to have that much anger there's got to be passion involved. here's the situation. patty is suspicious that graham is getting a little too close to his female business associate. she reasons however that graham and hallie just get along really well and that it's nothing to worry about. patty's friend camille says that it's a good sign that graham and hallie get along well because the thing to worry about is when they start to argue. because when you "have that much anger there's got to be passion involved." (that's paraphrased, i can't remember the exact quote)



this statement seems to smack of a truism. one of those things that just seem right. anger equals passion. passion equals care. why be mad at someone if you don't care about them? hum. wow. it seems pretty fool-proof this theory, although there are a few exceptions. sometimes you just get mad at someone because they are straight up annoying. sometimes your anger is provoked. some people just get angry at everything. but taking these and similar situations away, what you have is this: you can only get angry/upset/hurt when you care. because when you don't care about somebody you don't care what they do and what their actions are.



when rayanne sleeps with jordan and then loses her friendship with angela, she says, "wow, she (angela) must have really cared (about me) to be hurt so bad." and that again, smacks of a truth. care/passion equals potential hurt/anger.



btw, guess what we've been watching alot of?

i run a comb through my hair

and step out in the street

and the city's the color of flame

in the mid-summer heat

oh yeah



jennifer's got her daddy's car,

she's playing "uptown" on the stereo

we go cruisin' so close,

the way they did long ago

my darlin'



(turn) turn the radio up for that sweet sound

hold me close never let me go

(keep) keep this feelin' alive

make me lose control

baby, baby

-eric carmen, make me lose control-



is this a great song or what?

so anna got a convertible. cruising in a convertible on a sunny eighty five degree day is kind of joyous. if you want to come to san diego and rent a convertible, i'll skip my classes. promise.



top five convertible songs

blister in the sun

my sharona

i want you to want me

under pressure

stuck in the middle of you

the word "peace" is just an expression used to say bye when it's time to jet. that's a line from blackalicious' shallow days. in recent days that line has been turned inside out and made clear to me, and it's not just an expression to say bye when it's time to jet. the connotations attached to "peace" is much more than a simple good bye.



i have this habit of picking up words from the people or things around me. i am not from new york but for awhile i said "yo" all the time. i was never a "dude" guy until i picked it up one day. "lates" was not in my vocabulary until i hung out one summer with my friend tim. and so, a few weeks ago i started saying "peace" when ending my phone calls or my conversations or whatever.



clearly i have never used "peace" until recently and my friend mary pointed this fact out to me. she asked why i used it and what i meant by it. i gave her a flippant answer like it was just a thing i picked up, not fully realizing the intent and seriousness of her question. using "peace" is not the same as saying "good bye" or "i'll see you later." it has more meaning to it, a meaning that i would like to think i understood at the time but perhaps didn't.



obviously i acquired the use of "peace" by hanging out with babbs too much (which is never a bad thing). so, as the question drummed in my mind about what i meant by "peace" i just went to babbs and asked him what he meant by it, because after all, i was (mis)appropriating his word and i wanted his take on mary's question. a conversation with him and a few quick emails with mary exchanged later, i learned to watch what i say and mean what i mean. words are powerful, some more than others, make sure you keep your mind on your money and your money on your mind. as it were.



an excerpt:

i am not at all disapproving of using "peace" as an exiting remark... i just wanted there to be awareness of the power and strength of the word. i am a true believer of the idea that semiotics can alter consciousness. if the term is used flightingly and superficially, than the entire movement and people, the actual manifestations (and you know how complicated this is) of the word would be rendered vacuous.. and yet, when used carefully and thoughtfully, its prevalence in every day social exchanges is infinitely valuable.

actuarial accounting of the soul. modern philosophers apparently don't think much of the body-soul dichotomy, to them the question is out of date because the soul is generally no longer thought to be separate from the body. this means that if you're selling your soul, you are also selling your body. and so when you say "i would sell my soul" you are also possibly selling your body. this could imply that by selling your body (ie. prostitution) you are also selling your soul, but we've all seen hollywood movies about golden souled hookers so we know that the converse is not true.



aniwaise, this leads me to wonder how much my soul might be worth, assuming it were a separate saleable entity. i could, of course, offer to sell my body but why bother. my arms and legs are probably worth a grand total of five dollars and my left limbs are probably worth less (one is defaced, the other is missing cartilage). so if i had to sell something, i might as well get rid of the big enchilada, my ethereal soul.



now, my soul is certainly not priceless, people sell souls away everyday. to religions, to mtv, to anything really. maybe somehow, because we can't see a soul, it is at the same time less and more precious than we can imagine. my soul in particular is mostly in flux so i figured i would sell early so i can market it as "malleable and filled with creamy potential." old souls tend to be crusty and belligerent, or even worse, cute. my soul is pretty clean, no missing parts, no permanent smudge marks, no moral stains or highly regrettable actions. this soul also comes with a guilty free conscience, a bonus in this day and age. all of which leads me to believe that i would start the bidding on my soul at about seven hundred million dollars. with a buy it now price of one billion. sounds excessive i know. but quite honestly, if my soul is going to the highest bidder i have to ensure the future finanancial security of my children and my children's children. not to mention that daddy needs a brand new bag. and shoes and jackets and clothes in general.



alternately, i could be convinced to sell my soul for a lifetime supply of gas. especially today, since my main mode of transportation is sitting forlornly in my garage, drained of fuel to the extent that i can't even get it to start. bugger. the american dream comes to a crashing halt when your car has no gas.



so now as i ponder where my path should take me in the upcoming years --whether it be an itinerant beach bum or a successful wall street caricature-- i will know that i should not sell my principles and my convictions for anything less than seven hundred mill. anything less would be cheating myself and my future progeny. by the way, there is no end date on this auction, serious bids are welcome at any and all times. for this bargain basement price i would follow you wherever you would go. way up high. or down low.



next. what price dreams?

the chills that you spill up my back keep me filled with satisfaction. you know that feeling you get when you're on the same wavelength with people? like you're thinking about each other at just the same time and you both do something about it. or that biological buzz when you know somebody's about to call. and they do. or when you exchange presents and the presents exchanged up being the exact same thing (well, not exactly, but the same type). or when you're talking about something totally weird but the other person just gets it and you know they're not just fake "getting it." that's when you have to start wondering about karma. cosmic karma like when you were both peas in your previous life and now you recognize each other again.



