1988 called. It wants its song back.

I had forgotten how much I loved this song.

Code Switching

My cowsin C and I have always been very linguistically aware kids. She was always better at understanding Tagalog than I was, given that her parents spoke Tagalog to each other. My parents spoke Pangasinan to each other, but they used it as a secret language; it wasn't until my late 20s that I started picking up on the gist of their conversations. When both H and I were both studying Tagalog, we all decided to speak Tagalog once in the car. It lasted for a few minutes, but after a while it sounded so... artificial... to hear us all speaking Tagalog with each other, we had to stop. We might as well all have been speaking French.

Ilocano was the most secret of all languages; we heard it only in certain contexts. If you ask any of my parents their ethnicity, they will claim to be Ilocano. One time C told Grandma R that she didn't like Ilocano; Grandma R slapped her!

However, the ones that grew up in Sto. Tomas are linguistically Pangasinan. Sto. Tomas was originally in the Pangasinan province, but the border was redrawn, and they were lumped in with the Ilocanos. I think a lot of my ancestors actually moved to Sto. Tomas from Ilocos Sur.

My parents usually speak Pangasinan to each other, and fellow Tomasinos, which I always look forward to hearing. But sometimes, they will switch into English or Tagalog, often to clarify or to be extra emphatic. And other times, they will just plain speak English or Tagalog, out of habit. A couple times, I have asked them, "Why aren't you speaking Pangasinan?" Usually, they don't know why.

Auntie R sometimes talks to little-ol'-me in Pangasinan, which I like; it makes me feel like a country kid, or like I'm hearing a secret. The Manila relatives often don't know anything about Pangasinan, not even relational titles (e.g., "there's no such thing as 'kuyang.'")

Anyway, my parents' generation has been using languages all our lives to include us, exclude us, bring us closer, and alienate us in a very fascinating way, and it's very second-nature to us, all of us. It's funny, some of my co-workers are very conscious about switching to a common language as soon as someone new enters a room, as a courtesy... Me? I neither switch to include, nor do I care if other people switch. I actually feel the opposite; it feels a little shady to me to always compulsively include everyone, unless they are actually joining the conversation.

Which brings me to a point: I once asked, "Why aren't you speaking Pangasinan?" And the answer was, "Because your Auntie X is here, and she doesn't speak Pangasinan." So they are total courtesy switchers.

Now, I'm being honest when I tell you that it has NEVER in my life occurred to me that I would say, "So, I'm here, I don't speak Tagalog, why don't you switch to English." I have always preferred to listen, catch the gist, and when important, to pretend to understand. I have asked for translation, but I have never asked for them to switch to English. I don't recall any of my cowsins ever asking our parents to switch to English, either. Why not?

And why would they automatically switch to Tagalog to include Auntie X but not switch to English to include me or my cowsins? It can only be a kind of multilingual family sociopolitical explanation.

So me, I don't courtesy switch, and I have no expectation that anyone will do a courtesy switch on my behalf. I've also been known talk to people in languages I know they don't speak... usually just a greeting, sometimes an urgent imperative... because I know they're going to understand from the context. And some of them get flustered, but usually, they do get it. Because communication is 80% paralinguistic anyway. (Did I just make up that statistic?)

Anyway, the reason I started writing this epic post is because I just found a list of language games on wikipedia. When cowsin C and I spoke Pig Latin to each other, our parents were totally baffled! As Filipino English speakers, they had zero comprehension of Pig Latin, which delighted us, but pissed them off. That was hilarious. We both got really good at Pig Latin, but eventually we stopped because it made them uncomfortable.

When H became a Spanish speaker, we started speaking Spanish to each other, and my dad actually told us not to speak Spanish, because we could be telling secrets. Of course, H and I were like, ha ha yah right, but it was fascinating to me that both in this case and in the case of Pig Latin that some multilinguals could have the same irrational insecurities as the English-Only monolinguals.

Basically, we are only allowed to speak a language they understand.

So it's funny to me that my cowsins might be more linguistically progressive than my parents' generation, even though we were much less linguistically versatile.

Me, Optimistic and Skinny

That's right, I was skinny once! This is one of my senior pictures, I took when I was 17 back in 1990. Funny!

My sister and I spend the day going through old boxes and photos. Of course we found awesome stuff, including this proof that I was once skinny. Check out more of my teenage splendor here.

So Funny

I miss college. Don't you?

When I first moved into the dorms, my mama gave me a lecture that I remember now so fondly. She said that this is such a good time in my life, when I have so few responsiblilities. Your only job is to study. That's it. Study and take care of yourself. After college you have to get a job, and you have to worry about money and raising a family and all kinds of things, but in college all you have to do is study. You're so lucky, she told me.

