49 제 (49th day after death ceremony)

the peaceful east sea, as seen from the jogae temple, just south of samcheok, korea, in gangwon province

not to put a damper on anything, because it's not my intention and it's not what my mom would want, but my mom died recently. in fact, she died on monday, april 11th, five days before my wedding. it was not something i needed to hear at any time--especially during the week of my wedding--nor was it a surprise, per se, but her death did stagger me.

the news of her death came to me at 3:30pm, seoul time, while i was in a myoung-dong, seoul, mcdonald's with one of my korean sisters, ji-eun. i had spoken to my mom some 16 hours earlier and the news was not good: she'd had a cold/flu--what in her health she absolutely could not have--and talking on the phone with her the previous night had been quite arduous, as i hadn't been able to understand much of what she was saying. the phone call from my sister in that mcdonald's wasn't a shock, nor was the news; however, in the whole context of my mom's being my mom, i was devastated, as you can imagine. i was so happy that i'd been able to talk to her within hours of her death, but at the same time sad that i'd not really said "goodbye." i'm sure i'm not alone in such feelings, so i'll spare my version of it for fear of its seeming like my mother's death was worse on me than other people's mother's deaths have been on them.

however, i must say that all of my friends were and have been wonderful. my wedding to seung-hee was beautiful and the after-ceremony was not haunted by mom's specter as much as we celebrated her along with celebrating our wedding. we all shared more than one toast to peggy and we only rued that she hadn't been able to live to meet seung-hee or any future grandchildren.

my in-laws were and have been nothing short of insanely supportive. while the wedding ceremony went ahead as planned, the honeymoon was postponed until further notice so that we could go back to the States for the funeral. when we got back to korea, my mother-in-law immediately apprised us of the buddhist tradition of celebrating a deceased loved one's ascent into heaven on the 49th day after the death. this 49th day, in mom's case, was this past sunday, may 29th, 2005.

the ceremony was held in a small, but beautiful, temple on a cliff overlooking the east sea. this temple is located just to the south of samcheok, korea, in gangwon province--about an hour from where seung-hee and i live in gangneung--and is called jogae temple. this was my second time there, the first of which had been with all of seung-hee's family back in the fall of '04 when her father and i had gotten drunk while midnight fishing in a cove not far from the temple. another story for another time, perhaps...

anyway, the following photos accompany the one above and it is hoped that anyone reading this will have some sort of appreciation for the beauty of the surroundings, if not the entire ceremony itself, as photographs are not allowed inside any self-respecting buddhist temple. the day was warm, sunny, beautiful, humorous, joyous, though not without a few tears--just as my mom's life was--so, please, enjoy the photos and commentary, especially those of you who knew peggy and, of course, those of you who knew her simply as "dave's mom."

i miss you, ma, as do scores of others, but i know you are looking down on us from wherever you are. (just remember that whatever you see of me is as it always was and has been, though you couldn't always see me then...!!!!)

my wife says there is little difference between us...

bald head, round belly, smile of uncontrollable hilarity: it seems we could be twins...

exquisite handpainted artwork on the jogae temple

yes, this temple was built by hand by the monks at the temple. i personally have seen them busy at their handicraft and handiwork.

with seung-hee and my mother-in-law...

i am not worthy to have the mother-in-law that i have. even though i don't call her enough since i've been officially her son-in-law, she still has been so supportive of me since my mom died. it was she who suggested that we come to this temple on the 49th day in order to celebrate mom's ascent to heaven, as it were. she didn't have to come, as she has a big trip to the u.s. in a few days and for which she has been really busy preparing. however, she is one of a kind and insisted that she be present at this ceremony. in fact, she insisted, since i am now her "son", that we have this ceremony, regardless of my mom's being catholic and my being either muslim or against all organized religion, depending on my mood of the day...

waiting whilst the monks prepare for the ceremony. and, to think, we were even sober at this point in the morning...!?!?!?

