GANthology

Jeune Femme - Musée d'Orsay

2008-11-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

Entering into the loft and sifting through sets of people, I could not help but feel bewildered and in complete awe standing within the grandiose yet sophisticatedly simple confines of the Musée d'Orsay. Some say that its appeal comes from the vast impressionist catalogues of art that it houses in its culturally-significant walls, but I believe that it offers much more than impressionist art, much more than just art itself-- it offers to us a glimpse into the magnificently real and uncensored fragility of the human heart.

These artists, painters, sculptors, philosophers; they had a visceral understanding of life, of all its gory and beautifully unabridged stories, depicted by their masterpieces. They held an attention to the intricate details- if not having an outright obsession with them. From the irresistibly overjoyed and luminous faces to the pieces delineating irrevocable emotional strain, they were able to capture history; people absorbed completely in the moment, people caught in the net of time, people that have now become immortalized in their almost absurdly elaborate artwork.

Out of all these pieces though, one really caught my eye- The Jeune Femme. It was so ostentatiously graphic and life-like that it's allure was undeniable. From afar I could already discern her stunning features, but once I took closer examination I realized that she was so attractive to the point of being uncommonly beautiful. I gazed into her eyes, which strangely enough had concave retinas, giving the infallible appearance of lucid vision to this woman, and even to me- the curious observer of a sculpture that once represented a life. I wanted to know this life, the story behind this ambiguous girl, face filled with emotion, trying desperately to clasp onto a reality that was bound to forget her.

There was something about the forlorn look on her face, something deep and significantly poignant, that made me feel completely enchanted, and I soon found myself engulfed in the proximity of her inorganic embrace. She must have been the Aphrodite of her epoch, exuding a kind of subdued and nonchalant elegance unfathomable to most women, with an unmistakable sensuality radiating from what I took to be her unapologetic disposition. Her perfectly shaped eyes were like fleeting comets towards the center of her face, flagella beating ceaselessly against the boundaries of her brow bone. Encased in them were sapphire blue eyes that challenged the splendor of the sky above.

Two spheres of strong cheekbones gave her a feline-like appearance, layered by the taut milky color of her skin as if she had never seen a day of sun. In essence she was as flawless as a polished diamond, and had such vivaciousness in her perfectly symmetrical face, jaw asserting itself with a staunch dominance all while maintaining a feminine vitality that seemed to keep men in a constant state of arousal. Her cheeks functioned as the beginning of a dramatic inward ellipse of bone structure all the way down to the subtle 'v' of her chin. It was like she was made entirely out of paint blotches of natural color hues and unrealistic expectations and mascara as densely black as night.

It must have all happened then. I saw her gallivanting around with a striding confidence, almost to the point of being brazen, completely unabashed about her consuming vanity that made her oblivious to the daily battles faced by less fortunate people of a lower social strata. Despite what was on the surface though, her alarming self-assurance was only there to shroud the bellowing anguish of her suffocating fear of vulnerability, a more-deep seated malady to the chronic dissatisfaction plaguing her life. She knew it too, but still functioned with such prideful precaution in her interactions with people that it heavily outweighed the equilibrium of her absorbing loneliness. Her refusal to change only spiraled her deeper into the abyss of an impending depression, and soon she became overwhelmed in the ravages of inescapable despair and hopelessness.

The fact that she was constantly surrounded by others only caused her to recede even further into herself; she loathed the unreliability and noncommittal nature of people that seemed to only have a self-reliant loyalty to their own agendas. This made her extremely caustic, like that of a caustic Queen, preying on the buoyant insecurities of others just to keep herself afloat. Yet she was petrified of becoming lost in anonymity, a fear that in the process she might even end up losing herself. All she was looking for was an unwavering bond amongst the bountiful heaps of mercurial and self-centered friends that she had. She found this momentary comfort in the form of an artist, a sculptor that decided to deify her, and in doing so sealing her story in the generations of tales to be told to the world. However, even the completion of the art piece failed to provide any kind of transformation, and her reluctance to be constrained soon became her downfall, hurling her directly into the chasm of self-destruction.

