We are but 3 days away from our most feared departure from Corsica. Up to today we have done nothing but eating cheese, playing Bog with clay and the occasional swim in paradise. Today we begin packing, which includes stops at the local supermarket and wine/cheese/hams caves where we intend to spend a small fortune on products forbidden by customs everywhere.

However, our hearts will remain forever void in the absence of... THE best calzone in the world, in the most random part of the island, a place you wouldn't stop at if they paid you, utterly small and run by an eerie looking white folk who's eternally covered in flour, I weep at the thought of leaving you me love.

We must find a way to take a piece of this angel breast with us, for we are nothing without it, nothing... (fade out)

CANNIBAL CORSE

Well well well, it's been a while. But what are a few months of silence when one is having fun?

We're in Corsica at the moment, taking advantage of not having to use a proxy to blog and jerk off; Miyavi plays here tonight, best news I've had all year, but more on that later.

Glorious place Corsica, expensive as hell I'm almost out of money and I've been here 5 days but it's worth it, everybody is beautiful a la mediterranean, tanned strong and fair to the point that a Chinese girl would be the biggest sensation here. Me? I could blend in, if not with the Corsicans then with the rest of the Europeans? Pretty sure nobody suspects my mexicoholism? Hopefully I'm not thought of as an American, they aren't exactly loved here?

There is a place called Bonifacio, a giant rock that erupts out of the water and makes for the perfect view in almost the whole island, we had a couple of suicidal moments while looking down from the edge and we also had some murderous moments when this dude took a bad picture of us, eventually we had to go cause somebody was getting hungry.

As for our extra-curricular activities, one of the plans was to learn how to play mah-jong but since it is the most complicated game ever made we gave it up and now we play chess, which developed into the brilliant idea of buying clay and making our own customized board. Also more on that later.

Alright I'm off to a sunny place now, Bog help me.

I'm not a terrible person after all!

I did it I did it, I finished one whole story and wrote two halves of two other stories! I'm on my way, I'll be damned if I have to buy you an overpriced gourmet dinner BI!

(And Milk too, he's been trying to get into the bet ever since he heard I'd be buying dinner if I lose)


Chinese word of the day: 高兴 (gao1xing4) 'happy'.

I am a terrible, terrible person.

I've given up my so-called 'internship' in Soma Records after finally realizing I am not musically talented in any way whatsoever, which even in this forgotten and underrated branch of music, that is, recording, is necessary. At least a bit, sometimes.

By the way have I mentioned the fact that I 'silently' gave it up? Yes, the coward that is me hasn't told them back at the studio that I've stopped showing up. They shouldn't be too surprised, I rarely even went anyway, they must be missing the little treats I used to bring them over. Hey whatever happened to the muffin girl? Oh, she just-- stopped showing.

I am a terrible, terrible person.

And whatever, as I decided that the life inside a recording studio wasn't for me, I once again began wondering what to do with my waste of a life.

The solution came in the shape of B, no, not the letter 'B' (the shape of a pregnant lady with massive boobs), in the shape of my roommate most commonly known as 'B'. Her suggestion consisted in getting some sort of internship in a magazine or any other kind of publication where I could learn... whatever it is they do.

I thought it was a mighty good idea at the moment, though I should probably add, I had 3 cocktails in me already, as I was visiting B at work (ahh, the benefits of your roommate being a bartender), and making a bet with her about it was something I certainly didn't think through.

The bet consists in me writing 6 stories in 2 weeks, stories about a clash between Latinamerican and Chinese cultures. That is, retell, in the third person, interesting anecdotes that have happened to me and B in our four years in Shanghai, once completed I would give them to B to read, criticize and correct, and eventually send to a Hispanic magazine called 'Hola China' for what would hopefully be my (yay) first published thingie.

Ah it sounded like so much fun when proposed. Two weeks for 6 stories, and if I fail to complete the task, I will be forced to buy B dinner in the restaurant of her choice. Mind you, she's got some sudden expensive taste, this one. Remember the good old days when a trip to the neighborhood bakery was pure gluttony glee? Now, I'm expected to cough up around 600 yuan for what's most likely going to be two salads, two cocktails and one shared main course of chicken...

And yes, that's all quite fine, if only I had written anything by now. It's almost one week into the challenge and I haven't gotten past: 'This is the story of...'. And look at me rambling on and on in English. I'm in despair here, I CAN'T seem to find any sort of inspiration to write in Spanish. I blame it on all the reading in English I've been doing in the last months O Brothers.

