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Filed under: Razorcake Columns
From Razorcake #61, originally published March 2011.
Children, by the very nature of being children, have infinite amount of time ponder completely non-essential questions. They have the leisure to thoughtfully consider the great questions that have pestered people-kind for years upon years. These are the would you rather quandaries that have enflamed schoolyard disputes and blacktop banter.
If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, would you rather eat ice cream or pizza?
If you could only marry one of the Chipmunks, would you rather marry Alvin, Simon or Theodore?
If you had to had to switch your fingers and toes, would you rather have your fingers instead of toes (and still have your normal hand-fingers) or toes instead of fingers (and still have normal feet-toes)?
Unfortunately, children, by the vary nature of being children, lack the weight of experience that comes from decades of living—of waking up everyday for more years than you can count on your fingers (or toes) and trying to figure out what you were waking up for. Though they have the time to think through these questions, they are unable to fully grasp the implications of their decisions because they are still at an age where a game like tag is a valid form of interaction.
It’s obvious to us now, as adults—as world-wearied creatures with skin that loses elasticity everyday the sun beats down on us, what all of the correct choices are.
Pizza. Pizza is as delicious out-of-the-fridge-cold as it is straight from the oven. Pizza contains more food groups than ice cream. Pizza is also much more portable, wrapped in a piece of aluminum foil or a flat cardboard box, for those of us who are constantly on-the-go and can only eat one thing for the rest of our lives.
Simon. Although Alvin might seem like the obvious choice to marry because of his unabashed confidence, disarming chipmunk handsomeness, non-threatening mischievousness and he’s the lead in the band—but he is more of a casual fuck-buddy type of friend than marriage material. (Please don’t judge me for referring to a cartoon chipmunk as a fuck-buddy possibility, as if this is out the realm of your imagination and you’ve never though about making out with The Little Mermaid.) Simon’s a total geek, with his coke-bottle glasses and unassuming wit. He’s the one that’s going to be the founder of something like Facetweet and be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. He will start a foundation that trains young women from developing nations to become green engineers and win eight simeaultanous Nobel Peace Prizes and a trip to the moon, plus one.
Fingers instead of toes (and still have your normal hand-fingers).With this mutant disfiguration, one can conceivably change the dynamics and physicality of competitive gymnastics. Imagine the insane amounts of flipping, contortiony things that can be accomplished on the double bars or balance beam if the gymnast had fingers on their toes! The only negative I can think of is in the difficulty of purchasing shoes, as we are a majority feet-toes world—but that’s a small price to pay to be a multi-gold medaled Olympian.
Amidst the cacophony of nonsense and logic that goes behind discovering the right answer to the would you rathers, there was always one that I found to be unanswerable: would you rather be deaf or blind? Of the five senses that children learned that they are capable of sensing, the ability to see and hear were the most obvious to choose between. Smelling, tasting and touching were secondary to watching and listening to TV.
I was a teenager the last time I had seriously considered this. Teenagers, by the very nature of being teenagers, operate on binary: black or white, prep or punk, brooding angst or naïve joy, horny or bored. Normally, it was easy to choose between either/or, but I was in high school and felt like I was discovering lost artifacts when I listened to a band or read a zine for the first time. I could not choose between sight and sound—I was adamant about keeping both those senses intact. I was done with the would you rathers when I faced the fallacy of a game where the choices were both equally uncool and somewhat plausible. The options aren’t fun to choose between if they aren’t absurd, semi-fantastical situations—the lost of vision and hearing wounds mortals everyday. And isn’t it a privilege to have the choice of which sense we would begrudgingly allow to degrade as part of a game with a sole purpose to kill time and not necessarily answer tough questions about the human condition?
A couple weeks ago I was walking Jack around the neighborhood, it was late evening and I peered into every lit window as Jack pissed on every other shrub we passed. I watched him skip ahead of me, his small white body bouncing while his four lean legs fluttered beneath him. I looked up at the sky and found familiar constellations and a bright moon beaming down on rooftops and tall trees. And suddenly, without any prompting, a flood of visuals wound its way through my brain.
My mother’s face when I surprised her on Mother’s Day last year by showing up at the dim sum restaurant a thousand miles away from my apartment. The Tibetan grassland plains with low rolling hills of lush green, an ocean blue sky and the kinds of large downy white clouds we drew as children, around in 360 degrees for as far as the eye could make out existence. The way DanE’s hazel eyes become more emerald when he wears green t-shirts.
I thought about how we can’t hear smiles or the ridiculous faces we made during inappropriate times. I thought about Cindy Sherman, Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” and David Hockney. I thought about Mimi Nguyen’s “Evolution of a Race Riot” and every other zine I had ever read. I thought about books and the way type floated on its pages, how stoic text can turn my imagination loose.
And it was while walking Jack when I realized that—if I would rather—I choose sight. This may be an unpopular sentiment amongst Razorcake readers, and yes I would miss music and the way it can say things through words sung out loud that we are otherwise incapable of expressing. I would miss the sound of laughter, the power of a hearty rally cry and dancing my face off.
It isn’t often that I am reminded of and revisit childhood questions, but when this epiphany struck me, it felt definitive. It felt satisfying, as if I had wizened with age and was now capable of answering tough questions. But it makes me wonder whether I really choose sight, or if its just the act of choosing that I needed. That all these years of waking up every morning, and occasionally questioning why I was waking up every morning, had a purpose to it. So that one day I can wake up and be definitive about something—know something as completely as I could possibly know it.
Or maybe I chose sight because I’d really love to see a foot-fingered gymnast kill on the balance beam one day.
From Razorcake #60, originally published January 2011.