Inevitably, she became insufferably conflicted due to the instinctual desensitization of living in a deceitful world, meticulously crafted from the unkept promises of the many unfulfilled yet still lingering relationships of the past. They had served their purpose, and had their place in time, but she was still left with a kind of persistent distraught that could not be shaken off. In her mind, she felt that she did not deserve to be loved, and had become so conditioned by her current state that it almost felt like she would need some kind of monumental effort to break free of these mental chains. Being a ravishing beauty was her only means of piquing the attention and rapture in the fleeting desires of the overly discerning masses. Unbeknownst to her though, she was silently adored by many- maybe even worshipped- jagged keys to the kind of grotesque and inconceivable truth of her unutterable existence, that- if the right fit- might be able to unlatch her from the limitations of her inanimate captivity.

The red rouge pulsated on her lips, quivering with a kind of impassioned hesitance. There was so much to say. So many unspoken and ruffled feelings. Feelings so raw, feelings so profound, feelings so human. Sometimes I wonder whether this sculpture, whether this titan of art, had lived a more vivid and emotionally vacillating life than most of us.

Long live the Queen. I can only imagine how hard it was to have been that strong all the time.

Till my next cultural awakening. Au Revoir.

Journey to the West - the last leg

2008-10-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

for the greater part of my journey, i had been traveling with a group of people that spanned the world, a diaspora of the lost, and the searching. our quest for the intangible had now taken us to the province of Galicia, being blanketed by a deluge of torrential rain wherever we set foot. even so, we kept on with a kind of defiant solidarity, marauding fearlessly into the unremitting precipitation. stepping into puddles deeper than even our own resevoir of experience, we sloshed around in a layer of water incapable of insulating the crunching black gravel beneath it. the pace had quickened now, each step becoming fervent, but calculated.

through the rustling of the canopy above us, we trudged through the water-logged and coagulated mud, ferociously gripping at our boots as if begging us to set them free from their indentured servitude to the amorphous ground. it had now become littered with soggy red autumn leaves and minature branches, that seemed to cushion our every step. with only a few days left to the mark, our faces bore the insignia of a subdued intent. it was so close that we could almost feel its lofty gates opening like the arms of a welcoming hug, and the hustle and bustle of the city natives turning to focus on us in celebration of our victory. but most of all, it represented to us true and unadulterated freedom, by proving anything to be possible if put up against the indomitable will of the human spirit.

still trying to savor every moment and capture each miniscule detail, we had finally stepped foot out of the somber and even melancholic forest. blinding rays of light illuminated the path that we were to take, and shone on two streams of tire tracks sprinkled with little rocks that seemed to redirect the gentle curiosities of the creek back into the nebulous path of its final resting place. the sun was behind us now, our four shadows converging into the monstrosity of an apparition floating seamlessly on the road, giving us a sense of valiant direction to the place which we most longed to be.

we walked on fastidiously with controlled breaths, almost even procession-like, as if this were some kind of rite of passage to something greater. the novelty had worn off, but the pain did not. it felt like there was an inexplicable internal struggle going on in all of our heads- the eternal battle between the mind, and the body. even though we had been traveling together all this while, we walked alone in the bleak and thunderous fields of our awareness. over the course of this journey i could sense a progressive shift in the general attitude and dynamic in which the group communicated: our obnoxiously-boisterous banter had soon turned into a solemn, and unspoken resolve. a collective vision. there was only one thing on our minds now-

Santiago. yet we dared not utter its sacred and arcane name for fear of it´s consummate beauty vanishing under our mortal breaths. only its restless tune could be heard in the whisperings of the wind, drowned out by the pitter-patter of the interminable rain beating down on the insolent concrete. and so we moved faithfully forward.. backs turned to the past, ceremoniously ready to embrace the vulnerability of the unknown future.

