"head-phoned"

i, head-phoned, head-bob ahead into this city, this place of stars and street lamps, lost in pens and papers and living off the aching awe of simply being surprised

dope song: neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea this one of those songs where the lead singer can't really sing (hey like me) but the song just sounds so damn sweet and beautiful anyway.

"uh huh"

we are unrealized
a tangle of roots with no light
instead of as flowers
we lift up
in imaginary colors

dope song: cat power's free

"how foolish"

i'm a young solider with holes in his heavy heart and head. these holes are all opened from within. in my backpack i carry letters i've never mailed to my teachers, my friends, my brother, and my parents. the things i carry are reminders of the things i've lost. i'm not a good student. i'm not a good friend. i'm not a good brother. i'm not a good son. oh, i know i'm good. just not good at some things. some important things.

and all i do is murmur stories of color. poems i pile up until i can climb high enough to step over the moon. but my poetry can't compose answers. or love. or truth.

how foolish i am to think it ever will.

and how even more foolish i am to continue to try.

dope song: rilo kiley's bulletproof

"beaming"

i'm just freakin' beaming right now. last night's show went very very well. the audience went bananas. the plays were absolutely dope. and we got awesome props for our short film "regret." i'm still smiling over that. comedy troupe was most excellent too... i don't know why, i almost felt like crying at one point while watching it. i was very proud. good job ricers!

and much love to those of you who came. thank you.

and much much love to those who made luca, jimmy, and i special underwear. thank you.

and much much much love to mom and the bro for coming all the way from la to see the show. thank you.

good god, now i have to study. tonight's show is going to be even crazier, i imagine.

dope song: amelie soundtrack (claude ossard)'s comptine d'un autre ete: l'apres midi crepes. i like crepes.

"the color of memory"

so this is what i was thinking on the way home tonight. the blues is something that i enjoy listening to only in specific occasions (not now), but when i'm in the mood for it, i really enjoy it. i suppose it's a strange conditional musical love on my part. not much to say at the moment except that theatre rice is really coming together and tomorrow we're gonna rock it like crazy. has blue always been my favorite color? i remember when i was lil, i called green my favorite to be different but i think i've always pretty much been a blue fan. well, blue-green is fairly swanky. oh, i also made buttons today. neato buttons.

the blues

why can't i sing the blues?

i got blues

blue is the color of my heated heart
the center of a flame
a tirelessly moving light
set to
torch
burn
warm
shine

blue is the ocean, the rivers, and the sky
a universe that i take in every day
in my relentless search to know
this world

blue is the sadness of my people
the sadness of my ancestors
and the sadness of my generation

blue is the tint of my whispers
the touch of my shadow
the tickle of my spine

blue is the color of my memory
blue is the absence of radiance
blue is the oh so subtle hint of moonlight

i'm blue
oh so blue

dope song: weezer's in dreams the last song off the blue album is my absolute favorite one. but it's such a good cd overall. very fun. weezer kept me buzzin' back in the day and now it's all nostalgia music for me.

"and... good night"

so sometimes i'm not very eloquent when my friends confide in me. i'm usually taken aback when people trust me to listen to their stories/issues i often find myself so lost in listening to them that when it's my turn to talk, nothing really comes out. i can offer help and stuff like that, but sometimes i simply can't pronounce it. i suppose i'm more of a person who shows then tells, sorta strange for a poet, huh? but anyway, here's what i was thinking but couldn't articulate after listening to someone's story tonight

