My Best Fiend

2006-06-10T02:40:00.000-07:00

Go watch The Beat My Heart Skipped (France).

2006-04-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, so despite my current busy life as an unemployed loser, I am standing in for Rougerum once again. The Guardian has shortlisted 50 Best Film Adaptations, chosen by a panel of "experts". Experts. Read and weep:

1984
Alice in Wonderland
American Psycho
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Brighton Rock
Catch 22
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
A Clockwork Orange
Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
The Day of the Triffids
Devil in a Blue Dress
Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
Doctor Zhivago
Empire of the Sun
The English Patient
Fight Club
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Get Shorty
The Godfather
Goldfinger
Goodfellas
Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Jaws
The Jungle Book
A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
LA Confidential
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Maltese Falcon
Oliver Twist
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Orlando
The Outsiders
Pride and Prejudice
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Railway Children
Rebecca
The Remains of the Day
Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List)
Sin City
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Talented Mr Ripley
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
To Kill a Mockingbird
Trainspotting
The Vanishing
Watership Down

The article states that Brokeback Mountain's on the list, and it's categorised under C for Close Range. Few questions: Adrian Lyne's Lolita was truer to form than Kubrick's even though Nabokov himself adapted the book, but I'll give that Kubrick's version was a successful black comedy. Surely The Hours could make this list, too? Charlie & The Chocolate Factory - which one are we talking about, and neither do it justice for me because they never got the chocolate river right!

2006-03-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

I don't the value my favorite quotes hold for me. I think there are meanings behind each one. I more importantly respect the level of interpretation that can go into each quote. The interpretation is almost limitless, thus the reason why they should be blogged.

"I would watch my mother, pretty and charming, as she made people feel clever and pleased with themselves, but I could not act that way. And so I have remained, in cruel pursuit of truth and excellence, an inhumane executioner of the bogus, an abomination to all but those few who overcome their aversion to truth in order to free whatever is good in them."
Louise Brooks

"I think of criticism as a form of literature. Not paraliterature, not a substitute for literature, but a kind of art concurrent with art."
Stanley Kauffmann

"I write because there's honesty in that activity. It's more difficult."
Oliver Stone

"The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress."
Philip Roth

"I believe in love but I also believe in cancer."
(Cult Classic) The Last Boy Scout.

"Don't make me out no saint, but don't put me down too deep."
The Ballad of Cable Hogue

2006-02-22T20:56:00.000-08:00

Over the week, I treated myself to two very different DVD movies featuring large buxom women: Crumb, and Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!

The latter was surprisingly enjoyable, as I had envisioned it to be a misogynistic piece of 60s soft core filmmaking. But my husband - who is as widely read as I am in gender studies, if not more so - recommended it, so I gave it a chance.

The film follows a gang of three larger-than-life, highly-sexed women as they embark on a killing rampage in the middle of the desert. They always look good; their make-up is impeccable even while they wrestle with each other in the sand. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Quentin Tarantino had this movie in mind when he wrote Kill Bill. The difference is that the women in Faster Pussycat... are of gigantic proportions in more ways than one.

The leader of the gang, Varla, played by the luscious and scary Tura Satana, is a psychopath who hates anything that appears weak - be it man, woman or soft drink. She kills with her bare hands, as is evident to us early in the movie when the gang challenges a young couple to a drag race and win unfairly, thereby causing a scuffle between Varla and the boyfriend, in which his bones get fatally cracked.

The gang then abduct his young girlfiriend who, in comparison to them, is a helpless, whingeing "kid" (as they call her). It gives the three women pleasure to see such a weak display of their own gender suffer pain and distress.

Even more than weak females, they despise men, and when they come across a ranch run by an old lecher and his sons, Varla hatches a plan to rob the geezer of his rumoured wealth. But the men quickly catch on that the kid who's with them is not there at her own will. It is never clear whether the men want to rescue the kid of keep her for themselves to violate as they wish.

The plot is secondary to the characters, though, as this movie is a study in gender caricatures. Varla and her Hispanic(?) right-woman are actually lovers. The fact that they both look exotic (both actresses were exotic dancers in real life, after all) only accentuates their Otherness as lesbians. Their otherness, therefore, is what makes them special and seem superior to the rest.

The third member of the gang, Billie, is a fun-loving blonde who is undeniably straight ("I dunno what I'm doing with the two of you, anyway") and undoubtedly dumber than the two brunettes. The kid, the epitome of the all-American girl of Norman Rockwell paintings, is also straight, but unlike Billie, is entirely dependent on men.

The message here is clear: the less a woman needs a man, the more powerful she is, but also the more callous she becomes.

The men, on the other hand, fall for the women's wiles easily, except for the old man who is suspicious of all females. He is the only intelligent man of the lot, but because he is a lecher and is physically infirm, he must die off and we do not miss him when he does.

Man, everyone's just rotten in this movie. But because it is intentionally camp and OTT, it's actually hilarious how evil or stupid the characters are. It's worth watching for Varla alone as she is a giant of a woman with breasts as big as her already hulkish head, but who maintains her feminine sexuality and makes no apologies for her threatening appearance.

