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Returning to My Hometown

And soon I will as well

Pretty much everything advanced in the world has a semiconductor chip in it.

And the world’s largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is headquartered in – what used to be a sleepy little town called – Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Pretty much spent every other summer there as a kid.

The day after the Firecracker and I got hitched, I immediately took a plane ride to Taiwan.

By the time you read this entry, we would already be starting our trip back home to America so it’s gonna be a bit outta order, but I wanted to tell you this little story first to set the whole thing up.

The last time I was in Taiwan was Monday, May 8, 2000, for a business trip, 25 years ago.

Purely by coincidence, my dad was there for the first time in 30 years because it was his turn to sweep the family grave – which is a Chinese tradition.

That meant that the last time he had been home was 1970.

I’d not gone home to Taiwan for a host of reasons, which we don’t need to get into right now.

Before you knew it, a quarter-of-a-century passed.

That’s my dad next to me and my uncle. Both are gone now. Yes, I age. Just very slowly. Dunno what I was thinking with my hair.

In any case, I know exactly two Chinese poems by heart.

One of them was written by a fella named He Zhizhang, sometime between 659 and 744 CE, called Returning to My Hometown.

You can look up the Chinese version, but the translation roughly goes something like this:

I was young when I left, old when I returned.
My accent’s the same but my hair’s thinned and grayed.
Kids from my old hometown don’t know who I am.
They laugh and ask, “Stranger, where’re you come from?”

It’s a lot more poignant in the original Chinese (and rhymes, to boot).

But – at least the way my dad explained it to me – the poem tells a story of a fella that left his hometown to make his fortune and returns home only to find that his home isn’t his home anymore.

Yeah, it kinda looks like his home but it also kinda doesn’t.

Just like him, he kinda looks the same but also kinda doesn’t.

And when he was there as a kid, everyone knew his name.

Now, he’s a stranger in the town that he knew like the back of his hand – to the point that the little kids now run up to him and laugh and point, “Check out this weird stranger who’s not from around here.”

And the town is a stranger to him.

That’s how I felt when I came home to the little town that I used to spend every other summer at growing up.

Except it’s not a little town at all. It was kinda the same but really not.

It’s all modern and high tech, nothing like I remember.

While the town I last saw in 2000 was pretty close to the one I remember from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, this one I just left is almost nothing like I know.

Legit, nothing like the town I last saw in 2000.

Nothing like the home I knew and loved.

I’m gonna tell you all about my Taiwan trip but I wanted to tell you that, during the whole trip, I saw old ghosts everywhere I went.

The sleepy town I knew so well is a bustling tech hub that’s home to the most powerful and advanced tech manufacturing factory on the planet.

To me, it was just where my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins lived.

Where I slept above a garage that my grandma converted into a tiny little convenience store.

I was the grandson of a shop-owner who lived in town all her life and told of her daughter that lived far away in New York City.

Everywhere I looked, I saw glimpses of people and places I loved so very deeply, long gone that I’ll never see again.

You see that old lady in that picture up there? I loved her more than you can imagine.

For the first time in my life, I’ve come home and she isn’t here to greet me and I can barely type these words, that’s how much I loved – and still love – those two women you see above in that convenience store in a converted garage that no longer exists and never will again.

Just like so many things that I have loved and will always love.

I’m grateful for my son and the Firecracker. Truly.

Their being here with me made bearable the unbearable.

I realize may not look like an old man but I’m certainly not a young man.

And even if I age slowly, those around me do not and that is, in many ways, worse.

Now all the people and things I loved and love still are aging and disappearing.

And, if this trip has made me realize anything, I will soon as well.

Don’t know how much more loss I can bear.

Him: Aren’t you happy to be back?
Me: I am…I just…I am. (nodding) I am.

Location: on a hard wooden chair by a hard wooden table at a train museum
Mood: alone
Music: Someday, I’ll go (Spotify)
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Bro, these are precious

Licking off knives

The Devil once said something about his childhood that always stuck in my mind:

When you aren’t fed what you need by spoons, you learn to lick what you can off knives.

