Free Gatsby

2004-09-27T19:54:00.001-04:00

Speed Run

2004-09-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

Utah

2004-09-27T19:53:00.004-04:00

My Favorite Sign

2004-09-27T19:53:00.003-04:00

Utah

2004-09-27T19:53:00.002-04:00

Utah

2004-09-27T19:53:00.001-04:00

Animal in Utah

2004-09-27T19:53:00.000-04:00

Pacific

2004-09-27T19:52:00.002-04:00

Golden Gate

2004-09-27T19:52:00.001-04:00

Pacific

2004-09-27T19:52:00.000-04:00

Redwoods

2004-09-27T19:51:00.000-04:00

Fan-Tastic North American Tour 2004

June - July 2002: A Retrospective

2004-07-28T06:17:00.000-04:00

I've completed moving the old posts from the June and July of 2002. There's a whole lotta nothin there. I don't really pick up my stride until the end of July. Most of it is trash, random posts just for the sake of making posts. And it also seems that I was trying to post every day, and would feel guilty about missing a day or two [ha! I've posted like three times this month, with at least a week between each post!]

I'd like to think that the initial flurry of bad posts eventually settled into a rhythm of good posts, but really, what the hell is this post here? I am writing about my own writing. Meta is so last year.

I'll try to have more detailed comments and reviews for the next few months, whenever I get those done. Maybe links to my favorite entries from that period. I really think it gets better after I go back to school and become all morose.

These are my favorites from June - July 2002:
A Paean to My Favorite Place on Earth, A Portentious Vision, and A Chilling Tale of Cultural Hegemony.

See you in the funny pages.

Land of Milk and Honey

2002-07-31T08:33:00.000-04:00

For some reason I haven't checked out my ISP's newsfeed until now. Guess what, readers: ***** City USA!

Minnesota Nice

2002-07-30T11:49:00.000-04:00

I have had in my possession for the last ten months or so a copy of the New York Times, dated September 12, 2001. An hour ago I finally read parts of it, for the first time.

It is important sometimes to remember, and also important sometimes to forget. Flipping through the pages of this paper, seeing some photos for the first time, reading about the destruction and replaying my memories of that day, has reminded me of things that for me, and especially for certain people at my college, are best left forgotten.

Though I have made my peace with the tragedy, and I have seen innumerable examples of kindness from my fellow Americans and humans, the callous and insensitive words and attitudes of some people at my college still scrapes at my insides. Even now (and I assure you this is not due solely to the heat), I'm sweating profusely and having trouble putting my thoughts down just thinking about these people.

Like I said earlier, sometimes it's good to remember and sometimes it isn't. I'm still struggling with whether I can forget certain incidents and therefore forgive these people. After all, they really had no idea the scope, the magnitude of the tragedy.

There was a long pause between the end of the last sentence and the beginning of this one. Ever since that day, I've had a lot more trouble justifying whatever I do. How can I complain about my poor treatment by boorish Minnesotans? I am alive. I did not have to, was not subjected to the horrors of being downtown that day. This whole blog thing is worthless. I was in counseling for a long time to learn how to not beat myself up, and it all seems like such a crock of shit. Do a search on this webpage and see what percentage of the total number of words the word "I" takes up. How many sentences begin with "I"? In my dumb, idiotic, fucked up, petty way, I wish I had been in "the jaws of hell" as one reporter called it. It would at least give me a valid reason for whining. See, there I go again. There's just no end to it, I should shut the fuck up right now.

I had originally signed on to write something good about how maybe on September 11, 2002, I will do my best to show people that I care about them. I will remember the tragedy and do my best to help others. I will forgive and forget.

but no. I highly doubt I will forgive and forget. Maybe I will show my loved ones and my friends that I care. Maybe I will seek the company of other New Yorkers in an attempt to find some meaing somewhere. But I will not forgive or forget these few boorish Minnesotans. I do not hate all Minnesotans or Midwesterners or even Georgians. I may say I hate them, but really, it's hard to feel anything one way or the other towards individuals about whom you know nothing. I can generalize about people, but I usually try hard not to. After all, I did see a very touching letter from a little Georgian girl at Ground Zero. We're all in it together as Americans, as human beings. All of us except for those of you who aren't with us. If I see any of you Boorish Minnesotans on September 11, 2002, acting in any manner that I find objectionable, I will do what I should have done a year before. I give my word that you'll get what's coming to you.

Also Sprach Nerdlinger

2002-07-30T08:38:00.000-04:00

Had a strange night. I powered down my system at around 7:00pm. About fifteen minutes later, when I tried to turn on my computer, it refused to boot up. I started to freak out, but I figured it was just the heat, and if I let it cool off a bit, it'd be fine. I drove my mother around for about half an hour, then came back, and it still wouldn't boot. So I decided to take everything apart and put it all back together. Long story short, despite everything I did, even with some new thermal paste from Jordan, it wouldn't boot. I had resigned myself to getting a new motherboard or a CPU, thinking that something was fried.