I don't roll my eyes at my mama, but I didn't fully understand what she was saying at the time. She was so right. I wish I could go back to college now, and do it over again with the understanding this time that my only job is to study. All that 'experimenting with independence' stuff that seems so obligatory in college looks like total bullshit in retrospect.

Not that I did a whole lot of 'experimenting with independence.' Just learning how to stay afloat in a mostly white world was hard enough for me... experimenting was a waste of time and money.

A lot of people seem surprised that I was in a white fraternity in college. I wanted to save my parents some money, be part of a social scene, and frankly, I had a streak of fascism and conformity that still needed to be spent. I spent the peak of the Grunge Era in Seattle's UDistrict.

I was an officer in the fraternity by my sophomore year, and I wielded the gavel like a weapon. I learned a lot about white people, especially dudes. For a while, that was my job, and studying was something I did on the side. Stupid. Four years goes by so fast, and there is so much to learn about in the classroom.

Oh well.

Some of the awsome house culture we had was whenever we took a vote, people had to say "Nay" or "Aye," we'd say "Aye" and somebody would say "pendejo." Cracks me up every time.

I also had a game called "Put stuff on the floor." I would get a bunch of guys together, and we'd all go into Malane's room, take stuff off the shelves, desks, etc., and put them on the floor of of his room. He HATED it. We would just smile cheerfully and explain we were putting stuff on the floor! It's a game!

After we had done this to him a number of times, he had a carefrontation with me. I hate it when you play 'put stuff on the ground!'

me: Malane, it's not called "Put stuff on the ground." It's called "Put stuff on the FLOOR." And you like it when we do that, remember?

him: NO. NO I DO NOT LIKE IT.

me: (smiling cheerfully) Come on, Malane, yes you do.

him: NO DON'T DO IT ANYMORE. Last time you guys did that, I was missing two... things.

me: Malane, we didn't take anything, we just put it all on the floor!

him: I'M MISSING TWO... THINGS!

me: Oh? What are you missing, Malane? Two... things?

Then Malane stomped of in frustration. He was a stomper.

We also used to answer any "where" question with "up your butt." So, the answer to "Where are my keys?" would invariably be "up your butt." So funny!

Here's how it would go:

a: I'm going to kill Malane!

b: Why?

a: He told me he was going to finish my dish duty!

b: Oh yah, he said he'd be right back...

a: Well where the hell did he go?

b: . . . up your butt.

a: d'oh!

Pure comedy! We would do this when speaking Spanish as well... "... en tu culo." French was the best though, because the best translation we could come up with was "il a grimpé dans ton cul," which means "it has climbed into your ass." Subject, verb... it's a complete sentence, so much more satisfying!

The best part was when I came back after a quarter in France, Swabbie asked me where something was.... of course I answered "...up your butt." And he yelled OH NO. NO. When you went to France, everybody stopped saying that. We are NOT saying that anymore, that shit is OVER.

Within just a couple days of Swabbie's admonition, the entire house was back to saying it again, especially to Swabbie.

Sigh. I miss torturing those guys.

"This shit just got real."

You haven't gone to see Hot Fuzz yet, have you? Well, I enjoyed it.

One thing (not a spoiler): the theme of gun violence might not be all that funny this week, not even in parody form.

I remember when Independence Day came out; I watched it on a hot, summer's Independence Day in DC. It was the first showing, and the crowd was rowdy. We cheered at the screen to see New York, LA, and DC being obliterated by the alien death ray.

A few years later in 2002, I sat in a theater watching The Sum of All Fears, in which Baltimore gets nuked. This time, there was no cheering, no enthusiasm, just dread. The difference? Why September 11th 2001 was the difference. Spectacular mass destruction was no longer an effect to cheer for; it was something we had all imagined.

Similarly, Hot Fuzz' satire of gun-porn may read a little differently in audiences' minds the post-Blacksburg world. It's too bad, because as a parody of action flicks, Hot Fuzz shows a pretty brilliant analysis of the genre.

On the Sessantaquattro/Quarantasei

I spent Spring Quarter of 1994 in Rome.

This is a picture of the Campo dei Fiori, which is the main produce market in the morning. I hear it's now become a tourist hang out at night, but it was more like this picture back then.

The center building houses the UW Rome Campus; it is spectacular. The penthouse on the building on the right? Yah, that's where the visiting prof stays. The second floor windows above the far restaurant umbrellas? That's where the classics students lived. Behind the statue is a movie theater where I saw "Scent of the Green Papaya."

So the classics students lived there, but us Romance students lived in homestays. Mine was a short busride away, on the 64, which turned into the 46 once it passed Vatican City. The 64 is pretty famous for being the pickpocketiest bus line, because it runs from the train station to St. Peter's Square. So the express tourists get off the train at Stazione Termini, and go straight to St. Peter's in their shorts and sunburns, and get their pockets picked on the way.

