California

Prudence would say to come out and play tonight,
As the sun goes down and the fireflies say hello,
With lime green flashes in the wind,
Children of summer, flashing green with laughter;

A green balloon goes flying by in the sky, it's 1999,
We love to speed down Highway 1 past the palm trees,
Not a cloud goes by, not a day turns night,
The traffic lights always saying go, go, go;

Sunday mornings trying to keep up in town,
Trying to keep still in the breeze,
I'll try the other shoes for a change,
Feels a little strange, this Sunday morning;

Creeping in the sand, on the surf, in the red summer sun,
Body free is a Venice Queen, Queen of Venice Beach,
Where did you come from? Where are you going?
All those dirty brown bags and that shopping cart, but no groceries;

My eyes sometimes get a little rusty,
Just thinking of you, and all that you do,
What will be our anthem for the Year 2000?
When will be the next time I wish I brought a camera?

Taking snapshots of the fires we start,
Drifting upward, gently lifting, lazy on the wind,
Red and yellow sparks, when I stoke the embers,
Turning slowly on my own spit, I burn freedom tonight;

Every day is a Pacific coast party, setting over the waves,
And every day is a holiday in flames in my head,
Nobody can ever take my baby blue away,
The quiet black streets of California, poisoned with purple rain.

First Impressions of Home

- My mom and dad age remarkably slowly... hope it's not Botox
- Don't buy Lever 2000 Body Wash... I'm sure the soap is OK, but the body wash doesn't spread very well... it's like trying to cover your body with congealed jam that's been in the back of the fridge for three months
- I live in a very large house that looks like the house of rich, wealthy people... living in Shithole College House (I mean, Gregory) all year made me forget that my family is somewhat wealthy now
- Please don't come kidnap me just because I said I was wealthy... it was tempered with the qualifier "somewhat"
- The first day I got back, three people recognized me just out on the streets: Will L., Alison M., and Anwei C., thus making me feel both rich and famous
- I need to start getting out and seeing people I haven't seen in very long times
- Not sure what to make of this very new, fancy Blogger look... on the one hand, Blogger has become a much more powerful tool, and coupled with the new "gmail" stuff, I'd say the Blogger/Google collision is producing some magnificent sparks... but I can't shake the feeling that Blogger now looks and feels more and more like Xanga/LiveJournal, and less and less like the underground, web savvy, rock 'n' roll, stick-it-to-the-man weblog tool I fell in love with over three years ago... Blogger used to be indie rock... but now it looks almost like they are... dare I say it?... post-grunge sell-outs...
- The China trip just might turn out to be fun after all, despite the efforts of my parents to, um, exist
- Nobody likes the long hair for some reason, except me
- I could probably waste my entire life on the Internet without realizing it... and so could you

Last Update From The East Coast

The Rundown:

- Went to a Mozart concert on Saturday night at the Kimmel Center. Incredible seats (Frank is the man. The Shit. The Man-Shit.) So close I felt like I could reach out and grab the conductor's ass. None of the players even looked at the conductor doing his thing (something you don't notice from the nose-bleed seats). Exotic Mozart was the theme. All of his Turkish-inspired music. Intense. Beautiful. Almost fell asleep though, too tired. But picked up again when violin soloist came out. Fucking riveting. Then some opera singer came out to sing some arias. Little too pompous. Conductor seemed like a very arrogant jerk the whole time. Part of the job description probably.

- Walked face-first into a locked door a couple days ago and broke my aviators. Not my most graceful day.

- Now have 19.45 gigs of music thanks to Emily. This way safer than BitTorrent stuff. Still a bit wary of anti-piracy winds. Currently rocking the reggae-ska-punk-rock stylings of Sublime. More to them than just the handful of radio hits, for certain. More socially conscious than I had previously thought. Definitely owe a lot to Bob Marley, the first and foremost socially conscious reefer.

- Done with classes today. Not looking forward to home. Will be boring, except for (hopefully) daily basketball and occasional meet-ups with long-time-no-sees. Little sad to be leaving. Eric was an awesome roommate. Next year will totally rock 'n' roll though.

