I’m Seeing Pink! I’m Seeing So Much Pink!

Hey. Do you guys remember (assuming you’re not a first time visitor) from last year when my blog was in doldrums and I had these sporadic posts saying something huge has been keeping me busy? Here’s an update: today, I have officially finished that project, and now I have no more excuses to neglect my blog. Oh man.

You want to know what that project is, right? Well, let me tell you the whole story. My friend Liz and Lauren asked me to give their online shopping site a makeover. They want a new look, an identity so to speak.  Now, if you’re like me, in that you’re a straight male who kind of does not do scrapbooking and did not have siblings who own any of those stationeries with Disney princesses in them, you’d probably be declining the request to do that project. I did not decline. I merely spent half a month panicking about my lack of understanding with the concept of “the girly”. You could say that TRYING to get in the zone to make this site proved to be a severely draining experience - and I certainly hope it’s only my brain cells, not my masculinity, that got drained.

But kidding aside, I felt honored to be working with Liz and Lauren. Shoutout to Marco Sumayao (Lauren’s boyfriend) for his superb logo-making skills. Without it I’d probably still be working on the site. Credit to Neil Galvez too for writing the codes for the site.

So to those of you who want to see the site, come visit www.ukaymanila.com! Feedbacks about the design are welcome.

Worst Movies of 2009

Happy New Year, readers! I hope it’s not yet too late to be writing posts about anything 2009-related. Yesterday I gave you 10 best movies of 2009, and since I believe in striking a balance, today comes my bottom 7.

So maybe that’s not a perfect balance, but I want to start this year on a more positive note. Besides, I managed to steer clear from watching more than 7 movies that I ended up hating. Unfortunately, that also means you’re not gonna hear me tear down some widely-derided movies like New Moon, 2012, Dragonball: Evolution, Ninja Assassin, Mall Cop, and Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li. Still, I hope this 7 pick will be a sufficient guide as what movies you should skip (if you and me are alike, that is), and if you did see them anyway, I hope my reading my opinions has entertained you anyhow.

7. GI Joe: Rise of Cobra

The best compliment that I could give to GI Joe Rise of Cobra is that it’s not as bad as the other movie based on Hasbro toys. Yet what killed it for me is the depressing going through the motions feel. True story: barring minor details like each character’s origins story, everything that took place in the movie I saw coming before I even saw the film. Sure, I did enjoy parts of it, but that was for all the wrong reason, unless you think that the director intends the viewers to root for the villains in a movie about “Real American Heroes” (and yeah, I’m aware that the movie doesn’t make explicit mention of it, but the Hasbro property is still based on that slogan). Also, for all the noises feminists make these days about videogames and comics being sexist, I’m shocked that this movie isn’t entering women-in-refrigerators debate given how poorly it treats its women characters.

6. Planet 51

I’ll get this out of the way: I take no pleasure in disliking Planet 51. I followed the development of the movie because I thought it had a great premise – man gets marooned in an alien planet that behaves exactly like humans. I supported it too because I wanted non-American animation studios to gain international recognition (not that I have anything against American animation studios). So, to be fair, Planet 51 has great animation, but the story is another thing entirely. I was annoyed at Monsters vs Aliens for going overboard with pop culture references, and yet it’s nothing compared to Planet 51, and at least it’s funny, which Planet 51 isn’t. Add stereotypical characters, and we get a movie that’s ultimately forgettable and often obnoxious.

5. Adventureland

I’m all for character-driven stories, and I like imaginative concepts. So I expected to like Adventureland because it promises to be both: how many movies are about life as amusement park workers anyway? What I got here instead is a pedestrian soap opera that might as well have taken place anywhere else. That wouldn’t be a huge issue if the characters were likable, but how could they be liked when all they do is shoot themselves on the foot? It’s critically acclaimed, and I have no idea why. I scoff at this notion that all it takes to make a good movie is to spice up a completely boring story by making the characters witty and self-deprecating. For the record, all the music references reek of trying too hard; I don’t believe that if one couldn’t properly develop a character, comparing tastes in music is going to make up for it.

4. Watchmen

I don’t see why I should prolong this since I have exhausted myself from talking about it last March. I’ll say this much though: Watchmen is the movie that got me exposed to how lazy comics-adaptation movie can be. I had my suspicions in the past, but this gave me the moment of clarity. Unlike movies based on novels, you do not require much imagination with the settings when the comics have already drew them out for you in details, so that’s half the hard-work gone, which is why I’m often turned off by them – I like hard work. Still, there are comics-adaptation movies that manage by telling a complete tale and not requiring viewers prior knowledge of the comics. By not giving a compelling reason for me to care about anyhting, Watchmen fails in storytelling, and since director Zack Snyder uses the comics as storyboard - the worst kind of laziness, if I may say – I dislike it even more. At this point, I am so done with movies based on comics. See you on Iron Man 2, right?

3. My Life In Ruins

Saw this in a 9-hour flight and let me tell you, without the speakers on, My Life In Ruins doesn’t look all that bad because at least I can pretend that it’s a travel guide of Greece, which is indeed a place for the gods. But then I tried to watch it for the story and yuck! It shouldn’t have turned out this way! The premise of the movie is pretty clever and is one that many of us can relate to, because we have been around tourists from hell, and what’s more amusing than seeing a tour guide trying to deal with them? Alas, it succumbed to the bad stereotypes, oversimplified solutions and Hallmarkian dialogues. At least Adventureland is about smart people being stupid; My Life In Ruins is about stupid being stupid.

2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

I hate Bad Lieutenant for the exact reason that I hate Frank Miller’s stories: it’s just not enough that they take place in a corrupt world, we also have to be lambasted with awful scene-chomping dialogues from protagonists trying to sound tough and badass. It’s hopeless with Nicolas Cage. What used to be an actor whose acting-range gave us the sublime Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas has now become a Youtube meme of “acting raged”. Here in Bad Lieutenant, Nic Cage does not disappoint the Internet by delivering golden lines like “what the f is this f iguana” and “if you ever so much see that girl again, you’re gonna wish you were born, without a dick!” Somehow this movie received an above 80% rating in Rottentomatoes. Do you even know what the hell you’re doing, movie critics? Do NOT encourage Nic Cage to yell and swear more!

1. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Just the thought of having to think about this movie again makes my head hurt. Putting aside the dumb as bricks superfluous elements like the awful comedy, it should’ve been so easy to make this movie a winner: all it needed is robots beating each other to pulps, and somehow this is too much to ask and instead we have to get a plodding “drama” about lousy humans? Where’s the fun in that? And when action kicks off (which takes forever), why can’t we see what’s going on, why can’t we tell those who’s fighting apart, and why do the fighters appear, disappear, die, and get revived for no reason at all? It’s not just bad acting and bad action, however. There’s also the racist stereotypes, the jingoism, the bombastic soundtrack, and the sexism all crammed into this massive package of suck, and don’t even get me started on the incoherent plot. Quite simply, Transformers 2 ranks among the worst movies of all time, and in a perfect world, Michael Bay should be banned from making another film. Teenage audiences will moan about it, but they’re just gonna flock to another bombastic CGI-overblown Hollywood blockbuster anyway.

Best Movies of 2009

(Disclaimer: Although I have seen more movies in 2009 than I have in other years, there are still noteworthy movies that I have yet to see mainly because they have yet to show in the Philippines and are not yet available in DVD form. So I can’t comment on Invictus, Precious, Where the Wild Things Are, or The Princess and the Frog yet. I will try to see them in 2010, and if I liked any well enough I might update this list. Oooh, number 10 is in danger! Fanboys will not be too happy!)

10. Avatar

Although Avatar claimed a spot in my top 10, it will never belong in my all-time faves, or get the same reverence that I reserve for earlier James Cameron works, such as Terminator 1 and 2. Why?

There’s no getting around the hackneyed plot, and there’s no way my coworkers will ever shut up about it being Pocahontas on a different coat of paint (blue?), which gives me goosebumps every time, because that’s what happens when I hear the name of Disney’s most cloyingly sentimental movie (no small feat for Disney). I agree, though. Predictability is Avatar’s major, vexing flaw.

A pity for that, then. Everything else about it reminds me why Cameron is my favorite director of Hollywood action movies. Yes, a movie’s story has to be good, and Avatar is predictable, but it’s still reasonably well-told and well-acted. More importantly, movie is a visual medium, which means aesthetics matter too, and to put it mildly, Avatar is a spectacle. The choreography at the last act ranks among the best war fights in movies, surpassing Lord of the Rings.

Cameron said he intends to make Avatar a trilogy. If it means I get to see more breathtaking sceneries from its fictional world, I’m all or it, as long as he also promises a better script.

9. 500 Days of Summer

People often compare 500 Days of Summer to Eternal Sunshine on a Spotless Mind, and while there are similarities, like the way both are told out of chronological order, I think 500 Days and Annie Hall are more alike. Both start with the lead male character telling the viewers that they just split up with the women they loved, and you knew right then that he was regretful. Then both flashes back to the better times of his relationship with the girl, in hopes that from looking at the past he (and we) could find out what went wrong, in hopes of finding ways to reconcile. Where they differ is the personalities of their characters: in AH, the guy is the jaded one, while in 500DoS, it’s the girl.

I make it no secret that romantic comedy belongs to my least favorite of movie genres. My friends know this and they know not to invite me in whenever they see the latest rom-coms because they know I’d be the most indifferent person in the theater. So then, I’m quite surprised by how much I enjoyed 500 Days of Summer (and it may be because I’m also partial to Annie Hall; Eternal Sunshine, not so much).  The performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt helped and so did my unbridled crush on Zoey Deschanel, but the strongest pull is how much I related to the characters. We don’t live in a perfect world, and when we fall in love it’s not always boy-meets-girl-happily-ever-after. Anyone who has had affection for someone and hoped the feeling is mutual can relate to the trouble that befell Levitt’s character.

8. Up

Pixar knows how to get in touch with what we used to imagine back when we were kids. We all wondered what toys might live like, and we got Toy Story. Many of us had longed to venture to a faraway unknown land. Up is about that, with an ornery old man who finds his calling by taking his house up to the sky. Great premise? It sure is, but that would make a solitary tale, wouldn’t it? By accident, a visiting boy scout had stowed away, and joined the ride that could only be the envy of other kids. What, you know anyone who has been on a flying house before?

Aside from the heartbreaking first 5 minutes of the movie, it’s the interaction of the old man and the boy scout where the movie shined the brightest. I liked how their motivations contrasted – the old wants to do what he has wanted to do since he was a kid, while the boy wants to be prepared to take the responsibilities of grown-ups. On a lesser movie, the director would try to get his/her point across by forcing humor and making the characters excessively chatty. Up is above doing that, though. Sometimes it gets silent, and yet it says so much. This is why I begrudged the director for putting in those dog sidekicks in the middle of the movie.

It’s not my favorite Pixar movie but I can say that it’s the only Pixar movie that nearly made me cry.

7. The Hurt Locker

War is grim. So why doesn’t it look that way in movies about war? Instead, we see Hollywood treating it as nothing but uber-macho alpha male fantasy, failing to realistically portray what being in the battlefield is like, and serving no purposes other than giving American troops a pat in the back.

