I Like Donuts. Do You Like Donuts?

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Candlelight

In the candlelight I see you, an alabaster statue in the bed next to me. I touch you, leaving trails of love where my fingers pass and I wonder what it feels like, if you enjoy my touch as much as I enjoy touching you. “It won't last,” a voice says, but it doesn't have to. “It doesn't have to,” I repeat. You roll over and your hair falls across your face and my fingers are moving before I can stop them to brush it away. In between the flickers I can see your heartbeat, drawing me in and pushing me away. The room is cold and my skin is pebbling and I burrow down into the covers with you, seeking your warmth, wondering what tomorrow will bring. But tomorrow is tomorrow and today is today and I'm screaming on the inside, screaming in joy and surprise at having found you, even if it's just for this minute between the hours.

Muppet Christmas Carol

Your Christmas is Most Like: The Muppet Christmas Carol

You tend to reflect on Christmas past, present, and future... And you also do a little singing.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

I fucking love Muppet Christmas Carol. It's the greatest rendition of A Christmas Carol I have ever seen. I have no problem watching it in the middle of June if I feel like it. And if you think otherwise, bollocks to you.

Barbara Cook Masterclass

Noticed this story over at nytimes.com. Couple highlights:

"We have to find the courage to take off our emotional clothes." Ms. Cook elaborated on that danger in speaking of the essential fear that crawls around in most performers' hearts, an anxiety that in a curious way may also be a motivating factor in the desire to become a performer: "We feel that we're not enough, that the world doesn't want us."

"The truth of this insight was illustrated before our eyes, and it was a fascinating process to watch. Erin Morley, a soprano with a bright, silvery tone, sang "With You," a flowery ballad from "Pippin." "I don't hear you letting us in," Ms. Cook said, and tried to strip away all the mannerisms Ms. Morley had been trained to use in recital. When she started in on the song again, Ms. Cook stopped her virtually before she started: "I can still see her gathering herself to sing," Ms. Cook said, to the audience, and once again implored Ms. Morley to let her real self into the song, and invite the audience with her. "You don't need to do that," she said, referring to the performing stance Ms. Morley kept donning like a costume. She reiterated her encouraging mantra: "You are enough.""

"When performers first step onstage, they may be looking for validation, for approbation in the form of nourishing applause. But the lesson Ms. Cook came to teach was that artists achieve their peak when they learn to stop proving themselves and simply, to borrow the Shakespearean phrase, let be. It's their humanity we respond to in the end, their ability to strip away the self-consciousness that locks us inside ourselves, and reveal the stuff that really boils in our souls."

I've noticed that so many of the actors I know and have become close to at one time or another are also among the most insecure people I know. I could go all amateur-psychologist and espouse theories about how people become actors in reaction to some perceived lack of attention or love in childhood, and there might be a point there but it isn't really what I wanted to talk about.

There are few things I've encountered that irritate me more than a person with a beautiful voice who doesn't do anything with it. Josh Groban, for example. Technically, he's incredible. But when he sings he's just making noise; there's nothing actually behind it. Then you look at someone like Elaine Stritch, a woman who's voice left her somewhere in the 1970s, and yet, when she sings you don't care because she brings a whole new element to the song; she brings herself, she opens a part of herself to the audience. That's where real musical theater lies, and that's what every great performer in musical theater brings to a production and to a role, no matter how big or how small.

Little Prince

I'm lying in bed and a cold wind is blowing. I get up to close the window and a draft pulls me outside and I'm falling into the sky. "Follow me," says the fox, and I do, above the clouds and to the moon. "You're early," he says. "Do you know why you're here?" "To get some answers," I say. "But what's the question?" I think of you and the fox smiles. "Now you're talking," he says. And then you're there, and I wonder why every time I see you it's like the first time I ever saw you, and how you can make me feel so young and so old all at once. "I'm only going to disappoint you," you say, and I wonder if it's because you know something I don't, or if you're trying to tell me something but I'm not listening hard enough. I take your hand and we jump while a solo saxophone plays. I want to kiss you but I'm afraid, and then the moment is gone. Maybe it was never even there to begin with, maybe I imagined it just like I imagined that you loved me. "What is it?" you say. I want to tell you everything, want to pour out all my hate and shame and doubt and fear. "Nothing," I say, "I love you."

The Promised Land?

Graffiti'ed oil painting by Banksy

Man...that guy is fucking brilliant.

Big Fish

Just got finished watching it. Sobbed like a baby towards the end. Well, not fully like a baby, I wasn't like...sobbing sobbing, but the tears were pretty steady.

To me, the basic premise of Big Fish is the question of how much like your parents you are or become - in this case, father and son. What's beautiful about the end of it is that throughout the whole movie, Billy Crudup has spent so much time (in reality, the majority of his character's life) wondering who his father is, seeing him as this total stranger. And yet, at the end he finds that he is like his father after all, that his father was inside of him all along, just waiting for him to have the understanding and the need to bring it out. In telling his father his last story, he finally begins to understand his father for the first time in his life.

It's true. You never realize what an impact your parents make on you until the day comes when you do something or say something that they always do or say. But at the same time, I wouldn't say you're destined to literally become your parents, because you will have different experiences than the ones they had. Your parents give you a base of ideas and beliefs. What you go on to do with them is your choice.

Richard Pryor is Dead

Shit man...that's death on three out of the last four days (Pearl Harbor, John Lennon, Richard Pryor). At least he wasn't murdered...well, except by himself, if you count all the drugs he did back in the day. Your body can only take so much before it breaks down, as his did. Still, what a loss. Anyone who hasn't seen any of his stuff and loves crazy, inappropriate standup comedy, you don't know what you're missing.

A Shadow Grows in Brooklyn

Shadow art; Park Slope, Brooklyn

Click for story. Looks hella cool. I think I'll take a trip out there this week, walk around and see what I can see. One quote from the story:

"'I think that public art is important,' said Mr. DeCastro, who once owned a gallery. 'It expresses what people are feeling in society at the time, and it puts it out there. It's not like a museum, where things are hidden away for 20 years.'"

Fun with Prohibition

So, went with my friend Cassie to Prohibition last night. Cool place, a bit bougie for my taste and not really my crowd (Upper West Siders, bleh) but whatever. Had a cuuuuuute waitress. Asked her what she was doing after, she said she already had plans. Might be a line, might not be. So I ask if I can leave her my number, and she says she'd really like that, brings me a pen and paper pretty quickly. I write the number, but (and this is what has been bugging me) I didn't physically give it to her, cause we ended up leaving soon after. So now I'm stuck worrying that maybe she didn't get it, that the busser grabbed it and threw it out or is going to give me a call in a few days.

Hopefully she got it. I guess if I don't hear from her in a week I can stop in again just to double check, something I might just do because...well...she was CUTE.

I Hate the Leafs

Oddly enough, this blog has remained free of any references to my beloved/hated Toronto Maple Leafs.

Yes, I am Canadian, I do love hockey, and Bobby Orr is the greatest player to ever play the game, just so you know.

As I noted above though, I have a real issue with the Leafs. First of all, let me preface this by saying I grew up in Toronto in the 80s, when the Leafs were a big steaming pile of crap. No prospects, few good players (who would get traded away the instant they fucked with management) and year after year of unremitting failure, the kind that grinds down your spirit and makes you into a baseball or football fan, or makes you start cheering for the Habs because they're the antithesis of the Leafs.

Cue the 90s and some good times (interestingly enough, coinciding with the back-to-back World Serieses of the Jays and the Argos winning a couple Grey Cups). Gilmour, Andreychuk, Potvin and Pat Burns all roll into town and the Leafs have some decent seasons and runs in the playoffs, never quite being good enough to get to the Cup Finals. Cut to the mid-late 90s when Pat Quinn comes in. A couple definite and a couple probable Hall of Famers are also on the teams, and the Leafs continue to be decent but just not quite good enough.

This wouldn't be a problem if you qualify success by making the playoffs. The Leafs have done that for quite some time now. But if you measure success by Cups, or at least Cup Finals, then it sure as hell is a problem. The Leafs aren't good enough to go that far, and the sooner they recognize that, the sooner they can get going blowing up the current team and building again.

Of course, the biggest problem with that is that the Leafs have never drafted well. They've done a decent job with a pick here and there (more luck than anything else, if you ask me), but in terms of being able to draft a team...no. Not since the Original Six era, when teams had a virtual lock on players developing in their backyard (though the Leafs STILL managed to miss players). So even if they did start trading vets away and piling up picks, they'd probably end up with a roster full of Drake Berehowskys and Scott Thorntons.

