do do that voodoo

For all of you in suspense about Eveline and the bloody ghost (in other words, all of you), here's an update - and one of the most fucking hilarious stories I've heard in a long time - she emailed me a few days ago:

so yeah, the ghost called (like 2 weeks ago) to tell me that the band [Voodoo Kungfu] was playing nov 6 (last friday) so i FINALLY got to go hang out with him, & it was quite a night.

i got my friend jamila to come with, & jamila brought her friend sarabeth. so we get there, pay the cover, & go in to the bar. i see the drummer but not the ghost. so after buying a drink & standing around for a few moments, i'm like, hmm, what am i supposed to do? so then i text the ghost that i'm there & he calls back being like, where are you, i'm here too. some confusion ensues (what with that whole little i-don't-speak-chinese thing) but we wind up meeting at the entrance to the bar. then he starts to go talk to the little window lady to let me in for free & i'm like, oh i already paid the cover. & he looks really disappointed & is like, oh no, you did? & i was like, yeah it's okay no worries. but inside i'm thinking something more like - you idiot, you could have told me AHEAD of time to call you before going in.

so then he's like, want to go backstage? so i go fetch my friends & we're like, okay we're going back stage. much to my surprise going back stage means going up onto the stage & into this little door in the back of the stage. & this btw is a really nice club, 2 floors, really great sound system, not a little dive like club 13. so yeah, we climb the stairs onto the stage, go through a door in the back, and walk into....the most brightly lit room in the world. it is like stark white, like it looks like it was painted yesterday, & everyone is sitting against the wall & there are 2 fluorescent lights overhead. i.e. a room full of dreadlocked chinese guys & their bored looking girlfriends all look up at us the moment we walk in & we're like, ack. & it's a small room & we can't totally speak chinese and - yeah. super embarrassing. of course the chinese guys, being chinese guys, jump up & insist that we sit on the couch even though it basically means they have nowhere to sit in this tiny little room, & we keep insisting no, & there's this long period where everybody's standing and insisting & blah blah & finally the ghost says in extremely loud, accented english, "puh-lease-uh sit down-uh!" so finally we all sit (with the guys who gave up their seats now perched awkwardly on various chair arms or for the ghost, on the coffee table) & . . . silence.

crickets chirp.

me, jamila & sarabeth kind of feel like we're on stage with a ring of chinese strangers watching us, all of them looking not quite unfriendly but also seeming to be thinking, "who the fuck are these people?"

there's a tubby, dorky looking guy next to me playing guitar & finally the ghost is like, give that to me. so then the ghost starts playing guitar. as jamila whispered to me, he was obviously feeling really shy/awkward & didn't know what to do with himself or how to talk to me so he just sat against the wall across the room like a teenage boy playing guitar.

okay this is getting way too long. basically we finally managed to chat a little bit, although a lot of it was pretty awkward because we sort of had to talk loudly across the room with the other people in the room on either side looking on, as if watching a tennis match. there was a lot of like, one person says something, the other person says huh?, we both scoot forward & lean way forward to be nearer each other to hear better, statement is repeated, statement is answered, we both sit back against the wall again, he starts playing guitar again, we ponder what to say next.

oh and, after that initial long awkward period of not talking & him playing guitar & looking down & me looking at the ceiling & around, etc., when he FINALLY spoke to me, do you know what the first thing he said was?

he asked me if i know bon jovi.

ok it might translate better as something like, "in america, have you met bon jovi?" but still.

i said i don't know bon jovi. then it occured to me that actually i have seen bon jovi, once, when he sang a song at this john kerry fundraiser concert at radio city music hall that i went to for free through work. so i tell him, oh i have seen him sing like one song from really far away. and then the ghost is like, "was he..." and i expect that sentence to end in "good" but instead he says, "good-looking?" i'm like, huh? oh. "uhhh, yeah i guess he's good-looking. i mean, he's getting a little old but, uhh, yeah, sure."

he said 2 more english phrases over the course of the night - "do you speak chinese?" (to jamila), and "tonight i break your fucking face," which is apparently a limp bizkit lyric.

at some point the opening band started playing & we're like, oh shit. we can't get out of this room now without walking onto the stage. at some point my friend jason & some others arrive & text me & jamila, "where are you?" & i have to write back, "we're trapped backstage. seriously."

at some point the singer & his girlfriend (i think) walk in & look at us kind of like, "who the hell are these strange people sitting in our backstage area?" & then disappear into the bathroom & then come back out & perch somewhere awkward (what with there being no place to sit thanks to me, jamila & sarabeth.)

