A hutong pajama party

Night of Saturday, Oct. 18, post backdated from Oct. 20. From left to right: Lauren, Kevin, Roman, Matt, Joe. Please, everyone, notice Roman's pee-hole.

On his pajamas, you sickos.

At the south entrance to Nanluoguxiang we spied twenty to twenty-five East Germans, a scary sight for any partygoer wishing to retain his happy buzz (they emit radioactive ions of nippiness, you know). Reid, however, was nonplussed. He went to them like a Chinese boy charmed by the sight of a brown-bearded laowai and asked what they were about. A theater troupe waiting for their Chinese guide, apparently. He offered, with only the most heartfelt and generous of intents, a sip of his "snake blood," which was actually grenadine and vodka, contained inside a small fragrance bottle along with the coiled body of a baby cobra (authenticity unverified). The Germans -- about five men who sported poor hairstyles and terrible accents and a large assembly of fairly attractive to very attractive girls -- positively retched. Reid, again with a charismatic innocence that's either positively childlike or positively American, asked them to join our party. They refused. He asked again. They refused again. And so on it went for a while.

Later that night Reid (on the right in the picture) spotted the Germans again while we were inside a bar called Salud and they were wandering on the street outside, pondering whether to enter. They made eye contact, and the Germans blanched. Reid produced the snake bottle with the red liquid and slowly waved it like a pendant, an inviting glint in his eye. As he told it the next afternoon (paraphrasing), "They ran away. I literally drove them into a second-class bar."

~

Inside, Joe was being Joe, half-naked with his oversized pint of beer while inappropriately stealing kisses from the ladies -- one in particular named Sarah. She wore hot pink PJs that were obviously too small and, if not for the gray tights on the legs, could have with flying colors passed for a cheap whore in the vein of the one who took Stephen Dedalus's virginity in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Her kisses too would have been wet, yes they would have.

Jeff Orcutt was there with a straw hat that got passed around from head to head. Lauren was trying to convince Sarah, Joe and Matt to play a drinking game in which two pairs of partners drink out of the same glass, and whichever pair finishes first -- drinking at the same time, lips touching -- wins something or other. Kevin rocked a pair of sunglasses. Others drank more.

The details I don't remember or if I do I don't feel particularly inclined to share. There was conspiracy and conniption. There may have been a mole. There were some who were drunker than others, and others who blacked out. For all I know there may have been a stabbing in the back room, but I highly doubt there was. There was a good time.

Jeff, Roman and Matt

~

Much after our pre-party drinks had kicked in -- Matt, Roman, Joe, Sarah and I drank a wide variety, as the picture will show, while watching The Transformers, a movie that was beyond awesome for all the wrong reasons, i.e. in all the it's-a-Michael-Mann-movie sort of way -- Reid stepped outside and again saw the East Germans. A couple guys, like lost sheep, had wandered away from the safety of their homestead and were now staring into the steely eyes of their new worst enemy.

Reid looked.

They looked.

Reid made like he was reaching for the snake wine.

They bolted.

~

As these things happen, the alcohol -- including that which no one dares speak its name -- began taking hold and the world stopped making sense. Some sounds were no longer audible (one's own voice) while others were accentuated. No longer did Earth rotate from west to east but from whatever direction the bar was to the chair. Wooden supports and bathroom pictograms suddenly looked fuckable.

By the end there were five of us guys left, and I spied a table of five ladies. Five of them and five of us, I said. Joe took a seat a little ways away from the table and was joined by a brunette bird with a British accent. She had a glazed look in her eyes and was not particularly keen on smiling.

You guys look nice.

Oh thank you.

It's good to look nice.

Yeah, yeah it is. Where did you all go tonight?

Oh, blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah.

Oh, cool.

Well, I gotta go.

Okay. Bye.

Nice talking to you.

Yes, you too.

~

We sat down at a restaurant after a fairly long walk and ordered three dishes and some chuan'r. A group of Chinese patrons sitting in a nearby table took off without paying their bill of 70 kuai, which Lauren noticed and alerted the boss. Joe took off after them, giving dead chase for a block or two before losing them. (They were on motorbikes.) The boss came back and spoke with his wife, confused and probably mad as hell.

Lauren and Kevin decided to drop a few extra RMBs to cover their bill. Ours was 85 but we left 150.

Not everyone remembers doing this. I'll give you a hint:

~

Beach Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Beijing

Saturday at City Seaview

The sand was artificial and, at places, hurt like hell to land on (more on this later), but it was still a fun day at the beach, even if there was no water. Organized by the inimitable Jeff Orcutt et al., we split into four teams -- names drawn out of a hat -- and played four games each.

