This is a picture of me taken this morning. 

I bet on the trifecta of evil last night and lost.  Wine, beer and then a double shot of whiskey on a Monday night.  Harbour's on the couch sleeping and I'm up in here weeping.  D.Rey is at Pinewood Studios with Dottie, but I don't think he's as hurting as I am.  I don't think anybody is.  I'm tempted to say never again, but I might be going to Amsterdam this weekend with D.Rey to watch M.Rey play bass with Eek! A Mouse.  The good news is that I'm slowly killing the Alcohol Resistance within me, though.  If I keep bombarding myself with drink I may lose a few battles, but I think I may win the war.

-- 
c       i        n        e       s        i       t         e
chris.lance lance@cinesite.co.uk 44(0)78.1728.8217
e           u             r          o            p           e

Special Ops Cody held for ransom

The war in Iraq has taken a tragic turn. (I avoid the term 'insurgency' because, with this latest development, the situation has clearly escalated.) Iraqi guerrillas have kidnapped an action figure named Special Ops Cody and are holding him hostage. If U.S. forces do not release Iraqi prisoners, the kidnappers threaten to break off Cody's plastic head.

You think I'm joking don't you? Would that I were. Look at the photo posted on the website of the Al Mujahedeen Brigade.


(CNN has archived the original photo; this copy is from DigitalMonkeyBox.com)

They're threatening him with his own plastic gun.

The full story is on CNN. Yes, CNN.

So what's the deal behind this latest madness? Do the Iraqis have fucking Destro on their team now? And where the hell is G.I. Joe when we need him? Knowing is half the battle, my ass. Somebody needs to save Cody.

Back to work

Yesterday I stealthily came out of retirement. That's my style. I started work on a movie at the 4-wall studio in Century City where I spent about four months last year. The film is not VFX heavy, though, so I'll be able to retire again in about 6 weeks. That's my style, too. Fast work, fast cash, careful & meticulous holiday planning. For now, however, I'm pooped. When every day is a Saturday, one forgets how good Friday evenings can feel.