2006-02-18T00:11:00.000-08:00

The stamp and envelope are very important things in life. (Postcards, too, for the festive in mood). They tell us that someone had thought of us enough to spare at least half-an-hour translating thoughts onto paper that only we shall read.

Someone had handwritten our name and location so that we may ineluctably see the tremor in their hand, or the conscientious duplication of our details from their address book.

They had moistened the stamp on the top right corner, checked that the letter was not too heavy or thick, and had been on the lookout for a convenient post-box to mail it off.

For the epicurean scribe, some rules apply. One must not write on the more practical 'aerogrammes' which already allocate the appropriate space for addresses, and which accord little space for prolific authors.

Heaven forbid that one sends correspondences in envelopes which bear pre-printed images of stamps, because an embossed postmark on a real, protruding stamp is precious to see and feel.

My personal preference is to use a quill pen whenever I feel like doodling in a letter (the great letter writer Dora Carrington was especially charming in her doodles to friends).

Else I enjoy using scrap paper and materials, and jazz them up to make less conventional envelopes - much to the postman's annoyance.

However, possibly the most enjoyable activity of all is shopping for a stamp. Always I enquire "Do you have any pretty ones?" whenever I purchase a stamp, and curiously peruse the denominations of stamps available.

B.J. and I have been writing letters to each other for eight years now. Though we have both grown increasingly busy in our adult lives, during our heyday we corresponded as many as three times a week, with pages numbering up to twenty. (I believe our record is twenty-three.)

Often I would get a back-up letter ready to mail off as soon as I received one of hers. We experimented with book-letters, large fold-outs, and scattered bits of post-its. We fashioned envelopes out of magazine advertisements, cardboard, plastic and tape.

When lonely, one may bear in mind the humble stamp and envelope. A single letter speaks volumes - of intimacy, sensuality and, most of all, companionship.

2006-02-13T23:07:00.000-08:00

The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality
- Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon

The sane create, the mad are merely miserable
- Adam Phillips, Going Sane

2006-01-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

For this post, we decide to share with the world what grouches we are and, with blatant dismissal, state why the following films annoy us. (foray: want some chips with that, rum?)

Memoirs Of A Geisha

Foray: I speak for all Asians (hah!) when I say that this film grossly Orientalizes and exoticizes Japanese culture. Not only did the director slight in his pretty, objectifying and cliched images of Oriental beauty; he was also too lazy to find real Japanese talents (there are PLENTY) to play the lead roles. I for one am weeping that our esteemed Gong Li has taken on this thankless movie; her charisma is totally wasted here.

rum: What she said, but included its a tragedy that Hollywood only likes to dip into foreign cultures (especially Asia) when it deals with themes and stories already stereotypical of our understanding about that continent. It is as vast and as an ever changing continent as we believe our own is but why do we harp on themes and stories hundreds of years out of date? The sensible viewer is over wrought with the dead themes in this movie. Hollywood just assumes the average viewer pays little attention to Asia and likes the occasional dip into foreign culture.

Chicago

foray: Why anyone bothered making this AS a film OF a musical, is beyond me. We may as well tape the real play and distribute the DVDs. Renee Zellweger has no screen/stage presence (she is better off playing roles that do not demand her to be sexy, ie Cold Mountain and Nurse Betty), and is outshone in all her scenes with Catherine Zeta-Jones who is the true star.

rum: The death of the modern musical is the refusal to allow professional dancers to star in them! Chicago could only have so many fast cut edits to hide the fact none of the stars of Chicago could even dance! Plus a tired subject that was admittenly already tired upon debut years ago tries desperately here to ring with a dramatic flair when it should have peaked at just good entertainment.

Closer

foray: Yet another play that reads as just that on the silver screen: a play. It works better on stage rather than film because of the dramatic cues and one-liners. In one scene, when Julia Roberts and Clive Owen fight about her cheating with the other guy, they are chasing each other up and down the mezzanine stairs: this scene loses its energy because we are not looking at a stageset with said staircase, were just seeing people running on the screen. It is also irritating watching childish adults play so-called sophisticated sex games; nobody really "grows up" in this film. Finally, how did I know this film was going to disappoint right from the start? - That mediocre opening song, of course.

rum: Hollow, hollow hollow. This film was everything style and nothing substance. Mike Nichols has to little offer or even gain considering his previous blah efforts. The days of the 1960s are dead. Like it has been found that Aristole was wrong and character is more important than plot we also know film structure is defeated unless character development can back it up.

Lost In Translation

foray: For all the hype about its writing, this film does not actually weather more than one viewing. The performances by Bill and Scarlett are spot on, but many of the scenes in this film are dedicated to telling us over and over again just how WEIRD Japanese culture is, and how it's okay for whites to make fun of it. (On a messageboard, I defended how Kill Bill, which came out in the cinemas at the same time, was more respectful of foreign culture than Lost In Translation ever was.)

rum: foray is correct in both actors being perfect. Bill Muarry doesn't have to extend himself for us to know he already epidomizes the mannerisms and habit of this character. The story is just dead on arrival with the drum beat quality it has with the theme. It always gets to a point of reflection and revelation only to begin again right after and head right back there. All the film had to do was cut that obsessive search for a larger theme and allow the characters roll and the film would have been fine. It just now lives in yuppy heaven for overpraised trendy films.

