From Black Hills, South Dakota

Alright, so I know some of you read my blog regularly.

I'm sorry I've been disappearing for a while.

I'm typing this message inside a forest in South Dakota, called Black Hills.

Very big land with nothing but wilderness.

Feel very lucky to actually able to steal some signal from somewhere I don't even know where.

Will talk about the trip when I get back in touch with civilisation.

Cheers.

Food fest, concert, and baba-mama's arrival

So I slept like so damn "early" this morning, it's unbelievable.

Nick woke me up at 11.44am to ask me if I wanna go to Food Festival in Manhattan, which I really wanted to go. So I pinched myself in the butt and made myself more awake, opened the door for Nick, changed to my concert clothes, and went straight to Manhattan.

The Food Fest was held for two days, and it spanned from 37 St, all the way up to 57 St, on 9 Avenue. NYPD blocked the road so that people can walk along these 20 blocks and enjoy their food.

There were soul food, latino stuff (one too many same ones), Indonesian food, Jamaican food, Greek, Italian, blah blah blah... they're all street food. One thing was, there were also lots of stalls that don't sell food altogether. They sold sunglasses...duh...CDs....duh....T-shirts....double duh.... but wait, we saw one very funny stall that only sells Obama t-shirts that they designed themselves. We saw "Obama is My Homeboy", "Obama mama"... there were more I couldn't remember.

I didn't eat too much, but I had Amy's Bread's yummy brownie, Indonesian chicken wing, Jamaican jerk chicken, and a BBQ rib from Spanky's Ribs. I also bought a strawberry-banana smoothie from a Taiwanese stall.

Along they way, I saw the Japanese bellydancer chick that I met in UN dancing on the street outside a middle-eastern restaurant. Poor girl was dancing in the drizzle, hope she didn't catch a cold with those sexy clothes of hers.

When it was finally raining for real, Nick and I went to the subway, and I went straight to my gig in Bayside.

It was a concert with the Oratorio Society of Queens, and I'm playing in a group called Ensemble of Orchestral Arts or some shit like that. The orchestra wasn't that impressive, but the choir was pretty good --- well at least they treat their game seriously, and sang with full passion and commitment. The soloist were all very good singers, some even sang in the New York City Opera, dun pray pray.

Got the check right away!!!!

After having a dinner with Brando and Charlie, Brando drove me back home and I finally took back my amp from him. My looping station is on the way, so I have to get ready to play my new toy!! hehe...

Then at 9.50pm, I got out of the house to take a train to JFK to pick up mama and baba. Gawd, they brought so many things over! I literally stuff my food closet FULL! I have one whole year of food right there... hehehehehe....

Alright, now they're asleep in my room, I gotta crash on the sofa now...tata...

Jangan kerja utk orang yunani

Saya ni orang M'sia, biasalah tak tau orang yunani tu macam mana. Tapi tentulah kadangkalanya dengar khabar angin mengenai c'ita-c'ita kedekut mereka.

Tapi sejak sampai di Amerika ni baru saya tau seteruk macam mana mereka boleh jadi.

Di sini saya nak menyampaikan mesej saya dulu: Saya ni bukan racist. Saya menulis artikel ni memang kerana ada ekspiriens beberapa tahun berkerja dengan/untuk orang yunani dan akhirnya memang tak boleh tahan lagi.

Mereka ni suka membayar anda sikit wang, lepas tu buat anda kerja seandai kerbau.

Saya seorang pemuzik freelance di sini. Acap kali saya bermain dengan orkestra-orkestra dan band-band yunani untuk kenduri-kenduri ataupun majlis-majlis perkahwinan yunani. Setiap kali kami pemuzik-pemuzik kena main sepanjang 4 atau 5 jam di sana-sini seluruh hotel. Ada suatu peristiwa saya masih ingat, saya dibayar $50 selepas bermain sepanjang 5 jam!!