i roll around campus and i see a lot of shoes. a lot of shoes. mainly because when i'm walking in a foreign land i try to keep my head down, nose to the grinding stone, mind focused on my schoolwork and akademiks. i don't have the time nor the inclination to be looking at people as i walk by. besides, it makes me uncomfortable. to have to capture someone's eyes for a brief second and then turn quickly away. and i also dislike standing on the bus, arm all raised and jammed in somebody's face, wondering what the hell they're thinking. i've also decided that girls always pretty much look good from behind. like the cascade of their hair or the way they work it from the rear. then they turn around and ruin it. but hey, not everyone's a winner.



and it's been said that the females at ucsd are not of the most attractive persuasion (excepting everyone i know from ucsd of course). i am working hard on coming up with a definitive conclusion to this theory for you. but i feel like i need a tour of the other UC campuses in order to grasp the big picture. can't go jumping to hasty conclusions about stuff like this. a fellow student uc student, located at los angeles, once told me that with the rising academic standards, the "hotness" of girls up there is going proportionately down. that's an inverse relationship for those in the know. although all relationships these days seem to be inversely related. anyhow.



tangent: remember when you had to send in pictures with a college application? what do you suppose they do with those?



it's a common fact that the hottest girls in the UC system go to irvine. so does it mean that the lower the standardized test score, the hotter the girl? hotter in a purely physical sense, because we are only working in the shallow end of the pool here. this theory isn't rocket science since we're all aware of it but i do have to admit that there is some merit to this generalization. with the advances that high school students are making these days, will the ever increasing transcript competition change the face of our UCs?



"your groove i do deeply dig, no walls only the bridge, my supperdish, my succotash wish."

strawberry rose. bringing the migrant worker's life to the masses of children who need to know. story two for childrens class. it's important to bring OCD and the plight of the oppressed together in one little short story. if this doesn't put your kid to sleep, nothing will.

emotional investment banking, fear of commitment and the quest for ass. ahhh ... expectations. every new relationship has 'em. they start out as dreams, as hopes, as desires -- no relationship ever starts without desires. at first you hope that the person you're interested in will be interested in you, too. that gets borne out. then you hope that there's some substance to the desire, that the interest won't stagnate, that they'll continue to be as exciting and unique and fun as they were at the very beginning of the relationship. gradually, if it's going to go long-term, these desires get substantiated. they become expectations.



or, if you're not careful, they become expectations early on in the process, long before they deserve to be, and you end up disappointed. i can't begin to count how many times i've heard half of a bitter breakup say, "he/she just wasn't the person i thought he/she was."



unfounded expectations are the #1 killer of relationships today. speculating in a relationship is like buying stock on margin: when you overextend your resources, there's a slim chance you'll make it big, but it's far more likely that you're going to lose your (figurative) shirt when your partner's ass can't cover the checks that your own heart wrote.



there are two tactics, i think, for avoiding the bust that comes from overextending your emotional resources. i'll call them the careful investor and the day trader.



the careful investor evaluates his prospects thoroughly before putting in any emotional capital. potential relationship material might not even know he's considering them, because he plays his cards close to his chest. he delineates friendships clearly; you always know where you stand on the surface with a careful investor, because his words and his body language tell you. he forms a picture of his interest in his mind; maybe he even has a picture of his ideal interest, compares the two, and seeks out the one who matches his ideal the best. if he knows what he's doing, he refines this mental image of her down to a very high resolution before he makes his move; maybe in the past, he didn't look closely enough and missed a major incompatibility. he moves only when he feels ready, and most of those moves are calculated to maximize his return on the investment of his time and emotional capital. he's careful with his body language. he's witty and clever. he figures out what his target will find most appealing and approaches her from that angle. and if he's done his homework right, if he knows what he wants, can find that embodied, and isn't fooling himself about who the girl really is, he will get it, and he'll throw body, mind, heart and soul into it. she'll get all of him.



if, that is, he ever approaches anyone at all.



the day trader keeps his eyes out for what looks good at the moment. when he sees a likely candidate -- using whatever criteria capture his attention ("wow, look at those tits!" / "goddamn, she's smart!" / "hey, she likes bicycling too!" / etc.) -- he starts to spend his readiest and cheapest resource: time. he flirts. he takes her out to the movies, goes out for coffee with her, whatever will net him two things: details about her and fun. he asks lots of questions. he invites stories and tells some of his own. he finds out what she lives for, what she dreams of, what really winds her clock. he does nice things in good faith, putting himself out perhaps farther than he has to, but not so far that he's going to end up in debt or seriously disappointed if things don't work out. maybe he gets laid. at this stage, he's all about a mutually assured good time.



time goes on, and he starts to see some return on his investment. he sees that his presence makes her happy. he finds himself delighted to have her around just because of who she is and the joy she brings into his life. these arrive as little discoveries, happy explosions of recognition that hey, things are working right! and as his roi increases, he invests more of himself into the relationship -- reinvesting emotional capital as the dividends come in. he starts thinking about the future when it looks like there's going to be a future to think about, and in the process, he goes on seizing every single day.



or not; maybe he and she just don't mesh and there's no indication that they would over time. maybe she's got a nice rack, a tight ass and a head full of helium. maybe she's bright and exciting in her own right, but the things she's most passionate about just bore him to tears. maybe one of them has some serious honesty issues -- as a side note, the cruelest thing a day trader can do is entice someone to speculate about the future of the relationship, or encourage a partner's existing speculations, when he has none of his own. there's pain, in those cases, when an investment has to be terminated. nobody's fond of loss. but there's pleasure to offset the pain.



linked from pjammer. this article written by somebody else but the link doesn't work right now so i can't link to it. however, pjammer writes "unlike many otherwise intelligent women i know who jump from relationship to relationship (all the while vacillating between [1] gushing about how perfect and happy happy happy they are, and [2] neurotically despairing over some insurmountable emotional obstacle) maradydd demonstrates a certain lucidity about relationships that sounds quite alien coming from the distaff side of my circle of friends."