- China soon. First or second week of July. Not sure what to expect this fourth time. It's been seven years since the last time though, so things probably much different. Grandma must be getting old.

[EDIT]

- Watched Junkyard Jazz perform on the street outside Fresh Grocer, right there on the corner of 40th and Walnut. Just a guy surrounded by plastic buckets and metal pans, going at it with drumsticks. Laid down some ridiculously phat beats. (Yes, I did just say that.) Paid 10 bucks for their five-track CD. It was awesome shit. I dug it. That's 10 bucks in support of our underground music artists. That's 10 bucks in defiance of Britney Spears, Inc.

- An empty room is one of the sadder places to be in this world.

And thus concludes the Philadelphia chapters. Texas next.

The Unauthorized Ballad Of Alan D. Zimmer

A fog lurks about this part of town, I know almost for sure.
I heard it through the grapevine.
It's like a wrinkled broadsheet tumbling down Broad Street;
Old ads for a lime green couch and a slightly used second-hand blender;
Things you'd have to hunt for, overshadowed by the screaming headline:
THREE BODIES FOUND DEAD, JEWELRY MISSING.
LAKERS LOSE PLAYOFFS, 4-1. WILL JACKSON LEAVE?

Cold wind always makes things worse;
Funny how the weather changes you and me.

It sprints down the fast lane, fast;
It slows, it rears up, it shakes its head, and keeps going,
but changes its mind before changing direction.
It has a mission. I have a mission too. Never talk to it.
Just keep walking. Pretend you can't hear.
Pretend you didn't see it coming up to you from the right.
You're in a hurry, you don't have time, it's not yours anyway.
It will ruin your life. You will ruin mine. It's life as sunshine;
Life as something you wear from a department store;
Life as something you wash and drive once a week;
Life as something you pick the right colors for;
Life as something you order from a catalog.
That's all I've got in my pocket. Sorry.

But whenever the cold wind makes things worse,
we just laugh at how the weather changes you and me.

And so you've got a feeling now,
and I can't stop myself from remembering my dreams,
and reliving them in living Technicolor.
You're my Technicolor lover;
The world was black and white before you,
but then you had to walk into the room;
And now you're walking out, and I can't think of a single reason to stop you.
You invented "perfect" anyway, not me.
Always hated the word, in fact.
Maybe someday on a subway, I'll catch a familiar face;
But most likely not. I hope not, at least.
So I'll see you around, in black and white, on a lime green couch,
unable to recapture, unable to remember, unable to recare;
Because it used to be that true love was something you wore;
Love was something we washed and drove once a week;
Love was something with matching colors;
Love was something I ordered from a catalog.
And now you're gone.

So why did the weather have to change you and me?
The cold wind just made things worse.

I can't believe it escaped me again the other day;
I was just walking by myself among the night and lights,
the storm of humanity in New York City that swallows us whole.
I had nothing to catch it with and so it went,
and so it goes, and so it always goes, and so it went, and so it goes,
but it could have been a brilliant career;
Something I built in the underground-club circuit of life.
New! Off-Off-Broadway! Seminal talent! A refreshing voice!
I must be off-off-my-mind to still be here tonight,
at the same spot I've walked over now ninety-six times, trying to catch it again.
I always work up a cold sweat (cigarette) doing these repetitive mental sit-ups.
They told me it's why I have so much trouble in the first place.
I told them it helps, so fuck off. In a cold sweat, I'm your marionette.
I should chase it tonight, I should really get after it;
Run around street corners, talk to that girl with black glasses.
What do you read? What do you need?
Do you want to live tonight? (Do I?) Let's do something to this town,
instead of always letting it do things to us.
(Drugs, baby;
Sex, baby;
Blood, baby;
Like magic;)
But I'll forget it when it's over; it's me--
Sorry for your help, thanks for your time.
Look at the clock, we slept it around; isn't that lovely?
And my cold sweat and cigarette walked out the door, lost again.
There isn't a Greek goddess in sight tonight, not even a Helen,
not in the usual places anyway--too tired for it--
no street corners or dark one-mattress rooms,
no coffee shops or balconies,
no jazz clubs or cigarette stores,
neither your place nor mine.
Not tonight, darling; New York isn't Kalifornia.
It's not even art, anyway--art isn't inspiration;
Art is something I wear from a department store;
Art is something I wash and drive once a week;
Art is something I pick the right colors for;
Art is something I order from a catalog.
It's not you, though, baby, it's me.

