I’m currently attempting to organize the ridiculous number of sketchbooks and notebooks I got floating all over the place; came across this stuff I wrote down in Bangkok last year, when I was sorting out a new china visa during the whole olympic visa shitshow.

Notes from the Side of the Soi

There is a massage parlor opposite my hostel. (Of course there’s a massage parlor.) The sign reads “Come get yourself beautiful!!! Special promotion!!!” 7/11’s everywhere. Yesterday I bought a pack of smokes at the “Amazing Minimart.”

As I’m writing this there’s a chubby adolescent boy shuffling by sipping from a straw stuck in a transparent plastic bag filled with ice and what looks like coca-cola. Like a very small grocery bag. He’s wearing a headset with large oval earphones and a bent microphone jutting out one side. I really want to reach out and grab him and demand to know what he’s listening to.

There are large yellow dogs sleeping everywhere. They are huge and most of them female, big saggy nipples hang from massive bellies. The dogs are similar to the dogs in India, although those were more animated and angry, generally much thinner. Fat Bangkok bitches.

Taxi drivers here are a lot more relaxed in their approach to fare. They’ll turn on the meter only if asked and never bother with exact change. They also never say no to a tip. It’s best to hail a cab off a busy road, the cabbies lurking in the alleyways with their bright pink rides stationed on the roadside will hassle you and refuse to turn meters on, demanding ridiculous fares designed to be haggled over.

Peddlers walk around with large brass bells tied to their carts. The bells have a bright clear ring, like cymbals. Sound is distinctly oriental. One cart I saw had a sticker on the back – outline of a girl putting on (or taking off) her panties. No annotation. A bit of a wtf. Unlike in Beijing, where a peddler will generally pick a spot and stick to it for the day, it seems in Bangkok he will move several or more times a day. I want the spicy noodles they’re peddling, but currently my tongue piercing is swollen and I got bad food poisoning. Food no can have.

I shouldn’t be constantly looking for comparison, but in so many ways what I see in Bangkok is a mixture of Bombay and Beijing. The trees and exotic flowers and vines, poking out of every crack in the pavement, look fat and lush, threatening to take over the shiny chrome civilization. The air is thick and tropical, moist like in Bombay, it settles on the skin in a matter of minutes. I don’t know how to put it in a subtle way, but magic is the word that pops into my head. The same sort of magic as in Bombay. Beijing is far from that, over there it’s all no bullshit construction dust for breakfast and graying vegetation looking properly oppressed next to gigantic concrete overpasses. Earthy-brown strappy sandals versus cheap glossy office loafers. Bangkok seems full of dirt and excitement and secrets and rules you discover only after you break them. The east is tasty.

Rickety hutments with glossy red satellite dishes along a dirty canal under a busy bridge. School uniforms. Strange bouts of rain, put me in a strange mood – tense, erratic, changeable. Feelin female. Some men dawdling around their motorcycles on the roadside the other day made lip-smacking noises as I passed them, much like in Bombay. Note: men in Bangkok are flirty. (in Beijing – silent, surly, devious.)

Tourists with fannypacks, tall blonde Germans with their golden children, skipping next to daddy’s golden shiny legs. The white devils. Unreal white. Wishing I was more of a white devil. Russia stuck in the long deprived rut, then decline and transition along a plateau of mistrust and resentment toward nobody and nothing in particular. Over here we are the laowai. We are the farangs. It’s nice to feel identified. Feels pretty good to be unjustly lumped together in one category. Western individualism is lonely.

a few recent pages from my sketchbook:

chiner bonfire party in progress - can you spot me?

If you’re on facebook, scroll down and click “view original post” to be able to see the audio.

As promised, ladies n gents, the distinctly vomit-inducing chinese techno party mix. This makes a great workout playlist if you want to kill yourself. If you’ve traveled around the old Chiner at all beyond the obvious places you should recognize a few of these timeless classics.

(Note: for most of these I’m not sure who’s responsible, so if you happen to know the ‘artist,’ comment with the name and I’ll edit in the bastard)

1. Soldier of Fortune

This one shall forever remain my aerial portal into the blacklit limbo of BAR CLUB DISCO – the aptly named sole bar, club, and disco in Chengde – the fancy fruit plates, bouncy dance floor, smoke everywhere, and a shit ton of asians with voluminous haircuts in teal and black striped chinglishized tshirts. You can’t claim you’ve been around Chiner properly if you haven’t heard it.

2. da muzika something something..diskoteken

This song is perfect for the Chinese torso-bang: keep arms at sides, feet firmly planted on the floor, your back straight, and bend at the waist from side to side (your head would be drawing half-circles back and forth) really fucking fast. the lower you dip your upper body with each beat, the more impressive you look to the ladies – trust me.

3. The song labeled "really fucking chinese" on my iTunes

Also pretty good for torso-banging.

