A Cotton Candy Autopsy

Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim -- Dim being really dim...

This is a great story -- thx to whoever pointed this out to me...

L.A. Escorts

doing some spring cleaning today and came upon this thing, which i ripped off of a lamp post in L.A. when we were there this past x-mas. for anyone who's heading out there, this sounds like a great opportunity to make some extra money -- just by escorting "celebs" and "other VIPs"! how can you go wrong? i mean, they're advertising on lamp posts, they've got a their own website, how can it NOT be legit?

Requiem for a Weekend

M.Alice has made it through the week... TAKE THAT, ALL YOU NON-BELIEVERS!!!

despite the scare -- earlier in the week -- involving that guy who found some crap i wrote about him on my blog two years ago and was hurt (who i'll keep anonymous for now, unless he forces me to escalate it...), in addition to some other more troubling personal news that i also won't be sharing here... i am feeling optimistic about the weekend.

in a way, i guess it's good they don't make 9/11 a holiday, because it'd be a shame for it to lose its meaning the way memorial day weekend has. imagine 9/11 as just another long holiday weekend to open up some big tentpole movie.

not that i have anything against big tentpole movies. (clearly.)

looking forward to getting some editing done. the show i'm editing is looking cool. i haven't gotten very far, but i'm pulling out every trick in the bag to make it look and flow as awesomely as possible. it's cool to be editing my own show for once. it's a lot easier, in a way, because i don't have to be afraid about pleasing the author of the script. if things don't work, i can just cut them out. i'm hoping to send this tape out when i'm done, and hopefully earn some converts...

and then i will start a war to end all wars...

(if the FBI is reading this, i mean that figuratively.)

if you're not one of my enemies (yet), have a great weekend!

Wilson...?

it occurred to me, this mourning, that working in my office is a lot like the game of SURVIVOR. (i'll spare you all the href to the website... i'm certain you can find it if you really wanted it.) anyway, that analogy...

in my new position, i find myself trying to act friendly with people i don't necessarily like -- more so than i normally would. forging these alliances to protect myself. it is a somewhat rotten sensation, but it's almost a part of the job. it's what keeps you "in the game".

i just did something that should afford me a lot of praise/notice from the higher ups. i wasn't going for it and i don't think i necessarily want it. i much prefer to shii-ann it here: stay low profile, vote off whoever everyone else is voting off, stay in it as long as i choose.

is it only wednesday? feels like i've been here forever...

WAR!

the difficult thing with making yourself known on the world wide web is that people can find you. you can never really know who's reading what and there is a tendency/desire to be more *diplomatic*, to edit yourself just in case.

fuck it, though.

it's a fucking blog, for fuck's sake.

this is my space where i'm going to be as honest as possible. i can be a sublime liar when the situation calls for it, but i hate lying. i *do* edit myself here, to an extent, because it gets more complicated when you get more readers: vocal and silent. but as much as i can, i'm writing this thing to purge my truthful world view.

i'm not here to burn bridges, but frankly there are some bridges i'm never going to want to cross. bridges that lead nowhere. and even if, some day, they lead somewhere -- i'll find another way around.

it's called "misanthropy central" for a reason. i'm sick of some of the shit i've seen. on a personal level. on a local level. on a national/global level. sometimes, i am so filled with contempt i can taste blood.

i have no mouth and i must scream

today was the kind of day i was hoping for at work. the workflow was super slow. got some reading done. did my rounds on the internet. a nice, easy day.

then why do i feel so MANIC?!

i've got a few more minutes to clock before i can clock out. i've already checked and rechecked all the sites i browse on a daily basis. refresh browser. no changes. no new updates. no new comments.

C. finally posted something new to her blog, after a 2 month break. she's gone to see TROY this afternoon. *I* want to see a movie!!!

Malice never wins...

guess i'll just slouch back homeward. dream of a life less lonely... i'll be sending a basket around to collect your pity...

