Showing posts with label tales from the big smoke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tales from the big smoke. Show all posts

Thursday, May 7

Summa has cometh! Forrest Gumping my Ass. Running Tunes.

Ahhhhh yes it has cummeth, and jizzeth it has a plenty. Warm days in Beijing make me all tingly in me boxers. I'm finally wearing shorts and flipflops at work. Gawd I love my flip flops. I just feel so liberated baring my dirty toenails for all the world to see {which reminds me - clean thy toenails}. Summer in Beijing became official in my book when the hotel maid gave me back the remote control for my air conditioner. I came back from work and there she was, the housekeeping attendant in all her housekeeping glory, holding the air conditioner remote control with a smile on her face. It's like I was receiving an award or something. I almost cried mind you. Not that I am crazy about air conditioning {although Its turned right now}, its just that I love summer. I adore it. The sun. The heat. The flip flops. Cold drinks. The beach. Scantily clad men. Speedos. Pina Coladas. Thinking about it just makes me want to jizz tenfold. Summer makes me wanna wear flipflops and it makes me want to listen to summery tunes and shit. I could go to work skipping like a bunny rabbit. Which I did this morning. Truly. Well, nobody was looking. And besides I was listening to a Mudvayne song and I felt like skipping.

I've been running a lot lately. Like 5 times a week on average. I wanted to join a marathon but it required a joining fee {like hell no!}. Like, so what if I can't join the Great Wall Kiddie Marathon. I can run by myself, thank you. I mean, Forrest Gump didn't join a friggen marathon and yet he achieved god-like status in the runners' world, huh! So yeah, I like running. Its sorta like becoming my zen. I never knew what ''second wind'' meant until I took up running. It feels so good. Its not like having sex. Well, its somewhat close to having sex but the thrill is a bit different. There's this rush, this adrenaline that you feel coursing through your veins that pushes you to take one more step even if you know that your body is almost about to give up.Its like yer balls are on fire in a good way. And it feels so good. There is no other way to put it. It just feels good for me.

I'm not saying that I've reached Nirvana or anything for that matter. I'm too shallow for that, I think; or rather I am not yet prepared for something like that. For some people however, running is a spiritual experience. The horizon, the point where the sky and the earth meet, is the juice that drives the runner to be kinetic. Its like a drug for some. She is like this expensive whore that you cannot have because you're short of a few hundred bucks. The runner is the John. She teases the John. The John keeps advancing towards the her, hoping she would give in. But she doesn't. She's unmoved. She doesn't ignore the John and she doesn't give in either. She is unattainable. She's Communism. She's Nirvana and Heaven. She's the Eternal Supermodel and the Porn Goddess Fantastic. She exists solely for the magnanimity of the earth and the sky. And yes, she is beautiful. Although the runner knows that he shall never have her, he persists still and moves forward for he is completely enamored by the idea of having her, this unattainable whore. And that very idea is his salvation. His Rapture. So he moves forward.

Whoa.
Dude that was kinda deep.
And I wasn't even smoking.
I think its the noodles I ate this lunchtime.

Bleh! Like I told you, I am not THAT spiritual yet. Yeah, sometimes I do get the tingly feeling I'm-one-with-nature-shit whenever I run, but only when I put on my nature-sport deodorant I-dunno-whatsitsname. It smells good. In fact it doesn't even smell like ''mother nature''. I like the smell though. Every so often whenever I'm running, I am tempted to get a wiff of my pits especially around the time when I'm starting to pick up my pace and I'm already breaking sweat. The smell of sweat and that deodorant just makes me want to jizz the pavement something awful. DON'T WORRY, I don't smell my pits in public - only when no one's looking. I'm sure there are laws against smelling yer pits in public and I seriously don't want to go to prison not unless I am inmates with Johnny Longbow, Mario Cojones, Bone St. James and the dude from Power Rangers.

