Monthly Archives: August 2008

Creative, Simple Shorts

When your shell just isn’t enough.

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I opened my eyes just like any other day; blinding.  It takes me another fifteen minutes before I’m actually out of my bed and ready to face the day.

What kind of day is it going to be?  Is it going to be another day that I can’t hide from anything?  Or, is it one of those perfect ones where I just blend into my surroundings and just disappear, hiding from the world?

I push myself off the bed and drag one foot at a time to the bathroom.  Archie, my little spaniel, plays follow the leader, following my step with four of his then ultimately running circles around me before I reach the bathroom.  I bend down and scratch the back of his ear and his hind leg twitches uncontrollably.  There’s the spot.  Feeling that split second of attention is enough, I softly nudge him away.  Defiantly, he pushes his body into my legs.

I point into the bathroom.

“You want a bath?”, I mumbled in tired Chinese.

Fearing what might happen, he scurries away.

I turn on the bathroom light and the chaotic whirring of the bathroom fan screams.  I shake the noise out of my ears and focus on the reflection before me.  Nothing’s changed.  Still the same frown lined face that I see every morning and every night.  I quickly open the medicine cabinet and retrieve my toothbrush; leaving the medicine cabinet open as I brush.

Archie watches me carefully from outside, waiting silently for me to finish.  I call him again for a bath and he runs away again.  So cute.  The only thing that ever pays me any attention.

I spit and rinse, it still doesn’t feel fresh.  It never feels fresh.  Never that burning sensation that gives you a sense of security that the toothpaste and brushing actually did its job and actually worked.  Maybe that’s why I’m single.   Halitosis.

Finished, or finished enough for me, I do what I usually do next.  I take a sit on the throne, relax my bowels and hope that it is a good movement.  Sometimes I don’t even hope for a good movement, just any movement.

As I sit there pushing, I watch Archie watching me.  I start to think whether he loved me unconditionally the way that pets do or if he only likes me because I feed him, or that he actually doesn’t like me at all but really tolerates me because he has no choice.  I watch him carefully, thinking if he’s plotting to escape from me when he gets a chance.  He’s making notes that when I take a shit and if the opportunity presents itself, he’ll run and I’ll have to decide to wipe or chase.

Then my thoughts turn to a happier time in my life; a simpler time.  I was about eight or so.  Things were just so much different back then.  How twenty years or so can change someone.  Who would have thought?

I had this turtle back then.  It was a small little box turtle that I caught at the local lake.  I named it Donatello.  It wasn’t very original, but c’mon, I was eight and Donatello was like the coolest Ninja Turtle.

Thinking back about it, warm huggy feelings swarm over me.  Thinking about how happier I was back then.  I really wasn’t that much different than I am now.  But, I actually knew things then instead of the constant doubts that I have now.  But looking back, I actually did think that Donatello did love me unconditionally even though I turtle-napped it from his home.

Archie starts to lick himself.  Some love.  Selfish is more like it.

Donatello was only a turtle, I know, but he was everything to me.  He was my world.  I was a shy kid, but he didn’t care.  He’ll chase me in the backyard, albeit slowly, but it was fun.  He would eat the veggies that I left out for him and stayed in the bucket that eventually became his home.

He was all I needed.   I didn’t need any friends.  He made me happy.  I was just a shy lonely kid with an active imagination.  Donatello was a giant lizard that was stomping Tokyo and all I can do was watch in horror.  He made life bearable.  He made me feel safe in this world, bigger than I actually was.

I was actually needed, loved.  His life depended on me, well my parents who provided me with the food, but through me, Donatello was fed.  I was actually someone then, the person that took care of Donatello.  Now, I’m not much of anything.  Just another face in the crowd.

Archie gets up and walks into the room, out of sight.  Maybe he needed more privacy or maybe he’s tired of looking at me.

*** *** ***

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the sick weekend and other STUFF

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Ella Ego Tripping

This past weekend was another yearly pilgrimage back home to the good ol’ home state of Washington. Instead of just a regular vacation, it was for my cousin Tu’s wedding. Strangely enough, I haven’t seen her in two years, and it was a good 15-20 before that. But overall, it was nice to go up there and talk to her again.

