the Year of the Fun

Slowest week

2010-06-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, I had a Sunday with not a single immediate obligation and the less immediate ones placed aside. After a couple of dry volcano-days that stressed the sinuses, a calm rain has come to calm my pressured skull, and I reacquire my ability to both breathe and think, though the result is somewhat blank.

One whole year - the longest I have remained on a single body of land in the span of a decade - and I'm off again. Incidentally, over the interim it seems I've aged faster than ever, lost body weight and energy, become prone to strange aches and inexplicable sensations as if the (relative) chemical detox has made my body weaker, or the work/family/friend schedule is more strenuous than day-long commutes wearing bad shoes hauling backpacks, sleeping in trains trying to save a buck, waiting for planes while writing the world into a journal, worrying not about the following year but the next meal or means to the next destination.

Suddenly, in the past year, "long-term" has become a clearer picture. Somehow, amidst something impulsively named "The Year of the Fun," the future simply began to build itself, falling into place without any guiding hands or thoughtful planning. Without any reason, it simply appeared piece by piece as I dragged behind, frantically trying to keep pace with a life that composes itself before I can catch up. It seems I have no choice but to follow through until I can no longer move, and I wonder if it is the same for the teachers and parents who plowed ahead without giving their options a second thought, becoming gray in a bubble or a box. Even for our own generation, it seems that no matter how we try to soak it all in, think things through, and slow it down, those moments of pause disappear in a blurry past and time relentlessly pushes us forward.

A year of all that, and now a break. Still, it seems that this trip that is one-part chore and one-part escape seems to have fallen inevitably into my path. To whomever dropped it there: good timing. Hope they don't mind if I bring a friend.

Very Belated New Year's

2010-01-18T19:04:00.000-08:00

(Note: initially written 1/3/10, only posted now with little added. Since 1/3, a lot has happened. Feel lucky, do what you can.)

As it all started...

Text messages, 1/1/09 approximately 12:05 am.
BN: "I didn't get a new year's kiss."
YOTFun: "Me niether, I had my lips around a joint."

The year neared its end in very few photos and not a single journal entry. January 1, 2009 became January 1, 2010 in moments. We stopped stopping to think about things as they happened, and instead lazed drunkenly in shit happening. Much of the year was indeed dope, and the rest was actually not nearly as bad as it seemed at the time. Somehow, in the year where we were to shed guilt and grief and avoid traditional realities at all costs, I found enough maturity to get along with parents, to let in someone new, and to discover that anything and everything can be talked over or risen above. I don't think that this can be called enlightenment, because enlightenment should result in a permanent general understanding/peace with the world, and my current feeling of contentment will likely run out as life's bitchiness reaffirms its grasp on my fate. I did, however, watch a jaded existentialist story of abandonment become a romance a`la Slug: "Let no tears to fall from none of y'all / Just remember it all, the beauty as well as the flaws / L-O-V-E L-I-F-E / Here lies Sean, finally free." Meanwhile, at the falling action a friend and classmate set the very high precedent for the future weddings of marriage-condoning peers to come, and I smiled, drank my wine, and had fun with very little cynicism. I divided my holidays between three families, feeling like I had never left my island yet simultaneously feeling that at some point - between lighting an aerial festival ball with report in the last minutes of 2009 and being bedridden with an above-average body temperature and overwhelming fatigue in the first hours of 2010 - I'd graduated from something, the name of which I'm still unsure.

Time is socially constructed. Our species arbitrarily assigned units of measurement to the comings and goings of the sun and moon in order to facilitate a more cooperative society. The days, months, and years that keep track of our lives are as invented as law, language and common sense. According to socially constructed time-spans, the 365 days of the Year of the Fun ended 18 days ago. However, this is not one of those years where the sun rises and falls any officially designated number of times. The Year of the Fun is simply not over until it's over.

And as I look across the sea I smile at the sun
While it feeds the weeds the nutrition they need
The people still breathe, the city still bleeds
I'ma love it to death and keep planting my seeds
I'ma love it to death and keep an eye on the seeds
I'll be in love till im dead, I keep reaching the seeds
I'll give all I got left just to teach you to read
Love life to the death and keep planting my seeds
And when the soul begins to reap
I think she'll know me from the sleep I keep caught in the corner of my bloodshot eyes
And if she has the nerve to let me dump a couple last words
I'ma turn to the earth and scream LOVE YOUR LIFE.

Happy Belated

2009-11-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

YOTFilm mastermind turned 25 this week.

Enlightenment?

This just in

2009-09-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Everybody needs these little signifiers.

On the third night of the new year, in a crowded room with candles lit and glowing in the holes of historic brick walls, Creed Chameleon finally got off the stage and we wove our way toward the stage. He spoke definitively into my ear over transitional hip hop.

"I just don't want any nonsense," an answer to a question never asked.

"No, no nonsense. No seriousness either. Fun only," I answered, and a few moments later, Blue Scholars dropped.

