there’s a coupla things i wanted to discuss, ‘specially since i’m suffering from insomnia. it’s the perfect time to address them.

first off, my decision to hitchhike at least part of my route. obviously there’s the money issue, but it’s more than that. one of the big reasons that i set out on doing this whole thing was because i really am fascinated with the country and want to see it, want to experience it, meeting people, hearing their stories, seeing strange sights… and hey, what better way than hitchhiking? i’m not going to hitchhike the whole thing because i’m depending on a lot of kindly people to house me and wanta keep to some sort of schedule for them, but when it’s hostels or national parks or bus stations that i’m sleeping in, why not hitchhike?

sometimes i feel like this country is divided into a bunch of smaller countries. in some ways that was the entire point in the federal system. but (and this sounds cheesy as hell) we are all ostensibly tied together, one people. as such, i want to experience that in a really fundamental way.

that and i figure i’ll get better food by hitchhiking than by traveling by bus.

“i know you’re wise beyond your years, but do you ever get the fear / that your perfect verse’s just a lie, you tell yourself to get by.” – postal service –clark gable

secondly, more grandiosely, whatever that means, i wanted to discuss why i write this. primarily, (and yes, i know i’m doing lots of mini-lists tonight) it’s an exploration, a process through which i get down thoughts and allow myself to explore them in a format that requires at least some modicum of analysis. on another level, it’s a practice of writing, of putting together sentences, even if they aren’t poetry or academic work. it’s a practice that keeps my mind sharp and my writing skills eloquent (or so i’d like to think). and of course, on some level, like all writing, it’s masturbatory. the process of petty immortalisation, especially in this paradoxically ephemeral and eternal medium. and hell, it is fundamentally pretentious to feel that your writing has a value that others can recognize, that others would wish to engage with, that you have some part of the truth in you, that your overuse of the word ‘that’ is a stylistic quirk rather than the failings of an insufficiently erudite mind.

in the end though… what matters is that this gives me some satisfaction to do. it allows me to examine parts of myself that too often lie unexamined. and until the moment i stop gaining utility from the blog i’ll keep writing and hope that you’ll keep reading.

in keeping with that… i just wanted to tell all of you to stay tuned to this page for updates on my odd-yssey. i’m going to be posting a rough schedule of where i’ll be and when. also, i’m going to try to update the blog everyday or whenever i get internet access in order to a) keep you all assured that i am happily alive and b) so that i can have a thorough journal of my experiences.

but once again i am putting the call out, if i am goin to be anywhere near your neck of the woods, throw me an email or sommat and i will meet up with you. if you have a couch or a spare room or know someone who does or know a nearby hostel, get at me. more than that, i just want to see you, see new faces in new places and experience the diversity that a change in geography can bring.

life is the momentary blip of light in the dark expanse of eternity.

do you know how some people see sounds? they perceive music as an array of colours because of whatever strange connection has been made in their heads. though mostly this is is discussed in relation to the physical senses, i have something similar with emotions.

when i feel an emotion, there’s a tint in the back of my mind that colors everything. when i feel an emotion coming offa person through my physical senses, there’s a subtle flare of colour around them. it sounds weird, but it’s something i’ve grown up and kinda like. it’s unique. which seems to be a goal all its own in this city.

i guess why that’s the reason i describe poetry using the painter metaphor. we are painters, emotions are our paint, every subtle shadow corresponding to the exact nuance of a feeling. i’ve said it before, i don’t like using words like love or hate in my work without some sort of qualification. what kind of love? what kind of hate? what does it mean to have a hate for a person once loved? a hate born from seeing those you care about being hurt by the target of your disdain?

i’m still trying to convey that complexity in my work. it’s hard. one’s control of language, one’s technical skill is the tilt of the head that makes the Mona Lisa forever haunting. i’m learning it as i go, trying to build from traditions before me, but this shit ain’t gifted. it’s earned.

though, i do have enough of the romantic (the era, not the gift card) in me to see the poet as special on some level. maybe it’s my own arrogance speaking. but at the same time, there’s great technical illustrators that are still unable to convey any depth of feeling in their work.

i guess i’m rambling again.

my days have been stormy, the wind and rain that seeps into your bones and steals even the ghost of warmth or light from your being. then the tempest arrived, destroying the mud wattle buildings i’ve built up. now… the calm has come.

that specific calm that comes in the wake of devastation. the feeling of resignation that somehow still allows one to continue with one’s life. maybe the exact shade of emotion as the man who knows his cancer will kill him, so chooses to live his life as he wills. the specific gradation that belongs only to the boy who realizes that these three guys are going to kick his ass, so he might as well grab onto one and keep swinging. the swirling peace of a woman who is finally able to leave and be done, after too much time and investment in an awful affair.