Tadi saya menerima e-mel dari guru besar suatu sekolah menengah yunani yang saya mengajar sekumpulan 16 pelajar setiap Isnin. Kerja ini membayar saya $24 untuk setiap minggu --- sama harga dengan saya mengajar satu pelajar di sekolah muzik lain yang saya ajar.

Pelajar-pelajar di situ memang tak serius, tak datang ke kelas, membuat bising semacam orang sakai. Malam ini saya menghantar keputusan pelajar-pelajar sial tu kepada guru besar. Selepas 2 jam, guru besar menjawab surat saya seperti di bawah:

Thank you Mr. X for getting back to me so promptly. I understand your disappointment in the group and regret having to hire a new violin teacher for next year. However, I am equally disapponted in some of the instructors of the classes as well, whose attendance and record keeping left alot to be desired and contributed greatly to the disfunction of some of the classes. There was little effort made on the part of some of the instructors to take the lead in seeing that their class would be successful. I partially blame myself for expecting too much on the part of some of the instructors. The nature of these classes was not to make concert musicians of the students but to expose them to an area of music that they had no experience with and to broaden their experiences in high school. When the program began last year in Feb. 2007 it appears that the original instructor made a connection with the students while teaching 5 different instruments on five diferent days and maintaining an attendance of well into the 90% range for the students enrolled. I believe the effort expended by some of the instructors determined the ultimate success or failure of the class. A number of instructors made no effort to find out why the missing students did not show up, rarely informed me of particular students absences, failed to keep regular attendance week to week, failed to submit those records to me on a weekly basis, never took the interest to get the students phone numbers and call home occasionally to find out why they had not attended, never even tried to learn the student names, came late or were absent numerous times themselves, sometimes sent substitutes who had no idea what was going on, never assigned seating or places, never made the effort to seek me out, never came early to discuss issues, only spoke with me when I approached them and so on and on. If I were a high school student I think I would have ditched such a class after a 10 hour school day. Once spme of the students realized an instructor didn't really care, they followed suit. Never-the-less, I thank you for your efforts and I am just as disappointed in the students who did not show the proper dedication to the class as you were but I am even more disappointed in the instructors who did not have the professionalism or skills to conduct a proper voluntary after school high school music class.

I wish you continued success in the future and thank you for your efforts on behalf of the students.

Best wishes,
Harvey Fxxxxxx


Ini memang pukimak punya orang. Mati sajalah!

Nap...

Shit man, I haven't had a full blown sleep for NIGHTS!

Finally!!

I crash at about 6pm just now and slept till 9pm+!!!

It was grrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!!!!!!!!!!!!

After the show and the rest in Boston...

I played my first show with Sirius on the 8th of March.

People loved it, and they were surprised when they realised that I only perform with Sirius for the first time. They said I blend in with them very well. Glad to hear that.

The guys accepted me as their member, and we are doing a Germany trip in the end of September, making a recording there.

*****

Right after the show, I walked over to the edge of Chinatown to catch my last Fung Wah ride for the night, going to Boston.

On the way, I called my sis to tell her the good news, she said she was very proud of me. And after a while mama called me too, she also said that she's very happy for me.

The reason that I came to Boston was to record for some guy's album. Jeremy got me this gig.

The next morning, we started recording at around 12pm and ended at 8.30pm.

The album was a concept album by this guy Gavin. He's a very serious musician who really knows every detail that he wants. I like to work with people like this.

But because the session was too long, at one point I felt like a zombie...

Although we started at 12, we got paid more than that because we were supposed to start at 11am and Gavin was late himself. He even paid for my bus ride to and from Boston.

The rest of the night was of course nothing but chilling.......

A conversation I just dug up

I was cleaning up my Facebook mailbox and I stumbled upon this conversation that I had with Liz, my non-genetic little sis, before she went over to Singapore to study.

She was a naive little girl when I knew her, homeschooled most of her life, very well-protected, didn't really know much about the outside world. But she had a very strong character and very opinionated, which made it hard to work with her.

So upon her departure to Singapore, I burned her a CD with Train's hit song, "Drops of Jupiter" inside. A year after she went to Singapore, I asked her if she liked the song, she said she naturally didn't like it cuz it was rock. I smiled it off.