we got to the temple really early and we had a fair amount of time to kill, so we played around with some photos. i had refrained from drinking the night before in order to make such an early trip on such an important occasion, but, mom knowing me the way she did, i'm not sure whether she would have approved of my sacrifice or whether she would have been disappointed that i changed my daily habit for her benefit.

who says buddhist monks don't use hallucinogens?!?!? look at the colours on the underside of the roof...

all jokes aside, isn't the coloring of these handpainted motifs just magnificent?

the final part of the 49th day ceremony: the burning of the clothes. mom, i know you must have been smiling down on us. thanks...

this is the last stage of the hour-long ceremony in the buddhist tradition. it is said that once you walk away from this burning of the deceased's clothes--which, in this case, was my mom's wedding hanbok that she would have worn had she been able to make the wedding--there is no looking back, for the deceased's spirit will be angry with you for not looking ahead; for looking back at the burning of the clothes, one is looking back at the life of a mortal and not ahead at the life of peace and immortality, at the life of comfort and well-being in "heaven" above.

a full view of the temple from the road

this is, as stated above, a view of the temple from the road leading up to the temple. the setting of this temple is truly breathtaking. probably one of the only reasons it is a less-famous temple is that it's not big enough and not old enough, but, for my money, you may not be able to find a temple in all of korea with a better setting, as you've seen from previous pictures above.

choking on volstead

hanging dry: some days drinking are worse than others, but even a bad day drinking beats a good day being eaten by volstead sharks (i.e., working, going to school, adhering to the status quo, or being demonized for imbibing before noon...)


you know, drinking became taboo in the u.s. as long ago as the 1920s, when prohibition was instituted. as we enter the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, and the radical, religious right strengthens its grip on a tortured nation--and, by trickle-down effect, the world--a waiting and fearful state of honest drinkers looks on tremulously aghast as the growing cancer of intolerant teetotalers attacks the liberty of drinking. the term, "alcoholic," is thrown around with more alarming regularity than "i love you" or "anti-semite" and with just as much insidious consequences.

a person who drinks on a daily basis, but not even anywhere close to the point of inebriation, is branded ignomiously a "drinker." a person who drinks to the point of gentle and willing exit from sobriety, though it affects not his family or work life, is described as an "alcoholic." anyone close to this point or far beyond this point is branded as the same, though that's like calling a politician one who argues politics, one who fantasizes about entering politics, one who's a small-town councilwoman, and one who's a full-blown term senator: none of them is the same and ne'er the twain shall they meet.

it seems that when it comes to alcohol, there is no allowance made for a grey area: it's either black or white, you're either with them or with us; no one's allowed to be in the middle, to be in the undefined area that is untouchable by the radicals that argue each side of what is clearly not a two-sided enigma.

i drink,

...and i hang out with people who drink, and i don't really trust people who NEVER drink, for those are people who act as if drinking were some kind of poison or addictive progandist tool that immediately brainwashes. i joke about drinking, i drink about joking; i write about drinking and i drink about writing. i've written poems while drunk, while sober about drinking, and while drinking to the point of sobriety. i know good people who drink who are convinced they are alcoholics because of the spiraling definition of what an alcoholic is. i know teetotalers who are convinced that they live in glass houses because what they've done in their lives is far worse than ever enjoy the sweet taste of the sweet ambrosia that enlightens and enlivens the mind.

