Sally Field extended disco remix moment

Was going to post the latest NZ Musician cover story on the Phoenix Foundation forum (thanks Rodney and Carla, my operatives in Newtown!), but skimmed over it first (which is unusual) and saw that Luke Buda really sang Bishop's praises and mine, too. I reckon that as exciting as it is to see one's name in print, it's a weird feeling, too. It was such a community effort that got them here, fed, loved, paid, etc. Really, if one piece of the pie (the venue, the sound, the gear, the audience) failed, none of it would have been a reality.

I know the band know it was a community effort.

So, instead of posting the article, I used the occasion to send a love note to everyone who was involved. Let's hope for more opportunities in 2008!

Two extra days of living with the old setup

Surgery has been moved out to the 7th. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to change plane tickets or get my date shifted by a week. I reckon that if one wants an audience with the Pope of Hip Surgeons.....

Lovely pizza potluck at Marsha and Cal's last night to celebrate some birthdays. There was a lovely wee puppy Cal rescued from the Res(ervation). There are folks putting dibs on it, including AT.

Sally Field moment

Matty and I apparently got listed in the shout outs in the liner notes to the Phoenix Foundation's New Zealand release of Happy Ending. All I could think was, "bloody hell" and be really touched. Our copy still hasn't arrived in the mail. The transpacific postal faeries must be held up in Customs and Immigration.

In other news, we had the largest poker pot last night. Zach won $34.60 (most of it his) on an epic round of Between the Sheets/Acey Deucey. Karen dealt. This beats the $11.40 Matty won in Two Card Dropsies (guts) hands down.

Working on a medical "to do" list. This morning, zipped into the old (circa 1950-1960s) Northern Inyo Hospital for an EKG and Chest X-Ray. This afternoon, got the boy and myself flu shots. Wyatt was lovely and gave the nurse a heartfelt "thank you," even though he wasn't too pleased about the jab.

I have a date with some stirrups Wednesday, full bloodwork Thursday, pre-operative physical therapy assessment Saturday, pre-op consult the following Monday, pre-op clearance Thursday, and a type and cross blooddraw Saturday.

I am grateful that I have time to prepare and that this surgery isn't the result of some nasty accident on the highway. It will be a clean cut, Sir. No mushy bag of shards and hamburger for me this time.

Winter potluck season

Ray and Lesley kicked off the winter potluck season last night. Yay!

Fat bastard

Whoa, Nelly!

I guess I couldn't just pound down those Hoegaardens and deviled eggs (they are easy and so cheerful) and Belgian chocolates and meatpies and French cheese and Spanish chorizo and white trash novelty ice cream bars (Schwan's orange push 'ems and vanilla ice cream sandwiches), not exercise, and not expect to put on 5 lbs in a little over a week.

So, been riding the bike rig with the baby trailer for errands and trying to build up some massive thighs and butt before the surgery. The sun is still shining, there is no wind, and the nearby fields are all a gold and glorious.

I'm still going to drink the beer and eat the bad food, but cut back on the excesses and add kale and malt o'meal (for the iron).

I still have my wonderful and supportive friends and folks, my tasty snow white cherry tomatoes, and my sense of wonder.

Countdown

Surgery scheduled for Monday, 5 November. One week after Jon Becknell's second total hip replacement and a week and a half before Michelle's procedure. Bishop will be convalescent city.

Right now, I'm a little less flippant and a little more scared.

Lots to do before it all happens. Wyatt will start full-time daycare on the 1st.

Leaps and Bounds

In the midst of the screeching (Poor Wyatt *does* seem to be getting his last molars in), there are thrilling moments in which the boy's abilities are taking off before our eyes.

At 2 and a half, he is singing his own songs about "he runs away" and accompanying himself on the ukulele.
He is telling us long, involved tales about "eyebrows jumping over the fence" and the like before bedtime.
He is asking "do you remember that?" to things that might have happened months ago.
He is greeting his allergist with a hearty "Hello Dr. Beck!"

We're pretty sure he's pretty normal on the achievements scale, but to us, it's all pretty neat.

Phoenix Foundation in GR with a mention of Bishop, to boot!

Yes, the Bishop reference might have been a pisstake at us and the band, but the proof was in the pudding. Recently, folks have been asking when the next gig might be.

The band's third CD, Happy Ending, is out in NZ now! It is faneffingtastic and you can get yours here.

(Click on the pages to enlarge.)

"Carrie Ku Mei, I have found you!"