concerto of the desperado. take eight free tickets to eve and the roots (courtesy of uncle jmz). mix in the nfl experience. throw in heavy crowds and impossible parking. still equals a good time. football really is america's passion and what the nfl does with a little oblong ball is quite amazing. families and little kids were all over downtown san diego, fueling up on football and games and good clean fun. we went down to parker's hell to partake of the roots, whom i had never seen in concert.



after some initial doubts about the quality of the venue and the crowd, i left knowing that the roots are the truth (not that i didn't think it before) and that scratch was hands down the most amazing performance i'd ever seen. the sounds that he can create with just some vocal cords and a mouth are a revelation. makes me feel downright stupid to hum or ever bother trying to create noise. that man is straight incredible. as are the roots in general. ?uest, black thought. better than everything i'd imagined. i could watch them all life long. after the concert everything was just gravy. we were so close to the stage too, like five feet away. standing up makes one tired though. but you all knew that. [pictures]



i've seen you live

jars of clay

alanis morrisette

jewel

lauryn hill / busta rhymes

janet jackson / 112

britney spears

roots / eve

"what a good place to end up." as said by a little blonde boy at roberto's. he's sitting there with his mom and his sister, as well as with another mom and children trio, baby strollers parked next to the table. me and james sitting one table over, watching them, thinking and speaking of families and children and big dogs. and that feeling you get when you chill at roberto's, cheap ass rainbow brite mexican food on your plate, warm weather breezing by, a splendid view of palm trees and the pacific. that kind of feeling is hard to duplicate. you gotta enjoy these moments, you gotta appreciate these moments, you gotta live for these moments. some people can't. some people don't. no drugs, nicotine or alchohol needed. mexican food, sun, beach. that's all it takes. life should be a vacation, chill out.



why anyone would not want to eventually end up in san diego is beyond me. seasons are overrated, for real, move out here people, you can live in sun and vacation in snow, not the other way around. aaaahhhh. some days, some days are just perfect.



this weekend is shaping up to be a pretty stupendous weekend actually. today we movie hopped. haven't done that for awhile. caught the matinee for the 25th hour and then strolled on into catch me if you can. seven bucks for two pretty decent movies. well worth it, especially when you're too cheap to pay for real movies. movie hopping could be the new thing to do. sure it's a tad juvenile and middle school-ish but those are probably some of my better personality traits. plus, i got nothing better to do than sit in front of a screen for five hours on a saturday. do you?

if you give a mouse a cookie. kids are smart. i don't know if they always were. precocious kids are definitely the norm now. i look around at my little cousins, aged five through nine, and i'm amazed at what they can retain and understand. there's no bullshitting these kids. were we that smart? were we that aware? i know i wasn't. at nine, we were in what? fourth grade? what the hell did i know in fourth grade?



my little cousin brian is reading starcraft manuals and installing video games and talking to me about RAM and disk size. he's telling me the best strategies to use when defending against a zerg rush and all this stuff that seems so beyond this little three foot child. then again, i'm brought back to reality when i see the remains of his spaghetti dinner on his face and on his lap. do chinese boys get bowl cuts just so they can look cute and innocent? because they aren't. they know way too much. brian goes into his little indian teepee tent to read or sulk. the little plastic indian teepee tent that used to belong to me. as in, i still feel like it's mine. we never outgrow childhood possessions, we just want them less badly.



anyway. all children nowadays know way too much. they get too much tv or internet or gay sesame street characters or something. i remember when rated R movies really meant you couldn't watch them until you were of the appropriate age. i'm wondering when i'll be asked about drugs and alchohol by my little cousins. that day is bound to come, later rather than sooner hopefully.



in taking this children's writing class, the hardest thing i've had to deal with initially is to fight the idea that writing for children is the same as writing simplistically. one article we read in class, about a children's author, states that the only thing she changes between her pieces for adults and pieces for children is the sentence structure. she pares down her sentences to bite sized pieces and lays complicated sophisticated structures aside. other than that, she uses the exact same techniques and the same vocabulary.



does the thought of nine year olds who can out-think, out-smart, out-dance, out-earn, out-cute you scare everybody? i think it does me. kids are really just little people. you can't just give them a piece of candy and expect them to go away. well, actually you can, but only on halloween. as a side note. my cousins are damn cute. if i could find a combined picture of them, you would die. literally.

to follow through on some thoughts dredged up by yesterday's conversation. this need for recognition, this need to stroke the ego. narcissism. it's something we all want and crave. who doesn't want to recognized for their talents and achievements? people will take that recognition in different forms to be sure, whether it's a hundred people clapping and chanting your name or one person coming up to you and saying "damn that was dope, thank you." it's a tingle when you get encouragement and support. if you love it you will do it but knowing that there are people watching you and noticing you, that's a part of motivation too.



there's an evil side to this need for ego strokage of course, a dark side there is, as with everything in life. some people just need that shit stroked all the freaking day long. those people we ignore. or you know, golf clap. fakely. but let's not talk about those people because those people have some issues. back to positive reinforcement.



having a chance to shine, to be brighted on and lit up, it's not always possible. you need to be comfortable and in your element before certain parts of you come out. oh, one more ego strokage gripe. don't you love it when people will steer conversations or activities towards things that they know they're great at? just so they can show off? like, "oh! let's go skip rocks! by the way, did i mention i was the intergalactic rock skipping champion? teehee!" yeah. those people. or they're real subtle and get a kick out of showing off without really overtly showing off. then again, some people need to show off more because i rather enjoy it when someone is hot shit and they know they're hot shit. if you got it (and i like it) flaunt it. funshine, mario sunshine, shine shine shine. it's all contradictory, i know.



this post is bringing up more negative than positive thoughts about ego-ality. hum, interesting. i think i'll stop until i can collect my thoughts better. but for now.....think about your ego and how you like it to be stroked, it'll be an interesting exercise. promise.

that thing you do. what is it that you hope to be when you meet people? what is that impression you are hoping people will walk away with after a conversation with you? there is so much tied into other people's perceptions. some people get along with everyone, some people don't. it's not pretty but it's simple. i think that most people are pretty aware of how they come off, especially by your twenties you kind of know how you're perceived by the general populace. the question is what you can do about those perceptions.



