Grown Up Candy Raver
With the spate of ultral hip new clubs in HK with Chinese names. "Hei Hei" (good luck), Yumla (to drink), Dragon i, and even Kee Club (As in Son of Yeun Kee on Wellington street.), opposed to the traditional English names for bars. I came across a bar name that was so "right", so kewl, so clu-uub, that I did double take and have my stomach turn when I saw it. The name of the club is Forbidden City because it was one of those things that you go, "WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT!" It’s just so… obvious.. except it’s not, coz in my mind, the forbidden city can only be the place the emperor or heads of state, plus tourists in Beijing get to hang out. It’s not a place that possibly one is not allowed in to do things you are not supposed to be doing. As in well, forbidden (not allowed) City (place of mass population congregation). Which if there is a good club name, this is one.
It’s so Chinese Themed Post-modern that I could puke, and I thought we in HK had a handle on that already. But of course, this didn’t happen in HK, or Shanghai, or Beijing. It was from LA (After all these years, LA promoters keep me on their mailing list, which is at once sweet and annoying as hell.) And it’s probably good that the club is in LA. Coz the club scene there is dirty and grimy, cheesy and brash. And they could get away with Forbidden City, as in some sort of sinning going on much better than we could here. You kinda have to have gay go-go boy dancers in cages on a wed night in a place like that to truly trash and disrespect something of such historical significance. (i mean come on it’s on Vine need i say more.) Yeah, now I think about it, it does work much better over there then it does here. Really, over here, you really have to have a big big big member of ego to dare call yourself that. People would just go, "Yeah, right. That little shitty bar calls itself Forbidden City?? Come on." While in LA, all shitty little bars have big names and attitudes. It’s all about big names and attitudes, even if you’re no one.
I mean you probably don’t know that the place you see with the hand prints of stars like marilyn monroe and Cary Grant, is outside a horrible dark, dirty theatre that’s not been cleaned since the 50s called,"Mann’s Chinese Theatre." Where people go see the after midnight showing of movies and everyone is off their heads and messed up in the place. I went once, when i first got to LA to see Brendan Lee’s "The Crow," while sipping whiskey in a paper bag coz the kids at school saids that’s what everyone does (very funny guys) and when I came out of the theatre, I threw up in the parking lot. Ergh.. never again.
I can’t remember where I read it, I wish I wrote it down, but it said something like,
"Hollywood Bld, the street that exudes glamour in the heads middle America, because they don’t know it is where the drunks and prostitutes congregate along cheap plastic souvenirs, where they might get there wallet snatched."
Exactly, I mean, really I have seen many a confused and horrified face of tourists in that spot, although i am fond of it, the same way I am found of the crappy clubs in LA like the Roxy and Grandville, and whereever Magic Wednesday used to be.
People say Hong Kong is trying to be like LA or New York, and it’s such the joke. Coz LA doesn’t have bars half as nice as they do here, (They have the standard now, so I think that’s changed a bit), but if you want a LA style bar, you need to get out of Soho, Central and TST, and not even North Point or CWB. You want a Hollywood bar, like Smalls (I never did see Anthony Keides there no matter how I tried) or whatever the bar behind Santa Monica 3rd street with all the bands, or the downtown clubs that’s four stories high in the middle of an industrial building somewhere next to homeless hotels (Shark Club?) you have to go somewhere like Kai Tak or Mongkok or Kowloon City. Ick. Fascinating, yet disturbing, Scary but hard to stay in. People don’t know why the rave scene was so special and why it took hold like it did and sparked the imagination of hundreds of thousands of kids. They would if they ever had a drink on the wrong night (or even the "right" night) in the wrong bar in the wrong place up in LA City Proper.
lates
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 