I H8 LA

Theme song: the Decemberists, “Los Angeles, I’m Yours” ('Cranky' being the operative word...) I hate LA. Let me qualify that: I hate driving in LA. Last time I was here, I came with intent of doing my work and using my few free hours to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, listening to the Flying Burrito Brothers and getting some desperately needed sun. Problem is, instead of chilling with Gram Parsons, I ended up wanting to break plate glass with my head to a soundtrack of Norwegian black metal. Leaving Santa Monica, I got stuck behind some Malibu trophy wife in a Porsche Cayenne who appeared to be trying to wrangle a toddler, talk on the phone, and drink a Frappucino all at the same time. Slamming on your brakes every 500 feet on a road without a passing lane is not relaxing, even if the scenery is beautiful. The Cayenne had a large dent in the back hatch, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain: someone else in greater LA is even better acquainted with this person’s crap driving. This, fundamentally, is my problem with LA: Driving. It’s possibly more of a car town than Detroit: you’re forced to drive everywhere, but it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere. Doesn’t matter if you are going one mile or twenty. Every trip is the same: ridiculous traffic, vacuous drivers, vacillating speeds. Even if you like to drive (which I do), it’s hard to get any pleasure out of being on the road in LA. Being a nice Motor City girl, I like to open up the throttle and go. Not going to happen in LA. That being said, LA has its charm. 70 degrees and sunny skies in mid-February ain’t too shabby after a month of sub-zero temps in Mpls.. SoCal kitsch has its moments: googie architecture, aging starlets’ laughable plastic surgery, Kim Fowley. There are some decent museums, and certainly interesting musical history. There’s current music worth seeing at various venues. The mountains and canyons are pretty… when they’re not on fire. I shouldn’t be so cynical, but I love to hate LA. I’ve hated it since I first visited at age 10. We flew to LA, went to Disneyland, and drove up the coast to San Francisco. In Disneyland, my Dad uttered his defining quote, when he determined we weren’t getting enough value for his dollar out of the Magic Kingdom: “You will have fun and you will enjoy it!” This was not a suggestion. Mickey Mouse has been on my shit list ever since. Disneyland: the only ride that wasn’t lame was Space Mountain, and that was still pretty pallid next to anything at Cedar Point. Later, when we went to Universal Studios, we found out that the Red Sea Moses parted in “The Ten Commandments” was a foot high. A pattern formed in my reptilian preadolescent brain: LA epitomized style over substance. Of course you can’t paint every Angeleno with that broad brush. One of my dear friends from high school, Tommy, has found his home there, and if he loves it, it must not be all bad. There are a ton of musicians I respect that have made their home there, from Adolph Rickenbacker to the Rademaker brothers. My buddy Pearl lived in LA for years and she is truly an old soul -- and she just moved back there this week. But first impressions count a lot, and mine have been warped by that first visit and reinforced by subsequent ones. This visit, we saw a guy walking down the street in Newport Beach looking like a complete tool in a saggy but expensive suit and Gucci loafers covered with an enormous pattern of jacquard “G”s. Last time, we saw a crew filming a documentary about celebrity assistants in a pet supply store. The subject of the documentary was buying a custom-made cashmere sweater for a dachshund. This sweater cost more than my plane ticket. Three visits ago, my buyer and I went to dinner at the Ivy, and found ourselves surrounded by middle-management film industry dudes discussing their recent plastic surgeries in wretched detail. They all had that creepy George Hamiltonesque quality that makes you want to top them off with embalming fluid. The only qualification I have is that my dim view of LA only seems to apply to the area from around about West Hollywood in the north to Orange County in the south. Anything outside that, I can manage. In a perfect world, California would be two separate states: everything north of Pasadena (gerrymandered to exclude the Valley) and everything south. That would make so much more sense.

Minnesota...

...where even the weather is passive-aggressive. Saturday, APRIL 26 and it's snowing!

Now that's just silly

As I was walking into Big Redquarters this morning, I noticed the above image (which the marketing yahoos refer to as 'aspirational') plastered on the south side of the building. They change these every so often and they're almost always populated with models wearing stuff we don't sell, like $3000 shoes and rock climbing gear.

This one, however, seemed particularly disingenuous. Anyone who's ever faced an easel knows that thigh-high red leather boots aren't appropriate gear for plein-air painting. Black patent wipes clean much easier...

Magenta: off limits

OK, you creative types - bloggers, designers, etc. - no magenta! T-Mobile'll lay the smackdown on you if you use it!

Engadget vs T-Mobile

This is not an April Fool. All this does is make me want to add magenta typography to everything in the works.

Asia Journal, Part 5

DAY 7 – Wednesday – Tokyo: Daiba

Theme Song – “Impossible Germany” – Wilco
“Impossible Germany, unlikely Japan”

We get up early to go to the airport to fly to Tokyo. Slipping through the darkness in early-morning Hong Kong, crossing the bridges to get to Lantau Island, I’m sorry to go but glad to move on to the next phase of the trip. Tokyo is always incredible. We shuttle through customs, baggage screening and airport lounge, then take a relatively short flight (four hours or so) to Narita. We meet Jun, our host, at Narita, and get on a bus to Central Tokyo, which is still a long way off: by the time we fly, bus and taxi to the hotel it is late afternoon. This does not mean that a day in Tokyo will go to waste. Everybody goes to their rooms, drops their stuff, and returns to the lobby, ready to do some shopping. We start by buying our train tickets, which is the best way to get around: cabs are expensive, and cars pointless because of the cost of parking. The train is incredibly efficient: two minutes off schedule is considered officially ‘delayed’. We go to the Venus Port mall, which is Italianate and very plush, stocked with insanely cute shoes in very small sizes. This is my only frustration with Japan, besides language barrier: gaijin like me don’t fit the shoes.

