AIRGUN DIARIES

Naps of Our Fathers

2009-06-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

I’d been wanting to re-watch the movie Flags of Our Fathers for a couple weeks now, and got to do it last night. The movie follows the story of the three surviving members of the soldiers who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi, during the famous WWII battle of the island of Iwo Jima. Here’s the famous photograph:

The movie talks about how this Pulitzer-prize winning shot was of the second flag raising, staged for political reasons. Both flag raisings took place on the 5th day of a 35-day battle, before American soldiers actually secured the island. The photograph and the three survivors, Ira Hayes, John Bradley, and Rene Gagnon, became promotional pieces to sell more war bonds and raise the morale of the American public.

While they toured the country during the war, making celebrated appearances in stadiums, fundraisers, and banquets, Hayes, Bradley, and Gagnon were provided the best accommodations. After the war, they were basically forgotten.

Today, we celebrate Father’s Day. We celebrate the hard work and sacrifices that good fathers keep to provide for their families. Out of 365 days a year, fathers have one official day to themselves. I don’t think their birthdays count, because how many fathers do you know actually celebrate their birthdays? As for Christmas, fathers are usually too busy working out the logistics of that holiday, putting up the tree, putting up house lights, buying presents, working overtime to make extra money to buy presents.

Just like Mother’s Day, many spend Father’s Day organizing breakfasts, lunches, dinners, parties, barbecues, picnics, get togethers and family reunions. Fathers, who may want to simply relax in front of the TV, watching golf or baseball or nothing at all, in bed or in their favorite recliner, on their one day of the year, instead become drivers for the family, cooks for the barbecue, grocery store runners for whatever supplies are in short demand, and payers of party and outdoor supplies that need to be bought in order that the celebration, on behalf of them, can be enjoyed by all.

While my barber cut my hair yesterday, I asked him what his plans are for Father’s Day. He said that he’d like not to have any plans. He’d like to maybe barbecue, but only if he feels like it. He’d like to maybe watch TV, but only if he feels like it. His brother, who has no children, wanted to celebrate by getting the whole family together for a picnic party. I have a feeling that my barber, who worked on Saturday, is right now probably taking a nap in his living room.

If my own Dad were in town this weekend, he probably would be with us, his family, and others of our extended family, waiting for an hour or more before we got seated at an overcrowded restaurant, waiting to eat food that will be served by overwhelmed servers, cooked by overwhelmed cooks. Token gifts and overpriced greeting cards would be given to him before he winds up paying for the majority of the bill.

Instead, my Dad is with my Mom in Las Vegas this weekend, on his own time and schedule, without the burden of everyone else’s agenda. Even though I am hundreds of miles away, I am celebrating the day with him, by getting out of his way.

Fear and Liberation

2009-06-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Conan O'Brien, from his Inside the Actor's Studio interview:

"Comedy isn't a science. Science isn't a science. We're learning that all the time. We're learning that in Wall Street. Nobody really knows what they're doing. And there's two ways to go with that information. One is to be afraid. The other is to be liberated. And I choose to be liberated by it."

Reveille

2009-06-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

One of the ways to keep a car running healthy, especially when it’s older, is to be gentle with it in the morning. Revving the engine soon after you start the ignition, quick starts and stops, and forcing the car into higher gears before it’s warmed up is a surefire way to shorten its life.

On some mornings, I make the mistake of checking my e-mails soon after waking up, even though I know it will contain at least fifty marketing solicitations, another fifty pornographic advertisements, another fifty pharmaceutical advertisements for products that are directly related to the pornographic advertisements, and about a dozen “as soon as possible” work requests.

If I’m lucky, I will get a handful of e-mails from friends and family that talk about what they’re currently doing in life, that has nothing to do with politics, the current war, or e-mails that I have to pass on to ten other people if I am to guarantee that I will have a nice day. Out of two hundred e-mails, I will sift through and read my cousin’s recipe for egg roll first.

Something I noticed about my reading work related e-mails first thing in the morning, before all my senses and balance have kicked in: the work requests seem as if they’re much more important than they really are. If I first take the time to go to the bathroom, walk around my bedroom, open the drapes to let sunshine in and listen to the birds outside, drink a little water to get my fluid lines going, if I first do these things, it seems as if the work related e-mails, although they are necessary for my livelihood, aren’t so immediate, important. Which reminds me of something Charles Bukowski said:

How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

When I was younger, I thought that in order to be a “good person”, one was supposed to do the above things, suffer the requisite suffering, and live in a certain degree of ignorance and denial, enough to be able to get the day’s job done. I thought that stressfulness was next to godliness.

I recently read this from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, with the demon uncle giving advice to his demon nephew. Here, as in the rest of the book, “The Enemy” is God:

Never having been a human, you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch…Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of ‘real life’ (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all ‘that sort of thing’ just couldn’t be true. He knew he’s had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about ‘that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic’. He is now safe in Our Father’s house (Hell).

and this:

We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

C.S. Lewis has an interesting take on the Past, Present, and Future. Here’s a snippet:

In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays…Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

Memo to myself to research this further.

