I Kan't SpellThailand Holy shit this place is different....well not too different because Im in a damn PC room sweating my balls off because its about 500 degrees...we got here at 100 am and its so weird that all the bars close at 2...its not as cheap as we thought and believe me boy this place is 3rd world...there are hookers everywhere and half are men and the rest are so damn dirty that you dont think twice...apparently this place is hippy heaven because all I see are dirty hippies everywhere evidently this is where they go to die...the foreigner factor is high and I am none too pleases...tomorrow we go and try to find the hotness...maybe a jungle maybe the monkey city it should be solid....ill write more tomorrow maybe...hell this is my vacation i shouldnt be writing at all....all my love A Few Quick Words From Aldous Ok so I have been hyping this bio up for a week or so but to me this book has been refreshing like nothing I have read in a while. I've done a good bit of reading since I have been here and am slowly starting to figure out that it has enhanced my life in so many ways. I think my own writing has improved, my ability to see thing a little more descriptively and drawn out has improved, and my overall appreciation of life and ideas has just exponentiated itself to like the ^5, But Aldous just touches me somehwere. I read Orwell's, Wright's, and Haven's bio's this year but nothing compares to Aldous. I have always loved Orwell and though he was imaginative Aldous is a guy you would want to hang out with and just be blown away every second. He was an engaging social figure who fought his whole life bia words without want for material posessions. He at all times lived a middle class gentleman's life where education and courtesy were valued over anything else. I have to openly admit that I have only read two of his books and one book of criticism about Orwell but I had no idea he was just so beautiful and odd. Odd to the point of extreme self-exploration. Odd to the point of living like we all want to live but have problems finding the strength to and then making fun of those who do live like that. Anyway, that was all put together quite rag-tag and I'm sure I will write a better description afte given some time to reflect. But here is some stuff I have taken from the first 500 pages of the bio...only 300 more pages to go.
1. We are capable of love for other human beings 2. We impose limitations on that love 3. We can transcend on these limitations - if we choose to (it is a matter of observation that anyone who so desires can overcome personal dislike, class feeling, national hatred, colour prejudice. Not eay; but possible. 4. Love expressing itself in good treatment breeds love. Hate expressing itself in bad treatment breeds hate. In the light of these facts, it's obvious what inter-personal, inter-class and international policies should be. But, again, knowledge cuts little ice. We all know; we almost all fail to do. It's a question, as usual, of the best methods of implementing intentions. "The propogandists of the future will be chemists and psychologists as well as writers....the most shocking thing about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings" "There are men who profess to be pacifists in international politics, but who are tyrants in their families, bullying employees, or unscrupulous competitors. Such me are fools to suppose that is possible for a government to behave as a pacifist when the individuals it represents conduct their affairs in an essentially militaristic way. Constructive peace must be first of all a personal ethic..." "Man has now little to fear from competition with other species. His worst enemies are insects and bacteria. For man competition is now predominantly intra-specific, entirely gratuitous and voluntary. We are wantonly and deliberately pursuing a policy which we need not persue and which we have the best scientific reason for supposing to be disasterous to the species as a whole." I'm sure there is some stuff I missed...because I didn't get my lazy ass up to get a pen until the 3rd time I said "Holy crap..." WOOOOOOO! Hey I finally got a dap in Smile's blog which is now after a slight hiatus in full swing and wonderful to see. By the way...and this is true...go to blogger.com...and if you are my friend and I can trust you with my FTP access code(or if I'm not to lazy to figure out how to set up a user FTP code with just access to that directory)...I'll give you a blog of your own on my website...I love reading what other peope write...I love it more than anything I think...and that's what I'm going to write about a little today...opinions on other people's stuff...anyway I got dug a little bit but it was true - "Bret left for SK nearly a year ago as a dude with solid ideas and opinions but the inability to express them clearly. He returns as a man of wit, reflection, insight and, as of late, relatively error free spelling (had to get that in. . . sorry Bret)." At least I return better off...thanks O...'bout time...I'm still waiting for my hand written letter. I figure the post office just lost all the responses to the 50 letters that I wrote ya'll...Oh wait now I'm whining...ahh screw that...anyway...I'm off to Thailand in about 3 hours...just had to feed my addiction real quick...I'll have some cool pictures from that place...Hey Tim they ahve this city that is overrun by Monkies and I think I might go see it...that and the bridge over the River Quai (sp?)...I'm not being a tourist... I definately plan on living the dirtiness (though the HIV is prevalent) but I get to hike through a jungle...a real jungle like a childhood fantasy when I tried to make my sewage woods some sort of jungle...but that should be just AWESOME!Oh by the way...I think the problem I had with not being able to express anything clearly revolved around my inability to recognize my own ignorance and not listening...I have improved both and am very happy with myself...it's like a trophy to me that I can almost be quiet now.... The Hotness Fades When I first got here I thought that all Asian women were just so damn hot! I mean they are in so many different ways. They look at you with this innocent untrust and then when you earn the trust they just fawn into you. The cuteness level is unimaginable and there is no hint of whoring or slutty behavior. They are all just demure and peaceful little things. But, lately they've been getting boring to me. I think all this current apathy will all go away when I come home and see the cows that waddle around Baltimore. I have no love anymore for trashy girls in tight jeans and make-up. I have no love for all done up hair and pudgy stomachs hanging out and over pants. I have been turned on to the the art of just natural enjoyable beauty. I always loved that though. I would never let Mirel wear make-up and if she did I would soooo tell her to take it off because she was just naturally beautiful. Anyway, I was on the bus today and I could have slayed this little Korean girl who kept looking at me and smiling but I didn't because I'm just oddly sexually getting bored. I sort of want to go back and have a conversation with a girl, but I in no way am looking forward to all the crap that goes along with lower-middle class American women. Like, if some of these girls spoke English or if they just lived in America I would marry them. There's no way I wouldn't. I have never done anything as easy as dating a Korean girl. Our kids would be really ugly though. Nope nope nope John Fogerty sucks ass. Did you read the reasons he left CCR and how much he screwed the band. I don't hate CCR, I think some of their music is good, a little too Fleetwood Mack meets the Yardbirds and had a n orgy with Janis Jopiln, but I dig some of it. But, John Fogerty when he dies, there will be a party and Glenn Fry and Joe Walsh will be invited so I can shoot them and throw them on the big bonfire with a scare crow of Fogerty staked in the middle. This Is Why I Want Out of Here So I just attempted to have a real conversation with Katy and Thomas. These are two new teachers who were discussing how wonderful Korea is. I immediately jumped on the bait given that they had only been here a combined 3 three months and were now making uneducated opinions on the future state of a country that I feel has a strong possibility of either failing or blowing up to be a real player. The problems that lay around Korea are
The good things about Korea
