Zai Jian Zaia: End of an Era

Hey,

An unfortunate event has spawned the writing of this entry, the first one in errr, a year(?). Yesterday the cast and crew of Zaia, Cirque Du Soleil's resident show at the Venetian Macau, were sent their packing orders with only two weeks notice.

Not only was the notice period extraodinarily harsh, but coupled with Macau's foreign labour policies, means that this group of incredibly talented and gifted individuals will have less than a month to reasssess, make decisions, book tickets, find a new country to live in, find new jobs and new dreams.

I guess this is a predicament facing all expats in Macau. Work is so intricately linked with the rest of your life. Your living environment, your friends, your bank account, your insurance, your ability to get an apartment, your partner, everything that it intensifies your work environment and makes everything so much more personal. I know people with long term partners in Macau who will struggle to find a solution short of getting married (and even that is no guarantee) to stay together. People who will lose thousands in apartment deposits, give up their possessions, cars, bikes, pets and dreams. Those who have invested heavily in Macau to try to make it the cultural hub in Asia that it begs to be, and it will be a genuine loss to this city.

Even though I didn't work for Zaia, the show has contributed directly to my life in Macau. Actually, if it weren't for Zaia, I can honestly say I wouldn't be here. It was my best mate, who worked there, that introduced me to Dragone and therefore made my life the way it is today. I, like many Dragonians (or ex Dragonians) found solace and friendship in our neighbours and it will be a loss to the (already) small community of performers and techs in Macau.

There has been a bit of coverage on the news and if you want to read more, there are links below. All the best my wonderful friends. I'll miss you so so much...

MACAU DAILY TIMES

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Macau. Hot or Not?

Hello,

After discovering the blogger 'save' of drafts is less like the outlook save of drafts and more like the Lindsay lohan detox save, here is my 3rd blog entry in 1 year... Hoorah!

I can't really speak for other expats in Macau but I'm living here with an expirey date constantly lingering over my head. When I first moved here, I was thinking 1 yr tops, then suddenly it's been two and soon heading to three. It's been amazing that such a small town has reigned me in for so much time.

I kind of have a love hate relationship with Macau. I grew up in a pretty medium sized city and in a lot of ways, Macau is a small island town dwarfed by looming 5 star casinos and construction sites. I don't know what it is, but maybe because of its size or showy glitzy lights, Macau is the perfect victim for slander. Kind of like the over enthusiastic kid in school who always wants to play snap with you in the library. It makes me look at it with disdain, a little bit of fear mixed with self loathing because I can actually identify with its needier side...

Living here sometimes helps me to appreciate the smaller things in life, because they're seemingly rarer. And for the benefit of those who have never been here, I'll try to illustrate the pros and cons of the city.

Pros:
24 hr Cheap Massages. Damn straight! There are 24 hour massage parlours here!! Haven't you ever been lying in bed and you can't get to sleep because you have a knot in your neck which makes your pillow feel like mt rushmore? Not a problem here, or at least, not an excuse to get into work late the next day. If you're really tired but still not sleeping, you can call a masseuse to come to you. And if a bit sceptical, don't be, because as the Entertainment Map of Macau points out, these girls get their annualy check up regularly(?!)

Ok, ok.. so that was a bit cynical. Sorry, I tend to use a lot of bravado posing as flair in my writing but seriously, there are seriously good spas over here for reasonable prices. Ahh, just thinking about it makes me want one...

Portugese influence. So maybe the cobblestones do make me walk like one leg is substantially shorter than the other leg, but it's a nice touch.

//segway... I don't know how blog writers do this. I get sick of my own voice before I even reach my point. Gah!!

Apartment - You can live in an awesome apartment, by yourself, comfortably and pay not too much in relation to your salary.

Ok, so I'll explain in pictures!! And I'll get to the cons later. So here are some reasons, in pictures, about why Macau is rad!

Has it really been 5 months?? And Glamour, Glamour, Glamour Dahling!

There goes my New Year's resolution to blog more often. But I have an exciting new list!! Yes, I love lists! Don't get me wrong, I don't often stick to lists, but I like making them. So hopefully I can tell you all about each of the items on the "what I want to do in china before I leave list"...