Jun is just about the coolest guy around. He’s pushing 60, but is slim and hep-looking, and is immensely articulate in both English and Japanese about a huge variety of subjects. He is well versed in both US and Japanese culture, having lived in St. Louis and Chicago for many years. He is a fabulous guide with the patience of a saint. He also is a bit of a smartass and a prankster, so he fits right in with our group.


DAY 8 – Thursday – Tokyo

Daiba, Toyosu, Ginza, Roppongi.

Theme Song – “Are You Electric?” Kelley Stoltz

We start our day with a caffeine imperative from our buyers. I’m disappointed to say I’ve been to Starbucks on every continent I’ve visited, not necessarily by choice – I don’t drink much coffee, and would much rather go anywhere else, especially if there are more interesting options. We get on the train and go to Daiba to a gigantic mall, then to Toyosu to another gigantic mall. The gigantic mall in Toyosu is especially weird, because it contains a giant pipe organ. The organist is playing ominous classical selections like Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue.” It echoes hauntingly through the building. It's a weird background for shopping, but it doesn’t seem to phase the local shoppers, even the little kids in line for some sort of Chucky Cheese-esque attraction.

From Toyosu, we train it to Ginza. Ginza includes some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Jun notes the approximately value of a square foot of Ginza property and it’s more than any of us make in a year. Judging by all the Louis Vuitton walking around here (and it’s not Hong Kong fake stuff, either), the retailers of Ginza can cover it. Along with the trophy wives and Western tourists, elegant elderly ladies walk in muted kimono doing their shopping. Kimono seem to be increasingly popular with young people: I saw more young women in traditional clothing on this trip than last time. Of course, they look striking and timeless, and it is a beautiful way to forgo the whims of Western fashion.

From Ginza, we head to Roppongi for more shopping and dinner. We are getting pretty tired, but press on. After finishing our last shopping stop, we go to a restaurant in Roppongi recommended to us by some vendors: Inakaya Robata-Yaki, which is styled on a country pub. It’s a tiny place that seats maybe 18 people, and all the cooking is done on the spot on large charcoal braziers with fresh food. Staffed by a bunch of young guys, it's loud and boisterous. After cooking a course of the meal on the brazier, the chef places the dish on a long paddle and passes it to the diner, yelling something Jun translates as “Thank you for waiting, here is your (insert name of dish here)! Hai!” All the restaurant staff join in on the “Hai!” part, so pretty soon we’re all yelling “Hai”, too. It’s a great time, but we’re getting pretty loud, and I think we scare the next group coming in for a meal. Jun’s getting used to wrangling a bunch of loud Westerners, and to some extent he encourages it. Might as well perpetuate the gaijin stereotype.

One of the restaurant staff looks like Curly from the Three Stooges, with a goofy manner to match. Another qualifies as a Moe. The third guy, our chef, looks like an Asian pop star and while he’s scoring shiitake mushrooms, Chris confides she thinks he’s hot. Curly sets out box-shaped wooden sake cups, Moe pours, Hottie continues to cook. Jun convinces Kay to try a traditional way of drinking sake: with salt on the corner of the cup. Kay usually drinks chardonnay, so even the sake is a bit of a stretch. She tastes it, and makes a priceless sour face. I managed to get a picture. Jun 1, Yanks 0.


DAY 9 – Friday – Tokyo
Komozawa, Harajuku, Shibuya.

Theme Song – “A Minha Menina” – Os Mutantes
It’s a song in Portuguese by a Brazilian band. But it’s got the kind of ridiculously fun, fuzzy, percolating quality that Tokyo brings to mind. Walking to Komozawa, a vintage Subaru 360 passes by. The 360 is the prototypical Japanese subcompact car of the late 50’s, and something you would never see in the States. I gawk and grab for my camera. The guys in the car see me taking a picture and smile and offer the classic Japanese photo-op gesture: a peace sign. The rest of the trip, we are flashing peace signs in every photo.

Further on down the street in Komozawa, we spot a pet food store called “The 100 Club.” One can only assume the name is inspired by the venerable London club, but what does that have to do with dog food? Does it matter? Tokyo loves its English brand names, but whether the English makes sense is immaterial. The Engrish.com website barely scrapes the surface. Some of our favorites: a Harajuku clothing store called Wafflish Waffle, a nightclub in Daiba called Tokyo Culture Culture by Nifty, a bookstore called “Book Off”, and an alarming bathroom baby-changing station information graphic that reminds the user “Do not Drop! Do not Leave!”

We walk the highest-volume pedestrian crossing in the world in Shibuya. It’s more or less a free-for-all for thousands when the light changes. A sentaa – a variety of bleached-blond, tanned youthcult kid that inhabits Shibuya – walks by. He’s wearing insanely skinny jeans and boots with pointy, upturned toes - both hugely popular with hep guys in Japan now. He has an intensely layered shag haircut that makes him look like an J-rock Rod Stewart. Chris exclaims: ‘WHAT is THAT?” I try to explain, but it’s hard to get across the nuances of Japanese youth culture in few words, so saying he's trendy kid and is utterly Shibuya will have to do.