It took me about two hours to write this entry. In between the writing, my cat wanted to play, I did two loads of laundry, and talked with a couple friends on the phone about life. When my friend Brad answered his work phone, I sang my first two sentences to him, guessing that he was probably in meetings all day and probably had not heard one musical note since he stepped inside the building. I also wrote down some African poetry and proverbs that I found on some web sites, to use on a future pro-bono project. Here's one, a proverb from the Fulani tribe:

"Patience can cook a stone."

I will now do some real-world, paying work, sifting through written notes and e-mails to find the proper requests, file attachments, double requests, ASAP requests, making sure that everything is properly documented, double checked and prioritized, because these are very very very important things, you know.

But first, lunch.

The Trough Periods

2009-05-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I called my church and asked if they needed help with anything, whether it’s driving food or groceries to the infirmed, or helping finish their web site. The web site work will resume in a couple months, when the church organizer is caught up with his other non-church duties. The other thing they asked me to help them is with the Eucharist.

Without celebration or ceremony, I became a Eucharistic Minister, also called an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist. “Extraordinary” being the opposite of what one would think, since I am not ordained nor have any authority to perform a mass. I am “outside” the ordinary. “Ordinary” Ministers are priests and bishops who have paid their dues, done their time, and have a really good idea of what they’re doing. I am simply a Fedex guy that brings holy bread to those who can’t make it to church because of illness, injury, or old age.

And so my church gave me a pyx (a small container that holds about 25 Hosts, or holy bread), a burse (a leather pouch to keep the pyx inside), a name tag, a small stack of books and pamphlets about what it means to be a Eucharistic Minister, and an address and a phone number regarding my first gig. Last week, I went to a senior retirement home and rehab center, and gave Communion to around 20 people, some in groups, some in their own rooms. I prayed with those who had the strength to pray out loud, and for the others who barely had the strength to open their mouths, I did the praying.

Things are tough right now. Some of my friends are losing their jobs, getting their hours cut, or having trouble paying their mortgage. It is now the reverse of the dot-com era, when people had more money than time. This also applies to me, with my clients suffering from this recession. I now have at least three new hours a week to use as I wish, to either panic about the world’s financial situation, or to spend that time doing something constructive that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I’ve ever done before. I chose the latter, and now spend one afternoon a week bringing Communion to others.

Last Sunday’s homily by Father John was about two books by C.S. Lewis, the same author of the Narnia stories. The first book, which I have yet to read, is The Great Divorce, about people who are stuck in Hell that are about to take a bus ride to spend an afternoon in Heaven. One by one, they complain about trivial things, whether it’s the person sitting next to them, or the way the bus driver drove, to the point where complaining about the road to Heaven was more important than getting there.

The other book is The Screwtape Letters, a series of letters that a high-ranking demon, Screwtape, writes to his nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is a fledgling demon who has been assigned to “guide” a human to do everything possible so that he ultimately winds up in Hell.

There is a reason that I didn’t, but I wish that I had known about this book a long time ago. It uses irony and reverse perspective, where God is the “Enemy”, and every advice is the opposite of what it should be—although I’ve caught myself rereading some passages because some of Screwtape's advice is the same exact advice I had read in very popular financial and self-help books.

I had underlined some passages:

If he is of the more hopeful type your job is to make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all.

In 1994, I worked four days at a job that was a very good paycheck but made me feel soulless. My friend back then had told me to stick it out for six months, and I’ll probably wind up not minding it so much after that. I was desperate to have a job back then. I quit after four days.

It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be…He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.

Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

Orange Kitty Donation, Ducks, Charice on Oprah

2009-05-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this until they get enough donations for the kitty's surgery. If you're one of my friends or family and you have some spare change, anything will help. It's a quick PayPal donation.

Here's the story:

http://organgekitty.chipin.com/mypages/
view/id/bc1504445b642459

Another story, nice ending:

Parade Leads Ducklings to Safety, on ABCNews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prRmQ-OldyE

As soon as the video embedding is available, I'll embed it here.

One more, this is amazing:

Charice singing "Note to God" on Oprah:

Lyrics transcribed from the Oprah performance:

If I wrote a note to God
I would speak what's in my soul
I'd ask for all the hate to be swept away
For love to overflow

If I wrote a note to God
I'd pour my heart out on each page
I'd ask for war to end
And for peace to mend this world
I'd say, I'd say

I'd say

Give us the strength to make it through
Help us find love 'cause love is overdue
And it seems like so much is going wrong
On this road we're on

If I wrote a note to God
I'd say please help us find our way
End all the bitterness, put some tenderness in our hearts
I'd say, I'd say, I'd say

Give us the strength to make it through
Help us find love 'cause love is overdue
And it looks like we haven't got a clue
Need some help from You

Grant us the faith to carry on
Give us hope when it seems all hope is gone
Cause it seems like so much is going wrong
On this road we're on

No, no, no
We can't do this on our own
So

Give us the strength to make it through
Help us find love 'cause love is overdue
And it looks like we haven't got a clue
Need some help from You

Grant us the faith to carry on
Give us hope when it seems all hope is gone
'Cause it seems like so much is going wrong
On this road we're on

No, no, no
We can't do this on our own
So

If I wrote a note to God.

