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Wednesday, October 30, 2002
JAM MASTER JAY posted on 10/30/2002 11:17:12 PM by agentCB
THESE ARE THE BRAKES posted on 10/27/2002 09:47:43 AM by agentCB
RAISINS IN A MAYONAISSE JAR posted on 10/27/2002 09:46:02 AM by agentCB
WOAH... posted on 10/26/2002 10:18:01 AM by agentCB
HOUSE OF PAIN posted on 10/23/2002 11:39:54 AM by luv
THE DEATH OF AN OLD FRIEND posted on 10/23/2002 12:01:27 AM by agentCB
A NEW ERA posted on 10/22/2002 03:35:25 PM by agentCB
ON BENDED KNEE posted on 10/21/2002 10:01:03 PM by luv
BAY BREEZE posted on 10/21/2002 08:45:22 AM by agentCB
OK THIS IS IT posted on 10/21/2002 08:10:38 AM by agentCB
PROS AND CONS posted on 10/18/2002 01:36:46 AM by agentCB
COOLIN' OUT posted on 10/18/2002 12:29:52 AM by agentCB
IT WASN'T THAT HARD TO SAY GOODBYE... posted on 10/15/2002 02:56:15 PM by agentCB
CAST AWAY posted on 10/11/2002 11:02:19 AM by agentCB
COUSIN RICKY posted on 10/07/2002 12:07:55 PM by agentCB
OVER THE HUMP posted on 10/02/2002 01:57:56 PM by agentCB
was killed tonight... damn.
i don't understand the world sometimes.
Sunday, October 27, 2002
yeh, that's pretty much the cheesiest blog entry title i've ever come up with.
let me marinate on that one for a minute...
anyway... pops helped me change the brakes pad and rotors on my olds. actually, i helped him... i never have the time i wish i could devote to working on cars. i used to enjoy it, back in the day. of course back then, they designed cars so the average garage monkey like myself could fix things without having to rely on crooked dealerships or autoshops.
my dad is one of those handyman guys that can fix anything. he worked the blue collar thing for all of his life and picked up massive skills along the way. as a kid, my ass was encouraged to stay in the books and not under the hood.
that's all changed now, i make sure my dad transfers some of them skills towards my way. it was also a good way to spend some time with dad, as this was what we used to do back in the day... work on cars.
THAT'S ME IN THE CORNER...
went to my godson's bday party in vallejo after the car was fixed. i felt totally out of place which i thought was interesting because it was mostly filipinos. all the people my age at this party were parents. many cute little kids dressed up for halloween. many younger parents chillin.
one brotha that's probably older than most of them feeling the pressures of perpetuating the legacy and jumping in to the gene pool we call life.
*raising hand*
that's me over there in the corner, losing my religion as i find solace in watching the giants lose hold of game 6 of the world series. if the game wasn't on, i probably would have no connection with anyone in the house.
my godson is growing into a fine young man. was gonna pick up c.s. lewis' "chronicles of narnia" or j.r. tolkien's lord of the rings series for his b-day. at the bookstore, i opened lewis' "lion, witch and the wardrobe" and decided against it as the story was set in england somewhere and it opened assuming you were a white kid from england reading the book.
i don't want to perpetuate colonization any more than my godson's school is doing already.
i figured he don't need another book written for white people by white people. so i decided to find some "people of color" friendly children's books. no luck. the only thing i found were books that were too young for him. if anyone knows a good book for a 9 year old to read, let me know... else i'm gonna have to go ahead with my book ideas for the Funky Lil Island Kids (hey that's a good name for a band... FLIK) you with me voodoo, luvbug and rjigga? u were the only three i talked to about the kid's book idea.
i should explain the "raisin in a mayonaisse jar" metaphor. wait... hmm.. nevermind, let's see if ya'll figure it out. ya'll are smart. comment if u really want to know and don't get it by the end of this blog.
credit to jerome tabilon for the "raisin in a mayonaisse jar" metaphor all rights reserved -cb
anyway, after the kiddie party, i headed back to sacramento, dropped by luvbug's house and rolled over to our classmates house for a party.
we walked in to the sounds of some old skool rap song. and yeh, i mean rap. it was something like young mc or something like that. i came in with an open mind cuz i knew i'd be knee deep in mayo as soon as i opened the door
i'm horrible aren't i?