Cold wind just makes things worse.
Funny how the weather changes us.

Non Sequitur

I suddenly realized something while listening to Thelonious Monk's "Honeysuckle Rose" just now. Computers are really incredible. I mean, they are seriously really cool and amazing. But in a way, they are also kind of scary, with the whole--oh man, I just got a phone call asking me if I wanted to hang out. This never happens. Have I graduated from Nerd School? Am I a popular kid now? I dunno, but I better go do this hanging out business and find out!

OK Computer

Oh, man. I just got OK Computer by Radiohead. Not "got" as in purchased or acquired, but "got" as in grasped, comprehended, understood, and appreciated. What an amazing album. It is and does so many things at once. I was just listening to it tonight, and it hit me. BAM! This is an incredible work of genius. Perhaps I was never able to fully appreciate this album before because I wasn't aware of its scope within the history of rock 'n' roll. But now, with all the classic rock I've been listening to and stuff, with a sense of the span and history of rock inside my head, I listened to it again and realized that OK Computer changes rock music forever. Here I am, with my favorite band being the Beatles, and Radiohead with this album has made them, and all other rock bands more or less irrelevent. OK Computer is a quantum leap forward in sound because it makes all other guitar rock, even the rock from their own previous records like Pablo Honey, sound odd. It makes them sound antiquated. Radiohead makes Beatles songs sound quaint, childishly amusing, and slightly irrelevent the way the rock & roll revolution made jazz sound quaint, amusing, and slightly irrelevent. Radiohead's music reveals the standard electric guitar sound as antique, the way the electric guitar revealed the acoustic guitar sound as antique in the late 1960s. OK Computer truly changes rock music. I can't believe they did it in 1997, and it took me this long to realize. I guess when I am an old grandfather, I will be trying to show my grandkids CDs of the Beatles or something, and they will listen to it oddly, in the way your grandmother might try to get you to listen to some Louis Armstrong right now.

Man. I need to listen to this album again.

Good Writing

Some people wouldn't know good writing if it slapped them in the face and fucked them in the ass. Wake up.

Untitled

It gets light way too fast outside.

?, a Question Mark

As I stare at this blank screen in front of me, a dozen of the same exact thoughts zoom through my head over and over at sixty-six thousand miles an hour, racing each other like it's the Kentucky Derby and nobody has a clue who's going to win. They jostle and fight and snarl and snap and bite as they stampede down the lanes for primary position in the twists, turns, and wrinkles of my brain. They zap around like lightning bolts of neurotic electricity, leaping over firing synapses and trampling over the frayed ends of my neurons. Who will make it? Which thought will win this race, bursting through the escape hatch at the bottom of my brain, tumbling down my spine, splitting itself at the shoulders and rushing through the length of my arms? Which thought will whip around the corner of my elbows, speed triumphantly past my wrists and into my ten fingers, splashing over this keyboard here? - and filling up my computer screen with words!

"Words, words, words!"

Will it be the recent full-frontal invasion of MATH into my life?

Will it be the recent, devastating Laker loss, and my new hatred for Kobe Bryant and his arrogant ass? (Make no mistake, the Lakers will always be my team, but Kobe... you're a jerk.)

Will it be some ruminations on angst?

Music?

Summer?

High school?

Grammar school?

One of my friends? All of my friends?

Love?

Will it be something funny? Or serious? Or both?

A poem?

A fictional story? A real story?

Or will it, like all things, simply end... in a question mark?

Who knows?

Dave Contains Explicit Lyrics

I'm updating too much. Oh, well, it's summer. I'm that bored, and I'll admit it.

PARENTAL

ADVISORY

DAVE CONTAINS EXPLICIT LYRICS

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

Check It

This is the definition of hardcore.

