DISGUSTED

I ordered a Long Island iced tea tonight. What I got was a travesty to refined alcoholic tastes. I watched the bartender grab a plastic cup and fill it with ice, then grab that universal nozzle contraption and press this magic button which dispensed a pre-mixed concoction that "tastes" like Long Island iced tea, topped with the obligatory jewel of soda. Never again. It is a depressing circumstance when a staple of liquor beverages is replaced with a factory blend. So I propose this replacement to your store-bought mixed drink:

28 years of social interaction

Barraging my mom with questions as a child. Staying up late/getting up early to watch Sailor Moon with my older sister. Playing Nintendo with family. Summer water fighting and breakdancing with the Warheadz. Writing letters to my pen-pal Micah. Walking home from school with the first best friends. Passing notes with classmates in high school. Underage drinking games. AOL chatrooms and spitting digital game at girls that may live in my neighborhood. Getting pwned on Battle.net Warcraft 2. Phone calls with the first girlfriend. Lunch period cliques. sQuiD! crew chat battles. Random drives with Bertrand. Geeky horseplay in the computer labs and every other hallway on campus. Piling into Lando's car and skipping class to eat fast food. High school graduation night and LAN parties. Waiting in line at the Warped Tour. Discovering the town and the city in the backseat of Ron's car. Tennis with Bryan. Shotgun rules and Rosario's Logic. Inventing new phrases and jokes with Ryan. Racquet club pimpin. Road trips with cousins. CRC shenanigans and Taco Tuesdays. Kickin it at Alex's place on Q st (and T st). San Diego Comic-con. A real glimpse of women at CSUS. Bars and clubs and bars and clubs and a rave. Late night pow-wows with the experienced guy cousins. Westcoast Brewfest. Driving to San Diego and L.A. with the men that I call my brothers. House parties at the Monkeyhouse, the Compound and West Sacramento. Text messaging. Trying to date a coworker. Bulls on Parade (birthday partying in the month of May). Online comic battles and forum trolling before the term was coined. Cabin trips and gathering as many of our friends together outside of the hometown. Dating on Myspace. Going to Las Vegas without parental supervision. Finally being behind our own table at a comic convention. Meeting Canadians, an Australian, and an Indonesian. Chicago cab drivers and driving to Seattle with Alex + Yuka to see James, Marley, and Rey. Whizzbang. Endless nights of Halo, Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Def Jam: Fight for NY, etc., or, How to Get Really Good At Trash-talking. The war room at Hoppy Brewery. Hitting on every other hot piece of female ass that walked thru the door at Utrecht (and spying on the gaggle of bitches that go to the sushi place next door). West coast sharkin' with the boys. Pillow talk. The unholy draw of Facebook. Convincing an exotic dancer to give me a discount. Unexpected mini-reunions at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. Being the Mariposa hall's lab tech stud. Sessioning with Adam and Pat. The Bitter End, Buckshots and Fairfield county lockup. City Comes Loud and Second Saturdays. The Tiger Cage. Bringing Respark together to produce comic books and grazing the lips of majestic triumph/learning I am horrible as a leader. Smash and crash in Paragon City a.k.a. building a hermit shell via the City of Heroes mmorpg. Vandal runs in the daytime. The shape-shifting, recurrent Unicorn. Discussing theoretical physics on the light rail and talking down a drug dealer (and stealing their pipe). Having a whole conversation with my nieces and nephews. Drink and Draw. Relearning the first language I spoke (and lost) on a family trip to the Philippines; Learning that G.R.O.s speak better English after three beers. Conquering my traumatic spelling flaw with the word "unknown" and thus owning my voice and opinion. Discussions about Zeitgeist, the singularity, and other jargon. Separating the wheat from the chaff. Hookah intellectualism. Skype debates. Google+ hangouts.

Learnin' somethin' every other day

Even though I wasn't able to taste the fabled goodness of their Swedish meatballs, I discovered a perverted appreciation for IKEA. Despite the offensively foreign nature of their product signage, and the ridiculously Walmart-esque "super store" expansiveness of that building, my first visit was a truly manchildish experience. Sure, 500 Days of Summer ringed painfuly close to my conscious perception as I wandered about with Ron and Khonnie (heretoforeverafter referred to as The KhRonnie), I could not help but attempt to maximize the last hour before closing in as many ways possible.

