很吵，很累，很空，很痛。

人多，静了。
无人，吵着。
坐位空着，吉他停了。
怎了，想着，烦着，累了。

千万个问号，
无声的句子，
空白的书信，
僵硬的脚步，
心中的空洞。

答不了，
说不出，
写不着，
跨不过，
摸不到。

人多，静了。
无人，吵着。
怎了，想着，烦着，累了。

In space, no one can hear you blog.

I'm a reluctant writer of blogs. It's not natural to me, I have actual, physical journals/sketchbooks to fill. And I keep it private mostly. Writing stuff online and leaving it out there goes against what I'm so used to.

But I do see a point in doing this. I see it as another of my journals. Just digital. Googlable. Public. I'm coming around to the concept. As you can see, my frequency leaves a lot to be desired. I'm trying to make this a habit and make it often. Like daily-often. Which means there might be a lot more junk coming out of these fingers.

Since the whole point of setting up this blog was to, for those of you who know me, get to know me better, it makes sense for me to increase the rate of entries. Gives you something new to look at too if you happen to be revisiting this sorry blog of mine.

So, here's to more words to clog the interwebs, keep Google busy, and hopefully, in and between those words, you find reasons to justify why you have such a kooky friend in me. And still decide to keep me.

We still tight, right?
(I know, OK, OK. Cool. See you later. Or I see you another time. OK, bye.)

Late night sessions.

Just so you know, this is not a post where I stick to the script. It's gonna be a bit all over the place.

My breath smells of pills that I've been ingesting the last two days. I'm sick with the flu (which is really cold with fever), cough, sore throat, the works. The pills make me feel sedated and I really should be sleeping to speed up recovery. But I'm up at two in the morning thinking up logos for a band. Think alphanumeric, think mohawk, think cat, think punk rock.

Well here's the thing. In the quiet of the night, you can hear the room reverberate in a certain way. There's this inaudible hum that fills the room. And there's the cicadas in the distance. And the hum of the computer. I dig the sound. They all add up to become the soundtrack of my late night creative sessions. It hit me. I like this. I like this a lot. I think I'm made to make things. That is my portion.

I have a lot of interests and hobbies. Like you won't believe. My curiosity takes me to far-flung places. Anyway, there are a few that forms the core. One. Cooking. Two. Basketball. Three. Reading. Four. Drawing. Five. Music/Guitar. I'm gonna take a moment to talk about two of the above. Basketball and Guitars. Two of my loves.

These two contradict each other. They require of me in a way that tears me up. A little bit lah. Well, I'm talking about fingernails. To play ball well and prevent chipping your nails or sinking them into your opponents' fair skin, well, I need to trim them. To play guitar well, you need to keep the fingernails of the fretting fingers, usually the left, trimmed; the strumming ones, if left untrimmed, adds colour and versatility to your playing. Sometimes, it's hard to strike a balance. I settle with strumming with a pick with all fingernails trimmed. What's my point? That you should not let anything come between your interests. Yes, not even yourself. In this case, your fingernails.

I have a guitar on the way. Flying over the Pacific towards me. It's a Larrivée. I only buy Larrivée. For now. And it's electric. I've never played electric. But here we go. It's got a charcoal burst finish on the guitar top. I have two names for it at the moment for the picking. The Black One. Charcoal Pill. What do you think? I think The Beast and Shooting Star and the noob will get along just fine. I gotta find me a guitar coach pronto.

I'm also rediscovering the love of music. When I say music, I mean playing it through the guitar. I know no other instrument. It's gonna be an awesome gift to self. I love me some October. NBA Training Camp. NBA 2K video game releases. Reservist. Spending birthday while serving reservist duty. Stuff. And there's the guitar. I love me some October. Except, it means the weather's gonna get colder and rainier. Translation: less basketball. And Ultimate Frisbee. But it just means it's guitar time. And what a way to welcome Guitar Season. It's a Larrivée RS4. Google it if you want to see what it looks like. I'm a little too tired to wanna post it for ya. Ok ok. Here you go.




