Ignorance More Often Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

That's what this man named Darwin once told my buddy Ryan and Ryan told me, and I think this man would agree.

Next Time I Will Leave Something That Represents Me On My Corner.

This is the view from my street on a miniature model level. When I was younger, I didn't even have the patience to put together a model airplane without gluing my fingers together or without putting it down for a few weeks while I pretended I was Andre Dawson.

I have now discovered my new heroes. A group of dedicated individuals who do something that I never could do, make all of Beijing on a smaller scale.

They are the mad geniuses behind the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall. At the Hall, you'll find one of my favorite things in modern Beijing, a miniature model of the entire city. And this city is HUGE. Insanely big. To give you an example of the detail they put into this, here is my apartment - yes, the pink one. In real life, it's pink too.



The area of the model is about half of a basketball court. And it's centered in the middle of a room. Where the model stops, it then bleeds into aerial shots of the rest of the city, extending deep into the mountains and countryside. The model is detailed enough to pick out all of the landmarks—the CCTV Tower, the new Olympic Buildings, The Chairman's picture looking out into Tiananmen Square and each building of the Forbidden City is perfectly detailed. However, I didn't notice any smoke spewing factories on the outskirts of the city...



The place also details plans for the city of until 2020. But living in the future is enough of the future for me. I could barely handle the model let alone the future future.

"Looka, Looka! Sir, You Want Buy Shirt?!"

In the future, there is a wall and it's a damn fine wall. The Great Wall is indeed a wall of great proportions. I've seen the Eastern most section, which borders the Yellow Sea, in the never to be returned to city of Qinhuangdao and now I've seen Simatai. It's unrestored and is pretty much left how the Ming Dynasty built it. The only thing changed is that some of its stones have been plundered by local farmers. I asked a Mongolian man what they do with the rocks they steal and he said, "they're for throwing". I know that's one of my favorite uses of stones.



The hike was a lot more difficult than I thought. It was steep and it made me want to drink a beer. Like all good hikes.



And to set the record straight, it cannot be seen from space.

Guilt Free Transportation Begins With Your Feet

In the future, there are loads of rickshaws, especially on your way to work. The proprietors of these rickshaws mean well, they want to provide a simple service for you and in return they expect a nominal amount of money.

Here are some tips to avoid being future-guilted into getting into one of these sullied vessels.

1. Don't look Russian. If you're white in Beijing and walking by the Russian markets, this is going to be hard. I am not about to futuristically slander an entire group of people, but if you don't wear fur, faux leather or sparkly sequence you are on your way to not looking Russian.

But that won't stop them from speaking Russian to you (yes, they speak Russian).

::shiver::

2. Don't walk anywhere near them. You may have to walk miles out of your way, but your tardiness will be understood by most.

3. Get your own rickshaw. Rickshaw drivers very rarely offer rickshaw rides to those already in possession of a rickshaw.

4. Close your eyes while walking (you'll confuse and repel them). You may run into things (i.e. rickshaw drivers) and you may develop chronic pains, but in the end you'll be free of that pungent Rickshaw Smell™.

5. Bring offerings of toothpaste and dental floss. Like water and oil, water and oil...

And He Guarded Nothing From No One.

Open Letter to the Somali Pirates, Pt. II

Hey Guys-

I just wanted to get back to you and see if you got my my message. I am not sure how the high speed is on the ships, but I figured that someone had received it. And I know how clique-y things are between you pirates.

I read some rather disturbing news that really leads me to believe that my verbal and organizational skills could help benefit your missions.

This is what I read, "...three pirates were killed in a shootout among themselves..." Cmon, guys! What are you doing? Listen, your success lives in your non-violent tactics, and that means amongst yourselves too. I don't care who called who's mother a peg-legged hussy or who ate the last bag of Doritos.

I'm just putting it out there again. So if you need to vote at your next Somali Pirate Union meeting, remember "Ryan can unify the cause and further the mission." Also, if any of you swashbucklers have Skype, I can be reached at somali_pirate_rep023.

Good day,
Ryan

How Did This Get Here?

