Czech, Mate *    

Happy New Year from the Czech Republic. This year we did it in Prague, the city where everything gets twice as expensive every year the calendar clicks over.

Last time I was here I was delighted to discover the cost of living was dirt cheap. "Go to Prague," I told people. "But hurry. It can't last." It didn't. In many parts of the city, especially the ones populated by overweight tourists, the cost of eating and drinking out is comparable to London. London! What is wrong with the world?

It was a good time, a good New Year's Eve, just the same. We ate at a restaurant that someone installed in a 13th century dungeon. The service was average but food was excellent and got better with each successive beer. Outside the city was alive. Stages, bands, huge lavishly-decorated outdoor trees. And happy people overflowing from every courtyard bar and restaurant and public square. King Wenceslas Square was packed with fifty thousand Czechs and a handful of Russians. Most of them had fireworks. It was utter mayhem. We rented a 5th floor apartment for six days, across the river from the historic centre. Fought our way back there before twelve. Panoramic city skyline view from the deck, fireworks horizon to horizon. Big ones from the famous bridge of Charles IV. Never saw anything like it.

After that we got on the razzle. Things went sideways in short order. Stayed up late making fools of ourselves. Consumption increased, good judgement abandoned. I bet my sister's boyfriend fifty quid that the song Unbelievable was by Jesus Jones, not EMF. He was right of course. Later I realized I already knew that because last year I lost money betting someone else it was from the 80s when it's actually from 1991. Now I despise it with a passion I'm confident is strong enough to stop me from making any more stupid bets.

But the important thing is, 2007 has arrived, although the first day of it is something I'd quite like to forget, and we should all be planning big things. Train ride to Munich tomorrow! Six hours. It seems blasphemous to go to Germany and not drink beer, but that's my plan. I'll keep you apprised.

Happy New Year.

Sterile *    

I live just inside the downtown core of Vancouver in Beach Avenue, and St. Paul's Hospital is just a few blocks away. At least, I think it's called St. Pauls. You know how I hate to pay attention to the Catholic Church. But here's what I don't get: around the neighbourhood of the Davie Village I see hospital workers all the time, walking to or from their shifts, getting a coffee at one of the seventeen Starbucks, or smoking a cigarette. I can tell they work at the hospital because they wear scrubs. I saw an orderly the other day sitting at Hoho's Chinese Takeout, which I'm sure must be approaching the apex of restaurant hygiene, in his hospital uniform. Think about that for a second. Not the noodles, because that's disgusting.

Now. I knew a girl once who worked at some restaurant, can't remember which, The Keg or Earls or a McDonalds, don't really remember the girl either, but the point is she always had to get to work early to change into uniform and it was always making her late. When I queried her on this one day she said it was company policy, you weren't allowed to wear your uniform on the street, something to do with hygiene and public image or some such. But if you're an orderly at St. Pauls, that doesn't apply. You can wear your 'sterile' hospital scrubs anywhere you want.

So it's probably just me, but if I get into an accident on the street, say I'm knocked down by a hostess running late for her shift at The Keg and I'm lying in the hospital with an open flesh wound, I don't really want to be exposed to someone's Hoho residue. Or cigarette smoke, road grime, homeless grease, animal drool, or anything that has been outside the trauma ward. From what I've heard about the chaos at St. Pauls, I can only assume if you leave and come back in still wearing your scrubs, you actually improve the hygiene of the place.

Catholics. No matter how you bend it, they make no sense.

Stooge *    

Enjoyed this article by Sydney journalist Jack Marx, in which he is nervously drawn into what he describes as Crowe's "parallel, one-man PR fix-it campaign". Marx is a great writer (it seems there are so few these days) and Crowe... well, the overall impression is not favourable to Crowe. Any movie star who thinks he's a rock star should be viewed with great suspicion in my opinion. Marx's account of Crowe's clumsy attempts to manipulate journalists one-on-one left me bewildered. Anyone who attracts as much media attention as Crowe should surely realize by now that public opinion is near impossible to influence. Or at least, that's what I thought.

Worth a read.

Tie Good. You Like Shirt? *    

In recent months we've been frequenting a Thai restaurant called Chilli House, on the waterfront two minutes walk from our apartment. We took The Family there when they were in town, in fact both Families, and a good time was had by all. Like all Thai restaurants, the Chilli House is staffed by a posse of cute, compact Thai girls who look innocent but probably aren't, and who make Singha Beer materialize with unnatural efficiency. Also, there's a pleasant ocean view, especially in summer.