Anyway these were all my arguments and they had nothing...I mean how can they have nothing and not only did they have nothing they threw their nothing at me with vigor. "I just think that it's gonna be like this...!" What a joke. I want out of this shit hole. What a fucking joke these people are. I;m often ashamed that we have the same job. I'm ashamed that they represent western people in any way. I think Keith and I got real lucky to find each other. Like, he's a smart dude, he's a little old but he's a smart informed guy. Some days I just get sick of being here! Might As Well Face It I'm Addicted to.... Bukowski would probably punch me in the face, Kerouac would probably hug me, I have either a blessing or a problem. I have an addiction. "Hello I'm Bret and I'm addicted to wanting to write stuff." Yesterday I went to the lake and all I wanted to do was remember every emotion and observation. I didn't have a pen and I was all kinds of angry, because I knew I wouldn't remember all of it. I saw so many things yesterday and had so many small epiphanies about life. I'm so upset that I got home and all I could remember were the physical things that happened or what I saw. I guess that means that my conviction in the original thought wasn't all that good. But, at the time it felt revelational, it felt like I really stumbled upon something, but then when taken out of the context, nothing. I just want those memories to stick but I don't want to live for the experience. I don't want to take pens and paper around looking for the emotion. Because, then it won't be natural it may be forced and at worst concocted. I don't want anything I ever write about to be only experienced because I want to write about it. Writing is a run-off, a terciary thing that happens because of life. I'm not a journalist. I'm not some sort of wildlife photographers. I'm a person who likes to live and has of late retrained my brain to be able to write it down. or at least want to write it down later. I look back on this journal and find it immense, slightly hollow, self-serving, but immense and strangely vivid. I'm proud of it, but find that it is starting to run my life in a weird way. But, it's such a good way that I don't wantit to stop at all. I want to keep writing and remembering but I don't want to sacrficie anything other than time for it's purpose. I don't want to do things simply to write. Zorn You know when I was twelve I looked out from home plate on this dirty little baseball diamond in the middle of Linthimcum or whatever and I saw this monster of a child. He was like 6'2" and he threw hard as hell and he screamed when he did it. This was my first impression of Chris Zorn. A big goofy hot head that threw really hard. Unfortunately this persona went with him for another 5 years as we would play ball together or against each other. I always liked Zorn but he was so alpha and loud that he grated against both me and my friends sometimes. And that made it difficult to always like him. It's not as though I didn't like Zorn he just went to a different school and had different friends form the rest of the inner-baseball/hig schoo circle so it was difficult to sort of hang out or get to know him. But, one day I just absolutely fell in love with him. It was maybe the second day of my second year at College and I was walking through the hall and I saw this big thing in front of me hugging his girfriend. It was Zorn and I was happier than shit because I really didn;t have any friends at that school, because I worked about 50 hours a week and had a full time girlfriend. I didn't really need anyone there. But, when I saw Zorn my entire social life at that school jiust went into overdrive. We played baseball, drank beer, played cards, shared stories and pretty much everything else together for the next 3 years. He became one of my best friends. You see I never knew what a wonderful caring sincere and thoughtful person he was. He is like me in so many ways that I thought I should have seen it earlier on but I just didn't. I have never met a more giving person. He gives with emotion and that's kind of rare. He doesn't give money or anything like that. He gives you respect via his words. Most of my friends are apt to make fun of each other when in front of people we don't know. While I find this atrocious sometimes I also find it rather endearing as if to say ,"this is our circle and we have no need to impress anyone who is no in it". But, Big Z shares love with everyone. He vouches for you and tells people what a good person you are. He shares your best traits with the rest of the world. He goes around waving your banner in public so that you may be accepted amongst people you may not know. I find this extremely rare. I find this extremely endearing. All the other accolades about great people also apply to him. If I need anything he would help me, if I was out of line he would tell me, if I was alone he would cheer me up. There are few better men that I know. And there are few people that I would want around me everyday in order to enjoy life. Writing, Reading, and Listening I came home last night after the lake and started to read my Aldous Huxley book again. Up until now it's just been a nice little tale about traveling and living properly and who he mingled with. I liked that part because she put a lot of letters that Aldous had written in there and you got to see him for just a simple beautiful consistent person. But, then she sort of skipped over Brave New World and I was kind of pissed. But, she rekindled me last night because WW2 is about to start and Aldous is on a panel for peace and the things he says about war and about love are just simple but unparalled to anything that I have read. A little piece of me fell in love with Aldous last night and vowed to read more that he has written. I think the same will come true of his alter-ego DHL when I go to read about him. Right now and all day I have been listeing to Highway 61 by Bob Dylan. Highway 61 (the song) is pure joy and silliness and everything Bob Dylan I think wanted to be, but he was just too torn and demented to be that. I think that's what I love about Bob the most. That he is just a kid who is so happy and goofy in some songs but he is tortured in other tunes that you just can't help but feel him and identify with him. Tombstone blues is wondeful in it's weird cryptic way. I just love the part about mama's in a factory without shoes and daddy's lookng for food in the alley. But, Desolation Row takes the cake. It's sad and it's heartfelt and easy to understand. I love Bob because his songs are easy to understand but they can do so much on so many levels. Like, you know you get the message. You can get the message just by the acoustic guitar and harmonica. But then you can find other things in their as well and that makes the song special to each listener. It's like you all share it for it's obviousness but can take something personal away at the same time. So I wrote some new poems and really did some solid work on my two little theme collections of poetry. Look, I know, they aren't that good and I have no real rudamentary training in writing poetry. But, some of them I try to do nifty things with and they almost work. I read them and I can see the image I tried to paint and that sort of makes me happy. I think the only person who ever liked my poems was Mirel. That's sort of...sad but I think I am getting better. I would like to know what other people think but maybe they are afraid that they will hurt my feelings or whatever. Let me make this clear for those of you out there, when you ask me something I give it to you straight and cold. I do this because I expect the same. Though it may hurt, it always helps. Just like that bi-polar comment. Anyway...I don't expect anyone to read them and actually I just sort of write them for myself. I don't think I would understand them if I hadn't written them, and I would probably think they were just horse shit, like the feeling I get when reading Kerouac or Wordsworth. General Bitchin' I'm getting really angry lately and I don't know why. I think I know I'm just close to the end of my stay here and that everything I have made my life for the last eleven months is now about to change. I know really don't have anything to return back home to and that combined with the impotent existence and treasures collected from the first reason makes this kind of a tough time. I mean what do I say to the people I am going to say goodbye too and might never see again. That makes everything seem so horrible. Like my stomach turns when I think about my last night here. I hope it won't be too sad. Keith is grating on me and I don't really even want to go to Thailand with him because he has the weird idea of doing things alone and blah blah blah...it just makes it seem like we are sharing a plane and then when I get there I'll juts roll on my own. I;m a pretty social person most of the time especially when it comes to entertainment so it's tough for me to imagine traveling there and then being all by myself. I guess it will be ok because that's what it was like when I got here and sort of what it's been like for a while. Keith said yesterday that I was bi-polar and this really hurt me in some weird way. We were on the subway and he was explaining his uncanny ability to read peope, so me, who likes nothing better than to talk about myself or hear people talk about me, asks, "So what about me?" I mean I think I am bi-polar in a lot of ways but you never really want to be told anything like that. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing because I think everyone has a multitude of personas it just means that I can't hide mine as well as other people. Like, I am starting to realize that I flip out and get all crazy and just do dumb spaced out shit more than I would like to. I don't know what to really do about it because I generally love myself. Like I think I'm a cool cat and most people who hang out with me have a good time and I have never really fought anyone I love, except my Dad. I don't know. I guess if being bi-polar is bad or whatever it is, then I don't care because I'm good. Sore So yestereday me and the Korean crew went up to the lake. It was great! It's just what I needed although I'm leaving for Thaliand in two days it sort of came at a wasteful time. I feel so refreshed. We did all kinds of wonderful things and the scenery was maybe one of the most beautiful I have ever scene. I'm going to write more about it a little later I have to go play now. Randoms Well it's saturday afternoon and tomorrow I have to wake up at 6 am to go to the lake with hyung and the gang. It's great we are gonna spend all day and night out there just drinking and cooking and swimming...it's gonna be awesome! I can't wait. It's so wonderful that I have real friends that are Korean. I feel so sorry for all the westerners who only waddle around here making other ex-pat friends. What losers!!! I know like 3 of them read this blog so I'm telling you now "loser" go out and live and stop eating pizza and going to Nowon with the other fat pasty people. Anyway these are some randoms as I update my website and listen to launch.com and play a little bit of spades. I'm taking it easy tonight because last night I got so hemmed up on soju I did some stuff that wasn't cool and realized that rediculous show-off manly drinking is for the less living!