Hence the love/hate. I'm pretty resigned to the fact that I will die long before the Leafs win another Cup. I just wish I didn't have to put up with all the delusional Leaf fans who think they're just one or two pieces away. Yeah, provided that one of those two pieces is, you know, a GOOD TEAM.

Hanging Santa?

Man, that's just fucking horrible. I don't hope anything bad happens to the guy physically (bad karma, boo), but I hope like...a team of reindeer dance the tango on his car or something. Cause that's just not cool.

Straw Fields

I'm sitting on the bench and my breath is misting in the afternoon air. Somewhere in the distance a guitar is playing a paean to a man who left a legacy of love and pain. "You can't stand here," a man tells me. "But I'm sitting down," I say. He moves on. Crowds are milling to say goodbye again to this man they barely knew, that they couldn't know and yet did, because he was magical. Out on the street the brakes of cars squeal, but right now it seems so distant. More people file by, people from countries and worlds I've never seen and never will again. How many of us will be remembered? The people cluster in little groups, trying to hold in their warmth against the invading cold. The wind blows, blows right through me and then picks me up and I'm flying into the sky. A woman floats by offering cookies that read, "Eat me." I take a bite and nothing happens. "What did you expect?" she asks. "More than this," I say. "These are the wrong cookies for that," she says. "She's got the ones you want." I turn and you are there, framed by the sun. Your warmth draws me in, but it melts me before I can reach you and I'm tumbling to land back on the bench in the park, surrounded by knowledge and ignorance. I look up and you're still there, far above me in the afternoon sky. I close my eyes and feel you shining down on me as the page turns. I can't hear the guitar anymore; it's been absorbed by the growing crowd of people who press forward like sheep, each seeking a piece of happiness to take with them, a remembrance of this man who touched them all and left so much undone, and I wonder if that's the way you think of me.

Sketchbookkid

I should have done this a bit ago, but better late than never. A friend met this girl while she was working on a mural in a cafe, and mentioned her site to me. I actually met with her while I was home for US Thanksgiving and bought a couple of her drawings; turns out she's not only quite talented, she's a total sweetie too. I wish her nothing but the best (especially because if she does get successful, those drawings I bought will totally become extra cool and have tons of street cred and be worth lotsa money).

She's got a blog that she doesn't update much and a couple other areas, one for her writing and one for these little comics she draws. I also wanted to reprint one of her poems because I really like it:

Bring your school books outside
i want to tell you about a friend i had.
i want to sit in the damp grass and wring my hands
and say "This is bullshit,
everything anyone ever tells you is going to be bullshit
especially this kind of thing
but
i mean this,
this is true."
and mean it
like i sometimes do.
I want to push the hair from my eyes in a wise way
and have you look upon me in awe
for that gesture
while i pretend not to notice
and maintain a steady level of passionate speech.
I want you to know how honestly i've felt
i want to guide you out back to tell you all the world's Truths;
because i'm too lonely and mean to seduce you with my body
and because maybe this way
you'll never happen to see the truth
about me.

Imagine

Just realized that today (the 7th) is Pearl Harbor Day and tomorrow (the 8th) is the anniversary of John Lennon's death. How sad is that? Hm, might make for an interesting (I had fun typed there and felt like a total jerk) activity though, walking down to Strawberry Fields tomorrow...wish I had a charger for my cam. Oh well, guess I'll make do with my shitty camera phone.

Live-not-so-Strong?

Um, I might be going to hell for thinking this (well, if you can go to hell for stuff like this, I sealed that deal a long time ago), but my friend just messaged me to tell me his LiveStrong bracelet broke. Am I the only one that finds that thought ironic and darkly humorous?

Mel Hussein?

Mel vs Saddam

Anyone else notice these two pics on Drudge Report at the same time? What the hell is THAT? Do they have the same stylist or something?

P.S. Fear my MS Paint skills!

So Tell Me Something I Didn't Know

Click.

A couple highlights:

"We're producing too many people," Mr. Steele said, "many of them poorly trained or moved into the field without the connections or relationships necessary to make their transition to a career possible. It's as if medical school were graduating people without giving them internships at a hospital."

"Twenty years ago, you didn't sense the kind of urgency these kids have now," said Mr. Schlegel, who represents many successful New York theater actors, including Jefferson Mays and Jayne Atkinson. "Now they think if they don't get signed by an agent right away, they've failed. They never think they've got to learn the ropes a bit, get seasoned. They want to know, 'Where's my TV series? Where's my film audition?' It's wrong, of course, but that's what they think, and in a business where we fall all over the young ones, you can't blame them."

Sometimes it's easy to forget that in show business, and in the greater scheme of life, a year is really not a very long amount of time. The other day I was sitting with one of my friends and talking about the fact that it had been 3-4 years since we had graduated, which is both a fair and an insignificant amount of time. Fair in the sense that since then, both of us have done a number of projects, good and bad, and insignificant in the sense that there is still so much potentially ahead of us.

It always shocks me when I talk to people living back in Toronto about the state of affairs back there; the handful of people I've spoken to make it sound so easy to get a call from an agent, when I've never had so much as a sniff from one here. Not even a, "Quit sending us your shit, we're not interested," note. A part of that is because being on the visa I'm on, I can't really do a whole lot of paying jobs at the moment, so I haven't been able to capitalize on Morty's as much as I might have liked to. Hopefully I'll be able to change that next year, when I FINALLY finish up my BA (9 years after finishing high school, awesome!) and get off a student visa or get deported.

I also find it helpful sometimes to remember a quote I read in this big Julliard book that details the history of the school and is loaded with quotes from alumni. It's a quote from Kevin Kline, and it goes a little something like: "When I graduated from Julliard I knew how much there was that I didn't know, and that's all any school can give you."

In general when it comes to education, the idea that once you're out of school you're "done" learning is the worst thing you can think. You have to always be pushing yourself because if you don't, no-one else will. That's why so many of the people I went to school with have left the city, because they couldn't handle that part of it. It's difficult, because you need to be honest with yourself and evaluate how your career is progressing, but you also need to determine whether or not this is really something you must pursue, if you could not be happy doing anything else in life. Me, I don't really know. Right now, yes, this is what I have to be doing. But a year from now, or 5 years from now that could change. You have to be open to that possibility, just as you have to be open to the opportunities that will come your way.

I have to keep believing that opportunities will come, or I'd probably quit and go home. Hell, I've already had opportunities come my way, and I'm grateful. Now if only I could convince my parents, I'd be set.

Phew

One of the busiest days I've had in a while; up at 9 to be at ImaginAsian for 11, had some time to glance over scripts and sort through some of the stuff Rocawear gave us because a certain someone was late as always. That's so fucking frustrating. I mean, when you work in theater and film/tv you get used to the different schedules; in theater (the good productions I've been involved in, at least) when they give you a call time they actually expect you to be ready to go at that time, meaning you show up 10-15 minutes early. In film/tv you get a call time, you show up, everyone's there but stuff always needs to be done, whether it's setting up lights or talking out the shot or what have you, so you're invariably waiting for an hour or so before anything actually happens. I wonder if, on bigger budget shoots, this trend continues or if, because there's more money and there's more accountability required, they're more stringent. It probably depends on the director.

In any event, the last person arrived at around 12:30; I'm pretty sure we didn't start shooting until 2ish. Knocked out 4 promos in about 4 hours with a short break for lunch. Honestly, wearing all the Roca shit I think I look so ludicrous. First of all, it's not really my style of clothing and second of all it's fucking HUGE on me. Nothing they sent was smaller than a large, and I've got your typical Asian frame, so it's basically like some bastard thought to himself, hey, how can we make him look even smaller onscreen?

Had to run at 6 because I'm doing a reading for a new musical by C. Y. Lee (wrote the original book of Flower Drum Song). First of all, the musical itself is sorta...not the best. Well, I'll be honest, I think it sucks. I mean, the music is ok, the lyrics are decent, there's just no point to the thing. Personally, I don't find there to be much in the way of character development and so many of the songs feel like they're just thrown in so there's a song, instead of developing as a natural extension of the scene. It's nowhere close to Rodgers and Hammerstein, much less Sondheim or Jason Robert Brown, and maybe I'm being overly critical, but there's honestly very little in the world I can think of that's worse than bad musical theater. Maybe bad musical theater starring washed up television or pop stars, but that's a whole other post topic.

The most disappointing thing has been that my voice is shit right now. I never had the strongest voice (got dealt a fair number of Astaire songs while in school, as well as the requisite Asian Rodgers and Hammerstein fare), and the combination of not having worked on any musicals or taking voice lessons in about 3 years and a couple of throat infections/vicious colds I've had in that same period have contributed to make my voice a fucking terror. I needed to beat my ass into some voice lessons, like, YESTERDAY.

