Asia Stacia Blog

I'm getting ready to depart for Nepal and Bhutan and created a blog to mark the occasion, share travel details, stories and pictures.

Check it out here: http://asiastacia.blogspot.com/

A Dancer's Life For Me

Last night we went to Bembe at The Duplex. New party and venue (to me) and they were both tops. We got there early enough to enjoy a relatively empty dance floor. This is the only way for me to start the night; I love having the physical space and time to really warm my body up and get into the energy of the music. There were a couple of really great dancers that I would imagine had the same idea and started cutting up the floor early into the evening; this is another good way to start the night. I love sharing the floor with people that both know how to dance and love it.

There's something that happens usually between 24-40 minutes of being out on the floor and it's fucking magical. Basically, everything melts away and what is left is the rhythm of the music, my feet, legs, hips, arms, torso, head and ass - all moving as one in every motion and combination imaginable. No thought. No talking. No nothing. Just that. I become one with the music and the rest is history.

DJ Sabine from Brooklyn started her set just as I was hitting that spot. And she started things slow and deep. Nearly cleared the floor from the outset but after a minute I got what she was doing. She was clearing our pallets like a nice piece of ginger after some tuna sashimi. And she took her sweet, sweet time.

My friend Chien Chi and I faced each other and played out the slow, deep grooves as robots from another planet landing on earth. Or at least that's what I thought it looked like.

There were two kids dancing next to us and the way they moved their feet was incredible. One of them never actually had both feet on the ground, but he never lifted either of them very high. The grace and ease he moved with could only be described as natural.

As Sabine just went deeper she also began to bring things up (interesting contradiction) introducing more complex, faster hitting rhythms. At this point I was ready to really get into my own footwork moving through the rhythms as fast and furious as they were pumping out of the loudspeakers.

There are only a few other activities I can liken this whole experience to - one of which is actually playing music and the other is sex. There is a selflessness and egolessness that I can reach in all of these activities and it is pure bliss.

I thought for a minute about how as I get older I just seem to enjoy all of this more and more and that makes any hint of worry about what the future holds just melt away.

Immunizations HURT!!!

Okay, I fess up, I hate shots and having blood drawn. I'm a big pussy when it comes to those delightful events. So when I went to the San Francisco Department Of Health's travel clinic to get immunized properly for my trip to Nepal and Bhutan I wasn't in the best frame of mind.

Thank god I live in a country in which we have the *option* to get immunized. Truly. I am blessed.

But holy smokes - yesterday I got stuck 3 times for 4 reasons (polio, tetanus, hepA/hepb combo and thypoid meds are in the fridge). The injections weren't too bad. I was a pro as was the nurse. "Deep breath in, deep breath out, prick, done" - times three.

I decided to walk home to the mission, grabbed a grilled veggie burrito on the way and called it a day. About 30 minutes into the walk I felt feverish and tingley (and not in a way one might hope!). 2 hours later I was zonked. I passed out on my couch around 7:30pm and more or less slept through the night if you don't count having to roll over to switch sore arms to sleep on.

But again, in the end, grateful we who get to benefit from modern medicine should be.

Traveling To Asia

I am going to Nepal and Bhutan in February! I leave the 21st and return March 7th.

It's true.

16 days or something like that.

For those of you who don't know already I'm pretty psyched.

My mom is coming with me, good traveller that she is.

So if anyone has experience traveling in this part of Asia my ears are open.

I Am In The Mood

Yeah, it's time to cut loose, another one of those days when I want to go out late, dance really hard with my girlfriends and raise some hell.

We're still having indian summer and I'm having to work too hard. I keep thinking that Winter-ish weather is gonna kick in and it doesn't and when it doesn't all I wanna do is play.

The Knife - Mezzanine SF 11/3/06

This was the show of the year in my book. Rarely do they perform and when they do it is not to be missed. Your ticket won't bring you closer to great musical virtuosity but it will bring you to one of the best audiovisual shows you can witness on a small scale.

The Knife works with visual talent Andreas Nilsson - or rather he works with them to creat a show in which neither audio or visual is subjugated by or for the other.

Two projection screens are setup: one at the front of the stage that the band performs directly behind and the other at the very back of the stage. When both screens are in use there is a holograhic effect that is produced and it is spectacular.

This phone interview will give some insight into just what the bloody hell I am talking about:

http://blog.podbop.org/archives/2006/09/18/the_knife_from_studio_to_stage/

This is the type of show I've dreamed of making. Working with George Coates was about the closest I ever got to pulling something like this off myself. I'm sort of reinspired to pursue something like this because when done properly, as The Knife did at the Mezzanine on Friday night, it is something very special making the oft random visual imagery that accompanies trance and other dance music what is it - an after thought.

In a sense, we get to literally "see inside" the music. And that my friends is a sensual experience of the highest order.

I'm Trading Up My Online Dating Profile

Seems almost everyone I know who is single has an online dating profile; mostly on the hipster ghetto of FastCupid which incidently is owned by the largest online porn company in the biz. For those of you new to the game FastCupid serves up singles to Nerve, Salon and Onion registered daters. So as my good friend who happens to be moving in with his new girlfriend this weekend, Steve C. says you never know if you're date is a perv, lit head or wiseass.

I've done the online dating thing on and off since 1999.

Today ladies and gentlemen hung it up and pressed the 'delete profile' key.

Why?

Because it, for me, has become a mind fuck and collosal time suck.

FastCupid offers you the possibility of watching the behaivor of other site members. You can see who's checked you out, when their last login was, how long they've been active etc.. This is just enough info over time to make really poor assumptions about what people are up to instead of just asking direct questions outright.

New ridiculous questions have taken the place of normal questions people who are interested in each other ask like:

We've been dating for a month now; his profile is still active and he logged in yesterday.

What does that mean?

Do I ask him about it?

If I turn my profile off and he sees it what will he think?

Dating is difficult enough - why torture yourself with the added complexity of being able to watch pieces of your potential partners dating game behaivor.

I give up. Uncle.

My friend Zack is creating a new online dating service - Strange Angels - maybe he'll save us all from the gallows of online romance.

In the meantime, I'm free from the shackels of hotlists, winks, and 'who's viewing you'.

Thank Christ.