Video of Final Scene

There Goes The Neighborhood

Bullshit

This is an outright rant about the Olympics and pollution there within. Frankly, I think China pulled one over on the whole entire fucking world. Are we blind? You think “Made In China” is just a joke. You think the million’s of factories that make your goods doesn’t put out some of the worst pollution this world has ever seen? And further more

Well if you aren’t an advocate of Walmart and you think the whole world isn’t getting paid enough for the goods that they spend 24 hours a day making, how much do you think they are getting paid now? Nothing. Because China has no common sense, they just think they can shut down as many factories as they want, in order to clear up the smog in Beijing. Well companies around the US that have plants in China have caught on. Thank god we have computers, cause they can determine what shipments they will need in the months of the “shutdown” and just preorder there goods. Now you tell me? If companies are receiving 3 times as many goods from China before the shutdown, and the shutdown is 2 months long. And CHina got the Olympics by calling them the "Green Olympics" HOW THE FUCK ARE They SOLVING ANYTHING!!!!

And guess what happens in 22 days? Everything goes back to normal. You spend your hard earned dollar on Chinese goods in order to feed a family in Bejing and the environment takes the grunt of it.

Further Reading:
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2008/04/30/20080430cr-china0501.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,565038,00.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/cycling/news?slug=ap-cyc-cyclists-masks&prov=ap&type=lgns
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080806/wl_asia_afp/oly2008pollutionweather;_ylt=AoXI7TRH0_SmcYXCr9OJsowBxg8F

PS. I don’t want to bitch about the Olympics anymore, cause it is amazing what these games can do(as you will see in my post “Opening Ceremony”. But what George Bush is doing to the Olympics is an outright disgrace. He is using this playform as his reason to get everyone elses country in line with human rights and bombs and countries pushing there agenda on others (China on Tibet). Well, FUCK OFF GWB, face your own goddamn country first!!!

Right Now

So i wanted to write a blog and fill you guys in on what is happening when i finish Sound Of Music and am back in the states. As most of you know we are currently in Macau and will be finishing the tour in 2 days. Tonight is our last performance so I am kinda bummed that the tour will be coming to an end.

I apologize that i won't be able to get the rest of my blogs up until i am back in the states. Blogger won't let me upload photo's right now and the Internet here in Macau is absolutely horrible. So just keep in mind i have at least another 15 or so blogs to post for Macau and Thailand. So stay tuned.

As many of you know when Macau and Sound of Music are over, i will be going on vacation for 10 days. About 5 of us decided to take a trip down to Thailand, since we are already over here. I am super excited to even get this experience to see this side of the world. And i have no doubt that when i get to Thailand i will be 10 times more excited than i was in China. Thailand is a country and culture i have always loved to hear about and explore. We are flying to Bangkok and then down to Chang Mai on Saturday of this week. We will spend almost a week in Chang Mai in local tribes of the area, exploring the mountains, some different villages, the rainforest and jungles, riding on elephants, doing a full white water rapid course, and rain forest tree-top zipline course. HELL YEAH! So fucking excited. We will then take a train back to Bangkok and spend the next 4 days there, exploring different parts of the city and taking in the nightlife. I don't want to talk to much more about it, so you will just have to come back and check out the blog.

After I finish my vacation i will be heading back to the States on September 5th. I will be in Louisville until Sept. 15 and then will be traveling to Iowa for a few days to visit with Amelia's family. On Sept 21st we are leaving to head out to Vegas. We signed a lease and our apartment is about 15 minutes from the strip. When that time rolls around i will post pictures of the new apartment.

I am so excited to come off of 7 years of touring and FINALLY settle down. It will be nice to unpack boxes that haven't seen the light of day for more than 12 years at this point.

Western Han Dynasty Museum

One of our days off we did some site seeing around Guangzhou and one of the best places we were told to go was the Museum of The West Han Dynasty and home to the bureal of the Hanyue King. This museum was packed with artifacts from this period in China history that is more than 2100 years old. It is crazy to be able to tour tombs and goods that were built that long ago. In the museum part of the exhibit there was a large donation of "stone pillows" that apparantly were used to sleep on back them. They were actual pillows made of stone that were suppose to bring you good luck and other things if you slept with them. Only the upper class could sleep with them. And when you died, you were buried with them.

