mainly because i’m too lazy to check the google analytics, and even then, i’m not sure if those reading are actually reading my blog or searched something ridiculous like godzilla porn and randomly found my blog.

but there’s something in the human spirit that enjoys screaming down empty hallways, that lets forth a primal yell into the darkness of the night and the wilderness of the soul.

i guess this blog was mine and is now becoming it again.

we live lonely lives. or at least i do. we’re alone in our heads so much that sometimes it feels like the world fades away andd loses its colour, like life becomes nothing more than a constant blur of faces and repetitive routines meant only to get us through the day or afford us enough time to drown ourselves in the fantasies of tv or korean dramas (god do i love the melodrama).

but at the same time, we desire connection. it’s part of who we are as human beings. so no matter how things fade or become dark, we throw out messages in bottles, screams of defiance into the night air, even knowing no one will hear them.

you scream, i scream, we all scream for ice cream.

so therefore, i will be updating more in the next few days.

not the long, introspective pieces i’ve been writing but smaller posts. i think that way, i will be more consistent. here’s hoping.

which is why i’m forcing myself to write this blog post though i’m not very motivated to do so. without the ability to write, i’m beginning to feel like there’s something missing in my life. maybe that’s unrelated to just the block, but then writing has always been in my life in such a fundamental way that if it’s not the absence of writing, i don’t know what it is.

to structure it more broadly, let’s look at my life, which, contrary to the somewhat emo tone of this piece, i am actually enjoying. i am, for the most part and as much as an ambitious romantic can be, content.

my life is centered around finishing this masters degree of mine and jiu jitsu. i spend 14 hours a week in class + a bunch of hours outside of class doing work for it. i spend 15 hours a week playing jiu jitsu, doing conditioning or being an assistant coach. i spend the rest of my time in between side projects and procrastination. i’m living off of the rather limited budget provided by my stipend and by my side projects. i’m dieting hard and am only cheating a day a week.

this has been good for me in a really core way… i’ve lost 20 lbs and just generally feel healthier. i feel like my jiu jitsu, which is always hella important to me, is getting back to where it was and is actually being improved upon. i’m actually setting myself up to compete at the NAGA in november.

but at the same time, i’m missing three things… or at least i feel that i am missing those things. my writing, my sleep and human connection.

i think the next few weeks will be an effort at finding those things and maybe making myself happy instead of just content.

i’ve been hella fail at the whole updating thing. as a heads up, i will be updating with all the old blog entries that i should’ve finished. sorry.

my brain’s been fried. still trying to process my journey into the mountains and then getting pulled over by border patrol and then summit and then the fucking bay area.

i am writing.

i promise.

i know i need to finish the austin entry, as well as write my entires for the last few days, spent in arizona and utah and in san diego… but i’ve had a crazy, crazy adventure in those days and need a few days to process…

i promise i will catch up before summit…. even if i have to take a day off from adventuring to do so.

oh and btw, if anyone wants a postcard, send me your address.

austin was a great time.

admittedly, i didn’t do many culture things other than music, but i got to do other things that more than made it up. i got to see my homegirl tammy, my jiu jitsu brother mikey, got to play jiu jitsu, got to listen to some awesome music, eat some great food…

and more importantly, i got to hang out with the really awesome family of my friend and fellow bullshidoka john. dude, what an awesome loving family. i think one of the coolest things about doing what i’m doing, is getting to know folks, their lives and their homes.

the family of john

i feel blessed to be taken into folks’ homes this way. to see not just america in geographical terms, but also the people. it’s what makes this trip more than just an excuse to sight see or to get debauched in different places.

john and his wife tammy took me into their beautiful home, introduced me to shane, their kid and generally made me feel like one of theirs. i think i’ve been on the road too long to really be eloquent. don’t get me wrong, my ability to write is still there, and if anything, i’m writing significantly more than i have been… but my ability to communicate through this particular format is kinda weak sauce.

suffice to say i loved that family and i wish i could find more family stays. they’ve been that spice in between my hostel stays that have been really awesome and really framed the entirety of my experience.