Overheard in New York

A couple nuggets before I take off:

Hobo: I need money for food.
Guy: Me too, mind if I borrow some from your cup?

--86th & Lexington

A couple walks by holding hands, a tall man and a short woman.

Chick: What's with the Wookie-Ewok love?
Guy: Dude, that's harsh.

--13th & University

Girl: You know her, she's making stuff up again!
Crazy woman: Hey! Did you just call me Chewbacca?

--1 train

Overheard by: poptart

Girl #1: Look, that policewoman has a seeing-eye dog! Isn't that cool?
Girl #2: Oh yeah, cool, they have them here for that anti-terrorism shit.
Cop lady: ...Is she friggin' kidding me?

--Yankee Stadium

Overheard by: Tara B

That site is possibly the greatest ever.

Wonderland

I wake up and the white rabbit is there, waiting for me with liquid eyes. He beckons me to follow, but when I swing my feet off the bed there's no floor and I'm falling towards a round red door that says, "Please knock." The doorbell rings and the butler opens the door and I'm walking in the garden where I saw you for the first time. I turn and you're standing there in your dress of stars and daisies and smiling your crooked smile. I go blind; my vision blurs and then goes dark. I stumble forward, fumbling towards the ecstasy of your hands, to hold you one last time, but you're gone and in your place is a statue. I hit the statue and it shatters, revealing the white rabbit at its core. "Follow the yellow brick road," he says, so I do. It leads me up into the sky past munchkins and sunflowers. They're singing a song I know but I can't remember the words, and just as I start to remember they stop. "Please," I say, "Don't stop," but they don't respond and I walk on in silence. The castle looms in front of me; I knock and the door opens and I'm in the garden again. I wonder how many times I've done this circle and if I'll ever escape it. "You could," the white rabbit tells me, "But you don't want to."

Random Book Quote

Been working my way through American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, for the past few days:

"It's a tragedy, is it not? The little faces on the milk cartons - although I can't remember the last time I saw a kid on a milk carton - and on the walls of freeway rest areas. 'Have you seen me?' they ask. A deeply existential question at the best of times."

One of the interesting things I've noticed about many of the best kid's books (not that American Gods is a kid's book) is that at the root of it, there's a single question that is asked of the main character over and over. In Alice in Wonderland it's who are you, in Wizard of Oz it's where are you going and in Winnie the Pooh it's what do jagulars do? (They shout halloo and when you look up, they drop on you).

Ok, so I made that last one up, but I just wanted to mention Winnie the Pooh because it's the awesomest ever. (tiddly pom)

I find it interesting that these basic questions, which are obviously the kinds of things kids, going through the developmental stages of their lives, are asking themselves (who am I, where am I going), permeate these stories which have endured all these years, and I would guess that it might be one of the reasons why they do so. Really, they're questions that anyone of any age might find themselves faced with, which is why I found it neat when I read Wizard of Oz and a few of the Alice stories and found the questions repeated over and over.

I remember mentioning this in passing in a conversation to one of my roommates, who responded, "Whoa, deep." Whoa, deep, indeed. I salute you, sir, for your vocabularic prowess.

China Tortures People?

Clicky.

Now, I don't mean to be asinine, but come on...is there anyone out there who's honestly surprised to find out that China continues to torture people? It's like all those Falun Gong/Dafa people who are somehow lining the streets of New York these days (I mean, if China's really THAT bad, how the hell did they get out? You can't exactly innertube across the Pacific), and they're all handing out flyers and stuff about how horrible China is and I just want to say to them, "Really? It sucks living in China? You have no freedom? NO SHIT." But then I don't because karma is a bitch. Um, so instead I type it out in my blog. Well, maybe that's not so bad.

China is not a democracy, and I don't know that it ever will be a democracy; much like the current situation in Iraq, it takes a lot more than "free" elections to create a democracy, whether it's a democratic republic or a parliamentary democracy (which, I believe, are the two more precise definitions of "democracies" currently existing in the world). Certainly in our lifetimes, China isn't going to change all that much, because the people in power have a lot riding on it not changing. From the situations with Tibet and Taiwan to the growing income gap between the new ultra-rich and the continually poor rural masses (sounding like a Marxist here), the powerful in China have never shown even the slightest care for typical liberal democratic niceties, and I don't see any reason to believe one day they'll wake up and suddenly will. It's true that in American politics, some of the biggest reformers (Teddy Roosevelt, FDR) came from monied backgrounds, but here they had a system where they could appeal to the public and couldn't be shoved aside. In China, I'm thinking if you rub the wrong people the wrong way there's still a pretty good chance you can end up in prison, no matter high up you are.

Unsent

I've been debating whether or not to put this up, as I wrote it...last night? Two nights ago? I forget. Oh well. As the title of this post suggests, this is an unsent letter.

Maybe you're wondering why I haven't called you in a bit. You're probably not, but let's pretend you are for the sake of this letter.
I'm really tired of always being the one to call and always feeling ignored. I'm better than that. I deserve better than that. I think you do too. I think you're not happy where you are right now and maybe I could help, but who am I to say that to you and to tell you how to live your life.
It's not all about you, too. (note: this doesn't really make sense to me now, but hey, I wrote this at like 2 am and I'm just leaving it in for full accuracy) I think you're beautiful. I want you. I respect you. I'm a nice fucking guy and I wish you could see that and want that.
Maybe you do and you're afraid. More likely I'm too nice and you're not attracted. That's fine, but I wish you'd tell me instead of leading me on. Maybe you're not. Maybe you don't even realize you are. I don't care.
I could have loved you, I think. Maybe I still could. But I need to say goodbye right now. I hope this helps. It probably won't. Why the hell do I get so hung up on women? Am I just in love with the idea of being in love? What the fuck is wrong with me?

A Warm Place

The fire was slowly dying, so I reached into it and pulled out its heart. I gave it to you, to keep you warm, but you dropped it on the ground. “That's not enough,” you said. I asked you what you wanted and you said it was nothing I could give, and then you started to cry. Your tears washed me away, down the hills and over the streams until I ended up in a playground where horses rode children and wolves danced around the swings like lost boys. They sang an ancient song of love and loss, and I thought I could understand the words but that was just a coincidence. I asked the wolves how to get home and they pointed towards the slide, so I ran up it. At the top of the slide was the moon, full and pregnant. I jumped on top of it and it rose into the sky as raindrops fell; rain fell all around and made me think of you because whenever I picture you you're always crying. I wish I knew how to make you stop but then I realize I'm crying too and always have been. Maybe that's what love is, looking for the person who can stop the tears, tears of rage and anger and cold and soul. And maybe love is realizing that you can stop them yourself, that you're the only one who really can, and then sharing that knowledge with another and helping them to realize it too. I want to find you to tell you this, but then I remember you left me years ago and aren't coming back.

Random Thought

Just watched Manhattan, a Woody Allen flick from '79. Is there another piece of music that sums up New York better than Rhapsody in Blue? And do I only think that because others have used it in New York montage/movies? But then, in order for it to have been selected, those people must have felt the connection too, right?

All I know is that when I hear Rhapsody in Blue, I think New York and I get a little choked up. Every time. I like that.

More News Linkage Fun

Clicky.

The thing that gets me about that story is where the Dutch contingent is mentioned:

"In the spring, the Netherlands had 1,400 troops in Iraq. Today, there are 19, including a lone Dutch soldier in Baghdad."

One guy? What the hell is that? And what does one lone Dutchman do in Baghdad that's oh so important, anyway? Sell tulips? Operate a windmill? Seriously.

Say It Ain't So

Click.

Was anyone else out there under the impression that that pile of crap (which I suppose I shouldn't call that since I never actually watched it, but seeing as how this is my blog, I'll go ahead and say it anyways) had already been cancelled? Seriously. I've never met anyone who would admit to ever watching a single episode, much less coming BACK and watching a second. And I do feel kinda bad for what's his name...Matt LeBlanc, but not really all that bad, since he had a good run and should have known that the spinoff likely would not go anywhere. I'm sure he'll be crying into his $300 glass of wine and resigning himself to the television purgatory of VH1 reality serieses and whatnot. Sucks to be him, doesn't it?