anyway... luvbug and i scanned the house in search of familiar faces. we found our classmates and a few others later. i found a familiar friend in the backyard. my homeboy skyy citrus was chillin in the backyard bar and i hooked him up with OJ and they hit it off, speeding off in a white bronco down my esophagus. luvbug also had a drink and we went to the "dance floor" portion of the house. (read: feeble attempt to cover the floor with soft black garbage bags)
the mayo was thick that night and the sounds were likewise. i think the crowning achievement was when vanilla ice came on and the fuckin roof came off the house.
swear to god.
now i will admit i bumped that joint when it came out. 'nuff respect to david bowie's original "under pressure" for that sample. dap to suge knight for building his death row empire from the money from that single. one love to vanilla ice for donating his royalties to suge knights "just say no" campaign -cb
some big mark mcgwire lookin dude in his grandmother's best janet reno business suit was freakin the floor. a circle formed. it was over. for the next 4 minutes i was entertained by strangers. i will leave the details out for all those eating right now.
best foods in the house.
luvbug and i shared snide remarks and guffaws as we chilled in a papasan built for 2. it was as if we had front row seats to "happy days on ice"
people were having fun though.
the only thing that was really killing me was the music. someone must have picked up rap's greatest hits by K-tel. don't get me wrong. i have nothing against white people and their music. i just don't like listening to mainstream rap music. especially old shitty mainstream rap music. they had all the classics, sir mixalot:baby got back, mc hammer:u can't touch this, tone loc: wild thing, young mc: bust a move. n2deep: back to the hotel.
what?!?! back to the hotel?!!
*needle skratches across vinyl*
being the house party dj i am, i couldn't take anymore. i went over 2 the cd player and pressed stop to the dismay of those on the dancefloor. i didn't have any cd's with me so i scanned the incumbent cd collection. found an mtv party 2 go and popped that in.
scanned over to track 5, onyx:slam "that'll get the party started" i thought. everyone knew that song... else it wouldn't be on the mtv party 2 go vol 5 or whatever... lo and behold...
dance floor clears....
holy shit! i laugh to myself and grab luvbug and we dance until the fibromyalgia kicks in and luvbug has to sit back down.
Saturday, October 26, 2002
ok that was weird... i guess i wasn't hacked into anyhow...
why the hell would anyone want to get into my blog anyway?
time to change passwords
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
sore...muscles
grinding...bones
tingling...nerves
absent...memories
constant...pain...all over
fibromyalgia...day after day
for some odd reason, i got a copy of the latest source magazine in my mailbox today. i don't recall ordering it, but i got one anyway... i had received a subscription before courtesy of mikmik from a christmas past but i never renewed it...
on the cover was lil kim, scantily clad in some bs. the top headline was "who is hiphop's biggest spender?"
who the fuck cares?
since when did hiphop, born in the projects of the bronx and queens, and the communities and gangs of new york, become about who's spending the most money.
i was afraid to see all the wasted money on iced out chains with diamond encrusted jesus and medallions worth more than my college loans and all my debt put together.
dumb fucks.
but what can i say... it's like once u got the cash, it's kinda hard not to spend it on dumb shit, just cuz u can... i'm sure they're saving money or at least donating to the community.
it's interesting how the source is set up. it's designed to attract all the bling hungry people out there... but there are usually good articles in there.
by good i mean progressive, somewhat... at least they offer that shit. i can very much appreciate it. hats off to them for that...
but damn, i wish there was a better way... but until then...
BLING BLING
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
i've decided to invite luvbug to join in on this latest volume of KSB. hopefully she'll blog regularly or i'll have to boot her ass off of my small island of a soapbox. (j/k honey... )
ok, now back to my take-home midterm due at 7pm...
Monday, October 21, 2002
It all started around 6:45 p.m. on this very night, when cb kneeled and asked me to participate in writing on his web-site. Can you believe it, me! cb asked me! Yeah, I know that sounds funny, coming from me and all, but there are a lot of things that cb does that I don't know about. (j/k honey) But seriously, I was really flattered. Why? Well, cb spends a lot of time working on his web-site, especially the designing of it, and I felt like it was an honor that he wanted me to share my thoughts with some of his dearest friends. Sweet, isn't it? Anyhow, this is my way of saying "Hello everyone."
hit the bay this weekend. went to my cousin's house for a family party in union city. took luvbug with me so she could me my dad's side of the family. she met some of the family, the rest wasn't there. one of the younger cousins came up to me and said...