At around 2:00am, I got really depressed and went for a drive. Queens wasn't making me feel any better, so I drove out to the city. Played Billie Holiday the whole time. Drove by good ol' Stuy, saw an attractive girl working construction on Chambers street as a flagger. Got back around 4:30 still feeling down. Wanted to sleep, but bed was littered with computer parts, decided to give it one last try. Still wouldn't boot. Then I noticed that my power LED wasn't lighting up, so while it was powered up, I switched the wire. Accidently, I brushed up against something and for the first time in my life, I caused a static discharge inside a PC. All of a sudden my computer started to boot.

Moral: I'm never turning off my computer again.

Afterthought: with this summer heat and all the brownouts, it's only a matter of time until I repeat this stupid/crappy/exhilarating experience. Like the song says, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. I hate admitting this, and maybe I'm just speaking from the heat of the moment, but temporarily losing my computer was worse than any heartbreak I've ever felt.

Jay and Amanda

2002-07-29T08:15:00.000-04:00

Just got back from driving my old friend Jay and my new friend Amanda to the airport. I'd have used more concise opening sentence, but I don't think I'm supposed to refer to them as one unit yet. Anyway, I like driving people to and from the airport. It gives my life some kind of emotional weight that has been lacking for far too long. Farewells and hellos and hugs. Good spirits.

Noted Advice-Giver Robert Warde once said to me of driving: "It's good that you learned to drive, you now have the two most important skills: driving, and typing. You're set for life." As always, advice from Robert Warde makes me feel better.

Reminisced with Jay about High School a little bit. It helped me remember that with me, everything comes down to girls. Mostly it's the same story: "I really liked that girl, but what was she like? I never really talked to her." I think I wasted my high school years on pining and self-gratification. Come to think of it, I've wasted three quarters of my college years on those very same things. An acquaintance of mine claimed that if I had quit indulging myself, I would have taken action long ago to find someone and be happy.

You know, seeing other people happy triggers a dull ache in my chest: a feeling similar to walking past a 7-11 on a hot summer day, heat radiating from above and from the asphalt, with empty pockets. At some point I will have to figure out which is more important, finding happiness, or cultivating this useless, eccentric and romantic part of me that longs to be "a writer." Must these two things be mutually exclusive? Es muss sein.

Pearl of Wisdom no. 56

2002-07-27T04:29:00.000-04:00

Regarding a girl I know: "This girl is like soda with candy floating in it; it'd be nice to have, but maybe not, and it doesn't exist anyway."

White people

2002-07-27T04:13:00.000-04:00

While driving home tonight, I had the queer sensation that I had done something very wrong. I realized what it was. It was like the moment in Amazing Spider-Man #55 ("Spider-Man No More!") where Peter, after he quit being Spider-Man, was reminded of his dead Uncle Ben by a security guard, he remembered that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

Well my night of carousing reminded me of something my dad once said to me on an audio cassette. Back when I was still in Hong Kong with my mom, he used to send us cassettes. On one tape, he mentioned that the people he worked with, all of the white people he observed, never got anywhere in life because they didn't save their money. They get paid, then go out and drink.

I've become one of those people.

Latest dream:

2002-07-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

I dreamt that we moved back to Brooklyn. Ridgewood, to be exact. Near the DeKalb Avenue stop on the L train, where we first lived when we came to America. In my dream, I wrote a blog entry about being back in Brooklyn. It went something like this.

Dear readers, our new house in Brooklyn is nice. It's a restored Brownstone, and we're living on the first two floors. My parents have a large master bedroom, and I have a fairly small bedroom. However, there are two additional rooms for me, one with a desk, where I will put my computer and am expected to work, and one where I'll put a TV and a couch and can relax. My parents said that if I wanted to I could sleep in either one of those rooms too. Readers, it would be inhumane to expect me to sleep in a room that doesn't contain my computer!

As nice as this house is, I am beginning to have a nervous breakdown. About what, you ask? I have no idea where the nearest 7-11 is, and when I asked my dad for directions to Queens, he began to give me a complicated list involving at least two highways.

After that, even while writing the blog in my dream, I knew it was a dream, because I figured out that the nearest 7-11 was one that I had only visited in my dreams. It's on top of a hill that's perpetually draped in darkness, staffed only by white people, and always having the worst Slurpee flavors. At that point, my parents came and handed me a cell phone (one that fits snugly into your shoe so that you can just take off your shoe and use that as the phone) and a bag of pills. The pills came in one of those packages that they put Circus peanuts in at Duane Reade. They were labeled "Candy Pills" or something like that. Each pill was a different color, and written on the little capsule of each was a description of what they should taste like. I remember seeing the flavors Pepperoni Pizza, Hamburger, Purple Skittle, Central Park, Brooklyn, and Coney Island. Pepperoni Pizza tasted really good, just like its namesake, but Brooklyn just kind of tasted like Florida water.