Write write write

The sun has set, and the steeple looms in the darkness. I climb to the top, shivering all the way. "I've been waiting," you say. "I know," I say, "But I wasn't ready, and besides, my coat wasn't big enough for the two of us." You smile and I open my coat with universes on the inside and wrap it around you. You tell me you like it and ask me where I got it. "In a garage sale," I say. We sit while cupboards open and shut. The tap is still running, but neither of us are worried. "How was your first day back?" you say. I don't reply because all I can think of is the smell of you, all around me. I close my eyes and when I open them you're gone but your smell remains in the air, like a spring yet to come. I look for you, but you're nowhere, so I dive off the steeple and into a sea of faces where no-one is real. They push and pull and I'm stabbing and fighting but it's all so pointless. I see you in the distance; you wave and turn away. I stop because I realize I don't know what happens next. A man taps me on the arm and points towards a flower shop. I buy sunflowers because they're your favorite and rip the heads off them. I cry, but they're not tears, they're sunflower seeds. I crack one open and out hops a little man. "Hello," he says, "How have you been?" "I don't know," I say, "I just got here."

More Writing

Bethesda
For how long have you stood sentinel here?
Your outstretched hands offering succor and shelter to the supplicants in the square.
What wishes lie within your bronzed breast
And where would you fly, if you could?
Or would you choose to stay
Crowned forever with your trinity:
Three solitudes, each refusing to acknowledge one another,
Like the cherubs below you
Staring blankly away from their companions.

No water runs today;
Life has ended.
But the stains remain;
A reminder, and a promise for the future.


This next thing I'm not too sure what it is...I just let my mind wander and kept writing.

The angel had water running down her face and she turned to me and said, "This is not yours," so we took flight and roared through the skies like the faint echoes of a police siren screaming as it winds its way down the paths of the park, paths I walk down with your hand in mine. We sit on the stairs and you tell me you love me and I tell you I'm nuts for nuts. Or was that me in a past life? The trees rustle and tell us to move on but we won't be bullied and we sit while others come and go around us, talking in languages that haven't been invented yet, and it's all so petty and done. The wind blows and the cradle rocks and the chattering foreigners leave us to our decay. You say you're scared and I feel numb like a leaf. We take a picture so we'll always have a memory that we'll wish we could forget but we can't because we don't really want to. I want to tell you I hate you but a pigeon gets in the way and then you get on its back and fly away from me. "Come back," I say, "I know what I did wrong," but I'm glad you don't because that's a lie. I look around and there is youth everywhere and I wonder when I got old and if this is the thanks I get or maybe I've made this bed. The girls in front of me are distracting me, so they turn into leaves and roll down the path. I hear laughter on the other side of the square, and then a wave sweeps me into the reservoir where I sink like a stone. And then it's not water after all, and I'm back on the stairs with you and we start to dance. You have sunshine for hair and moonlight for eyes and I think if I kiss you I can take your beauty inside of me and make myself real. Or is that worthy? A baby cries and I'm falling through time and across bricks while clicking heels keep time and I'm screaming but the only thing that comes out is ink, ink like a river that I dive into and ride while it runs through it and out the other side, where you're waiting for me and always have been. The leaves are changing color and the sun is on the tops of the clouds. "And I wanted the outside freedom," you say, but I won't give it to you so I give you a thimble instead. You take the thimble and throw it away, and it grows into a can that rattles away and then stops. People line the railing above us and take pictures, but they can't see us because we're too real. The baby is still crying but no-one cares, and you ask me how long I've been in love with you. "I don't know," I say, "But there's a helicopter overhead somewhere." You nod and we skip down the road above the trees and for a while I think everything's going to be fine.

Conversations with my Mother

"So what's Mike Anderson* doing these days?" (name changed to protect the innocent)
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Yeah, I don't know; we lost touch, I haven't spoken to him in about 2-3 years."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Gosh...I guess all you kids became friends because you had the same dreams, and lost touch now that all your dreams are popping...popping like bubbles! Ha ha ha...popping like bubbles!"
"..."

Shit, this one I tried my hardest to remember word for word...I should have gotten up and typed it out right away. Oh well.
(opening my door somewhere between 3-5 am)
"John?"
"Uhhhhh?"
"Were you in trouble or anything?"
"Whaaa?"
"I remember, I tried to call you for about 2 weeks and you never picked up, were you in trouble?"
".....no?"
"No?"
"No." (at this point I'm remembering this time, it was because she needed these tax forms filled out and I hadn't gotten them done yet and I knew that was what she was going to call and bitch about so I just didn't pick up the phone)
"Nobody took all your money or anything?"
"No."
(she closes the door and steps out, only to return a moment later with this:)
"Are you gay?"
"...............no?"

Commentary later. Out to lunch.

Alright Stop...Collaborate and Listen

www.picturesofwalls.com

Teh Funneh

Click. Here's my favorite of the batch I just scrolled through (wish I could just link to the post):

Guy #1: How long have we been coming here and how long has that waitress been working here?
Guy #2: She's been here for at least 2 years.
Guy #3: She must be the worst actress in all of New York City.

--Brother Jimmy's, 3rd Avenue

Overheard by: Fritz Chestnut

I wonder how you get to post those? Can just anyone send them in? And someone selects which one to put up? I love eavesdropping on conversations...

Edit: Anyone CAN send them in...I need to start listening more carefully and writing shit down!

Hey! Teacher! Leave those kids alone

www.picturesofwalls.com

I'm thinking I might make this a daily-ish ritual...like my version of Pee Wee's word of the day. I did end up writing that poem last night but I'm not quite sure if it's done or not. Well...what the hell.

2 Train
Rolling sarcophagi
Thundering through the catacombs, filled with the dead and dying.
Badoombadoom. Badoombadoom. Badoombadoom.
A bottle travels back and forth on the floor
An underground metronome for the song and dance.
"What stop you getting out at?"

"So I said to him - "

"Man, that's bullshit."

"110."

"what the fuck you think - "

"I know, right?"

A sharp curve. Gravities
shift; bodies move as one.
An escape opens
The turnstiles await; silver dance hall hostesses
2 dollars, 2 dances
Step turn turn step
Up the stairs, into the rain
Tiny universes impacting on your face
As the city rushes by below you.

More Pomes!

There's just something about this class that bores the crap out of me. Well, I'm not really bored, it's just that I can keep pretty good track of the conversation and not really have to think all that much. Hm...now that I think about it, I'm probably not keeping the best tabs on the conversation, but oh well.

Blackboard
Currents of grey on a scorched field
Swirling and swooping, zigging and zagging.
How many facts could they tell us?
How many layers of thought, scrubbed away and written on top of one another,
Each replacing each: marching lemmings

But tonight you are pristine
A fresh-faced ingenue ready to sing a song of
Fears
Aspirations
Ideas
Loves
Expectations
Dreams.
Come into the light.
I will listen.

Coat Rack
Staggered hooks,
Footsteps in the snow.
Three coats in a line.
Grey. Blue. Orange.
Hanging; cold and motionless marionettes.
A bag, straining to touch the ground,
Bursting with hidden treasures.
An umbrella lounging lengthwise:
A woman in black, waiting to be taken out for a night on the town.

The titles suck, but that's what the poems are about, so bite me. I actually have the germ of an idea for another one that hit me as I was coming home, but I haven't written anything down yet...just an idea I'm probably going to work on for the next little bit.

I know, I can hear your breathless anticipation. But sooth! How can I hear it if it's breathless? HOW ZEN.

My Kind of Dog

www.picturesofwalls.com

Hm...so the stupid hello program I use isn't letting me upload more than one pic to a post, or maybe I just don't know how to do it. Anyways (and I swear I'm out the door as soon as I finish this post), I followed a link off of Banksy's site to this one...I think I have a new fun obsession to sit and click on when I'm bored. Nooch!

A Question to Live By

www.picturesofwalls.com

Sigh

So I really need to get going to grab lunch, if nothing else, buuuuut:

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few. But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

I dunno about Showgirls...but Office Space and Big Lebowski? Fuck yeah! Although it kinda sucks that those are supposed to represent my life.

Gawd, kill me now

So I'm totally becoming obsessed with these trite blogthings things...I've always enjoyed quizzes and now I just have a pathetic excuse to sit here clicking on these things until I realize I've been doing it for an hour and man my ass is sore.

The funny thing is, they probably don't really tell you (and by you I mean any readers out there) all that much about me. I mean, if I got an answer I didn't like or didn't agree with, do you think I'd actually post it up here? Shit no!

That said, here's one I just did:

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved. You'd like to your lover to think you are loyal and faithful... that you'll never change. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred. In this moment, you think of love as something you can get or discard anytime. You're feeling self centered.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Spanglish

Just finished watching it - I'd seen it before, but a roommate put it on so I watched it again. It's a surprisingly good movie, with the best acting performance I've seen Adam Sandler pull off. It's actually interesting to see him trying to break away from the persona he's built up over the past decade or so...it's unfortunate that I don't think (economically speaking) he's really ever going to be able to do it. But I definitely respect the attempt, and the underlying sentiment of it.