Other Blog So all this stuff is amazingly fun. I haven't felt this sharp and alive in months. But, I started another blog to write about that stuff there, so here I can just stick to things that come without effort. (I am going to make a conserted effort to check spelling and all from now on...come on Bret we can do it...WE CAN DO IT!...like that guy from Predator with the smashed ribs walking to the chopper..."I can make it...!" You Want it You Got It Never dare me to post something... cperegoy17: hey man...whats up.....10 under, 2 under cperegoy17: bout to have some sex cperegoy17: I wish you had Yahoo Messenger....I'd let you watch on cam cperegoy17: haha cperegoy17: with playlist on random I heard Mad Izm, Ghetto Cartoon and Protect Your Neck all in a row cperegoy17: Sept 1st is labor day.....works out great...my parents are gonna take me to dinner that Saturday night before you come back for my b-day cperegoy17: been almost a year since Oasis at the Beacon....that was my best birthday ever I think....you were talking with a British accent at that bar.....hilarious!! cperegoy17: bah dah dah!!!! cperegoy17: OK, guess you aren't there.....I am gonna stick my dick in this girl so I'll talk to ya later....I hope my ramblings give you a chuckle...hehe....enjoy working.....please blog somehthing about tonight.....thanks in advance - management You see people do read! And to Death! So Be It! That was like Socrates' last quote or something. Anyway, I am really sorry that my proof reading is so poor. I read these blogs and am often really ashamed that my spelling and grammar are so atrocious. I promise to work on this. Please don't think less of the things I write because of a typo of two. I know it's difficult not to snicker here and there, and imagine me illiterate but "I implore your justice on this matter" (more socrates). Nicolai Nickczhevsky I have known this kid for like 20 years now. No shit 20 years. I guess 19 but I'm rounding up to 20. He's prevalent in my little get together of poems, especially the Chapel Hill (my elementary school)years. His name is Nick Hammonds and he is one of the most wondeful people I have ever known. A definition of a friend according to dicitonary.com is (well shit there are a lot of them) but ". One who entertains for another such sentiments of esteem, respect, and affection that he seeks his society aud welfare; a wellwisher; an intimate associate; sometimes, an attendant." I hold these true when it comes to Niles. He has the uncanny ability to only share good and positive things with people and is this weird kind of magnet for me and all my other friends. I am almost positive that my friend would not be as close had we not all sought to be friends with Nick. The hub of one of my circles and the carrier of ambition wrapped in inner peace. If I were to define him as a friend I would put it as, "A kind relationship with one who embodies all the good things you respect about the world while seperating the relationship from anything superficial." You know I bet 30 people could write the same things about Nick and 30 people probably consider him an exceptionally close and dear friend. I don't think I ever told him these things because well shit I've known him since I was 5 and there was never a need to define my friendship. And I'm sure we all have the different and possibly the same crazy stories about the kid. He's like a mascot for friends around the world. I'm not even sure if he reads these because he works behind the walls of the MBNA militia. This is maybe the only thing that I have to pick on old "Grease" about, the fact that he works in a place run by credit card interest (i.e. evil). "The Shark" seems to enjoy his job though and with due right, he works damn hard and deserves the wonderful life ahead of him. It's kind of weird to talk about my highschool/baseball and secondary highschool friends (which are just as wondeful: like Watts) because we spend more time making fun of each other and being down right mean and assholish than we do sharing love. I guess that's why I love them so much. Because the times when we do share love it makes it all seem so brilliant. It makes compliments and endearment special and very often hardly earned. Nick's not an easy guy to impress just like the rest of our ilk but when one of us do manage to receive a compliment well shit it feels like winning the superbowl. Like if a fight breaks out or something bad happens we all seem to find each other and give support and so many ways but I wish it would be like that more often. Anyway, I hope he reads this and knows that I love him and oddly enough he will always hold the tile of being my oldest friend and one of my best friends. *I need to start structuring these better Layla...you got me on my knees Layla... So today is off to a great start as always because I got to play with Layla. I have to admit I wasnt in such a great mood because of the "craziness" but she brought the joy out of me for a little while. I brought in my Clapton CD and played Layla for her and everybody else to dance to. She laughed and giggled and just ran around. She cried becuase she fell down and came walking with alligator tears for me to hold her with her head bowed and her arms out like a zombie. But, I didn't care if they were fake or not because it felt nurturing just to hold her and hang out with Layla. After that she just sort of wondered around in her own little bubble world and I played with the other kids unti lshe would get bored and come over and use me a sa jungle gym. I don't know, nothing really spectacular happened or anything but playing with Layla just takes me away from everything and fills my soul up for a little while. It always makes my day so much easier when I can just look at her and see her smile. Craigums Me Boy Well after Tim wrote some stuff about me and I wrote some stuff about Tim I started realizing how great it feels to just be written about. So I figured I would just start picking people and writing what I like about them. If I don't get to you. Don't throw a hissy! I've known Craig since we were about 10 and we used to play some sort of retarded football in his backyard with a superball and only two people. It seemed like we spent our entire youth just making up great games so him and I could play. Let's see we made up drive way tennins, the hose game, some crazy golf ball game, kick the can of gasoline game. All these were a great foundation of innocence. I guess much like Tim I can't really write every story we have ever had but there have been enough to keep me busy for quite a few hours of writing and will keep him and I busy talking well into our forties often embarrasing our offsrping. But, I'll tell two real quick, one bad, and one overview of good. The bad one happened when we were just reaching early adulthood and Craig had started high school and I was still in middle school. He attended the high school I was destined to attend but until I got there I was treated as an underling by both him and Dan. But, one day in the snow I was made aware of where I stood when I tried to challenge Craig in front of his house in front of Dan and some other kid who was his neighbor. We were playing the "woods" game (such original names we had). and I said something or did something and tackled Craig and he kicked me in the face and then we rolled around and anounced our hatred for each other. This was the only time we ever fought and I don't evn remember why we fought. I think it was a minor age thing middle school/high school gap thing. That is really the only bad story I have to tell about Craig. I think the nager lasted maybe 30 minutes and then we went and played the game. We have never really had a fight afetr that. Sometimes I chew him out about for being a 9-5 guy, but he's coming around so I lay off of that. And I told him to stop being a slob in college but he turned out ok despite my advice. Wow a good story huh, there are too many good ones, so I won't describe just one incident. I will however just give you and overview. He may be the only person I can drive around with in a car and we can play our bad awful Oasis music, sing real loud, smoke cigarettes, and drink beer with the windows down in the middle of winter and not think twice about what else there is that we might be missing because this is almost as good as it gets. There was nobody else I shared the joys of youth outside of the sports arena with besides Craig. He is one of the few people I would call if I had a serious problem, and he is also one of the few people I would trust with anything I had or would give him anything I could. Although this all sounds like an odd cliche, it is true and he knows it. Often I get upset at Craig because he chose some crazy 9-5 life because he felt guilty for his parents and the people who sacrificed to put him on a path. They sent him off to college and never let him forget that they suffered to watch him achieve. A path that I still don't understand and I have a bold premonition that it will change. But, none-the-less he is on the path and seems to be living, however well he is living, I can't say but I know it's of no current dream like state. Civil engineering can be exciting, but well shit it ain't James Bond. But now he wants a way out. Hopefully, him and I can find it together and we can help each other reach peace and leisure like we had when we were spending those summers making up crazy games. School? I have been receiving some disturbing emails as of late relating to teaching and hte "school" I work at. It seems that you guys think that what I do is "teach" little kids. I may have never used that word to describe what it is I do. I am an apparatus in a playground. Parents pay for their children to come in a play with white people. Hagwan's in Korea woul dnever hire anybody but someone who has a white complexion. That's why they ask you to send a picture before they hire you. If you are really fat or have only one they won't hire you because you won't be good for pictures, and oh boy do we tak epictres. I must have had over 500 pictures of me taken in the last year. But, yeah I am simply a jungle gym. Nobody cares how I teach or what I teach just as long as my kids don't bleed and no parents complain. So yeah stop writing me emails about how is the "teaching" going. I don't teach. I am merely an amusement park ride. Learning boy! Right now I have started my research here... there is so much interesting stuff. Cisco does this wonderful thing with Learning Objects...which seems to be the buzzword right now...Tim sent me something on friends and stuff. I'm