Hi!

Dating someone special! The lovely domestic life.

2007-08-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to the movies. Afterwards, we stopped by Andronico’s, bought a French baguette and some rice vinegar. I made stir fry with tofu, broccoli, and onions, and we ate it together. We went to the library a few days ago, and I finally got a library card up here. We rented Talk To Her, so I could practice my Spanish. We watched it over the two days. It was a great film.

We’ve been cleaning, cooking, exercising…doing everything together. I think we’re getting really close. We’ve been sleeping together for years, but it’s only been within the last couple weeks that we’ve been getting really intimate.

Yes indeed, I am really getting to know myself. I am sure it will be a life long relationship.
;-))))))

marf

2007-06-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

This damn thing won't let me format my poems correctly. alas, use your imagination as to how they should be formatted.
1
We keep adding more facts to the
equation
more
and
more
and
more
One after
Another
Do they mean
a thing
at all
And yet
More and still
More
More
More
More

2
I want to tell someone
Yes
This is how we do things
Here and that is what we do
Because we
Have always done it
This is right
And this is wrong but still I can't

there’s More and More and More until
I don’t know when (?) do
You?

3

more and more and more
I’m really getting exhausted
Of studying
Stuff that we already know and calling it new
Really I am
Where can I find a fellowship
In this fucking place so
I can enjoy a nice vacation doing nothing but studying already
Obvious things.

4
There’s a general malaise in my soul and I’m studying why it’s there.
When I find out why I will write about it. You will argue with me about why it’s there.
Soon we’ll forget about the whole thing. We will be talking about something else.
Soon my soul will be lost.

What is fun?

2007-05-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

“Come hither Professor Antonius; let’s study how people have fun in this strange place.” Professors Antonius and Carolinus left their hotel and walked to the park. There, they saw four men playing Frisbee.

“Where exactly can we locate the ‘fun,’ Professor Carolinus? Is it in the players’ hands, just after they have released the projectile…er…flying disc? Is it after the men catch it? I seem to remember playing a similar game as a child. It involved a small white sphere and a large brown glove. One would throw the sphere and then his partner would throw it back. If I recall correctly, the quantitative amount of ‘fun’ peaks just after you have successfully secured the white sphere. Perhaps, by studying the hormonal levels of the subjects before and after they catch the flying disc, we can pinpoint the source of ‘fun’ these players are having.”
“That may be true, Antonius,” Carolinus replied, “but I feel you are focusing too heavily on the biology of ‘fun.’ By interviewing them, we can inquire about their childhood, and their first experiences of ‘fun.’ Then we can map how early childhood experiences contributed to this curious phenomenon of ‘fun.’ Then, we can interview them about their surrounding culture and its beliefs and customs. I am willing to wager, that as these subjects are parts of a greater socio-cultural system, ‘fun’ is not something that inherently exists—in the biological sense—within these men, but rather is socially constructed. And, as these social agents within a cultural system begin to have ‘fun’ they further reinforce its existence within that culture.” “Brilliant Carolinus!” Anthony exclaimed.

The two scholars approached the four men and began to interview them. Antonius inquired about their amount of daily exercise, eating habits, and alcohol/tobacco use. Carolinus asked about their culture’s rituals around ‘fun,’ and their societies’ views on pain and pleasure. The men politely answered the questions for about a half-hour, but were soon eager to return to their game.

Antonius wandered about the average amount of time the men spent having ‘fun.’ It seemed that ‘fun-having’ might contribute to general happiness and well being…something to consider for future research. Antonius concluded that when the subjects were having fun, they preferred not to be interrupted. Perhaps sharp changes in hormone levels made them less tolerant to interruption while ‘fun-having.’

Carolinus concluded that the subjects came from a culture that did not kindly receive strangers. The men had been polite enough, but after 30 minutes of questioning, they had become slightly rude, with one of the subjects even telling Carolinus to shove her clipboard up her “pompous ass.” Carolinus wandered what it was about fun that made these people so insistent on having it.