america is usually found nowhere near the top of any world survey of heavy-drinking countries, to which some people would point is the reason why the empire sits atop the heap of imperial darwinism at present. america is not famous for its good or potent beer (just good marketing); it isn't internationally famous for any liquor of local origin or legend; it isn't famed for its hard-drinking but fun-loving populace; people the world over don't demand authentic american beer or liquor or wine; hard-drinking entertainers, writers, and musicians aren't nationally revered by the conscious electorate. sure, there are good beers to be found, and bourbon and grain alcohol are as famous in drinking america as rum is to the caribbean or vodka in russia or soju in korea; there are ordinary americans in existence who do the drinking world proud; and hemingway, bukowski, gleason, fields, sinatra, and morrison, to name but a few, could hold their own in any world drinking contest. but there are no national celebrations of drink, no tolerance of the man or woman who drinks all night and comes back to work efficiently and coherently by day. there is no reverence of drink or of those who stand by it. there is always notoriety and shame who follows the man or woman accused of drinking "too much" or "too often." any acceptance of drink, any tolerance of that which is alcohol, any admirers of those who do the craft proud, any relation to a life built around alcohol is accosted, berated, derided, chastised, betrayed, belittled, devoured, emasculated, lambasted, or negated--except by those smart enough to recognize alcohol and those who partake in it as living gods with the potential to be immortal...

and this will be the downfall of the empire as the 21st century makes it way to the 22nd.

so, for those of you stuck in the 1920s, a cave, the dark ages, or in the religious right's back pocket, have a drink and hang out like the drying squid above. who knows, you might like it; mother nature knows you could use a different perspective...

somewhere near where we watched the sun rise and ryan's near-demise

as a start for today's gleeb (why do i say "gleeb"? because it's as arbitrarily a stupid combination of english alphabet letters as "blog" is), i add an amendment to watching the norwich footy at the 403 that ended my last gleeb: ipswich, norwich's dearly hated derby rival, lost out in their promotion playoffs in the league to which norwich has just been relegated, meaning that next year, the old rivals will be playing each other again.

now, if they only played in the brazilian beach footy league, sponsored by heinz ketchup and french's mustard, then it could be called the sand-wich derby...

ok, no more bad puns, but it's been a long weekend, long enough that yesterday--saturday at 11:00am--i swore that it was already sunday afternoon and that i'd have to be going to work in 24 hours. how did i get into such a state? well, at much consternation to my beloved wife, much pain and bloodletting to big ryan's leg, an homage to caged celebrity death wrestling matches, and a celebration of all-night drinking binges... well, you can see where this is leading.

on friday night, there was a friendly footy between england's current pro champion, chelsea, and korea's current pro champ, suwon, part of chelsea's commitments in light of its having just signed on samsung as its kit sponsor for next season. the usual lot of got together to watch the match, though none of us got there until after the first half had ended. as most the nights in one's life that give you either the most headache or most loss of memory--sometimes both at the same time, though even in that state, it's always the headache that's the only thing not forgotten--usually begin, this began innocently enough.

we should have known it wouldn't have ended so innocently when the restaurant to which he originally were herding ourselves once the footy finished claimed not to have any rice or, when pushed, nor any stock to make the soup we would be ordering. all of this just for a plate of grilled goat or a bowl of goat soup...!!

anyway, we had to abandon to a restaurant we've patronized on several occasions to which we don't go for the good food or service (there's a modicum of the former and none of the latter), but for the excellent dongdong ju, homemade devil rice wine the color of gruel. sounds like it's not so tasty, but just try asking that to those of us who've allowed the embraces of this she-devil to comfort us in our time of need.

once we'd all gotten well into the dongdong ju, as well as some beer and soju, someone decided that going to the beach to enjoy the warm spring night and the remainder of our drinking was a good idea--and i can't disagree, even now, seemingly days later. we all sat around outside of a family mart--a chain of always-open convenience stores found obsequiously on every street corner in korea, it seems--drinking beer and soju and passing the time away with ill-remembered talk and cigars. about 4am, every one of the sensible people decided it was time for home and bed; ryan and i could not be counted among those described as sensible, so we decided to stay and continue our drinking. within an hour, as the sky began to lighten even as our vision didn't, we decided it would be a good idea to grab some more soju and beer, as well as some snacks, and head out to the manmade breakwater and sit on it and watch the sun rise.