"you know i had a theory that once you turn 20 you stop coming to these family parties... but you're here so i guess that theory is blown out of the water"
so i responded with "well that's exactly why i'm here, to blow that theory out of the water..." of course it had to take cousin ricky's funeral to get me into this family mode, but hey at least i learned...
i now understand why all adults would always say "you're so big now" to me or my brother whenever they would see them. kids grow hecka fast... especially if u don't see them all the time...
RENDEZVOUS
after the party, we met up with wrektangul to see how he was doin and to do some shopping at the great mall in milpitas. peeped out dave n' busters for the first time. i would like to chill there in the future... took wrektangul with us to SF where we met up with peace out, dez and eleanor.
this is the first time luvbug met the rest of my davis friends so it was a momentous occasion to say the least... peace out had a nice crib off of 19th ave in SF. she took us upstairs to the roof/balcony and all i could think of was "music video"
i wonder if the landlord would approve of that... haha it was kinda windy up there though...
we headed over to the beach chalet off of the great highway and had a nice dinner while we watched a bunch of people burn shit on the beach.
i wonder if firefighter alan looked at the bon-fires with a certain disdain, entertaining thoughts of pissing on their parade and dispersing the wanton mobs of people igniting driftwood for the sheer primal urge of seeing things burn.
it turns out snake eyz' brother was out there burning shit. i noticed the fobbesque brown van in the parking lot and thought it looked familiar... go figure...
fyi... did ya'll know bonfires are illegal on ocean beach? peaceout thinks that it's ok past a certain stoplight. hence, you can only have bon-fires where the beach is very narrow...
start a fire... whoosh, waves come in... start a fire... whoosh, waves come in... start a fire... (you get the picture right?)
haha knowing is half the battle ya'll...
MISSION ROCKED
we ended our night in the city with our first visit to kelly's mission rock. hooked up with our cousin butch, who kept calling us and telling us he was in different parts of the bay, leaving us wondering if he had some kind of teleporting powers we were unaware of. he got all of us in for free. i had to take my beanie off... fuck and we parked hella far too...
the club was pretty nice. it didn't feel like a club though... maybe because it was outside and overlooking the dirty water of the SF bay... call me spoiled. the music was aight... hiphop all over... but that new kind of hiphop that i don't really feel.
luvbug was enjoying herself at the club... i thought that was cool. she usually doesn't feel the hiphop clubs we've been to. maybe it was the fact that we were entertaining ourselves peeking at all the couples arguing on the balcony...
oh and who could forget all the hooches that were walking around the club.
the best...
HOME GYM
i ended the weekend spending a nice day with luvbug. didn't really do much, which was what made it nice. coulda studied, but hell, we deserved that QT (quality time, for all u non-players).
picked up a nice exercise bike from sportmart. i highly recommend the types that use magnetic resisitance. it feels more realistic that those bikes with the tension belts. as an avid bike rider, one of my pet peeves about bikes were that they felt like exercise bikes and not like a real bike. this bike feels pretty damn good. it wasn't as expensive as the other ones too...
we celebrated that healthy purchase with a two-piece from church's chicken while we watched game 2 of the world series. the giants lost and i found out that my bike has to be returned. the main frame is cracked... fuckers... no problem, i can just swap parts the guy said... that's america for ya...
sometime it ain't that bad to live here in america, i guess (lite sarcasm + bitterness)...
this is the final revision of this site for a looong time. i just blew 3 hours of study time on this website... i don't know what it is, but when i get all up in this, i can't stop.
addicted...
so anyway... time to do my midterm... eee
Friday, October 18, 2002
lately i've been contemplating what my thesis/project will be focusing on. i initially wanted to do something with PYC sac and try to get some funding for it at the same time through a grant. then i got to thinking, "what do i want to do with them?"
i have no frickin' idea
so i started thinking about counseling right, about my culture and how the two are almost opposites. i say they're opposites because counseling is based on western thought. the two seem to be from different worlds and here i am in the middle.
most of my counseling books speak to individuality and speaking about feelings. my culture shuns feelings and speaks to the family. how the hell do u resolve the two? is it possible? i think so but it's not an easy task...
so then i got to thinking deeper.
is one method right over the other? is my culture enmeshed like the textbooks say? does westernized couseling have it all wrong? i really don't know where i stand right now. it's kinda been like mulling over my mind... cooking on the back burner... as i go about my daily activities etc...