The two scholars returned to their offices just as evening was approaching. The hot air of the day had cooled down to a very pleasant temperature. The summer sun was still out in the sky. Both professors each began writing books about their findings. Antonius wrote about the chemical element of ‘fun’ and “fun’s” contribution to serotonin levels. He posited that ‘fun’ had developed because it strengthened a group’s social bonds.

Carolinus’s book was about the socio-cultural aspects of fun. She explored how the culture’s ideas of ‘fun’ influenced its reception in society. Her central thesis was that, as the men’s society had associated ‘fun’ with pleasure, enjoyment, and overall good feeling, ‘fun’ became something human agents felt inclined to experience. She also wrote a smaller though equally well-received book about the customs of the men’s society. She argued that their cultures emphasis on ‘fun-having’ created an element of distrust of outsiders who perhaps had different ideas of ‘fun’ and its place in the world. Their culture distrusted strangers due to its strong beliefs around ‘fun.’

Needless to say, both books were very well received and were heavily talked about within academic circles. Both professors were awarded Scholar of the Year at their universities, and for some months, their universities’ website proudly displayed links to an article about the books. The university felt that the books demonstrated its continuing superiority among American schools. After the fanfare began to die down, Nike donated 8 billion dollars to the university for further research into “fun.”

Epilogue

The widespread success of the Professor Carolinus and Professor Antonius’s books created a rush to study the men and their culture. Soon, the men’s society was overrun with anthropologists, sociologists, and various other academics drooling to study this society of ‘fun.’ After a couple years, the park where the men had played Frisbee was turned into a museum. The men, who said they “just wanted to be left the fuck alone,” were greatly distressed by this mad rush to study them. Due to frequent visitors and phone calls to their place of work, they eventually lost their jobs and had to move to the country of Professor Carolinus and Antonius. There, they worked as night watchmen and retail clerks. I am willing to wager that in their new country, they did not have as much ‘fun’ as they used to back in the good old days. However, all is not lost, as Professor Antonius is hard at work developing a drug that can simulate ‘fun-having.’ It will cost 2,500 dollars per pill and won’t be covered by most forms of insurance.
The End

Mental Vagabond

2007-04-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

Why run around
Like a nomad with no home
Finding yourself at
the end of some
lonely dock
Where there’s nothing to do,
to hear, to say or see

You sit around in the emptyness
Wondering if it can be solved
By more suffering.

After you drag
Your sapped carcass away
The healing of bruises
Aleviates the pain.

You call it pleasure
And credit the same
Your pleasure and peace is lack of pain
A simply extraordinary confusion of names.

Mas fotos

2007-01-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

Once again thanks to Joyce for providing the impetus/motivation!

Bringing in the New Year

2007-01-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

Cool Quote

2006-12-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

-Elizabeth Kubler Ross

I really need to go take some photos!!

Ode to Material Things and Dreams of Domesticity

2006-11-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

Give me a pot and some hot water
and I'll cook us a plate of pasta
with red sauce and we'll have salad
with olive oil and red vinegar.
We'll drink it down with glasses of red wine
full-bodied and fragrant.

When we're done, you'll rinse the dishes and we'll
go to the family room to watch a movie we rented yesterday.
It will be praised by all the critics or maybe
by only a few, but we'll enjoy it regardless

On our soft couch afterwards we'll fall asleep
in each others' arms
Outside it's raining and inside
we're not thinking of world hunger and poverty
inequalites, deaths, prejudice, or homophobia
no, we're sleeping in each others' arms
with dreams of green meadows and yellow sun and
each other
on the tips of our eyelids.