It’s disappointing to me that The Hurt Locker, the first movie about Dubya’s Iraq War, doesn’t subvert patriotism. But although it lacks in depicting the lives of Iraqis amidst the chaos, I admire it for showing they way soldiers are really like. This is not a story that pontificates about courage or valor or whatever values Uncle Sam wants to inculcate. Instead, it presents war as it is, where people involved are tense, desperate, and at a constant fear of dying. Watching its soldiers deactivate bombs will leave you breathless, and even if they survive, you know that they’re going to lose part of themselves. An emotionally-draining movie, and that’s how looking at war should make you feel.

6. Moon

Moon resembles the shorts stories that emerged from the golden age of science fiction. It also is reminiscent of 2001 Space Odyssey’s middle part, where a psychological drama happens. Like the Kubrickian film, much of Moon involves the interaction of an astronaut and an almost-sentient computer. Also, it will screw with your mind, though not quite as badly as 2001. Me? I have soft spots for serious sci fi, and that’s why I loved this film, but even those without sci fi inclinations can see that the acting is solid. By the way, the lead actor plays two characters, which look alike but are subtly different in dispositions. I will speak no more, as this movie is at its best when seen with no prior knowledge of its story.

5. District 9

I’d go so far as to say that before District 9 and Moon (no idea which came first and I’m too lazy to research), the only great sci fi movie of this decade is Wall-E, and maybe Minority Report. Before all the marketing ploys made people drunk in anticipation for Avatar, District 9 was the much-discussed movie of the year, and there were many praises about it being an allegory of apartheid. Although, it is also allegedly racist. Is it? Well, that I’m undecided on, although I can say that I’m not too thrilled about the over-the-top Nigerian gangsters.

That flaw aside, District 9 did more to me than Avatar in nearly every way I could think of, barring the fight scenes. A few of you may give action more weight than plot, but I’m the opposite, which explains why I prefer District 9. You might be baffled by the comparison, but they’re not as dissimilar as you might think. Both movies are about a guy marooned in a hostile territory. D9 does it more effectively, though, because it has more gray areas, and is more grounded on reality. For one thing, I’m quite sure most of us will despise the movie’s human characters in the end, and yet when we try to put ourselves in their shoes, we know we’d probably act the way they did. The aliens much of the humans were hostile to were also better portrayed here. Avatar made its alien race genuinely good and altruistic, which I thought was a cheap manipulative way to draw our sympathy to the “good” side. In District 9, the aliens had many undesirable traits and were not above committing atrocities. I thought that that’s a more plausible scenario if we met up with aliens, because there’s so little we know about them.

So to sum up, Avatar = good. District 9 = better.

4. Thirst

If you’re as sick as I am of how the media has been turning vampires into glamour fashion mags icons, watch Thirst by Park Chan-Wook, acclaimed director of Oldboy. Look, life as a bloodsucker is miserable. Vampires do not shimmer in the daylight; they get burnt to crisp by it. Also, being that they consume bloods to survive (and they like them fresh), they have a tough time abiding to some moral code. We should know this, and yet thanks to a certain craze, we are now populated by teenagers who beg for bite marks.

Thirst is vampire story as it should be: sensual, illicit, and immoral. While Twilight (finally mentioned that name, huh?) does the two in spades and only in the most perfunctory and gentrified way, Thirst is what urbane types will call OG. Which stands for Original Gorefest! I would not call Thirst a horror movie, though, and it’s more like a psychological drama with a horror twist. In it, a priest becomes a vampire, and he does sinful deeds against his will. It’s not a story of the weak of heart, but if you want a fresh take on the whole vampire lore, this is worth sinking your teeth in.

3. Red Cliff

You know, when John Woo exerts efforts, he makes a damn good action movie. Red Cliff, a war epic, is his interpretation of Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, with a few elements from the novelization. It’s delightful to watch for the stratagems, for how the two sides of the war try to outwit another. And when fights break, there is no one that does it better than John Woo.

2. Ip Man

Before this movie came out, it’s been a long time since I liked a kung fu movie. The last one was Hero and Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, but then all those that came after were average at best, and I blame Jet Li for losing enthusiasm (although I respect his decision to devote more time to Buddhism) and Jackie Chan for wanting to be taken as a serious actor. Kung Fu Panda doesn’t even count as my kind of kung fu movie because it’s all digitized, and don’t even get me started on House of Flying Daggers. In short, the genre was stagnating. But then there’s one overlooked martial artist who emerged from other’s shadow. He’s Donnie Yen. He played the villain of Once Upon a Time in China 2, was the star in Fist of Fury TV series, re-battled with Jet Li in Hero, and fought with Jackie Chan in Shanghai Knights. Somehow people forgot that he, too, can kick ass hard. And while I can’t guarantee that Ip Man will propel him into his long-overdue superstardom, I will guarantee that fans of action movies will love Ip Man.

There’s no other way of putting this: Donnie Yen rocks. Whatever I say about this movie will not do its fight choreography any justice, so I won’t go into details, but I love the way Donnie Yen fights. Here, he uses Wing Chun, which is a martial arts style that is more defensive than offensive. He exposes openings from opponents by punishing them with flurry of punches, and he kicks only when necessary. There are no wasted extra movements, and it looks elegant that way.

While the story has never been a priority for martial arts film, Ip Man’s was pretty good.

1. Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds finds Quentin Tarantino still being Quentin Tarantino, so make of that as you will. Like all his films, it is spaghetti-western influenced, meaning it’s low budget and has copious amount of shooting, but nothing fancy. I have just recently seen Pulp Fiction, loved it, and I can say that Inglourious Basterds ranks with Pulp Fiction as being his best movies.

You may get the impression of it being a war movie, since it takes place on WWII and Nazi is clearly the antagonist here, but it’s only a war movie in the loosest sense. It’s more like a secret agent movie that just so happen to be in WWII era. Inglourious Basterds refer to a secret group that has been killing off Nazis.

Except, you know, the movie doesn’t spend so much time on the secret group. Confused yet? Well, that’s just QT screwing with your head.

Inglourious Basterds earns my top spot because of good directing and good acting. I’ll say right now that Brad Pitt gives a solid performance, but Christopher Waltz stole the show with his act as a cunning hunter of Jews. The rest of them also suited their roles perfectly. No one sets up scenarios quite like QT: one wrong word or subtle gesture could mean death, and death happens to anyone no matter how cool he or she appears. It’s this attention to detail that makes QT a great director. And, yes, he’s still self-indulgent and likes to reference movies.

Best Games of 2009

And yet again I left this blog in a limbo for two weeks. Anyway, trying to keep it alive, I’m going to post about videogames YET AGAIN! Do you see any problem with that? No? Then we’ll get along.

Keep in mind that I will include every games I played this year, so they don’t merely have to be the ones released this year.

Time for me to bust my top list! And like ckzatwork (who I’m liking more and more), I’ll include every games I’ve played this year.

GOTY
Undecided because I haven’t played too many 2009 games

Best Original Music
Is there anything better than Super Mario Galaxy? No. Ok.

Best Game that Made Me Buy An Ink Spots Album
Fallout 3, though Bioshock also has their songs

Old consoles that I still keep playing throughout the year
Super NES

Games I still play on my SNES
Wild Guns, Super Mario All Stars, Super Punch-Out!!

And when I’m playing Old PC Games, it’s usually
Old Lucasarts adventure games. I beat Monkey Island 2, 3, Indiana Jones and the Fate of the Atlantis, and Broken Sword again this year

But since my PC isn’t old, I’ve been using it to play
Borderlands, Torchlight, Fallout 3, Braid, Tales of Monkey Island, and Machinarium

Games I promise to beat come the holiday vacation
Machinarium and Fallout 3

Best Wii game
Super Mario Galaxy!

Best “what a waste of motion control” Wii Game
Punch-out!! Wii

Best fitness game
EA Sports Active

Best fighting game
Sorry, Street Fighter IV. I like you, but Tatsunoko vs Capcom takes the cake. People from America, get this when it comes out, coz you’re in for a treat!

Worst endgame boss
Again, apologies to Street Fighter IV, but Tekken 6’s Azazel was so much worse than Seth.

Game that made me puke
Final Fantasy Dissidia. What the hell kind of character designs are those?!

Game I have yet to play and I already hate it

Final Fantasy XIII.Though it’s become hip for people to make Bioware tropes their biggest gaming peeve, mine has always been the typical Square-Enix anime tropes. The melodramatic dialogue, the sappy J-pop, and the sulky characters aren’t helping things any. And oh my God, what kind of character design is that again? Someone please fire Tetsuya Nomura!

…I guess I’ll still play FFXIII though, if only to give my complaints more verisimilitude

Games announced that had me most excited

Shiren Wii and Megaman 10

Disappointing game that I still hasn’t gotten over with
Apollo Justice

Games they better release in America or else I’m gonna write a ten paged hate mail to whoever is holding them back
Persona 3 Portable and Fatal Frame Wii

Best story from an old game I only managed to play this year
Snatcher. And, if I may add, it’s now on my top 10.

Games that made me read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
See above

Games that are equivalent of Taylor Swift to me; inoffensive, but unmemorable
Borderlands and Torchlight

Best so bad it’s good game
That pickup basketball game from Wii Sports Resort! My brother and I can’t stop laughing at how ridiculous it is, and yet I keep playing it!

Game that is so bad it’s gone beyond goodness and went back to bad again
Scenario Campaign mode of Tekken 6.

Racing games I actually like
Need for Speed: Shift, Colin McRae Dirt 2

I can’t believe I beat that game
Borderlands

Game I beat that prove that I still “have it”
Megaman 9! I’m still rolling with the blue bomber!

Game that made me say “How on earth was I good at this game before”
Samurai Shodown IV played in Samurai Shodown Anthology.

My biggest time-sucks and big reasons I dont’ blog so often
Fallout 3, Rune Factory DS, Disgaea. Damn them!

Multiplayer game that is putting a strain on my friendship with my brother
New Super Mario Bros Wii. I mean how is this game supposed to be better played with other people again?

Favorite fan-made game
Streets of Rage Remake

Geek reference that has become overused it stopped being cool
Konami Code. The last straw was when people all over Facebook was putting this in their status updates

Elvis Presley

Songs crafted with the intent of pleasing the general audience, they’re called pop music. Music scholars claim that pop music developed during the mid-50s. It’s been more than fifty years since. In that length of time, innumerous pop songs have been written, and yet, as hard as hordes of musicians try cement themselves the spots of being pop culture’s permanent leading forces of influence, only a scant few have succeeded: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson. Try to think of the 50s, you think of Elvis; 60s to 70s, The Beatles; 80s to 90s, Michael Jackson. I think it’s fair to say that we are still in search of a modern pop music icon who would define the era from 00s-onwards, and that’s also quite a reason that in Michael Jackson’s final years, a lot of people clamored for a comeback, nevermind that his life was still enshrouded in controversy. His death only further proves the point that musicians like him, The Beatles, and Elvis achieve mythological statuses; like the gods, their works are immortal, in which the deaths of their creators will not lessen the marks they left on the landscape of pop, which entails much of the whole world.