Cruz de Ferro

2008-10-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

sometimes we are so used to being judged that we inadvertently and blindly reflect these same discordant and unwarranted criticisms onto others, by no fault of their own.

i met an aged man of about sixty years, his face hardened and weary from a life forged with the numbing bricks of repression. what was left of his faded grey hair grew neatly around the circumference of his skull in a crow´s nest, a vestige of the crown of scorn that he once wore. the crown of a tyrant. a man of consequence, the self-absorption and arrogance of his younger years later evolved into paranoia and self-destruction- as it almost always does. it almost seemed to me as if the ignominious failures of the past pervaded his life now, and ruled as the governing body of justified cynicism to the hauntingly never-ending series of crises his life had become.

he carried himself with an air of hyper-masculinity that brinked on chauvanism; i could tell that he derived his self-worth from his imposing stature representing the moral highground from which he regarded himself. his powerful frame had now atrophied due to physical inactivity and the rigors of free radicals, and his once sanguine and radiantly handsome face had withered into a gaunt look of constant worry that could only feel disdain for the unrecognizable figure that he now saw in the mirror. he rolled up his sleeves, exposing his thick and still muscular forearms ridden with varicose veins, pumping the lifeblood away from his heart and into his extremities, as if in preparation for rigor mortis.

as he spoke to me, i could see real pain in his limpid, and uninhibited eyes. between intermittent puffs, wasps of evaporated tar would emanate from the relic of a pipe that his father had given him- this was completely foreign to me, being such an archaic way of smoking tobacco- but in a way it was completely fitting with the quaint and antiquated rural towns of northern Spain. he told me of how his wife had left him for another man, and that even his children refused to acknowledge his existence, moving to different countries to escape his iron grasp. evidently his family had had enough of his volatile nature and abrasive manipulation, and the constant acquiescing to his requests under his unforgiving gaze. after his parents had died, his siblings fought over what little inheritance there was- making me question whether there was any justice left in the world.

his eyes darted around listlessly, semi-suspicious of all the other people crowding around the Cross of Iron and mound of stones at its base. while peering into a crowd, he happened to make eye contact with a group of people, and broke a contrived smile which made the crow´s feet at the corner of his eyes become very apparent, but i knew that it was just to keep a congenial aura about himself. his smile soon faded, which stimulated the cascade of a ripple effect of striations from the top to the bottom of his face, like the dropping of a pebble in still waters.

after they left, his eyes began to well up, overflowing with every inkling of sentiment that had been painstakingly hidden in the deep recesses of his mind. tears began to fall in a stream down his face, directed off-course by the rivulets of innumerable wrinkles on his cheeks. i stood there, speechless. it was almost as if for the first time he had cried in years, and this was his moment of unrestrained glory. he had laid seige to the lifetime of grief and sorrow that had burdened him, and finally found solace in bearing his soul and letting go. he had found his moment of freedom. he had been made whole.

he left me- still slightly in shock- and i did not ask for his name or where he was from, inconsequential details irrelevant and unnecessary when making a connection or when feeling the pain of another. as he walked off into the distance, i could see the straps of his bone-crushing rucksack oscillate from side to side like three synchronous pendulums, strangely complimentary to the story he just told me, and seemingly redolent to the ticking of the grandfather clock of time, till our very last breath.

morning glory

2008-10-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

plump and ripe grapes picked from right off the vines for breakfast, the evenly aligned and perfectly parallel vineyards on the terraced hillside like aisles of a grocery store, existing only for my eating pleasure. permeating the picturesque and Monet-like sky, the sun casts a shadow over the plaid-patterened and docile countryside, almost as if giving a disapproving glare.