it was a fine idea until you realize what this breakwater is: it's an asphalt pier that extends from the beach about two or three hundred meters out into the sea, at the end of which is a tall, red lighthouse. on the beach side of this breakwater, from near the shore all the way out to the lighthouse, is a 10-meter drop to rocks below. the rocks are of various sizes and are a favorite place to sit and do some fishing. on the other side of this breakwater, the ocean side, are huge Y-shaped pieces of concrete that are piled 10 meters high--level with the walking surface of the breakwater. now, these are Y-shaped pieces of concrete weighing at least a ton apiece and not exactly joined together very fittedly, meaning that walking on them is a possibly dangerous option because of the large gaps and holes between them. further, the surfaces of these things are rounded, not straight-edged, so that there is no part of them that is flat. together, they gently slope down to the crashing surf, much like a mountain might slope down to the sea, but traversing them down to the water's edge is a dicey proposition, especially when these giant pieces of concrete are wet.

oh, did i mention how much we'd had to drink at this point? being less than sober doesn't help one's navigational auspices while wandering out on these things, either.

well, we found a suitable spot that wasn't too precariously perched and proceeded to have a seat and take in the forthcoming beautiful sunrise. ryan had already found a wedge where two of these monster Ys had come together to form a convenient nook in which he could actually lie down safely and comfortably, should he happen to doze off. everything was going along in a swell manner until i dropped a bag containing a mountain dew through one the crevices in the Ys and into the water 10 meters below.

reader, please note this, because in the ensuing minutes that followed, i forgot that i dropped the drink, which became both bad and pertinent, as you will soon see.

that's what i get for buying something non-alcoholic at that point in the drinking cycle.

anyway, i was content to let the mountain dew just wallow until it died a watery death, but ryan had this great idea that he could save it, so he climbed down to get it just as the first edges of the sun became visible.

ryan's jaunt down into the nether regions of this breakwater went off without a hitch just as the first edges of the fiery disc that gives this planet life began to flicker beautifully at the end of the watery horizon. it was when ryan bent down into the water to retrieve the bag-cum-moutain-dew that the adventure began. being in a state of non-equilibrium caused ryan to lose his balance and fall into the water, scraping, in the process, his knee against the killer Y-shaped monster. he managed to make his way out of the water onto a seemingly sage Y-shape before he slipped again. when he climbed out of the water again, his leg looked like a new flavor at baskin robbins: pasty white mixed with streams of blood--big ry's bloody swirl, they would call it.

he seemed no worse the wear for it, however, but that no doubt was the endless hours of drinking soju and dongdong ju that had preceded this water dance. he was, however, soaked from head to toe, which included his fleece jacket in which he was bedecked, his sandals, his shorts, and his hat. not privy to the growing warmth of the rising sun that was beginning to fire my brain, he began to acknowledge being a bit cold in his wet clothes, so we agreed that he should throw me everything he had on, save for his shorts, t-shirt, and whatever underwear he was wearing (i hate how this is going to sound, but more on this later).

the waterlogged jacket and the plastic bag that, i had forgotten, started this whole bloody mess in the first place made it into my flytrap grip on the first try. however, his sandals proved to be more tricky, as it took several tosses for him to get it right and for me to catch them once he got it right.

so, there we were: i on top of all thing dry and sunlit and ryan down below amidst all things wet and shady. over the horizon hung a nearly-complete disc of fiery red, because of which i kept prodding ryan to hurry the hell up and get above shade so he could enjoy it. he kept lamenting that he couldn't see it, but it seemed as if there were so many things floating in the water that he wanted to save.

it would be prudent at this point to show a picture of either ryan or the sun's shenanigans, but, in what increasingly became a good thing, i had forgotten it and you, Dear Reader, are going to have to fly by the seat of my descriptions in order to see it clearly.

ryan, at this point, was all ready to make his way back up to the land of the Y-hoppers when it dawned on the both of us that there was no way in hell he could climb up the way he had jumped down. as we were discussing this very relevant point, i was also rummaging through the pockets of his fleece jacket, finding such things as money, a book, tissue, and a non-waterproof cell phone. the news of the wet paper products was met in a predictably, "they'll dry in the sun," manner; the cell phone news, however, was met in the way you would expect one to react to the realization that one's most useful and reliable communication device has been rendered as useful as sunscreen on Mercury.