Check Engine Light

2009-05-14T12:12:00.001-07:00

I stumbled onto the above picture this morning. The picture is in various places on the Web. I don't know where it originated but if you do a Google image search for "define necessity", you'll see the other web sites and blogs that have posted it before I did.

The picture reminded me that I have almost 175,000 miles on my 98 Accord but it's still running great, knock on wood. I almost bought a new car a couple years ago, thinking that it was a "necessity", but I decided not to.

For the last week, my car's check engine light had been on. Yesterday, I finished a meeting early and on the way back, ran into traffic on the freeway. I decided to take the surface streets and stop by my mechanic so he can take a look at the check engine light. Within a couple blocks of the mechanic shop, the check engine light turned off. I kept driving and now have one less thing to worry about.

"A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him."
—Soren Kierkegaard

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An Old Prayer for A New Year, Christmas Card Version

2009-05-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

I'm planning on making my own Christmas Cards this year and using a shortened version of what I wrote on New Year's Eve of last year.

Let us not speak these words only once a year,
but with each breath, every day.

May we understand ourselves without medallions of success, nor burdens of sorrow, that we may instead lighten our souls through compassion and humility.

May we find balance between labor and rest, and do work that promotes welfare without excess, comfort without indulgence, diligence without pride, and effort without exhaustion.

May we give so much to others that we never know the feeling of greed.

May we give enough to ourselves that we never know the feeling of want.

May we find insight to our own affairs and stay blind to the affairs of others.

May we see the world as precious and limitless, and each of us as the extension of the infinite.

Three Stages of Day

2009-05-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

I.

During the earlier part of the day, I thought about this quote:

“Boredom is the root of evil.”

I searched the Web for references to it, and inevitably found Soren Kierkegaard’s Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Philosophy_of_S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard is famous for having said the quote, “Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself.”

After reading a bit of what Kierkegaard and other writers have said about it, I think I know what it means, but it’ll probably take years before it really sinks in.

This other part was interesting, called the Three Stages of Life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_S%
C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard#Three_stages_of_life

Craig Ferguson sometimes mentions Kierkegaard during his nightly monologues, when he wants to appear sublime and scholarly, before he reverts back to a joke that mentions a party at Elton John’s house. The last time Craig mentioned Kierkegaard, he rambled on about existentialism and theories, then stared at the camera and sarcastically said, “You don’t know me!”

II.

During the middle of the day, while I worked on an Excel file and Kristie worked on putting together a rosary as a gift for my niece’s First Communion, we watched the movie Black Snake Moan, with Samuel Jackson (Lazarus) and Christina Ricci (Rae). The climactic scene happens during a thunderstorm. Lazarus plays his guitar and sings to Rae the blues song “Black Snake Moan”, about the evil that creeps into a life and drives that life into a bad direction. Lazarus is recovering from a betrayal, and Rae is recovering from sex addiction. As Lazarus plays louder, the storm grows louder, and the room’s lights flicker and the guitar amp falters. Lazarus plays and sings even louder, defying the storm. Rae sits on the ground, afraid of the storm, and hugs his leg while he plays louder and louder. The storm ends and Lazarus finishes the song.

I pointed to the TV and screamed, in my own geeky way, “That was an exorcism!” Kristie said, “Yup.”

III.

At the end of the day, I checked my voicemail. One was from my local church, whom I had contacted and offered my services for whatever they need, whether it’s to run errands or drive supplies to wherever or food to whomever in the community. They’re looking for someone to bring holy bread to those who can’t make it to church, while the eucharistic minister goes on vacation for 3 weeks. According to the voicemail, it will be taking the eucharist to a rehab center.

Batteries Included

2009-05-06T03:46:00.000-07:00

Each human eye initially transmits upside-down images to the brain, which in turn, rotates these images to the way that we understand and remember them. Everything we see is actually turned 180 degrees, all the time.

The brain, depending on the physiology of that person, will see colors slightly more differently, will notice more or less details, or not notice some things at all, compared to another person.

A person’s history, heritage, upbringing, social class, and educational level, among other things, will further affect that person’s perception of the originally upside-down, slightly off-color, variably detailed images.

Taking photographs of images will add another set of lenses, curves, perspectives, and a different physical process by which the images are reorganized and disseminated.

In order to preserve as much of the original visual information that was taken using the above process, continuous tone film is used, or the images are saved in uncompressed digital format.

And then we run it through a Photoshop filter.

According to the Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen:

Consciousness, attached to the senses, leads us into error by causing us to take the world of appearances for the world of reality, whereas in fact it is only a limited and fleeting aspect of reality.

I asked my designer friend recently, “What do you think we spend more time on, creating or formatting?”

She said, “Formatting, because it’s easier than creating.”

Whenever I begin to think about writing something new for this blog, as opposed to doing a visual redesign, I ask myself:

On writing: “Do you really want to continue killing yourself for days and days, sometimes weeks, to try to hatch an original egg of thought, which you probably won’t be able to do ninety-nine percent of the time, since you’re part of a civilization that thrives on the commercial repurposing of ideas?"

On visual redesign: "Or wouldn’t you rather spend a weekend taking a real life photograph of yourself, running it through some Photoshop filters to make it less uninteresting than other people’s pictures, sprinkling some clipart and stock images throughout the visual composition, and creating something that looks fantastic, according to current design trends? By doing this, you can make your blog seem fresh, even if you don’t write anything new.”