Never really understood what he meant by that until I became a dad myself, but I think it means that children will fill themselves with something, so it’s best that you do it before they do it themselves with things you may or may not want.

To this end, I’ve been trying my darndest to give him things that I loved as a child, like the books that made me, me or shows that I loved as a kid.

Obviously, he’ll find things of his own that he’ll know and love.

But sometimes I feel it’s a losing battle against the allure of technology and…screens.

Man, screens are crack for kids.

BUT there is one single thing that I loved as a kid that the kid loves as well: Board and card games.

So, the other day, instead of playing Big Two – which we’ve been playing pretty consistently around here – we dusted off the ole Settlers of Catan.

Man, I still remember playing with Paul and my friends way back when and coming home to Alison. That was a lifetime ago.

I digress…

The kids were really into it this time because they understood the rules and strategy, so it was a lot more fun.

While I ended up winning the game, for me, the high point of the whole evening came early on when we were all desperate for bricks.

The kid was the only one with any – he had just one – so we were all trying to cut a deal with him when he looks at the Firecracker’s kid dead in the eye and goes, You wanna trade that for this brick?! No way, bro, these are precious!

AND, I just happened to snap a pic right when he said it – that’s the pic directly above.

Laughed so hard I almost started crying.

That will be in the top ten memories for me and this kid for a while, I think.

Location: at a new studio, filming more shorts and video
Mood: drained
Music: with you, I am whole (Spotify)
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Only when danger is far distant

Are you sure about that?

Took a knee to my eye and an elbow to my cheek the other day.

Fun times.

Her: You’re 52!
Me: I am not unaware.
Her: Are you sure about that, Logan!?

My SIL rang me up the other night because Alison’s mom was having a milestone birthday.

So, the next thing you know, the kid and I headed to her place to celebrate.

I spoke to her mom a while ago and she told me not to come for her birthday as it was too much trouble.

Me: You didn’t tell me it was [an important birthday]!
Her: I didn’t want to make a big deal.
Me: So, you wanna make me look like a jerk and not show up, lady?!
Her: (laughing) Thanks for coming.
Me: Of course!

My SIL brought some Italian cookies that I absolutely loved.

See, when I was a kid, my dad’s office was right next door to an Italian bakery.

Once in a blue moon, he’d bring home these exact cookies, and it was like the greatest day ever.

Man, I miss my dad.

Speaking of Italian things, we ended up just eating food from their local Italian joint.

I thought it was great but, evidently, I’m super easy because everyone else thought the food was only meh.

Me: I grew up super poor. This woulda been a feast for us.
Her: Well, we’re not eating the rest of it, so you can bring that home.
Me: Heck, yeah!

Speaking of when I was young, I read Machiavelli’s The Prince way back in 1996 when 2Pac released his like last album under that name (it was his only album I truly disliked).

I remembered the below quote from The Prince and was reminded of it recently what with everything going on in the news these days.

In general men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, dissimulating, hungry for profit and quick to evade danger. As long as you succeed and do them good, they are devoted to you entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children… but only when danger is far distant; when danger approaches they turn against you.

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Ch. XVII

It’s funny how universal some things about humanity are and how they transcend both time and place.

I’m truly interested – and somewhat apprehensive – about what life will be like here in the US in a decade’s time.

Location: a lobster shop, buying a lobster roll
Mood: vexed
Music: The feds surely hope that they could finally nail me (Spotify)
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Always a loser

Doesn’t really matter

One of the reasons that I liked Andor so much was because it had a clear beginning, middle, and end.

That’s such a basic thing that you’d think all published media would have, at the very least, that.

Oh man, you’d be so wrong.

Like, I absolutely loved Heroes when it first came out. Ditto for Lost back in the day.

But, somewhere along the line, they were clearly just writing to keep the money coming in and I – and a lotta other people – just lost interest.

But that’s not just with television series, that can happen in movies as well.