john and tammy and shane could not have been more welcoming or sweet. being in that home that was full of love made me miss home, made me miss that nurturing, caring environment. john and tammy say that their lives revolve around their son, and it’s so obvious that it does. they love that kid with a fierce, amazing passion and i just know it’s going to be the subject of my poetry.

me and shane

there really isn’t that much to say… i’m going to let the pictures speak and just remark on them about the rest of my time with the beautiful people i know in austin….

dude, great voice

as always, my experience was bracketed, defined by and constantly associated with music. it underlines everything i do, it highlights everything. i fucking love going to live shows, there’s an energy in live shows that makes me so happy all the time. this picture and the next few are all from my first night in the city, when me, john, and mikey, my jiu jitsu brother went out to 6th street.

mikey and john

the boys on the strip known as 6th street

the next day was mostly devoted to fixing my baby, the laptop that i’m writing this blog on currently, because its screen was cracked. you obviously don’t

]]> http://vinh-hua.com/archives/412/feed 1 http://vinh-hua.com/archives/402 http://vinh-hua.com/archives/402#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:23:32 +0000 vinh http://vinh-hua.com/?p=402 nb: this was originally written monday, but never shown to the world till just now.

dallas ended up being what i needed it to be.

not exactly what i wanted it to be. for one, i didn’t expect it to be a suburban wasteland. secondly, i didn’t get to do a lot of the cowboy things i was originally looking forward to. no rodeo, no shooting shit, no horses. but goddamn is it hot. and goddamn is that sun ridiculously powerful or what?

aside: wtf?! i’m watching cmt and seeing def leppard singing with taylor swift. huge wtf moment. who’d a thunk they’d ever get together to sing fucking taylor swift songs. admittedly, taylor swift is somewhat of a guilty pleasure… and i do think she’s attractive, but playing with fucking def leppard?! pour some sugar on swift. that was actually a kinda pleasant image. hmmm…

back to what i was saying. dallas was what i needed it to be. thursday was a movie night, with no drunken hijinks and nothing really crazy, but necessary considering i was still recovering from norleans. friday was restful… though admittedly not through any real amount of choice. i did need it, because i can feel myself getting sick. c’est le vie.

i ended up visiting this neighborhood called deep ellum with my friend and pseudo-stooge sister, catrina. she and her family was kind enough to take me into her home, which btw, is helllllllla baller. deep ellum, while i didn’t see it at night, seems to me like williamsburg junior. hipster heaven. but not necessarily in a bad way. i feel like i could’ve had a lot of fun there. the street art was beautiful. and fucking everywhere.

play that gitar boyo

ivy eyed... that's gonna be in a poem.

batter up!

like i said, hipster heaven

and dude. food was awesome. recommended by a local, the angry dog in deep ellum was tasty as hell, with huge portions.

da burger... yes DA.

after a long detour in a bookstore, i ended up going out with my homegirl caly to meet up with our other friend thi at the local watering holes. we actually had a really good series of conversations regarding everything from love, to work to the nature of life. which is always kinda awesome and reminded me what the whole point of this trip was, to connect with people and by so doing, to connect with myself. hence the reason the poem i wrote for caly awhile back, but which has been heavily rewritten, which i need to end up titling sooner or later, will be posted on the website sometime soon.

fried pickles

me and caly's mom's awesome bun bo hue

me and jiggly

aside 2: taylor swift and def leppard were just talking about how things that are in your life, that happen to you, the strong feelings that you feel inevitably end up in your music. this is both true and something i’ve always believed in. i write what i feel. know this.

saturday was significantly more productive. went to fort worth, which is part of the metro dallas area to go to a series of museums, the kimball and the modern. both of which surprised me in the breadth and depth of their collections. i had a really good time and was surprisingly moved by much of the art.

the modern

if only catrina, if only

fascinated at one of the most realistic sculptures ever

monet at the kimball

beauty is the realm of the divine

ended up watching the movie all about dad at the asian american film festival dallas, which was a fun time. it’s always interesting to see media that reflects your experience, and this most definitely did. the issues of first and second generation, expectation of family, the experience of the refugee and of the american born. these spoke to me, which has always been extraordinarily important in my appreciation of art. and hey, i got pictures with the dad, who is in many ways similar to my own father. hence i bought him a heineken.

