Weee are a paaart of the Keeeevonation...I write, so I can say only what I need to say and everything I want to say.
uscinsomniac
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Name: Kevin
Gender: Male


Interests: masterpieces, balance, destinations, time machines, Saturday morning REM, and Trojan football.
Expertise: explosives
Occupation: being kind of a big deal
Industry: rockstardom


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AIM: uscinsomniac


Member Since: 5/29/2003

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University of So Cal (USC) Blog
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Sunny Hills H.S. - Fullerton
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Pornstars & Rockstars
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FAITH COMMUNITY CRC FULLERTON!
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IYKWIM
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Asian Diaspora
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I bring my camera everywhere.
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Saturday, November 01, 2008

What.

The economy becomes a major topic in the people around if there's a collective sense of tragic financial loss.  This seems to be a way a lot of things of importance surface in our lives--a sudden loss reveals just how much we had invested without proper precautions and how we let our ambitions run without prudent restraint.  And now it hurts more than it had to.  Somethings were never ours to begin with.

And somethings I said to you, yea I know I should've said differently.  But it's only because  I always seem to lose my words. 

That's it.  Nothing more to take.


Monday, October 06, 2008

1272715950

There are times when words just drop back in your throat.

I believe summer was as ripe and liberating to a kid entering high school as spiky hair and cargo pants were in 1992, when my adolescent curiosities gave way to what would become the defining moments of my early teenage career.  More than a few sneakers would turn into dress shoes, I would learn how to tie a tie, college talks would be in the works, and girls would no longer have cooties.   Here, somewhere in between a certain reckless abandon that excused a certain level of gayness as still "childish" and a self-aware desperado that plunged into the creeping necessity of tact and assertiveness, there was a little-known time when I was absolutely infatuated with the Korean culture.  I liberally included FOBs as a part of my regular entourage, we all discovered the joys of karaoke together, and there was little admitted shame in rocking out to the latest Ga-Yo-Top-10 tunes in my... dad's Suburban. 

It was then when the legend of all Korean dramas that was "Jil-Tu" crashed into my life like the unavoidable breath of kimchi after a bite of bulgoggi.  There was nothing like it.  In a popular colloquial expression of the day, it was "the bomb."  There was too much for a post-pubescent mind and emotional faculty to absorb all at once.  That’s why I had to watch it at least 4 times.  And as far as the new episodes came out, every Tuesday was "Jil-Tu" day.  I had to beat the ninja ahjumma's to snatch a video copy before they were sold out.  Then it was on.  Oh man was it on.  Homework, piano practice and any semblance of responsibility went out the window.  Those first six electric guitar hits of the theme song satisfied my heart and soul and fired all the right pleasure points in my brain that would later seed the vices in my adult life.  It was awesome.

And then there was her:  Choi Jin Sil (Chwe Jeen Shil).

If experience is the base for faith and reason, I believe a boy can fall in love with a girl on television.  I also know that Choi Jin Sil was and still is simply the greatest actress to grace the Korean drama franchise in the history of television.  I knew her more than any other girl in my life (fiction or non) after viewing so many moments of her life on video, knew all of her habits and what made her so frustratingly adorable.  Hyori could sell a million bottles of 처음처럼, but Choi Jin Sil was the one who stole my heart, tossed it around, blew it up like a balloon and folded it up like a love note passed around in class—all while showing me the extent of what a perfect girl can be.  When she smiled, she made the stage lights unnecessary and more or less put to shame.  When she cried, when I cried, everything else cried.  It was a massacre on anything comic and reasonable.  And episode after episode, her crescent eyelids and cherry puckered lips would make all this sappiness okay.

I almost feel guilty for not knowing about Choi Jin Sil’s death until hours ago.  All rhythm in my body skipped several beats as I fought to battle the almost laughable nature of its absurdity.   How could she die?  Worse yet, how could she take her own life away?  How difficult was her life that the forces of despair triumphed over the instinctual human will to fight and survive?   How painful was her loneliness that millions of adoring fans weren’t enough to overcome it?  I couldn’t say anything for at least a few minutes when I heard the news.  I digressed in conversation but couldn’t help but return to the tragic topic.  And I kept choking on the words.  How can this be possible?

I tried to shrug it off, peppering jokes about how she should’ve married me, how I would love to torture and murder her abusive ex-husband.  But there was something empty in my speech.  It was knowing that, even as we were talking about her, somewhere out there, she wasn’t there. 