Lord of the Rings trilogy

foray: I liked The Fellowship Of The Ring, but after that it became strictly for Rings fans only. Plus, doesn't it bother anyone how the goodies are normal- or good-looking and the baddies are plain butt ugly?

rum: I can't even give Fellowship the mention of being OK. They are all bad. Never has artistry been so phoney and entertainment so bland. To carry on for so long with every film with little or no higher point just gets ridiculous when the films are so inundated to the excesses of fan boy galore with the books. Never read the books myself obviously, but the attempt to translate the book almost by length and coverage is ridiculous. I only know of a few films that have gone over three hours and managed to flow by easy and be entertaining. These films have no characteristics of those at all. Stanley Kubrick was right when he said the books were impossible to adapt into film.

2006-01-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

While I was staying in a high-rise, I received the following note under my door:

TO THE IDIOTIC PERSON SENDING FLAMING PAPER PLANES FROM THE UPPER FLOORS.

BEWARE

YOU ARE BEING WARNED

YOU HAVE ALREADY CAUSED DAMAGE TO THE CARPET INSIDE AN APARTMENT WHEN ONE ENTERED THROUGH THE RANCH SLIDER BURNING THE CARPET.

IF THIS HAPPENS AGAIN THE POLICE WILL BE INFORMED AND YOU WILL BE EVICTED FROM THE BUILDING.

IF YOU HAVE SO LITTLE REGARD FOR OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR PROPERTY WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE NOW.

REMEMBER:::YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.

~ The Building Manager

True story, dat.

2006-01-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

A history of Cruelty

I'm not sure if this trend is wholly American, but there's a unique identity to the male friendship in America. Or at least I thought there was....

I grew up in the fantastic world of friendships being cruel and unusual. When I was twelve years my best friend beat the shit out of me for what I can remember was really no reason. He was 2 years older than me and had a violent streak I couldn't yet understand at the time so when he came at throwing fists my defense was hardly anything. I nearly let him kick the shit out of me. Our make up was so quick afterwards I think slept at his house the next night.

I don't know why this always happened. Memory after memory of my friendships when I was younger are events where one was totally cruel to the other. I understood that nicknames weren't just cute interpretations of someone 's name, but sledgehammers meant to undermine someone's entire integrity. The only value in this practice is that for most of us who grew accustomed to receiving hurtful nicknames is that we were getting them before we ever understood the entire meanings. They were already normal and only more normalized when we equally attacked other people with them. I had a cockiness about me I think even came before puberty. It was always around me. My father intimidated people. He intimidated me. It's not that he was an overly large person. He had a tough tongue that could rail someone and if he let it really hurt them. I always thought his marriage to my mother was the terms of a tough individual with an overly sarcastic and cruel tongue matched to a woman who was very nice but plainly average. In the end, the jokes caught up to them. She didn't have the grand interests in his fascinations and didn't have the humor to match his. I saw it all evaporate slowly and painfully. He ended up doing some devious things to her. It was all past saving. It felt like it all was past saving for me too. At age 16 I already hated marriage. Couldn't trust myself because in my father I saw the person I was to become. Everyone told me I was his personality carried down. And I really was.

Thing is, I still am. I've grown to like this personality even. With age comes maturity one can't expect because no one knows how experience will teach the person to be. I don't drink, smoke or do any drugs. I came to find the good qualities in my father. In his marriage I think the simple mistake was that he settled for a woman of depedency that made him compromise his enjoyment for life and partially his quick tongue. Much love to my mother but I don't think they were ever meant to be. Now they have me and 2 younger sons all of whom are promised to make it further in a career than they ever did. That is their hallmark that their marriage meant something.

But, I'm now finding about the complications in male friendships. In college the diversity of people becomes obvious. Most startling is the very apparent diversity in my friends up here. Before coming to college I remembered this one quote: "Women and other women are more different than men and women." That case only became verified as I've to come understand the passive aggressiveness men can have. I have two friends who both were married (very young ages) and now are dealing with life after divorce. One of them even has 2 kids. As much as they want to deny it, they both have venom for their ex wives in their opinions of them. They complain and complain about them. For hours I can hang out with them and the only conversation be about their torment. "When she was good.." seems to be the only positives they can say about her. Thing is, its more complicated. They both were shit husbands. When married, they had no clue how to handle maturity because they only knew they wanted it without already having discovered it. They ignored their wives like someone ignored a dog. The ignorance became ordinary at the beginning. No one thought worst because the relationship was still new and everyone was saying, "Oh what a great man to be married so young." After their marriages grew the criticism finally started to develop out of the marriage. Both men ended up criticizing each other behind their backs for being the terrible husbands and what not. Everyone was friendly but the seeds were being planted to spark furies later on.

