Tactfully, T.J.

Stories

2011-10-25T00:22:00.000-07:00

Beside the large window,
adorned with little champagne lights
sat the couple, couplet, deuce.
The smell of meatballs and wine
filled the cozy air,
of little Italy, the Hot Oven.
How often we make stories,
of things we don't know.
How often we make lives,
of people we don't know.

Take, for example,
the black-suited waitress.
She was an aspiring actress,
a real Betty Elms,
pursuing neo-noir thrill
and lavish vignettes,
now serving coffee to couples who--
amidst slurping oysters
and sipping pinot--
have become the directors
of her melancholy dream

Hi, I'm back

2011-09-12T00:31:00.000-07:00

Something sparked my dormant right brain to reawaken from its slumber. I think it was the rendevous with some old friends of mine that I've neglected for petty reasons. Old friends equal paintbrush, music, and late nights all alone.

Now I can't play music, I can't read music, and I definitely can't sing. All I can do is listen to music and by golly, that's all I really need to enjoy it. I'm sure you've all heard of the label of music as the universal language. I concur. The rhythmic beats of a drum, the jangling of bells, the tune of a bird's voice, these are sounds we can all embrace and understand. Speak to me in French? I'm befuddled, but give me a French song? I'm enamored. Music is one of the only non-human things that I find actually more human than we give credit for. It's not just something we listen to, but it's something that listens to us too. Friends, remember the time you felt like crap, locked yourself in your room, and blasted some good ol' Linkin Park? (Don't deny, we all went through angsty teen phase) Yep, Chester Bennington was there to listen to you and make you feel better when Mom wasn't your preferred baggage unloader. Whoever or whatever you choose to listen to, music is one of your best friends: it will never leave you and always inspire you.

Cheers to loyal companions. Cheers to music.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Jar of Cockroaches

2011-06-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Says the girl with the starry eyes
The words I have for you are better left unsaid.
Like a jar of multiplying cockroaches
they bottle up inside, they want me dead.
Strung on homemade heroin
they squirm to escape,
from their sea of glass to my deathbed.

Hear ye to the girl with stars in her eyes
She knows how it feels,
She knows how it kills,
to fall asleep in surmise
and wake up alone to sunrise.
Sweet dreams,
she says.
Sleep tight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite.

From below the purple waters,
she watches and she stalks
as the only man she's loved
takes off his lustful socks.
Ready to dock,
he's hard as a rock.
She watches him
as she watches the clock.

Hear ye to the girl with stars in her eyes
She knows how it feels,
She knows how it kills,
to make up lies
and live in disguise.
Sweet dreams,
she says.
Sleep tight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite.

Darkness fills the night,
and he almost loses sight.
In his unmade bed,
he sees a shining light.
He smiles at the skies,
but I don't think he knows,
it's the girl, the girl
with starry eyes.

Hear ye to the girl with stars in her eyes
She knows how it feels,
She knows how it kills,
to hear his sighs
and live in the skies.
Sweet dreams,
she says.
Sleep tight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite.

Trajectory of a Tourist

2011-01-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

11:30 a.m. 20 de marzo, 2010. Managua, Holiday Inn Hotel.

"Ochenta córdobas." Para una Toña?* Clad in a short black dress and heels thrice as high as anything I've ever worn, the casino waitress gave me a nod. Si, why not? I was a pre-21 year-old American in Nicaragua, incensed by the fact that my own government was depriving me of alcohol, but could possibly send me to my death fighting in another one of its imperialist encroachments into impoverished Latin American countries. Claro, another Toña sounded about right.

“Gracias.”

I received the ice cold bottle of beer, simultaneously proud and disappointed at how effortlessly I could get my hands on alcohol. The casino waitress responded with a look of sadness in her eyes, “De nada.” Instead of being home with her children, she was stuck here serving obnoxious Americans who ordered drinks in the middle of the day, Americans who stayed in exclusive enclaves of marble pillars and already made beds while she stayed in dark, damp casinos, Americans whose pretentious travelling tendencies she unfortunately depended on to make a living.

And that's when I did something I slightly regret. I played the haughty anthropologist. Thinking myself a considerate human being, I attempted to “observe” the cultural mannerisms of this woman’s society as if she were a specimen to be studied, not realizing my pompous nerve to show off my Spanish-speaking skills. Pen and paper in hand, I asked her if she liked her job. I asked her if she had any family, if she wanted to travel outside of Nicaragua. I asked her if she was happy, and finally, I asked her if she liked Americans. She laughed politely and answered most of my questions. “Sí, me gusta mi trabajo. Tengo dos hijos. No quiero viajar, y sí, estoy feliz.”

5:00 p.m. 23 de marzo, 2010. El Mercado de Granada.

Today, we went to the souvenir market outside the Alahambra, our hotel in Granada. Granada, also known as la Gran Sultana del Gran Lago -- as it borders Lake Nicaragua -- possesses much historical beauty and cultural aesthetic. Rocky roads of pebble stone, uprooted by sparse and scattered vegetation; quaint abodes of soft salmon pink and warm mustard yellow, situated in close proximity to the local marketplace; and grand exquisite cathedrals towering over the city, asserting their long-established Roman Catholic influence. No casinos, no air-conditioned malls, no large-scale discotheques.

At the market, Enrique, a skinny boy in a blue shirt and broken sandals came up to me and asked me for money.

“Señora, tiene córdobas? Tengo hambre y no he comido nada desde la mañana.”

Naturally, my first instinct was to reach into my pocket and spare just enough money to be selfless but still have enough to buy gifts for friends and family. (Paradigm of the cultured and kindhearted tourist?) Now Enrique was smart. He latched onto my friend, Neda, burrowing his head into her shoulder, obviously having practiced this tactic on many a naïve visitors before. Needless to say, we knew that begging was a way for the children here to opt out of school and pursue a vagabond way of life roaming the streets. It was understandable. Education was a long-term investment, while begging provided an immediate source of money.

We denied Enrique, big round eyes and all. Considering he followed us around for an hour before returning to his parents’ water-vending booth, it wasn’t easy. It certainly wasn’t gratifying at the moment, as every other tourist he targeted seemed to have no internal moral dilemma of slipping him a 20-cordoba bill.
But it was the best thing to do, for Enrique, and for la juventud de Nicaragua.

3:00 p.m. 28 de marzo, 2010. Al orfanato en Granada.

She reminded me a bit of my mother. Helen Ruiz was a 5’3”, middle-aged, goofy-smiled woman. I met her at the orphanage. She had the likes of a chubby squirrel, bushy-tailed, a bit disheveled, chattering away at any chance she found. She was also a skilled seamstress, sewing designs onto pillowcases and selling them for only 60 córdobas a pair.

“Sabes coser, mija?”

“Sí. Siempre me ha gustado coser.”

“Bueno. Puedes completar esto, si quieres.”

She handed me a light yellow pillowcase with a half-finished floral pattern, every stitch handled with the utmost care. In an attempt to display my nimble sewing skills, I approached the pillow with confidence, swiftly piercing it with the delicate needle. Needless to say, with thin pieces of thread sticking out, the stitch did not hold half the amount of care she had put into hers.

“No, mija, esto es la manera correcta de hacerlo.” With that goofy smile, Helen carefully taught me how to stitch up the last scarlet rose petal. Mano en mano, I felt a fleeting sense of spirituality tingling in her fingertips as she guided mine.
I asked no more questions, I no longer felt the need to regurgitate the Spanish words I happened to remember from class. I saw Helen as a maternal figure.

“Gracias.”

“De nada, mija.”

2:00 p.m. 29 de marzo, 2010. Saliendo Granada por autobús.

VIVA LA JUVENTUD! VIVA EL FSLN. LA REVOLUCION.
I saw the words scrawled in big black letters across a somber pine green fence straddling one of the main streets of Granada. I am not a revolutionary of any kind, or a starry-eyed nationalist, nor am I the least bit Central American. I am American, the same kind of American that forcefully imposed a despotic military general onto Nicaragua’s throne years ago and set up counterrevolutionary forces against the Sandinistas; the same American that had a week ago, been the sophomoric progenitor of “culture”, asking hollow questions and observing, but not absorbing.

I am still that American. I want to travel up, down, and across Central and South America, exploring and soaking in the ambiance of foreign societies. But I no longer wish to play the role of the pretentious anthropologist. After a week in Nicaragua, I’ve realized the best way to understand human culture is not through quizzical inquiries and observations, but rather through encounters:

Encounters with the casino workers.
Encounters with the Enriques.
And most certainly,
encounters with the Helen Ruizes.

Y eso es la trayectoria de una turista.

(La Gente Newsmagazine)

Stifled

2010-11-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

I crave the creative juices that used to nourish me.
Replaced by purplish varicose veins, mocking what I used to do!
And to think we are always in homeostasis.

Oh the Bagginses

2010-09-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

Who knew! The Hobbit - in my opinion, the best of J.R.R. Tolkien. But an entire feature-length film based primarily on hairy feet, grassy hills, and Bilbo Baggins? Send Jackson some good vibes.

My new friend Mao

2010-09-05T17:41:00.000-07:00

Travelling across China for seven days - Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing - left with me a tactful inclination towards many things.

1. Sipping tea with every meal
2. Chugging beer with every meal
3. Spitting watermelon seeds into tea cups with every meal
4. Gaining thunder thighs with hole-in-the ground toilets
5. Gaining thunder thighs climbing the Great Wall
6. Haggling to less than 1/2 beginning price skills
7. Meditating with monks
8. Eating stinky tofu
9. Befriending Mao

I am now ready to take on the world!

Tactfully,
T.J.

Me love you long time.

2010-08-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

If you think L.A. has a vibrant night life, you clearly haven’t been to Saigon -- also known as Ho Chi Minh City to the Che-revering fans out there. (I actually met an old man on my flight wearing the generic Che tee, to which I commented, “Sir, I enjoy your choice in T-shirts” and to which he kindly responded, “Thank you.”)

The hustle and bustle of the endless stream of motorcycles here is unmatched by the endless stream of party break-ups and drunken yelling you’d find in LA on any common night. Most of the racket I attribute to the absence of traffic regulations in Saigon, causing the need for a million and one honks of the horn per person on a scooter. I’ve seen up to 3 people per vehicle, which correlates to 3 million and 3 honks in one night per one scooter. Actually, I was one of those 3 and needless to say, received a front row seat with unbeatable acoustics.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why am I stuck behind a monitor typing away to the pacifying sounds of squealing brakes and almost-crashes instead of immersing myself in the amazing culture that is Vietnam? Well, for one, it’s about 10 pm here (13 hours ahead of the Pacific time zone) and unless you’ve got a young friend or cousin to take you to a club, you’re likely to find yourself 1) out for an after-dinner snack/drink excursion with your parents, which I would love, but alas, they are sleeping and I’d rather not go alone, for I am female and we of course by law are vulnerable, helpless things, or 2) you could find yourself clubbing with your parents. But, alas. My parents are sleeping.

So why am I not sleeping and re-energizing myself for the morrow? Well, thanks to the time difference, I just woke up.

But, thankfully, my first day in Vietnam did not just consist of arriving and sleeping. I visited my relatives I haven’t seen for so long and ate great food! (with not so great after effects, but I go to Taco Bell all the time so I’m pretty much used to it).