—————————————–

colours

a mother’s love, an earthy red
oceanic in its depth
and temperament.

the feeling of the first nice day in spring
the pastel yellow of the sun
seen through freshly dusted douche goggles

infatuation is the whiteness of halogen lamps
haloed by a blinky, misty red, blinding
so that all else is relegated to the periphery

the satiated guilt of indulged gluttony
is the white of institutional light
reflected from the melting richness of vanilla ice cream left out

the contentment in the willingness to wait
is noon sun through a teal window pain
dust motes idly dancing

an adolescent’s frustrated rage
is the intense, pulsating red
of an infected cut

the frustration of hard work proved wanting
the sandy red-brown of the specific layer
of pit dug in the desert that is just kissed by moisture

a parent’s grief is a blurring
a twisted distortion of colour
that strips the senses of perception

the desire for cold vengeance, pallid
blue-grey of apprentice’s iron
fit for plowshares, forged into a sword

interpersonal ambivalence, the blue black green
of healing bruises, timorous
in its betweeness

quiet resignation is the ochre red
of dried blood, spilt and wasted
without recourse

a boy’s artsy-pretension depression, the cliched
inky blackness, thick with its self-imposed weight
a hungry dark, its smoky contrails reaching

my love for you, even now
the brown-gray of petrified wood, no longer alive
but always persistent

man, fuck NYC banh mi.

The NY Times had an article about banh mi places in the City, and goddamn me if it wasn’t written by a white person. While i haven’t been to the places in brooklyn, i’ve been to pretty much every place in Lower Manhattan and ain’t none of the banh mi places down here that ain’t wack.

folks, you gotta remember, i’m from a vietnamese-heavy neighborhood boston. i’ve been eating various banh mi my entire life. hell, every time i go back to boston, i GORGE on banh mi and cafe sua da (vietnamese iced coffee – crack). so whenever i’m in the city, ’specially when i’m homesick or missing that good ole vietnamese cooking, i go searching for pho and banh mi. while i got my pho joints, i still haven’t found a good banh mi place.

imagine how happy i was to find out that there wasn’t just one, but TWO banh mi places opening up near me. imagine how heartbreaking it was when i tried the sandwiches and they were wack?! fucking a’, one place had goddamn char siu in their banh mi. hell, most of the places in this city sell banh mi with goddamn char siu. can you say sacrilege? and though one of the places had decent cafe sua da, better than any i’ve gotten except in my favorite pho place, there’s something even more fuckin’ awful and evil about it…

every place i go is at least 2x the price i pay in boston, some places are goddamn 4x the price i pay in boston. and there’s the really core problem… this shit’s marketed to yuppies.

ain’t no vietnamese folks gon’ buy this ish. tastes awful, costs hella. whoa. let’s sell it to the white folks.

holy hell does this ever break my heart into a million pieces. and worst of all… almost all the sandwiches at these places are fusion. dude, i want me some traditional, legit vietnamese food. i come from academia so i know how problematic the whole ‘authentic’ thing is, but dude, don’t be messing with this vietnamese boy’s favorite foods.

i can’t believe i just went on a massive spiel about banh mi, but what can i say? i’m tired. haven’t really slept in awhile and am burned out on this whole academic hustle. and for whatever reason, jolt soda makes me hungry.

but no matter how emo i am, i can’t help but smile about having my hair back. live i’ve said before and i’ll say again and again, my mohawk makes me strangely happy. i like getting my hair cut, cuz the whole thing of it is that there’s hella things i ain’t got control of in my life… including how many bookings i get… but i do have some say on what my head. and the reactions from folks to an asian boy with a mohawk are just full of epic amounts of hilarity.