Today I went into B's room to jew out some books in Spanish that I knew she had, to search for some let's call it inspiration again, shall we? I got out Julio Cortazar and Carlos Fuentes.

Nothing.

I am a terrible terrible person.

Ooh Tar Baby

Today I woke up full of words for some reason, and there's a lot of things going on in my tiny little head I thought it'd be worth a shot at yet another useless post.

Did I just say Ooh Tar Baby? Yes I did. And who might that be you ask? Well I'll tell you who that is, who, Ooh Tar Baby is what Ormus Cama referred to, in his later years, as England, and why is it that I'm blogging about England, seeing as it is one of the countries I have least in common with? Well I'll tell you why, why, it is because India is in my head right now, and now there, the link is done.

We had dinner last night at an Indian restaurant, Big S's birthday as a matter of fact, Big S is a rather confused girl you see, awfully friendly and awkwardly aloof sometimes to tell the truth, to such degree in fact, that last night she failed to comprehend the inexplicable mix of friends she invited last night to this epic dinner.

There we were, Milk and I sitting at the middle of a rather long table for 16 right in front of the birthday girl, when within minutes we found ourselves left to a small group of Chinese viz., (and these names are not made up) Lennz, an 18 year old girl with a football head,
yes very much like Arnold's, and her forty-something year old British boyfriend (hello England), Paul (ok normal name) a rather young Norwegian speaking nomadish Chinese teenager and of course, cherry of the cake, a girl proud of calling herself Frog Baby, who took a 20 minutes dump halfway through the meal and made sure everybody knew where she had gone.

To our right, a couple of normal looking folks, end of the table, two hippies and an oldish bloke who had been a roadie for Sick of it All, something I wouldn't be too proud on commenting. I wasn't feeling too well honestly, and I couldn't tell what was bothering me the most, the Frog Dump girl or the extraordinarily moustached hippie girl, ahh I couldn't even drink properly and spent most of the evening in complete silence O brothers, otherwise muttering abravofigarobravobravisimoabravofigarobravobravisimo under my breath.

An incident broke the mood of the meal. Milk stood up in a moment of anger to yell at a waiter that had been ignoring him way too long and went to confront him. I saw him stand up and followed with my eyes to the moment when I saw him point an accusatory finger to the guy, followed almost inmediately by an explosion of anger from said waiter who started yelling nastiness in Chinese.

As Milk returned to our table, the waiter, almost being held by another Indian waiter, was pointing his own finger at him and yes, still yelling nastiness. He beckoned Milk to where he was in a 'Hey you! Yes I'm talking to you! We duel!' kind of fashion and to my utter bewilderment, hippie #1 started complaining on his own accord: 'You know we never really had a good service, you've really done a good job ignoring this table, we've had 3 beers the whole night' and it was supposed to be an all you can drink kind of deal O brothers.


Chinese angry waiter kept yelling abuse to his people until some of the guests with their fantastically polished Mandarin stopped playing nice and a wonderful language battle of verbal nastiness began and it did feel like a breath of fresh air to your humble narrator here, who by the way, witnessed the whole scene with her mouth wide open.

Angry dude leaves, triumphant expat table claps, what a sight it was, 16 on 1 (alright 15 on 1 as your humble narrator's gapping mouth prevented her from any other form of expression) and that was that. Soon enough we stood up to take our leave and I was suuure that dude was waiting for Milk downstairs with a bat in the best case scenario, an angry herd of Chinese waiters from the sindicate in the worst case scenario, but said thing never happened.

Altogether it wasn't that bad a night was it?

Somebody put something in his drink.



Or somebody watched too many horror movies.

I just squashed a tiny spider that was happily dangling in the bright space between the computer screen and my nose. I wonder where it was dangling from.

A thought!

What is big, red and poofy and should have stopped making movies many many years ago? A hint? What's (EDIT)'heel' in Spanish?



That's right friends! I'd like to dedicate this little entry to the man behind the gloves, who during many years held a warm place in the center of our hearts and who now, alas, travelled south to place himself at the bottom of our ankles and hard as we try to kick him away he's still managing to stick himself to the spot.

Why am I talking about this now, why you ask? Well why, I'll tell you why. Milk and I made quite a hobby a while ago of abusing his last disaster-- I mean action movie 'The Expendables', every once in a while suggesting one or the other should make an official review of it.


