yeah, i’ve had a long day. those types of times that drain you, of energy, of joy. maybe it was just ‘cuz it was a shitty day outside today. then again, i go through periods when everything’s hunky dory and then periods where everything’s bloody awful. i can see that as a near universal. we are all at the whim of the wild fates, bend and weave to the wiles of their wings.

if you can’t tell by my poetry, i’ve been hella fascinated with alliteration recently. there’s something about the way the sounds just roll off the tongue that gives me a simple aural pleasure… what billy collins believes should be the first thing you look for in a piece of writing.

on some level, i agree. if it doesn’t read well, if the first few lines don’t grab you, you’re probably not going to want to go through the entirety of the poem. you might do it anyways and thereby find yourself pleasantly surprised… or you might do what i do, skip ‘em over till i have nothing else better to read.

c’est le vie. i’m going to try to make it to jits tomorrow, work off the excess emotion. sweating has a cleansing quality all its own. and working off my aggression is always nice. but bloody hell, so much work to look forward to. at least there should be more sun soon.

and it’s kinda ironic how fascinated i am with 80’s hair considering i think i’m going to get my mohawk back tomorrow. we’re ’sposed to be agentful beings, i know… but sometimes, i feel like i have so little control over my life and the things going on around me. thas when i get haircuts, because hell, i might not be able to control everything, but at the very least, i can cut my goddamn hair.

yay mohawk!

now from that high, back down to a low. for whatever reason, i’ve been writing hella emo poems. at the very least though, i hope they still present multi-dimensional characters, still have some decent imagery, some fun sound and most importantly, some connection to the greater.

tell me what you think.

——————
april 6th

chi dem, co ngay gap ma

the touch of ghosts
like the ache
of a last kiss or the touch
like mortality, the memory of illness

she told him she could love him no longer

his moods, more a burden
than she could handle, her shoulders
too narrow to hold a tempest
the sunflare of her temper
too hot for his inconsistencies

he drinks

she painted his portrait
with water colors, he wrote her love poems
on napkins and by email
they declared their love
under an unlucky moon, eyes
like will o’ the wisps

he fights

she caresses the purple cataracts
like twilight starbusts
across pupils and knuckles
visiting hours ticking away
through the iv, he courts danger
like he had eyes for no one else
she left him once before, but always answers
his call

he cheats

sleeps with women who fall
for his sleepy eyes, futile ego-stroke
and she forgives him
once, twice, too many times
her attempts to punish him
backfiring like misloaded bullets
or the vain cutting across forearms

he smokes

she says she quit, but can’t
knows he hasn’t even ever bothered to lie
only tells her
he loves her when his voice slurs
his head lolls, forgetting
he’s broken. her muse
splayed across the bartop

he tell hers, he needs her

and she weeps for a moment
mourning a fantasy, all she tastes
in the dregs in his stout glass
the fortune she reads
a signal to wander on, lips set
fists clenched tight enough
for fingernails to pierce

her phone left
in the bus station bathroom

his languid arm reaching for shoulders
and finding emptiness enough to startle

——————————————-

life is a process of humbling.

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.

will be slamming at the bowery poetry club for their college slam tomorrow afternoon at 6. would LOVE to see you.

April 1st

ain’t want to be no hero, buy no farm

sisyphean remembrances
are penance for our momentary hubris,
the pyrrhic nature of our commitment

i took showers three, four times
a day to scour
the smell from my skin, the grit
that inevitably infiltrated
its way past coverings, wedged
itself where the straps pressed, the water
like balm on parched tongue
in a mouth dry from desert and ‘drenaline..

trying to draw comfort
from rumination, like humility
from a superpower, i draw
from the infertile grounds
upon which we lie
false foundations
falling away, the center no longer holding.

there will be debate
about blame, when it was no longer enough
and motivation, when esprit de corps
became the only tenable connections
drawing us firm.

duty, both weight and impetus
for boys with set eyes
and stubborn backs.

funerals for heroes, and the cowardice
of not wanting to be one.