It's a little surprising that it (the movie) affects me so much, I suppose, as the main thrust of the story deals with the relationship between parents and children: in this case, daughters. Not the first time I've felt a connection to and an involvement in a story about mothers and daughters (Joy Luck Club), which I suppose could say something interesting about me. I'm going to go with I just happen to be a little extra sensitive because I'm an artist. Yeah, that sounds good.

It's also a little bit about immigration and assimilation, with a dash of star-crossed love thrown in for extra seasoning. I don't know if straight up WASP-y type people would really be able to see the point being made in terms of assimilation and the issues that go along with being a minority parent, but it's definitely there. Not that I'm knocking WASPs, Lord knows I love 'em, it just might not be something that they would see as a big deal, because they might not understand what that's like. I don't even know if I understand what that's like. I mean, I know my experience, but I know there are millions and millions of others grappling with the same issues in their own way.

I guess maybe the reason why it affects me is because I'm getting close to the age when being a parent isn't that odd of an idea. It's funny how things come in waves...like one year, everyone you went to high school with seems to be getting married...then the next year they're all having babies. I'm still at the point where the idea of marriage is bizzare, not because I have a problem with the idea, but because I can't see myself getting married when I don't know what the fuck is going to be happening in my life in the next year, or 5 years from now, or 10, and I can't see committing to something like marriage without having at least a bit of an idea. And of course, I tend to extend that to all the people I know - hence my reaction to my roommate Sara's being engaged. Well, that and the fact that the guy that she's marrying is...you know what? Let's not go there, I don't need the negative energy.

I've always been terrified of being a parent, in the scattered moments when I stop being worried about finding someone to live my life with, much less have kids with. Again, not because the concept of kids is frightening, but because it's so much responsibility. I mean, you have a life, you have a person that it is your job to raise and make an intelligent member of society out of. I was going to say productive, but that makes it sound like all you have to do is raise a fucking accountant, which strikes me as a great way to end up with the most boring society ever. And if you screw up, there's no going back. There's no manual, there's no guide, there's nothing but you and all the little hangups and issues you've built up over 20-30 years of living on the planet.

Sometimes there's a lot of attraction to the thought of being Holden Caulfield. You know, not in the whole nervous breakdown sense, but the catcher in the rye idea. You want to shield kids from all the nasty shit that's waiting out there for them, but if you do it too much, you turn them into little spoiled bastards. But then, if you just let them run loose they also become little spoiled bastards. So it's got to be somewhere in the middle.

Realizing this has played a big role in the recent (last 4-5 years) reconciliation I've been able to feel towards my mom. I still don't agree with a lot of the things she does, but when shit happens now I'm usually able to take a breath, count to 10, think what must be going through her head and shrug it off. It's not perfect, I don't pretend to be, but I can say that I do respect and love her, which is a lot more than I used to be able to say. I'm glad I've come to this place; it's a much nicer place than where I was.

Fucking sweet!

The Cure Shares Your Taste in Music

See their whole playlist here (iTunes required)

Which Musician (or Group) Shares Your Taste in Music?

Man, I would have been goddamn DEVASTATED if it turned out to be like...Britney or some other useless twiddle.

Captured by Robots!

Caught this "band" at TriBeCa last night. Band isn't in quotes because they sucked, they were actually pretty awesome - the quotes are because the band is actually one guy and 8 robots he made himself from scratch. He doesn't even have a roadie, so when he goes out on tour he drives all day, or however long it takes him to get to the place he's playing, then sets up all his stuff, plays his set, does his own merch and then breaks his stuff down. Even if he sucked ass, you have to respect that much dedication and drive.

The motif for the tour he's doing right now is...um...well, I forget the specific name he had but it's Star Trek:TNG themed. So, picture one dude in an S&M mask and a Trekker uniform surrounded by 8 robots screaming out metal songs like "Wesley Crusher Fuck You" and such. It's actually quite funny, and the robots kinda have to be seen to be believed. He's got two in the back that have a set routine (in this case, it's Geordi and Worf) and then two robots in the front that do some more impromptu stuff (telling him to fuck off and die and such). I can honestly say I've never seen anything quite like it. In a good way, of course.

Hm...what else. Watched Casablanca today for the first time; it's quite good. Ingrid Bergman was quite the looker, though my favorite actress from that era remains Grace Kelly. There's actually a surprising number of storylines and themes running through the movie, the main one being the love between Bogart and Bergman. But it's interesting how that love is interwoven with the war, and also interesting to consider the fact that the movie was released in '42, when the US had just entered, meaning that it had probably been shot prior to Pearl Harbor.

I always wonder if authors/filmmakers deliberately aim for symbolism and allegory in their stories; I suppose it varies according to the individual and the project. Lord of the Rings, for example, can be viewed from many different perspectives, but I know Tolkien never felt it represented anything more than the history of Middle-Earth, and he hated allegory. It's very difficult to avoid seeing the parallels in Casablanca with the real situation though; Bogart, the American, is determined to avoid becoming entangled in the war raging across Europe and Africa, but in the end he becomes an active participant. It's a very fine line to tread without getting pedantic and tedious, but when it's done properly it adds a whole new element to fiction.

I keep getting distracted by the Hairspray soundtrack, which I was never able to play on my computer before so I haven't listened to it in like 2-3 years. Oddly enough, it worked today, so now it's playing. I remember seeing it when it first opened and being completely captivated by Harvey Fierstein's performance, which is just as good on the soundtrack. Groovy!

Banksy

Banksy's (http://www.banksy.co.uk) balloon girl graffiti

Banksy is a graffiti artist who lives in Britain...London, to be precise, I believe. The work of his I've seen is absolutely brilliant. His website has a pile of pictures of his work, though possibly the most interesting thing is his manifesto.

Nasdaq Fun!

No, I'm not listed on the stock market. But today I saw the iaTV ad on the Nasdaq sign in Times Square. It's the one that looks north on Broadway...if you're standing at the NYPD precinct and look to the south, it'll be on your left.

The ad itself is a quick montage of various shows in the various categories, and as such my appearance is quite brief. But still.

Times fucking Square!

Jimbo started asking me about this, so it's probably only a matter of time until he tracks it down. In the event that he's reading this right now...Jimbo rocks! Yeah!

What else have I been up to...spent a few hours at MoMA the other day. Very cool, some fascinating pieces up there. Oddly enough, my favorite exhibit was actually not a conventional painting or sculpture - it was a single, square room with a couple benches in the middle and a large number (40 or so?) of speakers set up in a circle, facing inwards, with each speaker projecting a part (perhaps 1 speaker for each singer) of a choir singing some chorale. I spent a few minutes sitting on the bench just listening and letting the sound wash over me.

Also went and saw my first draq queen performance...I had no idea that almost all of them lip synched! I guess it makes sense, I'd just never really thought about it before. That said, one performer didn't and she (I believe they're referred to as shes when in drag) was fan-fucking-tastic. Her name's Grenadine Ross, and if you're into drag queens and you see her on a bill, I can wholeheartedly recommend her. It's a bit nepotistic, as she is a friend of a friend, but she really is quite a performer. The only odd thing about the night was that it was at this bar, OW Bar, and they insisted on referring to it as "Oh Double-U" Bar. I mean, come on. It's fucking "ow" bar. That's just like calling N.E.R.D. "Enn Eee Arr Dee" all the damn time...it's "nerd", get over it or name it something else. Retards.

Holy Fucking Shit Fucking...Yeah

As the song goes...

"What's in the Daily News...I'll tell ya what's in the Daily News..............."

ME.

Oh yeah, and the other Morty's guys. BUT ME! Clicky!

Oh yeah

I did this IQ test over on Tickle a while back and I got 140. I r teh r0x0r.

Chasing Life

So I was watching Chasing Amy last night, and at the end of it, the roomie I was watching it with (who was in tears, as she frequently is by the end of practically every movie) commented that, "That movie is so depressing," because he loses the love of his life and his best friend.

From that perspective, obviously it's pretty sad. But I don't tend to find it all that depressing, nor is that the way I look at it. I mean, yes, he does lose contact with those two individuals (I think...it's implied). But I think the message that Kevin Smith was really aiming for is that the genuine relationships you have in your life, whether romantic or friendly, are the ones that have the capacity to change you for the better, even - and perhaps especially - if you end up losing contact with those people, because your journeys take you in different directions. Or, in this case, because you ask them to have a ménage â trois with you. Holden loses Bankie and Alyssa, but he is able to grow through the experiences he has with them, and is ultimately better off not only for knowing them, but also because of the pain he is forced to go through, pain he brings on himself.