See, we were big fans before what we shall call 'the incident'. At least Milk was, for I only discovered his oldest movies not even a couple of years ago, but ever since I found my liking for this guy rapidly blooming within me. I even considered getting myself a Rocky action figure, I certainly got the gloves, and Milk gave me an original french poster for the movie on the year it came out. (He didn't buy it the year I was born tho, he's just a little boy!) Doesn't Adrian look like my mom?? Yes she does!

But see, people make mistakes, and people like Stallone make even bigger mistakes than the commonplace commonfolk, and what was his mistake? I'll tell you what it was, it was not getting into politics after Rocky IV.

Now, there are A LOT of things I could criticize, about everything really, I'm as happy as a pony running in a flower field when it comes to bashing action movies, but this time around I'm sticking to the main stuff.

Number one.
The catering company that served the staff during the making of this movie should be sued, brought to bankrupcy and burnt down to ashes for the crime of serving Sylvester the shrimp cocktail that brought him the rash of a lifetime.
And I do mean, THE RASH OF A LIFETIME.



Number two.
Whoever thought Mickey Rourke was close up material, was seriously, seriously mistaken and should pay with his neck. (Or skin, rash rash rash)



Number three.
Jet Li is a national hero in China's Republic of People, a giant in a country of thousands of millions who day by day train as hard as they can so that one day, they could be like him. In this movie, however, he's just short. And not just that, he's Sylvester's little friend, you know, the one you always wanna be next to whenever you need to look taller. Unfortunately for him, Jet's also yellow, working to make Sylvester look even more orange.



Number four.
Family violence huh? Nothing makes a hero better than a guilt-ridden beaten up woman who doesn't like you, and beating up the guy she likes better than you. Why was this girl even included in the movie? Beats me, but gave me a good 10 minutes to get more goodies from the candy store.



Number five.
The spice girls concept. Jason's the guy with knives, then there's the dude with the ear, then the black guy with the noisy guns, the little asian guy, the tall n' dumb blonde one, the retired dude who hangs out back at headquarters and of course the leader, who always knows how many bullets the bad guy's got left, and here's the best part, ALL of them... wearing personality-matching hats.



Number six.
Two words. Dictator's daughter. Seriously? I mean, seriously Sylvester? Why not add another spice to the soup and have the other bad guy turn out to be your father in the end huh? Or your lost brother, or, or! ... your twin!
Of all the stupid, stupid plot twists you could ever come up with, nothing, and I mean NOTHING is dumber than falling for the villain's daughter.



Number seven.
Right after Barney saves Jet Li from the big blonde guy who's lying on the floor bleeding, then comes this brilliant piece of dialogue.
Big blonde guy: 'I was just gonna scare him'
Barney: 'Don't put that on me, you never liked him!'
Aaaand it's done! That's it, Sylvester lost me to the biggest snort I ever produced in my whole entire life.



Number eight.
Oh, during some seconds of the movie someone substituted Stallone for a giant, well done suckling pig with extra muscles.



Number nine.
Those little exchanges of looks between Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone. Hee hee hee, we're all big superstars and we're all in the same movie together, hee hee hee, let's put it in the trailer and make people believe we're actually IN the movie!



Alright folks that's it, for the time being, someone's gotta work tomorrow morning and it's only getting later! I might continue the post, I feel sort of bad now, bashing on Sylvester like this, perhaps I'll make a small entry of all the good things he's done in his career. But I'll have to take a look at that porn he did.

MOVIE QUICKIE

Since Milk and I have spent the last few days on the couch watching horror movies, I have something to say.

FUCK Castle Freak.

GODDAMN Freak. And there are witnesses, I used to have a soft spot for freaks, ever since sweet Grady Stiles
(I even dressed up as him one Halloween, if wrapping tape around my hands counts), and regardless of the crazy similarities between the GODDAMN Freak and Rocky Horror's Riffraff (who I used to have a crush on too!), I still had to look away from the stupid movie.

On another note, hats off to Sleepaway Camp.

We read somewhere on an Eli Roth interview how he explains the effect this movie had on him and his friends, to recall he said something like, by the time the movie ended, just after the last scene, he and his friends literally stood up from their chairs and screamed in horror. Well, long story short, it happened to us too.

Seriously, this movie is SICK in a disturbingly good way, my favorite type of way, and I won't say anything about it, except that if you watch it, you MUST watch it until the end and shut the fuck up about how you think Friday the 13th is way better, because once you get to the end, you'll have FUCKING nightmares.

Now, on to Cannibal Holocaust.