suddenly, a strong gust of wind blows, eliciting a gargantuan dust cloud that topples the weaker blades of wheat, causing them to lie adjacent in submission to their condescendingly towering peers, who ostracize them in alienation. a lot of abandoned land, platitude and rendered obsolete from years of neglect, projecting its inadequacies on the terminal yet fortitudinous evergreen trees rooted in its barren soil. branches of cautious orbs laced with poisonous spikes, the evolution of phenotypically protective traits of a crude exterior, as a coping mechanism and only defense against an indiscriminatingly inhospitable environment.

all this while, two butterflies- one turqoise and one tangerine- engaged in the delicate dance of a vivid mating display, the batting eyes on their wings like leaves fluttering in the wind. so, even with the harsh vicissitudes of the world, life still managed to go on- unscathed.

the desolate earth, forgotten and cast aside

2008-09-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

day 8. about 200 kilometers in.

the 1400 meter ascent up the magestic and unyielding mountains only served to exacerbate the unbearable throbbing in my knees. steps and slopes of all kinds became my worst adversaries. but i was slowly becoming acclimated to the pain. i was not about to just give up yet. i didn´t come this far to go home now.

i reached the summit, surveying the hazy skyline, still translucent from the fluffy and fragmented clouds. there was no one for miles. the silence was surreal; ineffable in its complete tranquility. it almost seemed as if the world had stood still, even if just for a split-second. i took one more cursory glance, before taking a declivitous step into the abyss of the cavernous trough.

trampling through the thick foliage of untamed and dried-up brush, i could feel the scattered stones eroded by the heavy footsteps of pensive pilgrims over the past two millenia pierce through the fibrous soles of my shoes. every thrust of my trusty staff etching into the cracked and desolate earth the memory of the path i once walked; the methodical pounding echoing off the dense shrubbery overpopulating the hills. in the distance, one florid orchid stood out from the rest, under scrutiny by a sea of vapid and forgotten grassland. of the forgotten, i thought to myself, 'all you ever wanted was to be loved'.

the faint scent of cow dung, fresh and still warm from the night before, always invigorating to the senses and able to penetrate the hypnosis that came with walking extended distances. my face sullen, flies orbiting me like they had some kind of primal obsession with the living, their incessant buzzing fading in and out like a sonorous symphony. but there was nothing else on my mind but the road. nothing else mattered.

only 600 more kilometers to go. one day, one city, one kilometer, one step, closer to Santiago.

the path of most resistance - a depiction

2008-09-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

a single bead of sweat forms on my sun-kissed forehead, trickling down the labyrinthine crevices of my eyebrows. it pauses momentarily on the tip of my nose, almost as if suspended in animation, bidding farewell to the cruel glands that excreted it before disposing of it like a vestigial organ no longer of use. falling to the floor, it feels disenchanted by the ephemeral moment in time that it tasted free air, before becoming acquainted with the dirt and then dissipating into the nothingness of mother nature.

the ethereal elegance of the sun spans over the horizon, its rays contouring every undulation of the landscape, taunting me to move on. arms out like the anticipation of a hug, the chilly wind bosoms me as if I am its own. and in this moment, i feel safe. there is nowhere else that i can feel the sanctuary in the forceful yet subdued embrace of the wind. i yearned to stay. but the road, laboriously-long and serpentine, was meant to be roamed. the horizon was dawning upon me, and the next refugio had summoned. reluctantly, i took the next step.

it soon became aware to me that my body had just about reached the limits of its capacity. my joints trembled with the fearful anticipation of every step, my symbiotic rucksack straining every myosin fiber in my shoulders; every murmur of my heart ritualistically coursing blood through my arteries like the pounding of a percussion bass. the sweltering heat had a way of making the road seem insurmountable and endless. nature was mocking me. it made me feel so powerless in the infinite beauty of its path.

but i was almost there. my body begged me to stop the excruciating pain. but i could not listen. i had to go on; i must go on. it was just the same kind of pernicious mental torment that thousands of tedious travelers seeking God before me had felt walking this gloomy trail. in spite of a deteriorating body, my mind was indefatigable. with the home stretch in close view, i proclaimed the willful determination to conclude my days' journey. the refugio was already in sight. 'just a couple more steps,' i told myself, pushing the threshold of my tolerance.

i was finally here. roncesvalles. the promised land.

my first day was finally over. time to get some rest.