For Another Young Poet

tonight
like other nights too
you
appear
quiet,
near numb,
a midnight-blue
unable to cope with the falling sky
on your shoulders
your lips quiver
your eyes are still
and you long to
finally find some sleep
for a moment
all
you
have
is silence

both
the sun
and
the moon
live under the rhyme
of your skin
two lights in conflict
a parallel of
constant contradictions
and when
these
arguing brightnesses
palpitate under your breath
let yourself
swell
your tongue
your hands
your feet
let your yourself swell
until
you
you poem
finally
unfurl in fury

please
don't forget the poetry
in who you are

speak your dreams your earthquakes your mighty winds
your flowers your bursting laughs your heart

speak and become
what you love

and if you don't know
what it is
that you love
yet

i ask you to
run
run in your shoes, in your stockings, in your slippers, in your bare feet
run from here until the end
i'm not asking you to run away
i'm asking you to run towards
towards every impulse you may have
towards every sound your heart skips a beat for
into everything that scares you
startles you woos you finds you
run
climb the hills
bike to brasil
capture all the things that arrive by chance
and chase all the things that come to pass
run to your vibration
run until you love and never want to leave again
and then
still
run some more

not all poetry comes in words
and
neither
does your beauty

when all the light
and all the darkness
howl over our heads
and down comes
the rain
all the rain
as if the world appears
about to end
brave the storm
yearn to open
open your arms
and dance
in the empty streets
until the only
thing that has fallen
is the rain
and you
you poem
still
stand

not all poetry comes in words

so listen to this poem
with your body
your lungs
your eyes
your hips
your mouth
your hands
your wings
and
i
too
will listen
to
yours


yes. that's what i should have said.

dope song: otis redding's sitting on a dock on the bay ahhhhhh....

"and yuri"

i'm still reeling in my thoughts and feelings from last evening's benefit for asian american prisoners in japantown. it was such an amazing event. it shed light on the plight of eddy zheng and viet mike ngo, among others, prisoners who are being severely punished for requesting more ethnic studies classes in the san quentin prison college program. the whole event also furiously reminded me of how unjust and misconceived the prison system is in america. i don't really wanna lecture/preach right now but $50 billion dollars is spent each year to run prisons! in california, alone, there have been budget cuts that cut funds from education, from the caring for poor children and elders, from aid to disabled citizens ... while prison (and military) spending continue on and on. and then there are the plethora of horrible psychological effects of prison life. and how prison is the most racially segragated environment on the face of this planet. maaaaaaaaaan...

but maybe spoken word can really change the world. it changed me for sure. shailja patel, an indian woman, totally rocked the mic last night. she had this startling poem about chris mccarthy, a us soldier stationed in south korea who was sentenced to 6 years in jail for beating to death a korean bar waitress who refused to have sex with. poet ishle park was real cool, as usual. we all sang-a-long to bob marley after her set. humble and heroic yuri kochiyama, old school actvisit who dedicated her entire life to fighting against unjustice, encouraged us to keep up with the struggle. and bao phi, ol' bao phi, ended with a last poem "for us"

by bao phi, 2001: "for us"

this is for us
my people, who carry the song of burning sugar cane
in our lungs,
exhaling spirits with smoky spines
my people, who dig beneath seafoam with salted eyes
to exhume schools of ghosts
lost from the boats

this is for us, celestial, oriental, sikh
asian, asian american, man, woman, queer
broke, collegiate, young, old,
our beautiful black hair sticky
from colliding with sugar coated glass ceilings
the ones voted most likely assimilate
asians: the other white meat
bleached by colorblind lies
buying dkny and calvin klein
so our own bodies are gentrified
bedecked in sweatshop swooshes
resurfacing from under a pile
of the whote man's dirty laundry
to model our minority
cutting into our skin to get the right waistline
for our culture
showring fingers down the throat of our ancestors
to see what comes up

this is for us
taught to believe in magic
just not our own
mistaking appeasement for peace
and selling out for maturity,
while they box our geography
and sell it to bourgie boutiques
our culture quite profitable
but can someboy tell me
how our culture can be hip
and yet our people remain invisible?

