Just needed a place to park this image.

He he

Pfft...I knew I couldn't keep it up. I post here now.

It's over

Sigh. After a long (well, not so long) deliberation, I've decided that I'm going to finally ring the death-knell of my three blogs: this one, BoyInCorner (the poetry/writing/art one), and I'll Steal Your Soul, or whatever the fuck I called that one about photography.

Most of my friends' links on the side are either shut down themselves, and some of my personal links I've moved on from.

It's been a pretty good run, at least for most of college. I know I was posting at least 2-3 times a week back in the day (like a year ago), but not so much now. I sometimes ponder the reason I don't blog anymore.

Sun's theory is that people only blog when they're sad. I don't think that's necessarily true, but I feel like most of us casual bloggers (those who don't have scores of strangers reading their stuff daily) are like that. Not to say that I was sad, but I think deep down I was a bit unhappy.

I look back on Cal as an entirely different chapter in my life. Even from Freshman year, I think that I was unhappy with at least some parts of my life, and I used alcohol a lot to comfort the pain. Or staying really fucking busy. Not that I didn't crack here and there, but I was lucky enough to have an awesome Family of friends who were always supportive of me. I just remember the strangeness of my reaction to hearing my parents were finalizing their divorce: I got off the phone, couldn't cry, and decided that I should go drink, cuz that's what crazy depressed poets do (at least they did in my head), but decided not to because I had too much homework. So I waited until later that week to get really fucking smashed. I mean, what the fuck?

I feel like a recluse sometimes. I haven't talked to some people in a long time, who I should do a better job of keeping in touch with. I've made things awkward with old friends due to my politics. I sometimes still agonize over some of the fucked up ways I treated some people yet don't have the guts to apologize.

Sigh. I don't think this post is anywhere near as coherent as I'd like a final post to be, but part of it is that I didn't really think this out, and another part is that I'm sick and my brain is a bit overheated. Fucking fever.

Anyway, I will be starting up a new blog, when I get around to building my own personal site (although I've been saying this for like a year now, so we'll see if it happens) for my art stuff, so you'll be able to find me there. So it's not like I'm completely disappearing from the web. I mean, I've always been a bit of an exhibitionist, so it's not like I'm going to vanish from the face of the earth.

But thank you to everyone who still reads this. I think it's like maybe 4 people, but if there are more, thanks for a great run. I guess doing the fiery rebirth thing is more of Eve's deal (ya know, cuz she's a phoenix), but I'm a bit tired of this blog that reminds me of my exceptional hubris and I need to start from scratch.

But thank you everyone, past and present, who have read this, and made it seem like my words actually had some weight out there in the real world. And if you're interested in helping me with an art project, email me your address, and as soon as I get a PO Box you'll be getting something in the mail.

Goodnight/bye.

School starts yet again

So in the past few weeks of not posting, a decent amount of cool shit has happened.

Vacation: so I ended up spraining my neck or pulling it, or injuring it somehow (most likely due to my poor posture while playing WoW), so we ruled out actually going backpacking. We did want to go camping, so we ended up going on the crazy ass drive to Utah to check out Zion National Park. It's really awesome there, and the canyons are beautiful, but since it was in early August, it was hot as shit. Crazy hot. Hot like a fucking oven. Like a fucking oven in Hell.

And if you know me, you know I don't like hot. So after hiking the Narrows (hiking through a riverbed upstream with huge canyon walls on each side), we proceeded to take a nap. I woke up thirsty, but we decided to drive past this huge arch thing, and we decided to do a little .5 mile hike. We figured it would be no big deal, but with the heat, only 1 Nalgene between the 2 of us (filled with warm water - yuck!) and a large elevation change, and as we headed back to our camp, we both started getting heat exhaustion. Fortunately, Eve had just gotten her Wilderness First Responder Certification, and busted out her handy rehydration salts. I was much worse, progressing from just a dry mouth to a headache to nausea. Eve started to feel better, and we decided that Utah is just too hot for us, so we packed up (2 days early) and drove back. I was too messed up to drive, so Eve drove the first 5.5 hours to Barstow, where we found a place to stay. We encountered some Asian-fetishizing white trucker dude at the check-in, but we managed to finally bid him farewell and after a series of mistakes (Card key not working, smoky room when we asked for non-smoking) we got a nice room. However, the tap water was unusually murky, so we ended up using our backpacking water filtration pump to pump the tap water from the sink to our water bottles. Pretty damn ridiculous.