LAX - PHL - CDG

2008-09-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

LAX, 7.34am. People of every race, creed, color, nation conveniently convene in the looming stillness of the terminal, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their departure flight from the self-involved city of Los Angeles. Their lived-in faces tell the story that words never could: some faces vibrant, remnants of the unbridled optimism from a youthful exuberance; others, vacant and expressionless- beat down from a lifetime of disappointments and hopeless desperation.

Almost as if possessed by their preoccupations, they function, unaware and detached of their inter-related ties in this transitory moment in time. Freedom- albeit brief- awaited us all. Unshackled of consequence, of society, unshackled- even of gravity. Yet the seemingly innocuous oppression of reality lay in our wake.

The thundering roar of jet engines became muffled by the relentless banter of the crowd. Just waiting... waiting to break free. From living in the sytem, to living with the system, to living by the sytem, and -almost inevitably- living for the system. It was time to leave it all behind. Contact, notions, fear.. restrictions. Judgements, perceptions, paradigms.. boundaries. Concepts, comforts, social intricacies and the false sense of security they provided. Finally, true freedom had presented itself to me.

This was going to be a journey of possibilities. A surge of overwhelming calm began to resonate within me, and like an afterthought, its effects waned as soon as realization hit. I was about to depart on my maiden trip to Spain, yet I lacked even the slightest bit of apprehension. Footloose, and lost in obscurity. In a foreign land, and nowhere to go but west. Was I nervous? No.. I was not nervous. I was far from nervous-

I was ready.

Camino de Santiago – finding solace in solitude

2008-09-16T13:45:00.001-07:00

There are some decisions made in life that go beyond one's rational. And yet they seem strangely right, almost as if visceral in nature.

Journalistic endeavors and ascetic reasons aside, the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is the paragon of a journey of self-discovery. Those that want to break the cycle of the normal humdrum of everyday life seek solace in the solitude of the Camino. It provides a safe haven to the lost, to the people searching for meaning in the deeply spiritual recesses of nature. People that look to the sky in complete reverence and awe, and think to themselves, 'There has got to be something more than all of this'.

I was searching for those kinds of answers. Simply put, so far my world was not providing me with the any of answers for all the questions I had in life. I sought that kind of intangible lucid clarity that is only granted to those that surrender themselves to something greater- call it God if you will. It was in this moment of realization that I knew I would have to do something drastic to my life; by experiencing this kind of paradigm shift I might possibly be able to discover some sort of fundamental truths that existed. Was there some kind of higher purpose out there for me? What is it that I was meant to do on this earth, in this lifetime? I didn't know the answers to these questions, but I would be damned if I didn't do something to find out. I didn't want to live life going through the motions anymore. So here begins my journey of self-awakening. It was time to begin a new chapter of my life.

With plummeting job satisfaction at the OC Register, coupled with a dying industry and flailing economy vitiating the morale of the office, I decided to take a risk. Why not now? Why not while I was still young and mobile, and could survive on practically nothing. My parents were stupefied. They thought it was just me being a precarious young man with nebulous aspirations about my future career path. But in my mind it felt right. It felt like a calculated risk. More of a gambit, more than just taking a chance. It seemed like the opportune time to make a change. And so with the most subdued cadence, I told my boss that I was quitting. That it was just not the right fit, not the right time for me. That I could not function at the level I was used to functioning at if I was passionate about something. I put in my two-week notice, and began to peruse the vast resources of the internet to put into the motion the journey of a lifetime (All in all, I was working there for a not-so-commendable six months).