One time I gave up my seat on the bus to an older lady, who was very, very appreciative. I said "Venga, signora, prenda la mia posta," which almost means "Come have my seat, ma'm." I realized later that I should have said "il mio posto." She understood perfectly what I was trying to tell her, but I felt silly that I had invited her to take my mail, instead of my seat. Whoops.

Another time a drunk, homeless-looking guy yelled at me, but I couldn't understand it. Once he had gotten off the bus, I asked a lady sitting across from me what he had said. She said, "non fa niente, lui e cretino" something like "aw, don't worry, he's a jerk." But then, to make sure I understood, she said in English, "HE IS A SON OF A BITCH!"

Swearing, my friends, is highly cultural. Also, it's not lateralized in the regular language centers in the brain. That's why a) swearing doesn't translate well, neither literally nor in degree of offensiveness, and b) foreigners always sound wrong when they swear. Usually they sound creepy, but sometimes they only sound contrived, like they had rehearsted it but still got the intonation wrong.

For example, when my aunts and uncles used to get together and complain about work, they'd tell most of their stories in Tagalog, but then, where a punchline would be, they would break into English, "and so I thought, wow, this guy is an ass!hole!." Then all the aunts and uncles would burst into laughter. My cousin and I would then burst into laughter AT them, becuase they used the word ass!hole! as a punchline. 30+ years in this country, and their use of the word "asshole" still sounds foreign.

My stupid students always want to swear, but when a foreigner swears at them in English, which is sometimes the case, as a rule they burst into tears. Unless you've grown up in that culture, you really don't have a sense of how offensive you're being. Which is why you shouldn't swear in languages other than your own.

They also like to try their swearing out on exchange students, which is always creepy, never funny. I can't tell you how many times I've explained to American girls why the French guys think they're giant skanky sluts: it's because on the day they met them, they giggled and said, "voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?" When someone your age comes up to you in public and says that, it not only sounds whorish, it sounds PLURAL. Will all of you have sex with me tonight?

Ok, one last 64 story.

One time, I was riding the 64 back to my homestay after school, and a couple of old american guys with hawaiian shirts, safari hats, and sun burned faces got on the bus, and systematically worked their way from the front to the middle of the bus asking everyone individually, "Parlez-vous français?" And of course, no, all the tourists had gotten off at St. Peter's, so the bus was full of locals, and no, nobody spoke French.

So it's a crowded bus, and they've asked 20 people so far if they speak French. When they get to the midpoint of the bus, a lady anwers them in Italian, as if they were crazy, "You gotta be kidding, don't ask us, ask a foreigner."

Of course I'm watching the whole time, but I really tend to not step in and help lost Americans when I'm abroad. Especially if they're being ridiculous. If they ask me directly, yes, I help them, but usually they don't ask me, because I'm Asian, right? I probably don't speak English.

Anyway, the lady scans the bus, and sees me, in the back of the bus, watching their conversation, and she points to me, and tells the two Americans to go ask me. They are confused, because, hey, I'm Asian! Why would I speak French! I look at the lady like "Come on, lady!" and she just shrugs.

So they make their way back to me, and ask me "Parlez-vous français?" with a gringo accent so strong, I could he couldn't possibly speak French.

"Yes, I speak French," I told him in English. "Would you rather speak English?"

"Comment?" the guy asked, not understanding. I repeated myself, and he laughed out loud and shouted to his friend that I spoke English. "Where do we get off for Savorelli?"

It was probably their hotel, but I had never heard of it. I looked over at the lady who had pointed me out, and I said, in a kick-ass Roman accent, "Vogliono sapare dove si deve scendere per Via dei Savorelli."

The lady, glanced out the window, and said, tell them to get off here. I told them, they thanked me, and got off. The lady shrugged at me, and I shrugged back. The stop they wanted was probably a couple of stops behind us, but the Roman way of giving directions is only telling them the next step. The next step was to get off the bus and to ask someone else.

Former Super Hero

La 姐妮 asked me what it means to be a "former superhero."

Once apon a time, in grad school, we were dirt poor, due to the university's policy of keeping us dirt poor. Internet was poorly understood at the time, so entertain ourselves we would rollerblade slowly, eat ice cubes, and try to improve our belches by mouthing something inspiring. We usually tried to belch the word "freedom," which ended up sounding like "Rita" or "Frida."

One of several insane things we did was to create a mythology, the Super Brown Friends.

(All of my friends were brown people, except for Christine. And I would say, oh Christine, you're our one white friend! And she would say, yah, because I have a car. Ha ha it was only half true.)

Anyway, in the Super Brown Friends, we were grad students by day, but with secret super powers, which we cultivated into superhero identities. D was "Superchic" which was appropriate, because she was really into her super-look. I'm not sure what her super powers were, but I seem to remember she had an A-line dress. Whatever that means. Of course, to bug her, we called her "Super Chick" instead of "Superchic." Ha ha.