Quite often, almost on a minute-to-minute-basis, I am reminded of how little I understand of the physical space and contemporary culture that I live in. My small brain has trouble understanding abstract ideas, like the notion that everything that we can see—and even things that we cannot see like gas and odors—are made up of atoms. I have never seen an atom, except for science-book renderings that depicted them as miniscule glossy spheres. I’ve never been able to reconcile those tiny balls and how they form water, dirt or fish sticks.
Apparently, lots of kids ask ‘Why is the sky blue?’ though I don’t remember asking that myself. Some things just seemed obvious in its answer, the sky is blue because it’s the sky. What color would the sky be if it wasn’t blue?! I have seen the a thick layer of clouds cover the sky so that it was a muted grey that stretched far beyond the horizon, and I have seen marbled swirls of fire orange and deep lavender that glowed at sunset. I have seen night skies that looked like a mauve brown painted against black, a night sky that is the result of clouds absorbing the lights of a city. The first time I distinctly remember seeing a brown night sky was when I was in high school, on the weekend of my grandmother’s funeral. As Buddhist ceremonies dictate, all of her kin were dressed in white robes and sat on a straw mat for three days of prayer for her safe arrival into the underworld. On the second night, after a full day of mat-sitting, I looked into the sky and didn’t see the infinite expanse of space and stars. It was heavy and brown and felt like closed thick curtains hung above us. By then I was too old to ask, ‘Why is the sky brown?’ though I don’t think anyone could have answered it for me.
What is brown? How do I know it’s not orange? Why is orange named after a fruit? Or is it the other way around? How come green is called green and not peas? Maybe folks who are color-blind are the ones who are actually seeing colors as they are intended to be seen. Why are some eggs white and others are brown? Why do we eat eggs? Is it because eating the unfertilized unborn is so delicious? What came first, the scramble or the omelet?
Why do high school students need to learn math beyond algebra and geometry? Is it really that practical to study calculus and trigonometry, especially in this economy where the vast number of university graduates can’t find work and end up shopping at the dollar store anyway? Doesn’t it make more sense to teach them how to fill out food stamps applications without feeling shame?
How come ‘Communications’ is still a valid field of study? It’s so vague and non-descript and it makes me feel as though universities are awarding degrees to students merely for showing up, paying tuition and ‘communicating.’ And what’s ‘Business Administration’? I know plenty of immigrants who are functionally illiterate in English and have been successful in owning small businesses without being tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a piece of paper. My mom is the general manager of two busy restaurants and she’s just learning how to send e-mails. And me? Well, with almost a decade worth of post-university experience, I’m still earning less than I did from my first big job after school,
Why do humans have memories and insight and inner monologues? How is it that these relatively small organs that sit insides our skulls can perform such complex tasks like recalling memories from decades past or being able to function on 18-hour workdays without my head rolling off my shoulders? But at the same time my brain isn’t able to parse away some space to remember the majority of my own birthday dinners or the name of my best friend from kindergarten who used to get into trouble with me for talking too much. I remember having mock elections in second grade and voting for George Bush (Sr.) over Michael Dukakis, I don’t remember why I chose him because my parents didn’t vote and didn’t discuss politics around the house. I remember voting for Nader in 2000 because I was emboldened by youth and naiveté and this foreign notion of change. I remember being seven-years-old and specifically wanting to be the first Asian-American and woman president, but I can’t remember when that dream dissolved. I remember loving the rain when it came occasionally during our southern California winters, and I remember my first day after I had moved to Portland and crying in frustration in the unrelenting downpour. I can remember details of all the places I’ve lived like the Chinatown apartment with the broken tile in the kitchen that I used to pretend was the porthole into Adam West’s Batcave or the studio apartment I had in Van Nuys where I heard police helicopter buzz overheard everyday, but I cannot the specific addresses. I remember life before the internet and kinda feel bad for kids who will never know that. I can’t remember who I thought I’d be when I grew up—I’m not sure I have an idea now either.
Why do people have children, knowing full well the gamut of hurt and pain that can befall these small people created? Why do I consider having my own children knowing the same thing? Is it narcissism or a biological drive? How does DNA look? Am I really to believe that my blood stream is swimming with interwoven double helix, floating about determining the color of my hair and the shape of my earlobes? Why are we taught to believe things we can’t see? Why do I even care? Oh wait, I care because when my dad blames me for being short because I didn’t sleep enough and insisted on staying up late during my adolescence, I don’t have to carry around the guilt of being a midget but understand that I am short because he’s short too. Why didn’t I pay more attention in Biology? Why aren’t I fascinated by quantum physics? Is it because I feel like the less I know, the better? Am I just trying to run out the clock?
Why can’t we be more like all the other animals—naked, primal and without desires beyond hunting, eating and fucking? Why do I find myself yearning to be a dog? Sometimes I’ll look at my friends’ dogs and be envious of their lives, laying about and sleeping all day. They want nothing more than a w-a-l-k and perhaps a few crumbs from that sandwich you’re eating. All they want is affection and to protect you and to snuggle up against your warmth on a cold night, I mean, really, that’s all I want too. We want comfort and isn’t that why we work so hard? Isn’t that why we spend more waking hours at our workplaces than we do at our homes, so that we have a soft spot to sleep in?
I remember being a kid and looking at the clouds in the sky and day dream about living upon them like the Care Bears did. I remember being on my first plane ride when I was 18-years-old and thinking how amazing it was going to be above the clouds. A couple years ago, I hiked through Nepal and literally walked above a cloud and it was anticlimactic and satisfying at the same time. Why am I so obsessed with the sky and whatever it is that inhabits the sky? Why do I want to be up there when its blue, or grey or brown? Even though birds get to soar high, do they even enjoy it? Is it better to not know than it is to wonder endlessly?