The Larrivée family knows how to make them guitars.

Don't mind the ramble. It's late and I'm sedated.

Love to all,
Me.

What do you think you're doing?

"But to evolve you have to dismantle, and that means accepting the idea that nothing you've created in the past matters anymore, except that it brought you here." - John Mayer
You know me as the Advertising Copywriter that I am now. But some of you know the Graphic Designer. And others, the Pastry Cook. Depends on when you got to know me; how much you know about me. These are the three main phases of my 'body of work', as I'll like to call it, as opposed to 'a career'. Clearly, it's not much of a career because it doesn't follow a single linear path that takes me to a higher plane with each transition. A long time ago, I decided that work should be a series of projects. The thing I'm working on is myself. To some, it would seem like I have a lack of focus, that I don't know what I want, that I'm wasting my time.

You've got to dismantle.

Here's the thing, I know what I want and I want a lot of things when it comes to work. I want to try it all, to challenge myself and see if I fail trying. I want that beginner's mindset––over and over again. Always learning, always growing. I don't want to get comfortable. I'll stagnate. You know what happens when you stagnate? You become grumpy, you become old. And I can tell you, there are scores of grumpy old people trapped in a lot of twenty-somethings out there. Don't become one. Yes, that means you too, umpty-somethings. Sure, this hopping about doesn't build or lead up to a huge monthly paycheck for me, but really, how much is enough? So you get a million bucks. Would it suffice? You'll want two. Bigger toys, inflation, kids, uncertainties, future, retirement. Reasons we can all come up with to pad the stash. It never ends if you're never satisfied.

You've got to dismantle.

Don't you talk about loyalty, because no organisation is ever gonna be loyal to you. The days of retiring with your first job is over. Unless you're talking about your parents. Or you're in Japan. Or you work for P&G. And that's a huge maybe as it is.

You've got to dismantle.

Make no mistake though, I left cooking due to, among other things, renumeration. It's was paltry. It was very hard to live on that. Other reasons: I injured my back; but I think most of all, turning the thing I loved most, something I wanted so much since I was a kid, into work. Hard, laborious, soul-less work, took the joy out of cooking for me. I started resenting it. The one thing I was clear about doing the rest of my life... I stopped loving it. Would I go back to cooking? Maybe. But I think I'll be better equipped to deal with it mentally then I was in the past.

You've got to dismantle.

Everytime I jump into the deep end and struggle to stay afloat, I feel that much more alive. It's the need to survive that keeps me going each time. The need to reinvent myself keeps me engaged. Aware. Conscious. Moving. I don't know what keeps you going. Maybe it's that car you're financing, a better half, a family, security, a house, whatever is important to you, it's cool. It has brought you here. I need work that I'll wake up for.

You've got to dismantle.

Right now, I'm deciding if I should dismantle. Once again. I want a new set of challenge. I want something that makes me a little scared. Where the chance of me falling flat on my face is of the spectacular variety. I dig it. Call me crazy. But I. Dig. It. Tell me 'No'. I want that. Tell me I'm never gonna make it. Or maybe you won't, cos you are my friends; cos you know better; cos you know me well enough; cos you know I'm bone-headed like that. There will be risks and unknowns, but I'll probably go ahead anyway. It will all work out––it's historically proven.

It has brought me here.

Dark was the night.

It wouldn’t have done anything. The street was empty. He purses his lips and walks, counting the sleeping lampposts as he passes them.

25? Or was it 24?

He tugs the lip of the hood, his furrowed brow covered, hidden. Hidden to no one.

Must have took the wrong turn.

The wind pushes him along, aiding his every step. But the candle was at its mercy, flickering naked and helpless guarded valiantly by a thin bulbous glass wall. He needs it. Oh how he needs it.

He brings it close to his shirt pocket, sparking a little light in his ink-soaked heart. The silence around him, deafening. But he hears it. He hears it all, loud. Clear. The heart speaks enough to fill a thousand tomes. His heart. His ink-soaked heart. The words course through the veins filling his every being, smarting every pore.

A respite with every word and every letter that escapes. But each returns, untouched, tattooing the bare beating heart,  darkening it with every beat, every breath, every step. The palm clutches it. Comfort is but skin-deep.

The dying light reaches only as far as his next step. Covered in the night, he leaves a trail. A trail of ink. He bleeds. And he is letting it. As it flows, the pain goes. Drip by drip.  Bit by excruciating bit.

It marks the way on this quiet road. Deeper he walks, darker the night. Should the sun rise, should memories beckon, all he will see, all there will be, is this ink-stained road of forgotten hopes.

哪儿

哪个地方能让人听见自己的心灵？
哪本书能让我再找回自己？
哪把吉他能唱出今生的歌？

无限的天涯，辽阔的脑海。

走在岸边，

找回自己的你，找出自己的她。

六月十三日 的那一天，大老早就起了床（5am)。不知怎么搞的，就写了这一些。。。 。。。

One Rubber Robot Day

This note is three days late. Um, make that four.

What do you wake up for? Does anything give you reason to live another day? What do you think about when you brush your teeth in the morning? Does anyone make you breakfast? Do you even eat breakfast? Do you read the papers? Oh? For the news? Or of numbered horses and bouncing chances? Do you leave the house and kiss someone goodbye?

Do you go running after buses that goes by as fast as you behind the wheel? Do you work for someone? Is there someone you are working for? Oh? Is that so? What are you having for lunch? That's lunch? A little early for that, no? Ha. Well, I should've know better. The occasional splurge? Or the usual? What's your usual? I never knew.

Do you have a purpose? What's your purpose? Was I a purpose? Were we ever a purpose? Or were we too much to handle? Where are you going? Back to work? You forgot something. You always did, you know that? Oh? OK. OK...

Hey, uh, you wanna hang out this weekend or something? Oh, OK? No problem. What's that? Really?! What, now? Yeah, sure, I suppose... Yeah! Movie? OK. There's that one with the robot, would you mind? Cool. Oh just us? Love it... I mean, yeah, let's do it! That was nice, wasn't it? Oh wow, you got me this? Awesome! You have no idea. Seriously... Wow. I'll keep it close, always. What? Heh, yeah, I'm kinda happy today! (That day) Why did you even have to ask? (You must love me, I hope.) So uh, time to head back huh? Yeah, I had a great time too. Let's do this again. We'll do it again right? Huh? Oh, yeah, I got to go do this one thing. Too. Yup, um, sure... See you. (Yes?) Thanks for the robot! It's great! Bye! Bye...

Hey wait, what's this? Ah, thanks. Here's some mandarin oranges. Happy Chinese New Year. Again. Nice tiles you got there. Uh, all the best? See you again next year maybe suppose probably. Bye. Bye...

Oh that robot? It broke. I'm too clumsy (I played with it all the time), wasn't careful (I didn't want to let it go), lost it sometime (I couldn't look at it without thinking about you). So what's going on? Hey, where are you... going... Right. Of course. What was I thinking? Heh... Yeah it's late. A little too late. Should get going. No, really. No, bye. Go. Go home. Go...

What do you go back to? A home? A house? A space? A memory? Or nothing? Like nothing you have done. All the nothing you did. The nothing you did for our sakes. Poof. Too many years. Too far away. Too insignificant. Too nothing, too late. Why? Did you have to? It would've been nice, but did you? No. Thanks for nothing, I guess.

Ever wonder? Wonder what could've been? How do you go to bed? How do you fall asleep? Do you sleep? Can you even sleep? Do you sleep wondering? Do you sleep dreaming, reliving, redoing, reloving, reworking the possibilities, the... nevermind. Huh, me? Naw, I stopped long ago. Stopped the wondering, the pondering, the longing, the dreaming, the you–can't–give–us–much–but–it's–OK–we–can–do–this–I don't–blame–you–a–single–bit. Just do your thing, that's all there is to it. Screw expectations, we had none. I had none. You could've at least tried. But you didn't. Yeah, I left it in that bin where the robot went. You might have to look for it a little bit. Might be hard. Ask around, you might find it. Maybe inside. Yeah, look inside. Maybe the robot ended up there, inside you. I hope you find it maybe. Maybe.

But it's OK. really. Oh, cos you are the robot see? The rubber robot. That's what you are. And no, I don't have the robot with me anymore, like I told you. It's in the bin, and I don't quite remember which bin. If you wanna look, look inside, inside you. You might find it once again. But do you want to? Maybe you won't dare to look. Well, it's OK. Nevermind. Hope you had a nice day. As nice as rubber robot day. Because that's all there is and all that it'll ever be. For me.

I think I'm forgetting something. But hmm. then again, there's nothing to remember. Heh. Nevermind.

From me. For you. Happy F. Day.

What will you make of it?

Life is a mess
Plans unravel, hopes dash
But from these fragments
We are to seek perfection

Life is beautiful
The broken restored, the lost found
But in that place where all is good
We find our imperfection

今天的我有点。。。

昨天的我们已消失在谷里
记忆中的你，摸糊静如雾
电话中的我，无声无叹息
今天的你早已远离去
明天的我将回到原地

某天的我依然走下去

On a totally just so you know basis.

Somehow, I really like the movie. Maybe it's the soundtrack. Maybe it's Yugo. Maybe it's New York City. Maybe it's the studio. Maybe it's the guitars. Maybe it's the chase and being chased. Maybe it's reaching the ultimate goal and saying, I've found what I'm looking for and it's not this. Maybe there are not one, but two token Asians. Maybe it's a lot of maybes. But I don't care. Say what you will, I like it.

The way you're moving in your sleep
The way you look before you leap
The strange illusions that you keep
You don't know but I'm noticing

I don't really know how that applies to me or whatever? I like it. Too.

A life less lived.

Aye, a spurious life. Non experimental. Status quo. Acceptable. Look at it with disdain, spur onwards to a life of possibilities, of taking chances, of seizing moments. Victory will be yours. But you must be ready for certain failure, heartaches, loneliness, and ridicule. And this day, choose you must. Laugh in the face of life's uncertainties and live on for it is a short life, this.

The pot of gold may be anything but. However, character, a colourful life, liberation and an unshakeable sense of having lived is yours to keep and no one can ever take that away from you. And this is why we should always be ready to toss a wrench into the gear works of life.

For the opposite is costly–a life commonly lived. Dull. Homogenious. Sterile. With enough regrets, you may end up walking about as a living dead. And what a waste that would be. So I urge you, friends, to live it well and by your own terms and if need be, within reason.

Two rules I will leave you with. The approach, by the balls. The thrust, to tear it a new one. Go forth.

Walking with binoculars.

In time, will I be saying, everything's alright?
In time, will it be OK for the life I have lived?

In time, will I look back in anger?
In time, will I still find that fire, that hunger?

In time, will I be found faithful?
In time, will my mind still see Jesus, and my heart, heaven?

In time, will I still be a child whom my mother is proud of?
In time, will I be a father whom the mother of my children take pride in?

In time, will I have nothing to say to my father?
In time, will I be found homeless under a bridge?

In time, will I still have the love to cook?
In time, will there be people I love left to cook for?

In time, will I find a love that'll never die?
In time, will my wrinkling hands be held by a lover of my youth?

In time, will there be little ones right by my side?
In time, will the little ones push me aside?

In time, will I still laugh at life with friends at a café?
In time, will I still find friends who will meet over coffee?

In time, when everything is taken away, will I still claim You as my father?
In time, God, will you say, child, it's OK, come hang with me for eternity?

In time, I wonder.
Oh, I wonder.

Hoop Dreams: #1 The kicks maketh da man.

It’s gotta be da shoes.
I picked up basketball when I was 15. That was when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls started winning NBA titles. No matter what your skill level was at, you believed in the redeeming powers of Nike Air. Especially when it’s found in Air Jordans. But I couldn't afford one and just wore whatever hand-me-downs my elder brother would leave me with. Needless to say, I wasn't very good as a result, and also, there were plenty of asses to be kicked.

So I started an A.J. fund by way of a part-time gig at McDonald's Centrepoint, manning the counter. One day, I was finally able to buy my first pair of Air Jordans. It was a good day. Except I wasn't very good at buying the right size shoes then due to the fact that I was going through my double growth spurt. It was one size too big and that slowed my first step to like, I don't know, reverse bullet-time speeds or something.

I have a little history with bball kicks. Off the top of my head, I must have bought more than 20 pairs of basketball shoes so far. Easily. Each pair would last a little under a year of intensive use. Anyway, Queensway Shopping Centre's the only place to go if you know what’s good for you. And like Mars Blackmon would say, “It’s gotta be the shoes.”

Oh, after getting that first pair of A.J.s, the only ass that got kicked was mine.

The Accidental Musician: #2 My first Hyundai was not a car.

If it ain’t heavy, I ain't gonna bother, brother.
I had a guitar-toting classmate when I was 15. Name’s Gavin, and all he’ll ever play were the Evergreens. He was the coolest guy I knew then, and I was the dorkiest kid ever. In a bid to bridge the gap, I banded with two other low-lifers (Fellas, if you ever end up reading this, don’t hate me, I mean, we weren’t all that cool back then despite our Nintendos. Seriously.) with similar goals and went on a guitar-hunting trip. We ended up at Davis Guitar Music Centre and I picked up a classical guitar with a nice heft to it. I told my buddies that if it’s heavy, it’s quality. I really wanted a Yamaha, but it was out of my league. We left with a $150 Hyundai instead. (Yeah, that Hyundai.)

Change of heart.
After ten years with the Hyundai, I polished it up real good. My skills? Not so much. One day, I chanced upon a guitar at Luther Music and I was never able to look at my prized Hyundai the same way again. It was a Taylor and it was love at first strum. I had no idea how good a guitar can sound, or how bad my Hyundai actually sounded until that fateful encounter. Which might have been why I hardly picked it up. Well, I started saving up for a new Taylor.

Make mine Taylor made.
I really liked Taylor Guitars. So much so that I started building a small collection–Taylor Guitar catalogs to be exact. So when I went to Sinamex with my money at Parklane Shopping Mall, I did the right thing and bought a Timothy guitar. It’s their house brand, well respected, and doesn’t cost an apartment’s down payment like most Taylor guitars do. It’s no Taylor, but the Timothy is as to heaven as the Hyundai is to hell. Don’t judge me.

Take me higher.
Armed with this newfound muse, I decided to take classes. I ended up at Believers Music. I think anyone who wants to learn the guitar should go there, I was able to play a song after my second lesson. Of course, as time went on, the classes got more complex, my playing got better, and the traumatic memories of the Hyundai faded.

I've never gotten myself a second Hyundai if that's what you're wondering. Stringed or those of the four wheel variety. For what it's worth, I don't even have a driver's licence.

And I was looking for Midas all this while.

Found this, did it just for kicks and dayum... It knows about my hot chocolate cravings! But what do you think, fellas?





And I was presented with this helpful guide to fix my romantic deficiencies. Or wait, it wants to see me go up in flames...


Discuss.

Sketchbook Flashback: #1 Early portraiture studies.

At some point in Art School, we went through a rigorous portrait sketching phase. We are talking about drawing eight heads a day. Not attempting half-assed, representational high-art crap but portraits that looked like it resembled an actual human being. Below is a series I did in successive pages in a '98 book. (sketchbook will be referred to as 'book' from here on out.) These were done during a practice run. Actual submissions of this quality will fail to meet the mark and it simply meant you'll have to show up with 16 heads the next day. And that's only from Portraiture Class... 

No, I'm not showing off. I merely want you to catch a glimpse of the kinds of monsters I have for lecturers. Usual bedtime then: 4AM. I liked these because I found a way to coax interesting lines out of carpenter's pencils–they save shading time as well due to their broadness. Disclaimer: I do not have a scanner. Nope, no camera lights as well. So, the shady quality of the photos will have to do for now. But don't you think it adds a certain mystique to the portraits? 

Oh, it was hard to use real-life models for our sketches due to the following reasons. At eight heads a day, you'll run out of family and friends real fast. And most will not be willing to pose for you at 3AM in the morning. What? You think it was all Great Expectations like, in a sexually-charged starving artist/high society girl artistic moment in a chic apartment for me? The key phrase here is starving artist. Accent on the 'starve'. Sans girl in any shape or form, OK? So, we scout for willing, easy to work with talent in foreign magazine pages–their features are more defined and deep set, see? Helps with the highlights and shadows and believe me, Asian faces are impossible. 

Random good-looking girl.

Marion Jones 

Charlie Chaplin

Bald guy in a suit.

Emo, rocker dude.

Glen Rice, during his hey-days as a Charlotte Hornet.

Denzel Washington in character for the movie He Got Game.

Thank you, come again!

Sketchbook Flashback: The Beginning

I've been encouraged by a few of you to scan pages off my sketchbooks and post them here. I want to, and will get to that. But first, here's a random transcript from one of my earlier books. Circa 1998:

Optimum learning temperature, 19˚C. (Betcha didn't know that.)

The Accidental Musician: Part one of many.

Music and Me.
I love music. But thankfully, I wasn’t being sent off unwillingly to piano lessons as a child. Music classes consisted of listening to anything that comes out of our Reddifusion unit, going through my elder brother’s cassette collection, and having my handful of Vivaldi CDs on heavy rotation. For years. We’ll go to that in a bit. Or once I get the parts about my first guitar over and done with.

Mother FTW.

If you've ever lived on your own, it won't take long for you to realise how much your mother has done for you all these years. You'd find out real quick how hard it is to upkeep a house. The clothes, dishes, cooking, cleaning, the works. Then you move back and you'll learn to appreciate how much she has sacrificed for so long to take care of a home. At least I did.

I have a mother who raised four children on her own for the past 24 years, worked three or more jobs a day, put three of us through university, clothes on our backs, food on the table, showed me the love of books, taught me how to draw, put up with my hatred for school, never denying us a chance, and most of all, giving us a home filled with love and laughter. All with nary a primary school education. She was fiercely determined to make the family work despite the odds. Oh, what odds. Yet, she pulled it off with aplomb. Life gave her a crate of rotten lemons and she tore it a new one. Where she found the ability or will to do so is something I'll never be able to fathom. At least not now, not as a guy without child.

I can only picture a woman with a love for her children that's not merely real and ever present, but it's a love that rages. So high and wide, nothing will ever stop her. Not sickness, not limitations, not hurt, not weariness, not abandonment. I thank God often for this woman of steel. You wouldn't be able to tell from her gentle demeanour, or her big, embracing eyes. But she is a tower of strength for us, for me. If I'm ever having a bad day, I don't have to look far to find reasons to immediately dust myself off. Many years ago, the moment enough of us became capable, bread-fetching young adults, we made sure she never has to work another day in her life. We've never discussed it verbally before but we just knew–at least I believe that to be so. She has gone through enough, and worked enough to last three entire lifetimes.

So, if any of you ever make the grave mistake of telling me you've got issues with your mum, or dare you do it, throw a tantrum about her–realise that I will have an immediate, reactive urge to slap you. It's not quite Mother's Day yet, I know. But go hug a mother, why don't you?

Oh, she now has six grand-younglings at her disposal for errands, hanging out with, discussions, babying and whatever else grandmothers do with their grand kiddoes. She likes her some TV programs (The 32 incher we got her is losing its mojo and recently, she ordered a 42 inch LCD TV. I thought that was totally badass, hahaha! ) and loves gardening.

That box of tissue? She left it there while in stealth mode.

Any thing that I've really wanted to say,

I've been letting it rip in actual, physical journals. I've amassed a collection of sketchbooks of various shapes and sizes filled to the brim with lines, drawn, written and coloured. I've been at it since '98. Whoa. 11 years. Anyway, this is my first stab in revealing a little more from within, just so you, my friends, can get to know me a little better. And so it begins.