Me, I was the Knight Of Brownness. For my super powers, I had super hearing, I could speak everybody's languages, and I knew certain ancient power words which I could speak that would break windows or knock down bad guys with. Superchick, to annoy me, would abbreviate my name to KnOB, which I would correct immediately, "KNIGHT of BROWNness!

Then there was JWolf, who had an escapist fantasy of transforming into a wolf and running away. She was dating SpiderM, who earned his super identity by climbing out of my second story window, scaled the building around to J's apartment, crawled into her window and unlocked her front door.

As superheros, were were always being called to battle the evil General Blanco of the Great Hegemony. We were always too baffled to kill him. And, invariably, on our way to the battle, we would always run into That White Guy, a character who was always wearing shorts, in the dead of winter. We would say, Aren't you freezing? And That White Guy would happily respond, Actually, it's not that bad....

Phone! Where are you!

I just got back from a jazz gig, we played one little set of three bossa nova songs. It was fine.

I'm going crazy because I can't find my phone. Where are you phone?

In my house, whenever I lost track something, it's no use asking for help, because my parents just mock me. Absolutely no help. They so despised my ability to lose something, that they didn't even look up from what they were doing. They just mocked me.

Mama, have you seen my keys?

I don't know! she would say, Did you try calling them? Maybe if you call them they will come to you! Keys! Keys, where are you!

It was worth a chuckle, but really, I just wanted my keys. .

Dad, have you seen my keys?

Baoninam! he would say, and then Why do you keep losing your keys! Look with your eyes, not with your mouth!

And that's how I learned an important lesson from my parents: Humiliate those who ask for help.

One time my dad lost his keys, and I told him to look with his eyes, not with your mouth. He didn't say anything. That was years ago, and he has never asked me for help finding lost items ever since. Because he knows I will humiliate him. I absolutely will.

The worst was when I would wake up from a nap, and my glasses were gone. Because someone had moved them. So when I was told to look with my eyes, not with your mouth, I wanted to say I CAN'T FUCKING SEE!

But that was the other lesson from my parents: No sympathy. There is no sympathy in a Filipino family. When little kids fall down, American parents say, "oh, honey, are you ok, did you get a boo boo? Let me kiss it." When Filipino kids fall down, we look at them with hatred and say "Good! Do it again! Do you like that? You'll learn!"

Children, you see, must be taught the social consequences of falling down. You can't just assume a kid will learn to avoid falling down because of, you know, the physical pain of falling down. Aren't they afraid that the kids will learn to resent them? Ha ha ha. Resentment is totally irrelevant.

"Good! Do it again! Do you like that? Do it again!" and I'd look down, try not to cry, and say "I don't want to do it again."

Anyway, now I live alone, so there is no one here to humiliate me when I misplace my phone. And I refuse to humiliate myself; I refuse to create some kind of self perpetuating self hatred cycle for something a silly as misplacing my phone.

I do wish I knew where my phone was. But I don't. So don't call me right now.

Memoires of a Belcher

I didn't learn how to burp until grad school.

I remember in middle school and high school, everyone I knew could belch on cue. I never could. Neither could my mother or sister. We stayed away from carbonated beverages.

In high school, when I went swimming, sometimes the gas would build up. I could feel it in my chest, but I could also feel that it was locked in. I would swim to the side of the pool and force myself to cough, and after a minute or so, the violent coughing would knock something loose, and the gas would erupt out of my throat, so loud that it echoed. It hurt.

Finally, in grad school, I found my burp. It was a glorious moment, I was sitting on the porch at the place on Ann street, talking on the phone to S. Burp! I was thrilled, she tried to be enthusiastic. Burp!

And so finally, I joined all my friends in the wonderful world of belching. By this time, of course, my friends were sophisticated graduate students, so it was unseemly just to 'cut'em loose.' Instead, we tried to burp uplifting things, like "freedom," which usually ended up sounding like "rita." Our goal was to one day burp "equitable health care" but we usually couldn't make it through "equitable."

I was so glad when I was able to pass on this world knowledge to my sister. We were in the car and she said she felt bloated, and wished she could burp.

I said, just relax and breathe deeply.

She said, no! I'm gonna puke!

You're not gonna puke, just sit up straight and breathe deeply.

But it feels like I'm gonna puke!

That's what it feels like, and then you learn to control it.

BREHHP. Oh tanksgad.

See?

I puked a little.

Don't worry, now that you know how to do it, you'll learn to just burp gas, and not puke.

My sister was so grateful, and so was I, to have such a sweet family burping moment.

Bacon links

So the Accidental Hedonist is posting about bacon now, so I have to chime in.

