Winning awards

http://m.interiordesign.net/projects/detail/2685-21-simply-amazing-restaurant-interiors-around-the-world/

Wow, it's been a long time since I rapped at you...

As always, dear drunken readers - sorry for the delay in what's supposed to be a weekly blog about bartending in Shanghai. As of recent I opened my first bar, called Logan's Punch a few months ago and I've been keeping my head down in the work grind. It's been a lot more challenges than I could ever have imagined and at the same time much morel rewarding. 

Which means for me so many more drunken nights in the beginning then were probably good for me. With that said, I got some great advise from a mentor of mine, a guy named George Chen who if you're familiar with San Francisco is a notorious (in the best way) restaurateur. What George told me was, Logan - you don't need to drink with all the customers. Meaning, I don't need to be downing shots with everyone but I can hold onto a cocktail Dean Martin style and cheers people with it. 

This is important to know if you're a bar owner or work in a smaller personality driven venue. This being China with super loose rules about drinking, hours of operation and what not it's really easy to go over the edge. It's better to show some restrain lest burning out replaces burning up. 

But, I did write a manifesto that we try to stick with:

Where is it written nowadays that when you order a drink at a bar it either has to be served to you by an unsmiling guy in a white tuxedo jacket who seems to stir a drink for twenty minutes or a douche bag with a waxed mustache who only wants to talk about his homemade bitters?

We say, fuck that.Bars are the last refuge of the tortured soul. Bars are for celebrating and for commiserating; bars are for loud off key singing in a room full of strangers and dirty jokes whispered behind the clinking of glasses and conspiratorial winks. Bars are your home away from home, the calm in the midst of the storm. It’s not about showing off or being pretentious; it’s about letting loose with your like minded, booze soaked brethren!We are here as a celebration of bars and the American cocktail spirit. We serve Punches, big glorious bowls of perfectly blended booze that dare you to do anything in moderation. We serve food, sexy, sexy food that’s like porn on a plate. We pour big, we play our music loud and we welcome you with open arms and raised glasses!

We’re not a speak easy, we’re a speak loudly!

Till next time

Delayed blog means the bar is on time

So my bar is finally opening up for business. Technically it's in soft open mode. So today's post is about menu's.

Because I'm one of the founders of my bar as well as the managing partner I found myself in the unique position to do what I felt was right as long as it revolved around two major points: 

Will it make money? Will it be fun?

First off, a bar is a business. Anyone that thinks that they do it just for the love is either so rich it doesn't matter or not responding in a revenue earning potential. Of course, I love making cool drinks and the art and technique of it all but I won't have these opportunities if I'm not make cash money every single day. If you're not hustling at the bar then you're just a customer at the bar. I really and truly believe bartending is art, you're physically creating a cocktail with your hands. Depending on the drink, you're using a pick to crack ice, you're slapping mint, you're measuring, you're tasting, you're appraising then finally when your drink is at it's pinnacle you serve it up to be judged by your guests. At the same time you're taking multiple orders as you look cool and jump around to the music. It's honest work for debaucherous souls. None of it means shit though if your pour costs are too high. 

This is where the joy, heartache and compromise of menu creation rears it's ugly head like a drunken Chimera. For my bar - I wanted to focus on cool cocktails that I wanted do drink as well as some unique Punches which is my theme. As one does I costed out my drinks onto an excel spreadsheet (yay math) and then rubbed my eyes and nursed several large gins as I methodically crossed out things that were way to impractical. In literary terms, it's called killing your darlings. After the wholesale slaughter of all my dream drinks (Louis XIII Sidecar anyone?) I needed to come back with some things that would work for my pour costs and keep a roof over my head. Instead of a lot of crazy esoteric alcohols that I needed to import or hand carry from other countries I focused on making crazy syrups, reductions and inventive uses for the common fruits I would be using anyway. One of the cocktails I came away with was a Smoked Grapefruit and Roasted Thai Chile Margarita which I could serve as a punch or even an individual cocktail. Costing out a margarita is pretty simple especially if you're using fresh home made lime juice, house tequila (mines 80RMB a bottle but still 100% blue agave) and cointreau. The costs of the grapefruit and thai chile were negligible as we're using them for many other things both in the kitchen and in the bar.  

From that eureka moment more and more drinks followed, Salted Caramel Old Fashioned's, Strawberry Green Tea Mojitos, etc, etc. I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel when it comes to drinks but I'll be damned if I do any more of that pre-prohibition bullshit. Yes, I'm aware Old Fashioned's are "pre-prohibition" but shut up.

With Punches, since they are volume drinks it came to be more like deconstructing a recipe, examining it's strengths and weaknesses as well as costs and prep time. I found drinks I can prep the day before tasted better and we're easier to serve in the volumes that I was looking for. I also used a lot of inspiration from David Wondrich's fantastic book, "Punch" to get the idea behind some recipes as well as the history. 

Then I made some drinks that are so amazing, so delicious that they defy the written word. My Punches turned out so well that in the history of humans interaction with alcohol this is the biggest thing to happen since someone thought to add ice to a distilled spirit. Possible hyperbole in that sentence. You'll have to come over and try though. 

