Month: June 2009

Categories
personal

Fading

Location: my basement for the past six hours
Mood: wet
Music: she caused a scene then every head turned


328 Chauncey Street now – not my pic, not my (c)

328 Chauncey Street, home of Ralph and Alice Kramden and Edward and Trixie Norton - NOT MY COPYRIGHT

If you’ve never clicked on my music link before, y’should do it today for something pretty cool per Caffeineguy.

———-

Still cleaning my cellar. Been weeks now. Feel like Sisyphus, cept I got a broom insteada a rock. Stupid broom…

Went to a wedding this past weekend. Someone spilled wine all over my suit. White wine, but still. Least the food was good.

Speaking of food, while at Columbia U., my fave joints were Ollie’s and The Mill. Right now, Ollie’s is a chaina Chinese restaurants while The Mill’s a Korean restaurant. But fifteen years ago, Ollie’s was an Italian joint with a sprinkling of Chinese food cause they had a Chinese chef. Similarly, the Mill was a Spanish joint with a Korean cook.

A boy could get some spaghetti and some Chinese dumplings at the former and tortillas and kimchi at the latter. Now they’re full-on Chinese and Korean joints. Yeah, there’re places like Marco Polo Cafe, with trendy Italian/Chinese fusion but I don’t want fusion.

I want authentic Italian spaghetti and authentic Chinese dumplings, yeah? Not the same.

Point is, all of the stuff I know, I mean I know, keeps fading on me. Jackie Gleason was the first when I was 14.

Funny story: did y’know the Honeymooner’s wife, Alice, spoke Chinese in real life? She and her sister were raised in China so it was their secret language. One spoke it to the other and the other understood.

In a way, that’s why the fading bothers me. Cause no one remembers Ollie’s when it was knife cool. Or what 328 Chauncy Street means. Or when MJ was still black and did the moonwalk for the first time on Motown 25.

Worry that I’m gonna run outta people to tell something to and have them understand.

Then I remember that I gotta finish sweeping the cellar and then I forget.

YASYCTAI: Alla the shows with the dumb husband and the smart wife started with the Honeymooners. Y’should watch it. (22 mins/0.5 pts)

Categories
personal

Purpose

View of the Queensboro/59th Street Bridge from the tram

Been dealing with this accountant who seems to know nothing about accounting. Reminds me of a conversation had with AAA a few years ago.

Me: I need someone to come tow my car.
Her: We can’t do that right now.
Me: Miss, that’s like my going into Burger King, asking for a burger and you saying, Oh we don’t have burgers. It’s your purpose.
Her: S’cuse me, what?
Me: Sweetie, it’s your purpose. It’s like a condom. It only has one purpose; should it fail in that purpose, it’s raison d’etre’s moot.
Her: (annoyed) I don’t get it and I’m not your sweetie!
Me: Well, not with that attitude, you’re not…

I’d call this accountant a *complete* idiot, but that’d give him too much credit.

———-

Met up with my friend Steele for lunch. He’s getting married. Asked him if he was ok with being with one person for the resta his life.

Him: Well, in addition to finding her attractive, I get along with her and her family.
Me: Is that enough?
Him: (thinking) Think of the hottest girl in the world.
Me: OK, done.
Him: Somewhere out there, there some guy thinking, I’m totally tired of ____ing her.
Me: (laughing)
Him: Getting along well…that’s a lot right there.

Location: 14:00 yest, having sushi on Amsterdam
Mood: damp
Music: Hold Tight. Oh, she said, any way you want it.

Categories
personal

Jail Debt

A rainy view from NYC

 

Her: Oriental Avenue, $100. Do you want to buy it?
Me: Yes. I am Asian, after all.

Went to see the musical Rock of Ages this past weekend as an escape from the rain in NYC. Was packed.

Was also one of only two Asians in the whole crowd and don’t think I saw a single black or Hispanic in the lot. Dunno why.

Good show.

Next night, played Monopoly for the first time in over a decade. One would think that it would be impossible to end up in jail six times in a row and nine times overall. One would be mistaken.

You and your luck, she said.

Lost a lotta hands. But won the game.

Maybe my life’ll be the same, yeah?

———-

Just walked in the door after helping a little old lady fix her computer somewhere north of the city. Cost me three hours of my life.