In the final game of pool play, my team, 1-1, went up against Jim's team, 1-1 as well, and we fell behind 6-1 in a game to 9. At 8-4 it looked particularly bleak, but I threw an endzone-to-endzone forehand score to Guy to make it 8-6 and keep our hopes alive (Wildwood rules, so an end-to-end toss is worth two). Then we got a D, and as hope rose in all of us, I took off for the end zone as Guy hucked a beauty of a disc that raced past a lunging opponent nicknamed Baby Girl as I chased it down for another two-pointer to tie the game at 8.

It was Universe Point. We got the disc when a pass intended for Jim sailed long and out of bounds, at which point I made a deep in cut and received a high throw from Guy. After a contested stall count, I scoober dumped to Roman and cut into the end zone, planted and made a quick break for the force (strong) side corner. Here I will note the main difference between playing in sand and playing on grass: sand shifts under your feet. This has, as far as I can tell, no benefit for anybody except those who don't enjoy playing with shoes; for most players, running on sand takes a lot of effort, with minimal gain. I point this out to set up what happened next: as I turned, the ground gave out underneath me; the disc went up anyway, along with Roman's groan, "Oh no!" The throw is high and looks out of reach, sailing out of bounds.

But, see, here's the thing: I'd made the mistake by slipping, so I had to do something to set it right; and everyone's watching because the other game ended early and the light is perfect for photos* and we'd all exerted such great effort and it was, after all, Universe Point, so I said, Fuck it. I'm getting this disc no matter what.

And here's what I remember: leaving the ground; going parallel to the ground; snatching the disc; falling to the ground. Pain. The sort that takes your breath away, when, say, the small bit of flesh and nerves pinched between your upper pelvis and skin gets thrown to the ground by gravity and crushed between the weight of your entire pelvis plus hips plus that mass+acceleration equation and a surface that can only accurately be described as concrete brushed over with a plywood-thin layer of sand. So what I felt was: more pain.

The disc was secured in my left hand but I flung it aside out of pain. After writhing around for a bit I got up and acknowledged that I was out of bounds, even though some folks tried to say the disc landed before my body did (true), and that the disc was in bounds (doubtful). Then I finished the point, which we lost. And the team that beat us happened to go on to win the championship after we played the 3rd-place game, which, fittingly, we won on Universe Point.

And then we drank beer.



Two players from the winning team, Yin and Gabe. [CORRECTION: Yin did not win.]

More of the winning team, which beat us to claim 2nd place after pool play.

Did I mention beer?

Like I said... a great day.

One more picture, this one from the restaurant where we had dinner:


*POSTSCRIPT: There's a great series of pictures of my layout catch that's currently on someone else's camera. As soon as he uploads it to the Internet I'll post them along with a video of the last two points of the finals. [UPDATE, 9/25: HERE.]

Happy birthday, Julia!

This gal here:


We celebrated on Saturday, the night of the Paralympic Opening Ceremony, from a bar called Nashville, located in Chaoyang district on "Good Fortune" Street down South Sanlitun. It was a good time.

The man on the right, who you may know as Boehner, tried unsuccessfully -- for obvious reasons I won't get into here -- to make the gal on the left, Casey, his fifth taitai (wife).

Across the way: Julia's longtime henpecked boyfriend Reid.

Joe (center) with that glazy look we all know and love.

There was a drum set on the first floor, leading our resident drummer, Kevin, to eye it with wolfish interest before quickly befriending the house drummer and ingratiating himself onto the set. Kevin has a habit of poaching drum time at bars, as you can read about from his blog.


The close-up:


And one more photo from the night:


This was taken after a long discussion of (Frisbee) politics led my evening astray, when I (and others) forgot that on this night the magnificent bronze creature pictured above so tastefully reposed was commemorating an event that truly happens once a lifetime, when she finally turned... actually, I have no idea how old she turned. Julia, what's your age now anyway, you old hag? (Just kidding!)

Funny note about the birthday gal: she was wasted all of Saturday, before, during and after our pickup Ultimate Frisbee session* (which turned out to be one of the most competitive pickup games we've had in a while; for the entire three hours -- counting the points we played before score was kept -- Kevin and I never took a sub, and we felt great afterwards). Which makes it all the scarier that we gave her a long serrated knife to wave in people's faces.