Now if this would have been my friends when I was younger the truth would have been out quicker than anyone could have imagined. Both would have understood how much the other person thought he was an idiot right away. It never happened that way this time. Both found excuses to think their argument was better without fessing up to their feelings to the other person or even applying criticism onto themselves. When I was thrown into this problem it became obvious I was a pure land mine. Automatically I could not stand one of the wives. I threw opinions in her face and she had so much insecurity she would erupt all the time and erupt even more after I was gone to her husband about me. "Why do you fucking hang out with that guy? I can't stand him!" It also wasn't that she was insecure, she was also very mean spirited about it. Not many people liked her. The other marriage became typified as the religious marriage. Both were very religious and very believing that a chastity belt surrounded their marriage even if they were having as much sex as an older couple who don't. Also add on they ignored each other. Going to a unversity that provided every student a lap top allowed them the ability to sit in the same room together and not say one word to each other but feel like they were contributing to each other's common good because they were close. Throwing criticism at him was harder. Behind the religious ideals was a temperment problem. A major temper. Anytime I came near criticism he sniffed it out and barked out at me.

After a while, I was tired of it. I thought both couples were doomed to a self hell and I was planning on moving on in my life and never seeing them again. Forward two years, I ended up going to the same university they both just began at. Both now are divorced and and I'm seeing the aftermath as I got into friendships with them again. The behind the back complaining and bickering is as alive as ever. They both are very different people who only seem to have a shared history in common. I have qualities in common with both: I have enough humor to bullshit with one of them and I have enough intellectual capacity to discuss with the other. One benefit of being friends with them after is they are becoming more open to dialogue about their problems so my tongue has more place to open up to them. The honesty so far has been brutal. I've managed to say things that got both of them to openly admit they wanted to punch me at the time. But my words never have been out of cruelty, they have been out of honesty. I just want both guys to move on and honestly, get laid. Their self torment is so encapsulating of all the time that I spend with them that anytime I get self involved with a problem I'm shut out because its interrupting their talking so I really don't tell them personal things anymore. To make themselves feel better, one has thrown criticism back in my face. His analysis is that my constant hammering of him is out of my own insecurity and self doubt about myself. When he told me this I didn't care. When he told me things meant simply to piss me off I never bit back. I just let it go. I'd be insane not to see self doubt in myself but my opinions are not forged because of that. The comments he made though didn't hurt me. They actually don't bother me in the slightest. I was happy one of them actually felt confident to throw some words at me finally.

I'm trying to be honest with them. Unlike everyone else they know, I'm just trying to be honest. They try to surround themselves with agreeing faces but I refuse to be just that. They believe their torments and problems are so huge when they really are fucking fickle. Both have health and good futures to look forward to but it seems both of them would forfeit that just to get back the things they lost. If misery is the identity of losing what meant the most to you than they already lost it. They can be brought out to a pasture and shot. I just don't think they have lost it. They lost the feeling of self worth for now and until proven wrong they just feel unattractive and alone. I hope someday they are both truly fucking humbled.

2006-01-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

A recent jaunt to Malacca, the historical city of Malaysia, had me doing something I wouldn't normally do: the tourist-y thing. Sister had persuaded me to take a tour of the city by rickshaw for thirty ringgit an hour.

And so, here there was this old man huffing and puffing ahead of us, our rickshaw decorated with plastic flowers and a box radio blaring "oonce oonce" disco music. We threaded around the town like a mini float parade; it only made sense for us to wave like the Queen.

I remember when the rickshaw was not mainly for tourists, when it was just like any regular taxicab. As a child, my Por Por (grandmother) used to flag rickshaws down all the time, when we went to the wet markets and back.

Early in the morning, Por Por would climb up the stairs to our attic singing her tune hang kai, hang kai - let us take a walk. She would tempt us to wake up with reminders of the sweet black bean buns and crispy yow char gwais we could get at the market.

The wet markets always smelled awful. The juices of animal corpses made my jandals squirt as I walked along the streets. I remember green crabs in large buckets always wanting to climb out, and chickens having their necks slashed in full view. Sometimes Por Por would eye some wee chicks in a cage and buy them to rear at home. She never let us witness a slaughter.

The ride home was always the highlight. Rickshaws in those days were nondescript; none of this fanfare with the fake plastic flowers and loud music. My most vivid recollection of it is watching the tarred road swish by as we covered more and more ground. The wind blew in our faces as we munched contentedly on sweet black bean buns.

2005-12-23T00:54:00.000-08:00

This blog entry will be unreservedly solipsistic and insular.

Sometimes I get these crazy thoughts that threaten to ruin my life and I struggle to step outside of my head until it blows over. These thoughts stem from feelings of dissatisfaction, and are self-destructive, when really I ought to be counting my blessings.

I've mentioned this to Rum before, during one of our conversations on MSN. We were talking about how Holden Caulfield, in Catcher In The Rye, falls in love with a random friend and wants to marry her just because of something dumb she'd said, then, just as quickly, decides that he hates her forever.

I'm crazy, swear to God I am, Holden says.

One minute I'm insanely jealous of some chick who is dancing with my husband, the next I'm daydreaming about having a fling in Europe. Sometimes I have thoughts of world domination and being a rockstar artist with several definitive books written about me and my art, but just as easily my thoughts turn to how insecure I feel when I'm in the studio trying to cook up some ideas.

It's all not real, of course, those meanderings. I'm happily married. My career is going pretty well, too. Why, just last night over a few mugs of beer, someone important offered me a good project to work on in 2006. If I were to look at my life from someone else's perspective, it sure looks rosy. I have friends and family who would help me out if I needed it badly. I probably wouldn't starve next year because I've been saving up really well.