april 2nd

small favors and tragedies

ball missing the net by a breadth’s breath
in a grand street pick up game
among immigrants who share
no language, no customs
nothing but their foreignness
and the comfort of pirouettes and epees,
the unspoken eloquence
of the game.

having no papers
for the first jay in months
after the worst day in years
… the evening before
a surprise drug test

losing the number
of the pretty girl
destined to break his heart

snapping your ankle, all the months
of recovery… just before
you stepped
onto a mine rigged
to take out your platoon

the train doors closing abruptly
in the hopeful eyed boy’s face, his mouth
twisted in a moue at his tardiness
as he fingers the ringbox
stuffed as deeply as he could
into the bottoms of his pocket
even as the woman who he is to see
goes over the words over and over again
till their sharpness wears down,

“i don’t love you anymore.”

and my head keeps spinning, can’t keep having these visions, gotta get wid it

love.

casanova fucking by the copacabana, the sheer weight of the word is like mountains, like duty itself. yet, its glibness, the way it falls off the tongue, like pennies and peonies strewn haphazardly, with nothing but a grin at the way the sun hits petals and tarnished bronze just so.

love.

the source of childish laughter, drunken debauchery… of murders and masterpieces, the joyful spontaneity of a groaning exultation, the anguish that can drain away years in a few mere moments. what we all say we’re looking for, what we’re all so afraid of getting. the source of envy enough to launch a hundred thousand ships, the fire that illuminates the night even after the bombs have taken off all the lights.

romantic-fucking-love.

jeebus. why would i be discussing such a subject? oddly enough, because of a goddamn sitcom. a pilot at that. how much of a sap am i? but really though… i was going through one of those moods, the existential crises that drain the joy out of life, that makes you doubt the rightness of whatever you may be doing. not depression, that’s too much credence to lend it, rather a sense that there’s more than this life you’re living has to offer out there somewhere. maybe.

watching tv to try and take my mind off it, i saw the new abc show cupid. it was about a guy… who was either a man who had suffered such a fundamental heartbreak, so earthshattering and life-splitting that all he could do to cope with the force of it, that shock that took breath from the lungs, was to come up with the delusion that he was cupid or eros or whoever, the ever so fickle god of love. or maybe, it was really was the demi-god himself, the real cupid, punished for fucking his job up and now left to wander the streets of new yawk city until he can match up 100 couples with true love.

(as an aside, let me just say, fuck the way they treat the city… we really aren’t THAT devoid of wonderment and romance and the soft mushy things. hell, i would even argue that new yorkers are hold onto that delicate, transcendent part of themselves even more tightly than anyone else… is it a crime that we protect it more? we hold it more dearly, because we know how ugly the world can really be. the city runs you down, but thas why you grasp onto the idealism inside of you and hold on for dear life.)

i have a cigarette to pass the time, because the traffic is hell

but yes… to return to my point. i was watching this show, in my funk, and honestly, as i was watching it this smile crept across my face like a soldier creeping across no-man’s land. it was just too cute. i couldn’t help but enjoy it, i was powerless under the assault of its saccharine fancy. and it of course, cheered me up immensely, but more importantly, it made me think about love, which i’ve been tried to break down all these years anyways.

so here it is… my definitions of various expressions to describe it, ‘cuz dude, i’m just a boy… do you think i really give you the secret that haunts us all?

crush – a mild attraction that may or may not motivate enough effort to approach the object of affection, but is sufficient to be source material for both fantasy and for adolescent boys maybe something else.

lust – if’n you don’t know the definition of lust, you’re either a-sexual or pre-pubescent. if’n the latter, you shouldn’t be reading this blog anyway and tell your parents they should be bloody well monitoring your internet usage. if’n you’re the former… thas like trying to describe this to a blind man, or moonlight sonata to a deaf man.

