1557 Noe St., San Francisco

April 28-30, 1999

This journal is almost over, I started it on April 30, 1989 and I think ten years is a nice neat time period for it to cover. What comes next I have no idea. The decade of my 20's behind me, starting my 30's, still not wanting to live much longer than that, if that at all.

Behind me are Oberlin, Amina, Josephine, Shiho, Japan, law school, international travel, hatred of parents, and first stage spiritual growth. My whole past life is behind me. It feels like the things that were fleeting and impermanent have come and gone, and now whatever comes has to have some meaning, some tangibility and permanence. Do my 30's need to be more concrete? It feels that way, but really it never works out that way, but if things are exactly like they were in my 20's, what’s the point?

I had some closure with Amina. Oberlin has an “on-line community” for alumni now and once you register, you can look people up and find out their latest information, and I found out that she’s living in Chicago now and is still married to Waldo. Just seeing that concrete information settled some of whatever dust is still lingering. And there isn’t much, it’s just that the memory of her and loving her so dearly has become so much a part of me. As I’ve noted before, it has nothing to do with who she is or where she is now.

I remember tender moments of our friendship. At the end of the semester that we met, we were walking back to my apartment from Third World House where we had said goodbye to Jenny for the Summer. It was a warm May night and Amina slipped her arm in mine. At the airport the next day I hugged her at the gate and felt that I couldn’t let go of her, and I never did. That entire semester getting to know her was golden. The first time I saw her I remember thinking that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Love at first sight in the lobby of Third World House, fluorescent lighting, Amina in profile as she walked by.

At the beginning of our acquaintance, in fact just a few days after I had engineered meeting her at Third World House dining hall, I remember her calling from behind as I was walking to Third World House after a class for lunch. I was so happy to see her, so happy that she had called out, so happy that she remembered me, so happy that she was taking the same class I was coming from, and so happy that we were going to lunch together.

I remember at the end of that semester we were studying for the final for that class in her dorm room. It was getting later and later and our concentration on the subject matter was waning. When she was falling asleep I said that I should probably get going, she said, “no.” It was so sweet, and we fell asleep where we were and when I woke up she had already left for class.

She went back to Pakistan that Summer and she did her Fall semester in Dublin. I borrowed Nobuko’s car to pick her up from the Amtrak station in Elyria when she returned for Winter Term in January, I remember how cold it was and the anticipation of seeing Amina again. I remember my heart skipping beats when she got off the train.

We had harder times that Spring semester because of tensions between us. I moved to an off-campus apartment at the end of Winter Term, I remember Amina coming over to help me clean it, it was her that made it feel like home. I remember her room in Old Barrows that she shared with Sunita and someone else. I remember that she had a place in Mudd Library, second floor I think, where she always went to study, where I would always look to find her, where she would be if she wanted me to find her.

The only extant photograph I have of Amina is from Mayfair, when the Can Consortium played in front of Finney Chapel. She and a bunch of friends came out to see the gig. I remember that day through that photograph.

After I graduated I was going to Japan and I stopped to see her in Chicago on my way there. What I remember is mostly from photographs that I remember. I don’t have them anymore, but I remember the images. And through them I remember some of the moments. The flour fight, irreverently lying on a kitchen counter, the red car with a phone that belonged to the family she was staying with – the woman of the house being Amina’s mother’s schoolmate way back when.

After I returned to the US, I drove out to Oberlin to visit her and then we went to Chicago together to visit Pasha. I remember a night that we were sleeping on Pasha’s floor, our heads were close, our hands touched. I remember back at Oberlin, we were staying at Madoka’s and Vikki’s house until the dorms opened, that’s when and where it happened. What I remember is waking up kissing her, and it crossed my mind that it was impossible and at any moment she was going to wake up and that would be the end of that. But she was awake and she was kissing me back.

