The Grind Date

I've never been on a blind date. I've been rejected more times than I'd like to admit, but the opportunity has never presented itself to go on a blind date or be setup with someone. I'm not sure if I would take the opportunity if it ever came up, not because I think it's weird or because I look down on it, I just think that it's not the best environment for me to showcase myself as an interesting person to be in a relationship with. There's a weird expectation that comes with being setup with someone you've never met, whether it be via a close friend or eHarmony, that would stress me out, like if I'm not compatible with the person, that would make me believe that something was wrong with me. "eHarmony said we're compatible but I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a dick!" Being set up is kind of weird because if you fail, you feel like you're failing your friend, or you feel like your friend doesn't know you at all, or is a total prick playing a prank on you.

Plus, I kind of like to find out that I have common interests with people organically so I find them as a pleasant surprises. I like the exercise of seeing how many times I can say "me too!" in a conversation and be sincere about it. Being set up or using eHarmony has a lot of "yeah, I know [insert name] told me" or "yeah, i read that in your profile", and that's just no fun for me, but I must admit watching a blind date from a distance is WAY fun.

In sophomore year of college, I ate out a lot with my friend Phil, (now of Percolator fame). We didn't veer off to many exotic places, usually settling for the cheap and the convenient. One place we often ate at was a Thai restaurant, Thai Spice, which wasn't exactly fast food, but not fancy either, so we were surprised to be sitting next to a couple on their first (blind) date on a Friday night. There weren't any other places to sit at and we didn't know they were on a first date, or a date at all, and we certainly didn't care. We had other things to talk about (nothing of incredible importance) and we were very good at entertaining ourselves, but at one point we grew silent, not because we didn't have things to talk about, but because the conversation next to us became so entertainingly painful.

"So I like to go to concerts."
"Oh cool."
"So there's the band you go to see, and then there's a band before that."
"Okay."
"That's called an opening act."
"Right..."
"So the opening act goes on for like half an hour before the main band goes on."

And at one point the girl had a really awkward realization and said to him "I think you've been talking this entire time." and I'm not sure how Phil and I were able to keep our composure and return to our conversation. Obviously going on a date is difficult and I'm sure most guys look like asses when they're the one in the middle of it, I'm sure I'm no better. It made me feel bad for the guy and made me wonder why humans have to be so complex, why we need dating services and our friends to set us up with their friends. Why can't we just be like the animals and smell each others' butts and have the females present themselves when they're ready? Wait, that's called a dive bar. Nevermind. I'm signing up for eHarmony right now.

Studying For The Sigur Rós Midterm

Some bands/artists are really intimidating to get into. Sometimes it's because of their extensive back catalog (like Bob Dylan), others is because of the amount of musical ground they cover (Bowie), and perhaps because an artist has put out some sketchy albums (The Kinks, Brian Wilson). These are artists that usually can't be confined to a 1 Disc best of, and who wants to buy a best of collection anyways? Personally, it makes me feel really lame, and it's usually the record label's idea of what "the hits" are so it's usually less than satisfying. (Side note: I would think that iTunes and Amazon would make best ofs obsolete by now, but with these NOW compilations still selling millions of albums, most of America does not agree with me.)

The one band that I'm having trouble getting into is Sigur Ros. They don't have the most extensive catalog and they're not genre jumpers, they're just Icelandic. I'm not racist towards people of Icelandic descent or their music (still loving Bjork). Sigur Ros doesn't sing in English (well it's very rare) and only one of their song titles are in English, which makes it extremely hard to identify their songs. I have tickets to their concert in a couple of weeks and I'd like to be familiar with what they're going to play beforehand, like I would for any concert. I think with a Sigur Ros, with their 10 minute opuses, it's pretty essential.

I perused the band's message board and found their setlists for this tour. Because I am not privvy to the Icelandic language, I could not tell off the top of my head if I had a good majority of these songs in my musical library so deducing what songs I needed to buy from iTunes became a difficult chore: copy song title from message board, paste song title into my iTunes library to see if I already had it, if not, copy song title to iTunes store to buy song. Usually this process is much more basic. It's looking at the song titles and knowing if I had them or not, there wouldn't be a need to copy, paste, or even look in my library. Luckily for me, the songs I didn't have all came from one album, saving me money, but not really saving me any time.

You might wonder why I'm going to this concert if I'm not a diehard fan who already knows all their songs. It's because I know that they're an amazing band to watch in concert. They've made my sister cry (or possibly crygasm). I've liked what I've heard from them (I did own 3 albums of theirs before doing this extensive research). I just haven't been crazy enough to learn their language and the song titles. I'm sorry I don't remember Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása off the top of my head or that I have no idea what that means. I've oraganized a playlist on my iPhone of the songs they've been playing and I've been getting familiar with them. I might even be able to tell you what song is playing in a really butchered way, like "ooh they're playing Sagglepuss" (Sæglópur).

I might not be singing along with the songs at the show, but I think I've done enough studying up to thoroughly enjoy the show, as long as they don't stray too far from what they've been playing so far. I don't think I ever studied this hard in college, actually. Here's to hoping I ace my test in Poseur 101.

College Isn't Like Movies About College (But My First Day Kind of Was)

The 80s was full of wacky college movies and maybe, since I was just a child, I don't seem to get the appeal of them. There's Animal House, St. Elmo's Fire and Revenge of the Nerds. Then Van Wilder, and I guess to a certain extent, the American Pie series, decided the "reach out" to my generation. I've seen very few of these, not because of their inaccuracy, but because of their lack of appeal. Though their inaccuracies may be part of the reason these movies seem pretty lame. The premises are mostly the same. Drink, get laid, don't get kicked out of school, repeat. So basically they're like high school movies, except there's drinking every day and not at a end of the year party, so I guess in that regard, these movies are relatively kind of accurate.

I never had the idealized version of college that these movies presented, mostly because I had no interest in joining a frat, and a lot of these movies center around getting in a frat, being in a frat, or waging war on another frat. I just wanted college to be a lot better than high school, and that hope was definitely fulfilled. There were no crazy parties (there were parties), there were no Girls Gone Wild moments, no crazy drug freak outs, but I definitely matured as a person and became less sheltered. I really didn't know what to expect going into college other than it was going to be different than high school. It was something that I realized immediately.