divisible individuals
this ghosthood of honorary whiteness
miss saigonnng our way
into the pale arms of conmen

this is for us, twisting our names
into beached demons so that foreign tongues
could invoke them
mastering our own blondspeak scrabbletalk
this scored mishmash of grabbag didactics
cringing at the sound of our mothertongue's syllables
this is for us, who use our split lungs as divining
rods to find the flow of our last languages

this is for us
food stamp handed,
backs bent over microchips on conveyer belts,
hands like crumpled parchment from washing dishes,
microphones ablaze from poety and song
this is for us,
taking sharp turns in tangos
like breezes tied to lion's tails
this is for us
drunk off of friendship and stumbling through karaoke,
this is for us
the sugar of our love,
the kinship of our cupped hands
the riddles in our hair
which we pull out to make sure
it's still black
this is for our glowing yellowbrown skins blessing every horizon
and our souls haunting every twilight

this is for us,
who gathered the remains of fellow soldiers into cookie tins,
who sold cracked jade bracelets to raise our children,
who play hide and go seek with our ancestry,
who are forced to choose between silent and villain

this is for us, for all of us, who still don't know
how beautiful we are
this is for all of us, who still don't know how
beautiful we are
this is for those of us who run our fingers down
each others faces and swear that no one
would ever steal our beauty away again

this is for us
who wiped the milk
of honorary whiteness from our lips
and asked: got self?

my people, we area song that can never
stop singing against the silence,
we are lonely ears and lonely arms,

this is for us, this is for you,
this is for your momma, your father,
the street you cypher on,
the green terraces that haunt your dreams,

this is for the first time your hands curled
into a fist
for the time you killed and buried your sellout self
to become someone else
this is for the first time you picketed
for the first time you amplified your story

this is for us,
we are not dandelions, weeds thaty they uproot
so they can get their hands dirty on our soil,

we are sunflowers, a blazing field of brown eyes
standing together,

we douse our nerves with feathers and hot wax
cuz we know the only way to fly
is on the inside
so we fill the sky as black winged birds
eclipsing the day
drawing shadows across clouds

this is for you
this is for your yellow brown skin
this is for your black hair
this is for your black hair
this is for the the beautiful mirror i see in your eyes

this is for your voice
this is for you
my people
this
this
is for
us

UGH. damn. a night full of poetry and thought. that's one damn fine way to wrap up a long week.

dope song: typical cats' what you thought hops poetic dennis kim speaks accapella at first before dropping a real fine flow when the beat kicks in. dennis kim - or denizen kane - is one of those cats you have to see live.

"theresa's birthday"

theresa vu, we're all here for you. shots and shots. hugs and hellos. weezer sing-a-longs. strange fake-orgy/dance-athons. top rock lessons and fake vomit gags. rooftop poetry sessions and tvu freestyles. friends in circles or in corners. long bathroom lines and wrestlings on the floor. sleeping bag or carpet floor slumerers. bad jokes and honest compliments.

can anyone
catch a comet
with a butterfly net?

what about
a withdrawing star
fading away into the night
like a smile
over silence?

a glimpse
a precious glimpse
is all anyone
can ever ask for

dope song: cibo matto's spoon slam, bam, this song drives me up and down, to and fro, and on and on.

"holden"

i was going through catcher in the rye again. great book. i was mildy entertained when i first read it but now i think sorta love it. here are two passages that made me smile.

"I've read this same sentence about twenty times since you came in."

Anybody else except Ackley would've taken the goddam hint. Not him though...

"What the hellya reading?"

"Goddamn book."

He shove my book back with his hand so that he could see the name on it. "Any good?" he said.

"This sentence I'm reading is terrific."

and

... she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls, if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hands all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we won't quite till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

j.d. salinger. what an oedipus.

dope song: get up kids' out of reach this pleading song reminds me of how bittersweet i felt in between freshman and sophomore year. this song and i'll catch you. that was the time when music took over my life. i was such an emo-head. how insanely raw and lost and spiritful i was...

