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theravennest · 3 years

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Let’s Talk: The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion

I finished all 40 eps about two weeks ago, actually. I enjoyed it for the most part, the 1st half especially, but there were several things near the end that took me out.

But first some of the good bits...

The cast chemistry was immaculate. Our four main lead actors were a lot of fun together. Not just Zhang Zhehan and Ju Jing Yi, but also Wang You Shuo and Xu Jiaqi (Loved them!). The four of them have such obvious ease with each other after their previous work together in Legend of Yun Xi and it made scenes with any combination of the main four really pop.

I was especially drawn to the sisters’ relationship and the Prince-Vassal bond going on between Prince Su and Little Marquis. (Y’all know I’m a sucker for both sibling stories and stories about fictional royals and their loyal vassals.)

Most of the ancillary characters were interesting, actually. As y’all know from my last post about this one, I was crack shipping like crazy all the side characters. 😂 This cast made it easy for me.

Except for Prince An. (Sorry to hit the bad so early.) Good god, I hated that man. His character was poorly drawn in pretty much every way, which is unfortunate cuz he’s the main antagonist. Any story with a main antagonist that just doesn’t work is always gonna be weaker.

Also, no offense to people who like that actor but he was the only cast member who did absolutely nothing for me in terms of performance. So much of the story was focused on his weaksauce motivation and dry acting like, my god, put me out of my misery I do not care.

Anyway, the set design and costuming was top notch and I even enjoyed the broader story ideas the show was trying to put forth. The sitcom vibe of the first 20 eps or so was SOOO good. Our four mains’ comedic timings were pitch perfect.

Unfortunately, the writing took a sharp nosedive in the back 3rd or so and it had a rough ending. (The lightning strike on the tower scene, the fight in the underground temple, the return of Prince An’s mom...all of that was trash. let’s be real.)

I mostly blame this on three things: the missteps with the Prince An character, the lack of development of Rong’s prophetic dreams even though that was the main premise of the show, and the jump-the-shark moment that was the wedding night and its subsequently underwritten fallout.

Now to clarify, I don’t mean to say the wedding night event shouldn’t have happened at all but rather the execution of it within the story was poor and it negatively impacted 90% of the other character motivations/progressions and the overall pacing.

You know, it felt like that thing you do as a writer where you wake up and have a specific scene in your mind. It’s evocative, impactful, fun, or otherwise intense. But you just have that scene and it’s something that would have to happen in the middle of your story. So you work your way backwards to try to get to that scene and you do your best to get the characters to make decisions to get there but when you sit down to write nothing works out. It’s clunky or OOC for the scene to still happen so you end up having to either scrap the evocative scene or keep the clunky lead up and hope no one notices. That’s what that wedding scene and everything that happened after felt like. They wrote themselves into a corner and just struggled to recover until the bitter end.

The main pairing suffered the most because of the poor writing choices. No matter how much chemistry ZZH and JJY have together, even they could not completely salvage Rong’s yo-yoing behavior with Prince Su. They started off so wholesome and then dove into such toxicity and miscommunication for no reason.

Don’t get me wrong. I can very easily enjoy angst. But Fu Rong consistently broke this man down. After ep 25-26, it stopped being good angst and became so awful to watch all the emotional manipulation and turmoil. There’s something broken in the writing if 9 out of 10 times Prince Su cried or fell into depression it was because of something Rong did or said to him after jumping to a conclusion with only part of the puzzle pieces gathered.

I could forgive some stuff because Prince An was manipulating things but some stuff was just all Rong not giving Prince Su the benefit of the doubt or plain old not doing her due diligence in investigating. She is supposed to have inherited the most prolific and successful spy organization in the show and she still got 90% of her conclusions wrong. It was like she was determined to always think the worst of Prince Su no matter what despite how often he went above and beyond to help her. Despite the fact that he literally had a reputation as a general for being a harsh taskmaster but fair and just.

I think what broke me was when she did the bare minimum investigation into her own father’s death and just fully blamed Prince Su without confronting him honestly or even considering his personality or their relationship up until that point. She really believed a single street seller’s entire testimony over the man she lived with and supposedly loved for months. Girl...

And this is after she’d previously mistakenly accused him of killing her mentor with very few facts to the point where she stabbed him on their wedding night.

There came a point where I actually wanted Prince Su to finally, truly divorce Rong and settle down with someone who could love him right. Maybe give him time to heal from the repeated heartbreaks, betrayals, and the literal stab wound in his chest but he was so fucking in love with Rong, he just couldn’t escape.

(If there were behind the scenes production reasons for the clunky-ness of the back half, I would not be surprised at all but ultimately they don’t matter cuz the story we got was the story we got.)

Imagine if we had gotten a Rong who used her prophetic dreams to navigate the cut throat world of royal politics. Or imagine if we’d gotten Rong as a true apprentice to Ruyi who learned both metalsmithing and spycraft in the first half and took over the pavilion as a competent leader in the second half. As it stands, it just felt like wasted potential.