When I was in Ann Arbor, I ate at Pizzeria Uno's two or three times. (What's with the obligatory apostrophe-S on restaurants? I find it gringoriffic.) Usually I ordered something called the Spinaccoli, because spinach and broccoli are good on pizza, even to this carnivore.

Once, when I was particularly homesick, I called them up to order a Hawaiian pizza. For those of you who are not blessed to be from the Washington, a Hawaiian pizza to us means Canadian bacon and pineapple. However a Google Images search and a Wikipedia article seems to indicate that the use of Canadian bacon is not universal. Here in Washington, it's always Canadian bacon and pineapple.

Yes, I know many of you out there who cry blasphemy putting fruit on pizza. You should email someone about that.

Anyway, I was homesick in Ann Arbor, and I thought a good old fashioned Hawaiian pizza would be comforting. So I called them up, and they had never heard of a Hawaiian pizza.

The difference in Pacific Northwest English and Midwestern English is not apparent to others, but to me the difference is huge, usually in vowels. But we also have different lexical items (i.e., parking garage vs. parking 'structure'), and most shocking to me at least were the variation of cultural artifacts. For example, people who live east of Montana have never seen or heard of a maple bar, that gross bloated fried raft with a maple glaze.

Hawaiian pizza is another one of these cultural artifacts that was unknown to the guy I was ordering pizza from. No problem, I'm a linguist, I will circumlocute.

"I want a regular cheese pizza with Canadian bacon and pineapple."

"Um..., we have pineapple...."

"And do you have Canadian bacon?"

"Um..., we have bacon, I don't know if it's from Canada..."

First of all, my name is not 'um.' "Listen, do you have ham?"

"Um..., yah, we have ham..."

"Ok, I want you to make me a regular cheese pizza with ham and pineapple."

(Skeptical) "Um... ok, one pizza with ham and pineapple..."

So apparently these people don't say "Canadian bacon." They might well have called it something else, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out. I wanted out of that flat, bland, creepy town that white people seem to adore.

They don't know about Canadian bacon. They don't know about maple bars. They certainly don't know about espresso.

To be fair, they did have something I had never heard of, a "yeast ring." Or even a "chocolate yeast ring." It's a kind of doughnut, that to me sounds itchy. To me a yeast ring looks like this:

"It's not that bad. "

The local anchors are teasing the weather wonk about wearing shorts in the cold weather. "It's not that bad," says the weather wonk.

In grad school, we invented a mythology, and one of the characters was "that white guy" who always wore shorts no matter how cold it was outside. Invariably "that white guy" would respond, "actually, it's not that bad."

It's now a little before seven, and my school's late start still hasn't been listed on tv. I'm sure the website hasn't been corrected either.

I cranked up the heat, to see if my heater would respond. It has. Why did it punish me for the two coldest days of the year? I'll have to turn it down again when I go to work.

This commercial cracks me up.

Long Live Plaid Flannel

I went to K-Marche before 中文课 this evening and bought plaid flannel pants and shirts. The pants will be worn in the house only, but the shirts might be worn to work.

This is the genius of Generation X. When it was our turn to dictate style in the early 90s, we didn't. We just wore the most comfortable, warmest, cheapest thing we could. Plaid flannel.

The intelligencia, uncomfortable with a fashion vaccuum, handily repackaged it, called it "Grunge" and it was a fad for about five minutes.

I miss the early 90s. I miss college. I miss our non conformist conformity.

And I loves me some plaid flannel. I don't care if I look like a lumberjack.

Hot Lunch!

Remember hot lunch?

Seriously, late 70s, early 80s public school hot lunch. You know the menu was approved by some DC bureaucrat appointed by Jimmy Carter. Because when Reagan came, every Friday became "hamburger day." By the time I was in high school, Costco had been born in the Pacific Northwest, and we were eating unfrozen burritos, unfrozen pizzas, and pre-formed unfrozen hamburger pucks.

But before that was the golden age of bureaucratic rubber-stamped public school cafeteria food.

• Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Tomato Soup
• Turkey and Gravy over Mashed Potatoes
• Po' boy and Tater Tots
  
• Chili and Cinnamon Roll
• Spaghetti Casserole (with rosemary)

How funny. And then came those hamburgers and chicken patties.

For a while, my grade school was test-marketing plastic bags of milk. That's right. Instead of the cartons, they gave us these sealed clear baggies which we would stab with pointy straws, an then crush as we drank them. They were the same straws as capri sun straws, but the baggies themselves looked like breast implants.

We didn't explode too many baggies, but somehow the technology captured our imaginations as dangerous, somehow more dangerous than cartons. 20+ years later, I realize now the potential for mischief is the same whether it's baggies or cartons, but somehow the administrators went back to the old-fashioned carton technology for everybody's safety and to everybody's relief.

I'm going to K-Mart now to get some flannel pants.

It's a take home quiz. Duh.