"missing"

haha e-mail i got from aiwa today:

oh bruce,
must you list all those nice things i'd like to do
this weekend? for you must know, all i ever do is
comedy troupe... comedy troupe comedy troupe, comedy
troup.. i counted, in the last five days i have put in
27 hours of comedy troupe.
i just keep telling myself it'll all be worth it.
:)
--aiwa

it is very sad when you miss out on things. i hate missing moments. missing opportunities. missing potential joys or revelations or chances. i've missed many in the past... i'm determined to impossibly not miss anymore in the future. down with school, that's not even a priority anymore, i want to see what this world has to offer, experience what i need to know, learn all i can, because sometimes i get light-headed at the thought of how much i don't know... and how much i want to know. i want to know this world. i want to know this all-embracing freshness.

dope song: white stripes' we are going to be friends this is one of those songs that remind you of the old days when you're a kid and you just play with your friends and do stuff like that. it's sweet. i have a crush on meg white. drummer girls are sexy. i am such an exotifyer, huh?

"a startle"

"you kind of remind me of a comet, not a fall into the earth kind of meteor... but a once every 167 years kind of comet," says she, "just make sure you remember that if you ever feel confused about anything, you are blazing heavenly rock in a elongated elliptical orbit."

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayaaamn! that's the freaking coolest thing to say... i have much love for you too.

dope song: badly drawn boy's magic in the air so freaking beautiful

"late night writing"

it's late and i still can't sleep. but i hope no one out there worries about me not sleeping. it's not like it's a bad thing. i'm awake doing things i like. like showering. today was sprinkled with some moments of quiet relief. and some moments of slight realizations. watching comedy troupe perform makes me miss the creative group process. that's what i live for. this acting in a play is fun and all but there isn't much room for creativity beyond character development. yes, yes, i'm learning a lot about myself, but it's not really my thing. what is my thing? man too many to list... sure, there's the whole quest for love, thirst to learn, an insatiable want to help people, and the rest of the goody-two-shoes in me, but what about the rest of me? the rest of me that doesn't want to be the fireman but wants to be the fire. the rest of me that's trouble. the rest of me that's set to blow out. i'm balancing both and i wooosh woooosh wooooosh!


tonight
as the world settles into
a discolor of darkness
the stars
must have a lot of love to give
but
must really not know
who to
give all their precious
hints of brightness
to

dope song: u2's in a little while it's a very nice listen.

"stuck"

dissapointing days greet me every so often i'm no longer stressed when things don't fall right into my hands. sitting back in the dorms in the wee hours makes me very nostalgic. like satre said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. i had some very good times sprinkled with some not-so-good times in the dorms but all in all it was a mindblowing experience. apartment life has been more stable because i'm on my own time now. or maybe i'm just used to the chaotic pace life usually takes.

we're editing the experimental video project right now while being bungled by all sorts of crabby tech fiascos. i'm sneaking in a blog entry while the rest play around with some footage. it's all cool though. i'm getting my share of laughs.

dope song: souls of mischief's 93 til infinity chill hip hop for chill times

"wild"

days are daring yet too much to handle at times. people keep changing all around me and i'm not sure who's who. or maybe i'm the one's who's just acting different. times are mournful or times are cheerful, it's a truceless situation. the streets of san francisco need to be explored more. especially the spots that are potentially haunted. or at least with atmospheric dining. i'm going to give up aim, it keeps me away from the things i love to do. you know what i love. if you read my blog often enough you'll know.

my wild destiny
saddles a-top shadow and space
but i be a cowboy born to bebop
all through the thirsty days
i
unbounded
chase with a strange heart
til the end
of this race

dope song: tallulah david's strange gravity tallulah's a local student artist and dear friend and this song always moves me. she just sings and writes so beautifully. "so i'll be your moon turning in your strange gravity, even though i know whatever i do, i won't pull you completely to me." if you ever catch tallulah, throw her a guitar and ask her nicely to perform a slight something something.

"just a long day pt. 2"

another crazy long day! ditched classes. went shopping for costumes. rehearsed another exhausting run through. caught del the funky homosapien in lower sproul. hit up bindlestiff to watch the live mo' life comedy show. ate at mel's drive in. and now i'm back. ol bruce is too tired to do anything now. must wake up early tomorrow. i will write some nice poems later.

dope song: deltron 3030's memory loss the instrumentals on this track are tight! and del's speaks real smooth and sick over it all. deltron 3030. it's a very tight hip hop cd. innovative techno-ish hip hop beats with del talking all abstract and sci-fi like. dan the automator and kid koala are very slick producers. very very slick.