Nine months later, similar faces appeared in the crowd. This time it's the Loft, a block away from NextDoor on Hotel Street. Sometimes walking from one to another, one has to dodge obstacles like drunkards lying on the sidewalk, or downtown police officers.

In a pool of sweat, the hip hop party turned into a reggae party. Then, many other things were different about last night from the last Blue Scholars concert. Then, many things were also the same.

This just in: Year still sometimes fun.

Redefinition

2009-08-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

The Year of the Fun, since having reached its half-way point has taken on a purely ironic semantic connection to its name.

Dear Mom, Ah Gong, Chinese America et al,

2009-08-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

however

Hi.

2009-07-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

I went on my trip, came back, re-laid out a website, posted half my pictures, met President Ma, started summer school, brought my own wine once, went to the Loft twice, went to SoHo once, took two puffs, danced the Chinese dance every day, ate hand-cut pasta with lamb, wrapped dumplings, ate out of two bread bowls, sang karaoke once, watched three episodes of SYTYCD, an episode of The Fashion Show, an episode of Top Chef Masters with Roy Yamaguchi, an episode of the Wire, still drove to Kahuku early Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, hardly went to Coffee Bean at all, and did not use the words "year" or "fun" at all in the past month.

For breakfast I had Park Slope Blend coffee, wheat toast with peanut butter and mango jam, an Okinawan cookie, and blueberries. It's one of those catch-up-with-my-homework mornings. Hmph.

Peace out for 2 weeks

2009-06-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

1.) Last weekend was fun. Derek joined the 25 club.

2.) Tokyo tomorrow, Qingdao Sunday.

can u learn tai chi when u go to China?
dude i have like 10 days
then u can put your graceful dance mastery into action
my vision for you is Mei Mei the new Michelle Yeoh
can you like do me a favor
sure like, whateva like do you need ?
withdraw me from your future-kung-fu-action-hero-fantasy-world?
yo
let me look up a proverbial one liner on REGRET
that i might apply it to your application to withdraw from my kung fu cinema future
i'm not saying that you should throw your dreams away
i'm kind of just involved in the dreams of too many people who aren't me as it is
they are mostly old and chinese.
well, given the competition would have you serving tea to focused games of Mah-Jong over lychee, maybe you should be asking me to sweep you away from your waxing reality as a indentured servant on a tropical island b4 its too late
yea
those too

abstract thing going abstract far

2009-06-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

Crossposting.

Seven months left of the Year of the Fun and an assessment emerges that will probably find even more relevance in approximately seven months:

"The Year of the Fun, conceived on what has become the traditional New Year's eve of splitting time between two families followed by recreational substance abuse, was initially a simple plan: less analytical, unnecessary seriousness, more fun. Easier said than done for two women with the incurable tendency to philosophize and dissect and discuss serving as the ties that bind a near-ten year friendship...

Fast forward to now. The in-between has been about ten percent truly self-indulgent negligence and irresponsibility and ninety percent life as usual--obligations still demanding, consciences still impossible to ignore, and now the intense overuse of the words "fun," "not serious," and "whatevs" to distract from the fact that something quite serious ~~was~~ [is, actually] happening..."

The interesting thing about the words "fun" and "serious" (besides both being synonymous with epic) is that when the Year was conceived and tumbled into existence on the momentum of winter-vacation-awesomeness, it was taken so seriously. Seriously, the seemingly simple plan was tackled more as a protocol, a philosophy, and a culture we invented for ourselves to uphold for at least twelve months. As stated by my equally verbose, vague and dramatic counterpart YOTFilm, it was soon revealed that "The Year of the Fun is hard work," which would be due to another revelation, "The Year of the Fun is not an excuse for refusing to entertain serious thoughts." Each act of fun was deliberated over, consequences weighed just as much or more than they would be in any other year, except the scale being tweaked in the necessary direction. Defensive fortresses were reinforced to uphold our doctrines, firing the endless ammunition of conscious bad decisions while keeping emotions safe within. We would be the Femme Fatale, tired of feeling everything and saving everyone, ready to just say "fuck it all."

Through a haze of hip hop music and drinks not paid for, the following flaws have become apparent: "The Year of the Fun is not the Year of the Guiltless Hedonism," "The Year of the Fun does not supersede academic, employment, financial, ethical, or familial responsibility" and "The Year of the Fun does not prevent things that are meant to happen from happening." Life is proving to be more powerful than any contemporary-experiential-art-like resolutions we are capable of conceptualizing. Fun has become a sanctuary, a place on the weekends where we hide from reality and let our protective fortresses crumble all over again. That said, the actual events that have been excessively and inaccurately labeled "fun" lately are probably something closer to "comfort."

