So some of you were wondering what I'm doing these days. Oh...nothing really.

                                  ......Just KICKING THE ASS of ignorance!!

                                                                 

You know. The same old story round here.

89% of this asskicking takes place in the classroom. I teach a course in Asian Am lit -- so cuidado, ignorance....cuidado....   We dissect our texts to determine that, yes, some authors contribute to the debasement of oppressed minorities through their portrayals of blahblahblah. But then one learns that the #1 Asian-related search on Google is for porn.  You know: Asian sluts, Asian cunt whore geisha, Asian pussy cum facial.

And that makes me feel like I'm missing the point. But what could it BE?? If only....



  Bitch, look out!






And then, of course, there's The Book. It's coming along. There are good days and then there are the other days. Mostly there are other days. Or, what you might know as "despair." 

Maybe "paralyzing terror." That's a good one too.

My biggest fear is that I'll turn out to be Eli Manning.





And find out that my potential has been misjudged all along. Or worse yet that it doesn't hold up.

Sometimes you wonder how things will turn out and you feel the screws tightening, their slitted heads odiously spinning.

That's right... I just said "odiously." Right in your face!! Who says I'm not a writer?




But lately I'm watching Beckett on Film. 19 plays, 11 hours, 4 DVDs. And this makes me feel smart.




The first play I ever watched was Beckett's Waiting For Godot, on an Intro to English Lit field trip. In this play, two hobos sit and talk and wait for a man who never comes. They talk and wait and the man never comes.

By the play's end we felt cheated but nodded and smiled as if we'd just been entertained. No. We'd been enlightened.

On the way home, we talked uncertainly, floating our opinions like paper boats. And suddenly I felt something funny in my head and blurted out: "Wait, wasn't that play about...God?"

                                            .................HOLY SHIT!!

"It's about Waiting...  for God..ot?!" And thereby completed my one and only serious thought in eighteen years of life.




Beckett can be grim but funny. How about a constipated man named Krapp? Hilarious!

What's most affirming, though, is how his characters muck through the days, all steeped in memory and regret, regardless of the trauma of being, regardless of the certainty of nothing to come but misery. And in all this uncertainty you can count on one thing:

That people will do whatever they need to get by. And what are you going to do? Stop them?





Still dating the same girl. We're getting a farmhouse on Cayuga Lake, one whose backyard abuts a state park, a stand of monstrous trees, and a smattering of docks. It'll be us and the dog.





That's Mochi Minh. She's no Deebo, although she's quite talented. Here's her doing an impression of Natalie Portman a la Goya's Ghost.









Natalie Portman






Mochi Minh




If our relationship were a romantic comedy, we'd be deep in the second act. One of mistakes and misunderstandings, and marathon sessions of Olympian bedroom agility.

We're still working things out.

It's all uncertain. Who knows where we'll be in a year? Who cares? You don't wonder whether hummingbirds are speedy humpers. Really, what difference does it make?

Fortunately, the local barcade in the 626 charged us only 5 bucks for the use of a genetic time machine. We could peer into the spooky vortex of the future. We piled right in. We glimpsed our children.





 

1. Elian Gonzalez.

                            



 

2. A Korean girl with herpes.




The Korean girl will probably end up in porno. Asian Geisha Facial Cum Sluts Volume 17: Slurpin' and Burpin'!. And her co-star will probably be Eli Manning.

But hey. You know what? That's OK with me. She can do what she needs to get by. That's life. If you don't let things go, then what are you doing?

And I know she'll make me proud. She'll be the best damn porno star she can be.

And what're you going to do? Stop her?

So the other day at the mall there's two fools in wheelchairs outside of Champs, just checkin out the shoes.

What do you need new shoes for? Fucking basketball? You're in a wheelchair! Admit it! You're not going to be jumping around any time soon. 

 

Dear Paul,

You lovely boy. Thanks for the magical time in NYC. Remember those skanks asking us to dance at the club?  And we're like: Nuh-UH, girls. It's boy's night out! *snapsnap* Talk about tyrannowhoreus rex. Your rack's about as "real" as Laguna Beach, girlfriend! LOL  Paul, do you remember that morning you were wearing that Prose Before Hos shirt? And I'm like: OMG I almost wore that shirt too! Then you gave me that look? And I checked my shirt? And I'm like, OMG I am wearing that shirt! And then we giggled?