how many yous are there? there's the basic you, there's the you around other people you and then there's the you you want to be. that middle "you around other people you" category is a huge one. some people feel like there are hundreds of variations on that particular you, and that they change and show different facets depending on the social setting and the people around them. this i feel like would be uncomfortable, at least for me. aren't we all mostly striving to be the same person wherever we are, so we can just be "me" all the time? then again, in some situations you don't really want to reveal parts of yourself, i can understand that in terms of the work/normal life dichotomy so i guess i can see how you might want to do that with friends too.



where perception runs into security/insecurity is an interesting place. some people are fortunate enough to not have to think much about these issues. they are just accepted as who they are and don't really need to analyze or examine to find themselves. some people are the opposite, they are constantly trying to figure out where they fit in and exactly how they fit in. it's just interesting because other people's perceptions effect everyone, even if you don't admit it. how much and to what degree you are shaped by these percetpions vary but it's safe to say that no man is an island.



what do i want to be like when i meet people and talk to them? i realized yesterday (during a fumari's conversation with victor and babbs on related subjects) that my main goal is to give the person across from me a sense of comfortability. to have them at a place where they can tell me anything and feel like i won't be (a) offended (b) judgemental (c) weirded out. i want them to leave me thinking that i'm open to whatever they might say and whatever opinions or lifestyle they might have. some people want you to think that they're "nice." some people want to come off as cool, intellectual, deep, fun, whatever. i want to come off as "open." not so much as a conscious thing, but when i look at how i do things, patterns appear, as it does with all things.

in your grocers freezer. have you ever had your trust violated? you give your trust and faith to someone in a little bundle and then they take it, rip it apart and deposit the remains on your doorstep the next morning? i never have. i've never felt like my trust has been violated, like i was lied to and cheated. at least from friends. i've been suckered by many a tourist trapping italian. i'm gullible like that. but i'm talking about thinking that someone was who they're not. how long can someone hide from you?



in our conceit, i think we all like to say that we're good judges of character and of people. we can tell who is a "good" person and who is a "bad" person. we avoid the bad and collect the good. but what happens when one of the good people turns out to be a bad apple? is there anything to take to recover from that kind of treachery? is one stupid for falling for someone's tricks and wiles anyway and so one should be left alone to suffer the consequences?



if all the world is a stage then people are inevitably putting on a show. i feel like most of the people i know, meet, get acquainted with are good people. i'm inclined to open up to them and give them the benefit of the doubt. rarely do i get burned, or maybe i'm just not aware of when i do. anyway, what do you do when you find out your trust has been misplaced and abused? you cannot run, you cannot find fault all in the other person, after all, belief takes two people (that's the worst line i've ever tried to appropriate, i know).



pt barnum said it best, "a sucker is born every minute." then again, if you don't open yourself up, you don't get into the show either.

on a mat of pita. my first short story for the children's writing class i'm taking. my other class is taoism and hopefully after these two classes i'll be all done with my undergraduate degree, barring some transfer problems and miscalculations and failing classes and such. i'm actually pretty excited about these two classes and i think i'll learn alot. all the classes i've taken at ucsd so far have been very interesting and informative. i guess that's what happens when i finally take classes that are squarely in my fields of interest. i wish i had discovered so many things in college earlier. i never considered english or literature or the arts or anything like that. i was stuck in the business/psych/whatever major mode and now here i stand, six credits away from a philosophy degree good for god knows what.

it's done. i have a tattoo. helen was kind enough to go with me and i don't think her motives were to see me cry. not like some other people. but indeed, getting a tattoo was one of the more painless experiences in my life. the little needle moves up and down so fast that you can't really feel it. quite honestly, after having had intense dentist trips and bad blisters from golf and all that, a tattoo didn't hurt at all. maybe it was just the spot where i put it, or the guy who did it, but the whole "getting a tattoo" thing was almost too painless. there should really be more pain to dissuade further tattoos.



anyhow. i now have this tattoo on my wrist and i'm quite happy about it. it's a little bumpy, a little red but not much else. no blood, no irritation, no pain, nothing. it was so weird to watch this guy carve things into my arm. the whole time, i felt like it would just be a temporary thing and that it would wash off the next time i went into the shower. the only sucky part right now is that i have to keep it bandaged up so i can't look at it all the time yet. if you ever need a tattoo, go to avalon tattoo in pacific beach. very professional, very sanitary, very good.

immortilized by the realness i bring to it

if revolution had a movie i'd be theme music

my music, you either fight, fuck, or dream to it

my life is one big rhyme, i try to scheme through it

through my shell, never knew what the divine would bring to it

i'd be lying if i said i didn't want millions

more than money saved, i wanna save children

dealing with alcoholism and afrocentricity

a complex man drawn off of simplicity

reality is frisking me

this industry will make you lose intensity

the common sense in me remembers the basement

i'm morpheus in this hip-hop matrix, exposing fake shit

-the 6th sense-



has common sold out? his song with erykah badu was hot, got him some face time on all important mtv. then his next video with mary j blige seemed a bit generic. nice concept perhaps but not exactly "common-esque," if i can say such a thing. and now, now he's in a commercial with mya selling coke. the coke ad is part of the new "coca-cola...real" campaign and i suppose by using common, coke gets some credibility. but what does that mean for our man common, one of the greatest MCs of our time? i don't know.



i suppose he gets paid, which is nice. he gets some fame, which is nice. he gets his music spread to more people, people who may have never heard of him before. he may lose some underground credibility but does that matter in the long run? my first reaction upon hearing common and coke in the same sentence was "whut?!?" but then i thought about it, he's not selling out, he's just trying to make some dollars. which is never wrong. popularity isn't necessarily bad so trying to be popular and mainstream isn't necessarily bad either. common can still make great music even if his name is everywhere and his face is recognizable by TRL fans worldwide. if the money makes him a better artist, then i'm all for it. people need to get paid and if one of my favorite artists needs money, then i'm all for him on coke commercials, lunch boxes and super sized billboards.



what's pop, what's commercial, it shouldn't really be an identifier of what is quality in our cultural landscape. sometimes one can get too highbrow and dismiss the tastes of the common man. but i try not to do this too much. although with movies, it's getting kind of hard and i tend to dismiss crap with relish. with music however, good stuff is good stuff, whether it moves one million or one thousand units. so listen hard and support your favorite artists, even if you're too poor to actually buy the album and need to download it. not that i do that.