BACK TO THE GRILL AGAIN
i hooked up the empty room in the house and turned it into a small home gym. been trying to work out since the cast came off. i no longer have to worry about stinky casts and sweaty, itchy dead skin. found a cool workout in one of them men's magazines that u don't need nothing but a bench and one barbell... 20 minutes a day... tryin to couple that with running this fat hill next to my house. maybe start running the usual 5 mile trek to campus and back. i was able to maintain my weight when i stopped exercising for a month.. my goal is to trim up and shed 15 pounds.
if i shed that and drop 15 my reward is to get a tattoo... i was thinking of some kind of family tattoo that will become a rite of passage for me and my brothers children (yes for the boys and girls, yay!)
or coolant out is more like it... had a clogged heater core in my 94 olds (yes i drive an american car). what does that mean? it means that all your coolant spills out into the heater and your car overheats. also, since the hot ass coolant is leaking into your heater, steam fogs up your windshield and the car smells like antifreeze.
it's not a pretty picture.
so yeh, had to get that fixed, cost me $350 to get that fixed... instead of going to the dealer and getting robbed, i asked the tow truck guy who he recommends. he took me to this little mechanic shop out by my house and this guy is pretty honest and legit.
i think i'll be working with him from now on... hopefully i won't need him, but it's good to know that i won't get taken everytime my car gets fucked up.
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
...if you have a send-off like my cousin ricky did yesterday. all the family gathered for his final romp through the east bay and we remembered the life and times of salvador r. martinez the third. i didn't think i would cry but as soon as me and kaygee saw him in the coffin, the memories all came back at once.
not far behind were the tears.
cousin rick was pretty much me and kaygee's big brother. literally. he was 6' 4." about a foot taller than the average filipino guy's height (yes i'm above average at 5' 8" thank you very much). along with his younger brother wrektangul, ricky would take us everywhere and made sure we always had fun.
more importantly he modeled what a big brother/cousin should be like. i realized this at his viewing, where my brother and i became quarterbacks for our little cousin's football game goin on in the parking lot of the mortuary.
some of you may think this was unappropriate for a funeral, but that's exactly what rick would have done. he would have wanted everyone to be having a good time and listening to kool n' the gang, or AC/DC, according to cousin rosanna.
i said a few words in remembrance of our cousin and so did a few others. as one of the pall bearers, i walked his coffin to the gravesite in hayward.
i forgot what it was like to be a pallbearer. not like i wanted to remember but it brought in mixed emotions for me...
part of me felt proud to be able to have the honor of walking my cousin to his final resting place. the other half of me was sad, barely fathoming the idea that i was walking my cousin to his final resting place.
as i looked around and saw all the cousins i had grown up with, i realized that we haven't seen each other in a long time. our christmases are no longer one small house with 50-60 people in it. christmas is now one big house with 4-8 people in it.
not that it's bad, it's just different... our reality...
i realized that i'm on the right path in trying to be less serious about things (with the exception of my music, which took me a long time to be serious about). moreso, to have a balance of working hard and enjoying the things i have in life...
especially family.
it felt really good to see my family come together like that, for our cousin. i wish we could come together more often. later, i will be emailing all the cousins to try to kick around the ideas of having some kind of holiday together. maybe and easter or at least a bbq family reunion in the summer.
just cuz our family is way bigger now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to come together, we just need to find a place where we'll all fit.
Friday, October 11, 2002
today i am getting this stinky piece of shit off of my arm. i am very excited. i can't wait to bend my left wrist. amazing at how you can miss even such a small act like that.
i also know that my arm will be stinky for a while i can't wait to wash my arm too... take a shower without a bag on my hand. type with both hands (albeit, i have somewhat adapted to this weird typing style.)
i'll report bout it later...