As if I’ve ever written anything new. As if.

Pieces of Watergate

2009-05-01T15:14:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 1974, only half a year after coming to America, my parents and I went to see a drive-in movie. My father worked three jobs—full-time as an engineer during the weekdays, driving a taxi cab on weekends, and as a cook in the kitchen of the concession stand at a drive-in theater. One of the perks of working at a drive-in theater was that my dad could take his family to work and let them watch a whole night of movies for free. We arrived an hour before the gates officially opened, when the parking lot’s tire spikes were still lowered to allow employees to come in through the exits.

I remember watching a double feature of Disney’s The Three Caballeros and Gus, the football-kicking mule. I remember being eight years old and sitting in the driver’s seat and pretending to drive. I remember almost crashing the car because I accidentally shifted it into reverse without the emergency brake on. The car was a Ford Pinto so it wouldn’t have done much damage, but that was probably my first official “this is the end of my world” moment, the first of many to come.

I remember falling asleep in the back seat during the drive home, and then waking up to hear the radio talking about the new president (Gerald Ford) pardoning the old president (Richard Nixon). Back then, I thought that Gerald Ford was a democrat and Richard Nixon was a republican. I thought that when a republican got kicked out of office, a democrat would automatically take over, and vice versa. I thought it was like baseball—when the Yankees weren’t World Series champs, then it was probably the Dodgers. I didn’t yet know how politics worked, and I didn’t know that the president had that much power.

Years later, during college, I rented the movie All the President’s Men, with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Older movies were $1 rentals back then, so I wound up watching a lot of westerns, Hitchcock movies, as well as 70’s political thrillers, including Marathon Man (also starring Dustin Hoffman) and Three Days of the Condor (Robert Redford).

Since then, I have watched All the President’s Men at least a dozen times, often in pieces as they pop up on cable TV and when I watch my DVD copy to watch a specific scene. Over time, my understanding of Richard Nixon, Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein, and everything else involved, becomes more complete, but still remains unclear. We now know that Mark Felt is Deep Throat, we have now heard the tape recorded meetings between Nixon and his aides, and Ron Howard’s latest movie, Frost/Nixon, uncovers yet one more piece to this mosaic of understanding that for me began thirty-five years ago.

But it still feels like a puzzle to me, and I don’t know why. Maybe when I understand a bit better how political lobbying works, it will be more clear to me. Or when I understand how the presidential chain of command is really structured. Or if one more movie, or book, or an Associated Press report comes out, maybe that’s when I’ll be able to complete the puzzle.

Or maybe that’s the point, that the puzzle isn’t meant to be completed, or even understood. Maybe the pieces were never meant to fit. Because if all the pieces did fit, there would be a certain acceptance of the whole mess of it.

Waltzing With Wires

2009-04-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

During college, I wrote this for a poetry writing class. The assignment was to write something in iambic pentameter. Yes, this poem has ten syllables per line but it isn't in iambic pentameter, as I found out. But the class got a kick when I read it. I'm posting it here to remind myself that I want to illustrate this soon.

Waltzing With Wires

Harold did find himself faced with a crime
Overload outlets with more than two wires
A task much too easy, stores will agree
They stock extension cords ‘numerably

‘Twasn't enough that a T.V. suffice
‘Long with a radio singing so nice
He went out and bought a Beta machine
In case he might miss a show he’s not seen

Harold did have but three things needing juice
But sickened was he seeing three cords loose
So out he sojourned to market again
Got a surge protector with six holes, then

“Poor, poor lonely friends,” he said to machines,
“Three musketeers only half what could be.
If I had money and room I could spare
I’d put three more of you way over there...”

So he scrimped and he saved—Christmas arrived!
He asked for nothing but cash and good tides
And when he amassed a fortune in green
Exchanged it for wires, some circuitry

If there was time before school, he would play
Nintendo, Sega and Genesis games
On three walls, his room had three CRT’s
The fourth hung Gameboy, along with his keys

And Harold grew up thinking much the same
If he stayed in his room, there’d be no shame
Women eat chocolate; men turn to war
Or video games to satisfy all

And Harold was fine, or so they believed
‘Til one day they heard electricity
Laughing inside of the boy’s little room
Sounded a lot like a digitized loon

When they did open the door they were shocked
To see Harold grinning, steady as rock
He looked up at them, his fingers held high
Showed neat little wires sprouting from inside

Resistors and coils, not pimples and veins
Shot through the festering cracks on his face
Battery acid flowed out of his chest
Not blood, and not pus, but still looked the same

His toes had all fallen, sprinkled the floor
Like small crisped doughnut holes, burned to their cores
“Must be the wattage, or voltage too high,”
His father then yakked while his mother cried

And that’s when Harold-machine proudly said
“Look Mommy, Daddy, I’ve bested the best,
My name is the top score, like all the rest!
And I’ve watched the movies, all to their ends!”

And when he did smile, his teeth were all gone
But braces remained, conducting it all
And when he got up to reach out to them
They ran out in madness, not seen again

And when they were gone, poor Harold-machine
Switched “Player One” on his lonely machine
“If I played true baseball, I’d get a hit,”
He said to himself, “or home run. Zzt...zzt...”