I moved into the dorms a couple days into Welcome Week because I wanted to catch a concert in San Diego before I moved in. Once I got my stuff in the dorms, and got my parents to finally leave, I went to go see all my friends that I had made at summer orientation (sadly I keep in touch with 0 of them now). This was before I had a cell phone (back in the year 2000...) so I would occasionally find myself knocking on a door with nobody home. The one person I really wanted to see was my friend Gwen, who I had bonded over Radiohead with during the aforementioned summer orientation program. We had kept in touch over the summer, and I had found the Kid A leak on Napster. Her dorm wasn't too far from mine so I decided I needed to tell her of my awesome find immediately.

Over our e-mails during the summer, I knew a few things about her: she had a boyfriend who went to a college up north, she was getting a single room (no roommate), and we liked a lot of the same music (Radiohead aside). What I didn't know was that these three facts were going to make my introduction to college extremely uncomfortable. See, when I knocked on her door, I could hear music and I could hear Gwen giggling, so I was pretty sure she was there (no roommate). When she opened the door she was in a towel, so I felt kind of embarassed, that I was catching her on her way to her shower. She was happy to see me and asked for a second so she could change and of course, I obliged. So she opened the door, full clothed, and invited me in, only for me to find a corpse in her bed. She introduced the corpse to me as her boyfriend, who got up and shook my hand. He was a nice guy, I told her about my Kid A find, and she was excited. She invited me to brunch with her and her boyfriend and I told her I'd get her a copy of the leak then. I left the room and immediately started to process everything: she wasn't going for a shower and there was a reason that music was playing in her room... and I almost started to hyperventilate.

Even with 4 older sisters, I have never walked in on anyone having sex or anything even close. I'm pretty sure this was the first and only time in my life that anything like this had happened. Luckily Gwen made it as easy as possible on me. If we were in the movies, this event would've played out differently. I would've knocked to no answer, opened the unlocked door and would've heard her scream at the top of her lungs. He would've chased me out of the dorms with a baseball bat and I would've found refuge in the skanky girls sorority house to which more embarassment would probably be doled out.

Lucky for me, college wasn't like the movies.

You Are What You Wear (But That Doesn't Mean You Should Wear Whatever You Want)

I don't watch Project Runway, or Pimp My Pride, or Cribs, but I'm still pretty superficial, and I'm okay with that, since everyone is. It starts at birth with your parents dangling shiny objects in front of you and continues on for the rest of your life. Perhaps you're not stereotypically superficial (fancy clothes, fancy car) but your superficiality manifests itself in many other ways. There will always be things that are pleasing to your eye, it's just human nature, and it doesn't make you any better or any worse than anyone else, even though you probably would like to think otherwise. My friend Mary claims that she doesn't see ugly but we can't all be like her.

I don't necessarily try to stand out too much with the clothes I wear, but I like to think that I dress nicely. I used to be a little more lazy about things in college because 1) I didn't have a lot of money to burn. 2) I felt like people should like me for me, and that me dressing up should make them feel special. It sounds silly and probably prevented me from being a hot item with the ladies but it saved me from a lot of the issues I have now.

Since I don't have deep pockets, decking myself in designer clothes is difficult. I don't have enough clothes to last me for months and I don't want people to always thing I'm wearing the same thing (like that Simpsons episode with Marge and the Chanel dress). It's like an epidemic, you get one piece of fancy clothing, and all of a sudden you need to revamp your entire wardrobe. Once you get a nice pair of jeans, you need to get shoes to match and you might as well get some shirts while you're at it. It's maddening.

I like to think I dress within my limits, not just financially. I think I wear clothes that fit me, suit me, and make me look fashionable, which I believe is the point. I WILL NOT just buy something because of it's brand name or because it's "in", and I think that is the problem with a lot of the "superficial" people today. They spend money on things that don't even make them look good, which defeats the purpose. Fashion is supposed to enhance your appearance. This is why you don't wear just white t-shirts and khakis everyday.

Unfortunately this is where some people go wrong, and I mean ridiculously wrong. I was in Hollywood over the weekend and while at a stop light, my friend had a terrified look on his face. Curious, I wanted to see what triggered the reaction and soon enough, I saw a large lady walking away from our view, wearing a shirt that kind of rode up on her, revealing a pale section of back flab. It was disgusting, and I feel terrible that my reaction to seeing this back flab was repeating "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God" for about a minute, until we made our turn and went home. Honestly, if this lady was wearing clothes that didn't reveal this flab, there wouldn't have been any reaction. She would've been just another pedestrian. It wasn't her weight or appearance that was garnering our ridicule, it was the lack of foresight on her part. This happens all the time, like at clubs or bars, as explained in the following lyrics:

"And you, the big girl with the low-rise jeans on,
Got the fat hangin over the sides
Girl, you got your gut bustin over the side of your jeans
It look like a muffin" - Little Brother "Good Clothes"

Now I don't want this to be an anti-big people rant. People of all sizes and body types look ridiculous in certain clothing. Super short shorts, showing a lot of skin when you're pasty white, wearing a fedora when you're kind of white trash, pig tails while wearing a trucker hat; these are all fashion faux pas that people should realize they should avoid but they don't. And it really goes beyond clothes, it's knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and gifts. If you want to be a writer and you think a good beginning for a story is "There was an Aunt Tiny, who was quite large." and you're not writing a children's book, you should probably look into another profession.

I believe that knowing what looks good on you is more attractive than wearing clothes that just "look good". It shows that you know what you're all about. You seem comfortable and you aren't trying to be something that you're not. You might not be gracing any fashion magazines or wearing designer clothes, but you're definitely not playing to your weaknesses. You know how to make yourself look good rather than making other people look good. I can understand the logic behind wanting to wear clothes that make you look more attractive but attractiveness is not based on what clothes you're wearing, but how you wear the clothes. The cliche is correct. It's what's beneath the clothes that count. And that's even true for the muffin tops.