After 20 some odd years, I finally found "But Liu Ching" [or "Bu Liao Qing" in Mandarin] and other songs from the 1960s Shaw Brothers' Hong Kong film "The Lark." They, along with the single for "Kung Fu Fighting," The Carpenters' "brown album," The Chopstick Sisters' LP, and a Jackson Five LP, were the soundtrack of my childhood as an only spoiled child with my own turntable and a microphone (Sanyo suitcase model, silver and black).

When Matt and I lived in Hong Kong, I used to search out cd shops in Kowloon with the name of the song scribbled on a piece of paper (I got my coworker William to write it down in Chinese). Shop keepers used to laugh because the song, as popular as it was, was very old fashioned and not available on cd. There was the brief stint backpacking in Melacca, Malaysia, where I found the song on cassette, but lost it in the hostel when the thieving Algerians made off with Matty's pack and passport.

I have been going through an Asian "Roots" thing ever since I found out about The Phoenix Foundation in the last issue of "Giant Robot." GR is a very neat publication and store celebrating culture and Asian American culture. I've been thinking about what it means to be born Chinese Californian and to be livin' in a little redneck town, what that expat stint in Hong Kong was all about (Thanks Kay, who was here last week, for helping me remember a lot of the details), and why a song in a language I don't understand should mean so much to me?

Postscript: Patrick and Doreen just sent me an MP3 of "But Liu Ching" also known as "Love Without End" in English. It is on Shanghai Divas Vol. 2. I have Shanghai Divas Vol. 1 and wasn't so impressed with the remixes, so never bothered to look further into them. Silly me. When it rains, it pours.

More along the line of selfish indulging

There is a gorgeous 13.5 gallon keg of Hoegaarden beer at Manor Market with our names on it. (Thank you Markie and Karl!!!!) The obscure A type "German Slider" keg coupler is on its way up via Fedex, and we should be in business by tomorrow evening.

I will need to stop drinking while I am on the combination of morphine, warfarin (yes, the ratpoison. It also is a blood thinner), and laxatives in little more than a month, I'm sure. So, while the sun still shines on this fair Valley and while I still have the wonky femurs I was born with, let me at that damn keg!

As far as I understand the surgery, it goes like this: cut slit in upper thigh; pull away abductor muscle, saw femur in half just below the trochanter, the bit that flares below the ball; rotate lower portion of leg in 20 degrees, check how the ball of the femur sits in the hip socket, band the two cut halves of the femur under incredible pressure, something like thousands of pounds per square inch; pin a rod to the length and exterior of the femur to give it a plane to work with (and to give me hip where there were no hip before); put muscle back, stitch the skin back up.

The days that try parents' patience

We hit the so-called "terrible twos" with a vengeance. The past two weeks were one long fuss fest. Wyatt whinged where he used to be helpful. He was stroppy where he used to be obedient. Besides a cold and allergies, it was hard to figure out where the fuss was coming from.

Kay Wong, from my NBC Asia days in Hong Kong, Kay's husband Andy, and Matty's de facto cousin Greg all had liberal doses of "birth control" by hanging around us this past week. Hope they didn't want any kids anyway.

On the plus side, my child is slowly returning to me. Maybe there is a God.

It feels like a headache in the hips

I was a bit concerned in the past few weeks because my hips were pain free. I wondered, is all this cutting through bone really going to be necessary? Then, like clockwork, the season changed, autumn came*, and my hips started aching again.

This makes me rather glad in a strange way. It makes the decision to go ahead with the surgery all the more appropriate.

* Autumn in the Owens Valley means a few days of winter followed by an Indian Summer. Went for a quick hike up to Grass Lake with Kay Wong (we worked together at NBC Asia in Hong Kong) and her husband Andy last Sunday. There was up to 3 inches of snow on the ground at the top.

Holiday Moments in Dorkdom

Being rather moved by seeing Jarvis Cocker who was pushing his Velib bicycle up the sidewalk in Paris in front of Lavinia*, the three story retail booze palace. The experience has made me listen to A Different Class again a lot lately. This is funny because I was listening to it a lot before the trip.**

Speaking very poor French everywhere we went.

Doing my "Please have your artists come to Bishop" pitch to Mikee Tucker, label owner of Loop Recordings at the Black Seeds concert at La Bellevilloise. The Black Seeds put on a great show before a fairly packed audience of at least 250.

Fishing out a slightly used (only urine) diaper to replace a very used (poo) diaper at La Bellevilloise because we underestimated how many diapers to bring for the evening.

Not recognizing Sofia Coppola for being Sofia Coppola but being a face I'd seen before and staring a bit too long while she ate lunch at a quiet sidewalk cafe with her sleeping child in tow.

Telling Gueze/Lambic brewers/blenders Jean Van Roy and Armand Debelder HOW excited we were to have finally made it to Cantillon and Drei Fonteinen.