heineken with the dad

afterwards, i ate a 25 oz steak with cat, phuong and macy, the new three stooges. good time. i did damage. and i think the steak might have done damage to me. whoa. i heart cat for bringing me to do something so texan.

before

after

how i felt before

how i felt after

that night i went out with jiggly and her friends to the gayborhood. i actually ended up having a really great time in my first lesbian bar because the people i was around were so awesome. i can’t remember all the names, sarah and albert and viet and many others. but that’s what picatures and facebook are for.

she actually really does look like this all the time

teh females

folks

3 dudes and a girl

i am currently at my friend john’s house in Austin, safe and sound, getting ready to go play jits. they’re an awesome, generous and loving family out here. you may not hear from me for a bit because my laptop screen is cracked, but i will try to update when i can. great love. i do want to say that i am awful glad i went to dallas. there’s lots of good folks there, and i’m hella appreciative to the ngo family for taking me in and treating me like a member of the family. even if i tease them. also, hella thanks goes out to all the people i met in dallas in general. sure, yall disabused me of my wonderful delusions about texas, but hey, it was good.

hit me up if you’re reading. comments are much appreciated. i’ll leave you with a pic of two of the stooges and pennies.

stooges and pennies

life is like a jits match, you gotta be ready to act when you feel the balance point.

i have also been exhausted. finally getting to texas, the suburban wasteland that is dallas, i have realized how hard i’ve been pushing my body, traveling from place to place, partying, going out and just generally not being very healthy. and even though there is a significant emotional, spiritual and mental payoff, there is definitely a price, not least of which is physical.

but i really should at least summarize briefly what happened in the last few days, maybe show it all pictorially. maybe even use it as a discussion of larger ideas and ideals.

though i will say, as it is relatively early in the morning, doubly so for myself, and i’m watching that vietnamese movies the rebel, i will say that i kinda wish i were either asleep or in vietnam acting in vietnameese movies. i feel like that would be kinda an awesome time. and the movie makes me come to two realizations… a) if vo vinam really looks like they’re trying to portray it, it must’ve been hella useful until someone decided to throw in a spinning kick… which is when we lost the country to the french. and b) if only kung fu could make war into a thing of individuals rather than massed formations of rifles and men.

i have no idea why i’m being so philosophical. i guess actually resting for a night is screwing with the chemicals in my brain. it does look like dallas is going to my rest stop, which i’m conflicted about, but c’est le vie. the combination of dallas being a suburban wasteland made for suvs and other automobiles and the fact that i don’t drive makes ish hard.

but back to nawlins.

on my second day in norleans, i did the whole french quarter thing, but started out at the voodoo museum. which was trippy, beautiful in its own way and enough to send chills up and down my spine. weird moments.

vinh in norleans

voodoo museum

there i am

but the french quarter is goddamn beautiful… especially when you get off the shithole known as bourbon street. jackson sq, royal street, the antique stores and the art shoppes. i love the architecture and the vibe. cafe du monde was as awesome as i remembered it from the years before when i had eaten there, and i finally got to see the mississippi river.

jackson sq, gotta love it

one of the better street performers

awesome sauce

beautiful nawlins

where it finally hit me, i’d done half of the country. holy crap. about a 1/4th of my journey is done. it’s been a goddamn crazy, crazy time that has renewed my faith in the human condition.

big river, oh big river

but lets get off this philosophical trip.

the crew had hooked up with this guy ski, a local, the previous night. homeboy called us up and hooked us up with an open bar on bourbon street. ski and i are a lot alike in that we both are open to whatever comes, to having fun, hooking people up with each other and just generally to being open to what the world brings.

the open bar was an awesome time. what i can remember from it. especially the karaoke. oh jesus, karaoke, on stage.

drunken open bar

party it up kiddos

viva la bamba

throwing beads off from the porch

the beauties of open bars

so wasn’t the show afterwards.