Rebel's Commandments

2009-04-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

If you live in a world full of desperation, do not despair.

If you live in a world full of lies, do not lie.

If you live in a world full of cheating, do not cheat.

If you live in a world full of blind followers, do not blindly follow.

If you live in a world full of deception, do not deceive.

If you live in a world full of denial, do not deny yourself seeing the truth.

If you live in a world full of trends, do not be trendy.

If you live in a world full of temporary things, do not be temporary.

If you live in a world full of gossip, do not gossip.

If you live in a world of imprisonment, escape.

Resurrection

2009-04-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

During Easter mass on Sunday, Father Glynn’s sermon was about starting over. He talked about a woman who had had a very tough life who, one day, decided that she was simply going to leave her past behind and begin a new life. Her story, like Jesus’ resurrection, stood as symbols that we are all capable of this.

Today, this was on Yahoo’s home page: Boyle's Got Talent

Susan Boyle Sings on Britain's Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 @ Yahoo! Video

It’s about the show Britain’s Got Talent, and about one of its contestants, Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle isn’t pretty or thin or sexy. She grew up with a disability that made her the target of ridicule from bullies. She is 47 years old and lives alone with her cat. She mentions that she has always aspired to be a singer but for one reason or another, never got the chance.

Click on the link below to view the longer, more thorough version of her debut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

The song that she sang for the show was “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables. Here’s the last verse of the song:

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

According to the article, she is currently meeting with Sony BMG to discuss a recording contract.

Another article on Susan Boyle via the Scotsman Newspaper

The Changeable

2009-04-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

Palm Sunday celebrates the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, days before his last supper and crucifixion. As a form of honoring him, his disciples and others laid their cloaks on the ground before him. Those who had no cloaks laid palm fronds on the ground.

When I was young, I looked forward to Palm Sunday because I got to weave palm leaves into interesting designs. A week later, on Easter, I got to wear my best clothes. As I got older, I cared less for palm leaf weavings and dressing up, and going to church became an obligation and a chore.

I’m forty-three now, and know exactly why I am going again. After four decades, I now go to church with a new enthusiasm. I have new questions, and I’m eager to hear as much information from any source in order for me to find the answers.

During mass earlier today, Father Higgins mentioned that the Catholic Church was in the process of beatifying Pope John Paul II as soon as April of next year. Everyone in the church clapped enthusiastically. From what I know about Pope John Paul II, he deserves it.

After mass, I went home and researched Pope John Paul II on the Internet. A small section on his Wikipedia page mentioned that the 14th Dalai Lama had visited with him eight times, more than any other dignitary, and that they shared the same views on many issues, including human rights and the acceptance of world diversity. Here is the Dalai Lama’s letter of condolence:

https://nl.savetibet.org/news/newsitem.php?id=726

By the end of today, I decided to try something new. I don’t yet know the details, but it will involve my giving time and resources to the church and other spiritual projects.

I will not do this with humility because I know that pride is a part of this. I will not do this with selflessness because I know that my ego will be bolstered by it. I know that doing this will make me feel as if I’m better than others.

What I am hoping for is that it becomes habit. That I do these things enough so that, after a while, I forget why I’m doing them. I hope to one day be in a certain state of stupidity and ignorance, enough so that my actions will be pure.

I wonder if the donkey that carried Jesus knew anything beyond the fact that its job was to carry somebody, anybody, from one place to another. I wonder if that donkey went to sleep that night thinking it had been just another day.

Addictionorium

2009-04-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

(Click on the picture for a bigger version.)

Yesterday, one of our clients asked me to do some cartoons to help promote a video that discusses addiction to videogames. The above drawing is one of them.

I'm not sure if I was ever addicted to videogames, even though I sometimes played 4-6 hours a day. Maybe it was more like 8-10 hours a day, I don't quite remember. I'm not sure if you could call playing the same game over and over, with the same results and no personal growth involved, an addiction. I'm not sure if the numb feeling I had when I played a game for hours on end was a true fix for whatever emotional pain I may have been experiencing at that time. I'm sure I just played videogames because they were fun. I'm sure there was another reason I kept playing them even when they weren't fun anymore.

Cathedral

2009-03-31T23:24:00.001-07:00

To celebrate my birthday, Kristie got us a pair of tickets to be audience members of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. We were two of 113 “show enhancers”, in a room with about 10 rows of seats facing a small stage. The stage was surprisingly much smaller than what I thought it would be.

Before the actual taping, we were given general instructions on when and how to clap, laugh, stand up, cheer, and snicker. Instructions that, by the time the show was in full gear, became unnecessary because Craig Ferguson is damn good and we just went on instinct.

The show we went to wasn’t taped in the same sequence as is shown on TV, and I’m guessing that’s how most of the shows are done. The first segment that we saw was a musical performance, which usually happens near the end of Craig’s shows. After the band played a song, it took the stage crew about 15 minutes to break down the musical equipment and set up the stage pieces, including Craig’s desk. Then Craig Ferguson was introduced and began with his monologue. After the monologue was taped, they taped the show’s prologue, about 2 minutes, where Craig usually talks to the audience to prep them for the rest of the night. On this show, it was the comedian Steven Wright who kicked off the very beginning of the show, with Craig walking into the shot while the audience giggled.