"@$&%^^*%$#%@%^(&*)%$!"

i think those were ryan's exact words, not to mention my exact thoughts on this discovery.

at this point, the full disc of fire was visible to all and sundry along korea's east coast, and i cannot begin to describe its beauty. as i reveled in it, i heard ryan say he was going to make his way over some Y-shaped things until he could find a suitable climbing place to rejoin me amongst the sunrise-gazers. soon, after a bit of worry that i would hear a helpless scream, i heard a mirthful, "found it!", followed by a hand, then an arm, a head, a torso, and then the whole of ryan.

as we began to wander toward each other to remind ourselves that we both had made it through this drunken and oh-so-dangerous debacle, ryan posed the following question to me:

"blah blah blah blah have blah blah?"

in other words, he was asking me if i had something that he had had went he first climbed down. logic on Your part would dictate that i forgot exactly what it was to which he was referring; i'm also sure you can deduce the answer to this forgotten question...

thus, ryan had to climb back down and scamper back to where he had initially climbed down in the first place, leaving more time to fret on the ludicrousness of our endeavors, but not any less time to enjoy the view afforded by the continuously-upward fiery disc.

finally, Reader, the sage ended, as ryan found whatever it was that he had forgotten to bring with him--perhaps his hat?--and had climbed up again to rejoin those of us who walk a safer, gentler path on the Y-shaped entities...


p.s.--wait, there is an aside. as mentioned previously, yours truly has mentioned that he'd forgotten what had caused ryan to risk life and limb in the first place--and perhaps You have, too, Reader. as we both settled down to enjoy the beer, soju, and snacks that we had bought with the steadily-rising fiery disc, i casually looked down at the bag of mountain dew and thought, with nary another rumination, that i really didn't want the mountain dew at all and chunked it over my shoulder and down one of the mawkish gaps in the Y-entities. the look on ryan's face was as priceless as it is indescribable.

"what?" i asked, with not a clue as to what i had done.

speech impediment along with mime's disease would best describe ryan's initial answer, followed by, "you son of a bitch, i can't believe you did that!"

innocently, "why? what did i do? i just didn't want the drink anymore. besides, there's a lot of other trash down there, too, so one more bag will only add to this area's impeccable beauty."

"don't you remember? that goddamned mountain dew is the reason i went down there in the first place!!!"

then, i remembered it all: the bags of alcohol and chips, the separate bag of mountain dew, the precarious position of our goodies as i tried to spread them out on a Y-shape for our indulging as the sun rose, the slip of the godforsaken bag as i lost its grip, its interminably long descent as the Y-shapes devoured it, ryan's bit of bravado at volunteering to rescue it.

dumbfoundment mixed with alzheimer's plus a dash of severe lament would not even come close to describing how i felt at that moment.

once i got over my amazement at having forgotten why ryan had gone down in the first place and had apologized endlessly for my gaffe, we decided it would behoove us to get the hell out of there and go back to family mart and continue our drinking there--as well as tend to ryan's wounds with soju, not just by ingestion but also by pouring it directly on the wounds themselves.

yes, you can tend to one's mental frailties and abrasions by soaking in soju, but it is a little known fact that you can also treat superficial skin wounds with same.

makes you wonder how we survive korea; also makes you realize how we can't leave this place.

two months removed from st. patrick's day and i'm still drinking like an irishman lost in pakistan. somehow, my school allowed me to leave tonight at 6:00, a dangerous time because it gives me more time than usual to start my drinking--and, tonight, i decided it would be a good idea to start with bloody marys before going on to beer and then on to my favorite cool-weather concoction of bailey's, vodka, and bourbon on the rocks.

thus, i sit here with the sweet taste of the above mixture roaming my body and my taste buds are doing what they usually do after such degradations: protesting madly and lamenting the fact that i dunked a fair amount of strawberries into the bailey's/vodka/bourbon bowl.