From Razorcake #59, originally published November 2010, I believe.
Open letters! Because no one else will read these otherwise.
Dear Trader Joe’s,
Firstly, I just wanted to say that if you weren’t a corporate entity owned by some mysterious Swedes, I’d probably have a really big crush on you.
Secondly, I’m afraid we may be growing apart. I used to be a complete devotee and never questioned the value you offered or the quality of your goods. But after watching the documentary, Food, Inc., I’m wary of all your store branded items and how many of them probably contain genetically modified soybeans produced by the conglomo Monsanto. I guess this is what I get for having a crush on a grocery store.
Thirdly, when will ya’ll get a real produce section?
Yours in quinoa and spinach,
Amy
Dear Amy Carter,
Did you know that my pops named me after you? You know, because your dad was president at the time and my father had great ambitions of raising children named after the children of presidents. (Oh, but I jest. Alan’s named after a Hong Kong pop star and Albert’s named after a prince.)
Yours and mine,
Amy
Dear People Who Think I’m a Bad Driver Because I’m Asian and a Woman,
I’m actually a very good driver and if I should perform a small infraction such as pulling out in front of you a bit too soon or merging too slowly/quickly, it isn’t because of my ethnicity or gender. It’s simply because I’m not paying attention.
Or, you’re thinking, it’s because it’s hard to see out of these slits I call eyes, or it’s because my hormones are totally out of control from the slit between my legs.
Road ragin’,
Amy
Dear Justin from Second Grade,
I’m sorry I said what I said to you when you innocuously asked to borrow some crayon colors that you didn’t have. I looked you straight into your blue eyes and blithely uttered, “Got to hell.” I’m sorry you told our teacher, who took me behind the building to admonish me as I sobbed and cried my apologies.
Y’see, the night before some character on some TV show had said the exact same phrase and I, driven by my infinite literal childlike curiosity, wanted to test out those words. I had no idea what “hell” was, and how it may be offensive to suggest to a classmate that he should go there. As a non-native English speaker at age seven, I constantly confused the words “thin” and “thick”, among others. My misuse of English occurred daily, and it just so happened that I really misued a word that day.
I know now that hell is a bad place and I shouldn’t have told you that you should find your way there rather than borrow a crayon from me. Presently, I know many more offensive things to say in English and am completely competent in their usage and seldom do I use them in inappropriate situations.
Well, there are exceptions. Like when I used to live in China and would be at the bank withdrawing money from a teller and just before they hand me my cash, I say in plain speaking voice, “Gimme my money, bitch.” They always did.
Hope you’re not in hell,
Amy
Dear Udon Noodles,
It’s no secret, I love pho. I mean, no one can resist the brothy goodness of Vietnamese noodle soup, with its garnish plates of basil, bean sprouts, cilantro and a lime wedge. But I haven’t written you to confess my love for other noodles—I’ve written you this as an ode to your loveliness. You have such perfect texture that is so fun to slurp. You’re easy to prepare and green onions make you sparkle.
Slurpingly yours,
Amy
Dear 14-year-old Me,
Don’t worry, It’s totally normal to really hate your parents and spend your time in pre-algebra daydreaming about running away by trying to figure how much money you would need to live on your own.
They’re just watching out for you, doing the best they can. You can keep being a disgruntled, angst-ridden brat though, because otherwise you’ll end up as a very boring adult.
Lovingly,
Amy
Dear Americans Born in the Aughts,
I kinda feel sorry for you. You’ve growing up in a world where you’ve been bred to be oversaturated with media and advertisements. All you will ever know are things that are instant—messages, oatmeal, gratification, You will be socialized to never not know through social media—social networking to the point where some of you don’t feel as if you’ve experienced something unless it goes online to be validated by your peers. You will never not know all the trivial stuff that streams through your Facebook homepage or Twitter, but simply shrug at all those big things that matter.
You’ll never know rotary phones; television sets that didn’t have remote controls and you had to get up to turn knobs or press buttons on the set itself; blowing into video game cartridges when their 8-bits aren’t showing up right.
Being nostalgic can be a waste of time, but really, it’s a shame you’ll never know how cool it feels to be carrying around a pager! A freakin’ pager! Ha!
Best,
Amy
Dear Richard Sanchez from Fourth Grade,
You were a real asshole, you know that? You tormented me, seeking me out during every single recess just to hurl childish slurs at me. It seems silly now in hindsight, but when you would call me a chink, or ching chong, or gook, or whatever the fuck else, it hurt because I was 10-years-old and never had faced such blatant daily racism and I just didn’t know what else to do but cry.
You were the reason I hid in the girls bathroom, sitting on a toilet and waiting for the minutes to tick by until the bell rang again and it was time to return to class. You made me hate going to school—even worse, you made me hate recess. But you never made me hate who I am.
So there,
Amy
Dear the Copper Paragard IUD in My Cooter,
How do you work?! No seriously! What are you doing down there? Someone told me that your copper vibe chops the heads off spermies that are trying to fertilize my shit. I know that ain’t true because sperms don’t have “heads” per se.
What is going on down there?! Have you made my cooter hostile? Is it a “bad neighborhood” now and no one wants to hang out there?
Regardless, I’m just stoked I’m not on hormones and I don’t have to remember to take a stinkin’ pill everyday.
Thanks!
Amy
Dear Ira Glass,
When are you going to call me?
Granted, I am not Jewish, nor am I a gay white male, nor a straight white female with a nasaly voice. Granted, my acerbic sensibilities do not come from a middle class, white suburban upbringing, but I’ve got sass too!