So will my menu be fun? I've added the "F" word a lot because that's a fun word. I gave my drinks names like, Wheel Chair Assassins, The Bastard of Bolton and Naked Lunch. There's dirty jokes on the menu as well as literary references for the high society boozer. I think the menu defines one of your most important guest interactions. For the guests it's a little piece of this strange nightlife world that's explained to them in language they can understand. I don't care if your menu is in Chalk, Printed or scribbled on a sleeping hooker, what you choose to write reflects what you are about as a bar. Because I'm in Shanghai my menu is in both English and Chinese and so I thought it'd be interesting to play with the dual nature of drinking - the light and the dark. For the English, the language was rough and braggish and in Chinese instead of doing a direct translation I went the opposite and it flows almost poetically. Each menu item description lists the same ingredients but the message it conveys in the limited space tells a completely different story.

With every menu you should want to push it to the limits and show people that the best bars, no matter how well they're decorated or how shitty they look can always be Business in the front and Party in the back. 

Like a booze serving mullet. 

The Business of Booze

300,000 RMB = 50,000 USD spent in the club WTF

Booze is big business in Shanghai - it's not uncommon to see a table with 100 bottles of Dom Perignon competing with the table next to it with 101 bottles of Dom. These are Champagne wars and they're outstanding. But, the booze business is much different here then what I'm used to in the States and because of that, I don't know how I'll ever operate back in the west in regards to F&B. Like, China - it's just bigger. 

To understand the booze business you need to understand the drinking culture here. I think that it's a big trap that a lot of foreign companies fall into when they're looking to move into the China market. Booze companies see the staggering population numbers and feel like it's an untapped market. The truth is, outside of the major international 1st tier cities like Shanghai, Beijing and even Shenzen the market is pretty much non-existent. I read somewhere that 97% of the population only drinks local brands outside of the 1st and 2nd tier cities. Travel outside of Shanghai for two hours to a place like Mogan Shan (莫干山) and you'll see at the clubs the only bottles to be seen are beer. Cheap, local, plentiful and warm. 

Wait, hold up - this isn't a lesson in economics. For a moment I almost did some research. 
Let me change my train of thought. Here's Hooters Shanghai:

Creating a business relation in China or how I learned to love Baijiu

So, as I mentioned in the last post I'm opening a bar. This entry will be about business  dinners in China The key to any successful business relationship is trust. In my almost 4 years of living in Shanghai I've seen that the way the locals build trust is by getting completely shit faced drunk over a long dinner or a trip to a KTV. Oh, China...

Typically after you've got a solid business plan and investors you need to find a property in which to conduct your business.  Here, in Shanghai and I'd imagine most other places in China the next step after you acquire a property you need to meet up with the local government of your district and wine and dine them for specialty licencing

                             
       (Hairy Crab, getting business done in Shanghai since forever)

Now, several things will happen at these dinners, there will be lots of chain smoking, oceans of Baijiu (a sorghum based alcohol) and rivers of red wine and or whiskey. For some reason that I can't quite understand most foreigners do not like Baijiu I however love it. It reminds me of burning hot firewater that takes a root in your throat, lights up your esophagus and warms up your belly. It's delightful and not for the faint of heart. It tastes of lychee and watermelon and bright faced exhilaration, after several shots served in tiny little cups it feels like anything is possible and my attitude and my paltry Chinese suddenly get much, much better. On the other hand though, if you don't like it then you'll probably puke. 

              (Chicken feet and cigarettes, the final thing I remember)

                                               

I've learned in China it's not the end of the world to puke or pass out at a dinner as long as you puke in the toilet and pass out at your seat. Being drunk is not a bad thing but being drunk at a business meeting when you're supposed to hold your own and is looked down upon. Yes, they will be trying to out drink you and yes you will be the host/victim of many toasts and shots but you can not falter. This is where I shine. As a beverage master for more years then I'd like to count I can hold my own with anyone from local government. That's when it starts getting crazy. Human nature is about competition, when it's two different nations being pitted together in the brotherly act of business drinking there only two options. Either surrender or leave the table of battle as equals. 

Every business dinner starts with a sizing up of the opponents. Usually, it's evenly represented - each side with an equal amount of people. Cigarettes are exchanged, with the heads of both parties receiving priority followed down the ranks. Then comes the toasting. I was once told long ago by a translator that if I don't like to drink I should say something like I'm sick or blame it on my religion. As a foreigner you'll be excused for these things. But, I'm not sick and my religion never held me back for taking out a table at a business dinner. 

Back to the order of events though, So the dishes are coming served family style,because this type of meeting with government always takes place at a Chinese restaurant that you're paying for. If you don't like Chinese food then don't eat much of it, but remember when your with government people the chances are that they've already ordered in advance. This is no problem if you have yourself a hardy before hand. Even if you like Chinese food, and I do, it still doesn't hurt to carbo load before you go in. Try to grab a huge dinner of rice or pasta, anything that will help you absorb the torrential rain of booze that's headed your way. 

After many interesting dishes made of things that you might not be comfortable eating do to moral, religious or textural issues the food is finally finished. Some fruit is served and the drinking begins in earnest. 

Someone told me a trick once where every time you cheers with Baijiu your supposed to take the shot and then chase it with a sprite or even water and actually instead of drinking your actually just spitting it into the clear non-alcoholic chaser beverage. This is for beginners and I've never tried this before. Why waste perfectly good alcohol. Keep in mind, these bottles are about 100 USD per bottle or even higher. When you're doing business with local Chinese government it's not cheap. I'm not going to say the "B" word here but this another form of it, hugely expensive dinners that foster business ties. If you want to do everything right, make sure all the forms are filled out, all the mountain of paperwork processed then these are the steps you need to take. Also, it's not my culture so I won't judge. I just know If I want a legitimate business then I need to go through the legitimate channels and these are them. It might be different if you're opening a flower shop but I sling booze and that's that. 