I went on google to look for more of these pills because I thought that my friends would get a kick out of them. My parents said they found them in the house somewhere, so they had no idea where I would buy them. I couldn't find any on google either, so I figured I had something special in my hands.

Then I woke up, dreamt I wrote this blog entry.
Then I really woke up and wrote this entry.

Ueber dem Gesetz

2002-07-23T20:17:00.000-04:00

No crazy dreams, but I did have a good day.

I've been driving around playing the Knight Rider theme. It makes my little jaunts seem more meaningful. Driving my mother to Staples today felt a matter of life and death. I was helping to uphold justice somehow, avenging evil where the law is powerless to act. Case in point: someone at Staples parked their car so close to mine that I had to get in from the passenger side. To right this grievous wrong, I opened my door into the other car repeatedly, then keyed it as I was backing out. All while blasting the Knight Rider theme.

KITT: "Michael, I hardly think that was necessary."
Me: "Quiet, you! I'm a man who doesn't exist."

Soldier of Fortune

2002-07-22T07:36:00.000-04:00

I dreamt that I bought a BMW 3 series, made the down payment, then found myself completely unable to make the monthly payments. Then in order to make some extra money, I became a sniper in French North Africa. I shot scores and scores of French diamond smugglers, and freed the poor old Arab guys that the French were forcing to cut the diamonds.

I must say dreams like that are better than the ones where I die a grisly death, and maybe even better than the dreams where I sleep with incredibly attractive and unattainable women.

Blue

2002-07-20T18:11:00.000-04:00

Dream fragment: I had figured out the "meaning" of the video for Hard to Explain. The key was the naked woman in the blue room.

Tentacle Man

2002-07-20T15:51:00.000-04:00

Wow it's been a long time since the last entry! I've been having some computer problems, which does't excuse my failure to write, but just thought I'd mention that. This summer heat will be the end of me AND my computer.

You didn't tune in for my computer problems though. No, you want to hear about those freaky dreams of mine. I had two dreams last night, three, really, but one of them I can't remember too well (didn't wake up in the middle and make a mental note... also might have involved sexual acts with someone I know)

Dream one: I'm in some school and having a lot of trouble because the chairs and desks were made for people ten feet tall. Then in the dream, it dawns on me: "High" school. I have a good laugh.

Dream two: I'm riding the subway with my mother. We're somewhere on the 7 line. We get on the train, and she pulls me away from one end of the car. Apparently there was an incredibly unkempt and foul smelling homeless man at that end. The train isn't packed, but there aren't many empty seats. We sit down, and my mother promptly starts talking to a woman next to her about how horrible that homeless man is. A flood of information about his past suddenly comes out. "They say he was exposed to toxic waste at the dump," etc. I start trying to defend him to these women. I distinctly remember saying, "If he had been born into a middle-class family, he probably wouldn't have ended up like this." At this point my mom gestures at me to get me to look in the direction of the bum. I can't see him directly, but I can see him speaking to a Mexican day laborer who is pointing at me. The bum lumbers over. As he passes my mother, she says, "His plastic coat is too thin."

I finally get a good look at the bum. He's a middle aged white guy about 6' 3", 300 lbs, with long knotty grey hair and a salt and pepper beard with specks of food in it. He has grey chest hair on his man-boobs. I know this because his "plastic coat" is just a transparent raincoat slicker thing. This is all he's wearing. I didn't see his genitals, but I knew that was all he was wearing. I haven't described his face. Somehow I don't notice his face until the last part of the dream.

The bum says to me in a stentorian voice, "You shouldn't talk bad about other people." I tell myself that I was trying to defend him in front of my mother, but I didn't say it out loud. The bum was flanked by his two naked teenage children now. One was about my size and build (5'9" 180), the other was much skinnier, about 6' tall. They were both bald and cancer looking, and the tall one had lost a lot of teeth.

Now I finally get a good look at the bum's face as he holds me up in the air by my neck, strangling me. He's got albino eyes, or eye, rather, since his left eye was covered by some kind of tumor. I notice that this whole time I haven't smelled anything foul. I can't remember the scent of the bum right now, but it was something I finally noticed while being strangled. His scent was a sweet chemical smell, like the work we did with esthers in Chem class. The bum gives me a maniacal smile, his teeth are crooked and yellow.

Then I see myself dying in third person, from the side. I stop struggling and my head goes limp. I notice that the bum has one nose hair, jet black, that extends straight in front of him from a nostril, the hair is about three feet long. It starts curling up to point up at the ceiling of the subway car.

And that's when I woke up.

note from 1/4/2003: I was looking over my old dreams and I just remembered that the bum smelled like superglue.