I’m glad they had the modern day special AU eps tho cuz those were great. Zhang Zhehan and Ju Jing Yi had the opportunity to really showcase their incredible chemistry but in a modern setting and with better writing than the back 3rd of BRYP.

Now let’s talk Zhang Zhehan since he was the reason I started this in the first place. I loved him in this. I truly did. He was stern and serious but also playful and sweet. He was romantic but awkward, badass but vulnerable. He really delivered a nuanced and charming performance. I loved every second.

I think my favorite moment wasn’t some badass fight or even a super romantic moment. No, it was when he got drunk and started crying like a little baby cuz Rong was constantly doubting him no matter what he did. It was simultaneously sad and hilarious. Like gut busting funny. Y’all can watch it here:

youtube

I laughed so fucking hard at this. Oh my god, guys! This shit was too much.

Random Thoughts:

The romance between the 2nd leads was A+. Truly an adorable affair. Though I think they should’ve gotten together officially earlier around ep 25 or so and we should’ve seen the rest with them as a couple.

The costuming was so good y’all. For all the main four characters but I was especially drawn to Prince Su’s outfits.

The ghostly pale look with the bright red lips and eyeshadow makeup for Rong did not bother me at all. I actually liked it for her though I think it would’ve worked better if she’d had more explicit prophetic abilities.

I could’ve used more actual war scenes with Prince Su and Little Marquis.

The OST for the show SLAPPED!

That one kid spy in Ruyi Pavilion was voiced by the same actor as Chengling from WOH and I have never double-taked harder. lmao

Even though there were things I didn’t like in this show, I appreciated how gay I could make it in my last post. Truly it was a bisexual’s dream aesthetically.

#the blooms at ruyi pavilion #cdrama #zhang zhehan #ju jingyi #liveblogging #meta #reviews #long post

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storiesbybrian · 8 years

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The Barber of Ludlow Street (June, 2000)

MK had been in the guitar business for 20 years. When he saw desperate marketers whine about the fickle nature of youthful passion, he scoffed. “A myth!” he said, squirreling away the commissions his boss let him keep until he made enough money to open up his own shop in the nearest epicenter of wildness that he knew, New York City’s Lower East Side. But his time worn formula for getting money out of crazy kids and indulgent parents bought him his independence about three years too late. To MK’s dismay the slow weeks piled up, held together by a thick mortar of bills, until he finally learned that kids today prefer Hip-Hop to Rock ‘n Roll. The Lit Fuse Guitar Shop, the culmination of 20 years of sacrifice, dedicated to serving the dreams of a new generation of Rock ‘n Rollers, opened to an indifferent public.

But MK wouldn’t give up. Conducting his own marketing survey, he noticed a lot of Asian kids strolling around the neighborhood, the yokes of their purchases cutting wide swaths in the sidewalk. MK remembered a piece he had seen on 60 Minutes about the Japanese Hip Hop craze and he snapped his fingers in revelation. He recalled wealthy Japanese kids tanning themselves and having their flat black hair professionally damaged into spongy manes of dreadlocks. So, with the help of RS, his one, slow-witted employee, MK changed his outdated Rock ‘n Roll shop into a one-stop, negrofying boutique that he hoped would keep the Fuse lit for as long as the wind blew black. He needed his customers to trust the with-itness of his taste though in his heart he knew it was only a matter of time before rock stars recaptured the imaginations of alienated children. But until the day when the wail of his guitars could swallow up the beats of his newly stocked dance records, he was gonna wring every dollar he could out of this rap fad. Behind the shop, he poured concrete, installed an old-fashioned barber’s chair, hung a mirror from a hook, draped a mylar canopy over the whole thing and invited kids to let the Rude Boy Salon tend to their fashionable grooming needs. And a haircut got you a 10% discount on a guitar.

Morning at the Sunshine Hotel is met with toothless grumbles of resentment. Morning carries a price tag of $10. Those without monthly benefactors shoot out the door south, south west, west, north west and north like crooked spokes from the Sunshine’s Bowery horizon looking for the means to reserve the pleasure of the Sunshine’s accommodations for yet another evening by the 7 o’clock curfew. But PJ hooked around the corner and went east, to Ludlow Street. He was 54 years old.

Everybody knew PJ- the police, the neighbors, the mailmen, the supers, the bartenders and owners, the children, the garbagemen. Everybody. He was an inevitability on Ludlow Street with his boisterous gibberish, big bang cloud of cologne and his broom. “I’m fine as wine! You a frien’ o’mine! Anytime you need a rhyme! I see you, cuz!”

His dire financial straits, his alcoholism, his age- none of it meant a damn thing to PJ. It took a strong being to crumble the way he did and keep his sweaty black resilience about him. He swept and mopped for his pocket money and told stories about busting the spine of the man he caught with his second wife or about his position of authority when he worked for the sanitation department. He had also been a cook, a gardener and a barber, as anyone within 20 feet of his rantings could attest.

When CN, the owner of a local bar called Barratoba, had t-shirts made with pictures of PJ on the front, his cult status in the neighborhood was lifetime guaranteed. MK, still a new kid by block standards, immediately cultivated a friendship with PJ, thinking it was his ticket to fitting in in the neighborhood.