Minutes later, on a corner in Shibuya, I spot something familiar but surprising: a Tower Records… an EIGHT STOREY TOWER RECORDS! Tower is long gone in the US, so I can't pass it up. Everybody else is tired and wants to rest, so I beg Jun for 20 minutes of leave to shop. It’s kinda like Rasputin Records in San Francisco – everything is parted out by genre on different floors. I go check out the J-rock floor, hoping to find something unique, and am greeted by a large display featuring Bump of Chicken. Bump of Chicken is a hugely popular Japanese rock band with an obviously limited grasp of English. I snicker as I walk by, probably pissing off some Japanese fan.

There is a CD sampling station loaded with current Japanese indie releases. I scan a few and find a few winners: the Milkees, a indie-punk girl group so cute they make Shonen Knife look like L7, and the Neatbeats, a guitar band in the vein of the Shadows. I trot to another floor and pick up more good stuff, including a Birds (not Byrds) anthology I meant to buy years ago in Detroit, but was cash-poor and had to make a choice between the just-released Lilys “Three Way” and Ronnie Wood’s raveups. Lilys’ Kurt Heasley won that round. Ronnie wins this one.


Day 10 - Back on the plane, back across the Date Line.

Theme Song – “Returns Every Morning” – Lilys
“Plane in the morning, as you may need a reminder where I am…”

This is my perpetual plane song; it is always on my iPod. Seems like good mojo for travel, because it’s about an auspicious flight. I’m actually tired enough where I sleep a bit on the plane, probably 4 hours. Eric is waiting at the airport, a sight for sore eyes.

Thing-A-Day

Just for giggles, I have been doing Thing-a-Day for the month of February.

http://www.thing-a-day.com/author/findeerror

Check it out, and if you like anything, give it a vote...

Asia Journal, Part 4

DAY 5 – Monday – Shenzhen, or “China is weird!”

Theme Song –“All Night Worker” – Downliners Sect

I couldn’t sleep again, waking at about 5, so I wrote my 20 postcards and took them downstairs to the concierge to mail at 6 a.m. Paddy is sitting on a couch in the lobby, staring blankly into space. This creeps me out; is he making sure we haven’t come in too late, like some infernal den mother? I slink by without his seeing me, even though he’s practically the only person in the lobby other than the ubiquitous bellboys in white.

We have a day of factory and facility tours lined up today. We go to Shenzhen, on the mainland about an hour from Hong Kong. The border crossing is only mildly more stressful than going to, say, Canada, mostly because of the girl in a surgical mask that points a digital thermometer gun at your forehead. It’s just a precaution against SARS and Avian Flu, certainly, but it’s a reminder of the disastrous potential inherent in huge populations, not to mention truncated individual liberties.

Shenzhen is always smoggy, dusty, and under construction. Every time we come here, it’s grown significantly bigger. Right now, there are about 10 million people in Shenzhen: it’s roughly the populations of New York City and Houston combined, and most of this growth has occurred in the last 25 years. It was a sleepy fishing village until it was designated the first “Special Economic Zone” or SEZ, under Deng Xiaopeng, due to its proximity to Hong Kong. As the first SEZ, Shenzhen is one of the first places modern China experimented with capitalism, and in many senses, it is the cradle of the Chinese economic revolution. Chances are, you have something in your home right now that was made in Shenzhen: they make everything from iPods and cameras to hairbrushes and handbags.

To meet a native of Shenzhen, someone who was born and raised there, is unusual. Most of the millions in Shenzhen are from the provinces, and they came seeking jobs. Some find fortune, but most find factories: manufacturing jobs are plentiful and, relative to many jobs inland, well-paid. Not all Shenzhen transplants stay, though. Like young Americans in NYC or LA, they come for a taste of the big time, but many ultimately decide it’s not for them. They save their wages, with the intent of moving back home to settle down.

Like most cities in south China, Shenzhen is full of drivers actively flouting the rules of the road. If traffic is moving too slowly in one direction, drivers just start using the oncoming lanes. They back up on the freeway if they miss an offramp. Cabbies make left turns if they have the right of way or not. Steamrollers and semis share the road with mopeds and bikes. At present, traffic in China is so awful, I cannot imagine what it will be like if all the people that want cars actually get them.

Factory tours are confidential, so I won’t give details, but rest assured, they are eye-opening. Factories in China are enormous, with dormitories, canteens, rec facilities, and titanic workspaces. Even with the labor equation changing rapidly due to the One Child Policy, and the number of migrants declining, labor is still China’s best value. Manufacturing is mostly people-powered, rather than highly automated. In a Chinese factory, you get a very clear picture of just how many people are involved in making the stuff you take for granted every day. Every worker handles a small portion of the finished product. For example, consider an item of apparel like a woven shirt: each component or detail of the shirt is probably one worker’s job. Each pocket, cuff, placket, and embellishment corresponds to one person at a sewing machine. Add up the details and you have an idea of how many people are involved at the assembly level. Double it and you’ll have some sense of how many people are involved at the mills that made the fabric and trims. Triple it and you’ll have a sense of how many people are involved in the logistics of getting it onto a ship and on its way to you: sourcing agents, consolidators, dockworkers, truck drivers. Throw in a few more people for good measure: designers, prototypers, shop floor supervisors, clerical staff, testing lab employees. Now you have a sense of how many lives you affect through the goods you buy. It’s amazing we can pay what we do for consumer goods, but thanks to a certain amount of currency tweaking on the part of the Chinese government, we pay very little. And because we demand low prices, we fuel the growth of Chinese manufacturing and cities like Shenzhen. Is it the best way to do things? Probably not, for a variety of reasons, but a big one is the enormous inefficiency of shipping goods halfway around the world: it's simply not an effective use of resources. But because of Western demand for value-priced consumer goods, it is the way it’s done.