Ah then why is it such a fight for me to be happy-slash-satisfied? Does the key lie in forgetting?

There's no doubt that I have an obsessive nature when it comes to certain things. I am paranoid and neurotic to some extent. Which is not conducive to my personal pursuit of happiness.

Many people have recommended Bertrand Russell's writings on happiness, however I'm not convinced that he is an authority on the subject as I've never seen a single photograph of him smiling. Furthermore, to write an entire book on happiness seems more like a doldry task.

One might be inclined to comment that I enjoy being miserable. But that's not as disturbing as the thought that I might actually fear being happy. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Pessimistic as heck.

I'm crazy, swear to God I am.

2005-12-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

Pencil Shavings and Bad Ink

A few updates...this blog will be updated more often by me. (I don't know about my asian friend. She may or may not be committed. The artist these days while striving to be cynical and alone is actually frequently requested and filling up computer screens everywhere with bad smilies. Someone remind her of her old self) I doubt my portion of the blog will continue to be auto-biographical. Criticism is becoming my sole perspective, but lets just be happily personal a little more:

The campus magazine Telos debuted with its first issue. My two articles were OK. I can't help but grind my teeth at the longer one being cut by over 700 words. I understand the nature of the beast that is being published but I happily refuse to read what I wrote. Too painful and sore to my eyes when it could have been better. For the rest of the issue, some articles were really good but many were pedestrian. I wasn't surprised that everyone who came across the paper loved it. Just bravo to those few who threw out criticism. The first issue was a 14 year old's introduction to liberalism. We can do better next time.

Kindly, I was given three copies of the first issue for free. None of those copies are in my possession right now. They are currently being ignored by friends and family alike.

Fall Semester grades are in. Two weeks ago, I told my grandma as a joke I got all A's. She was thrilled. She thought I was finally making my way up in the world after nearly dropping out of my last college due to bad grades and financial aid suspension. I felt content at the time to be blue collar the rest of my life. Now I'm somewhere new after much pressure to finish what I started. After lying to my grandma, I confessed to my dad my grades would likely be nowhere near that. He called her back and said I was just being an ass. He'll have to call her back again. I actually got all A's. Really really didn't plan on that. Now I'm so excited I'm going to turn into one of those phobics who only worry about perfect grades. Its a gruesome fear.

The LIBERAL. What a splendid creature the Liberal is on a university campus. Back in my hometown amongst my friends it meant not being a redneck. On campus, the strive is to be some bullshit intellectual. Requirements are in order:

1.) You must despise George W. Bush. The worst President ever. Forget a previous President was made an honorary member of the Ku Klux Klan and another who pushed a War with Vietnam that lead to hundreds of thousands of people dead. George W. Bush with his just some thousand dead is by far the greatest evil.

2.) Dress smart. Dress in clothes that look like they are second hand but really are not. Anyone who goes to the local thrift stores here know they are only getting grandpa's ugly old digs. Shop online for the latest 'smart' clothes that look modest but really are fucking expensive. As one sees you walking the hallways with your vintage sweater and kaki's, they'll know your brain is truly thinking under all that bullshit.

3.) Love the arts. When at a trendy party, have a one paragraph description available for every art and its popular artist or movement. When digging painting, dig on Picasso and his cubist efforts. If you go Monet the girl will think you may not even be bullshitting. If going music, go jazz. Classical Music has too many foreign names with awful pronuciations. Jazz just has Miles Davis and he is "The Birth of Cool". Remember, one can't just know these people. They have to truly love them and their work. One paragraph type of love.

4.) Be cultured. When introducting yourself, pedigree how you drink tea during the daytime and wine at night. Say you don't watch TV because Fox News seems to be everywhere. You're favorite activity is reading the NY Times. State your beliefs on half a dozen issues that are already over bloated in discussion. Say you have or someday are planning to write a book. You don't have to really write it. Unless the other person is truly naive, they'll never have interest to read what you wrote. They'll assume your articulate manners means you have or will.

2005-11-30T19:28:00.000-08:00

Rum 'n' 'Ray's In!
episode one

foray says:
So, what do you think of the rum'n'raisin

rum says:
it needs better advertisement. try to get the message out. the commercials are dated

foray says:
Rum, this is the inaugural edition of MBF Central. We wanna celebrate your latest foray into the publishing world. How do you feel?

rum says:
I feel excellent. No one has told me yet I'm a total failure but its only my first time. I imagine six months will issue in different results. I've yet to get addicted to a drug. Any suggestions?

foray says:
You know, they call me the Valium Fiend, but my other superhero name is Death By Spam. Speaking of failure, the artist Luc Tuymans said, "I don't think you become an artist to win. You become an artist to lose. But you do it with style." Other artists and filmmakers have proclaimed the same thing. I think spam tastes pretty nice, actually.

rum says:
I have some illustrations to that philosophy. You know, getting into this art world has really fucked with me. My new friend are trendy and sit together at a table trying to outwit the other. Then they all talk about being cultural. About the problems of the world. I imagine I may be doing a civic duty by going to Beirut and participating in "the running of the tanks."

foray says:
Ah, the problems of the world. I am one such problem myself. What you just said has actually completely baffled me. I shall Rum-inate on that. HAR HAR!