Using a rope a piece of wood to sit on, these brave fellows repel down the side of my building to clean the windows. I was trying to explain to them, that the windows on the 25th floor were still a bit streaky, but they were all like "Hey guy, we're dangling off the roof by a string and some wood, cut us some slack, eh."

I am just saying, that there is something to be said for getting the job done right the first time.

Open Letter to the Somali Pirates

Ahoy hoy-

First, let me start off by saying, I am a huge admirer of your work. The fact that you even exist completely blows my mind. Secondly, I want to tell you that I understand you (as much as anyone from Wisconsin can). I understand your thirst of a time when plundering booty meant something totally different than in the parlance of our times—when people appreciated the thrill of thieving on the high seas. What I like about you guys is that you're not even a dying breed, you're almost extinct and nothing is really known about you.

Some say you fund terrorism (which we'll have to talk about). Some say you're just a bunch of jerks who hang out and wait for vulnerable ships to cruise around the horn. And some people just say "There are STILL pirates? Wait Somali pirates?!"

Your campaigns have been rather successful. I mean, more than two dozen reported ships have been hijacked off of the coast of your country this year. It seems that you're doing okay for yourselves. But...it could be going a bit better.

I have a proposal.

You need a face for your organization. You need a business man. A negotiator. You need someone who is gonna stand for pirate justice. For example, you stole a bunch of tanks and some other weapons that were going to Kenya or Sudan, depending on whom you ask and you ask for $20 million ransom. Your bluff was called and you LOWERED the amount. And your bluff was called again and you LOWERED it again! And again! Guys, this is NOT how ransom works. Pretty soon you'll be settling for a couple lamps and some pocket lint.

I propose that we have a civil meeting with the Somali Pirate Union™ and we'll work out a plan. We'll get you some more PR so that people aren't constantly surprised by your existence and we'll go through some ransom training. Plus we'll get you some proper pirate gear.

Please, take your time. You don't have to answer me right now. But just think it over, put it to a vote and let's promote plundering in the future.

Good day,
Ryan

Takin' It Easy For All Us Sinners.

In the future, our society is so advanced that our buildings breathe. They also look like beehives and change colors every few seconds.

And there you are, with your wifi and wikis and iPhones. I can't imagine living without breathing buildings.

To quote the Big Lebowski's cowboy-poet narrator, "This is how the whole durned human comedy perpetuates itself."

The Bald One Was Cracking Jokes About the One in Pink Wearing His Kid Sister's Old Gear.

The Soviets, the Chinese and the East Germans walk into an industrial relationship.

In the future, there is the Factory 798 or 798 Art District. It’s in an old factory area that was used to build crazy new electronic components and military weapons.
This huge complex, that now houses a whole load of art galleries, began as a piece of the “Socialist Unification Plan” of the military-industrial relationship between the Soviets and the brand spanking new People’s Republic of China.

China wanted to build and sell stuff. The Soviets wanted to help and so did the Germans of the East. The Soviets with the military business and the dissemination of said products, while the Germans would help with the components and the architectural plans.

The Germans chose a Bauhaus-influenced design over the more ornate Soviet-look and that was the first in a long line of fisticuff matches for these two highly tense countries.

The Kraut’s plans were to build large indoor spaces designed to let the maximum amount of natural light into the workplace to save on energy. They built huge ceilings with large arches and insanely big windows. The buildings were huge because everyone had delusions of grandeur and shit needed to be big.

So skip over a bunch of details, all these factories pumped out weapons and devices and trinkets and other hastily made things and the complex was under a lot of pressure during Deng Xiaoping’s reforms of the 1980’s. Not many state-owned enterprises got the money they needed and eventually the Dashanzi Factory Complex was rendered useless by the early 1990’s.

Well, the buildings in the complex were now empty and Beijing’s Avant Garde artists were looking for a home around the same time. So they packed up their scarves and headed on over.

In our future time, 798 gets in demand art exhibitions from all over the world (ranging from rad to slightly above a bag of shit), tons of stinky artists looking for a home and foreign hipster doofuses looking for the free booze.

Oh yeah, it almost got demolished to make room for the Olympic stadiums, I guess. But people from all over the world got all crazy about it and now they’ve redone the roads and started charging more for coffee! Three cheers for communist capitalism in the future!

