2.27.2007

It's been a bi-polar week. I got mad lazy and detached over the break, wasting a lot of money and a lot of time on diversions, sleeping, reading fluff and discovering new ways of backlogging my workload until there was no escaping my responsibilites except through sleep. Jimmy's mom passed away and I found myself reconnecting with old friends over the corpse of a dead woman. My dog ran away and was gone overnight, lost in a snowstorm and senile as fuck.

But in the end everything turned out alright. I laid out a new track, my teachers are for the most part being understanding, Christianne got into grad school with a scholarship, a kind snowplow driver took my dog in for the night, fed her, bathed her, and returned her to us the next morning. Jimmy's mom is still dead but I'm remembering what life means.

On a personal bright note, there's a good chance I'm getting a summer placement at Ricepaper Magazine, which would mean a summer in Van City away from all the bullshit over here. Sure there'll be bullshit there as well, I'm under no illusions, but at least it'll be Brand New bullshit. And I'm interested in checking out the scenes down there, the hiphop scene, the geek scene, the film scene, the MMA scene, whatever. Last time I was there I was like 15 and had no strong interests (actually my thing back then was magazines...weird) and was too busy learning to shed my teenage homophobia in light of my brother's coming out.

The youtube clip is of poet Beau Sia (whom I'm a fan of as a performer but not really as a poet, though I think his poetry reads a lot better than it sounds when he performs it, if that makes any fucking sense at all), and his response to Rosie O'Donnell, whom I hated even before she released some 'cism on the Asian community. After this was aired on def poetry jam, O'Donnel finally apologized and reflected on her actions on her website. That's peace, but I wish she woulda done it on the View in front of the same audience she first did the asian impression for, and the same audience she later stubbornly and self-righteously defended her actions to...but hey, by this point I'm sure even her own viewers are tired of the whole thing and the only people who still care are a bunch of Asians on the internet.

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2.22.2007

Reading week is actually all about the reading. I finally hit the finish line with Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, and now I'm on to Enter the Babylon System by Rodriguo Bascunan and Christian Pearce.

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I actually got to meet Bascunan aka Buns last week with Anupa. Noops had to interview him for her magazine piece and I got to play photographer. Such a crazy experience. Bascunan has entered the Top 5 list of real life heroes, right up there with Gavin Shepperd and Lisa Louie.

Speaking of Lisa, it's her bornday today and I was supposed to meet her at the Reel Asian's Slanted Screen screening tonight. I might have to bail though because nobody will be home to take care of the dog.

It's Ms. Hollett's bornday as well. (I might actually have to mail her those sbux coupons she's always hassling me for.) Peace to Lisa and Camille.

Also, I recorded a new song over the break, "Keep Walkin". Here it is with some of the old ones as well:

Track 4 is a spoken word joint that I originally wrote for a film I did. I originally wanted to keep it separate from my work, because it's not really my voice and also because I wanted to keep it just for the film. But it was never really finished so here's my version of it.





I think I'd be much better at this if I could breathe through my nose. As it stands though, no breath control + nasal voice = whack rapper.

Have a good one folks.

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1.04.2007

I'm sitting here at 3 in the morning eating dog food. Don't wretch just yet. The meaning of "dog food" has changed recently in this household. With my dog's liver disease holding sway over the tides of her appetite (or lack thereof), the vet, with an omnipotent wave, officially granted a dying dog's last wish: "Let her eat whatever she wants."

And so my dog's been getting her connoisseur on, first eating bread and only bread, only touching dog food if said dog food was spread onto yummy bread in the form of a sandwich. From there she rejected sandwiches and realized she could hold out for bread. Pure, virgin bread, soft and fluffy. She has since moved on to fried bananas and chick peas, eggplant and now beef stew.

A beef stew that I am now eating here at 3 in the morning, because I have been sick and it's all I can digest, and because, dammit, I like canned beef stew. I like canned-pretty-much-everything, actually. Corned beef rates right up there with the finest prime rib, let me tell you.


Only when the last tree has died,
and the last river been poisoned,
and the last fish been caught,
will we realize we cannot eat money.
- Cree saying


Quotes like that are fun when you have no money. I went to buy McDonalds sometime last week and was hit with the "insufficient funds". If ever there is a walk of shame, it's home from the McDonalds where you hit insufficient funds.