Monday, October 07, 2002
i knew ricky ever since i can remember. he was always our big bro taking me wrektangul and kaygee everywhere. he was the one who was responsible for me getting into music, even though it was indirectly.
he always had the latest music, back in the day people only rocked "cassingles" and he had the bomb collection. everytime i would stay with wrektangul in fremont, i would always ask ricky to borrow his tapes to record the latest guy, mc hammer or high energy cuts.
he had em all...
ricky took me to my first (and only) WWF match out at the cow palace. great america, papang eddie's house, malibu, the movies. he always hooked it up.
lately though, after i was in high school, ricky started changing. his diabetes was starting to get the best of him. he stopped caring for himself and taking care of his body.
i wish i had said something to him, but i never knew what to say... at first i was angry at him for letting himself go, but i realize now, that there had to be a reason as to why he would let his health slide so badly. i think he gave up long ago, or maybe he didn't care and wanted to live his life the way he pleased.
the last time i saw him walking around was a year ago at his sister stella's wedding. luvbug met him and i thought to myself that he was starting to look pretty bad.
a few months later, he went in for an operation, only to find out that he was unfit for surgery. he got anesthesia and he went under, never to return. he had to be revived right there in the OR.
left over was the shell of his former being. a body with a lost soul in it, unsure whether or not it wants to stay in this world or go.
the family was by his side, the entire time practically, telling him it was ok to move on... to rest. even though they still wouldn't let go, they would let go little by little.
as the days moved on, the possibilty of him beating out was getting slim. finally he passed just yesterday morning, almost a full year later.
rick i'm sorry i was mad at u for letting yourself go. i wish i knew more about things and maybe i coulda said something.
i will not hesitate next time i get an opportunity.
we'll miss you...
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
***this blog has been recently edited... ***
it's been about 2 weeks with this damn cast on. i had to get a new cast at the end of the first week because the swelling in my hand went down and i was able to move my hand around in the cast.
that was soo friggin' irritating...
at one point i remember trying to pull my hand out of my cast. it was so loose that i could twist my arm inside of it. when i went for a follow-up appointment, they took the stinky cast off and the first thing i did was bend my wrist.
damn, that felt good...
then i tried to fathom the idea of not being able to bend my wrist for a month. fuck.
i bent my wrist some more, twisted and cavorted my hand with delight... the cast technician saw me doing this and said "get it out of your system now, it's gonna be a while before u can do that again."
"dick..." i thought to myself.
tell me something i don't fuckin know... even though he meant well, i was in no mood to be fucked with. homeboy fucked around and messed up my last few moments enjoying my wrist bending. that's a phat party foul.
so nowadays, almost 3 weeks later, i find that this cast is much better than the other one. it fits tighter and is lighter as well. for this one, they used this polyurethane compound to form my cast. last time they used that plaster shit. not only that, but it was heavier material too. then again, polyurethane is also in bowling balls.
that made my hand nice and stinky.
since this is the first time i've had to wear a cast, i'm slowly learning the benfits and pitfalls of wearing one with respect to social interaction. of course, we all know the physical implications of having a cast (ie. can't get it wet, showering with plastic bags) but the social effects are new to me... for example:
1. random strangers come up to you and ask "what the hell happened to you!??!"
-a drunken elder woman grabbed my arm, to mine and my company's dismay and whisper/yelled in my ear "how the hell did you do this?!?" i looked at her as if she was the devil and calmly told her i dislocated my thumb. then she went away. luvbug wasn't as shocked as the unknown soldier eclipse who we happened to go out with that night.
2. people automatically think you can do less than them
-of course you have a cast on, people are just trying to help right? or the comments like "awww, poor baby..." are supposed to make u feel better... true, however in taking my disabilties class, i've learned a little something about the "medical model" our country is apparently stuck in... take for example christopher reeve. homeboy is still trying to walk again. he's trying to raise money for a cure and spending approximately $400,000 a year for physical therapy. not everyone in his situation can afford what he has... not that there's anything wrong with him spending his own money, but what ever happend to a good balance of progress and acceptance? in reeve's defense, the media is the one sympathzing and trying to stir up emotion for his cause, inadvertedly sending out mixed messages to the world that "it's not ok to be like this, you are less cable than us 'normal people.'" just cuz i have a cast on, i don't need help 24/7, thank you... i appreciate the effort and concern however. thanks sacramento.
3. wiping your own ass with your other hand is violating at first
-usually, i use my left, but now i have to use my right hand. at first it felt mighty uncomfortable, but alas, i have no choice. at least i am now comfortable with righty just as much as lefty. (apologies to all eating peanut butter sandwhiches as you read this).
4. a good way to keep people away from you is to stick pens in your cast and try to wipe it on offensive parties
-or innocent bystanders as well, depending on your morals. i can imagine that this is an equivalent to sticking a finger in one's ass and chasing people around with it, (a la jack ass or mall rats). yes this is fuckin disgusting and please note, i only use this empty threat to oppress my fellow coworkers who keep bugging me.