Growing up in metropolitan New Zealand, and taking into account limited cultural awareness, so-called 'ethnic' food was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. Chinese is the only foreign cuisine I can recall being readily available; apart from that it was all post-colonial european staples, hamburgers, steak and overcooked starchy carbs. What a tedious culinary existence we as a nation must've led... but then, I was a kid, what the hell did I know. I liked beef.

Anyway, all that changed. The world got smaller, the immigrant populace got bigger, and many of them opened restaurants, with or without the appropriate skills and/or permits. I heard once (but have not confirmed) that Auckland's premier Thai establishment, aptly located in a gentrified, overpriced annex of the downtown core, was started by Some Young Guy, 21 or 22 perhaps, or so they say. The place was jumping everytime I went because Thai food tastes great, and westerners who've never dared to venture beyond the California sushi roll can expand the boundaries of their own cultural awareness without actually having to eat anything too exotic, like insect eggs or the internal organs of marsupials.

And once you've had that first encounter, you never look back. As in:

Trent: So where to eat? You like Thai?
Homer: Tie good. You like shirt?
Homer brings home Thai food from Thai Palace Restaurant.
Homer: Marge, this is Thai food. From now on, I want it morning, noon, and night.

That's what Thai food does to people. I wonder if their women have the same effect.

I read once that there's something like 2000 restaurants in Vancouver alone, and praise be to Allah, most of them serve food from other countries. Canada, like New Zealand, has failed to develop its own culinary signature, so we get to enjoy everyone else's. That's pretty much how I like it.

Worst. Buy. Ever. *    

Some nice folks got screwed by Best Buy after taking their PC in to have their hard drive replaced. "We'll destroy the old one," they said, "drill holes in it even," which they assuredly did not because it showed up some time later at a Chicago flea market. I'd have thought to remove sensitive info from the drive before handing it over - Best Buy is, after all, staffed by a posse of minimum wage schmoes who just aren't paid enough to really give a rat's ass. I mean, really... if you don't care enough to get a job somewhere other than Best Buy, why would you care about some stranger's personal information?

Overall the Best Buy experience is seriously underwhelming. Whenever I go there's either no staff to be found, or there's a herd of them with clipboards in every aisle. But no matter how much your job sucks, is there really a market for stealing someone's old hard drive from the lab and reselling it? Scan the drive first and take the credit info from it at least. Best Buy people... they just aren't smart.

Should be sued.

Frisco *    

I'm in San Francisco this week on business, and the Americans are saying it's the first good weather they've had in weeks. It's been raining for forty-five days and mud and houses have been sliding off the hills. One guy died. In a mudslide, after a rainstorm, in California no less. That's not something I ever really expected to hear.

But now that I think of it, last time I was here it was raining like a mofo as well. We were enroute from Auckland to Vancouver and had a day off, so we took the BART from the airport to... somewhere downtown (Market Street maybe) and a streetcar from there to Fisherman's Wharf. Top of the list for tourist traps in this town, it was utterly deserted - no tumbleweeds, but there were flying newspapers. It was generally a nasty day, one I've tried to forget. The rain and wind made everything miserable. Trying to get back to the airport we were forced to stand outside in driving rain in the park while a clutch of antique tram operators, huddled inside with their coffees, waited for schedule to tick over before allowing the launch of another tram.

Imagine the irony then of cracking the blinds in my hotel room this morning and looking out on a perfect day - a view of the Bay with the Golden Gate in the distance, and in the foreground the accursed little park and tram turnaround where we stood this time a year ago in the bitchiest weather imaginable and cursed the Rain God and his miserable prodigy to the ends of hell and back, all for the want of a single umbrella or a small break in the weather.

But damn, it looks nice out there today. There's a social confidence inherent in San Francisco which is almost completely vacant in Vancouver, ever the petulant younger sibling of Toronto. Maybe we should move here. Maybe, maybe.