how to lose a guy in ten days. this is a movie? how is this a movie? who needs to watch a movie about losing a guy/girl in ten days? doesn't that happen quite naturally? how to get a guy/girl in ten days, now that's a movie. i bet this thing is released on valentine's day, then it might be funny. except i'm sure it contains a sappy happy ending, thus eliminating any possiblities for delicious irony. hollywood is so wack.



movies i want to see

gangs of new york

chicago

equilibrium

road to perdition

catch me if you can

bowling for columbine

the 25th hour

about schmidt

narc

what's in a name. once, when we were in middle school-ish, my dad asked us if we wanted to change our last name to "young." properly translated, our last name should have been"young" and not "yang." of course, after going through many years with "yang," we didn't want to undergo the change. most of the other people with our same last names are "young's." even my aunt in new york, when she came to the united states, she adopted "young."



so you kind of grow an attachment to your name and keep an eye out for anything with your name on it. which has amounted to one thing: yang snowboarding clothes. but the other that springs to mind is obviously the yin and the yang. the representation of duality and the union of opposites has always held a special appeal to me and i wonder if a name can shape a person. the yang is supposed to be spring and summer, wood and fire, human-heartedness and righteousness. the yang is the white sun to the yin's black moon. yang means "floating standard in the sunshine."



but then it occured to me that my name isn't even yang. it's technically young. and the yang of the yin yang is written differently than my last name yang. so the conclusion is that i've pretty much been on crack all these years and grew an attachment to something based on faulty chinese-english translations. sucks doesn't it? but that's okay, because i've decided to adopt the yin yang anyway and put it on my body in the form of a tattoo. hopefully soon because if not now then it may not happen anytime later. i was gonna go all different and get some sort of stylized killer whale yin yang but upon further reflection i've decided that simple is best. and simple would look something like this.



and this is a good idea, the tattoo, because leslie happened to send me something that i got yesterday and it was exactly what i wanted. a yin yang with a big circle around it. so i'm gonna bring in the present and say "i want this." see, if god hadn't wanted me to get a tattoo then he wouldn't have made leslie's gift appear on the exact same day i was thinking so hard about it. that's seeing signs baby.



also, i'm thinking maybe i can get one half of a yin yang and george can get the other half. but that would require her being down with getting a tattoo.

dear mr o'neal (aka big aristotle, big facilitator, big anything),



i am a full blooded chinese person and i would like to extend this letter as encouragment for you to continue being your funny, slam dunking self. your comments about the savior of the nba did not offend me or my asian sensibilities. in fact, i believe what you were trying to say with your "chong-yang-wah-ah-soh" was "i respect your ancestors mr ming, may you get the hell out of my way when i truck you over." i understood that you were trying to be funny. i heard the entire interview and you were cracking jokes about everybody and everything, not just chinese people and mr ming. other incidents, taken together with your comments, may indicate racism in the nba but the actions of an entire league are not solely your responsibility. we must all work together to create a comfortable environment for asians in professional sports. i know you are with us on this one mr shaq. power to the short people! isn't that the name of your next single? i digress...



i apologize if the asian community sometimes has to spring into action just to defend every little slight. some people are saying that your apology is not enough. i am not in that corner. your remarks were perhaps ill-timed and insensitive but not indicative of your personal racist thoughts. when you smack mr ming up for forty points and twenty boards, that's when you'll cross the line into racism. i understand in this time of stress, what with your pathetic lakers lying around on a death bed, that you are trying to add some competitive fire to the season. continue your personal dominance if you can mr o'neal, show them your anger and your fortitude.



respectfully speaking, i do hope that your lakers fall flat on their faces and get crunched in the playoffs. this is not a personal wish, i have all of celtic nation behind me. play on mr o'neal and may good health stay with you for the rest of your nba career.



ps: you were wonderful in blue chips. your wonderful acting in the basketball scenes almost made me believe that i could be a giant black man. you emoted baby. you were not so wonderful in kazaam. sorry. stick to dunking.



disclaimer: shaquille o'neal is the leading light on my fantasy keepr team but that does not, in any way, impair my ability to function in a responsible and rational light. i would extend my invitation to mr o'neal to drop forty and twenty this friday to show me that he is truly angry at asians and mr ming, if only to prove a point of course.

the starlet of taiwan: or taiwan, why i love it. as told by louis cheng.

missy's new video, gossip folks, has this little chinese girl dancing and lip synching. that little girl is straight cool. glad to see little asian anything's getting on screen. little asian boys dancing and singing will be next, mark my words. even if we have to genetically engineer them, chinese boys will rock the world.



and this real world road rules all star battle of the sexes thing. is this not like the greatest idea to hit the tube in the last month? hell yes. get thirty two of the people we've been watching all these years and put them together in jamaica? shaken and stirred please. it doesn't hurt that they pretty much picked the sixteen hottest girls too. not that looks should account for anything in this world because we're all beautiful people regardless of physicality. so quoth the cobra.



and in more tv news, i was channel surfing and hit upon a gem of a movie. well, using the word "gem" is not quite correct. one of the main characters is played by matthew lillard (who, along with freddy prinze jr, pretty much guarantees a putrid movie). the other main character is played by sean astin, previously underdog rudy but now an undersized chubby gay hobbit. anyway, the movie is called "dish dogs" and is about these two guys who go off on a road trip in search of an epiphany. sean astin is a self-proclaimed "philosopher warrior" and is looking to use his rationality to conquer all. in typical movie fashion, "all" equates to matters of the heart.



this is by no means a great movie. or even a good movie. m-lillard decides he doesn't want to be a philosopher warrior and bones out to get back together with his ex. our rationalizing hero is left stranded with nothing to do but hook up with a stripper, who also happens to be intelligent and kind and beautiful. watching this movie, i can see the dark side of all this philosophizing i pretend to take a part of. some of sean astin's words ring in my head and placed in the context of this crap movie, i wonder if i sound like that to others. like someone thinking things that make no sense and being blinded by some toxic combination of ego and belief.



sadly, i didn't stay awake long enough to see if sean astin gives up on his principles to get the girl or whether he finds happiness. either way, i don't think i really want to know. if my life is going to be a B-movie and my eventual destiny will be to wash dishes and drive around in a big red honking tonka truck, i'll rather find out later as opposed to now.



i'm trying to stay awake all night and all day today in order to set my school schedule. what a laugh. i may blog alot because quite frankly i have nothing better to do. the only real question i have now is whether or not i should start to look for dish washing jobs and begin frequenting strip clubs.