One day in August, MK was outside smoking a cigarette and scanning the block for professional music enthusiasts. His sales for the month were still off and the haircut gimmick had no one abuzz. He had hired a barber from a local salon. But too many customers were demanding refunds, disappointed with the authenticity of their new dos. MK was left wondering whether he needed somebody who knew more about hairstyling or less. PJ was taking out the recycling from CN’s bar across the street.

MK called out to him, “PJ, my friend! How are you today?”

“Yo, cuz! Gimme dolla!”

MK reached into his pocket and PJ crossed the street towards him hand first.

“PJ, my main man!” MK said, slapping PJ five, “How would you like another job?”

PJ blinked at him seriously for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“No, really. How would you like to cut hair for me?”

“I was a barber for seven years in Nokalyna!”

“That’s what I hear. So how ‘bout it? I pay you ten bucks a head and anytime you want a bottle of anything, you just let me know. Deal?”

PJ shook MK’s hand and told him, “I be back after I get the flo’ mats at Quinine. They pay me extra to do them. Good music over there. You ever wanna go, you jus’ let me know. But ssshhh. Don’t tell anybody, a’ight? You a good guy. I get you in at Quinine, ‘k? Den I go get Barratoba’s and Guiseppe’s. They nice, too.”

“OK, PJ, I’ll see you later. Thank you.”

And MK had his barber. PJ took off to wherever he went when he had money and MK dropped his cigarette and went inside. Within weeks, PJ’s distinctive style became MK’s greatest source of revenue.

Any grandparents who came up through Manhattan’s Lower East Side, be they Jews from the first half of the last century or Spanish from the second, would be shocked to learn that one block of Ludlow Street now has seven fancy designer clothing shops and almost no drug trade. Girls who never would have set foot on Ludlow Street five years ago are now running the Community Board.

The newest proprietress of a clothing shop was called EW. EW had quit her investment banking job to open Glo, an astronomically upscale accessory shop. She had a German shepherd named Tamburlaine who did not get along with PJ.

A few days before Glo’s grand opening in late August, EW was supervising the finishing touches on her window display- a thick pyramid of handbags that were custom stitched from maple leaf shaped patches of leather and suede in front of a poster of an orange lagoon. Tamburlaine began to growl from inside the window and EW turned to see PJ lugging enormous bags of trash and plopping them down on the sidewalk in front of her new store.

“Excuse me sir, but you can’t put that garbage here,” she said politely to PJ.

“Huh? Naw, dey comin’ for it in two hour. I use to work for sanitation. Two hour,” PJ said EW.

“I don’t really care. You can’t put that garbage in front of my store.”

“Who you? Ask anybody on the block. They know me! They my friend! Ask cuz over at barbershop.”

PJ dropped his bags and went back inside, returning seconds later with another load of garbage.

“Sir. You’re not listening to me. That’s somebody else’s trash. Put it in front of their building.”

“No!” PJ yelled. His right knee began to pop involuntarily out of joint, an ancient baseball injury that flared up in times of stress. “This the same garbage from the same building I been puttin’ in the same place for 20 year!”

Sensing his mistress was in trouble, Tamburlaine bounded outside and began barking at PJ. PJ said, “You better get that muthafuckin’ clown away from me!”

“Or what?”

“Don’ you worry none. You just get that thing inside. I don’t like him!” PJ said, his trick knee hopping and forcing his hips to grind back and forth.

At this EW stepped quickly back and pulled out her cell phone and called the police. “Yes, I’m calling from Ludlow Street between Houston and Stanton,” she said. “Yes, a street man is leaving rubbish in front of my store and threatening my dog and myself- what? Right, garbage… Yes. Thank you.”

PJ clucked his mouth exasperatedly, knowing that when the cops learned that the alleged source of trouble was he, they’d laugh the whole thing off and explain PJ’s prestigious status on the block to newcomer EW. He wiped the sweat from his brow and then clutched his leg, trying to get it to stop twitching so violently.

Inside of five minutes, a squad car pulled up next to PJ’s plump row of garbage.

“Yo!” PJ greeted the pair of officers. “Tell this blonde woman leave me alone!”

One officer got out of the car while the other sat behind the wheel with a pen and summons pad spread across her lap. Tamburlaine continued to bark viciously.

“What’s up PJ?”

“A’right!”

“Hold on a second, PJ. Alright, miss, are you the one who filed the complaint?”

“Yes and thank you for coming so quickly,” said EW, raising her voice to be heard over her dog’s racket. “This person is harassing me and dumping this trash in front of my building.”

“Who, him?”

“Yes. Him.”

The dog continued to bark and flinch everytime PJ’s knee jumped.

“Alright sir,” said the cop with his hands on his hips. “Where is this trash from?”

“Man, you know where this trash from. ‘S from Guiseppe next do’ but I ain’t gon’ put it in front of no goddamn fire hydrant!”