"just a long day pt. 1"

crazy long day today. woke up at dawn to film footage for the short film (got some pretty nice shots), went to class, ditched some class to have lunch with some folks, went art supply shopping, went costume shopping, had an exhausting rehearsal, got sushi for dinner, checked out denise's home home, got back to berkeley to spraypaint art, and now i'm back home. but i got creative and i'm now i can sleep slightly content.

i spent way too much time with andinh. i think we were around each other for about 15 hours.

and i forgot all about my homework that's due tomorrow. i'm way too tired right now to tackle it. i'm just gonna wake up bright and early and try try again.

dope song: the rolling stones' goodbye ruby tuesday hey, i'm also an oldies fan. the rolling stones are my favorite (did you know a lot of the cowboy bebop episodes are named after rolling stones songs?) this was one of my mom's favorite songs when she was my age and now it's one of mine.

"creativity in the bag"

before i begin the following crazy creative creations (all to be done within the next week):

- big ass painting collaboration with kenny
- hip hop in the park posters and flyers with jimmy and kenny
- the untitled backwards short film with andinh, evelyn, and sara
- chapbook poem revisions
- all perspectives show skit

i have to clean my room. and get some sleep. i gotta wake up at dawn (5:30 AM!!!) to shoot some film.

i think today is the beginning of a very long yet eventful string of days.

dope song: quannum (and lyrics' born)'s i changed my mind dayamn this is some fiery bluesy hip hop and boyee does it make me wanna sing and dance!

"SIGUR ROS"

i felt like dying at the sigur ros concert. i was so moved by the music i was squirming in my seat. at one point i couldn't take it anymore and i wanted to explode and leap out of my seat! so beautiful. so passionate. with each song came a crazy new feeling. the music hit almost every note in my heart. how can i understand someone without even knowing their language? how can a person understand me without ever meeting me? i think i was just looking for myself in their music and i found myself over and over again. freaking beautiful. so freaking beautiful. i was so exhausted after the concert i just wanted to crash on the streets of oakland and just laugh, laugh, laugh...

"transcendental orgasm." yes. that's how i would describe the sigur ros' concert.

dope song: man, anything sigur ros right about now. ... but then again, it's a totally different experience listening to it off your computer and being there in person. ok another dope song is the faces' oh la la it's my favorite song from the rushmore soundtrack.

"cat bus"

so tonight on the walk home from the library i see this swerving bus come at me and for a split second it looked like - and this is because of how the play of light and shadows hit it - the giant cat bus from the movie my neighbor totoro. ferreal.

life is pretty busy but i dig it. an and i made a strange promise tonight. well, i didn't really promise anything. i was just sucked into the promise. i shouldn't really think about it. the promise won't come into effect until a very long time from now. kinda like that eulogy promise i made to andinh. it's one of those long term deals.

i just performed some poetry this weekend but i gotta get back on my feet and write even more. i have a ways to go with my writing and i just have to keep pushing, keep believing, keep struggling, keep creating until i can finally write words that feel right. the creative dream of publishing a book will come this summer. oh it will.

it's unbelievable how some people don't know how beautiful they are. it's heartbreakingly unbelievable how some people refuse to believe that they're beautiful.

dope song: sigur ros' svefn-g-englar it's just so sweeping and epic. like the music of gods, or something.