I know that I have a habit of splitting hairs about diction. This does not mean that I'm changing my blog address to something as gay as http://yearofthecomfort.blogspot.com. If I did though, the entries would go something like this, which is more or less exactly how they go now:

On Thursday after the last day of the school year and five hours of correcting final exams in math, world history (essay exam, real sample: "If I were one of Hitler's leaders, I would follow his commands because I could get money and girls like in Schindler's List. I would be happy because I have money and power but I would be sad because I would have to kill innocent people."), and ESL, I was in a great mood. I went to my sanctuary just off the east end of the freeway and took a bong hit. Jumped in the swimming pool. Dried off in the sun. Ate leftover meat jun and kim chee, washed it down with a gin and tonic. That night I attended my first Hawai'i poetry slam. Impressed, inspired, a couple of beers in me, I went home and slept. Lo and behold, on Friday morning, the 5 a.m. alarm clock still rang. Things that are meant to happen will happen.

Sometimes the ringing stays in your ears all week. The coffee occasionally helps, when prescribed correctly, but usually just makes it louder. I learned something new this year: sound reverberates in enclosed spaces, echoing off of walls. If you take down your walls, the ringing stops.

i ought to be ashamed

2009-05-31T19:14:00.000-07:00

i ought to be ashamed
twenty-five years
still no enlightenment
-Wayne Kaumuali'i Westlake

Word of the Year: "epic"

2009-05-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to agree on epic as the best word to describe last weekend, as in that Mos Def show at Pipeline was epic, as in that rendition of a Gloria Estefan hit was epic, as in a failure is not a mere failure but an epic fail. Not to say that people exaggerate, life in general being an epic story in itself, forced upon one by another's intention or carelessness in medias res, or "in the midst of affairs," appropriately.

No exaggeration at all. The main characteristics of epic literature include such features as opening in medias res (as addressed), invocations to Muses, divine intervention and enumeration (plain english: long lists). To draw a theory, I'd bet that the moments we are moved to use the word are all thanks to the mischevious writer of our sagas. Whom/whatever that may be must surely be invoking the Muses, praying for inspiration to flip shit on the alarm clocks and home lunches, the washing of laundry according to category, the washing of dishes by hand, the paperwork sitting forever on desks, the paychecks, deposits and withdrawals, the politicking with strangers, politicking with acquaintances, politicking with family, and the most unfortunate of friendship-politics.

"Oh beautiful and brilliant Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry," he/she/it implores. "Let me write of a life such that in a thousand years, readers shan't be bored to tears."

And the epithet-inspiring Calliope then zaps (or whatever) her ideas into the mind of that writer. Shit suddenly happens. North Korea tests nuclear missiles. Parking prices increase. Heroes fall inconveniently and inappropriately in love to the confusion of all those affected. Heroines discover that the symptoms of P.M.S., pregnancy, and caffeine withdrawal are in fact, near-identical. Disappointment in general takes on the more epic form of panic attacks, complete with shakes and sobs. Waistlines fluctuate like alcoholic relapses.

The self-approving Calliope rubs her palms together.

Cue divine intervention, the second changing of trends. Somebody, maybe with a lightning-bolt spear, or standing naked on a sea-shell, doesn't like the stressful tone. "Let the heroes and heroines have fun," they say. The story might go something like this:

Although the real-life version is a little more tame, involving reggae interludes, omelette sandwiches, blunts and vomit. Shit was still fuckin' epic. Ready for round two. Fuckin' Calliope.

Mathematics

2009-05-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

9th and 10th grade Pre-Algebra extra help groups. I'm helping Student X and Student Y with equations which is proving to be difficult because they do not know their basic arithmetic tables.

Student X: (to Student Y) What grade are you?
Student Y: 9R. (Repeated 9th) I don't care about school. I going drop out when I turn 16 anyway so I don't care.
Miss Ivy: What are you gonna do after that?
Student Y: I dunno.
Student X: I going sell buds on the corner! No need school I going make money.
Miss Ivy: Wow, you think you don't need to learn this? How do you know you don't get ripped off? (Sudden revelation here) How much is an ounce these days? ... I'm asking because I don't know. Obviously.
Student X: HOOO Miss! Why, why you like know? Huh? Huh?
Student Y: Like... One... something... try ask Student Z.
Student X: Twenty... five. Shit, you gotta ask Student Z. Nah, it's 25. Eh, Student Z how much one ounce?
Student Y: One... eighty?
Miss Ivy: 25? Okay let's go with 25. If someone is buying two eighths from you, how much is he gonna owe? (Counting with fingers and scribbling on whiteboards ensue) See? When you're selling buds on the corner and someone asks you for an eighth, are you gonna be like 'Kay, wait' and take out your pen and paper to figure out the price?
Student Y: (Shaking head) No way, brah.
Student X: Haha, yea, one fat-ass pad and paper! (Shouting across room) Student Z, how much one ounce?
Student Z: 320.
Miss Ivy: (To Student Y) Stay in school.

No nonsense

2009-05-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I was treated to the most expensive meal I've ever eaten at Alan Wong's, in celebration of three birthdays over two bottles of wine, some cocktails and beer. The lobster-stuffed halibut and molten chocolate cheesecake, shared with some tense father-son banter, hands held under a tablecloth and back-to-back cultural analyses running through my head, were actually delicious.

