Easy there Rider...easy...

I burned up 5-6 miles riding my new mountain bike up and down East Coast Beach in the rain this morning. This bike was a long overdue purchase on many levels. I looked at its $200USD price tag as an investment in my community as well as my health. I say that because I live here now, for short or for long term, and getting out and getting more into my local area is paramount. The bike, named The Brit for it's blatant Union Jack on the frame, is perfect for a getting my leg workout/cardio in addition to quick jaunts down to the gym, grocery store, and just getting my bearings in my neighborhood.

I noticed on the rainy ride this AM that Americans do the beach differently. It looked like the Indians, and I don't mean the Redskins, were having a beach party complete with DJ, mini-soccer game (called FutSal here), tandoori grilling (think BBQ), and a shitload of people for a rainy day! This was about the closest to an American-style beach venture that you will see here except that the Indians don't do bikinis and they don't kiss in public (remember when Clooney kissed the Bollywood honey and got their ire?). The Asians, probably Malaysians or Vietnamese/Laotian, basically move all of their crap from their HDB flat (barrio) onto the beach complete with whatever shit is stewing in a pot 24/7, lines of clothing in varying degreess of freshness and stages of dry/wet, and bedding. It's looks like they're moving in and staying for days with lots of guests coming and going from their commandeered or, possibly, government subsidized, park bench. Ahh...the population lobotomy continues.

I needed a little shot of Texas or America or something non-Singaporean/Asian today. It was raining all day and the prospect of finding a suitable TV program to keep me from creatively taking my own life was dim. Shows like 'Gags' which is a french candid-camera, fuck with the viewer kind of show and really bad Anime were running like a Jerry Lewis MD Marathon all day. My exit was imminent.

I've been DYING to go to the Handle Bar since having gone to the one in Manila last month! It's the coolest dive bar/biker bar piece of Americana in Southeast Asia, hands-down, bar none. The one in Singapore is somehow loosely affiliated with the one in Manila, but the one in Manila is a little 'ruddier' as an Aussie would say. I've been chompin' at the bit for some kind of motorcyle outlet here beyond Japanese 250cc jobbies which are everywhere. I was ready for some V-twin Milwaukee thunder and the Handle Bar would be my outlet!

I was prepped too... in tandem with reading the James Bond Biography, I've also been reading "Under and Alone" about real-life ATF agent Bill Queen on how he infiltrated the Mongols OMG (Outlaw Motorcyle Gang, not Oh My God you fucking LOL-writing instant message/texting dolts). Reading Bill relaying his bike and gun stories just got me going. I was dead set on getting to the Handle Bar, alone if necessary. I was pretty sure The Man from Snowy River wouldn't go for it and Ray lives too far away to make journey, so it was The GMAN and a cabby who couldn't find the place.

Thankfully, my keen sense of direction, which I attribute to my seemingly useless degree in Geography, delivered me safely into the arms of the only other piece of Americana here besides the American Club, the US Embassy, and the Hard Rock Cafe. Upon entering, it became blatantly apparent the Americans do a couple of things right. If immitation is the sincerest form of flattery then we should be thankful that everyone around this planet emulates us on 4 things...Rock N Roll, V-twin motorcycles, Handguns, and Guitars my friend! Everyone wants to do these things better than us but fear should be the last thing on your mind my friends...they could NEVER do it justice! We have a corner on the market in these 4 areas, I assure you!

Despite the obvious Asian staff, for 3-4 hours I forgot I was in a foreign land. I drank Budweiser, wore steel-toed boots & a Cult concert t-shirt, read about V-Twin custom bobber choppers, listened to the Allman Brothers, AC/DC, & other classic rock and roll, saw lots of biker chicks (only on the walls in pictures damn it!), ate a fucking cheeseburger that was cooked to perfection (hard to get here, medium means raw), and otherwise was an American for the afternoon. I hadn't been one in a while and I'll tell you why in a later blog about Identity crisis and my new accent.

The Handle Bar is a piece of biker heaven on a rock in Southeast Asia...an outpost of truly American innovation rivaled by nothing else on this planet. It is T-shirts that no mother would let a son wear, bike parts everywhere, tires & frames & seats made into bar stools, guitars made into chairs, a pool table begging to eat my SG dollars, Screaming Eagles, hot biker chicks posing in HD bike ads, tattoos, and most of all pictures of friends and patrons. Hopefully I will be in some of those pics soon. Because this, my friends, felt like home to me. At least some simblance of a temporary home that is.