outside rebirth

i have no idea wtf to say about this but it's awesome

awesome show

the next day, the canadien ending up leaving. after a relatively late start, i headed out to the insectarium. dude. i’ve been to a bunch of music events, art museums and all sorts of things all across the united states, but i had never even heard of an insectarium before.

welcome wall

i hate bugs

really really pretty space

working hard

i had a great time as you can see. saw a bunch of bugs. ate some bugs.

i’ve always been a little bit fascinated by bugs, and so seeing all of them like that was interesting as all hell. and the insectarium was just really, really well put together, which is always nice. it was informative, clean, the staff were hella knowledgeable and willing to be engaged… it was full of awesomeness.

that evening, one of my homies at the hostel, brandon, ended up making some really really baller jumbo. that whole quiet night was this really awesome time when i got to know brandon, the veteran from a ranch in oklahoma and sean and everyone else. it was a good time to just relax and get to know folks that much better.

brandon and his baller gumbo

big meal

it was a great send off to texas.

the boys with my pennies

miss lisa, who drove me to dallas with her penny

i’ll hit you up later today probably about my poetry and and about my time in tx.

as a heads up, this will NOT be a long post. it’s too hot and i want to jump into the pool. i’ll only be making a post about the first day, even though i’m already on the third day. i need time to process. fucking norleans.

so good in this shit hot weather

but let’s just talk about how much of a goddamn party city this is. they sell fucking hard liquor in the goddamn pharmacies. they sell shots in the liquor stores. as long as it ain’t in glass, you can drink on the street whatever. it is an insane little city.

the best medicine evar

and it is awesome.

and the hostel reflects the awesomeness. it’s a relatively giant compound with fish and a pool and colourfulness and is just a great time. they legitimately have a refrigerator just for alcohol. it’s such a good time, i’m going to be spending most of today in the pool to cool off.

i actually really want a tattoo of a koi

i made dinner the first night i got in for the mates i met at the hostel and then we went out. the crew was lisa from texas, the jarhead, the canadien, the manx, howard and miss serena. after a fucking epic journey that ended up actually getting us to the place after the band had played and seeing what felt like almost all of norleans, we ended up meeting with these two local girls. they were med students at tulane and walked us over to frenchman street… which was significantly better than the shithole known as bourbon street.

me n miss lisa

the folks on the bus

where are we going?!

we ended up having an awesome time going from jazz club to jazz club, listening to awesome livem usic and generally getting plastered. we met up with this AWESOME jazz singer by the name of miss arlee who ended up singing at every place we went and getting the crowd moving.

the crew on bourbon street

hiho the derry-o, it's the crew don't yanno

the dirty manx

dba band

miss alex and her band, awesome

miss arlee singing

me and the canadien

i’m sorry i’m not at my most eloquent this morning. it’s too fucking hot and there’s most likely too many toxins still in my body.

i will update about the next day later on… and i will say that i am beginning to write again, which is awesome sauce.

life is like a girl you pick up, you never know what you’re gon’ get.

though i don’t have internet access, i do sorta remember where i left off in the blog… so i’ll start with saying that trinh, bryan, and bushaud are great folks.

trinh took me to the first vietnamese food i have had in what feels like forever. this doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you realize that i haven’t had rice or any other asian food since i set out on this trip. seeing, smelling, sensing vietnamese food made me realize there was a definite gap in my life. the fact that there were fresh vegetables, which i hadn’t been ingesting much of, just tied the whole thing together for me.

also, vietnamese food is just such a good type of food for talking… though there wasn’t that much talking in the first few minutes after we got our dinner, the ability of vietnamese food to be edible even if not quickly eaten allowed us to have a relatively deep conversation. hanging out with trinh and co made me realize a few things… that people from all sorts of places are fundamentally able to connect to one another as long as they allow themselves to be open to the experience. this was especially pushed into my head for the simple fact that these folks did not know me from job, but were still willing to take me in and to talk with me and to open themselves up.

bun nem nuong, so good

friendly atlanteans

therefore, i’m trying to make myself as open to a variety of experiences as humanly possible while i’m here… letting whatever comes come. so it was with some trepidation but an open mind that i ended up going to a hipster party that was sposed to have a moonbounce there. imagine my utter disappointment when the moonbounce was not there. which is why we then went to a strip club.