So I made this list a while ago, so I don't know how much I'll stick to... Oh well!

1) Glamour shots China styllleeeee.
2) Custom make some Jewelry
3) Spend 1 week in a village somewhere
4) Get a full medical and dentist check (maybe won't blog about this)
5) Get a Shanghai Tang Cheong Sam
6) Custom make something else really cool

So onto number one... Maybe it was watching too much American idol. Maybe it was my unending love of seeing really bad glam shots and wanting to embrace it in the height of self depracation. Or it was a sincere desire to see if I could pull off glam. But it was actually several months in the making. First research into the tackiest yet raddest photographers in Shen Zhen, then grab a friend who is equally enthusiastic and willing to take the piss. Add some humour, a few shots of sake, know not to take yourself too seriously whilst quietly wishing for somewhat positive results...

My selection criteria was variety, costumes (of course), hair and makeup, oh and costumes... We ended up chosing http://www.szhds.com and with a fairly long trek to China, we started off with a mixture of excitement and trepidation... The studio was clean, bright and the staff friendly. They ushered us off to hair and makeup straight away... I have never had double layer false lashes or had my nose painted on, but this is what it looked like from my chair>>



Choosing costumes was more difficult than I orginally imagined. I was flipping through the books and suddenly, I started to take myself too seriously! So I opted for 2 normal-ish things and one over the top fluff dress frou frou flowery I'm-going-to-go-marry-a-hobbit gown... The results? I'll let you decide for yourself, but here you go! Audrey & my glam shot debut!!









So it toook 4 hrs all in all, the hair dresser went crazy with the crimplers and curlers and hairspray. She had no mercy when it came to excessive inhalation of product fumes and the fake hair was deffo uncomfortable. One of the dresses was held together by safety pins... On we go...






































































































So conclusively, this ain't for the faint of heart. When the guy with the camera asks you to part your lips, bend over and give him a sultry growl, you kind of have to embrace it. Despite my initial reaction to laugh (a lot) I guess overall it was a good experience and I loved going there with Audrey. What a star!! Ain't she hot>??

BEST OF 2010 (Tracks) #15-#10

Heyall,

Since the Facebook Liveblog application decided to finally crash and die and burn like so many other small independent app developments (due to Facebooks insistence in changing its framework every 3 months) I've decided to start using this Blogger page I made a year ago and have never posted in. At least google will make sure my blog posts won't fizzle into nothingness along with the motivation of the developer. Anyhoo waffle waffle waffle...

A sweet surprise though was discovering that 92 of you had signed up to that piece-of-crap application in order to read my pissy and infrequent posts which makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But in truth, I feel a bit undeserving of this attention considering my last blog was... August 2009? Or even earlier? So if NY resolution's are made to be broken, I resolve to write blogs more frequently and with greater tenacity.

Seriously, living in Macau has made me more timid than an abused street dog creeping towards an outstretched hand with food in it. It may sound like an exageration - and it is, but everything is kinda behind this veil of fuckery. I mean, I've always lived in places where there's a relative amount of respect for personal and private life. Over here, things are different and it seems that everyone knows everything about everyone, or claims to. There will bea point when I decide to stop complaining and actually do something about it. So I've decided instead of mask who I am and what I do, what the hell, I'll just publicise it myself. So this is my place of complete transperancy. Ada gets drunk, acts stupid, occassionally plasters herself, Ada also pashes people, swears at random strangers and swears at people closest to her....

Anyhow, now that that's out of the way... Onto the point and title of this Post. Best Tracks of 2010::

#15 Not in Love: Crystal Castles feat. Robert Smith

What could make a more perfect version of this original track (which I posted on my wall back in June/July) than a guest vocalist being Robert Smith of the Cure??

Discovering this song actually made me want to find out its roots, and actually I traced it all the way back to this:

Now I don't know which version I love more, but this isn't about Robert Smith or Platinum Blondes... It's all about Crystal Castles & how much I ♥ them and their self titled album release of 2010. You can get the full album by clicking here.

