love is a fire

they said love is a lamp
hot to the touch, but burning
with a fire that lights the way
for all
to see in night, flight,
fear and fright
then is when you came into
my life

i was a fool a newborn a virgin
full of spring and youth and truth
i sang all day and eyes wide
dreaming i could not fall asleep
until the very last minute

you left me a man broken
but i am a man nonetheless

i had known my power, my voice
and had you given me a choice
i’d have taken your flower
loved you hour by hour
and who’s to say i didn’t?

never is clever only we were forever
and the stars never shone so bright

now when i remember the days that
we spent, the places we went

my heart glows
to the
memory of you

I’m okay with it

From PostSecret: I'm okay with it

————————————

I saw this picture off of Angry Asian Man and I completely relate to it. Instead of saying how much it speaks volumes about the assumptions people make of my race and my personality and my home life and everything else that people assume about me, I’ll let you enjoy the picture and think about what it means to you. Drop me a line, would love to know how it relates – or not – to you.

After the Gold Rush

Been feeling a dose of the melancholy lately. Don’t really know why. I suppose what goes up must come down, but I just didn’t see it coming so soon and so fast. Maybe it was just the toxins of a drunken night leaving my body: and let me tell you, it was a drunken night. It’s like following a few bad decisions is one lasting negative thought pattern that persists. A session of Parkour ailed that. And an episode of Strange Sex on TLC. I saw a 73 year old grandma go on a date with a 33 year old dad. Watching that has to set someone right. But I digress.

There was this one song in the back of my mind that kinda lingered there: After the Gold Rush by Neil Young. This is one of my all-time favourite songs. I don’t think any song has been able to make me cry like this one. Whether it’s Young’s breaking voice or the sentimental piano, this song really cuts to the core. From the beginning the piano keys ring and hang in the atmosphere opening my chest like a surgeon. When you get to the middle of the song, I’m simultaenously out cold on Young’s magic carpet riding his dream and having my heart held. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but that’s exactly what it feels like. So without further ado, Mr. Young:

Summer has arrived in Vancouver

Today the breeze carries with it the hot sauna winds that only barely remind me of the ocean it came from, more of the desert it goes to. The car is warm and comforting, the air conditioning is cool. There is a wasp in my bathroom who knows just where to fly so I can let her out through the window screen. Car stereos audibly pass by with the windows down, children are dressed in neon colours, a blueberry yogurt bubbletea strikes the tongue ever so gently in the perfect cascade of lemon, blueberry, sour, tart and sweet. Like a long street strung with cherry blossoms, it’s Summer.

There is a certain wave of energy that comes by this town when Summer is truly here. When the schools are out but filled with summer students, when the 7/11 is busier than the gas station, when the indoors are emptier than the city park, despite the A/C. Everyone seems to make use of the outdoors, now injected with the infatuation of beach volleyball, beach soccer, and especially beach parties. Department stores are filled with brightly coloured boogie boards, and ice cream men are expediting fudgsicles, creamsicles, and the legendary rainbow pop. This is the time when barbecues replace all other forms of cooking and where every city block smells a little bit like smoke and a little bit like chow time.

I remember hot summer days when Grandma would give us Watermelon Pops, old time popsicles that were mostly succulent pink with a layer of green frozen concoction to mimic an edible watermelon rind. All throughout the fleshy melting syrup were little pockets of black chocolate cookie seeds that tasted just like dry ice, or to our little mouths: heaven.

No this year in Vancouver, Lady Summer has not forgotten us at all. She’s just taken her sweet time getting here.

will.i.am, twinkies, and why we’ll always be married to our phones

LINK TO CULTURETOPIA

Listening to this podcast of Culturetopia as well as reading the article, I can’t help but wonder what our future is like. This is probably beyond the scope of most “average” folk, but if you’re super-intellectual and well-versed in the internet dialogue of the intelligentia, then listen up. Jay Smooth, in the podcast, describes will.i.am as a chef making the perfect “Twinkie.” By that, he means that there’s a certain type of commercialized grade of song that tops the billboard charts and holds the airwaves at any given time that seems to fit some sort of unnatural formula. It’s like there is some sort of lowest common denominator that to the human ear, incites mass consumption of product. It’s like will.i.am has learned, as industrial society has, how to produce something which superficially satisfies our needs like how an anti-depressant blocks neutotransmitters. It’s as if our culture is becoming so obsessed and entwined with technology, that we strive to be technology.

In Philosophy class, I had encountered the argument that perhaps technology will persist until we find a way to put human souls in robotic bodies. But what if our souls are turning into robots. And that our ‘love’ of all things robotic – our obsessed, confused, intense need and desire to be invincible and perfect and pain-free – is really a marriage of a soul to technology. Only there is no divorce in such an obsessed love. Only an ever-tightening grip on that which because we humans are mortal, is never attainable and thus forever slipping away. What if the reason will.i.am makes those factory tunes slip into our heads and bounce around for hours is that we’ve become so reliant on technology, we wish to become more of it. What if the real virus is technology? Or more specifically, what if the real virus is our addiction to technology?

It’s clear that the computer is here to stay: we have smart phones not because we want to get rid of the comptuer, but because we want a smaller, mobile version to take with us outside of the office and bedroom. We want more of the computer, not less of it. The iPhone is successful because we are becoming a global culture centered around it, living in small quarters building new apps in garages and open source software; the iPad is going to be a huge success because people want an iPhone, but with more accessibility. Tell me, am I missing something here or is the human machine headed towards the point of no return? Will we be reliant on technology forever?