2006-10-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

LAABADG
ogogogo labialips
pissssss wonk wonk
chish chis
treetops treetops

great green gadgets onefarious monkeys ohho oo
who clutch bananas their soft palms
pressed together against the gentle flesh

Hairs on their arms stick up
in a salute to the crisp blue air
of the cold day gone by

letting go like the god of wind
setting his tired frame onto
the starry couch of sky
allowing one last brush of whispery air
out from between his two soft lips
after the great and tragic storm crushed
the tiny town below

Dancing

2006-10-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

I kind of miss it. Though I didn't really do it for that long. I just remember dancing two hours a day in jazz class and then coming home feeling totally exhausted and relaxed. I think it was good for me to have that daily discpline. Hopefully my knees will get better and I will resume my "dancing" career soon ;-)

Flautas part 2

2006-09-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

Inside Esta Noche, there was some quiet latin music in the background. There were two others besides Laura, Joe, and I. The guy who had hustled us in, Emilio (apparently he went by Antonio as well), was sitting next to a man in a navy blue pirate suit. Emilio had his arm wrapped around the pirate's shoulder and was whispering soft words into his ear. We ordered some drinks, and Joe generously got the first round. I downed my margarita like it was ice water on a hot day. We talked to Emilio who was now ignoring the man in the pirate suit. The bartender kept glancing at me. Emilio told me that the bartender liked me, so we talked and I practiced my mediocre Spanish with the two men. The pirate slinked away in the background muttering something about his parrot. The bartender gave Laura and I two bigass Long Island Iced Teas. Emilio started telling us his life story. He was from Salvador. He studied medicine there but his units didn't transfer to the U.S. when he moved at 23. Now he teaches Special Ed. He said his bosses were kind of racist (they told him that he couldn't speak English well enough), and so he couldn't move up, but "I still love my job and my kids," he told us. I didn't know what to think.

He told us about his French boyfriend who wasn't as horny as Emilio was, about the problems they were having. Emilio was getting more and more shitfaced. We listened for a while, but soon decided that we should get going to the spoken word performance at the Bart Station.

We dragged our three drunk asses a few blocks over to the BART station. There were lit candles in a semi-circle. Probably about 20 people in heavy overcoasts and scarves were attending. There were a few dead cats that had been killed in an earlier satanic ritual. Up at the mic (well there was no mic) was this guy going off on Oprah. He was saying some funny and poignant shit, but I was so drunk it didn't make sense to me, and I thought he was probably just some nutty homeless guy. So I laughed.

We watched another act, but weren't too impressed and hit the streets of the mission once again. I went into a liqour store to buy a 40 and the clerk brownbagged it for me. Outside it was getting colder and more homeless people were starting to come out from their hiding spots. Warm steamy air was rising from the sewers. There were lots of noises. Bums negotiating for their fix or loudly arguing with one another. Voices would rise up into the air and then die down into the stillness of night. We passed bums on every corner and I handed out lots of singles. I guess I'm more generous when I'm drunk.

Finally we returned to Esta Noche, and the Drag Show was in full swing. We went up to the stage and danced like drunkards. The queen invited Laura up to the stage and Laura went up there. They grooved well together to the latin music about love and longing. Maybe the folks at the bar would find love this night.

As for me, I was hungry as shit, so I went outside to look for some food. I talked to a bum about God knows what and he told me to tap on a restaraunt's door that was on the corner. The dude inside the Mexican restaraunt was mopping up all the dirt from the day's business. He opened the door and handed me a bag. Inside were flautas, big and bountiful, greasy, grimy, and phallic flautas. I offered some to the homeless dude, but he just wanted some money so I gave him a single.

I started back to the bar.

So what happens next? These were no ordinary flautas, no, in fact they were magical flautas. What special powers did they give to me? Stay tuned.

Eat my scurgy poo

2006-09-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

Nothing too spectacular, just some random photos taken haphazardly. Dedicated to my photographer at large, Joyce, whose currently living it up in Glendale before she leaves for Alabama, of all places. I will take some good photos, and set out solely with the purpose of taking photos and bring only my camera and my eye, very very soon! How do I make these bigger?

Poems!!