By now, everyone probably had a few shots and there is some etiquette involved. If your the head of your side you should make an effort to cheer the head governmental person. If you aren't the head of your side then it's the head of your sides duty to cheers the head government guy. It goes like that naturally with other people from the government side cheersing both you and your colleagues much the same way. Over and over and over again till the room is red faced and smoke covers the air, at this point there should be a few lesser governmental officials sleeping at the table. The toilets should be covered in puke and if you've succeed in not making a total ass of your self or being to drunk then the head governmental official will say that it's time to go. Don't make the lead government person loose face by getting him too drunk unless he's the one initiating it. If he stops drinking don't force the issue. Later, there will be an effort on their part to pay the bill. Whatever happens don't let them. Discreetly pay, also pay for their equally expensive take away items that they've already pre-ordered and then start saying your heartfelt good byes. After the dinner concludes both sides generally like each other much more and even though there is a huge ocean of language and culture for those few merry hours of complete alcohol overload the ocean turns to a puddle that's that's easy to hop over as long as you don't throw up. 

It's been awhile!

Fudge on a fudgicle. It's been awhile since I've updated this blog. It's been so long that even the word blog sounds stupid to me. But, that's me though. Busy, busy, busy. Over the last 3 years I've been the bar manager at Shanghai's top new clubs and now I'm going on another adventure. That's right, I'm opening my own spot. So, do try and follow these new adventures, whether they're mundane like selecting glassware or awesome like a day of hard core liquor sampling - I plan to update, post and edit things up and until the bar is open and running. Then it'll be a transformed blog (eewww...can we make better word then blog) of cocktail recipes, funny stories, customer reactions and more shenanigans. Who would have guessed, I'm going to own a bar. Boom

Electric Cooking Grill

Machine Gun Funk

Like all foolish things I set out to do this with the greatest of intentions, to dig deep and commit myself to writing about the nuances and craziness of bar tending overseas, of living the crazy American dream of little work, lots of money and a maid that comes three times a week. Then, the darkness crept up on me, I started to say simple little things like:

It’s cold here now in my second year of Shanghai and I’ve been racked with this terrible cough for the last few weeks. Before that I was food poisoned and even worse then that, I started playing my xbox religiously - these are excuses as to why I haven’t been doing any writing of late - haven’t been detailing my adventures in vigorous, whiskey numbed prose punching out words to a silent computer screen that reflects blood shot eyes and a devilish grin.

I had to stop that though - lying in bed all day, refusing either to go to the gym or to write and sleeping, truly sleeping in my desolation and depression was getting to be way to emo for me. The thing is that it’s not that I haven’t been having new adventures, new stories and favorite new concoctions but it’s just been that I’ve had no reason to write them down. Which is stupid because if I don’t write it out, experience it digitally again then sometimes the thing is like it never existed at all.

I’ve changed jobs since my last real posting, I left the half empty bar where no one would go except for my friends to a new crazy awesome nightclub where the only people I seem to meet are my friends or people who’ve always pretended to be my friends, bass music,vodka, champagne, loud uncontrollable nights that don’t end until way into the next day crowing themselves in the glory of the cold cloudy Shanghai winter days. In a way I’ve made my piece with the dawn, that ugly hour that sends us frantically scurrying to our homes in fear of the coming of the light. I’ve made my piece now with hangovers and wear them like a three piece suit, top two buttons clasped, last button open with a big pocket square.

I neglected myself for the last few months, I’ve put on a few kilos, got a few more grey hairs maybe stared into the mirror to much about my own mortality. Which means, while I’m unmarried and doing a job I love I should do everything about it to live the moment to its fullest, to grab the Jameson by the bottle and drink it up like life flowing from a shot glass.

Debauchery and diatribes ahoy...

American style drinking versus Chinese Style drinking

I have a good friend out here in Shanghai who is from Singapore, named Karl. He's very well off, educated in the UK and an all around crazy guy, the other day he asked me why Americans don't buy bottles at nightclubs here but instead individual drinks? He told me, he just didn't understand it. As a Lao Wei or a foreigner as well as a bartender I always thought that with the exception of a few select spots,the cocktails in the mainland just sucked in general and this led to it being smarter and better to buy a bottle. It's one of those things I've noticed my entire stay, if there are a group of Asians they will almost always order a few bottles of either Champagne or Whiskey and Green Tea or Vodka and mixers for their table. In terms of Westerners, it's always rounds of drinks.

I thought about it a little bit, maybe it was due to the fact that most Chinese people I know don't like to rent - they buy. So renting an apartment is frowned upon here - you stay with your parents until you have enough money to buy your own place. Why buy a drink in a bar for 70 rmb (almost 10 US) when you can typically buy a bottle for around 700-1000RMB (or roughly $100-$150)?
In  the nightclubs - the local culture is to grab a table with your friends, order many, many, many bottles, girls,fruit plates, as you smoke lots of cigarettes and party all night.

In the States, while it's not unheard of getting bottle service at the club it's just extra VIP, balla status. Not the norm. In the States a huge mega dance club will have a big dance floor, huge bars and a small VIP section. In China, where the people are a little more conservative with how they’re perceived, the dance floors are much smaller and usually packed with Lao Wei and bottle service reigns supreme. There are even second and third tier cities where there is no bar, just a small dance floor, 300 tables, lots of black lights and Lady Gaga.

