Posts from November 2005
November 25, 2005
My most recent gig with...
This is pretty funny. ICRT wanted to do some wacky commercials for the morning show, and asked me to come in and play "romantic" sax for one of them. I'm paired up with my dream night of music at the Living Room.
November 17, 2005
Two geniuses discuss breakfast through jazz
My wife is sick, so the best remedy is a good massage, which means the massuer comes over at 1am, and I just want to go to bed since I'm damned tired and cranky, but I feel weird sleeping in a room with a guy I don't know who has his hands all over my wife, so I end up wasting time surfing the internet since the TV sucks sooooo bad in Taiwan.
And what do I find? I find this perfect combination of two geniuses...
Dr. Suess meets Thelonious Monk. Cool.
I don't think this works in Chinese
I'm curious if this works when radicals are placed in different places within a character.
BTW, how do you get radicals into a different place within the character?
November 08, 2005
Green Tea
A dog barks, cars pass
Outside, things are happening
I sip my green tea
Limbo day
Today is one of those weird days that just sort of hangs in limbo.
I had to dig through five boxes filled with 110 years of Wall family photographs, documents, and momentos, searching for one document in a manila envelope I carelessly placed in one of the boxes before shipping it all back to Taiwan. It has eluded me for months.
I found the document finally (in the last box), but also uncovered a lot of left over feelings for the past. I found a diary I kept while taking a three month long bike trip through the east coast of the US. I was reading a lot of Sam Beckett at the time, so the diary is introspective in a weird way. As I read it I could see everything all over again from the eyes of a 21 year old. I saw all my old grade school report cards, my music certificates and awards, and I also found all my old essays, writings, poems, short stories from college. It was hard to remember back that far, but I have to admit there was some good stuff in there. I might have been a writer if the ball bounced a different way.
Women also played a pivotal role in my development, as there were always plenty of them around, and it was strange to meet them once again in photographs or letters. One nice leftover was realizing that my best friend then is still my best friend now.
Recently I've been thinking about the things I've accomplished, or haven't accomplished, and I realized that I don't really care much either way anymore. Maybe that's bad. It used to mean a lot to attain one of my goals. Whether it was releasing a new album, or visiting a new country, or starting a new business, whatever, it all meant something. These days, it seems that the daily motion of daily life is good enough. Whether that's Taiwan or old age, it's hard to tell.
November 04, 2005
The Camel
A Belgian friend stopped by last night, and we were talking about why she smokes Camel cigarettes, since you can't get them here any more (apparently they didn't sell well here because Chinese think camels are dirty animals).
This stands against reason, because there is now a regular TV commercial with a camel selling vapor gum with "Xylitol" which is really a sugar alcohol produced from white birch trees. (Which by the way is what Leo Fender used to make his dove-tailed Fender amp cabinets back in the fifties). FWIW, corn cobs are also a source of xylose.
Anyway, this friend stops by, and we are discussing Camel cigarettes, and it turns out that Camel is a very popular brand for Belgians. It also turns out that at least three heads of cigarette companies in Taiwan are run, or were run by Belgians.
Still, this doesn't explain the Camel/Belgian connection, until you stare closely at the camel on the package. There on the front leg is an image of a boy pissing, who anyone knows is The Mannekin Pis, the famous Belgium Pee-Pee Boy.
So apparently this is why Belgiums like to smoke Camel cigarettes, or says my friend, as she puffs away.
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