The rules were established at the very beginning. On the third night of the new year, in a crowded room with candles lit and glowing in the holes of it's historic red brick walls, after Creed Chameleon finally got off the stage, we wove our way toward the stage and he spoke definitively into my ear over transitional hip hop.

"I just don't want any nonsense," an answer to a question never asked.

"No, no nonsense. No seriousness either. Fun only," and a few moments later, Blue Scholars dropped.

It's possible that if those guidelines had never been laid down, I wouldn't be finding myself constantly in the acts of pulling back, laughing off, or saving for later. Sometimes it's easy to organize events and activities into two separate boxes labeled "fun" and "serious." To demonstrate, art parties and Heinekens are fun. Lifting fifty-pound boxes of cherry tomatoes is serious. These I can categorize effortlessly thanks to ample practice. Like family dinners and all of the repressed self that is requisite of them are not fun, and are basically illegal according to the terms. Families and parents: serious. All of a sudden I found myself in a state of calm and controlled freaking out when his parents wanted me at dinner, which would mean stepping over that line, breaking the rule and my own soul jumping into a furnace.

I was careful to become annoying with the questions but not overwhelmingly so. I spread them out over the course of a week - "Do they really want me to come, or are they just being nice?" "Do you think it'll be awkward?" "Would I be intruding on a family thing?" - and of course by all of it what I really meant was "Is it time to start pushing you away?"

Getting dressed, the honesty leaked. "I'm nervous," I declared.

He looks into my eyes much more often now. He did it then, shutting me up. "Look, I know you're over-thinking this. There's all these things running through your head right now, and you're really nervous. Don't worry. It's just dinner. That's all. Now kiss me. And don't stop."

Some people are just much better at this game than I am.

Edumakeezy

2009-04-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

I seem to have been painting the misleading picture that fun only happens on the weekends. Au contraire, on the Tuesdays and Thursdays that I assume the role of "Educational Assistant for English Language Learners," I actually spend an equal amount of time being frustrated and amused. The following screenshots regarding the unnamed high school where I'm employed, might subtly demonstrate why that might be:

Here are some more overt examples:

Following a rule of Mr. Social Studies, 10th grade student is made to stay in during mid-morning break as punishment for being late. Mr. SS and I pass our time by surrounding him and asking uncomfortable questions, to which we receive hilariously straightforward (or defensive) answers.

Mr. SS: (Referring to student's bruised eye) What happened to your eye?
Student: My friend wen' punch me. But I never like punch him back cuz I changed.
Ms. Ivy: He's your friend and he punched you? What did you do to deserve that?
Student: Nothing! We was just at one party at my friend's house and I was sleeping and the girlfriend was all drunk and she kept trying for go on top of me.
Mr. SS: Were you drunk too?
Student: No way I never drink cuz I changed. I was just sleeping, only the girl was all drunk. Stupid that's why.
Ms. Ivy: If you weren't drinking how come you never went home? You didn't have to stay in that situation.
Student: I dunno. I never like go home.
Mr. SS: Are you gay?
Student: What the hell, NO! I not gay!
Mr. SS: Are you sure?
Ms. Ivy: Look at us when we're talking to you!

The following week, same student, during a directionless class discussion...

Student: Mister, how come Brad Pitt is sexy?
Mr. SS: SEE!
Student: NOT!!!

ESLL class, helping a non-native English speaking student with chapter comprehension. I speak slowly while diagramming with arrows, maps and stick figures on a sheet of paper.

Ms. Ivy: So the COLONISTS came from ENGLAND. England is HERE. This is EUROPE. So the COLONISTS are EUROPEAN. They came (drawing arrow) HERE. This is AMERICA. These EUROPEAN COLONISTS wanted to live in AMERICA. But they're new, so they don't know what to eat. The INDIANS or NATIVE AMERICANS were there already. They lived there BEFORE, so they HELPED the COLONISTS. Now read the question again.
Student: "Who helped the colonists when they came to America?"
Ms. Ivy: Who were they?
Student: Jamestown?

Explaining the meaning of simile to a non-native English speaking boy who is assigned to write a poem about himself.

Ms. Ivy: A simile compares one thing or person to another thing or person. It's easy, just "A is like B." "A prisoner in jail is like a bird in a cage." Understand?
Student: Yea.
Ms. Ivy: So now write one about yourself. What are you like?
Student: What am I like? I'm like a god.

I've got to do this more regularly to keep things light.

Photolab

2009-04-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

As stated in the previous post, the Year of the Fun is a busy time. Holding down two-point-five part time jobs, dance classes, and living at home would be my main preoccupations, but there's also art school. Not that I'm officially enrolled in any way, but I do allot a set amount of time per month, if not week, to attend art school vicariously through Natalie, otherwise known as "the other Ivy."

Plug: We like stuff.

So if you text me on any given night saying, "sup where you stay," and my answer is "UH," if I'm not doing Chinese folk dances in the athletic center, then I'm probably in the photography room, drinking the beer of poor art students, nailing frames to a wall, or gluing newspaper to a chair.