Those weeks of Winter Term were the height of our romance and it was all downhill from there. Looking back it ended just as soon as it began. It was a long distance relationship through the semester and I was struggling with my home relationship and figuring out what I was supposed to do next. We spent the summer together and we had a rough time. It was enough for me to be with the woman I loved, but it wasn’t enough for her. After the summer I drove out to California alone, and we tried to revive our long distance relationship, but by year’s end it was over.

But if I were able to re-live one part or aspect of any relationship, it wouldn’t be any part of the relationship with Amina. It would be during the semester that Amina was away in Dublin when I went out briefly with Hiromi. I was forcing myself to accept that Amina had a boyfriend and we would only remain friends. So I certainly wasn’t disappointed when I learned that Hiromi was moving into Third World House. I remember having seen Hiromi on campus the semester before and being smitten by her.

I used Japanese lessons as a subtext to meet and get to know her better. I remember early attempts at lessons in my room. We just started hanging out together more and more, I think. I remember meeting her and hanging out with her in the language lab in King where she worked. I remember her coming to my room for coffee. Often. I remember an incredible sweetness and tenderness between us. I don’t remember when we first started going out, I do remember that she slept over but we never had sex. I remember her stopping by in my room late one night after I had gotten back from a Can gig that was down near Columbus. I had laundry to do and she ate an avocado or something. I remember she stopped by my room often when she was leaving or returning to the dorm because I kept my door open almost all the time that semester.

I remember the signs of the demise of our relationship. I remember the lack of communication, empathy, or connection. I remember one time we were making out in my room and my black Guild 12-string got knocked over and broke at the headstock. I adored her, but we just weren’t right for each other. We distanced from each other and we didn’t communicate what was happening, so we didn’t work it out.

Shiho was another girlfriend whose memories have left their mark. It’s been almost three years since our last contact. She’s probably married now and may have kids. But the memories I have are not from the past decade, but from our high school years together. She should have been my high school sweetheart, I was just too stupid to realize what a great person and woman she was.

All through high school I denied that she had feelings for me. Everyone else saw it, some tried to tell me. But there were things that bugged me about her and so I made sure we just stayed friends. I was carrying a torch for someone else. That’s right. I didn’t love Shiho in high school. It’s not that I was missing something amazing that was right before my eyes. What was right before my eyes I didn’t love and I had specific reasons for not wanting to go out with her.

But it’s not that I didn’t love her. Why did we start going out two weeks before she left for Japan? I don’t remember what my feelings were, what we were doing. I don’t remember our first kiss, but I think it came as a big, uncomfortable surprise to me, quickly followed by the grief and sadness realizing she was about to leave. Did we make the most of those last two weeks? I don’t remember. It was the beginning of a very dark period in my life. I still have the cassette recorded letters that she sent me after she returned to Japan. I like to think that she still has the ones I sent her.

When I saw her next after I graduated from Oberlin, that’s when the seeds for falling in love with her were planted. After going through so many changes, seeing her in the flesh, as a relic from before those changes, being amazed that she was sitting before me and we had these old, real memories, made her real to me; made me realize that she was a special person to me. But Amina prevented anything from being maintained.

Only the next time I saw her, after Amina was out of the picture, during law school, that my love for completely blew wide open. And it didn’t last long. I felt betrayed. I felt that she betrayed me. I shouldn’t wonder – maybe Shiho is the story of my life.

<fin>

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I went to Boston this past weekend to meet up with Lisa, Neelam, Shan, and Madoka. We had an amazing time. It was just glowing. It punctuated the juxtaposition between parents and friends. They are completely different realities. They can’t mix, they are such completely different things, oil and water. I have such a great time with friends and life means so much with them, while the ‘rents are effectively trying to ruin my life by railroading it into their image of what it should be, regardless of whether I can force myself to live and maintain it. I can’t play the role they envision.

It was just so much fun being with those folks. Madoka didn’t know I was going to be there, it was supposed to be a surprise. She was attending a career forum being held there. I would have gone to Boston just to see Lisa, Neelam, and Shan, but Madoka made it imperative. I actually got the surprise. Madoka’s career forum was to be all day Saturday and I was going to show up for dinner, but on Saturday morning, I went out to a music store, and when I got back to Shan’s place, there was Madoka! Surprise! It was so great to see Madoka, she is such a wonderful being and she always touches me.