Driving back through Shenzhen on our way back to Hong Kong and the hotel, I note the changes since my last visit, and how they reflect the increasing influence of the West. There are more KFCs than before, and a Gucci boutique -- a real one, not one selling fakes. The world's largest golf resort, with 216 holes, is in Shenzhen. Yet there is still the guy carrying live chickens to market on his moped, workers in broad bamboo hats sweeping sidewalks with straw brooms, and a portrait of Chairman Mao smiling benevolently from the wall of a building under demolition. As our intrepid hostess Fanny noted last time we were here, after our van was nearly run over by a semi, trash truck, and steam roller at the same time, "China is weird." Fanny, a native Hongkongese, meant it in the sense that China is nothing like Hong Kong: provincial, backwards, 'weird.' But China is also nothing like it was just a few years ago, evolving at such a pace this city of ten million sprouted up almost instantly, and that it is just as suddenly the manufacturing muscle for most of the world. That, to the Chinese, must be weird indeed.

DAY 6 – Tuesday – Hong Kong

Theme Song – “Check Out”– Pretty Things

Today we had our last meetings in Hong Kong, which all went well, despite Skippy's best efforts to disrupt them. In the evening, he managed to insult both our hosts and his own team at dinner. I am thrilled we are ditching him tomorrow and going to Tokyo.

Asia Journal, Part 3

DAY 4 - Sunday - Hong Kong

Theme Song – “Action,” Sweet
Because everybody wants a piece of it.

Today is forced fun day, in which I am expected to engage in tourism with people with whom I would never vacation. We have Joe, a VP; Chris, an SB; Tom, a buyer; Kay, a PM; and Skippy, Kay’s boss, an SPM. These acronyms are irrelevant, except for the fact that every one containing an S or a V can pull rank.

I am crabby and fairly queasy, given my lack of sleep, congestion, and certain indiscretions with sake last night. We get in the rented van and go to Repulse Bay. The switchbacks on the way don’t help; worse still, Skippy blathers inanely about himself the entire way. I’ve always heard that Skippy is reviled by his reports and now I understand why. I never understand how people can be in a stunning, exotic place and ignore it completely because they can’t shut the f*ck up. It is a beautiful day, spoiled by the company. When we arrive at the bay, I make a beeline for the water. Chris says “Julie’s walking home,” and I wave bye bye, stepping into the Pacific. Skippy continues yapping. We go to the nearby temple and I pray to Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, for him to shut up.

After the bay, we go to Stanley Market, so the group can load up on tchotchkes. Stanley Market is a warren of stalls on the edge of the bay. Most of the stalls sell souvenirs, Chinese handicrafts, knock-off handbags, overruns – tourist junk, but it’s diverting.
I’ve been there/done that, so all I buy is t-shirts for Eric and a packet of postcards for everybody back in the States.

Fortunately, since we are at Stanley and it’s noon, we can stop at Smuggler’s Inn, a hole-in-the-wall expat pub my crew has enjoyed many times before, prior to being saddled with all the suits. I love Smuggler’s, and the photo gives some sense why: it’s rowdy and raw, and honestly hosted some piracy in the past. If you didn’t know better, you'd assume they sell grog instead of Guinness. We happened upon it four trips ago when we got stuck in a June downpour during a trip to the market. We ducked into the pub for cover, and fell in love with it...probably in no small part to the fact that somebody bought us a round of drinks. Thanks, whoever you were.

Our party sits down outside in the sun, and immediately most everybody proceeds to brownnose Joe; this is weird and disappointing because Smuggler's has always been a place we’ve dropped our business mien on these trips. My great realization of the day is that I will probably never make VP because there will always be someone willing to be a much greater sycophant than I. There is not a micron’s clearance between Skippy’s lips and Joe’s bum.

Smuggler’s is mostly patronized by Brits and Aussies, so the jukebox isn’t bad. Screwing around with the jukebox takes me away from the table for a blessed moment. I cue up “Action”, the Fall’s “Mr. Pharmacist,” the Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks”, and the Who, “Can’t Explain.” Clearly, I have an attitude today, which I am trying desperately hard to suppress in the presence of the suits. It scrabbles its way out in my musical selections. I flash Kay the heavy metal devil horns and say "Everybody wants a piece of the action!"

Asia Journal, Pt 2

DAY 2 – Friday – Hong Kong

Theme Song – “Veni Vidi Vici,” Black Lips
“I came, I saw/ I conquered all/All ya’ll”

Why? Because we aced our meetings. All the samples of the designs are beautiful. This happened despite Paddy tagging along. Paddy is my new boss. He spends most of his time in everyone’s business looking for excuses to meet with his superiors and brownnose them. I still haven’t figured out what he’s doing here halfway around the world, besides devising ways to take credit for our work.