I’ve taken quite a bit of photos, some are still in the works, but they are all shared at my flickr account. Here’s the link to the photostream: www.flickr/hermitsmoores

Overall the trip was marvelous. There were a lot of loud Chinese family moments that got a lil’ annoying, but overall, it was great. The tea ceremony was cool, and I’m sure Neil’s family and friends were quite interested in it, considering they are African American.

Sometime early during that weekend, I got sick. It wasn’t like I caught a bug from Sohail or anything; or even on the plane, ’cause I did feel really well on Friday, the day of the wedding. I think it had to do with the bed I had to sleep on during my stay. It was the usual spare bedroom that I stay in while I’m up there. It’s the bed.

The bed is hard. It is like granite, with every move, every position, killing you because there isn’t anything that was comfortable. I didn’t get much sleep that weekend. So, I got sick.

It started with the throat; always with the throat. Then the body fatigue; then the sore body. I was aching all over. But I have to suck it up and just go about the remainder of my days up there. I can’t just possibly stay home because there was just a lot of family time planned. TONS of family time planned.

Dim sum, lunches, dinners, repeat. Throw in a round of golf in there to just make it a typical visit too. It was just constant eating. Which I don’t mind, but c’mon, that’s just a lot of eating.


The Fatherly Escort

Again, overall it was a good trip, a good wedding, a good banquet.

It was one of those Chinese 12 course meals. I was practically done with the third. Just too much food, but great food though.

Again, with all trips back home, the question will emerge its lil’ head. Where’s your girlfriend? It was a little tough considering the wedding should make you all lovey dovey with holy matrimony and what baloney that it comes with, but I managed.

With my Auntie and my Mom, a simple, “what girlfriend?” sufficed. I’m no longer with her, and all was dropped. My cousins were a lil’ different. They want to know why, and I told them.

In a way, I do regret doing it, even though it felt right and still feels do. There’s not been a day that I don’t’ think about her, but again, it’s not like she doesn’t come up in my day. Whether it is a chat with a friend or even with her, she still comes out. She’s not out of my life, and I don’t know if I want her to be out of my life. We make good friends. We do. I’m not going to lie about that.

We get each other. We know how to make the other laugh. She takes my shit and gives it back, as I do with her.


Red: Anticipation of Forever

And seeing her the few times since I’ve gotten back, it doesn’t seem like anything’s really changed on how we act, besides that I just don’t touch her anymore. Maybe it is all surface. I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Maybe I don’t really see her, don’t really know her like she says. I don’t know the philanthropist that is her. I don’t know the girl that gives me free drinks at the boba shop. The girl that is willing to give money to help people out, when she needs the money. The girl that loves little kids. The girl that loves animals. The girl that has a heart that is too big for her; a heart that she doesn’t know how to protect, letting herself fall into stuff completely. The cute girl that would laugh that wicked evil laugh because she can’t just not use it. The girl who hates shit, but is surrounded by it. The girl that complains about Pickle’s horse shit. The girl that hates stupid people like me (as in I hate stupid people, not that I’m stupid. Well maybe it can work both ways). The girl that is much stronger than I give her credit for, but can be even stronger.

I just don’t know.

I’m just here in this new writing space that I may or may not come back to trying to write my lil’ diatribes and my recollections and thoughts about the wedding that was. I’m just here to get some thoughts out of my head and just try to focus on other things, like my writing or even the writing group that is tomorrow. Trying to think about the bicycle that I’m getting so I can save some gas money and get some exercise all at the same time. I’m trying to think about the photos that I still need to fix and post. I’m thinking why I’m not taking more photographs. I’m thinking about why I’m not writing more. I’m thinking about why I’m so lazy sometimes. I’m thinking about the Reno trip. I’m thinking about a family reunion that I’ve always wanted to plan.

Speaking of which, it seems that Tu is down for getting one together. I might get some help in making it happen. Great. Hopefully it’ll work out. Hopefully it’ll be great.

There’s just a lot of stuff that just floats in my head, waiting to find an outlet. Maybe I can just forget. Simply forget.