"it's like you're manipulating time with your hands." documentaries, gotta love'em. educational, immersive, provocative and eye opening. it fulfills my need for information and knowledge. i just blew my early afternoon away watching scratch (thanks to ryan for the borrow) and it is beautiful. the editing is dope, the music, the djs, the everything about this documentary reeks of enrichment and celebration. there is no better thing than watching films on the subjects that you love. the discovery channel, the history channel, mtv, animal planet, all produce some amazing fare. the trick is to not get too sucked in because then you'll have no life like me, parked in front of the television from noon up till sun down.



i remember staying up one night to watch some documentary about the search for the giant squid. me and pan sat through a good three hours of this thing, barely awake, struggling through the late night in order to get to the point when they finally show us a damn giant squid. never happened. they haven't caught one yet. why tempt me for three hours if you aren't gonna give me the goods at the end? jack!



i heard about this guy who went into the sewers of new york to make a documentary about the people who live down there. these people aren't just plain homeless, they have homes, it just so happens to be in the enyce sewers. they be like ninja turtles but human. the guy spent two years making his documentary and eventually sold his own apartment and furniture to move down to the sewers. eventually he used the turtle people as his film crew too. the sewer people tap into the electricity grid and jack all your electricity, now you know why your bills so high. i wish i could remember the name of the documentary.



another dude made a short documentary using a game boy camera. hotness. i had an idea for a mockumentary once for a huaren show but it never came to fruition. i think i'm gonna add that to the list of life goals, make a documentary. there needs to be some documentary focus on the hip hop dancing that's all the rage. how fun would that be? to say, follow a group of avid college dancers as they go through a year of school, working, dancing and performing? yeah yeah. someone get me some money and skills, let's do it.



speaking of documentaries, i had privileged access to a dave matthew's documentary that was never released. bootleg copy from when i worked at the production place. it is dope dope dope. i think somebody borrowed it. give it back. please. on a barely related note, i believe in the existence of an abominable snowman, be it in thailand or the alps. he lives people, we just haven't found him yet. keep searching, keep trusting, keep the faith. wendigo is alive and well, they just hiding.



watch'em

scratch

slamnation

dogtown and z boys

anything by roger moore

startup dot com

martians from the planet pluto. when do you know someone? when can you say that you know me? what is it that makes people think of you as friend, peer, confidant, advisor? is knowing someone, being close to someone, knowing the things that they do and the activities they undertake? the facts of them? some of these facts are obvious, like general personality traits, general life numbers, school, major, occupation. that's the generic stuff. there's another level below that when you can talk about trivial but interesting facts, like how much someone loves peanut butter and bananas or how someone else is allergic to alchohol. we can trade these little facts around and create an impression of knowing somebody.



but what is knowing? how much do i know you? i can know about you but where do people connect? obviously you can be one at the interest level, by doing things and being involved in creating lives and memories together. but that usually is only one aspect of a person. what is knowing? deep conversations? revealing conversations? knowing some or all of the skeletons in the closet? is that knowing?



or is it being in tune with how someone thinks and reacts. being able to understand and even anticipate how experiences will affect someone. isn't that knowing? some people to me, i feel like i know. but that's always just an assumption. i assume that they let me into their lives enough so that i can say i "know" them. there are lots of people who i may not know many particulars of anymore but i feel like we could share any and all those particulars given the chance. that kind of trust and openness, is that knowing? it's not about who are your best friends and who you hang out with the most, but the people that you know, can you quantify how close you are to them?



it's always odd, when people ask you how well you know that person or this person. because it makes you pause for a second to think, to say whether or not you "know" them or not. this works best in a total stranger, kevin bacon type situations, where you both admit to knowing the third party and then can trade tidbits about them. are facts and knowledge and closeness the same thing?

flash. cards. trying to capture the essence of. smile. *blink* flip flip flip, do it again.

friday night and going somewhere. all the street lights are turning red to green. did something last night, and had lots of fun doing it. just when i thought i was out, they drag me back in. clubbing. after not feeling clubbing for the last few months, i suddenly, unexpectedly had a pretty damn good time and now i'm not as club adverse. i should leave it on a high note i suppose. we went out to "the lounge" in hollywood, where as you recall, we saw some cool famous people last time. no such luck this time but it was still cool. the contrast between clubbing in taiwan and clubbing here made last night interesting. i didn't sleep much the night before and i was dead tired, right up to around midnight when suddenly i was wide awake. and i was still wide awake when we decided to drive home at three in the morn back to san diego. usually i'm the first to ass out when driving and i hate driving when tired but for some odd, possibly jet-lagged, reason, i was juiced up to go. and now i can't sleep. freak.



don't you love it when friends of friends get along with friends of friends? it's so nice. when groups can intermingle. we were trying to think of people/groups that wouldn't intermingle well. i guess that doesn't happen too often but sometimes strangers just won't "get" your friends and then what do you do? i'm all for the mixing of all my friend groups, into one big mush pot of a circle. makes it easier when i'm referring to people. and makes it cool when everyone can hang out. the fact that james (who never visited my ass while i was actually in school) can go to michigan and go do new year's with amoeba and co brings a smile to my face.

taiwan poets that not only write. taiwan poets that do provide insight. while spending a few hours watching george, enid and carolyn pick out their glamour shots, we (as in the non-glamour shootable males) stumbled upon the work of literary giants, otherwise known as "the people who write poetry for the glamour shot flip books." we don't know who they are but their cute rhyming schemes and profound words will take your conscience to another level. a small selection follows.



fallen love

onto the sea

i sailed my boat

and prayed that it

would stay afloat



greatest love

whoever lives true life

will love true love

i'll love you till the ocean

is folded and hung up to dry



it's hard to find true love

i don't know when i can fall in with

the greatest sincerity of love

in the vicissitudes of life



beautiful dream is easily broken

confused rumor is cherished more

the affection presevere with

painfully and regret



presevere is not a spelling error. pre-severity is now a word i will use in my lexicon, you should use it too for all that it connotates.