Photos below:

1. Barely any traffic rules. Or if there are any, very poorly enforced. There were motorcycles flying at us left and right.
2. Vịt (duck)
3. Bún (noodes), bánh mì (bread). A classic soup dish, eaten with chả (pork), bò viên (beef meatballs), and garnished with green onions to balance the meat.
4. Thanh long (dragon fruit or pitaya), măng cụt (mangosteen). Dragon fruit, with a mushy white interior and black seeds, is the product of a cactus cultivated in Southeast Asia and Mexico/South America. Mangosteen is a slightly sour white fruit divided into 4 or 5 parts and surrounded by a hard dark purple shell. It's endemic to Southeast Asia, but is only in season from May to August. Just made it!
5. Bánh canh cua (crab soup). Never had this before, but I'm eating it as a midnight snack because I did not wake up in time to go out for dinner. Dầu cháo quẩy (the pastry pieces you see inside) are common to eat with hot soups.

Tactfully,
T.J.

The War of 2010

2010-08-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Smoky ghosts escape from the rusty depths of hell
to be dissipated in oxygen and nitrogen.
It's a trade-off of convenience and death feigned as an unnecessary necessity.
Crests and troughs of land as far as the mind can see,
replaced by the rigid silhouette of a corporate state.
Your army infiltrates existence in every crook and nanny.
The fear of spiritual genocide hovers
or the fear that it has already happened.

Fermented fish sauce

2010-08-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes external thingymajigs can really bog you down. I'm happy about this month-long trip to Vietnam. Gives me time to do things I've been neglecting, think about things I've forgotten to think about. Follow me on what I deem will be a rather interesting cultural explosion. I'm about ready to experience life in the slow lane, just for the time being.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Rule of Happy

2010-08-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Perspective. That's all you need.

A gummy bear a day

2010-07-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to Seventeen Years by Ratatat.

Do you know the sensation of falling as the world stands steady. Or maybe the world caving in as you stand steady. It starts to pour colors like the spots behind shut eyelids, or a really bad electro music video. There is that distant, constant muffling of reverberating bass that you can't quite make out, I think it sounds like Terry Crew flexing his tits. It smells fishy, like fish sauce. And a little sweet, like the smell of 6 egg custard tarts drifting from the oven. It's pleasant. Then you wake up, and realize you've taken an unwanted 3 hour snooze while writing a very important lab paper. Shiezy!

Dear friend,

2010-06-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

Would you travel the world with me? To the mountains of Peru, to the ruins of the Berlin Wall, to the butterfly gardens of Thailand, to the moon and back? Would you eat anything and everything edible from every country with me and taste all the whiskeys and Tecates of the world? Would you play the guitar for me while I fall asleep? Would you salsa with me at professional salsa parties and on the roofs of elementary schools after midnight? Would you drive with me through the city at night and stop by janky hicktown shops to buy overpriced English chocolate bars? Would you cook exotic and experimental meals and bake delicious mint chocolate raspberry cakes with me? Would you take me to sand dunes overlooking the ocean, the stars overlooking us? Would you escape with me on spastic journeys for absolutely no reason?

Would you?

Could you?

A message not intertwined in an esoteric tale concocted to confuse you

2010-06-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Contrived self-pitying may give you the emotional foundation you necessitate to achieve the stance of "bona fide artist", but it will also grant you the worst of perspectives. It'll consume you when you least expect it. A self-administered drug of sorts.

Concert Caveats: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes

2010-05-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

May 20. 8:00 p.m. Royce Hall.

Meet Jade.

She was convinced that Alex Ebert was a musical messiah sent down to Earth to purge humankind of all that was sinister and blasphemous in the world and remind them of all that was good and beautiful. Prancing barefoot in a wrinkled white suit, a loose red scarf, and a personifiable shaggy mane, Ebert created no hierarchy within the 10-member folk-rock band Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes. All was one and one was all with this hippie god. And the sentiment of collectivism was not exclusive to the stage: the audience, the staff, the ushers all fell under the unifying spell of musical madness.

She suspected Edward Sharpe appealed to the average college student because in both music and conduct, he exuded the ambiance of sixties counterculture rebellion, which, living in LA, she all knew too well. But who could blame them? They were all dependent children, on the verge of leaving the cuckoo's nest, and what better way to be individuals than by a means of "revolution"? She found this attempt at revolution ironically cyclic. In trying to break away from conventions of their parents, they ended up being thrown into the world of adulthood all the more quickly while all the more ill-equiped. Demonstrating their unsolicited valiance in raunchy and illegal doings were great fun at the moment, but it was short-lived. In the end, the consequences they faced for their endeavors at being unorthodox would become the catalysts to their adulthood and maturity.

In their safe beds and purely rhetorical classroom debates, they said they wanted revolution and change, yet when the time came, who but a few would rush to the front of the line eager to defend their cause? Who but a few would be strong enough to speak out from the safety of their numerous and nameless mob companions? Who, among the mass of college students, regurgitating what they heard on TV and preaching obsolete ideals from history no longer relevant, would be a martyr for egalitarian principles? Not one. The liberal front had become somewhat of a fad. And those who followed wore faux-vintage dresses and tees from Urban Outfitters and bought every single book about journal-keeping or peace on its shelves.

She was reluctant to say more. She loved Edward Sharpe nonetheless. He was the kind of man that made her jump out of her seat to dance while everyone else sat. He was the kind of man that could make every body in the audience of a 1,833-capacity theatre silent with a single request. She hated the idea behind him, but Ebert himself, she could not stop loving.

Hypocrisy is both a vice and a virtue.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Quail eggs and smelt eggs

2010-05-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to Allison Weiss' MGMT cover of Kids. God, I revere the musically talented.

You know when people say, "You just know"? I really hate that. I think it's because I'm deathly afraid that I'll never have that just knowing epiphany. Is it purely emotional? Or is it more holistic than that? ...just knowing is a godforsakenly dangerous concept. It doesn't help that almost knowing or a contrived knowing can be easily mistaken as just knowing, especially since it's so sought-after and romanticized these days. I guess for me, just knowing comes when you aren't looking for it in particular, and when it does happen, it isn't as sensational as you might've imagined...when it's spontaneous, you could say. It's not the moment that matters, it's what happens after that moment that defines it and gives it any significance. The effect, the consequences, the aftermath. Because really, I could give a fuck that Obama was elected president. It's what he accomplishes or screws up after that fateful moment that will give his election any real value.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Concert Caveats: Henry Lim and his String Quartet

2010-05-09T13:40:00.001-07:00

May 8. 8:00 p.m. Powell Library Rotunda. Henry Lim and his String Quartet's composition and performance last night: contrived irony.

It was good, to say the least. Henry Lim and the Camarade Quartet performed every song, in the right order, on the Beatle's White Album. A dashing "venue", warmly lit, with high, decorative ceilings (suitable for acoustics) made me forget I was in the library usually representative of my academic masochism and instead teleported me into a slightly surreal world of sounds. I call this performance as one of "sounds" rather than "music" because in all honesty, it was just that. The string section was beautifully celestial, but the addition of Henry Lim's vocals brought...helter skelter?

With four muse-like girls all dressed in an ethereal white, I expected a serene night of violin and cello playing. The first section that was played I couldn't recognize as a Beatles song, only to realize Henry Lim had composed a short introductory fanfare for himself: he appeared from behind the dark hallway, a stocky bearded Asian man, sporting, get this, all black and a gaudy cowboy hat. Against the angelic ambiance of the pre-Henry Lim appearance, he was kind of a dirty spot on fresh linen -- for lack of a more profound analogy. Aka, a contrived irony. His raw and raspy voice did not hit many of the intended notes, but needless to say, I enjoyed all of the songs (genius of the Beatles: no one can ruin their songs). The string section, including Mr. Lim's own guitar playing, hands down trumped his vocals, although his spastic yelps and occasional jokes during and between songs were a delightful surprise. The audience was ecclectic, filled with both old and young. One thing I always notice during Beatles-revering concerts is that I fall in love with the people who attend. A spiritual unity exists as we all bob our heads and tap our feet just enough to move to the music but not interrupt the informally formal atmosphere of the performance. What can I say? Good music is an invisible black hole that indiscriminately sucks us all in.

All in all, despite Henry Lim's god-like treatment for himself, I applaud his compositions and the string quartet. He was definitely able to vocally pull off some songs, like Dear Prudence and Julia, and the toned-down version of Revolution 9, which I did not expect to be performed at all, was a sweet cherry on top.

Me asustan cosas buenas

2010-05-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

Por qué?
1) Alguien me dijo que todas cosas buenas siempre terminan.
2) Buenas cosas pueden hacerse cosas increíbles. Y yo no merezco cosas increíbles.

5 Shots of Smirnoff

2010-05-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

Corrientemente escuchando a Weird Fishes/Arpeggi por Radiohead.

Que tonto! No voy a hacerlo otra vez...supe que me gusta hablar sobre la historia de América cuando tomo alcohol. Tonta, tonta, tonta!

Oligarchic democracy: democracy ruled by the elite; implemented 1880s-1920s in Latin America, at the same time economic liberalism thrived. Dictatorships also existed, but ruled according to the elite; essentially the upper class under the figure of one despot. Goal: centralized power in order to prove to foreign investors that Latin America was worth investing in. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE. IMPORT-EXPORT ECONOMY.

Populism and co-optative democracy: burgeoned at the time of import-substitution industrialization (1930-1970's). NATIONALISM AND ECLA.

Socialism (1950-1980's): US SCREWS Latin America! Anti-communist, domino effect fear. Cold War. MIERDA. Calm down. US, tu eres 100x mas poderoso que Cuba.

Neoliberalism (1980-now): Back to economic liberalism, under the Washington Consensus. IMF Austere Plan.

PERSPECTIVE. The most important thing to have in life. No drama. No trivialities.

I wanted to buy a Sarte book but I couldn't find it.
So instead, I bought a book about perennial philosophy.
About Western esotericism.
About knowing the unknown.
But how ironic is it
to believe in something
and striving to discover something
that is impossible to understand?
Is it useless?
Is it foolish?
It's the journey that matters
the path
the expedition
not the culmination
To create is to create
To paint is to paint
To live is to live
Not to die

SHIT, I have to study.
I am not in the right mind.
To study.

Tell me, is entropy a rule of nature?
Is humanity a Fidel Castro against Batista?
We work for structure, for organization
but disorder is natural
so why not go with the flow?
Why not?
Because we are HUMAN
and we are FLAWED
the best thing to do
is accept
and work to correct these flaws
but ultimately
there is no denial
no one is perfect. mom,
no one is perfect.

Hoja nueva

2010-05-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Corrientemente escuchando a "Déjalo ser" por los Beatles.

Cuando me encuentro en tiempos difíciles
Madre María viene a mí
Hablando palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.
Y en mi hora de las tinieblas
Ella está parada justo delante de mí
Hablando palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.
Déjalo ser, déjalo ser.
Susurra palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.

Y cuando la gente con el corazón destrozado
Viviendo en el mundo de acuerdo,
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.
Porque aunque ellos puedan ser separados hay
Aún una posibilidad de que vean
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.
Déjalo ser, déjalo ser. sí
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.

Y cuando la noche está nublada,
Todavía hay una luz que brilla sobre mí,
Brilla hasta mañana, déjalo ser.
Me despierto con el sonido de la música
Madre María viene a mí
Hablando palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.
Déjalo ser, déjalo ser.
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.
Déjalo estar, déjalo estar,
Susurra palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.