Nabokov

2002-07-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've just entered all of the previous entries by hand, because I didn't want to have it wiped out. You see, I have a new computer and if I'd started blogging again without entering the previousblah blah blah blah blah. Long story short, Bob's your uncle.

Nothing interesting has happened with me lately. I spent today in Brooklyn waiting for my mechanic to finish with my car. I left my house at 11:30 and got back here at around 6:30. Most of that time I spent in a nearby library (I finished Timbuktu by Paul Auster). I probably spent around an hour sitting in a park, watching the little girls. Don't worry, it wasn't any thing weird, I just kept thinking of ol' Humbert, that's all.

Had a lot of thoughts today: While eating pizza, it suddenly occurred to me that my children might not enjoy New York as much as I do, same with my wife. Then I realized that I have no intention of getting married or having children.

Another thought (this is what got me to Humbert and will lead to my getting arrested for watching the little girls): I need to pick some kind of theme that my writing will adhere to. Auster has his chance and stuff, I should have a theme. I think it will be memory. Either that or cars and girls.

Last thought for blog: My parents have been so cool and nice to me lately that it reminds me of those oft-repeated panels from Amazing Fantasy 15 where Uncle Ben goes, "Don't fatten him too much, May, I can hardly out-wrestle him now." while Aunt May is feeding Peter some wheatcakes. The panel before that has Uncle Ben rousing Peter from bed to go to school. Anyway, my parents have been so nice and cool that it reminds me of those panels. I've had a strong feeling of unease since that occurred to me while sitting in the park, as though something terrible will happen soon.

Now I must drive to Nassau county to evade taxes.

On Ted Williams

2002-07-11T22:43:00.000-04:00

If I had two kids and one kid wanted to burn me while the other kid wanted to freeze me, I hope I get frozen.

Today, July 11th is apparently 7-11 day. They're giving out free Slurpees at 7-11. I was talking to someone today and I told her that my Slurpee habit is at around $3/day. She said, "You can make your own Slurpee, just get syrup and ice." If only it were that easy... If only I were ignorant to the modern miracle that is the Slurpee. When pressed, my associate admitted that she had never tasted a Slurpee and therefore, didn't know what she was talking about. Poor Minnesotans, so deprived.

Vanilla Coke

2002-07-11T01:52:00.000-04:00

Played some hockey, dead tired, got the best damn cheeseburger hot dog and vanilla coke slurpee ever. Time for bed.

Note to Coca Cola: If you could somehow make everybody in the world always tired and thirsty, your product would sell a lot better. Knowing you, however, and how evil you are, you're probably working on it already. Some kind of Earth tilting device so that people ALWAYS have to walk uphill both ways in the snow, or in this case, in the 90 degree heat.

The Key II

2002-07-10T20:22:00.000-04:00

Spoke too soon. Found the mysterious rusty old style key under my mattress.

He has a key to a lock he hasn't found, and the answers to a question he can't ask. A red folder containing a list of phone numbers sits gathering dust on his desk.

This can only end in tears.

The Key

2002-07-10T20:15:00.000-04:00

Sitting here, bored, playing with my keys when all of a sudden I remembered seeing a rusty, old-style key next to my bed at some point not too long ago. I just looked all around for it and couldn't find it. I hope I'm not mixing up my dreams and reality again. Either way, this can only end in tears.

Boring Life

2002-07-10T16:46:00.000-04:00

I just saw Austin Powers 2 again. I had forgotten how hot Heather Graham is. Man! Hoo-hah! No no no, it's good it's good. I also like that Zhang Xiyi. She's really hot too. It's good it's good.

Went to get "assigned" a place to be a store detective today. "Assigned" was what they said would happen. Their definition of assigning is just giving me a piece of paper with a bunch of places to ask for a job. If this was all they were gonna do, why did they even bother asking me which mall was the closest to my house? Oh! I know! It's to trick my dumb ass! They'll get theirs...

Dreamt last night that I ran a red light. The cops pulled me over, and said, "you've got 10 points, surrender your license please." And that's when I woke up.

Solomon Grundy

2002-07-10T04:56:00.000-04:00

Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday:
This is the end
Of Solomon Grundy.

!

2002-07-09T12:00:00.000-04:00

hoo-hah!

smokes

2002-07-08T23:44:00.000-04:00

MASTIC

Petty stood-up man

2002-07-08T20:55:00.000-04:00

"countin' flowers on the wall
that don't bother me at all
playing solitaire till dawn
with a deck of fifty one
smoking cigarettes and watching
captain kang-a-roo
now don't tell me

I've nothing to do"

Crappy Poetry II

2002-07-08T12:22:00.000-04:00

As promised, here is draft II. However, I'm going to stop posting revisions because I can't be bothered to get the html formatting right.

Poemory

He takes
a New York sunset,
touched by Canadian forest fires,
an orange well in an orange sky
tactilely hazy.

a romantic plot,
a man, smitten,
endows a distant green light with meaning,
false.

an eccentric throwaway character:
some returned expatriate
with a voice that's seen the world,
and an anecdote about Parisian sidewalk cafes.

a girl in white.

an idea of a virgin.

