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NEWS

Each month I will keep a running list of news items, including info on my schedule, etc. It's in order from LATEST entry at the top on down to the OLDEST entry at the bottom. 

Here are the "News" archives, feel free to browse them for some interesting tidbits:

***This is the archive of the August 2004 news***

30 August 2004

My "lay a guilt trip" scheme from a few days ago worked -- got to FINALLY see my nephew Andrew tonight on internet video conference:

(He's the bald guy in the TOP photo)

29 August 2004

Just catching up on a few photos I've been meaning to stick up here -- this one's from the website of my former employer, Jamey Aebersold:

I am deeply honored to be included, since I hadn't worked there for two years when this was taken! 

This was also the day that Jamey took the photo of Dale (sitting next to me, lower right of photo above) that ended up being this:

   =   +

28 August 2004

It must be a sign that things are keeping me busy, that I come on here to stick up a photo and realize I haven't even updated for 5 days. 

Anyway, here's a photo of the group of guys from Xi Lin CP Church at their camp from last Tuesday. It was held on the outlying island of Cheung Chau, and they stayed from Sunday until Tuesday afternoon. They had asked me to come give them their final "message" of the camp, and I did my best. 

You might notice that the girl in yellow on the right has no shoes -- that's because they put her shoes on top of my feet for the photo. 

Cheung Chau seemed really lovely, and though it was a major pain to get there (I had to leave home at 6:30am to get there by 8:30am), and even though it was about the hottest day this year (I am completely soaking wet in this photo), I was so glad I went. For some reason I thought I'd been to Cheung Chau before, but I realized after arriving that actually it was LAMMA island that I'd been to several times. Duh. 

But we had fun, and I wish I had time to go back and just hang out a day or so. It really seemed like a nice "get away" spot. 

. . .

I also realized just now that I never put a photo of my nephew up here yet. 

He's Andrew Harris Boehnlein, born to my sister (and her husband) on 11th of June, 2004, in Louisville, KY. 

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've only seen one other photo of this guy (from the hospital -- it sits right here next to my computer). Not trying to lay a guilt trip on anybody, but hey...

23 August 2004

School ended over a month ago, but I have been so busy I can't believe it. The GOOD part of that, as some of you know, is that I've been really busy playing music. Yeah, seriously. For three years I've been here, waiting for a chance to play, and finally -- AFTER the decision is made that I'm leaving HK! -- suddenly EVERYONE is calling me. It's unbelievable. In the last four weeks I've played about 15 times -- that's GIGS, not counting rehearsals and such. 

I mean, give you an example -- this past Saturday morning I had a rehearsal with my friend John Laudon -- John is a Canadian who's been in HK for about 18 years, now pastoring a Vineyard Church in Tai Po... He also happens to be one of the best musicians/songwriters/producers in HK music... I didn't say "HK Christian music" because this guy has written and produced some of the classic hits of Canto-pop -- okay, not hundreds of songs, but several... John's pretty much the most experienced professional I've ever gotten to work with -- he was explaining the other day how he got to meet a certain person, and how it was because he had written his first number one hit -- "Oh, let's see -- that one sold 400,000 in HK, and I guess another 700,000 in Taiwan for the Mandarin version..." 

And he's got loads of stories like that... My personal favorite: "I remember we did an evangelistic tour of India, and the posters for our show called us 'The Biggest Rock Spectacle Since URIAH HEEP!'... I think we sold 5000 tickets for that show..."

John was also the one who wrote and produced the song for Frances Chiu that I played on last October... 

Anyway, had a rehearsal with him, then rushed downtown to hook up with the guys from the young Christian band inLOVE -- this trio is Lu on vocals (she's the songwriter, too), and then Dickie and Daniel on acoustic guitars. They have a really great, fresh sound -- check out the mp3 clips on their site if you don't believe me -- Lu's voice is just so natural, and I don't know exactly what she's saying, but they sound GREAT. Seriously, check out their mp3's... 

Yeah, so they were doing their normal three-piece acoustic schtick at Harbour City -- and then, along with Glen Chamberlain (a HK-born, white guy drummer friend I've also been playing with a lot lately), and two girls from inLOVE's record label, we all zipped over HK side for a big "rock" show for Private Music Magazine -- totally weird for us to be in that line-up, since the other bands were all really loud and horrible, HK-style -- and here we come with this nearly-unplugged sound -- well, and as soon as we got off the stage, we were jumping into taxi's to head back over to Hung Hom for another band show for which we were the main act. We were only about an hour late, so as we run in the back door they're on the stage stalling BIG time... 