Day Nine *    

I tried shamelessly to have my snowboard stolen after our last day up at Sunshine Village - I'm long overdue for a gear upgrade - but it just didn't happen. I left it unlocked in the middle of every quad outside every cafe at every opportunity. I left it standing against the wall of the chalet all night, willing some bozo to snigger untowardly to himself as he made off with it in the dead of night. But the truth is, no one wants my piece of shit hardware. It's five years old, it's the board I learnt on and it's thoroughly trashed. There's a hairline split which has been repaired at some point down the length of it, and yesterday I noticed a six-inch groove had been carved out of the underside by some unfortunately-placed piece of mountain stone. The out-gouged plastic hangs off one end of the groove like a spiralling piece of cheese. It makes me look wicked hardcore, but that's complete bullshit - I just drive it over a lot of rock. Also, snowboard graphics have evolved a lot lately, and my mine's a long way behind the cosmetic curve. Nobody wants it, not even for free.

I guess I'm stuck with it till next season.

Tonight is the last night in Banff. Love it here, it's been a good time, in fact a great time. Lots of restaurants, beer, inches and inches of powder to carve up and quality family time, long overdue. Awesome! We fly out of Calgary tomorrow for Vancouver, armed with a handful of presents for The Girl, who stayed at home and worked while graciously allowing me a ten-day snowboarding vacation in the Canadian Rockies without a single complaint. She is fantastic and deserves presents and sex.

This also happened: while we were all hanging around town this afternoon picking up a few stray souvenirs, my sister oddly and abruptly disappeared. We found her outside giggling like a ten-year-old. She'd let loose a ripping great fart in the mall and escaped the scene by slipping away while no one noticed. Well, not exactly no-one - some young guy with a baby in a stroller noticed. He sniffed the air a couple times, looked around suspiciously and then checked his baby's diapers for evidence. We just about wet ourselves laughing when we figured out what had just happened. That has nothing to do with anything, but I bet it made you smile.

We're a classy bunch, we are.

Kicking Horse Ass *    

Ten days in a quaint little drinking town with a skiing problem sadly passes more quickly then expected. It's 8am on Day 7 and I'm drinking coffee and thinking about heading up to Sunshine Village to do another day on the mountains up there. The weather is fine but below freezing, and there was new snow overnight. It's a good day to be up the hill.

Yesterday we made the ninety-minute trek over to Golden in British Columbia to hit the slopes at Kicking Horse Resort, back over the border. Snow was mostly acceptable, though icy in places and turning to slush towards the end of the day. Spring is attempting to make its presence felt. I liked the resort overall, but the trail map consisted mostly of immensly long green cat tracks (thin winding cliff edge trails connected by hairpin bends) and near vertical blue and black diamond drops. Not well suited to my skill level. On the plus side, so near to the end of the season, Kicking Horse was basically an immense mountain resort with practically on one on it, which means yay. You know how I hate people.

I got my ass off the mountain (and not by sliding downhill on it, in case you wondered) about fifteen minutes early, so I was forced to check out the branded merchandise. I'm not one for tourist items - the best tourists are invisible ones - but I was impressed by the resort's branding strategy (see icon below). The resort is named after the nearby river, and the Native American-inspired kicking horse icon is an impressive branding device. I picked up a little gift for The Girl with the icon embroidered in bronze on it. It kicks horse ass. Yeah, I'm a geek, but a sucker for good design and intelligent branding. No doubt KH moves a lot of superfluous product just because it looks good. Well done, some person.

Plank *    

I'm in Alberta to do some snowboarding with the family. I've never been here before, apart from a couple of brief layovers in Calgary airport, and so far I think it can largely be summed up as "frigid". The snow is good, even though it's relatively late in the season. We rented a three-level chalet on the mountain above Banff. There are deer wandering randomly around town. The service in restaurants is lax because it's near season's end and the casual workers have all pissed off. It still seems like Kiwis and Aussies outnumber the locals. Dirty Aussies.

Alberta is famous for beef, but so far the beef tastes like anywhere else. Meat is meat, as far as I'm concerned, in the same way that beer is beer. I am not a discerning consumer. This province also has Krispy Kreme ("so good, you'll suck a dick!"*) and Chili's Restaurants. In consumer terms it seems more American than British Columbia, which is odd since as near as I can tell most of the state is pretty much an icy wasteland. Calgary was so bleak I thought about killing myself just to get out of it faster.

The Rockies, though, kick ass. The geography is spectacular. We've boarded Sunshine Village and Lake Louise, and we're heading over to Kicking Horse tomorrow. I have developed competent skills as a snowboarder despite not being particularly enamoured with the prospect of sliding downhill at high speed on a plank.