How will that work for someone who has an elephant’s memory? How does that work indeed?

I’m thinking about should I get lunch today, or should I just eat whatever I have in my fridge. I’m thinking about the seven hours I owe Blair.

Maybe I’ll just leave it here and get started on my day of bike shopping, vacuuming, reading, and netflixing.


Ella’s Contemplation

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Drumming Heart

Change. It had to be done. I’m not making excuses to make me feel better, but it must be done. I broke a heart that wasn’t mine to break, but it had to be done.

Feelings started to change and it just didn’t feel right….to me. It’s hard to be selfish in a situation like this, but it is the only thing that I can do to make things easier, not just for me, but for the broken heart.

It couldn’t go on any longer because it’ll just make it even more difficult. If the heart was attached more than it was, I couldn’t have done it in good conscience. Eventually it’ll just eat me from inside; killing me in slow misery, which will eventually dissolve us months, years, centuries down the line.

The time just isn’t right. The moment just isn’t there. There’s just something wrong and two wrongs don’t make a right.

Space. Suffocation. Anger. Hatred.

Nothing is connecting. Nothing is making sense.

Touches and yearning goes unanswered or it is just unsatisfying. I can’t breathe. There’s no air.

Something is just missing and I don’t think there can be anything done about it. It’s just not there…for me. No more. It’s just gone.

Thoughts nag at me, hoping they would go away. Thoughts linger in my mind as I push them away. They scream silently in my mind, echoing is all they can do.

What was there just fell. What was there dissolved into something that wasn’t right.

There’s no one to blame. I couldn’t be the Knight that saved you from your demons. There’s just too many to fight. I tried, but I just couldn’t. I felt helpless, seeing anger consume the heart, losing you, swallowed into darkness.

I’m not you. I don’t understand what you are going through, where things went wrong. I try to understand, give aid and advice is all I can do; guide you to salvation. But I can’t force you to change, to just let go.

It’s not my place to make you change. That has to come from the heart to be genuine. It has to come from the heart for it to be complete, but it just seems the heart is stagnant, not wanting to change because it is comfortable.

I’m the crutch to all of the problems; someone to lean on when the heart can’t beat anymore. It’s draining to stand by, listen, and not be able to do anything.

Maybe I’m from Mars and I just don’t understand this Goddess and her way of thinking. I want to be there to listen, to help, because as the Knight, that’s what I’m there for. But all I feel is inadequate, useless; as I hear the same problems over and over again that pains you.

It breaks my heart to hear your pain through your tears, but it also tears me up to know that I couldn’t help. I couldn’t make you happy. I am not the man that can bring you joy.

There’s just too much for me. I’ve failed you as a man. I have. There’s no excuse about that. The only thing that I can do is to walk away, so you can teach yourself to be on your own. Fix your own problems and stand on your own; independent, happy. Fixed.

I can’t save you. As hard as I try, this Knight is only a Squire in Knight’s armor. No more, no less. I’m not a hero, yours or anyone’s.

I can’t say that I feel good about the decision that I made. It pains me to know that I broke this dear ol’ heart. It kills me to know that I couldn’t stick it out to make it work. It pains me to put it through this mess, but it is the best thing that I can do.

My feelings changed; drained empty of patience. It no longer breathes the life that it once breathed. It died somewhere along the way. Maybe one day, like a Phoenix, it’ll be born again from the ashes, but until that day comes, it is what it is.

I cannot look myself in the eyes going on pretending that everything is all right when clearly my heart pounds that it isn’t. I would be the Dark Prince if I strung the heart along, tugging it by its heartstrings and then throwing it away once I find another.

I can’t do that. I didn’t want to do that. I had to let it go so it can learn to fly on its own.

So I just sit here listening to the heart’s hatred of me for what I did. I just sit and take it, because it is what I deserve. It is an outlet for the anger that it has boiling inside. I sit and take it. That’s all I can do, because it helps put her soul at ease.

Whatever is best for her.