Strange then, that while it’s agreed that Michael Jackson is a master performer, and that while the media eulogizes about The Beatles at least once every year (frankly I’m sick of the eulogizing), people have more divided opinions about Elvis Presley. If you don’t believe this, bring him up the next time you speak with rock enthusiasts. Tell them of his 1984 induction in Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, and I assure you the conversation will not go by without incident. With him, people are more inclined to doubt his skills as a musician, or, especially, his songs’ legitimacy of being classified as rock. Some go as far as to doubt his death (dead people don’t sweat, Elvis is alive!).

So, what’s my take? First, the 1994 Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. I think he deserves to be on it. Now hold your phone for a sec, will you? Most of those who’ll disagree with that statement weren’t alive during the time when Elvis broke through in the music industry anyway (ok, so wasn’t I), so it’s easy to overlook the songs from that decade, but listen: Before all the Bruce Springsteen anthems, before all the hair metal bands, before all the “depression” music that “speaks to teenagers”, Elvis’ songs were what rock music sounded like. Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Buddy Holly, people agree that they are performers of rock. Elvis’ music has the same style, so shouldn’t he be considered rock too?

What about the fact that Elvis did not write his own music? I don’t see why that invalidates someone’s status as a rock performer. Plenty of early rock musicians made covers. The Rolling Stones spent their formative years interpreting blues standards. Were they rock? Hell, yeah. I’d also like to point out that in the time when people expected musicians to be smooth, suave and squeaky-clean, Elvis was an iconoclast by selling himself through his sex appeal. It may sound laughable now, because he is quite a sellout (trying too hard to please the mass market by appearing in movies despite lacking the acting chops) but without him, music wouldn’t veer to the counterculture, nor will live theatrics earn acceptance.

But fine. I’m not gonna force everyone to agree with me about Elvis, so I’ll end this discussion by pointing out that The Beatles were big Elvis-heads, even admitting that he’s their major inspiration. So if you maintain Elvis’s claim to rock as a fallacy, then please debate the same thing about The Beatles too. Not to mention Deep Purple, Bob Dylan, and loads more. With that out of the way, I’m sure you want to hear me extol Elvis’ skills as a musician, right?

Well, no, that’s not happening. This will vex you after I spent a few paragraphs passionately defending Elvis, but I’m not a big fan of him or his music. Too many people, when writing, slide so leisurely into their own comfort zone without acknowledging the opposing views. I try to be different; in the case of talking about Elvis, what you just saw was me recognizing his influence to many generations. But recognition != admiration. So while I give him credit, unlike those who think that discrediting him increases their self-worth, I’ll leave it at that. I would be lying if I said that Elvis’s songs are of any importance to my life, that they will stop me dead in my tracks so that I could absorb their every intricacy. Sure, I don’t outright dislike them, but whenever they play, I rarely pay attention. They’re kind of just there. Listening to all three albums included in 1001 albums catalog did nothing to change my attitude towards Elvis’s body of work. I’ll get into that right now.

Elvis Presley

Blue Suede Shoe (Elvis Presley)

If one is to judge the validity of the 1001 list based on how much copies of the albums were sold, Elvis Presley’s self-titled debut album is among the least contentious entries of the list (and also, that indie records have no business being there. By the way, I don’t support the notion that the quality of any works of art should be defined by the dollars they earned). That seems to be what the writers evidently suggested when they included it in the list despite saying that it’s “inconsistent”. I might be an oddball, but I liked this more than the other two, more critically-acclaimed Elvis albums in the list. Consistency may be a problem, but I preferred that it’s “rawer” compared to his later albums, which I think are sanitized to be more appealing, yet less exciting. There are a few songs here that everyone knows – Blue Suede Shoe, Tutti Frutti – but Hound Dog is nowhere to be heard here, at least in the album’s earlier issues. Nevertheless, if you can imagine those three songs stretched into the traditional album length of 12 tracks, you’ll have a good idea how the rest of the album sounds. There are a few ballads, however.

Elvis is Back!

Fever (Elvis Presley)

Elvis’s comeback album. At the time leading to the release of this album, he served in the military for two years, leading to his absence from the music industry. Hard to believe it now, but back then, musicians rapidly record new singles, so it was a big deal to be gone for two years. As for the content of this album, it still sounds quite like the first, with plenty of hip-swinging tracks and some ballads in between. This sounds cleaner, though, but that’s also why I found it less compelling. There are a few tracks that I liked more than anything found in the first, but they’re not so good or so plentiful as to offset my indifference to the rest. Fever is golden, Elvis sounds great when he’s singing low notes. I also liked The Girl of My Best Friend. A lot of the remaining tracks are still as tacky as most of anything from the first album.

From Elvis In Memphis

In The Ghetto (Elvis Presley)

Although Elvis grew up in Memphis, he spent long times in his recording career away from the city (and despite it being known for housing many recording studios). He was tired from traveling and making all the derivative movies, so he went back to Memphis to play the kinds of music that he grew up with: namely gospel and country. From the Wearin’ That Loved On Look, the first track of the album, he began with the line “I had to leave town for a little while”. It’s a straightforward love song, yet I can’t help thinking that there’s a hidden attack on the direction Memphis’ recording studio took since he’s left. Histories aside, Elvis sounds quite different in this album. In the past, when Elvis hits high pitch, I find his voice irritating because it always sounds like he’s going to crack. He seemed to have refined his high pitch here, however, so he sounded natural in any songs here, high or low pitch. (skip his “Hey Jude” in the latter 2-CD set reissue, though, because it sets his voice back 10 years) There’s also a change in the music style he’s using. Here, it’s mostly slow, country-sounding ballads, with only one up tempo “pelvis-movable” song, the supremely awful Power of My Love. Eeech, don’t get me started on that! So yeah, it’s interesting to see Elvis get away from his formula, but the result is still less than thrilling because the songs just blend. The one standout track is In The Ghetto, a song about growing up in the poor.

Getting Ready For The Next Battle?

Here I am with another blog post about one of my favorite topics: videogames. (Music reviews will resume shortly).

I’ve been rotating among many games without really sticking to just one from start to finish. Those that are on my “now playing list” include Fallout 3, Tekken 6, Real Heroes: Firefighter (looks terrible, but plays quite well), Need for Speed: Shift, Colin McRae Dirt 2 (was on a racing games fix last week), Dragon Age: Origins, and Borderlands. I’ve spent the most time playing Fallout 3; in fact I can tell you that all other games I play are from the times when I’m exhausted with Fallout 3 and want to step away from its “post-apocalyptia” for 2 hours. Except for Tekken 6, I haven’t played the others long enough to have solid opinions about them, which is why I’ll only talk about Tekken 6.

Let me get the history out first, because it’s significant to my comment about the game. Originally, Tekken 6 was set to be released somewhere in 2006-2007 as one of the exclusive PlayStation 3 titles, I guess so as to entice gamers to buy the mammoth Sony console instead of its Microsoft rival’s. Eventually it got confirmed for Xbox 360, but both gaming consoles went Tekken-less for the next two years, and meanwhile the game came out on the arcade as an attempt to revive the languishing arcade industry. To placate frustrated Tekken enthusiasts who want to play at home, the final product came with two additional characters that weren’t in the original Tekken 6, although this update was also released in the arcade a year earlier with the subtitle “Bloodline Rebellion”.

While I am a fighting game nut, as I’ve repeatedly stated in my past posts (and even compiling my top 10), I have always admired but not grown attached to the Tekken series. I played Tekken 2 and 3 a ton and repeatedly saw the endings of all their fighters, but I’ve never gotten to the point when all I could think of was how I could be better at either games, or when all I could obsess about was that I either play their sequels or live being less of a person. Games like Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Guilty Gear XX, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs SNK 2, Soul Calibur 2, Last Blade 2, and most recently, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, I anticipated like a kid waiting to tout his A+ report card to his parents. I never felt that way waiting for any Tekken games.

Yet, I felt bummed about Tekken 6’s delay because 2007 was a dry year for fighting games, so in the meantime, my then-newly bought Xbox 360 had only those gray shooters. But I didn’t begrudge Namco, because better that it spends a longer time to create a much-refined game, than a shorter time to release a buggy game, right? Meanwhile, let’s look at the arcade copy and hope that the home release is even better!

Two years, and what did Namco add? Two fighters, and a “scenario campaign” mode. Could I even tell you how much I despised waiting two more years just for those?

Okay, the fighters. From a design standpoint, Tekken has always distinguished itself with characters that look more urbane and “fresh off the streets” (well, except for the kangaroos, bears, and dinosaurs) than other fighting game series, but not lacking in personality as it tends to be with wrestling games or Virtua Fighter. Its fighters also fight in ways familiar to those keen to martial arts – either by personal involvement, or by watching movies. It has mostly been like that since the first Tekken, and the four original Tekken 6 exclusive characters like Bob, Miguel, Zafina and Leo did not deviate from that tradition. They don’t look especially inspired, but whatevs. Lars and Alisa were the two characters they added in Tekken 6’s home release, and what exactly do I make of them?

That dude is Lars. He wears ridiculous spandex, has a ridiculous hair, and probably thinks he’s a superhero. He also has amnesia, which is always a trope with Japanese stories, which of course reduces the cool factor of said character by 100. He fights by jumping and running all over the place. Fascinating.

Alisa at least got an exciting fighting style going for her. She’s a cyborg, boosters can come out on her backside and chainsaws on her arms, and she can even remove her head (!). That said, I think she, as with Lars, looks goofy.

Why is it that Japanese games these days can’t design a character that don’t look like one who leapt off from the pages of fashion magazines aimed for the most annoying Shibuya hellspawns? Final Fantasy XIII? Devil May Cry? Kavin Glavier from Apollo will-the-real-Ace-attorney-please-stand-up Justice? All the recent King of Fighters? Kingdom Hearts? The World Ends With You? I’m sick to the stomach of seeing that kind of design. Sure, Lars and Alisa do not represent the whole game, but dang I had to wait two more years just for them and just so I can see their story in the Scenario Campaign mode.

Oh and the bloody Scenario Campaign. I play fighting games for instant gratification. I take up the controllers, beat people up, end of the happy lovemaking. I did like the little story sequences that occur at the beginning, middle and end of each playthrough in Tekken 5 because they gave each fighters some character, but they’re short and snappy, and the portions when I’m playing the game felt like how it would play on the arcade – short, but satisfying. In Tekken 6, I cannot see the each fighter’s story without having to play the Scenario Campaign mode, which is loaded with long yet boring cutscenes (of Lars and Alisa) that take themselves so seriously, they even had to quote Nietzsche (and wow, thanks for making it about the two least engaging characters of the game). To make it worse, Scenario Campaign doesn’t play like a fighting game, but more like a beat-em up a la Streets of Rage, minus the multiplayer and minus the moves that clear swarms of enemies when I’m surrounded by them. This chore, to unlock the fighter’s brilliant story mode, right? Well thanks to the genius of Namco, the story mode is only four battles long (as opposed to Tekken 5’s eight). It never feels satisfying.

But you’ll be wrong if you think that my only issue with Tekken 6 is that it spent two more years to add mediocre contents. Regardless of when this gets released, I would’ve been griping about the way Tekken plays. One of my biggest Tekken peeves is that the game tries to look realistic, but the fighting is anything but realistic, especially when a fighter launches an opponent and juggles ad nausea. Tekken 5’s juggling was too much, but Tekken 6 just had to make it worse thanks to the new “crush” moves. Whenever I use the “crush” move on an airborne opponent, the opponent would bounce off the ground and can be juggled AGAIN. So in a competitive match the winner is determined by who abuses juggling the most. The fighting feels even cheaper now.