“Well, what about over there?” asked the cop, pointing to space in front of a nightclub that wouldn’t be open until much later.

“Man, I don’t get paid to be draggin’ this shit all up and down the block!”

“There’s no need to yell at the police, you know.”

“Miss, we’ll handle this.”

“Well, look at how he’s acting. It’s like he’s gonna attack me.”

The cop noticed PJ’s jumpiness and stepped back and began fingering his nightstick. “Sir. Move the garbage and stop bothering the lady or we’ll have to arrest you.”

Drained from the officer’s face was any trace of recognition of PJ. His partner in the car stared down at her lap. With a vicious grunt, PJ snatched up the garbage bags and began dragging them the 10 feet to where the cop had designated. EW and the officers stood over him until he had finished hauling the entire pile of bags and continued to eye him until he left, which he did, cussing and twitching the whole way. PJ needed a drink.

Meanwhile CT and FL were sitting at Kennedy Airport, waiting to pick up their friend, BD. BD’s flight was arriving from Tokyo via San Francisco. The girls could not stop giggling. They hadn’t seen BD in several years but they kept in touch regularly and now they could finally show their dear friend all of the wonders and marvels of New York in person.

During the years that CT and FL had been building a life for themselves in New York City, BD had been building a reputation as a world class interior designer. His arrival in the States was greatly anticipated by the design community who found him so fascinating. Throughout their time apart, CT and FL fully cooperated in BD’s plan to cultivate an air of mystery which his arrival would solve with what all three friends hoped would be sensational panache.

When the plane taxied up to the gate, CT and FL clapped their hands excitedly. BD burst from the tunnel and all three old friends met in a fierce collision of joyful reunion. Each of them began speaking rapidly at once which led to uproarious laughter. The girls had so much to tell BD and to ask him, and he them. CT and FL each clasped one of BD’s hands and led him down to baggage claim where his limousine driver had already collected his gear. BD told them a funny story about customs in San Francisco as he handed his carry-on luggage to the driver as well.

In the back seat of the limo on the way into Manhattan, the girls asked BD what he would like to do first.

“Well,” BD said with much relish. “The first thing I want to do is visit Rude Boy for a haircut.” And he showed them a small article torn from a Japanese magazine. The article featured a picture of a famous Japanese record producer. The producer’s mangled head looked like a lopsided Rastafarian who had changed his mind about enlisting in the Marines at an extremely inopportune moment.

“Ahh,” said the girls collectively. “PJ.”

The article BD held pointed out that MK didn’t allow customers into his barbershop unless they brought at least two friends to hold them down in the old chair. Insurance purposes. It also offered Rude Boy customers a 10% discount on all guitars in the Lit Fuse. So, CT and FL instructed the limousine to drop them off in front of the Lit Fuse and then take their bags to their own shop, which was just one block away on Orchard Street.

The girls led BD into the Rock ‘n Roll/Hip Hop shop where MK greeted them warmly and asked if they’d like to see anything in particular. BD handed MK the cut-out, which flattered MK tremendously. His adaptation to the changing of the times had garnered international notoriety. A glow rushed about MK’s face and his mouth flapped back into the biggest smile that he’d worn in years.

MK shook hands with CT and FL while BD was looking through the store’s album collection. After a moment, BD returned to MK at the counter with a very high stack of records. CT and FL asked MK if they could leave these records on the counter and cash them out after BD’s superfly haircut. Mentally adding up the value of BD’s purchase, MK wagged his head like a puppy. Then he led the three of them back to the barbershop under the tinselly outdoor shine of the canopy.

BD sat down in the chair, flanked by CT and FL. MK gave the chair a good spin round, determined to delight BD to the pits of his soul and surpass every dream that BD had ever had about American Hip Hop culture. BD smiled and closed his eyes, ready to be transformed in appearance to what he already felt in his heart.

“Be right back…” sang MK and ran back into the store to summon PJ.

Befitting the grand entry of his star attraction, MK had taken a page from the NBA and engineered a garish bit of fanfare to let PJ, and the whole neighborhood, know that he had a customer. With the push of one button, a series of cherrytop police car lights began swirling in the Lit Fuse’s windows. Sirens and ice cream truck songs howled to a techno rhythm, punctuated by blasts from a lifeguard whistle. And then an announcer’s voice blared through the circus jungle beats:

“THAT’S RIGHT FOLKS! HE STILL AIN’T CROAKED! ANOTHER HEAD FROM A FARAWAY LAND LOOKS TO BE CURED BY THE THUNDERBIRD HAND OF THE MAN OF THE HOUR, MAN OF THE DAY! LET’S HEAR IT HO’S AND G’S FOR HIS TRAVESTY, P-J!”

The first few times that this explosion of bells and whistles rocked Ludlow Street, a few of PJ’s many friends and empathizers applauded as he burst from wherever to go careening through the Lit Fuse, hellbent on revising the possibilities of a hairdo. But after PJ’s work began to attract a larger number of customers, the frequent cranking of his theme song became a hardcore nuisance. MK received enough complaints that he began to sneak off the premises as soon as he turned on PJ’s noisy invitation. He would wander through the back way to sit and have tea down the street, leaving the store in RS’s incompetent care rather than field complaints from the neighbors.