It's funny how knowing people and being in situations changes you and you never realize it. Usually it takes someone else's perspective to notice those changes. I think back on the person I was 4 years ago, and then 4 years before that and it makes me feel mildly ashamed. A lot of that I chalk up to retarded youth and generally having even less of a clue than I do now. It's funny, actually, I'd say the only advances that I've made in that area are somewhat Socratic: it's not that I have more knowledge, it's quite the opposite...I'm aware of the fact that I don't know anything.

My dad is always asking me what my plan is, where I'm going, the sort of things most parents wonder about their kids. I always want to say I have no idea. Where's Morty's going? Beats me. How long am I going to be able to stay in New York? Dunno. What am I going to do for money? I'll figure that out when I run out.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been listening to a lot of NIN (Pretty Hate Machine/Downward Spiral) and Nirvana lately...it's been a total junior high musical revival. That shit rawks.

Other thoughts

So I spent some time in Barnes and Noble today, reading some Buddhism books. Since seeing the Dalai Lama here in New York, I've always felt a fascination with Tibetan Buddhism, and doing Kwatz! meant I got a fair bit of research done, but there is, of course, volumes and volumes more to read.

One of the things mentioned in one of the books I flicked through today was that in order to truly love other people, you must love yourself. I also kinda cobbled this thought together with one from a book on Bruce Lee, in which he mentioned that there were 4 types of ethical systems, one of which was based around the opinions of others.

I think a lot of the time, the reason why I'm so nice to people is because I want them to like me. I want them to think I'm a good person; I want them to validate me and my existence.

In order to break out of this cycle and begin to love yourself, you have to acknowledge what it is that you fear. So that got me thinking...what is my biggest fear?

The first one that jumped out at me was being alone. But then I also thought of my general fear of inadequacy: never being smart enough, attractive enough, interesting enough, whatever. So there I sat, mulling over which one was the big one.

Eventually, the realization I came to was that my fear of inadequacy is what leads to my fear of being alone. Why am I afraid of being alone? Why is it that I fall (or, actually, convince myself that I've fallen) so hard for people I meet who show even the least bit of interest in me? Because I'm afraid that I'm not really good enough to attract someone, something that my experience has, with a few exceptions, validated.

So now that I know that's what I'm afraid of...what do I do?

Deep seated fears like that can't be changed overnight. I'm not even sure they can be changed at all. It is a process, and a journey. I think they can be overcome. So, every day, I will try to do so. I will not let myself believe that I am not enough. But I'm also not expecting it to change overnight. There are no ends; only means. If you focus on a goal, inevitably you will be disappointed because either you fail to reach the goal or you reach it only to find yourself still unsatisfied, so you create another goal for yourself, and so on. You end up spending your whole life pursuing a goal, and you're never good enough because there's always another goal to reach for.

What you can do is turn your focus inwards. Monitor yourself. And there, in the silences of your soul, something may start to grow; something that, if you nurture it well, will be your journey, your answer and the question all rolled up into one beautiful little package. The answers are all inside of you; what's really important is which question you choose to ask, or if you even choose to ask at all.

It sounds so New Age-y and hokey, I suppose. But it's the only thing I've got right now.

Hail Poetry!

Well, I'm not normally one to write poetry, but the other day I was sitting in class and a phrase kept drumming through my head, so I wrote it down...and then everything else that came afterwards.

I have walked alone
to find your face
to feel your eyes

Swirling eddies
Mist-covered lakes.
They clear,
I am found

The mutterings around me
Mouthings that pass by
Rolling overhead;dragging me under.
But I surface
Again
And again

Where are you hiding?
In the forests of my memory
Weaving in and out of the trees
Always ahead, never behind and never beside.
I hear your smile in the breezes
Sighing to the river

The forest ends.
You are lost.
I am found.

I don't flatter myself by thinking it's good; actually, it's probably quite crap. But it's mine, so there it is.

PS

For anyone who wondered, it is actually pronounced "Rock-ah Wear". I always thought it was "Roh-ka Wear", like something Al Roker would wear, but I guess I was wrong.

Now that I think about it though, an Al Roker clothing line would be spec-fucking-tacular.

Roc the Casbah!

So we're at the Roca Wear offices today picking out clothes and Trevor pointed this interesting little detail out. See, one of the racks in one of the rooms they took us into was clothes intended for spring - two years from now. So a lot of the clothes on the rack weren't finished, and to simulate the details they actually had stickers on the clothes, just like you can see in the pic. Cool, huh?

Man, I hope I can't get sued for this.

Bored out my skull

Yes, I am bored.

Finished the Cary Grant bio, it was good. Would love to get some more about other icons from that era, but not really sure where to start or which ones are good. Ideally I'd love Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly or Marilyn, because they're my other favorites from that era...I don't know if there's any out on the first two and there's too damn much written about Marilyn, so not quite sure what I'm going to do there.

The new nerdy obsession is Admiral Horatio Nelson, of the Battle of Trafalgar fame. Who would be interested in something odd like that, you ask? Me, goddammit. DON'T JUDGE ME.

It's funny, the reason why I picked this one was because every time I walked through the biography section at the Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Center, this book would be sitting with its cover facing out and it would catch my eye every time - the cover is a close-up on the face of a portrait of Nelson. So kudos to whoever put that on the cover. You bastard.

Oh, I know something else I can talk about: my most recent iTunes purchase. Jason Robert Brown is, in my opinion, the best young songwriter on Broadway. That cd is actually a collection of songs he wrote and performed himself. He isn't the strongest singer, but he's acceptable...and it's really more about the lyric anyways, as most musical theater since the 70s tends to be. The three best songs on there, in my opinion, of course (and seeing as how this is my blog, that's the only one that matters), are "Someone to Fall Back On", "Nothing in Common" and "I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You", though I'm starting to hate that last one now for having such a long goddamn name. "Someone to Fall Back On" and the third one (I refuse to even copy-paste that travesty of a title) are about relationships, and "Nothing in Common" is actually about his brother. Here's a bit of the lyric to "Someone to Fall Back On":

...and I'll be that
I'll take your side
if I'm the only one i'm used to that
I've been alone i'd rather be
the half of us
the least of you
the best of me
and I'll be your prince
I'll be your saint
I will go crashing through fences in your name
I will, I swear I'll be someone to fall back on
I'll be the one who waits
and for as long as you let me I will be the one you need
I'll be someone to fall back on, your prince, your saint
the one you believe you need I'll be

Thinking about why I like the song so much, I actually have kind of a love-hate relationship with it. I mean, what he expresses in it is/was the way I looked at relationships, and what I wanted to be in a relationship. But I'm also tired of having that being taken advantage of, or taken for granted. Not to mention it frequently lands you nothing but a big trip to the friend zone, which just sucks. I don't want to be the one who waits anymore, the one who's always there for you. I have my shit that I want to take care of, and maybe for once I want to be pursued a bit, to feel like the other person is as interested in getting to know me as I am in getting to know her. That's what frustrates me about Stef a bit, actually - she says she likes hanging out with me and wants to get to know me better, and then she barely fucking calls. And yes, she's busy with class and job and, you know, her relationship (heh), but still. Friendships and relationships are both two way streets, and I'm tired of always being the one to compromise.

Oops

So one of my roommates, Sara, apparently was proposed to by the guy she'd been dating for a while (a year or so? Beats me) and is now engaged.

No, that's not the oops.

The oops is that when she TOLD me (and showed me the ring) I thought it was like...some kind of a joke? Like she'd gotten the ring in a box of Cracker Jack and was being cute or something. So I think in response to her telling me that she was engaged, I kinda chuckled. Or maybe I smirked. God, I don't remember what I did (and I'm certainly not going to ASK her), but I'm pretty sure it was to the typical engagement congratulatory display what Danielle Steel is to J. R. R. Tolkien.

Now I'm stuck in a bit of a quandary...do I apologize? Or is it too late? I think it's a bit too late now. Maybe my reaction wasn't that bad, maybe it was acceptable. I mean, she didn't look PISSED...but then maybe she was just hiding it. Beats me.

So yeah...oops.

Cary Grant was a WHAT?

Among the interesting shifts in my tastes over the past year or so has been an appreciation for biography. I'm not really too sure where it came from - I think the first one I picked up was Master of the Senate, which is part 3 of Robert Caro's HUGE biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. I didn't really touch any more biography, though that one was incredible, until My Life, which I'm not really sure if you can classify as biography, or even autobiography, given what its detractors say are its many omissions.