It might be silly to lament over someone I don’t even know personally, in adult reality, let alone devote a full-page tribute on a blog like this.  But as television’s evolution of visual art goes, she was art itself—and an embodiment of my youth’s desires in the 90’s, its poster fantasies, and that deep, almost pungent trace of nostalgia that eventually fades with age, no matter how hard you try to retrace. 

So I’ll say it.  I miss Choi Jin Sil.  I wish she (one of the most beaming and exuberant characters on TV) didn’t die in such a sad way.  Her name hadn’t entered my mind until yesterday’s dinner in over 10 years, but it’s as if there was always room in my memory for the idea of her—so much that it’s perhaps more than just a chapter in the confessions of an iconophile.  It’s a bitter awakening that the reason why I could like someone so freely and fearlessly was because of the fictional nature of the person, and the fact that Choi Jin Sil led an immeasurably difficult and abusive life makes the most fabled of her characters come alive and die together.  And the vacuum of losing her characters becomes so mortal. 

안타깝네요.  부디 하늘에서는 편히 쉬시기를...

 


Tuesday, September 30, 2008

"Hi, is this Islands?"

"Yes it is, can I help you?"

"Yeah, this might sound like a weird question, but are you guys gonna show the debate this Thursday?"

"I'm sorry... what?"

"Oh, haha, you know the Vice President debate... for the election?  Sarah Palin?  Biden?"

"Uhm... I'm not sure.  I'll have to ask my manager."

"..."

"Yeah... uh... my manager said no."

"What?  Why?  ...Why not?"

"Oh I dunno.  He just said we're not."

"Look.  I've been there lots of times and spent a lot of money watching football n junk.  Can't my friends and I just turn to CNN at 6PM?"

"...oh... sorry."

"Forget it."


Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Currently Listening
Listener Supported
By Dave Matthews Band
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R.I.P.

Isaac Hayes

Bernie Mac

and now... LeRoi Moore

 

This is a very depressing month for me and my people.


Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Currently Listening
Santogold
By Santogold
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“So, what do you do?”

     “Oh I’m a portfolio analyst, and I manage money on the side.”

“The market’s been pretty tough, hasn’t it?”

     “Well, there’s always ways to make money if you know where to look.”

“Pretty stressful though, yea?”

     “Sure is.  Good thing I get to go home pretty early when the market closes.”

“You live in Irvine?”

     “Yea, Woodbury.  It’s a pretty new neighborhood, and some places still smell like fertilizer.”

“Ok.  So do you have any lumps in your testicles?”

     “Not that I’m aware of.”

 

Going to the doctor’s office is always a weird trip.  My recent visit was the first time in about 6 years, so based on solid statistics, I could say with 100% confidence that it’s always weird.  I think it starts with the way they send a young nurse to set you up in a tiny room, taking your measurements and asking about your allergies and any possible diseases.   She's 6 inches away from you, all up on your business like it's totally natural, and you're just trying not to breath so hard that you both could hear.  There’s something about a girl that assaults you with personal medical questions in an authoritative tone that breaks any guy’s guard down in an awkward second.  When approached by a sleazy guy at a club or a bar, girls should just take his pulse and ask about his cholesterol level and family history of diabetes to get rid of him.   In any case, then the nurse leaves you in that cold, sterile room for at least 15 minutes (didn’t they know I was gonna show up at 4PM?!), forcing you to feel isolated from the world and ultra-paranoid about nothing.  It’s a tactic akin to those used by federal agencies or detectives to break you down before bursting through the door for hours of hard-core, in-your-face interrogation.  The doctors and nurses probably have cameras hidden behind those anatomy charts and “Your Digestive System” posters—that haven’t changed in the last 70 years—and two-way mirrors, wondering who would play the bad cop and who would play the good one.    And would it kill to have some music while making you wait?  Some Stevie Wonder would be nice and cheerful at such a dreadful place.  You just sit there in silence, in nothing but your boxers and a hospital gown, wondering if they’re gonna pile in any second with knives and just start cutting you open.  Those beds are always covered with butcher-paper sheets, possibly for all the blood that will spill over.  It doesn’t help that the room always smells as if there was some mafia "negotiation" gone bad and they had to wash it down with buckets of Clorox. 

 

But, all the uncomfortable questions aside, the doc turned out to be a nice guy, and we’re actually neighbors in the same vicinity.  It turns out, my throbbing headache with every pounding heartbeat wasn’t anything serious, and all my levels are normal.  So I won’t die tomorrow or need a triple bypass, like I knew I would from my self-diagnosis and WebMD research.

 

Speaking of Stevie, I got a lead on this Stevie Bizarro—a younger version of him, but on a guitar and with funky teeth. 

 



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