When I play a sequel there are certain things I expect; first, is that it has to improve the series, and second is that if it gets delayed then the “alleged” upgrade must justify the delay. Tekken 6 achieves neither, so while I still like playing it, I can’t imagine myself being dedicated to this game the way I am with other fighting games, or even the earlier Tekken. Bummer, but I’ll get over it.

Reborn

I’m back. I’m back.

Has that registered yet? Good. There will be a few updates in the next few days, but for now I just want to tell everyone why I haven’t been blogging and why my extended leave will end now.

Last September, I told you about a project that has been keeping me busy; turns out that I only managed to finish doing it last week. I won’t pretend that I have been extremely involved in my project for the entire two months, but I just never found a desire to write, because every time I tried (as I did a few times) a voice inside tells me “shouldn’t you be doing something else”. With the project now done I feel that I’m no longer burdened, and can resume doing the things that I like doing, which includes writing – which I honestly am still rusty at.

I still cannot tell you about the project now, but when it gets online (which should be this week or the next) I’ll let you know.

Frank Sinatra

I feel sorry for Frank Sinatra. How many times must he has turned in his grave for the way karaoke singers, to this day, continue to slaughter My Way? More than once I’ve seen reports about KTV bar brawls, or even murders, and the interviewed investigation personnel always jokes that an out-of-tune singing of My Way must’ve instigated the crime. Funny the torments that a song about dying with dignity can cause.

Because of that song, though, and the way he’s often portrayed by the media, I long had this notion that Frank Sinatra is the imago of a gentleman. Whenever I’m set to do a task, usually a daunting one, I tell myself to do it the Frankie way: forceful, manly (but not rough as macho is often attributed to), and with style – perhaps, suave as his singing voice. Strange, then, that for too long it was precisely all my flattering impressions of him that deterred me from ever listening to any of his albums. I believed he was too perfect, and I don’t want to listen to music from any musicians who is flawless. Further, I just didn’t like My Way, Strangers In The Night, or anything by him that is favored by karaokes. I’ve ignored him until two years ago, when I bought his Come Fly With Me and Come Dance With Me albums, just to be able to form substantiated opinions about Frankie’s work. Later on I got In The Wee Small Hours and Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, because those two consistently pop up in best albums of all time lists, including the one in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It was only in In The Wee Small Hours that I got to see Frankie as someone who dares show that he is vulnerable like all the rest of us.

02 - Mood Indigo (Frank Sinatra)

In The Wee Small Hours is Frank Sinatra’s comeback, years after his singing career was on a standstill. His first under Capitol Records (after leaving Columbia Records), it was notable for being, allegedly, a reflection of his widely publicized marriage with Ava Gardner. It’s a sad record, and feels like watching someone mourn. Frankie isn’t a composer. He doesn’t even write the lyrics of his songs. All he does most times is interpret American standards. Yet, his delivery in every tracks here is done with a sincerity that make them sound like they are written just so that they can be sung by him. The accompanying instruments are used sparely, as if to accentuate his gloom, like he was inviting only those who care about him to stay and hear of his troubles, while shooing all the rest who flock to him only when they’re in a party mood. It’s nearing dawn, the bar is getting empty, and he is sitting at a bar counter, staring at his glass of beer, babbling all his troubles out and drinking as if the alcohol will obfuscate all his bitter memories and make him forget all the tears streaming down his eyes.

04 - You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me (Frank Sinatra)

A year after In The Wee Small Hours, he seems to have picked himself up again and, in Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, return to the up-tempo swing that he is so commonly associated with. I have to admit, I find him far less entertaining in this light than how he is when he’s depressed and blue (he would revisited that mood later in Only The Lonely). Often, swing music with any kind of vocalist frustrate me, in that I try to like them, but couldn’t. Maybe I’m missing the point of swing music, but I can’t stand the pomp of their arrangements, like every minute of the songs have to be smothered with 5 or more brasses (at least half of the tracks from Come Dance With Me is like that). Not with Songs for Swingin’ Lovers though, because I liked it quite a bit, and found it very memorable. I appreciate it for being quite restrained, without losing anything that makes swing music fitting for when I’m dancing with a partner held by her waist. Some tracks are louder than others, but there are always build-ups or slow-downs, giving them rooms for anyone, performers and listeners alike, to breathe.

03 - Change Partners (Frank Sinatra & Tom Jobim)

The last Sinatra album that made it to 1001 Albums is Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. I don’t speak Portuguese, and have never gone to Brazil – though it’s in my wish list to go there – but I’m not ignorant about Brazilian music. In fact, I know quite a bit about Bossa Nova, and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim is not what I’ll consider a very good Bossa Nova album. A lot of folks say that the decline of Bossa Nova came as a result of it losing its cultural identity by pandering to American mass market. This album is a strong argument for that. Many jazz musicians banked on the popularity of Bossa Nova during the late 60s, but Frank Sinatra’s effort stand as being among the worst I’ve heard simply because it sounds like the epitome of quick cash-in. It really could’ve become a truly great Bossa Nova album, since Frank took the efforts to persuade Antonio Carlos Jobim, widely regarded as the father of Bossa Nova, to work with him. Alas, they didn’t complement well because they probably didn’t understand each other’s style. Frank sounds lazy here, without the fire in his earlier works; Jobim couldn’t write a more pedestrian arrangement in his sleep. The result is a collection unoffensive, but ultimately forgettable, songs. Why is it even in 1001 albums list?

Swept Away

Let me tell you something – I can’t stand going to Facebook these past two days. Why? Well, I expected Facebook contacts to be posting pictures, status updates, and videos about how hard-hitting typhoon Ondoy is (I’m talking about those who are from the Philippines; so those from other parts of the world, we’re cool). And I’m not saying no one did exactly that, but it’s just that there ARE some people who live in the Philippines, know what’s going on, but then they’d rather post self-absorbed status updates as though those are all that matter in their world. Which might be the case.

I’m not anti-fun, but seriously, don’t you guys know anything about bad timing? Can’t you guys keep your private life nonsense to yourselves for just two days? Can’t you post pictures of yourselves and your babies and your boyfriends for your friends to envy some other time? Some of us could barely make it out safe. Some have cars, belongings, and shelters gone because of the flood. Tell us something useful!

Here are some gems of wisdom, for keeps. I would’ve loved to give commentary, except I think they speak for themselves.

“met up with [censored] in sm to have our saturday lunch date, bought [censored] her fave vanilla cake. while celebrating bigla brownout buti na lng may candle hehe=)”

“the one working PC at the airport — some dumb chick hogged it and started playing FarmVille on Facebook while people lined up behind her — for 10 mins. now. WTFISWRONGWIDPEOPLE?!”

“♥ has found that special someone, and she’s holding on tight and not letting go this time around ♥”

And how about this one: http://twitpic.com/jd9pu

Riiight.

Anyway, my schedule for this week has pretty much been screwed because of what happened. More than half of my coworkers are stuck in their homes, and those of us who were fortunate enough not to be affected by the typhoon have to visit them and help them out. I will be more than glad to do that.

I don’t usually do public service blog posts, but I’ll take exception for today. To anyone who is reading this, please seek out relief centers and donate money, food, anything. Find some ways to help. I’m going to nab three paragraphs from Ade Magnaye:

You can donate to the Philippine Red Cross through SMS: text RED[space]AMOUNT to 2899 (Globe) or 4483 (Smart)

TXTPower is also accepting donations for Ondoy typhoon victims via SmartMoney 5577514418667103, GCash 09179751092 and Paypal.

Tulong Bayan hot lines for donations and volunteers are 09086579998, 9137122, 9136254, and 9133306. Drop-off points are at Expo Centro in Cubao in Quezon City and White Space at 2314 Pasong Tamo Extension in Makati. Repost this info if you can. That’s not all you should do, of course, but raising awareness won’t hurt any.

…

Yeesh. I had to clean up my last post a lot after having published it. This is what happens when I haven’t done any serious writing for a long time; my posts get cluttered with awful grammar.

Cafe Bob’s Horrorshow

Some place isn’t what it seems. Anybody who has read detective stories would have heard of bars where people — apparently strangers elsewhere — come to trade info. In the city of Bacolod there’s Café Bob’s, which may seem like a run-of-a-mill pastry shop or restaurant, but is in reality one of the most recognized rendezvous site among the city dwellers. Take it away and Bacolod would still look the same, but it would, doubtlessly, leave a feeling of “something’s just not right” filling that void. It’s like what happens when you remove Rockefeller Center from Manhattan, or pull out a tooth out of, well, you.

As some people may have heard (from Facebook, or here if they bothered to read my last post), I spent the last weekend in Bacolod City. I’ve spent years living here, finishing my secondary school. Ever since I returned to Manila, I haven’t gotten to see my Bacolod friends very much, because they all stayed in Bacolod while I struggled in Manila, this forsaken urban wasteland trying to be a Singapore but never bothering to be convenient or to clean up after itself. Anyway, when I found out that I was going to Bacolod and that I had some time aside to do whatever I wanted, I called my friends, and we set to meet up at Café Bob’s. Easy as pie.

Speaking of pie, I wish I could throw one on Café Bob’s. A few things first: I am not a food critic. Did I ever tell you that I don’t want to be a food critic? So yeah, while I will pitch in some opinions I’ve heard (not from myself, but from a friend) about its foods, this post will not be about how they taste, at least not in and of themselves. Instead, I will mention about the overall below-standard experiences I got from dining here. Keep in mind that most of these are not opinions, because they’re unacceptable in the objective sense. People working in Café Bob’s, I hope you read this.

To start off, how in the world did Café Bob’s survive this long without diversifying? I’m a vegetarian, and as a vegetarian I usually can find pizzas or pastas that I can eat, so it came as a shock to me that in Café Bob’s there’s nothing for me except for cheese pizzas. I didn’t have to suffer through the same thing in another restaurant just a few blocks away – Kuppa – so what the hell, Café Bobs? Did you sleep through the 70’s? Weren’t you aware that there’s a thriving vegetarian restaurant down in the Burgos St.? The 20^th Century called, it wants its homogeneity back!

Even if I can put aside my selfish needs, there’s just no excusing the food served to my friend. The chicken she ate had frozen bits, and it came with potatoes that were actually rotten. What’s shocking to me is that she did not take her complaints to the management, because people who allow such transgressions to slide may be the only reason Café Bob’s is still in business.

And, by the way, what’s up with the service? I had to call the waiters four times and wait for 45 minutes before they handed over the tab.

Just to be clear with this, I don’t want Café Bob’s to be out of business. Like I said in my intro paragraph, something just wouldn’t feel right if Café Bob’s is taken down. See, I’m conflicted about Café Bob’s; I like that it’s a convenient place for everyone to meet up, but I am appalled by what happens there. So to those of you who work there, I hope you read this and try to pull your act together. Put bluntly, what passes as service there would’ve been suicide elsewhere.

(Oh wow, I wrote this less than a week after my previous post! Who’d’ve thought?!)