PUNCH OUT!

a world of mondays.

just for the day, i'm posting my lame "Punch-Out!" themed logo.

first of all, it's only partially based on the well known "Mike Tyson's PunchOut!" on the NES. the "player" wire-model is based on the original arcade version. i know there would have been a more popular response to the inclusion of "Lil Mac", and it would have been easier to animate, but i decided to go more obscure.

secondly, clearly, i got lazy and skimped out on the animation as a whole. i thought i could get by with less frames, but it just looked sad, and i didn't feel like doing it over, so i just kept it. the "player" character is supposed to be beating up the "misanthropy central"/"bald bull" character, but the bald bull just looks like he's falling asleep.

anyway, i'll keep it up for the day and retire it... have a decent week...

Mother and Son Reunion?

Well, for some reason, I'm having a hard time finding as many pictures of Estelle Getty on the internet as there are pictures of Tarantino. I just think he looks a lot like her in this picture:

Cold Front (UPDATED)

we got a new refrigerator today! well, we've had a really ghetto one that our building provided, but it was the *worst* fridge i've ever had: one door, with a tiny little "icebox" inside that was supposed to pass for a freezer, that was perpetually smothered in frost, that was barely big enough to house a pint of frozen yogurt or some valuable jewelry; dairy spoilages became a constant ordeal down in the tepid refrigerator. with this new fridge, we can enjoy something we've done without for the past 9 months:

ICE CUBES!!!

our crazy elevator guy was still at home asleep when the delivery guys came, and the delivery guys didn't want to wait 5 minutes to use the freight elevator, so they hand carried the fucker up 3 flights to our crib.

"we're carryin this thing, so you gonna take care of us...?" the main guy says.

"sure," i says.

(as soon as they got the fridge into our apartment, i shot them both between the eyes.)

EDIT: By popular demand...

REFRIGERATOR PERRY
MEMORY LANE!!!

the death of the party

[insert some vaguely appropriate picture here]
didn't feel like blogging today but the day's almost over and it looks like i'll survive, so here i am. (though i'm too tired to insert a picture to go along with this one.)

barely slept last night. couldn't sleep, so i worked on a title sequence for a video i just started editing. and then i imagined creating a noose out of my belt.

my new position at the office kept a rollin' today. i'm like a substitute teacher, except i'm a substitute office coworker -- complete with making small talk with each new group of coworkers as i fill in. i didn't realize what an integral part of that is to my new position. as the title of my blog might suggest, i don't easily get chummy with everyone. at work, particularly, i'd rather read a book/magazine than chat about my plans for the weekend.

but at this job, you really depend on your coworkers to watch your back when the heat is on -- so even the ones you hate, you have to make friendly with.

i feel like such a fraud (my face is still sore from fake-laughing at a coworker's paintball anecdotes for an hour this morning), but it seems to be working.

ok, once again, i've shared too much on this blog. thank god it's thursday.

life is unfair

i know i ought to thank my lucky stars for having a job, and a paycheck, and blah blah blah. and i'm thankful, in my own way. but i'm sick of it.

i am trying to be somewhat careful, blogging from work, because it'd be a lame way to get axed. so i will try to be as vague as possible when referring to my actual company. (but if i did get fired, maybe it was just meant to be.)

anyway, i started actually doing the job that my "promotion" entails this week. i resist the urge to suggest that it outright stinks. i figure i need to be doing it for a while to see if i can get a rhythm going. these 9-5 jobs are so dependent on familiarity. *boredom*. which is difficult to iron out with my new position because it entails being at different desks on different days, working with different people, often with little advance notice.

both blokes who were doing my job before me told me that they *loved* it, compared to what we used to do. but i have a suspicion that both those people *like* other people a lot more than i do. (that's why this isn't called "philanthropy central".)

i guess i'm more ornery today because i got so much done yesterday. sleeping in helped my mood a lot. i can only imagine how much i could accomplish if i could work on my *real* career every day. (or at least get more done on weekends.) so much time gets wasted trying to pay the bills. it's really disheartening. i know someone who quit his shitty day job to pursue the real career full time, and i remember him talking about what a difference it made. something to work toward. i'd be so much happier. i might have to lighten the background color of my blog...