the ghost managed to get less adolescent-boy-shy & even managed to come sit by me to chat for a bit. however, this involved him sharing the armchair with the tubby, dorky, but very nice guy next to me, who turned out to be a friend of his from back home, & the tubby friend would like stroke the ghost's arm or rest his hand on the ghost's back & stuff. & from my low angle it kind of looked like the ghost was sitting on tubby guy's lap while tubby guy affectionately stroked his arm & back.

tubby & i talked a lot, but because of his heavy accent when saying band names in english, it was mostly,
"do you like [insert name of band.]"
"huh?"
"[name of band.]"
"say that one more time?"
"[name of band.]"
"wait - spell that?"
"[name of band, spelled out in english.]"
"ohhhh! yeah i like them."
*repeat entire conversation several more times, inserting a different band each time.*

oh & it's also funny because whenever the ghost addressed me (by calling out across the room) he would say my chinese name, & since i never actually use my chinese name (i only gave it to him that night because he was gonna store my name in his phone & i assumed it would be harder to communicate my english name than just tell him the chinese characters to put in) there'd be like a split second where i didn't quite register that he was saying my name. so he'd begin a sentence "zhao yi" and it'd be like - beat of silence - oh wait that's me! ha.

oh and the BEST part of the night. talking to the drummer. I LOVE HIM. he has like the BEST personality in the world. he also, as i discovered when i went & sat by him & saw him up close, has one little patch of hair below his lip that is basically a soul patch dreadlock. yes, there is a tuft of hair below his lip that is dreaded into like a PERFECT cylinder that isn't any narrower at the bottom than at the top.

but so, i went over & was like, "i have to ask you - how do you know how to do mongolian throat singing?! where did you study it?" & in a nutshell, he was basically like, "it's the funniest thing - i never studied mongolian throat singing anywhere, i just kind of discovered out of the blue one day that i could do it!" but the explanation was a lot longer than that. THEN he's like, "when i was little there was this movie (or maybe cartoon?) that i used to watch, and it had this big scary monster on it who would yell in a really low growly voice, and i liked to imitate him. so i think doing that all the time built up my vocal chords so i can do mongolian throat singing now!" & then i *think* he said that his girlfriend is mongolian & gave him a cd of throat singing once, about 3 years ago, & he listened to it & was just kind of like, hey i bet i can do that. and he could. how fucking AMAZING and hilarious is that? also the singer & one of the other members of the band are taking throat singing lessons now from some old mongolian sage who lives by the lake that you guys were staying near. they're all also now trying to learn the kind of throat singing where you split your voice & can sing 2 notes at once!

also the drummer is from yunnan (very south of china), which explains why he's so short, hee.

oh and the mummy? totally hot. okay well maybe not to most people, but i found him completely hot w/o his makeup on. sadly he seemed to have a girlfriend. oh but at one point he like stood up right in front of me in the middle of the room & was doing all these big elaborate stretches and deep bends and swinging his arms around and stuff. like at one point i look up & his ass is right in my face because he's touching his toes.

& then of course when they finally performed they rocked and were amazing and it was even better than at club 13 because the sound system at this other new bar was AMAZING. and then of course, after the show the ghost & i are talking (well, barely, still not so good at the whole, how to talk to a girl thing) & this hungarian guy comes up to us and says he's a filmmaker & the band was awesome & do they have a cd & how can he get in touch with them, what's their website, etc. (i was translating for him.) and of course the ghost is just like, huh? cd? website? why on earth would a POPULAR METAL BAND have any of those things? so i'm like, they basically have nothing. then the hungarian filmmaker is like, don't you have ANYTHING? can i email you? how can i get in touch with you guys? finally the ghost comes up with the helpful tidbit that they can go onto baidu (the chinese equivalent of google) and search their name in chinese. uhhh, thanks. the guy presses some more and then finally the ghost is like, well i guess i can give him my phone number. so we wrote down his number for the guy & the guy said he had a translator he could get to call & talk for him. god it just KILLS me that these guys could actually be pretty big if they like, you know, had a manager who was with-it or someone who could speak english working wiht them or something but, nope, none of that. although on the other hand it's really cool that, given their apparent lack of any hitting-it-big dreams, they i guess do this for fun? and for like ,years, right? at least however many years it took the singer's hair to grow from that awful 'do in the DVD to the length it is now.

OH and i forgot to mention - the drummer is in 2 other bands. one is a pop rock band and one is . . . brace yourselves . . .

a flamenco band.

yup.