rum says:
Whats your problem? I'm still looking for mine. My friends advise I should feel the scene and pick appropiately

foray says:
(I am the problem.)

foray says:
Anyway, Rum. I think hanging out in the art world has its pluses and nonplusseses. I escaped the world of accountant friends so that I could stop being functional. But these days, art people are driving me deeper into dysfunctionality, I am almost functional again.

rum says:
You forget the saying, "Originality is the failure to fit in." No longer are you just dealing with drama geeks in high school. Trying to forge an artistic career when out of high school can be tough. You run the risk of being reduced to a job in your 30s that still makes you wear a tag that says your name. I'm starting to deal with artists and missing the security.

foray says:
At least I am in the real world, though, eh?

rum says:
the real world will be the foreclosure of your pathetic excuse of an apartment that really is an air shaft above a druggie's smoke inundated wreck. the real world will be you crawling back to your parents at age 29 admitting you have no clue what to do. At least now your high can still last long enough to keep you from thinking about it everyday. drugs really need to be seen as great deflectors

foray says:
That's the kind of advice you won't get from your local paedetrician, I'll say. Well, our twenty minutes is almost up. You do realize I'll have to go back and insert the necessary punctuation into your sentences. Thanks, man... Any last words?

rum says:
i'd like to thank my brother carl. if it wasn't for him, i'd actually think i was talented at half the things i could applied myself for. he really abused the fuck out of me. because of him i now live with regrets and more regrets. If I have a mid life crisis by 35 and make it through, I could live as long as to 65 maybe.

foray says:
More words to live by. I gotta run. I got the Anti-Christ in the kitchen yelling at me again. Join us next leap year for Rum'n'Ray's In!

2005-11-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

After all the hours logged in for homework and essays, I have finally been rewarded: I have contracted a large rash. The rash started on Sunday. In the span of two days, it now covers my entire head under my hair and all of my upper body. Did I say how it itches like hell?

So, with being able to sleep even less, I stroll into the university health center. My thought is that it is an allergic reaction to the Measles shot I got a few weeks before. The nurse tells me it isn't, asks if I had Chicken Pox before? "I have" OK, she's confused pretty quickly. Then she asks me an assortment of small questions that gets me to tell her basically everything I've ever ate, the detail of my bowel movements and what fabric softener am I using now compared to what I was using before. Again, after reluctantly revealing I had diarrhea recently, she tells me she still has no idea. Ship in the resident doctor. Fucking nut, the guy strolled in so quickly he almost knocked me over. Treated my case with confusion, announced an assortment of blood tests for me to take and all in 3 minutes said he doesn't know and to come back in 2 days. With all the non interest and busyness he displayed, I was sure I could get a write up for a prescription of Vicadin if I asked.

So, I'm do to go back tomorrow. I imagine the whole thing is stress related or something else dumb. My dad says it was probably the measles shot. I told him of their certainty that it wasn't that and he was like, "Those bastards won't admit it. Why would they when a student could sue them? They'll tell you bullshit." OK, thanks, Dad. To my friends, anything of uncertainty with my health means another sign of my impending death, especially ex gf's. Considering I've had MS for 5 years now, I get the feeling sometimes I am the doomed kid to them. So I enjoy myself and yuck it up, telling my ex very recent gf recently of my happiness to die young and then she complains how I hate myself to no end and I think everyone hates me when a lot of people would care if I die. After her five minute rant, I ask her to make sure my family buries me under a tree in a field like i was a dog.

If ever I do know I am dying, I gurantee one thing: I'll leave before it gets pathetic. I'll hook up with some make a wish foundation, get out of here and live out my life somewhere warm and impoverished. All anyone will know is that "I moved." When I die, no notice will be given out. After 10 years and everyone I know assuming I am an asshole for not keeping in contact, then they will all be notified of my death some 10 years previous. They will be told they can pay respect to my body at a nuclear waste dump site because if nuclear waste is good enough to be buried, I'm definitely good enough to be bured with it.

2005-11-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

Here's yet another piece set in the Haze era, but it's about limestone instead.

We were riding north on the Plus Highway, a unique arterial road that cleaves the peninsula in two. That time, the entire west coast was blanketed in a great cloud of ash. Horizons vanished and the landscape was a blank slate, so we crawled along with our headlights in murky day. Slowly, the giant silhouettes of the hunched limestone hills emerged in the distance. One by one, they loomed over us, until we saw Batu Gajah itself, the elephant rock, with its jagged shadows and clinging vegetation.

I was taken into your cavernous hollow

of slow spikes and shifting cavities,

I skipped playfully across your dark streams,

and listened to the droplets falling into pools.

My fingers dried up as I ran them across

your walls of chalk, yellowed with touch

The words of love etched in. It is chalk

that glows in this strange cathedral. Pillars of chalk

that line the highways like sentinels. Chalk

that crumbles into scrawled words in the

classroom. A smear at the end. My hand on your desk.