Icons pieced haphazardly
into a poem becomes memory.

Some nights I still see your eyes,
lenses magnifying stained glass blue.
Breezy afternoon, outdoor café.
White suited you.
Breathing,
the glow on your cheeks as the dog passed by.
your lips curling up into that peculiar smile that
tells my heart and my mind to let it in.
the woman with stories of poodles in Paris in Spring.

They say eyewitness testimony is unreliable.
These are the facts:
There was an old woman who had been to Paris.
There was a passing dog.
It was spring.
You wore white.
The rest: the eyes, the virginal smile, my heart, my mind;
Poemory.

Crappy Poetry

2002-07-07T11:01:00.000-04:00

This is what I shall do. I will write something, then revise it daily, and post it here. [Snicker from audience, "As though he'll keep it up" {snicker from self, as though audience exists}]

Untitled

He takes a sunset in New York,
touched by a Canadian forest fire,
unlike any that he'd ever seen;
an orange well in an orange sky
hazy enough to touch.

He steals a plot from a book,
a man, smitten,
endows a point on the horizon with
meaning,
false.

An eccentric throwaway character:
some returned expatriate
with a voice that has lived
and an anecdote about Parisian sidewalk cafes.

A girl in white.

An idea of a virgin.

The result:
a poemory. Images from memory pieced
haphazardly
into a poem becomes
memory.

Some nights I still see your eyes
that breezy afternoon outside the cafe
white suited you.
Breathing,
the glow on your cheeks as the dog passed by
your lips curling up into that peculiar smile that
tells my heart and my mind to let it go
the woman with her stories of dogs in Paris in Spring.

They say eyewitness testimony is unreliable.
These are the facts:
There was an old woman who had been to Paris.
There was a passing dog.
It was spring.

You wore white.
The rest: the eyes, the smile, my heart, my mind.
Poemory.

Bad Writer

2002-07-07T10:39:00.000-04:00

I just finished my second Vonnegut book in the past twenty-four hours. The first was Cat's Cradle, which left me feeling empty. The second was Bluebeard, which didn't really do much for me.

Of course, after reading, I always think about my own writing. Since I've started this blog, I've "written" approximately 3500 words. That's not too bad. If I could get some real writing in this summer I'd be perfectly happy with 3500 words. Happy is probably too strong a word. Undismayed would be more appropriate.

I just realized that a somewhat sizeable chunk of those 3500 words belong to a prose poem I wrote this past semester. 3300 would probably be the correct number.

I had a thought earlier, a rather self-centered one, that I need for the United States to get involved in a large scale war. Why? So I could become a writer. Maybe after participating in something so large and senseless I could write compassionately. I'm so sick of my writing being a trivial complaint. Sick of girls, sick of complaining about girls, sick of complaining about being sick of stuff.

I will try right now (I had typed "write now" then deleted it) to write something compassionate and meaningful.

Failure. It doesn't show on the screen, but I thought hard about this for about two minutes. I couldn't come up with anything that doesn't involve me in some way. I want so much to write something that a child somewhere could read and smile, and think to himself, "Life ain't so bad."

Maybe it is just the mood I'm in right now. I am usually satisfied with provoking a reaction or stirring up some emotion in my readers, even if they are "negative" ones.

Attempt two:

Even though the two-faced kitten lived on this Earth no longer than the average housefly, it's now the life of the party among all of our departed cats. The other cats all wish that they too, had two faces, so they could also groom oneself and another cat simultaneously.

That was shitty and far from effortless. As they say, writing is hard work. What they don't say is shitty writing is still hard work. Why should I even bother? Certainly there are vocations where if you do a shitty job, you can at least say, "I wasn't really trying."

I think maybe I will check out my poetry professor's website now, to see if he has updated.

John Wayne

2002-07-07T08:23:00.000-04:00

I have a recurring dream about my teeth. The circumstances are always different in these dreams but inevitably, while watching TV, or eating, or enjoying a slurpee, or driving, etc. I'll start to notice that a tooth is really loose. So I start pushing it with my tongue, and it gives more and more with each push, until it falls out. I then notice that my other teeth are also loose, and they start falling out, one by one, without assistance from my tongue.

Just now, while reading, I took a swig of coke and found that it caused a dull pain in one of my molars. I reach back there and find a gaping hole in the side of the tooth. Either a filling fell out or I've gotten a cavity. This means I should probably visit a dentist soon, even though I both hate and fear them for what they've done to me (there is a cavity in one of my front teeth from when I had braces and couldn't brush behind some wire that was sticking out). Braces, among other things which I can't go into right now, are why the third world hates us Americans.