Por lo menos una buen cosa ha venido de la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza. Gracias para destruyendo el país de Nicaragua, déspota, porque si no, no te conocería. Y esto sería una lástima.

Creo que voy a escribir todos los asientos en español, para practicar. Lo siento para ésos que no entienden la lengua. Está bien, mi gramática es probablemente mala de todos modos.

Dicotomia

2010-04-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

Decimos que no somos materialistas. Decimos que la alma es mas importante que el rostro. Decimos esto. Y en realidad? Nadie acepta consejos, pero todo el mundo admite dinero. Es la dicotomia de vida. Los dos ciclos de vida.

Concert Caveats: Jon Brion

2010-04-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

April 23. 8:30 p.m. Largo at the Coronet. The dim yellow lighting of an intimate, hole-in-the-wall venue is reminiscent of an old coffee shop run by Yoda and inhabited by flowery, philosophical inquirers. Past performers, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, etc., plaster the plain beige walls as they sit at the piano, or hold a microphone, or gaze at the camera, living in a perpetual state of performance. The room is modest, but the audience pretentious. The stage adorned with royal red curtains, straddled by Christmas lights twinkling like little stars.

Jon Brion, famous for his quirky soundtracks for many a wisely elected films, Punch Drunk Love, I Heart Huckabees, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and of course, some of Kanye West's stuff, is delightfully sarcastic and sufficiently satirical. With a messy brown mane and a tan suit, he sports a slight European accent. Even without words, his mannerism is, quite funny. After a brilliant opening by guitarist Alain Johannes, Jon Brion blows me away. He first plays some of his own creations, prancing from piano to drums to bass to, my personal favorite, harmonica. Accompanied by strange background visuals (for ambiance, I'm assuming), he asks for song suggestions, proving his musical improvisational adeptness, and moves on to "jigsaw puzzling", where he loops segments of different instruments, first a drum beat, then piano and guitar tunes. He finalizes with vocals and culminates the entirely experimental song in a QUASI-MUSICAL ORGY.

So, if you're horny for worthwhile music, Jon Brion plays every month at the Largo. And let me tell you, the man is talented with his instruments.

An unfortunate observation

2010-04-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to A Song for Our Fathers by Explosions in the Sky. Introduced to me by an amazing human being.

I figure morality is rarely a self-endowed characteristic.

Morality is an external entity formed by those surrounding us - society, religion, family. The only form of ownership we possess over morality is who we choose to listen to. And it seems the dominant moral force for humanity has always been a God. A God and the justice system It and Its disciples create. But what is the foundation of this justice system, other than a way to tame society of its belligerents? This system, this society of the orthodox, is reduced to a mere branching of natural selection. Oust the socially inferior, purge the world of the retards, ostracize the hormonally-imbalanced ill-behaved. Who owns the rights to this line? Despite so-claimed atheism, the very ethics of religion have largely influenced the society we live in as to encroach upon our inherent moral spheres. If I did not grow up in a Catholic household, if America was not predominantly Jesus-loving, if there were no "wrong", how then would I perceive good and bad? Genetic inheritance of inauspicious traits or criminality-inducing living conditions is not something we can all avoid. So, for those who have the misfortune of succeeding biological blasphemy or growing up in ill-fated environments, the concept of absolute morality is a pretty big "fuck you" in the face.

Strangeness

2010-04-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

The world was never speckled with so many stars
dancing so brightly as they did last night.
Dangling above an abysmal sea of mystery,
like puppets of a parallel universe,
or perhaps,
like fishing lines cast by lonely boys and girls,
trying, trying
to catch a star, a prayer, a whim.

Do or do not.
There is no try.

Mesa de Conversacion

2010-04-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to At the Chime of a City Clock by Nick Drake. Excuse the Drake inundation, he's beautiful. Music, food, and my mother are my fool-proof remedies.

The ecclectic group of students congregated at the Mesa de Conversacion. The Jesuses, the Judases, the Marys and the Peters, present, ready to drink the blood of culture and eat the bread of mazapan.

The first boy was a Global Studies Major. With hazel brown hair neatly slicked back (clearly he had put on too much gel that morning), a rosy porcelain face, and a sufficiently firm handshake, he introduced himself in a manner reminiscent of the uberconservative Republicans he had been conditioned to idolize all his life. "Hi, my name is Josh." He flashed a smile, a mouth full of straight white Orbit teeth.

The second boy was a Spanish major, Public Policy minor. Small-statured and dark-skinned, he looked like a true Mexican Boy. "Hola, me llamo Diego," he slurred in a low, sultry voice. He was taciturn, but when he did speak, we all laughed.

The next was a girl, a big girl from Chile. She had long, silky light brown hair, wrapped over her broad shoulders and down to her hips, covering the flabs of fat protruding from her shirt. A Psychology major, she hoped to probe the minds of others before they hers. She was insecure. Well. We all were.

Then there were the History Majors, the Music Majors, the Film Studies Majors, and of course,

the Science Major.

A Judas among saints. Patronized, looked down upon as a betrayer of the Arts, the Feelies, the oh-so-pragmatic actors and tears. The Science Major did not make any sense to the disciples of...Culture. The spilt salt proved it. "El Campo Sur?" Diego growled and gave a thumbs down.

"I like nonsensical lyrics and plastic hamburger phones," the future doctor stated flatly. "I like red berets and thick-rimmed unprescribed glasses. I like plaid jackets and pale skin. I like to go to stupid museums and bike when I'm high. I like ironic tees from overpriced faux-vintage stores and I go to improv shows recreationally."

Suddenly, the others nodded in approval. "The Science Major is a progenitor of culture," they whispered amongst themselves. They appointed the Science Major the seat next to the prick elephant.

A progenitor of culture, indeed.

Smeagol Syndrome

2010-04-10T13:39:00.001-07:00

This blog was contrived to be passive aggressive. I've been enamored with the idea of my doppelganger, my dwarf, an alternative mysterious Conrad-esque me, clandestinely lurking behind a happy TJ exterior. It's taken me a year to realize that said perspective epitmoizes the word

"SOPHOMORIC" (previously expressed).

That's why I dislike self-portraits. Moronic adages! All things aside, I'm not mysterious in any way at all.

I've always doubted it, but I recently discovered I do want to become a doctor (thanks Nicaragua!). I love spendng my time with children. I love to experiment with painting and designing. I have no musical background, but I love music and trying new instruments, mostly guitar. I like to read existential books. I've gained quite a rapport with my future Latin reincarnation. I stand strongly for environmental sustainability. I love foreign cuisine. I love to try weird, new things. I love to observe people and people-relationships. I dislike politics and refuse to learn about it. I love to write sporadically, but writing is most frequent during alternate states of mind.

If I had one thing on my bucket list, it would be this: to own clinics throughout Central and South America and travel endlessly among them, drawing, eating, touching, talking, and listening to everything I come across.

Huzzah!
Onward ho!
Viva bona fide.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Managua, Nicaragua

2010-03-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

Warm winds
and cool nights,
taco dinners, served on a
drooling man's cranium,
songs sung in Spanish,
next to a lone guitar.
Yesterday, yesterday,
a cheapass margarita
a Tano or two,
¿para ochenta cordobas?
Si, why not? because we are Americans.

Because we are Americans in Nicaragua
we will drink,
we will drink una cerveza
even though it tastes like shit
and we won't get drunk from it anyway
It doesn't matter, we will drink it, in a casino,
at eleven thirty before noon
because we are Americans.

We will pay $1500
to stay in a beautiful hotel
a hotel with marble floors,
and apple-spearing murals
and a majestic pool, with majestic
bronze pool boys.

Because we are Americans,
we will be suspicious of the natives,
that they will steal
from our spoiled, sassy mouths,
we will point to the graffiti on the walls,
the ones that say "chinga" o "puta"
and we will laugh, too busy to see the ones that say
"FSLN, viva la juventud"

We will speak in broken Spanish
to the meseros and tienda owners,
trying to learn culture,
proud that we can regurgitate a few words
that we happen to remember
from high school.

We will get stares from the brown boys,
on the streets selling fruit,
weaving between moving traffic.
We will play doctor and patient,
we will give the sick medicine,
we will tell the ones with tumors
that they have pink eye,
we will give the children ibuprofen
when they have bad dreams
and no one will care,
because we are Americans,
and we have no liability
in this beautiful sad country
with its beautiful sad people.

They will tell us they love us,
because we are rich,
because we are beautiful,
because we are tan,
because we are Americans.
When we ask them,
do you like Americans?
they will laugh politely
and say,
"Si, me gustan americanos."
And we will believe them,
si, we will believe them,
because we are Americans.

Monster in my shoes

2010-03-17T01:06:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One by Neutral Milk Hotel. Hearing simple but addicting guitar chords makes me want to play.

Tonight I am in Covel, being zero-productive because all I can think about is how much I cannot think. There are overdressed Koreans everywhere and I'm writing delusional things like alleles being activated by acetyl-CoA...guat? Tomorrow night I'm going to chop off my hair and roam the streets with my roommate at night. I like reactions.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Monster in my nose

2010-03-16T04:27:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend. Yes, Wes Anderson influences all!

Tonight I am in Powell, being half-productive because all I can think about is how unbelievably sick I am of school right now. I accidentally got some Monster up my nose and now I feel like some dummy on Jackass. Jeez, I am so ready to go to Nicaragua. Hurry Father Time! I grow impatient.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Part I

2010-03-12T04:32:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to Nick Drake's Pink Moon. The perfect song to accompany a moonlit-midnight cruise in a Volkswagen Cabriolet? Marketable.

Ajlouny sat Indian-style at his desk, his lanky knees dangling uncomfortably over the edge of his arm-less chair. He clutched his open book, its pages illuminated a marigold-orange by the emollient glow of the setting summer sun. Outside his window, he heard the gleeful yells of boys and girls frolicking. He guessed they were playing something dumb like freeze tag, or Red Rover, or even worse, Seven Minutes of Heaven. He hated that game. He knew somebody made it just because they thought putting the words seven and heaven together was the most clever thing in the world. He hated that, when people put the name before the game. Without a second's thought, he drew his curtains (which unfortunately were much too short for the length of his window) and sat in darkness, only a lonely strip of sunset light left to guide his reading. Still, he preferred this to the paintings, the Dorian Grays his window never ceased to illustrate. He hated his window. It was the only thing that connected him to the outside world.

Life

2010-03-10T23:18:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to the silence called Powell.

Life, I guess,
is the agonizing torture
of vomiting
nomenclature, scaffolds,
and unethical values.
Fluorescent beams that blind,
through the reflection
of death on paper,
gobbling innovation
with every sigma, every pi, every
negative little spherical...spheres,
screaming in your ears,
(deaf by unwarranted silence)
MASOCHIST!
Linus Pauling,
you masochist,
you masochist cascade creater!

You and me,
we are masochists,
we are geniuses,
at best.

Sophomore slump

2010-03-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. The musical manifestation of what so many people have told me about love.

God is a concept, by which we can measure our pain,
I'll say it again,
God is a concept,
by which we can measure
our pain,
I don't believe in Henry Ford,
I don't believe in catechism,
I don't believe in miracles,
I don't believe in Jolie,
I don't believe in politicians,
I don't believe in La Llorona,
I don't believe in capitalism,
I don't believe in fellowships,
I don't believe in utopias,
I don't believe in balance,
I certainly
don't fucking believe in Nelson.
Please go and pump
your breast milk elsewhere.