Tomorrow, however, more plank it will be.

Get a Job *    

The good life might well be drawing to a close. In a matter of weeks I should theoretically have resolved the issue with residency paperwork, and might thus be entitled to be productive member of society again. I don't really see the point of hanging around in a country you weren't born in if you aren't permitted to pay taxes into it. I earn a shitload of cash, dammit. Vancouver needs my tax money so the crackwhores on the East Side can get a quarter for 'coffee'. I might have to get a job.

This might seem callous, but the situation with regard to declining healthcare, education and other essential services is not going to change until society realizes that non-producers just have to be cut loose. If you will pardon my dropping the biblical shit up in here, if you don't work, you don't eat. Starvation is a pretty good motivator I reckon. In Canada, like New Zealand, pretty much anyone can get a free ride with no accountability, especially if you're smart enough to spell your own name. Not enough personnel to assess cases in an individual basis, they say, so people can pick up welfare just for the asking. I always thought the solution was pretty simple: cut off the crackheads, the hippies, welfare immigrants and so forth, you can use the money saved to hire more assessors, some of whom might not be smoking crack. The assessors can stand in front of hungry crackheads, eat a Big Mac and shout 'get a job!' I don't see why those worthless people should be dragging the rest of society down. If they insist on lying around in East Side streets, maybe we should use their corpses to pave roads.

Apparently there's not enough tax money for effective policing either. I heard on the news last night about yet another person shot in a park in Surrey. Surrey ('Surrey Lanka' says The Girl) is a residential suburb an hour out of town evidently populated with people who aren't Canadian nationals. Lots of Asian kids out there eating noodles and shooting people. I think it's becoming some sort of passtime, which is just awesome. Come to someone else's country, find yourself a gun and start killing people? What the hell is wrong with you?

"Hold it," said The Girl. "They are home. They might be Asians with guns, but they're mostly second-generation Canadian Asians. Also, that's rice." I hope a few of these riceboys get into a firefight with The Man and go home in a bodybag. Vancouver is surely better off without people who shoot people. Unless they can stick to shooting each other. At least set some friggin' boundaries.

And then of course there was this:

Todd: "Daddy, what do taxes pay for?"

Ned: "Oh, why, everything! Policemen, trees, sunshine! And lets not forget the folks who just don't feel like working, God bless 'em!"

Dirty hippies. Get a job!

Three Things *    

I saw some things on the street.

1. Asian woman with dog, which had planted its ass on the sidewalk and resolutely refused to move. She hauled periodically on the leash, each jerk accompanied by a rapid-fire burst of some unintelligible asian dialect which was clearly lost on the dog and probably the rest of humanity. Despite having hair so long it completely obscured his features, he had perfected the art not just of refusing to budge but of projecting an air of complete indifference, looking over one shoulder disinterestedly even while she near broke his neck. I suspect he was making some kind of statement on Vancouver's asian population.

2. Some homeless guy had resurrected an old microwave from someplace and found a working outdoor power socket outside Giga on Burrard Street. He was making microwave pasta as I walked by on my way back from the gym. Ten points for ingenuity. It actually smelled better than he did.

3. While standing on Davie Street waiting for a friend so we could get sushi, an odd couple happened by. He had that dinstinctive face-being-pulled-back-to-the-back-of-skull appearance which typically signifies having been up for the last 36 hours railing crystal meth; it's a sort of shiny hundred miles an hour expression usually seen on homeless people and indians (the natives, not the imports). I've seen him around before - spend enough time around Davie Village and you soon know all the crazy locals by sight. His escort was the intriguing part, and by escort I mean... escort. Tight jeans, tan leather jacket, actually kind of pretty, but two handbags, which I always associate with a working girl - you know, one for business, one for pleasure, though I'm never quite clear how one should differentiate. He was yammering away about something completely mundane as they passed, something no one could possibly be interested in, especially her, and she walked sort of two steps behind and to the side which is code for Fuck I hate my job, I'll just hang back a bit so casual observers won't think we're together. Then she caught my eye on the way past and I was struck with a momentary lapse of certainty: I'd just misread the whole thing, surely, and passively insulted a complete stranger. But she smiled slightly and rolled her eyes while the crazy speed freak jabbered on two steps ahead, and I knew I was right after all.

