Perhaps I ought to apologize for that last post. It was fun to write, I won't lie to you, but it looks (in retrospect) kind of juvenile and silly. I suppose I get that way from time to time.

My Mom read it and gave me a bit of a hard time… that is to say that it caused her to worry about me. I explained that it was just my sense of humor and that there was no cause for alarm. Mothers are like that, yeah they are. Love you Mom!

The guys at Sharky's liked it. Nobody on Facebook commented, which I interpret to be an inexplicably bad omen, but so what… I'm not superstitious

At any rate I think I want to be a bit more mature, focused and intentional this year, so let's just chalk that last post up to being the last post of last year (a day late and 10,000 riel short) and we'll consider this one to be the first post of the new year and an auspicious harbringer of things to come. Coolio indeedy!

So I've updated and launched my newly redesigned, simpler, more elegant and functional photoblog at www.mythicaldude.net and I hope you'll go check it out. Simple concept: a photo a day… and this time I really mean it.

I've also, yet again, redone my Steve Goodman Photography website at www.stevegoodman.com and while it still needs work (who doesn't?)

I think it has some compelling new features, charming content and a certain glistening shine. Actually it smells like a new car and, as you know, that's a pretty damned good smell.

Of course it'll wear off soon enough and the pile of trash in the backseat will start to become unbearable, but let's not go there now sister…

That might be all I have to say for the moment… just got home from a fun and sweaty Sharky Bar gig and once again the band sounded pretty damned good if I do say so myself.

Shakry's has the best stage and sound system in Phnom Penh, it even has seriously humongous(sp?) stage monitors, so playing there is always a pleasure. In addition to the monitors they have a some huge-ish guitar and bass guitar amps and a snazzy durm kit which Scoddy was all over tonight making things sound extra zesty.

I never really notice drums too much when I listen to most bands, except for when they are really sounding catchy and special, as was the case this evening. Nice and impossible-not-to-notice pithy little accents in all the right places made things sound extra gutsy and in general it felt like the whole improbable Hellhounds machine had been lubed, calibrated and polished to a nice snazzy shine. Pretty cool.

Don't tell anyone that our plates are expired, the brakes are squeaky and the steering is a more than bit dodgy.

 It feels like I need to find a photo for this post so please hang on just a minute… OK here's one now:

Yes. It is a brick wall somewhere in the alley behind my apartment in Phnom Penh and it symbolizes, in a starkly literal fashion, the brick wall I ran into at the end of last year. Ouch. Fascinating perhaps, but not pretty by any stretch of the imagination.

These things happen and life is full of false starts, slow boats, dead-ends, abrupt cancellations and lots of minor cuts and bruises (even serious contusions from time to time). Its OK. You run into one of these and – unless your are really out-of-it – you'll know that you were going to fast for your own good and heading in the wrong direction (even if it seemed like a good idea at the time).

Hey man, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and head on over the sunny side of the street! And quit moaning… one must take things in stride.

So now it occurs to me that I need one more juxtapositional image to symbolize the high hopes, determined ambition and spiritually uplifting feeling that a new year ought to be greeted with… uh, hang on again for just a second…

Heh-heh-heh… Yes! A big thumbs-up for this one. Again nothing subtle going on here (we cater to a wide and shortly-attention-spanned multi-culti-demographic audience here at MythicalDude-Amalgamated-Industries-InterCorp-LTD, Inc.^TM). Things are both operating normally (which is to say somewhat dysfunctionally) and also changing at the same time. This much is abundantly clear, but what the future holds is anybody's guess. As for me I can only say this… Despite the odds I'm still hoping for the best and I think I'll know it when I see it. And that's all she wrote.

Please stay tuned (As mentioned in that garishly lurid last post (below with the test pattern at the end)… and that's where the tuk-tuk soaring by comes in to play in this photo (a photograph with text in it!) … to really make the picture memorable and add a healthy dose of funk and a not-very-shy dash of indisputably local flavor to the whole ball-of-wax – even though we're all living like The Jetsons here now in 2010, there still aren't any seatbelts (for reasons unknown)… so we're all going have to just deal with it, come what may.

I like this first blog photo of the new year a lot… and I really know what I'm talking about when it comes to stuff like that, so take my word for it.

It's jam-packed with big fat juicy meaning. Obviously it has its own conceited metaphor… today is the well-lit portion of the photo and tomorrow is represented by the blackness of the doorway. And to reinforce that interpretational notion is the solidly unambiguous statement – written in text – that things are being improved and that we can expect something good!

You really can't get much more straightforward than that in the realm of photographical metaphors.

There's somebody in there (which means that there is a there there)… and they're doing something in the backgound (or so they say) while they remain open for business  and operating normally (as though!), or so they say right up fron in BIG BOLD LETTERS. There behind the door, there in the inscrutable darkness of the future just beyond today that nobody can see. Something is happening.

• Something BIG and BOLD.

Where will it all lead? What's going to happen next? Will we be stopping for a pee-break and a snack?

Who the hell knows? Not me, that's for sure and a half.