(Horrorshow is a Burgess’ made-up word; it’s used to mean “well and good and supercool”, and I’m using it to describe how horrorshow Cafe Bob’s sucktitude is.)

Tumbling Out

It’s been exactly 14 days since I last posted here, and I guess writing those travel guides may have worn me out. Still not in the frame of mind to write anything long and analytical, so I’ll just give you one of those good old “updates about my life” post, with no premeditation. Or, as they like to put it, stream of consciousness writing.

Been revisiting the things I wrote in the internet from way back since, since I started writing in the internet. I read my forum posts, my blogs from the days of yore, and my chat messages. I fear that, right now, I’ve lost some of the fire I used to have. Sure, I think I have a better command of English now, but I don’t think I’ve nurtured the flames of passion I had about writing back when I just started. Part of why I think my inspiration is fizzling out comes from my not reading as much books this year as I did the last. Last year, I told myself I’d read one book per week, which would sum up to 52 a year, and though I only made it to 45, that’s definitely more than the 10 or so I’ve finished this year, when only a quarter of it remains. I should’ve known better than not pressuring myself when 2009 started. It even seems like my blog is on terminal status at least once a month. This has been bothering me so much recently that I decided to post something on this blog even if it doesn’t very much fit inside my schedule right now.

Why? Well, I’ve been busy. REAL busy. I’m not talking about some ersatz “soul searching” hipster activity because all I do when I’m soul searching is spend too much time looking at things I shouldn’t be looking at – like videogames or brainless movies – to cope for my chronic ennui for my everyday routine. No, I’m really busy. Authentic, 100%, busy. I’m not going to disclose every details, but I’m taking my first shot at a collaborated sideline, and I’ve been obsessing over it since the last three weeks – meaning I was part distracted while writing those travel guides. I haven’t progressed much yet, but I’m confident that I’ll do better than usual in this kind of thing. I’ll keep you posted when I’m done with it because it’s something I want all to see.

Yet another videogame console has entered my building, and this time it’s a PSP, so that leaves PS3 as the only one that I still do not own. I don’t see myself getting a PS3 very soon, but I might need a Blu-ray player someday, so who knows. What I can say now is that I need to save money, so barring unforeseen circumstances or volley of impulse, I won’t get a PS3 this year. I won’t. I won’t.

So yeah, PSP turns out to be a better gaming device than I imagined. PSP may be the only videogame console of this generation that I have used before purchasing it (two years later), and one of my biggest gripes for it is the stupidly uncomfortable analog nub. Everytime I use it I would get really annoyed by the slightly tickling sensation I get on my left thumb. That was probably enough reason for me to not want to get a PSP for a long time. I only decided to go for it because… well, I’m not sure until now why I bought a PSP, but I’m liking it more than I expected. The games I play in it aren’t too bad either: Megaman Powered Up, Jeanne D’Arc, Disgaea, and Exit, I love them all.

Before I leave aside all this talk about videogame, I’d just like to say that I’m now a moderator of the forum of GameCritics.com. For those of you who like engaging in videogame discussions that goes further than “GEARS OF WAR ROXXORZ!!!”, go to GameCritics.com.

I also bought my first HDTV, but it’s for my dad.

And tomorrow, I’ll be going to Bacolod, which is an island by the middle part of the Philippines. While it’s not exactly my hometown, I spent 3 years of my high school here, so I have an emotional attachment. I haven’t gone to Bacolod for more than 4 years now, so I’m really looking forward to seeing it again, and maybe hanging out with some of my friends there.

I also have to accommodate someone for the entirety of next week.

Furthermore, next Friday I will be attending another Focus Group Discussion (?) from i.ph. The first FGD is actually the first blog event that I’ve ever attended, and I can’t say that I’ve attended much since, but I consider that one one of the more enjoyable events I’ve had, so I’m stoked for the next too. I’ve met some great people because of FGD, but I’m very sad that one of the attendees from last time has passed away just two months ago. Rest in peace, Deyey. I wish I could’ve known you better, but all I can do now is to pray that you find a great shelter in your afterlife.

Did this blog turn out less focused and more unreadable than others? I’m sorry, but I’ll try very hard to compose a better one next time around. I hope by next week I’d be able to rekindle my love for writing again.

Travel Guide Links

So I realize that I wrote a travel series on my own blog and that they were very time-consuming. I don’t want my labor to be lost in the ether as I write more blog posts, so I placed their links at the sidebar, just below “Sponsored Links”:

Just to get your attention again, here are the links to my full guide to New York City.

• Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Getting Started
• Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Tourist Spots
• Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Shopping Destinations
• Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Food and Entertainment
• Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Miscellaneous
• Bonus! New York Days in Pictures 

New York Days in Pictures

Very picture intensive post. No chronological order. Some pictures are from 2005, others last month.

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Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Miscellaneous

AT LAST, this guide is coming to a close. This section is where I put general advices that I did not give anywhere else. Some of these may make you say “wow, Nightdreamer must think I’m really stupid!” but honestly, I don’t. It’s just that sometimes we need to be constantly reminded of what we should or shouldn’t be doing, and the last thing I want is to see or hear you going through trying times on what should’ve been a marvelous vacation (or whatever purposes you’ve come to NYC for). So if you want to make your vacation great, keep the following in mind:

• Unless necessary, stay away from the crowded areas. This should be obvious, but a lot of people still go to Times Square anyway and then they’d gripe about being harassed by obnoxious tourists.
• New Yorkers are predominantly liberal.
• Sometimes when you’re on a subway train, people will approach you and beg for money or food. They come in two types; the first would say that they’re homeless/jobless and would be grateful if anyone could give them money or something to eat, the second would sing/play a musical instrument either for themselves or for their causes (it’s hard to tell if they’re legit). I don’t think that all these people are tricking you into giving them something by playing on your sympathies; some does look genuinely in need of help. So it’s up to you if you want to give them anything, but for goodness sake, if it’s the second type of mendicant people, don’t give them anything unless they’re making good music. I once encountered a guy who tried to beg by playing Merry Has A Little Lamb on harmonica. Nobody gave him any money, and everybody got annoyed with him. Who wouldn’t? I could play Merry Has A Little Lamb with my telephone!
• Oftentimes you’ll see New Yorkers take their dogs out for a walk. While it’s true that some of them have dogs just to impress women, it’s not a good idea to touch their dogs without their permission. If I’m not mistaken, I think it’s against the law. Same goes for babies.
• Don’t be afraid to venture outside of Manhattan. The Bronx has a zoo and a botanical garden. Brooklyn’s foods may be better than Manhattan. Queens… well, okay, you can skip Queens.
• On a similar note, step out of your comfort zone. One of the biggest reasons for traveling is so that you can have experiences that you can’t have at home, or experiences that are off the beaten path of the average tourists for an adventure entirely unique to you. Too many people come to Manhattan to take the tourist bus, and then go to the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and Times Square. Don’t you find that really boring and unrewarding? Also, eat in places that do not have a branch in your own country. That means no McDonald’s, no Starbucks (seriously there millions of better coffee in Little Italy), no Burger King, no Wendy’s, etc. For a more thrilling adventure, watch the less commercial and sometimes avant-garde off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway plays.
• Food vendors are everywhere, and while the quality of food varies, I don’t recommend buying their beverages (except for homemade lemonade) since you can get them cheaper in grocery stores or in drugstores like Duane Reade. However, when you’re inside a Broadway theater and the show is on intermission and you’re thirsty, get out of the theater (but do keep your ticket so you can get in again) and buy from any nearby vendor. The beverages in theaters are even more overpriced.
• It really pains me that I have to mention this, but for your own sake, please cross the road only when the pedestrian signal light is green. This is truer for those of you Pinoys who have a heinous habit of crossing the road at whim. You don’t want to have to use your travel insurance, do you?
• Bike rental isn’t a very bad idea if you’re brave enough.
• Don’t even consider renting a car unless you plan to get out of New York. It’s an extremely bad idea because parking in New York City is a major pain in the ass, and costs a lot too.
• When you’re done eating in a fastfood or a cafeteria, clean up your own mess.
• New York City is one of the most culturally diverse places in the world, so it’s not surprising if you find a group of people that you don’t see where you come from. If you can’t stop having discriminating thoughts against them, please keep those to yourself. Having an open-mind will do you more good than harm.
• So this may sound like I’m stretching the limits of how much I’m allowed to treat potential readers as naïve without coming off as patronizing, but this bears mentioning: do not ever call African-Americans the “n-word”. I’m saying this because I’ve encountered many Asians who have heard the word but do not know that it’s a racially offensive term. One of my Pinay friends once said it, and when I told her not to ever say it she told me that her teacher said it was okay. Ignorant college sophomores I can forgive, but what kind of irresponsible teachers instruct their students that it’s okay to say the n-word?!
• When you go to a store’s counter, the clerk will give you a “how are you” greeting. It may be awkward to us Asians because we don’t get clerks who’d ask us about our current being. Just give a brief and friendly response, like saying “I’m good. How are you?” One thing you should not do is to dump your own drama to them; don’t tell them that your dog just died and you’re really sad because you don’t have a financial support and your kid is dragging you to watch G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra despite trying times etcetera etcetera. They may be friendly, but they also have to serve the people standing next in line. If you’re finding a kindred spirit, strike a conversation with someone in the subway or in a bar.

Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Food and Entertainment

Traveling on an empty stomach is not fun. Monks and Muslims fast because it’s part of their spiritual cultivation, and not because they hate food. Unless you come to NYC to illuminate your being – in which case, what a bizarre choice – I’ll give you D minus rating on your intelligence if you don’t eat anything from NYC, and then I’ll take your lunch money. The rest of you more sensible (and hungrier) human beings may be delighted to know that because NYC is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world – people from all over come here and stay – it has immense varieties of international foods. It’s impossible for anyone not to eat anything here not to his/her liking.

Ok, a few words before I start. I am not a food critic and I don’t want to be one. I don’t ever try to get reservations on haute cuisine restaurants just so I can eat there all alone with fork on one hand and a pen scribbling my “critique” on a pad the other, like that guy from Pixar’s Ratatouille. I could do that, and it helps that I’m ambidextrous, but I don’t coz I’d look silly. For me, eating is just that, eating. Of all the things people write about, the one I least want to hear ratcheted up to a hardcore elite-level of ultra-academic dissertation is food (the second worst is videogames). Throw a bagel to a Somalian and they’d spend a lifetime thanking you kindly and they won’t say, “Oh I appreciate this bagel, but it seems lacking that much-cherished delicate taste of poppy seeds that would’ve made me reach a gustatory nirvana.” Food criticisms do not feed the hungry.

That said, I will still write a brief and practical food guide consisting mostly of what I liked from NYC, except that I won’t go into details and sound like I am meta-judging them like I’m reviewing a movie. Really, you should try any restaurant you find interesting and you think you can afford. First order of business is that you don’t starve; at a distant second, pleasure.

NYC Essentials

In any places in the world there will always be foods associated with it. Italy has its pastas, Japan its sushis, Taiwan its dumplings, Philippines its pan-de-sals, and USA its burgers. Not all part of US is best known for burgers though; foods that seem to be NYC’s specialty are pizzas, bagels, and cheesecakes. You can’t go two blocks in NYC without seeing them sold. Travel guides swear up and down that Brooklyn has the best pizzas and bagels, but those sold in Manhattan aren’t so bad, and they’re often inexpensive (for $2 you can have either).