Wild berry jam

2010-03-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths. Classic.

I have cosmic plans for myself when I get old. Plans that don't entail me wasting away by a window, lusting for youth like the youth lust for age. If I am an old fart, then I will be a self-sufficient old fart.

I have cosmic plans for myself when I get old.

I will build my own house atop un arbol and si, I will live in it. Cuando los brazos del hombre Sol alcanzan para mi, yo alcanzare para el tambien. I will wake up to los ruidos de vida en la naturaleza, and through a naked window, I will feel the warm embrace of the sun and the cool shadow of the leaves, wavering back and forth upon my face as an easy breezy Japanesey wind dances an exquisite ballet around them. I will make wild berry jams and dill pickles and preserve them in jars with caps as red as the heart of a flame, o quizas, como la llama de mi propio corazon. The wooden oak planks below my feet will creak with adventure as I slowly dance across the room, imagining myself braving the plank of Never Never Land, about to plunge into the enigmatic depths of another dimension. When I am bored, children will come visit me after school. I will teach them the ways of colors and words and notes and they will teach me the ways of life. We will explore the forest below, rolling off hills like funny-looking tumbleweeds and venturing across babbling streams, their waters honing our spirits like they hone the stones and the pebbles. When el Sol becomes weary of us and night approaches, we will race back to the treehouse to catch the last glimpse of orange and gold sparkle and flit across the top of the tallest trees. La Luna dira a mis hijos, "Ninos, regresen a sus casas" and they will listen and go home. Todos menos una. Una nina cuya cara nunca me olvidare. She will remain with me into the darkness of la noche. We will take our blankets and lie on the porch of my treehouse. And we won't be able to sleep because the moon will shine brightly on our faces like an abnormally large flashlight. But that's okay with me. Si, that's quite all right with me. Because if I close mis ojos, even for one small second, I suspect she might leave me for good.

Deja Vu

2010-02-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

The blue man hugs the red
man
in an Indonesian embrace
Jealous teeth stare intently
chattering without a trace
From the ceiling hangs the king's crown
a double shadow duet
Microwave reads 0:00
The cabinet lies erect
Footprints pace the walls
A vagabond is restless
Finding fish in the freezer
and guitars that sound fretless
Something's in the pears tonight
I see hallucinations
I look down at my paper,
"Um,
phosphorylation?"

I think...I think too much

2010-02-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to WHY?'s By Torpedo or Crohn's. I love Yoni Wolf and the Alopecia album, it's like...articulate rap. By the way, I looked up 'alopecia' and it means baldness.

Am I a rationalist? Yes.
Am I a romantic? Trapped in a rationalist's body.
Am I a hypocrite? I prefer the euphemism

walking contradiction.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Master of Subtlety

2010-02-13T02:46:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to "Japanese Song" by Lisa Ono. It's Brazilliant jazz. That's as witty as this post'll get.

She walked into the empty white room, bare and chilling, chilling and bare. There at the desk, surrounded by a stack of neurobiology papers and Erlenmeyer flasks, sat a woman, singing: "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail, yes I would, if I only could." She soon realized, she forgot what it felt like to question. Her inquisitive nature suppressed by the heels of a fast-moving Big Brother. What did it mean to Explore, to Express, to Ask? She reassured herself that forgetting was not the same as losing. Forgetting was only a temporary lapse in time. Perhaps her neurotrophins were dysfunctional. Maybe their receptors were getting lazy. Nonetheless, the auspicious prospects that lay ahead of her kept her going. She awaited the days when,

exotic spices and fresh guava,
and overused pencils and paintbrushes,
and poetic starry nights,
and cool tiles against her hot feet,
and the soft strumming of a guitar,
and the murmurs of a foreign and exciting place,
would be all she knew. She had perspective. And she had family. And she had good friends that meant the world to her. She wasn't unhappy, but she wasn't all that happy either. She missed the feeling. She was nostalgic for passionate emotion; sad, ecstatic, desire, anything. For the time being, she needed some kind of spark to ignite the fire dwindling inside of her.

Tactfully,
T.J. --Master of Subtlety

Muscular Dystrophy

2010-01-16T03:23:00.000-08:00

I sit here and stare
at a pedigree tree
If the two parents of the couple
were brother and sister,
what is the probablitiy
that the couple's first child
will be an affected boy?
I think and I think
I write and erase
I daddle and doodle
and I finally realize,
who the fuck
is sick enough
to mate
consanguineously

Van Gogh

2010-01-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

Last night we witnessed Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone. We sat atop a cold crooked cement cylinder that only a giant could climb. We're not very big people, but our spirits must have been that night. Dangling for life, we overlooked the pier, and the pier overlooked the black ocean, and the black ocean overlooked us. In place of the moon, there was a green light, blinking sporadically like the DSL signal of our modem. But unlike our modem, we never lost connection.

Musical Musings

2010-01-03T02:42:00.000-08:00

CHARACTERS

go limabeans: girl in LA
shinokuu: friend of go limabeans

ACT I

go limabeans (3:25:19 AM): Paulina trusts Fernando
shinokuu (3:25:28 AM): hahhahah
shinokuu (3:25:34 AM): man thats funny
go limabeans (3:26:03 AM): I know, makes me laugh every time I see it written in my notebook
shinokuu (3:26:21 AM): if you ever lose that notebook
shinokuu (3:26:28 AM): that would suck
go limabeans (3:28:46 AM): Yea it would
go limabeans (3:29:00 AM): All my thoughts
go limabeans (3:29:06 AM): It's really interesting to look back
go limabeans (3:29:09 AM): on stuff you write
go limabeans (3:29:10 AM): years later
shinokuu (3:29:30 AM): for me, i like to forget the past
go limabeans (3:30:06 AM): Why is that?
shinokuu (3:33:22 AM): i dont know
shinokuu (3:33:33 AM): i just never really think about my past
shinokuu (3:33:39 AM): probably because you cant do much
go limabeans (3:34:13 AM): you can't do much, but you can learn a lot

ACT II

shinokuu (3:56:52 AM): when im thinking, i usually listen to music
shinokuu (3:57:05 AM): i think thats my way of "writing"
go limabeans (3:58:25 AM): Do you have any songs that come up frequently?
shinokuu (3:58:58 AM): there is one song
shinokuu (3:59:01 AM): that ive been listening to
shinokuu (3:59:17 AM): all good things come to an end - nelly furtado
shinokuu (3:59:20 AM): sad song
shinokuu (4:00:20 AM): it's not what i normally listen to, but it just stood out
shinokuu (4:00:53 AM): whenever i listen to it
shinokuu (4:00:56 AM): i just think
shinokuu (4:01:03 AM): all the things that happened to me
shinokuu (4:01:05 AM): past, present
shinokuu (4:01:11 AM): good things do come to end
shinokuu (4:01:13 AM): they never last
shinokuu (4:01:34 AM): you try to make the best of it

ACT III

shinokuu (4:08:05 AM): is there a song that you listen to a lot
go limabeans (4:08:34 AM): Yea lots
shinokuu (4:08:47 AM): is there that one particular
shinokuu (4:08:52 AM): that you cant get your mind off of
go limabeans (4:09:18 AM): Eleanor Rigby
shinokuu (4:09:28 AM): ah beatles
shinokuu (4:10:35 AM): what comes out of your mind?
go limabeans (4:11:27 AM): A mumbo jumbo of stuff
go limabeans (4:11:30 AM): like
go limabeans (4:11:50 AM): how many people are lonely in the world
go limabeans (4:12:11 AM): and no one really notices
go limabeans (4:15:27 AM): we are so adept at putting on disguises
go limabeans (4:15:45 AM): that no one knows how we're truly feeling
go limabeans (4:15:56 AM): and on our deathbeds we realize we are alone in that manner
go limabeans (4:18:36 AM): I listen to Lola often too
go limabeans (4:19:10 AM): it kind of scares me that i listen to it so often
go limabeans (4:19:29 AM): esp since it's about a tranny
shinokuu (4:19:39 AM): oh really?
go limabeans (4:19:56 AM): Yea haha

ACT IV

shinokuu (4:31:03 AM): i think music are like people
shinokuu (4:31:14 AM): whenever we have a problem or a roller coaster of emotions
shinokuu (4:31:19 AM): we generally listen to music
shinokuu (4:31:23 AM): because we can relate
shinokuu (4:31:43 AM): we listen to music when we don't have anybody to talk to or rant to
shinokuu (4:32:14 AM): you feel better because somebody is going through the same thing
go limabeans (4:33:35 AM): yep
go limabeans (4:34:51 AM): Music is the universal language

Dec. 28, 2008

I like even years

2010-01-01T02:10:00.000-08:00

I like the world when I'm half-awake, half-asleep, and ten-percent-logical.

Tactfully,
T.J.

My dirty little secret

2009-12-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to "Here Comes the Sun" by George Harrison. They should've let him write more songs.

I'm sitting on my couch. A lethargic couch potato. In my lethargic living room. With a big black screen staring at me, like some sort of ominous vacuum, spewing photons at 300,000 kilometres a second. They must've knocked some sense into my head. For I've just come to realize, I am so. Disgustingly. Sophomoric. So here's to a new year. And resolutions of my own volition.

A List of Vocations:
- interior designer
- sporadic writer
- kindergarten teacher
- naturalist
- food eater person

A List of People:
- Jane Goodall
- William Carlos Williams
- Seu Jorge
- Pocahontas
- Cooking Mama

A List of Something(?):
- tangible
- human
- alive
- naive
- hopeful

Tactfully,
T.J.

Blacksy

2009-12-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to "The Happiest Christmas Tree" by Nat King Cole. Coming from a Christmas and jazz music aficionado, this is probably the single worst Christmas song I've ever heard. Ever.

So these past few days, I've been spending time with my sisters in Davis. They work during the day, come home tired in the afternoon, and take me out at night. I wake up early, make breakfast for them, lounge around an unfamiliar apartment for a while, make lunch when they get back, and like the excited little child I am, go out with them after a tedious day of nothing, really. We come home, I make dinner, we watch a romantic comedy, chat about how unrealistic some films can be (but secretly wish otherwise), and go to sleep. Boring, right? No, not really. As unbecoming as it is for a woman in the 21st century to enjoy the likes of a housewife (read the description of my typical day again), I actually really like it. I like caring for my sisters, I like seeing a warm look of satisfaction and gratitude replace the glazed stare of hunger and weariness after a long day at work, I quietly swell up with pride when they ecstatically devour my home-cooked meals and are immediately re-energized to embark on a rainy night journey with me into downtown Davis. I repeat, as unbecoming as it is for a woman in the 21st century to enjoy the likes of a housewife, I wouldn't mind being a housewife (for how long, is the question). Not to say I don't want to get a job or be economically independent or anything of the sort. No, I sure as hell would, but I think being a housewife appeals to me because I like helping other people, and loving them, and sacrificing a little of myself for them. I like caring for other people, especially when the feeling is mutual, and in many ways, I've lost that feeling ever since I got to LA. In LA, I feel like everything is, in the words of the Beatles, "I, Me, Mine". I study for me. I do this for me. I do that for me. I feel so fucking selfish all the time. Don't get me wrong, there are people I really care about in LA, and while I can't be there for them all the time, I show them through little actions, like cooking for them, spending time with them, helping them study, playing a song for them, surprising them on their birthdays, walking to their apartment at 3:00 am in the morning to be with them, etc etc., you get the idea. And while I don't verbally express a lot of my sentiments (I'm extremely guarded with my feelings, it's not a very good trait), I show people they mean a lot to me through these actions, and if they're perceptive enough, they know I care. But my point is, I haven't found anyone in LA I would give 110% of myself to. I haven't found anyone I would drop my books for to do something as simple as, say, watch the sun rise or the rain fall. I haven't found anyone I would share my whole heart, body, and mind with. I suspect that's what one would call "love." And even though I personally haven't been in love, I miss that feeling. I know, you're probably thinking, that doesn't make any sense, because how could I miss something I've never felt? Well, then, maybe I have been in love, but I highly doubt that. I think I've been close to falling in love, but I don't think I could fall in love with someone who'd knowingly love me just for a day. And shit, with both sappy fairytale definitions and heartbroken "been there, done that" definitions of "love" being thrown at you left and right, who can really tell what love is nowadays? Nay, not me.