Last year, I bumped into her on Facebook (LONG LIVE FACEBOOK!), so here's our conversation:



Me
7:42am Feb 28th
"Now tell me, did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the milky way and see the lights all faded, and heaven is overrated. Now tell me, did you fall for a shooting star? One without a permanent scar and did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?"

Do you now get the meaning of me sending this song to you when you first went off to study?


Liz
12:54pm Mar 2nd
Yes i do!! It didn't make much sense back then, but looking back after four years of college.. I have to say it's been quite a journey and an eye-opening experience. I bet you felt almost the same way when u went to the States!


Me
2:10am Mar 3rd
perhaps, but not as much as you, seeing the different environments we grew up in. it's always good to be around many people, u see u learn and u grow.So tell me, did you sail across the sun? ;)


Liz
2:07pm Mar 11th
Here's to you, big bro!

I sailed across the sun and made it to the Milky Way
And saw the lights all faded, stayed in heaven for a day
"Without scars there can be no stars", is what I heard them say
And missed you when I found myself.. back from the Milky Way


Me
1:03am Mar 12th
Haha! GOOD ONE!!! I like that!!!


(thank god it made sense to her...)

Gay boy's finally gone

So, little gay boy Chen Han is finally gone!

We had a fun little gathering before he went off with his girlfriend.

No, he's not really gay, he just likes to act gay.

But yeah, u can imagine, we had a whole "gay fest" last night, that involves everyone in the house --- me, Jules, Mune --- and also someone worths a mention: Nick!!

Nick's always been so serious and shit, but couldn't help but yield at our gay act. So we simulated a whole bunch of crazy gang rape and BJ (using a beer bottle to be the replacement for a real cock), while Chen Han's girlfriend was standing right there watching speechlessly.

But it was fun to live with this dude, he's been a fun hang, and we wish him all the best in his doctorate studies oh and also getting out of his closet.

My first iPod, wandering around Manhattan, Kitchen ware shopping

Finally, I bought the first iPod in my life, an 8 GB iPod Nano. It's a nice little machine that stores up to 2000 standard length songs. It should be a fun experience to use it, at least it doesn't react as slow as my busted Creative Zen Stone!

After Paranoid Android's rehearsal last night, I decided to go watch a movie in TriBeCa Film Fest at midnight. It was funny that I didn't check the address of the cinema and finally got lost on 23rd St. So I ended up walking around there and found out a couple of spots that I could never piece together: The Cutting Room, Baruch College and the New School area. Bought some halal food at a roadside stall, quite nice. Then I waited for Jules at the Citibank next to the station, the time was around 12.30am. Finally Jules came and we started to walk up to 42nd St. Didn't really do anything as it was very late and everything closed...

And today Jules and I went to buy some kitchen ware in Flushing cuz gay boy Chen Han is moving away back to his bitch. So we can't rely on his gear anymore, have to buy our own stuff --- which I'm glad in away, at least the rice cooker is like 2 or 3 times bigger. I also bought a hairdryer for moi long hair, haha!

Diu, for a moment I had a weird feeling that we look like a married couple shopping in the supermarket, hahahahaha!!!

DIUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

There and back again...

Did some recordings, played a competition (that we shouldn't have joined), played a small performance, after that, Jules and I rushed over to Boston's bus terminal just on time to catch the last bus of the night --- thanks to Charlie's speedy and scary driving.

Half way through the journey, I was awaken by New York ---- no, not the place itself, but the smell. The toilet in the bus smelled worse than longkang! DIUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily we stopped by a McDonald's on the way and caught some fresh air outside for 10 minutes. And sure enough, the driver was aware of the smell, he turned on the aircond big enough to let go of the smell ----- until we physically got back to New York, the smell came back...

It was drizzling outside the window, both of us pulled up our hoods and walked through the quiet Chinatown, went over to the R station, waited for the train for like 20 minutes before we hopped on to the train. We started to diss the stupid people that we worked with during the long wait, and didn't stop until we got home. Dissing behind is fun sometimes, especially when you can't say things straight to people. But of course, make sure the person you talk to is someone you can trust...