pictures. of taiwan. and no. i am not infatuated with victor. he just happens to be in alot of my pictures. okay? shut it.

shopping. taipei is admittedly not the most cultural city in the world. despite some cool parks and buildings (the chiang kai shek memorial is dope), it's safe to assume that most people don't go to taiwan for the culture. they go for the shopping and the food. usually in that order. night market is to heaven as twin sister is to shopping. i'm a shopper too, i love to shop, i love to spend money i didn't earn. but some other people can only stomach so much shopping, i understand.



even though i didn't buy particularly much, i shopped alot. i like wandering in and out of stalls, winding around streets and shops, eyes scanning for an item to catch your attention. everything is so damn cheap in taiwan that you really can't resist buying. cell phone lighters? cigarette shaped lighters? got'em. pens? pencils? pins? got'em. cards that reveal naked women when you hold them up to a flame? got'em. well no. i didn't get'em. other people did. fifty four naked ugly chicks just didn't do it for me (the three of spades is officially the ugliest, most horrific girl. now you know.) great novelty item though. fake purses and real purses? got'em. shoes and clothing? george got'em.



my big prize was a brand spanking new blue digital camera (this color is not available in the states people). one that is so tiny you can hold it in one hand and still use chopsticks in the other. amazing but true. cost me a bundle but hey, i'm on vacation. my i-zone has now been replaced by a newer more technologically advanced toy. the joy that little camera will bring me, i can already sense it. why i never discovered the infinite happiness that comes hand in hand with digital camera ownership before this past week is well beyond me. so get ready to smile. or not, because we can take pictures over and over until i'm satisfied, now that i'm unconstrained by pricey film. if god is not spiritual in format he is at least digital in design.



oh, also got this incredible doraemon plush toy that can record a short voice message and play it back verbatim. that means repeating back to you in exactly the same words. YOUR words! technology is great ain't it? yee-haw. the only way to get this little treasure is by ordering food (but not necessarily eating food, that's optional) from kfc in taiwan. yes, i have an exclusive doraemon plush toy. pinch me if i'm still alive. lastly, found some taiwan university paraphenalia in the form of t-shirts. had to search long and hard for these items and without the help of victor's extended family, we probably wouldn't have gotten our taiwan university stuff. those taiwanese college kids have no school spirit. if i was attending the "harvard of taiwan," i would be daily rocking the loudiest gaudiest "tai da" t-shirt to declare my superiority. i mean, i would be the cream of the crop, from a country that makes little children study till their eyes bleed. rub that kind of excellence in when you can. shit. god made you dorky and slight for a reason dammit.



speaking of taiwan university. it is stunningly out of place in taipei. it is beautiful. the athletic facilities are new and grand. the main palmtree lined avenue is a postcard from ucla. it's so odd. to step onto this campus and be transported to a whole 'nother world. victor's uncle and aunt both attended tai da and they gave us an excellent and informative tour. i expected nothing like this. i expected brown or princeton or yale, dilapidated buildings fronting as the sole proprietors of human intelligence. but instead, i got a modern west coast campus rich in design and devoid of centuries old mildewy funk. i'm not bitter at yaleprincetonharvard btw. it's not like i even had a chance at those exclusively snooty schools. i'm just lobbing bombs at them for those of you who were rejected unjustly. you deserved to get in i'm sure. 1599 SATs and 4.99 GPAs?!?! you were robbed fo shizzle. all admitted until flat out denied, isn't that the american way? or maybe it was something about innocence and guilt. whatever. at least i can say i was never rejected by an ivy. suckers. if you should ever step foot on formosa, go to taiwan university, it's delectable.



shit. this is getting way long. oh well, how often do i have interesting things to blog about? read on.



food was delicious, as expected. my only goal was to get good food in taiwan. and that wish was fulfilled quite adequately. the bread stores were delicious. the bread was excellent too. the seven-elevens had fruit flavored milk and other cool drinks that i didn't even know i missed from my youth. not to mention warcraft three hanging off the shelves, which is seriously taking convenience to a whole new level. i love taiwan. i had many many bowls of beef noodle soup at various eateries. and buns of all shapes and sizes. well, most shapes and sizes, not all. many things were eaten and there's no need to bore you with the past contents of my bowels. let's just say that if food were this cheap in the states, i would be a hulking one hundred fifty pound road grater. alas, i live in the land of five dollar fried rice and weigh only not so much. academic slackerdom and clean air in exchange for a few pounds of superficial bulk and muscle? tough choice but i'll go with slackerdom and clean air for one hundred. actually, two hundred now that trebeck has upped the ante.



clubbing in taiwan was done only 2wice. once on new year's eve with je-yi and louis and another time post-new years. both times nothing special to write home about. but exciting enough to warrant blogging about (what isn't really?). we went to "plush," one of the few clubs that played good hip hop, or so we heard. everyone passed out at enid's for new year's so it was just me and my crap awful mandarin in a cab to meet up with louis and je-yi. we got to plush late, decided not to go in, cruised the "living mall" and then went into the club after the new year had passed. a sidenote: the living mall is dope as hell. a giant ball of a shopping mecca, it is pretty damn unique and it was mad crowded, with people bungee jumping off the rafters during new years. go see the mall, it's open twenty four hours, although that seems like slight overkill, even in a consumerist culture. in contrast to the "living mall" braggadocio, me and victor went on a monday night and the place was dead as a doorknob. anyhow, we missed the hip hop portion of new year's eve and the second hand smoke was terrifying (although strangely, my first hand smoke was fine). poor ventilation and FOB-stank? yes please, may i have another? but new years was cool, got to clink some plastic glasses (filled with suspiciously non-alchoholic coke and alchohol) with je-yi and louis to ring in 2003, on foreign soil no less, and how often does that happen? more than once a lifetime let's hope.



clubbing anywhere is bound to be the same. especially if you're narrow minded and frequent predominantly asian nation hip hop parlaying clubs back home like i do. shorter people, less rhythm, tighter pants, lots of inane bouncing, older crowd. that was plush and taiwan clubbing in a nutshell. music wasn't half bad. between sets of techno the DJs had some good hip hop on when we went out again on friday night. we were even swindled into drinking heineken to score some metallic heineken cd cases. if anything, the techno was wack as hell (think techno beats mixed with your 70/80s favorites, for one solid hour) and the hip hop was good. it was interesting watching the guys in the corner who dressed "hip hop thuggish." i wondered if they knew hip hop or just used it. probably the latter. i'm done with clubbing. no sense in it for me. no joy, just pain. like sunshine and rain...... had a blast dancing on friday though.