I literally started watching the movie holding on to my cookie monster plushie because I had heard that it was very difficult to watch, and one hour into the movie, the only difficult parts to watch were the unceremoniously raw scenes of animal cruelty they show, the dismembering of a giant turtle for example, I seriously felt worse about the turtle than the guy who gets his dick cut off or the girl who gets gang banged and decapitated by a bunch of tree huggers.

Well, honorary mention to Evil Dead, that was the second time I watched it and it still works on me, goddamn demons.

Which reminds me, I had to rearrange the order of the creatures I would least like to encounter in my life and death, and for many years my list was topped by those motherfucking black and white zombies from Night of the Living Dead (Yes, yes, I was young and the fear never left me) closely followed by those damn critters. But in the light of new events, my top 5 reads as follows:

TOP 5 OF CREATURES I WOULD NEVER LIKE TO ENCOUNTER IN MY LIFE AND DEATH:

5.Aliens
4.Anna Paquin
3.Zombies
2.Demons
1. GODDAMN Castle Freak

Asshole.

February 5th, 2011
Shanghai, China

Chinese new year... not a big deal really, with the exception of some nice looking fireworks nothing else was special about it.

Just a few days ago me and Milk celebrated one year together in the flesh. We went out for dinner and originally planned on going to the Shanghai World Circus but we got lazy and decided otherwise.

And in other news,

about a month ago back in the recording studio, I was there looking up at people with my mouth open as usual, hoping that they'd give me a fun and new and exciting assignment, such as plugging microphones...... when suddenly boss Zhang asked me to organize the printed lyrics for the singers who were coming to record on that day, to my very big surprise and delight of the crazyrabidfangirlness remaining inside of me, I knew some of the singers, I recognized a couple of names written on the lyrics.

Needless to say when they arrived, and as hard as I tried, I had a stupid smile on my face that I couldn't quite clear off.

Seriously now, those singers are far from being real stars, but they are quite known in Shanghai, I even bought my mother a CD of one of them when I went back to Mexico after my first year. Ah, and when I met him, oh the shame...

I walked up to him, my boss was going to introduce me, instead of holding out my hand I open my mouth and blurp out: Heh heh, you're famous.

Of course, that was followed by 10 long uncomfortable seconds of staring and apollogetic chuckles, but it was alright, meaning of course my boss, who is an excellent guy, never thought bad of it, in fact he was one of the ones smiling about it, and the other guy that works there, this musical genius called Mu, made sure I stopped feeling bad about it.

All in all, in a way its too bad I'm on holidays right now, because I miss the studio, and just when I was starting to understand a bit how it works there, the stupid chinese new year comes to meddle and disrupts my professional pleasures. Cock it to hell.

And between spaces, we've been playing tetris nonstop. I see beautifully colored squares everytime I close my eyes.

Soma Studios in their previous glory.


3:48 am

Chinese word of the day:
色情 se4qing2: Porn.

February 2nd, 2011
Shanghai, China

Happy Chinese new year, or Spring Festival.
It's strangely quiet this cold February afternoon, everything's closed, there's no people on the streets, everybody's home with their families celebrating the beginning of the rabbit year, my year as it turns out.

No fireworks tho. It's as if they're hiding in the dark in someone's surprise party and preparing themselves for the time to jump out and yell happy birthday. Only they're really good at hiding here.

Shanghai is dead at the moment, just like what the last couple of seconds before an earthquake feels like.

I think I hear some fireworks in the distance, only really far, I can hear them because it's so quiet around here. I wish they would start already.

Milk and I are watching horror movies tonight. Zombie, Sleepaway Camp, probably some other weirdness like that. He wants to watch The Stuff but we won't find it on the internet. I'm cooking spaghetti. This is how I will spend the first day of my third rabbit year.

I'm 24 this year, hoo.


Chinese word of the day:
鸡巴 (Ji1 ba1): Dick.

January 12, 2011, Shanghai, China.
12:04

It's been a long week so far. Milk is dreaming of wrestling rings right now and Guera is cat-snoring next to my ear.

Another night I rather stay up as long as I can even though I know I should be going to bed too. It's finals week and I'm already dreading the next 6 months to come. Why? I'll tell you why, why. I hate waiting, and I'll have to rock climb my way through the next 6 months. Why you ask? Why, I'll tell you why, why. My summer is going to be PERFECT once more. Oh yes, I had a perfect summer 2010 and I am planning on repeating it.

But I, me, meself unfortunately cannot leap my way into the future, no not just yet, meaning I will have to, yes, like the commonplace commonfolk, go through every second of every minute of every hour of every day to get to glorious July.