2005-11-08T22:22:00.000-08:00

My Future in Full or: a rant at everyone..........The time period of school, for the first two months of a given semester, is a week to week process. As the semester digs into different projects, essays and papers, the time period is the individual days. What can be done in one day and what not. The work becomes tremendous. Yesterday, I was a null in the knowledge of Chechnya, but by the end of tonight, a fucking expert. Tomorrow I will conquer Hitler in "A Portrait of the Dictator as an Artist", or something tidy like that. It's a five page research paper on Hitler I hope to be done with in a day. The point is, my future no longer measures itself by my dreams, but by my obstacles for the forseeable future. Do I allow the grind to set in? Do I allow the blog to turn into a repetitive theme? This is all on my mind as I wish I could write about another subject.

This also brings me to reflection. I'm at a larger university (finally) and I'm going to try to make the most of this college education. Before I graduated from my last college, my final class was a speech class. The last speech to be given was themed, "Why College?" where everyone says why they chose to go to college and what it means to them and blah blah. It was to be given by every student in front of a group of faculty members. Our professor confided that since everyone gives speeches on how great college is, faculty members love to go to these things so they can feel good about themselves. With our class, they really got it. Student after student walked up there and gave glowing speeches about how really neat-o it was to go to this community college. I couldn't stand it. I was crawling out of my skin the entire time. Never have I heard such sincerity in appreciation for going to a school with so little importance! Future (happy) secretaries and accountants, the lot of them! My speech, one of the final ones, was of course jaded. Long and meandering about complaints, I ended it for the crowd on a good note that went something like this: "I would like to thank Bay De Noc Community College for one of the most glorious wastes of my time and money." My teacher's annoucement right after the speech: "Thank you Kevin for a.....different type of speech."

I'm still quite vengeful for everything I've gone through. Still very lacking in decency to smile enthusiastically at everyone. But, hey, I'm enjoying NMU. I really am. It has benefits in that I am not running into everyone I went to High School with like my last college, the fucking city/community college. Every class there I had some fucking former high school mate and it was always torture. They looked at me and saw somebody they recognized and could talk to. I would just see someone I once habited a building with and never talked to anyways. So they would begin to talk to me, like they knew me. Eventually, I had to do something to basically say, "Fuck off." One time, after a few weeks of ascerting myself as the toughest voice in the class, I was asked something personal by the teacher. I answered truthfully and the kid from my high school immediately speaks up, "Kevin, you weren't like that." In cold harsh words, I reply, "How would you know? You didn't know me!" Everyone assumed I was angry. I really wasn't. Later in that same class, an open discussion began on a hot button topic and this kid gave his opinion. I immediately raised my hand in objection. The teacher asked me, "Kevin, you want to counterpoint his argument?" "No, I want to derail it!" and then the teacher looked at the kid and was like, "Do you want to argue your opinion?" He immediately hunkered down in fear and said no. The best one was when I had a former school mate who was ultra religious and conservative. She looked at a book I was reading. It was titled, 'American Pastoral'. She got excited and asked me what the book was about. I was shocked. I could tell she expected it to be a gleeful book on American religions and values, so I told her deadpan: "It's a book about a 16-year old girl who becomes a terrorist and destroys her family." Then I smiled at her. The reaction on her face was priceless. Horror and confusion translated to the fact that she was never going to bother me again.

But, back to my new school. This is my first semester and a shocking fact came up as I looked up how many more credits I need to graduate. I only have one more year after this one! I'll be done with every available school in the greater Upper Peninsula area! I can't believe my luck! The Heavens will finally force me out! So, to dream a little beyond what I have to write this weekend, I'm plotting where I want to go and what I want to do after graduation. First, is the question of what city I want to live in. Obvious choice is easily NYC. Its also the obvious 'No!' because I actually do know how expensive it is to live there. Think $2000 a month will get you an apartment in any trendy area of the city? Nope. It will only get you a room above a crackhead's apartment in Brooklyn. The greater population of people who work and socialize in New York also commute into New York everyday. A very sad situation I don't care to have. Second, is Philadelphia. Apartments there are affordable and a decent art scene is going on, but the choice of options for decent cinemas is lacking. While I can expect to get a good percentage of the indie works I want to see, I haven't found any listings for theaters that play older films. As many older films are circulating around the country in brand new prints, Philadelphia may leave me out in the cold. I'll next dig into Chicago as a possibility.

What do I want to do? I actually have no clue. The idea of graduate school came up. A further delusion of this school dream that keeps me away from a career but when done, brings me right back to school as I find myself fucking teaching. I'm nowhere near sold on that idea. Then there is the idea to whore myself for recommendations and see if I can get a job somewhere in a field I like. Great and all, but will likely be me as just an intern and have bills mounting up for paying off college so who knows if I'll be able to keep up. The end reward of a great job will be there, but more borrowing will take place. I guilt trip myself everytime when I borrow. The feeling to remain indepedent of anyone's help is always there. Maybe, for this semester, I should just worry about getting the semester done.

I promise I'll try to write about something different next time. The cluster fuck school can be has just gotten to my writing. Everytime before I begin a blog entry, I imagine a great task and get gun shy. Then I just start writing and an hour has passed. Its nearly 3am. Another miserable post, I'll try to do better the next time.

2005-11-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

The monsoon rains have arrived just in time to salvage our dams from further evaporation. It has been a hot year in Malaysia what with the Great Haze that came in from Indonesia and the dry spell after. I for one hope never to inhale smoke on a 24/7 basis ever again. If clean water is a luxury for most of the world’s population right now, imagine if we had to pay money for clean air sold in tanks.

