SPIDER: In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

Dear cold weather lovers,

I'm starting to hate the cold weather; the dormant Viet genes are starting to kick in. Notice that all the major settlements of Viet people in the U.S. happen to be in the more tropical regions. So this re-release is inspired by my crappy heater that I probably won't ever be able to get fixed properly. The problem is that about every 5th time it turn on, the air conditioner also kicks on with it, canceling the warmth. The maintenance guy can only see that the heater is working when he comes out to try to fix it.

Even if he were to try to fix the odd times that the AC turns on with the heat, there would be no way to see if his work was successful, since the heat comes on 4 out of 5 times, and he would leave when he feels it blowing hot air. So I've resorted to manually turning on and off the heat, checking after each time that the air is warm.

Anyway, the other reason for this specific re-release is that it mentions my brief, 3-year stint in Brooklyn, NY. A friend had just posted a picture of her sixth grade class on Facebook, and had tagged me as an MIA. Rightly so, because I wasn't in Brooklyn for 6th grade; I was there for 7th through 9th.

Also a couple of peeps from middle school added me on Facebook. So if you're reading this, cheers. This was the secret I've been keeping from you all those years.

--

Tue, Nov 7, 2009

I hate Jay-Z by the way. Every time I hear his voice, I change the radio station. Except when it's Big Pimpin because my favorite group from the South, UGK, are on there too. So I'll quote a couple of lyrics when it serves my purpose even if I think he is overrated.

This morning was the first time my heater turned on. I woke up when it felt like icicles were dangling off that special place underneath my blanket. The apartment's old, and the central heating is even older. The thermostat read '65'. My ass--it was like more like 55. Though cheapness has been ingrained and beaten into me by my parents, I'm not that cheap; I had set the temperature for 70. I had to hit the wall around the heater to get it to turn on. Corporal punishment does work.

The heat was on for 2 hours and still the thermostat didn't increase but 2 degrees. My apartment is about 850 sq ft, but it still shouldn't take that long.

And so it reminded me of my internment (imprisonment) in New York (because it's cold as hell there, if hell is cold). I won't go into detail about how it came about, but long story short, it was because of Dad.

New York in TV is nothing like it is in real life. It sucks to live there when you're poor. It sucks when you're poor and you came from Houston, where the cost of living is so much less. It sucks when you're 12 and going through puberty and you're forced to endure, 'Where are your cowboy boots?' by a bunch of idiot Brooklyn kids.

'If you don't like it so much here, why don't you go back to Texas?'

'MF, I would if I could. I didn't choose this f--king life. I didn't choose this f--king city.'

Those words were to foreshadow the internal conflict I had experienced a few months back. But at least this time around, I did have a choice, and I chose to leave. That's why I'm in Dallas. I love Houston, but you have to leave things that cause you to die inside, even if they are your blood.

In New York, they don't have central air conditioning or central heating in residences. Only large supermarkets have central temperature control. For people not in Texas and its neighboring states, what is 'central temperature control'? It's where you have a thermostat that you set to control the temperature (both hot and cold) for the entire apartment or floor. It is an utterly foreign concept for New Yorkers.

So what does New York do for temperature control? They have radiators and window units. It's the dark ages up there. Apartments with central temperature start at 2 million, because the ones that cost 1 million are still 600 sq foot sh-tholes.

Window AC units are the same ones you see in the ghetto part of Houston, like on those wooden houses on Wheeler facing the University of Houston. Radiators? I've never seen a radiator south of the Mason-Dixon line. It looks like many loops of cast iron that are connected to two hot water pipes. To turn the sucker on, you actually open the 'faucet' to let the hot water flow into the loops. Then the heat starts to 'radiate' into the room.

As antiquated as it sounds, it actually works well, except that it's an extreme safety hazard. It would certainly heat up a room in less than two hours. Just don't try to cook an egg on it, as you'll get your daily requirements of iron and lead from the paint that keeps peeling off.