btw, im exhausted so i came home and watched tv. i’m watching the racism/diversity episode of better off ted. shit’s problematic as hell, but not much more than any comedy club i’ve been to… and it’s hilarious. it’s irreverent, well-written, grounded in both realities and archetypes and is able to pull off the straight faced satire thing. which is hella hard. and it doesn’t even depend on awkwardness for its hilarity like the office does. win.
——————————-

(this poem is a little wack, but hey, waddya expect, im churning ‘em out like whoa)

barback nights
(after ed bok lee’s real karaoke people)

real bar people have accents, speak
with lisps and slurring, at home
in the cacophonies.

real bar people have faces
carved haphazardly, striking
bas-reliefs in shadowed lighting.

real bar people know all
about their bartenders’
lovers, vicarious wish fulfillment

real bar people know intimately
both the sun and the moon, have breakfasts
after closing with the bar backs

real bar people are all broken hearted poets, failed
screenwriters and investment bankers with no nose
for the trade.

real bar people make snide remarks
about frat boys barfing, college girls
leaving with ugly guys

real bar people know the signs of a fight
make bets if it ain’t regulars, make fists if it is
jokes if it’s the bouncer

real bar people have droopy eyes
and sagging shoulders, their favorite seats
and usual drinks.

real bar people share drinks
to split loneliness and laughter
as a middle finger to fate

i know more real bar people
than i know any other kind.

————————–

life is like lost… you might think you know what’s going on, but even the writers have no idea.

yesterday was a beautiful day in the city, and other then some work stuff which we ain’t gon’ talk about because that ain’t the point of this here blog, i spent the sunshine time out at tompkins sq park. i was napping and writing, writing and napping and generally doing my goddamn best to avoid the pressures and deadlines of real life… choosing instead to enjoy sun, wind, laughter and young twenty-something ambience for a little while, imagining that maybe it’d recharge my batteries.

a coupla things came out of it… a bunch of writing, two pieces of which will be shown here as a general bit of sharing and part of the poem-a-day project, as well as some realizations.

first and foremost, toddlers are goddamn cute. there were these two kids at the park with their hipster parents, both of them not more than two and half, maybe three years old, stumbling and tumbling around the park on still-awkward legs. smiling, giggling and just generally enjoying the strange environment, taking it all in and loving every minute of it. and i was just floored for a moment by the carefree laughter coming from me as i watched their antics. this is what innocence is supposed to be and once was, before doubt has really crept in and all the insecurities and neuroses of civilization have had a chance to take route. what wonder they saw the world with… and new yorkers, who tend to be very touchy about their private space allowed these kids in. talked to ‘em, made funny faces at ‘em, giggled at their antics.

it reminds me of the parable of the bandit and the girl-child, which is used to illustrate that all people, both those perceived to be ‘good’ and ‘bad’, all have some element of humanity in them. kids are one of those universals, its deep seated in us to enjoy their innocence, to desire to protect them, to envy their ability to see the world anew. little kids can bring a smile to the most cynical person. having kids have fundamentally changed folks i’ve known. which is why i can’t understand how folks can ever treat kids badly. wtf world?

now, a coupla realizations. dude, you gotta bring a blanket if you gon’ chill on the ground in the park a day after it was raining or you gon’ be trying to get dirt stains offa you for the minute. more over, going to the park by yourself unless it is for the purpose of reading and/or hanging with your dog can be hella awkward, ’specially when you’re surrounded by couples. spring love’s in the air alright.

further, my thesis sequester is going to suck balls.

but then again, like i said to my friend last night, we do what we gotta do. our lives are not our own. and duty weighs on us all heavily, but we continue cuz we gotta.

… which is why i don’t get it when folks describe me as complicated. i feel like i’m a relatively simple to understand kinda dude. i’m just a boy doing the best i can. what’s difficult to understand about that?

faults and foibles, vices and virtues, contradictory or not. and with my demons, which ironically returned to me last night in a big way. after having marveled at innocence and simple pleasure, i got a rude awakening from those parts of myself that are not so happy. it’s fitting considering the weather outside. but then again, we fight our demons ‘cuz we gotta. we keep moving because if we don’t what do we got? how can we look at ourselves after letting others down?

let me just leave you with this piece, On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning by Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors and one of the most genius minds in the world. oddly enough, i was introduced to him by two very different people, one, a woman who broke my heart because she didn’t think i loved her enough even though she was like the air i breathed, the second, a man with sharkeyes who taught me that there ain’t no such thing as heart or love when it comes to business.