looking at it and it seems like a nice little tool to use once inside the actual curriculum to breed common interests and create paradigms of similar interests and abilities but that's about all I'm getting(because these computers can't have cookies...bastards!). I need to spend more time in it. Man I feel alive doing this. LIke I have a real job again. WOOHOO! All I'm seeing out there is a ton of information and no new ideas. Where are the ideas people? How do we increase retention and bend the curve? How do we get people to change careers and perform? How do we wade through this multi-billion dollar industry to find objectives that our people can be infiltrated into? How do we change the world with the only tool man has never really cultivated correctly...education!" God all this stuff looks so damn lame...what the hell...it's all plastic crap...who would want to learn from a site or a company that looks like these...more to come...oh this is so interesting to me! Yeah this is my calling...what can I do to enhance myself and be in a position where I can learn enough to really kick it...do i need to get a PHD in psychoanalytical crap about the way people learn...nah..it comes from the gut sometimes...what you love comes from the balls and heart...not from some acquired trudged longing...I mean doctors love their job but all they can think about is getting out and putting their hands into someones stomach...and that my friend is heart and balls...that's the stuff that greatness and wonder is made out of...that's my life right there...yep no turning back now...let the black hole suck me in...I bit on the little sinker and I'm swimming down stream not up...reel me in baby!...this is devine..I know it...devine I tell you! Bad Things You know last night some craziness happened to me. I won't go into detail about what it was but I think that craziness happens to everyone. Everyone goes through absolutle horrible times and despair. Well at least people who don't wipe their ass with satin do. And I'm not talking about the death of a loved one, or losing your job, these things happen to everyone and people move on. I'm talking about the moment where your ass in the dirt and you can either get up and dust it off or you can lay there and cry. Moments like someone has cancer, your dad is in a mental ward, the house blew up and the dog got impaled on the neighbors fence. These eccentric awful things happen to everyone and everyone's family maybe once or twice in your life. So what makes some people carry on, and what makes some people fold and crumble into pity and depression, personally I think it has a lot to do with running sprints until you puke, cheating on tests, and drinking at a young age (pardon the humor). I think if you've ever wanted to do something so much in your life that you were willing to run until you puke, then you can overcome almost any obstacle. If you just played a Junior Varisty sport and the coach pounded your head into the ground everyday and made you respect something pointless and trite and love something that was otherwise unlovable by others that you saw everyday then you start understand something about secular strength. You start to realize what you are made of and what sacrifice is. You start to contemplate that life sucks and that there are bad things that are going to happen to you. You learn that you don't get what you want and sometimes you have to work entirely too hard to even get a little taste of something great. These are the things I learned on the baseball field throughout years of pain, sweat, tears, and absolute wonderful joy. You learn that life isn't fair and that sometimes you can work your ass off and still fail, but you get back up and you run some more because you know you want to drink from the fountain of joy that is so rare but so worth it. You run until you puke and you get stronger every time. That strength of knowing what it feels like to run and run and run not get there, run some more, and finally get there, will keep me moving. Cheating on tests can get you through most situations as well. Now I myself was a great cheater, I had ways of cheating people hadn't even thought of. I had the whole game down to a science of psychology and timing rather than luck and desperation. I learned to analyze moments and oppurtunities and holes in the system rather than my text book on physics. I made bold moves and quiet moves, I hacked computers and I swindled elederly professors. I learned how to network with fellow cheaters to bully the weak into giving me answers and then manipulating them to do other things. This gave me strength in some weird way. This gave me the ability to feed off of people and to constantly stay sharp in my persuit for survival. Now, ultimately this mentality of cheating fades away as you move into the working world but the lessons you learn and the talent you cultivated never does. You can still manipulate and stay sharp by reading the angles and playing the system to the edges and finding holes here and crannies there to hide and squat and wait to take advantage of the next nerd with too many books in his hand. The ability to stay sharp and read people are tools that I am currently using to ovecome this craziness. Drinking at an ealry age is the third component that I feed off of. If you drink at an early age you obviouosly have a social life. You may have gone to a big college or had a local hang out in the woods and a mom who didn't have a lock on her liquor cabinet. The point is you were social and you had people to hang around with who also wanted to join in the taboo act of drinking before you were 21. You make bonds with people that you may have never bonded with before. You learn little things about yourself and have stories that can last for years to come that can be exchanged at yearly or semi-yearly get togethers. This stregthens ties and makes lasting friendships, much like sports (or for you ninnies out there...clubs or whatever you kids did). This web of interaction and friendship, all-be-it often fringe, farsicle and rather flimsy, is still a nice safe house when things really do hit the fan. If I hadn't started drinking at an early age and partied my youth away I wouldn't know half the people I know today. And the great thing is, as you get older, and if you fraternized with relatively adjusted normal people, the drinking and partying goes away and you start to just enjoy each other's company over crappy things like golf or cards. But, the important thing is that "early age drinking" made me social and hence gave me a network of friends that I can call upon when bad things happen. These are my three pillars of life. This explains why my house is always tilting...hahahahaha...a house on three pillars...how absurd Holmes...(say it in a really deep English accent now)....how absurd Holmes.... Holy Shit It's That Guy From Star Wars! So last night I had the craziest dream ever. EVER! It was so in-depth on so many levels I can't even possibly begin to explain the mental impact it would have if I actually got it analyzed or whatever by those crackpot ass people who charge 150 an hour. But, anyway I was in a warehouse hiding behind a big steel beam and there were these monsters chasing me and shooting me with like really weak acid so that it stung but it didn't like burn. But, that's not the goofy crazy part, the crazy part is that the guns would only work if I was hostile towards them. Like if I was nice and all they couldn't shoot me. So after I figured this out I walked around and just pretended to be nice and it worked until I made a b-line to a gun and grabbed it and then they started shooting me but this time with nails and they hurt pretty bad. So I hid behind a table and kept popping up smiling ad they had to just sort of hang their mechanical heads seeing that I was being nice. And they would turn and just waddle away until I raged again and started shoointg. So finally I defeated all of them with my fake niceness and this guy in a white lab coat comes out and starts dancing to the Bee Gee's stayin alive...I tell you it was friggin nuts...he was wearing like a thong and then a woman came down and started shooting him in the feet as he danced...but then an alarm came back on and they ran out of the warehouse and more robot monsters came in and this time with falme throwers...so I figured out that if I sing the falme throwers woulldn't burn me...ahh man it was GREAT!. Oh yeah and they all looked like the bounty hunter guy from star wars (baba fet - God I hope that is so wrong and not even anywhere close to the right answer) with big muscular pink arms. It was insane, but I was having so much fun with it, I swear and I shit you not, I feel I can control my dreams some days. You know Kerouac had a project once where he put a notebook and a piece of paper over his bed so he could wake up and write the first things he would remember. I'm sure I lost of a lot of stuff from waking up almost 3 hours ago until now, and I sure would like to remember more. Anyway... Human Capital So this is what I want to basically do with my life for a while after I get out of here, if I don't decide to travel around the world for a few more years. I came across this article in the atlantic which my mommy so kindly sends me every month...that and my rolling stone and bottles of pepper parmesan dressing..but this offers the proposal of raising teacher's pay and changhing the sick (extremely sick!) teacher's union that exists throughout our educationaly(sp?) dying country. It's just sort of interesting that's all. It makes sense to raise teacher pay and to change the pay scale based on performance or desired professional skills. I think with this last month I'm going to start putting more time into my education research. Plus the other two sites of people I know writing stuff have vouched for a good book by someone named Gatto or something...I like books written by guys who sound like they are in the mafia. Changing the fundamental education system of children doesn't interest me though. Changing over our dying manufacturing/information economy to a knowledge economy via dsitance learning and skills based/organic curriculum (e-learning as the gov't calls it now...god I hate when the gov't gets a hold of stuff than everyone buys it all back...we had it 3 years ago people!!!) does thrill me...I'll get back to you more on it later...I may start a section on all that crazy stuff in my website tonight...just for my own good...to get all my ducks in a row before I return home and start looking to start my life again... Smell Me Baby Speaking of smells. I have now had more than 5 people tell me about my smell so I must take exception to their comments. Apparently, I have a great smell. My kids always run up to me and smell me, Su Yeon smells me, the other one's smelled me, Mirel used to say I had "Bret smell". It has been described as a sweet, strong scent like vanilla with laundry detergent. I don't know, I kind of like the fact that I smell good. Like my natural scent is something to be actually commented on in a positive way. That makes me sort of really happy. The "Land of Oppurtunity" you say... We went and ate lunch yesterday with Thomas, which Keith hates because of his rediculous scent. I mean he has the worst body odor I have ever been around. It's gag causing and always present. But, somehow he always manages to tag along for lunch and his smell gives us something to inside joke about. So yesterday we went to lunch after he so oddly commented on my unique abilities to master the copier (he also was amazed by the paper cutter if you remember) "So you seem to have this thing proper down."