But she helped me out some a little while back. Hate being in anyone’s debt and I never forget a favour. As a bonus, she gave me a bowl of ravioli and a Coors Light.

Dinner of champions.

Location: 23:00 yest, hurtling down 9A
Mood: puzzled
Music: I’m a cowboy, I got the night on my side (Spotify)

Categories
personal

Wannabe Sleepyhead

 

Not been sleeping again and’ve been hitting gym. Tend to look my best when I feel my worst. 16 tabs of ibuprofen and a protein shake for lunch can’t possibly be good.

Don’t it sometimes feel like you’re sleepwalking through life? The rain’s the only thing that reminds me I’m awake.

Went to see my dad tonight for father’s day and got into a terrible argument.

We actually get along better than most fathers and sons, but still, there’s a reason why children move away.

Dunno what you think of me; I’m probably shorter, geekier, and clumsier than you think I am. Or not, dunno.

Do have my moments of eloquence – just not with my father. Something about fathers turn logical, dispassionate men into yell-ey, argumentative sons.

But, if I had the composure to think of it – and the vocabulary in Chinese to say it – woulda told him this poem by Kahil Gibran:

Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.They come through you but not from you,And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

 

What I actually said was more like, Lemme live my life, ok?

Do have my moments of eloquence. But only with strangers reading me on digital ink.

Just not with my father, whom I love more than most anything – even the rum – but don’t wanna be.

Location: 21:00, yest, eating poorly in Queens
Mood: guilty
Music: they crowd your bedroom like some thoughts wearing thin

Categories
personal

Weirdos

Location: 14:00 yest, Cuban joint on Washington
Mood: awake
Music: (von Vagabondshoes) I cannot reach a pen for me to draw the line

NYC skyline

Her: (annoyed) What kinda guy doesn’t sleep with a girl when he can?
Me: (shrugging) No one ever says to a girl, Man, I can’t believe you didn’t sleep with that guy.
Her: It’s different for us.
Me: Only cause you think it is. To answer your question, The kinda guy that thinks that he’s got plentya chances.

Went out the other night with WM, Paul and a female friend. WM ended up being straddled by this attractive girl in the middle of the club, so the resta us bounced.

Midnight, we get a call from WM saying that he’s coming over. We all ask him why he didn’t bring the girlie home and get to know her in the biblical sense.

He said it was cause he liked her and wanted to see her again. Paul and I understood but our female friend didn’t. Thought it a bit of role-reversal.

Sometimes, dunno if we’re the weirdos or everyone else are.

———-

Was on the train the other day when a really drunk girl and a guy stumbled in. The train lurches so she grabs me for support.

The guy, obviously trying to close the deal with her, looks mildly annoyed. So, chat them up until my stop.

At the end of the stop, he asks if I wanna grab a drink with them but I say, Can’t. I’m seeing my girl. Goodnight, Alex. Goodnight, Jessica.

Goodnight, Logan, they say.

I do so enjoy my random meetings.

YASYCTAI: Try a different slice of pizza. Been eating a lot of white pizza lately. (5 mins/0.5 pts)

Categories
personal

My three islands

59th Street Bridge from the tram

 

Interviewer: Rampage, where do you see yourself in 2 years?,
Rampage: Well, right now I’m 23, so in two years, I see myself, 25.

Bryson met up with me to take some pics for him on the tram. Was cloudy and overcast but I took them anyway. Was born on the island east of this bridge. Live on the island west of it. Yet, I’ve never taken the tram to the island between them until today.

Afterward, we had lunch at Johnny Rockets. Never been there either. Thought of my grandma; cause you always think there’ll be time enough to do things. Then one day, you find you’ve done run outta time.

He’s having a kid. His wife, a doctor, agreed to let him teach her how to roll. Should mention that’s he one of the best architects in his field and part of the teams in charge of giving the tram a facelift.

Me: Look at us, we’re two old, ivy-league educated, white-collar guys. I know why I do it, why do you do it?
Him: It’s just like running or something. It’s not about beating the other guy, it’s about beating yourself. (Fighting in the ring’s) different than brawling; to paraphrase Rampage Jackson, if you get into a fight with someone in a club, eventually, someone’s gonna have their feelings hurt.