You know those film canisters? Sometimes there's fun inside.

all and none are true

2009-03-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

The fact that my last post was over a month ago could be most easily interpreted as due to one of three reasons: one, so much fun was being had that no time was left to update my loyal blogger audience of 5 followers; two, so much fun was being had that any and all of my free time was spent recovering from said fun; three, there was in actuality no fun experienced in over the past 50 days, or at least nothing worth writing about.

As usual, all and none are true. I have enjoyed at least 30% of the waking minutes that have flown by. That said, at least 20% has been painful, another 25% spent in a relatively neutral state and the remainder filled with the true antithesis of enjoyment, fruitless thought. Yes, I've been busy, but not consistently and nowhere near overwhelmingly so. I've spent a lot of time thinking, which is not unusual for a twenty-five year-old woman, especially if she is an Aquarius, or so I've heard. This completely normal behavior eventually led to my recalling a passage I had once quoted in a blog, at the unbelievable young age of 18. I had just graduated from Iolani and was in Taipei with my mother for no good reason, as my main concern at the time was how I would alleviate my boredom. From Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead:

"Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn't they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven't they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven't you been able to catch their theme song -- 'Give up, give up, give up, give up'? Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy -- and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got makind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace -- lie on a bed of nails -- go into the desert to mortify the flesh -- don't dance -- don't go to the movies on Sunday -- don't try to get rich -- don't smoke -- don't drink. It's all the same line. The great line. "

The line, spoken by the book's most evil villain does continue to explain that such doctrine eventually destroys the thinking man, and encourages us to feel things above reason - including guilt - and thereby make sacrifices. In this way, the feeling man, the one who sacrifices happiness, ultimately sacrifices power to those who wrote the doctrine. For, "Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be your master."

So I reflected on Rand's objectivism, "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute," while walking in circles around my laptop and this blog, i.e. walking in circles around whether or not to post an entry about routinely fun Friday nights or old friends that become new house-guests and their philosophic conversations. Both The Fountainhead's protagonist and the character who spoke that line believe in the opposite of what was described, and frankly, so do I. The problem is, I'm a royal hypocrite and always acting not on belief but on expectation, never practicing what I preach, a loudmouthed entreater of "do what I say, not what I do."

On the bright side, I know that I'm finally going into the right profession. I could teach at private schools! There will always be, however, the inner torment, the psychological battle between happiness/guilt verses obligation/misery. I should abandon this blog and rename it as The Year of the ~~Fun~~Real-life Bullshit Again and Again. There is, after all, an especially significant increase in responsibility that comes with age twenty-five.

Repetition for dramatic effect: Age twenty-five.

But let's cut this shit short. 'Give up, give up, give up, give up'? Don't smoke, don't drink, don't have pre-monogamic sex, don't dance, don't stay out passed midnight, don't drink coffee, don't buy Nike, don't sunbathe, don't eat cream cheese scones, don't listen to hip hop, don't read, don't write, don't paint...

Don't live?

Nah, brah. To my loyal 5 followers: be back with more posts. Sorry for the gap.

the Spins

2009-02-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

(Friday, February 6 blurry honesty.)

Know what the spins feel like? Thrusting into the latter part of a Friday on 4:30 a.m.-alarm-clock-energy, the Pali Highway town-bound like a gateway to freedom from the inspiration that doesn't come after so many nights of making dinner for three, washing dishes for three, mediating arguments for two and silence for one. The cup of hot coffee is like a key to the door; you're still focused. You can't drink the hot brew fast enough during the rendezvous and your heart pumps faster as the first dark-colored outfits show up, the caps and sneakers join you briefly before the black Integra sweeps you away. It stops at 7-eleven to dissect a cigar, it knows the perfect quiet spots, it bumps Dyme Def samples of EPMD. It calms down the caffeine in your blood stream and meets you back up with friends. Street lights cast four shadows that dance around their masters and mistresses on the walk to the show. No line. Nothing even resembling a crowd but someone buys you a beer and it becomes kind of okay that the rest of the island is watching Busta Rhymes bust rhymes at Level 4 tonight. You know the DJ isn't spinning old Tribe and Dre at Level 4, you couldn't get away with those shoes at Level 4, you'd probably meet your entire graduating class at Level 4 anyway. Pipeline takes care of you, there's a pool table available on the second floor, besides you're not getting back that $30 cover charge. You've reached a pretty stable balance now that the first Heineken has mingled with some THC. Somehow, you maintain the regular phenomenon of not sucking at billiards at just the right times, like sinking the last balls of a game and blowing the mind of your partner, who thinks you are awesome for very small reasons, which is all you need sometimes and is perfect right now. A couple more green bottles, some time at the bar. Finally, Erick and Parrish get to business, but by now, memory is already beginning to distort everything as it happens. You do know that the crowd is small, the set is short, and who is that bitch on stage now? It's time to leave. You make it back to the Integra but won't be making it to Level 4 that night. There's half a blunt saved and there are no worries in that open parking lot in front of Sports Authority as you puff, pass, puff, pass, puff, cough, cough, cough, and that's when you get them. Standing is impossible now, the night is literally spiraling around you now. It'd be nice to know how long you sat eyes-closed to recover, how long you stayed in that paranoia-free thoughtless zen eyes-closed until everyone was in the car with you and its driver said "let's just go for a drive." Where? "Trust me."