infatuation – that stage, when you’re teetering the edge of sanity. sure, your OOE may not take up every thought of your day, but you sure as shit have the desire to call him/her entirely too much, especially considering it’s all a game. you savour the smell of their hair, the shape of their nose, the curve of their neck… and you know that in a blink, it can become all-consuming, if’n only it moves just a little bit more. or it can go completely the opposite way, and all of a sudden… it’s over. you’re bored. it’s done. this is where boys like me get stuck on.

in love – the phase where you can truthfully plead temporarily insane… that all consuming fire and passion and insanity that makes short shrift of anything so mundane as personality compatibility, credit reports or ‘other’ commitments. this is the stage where emotion is a drug, more insidious and ambrosial than anything else, that which the best quality MDMA is nothing but a pale ghost of an imitation. the wildness, the fascination of it, when you can’t help but ache, down deep when you’re not with your OOE, when your whole world, your very perception of life itself has narrowed down to this one person. when the locks of her hair caught in your towel, the ham-handed way he handles wine glasses, when those define your world. everything else is burned by the blow-torch intensity of it all… but… with that much more risk of burning out.

love – that stage, after the oil has taken the charcoal of your soul and burned away and what is left burns with a much more subtle, but steadier depth. that which is able to last, maybe even endure past the rain and the lack of oxygen. this is the stage of love that they say abides, where your perception of the world is able to see more than your OOE, but nevertheless, it like you yourself now cannot be defined, from now unto forever without your OOE. two plants, in nature, occasionally lean onto each other until they start becoming entwined, occasionally going so far as growing into one. this is where that starts.

granny love – … no you dirty mo’fo, this is not a porno title. it’s that place when someone becomes so fundamental to your life that they make it up. i don’t even know how to describe this, as i’ve never be anywhere near it myself… but we’ve all seen it.

settling – when you have none of these, but you make a relationship go anyway, if for no other reason then not wanting to be alone. and maybe, just maybe, it’ll become real love someday. for now though, this life is too hard, the trials too great to not be halved, the joys and triumphs too meager to not be doubled by sharing.

… maybe i’ll do more in the future, if’n anyone wants me to. as is, i’ve already taken up too much of all yous valuable time.

so au revoir.

we keep on pavin’ over paradise, because we’re only human

life is the awkward moments when you’re awake. whoa.

firstly, as i realize hella folks don’t read through the entire post because they’re ridiculo long… i just want to say a few things right quick. i am still booking for the spring season, as well as getting my presskit together for the fall. if you want to see me, get one of your college orgs or local orgs to hit me up, i’d love to come out and see your beautiful faces. secondly, and more importantly, PLEASE contribute to my projects… you can find them on the projects and products portion of this website. i ESPECIALLY need more experiences and stories in my asian am women series.

————————————

the soundtrack to this blogpost will actually be coming from a new writing playlist that i created in itunes. these are just the songs that touch me, remind me of the romantic within myself. sometimes it’s hard to remember that i am who i am, that i am an artist who Believes, especially in this place, the city that all too often chews you up and grinds you down. i know you can’t see the playlist, but hey, i’m going to do song quotes and then youtube link the songs as i come to them… hopefully this will work. as per always, i’m trying that new shit.

‘you belong to the gang, and you say you can’t break away, but i’m here, with my hands on my heart.’
- the decemberists, “o, valencia” (great video btw)

it’s kind of ironic that this is the song that’s playing right now, especially if any of you know what i’ve been doing to pay my rent. suffice to say, that life is over… that i’m breaking away. o valencia is an absolutely heartbreaking song, with such passion to it, such strength of feeling. it narrates a romeo and juliet story and does it in a way, that while it does come from the tradition of such stories, it is still able to be somewhat original, and most of all, still touches. it’s kinda like west side story actually, more so than romeo and juliet.

actually, it’s like leonard di caprio’s version of romeo and juliet. which is actually one of my favorite movies of all time. the actors in that movie were so damned believable, the emotion was so strong, the love so real. i think that was my first exposure to the Bard, and i’ve loved his work ever since. hella folks can’t stand him, for various reasons, up to and including the way they shovel him down throats at schools… but i love him.

he has a fucked up, dirty minded sense of humour, a mind that is able to project imagery on multiple levels and most importantly, is able to convey a degree of emotionality through text that is unmatched by pretty much an author, poet or playwright i’ve ever seen. how do you not love a man who can make dirty jokes in a tragedy, who can play with emotions like yo yo ma plays the cello? and dude, shakespeare in love was gangsta.