The Tranquility of The Temple of Heaven

I am going to email this to Slayer to see if they can make a concept album around it...

The Sprite Holster.

The other future day, I was meeting a friend for dinner and she was running a bit late. No problem. It was a nice evening and I was just going to wait on the corner for her. I was minding my own business observing the hierarchy of taxi drivers. You can tell the more respected ones because they make the others take the foreigners. Since no one tips, taking the foreigners usually sucks because they assume we don't know how to tell you where were going. It's all pretty amusing. Anyway...

I noticed this woman walking towards me and howling some nonsense. I didn't think it was directed at me. But I was the only one standing there. She was in her early 30's, was wearing some horrible insect killing perfume, dressed even worse and she had a Sprite can wedged in her cleavage. I turned away from her, hoping that if I didn't acknowledge her, she wouldn't speak to me. No such luck.

NI HAO! She gave me an open-palmed slap on the ass. I turned around and started backpeddling. She got all up in my face and told me that I was going to take her salsa dancing. I was trying to picture us salsa dancing, but I could only wonder why she had a soda can wedged in between her mopey looking breasts. Perhaps she was trying to smoke and talk on the phone at the same time and couldn't part with the rest of her soda? Maybe she always wanted to yell "No hands!"? Or she was waiting to bum rush a foreigner...

I ended up telling her that I wasn't interested and "No No No..." about 100 times before she took her can out of its holster and slammed it into the concrete and started cursing me out in Mandarin.

She stomped on down the block, turning around and yelling at me every few yards until I couldn't hear her any longer. Hopefully, she got some one to take her salsa dancing or at least buy her a new Sprite.

And The Circus Left Town...

The Bates Squirrel Motel

The future is fantastic. More than anything it's because currently in the future, squirrels do not exist. Besides the band The Cranberries, I am not sure there is anything I dislike more than these rabid, poor-mannered monsters. They don't do anything productive. They don't pollinate anything. They don't really provide sustenance. They do however, provide rednecks with a target to practice and dogs something to chase.

In a past life, I lived in Winston-Salem, North Cakalaka. Yeah, I know. The Bible Belt. It's great if you're into cigarettes and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Winnie, "The city that makes Durham look nice" that's the city motto. Winnie who...Winston-Salem is without a doubt The North American Squirrel Capital™. Never have I seen so many of these bushy-tailed rodents running rampant with total disregard for civilized behavior.

I lived below ground in a old Victorian house in the historic West End. Not that this should mean anything to anyone, but it was funny the way they marketed the neighborhood. Winnie who, I had a giant oak tree in my yard and a dozen other smaller trees—mostly elms and a couple hickories. And where there are trees in Winnie, there is a family of squirrels ready to infest anything they can. Such as...my apartment.

The first time one of these cheek stuffers entered my domain, my mother was enjoying some Pinot Noir and I was taking the garbage out. I didn't want to interrupt my parent's witty banter, so I left the door open. The cheek stuffer jumped in front of my door and looked at me. I didn't move. When I made a move to the door, he cruised into my apartment. Over the counter - into the bedroom - into my shower - knocking over my 1972 reissued Gibson SG Standard and into my pantry in search of the apples imported from Wisconsin. After chasing him around, much to the hilarity of my makers, I shooed him out of the house like one of those old ladies who shoos things.

The second and third times I encountered the cheek stuffers, it wasn't as humorous (if you're me). My dramatic landlord who happened to occupy the rest of the house thought it'd be great to catch the squirrels, who now lived in the walls, with live traps—as to not hurt the little cuties. I didn't agree, but I didn't want to smell squirrel carcass or even worse, have to dispose of squirrel carcass. I put two huge metal boxes in my apartment that contained peanut butter and some nuts. Then I traveled to New York City for a week and came back to a house that looked like it was occupied by the Manson Family. Everything knocked over. Blood, feces, urine, fruit pieces,etc. And in the translucent,suspended ceiling panel was the shadow of a squirrel basking the florescent lighting, glaring at me with his beady squirrel eyes. I'll never forget the moment of pure rage when I noticed him.