i saw many relatives. and that was interesting. many thoughts on the existence of relatives and my relations with them, but that will have to wait for another time and a clearer head.



i've realized that in leading this charmed life of mine, where every day is fruitcake and candy land, i don't fully appreciate the concept of "vacation." speak to me in a few, after i've been ground to a stub by workday hours, and then we'll see if i think twelve days out of the country was only "good and not great." we're related, ricky schroeder and i. can't you see the family resemblance?



hope everyone had a hale and hearty new year. back to the grind.

take me home country roads. to the place i belong. west virginia mountain momma. taiwan. how to speak of it. for one, i was there too long. too long is now officially defined as anything over a week. if i can't do it in five days, i probably don't want to do it anyway. that's the new rule of thumb for traveling. the other one is, i need beaches, and sunshine. then again, perhaps i was mixing up the notions of traveling and vacation, because there is a difference. traveling is for business, or for enrichment and new experiences. vacation is for fun. it's not that i had a bad time, i had a good time. it wasn't mind blasting, rip-roaring fun (especially after george, enid, carolyn left) but it was a time. beats out sitting on my ass in san diego for two weeks, that's for sure.



i have to say, post-taiwan trip, i feel like i did alot. as i sit down to recap my time there, i feel like we did things all the time even if it was in short spurts. then again, trying to fill fourteen hours of the day can be a daunting task when one is as boring as i am. thanks to enid's tremendous hospitality, we had a place to stay in taipei for about a week (thanks enid!). her house is centrally located so we could pretty much get to anywhere in the city pretty quickly. this luxury has led me to the (probably false) conclusion that taipei is not a big city. taipei reminded me of new york a little too much, which wasn't entirely unexpected. urban vertical sprawl is urban vertical sprawl regardless of what language you slap onto the signs.



the subway system was nice. incredibly nice. clean, cheap, efficient and quick. like the bread stores. another big part of my trip. if someone could replicate taiwan bread and bring it here, i can guarantee sales of at least two breads a day for the next forty years. that's a verbal guarantee. and my word is as strong as oak. don't laugh.



the taiwan of my youth is now much cleaner. trash does not always litter the streets, trees process foul CO2 much more efficiently and sway in unison, cars whizz by less chaotically, people bump you with a tad more concern and care, scooters scooted semi-less-sporadically. i was impressed. i was expecting a dirty smelly old taiwan and all i really got was the smelly. even the weather was decently cooperative because we got a few days of beautiful sunshine in-between putrid rain and storm clouds. the air quality is terrible though. dust dust everywhere. and mites. (mites james!) my eyes were constantly itchy and scratchy. nothing can match the clean pure air of a world power like the united states i suppose. wearing contacts in taiwan is killer. poor chinese kids, caught up in the catch-22 of needing contacts to be cool but then being forced to gouge their eyes out every three seconds during decisive social moments.



the mosquitos won a few quick diversionary battles early on in our trip, but then we got wise to their guerilla tactics (or is that mosquirilla tactics? shoot me). victor theorized that showering before bed would help prevent bites. inventive georgette tried the no shower approach and indeed, victor was proven empirically and emphatically correct when george got stung all over the place. luckily, i escaped with only five or six huge bites on my face and none anywhere else. at least people wouldn't notice them right? bitch ass mosquitos. so glad i didn't visit taiwan during the summertime, that would have been all out war. victor killed a few perpetrators with an electric fly swatter the last couple of days so we came home conquering heroes. mosquito nets are a nice invention, props to whoever did that. and yes, the little green mentholatum nurse is your best friend in taiwan, no matter what anyone else tries to tell you. i'm gonna break down my trip below by sub-section, because you need to know. because we ain't going back to taiwan. as much of a necessary experience as it was, this time next year, we'll be chilling out in tahiti or the caribean, even if wild on says antartica is the next new hot spot.

alone together. medan pondered that phrase. it was all two people could ever be to each other, he supposed. alone. together. for the dreams and secrets of our heart may be spoken, but words are poor handmaidens. words can never fully say what we want them to say, for they fumble, stammer, and break the best porcelain. the best one can hope for is to find along the way somoene to share the path, content to walk in silence, for the heart communes best when it does not try to speak.

-dragons of a lost star-

son of antaeus. one of the giant sons of neptune, antaeus's strength was invincible so long as he remained in contact with his mother earth. once lifted from the earth and allowed again to touch it, his strength increased. the giant was slain by hercules in a wrestling match when hercules lifted him off the ground and crushed his ribs.



that's me now, when i travel anywhere. after a few days, a long weekend, i itch to go home, to return to my "mother earth." not that i'm not enjoying myself, but i start to get a little bored and complacent. not that i actually am bored. but just a feeling of "what to do what to do....." this really only applies to overseas traveling, when i go to new york or michigan, time is never enough. it's weird that displaced feeling when you are in another country but then feel like you've been there forever. i think i need to explore more of the little treasures of taiwan.



but i'm anti-sight seeing. i'm semi-pro shopping. i'm assuredly lazy. my eyes itch. i have mosquito bites all over my face. i'm definitively pro-food. this pretty much means the best environment for me is to be at home. i need other people to get me to go out and do things when i'm traveling. because everything that there is to do, i'm kind of ho and hum about. i wouldn't mind sitting around outside observing people all day (but then my companions would be bored). i think i'm an excellent third person to have along on a trip, but i may not function so well as the direct companion because i don't get super psyched to do much. i just chill and enjoy what comes. which makes me easy going but that can be mistaken as apathy. then again, i'm not altogether super excitable in general. don't let this dissuade you from inviting me to go somewhere though, i'm always game if you are.



exploits of "return to taiwan: a decade apart" to come later. i miss you. whoever you are. actually, no. not really. i haven't been gone enough to miss anybody. just things.

slugabed \SLUHG-uh-bed\, noun:

one who stays in bed until a late hour; a sluggard.