Dated June, 2009
I begin this entry with the intent of continuing my series of internal dialogues of life and an artist's perspective as I know it so far. Although I'm concurrently assembling another playlist of tracks that will run non-stop tonight as I embark on a quest that will likely destroy the next few days of my life. There is no gain without sacrifice, I believe, so I will have to offer sleep in exchange for glory. Okay, enough pre-asides.

I made a move today. It wasn't the most bold or heroic of attempts, but it was still a motion out of my natural, hum-drum daily routine. It was a well-intended and simple gift, tinged with a shade of snobbish, know-it-all sincerity that comes with almost every sentence I deliver. That is more than likely the problem with the way I act in most encounters with the opposite sex. Either I'm not douchebag and cool enough to play the part, or too mild and uninteresting to pull it off. I obviously don't smile like a rampant toss of the joker card. My flaws are more than public. Unexpected stutters, vicious silences, schizophrenic belligerence, an oddly common habit of looking off into some interesting distant scene when speaking to others (a.k.a. bad eye contact), and laborious insertions of vocabulary exclusively used by intelligencia paint a basic picture of my eccentricism. I don't know what to do, and I probably may never will. Though, for the little trouble of

Allow me to set the stage. This will be a rant. I drank/drunk 5 beers and a hot shot of Cutty Sark. While chain-smoking the rest of my pack of Camel filters and downing said beers, I formulated this idea.
Artists are purely an emotional lot. That's not to say no other professional archetype employ some form of passion. However, the artist nowadays is moved by a specifically primal state of mind. As I see it, I cannot FORCE work when I'm in some kind of funk. There's very little point to push myself when I am not mentally and emotionally inclined to it. However, I am most likely wrong in trying to generalize my predecessors or contemporaries. Though the concept remains that we are in a ready state when we are at some kind of brink or motivating instance that compels us to produce. Just like our will to make love or fight, these things don't readily appear because it is conveniently 5:04 in the afternoon on a Friday. There is some kind of impetus.

Psychological Morphology

Any form is the diagram* resulting from the adaptation of the moving internal energies to obstacles created by the environment. The morphology of swirls, osmotic growths, periodic precipitates, indicates the diagram of non-miscible bodies, such as stains of car oil in damp streets, or the layout of two Ripolin* colors. Time would be for us a medium* comparable to a gelatinous water accepting in a rhythmical way transformations occurring with high or less high speeds. The eye is tuned on a certain speed only. Psychologically, a morphology of optical images only relates to the theoretical sections* made at a given moment in the morphological age of the object. I call psychological morphology the diagram of the transformations according to the absorption and the transmission, of the energies in the object from its initial aspect until it reaches its final form in the geodesic psychological medium*. This medium, psychological space-time, is a symbolic congruence of the Euclidian space. The object located in a given moment-point of this medium intercepts the pulsations which are proposing transformations according to an infinity of directions. It is located at the impact point between this encounter and each transformation. The infinity of the chances of interpenetrations missed by the object increases the intensity of the further pulsations during all the time the object will follow this morphological direction.

The concept of a psychological-time medium in which the objects are transforming, leads to compare it with an Euclidian space caught in a rotative and pulsatile transformation in which the object, with each risk of interpenetration may oscillate from point-volume to moment-eternity, from attraction-repulsion to past-future, from light-shadow to matter-movement. The fourth dimension would be the diagram of the risks encountered during the complete duration of the transformations.

In the area of consciousness, a morphological psychology would be the diagram of ideas. It should be conceived before optical images may give us the form of ideas if we want to stay in the transforming medium. The optical image is only a theoretical section* within the morphological fall of the object.

The image is retained* to calm the anxiety. Only one among the possible forms of the object is preserved.

Reality is the sequence of the explosive convulsions modeled in a pulsatile and rotative medium exposed to rhythms. The eye as the agent of memory is a means to simplify. The consciousness of the development of a psychological morphology in the passional or spiritual sense* leads to a pneumo-optics of the object. This pneumo-optics, which is a congruence of perspective, generates the creation of specific sciences. So, the diagram of the idea of a snow ball thrown on a flame shall be a splitting in two without deformation*, whereas the emotional libido awakened by a river or a tree shall be expressed by an osmotic growth in the geodesic psychological medium, true gelatin of blood stained milk in periodic precipitate.

Such a morphology shall be perceived when the eye and the consciousness shall draw the immediate and impulsive diagrams of man's convulsive emotion in a new art. The perception of the growth and of the accidents of objects when achieved simultaneously shall allow to feel the psychological biology of the object. The co-psychology of the opposites in a single idea-object remains pulsatile without deformation* in a psychological morphology, whereas the symbolist trials called paranoia-critique are based on a transformation of optical images in a caricatural sense*. The same happens with the forms of the so-called abstract art.

Roberto Matta, 1938

Matta and Psychological Morphology

Roberto Matta art

...something like karma

I have a theory. Well, I have many odd perspectives about the reality I am experiencing.

...

As I go forth, I look back

The past was so much more limited and safe. Everything about the future excites me and fills me with fear. So I stay still, comfy in the static presence of the now. This is truly the lowest age of my life, because I yearn for nothing. It is a good thing the world moves along to its own beat. I wish I could hear that song; I love to whistle.

Perhaps the worst part of these days is that I sleep and do not dream.

If I see another div or span tag appear out of nowhere, I'll cut someone.

Fallen back in hate with the Internet

Yeah, I see you. Don't think you can hide in your obscure domain name. I've sat in this work-out bench that I call my computer chair for the better portion of this day, torturing my brain in the pursuit of understanding you once more. No amount of music that I love could soothe the swarming frustrations I felt just to figure out how web sites are designed. The familiarity is returning, but it is far too painful to fool myself into believing I can do this well. Hell, I just now realized what div tags do, after all this time. Still don't know how to manipulate them on my own, but I know they function less mysteriously than before. A part of me feels slightly dirty because I had to use a template to glean these kernels of knowledge. Anyway, I still loathe you, Internet.

Sweet revelations, bitter replies.

During my recent trip back to my hometown of San Diego, I attended my cousin's 18th birthday debut. At the party, which was a romantic event staged in a Spanish-style miniature villa in the Otay Lakes area of south San Diego, one of my aunts remarked that I looked like my uncle Jun. I've been growing out my hair to a lustrous style lately, thus the reference would be fitting considering this look is a slight homage to 80's glamor. However, after this compliment was paid, I quickly asked whether that description was a good thing or a bad thing. So maybe this estranged relative of mine once looked dashing in the 80's hey-day, but I could not help but immediately recall some negative image out of that statement. In my mom's side of the family, we have a highly diverse lineage, almost every family unit has followed the tracks to the American Dream except perhaps this uncle. On my dad's side, my surname lineage is squeeky clean, so I feel comfortable being the posterboy of black sheep badass for my Sacramento family. However, getting mentioned that way in conjunction with my other family left me with a stinging after-taste. That uncle, the last holder of my grandfather's name, has all but been disowned in some way by my own mom. In many ways, I am slightly on the same course, and that is a growing fear I can't live with. I am reckless and without a solid bearing that will dictate the next 20 years. These things I am very aware of, and I don't often care about the end results of my existence. I am just afraid that these nightmarish self-induced prophecies will come true just because I believe they will.

Parody of a Parody?

I watched this recently throughout a series of sporadic encounters with various guests during that day. Firstly, it was inspiring in a ridiculously similar way to my own life. Except I don't get to sing duets with Her #52 while battling my arch-nemesis twice. I think I may try vlogging on odd days when I feel the urge to be artistically productive. In this way, I can induct myself into the elusive world of cinema. Or maybe I should find a way to get a scanner set up and redesign my website enema. Dun Dun Dun.

Too many things to consider. Retropolitan, Slumberjack, LOG://MKII-CZ, Void, Zuda, painting, and mostly sleep. I will have to find out really soon how many days in a row I can stay awake.
Though I can't make one right now, I know a fairly intelligent decision will be to delete Facebook. Hopefully I won't have to remove Myspace. Less fake socializing is healthy, I think. NEED MORE BRAIN POWER.

I'll sleep when I'm dead

It's been a blur lately. I've begun the past couple of weeks with all-nighters; Sunday into Monday, Tuesday into Wednesday. Yesterday, I took a nap at 9pm and woke up around midnight. Knowing I can no longer afford to rest, I hunker'd down at this computer and typed out 7 pages of an overdue research paper. Not bad, though I've done better without the need for caffeine or pharmaceutical assistance. At that point, I was up. No turning back or lying down. I was able to actually catch the bus on time for a change. Called Alex at the RT station, hopped on the train, did the 16th street boogie, and had time to spare on the walk to campus. Today, I remembered to bring an oil paint pen with me, and somehow Fate cast a wicked smile in my direction.

One last thing

I'm a hater. Not an overt hater, just a cynical, critical, and highly jaded individual. And these features are fairly visible in my character. I hate on the majority of contemporary/pop music, guys with cute girls, korean-made sushi, even the institution of art that I am currently trying to claw my way into. Essentially, most things produced are related to modern society. What I don't hate on (too much) is science and those true factors in this universe that immediately validate our existence. That being said, I adore minimalism in art and the visible light spectrum. I figure, if one can see, they oughta appreciate the tangible beauty of reality. I would hate (and sincerely pity) blindness. Or the lack of any senses that contribute to empirical reasoning.

It occurred somewhere between 7:30am and 8:45am. I awoke and by the time the afternoon had arrived, a family party was in effect at my relative's house. My parents and aunts and uncles were going to leave for the airport to catch their P.I. flight. On the news, headlines were being made: across the globe on the dark side of the planet, the moon had filled to a deep, blood red. Cities were filled with growing chaos, fears of the end of days were rife. Everyone in the house was filled with the same feeling of dread. I asked my mom, "Are you guys still going to get on that flight?" She answered with a familiar annoyance, yet serious aggravation, "I don't know, ask your Dad." I find him, and immediately take him into the car and leave, saying, "I have to find out if this is for real." We drive several hours out of town, to a spot near the coast that I once saw. The sun was setting on the western coast, it's dusk glow bathing the foothilled horizon. I could vaguely make out the sudden appearance of buildings that dotted the hills, the mysterious translucence both awe-inspiring and creepy. Where did these buildings come from? There was nothing out here. I turn into the quiet lake that I once promised myself to come to for self-reflection. A lonely church next to a lonely lake. We step out, and I inspect the grounds. What was I looking for? I knew He did not live in this house anymore. There was nothing here for me. I started walking away, and another man appeared out of the woods outside the grounds. "Are you waiting here, too? Patience, child." He sounded vaguely like Christopher Walken and looked strikingly like what paintings depict of Thomas Jefferson. This event startled me, but the next moments would continue to stretch my consciousness. An old classmate appears next to me, looks down and grins. More lost, familiar faces come from the path beyond my car. Along with them, hundreds of people begin to congregate in the clearing next to the lake. Many sit down and converse, continuing where they must have once left off. I follow suit and sit down. I can only marvel at the scenery and crowd. The mysterious buildings in the distance shimmer a soothing blue in contrast to the darkening sky. I spot one face that shouldn't be there. Someone dead and gone from my past. Once I realized that, another shock came. Flanking me on both sides were Jaime and Ryan. They both sat down. I felt relief, but still an overwhelming amount of dumbfoundedness. How can this be? Is this it, Heaven has come to Earth? Those ghostly buildings must be for the last chosen. This is the Rapture. Did I escape the Wrath of God? What about everyone else? I could not help but break down and cry, my hands covering my eyes, the tears so warm and salty as they fell from my eyes. I could see each single drop hit the dirt, and I could only focus on the certain reality of those tears and nothing of my friends and the others around me. Ryan and Jaime picked me up, and proceeded to show me to the church. The inside of the church was a resort. Anything you could want to do was all infinitely and maddeningly housed within the house of the Lord. Yoga, crafts, buffets, tumbling, spas, libraries, anything. Everyone looked so content and blissful. I couldn't bear the thought of the end of the world, and could only leave as quickly as I came into the building. As I left the church, I fell to my knees, screaming at myself, God, and the world. Ryan and Jaime were quick to comfort me as I continued to break down. Jaime first said one thing that decimated the rest of my reality on the spot, "It's okay now, I know I've been gone a while, but now we'll be kickin it for the rest of eternity."
"You've been gone???"
Ryan added, "Yeah, don't you remember? He died two years ago..."
"WHAT?!"
I was fully delusional. As it sank in, I replied, "I must have been living my life so deluded... All this time, I always thought we had been hanging out with Jaime, too... Are you dead, too?"
"Yeah."
"Since when?"
"2010."