It's nothing spiritual for me, running. It's more primal, I guess. I love the fact that I am sweating and forrest gumping my ass all over town and smelling like ''mother nature'' minus the cow manure and decaying flesh of dead animals. And the music. Duuuuuude the music is awesome when yer running. Its like it becomes better. Like any music becomes better when yer running. Even Celine Dion with all her screeching belts and nyaaaaahs and oooohs and waaaaaaahs becomes Celine Dioner. Truly. Music and running are like peanut butter and jelly.


Here are some of the music that I listen to right now whenever I run.

  1. Run Barbie Run - Eraserheads {Awesome song! a good way to start my running}
  2. At Last - Celine Dion Version {I tell you, it's Celine Dioner}
  3. Anything from Ella Fitzgerald's Cole Porter Songbook Album
  4. Anything from Mudvayne
  5. Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
  6. I'm Waiting for My Man - Velvet Underground
  7. Anything from Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland Album
  8. Anything from Eels Daisies in the Galaxy Album
  9. Green Day's St. Jimmy {Saaaaaaaaaint Jimeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!}
  10. Anything from the Ataris
  11. Dean Gray's American Edit {mashup}
  12. The Beastie Boys {Body Movin! is on top of my list}
  13. Anything from Erykah Badu
  14. Jump - Pointer Sisters {fuck you I like it}
  15. Symphony No. 9 - Beethoven the Georg Solti Version {its like I'm running in the Olympics}
  16. Bat Out of Hell - Meatloaf {nobody sings it better than Meatloaf, and yeah, his titties are nice too}
  17. Anything from the Foo Fighters
  18. 100 Years - Five for Fighting {I feel like I'm in a Dawson's Crack set whenever I'm playing this Song}
  19. Soukura - Ali Farka Toure {this song is always, like always in my playlist}
  20. Hine Ani Ba - Hadag Nachash
  21. Anything from Panic at the Disco!
  22. Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Stadium Arcadium
  23. Anything from Asher Roth
  24. Anything from Third Eye Blind
  25. Lithium - Nirvana
  26. Anything from Jack Johnson
  27. Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Nina Simone
  28. Take Me to the Water - Nina Simone
  29. Ain't Got No - Nina Simone & Groove Finder Mix
  30. Anything from the Kaiser Cheifs
  31. Anything from Want One and Want Two by Rufus Wainright
  32. Ray of Light - Madonna
  33. I Like It, I Love It - Tim McGraw {fuck you I love country}
  34. Bob Dylan's Hey Mr. Tambourine Man and Talking New York
  35. Five Year's Time - Noah and the Whale
  36. Recycled Air - Postal Service
  37. Mr. Blue Sky - The Delgados

Aight. Omar's gotta bounce. I need to put on my deodorant me running duds. Daddy's gotta run.

Sunday, November 16

TALES FROM THE BIG SMOKE VOLUME 1 - Kasper, Sparky and Ling Ling

A note to the reader:
This is a true story.  All the events written on this post happened for real {like no shit dude}; and in order to protect the innocent, the weary, the hungry and the humble of heart, names of the people have been changed. Some of the scenes can be graphic, so be warned. So yeah, continue reading.  But don't say I didn't warn you {Wilhelm Scream}.

I recently met up with a friend of mine who also works in Beijing.  Let's just call him Kasper {which all of you know is not his real name}.  Kasper has been in Beijing {on and off} for a good number of years. He's Dutch, gay, tall {well, he's Dutch} and he's a proud member of the non-American Democrats {lets just say that if he could marry Obama... he wouldn't, but he'd def finitely do a Monica}.  I met Kasper by accident about nine months ago in a bar with Stu {the Jewish stripper who is now a dog sitter in the Promised Land of Obama Country which they call New York} when I was still living in the Upper East Side of the Noodle Kingdom {the Northeast}.  When I moved to the Big Smoke it was Kasper, along with some other friends of mine who have been living in the Jing, who I always touch base with. 

So yeah, I met met up with Kasper last night because he texted me that he had to tell me about something that happened to him recently.  So we met up for drinks at some bar and asked him what was it that he was so eager to tell me.

