so after braving the vagaries and wilds of the chinatown bus, i was picked up by my friend JB. i’ve been kicking it in the annapolis, baltimore area ever since.

but before i go into the trip…

there’s hella i should be talking about that in this particular blogpost i just don’t have time for, as i am at mercy of internet schedules and scheduling around other folks. so let me just promise right here and right now that there will eventually be a hay qua and a kollab and a subsequent best/worst night of my life post. just not now. right now, i think the focus has to be this trip, with time spent on other topics coming when i have both the time and inclination.

now back to my odd-yssey.

there’s an elation in consummation. just that act of really and truly beginning something you’ve been looking forward to and thinking about. there’s also great nervousness, anxiety and no little amount of fear there, in the idea of setting out on the open road. there was such an exultation, a great ridiculous almost-illogical happiness in setting off on this journey with nothing but my gear and a hope that things would go auspiciously.

and boy did they ever.

my friend, another martial artist and a buddhist zen teacher dude took me to annapolis, which is where he worked. jesu christo… what a beautiful little town. honestly, i thought i had walked out of regular life and into some idyllic television show. tyhis was small town america at its best, this was what father dreamed of when he watched leave it to beaver and imagined america. what a quaint, wholesome town. and yes, i know i’ve railed against suburbia or whatever, but it wasn’t that… this was a real small town, with a main street and everything. most importantly of all for the particular character of the community, there was a very present aura of age, of history, of respectability and of significance that tied the scene together. this was exactly the type of thing i wanted to see, something ridiculously out of my realm of experience. clapboard windows and folks trawling for crabs right off the dockyards, the sense that almost everyone in the town knew one another and had known each other forever and a day. just the sheer cuteness of the architecture. the commemoration of the historical, but with novel twists.

and the people.

my god, the people. i do believe i’ll never find more kind hearted people in my life. there was such a generosity of spirit and welcoming compassion in the folks i met last night, it was ridiculous. here i am, hella tourist and stranger, yet these folks welcomed me with open arms and large drinks. just the way i liked to be welcomed.

but really though, meeting and talking with quirky, interesting people with life experiences vastly different from my own, that’s exactly the type of thing i wanted to do on this odd-yssey. and it’s been off to a bloody amazing beginning. they offered me advice and anecdotes, told me where to go in particular cities and what to do if unfortunate things arose. they told me their stories, which to me is one of the most vastly important and intimate acts in the world. hell, they even offered me, a complete stranger, places to crash and rides to my next location.

honestly, i still can’t get over the fundamental generosity of spirit i saw in these people. maybe it’s the cynicism i’ve picked up like a VD in new york city, or maybe it’s me just being tripped out by the sheer difference from anything i’m familiar with… but i am really really happy to be here with great folks and just hope that my journey just continues on in this fashion.

so yes, i am safe here in maryland. and happy.

see you in a few days.

oh and dude, crabcakes are bomb. oh and pictures will be up soon, with appropriately inane commentary.

life is like a box of chocolates, you gotta pay the price to get at the good stuff.

honestly, i wish i could sing, not only for karaoke (which always is a consideration), but so that i could sing songs like steve earle and mcgowan and tom watts do. goddamn. ballads and stories about real folks, truth that touches the heart.

*edit and aside* if any of yall know where i can find vietnamese folk, like old tyme vietnamese ballads, please send ‘em my way. ive heard some from my dad and some stuff that was on paris by night and such, but i need to hear more. in all seriousness, most vietnamese pop drives me nuts. too disco-ey… but i want to get in touch with those old ballady folksy roots that ive known very little.

i know i’ve been remiss with posting, my only excuse is that i was working on my thesis and finishing up college. congrats to me on graduating.

but along with that comes big big decisions about the trajectory of my life, my vision for the future and my development as a human being, a citizen and an artist.

so what else to do but take an odd-yssey ‘cross the continental united states? imma be hitchhiking, busing and generally trekking all o’er the place. i feel like there’s so much of this country that i haven’t seen and this will give me both an excuse and an opportunity to be a tourist all over the place. i’ll be able to perform at different joints and poetry venues wherever i can find ‘em, train at jiu jitsu places from coast to coast and even get a touch of culture and cuisine by eating local and visiting museums and honkytonks. more importantly than that, i’ll get to meet and get to know hella people from all walks of life, i’ll get to write, really allow myself to throw myself into art without the distractions of the city.

and most of all, i’ll get to maybe wrestle an alligator.

i’ll be blogging the trip the entire way, committing myself to at least one blog post a day, no matter how large or small. i’ll be leaving towards the end of june and taking a month to trek ‘cross the country to the apia spoken word and poetry summit, which yall should attend if you possibly can.

but as a part of that… if you have couch space or an idea of places to go or recommendations or advice or words of wisdom, please, please send ‘em my way. if you know someone who’d be willing to host or show me ’round their neck of the woods, please holler at ‘em for me. also, if you have any experience with couchsurfing.org, i’d love to hear from you.

and watch out for a viet am poet boy with a big backpack round where you live in the months of july and august.

i’ll be posting more in the next few days about the tirp and more writing, it feels damn nice to have time to write again.

but for now, more trip planning and xbox 360 .

life is a journey, no wonder so many folks are lost.

goddamn it has been a long month.

which is why i only got 8 days into the poetry project before giving up. too caught up in too many things to keep it going. my personal life is all a shambles, my school life is overburdened. and to top it off, i lost a month and a half of work on my thesis because the file got corrupted and is completely irrecoverable. luck loves me.

but imma keep my head down and bull through. i can’t wait till i finish, graduate and go apeshit. go back to the gym, get prepped for a competition at the end of the month. god i’m going to enjoy feeling tired from physical activity.

i’ve given up on the poem-a-day project for the simple fact that my everyday life has to take priority… and because i realize i really really hate posting poems that aren’t polished. such is life.

wish me luck.

i’m the type of poet who writes in great spurts. and i am currently hella blocked, so no new poems until i can get over it. because of this, here’s two old poems, slightly done up to presentable. appropriately enough since it’s a horrible, nasty, get into your bones wet and windy day, i’ve decided that they’ll be love poems. as happy as i ever write ‘em.

big smiles.

even when you want to cry.

oh… and if’n you’re interested, i should be there and it’s dope as heo… the apia summit. a great gathering of artists and just generally dope people. and dude, it’s in the bay area this year. how dope is that?

—————————————–

jokes

the imperfections of our bodies
give shattering testimony
to the perfection of the moment

shared knowledge
of sex
being too sacred
a meeting
to be had
without laughter.

touch is a ghost, is
a memory, is flame
and salty sweet moisture,
is the tracery
of sparks

touch whispers,
touch grips fluidly
and straddles
the fault lines
between
pain, pleasure
playfulness.

no self consciousness, not now
when we lose track
of limbs, the parts
yours that become mine
mine that become yours.

for an instant
entwined, no
me without you, identities
defined only in relation.

and then i rolled off.

———————————–

untitled

my fingers walk the outline
of your silhouette, trace the tightropes
holding our tenuous miscommunications,
trusting in our unspoken tensions to hold us up.

we sequester whispers in the corners
of half-hearted smiles

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.

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.