Karl keyed me in the fact that the Chinese are very communal. This goes from the way they eat, in terms of big family style shared plates, the way the families live together as a group and how most holidays are centered around spending time with relatives and loved ones to the the way they drink. A bottle bought for the table is the ultimate showing of community. It's a little feudal as well, Karl explained to me, when he orders a bottles at the club, it's now his table - he's king of the table. The girls, the booze, he's host of the table and it's in a way holding court and  as always  I am the strange and ruggedly handsome visitor from a strange and far off land. There is more to it as well, at a Chinese table there are tons of drinking games, dice, things with your hands, all designed around getting everyone at the table, involved together, communicating, getting hammered drunk and bonding over distilled grain products.

In a western table with individual drinks the conversations turn more individual, one on ones. If we are westerners together at a bar are conversations are for the most part centered around groups of two's and threes. Obviously the exception is for birthday groups or bachelor/hen parties but that is not the norm.

So next time you're at a bar or a club in the States and you can afford it, or grab your friends and pitch in for a bottle. If anything, a shared bottle at a table is much like a campfire in that everyone gathers around it, it's sparks conversations that you might not of had before, it creates memories and hell, it's a lot easier then going back and forth for another round of Appletinis. If anything, you've got a story to tell. Play drinking games, cheers loudly with friends and bond over that booze - it's one of the reasons life is great in the first place.

I wanted to make some kind of bold statement about the differences in mindsets is that Americans are a nation of individuals, we've been told since our birth to be unique, to stand out whereas the Chinese are taught from the beginning that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down hardest and that conformity was the name of the game - I wanted to make some far reaching metaphor about Justin Beiber and Chairman Mao but it's getting late and both Karl and the KTV are calling and you never want to turn down a KTV with Crazy Karl....

Cheers,

Untitled

Chasing the dragon:

Shanghai is a grey messy mist, concrete and glass accentuates it hips;
curves with neon
amalgmated metals

She is big and clumsy in her movements; swaying back and forth across
the river some sort of growling, howling
sky filled with smoke and
horns, meats cooling over fires....
yet I must be the real monster
because to me you sacrifice
so many of your daughters

(0)

Visa Run:
Oh, the adventure has begun again in earnest. It started at around 11am today at my bar. I'd been sick for about 3 days with fever, a real mean nasty burn a hole in your head leave you soaking wet one moment, shivering cold the next, aches, hallicinations, burning, burning up in the cold inky
blackness, shadows turned to spiderweb turned to tunnels, not stopping, fever dreams, hallucinations.
Maybe I died that night.
Maybe I died the next.
I know I passed out on a Friday in my bed covered in sweat and stink. Later on Sunday when I came too I saw my maid had come and left me medicine.
Chinese pills called Buffrin, yellow 2 times breakfast and lunch blue before bed. After I took a few I felt better then I had in weeks.
I was alive.
Later in the afternoon a Chinese girl came to check on me, we played DR the rest of the day sick and in bed, alive and on top.

Monday 2.28.11
I woke up first at 6 am, strange dreams of my grandmother, on my mothers side. Dreams of her as a corporate macot for a company called Synergy. .
I woke up smelling still like the girl from the night before. After getting ready I rushed to my bar around 11:30am. Walking down the street to the subway station, gray cold out fruit stands red with vibrant oranges, grapes with a need of a little polish, women and men on bicycles with maskes covering their faces as they peddled by in massive numbers, thick coats and scarves bundled up against the last febuary morning chills.
It's quiet on the strets, the occassional honk but silent and the silence is so loud its rings off the hubcaps of the yellow expo cabs vans, of the run down bumpers of the shady red cabs and bounces back across the green neon for hire rof top mounts of the *dash* cabs, always on - even if there are people in them
My walk takes me past the bank, 3 sex shops, 4 fruits stands, 6 convience stores, several coffeeships and restaurants finally after passing countless people in parkas, marching army guards, old people people with canes, young school children with red bandanas on thier necks, some wearing blue caps, some bareheaded, some clutfhing their friends, arm and arm down hauai hai lu and I reach the Shanghai library, 10 line.
I pay my 3 rmb and ride through 3 stations, I'm pushed by the onslaught of people, so many faced, pale shanghai style with elegant features, fat wide and broken tooth day laborers, the occasional  lao wei like myself lost in translation, heaphones on listeniung to music, pretending their somewhere else.

To get to work I exit the train and walk through xintandi, the tourist area of old Shanghai style housing. Converted and gentrified by the local goverment to have shops, Philipino bands, bars, kiosks and beer gardens.
To work and it's a rush through the traffic that never really stopes even at the lights., Strange shaped cars, Citroens and expensive shaped cars - Maseratis, Bentleys, Ferraris all jostle with cheap shaped cars BYD's and vw taxis swerving around each other, no seatbelts or turn signals, bouncing around like blood vessesls in a magnified artery.
Yp in the elevator the little Ayi, cleaning as I ride up to the 6th floor she never bothers me and I but briefly smile at her. She must be about 60 on her hands and knees with a dirty cloth polishing the scratched bronze plated metal at the base of the elevator door.
In a moment I get off the elevator, strangely noting that our paths won't ever cross again  - not socially not over dinner or hopt pot, no jazz - just one moment where we shared a space as she cleaned the metal near my feet,
Out the elevator to the right walking past the empty eyed hostess.
The anticipation of the days adventure starting to sting like a nick from a close shave.
At noon a package arrives filled with 15k HKD, 20 minutes later 6k RMB was wired to my bank account.
I was to fly in HK by the way of Shenzhen, booking arranged by an associate, visa run of the damned.
My Visa for China had been expired by 5 months, a tremendous, horrendous and icredibly ridiculous feat of bold face craziness. Off all my friends I was the only one who had ever taken it that far. For five months I had been living in fear of arrest and deportation. Every knock at the door was answered by a girl while I waited perched on the ledge of my 3rd floor window, 10,000 RMB of cash in the side pocket of my blazer - ready to make a run for it, it was either that or a pissible 10 day detention followed by a 5 year ban from China and I just couldn't do that.
So I waited it out, did nothing - my usual MO.
During the middle of my 4th month of being a fugitive I happened to stumble on a Visa website, they hever had a case like mne before but for 13.300 RMB