We skate through the meetings and head back to the hotel at the end of the day. I take a short nap and then get ready for dinner. Tommy is our dinner host tonight. Tommy is a burly young Taiwanese guy who runs a trading company. He favors mob-boss pinstriped suits and Gucci loafers. He looks kinda thuggy, but he’s really just a big softie. He just got married and had a baby. He has pictures: his new daughter is tiny with a load of thick black hair and she looks just like Dad: she is adorable. Everyone in our circle in Hong Kong seems to have childrearing on their mind; if they aren’t expecting, they are new moms or dads. If they are new moms and dads, they are armed with pictures in their wallets and movies on their cellphones. With the One Child Policy still in effect in China, if you are a new parent, you are at a singular point in your life; these young parents all glow with hope and pride; it is heartening to see such intense faith in their kids’ future.

We eat at a nice Vietnamese restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong, a party district frequented by expats. Ordering is always a bit of trauma, because Chinese hospitality demands that there always should be more than enough, so it is absolutely certain that everyone has eaten their fill. Everyone gorges and regrets it later, but the food is delicious so it’s hard to complain.

After dinner, my sourcing team and I escape the suits and go to a bar around the corner. Danny, our ex-market rep, comes along as an honorary member of the team, even though he’s been transferred. It’s a promotion, but he is complaining about how he misses us -- the design manager on his new team is nasty. I concur with Danny’s assessment: I know this guy, and I always thought he was an arrogant prat. Apparently, everyone else in the office thinks so, too. There is a lot of bullshit flung around in the design community about designers being the new rockstars (look at Karim Rashid’s myspace page for an illustration of how NOT to pull this off), and this prat buys it all, expecting constant adulation for feeble work. He once told me he preferred not to design; he’d rather have his underlings do it all for him. At least rockstars have to have chops or they cease to be stars.

Hopefully, after three bottles of wine shared amongst friends, Danny has escaped the daily grind for a while. We have a lot of laughs, and drunk dial a couple of coworkers back home, just to jerk their chains: when you’re sitting in frigid Minneapolis, hearing the chardonnay is chilled and it’s a balmy 70 degrees in Hong Kong is a sick joke.

DAY 3 – Saturday – Hong Kong

Theme Song – Roky Erickson and the Aliens “Click Your Fingers Applauding the Play”

Another day of meetings aced. I think Paddy is finally convinced that we actually are as good as they say we are. Hopefully, this means he’ll leave us alone to do our thing with less of his ‘assistance’. I get back to the hotel at about 4 and can’t sleep, so I dink around in the New World Store. I heart the New World Store; it’s more or less a grocery store with a weird amalgam of housewares, toiletries, Asian kitsch and office supplies. It is both familiar and fairly weird to my American eyes: it’s a mall store with garish sale posters and easy-clean surfaces, but it stocks stuff like durian, a tropical fruit that’s considered a delicacy but smells something like sewage. There is also stuff like this:












Angry Caucasian Dude Snacks and Cat Fiber Marshmallows (which is what we thought they were until we realized they were actually “calcium plus fiber marshmallows”, thanks to some iffy typography) The marshmallows are surprisingly good.

We go to dinner with fun colleagues at a swank Japanese place. They always order up cold sake when we do this, which comes in a lethal dispenser loaded with ice. It is always hard to gauge your sake intake, especially given that etiquette demands that you never fill your own cup: somebody is always filling it up when you’re not looking.

Asia Journal - Pt 1

DAY 1 and 2 - Wednesday into Thursday – Minneapolis to Portland to Narita to Hong Kong

Theme Song – “Myriad Harbour,” New Pornographers
"I took a plane, I took a train - oh, who cares, you always wind up in the city..."

Today is all about planes and airports. We leave at 9:30 in the morning and fly to Portland, where it is raining, as it always does. We transfer to the plane to Narita airport, which serves Tokyo. This is the longest leg of the flight, and we are sitting in business class, which is a great comfort on a trip like this because I can’t sleep on planes. This makes no sense, given that I can sleep pretty much everywhere else (including sitting upright in a folding chair at Paycheck’s Lounge with somebody’s punk band was blasting away). Business class at least plies me with distractions: food, drink, on-demand movies, a plug for the laptop (which didn’t work), crappy inflight magazines with crappier crossword puzzles, and a weird seat that resembles an airborne LaZBoy with a canopy and a lot of button controls. I have a good ten hours to kill. All told, this trip takes about 18 hours, and we arrive tomorrow… thank you, International Date Line.

(10 hours later, sleepless entire time)

Landing in Narita, you fly over small farm plots, fallow rice paddies, and a lot of small greenhouses. It is quaint and bucolic, a dull winter green. Houses with tiled roofs cluster around winding roads, punctuating the fields. It is lovely now, but lovelier in June when the fields are greener. There is a distinct Japonesque tidiness to everything. Even the car plant we fly over looks clean and pleasant, with hundreds of identical sedans rowed up outside. When you land, all the runway personnel wear uniforms that make them look like extras from an episode of Ultraman; somewhere between lab techs and road workers, they have hardhats, collared shirts, pressed pants, and reflective coats. The Japanese love uniforms; the girls screening bags wear maroon blazers, skirts, white gloves and little pillbox hats.