The Buzzkill

When I was in high school, my friend told me that he hated the song "Everlong" by Foo Fighters. I asked him why, since I (and pretty much everyone else) loved the song. He told me he hated it because it was overplayed, which I thought was an unacceptable answer. His hate was misguided. It wasn't the song he had a problem with or the band, it was the radio DJs that he had issues with, but he still held his ground saying that he hated the song. With the invention of the mp3 player and the technological advances, I figured I'd never have to have a discussion like that with anyone again since you can choose what gets played, and therefore protecting yourself from having a specific song overplayed to the point that you hate it.

For the majority of us, this is true. We have our iPods/Zunes/Zens hooked up to our cars and we forgo the radio so things get never get overplayed, unless we're masochists, but this hatred is still there, it just has a different form. Rather than hate things that are overplayed, we now hate things that we believe are overhyped. Not that overhyping things is a new concept, it's just become easier with new technology. So technology saved us from one thing and brought in something to take its place.

So we've replaced the radio with iPods, but where do hear about new music if don't have the radio? Blogs, and god bless these blogs. These blogs tell us what's new and hip, and often they give us free music. I appreciate it, but a lot of people don't, and they really really don't appreciate it. I can understand not liking a song or not liking a band, but these people have developed intense hatreds for bands that have barely existed, and it's pretty puzzling.

The big buzz band of the moment goes by the name of Vampire Weekend. I heard about them on a bunch of blogs and sites, but didn't actually check them out until they were on an episode of Saturday Night Live (I'm an Amy Adams fan and they just happened to be the musical guest). I enjoyed them enough and picked up their album in iTunes. I thought the album was pretty good, not mindblowing, but pretty good. I didn't think they were the greatest band ever or the worst band in rock and roll history, but that seems to be the reaction according to most people on these blogs. I'm not saying you have to like or dislike this band, it just seems so strange that they warrant such strong reactions. For better or worse, this band is pretty inoffensive.

I understand music, or art in general, tend to get stronger reactions out of people because of the personal connection people make with it, but this buzz battle reaches to other things as well. My friend was in the market for an mp3 player and was torn between the iPod and the Zune. I advised him to get an iPod because I've had experience taking them apart before and that I could troubleshoot them if he ever had any issues. He went with the Zune for a bunch of different reasons that I found pretty petty.

1) One day the Zune is going to be better and more popular than the iPod because Microsoft has a huge warchest of money.
2) There might be a hack one day that will make his Zune awesome.
3) Everyone else already has an iPod.

So basically, my friend bought his Zune because he hated the iPod hype and because he wants to be on the winning side of a battle that hasn't even really started yet. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see he has to buy the Zune now, even if he believes it will one day be better. Why not just buy it when it is better? (Some people may believe that is now, and that is fine, I don't believe my friend does and that is the point.) What it boils down to is hype. He doesn't want to be part of it. He, like many of these buzzkillers, is happier rebelling against things, than possibly enjoying the things he's rebelling against. To each his own, I guess.

Not that I'm completely innocent in this anti-hype hatred. I think got caught up in the Garden State backlash. I voluntarily watched the movie in the theater watched the movie and actually enjoyed it, but started to hate it when I met people who thought the movie was the greatest thing since Citizen Kane. So it wasn't necessarily Zach Braff that I was hating on, I was hating on the fans of his film who allowed a film about nothing to manipulate themselves into believing that the film was about everything. I realize this is not too fair to Zach Braff, the same way that my friend wasn't being fair to Dave Grohl. I guess there's some backlash in all of us, just some more than others.

I think I'm going to listen to my Vampire Weekend and Everlong playlist on my iPod now. Have a nice day.

Are You Ready for Some Foosball?

I was torn whether I was going to title this "Fantasy Foosball" or "Are You Ready for Some Foosball", so I talked to Bruce about it via chat and the conclusion I came to was this: it doesn't really matter because Bruce thought I was going to write about the actual game of foosball (table soccer guys that are spun around to kick a ball) opposed to writing about football (NFL, not soccer) and Bruce's lack of knowledge (until recently) of the game. Fantasy football and "are you ready for some football?" are two of the most popular phrases associated with the sport and Bruce failed to realize the connection. Game. Set. Match. Or should I say "touchdown"!

So Bruce and I were very different when we were growing up. I played Little League, cheered my Minnesota Twins, and played pickup hockey on the pond, while Bruce, well had his head in a book, as he puts it. Video games and eating were our common interests (still are), so when we were at a house, we were fine, but when we were at church, the choices were to either play football or hang out with the girls. It was a no-brainer for me, but a much more difficult decision for him. I liked sports, Bruce did not. I was okay at sports, Bruce was not, and no one likes to do anything that they conciously know they're terrible at. No one wants to be the last kid picked and looked at as the team handicap. This is why kids are evil.

Bruce was given the job of "all-time rusher", which is pretty much like giving a kid a job as "waterboy". You feel like you're participating, but you're being kept out of everyone else's way. Bruce knew it, I knew it, and I'm sure he didn't grow a love for football from it, which is why I was surprised that he was watching the 2005 Super Bowl. Sure he was in college at Carnegie Melon (in Pittsburgh) watching the Pittsburgh Steelers play, while living in a Frat House, but it was still a shock, and it wasn't like a pleasant surprise. It kind of bothered me that he was watching sports, like something was wrong with the cosmos.

This wasn't a freak, one time ordeall. Last year, we were playing a game of Halo 3 online and we were chatting over the headsets (we are über nerds, I even know how to add an umlaut). I was confident we were going to win the round in which Bruce replied "17-0 man, 17-0", referring to the New York Giants upsetting the New England Patriots in the most recent Super Bowl. I know he basically lives in New York and it's pretty much a pop culture thing, but it was still really bizarre. I couldn't stop laughing and I don't think he could either.

A couple of weeks ago, I had my fantasy football draft. I told him about it the next day just as a conversation starter, but to my surprise, he wanted to know who I had on my team, because he also had a fantasy football team. His office is having a league and he's decided to be part of it, hoping to make some cash from it. He told me who was on his team, and I wondered if he picked his players based on stats from the previous years or for reasons like cool names (Frank Gore), cultural affiliations (Hines Ward - half-korean), and hometown affiliation (Vikings defense). I didn't really ask because I'm pretty sure his team is doing better than mine. Perhaps I haven't embraced his interest in sports because it threatens my superiority in something over him. If his fantasy football team is better than mine, what use do I have in this friendship at all? Nope, that's not it. All this shows is with all the other things we have in common, there's no place to squeeze football into our everyday conversations, not as long as we still love food and video games.