The next morning I drove us back, and we stopped at Anderson's Pea Soup for an early dinner. Overall, it was a fun time, although much of it was spent on the road.

Other than that, Eve and I tried unsuccessfully to get a table at the SF Zine fest, but we hope to still make an appearance.

Eve just read me parts of some of her first journal entries while she was first joining Theatre Rice. It's funny hearing her thoughts on me, the cast, and Rice as a whole from a beginner's perspective (since I've long became a grumpy old member and lost that beginner's perspective).

Let's see, I saw SuperBad with Mike (funny, yet unsurprisingly offensive), and Eve and I have been on a movie renting binge, watching Bridge to Taribethia, Predator 2, Alien 3, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum (in theaters, obviously), Intacto, and The Fountain.

The Fountain was pretty fucking cool. Kinda trippy, but we liked it. The Bourne movies were also pretty good.

Let's see, Eve and I hit up Green Apple Book's big sale, where everything at their clearance store is $4.95 or cheaper...we got a huge stack of reference materials and sociology stuff for like $50! For like 14 books! It was flippin' sweet.

We also spent a bajillion dollars on our school supplies, but it was less than the bajillion dollars we spent last semester as we already had like 50% of the stuff this time.

I start classes tomorrow at the brual 8:30 time slot, but alas, such is life. At least the buildings are closer this semester, so I don't really need to be on the bus until like 8:10. Beats having an hour commute.

This semester I'm taking a shitload of drawing classes, so I should better be able to at least decently draw people after this. Intermediate Figure Drawing, Clothed Figure Drawing, Intro to Anatomy = drawing lots and lots of people. Plus, some digital illustration class that is probably just going to teach me what I already know about Photoshop 7. But hopefully I'll learn a lot of new tricks..I hope they teach us how to do more painting and stuff and less editing.

Anyhoo, I have tons of projects on the back burner (why do I only get inspired to do cool shit when I don't have time to do so?) and I gotta kick this WoW habit I've been fueling the past week or so (but I do have some uber shoesies to show for it).

Oh yeah, also, it was nice seeing Mitch and John post-Japan trip, and it was cool hanging out (unfortunately for only a short while) with them and Seich, Mike, Ashwin, and Raj.

Okey doke, time to make sure I'm ready for classes and then off to bed for Rick! Huzzah!

camping trip soon!

I just passed up the chance for a $3000, 3 day photo shoot in Lake Tahoe. But, the alternative will be worth it :) That said, it was pretty tough sending the email saying I'm not available for the shoot dates. Eh, such is life.

Zion or Yosemite, here we come!

Finals suck, 7-5-7

So even though I shouldn't have, I accepted Mike's gift of tickets to the Giants game tonight, and was rewarded with seeing 2 home runs:
#1 being the 757th HR by Mr. Bonds himself, and
#2 being by THEIR PITCHER!!!

At that point, I knew the Nationals were doomed. I don't even really watch baseball (live is okay though), but even I know that when the pitcher fucking cranks one off from you, you know you're in trouble.

Thanks for the goodtimes Mikebo, sorry we couldn't have out longer after the game. I shall cherish my collectible PBR cup. Hope you don't get sick off those M&Ms.

Also, thanks to Mitch for the blog birthday wishes.

So of course the reason I've been updating more is because I'm in finals. And this summer session has sucked enough where I'm just trying to pass, and getting a strong B/B+ is just a nice plus. Remind me again that taking two classes in the summer is just fucking bananas.

Anyway, so Magnetic North got slammed by the man for a tiny, tiny sample in their song "Drift Away." They even tried to buy the rights, but the hater-ish Man ended up not letting them, and thus they re-did a new version that plays on their site. It's pretty spiffy, but just not the same. I'm glad I already got my copy with the OG version, but I guess since they can't sell the record anymore, they'll just have to come up with a whole new album to put the new song on. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

At least it's good news that they're getting big enough to fall under some asshole music industry exec's radar, right?

Anyway, Eve's still away at her Wilderness First Responder class, but thankfully she'll be stopping home tomorrow night as she has Friday off. She'll be mostly studying and doing more food shopping for the program, but at least I'll get to see her. Thankfully I have final projects to keep me occupied, but it's still a big change to have Eve be out of town for so long. I mean, I think the longest time apart was when she went to China two summers ago, and that was 2-3 weeks. Since then we've really haven't been apart for more than a week.