Oh and there were two squirrels in the trap. Hungry and seizing with diseases, they were barking at me. The cleaning lady came over and the squirrel man released them into a field by Wake Forest and my landlord got me a nice bottle of wine.

In the final encounter, these little bastards chewed up my desk and shit on my bed. Luckily my dramatic squirrel loving landlord was chilling with his boyfriend when a squirrel interrupted their soap opera and he screamed his best Janet Leigh scream. The carpenter patched a hole. I bought some poison. I heard some more Janet-esque screams from upstairs, and I think I even hit a squirrel with a stone when I saw it casing out my front door.

Three cheers for the future.

You Smile...You Smile Pretty or I'll Poke Your Eye!

The Sweet Comfort of Cold Concrete.

This past weekend of the future, I took a train to the east coast to Qinhuangdao. The train left Beijing at 7 a.m. and it was the first time I'd seen 5:30 a.m. in Beijing without me staying out all night. The morning is quite peaceful if you don't have a head full of booze.
At 9 a.m. the express train pulled into Qinhuangdao. It's a small Chinese city of 2.8 million and there is nothing to do there. Nope. Nothing.



Except going to see The Great Wall and the Yellow Sea.



This woman loves the wall.

After we took a taxi back to the city, we tried to find something to do and ended up deciding to get our return tickets to Beijing. Before we left we were told we could get them after the game, but we decided to get them now, cuz we were all out of ideas for Qinhuangdao. We traveled to the station and decided to get some street beers. Then we met our Qinhuangdao running crew.



This is the guy who holds down the “chilling” part. That’s all he does and he plays cards. They’re a pretty subversive crew. One of them has the bus schedule on his phone and knows everything about the trains leaving. He just sits in the lot all day, which leads me to believe he’s part of the bootleg bus system that cruises Olympic folk back to Beijing. And one of them was a pimp. Two of his gals came to give him money when were hanging out and he threw them a few kuai. Just to clarify, our running crew doesn’t speak English and our Mandarin is shit. But we did communicate enough to find out that there was no bus and no train going back to Beijing.

So we ate a freshly beaten fish and went to the soccer match.



The game was great. Ivory Coast versus Nigeria. Nigeria scored two really nice goals and I cheered for Ivory Coast, who played like shit. The stadium was packed with about 95% Chinese people and a few Nigerians and some assorted whiteys.

After the match we met this guy. A Mongolian gentleman named Hans.



He has lived in Germany for the past 10 years and was more than willing to help us out after discovering our plans to sleep in the park for the evening. He told us he’d take us to a place that was 24 hours and we could have some drinks and wait until the bus came at 6 a.m. As it turned out the place was a German restaurant and the food was worse than horrible.



I ate a piece of a heart, some neck and something that didn’t sit too well. The beer was also shit. I guess, that's what we get for being dumb enough to eat German food. Especially in Eastern China.

The part of the night came when we decided we were going to sleep in the park. It was a nice park and I slept on my backpack. I don't think I've ever voluntarily slept on the concrete, but it was pretty cozy. I woke up at 5 a.m. to some old men doing Thai Chi next to me. I'm pretty sure I frightened them way more than they frightened me.

In the future, if your English buddy tells you that it will be no problem to catch a bus from Qinhuangdao back to be Beijing. He has no idea what he's talking about and you'll have to sleep in a park.

Olympic Fever Has Been Caught.

How to Strengthen International Relations in a Cute and Cuddly Manner.

In the days past, which were lived before you lived them, as part of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, there was the debut of a new game. This game took place outside of the Boxing Gymnasium and was exclusive to ticket holders prior to the main event.

It was named "Who Wants a Piece of Jingjing the Panda?".

The most fierce of all the Beijing mascots. The Game started out with great international gesture of peace and goodwill, a picture with Jingjing.

Then the game slowly turned dark. I wasn't permitted to turn the camera back on, until the massacre had be properly cleaned up. But you can bet Jingjing ripped that guy's arm off for poking him in the eye during the picture session.

And being the gentleman that he is, Jingjing spared this woman.



The same cannot be said for this woman, who could not be identified.



As an enjoyed finale, Jingjing took on the entire crowd at once. I threw him a cheap shot in the neck and pushed some children to get out of his way.