Ira, call me! I’ve got stories and I don’t stutter nearly as much as I did in fourth grade. I’ve got stories and they are about growth and change and the human condition and how my dad’s pet name for me is “homeless.” I’ve got stories about America, about its people and how its people are so hard to define and how they morph and grow into and out of each other.
Ira, don’t you know that my not-so-secret goal is to become the next David Sedaris, but in a shorter, more yellow female way?
Now you know. Call me!
Toodles,
Amy
Dear Gong-gong,
I remember the steam buns you used to cook in the home where 13 of us used to live together. I hope you’re still baking them.
I’m sorry I was so far away, but part of me thinks it was probably better that way.
Love,
Lai
Dear 88-year-old Me,
Wow! You’ve lived a very long time. Have you hit the wall yet? Y’know, that metaphorical wall that all old Asian women encounter where they transform from looking very-good-for-their-age into a hunchback gremlin.
Woah, I just did the math and it’s 2068?! Holy fuck! Are there hover cars yet? Do you have an iEye implanted in your retina where you play your mp19s and the world is in 4-D?
Can you shoot lasers out of your fingertips?
Why not?!
See you soons,
Amy
Dear That Time In My Life When I Was Very Very Depressed,
You may come back again, but I’m grateful you’re at bay for the time being. You blindsided me, I was wholly unprepared for your darkness. But somehow I was able to climb out of you, to shed off your illogical mumblings in my ear and the weight of pain that had settled on my chest.
I’ve changed a bit because I have known you, and sometimes I’m very upset about it. There have been moments where I pine for a time before you were in my life—but pining for something like that is like grasping at wind.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Do you think the cliché is fitting for me? Is it true?
Sincerely,
Amy
From Razorcake #58, originally published late 2010.
It’s really about time.
I find myself realizing more and more often that I just don’t give a fuck. It isn’t the nihilistic I believe in nuh-sing don’t-give-a-fuck, it’s more the I care not what ye thinketh don’t-give-a-fuck. This feels more genuine than all my previous fleeting don’t-give-a-fuck phases because as I near the dawn of my thirtieth birthday at the end of this summer it’s as if I’m too tired to care. Or perhaps I’ve just come to an understanding with the universe that I’m no longer going to be burdened with the seemingly ineffectual insecurities that plague me and the universe is going to let me vent to you in 1,244 words for you here.
This revelation didn’t just spring upon me; it crept up slowly like the frayed hem of my cut-off jeans. At the beginning of this summer, they began a couple inches above my knee. As the temperature rose, I began chopping off more denim until I almost neared Daisy Duke territory. The length of my cut-offs may seem irrelevant, especially since I’ve worn my fair yardage of mini-skirts, but there’s something very utilitarian and empowering about pulling on a pair of jeans shorts that’s a part of my summer uniform when I’ve been reluctant to bare my thighs for all these years. It’s what happens when your genetics decided that your thighs will touch and there isn’t much that you can do about it—except maybe grow a complex because when you’re in second grade you think that yours are the only chubby legs that are sticking to the desk chairs on hot afternoons in Mrs. Cisneros’ class. But you only thought your legs were too big because your dad teased you saying that one day you’ll inherit your mom’s Rubenesque legs. Then you begin to distort your body, your brain has been wired to turn all reflective surfaces into funhouse mirrors, and your completely normal, body-weight proportionate legs have been morphed into tree trunks attached to your hips.
It only took twenty-three years after having left Mrs. Cisneros’ class. It really is about time for me to realize that all the self-imposed body criticism needs to go. But sometimes it’s difficult even to acknowledge that we’re tough on ourselves because we—as women involved in punk rock, and as women in general—have to navigate in a world that has become so increasingly self-aware to the point where we think we’re post-gender, post-race, post-all-the-fucked-upness-that-we’re-not-really-post-anything. It creates a space where we don’t discuss these things because we’re supposed to be so over it. But I’m not over it. I’m just getting to it and I don’t give a fuck if you don’t want to hear it because you can turn the page anytime.
There needs to be an openness for me to be completely frank and honest because it’s tiresome and discouraging to hear about empowering oneself from women who seem to have an infinite supply of self-assurance. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to all the small moments of self-doubt and insecurity that I contend with often. How can we support each other if we’re all so busy pretending like we’re so strong that we don’t get shaken? It’s not cool to admit that after some twenty-odd years of being completely fine with my body, I let one snide remark from a boyfriend chip away at who I was. I can finally come to terms with it now because I’ve gotten over it, but it was shameful to have to admit that part of me was crushed when I playfully stuck out my small beer gut and my boyfriend’s only comment was, “Gross.” He’s an ex now, and I’m sure he doesn’t remember this moment at all—but I can still recall what I was wearing, the lighting from a small lamp in his cramped studio apartment, the way I let that comment sink into me.
It began with my legs, then my belly. And just recently, independent of remarks from a third-party, I’ve been really bothered with the dark fuzzy stuff on my upper lip, which is glaringly obvious to me in between waxings. (Surprisingly I’ve never grown a complex about my tits because they never grew.)
Our own individual obsessions about all the little quirks that dot or bulge from our bodies may seem trivial, but they can snowball and manifest themselves in negative ways. And sometimes just knowing that you’re not alone can alleviate some of the pressure. That’s why I’m writing about my insecurities because if my mini-mustache can help just one other woman feel a little less worse about her own mustache then my column has done its job.