2006-09-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

Oakland at Night

Quiet buildings rest
Along the darkening street
Silent lampposts glow

Randomness at Berkeley BART station en route to SF

The fair feeling of going
somewhere
while people wait together
seperately
thinking of long lost nights
and days.

Overhead clouds sleep-
ily move
past the horizon's long
gone grin
swirling with the night's
sky.

I think back to older eras when
everything was new
when the first ones
walked through a garden.

We talk about the first morning
but what
about evening
when
the sun's burning flame
sunk into
an ocean
for what must've seemed
like an eternity.

Why did I get a bag of Flautas at 1:00 in the morning?

2006-09-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

It all started at the 16th and Mission BART station, a lovely square heavily populated with homeless people. It was abot 9:00 pm. Lots of people were hanging outside the station. Most of the stores were either closed or they sold liqour. Honestly, I was a bit frightened because...well, the only other people there were homeless and looked vaguely dangerous. But I pretended not to be, only because people who are cool are not frightened by "shady" neighborhoods. In fact, cool people are perfectly at home in shady neighborhoods and constantly insist that the danger is overexaggerated.

Laura came and met me on 16th and Valencia (about a block away), and after happy greetings and hugs, we headed over to Joe's apartment. We narrowly escaped being mugged by a crazed Australian on the way there, but nothing else of importance happened as we made our way up Valencia. When we got to Joe's apartment, which is on the second floor of a narrow building, he was in the bathroom, so Laura and I walked into the living room where I met his roommate, who was quickly apologized because she had just farted. I explained that I fart all the time (in fact i do, i think i have a parasite or something) and gracefully defused the social tension created by the passing of methane gas out of his his roommates ass (i forget her name). Joe soon emerged from the bathroom and greeted us in a white jump suit that looked like it was out of A Clockwork Orange, setting a surrealistic tone to what would certainly be a surreal night.

"No, I'm not a killer and a rapist," he replied to my question, "I simply do some fencing." Although he later told me it was for fun and not for pay, I was still pretty impressed.

After Joe took a shower, dressed, and showed us a cut he had got on his knee from the fencing, He, Laura, and I hit the streets to get some Mexican food at the lovely "Cancun" restaraunt. Cancun is your basic small taco stand except for the fact that it is run by a giant Dominican proprietress named Lulu. Laura and I got the "super tacos" and Joe got a burrito. After finishing, we discussed what we should do over the ensuing evening. Following some polite chitter chatter, Laura suggested we go get drink somewhere and think about it. Joe and I both heartily agreed.

We chose the Mission over the Castro, perhaps because I subconsciously feared I would get picked up at the Castro and leave my two friends. Or maybe I feared I would get really drunk, take my shirt off, and make a buffoon of myself. That kind of behavior I reserve for a select few. Haha.

Walking down Mission, we bumped into this hot Salvadorean guy in front of the both lovely and classy Esta Noche. All four of us chatted for a while. He told us that Esta Noche was one of the best bars in town. Thusly, we found our bar for the night (or at least the next hour). But we still had to go see a spoken word performance that loosely assembles every Thursday night at the 16th and Mission station. And I still had to get that bag of Flautas. So did we go to the Spoken Word performance? Did I get that bag of Flautas? Tune in tomorrow (or the next day) and find out.

Berkeley

2006-09-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Well, to my loyal Blog readers, Joyce, and maybe 1 other person, here is an update. I'm slowly getting used to Berkeley. At first I had mixed feelings. I still have mixed feelings. But since I've been here, I've wanted to keep an open mind about it. Moving up here forced me to confront certain things which I guess I had been ignoring down in Los Angeles. Stuff is improving though! I know this is very vague. Anyways maybe I'll post some photos on here soon. Later!!

The creativity is flowing through my veins

2006-08-10T22:48:00.000-07:00

You ever get that feeling where ya just need to release some energy. Well here is my story.

