Day 3 - Dank and Dreary ... USA whoops China in B-Ball

Today I saw a one armed Cockney Englishman marching through the crowds around the water cube trying to sell swimming tix for 2000k US. The hustle continues ... I'm getting deeper into the tix biz and its fun.

Today it was hazy and dark all day and then it started to rain at about 4pm and still hasn't stopped. I sloshed through the Agricultural Exhibition Center grounds where the Holland House is and my shoes squeaked as i walked. The Dutch beauties want me to get them into the Budweiser House pool for late night skinny dipping. Lord have mercy.

I broke away early after opening the secret back gate for the Dutch Prime Minister, just in time to watch the Second Half of the China - USA B-Ball game. Thank God it was an ass-whooping. The team is playing great and I think it'll be gold this year. As it should be.

But yo, keep yer eyes on the US Men's Soccer team. They had Japan and Holland on the ropes and they both barely got away for a tie.

As for the terrorists, they have been blowing stuff up and killing people in Xinjiang and people here are starting to ask a few questions. I am amazed at how many people here do not have their passports with them or do not carry any ID at all. They also seem pretty uninformed about China and Chinese political BS in general ... even with the media blitz all year.

I will be serving champagne in a bow tie when the Dutch girls go swimming.

Day 2 - The Hustleman

Yeah its always the same wherever I go. i become Red from the Shawshank Redemption. I am now in the ticket business and it is quite fruitful. I will be able to see beach volleyball, tennis, baseball, some basketball (no USA yet) and some girls field hockey.

Ya'll need tickets? holla at me. Ya'll got tickets? holla at me.

I got these tickets "free" through various deals with the Dutch at the Holland House, the Americans over at Budweiser and this salty English gangsta-hustla who was hanging with his boys outside of the Bird's Nest.

"This bounty hunter is my kind of scum."

So its all good. I work like a slave every day though, but its a lot of fun. I get along great with everybody at the Holland House (heineken sponsored it so its a big party house -- google the site, too tired to find the link) and i have become quite indispensable as the one of the few that can speak a few languages fluently.

The Opening Ceremony was amazing and it really gave us all here in Beijing a new and fresh perspective in the Games. I know now that they are sacred and beautiful and should be treated as such. Now the spirit of the Games may be a sacred force, but being human, we do our best to sully it with our slimy devlishness ...

Such as all the hustlin I been doing: massages, cars, tickets, clothes etc etc if i were full time hustlin and not working as a smurf with skills for the Dutch, I would be having one hell of a time and makin bank. I will try, from now on, to squeeze them both in. I have just begun to see the possibilities. Means I can't sleep though. Like ever. three weeks non-stop ... word is bond.

Last night i walked to Tiananmen Square and met my people Zachary Mexico, Li Du, Anna the Persian Princess and Mr. Yunnan Jeff Crosby. We were raucous and loud and the Chinese gathered around us and took pictures. Every five minutes, companies of PLA soldiers would march by.

Its actually pretty funny, the ostentatious show of security belying the shy nervous looks on these young boys' faces as they march past, staring at the head in front of them. I could walk up to a formation and throw a grenade in their midst. Instead i keep pace and beatbox to their rhythm.

We ended the night with hot pot and smokes. Anna took a great picture of me wrapped in a Chinese flag under some red lanterns smirkin. But then she erased it accidentally. thats right. erased it. (She has two Ivy League degrees ...)

At the Heineken House I have noticed a great many fly Dutch girls ...

East Asians are pretty funny with their displays of emotion. They do the mass chant and maybe a peace sign. Bang plastic stuff together. They sure aint Brazilian. I have noticed the Chinese staring in wonder at the supporters from around the world dancing, screaming, wearing strange costumes and painting their whole bodies in national colors. China wanted the Olympics so bad, now they have em.

Its still an international party though ... thats the whole point. The Budweiser Party tonight was FILLED with Chinese "princes," overseas Chinese ballers and Chinese from Taipei, HK, S'pore etc bringin their Mainland sweeties ...

They drifted in and out of the Holland House and vice versa. Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Germans, French, Irish, Italians, Greeks, Russians, Tanzanians, Malaysians, Japanese, Syrians ... Its just a matter of time 'fore everyone gets naked.

Day 1 - Opening Ceremony Ticket Scam

Today has been a very weird day so far. Last night I drank late late into the night with some security guys -- old warhorses from Ireland and such -- and they said i fit the profile of an "agency man."