..."Sure do Thomas..sure do buddy". Anyway so we go to lunch and Thomas just keeps yabbering away about the wondeful thing that is America and how rich we all must be and how wonderful our lives are or should be because there is oppurtunity and pierian springs of life everywhere. I mean I love where I live but I never cease to think of other places that may be better or more wonderful, especially in other country where the women aren't quite so damn large. This lead me to think of all the misconceptions about America here...and I will post more on that later tonight after I write the next and maybe next to next to last chapter...but back to the rather country gent style that is Thomas. So we are sitting there and he keeps going on and on about how anything is possible in America and it all must be so wonderful to live in such a big country with so many pockets of oppurtunity (that almost resonated with me but not quite)...Anyway...his main argument for all these facts that he cooked up, besides his own odd imagination was television, and the books he was taught in school...apparently all their textbooks revolve around America being "The land of oppurtunity" On The Dole Well I have lost my going out partenr for the next few weeks(that's all ihave left...woohoo!) because he has apparently decided to start saving money. That bastard! You see there are two lives you can live here. You can live the television, gym, one dinner out a month, one movie a week, one steak or pizza a week life or you can live my life. You can go out every night, chase everything with a skirt, buy up bars for no reason, take rediculous trips and journeys to god knows where and spend the days living and smiling...I'm so wise...hahahaha... Keith extended his contract 3 more months because, well he doesn't pine for the real world as I do, and hence he wants to save as much money as possible. So now I have to go at it alone, with the Chief, some other cuteness, or Brendan. Damn him and his monetarily focused ass. I mean come on how many times are you gonna be in South Korea. Food Yesteday I went and had some Italian and food, and from what I have had here in the past 11 months, compared rather well. They had grated cheese on the table and panini. Actually it was the equivalent of a nice little downtown take out place. Which here, I would give a left nut to have near my home. But, alas I had to go down to Apeujong to get this food. Oh how I miss food. I will honestly gain ten pounds in a week when I get back. These are the foods that I truly cherish that I have not eaten in one year
You Will Live a Life of Stress and Happiness Today I went and saw a fortune teller. It was exceptional. The chief went out and found a little English speaking one in Apeujong and I was kind of uninterested until I went in and saw this little woman sitting behind a table. Unfortunately, she was the chosen one because she spoke English. So she took my name, birthdate and what time I was born. She opened up her little board and it had cards and dice and all kinds of shit. Apparently she likes to use many tools. But, she sat down looked at my palm closed her eyes and started just hanging out with my palm. She was just moving her head back and forth and I so wasn't into it because I had to pay up front and there was a calendar with George Clooney hanging in the corner. I don't know what I expected but I like the idea of thinking my psychic is in a little shack in the middle of the forest summonzing(sp?) spirits. But, this one sereved me soda and cookies. So I was like"...ummm...what?" after about ten minutes and then the coolest thing ever happened. A tear fell out of her eye and I then my head just leaned in and I started thinking, "The emotion alone will have me paying attention." She told me a bunch of stuff that was true and some stuff that wasn't true. But, when she told me that my life will be full of stress and happiness I was all kinds of happy. She explained all the things that everyone can identify with but the fact that she dropped a tear and held my hand while she did it was amazing...these are the things she told me that were or might be true
It was kind of interesting...I guess Randoms
Titles are So Important I have just written the best things I have written in weeks today( I pumped out like 50 of them in three days really...but today they just kept coming and coming). I started thinking of just all these weird little gross funny things that can happen in any persons one life. And all I tried to do was take a snap shot of it. I think I make a small piece oout of it and give it it's own little section on my website. Call it maybe, "The Omniscient Eye"...nah wait...that's lame..."Bowling Balls Should Always be Black"...yeah that's it...because well you'll see...like there's this guys wife who has this red bowling ball back in the 50's when women weren't bowling and all the men in this small country town had black ones and this woman showed up with her red rose bowling ball and was alienated and shunned like in Hester Prynne. Later on she was found dead, killed by ehr own bowling ball. Holy Crap that's so bad...wait im laughing now...I'm gonna keep it anyway...unless someone out there has something better for describing God taking pictures of funny stuff 38 seconds Coughing and weezing out a puke green peice of phlegm onto the floor and then kicking it with my shoe so as not to offend the pople that will soon be getting on the elevator. This is how my day started this is how my day will finish. This is not how my life started and this is not how my life will finish. This is just a moment caught up in a day surrounded by other moments that seem to today to want to all float around and meet up with each other at the end and shake hands in some sort of weird wasteful way. John Lives in Hawaii I got this email from John. John is a smart guy who has, let's say, experimented in all walks of life. If someone I know has lived life rather fully it's been John. He's peaceful, yet bright enough to be accepted as more than that. Now John and I have never been friends but more or less associates through mutual friends. I sent him an email a long time ago asking him how Japan was, as it was he who initially spurred me to investigate teaching English abroad, via a short conversation with his and my good friend Mike. In his response he came across in typical John fashion (girls, partying, with an overtone or aristocracy) but was more than welcomming of my questions. He writes these emails about climbing waterfalls, surfing, sleeping in the back of the van waiting on the birth of the tide, riding a bike ten miles to work, all these things. I'm glad John is writing every month or so. I know I sent him all my little tales and I would like to think that in some small way I sort of inspired him to keep a little journal with titles and everything. I have no idea if he did the same thing when he went to Japan but for my own ego I'll assume he didn't and simply feel a little responsible for bringing information and delight into the world. Stand Up And Tell Us Then Mr. Holmes I'm listening to the Flaming Lips and there is this one line, which isn't exceptional or original but it made me see a nice little scenraio in my mind. "I stood up and I said, "yeah"." I think that's so wonderful. Not the line but the image. Picture a man, or a young boy is better, coming into his own, learning to assert himself into the global tribe, and he is at dinner with a girl that he loves or at a meeting with a plan no one believes but him and he stands and says, "Yes". Just the act of standing is in itself awesome. Just to have the balls to stand in either of those situations is so "eels". Standind and saying, "yes", what a dream, what a nice wonderful apex of life to try to obtain. I can't wait to try that. I'll Take Freud for 300 Alex Last night I had the most peceful involved sleep I have had in months. I woke up three times and had three seperate wonderful dreams. I don't mean wonderful in that they were epic, I mean wondeful in that they were happy and I could remember every detail of them when I wake up. I wrote about this once before but I hope this doesn't change when I go back home because it is one of the greatest parts of my life right now, just totally and vividly remembering my own dreams. They are better than movies and they evoke real emotion and physical stimulation repeatedly just upon recollection.