Ryan's so jealous of our strong manly bond.





Tell Lauren thanks for letting me crash. She's pretty cool. Why's she with you? And mail me my shirt and Fritos. You big fluffy slice of fruitcake.

<3
Steve




The Bermuda Triangle of MFAs. Social skills are known to go missing among us.

P.S. If Waking Life were truly an experiential movie instead of quasi-philosophical egotrip, someone should experiential ME instead. It'd be more fun than listening to Ethan Hawke ponder the mysteries of life. "You know, sometimes I ponder? About, like, life? Ow. Wait. I'm having a brainial hemorrhage."

Strong in Diana Ross is the Dark Side of the Force.


some people say pigeons dance too much
but my mom says that they're shuddering.
if there's a lesson in this
let me know.






Halfway through their set at the Troubadour, Built to Spill starts playing Carry the Zero, this gorgeous autistic child of rock that keeps nudging you until you freak out and say, ArgarhhGA! and then the kid freaks out too and you both amplify each other's freak out as frontman, Doug Martsch, starts zoning out and his eyes close, and it's suddenly clear that he's the Idahoan savior in an Amish beard and short shorts, and a crown of thinning hair, nodding off on the cross.


Save us, Doug.

And here are the San Gabriel Mountains again.







The road to Chantry goes on through the foothills for miles so stop near the brushy nook there. Look at the spectacle of city lights out in the darkness.







Just stand on that cliff and look beyond for once. The dusting of stars, the music, the grids all radiating light.... It's the poor man's penthouse.

With a view like this, you must be thinking of romance.








Back in the day it seemed to go like this: You say, Stop doing that! And she stops. She says, Stop feeling that! And those feelings disappear. Or you dump her.

Reciprocation. Perfect symmetry, right?

Blame your dad. He used to say, If you can't set it down, don't pick it up. He meant women, of course. As always. He meant there's millions of women all after one thing: Dick. It might not be love but we all make do.








Here's the best part, ladies: Dicks are interchangeable.

And we all make do so you took his advice and said, Fuck these bitches. They're like socks. Don't fit? Then replace them.
 
Now your dad has a kidney on loan from a dead man and reads Buddhist books, preparing for the afterlife. Surprise! His policy has changed. Now he says: To make a relationship work, sometimes you have to eat shit.

Wow, you think. Eat shit. That's deep, dad. Thanks.

But you suspect he's onto something this time and from the info you've gathered, you think balance in love can be achieved through assymetry--or, rather, according to your experience, in spite of it. If everyone eats shit....









Just eat it and make her happy and maybe she'll make you happy. Aren't we all just killing time until the right one comes? You're a placeholder, stupid. So hold that place. Keep it warm for some chump the way some other chump kept it warm for you--at least until another one happens upon it. So be in love: eat shit. But here's the test: Do you want to?

After all, there are so many other ways to be lonely.







Foreign girls fill the 217 Lounge on the Promenade and all of them are in fashion school. Weird. One hipster think she's Beetlejuice...she's got the leggings, striped shirt, and the frightface. And her friend looks straight from Japan. No lie. She looks like she's been catching grenades in her teeth.




Are they going to be nice to me?



By closing time the dance floor's a wasteland. Everyone's gone and it's nothing but drunks and your boy still dancing for some straggler that looks like a tranny.

He sees you and says, Hey!

The straggler sees you and says, Come on! as she grabs your wrist, still dancing, and beckons the others leaning on the rail. They're out of luck tonight, looking stricken, and she tries to bring them in. Come on! she says. Let's dance! She keeps on dancing, stamping in heels and spinning, and no one cares.

Come on! She smiles as she beckons those people, all those people left behind. Let's dance!

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Another reason Canada needs a spanking:

Filipino table etiquette punished at local school
Lunch monitor tells student his eating habits are disgusting