American Life Lessons from Kanye

No. 1



West jumping on stage an interrupting someone else's moment to shout out their opinion is the exact same concept as Joe Wilson's outburst in Congress. The moment becomes a message — ridiculous as that is.

On Monday, Kayne apologized on Leno, seemed pretty heartfelt. Unlike Wilson's apology which was quickly rendered and then unrendered.

Kayne's outburst is Kayne taking the cultural meat of the moment — The Ridiculous Right — with their shouting and belligerence in the Political Discourse and mirrors it in Pop Culture: obnoxiously taking the stage of the celebrity-centric MTV VMAs and obnoxiously touting opinion as a deciding fact to behold, after the award.

And that's one of the problems facing this moment in American Society: shouting out speculation. Unchecked, unattributed, knowably untrue statements that are not constructive and serve no purpose, shouted out when the world — American Discourse at least — needs to hear ideas, positive solutions for the current challenges instead of blabber that not only damns ideas, but fills the discourse with noise so those ideas can't be heard.

Kayne's Leno Show apology was interesting. He clearly and visibly expressed remorse. Whether it was an act or whether it will be quickly passed over remains to be seen, but at least he expressed regret — something that individuals rarely pull off in politics — perhaps Kanye's celebrity lifestyle better prepares him to 'look' a certain way, whether it's obnoxious or sad, he did a better job. Wilson's response was quickly to apologize, as he had been called on the action immediately. Yet, the longer talk continued, he had revoked his apology and continued the diatribe.

Leno, ever the mechanic, threw an interesting wrench into the confessional, noting that he 'got to meet [Kanye's] mother, what do you think she'd say' which pulled up a moment of contemplation that shows Kanye's feelings: He feels bad for what he did.

Whether it's due to the multitude of people tweeting their dissatisfaction or youtubing their own opinions, or genuine remorse, the public display of regret is appropriate, unlike South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson's.

A last interesting facet of this cultural-overlap is the response from the president. In calling Kanye a jackass the president receives a moment of catharsis. Had Obama said anything remotely similar in the Wilson utterance, media would have had a News-Orgasm that could have echoed for days weeks and months. But when it's pop culture — something Obama can be an audience for — in the form of MTV's VMA's it's alright for Obama to comment and let us know how he thinks of similar situations.

So in that sense, thank you Kanye for helping the president to vent.

Your Artistic prowess knows no boundaries.

Reading Pynchon: So you don't have to.

Thomas Pynchon is a recluse writer who is famous for a lot of brain-wrenching literature that is both dense and filled with information such that many people lose interest.

I've read four of his novels now — okay, really, three and 11/16 (finishing Mason & Dixon): The Crying of lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, and Against the Day, which was my reading project over all of 2009.

I find him to be a really enjoyable writer who is prolific at using detail to spin the yarn of story and then by the finale, he's crocheted you a dreamcatcher.

Inherent Vice, which took me a week to read, is a great Pynchon novel. Mostly it runs like any crime-fiction, be it a detective film, or like the Big Lebowski (many reviews point this out) and the story flows inside and out of Larry "Doc" Sportello as he goes about the business of being a PI.

It's a fun story set in a drug-hazed 60s-beach-hippie Los Angeles. Doc himself seems to move from joint to joint as he dips in and out of crimes, mysteries, and shadowy characters. I'd love to count up the amount of joints he (only he) takes part on, merely to see the ratio to pages in the story.

Reviews have commented on how the novel only follows Sportello, and paints his friends as two dimensional characters (as opposed to proper foils perhaps), and compared to other Pynchon work — with his vast arrays of characters — Inherent Vice is clearly linear. He continues to keep the same levels of depth, but simmered it expertly into dialogue and description that keeps the story true to the genre -- PI-narrated crime noir.


Like Against the Day published before it, I feel Pynchon novels for the most part are enjoyable, often funny, and interesting. This is compared to Gravity's Rainbow which 'feels' difficult for no sake other than sadism on many-a-reader. Truly it is a work of literature that will be picked apart for ever, but it isn't very accessible to most readers. Against the Day, as a pleasant exception, was fun to read. The book itself was a monster of 1200+ pages and most people, I think, would give up on it. The sight of it on their desk, the physical heft of the work is intimidating. But if you give yourself a time-table (like a year) and just work at it in pieces — the chapter breaks are often hospitable to reading in pieces — Against the Day ends up being a very rewarding read, and you come away with a sense of knowing what culture in the early 1900s may have been like — viewed through Pynchon's lenses.