Clearly the Godfather and the Godfather II were excellent. But did we really need the Godfather III?

And Rocky – man, that was a perfect film. And Rocky II was pretty good. Plus, I gotta admit that didn’t hate Rocky III.

But Rocky IV turned me off and I never saw a single other sequel after that – dunno if you know, but there were eight Rocky films, total.

Not Rocky but a cool shot I took a while back.

What made Rocky perfect was that, in a nutshell, Rocky was a loser.

And it was just so real – probably because, at that time, the author and soon-to-be star, Sylvester Stallone, was also a loser at that time.

Like, the dude was so broke, he had to sell his own dog for $25 to eat.

Little wonder it was such a popular film, especially with the awkward and overweight Chinese-American crowd.

Well, one of them, at least.

Somehow, Sly managed to convince a major studio to not only buy his script but also let him be the main star in it.

But, along the way, there was a noticeable mess up that they had to fix.

See, in the final fight, Rocky wore a pair of white trunks with a red waistband and stripes down each leg.

Unfortunately, there’s a scene where Rocky sees a giant poster of himself hanging in the stadium, but he’s wearing red trunks with white stripes.

This was actually a mistake by the art department and they didn’t have the time (or money) to redo the poster. Yet this was an important bit of scenery that was needed.

What to do?

Well, all they did was to have Rocky stare at the poster and mention to the promoter, before the fight, Rocky says that the trunks are the wrong color, and the promoter says, “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Because Rocky was a loser and he literally just had to show up and get the stuffing beat outta him.

So, what was a pretty glaring mistake ended up pushing the point that Rocky was insignificant in every aspect.

Except he wasn’t.

Just a random story for a random night.

Him: I can’t do anything right.
Me: Don’t say that.
Him: Why not?
Me: Because when you say things, you give them life, even if they’re not true. You are what you say you are. 

Location: A bar in Brooklyn this late morning
Mood: ick
Music: wrapping up his hand, he’s getting ready for the showdown (Spotify)
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My – and Dorothy’s – Home Town

You never get used to New York

My first NYC apartment was just two blocks from the Algonquin Hotel.

Used to walk past it alla time and think about one of my fave authors at that time, Dorothy Parker.

Haven’t read or thought about her in years but today, I remembered her essay about our shared hometown that she wrote almost 100 years ago but still resonates now.

Figured that, if you haven’t read it, I’ll put it below for you.

My Home Town
by Dorothy Parker

It occurs to me that there are other towns.

It occurs to me so violently that I say, at intervals, “Very well, if New York is going to be like this, I’m going to live somewhere else.”

And I do – that’s the funny part of it.

‘But then one day there comes to me the sharp picture of New York at its best, on a shiny blue-and-white Autumn day with its buildings cut diagonally in halves of light and shadow, with its straight neat avenues colored with quick throngs, like confetti in a breeze.

Someone, and I wish it had been I, has said that “Autumn is the Springtime of big cities.”

I see New York at holiday time, always in the late afternoon, under a Maxfield Parrish sky, with the crowds even more quick and nervous but even more good-natured, the dark groups splashed with the white of Christmas packages, the lighted holly-strung shops urging them in to buy more and more.

I see it on a Spring morning, with the clothes of the women as soft and as hopeful as the pretty new leaves on a few, brave trees.

I see it at night, with the low skies red with the black-flung lights of Broadway, those lights of which Chesterton – or they told me it was Chesterton – said, “What a marvelous sight for those who cannot read!”

I see it in the rain, I smell the enchanting odor of wet asphalt, with the empty streets black and shining as ripe olives. I see it – by this time, I become maudlin with nostalgia – even with its gray mounds of crusted snow, its little Appalachians of ice along the pavements.

So, I go back.

And it is always better than I thought it would be.

I suppose that is the thing about New York.

It is always a little more than you had hoped for.

Each day, there, is so definitely a new day.

“Now we’ll start over,” it seems to say every morning, “and come on, let’s hurry like anything.”