I was never really close with Shan at Oberlin, but I’d always liked him and figured we would click, but we had different sets of friends and never lived near each other and never got the chance to get to know each other. We had some really great Pasha-caliber discussions. I had almost forgotten how good it feels to talk with someone and really feel like that person is listening. Someone who gets where you’re coming from and accepts it because it’s just natural to do so. PC, plain courtesy.

It was really nice to talk with someone who responded and forced me to think and change my mind if called for. Or at least go back and be more careful with my vocabulary. That kind of communication is so enriching. On Saturday night, after a night of café hopping and drinking more caffeine than any of us could handle, Shan and I stayed up and talked for hours.

Madoka stayed with Neelam who is in Harvard grad school. It’s been a long time since Neelam and I got a chance to really sit down like we used to in Veggie dining. It slipped my mind how we used to be pretty close. At least we had a solid respect for each other.

Osaka, Japan

Approaching another autumn. My thoughts stretch back to a year ago, back to Oberlin. I remember the warmth of that semester when I think about Lisa's birthday, almost exactly a year ago, when Christine and I got her a puppy. I remember how we picked her up at a local farm and how small and cute she was. She got sick in the car and she was so weak and disoriented. After we got back to Oberlin, I took care of the puppy outside of Third World House, but everyone passing by helped out. The weather was so warm. Frances was living in the dorm, I had met Luyen and we were having fun in our acquaintance, Hiromi and I had our intimate coffee. My room was so comfortable. It was my best academic semester at Oberlin as well.

Then there was the cold of November. I remember kicking out my window when Luyen was messing things up between Hiromi and me. I remember looking out that broken window into the early evening sky, melancholy and darkening. Lights of windows glowing sad at the shortened days. The air cold and still, the sounds sparking memories from far away. Hiromi and Luyen are the coldest memories, drinking too much, and lying out in the snow covered golf course near the cemetery late at night hoping to freeze, already freezing.



I can take any single memory from that semester and be really disgusted at it in one moment, and in another be really nostalgic about it. The occurrences of the events are fact, but they have such extreme feelings attached to them that how I remember them are dependent upon how I feel now. So what of my memories is real?, surely not my feelings about them. And what of my feelings about my now?

I’m leaving for Taiwan in two days, and then classes start soon after I get back. The weekend after I get back I’m going to Tokyo to visit Shiho and Mark Holdaway. It all starts to come together. I won’t actively do anything about Shiho. She still is seeing someone and that’s good enough of a reason to lay off and watch what happens. I’ll wait and see what vibes I get when I visit her. I can’t wait to see her again.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Well, I’ve gone and done it. I graduated from Oberlin College. It was a beautiful day. I had played my last gig with the Can Consortium at Illumination the night before. Before that gig I played for the last time with They Might Be Asians at an Asian American parent appreciation night at Third World House. The only thing that dampened the whole experience was the ‘rents having flown in for the occasion. I tried my best to get them to go to Tom’s medical school graduation at Brown on the same day. So I avoided and ignored them as much as possible. I let them know that I didn’t appreciate them being there. They had no right to be there. They paid for my being there, but they had nothing to do with anything I did there. I hope they were livid.


Illumination - Finney Steps, May 24, 1992


I'm not positive this is from the Parent Appreciation gig.

I drove a bunch of people to the airport, including Amina, Diem, and Vikki. Amina is spending the summer in Chicago with a college friend of her mother’s. On the way to the airport, Amina said that if she were to marry anyone, it would be me. Tug, but I also know that she doesn’t plan to marry anyone. I would marry Amina in a second, I know it would work. I don’t think I’ve shed much light on the huge amount of affection between us, even through the tense moments this past semester. The intimacy and familiarity that was Amina made her home to me. Amina is permanently part of my life and nothing in the world can change that.