Unlike Against the Day, Mason & Dixon, is a challenge. It's fun to read, but you have to bear with it: it's written in 1800s British, which for all intents and purposes is veritable pirate-speak. Like a 1777 pamphlet with all the verbs capitalized. Not for everyone, the story is somewhat dry (surveyors marking the north and south borders for Pennsylvania) but the way it portrays many early Americans is comical, sharp-tonged commentary enjoyable to work through — most times. I get less of a sense of knowing the 1800s, like I pretend I did with Against the Day, but the result is like looking at a dingy sailing map from days of yore — how much could one retain through the foggy lenses of that much time?

Gravity's Rainbow is a possibly the most difficult beast in the Pynchon catalog (as I understand it). A literary bull that chucks most riders in under ten seconds (in the... umm... literary rodeo? hrm). Rainbow is utterly dense — heavy water dense. You need to slog one foot in front of the other, one after another, until it's finished. Once you finish it, you, ahem, know what it's about, but you don't know what you just read. Sentences will go on forever while scenes will will come and go either in bullet-time, rocket-time, or geologic-time.

Back in Inherent Vice, Sportello has a fun habit of dropping film credits to describe himself in relation to his film noir heroes, and I'd be interested to follow all the interesting media bits to understand the PI that Doc wants to be.

Pynchon's Los Angeles is a funny one. Like most all Los Angeles' it is accurate as the place is big enough to encapsule whatever ideals one wants to live by. One blog/notation from the LA Times notes that the parking in the Los Angeles area of Gordita Beach/ real world Manhattan Beach really is bad, like it's portrayed in the novel! Astute reporting Times, bravo.

Pynchon's LA is often the hazy Los Angeles of Hollywood. The magical, mythical Los Angeles that many a-film tries to capture, (I'm thinking like Steve Martin's LA) Doc Sportello's LA is filled with wonder. Often due to copious instances of driving around high as a kite. You can use a Ouija board to locate spirit-connections for drugs, and then use that clue to launch the story forward in the future... sure, why not. Perhaps how the story moves forward doesn't make much sense, but why does it need to?

Compared to his other works, which are mostly period-specific novels, the mentioning of television, of the ARPAnet, LA real estate and other past/present connections provide fun territory for Pynchon to issue comments on our current states of affairs (how much of his ARPAnet is really just our Internet?) (housing market? how has that changed since the 70s?) (Nixon and life with a bastard-for-a-president) there are many examples that connect the 70s to our current calendar year.

This book — I nearly called it film just there — is ripe with well-worn paranoia. Doc's paranoia seems to be so constant that he's honed it into a sidekick, using it to feel out situations, good, bad, or stoned. Using Sportello's paranoia, I bet you could re-understand Gravity's Rainbow-grade paranoia. Drug-related or otherwise, paranoia is a constant Pynchon theme.

I've been tempted as of late to read Vineland, which is often passed over for novels like V. which people either get/like or don't and stop reading. It also takes place in California in the 60s, but in northern California, I hear.

But then there's the idea of reading William Vollmann's new book Imperial, which I can only image is every word possible to say about California and it's weird/strangulated relation to Mexican immigration. 1300 pages. I want to try to read that too. Mammoth task. Might be my book for 2010. Might try a few books over 2010.

But that's me; you, you should read Inherent Vice.

Independence Day.

I geared up for the Fourth of July weekend like any beer-drinking person would, by stocking up on my favorite beer. My choice for the weekend was a case of one of Sierra's newest taste sensations, Torpedo which, in my opinion is by far one of the tastiest American IPA beers out there. It's strong too, nearly beer-syrup.

The weekend was very hot. Houston, while a hot place all-year-round, was maxing out and topping the heat-index chart. About three beers into the holiday I felt kinda sick. I couldn't really figure out what the problem was, it was maybe 2pm and I felt gross. Then it occurred to me that while delicious, maybe beer-syrup wasn't the mass-consumption joy that I had hoped it could be. I thought back to big day-long barbecues and Super Bowl parties where the day was spent drinking shitloads of beer. What was different?