It's been a good week to get sick. No appetite and no will to walk outside, waiting patiently for that next paycheque has been a lot easier. I worked a lot last week but pretty much am off this week until Saturday. School doesn't start until next week. A good week to get sick.

Last week was hectic. I met with Jose and we hammered out a really dope short film premise. The new feature project is coming along as well. Slowly...but it's not a piece of shit so far and that's great.

On New Year's Christianne and I rented out a hotel room. We missed the countdown and she forgot her toothbrush but fun was had by all, despite the fact that I am now sick with whatever virus she had the week prior.

Which reminds me. I'm sick and I'm a baby and I'm gonna go sleep now.

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12.28.2006

New Year's Resolutions...I got a lot of them. They're cliches, every one of them, but they're all things I seriously need to start tending to. I'm trying to keep things realistic but essential. No, I'm not going back to martial arts, or becoming a gym rat, but I am going to get healthier. I'm probably not gonna write more, but I certainly can read more. I'm not gonna beat depression, but I am going to talk and build more with the people around me. I don't think I'll be increasing my meditation or going to temple but I am going to try and remember and reflect on why I became a buddhist in the first place. Cuz I lost that.



"after reading about it, or talking about it with your friends...how about living it?...wow, crazy idea."

-Gavin Sheppard,
on his motherfucking myspace page of all places.


peace.

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12.26.2006

So this is Christmas. I hope you had fun. While there was lots of last-minute madness, I somehow lucked out and avoided any self-important idiots that happened to be at the mall the same time I was (that goes for staff and customers). Heads were nice and cool this year.

I realize my last post may be a bit misleading in it's portrayal of my pops. He's a nice dude -- when it came to sporting events he was far from a hardline asshole...but he wasn't a cheerleader either. He was a sports fan, regardless of the fact that one of the players was his flesh and blood.

That said, the man also braved the crowd at the Apple Store to buy his daughter an iMac laptop that he can't really afford and that he knew full well she doesn't really need, just for the fact that it might make her smile for once. Which she did, and he did as well, and they have been doing ever since she unwrapped the thing yesterday morning. Which is huge given that they've exchanged maybe two full sentences of conversation in the last two years.

Also, there is nothing more precious in the world than watching your senior-citizen dad attempt to feed food to your hobbled, half-dead senior-citizen family dog. They're losing their hair colour and their hips together.

Thanks to everyone for the text-message greetings. I know some people hate the holidays and find that shit annoying. I'm not the hugest fan of it either but I always appreciate those kind of gestures -- even the mass messages and preachy emails. (I can't get mad at the religious ecards cuz really, all signs point to me being a good Roman Catholic anyways...)

I think what really made my Christmas though was seeing the piece by Leslie Scrivener in the Star on Christian hip-hop that I helped her research. It was cool seeing it all come together, how she localized the story, and how the contacts I gave her ended up influencing the angle she eventually took.

There's more to post about, but right now I've got to go help our house lower its roast beef/empty stomach ratio. After that it's off to the store to duel with the caffeine-deprived hoardes of boxing day. I'll wish you a merry christmas, and you wish me luck...deal?

peace.

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12.21.2006



Today, for the first time, my dad watched a tape of me kickboxing. I used to be deep into mixed martial arts, I worked and trained at the gym and so I was spending six days out of the week either learning or watching, from my desk, different martial arts styles.

My dad's always been a big fight fan, boxing especially but in recent years mixed-martial arts as well. As a fight fan he knew all about boxers getting brain damage as they got older, or cauliflower ears, broken noses, etc. All the debilitations and disfigurements that come with the game. While he didn't mind me learning how to fight, he was pretty vocal with his disapproval of fighting competitively.

I've always had a healthy fear of my father -- he's small but has sharp teeth and long toenails -- so when the time came for my first competitive kickboxing match I kept it secret. Plus he knows alot and there's nothing worse than a back-seat kickboxer. "Use your left! Move your head!"

I just wanted to get one fight under my belt. I couldn't live with myself if I never stepped in the ring.

The fight was a draw.