London is satisfied…,

Paris is resigned…,

…but New York is always hopeful.

Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.

There is excitement ever running its streets.

Each day, as you go out, you feel the little nervous quiver that is yours when you sit in the theater just before the curtain rises.

Other places may give you a sweet and soothing sense of level; but in New York there is always the feeling of “Something’s going to happen.”

It isn’t peace.

But, you know, you do get used to peace, and so quickly.

And you never get used to New York.

By Derek Jensen – Tysto, Public Domain

Location: my hometown, thinking of all those years ago
Mood: somber
Music: New York sky don’t get much brighter – she sets, she sets the city on fire (Spotify)
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Moving water doesn’t freeze

Gather Ye Acorns

Ok, the year is 1986 and I’m a very fat, nerdy, “just-turned-a” teenager.

An anthology series by Steven Speilberg called Amazing Stories, which was a bit like a (then) modern take on the Twilight Zone, is must-watch-tv.

Because this was in the time before cable and YouTube and you either watched what everyone else watched or you had to sit on the sidelines as the other kids talked about it.

Man, I loved that show as a kid.

One of the stories that really sticks out to me was Gather Ye Acorns, which starred Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hammill.

In it, Hamill’s a young man that meets a weird old dude – who’s actually a troll – that tells him to keep everything he’s ever loved, even if the world mocks or belittles him.

So, Hamill’s character does so and holds onto comic books, toys, and pop culture trinkets – for decades.

Just like me.

These are actually my buddies; I was more of an X-Men/Batman kinda kid.

Unfortunately, like the rest of the world, the young man turns into an old man, and a poor old man at that.

What’s worse is that, the whole time, people either think he’s silly – which is the best-case scenario – or a complete idiot.

His parents eventually disown him and toss him out.

He ends up alone and, eventually, homeless.

Now an old man, Hamill’s character is frustrated and angry, cursing the fact that he met the old troll and ruined his life.

A bitter old man, he ends up just waiting to die.

Yet he somehow finds himself at a collector’s auction where he’s mobbed because everyone wants his “junk” – alla which is now super valuable.

The story ends with Hamill’s character wealthy, vindicated, and – perhaps best of – finally seen by those around him.

I did exactly that – yes, sometimes with actual stuff, like comic books, old electronics and the like – but also with things in my head.

I remember telling my college buddy, Crawford that, “One day, I’ll be a swordsman.”

He laughed and said, “Well, one day, I’m gonna live on a sunny island like Jimmy Buffet and play the guitar on the beach.”

Guess what? We both did exactly what we said we’d do.

Because neither of us gave up on our “childish” dreams.

What a difference that makes, not giving up on the things you love.

That’s the thing that makes me different from other people, I think: Like Hamill’s character, I rarely gave up the things I loved, like peanut butter, Spam, kali, comics, short stories, etc.

That can be a disserve at times, but – by-and-large – it’s served me well.

When everyone else quit kali, I kept it up. For almost 20 years, I would go. Usually twice a week and then once a week when the classes got more sparse.

But I’d always practice by my lonesome at night.

This was 15 years ago. That was our old space.

Likewise, many of my very well-meaning friends – like the one way above and even my own father-in-law, caution me about continuing to wrassle with 20-somethings.

But I know that if I stop, that’s moment I’ll truly become become an old man.

See, I know that I’m mathematically 52 years old, but as long as I can keep doing the things I love, I don’t believe it.

There’s an old saying I like that goes, Moving water doesn’t freeze.

So, I gotta keep moving.

Her: Why don’t you run with me?
Me: Sorry, I need to train.
Her: So, lemme get this straight – you’d rather roll around with a buncha sweaty men, than jog with your amazing fiancé.
Me: …yes?
Her: (slowly nods) Ok then…

On that note, we just did a crazy cool thing on Scenic Fights.

I’ll tell you all about it when it finally happens.

