i thought the era of bad haircuts was over for me. i graduated hair vanity when i turned 27....i finally came to the realization that short hair grows back and 80 bucks for clipper work was a overpriced. since then, i've located a few salons around the world that cater to my requirements of wash, cut, wash, blow dry, style and leave with a smile without me having to say too much. and yet on the day before a flight, and a purposely timed haircut to trim now and trim again in asia, the stylist butchered by head into a turnip. i said trim and he faded the clippers right to the top of my head leaving a tuft of hair on top. #古惑仔
dad was angry. kim laughed out loud. i can't look at myself in the mirror. and even after i went back to get it fixed. i now feel like zangief. or 강호동. i should just start over. def can't leave the house now.
eating ethnic foods in the boroughs make sense. i've been visiting my niece often and benny and i hit up jackson heights for colombian beef tongue and argentinian skirt steak. indonesian food in elmhurst isn't too shabby due to lack of options. and for that same reason sripraphai is also not bad considering NY THAI FOOD IS ABSOLUTE SHIT. just my opinion...
but then there's this...ecuadorian roast pork served only on the weekend by street vendors lined along side the junction boulevard stop off the 7 line. benny and i trekked out on saturday sans wife andk id....stuffing our face with chicaronnes and double fisting coconut milk and passion fruit drinks. we loved it so much, i brought dad the next day. the ladies speak zero english and we speak zero spanish. i pointed. and she nodded. i said delicioso...and she said si! and then we ate like amigo's in the car. =)
The most recognizable offering (for those familiar with other versions of it) might very well be the roast pig (called “hornado”)—not because of the presence of a snout or a trotter that necessarily gives it away but because the shiny, amber skin and succulent flesh underneath is very reminiscent of Filipino “lechon” or Cantonese roast pig (like the kind that hangs in Chinatown eateries). Perhaps, the robust links (called “morcilla”)—looking universally like sausage of some kind—is the first item that people notice.
lower L to R: morcilla, fritada, hornado, sancocho, and chicharrónes
This cart, as with the other Ecuadorian carts nearby, serves so-called “Serrano food” (food of the mountain regions) in contrast to “Costeño food” (which originates from the coastal areas near the Pacific Ocean). It is very meat-centric. In fact, beyond the “hornado,” there is more pork. Pork is stewed (in an item called “sancocho”)—which, in its tray, looks grayish as if rescued from a soup stock; and, pork also is braised and fried. “Fritada de chancho” is a kind of braised pork that is cooked and browned in its own fat until the liquid has evaporated. Typically, these browned lumps of pork are sold with “llapingacho” (a yellowish-orange, seared potato patty filled with cheese) and “mote con habas” (an heirloom hominy made with oversized white corn kernels). Then, there are “chicharrónes,” which should not be confused with the snack food pork rinds that Americans may know by the same name. These are unabashed chunks of meaty pork belly that are fried until they are golden brown and the attached skin has become ultra-crispy. The chunks of pork belly are served on a bed of roasted corn kernels (larger than the North American variety) that resemble kernels of charred, unpopped popcorn.
when i say im a pro at weddings...it's not a joke. you all should listen to my wisdom when it comes to weather, over cast photo lighting, which mini bar to attack, what hors d'oeurvres to fill up on, and do not order the overcooked chateaubriand. wait till the end for the photo booth. eat cake, drink, be merry....and well...i am the combination of wedding crashers, 27 dresses and most recently due to my sisters wedding....franz from father of the bride.
and so with an invite from the groom the thursday before the wedding, i found myself at crest hollow country club amidst a sea of 5 weddings all taking place there that night. sitting in the lobby was confusing as my make shift suit and converse outfit could've made its way to any other wedding party...but i spotted the mermaid. and assumed the role of 'jon koon' for the night. i'd say it was a hybrid of koon and felix as ben's lamo food poisnoning excuse prevented him from making it out.
lewis' first time as an officiant was undermined by a faulty mic. rookie mistakes....that get trumped by rookie drinking tho that role was reserved for the other chang...for as we plowed through the macallan secretly stored underneath the bar for vips, and as we danced the night away to 90s prom music...we found a select few getting down on the dance floor, spilling their drink....and falling on the floor and cutting himself. hahahha.