On a lighter note, I welcome you to: http://yummypicks.blogspot.com. My mantra: food and music make anything better.

Tactfully,
T.J.

I Was Kind of Tired When I Wrote This

2009-12-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

Now you're a little bit of a letdown
Like the shady stars of a polluted night sky
Like the stars that do not exist
when you search and search,
but do exist when you stop looking.
The stars that happen to appear
in the peripheral vision
of your sad pussy eye

It's 3:00 am, it's very late at night
or would you like to consider it
very early in the city morning?
The chilly city morning that chills you with
its lonliness and its individualism
but heats you with its mad sporadic humbums
that roam the greenest intersections
and speak the honest-est truths

Time for a stroll, to assure the depressed,
the high, the weirdos, the fools, the selfish,
that in the end, it's gonna be okay
Running towards nothing, screaming, Moloch! Moloch!
into the eerie silence of the night, trying to minimize
attention? hah! the unconscious begs to differ
it lusts for misery, hate, rape! gyrating, moaning
in an empty fetal position

Under the streetlight, the shadow follows the feet
but by light of car, the feet follow the shadow
running, running -- I bid you farewell, they say.
If you run faster, I run faster, too.
so stop. stop running. inhale! exhale!
but even standing still, your shadow moves faster
than you. it's no wonder, shadows roam
this sad city, like the aforementioned humbum vagabonds.
maybe, maybe They
are the flesh our shadows?

Maybe we are they
or maybe they are us
or maybe, maybe
We are all Each Other

Mushaboom

2009-12-17T01:11:00.000-08:00

So this video was kind of on-the-spot. I liked the song I was listening to and the atmosphere of the scene (my apartment, last day before holiday break), so I decided to fuse the two, pepper it with endearing subtitles, and voila! I present to you...

"Gosh, I love LA" by Tactful TJ

Damn Vegetarian

2009-12-02T23:22:00.000-08:00

The little girl brushed her greasy hair from her greasy face with her equally greasy fingertips. Gross. Her fingers looked like big, fat, delicious Polish sausages. Just as thoughts of cannabilistic cravings surfaced, she decided she would become a vegetarian. Which was quite funny, because just yesterday, she had coddled herself in the interpretation of vegetarians as idealistic, superficial saps. But now. It was different. OH, how different it was.

Her fingers were not fragile and beautiful like the ones she saw on the little Russian ballerinas in the golden music boxes or the girlish Victorian debutante piano players. Maybe becoming a vegetarian would help her become beautiful. Maybe making herself littler and weaker would make the things she managed to do right seem grander.

"It's an illusion."

A small spider resting at the tip of the little girl's mud-splattered shoe hopped onto her knee, then onto her blue cotton dress, landing right above her left breast. "I said it's an illusion. It's not that great being delicate and beautiful. It's kind of lonely actually, everyone just kind of forgets about you."

"But look at all the things you can do! You can fall a distance one hundred and one times your height and still live. You can kill an opponent fifty times your size with one bite. And BY golly, would you please get off my chest? It's making me rather uncomfortable."

The spider scuttled up the little girl's neck and onto her eyelid. She was very careful to keep her eye closed or risk accidentally trapping the spider in the crevice above her eye.

"Do you think the size of my achievements matters to me? I'm just a spider. That's what I don't understand about you humans. Everything is revolved around flattery, flattery, flattery! What happens when you die and everyone forgets about you? What happens when you die and you realize that you and I, spider and human, intellectual and bastard, we're all the same? Will it matter then?"

The little girl hesitated for a moment and closed both eyes. She felt the little spider hop down from her face onto the ground.

"I guess it won't. Unless there's some kind of afterlife. Then it would matter to me. Because. I'd want to be immortalized by what I accomplished while I was alive. I don't want to be remembered by my fat fingers or my greasy hair. I want to leave a legacy. Is that wrong? Is it wrong to want to be remembered? How else will dwarf and giant be distinguished? Now THAT's a scary thought, what happens to us when we die. Do we vanish like vapor into the air? Do we swim among the stars like particles of ambiguity? Do we lose all sense of feeling? Maybe we're all just insignificant vessels of flesh attempting to find something that means something to us, be someone who means something to someone. Maybe we're trapped in a puppet's body, controlled by an inexplicable worldly force and unable to escape. OH, I don't know. What do you think?"

Eyes still shut, the little girl awaited a response from her new friend. She waited for a long time, but was embraced by silence.

Growing impatient, she opened her eyes.

The little spider lay dead on the floor.

My fartsy thoughts

2009-11-20T02:11:00.000-08:00

http://thesneakygiraffe.blogspot.com/
The Sneaky Giraffe: An ecclectic collection of visuals brought to you by Tactful T.J.

Moldy Curry

2009-11-18T01:04:00.000-08:00

Last month, somebody asked me what love was.
Last week, somebody told me it sucks.
I've never been in love so I have no idea
but yeah, if you care, here's my two bucks.

It's a passionate appeal
but really
not real.
It's tricky mirages
and naive foot
massages.
It's a selfish game
played just
for fame.
It's soft je'taimes,
whispered falsely
in REM.
It's Noahs concocted
from notebooks,
like Naoh wrought
from textbooks.
It's poison.
It's toxic.
It's deathly
like chopsticks.
It's schizophrenic.
It's carcinogenic.
It's fascist
like cannabis.
It's fat,
it's stupid
and naked
like Cupid.
It's weak honey tea
and moldy curry.
It's decaffeinated coffee
and hopeless vulnerability.
It's cruel.
It's tools.
It varies
like cherries.
It's scary,
it's haunted.

It's all
I've ever wanted.

Private detective for hire

2009-11-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to "The Race is On Again" by Yo La Tengo.

A few nights ago, while "studying" for biology, Moriarty challenged me to define a Lewis acid. After careful deliberation, I settled on the answer "an electron acceptor" (as opposed to a proton donator, the definition of a Bronsted acid). We agreed whoever was wrong had to call the number of an ad Moriarty had found on a bulletin board in the math and sciences building. The ad read "Private Detective for Hire" in big letters and displayed a rather flattering picture of Jason Schwartzman, followed by tearable tabs with the number 646-336-6222. After a civil altercation over our answers, we decided to just put the phone on speaker and ended up reaching the guy's voicemail, only to find that the number had been a clever medium to advertise the HBO show "Bored to Death". This witty voicemail message suddenly ended with an impending "Please leave a message" beep, and under the pressure of time, I candidly shouted "I love you, Jason!" I quickly closed my phone and Moriarty and I shared a laugh and quipped some funny comments. Then I realized I hadn't closed the phone all the way so whoever (if anyone) received the messages heard everything we had said about the call (I don't think it was necessarily anything bad, but maybe a little embarrassing). I decided the only way to mute our previous comments was to shout another well-articulated "I love you, Jason!" after which I made sure the phone was closed completely this time. Win!

Tactfully,
T.J.

Stoned and slightly inebriated

2009-10-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" by Belle & Sebastian.

There's an enigmatic sense of freedom and individuality about driving through the streets of LA at night. The psuedo-relationships of my daytime life disappear and I'm heading towards something real, something personal, something soulful. I don't know exactly what that may be, but hell if God knows, my foot never leaves the accelerator. I'm carefree again, spontaneous and unsure, following one blinking star after another like unnumbered dots to be connected. With each path I take, a foamy trail of white wine is left across the night sky to remind me of where I've been, what I've done, and who I've seen. Life is sheer madness, madness to think, madness to explore, madness to live. Jack Kerouac is my friend, listening and responding to my boundless curiosity towards love, life, and self. He doesn't care if I steal his lines to describe this longing for escapism; in fact, he's quite flattered. Anything and everything becomes a philosophical musing of some type: whether over the length of telomeres or over the absurd lyrics of the latest indie song, no one cares, just as long as someone's talking and someone's listening. There will be times when speed limits are non-existent, these are the times of uninhibited lust for adventure; there will be times I experience flat tires, these are the times I forget to wonder and question; there will be times yellow means faster and red means go, these are the times of intense passion and keenness to love. But no matter what time it is, one thing is sure: I will never stop driving. Under the soft champagne hum of the streetlights and the ghostly glow of the moon, I will never stop driving.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Speaking of concerts

2009-10-11T01:49:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Wonderwall" by Oasis. I swear it's been resonating through my apartment for the past three days. Four chord songs are always the catchiest.

I like to think the reason that makes Outsidelands the worst concert I've ever attended (well, half-attended) compensates by making it the concert I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. The fact that I arrived 20 minutes after Modest Mouse performed muffles the pain a little bit. But heck, MIA, Band of Horses, and Tenacious D were still worth trying to sneak inside. I mean, it's Jack Black. He was probably going to pull some ridiculous stunt like get naked or lick some dude's ass. The plan: Dixon (the lucky owner of an actual ticket) would get in first and inform me of locations with sparsely populated security guards. The actuality: They are literally everywhere, clad in their "you can't miss me" bright yellow jackets. So, to make a long story short, I jumped fences, crawled under fences, hiked through shady-looking woods, feigned diarrhea (like ten times! Embarrassing!), all this, only to make friends with baked delinquents, land in a police compound, get kicked out three times, and walk the entire perimeter of Golden Gate Park, all by my lonesome, in 60 degree weather. Having my friend on the phone squealing about how smashtastic the performances were while I really needed to pee made me a little happier. In fact, I think I might've peed a tiny bit just thinking about how much fun she was having and how much free stuff she was collecting. So happy that I've become incontinent. Needless to say, traversing the park with strange people on ecstasy who think my name is Sammy is an experience I probably wouldn't have come across elsewhere in my humble life. At least four hours of trying to get inside Outsidelands only to end up outside Outsidelands makes for a damn good story.

On another note, I want to go to the Treasure Island Festival next week. And Regina Spektor's going to be in LA October 28! My good friend purchased early bird tickets as a surprise and what a surprise it was until I discovered I have an organic chemistry midterm the very same night! I shed tears of blood as I write this.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Extended metaphors (unintentional)

2009-10-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Firecracker" by Voxtrot. What an explosive song!

So I was flipping through my journal last night and came across this excerpt I found particularly snort-worthy. I wrote this after a Beatles tribute concert held by the White Ensemble during the summer. I think it was sometime in late August, just around the same time I discovered I had psychic abilities and almost started believing in God.