My opponent starts strong in the first round, playing ping-pong with my head, but I dominate in the second like a fleet of big Russian women. The third round is a toss-up though he does get the last good shot in.

I figured it was time to let my dad watch the tape. I'm older and grown now, my own man, and who knows, maybe the old man might show a hint of pride at seeing his non-gay son punching the crap out of someone.

But when the fight reaches its end and I put my hands up in victory (I made it through alive!) my dad, mistaken about the outcome, yells at the screen:

"You WON?!?! No way, YOU CHEATED!! YOU HAVE CONNECTIONS AT THAT GYM."

Come to think of it, I never did invite my dad to any of my sporting events...AND NOW I REMEMBER WHY.

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12.20.2006

One of the things I like about Suzan (not Suzanne) is her ability to say really harsh things and not make you hate her. I still can't decide if she's very perceptive or if she just makes a lot of assumptions about people and the law of averages dictates that she's eerily dead-on at least half the time.

One of the first times I experienced this was when she confronted me about not volunteering to read/anchor the news during broadcast class.

"Why is that?" she asked. "I'm curious about that. Why you never want to participate in anything and are always hiding in the shadows."

This caught me off guard because in j-school, more than anywhere else, I'm pretty damn social. Plus at this point we barely knew each other and I don't see how she
got that vibe off me. There simply was no evidence to back this up, and I wanted to fight it but couldn't because she was right.



Recently, she was writing a piece about seasonal affective disorder, and I confessed to her that I suffer from depression, and especially so during the winter time.

Instead of listening to my little sob-story with puppy-dog eyes she very dryly said, "you should see someone about that. It can be pretty shitty."

"I do alright by myself," I said, defensively.

She gave me skeptical look but thankfully dropped the subject.

She's right though. Winter time is rough, for me and those around me, as I'm sure you know if you've ever read more than three posts on this blog. I do my best to stay busy -- I make plans and set goals and make a huge-ass reading list and try to go out alot during the day -- but inevitably I end up curled under the sheets listening to some really emotional music and sleeping alot.

Yesterday I had a migraine (my other seasonal affliction) which knocked me out for a good ten hours of so. Not good. The slightest sign of illness always gives me the excuse to lay in bed and wallow.

While in bed I remembered alot of the personal traumas my friends have gone through. I'm a pretty firm believer in doing things for other people that you want done for yourself, and so, since I appreciate when friends remember that I suffer from depression and adjust their social expectations of me accordingly, I do my best to remember the shit they've been through.

I remembered especially one time I went to my friend's house in early highschool. We'll call him Brian. Brian had told us a year before that his dad moved out and went overseas for business. But that night while we were playing video games in the basement, Brian's mom stormed into the room and started yelling at him. She was mad that Brian still talking to his dad, and was trying to get him to sign some sort of letter, I think for legal purposes, that would entitle him to financial aid but sever ties between him and his father.

Apparently Brian's dad had run out on him and his mom, whom Brian's dad had cheated on. There was never any business trip overseas. He was still in town, living somehwhere within driving distance. She was pulling the guilt card, saying things like, "do you love him more than me?" And "don't you love me?" And "are you going to let him do this to your mother?"

That must be a hard thing, to have someone use your sense of manhood as a weapon against your father figure. That's a lot of baggage to unload on a kid.

Then she started calling him stupid, saying "you're so stupid Brian, you're so stupid." Which has hard because Brian wasn't the best student.

Brian's mom is a great woman, don't get me wrong. I love her and how she is with him. It was just this instance where she stopped being his mother and started being a normal person, which is something parents can't really be.



Eventually he took her out of the room and they both disappeared for awhile and when he came back finally he acted as if nothing had happened. As if it were perfectly logical that I was so engrossed with the game that I hadn't heard a goddman thing.

I could tell he didn't want me to press-on about it so I played along, and we had a lot of fun that day, like we always did, we shot a lot of people and released our agression and were rewarded for it by the tidy system of points and levels.

If only real life were that neat and easy, I'd be on to bigger and better things by now, new challenges, new surroundings, and new gadgets to help me deal with the darkness.

But I'm not on to anything bigger, I'm in bed. And it's the same bed, and this is the same blog.

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