Location: home, cutting a box to make it a shipping cost go from $76 to $24
Mood: committed
Music: I survived. I’m still breathing. I’m alive (Spotify)
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The greatest mistake’s to do nothing cause you can’t do much

Resistance

Almost exactly 82 years ago to this day, the US 379th Bomb Group were above the central German town of Kassel – deep in Germany – trying to blow up the Nazi aircraft engine shops located there.

Tondelayo, a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, was flying particularly slow – 150 miles per hour versus its max speed of 287 mph – in order to try and hit its targets, all while being shot up by Nazi heavy guns.

A buncha Nazi exposive shells hit the airplane but didn’t explode.

After the crew made it back, officials inspected the shells that hit the Tondelayo and noted that most were empty.

Inside one of these shells, however, was a note written in Czech:

This is all we can do for you now.

That’s how the Allies discovered that forced laborers in a German munitions factory had sabotaged the ammunition by removing the explosive filler, rendering the shell a dud and saving the lives of everyone on board the Tondelayo.

On this 4th of July, I wanted to relay to you a quote I tell the kid alla time – and truly believe in my soul – from a fella named Syd that goes:

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.

To hold ourselves to our highest ideals of what it meana to be an American, I think, is to do what you can when you can to further the idea of truth and justice.

And it doesn’t take much.

But it does take something.

It’s 4th of July so I thought this was a fitting little story and quote.

Back to nuthin next week.

PS – I may take Monday off. Not sure ATM. I suppose we’ll find out then.

Location: still the UWS, for now
Mood: resolute
Music: Look, Mummy. There’s an airplane up in the sky (Spotify)
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Goodnight, Peter

He was my friend and I’ll miss him

Her: What are you writing about?
Me: Peter.
Her: Oh, did you know him well enough to write about him?
Me: Well, his life is his story to tell. I’m just gonna write about my life and his role in it.

Pausing the usual nuthin again.

Almost exactly 17 years ago, I wrote about my buddy Mike, who was a regular in my kali class.

Older fella, I still remember that Mike had a six-pack at 65+.

Mike was the first guy that I knew as a friend that died.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the last.

Mike died before social media so I’ve forgotten what he looks like.

But he was my friend, and I miss him.

Peter Moretti was like Mike in that he would always come to class and be a bit confused and not get certain moves because, like Mike, he was older.

But he never stopped coming and never stopped trying to be better.

This is him just a few days before he died.

His dedication, plus his incredibly easy-going and kind nature, was how I always saw him.

His Facebook feed was/is fulla things like him feeding birds like woodpeckers and ducks.

After knowing Peter a few years, I found that he was a karate instructor and fighter who could do things that I only dreamed about being able to do.

In fact, he just posted a buncha photos of himself as a young man two days before he died.

 I realize now that Mike and Peter are essentially me.

They were both skilled and dangerous fighters that were once in peak physical shape.

But time takes its toll on alla us.

I figure that, in a few years, I’ll be the guy that people have to help with certain moves or things.

And they too will be surprised that I was once anything but an older fella.

In any case, I just saw Peter maybe two weeks ago. I worked with him some.

We weren’t close, at all, but we got along well.

He died in his sleep and left a buncha people that loved him and will miss him.

That’s a good way to go, if you’ve gotta go, I say.

Goodnight, Peter.

You’ve worked hard enough, and you’ve earned your rest.

Her: You don’t want to make his death about you.
Me: I get that, but I also don’t ever feel right telling someone else’s story.
Her: That’s true.
Me: It’s a delicate balance. I suppose the main point is that the people in our lives are part of the fabric of it and Peter was a part of mine. I’ll never see him again and he was someone that I always liked seeing.

Location: last night, the surgeon’s, drinking up a ton of rum
Mood: wistful
Music: You’ll have to learn, just like me and that’s the hardest way (Spotify)
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The duty of a champion

No such thing as a parttime champion

There’s a quote by a modern stoic named Ryan Holiday that I particularly like: The obligation of a champion is to act like a champion at all times.

Don’t think I’ve ever lost my cool and was happy about the results. If I can give the kid anything, hopefully, it’s a better sense of being calm and calculated.