We only have a couple hours’ layover in Narita, and usually spend most of it in the club lounge, where we can plug in the computers and discuss the perplexing smoked cheese wrapped like a piece of candy. All the guys love it, although they agree it doesn’t really seem like food. All the girls find it frightening. There is an automated beer dispenser, too, that pours you a glass of Asahi Super Dry: it tips the glass at the proper angle to minimize the head. My former buyer found this irresistible, and would get a couple beers from it every time we stopped, regardless of the time. When we leave Narita, the sun is almost set. We have a little over four and half hours to fly to Hong Kong, much of it over the China Sea. I snooze a little; maybe an hour tops.

When I wake, Taiwan is shrouded in cloud, an amorphous light off to the left of the plane. It looks like a spangled ghost lost at sea, its translucent edges formed by shoreline, where the light stops. A little closer to Hong Kong, flotillas of fishing boats light patches of water, spread out in alien arrays in the black sea.

We get to the Intercontinental close to 11:30. As many times as I’ve been here, the panoramic view of the harbor from the lobby always stuns me. It is the most beautiful waterfront I’ve ever seen: titanic illuminated buildings, backed by dark mountains and framed by palms. The wall of the lobby facing the water is entirely glass, and about three storeys high; for immediate impact it is unrivaled in HK. Regardless of how exhausted and jetlagged you are, it makes you feel as if you finally arrived somewhere special.

The Mystery of Gabby's

Once in a while, you see an establishment so weird you just have to stop and wonder why it even exists. We found one a while ago. Eric and I were on our way to Psycho Suzi's to get a pizza (I'd recommend the Suzi Quatro - spinach and white wine sauce), driving down Marshall in Northeast. Looming on our left, a huge illuminated sign bearing a caricature of Gabby Hayes, the cowboy movie sidekick noted for saying stuff like "Flim-flam wrackin-frackin gol durn whippersnapper!" Below it, a second sign reading "Gabby's Saloon and Eatery."
Yep, somewhere back in the mists of time (probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1975, judging by the architecture) someone thought it would be a great idea to build a restaurant concept around a b-movie character actor. If this happened today, there would probably be Seann William Scott "Stifler's" chicken wing joints in every tourist trap.

Disapppointingly, once you're inside, Gabby's looks more like a 70's rec room than an excursion into high-plains Hollywood kitsch. It's all barnwood panelling and beer signs, and is full of chubby hip-hoppers eating cheese curds and drinking Miller. I have to wonder how they decided to adopt this place as their own: it doesn't exactly scream 'urban'. But then, who should hang out in Gabby's? Grizzled 49'ers? Discarded cinematic sidekicks? Thuggy kids in logos or wholesome white-hat heroes? Does Gabby's really 'fit' anyone living in 2007, or does its nonsensical quality make it the perfect anonymous dive?

O, Canada

No offense MPLS, but I seriously miss living so close to Canada. With Windsor 20 minutes away, I used to be able to consider myself semi-Canadian. From a geopolitical standpoint, I'd prefer to still think so, but it's harder to rationalize living five hours from the border. I don't get back nearly often enough, but I did this week, flying to Toronto for a couple days' business. I got to hear people say "aboot" and "eh" a lot, which always warms my heart, and got my stash of Coffee Crisps from Shopper's Drug Mart. I also got a fresh Molson. This is practically impossible in Minneapolis. I don't understand why you can get Stella Artois on tap in every bar in town, but not Molson or Labatt's... it's simply wrong.

On this trip, I think I found my all-time favorite hotel. The Drake, on Queen Street West, is an example of fun, innovative interior design without affectation. I got the smallest room, a so-called 'Crash Pad', which is reasonably priced and cleverly designed. Rooms are contemporary but comfortable, and almost all the furniture is built-in, with shelves that can be folded up out of the way if not needed. The bath is built tidily into one wall, concealed by frosted glass partitions. Instead of the usual hotel mags directing you to theme restaurants and overwrought boutiques, you get local gallery guides, Artforum, and a novel with some literary merit (in my case, Rebecca Gowers' "When to Walk"). They have a great bar and cafe downstairs, and vintage photo booth in the lobby. The staff are friendly and accomodating, but not overbearing. Apparently, the Drake is popular with bands, which was confimed when I heard someone in a neighboring room playing Spoon. This makes perfect sense: it's cool but not too cool to be comfortable, and captures the character of its city and neighborhood.

Other favorite hotels:
The Pelham in South Kensington, London. Small, quiet, comfortable, and very English, it's conveniently situated right near the V&A and the tube. Great service, too, the Pelham pushed it over the top when they brought me real tea and a copy of the Independent when I woke up. When you start out happy, the rest of your day goes much better, even if it involves going to Slough. The Pelham realizes this.

The Intercontinental Kowloon in Hong Kong.
The lobby bar is gorgeous, with a panoramic view of the harbor. Rooms are tasteful and large, with a heavenly bathroom and a tub you can soak in up to your neck. The pool and spa are fantastic. The Intercontinental has an insane breakfast buffet, included in the price of the room, that manages to meet the needs of a truly global clientele: Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and western-style foods are all available, so you can have congee, curry and waffles, if it grabs you.


How to do a pretentious hotel:
Last spring, on our annual LA jaunt, we stayed in the Viceroy in Santa Monica, site of several recent celebutard meltowns. I was disappointed for a couple of reasons: first, nobody ran over a paparazzo's foot with a Mercedes while I was there, and second, I could never escape the fact that it was once some generic chain hotel. The rooms had that same stale layout. The atmosphere was LA in the worst way: the staff seemed to be uninterested unless you were 'somebody.' You can tart it up in all the trendy black/white/citron wallpaper and faux-Georgian china and furniture you want, it's still a Ramada at heart.