A Failure to Communicate

called out sick today, slept in. last minute decision, i think i really needed it. work's so meaningless anyhow, and despite the "lateral promotion" and the "rate increase", the fact remains that I'm still just a temp who's been there for 3+ years who doesn't even get health benefits. fuck it. fuck em.

anyway, the extra time will help me get some shit done. the biggest trouble with going from working 8-hour shifts to working 10-hour shifts is that my evenings are significantly shortened. still, working 4 days a week, i can't complain... but i will anyhow...

Yellow Daze on the way to the Butcher

I finished editing the video footage from the two nights of C.'s YELLOW GIRL reading, from way back in November. Just watched it on our big 20" tv screen (it's big for *us*), and it plays really well, I think. I can finally clear that footage off my hard drive...

Next, I've got to tackle the monster that is my own Butcherhouse Chronicles reading. I haven't seen a frame of the footage I shot for that thing. Guess I've got my summer cut out for me (if I can resist the alluring embrace of suicide).

I'm going to try to put something new up this summer. I think C. thinks I'm slumming trying to do this theater stuff because I've always been about film, but I've always felt the two things satisfy, artistically, in very different ways.

I could sell a screenplay to Paramount (o!, please let me sell a script to Paramount!) and see that script get rewritten by 10 different writers before it goes into production.

In theater, as a writer, I think there is more ownership of the material. It's yours, for good or ill. Sure, the end result can get mucked up as badly as a film can get mucked up, but those words are still yours. That structure is still yours. It is not written by a committee. It is, in more ways, intensely, perhaps unbearably, yours.

Anyway, I'm trying to get this phantom career of mine off the ground. If I wallow the rest of my life in self-pitying obscurity, I'll at least leave the archeologists some curious manuscripts to dig up in 500 years.

(On weekends, I bury my scripts in holes around the city for this purpose.)

Fell On Black Days

Whatsoever I've feared... has come to life
Whatsoever I've fought off... became my life

Whomsoever I've cured... I've sickened now
Whomsoever I've cradled... I've put you down
Soundgarden

New Model

"To be free, one must give up a little part of one's self..."
You might notice the subtle redesign. I modified one of the new templates that the relaunched BLOGGER is offering. (I could go into a rant about Xanga and how this design is *not* based on Xanga -- but those people are worse than republicans about defending their party...)

Alas, one of the sacrifices of updating the template (and having switched commenting services that one time) is the the loss of old, archived comments. So to the 2 or 3 people who have actually left comments on this site before April 2004, your comments have become the stuff of myth and urban legend.

I've chosen not to change my commenting system a 3rd time (since BLOGGER now offers its own in-house commenting) because I like my current commenting function better.

Invariably, there will be some further tweaks to come as I try to get my hands dirty fine-tuning some code.

Browsing my archives, I've noticed there are a lot more pictures on this blog than there used to be. Thanks be to GOOGLE (who incidentally own BLOGGER).

all that glitters is gold

hey, i'm as straight as they come. they don't make 'em straighter than me. but there is no denying that Brad Pitt is the sexiest fucking thing in TROY. The filmmakers clearly know that. He is a golden god.

one crazy summer

thick, wet, hazy, ugly dog of a day, here in the 8th circle of hell. since the weather switched abruptly from deep winter to nuclear summer, it has been a war just to get myself out the door in the morning.

this week was tough to fight through, for one reason or another. don't know if it's the weather or the steady stream of bad dreams or what's in the newspapers or the manic depression. this week, the world just seemed unbearable.

i watched the video of Nick Berg's murder by Iraqi terrorists. (don't worry, i won't put a link to the place where i found it; if you really need to see it, you'll find it on your own.) it is queasy how mundanely it occurs. like watching a fisherman gut a fish. there are some grotesque horrors in this world. i question my need to subject myself to them. it's not like i *enjoy* it. it's not like i feel better afterwards.

i just feel gutted.

more social engagements i need to tag along to this weekend. (clearly, i'm the life of every party.) oh, and the sister-in-law is coming to stay for a day or two. i should clear a space in the turmoil for her to sleep.

KABOOM KABOOM

I am a Scorched Earth Tank. When I have a mission, it consumes me; I will not be satisfied until the job is done. I have a strong sense of duty, and a strong sense of direction. Changes in the tide don't phase me - I always know which way the wind blows, and I know how to compensate for it. I get on poorly with people like myself. What Video Game Character Are You?