the reason it’s odd is that murakami is such a romantic, yearning type of writer. there’s a vulnerable loneliness at the core of his work that touches something inside of the human. even if he’s ironic and has one hell of an acerbic wit, there’s an element of the human there that manages to shrug aside defences and reach for that part of ourselves that’s delicate, that’s affected by the subtly poignant (it’s no coincidence that poignant and poignard are such similar words) . the fact that two vastly different people both connected with his work smacks of the universal to me… maybe we all desperate seek something or someone that will soothe the loneliness within us. ’specially in this city.

april 5th

the swagger

he plays the audience
like a maestro, his body
his voice, the bow and the guitar pick
thrumming with life, never so alive
as when the stage lights hit
that first breath, eyes closed
and he embraces the hubris
of momentary divinity

afterwards, spent
he hardly drinks, sometimes
blazes a little, takes the edge off
he says, his voice subdued
as he dons ironically sardonic
pink-framed sunglasses,
jaunty scarf hanging just so, wandering
aimlessly from bed to bed, bar to dive

it’s now that he grows most miserly
when you can tell that every article of clothing
is expertly chosen
for maximum impact, every gesture
weighed against the memorability quotient

it is now that he gives
least of himself, fragile construction
fabricated at the clash between arrogance and insecurity
showing in between cracks in the facade, his structure
hostage to his neuroses

in the wake of the rush, his demons come
as regularly as the moon’s phases
or the shakes before a show, the doubt
that asks if the boy inside
matches the man the world is meant to see

———————————

expository

i have not been completely honest. i’m not very good at that, the whole forthcoming thing doesn’t really work for me.

that’s why they call me emotionally unavailable. whatever that means. i don’t know, always thought it was a bullshit description. i’m an artist for fuck’s sake. and i exude emotion. if my bartender can tell, shouldn’t you be able to as well?

words don’t come easy for me in speech. i don’t mean being witty, or telling my exaggerated stories or spittin’ game (whatever that means). those are part and parcel of the role i’ve taken on for myself. story teller. acerbic wit and gregarious charisma like sunglasses and cigarettes. and even then, text has always come more easily. i can be more clever when i get time to think (maybe thas why i’m on the computer so much).

my attempts at vulnerability (even when i’m at my most vulnerable) and honesty (except the brutal sort) are halting, like the stutter and speech tics i’ve spent my life overcoming. you didn’t know that, did you? no one really does.

so let me tell you how i feel then (as ambiguous and PC as that word is), here, with anonymity as the perfect medium. i don’t like gaming. i reach out to women when i’m at my weakest. hope on some level they’ll be what i need to make it through the storms and the turbulence. i know that’s not fair. i can be selfish, self-absorbed to say the least. get stuck in my head. only good at leaning on one person at a time, and always with hesitancy, even though i have a monumental fear of loneliness, get the shakes at the thought of being surrounded by ocean. fear drowning in isolation.

i think i could fall in love with you. that past infatuation there might be something more, which is more of myself than i’m usually willing to admit to.

i don’t know how to do this. i wish i was better at it (whatever it is).

this is as clear as i can be. not an ultimatum, but an exposition. ‘cuz it’s what i got to give you. i’m broke. i told you that, but still insisted on buying you a drink. money’s everything, but ain’t a thing. i confuse myself. sorry ( i don’t know what i’m apologising for).

ps: i miss reading your writing. it’s what i fell for in the first place.

———————————-

life is sisyphean, in all senses of the allusion.

i’m back in boston for break, and it’s… been an experience. especially as i’m also writing a midterm and my thesis. what fun. thank god for copious amounts of ca phe sua da. goddamn have i missed easily available, high quality vietnamese food. i’m gon’ get hella fat, but that’s what zhoo zhitzu is for. which reminds me, first day i’ve been back playing for months and months. yall should be proud. and i’m even writing again. bounties will never end.

i’m lying of course. they always do.

i’ve already talked about the issues i’ve been having and ain’t gon’ rehash it. so les leave that aside.

the night after i came back, East Meets Words, an asian am open mic series in boston had its fourth anniversary, which was trippy as hell, because i was there for the
first one. way back when, it feels like ages, because at least in my development as a person, it has been.