Taking Diem to the airport. That's Amina's hair as she got in the front seat.


Jenny came by to say goodbye to Amina when she left.


So now I’m in New Jersey spending the month preparing to leave the country for Japan. I still have no idea what I’m doing. Nothing has changed about being in New jersey. My thinking is clouded, I lose all motivation and my mood changes by the half hour. The fight with the ‘rents is no where near ending. My life as a battlefield is in total shambles.

Oberlin Commencement 1992

Waiting to start the procession

Hiromi and Vikki

I don't know why Amina hid her face when I walked by. If I didn't know better . . .

Love the beach balls.

If I didn't know better, Amina was looking sad because I was graduating. But I know better.

When I got up on the platform, one of the funnest things I've ever done was start snapping shots of the graduating class.

224 College St., Oberlin

Just a couple more days to graduation. Amina mentions she has a crush on someone. Careless comment. If she only knew. I hid the wrenching inside me and talked a lot to detach, gave her puppy love my blessing and after a while I even started feeling better.

I left her at a new downtown coffeeshop to go running. I jogged home, changed and stretched and hit the road at running pace. Not a smart idea since my knee still hasn't fully recovered from over-extending it doing a side-kick on the bag in the Asia House basement. I’ve been trying to nurse the knee up to strength and it’s been hard, but for some reason I have to run or I get antsy.

I didn’t care. Adrenalin was pumping from the moment I left the coffeeshop. I hit a stride and pushed to maintain it. I passed two discarded beer bottles and kept going, don’t stop. I headed off on a course that I considered my long course which I haven’t been able to do for a while. I arbitrarily decided to end in front of Old Barrows. Old B., Amina’s dorm. It suddenly became the most important run of my life and I couldn’t stop until I got to the end. When my knee started bothering me, I slowed down but pushed on. Then my ankles started aching and I started thinking about my shin-splints from high school track. They say you never get rid of shin-splints. Which is OK as long as you never lose the fire.

I believe in reciprocal, circular love. Loving yourself is the most important element of loving someone else. Selfishness as a form of giving. So why did I keep running after it started to really hurt? Some element is missing. In the sea of love, there are no shores. The only hope is to give up your life.

But not even Amina is crushing me, humbling me. Is she here to teach me something? I think I’ve missed the lesson. And as running goes, things come, things pass, things go. Time is paced and you don’t stop.

224 College St., Oberlin

I’ve decided to stop drinking. In a moment, I had poured all the alcohol in my apartment down the drain. Alcohol had taken a symbolic position in my life, things ran in cycles and the times that I bottomed out and got smashed helped mark the cycles. I would plunge into life-threatening oblivion and wake up the next morning and find myself disappointed at still being alive.

At the same time I’d feel refreshed, I’d get on my feet and feel a sense of renewal. I could stand on my feet and it would feel so good that I was able to. I could be dead and I may still wish I had died, but I’m not, here I am, life goes on, start picking up the pieces of the previous night, day, or week. Go about my day and don’t let anyone know what had just happened. When things went too far, alcohol helped throw everything in the air so that things could resettle and restart.

But now I feel that alcohol has served its function. It helped me get through college and the type of stress college life brings, but that’s over. Now it’s life and alcohol is not going to help me function in life. I don’t need the anger it brings, not the depression, not the pain.

I was in bed and I couldn’t get to sleep, staring at the ceiling. I started thinking about every aspect of my life and everything in it. It was all so depressing. There wasn’t a single thing that didn’t frustrate me and seem futile. I realized that despite how real those stressors seemed, those feelings were being exacerbated by the alcohol that I had consumed earlier. The function alcohol served has ceased to be productive.

In a few days, my time at Oberlin will be over. It feels like it has been my whole life. Whatever happened before Oberlin is so inconsequential now. Everyone says “congratulations”, but I don’t see what’s the big deal. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I was tracked into college, and completing the course work was inevitable. It wasn’t a huge challenge and I didn’t even find what I wanted to study until too late. Kind of a waste. But at least I got a lot out of the last year when I did study what I wanted to.