And then it came to me: Light Beer. Drinking light beer I could drink all day and not get painfully drunk and stave off both thirst and the heat.

But which light beer? Bud Lite? Coors Light? Miller? Do any of the Micros make Light Beer? So many new questions...

To the internets!

There are a few different pages out there that all talk about which beer is the best light beer. But what I kept seeing was that everyone had their own opinion. With that, Milena and I launched ourselves on a Light-Beer Drinking Taste-Test to come to decide...

THE BEST AMERICAN LIGHT BEER

We did come across one listing of beers that seemed to be less hearsay and after having finished a few cases of different light beers, I'm confident in saying that that the listing is pretty solid. Of course, I'm going to keep talking about the beers we drank, so don't follow the link until I'm done rantin' at you.

History: The American Light Lager

These beers are extremely light colored, light in body, and high in carbonation. Calorie level should not exceed 125 per 12 ounce serving. Corn, rice, or other grain or sugar adjuncts are often used. Flavor is mild, and hop bitterness and aroma is negligible to very low. Light fruity esters are acceptable. Chill haze and diacetyl should be absent.
OG: 1.024-1.040
FG: 1.002-1.008
IBUs: 5-10
Color SRM: 1.5-4
Alcohol by Weight: 2.8-3.5%

Under these pretense, the first beer we tried was...



Milwaukee's Best Light

I was questioning MBL hard before I opened it. It seemed like some sort of off-brand swill beer that wasn't strong enough to live by it's laurels alone. Why would Miller not prominently put their name on it? Many questions I had before I opened my first MBL.

Though to the taste, the first taste on this adventure, we were not disappointed. We were ready to be disappointed, but instead we were greeted with a light, crisp, fruit-ed taste that was pleasing. The flavor basically said to us, "C'mon in, Light beer, like me, is delicious... enjoy as much as you'd like," in scerene harpy tones.

And with that I drank a bunch. The next morning, my head hurt. Obviously. But it didn't hurt bad.

Grade: A



Coors Light

Coors Light came in as #4 in the top-10 I was going by, and having had many-a Coors Light, this was merely an exercise in comparison and contrast. Coors Light, compared to MBL was... less sweet, with a less pleasing aftertaste. The flavor is less fruity, and, when compared to other Lite beers, the Coors flavor is significantly original. Props for that, but overall the flavor was less delicious than MBL which ranked as #3. I didn't drink a fuckton like I did the MBL, so I didn't come close to hangover levels, but I've had some pretty rough nights with Coors Light at the wheel.

Grade: B+



Pearl Light

Pearl is an old brewery in Texas, so I figured the Lone Star State should be mentioned in this here taste-test, 'er someone'd shoot me. The flavor of Pearl is pretty standard. In fact like it's Texas cousin, Lone Star, these two tasted similar -- a little too similar. The flavor was pale in comparison with either MBL or Coors. It seemed like full-flavored Lone Star with some extra water in it. Not too great.

Grade: c-



Natural Light

Harkening back to days of yore, I cringingly picked up a case of good ole' Natty Light -- for research. Unlike Coors Light which I had definitely drank before, I had long since banished the memory of Natty, since it was [in memorial] so gawdawful. So many an evening spent drinking these one after another until the 12-pack and record player had long since finished. Opening a can of Natty was like drinking liquid nostalgia, horribly flavorless nostalgia. Natty is decent drinking if you're looking to achieve the state of drunenness without actually wanting to focus on the taste of the beer. When cold, it does go down smooth and quick (as there's no flavor to it) and you can quickly go on to the next can in between bathroom breaks, and eventually when you finish the case you can get the secret prize at the bottom of the case....

Grade: D



Miller Genuine Draft "64"

I've never liked genetic modification (GM) foods and using science to pull calories and carbs out of beer sounds to me like high-tech alchemy. This golden liquid, however, tastes, well, just like Miller Genuine Draft in the way that Coke Zero 'tastes' like Coca Cola -- it tastes similar, but there's an unmistakeable hollowness too it that tells you that it's not the real thing. Ultimately it was fine. MGD's taste is specific: not too sweet, not too delicious.

