Tuesday, June 3, 2003.
Skimming:
Amy's Audrey
magazine. I signed her
up for a subscription. She likes it.
Nominated
for: Diarist.net
award. This entry.
I forgot to mention this all month, and now the voting
period is over. Oops.
Congrats
to CYN
and her little bun in the oven!!
TOTO AND COMPANY
Like an uprooted house in a Kansas tornado, the adventures began shortly after my brother Mark whisked into town with his new dog (a Siberian husky).It's always a treat having him come up to visit. He moved to North Carolina years ago in an effort to start a new life and escape his old one. Free from high school expectations or awkward reacquainting, Asgardian winters and unrelenting mothers.
At my son's one-year birthday party, Mark got along so well with my cousin and brother-in-law that we all decided to go out afterwards. For the next three nights. To strip clubs.
But the best part was getting to know each other a little better.
"I take my dog everywhere," Mark said petting the dog he's wanted his entire life.
Fortunately that doesn't include the "nudie bars."
THE TIN MAN
We started out just going to the bars. I don't usually go out like that, but I really liked the company. Besides, they needed a designated driver. Amy didn't mind either, since my brother's visits are always special occasions.
Despite being thirty-two years old, my mom still says "you should go out with the guys more." I've spent over two decades learning to make myself very happy while being alone - drawing, reading, gaming. Other than Amy and a few unusual outings, much of my personal life is probably spent like a boy in a plastic bubble, only it's more like recycleable metal instead of plastic.
"It's cool to finally talk with your brother. You guys are so different but alike," my brother-in-law mused.
"How are we alike?"
"Well, you are both really intelligent, just about different things."
"You know what really amazes me about my brother, though? The way he can just talk to anyone about anything. It's like magic," I admired.
"Actually," Broken Fist paused, "I think most people can do that."
"Oh yeah," I said chagrined, "You're probably right."
"Dude, I'm surprised you came out with us," he said, "We should do this more often."
"Yeah - hey, I think I'm going to check the video games out."
"Come on, play pool with us."
"Uh, okay," I half-heartedly agreed.
I was teamed up with my brother-in-law, whom I refer to as Broken Fist, due to his reformed brawler history. Well, that and the fact that he broke the same bone in his hand three times.
At first I was a little rusty, but my preadolescent pool-playing skills came back to where I started feeling like a well-oiled machine again. The familiarity and precognition of what a shot from this angle would do versus this angle-plus-one felt like a familiar shoe. That's all pool is. Angles and imaginary mirrors.
Both teams lost a game by scratching on the eight ball, effectively defeating ourselves each time.
"You can be pretty funny in your journal. Too bad you don't bring it out more in person."
I sipped my Pepsi while trying to think of a witty response to keep to myself.
[Insert empty can slurpy noises here.]
THE SCARECROW
"If you could be whatever you wanted, and money wasn't an issue, what would you be?" Broken Fist inquired like a great host.
"I'd be a writer," Kevin said.
"Really?"
Before Kevin started his journal none of us would have ever guessed his deeper, sometimes darker side. We already knew about his funny and occasionally obnoxious side.
It's safer to tell complete strangers about yourself than family sometimes. It's easier to put on the happy mask with the sewn-on smile and button eyes for the sake of family peace and privacy. It helps to scare away that murder of crows threatening to devour those fields of joy.
Kevin seems pulled in different directions. He's still looking for someone he can truly relate to. Still looking for his confidence. His career. Floating somewhere in the center like a straw man in a twister of clouded doubts.
"… The only problem is I just can't think of a good beginning," Kevin explained.
Finding the beginning is the hardest part when you're already stuck in the middle. We could all plan our beginnings a little better,
If we only had a brain.
At family gatherings though, he'll always be that fun uncle with the modest self-deprecating humor of a Corean George Costanza. He'll just have to write his own material, like the rest of us. At Festivus.
THE LIONReal Fight Rules, observations by Broken Fist and my brother Mark :
1. Real fights aren't about honor. No one cares if you cheated or not. The only thing people remember is who's left standing.
2. I don't care what level blackbelt you are. In a real bar fight, no one uses that crap. Real fights are short, sloppy and cramped. It's about instinct, not fancy moves. Sometimes you even hit your friends on accident.
3. The best way to win a fight is to end it just before it starts. You know that Moment of No Return when you can see in the other guy's eyes that a fight is about to erupt. That's when you hit him first. End it right there. Both of you will be less hurt in the long run.
4. I can't tell you how many times I've fought with some guy, only to be great drinking buddies with him later that night. Half the time they'll want to talk and be your friend after you just floored him. Guys are weird like that.
5. Don't fight a guy with cauliflower ears. (Don't mess with a wrestler.)
BROKEN FIST: "So, Mark, tell me what three things you hate the most."MARK: "Hmm… Conformity, bullies, and cheap tippers."
BROKEN FIST: "Me too, bro."
The good thing about being with Broken Fist is that if there's trouble, you know he can take care of it.The bad thing about being with Broken Fist is that you worry about him starting it.
He's wiser now. He doesn't get in fights anymore. He's incredibly charming and sincere when he wants to be.
"I've been in about forty or fifty fights," Broken Fist confessed while driving to our first strip club.
"I fought a lot in school (in Detroit). They'd call me 'chink' and all that, thinking I'd be all passive and shit and not do anything about it. My dad taught me not to take that kind of shit from anyone. He grew up in post-war Corea - it was all gangs back then. Kids would carry around pipes rolled in newspapers and shit."
(Maybe it was the company or maybe it was the alcohol, but I'd never heard Broken Fist even acknowledge such thorny wounds in his past. His dad is now a peaceful religious man.)
"When we moved to this upscale neighborhood, it wasn't all that different, just not on the surface as much. They'd pick on the few FOBs and the geeky Asian kids. Every time I'd find out, I'd beat the shit out of the guy right in front of all his friends. Got suspended alright, but pretty soon no one fucked with ANY Asians after that. Because they knew I'd find them.
"When I'd walk down the halls, people would literally get out of the way. I'm not even bragging. I just hated that passive little Asian stereotype shit. Hated it. ... I helped all those Asian kids and they probably didn't even know it … It was stupid," he said running a scarred hand through his rampageous mane.
"… You would have loved that movie Better Luck Tomorrow," was all I could add in my post-roar awe.
It's not easy being king of the jungle.
Soon, the night's abandoned streets became bookended with electric polychromatic neon from a sinner's wet dream.
We were about to find out just what lies somewhere beyond the rainbow.
(Continued in next entry, eventually....)
(This is the kind of look I will be getting from Amy when she reads my next entry.)_________________________________________________
MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL
Today's HOT MODEL is
KIM.
This hot hapa lass is Kim Lee, half-Corean and all tiger. She's a confessed boba drink addict (like the girl in the shirt) and aspires to being the next real life Tekken character. She's a martial artist (Tae Kwon Do Hwighting!) and an artist-at-heart and painted that blue dog in the background, a portrait of her own Taylor. Check out her amazing and delightful artwork here.
Kim is married to a handsome full-Corean and plans to make the world a better place with her own 3/4 Corean angel (chunsa) some day.
I am detecting some serious parallel half-Corean twin vibes here.
(Click here to become a MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL. It's free and clothing is optional.)