Then LAST night it was another band show with John and Glen, again in Hung Hom -- this time for an "outreach" program. The modus operandus of the evening was mellow (and melodramatic) performances of canto-pop-esque worship songs. Think sport coats and clean shaves. Bo-ring. Of course, since John was the main evangelist (speaker), he did his OWN thing -- which happened to include his most recent Linkin Park-inspired tune... "I've got lots of equity with the pastors in HK, so I can play heavy metal if I want!" 

That may be, but we finished to the deafening sound of silence -- I mean, golf applause, followed by crickets... the 'Worship Incorporated' set doesn't like "rock", in case you didn't know... 

But you see what I mean about being busy -- that was just ONE WEEKEND -- and the entire last 5 or 6 weeks have gone like that... I'm so thankful!

. . .

Speaking of music, I just have been listening to that "Yahoo! Launch" thing they have, where they play videos MTV-style over the internet. And I'm glad they let you watch that for FREE, though they do everything they can to get your stupid e-mail address -- I hate that garbage. I don't need any more ads for mortgages or physical enhancement cluttering my inbox, thank you. 

But anyway, I listened to maybe 20 videos in the background just now, while I've been working here on e-mails and stuff. Let's put it this way. Let's imagine someone drops into America from another planet, or maybe another CONTINENT at least -- maybe some embattled Chinese city in south asia, let's say -- and let's pretend that they want to investigate the current state of modern rock. 

I can help! 

Here's what you need to do -- write this down! -- go to the music store and buy a CD each by bands called Incubus, Green Day, Korn, and The Strokes -- the clerk will help you find them. Listen to 20 songs from those CD's (special emphasis on the Korn CD). You will have just now experienced the exact same thing you will experience if you watch 20 videos on Launch....

. . .

Prayer Requests
I am a missionary, after all -- so you won't mind if I get all prayer-ified on you... Cyber-spiritual, you know the game, fool... 

1) I just got word that the churches in Japan have the paperwork for my visa -- about 3 weeks earlier than expected. So it looks like the move from HK to Japan continues unabated. 

2) Tomorrow morning I rush to Cheung Chau to speak at the youth camp for Xi Lin CP Church -- the topic is "In God We Trust" -- I wouldn't mind you praying for that. They only asked me YESTERDAY, so I have nothing prepared -- must do it all today... 

3) Got an e-mail from my friend Janene -- her husband (and my friend) Mal passed away unexpectedly a month ago -- her grief is palpable, my heart just breaks for her and her two sons, Max and Kit. Please offer a prayer for her. She is really, really struggling -- pray for peace and healing and an end to the sting of grief. 

4) Last night I met a pastor from a Lutheran church out at Ma On Shan -- he was the bass player for the worship band last night, his name's Roca (pronounced like "rocker")... Anyway, they gave me a ride from Hung Hom all the way to Tin Shui Wai -- but on the way he dropped off his wife at the hospital in Tai Po -- his 4-year-old daughter has been in the hospital for 3 days with a dangerously high fever. Her name is Holly (in typical HK style, it's pronounced like "holy" and not the way WE would say "holly"). But shoot a quick one up for Holly... 

21 August 2004

Saw another dead guy last night...

I was on bus 69B, heading from downtown back to Tin Shui Wai. You know how that bus makes a circle around Temple Street, there near the temple and park? So the bus makes a big "U" around that block, next to the basketball court, then comes back south on the next street -- crowded first with all the market hawkers, then with a few banks, hardware stores, and hairdressers... You know where I mean?

He was lying in one of those cross-streets that cut through those blocks -- one of the ones that has the poles to stop motorized traffic from coming through those side-alleys. He was there, his head in a pool of blood -- and in what must be "normal" for this type of situation, he was being completely ignored by the people around him. Oh, they were TALKING about him -- the one skinny old guy, shirt open, cigarette hanging off his lips, his tan shorts literally black with grime -- I mean, two wide, black, greasy stripes on the front, where he'd wiped his hands a million times -- THAT guy was shouting up a storm, wrinkled old arms waving this way and that, apparently telling what happened... or how he had nothing to do with it? ... or how he saw the guy who did it? ... or how the guy had it coming? ... 