"thumb kissing"

i love reading interviews. i bought a bigass book today called "W.W." that features a bunch of interviews with some arteests that i admire, like graf artist doze green and composer umebayashi shigeru. doze's works is beautiful, strange, and sometimes a little somewhat scary - a chaotic jazz of colors and faces. shigeru did the haunting soundtrack to wong kar wai's "in the mood for love." damn i love that soundtrack. shigeru says "Movie scoring is like relationships. You meet your dream girl, you develop strong feelings toward her, then naturally you will take actions to get close to her, you will try very hard to hold her hands. I compose for movies in the same way. I never consciously work as a movie composer; I am just like an audience watching a silent movie." wow. bam.

day light savings time came by and bit me in the butt today. good thing i wasn't too late for my rehearsal.

the conference went by cool yesterday. golda supanova is a freaking awesome. we all thrashed and everything. i remember back in the day when marques, jimmy, luca, and i were all mad crushing over golda. i wish i had more time to go to workshops but i was too busy running around taking care of last minute problems. after the conference, i got dinner with jade and rick. we tried to pull a prank on her but that backfired (it seems all pranks on her backfire for some reason.) afterwards we hit up my apartment to chill before heading out to dom's lil party. thumb kissing is fun until dominique fights back.

and we all shared secrets at the party.

dope song: atmosphere - "god's bathroom floor" jazzy hip hop song about i'm not really sure but it sounds real cool.

"post open-mic"

crazy day today full of running around berkeley to prepare for the api issues conference followed by running around san francisco with jade in search of something that will fly. something that flies we did find but as usual, we got lost. jade's just great with directions. open mic was full of very talented acts but i especially felt josh and julia's performances. i was moved. apparently i have something called "gee" aka "flaming energy" when it comes to poetry, says sara's mom. i then went to a surprise dinner for birthday girl lisa. in case you guys didn't know, i'm the bastard brother of evelyn and the distant cousin of josh.

i would say more, maybe even something poetic but right now, i'm more tired than i've ever felt this entire week. but tomorrow's the conference so i have to wake up early. it's going to be good. i'm very excited. if i wasn't on the brink of collapse i don't think i would be able to sleep.

oh and i went to santa cruz to perform the other day. karma police is a beautiful skit. i almost cried again while watching it.

tomorrow, tomorrow i will start getting some rest again.

dope song of the day: jon brion's here we go sometimes i feel like this song was written for me. or all the other people out there like me - the kids with stranded offbeat hearts.

"APA"

brothers and sisters!

if you're in the bay area this weekend, come check out the 13th Annual API Issues Conference at UC Berkeley. It's going down on Saturday, April 5th. All day. Morning til evening. Check out the website: http://multicultural.berkeley.edu/apasd/conference2003 and register to get some free food. We all got issues. Shall we go? Shall we dance? Shall we?

on another note: I'm playing the "Vagina" at Santa Cruz this Thursday.

Dope song: Lovage - Archie and Veronica it's so smooth and sexy

"leap"

jade said she loved my writing tonight. that's real soul-lifting. i can't imagine my life without writing. i can't breathe sometimes until i can squeeze a stanza or a rhyme out.

so today was a very chill monday. i hung out on beautiful sproul in the roasty sun with some nice kids. i seem to spend too much time there but i just love it. there's life and i feel it deep down in me. all the faces, all the snapshots, all the stories... it's just so spanking! rehearsal went very well today. denise and i just flow well on stage and jimmy's a damn helpful director. i'm getting into the groove of it. the issues conference is coming together slowly but surely. and breakdancing (or at least trying to) is a good escape from my busy days. i'm digging it. the reinvention of the language of our bodies.

you guys ever get the feeling that life doesn't seem to change?

"in the leap between lips and lips"

in the leap
between lips and lips
a cool wind whispers
the stars shake in sync
as the sky overflows
with a raging fervent
light
a luster
a slow
silvery
longing
for love

can
lips and lips
ever be
incomprehensibly
inseparable?

will a poet
not in love
and not heartbroken
still be a poet?

when will the one day
that determines
our one wild
and precious
lives finally come?

in the leap
between lips and lips
shut off the bitterness
shut down the rain
shut up the stars
and please
just
shut in
the
unraveling
universe

dope song: johnny cash's hurt a sob sob sob song but i smirked when i heard it today and i don't know why. ah yes, i know. i'm just a weirdo.