The sky was a sleepy grey. The crowd was restless. Something big was going down and we all knew it. Tonight would be the resurrection of The Beatles. Old, young, ugly, short, fat, beautiful, we were all there. And we were both thankful and thanked for it, too. "Thank you all for being here. If you would like to buy our CD or T-shirts, it would be of great benefit to us. And of great benefit to 94.5 KOIT. But most of all, it would of great benefit to Mr. Kite." That was the switch to the greatest musical orgy I've ever experienced. And the best part was it was with complete strangers whose names I will never feel obligated to know or remember. It was loud, rough, and lasted a little over 3 hours. Standing at the front, I looked back into the sea of people behind me. Together, they literally looked like a sea, steadily moving up and down, up and down to the beat of The Beatles. Every song I vocally desired was played within five minutes of my request. Strawberry Fields Forever, Revolution, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, you name it, I named it, they named it. The night ended with All You Need is Love, which is a rather romanticized ideal, returned with an encore of Back in the USSR, which I thought was a heinous choice for an encore, and ended with a second (and more appropriate) encore of Hey Jude, the ultimate sing-along! Funny thing, I've always dreamt about being within a 1-mile radius of na na na na na's, but being the center of it?

Best orgy ever.

Tactfully,
T.J.

An Existential Schizophrenic

2009-09-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

She was a librarian
black hair pinned back
hands folded in lap.
She sat at the front desk
imparting her owl eyes and Gogh ears
on the domain that was hers
and only hers.
"DaVinci in Row Five," she declared,
"Machiavelli in Row Eleven."
"Kierkegaard, you ask? Row Zero."
Head held high,
she answered question after question,
solved mystery after mystery.
And what about you? a familiar voice inquired.
In which row do you belong?
It was a simple question, an easy one at that.
She opened her proud lips but no sound came out
Flustered, she snapped --
"There's no talking in the library."

Arrested Development

2009-09-14T03:34:00.001-07:00

In an attempt to liberate his child from the all too well-known shackles of a high-expecting father (as well as a personal act of rebellion against his own father), Jason Bateman, a typical business-oriented man, watches in warm satisfaction as his son, a chubby-cheeked, pre-Juno Michael Cera, burns down the family-owned banana shack. The next morning, an orange-clad father of Bateman, imprisonated for defrauding investors and using his company as a bank for his family's personal expenses, looks his son straight in the eye and says with subdued tension, "There was $250,000 in cash lining the walls of the Banana Stand." You know, it's scenes like this that have me hooked on the TV show Arrested Development. There's something strangely heart-warming about an ecclectic family with wide-ranging personalities and incestual interests. Sibling competition, forbidden love, parental screw-ups...hello Wes Anderson? The narration/filming and quirky family dynamics remind me of The Royal Tenenbaums (one of my favorite films), and even the photo above is corroboratory of this statement. The absurd recurring jokes and foreshadowing techniques are sufficiently subtle to pass as just another one of Hurwitz's eccentricities, but noticeable enough to play catch-and-connect, which, I have to say, makes a non-frequent TV viewer like myself quite proud. Dixon introduced me to the show and I'm surprised I've never heard of it before, especially since the seriocomic humor is just my cup of tea. Usually, I'm not the most avid watcher of TV shows, but with the Velvet Underground playing in the background as the Bluth family members find themselves in the most realistically unrealistic situations, this might be an exception.

Hey Judas

2009-09-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

When society becomes a burden,
look inside and find Tyler Durden
'cause you know he's the only one
who's brave enough to pull the gun

Forget the frail traitor -
the faceless narrator -
religion's no longer real
and anarchism's your last meal

Beyond the dull needle of prozium
lies the truth to Plato's symposium
so go ahead, put on your Fawkes mask
99 barrels will finish the task

They say it's not treason
if you got a good reason,
so when the world's in convolution
hell, why don't you start a Revolution

A Toast to the World

2009-09-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "The Gift" by The Velvet Underground. Good storyline. Very Tarantino-esque.

Once upon a time, I ate a cold black plum and I swear it was the greatest black plum Cain ever reaped from the ground. I drank a glass of milk and I swear it was the tastiest milk on earth. I sat on the balcony on an upside-down box and I drank the night air and I swear it was the most nitrogenated air I ever inhaled. I stared at the city lights and I drank them too. I told the person sitting on the right-side up box beside me that I believed in two realms of life. The first was materialistic and jealous of the second and would not let go of the physical particles it possessed. The second was spiritual and introspective and so accepted only the metaphysical assets of the world. I explained that the city lights were a reflection of the stars and that was why the light bulb above us was so fucking bright, because of that one star that shone bryter than the rest. To test my theory, I wished upon a stoplight, but the damn thing kept moving before I could finish my wish. I laughed to myself but secretly I was disappointed. And so that night I drank the stars and I swear they were the most beautiful I'd ever eaten. They tasted like one dollar tacos on a Wednesday night.

Tactfully,
T.J.

2009-08-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

Nothing to write
Only to wrong

Dear Sir George Henry Martin

2009-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Now somewhere in the sleepless city of LA
There lived a young girl named Tactful TJ
One day her curiosity ran off with speedy Adidas
Left her in the dirt, she didn't like that
She said one day I'm gonna find my curiosity
So she drove away into the night
Her only passenger the Nowhere Man from Nowhere Land

To talk of many things

2009-08-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

A giant cockroach frantically scurries across the room, struggling to dodge a storm of cascading red apples. An Algerian man accountable for the death of an Arab stands indifferently over his carcass, shot multiple times for no plausible reason. A timid captain meets his doppelganger face-to-face in a dark L-shaped room, located on a lonely ship in the middle of the ocean.

Kudos to you if you can pinpoint the literary pieces that contain these mindwrecking scenes. They happen to be part of some of the greatest literary works I've come across, all portraying a human enigma I've never been able to fully wrap my head around - the id as a societal foreigner. The id by definition is inherently human, it defines our most basic impulses and wants - survival and sexual satisfaction - and constitutes the amoral, instinctual side of our personalities. As opposed to the societally influenced conscious us, the id is us at our most basic level. And despite this, we try to hide it away into the deepest corners of our souls, ashamed and embarrassed of the raw, infantile thoughts of our minds. We have this inborn urge to constantly suppress our "dark side" and mask them with superficial images of good and righteousness. We deny our primal desires when we know they are universally human and natural. We follow a path of artifical, self-created morality, but under what authority? We are unreliable narrators of our own lives. Repression of the unconscious mind can only lead to self-consumption; acceptance, on the other hand, fosters independence and self-discovery. Power to Hobbes, but I'm not saying we're inherently evil people. I'm saying we shouldn't have to feel like we have to mold ourselves to what modern ideology brands as bad or good. But I have to admit my criticism of this human hypocrisy is hypocritical in and of itself. I, without a doubt, fall victim to mankind's fixation with constructing a facade of virtue. There are a lot of things you don't know about me and well, I'm sure there are a lot of things I don't know about you. If I reveal them to you now, I'm still the same person, the same friend, the same daughter you've always known, but regardless, you will judge me. Perhaps that's the reason. We hide ourselves because we are afraid of being judged. Maybe I should return to God. That way, if I do something "bad", all I need to do is confess to be redeemed.

Hah. Fuck that. Writing is salvation enough.

Tactfully,
T.J.

My Two-Buck Chucks

2009-08-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

Under the blinking stars
that strangle our windowsill,
we lie supine on the bed
in the dim yellow light

we look up youtube videos --
of laughing babies,
and cats playing piano.

we listen to music --
Damien Rice, The Smiths,
and Cat Power.

we talk of interpretation --
musing over words
we don't understand.

supine on the bed
in the dim yellow light,
we question the meaning
of my two-buck chucks.

i have a strange inclination
that this could be
the very utopia
of Mr. Aldous Hux.

Secret sharer

2009-07-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Mr. Radio" by ELO. For some reason, when I listen to this song, I imagine myself prancing hand in hand with Ziggy Stardust on the surface of Mars. I love it.

As habitual, I get this unexplainable urge to write with time I can't really spare. A meeting with Gauss, Kirchhoff, and Ampere looms over me like a porcupine-creating rain cloud, and although I have utmost respect for these fine men, I can't really see us being great friends in the near future. Things would get too electric, if you know what I mean. Kekule would be a more appropriate match. Or even better, Nietzche or Kierkegaard. Speaking of which, I remember people always used to ask me this question and I would never be able to settle on a response: If you could meet anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why? That's like asking me what my favorite film or band is, or even worse, what my favorite food is. There's never a single answer. But despite all odds, I think I finally have found the right answer.

Tactfully,
T.J.

He, She, and Them

2009-07-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

Together they walked, into the screen, hand in hand.
The grey sky was illuminated by the lights of a sleepy city.
They were lost in confusion,
were the lights real?
Or was it a trick of the eye?
They didn't know,
but they didn't care.
It was a night of unspoken thoughts and unasked questions.
The film gave them thoughts.
The actors asked their questions.
But speak them aloud?
They dared not.
She in her yellow shirt, crying inside,
dying to know if she meant something to him.
He with his clouded spectacles, crying outside,
wondering if he still meant something to her.
Together they walked,
in all their confusion,
out of the screen and into the dark city night.
No more acting,
no more scripts,
just he, she, and them.

At the corner of your eye

2009-06-27T02:38:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Lion in a Coma" by Animal Collective. Very experimental. Experimental is good, in more ways than one.

Having the ability to feel is like having the ability to breathe or eat. You do it everyday, but you don't realize how important it is until you lose that ability. Feelings are the cause of wonder, desire, curiosity. They give you hope, bring you down, eat you up, spit you out. They are the dense iron cores of our constantly searching souls, and they are the media through which these souls shamelessly yearn for that missing 'something'. But despite the synonymous meaning of feelings and life itself, there's one thing in this world that makes me wish feelings were non-existent, that they could vanish as quickly as they are conjured, and that's looking into someone else's eyes and seeing nothing but a broken heart. Chin up, yeah? Better times are a'coming.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Flight 3126

2009-06-23T01:17:00.000-07:00

I ponder a poem
as I sit in my seat.
I clear up some flem
and fiddle my feet.

It's a quarter to five
til Flight 3126 leaves;
to tell you the truth,
I feel like Christopher Reeves.

Like a flock of damned sheep,
or a herd of damned calves,
we head in the same direction
but ba to ourselves.

I pick up my pencil
and let out a sigh.
He picks up his iPhone
and just wants to die.

And so the time has finally come
for us to all fly,
we close our eyes tightly
and pretend not to cry.

The voice of God is heard.
It's time for soul sorting.
"Attention," It says,
"We are now boarding."

1, 2, 3

2009-06-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

There are three kinds of people in the human world. The first are your best friends. They freely give you their shoulders when you're weak and never forget who you are even when you sometimes do. The second are your enemies. They cause the need for shoulders and try to break you to make themselves. And then there are those who don't fall into either category. They are not your best friends and they are not your worst enemies, they are people who don't expect to become a big part of your life, but somehow still manage to. Like the flicker of a flame, they come and go quickly, but burn ever so radiantly in the little amount of time they do exist. They may end up being someone you hate or someone you love or just someone you know, but each of them teaches you a new lesson, offers you a different perspective, gives you a little fragment of themselves that makes you a greater person. You may be someone I will always try to keep in my life, you may be someone I will never understand, or you may be someone I don't really know what to do with. Whichever you are, you have left me with something I can learn from and grow with -- and for this, I thank you.