You do. Some people are just very good at fun, have irresponsibility down to a science, move with more clarity and precision just as long as the substance driving them does not come over a prescription counter. The lights move in slow motion on Ala Moana Boulevard and you don't notice as Level 4 is passed by. Dyme Def is mixing up "Strictly Business" again. The car stops at Diamond Head, the driver gets out. He sits on the wall with his back to the ocean. There is a pause. Everyone gets out, pairs off, and a conversation lost instantly to memory gets interrupted by blue lights that say, "You can't park here." You say "Goodbye" to Integra and "Hi I'm back" to the blue Volvo but are still in no state to drive her though the spinning has stopped and memory begins to reinstate itself. You respond as intelligibly as possible on the way to Niu Valley to the relating of situations to which you cannot relate and think, "I've been spending a lot of time in this area..." Sleep comes on a very comfortable couch in a warm living room as a friend gets a phone call and a few hours later, waking comes with a dog named Sammy.

It's been Saturday for some time now. You drive home in the late-morning sun along the Southeast cliffs and take a shower, make lunch for three, pack your things and are on the Pali again in a different car, sunroof open. You do shamelessly blast Alicia Keys' "Superwoman" as you get ready to do it all over again, yes you do. The only thing is you don't do it all over again, but you make sure to make time to accumulate stamps on a Coffee Bean point card with the necessary witness, just to ensure that everything did in fact happen through the haze that takes longer and longer to clear away.

Funmosphere

2009-02-08T01:26:00.000-08:00

These are not their best albums nor songs, but I remember when Atmosphere played S.O.B.'s six years ago, it was as if the heavens opened up right there on that little West Village stage and Slug said, "Hi Ivy, you've found God." Even if the Pipeline show this past November wasn't nearly as religious, the poetry still is. And I've never told him thank you.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Paint That Shit Gold | You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having | The Fun EP

i got fun

2009-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks Rosey for the awesome book.

Grayscale

2009-02-02T15:37:00.001-08:00

Fun is difficult. Tracking people down and finding out what's going on when the weekend comes: difficult. Picking out a sequence of outfits for Saturday activities: difficult. Walking to the car with two pairs of shoes, dance gear, teaching material, and dressing-room-in-a-bag while not spilling coffee: difficult. Driving while playing iPod DJ: dangerous and not easy. Keeping the smile patiently plastered on through the Chinese New Year banquet and replying "Not interested" over and over again to TeoChiu Chamber of Commerce chairpersons and former chairpersons when they ask repeatedly, "Why don't you run for Miss Chinatown?": incredibly painful. Changing out of dress and into jeans in the car without exposing oneself to parking-lot traffic: troublesome. Picking up a case of beer before 11 p.m.: pushing it. Putting the sorrow of friends out of mind and choosing not to go home and go to bed with a heavy heart at 2:30 a.m.: extremely hard. Parking in Waikiki is much harder, more difficult than keeping a sober composure by last call. Driving home tired and buzzed at 4:30 a.m.: unwise.

A lot of things are easier. Staying home and reading a book, not changing out of the sweats, never plucking eyebrows, nor grinding coffee beans for that fourth cup of the day because consciously lifting your mind out of the mindless tedium of Dad's work takes a tremendous effort, would be a relief, in a way. Dwelling on that darkest emotion inside yourself and not fighting back when others pass theirs on to you is a piece of cake. Sit there, do nothing, it will happen. Sadness is like gravity, or like the spores of weeds. It falls, takes root, and takes some pulling to be removed and even when rid of, constantly threatens to settle back in. Happiness, that flighty emotion, flirts, teases and runs from you, and when you finally catch it, you've been exhausted, you need to walk it out, and you'll sleep well once the adrenalin wears off and your mind is clear.

There are, of course, more sensations than one can count that fall between happiness and sorrow, fun and misery. There's the surprises that just keep coming no matter how much you try to fend them off, all the things you feel guilty smiling about. There's young poetry that is written in such a beautiful way that positivity evoked by the writing style outweighs the negativity of its content. There are new visits to art museums with lush gardens but in the gardens, there are huge mosquitoes. There's the sadism in teaching the newest-born members of a Chinese family to have an affinity for red envelopes.

It might just be the year to embrace such contradictions. I'll ask forgiveness for now - to be a little more superficial, put some make-up on, take secret pleasure in embarrassing party hats, read the newspaper but put the issues out of mind, not question too much the Stimulus Plan because Mr. President is cool, even use a little more petrol because the tunes are sweet.

This entry was going to end after paragraph two, but it seemed too black and white. On a doorstep in Kalama Valley on Saturday night, I decided that I'm very good at being gray, took a puff from my first-ever Cuban cigar, and chased it with a light beer.