[Somehow "scorched earth tank" doesn't have the warmth or character of a "Pac-Man" or "Donkey Kong"... I prefer the following...]

I am Mr Do. I am sedentary by nature, enjoying passive entertainment, eating when the mood takes me, and playing with my food. I try to avoid conflict, but when I'm angered, I can be a devil - if you force me to fight, I will crush you. With apples. What Video Game Character Are You?

OR...

I am a Breakout Bat. I am an abstract sort of creature, who dislikes any sort of restraint. If you try to pigeonhole me, I'll break the box, and come back for more. I don't have any particular ambitions, I just drift, but I am adept at keeping life going along. What Video Game Character Are You?

Axlspotting

Last Day On Earth

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Dorothy Parker, "Résumé"

Someone jumped (naked) to their death from the Roosevelt Hotel, which is across the street from our building. Someone had to leave this world in a hurry...

I've been reading this book on suicide, NIGHT FALLS FAST. I read it in spurts because it can be a bit too *academic* at times, and other times it's fairly gruesome. It's unbelievable how many ways people have tried (and many succeeded) to commit suicide. [e.g., injecting mayo into your bloodstream...?]

Maybe there'll be some thunderstorms tonight, to clean this city...
jen2178

a sharp intake of monday

we had dinner with a friend last night, so i had to tape the big 3 hour SURVIVOR finale... but then i didn't want to come to work monday and have it all spoiled for me (though it was fairly obvious what the outcome was going to be), so i decided to stay up way past my bedtime and watch the long, drawn-out ending. i was just going to watch it till i found out who won, but then i needed to keep watching till i found out what their precious friggin "twist" was. they teased you with it so much, i was expecting host jeff probst to announce that he was a ghost, or that one of the survivors was about to be publicly hanged, or that mark burnett is the leader of an alien colonizing expedition and that the human race was a commercial break away from utter enslavement.

suffice it to say, the twist is that Malice is totally sleep deprived and clocked in at work 10 minutes late this bitter monday mourning...

SURVIVOR. for all of you non-watchers (and i know that's most of you), i swear this is my last Survivor related entry, at least until Thursday or Friday... and then i'll hang it up till the new season starts, or until i can't hold it in any longer...

watching the finale, i was thinking about why i find the show both brilliant and excruciating, sometimes alternately, sometimes simultaneously. a few years ago, i was a member of this asian american performance group. (let's call it "peeling".) i was in it for a bit over a year. there were some highs and there were some unfathomable lows. i don't think there were ever any malicious intentions on behalf of the people organizing the group or trying to keep it together (myself included), but you know what they say about the road to hell...

anyway, after the run of any show we executed, we'd have what was called a "check-out". everyone who participated would gather round in a circle and we'd go around and *decompress*. this would take on varying formats, depending on who was leading the check out process, but usually it was some variation on "what did you like about how this show went down?, what did you *not* like...?" with the really bad shows, it was like prying open pandora's box.

watching the SURVIVOR tribal councils is like watching really tense "check-outs" each week. each check-out leading to the finale getting progressively rougher until you are literally in an arena filled to capacity with rabid SURVIVOR (and presumably WWF) fanatics, cheering and booing their favorite and their hated *characters*, screaming for blood and sex and unattainable catharsis. jeff probst poking and prodding the "players" till the audience/producers get something close to what they need. it is gut-wrenching, particularly knowing that these "characters" that the audience loathes and adores are real people who have been edited and otherwise manipulated into good/evil characters by the showmakers. what a queasy night of sleep i had.

congratulations to Shii Ann (in the unlikely event she's reading this) for winning the car. [but what do you do with a car when you live in nyc? i always imagined if i ever won a car, i'd sell it for the money.]

the end came like clockwork. any drama was further defused by the live marriage proposal before the final vote count. what's the point of counting? it would have been a lot more interesting if they had broken up before this live finale. couldn't the producers have made this happen? for my enjoyment?