Thank you for the guidance and knowledge you've given me, the discussions about music, writing, film, existence, and organic chemistry. I will never forget the Wes Anderson movie nights or the philosphical musings we have over random events. You are the only person I've ever felt wholly comfortable enough with to share my deepest art, writing, poetry, thoughts, and insecurities. I only hope to have encouraged you as you have encouraged me to keep creating and searching.

Thank you for the late-night talks in the laundry room, the writing and pondering underneath the dim glow of Christmas lights, the feasts of twinkies, beef jerky, pickled cucumbers, and soy milk. You have given me a sense of faith and imagination when sometimes I felt like I had none. The night we watched in silence as the city awoke and turn a dreary gray will follow me to my grave. I await the future shenanigans we will carry out -- making amateur movies, struggling through H-NMR spectroscopy, and exploring the city by night!

Thank you for the eternal sunshine you bring into my life, the daily play-acting we partake in, the rhyme wars and the nights of funky-colored nail polish. There's something contagious about the way you live that makes me go to class (most days) and wait for the green before I cross the street. You have an uncommon perspective on life -- one of both innocence and sagacity -- that I try to integrate into my own. From our sink squats to our shower songs, I look forward to sharing more laughter, pain, and tears with you.

Thank you for the thrifting adventures, the awkward eyelashes, the laughter and positive meaning you've showed me. You taught me "eco-chic" and sophistication. You always manage to keep a happy disposition wherever you go and you were born with style. Here's to many trips to Crossroads and naps in Chemistry class!

Thank you for your energy and personality, the "that's what she said" moments, the looks and the bitch rants about you-know-who. You are always the life of the party and you know exactly what to say to make me smile even when I'm in the worst of moods. And you have an amazing voice! You are truly one of a kind and anyone would be lucky to have you.

Thank you for always being there for me, for discussing with me our unconscious and conscious dreams over boba, for keeping my secrets and listening to me when I felt like I had no one else to talk to. Whether having life conversations in British accents or breaking into the pier at two in the morning and getting caught, you've shared with me some of the greatest memories I have this year. Thank you for the ears you lent me when I couldn't hear myself think and the sense you knocked into my head when I had none of my own.

And finally, thank you for the sleepless nights we shared, the shooting stars we counted, the feelings of passion, lonliness, and confusion you taught me. You brought a new kind of meaning to my body, my existence, my experience as an 18-year-old girl. You made me feel special and scared and beautiful and worthless all at the same time. Because of you, I experienced emotions I never knew I was capable of feeling and had thoughts I never knew I was capable of thinking. Because of you, I learned how to channel my emotions into something great -- art, poetry, and written word. Because of you, I stepped outside my comfort zone, tried things I was so scared of, discovered myself as an individual. Sometimes I think what life would be like if I never met you, and I realize it wouldn't be much of a life at all -- there's a folly in the spotless mind. Truthfully, I feel what we had together helped us both grow as individuals more than as a pair, but whatever ends up happening between us, I want you to know that you've been the strongest catalyst in my journey to find me. And for this, I thank you.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Hazy yellow street lights

2009-06-04T05:04:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" by The Decemberists.

There’s something about this strange city that captures me. It’s not something concrete I can readily single out and describe, like the warm summer nights of Atlanta or the sandy shores of Miami. I don’t know, maybe it’s the absence of concreteness that I am in love with. The feeling that everyone’s here for a reason, but no one really knows what it is. The feeling of uncertainty and alienation, of moving together without direction. It’s like I’m on an endless road trip of self, forming new bonds and collecting new experiences like tokens, only to end up in the same place I started off. The car is full, but no one’s speaking. Just breathing, and occasionally blinking. We move in incarnate unison, but we stray in spirit. We’re not human anymore, just discrete aggregations of atoms, aimlessly searching for something beyond our own objective existence. One for one, all for none. But just for a single moment, the uniformity of our journeys, the sameness of our searches, the demands of our ids, bring us together, make us one. This single moment is what defines the very fabric of this great city. Yes, we are isolated. Yes, we are alone. But in our aloneness, we are one. We are the individual specks of light on the midnight city line, radiating in every color, every shape, and every size against a dark abyss. Some of us are blue Helio flames, making sure the world will know our names; others are hazy yellow street lights, easily forgotten and swept away in the hustle bustle of the city; and there are the few who come and go like ever-changing beacons of red, green, and yellow, giving us hope when we need it and slowing us down when we’re moving too fast. Our placement is arbitrary, our purpose elusive, but one thing is certain -- from this ambiguity, from this irony of solitude in togetherness, a sad collective beauty is crafted. As the city awakens and turns a humdrum gray, I realize in the few months I have slept here, breathed here, cried here, loved here, this city is my home.

Los Angeles, I’m yours.

Tactfully,

T.J.

An Electric Parade

2009-05-19T03:31:00.000-07:00

Inspired by you and Andrew Bird.

I saw you standing alone
in the middle of an electric parade
wearing that funny hat you always wear
The brown one with black spectacles.
You beckon to me
with your big, eager hands
and your smooth, deceiving lips
and your lye lye lyes.
A charming lost prince
searching for his Disney bride
himself dewy-eyed
and overprescribed.
Acid in his smile
He has me beguiled
like a phi phenomenon
like flashing lights.
I see you standing alone
in the middle of an electric parade
and realize
it is me.

Sir Clementine

2009-05-02T01:02:00.000-07:00

There's a funny story behind this one.

A tap on the shoulder of a bright Clementine,
basking, ripening,
in a mutiny of words.
He smiles blindly and speaks with his eyes,
falling, rotting,
a wingless bird.
Blanketed by sunlight but unable to grow,
a worm, a memory,
finds him with Poe.
He's desperate for love, knows not where to look,
so he puts his face
back,
back
in his lonely book.

Thank you, Thank You Mart

2009-04-28T01:31:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left" by the amazing Andrew Bird. He sings, he whistles, he gives me music-gasms. Concert July 10 at the Greek Theater, see you there?

I would like to dedicate this post to Thank You Mart, the greatest vintage store in Los Angeles. I am head over maroon-painted toes for this place. Thank You Mart is a smoky little Beatles-playing thrift shop, plucked from some grass bath in mid-1960's San Francisco and strategically placed in the beating heart of modern Los Angeles. Its clothing selection is delightfully eccentric and conveniently eclectic -- messy blouses, worn-out lumber jackets, psychadelic trinkets, humdrum scarves, floral aprons, and so on. There are these quirky tees with half-coherent, engrish-esque phrases that I especially enjoy, mostly because I find the thought process people go through trying to decipher a meaningless piece of cotton quite humorous. It bothers me when people try to assign meaning to everything. Meaning shouldn't have to be a precursor to a choice; if anything, labelling something with a determined purpose restricts its potential to be something greater. Understanding is not necessary for enjoyment, and clothes are definitely no exception!

Thank you, Thank You Mart.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Disaster in construction

2009-04-20T03:32:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to Cake's "Short Skirt/Long Jacket". I've been listening to them non-stop recently. Their style of music is a perfectly unbalanced conglomeration of singing and speaking, also known as sprechgesang. If the human circulatory system could be as syncopated as their beats, life would be swell.

I thought about this in whatever language we use when we think, and being me, decided to take an ignorant whack at Old English. In prose, of course, iambic pentameter should be left to Ol' William.

Blessed memories, why dost thou love and despise me so? Thou art a mother's hand, caressing my longing cheek, only to be betrayed with a sharp stake to the heart, reminding me of what has come and will not come again. The mind is a terrible invention. It haunts and thinks too much -- easily saturated with unspoken desires and enigmatic thoughts. I recite, only in moderation doth wonder bequeath contentment. And here I contradict myself. The mind is an irreproducibly majestic invention. Only in a confusion of good, bad, love, hate, yes, no can one discover not just contentment, but also greatness. Without the sharp stake, what is the mother's hand? The mother's hand is the sharp stake. 'Tis a truth that moderated minds beget moderated potential, and imbued minds beget imbued potential. The flower will not bloom unless inebriated with water.

What the universe has made a curse, the man hath made a treasure.

Tactfully,

T.J.

The Human Paradox

2009-04-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Responsibility -
so often shunned as a heavy burden.
Overlooked,
underappreciated,
merely an extension of free will,
of autonomy and power.

You claim you worship,
not God,
but Will.
You take responsibility for your great songs.
But what do you do when things go wrong?

You neglect responsibility -
Cut all ties
Make up lies
Close your eyes
As she cries
Desperately hoping for its Demise

You think:
if you can forget, so can the world
but when it does, you cannot.
Previously powerful,
now pitifully powerless.

Cold and alone,
you realize:
if embraced, Responsibility
is really a blessing in disguise.

The Mosaic Maker

2009-03-25T02:52:00.000-07:00

The mosaic maker is the ultimate paradigm of the living. He begins with meaningless fragments of experiences, slowly piecing them together to reveal a grand montage, a greater truth. What he believed to be a mélange of cryptic, incomprehensible events he has rendered into a fathomable masterpiece.

I dream of witches

2009-03-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "Into the Ocean" by Blue October. Subtlety at its finest.

Last night I had an epic moment while asleep. At about 4 a.m. in the morning, I began to reach for and grab at the witch puppet I have hanging over my bed. With my eyes wide open, I repeatedly mumbled, "Where is it? Where is it? I can't find it.." or some other mumbojumbo that defines this universal human enigma. My roommates say it went on for a solid minute. I don't recall a second of it. But I don't doubt any of it, I sleep express myself quite often. Sometimes more so than I am willing to when I am awake. There's a raw truth in the unconscious mind.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Absolute Truth

2009-03-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. Brilliance exemplified.

There are good times. There are bad times. And there are times not meant to be classified as anything at all. This is one of them. Prepare yourself for a flurry of my whimsical musings.

I don't particularly fancy being judged. I don't fancy judging others either. Anyone who does may be honorably dubbed an undiscovered hypocrite. This consternation called Life is too complex, too opaque for someone to say whether something is right or wrong. On what basis do we have the right to determine moral arbitration? There exists no Absolute Truth, only truth. Perhaps this is why religion was created; to give a purely symbolic sense of stability to a weak human race unable to fathom that their existence may not be a tally of good deeds and meaningful moments, but rather, an ambivalent hodgepodge of experiences. Are you a good person because you choose to follow an artificially concocted, pre-destined path of charity? Am I a bad person because I choose to diverge, to wander onto an abstract trail that will probably get me farther than yours?

Do not judge lest you be judged. It is not a sin to want to experience things.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Purple

2009-03-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

Green means go
Red means stop
But tell me,
what does
purple
mean?

They live your life
Do this, do that
"Remember," they say,
"Curiosity
killed
the cat."

We are all
Great Pretenders.
And so we remain,
until
the fifth
of November.

Bellamy

2009-03-12T02:14:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to "In the Waiting Line" by Zero 7. I feel like I'm floating over rooftops when I listen to this song. The lines that define me no longer exist and my skin's a'tingling.