The next taped segment involved viewer e-mails. Again joining Craig was Steven Wright, who injected his own minimalist cosmic perspective into each response. After e-mails was a comedy sketch involving the Reno 911 actors, shot in front of a blue screen. After that segment was the first interview with a young actress from the show E.R. Then they shot the epilogue, which is Craig with his feet up on his desk, his tie loosened, reviewing some highlights from the show.

A nice surprise came at the very end, where actor Michael Caine did a very funny interview, with a couple of minutes involving a story about Somalian camels. This segment will be shown on another night.

So in terms of the sequence of how the show was taped compared to their order during the TV broadcast (in parentheses), the segments were taped in this order: Musical performance (6), monologue (2), prologue (1), e-mails (3), comedy sketch (4), interview (5), epilogue (7), Michael Caine interview (bonus).

Experiencing the show live is very different than simply watching it on TV. It was more like a puzzle than a completed package. Because I was part of this production of the suspension of reality, I couldn’t indulge in it. It’s probably the adult equivalent to being a kid at Disneyland and seeing Mickey Mouse take off his head to reveal an exhausted, sweaty-faced college-aged girl underneath. Or actually being the exhausted girl.

After seeing the effort and planning that those involved put into every Craig Ferguson show, I have a lot more respect for show business people, especially the crew, and what they have to go through every day. I am not as much in awe of stardom as I am of work. Wrapped around each joke is the toil of a small army of people, their jobs and futures depending on how much each subsequent viewer with an itchy remote control finger laughs, watches a commercial, buys a product.

I went to tell my parents about the show, but they were at church, attending the Lenten Day of Reconciliation, where catholics go to confession to receive the Sacrament of Penance, in preparation for Palm Sunday, then Good Friday, then Easter.

Before the taping of Craig Ferguson’s show, the warm-up comic, Chunky B., tossed miniature chocolate bars to the audience. Outstretched hands grasped at the air and most of us were able to catch at least one bar.

During mass, my parents, like most everyone else, knew when to stand, kneel, sit, pray, say the proper Amen’s and other responses. During the Lord’s Prayer, they held their outstretched arms to the sky. During communion, they received their own version of miniature chocolate bars.

Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, was once asked about the events that happen during one’s life. He responded by saying (and I’m trying to recite this from memory), “When you’re going through life, it seems as if nothing makes sense, and nothing is in the right order, and many times you wonder why things happen the way they do. But if you’ve lived long enough, and you look back at all the things that happened and where you are now, it seems as if everything happened for a reason, and the whole story now makes sense.”

Junk

2009-03-16T02:05:00.000-07:00

During D.L. Hughley's CNN show, guest Rabbi Shmuley said this:

"...one of the reasons that the economy tanked is that we're so empty on the inside because of the absence of love, that we need to stuff all kinds of junk inside, thinking it's going to satisfy us. And it doesn't satisfy us."

At first glance, "junk" would refer only to material goods. But the more I think about it, I wonder if other things also apply, including:

Busy: filling our lives up with so much activity that we have no time for reflection and self-auditing, because we are afraid of what we might discover.
Gossip: filling our lives up with the affairs of others, so that we will have no time to reflect on our own affairs, also because we are afraid of what we might discover.
Resentment: filling our minds with negative feelings for others, or blaming others for our own problems, so that we will not have to be responsible for our own actions.
Obligations: filling our lives with "stuff that I have to do" so that we won't have to reassess our lives, and maybe come up with something original, which we may or may not be capable of doing. Having obligations, because we are being forced to do something that we don't really want to do, also gives us an excuse to keep resentment (see above).
Addictions: alcohol, drugs, sex, food, shopping, computers, videogames, and anything else that makes us numb enough not to have to be mindful about things that we should really be mindful about, for our own personal sake.

About six years ago, I stopped by a doctor friend's office to say hi. My friend is a surgeon and a teaching professor, which means that his schedule is probably a hundred times busier than mine. He was sitting at his desk, having a cup of tea while typing up a report regarding his latest case.

He asked me how I'm doing. The first thing out of my mouth was, "Very busy. I'm very busy." After hearing this, he stopped typing, took a sip of his tea, and leaned back on his chair. "Really?" was the only thing he said. And I saw a smile in his eyes.

I have since made my life less busy. I have since craved for less. I have since gotten less, and have been happier for it.

Call Me Ozymandias

2009-03-14T03:58:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Just the fact that I write a blog, to be read by the public, that I do not simply keep to myself (even though many would probably like me to), shows that in some way, even a little, I am a victim of my own hubris.

In the movie Watchmen, the character Adrian Veidt, a retired superhero and the world’s smartest man, has figured out a way to “save” the world from destroying itself through nuclear war. His convictions are so strong that he is willing to sacrifice dozens of lives, as well as half of New York City to do it. At the end of the movie, his calculations prove true and the United States and the Soviet Union begin disarmament and cooperation. Even Dr. Manhattan, a time-travelling, multi-dimensional, almost godlike being, agrees with Veidt’s actions.

Watchmen is fiction.