Julia, seven hours prior to wielding the knife:

Seven and a half hours prior:

Seven and three-quarters hours prior:


POSTSCRIPT*: We went up 3-0, only to see our opponents, led by Jim, Joe, Doc and Jen Brown, score four unanswered. We tied it at 4, then gave up the next two to face game-point. We scored the next three behind a series of hucks -- Reid and Sandy pulled down several all day -- but couldn't take game (win by two). They scored to make it 8-7. We scored the next two. They scored to tie it at 9. We scored. They scored. And then, with hard-cap at 11, we worked the disc to midfield to set up an inside-out forehand from Kevin that Sandy ran down in the end zone. 11-10 final.

POSTSCRIPT 2: Picture of the night:

Doc Tobin, everybody. He will not be signing autographs.

Jason and Stephanie's final day in Beijing, and other pictures

We had quite the going-away party for Jason Cox and Stephanie Zhang yesterday, first at a Russian place called The Elephant, where we were treated to a cabaret show, then at a bar called 2nd Floor in Sanlitun.

The highlight of the night, for me personally, was Jason chugging a bottle of 100-proof baijiu. I chanted "chug" when I passed him the white poison but had no expectation of him actually doing it. When he lifted the bottle, well, let's just say I couldn't press the RECORD button fast enough. I got the tail end of it though.

If you want to know how shocking this was for everyone, just watch the reactions of those around him: first Joe jumping up and down flapping his arms like a kid who just got his dream present on Christmas morning, then Jim cringing like a gambler with 10 grand on the table...


An entire photo album dedicated to the night is here (titled "Jason and Stephanie's last night / Joe makes out with Beijing").

Jason, we'll miss you.

From Betsy Beijing:

hey frisbee faithful,
trust me when i say betsy would not break her vow of silence for just
anyone. after what happened in shanghai this past june between myself,
lincoln, claire, toni's vomit, and barbie's pink barbie outfit, it's going
to take a lot more penance for me to win my way back into god's good graces.

but some thing's cannot be passed by without proper comment.

the day that betsy once warned you about has finally come. jason is leaving
beijing. it may not be in a straight-jacket like many of us predicted, but
it seems there's nothing we can do to stop it.

i've been in beijing since the dawn of beijing ultimate, and i can say with
complete certainty that over the past 3 plus years, no one has done more for
the expat ultimate community in beijing than jason has. if it weren't for
him, there's a high probability we would still be fighting for pavement
space in the gong ti parking lot. he's used satellite photos, gps
technology, and his mountain bike to go scout out fields for us. he's kept
track of our money, only skimming off the top for his and stephanie's
anniversary. he's designed jerseys for us, helped plan leagues for us,
helped start the beijing ultimate committee, gotten us to and from
tournaments without losing anyone (well, i haven't seen julio since sunday
night in jeju, but that's another story), and has turned beijing ultimate
into one of the fastest growing frisbee communities in asia. and that's not
to say he's only been focused on us expats either. he's been at the
forefront of helping to make frisbee more accessible and open for chinese
players. when jason came to beijing, ultimate here was heading towards one
of it's low points. jason is the number one reason it turned around. i
know there's been a lot of other people that have contributed to make this
growth spurt possible, but if it weren't for jason at the center of it all,
who knows where we would be? beijing certainly would not have just hosted
it's first ever tournament this past may.

so take a moment to think about what jason has meant to this community.
it's no accident that jason keeps winning our annual spirit award, no
matter how much doc thinks he deserves it instead. he's been at the heart
of beijing ultimate for three years, and it's going to be a tough, tough job
to try and fill his shoes. good luck trying, kevin.

so jason, as you move back to vancouver, and you think back of beijing
ultimate, i hope you remember us fondly. because when you come back to
visit, you'll probably find that we've eaten each other alive like the true
cannibals we are.

we'll miss you.

Jeff:

I missed the baijiu that ruined you but I was there later and I want
to reiterate from a drunken stupor at five in the morning how much
this community will miss Jason.

words cannot express the love that the entire community should have
for this man.

he carried us through to what I see as the other side. and here we are
and I hope we continue to kick ass in his name.

we will miss you Jason. We all wish you and Stephanie the most
happiness.

And more pictures, because not all could fit on Facebook (no duplicates here, so be sure to check out the link above):








Happy Rat set to attack Little Jason's nipples.


Rest assured, ladies, Joe likes you more.







Stephanie as buffer.









Hey, if it's your last night...




She's 16. Keep that in mind as we proceed...


Normal people!


On the left: like father and daughter. On the right: not so much.







Joe definitely won the party.

POSTSCRIPT: Anther photo album, this one of Beijing Ultimate. It's part one of two, going from the Tianjin tournament through Shanghai. Part two will come after the Hong Kong tournament in late October, which I will officially be attending -- just had my flight changed a couple days ago from September 12 to October 29.