It was just a few moments that the bus stopped there, putting me right NEXT to them -- you can imagine that it was a brutal, grotesque scene, but it was night, and pretty dark -- despite being right on top of them, I almost didn't even see it... There were no cops there yet, so the inevitable crowd hadn't gathered (better to wait for the cops to come before you get too close, I guess?)... and being in the last row of seats, on the second level of a double-decker bus, gave me the sense that I was floating above it all... watching it all play out, without them even noticing me noticing them... And it felt like those films where they re-enact how someone "died" -- but then they come back to life -- revived by the doctors? shocked back to life by the realization that they "still need to live"? -- do you know what I'm talking about? -- and they always tell how they felt they were still "there" somehow... still in the room, you know, floating up by the ceiling... and how they heard everyone talking about them... and how they saw their OWN bodies below them... I know it's stupid but that's what it felt like looking down at that guy in the street below... 

And after we rolled on past and it all sank in -- that the guy there in a pool of blood was dead -- I turned back to the other people on the bus... the two girls sitting next to me, chatting over price sheets for new computers... the guys in front of me, studying the toaster-sized plastic fish aquarium (the "fish hotel" it was called) that the one guy'd just bought... then there were the guys across the way, talking half in English about their "financial planning" course... and the couple in front of them, already sleeping on each others' shoulders... 

And there was nothing "Hong Kong" about that moment, nothing more dramatic than that -- but I wanted to tell you about it... 

15 August 2004

So this one is really hard to explain so that you'll "get it" -- and I'm warning you now, at the beginning, so you won't feel too let down at the end -- OH, and it may come out as being a little culturally insensitive -- sorry about that... But here's the situation. 

So I'm out at lunch today, surrounded by Chinese people (my friends from Xi Lin CP Church, to be exact). Now, being surrounded by Chinese people is not unusual if you live in HK, by the way. But I state that clearly, in the hopes of providing clarification for those of you who would -- despite your 2nd grade social studies class (and numerous National Geographic filmstrips viewed therein) -- be surprised at the number of CHINESE people actually living in China. 

So we're all looking at the menu, where the set meals are all listed, each one given a letter of the alphabet (the first meal is "Meal A", the second is "Meal B" -- etc., etc).

So I'm sitting there, and I'm choosing "H" because it's spaghetti with cheese sneeze and meat sauce. I say "cheese sneeze" because that's exactly what it looks like -- like a little man made of cheese (picture the Pillsbury Dough Boy made of Swiss) -- but it's like that little cheese man had a little cheese cold which made him have a little cheese sneeze all over your spaghetti -- and I'm not sure if you can picture what that might look like, in terms of the actual cheese distribution on your spaghetti, but if you ever saw the miniscule droplets-o-cheese they put on spaghetti here, then you'd know EXACTLY what I mean -- it's a mere "sneeze" of cheese.

So as I'm sitting there, preparing to order Meal "H", I'm also making a joke, see, because HK people say the letter "H" as a two-syllable word. It's like, whereas WE would say the letter "H" as /aych/, HK people say it as /AY-choo/. 

So I'm sitting there feeling all funny (i.e., "comedic") and "local" (i.e., "not a foreigner") because I'm making the stupid joke to everyone who will listen that, "I want AY-choo!!" And again, to clarify, that sounds like AY-choo, and NOT "ah-CHOO" -- which /ah-CHOO/ is the universal sound of sneezing -- get it? Don't want you to be confused by the previous discussion of sneezing to think I said, "I want ah-CHOO!" -- that would just sound like I was sneezing, see? 

So another thing you need to know is that because there is MUCHO possibility-o of getting the letters mixed up (due to poor phonics/pronunciation), HK people also usually use their own HK-version of the International Radio Operators Alphabet -- you know, the old, "Alpha Bravo Charlie" thing, where every word represents the first letter? In HK, by the way, A is always APPLE (not alpha), B is always BOY (never bravo), F is always FATHER (foxtrot? -- are you kidding me?!?)... but you get the idea... This may sound like a trivial bit of info, but if you ever try to tell a HK person your address over the phone, you might suddenly have a flashback to reading this and be thankful that I was so thorough and exacting. 

Yeah... okay... 

And, punch line of this whole thing coming up in 3.... 2.... 1.... NOW:

So everyone is asking everyone else which meal they want -- and my friend Ken puts down the menu and declares, "I want DOG!"... 

(I guess you had to be there...?)

13 August 2004

(sent to me by my friend Terry Steiden)

12 August 2004

My friend, Bo, writes via e-mail:

Thanks for writing, Bo -- are you still eating your vegetables? Stay in school, and remember -- say no to drugs!

Now, to answer your question, DJ Putta-Da-'O'-in-'Bo':

I am fine. The last months and days and weeks and hours and fortnights have been utterly and completely eventful. Not all of those events have been happy -- some have been heartbreaking, and I'll shortly fill you in. 