Those three lives I told y’about. We all got them. Realized 90 minutes ago, that I’ve spent 90% of my life on these two islands, doing two very different things, living two very different lives.

———-

Before his rematch against Chuck Liddell:

Interviewer: Chuck said in his pre-fight interview it’s gonna be a first round knockout. What do you have to say about that?

Rampage: If he plans on getting knocked out in the first round that’s his business.

Location: 14:00 yest, taking these pics
Mood: geeky
Music: Slow down, you move too fast
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Categories
personal

How’d you not know?

You knew what I was when you picked me up

Me: You home? I’m by your pad.
Him: I’m sick, bedridden, and vomiting.
Me: What’re you trying to say?

A story goes that a snake wants to cross a river. So he asks a frog to carry him across. The frog goes, Screw you. You’re just gonna bite me. So the snake goes, Nah, we’ll both drown if I do that. So the frog figures that makes sense.

Midway, the snake bites the frog, who goes, #@$! Why’d you do that? Now we’re both gonna die.

As the snake goes under, he goes, It’s in my nature. You knew what I was when you picked me up.

Thought of that story this past weekend, when I told someone about the SA in Nazi Germany. Before the SS, the SA were the guys that brought Hitler to power. If the SS were the well-dressed executioners of the Nazi party, the SA were the fat, meathead brawlers.

After the Nazi party seized power, Hitler had them all killed, in the Night of the Long Knives, including one of his best friends, Ernst Roehm (who was also gay).

Thought of this again this morning on the train to have lunch with my dad and sis. Headline in the paper read, Taliban feel Pakistani Wrath. It’s about how, after the Taliban blew up a Pakistani mosque, Pakistan realized these guys were a buncha sick scumbags.

To Ernst Roehm, the Pakistani government and that frog, I gotta say, Cm’on…it’s in their nature – how’re you surprised? You knew what they were when y’picked them up.

———-

Finally finished cleaning my new pad. Found a switchblade I got when I was a kid.

Always kinda surprised I made it to 36.

———-

Here’s a pic of the Shuttle Atlantis against the sun.

Any douchebag can break stuff down. But this kinda stuff, this kinda stuff’s the stuff of God.

The shuttle atlantis against the sun - copyright NASA

(c) NASA

Location: my clean room
Mood: accomplished!
Music: Earth below us, drifting, falling, Floating weightless, calling, calling home

Categories
business personal

Something to me

Sunset over Hoboken, NJ pier

Sorry I’ve not posted in a while, been hella busy. Moving from one part of my building to another. Thought it’d be easy but it’s not cause one collects a great deal of – for lack of a better word – crap in 36 years. Everything has a story to it; some stories I wanna relive, some I’d rather forget.

Suppose that’s hardly news to anyone.

See that pic above? You might have seen it before. Love that pic for reasons only I and another person might know. My pastor once said that you don’t love a picture because of the paper it’s printed on. You love a picture for what it represents.

And yeah, I try to donate or toss as much of my stuff as I can. But I got some ratty things that I love, not cause they’re worth something, but cause they’re worth some thing to me. So when the guy moving in picks something up and says, Hey can you bring the garbage over so I can toss this? I reply, Oh, gimme that, I’ll toss it.

And slip it into my back pocket to put it away later, safely behind all the other crap I love, not cause it’s worth something, but cause it’s worth some thing to me.

A ball at 583 Park Avenue

Last week, went to a genuine ball. Was a fundraiser event for Helen Keller International: $1,500 a plate, auctions going for $50,000. The full nine.

Sat at a table of lawyers and next to a pretty blond. $1,500 dinners are wasted on people like me; always think, Man, I could have made that better. Probably not true but it’s my head, I get to think what I wanna.

Had this cool British auctioneer that was going nuts; made me wanna bid for something. Couldn’t though, one trip to Umbria cost like $50K.

Managed to get semi-floated in; felt I should contribute something and I did, in my own way.

On the way there and back, got caught in the rain. It’s all just peaks and valleys, isn’t it?

So, you miss me?

HKI ball at 583 Park Avenue
Christie's auctioneer at Helen Keller's 583 Park Avenue Gala
HKI Umbia auction

Location: my new(ish) room
Mood: beat
Music: been looking so long at these pictures of you (Spotify)