Grade: C+



Sam Adam's Light

All the micro-beer forum guys give a three-word-answer to describe the best light beer available: "Sam Adams Light." and coming in just under the caloric measure of 120, this beer apparently qualifies as a light beer. But I don't buy it.

One of the first things that I learned in doing this little taste-test is that calories and carbs are beer's flavor. When I'm sitting at home swilling Torpedo's at 260 calories a pop, I'm imbibing flavorful beer in it's most caloricly-syrupy form. So when Sam Adams decides to make their light beer just barely fit into the guidelines so that it can be called a "light" beer, I really want to disagree.

Sam Adams Light is good. No doubt. It's actually too good to be in with the other light beers who are actually working to make beer more like water than beer. If Sam Adams Light gets to be considered light beer, then I think it's only fair that Natural light gets to be sold as water. But comparing the two isn't a apples to apples, it's apples to oranges.

Grade: N/A (A)

This whole exercise has given me a very new understanding of beer: mostly that, yes, despite everything that I thought of up until the fourth of July, there is a reason why people drink light beer. [queue patriotic flute playing] Our fathers and forefathers drank light beer not because they like the taste of it, but because it's cheap, it's readily available, or because their friends picked it up at the gas station on the way over. They drank light beer because it's American. For many years it was the only choice [that the big breweries would advertise to the nation], but above all these things we hold true — we — want to drink beer all day long and not get shitfaced until the fireworks come on. And when they come on, they come on strong.

Fun wif gifs.

Made this last night. Dunno. Experimenting with gifs, photoshop.

How I Learned To Stop Hating And Love The Car

Milena and I purchased a new car Monday, it was the result of an exhaustive hunt & search operation that spanned the entire weekend.



We found this guy on minimania.

Of course, we didn't end up getting this 1977 Yellow Mini, but we were tempted.


We've been meaning of getting a car for a while now. I think somewhere over the year of living at our place, and riding in and around Houston, militantly, we've experienced many good things, and many bad things, to but ultimately, we just want to get out and see more. There's only so far you can get on a bike.

We've ridden around and debated on which cars we could stand to have for a while. After breaking down pros/cons over what we wanted in a car, we ultimately decided that we just had to get an old mini.

Milena stumbled upon the sight when looking up the Mini Moke, which is apparently super popular at a certain island off the coast of Australia. Of course those were Minis also and it didn't take us long to start looking at the other old Minis. The first one I saw and started getting excited about was a silver one up in Washington, where it was cheap, but in questionable condition.

We dreamed of flying off to Washington, and then taking the treacherously long drive back to Texas with a possibly unstable car. (I still want to do this). Then we just started looking at ones that were around the country, trying to find a good mix of cheap price, looking then to New Jersey minis, North Carolina, and Nevada. I was thinking as long as the price of the car plus plane fare for the two of us was under $8,000, it was a deal.

We found this yellow one just outside of Houston. We went and saw it Sunday, just after saying yes to a 2002 Honda Civic.

For us, it was a better car. We have no car. A mini is a choice for someone who already has a stable car, and could get around if they needed a backup car.

As much as I figured I could go without the car if it needed to be worked on, It's hard for me to make the same choice for Milena who's applying for work and might need something with more reliability.

We spent the weekend with my friend Bill and his 2-year-old daughter Kimberly, as he took us on a whirlwind tour of Houston's used auto circuit as we looked, priced cars, and ultimately decided what we could live with. I kept entertaining the idea of getting a Mini, but the more I saw, the more I resigned myself to getting something newer and more reliable.

I kept holding the Mini as a backup option, since in some respect it was the same price as some of the cars we were looking at. I didn't like the dealers' cars which just seemed like expensive versions of cars I was thinking about.

We decided on the Honda Civic quickly. Looking at all the cars out there and (Sorry Obama and American Car Industry) I have too much good things to say about Honda, their cars, their maintenance (which is their real secret super-draw), and the style-points of Honda who design cars to be durable and cheap. But when we saw the 2002 on craigslist, we quickly pounced — Milena called before she even told me about the ad — and it was just what we were looking for: a small family whom had outgrown their small car and wanted a large more family-sized car, really just looking to get rid of their car without turning it into a big thing.