Davie Street is a colorful place. The escort could've been a black guy in drag and my worldview would scarcely have shifted.

Sex And My Dinner *    

I haven't been myself this week. I don't sleep well, I wake up congested and I can't get going in the mornings. I'm probably coming down with something. I decided last night what was needed was some home cooking. So. Toss Girl on couch, add remotes and a glass of wine, and I set out to make something good. The kitchen in our tiny apartment is close to the TV, so I could hear even though I couldn't see. And what I could hear and mercifully not see while stuffing herbs, garlic and cream cheese into a chicken breast, was Sex and the City.

A worse television show was never made than this. Seriously. It's an atrocious mix of tired New York stereotypes, sitcom cliches and tortuous dialogue shrink-wrapped in a tenuous veil of sophistication which threatens to disintegrate near the end of every scene, and hearing while not seeing it really underscores just how worthless it is. The writers never relieve us of the tedium by straying far from the show's core premise: four horny half-single women terrorizing Manhattan by trying to fuck everything short of a Central Park carriage horse, whilst using their experiences to draw meaningful conclusions about urban life. At least, that was probably the network pitch. In reality, no clever observations arrive, no searing insights; only a thin, steady stream of of the blindingly obvious:

At that moment, Miranda realized 'I'm not getting any younger. It's now or never.' If she ever wanted to have sex with Chris again, she would have to swallow her pride and get on with it.

Like that. And as hopeless as the narrative may be, the dialogue is worse. Let me sum it up for you: four women in a cafe. All of them carry the vague appearance of having been deprived for a week of their core diet of cocaine and hot Italian beef and are covering the withdrawal with makeup and inane girly chatter. Remember, despite the depth and vibrancy of New York life (and the potential therein for an interesting show) it's called Sex and the City for a reason. Viewers tune in to hear the hungry women talk about sex. The writers know this, and fashion the script accordingly, thus:

Carrie: "You'll never guess who I had sex with last night."
Samantha: "That falafel vendor on west eighth? I had sex with him last week."
Charlotte: "I haven't had sex in three days."
Miranda: "If I don't have sex in the next three minutes, I'm going to need a new napkin."
Charlotte: "What about that waiter?"
Carrie: "I had sex with him last year. He's an asshole."
Miranda: "He's cute. I'd have sex with him."
Charlotte: "Can you set me up?"
Carrie: "Okay, but you'll regret it. He leaves empty chinese food boxes on the floor. After sex."
Charlotte: "Great. I'm going to get laid!"
Voiceover: At the moment, Miranda realized: there was more to life than art galleries and warm goat's cheese salad. She decided she would have to have sex more often.

God, I wish I had a gun.

That's pretty much the thrust of the show, so to speak, and it's about as insightful as you can hope to get. It's mindbogglingly trite, the narratives all delivered in a tired voiceover by Parker, who has about as much vocal talent as a piece of cheese. Plus, she looks like a horse. Come now... we don't have to believe she's an icon just because the media keep insisting it's true. Sure, I probably wouldn't kick her out of bed, but honestly I can't really see making much of an effort to get her in there in the first place. And the men are no better. I'm not professing to know what New York women want in a partner, but these half-assed GQ throwbacks look like they belong as extras on the set of Muriel's Wedding.

Well, it's been fun hackin' on it but I'm done now. Just do yourself a favour by watching something else.

Oh... and dinner turned out great. I will tell you what I made another day.

Crossing Over My Dead Body *    

When I was in Chapters yesterday I noticed Crossing Over 'star' John Edwards has a new book out. Well, actually I dunno if it's new, lemme check... right, August 2005.

John Edward, if you didn't know, is a self-professed 'psychic medium' who gathers a bunch of people into a studio gallery and films a network TV show where he channels messages from audience members' loved ones. As you can imagine, this makes people go a little bit crazy. They clamour to get on the show, desperate to make contact with the dearly departed, convinced that Edward, who claims psychic experiences and abilities since childhood, is their one hope for extracting a few final, vague words from Uncle Phil. Well, I haven't read the book but I've seen the show a few times, and I have this say:

What a c*nt.

John Edward may or may not have had, or thinks he had, paranormal experiences as a child, but I do know this: when it comes to Crossing Over he's no more a psychic than my ass, which channels the dead about as well as it emits turtle doves. Edward is a cold reader, and not a particularly good one at that.

