thirstythong

My Ambitionz Az A Ridah

The American confidence to risk

The Japanese prowess to design

The Chinese power to machine

The Spanish grace to flirt

The French love to live

The Vietnamese will to survive

Choose your (Hiphop) Role Models Wisely

A conversation last night touched on the topic of role models, within the scope of hiphop artists.

A friend said I am trying to be like P. Diddy.

I replied, “actually, I’m aiming to be more like Mos Def.”

I thought about this more at home later and realized there were elements of truth to both claims.

Yes, I do want to be like Mos Def: I want Mos Def’s artistry.

Also, I want P. Diddy’s business acumen

And Jay-Z’s delivery

And Kanye West’s conceptualization ability

2Pac’s politics and passion

Nas’ lyricism

Eazy E’s vulgarity

E-40’s linguistics

Snoop Dogg’s aura

Biz Markie’s amiability

LL Cool J’s career endurance and gym discipline

Eminem’s determination

Andre 3000’s imagination

Tribe Called Quest’s inner-Chi

DMX’s bark

B.I.G.’s food expense account

Wu-Tang’s limousine

Ice Cube’s flannel shirts

Ice T’s goat-tee

I can think of many role models because I want to learn their most defining characteristic.

I can’t think of one role model who I want to be wholly.

Or perhaps, I am working to one day be called U-God.

In figuring it out, I’ll end up myself.

Between the Lines (2004)

On the grounds of John Muir Elementary

I am given one of those

chain letters

folded in a fifth grade way

I won’t blame whoever gave it to me

I know the fear of fate in my hands

warning

if I don’t make ten copies of that very chain letter

doom ten of my friends to doom ten of theirs

bad fortune within the next year

I rip the chain letter to shreds

toss into the wastebasket

along with my belief in superstition

luck

a chain letter

That same year

my family is given a letter of their own

the unexpected

drama reserved for after-school specials

we were being evicted

Questions of fate pursue

stir with future and circumstance

I have the fifth grade to worry about already

crushes I have to mentally manage

baggy pants to buy

these questions too early

for a ten-year old

what if we had more money?

what if the landlord wasn’t so greedy?

where are we going to live?

what if we still lived in Torrance with Aunty Marie, Lili and bà nội?

I imagine the questions hit my mother harder

1992

we live in the heat of the UC Berkeley campus

students desperate for a cheap place to live

like us

My parents work as manicurists

giving hands egos

hours of work behind dust masks

days without official business hours

any customers needed

from the rich Park Blvd. residents who have always remembered my birthday

to the local customers trying to skip my father who runs them down

determined not to let anybody cheat him

he is a gambler

Pretty Nails By Kim

open

even on Vietnamese New Year

Sunday morning temple

my parent’s respective birthdays

No time for Buddhism

time is manicurist money

religion can’t pay our bills

so we keep our altar honored

Even manicurist money

can’t pay the rising rent of student housing

inevitable

we move into the back of my aunt’s nail shop

that stole my parents

No heat

only blankets

No privacy

only a sliding door

No bathtub

luckily a shower

No stove

only microwave

Eating fast food with no taste in those slow times

living beneath my silent shame

four years of rubbing alcohol

Lume gel

nail polish

polished laughs from my mom and aunt for extra tips

develop immunity from the fact of living in the back of Pretty Nails By Kim

on Telegraph and Alcatraz

Teach myself to lie to my friends

imagine there are other Vietnamese boys who live the same shame

that has no name that would do justice

because poverty doesn’t suffice

the pain is always more complicated than a single word

Fate or circumstance

or if I had the chance

I would take that chain letter back

screw over ten of my friends for family’s sake

they don’t know the feeling

hiding from the sight of friends riding the morning school bus

creeping out the back gates

uncomfortable in my own skin

They don’t know what it’s like

embarrassed of my own mother

when it’s never her fault

and I don’t know who to blame

UC Berkeley

our ex-landlord

the Vietnam War

the community college teachers who have never been able to teach my mother English adequately

myself

that

chain letter

About a Fisherman from Cuddalore (2005)

I’ve been sad lately as there hasn’t been a way to get all my old writing back. Last night, I just woke up in the middle of the night, with the idea to search my gmail inbox. Low and behold. I am happy, really happy again. I will work on putting together a chapbook. Here is one piece I wrote when I got news of the Tsunami that ravaged South and Southeast Asia back in 2004.

ABOUT A FISHERMAN FROM CUDDALORE (2005)

for Mani Natrajan who lost his family on December 25, 2004

The tag #196

is tied to a foot of a listless body

veiled by white cloth

Mani kisses this foot

Belonging to his wife, Muniamma

Convulsing in dry heaves

his body goes into aftershocks

like rusty fingernails

excavating his muscles

II.

Mani and Muniamma

learned of each other at the market

as Muniamma picked pungent sardines

from his weathered hands

Not only can she make a sensation out of scraps

she has a hearty laugh for her frame

thick with life

Holding her tiny face

gentle like a wilted rose

they exchange confessions

in whistling rain

keep themselves a secret

shared only with the ocean

Thatch shelter with promises

whispered in sleep to keep heat

she consumes him like survival

Why he swallows hard

Watching her sleep

chest emerge, ebb

wishing to kiss her like

every time is their first

and last

III.

2004

the 11^th year marking the 10, 8 and

6-year-old birthdays of their children,

Sukaniya, Vanaya, Surender respectively

Mani and Muniamma have bought them

a pale blue kite

mad swirls against the fog

like an S.O.S.

They fly it in the bare brown field

a sprint away

from their mother

washing their shirts

on the wood

planked staircase to their home

…

Muniamma thought it odd one afternoon

that as her three firecracker children

ran towards her for an early lunch

they were mute

Turning her head towards the ocean

for the first time

she saw the sky disappear

In an unwanted staring contest

she didn’t blink

when the wave poured through

like bleach

IV.

Mani outran the wind

burning the skin off the underside of his feet

Upon arrival

his home didn’t even look like a sketch

of the life he once had

Just crumbs

and the scent of phantoms

December 26, 2004 –

“Among the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans, Indians, Indonesians, Thai dead and missing, 7 Americans may have died or suffered injury.”

VI.

Wailing gravediggers couldn’t afford to spare a second for sentiment

running out of tears

as the shoveled earth bevels Muniamma

faster than the sea could swallow her

VII.

It won’t matter if this time, he is safe on a mountain

Mani will build a small house elsewhere

tuck himself away

VIII.

Every time he sleeps

Mani dreams Muniamma, Sukaniya, Vanaya, Surender,

crackling with laughter, sly squids in their grip

secede slow into a huge hole in the Earth

He coats the hole with a viscous scream

sapping him to collapse

as an avalanche devours him

breaking his rib cage open

drowning his heart in salt

8th Sep 2011

‎”To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

8th Sep 2011

Mr. On ‘08

My hobby in 2008 was following the presidential election.

I ain’t gonna front, I had a mancrush on Obama - not just because of this girl, but of course.

Even though he might be able to convince to buy an iPhone, he will never be able to convince me to vote for the Bosnian mercenary - unless, he can somehow get me, ahem, seven minutes in heaven.

Hilarity aside (pun intended, but of course), allow me to introduce you to Mr. On.

“In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain’s presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.

On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.”

Dopeness, indeed. But then:

“From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.”

Not that I need to give you reasons not to vote for McCain, but how’s the wind in your stomach? Read the article for the account of their encounter.