Once inside, some dudes fought in the ring for a while. Go Jingjing!

I Whooped This Chick One-on-One.

Gilbert: 1--------------The Man™: 0

Unstimulated by his job and bored to death by his co-workers, Gilbert chose sleep.

He earned it.

And my, does he do it with style.

Temporary Casts, Permanent Mental Scars

In the past future, I fractured a piece of my hand. Of course, on Sunday's the OutPatient Care Unit is closed in Chinese hospitals. So...to the ER. To put it lightly, the ER is like a deleted scene from Jacob's Ladder. Blood, yelling, bones, general chaos and no one waits in line. They just yell and run. And yell.

I had a great conversation with with an older man.

Older Man: In America, everyone is rich. Everyone has two cars and a job.

Me: Wow. That sounds amazing where is that America?

Older Man: What?

Me: Huh?

Brew From the Roof of the World

Impromptu Naugahyde Bubble Bath

In the time of Me, kids totally haul ass on aerodynamic pedaling water bikes. They don't listen to their mother's and they certainly do not play dolls with kid sister.

This specimen in particular, hauled around like a Calgary cowboy on one of them angry bulls for a few laps and when he tired out he spotted a squirrel.



Then he started crying because he got his shoes wet. I threw some more water on him and got tackled by his father who fractured my hand. I do not regret a thing.

My advice is don't wear high heels if you're going to throw water on a kid.

The Dawning of a PG-13 Era

I was doing a little futuristic housecleaning this week and decided that perhaps I should remove the sign in front of my home. I never really understood all the offers I had been getting, but they were much appreciated.

I'll be selling the sign to the highest bidder.

Bravaria's Own Joie de Vivre

In your past future, commercial actors who are to be English are actually German and ended up sounding French.

The lesson learned: You can lead a cat to water, but you can't get milk from a butcher.

High Brow Monotony for the Masses

In futuristic societies such as mine, art gallery security guards fall asleep on the job. Dozing off because of the mind piercing sulfites in the horrible wine, guys in girlpants and the thick clouds of pretension. Once asleep they become another piece in the gallery. Art imitates life. Life becomes art.

None of this really matters because we have flying cars.

Fight the Urge to Punt the Small Fuzzy Dogs.

In the future, small dogs run wild and fend for themselves through non-violent means. The easiest way of dealing with these ankle biters is by ALWAYS carrying a large bag of mutton properly seasoned with caraway and molasses.

They sense that you want to punt them. Do not think about punting them.

Age Old Wisdom.

I saw this man sitting contemplatively. I approached him and asked what the one thing is he wishes he would have known in hindsight.

He looked at me and said, "My friend life is full of observations and experiences, but know the Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with."

If you run out of power. Start a fire.

Eating Donkey to Help Build Your Team.

Long ago in your past future, the creative department ventured two hours north of Beijing into the Qin Mountains in search of booze soaked laughs and something we were not yet sure of. This is our trusty bus fully loaded with plenty of delicious freon and subtitled films.



Our mission was to get to know each other a bit better in hopes that we'd all integrate more. There were 6 "Westerners" and about 40 Chinese creatives, as well as some assorted bosses. It was a creative retreat!

This is Bitey. The village mascot.



He will shred a soccer ball in under a minute and he would like to eat each and every one of us.

The highlight of our futuristic weekend was our first meal on Saturday. We were all sufficiently nauseous from a night of "ganbei" or drink everything in your fucking glass. Whether it's beer, bai jo (some horrible Chinese wine booze) or red wine you just drink it all in one gulp. If you don't want to, it doesn't matter. If you're too drunk, it doesn't matter. They sure know how to party!



There were green things, crunchy things, fishy things, eggy things, meats that I knew about and a couple that I didn't. The only thing to do when you don't know what meat it is...is eat it. This time it ended up being donkey! Yay! Check that one off of my list. Donkey tastes just as you think it would. A bit stringy, tough and gamey.

Here's the donkey delivery man!



Martin and company man Salvatore fought over the remaining donkey bits.



After our donkey meal, we had no choice but to drink the day away.



And blow things up with a bazooka.



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