I woke up after that dream and just sort of rolled around on my matress for about an hour waiting for my alarm colck to buzz. My Lips, My Lips, My Lips are on Fire! Ok so I only own two cds and I can't really download shit while I;m here and burn it or keep it so mp3's are pointless. But, the Flaming Lips are unstoppable good! I listened to Soft Bulletin last night while I tried to do my first ever drawing, and then I just stopped and went instinctively to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (or whatever it's called). I was just entranced. I never wanted the little story to end, they were great. My drawing sucked and came out looking like two horses having anal sex but the music was freakin awesome. So awesome I just told the chief I didn't want to see her last night because I was...umm...busy...I put a woman on hold for some sort of personal music time. The times they are a changin! A Microcosm of Korea Today I got on the bus to go to work. Yes, it's Saturday. I always make sure when I leave the house to have my 700 won (juan) for the fare. Today I seemed to have forgotten the bus fare. Now, in America what would happen to old Bret? He would be rudely and hurridly removed from the bus. In Korea he is simply told to not worry about it. The bus driver just kindly, and I do mean kindly; not sarcastic or aloof, told me to sit down. So I started watching everybody get on the bus. There was no automatic way of checking to see if someone paid the 700 won. They just dump change into this little plastic box and nothing counts it. No one seems to really care. I can only imagine how much money they lose daily from the wrong amount of change being put into the box. Then I started to get my weird little entrepenurial mind going. Introspection is for the Weak I was reading the greatest biography I have read last night, Aldous Huxley, and in it he has this quote, which I'll just paraphrase, "Introspection is the most worthless thing known to man. It's like slowly commiting suuicide by not obsorbing the things around you." That made me think about all the little introspective peices I write and well I guess everybody writes. I mean he wrote that quote to D.H. Lawrence though and if DH would have listened he may have lived past 44 and not been so miserable all the time. I'll have to mull on Aldous' adivce for a little while. By the way, for those who haven't, read anything of his. I highly recommend Point Counter Point, and of course Brave New World and BNW revisited. He was a visionary and a humble genius. Oh yeah and if you like crazy mixed homophobic weird edipus complexes read some DH Lawrence as well, the short stories and poetry are a great palce to start, as well as Sons and Lovers. "I been workin' in a coal mine...whoops about to slip dowwwwwnnnn" It's a shame I don't get to surf the Internet at work anymore. I was reading Tim's post and wish I could go out there and find all this cool crazy shit or program a little bit. That's right I said program a little. Unfortunately I never get use the same computer twice so downloading software for everythign from FTP to Dev is all just impossible and futile. And, since I get maybe 2 hours a day on here and I spend most of that answering emails or spilling my guts I just don't get to play around on the wonderful invention that sits before me now. This thing actually does rule and don't ever forget how wonderful life at work has become because you now have the net. Hey! You old people remember when you had to milk the Newspaper for the entire day. But, yeah it blows that I have to sit here in this shitting place, that reminds me of some sort of sweat shop for teachers and drag my ass to this god awful computer and sit next to Thomas as he smells up the joint. Cherish your PC people. Love it, lick it! 71 seconds There was sweat running down the front of my chest and dripping on to the ground as I sat crouched naked in bed lighting a cigarette and extending my arms so that my ribs stuck out to turn on the radio so I could hear some sort of music that may capture or heighten my just now experience. As I reach for the button that reads "on", a little drop of sweat trickles down my nose and I notice that I have left a wet finger print on the red knob that is so easy to find in the dark. The cigarette after sitting tilted and hanging in my mouth for a few seconds has begun to show the perspiration that has collected on the corners of my lips and now I can feel the warm hand of her sliding down my back and reaching for the towel on the floor to dry me off as she rests her head on my shoulder and closes her eyes hoping I would turn off the music and simply come back to bed. Layla I just got to play with Layla. It ruled as it always does. There is nothing like having the most fragile thing on earth climbing all over you and smiling and laughing hysterically when she spends the rest of the day frowning and crying. It makes you feel special that you make something that messed up laugh and play for 40 minutes and no one else can. When I say play, I don't really mean play in the real sense like dodge ball or soccer like the rest of the kids. She did run today though in the ring race. But, she usually just hangs out on my shoulders or sits in my lap and plays the drums on my legs or head and I make sounds as she hits me, and then I tickle her and she just runs around with her hands up. Anyway, I got to play with Layla and all is right with the world. All is great and her little silver fillings in the back of her mouth and the dried snot on her nose may be worthy of my first ever painting/drawing endeavor. Keith had been trying to get me to draw for months, and I may sit down and try tonight. We'll see how it goes. Randoms
Walking with Tim You gotta give credit where credit is due. And every day I wake up and go to work (at 2 o'clock nah nah nah) to see what Tim has written (and Doug and Mike...but they slack). Sometimes, it blows me away and sometimes it confuses me and goes over my head, like his weird love for the occult or whatever, but it's solid and sometimes genius work none-the-less. Thus he gets my ass in a chair to write everyday. Tim is a wonderful person. He may be the smartest most oddly adjusted person I know (it's not like I know a lot of weird people though so don't think he's like got a chain out of his mouth or a bone through his head...but if he did I'm sure he could pull it off). Unfortunately, he and I sat next to each other for almost 6 months before talking. For some strange reason that day happened to be when the twin towers fell and we (including Josh) were all in a tiny office at the time. We all looked at each other and started doing research on the net and keeping each other updated about events ("ooh there's one headed for the Sears tower, holy shit one just blew up Denver..blah blah blah"). After that, Josh went away and Tim and I started to share and calaborate on stuff. We did some interesting work and had some interesting conversations but it wasn't really anything of substance. A good foundation but there was still something missing from us being friends. Than I went away and found that Tim was really awesome, I think Mike and Doug found out before I did, but didn't really let me know. I sort of always had an incling(sp?) but when he dyed his hair kind of purple and I learned he was into robots and then I looked down at my Brooks Brothers polo shirt I thought, "Nah, we are way too different." . His writing is awesome and he keeps me in check from feeling too smart. He's more honest than I am when it comes to giving people the straight dirt and he's even right, where I'm often, well let's just say ignorant. Anyway, so yeah Tim rules. But today was the first time I actually realized I wanted to share something more than 1's and 0's with him. I was walking in Dongdaemun (and if you read the chapters you know that Dongdaemun is the heartbeat of this city, it's dirty, big, colorful, smells bad, and there are always characters and things to look at). But I was walking with Chief and doing some shopping and I saw all these awesome things. I saw all these amazing weird little shops with porn, big orange cones, metal drills, miles of towels, homeless dudes without legs crawling around, a big dirty sign that reads, "Milky Milky"..."tons of anything" as I call the place. I saw so much shit and all I wanted to do was talk to someone about it, but my Hangul is about as good as most of your Spanish so "desvalido" when it came to Chief. I just wanted to turn to Tim and slap him on the shoulder and say, "Dude are you seeing this?" Sharp! So I just watched 8-mile and I feel really sharp. I don't know why. It wasn't the movie. It was the moment of watching it. It was this weird identifying moment that I had with (oh god save me here from any ill-thing I may be doing) Eminem (there I said it...no lightning, no earthquake, no magic bullet...woo...). I got the sharp razor feeling because I think I was feeling the way his character was feeling about 6 months ago when I was stirring myself in my own filth. Unfortunately, I was doing this for the past two days as well, well that's all stopped, those waves of agony are getting shorter and that's so awesome!. But, I remember sitting down(6 months ago) after making the decision to drink 10 shots of soju (30% so don't go all crazy on me like Bret OMG you drink too much...piss off!) in ten minutes to see how it would effect me and before I dizzilly went to bed I wrote this in my journal...at least I think this is what I wrote because it's really slurred and big over about 4 pages...you should see it. It's real funny...
Don't glorify the bad parts of your life anymore. Don't talk about your father in front of people. I know it seems well adjusted sometimes to do so, but it makes you look like a fucking odd kid. Deal with your shit within you. I mean come on, people don't want to hear about that shit. So stop it! Don't talk about yourself anymore in daily conversation. You know you see it, and hate it, so don't do it. Learn to listen for God's sake. That's what you wanted to do so do it. Look people in the eye and engage them. Don't leave places anymore. Don't leave because you aren't the star. Embrace and be embraced back. Engage, don't cover and lie. But engage like a man of intelligence and grace. Do it with an air of patience and thought, not with haste and passion. There are places and there are times, but you're time has to be earned. That passion comes with the clarity, and the clarity is earned via time and understanding. Know that! Well all that wasn't reminded me by (here goes again) Eminem. But, I do remember sitting there and seeing all the bullshit and thinking that being a rogue is so pleasurable and wonderful sometimes. And to think that my web is coming under attack makes it seem all the more weaker. Just some strands though. I felt really sharp after seeing that movie. Actually all day I felt sharp. I felt real knife sharp. Like everything was going to be good with the world sharp. I could see all of it for what it was and then put it back together for what it wasn't and then wipe my nose with it. It was a good day! I Looked After a Kitten Last Night Ok so I did do one thing last night which was good. There was this cat, and it was either the most self-adjusted wordly cat ever or it was owned by somebody, because as I was walking home and ready to get a slushy it just started meowing at me and when I went to pet it it just jumped up to my leg and started licking. I sat with it for a while and could feel it's ribs and how skinny and homeless it must have been. So we walked to the store together. Not many cats follow you so I thought it was kind of interesting. At the store I bought myself a slushy and the cat a half