Cold reading (Wikipedia article) is a technique used by so-called paranormal mediums that makes them seem to know more than they do. It's that old fortuneteller's trick where she covers a broad scope of info quickly, some of which probably applies to you, and then refines it according to your reactions. The result seems like mystical revelation, but people don't realize how much they give away by unconscious expression or reaction, and that effective cold readers are highly skilled in reading body language. With a little background reading on the technique, you can watch Edward's show and see how he does it, never mind the allegations of cheating, creative editing and all the people who claim he got it wrong.

A couple of things about this leave me shaking my head:

1. Despite such techniques having been around for more than a century, there are still presumably intelligent people today gullible enough (or desperate enough) to believe Edward really is channeling dead people. And not eloquent ones, either - they only give Edward obscure clues which he must use to canvas the audience, hoping for a response. Come now, you're dead and coming through on network TV. Don't you know your own name? And there are so many more skilled practitioners out there too. Derren Brown pulls some shit without any apparent reading at all, and even he admits there's nothing paranormal going on; just psychology. I say if you're so easily impressed, be impressed by someone with skills rather than a half-assed sideshow medium whose biggest talent is looking America square in the eye and lying through his teeth.

2. Seriously, what a c*nt. That's a hell of a way to take people's money. Still, they're foolish enough to part with it, but if there really is an afterlife, Edward is going to be burning in it. That's just mean. He must be laughing on the way down to the bank, thinking "You idiots, don't you know I'm cold-reading your dumb asses! Google it!" He must have no conscience at all.

No conscience, but some big balls. I'd like to do a private reading with Edward, whereby I channel my boot squarely up his fraudulent ass. Bet I could cold read his body language after that.

Fashion Bites *    

The Girl became enamoured with this brand: Coach. For the fashionably challenged among you, which includes myself, Coach makes handbags. Really, really expensive handbags. Why are they so expensive? Is it because they are hand-stitched by Chinese midgets under a full moon? Nope. Is it because they are made of exotic substrates, like artic foxfur, or manatee testicle leather? Nope. It's because the good people at Coach jacked the price up until ordinary people couldn't afford them, and now everyone who can thinks they're worth what they cost. This is how the fashion ball keeps rolling.

Since I occasionally refer to myself as a graphic designer (and have a couple of friends in the clothing design business) the creative aspects of fashion intrigue me. But the motivations that drive it leave me completely bewildered. Ever watched a runway show on the fashion channel? A bunch of designers with Italian-sounding names attempt to out-do each other creating the most bizarre, 'original' outfits, most of which will never be worn off of the runway - unless going out in public with your flat breastless chest exposed suddenly comes into vogue. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing.

So I guess it's fair to assume that the point of fashion is to be as unique as possible. But on the other hand, when something is in fashion, people are driven to spend vast amounts of money to get one, just like everyone else. Other people, complete strangers mind you, might see you carrying your Gucci (or Coach) bag and gauge your fashion sense thus.

None of this makes any sense to me. I thought I knew what fashion was once, but I was probably misguided. Or, as Grampa once said, "I used to be with it. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it is weird and scary to me." These days, apparently, being fashionable means being rich enough to look like the other people in your tax bracket.

Oh well. I don't begrudge The Girl having nice things - it is, after all, part of what being a Girl is about. I don't even mind paying for them. As long as no one minds that I stick with my $45 AE jeans and a faded tee. 'Slob' is the only kind of fashion I understand.

Sushi *    

While we're on the subject of sushi, you might find this amusing. Just in case you needed to know how to do it with a little more cultural finesse.

Aki *    

Last night I took The Girl to Aki for sushi. Aki is a small authentic restaurant underground on Thurlow street. There are Japanese businessmen shooting sake and conducting acts of Japanese business down there at night. I have never seen a Geisha, but there may be a back room full of them. I believe it's considered one of the most such authentic in town; Girl, being ESL teacher, says she has heard as much from students, some of whom had jobs there. "Those students complained," she said, "because they never got enough practice speaking English."

The prices are as Japanese as the food, by which I mean high. Granted, it's more authentic at Aki than most (bland favorites like salmon and sushi rolls, the kinds of mundane items we see many westerners suck down before settling back with a smug 'I'm a cultural connoisseur of the Far East' sort of expression, are not readily apparent) but it takes more than authenticity to make me part with large piles of cash.