Generally, I guess it's part of a larger non-fiction awakening I had. More recently, this led me to the Founding Fathers of America, with one excellent book by Joseph Ellis and a biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow which was fantastic, and then one he wrote on John D. Rockefeller. I think he's got one more I'll be picking up eventually, on J. P. Morgan.

Anyways, I'm currently working my way through one on Cary Grant, born Archibald Leach...good change there. And it turns out that, among other things, Grant was apparently gay. Isn't it odd how you never really think that famous people from the past might have been gay, and then you find out they are and it's like...huh...didn't see that one coming.

By far the most interesting aspect of his story has been the calculation behind the creation of the Cary Grant persona. He actually named his dog Archibald Leach; is it just me or is that a bit crazy? But the amount of work that went into the creation of Cary Grant the star: the number of years it took him working in the studio system before he was able to break out, the precise rehearsing of his roles and the control he demanded over his characters in order to ensure that he would be viewed the way he wanted to be are fascinating and illuminating. Man, I dream of having the luxury of turning down parts because they won't showcase me in the way I want. Right now I'd do just about anything for that kind of break. I say just about because the universe has a funny sense of humor, which typically involves giving you what you wish for but in a really fucked up way that you weren't really expecting because you weren't specific enough about what you wanted.

Speaking of which, Jimbo told me that when ImaginAsian opens here in New York, they'll be running ads in Times Square, possibly with the faces of those of us in Uncle Morty's up there. That simultaneously excites and terrifies me. I have this image of me camped out in Times Square on a blanket watching for the ads and scurrying away the second they actually come on, then coming back once they're over to watch for the next appearance.

Scenes from the Met

Irony, thy name is the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So anyways, I spent a fun day walking around the Met. They have an awesome exhibit of Van Gogh's drawings up right now. This was actually the second time I've been, I went a year or two ago when they had an exhibit of Da Vinci's drawings. That time I just went in for the exhibit and left though, this time I spent a few hours walking around and saw a ton of art...a surprising number of Rodin sculptures, the Asian art area, the European painting section (Renoir, Degas, Manet, Monet, a couple by Van Gogh and Seurat) and the modern art section, which was mostly kinda crappy aside from the one Pollack, a couple Warhols and some of O'Keefe's work. On the whole, quite enjoyable.

Things have cooled off with Stef. I've been reading (and re-reading) Letters to a Young Poet, by Ranier Maria Rilke. Um, I just realized those two things don't really have anything to do with each other. Let me refocus here.

So Stef is kinda confused (there's a shocker) and I'm backing off there. Well, she's not really confused so much as she is...still in a relationship. Yeah, it's weird, don't ask. We'll hang out, I still like spending time with her and it's cool but I'm not going to push her. Yeah, it sucks, but whatever. The reason why I bring up Rilke is because there's a passage in it where he mentiones that life is about living the questions, not looking for answers. And in a lot of ways, that was something I'd come to myself in the last year or so, about life: the point isn't to find the answers, the point is the question itself. Rilke believes that in living the questions, you will eventually find one day that you've found the answer, that it was inside you all along. Trust in life, because when you are ready for experiences, they will come your way.

At the same time, that line of thinking can be dangerous because it can lead to complacency, to a sense that if you just sit back, things will happen for you. I don't think that's what Rilke meant to say. But there has to be some kind of trade-off between active and passive, between contemplation and action. Fate, or fortune, or god or whatever will bring you to a point, and will give you all the tools you need to succeed. All you have to do is take the step.

Yeah, I don't always believe that. I have good days and bad days. But I'm hoping the former will outnumber the latter in the days to come.

Ah-HA

Yeah, so here I am again. Things are going well; I helped Stef move into her apartment last week. Made a date to grab lunch with her on Thursday. Or is it a date? I don't really know, and I think it's kind of crass to ask. I don't really know what we are, but I'm trying not to obsess over that too much. I don't know if she knows what we are, or if she's interested in me or a relationship period. I mean, there's some things you can sort of guess...like, I'm pretty sure she doesn't HATE me. But there is, of course, a pretty fine line between not hating someone and liking that person in a romantic sense. But then, maybe it won't even end up being romantic, maybe we'll just be friends.

That would kinda suck.

I tend to agree with the statement made in When Harry Met Sally, that men and women can't be friends because sex always gets in the way. I don't know if I'd say they can't be friends, but I do think that sex is always present in relationships with people of the sex whom you're attracted to (I would have said opposite sex, but not everyone's attracted to the opposite sex, I guess). You can work past it, but if you become really close with someone, I think people tend to fuse their feelings of emotional comfort with those of romantic love. Or maybe it's not even fusing. That doesn't really make sense. And then, there are also situations where people can be friends and not be attracted to each other in the least. Or are they attracted and maybe not realizing/admitting it? Anyways, the process of becoming very good friends with someone means that you get to see them at their worst and at their best, and it can be very hard not to see things to admire and appreciate - or else why are you friends with that person? Of course, then you also run into the problem of falling into the dreaded friend zone, which sucks ass.

I watched the Tao of Steve recently; it's a cute little movie. There were a number of interesting things said, though I'm not quite sure how I feel about them. The movie is all about this guy who, though out of shape and a huge slacker/pot head, manages to sleep with all sorts of women. His name, contrary to what you might think, isn't Steve; Steve is the name for the cool everyman, the Steve McQueens of the world who exude cool and sex appeal. The tao (way) of Steve is how to be like that, and attract women: to not overtly desire, to be "excellent" in front of them, and not to be their friend. Of course, in the movie he meets the "one", this girl he falls for and tosses all this aside for, which is mostly the usual Hollywood line, and also neatly allows him to negate the whole tao of Steve he had previously espoused.

I don't really want that, but I guess I just wonder sometimes how some people can be so confident and seem so knowing when it comes to dating. Then again, maybe nobody really is, outside of Hollywood scripts. I'm just trying really hard to relax and let things happen as they come. I just hope I don't end up missing an opportunity while I'm waiting for something to happen.

What do I want?

So I sat and chatted with Stef for a while today - in the afternoon and later in the evening (though that was just pure chance - we got back up here at the same time and I saw her in the station).

First of all, she was upset because I went to her play, which I guess she wasn't feeling very proud of. We talked about that for a bit - I said I wanted to see a) her work and b) her. That seemed to mollify her a bit. I could understand not being happy with the production, but I said that as a fellow actor, I know what it's like being in productions you're not proud of...I know the things you, as a single actor, can't control around you. In situations like that, all you can do is take care of your own work and do the best you can do, which I thought she did. I think it all got smoothed out - the fact that she sat and chatted with me for quite a while longer seemed to indicate the same.

Anyways, near the end of the conversation she asked me, "What do you want from me?" It sort of caught me by surprise, mainly because that's usually the kind of thing you hear through sobbing tears just before a door slams in your face or the phone gets hung up. But in her case, she meant it as a straight up question. I've been reading up on Scorpios and Sagittariuses (is that the plural?), and I've read that they're both shockingly honest. I guess that was my first demonstration of that aspect of her. Anyways, I responded as best I could - that I didn't really know what I wanted from her yet, because I didn't really know her all that well yet. I didn't say that I was interested in pursuing something, because I figured that was sort of a given. She seems to be coming from a difficult place, and the last thing I want to do is pressure her into anything.

I really think (maybe it's hope...maybe it's a bit of both) she could be someone special in my life. I don't want to tell her yet because I don't want that hanging over her. If she's going to be with me, I want her to decide that...I hope I'm not making a mistake in not saying it to her. I don't think I am.

Well shut my mouth

So I guess I didn't scare her off...she just stopped by the apartment. Oddly enough, I had been thinking that someone who'd rang the doorbell an hour or so before she actually showed up might have been her...lying in bed. Then I got up, unable to sleep, and like 10 minutes later she knocks. We had a really good conversation. I think I came across as a lot less spazzy.

Sweet!

Another month, another post

Working through the dog days of summer now...last couple of days have been disgustingly hot and humid.

Morty's will be continuing soon; Jimbo somehow ended up on the Apple site. I don't know how. Here's a few more links I've been surfing lately. The first webcomic...I think I got the link off of MacHall, and the Iraq one I actually got from one of my classes. It's so difficult to know what's really going on there, since no media can or will tell you what it's like. I guess those blogs could be being written with the express purpose of deceiving everyone who reads them, but let's hope they're not. Well, in a way that might be nice, because it would mean things over there aren't that shitty. But I'm pretty sure they are.