To iphone or not iphone

An American Bartender in Shanghai
by Logan B.

My name is Logan and I am iPhone junkie. I'm that jerk that's surgically attached to his phone, eyes glazed over, charger always near, four squaring my location, twittering random and pithy one-liners to my 44 followers, updating facebook stats in the backs of dark bars about my random Keroac-ian escapades and generally hooked on the apps be it Angry Birds or the extremely useful Google Translate or the slightly less useful Fingerzilla.

Then the unthinkable happened.

I lost my god damn iphone, not once but twice. No longer could I be in my electronic security blanket, skyping with my friends back home in the states as I drank my way through the middle kingdom - I had to look up in the world again and pay attention.

To quote the wicked witch as she lay melting from Dorothy's pitched bucket of water, What a world! What a world!

See the second time I lost my iPhone was a few Sundays ago, it what can only be described by the musical styling of the Rick Derringer song, Real American. We had started out with some Sunday drinking at an American  bar that specialized in hard to find in China bourbons and whiskeys, usually in China when a liquor is hard to find and then it’s found it means either its been smuggled in (see our column about my exploits in Macau for more details) or it’s a fake. Whatever the case the booze was esoteric as it was intoxicating. Lots of the special edition Makers 46 served on the rocks, followed by round after round beer served by cute Chinese girls in country western outfits.

At this point no one was saying the word drunk, we were about 6 whiskeys and 6 beers into it per person,  my Shanghai drinking crew, the Mooncake Mafia and I when we decided, like the aforementioned Rick Derringer song that we wanted to be  Real Americans and fire some high powered automatic rifles while smoking cigars and sampling lots of different distilled spirits. This being Shanghai, China where everything is possible for a price, it took one quick glance on my iPhone App HiShanghai to find an excellent if not janky  shooting range that happened to also have a KTV in it. This means, Justin Bieber music blasting out the speakers, tons of beautiful and semi apparelled KTV girls and .357 smith and wesson hand cannons.

In about ten minutes we appeared, eyes glazed and booze reeking at the gun range, tucked off the main thoroughfare of Haui Hai Lu and Sinan Lu and up a sketchy looking elevator.

We walked in, pointed to a gun menu, picked girls out of a line up, fiddled with stereo and in no time were blasting more rounds then Jason Stratham in both Crank 1 & 2. It was an epic masterpiece of gun smoke, Jay Z, whiskey and green tea and cigarettes.  

30 minutes and near 3.600 RMB later we were back on the street, strangely sober, crazy haired and refreshingly more alive then ever before.

We walked down the street, energetically buzzing to our friend Wiki’s excellent cafe, where she was sitting with an Israeli drinking Chivas. That really made me reflect on the truly international aspect of Shanghai - sure, it Chinese here, that is a given but also, it’s a huge diverse group of French, Italians, Canadians, Africans, Arabs, Colombians, Americans, Belgians, Australians, just a whole hodge podge of different cultures and beliefs but its not a melting pot like back in the states, Shanghai is still more of a salad bar. The people are all here, just not tossed and seasoned yet.

After we finished her bottle we debated on ordering another bottle from Sherpa’s the Shanghai delviery service. Based on similar Western concepts like Waiters on Wheels they deliver food from a vast majority of restaurants all over Shanghai - the nice kick is that they also deliver liquor and cartons of cigarettes as well as mixers and ice. Instant party, natch China.

We decided against it and hopped into cabs after that back to my bar to meet up with my old friend John Jameson, in the cab I used an app to show the driver where we wanted to go - I didn’t have to say a word, just showed him the screen, easy as pie.

When we arrived we noticed that there was a private event going on - Chinese break dancers were busting sloppy windmills to mando-pop as a row of Chinese girls in playboy bunny outfits did some poorly choreographed dance moves partnered by local guys with bad haircuts and shiny silver suits.

I went to pull out my phone to take a video and post it to facebook - my incredulity at the situation maybe more of a mask to hide the strangeness I found at the whole scene- here I was a million miles from home, truly and completely at the mercy of my friends and luck, using this little hand held wonder to act as a shield between me and the amazing world going on in front of me and it wasn’t in my pocket.

It was gone, my precious. I freaked out - what would I do if I couldn’t upload something to youtube  or download a viral video and make it into a ring tone to play ironically? I was scared, I was frantic, of the two things I need in this physical world, coffee and my iphone  -I was out and I’m pretty sure I would have done without the coffee.