But what is happening in the summer? What's all this blood business about you ask? Well, what now you ask, I'll tell you what. Once upon a time a young lynx-eyed youth promised to take me to Paris for my birthday, me, an Augustine lioness, and punch after laugh after bottles of wine after moths and Japan after cats cats and cats well, look how spoiled she became, the mexican, in Paris she was.

And anyways Sodoma, Hellfest, whatever your name is, suddenly dropped in two ticket invitations, after which Gomorra, Tolmin, whatever your name is, also felt like having us over for tea. My word, I can't seem to get to the point.

I'll actually be working the whole summer with the exception of two weeks that Milk and I are taking off work to go to France for a wedding and a festival, our brand new version of dinner and a show.

That is it I guess, so I start the countdown. Exactly 6 months to go. Perhaps its not time to bless me yet but I certainly will sin. I'll seen a lot of pahdy to cum. Oui.


01:08

Chinese word of the day:
税率 (Shui4 shuai4) Tax rate.

Thursday, January 6th, 2011. Shanghai, China.
00:32

This is the first entry of, I hope, many more to come.

It is for the purpose of remaining anonymous that all participants of these entries are granted cleverly thought aliases, result of the author's flourishing imagination, whether they like it or not.

This is the blog of LARUA, LINAK, BABYCUM, of metal you are made (though thou might forget at times) and to metal you shall return, meself, who shall be henceforward known as 'I'.

As I find myself sliding down the months after turning 23 years of age, my confidence is low, my weight is high, my pockets are empty most of the time although my life is full of cheese and wonder, which probably explains the weight.
I live in a wonderful city at the right lung of what is probably the most bullied country in the world (and with reason I must admit!), and every evening I share my couch with an opinionated gorgeous mediterranean feline boy who (yes I dare!) shall be known as Milk until further notice, and who will be a prominent feature in my rambings for the ladies' (and some men's) delight. Let alone my own.

Another featurette for the gents, my other head (the better head), my confident, my cruel proxy-to-reality roommate, Bocha is her name, and shall be too, henceforward known as 'B'.

These are wicked times, oh sweet wicked times that go by fast in these wicked parts of planet Earth; China has been a home to me for many years, I have had a good life here, and it is now, when finally everything seems to be fitting in, that I headbutt.

Headbutt.

But first, a small summary of what it is to be me, I mean, I.

'STUDENT-MODE'

Monday to Friday:
-Advanced Chinese, Economic Law, Finance
-Giant coffee break.
-News Listening, Writing, Chinese Modern Literature, Chinese-English Translation.
-Lunch across the street in Sambambim restaurant, spaghetti bolognese 12RMB, fresh orange juice 15RMB.
-Gym, pretending to excercise for two hours.

'INTERN-MODE'

Soma Records, 3pm to 9pm, recording studio internship.
-Still pending... (just starting)

'WORK-MODE'

-English school for Chinese kids.
-Talk for 3 hours, get lots of money.

'LOUSY-HOUSEWIFE-MODE'

-Complain about the dishes, but never wash them.
-Complain about the dirty laundry, but never wash it.
-Feed Milk.
-Daily discussion about what are proteins.
-Daily discussion about why Sylvester > Arnold.
-Couch with Milk, videogames, movies, plants vs zombies.

'GOD-MODE'
-Holidays in Mexico, France, Hong Kong
-Salman Rushdie
-Metal summer festivals
-Cocktails for ze lady in me.
-Beer for ze sailor in me.
-Charcoals, pastels and crayons.
-The unstoppable soundtrack in my head.

Like I said, it is good to be I.

Or so I thought? Here comes the butt on the head.
I am growing up.
Not just expanding, which has to stop, but actually, unstoppably, inevitably, growing up. Hence all the words, all the get-to-the-point-already ramblings, the shut-the-fuck-up. (Do you think creation happens in a second? Well, neither does revelation.) What can be worse than becoming an adult?

Feeling an adult. And not in the lecherous tactile way.

I have come back to my blogger habit for help. By writing it all down I humbly expect to realize that I have got all I wanted to have at this point in my life, and I not so humbly expect to raise jealousy in a lot of people to feel better about myself. There, I said it.

So here it begins, a sort of detailed, public foggy misconception of my reality, a journal. What Shanghai does to a life, and what my life will do to Shanghai. A 23 year old Mexican girl who ran to these wicked parts of planet Earth looking for adventures, and her findings.

All peppered with respect, hateful respect.


02:12