But the bottom line is that I am still here, in Honkey Wrong, doing the things that guys like me do. 

Now to the news...

. . .

Mal "Rock" Stone
I don't know many westerners in HK. I would guess the number of white people that I meet with (on anything more than a once-in-a-while occasion) to be less than 8. That's after three years of living and working here, mind you.

So it was with complete shock that I received word that one of my non-Chinese friends, Mal Stone, died back on July 19th. 

What increased the hole-in-gut feeling for me was that I got the news, at least a week after the fact, from a heart-wrenchingly emotional message left on my voice mail by Mal's wife, Janene. 

Mal and I had been e-mailing and phoning about meeting for a couple of weeks -- we had some catching up to do -- and we had tentatively set up to have lunch on Tuesday (the 20th) -- but I e-mailed him on Sunday night (the 18th) and said, "Hey, I can meet on Tuesday but we need to make it earlier -- does that work for you?" He never answered, so I just assumed he wasn't able to meet any earlier than his original idea. 

It was early the NEXT WEEK that I heard the voice mail from Janene saying that he had passed away on that Monday. 

Mal and Janene are Australian, and I know them completely separate from anyone else in HK -- I mean, they are not part of any other "group" with which I interact. But they have been wonderful friends to me. 

They are both "veterans" of HK, and Janene in particular is a genius teacher -- I mean, this woman is amazing. They have a publishing company called "Stone Press" and they also have a website. I had been maintaining their website for the last couple of years, I guess, maybe not quite that long, but for a long time... I'd designed a few book covers for them... I'd helped Mal out at his booth at a few book shows... I'd even -- now get this -- I'd even written a song as the theme song for the main series of English textbooks that Janene has been working on. Maybe I'll let you hear it sometime... 

But the main thing is that they were such good friends to me. They were the ONLY people in HK who seemed to completely understand what I was going through trying to learn how to do the job of teaching English at a primary school. They'd BOTH been there, and they knew EXACTLY what I was saying -- and the "listening ears" they offered me were invaluable, not to mention the real, PRACTICAL help they'd given me (ideas, resources, etc.). It is a horrible loss to hear of Mal's death, and I am still trying to absorb the reality of it. 

PLEASE do me a very, very important favor -- PRAY FOR JANENE STONE. She is left with their first son, Max, who I suppose must be 4 or 5 by now -- and then they adopted a little boy from HK about a year ago -- his name is Kit, and he should be 3 now. Kit's a handful, he started out so shell-shocked from the government home where they adopted him, but he quickly came out of his shell to shock THEM -- a real character, they told me often. 

But really -- those of you who are hearing about this for the first time, please put them on your prayer list(s). I know that Janene is struggling mightily and still grieving Mal's loss just terribly.

. . .

What's Next For Mistah Grin?
(I'm "Mistah Grin" by the way -- it's "Mr. Glenn" with an Asian accent -- get it?)

Well, the fact is, I'm going to be moving, it seems like. That's right -- I will not be staying in HK forever (like I had always assumed, by the way). No, I will be moving to -- drum roll, please -- 

Japan!!!

Yes, the land of sushi and kimonos (or do you spell that "kimonoes"? -- I'm gonna have to start learning this stuff). 

This move has been brewing for MONTHS -- nay, I should say it hath been YEARS in the making, if truth be toldeth. But I couldn't really make any "announcements" here until it was all "official" and everyone in HK knew about it first -- dig? 

Right now, we are planning on me leaving HK on September 21st, and going directly to Japan. I haven't actually bought the plane ticket yet, so it is still open to changes vis a vis the visa (get it? I just said "vis a vis the visa" -- that's three "v-i-s" in a row -- get it?). 

But anyway, that's what's up for now. I'll obviously be giving a whole MESS of more info in the coming weeks. 

. . .

How To Alleviate Boredom And Make Yourself Feel Special
1) go to the iTunes online music store
2) search the alleged store for "slackshop"
3) click on the only result you will get from that search
4) marvel that you are close personal friends with someone on iTunes

. . .

Alright -- despite having WEEKS and SECONDS and MONTHS to fill you in on, I am just too tired. I'm going to BED. But I'll try to do better in the coming weeks to keep you informed as I go through this dramatic transition from HK to Tokyo. 

In the meantime, I sincerely lift my heart (and hands) and beg you to join me (and Lennon) in crying out: "Give pizza a chance"... 

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