Hey, its all good and it only seems counter-intuitive until you get used to it. (a tip-o-the-hat to the zenbozo)

So get used to it and for crying out loud there sport, let's all try to get along even if things get a little sloppy here and there. Remember: one man gathers what another man spills… Don't let the fucking bastards wear you down (the BEST advice my Dad ever gave me).

So get with the program dude, stop being such a poopy-head and don't forget to always remember to keep the FUN in dysfunctional.

I smell bad and I'm going to take a shower. like I said before, it was a sweaty night.

Sorry Mom, but I need to try and be honest. In the real world (or so we've been told here in the world of mirth and myth), a good acid-test to predict if something you want to say might be a certain kind of funny… is to ask yourself this… "would my Mom grimace dissapprovingly if she heard me say this?"

Hah! I smell bad and I'm going to take a shower. After that its going to be a good year. That's my status.

Word. Peace and out.

PS: I think we're actually off to a splendid start, but everything is still a little bit weird and distorted.

Looking ahead… Despite my lack of new year resolutions and even after taking into account my generally grim prospects for the future…

I have reason to believe that 2010 will be a great year!

Certainly it started out with a BANG… and also with lots of beer and "silly string", but that was all before today's extraordinarily regretable, challenging and absolutely massive hangover.

Wheee!

A good time was had by all at Sharky Bar in Phnom Penh last night as the Sharks hosted "Penhstock", Cambodia's first rock festival.

Lots of fun and a compelling trigger for asking those pesky and profound big-picture questions…

"Why didn't I just quit while I was ahead?

What was I thinking?

You mean she wasn't joking?

Who the hell knows.

Five (5) bands took and shook the Sharky stage during the course of the beery and boisterous evening and the house was jam-packed with enthusiastic revelers, making things rather steamy.

However, despite the provocative body-heat, the eagerly excited crowd was animated, friendly and decidedly out to have a good time (Fucking-A) and bring in the New Year with excpetionally high-spirits, much merriment and ecstatic inebriation (not to mention well-intentioned yet nonetheless irrational exuberance)!

The mythicaldude (dapperly dressed in black) arrived fashionably late at 11:30 PM and missed all the bands except for Lost Highway,

They were really great and his dudeliness particularly enjoyed a bunch of Creedence Clearwater Revival tunes … and really dug the BIG phat sound of the drums. Right on!

By all accounts, and as best I can remember, we were effusively loud, if not downright thrillingly rowdy. definitely there was nothing about us or our performance that was even remotely delicate, subtle or nuanced. That's a good thing, right?

I'm reasonably sure that we had most everyone in attendance completely snookered and fooled into thinking that we actually knew what the hell we were doing! For sure it could have been worse!

After a somewhat abbreviated and only slightly inebriated set we actually jammed a bit with some of the cats from Lost Highway who we found – despite their reputation (just kidding) and ours (no joke) - to be nice friendly guys as well seriously good fun players who like to rock.

In all likelihood we were sloppy, loud and disorganized, but no one seemed to care (or notice) since to varying degrees everyone in the joint was thoroughly drunk, happy and oblivious. Woo hoo!

Harmonica Ken was great, as always.

Ditto to the max for ace-accordianist & slide-guitarist-extraordinaire Jimmy.,, that's him in black and white part of the picture on the left)!

Scoddy was nattily attired yet subdued in his sartorial splendor until he began to pound on the industrial-strength big-ass drum-kit with aplomb (or was he just using regular old drumsticks?)

As always, it is mandatory that you check out his Following The Applause Blog for his lounge-lizardly take on what went down.

That's me playing guitar on the right (in living color) … hunkered down as usual… desperately concentrating on maintaining some semblance of a functional real time connection between my ears, eyes, brain and fingers.

[ It's no picnic being me... I don't like it one little bit, but I've been at this game for so long now that I'm used to it. ]

The Swedish Ambassador is wintering in Europe this holiday season so our good buddy Bass Player Dave from Canada did a great job filling-in on short notice. Dave plays these days with a classy jazzy-wazzy group called Mispent Yooth.

I thoroughly enjoyed conversing and commiserating with Bass Player Dave from Canada after the gig and long after all the guests and other band members were long gone.

Dave and I sat together at the empty bar methodically and fastidiously milking the FREE BEER (his favorite brand) for all it was worth – no sense in letting go to waste, or in letting Al drink it,

Somehow we managed to operate under the radar and went virtually undetected until about 3:00 AM when finally the bar staff got the message across. They had been anxiously killing us softly with their disdainful looks in a mostly feeble attempt to let us know that they wanted to get the hell out of there and that it was time for us to leave.

Until then we were undetered from our clandestine and intoxicating mission, and remained unabasheldy commited to our iron-clad indifference, which was bolstered considerably by the ludicrously drunken conviction that we knew where all the bodies were buried. In retrosepct it seems abundantly clear that I don't (and never did) have the slightest idea what that even means. Clueless? You bet!

Despite our regressive nonsensical gibberish, the Sharky crew outdid themselves with a boisterous well-planned and well-managed party… including a cool private (well maybe semi-private) and only slightly dilapidated backstage area for all the musicians with an icy keg of FREE BEER (my favorite brand too!).