I went to my new 中文 class today. The instructor seems like a nice guy, but he spent too much time telling us how to say stuff, and not enough time actually letting us say stuff. A few times, he asked "how do you say this?" but we had to interrupt him when we actually wanted to say something. We'll see how it goes. It's going to be a challenge getting homework done, since I'm so slammed at work.

______

In August I gave my students a list of all the dates when there would be quizzes and exams. Today was a quiz, and the students complained I didn't warn them. Oh hell no. Well, today I did give them a quiz, and it was a 24-hour take home quiz.

The thing about take home quizzes, and come to think of it, all homework, is that they have the opportunity to talk to each other, use dictionaries, verb books, spell check... if I give a take home quiz, the isht better be off the hook.

Oh it won't be. American students are lazy.

Once I gave a French class a take home quiz, and most of them flunked. Except for the transfer student from Sweden, who got 100%. When people said, hey how did you.... and she said, what? It's a take home quiz. As in, duh, why wouldn't you get 100% on a take home quiz.

You Lost My Business Due To Your Stupidity

... or Why I Hate Sprint. by john patrick.

I have T-Mobile, which has always been good to me. I was actually a VoiceStreamer, but then they were bought by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Before that, I had a Sprint cell phone, and the customer service was terrible. TERRIBLE. It was eight or nine years ago. When people ask me why I switched, I usually tell this story and get mad again, and I know I sound like a maniac, so I'll just keep it simple here.

I was living at my uncle's house, and I went with my friend B to Factoria Radio Shack to get a phone. He had just bought one, too, so I made him go with me, since I was afraid of getting worked over.

I remember a couple of Eastside kids looking at phones next to us; saying about one of the phones "OMG, that is so GHETTO!" and then looking fearfully at B and me; we shot them our toughest "you about to die" look. They moved quietly away.

Anyway, I bought the phone, my first cell, and everything was fine. Then I moved.

I moved into 4111 Whitman Ave. When I sent in my bill, I wrote my new address on the back of the envelope, where you're supposed to write your change of address. Right?

Two months later, my phone was disconnected. I called and asked why I had never received a bill; they said they had sent it. When they confirmed my address, it was the old address; my address change had never been processed. They apologized, I paid, they reconnected.

Two months later, my phone was disconnected. I called and asked why I had never received a bill; they said they had sent it. They asked me my address, and I told them 4111 Whitman. They said, yes, they sent the bill. I apologized, I paid, they reconnected.

Two months later, my phone was disconnected. I called and asked why I had never recieved a bill; they said they had sent it. I said, are you SURE you have my address right? They said, what is your address? And I said 4111 Whitman. Yes, we do have it right. I apologized, paid, and they reconnected.

Two months later, my phone ws disconnected. This time, when I called, they sent me to the collection department.

Why haven't you paid?

Because I never got the bill.

It says here that we sent it.

Tell me the address that you sent it to.

We sent it to 411 Whitman.

Wrong. That's the wrong address. My service has been interrupted three times because my address is wrong. My address is 4111. Fourty one eleven.

Sir, you are still responsible for paying on time even if you don't receive the bill. Would you wait until the power went out every month before paying the light bill?

Ma'am, the power company sends me a bill every month. Look, I am sick of getting my service interrupted because of your company's mistakes. My boss tries to get a hold of me, and he gets a 'disconnected' message? It makes me look like trash to my coworkers.

Sir, we are not responsible for what your coworkers think of you.....

What is your company responsible for? First, I sent the change of address form, and then confirmed my address TWICE over the phone with you! You have it on your computer screen right now! What are you responsible for? Look at your computer screen, two different people were not responsible enough to get my address right! I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT. Are you responsible for anything? Seriously, what exactly ARE you responsible for?

Sir, please hold.

The collections dept. lady transferred me back to customer service, to a much friendlier manager, who understood that I couldn't pay a bill that THEY failed to send me. I paid my bill and then cancelled my service.

That week I got a VoiceStream phone. It was a little rocky at first, but now it's just fine.

Ironic update: and now the phone isn't connecting to my sister! Bah!

"Resorting to Manners"

(I don't have time to look for links right now, but I'm publishing a draft so I don't forget. If you'd like to help me with links, please use the comment section. )

A very wise person (ding) once told me that when the non-brown people run out of arguement, they "resort to manners." By calling someone impolite, they manage to not engage valid points.

For example, once my friend was complaining to me about how Native Americans in Washington have explicit treaty rights to collect shellfish from private property. I said, 'it's a treaty man.' He protested, saying that they should break the treaty to protect private property owners, and I said something like "the United States of America is incapable of upholding a treaty with the Native Americans." He got annoyed, and then called me rude. "You're rude!"

He resorted to manners. That's all he had left.