The world around me was so strange, I couldn't share - just absorb it. The food I ate the rest of the day, street meat vendor octopus on a stick - the double magnum bottle of Dom Perrignon Champagne I gulped down later that night at the nightclub, there was no barrier, nothing to let me record and live vicariously through digital means.

Later that night when I stumbled into a cab I actually had to speak to the driver, it was then that I realized I’ve been here almost a year and depended on my apps for everything. I could barely get by to my own house with the sorry amount of Chinese I could mumble. I had a moment of clarity, I realized life without my technology would be hard, it would be boring at times during long commutes and meetings, it would be frustrating in strange cities but always it would be real an adventure and mine. Not to be instantly shared and tossed head long into the data stream of updates and tweets but instead savored like a single malt whisky. I’d have to learn Chinese, I’d have to pay attention to reality and not the augmented version. I still love my internet, my tech, my social media but now I understand they have their place just as I have mine - or maybe Steve Jobs didn’t have a hard drinking, fast living,  American bartender  in Shanghai when the him and the boys in Cuppertino designed their shiny piece of trouble. Whatever the answer, I’m less connected digitally then I have ever been but more here in the now as well.

Cheers.

Shanghai, I love you

Shanghai, you filthy, wholesome, intoxicating, red faced, cigarette smoking, green tea and whiskey drinking, neon overloaded, fake rolexed, pink money stained, freshly minted millionaire of a technical metal masterpiece, glass filled and people full metaphor of excess and traditionalism, this is my breathless and bleary eyed, bajiou breathed primal scream from the comfort of your warm embrace.

Shanghai, you are noodles in the evening, noodles in the morning and noodles, noodles, noodles, spilling out of taxis, snaking around long metro lines, into the streets, spilling hot soup that rises like steam from dumplings over Huai Hai Lu, the far off barely remembered sounds of rickshaws makes way to the click clacking of iPhone as the new generation of thieves and KTV girls mixes with the suits, the pioneers, artists hell bent to change the direction of the wind, cloud bursting missiles showering similes of better city better life over fake dvd markets and foot massages that go all the way up. In call tailors out call services, exploding over the night like with  all the persuasiveness of the homeless ladies screaming down the streets with flowers, half asleep babies dangling off their arms like cigarettes, grasping in the ice cold winter, hanging like icicles of the pockets of drunken lao wei, yelling indecipherable Chinese, lost on frozen ears in the madness of the boozy blackness.

Shanghai you  are a silk evening gown, the bottoms trailing along the Bund passing Euro Trash dick bags and immaculate Jazz age buildings kept between wars and revolutions, the sudden scream of bombing runs can almost be over head among the din roar of the gathered crowds of debauchees and custom made suits, tailored by chiseled hands, gnarled and stained and smiling with your Shanghai-ren secret language and sibling less children who are left to fend for themselves in the digital revolution, fading from Mao like the receding hairlines of so many of the fat Western business men that your daughters flock to in outstanding droves, lemmings rushing to the cliffs, champagne in one hand, pouty lips and big eyes, pale skin cream white faces, long, long, long, long legs and short, short, short, short skirts, embracing destiny stoic and chic.

Shanghai you are smog thick and graffiti free, recycled cooking oil and contaminated tap water, racist tooth pastes and a corruptible incorrigible, a super fine slick that sticks to the roof of the mouth, flicking with the tongue and foul odors that make way to mind blowing light displays, loud fireworks, loud life, quiet homes, clinically insane by committee, traditionally inappropriate by real politik, insatiable hungry for more and carrying the world on and on and on.

Shanghai you are beautiful, you are my mistress and third love, you are coquettish smiles and xiao long bao, you are like all others I’ve loved, doomed to be cheated on, older then me, wiser then me and way more wealthier, with more friends and intensely jealous of all my wasted potential, you are my booty call and current steady crush, wrapped up and steamed then slightly fried and sold back for 5 kwai, lost in vinegar, slurped up with broth in a dirty hole in the wall over cafeteria style tables and long bottles of green Tsing Tao and people hacking up spit, served with an soy boiled egg and some tissue paper.

Shanghai you are a mess, leftovers from the last nights party, waiting penitently for the Ayi to clean everything up in silence, cold water pipes bursting and flooding cozy french concession apartments with modern flat screens and squat toilets, outside kitchens and washing machines with no dryers, laundry left outside to air dry, lipsticked smeared champagne flutes softly spilled out on the ground, a hapless, single minded portrait of over filled ashtrays and puddles of vomit in the sidewalk

Shanghai, you are too much and you are not enough, a tug of rope of 22 million people and expired expats exhausting one last git into the calamity of the nigh time insanity, familiar and strange like weird flavored potato chips, cool cucumber, shrimp hot pot, beef curry and whitening creams and tanning salons, strange named locals, Yellow, Puppy Chow, Elvis, Gold and terrible cocktails, fake booze bottles, fake clothing and genuine people, looking for worldly outsiders to seduce and take away like a doggie bag.


Shanghai you give me hangovers in my soul, my spirit crushed after every nights heavy drinking, a little piece is lost of myself in every shot as the glint in the eye gets ever brighter and the ruckus starts again, long lasting superior night bred, whirling carousel of so many faces, so many girls and songs and bass, and bass and bass and there it is again, that dragon we’re chasing after, long serpent tail flickering threw the night, so close to reach out and grab it, one more shot, one more club, one more, it’s the only one, the one, then more, then one more the only thing, shots become bottles become buckets becoming crazy, one more, the dragon closes in and flirts in the night runs away tail zooming through the next door, the next club, spilling dice, taxi cab Chinese, trumpet blaring, singing down the street, that we are almost there, the dawn slowly opening its blood red eyes, the dragon just ahead of us, its Mao and the late nights, Brazilians and Nigerians, Models and ex Cons, so close to grabbing it, then the Sun is up in entirety  yelling at us like an old man to get off his god damn lawn, out of the corner of the eye you can see as the Dragon races back into the sky, chased but never caught, like every other night becomes shampoo instructions, wash rinse, repeat.