Then the eating utensil's, armory, and other goods that survived all these years. Here, Emily is getting attacked by a weird tree on the grounds of the burial site. Finally the tomb area, which was cool as hell. You have to walk down a series of stair and then you are inside of it. Part of the ceiling was removed, part was not. The first part was that of his family and concubines. He had like 7 women that were buried with him and there was apparantly a servent that got buried in the front of the tomb. We didn't get the fully guided tour, but we did notice that all the Chinese guides had alot to say about the door knob... So we felt we should take pictures of it. And as you can see, i didn't exactly fit in the door. Below are the remains of one of the concubines. Finally came the main King's tomb. The original excavators dug out the remains of the king which were found inside this suit. During the time, the kings were buried in a suit of ribbon and jade pieces. Jade has a long history in the Chinese culture and is suppose to bring good luck to you.
Because of the body suit, the remains of the king are in much better condition. Even pieces of bone were still in tack. And the teeth were almost fully in tact.
It was a very educational day and I had alot of fun with the cast.

Shaman Island

We spent a good deal of this week shopping. And one of the best places to do it in Guangzhou is on Shaman Island. The place is packed with big tourist shops down to local mom and pop shops. There are alot of parks to walk through and so we spent a few days hanging out here.

It kind of reminded me of Savannah, Ga. With all the funky trees and Spanish moss. It was very beautiful.
This is Rebecca, my good buddy and partner in crime on one of our day trips to shop on the island.

Hanging out with the bronze statues and playing marbles...
It was a popular place to come and have pictures taken before your wedding.

Italian Crew Dinner

Tonight in Fuzhou the crew had a dinner together. Provided by the company and provoked with alot of open bottles of wine. We found a great Italian restaurant in town that had all sorts of great stuff. I had the ravioli with lots of cheese and some great tomato sauce.

As the night went on, we got more and more silly.

And when there is a scene to be had, you know i am going to make it. Our wait staff was very considerate and made for a fun evening. Oh yea, and they were tiny....

Then came the lemon-cello shots... I did NOT partake.

Oh Anika, how we love thee....
A bottle of red, a bottle of white. Cheers!!!

Bumming around the Theatre

This is a picture of our theatre in Guangzhou and from the outside it is amazlying beautiful. It is a concert hall that is now a historic landmark built in the 1920's. It was used during parts of world war 2 to sign treaties and other historical things.

Unfortunatly they haven't put a lot of effort and money into the backstage of it. It is tiny, no fly system, and a poor loading dock to say the least. Anyways, it looks pretty!!!

The rest of these photo's are of us hanging around before shows. Here is Sam in his element. How many times have you beat Grand Theft Auto Sam???

This is our translator Kat. We love her to death and she makes sure our jobs go as smoothly as possible.
This is what happens when forklifts break. Good thing we had another forklift to move us out of the way!!!

"Hey Chris, you cleaned up all the cable yet???" And no, it doesn't usually look like this.

This is Jake, Nicole, and Chris chilling on the villa.

My S.O.M.A. BFF and nun Emily.

Rice Rice and more Rice

Story 1-So i watched a BBC report on a small remote island in Thailand. Some insane percent of the islands children (70 percent or higher) are considered malnourished and starving. The island itself produces tons and tons of green vegetables and other foods yearly. However, because there culture does not deem a vegetable to have any nutrients or normal for there culture to eat they ship all of there goods to other countries. With the money they make from selling vegetables and other goods, they buy rice.

The island sees rice as the number one staple in their diet. The island is starving itself due to its own culture and history. They have little influence from the western world, and don't understand much about a good diet and nutrition.

Story 2- Next, as we were in Fouzghou we were in a rather remote area of town. There really was almost no chance of having anything even remotely appetising to eat. Even our own hotel didn't have an English menu (when we first got there) and so finding food kinda sucked.

The hotel normally didn't have a western breakfest and in our contract we are guranteed something along those lines. (And by along those lines, i am meaning VERRRRRRRRY broad) But they said they would set something up. The first day there was basically water, tea, very runny eggs, toast, and rice. Well i sucked it up and had some rice.

Luckily there was another hotel down the street and so for lunch(at load in meaning limited time to explore) we went there to eat. I tried to be adventurous and ordered what i thought was chicken and rice. (And by that i mean no hamburgers and fries) When it came out it ended up being cold/fairly raw chicken with bones and a side of white rice. Guess what i had for lunch? One big bowl of white rice.

For dinner we decided to try a restaurant down the street from the venue. They didn't have an English menu, but luckily we had our translator Kat along with us. Ordering food with someone that can translate a menu is totally different from ordering as Americans. We'll unfortunately the food gods just weren't on my side today. I wasn't impressed with the options and opted for white rice for dinner as well.