For years, very financially-smart people have been interviewed on financial news shows, to give advice as to how the not-so-financially-smart people should be financially smarter. Some of these financially-smart people are now being blamed as contributors to the current economic crisis. These same financially-smart people, when asked nowadays, are hesitant to commit to giving any advice and have no definite answer as to how the crisis happened or how it will end. As John Stewart, a comedian and talk-show host who professes to not be an expert on anything except comedy and hosting a show, puts it, “It’d be like turning on the Weather Channel during a hurricane, and they’re just doing this: ‘Why am I wet? What's happening to me? And it's so windy! What's going on, I'm scared!’”

The current economic crisis is not fiction.

To me, the major difference between the above scenarios is the element of unpredictability that transcends calculation. Another movie, The Dark Knight, mocks the trust that society often places on calculations. I like that movie.

Calculation is me reading books on something, then taking classes to get better on that same thing, then teaching classes on it, doing surveys on it, making money on it, then winning awards about it, and spending more time on it than anyone else. Then thinking that because I did all this, my advice will be better than anyone else’s.

Carl Sandburg, American poet laureate, never earned a college degree and couldn’t get into West Point because he failed a grammar and math exam.

Does this mean that one should never learn anything? No. It just means that anything learned is not immune to the follies of chaos. Anything that has rules, especially man-made rules, especially especially really really strict man-made rules, when it topples, is gonna hurt like hell. No matter how much we learn or think we know, no matter how much we plan, calculate, and devise, we cannot know everything, and we cannot control everything.

Back to fiction: In Watchmen, Adrian Veidt’s superhero name was Ozymandias, after Egypt’s Ramses the Great. Veidt thought he knew what was good for everyone else, so he took it upon himself to impose his ideas on others, whether they liked it or not.

Back to now: Millions of dollars have been spent on developing, marketing, and basically bulletproofing web sites to corral the biggest audience and get the best placements on search engines, as well as winning awards, fame and notoriety. But ask Google a simple question, like “What is the best way to fix a television?” and you will likely get your first answer not from a company, or an institution, or even a group, but from an everyday person with unknown credentials who just happened to have an opinion and put up a clunky little web page. Google is very democratic this way. Try it, see what happens.

The more I work with the Internet and the older I get, the further away I am to becoming an Ozymandias of my work. The further away, I hope, from becoming a victim of my own hubris.

Also in Watchmen is a character named Rorschach, whose mask changes unpredictably with each second, because each new second is unpredictable. Whose superhero gear consists of a flashlight, a grappling hook and an aerosol can. Who gets his ass kicked as much as he dishes out. Who inevitably gets obliterated while trying to reveal the truth, as chaotic and unpredictable as it is.

A Constant Age of Salvation

2009-03-05T02:36:00.000-08:00

I got pulled over by a police car for approximately thirty seconds today. I was driving under the speed limit, but my right headlight had a burned out bulb, and so I thought I was going to be cited for that. After I saw the flashing lights behind me, I parked my car next to a curb, while the police car stopped behind me and aimed its spotlight in my direction. I waited for the officer to get out of his car, but he didn’t. After half a minute, the police car drove up from behind my car, stopped next to me, and the officer said, “You’re good to go.”

He may have been called to a more urgent situation, which is why he sped away. Or he originally may have thought my car was stolen, then confirmed that it wasn’t. Regardless, I continued to drive to Pep Boys, got a replacement bulb, and installed it in my car as soon as I got home.

I bought a five-dollar lotto ticket and just learned that it had won nine dollars.

I had planned to write something that commented on how the world is currently suffering to pay for the greed of past years. But I wound up going to the kitchen to eat an orange. I turned on the TV and watched Craig Ferguson interview Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

They didn’t talk about the recession. They didn’t talk about corporate greed or the bailouts. They didn’t talk about layoffs or the economy. What I remember most was Desmond Tutu laughing and squirming in his seat in delight, and Craig Ferguson’s state of amazement and wonder. They talked about forgiveness, and how people learn to be human beings through each other.

I want to say something profound and cement it into place. I want to come up with something unique and memorable that will continue to live on long after I’m gone. I want to inject my own perspective to the day’s events.

Instead, I think I’ll just listen to the latest U2 album and fall asleep, with none of me going through my mind.

The Better Silences

2009-02-22T01:45:00.000-08:00

It’s an automatic thing, something I gravitate toward. I often find myself at a store, staring at a shelf full of Blu-Ray DVDs.

There is always a movie on sale, always something cheap enough to buy, to hold in my hand while I walk around the store, later ripping open the plastic wrapping and sticking the disc into a player, turning up the surround sound and watching something in high definition. It’s an easy, somewhat mindless, almost cathartic moment.

What I’ve been paying attention to lately is my state of mind during this process.

Am I at peace with myself when I buy a DVD?

Am I stressed out?

Do I later regret buying the DVD, realizing that it wasn’t imperative that I got it at that moment?

Is there something else that’s bugging me that I can’t resolve, and so I use the act of purchasing the DVD like others use alcohol or drugs or food to diffuse the noise of confusion?

Until recently, my answer was often yes. As the watching of movies are vehicles for escaping reality, my purchasing of movies was an overture to this escape.