The circus freaks were stalking around the lion shaking their spears up and down. Silhouttes of hideous shapes were playing against the pink walls of the tent. The fire was raging in a terrible manner. I was scared so I ran to the shed next to my uncle's house. My leg's felt moist. A trail of urine splashed down my leg. I felt something goeey and smushy in my pants. A piece of chestnut brown poo fell out one of my pant legs. I started crying and screamed at the circus freaks to leave the lion alone, but to no avail. I thought to appeal to some common sense of humanity within them. But they had no sense of humanity. They were freaks. Their shouts and chants grew louder.

They had picked me up in a forest one cool night while i was bathing in a lake. I have two heads, so they thought it would be great if i joined their gang. What a mistake, what a mistake. Now I have been traveling around in a freak sideshow for 5.5 X 2 years. Which makes 11 years. That's 11 years too long. I discovered that I wasn't really a freak about 2 or 3 years ago. Yeah, I did have two heads, but one of them was shrinking, and it was shrinking fast. At first the freaks didn't notice. Then they started looking at me funny. Rontom the boy who had no torso would laugh at me. He called me head boy.

I knew I had to get out. But how? I felt a strange loyalty to my jailers. But my head kept shrinking. I had found more people out there who had once had two heads, but now had one. They were fun. They were colorful clothes and danced around naked a lot. I wanted to do that too. The head shrank some more. I finally left. 3 years after the beginning of the head shrinking, my 2nd (and uglier) head shrank to the size of a pea. I began living with the one headed peoples, the former freaks.

I lived with them for some months. They were helpful and kind. But I knew I had to leave them, too. I had to find other freaks and help them be normal. I wondered around the forest. I climbed through the mountains and hiked through the mud. I found some two-headed people here and there. Some had no idea that they had two heads. Some had three.

But I began to discover something odd. The more I saw, the more I realized, everyone was a freak. There were people with three heads. There were people with four arms. There were people with no genitals. Anyone who had two arms, anyone who had genitals, anyone who had one head, they were the freaks in this strange upside down world. I had walked through the looking glass, and with my two eyes fixed firm within my steely head, I saw the world with a newfound clarity.

It was spring day, I was strolling through a forest, when I happened upon my old band of freaks. They were roasting the lion. They were dancing around. As far as they knew, theirs was the common race. Overcoming my cowardice at seeing these spectres from my past, I decided to save the lion, but I was scared, I ran to the shed of my uncle's house where I pooed in my pants and went to sleep, hoping to wake up in a world free of freaks.

If you read through that, congratulations. It's some random stream of consciousness stuff.

On leaving the coop

2006-07-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I'll be leaving the University Cooperative House this Tuesday, July 25th 2006. The time is definitely right. I don't know what it is, but in these last two months, I've began to notice all these eensy weensy details that make people hate this place with a seemingly irrational passion.

Take the bathrooms. Returning home to the co-op today from a typical Westwood bike ride, that is, one where car exhaust nearly chokes you and your eyes turn red from air particles, I took the trusty old elevator up to the fourth floor. The body odor that apparently was floating in there in some kind of stasis (is there some kind of spray--Eua de Body Odor that I somehow was never informed of?) didn't really faze me, rather it was a familiar smell that I've long been used to. However on returning to the hallway where my room is, it was the smell in the hall's bathroom that drew the last straw (though I thought there were none left).

The only way to label it would be to call it the "diarhea-toilet-smell." The toilet smell, familiar to many, is the smell that you find after you lift up the top of the toilet: a kind of mixture of stale water, mildew, and old porcelain with a subtle backdrop fragrance of poop. Add to this "toilet smell" the somewhat pungent scent of diarhea and you have the diarhea-toilet-smell.

Well this was the smell in the bathroom today. And if it wasn't bad enough already, there were also little yellow flakes of stray poo floating around in the toilet. It is these little things, which I have through some miracle been able to block out my whole three years of living in this place, that are making me really really happy to be getting the hell out of here July 25th!

Hi

2006-04-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Hi

Hi

Bye.

Hi

Bye

Hi

Mu!