But she'll be home soon, so huzzah!

So Eve talked to me on the phone about a conversation she had with some guy who argued that he thinks that everyone on the planet has the best intentions in their mind, no matter the consequences. So at first, it seems like a benign statement, but this includes people like GW Bush and Hitler. As soon as she added this, I was like "who the fuck is this guy?"

Okay, I strongly, strongly believe that they DID NOT act under the best intentions. These two historical figures acted under pure selfishness. Bush does not act for what he thinks is the best for the world. He acts according what he thinks is best for himself and his rich, asshole friends. Hitler may have thought he was doing the best thing, but was fucking causing GENOCIDE.

Holy Buddha, what is this guy on? I mean, I'm fine with believing what you will...so long as it doesn't adversely affect other people. If you believe that people named "Jack" should be shot on sight, that's fine. But when you start threatening and/or actually shooting people named Jack, then you are wrong. If you are racist, that is not cool, because I cannot really imagine any racists never discriminating or anything or acting in some what which is harmful to the people they are racist against.

I know I've been pretty harsh on God-believers before, but I'm fine with people who believe in God. That's totally their business, and not mine, as long as they don't get into my business about it. Then, that's when they piss me off. When you launch a little campaign like the crusades or the Israel/Palestinian conflict, that's when you cross the line with me.

Likewise, no matter what the intentions, I find that when you are harming people, your beliefs need to be held in check. Especially when the taking of human lives are concerned. I mean, I don't condone racism, but having a pacifist racist is a lot better than a dictator with a God-complex and the means to commit genocide.

Ideally, I'd like to have faith that everyone at least thinks they are acting in humanity's best interest, but from personal experience, I know that is not the case. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have acted in plenty of occasions where the only thing I cared about was myself and making myself happy. I never killed someone, but I'm sure I've hurt a fair enough of people on purpose or at least acted without caring about whether or not they might get hurt. I regret my actions, and I'm deeply sorry, but nevertheless, I can say for a fact when I did what I did I was acting under pure selfishness.

So there, I've just proved you wrong, guy (whomever you are). I'd like to believe in people as a whole, but there are enough people who have been socialized/brainwashes/corrupted that I'm not going to stand back and just say "Oh, I don't agree with what they've done, but in their head they were doing what they believe is right." Fuck that, if some asshole went gay-bashing, I'm not going to excuse them because in their head they think that they're right. They fucking just took a bat to someone's face, and I'm not going to put up with that hateful shit. As much as you need to believe in people, some people's actions are so horrendous that you cannot idly stand by and let them go on believing the way they do. There is a difference between pacifism and inaction. People often mistake the two as the same, but there is a big difference.

Anyway, I don't know why I wanted to post about this, but that guy, who I have never even met, pissed me off enough to rant about this.

So now I gotta get back to cutting my mats and polishing up my charcoal renderings. Wish me luck on my portfolio reviews tomorrow and Friday!

Sex stuff

First off, I should REALLY be working on my finals that are due this week instead of blogging, but I was browsing through my usual reads and saw that one of my comments had been replied to.

So I read this post on Poplicks about the a study on the reasons that people have sex. First off, it's a list of 237 reasons people have sex, and it's from a fairly homogeneous sample of people at the University of Texas.

The most bothersome thing about this post is that for most of the comments, people didn't even seem to notice that in the top 25, there were some disturbing reasons. Here are the top 25, and I bolded the shady ones.

1. I was “in the heat of the moment.”
2. It just happened.
3. I was bored.
4. It just seemed like “the thing to do.”
5. Someone dared me.
6. I desired emotional closeness (i.e., intimacy).
7. I wanted to feel closer to God.
8. I wanted to gain acceptance from friends.
9. It’s exciting, adventurous.
10. I wanted to make up after a fight.
11. I wanted to get rid of aggression.
12. I was under the influence of drugs.
13. I wanted to try to get a better mate than my current mate.
14. I wanted to express my love for the person.
15. I wanted to experience the physical pleasure.
16. I wanted to show my affection to the person.
17. I felt like I owed it to the person.
18. I was attracted to the person.
19. I was sexually aroused and wanted the release.
20. My friends were having sex and I wanted to fit in.
21. It feels good.
22. My partner kept insisting.
23. The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say that I had sex with him/her.
24. I was physically forced to.
25. I was verbally coerced into it.

I mean, 24 and 25 are downright rape, but the rest are pretty shady, where 22 could also be rape, 12 is probably rape, and there are a lot of them which are just fucked up. I consider feeling like you have to sleep with someone to "fit in" or something really problematic.

I don't know about most people, but when I was single and was looking for a mate, if I was going to sleep with someone, I wanted them to want to sleep with me. I don't want to have to insist, or pressure someone into fucking me, I'd want them to fuck me because I make them horny. Isn't that what everyone wants from a partner?

Well, I assume sick fucks that rape people and try to trap people in emotionally/verbally/physically abusive relationships don't want that...well, they probably do, but they just can't get it.

Anyhoo, so I posted this comment as a response from Oliver (one of the blog's authors) to another commentor:

"You're missing the point - the study wasn't about confirming a consensus around the #1 reason, it's also about exploring the other, myriad reasons for having sex. Yeah, for most people, attraction is the key BUT that doesn't make it universal, nor applicable in every situation."
--

I also think that it just goes to show that there are some really disturbing reasons why people have sex, a few of which I consider rape (and at the very least sexual assault), such as
#24, #25, #30, #50, while there are a lot of reasons that point to manipulation or fear.

I found it more disturbing than anything else...

To which Oliver replied:

Rick,

I hear what you're saying though, I'd suggest that there's a thin, but important, line between coercion and pressure. Many people feel pressured into having sex, which is to say that soemtimes, sex is less an act of 100% personal agency and desire, and instead, involves the pressure to live up to certain expectations. However, feeling like you SHOULD have sex is significantly different from feeling like you have no other choice, lest you are subject to pain, death or injury (or social punishment on par).

Ask anyone in a long-term relationship or marriage: people have sex all the time when they don't ideally want to because they feel like it's an important part of maintaining a relationship. That doesn't equate to sexual assault, let alone rape.

That said, 24 and 25 are both clearly coercive.

To which I replied:

OW,

I agree that there is a thin line between coercion and pressure, but we (in the larger societal sense) tend to dismiss a lot of other types of violence as just "peer pressure." I see this as an over simplified outlook, as it doesn't take into account the privileges/oppressions affecting the psyche of either partner (gender, class, race, etc., etc.).

I agree, feeling like you should have sex isn't the worst thing in the world, but there are a lot of other types of violence that I constitute as grounds for rape besides physical harm or death. Society tends to overlook verbal and emotional damage (mainly due to the silencing shame inflicted on survivors and the lack of "real proof,") but nevertheless it's a real, harmful form of violence. I mean, the staggering rates of body image problems don't come from nowhere.

And to address the married couples point, I agree that having sex when the timing is off or your aren't 100% into it isn't necessarily anything close to rape or sexual assault, but I just wanted to point out that there are often times that when the line is crossed and women are raped because sex is seen as a duty that a woman must perform for her husband. This is a huge problem as most people wouldn't even believe someone if they claimed they were raped by their spouse.

Rape can take many different forms besides the idea of a stranger breaking into one's house and then forcing them at knifepoint. It more often comes in the form of supposed loved-ones threatening to leave, dropping roofies, or even someone pouring their date another drink before heading home. Rape is sex without consent. Period.

Threatening to leave may not seem like a big deal (and if it's an abuser, it might even be better for the survivor), but it is a very big threat when one has been emotionally abused to the point of being emotionally dependent on the abuser, or if the abuser is the sole source of income (in many cases of domestic violence I've seen, the abuser will even refuse to allow the abused to get a job so they'll be more dependent).

All in all, I agree with you that being pressured into sex isn't always rape (but perhaps maybe a indication of poor communication/a messed up relationship?) but I just want to point out that violence can occur in many, seemingly harmless forms, but can have serious consequences, and that there are many more frightfully instances of rape than people usually think of.

I reposed Oliver's comments just because I wanted to give a bit of background to where I was coming from. I just feel like coming from a radical feminist/anti-rape activist standpoint, that list is fucking disturbing. Why should people feel pressured at all? Sex can be such a cool thing, but can be so harmful and destructive. And there were a lot of other scary reasons:

174. I was afraid to say "no" due to the possibility of physical harm.
154. I wanted to get a job.
155. I wanted to get a raise.
156. I wanted to get a promotion.
111. I wanted to decrease my partner’s desire to have sex with someone else.
112. It would damage my reputation if I said “no.”
169. I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease (e.g., herpes, AIDS).
206. The person had taken me out to an expensive dinner.
78. I wanted to hurt/humiliate the person.

I mean, what the fuck. And I could have probably added a lot more of the list. There are some great ones like:
32. I was “horny.”
14. I wanted to express my love for the person.
18. I was attracted to the person.
123. I wanted the pure pleasure.

But I mean, are we as a society so fucked up that we'll have sex with each other because we were bought an expensive dinner? Because we want to fucking give someone else an STI? Jesus fucking christ, mi amigos, did anyone else read this post and get seriously disturbed?

I was talking with Eve about the idea of ever going back to school (I guess for a third or fourth go) to get a Ph.D. in Asian American Studies. I had pondered the idea previous to graduation from Cal, as I was interested on doing my doctorate studying the effects of the media on Asian American sexuality/body image, as there is practically no hard data on this. I mean, there is very little data of Asian American sexuality period, but most of it is focused primarily on queer studies as opposed to a more general picture of what Asian Americans are doing now in their beds (and bathroom stalls, and on couches and tables, etc, etc). But now, I'm a bit scared to do so.

I feel like our society is so fucked up and unloving we search for acceptance and love in all the wrong ways. We sleep our way to feeling more masculine or to get better jobs or to hurt other people. Ug. I think people need to learn to talk about sex more. And not the crass bragging, crude jokes, or whispered suppositives. We need to seriously learn how to communicate about this shit, especially with partners or potential partners.

Hell, we as a society need to learn how to talk about things in general. I feel like the greatest downfall of our generation is our inability to make connections with people. Yes, talking about serious topics honestly is a bit scary, but until we learn to face our fears and risk something, we're never going to get anywhere. I mean, to make a really bad analogy to Harry Potter, Voldemort is king in knowing how to manipulate people with the unknown. He makes it so people are so fucking terrified to even say his name, but once he actually shows up, he's just a turtle-faced goon with a wand. Seriously, after watching the 5th movie, I'm not even scared of him. I'd just run away until I could sneak up behind him and shank him in the kidney.

But seriously, we need to learn how to talk to each other. Parents, talk to your kids about sex and drugs and violence. If they ask you what the fuck a rimjob is, explain it to them. If you have a fetish where you need to have someone wear a rooster costume when you fuck 'em, tell your partner about it. I mean, if it's that big a deal, don't you want someone who will at least put on the rooster costume some of the time? We are so fucking terrified of fighting for what we want, we just sit by and let all chances of awesomeness pass us by.

If you want that rooster costume, find someone else who likes rooster costumes. You never know what someone will say until you ask them.

BTW, I just remembered something. So for all you assholes that went to see the Vagina Monologues at UC Berkeley and did NOT stand when asked "please stand if you pledge you'll do all you can to end violence against women," I wish I could fucking kill you. I can understand not standing up at the beginning if you aren't a survivor of rape or aren't at a point in your life when you can publicly admit it. I can understand if you don't stand because you're fortunate enough to not know anyone who has been raped (although really, someone you know and love proabably has been raped, but they just haven't told you). But if you can't even stand to pledge to try and end violence against womyn, I hate you. I basically consider you the same as a rapist, you sick fuck. It's not like they were even asking for you to march in a Take Back the Night Ralley, or go around wearing anti-rape T-shirts. They were asking you to do what you could to stop this bullshit, even if that just meant standing for something for once in your life, for one night, to show solidarity to all those womyn (and men) who were were survivors of sexual assault or rape. But you couldn't even do that? Fucking pathetic. You are miserable little shit-eating scum. God, I hate you so much, I would spit in your face and wipe your eyes with my used toilet paper if I could. Jerks.

Crimeny, glad I got that out of my system. That had really pissed me off a lot, and I just re-read part of Igna Mucio's "Cunt" where she talks about thousands of womyn pelting a rapist with used tampons. Of course, with my male privilege I'd merely support such a large throng of awesome cunt-tastic womyn, but shit, I'd love to have that happen.

To end on a positive note, 2 things: Thank you to everyone that came out to my post-birthday birthday bash at the Buckshot bar and gameroom. That place is so dope, I want to go drinking there again very soon. Anyone up for it?

#2: The "I thought he was a great guy...until he raped me" posters are everywhere! I'm so glad someone is addressing the fact that men can and do experience rape. I also saw a "Men preventing rape" organization when I was at CSU Montery Bay for my brother's orientation. I hope he joins. Maybe there is some hope for us after all, huh?