A sacrilegious kind of Christmas

I could start this description of the nights events in several different ways, for example, I could say, behind the blue smokey glow of a candle in the early morning I sat down to type something that could only happen in Shanghai, the shine from the laptop my only companion on this hazy Christmas eve or I can take it a step back, say something like, it was 9:30 on Christmas eve when my How Pong Yo Benny asked me if I wanted to go out.

Now, I’m not a man that starts out a good story with, I was at home reading a book last night and so I won’t start this one out like that either - instead, let me tell you about debauchery, charm, charisma and a game of dice all on a Christmas eve.

I go out with my friend  to a KTV, shiny lights and girls in short sequined blue skirts with smiles in their eyes and Santa hats on top o’ their crowns. I’m antsy and there is a stick up my ass a mile long - I’m just not in the mood to pay some girls to talk with me, to laugh at my dumb  jokes, I’m cocky enough to realize that enough girls do that for free. “Whatever”, I shrug into the cold dark night, cold so damp it hits your bones and starts digging - cold so vibrant and alive you want to invite it out for dinner, take it drinking and put it in a cab when it’s had to much. Cold so dark, so evil that you don’t care if it gets into trouble, just as long as it knows you won’t be there in the pale dark moon to bail it out.
We take the taxi to the KTV on some sort of unpronounceable part of town, I know I’m in for a weird show because as always I’m the token white guy. I’m the freak show, the movie star and the topic of conversation all rolled into one 190 cm package of square jawed harlequin romance.
We go up an elevator and into a room, gaudy, mirrors, smoke drifting up and trying to escape out - Mando pop blasting and bottles of Ballantines scotch half empty, open necked, ready for the end, green tea hovering ever so close, long lines of half watered down glasses snaking around the table, ashtrays lead to ashes lead to corners lead to silken white legs lead to ladies lead to smiles and as I fumble my way in, try to say hello - recognize faces of people I should not have recognized, should not have known and then in a clap and a puff of smoke it begins.
Mei Guo Ren they whsisper behind my blank smile, American  I say back, whispering again, then the new girls they enter the room with a smoke clap - ten of them, each of them prettier then the next, short pink dresses, pink the color of grapefruit and proms, pink the color of the inside of the mouth, pink the color of fingernails and toenails and long summer sunsets, short dresses, long dresses all with name tagged badges hanging behind Chinese bosoms, on old fashioned word that springs to mind in new fashioned sense.
I am the wolf in this story, the unwilling or non-understanding Shark that’s been sent to feed and I don’t even understand the god damn rules.
But, like a crustacean at Red Lobster I pick one out of the tank - the girl that says she speaks English, Good-est.
What more can I do but wring myself dry?
I can’t look her in the eyes as I pick her out of the line up - I can’t see how she looks at me as they take her name card and stamp it like a piece of meat, can’t look at her as she looks at me with a smile and licks her lips as if to say, puppy love, who’s the wolf now?
She sits next to me and we make small talk, names are exchanged, mine should be my go to fake one, Billy, but for some reason I say my real name - my only name as if somehow I can use my own name to get by in this weird situation, this encounter seems less real the more I become a character and so I do.
Logan R Brouse I say to her with an outstretched hand and a glean in my dazzling hazel eyes and it’s god damn good to meet you, I say to her with a glass of tea and scotch in my hand as she puts her arm around me and sits in my lap.
Then it’s that easy to get lost in it - to envelope myself into the character of my self.
We karaoke, we laugh, she pours my drinks and I beat her in dice many, many, many, many times over till I get cocky - till I get exaggerated in my actions, each shot a silhouetted romance on a silk screen, all eyes on me, tallest man in the room and the only one with a story to tell.

Somehow the clock goes from 9pm to Midnight and a friend of mine whispers to me, wait till the games start.
They all raise glasses, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen people in the room, saying something about a Merry Christmas and how they hope I’m happy because that will make them happy.
These are not hollow words, in China I’ve learned that people mean what they say here, even the mama san, when she grabs at my gear and aims just a little to short.
Somehow the girls, there are more then I realized, they get me dancing, I’m not drunk but trying to make myself numb as I play by some sort of rules...which aren’t the right ones.
I’m used to Strip Clubs in the states, look but no touch but here, with the girls in pink prom dresses, pink like alligators on La Coste shirts, pink like dark, dark red that’s been drowned in a sea of white, they start dancing and take off my belt, my sweater and I get the rhythm and help with my jacket, my undershirt but they grab for my pants and I stop them, not yet I think to myself as I hang on with one hand on my hips, swatting against a sea of KTV girls, laughing, smiling, eyes that never leave mine, eyes that have seen so many more things then I in good faith could never do justice to on a scrap of paper, eyes that shine back at me, in pairs of dangerous brown hues with smiles that go for miles.
My shirt is off and I thank those same eyes that I go to the gym, that my pecks are peaked and not primeval and we dance as they sit me down, each taking a turn, grabbing my hands and leading them where they may, grabbing me and exploring a American in a way that they had only heard about.
It ends in a short burst of bad music, no sex exchanged, no sex asked for, just a cultural shock to the system - drained out and flushed away in the staircase of the KTV like an old q tip.
Out again in the starless night, the bright sky gods all ashamed to see their unknown brother and I head out with a smile and a nod - a trouble maker back in the blanket of blackness, incognito in the ignition...the cab drives me home and I can finally start my boring story up properly.