-->

2002-07-06T10:13:00.000-04:00

DOOM

COCK

DOOMCOCK

Lush

2002-07-06T07:28:00.000-04:00

Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, why can't we talk?
I promise you that I will cease to stalk.
I just get sentimental when I drink.
But I kinda want to sever our link.
Help me Rhonda I just want to hold her.
Even though they all say I need closure.

***

To Whom It May Concern:

A year ago I sent you a New York Times e-card, with a black and white photo of a boy and a girl smiling, sitting in a box with two steering wheels. The caption read, "Would-be drivers practice behind the wheel of dual control auto, 1943." I quoted Gatsby at you: "it takes two rotten drivers to make an accident." I hoped we could go driving. A week later you gave me an essay about wanting a boy in your life. I wanted a relationship; you wanted to be proofread.

You once told me about sliding under a semi just outside Tomah, Wisconsin. The tow truck driver found you beside the wreck shivering, cheeks wet with tears. I wonder now if you checked your blind spots, used your blinkers.

Charles Ray bought a wrecked Grand Am from a salvage auction, took it apart, reproduced the pieces in fiberglass, then assembled a wreck. This mass of grey matter pretending to be warped metal is on display at the Walker (I bought a postcard). It is art. It took two years.

Was I in your blind-spot? I have liability, but lack no-fault. Some out of sequence details: quick glances in my direction in class (weekly eyeball chicken), coffee one warm afternoon (you wore white), volleys of voicemails in weekend phone-tag.

In a year I will have reassembled all the details, and filed a poem pretending to be an accident report. I'll send you the Charles Ray postcard then, and quote from the end of Gatsby. "You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I?" Maybe by then the flames will have died, and I'll be ready for repairs.

Isle of Hot

2002-07-06T07:07:00.000-04:00

This is something I talk about with my friends a lot, but I've never written about it. The population of New York (Manhattan, specifically, because this certainly doesn't apply to Queens, dunno about the other boroughs) seems to get more attractive every summer. You can't go out without seeing a hot person every block. The bar we went to, two out of the three barwomen were attractive, and I'd guess half of the women in the bar in general were very attractive. Walking from the bar to the Indian place, we must've seen at least another five attractive girls. And this is at 1am, mind you. 1am, even on a Friday night, is kinda late. I'm sure if we were walking near the clubs in Chelsea we'd have seen even more people.

Adam said that it's because Manhattan is just an island of rich people, and rich people are almost always attractive. According to the great Israeli mathematician J. E. Nissenboim, there is a genetic reason for this: the first generation rich guy, a self-made man, is ugly as sin, he made his fortune in toilets or something. Because he's rich, he gets to pick any woman he wants, and of course, he will pick a very attractive one. So their children will at least be alright looking, and born into money. They too will get to pick attractive mates, and on and on it goes until the ugly is bred out of the family. If not bred out, then at least become recessive.

And here is the sad conclusion: Humble Jay Gatz understood that Daisy's laugh was full of money. Jay Gatz becomes Gatsby, and still isn't good enough for her. Will Humble Ho Ying find happiness with some attractive girl in Manhattan, with silver dollars tinkling out of her throat? No. The most I can hope for is that my great-grandchildren, if I ever have any, will have a chance at what I want. As for me, I'll probably end up with some Queens girl who doesn't know her Merlot from her Bordeaux. Feh, I don't know French either. But this Queens girl... I'll be lucky if she speaks unaccented English. And I don't mean she'll have a charming European accent either. Nope, I certainly won't enter into American society.

Twenty years from now, if I'm still alive, you'll find me at some old man bar on 162nd street (in Queens), not a tooth in my head, smoking Old Golds or Mavericks or Viceroys, drinking Bud. The memories of 20 dollar cigarettes, 10 dollar port for dessert, and a certain Daisy I knew, will be faded like photos you leave in the car.

Indian Food

2002-07-06T06:42:00.000-04:00

Just got back from fat catting around town with Adam. We went to a Belgian Beer Bar, then had Indian. Each time I eat Indian I'm completely clueless as to what I'm eating, though I had something tonight with chickpeas that was delicious. It was part of the "Kashmiri Dinner" (mmm... disputed).

Also went to the last day of job training today. It was complete bullshit. The guy spent the first hour and a half telling us the economics of the undercover security trade, which was not on the test. Then we watched a couple of videos from the 80's designed to help merchants prepare against crime; the narrator sounded a lot like Robert Stack. The last part of the class, the guy just had a copy of the test in his hand, and basically told us the answers of some of the questions. Unfortunately there were a lot of questions for which he didn't prepare us. I ended up getting an 88 out of 100 on the test, meaning I passed, and will return on Wednesday to be assigned. Some people in the room took half an hour to complete this 25 question multiple choice, true/false test.

Example: What is a class C fire? The guy didn't mention that at all. I think I had decided sometime during training on Tuesday that my mom is out $169 bucks and that the whole thing was a scam. Well, at least I feel like I'm doing something, just like when I first got home and applied to five jobs a week (and not hearing back from any of them).

girls

2002-07-04T23:28:00.000-04:00

I am in a weird mood today, so I'm gonna make a list of my unrequited loves.