Drake Hotel
Pelham Hotel
Intercontinental Kowloon

Favorite Travel Pictures, 2006-7

Or, why I wear a two-time-zone watch. A few pictures I took over the past year on various trips:



Hong Kong is in constant motion: you never know what you'll see next.

This view from Victoria Peak was really just dumb luck. Minutes later, the light was gone.



In the midlevels in HK, school must have just let out. The pink hair sets off the stream of uniforms.



It's rare for a day to be this clear in Hong Kong in June. HK is like New York with a better waterfront and English as a second language.



The chicken man of Shenzhen. This is what we saw moments after we nearly got in a four-way collision with a trash truck, semi, and a steamroller in anarchic Shenzhen traffic. When we thought it couldn't get any weirder, this guy blithely pedals by with a bikeload of clucking hens.



Could these kids have been cuter? Tokyo, Ikebukuro.



New York. Paste-up graffiti in raking morning light.



Exercise your free will...
New York. Soho, near Canal.
There are more on Flickr, if you're so inclined.

Big Star

I had to go to San Francisco for a series of meetings a couple of weeks ago, and I was eager to get out to see some music, if for no other reason to escape my Big Red compadres for a while. Turns out that the reformulated Big Star is playing at the Fillmore… couldn’t have done better if I’d booked it myself. I bought my ticket, packed my bags, and was off. I did the obligatory meetings and a quick trip to Napa with my hosts, and looked forward to a little free time.

Saturday night, I nab a cab from the Monaco and head down Geary to the Fillmore.

Beyond the obvious reasons, I can see why the Fillmore is a legendary hall. It sounds good, has a great vibe, and the scene seems friendly and relaxed. The walls are lined with hundreds of posters from shows dating back to the beginning of the San Francisco scene, and there’s a washtub full of apples, free to all, at the entryway just like back in the day. Music is playing upstairs and I go upstairs to check it out. To my delight, the DJ is Kelley Stoltz, a Detroit expat and the author of my favorite album of the last couple of years, “Below the Branches.” He puts on the Small Faces, and I can’t help but smile. He’s ace... he’s spinning nothing but vinyl! I just wish he’d get going and release that next album.

First up, Oranger. They’re playing their 10^th anniversary show, and they’re all wearing fake mustaches, but most of them fall off somewhere in the midst of the first couple songs. They sound terrific, they’re having a good time, and the mood is contagious -- if there's any justice, they'll carry on for 10 more years. Kelley is off the steel wheels and is up front with his girl, digging it. I thought I saw John Vanderslice in the crowd.

Chilton doesn’t look that different from the last time I saw him over 10 years ago. Maybe a little balder on top, but he still has that wry grin and his penchant for unexpectedly breaking into “Girl from Ipanema” whenever, wherever. Except now he’s working Hunter Thompson accessories… halfway through the show, he pulls out a cigarette holder and lights up. Get him some aviators and he’d be all set.

Jody Stephens looks like a freakin’ movie star: blond and slim, he plays stylish, energetic drums and sings. He does “For You” and "Way Out West". I saw him in the terminal the following morning on my way home (I guess we are both prisoners of Northwest Airlines, living in NWA hubs), and you would mistake him for a younger man until he pulled out reading glasses to check his ticket. Were we all so lucky.

And there’s the Posies, a great band in their own right. Jon Auer’s starting to look a little like Shatner, but he sounds terrific. He is your designated Chris Bell tonight, and sings "I Am the Cosmos". I love little Ken Stringfellow, who usually bounces off the walls at any given Posies show, and have to give him credit for reining it in to make it Alex and Jody’s party. He is filling the Andy Hummel spot. They are appropriately reverent with the material, and bring their best to it.

They did a good chunk of Radio City and #1 Record, all the big tunes: "On The Street", "September Gurls", "Thirteen". And they seemed to be having a great time, which is always a trick when you play the same tunes for 30 years running. They played few songs from "In Space", their reunion album that didn't quite capture their original spirit. They threw in a few covers: the Kinks' "Til The End of the Day", and had a hard time maintaining straight faces during Todd Rundgren's "Slut".

My only quibble: they could’ve played a little more from "Third", but with so much great material, it's gotta end sometime and it did, too soon. I got my apple and left. I walked about a mile to catch one of the scarce cabs, but it that was fine. It was warm night with few stars and a light breeze off the bay...it felt good, the perfect way to wrap up the long Indian summer.

Elevator Music

Entering the elevator going upstairs to my perch on the 21^st floor of Big Red in downtown Mpls, I'm usually listening to something on my iPod that is cranked up to the point where my noise-cancelling headphones no longer cancel noise and my neighbors can hear every note. I like to share. I’m sure this messes with all the 25-year old guys trying to look gangsta in their grey flannel suits, but their premise is messed up from the start, so I’m not particularly sympathetic.

“Are you ready, Steve?” “Uh-huh.”
When I dial up “Ballroom Blitz” on the ‘pod on my way out the door, I feel about as dissipated as Steve sounds. But by the time Steve is ready, so am I. I've cued up the Sweet, the Pretty Things, the Black Lips… who needs caffeine?