coming face to face with the changes within myself over the years, because i see it within the space and the people that have defined east meets words for me, was at once one of the most traumatic and one of the most hopeful experiences of my life.

it’s crazy to say but it’s a beautiful thing to see change, to see people growing and developing… especially as i am unfortunately one of those people who is not as good as i should be at the whole keeping up thing. too often, it really is out of sight out of mind for me, so seeing these people that i really do and truly love, with all the depth of emotion that i have, seeing how they’ve grown and how they’ve developed, even as i have, is…

there are no words for it. it’s heartbreaking because i wasn’t here to see the changes, i wasn’t here to see them at their weakest or there for their triumphs, i wasn’t
there to halve the misery or to double the joy. and on some level, it’s trippy seeing everyone developing their own separate lives, pairing off and becoming grown ass folks, while i’m still a kid more often than not.

but at the same time… what a fucking great night. even with my issues, what a goddamn great night. what a huge, happy, appreciative crowd. it’s events like this that made me a poet in the first place, that got me in love with performance, with crowds, with that affair between artist and audience that is at once symbiotic and parasitic… and which is too often likely to break your heart.

the beat collective rocked it. there’s no empty words for me to use to describe how bloody amazing they were, how much they saved me from myself.

now i wish i didn’t stop learning the violin all those years back.
———————————
can i just say… fuck needing a car.

i realize now that part of the reason that i love new york city is because there’s an inherent, unquestioned freedom in a city that never sleeps, where there’s always a bar or a club or adiner or a fucking bodega that is open. there are always people out there. no matter how alone you are, and nyc is the loneliest city in the world, there’s someone out there to drown your misery with or something to do to forget for that little moment. there’s space to run, run so that you know that you’re alive, run so that your demons can’t catch up with you, at least for a little while.

i don’t have a driver’s license, so whenever i come back to boston, i regret it ever the more. it might even make me get a driver’s license. which is probably not going to happen, both because of laziness, but also because i do have my principles.

but sometimes, i just wanta run off and wander, and it’s so difficult in this city. it’s annoying to say the least. i love having trains that allow me to get anywhere in the city whenever i need to get there. it makes life so much easier.

maybe there’s a woman out there, a boston girl with a car, a romantic’s heart and an eye for the beautiful. a girl who likes long drives, late at night, philosophical discussions over whiskey and black humour who can love a poet boy with a paunch from good food, good drink and merry making… who has his demons and his darkness, his bad times and his sardonic jokes and has a propensity for wandering, in all senses of the word.

epic lulz.

btw, can i just say… i miss my mohawk. and i’m not drunk on saint patrick’s day, i’m not sure whether to be proud of or ashamed of myself. but goddamn do i miss my hair. shaved heads are nice and all, but goddamn and i know this i’ve said it twice and i’ll say it again, goddamn i miss my hair. time will heal even that wound, won’t it?

also, i am soliciting descriptions for that banner on the top right of the page. if you want to contribute, ten words, + or – 2. i’m keeping the ones that i find to be clever and just insulting enough to fit my ‘unique’ sense of humour. if you can call it that.

life is one of those jokes you just don’t get until it’s way too late.

administrative stuff first. as usual, i’m calling out for both gigs and contributors to the site. i’d love to book a show whereever you are. ’specially if you’re at a place i’ve never been. and secondly, i’ve love to have more writers here. i’m adding another friend of mine to the blogroll, going by the pseudonym harleyquinn. she’s lived on the west coast, lived in the best coast, was raised in a place with no coasts but lots of cows, seen the world. she’s as bitter as i am, as romantic as a nightingale singing in flight and has the right combination of mania and fatalistic humour that always seems to resonate with me. i’ll be pressuring her and sheeptang to post more to make up for my short comings. please continue to remember contributing to asian women. and if anyone wants to send me penpal notes like some of you have done, then please feel free to do so. i don’t know how long it’ll take me to reply, but i will.

i’ve had some really amazing pen pals in my time who’ve managed to teach me more about myself and about human nature than i could believe possible. it’s always nice to add more, ’specially since i’ve gone through… drama with some and fallen off with others. at any rate, all the pen pals i’ve had and kept in contact with have always been dope, beautiful souls and great writers. it’s nice to vibe, without the exigencies of the body to mediate text and meaning. it removes tensions and adds layers of meaning. or maybe removes layers of confusions and misunderstandings, thereby allowing us to come closer to the truth of ourselves.