In high school, I was the president of the ASB, and the newspaper editor came to us halfway through the year, saying that they had spent their budget and they needed $4000 to continue. The student government approved it, but I sent a valentine to the newspaper saying that they should be more responsible. They came back with my valentine the next issue of the paper in two editorials, one by the editor, and one by the FACULTY ADVISOR, saying my note was "unpresidential." What a joke. First of all, nobody cared. Second, the newspaper got off lucky, I should have vetoed that bailout; THAT would have been presidential.

They resorted to manners. That's all they had left.

Now our friend Condi poo-poohs Venezolano president Hugo Chavez for criticizing Bushy-poo, saying his rant is unbecoming. Resorting to manners. That's all she's got.

(is anyone even going to bother to ask why I'm applying this generalization about non-brown people to the most prominant African American in our government?)

You know what I think is unbecoming a head of state? Lying about going to war. Detaining people without habeas corpus. Looking for ways to torture foreigners. Sending loyal, patriotic men and women to die in a war we didn't need to start. Wanting to enshrine homophobia and discrimination in federal law.

It's not that I hate the man. But he is worse than bad at his job. He does not uphold the constitution; he subverts it. He does not protect the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; he puts people in the line of fire.

I don't think he understand what it means to uphold and protect the Constitution. I think he's upholding and protecting the myth of the "Don't mess with Texas" America that exists in his own hard head.

Or maybe he just is as evil as the people surround him.

Back to the source

Nine years ago, I attended Sunday Mass at St. T's, and sang in a Gospel choir. That's right, a Catholic Gospel Choir. The director, CJ, is musical giant, teaching 4 vocal parts and the piano part simultaneously. She left the next year, needing understandibly to go back to her own faith community (she's not Catholic). After all, she had only agreed to stay for six months while the found a permanent person; she ended up staying for five years, Catholic parishes don't pay their musicians a lot of money (which explains a lot about Catholic music....).

Anyway, the year I spent singing with CJ changed my life. Since then, I have let go of paper music, learned how to think in four part harmony, learned how to teach by rote and "in the loop." I got a job myself as a music minister, wrote several Masses, worked under one supervisor who tolerated my program and another who blew in and demanded "Catholic" music. By "Catholic" music, of course, he meant the contemporary/folk music that white folks like to lip-fake of those hymnals.

Whatever, it's a job. I can read that white music. I do, however, resent the ethnocentric implication that contemporary/folk music is more "Catholic" than the music that I write. I'm Catholic. I've read Music in Catholic Worship and Liturgical Music Today. I've been doing Catholic music ministry since 1991.

Doesn't matter anyway, I'm probably going to tell them that this is my last year being their music director. I've got outside gigs to think about. I'm putting on a big workshop next month of my original music at a local parish that is not hostile to me. Also, I'm considering taking on a choir over at a megaparish across the lake in Microsoftlandia. They call themselves a Gospel/Contemporary choir; I will offer to teach them to let go of the paper, to sing hard, to stop overpronouncing, to stop doing that knee-bend bounce to the beat that white people like to do when they're "getting into it."

Anyway, I got an email today that CJ is putting on a concert at the beginning of October, and that rehearsals are the next three Tuesdays, starting tonight.

So I went to rehearsal tonight. It was amazing, amazing, amazing to see CJ in action again, amazing to hear her new songs, amazing to hear Gospel music again. When I walked in late, she was already teaching music, so she kept the loop going--you don't break the loop until everybody's got it. But later, when she stopped the loop, she said, "hey I thought I recognized that filipino guy!" and asked if I had lumpia.

I dug around in my bag for a moment, which some of the altos actually fell for. Like I keep lumpia in my bag for emergencies.

I'm listening to my rehearsal tape right now. Compared to this, I simply can't believe the shit that I'm forced to sing at at work. It's been a while, but I've finally come back to the source.

Lazy; might be a problem.

Yesterday: went to Auntie E Uncle T's place for a wedding party; the actual wedding was last month in the Bay Area. It was fun, we ate a lot, enjoyed the big house (star trek kitchen, deck to die for, tiki pool room). Played mahjong.

Here's some of the food: cheesey dip, artichoke dip, salmon dip, prawns and snowpeas in garlic sauce, strip steak, kalbi, lumpia shanghai, veggie pork lumpia, pansit canton, salad (in a stand alone salad bowl at the corner of the room) three whole rock fish.... leche flan with berries, ube cake, frozen mango slices layered with grahm crackers and marshmallow sauce.... A certain city council member was there; when my uncles make a show of giving their seats at the table to them, I got up as well to avoid him.

Uncle L and Auntie V were funny, reminiscing about Santo Tomas. Auntie V said, "When we were kids, we didn't have computer, we didn't have a videogame. We played Rubberband! We played Can!"

Can is played by throwing your tsinelas (flip flops) at a can; at some point, someone became "it" and got chased all over the place. "Rubberband" was some variation of marbles or petanque, only with rubber bands. The girls also had a hackey sack game. I told my sister that if she does ethnic or cultural studies, she could document these games for a paper. She was skeptical.