‘and the grass, it was a tickin’ and the sun was on the rise, i never felt so wicked, as when i willed our love would die, i was your silver lining, as the story goes, but now am gold’
- rilo kiley “silver lining” (god this song breaks my heart everytime)

which kind of leads me into one of the topics that i wanted to discuss today, the idea of having a name, being a man and being up front with yo’ shit.

i love internet culture, i study it for school and study it for fun. being part of the iGeneration, i feel the weight of history on my shoulders every time i facebook or i blog or i hit up 4chan. yes, i go to 4chan. it’s oddly entertaining.

but the thing about is, my presence online, even though i’m fascinated with the concept of anonymity, has almost always been one wherein my name is out there. hell, i’m a member of bullshido.com, a martial arts forum, and i’ve met people there in real life. my face, my name are tied to whatever my screen name is at the time.

… let me restart a little actually.

my father told me, all a man has in this world is his family and his name, his head and his hands. that’s been drilled into my head. if you break down my father’s metaphor, you’ll see the sentiment that has installed itself as a Derridan supplement to my identity.

your family is what is to be protected. it is the ultimate end goal. and more than the actual physical members of the family, which always take precedent, this section contains more. it holds within itself the idea that a man has responsibilities greater than himself. there is something larger, something greater, for which he must be willing to sacrifice or give of himself or dedicate himself to. this may be your country, it may be your art, but it is always something that you must serve. there is no life without responsibility. or at the very least, this is an empty life. your family, your community, those are always at the heart of a man’s character, and must always be, because before anything else, the traditional masculine role is one of provider and protector.

a man’s hand and his head are his tools. those are what he has with which to provide for his responsibilities and to protect his family. these are a relatively simple idea to understand.

but it’s the last item to be discussed, the name, that is the purpose of this discussion. a man must have his honor. to be able to exist in a society, a man must be able to make it known that he can be trusted, that he is able to back what he says.

and more than that, he must be able to stake himself on his ideals and on his ability to fulfill his responsibilities. and yes, i know these uses of the term man are problematic, reductivist in a lot of ways, but bear with me. i am using the terms my father taught me, which are come from a culture that does have very strong gender roles… but i would like to remind folks that the role of women in traditional vietnamese culture is significantly stronger than in most cultures of the world. and furthermore, this is an art blog.

so yes. if i am to take a stand, i must be willing to put my name to it. i must be willing to put my face and stake my reputation on it. if i feel that i am right, that i stand against injustice or in favor of justice, i must be enough of a man to risk myself by being forward with who i am.

which is why internet activism is a problem. because names ARENT tied to physical bodies, so that people are able to troll.

which is why student activists who decide to take a stand by donning masks and having amnesty as their first demand are complete bullshit.

if a man is unwilling to put his name on the line, what does that say about his belief in his cause?

‘if could start again, a million miles away, i would keep myself, i would find a way’
- johnny cash “hurt”

let me open this section with a quote…

‘ There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. […] Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.’
- E.B. White, Here is New York

i love new york.

i don’t compromise on calling it the greatest city in the world. in my heart of hearts, down in the depths of my understandings of the truth, this kernel will always remain. i have not doubted it since the first time i visited new york, when i was still a lost ass tourist, and i don’t doubt it now that i lived here long enough to consider myself a new yorker.

but no matter how much i love the City with a capital ‘c’, it’ one hell of a fucked up, and i realize this. a friend of mine compared it once to one of those horribly horribly unhealthy, fucked up and abusive relationships. usually not as bad as chris brown and rihanna, but pretty bad. then again i and my friend are both settlers, our relationship with this place is not and can never really be as familiar, as relatively calm, as almost comfortable-marriage like as someone who has been here all their lives. at the same time though, our relationship with the City will never be the flirtation/hook up relationship that bridge and tunnelers have. they’re not as committed i don’t think, the City is a mistress to them, not the love of their lives.

but i am a settler, and new york is my greatest love. no matter how fucked up of a relationship we have.