Brake for Jake

Pause for a moment, Michiganians, and remember one of Ann Arbor's most famous residents, Shaky Jake Woods, who passed away Sunday night at the age of 82. Jake was a fixture around town, spreading goodwill and playing his unique version of the blues, which usually involved a detuned and partially-strung guitar. You'd see him all around town: the Fleetwood, campus, the Bagel Factory. He'd be dressed to the nines, usually in some thrift store approximation of a zoot suit with a wide-brimmed straw hat. Ocassionally, he'd twang out a few hits, like "Fat Bacon" and "Hippy Boy" and then hurry on. He'd always tell you, "I'm on the move!" Ann Arbor won't be the same without him. Rest in peace, Jake.

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2007/09/shaky_jake.html

Still here.

I am indeed still alive after the 35W bridge disaster. My heart goes out to those who were injured and to those who lost friends and family.

A couple of my colleagues regularly used the fated bridge on their commute. Fortunately, they were happy-houring downtown and didn't climb into their cars until after the disaster. Another person on their floor made it over the bridge about 10 minutes before the collapse. Fortunately, it wasn't even a near-miss for me. I think I've been on that bridge all of four times in the two-plus years I've been here. I rarely use the northern leg of 35w, even though I'm on the south-of-downtown chunk almost daily.

If anybody tells you design doesn't matter, they're wrong. This proves it.

Say it ain't so, Bat Boy!

I am, as the master of metaphor Ed Anger would say, pig-biting mad. As of August 3, the Weekly World News will cease publication. A light of integrity in the benighted wilderness of journalism, WWN reported the news that other media outlets were afraid to surface, to wit:
- Saddam and Osama's Forbidden Love
- Abraham Lincoln was a Woman
- Bush's Plan to Protect White House: Paint It Black
- Aliens Back Bush for President
- Cheney is a Robot

In addition to offering the only plasible explanation for the current administration's policies, WWN kept close tabs on reclusive celebrity favorites, the ones People and OK! simply couldn't coax out of hiding like Bigfoot, Elvis, and the immortal Bat Boy, who was featured on many a cover beginning in 1992, and eventually became the subject of an off-Broadway musical. Wikipedia opines that Bat Boy has a chaotic sense of morality, but isn't Bat Boy simply an allegory for conflicted American values? Stealing cars, living in the NYC subway, running for California governor, endorsing Al Gore, doing good works, and generally being misunderstood: Bat Boy holds a mirror to us all.

WWN also offered solid editorial content: two-fisted opinion from Ed Anger, medical information from Lester the Typing Horse, and advice -- first from forthright Dottie (to whom Dr. Laura may owe a great debt) and later from the folksy Dolly. Truly, WWN delivered all the news that fit, and then some, if you include the ads for 800-number psychics, mystical prayer shawls and miracle supplements within its pages.

As a designer, I found WWN to be the foremost authority on the use of 300 pt. type anywhere. How can you argue with a headline you can read from the back aisle of Kmart? Their photo editors' adept use of Photoshop rendered the Loch Ness monster with empathy and power, even on newsprint. The checkout lane is going to be a much sadder place without it.

More details here.

Legion of Rock Stars

Legion of Rock Stars, I love you:

Anyway You Want It
Beth
Behind Blue Eyes
Jump
Western Union


Update: Somebody in the Stones lacks a sense of humor, so the old links did not work. New ones have been included. There's also more on You Tube.

Rest in peace, Mr. Nik.

Ray Nikolai passed away last Wednesday. He was my friend Dawn’s dad.

I hoped Ray would make it out here to Minnesota this summer. Dawn and I talked about bringing her family out here for a vacation. He’d have loved the St. Paul Saints, because Midway Park combines two of his great passions, baseball and trains. The ballpark is situated between a rail yard and a busy set of tracks, so the trains are as much a part of the game as the 7th inning stretch. Ray briefly played pro ball, but I think he was just as happy playing with his grandkids as he was with big leaguers. After his pro career was ended by injury, he got a job with General Motors in their photographic division, and stayed there until he retired. He shot car ads in the back when they conjured images of power and style and made the Motor City hum. Dawn has a great picture of him, leaning on a coupe, grinning goofily at one of those late 50’s models with eyeliner out to her ears. I don’t know if it ever was used in print, but it should have been: the look on his face could have launched a thousand Chevys.

After he retired, he shot freelance ad photography (many sessions with me), shot weddings (including mine), taught himself desktop publishing (with a lot of help from Dawn), and worked in a print shop to stay busy, as if he wasn’t already.

Ray was one of those people who could talk to anybody, and did. He was a great storyteller and was always vernacular. He treated everyone equally: as a buddy. He knew Neil Young, but I don’t think he knew Neil was a rock star until one of his kids told him. To Ray, Neil was just another model train enthusiast, one of the guys he’d look forward to seeing at train shows. Ray was the president of his local model train club, and his basement was full of engines, cars and track layouts. Dawn’s mom good-naturedly tolerated his passion and gave up the basement. He loved to talk to people about trains, and I'm sure that he started off hundreds of people in the hobby, just by sharing great stories. There’s a model train museum here, and I was sure that would be his first stop if he were to come to Minneapolis. He would have made some friends there.

More than anything else, though, Ray was a man of genuine enthusiasm: for his family, for his church, for his job, and for his hobbies. I was stunned to hear he passed: he had so much energy and passion for what made up his life, no matter how mundane. It seemed to me he'd never stop.

He leaves behind a wife, children and grandchildren (including Dawn's two boys, above), who grieve the loss. I do too.