pint of milk and some Tuna. The cat just went into the store with me and was walking around, shaking it's black body and red little butt all through the 4 aisles of nothing Korean food. All the time scratching it's sides and face on the corners of cereal boxes and hanging shelves. When we went back outside the cat just started talking to me in cat-ese and we sat down and talked. I told the cat about the cat I used to have, and my dog, and the dog I used to have and how much I loved two out of the three (Frisky the cat was always a shadey character). So we sat and chatted and it was good. I named her (after further curious inspection) Doris after Keith's mom, whom I talk to more than Keith does simply because he doesn't like to talk to his mom and she always calls when I'm home for some reason. So Doris and I were solid for the night. I almost wanted to take her home but I knew that Keith would throw a hissy about the cat so I left her there with her Tuna and Milk and I went home to read more. Metaphors for Sex and People I don't like But Whom I am Forced to Interact With God Damnit! Well now I'm pissed and writing. There happy! I was just thinking about all that I sacrifice in the face of embarrasment or shame. All that I should write about but I won't because I'm afraid of what people will think. Now some, may be laughing knowing that I say and do what I want in their presence, while others may be nodding knowing I am sometimes reserved and shy when I am outclassed or think I am, it all depends on the relationship we had in my past life (I say past because I'm a different Bret boy!). But, I don't want to sacrifice moments anymore because they might be embarrasing or they may be detrimental to a relationship. Do I really want to love or associate freely anyone who can't reflect or take what I say with a grain of salt or reverance. No! I don't...I don't want to know people who would judge me negatively for the truth that I write in a trite journal. But, if it's a trite journal than why squander emotions left for self, in it. It's all a big paradox and I struggle with it every day. I struggled with Apache Chief, I struggle with people here finding my chapters and giving me shit, I struggle with putting these poems of my youth together and realizing how much they are going to piss people off. But, wait why should I write negatively, I mean some things are negative let's all accept that but can it not be written objectively. But, doesnt that give it some sort of weird unintimate light if it is objective. Doesn't that destroy the fabric to save the quilt. It's all very difficult and please understand I'm not bitching but there are so many things I want to say and am just too gutless to really say them. I think I may try another blog under an alias somewhere in outerspace where I can just write for me and use real names and talk about hard sweaty sex and how much I really drink or how f'd up my head really is...because i'm holding back here...i'm pulling reigns and I don't like it......Sometimes I feel like I write just to see what certain people have to say or to know that people are reading it and that makes it all worth while like a small taste of weird celebrity but it's not like that while I'm writing. It's only like that when I sit down and know that I want to communicate and get feedback. I'm straying off course now. Our Guest Speaker Had a Car Accident I'm all spent today because I didn't go out and live it up last night...I went down to the "river" (more like a sewage repository) and read my aldous huxley bio, which is the best biography I ever read because it's all pretty much quotes and such and the biographer was aldous' wife's friend so that rules...and it's all big and thick and written on good dirty "feel-me" paper...anyway I don't write well unless I'm really hung over, starved for sex, or generally pissed off, or happy (let's not forget happy...) but since I didn't roll the dice or look the dealer in the eye last night today I got nothing...so I'll talk with you tomorrow...I have the day off tomorrow for some holiday so I may write a lot and sacrifice the day in doors or I may go out and get some sun and play basketball or go look for Jeans...I'll decide when I wake up...too too loo 38 seconds She buried her head in my chest as she rhythed over me and over me and over me maybe picturing much like I was that the other person with whom we were entering or being entered was someone else. It was all I could do to not laugh at her when she started shaking and screaming in her native rolled tongue. That little red pigment piece of flesh that would ick her own top lip and sort of inform her eyes to roll and her head to tilt from side to side as if she were on some sort of amusement park ride. Those false and holy god real screams that can only come from something pure and fake at the same time. Something unenjoyable but only being enjoyed for the sheer prupose of fullfilment within your own self. As she simply moved up and down over and over and over again fulfilling herself but not noticing that I was emptied out on the floor ten minutes ago. 61 seconds I just breathed in real deep and got the feeling of everything all wrapped around nothing as I tried and tried and tried to make something. As I looked into her eyes and saw they were vacant and where they once danced I remember that they also once wept and made me weep in return. In returning to that deep breath I can now feel something I can now feel something starting to roll in me and I know that when I look back again into those as I soon will there will be no lust and no want there will only be her and I and the knowledge of parting. So one more time I breathed in and now it's all gone again, it was there and that gives hope. 40 seconds Head all bubbling and boiling and breaking apart from last nights drinking binge. It was me and and some people who all look blurry now in my memory sitting around tasting thunder and spitting out into the night sky what was left in our bodies to be spit. At some point a demon tapped me on the shoulder turned me around and stuck a little fork inside my stomach and then laughed as his furry Pan hoofed feet so merrily jotted off leaving his pitch in me so that I could look down and stare at it as my happiness leaked out onto the floor and created a puddle twice the size of anything I have ever really seen. Thailand Keith and I are headed to Thailand on the 30th. We wanted to go to Vietnam but it was a big huge hassle with the passports and re-entry visas and crap. And I just got lazy and said let's go to the adult Disneyland instead. I was really thinking about getting a tattoo while I'm there (and of course taking in a donkey show) but am a little lost at what to get or whether or not I should really get it. Thailand should be cool, it will be nice to see a beach and non-korean people for a change. What else should I do while there...any ideas...I just don't want to be all lazy and sit around...hell I've done that for 11 months! The Electric Cry of Sang Wan I was just listening to the phone ring here and have decided that it will haunt me for the rest of my life. Almost three times a week, my old friend Sang Wan (whom is currently being written about in my chapters but has fallen into bad graces and consequently isolation from my inner ring) calls our apartment. But, Sang Wan knows that I screen calls so he let's the phone ring for a good ten minutes. I'm not kidding, that is no exageration. Last night, that phone rang for ten minutes. Why in God's name would someone let a phone ring for ten minutes. What creepy person would sit on the other end and listen to a phone ring that long thinking either two things; one, that I might actually be home and screening and by letting it ring will annoy me to the point of actually talking to someone, or two, if I let it ring long enough he might come home at that very time and run to the phone. I don't know but he's a scary sad little guy. I won't be missing that weird dude. New Man Du I just went and ate some lunch down the street from my normal lunch eatery. It was better food but I wish they could switch people because now I have this deep love for the women who cook my food at the one place but the unstoppable man du at the other place. The relationship at the shitty man du place is a nice little mother - son relationship and I'm just torn with what to do. Plus the other place has cola, not just water. They also put sesame seeds in the soy sauce, and I loves me some sesame seeds in my soy sauce. Damn! Well anyway the reason I wrote this is to prove a point. No one gives a shit about day to day stuff if you don't put it eloquently or draw a parallel, simile, metaphor or lesson out of it. I can't do that just yet. I can't write anything meaningful. If you have any tips let me know, but for now I'm really kind of disgusted on the stuff I try to write. I enjoy some of the things that just come off the top of my head and I feel as though some of my poems have gotten better, but when I sit down to really plan something out, it just doesn't turn out well. hmm... Salt Dog Returns I'm not writing today because I'm all pissed off! I just want a real job again. I can't take these people and their rediculous lives. There is someone running around right now crying about not having a syllabus for 7 year olds. They are fucking 7!!! 