’so alone in love, i’m going to haunt you everyday, haunt you everyday’
-weezer “haunt you everyday” (absolutely AWFUL version of this song, but all i could find.)

you love new york, you hate it. sometimes, it’s so good, there’s nothing else like it. it is able to touch you in ways you’ve never been touched before, you wake up in the mornings, breathe in the smell of pizza, corruption and cannabis and know it’s going to be a beautiful day. you eat well, drink hard, live life fully and see sights that will forever be imprinted on your mind. you find truths around every corner, the City caresses your face with its palm, and it’s like the world is made new, that every experience is opened up for you. you wake up and go to a polish deli to get a huge american breakfast, stop by a brasilian place to get some bomb coffee. you’re peckish so you get an empanada for later, head to work or school and see every type of people this world has to offer. get lunch at the dosa man, eat it in the park, as capoeristas play and college kids smoke up and throw frisbees. stop by chinatown for dinner because you broke as heo, eat up, head to your home boy’s show at this hipster bar in the east village. rock out, destroy shit, get fucked up and then do it again.

but then, in the bad times… it’s completely horrible. the City abuses you, adds to the workload and the stress load. doesn’t return calls or txts, acts as if it doesnt love you anymore. or rather that i hates you. you become lonely, despondent, insignificant in this place where millions live. you ache inside, worst than any lover before. nothing goes right, everything goes wrong.

those are the worst times. i’ve seen people break down and cry. i sure as hell have. the City runs you down, makes you feel like shit, does its absolute best to make you hate it… but you can’t, not if you’ve been here for awhile. and you always make excuses for it, in the hope that it’ll get better, even if the landlord raised your rent and you’re about be kicked out, even if you just got robbed, even if you feel so utterly alone and isolated that it seems as if it’ll never get better.

such is the City i love. such is the relationship i have with it. so i am driven to drink, to escape anyway i can… but so too do i feel, in ways that i could never feel in any other place. there really is an energy to this city, to this place that is unlike anything else in the world. so you remain, even through the bad times, the changes, the abuse.

oh new york.

‘breaking rocks in the hot sun, i fought the law and the law won’
-the clash, “i fought the law”

jeebus, i meant for my blogposts to get smaller, but they’ve only gotten longer. my deepest apologies. even more than that, my apologies for being a fuckup… apologies for loving it. and since people seem to enjoy pictures of me in dire straits… for your viewing pleasure. and no, while i am damned short, i’m not THAT short… my homie is just massively tall.

if it wasn't taken, my rap name would be tooshort

thank you for reading, please comment. and yes, considering my workload, i probably do spend entirely too much time on this blog. but hey, maybe it’s my stress relief, my crutch. more about that later.

oh, btw, i met happy slip last night at sarah gambito’s book opening for her dope, dope book ‘delivered.’ yall should buy it. i can’t believe i forgot to take a picture with her. oh and free food is amazing.

and let me leave you with this video on hip hop in china… too dope for me to analyze right now. too crazy too.

all vid cred to atunes.

life is most awful and most transcendent experiences you’ve ever had and all the bullshit in between.

and with that opener, let me be cheesy and say that the soundtrack to this blogpost will be Jason Mraz’s We Sing, We Dance, We Steal. it is valentine’s day after all, if i’m ever allowed to be saccharine it should be today.

but to get back to our regular programming, let me reiterate.

i fucking hate valentine’s day.

it’s not just the rampant, disgusting commercialization. or the fact that you have to have a special day to be romantic with whoever your s.o. is. or even because it marginalizes single people even more than usual (thankfully i gots me a date, suckers).