January 20, 2009

2009-01-23T23:31:00.002-08:00

No words.

Pipeline Weekend

2009-01-18T22:08:00.000-08:00

I will begin like a Japanese letter, talking about the weather, and end like a school-days journal entry, with a song lyric. I will use a lyric from a song that I've quoted many times in the years between 2001 and 2009.

The cloudless nights end cold, even after cloudless days of beaming dry heat. They are the kinds of days and nights that make the air feel clean and the quiet seem quieter and even though it is cold or hot it is never cold enough to disregard the option of slippers, nor hot enough to exert oneself to the point of removing a sweater. The nights end standing in a circle and shivering in that final conversation that always puts the period on a good night out, the one that winds its way from shared recollection to all-you-can eat lunch deals, before friends, with hugs and cheek-kisses bounce gently backwards off of each other and toward their parked cars.

The weekend didn't come unanticipated.

Friday night was about shoes and colors from two decades ago and about friends and sounds from ten years ago. No significant others were involved. It started with three cups of coffee in a nonexistent queue. Inside, there were more camera flashes than bar drinks and cigarette breaks, more whiskey than coke in Kris Wong's highball. Once local hip-hop golden child Creed Chameleon got off the stage the noises from the speakers drew us and others forward like excited little puppies to the sound of jingling keys. We were the puppies. Asian ones. Cage, El-P, and Aesop Rock were the keys (white ones). A Definitive Juxtaposition. Hybrids of fashion, image, hip-hop and electronic music, rap and poetry. Not that Fantastic Damage, Appleseed, Bazooka Tooth, I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Labor Days, and None Shall Pass, etc. could be considered poetry at all, but rather intricately woven stories based no less on the compatibility of syllables, vowels and consonants than on plots, climaxes, and resolutions. The bass was perfectly loud: not too loud to hear the lyrics that one could always become familiar with but never rap along to because they are just too fuckin' fast.

It proved an okay decision to wear pumps because there was space to move, and putting one's hands up and bobbing one's head is not too strenuous.

Friday night the shivering-outside-in-a-circle conversation took place in the King Street Zippy's parking lot. So it went, that after the amazing hip-hop show and over soda cracker crumbs, twenty-something year-old alumni of private high schools and popular American four-year colleges limited their vocabulary to little more than the words "fun" and "medium." For them, with that, a winter break is over, but a new year continues to begin.

Saturday was for the friends and sounds from two decades ago and the carefully-fashioned outfits that screamed "I'm not trying." It started with a mediocre dinner and a good glass of wine, but the coffee run didn't happen until halfway through the line of more blonde hair than black, a screaming, impatient line which started at the Pohuka'ina entrance and followed Koula St. towards the ocean. Saturday night was about hour-long waits for bar service, chucks getting stepped on and sweating the sweat of complete strangers, but once a safe corner was established as home base and the audio-system proved its worth to the Expendables, sighs of relief could be taken before taking deep breathes of preparation to shimmy through the violent mass of human bodies.

Saturday night brought together three friends of twenty years, elementary school BFFs separated by the fates of Native Hawaiian blood. Two graduated from Kamehameha, nonchalantly earned Bachlors' degrees and stayed forever with their high school sweethearts while dappling little with alcohol and nothing else. Nearly twenty years later, with their single and swinging groundless third wheel, the one with too many life options, a fear of commitment, and a love for assisted highs, they join hands and form a chain to make their way through the hazards of punk fans. We more than survive. It didn't matter that I don't really listen to NOFX either. Despite the glaring contrast between two nights at the same venue, it was actually very much fun. The guitar hit like the bass from the night before, and the Expendables did an Eek-a-Mouse cover. We discussed African army ants and the medical implications of vinegar after squeezing our way out of the mosh pits, as we stood in that last circle of the night, on the street corner outside of Pipeline Cafe.

Sometimes, the drive home is not intoxicated with anything but the adrenaline of music and old friends that kind of just get you. Aesop said infectiously back in 2001, "All I ever wanted was to pick apart the day, put the pieces back together my way." This year, it actually seems to be working.

Character Development

2009-01-12T01:25:00.000-08:00

"I don't think you're cheap, I never did" was the weirdest line she had ever heard, especially coming from someone who had always been part of the background at parties, even when he was hosting them. Suddenly this younger guy who spoke little but always had beer and bud, grew up and shoved his way insistently into her text-messaging inbox.

On a Thursday night she met a friend at a bar who was out with friends in the newspaper industry. Half out of curiosity, partly out of annoyance at the current company's excessive assertiveness, and partly out of the spirit of Fun, she touched into her smart-phone's screen the message "come save me, I'm surrounded by journalists" and was quickly swept away from the corner of Smith and Hotel streets in a black two-door sports car. She was quietly amused by what followed: the car parked in Kahala, the rubber slippers he had brought for her knowing that her shoes wouldn't be appropriate, the wine glasses, the white blanket laid out once they'd found an ideal spot a quarter-mile down the beach, the two reds and one bottle of white that emerged from his backpack.