1. Emily - met her in jr high. Feelings lasted about a year and a half. Acted on them, got shot down, awkwardness for about a year.

Then in high school I go through a long period without liking anybody. Don't really know why. Maybe it was my high school, maybe I was content, maybe I was too into "the college process."
2. Katie - met her the first day of college. Feelings lasted about a year and a half. Acted on them, got shot down, awkwardness for about a month.

3. Cates - met her two months into college. Feelings lasted about three months. Acted on them, awkwardness for about six months.

4. Elissa - met her second day of college. Feelings started spring semester of sophomore year. Acted on them after a month, awkwardness is ongoing.

There are other minor girls in there, most of whose names I do not know. There was the girl wolfing down a double quarter pounder with cheese on the 2 train. There was the girl in a "the bends" era Radiohead t-shirt. The girl who worked at the school cafeteria, etc. Too numerous to mention.

Writings inspired by girls:
Emily: 1 short story
Katie: 1 short story
Cates: 1 poem, 1 prose poem
Elissa: 1 poem, 1 prose poem, 2 aborted pieces.

Conclusion:
I need to find a Dolly Haze, or Annabel Leigh/Lee, or Daisy Buchannan, or Sally something from Catcher in the Rye who left all her Queens in the back row, or Tulip O'Hare, or Suzanne. +5000 points if you know where all of these girls come from.

But you know what, all these Barbara Ann's and Rhonda's become Caroline no's. The train and the dogs barking symbolize progress. Time marches on, we grow old, irrevocable loss.

Symbolic moment today for which I wish I had a camera: On Northern Blvd I saw an old couple slowly ascend the steps into a funeral home.

The Strokes II

2002-07-03T23:22:00.000-04:00

It has been brought to my attention that the people at the aforementioned party did not dislike the Strokes, they merely did not know the Strokes.

Parkinson's

2002-07-03T16:46:00.000-04:00

I dreamt last night that I was writing a sitcom. The cast included Michael J. Fox, Orlando Jones, and some generic blond chick. The show was about a bunch of people who are involved in a poorly written sitcom where the writers can't write anything, so they just tell the actors to make it up as they go along. Orlando Jones played this crippled, foul-mouthed guy who spent a lot of time harassing the blond chick. Everyone else in the cast was afraid of him. I remember saying, "This isn't in the script!" as Jones fondled the blond girl. But I can't be sure whether my saying that is on the script. I don't know whether I was really a writer or just an actor.

The Strokes

2002-07-02T04:28:00.000-04:00

I was at a party over the weekend. There was a keg of Guinness, but it was the kind of party where nobody likes the Strokes. Make of that what you will. Sure the Strokes are derivative, but they're very hard not to like. Much techno and hip-hop was played at this party, and people seemed to like Sublime. Once again, make of that what you will.

I also got a flat tire on my way back from the party, but the host, as well as his parents, were very helpful. It's very hard to find a place to buy a new tire on a Sunday. Many thanks must go to the host and his family for hospitality and generally being good people.

Today I had job training for being an "Undercover Store Dectective," or Loss Prevention Agent, as it's known in the industry. I will have more details about that if/when I get work.

This entry has been more boring than usual, and for that, I apologize. I just can't get over the fact that no one liked the Strokes at this party. The people I met at college just aren't as cool as the people that I've known for a while. While I can see all the things that people have against the Strokes (ie they're rich pretty boys who instead of playing a secret show as "the Shitty Beatles," should've done so as "the Shitty Velvet Underground"), the fact that there is a popular ROCK N' ROLL band writing good songs is hard to ignore. Most people in my age grew up listening to Nirvana, so it's sad when I see people my age who seem to have forgotten how abso-fucking-lutely cool Rock n' Roll is. I don't care if you say that Rock is dead. Hell, I probably agree with you. But god damn it was cool.

While I don't think that the Strokes are the next coming of Nirvana or anything, it's just so nice that there's buzz about a rock band again. Sure there have been a lot of great bands out there since '96, but how many of them have been accessible? I know a lot of you people out there are indie rockers, and I like some indie rock too, but I'd rather listen to the Strokes being self-consciously detached and cool than some fucking guy from Podunk, Nebraska who can't even sing on key being self-consciously detached and cool.

The above diatribe was brought to you by Ho Ying "Fuck You If You Have A Shitty Opinion That's Different From Mine" Fan.

Fucking Dreams

2002-06-29T22:28:00.000-04:00

Had my first Elissa dream in a long time last night. This one was long and drawn out and complicated. The cast of characters included pretty much every peer I've ever known from any level of school I've been to.