Maybe once we can start talking about superficialities, then perhaps we can begin discussing other things that bug me—and maybe a few of these things may also annoy some of you, too. Like how there are some dudes who are inordinately preoccupied with sticking it in a girl’s butt. Listen, if she said no the first three times to the idea of you sticking your penis in her poop-hole, you ought to just move on. I’m also fed up with how the onus is on women in terms of birth control (much respect to my vasectomized friends). If ya’ll can dutifully take a pill every day, endure implants and IUDs, deal with patches and sponges—the very, very least your partner can do for you is to be mindful and acknowledge this. And consider this a PSA for the romantically impaired: this should really go without saying—poking your boner into a girl’s back is not foreplay; something is amiss if you have to be drunk to fuck; and the best sex is with someone who makes you feel completely beautiful and comfortable in your own skin.
What’s sex got to do with our own perceived body images? I’m no sociologist, but the connection between a woman’s self-worth seems deeply intertwined with her confidence and strength in taking ownership of her sex life. I’m rather stubborn and have never been talked into doing anything I didn’t feel comfortable with in bed—but I do struggle with setting boundaries—and just wanted to let other women know that it isn’t a weakness but just something that we need to continually work on to stand our ground.
It should be punk to dwell on all the minutiae of being a woman because women are a part of punk rock and you should care.Why don’t us girls just get over it and bro-the-fuck-down? Shirts off, dudes on or whatever, right? We all own the first Bikini Kill record and there are so many bands with girls in them—and they aren’t just relegated to the bass either. Is this feeling very early 1990’s? Like, didn’t we go through all this with riot grrrls and the third wave of feminism? You think you’re tired of hearing about it? Imagine how tiresome it is to live it.
We’ve come a long way, but maybe we have much further to go still? I’m not asking for much, just more words and discussion. If we think there is no need because the work has been done, we’re sorely mistaken and it leaves so many people feeling alone. I think I’m so frank because I need to speak these sentences out loud, for anyone to hear, hoping that it will resonate with just one other person.
Filed under: Big Bang, Fotorama, Huarong Home, India Be Trippin', Laos Be Trippin', Nepal Be Trekkin', Operation Engrish Prease, Razorcake Columns
From Razorcake #57, the one with Noam Chomsky on the cover!
The eyes are restless from the fatigue of resting them upon an unmoving landscape. The legs itch, muscles twitching in between the tibia and the upholstered surface it leans against. Its wanderlust simmering and the only cure is to give in, to strap that pack to your back, put one foot in front of the other and let your eyes drink in every dashed yellow line in the middle of the road.
I blame my legs. These non-proportionate stumps that move me around. They loathe when I sit around too much and love it when I push them too hard. Wanderlust is insatiable, and my legs gobble it up. One in front of the other, marching forward because they know no other way. In all my travels, there has been some epic adventuring but I’ve also faced my share of tribulations. Since sharing is caring, I would like to tell ya’lls about some of my low-lights so can you can learn from my own misadventures with these travel tippies.
There’s the obvious:
Pack a pair of flip-flops, as un-punk rock as they may be, will save you from cooties in shared showers and cool your toes when you wanna relax. Don’t worry about bringing a pillowcase for hostel beds, resting your head on one of your t-shirts will save you room in your pack. I always bring issues of Razorcake to read on the road and leave them in hostel lobbies or music shops in places where I know they’ve never seen it. And I never leave without a passport pouch that I tuck into my jeans next to my sweaty crotch cash.
If you’re traveling the People’s Republic of China, don’t buy souveniours that you can buy at your local Chinatown USA (which is most everything). Bargain at every chance, most shop-keepers will give you an opening price that is at least twice of much as it worth, if not more. But know that there’s a fine line between being fair and being brutal, because chances are that if you’re reading this magazine you’re better off than a street vendor in Mui Ne, Vietnam and you spend $3 for a pint of beer all the time so what’s it worth arguing about it with a shop keeper. (Though, hypocritically, some of my proudest shopping moments have been when a shop owner has angrily begrudgingly agreed to sell something to me. [Though, in my defense, living on volunteer salaries in developing countries will drive you batty and make you feel entitled.]) And speaking of monies, always check the big bills you get in return to make sure they’re not counterfeit.
Street food will make you sick, but it’s worth it. Check bottled water caps to be sure it wasn’t shoddily soldered back on after being refilled with dirty tap water. A small squeeze tube of hand sanitizer will ease your mind and you’ll get used to that medicinal smell and start to think it makes your food taste better.
And there are the travel scars that have left me wiser and with a couple good stories to tell:
Laos is the only landlocked country in southeast Asia and is usually forgotten on itineraries. It’s tourism industry is still growing its legs and learning to stand on them and the easiest way to make money is to give the kids what they want, and that’s usually stuff that’ll fuck them up.
Ironically, even though Laos is landlocked, it’s the only country I’ve traveled to where I’ve gone tubin’ down a slow moving river. It’s a lot like basking in the sun with my limbs draped over an inner tube floating along the Sandy River in Portland, except in Vang Vieng there are middle-aged Laotian women squatted on makeshift mini-docks hawking Beer Laos at your lazy drifting body. Naturally, Vang Vieng needs to offer a hearty post-tubing recreational substance abuse.
Every restaurant had a not-so-hidden ‘Special Menu’ that had three mainstays:
Happy Shake with whiskey and fruit
Magic Mushroom Shake or Tea
Opium Tea
Then further down the same sheet, scrawled in loose handwriting it offers:
Happy Garlicbread
Happy Pizza
Happy Pancake
Magic Mushroom Pizza
I especially love how the menu devolves and gets straight to the point at the bottom where it reads:
A bag of weed
A bag of mushrooms
A bag of opium
There’s something beyond sketchy about buying a bag of illegal substances off a menu, so I opted for Magic Mushroom Shake. I could taste the small flecks of mushrooms that had been blended into my banana shake and sat back into the loungey restaurant stall and waited.