If there's anything of substantial value I've learned since leaving the motherhouse, it's that a person, no matter how iron-willed or uncompromising, will never truthfully know how she will act in a situation unless she personally experiences it. I remember when I expressed that sometimes you have to go against what you think you believe in to find out what it is you really believe in. I stand by my statement. Does this necessarily make you weak? Yes and no. You're giving yourself an excuse to do something you initially considered wrong because now you're curious, you're tempted, and in this manner, you're almost self-forced. You're making a rash, wanton decision, relative to the time you've repeatedly told yourself what you're doing is base to the point of blasphemy. At the same time, you're brave enough to explore outside your haven of safety. You're making a rash, wanton decision, but when else will you get a chance to do this? Carpe diem while the day is light. In this case, action itself is not the ultimate difficulty. The ultimate difficulty is the realization, the evaluation, the consequence. If you discover something 'unseemly' about yourself you never knew, you have to be ready to admit and accept it. At this point, Bellamy, there's no looking back. "What's done is done" - never regret anything, take every choice you make into your heart and nourish it with your blood and soul. At this moment you will know what it is you really believe in.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Margie

2009-02-22T00:43:00.000-08:00

Margie stands at the door
Red, black and blue
Pupils shrinking, a white light beckons her
She is welcomed into the World
by strange man-hands

Margie stands at the door
Six feet tall
Towering over us all
Her soul's not touching the ground
And still she is so young

Margie stands at the door
A pretty girl
with thoughts of grass and sunrises
Hopping on one leg, square by square
without a care

Margie stands at the door
Flowers blossoming
She plucks poor petals
as a thoughtless smile clouds her judgment
And he knows it

Margie stands at the door
Hoping for something more
A puppeteer and a puppet, democracy and voter
Burning like a flame
She blinks once, twice

Margie stands at the door
Wearing a raggedy gray dress and cheap perfume
Soothing her bird's nest
Tussled by preying crows
The quiet silence of the night broken by the quiet rap of bone

Margie stands at the door
Wishing she were no more
Tragedy awaits her, and she him
Pupils shrinking, she patiently waits
for the day when the strange man-hands take her again

Beauty in breakdown

2009-02-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to "Stephanie Says" by The Velvet Underground. She's not afraid to die, it's all in her mind. I think we should all be like Stephanie.

My bed is what I imagine heaven to be like. It's a freaking package of bliss compressed into a cot of fiber and springs. It's my recharge station, my sanctuary of consolation, my trusty vessel to unknown destinations...but most of all, it's my personal asylum when I have random bouts of senseless thoughts and ideas. Take now, for example.

We all suffer the same way. No matter what we suffer from as individuals, I believe that feeling of affliction and remorse is communal and equally shared. You suffer from a wrong choice, I suffer from the death of a loved one, Albert Markovski suffers from Brad Stand suffering. When it comes down to it, there isn't any distinction. Just as music is the universal language, suffering is the universal emotion. It comprises intensive properties, wherein scientifically a system size or amount of material within a system is not pertinent to the actual property. Likewise, suffering isn't rooted in magnitude, but rather, existence.

Hands down, it's a necessary, understood evil. As cliche (and therefore very true) as it may sound, bona fide happiness cannot exist without depression, misery, and hatred. As mere humans, we are uncontrollably drawn to that "orgiastic state" of distress. Without it, we would only be and not feel. We would be statically living in a fucking utopia like little inhuman ants. A few months ago, I witnessed my first shooting star and someone told me to make a wish. My internal response? That there'd be no more suffering in the world. God, it's a blessing these overrated wishing mechanisms are as real as the words that come out of our president's mouth.

If anything, it's not our successes that define us,, it's our failures. We are not great because we conquered Mt. Everest. We're great because we tried so many times and failed miserably, but accomplished it in the end. Maybe this phase is a catalyst on my journey to become great. Or perhaps it will lead to my destruction. I don't mind either one.

But I ramble, what do I really know? ..I'm just a foolish 18 year old girl suffering from trivial teen drama, a damned conscious, and a side platter of existential dilemma.

Tactfully,
T.J.

This is the status quo

2009-01-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to The Beatles' "Revolution". This song makes me want to buy a Guy Fawkes mask, get a horrible straight-bang haircut, and blow up Parliament. The raucous electric guitar sounds next to Lennon's vocals make for such a beautifully mutinous song.

Change is difficult. Breaking tradition requires undying strength, yet it's almost so effortless to do.

I'm gonna start a revolution. You know, we all want to change the world.

Tactfully,

T.J.

Cockshit

2009-01-11T01:46:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to Elliott Smith's "Say Yes". He stabbed himself to death. It can be concluded he was one hell of an artist.

When people ask me what my greatest fear is, I usually have multiple responses ready. Spiders. Death. Growing up. Disappointment. I lie everytime. You wouldn't expect it from me, but I'm a fucking great liar.

That's my greatest fear. Being lonely. Not in the sense that I have nobody around me (I cherish every moment I have alone), but in the sense that I've been living an untruth my entire life and I realize on my deathbed that no one ever knew the real Eleanor Rigby. But how much can we expect others to see us as we are when even we ourselves can't remove that mask? It's the vulnerability, the fear that others won't like what they see, we won't like what we see once the mask comes off. No more walls, no more barriers, it never comes back on. Fuck.

Life is a bitch.

Tactfully,
T.J.

I saw the devil sleeping

2009-01-04T03:02:00.000-08:00

The darkness pervades -
shades our eyes,
hides the truth.
Our only guides
are hovering bulbs of red.
They move past us quickly,
and leave us to find our way,
with the little hope we do possess.

I hate odd years

2009-01-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to the droning blow of the heater.

Do you ever have those moments when you know you're doing something against your beliefs but just want to keep doing it? You think one way and you feel one way, but you act another way? These are the moments that test our strength and conviction.

But I feel sometimes we have to go against what we think we believe in to find out what it is we really believe in.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Soul-cleansing time

2008-12-18T16:59:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to Death Cab for Cutie's "I will Possess your Heart"...it's been on replay in my mind for the longest time. There's something unusually irksome about it, but whatever it is, it works.

I'd like to share a passage I wrote in my journal. It was written a few days ago, on Sunday, December 14, during a snow get-away to Big Bear. I expected (how hypocritical, I can't stand expectations) the trip to be a mere time for relaxation after a gruesome week of finals, but it turned out to be so much more. While I enjoyed playing games and bonding with 34 amazing people, what made the trip for me were the moments spent utterly alone and the spontaneously personal conversations with people who were coincidentally present on the bend of a staircase. I wrote this journal entry after trekking to the lake:

"Today I experienced nature in its entirety. There was no sign of life except for the stillness of the trees and the wariness of the ducks. It felt good. It was liberating. I sat down, took out my sketchbook and sketched and breathed and lived. Each breath pierced me like an icy stake to my lungs, perpetually imprinted in my waking soul. At that moment, alone and unjudged, who was I? "I" was nothing. I was nothing without the two-faced force of expectations and impressions. I was experiencing the empty realization that I didn't know who "I" was without external societal pressures. We grow up with people telling us what to do, how do it, molding us, so that when we experience a moment like this, the mold cracks and we are left an empty shell. I am curious to know if anyone will ever be able to figure out this enigma. I have a feeling we aren't meant to know, that the escapade is eternal...otherwise, moments like this wouldn't exist, and that would be a tragedy."

A tragedy, indeed.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Just because

2008-12-08T01:31:00.000-08:00

Listening to MJ's "Billy Jean" and loving it. What can I say? It's a modern classic.

Tonight I am sitting in Kerkchoff's coffee shop, surrounded by a mass of frazzled college students cramming for finals (myself included). After attempting to swallow some complicated math business - and failing quite miserably - I have decided to take a break and think about what it is about life that makes it worth living for. Off the top of my head, here's my list of sunshine and butterflies:

- Creating something and calling it mine
- Intense existential thinking (kind of ironic that this is under a list of what makes life worth living)
- Expression through art
- Mustard yellow
- Design, drawing, painting, Photoshop
- Learning the sciences (organic chemistry, biology, ecology, etc.)
- Sweat trickling down my face after an exhausting run
- EATING GOOD FOOD!! especially meat
- Listening to genius music (ahh Beatles!!!)
- Watching films with some meaning, but with an even better soundtrack
- Conservation, recycling
- Hiking, camping, exploring, trailblazing (especially in Yosemite!)
- The Spanish culture and language
- South Park (Cartman!)
- Watching sappy movies and laughing at how heinously unrealistic they are and crying at the same time wishing such things were real
- Mismatching, funky colored nail polish
- Thrifting, vintage stores
- Laughing at the stupidest things when I lack sleep
- When spontaneous moments turn into the best moments
- The stars and the city lights

I will add more as I think of them.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Waking life

2008-12-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to Rocky Votolato's "She was Only in it for the Rain." I want to rape this song, it's that great to me. The melodic tune, the lyrics, the concept - pure bliss.

If I had any self-control, I would be studying for finals. But I just had a random thought I wanted to write about before losing it in oblivion, which I admit happens quite frequently. As with all else in life, it's never as meaningful the second time around. But jumping on the bandwagon, my thought for today is: What is a dream? I feel there is much more to dreams than the generic definition of "a series of images and thoughts experienced while in the REM stage of sleep" or some form of that.

Honestly, I think we have dreams and consciousness reversed. Consciousness is supposed to be the state in which we act towards the achievement of our wants and needs. We go to school, work, do this, do that to get ourselves closer to a goal. It supposedly represents reality and truth. To me, dreams are truth. Dreams show us what we truthfully want or don't want. They show us more about ourselves than anything, they show us what we would do, how we would live without external or internal restrictions. On the other hand, our conscious state of mind, our doubts, insecurities, prevent us from accomplishing what we really want to. It's not our unconscious dreams that constitute unrealistic hopes because everything is possible, but it's our conscious state of mind that inhibits them.

I say this because I had a dream last night that showed me more about myself than I wanted to know. It showed me the truth of a situation I am currently dealing with. That's the thing about dreams, they'll give you the cold, hard truth, nothing more, nothing less. After that, it's up to us to either act upon this new piece of knowledge or to let our consciousness screw it all up and tell us we can't do it.

Does this mean the only way to live is to remain in an eternally unconscious state of mind...to never wake up?

Tactfully,
T.J.

Going home

2008-11-26T17:38:00.001-08:00

Currently listening to Cat Power. She's amazing, her voice has a drowsy but melodic tone...it puts me in a mellow, detached mood.

Suitable for what I'm about to write about next..."home." It's Thanksgiving time and my roommates have gone home and I'm the only one left in my room right now. My door is open, and almost every single person who passes by asks: "Why aren't you home?", "Well, when are you going home?" And there goes another one.

I don't get it. Home is so often depicted as a singular permanent thing, and that singular permanent thing most likely refers to the house you were raised in or the house your family resides in. It feels different to be going back. It's not that I don't want to go back to San Jose, I do. I really can't wait to see familiar faces after 2 straight months of "Hi! What's your name? Not that I give a fuck, I'll probably forget it in 10 seconds. It's nice to meet you too."

Regardless, I have met great people here in L.A. But I ramble..home to me is not permanent. The word "home" is degraded by its usual interpretation as the location where one lives most of her lie. Typo, I meant life. But "home" shouldn't be associated with a place, it should be associated with a feeling. It's where you feel you belong, where you are most comfortable, where you can be yourself and live without external restrictions. Of course, this can include the area where you were raised, but is not exclusive to it. It's important to distinguish "home" not as a geographic location on a map, but as a spiritual place for yourself. A home has no boundaries.

Go ahead, brand me a desperate teenager trying to create meaning from finally leaving the cuckoo's nest, but it's pretty much as real as it'll get. Right now, I've never felt more at home. Oh the miracles of Cat Power. Well, it's almost 7 p.m. now. I bid you farewell before I miss my train ride "home."

Tactfully,
T.J.