Raw Fruits and Vegetables

If the place you’re staying at has a kitchen in it and you know how to cook, the best place to buy raw goods is Chinatown. Okay, it should be general knowledge to more than half of the world’s population that Chinese sell at the lowest prices, so it really shouldn’t surprise you that I keep mentioning Chinatown whenever I talk about buying anything. You can even go to the grocery stores to buy local and imported goods for lower prices than they are elsewhere. You wanna know what I was surprised to find? A box of Skyflakes with a “made in the Philippines” written so prominently on it.

And now for the good part…

Restaurants

Like I said a while ago, I’m only going to put in here those that I liked the best. If you really are looking for a comprehensive restaurant guide of New York, you should find a Zagat Food Guide, which is available in bookstores. Also, if the place you’re dining at has a Zagat Survey poster/tag in front of it, that usually means Zagat approves it.

One thing you should be prepared to do when you’re dining in restaurants is to add 10%. Not everyplace where you can eat in NYC requires tips (you don’t need to give them in some of the fastfoods from Grand Central’s dining concourse) but if it has waiters serving you the food, then that pretty much is a sign that you should tip. The only time you should refuse to tip is when you were given an extremely poor service. Expect to have a talk with the management whenever you do that.

Tavern on the Green – I consider myself really lucky to be able to have two lunches here and to be part of someone’s wedding. It’s great since I didn’t have to pay anything, as I don’t even want to imagine how much the foods here cost. Located at the west side of Central Park, Tavern on the Green is an ideal place for wedding, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s like a scene that jumped off the pages of a fairy tale. I think it’s more famous for wine than food, but would you care about that given its setting?

(photo from wikipedia)

Location: Central Park West and West 67th Street

Café Lalo – Don’t you just love how that name rolls off your tongue? Café la-LOOOW. *ahem* As I was told, this is the café where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks met in the movie You’ve Got Mail (I haven’t seen that movie). I’m not sure if Café Lalo was already frequented by tourists before then, but the movie sure made it very well-known. Ten years after the movie and I still hear people ask me if I want to eat at the place where You’ve Got Mail took place. But really, if you’ve been here you’ll see why it became a setting for a romance flick. It looks very posh (I can take pictures of this café all day) and the foods are priced very “posh-edly” too, but they taste great so it’s not all a waste of money. The coffee and desserts here are an absolute must – even if you’re not a cake-fan (as I surely ain’t) I defy you to look at them in the counter and not want to try them out. And did I say that it looks really posh? A pic of you smelling a cup of coffee while feeling all “ooh-la-la I’m so froufrou” euphoric makes for a spectacular Facebook profile photo for your friends to envy. See, what other travel guides cover your Facebook-egocentricity needs?

 Tempted?

Location: 201 W. 83rd Street

Asia Grill – At last here’s something more affordable (what, you expected Café Lalo to be cheap?). Just thinking about this restaurant alone makes me drool. I hope my keyboard doesn’t mind. Paradise is eating Vietnamese foods.

Location: 1239 2nd Avenue, Corner of 65 St

Lombardi’s – America’s very first pizzeria. Price is surprisingly inexpensive for a restaurant with a long history. As this is a world-famous pizzeria, expect to wait a bit before you get seated, but it’s worth it. There aren’t many other places where you can eat coal-oven pizzas.

(photo from wikipedia)

Location: 32 Spring Street

Vegetarian Dim Sum House – I’m sorry I couldn’t type Chinese characters in my PC. It serves Cantonese cuisine, and I recommend crispy noodles. Tea is free and bottomless, like how it should be in Chinese restaurants.

(photo from nychinatown website)

Location: 24 Pell Street

Entertainments

Man, I really wish I were done talking about NYC. The .doc file this guide is originally written is already on its 13^th page, and I still have a few things to talk about. I’m exhausted; I now feel like I have a jetlag again. But because I love you (and because every person who’s tired from writing needs to say he/she loves his/her reader so as to stay motivated) I’ll keep cracking.

NYC is a massive entertainment extravaganza. All year round there are new shows to watch and new concerts to attend. Since New Yorkers have a wide variety of choices of entertainment to choose from, it’s not a wonder that they can become very passionate critics of anything that less than satisfies them, while the rest of the world just kinda suck it up. It’s like what I was saying about food; the rest of us would be really thankful when we’re given food, but to New Yorkers eating isn’t simply a necessity, but also a work of fine art. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as New Yorkers will know much about any field of interest because of over-abundance of forms of entertainment, and be able to discern quality from garbage. The rest of us, well, we just wait years and years for the one big concert like the Eraserheads reunion tour, get ecstatic for about a week or so (and write blog posts about them), and then get bored for the next two months wondering when we’re gonna see another musician, solo or group, give an epic performance live. And so we settle to going to bars and clubs instead, partying, getting drunk or stoned, until the downer comes when we realize how rambunctious yet monotonous, thrill-less and meaningless these activities are.

If you’re feeling really thrifty you could also go to parks like Washington Square or Union Square and watch street performers do impossible stunts or hear soapbox preachers (sometimes cracked, admittedly) lash out against the system with the same passion as The Clash. They’re all a lot of fun. Sometimes you might want to attend to shows or concerts or speeches that are professionally organized. If you want to know when these events happen so you could plan accordingly, I suggest buying a copy of Time Out New York, or visiting event websites.

To further extend the point, I encourage that you have an internet access. With the internet you can find out about upcoming events. You can also use it to get the addresses of the various places you want to visit. It’s also useful for knowing what time any establishments open and close (this is vital if you’re planning your travel route).

Didn’t bring your laptop? Find the Wi-fi service of your hotel too expensive? No problem. Go to New York Public Library and you can use the internet without paying anything. Just present a valid ID and you’re all set.

The best time of the year to come for all these events is between June to August (summertime in America, that is) because there are all kinds of festivals happening. I dunno, is there ever a time in New York when there isn’t a festival? Anyway during these festivals you can visit various parks and you’ll be treated with open-air concerts from musicians of all stripes. Or notes or something.

Jazz – you’re crazy to not watch a jazz concert in NYC. When I talk to some Americans they tell me that jazz is America’s greatest invention. Some would even contend that it’s America’s only invention. Okay, I understand that not everyone understands jazz. Johnny hates jazz. Tunnel-minded rock listeners hate jazz (they hate everything that doesn’t have screaming anyway). But you know what, I don’t think you’ve truly experienced New York City if you haven’t attended any jazz concert. There, I finally said my version of that NYC experience tripe. If you’re in doubt, if you’re not willing to spend $30 to hear music that you might not like, then no problem. Just go to the free ones that occur all throughout the year (but mostly on summer jazz festivals). Check the event schedules of all the parks from NYC for more information on that, and they’re not only limited to jazz concerts.

If you’re going to jazz clubs, however, there are a few to choose from. The most popular one is Village Vanguard, the bar where the late Bill Evans (my all time fave jazz pianist) recorded his legendary Sunday at Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby albums. Other places to see jazz concerts: Blue Note, Smoke, Jazz at Lincoln Center, or, sometimes, Carnegie Hall.

Village Vanguard

Broadway Plays – this is another part of New Yorker’s way of life.  I won’t go into elaborate description of this one. Tickets to Broadway shows often cost more than a hundred dollar, so you might want to find ways to get discount tickets. One way is to go online and find discount codes for the show you want to see, and enter the code when you’re purchasing the ticket. This way you’d get around 40-60% off. Know that shows with discount codes are usually scheduled at least a week after. Another way, and this is more recognized, is to go to TKTS and buy the same day tickets. There’s a famous TKTS booth in Times Square, but because the line goes for very long it may take you hours to buy tickets. Instead, go to the TKTS booth in South Street Seaport where you only have to wait minutes.

Next: Miscellaneous

Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Shopping Destinations

When you’ve gone around NYC for a bit, you might notice that there are excessive varieties of stuff sold here, and they could tempt even the most economic crisis-embittered curmudgeon (try saying economic crisis-embittered curmudgeon 3 times fast!). Actually, I’ve gone to SoHo a few days ago, and saw just how savagely people spend their money there, and I thought: did the recession happen or what? Anyway, I’m not here to inculcate you on the virtues of thriftiness (yikes do I sound pompous saying that) but I have places to suggest to you should you ever want to buy the following:

Books

The largest bookstore chain in America is Barnes and Noble, but there are other chain bookstores, like Borders, Inc. If you’d like to imagine what Barnes and Noble look like, think Fullybooked (if you’re in Philippines) or Eslite (if you’re in Taiwan). Most Barnes and Noble carry a large selection of books and periodicals, and a decent selection of music and video products. As long as you’re not boisterous, it’s fine to sit on the floor and hang out with your friends while browsing for a few titles. I got to finish reading some comic books here like Batman Adventures: Mad Love and Strangers in Paradise Volume 1.

But if you’ve found books you’re interested in here, I urge you NOT to buy them just yet, unless if they’re computer books, in which case, go crazy. Write their titles down on a piece of paper (or save a message on your mobile phone) and then see if you can find it at Strand Bookstore (location: 828 Broadway and 12th St), where they sell new, used, and rare books at discount prices. Though it may be cluttered, it’s paradise for bibliophiles.

If you’re looking for compiled trade paperback comic books, you will be content with Barnes and Noble and, if you’re lucky, Strand. Those looking for individual issues should go to Forbidden Planet (located adjacent to Strand), which also has a great selection of toys, collectibles, and sci fi books.

  (photo from wikipedia)

Music

Sadly, I’m not very knowledgeable about where to get recordings. I saw a lot of independent music stores in Greenwich Village but I haven’t gone inside any of them, so I can’t say if they’re any good. Near Strand Bookstore (which is, near Union Square, which I haven’t listed as a tourist spot because I’m not a fan of that place) is Virgin Records. I guess the store is huge, which means there may also be a huge assortment of recordings, but I’m not sure.

So why did I bother writing a section on music? Well, I do have places to suggest if you’re into audio equipments. Go to J&R.

At the Broadway Street corner 49th, there’s a music store called Colony Record and Radio Center. It doesn’t sell lot of recordings in it, but if you’re a musician and you’re looking for sheet music, you’ll have a hard time finding another store with a selection as huge as Colony’s. I bought a sheet music of jazz standards there, which is splendid; now if only I can play…

Fashion

Before you start looking at me funny, I want to tell you that I know less of this than I do about books and music, so you can lower your eyebrow now. That said, you can buy designer clothes in Macy’s at affordable prices. The stores surrounding Wall Street (near the Ground Zero, formerly World Trade Center) also sell bargain-priced clothes. One that I favor is Century 21 Department Store (22 Cortlandt Street) for its large stocks of discounted shoes.

You’d also want to go to thrifts shop to hunt for secondhand bargain clothing (and other goods). Few of them can be found in East 23^rd Street, from 3^rd to 2^nd Avenue (or is it 2^nd to 1^st?). Their names are Salvation Army, Goodwill, and City Opera. It’s to your discretion whether or not the clothing, furniture, recordings, books, and artworks sold here are of good quality, but any store where I can buy a polo shirt from GAP for $5 is ok for me. Just remember to wash the clothes you buy there first before wearing them.