(i'll save you the time expense of watching this thursday: rupert's going to get the bonus $1mill.)

sorry for the lengthy post. i think i got most of it out of my system. congratulations to those who read through it all. to those who didn't? get in the ring...!

the lead and how to swing it

As threatened, Malice went to see the stars. Both nights. An impressive line-up of Asian American luminaries (read: people who are *not* Malice) brought together by the remarkable Nancy Bulalacao, who is the most popular girl in the world.

I must preface this story by saying that I always get anxious at the prospect of attending one of these "Asian American Artistic Community" events because, having participated in this community for the past number of years (here and there), these events usually turn into dysfunctional family reunions. (Or, as my family calls them, "family reunions".)

Having said that, I brought my human shield on night 1. I had utterly failed in securing a protective posse of any sort (Leo and Tobey were out of town), so I resorted to the old magician's trick: the magician brings his lovely assistant up onstage so that the audience's attention is diverted to HER instead of the magician and his sleight of hand. Of course, I couldn't find a lovely assistant, so I had to bring Korean American actress Monica Hong, instead. Blao!

Night 1 was fairly painless -- actually quite enjoyable. It wasn't too crowded and the show was engaging. [The premise being that each of the night's 17 guests were allotted 5 minutes of stage time to relate personal stories of being Asian American/artists/entertainers in New York.] 5 minutes was just enough time for the guests to shine without trying to "fill" and many of the people on Night 1 managed to say their peace in under 5.

People I particularly enjoyed: poet Tina Chang, who I'd never heard of before but was terribly eloquent; Deborah Craig, who always knows how to work a crowd (even though she only ever remembers me as C's husband); N.Rain Noe, who I've seen perform several times before at the Asian American Writer's Workshop and who I've always thought was one of the funniest/sharpest guys around; and Mike Kang, not just because I'm on a mission to kiss his ass but because his was very funny and strangely poignant, but not in a treacly manner. (And I just found out, through the grapevine, that he used to date someone from the first season of the IT Factor.)

Night 2 was packed. I hadn't secured any human shields -- wasn't even sure I'd go again, but I happened to find some other people to tag along with (read: hide behind). Night 2 was a bit more of the dysfunctional family reunion I had been anxious about, but I managed to weather it relatively unscathed. (I will purposefully be oblique here.)

Many more people ran over their allotted 5 minutes on Night 2, but it was a lot of big guns up there...

Standouts, for me: Ralph Peña, the artistic director for the Ma-Yi Theater Company; Ron Domingo, who also knows how to work a crowd (and happens to be a nice guy); David Henry Hwang, who told a nicely succinct story that didn't go over time; Regie Cabico, who definitely knows how to work a crowd and who's sort of a friend of mine (though he only remembers it when I'm right in front of him); playwright Sung Rno, who definitely never remembers me (though I directed a piece of his once, and my wife happens to be in his writer's group); the amazing Shii Ann Huang from Survivor, who is the whole reason I decided to pay admission for the second night (and, frankly, I was ashamed that only a minority of the audience seemed to know who she was); and Orlando Pabotoy, who closed and stole the show.

After the shows, I got Kang is Kang to sign my program. I tried to highlight his face, but it ended up looking as if I scribbled out his face with a green marker. Putting Xanga alliances aside, he generously introduced me to Shii Ann!

Now, I'm not sure why I was so star-struck with Shii Ann from Survivor. Maybe it's because this was the first season I ever actually watched the show, and I've gotten completely addicted. And the week she won that crucial immunity challenge -- when EVERYBODY I knew who watched the show was totally convinced she'd be gone -- was awe-inspiring. It didn't matter that she got voted off the following week. (Stupid as it was that the other players had TWO CHANCES IN A ROW to wake up and vote off either Boston Rob or Amber.) She had bought herself another week of pop culture immunity. This person that everybody else on the show (and in the audience) had written off had managed to rise up and stay fiercely in the game for another round. I know it was just television, and it was just a game -- but it was genuinely inspiring. *I* would have crowed.

I got to talk to her for a bit and she was super nice. She was the only person there I managed to give my card to because I had to run off abruptly. (If she's actually reading this, welcome to misanthropy.) She graciously signed my program and my night was complete!

a half-stitched scar

and you can laugh
a spine less laugh
we hope your
rules and
wisdom choke you
RADIOHEAD


ohh, can't anybody see?
we've got a war to fight here
never found our way
(regardless of what they say)

how can it feel, this wrong?
from this moment
how can it feel, this wrong...?