This morning I was helping Jim Leprino, one of the richest men out there, recover his Opening Ceremony tickets.

Thousands of people have found out that their Opening Ceremony tickets are fraudulent and will not be accepted at the gates. People paid 3000USD and up for these tickets, getting them off of Craigslist, Beijing tickets.com and other spots and none of them will be able to see the Opening Ceremony. For you people at home, perhaps the birds nest will look a little empty.Its not yet clear who is responsible (HAHAHAHA), but I am sure we'll find a sneaky bugger at the end of the line. So far BOCOG s hiding its head in the sand and doing nothing about this, because too may people have been affected:

We're talkin all of Nike's tickets, all of Google's tickets ... and several thousand regular Joe's who also can't get in.

They are walking the streets now trying to scalp some tickets off of people. There is so much to write actually, but my head hurts, i need to work at 4pm, i have been up all morning getting Leprino his tickets -- ended up that some of the Sponsors have"extras" and certain people are able to get their hands on them. A lot of people have been royally screwed by this ticket scam ...

anyway. Here are some pics of my smurfy ass (smurf=rent-a-cop) and that sunrise i mentioned several posts back. Since that sunrise, every day has been gray and dreary. You can stare directly into the sun ... on this day (below) i could barely open my eyes.

Today is weird.

Yo

I think i really dropped it on this one ... peep it and holla back!

(Do i need to translate any American slang for you people? -- i just assume everyone knows what "dropped it" and "peep it" mean ...)

Trolls.

Anyone who has written or who reads about China issues has encountered the ChiCom Troll. I didn't realize there was such a distinct term for these people, i always called them "brainwashed fanatic spittle round the mouth haters" -- anyway here is an introduction to trolls that made it into the NYT.

Basically, for web savvy cats, all this is old news: the troll that "trolls" the web looking for his issue of consequence, unloading his trollish essence all over the post/article/thread etc then moving on to troll another site.

There are "cracker white supremacist trolls, anti-liberal republicunt trolls, sappy-crispy hippy trolls, yamaka-sportin jewish trolls" and so on.

this link right here concerns itself with the ChiCom troll.

PS the rest of this dude's blog is ... trollish.

Some ill from the Du

My man Chengduxi, who put up my Auryn tattoo back in the day -- had to get it recolored by Poh in Pai, but so what -- he's got his sights set on the art scene .. he was once a drummer, still is, now he paints and generously puts it up for us to peep. (Chinese language only, but the images are universal, yo ..)

and here are a couple pics from my new home in the Dirty Du (Chengdu for ya'll not in the know).



my fragrant lil hybrid jasmine ...



Gimpy, the one that made it



and this one's for Mika, who wished it ...

Hu Jintao Steps Up

It is a beautiful morning here in Beijing. The sun is blinding white, reminding me of a graveyard shift I pulled in Alaska once.

We were driving up to Ketchikan from Bellingham (on a fishing boat) and I watched the sun come up while passing through one of the countless channels between the countless islands off the west coast of Canada and the US. A school of porpoises appeared, surfed the boats wake, then disappeared. In the distance I saw a school of Orca, their distinctive dorsal fins rising up out of the silver ocean. I heard children laughing and the mountains shone with glee. Watching a sunrise is like watching a birth. Hope and happiness are the primary emotions i feel.

I watched today's sunrise framed by a newly built hotel near the Silk Market in Beijing. I will bring my camera tomorrow for the graveyard shift and pray that the world gives birth to twins ...

Hu Jintao gave a "rare press conference" yesterday, accompanied by a supposed lifting of the ban on certain web sites. As of now, BBC Mandarin is still blocked. In true political fashion, politician Hu lamented the politicizing of this grand political event, the Olympic Games.

Not only have the Games been political since way way way back -- in the form of a truce at the very least -- but China has been at the forefront of politicization.

This is, am i wrong? China's great Coming Out Party, a political event. Chinese athletes are expected by their government to win it all, fulfilling a political goal. Dissidents and protesters are being suppressed or channeled into "Designated Parks," a politically astute move, no? Visas and such are curtailed, hotel rooms tapped and Internet sites blocked -- politically motivated defense mechanisms all.

So picture me laughing, yet again -- at those silly political humans who would block the rising of the sun. Only the moon can accomplish that great feat ...