---

My time in Brooklyn was probably one of the most difficult times of my life. Going through puberty is unquestionably not very fun. It's doubly difficult moving to another place, trying to start a new group of friends when you are an outsider and people laugh when you say ya'll (it feels odd to actually type ya'll, but I say it all the time). It was a very socially awkward time.

Most would argue that I'm still socially awkward, which I won't entirely deny. But I'll use my patented feel-good mantra (that I say in my head), 'Shut up, I'm a doctor, and I make more money than you do.' And if I make less, I'll say, 'Shut up, you bourgeois trash,' and run home with my tail between my legs. The mantra only works if you make a salary in the upper quartile.

I'sa Playa

Misogynists anonymous,

That is the title of the track. It happened to be on a solo album by Pimp C back in the day and was re-released in a Greatest Hits CD, which thankfully was available in Amazon's MP3 store. The reason why I couldn't find it was because the original track had some girl singing the hook, while the more popular version (the only version I've heard) was with Z-Ro's killer hook.

The lyrics of more obscure songs follow the theory of cancer: lyrics websites copy other websites carelessly without considering the actual song, and eventually all their lyrics end up the same and flawed. So I searched for the hook, the only thing I remembered, but I couldn't find it because no website had the current hook. That is until now.

So after listening to the hook about 20 times, this is what I believe it to be:

Z-Ro

I'sa playa, I'sa mac

I love gettin [with] these ladies with not more than my paper stash

Now rule once, get your cash on, M-O-B

Less paper in my pocket, my n*gga P-I-M-P

Homie don't hate me mayne*, just hate the game

The only reason your woman diggin me cuz I play with thangs

Don't take it personal, my n*gga, I don't love her, I'm a playa

She just gonna keep me company while get nipped it(?) as I lay her

I'm still not entirely sure about the last line. You can listen to the complete song via Youtube (which is how I found the song). And the chopped and screwed version too. Notice when Twista is screwed (slowed down), he sounds like a normal person.

My favorite verse of the song (Pimp C):

But me, I lick ya where he don't, and suck real hard on yo nipple

My game is sharp as a sickle, she love my pickle

And if you gave her a dime, n*gga she gave me a nickel

It is almost a limerick! Okay, maybe not.

--

The unfortunate thing that happens to me when I listen to rap is that I feel slightly guilty. It isn't because of lack of entitlement. I moved to the suburbs but I'm from the ghetto, so I do relate to the songs from personal experience. And it's not like I bought a grill from Johnny Dang** and Paul Wall and am out pimping a throwback jersey and Astros ballcap with all white Air Force Ones; I know my place and the only person I try to emulate is the man I aim to be.

The guilt is that some of these songs are so misogynistic, or hateful of women. At the very least, they idealize women as objects of conquests. And when conquered, the women become immortalized as the losers in 'Playa' Ballads, such as the above.

So here's another bit of cognitive dissonance of mine (though significantly less dissonant than the hate-yourself-for-sake-of-family variety): How can I be the man I want to be when I listen to music which are not of my values?

Right now, it appears that I'm ignoring the songs' messages while mellowing on the throwback beats. But I think there may come a time when I retire all my UGK and Tupac. Some evidence to this prediction is that I'm beginning to enjoy classic light rock because I'm beginning to relate to it more.

--

*stylized southern spelling of 'man'

**Johnny Dang is hilarious, a jeweler to the stars. Someone (not me) needs to write a Wikipedia article on that guy. And to clarify the 'oriental', he's Viet and might be my cousin.

Do You Know This Song?

Dear UGK fanatics,

I first heard this song back in the summer of 2004. The reason I remember it was that particular summer was because it was my first month in college, and I was still very impressionable and infinitely less jaded. They were better times. I remember sitting in the rickety, old, brown, broken auditorium 'desks' of the Lamar Fleming building taking Gen Chem II at U of H. The first time I sat in that auditorium, I thought, 'This is a college classroom? I had better desks back at my ghetto high school.' Though I was much lighter back then, it was atrociously difficult to sit in those chairs, much less learn anything.

