"two lives to live, but just one man, stuck between good and bad, slowly but surely going mad..." - duc

justice for duc, something that demands to be watched. i've got so much anguish pulsing through my veins my knuckles are turning white, "no more prisons" is something easier said than done, wish i donated my books to jails last semester instead of selling them at ned's, can't be a leader if i don't live it, all i got is this stupid blog to vent on.

sasc 2004, long live the bright eyes of a student, watch em shed fire as they cry, two things that they'll take home:

1. how to play big bootie (big bootie, uh huh, big bootie big boote big bootie) and
2. when someone yells "go back to your country," yell back "fuck you" (or rather, "you go back to your country!")

this is not about hate, but rather about love, that the love for your community is stronger than anything you've ever imagined, bigger than your own backbone can wrestle with, so enticing, so daring that every cubic inch of your body demands to rock steady, remember this, you are the ones who should never be afraid, doooo it, and not just for your community, but all communities, women, gays, lesbians, everybody, you know, like what mike said: don't just say it, believe it, feel it in your chest. don't just be an architect, be the home, don't just be a dancer, be the rhythm, don't just be a writer, be the language, and please, don't hesitate, you can lose the uhs and ums... there's nothing to be shy about anymore.

i am sprinting through a park at 6 in the morning, the sky is red, and laughing like kate winslet in a montauk beach house, i overhear the summer wind whisper to the stars that they need to get a real job, that all they do is stand around.

word to what lili said, "moving forward yet again," all you can eat shrimp, spilled crabs, big bootie number one number one big bootie, mike tran speaking about love under a chinatown gate, jeremy's blue hat, motorcycle and photography stories over apple juice, spoken word poetry juking out of a camcorder, ring-around-the rosies around a lamp post, prof um advising us to all eat healthier, so sorry to make that old couple run away... i'm really wishing i could be around the high school students more.

been in berkeley for five days and still have yet to sleep in my own bed. brother's in town so we're sharing a slim mattress together (no, no spooning.) other fine places to sleep: on the circular concrete benches outside dwinelle hall, in the folds of a thicky thick winter blanket in s' apartment, and on the faded floor of a unit 3 dorm room cramped with three other vietnamese dudes. living like a rockstar!

damn, spankin'! all my friends are heroes: congratulations to my boy jose vadi for making it onto the 2004 oakland slam team, and to kevin frigging murphy for taking first place in the architecture acsa wood design competition. effin' a! y'all make me blush.

(by the by, a damn nice record, courtesy of the g4, meaty ogre throws us leo vs pisces, a syrupy cd, it's sesame street with funk guitars, melt bones like butter on a steaming freight train, for you typical cats fanatics, peep qwel and denizen kane busting out like bonanza bananas out of their peels, in other words, i like it.)

oh, and my brother and i bought matching b-boy jackets. they're fugging urgly, oh baby!

last day of summer, see you in school.

art crimes has a not bad gallery of street art and graffiti from countries all around the world, but nothing from vietnam, cambodia, or laos. there's no hip hop in southeast asia? i don't believe it! do us all a favor, andinh ha, could you please snap a lomograph of the graffiti in saigon?

ps: architect zaha hadid's gotta be a hip hop head...

(photo: art crimes + weekly dose of architecture)

listening to ghosts through my headphones, an unkept promise over four years old... i discovered a lost letter written by my grandfather (i call him "papi") next to a litter of embarassing photographs and dusty vocab sat flash cards (how nerdy was i?) in an excavated bedroom, a story to his "petit fils bien aime" about how he yearns that i can one day visit vietnam with my petit frere sometime soon, an unkept promise over four years old, there's nothing like listening to my mother tell stories about my grandparents over satay and peanut sauce, i didn't go to his funeral and i've never forgiven myself for it, peace to all the kids spending their summers discovering the streets their parents grew up on, dig tiny holes in the dirt and plant an extra hullo and goodbye for me, slam your lips to the ground and never let go.

ladies and gentlemen, your sf 2004 slam team: jason bayani, liz green, adriel luis, jimmy thong tran, and geoff trenchard. gorgeous! one helluva team, it gives me so many goosebumps i'm having golden eggs for breakfast. hell yeah, they'll fuck things up harder than 10 000 fuck couches.

tadao ando: too fuggin cool.

db: do you read architecture and design magazines?
ta: I don't read them. just look at it.

db: what kind of clothes do you avoid wearing?
ta: nothing in particular.

db: do you have any pets?
ta: a dog named 'le corbusier'.

check out how he rocks an aging rockstar mane.

aiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaah!

can't write, can't speak, my voice is gone, i sneezed, and it snuck out by hiding in the wrinkles of a crumpled tissue. i threw it out and it took a bus to the beach, perhaps in search of shinnier things, it likes to press its ear against shells and listen to the spoken word poems of the sea.

could ya help a brother out?

i'd very much like to get my voice back, really i do, i won't mistreat it with bad poems or poor papers anymore, i promise! my voice is a quick one, speaks almost too quick for its own good, but when it's tired it likes to nap under the folds of my tongue. when it feels secretive, it likes to hide in the tiny holes of cypress trees. when it feels flirtatious, it sort of trips off my lips and falls clumsily to the ground. if you see it, please ask it to write back, i really do miss it.