"take me to hotel long island"
i have good intentions...i really do, but i realize that i can come off quite rude to a bunch of my married friends as i whine and complain about attending baby showers chock full of kids and pregnant wives and mothers and fathers and iced tea and cupcakes and stale conversation. that's life, that's their life and seriously, i'm happy for them. that's not my life, and just being wary of my coachella-story-telling-womanizing-zero responsibility- big mouth, i'd like to let my mouth roam free without getting judged, or feeling overly sensitive about being judged...ergo...i should've avoided sundays baby shower and just gone up monday, cooked soup and spent a more intimate day in stamford with 4 kids, one dog, 2 grandparents, a pregnant lady with twins, lewis and myself....
i find solace in the process of making soup. i like making the stock from scratch and just letting it slowly bowl away. i like standing around the kitching periodically skimming the fat off the top....i like watching the color of the liquid turn from clear to umami opague....i like tasting the progression of soup....its such a simple process yet the flavours can be so complex. so much depth from boiling water. and while the soup was cooking, lewis and i plowed thru 2 bottles of whiskey. dimitri had to cut us off at the end of the 2nd bottle by hiding the bottle, so i just found 2 beers to chug outside on the balcony. that was fun. hehehee.
"hey we got a bigger crate for dylan...lets see you get in it"
of course dylan gets in there with me....happy to follow his buddy and not even feeling cramped with the two of us in there...
after a weekend in the desert, i wanted nothing more than to lay down on a couch and do nothing. all i wanted to do was to take over didi's couch duties, sleep, wiggle wiggle, and follow alexia around the house eating treats and drinking wine...and thats exactly what i did. with one added bonus...MISS TSAI! hehehehe
the ralphs by lax
i like this cut
u eat one of these...u're done for the day.
golden flower dinner
germans dont like american paraphrenelia
lunasia is pretty good...
miss tsai's words of wisdom...."1. do not date over 2 years if you're not going to get married 2. your partner needs to be more than 5 year differential in age. otherwise you fight too much"
audrey...話先講在前面。。。恭喜恭喜。 哈哈哈。
academia circa 1997....i do remember a time in my life where music was my life. when i wouldn't go anywhere without headphones and a walkman, a discman, a minidisc player, an mp3 player, an iPod. there was a lot of effort looking for the new pearl jam bootleg, winding up the messed up tape film with my number two pencil, tediously holding the discman like a waiter while listening to it on the bus ride home...i was pretty cool to have the minidisc player in college as it never caught on....but with my low fi mix tape making skills well honed in high school, i had a buffet of mixtape genres ready for each of the girls that surrounded me at bobst library...
The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway... I've started to make a tape... in my head... for Laura. Full of stuff she likes. Full of stuff that make her happy. For the first time I can sort of see how that is done. long gone are the days when music consumed my life. if i didn't have annual spurts of car radio time, i'd have no clue about anything top 40. beiber is 21 now?? taylor swift wrote a song about john mayer??? jamie fox is with katie holmes?? and have u heard the lyrics to that usher song?? (shawty i don't mind if you dance on a pole that don't make you hoe....i dont mind when you workin till three if you're leaving me...go make that money money money money)....usher has taken his nymphomaniac prowess and adapted with the times. commoditizing women and layering it over electronic beats. "who sings this song...dont look down...it's very catchy...."
"u have a good ear...how could you tell its usher??" - trips with people reveal a lot of equally important secondary qualities. not that there's much more to reveal at this point, but it's nevertheless always refreshing. and quite frankly, im probably the one holding in a plethora of talents purposely unused as the choice of being the petulant child tagging along in the back without a care in the world...is much more fun than being responsible. ironically, my subconscious won't let me let loose...
"are you depressed???"
**
i don't know how it happened. because i had originally said NO to coachella. but dre booked the ticket and before i knew it. i was heading to the airport at 5am. did i even realize what i was getting myself into? i didn't even think about it. i've heard friends rant and rave about it being an amazing musical experience...but even in my teens, the thought of a dirty outdoor venue with porta potty's didn't strike the slightest enthusiasm in me...three days in the desert? are we staying in a tent? traffic? oh its gonna be hot. so many people. why??? because i do most things for the company. because i go for dre, i go for becky and i go for amanda. thats reason enough.
dre flew in from sf thirty minutes prior to me. i landed walked outside and him and the chevy cobalt rental was already pulling into terminal 5. google calendar reminders were pinging to meet at the specified walmart for supplies...where becky and amanda led the charge for music festival catered sustainence. an hour later, the coconut water and vapor inhalers were loaded and we headed east...into the desert. the efficiency was bewildering.
it's not that i couldn't be efficient. but most of the time, why bother. i had to borrow dads shorts which he took out of his luggage when i picked him up the night before. threw on a tshirt with a hole, a hoody that i think was from costco...and packed some underwear into the purple luggage that i found in my sisters room. i still made it didn't i???