Like any college student, I listened to tunes between classes (and while in class sometimes). But unlike most, I didn't have an iPod; I had a minidisc player (Sony’s update to the cassette Walkman) with the ability to catch FM stations, and it was always tuned to my favorite hip-hop station ever, 97.9 the BOX. The whole cast of the Mad Hatta Mornin’ Show on 97.9 is hilarious, especially J-Mac from Con-row. Ricky Smiley from the 97.9 the Beat, the sister station in Dallas, has nothing on Mad Hatta.

So this song came on one day that freshman summer, and I instantly recognized Pimp C's unmistakable voice. As I listened to him ‘puttin it down hard’, I had tingles up my spine. There’s nothing like Pimp C’s nasty lyricism ('Take it off, chick, bend over, let me see it...') which are rapped country-style in tune to some bad-ass old-school beat. This particular song echoed the voice he had when he was just starting out in the 90s, a young buck who still had to catch his breath while spitting out killer rhymes. Bun B, the other half of the Underground Kingz, was as stellar as ever, and their styles complement each other marvelously. As I listen to their six CDs on my iPod Nano (I upgraded as the minidisc is pretty much defunct), I’m continually astounded that they can make such graphic sexual and violent references but still integrate it seamlessly into their songs. Whereas some rappers use smut for the sake of smut, UGK uses it to make you think. Of course not as much as Tupac (Brenda's Got a Baby), but more so than any Soulja Boy (whose Crank That is a song full of disgusting sexual references) or the other rappers on the radio today.

Anyway, that’s my little homage to my favorite group from the South. RIP Pimp C. I will forever be Third Coast made

Though it was an undeniable hit that summer, I’m frustrated that I can’t find any reference to that song. For those scorching months when it came on 97.9, the only decent urban station (104.9 KPTY is now defunct, taken over by some Spanish station), I would crank up the volume and enjoy some lyrics that I could never repeat in public. Very few people would appreciate an Asian dorky male doing karaoke to some stupendously explicit lyrics. One of their CDs actually contains a ‘STRONG LANGUAGE SEXUAL + VIOLENT CONTENT’ appendage underneath the ubiquitous 'Parental Advisory' label. That was the first time I ever saw that disclaimer, and I suppose it is warranted.

After that summer, I only heard it only 3 times since. About a month ago, while driving back up to Dallas, I was jamming to the aforementioned station. They oftentimes play old-school classics, and when I heard the unmistakable voice of Pimp C, I naturally turned up the volume. As always, the lyrics were supremely dirty but magically melodic. It was in the have-to-catch-my-breath voice, so I had thought it was one of UGK’s older songs, but then the hook came on that had been ingrained in my memory (but unfortunately, the words escape me). This is what I remember, and after 10 hours of googling the fragments over the past 5 years, I still don’t know the name of the song or where I can find it.

The hook by Bun B (or maybe Z-Ro?):
I’z a playa, I’z a mac. I love getting girls wit not nothin more than my paper stash…M-O-B…P-I-M-P. Man, don’t hate me, playa, hate the game…the only reason yo woman love me cuz I play wit them thangs(?)…lay her…

There’s another artist in the song, and I think the track is on his CD (since they don’t appear on the UGK CDs), but I don’t know his name.

So to all you hardcore UGK fans (or those with excellent Googling skills), what is the name of the song, and where can I find it? I have never bought a CD single, but I would spend $20 for this one track.
--

Update: I had composed this post a few weeks ago. Since then, I've found the song and downloaded it via Amazon MP3). The parts of the hook are nowhere near what I remembered.

Details tomorrow.

Shopper at Walmart - m4w - 22

'Dear cute brunette in the black designer frames and wool sweater,

'Did we have something going on at the Walmart on [address deleted]? I had passed you while going to electronics the first time and you looked at my face, and then you did the thing that most guys normally do, that is look down and check the package.

‘Were you looking at my Droid which I had holstered, or was it something else? Like my watch, perhaps? Or something more central? Just letting you know that I caught you looking!

‘A few minutes later, I came back to frozen foods because I forgot to get something. And when that box of indeterminate-ness (I forget what it was because all I could think about was you) dropped from the shelf, it was entirely by accident, but my subconscious may have had something to do with it. I leaned over to pick it up, but as I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, I couldn’t tell if you were checking me out again. If you did sneak another peek, did you like what you see?

‘If perchance, you were thinking, “wtf is this douchebag doing in a white tee and hoodie with pulled-up sleeves with some brick hanging off his right hip,” then please ignore this message.

‘Otherwise, call me at (832) 555-2134*. It’s a Houston area code, but I’m all Dallas, baby.’
--

I’m almost tempted to post this on missed connections via craigslist. As you might know from wasting time reading the posts, they're not all entirely serious, like this one, where the poster writes

You live 3rd Floor at Seville Lofts, Uptown/Oaklawn. Saturday Jan 23 around 3:30-5pm, I saw you blowing someone then he [expletive deleted] you for about an hour. You were right in front of your window, patio door and on your couch the entire time. Thanks for the great show! Tell me something about what happened. I'd love to watch you two go at it again.

I googled Seville Lofts, and it's not that far away (I'm hoping the 'm4m'** in the title was a typo). Then I realized I have internet... and I searched for ways not to be a creepy (and possibly gay) stalker.

And about the white tee and hoodie, in my defense, the Redbox finally had Inglourious Basterds and Burn after Reading in stock, so I had to haul ass to get there before someone else got it. Inglourious Basterds was amazing. I absolutely love Quentin Tarantino, but not in a m4m kind of way. In contrast, I love Melanie Laurent in every kind of way possible. I must learn French!

--
*a real number, just not my number.
**man for man

The Finger Snap

Dear snappers of fingers,

I was never a waiter, and I pray that I’ll never have to be a waiter. That job can be more difficult than my Monday nights, and the compensation is far less. Plus, people snap their fingers at waiters to get their attention. The worst I get is the lean over the counter, the scan of the pharmacy (which instead of just looking left and right with their eyes, they insist on moving their whole head to make a grand show), and the snide, ‘So you’re the only one here, huh?’ or ‘So they left you all alone?’

Being a retail employee (a serf to the many wannabe kings, queens, princes, princesses and even the court jester), I have the utmost respect and courtesy to other retail employees when warranted. And so as long as it looks like they’re trying and not just sitting behind the counter playing with their iPhone or Droid or themselves, then I don’t mind waiting a bit. And I never snap my fingers at anyone because it is so incredibly rude, and my food probably would have an odd taste and smell.

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
I do bite my thumb, sir.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?*

But I do snap my fingers though, but in private and as a means of celebration for little victories over the dismal-er part of life. It’s like when adolescents and people of the inner-city ilk (myself included) do the multi-part handshake (the handshake, the clasping of palms, the lean-in for the chest bump/hug, the release, and finally the finga snap) and finish with a finger snap that looks like the person is trying to light a match. I haven’t grown to think that this is childish just yet, though I do try to keep my finger snaps private as much as possible.

The lighting-of-a-match finger snap, that was formerly solely reserved as the finish of the coolest** way two guys can greet each other, has insidiously found its way into my everyday routine, like the Asian carp in the Great Lakes. The Asian carp is just happy where it is in its new environment, but people just don’t understand and are trying to suppress it. So the celebratory finger snap, like the Asian carp, will remain hidden until a time when it becomes an acceptable sign of victory, like the V-sign*** 2000 years ago.
--

*Romeo & Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 44-46.
**this is debatable. Some people are of the opinion that the multi-part handshake is just stupid. I happen to be of the opinion that the people of the former opinion are themselves stupid, and therefore have no grounds to call anyone else stupid.
***Supposedly, the V is the one in Caesar's 'Veni, vidi, vici', and he threw it up in victory and the trend caught on****. But over the centuries and millennia, the V has become utterly antiquated, but some presidents (our current one excluded) insisted on throwing it up in celebration (‘Mission Accomplished’!). Or maybe he was trying to throw up the ‘dubya’?

****I made this up.

Senior Rings

Dear Saved By the Bell fans,

Balfour’s business model depends primarily on school pride and the popularity that exists only amongst seniors during their last year in school. Fortunately for them, it works enough to pry a couple hundred from enough cash-strapped students to make it somewhat profitable. They did not get anything from me; all my cash went to one of the only two adornments a guy can wear without question: the wristwatch. The other adornment is the circlet of death typically worn on the finger next to the pinky on the left hand. Let us have a moment of silence for our fallen comrades. May their mates forgive them their foibles and not nag them too terribly much.

I had recently watched an episode of Saved by the Bell where Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) gets tricked into buying fake rings for the entire school. And it seemed like the entire school got a ring. Honestly? Was it just the times (a 90s era sitcom) or do most people at predominantly white schools buy rings?

As a male in the real world (i.e. out of school and working), I find that tailoring first impressions is a must to be successful in any venture. The clothes someone chooses and the expression someone wears on his face tells a lot about the character, even if I don’t know a shred of the ‘personality’. The exterior gives an impression of the interior. Always. A man who doesn’t take care of himself externally likely doesn’t take care of himself internally. And the converse is mostly true as well, except in the case of depressed narcissists, which is fairly common (a psychologically tortured person with a show-stopping exterior)*.

This is not in defense of people who are shallow. And I'm not saying that the 'inside' doesn't count. I am simply stating that people develop preconceived notions because of a generalized perception of truth, which may or may not be ultimately true. As one of my favorite authors** wrote, 'If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.' If you see what looks like a car but you've never actually seen the model before, would it be prejudicial to think that it has four wheels, a steering column, a gearbox and brakes?

(Finally getting to the point of this post) So in my opinion, a man who wears a class ring is stuck in the nostalgia of former days long lost. Or he is still a boy in the midst of getting some serious poo-tang as a high school/ college senior. (Maybe I should have gotten a class ring). A class ring is like a letterman jacket, an article that is only attractive to pre-pubescent girls and those under the tender age of legal consent. Whereas my Gucci has turned heads from 12 to 21 to 51 to 71.

Thankfully I haven’t seen a letterman jacket except at church, worn by obvious teens. And fortunately, the class ring is starting to phase out among the younger crowd, though it seems that Aggies and Longhorns still have a tendency to pimp the right ring finger.

[insert one of 10,000,000 Aggie jokes here]. Half my high school who went to college when to A&M, so I think I can say this. If they're insulted, they can always point out that my alma mater's website is www.uh.edu (double-u double-u double-u dot uh dot com.

I can’t say anything about women with class rings since I clueless about women fashion. All I know is that some Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos cost as much as my entire watch collection, and my watches never touch the pavement.

--
*reference: all the people who end up on TMZ.
**Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Week in H-Town-dizzle

Table of Contents

Tue, Jan 19 – Blue Eyes
Blue eyes, the mesmerizing iridescence that makes me feel like Forrest Gump, pre-Jenny days (i.e. in leg braces). An exposition of the development of my weakness.
‘But alas, blue eyes are recessive, and unless I have some French blood in me from when France raped Vietnam in the mid-20 century (instead of cab-fare, they gave us French bread and pate), my kids are condemned to having earthy-colored eyes.’

Wed, Jan 20 – Cash, the Modern English Monarch
An airline stops taking cash for formerly included amenities. A review of the fine print on the American greenback.
‘So unfortunately, the airline is within its legal right to refuse to take your cold, hard cash in exchange for its similarly cold, hard pillow.’

Thu, Jan 21 – Heidi’s Boob-napping
Topics: Heidi Montag, Heidi’s new kids, TMZ, police discrimination, Texas > Cali, and a joke about Tiger Woods (he’s black after all!)
‘The Boss Man stands behind the cubicles spying over his minions and drinks out of the same thermos with what I hope are different straws each show’

Fri, Jan 22 – Punked! (TV Edition)
Mama puts my widescreen HD TV to shame.
‘The plastic film protecting the glass-like frame around the screen was still attached, and my antenna from the TV in my old room had miraculously migrated to the TV stand underneath the new member of our family. Traitor.’

Sat, Jan 23 – Hotdogs and Eggs
The emancipation from ground-up, unidentified pieces of ‘protein.’
‘It is ironic how home cooking means hotdogs and eggs while traditional Viet food can only be found at the local eatery.’

Sun, Jan 24 – SPIDER: Pool and Poker
My two dream careers which are even more far-fetched than my becoming a ‘writer.’
‘The side pocket ‘t*tty f*cked’ a couple of my balls, performed ‘rim jobs’ on a couple of others, and disappointingly ‘spit’ out a masterful bank [shot], but on the whole, the table was pretty accepting to my gentle, finesse-imbued touch.’

---

Unsubstantiated claims

This past week’s entries were spent recounting some of the tales from my last trip back to Houston. There are a couple stories about Ra Sushi on Westheimer inside the loop which will be released later this week.

The cold weather took a vacation in the tropics, and a week of 70 highs and 50 lows were quite welcome after a monstrous few weeks with near freezing temps. I also didn’t have to fuss with the gremlin-infested heater.

The electric bill was almost $100. Vaulted, cathedral-like ceilings = cool. Bill for resulting poor insulation = not cool.

I had been hung up on ‘Blue Eyes’ for a good week and a half until I had a ‘very friendly’ conversation with one of the regular customers in her early 30s. As the saying goes, there are plenty of fish (and cougars) in the sea.

My Citizen Eco-Drive watch (sub-$100) came in the mail. Eco-drive’s slogan is ‘Fueled by light, it never needs a battery.’ The Casio has been laid to rest, though the digital display will pulse away the time in the dark until its 10-year life expires. A post will follow in the coming weeks.

I assembled the nightstands that I had ordered through Overstock. They look a bit awkward flanking my temporary bed that rises just 4 inches from off the floor (perfect for the drunken stupors I no longer get). To do list: get a real bed. If you don’t buy it, they [females] won’t come [the alternate spelling has been tastefully expunged].

On my last day in Houston, I upgraded my dead Razr to the new Motorola Droid, the same one in the billboards with the ominous red eye staring out from the luminescent screen. I must say that it is a stunningly beautiful phone, and I like it much more than the iPhone. Handheld internet and GPS are a must. Review to come.

I figured out how to work and clean the vacuum, but like a typical 20-something bachelor, I didn’t put that knowledge to use.

In the boring, financial times, I rebalanced my 401k.

In deeper, philosophical times, I re-contemplated becoming a Catholic priest. Then I figured I was suffering from the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side syndrome and subsequently spent my way out of my funk on Amazon.

Think of these 1-2 sentence updates as my tweets if I were ever to be sucked into the Twitter scourge. These updates are a nice way to remember what I was doing at a certain point in time. Diaries/Journals are surprisingly time-consuming.

I was depressed that there were absolutely zero comments on my backposts. Then I drank, and the feeling went away. Thank you MacAllan 12-year. Joking, but I am a little sad about the lack of love. The bottle of MacAllan, like the comment boxes, remains untouched.

I had a minor epiphany that the story of Narcissus would not have existed if people didn’t love him in the first place, despite the fact that he was an ass.

It’s the fundraising season of my local public radio station. I changed the station on my clock radio. These two events were entirely unrelated.

I wondered what percentage of people enjoyed what they did for a living. Then I looked at my pay stub, and I stopped complaining.

Ties are like nooses. Heels are like shackles. They both look good when done properly. Though women can pull off both, men who pull off both are generally frowned upon.

A pill-counting spatula makes a good letter opener. Actual letter openers don’t make good letter openers.

And finally, a friend once said to me, 'g, sometimes you can be a real blonde.' I understand that now, given the last 2 paragraphs of very random observations. Unlike my drinking water and cigarettes (if I smoked), I like my thoughts unfiltered.

Are you liking the table of contents or do you think it's a stupid idea and would rather have another post?