And then I woke up. The dream was so real. I could feel, see, hear every real moment. I had never experienced lucidity like this. The entire event was wholly believable to me. My parents were in fact leaving on a plane this same day. Maybe this concocted scenario had something to do with the conversations about God that I had with Van the day prior. Or the subconscious fears of the end of days at 2012. Or perhaps it has to do with the people who are leaving my life for extended periods of time, a form of surreal separation anxiety. I'm sure my recent experience of witnessing a partial lunar eclipse unseated some kind of hidden cosmic paranoia. The craziest part of this dream was that it was completely in the first person perspective. Usually, my dreams flow between first and third, in a fairly cinematic way. This time it was jarring, visceral even. I just hope this isn't some kind of portent.

The Score.

I'm the only one that ever reads this. The expected outcome is at least 30 minutes wasted perusing the inferred states of my mind over the years as verified by the backlog of entries. Oh well.

This is tentatively (and officially declared) the last year of undergraduate schooling in my life. Before the calendars change over to 2009, I will have commenced and finally liberated myself of nearly two decades of American academic institutions. However, this spring semester will be the most ball-grinding, protracted experience I'll ever have. Six classes, nineteen units. Medieval Art, Italian, sculpture, printmaking studio, art of china/japan, and an independent study. It's all there, ready for me to demolish: expectations, conventions, sanity. On top of that, a commission for a mural painting in the client's house. My greatest apprehensions and fears lie in the independant study and the art history courses. Last semester, I cruised through sixteen units/five classes, with par performance in the ethnicities and art history classes. AND I was blazed most of the time. Who would've thought the sweet chiba would actually do the opposite and keep my head above water, eh?

Okay, so, this is the score:

-a 10 page paper + several written assignments and tests for ART 105
-another 10 pager and exams for ART 117B
-in class sculpture works (although it is implied that we'll need to work on our pieces outside of ASL as well)
-about 11 prints for ART 145 (a combination of serigraphy, intaglio/engraving, and relief prints)
-six 80" drawings of a sequential narrative (Destiny/Soul) with a 36+ page graphic novella in support (file:\mk. II-CZ
-11x4' mural painting

You ready?

unplug

This is harder than I thought. School, work, everything in between. It all seems so hopeless at times; an endless race to meet other people's expectations, when I have none of my own. Actually, whenever I have expectations or aspirations, they're of the ego-feeding variety, when the ominous truth is that I will live and die unknown. It's funny that word came up, "unknown." In elementary school, I entered the school spelling bee and was tangled up on that word. U-N-K-O-W-N. That was the first immensely humiliating experience I can remember. It was almost traumatic, because I can never spell, "unknown" without second-guessing my ability to spell it correctly, especially considering I pride myself in my competence of the English language. Life is a humbling experience, a tormenting cycle of my consistent failures. It's always one poor decision here, a hasty transaction there, and the inevitable encounter with a great girl that either has a boyfriend (or girlfriend) or just. doesn't. want. me. However, what business do I have being content? I don't deserve such reward, nor would I appreciate it. I can barely tolerate routine, whether it be the daily grind, or saying, "I love you," at the end of a phone call. It's true, familiarity, predictability, breeds contempt. I need a permanent vacation.

Agenda- Requiem of 2006

Thanksgiving break: November 23-26th

Winter break: December 25th-January 26th

Next time I am for certain returning to San Diego: New Years

It is within any of these given time frames that I intend to take at least one drive to Southern California for a sabbatical. Possible destinations include San Diego, Chula Vista, National City, Pacific Beach, Irvine, Fullerton, and Mammoth Mountain. Although, the Thanksgiving break may not be such a great opportunity considering that the Nintendo Wii will have just been released less than a week prior. I may just have to camp it out at home and play the Wii until I gain insomnia.