It started out with me talking to some other people outside a school building, and out of nowhere she comes up to me and starts saying how I'm such a gentleman. I assume she received my poem. Then I kinda blank out for a while, we were somehow in jr high together, and being punished with silent cafeteria, so we couldn't talk. But then I say, fuck this shit, I'm 21 years old, and I walk out. Then there's a week or so of school in there, and it turns out that in my dream she wanted me, but thought I was over her, and I wanted her, but didn't see her feelings. It was a real tragic ending. We were both holding back tears at the end.

Fucking dreams.

Lancer

2002-06-27T23:32:00.000-04:00

I've suddenly become a terrible driver. Two days with this car and I've already fucked it up. Last night at taco bell I scraped a wheel at the drive thru, and it's been making a squealing scraping sound ever since. And just now, backing into my driveway, I broke my driver's side mirror. I've also taken two turns a little fast and gotten the back end to slide out a little bit. I drove the Lancer a whole year and it never got scratched. Well... I scratched it backing into the driveway against some old iron thing that's been in the yard for ages, but that doesn't count. I also slid into a curb (in heavy snow), backed up into some Honda who appeared out of nowhere (I was in a hurry), and got rear-ended, but like I said, no scratches. American-made and all that. Lousy jap cars...

Auster-wannabe

2002-06-27T23:25:00.000-04:00

Nigel Sane (9:36:47 PM): I got a job interview tomorrow for "undercover store detective"
doctorzizmore (9:37:09 PM): what the hell does that mean?
doctorzizmore (9:37:16 PM): try to catch people stealing stuff?
Nigel Sane (9:37:18 PM): yeah
doctorzizmore (9:37:26 PM): awesome!
doctorzizmore (9:37:27 PM): where
Nigel Sane (9:37:36 PM): I have no idea
Nigel Sane (9:37:47 PM): the address the woman gave me is in long island city
Nigel Sane (9:37:52 PM): so I drove there to check out the place
Nigel Sane (9:37:56 PM): there's no store at that address
doctorzizmore (9:38:08 PM): curious
doctorzizmore (9:38:22 PM): this seems like it could be the beginning of a good story
Nigel Sane (9:38:32 PM): a paul auster story?
doctorzizmore (9:38:38 PM): exactly
doctorzizmore (9:38:45 PM): something along those lines
Nigel Sane (9:38:49 PM): ooh that's a good way of thinking about it
doctorzizmore (9:38:52 PM): keep me updated
Nigel Sane (9:39:27 PM): I've gotten myself tangled in a web of deceit
doctorzizmore (9:39:46 PM): and the spider's on her way
Nigel Sane (9:40:08 PM): who will I turn to, when there's no one I can trust
doctorzizmore (9:40:18 PM): this can only end in tears

Fan's Complaint

2002-06-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

I have just finished reading the novel Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth. It's a good book, you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy it, or to sympathize with the main character. There's this great "fish out of water" bit in there from which I'll quote (the setup is that he's in Davenport, Iowa to have Thanksgiving with his goyishe girlfriend's family. He had never been to the midwest):

"Then at the railroad station her father says, 'How do you do, young man?' and I of course answer, 'Thank you." Why is he acting so nice? Because he has been forewarned (which I don't know whether to take as an insult or a blessing), or because he doesn't know yet? Shall I say it then, before we even get into the car? Yes, I must! I can't go on living a lie! "Well, it sure is nice being here in Davenport, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, what with my being Jewish and all...' "

That's the thing about the midwest. People are suspiciously nice. It's hard to say whether they are actually that nice, or if they are just being fake. Being a New Yorker, I automatically assume that they're fake (generalizing, of course).

This book also made me think about being Chinese. I came to the conclusion long ago that I didn't make a very good Chinaman, and did not even make a good "pan-asian." Even at the age of five or six, when my cousins had all mastered eating with chopsticks, I had already given up on chopsticks and insisted on eating with western utensils. I vaguely recall one of my aunts telling my mother that I should be forced to practice with chopsticks until my hands fell off. Anyway, the last few girls that I have pursued have been white, and the majority of these girls have been blonds. Have I been overzealous in my desire to assimilate into American society? Do I, like Portnoy, want to somehow symbolically enter into America? Just food for thought.

2

2002-06-25T00:54:00.000-04:00

It too me far too long to set up this whole blog thing. I think I'm losing my "mad skillz" in my old age. Just the other day while I was driving, I was listening to the radio and all the songs sounded the same to me. I don't know your Incubus from your Lincoln Park. Pretty soon I'll be drinking metamucil and shooting salt at kids for trying to steal my watermelons.

1

2002-06-25T00:40:00.000-04:00

Since 66% of my friends have also been pouring themselves out onto the Internet, I have decided to join this "blog" fad.

Good stuff: Glico Pretz (Salad flavor)

Bad stuff: When a game you pirate lacks a crucial feature, forcing you to either quit playing or to purchase a legitimate copy.

2002-06-24 21:40:00