Kasper, like the Dutch guy that he is, finished his pint of Qingdao and ordered another pint.  The suspense was killing me {yawn}.

He drank a few gulps and then proceeded to tell me his tale.

I was riveted.   I think I smoked a pack or something while listening to his story.  It was like a movie even - like David Lynch trying to do a comedy with Kevin Costner in it. 

Here's what happened.

Kasper, who is kind of tired of his job, the universe, the human condition, being single and his two cats that constantly piss on his mattresses decided to just call it quits.  No, he wasn't planning to off himself.  He just wanted to do something different for a change, like have a mini break or a mini breather.  Like get laid.  Kasper, a gay Dutch man in his prime, needed to get laid that night.  It was a Friday, and he just came back to his apartment from a looooooong day's work  to discover that his bed smells like cat piss.  As he was changing the sheets and contemplating whether to put the cats in his microwave or his washing machine, it dawned on Kasper that hadn't had sex in quite a while. It was prolly the cat piss that got his hormones all riled up or it was prolly the stress at work or maybe it was just good old Mother Nature reminding him to use his gonads.  Kasper needed to get laid that night.  So after doing the sheets and nuking the cats, Kasper took a shower and went to the place where every single gay guy in heat in a big city has gone before - the public toilets  Y  confessional gay bar.  Yes, Kasper went to the gay bar, alone. BRRRR

Culture note.  If you happen to stop by the Big Smoke and yer gay, the best place to go to  and to be gay is HONG KONG. Okay, Beijing is not that bad. Really.  Gone were the days when our Chinese gay and lesbian comrades used to cruise each other in public parks and squares or in public toilets or in subway stations or in abandoned alleyways and such {that is so 80's} Dude, we just hosted the Olympics yo.  Beijingers do it in style now. When the Chinese gays and lesbians finally figured out that you can actually be gay and lesbian in a public space as long as it is done in a "harmonious" fashion, they decided to build gay bars {and there's fridae.com}. There is  a gay bar in Beijing.  So yes, gay tourists, you can have gay fun in Beijing - as long as you do it "harmoniously" - like no flag burning and shit and praying in the middle of Tiananmen Square.  None of that! You are allowed to wear rainbow pins though {as long as it is not more than 5, yer safe}.

OK, where were we? Oh yeah, Kasper. Gay. Gonads. Gay Bar. 

Kasper went to the one known gay bar in town - DESPERATION DESTINATION. Its not actually the only gay bar in town, I believe there are some, but its where all the gays and lesbians go to on a Friday night.  OK, its the only gay bar in town.  And being the only gay bar in town, a gay guy has a risk of overexposure.  One of the first things I learned in my Gay101 course back in college is that a gay guy must never be overexposed.  He should exude an aura of mystery like that Rose chick in Titanic {the old bitch had the diamond all along, and she threw it back into the Atlantic!}.  Young gay boys and girls, learn from Rose - A woman's heart is  like a deep ocean of secrets; you'll never know what you'll get {?}.

Lucky for my friend Kasper though, he follows the rule of two  - that is: if you go every Friday, yer desperate; if you go every Thursday and Friday and Saturday, you do it for a living; if you go every month on a Sunday, yer a Mormon or in a commited heterosexual relationship that was signed, sealed and tested in California; but if you go  twice month, yer mysterious {I dunno why, but that's what it said in my Gay101 textbook so don't ask me, ask Simon and Schuster}.

But to go alone in a gay bar, is brave.   And I have to hand it to Kasper, he was one brave and horny guy that Friday night.  YOU GO GIRL! Well he went.

So he went to Destination.  As usual, the place was packed.  He saw the regulars,  the ones who do it for a living,  the lesbians, the fag hags, the Mormons, the out of towners, the bicurious, the soul searching 16 year olds who were actually thirty but they just looked like they were 16 year olds and some newbies.   Being a gay Dutch dude, Kasper went to the place where he was most comfortable and safe, he went to the bar area and ordered his drink. After a good number of Qingdao's and some vodka red bulls.  He was drunk.  And still no lay.  