4. God is a Girl – ORIGINAL MIX

God is a girl, wherever you are, do you believe it, can you receive it? the lyrical brilliance-dripping original version, which is worth a mention if only to observe the oh so chinese remix effect

5. God is a Girl – CHINESE REMIX

the chinese remix effect: speed everything up to 150 bpm, make certain the vocals are properly screechy, pepper with samples like “let’s go” and “dj rock that funky beat,” and repeat for about 5 minutes.

6. Dragostea Din Tei – CHINESE REMIX

Get out your ear douche.

7. No no. No no no no. No no no no. No no no no Limit.

Do not listen if epileptic.

8. Sexo sexo sexo

This one’s sorta embarrassing to listen to.

9. Faces faces everywhere

This one’s pretty intense.

10. Big Beat Jam #1

The stuff of Germany in the 90s. Ein-zwei-polizei on crack.

11. Big Beat Jam #2

See above

12. My Samurai

Where’s my samurai?

13. ancient french disco tune the china can't seem to get over

14. Can't Get You out of my Head – chinered

Lastly, the obligatory Kylie butchery.

Bonus material for when your authentic chiner party goes into overtime:

15. come on baby baby, you so crazy crazy, do you happy happy?

I love this song so much. It’s got that perfect asian pop hook mmmhmmm.

16. The Flowers – Xi Shua shua

Classic.

17. some ridiculous japanese song.. she wants you to mail her


Further side items (the songs to play alongside “heaven” and “ymca” at the end of the party):

18. Ole ole ole ole. We are the champions.

19. The sailor song

I suggest you knock back some baijiu, blast this shit and get down like this-

when in chiner

Let me know if you want mp3’s of any of these. I won’t judge. (EDIT: aight, right-click/save-as)

In other news, I finally made meself a carbonmade folio – http://anakova.carbonmade.com/ It’s super classy and legit, so you can show it to your grandma.

And THIS is making me wish I was a tall skinny dude with fat bank account real bad.

Go visit them here – http://www.ameliesfrenchbakery.com/
But better yet GO CHECK OUT THE PLACE. I wish I lived closer to NoDa. Amazing cakes, tarts, croissants, and pastries, plus a regular food menu and drinks. There’s also board games, chess, a go set, and cards if you feel like killing a couple hours with some friends over a cup of tea.

MORE PHOTOS:

A couple sketches from my DWI session last night.

This one amused me endlessly.. at the time. Oh lord.

This one was fun to draw. I felt like I was just understanding perspective SO MUCH ohmygod.

I suppose the trick is not to get in the habit of drawing ONLY while intoxicated.. OR it could be really awesome and you could be like the drunken kungfu master except it’d be the drunken artist. OR NOT.

Christ, I love food.

I never realized  how much I love food the past 4 years in college because I was smoking a pack a day of these babies and eating the same friggin sandwich every day twice a day (if you’re still at davidson, get chicken salad, muenster, lettuce/tomato/pickles, plus honey mustard on pumpernickle at the union.. it’ll get you through the day). However now that I’m all healthy and whatnot, holy shit I can actually TASTE THINGS. Every raw vegetable has a delicious subtle flavor, not even talking about mad indian spices.

So, in the spirit of the resurrection of my taste buds, I’ve been making all kinds of fun foods. Last night for instance I really wanted some indian, so guess what I dun made some. And prep time only took about 30 minutes (though not counting all the dishwashing after.. but I know yall americans just pile everything in yalls fancy dishwashers and still manage to complain abt it. note: we do have a dishwasher at our house, but we’re principally opposed to it)

spicyyyyyyy

gatta have my cucumber (plus mango chutney omgg)

In any case, the curry I made can be called the Cauliflower, Potato, and Eggplant Spicy Curry in Tomato Gravy.

That sounds really awkward and long, but wtf I don’t know what else to call it. Suggestions?

HOW TO MAKE (or how I made it, rather..obv you can improvise to suit your own prefs)

Ingredients:

- 4 large tomatoes (abt 600 g total)

- 2 medium eggplants (abt 7″ long and on the skinnyish side.. mine were locally grown and delicious albeit slightly deformed lookin)

- 3 medium potatoes (each one abt the size of a large egg)

- decent amount of cauliflower (like 4 medium flowerets)

- some sort of tomato sauce

- olive oil (bad for hot cooking actually but i didnt have other kind last night)

You’ll need to make sure that you have enough spices to create a semblance of indian cooking flavor, sorta thing. Here’s a list of the spicing I used, which is kind of a mish-mash but also the quickest/laziest way I found to create the flavor I wanted:

- black pepper

- curry powder

- coriander powder

- ground cumin

- ground tumeric

- garam masala

- brown cinnamon sugar (gonna try to locate proper castor sugar for next time)

You can also add things like ginger/garlic paste, cardamom, cayenne, nutmeg, mustard seeds, sesame seeds, nuts of various kind, some shit called asafetida.. basically whatever darned spice you can get your grubby hands on.