Among them people that we dissed was one of the most amazing violinists we've ever met.

Jeremy's voice still resonates in my head: It's like, this guy needs to chill the fuck out...!

Haw haw!

blah blah.......

Had my first rehearsal with Sirius today, damn fun! ... well, at least 100 times better than V4...

Ronnie is quite a crazy muthafucka, but is actually also a very nice person. Been hearing his name and his recordings with various big shots (including Tony Williams) throughout his careers. Glad to finally be able to play with him! Mike is a mutha on the cello of course, no doubt about that.

Tomorrow will be the next rehearsal.... let's see how I can hack that through, haha!!! no.... i actually practised the shit, so it should be fine.

* * * * * * * * *

Some people might feel weird seeing me putting the "love china" sign in front of my screen name of msn. But I mean why not? I want to see the Games to run smoothly and peacefully. I mean, I don't wanna act like I stand on whoever's side, but c'mon, Olympics game is a GAME, not a political arena, for god's sake just let it happen peacefully!

I mean, those of you who protest and shit, do you actually know what is happening in there? No? Then don't shout, because the truth might be very different from what you think.

Just let the Games happen smoothly!

(Some of you are probably gonna hate me for this, i don't give a fuck.)

Vuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's Kenny Garrett!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I watched two gigs tonight: the first one being Chris Speed's Yeah No in the Stone, and the second one was The Headhunters featuring Kenny Garrett in Iridum Jazz Club. Went to see both of them with Jules.

Well, as you can see, I'm very fond of the downtown scene, so the Stone was of course my idea, especially Cuong Vu was playing! The band was fuckin' explosive man. The songs they played were pretty accessible to the general public ---- more rock-oriented beats, pounding grooves... But that doesn't mean that it was bad though, to the contrary, it was great!! Some of you may think it's like some funk fusion shit, but no, it's not. It's more like noise/rock/avant-garde all bastarded together.

The line-up was Chris Speed on tenor, Cuong Vu on trumpet, Skuli Sverisson on bass, Ted Reichman on accordion, and Jim Black on drums.

It was so explosive, I guess thanks to Jim Black's intoxicating drumming. But of course, without Chris Speed and Cuong's beautiful melodic interplay, I don't think anything much will happen. One complain was Ted Reichman's accordion was most of the time drowned out by the others. Maybe plug in next time?

* * * * * * * * * *

After a quick bite near the Stone, we rushed over to Iridium to check out The Headhunters' last show in NY.

Kenny Garrett was just great, I dunno what else to say.

And the pianist, Geri Allen also, shit, fuckin' burning man!! Seldom see ladies playing in jazz clubs, but when they do, they usually burn your motherfucking ass.

After the show, we managed to talk to Kenny. I mean Jules went to see the show 2 nights ago, so Kenny already knew him and spotted him on the stage. I went up to say hi to him in Mandarin, he was surprised and then he took my card and said he will give me a call to practise his Mandarin. NOW HOW COOL IS THAT?!!! YAY!!!!!!!!

Here's a pic of Kenny on fire...

Random stuff

I find that I'm a pretty greedy person, I guess if I have loads of money, I might finish spending it in no time. The reason I said that is because I always like to borrow loads of DVDs and CDs in the library. Now you see, CDs are fine, usually I just rip them into my computer and I can return them; but DVDs are a problem, they need you to sit down, spend time and watch them before you can return them. Otherwise you have to copy them, but copying a DVD and copy it nicely literally takes an hour to do so.

I have to say I am pretty busy most of the time, no time to sit down and watch them, so naturally the items will be overdue without me realizing it ---- some DVDs from Queens Library are 3-day loans. Then what? Pay the late fees! And Queens Library has such high late fees it scares the shit out of me.

A good example was yesterday, when I returned four DVDs, they charged me $24 bucks for 2/3 days overdue!!!!

So I'd better becareful with this issue next time, no point wasting money that way...

