Saturday, April 24, 2010

Got lost. again.

I can find my way to a beach 300 miles north of where I live, that I have been to once when I was 7 NO PROBLEM, but for some reason I can NEVER find my way back to the freeway once I have driven into LA proper! It's like every time I enter the city my internal compass thinks I am in the Bermuda Triangle and I lose all sense of direction and my ability to even read a map. Today was no different when I drove to West LA to meet with this guy that wanted to put on an art show for me and a couple of my friends. I found the place no problem, and I had a pleasant enough meeting with the guy. He seemed to know his shit and was very excited to be working with me, which totally stroked my ego in all the right ways... but I am always a little reticent to do shows like these because I secretly loathe anybody who is actually interested in my artwork because of how I like to think of myself as an anti-establishment/anti-capitalist/non-conformist kind of artist and the idea of some Joe Blow appreciating what I have to offer makes me feel like I have failed as an artist and a human being to properly convey what I am positive these people are not able to comprehend.

Anyway, after the meet and greet, I hopped in my car thinking I was driving back to the freeway (though I was completely guessing because my GPS had decided to stop working for some strange reason) and I ended up way off course somewhere deep in the heart of WeHo! As always I got really frustrated, pulled over the first chance I got, and just sat in my car as I tried to calm myself enough to not want to put my fist through the windshield for getting lost in LA AGAIN! I then grabbed my phone and proceeded to text every person I knew that lived in the area so they could come pick my up, take me to dinner, and then buy me alcohol until I was in a better mood. Long story short, I found a victim to take care of me while I regained my composure. We ate at this awesome Thai place on Santa Monica and then we hopped in his car and got some beers in Silverlake where we met up with a couple acquaintances and spent the night drinking and laughing. I think the moral of this story is that LA is stupid. Or maybe that I need a private driver, I am not sure... either way, I am extremely high maintenance and I am pretty lucky I don't have to be my own friend because I just wouldn't have time for a person like me in my life!

As we speak I am packing for my flight to Europe and I am crazy excited I didn't have to deal with any of those stupid cancellations because of the volcano. Figuring out my whole travel perdicament was a big enough headache without having to tack on a volcano cloud from Iceland. Apparently I am only allowed to stay in the country so many days ever 6 months and I was extremely confused if the 6 months were from the first day I arrived in said country or if they were kind of like set from Jan - Jun then Jul - Dec. I was also confused about what would happen if my visit started at the end of one six month period and then carried over into the next, would my time automatically start over or would I not get to restart my allotted time until I left the country and then came back again!? So I planned this trip to be exactly 6 months from the time I last left this country so I wouldn't have to worry about any of the nuances of travel at all. All that matters is I AM GOING TO GET TO SEE BRADLEY!!! Holy fucking shit I miss him soooo much! It's been 4 LONG and terrible months, but now the wait is over and I am very ready to be with my guy again. We talk almost everyday yet for some reason I miss the sound of his voice most of all. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's how I feel.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

3 days!

I was sitting in a gay coffee shop in Long Beach with a friend on Sunday when I noticed this dude sitting with his back to me reading my blog on his computer. It was weird. I know that people read my blog but its always so detached from my reality that it doesn't seem real, but actually seeing somebody read my blog is just strange. I wanted to walk up to him and say something, but I didn't because that would have just been, for lack of a better word, STRANGE! What really sucked was that my coffee buddy didn't know that I write a blog either so I couldn't share this really weird moment with him either, so I just had to sit there and be really uncomfortable for like 30 minutes.

Coachella is 3 days away! This is going to be the second year in a row where I am not responsible for anything or anybody but myself and I am so excited it's not even funny. I am really looking forward to Saturday because there are a whole bunch of bands that I am seriously looking forward to and there are a couple of bands that I just want to see because of the novelty of watching them perform. Some examples of the novelty acts would be bands like Die Antwoord (I honestly had no idea they were actually serious about music until I saw their name on the coachella line-up!), and Faith no more (You gotta give them props for being the original limp bizkit [did I spell that right?]).



Some acts that I am GENUINELY excited to see on Saturday are The RX Bandits (Progress is one of my top 5 alums on the planet! I could listen to it over and over and NEVER get sick of it, because it's just that good!), DEVO (I really don't think anymore needs to be said about this), Corrinne Bailey Rae (I am a big fat homo! Of course I want to see her perform!) and John Waters (I have no fucking clue what he's doing at Coachella but there's nothing on God's green earth that could stop me from figuring this one out!)