Story 3- I was running late trying to get to the theatre one night for shows, so i did what i have done regularly which is jump in a cab and head over to McDonald's. I FUCKING HATE McDonalds!!! But i brought back my cheeseburger, fries, and some nuggets to the theatre and was sitting on the steps eating my food.

One of the stagehands comes up to me with his dinner in hand, and starts trying to talk to me. It was in Chinese and naturally i have no idea what he is saying. I call over a translator and ask her to tell me what the guy is saying cause he is being a little forward. The girl says that he is trying to offer me some rice. He is trying to give me some rice to eat in addition to my McDonald's. I kindly say "No thank you.", that i have my dinner. And his response. "That can't be filling enough, you need to eat more rice to fill you up"

Moral of the Stories. Truly you can make what you will of the stories i just told you. To me they all seem rather odd, and maybe it is only because i am western and was brought up that the core of your diet should not be rice.

Pampered In Guangzhou

So you spend 14 plus hours loading a show in, dripping in sweat, and covered from head to toe in filth, whats the next thing on the agenda? Yes, Manicures and pedicures. As i have said you can pretty much pay for all your food, messages, and so on with your perdiem. So we went and had an afternoon of pampering. It was very relaxing and was around 10 US.

*All the cuts and bites on my feet were from the last theatre. I didn't know you could get misquote bites indoors or from microscopic bugs, but you can. I got around 20 of them!!!*



The girls were very excited to give mani's and pedi's to a big white man!!!

PS. I get paid for doing this!!!

Guangzhou By Train

We finished load out this morning at 3am. It was a record load out for us and we finished in a little over 4 hours. It was great to finally have something accomplished in China. We then had like 3 hours before we got on a train to travel to our next city.

I have to say it was awesome to travel by train. The train was brand new and it was a very smooth trip. It only took an hour to go by train and it was like 20 bucks. Even though I hadn’t slept in over 36 hours, I was enthralled watching the countryside go by. Unfortunately for China “countryside” means rice patty field followed by 50 apartment complexes then some trees then 50 apartment complexes then some more farming land and so on. It does give you a different feeling for China passing the agriculture of China, but you can never escape the city setting. There just isn’t open area in China (or at least I haven’t seen it). And when I say apartment complexes I pretty much mean NYC style. Not like Midwest suburb style.

Just find this interesting.

Opening Ceremony

If I could describe to you a feeling in the world of the warmest, most sincere, most dignified, respectful, and honored nation right now you probably would have no clue who I am talking about. I had an amazing honor the other night, one of my last nights in mainland China, that will be my most cherished moment in China.

My friends Sarah, Clay, and I were out shopping, as you usually do the night before you leave a city. We were in Fouzghou and were in the tea district because of how well known they are for there fine Green, Earl, and Oulong teas. It was getting to be around 8pm and we were trying to hurry back to the hotel so we could watch the opening of the Olympics. I peeked my head in a tea store of about 15 Chinese sitting in front of a TV. It was about 5 minutes to 8, and they were replaying a lot of the Chinese gold medals won over the last few Olympics. All of a sudden the owner of the tea shop motions for us to come in and we are next sitting with them in this shop as the ceremony starts. Out comes the tea cup after cup after cup. One of the girls brings us chairs. Another girl brings us a table for our tea. One of the men motion to the girls to bring chairs with backs on them instead of stools. More tea. Coffee cake for the tea. And the owner of the shop even comes over to offer us a cigarette. All of this in a matter of 10 mins, and the funny thing is that we haven’t even exchanged names. Just a common interest in the Olympics.

I cannot tell you what an honor it is to be sitting in a Chinese tea house as an invited guest from a foreign country and to be watching the Olympics as they are taking place in the same country less than 4 hours away. It is a mind blowing to watch an owner of a tea house boosting so admiralably about his country (in Chinese mind you) as they put there best foot forward to open up China to the world stage.

By itself, the opening of this years Olympics is amazing, and if you haven’t checked it out or found it on you tube you are truly missing out. The art that is perceived, the 100’s of drummers that take part in the event, the spectacle that is to be had is unbelievable. And here is why I find greater appreciation in this event, then perhaps you overlooked the first time. The pure volume of performers involved in this event is unreal, and the fact that they are all in sync. No one missteps, everyone is on point, and that is why the Chinese are brilliant. I missed it at first, and now I am able to point it out. Just watch the marching that the men do when they are carrying the flag. Or during there tai chi bits, everything happens as one. Perhaps it is a reason my communism works so well, is that it is a well oiled and well tuned machine. They probably spent years working on this routine to make sure that everything happened together.