SURVEY MADNESS! (My Blog's Integrity Has Just Been Cheapened X1 Million With That Title)

1.) Grab the book nearest you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says: "to the English poet Elizabeth Barrett, whom Poe" [from The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe]

2.) Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first? My dresser

3.) What is the last thing you watched on TV?: Mad TV reruns on Comedy Central

4.) WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is: 10:04 pm

5.) Now look at the clock, what is the actual time? 10:00 pm

6.) With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? A/C, my roommate's AIM notifications

7.) When you last stepped outside, what were you doing? Coming back to my room

8.) Before you came to this website, what did you look at? My math grades on Blackboard

9.) What are you wearing?: Long sleeve button shirt, shorts

10.) Did you dream last night? What about? Yes. I don't remember.

11.) When did you last laugh? About ten minutes ago

12.) What is on the walls of the room you are in? Bob Dylan poster, Chinese New Year banner, "Go Quakers!" Thundersticks from last year's football game against Princeton

13.) Seen anything weird lately? An episode of "Kids Show" last night

15.) What is the last film you saw? Shrek 2

16.) If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first? A bigger iPod

17.) Tell me something about you that I don't know: I used to be able to swim a lap at the pool in 20 seconds

18.) George Bush: Not voting for him

19.) Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? Either Summer or Sarah

20.) And if it's a boy, what do you call him? Either Forrest or Ethan

Name four bad habits you have:
1. Making caustically sarcastic jokes all the time
2. Staying up late
3. Not eating meals on time
4. Procrastination/apathy with schoolwork

Name four things that you wish you had:
1. A 40 gig iPod
2. A 3CCD Digital Video Camera
3. A vinyl record player
4. An electric guitar/amp

Name four scents you love:
1. Soap
2. Girl hair
3. The ocean
4. Cherry blossoms

Name four things you'd never wear:
1. Abercrombie & Fitch
2. Thong/G-string
3. Doc Martens shoes
4. Make-up

Name four things you are thinking about right now:
1. Math test on Monday
2. Need to go to the bathroom
3. Can't wait to go home, even if it's Plano, TX - it's still home
4. I want to get a turtle and name him Alexander

Name four things that you have done today:
1. Woke up late
2. Messed around with some film editing on the computer
3. Went to Andrea's and did a lot of math problems
4. Surfed on the web and decided to take this survey

Name the last four things you have bought:
Besides food, which happens everyday...
1. CD: "The Clash [U.S. Release 1979]" by The Clash
2. Green Converse All-Stars shoes
3. 60 Watt computer speakers
4. Books for classes

Name four people you would like to spend more time with:
There are a lot more, so this is unfair, but...
1. My dad
2. William Lo
3. Prof. Mark Stein, my English teacher last semester
4. Any nice/cool girl

Name four bands/groups most people don't know you like:
1. Weird Al Yankovic
2. Hanson
3. Kid Rock
4. Sugar Ray

Name four drinks you regularly drink:
1. Water
2. Coke
3. Gatorade
4. Orange soft drinks

"Falling Down" by Dexter Freebish

Watching people fall down over and over again is really, really funny - especially when limbs are flailing. Flailing always makes everything funnier. It worked for pre-Eternal Jim Carrey, after all.

The city looks beautiful tonight.

I'm struggling with a little bit of writer's block right now. In fact, it's been this way for the last several entries. I've had to really prod myself for things to say. I had a good conversation with Frank today about American internationalism/unilateralism/isolationism/economic globalism. I got a little mad at one (but representative of many) Whartonite's insensitivity towards other's misfortunes, and ingratitude for his own privileged life. I edited film, bringing to life the characters of Awkward & Jerkface...

This is so pointless. I'm enumerating meaningless actions rather than meaningful ideas. I'm not writing, I'm recounting. Nobody gives a shit about the stupid things that make up other people's lives, but they give tons of shit about the stupid things that make up their own lives. I am no different. I could care less about you, but today, I edited film! Wow!

I'm going to stop. Clearly, there is nothing here for you or me, tonight. There was no point in even starting. I will probably delete this post later.