Lastly, if you’re buying I HEART NEW YORK t-shirts for your annoying souvenir-hungry friends, go to Chinatown where you can 7 of those for $10. Generally, Chinatown – and maybe Little Italy – is a good place to buy souvenir items at low prices.

Taiwanese readers, a little warning about New York City’s Chinatown (at least the one in Manhattan, at Canal St.; I dunno about the Queens one at Flushing) is that most of its residents are Cantonese and that some of them cannot speak Mandarin.

Electronics Store

Best Buy is known all over America, but, depending on your needs, that may not be the best electronics store. For everything that falls under electronics category, go to J&R, but if you’re looking for audio and video equipments, B&H (location: 420 9th Avenue) is even better.

Next: Food and entertainment

Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Tourist Spots

You may now breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, after having to put up with Nightdreamer’s ramblings about the most trivial things, he’s getting to the good part. Yep, that I am, but before I go on I have to say that I am not discouraging you from going to places not mentioned here; the beauty of Manhattan is that wherever you go, there’s always a place that thrusts itself into attention, be it churches with old-fashioned architectures, or stores that sell the most bizarre merchandises. I’ll only mention the tourist spots that I found unforgettable, for whatever reasons.

Museums

There are countless museums in NYC; I have read from one travel guide that says it’s entirely possible (and plausible) for one to spend an entire month going to every museums of NYC. What’s even more fascinating is that there are all types of bizarre museums here: there’s a museum of military equipments, museum of corpses, museum of sex, etc. Hmm, I wonder what the exhibitions are like for the lattermost.

Metropolitan Museum of Arts - or “The Met”, as New Yorkers like to call it. You know how everyone has his/her variation of “you have not experienced New York until you’ve been to _____”? In my book, you’ve wasted your trip to New York if you haven’t gone to The Met. Don’t bother giving me cries of “I’m not a museum type person!!!” Just do yourself a favor and go there at least once; I don’t care if what you do for a living has as much to do with art as soldiers with world peace. Can you imagine a vacation to Paris without a trip to Musee de Louvre? Same idea.

Met from outside (photo from wikipedia)

Its being one of the world’s largest art galleries may sound intimidating to people with no art bent, but don’t let that faze you. Most of the antiques aren’t too difficult to understand thanks to the informative placards near them, and they’re collected in orders that add to your understanding of the culture and the history of their places of origin. There are sections for arts from all parts of the world, and anyone is sure to find a favorite exhibit (mine is the section for India).

There is another branch of The Met called The Cloisters, which houses medieval arts. It is located at Harlem, which is far from The Met. Buses usually take an hour to go from The Met to The Cloisters.

Admission price: $20 is the suggested fee, but since it’s donation, you can merely pay $2

Location: 5th Avenue and 82nd Street

American Museum of Natural History - you can gain an encyclopedic understanding of world history from frequent visits to The Met, but you’d appreciate it more by seeing the replicated scenes of past days exhibited in American Museum of Natural History. It also collects replicas/preservations (I really couldn’t tell which) of animals from different parts of the world. There’s a planetarium connected to it too, and the shows are done in IMAX. An ideal place for both science and history buffs, but anyone can take delight in taking pictures of the dinosaur bones at the hallway. Like The Met, it’s an enormous museum, and I encourage multiple visits.

American Museum of Natural History from outside (photo from wikipedia)

Admission price: same as The Met

Location: Central Park West at 79th Street

Museum of Modern Art - the previous two museums can be enjoyed by anyone, but Museum of Modern Art requires a moderate degree of art appreciation. If you’re averse to intellectual-posturing visitors, stay very far from here. The exhibits can go from the contemporary art (which is splendid) to abstract art (which is, uh, interesting). Some of the most noteworthy exhibits are those from Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali and Frida. If those names mean nothing to you, though, then don’t visit. The abstract arts can get very abstruse, like they’d make you ask “How could anyone pass this off as art?!” There are “paintings” of a completely blue fill; how they manage to fetch millions of dollar let alone get exhibited is not a topic I’m willing to fixate on.

Museum of Modern Art (photo from wikipedia)

Admission price: $20, free on Fridays 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. when your only difficulty is fighting your way through a crowd.

Location: 11 West 53rd Street

Central Park 

If there’s something about the city that always bothers me, it’s the sense that the air I breathe there are nothing but assortments of fumes. Scenes of hulking skyscrapers may be nifty the first three times I look at them, but they don’t get any long term affection from me, not especially for trying to obscure the views of skies, replacing lively blues from beneath the cloud with drab grays made by nature-hating chemical factories. Cities look and smell like paint, and if they don’t have parks that momentarily drown out these joyless sights and smells, then I quickly grow weary of being there.

It’s no wonder I often have a desire to get out of Manila, even if only for a week. As for Manhattan, I may not imagine myself staying here for longer than a month without tiring of it, but at least I am content with the enormous park at its center, because it offers a brief reprieve from all the urban landscapes.

If you’ve been following my advice (bless you!) and have gone to The Met or Museum of Natural History, you might kind of notice that there’s a park connected or adjacent to it. Actually, you don’t have to go anywhere near both museums to see that there’s a park at the center of Manhattan, and it’s huge. Like, large enough to bury Godzilla and King Kong and their children huge. It’s impossible to miss unless you really suck at traveling.

There are various landmarks scattered all throughout the park, and they are themselves worthy tourist spots. Every part of Central Park is worth being lost in.

You know the movie Madagascar? It’s fictional in the worst sense of the word. There are no lions, zebras, giraffes and hippos in Central Park Zoo!

Times Square

I’ll let the picture do the talking:

That’s Times Square, one of the iconic images of New York City, where buildings double as projectors of very bright advertisement videos. It’s a very well-known tourist spot and, because it looks fanciful, has spawned imitators. After all, who doesn’t want to look like New York? Nanjing Road is Shanghai’s Times Square; Ximenting, Taipei’s. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there are many more Times Square rip-offs elsewhere.

Aside from all the lights, though, Times Square is also notable for Broadway theatres, hotels and restaurants. I would argue that Broadway shows should be your only reasons for going to Times Square more than once; you don’t want to know how much it costs to stay here, and it’s not like there aren’t good restaurants elsewhere in Manhattan (gotta say that there’s a really cool Toys R’ Us here though, and it has a giant-sized roaring Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic Park). Sure, Times Square looks captivating, who doesn’t love bright and shiny places? Of course I recommend going there once (except in New Year’s Eve, in which case, try to go elsewhere) and taking pictures there, but unless you can stand places that are overly touristy, don’t go there another time without the intent of watching a Broadway musical, lest you come to me whining on how I haven’t warned you about how badly you can be harassed by rude tourists there. Times Square being a crowded place means that the people, especially tourists, behave very rudely – I think it’s part of human psychology that we behave in a more hostile manner when in a cramped setting. You’d get pushed around without being apologized. Just to overstate my case, because I love doing that, a friend of mine once told me that he hated New York City because he found New Yorkers very impolite. Perplexed because that contradicted with my opinions of New Yorkers – I find them quite friendly; if you want rude, ask me about Hong Kong or Taipei someday – I racked my brains as to how he could’ve possibly formulated that opinion. So I said, “You stayed in Times Square, didn’t you?” Zing! I was right, and then I told him that he was wrong in thinking that most of the people in Times Square are New Yorkers.

Brooklyn Bridge

This is a bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. It goes a little over a mile, and walking across takes around 30 minutes. It’s a great exercise, and you’d be rewarded differently depending on which way you go: walk from Brooklyn and you’d get a great view of Manhattan; walk from Manhattan and there are pizzas and other restaurants where the bridge ends.

Empire State Building

Like how Brooklyn Bridge used to be world’s longest bridge, Empire State Building used to be world’s tallest building. Its main draw is the two observation decks where you can get a panoramic view of NYC; there’s an outdoor one at the 86^th floor, and a smaller indoor one at 102^nd, which requires additional fee, and is not always open to public. It was closed back when I visited in October 2005, and I just learned today (through reading travel websites) that it re-opened a month later. Sort of a bummer, but I can live without ever going to the 102^nd floor of Empire State Building. As a tourist attraction, Empire State Building is only worth one visit, and it does not belong to my list of “places you must have gone to before you die”. It’s up to you if you want to go here; I would’ve given it a more glowing recommendation had the admission been cheaper, and had it not required at least an hour of queuing time.

(photo from wikipedia)

Admission: I dunno; in 2005 it was between $15-20

Location: 350 Fifth Avenue

Statue of Liberty

If you haven’t heard of the Statue of Liberty then you must’ve fallen from a distant planet. Welcome to planet Earth, alien, and I hope you like eating durians, a fruit that I believe comes from a distant irradiated galaxy (and tastes like it too). Anyway, not a lot of people know this, but Statue of Liberty stands on an island called the Liberty Island, which has nothing in it except for the statue and the shops selling overpriced souvenirs with the likeness of the statue in it. Going to the island itself is easy – you have to buy tickets in Battery Park (and don’t forget that Liberty is a touristy place, so expect long lines) – but going inside the statue is a hassle. You need a reservation to go inside, and then you have to undergo security procedures before entering the museum by the statue’s pedestal. Even if it’s really cool to take a picture of you standing below the statue, the only reason I would recommend a trip to Liberty Island is that a ferry ride here (which costs $19) will also take you to Ellis Island, where you can visit The Immigration Museum, free of charge. Grumble all you want about immigration procedures; after watching the documentary shown in The Immigration Museum you’d understand that we have it easier than our ancestors, even if immigration officials may not necessarily have become more kindhearted.

Ellis Island

Admission: $19 for ferry ride, not sure how much it costs to get inside the statue, as I’ve never gone in

South Street Seaport

If, while being in another country, I was blindfolded and earplugged and got abducted to South Street Seaport, by the time my eyes and ears get uncovered, I wouldn’t know that this is part of NYC (until I see the Brooklyn Bridge, of course). South Street Seaport doesn’t look like the rest of Manhattan; elsewhere it’s mostly a steady stream of corporate high towers, but here you’ll see warehouses and piers. Those warehouses have since become establishments for shops and restaurants – fancy places for all you pesky mall-rats out there. Ferries that travel different places and cater to different needs are available. You can take a tour around Manhattan, or a tour around Statue of Liberty, or a meandering tour around anyplace the captain could think of while you spend 2 hours partying inside a boat made specifically for partying purpose. I won’t say it’s a definite must-see, but you can do worse by going to less desirable places *cough* Empire State Building *cough* than here, and some ferry packages include free admission to select museums or tourists attractions in Manhattan (for $25). Not bad at all.

(photo from wikipedia)

Location: South Street at Fulton Street

Grand Central Terminal

Filipinos, have you ever been inside Makati’s Peninsula? The lobby of that hotel looks a lot like Grand Central’s main concourse, minus the clock. Grand Central is a railroad terminal that has the greatest number of railway platforms, but if you travel by subway you’ll also be stopping by here very often. More than just being a world-famous train station, it is also one heck of a glorious building, and you don’t even need to be a trained architect to see that (try looking at the ceiling too for added sense of awe). If you’re a history buff, you can go to its museum and see how many times it’s been rebuilt. In and out, it looks great.