That says something about western culture, I suppose: when it comes to sushi, in a way we consciously miss the point. We seek to separate the experience from its context; transplant it to a more accessible, more palatable environment, divorcing ritual details from the process, leaving us free to exploit elements of the culture without committing to it in any meaningful way. We take what we want, discard the rest. History and origin are valueless; only gratification is important.

In Japan, though I have not yet been, I have heard that the rituals of the sushi-ya remain intact. Sushi is among the most basic staples of historic Japanese culture, afforded great respect and oddly, prohibitively expensive for many. Whereas in Vancouver, thanks to a sky-high Asian population, Japanese cuisine is so widespread that in many areas (like Downtown) it's cheaper at lunch than fast food.

I'd like to say I appreciate the nuances of Japanese culture more than most (and am prepared to pay for them) but I guess we probably won't be going back to Aki anytime soon. Too expensive, not fake enough.

The Physics of Kong *    

Kong is definitely a piece of work, but he presumably weighs rather a lot and gravity is a bitch. I came across this Forbes article which explains why he is just too damn big to be dragging his own black ass around town. Not sure what Forbes thinks it has to do with business, unless you're an animal smuggler, but it's an interesting read.

In Review - Peter Jackson's King Kong *    

Runtime: 3 hours, 7 minutes. No spoilers in this review.

There's an old joke that goes: Where does a 300 pound gorilla sit when he goes to the movies? Anywhere he wants.

When Peter Jackson goes to the movies, he probably feels much the same way. Jackson's early splatterfest films (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) were surreal, amusingly violent low-budget flicks shot in New Zealand in the 80s. Fans from those days will be particularly appreciative of just how far this man has come: after the success of Lord of the Rings, cinematic masterworks from which millions of lifelong Tolkien fans walked away satisfied, Jackson cannot put a foot wrong. In fact, these days he enjoys a directorial privilege surely as rare as it must be liberating: a blank check from Hollywood to do whatever the hell he pleases. And since he has credited the original Kong (1933) as the film which inspired him to pursue a career as a filmmaker, well... bring on the giant gorilla.

As you might expect, the lord of Middle-earth delivers. Not just the gorilla (though Kong is a 25-foot CG masterpiece so real he has to be seen to be believed) but a compelling, violent tale of misfortune so intense its hefty three-hour runtime slips past before you even think to glance at the time. Jackson clearly believes if you're telling a story you should take all the time you need. I think he's right.

Kong himself, enacted by Andy 'Smeagol' Serkis, is quite the leading man. I went in with what I thought were reasonable expectations: many a film has been made with fake gorillas, and the one thing I felt they all had in common was that the subjects never looked like real primates. But New Zealand-based Weta Digital know their stuff inside out - Kong not only looks real, his behaviour and facial expressions bely a near-human sensibility that compels the audience to respond. Such anthropomorphism might be counter-intuitive to the ideal of a 'real' gorilla, but it works for one simple reason: the success of the story rests on the character of Kong. His broad range of human-like emotions (frustration, anger, boredom, amusement, sadness, among others) are clearly discernible. The guy doesn't have a single line, but he speaks volumes. Keanu Reeves, pay attention.

It's the emotionally-charged audience connection with Kong that drives the story. The general plot (arrogant New York filmmakers attempting to exploit the third world for profit) is adequate, even if its most engaging moments are more attributable to flora and fauna rather than story or dialogue. The scenery is gorgeous, dangerous, exotic, the wildlife diverse, tactile to the point of creepiness... it all adds to the experience. But the film is named after Kong because he is the heart of the tale: huge, immensely powerful, worshipped as a god by the natives, but deeply lonely and clearly the last of his kind. His sadness is palpable. Despite being king of the island, his primate intelligence dooms him to a kind of existential wilderness far more forboding than that of his jungle home. This profound sense of identity loss forms the basis for his bond with accidental heroine Ann Darrow, played by the engaging Naomi Watts.

Naomi Watts... dear me. I wish there was a director's cut containing only shots of her. Her sense of melancholy mirrors that of Kong; we may even forgive Jackson his tendency to hold the camera on those swimming-pool eyes a touch too long, if only because Watts is so convincing as a 1930s showgirl-turned-movie starlet. Her lines are fairly limited throughout, but she doesn't need words - the chemistry between her and Kong is perfect, and their relationship is almost entirely non-verbal. "It's in the subtext," the suave but tiresome Jack Driscoll explains poignantly to Darrow in a clumsy attempt at clarifying his own feelings. "It's not about words."