"I have a feeling you may be trying too hard."
"You don't think all this is necessary?"
"You obviously haven't done your homework. Had you asked my friends, you would know that I'm not unknown to take swigs from bottles."
"Well I did find out a little. I hear your mom's crazy."

True. Her mother, the most unchanging of static figures, expectedly did not get the memo that they were already eight days into the Year of the Fun. For a woman who esteemed herself for her decision-making skills, every year since her mother had made the biggest mistake of her life has been the Year of the Crazy, the Year of the Self-Pity or the Year of Guilt and Accusations.

But she knew all about that character, and was busy figuring out this extra who was now trying out the limelight, or on that particular night, moon's glow, which shone a particularly bright spot on the water in the distance where she could not stop staring. The path of her gaze intersected his at exactly the same point for the hour or so of their conversation that he stared at a star on Orion's belt, until he spilled cabernet savignon onto the white quilt, deeming it time to pack a bowl.

Their gazes began to follow a more coincidental path, and she was able to interpret the features of his face. Suddenly she couldn't stop thinking that everything he said was like the wine glasses and blanket, pre-prepared for the purpose of seduction. She couldn't shake the idea that the person sitting next to her was just an image of that same boy who threw the party but couldn't hit the bars afterward because he was just short of legal age, and the voice to whom she spoke was coming from an entirely different source. She tried looking into his eyes to see behind them, but was overcome with the strange sensation that there was no depth there at all, no variation of color, just a hard, small black pupil that reflected a bit of the moon, and the source of the voice was still unclear. To make matters worse, she could sense that she was quickly becoming sexually apathetic. Her mouth was dry so she drank more wine. He asked for a kiss and during the downhill course of what happened next was when he said his strange line.

Her brother's girlfriend had been visiting with mom and older brother. The next day, their two families were scheduled to meet for dim sum at 11:00 am at the visitors' hotel. When her family pulled into the hotel parking lot at 11:30 after a thirty-minute car ride of tension, her mother threw the car keys at the rest of them and ran off. It was Crazy o'clock. Her father chased after. She and her brother went to lunch with his girlfriend's family alone.

The shrimp dumplings were delicious and the tea was very good tea.

Riddances

2009-01-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

What didn't go wrong in the years preceding 2009? A consistent "series of unfortunate events" plagued the conclusion of two years in Japan for one, love lives for others, business for some. It certainly poured more than rained on You Produce, Incorporated, my father's wholesale vegetable distribution company.

There was the oldest driver, a Lao refugee like my father, a farmer on the days when he did not guide a delivery truck across O'ahu from supermarkets to warehouses to restaurants. At the end of one day's route in November 2008, the man was in the middle of a field on his rented Kahuku acres, drilling a hole. A post was needed to hold down netting that would keep out the birds. His large piece of machinery was old, puttering as it drilled, finally puttering to a stop. The farmer stooped over to check on the gears that instantly restarted and caught his shirt as well as his flesh. Somehow he could walk the half-mile from the field to their makeshift farm-home and when his wife saw his blood-drenched figure she did not faint, though she cried, then dialed our number. When my father hung up, he said, "I wonder how we will make the delivery Monday morning," in the same way that sent the same chill of disappointment through his daughter as did his reaction to a couple weeks earlier, November 4, 2008, when the television announced that the first black man to run for president had become the first black president-to-be. "I wonder if the stock market will be up or down tomorrow," was what he had said.

For up and down it was all year. My mother doesn't play the stock market, but I need only to look at her face to see if the market is up or down on any given day. Dad is the one who actually plays, and therefore suffers a lot of the blame. With the optimism of 2009, and the economy at a steady rather than plunging low those side-column news headlines are becoming decreasingly dotted with reports of business executives committing suicide-homicides at the loss of their portfolios. The most novice of market players already know that a bull run means widespread optimism and bears, market downturns are the cyclic result of economic pessimism. One wonders if the upper-middle class recognizes any distinction at all between life and wealth, if there will be a day when emotions can ever be independent of wallets.

It seems around this time people have gotten more accustomed to the lightness of pocketbooks. Squeezing more fun out of fewer funds has worked out well so far as live shows in January line up with the stars in the sky over Chinatown, even the drinks get freer and during the day we all benefit from the New Year Sales of struggling businesses.

Hydraulic jeans and Aldo bag, meet Blue Scholars and Blue Moon on draft. Worker's Comp covers near-death experiences, the market gets a bit stronger, but one can never be sure enough to keep all their eggs in a single basket.

January 1, 2009

2009-01-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

During the day returned the sun over a wet island as leftover firecrackers soar, crack, boom, and fall, desolately onto damp streets. With aerials, sparkler flames and heavy rain, 2008 was driven out of an isle's life and a few minutes before the clock struck, we rolled it all into blueberry-flavored papers and burned it down to our fingers behind the darkness of tinted windows as the world exploded on the other side.