The high was weak and gave me a headache. I crawled into my hostel bed and hoped to sleep it away. I felt fine the next morning when I boarded a bus to the capitol city, Vientianne, but was soon burping up a rotten egg smell and knew immediately that traveler’s diarrhea was about to commence.
Our Vientianne hostel felt like a three story building that had been haphazardly converted into a five-storied guesthouse with narrow and steep stairways and wobbly landings. There were only two toilets in the entire building and our room was nearest to the first floor bathroom that housed a toilet without a toilet seat. I had never wished for a squatty toilet so much in my life.
Lesson learned: If you’re going to order off the ‘Special Menu’ make sure a) you don’t have a five-hour un-air conditioned bus ride the next day and b) book a room with its own toilet (and toilet seat).
I am a moderately fit person with very sensitive joints. I was reminded of this on a 45-mile trek through the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal when I wanted to rip out my left knee at the end of the four-day hike. Every step I took during that last morning was painful, it felt something akin to being stabbed in my knee every time I took a step. I started to lag behind and teared up at the thought that I would have to endure it until the sun set again.
Even though all I wanted to do was to curl up into a ball right on that trail, I refrained from collapsing and asked everyone around me if they had Ibuprofen. I must have had about a dozen to get through the day before collapsing in a van and ingesting more sleeping pills to numb all the other parts of my body.
Lesson learned: If I were a smarter person, I’d say that the lesson learned from this trip was to know and understand your physical limitations. But fuck that, because if I let my own physicality limit my movement, I’d go nowhere (have you seen my stumpy legs lately? Instead my lesson learned from this trip was: Pack painkillers. If you neglected to do so, ask everyone you encounter if they have any. Ask directions to the nearest pharmacy, because even if it’s a hole in the wall and looks like a shoddy American swap meet stall—they will have some generic Ibuprofen to numb your pain away.
Hong Kong during peak season is nowhere to be if you don’t have money. Every cheap hostel was booked up and short of sleeping at bus terminals or in neighborhood parks, we had no idea what to do. That’s when desperation went into overdrive and we found ourselves haggling for rooms at places that I’ve lovingly dubbed as ‘hooker hotels.’ These are small rooms that are rented out by the hour, but might sometimes offer a nightly rate with check-in at 10 PM and check-out is sharply at 8:00 AM. It may not seem so bad in hindsight, but when you’re exhausted from working to find a room all day, and when you finally do find one, all you wanna do is to lay in it. Instead, you have to busy yourself and think of all the people who are fucking in it before you can even check in to sleep in it.
When you’re finally laying in your heart-shaped bed, try to ignore the condoms on the counters, the mirror on the ceiling, the stream of 80’s porn on every other television channel and the moaning and hollerin’ of the other patrons. You may also be awakened throughout the night from the ring of the doorbell as, you know, the other rooms are being rented by the hour.
Lesson learned: Even establishments that rent rooms by the hour might offer nightly rates, you should inquire with the management.
I’ve got a few more low-lights that might help ya’ll out, but it’ll have to wait for another time. And to be honest, even the down time during trips can be awesome stories in and of themselves if you handle it right.
And by “handling it right” I mean: always bring a small package of tissue paper, it’ll save you ass literally and metaphorically.
From Razorcake #56, published in May 2010.
Hustle Like You Mean It
Regular people don’t say these things to strangers in exchange for money. But I do.
I stand in front of couples on date night, small groups of friends, and once – a secret society of bearded bears, to holler golf-related innuendo. They’ve all gathered into a bare, drafty room in downtown Portland so that I can take their tickets or cash, check their IDs, and give them my safety talk before they venture off to play demolition derby putt putt, something part-art-installation and part-man-eating-miniature-golf-course.
Everyone who does the door at Smash Putt gives different versions of the schpiel, my take on it skews obnoxious.
“This is what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna go in there and shit your pants because you’re doing putt putt with robots and beers. You’re gonna wanna hit everything because everything is gonna look so fucking hittable.” Emphasis on fucking hittable. “But what I need you to do is to not swing your putter with excessive force because you might hit someone in the face. And that’s not cool.”
“If your balls fall into some kinda contraption and it looks like it may be too dangerous to grab your balls.” Emphasis on your balls. “Don’t grab your fucking balls. We’ll happily grab your balls for you or give you new balls.” Watch men’s eyes light up. “Because we don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Which leads me to: if you do get hurt and/or die, we are not responsible nor are we liable for your deaths and injuries. You’re responsible for your own death. Me? I get paid cash and I’m gonna go home and sleep very well tonight. I don’t give a fuck.” Emphasis on don’t give a fuck. Smile like I’m selling girl scout cookies. Everyone’s happy.
The more obnoxious I am, the more high-fives I get. This is what I do now for money, trading in asshole-ness. But it’s only temporary, the folks who run the self-proclaimed “miniature golf apocalypse” will pack up and leave town in a couple weeks and I’ll have to hustle my wares elsewhere.
When Joni and I talk about being regular, we’re not discussing our bowel movements. We’re talking about how we are so unlike our mothers, about how when our folks were our age, they had families, mortgages and the idea of stability. We’re talking about how we have fleeting moments of doubt about how we’ve conducted our lives thus far—and now we’re catching up to playing grown-up versions of ourselves. We placed thick bookmarks right before the chapter on adulthood, and left them there. And now we wonder if we should have just gone through the story of our lives without pausing, if we should have just plowed ahead and found security in mediocre careers, khaki pants and polo shirts.
“But regular people are content, right?” I asked.
“Regular is lame.
“Regular people have purpose, right?”
“Regular is lame,” Joni repeated.