It's certainly not about Driscoll's words. Adrien Brody is capable in his role as the playwright, but the Driscoll character is weak; even in moments of misguided gallantry he smacks of a sense of self-serving heroism that lacks authenticity. He is apparently very lucky, but largely ineffective. Similarly, Jack Black is hardly a veteran character actor by any stretch: I've always thought him to possess a greasy, vacillating quality that varies little from film to film. As Kong progresses, though, it becomes clear why he was a good choice for his role as the arrogant filmmaker Carl Denham. Too bad he didn't throw in a little more flair, but then, it's Jack Black. One has to set reasonable expectations.

Jackson, who is said to have stayed true to the original 1933 story, covers a number of themes: human folly in general, American arrogance in particular, the ill-conceived human drive to control things far outside our sphere of capability and the inevitable destruction of what we can't or won't understand. "The thing you come to love about Carl," explains Driscoll, neatly encapsulating the moral construct of the plot, "is his innate ability to destroy anything he loves." But ethics aside, the core of the film is a sad tale about love and loss between Darrow and Kong, the beauty and the beast - and however absurd that may seem, Jackson makes it work.

That is not to say Kong is by any stretch the most 'artistic' or thought-provoking film this season; if you prefer indie or arthouse cinema, then this film is not for you. On the other hand, if like most you enjoy the guilty pleasure of a high-budget sfx romp now and again, they don't really come any more heavyweight than Kong. That's three hours and seven minutes I don't wish I could get back. In fact, I may just give up another 3:07 to see it again.

And Another Thing *    

Okay, here's the situation: apparently, and this is hearsay, a couple of people in the room next door bitched to hotel management until security presented us with an ultimatum: you lot, cut the fucking beatz or we're going to refund those guys their room fee, and you'll be picking up the tab.

So to summarize: after dinging us an exhorbitant fee for a suite so kitsch it looked like a scene out of The Matrix, with evidently no soundproofing, we have the equally useless options of either having 50 loaded people whispering to each other with no music, or paying the fee again. Now that's a quality user experience.

The more I think about it, the more it twists my beanie. I'm trying to see it from the other side, they paid for a penthouse suite too so they should surely be entitled to a romantic evening without the phat bassline. But it's not like the party was a secret. Management knew we were having a party up there, could they not have moved the horny old people to the other end of a mostly empty floor? Besides, it's deep house music. It makes sex better.

Moving 50 people plus alcohol plus a DJ rig to another location is a logistic bitch. I think we got thoroughly shafted by Fairmont this time around.

This is 2006 *    

Happy new year to you and the horse you rode in on. We booted 2005 in the ass but good by renting a penthouse suite in the Hotel Vancouver, the biggest, oldest kitchiest most obnoxiously expensive lodging in town. Turntables were installed. Tunes were spun. Midnight came and went. Noise complaints soon followed. JT, ever the consumate Hollywood sweettalker, kept hotel security at bay while various individuals whose identities and location were never exactly clear complained loudly and at length while we held the volume steady at about six. I know this is a radical view, but it seems to me that if you drop seven or eight hundred bones on a suite - at New Year no less - you should be entitled to make a little noise without management threatening to double charge your gold card. It's not like we trashed the place. Aerosmith did way worse when they were in that suite.

Anyway, we took our decks and we left, petulantly, to continue things in another location. Relaxing, good music, nice people. Things were ingested. Stuff got said. The Girl and I got back to the apartment at about 7. A bunch of folks arrived at our door soon after and we stayed up to chat and see daybreak. I think it was possibly the best New Year I've had in many a year. If there's one thing we all seem to agree on, it's that New Year is traditionally a royal pain in the ass and almost always a universal anticlimax. No one ever commits to anything because of some bizarre, misguided notion that a better option will present itself, which of course it never does. The idea of forgoing the clubs for a private party was a smart move. For once, we were the better option.

I didn't really make any good resolutions except, as you already heard, to write more often, and perhaps to suck less as a DJ. Far, far stranger things have happened, some without any apparent effort on my behalf. We shall see. I welcome you to 2006, and now I am going to sleep.