When he was about to give up, pack his Dutch ass and go home,  a guy smiled at him from across the bar.   A tall {not as tall as Kasper though}, lanky  European in his mid 20's smiled at him and approached his side of the bar. He introduced himself.  Let's just call him Sparky.  Sparky's Polish and he's only been in Beijing for about a week or so.   Truth be told, Sparky was kinda cute, in a Ramones kind of way {like if yer into old skewl punk rock with a hint of EMO on the side, Sparky's definitely for you}.  And Sparky was not wasting any time flirting with Kasper either.  It was like the night before the elections - Sparky was the GOP ticket and Kasper was Pennsylvania.  Drunk Kasper was about to cast his vote when Sparky said something to him

Can you be my master?

and then he said another....

You know you can do anything you want with me.  Anything.....

and another...

You can bring me to your place and you can tie me up somewhere near your bed and I can watch you sleep.

and another...

I can be your pet if you want. You can feed me in a bowl.


and another...


Have you got any toys?

{I'm guessing he's not talking about Legos or Transformers action figures}

Talk about pitbull with a lipstick. 

Kasper maybe Dutch, but he's not into those kinks. He looked at Sparky the Polish Dog in the eye and told him that the night was young and we'll see and all that crap. Sparky smiled, ever confident, wrote down his number on a piece of paper and walked away but without forgetting to turn back and smile again at Kasper.   I had to interrupt him. I had to ask why he didn't say yes. I mean, there's this guy in front of him, who was in serious need of some loving and some Alpo Prime Cuts and basically offering himself for the night to satisfy his gonads and all.  I mean what more could he have asked for? I was pretty sure that Sparky was potty trained since Kasper did tell me that Sparky had to excuse himself once to go to the men's room so what there was no problem in that department.  And besides, Sparky the Polish dog might just put the fear of God to Kasper's cats.  Kasper just told me that he wasn't really into those kinks.  He was more the vanilla type, he says.  He woulda said yes if it stopped in Can you be my master bit, but the feeding bowl and watching him sleep just creeped the hell outta him.  

With Sparky gone to another part of the bar, Kasper called out the bartender and ordered another beer and went to a corner where he could stay inconspicuous for the time being.  In that corner of the bar, he clung to his Qingdao and mulled about what just happened to him.  Then a guy went to his corner and smiled at him.  A Chinese guy.  Cute.  Younger than Sparky, about 20 he figures.  Short.  Nice, cropped hair.  No piercings or anything.  No EMO clothing.  Just plain a plain normal tee print and jeans and sneakers. And he was fit.   Yum. Kasper's type.  Let's call him Ling Ling.  Kasper, still wary about his experience with Sparky the Polish Dog, was trying to go slow and making safe small talk.  Ling Ling turned out to be ok.  Well,  lets just say that the conversation didn't involve any dog food or potty training so it was alright for Kasper.  So, Kasper decided to flirt a little.  Ling Ling flirted back.  One flirt led to another so Kasper decided to pop the question - he asked Ling Ling if he wanted to spend the night at his place.  Ling Ling said yes.  Kasper did the victory dance in his head.  {The Miss Saigon Soundtrack was playing in mine} .

As Kasper and Ling Ling were leaving Destination,  Sparky happened to pass by.   It couldn't be avoided since there was only one exit, Kasper acknowledged Sparky with a nod while Sparky gave Kasper a sad smile and Ling Ling the Death Glare. Ling Ling clung to Kasper and smiled at Sparky.  It was clear who won Miss Saigon that night.  Damn I love gay happy endings.

Well the story is not yet finished my friends.  

Let me have a smoke break first.

MUZAK PLAYS to the tune of "Reasons."

BACK.  Man I'm so gonna miss Zhong Nan Hai's

Where were we?  Yes.  Kim nails Chris. 