i came of age in the lolapalooza era of the late 90s and early 2000s headlined by stone temple pilots and ezra and green day and ludacris and bjork and jurassic 5 and that guy that sang "MOTHER" and bands and guitars and drum solos and rappers and booty dancers running amuck on stage speaking into a mic and revving up the crowd. today's music festivals headline dj's who don't speak, fist pump...seemingly playing a premixed set....and play a light show hypnotizing sardines of people jumping up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. we slipped on the not cheap vip neon green bracelets, stuck the vip parking pass on the windshield and by 5pm we were the ones waiting on line to fist pump in front of the dj
coachella does it right. after 15 years. they've got it right. adam smith would've been proud. a perfect dichotomy portraying laissez faire where your status is blatantly colored on your wrist band with a magnetic tag. its a blatant caste system, with secular vip pathways and gated vip areas serving organic food alongside liquor...in contrast, the plebs drink generic beer and eat gmo infested pad thai made by white people... when we finally made it in....it was quite a mesmerizing sight to see, it was quite a sight to attend. a musically contrived carnival of music laid out like a modern day fair complete with a ferris wheel and tacos. 90 thousand wannabe bohemians spread across 80 acres peacefully frolicking between 7 stages of bands... it was dry heat, it was peaceful, it was clean, it was calm...and the mixing of music in the distance was soothing as we sipped smoothies and checked out the view...(of teens in lingerie)
edm day one. r3hab (ciara made a cameo). pete tong. alesso...i kept looking over at becky saying..."wow...we are in the friggin desert...this is amazing" we partied till the thing ended. we hugged and we chatted. the desert breeze crawled down our spine, the smell of grass tickled our noses...we kept buying 2 dollar waters....and we danced...and we danced....AC/DC was quite amazing....and we danced and we danced....
there's something to be said about turning the desert into a club. the sahara tent is an airplane hanger that they turn into a pseudo subwoofer pumping out edm and teenage perspiration where the mosh pit tramples over mid life crisis diginity. there's an annoyance to be smushed up in a hangar in the middle of the desert getting kicked in the face by moshers and an 11 year old sitting on her brothers shoulders two people to the left of me. and then there's an adrenaline rush from being smushed up in a hangar in the middle of the desert getting kicked in the face by moshers while hugging the people next to you. it was complete sensory overload. and while u're getitng over that, the music...when u find the right dj. was phenomenal. cedric gervais....
when the sun sets at coachella, the venue becomes willy wonka's fantasy land....or great adventure at halloween, an adult fantasy land with neon trees and artistic sculptures lining nightscape....lovers lay in the grass, ravers hop around with glowsticks, friends sit indian style and chat and the smart ones make a killing selling water...we traversed the grounds and caught the end of flosstradamous, one man on turntables making the crowd go bezerk while the stage to the left...jack white rocked hard to an older more sedated audience. man i felt dated. but we sat and rested....for axwell ingrosso...flipping awesome.
after 2 days in the desert. i gave it everything i had. i laughed. i danced. i sweat. i drank a lot of water. i danced. my ears rang. i didnt sleep. i didnt eat. and i had a helluva two days. and with no sleep and no food...i kept the candle burning cuz i'd be out of there sunday morning. but that didnt happen.they sat on me. and i stayed an extra day. and with dre gone....i had to transform into something a bit more responsible. DAMMNIT! but...
There’s a theory in quantum physics that time is immutable. It’s like a river – you can throw a pebble in and create a ripple, but the current always corrects itself. No matter what you do the river just keeps flowing in the same direction
sunday was inevitable. and "why fight it if u know its going to be inevitable???" we went back for spring rolls and pho, got gas...and went back for day three. i had sold my bracelet the night before. but with a combined iq of 30000000 becky and amanda gave me a plastic bag and slipped me thru the gauntlet of security scanners for 6pm kaskade! and then GUETTA! ....and drake sucked goat balls. and so we headed back to the hotel for a final hoorah. i love hoorahs. im embody hoorahs. hoorahs are fun. and even more fun when u do a the hoorah with a bostonian jew...
the presidential suite at the westin mission had 6 occupants. our core four and nancy and michael synonymous for sticky pie. an even motlier crew as it was supposed to be a girls trip initially. cancellations created A5, amanda, becky, nancy, jpg and "ultimate embodiment of all of our childhoods combined" to happen. even without A5 on sunday...his spirit was vehemently spread like fireworks across the living room, both beds, and whatsapp.
so that was coachella 2015.
and then i went to arcadia. and reflected on 8 years. =)