We both know she’s right, but I can’t help but to ruminate because I’m lost. I’m trying to figure out where I’m supposed to go, but there are no directions. At least regular folks have committed themselves to a lifestyle that’s been mapped out: get job -> job pays for family -> buy things for family -> spend rest of life paying for things -> forget that you once had dreams for greater things -> stay at job -> go on annual two-week vacations to see sanitized versions of different locales -> go back to job to pay for vacation -> quarter/mid/late life crisis -> teach your kids to do exactly as you’ve done -> rinse -> repeat.
Fuck. Regular is lame.
So, now what?
So, we hustle.
We’re constantly moving, buzzing, orbiting between cities, relationships and jobs in an effort to convince ourselves, and those around us, that we’re worthwhile. We hustle for money and time and the things in between.
Me? What do I hustle for?
I hustle for quiet respites between hustling so I can sit with my hands and write stories, embroider the names of my friend’s kid onto pillows or to push play on the new Reigning Sound record because I enjoy music again. I hustle to get on the guest list so that I can save my cash for booze, and when I stand by the amp I can feel the alcohol and the guitars buzz through my entire body. I hustle to feel things because I worry that our hearts will atrophy with time if we don’t force vitriol and ambition through it. I’ve seen too many folks, with lines around their eyes, who feel like they blinked and lost ten years to a desk job to not be afraid of the same thing happening to me.
I hustle for mascara and eyeliner to brighten my eyes, so then when I flutter my lashes at a boy, he’ll know I’m saying, I like you enough at this moment and it’s possible that I might like you more in the future. Then maybe one day when we’re both tired and weary of chasing and being chased, we’ll settle into each other because me and you are good for each other. Because no one wants to be alone. I hustle to meet other hustlers. I hustle because sex is fun and love is worth taking risks for.
I’m grateful that many of my friends hustle for the same things, to avoid mediocrity, so that I don’t feel like I’m unrealistic or irresponsible for wanting what I want. I hustle because I refuse to believe that the breath of the human experience is limited to what we know, and I don’t know shit. I hustle so that when I wake up in the morning, I don’t feel like I wasted the day and night before.
I hustle because being regular isn’t an option. I don’t want it and it don’t want me.
DanE hustles whimsy— trading smiles for a place to sit. A pink-white-brown flag whips above his shop in southeast Portland, where he churns out artisan truffles and chocolate handlebar mustaches on a stick. His chocolates release endorphins and memories, like the ants on the log chocolate that taste exactly like a scoop of peanut butter in the shallow groove of a celery stalk with raisins crawling atop. When folks see his mustaches, a curvey piece of chocolate with little lines scratched in to mimic the scraggly texture of facial hair, they can’t help but smile as they prop it beneath their nose and right above their lip—looking like a distinguished gentleman .
“I realized something,” he said at the end of a long day, “I was sitting on my couch and relaxing.” I imagined him reclined into the soft cushions, surveying his living room of bare essentials: his dog Jack spring around, the oil painting of a ship in rough waters above the fireplace, the stack of records leaning against the wall. “I realized this is what I hustle for—a place to sit.”
This reminded me of where I was seven years ago, fresh out of university and ready to attack the world. I landed the job—the career—that was supposed to propel me into adulthood, 401Ks, and retirement. After my two-year tenure, I was earning more annually than my father did at the factory job that he’d had since I was born. When you opened the “A” book in your Encyclopedia Britannica collection, and thumbed through to “American Dream,” there was a Sears portrait with my mug in it. But I was unhappy because I spent more awake hours at my work desk than I did at my apartment. I hustled for a place to sit, but was so busy hustling that I didn’t even have time to enjoy it.
It was a Shel Silverstein moment to behold. The Giving Tree is my favorite children’s book with its lesson in selflessness (or codependency) and how we hustle. The boy hustled the tree’s apples, its branches, its trunk until nothing was left. Decades later, the boy returned as an old man, bent over, wrinkly and without pants. The tree apologized, for it had nothing to offer the boy except its stump. The old man—defeated, grey and lost—took a seat on the stump and the tree was happy. I suppose we, as children, were to surmise that the boy was happy too. After years of hustling, he could finally rest.
But Silverstein didn’t show us the boy’s hustle, he didn’t show us how the boy sold those apples, or how he built that house with the tree’s branches, or how he hollowed out its trunk to make a boat to sail away from his unhappiness. He didn’t tell us how to avoid being beat down, but that getting beat down is just another part of growing up. The story didn’t teach us how to hustle, it just told us that we will. It told us that we will be lost. It told us that we shouldn’t be afraid of it because maybe it’s worth it.
Another column, this one for Razorcake #55, published in February 2010. This one sheds light upon what I’ve been struggling with for the past 11 months. Enjoy.
Everything I have—I earned. Or stole, or happened upon, or it was gifted. I don’t have much, but I have more than enough. I have luxuries and burdens; running shoes and weak knees; headphones and nothing to listen to; values and ethics and apathy.
I used to be the most optimistic person, but years of volunteer and non-profit work has made me stop caring. I earned my cynicism.
Everything I have – I earned. I earned this unrelenting ache, this massive cloud that fogs my light, this absence of hope—a hollow, cavernous space.
* * *
Even in this dismal economy, I managed to earn a part-time job with health insurance. I had not seen a doctor in five years and I earned my first physical of the decade. The doctor asked about my family’s health history and I told her about what I knew: diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer. These were measurable in numbers and x-rays. Doctors need to know this history of afflictions because their diseases may be embedded in the double helix that makes up my DNA. We need to know this in order to prevent undue suffering—so that we may earn a pass to avoid the same fate.