Then it hit me. In two weeks, I would be unemployed and be without concrete career and residence plans for the future. But I was okay with that. Every bone in my body was telling me that I had taken the first step towards freedom. Towards liberation. I was somehow strangely enchanted by the unpredictability of my future, until an unforgiving economic reality would come crashing down upon me. I wanted to do something with this modicum of time that I felt God had given me.

Then it happened. It just fell into my lap- just like that. A co-worker told me a story about her friend who was working in production on the Tony Danza show. A wanderer, a transient. With no purpose in life whatsoever. She went on to tell me how he went on this little escapade called the 'Camino de Santiago pilgrimage' and came back a changed man. I spoke to the man, his name was Joseph. He told me how he had found something deep inside himself on the trail, and it has never been the same since. (Joseph is now going to medical school in Southern California)

'Walk 485 miles in a month?!? Thats absolutely ridiculous.' I said. 'Short of being a journey reserved for the mentally-ill and marginally suicidal, that actually sounds like something I would totally be interested in doing'. And after much research and deliberation, I decided to take the big step and turn my years of naivete into perspicacious foresight. So it began, as I furiously searched the internet for every possible item I would need to bring, viable plane and walking routes, bullet-train schedules, and the overall cost of the trip. The total only came out to $2500 (including airfare, lodging, and food). I could do it! Even more bizarre was that the day I booked my flight at STA Travel at UC Irvine, there coincidentally happened to be a glitch in the system that discounted my fare by about $400. And to top that off, my parents' worry and concern soon melted into trust and understanding once they read in the Singaporean newspaper about a woman that went on the Camino. I'm not a superstitious man, but it also seemed as if God was tacitly telling me that this was meant to happen.

For those of you that know me well enough, walking continuously for 485 miles is not my idea of a fun time. If anything, I have a strong aversion for any kind of running and prolonged aerobic exertion. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a rigorous exercise session just as much as the next guy, but by no means am I game for putting myself through excruciating amounts of pain. This my friends, is what lies at the core of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. In essence, the Camino de Santiago is just a splendidly-protracted long walk. Like on a beach. But now, without the beach, and without the beautiful girl.

Breaking down human existence into its most rudimentary terms, a person on the path is armed with nothing more than the basic necessities compressed into a 21 pound rucksack, $1200 Euro, and an uncompromising resolve to complete the 485 miles in one stretch. Suffice to say, I may be slightly ill-prepared for this trek considering I have only trained for this walk in the past two weeks, but I think I've done the best with the time-span allotted to me. The road consists of thirty-one pit stops interpolating the final destination of Santiago de Compostella (north-west Spain) and the origin of St. Jean Pied de Port (western most point in France). During Medieval Times, it was one of the three major Christian pilgrimages to be traveled, and still holds relevance to this day. I just hope that the Spanish are as welcoming to me as they are of all the topless out-of-towners sunbathing in the immaculate nude beaches of Ibiza.

As I begin my trek through treacherous terrain and unforgiving weather, I can only hope to apprehend my journey with the same kind of poise and steadfast stoicism that thousands before me have managed to display. I don't know where this path will lead me, but what I do know is that this will be a catalyst for me to start over again, tabula rasa. A chance I think all of us deserve.

Till the next time we meet.

Buen Camino!

Peace & Love,

Garrett

P.S. Contrary to what people may think, I will be staying in places called refugios (hotels for pilgrims only) and will not be destitute. Just wanted to clarify that. And in case you were wondering what I'm going to be eating everyday, I only have 4 words for you- Straight Peanut Butter & Jelly. Okay. Maybe 5 words.

Bon Voyage, America!

Another late night at Jack in the Box - a commentary

2008-09-14T23:50:00.001-07:00

Saturday night. While most gainfully employed individuals choose to spend their weekends pleasantly commiserating with their peers about the wretched horrors of their work week (and college students probably getting shit-faced out of their minds), I decided to spend a perfectly languorous evening with my friend Theo (who was studying for his MCATs) at the faithfully-open Jack in the Box, catching up on all the latest sensationalist details on the ever-omnipresent facebook social news feed.