my wife sits and watches "sex and the city, season 6," but only after she discovered i was still drinking and sitting at this terminal, which only occurred as a result of her responding, "i don't know," to my question, "are you going to bed or watch TV?" of a few minutes ago whilst she was brushing her teeth. she hasn't yet learned, after three years together (albeit one month of that thirty-six has been spent married) that such a noncommital answer at this point in the drinking cycle only begets more drinking because i'm not a sensible bastard who would simply have just gone to bed after such a vague answer to my (obviously-not-so-obvious) rhetorical question.

i am reminded, speaking of nonsensical, of 48 hours ago, when my good friends ryan, penny, andy, and carlos wandered over to watch starsports's broadcast of the final weekend of the 04-05 english premier league footy season. the top of the table was already wrapped up, thanks to chelsea's magical season (and not to newcastle's decidedly horrible one), but the bottom of the table on this final weekend had yet to be decided: which three were down. among the fight not to be relegated to the division below were the following four teams: norwich city (17th place out of 20 and safe out of the drop zone, just a point ahead of 18th and 19th and two points ahead of 20th place), crystal palace, southampton, and west bromwich albion, respectively.

starsports had the ingenious idea of broadcasting norwich's final game and a win by the fairy canaries would render moot the results of the other three teams' matches. my good buddy, carlos, somehow is a norwich supporter--how i managed to meet a canary way out here in NE asia is beyond me and beside the point--and i invited him over because he had no televisual access to such a big game for his club. that penny and ryan are footy fans made their invitation obsequious, though inviting andy was not because he likes or knows much about footy (he's a kiwi, what does he know aside from rugby, sheep, and...well, that's it) but because he's leaving us within a matter of days and it was an opportunity not only to hang out with him in his dying days with us, but also to take advantage of his free coupons at the alleged best pizza joint on the northeast korean coast.

we were all primed for the big match by a couple hours' worth of "the black adder", a wickedly funny BBC program from days of a less PC time of humour, and not by the armada of alcohol patiently waiting its demise on my porch, save for your host, who was nursing two separate bottles of red wine in hopes of eliciting a fair comparison between a cheap french and a cheap korean--and though that sounds kinky and inviting in a slutty kind of way, such thoughts must be banished from your mind because the results are simple: when it comes to red wine, a cheap french is a must for your time; when it comes to lovin', however, a cheap korean cleaves the croissant, so to speak.

carlos being carlos, he neglected to remind me until right at kickoff that norwich hadn't won away from home all season. this was further vindicated by the colour man, andy gray, on the english sky sports feed we were receiving, when he made the astute statement that a top-flight english club that manages to go an entire season without winning once away from home doesn't deserve to stay up. after 10 minutes, american brian mcbride--playing for norwich's opponent, fulham--continued his fine last months-of-the-season form by sliding a comfortable push through the keeper's legs for a 0-1 fulham advantage. we all ruminated on the fact that even if norwich were beaten, 7-0, if the other teams lost, it wouldn't matter.

no truer words were nearly spoken on the one hand, if only truer words had been spoken on the other.

anyway, as the match continued in the first half, we bitched at the TV on more than one occasion as the fat-fuck ref denied two norwich pleas for penalties and the blind linesman disallowed a goal for a ghost of a foul on a norwich forward. then, lightning struck and norwich were behind 0-2, at which it remained as we took to halftime.

the 2nd half was yet to come, and it would provide both dark moments and surreal moments, depending on your point of view and longitudinal/latitudinal awareness of english football...

ahh, fuck it... norwich lost, 6-0, just off my above allusion of, "even if norwich lose, 7-0..." one of the other teams, west bromwich albion, won and they stayed up. norwich were relegated and all was morose in the 403 as we watched the inevitable loss become the disastrous ass-bender it became.

when i started this gleeb, i was drunk and the story of watching the match somehow seemed more compelling than either it was or i was able to re-tell it...