I don’t know how long this is going to last, but lately I haven’t had a need to escape. I often go into a store full of DVDs and leave empty-handed. I still scrutinize the movies on display, think about the ones I’ve already seen, and wonder about the ones that I haven’t. I think about their relative importance in my life. And then I walk away, after deciding on the answer.

I find myself muting the TV more, especially during commercials. I change the channel when people start to argue on CNN, because I would like to know about news, not noise.

At Play in the Fields of the Lord

2009-02-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

When I was four years old, I drew cartoons. I would often draw funny cartoons that made me giggle selfishly.

When I was six, I learned handwriting in between drawing my cartoons.

When I was fifteen, I learned how to draft orthographic views using a 2H pencil, a compass and a triangle.

When I was eighteen, I learned how to program in LOGO, feeding coordinates to a little pixelated turtle that drew pixelated pictures on a pixelated computer screen.

When I was thirty, I was knee-deep in Photoshopped bitmaps and vector drawings.

Now, one of my dear clients has given me the opportunity to come up with original cartoons and scenarios. I have been given the opportunity to sit quietly and sketch, and think, and use my twisted, sarcastic mind to come up with oodles of ideas. I have been given the opportunity to giggle selfishly again.

Thank you, God, for these new moments.

Ex Humanitas

2009-02-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

Click on this link and read, goddamn it:

{Freezing Death of Michigan Man in House Sparks Anger}

Marvin Schur was 93 years old when he froze to death in his home. After not paying his electric bills for 4 months, a machine called a "limiter" was attached to his home's electricity. This machine determines when too much electricity is being used and automatically shuts off the home's power completely. To restore power, the homeowner must go outside, in this case, in the middle of a freezing winter, and reset the machine.

Marvin Schur was 93 years old. His wife had recently died. He had no children. Marvin Schur probably had dementia and didn't know how to go outside and reset a machine. Marvin Schur had faithfully paid his electric bills for 50 years, and probably missed paying it because of dementia. Marvin Schur had $600,000 in the bank. He had enough money in his house to pay the electric bills.

Marvin Schur was 93 years old.

Machines don't know what 93 years old means.

Employees who read customer numbers off invoices, employees who forward delinquent invoices to other departments, and employees who receive instructions to attach machines that limit power, are all situated so that they are not able to know what 93 years old means.

We are all responsible for knowing what 93 years old means. We are all responsible for choosing what machines we trust, or if we should trust any of them at all.

We are responsible for putting our humanity first, machines second. A very very very distant second.

Validationorium

2009-01-23T00:24:00.000-08:00

I haven’t looked for it, but I bet that somewhere there’s a “Short and Stocky Asian Geeks Who Think They Know Everything” club. I bet that that club will have a manifesto, and upon reading that manifesto, club members will feel really good about themselves. I bet that if I joined that club, I would feel really good about myself, even if I had reservations before. I bet that if I joined that club, nobody in that club would tell me how full of shit I am at any given moment, because everybody else in the club is in the same predicament.

Sometimes, when I’m unsure about buying something I don’t really need, I bring a friend along who I’m sure will support my decision to buy. If that friend had already bought the same product that I want to buy, that would be even better. And then I buy, and feel validated at the same time.

When I buy something really expensive, I make sure to read as many positive Amazon.com reviews about that product. I make sure to buy accessories. I make sure to subscribe to a magazine dedicated to that product. And then I buy more accessories.

I like reading charts and statistics that support my decisions in life. If I had the choice, I would probably surround myself with people who mostly agree with what I have to say.

If I wrote a new poem tomorrow and would like to hear only good reviews, I probably wouldn’t show the poem to my family or friends, because most of them don’t write poetry, which means that they would never show me one of their poems, which means that they wouldn’t be afraid of my criticism of their poetry, which means that they would probably be painfully truthful in criticising my poetry. And I wouldn’t be able to handle that. And so I would show my poem to other poets.

Same for songs.

Same for art.

Same for addiction.

Dorothy Parker quote

2009-01-11T02:39:00.000-08:00

During college, one of my professors said this:

"I hate writing, I love having written."

And attributed it to a writer, whom I'd forgotten after taking the class. Since then, I'd been trying to track down the writer. Turns out it's Dorothy Parker. Yay.

An Old Prayer for A New Year

2008-12-31T17:24:00.000-08:00

Let us not speak these words only once a year, or once a month, or once every week, at a specified moment and place, in the presence of others. Instead, let us be reminded of them, and be caretakers of them, with every single breath that we take, beginning now.

May we understand ourselves without judgment, without the burden of our past. May our load be lighter with each new moment, so that we may have a chance to rise up to heaven one day.

May we detach ourselves from material burdens without resentment, guilt, or any feelings of loss. May we stay humble regardless of profit, poverty, or charity.

May we find balance between work and rest, and acknowledge that both are equally important. May we find work that promotes welfare without excess, comfort without indulgence, diligence without pride, and effort without exhaustion.

May we find infinite insight to our own affairs and stay blind to the affairs of others.

May we discover our own purpose and have the resources to nurture it. May we have the time, energy, and enthusiasm to share the fruits of our discoveries, with humility and compassion.

May we have the patience to listen to each breath.

May we have the ability to understand what we hear.