* Lavinia was the only place we could find the liqueur Creme de Violette, a missing ingredient to Michelle's Aviation cocktail. Creme de Violette smells a bit like grandmas' perfumes.

** Favorite lines from the album include, "When we woke up that morning/we had no way of knowing/that in a matter of hours/we'd change the way we were going/Where would I be now?/Where would I be now?/If we never met?" and "I'd give my whole life to see it/just you stood there/only in your (use your best Sheffield accent now) oonderwear." and "watching roaches climb the wall/if you called your dad/he could stop it all!"

It was silly to think that we would get any reading done on holiday

Gone are the days of lazing about an Asian beach in a hammock with a giant book. Here are the days of intensive sightseeing with a two year old. Didn't do a lick of reading while we were away. So, William Boyd's Restless still keeps me bedside company at night.

Finally figured out that I could only read Joe Boyd's White Bicycles by looking up bands and people in the index. There were far too many names and people popping in an out; so, I made my beelines for anecdotes about Sandy Denny (insecure but endearing genius), Richard Thompson (teenage genius), Nick Drake (stoned, stage frightened genius), Fairport Convention (geniuses), and Jimi Hendrix (well, you know).

Got the booty home

 

Matt and Tricia: geeking out since 1992. Saw that a bottle of Fou Foune in the States was going for $32. Cantillon Brewer and heir apparent Jean Van Roy had to go into the back and label two bottles for us to takeaway. I think we paid 6 euros a bottle ($8). I have paid as much as $24. Fou Foune is the nickname of the apricot grower the brewery sources its fruit from and also the nickname of a woman's body part, apparently.

Endless summer - Banyuls-sur-Mer, France

 

Early evening on "Mimi's Beach." We were spoiled.

"AAAAA" Andouillette - another offal in the yes column

 

Le Tambour, 2nd Arondissement, Paris. It's a bar that doesn't close until 6 am.

Yes, I realize that this looks rather pornographic. You should have seen the inside of the sausage - wavy layered intestines all crammed into that casing. Maybe I liked the dish because it reminded me that I am indeed Chinese and can handle "variety" cuts of meat. Jean-Michel says that good andouillette is hard to do because, poorly prepared, it makes a whole restaurant stink of poo.

Cantillon's stroppy kitty

 

Quite a few visitors to the brewery got a little souvenir from this kitty - scratches and bites around the ankle. It was cool! Cantillon did not participate in the Belgian Beer Weekend Festival.

One happy mother - Belgian Beer Weekend Festival

The strap-on baby was asleep, and we had a bagful of beer tokens. Need I say more?

It was a shame about the full-sized servings. I decided in the end that of the several hundreds of beer on offer, only Drei Fonteinen's Oude Lambic was worth my tokens. It must have been the mood I was in and my attempt to get on grumpy Brewer Armand Debelder's good side. Fresh Oude Kriek in Brussels tasted of the Scharbeek cherries - tart cherry pie, very little sugar. At home, just a few weeks later, the other Belgian flavors of bandaids and a bit of horseblanket, are coming through.

Home sweet

Glad to be home, but enveloped in the funk of having to go back to work and to our regular lives.

Tried out being a family unit, without our support network of friends and family for the first time. Despite my extreme paranoia and stress that the boy was going to pitch himself off tall structures or in front of moving trains or that he was being a very loud North American male (we taught him to say "I am not an American pig" in French), we survived. We also had some lovely catch up time with folks from our past - Helen and Dyon, Melbournites who are working in Copenhagen, and Paul and Sheila, who have lived in France as long as we've known them.

Towards the end, Matty and I nevertheless missed our Rancilio espresso machine and our beer drinkin' cohorts. Dear God, can one find a half way decent Northern Italian Style espresso in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France? We two fisted countless double shot espresso drinks at the Black Sheep the first morning back (thanks Konrad!).

The trip was fun. Exhausting. I DO seriously need to chill and kill the Type A, high strung tendencies I have. Laduree macarons were nice, but not as fun as Drei Fonteinen Oude Kriek fresh out of the bottle, the Cantillon Brewery tour (thank you Jean Van Roy for recognizing beer geeks when you see them and comping them their drinks at the bar), and "AAAAA" Andouilette (yes, an intestine sausage) at Le Tambour in Paris.

The boy grew so much because of the experience, and he was a trooper. He still talks about Guignol, the Punch and Judy-like Marionette show at the Luxembourg Gardens, and the Eiffel Tower. He is calmer, gentler, and even more engaged in the world around him. So, Chile and Argentina 2008, here we come.