... i got nobody on my side
and surely that ain't right...
PORTISHEAD


you were from a perfect world
a world that threw me away today
MARILYN MANSON


nothing can stop me now
coz i don't care any more
NINE INCH NAILS


things aren't the way they were before
you wouldn't even recognize me anymore
(not that you knew me back then...)
LINKIN PARK


goodbye all you people
there's nothing you can say
to make me change my mind...
PINK FLOYD


i may have failed
but failing has made me
more dangerous
than ever
to myself
(to you)
to this plywood façade of a world
this is not a schoolyard taunt
this is not a threat

this is a declaration
this is a promise

everything
here
is made of
fuel
MALICE HIGHLOAD

happiness in slavery

the eerie thing about working in a big corporate building is how uniform the floors are. not completely exact, but enough to give you a strange deja vu sensation if you happen to use a bathroom on a different floor than the one you're normally wasting your life on.


still debating this Asia Society thing. it's $15 for *each* night. do i really want to shell out an extra $15 to see Shii Ann from Survivor and possibly shake her bony hand of death? and how depressing will it be...?

"The weekend of stories explores the varying notions of community, the highs and lows of love in an urban landscape, and the struggles of individuals who have chosen to build and maintain a creative career."

Am I just going to want to shoot myself hearing about how everybody *else* in the community has accomplished so much more than I have? It's like watching a parade of people who are on the Dean's List. Meanwhile, I'm trying to scrape up a 2.5 average...

It'd be one thing if C. were going, but she's got schedule conflicts on both nights. I been trying to drag Christofah with me, but he can only go to one night. AND I CANNOT GO ALONE!!! I NEED THE PROTECTION OF A POSSE AT SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!!

If you're reading this and I know you and I'm not enemies with you and you're Asian and you're not performing in this damn thing, you may be receiving a desperate phone call from me in the next day or two as I try to not go to this thing alone... you have been warned...

the mirror has two faces

Find out who's linking to you.


Last night, I read a draft of the script for Batman Begins (the new film being directed by Chris Nolan). It is terrific. If Nolan can work some magic with the visuals, this could be something breathtaking. I can't wait for the action figures.


VERSUS

"We're too cool..."

I want to see this thing at Asia Society this weekend (hell, it seems I know half the people doing it), but it's split into two nights and Kang Is Man is on night 1 and SHII ANN from Survivor is on night 2! (Guess they loaded up the big stars on night 2...)

I hate being Asian...

the biology of suicide

what a craptacular day. an hour and change left to go before i can clock out of this hamster wheel i call a job. Spent the day reading a bootleg copy of the what is supposedly the script for the New Batman Movie and reading a book about suicide called Night Falls Fast. The gray skies sheltering the city do not assist in lightening my mood. I am the darkness in your heart. Pray you never see me!

An Unquiet Mind

Made it through the weekend in my usual haze. Saw Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart at The Public on Saturday. Matinee show, $5! Written in the mid-80s, about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, it's a pretty brilliant show. (Wear a raincoat if you're in the front row -- there's a Gallagher-esque part in the second act where a character starts splattering grocery items on the stage floor, culminating with a full carton of milk. It's a highly dramatic part but I had to keep from losing it. No wonder Gallagher's so popular.)

It's gray and rainy in the city that never sleeps. It's a good day to die.

Mother's Day is coming up, isn't it? Here's my reminder to myself to get something in the mail for me mum.

I cannot wait till it's the weekend again. I've been sleepwalking through a lull for too long. I need to start writing again. I need to start getting work out there. The world forgets that you exist too easily. I don't want to become successful posthumously.

when the music's over

Survived prom night. James Lipton made an appearance toward the end and gave a speech offering everyone encouragement. He is so down with the sickness. Huzzah!

Replacing Baby Pac with Robotron on account of the unpopularity of Baby Pac. I've got another one that should be more crowd-pleasing, I'll save it for next week when I'm bored.

Still have a birthday I've got to get through tomorrow night, promises to be a scream. Why do we know so many people? It's so much responsibility...