I’m not going to pretend and think that I know what is best for her. I only think I know what is best for her and that is this break. This space. Sure the root of it comes from selfish reasons, but a part of it comes from the honesty of the moment. She needs to be on her own to fight her own demons, kill them on her own terms.

I’m not even sure if what I did is the best thing, but it feels right. My heart regrets the decision, but it no longer screams. It’s calm, quiet, satisfied that it is done. It pats my back, good job because it is right. Just deal with my pain for abandoning her and fix myself.

I do hope the heart is able to mend, pick all of its broken pieces back and fix itself. I hope it comes back stronger, so it doesn’t need someone weak like me to hold it up.

I see the heart’s potential; strong like a thoroughbred’s, full of blood, life, able to beat freely, strongly without fear. But it’s nowhere close.

What happened?

A big heart like that must have gotten crushed when it was younger to make it so weak now. Malnourished of love, neglected. A heart like that just has so much love to give, but it just doesn’t know how. It’s not healthy, not beating the way that it was meant to be.

The love is mostly filled with bitter memories that it can’t let go. It is shy to beat any stronger because it doesn’t know how. It hasn’t been used to its full potential. It only beats because it can. It only beats because it has someone to help it beat. It beats just enough so that her crutch takes over and does the rest.

It needs to throw away the lifeline and learn to beat on its own. Be fearless. Be strong. Don’t be afraid to look at the tough times ahead and face it without fear. When times get tough, don’t hide away, deal with it. Put it aside, let it slide away, let it go

Let it go.

It is all gone and done with. You can’t change anything. It’s done. All you can do is to take what happened, and put it away, let it go and live. Move on careless.

Life is hard. It isn’t easy, but it gets easier as you get stronger. Challenges that were like Everest to climb becomes a small mound of dirt that you just walk over. With time, things get easier.

Make an effort to change. Don’t fear it. Move on from the hole that you are in and just dig yourself out. Stand up and walk away leaving it behind you.

There’s no point. No point in holding on. None.

Soon the past would just be a distance memory, the future is a blank canvas, and the present is full of colors that you can use to paint your Mona Lisa.

Be strong. Be willful. Be fearless. Look in yourself and let go; be free. Don’t be tied down on things you have no control over and take control over things you do.

Let go. Be free. Beat strongly to your own drum.

Critical, Films, Reviews

The Dark Knight in the shadows

*****SPOILER WARNING*****

Let’s just get this out of the way first. The Dark Knight is an awesome film. I dare to say an excellent film. It’s been a long time since I’ve been blown away by a film. A really long time. With all of its awesome-ness, it is not perfect, but it is a great follow up to Batman Begins. The acting was top notch, the story runs deep and twists come with every turn. Sure it could have been trimmed a good 20-30 minutes, but I would rather have an overblown The Dark Knight than no The Dark Knight.

I’m going to assume that many of you all have seen the film already, so I’ll stop reviewing it. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?

Again, Nolan has brought it with a fearlessness seldom seen in films. Many commentators and fans have been suggesting that Nolan transcended the super hero genre and made it his own. This is no Burton’s Batman. This is Nolan’s. Gritty, down to earth. It feels real. There is no need to suspend our beliefs, convincing us that it is a different super hero movie. Not out of the world “how’d he do that” questioning. Reality.

First and foremost, The Dark Knight is not a super hero film but a full blown crime thriller drama. There are twists and turns in every turn in trying to capture the ultimate villain, the Joker. Take out the vigilante in a crazy costume and put in a regular rogue cop, in the Batman role, it would still work. Batman really took a back seat in the story. This story really isn’t about Batman and who he is, but ultimately the battle of reality. Good vs. Evil. Doing what is right and avoiding the wrong. The shades of gray of reality.

The late Heath Ledger will be missed. He stole the movie, disappearing into the role, owning it. He had become the Joker. There is no Ledger left on the screen. Far from Nicholson’s campy comic Joker of Burton’s touch, Ledger made him dark, frightening, fearless, a pure agent of chaos. Just utterly magnificent and haunting.

Ultimately what worked well in this film is that Batman really took a backseat to the rest of the characters. It is the ultimate battle between good and evil, light and dark. The Joker vs. Harvey Dent. It is a battle of wills to do what is right, fighting evil at every turn, and doing it right, by the rules. And Harvey Dent did it. He did it. He is the White Knight to Batman’s Dark Knight. He was able to clean the streets of Gotham from crime without having to break any rules. But ultimately it is the Joker that wins in the end, breaking the will, the ethics of Harvey Dent by taking away what he cares for most, his love, Rachel Dawes.

How do you defeat a man who has no rules? How can you? You really can’t.

Throughout the film, the Joker always has the advantage over everyone in the film. He plays by no rules, playing the chess game four moves ahead of everyone else. Even Batman was no match for the Joker’s chaos. Batman seemed weak next to the Joker, always playing into the hands of his master plan. Though the Batman breaks rules, a vigilante who takes justice in his own hands, he still plays by the rules. His one rule, to never kill. That held him back. That is what separates him from the Joker and that is what separates him from Gotham’s White Knight. Rules.

Throughout the film, Batman always seemed like a wingless bat, trying to keep afloat in bringing down the Joker. He’s stuck between the lines with nowhere to go, desperate to keep afloat. He has no control over the situations at hand. Even with the help of Commissioner Gordon, he’s a helpless pawn that the Joker plays with at his whim.

Batman is castrated, unable to perform because of his one rule. Sure he’s strong for not breaking it, allowing chaos to continue because he wasn’t willing to break the rule, but it is because of that one rule he’ll never succeed over the Joker. Surprisingly in the cynical times that we live in, it is the goodness of humanity that wins out over the Joker. Simply, they just didn’t push the button and the Joker counted on them to do.

In the scene with Batman on the batpod and the Joker with a rifle, the ultimate clash between the super hero and the super villain, it is Batman that veers away, unable to do what he needed to do to end all of the chaos. He couldn’t kill. The guns on his batpod are good for only shooting obstacles that are in his path and nothing more. They aren’t meant to be shooting down villains.

Later in the interrogation room, Batman violently and physically abuses the Joker trying to get information on where Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent are. What does the Joker do at his threats? He laughs whimsically. It was all a part of his plan and everyone, including Batman, is playing right into it. He never felt threatened in the film. He always had control and never lost it, until the end.

The ultimate villain, unafraid to die, has all the power and the control in the situation. He has nothing to lose.

Somewhere between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, it seems that Batman has been falling in line with the Bush Administration. Sure he’s a vigilante, needing to bend the laws and civil rights to clear crime off the streets, but he has been taking more of a Bush approach in solving the situation.

He would fight crime, bending the rules as a means to an end. The biggest social commentary is that of the ridiculous Sonar device that taps into everyone’s cell phone and creates a tracking system on everyone. It is the whole Patriot Act of the Bush Administration. Sure he justifies it with Lucius Fox not liking the idea and giving his notice if this device is ever put in use and at Wayne Industries, but ultimately the device is put in use and afterward, it was destroyed.

The civil liberties of the Gothamites are breached and thrown away on a whim to do what is right. It is a means to an end.

Batman seems to be doing things as a means to an end. From going to Hong Kong and kidnapping the Mob’s accountant and extraditing him back to Gotham suspending our civil liberties to do what is right. It falls in line with Bush’s approach in the last eight years.

Bush invaded Iraq without any just means but to find WMDS. He bypassed the diplomatic way and just invaded Iraq which resulted in a war with no end in sight. It was a means to an end to get Sadam Hussein. That’s great an all, but there are international laws for a reason. Like Bush, it seems Batman doesn’t have to follow those rules.

The spying and taping our phones, emails, our private contents hoping to find more terrorists residing in the United States, Bush passed the Patriot Act. The reason for it is great, to weed out the bad guys and protect the nation, but it is done by jeopardizing our freedoms. Batman with his little sonar device did that.

A means to an end. Does that justify breaking laws? It seems to Batman it does. I guess being the millionaire playboy that he is; he should fall in line with the Republican ideals.

Sure in the end, he destroyed the sonar thing, but it shouldn’t have been used in the first place.

After all is said and done, the Joker captured, Two-Face (the fallen White Knight, his good side and bad side divided) is dead, the Batman runs.

He’s not a hero as he proclaims. Harvey Dent was a hero. Batman is who Gotham needs to be at that time.

Like the government and those in position of power, Commissioner Gordon and Batman create lies to maintain the status quo; to keep us citizens in line. It is a empty facade so we have something to strive for. Batman is not a hero. He’s the one that must do what is needed and pay the consequence for it. Why? Because he’s strong; stronger than most. He’s a man alone in the world with nothing to lose but everything to care for.

He is The Dark Knight

So he’ll be in the shadows, fighting crimes in his own way, by his own rules.

Films, Reviews

Tonight He Comes: Hancock

This is the much needed SPOILER WARNING. This review contains SPOILERS.

Hancock is Will Smith’s latest venture into darker more mature material. Directed by Peter Berg, Hancock tells the story of a reluctant hero, Smith, who is a bitter alcoholic with anger management issues. Because of his isolation and the public outcry against his “super hero” antics, which causes more damage than actual “saving”, Hancock never connects with anyone or feels that he belongs in this world.

He’s lost in this large impersonal city of Los Angeles; a reluctant superhero, not because he wants to be, because he has powers of one. His life changes as he saves a PR guy, Ray, played by Jason Bateman. With his infectious idealism and honest heart, he transforms Hancock into the true superhero that he always had potential to become.

Overall, Berg crafts a great tale on how Hancock fights his demons and comes to be the Hero. It is a dark satire on the whole superhero genre, poking fun at certain aspects left and right. Smith does a great job in portraying the asshole superhero that he needed to be to show the arc that Hancock went through in the film.

Hancock is exactly the type of superhero movie that I love. He’s not battling an arch-villain or an exterior force that threatens humanity. No. Hancock is battling himself. He’s fighting an interior battle; his personal demons. When you have an immortal superhero, no exterior force can defeat him, so why even bother. Only he can defeat himself and when we first meet Hancock on a bus bench, sleeping off a hangover, he’s already at the bottom, broken and defeated.

Berg handles the transformation that Hancock goes through perfectly. It was actually pretty good up to the last third of the film when Charlize Theron’s character, Mary Embry, throws Hancock out of the kitchen walls and into the streets. Those of us who can put two and two together and see the glimpses of another super hero from the trailers should have seen that coming a mile away. With that knowledge, I was expecting Berg to take the film to the next level, but unfortunately he dropped the ball.

Actually, it wasn’t him that dropped the ball. It was the script. It just fell apart. There’s no excuse for it, and with where they are going to take it, there’s no way around it. The tone suddenly changes from the light tone of poking fun at the super hero genre to a serious melodrama.

Some might be expecting the revelation of another super human will give Hancock a super-villain to fight, but it doesn’t. It just ends up being a melodramatic couples fight with shoddy exposition; the exposition of Hancock’s origin. Instead of leaving Hancock’s past and origin with a simple “I don’t know” it goes the route of explaining who Mary and Hancock are and it’s utterly ridiculous.

These two super humans are immortals left on earth by the Gods, the Olympians, which once looked over earth. It just happened that they are the only two left in the world. Their history together, as a loving couple, dates back literally to forever ago. They are a pair, created to be with each other throughout time.

They only separated out of love for each other, because of the mandatory kryptonite factor. Once these two super humans are together, they become mortal and eventually they’ll die together. Out of love. Love makes us mortal. Without it, we are only self-righteous Gods.

Tragic, these two lifelong lovers are torn apart so they can survive.

Luckily for Hancock, he has no memory of ever being with Mary, so it is easier for them to part. It’s not the life ending be all end all that great loves should be, because they aren’t in love at all. They are just two super humans that exist. Their history thrown away like the last third of the film.

Maybe I’ve gone in watching the film with low expectations because of the bad word-of-mouth spreading like a wild SoCal fire, but I came out enjoying it for the most part. It was damn near great when it was the joking, mocking, self discovery of a reluctant hero growing up, fighting his demons and becoming the super hero that he was meant to be. But ultimately, all greatness comes to an end, and it involves a woman.