Man I’m getting all confused trying to write down this recipe. Wtf recipes are hard. Okay, I’m just gonna write out everything I did.

1. Start heating some water on stove for your potatoes. While you wait for it to boil, chop up your tomatoes (v finely). As soon as water boils, throw in the potatoes. Let em boil while you make the other stuff.

2. Put pot on stove, add 3 tbsp oil and 1 tsp cumin, let it heat til it kinda starts to sizzle. Then throw in all your chopped tomatoes, add 4 tbsp tomato sauce, 1/2 cup water, and go crazy on the spices. I put 3 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp tumeric, 1 tsp garam masala, and 3 tsp cinnamon sugar. Hellz yes. Mix it up and let simmer.

3. Now cut up your eggplant and your cauliflower into chunky-chunks. Get a nonstick pan big enough, put 2 tbsp of oil, add more cumin, and let heat. Now throw in the eggplant and cauli, mix up, and once again go crazy on the spices (but not so crazy as with the tomato gravy.. but as crazy as your heart desires of course). Add some lemon juice. Cover with a top and let fry.

4. Get back to your tomatoes in the pot. Should be a nice hot mushy mix at this point. You can at this point use a mixer or food processor to puree the gravy. Personally I didn’t, and I liked mine with the occasional tomato chunk in there. I just stirred and mashed up some of the tomatoes with a spoon.

5. If it’s been about 20 minutes since you put the potatoes to boil, you can turn em off and drain them now. Cut them up and throw em in the tomato gravy.

6. Transfer the cauliflower and eggplant from their pan into the gravy as well.

7. Stir gravy to coat all the newly added ingredients, let simmer for a few minutes.

Hooray. Should be done and delicious by now! Keep it simmering on low while you set up dinner for yourself. I had it with some brown rice and fresh veggies. SOO GOOOD.

ingredientsss

mmmm

hooray almond milk

Also this morning I made some TAASTY fruit salad. Banana, half an apple, half a peach, some blueberries, raisins, almonds, 1/2 cup of yogurt, bit of honey and bit of lemon juice. I would usually use vegan coconut milk yogurt (tastes a lot better anyway and is thicker), but I was out so I used mom’s plain organic. Was quite good, though a bit sour (hence the honey).

Almond Breeze is amazing almond milk. It’s so full, light, and sweet. Ahhh. Get some!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been doing small drawings in blue ink, or ink and a splash of watercolor. I’m branching off into slightly unfamiliar territory here, which is great. I’m experimenting with patterns and photoshop more. Also, drawing in ink on white paper is forcing me to pay closer attention to my lines, since there are no do-overs.

I’m not sure what came first, the idea to do a series of blue ink drawings, or the creepy thin people who decided to take over the series. Watevs. Here are the two I’ve made so far:

I used these to practice manipulating images in PS. You can see the results at my DeviantArt gallery here and here.

I’m thinking about doing a post on Jerusalem Restaurant. This is hands down my favorite spot in Charlotte to relax, smoke some hook with friends, not to mention the amazing and cheappp gulf grub. I feel like doing a small tribute to the place. Like Stairway to Love cafe in Beijing, Jerusalem Restaurant is my haunt, my sanctuary, and my escape when I’m in Charlotte. I’ll miss it dearly next year.

I remember discovering it sometime back in 2006, when it had only just opened. Bored to tears at Davidson and starved for a dose of authentic culture, my friends and I were in constant search of hole-in-the-wall food spots with real character.

Before there was Jerusalem Restaurant, there was Jerusalem Cafe on Independence. It was a cheap middle-eastern joint with kabobs, wraps and hookah that cropped up inside one of those old house-shaped restaurant venues; the place looked like a decrepit “old-fashioned southern home-cooking” diner. It was also right next to an ugly car dealership (what can ya do, you’re on Independence Blvd). Service was proper un-american, surly and impatient – proper bad you could say (but we loved it). One time we got a scary big arab dude with a shaved head and a droopy, mean gaze that seemed to say  “I’d kill you, but right now I’m too tired” as  our waiter; he refused to give us menus when we asked (”No menus. You want kabob sandwich or you want mixed grill?”) then snarled angrily when we asked why our order was taking long (”I told it was coming soon no!?”). Despite the food being very good, the place was always empty and eventually closed down. We’re hoping they didnt actually go out of business, but had just been laundering money or fronting a contraband operation, because it’d be really sad if they did.

Thankfully, we soon discovered Jerusalem Restaurant, just a few minutes down the road. Hookah was only $6 then, now $9.99 – but this is still fair, compared to the rest of hookah places in Charlotte where it costs at least $15 to smoke. It’s been great to watch the place gradually gain the popularity it deserves. Hooray Jerusalem! A more detailed picture post coming soon.