more than that, there’s an emotional weight to the whole concept of valentine’s day that offends the romantic in me.

let’s face it boys and girls, i’m a romantic of almost-korean-drama proportions. out of my top three movies evar, two of them are stories of boy meets girl, boy and girl fall for each other, boy fucks it up by being a loveable fuck up, boys make up for being a fuck up, profit!

dedication which i am forever quoting from and have seen WAY too many times, is a love story of truly human beauty, even if it follows the above formula because you can see how affection can grow, even within the most misanthropic heart, even from the greatest difference.

there’s the rub of it, i’m a fan of that ‘authentic’ romance, whatever it may be. i feel like valentine’s day puts such an emotional burden on people in relationships to try to artificially create this emotional connection that may not be there, or may not be right at that particular time. the beauty that comes from the meeting of two beings should be organic, should arise from the whimsy and wiles of the spirit and the heart, not be driven by the weight of some holiday. and considering st. valentine WAS a saint, the fact that hella folks use vday to get laid has a vicious irony all its own.

btw, one of my friends is breaking up with his long term girlfriend today. which is epically fucked up. and funny. hey, at least he didn’t do it on her birthday.

to all the folks in relationships, don’t let valentines ruin yo’ shit. sometime’s the bond can’t carry that pressure yet, cuz like all things in life, it grows, it gets stronger.

to all my single folks rebelling against it all, yall are dope. and more likely than not considering the fact that i have absolutely no idea of what i am going to do on my date tonight, i’ll probably see you at the bar.

to all those folks who are celebrating SinglesAwarenessDay and going to hook up randomly tonight… more power to you, may you find someone who’s GGG, may you find the chance and may you wake up on the morrow std free.

tune in next time for a treatise from me about communicating through damage.

to end…

life is making love even when the world is trying to fuck you.

and as a final middle finger to the artificial, diabetes inducing sweetness of vday… a love poem in the style of bukowski.

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the most imitated poet in america

i may cheat on you

i will certainly drink too much
swear too loudly, smoke like i don’t deserve you
and you will taste cigarettes on my skin

des autres petite mort

i will treat you badly,
myself, worse
forget your birthday
call you only when it is convenient

my laughter will cut you
the jokes always at our expense
an embarrassment to your parents, mine
friends, yours. my hangers-on
already used
to the antics

they know me.

you will curse, throw dishes
and maybe pull a knife
you will question my genealogy
my manhood, more than likely my sanity

i will talk you down
and we will fuck, our anger
narcotic, ecstasy
addictive
or
we will walk out, names
like curses, tear-sealed oaths
vows of celibacy, as if

you will call me a fuckup
i will heartily agree, buy you a drink
for finally noticing

but you will believe me
when i tell you

i love you, maybe more even
than the bottle

and for that, you will forgive me
my many penny sins

furthermore, the twins can write. really well. they have a blog called mousybabe that i’ve only recently discovered but will be a regular reader of from now on. between their ability to bring observational and self-deprecating humour together and their penchant for taking really great pictures, they’re one of the better personal blogs i’ve seen. they also have a conversational tone that i like, but without bordering on the inane that i have a bad tendency to do. c’est le vie. and yes, i think i’m in love,

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so tonight was yet another sleepless night… or at least one that was full of teh undersleep. i hit 4 hours and woke up automatically and couldn’t fall asleep again to save my life. it’s getting epic, as i’ve tried everything from that ole loveable standby – whisky, to concoctions of a more chemical nature, like benadryl and sleeping pills.

nothing seems to work for more than a night. which is becoming a problem because i’m getting run down here folks.

school is kicking me arse, as it is meant to do. there are wayyy too many things to get done and too little time to do it, especially while trying to remain sane. but that’s the game, and if nothing else, i’ve always been a player.

i just wish i had more time for jits. haven’t played in too long and that’s taking its toll, both physically and spiritually. but again, sacrifices must be made.

which is what i want to talk about on some level, the idea of sacrifice and its relation to love.