So yay. We win.

The mini idea is still on the back-burner, but as an "if I get rich" scenario.

Two-week Mikoshi

For Japan Festival, my coworkers and Milena and I spent a busy 2 weeks building a Japanese portable shrine called a Mikoshi.

We debated on styles, and I was nervous from the beginning that the task would turn out looking... well poorly. I was nervous because while I could draw it, I wasn't necessarily sure it would transfer over to the wood. My constant thought at one point was, "Damn, if only I had some Legos, I could make up a scale model in no time!"

After a long list of late nights weekends and holidays spent on the project, I think we all came together and made a good-looking finished product, it ended up being pretty light to carry — do'able with 4 people, comfortable with more than six people.

Australia!

This movie, in case you didn't see it, is horrible. Sure, it has every Australian actor known to America, and that if you didn't know, you could use said movie to uncover who actually is an Australian in our films, but ultimately the movie is horribly unwatchable. I think we went so far as to watch 10 minutes, giving up at the opening fight-scene where the audience is introduced to Hugh Jackman's character, a rough-riding, rough-talkin', stud for Nicole Kidman's affection.

In case I hadn't told you previously, Milena and I took a flight out to Australia last month, stayed two weeks, and for that time we passed between Sydney, Canberra, a coastal town called Moruya, the Congo Beach where Red Hot Chili Peppers' Drummer-guy apparently owns a house, a small town called Toronto where Milena's Grandfather and cousins live, and finally the Toronga Zoo in Sydney Harbor where we saw the Australian-native animals I couldn't find during the trip.

What spurned the whole thing on was that my dad sent me an email with some tip to check out Sir Richard Branson's company, and their newest established line, V Australia. They were launching, and had really cheap fares. They were basically $750 round trip each. That's mad-cheap. Leaving from LAX, we basically spent another $600 getting us a pair of Southwest flights from Houston to LA.

I'll say it now. I'm sick of flying Southwest. It used to be easy when I was in Oakland and flying the quick one-hour hop to John Wayne Airport. Either way, when you have connecting flights over Spring Break (which is made more annoying, because I don't officially have spring break anymore, I just arbitrarily chose some vacation time then), everything gets delayed.

We had planned for some level of delay, but apparently 2 hours of delay isn't as usefully as planning for two hours and thirty minutes. Had we done that, we might have realized we'd possibly miss our connections.

We were destined, before even leaving Hobby Airport, to miss our flight because our delayed Houston>Phoenix flight arrived at 6:30 and the connecting flight was supposed to leave at 6:20 PM. I called V Australia and asked what I should do, and they told us that we should try to make the plane. The next plane (and this was Friday) would be leaving on Monday.

Anyway, crossing the country could have been smooth and only slightly annoying, but instead Southwest made it tense and stress-filled. Unless someone from Southwest emails me, I think my 10+ year relationship with the airline, might be over.

The flight to Australia is long. 15.5 hours, stuck in a pressurized tube. It's manageable, but when cross-continental traffic has already stressed you out, it's hard to relax enough to enjoy being further trapped in a big 'ole plane.

It was a big new plane actually.

We ordered special dietary meals because we could. Milena ate Hindu, while I had Asian Vegetarian. All meals appeared to be quite good looking/smelling/eating.

Australia



Milena's Grandparents took us out for a drive around Sydney, a very cool, big town.

I met a lot of relatives during the trip. I'm happy to say that they were all really great to meet and they were very welcoming.

After a brief day in Sydney, we caught a train down to Canberra, greeted by Milena's mother and sister. After getting home, we went for a walk with her parents round behind their house, catching my first glimpse of wildlife -- the fabled Kangaroo!



View from The Pinnacle.



They're so cute!



We spent a few days in Canberra, where sadly both Milena and I had picked up an annoying sinus cold due to the stressful transit. When not nursing tissues, we ran around Canberra meeting Milena's friends and trying to see various sights. We tried to bike around as much as we could, and while Canberra seems to be as hilly as say Austin, Texas or maybe Nappa, California, our sicknesses limited our physical exertion.



