Shanghai Nights...

The very talented singer from our show, Frank Bray is in town! Tonight he is performing at the most popular jazz club in Shanghai, the JZ Club, with a 20 piece big band! The big band is fabulous, but often the singers they use can't hold their own next to them.. tonight will be an exception! We have our Chinese partner coming with some very important higher-ups and officials (including The Man), as well as our whole crew of friends! It is nice to be so secure about what we have to show them, Frank is always spectacular and I have yet to see any singers on his level here in Shanghai.

We got to show off our town and our friends to Frank last night on a typical Friday night in Shangers! After a day of blissfully riding our bicycles all day in the sun and massages we didn't bother having dinner before we went to the first party at 7:30 at a friend's art gallery. 3 of our friends work in the offices on the 2nd floor there and they have made the first floor into a gallery. The exhibition was... well, circles, in circles, in circles... done with tops of buckets... VEry colorful, and surprisingly cheerful and worked. There was a performance by "Mr. Bucket," who got my vote for having the best costume design I've seen in awhile. He sort of sauntered around like a clown, moving one of the art pieces to the music... it was definitely something else! Amazing how many people we know in this town, I can count 20 people off the top of my head that we knew there, probably more. Our core group of friends are riotous Aussie guys, but last night we had a nice group of girlfriends out giving the guys a run for their money! So from there we all piled into cabs and went to the Men's Vogue party on the Bund. This was a very good time... OH forgot to mention, I might as well say this upfront... there was good food and drinks at all these events and the only thing we paid for all night was the cabs! Norman was saying that in the eighties in NY you could go out every night of the week and freeload if you knew the right people, and that is pretty much how it is here these days! So this VOgue party... One thing I liked was a glass "store front" type window with treadmills behind the glass where the male models "walked" in place. I saw the best looking Chinese man I've ever seen last night, tall, striking, it is always notable when you see a stunning CHinese man, many stunning woman, but men are hard to come by. Anyways, after the models were off, Todd says to me, "I can't just stand here and drink anymore" and I said "Well lets go cause some mischief then!" So we marched, very importantly through the curtains, into the backstage where all the dancing girls were changing (they mostly looked like tranny strippers we all agreed!), and walked right over and got onto the stage where him and I proceeded to do a dance routine on the treadmill in between laughing so hard we were nearly falling over... lasted a good minute or so before some PR girl started to scream at us like we were ruining the party, we rushed out of there only to hear it was the best thing that happened all night from our friends! HAHA! So much fun! Then we went to the Hamilton House for a party that wasn't partying, well, that is until we showed up! Frank busted some moves that were last seen in 1992 (for good reason!) :) After running amok there we decided that we Had to swing by one more party since we hadn't seen Ukachi all night and he is a vital member of our posse! (This is us moving onto our 4th party of free drinks and food...you can fill in the gaps!) So we went to MoCA (Museum of COntemporary Art where our friend Diana is the curator. We had missed the performance of the German Beastie Boys, but caught up with the rest of everybody we know in Shanghai! I swear...we saw practically everyone with very few exceptions out living it up last night at one place or another! All very cultural, of course. We were there for the art! :) Ugh... the 3 of us each had a cheese sandwich before finally settling down last night to bed. And honestly, I feel quite well this morning considering! At one point I was convinced we had lost Frank, after he tried to squeeze into the front seat of the cab, basically sitting on Panthea while Norm and I tried to tell him to sit in the back with us... instead he got out and got into another cab with Todd and Tim, but our cab pulled off before we saw that he got in with them and I was sure we would find Frank wondering the streets with no cell phone, address, or Chinese...! Ha, he beat us to the party though, him and the Aussies are practically brothers now! Those 3 even made another stop in between 2 of the parties for tequila shots, since their cab apparently wasn't moving fast enough for them! All told, an exceptional night out! I had a moment of self-consciousness standing in line for the bathroom when I felt like a true amazon woman (reaching about 6 foot in my heels), all the girls around me were at least a foot shorter, some of them could fit into my body twice it seemed! Then later I decided I really liked being able to see over the majority of peoples head, makes it easy to spot my friends, and feel like the models must feel in NY!

Been eating some great food here! I think I am hooked on the way they do eggplant, now there is no turning back! (singing and whistling in the background)... I thought I had experienced "The constant song" syndrome with Norman and Joey, but between Norman and Frank I can hardly hear myself think! Between whistling and harmonies (well at least from one of them!)... Sometimes it is quite lovely, like last night in the street when they stopped traffic in a rendition of "You've either got or you haven't got Sttttyle!" Other times I must take a deep breath and remind myself "This too shall pass" ! Frank has been a lovely house guest though, has really been taking advantage of the cheap massages too. I had to cut back because I was really close to becoming a massage parlor junkie.