I've been thinking about whether or not to put this in this entry, because it seems like I always get way too excited about things like this way too early and they turn out to be nothing and I'm upset again. But anyways, I've sort of kind of met someone, though I'm getting sort of a weird vibe from her. It was good at first, but I honestly think I might have scared her off.

On some level, I know I should calm down when it comes to relationships. But I can't (is that won't?). When I meet someone and I like them, I want to be with them a lot. Is that so wrong? Apparently. I guess when (if?) it happens right, that won't be an issue. I feel like there's a lot I'm missing out on by being so crazy. But I don't know how to be anything but myself.

I always feel like when she asks me questions, I answer in the worst possible way. Not to say that I lie, I'm always honest, but I feel like I only say part of the truth to her. Like the other day, she asked me what I wanted out of a relationship. I thought about it for a bit, and said I wanted someone to love, who would love me back. Which is true. What I DIDN'T say, and what upset me afterwards when I thought about it was that I'm not LOOKING for that...if it happens, it happens. Until it happens, I'm perfectly happy to hang out, to have some laughs and some good times and, yes, generally make out and/or be intimate. But now I can't go back and SAY that to her (or can I?).

Anyways, shit like that is why I think I might have scared her off. We'll see, I guess. Fuck it.

The greatest invention of all time...

...is air conditioning. Well, to be a bit more precise, it's climate control, as indoor heating is pretty goddamn sweet in the winter. But right now, air conditioning is king, as I've finally buckled under and bought a unit for my room.

As for why I spent so long without one, I think the biggest reason is because I have a roommate who's the best friend I have here, and she's...well, not the richest person in the world. I, being relatively well off, didn't want to flaunt it or anything, so I decided that as long as she didn't have one, I could live without one too.

I don't mean to say I decided as in I actively thought about it, it was a bit unconscious and it's only now, when I bought a unit and was thinking about why I hadn't bought one yet that I hit on that reason. Anyways.

So now I have air conditioning and life is good again. I also finally got in touch with a certain someone who I'd love to date and get to know...but I'm not quite sure if I'm getting blown off or not. She says she's busy, which I can completely understand, but at the same time...does it really take all that much time to have coffee or a drink with someone? I mean, if you were interested in someone and they asked you out for a drink, couldn't you make the time?

I don't know. I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to dating in general. I just hate that you can't be straight up with people, that you always have to wonder what people mean when they say they're busy. That you can't just say, "Hey, I'm really really REALLY attracted to you and hope you are to me, but if you're not, please just say so so I can get on with things and stop wasting our time." Not that I'm not getting on with things anyways, because you can't (or shouldn't, at least) make your own happiness contingent on having someone in your life. If you can't be happy alone, you can't be happy in a relationship. No, I just hate checking my mail and hoping there's going to be something from her and seeing nothing.

Back to civilization

Yes, finally back in New York. I'd been away so long I actually forgot the code to get in the front door (there's a security panel that lets you buzz the apartment if you're delivering something, or you can tap in a code and the door unlocks). Luckily, another tenant was coming in and I just slipped in behind them. I've started cleaning out the piles of papers and things that had accumulated in my room; another few days of tossing out trash and it should look decent in here. Stopped by the network and caught the last episode of Morty's, as well as snagging the other two episodes on dvd - they're probably the best we've done yet. That tends to be pretty typical for sitcoms, I think; the first season is an odd mash of episodes that have moments, but on the whole are not as good as the series can be if it continues, and has the necessary talent. Most of the first seasons of great sitcoms I've watched have been eminently forgettable. Not that I rank Morty's with those shows necessarily, it's just an observation about sitcoms.

So why did I go?

Why indeed. I don't really know, just as I don't know why we still talk. I enjoy talking to her, I suppose. There is a comfort level there that you reach with people you know for long periods of time. And I really do owe her quite a bit, not in the sense that I feel beholden to her, but in that I can recognize that dating her was a huge turning point in my life, one that changed me (for the better, I believe), and which set me on the path I walk today.

But that's still not a reason why I'm in touch with her, why it's not too painful for me.

Most of the time I'm pretty sure I'm over her. Every now and then, I do find myself thinking about her, or missing her.

I think it's fear.

I spend a lot of my life afraid. Sometimes I think my life is characterized by fear. In this case, fear that I will never find someone who will love me like that, who I love back.

Even now, fear holds me back - and maybe it's the reason why I still talk to Ursula. It's all the things left unsaid because of fear - because I know that ignorance really is bliss, that there are some things you are better off not knowing, not because it's good to lie to yourself, but because sometimes the truth can really fuck you up.

I don't know when we broke up. I don't know when Ursula and Brian started dating. I don't know when she first felt attracted to him. I've never asked. She's said she never cheated on me. Can I believe that? I've never explicitly found out these details, and it has to be at least partially because I'm afraid of what the answer might be. I do know that when I came home in June of 2002, we were still nominally together. I went back to New York soon after, and a few months later she was engaged.

Seems quick, doesn't it?

I hope she hasn't made a mistake. But there's a little part of me that hopes she HAS made a mistake, that this ends badly and that she realizes hey, what I had was better. I'm not proud of that, but neither will I hide from it.

It also seems incredibly pretentious and presumptuous to say, "I hope she hasn't made a mistake". Who the hell am I to judge other people's mistakes? I've made more than my fair share, and I'm nowhere near done. The day I stop making mistakes will likely be the day I die.

But it's ok to make those mistakes, I think - it is those mistakes that tend to define us as humans. I was kicking around a theory a month or so ago that the person you are is formed at the end of high school; that for the most part, that is the person you will remain for the rest of your life. That's why so many people remain stuck in that moment, with the same issues and the same lives. I mentioned it to a friend, and she replied that she felt it was a cop-out; an excuse to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

She's right.

But I'm still not convinced that you can change some things about yourself. Some aspects, yes, some aspects, no. Take alcoholism. You can choose to fight it, to not drink, but it will always be there and it will always color the way you see things - it is a part of you. But, and this is where I stand today, just because success isn't guaranteed, it does not follow that you shouldn't try. It may not be logical to try when there is no chance of success, but humans are not logical creatures, nor should they strive to be in every facet of their lives. If anything, it is the reach for perfection while being fully cognisant of the impossibility of its attainment that is, to me, the simplest truth in life.

So, I'm afraid to ask Ursula those questions. I don't want to upset her, I don't want to upset myself. But maybe it would be better to get those things out. And maybe she's afraid too - maybe that's why she stays in touch with me, out of a sense of guilt for having betrayed me either physically or emotionally. I guess there's only one way to find out.

Back in the C.A.N.A......da

Ok, so Canada isn't as catchy as the USSR. Who would have guessed?

Asia was...interesting. Something I've been aware of for several years now is the increasing homogenity (wonder if that's spelled right) of the world - that is to say, no matter where you go in the world, cities always feel very similar. You're always seeing the same brands, the same fast food restaurants and the same daily routine. And I suppose part of the reason why it was that way was because most of the cities I went to are ones where a foreign influence has been around for quite some time. But another part of it is the whole globalization thing. I don't really feel like typing out a pile of crap about that because there's authors who are far more informed than me who've written at much greater length than I could, and I don't feel positively or negatively about it - it's just a reality of the world today.

If anything else, it is the character of the people that sets Asia apart. The density of people I was somewhat prepared for by living in New York. It's worse in Asia, of course, but walking through Times Square during a peak time is a decent approximation of walking around in Asia. What's different is how the people approach it: with a passive-aggressiveness which seems inherent in Asian culture. The concept of lining up seems to be an alien one, unless there's a strong Western influence in the city; lines are replaced by amorphous mobs, waving their money or tickets. Driving is handled somewhat similarly, with only a cursory amount of homage paid to the elements of the road which keep order on the streets of North America; signs, traffic lights, even lanes. It's quite an experience seeing a 3 lane expressway turn into 5 lanes, let me tell you.

Of course, we did the two main tourist-type things: the terracotta warriors and the Great Wall. It's difficult to put into words what it's like to be in those places. The history of the area is something that dwarfs your imagination and your sense of being, especially coming from such a culturally infantile area as North America. It is humbling to stand somewhere and to know that hundreds or thousands of years earlier, someone else stood in that exact place - someone with their own set of hopes, dreams and fears. It is a realization that makes you both small and huge all at once - to know that you are not unique, that you are both a part of the human organism and an individual, one given a degree of choice that no previous generation has ever been afforded.

I also went to Ursula's wedding last night; I have some jumbled thoughts on that I can dump, but I think I'll put them in a different post.