I got a drunk dial from Y, calling from a bar in Manhattan. He was disappointed by Montreal--too much English, but he was impressed by their clean chinatown. He's staying at M's in Manhattan, and encouraged me to go visit.

I feel lazy today. It might become a problem.

I hate it when people say....

This post some armchair discourse analysis which arises from my own bitterness.

I like water. Often, water is what I want. At a restaurant, I hate saying "water's fine" or "just water," as if I have to apologize for not ordering a "real" beverage. I order it. "I'll have a glass of ice water, please."

Also, when the server comes and asks if s/he can take the plate away, I don't like the expression "still working." As if it's a chore. As if I've been slacking off. "I'm not finished yet, thanks."

I know people like to say "been there, done that," but why do they act like it's still clever? That bit is as old as the hills.

One of my dad's tricks is to say 'help me.' For example, when he says, "help me unload the groceries," as if we were going to do the job together. What he means is "unload the groceries yourself." My response now is "don't say help me if you're not going to help." He's been speaking English for longer than I have, he knows how to say "Could you please unload the groceries." I always do.

Another of his tricks is to say 'because your mama's back is hurting.' As in "will you do the dishes because your mama's back is hurting." When I was in junior high, I didn't know how to respond to this; it was like he was taking my mother hostage every day, and her ransom was the dishes.

He tried to pull this one on me again, when I was an adult, and I said, dad, people don't like it when you manipulate their feelings. He looked at me like I was stupid, stared saying "I don't manipulate other people's feelings..." So I interrupted, saying , dad, I don't like it when you try to exploit my sympathy for my mother.... He said yah, yah, whatever. So then I raised my voice. Dad! Don't tell me to do things because my mother is in pain. I hate it.

Ok, ok, just do the dishes, he said.

I did the dishes. Next time, there might be a monster headbutt to the sternum.

Why, in 2006 am I still hearing about half people? As in, 'She's half Mexican and half Vietnamese.' As if you could quantify ethnicity with fractions. Which half is which? The government sanctions fractions for Native Americans (i.e., you have to be 1/4 native to live on the rez)... but remember, the government hates the Native Americans. Anyway, people aren't half and half anymore, they are both. "She is Mexican and Vietnamese."

What about media who refuse to use the word undocumented. The arguement is that these people may or may not have documents on their person... STUPID. When NASA or the physics department theorize about undocumented phenomena, is it because the phenomena do not have documents? No, children, it's because the institution has not documented them yet. People should stop trying to hide their bigotry with adjective morphology.

What else?

Downbeat. People on the news think that because "upbeat" means happy, that "downbeat" means sad. The mood in New Orleans was downbeat today. "Upbeat" means happy because it evokes music that emphasizes beats two and four; e.g., "I'm so Excited" (Pointer Sisters); "Uptown Girl" (Billy Joel). The downbeat is beat one, the strongest beat. People that say "downbeat" to mean 'morose, melancholie' must not know a thing about music.

Meantime. In my dialect, this is a noun. In the meantime, people kept working. For some reason, there is one local tv station where journalists use meantime as a stand-alone conjunction, and it bugs me. Record temperatures today. Meantime, local kids played in the sprinklers. To me, this sounds like a second-language error. For me, it's either in the meantime, or meanwhile.

I don't care for bagels.

I don't care for bagels.

When I arrive at a workshop where there is a breakfast bagel bar, I feel resentment. Sometimes there's salmon spread or lox; I think that is a dirty trick, and it doesn't work on me anymore. I'm not ashamed of eating a pile of straight salmon spread.

Please don't send me an email about how I don't understand the bagel, about how I should try a real bagel fresh out of the oven from your favorite place, or toasted with X herb, or whatever. I disagree with the bagel on principle, and I'm not ashamed. The premise: my stomach does not handle white bread in an amount over, say, five bites... let alone white bread that's been boiled. Baking and toasting doesn't help, the white bread returns to its dough state in my stomach and then it's all farts and pain after that.

One time a classmate, a Filipina that had grown up in New York, brought a dozen bagels to class as a treat. She went home with eleven bagels in a bag. Eight of us had split one. Sorry, seven of them had split one, I declined.

She was interesting. She wrote part of the script for the video the class made, the part of the script that explained how to cook rice. The language was ok, but yikes, the rice recipe was technically wrong. I corrected it and didn't tell her.

I know all about rice... but I don't care for bagels.

So you enjoy your bagel; if you offer me one, I will smile and decline. I do not care for them, thank you.

Anyway, global warming will kill a lot us, and society won't be the same after that. The USA won't recover as a nation, and we'll all laugh bitterly about the frivolity of the great bagel debate of 2006.