Brian Wilson and The War on Terrorism

I remember where I was on 9/11. I was at student staff training at my alma mater, and when I woke up that morning, I was scared because I had slept in. One of our staff trainers had knocked on my door and I was pretty sure I was going to get chewed out, but I was instead informed that training for the day was canceled and that I might want to call family and friends to see if they were okay. My sister lived in Brooklyn and my best friend was in Pennsylvania, and since I was fuzzy on the details, I was scared out of my mind that they might be hurt. They were fine, and finally it was time to start processing everything else associated with the day.

It's been 7 years since, and perhaps Rudy Guliani and Alan Jackson are to blame for why I've been desensitized and apathetic lately about 9/11, but I don't think I'm alone. No one really cared about the Oliver Stone World Trade Center film and I think the majority of us only really think about the aftermath of 9/11 when we're at the airport and we have to take off our shoes to get through the security checkpoint.

So on 9/12/2008, Jessica, Kirsten, Makenna, and I headed to the Hollywood Bowl to catch Brian Wilson perform with the LA Philharmonic. We didn't share stories about how 9/11 affected us or where we were on the day, Jessica just told us a story where she was at a bar the previous night and how there was a moment of silence, and how after the moment of silence, Neil Young's "Keep on Rocking in the Free World" came on the radio and how she thought the coincidence was hilarious. After that, we went back to our normally scheduled activities: filling our ice chest with cheese, crackers, and other snacks to go along with our two bottles of wine, as we headed to watch Brian Wilson and his band perform.

We were fortunate to be in the last row of our section and at the end of the bench because we were going to stand up for all of Brian Wilson's set. We were by far the youngest people at the show that didn't accompany their parents. The lady sitting next to me told me that we "were too young to like the Beach Boys" but that she "loved our energy" as we got tipsy and danced for the duration of the show. I think she tried to dance with me at some point and all I could think in my head was "half your age + 7, lady, get away from me", but whatever. We heard "California Girls", "Wouldn't it be Nice", "God Only Knows" and "Surfer Girl". He didn't have a lot to say between songs, but he let the music speak for itself. He then broke out the encore of "I Get Around" and "Surfing USA" as the fireworks went off. It was an amazing climax to a beautiful evening. Not only were we having a great time, we found ourselves with a great deal of pride in our country. Brian Wilson's love of California is unparalleled, and honestly it's quite infectious. We left the Bowl seeing what he saw, the beach, the freeways, everything in a different light. If everyone could see Brian Wilson perform with fireworks going off in the background, everyone would be in love with this country, full of pride, full of the American spirit and ready to show the world that we are not going to live in fear. He may not be able to bring back the loved ones we lost on that tragic day, but he can help us remember how to love our country and for that, for everyone at the Bowl that night, Brian Wilson won the war on terrorism.

We Don't Need No Education

I wouldn't say that I'm a huge Minnesota Timberwolves fan. Yes, I consider them "my team", but mostly because of obligation. I mean, I'm a Twins fan, a Wild fan, a Gopher fan, how can I just say 'no' to the Timberwolves, as terrible as they've been? I can't, especially since they symbolize the growing pains of adulthood. They're like the guy at your high school reunion that still lives with his parents and works at Target, but isn't a manager. They've just run out of excuses on why they're so incompetent.

The 2003-2004 playoffs was the only time in the existence of the franchise that warranted any hope and pride and I wasn't going to miss out on this opportunity. I visited Bruce in Minnesota that year and we went to a T-Wolves game and watched them win. I wanted to watch as many of their games on TV because they were actually good. This wouldn't have been a problem if I was still in high school, getting out at 2:10pm, but unfortunately I had a class between 7pm-10pm on Thursdays, I believe, a Race in TV and Film class.

I really didn't have a problem with my professor, or the subject matter of this class, I just wanted to see my team bask in the spotlight for perhaps the only time ever. They were the #1 seed and they had just beaten Denver to get out of the first round for the FIRST TIME EVER. While the class was fine and all, it was inconveniencing me from experiencing winning, and I wasn't going to put up with it. Of course I needed this class to graduate, so I was kind of between a rock and a hard place.

This is when I turned my dilemma over to this girl in my class, lets call her Yoo-Jin (this may actually be her name, I don't remember, which makes me a very very terrible person). I was pretty sure she had a crush on me, so I'd ask her to sign in for me while I went to the Pub to watch the games. She seemed pretty disappointed in my lack of work ethic but I'm also pretty sure she also signed in for me (crush, right?). She didn't seem to understand my investment in this team that was halfway across the country, but she did seem to understand that us both liking Belle and Sebastian could possibly lead to a date down the line (it didn't). Maybe she thought I'd need to study with her at some point to get through the class, but she still allowed it. All I know is that when Kevin Garnett hit that 3 in the 4th Quarter while being double teamed and with the shot clock winding down, I knew that I had made the right decision. That shot validated it all. When he jumped up on the scorer's table at the end of the game and screamed, I wanted to do the same.

The Wolves got eliminated in the next round by the Lakers, but that wasn't important to me. I finally saw my team overcome their futility. After 7 years of getting knocked out in the first round, they had gotten over the hump. I returned to regularly going to class and aced out my final presentation. I talked about how Long-Duk Dong from 16 Candles has single handedly made Asian American men the laughing stock of the American dating world (I actually don't believe this because I not a fan of self-pity). I passed the class, I graduated college, but life was not happily ever after. I bounced around jobs and lived from paycheck to paycheck for a few years until I hit a wall. I got out of a relationship and lost my job in a span of 48 hours, and while I don't feel like I hit rock bottom then (it gave me ample time to play and beat Super Mario Galaxy), I finally felt like I needed to grow up and get on with my life.

I needed to make adjustments, I didn't necessarily need to start over. I didn't need to go back to school (though I did ponder it), or change my career path (IT by day, writer by night), I just needed to refine myself. I needed to do some re-prioritizing, and learn to start setting some practical goals for myself. I realized I though living paycheck to paycheck would keep me from being too comfortable, that it would push me to finally get a screenplay sold, or what have you, but in the end, it was just keeping me paranoid about my finances. The free time I had after work was not going to productive for writing if I had bills to pay. While the starving artist way of life works for some people, it was obviously not working for me. I got a new job, found a church where I wasn't just twittling my thumbs during service all day, and get some friends who actually enjoyed their lives. I know I'd love to say "then I got a book/TV deal, got an amazing girlfriend and bought a house", but lets be realistic and take things one step at a time.

After 7 years of post high-school life, I finally felt like I got over the hump. I was finally ready to jump up on the scorer's table and scream from the top of my lungs that I was a winner.

The Mark Madsen Exception

Every year, without fail, I'll get obsessed with the NBA, NFL, and NHL drafts. I'll scour mock drafts on websites, talk it about with friends, and read whatever I can get my hands on. I definitely waste too much time on these things and I'm sure when I get a girlfriend, this time and energy will finally be redirected (or not). These drafts are an odd process. These sports teams congregate in some auditorium, force these kids (between the ages of 17-24) to sit in said auditorium in a suit, and then select them like they were selecting a kick ball team. But unlike a kickball team, these kids are getting multimillion dollar contracts. Sweet deal.

I'm not complaining about the fact that these kids are getting paid millions of dollars. If you're really good at something, you're going to get paid for it. That's how life works (except for UCI award winning screenwriters, cough cough). Plus these kids get put under the microscope and aren't allowed to be kids anymore. Caught smoking weed in college? You have "character" issues. Got in a fight outside of a club because someone spilled Bud Light on your new Italian loafers? You're a headcase. Every kid gets disected. "He seems to have a low basketball IQ", "his wingspan is surprsingly short", "not very athletic".

See, these kids have expectations to perform, and short of dying or being paralyzed, these kids will be judged no matter what life throws at them. Tore up your knee? Great, you've set our franchise back three years! Your Mom died? You need to get over it because Game 7 is tomorrow. Sympathy is dead. 20 year old kids get labeled as failures. It's a great world we live in.

It actually really is if you're Mark Madsen, who somehow managed to escape having an expectations bestowed on him even though he was a 1st round pick. 1st round picks are supposed to be useful, maybe not necessarily great, but regular contributors. Mark got picked by the Lakers with the last pick of the first round, and immediately the joke was "he's getting picked to guard Shaq during practice". Madsen is perhaps the worst player in the NBA. It's almost unanimous but he seems to find work and isn't considered a failure. If he were a walk-on, I'd understand because he'd be the modern day Rudy. But would you still enjoy the movie if Rudy came from a ridiculously wealthy family? Nope, but here we are, shrugging at Mark Madsen's lack of skills, instead of looking back at the draft and wondering who the Lakers could've had that would've been a better choice of a pick.

Not to hate personally hate on the guy. I mean I hear he's a great teammate. Maybe the NBA is just trying to teach us about morals. Or maybe we see a little bit of Madsen in ourselves. I mean, isn't most of America incompetent at what they but enjoy getting paid for it anyways? Mark Madsen is a America, except he's got great character.

Down With the PTA

My parents were never in the PTA at Palmer Lake Elementary School. I'm sure the Korean/English language barrier was the biggest factor in their absence, or perhaps they found the PTA superfluous. I don't know what was discussed at the meetings and why these meetings took place in the first place. Since my adult life seems normal enough, I'll assume that it was no big loss that my parents weren't involved, and I'll also assume that it means my parents weren't crazy after seeing a lot of crazy parents in the news throwing tantrums about their kids' grades.

I'd think that the idea of a PTA is to parents know what's going on at school, what's expected of the kids, ways they can help, etc. That sounds useful enough, but I've realized that no matter how much "guidance" the PTA will give me, I will be a terrible parent at helping my kid excel at school. It won't be for a lack of trying, but artsy, sarcastic Ryan should not help his kids with anything outside of math.

I was in Oregon a couple of weeks ago to see my nieces and school had just started for them. My niece, Jamie (9 years old), came home and started doing a work sheet that her teacher had given her. It was a questionnaire on one sade and it was a table on the other side where she was supposed to put various subjects/tasks in three categories: like a lot, am okay with, don't like, or something in that nature. I sat at the table with her while she worked on the worksheet, intrigued, since I usually see my nieces during holidays or summer, therefore they never have any school work to worry about. So this was something new for their uncle to experience.

As far as the questionaire went, a lot of her answers were pretty stock for a 9 year-old. Person you'd like to meet: Selena Gomez (Disney Channel actress), place you'd like to visit: Florida (Disney World), etc. It surprised me that she was skipping a lot of the questions. To me, these weren't necessarily things that required a lot of thought. She wrote "I'd like to be a rich person" for the question of "What do you want be when you grow up?" and this angered my sister. My sister told her to write something like "you want to be a pet doctor", but my niece refused. I offered a bunch of more interesting options like "you want to be the head of FEMA, but you're going to do a good job", but those suggestions fell on deaf ears.

Honestly, I had no problem with my niece's answer. It's not admirable, but it's honest. It's not like she wrote "marry a rich guy", or something less than noble. My sister was telling her to lie and this made me wonder about the ethics of being a parent. I understood my sister's case because you don't want your kid to look like they have a lack of morals, but at the same time, ordering your kid to lie on homework is pretty hypocritic. Of course, as the hip 26 year old uncle, I'm merely there to play Wii games with the kids, buy them ice cream, and threaten to make the kids smell my armpits, these more important decisions are not part of my job description, though I highly doubt that I will force my kids to lie on their homework.

Not that I'm callin my sister a bad parent. She's trying to prevent her child from getting on the teacher's crap list. She's involved, she's helping, and she's trying to guide her kid towards a more fruitful goal than just being rich. It's all commendable, and perhaps it's what the PTA preaches to my sister. I just wonder if teachers can read through these answers and pin down the kids who are being fed answers from their parents. At least when I have kids, the teachers won't have any doubt, because they'll see the answer "I want to be the head of FEMA."

Chris and Ryan Go To South Coast Plaza

There's a debate about the Korean American identity. I the issue is that there really isn't one. There's a Korean identity and there's an American identity and then there's a bunch of people who argue about what is the right balance of the two. I've consistently been the target of "not being Korean" enough by these people, and that's a huge part of why I'm a self-deprecating Korean. (Good job guys!) I'm not ashamed of being Korean and I cheer for Korea during the World Cup and the Olympics (for most events). I just don't really keep up with Korean pop culture and I usually don't try speaking the language, because honestly I'm really terrible at it.

During my freshmen year of college, I met Chris Kim (legal name: Christopher) in the dorms and we found out we had a lot in common: a love of Ash, The Get Up Kids, Coen Brothers films, and Clerks. We also had a similar trajectory when it came to growing up. I grew up in Minnesota until I was 11, Chris grew up in a town outside Pittsburgh until he was 10. I moved to San Diego and Chris moved to Fullerton. I don't know if this is why we're so similar, but it kind of makes sense to me. We're both not "very Korean", but Chris tends to hide it a lot better since he went to Sunny Hills High School, so he can at least claim to have a lot of Korean friends.

He's definitely a fraud though. I've heard him have a conversation in Korean over the phone once. It even made me cringe. In his defense, he was talking to "his mommy". I, on the otherhand, have given up speaking to my parents in Korean, it's easier for the both of us if I speak in English opposed to botching up phrases and saying things unintentionally. Of course, every time I call and try to speak Korean to my Dad, he doesn't realize that it's me, which is pretty golden in itself.

Chris claims the whitest thing he's ever done is getting drunk in a parking lot before going to watch a movie. Unsurprisingly, this was my idea, and in an ironic twist, we were doing this "white" thing before going to watch Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, starring John Cho, the most famous Korean American actor of our generation (don't even think it's Sandra oh, She's Korean-Canadian). Besides, we were drinking Fat Tire, not Bud Light, because we're classy like that.

I believe drinking before a movie you're not sure is going to be good is a great idea, regardless of the fact that you might be setting this Korean-American identity debate back ten years. If anything, this event in our lives is a metaphor of the Korean-American identity. Part of us wants to embrace the culture we live in, while paying respect to the culture of our forefathers. Now if only we could all get drunk before Harold and Kumar, maybe we'd have this identity crisis figured out.

How Hip-Hop Saved My Life

I think a lot of people got into Indie-Rock the same way I did, through someone older (my sister). As a child, I was content listening to the radio, soaking up the pop of New Kids on the Block, Kris Kross, and Paula Abdul and my sister was insistent at force feeding me The Replacements, REM, and Jane's Addiction. In the end, she won (not that I'm complaining). Then came the Nirvana obsession, then the Radiohead obsession, and so on.

Growing up, a lot people would unfairly criticize the music I listened to. Some would categorize it as "devil worshipping music" (absolutely false), other would call it gloomy (while true, these bands were much more complex than just "gloomy"). It didn't matter that I also listened to Pavement (rarely gloomy) or Sebadoh (hopelessly romantic), or Archers of Loaf (really sarcastic), since most people don't know who any of the aforementioned bands are/were. This is part of the reason that I hate the question "What music are you into?", because there's a good chance that I will mention a bunch of bands that you've never heard of making my answer a complete waste of both your and my time. I know that this is very much the indie-rock attitude: to keep your favorite bands a secret for fear they will be discovered by less-deserving hipster idiots (like The Shins after Garden State).

This attitude goes against every fabric of the hip-hop paradigm. Hip-hop is about celebration (money, drugs, the fact that they got shot a dozen times and didn't die, women, whatevers) and about self-promotion. Rappers are about ethos as much as they are about skill or lyrical content. In fact, a lot of rappers rely on nothing but ethos. So musically, I weave a very tangled web. On one hand, I listen to the reclusive self-depricating indie-rock bands that are so good that they don't need self-promotions, and on the other hand I listen to Lil' Wayne who talks about how he's the greatest MC in the game on pretty much every song.

My love for hip-hop started around the time that (in my opinion) Indie-Rock's golden age was about at its end. Pavement and Sebadoh released their final albums in 1999 and there was definitely a musical void that needed to be filled. Luckily, the same year a group called The Roots released their breakthrough Things Fall Apart and Mos Def released his solo debut Black on Both Sides. If that's not impeccable timing, I don't know what is. By the way, if you're looking to get into Hip-hop, these are two great "gateway"albums, along with Midnight Mauraders by A Tribe Called Quest.

The truly great thing about The Roots and Mos Def is their respective "family trees". The Roots have their Okayplayer community and Mos Def (part of the Okayplayer himself) had the Rawkus label, both of which produced excellent music and made the transition to hip-hop even easier. I immediately was exposed to Common, Talib Kweli (and therefore Black Star), Erykah Badu, and later Kanye, Lupe, and Little Brother. This is where I'm extremely fortunate. If Jay-Z was my gateway, I'd get stuck being exposed to Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek, and Freeway. While they aren't terrible, they're definitely not as easy to get into as Common and Kweli. I would say with the exception of Atmosphere, all the hip-hop I listen to can be traced back the The Roots. For instance Jay-Z: The Roots --> Mos Def (guest on "Double Trouble" off Things Fall Apart) --> Talib Kweli (Black Star) --> Kanye West (produced "Get By" for Kweli, Kweli guests on College Dropout) --> Jay-Z (shows up on College Dropout, Kanye produces lots of his material). Of course the Roots also were Jay-Z's backing band on his Unplugged special, but I'm just outlining my path.

I was also fortunate to stumble upon the mixtape, which is really an artform in itself. The mixtape is released in between albums and is designed to keep the artist relevant (like I said, it's all about the ethos). It also gives rappers at chance to rap over other people's beats, work with rappers that they aren't necessarily normaly associated with, and basically put out some b-sides and feelers to see if their new direction will be accepted by "the streets" (no, not Mike Skinner). Usually a DJ "hosts" the tape and will occasionally be more of a detriment than a benefit (especially when they're giving shout outs to their homies for "holding it down"). Every now and then a rapper gets creative like Talib Kweli, who has The Beautiful Mixtape, which is hosted by Dave Chappelle as Rick James and some really interesting tracks, like Kweli rapping over Elanor Rigby ("The Lonely People"). This is definitely something that rappers can do that rockers can't (probably for a lot of legal reasons), and while I haven't given up on indie-rock at all, hip-hop has definitely found a place in my heart and is looking to stay. I have something to balance out the gloominess. It's a celebration bitches.

Hang the DJ

I know that you can't really have a best friend when you're an infant, but just to kind of make things simple, I tell people that I've been best friends with Bruce since we were babies, circa 1983. My mom and his mom were (still are) really good friends and realized that having sons that are roughly the same age meant that they could hang out and have the kids play together. Then in 1993, my family moved to San Diego, but we stopped by Bruce's house, the morning of the move, one last time before we headed out.

So 1993 was the last year I went to one of Bruce's birthdays. We went to the Mall of America, went on some roller coasters, hit up the arcade and beat the X-Men Arcade Game from beginning to end. It was just Bruce, his brothers, myself, and our moms. So it probably sounds really weird that I haven't been to my best friend's birthday in 15 years, but that's just how it's worked out.

So this year, 2008, I headed out to New York to hang out with him on his birthday. I mean, I had other people to visit in New York as well (1 sister in Brooklyn whose birthday is a day before Bruce's, another in New Jersey), but I was pretty much going to New York to hang out with Bruce. The itinerary for the birthday bash sounded awfully familiar: eat dinner, go to a place called Barcade (booze + arcade games), etc. It seemed like in 15 years, the only thing that had changed was the ability to consume alcohol, and large amounts of it at that. That was a very terrible assumption on my part.

We met up for lunch that day at Grimaldi's Pizza. It was Bruce, my sister and me. It might seem odd that my sister would join us, but like I said, our families are close. After lunch, my sister ran errands while Bruce and I hit up the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and then headed to SoHo because I made a joke about how Brooklyn made me want to buy Rock-A-Wear clothing. He totally ran with it and we ended up at Bathing Ape (Bape) and Kid Robot, because you know, that's what the rappers today wear. I ended up spending a lot more money that I planned and had a designer hoodie. I bring up this fact, not to boast, but because it had a great effect on the rest of the night.

We hit up dinner, Bruce had some scotch, I had some beer, and then we hit Barcade. There was some Rampage, some Contra, some IPAs, and some Dig Dug. Bruce wanted to head to this bar down the street that gives you a free personal pizza with the purchase of a pint. This is plastered all over the bar, it's something they're famous for, I guess. So we walk in, already pretty out it, get some beer and head to the back room. I immediately see a juke box and started flipping around in it. There were some pretty interesting selections in the jukebox: the new Spoon album, Deltron 3000, and some other indie stuff, enough intriguing picks for me to call Bruce over to the machine. We put in a dollar and put on some Deltron. This is where the night turned ugly.

I know this is going to sound really dumb, but we didn't realize that there was a DJ in the back room spinning music at the time. Like I said, there had already been a lot of alcohol consumed at this point, and also more importantly, this DJ wasn't doing anything to distinguish himself from music you would just hear on a house mix CD. I remember this very clearly. The song he was spinning when we walked into the room was "My Sharona" by the Knack. I'm not a big fan of the song, but as a DJ, I don't think you're making much of a name for yourself if you're spinning that at 1am in a bar as is. If you want to scratch with it, fine, that's being bold. If you want to mash Lil' Wayne on top of it, awesome (Greg Gillis, you're free to take this idea and run with it), but don't spin the song as is, and expect people to say "man, is there an awesome DJ in here or what?!"

So the DJ takes offense to the fact that we're dancing to Deltron on the jukebox and not "My Sharona", and I admit, we're not looking good here. Of course, the bar could've prevented this situation by unplugging the jukebox at the beginning of the night, but they didn't have the foresight, so here we are with this skinny ass hipster looking DJ screaming at my best friend for disrespecting him.

The first thing I wanted to do was to tap the guy on the shoulder and punch him back into the year where it's actually cool to spin "My Sharona" but then two thoughts came into my mind: 1) I don't want to get arrested in New York and 2) I really don't want to get my hoodie messed up. I felt really terrible that my best friend was getting chewed out by this guy over a simple misunderstanding but this is New York and things escalate quickly. Also we're all drunk so there's no way the cops are going to take our side AT ALL.

At one point the DJ asked "how would you like it if I went to your work and messed up your work station?!" after finding out that Bruce is a programmer. Honestly, if Bruce Lee is blasting "My Sharona" at his work station, I give you full permission to take a sledgehammer to it and to throw his keyboard and mouse out the window, but alas we finally left the room in a terrible mood and finally we called it a night. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it to next year's party but if I do, I hope it's at the Mall of America, just like it was in 1993, which coincidentally is another year where "My Sharona" still wasn't cool.

Separation of Church and Grace

When I go to visit my parents in San Diego, I usually stay for less than 24 hours. I'll arrive Friday night or Saturday morning and head back to Orange County Saturday night. If I stay until Sunday, I'll have to argue about why I'm not going to church with my parents, which seems odd since I attend church regularly in Fullerton. So why will I go to one church and not the other? The answer is simple: I don't want to wear a suit.

My parents go to a 0 generation Korean church (at least that's what my friend, Abe, calls it). The main service is in Korean, the hymns, the readings, the sermon, everything is in Korean. There's also a smaller English service and the youth group is in English as well, these are ancillary things. The ethnocentricity of the church doesn't really bother me, but since it's a 0 generation church, it's definitely old fashioned, hence my father demanding I wear a suit if I'm to go now that I'm "grown up".

The suit is definitely an issue for me, but it's more of what the suit represents: image. I'm well liked by the parents at this church and I'm doing pretty well for myself, but my parents want these other parents to see that I'm doing well or at least that I dress like I'm an adult who knows what "doing well" is. It's something I try not to blame on my parents, it's very generational, but like I said, it's not the suit that keeps me away.

There was a kid, we'll call him Mark. He's 4 years younger than me and I, for a lack of a better word, mentored him. He wanted to learn how to play guitar for the youth group worship team so for the majority of my senior year of high school, we'd hang out, play guitar, and I'd beat his ego down. He was a bright kid, who had just tested into a gifted program. This coupled with him joining this worship team at "such a young age" (the words of others, not mine) was a recipe for disaster, but for some reason I was the only person who could see it coming. I referred to him as my Anakin Skywalker and he definitely had the ability to bring things to the dark side.

I went to college and came back to see my parents every month and a half or so, and eventually I started to go back to Irvine, on Saturdays, much like I do now. This church was no longer part of my life, but I tried to check up on Mark every now and then. During my 4th year of college, I actually came down to San Diego every weekend because my Mom was in Korea and I figured my Dad could use some company. The first weekend I was there, I decided to see how Mark was doing, and there I saw Darth Vader destroying everything in his path.

Mark started to date this girl from the youth group. I've known them both for a very long time so I didn't really think too much of it. The families didn't like each other very much but this wasn't a Romeo and Juliet generational feud. They didn't like their kid dating the other families' kid, and Mark decided to throw a drum of gasoline onto the fire. Mark disclosed to me that he thought his girlfriend was pregnant, and he was turning to me for advice. Since I'm not well versed on after school specials, I decided to ask some questions.

I skipped the obligatory "Don't you know premarital sex is forbidden by the Bible?" question and still found myself really disgusted with his answers.

"'How many times did you have unprotected sex?"
"Three."
"Why didn't you ever get protection?"
"I figured she could always get an abortion."

I don't want to open up a pro-choice/pro-life debate. I think either side will agree that these answers are ignorant, despicable, and absolutely appalling. For some reason, I didn't punch him in the face and leave, I listened to him drone on about how he loved her and how his parents didn't understand and blah blah blah blah blah. I heard him out and he asked me what he should do. I told him for starters to keep his dick in his pants. I then proceeded to tell him to stop pissing everyone off and that he had done enough damage. He needed to graduate from high school (4 months away) and then move/ let his parents kick him out of the house and then he could be with the girl and live happily ever after, but the key was to lay low until then.

I guess he wasn't expecting this. I guess he was expecting me to tell him that he was right and that everyone should leave them alone since they were in love. The next day I was supposed to have lunch with him but he didn't pick up his cell phone. I darted over to her apartment and found him there, trying to convince her to pack up her things and run away with him. I couldn't put up with him anymore. He lied to me and I realized he didn't want my advice, he wanted a "yes man". I saw him a week later, he told me she wasn't actually pregnant, and acted like all was well. That was the last time we spoke. I ran into his dad a week later at church. His dad didn't know I knew what I knew about his and he openly mocked me for wanting to be "a movie producer". Now I was completely fine cutting ties with this family and this church.

Eventually the truth came out about the kids and the pregnancy scare. My mom told me to stop talking to those kids, and I told her I was way ahead of her, but that's the unfortunate thing about this. The church was not a place where these families could find support in their time of crisis, it was a place that shunned them and forced them to leave in disgrace. I found out later that Mark's relationship with the girl ended because he couldn't control his drinking. My relationship with this church ended because I was the only one trying to save Mark from himself.

Don't Crygasm for Me Argentina

I've heard of crazy things that have happened at Radiohead concerts: people bawling their eyes out as the band has come on stage, people fainting the second Thom Yorke speaks, pretty much the run of the mill rock star stuff that started with The Beetles and Elvis and continues on today with... umm, The Jonas Brothers.

Of course, I've only heard about these things happening from friends or by watching them on TV, which means I haven't really "experienced" the weirdness. I just kind of shrug my shoulders and accept the fact that they happen. Of course, there was a good chance I was going to experience something since I had tickets to see Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl, (and as we all know, Hollywood brings out the weirdos anyways,) but there was an even better chance that this "experience" was going to come from someone standing right next to me.

My friend Jessica claims that there are certain songs that will make her "crygasm" if they are performed live. The list of songs intrigued me more than trying to figure out what a "crygasm" is, which is probably what makes me a weirdo. The list of songs weren't the most obvious (Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, Motion Picture Soundtrack, etc) but made sense, I mean, for Radiohead they made sense (Thom Yorke is not Lou Barlow). They were all beautiful songs that had some sort of romantic mention in them ("Climing Up the Walls", "Talk Show Host", and "True Love Waits"), and she was on the fence if "Reckoner" might do it, since she hadn't heard the song live before.

So the day of the show was pretty hectic for me. I had to leave my parents' house in San Diego and head to Fullerton for church (and I had to make sure I had the tickets with me). From there, I was supposed to meet up at Chris' house after lunch but lunch took a bit longer than expected so Chris and Jessica came to me, which I find endearing, except for the fact that they are afraid to meet any of my friends from church for fear of being converted. From there, we headed up to LA, hit up some stores, had dinner and walked over to the Bowl. This is where the anticipation started to mount, not just for Radiohead, but for the much hyped "crygasm".

For the previous week, I had been sifting through the Radiohead set lists on the ateaseweb.com message boards to see what songs we were likely to see at our show. Both "Climbing Up the Walls" and "Talk Show Host" were showing up pretty consistently and "Reckoner" was showing up every night, so it seemed that whether Chris and I wanted to experience it or not, a "crygasm" was headed our way.

The show started with "15 Step" and we were on our way. The Bowl was packed but no one in our immediate area fainted or started immediately crying to my amazement/disappointment. So now it was up to Jessica, who wasn't feeling especially great (she had a cold, she wasn't depressed or anything). I wasn't sure if I wanted to see her crygasm with a cold, since I still hadn't determined what a crygasm actually is. Would it induce vomiting? Is it contagious when the crygasmer is sick?

These thoughts were just a passing fancy, since it's pretty hard to ignore the awesomeness that is Radiohead and if you find a way to distract yourself during "How to Disappear Completely", you my friend, have no soul. The band was at the top of their game and everything in the night started to come together. The day was rushed and a little stressed, but none of it mattered anymore. We were experiencing something magical, and while Jessica never crygasmed during "Climing Up the Walls", it was far from a disappointment. Besides, we have pit tickets for Sigur Ros next month, so maybe those Icelandic kids will get a crygasm out of her or at least cause someone in the pit to faint. One can only hope.