no moonbounce, but ghost instead

stuttttttttter

trinh stutttter

bushaud stutter

drunk eyes

as a matter of fact, we went to the clearmont lounge, which is apparently an atlanta institution. the trip club par excellence. this was not your average strip club though… as it wasn’t really about how enticing the women on stage were… if anything, most of the strippers looked badly used, old and resigned to their jobs. the entire place had this air of unrefinement… in keeping with the dancers. one of the draws was apparently the fact that one of the strippers was able to crush beer cans with her tits, something i did not get to see. your feet stuck to the floor. i still can’t get the smell of cigarettes out of my skin. thankfully… we got out of there before bryan could buy me a lap dance from one of the older models.

pennies

but even though my experience in atlanta was brief… i had such a great, if surreal, experience while i was there. locals are awesome.

that morning i jumped on a 12 hour bus ride to pensacola florida, where i was met up by my friend Jason, who is also a bully from bullshido.net. pensacola reminded me of how fundamentally different every place i’ve been is from one another. it is this like small town, even if it’s the biggest in its region, that is hella spread out with cul de sacs and suburban sprawl everywhere. you gotta understand that this is fundamentally different from my experiences in other cities.

WTF? kfc has a fucking BUFFET?! sorry for the interruption, i just saw the sign. jesus christ. that sounds disgusting.

but getting back to it, after i got back to jay’s place, i stored my stuff, met his really friendly family, his wife casey, his kids tyler (not durden) and blake. after a brief rest, we ended up rolling. jay, though not belted, is a pretty decent player, with a knack for finding submissions from weird positions. he showed me some unorthodox stuff as we talked about lfie and about th jits scene in florida… which is apparently non existent.

jits and son

that night, we went off to watch the ufc at his father-in-law’s house, who goes by the name of greg, and who is by far one of the most well traveled and just generally nice folks i know… even if we fundamentally disagree one what is natural for the human animal.

i don’t want to talk much about the ufc… except to say fuck brock lesnar. and go sexyyama! and roflmfao @ bisping

that night… i almost suffocated. i am REALLY allergic to cats and jay had cats that apparently had some demon dander. but whatever, it happens. i ended up sleeping the next night at greg’s house, saving me a trip to a hotel. the concern for my wellbeing that jay and his family showed was so heartwarming that i wished i could express it to you through a medium more solid than this ethereal electronic transmission.

as i recovered from the swollen nodes in my throat, we went to the beach to veg out and to give my lungs a chance to take in the salt air. jay was telling me that the job market in pensacola was real hard up, and that even though property values were ridiculously low, there weren’t that many people moving down here. which blew my mind once i saw the beach.

holy crap. i swear to god, i thought i was in paradise. beautiful white powder, crystal clear water that had the temperature that was just enough to welcome you, the beautiful sun. kayaking! awesomeness. i swam and i frolicked and i even kayak’ed, seeing a school of manta rays. greg actually ended up seeing a massive sea turtle. how cool is that?

the big kid

the little kids

the kids and casey

look at that water, goddamn

fat but happy

afterwards we went to flounder’s, which is their favourite nearby restaurant, where i tried my first bushwacker and found out that grouper is a fucking amazing fish to eat. sure, the bottom feeders the restaurant made weren’t awesome, but goddamn, the fish was MINDBLOWING good. and then we walked down the boardwalk… which is just like a jersey shore.

not so much.

but still, alcohol and people watching and country music from a pretty girl.

awesome food

flash fried goodness

the whole family

i ended up moving to greg’s house that evening, watched four brothers and kicked it with greg and jay.

as a final note, i just wanted to say thank you again to them for opening up their homes and treating me like family. i usually think southern hospitality is kinda of bullshit. i’ve seen it be bullshit in a lot of places, but these folks, who are NOT southerners, definitely showed it to me. awesomeness.

ole me

more pennies

life is like a bus ride, you never know when you gon’ get where you’re going.