To this end, I personally have been re-reading (ok, skimming) Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and also other stoic books here and there in the hopes that all this anger at the injustice of Alison and my dad’s suffering and deaths somehow becomes more manageable.

It’s a daily struggle, I have to admit.

One really sweet thing that we’ve been doing here at Casa Lo is to have regular board game nights with the kids.

It’s a small and silly thing but one that I appreciate greatly because children – at this age and younger – learn so much in competition and games.

Forgot to take pics, so I took the pic from this old entry in 2011 with Alison at Paul’s old pad.

We’ve been playing a few card games as well as board games, particularly what we call The Bean Game – addictively fun – and Settlers of Catan.

Both boys are pretty competitive but, because my son is younger, he’s still dealing with the emotions that come with winning and losing.

One night, recently, the kid had a particularly bad night and lost his cool, so I brought him to his room to have a chat with him.

I think I want what every good parent wants: For one’s children to be better than they are.

Hope I have enough time here to accomplish that.

After all, if we’re being honest here, it’s really the main reason I’m here.

Me: What’s the obligation of a champion, boy?
Him: To act like a champion.
Me:…at all times. Don’t forget that last part: At all times.
Him: But you lose your temper too, papa!
Me: I’m aware. I’m working on that. And that’s kinda my point: You can be better than me. And I want you to be better than me. Listen, if you act like a musician, with enough practice, you’ll be one. If you act like a BJJ player, you’ll be one. And if you act like a champion, you’ll be one. But you have to do it at all times. There’s no such thing as a parttime champion.

Location: rainy NYC
Mood: ache-y
Music: we mean to go on and on and on and on (Spotify)
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A birthday at Upland

These different capacities

My buddy around the way had a major milestone birthday the other day, right after we’d gone swimming over at Steel’s.

So, the Firecracker and I rushed home – already stuffed – to change to meet up with them.

The party was in a restaurant across the street from Alison’s office, so I had a few moments in my head, but we’ll just end that part of the story there.

When we arrived, the Maitre’d brought up to the lower level, which my friends had taken over for the party.

The Firecracker and I got to sit with the birthday boy, which I was super flattered by.

Me: I met Dave like 27 years ago.
Him: No, it was 24 and a half years ago – I know this because we met the day I started at this company and I’m coming up on 25 years soon.
Me: (laughing) I stand corrected.

Tried my best to not eat that much at Steel’s because I knew the food here wouldn’t disappoint…

…and it assuredly didn’t.

I was asked to say a few words, so I did.

This woman once said, Good things happen slowly, bad things happen fast. You don’t really know who’s gonna be important in your life and how life is gonna unfold until years go by. And somehow 25 years have passed. There are at least four people in this room that didn’t exist when we first met….I knew him [first] as a co-worker, and then my drinking buddy in the neighborhood – (to kids) we drank a lotta water – now I see him as a father, as a husband, and all these other things and it’s wonderful to see. It’s wonderful to see your friends in these different capacities that you didn’t know they were capable of.

Everything I said was true.

(c) Ken Landau

RE Mike was there, along with his wife, and so many other people that I met throughout the years.

I gotta say, the very best thing about getting older is the friends that keep you company along the way.

There was a killer premium open bar but, ever since the Surgeon’s party, I’ve been wary about overindulging…

…although I did cheat a bit on my no/low-carb rule and had a touch of cake.

There’s a lot more that happened but those are all other people’s stories so I’ll just say that we had an amazing time.

The Firecracker and I took a long walk from the East Side to the West Side, stopping at Madison Square Park to look at the tree…

…and take some pictures.

Her: Thanks for always including me to these kinda things.
Me: (puzzled) Of course. We’re a team.
Her: (smiling) I like that.
Me: Plus, I like to show you off. You’re super hot.
Her: (laughing)

Location: home, sans kids, cooking for the Firecracker
Mood: chilly
Music: We got talking about the past, I even made you laugh (Spotify)
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