fair warning, this is hella emo post. hell, i buzzed off my mohawk and have a monk’s fuzz. you know it’s bad when i shave my head.

so i haven’t posted in what for me is a long while… firstly this is because it’s a hectic time for me, as it is for pretty much every other student in the united states. secondly, it’s because my laptop keyboard is hella broke, which, because i do most of my writing at home, has slowed down my creative output pretty badly.

finally… it’s because i’ve been going through rough bit.

it’s a cliché, but then, like bukowski says (in now,ezra,), we always write in cliches, say the same things when we’re trying to touch the divine. mainly because there is no divine, there is only the human, those bits of ourselves, dark, light, in between, that we all share. and it’s the lucky writers who manage to speak to those universals, those shared spaces in a way that’s just the tiniest bit different, has that much more nuance to the entire thing. so as i come to reexamine cliché, i find myself not as afraid to use it. they become cliches for a reason after all, we do all understand what we’re talking about when we’re using certain phrases… they have all the familiarity of your home’s bathroom door, that you somehow manage to navigate yourself to even through the dark, as familiar as the crutches a man uses when he’s discovered that which carries him has atrophied and all he has left are his crutches, as familiar as reaching for a long time lover in the half-sleep that comes in the wake of night terrors.

misfortunes always come together like hurricanes, the confluence of fate-winds that meet almost perfectly together to somehow form torrential downpours and gusts that scour the soul. it’s never a single piece of bad luck, one stubbed toe that breaks down the human creature, we’re too resilient for that. it’s the combination of misfortune, that addition of burden that is never additive, but always exponential. (yes, the kid who almost failed the sped math class just made a math metaphor. epic win bitches)

so mischances and mishaps have left me here, all torn asunder, like a florida town after a particularly horrific season. the windows of my life battered and cracked, the detritus of my everyday scattered and strewn. with the odd quiet, that sleepiness in the air that only comes after catastrophe has hit, the misery of hopefulness, of having to rebuild, no matter that you know that you should, that you can. the fear that it will all be futile.

but then again, it is seasonal. i go through my moods. and i call them that to hark on some form of artistic pretension, to touch that part of you, the reader, that has accepted unto the point of cliché, the artist and his moods, his sensitivities. that is not to say that i’m not a sensitive dude, i am. i can be as touchy feely as the next, and i have my passions, that come with all the force that i apply to any portion of life i care about.

but it’s more than that, it always has been. i’ve pulled a hikikomori these past few days, locking myself in my room and leaving only to eat. or to drink. only able to function once i’ve managed to fill myself with enough uppers that to not leave my apartment would be even more maddening than what already inhabits me.

les face it, my moods are not just moods, passing fancies. they’re the moments that have such a powerful confluence of painful shocks and grinding burdens that the storm proofing that i’ve done all my life is not enough. the boards over the windows that i’ve constructed out of the flimsy resilience of duty and of lasting fancy are torn, and the the full brunt of tidal waters floods in, to take away that which i’ve sequestered, locked inside of myself and cherished. and the blasts drag my past up like malignant zephyrs, to hail them once again on the battered sidings that my father put there with his own hands. the careful arrangement of my mother’s garden within myself, torn all asunder. the photos and snatches of workworn prophecy and poetry that i’ve stolen, cribbed and cherished from each and everyone of you, tainted by devastation that only comes when one has given up plugging the holes in the walls, consigns what one has built to the maelstrom and hides oneself in the basement.

yeah. sorry, i’ve been emo recently. and emo to say that words have power, and if one is able to call a tiger a kitty kat for long enough, maybe one will come to believe it, and the fear of it is no longer so frightening.

i’m a depressive. i admit that.

but as my father reminds me, as i beg him to, i also have duty. it’s what i am. so fundamental to the core of my being that i could not imagine myself without an understanding of duty.

i’ve been fixated on salt recently. not on salt in and of itself, but being worth my salt. roman legionnaires were once paid with it, because it really is essential to life… and if you took that from another man, you were expected to be loyal, to do your duty. hence, “being worth your salt.”

ain’t no man ever gon’ say i ain’t worth my salt, ain’t know my duty.

life is the art of the possible, and the denial of reality.