I vividly pictured all my friends around...I could see Arthur doing a johnny-on-the-spot napkin rendering of SVP throwing a "Tarrant County Electra-Glide" on some unsuspecting mamacita...Scotty wearing an entirely inappropriate (read expensive) shirt to intentionally spite/slight the patrons while throwing an imaginary drum stick in the air and chugging a longneck upside down as the stick gracefully returns to his free hand...Lee trying to score some weed on an island where drug dealing means death...Kenon banging his bald noggin on the variety of shit hanging from the ceilings since he's the tallest human ever...John Cox (AKA Heavy C) supporting the bar with a heroic tab while complaining that the bartender, Hop Sing, doesn't use a 5-Mississippi count...I could see both Sasha and Denise hating it so I loved it...Brannon B leading a rollicking a capella rendition of the Shinedown's "I Dare You" which he uses to amuse the muses...Danny whipping out a new tale of how he bought, sold, burned down, built back up, bought back, and then sold the Handle Bar twice for a profit to the Sultan of Brunei just because...and Brent (who was born with a cue-stick for an appendage) beating the ever-loving shit out of the bikers one by one, dollar by dollar. I could choreograph every conversation, activity, and adventure in my mind. Thanks for joining me today gents. You were all there and you didn't even know it!

I admit it, I missed home. It was the first time in roughly 2 months. I opened my phone and looked at the datebook...the 19th never looked so far away. The Handle Bar made me miss home, God love it! Was it the escapism of biker culture, the 1%'er identity, fearless American sense of the bar? Was it the Dallasite, Adair's, Cosmo's, Reno's, and Vickery all wrapped into one that brought a little bit of home to me? Or was it the shear vacancy of close friends in my life thus far that made me miss home? I submit that it was all of these things.

06-04 Living

I'm settled here in Singapore with a very nice 3BR/2BA 6th floor flat. My building is roughly 14 stories high, great pool, shitty gym, and full of transient internationals. Some have kids who scream througout the day and night in Japanese while others are truly just dwelling in a rented space, far from Pakistan or Brunei or Newcastle or Frankfort. Passing time in a temporary place, trying to fill their lives with some kind of interim fun in a foreign land as the Singapore time zone clock ticks away reminding them that home is actually thousands of miles away.

Agnes is my landlady and she is rapid response. I put a work order in and she is like lightening trying to fix it. I'm more of the mind to keep a tidy house and maintain a great property for the de facto owner of my flat so his place is taken care of. She mistakenly referred to it as a 'complaint' (cultural nomenclature to blame) while my positioning was as more of a tenant giving her a heads on what an owner would want fixed and in working order for both tenant, property, and landlady. I think she got it. He housekeeper sucks though. All the maid is there for is to clean the flat. I left the ironing board, 15 shirts, and a $20 out the first day for her...she carefully cleaned around the stack, not molesting even one article of clothing, and promptly took the $20. As penance I've decided to spread my time between 2 toilets in protest.

As I mentioned before, the tough part is cooking for myself. That will work itself out in time and I'm definitely not starving. I find my time during the week after work filled with evenings working out, keeping from drinking all the time, and plenty of time fucking around on the internet because local TV absolutely sucks. I've forgone my 42" LCD home theatre system for a 6 channel 22" TV so I'm having withdrawals. I'm about to have Agnes pipe in roughly 20+ cable channels as varied as National Geographic to Eurosports News to HBO in order to curb my panic attacks. I figure just having 20 channels won't keep me inside all that much but with the rainy season in play it's good to have something to do in lieu of praciticing new Hare Kare angles with a dull swiss army knife, throwing chicken bones out the window to try to hit the Singapore STAR team SWAT surveillance trucks, or watching Casino Royale on my laptop for the bloody 12th time. Cable channels basically amount to roughly $40/month which is negligible. I think you get the picture.

Mos Eisley Remembered...

I'm constantly asked by my US buddies about how seedy and sinister the Asian nightlife can be. It's easy maintain this perception, from a US History perspective, that the Chinese still run opium dens and efficiently operate white slavery rings so they must have similar operations still surviving and perpetuating the social scene today. While I'm sure there are still members of the Tongs society actively involved in the trade, you'd be surprised to know whether the US is taking a cue from Asia or vice versa, nightlife here is generally the same. With a few cultural exceptions of course...