Milena's mum took us to a nature preserve so that I could see some Koalas and after a few minutes, necks a'craned, we thought we saw a koala -- well I thought I saw one.



Beth and Bill, and their chewy Chicken Dinner *not a soft, farm-raised Chicken.*

When explaining our Koala situation, Beth mentioned the common-known fact that all the koalas at that reserve had died of smoke inhalation years back. Bummer. Nevertheless, Beth and Bill were great. We sat down enjoying a chicken that apparently a friend had owned and had killed and then gifted to Beth. The experience made you realize how little store-bought chickens probably move in their lifetime: the leg meat on these was very sinewy, and difficult to pull apart.

The other laughable sight was an elevator lift with a funny company name:



After a few days in Canberra, we drove south to the coast where Milena's parents have a house they've just finished building, spending something like five years working out all sorts of bureaucratic processes.

The end result is splendid.



The place is great for all sorts of reasons. But let us understand the chief one: You can walk from this house to this location in five minutes.



The beaches were peppered with some type of jellyfish-type called, "Blue Bottles". I imagine their numbers were due to the warm water.



Milena did my portrait in sand

Best part was that the next day, on another beach-walk, the same face was still there and had been... accentuated.



Milena's dad took us on a bit of a hike, spending 4 hours walking 13 kilometers up the coast, where we had parked a car and had hoped to go for lunch. It was actually really great. During the last quarter of the hike we all got tired, but we all survived and possibly enjoyed the best fish n' chips in the whole world more so.



More wild Kangaroos!

We met more relatives down at the Congo, we played a great board game, "The Amazing Labyrinth" with Milena's brother Lachlan and her Uncle Ashley's girlfriend's daughter.



Over the weekend down at the Congo we did all sorts of fun things, most of what I remember is eating decadent feasts and feeling overly full without exercising enough to not feel sloven. But saying that, all the food was amazing. Kangaroo is an amazing meat. And the lamb... how can anyone not love lamb?

Down at the beach, Milena, Lachlan and I decided to get down to some sandcastle making, attempting to make really large sand castles. I imagine this will happen every time we all meet down there, exaggerating it to the point where parents make one castle, children another castle, and then call it a competition.

Day One







Day Two







Day Two's castle effort was cut short by an encroaching thunderstorm. As much as we had brought implements of business (big shovels), as the lightning came closer, I worried about being on the beach, wielding a shovel.

After the weekend at Congo, we headed back to Canberra and Milena and I caught up with her friends, hung out with her sister and brother and had an all around great, relaxing time.

We drove up to Sydney, planning to spend a few days up there before flying out on the Sunday. In Sydney, we went to visit another of Milena's grandparents who lived in a town called Toronto. We drove out to a hardware shop, bought some plants and planted some herbs in his veranda. I got the chance to have lunch in a 'workers club; which we don't really have in the states, but it's a nice cross of a casino parlor + a meeting hall + a cafeteria. In theory, a good place for people to come together, hang out on the weekends, and grab a good little meal.
On the way back into Sydney, Milena and I traversed the route given to us by Milena's grandmother's GPS-navi, which tensely negotiated us right through the center of Sydney during Friday rush hour. Many different cars going all sorts of different directions. It would have been interesting without the navi, but with it, it was really just an interesting experience -- professional driver I am and all...

On the last Sunday, Milena, her parents, and I went around Sydney Harbor to Toronga Zoo, which had all the zoo animals I didn't otherwise get to see.



Oh and the real thing.



One of the saddest parts was seeing the zoo kangaroos, the opposite of the wild ones:





That was neat too. Made me miss Steve Erwin a bit.

After the zoo, we had another dinner of lamb and then we sped off to the airport, to sit through another 20 hours of transit. Again, V Australia was wonderful, despite my inability to sleep, despite sleeping aids, but I did master how to play their entertainment system's Texas Hold'em Poker game.

Then after getting to LAX on-time, we were forced to wait for Southwest. I think it was 2:30 on Monday morning when we finally got home and 4 before I actually got to get some sleep before going into work at 9 a few hours later.

Jet lag took about a week to get over, but I think I can safely state that I'm back on schedule.

Now that I don't have the Australian trip to look forward to, I guess I need to find a new project. I have a few ideas, but nothing is concrete at this point.