Seriously, spend the time to check it out. And my favorite moment at the very end was the lighting of the torch. Unbelievable!!!

So as the Olympics ended, we greeted our hosts and thanked them endless for there gratitude. Within a min we were out walking the streets back to our hotel. It didn't matter to them who we were, they were simply honored to have us sit with them. They expected nothing in return for there hospitality. What an amazing night.

Finger Painting After Kindergarten

When we were touring some of the local museum's in Guangzhou, we came across this man who made art with "finger painting". Watching the process truly was awesome to see how he turned his palm into landscapes and waterfalls. Guess you can turn a kindergarten play-time into a successful art career. For some reason the thought of paying 100's of dollars for finger painting, didn't appeal to alot of us.
And then there was this guy. I must have watched him for over 20 mins as he intricately etched and drew on this pottery. It was amazing to see him turn a couple lines into flowers and leaves.

Getting Back to the Basics

We started seeing alot of people sitting out in the grass and picking weeds. We thought it was odd. We noticed it at the airport and in alot of places. Turns out this is how they cut the grass. One piece at a time. I am sure there is some "art" to the process, but really? I bet this man wouldn't turn down a craftsmen at this point.

China Rigging- Part 2

Bringing you the latest installment of rigging 101 in China. Here we have an outdoor stage in a plaze. Instead of using those holes in the truss to bolt it together, we find that they just use ribbon. Plastic ribbon to be exact.

I am as confused as you are.

Olympics

Look, can you people stop talking poorly about the Olympics, because every time you do they take away CNN.com or Google.com or Facebook or Yahoo over here in China. Seriously!!! STOP. The truth behind this is that someone created a group on Facebook about the Olympics or bitching about China, and China doesn’t fuck around with that. They will just take the website away. It’s like being 5 years old and having an overbearing mother.

On that note, I can assure you that all the protests and bad things that have been said about China have not gotten back to the Chinese. The Chinese are so excited to host a world event and see an international spotlight that they could care less about how the rest of the world views them. And even if they do, they won’t let any bad press get to there common people.

I did however catch a BBC show about the Olympics. (Side note. I’m sorry but why the hell isn’t BBC a staple on American TV. It is so great and has such a worldly view on the news. You hear about both good and bad things happening around the world, and I love it. None of the bullshit DOOMSDAY stories that are on CNN or FOX. ) So back to this BBC news story. The reporter was in Beijing talking about pollution for the Olympics. He said that with only one month to go before the Olympics, China still had done little to improve the quality for the athletes. That the whole reason China got the Olympics was because they promised to make it a “Green Event” and now one month before they started the air quality was still 7 times over the legal limit. He also did a test in the air that showed how many particles per inch there were floating around. And it was also like 7 times over the limit.

What amazed me was that he actually said. “China plans to meet there low pollution level in one month.” He gave no indication that that was a large task. Just that it would be done by stopping all construction sites and limiting cars into Beijing by more than 50percent. All this to me is a bunch of BS, the whole reason China construction is booming is to show off for the Olympics. I think this will be the biggest story during the Olympics, because air pollution in China is just horrible. Not to mention, even if the pollution level goes down during the olympics, after them everything will go back to normal.

And on another note (I don’t recall if I said anything about this yet.). Tyson Food's is shipping in hundreds of tons of chicken for the Olympics. Mostly due to the fact that some Chinese Olympiads have tested positive for steroids from meat in China and been disqualified, and China does put a large amount of steroids in there meat. I’m sorry, but just hearing this while you are in China, is a horrifying realization!!!

People Watching

You spend a lot of time people watching in China, even when you don’t intend to. My friend Emily and I had gone out for coffee in Shenzhen.

Enjoying the day and trying to stay out of the heat, I gaze out the window...

Flash-forward…. Street scene.
Typical China street full of lots of people walking around. Random fruits and meats being carried to the market. Girls on mopeds with overwhelmingly loud brakes, cabs parked on the side of the road with the driver taking a nap, and men on bikes with huge coned hats overloaded with a lot of shit…

Man and his child step out of a cab. And kid unzips his fly. Begin scene…..

And there you have it. My “Everyday China Movie”.

Tommy can you be the folio artist for this one?