And how could I forget the dining concourse? There are plenty of tasty foods you can eat there, and, with a few exceptions (like the Oyster Bar) they’re priced relatively low for NYC’s standards.  This is quite easily one of my favorite places in Manhattan. It’s a great tourist spot without being a touristy nightmare; it’s beautiful; its foods taste great; and it’s the base if you’re planning to travel interstate, or just go to a more remote part of New York State.

Location:  89 E. 42nd Street at Park Avenue

Greenwich, SoHo and TriBeCa

These three get lumped together mainly because I can’t be bothered to write writeup for each individually, and because they’re similar anyway. Greenwich is a residential area for the moderately affluent; in the earlier days it’s the heart of the beatnik hipsters, but then Greenwich gentrified, so they moved to SoHo, to TriBeCa, and then finally to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Greenwich Village is the quietest area of the three, and you can see that the residents here spend lavishly in decorating their homes. It’s also home to many high class restaurants, bars, jazz clubs, gay communities, and Off-Broadway theaters (Off-Broadway are plays or musical for a place with smaller seating capacity).

SoHo (South of Houston Street) is known for its many art galleries but has also become a shopping destination for the young. Because it is home to trendy fashion outlets, it can be very crowded on weekends. To the south of SoHo is TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street) where it is quieter and where trendy restaurants can be found. There’s also a film festival here called the TriBeCa film festival.

Next: shopping destinations

Nightdreamer’s Guide to New York City: Getting Started

There are only a few other places in the world that requires as little introduction as New York City (NYC). We see it in media, especially movies, all the time. It’s one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, and people everywhere dream of setting foot here.

So imagine yourself holding a flight ticket to JFK International Airport (or any of the other two airports of NYC) and you’re bent to get the essential “NYC Experience”, but you don’t know how to achieve it or don’t know what “NYC Experience” actually means besides it being a phrase hipsters or posers habitually throws around. You can always buy travel guides, but they’re often expensive, and even if they tell you everything, they do it impersonally you don’t get very encouraged read them. What you need, of course, is someone who tells you where to go in a more relaxed, and more story-like manner, because that way you will remember what he says. That someone is me. Okay, so all that talk about travel guide is half-baked tripe, but I need a good intro, so there. Anyway, if you come here looking for travel or survival tips, keep reading.

 The real bird’s eye view of New York City

Yep, I just spent my previous two weeks there, in case you’ve been lying awake at night wondering why I’ve stopped annoying you through Yahoo! Messenger. This is my second time being in NYC, and the first time I went there (back in 2005) I stayed for a month. That totals to 6 weeks of my life spent there, which is enough time to get a good grasp of Manhattan.

My target audiences for this blog post are Filipino and Taiwanese, although I hope that it will be useful for anyone, regardless of their place of origin, their gender, their alignment (even chaotic evils) and their BMI. Also, this guide will only cover Manhattan. I don’t know enough about Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island yet to write guides about them. One last thing to add is that I do not know the hotel rates because I lived in my sister’s apartment.

Preparation

Know the season of the time you’re staying in NYC. From September to March you need to wear layered clothing – more so from December to March. Spring has the most clement weather, but it is also the least exciting season to come to NYC (no autumn leaves, less festivals, no snow). As for summer (June to August) don’t hesitate to wear shorts and tanktops only (as long as you’re not wearing shorts and tanktops that you use as sleep wears). Believe me, a lot of people in NYC dress that way; the movies may make it look like all people ever wear there are suits and gowns, but unless you’re attending an occasion that calls for formal attires (such as weddings or UN seminars) you’d look like a wannabe, and people here, more than anywhere else, can see past your disguise. Don’t wear hooded jackets on summer, please. I just can’t count the number of times I’ve seen pictures of Pinoy tourists being anywhere in Europe or America while wearing over-layered attires at the wrong season. That’s a lot like having jackets on in the Philippines whenever you take a trip to a coffee shop; you may have other reasons, but essentially, you look like a poseur.

And if you’re a Taiwanese youth and have one of those sissy effeminate Jay Chou hairdos, please style your hair differently lest you want to look like a tourist, because Taiwanese residents in NYC will adapt to New Yorker’s fashion. By the way, I hate those hairdos. They’re just like emo hairdos in my book of “sure signs that someone is laughably lugubrious”.

You need to have more than enough money as well, by which I mean if you could only bring a hundred dollar with you, forget about going to NYC. Everything, from products and services, to the mandatory 10% tips and taxes, will cost a lot. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t buy cheap stuff in NYC though, as I will devote a section talking about the best places for those.

Lastly, neither I nor my writing has the clairvoyance to know the purpose and the length of your stay in NYC, but if possible, try to bring only the amount of baggage that you can carry or move around. There are pushcarts in the airports, but you have to pay a whopping $5 to use those. I fully support depriving greedy bastards the money they’re lusting, and you should too. Fight the power that be!

Getting In

Unless you live somewhere in US, the best way to get to NYC is by airplanes; if you live in US, that’s debatable. Let me tell you now that if you’re from anywhere in Asia, the trip to NYC will be very long, and displeasing. Flights from Taiwan to US take roughly 17 hours; a couple more if from Philippines. The plane flies to the west and crosses the Pacific Ocean, and often has a stopover somewhere on the west side of America.  By the time you reach NYC, you’ll be exhausted.

And I’m not just talking about exhaustion that comes with jetlag, but also from long periods of not taking a bath, of being in a cramped up space that long, of sitting until your butt hurts, of watching awful in-flight movies just to kill time, of climbing over other’s leg when going to the restroom (or having others climb over your leg), of hearing wails from babies you secretly wish you could throw out of the plane, etc. Treat the trip as a mini-hike, meaning you should come very prepared. Bring a pair of slippers and wear them when in a plane. Have earplugs so you could sleep comfortably. And you might as well carry an underwear and a pair of socks because those you’re wearing will eventually stink. Be considerate to other passengers by not eating too much lest you pass gases their way. I will emphasize the last one because I once sat beside a granny who farted so often, I suggested that instead of buying plane tickets, which can be expensive, she should’ve blasted herself airborne by farting all the way from Taiwan to New York. She gave me the stink eye, and then stank the cabin once more.

As a small alleviation to the tedium of the flight, make sure to choose the airline that you’re sure has a lot of attractive flight attendants. Which means forget taking Philippine Airline, unless you’ve got something for old women. China Airline, on the other hand, has the cutest stewardesses, a word you could type with your left hand while your right does something else, but flight turbulence occurs quite frequently. Eva Air also has stewardesses that make you feel like you’re in clouds, which is appropriate since planes usually fly inside clouds anyway. Female travelers, ignore this paragraph.

Once you’ve gotten off the plane and left your baggage at your hotel or any place of lodging, the first thing to do is to go to sleep. Forget doing anything else for the day (besides eating and pooping), just go sleep and recover from your jet lag. Your body clock will need to be tuned in with NYC’s time zone. If you’re having a hard time sleeping, just cry yourself to sleep out of regret of not getting your favorite stewardess’s e-mail address.

Getting Around: Get a Metrocard

You’re probably reasonably well-to-do enough if you could come to NYC and have more than a hundred dollars with you, but don’t be a spoiled sucker by using the cab as your only mode of transit. Its minimum fare is $2.50, without the mandatory 10% tip. Take the cab only as your last resort, like when you’re in a hurry to meet someone and there’s no way taking the bus or the subway will get you there on time (then again, how would cab?), unless you really enjoy striking a conversation with cab drivers (in which case you should’ve opted to come/stay in the Philippines, where you can hear drivels that must’ve been borrowed from AM Radio hosts).

Instead, go to your nearest subway station and go buy a Metrocard, which is a card that you’ll be swiping if you’re taking the subway trains or the buses. Various types of Metrocard exist, but you’ll need the Unlimited Ride ones if you’ve come to NYC as a tourist (because you’re going to travel around a lot, duh!). Then head to the token booth and get a subway map, which is free. Lastly, you might want to go to any magazine stall and buy NYC’s city map.

Subway

The subway stations date as far back as, I think, the early 1900’s, and as for their appearances, nothing much seems to have changed. It even feels like it’s taken a hundred years since the last time any cleaning has been done. The mild way of saying this is that subway stations   have an exotic smell. Simply put, they’re sticky and gross. Yet, despite the appearance of the contrary, subway stations are safe and they’re the most convenient and affordable way to get around in NYC. Just get used to the dirty look and you’ll be fine.

Next: tourist spots

Half Blood Prince

I’m still not home, which means I’m not writing this post because I was loafing and had thought that expressing my (obnoxious) opinions is a productive way to spend my time. I’m writing because this post is two weeks overdue; I was supposed to have it posted then, but life got in the way. So keep in mind that I’m just kind of rushing out this post by neglecting all the formal stuff, like grammar or compositions, that often comes with good writing. Please bear with me.

So… yeah, I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince two weeks ago.

When it comes to Harry Potter, I would describe myself as more of a curious observer than a fanboy. I read all the books and would even claim a couple of them (book 3 and 4) as my favorite novels, but I don’t obsess over every detail of the story nor spend my time predicting every possible plot developments before the later books were released, and I didn’t line up on bookstores waiting for their launches either. In short, I’m no Potterhead.

Now why is this important? Because I need you to know where I am coming from seeing this movie. Specifically, that I am not an expert of Potter-verse. When I was reading the books I just kind of soldier on fast, without pausing too much to consider every dialogue or plot at length, and after finishing them I did not ever look back to re-read them. This became a problem to me when I was reading books 6 and 7 since I did not remember most of what happened to their prior books, and that was also what troubled me when I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It didn’t help that I missed the prior movie; I just didn’t remember much of what had happened then. After watching this movie, I still haven’t remembered anything from the previous part either.

While all that sounds like a bad thing, it isn’t completely, because the movie’s story is more self-contained and insular to the other parts compared to the other Potter movies, so I didn’t really need to watch the earlier movies to understand what went on here.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince sets up for the big finale, right before the final battle with Voldemort (spoiler? No, it’s not. You all know it’s gonna happen). It still follows the typical format of the earlier parts - there’s a mystery for Harry Potter to look into - except that this time the mystery is not artifacts or serial killers, but the means of destroying Voldemort.

That’s only half of the movie, the serious half. The other half is more lighthearted in tone, and it deals with romantic subplots of the main characters. I think both the serious and the lighthearted part of the movie are great, and the acting certainly helped, except for Bonnie Wright’s, who turned Ginny Weasley into the a dutiful wife with zero personality (her character was cheekier in the book). It hurts, however, that each halves of the movie has a jarring disconnect with the other, that they feel like they’re from different movies at times. The characters involved in the super serious scenes are not involved in the lighthearted scenes, and the reverse is true.

So when you see Dumbledore, you should not be laughing because it’s so inappropriate, but when you see Ron Weasley, laugh your hearts out. I guess.

You know what I’ve always wondered? It’s how the evil characters in Harry Potter are not allowed to fall in love. I’m serious about this. People who speak to me personally know that I disliked the very black-and-whiteness of the Harry Potter; I thought that perhaps romantically involving the villains with other characters - villains or heroes regardless - may add more layers to the villains. Where’s Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger flirtations? Or how about a steamy love affair of Voldemort and Bellatrix? Wouldn’t that be fun?