#14 I want the World to Stop: Belle & Sebastian

You know I always thought Belle & Sebastien were the names of the male & female vocalists in the band & despite numerous friends stating numerous times that it was named after a picture story book, I still insisted on saying silly things like "doesn't Belle have a beautiful voice?" When I first heard the Album 'Write About Love,' I initially fell in love with its opening track "I didn't see it coming" but after more than a few listens, "I want the world to stop" was definitely the superior track. There may have been a bit of outside influence on the selection of this song, but boy was it a ripper...



This clip makes me want to pull out my tambourine and start dancing like Ian Curtis on diazepam. I'm not sure about this entire album though, as it seems that they start to shit themselves after track 4. I know Norah Jones has a powerful ability to turn anything she touches into crooney jazz/blues/country/hick, but I can't hold her accountable for track 6-11. Even Norah's noise hole can't exert that kind of influence right?? Right?!? Find out for yourself and download the entire album here.

#13 Ready to Start: Arcade Fire

This is arguably the third most popular song on Arcade Fire's 2010 Album, The Suburbs. The first and second being Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) and the title track, The Suburbs. The album is pretty much perfect. It takes you on an epic 16 track journey through their mind holes. If you are not bored by the end of it, then you'll love it. That's really how I feel about Arcade Fire. I can't really conjure up any real emotional response from this album, but I remember like it, but not liking anything really in particular about it.



Get the whole album here.

#12 Guns and Horses: Ellie Goulding

There's something undeniably great about this song. Admit it, you're kind of bopping along to it, right? Right?? OR am I the only one? Well, if Ting Ting's was my 2008 guilty pleasure, Ellie is my 2010 aural equivalent of 'private browsing' on firefox.



By the way, how great is this BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge version of 'Only Girl in the World'??? I mean, despite the fact that when Ellie sings, she rolls her eyes back into her head like an asphyxiated cat, and she kinda sometimes looks like a crazy Evangelist at a full gospel church, but apart from that... ROCKIN!



I warn you: this album will make you wanna put on a skirt and skip around a playground full of kittens and miniture dogs with butterflies and dolphins (yes, earth dwelling dolphins) and burp candy floss clouds. If you can't resist, you can get it here.

#11 Boiling Water: Magnetic Man

Apologies for the poxy video. Can you believe this track isn't even on youtube?? Proposterous! Anyhoo, this isn't actually my favourite track off the album, but I think putting 'Flying into Tokyo' here would be a misrepresentation of this album. As you can probably tell from this track, Magnetic Man's a quasi drum n bass/dub step producer with a melodic sensibility. I've been really getting back into my dnb considering it's much more accessable than good electro. Strange that, but true... Anyhoo here tis...


Magnetic Man – Boiling Water (Feat. Sam Frank) found on Pop

And for the full album (which is awesome BTW), click here.

#10 Runaway: KanyeWest

Kanye's new ablum 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' is disgusting.ly great. I feel a little soiled admitting that. But it is. Just when you thought that Kanye couldn't get more self loving, obsessed, egotistical, he puts this one out and now we need to all take Kanye in ours arms, hand-feed him soft chocolate cookies and sing an apology lullaby to him. Srsly. So I'm posting here Runaway b/c in my most indulgent pitiful moods, I could actually relate to this song... Try to ignore the fact this whole thing looks like a tampon commercial that wasn't supposed to air until 2050.



And if you're really feeling like gauging your eyeball with a screwdriver (I've done that before, srsly) then you can look at the uncut version of this clip which is 34:33!! YES THIRTY FOUR MINUTES AND THIRTY THREE SECONDS!! Gahhh!!! Masochists click here to watch. And for the full album, click here. But be warned that Rocafella is onto downloads as fast as Lindsay Lohan's onto a Betty Ford loyatly program membership card...


So that completes my #15-#10 peeps, I'll try to do the #9-#5 soon-ish but with the festivities over the next week, I doubt I'd be particularly articulate or witty etc etc.. Take care out there. Have fun & an outrageously good New Years!! Mwa mwa mwa

xxxA