* * * * * * * *

I feel very lucky that the members of Sirius String Quartet approached me to play their concert in May 8th in The Flea Theater. It will be their CD release performance, featuring one of the violinists, Gregor Hübner's music. Also featured are 2 pieces by my friend, the cellist, Mike Block.

I'm glad that I finally get to play in such a quartet with amazing players who have similar (if not same) musical interests as me, while testing their instruments limits. I was practising this one thing in Gregor's piece today ---- there is one whole movement of slurred repeated notes that has to be played with different left hand fingers on each, so in the end, it visually looks like a pipa player or something, very cool, though it's a bitch to practise. I got through it sooner than I thought because I realised I was toying with this unconventional technique since I was pretty young ---- dunno why, I just liked to fuck around with my violin.

Anyways.... kind of an update.... for myself maybe, dunno.... ciao ciao...

My buddy leavin'

Chen Han, u muthafucka!! You're leavin' all of us and go back to your old nest Rochester!!

Our next meal and beers will be YOUR TREAT as a punishment, motherfucker!!

But it's been fun living as roommates with you, your easy-going personality makes people feel easy to be around you. Late-night PS2 sessions man, those are some memorable moments!

Hope you have fun with your DMA programme... oh and, please don't burn your apartment again...

Being a musician's body double

i dunno how often this shit happens, but it certainly happened to me today.

i became chris' body double in a rehearsal for this thursday's gig.

jules said i should chill out because he did that shit before too, i dunno how true is that.

i mean, learning music for a person and he'll play the gig doesn't make so much sense to me.

but whatever... we'll see what would this become...

Rozemary'z Babiez... Franck...

So, we the Babiez finally did our debut in Studio A.I.R.!

Audience's (very small) reactions were very good and they said they could feel our shit. I was happy about it!

But I felt that mapping out the piece was kinda stiff for me, because there wasn't much freedom involved. My idea of making the music "elastic" (sounding different every time) obviously didn't work out for the other two Babiez.

...................................

Sunday (April 6) finally came, the tribute concert to Mr Kouguell was finally happening!

Nick was still gloomy in the morning when he came to get his music. He's been scary ever since we started to rehearse the shit. To tell the truth he scared the shit outta my friends. He didn't scold anyone, but just by looking at him was scary enough...

Mozart Dissonance was kinda shitty, Chen Han was toooo nervous that he kept on fucking up his part in every single movement! We all felt like shit after we played it. But I can't blame that guy, he's tried his best, and he was a last minute replacement. Respect!

Luckily my Franck Sonata was good (at least, I thought so). I dunno why I could bring out all my musicality in that one. I still couldn't get out of that emotion after I played it. It was some powerful, almost religious shit! I felt really drained after that...

The Vaughn Williams was nothing much to shout about, but it was nice... (at one point I went blank and forgot to come in, Chen Han was cold-sweating...)

Dick bouncer in Union Hall

I've been to Union Hall to watch my friend Max's gig before. It was kinda noisy in there, so when I needed to make a phone call, I went out of the joint to do it. While calling in front of Union Hall, the big black fuckin' bouncer came over and asked me to go call somewhere else. I was kinda surprised, so I asked him what's wrong. He said I can't make a phone call in front of the building.

I was like "WTF?!" so I said, "Why not?" He gave me the most ridiculous answer, "There are people living across the street."

Motherfucker! Do I talk that loud to wake people up?! Plus, hey, it's Union Hall, everybody goes there for gigs, do you think that place will be any quiet? God's sake man, even the cars on the streets are noisier than a talking voice!

I went to Union Hall again just now, trying to catch my friend Charlie's CD release party. Fuckin' bouncer asked for ID from me. So I showed him my old work authorization card with my photo and birth date on it. Note that this card got me into any bars and clubs in New York.

The bouncer pointed his torch light to my card, I pointed out the birth date for him. He said, "No, I'm looking at this," pointing at the expiry dead. "It's expired, can't let you in."

I was like, "WTF?!!!"

My friend Anthony said he forgot his ID, but told him that he is 36 years old, which he really looks, the fuckin' bouncer didn't buy it either. He said, "Strict rules guys, no ID, expired ID, cannot get in!"

Expired ID cannot get in?! It's not a fake ID though! Expired ID doesn't mean that the birth date on the card is expired, does it?!

Holy shit, I turned and left the fucking place.

Whatever event in the future I don't care man, but I definitely WON'T go back to that shithole!

Remember guys: Don't go to Union Hall!!!

Stupidity

You see people are fuckin' stupid most of the time.

Mr T and Mr C are enemies. One day, Mr T punched Mr C's face, Mr C felt pain of course he protect himself by grabbing Mr T's arms and pressed him to the ground to prevent him hitting him again. While Mr T was on the ground, he scratched his face too and his arms were bruised.

Now when people came over and asked what's going, they saw Mr C pressing Mr T on the ground and didn't let him get up. And they started to suspect that Mr C was attacking Mr T first. Mr C explained, but Mr T was on the ground moaning, yelling and crying saying how painful he felt. The people around started to give compassion to Mr T and accuse Mr C for pressing Mr T on the ground.

The fact was, Mr C was trying to throw a party for his birthday, and Mr T wanted to ruin his plan by fighting with him in front of people to show the bad image of Mr C, so that people won't go to his party.

When Mr T struggled and escaped Mr C's pressing, he continued hitting Mr C and people around him saw it as a "strike-back under surpression". Mr C, of course, wouldn't give up, he started to hit Mr T back. Now there came some hipocrites from the church and gangsters who think they run the village, criticizing Mr C's violence towards Mr T.

Their words further turned the whole village against Mr C while Mr T was the real person who started this fight. Some villagers started to boycott Mr C's upcoming party because of the "bad image" he had shown...

Nice.

What's the deal...

Hm...

Hm...

Hm...

Shit, I wanna play some seriously good pop gigs man.

You know, shit like David Tao? This mutha makes good music and is very serious about it. I admire his works.

But shit, it's always some stupid ass violinists that play his shit.

Shit, I wanna play it too...

But maybe first things' first, let me reduce my belly size first... :P

Passes...

I dunno why man, all the great figures in arts and culture are dying one by one...

There were two other casualties yesterday.

1. Anthony Mighella, who directed The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley, and Cold Mountain, passed away at the age of 54.

2. Arthur C. Clarke, 90, passed away in his Sri Lanka home. This man needs no introduction, he wrote all the greatest of sci-fi novels, which includes 2001: A Space Oddysey, Rendezvous with Rama and many more.

Rest in Peace.

More random shit...

Went to see Chris Howes' gig today, happy to see him play again since last September. The band was a fantastic combination of great musicians ---- Chris himself, Oli Rockberger on keys, Janek Gwizdala on bass, Joel Rosenplatt on drums and Joel Newton on guitar. Amazing playing the whole night through.

Funny thing was Jules and I saw this little Japanese chick walking in like an excited little jazz fan from NYU. During the break, Jules asked me if she was Hiromi the pianist. I said, "Nah, can't be lah. She might look like her but Hiromi must be a very busy person to check out gigs." But then we overheard Chris calling her "Hiromi". We looked at each other: Wei, it's really her!

So after the show, I went up and asked a stupid question,"Excuse me, are you Hiromi?" She looked at me surprised, "Yes..." I asked again, "The Hiromi?" She said, looking at me more puzzled, "Yes..." So we started to introduce ourselves and told her how much we admire her playing and shit. That was some funny experience. She said she came to Malaysia before ------- when she was 17.

cheh... it was a school trip...

Came home, had a fight with sis over the phone cuz I made a very bad joke. I apologised to her but she didn't let me just get away with it... sigh... She started to blame NY and my friends here for transforming me into something so indecent and low-class and immoral.......

It's hard to be yourself in front of your own family I guess... Yeah I know my joke was too over-the-top but I dunno what else can I do other than saying sorry to her....

Duh... Guess won't have a good sleep tonight...