So a great big big tip-O-the-hat is in order to the Sharky dudes for a job well done indeed.

By all means, please check out the Sharky Blog for some of Cali 2 Jim's photos (you've go to love those ladies!) and an illuminating and informative recap of the night's festivities.

.

Grudgingly, El Mythicos Dudicus, has disclosed his frank admission that he "now knows better", and is frighteningly quick to add "but at the time it all seemed like a good idea".

It is understandable after all the glitz, giddy exhileration and profusion of perspiration at the gig… that he was steadfastly unwilling to compromise his enthusiastic neglect of good judegment….
 

so the mythicaldude set out with outlandish abandon and utter disreagard for any any and all possible consequences… and "did himself in" good and proper. Ouch!

Since the dude started out on the late side and was genuinely and appropriately inspired by the rambunctious party and excellent vibes..

he wound-up staying out literally all night (an increasingly rare occurance at his advanced age).

At roughly 4 AM, I ran into Cali 2 Jim at the

Walkabout* where I think we had the exact same conversation that we had hours earlier at Sharky's.

I enjoyed it both times… that's my story and Í'm sticking to it.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that was all my fault.

{   *  }

[  The Walkabout is a Phnom Penh landmark every bit as legendary as the Sharky Bar... a cathedral of decadence.

It is almost universally revered as a local bastion of culture and generally regarded as the pinnacle of late-night elegance, refinement and sophistication. Tee-hee-hee.   ]

 

 

 

 

Not long after that the MythMan bumped into none other than The Lost Highway Drummer Guy upstairs there at the Walkabout, where we sat for awhile slurring our words and chewing the fat over yet another beer as we watched to bartender do her homework…

Just what the doctor ordered.

 

 

The mythical one also saw many other twisted and familiar faces… all of whom:

Consequently he fails to recall many of the gory details of last night's epically shameful, abberently debilitating, decadent and self-indulgent debauchery. Alas!

Man it was some kind of big fun… while it lasted

So it goes.

Anyhow… it turns out that The Lost Highway Drummer Guy used to live in San Francisco, just like me… and in one of those pleasantly inexplicable turns of conversation we fondly (and rather bizarrely) reminisced about a great guitar player from The City by the Bay named Carlos Guitarlos, who evidently (I found out after diligent investigation on Google) is still out there and going strong.

Here is the Carlos Guitarlos MySpace page.

But I digress…

I imagine that I must be distracted by the strangely enthralling and wonderfully perverse and misguided thought of heading back to Sharky Bar tonight to jam with Lost Highway and enjoy a toke a few drinks in a typically pathetic and humiliating attempt to adjust the arc of my life's trajectory in order to get back on-track and confidently seize the plethora of opportunities that await me in the coming New Year.

Naturally I accoomplish this feat by creatively causing life to disintegrate in a spectacularly despicable smoky haze of unabashedly flagrant self-abuse and degradation while I wallow in my embrace of the incredible delusion that someday soon I'll somehow rise to the occassion and, as they say in the song…

"someday everything's gonna be different… when I paint my masterpiece".

What a crock of crap… what a stinking steamy heap of stinky dung you say?

Hey mister… don't burst my bubble, OK?

Don't you have to "go see a guy about a thing"?

For your information I became so engrossed with writing this blog post that I spent too much time and now, sadly, it is much too late for Sharky's.

Rest assured though, dear reader, that I take no small amount of solace and comfort in the certain knowledge that… I can always go back to the Walkabout. Hoo-hah!

It truly is a blessing to live in Phnom Penh.

At any rate the whole crew here at mythicaldude.com wishes you a very happy new year.

We're hoping for the best… and that's a fact!

Please stand by for 2010… that's right, there aren't any seatbelts so you'll just have to deal with it.

I know what I'm doing for New Year's this year…

 

Now on Facebook at The Hellhounds page.

^The Hellhounds will be playing at Sharky Bar on New Year's Eve…

and also every Thursday night in January.

 

We'll also be at Talkin' To A Stranger three Fridays in January.

  

For more information about Phnom Penh's music scene please visit:

Leng Pleng  -  Following the Applause

Dimple World Music- Dan Ögren's Music Site- Ritchy & Phil's Music Site - Scott Bywater's Music Site

CrazyHead from Leicester- D'Sco: The Geckos of Love- The Mekong Pirates- Thom Thom

And for information about what's going on around town check out:

Lady Penh - ExPat Advisory Services - BongThom.com – Things To Do

And finally, links to a couple of videos of the Hellhounds playing at the FCC in November:

Hellhounds video 1   -   Hellhounds video 2

In the park near my house they have a big fountain with colored lights that is usually running at night on the weekends. Very festive…

A few more images of Christmas in Cambodia…

Happy Holidays, and a very happy new year! 

About

 

I've been Cambotized. I guess it's kind of like being hypnotized, or maybe like falling in love.

Once in awhile you stop in dismay and ask yourself "how did I wind up here?".

Of course you know the facts, but somehow they don't seem to really answer the question at all…

and then you think of the future and you're just as clueless!

I''m evidently having one of those days… again.

• On a semi-related note… check out Tharum's Most Interesting Quotes of 2009.