I am sooooooooo excited about this it's hard to put into words! I just don't get how after so many years this never gets old for me. I just really love music and I love the way this festival changes and grows every year. Pretty soon I know I am going to hate it though, because I feel that way about all things that get over hyped and commercialized. But for now, I am going to have a whole lot of fun and enjoy ever second of it.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Email response

I guess I just wanted to preface this with saying I hate writing posts like this! I hate how sad and pitiful my life seems and how weak and vulnerable things like this make me seem. I have had a hard life full of abuse, neglect, and family that never quite understood me, but when it's all said and done I honestly feel like in my 24 years I've had a pretty awesome life. I have amazing people who love me, I've never had to struggle with putting food on my table, or figuring out where I was going to sleep for the night, because somebody has always been there to take care of me. As independent as I like to think I am, I know there's no way I could live the life I do without having many people around to support me and care for me every step of the way. What I have written below sounds a lot worse than it actually felt living through it. When you read what I have written feel free to feel however you want about it, just don't feel bad for me. I am the lucky one.

When people ask me about my ethnicity I automatically respond by saying I am Asian. The thing is I am only HALF, but ethnically, I don't really think about myself as anything BUT Asian! In yesterday's post I was accused of being ashamed of my non-Asian half and the emailer wanted to know more about why I never really claim my other half. I had to think about this because I never consciously tried to play down my other half, but for some reason I ALWAYS do.

Thinking about this I came to the conclusion that I have never really felt like I was accepted into my white/hispanic family the way I was with my Asian family. Growing up around the whipanics, from the time I was old enough to understand them, my cousins and uncles always used to call me "chinese fortune cookie" or "Benihanna" or they would stop on the Asian channels and ask me what the actors on the tv were saying. They always made it clear that I wasn't really one of them, so when I think about that half of the family, I never really think of myself as part of them. I have never been the type to show anybody how much they've hurt me, so this heckling I grew up with I learned to laugh about even when I wanted to cry. Sometimes I wonder if telling my family how much it hurt when they teased me would have been enough to make them stop. I wonder how I would see myself differently if they could have accepted me as one of their own.

I never really thought about this heckling from my family as being something detrimental to how I felt about my heritage, but in a way it really has tainted the way I have been able to absorb different traits and customs and how I see myself as a multi-ethnic minority. As recently as last week when having lunch with my Great Grandfather, who immigrated from Spain in the 20's, told me (in a very casual manner), "I love you but you should not exist. Mixing the races is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Especially the Asians and the blacks because you people don't have the word of God to teach you!" Then he laughed it off and we went back to eating lunch. Granted he has no idea I am a homosexual because then he would have a whole new reason to pray me into oblivion. I am sorry if some of you out there feel that this unacceptable and you see my perception of myself as disrespectful to my Hispanic half, but I really don't care. I am who I am and that's all I am ever going to be. Being Hispanic is part of who I am, but I am always going to feel like an outsider when dealing with that part of my culture.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

killing time

I am currently in the studio rendering my film. It keeps failing every time it gets to a certain point and it's driving me crazy because it takes about 30 mins just to get to this point! So I have decided to kill time by writing about how excited I am about Coachella.

As anybody who's been reading this blog knows, I go EVERY year. This year is no exception. One of the acts I am crazy excited to see is Calle 13. They are freakin amazing! I remember the first time I ever heard them. I was in Puerto Rico hanging out with a couple friends when their song Querido FBI came on over the radio. It was bad ass. I was instantly hooked by their eloquence, passion (bravery/stupidity depending on which side of the argument you may fall on), and ability to package all of this with some pretty awesome beats. Some people may consider them a little extreme with their lyrics and political views, but nobody can deny their amazing talent for making amazing music!

Growing up I was never really accepted by my Hispanic family. My eyes slanted a little too much, my hair was a little too dark, my skin was a little too dark. I was just a little too different. The cool thing about Calle 13 is that even though they have a very strong independent Puerto Rico message with some of their songs; they also have believe that as Latin Americans we are all so different and varied but there is something that unites us all. It's nice to be able to listen to an album and feel that thing that connects me to this entire world out there. This is my favorite song, it's a pretty powerful message about the struggle of so many Latin Americans all over this continent. On Friday at Coachella I am going to be standing there front row when they take the stage to perform it.





Now back to my rendering... It failed again just in case anybody was curious...

Thursday, April 08, 2010

kinda sorta stressed

I am working on this action sports film at the moment. We spent the last week shooting in the foothills and now we are in the studio editing the footage. It's coming together great and I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to work with the people that I did. This whole experience has been fun, exciting, and extremely challenging! From setting up cameras for the perfect shots to figuring out different and innovative ways to film some of the tricks, I have pretty much been in creative heaven since last Saturday. Even working in the studio has been a lot of fun because this is the first time I have ever edited for this sport in particular. I got to watch a lot of other films in the same genre and really get in the mindset to do this footage justice. I also have met a lot of cool and interesting people that do this sort of stuff all the time and they have all been super duper helpful and really cool to hang with.