7 you dumb piece of shit! What on God's green earth could you need a syllabus for...what in the world could require you to have syllabus to teach 7 year olds that A is for apple...I'm gonna be sick...literally just being around them and sharing their air and worrying that some of their DNA or balllessness might seap onto me and make me exceedingly weak or stupid makes me sick. ..I can't take being in this little room today...I can't take these rediculous people...rediculous rediculous lives and people running around as if this were something real and meaningful to do...you teach children your own language...it's like monkies teaching us how to go "uhh ooohh uhhoooh". Get a clue! I just want a job with real people and even a tie here or there or agendas that I don't understand yet want to and you know answering real questions about real things or feeling some sort of competitive pressure...AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Dear lord get me out of here just for today! Get me out of here and put me in front of a computer with a deadline with smart or at least capable people doing things that yield some sort of fruit no matter the bounty...my first agenda when I was going to home was to see family and friends...well now since most of that is falling to shit...I'm going to find a job in a city far away and just focus on nothing but working 70 hours a week...today that is my dream...today that sounds real and fulfilling...tomorrow however, is a different day I'm an Inspiring Kind of Guy Mirel wrote (or copied...pretty sure she copied these) this in an email. She wanted to post it, but didn't realize only I can post blogs. So yeah...what picks Mirel's brain... I tired to post this on the BLOG but i had some server issues......enjoy:-) you inspire me to actually read this! Why do we Blink? To oil, lube, and filter the eyes. Blinking, as opposed to batting, our eyes automatically supplies two forms of moisture to our eyes, to keep them from drying out, and to keep foreign matter from entering and irritating our eyes. Eyelids themselves, our built-in "wind-shield wipers," are merely folds of skin, controlled by muscles capable of expanding and contracting so rapidly, that blinking does not impair our vision. Mother Nature lined the rims of our eyelids with 20-30 sebaceous, oil-producing glands, which are located between our eyelashes, and are invisible to the naked eye. Blinking automatically coats the eyelid and eyelashes with the lubricant it secretes, to prevent them from drying out. Blinking also protects the eye from dryness by irrigating, not by irritating, the eye, The eyelid, through suction, automatically draws the fluid we cry with from the well we refer to as the tear duct over the eyeball, to irrigate, and to moisturize the eye. The process is similar to the manner in which the farmer uses water to irrigate his crops during a dry spell. Yet another benefit of blinking, is to shield the eye from foreign bodies. Our eyelashes, short, curved, hairs, attached to the eyelids, serve as dust-catchers, as the blinking reflex causes them automatically to lower, when exposed to harsh elements. Nature endowed the camel with extraordinarily long, curly, eyelashes, to protect his eyes from sudden sandstorms in the desert. Incidentally, the "camel eyelash" look is one many women attempt to duplicate by using an eyelash curler! Eyebrows, by the way, also serve their purpose, as they catch the run-off perspiration produces. Now we all knew that.... Why do we laugh? The reasons we laugh, including "contagious" laughter, may be products of evolution. Natural laughter is a two-part, spontaneous, response to humor, that has physiological, psychological, and physical benefits. Most agree that we laugh when we find something to be humorous, yet different reasons exist for what we find to be humorous. Additionally, different things are humorous to us at different stages of life. Laughter, a physiological response to humor, can be broken down into two parts. The first is a set of gestures, and the second is the production of sound. The brain forces to conduct both responses simultaneously. From a physiological standpoint, a "sensor" in the brain responds to laughter by triggering other neural circuits in the brain, which, in turn, generate more laughter. Oddly enough, laughter is an orderly response, and almost occurs "spontaneously" during pauses at the end of phrases, earning it the name the punctuation effect. Human beings are the only species capable of laughter, and the average adult does so approximately 17 times per day. Good health is one of the many benefits of laughter. Laughter reduces our stress levels by reducing the level of stress hormones, and also helps us cope with serious illnesses. Physiologically, laughter promotes healing, by lowering the blood pressure, and by increasing the vascular blood flow and the oxygenation of the blood. Physical fitness stemming from laughter is a benefit known to few. Scientists estimate that laughing 100 times is equivalent to a 10-minute workout on a rowing machine, or to 15 minutes on a stationary exercise bike. The mere act of laughing exercises the diaphragm, as well as the abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles. Another benefit of laughter is that it improves our over-all mental health. Pent up negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and sadness, can cause biochemical changes in our bodies that can produce a harmful effect. Laughter provides a harmless outlet for these negative emotions, and provides a coping mechanism for dealing with difficult or stressful situations. Why do we itch? Itching is basically an early warning system to alert you to the fact that your body has come into contact with a noxious substance. We itch because we release a substance called histamine from white cells called mast cells. These are present in the connective tissue in the skin. Histamine binds to receptors on local nerve endings causing the sensation of itching. Itching is a reflex which can be stimulated by various irritants. People with an allergy over produce histamine in response to a substance that may very well not affect another person at all. | Favorites List Pandora Song List Amazon Wish List Reading Revolutionary Wealth - Tofflers Brian Jones Things Making Me Smile The City Newness Listening - [out of 5] Benjy Ferree - 4.8 The Thermals 3.1 David Gray 3.8 Quote(S) Like the guy with the beard? YES - like the guy with the beers. What? Yep Bands That I Check Schedules For Badly Drawn Boy Belle and Sebastian Benjy Ferree The Black Keys Deerhoof Drive By Truckers The Eels Enon Kimya Dawson Mark Hopkins Band Oasis Iron and Wine Mates of State Ted Leo Travis Two if By Sea Ween Places I Rock in the Flesh 9:30 Club Black Cat Electric Factory Fletcher's 8x10 The Knitting Factory The Otto Bar Recher Theatre Sonar Places I Eat/Drink in the Flesh Aldo's Bishop's Collar Boccacio's Cross Street Market Hull Street Joun Gak Mick O'Shea's No Way Jose Porter's The Irish Pub Turner's The Waterfront Hotel My Greatest Hits (that's so lame) The time I almost killed a child July 4th in Korea Excerpts from Demian Why I screen phone calls Bret's Death Metal Report A conversation at a cocktail party A conversation at breakfast So you think you are a Baltimorian A conversation about a girl singer Observations from a bar Observations of strippers Tech Language Why I love Oasis I would go to war "You Son of a Bitch" An Open Letter to Tom Friend Dance to Your Ocean Dream Ranch When men become pussies Jason Whitlock is a racist propaganda promoter Pitchfork takes music snobbery to new level The Cosmic Clash of the Red Sox and Cubs The Hatred that is Runts Candy Starting corporate line-up Google Bio Do you know me? List 1 / List 2 / List 3 The Night I Burned Philly Down So You Want to be a Booze Hound She Said it was Free Funniest Corporate Story Ever Striped Shirts and the Fucks that Wear Them Death Peddle NEW!!! Pieces of Morning Oasis Album Revew The Art of Tipping Starting Fires With Grass Stains Bret's Federal Hill Food Review Sexcapades and your Picture on the Internet Stupid Secrets Stupid Secrets the Return Contact Me Stuff I Swing By From Time to Time - MUSIC Donewaiting.com hive3.com Indie Video Archive Large Hearted Boy Important Records Oasis News Pitch Fork Media Reptilian Records Scenestars MP3 Blogs Sound Garden Baltimore - BUY Aloud.com Pre-Shrunk Shotgun Apparel Warrior Clothing - HUMOR Angry Little Girls Atom Films Eye Envision Homestar Runner Kill Frog Junior Varsity Meat Market - PERSONAL Baltimore City Paper The Baltimore Sun Calvert Hall Degroen's Brewers ESL Cafe Fantasy Sports Korean Herald Villa Julie College Baseball W3 Schools Archives 06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003 07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010 03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010 04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010 05/01/2010 - 06/01/2010 06/01/2010 - 07/01/2010 07/01/2010 - 08/01/2010 08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010 09/01/2010 - 10/01/2010 10/01/2010 - 11/01/2010 11/01/2010 - 12/01/2010 12/01/2010 - 01/01/2011 01/01/2011 - 02/01/2011 02/01/2011 - 03/01/2011 03/01/2011 - 04/01/2011 04/01/2011 - 05/01/2011 05/01/2011 - 06/01/2011 06/01/2011 - 07/01/2011 12/01/2011 - 01/01/2012 01/01/2012 - 02/01/2012 07/01/2012 - 08/01/2012 08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012 09/01/2012 - 10/01/2012 10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012 11/01/2012 - 12/01/2012 01/01/2013 - 02/01/2013 04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013 06/01/2013 - 07/01/2013 07/01/2013 - 08/01/2013 08/01/2013 - 09/01/2013 09/01/2013 - 10/01/2013 10/01/2013 - 11/01/2013 11/01/2013 - 12/01/2013 12/01/2013 - 01/01/2014 01/01/2014 - 02/01/2014 02/01/2014 - 03/01/2014 03/01/2014 - 04/01/2014 04/01/2014 - 05/01/2014 05/01/2014 - 06/01/2014 06/01/2014 - 07/01/2014 07/01/2014 - 08/01/2014 08/01/2014 - 09/01/2014 10/01/2014 - 11/01/2014 11/01/2014 - 12/01/2014 12/01/2014 - 01/01/2015 01/01/2015 - 02/01/2015 02/01/2015 - 03/01/2015 03/01/2015 - 04/01/2015 04/01/2015 - 05/01/2015 05/01/2015 - 06/01/2015 06/01/2015 - 07/01/2015 07/01/2015 - 08/01/2015 08/01/2015 - 09/01/2015 10/01/2015 - 11/01/2015 11/01/2015 - 12/01/2015 12/01/2015 - 01/01/2016 01/01/2016 - 02/01/2016 03/01/2016 - 04/01/2016 06/01/2016 - 07/01/2016 07/01/2016 - 08/01/2016 08/01/2016 - 09/01/2016 10/01/2016 - 11/01/2016 11/01/2016 - 12/01/2016 02/01/2017 - 03/01/2017 03/01/2017 - 04/01/2017 04/01/2017 - 05/01/2017 05/01/2017 - 06/01/2017 07/01/2017 - 08/01/2017 08/01/2017 - 09/01/2017 10/01/2017 - 11/01/2017 01/01/2018 - 02/01/2018 05/01/2018 - 06/01/2018 07/01/2018 - 08/01/2018 08/01/2018 - 09/01/2018 10/01/2018 - 11/01/2018 11/01/2018 - 12/01/2018 12/01/2018 - 01/01/2019 01/01/2019 - 02/01/2019 02/01/2019 - 03/01/2019 03/01/2019 - 04/01/2019 07/01/2019 - 08/01/2019 08/01/2019 - 09/01/2019 03/01/2020 - 04/01/2020 05/01/2020 - 06/01/2020 09/01/2020 - 10/01/2020 10/01/2020 - 11/01/2020 11/01/2020 - 12/01/2020 12/01/2020 - 01/01/2021 01/01/2021 - 02/01/2021 03/01/2021 - 04/01/2021 04/01/2021 - 05/01/2021 05/01/2021 - 06/01/2021 06/01/2021 - 07/01/2021 07/01/2021 - 08/01/2021 08/01/2021 - 09/01/2021 09/01/2021 - 10/01/2021 10/01/2021 - 11/01/2021 11/01/2021 - 12/01/2021 01/01/2022 - 02/01/2022 03/01/2022 - 04/01/2022 05/01/2022 - 06/01/2022 06/01/2022 - 07/01/2022 07/01/2022 - 08/01/2022 08/01/2022 - 09/01/2022 09/01/2022 - 10/01/2022 11/01/2022 - 12/01/2022 09/01/2023 - 10/01/2023 10/01/2023 - 11/01/2023 11/01/2023 - 12/01/2023 12/01/2023 - 01/01/2024 01/01/2024 - 02/01/2024 02/01/2024 - 03/01/2024 03/01/2024 - 04/01/2024 04/01/2024 - 05/01/2024 05/01/2024 - 06/01/2024 06/01/2024 - 07/01/2024 07/01/2024 - 08/01/2024 08/01/2024 - 09/01/2024 09/01/2024 - 10/01/2024 11/01/2024 - 12/01/2024 |
| |||||||||||||
| |||||