Catharsis

I've slacked on blogging lately. I was hoping to go down to Central this weekend and shoot some stuff related to the 10th anniversary of HK's handover to China, especially of these painted panda statues. It would have let me post something that combined my love for all strange things panda with a fond rememberence of my old stomping grounds, and how they started the whole different-artists-paint-the-same-subject-in-public settings craze in the states with their Cows on Parade exhibit 10 years ago.
Instead, I'm sitting home alone on a Saturday night because I really can't stand to be out in public right now when other people are having fun and partying on the biggest party night of the year.
Having a good friend of yours fall over dead kinda sucks all the energy out of you.
I first met Geoff about a week after I started out here in 2005. He was working out here for about 4 months. He had taken a buyout from his paper a few years before and worked for us on short term contracts off and on since then. He fell in love with Hong Kong immediately. He missed his wife, who was still working back in Los Angeles; she was about 20 years younger than him, and not ready to join him in retirement quite so early.
He hit the ground running here. Looking at him, you wouldn't have guessed he was in his early 60s. He was in shape, stylish and worked out every day, looking about 15 years younger than he was. He loved good food; he said never to apologize for enjoying good food, and never relented on trying to get me to appreciate the baked beans that they serve with English breakfasts here. (It didn't work.)
He loved traveling and staying in cool hotels. He loved music, all types. He loved great beer and wine. He loved the Globe as much as I did, and we ended up there three times a week, on average. He never turned down an opportunity to head out, to go to eat, to grab a beer. He was kind, cool and cultured. He kicked butt at his job, and always kept his cool. As good a worker as he was, he was an even better friend.
Need a beer after a crappy night of work? Call Geoff! Wanna head down to Stanley? Hmm, call Geoff! Wanna just talk baseball for 15 minutes, debating whether my Cubs erred by letting Juan Pierre go tto his Dodgers? Call Geoff!
He offered advice whenever you needed it. He'd give you a kick in the butt if you asked for one to get your slacker butt moving on the weekend. His taste in music was impeccable. One of our favorite ploys at the Globe was to play ZZ Top, Lenard Skynnard and Willie Nelson on their british-music heavy jukebox. It would drive the Brits in the bar nuts, but he'd point out why each of those musicians were great in their own way. He could appreciate Sweet Home Alabama the same way he would appreciate obscure 50s jazz drummers.
Though he never failed to rib me for my guilty pleasure love of "Africa" by Toto. He knew of the Rosanna that Toto sang about, because he used to go to the bar she hung out at.
And his knowledge of music extended to his wife, who once described Jim Morrison as "the world's greatest lounge singer." So true it hurt.
He grew up in South Africa, playing cricket and rugby, but lived in California since the early 70s. He loved the Dodgers and the Raiders, but would always argue me about how cricket and rugby teams were still more interesting to watch. He did all he could to teach me about cricket, and because of his patience, I kinda understand it now.
He went back to LA after his first stint in HK, but wanted to come back again. We talked every so often, chatting about baseball, and I was psyched when I found out he was returning in January of this year for a yearlong stint. Suddenly, the one guy I could always count on to grab a beer with me, to chat baseball, to give advice, hell, just to be everything a good friend should be, was coming back. He'd have to give up his car - he loooooved driving - and his Dodgers season tickets and most importantly, his wife, to come here. But he loved HK and wanted to do one last run working before he retired for good, or so he said. I always suspected he would have worked for another stint, but only after making up for that year away from his wife.
Everything fell into place right away. He trusted me enough that when I said an apartment was worth renting, he signed for it, sight unseen, from 6,000 miles away. The morning he landed, I met him at his apartment door and we grabbed breakfast; I hadn't seen him in 8 months, but it felt like only 8 hours.
It was like that for five more months. We grabbed Old Speckled Hens at the Globe. We talked music, baseball and politics. He met my mom and sister and my friends Jasmin and Katie when they visited, never failing to impress.
He was the last person I grabbed a beer with before I gave up drinking for a month. A month later, I was having beers with him and another friend on his rooftop deck.
And three nights later, on this last Tuesday, we met at the Globe. The usual good conversation and good friendship, and we made even a new one - a woman who had just landed from Chicago, of all places.
Then, three days later, he was dead. Someone found him unconscious at the FCC, where he worked out every morning before he sat in the steam room. Just like that. One day he was enjoying life in a foreign city, making friends wherever he went, and the next he's stuck in a morgue with a wife 6,000 miles away wondering why.
Why he had to die. Why did it happen to someone who stayed in great shape. Why did they have to spend their final five months apart, though she did get to see him three times here in HK in that time. Why her, why him, why why why.
I can still see the creases from his smile as he flashed his impish grin and hear his voice as he said, "Well, you know," as launching into another story.
I had a few Speckled Hens at the Globe last night, 12 hours after he died, and played Oasis, ZZ Top and Skynard just as he would. I knew he would want that as a remembrance. And when I go home to the states in a month, I'm gonna follow his advice. When I mentioned I might do a road trip with my sister, I said, "Hmmm...Maybe I'll rent a convertible."
And he said, "Of course you should! And get get the Mustang!"
With a CD player of course. So I can play ZZ Top with the top down, and enjoy life while I can.

recipe for crankiness

1) I'm exactly two weeks into my month without booze (or I could shorten it to 4 weeks). The hardest part is the socialization aspect at this time of year. You really don't want to be outdoors now that the rainy season has officially started (I think); a mere 15 minutes of any remotely moderate activity means your shirt will be drenched. So you spend a lot of time indoors, usually drinking. But since I've given up alcohol, I don't want to tempt myself. Contrary to some people's expectations, I've had no physical effects; sorry, no DT's. But I realize working 10 of 11 days combined with awful humidity and not going out makes for one cranky person at work.
2) Really, socializing here is not unlike Chicago in winter. Go have dinner somewhere, hit somewhere else for drinks. Avoid the outdoors.
3) The new Wii I bought is helping pass the time I spend at home. I have not destroyed anything yet, despite the stories of over-competitive Wii players. Though I have knocked over my coffee while playing tennis.
4) While working out the other day, I looked at the locals in the gym around me. I was on the bike, going at least 50 percent faster than them. Most of the local women were biking at 1/3 to 1/4 the speed I was. If you biked that slowly in real life, your bike would tip over. They take the prim route here to a new extreme, not daring to get sweaty while working out. And I've never seen local women do more than a fast walk on a treadmill, let alone a jog. My theory: If you can't walk straight at normal speed, asking to run on a treadmill is just asking for all sorts of disasters.
5) Recent conversation with a friend who is ethnic Chinese but grew up in the States, which she just visited. She was taking some stuff from her flat here back home.
Friend: "Dude, I packed them up all in a big, cheap plastic bag. It was so Chinky."
Me: "There's no way I could say the same thing, could I?"
Friend: "Not a chance."

The Art of Chinese Tit-Bits Ltd.

So says the subhead on a menu from a dim sum place where I ate Saturday. The restaurant's name? Dim Sum. I tried to take a photo of it, but they're all blurry. I'd try to shoot it again, but I'm all woozy because a few hours before dim sum, my cab was rear-ended just as I was getting ready to pay and get out. And just like I would expect in the states, the culprit was an SUV driver who apparently wasn't paying attention. No word if he was too busy talking on his cell phone.
In a nice reversal, though, the SUV suffered more damage, because cabs here are tanklike in their construction. Damage to me is TBD, but I seem fine, I think.