Article 4 for metrowize

American or American’t

Welcome back to the stunning conclusion of our decadent night and early morning debauchery in China, where we’re profiling a city that can’t sleep because of the heat and won’t stop because it hasn’t been told how.

When you run into fake liquor at a nightclub, it’s a lot like running into fake boobs at a night club, you smile, you nod and take the ride if you have to, never mentioning the obvious except in whispers that creep out when you think no one is looking.

You can tell when something is fake in terms of booze by the smell - if it’s absolutely rank smelling it’s probably a good indication it’s fake, especially if you’re drinking Macallan which I was. The cool thing is the bottle looked exactly real, the color pitch perfect, the labeling undeniable but as an international bar consultant and professional I could just tell. I tasted it and it was a bad burn, kind of like a mix of rubbing alcohol and the liquefied version of old Cracked magazines, in other words an awful, terrible imitation of something that was supposed to be so much more.

Gold my field guide and head bartender took it upon himself to argue with the staff in increasingly loud Chinese for about 20 minutes, as I sat with the imitator and watched the crowds of people in the nightclub around me, I was the only foreigner or Laowei in the club, that is until my good friend John Jameson joined me from my hip flask and helped skewer the rest of my senses of perception. We abruptly left the night club in what some would describe as a dead run, nothing being fully explained to me but between Golds broken English  something about the Bartender trying to fight him over the fake stuff is all I could get out of it from his panting between cigarette after cigarette on our cab ride to our  spot where shit got real.

We ended up at a KTV called Mr. Smiley  with a bunch of Gold’s friends, which meant scantily clad Chinese girls and scary looking dudes with broken English. Karaoke TV or KTV’s are integral parts of the culture here and it makes sense - who doesn’t like to get completely hammered and sing with their friends to all their favorite songs? Basically it’s a club broken down into a different rooms where you book the room for a few hours or overnight as was the case of the group I joined up with and sing, drink bottles of booze and eat strange food like duck heads and brined pigs knuckles. Now I’m no Andrew Zimmerman so I skipped the delicacies and opted for the hard liquor and fruit tray option.

In Asia they really have their Karaoke act together, there are crazy flat panel buttons you hit to change songs, multiple light switches that change the vibe of the room and if you go to certain KTV’s you also can find some companionship if you so desire. Rawr!

The place we were at wasn’t a dirty KTV much to my chagrin but for about an hour I drank on a bottle of Absolut and listened to the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard. I’ve been to several KTV’s now and it’s always sad sounding songs, to be honest I can’t understand the language and they could be singing about rainbows, lollipops and puppy dogs but it all songs I heard sounds like Joy Division mixed with baby tears. At some point I got so depressed I got up and sang, American Boy by Kayne West and Estelle, which is quite honestly the best song to ever happen to a traveling American boy. That woke everyone up enough to get another bottle and by the time we stumbled out it was about 6 in the AM.

In the States maybe this would seem excessive, dark sunglasses on during an early morning Wednesday but here in China, with the new millionaires being made every moment it’s just run of the mill. I freely admit I was a little wobbly by this point but as an intrepid Metrowize intoxicologist I knew I couldn’t cave out to a little sunshine.
Never fear the dawn. We rallied and Gold and some of the fairer sex headed with us to a breakfast spot where I discovered my true love Xialong Bao.

I don’t know if this enchanting dumpling is a breakfast food or a all day food or just mana from heaven but if I could mainline it I would - it’s that good. What we had in that early morning light was a fold out table and 3 small stools on the side walk out front of a little stand with a little menu and two mean looking old ladies and a steamer. Xialong Bao (pronounced Shaolong Baow) is a dumpling with a meaty soup broth inside of it. It’s hot and delicious and if given the option between them or Megan Fox I’d have to disappoint our boys overseas.
Some how during my feeding frenzy I blurted out something about Bajiou, that evil Chinese rice wine that somehow erases memories as it creates new ones in a sorgum cloud of fire water drunken out of lillputian sized thimbles and eagerly gulped down like wine at a Greek symposium.
It’s something I mentioned in passing between bites not something I asked for.

Now, I didn’t want to drink the damn stuff, I didn’t want to order the damn stuff and I didn’t want to finish the damn bottle but someone asked me, Are you an American or an American’t as they poured off the first round. The girls laughed at me and pointed, Gold my head bartender laughed at me and pointed, it was up to me and my all red, white and blue liver to stand up to these communists , which I pointed out to my pong yo’s (i.e. friends) and so I drank. Round after spiteful round at that little stand in the middle of the busy coble stone ancient street I drank and I drank for America till there were 3 passed out girls, two red faced guys who I’m not sure where I met and one bewildered restaurant lady. I was drunk, I was drunk for America. It was my Glen Beck moment.

Somehow at 8 in the Am I hoped a cab and headed back to home, my broken Chinese being belted out over busted baijo breath, bits of Xialong Bao on my shirt, fire in my stomach and the creeping thought that this is what it takes to be an American bartender in Shanghai.