my father told me that ain’t nothing in life free, nothing freely given except among family, that life is obligation. one must always be willing to sacrifice in order to fulfill one’s obligations – as a man, as soldier, as a student, as a son. furthermore, implicit in this is an understanding that all of this must come from love, that all sacrifice, at its heart is about love, be it for community, for country, for flag, for family or for lady love.

i have my issues with che guevara, quite a few actually. i don’t idealize or valorize him like so many young twenty something new yorkers do (knowingly or not), but the man did have a gift for words, so i’ll quote him here. i’ll quote a few others as well, because i’ve always been one obsessed with the idea of love and all that comes with it.

“At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love.” – Che

““Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” – Neil Gaiman

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” – Mother Teresa

Three extraordinarily disparate sources, three different angles on the concept of love. And in my estimation, all of them completely right. love is that fundamental human force that allows us to be more than ourselves, that can build us to our greatest height and bring us to our knees and even lower.

love exists at the locus of almost every action and is the source of some humanity’s ability to renew its faith in itself. there are such moments of nobility and grace within the human creature, driven by this existential phenomenon we like to call love, that maybe, just maybe, it makes up for all the ugliness that is exists like a rot at all of our cores. and beautifully enough, one of the things that i feel is most noble about the human beast, its ability to willingly sacrifice itself and its interests for others is motivated by nothing else but love. or maybe i’m just a wild eyed idealist.

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taking care of some biz, i wanted to shout out my homegirl in michigan, stephanie nguyen, a dope person and a talented artist. she introduced me to this entire world of asian beauty blogs and networking that i will eventually end up writing something about. as is, i’m still too tripped out by the whole thing to completely process it.

as an artist, she works in crystal and metal, making jewelery including necklaces and earrings that are really gorgeous stuff. you should check her out, especially boyos looking for last minute valentine’s day presents. she’s also sponsoring me and i’ll soon be rockin’ her gear.

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finally, i just want to give yall a heads up that i will be changing up some of the poems soon, as i realized that a lot of these are old and not representative of my newer body of work.

oh and anyone who is interested in a kind of semi-critical discussion on hipsterism should go here.  i will be addressing that in a future blogpost, sooner or later. i agree with some of the points therein, disagree with many more, and personally see it in a much more hopeful manner than the author does. then again, i’m more than willing to admit i’m hipster scum. c’est le vie.

oh, and keep those ASIAN/AMERICAN WOMAN EXPERIENCES AND STORIES COMING.

peace and love.

life is a hundred loves, a hundred broken hearts and the songs we sing in between.

ps. i know i need a digi camera. if anyone has a lead as to a cheap but decent one, hit me up homies. oh and if anyone knows how to replace a laptop keyboard… cuz mine’s fucked and as a writer, it’s kicking me arse.

with Singles Awareness Day coming up (when is Valentine’s day anyway?), the fact that i’ve been writing entirely too many love poems recently (ask to see them, they’re awful, but worth a laugh or two), and the fact that i’ve seen a few of my friends in healthy relationships wherein both partners care for and love each other, I decided I would write a ruminating post about love and romance and all those cheesy things.

boys like me love the concept of love.

but… maybe it’s because ideation and actualization are so fundamentally different, or because we’re afraid, or because any of myriad possibilities, we rarely get our shit together when it comes to love itself. and by we to say, those loveable fuckups who might be able to hook up, might be able to be with someone for a few months, may even have crazy torrid love affairs and fall in love with all the force of volcanic eruptions, but never have a relationship that lasts more than a month. am i a loveable fuckup? is there even such a thing? i guess that’s the worthwhile subject for another blog entry, or for your own input as readers, but i’ve been described as such, and rather like the appellation. btw, this isn’t to say i don’t like my lifestyle, i rather do. there is a an indescribable joy in falling love as if you were jumping off the empire state. but hey, we all get old. maybe i’m ready to settle down. stop laughing, it’s not that funny.