Off-the-Cuff & On the Record: White-Washed Pride

There is not much on my mind right now. The deep, soulful voice of Otis Redding has gripped my spirits and arrested my brain. He is a master of Southern Soul, of the jazzy-bluesy ballad. A true master.

I think I've seen a couple movies recently that I've forgotten to talk about. I'm not going to bother trying to remember them because I don't think they were worth reviewing. That's not to say that they were bad movies, it's only to say that I can't come up with anything particularly unique to say about them.

People have pointed out to me that I'm not "very Asian." In other words, I'm "white-washed." Now, I remember getting fairly mad about being called white-washed once back in 10th grade. I found it insulting, and it was meant to be insulting, I believe. I've always carried somewhat of an identity crisis throughout my life, being an American-born Chinese person - you know, the kind of identity crisis that people write fantastic college essays about (something I probably should have done instead of my, uh, "experiment"). The kind of identity crisis where I'm always going to feel like a foreigner whether I'm in America or China. All that "no-homeland" bullshit. I carried that sense with me, ever since kindergarten. So when I was called white-washed in 10th grade, I wasn't sure how to respond, except in anger/frustration/offense. I felt like it was yet again another sign that I would never belong anywhere on this earth.

And now? Now, I'm proud to be white-washed. I'm glad I'm not very Asian. I embrace being an American with a Chinese face. Whites can tell me I'm not really American. Asians can call me white-washed. Mexicans can mock me chinito and pull at the corners of their eyes. Blacks can think I'm Japanese. I don't really care. I don't want to be anything but who I already am right now, which is a natural citizen of the United States of America, with Chinese-born parents who are also American citizens, and who despises and defies the "Asian-American" culture that likes to spike/dye their hair, drive souped-up "Rice Rockets" and listen to Korean pop music. I like white music. I like European cars. I like my hair long and ungelled. I like NOT flashing the peace sign when I'm taking pictures. I like white-people food like cheeseburgers. I like white-people TV and white-people movies. I hate watching Cantonese soap operas. I hate all soap operas, actually. I don't wear anything from Banana Republic or Armani Exchange (or Abercrombie & Fitch on the other hand, for that matter). I am glad and proud that I am/am not these things. I think the "Asian-American" culture I've been describing is stupid and boring and often superficial. I enjoy white culture. I don't care what other people think I should like or what other people think I should be. I'm just David Xilong Liu.

And I simply "belong" wherever I am.

How Pathetic Is Pathetic?

Is it worse to want to marry a 14-year-old wizard girl or be in love with a computer-animated cartoon princess woman?

What A Productive Day

First and foremost, today shall go down in history as the day that I, David Liu, earned my stripes as an Ivy League student. Yes, that's right, I finally played a preppy white-boy sport! (Albeit, with all Asian people.) It was tennis, and preppiness aside, it was fun. In fact, I would willingly and gladly do it again tomorrow. However, I'm not going to start wearing white sweater vests and pressed white khaki shorts. I am not Hugh Grant.

Other productive things that happened to-day (sidenote: productive is defined as any activity that does not involve sitting on my ass, being on the computer, and/or doing nothing) include the following:

- played basketball and ping-pong, thereby completing a triumvirate of sports I accomplished today, this day being some sort of super cosmic athletic sports day for me

- didn't miss a minute of class (unlike yesterday)

- actually did homework on pure self-motivation for about an hour after class, even though it's the weekend

- learned more guitar, like the song "When I Come Around" by Green Day, and some other things, and just played for about half an hour

- withdrew money from the ATM (I've been broke for about a week)

For a slow summer day that could have just come and gone without notice or event, I think that's pretty damn productive. I really carpe'ed this diem.

A Life In The Day Of Alan Zimmer

Rum. Green. Bitch. Gait.
Happiness is a warm gun.
Mustard. Tennis. Curve. Death.
Thanks for revealing to me that I'm a pathetic loser when it comes to women, Mommy.
Table. Sleeve. Planet. Box.
Running to stand still.
Paper. Coffin. Tower. Wrist.
Let's go where all the people flow to and fro, speaking of my Juliet and her Romeo.
Car. Art. Drool. Cellar.
While my guitar gently weeps.
Gum. Camera. Pick. Love.