this blogging thing is not something about which i'm too keen. i mean, i have other posts on this site, but they are mostly ramblings about my political slants, my rants against china and their treatment of muslims and uyghurs, my ghastly poetry and haikus, and even a couple of short stories.

essentially and originally, i invested my time at this alleged "push-button" way of writing life in order to put my writing on the internet for anyone to read. sadly, but not surprisingly, not many people have visited, so i remain a widely unread and unappreciated, albeit unworthy, genius.

blogs, i thought, were just a disgrace to writers and writing society in general. what the hell is a "blog", anyway, i thought? something found next to me on the bathroom floor of some unknown person when i woke up from a night of usual antics? a nickname given to a person resembling a blowfish cum frog? a dangerous delicacy found in the jungles of papua new guinea containing shaman's spleen, penguin's pus, dodo's duodenum, and thyroids thus?

hemingway would never have "blogged", i thought, though he may have tried to do it once to some spanish beauty while in the clutches of absinthe; neither would have dostoyevsky, the marquis de sade, che guevara, rumi, or maugham. a "blog", as they might have known it, would have been attributed to them by those of us who followed images such as, respectively, a slang term for one who shunned vodka, where to put one's penis when confronted with a bout of sexual depravity and an anteater, the perfect place in the bolivian jungle to ambush a roving gang of american CIA-funded contract killers, the pause in the 2nd part of the of the 5th stanza during the whirling of a dervish, or an affectionate term for one's lover.

i, for one, thought "blog" was the term for the residue at the bottom of a bottle of a month-long bender.

then, i realized that i had too many emails to write all the time and that my constant emailing to keep up with friends and relatives the world over was disturbing my drinking, political-ranting, football (soccer)-watching, loving-my-wife life and that was just uncalled for. perhaps this "blog" thing would be an antidote for my constant worry of not emailing.

also, i've become lazy in recent days and decided that i still needed to write emails to people in order to continue to connect on a more personal and individual level with people i love, but perhaps it was becoming too tedious to update continually the hordes of the minutiae of daily life. which would be better, i asked my Self, for those i love, what could i give to those i love that would continually keep giving--1) a serious lack of emails and photos so that they have no idea what my wife looks like, who big ryan is compared to wherehouse ryan, what dong-dong ju is in relation to my liver and the fate of the cosmos, or 2) or a site on the internet dedicated to the endlessly fascinating life that i leave where people the world over can log on at their leisure to keep up with the absolute dreamily decadent life i lead?

well, the answer arrived in a state of rare early-morning sobriety, though i'm not suggesting clarity: an additional addition to the addition of my edition of this blog thing to the aetherworld that is the internet.

i promise for those of you who read this that there is no promise of grand literary composition, of fine photographic integrity, of beautiful people in the latest fashion. i can't even promise you that there will ever be another word written after these are complete. you'll just have to make the bold journey time and time again back to this and other connecting flights of fancy that have induced me to engage time, space, and antimatter to creating a world of curmudgeonly, muddy, melancholy yet mirthful, meaningful/less, majestic, mordant but never mendacious, milieu of oft-militant though not mandated mescalinic meanderings and maunderings.

enjoy.*


*perhaps best enjoyed or consumed when in a state of extreme open-mindedness and tolerance; or an element of acute awareness that the world belongs not to the united states of israel and that some things taken for granted in the land of the less and less free and the brave--such as three musketeers bars or that israel is not a terrorist state or starbucks or that fanatic christian religious fundamentalism is less egregious than that of muslims or doritos or that democracy and american civilized life are desired the world over--are things about which so many people don't give too much of a damn about; or a condition of sublime realization that american and western mainstream media usually don't give the complete side of any story, particularly those that cast its civilization or way of life in a bad light and that if you do only believe one side of the story, you are no better than, nor any better off than, those people whom you condemn or pity with such insufferable repugnance; or read this in a frame of mind far, far away from sobriety, audacity, or american pretentiousness.