let me elucidate what i mean. who hasn’t heard the hip hop head who wants that ideal girl who deserves wifey status. how many shitty love poems have i written to some unattainable figure that is as out of proportion as barbie, even if not nearly as vacuous. yet, we never end up in something committed… and if it lasts longer than a few weeks, it’s inevitably unhealthy. personally, subconsciously, i realize i tend to drive away women who i believe to be stable, skirting the edges of relationships and preferencing the women who i know i will create stories with. dramatic women who respond to the sense of theatre in my own being, fire personalities who clash with my own in light shows that seem destined to rival the sun itself in intensity. and i’ve seen that happen with many of my friends, that they slowly but surely drive away those women that care about them enough to put up with their shit, in the pursuit of some dramatic fun that always ends up with them horribly drunk and emo in ktown at fucking four o clock in the morning and yelling at their friend who came to pick them up.

i guess on some level, it has to be because we idealize the wrong people growing up. it’s difficult to believe in the reality of deep abiding love when jay only recently hooked up with B and Naz did the nasty with pretty much everyone till only recently finding his woman. let’s not even talk about the bukowskis and ginsbergs of the world. and let’s face it, the cool kids growing up did not have steady relationships. jeebus, how often have we heard that assholes are the ones who get the girls one more time. i fricking HATE that saying (btw, the movie sex drive is retardo. do not watch unless you want to burn your eyes out. cheesy, morally reprehensible and NOT funny.)

maybe more than that is that so many boys like me have been burned. i’ve talked to a coupla guys about why they can’t get their shit together, can’t be in a steady healthy relationship and hella dudes recount something about either the one who got away or the one who burned them so bad it’s like third degree emotional scars.

but i guess there is still beauty in the fact that we so love the concept of love. that at the end of the day, we hold romance, not the valentine’s day kind, but the romance that says that there is something better, that the ideal is possible. and the fundamental hope that maybe, we can get our shit together or find the right girl or whatever it is and be that ideal, as long as this remains alive, i guess we’re still human, not merely sheeple or on haterade, and that is in and of itself beautiful.

what is even stranger is that most of the guys i’ve talked to about this CAN develop strong commitments to women… just never as a significant other. hell, to a certain degree, i’ve seen and experienced a certain dependence, a need for the nurturing and care and slap in the back of the head that the strong women in our lives provide. they put up with our idiocy, listen to us bitch, and occasionally drag us up from the barroom floor. these are the women that we love with such an abiding, incandescent love that even blood sibling-hood could not compare. i guess on some level, you can say i’m trying to rationalize away the misogynistic element of what i’m discussing. or maybe not. maybe i want to enshrine them and hold them in juxtaposition. or maybe i’m rambling.

bless the loveable fuckup. and to all those women whose hearts we break along the way, our sincerest apologies. except to the crazy ones who try to stab us for sleeping with their friend, which we really did not do, those women can go to hell. but really, without the ladies who care about us enough to usher us through the bad times, we’d have wandered even farther from the path than we have, and the bars would have even steadier customers.

thank you.

(did I just ramble on for like two pages? yes, yes I did.)

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can i just say, fucking A bj… why couldn’t you train harder? past that, i am never EVER speaking of this fight again. please do not mention it to me.

oh and DHK got robbed. the judges are either blind or stupid or both. i personally lean towards both.

machida is a demi-god and karate is cool again.

oh and lesson learned, never promise to take care of significantly larger and more belligerent drunk friends late at night. makes for an absolute shit evening.

furthermore, training for the first time in like 2 months is bloody awful. I got swept by like a dude who’s been playing for three months. epic fail.

———————————————————–

finally, I will be performing at Umass Amherst on Saturday, February 21, 2009. It’d be dope to see yall there. much love.

the new hotness at umass

btw, is it just me or is there hella teh lulz in the fact that i’m wearing aviators and a tshirt next to beautiful ladies dolled up in ao dai? i feel rather underdressed, but hey i’m an artist, we’re ’sposed to be able to get away with that shit.