So, as BD waited in the chair, the clanging and screeching BOOM BOOM BOOMed to summon PJ. PJ was down in Barratoba’s swilling gin, trying to recover from the shameful outrage of the policeman making him kowtow to that new blonde lady. PJ remembered when that cop was eight years old and shot an old man in the shoulder with his beebee gun. PJ tried to suck the liquor out of the tilted bottle faster than it could pour and it splashed out of his full mouth and ran down his chin in silver trickles. When the bottle was empty, PJ cast it aside and jerked his sleeve across his mouth. Then he charged out of the bar towards the noise that was calling him to sculpt someone’s head like an African banzai tree.

PJ whirled out into the bright light of the street, his dirty limbs gangling like giant pinwheels. Cars slammed on their breaks to avoid this stumbling dervish that seemed part liberated bull, part agitated rodent. Pretty young women shopping up and down the block reared back in horror to allow PJ to swarm his way past the pounding speakers and blaring lights and into the Lit Fuse.

BD was waiting for PJ in the back with an outstretched hand. Something about the scene seemed vaguely familiar to PJ and for a split second he wondered if he had ever fought overseas. He found his hand being tugged vigorously, worshipfully by the young Japanese man with the flat black hair. The mylar glinted above him and his muddy eyes took on a look of understanding.

BD mistook PJ’s newfound orientation of his whereabouts for an acknowledgement of their spiritual kinship. He smiled at the older man and lay back in the chair, waving off CT and FL. The two girls went back inside the shop. BD beamed ecstatically from his chair, overjoyed to be face to face with his kindred enigma, PJ. He handed his remaker, his redeemer another picture of the haircut he wanted. This picture was taken from the same magazine but the article was about police brutality in New York City, of which the young man in the picture was a victim.

PJ tenderly fingered the ragged edge of the picture and briefly forgot that he was too drunk to stand up. He held out his hand to BD. BD handed him two $100 bills. PJ’s eyes lit up and something about the image that sat under the money in his strong hand clicked. He nodded his head and got to work.

BD closed his eyes. PJ shaved tiny stripes into the young man’s eyebrows. Then PJ took the scissors. He raised them straight up and assumed the exact pose of Lady Liberty lifting her lamp beside the golden door. With his other hand, he pressed his large palm to BD’s temple and took a snippet of hair between two of his fingers. Then the scissors began jawing rapidly and swooped down at BD’s head. BD became secretly terrified in PJ’s shaky hands. But the scissors plunged along the shape of his sleek head accurately, shearing off a shaggy wing of hair. It was exhilarating and BD relaxed a little, surrendering to the moment. PJ reared the scissors back like a tailor’s needle. His trick knee had subsided and hardly jerked at all. On this pass, the hand on BD’s forehead rolled towards the incoming razor bomb. With a horrible squinching sound, PJ snipped off BD’s ear.

“Oh Lo’d!” shouted PJ as the blood spurted all the way up to the silver ceiling. BD began to cry and chant the comforting words of some of his favorite songs.

“Docta! We need a docta! He’p! He’p!” cried PJ, dancing around in BD’s blood. BD began convulsing in the chair. “Shee-it!”

CT and FL were inside the shop listening to BD’s new records on headphones. RS was watching the records spin round and round. But a few other customers peaked into the back to see what the ruckus was about. When they saw PJ’s ghoulish dance under the canopy and the young Japanese man writhing in the chair murmuring “you gon’ make me lose me mind-up in here, up in here” in a thick accent, they immediately searched about the place for cameras, certain as they were that a music video was being filmed out back. It was so easy to accept the absurdity of the scene as some vaguely symbolic play on entertainment and modern medicine. But something about the lack of cameras and the amount of blood blasting out of the side of BD’s head seemed too lavish for a rehearsal. What was going on back here? “i am walrus, i am walrus, ki ko ki shoom,”? Almost apologetically, the gravity of the situation asserted itself and the two young guitar shoppers were forced to accept the irrevocability of what had happened. One of them had been shopping for a guitar, the other a bass. The guitarist swooned but the bass player kept his cool and dashed back into the store and behind the counter to call an ambulance for the mutilated Japanese boy in the chair.

Rather than sobering PJ up, the accident thrust him into an entirely different realm of intoxication. He still thought maybe he could keep this whole thing quiet and nobody would find out. So he placed BD’s ear on the counter next to the jar of blue disinfectant. Then he combed some of the blood out of BD’s hair and skillfully continued the abstract trimming he had begun a few moments earlier. BD passed out, certain that his plane to JFK hadn’t even landed yet.

The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and rushed BD to the hospital. Police arrested PJ and pulled BD’s ear and $200 from his pocket. The ear was perfectly in tact, like an unbitten cookie, but it would never work again. Blood and hair had clogged BD’s auditory canal and damaged his eardrum during his convulsions and the entire left side of his face caught an infection from PJ’s rusty scissors. At CT and FL’s insistence, the ear was sewn back onto BD’s head for reasons purely cosmetic.

BD stayed in the hospital for a few days. His design and magazine contacts were notified and they all came to visit him. It was a great disappointment for all parties concerned that the mysterious BD should finally be revealed in a hospital cot with a useless ear freshly stitched onto such a blotched, ugly face, capped now by his astonishing haircut. Several established members of the industry in which BD starred were horrified to learn of the conditions of the Rude Boy Salon. None of them were opposed to underground fashion per se, but a homeless drunk using unsanitary blades seemed too extreme. This was not a haircut. It was assault and they demanded justice.

Back on Ludlow Street, word spread. MK stood in front of his store smoking and furtively looking for anyone wearing one of CN’s PJ t-shirts, which he was prepared to buy for as much as $35 apiece. He needed to distance himself from the incident and keep his store open. As soon as the police had taken PJ away, he had taken down the canopy and the chair and dumped the remaining furniture in a different alley, in Queens. Then he had RS scrub BD’s blood off of the concrete behind the store. Rude Boy was finished, but he’d be damned before he’d lose the Lit Fuse. He considered offering to pay BD’s medical expenses, but then thought that such a gesture might suggest greater responsibility for the assault than he could afford to accept. PJ lived in a flophouse on skid row. He had no family, no money and, to MK’s way of thinking, a primitive, ill-developed grasp on reality. PJ could afford to take the whole rap.

But how would a rap stick to a man as disenfranchised as PJ? With no driver’s license, no social security number, no fingerprints on file, no credit, no library card, no nothing except a nickname, he was a phantom, completely disentangled from the institutional marionette strings yanking most of us around.

PJ was being held at the 7th Precinct. Detective QV had been called in to help discern PJ’s identity. PJ was little help. No matter what question they asked him, PJ said, “I cut that Chinese boy. I cut that boy.”

QV pulled PJ’s arresting officer aside.

“What do you know about this guy?”

“Officially, not much, detective. Everybody in the neighborhood knows him but nobody knows anything about him. Last name, where he’s from, nothing. The guy’s slicker than batshit. Most famous John Doe I ever met.”

“The kid in the hospital pressing charges?”

“That’s what proprietor of the guitar shop says.”

“Lit Fuse?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I know that guy. MK. He’s a real cocksucker. Wish we could arrest him instead.”

“Nothing tying him to the incident, detective. The alley where the barber chair was ain’t even his property. And any business ties he had with homeboy in there were strictly off the books. Not a thing we can do about it.”

“What about all that noisy shit in his window?”

“He says it’s a gift from some Japanese kid whose friends request him to play it. So how long we gonna keep Mr. PJ in there?”

“I dunno. Assault like that’s two to four. But we don’t really know who he is. No assets to lean on, no retribution for the kid’s ear. Just punishment for the old guy.”

The phone rang and the officer went back to his desk to answer it. Detective QV paced back and forth, rubbing his head and smoking. He didn’t like any of it. He was worried that PJ would be remanded to the mental ward at Bellevue with the rest of the John Does if he didn’t cough up more details about himself. But PJ was too distraught to recount a personal history. People around the neighborhood repeated his stories about North Carolina and the sanitation department, the Sunshine Hotel stuck to its policy of non-cooperation, and civic records had nothing that matched his prints or general appearance. He didn’t like any of it.

PJ’s groaning lament continued: “I cut that Chinese boy. I cut that boy. I cut that Chinese boy. I cut that boy.”

Several months earlier, back when BD was still in Osaka, AO finally scraped together enough money to buy his guitar back from the Lit Fuse. But MK wanted more than double what AO had hocked it for, which was considerably less than AO had saved up. So, needing something to play on his upcoming tour of central Michigan, AO was forced to settle for an inferior guitar. He handed MK his hard earned cash and stared up at his own baby hanging on the wall, gleaming forlornly back at him. MK shrugged behind the register in mock empathy with AO. AO was PJ’s cousin.

MK sat behind the counter at the Lit Fuse, sweaty and nervous. He hadn’t slept for days and the only thing he’d eaten in the last 24 hours was half a bottle of aspirin. Three times yesterday, he thought he heard PJ shouting in the street. He turned down to his pocket video game to distract himself from the strange paranoia that had afflicted him ever since he had visited the 7th Precinct to wriggle himself out of any occupation of the space between BD and his ear.

A mist jammed his nostrils and yanked out a sneeze.

“God bless you.”

MK looked up to see PJ towering over him in a cowboy hat.

Two police officers in uniform entered the Lit Fuse and handcuffed MK and read him the Miranda warning. PJ pulled AO’s baby down from the wall and handed it to him.

Back at the hospital, BD was going through therapy to regain a sense of balance and adjust to his hearing loss. CT and FL informed him that PJ was out of jail and that the owner of the shop had been arrested instead. The owner of the alley behind the Lit Fuse had been summoned to prosecute MK for vandalism and conducting unlicensed surgery on private property. PJ had been bailed out by a relative.

BD wanted to know what the relative had told the police about PJ.

“Not much,” FL said. “Just that he didn’t used to be so simple. He wouldn’t say what happened or how he dissipated so or anything.”

“Is he in any more trouble?” BD asked.

“That’s up to you,” CT told him.

A few days later, BD checked out of the hospital and went downtown to see PJ. He wore a hunting hat with earflaps to cover his wound. BD was directed east to a small jazz club called Quinine where he stood outside, smoking cigarettes and waiting for PJ.

Sure enough, the older man emerged from the club lugging his garbage. He was much less exuberant than he had been the first time the two had met. PJ stopped for a rest and struck up a conversation with the young Japanese man in the hat.

“Yo cuz! Gimme cigarette.”

“Here. Take two.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

“Yes.”

“I used to cut hair over Ludlow Street.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But I hurt somebody. He a Chinese like you.”

“Mmmm.”

“He a nice young man, too. I felt bad.I used to be barber, before I work for sanitation department.”

“Ah.”

BD looked down at his cigarette.

“See, you got to learn more English. This the USA, man! This ain’t China. USA!”

“I trying. Thank you.”

“A’ight cuz. See you later, k?”

#Barber of Ludlow Street #Ludlow Street #Short Story #Lower East Side #Hip Hop #Rock and Roll #Shuman #Fiction #Papa Joe #Sunshine Hotel #LES

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thepotandthekettle · 8 years

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TwoZeroOneSix

When I thought 2015 was great, which it was by the way, 2016 managed to be an even crazier one, revving its gear up towards its end.Writing this on the 4th day of 2017 because of a hectic schedule, but I absolutely cannot miss recording the amazing things about the year. Went through a few rough patches in the year dealing with deep jealousy, new experiences, and entered uncharted (as far as I am concerned) territories. Whenever I look back at the year, it will always be a journey worth trekking out. And like the footprints in the sand story, I always see His strong arm lifting me, and softening my disoriented steps, while providing a bridge where there are canyons in my way. I keep welling up when thinking of His goodness. Underserving as I am, I can only look at what is in my hands, and turn the glory back to Him.Here is my year in a few paragraphs:

Diana

This one is an obvious one. This year, I finally decided to ask a girl out, and do it as properly as I knew how to. I asked her to a nice place, picked her up from her place, send her back, all of those old school traditional stuff, except for... asking her parents.

Anyway, being in a relationship is just something I haven’t been educated about enough. All my education has been from films, and a little from goodwill leadership advise. Being in a relationship has brought about many extreme emotions in my life which I will not delve into. The helplessness can dismantle your fortresses, but the joy can also some sort of invigorating drug.

One experience that I thank God for having is the opportunity to travel with her to Europe, which is also my first experience there. Europe, like a coin on a scratch card, managed to help us uncover some things that we share that we really like. The artistic experience in Europe, intertwined with traveling with her allowed us to share some really special moments. Under other circumstances would we have not been able to do this, but I’m so glad we made it happen.

I am unlearning many things I thought I knew about being in a relationship, and that is teaching me how to enjoy it more. The impact of this change is also not small, so this has to be one of the highlights of 2016. It probably has changed the rest of my life forever.

Travels

And of course travels has to be part of the yearly highlights. Managed to travel to a couple of places this year:

Jan - HongKong

May - Indonesia (Bromo/Ijen)

June - Malaysia

July - Sydney

October - Europe

December - Taiwan

Hongkong was a pretty fun trip travelling with mum for the first time. Sydney was also great for Hillsong Conference. Europe is of course MAD. Taiwan was for our 2nd comm retreat. But Indonesia was a serious milestone for me. It started out with me seeing these really nice posts of Indonesian volcanoes on Facebook and I was thinking that they probably aren’t expensive to go. So, having not travelled alone without someone else to plan alongside me, or run my plans by, it was a big step. To be independent, settling everything from food, flights, transport, accommodation, time to wake up to catch sunrises and blue flames, bringing gear enough to cope with the (not so) extreme conditions of a mountain (hah). It was a big step for me. Even up to that very week, I was still a little unsure and afraid. But I’m so glad I did it. Short trip, inexpensive, but very eye opening and experience exposing. There were certain points in time when I wasn’t sure if I was gonna find an affordable way up the mountain, and some plans got messed up, but it all added to the unique experience of the trip.

Boy’s Home

Also really grateful for Isaac to have called me along to teach guitar at the Boy’s home. This one was not only an experience but also of a financial providence kind of story. Was really struggling with finances and wanting to do some travelling (I know... i know..,) when the boy’s home job came up.

Boy’s home was an invitation to a life I never knew. Witnessing some of the boys behave was quite different from my expectations. They were just.... boys. Without the tattoos, you’d think that they’re just like any other boy. Teasing, passion, anger, indifference, ruined self-esteem, lack of self-efficacy, unbelief, are all problems teenage boys face. It seemed like they were just at wrong places, at wrong times, for extended periods. Things could’ve been vastly different if they chose to walk away from something, or if they met someone else instead. Some of course are not within their control such as parental divorce and abuse, but they weren’t evil.

This gave me some insight into what is probably young innocence. Some maybe less than others, but still resemble that of a child’s gullible joy.

Music

When I think about this one, it brings me to my knees. My mind feels like a pot of soup disturbed by the swirl of a spatula. The biggest thought for me is “How did I get here?”. Thinking back to when I wrote my 2015 post about my “Quarter-Life Crisis”, and looking at what I am doing now, it’s like Someone put me on a fast track. The professionals might present a different argument and perspective, but to me it’s like I got transported into a different world. I feel like I am looking wide-eyed at a star filled night sky, and thinking “No one could’ve made this, and this cannot be the result of chance”. The intensity of details in the sky blankets every inch that tries to claim credit for the culmination of events. Someone has my back. Someone actually put His hand into this. And that Someone is STILL doing it without me knowing.

I love surprises. I love them a lot. And this surprise is like an explosion of love and painting a “I’ve Got Your Back” in the sky.

Crowdfunding

First thing that happened this year in my music life (After I got the Grant) was raising more money to create more than just the album. Although I was given the 10k by NAC, that wouldn’t have been able to cover the cost of everything. I was gonna give all of that to ONLY producing the music. So I decided to head to the only people I know that believe in my dreams; The body of Christ. Long story short, we raised over $7,000, and this ISN’T EVEN A MISSIONS CALL TO GIVE. I mean, this is a boy with a God given dream, trying to raise money to fund a music project. I’m still of course trusting that my music will touch lives and go beyond just being music, but at the start when I have nothing to show for, God provided a $7000 capital.

Sliding Back

This was my first single, and I had to look for a videographer to film my MV. Found a guy named Jeremy from the time when we met at my producer’s studio opening. Didn’t know him very well except that he makes music videos, and so I decided to approach him. Little did I know he use to be Christian and when presented with the prodigal son story, he absolutely got it - immediately.

Filming the project had testimonies of its own such as clinching locations (we got a cafe a night before the shoot) and getting talents. Then when we released the song, Sliding back hit no 2 on the itunes top songs chart on 28 July. CRAZY. Then in October, Sliding Back got added to the “Top Singapore Songs” playlist on spotify, and play shot up from <1,000 to at the moment over 20,000. Emerald Green This is where it gets WEIRD. GOOD WEIRD. So, in September (I think), Zac and I went to his mum’s friend’s place to shoot for the album. We needed an island kitchen and couldn’t find one, so we decided to choose this obscure person in Zac’s life. When we were there, Irene (the owner of the house) had house sitters over to take care of the place. These house sitters were a couple (Tom and Catherine). They approached us first to ask what we were doing, which they didn’t have to, and I told them that I was working on an album. We chatted and they told us that if we needed to shoot anything video related, that we could contact them. They gave us their name card and left, and I thought “cool...” but wasn’t TOO keen cuz I didn’t know if they were a production company, and companies are usually quite expensive. At this point, it’s pretty amazing how I met tom and cat already cuz they didn’t stay for long, and it was just SUPER random. Few weeks down, probably in October I decided that I should start working on my next MV and I decided to call Jeremy cuz he was a one-man team and he could do the MV in less than 2 thousand dollars. Pretty cheap. But when I contacted him, he said he was busy. So I decided to turn to Tom and Cat just as a long shot.

When I asked them about MVs they said they’ve done Corinne May’s one before, but then her video was pretty clean and nice looking which wasn’t what I was looking for. They looked really corporate from their portfolio, and I was afraid that the MV will not look edgy in it’s concept. But beggars can’t be choosers and I decided to meet them. When we met in November, we immediately clicked. Tom is actually ALSO christian, and when I talked to him about my concept, he was visibly excited. We talked through some of the emotion that went into the song, and then he said “Since we are doing it pro bono...” I was like... “What pro bono? I have a budget though” And I came to realise that the budget was really small for a production crew which Tom will be mobilising for the shoot. Production crew? no way. I thought it was a 2-man kind of shoot. We just shot the music video yesterday and there were at least 15 people that Tom mobilised that were on set. From camera, to lighting, to welfare, my personal assistant, art person.... All of them were unpaid to be there for the shoot, and they were all doing it for my Music Video. T.T Tom also told me that their budget for videos usually go into the 10,000s and the hundred thousands, and it was then i realised that I was really blessed for the WHOLE TEAM to agree to take on this project. None of them were complaining about being there, but everyone was just hard at work trying to make the best shoot. Even the boss’s wife of their company was there ordering food and drinks for us. What can I say? I also got so many church friend helpers to come down as cast members which was really really amazing too, and I could go on, but at the end of the day all I can say is that God is good and it’s a really exciting journey this music thing.

I will stop here, and I don’t expect anyone else to read this blog post. I write this to remember, and to remember how good He has been to me. I write also to remember the details, so that when I speak to anyone in the future, I have a reference to tell the story from. Thank you for reading, those who read, and I’m sure more stories will come out of 2017. EXCITED.

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