But I guess I would be lying if I didn't say that I have been struggling with myself this whole time in a big way. But I am too ashamed to even blog about it because I would just sound like a spineless loser and there would be an anonymous commenter reaffirming exactly that and I would be in an even worse mood than I am now about it. I just need somebody to tell me where I might have left my balls so I can go pick them up and maybe be a man again... If not, this is fine too. I can just finish off this week and pretend it never happened. For some reason having one small issue tarnishing an almost perfect week long experience makes me feel even shittier. It's moments like these where all I want to do is tackle Bradley and make the kind of rough passionate love only 2 men can then rest my head on his chest and fall asleep to the cadence of his breath and the beating of his heart. 12 more days...

God damn those last couple lines were the cheesiest things I have ever written! Also I am done bitching!

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Lunch

An unfortunate byproduct of being an ivy league alumn is having a whole bunch of entitled republican asshats as semi (almost but not really!)friends. I had dinner with one of these "friends" of mine recently and at some point we started talking about the ass raping happening with the Texas school board and their insane attempts to rewrite history with an extreme right conservative viewpoint. From editing out Jefferson because of his support of a separation of church and state, to completely ignoring or marginalizing the roles minorities and women played in history, their disgusting narrow minded audacity has no limits! They are even putting in apologists for the McCarthy hearings! They might as well just set fire to all the history books and start teaching history from old episodes of "Leave it to Beaver".

We agreed that Texas is fucking crazy and we need to get those people building a fence around our borders to go ahead and build it around Texas too. But my ivy league republican asshat of a semi (almost but not really!)friend, wouldn't really be who he is if he didn't say something that would piss me off and make me want to punch him in his perfectly exfoliated and moisturized face! One of the crazy Texas revisionist's clauses had to do with the Black Panthers. I am not a fan of who they were or what they represented, but I sympathize with them and I realize they were just the product of the oppressive society they came from. If I were put in similar circumstances I would very likely join an organization like that and raise hell any way I could. Somehow this got my ivy league republican asshat of a semi (almost but not really!)friend, all riled up and he went off on a tangent about minorities and their need to show their pride for their races (black history month, Asian history month, BET, etc.), and how he has a white man would never get to do something like that without being seen as a racist.

I really fucking hate it when white people try spewing that nonsense about not being able to show their "white pride". It's total bullshit and I am not even going to pretend to tolerate it! If somebody wanted to be show their "white pride" in front of me, I wouldn't think they were racist as much as I would think they were comple and total entitled ASSHOLES! To me, when I say “I’m proud to be Asian” what I am affirming is that I love my ethnicity despite society’s inability to perceive me as a part of it. So in these terms, if a person were to declare "I’m proud to be white” what they would be thinking is that they enjoy the advantages of being white over the disadvantages of being a minority.

I don't actually think there is anything wrong with being proud of your whiteness, but to say that outloud to me, or any minority, is pretty much like kicking me in the nuts. Yeah, I get it! It must be fantastic turning on the television and seeing people who look like you, to open a magazine and see people considered beautiful who, again, look like you, or to be able to walk into an interview in your natural state without having to worry about being perceived as too ethnic; I would totally be proud of that too. But YOU DON’T HAVE TO RUB IT IN. Millionaires don't walk around celebrating their millionaire pride because they know it's not okay to rub their good fortune in everybody else's face! They understand that what they were lucky enough to have makes them intrinsically different from those around them, and while they appreciate what they have, there is no need to walk around shoving it down everybody's throats.

I hate having this discussion with a white person because no matter what I say, they will NEVER understand! As somebody who has worked in the entertainment industry for years, I know this is more than just a chip on my shoulder. It's real, and for some reason white people just can't see it. Me just trying to explain the advantages a white person has over everybody else is a perfect example of these advantages because they have the advantage of not seeing the struggles the rest of us go through, while we get to experience first hand exactly what I am saying!

Needless to say, our discussion ended with neither side feeling like the other had heard them. At one point I just wanted to punch him in the throat because he wouldn't stop "yeah but"ing me! So when the urge finally got too strong to ignore, I thanked him for his company and let him know I was late for an imaginary appointment I had just made up and left immediately. It wasn't until I got to my car that I realized the reason why we'd had lunch was never discussed and if I was going to want his assistance I would have to meet with him again! I am not sure if spending any more time in the same general area as this guy is worth it... I guess time will tell.