i too feel the need
my seeds
Memory & Nostalgia #4: Finding Lost Treasures
sometimes i find lost treasures and i wonder, were they ever mine?
Memory & Nostalgia #5: The Demons in My Head
steady mindshouting those bitches down
Memory and Nostalgia #3: Death and Regret
Seeing death in action has me scrambling …
The Sliver of a Moon
A waxing crescent above Lake of the Isles and the sky drifts towards darkness, crimson pink purple and orange on one side, the first stars in the blackening blue on the other. There are not enough breaths in the human day to take it all in, and even when I do, I’m still not sure […]
The Boys and Minnesota
The reason we moved back to the US is beginning to unfold, as spring takes hold, and the boys behold the burgeoning beauty of a land accustomed to a deep freeze, speckled with bodies of water long fat skinny round and winding. lakes and trees and sunshine. Minnesota when the sun comes out is a […]
It’s April Again (Redux)
I spent most of last year refusing to look at this blog, while it festered away in purgatory, punished for being a low priority. For being ugly and unwieldy and not what I wanted it to be. But now it’s back, and looking clean, and pretty close to what it should be. Some things to […]
Juvenile
A long long time ago, a girl told me to keep my voice. That was back in January of 2008, when I was writing this. I swear i remember absolutely nothing of the book that captured my moments and displayed them in a crystal case held up to the rays of an Amsterdam sun. Five […]
Stay the course
I recently wrote a post about my Chengdu Compound, and the comments on the post, and on Reddit, reflect two things, in general: 1) Good job, enjoy the palace 2) Watch out, Chinese landlords are evil and will fuck you And the feelings I have in my own heart about the compound revolve around these […]
like a chicken grease chord
Doing research for this project brought a picture to my mind of me in a field of yellow flowers with a long butterfly net chasing butterflies around and netting them as fast as I could. For each net full that I came away with, only one or two of the butterflies turn out to be […]
Adrift during the Holiday
I find myself sleeping, tweeting, taking notes. Talking to people I don’t know. Coffee and cigarettes. And carrying my son around on my shoulders so he can pluck leaves and people watch.
Gibbering again
My vision of myself rarely coincides with the vision others have of me. When people think highly of me, I hear the sniveling thief gibber inside; when people think low of me, I feel the warrior stir. But not just in reaction to what others think. It’s almost as if praise comes exactly then, when […]
The Struggle for Hong Kong
Here in Chengdu, people have been asking me: “Hey, did you hear what they did in Hong Kong? They stood up to the government.” There is no mention of winning or losing. Only the fact the HK citizens have the courage to stand up to the government, something Chinese, in general, feel they lack. One […]
Before I die
Factories will have no workers, just a few people making sure the machines are well-oiled Doctors will never touch a knife, only input the data into a computer Disease will be the scourge of the underclass, everyone else will have their genes regularly realigned Drivers will look up at floating highways, and the tolls will […]
The Dreamer and the Rebel
When I look at my sons, I feel as if the complexities of my soul have been sundered into two separate facets and placed within each one of them. The following is a gross oversimplification of their as-yet undeveloped characters, but it’s what I think about, so I am going to let loose. My older […]
Pragmatic above all things
I know a girl named Color who stopped me on the street one day and said, I am different from every other Chinese girl out there. I think deep, she said, and I question everything. Everybody thinks I am weird and I have few friends. I say strange stuff like, Why would you do that? […]
Silk Roads and Great Walls
What we today call the Chongqing Model and the Guangdong Model are just new names for an ancient struggle. Since the first brick was laid on the Great Wall and the first caravan set out across the desert, this country has been riven by the need to communicate with the outside world and the fear […]
That cess in yer chest
Tell me how to keep the smile on my face when I start every morning hacking like an old revolutionary until lung butter splatters the toilet bowl like adolescent lust. And clings to it like a first crush. Every morning ya’ll. I quit smoking and I remember someone saying that the first few weeks/months after […]
Merry Christmas from the Family
Here are some recent pics of my two boys, Stinky and Plumpy. For family and friends 😉 Love, Sascha Yushi Dorian Damian
The Future is now
While avoiding the drudge work at Ctrip, I stumbled across the theory of neoteny in evolution. Neoteny is when infant features appear in adults ie when we evolve “backward” such that we display childlike characteristics, presumably mentally as well as physically. Paradoxically, moving backward is going forward: evolution in primates is a steady procession back […]
Scattered Fam
So we’re on the eternal search for “the Spot” that will allow me to sip tea and write best sellers while bean makes big big money and the lil ones scamper. Possible locations are (were) 1) Pacific Northwest, specifically Portland and Northern Cali, but also and not limited to Canada or northern Washington. 2) Dali […]
Fast, Cheap or Good: You can only have Two
Rumor has it that Tom Waits once said this to Jim Jarmusch over whiskey and pop tarts, but it could have been Ben Franklin. I find it to be a pretty decent appraisal of what is possible in today’s world. In the US, I believe people chose “fast and good” whereas in China people chose […]
Whatcha Learn
You know my family always used to make fun of my dad cuz he had like one or two homies. and even those guys he saw once or twice every 1-2 years. He was basically dad and thats pretty much it. All my life I had shitloads of friends. A million people knew my name […]
From Now On
Dorian turns two weeks in a little less than an hour. The following is an altered message I wrote to a friend and is the post I was trying to write all week but never really had the time or the energy to put it all down. So thanks, Melissa, for getting me to spit […]
Beginning to feel the 安
安 means peace and is represented by a woman under a roof. I always figured this character was a bit patriarchal … but now that i have a mama and a lil one under my roof … i know what them old sages were talking about. Its the 30th according to the Chinese Lunar calender, […]
redemption is just one way of saying
my job is to pull you back from the brink of darknessprotect you from the prince of shadowsshow you the flower in all seasonskeep you fed, fat and gigglinggive you a blanket when its coldbuild a home for you to waltz inshore up the foundation when it crumblesso that i might be the man i’ve […]
This shit really happens
In the Sanctuary in Oakland with my main men Big Scott and Johnny Frizzle. Today we tore the house up to try and find my passport. We all had different vague recollections of having stowed it away somewhere in the house, but it turns out I left it at a completely different sanctuary up north […]
Well well well
What Providence, What Divine Intelligence … so i am leaving the Wagon today and headed to a different brighter spot up the road a bit. I am looking forward to it very much and i believe its the best way to get my thing going before i head to China and begin life as a […]
If Babylon falls in my lifetime
Nicole be twitterin with Questlove these days cuz he is in P-town freezin his ass off … i mean it aint that cold up here but for him … used to the sun and all … Is the Apocalypse nigh? I met a dude in Eugene who saw 7 of the 13? crystal skulls and […]
I take my music whereever I go
because I’m just so in love with it. I beatbox walkin down the block a lot and sing in easy soul rhymes. My gait loses me in the funk and I must look wild to passersby. Its so easy to slip into a soulwalk in any town on any street, I flash it out like […]
Every step of the way
I realized something very profound this morning and i am going to try and explain as best i can. it began when i thought about this scene in a movie i watched, in which a man said to another, lets have a moment. they then looked each other in the eyes and “had a moment”. […]
Opportunities
I trust myself now more than ever. I thought to myself the death of Wall Street could only be a boon for me and mine. I had a feeling there was an air of excitement building up … i felt guilty saying it, but i did anyway. peep this video, an Addendum to the Zeitgeist […]