Kasper brings Ling Ling to his apartment.  Good thing he changed the sheets and nuked the cats. Once in the apartment,  Kasper sets the mood by lighting candles all over the apartment and turning on the cable tv {there was no music and they were going to have sex anyways so yeah} to some nondescript channel - CNN. 

Ling Ling sat in front of the TV watching the world unfold infront of him and listening to Wolf Blitzer tell the world that they're the best political team on TV (for the nth time! We know already!} while Kasper fixes himself a drink.   Kasper sits beside Ling Ling, puts his arm around him and sorta leans in to kiss him.  Ling Ling sorta squirms and smiles a little at Kasper and tells him:

I'm shy.
 
Then Ling Ling and went back to watching CNN.  Kasper, a bit puzzled and still horny, finishes his bloody fucking Mary  as Anderson Cooper makes his own signature "Magnum" look on TV. Kasper tells himself that this was not the night he was expecting.  He was trying to remember where he put Sparky's number.  

After a minute or two, Ling Ling finally got bored of Wolf Blitzer yapping on TV and turns to Kasper and asks him if they could take a shower together. 

Now were talking, Kasper says to himself. 

Shower. 
Nothing happened. Just soap and warm water. He thinks that this is some sort of weird form of Chinese foreplay.  Like those indipendent films he watches. 

Bed.  He's in his boxers.  Ling Ling is in his skimpy undies.

Kasper moves in to kiss Ling Ling when Ling Ling did something Kasper never thought that a guy that he would pick up in a gay bar would do. 

Ling Ling screamed. 

Ling Ling didn't just scream.  Ling Ling screamed like a girl.   And Ling Ling didn't scream just like a girl.  He screamed like a girl in a Japanese porn flick. 

This

freaked

Kasper.


Totally freaked Kasper. 

He was like
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?!

Ling Ling tells Kasper that he doesn't put out on the first date.

Kasper was like,  
Am I missing something here?


I mean I have to sympathize with Kasper here. My friend met the dude in a gay bar.  They flirted.  He asked him to come back to his place, the dude said yes.  It's not like he invited him to watch CNN.  They went back to his place to do the gay deed.  The guy did not look stupid or anything.   He was actually well educated and shit. 

This was just not Kasper's night. 

Adding salt to Kasper's throbbing wound, Ling Ling said

Can you wake me up early tomorrow morning so you can sit on my feet while I do my sit ups?

Kasper told him to get the hell out when he wakes him up later.
Thing is, Kasper's still horny.  I mean, damn, twice in a row.  {I did tell him that he shoulda picked Sparky}.  With or without Ling Ling, he needed to get off.  He jerked off.  He just needed to consummate this horrid day with some sort of absolution, an ejaculation, albeit from his right hand.  Damn, he could even get off listening to Wolf Blitzer tell the world that they are the best political team on TV.

So Kasper spanked his Dutch monkey, not even bothering to go to the other room, beside Ling Ling.   It was HIS room anyways.  Ling Ling was all hot and bothered though, making girlie Japanese porn sounds.  As Kasper was trying to imagine anyone, anything {even Wolf Blitzer} aside from the present company, he was also contemplating what he did in his past life to deserve something like this.  Two in a row.   A Polish dog and a Japanese porn wanna be. 

He came. It was not much. But it was an ejaculation.  It wasn't spectacular, but it was better than Ling Ling or Sparky or even Wolf Blitzer. 

Seriously.  Life can be a bitch sometimes.  

The universe decided to play a practical joke on Kasper. She probably wanted to teach Kasper some sort of lesson about the mystery of the cosmos and all that crap.  He still doesn't know what that Friday night meant in the whole scheme of things. Kasper may never know.  But the cosmos is wise.  When a mystery unfolds in front of you, there is no choice but to let it unfold.  Let it take its course. So Kasper acquiesced, ejaculated rather. Maybe he might actually figure out what that Friday night meant. Someday.   


So ends tonght's Tale from the Big Smoke.


A word to the wise.
Never go to a gay bar alone.  You'll never know who you'll meet.  There's always Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer.