216 Tao

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There’s been a woman that I’ve been infatuated with. I thought: is it really the desire for the woman or the desire itself that was appealing? Is it the need of a particular person, or is it the emotional bond, any emotional bond, that’s important? I’d like to say it’s the person, a combination of tangibles and intangibles that make this person feel like a home that you didn’t know you were missing, but there are times that I wonder if an unhealthy obsession with curly fries, promiscuous sex, and living with your best friend be an equivalent.

I said, “I’m done obsessing, and I’m going to actively pursue local people.” My Korean friend had said, “You mean to tell me that you can’t see yourself dating anyone in Cleveland, fuck—you are picky.” So that same night—I received a harmless message from a stranger, which read:

Hey there, just browsing around trying to meet some people from around here. I just moved to Cleveland a few weeks back and I hardly know anyone. I figured I’d give myspace a shot and see if I have any luck. I’ll keep this short until I know you’re interested. Just looking for someone to hang out and have a good time with....not looking for anything serious. I RARELY get a chance to check this account on myspace so if you want to chat hit me up at [GIVEN EMAIL] and I’ll send you some more pics. Talk to ya soon hopefully.
-Said Person

I’m not stupid—I had my suspicions. My friend and I both read her profile and there was nothing strange. We both decided that she was real, or at least genuine, because she sounded kind and boring. She liked Will Ferrell, she talked highly about her job setting her up with a nice house. She looked like an attractive woman and from what I read she had a good sense of humor. She looked like a busty girl with a nice face. She even cracked a joke about it. My Korean friend said, “Write her back, there’s no harm in writing?” And I did, and then this is the response I got back:

Hey David, thanks for getting in touch! So how’s your Monday going? Just another fun work day for me! :-) A bit about me....I’m a Chicago woman, who moved to the Cleveland area for my job [sales] and I officially know 0 people. I never imagined a change like this would be so hard and lonely to say the least. I definitely want to meet up with you soon if you’re down! According to myspace, I live close by so we could really meet whenever you want. GREAT NEWS [if you’re a baseball fan] my boss gave me 2 tickets to the Indians/Tigers game for next Tuesday night...it’s at 7:05PM. Care to come with me???

Then followed by:

I posted A LOT more pics [as I said I'd give you!] on my newest personal,
some are topless but NOT bottomless, but they’re at [AN ADULT WEB SITE THAT ADVERTISES SEX WITH NO STRINGS]. My profile is listed in that site under
“BackSideBabe.” I wanted to post my personal info [i.e. phone # and my
personal email address] there for 3 real simple reasons:

1) It’s DISCREET!
2) I never have to worry about being contacted by children since only adults are allowed in the site and
3) I know all the replies I receive are genuine.

I’ve met 3 people off of this site, and it’s truly made me feel safe. I had a nightmare of an experience in the past that I don’t want to happen again. That’s all I’ve got to say right now, let’s just plan on meeting soon! Cause you know what that means... ;) Give me a call!
-Said Person

First I was flattered. Then I realized that I was the victim of intelligent porn spam. I’m contemplating changing my obsession from curly fries to Popeye’s chicken—I’m sure curly fries won’t mind me cheating on it.

A friend wrote an entry admitting that he used to carry some jealousy towards minority writers:

So, I used to be a little jealous of the amount of anger material these minority writers had access to. I mean, Tran, Vietnamese, the child of naturalized immigrants, had the Vietnam War to use as a world-event that affected his life without his choice.

There is a lot of inspiration in one’s cultural identity but if that inspiration doesn’t allow the artist to create works that break past the illusory bonds of time and space [lay off the crack pipe, Josh] to that oneness that unites us all, then the art won’t last, and it won’t have quite the impact the artist hopes it will.
-Joshua Minton

I wrote my first poem in the seventh grade for Valentine’s Day. It was for a girl named Penny Nichols [I heard she became a car model]. She was by no means the smartest girl, but she was pretty and I remember her being nice to me. We used to hold hands. After that, writing became complicated. As a journalist, I had to be accurate and un-bias [which felt impossible]. As a younger man, I felt compelled to always point out that I was Asian. I remember a [white] friend that grew up with me had said, “Come on. You grew up in North Ridgeville, what makes you so different from me?” I remember telling him if he had looked in the mirror. I remember a girl getting her car vandalized with graffiti. It read CHINK LOVER.

If I were to say that I wish I didn’t have to go through racial prejudice or stereotypes; if I were to say, “I wish I were white.” I’m considered self deprecating. And if I embrace all the stress, then Josh is right—I’ll be limited in what I can and cannot write. And everything will just consist of that struggle, verses the struggles that we all endure.

I was accepted to a conference at CSU called Imagination. I’ll be working with a writer by the name of Dan Chaon this summer. In his book “Among the Missing,” he wrote a story called “Safety Man,” which details a Chicago woman’s life and a gift she receives, Safety Man, an inflatable doll that mimics a male passenger. Her husband dies and then this doll, a half torso, now becomes her coping mechanism. She sleeps with it. Her children name it. Her co-workers had mistaken it for a boyfriend; as if she had moved on after her husband’s passing. It is life and death—inflating and deflating. Chaon mentions no nationality and no weird customs. There is nothing that alienates the reader. There is nothing that has to be translated. It becomes about the story, instead of the struggles of the writer.

It’s a black and white world. And I feel that I don’t have luxuary of being gray—actually I am beige, and in the right light, I look white. And I’m compelled to correct the world—no, I’m not white. I’m beige. They walk past me and think ‘whatever,’ and I go home wondering is it that important? Maybe I could be white, in the right light it kind of does. And then I feel guilty and say, "No. I'm beige. I'm beige."

A Korean friend, who was told she didn’t look Korean, did an internet search for "Korean Women"—wanting to compare herself with other women, not knowing the search would bring up hundreds of pornographic web sites and images. Then yesterday, she did another search for “Yellow Fever.” She was looking for the stereotype not the actual disease. She found the following word—Asiaphile. They can be identified by the following characteristics:

Poorly developed masculine identities. Pathetically uncomfortable with themselves.Inept at romance with women of their own race. Resentment of white females’ assertive, strong willed personality traits. Ignorant and narrow-minded, and very eager to adopt fallacious western media stereotypes of Asian women. Desperate need to assume a dominant, father-like role in their relationships with women [ergo the similarity to pedophiles. Exaggerated perception and objectification of Asian females. Uncanny ability to determine one’s breast size and country of origin within three seconds of sighting a potential Asian Female target. A compulsion to trash women, particularly western women, in order to justify their inadequacies and bolster their self image. Insatiable appetite for Asian cultural trivia, which is used to camouflage/legitimize their underlying fetish [a superficial knowledge of Asian art impresses the shit outta the babes]. Extreme paranoia and defensiveness regarding their relationships with Asian Females [“What the hell are you looking at, you racist American asshole?”]

I was browsing through on-line journals and tripped over a woman’s page, she recounted an incident:

She went out with her friend for ribs, and after seating themselves they noticed an attractive man and his girlfriend seated themselves nearby. As she sat, she couldn’t help smiling at the man when he asked, “Are these seats taken?” She told him no. She examined him. He was well dressed in a polo shirt and khaki shorts, but something just wasn’t right about his legs—it was the skin tone. She began thinking about sitcoms, Will and Grace, Friends, Three’s Company when she dropped her napkin on the floor and slowly bent over to pick it up. He was wearing pantyhose. His legs were clean shaven and the pantyhose were a suntan color.

She wanted to tell her friend about the discovery, but they were sitting too close to these people for any secrets. Inside, she felt the person she was might have been surprised or even embarrassed for the man; pity the woman that could love such a man, but then she surprised herself when she actually found it attractive. She ate with her friend, pondering why a man is wearing pantyhose?

She turned around and nonchalantly asked, “Excuse me, are you wearing pantyhose?” Her friend almost choked on her soda like a comedic tool. His girlfriend was shocked, but the man turned to her and said, “Yes, I like how they look and feel.” She said she felt the same way the way soul mates do. He added how they were actually men’s pantyhose designed for athletes and men who are constantly on their feet all day for support. He stood up and showed her his legs and her friend and his girlfriend laughed at this honesty, this candor between strangers over men’s pantyhose. She asked his girlfriend, “Can I touch it?” She ran her fingers across his leg and admired how pretty they looked, and partly joking to herself—believing them to be better than her own. Then she introduced herself and thanked them as the she and her friend left. She left through the door, shaking at the magnitude of it all.

Yesterday was cinema day. I saw “Batman” with Robin which didn’t sound funny until a friend pointed it out. I’m not going into detail because I don’t want to ruin the movie experience for anyone else. I will say two things, first off—I’m going to say right now, it is the best comic adaptation I’ve ever seen. And secondly, I’m going to quote a statement which I believe hits the nail on the head.

I said this is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. There's something to it.
-Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

Then I dropped over a friend’s house last night to watch “Napoleon Dynamite,” I’m almost the last person to watch the movie. The last person lives in Mississippi. After seeing some MTV Movie Awards clips and then the Spelling Bee Contestant comment, I felt compelled. Outside of my friend laugh-snorting, which makes me believe that all girls are dorks, and the formula is: Physical Beauty is Directly Proportional to the Repressed Inner Dork. Vin Diesel, a publicly open Dungeons and Dragons player fucks models. They probably play Pokemon and XBOX together after some good sexin’. I’m even betting that Bill Gates could tap Angelina Jolie’s ass if he wanted to, but she can’t hold a candle to his diamond encrusted platinum twenty sided dice. With that said, it was a good movie, but it made me think, if this character really existed in our life—would people embrace him? Would girls cheer and love him? Would guys hang out with him? No—girls wouldn’t fuck him and guys would actually be provoked even more so after seeing the movie to kick his ass. Heder, the man that plays Napoleon Dynamite, actually is married. I think even she has a hard time keeping a straight face with the perm and glasses. Could she climax if he asked her, “Do the chickens have talons?” I think not.

A few months ago, an internet friend tore down her site. People were writing her malicious letters and there were probably other cruel things, unmentionable things that were entailed in the breaking of a person that she didn’t want to mention. I told her to take it all lightly, and make a link for the hate mail. Laugh it off, but the truth is—it’s difficult to walk away unscathed when they use your life as ammunition.

Somehow people [both strangers and people I had come to know] believe this is who I am. This journal is just a way for people who call me their friend to keep tabs on me without contacting me. It’s superficial snippets into the life of a stranger, an old friend, someone—at the time, who just seemed interesting; people want so much to believe that this is who I am; the witty person, the comic genius, the Tao, or the truth [political, pop-culture, and journalism]. But these entries were all written by a sycophant.

It’s who I am at my angriest point—I picked up that pencil at rock bottom and just started carving into the walls like a Neanderthal; heartbreak, liars, and betrayal all written in anger. I write to judge, even though it was my intention to just share—then I’m called weak, I’m vilified, I’m hated because something personal became public.

Publicity always outweighed everything else; being called at relentlessly at midnight to prank Chinese food orders, because they thought it was funny. Yelled at because he thought I told the world that he was gay, even though I didn’t. Not talking to people because I don’t want to put them in the middle of unsaid and uncomfortable feud. Made to feel guilty because I cared and she didn’t. It’s not her fault. But I’m compelled to protect the ones that hurt me, because somewhere between the beginning and the end, I wanted to preserve the dignity of what we were by just stepping away.