It’s frightening, isn’t it? To know that there are things about us that we could know, about the very fabric of how we are built, but don’t. Like how I realized that I knew nothing about the history of mental health that shaped and molded the crevices and bumps of my brain. Like how I had to answer, “I don’t know” when I sat across from my therapist, at my first counseling session ever, after he asked if anyone in my family had mental health issues.
I don’t know. I don’t know because we don’t talk about these things. We don’t talk about the days where the core of your chest feels like it’s been packed in mud. We don’t talk about the days where the idea of talking, of holding a mere conversation, feels like an exhausting obstacle. We don’t talk about the days where we think about how we exist, and how much we want to cease existing, but continue to exist for the sake of our families and friends.
In that moment, I felt I was beginning to understand my father, a reticent man who I thought should have never had children. He was undoubtedly troubled, but did not speak out it. In that moment, I realized that I better understood my father now because of pain. He suffered it through his childhood and a war he never spoke of. I suffered it from the infinite expanse of optimism and hope that blackened into a mound of coal. We saw things, experienced things. They changed us, hardened us, formed callouses and cynicsm in parts of us that used to be soft and naïve.
Perhaps this whole ordeal had been written in my genetic code—this depression and anxiety. I still don’t know, but I want to be comforted in thinking that maybe I understand where I’m from, how I am supposed to be and try avoid the same fate.
* * *
Here’s what happened, in the only metaphor-ridden way I can explain it. My heart used to pound hope through my veins, I thrived on it, on red blood cells bursting with purpose and goodwill. I charged ahead with a smile and righteousness. My head was in the clouds, floating above it all, looking directly into the sun.
Then the sun burnt my retinas. It made me see and know things, it exposed the gaping faults of much of what I had believed in. I saw it in people, in Americans, in Bangladeshis, in Chinese. I saw their misguided attempts and misplaced principles, a system run on public relations photo ops that glossed over the infinite misery of our human experience.
You know that cliché: The bigger they are, the harder they fall? I didn’t just fall, I was yanked down. My head in the clouds, floating from the euphoria of my own high-mindedness when I was shot back down to earth—where there’s dirt and ugliness and humanity. I fell hard, and while I was down, got kicked around a bit too. I learned too much about facades versus realities, and I wanted so badly to unlearn it.
You donate your time, experience and cash to non-profit or non-governmental organizations under the premise that you are helping to alleviate suffering. It makes you feel better, your heart beats a little lighter and you feel proud. When you sit down at a bar, order one too many drinks and pass out on the sidewalk around the corner from the late-night food carts – you don’t feel too much like a louse because, at the very least, you helped out some brown people on the other side of the planet. And then you don’t have to think about it anymore, you did your part.
We don’t think about how for every altruistic act and humanitarian effort that may succeed, there are dozens of lives and unfinished projects that were neglected and abandoned. We don’t think about the salaries of executive directors, the egos of founders or the ghettos brimming with well-meaning volunteers. I didn’t think of it, and then it became all I could think of after I saw it.
We did our part, so we’re done thinking about it. We write our songs, pump our clenched fists, sing loudly to small rooms, to our own piddly choirs. We wear black hoodies and bandanas and call ourselves anarchists without recognizing how much of a first-world privilege it is to even be able to utter those words. We put out records, get Fest AIDS, and seldom question the vapidity of our own sub-culture. Because we’re done thinking about it. I didn’t think of it, and then it became all I could think of after I saw it.
* * *
Everything I want—I must earn. Or steal, or happen upon, or hope someone will gift it to me.
I have to earn back my hope, the optimism I once had. It used to be free, I used to have too much of it, and now I have to earn it back. I have to snatch it, a handful at a time, from sunny days and blue skies. I hope to stumble over it, catching me off guard when I’m in a foul mood. I have to ask those around to me to be patient, to give me time because time is supposed to heal us.
Every ridiculous day where I look forward to something is a victory. Every time I refer to plans for the future is a triumph. I continue to look for another job because I feel like my time is worth something. I still think about what I want to do with myself, because stuff is worth doing. Even if no one is hiring, or there to acknowledge my work, I still try because trying is all I have left.
I’ve done a lot of stuff in my short time, but perhaps the most courageous thing I’ll do is continue despite how much cynicism I’ve earned.
In July 2009, Todd (Razorcake editor) and I sat down for a Poddy-cast.
This is Razorcake Podcast #73.
I’ve known folks who don’t like running to music. They feel that the tempo fucks up their stride and pace. I’m not one of those types of runners. My pace wouldn’t exist without the beat and swagger of snare drums and choruses shouted at the top of your lungs.
This is a tested mix of that will keep your legs pushing forward with just the right tempo. Lace up, pop in your ear buds, and move with the music.
Songs to Run To
-Amy Adoyzie
To download the file to your computer, right click the link below and select “save target as…” It’s a hefty file, so it may take some time to download to your computer.
To play the file without downloading (it depends on your computer’s configuration for playing music files), just click it. Your media player should recognize what to do with an mp3. (If it doesn’t, you’re on your own.)
Tracklisting:
“Lapdog” Bent Outta Shape
——–
“Fuk the Prince a Pull Is Dum” Japanther
“We Laugh at Danger” Against Me!
“Brown Paper Sack” Reigning Sound
——–
“Don’t Expect for Me to Sleep” Underground Railroad To Candyland
“MyMyMetrocard” Le Tigre
“Your Love Belongs Under a Rock” The Dirtbombs
——–
“Space and Time” Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra
“Keep Fallin’ Down” Off With Their Heads
“Talk” Gordon Gano’s Army
“Waiting for Something” Jay Reatard
——-
“Brake It” Reigning Sound
