Art of Mixed Tape

I noticed that I seem to pick up many strange, wild, sometimes idiotic hobbies.  Really… I don’t know why.  I assume it’s my subconscious just trying to avoid any real work and delaying the inevitability of reality.  Maybe it’s my need to enjoy the spontaneity of life as much as possible before reality pops out of nowhere and kicks my ass.

In fact, as I think about it, at best reality is overrated.  There’s something so calming and soothing about temporarily escaping reality.  And as I think about it, people do it all the time and in their own different ways.  Some people watch sappy Asian dramas all day, others read a good fantasy novel, a few hit a finely rolled joint, and many drink themselves to the brink of disaster.  But for me, it’s everything music.  There’s no greater joy for me than randomly searching the internet through my many bookmarked music blogs and finding a new band or musician to listen and enjoy.  I don’t know.  It’s hard to explain the feelings that seem to spontaneously resonate when you listen to a good tune or contemplate the lyrics of a song for the first time. The only thing I can say is that it’s fucking magical.

It’s so magical that I’ve picked up a new hobby, making mixed tapes and CDs.  I’ve kind of rationalized to myself that due to my incompetence with most musical instruments (besides the piano somewhat), I had to figure out another way to get my creative musical juices pumping.  So, what’s more perfect than killing a Saturday afternoon obsessing over what song should go next on your mixed tape.

But a mixed tape isn’t just a compilation of tracks from different albums; it’s a series of decisions at a particular moment in time.  It’s an expression of your inner soul, a pastiche in which you put together songs and sounds into a collective and harmonious entity.  And this completed tape has a tone and a statement.  Amazingly, this tone and statement tremendously varies between tape to tape… mixer to mixer.  But they all share one thing in common; they refract and reflect a period of time, a sense of place, aesthetic sensibilities, emotional states, and many other things. 

There’s nothing more personal to me than making a mixed tape.  As simple as it is, every single mixed tape I’ve ever made is just a little part of me seeking some sort of expression and meaning in this lonely world. 

I’ve made a couple of mixed tapes, but this one is my first for 2009.  Initially it was a tape for a friend of mine but it eventually became a small tidbit of how I’ve been feeling lately.  Maybe I’ll make a mix tape every other week and post it online on my sporadically updating blog. 

Small, Sad, Pale World

1. Songs: Ohia – Coxcomb Red
2. Modest Mouse – Dramamine
3. The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
4. Black Heart Procession – Release My Heart
5. Elliott Smith – Coast To Coast
6. Silver Jews – Trains Across The Sea
7. Damien Rice – Woman Like A Man
8. Songs: Ohia – The Body Burned Away
9. Anders Parker – So It Goes
10. Crooked Fingers – Don’t Say A Word
11. The Decemberists – Gymnast, High Above The Ground
12. Modest Mouse – Baby Blue Sedan
13. Gillian Welch – Annabelle
14. Snow Patrol – Grazed Knees
15. Neko Case – If You Knew
16. Jeff Mangum – My Dream Girl Don’t Exist [live]
17. Jollie Holland – Old Fashioned Morphine

Good night and enjoy.

An educational video concerning Asian Doubt

Throughout the years I have created a number of words that have defined my understanding of the world.  One of these words, Asian Doubt, is probably my greatest creation. It is defined as:

Originally created to describe Ming’s actions, “Asian doubt” is the inability for an Asian to act on his or her feelings and instincts because he or she over thinks too much and begins to doubt him or herself. This is most assuredly applicable in terms of 1) asking a girl or guy out on a date or 2) almost anything Asians do. That’s why Asians are stereotyped as submissive and pushovers, it’s because of this transition phase from thinking about doing something and actually doing it that causes Asians to doubt themselves.

Sometime around 3:30 in the morning a close Asian friend of mine instant messages me and says:

I sit with a bunch of girls at lunch.  Two of them are very good friends, one of them is the girl that I’m asking out next week.  Got any advice?

So I scour the internets, looking for a visual representation of my thoughts and feelings. So lo and behold, I have found this wonderful video to share to the world. Enjoy.

And yes, this also applies to you Ming. <3 <3

Oh ho ho. Hipsters.

After walking back from class, I all-of-a-sudden realized that a fair amount of college guys attempt to impress the chicks around here by listing their knowledge on all these obscure indie bands.  How this random thought came into my head… I don’t know.  I think it’s because a couple of my friends are all-of-a-sudden listening to Guster (they think they’re indie) and then dissing the ‘popular bands’ right now.

It reminds me of this one time when Pitchfork came to SoCal.  They do an annual concert in San Diego and its actually pretty good, despite the audience and the people running it.

This summer I went “undercover,” with a thin black scarf, a clove cigarette, an empty can of PBR that I pretended to drink from, and the capstone: a fake band t-shirt that I made with a set of magic markers.  They were called “The Giggling Grench” and their logo was a stylized green-and-pink cartoon of a man vomiting musical notes, set slightly off center.

In the middle of the Public Enemy set, this one hipster who was standing next to me starts hitting on some chick.  As part of their mating ritual, he starts to spew a monumental list of bands hes “really into right now.”  Halfway through his speech he slips in “The Giggling Grench,” and points to my t-shirt as proof.

I was tempted to turn around and say that I was the frontman to bag the chick.  But then I realized I’m not a hipster.

Oh ho ho.  Hipsters.

My Attempt at a “Twilight”-style Romance Story

Because of a friend’s fanaticism over the Twilight Saga, a series of vampire-based romance novels by Stephanie Meyer, I finally decided to read the first book in the series and finished it in the wee hours of the morning.

So, in honor of my beloved friend and hopeless romantics everywhere, here’s my attempt at fan fiction in the vein of Stephanie Meyer’s unique prose.

—

She held him to her bosom, feeling the beating of his tiny heart, so perfectly timed with her own. His pale, freckled skin shone in the moonlight, tiny golden sparkles catching the pale light and casting it back out in a cascade of flickering orange and yellow like firelight. She ran a finger through his red hair, pushing aside his tiny green bowler.

“They’ll never understand,” he whispered to her, his soft accent shivering her spine.

But I want everyone to know,” she responded sadly. “I want to tell the world of our love.”

“No,” he said, more firmly, looking up at her. There was a quite, resolute sadness in his shimmering emerald eyes, and she could almost feel the pain of his loneliness. “If they knew of me, if they were ever to learn of my existence, I would be hunted. I would know no peace. They would hunt me to the ends of the Earth.”

“But why?” she asked softly.

“It is my Magic. A Leprechaun’s blessing is also his curse.” He pulled away from her, casting his gaze up at the moon. “Humans will do anything to get it. They will never stop desiring it. They are always after me lucky charms.”

—

Please don’t kill me Jennifer!!