A reprint from a recent email to my buddies on the subject which captures it all...

The Opium Den rocks bub! To quote Obi Wan Kenobe in Star Wars speaking of the Mos Eisley space port bar…”you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…you must be cautious!” We are starting a trend at venturing into the most ridiculously sinful looking local Asian bars just to see how long we can put up with the smell and bad Karaoke while they endure us purposefully being genuine pricks. Usually the smell wins.

Seriously though, Singapore is a gem compared to the Manilas and Malaysias of the world my friends. Extremely safe and almost over-civilized to the point of creating a population long-since lobotomized from dissent, rebellion, violence, and emotion.

Now, that’s not to say that I am remiss to locate a den of iniquity that rivals even the most decadent Yesse Fields Home Theatre offering. There is plenty of outward debauchery here including Orchard Towers (Four Floors of Whores), Hookers working in pairs on Boat Quay, and, more up Arthur’s alley, the Lady Boys of Singapura who just kinda keep ya guessing (Is that an Adam’s apple I see?).

My Aussie buddy John (The Man From Snowy River) and I met a couple of geishas at the Pump Room one night. There nicknames for the evening were “Hey Yu” and “Baby Thai”. J You could call them Bar Code/RFID #441 or ‘Thing’ for all they care.

Singapore 101

Think London + Tampa + Toronto and you've got Singapore, the Lion City!

John and I are meeting some Swedish ladies this evening which should be fun. With a wide variety of Internationals here over the course of time I will no doubt meet the Swedes, the French, the Dutch, the South Africans, the English, the Americans, the Aussies and a myriad of Asians.

My boss, John, is from Australia and he's 39, single, and just about the craziest Aussie I've ever met. We have this ongoing sparring where I call him Yahoo Serious or Angus Young or Heath Ledger or Bindy Irwin and he, in kind, addresses me with random American/Texan celebrity/icon references like Willie Nelson or Jim Bowie or Condoleeza Rice or Van Halen. Like, if I'm IM'ing him, I start with "Hey Russell Crowe, where's the such and such..." Aussies are a lot like Texans but they're more vocal with their action where we are more apt to just take action regardless of being vocal

I'm setting out to explore Singapore this weekend, kind of to get a really good sense of what's around. I chose to live on an island in Asia but I haven't gotten any sun yet?!?! So, top of the list is explore the beaches here. They're all man made, or "reclaimed" as they call it, and nobody goes in the water but the park-like set up around them is supposedly fun and there are wide expanses of beach to exploit so thats redeeming.

I also need to get my cooking/eating regimen down. I've got a beautiful 3/2 flat but like no cookware and no grill. No oven but I have burners, so I'm trying to get that in order. I have a colleague who I can leave that shit with once I exit so It's not a complete waste. I enjoy grilling for myself but Im admittedly not much of a cook so this will be a trial and error thing. I'm thinking a lot salads with grilled meat for starters, more complex dishes as my fire extinguisher is procured. =) I've found that purchasing a whole rotisseried Chicken or a cooked Brisket or even 3-5 lbs of prime rib to eat off of over the course of a week meets my quick meal needs very well.

The cooking I would do is purely selfish intake and satiation. Small meals when I'm hungry. I do not want to become a chef but I do enjoy making food for myself...perhaps one of the legacies of working from home that I've always enjoyed. My diet has already changed here to be dominated by Fish and Chicken on top of local fair. A Steak, which I used to enjoy every other day, has become a luxury meal that I crave and look forward to. Steaks here are from Australia and they are usually lean cuts, not marbled and thick like ours.I've already gotten comfortable eating at what SGs call "food court" which is like 10-20 vendors in an open seating area. They serve a number of different cuisines from jap to chin to malay to vietnamese, etc, out of these little store fronts the size of a garge with a garage door. It's good food if you know what to order and it's less expensive than running a big lunch tab at a proper restaurant.

My Cantonese co-workers took me to a food court in China Town where I was the only Gui Lo (white guy) in the place and fed me to the wolves to find my food. I'm a lot braver because of it! And I defy any Anglo to eat Durian!! I will never do it again. Its like bad squash with very very bad cream cheese. Think soiled diaper. After I tried it (served as what looked like a very appetizing Bon Bon) and almost puked, they told me that a Durian eating-contest had been a feature on 'Fear Factor' and all the Asians laughed at the Anglos who couldn't eat it. =) I was there little fear factor victim for the day (fuckers!).