With the unceremonious arrival of occupational inactivity due to my abrupt resignation a month earlier, I had quite a bit of time on my hands to ruminate on the future that lay ahead of me. Most would take this iota of time they had to carouse as a bon vivant in the Irvine fraternal milieu. But no, not I; I decided to take this time to ponder all the wondrously egregious proclivities of the fabled AZN thug. Yep, you heard me right. The fabled A-Z-N thug. Let it be known.

We all know the kind. On this particular night, my friend and I were able to witness first-hand the sheer magnificence that is the AZN thug. Unbeknownst to most ethnically-challenged students in the Midwest, the AZN thug tends to colonize amongst their own kind in the burgeoning Asian population of Irvine. They often can be found in the burrows of Lee's Sandwiches or some shanty Pho restaurant in Westminster on Bolsa, that -I might add- refuses to serve water (but in this case, they came to Jack in the Box- just to switch it up a little), usually donning the latest in culturally unaware fashion trends (available for purchase at the T-Shirt Factory.. or more commonly referred to as 3 for $10) such as the nondescript white T-shirt (or black, depending on the occasion), and of course the requisite Anchor Blue 'Beyond Baggy' Jeans.

More often than not, they will convene in a group of 5 or more, with the distinctively pungent scent of 'Davidoff: Cool Water' emanating from them as they make their grand, but far from regal entrance whilst speaking in a cacophony of more-cuss-words-than-actual-REAL-words. This sort of piecemeal sartorial and fragrance selection behooves the AZN thug: he feels that the bespoke brands of 'Nautica' and 'FUBU' (For Us, By Us) distinguishes him from the rest as a sophisticated and debonair man of the 21st century. Not a far cry from reality, really. Unaccommodating to any kinds of social bearings whatsoever, the AZN thug is not easily swayed by things of little importance like 'social norms' and the de rigueur of appropriate aesthetic dress- so wearing chucks and a perfectly angled white hat with a [not so] full suit.

With dangerously-close zero fades and hairstyles more lined up than a coke fiends' table, many consider these AZN thugs as just a misunderstood and maybe even misrepresented subculture of our society, merely suffering from an identity crisis of monumental proportions. Maybe so. But that being the case, their unceasing use of very explicit racial epithets -which I will refrain from listing and some of which I didn't even know existed- while communicating with each other, should not go unnoticed. Lest we forget, their penchant for unnecessarily baggy jeans may also be the main reason why they have a swagger of a gait, while very publicly uttering crude expletives that would make even the most weathered prison guard blush.

Oddly enough, I myself have been guilty of some of these culturally-regressing atrocities (in the not so distant past), but the one activity that I refuse to engage in still practiced by AZNs nationwide to this day, is driving with their seats reclined so far back that they would need a fucking periscope to see through the sunroof. It's a car, for Christs' sake, not a Sleep Number Bed. The conversation following an accident would probably go as such:

Passenger: What the hell man! I can't believe you hit that telephone pole. Are you fucking blind??

Driver: Dude, I couldn't see it coming!

Passenger: WHAT?!? Even Ray Charles could have seen THAT shit coming!!

However, as far as whether their behavior is legal or not, everything in the gamut of their activities are constitutional; therefore leaving us with no resolutions to this commentary and with only more shades of grey than a moral relativist can fathom.

I for one will never fully understand the perplexing inclinations of the AZN Thug. I guess some things are just meant to be lost in the obscurity of being an enigma, forever.

Till further developments arise.

Your humble social commentator,

[edit] The perfect archetype: The video that set the Asian-American culture back by about 100 years

And a woman spoke, saying, 'Tell us of Pain'.

2008-08-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though its burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own scared tears.

Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet