Drift Reality

I had a great weekend though so I feel thoroughly refreshed and ready to go back to work. The festivities began on Friday, with a trip to The Whistle Stop to see Ilya perform. They put on a good show, and I was pleased to find a new venue relatively close to my house. The Whistle Stop is what you would expect out of your typical North Park venue -a whole hell of a lot similar to a Coors light commercial, and including one or all of the following: retro clothing, black horn-rimmed glasses, some big fat guy with a beard, a crew of guys who look like band members from Weezer, and girls wearing clothing inspired by Courtney Love. In other words, it is far superior to either Pacific Beach or downtown.

As usual, Ilya played a terrific show and I’m convinced that it is only a matter of time until they really explode (in a good way). The band is extremely talented, and Blanca, the lead singer, has a hauntingly beautiful voice, a look that goes well with her music, and interesting hand gestures that my friend James referred to as “robot-like.” I’m not sure what the hell that means, but she is talented.

James wanted to head to Bar Dynamite, so after being initially rejected by the normally-cool bouncer because James was wearing sandals, returning home to pick up shoes for James, and then returning to Dynamite, we were grooving to the hip-hop that has made Bar Dynamite one of the most popular alternatives to downtown San Diego’s cookie-cutter procession of trendy Manhattan-wannabe clubs.

There is something Earthy about Dynamite, and it’s not entirely the fact that it is filthy and smells like human sweat, but there is something really refreshing about people who couldn’t care less about the way they look, or the way that they are dressed, or, in most cases, the way they dance.

The highlight of the night was turning from the dance floor towards the bar, and seeing James sitting on some girl’s lap.

Martini Ranch, located in the Gaslamp at 528 F Street, is the best club downtown. It is a complete and utter meat-market, but it makes no pretense to be otherwise and I appreciate that kind of honesty.

Unlike the clubs in La Jolla, and some of the more snooty clubs downtown, it says: “Yes! I’m a meat market! Come indulge!”

If you are sick and tired of beating around the bush and being asked what kind of car you drive, or you are not ethnic and can’t dance very well, go to the Martini Ranch.

For several weeks now, I’ve been contemplating whether or not multimedia and the advent of the Internet are going to eventually replace existing media. In many ways, the interactivity of the Internet and the palpable experience of multimedia seem to offer a world of potential that transcends literature. Being trained in English and having a passion for writing, this is a somewhat disturbing notion. For a while, I had been contemplating whether I should scrap the whole writing thing and focus all my energy on multimedia.

Today, I realized that this would be horribly stupid of me. First of all, I’ve spent my whole life writing. Second of all, I suck at multimedia.
I think my fear of the Internet’s potential stemmed from an inability to comprehend what it could offer my existing talents. Now I realize, that the greatest thing the Internet does, is connect people and ideas. These ideas still need to be expressed in writing. Although multimedia offers a visually pleasing method of conveying information, it is ultimately not as close to our minds and our souls as our own imaginations, and I’m convinced that the most basic form of communication is timeless.

What the hell am I talking about? Well, I’ve added a new section entitled, “Work in Progress.” The concept is that I’ve started to write a short story, and I would like your help in writing it. Basically, I’m going to post what I’ve written so far, and then as your comments come in, I will mold the story accordingly. It is an organic collaboration of minds, not a solitary pursuit. Ultimately, I am going to do the writing, but as edits and comments come in, I’m going to keep a rolling list of contributors who will eventually get editor credits when the work is finally published.

Yesterday was great. I finally got a chance to go wine tasting in Temecula, followed by a Korean dinner in Claremont, Karaoke at a neighboring Karaoke bar, and finally dancing at Lips, a club near our apartment. Basketball in the park, followed by a jog, and now updating my website.

Of note - While perusing Stuart Leung’s website, Monkeywarplane, I discovered a link to a site that advertises for a band named “Icy Hot Stuntaz.” If anyone has ever seen the movie, Whiteboyz, this seems like a real-life version. They are a trio of “rappers” from God knows where. Their names are “Blade,” “Freeze,” and “Flame.” You can even download some of their songs by scrolling down on the website. My personal favorite is “Anti Playa Hate of America Society.”
The greatest line in the journal is: “Check back and reckoneyez the real black whiteboys is back up in dis. We taKarl ova da 2002. First of all we looking for a free server with no POP UPS. ” Icy Hot Stuntaz - remember the name.

Okay, I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I want to write down this idea I have for a television show. It’s called “Celebrity Savage Cannibalism Island.” The premise is that a small group of celebrities are sent out to an island with nothing - no food, no first-aid kit, and no raft. The island is of course videotaped with surveillance cameras for our viewing pleasure. Whatever happens, happens, but as I’ve already stated, there is no food, no first-aid kit, and no raft on the island. Anyway, if any producers out there want to make a pilot, I’ve got a few free weekend coming up but there is one stipulation - I’ve handpicked the following celebrities to star on the pilot: Carrot Top, Jared from the Subway Commercials, and the guy who always says “can you hear me now” on the Verizon wireless commercials.

I’m not prone to complaining, but pretentious artists who take themselves too seriously really annoy me. You know who I’m talking about: the kind of people who would glare at you if you made a joke about doodoo or said that you thought a girl was “hot.” The kind of people who are suffering because no one can understand how great they are except for them. I think I first became aware of this pet peeve when a close friend was telling me about this artist she knew named “Romeo.” When I asked what his last name was, she informed me that “Romeo doesn’t have a last name, he is an artist,” to which I responded: “Really? I hope he concurrently gets scabies and the gout.” Anyway, I was perusing Karl’s guestbook one day, when I happened upon an entry from some random stranger:

Name: nicole Sent: 13.24 - 7/6 i was going to commend you on the clever ant/soap suds anecdote you left in my guestbook but after scanning your guestbook, it seems that i was not the only one graced with that comment. oh well. you have a fun/entertaining site here. & that storefront pony-riding photo is priceless ;P Doing a little detective work, I realized that Karl had been running a spamming campaign to try and rouse publicity for his site. He had been posting his silly little comment on several website guestbooks, including this girl’s website.

Here is the excerpt: i just finished college. i want to travel ‘into’ instead of around. sometimes i think the best kind of travel would be if i were an ant surfing the car wash suds in my own front yard gutter. I knew as a fact that this did not make any sense because not only do I know Karl very well but the damn thing just doesn’t make any sense. So in response, I typed in her guestbook: By the way, that guy Karl copies all his stuff from me. Out of boredom, I perused her site and found it to be quite nicely put together. Two things stuck out in particular: the fact that the site was named Memento Mori, the same name as the short story upon which the film “Memento” was based, and that she had a section of self-portraits, the same kind of self-portraits that I was mercilessly badgered about not too long ago - well, maybe they weren’t quite as narcissist as mine, but they were self-portraits nonetheless. The only thing was that the way that she shot her self-portraits, it was really difficult to actually see what she looked like - they would be of only her leg, or her hip, or her face in a blurred mirror. I concluded that either she was drunk when she took the self-portraits or it was too difficult for her to hold the camera and take the picture of herself while posing at the same time.

I decided to write another entry in her guestbook: Oh yeah, did you copy the title from that short story that Memento was based on? Yeah. . . one more thing - those self-portraits are tough to see. Can you put a self-portrait up that really is normal. Well, not necessarily normal, but I mean, I can’t really see you that well in these pictures. Also, was it difficult to twist your wrist in those weird angles to take those self-portraits. Also, don’t try to contemplate Karl’s little haikus because they are nonsense.

I added in the last little bit for good measure, just in case there was still any doubt out there. Anyway, a few days pass and I get the following response: jiyan - the title of my web page means ‘a reminder of death’ in Latin. i didn’t take it from the short story that ‘memento’ was based on. i actually swiped it from an old art history text.

I thought it was funny that she was so horrified that someone might have construed that she would be so mainstream to steal the name from a film. God forbid that she steal the name from a film! It was an old art history text of course. Incidentally, the only thing that is “a reminder of death” in her website is her self-portraits.

Anyway, Karl deemed fit to write a counter-response to my commentary in her guestbook, which I offered a counter-counter response and this morning, I received the following message from the girl: you know, i could do without the sarcasm. if you have something to say, go right ahead and say it. otherwise, please stop spamming my guestbook with inane comments.

So it was out of a sincere love for my fellow human being that I wrote her an e-mail this morning telling her that “I wasn’t being sarcastic, please stop taking yourself so seriously.” And to be honest, she probably could use a little bit of sarcasm in her profound and ultra-important life. She could also use a few other things, but that is a story for another day. Anyway, the moral of this story is that if you don’t have something to say like “your art is transcendent and reminds me of the time that I became a man,” don’t bother writing in artist’s guestbooks.

Jack & Giulio’s in Old Town is one of the best Italian restaurants in San Diego. It has an outdoor patio area with a terrific view of the surrounding hills, excellent service, and mouth-watering food. I have lunch there about once/week and normally order the house panini, which is a delicious mixture of salami and feta on a panini, served with artichoke hearts and olives. Jack & Giulio’s is located at 2391 San Diego Ave in Old Town. their phone number is (619) 294-2074.

Space and Time just dissolved. I just got back from jogging and on a whim, I went into my closet and inhaled the shirt you left your scent on and an image of you swept into my mind for an instant along with the words, “image is reality.” I liked the way that “image is reality” sounded as a phrase, but also as a concept because it is something that I think about from time to time. The first time it occurred to me is when I was walking on a hill in Donggak, an area in Seoul where I taught, and I saw these children playing and for some reason I flashed back to a scene from my own childhood.

There was some sort of strange connection beyond the physical between the children’s experience in the present and my own experience in the past. I don’t like to think of it as a detached relationship, but as two amorphous substances rubbing against one another and perhaps fusing for an instant. I just got it from your scent - for a split-second, the experience of your smell in the present fused with some transcendent image of you from the past. It was just so vivid, bespeckled in vibrant colors of red and green and orange. It was like watching a multi-colored wave wash over a bland sandy shore for a moment and then quickly recede. Not to get too romantic, but I think there is something to this phenomenon.

(Two seconds later) Woah - to make matters stranger - the second I sent this to you, I received a message from you. Say, you didn’t just have a flash of me two minutes ago? That would explain the simultaneous messages and also explain telepathy.

Tying into my last thought, maybe thinking about the future is connecting to other realities. Our physical entities are locked into both this reality as well as a linear concept of time, but our souls are capable of traveling into other realities, unrestrained by restrictions of time. When we envision the future in this reality, it is actually our souls temporarily entering the future in other realities.

I was just contemplating what I might do this evening, when my mind struck upon an image of walking downtown and having a cigar. What if this was more than just an ephemeral thought, but an actual connection occurring between this reality and another? My mind would be the bridge between these realities, and my soul could hover upon the bridge and even flit onto the other side momentarily (an image in our mind), but because my physical entity was locked into this reality, and my soul onto this physical entity, my soul would never be able to actually pass over the bridge completely.

Following up on this thought, perhaps when one dies, subsequent separation of soul from the body would imply that they would be free to travel any avenue which they deemed fit.

I’m struggling to decide whether I should just let it all hang loose and write every little detail of my life on this site, or stick to being fairly neutral. I mean, on the one hand, I would have to be stupid to write my secrets on this page for the entire world to see. On the other hand, this journal is boring even me, and I’m the one who it’s about! It’s not even a journal, I don’t know what the hell it is.

Maybe I’ll say throw a disclaimer out - that - oops - pizza is here, I’ll finish later.

I made short film with content that I gathered during Earth Festival 2002 right here in Balboa Park. I’ve got another short in the works that could take several weeks. I’ve contacted the San Diego based band, Ilya, about using one of their songs for the video.
I saw Ilya play at the Casbah several weeks ago and I was absolutely struck by how innovative and hauntingly beautiful their sound is. I would advise you to download several of their tracks here, and if you can, try to see them in concert. Furthermore, you can read a review of them from SLAMM magazine here.