So I am very excited to say that Norm and I are doing our tri-month-ual Visa run this next week to Hong KOng, and we have timed it so we get to go to the opening of the Banksy, Damion Hirst exhibition! Here's a link:
http://www.changethethought.com/banksy-robs-hong-kong/
Panthea will be there too, and it looks like I am going to meet up with Roger DeLeon, who I went to elementary school with and haven't seen since I was 12! Crazy huh? Then we are planning to stop in Macau on our way back! Met a french woman who runs and choreographs dancers there and is looking to relocate her troupe to Shanghai, in August! We might know a place for a few of them, ehh?!

So the status of the building goes like this: Our guy (The Man) told us that if the old people aren't out by this Wed. he'd send the cops after them! At which point we could retain the building in four weeks, putting us at around mid May, and the timing couldn't be more perfect! The Man is coming tonight to the gig at JZ! I'm wearing my best dress and will put on my famous smooging face! (Ummm...I don't know how to spell that word, sorry) I had thought this would be a welcomed opportunity to stay sober for the evening, treat it very professionally, etc. Then I was reminded that Chinese business men are famous for drinking the green tea whisky by the shot and it was considered poor manners (and bad business) if you didn't keep up in the festivities. Maybe our men aren't that type though (hopefully) but we are already planning on picking up their tab for the evening... so again hopefully they aren't that sort! Oh well, I think it will be very fun and look forward to it!

I have two eyes again finally, maybe I wrote that before. Funny I have had to reintroduce myself a lot now that I am back to having two eyes, and have traded in my black wig for my long blondish hair (which I got permed recently and now I look like I constantly have "morning after hair" which works for me I must say!) I wanted a Chinese eye-patch which is like a metal plate with holes in it stuck straight on the face, but they wouldn't give me one. Now That would've been hardcore!

Oh... I forgot. Quick comment. So everyday on facebook I get "group" invitations: From my American friends to join the Free Tibet groups, support the Dali Lama groups.... from my Chinese friends groups like "World, do you know Anything about CHina?" "We Love China," "Supporting China" "Tibet Was, IS, and Always will be part of China," "Anti-separation of Tibet" ...you get the picture. I wrote a whole essay on this topic just for fun (yeah, I'm a major dork...now that I'm out of college I assign myself term papers!) as my feelings about the whole matter are constantly being challenged. I have decided not to share it though as some of the things I say are controversial and I have no interest in arguing this passionate subject against my friends who have various backgrounds and education on this issue, though I am always interested in people's personal feelings about it. I can say one thing though that has become fairly obvious to me: China will never give up Tibet, and would sooner tell the rest of the world to go fuck themselves than give it up. The more attention Tibet gets internationally the worse the Chinese are coming (and will come) down on them. Makes one wonder... well, a lot of things. Here is the intro though, I don't mind printing this:

" I remember being 15 and going to the Tibetan Freedom Concert in DC. I swear, none of us teenage Americans could point to Tibet on a map, or had any concept of what we were going to help free them from by attending this concert. I just went for Radiohead and the Beastie Boys and Jane's Addiction, and hey, if Their party was "Free Tibet" I wanted to go too. Thinking back now, I have a hard time making the connection between how Tibet ever benefitted from this concert. As far as I could tell the awareness that was raised was based on vague names like the magical myth of the Dali Lama, and we all believed we were creating world peace by being in various states of drug induced euphoric states. One thing that is for sure is that they made the "band"wagon the one everyone wanted to be on. "

It goes on, but like I said, people are in jails here for saying the wrong thing. Maybe what I am saying is the right thing, and the truth is my decision not to publish it has little to do with the threat of backlash, which is not a threat to laowais here, (so don't worry Mom!), but more because this is such a controversial topic and it is a smart move I believe not to make a public stance on my private politics... (Like some stupid fucking singers do...ah-hem) Though I did enjoy the process for many reasons, and happy I took the time to really think it through and research it.

If you get a chance I can recommend reading Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's speech to Peking University that he delivered last week in fluent Mandarin. Also, New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark did an interview on the BBC, Hardtalk I believe, and she handles the questions about China SO intelligently, bringing up issues about how the US and UK have had their own problems with their various minority groups... I'm not even going to try, she says it so brilliantly I can't achieve it, but look for the clip if you have a minute, I suspect it is on youtube or you could get the transcript online. Either way, they both should be considered examples of the positions the world's leaders should be taking on this issue, they are a lot closer to getting a response/change/Consideration! than the way some other "leaders" are handling things. Anyways, my soapbox is about to break! That's all for now! Thanks for listening!~