Thankfully, even during our trying time dealing with the Haze, Malaysians still found humour in it all. Makes for a good conversation starter, everyone was saying. (I can attest to that.) Blah-dee Indonesia. Stupid Malaysian gamen. I’ll never smoke again. (Yeah right.)

Life was pretty much business-as-usual, save for the respiratory masks worn by everyone, from babies to bilals, and the fact that certain areas in the Klang Valley were proclaimed under a state of emergency. Still, some street vendors braved the choking smoke, as did traffic policemen - who still had no clue as to the appropriate number of minutes they ought to allow for a stop signal, but we appreciated them anyway and blamed it on the smoke disorienting their brains.

Skyscrapers literally vanished from the KL skyline and the sun glowed a sickened orange. At the Haze’s worst, even pedestrians were afraid of walking too fast because visibility was that bad. At least two people died of respiratory problems as a direct result of the Haze.

Countries around the region also suffered, but not as long as we did, because we are situated in a geographical bowl which contained the smoke for longer. The Haze found Singapore around the same time that the Singaporean government announced plans to extend its ban on smoking to more public areas. We had a good laugh over that one.

Fortunately, our story had a happy ending. The wind changed like it does in Mary Poppins and everyone was amazed to wake up one day to the bluest of skies and a skyline so clear that buildings didn’t look so far away anymore. It was as if we had woken from a bad collective dream. Radio deejays kept playing I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash.

Our country is legendary for its food and traffic woes, but did you know that Malaysian forgetfulness is also legendary? After weeks of anger directed at Indonesia’s and our own governments, all it took was a change of wind to blow our sense of principle away. Nobody’s crying out for heads to roll anymore, but we all know it will happen again next year. Until then, we’ll find something else to complain about while enjoying our teh tariks in the open air. We’re stupid that way, but sometimes you just gotta love how insane it gets here.

---------
Not bad considering I wrote this after a few daiquiris and a throbbing temple.

foray

2005-11-05T00:13:00.000-08:00

Fortunate problems and unfortunate resolutions. I really do have a lot on my mind these days. Never can I really focus on them all at one given time so I instead spend hours in the middle of night listening to music, writing and spacing out. All fine being my roommate hardly comes home anymore. He has found his niche. There are people out there in the world who will house a person who drinks and plays Halo all night long. They probably even join in. My middle of the night activities are to regain an idea of what is on my mind and what sense I can make out of it. How much for granted I took my lazy job this summer.

So, a fortunate problem. All semester I've been trying to get a job. It's actually been tough to do so considering I'm one of about everyone who is doing the same at this school. Two weeks ago, I finally did get a job as my overage check was dwindling fast. I was accepted to work at the Salvation Army. The problem is since they go through the government extensively with grants and such, I have to give them a lot of information. Upon being accepted for work, I was given a ten page criteria of what I would need, like background information and signatures for Homeland Defense (seriously), to get for them. I got it all quite quickly. Then the information was to be sent to a committe board for approval. After sending it, the problem was that management forgot to list everything I needed. I did this all a week ago and expected approval right about now. Recently, they called telling me their error and then giving me a tone like it was my fault because it would be longer before they would get my service. (which they say they need quite badly with how backed up they are) I got all of it done, with exception of a final signature to a form I'll likely only half read but happily sign on Monday. That means I won't get approved for a job for over another week with two more weeks added on before I even get a paycheck.

Then there is the unfortunate resolution. With a job very high on my priority list, I really do have to try to behave. My background is up for serious inspection and considering Mcdonalds will fire someone for violating the dumbest of crimes beyond traffic violations, I realize similiar scrutiny is coming with this job. So tonight I decided to attempt a breaking and entering with a friend. Nothing serious, just trying to scale a building with "No Tresspassing" signs everywhere. We were trying to get to a 3rd story window that was busted to get inside. It was a difficult process.

First, it was at night and we had limited sight. Then add on it was raining. To get to the window that we eyed up after studying the building for a while, we spent an hour and a half compiling left around crates and boards that were littered everywhere. We positioned them all very strategically and would do test climbs to see if they would hold up. That got us to the second story level where a small roof was. The roof was over a shed area of the building and was connected to the building and was close the targeted window. The trek across that roof was terrible. There were holes everywhere. Every step I made produced a noise in that shitty roof. With how bad the roof was, we could only carry so much wood across it to help us get to the third story. Directly under the window, we used the wood the best that we could. It was mainly a beginning to get really good footholes on the wall to lift us to the window. The good news is the limited number of boards did well and we found enough crevices in the wall to get to the window and inside.

Sad, once we got in, we were too tired to really explore. We'll go back again, but why am I doing this? It would have been so easy for a cop car to drive by and see us. I really am bored with how boring this city can be sometimes. Maybe I'll try to get drunk every weekend like everybody else. At least I now have a blog in which I can incriminate myself. Mostly, this blog is my distraction to a bad insomnia I've had ever since moving up here. It's all part of a hell that is entirely of my doing.

I also never expected to write so much for my first post. I guess the detail to a situation goes a long way. I think 4:30am is good stopping time for a blog entry.