What I’ve studied hasn’t prepared me for the next step. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I’m directionless with only a vague plan to go to Japan and find something there. I keep fading between realities. Sometimes I feel that the symbolic world really is all of reality, which is where most human beings seem to be. Sometimes I feel that I’m missing many simple things that other people are able to get, and therefore they are able to get more out of what they are doing than I do. Sometimes I realize the impermanent nature of the symbolic world and that is the basis of truth, the beginning of a journey that I want to be on. And that is the perspective I feel I’m leaning towards, that the symbolic world isn’t all of reality, but only that - symbolic of a reality that we can’t touch with our limited knowledge of life, reality and existence.

May Fair pics

Amina, Diem

Oberlin Can Consortium:

The picture above was taken by one of them below:

Taken by me, during someone else's solo.


Amina


Diem, Amina

Tour '92

A blizzard hit the night before and the day of our departure for Spring Tour. We were in good spirits, though, and we decided on strict caravan guidelines traveling from Oberlin to Ithaca, NY, an eight or nine hour drive. The caravan guidelines were for the benefit of the Ryder truck, which we felt would have the most difficult time in the snow.

Strict caravan guidelines, my ass. Within 20 minutes of getting on the Interstate, the Ryder truck took off, leaving the three cars in the dust. We all lost each other soon after. The Ryder truck got to Ithaca in record time, while each of the other cars went off the road, one car went off the road twice. I was lucky enough to have been driving when our car went off the road, and after I had regaled them with stories of me falling asleep at the wheel but always waking up in time, I was banned from driving for the rest of the tour. The final car reached Ithaca right when we were supposed to start playing. We had already set up, and we gave them just enough time to settle their nerves before playing.

Supplemental entry: All December entries were lost in a disk crash. In their place, I'm placing my final exam for that incredible religion seminar:

Religion 103: Self and Community in Western Traditions
Professor J. Morris
December 20, 1991
Final Exam

Part one:

Religion is an integral part of modern societies, and exposure to religion, religious symbols, or religious teachings is almost unavoidable. There are, of course, varying definitions of “religion”. There are many people who are considered religious due to their involvement in their respective religious communities. There are still many other people who consider themselves religious, despite little involvement or interaction with established religious institutions. The emphasis in modern societies, perhaps due to their visibility and public presence, is on the institution of religion rather than its spirituality. Religion as the basis of spiritual or personal quests is overwhelmingly overshadowed by the normative and social character of religious institutions.

All through history there has existed a tension between dominant religious institutions against sub-cultures striving for a deeper spiritual commitment. Religious institutions regularly have involved themselves in extra-religious practices and activities, which reinforced their institutional legitimacy, but which arguably deviated from their spiritual mandate.

The readings of this past semester emphasized the personal and spiritual component of religion. Instead of an external force that is presented and given to people, religion is something found within individuals. Individuals are the source and vehicle of religion, rather than a vessel for religion. Individuals are established as the source of religion because people primarily listen to themselves. People are bombarded by external stimuli and when something has meaning or when an individual learns something, it is more that the individual realizes something from within, rather than taught something from the outside.

Three of the readings of the past semester which illuminated the spiritual path are the Ibn al-‘Arabi essays, particularly “What the Student Needs”, Bahya Ibn Pakuda’s Book of Guidance to the Duties of the Hearts, and The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar. All three works suggest that the ultimate form of human perfection is being on the spiritual path. The Conference of the Birds portrays the spiritual path through a journey parable, while the other two works are more direct and concrete discourses on the spiritual path.

In The Conference of the Birds, the spiritual path is portrayed as a journey that each individual must decide to take or not take. Each of the representative birds has an excuse not to undertake the journey, however the guide-bird, the hoopoe, has a response for each excuse. The collective excuses of the birds represent attachment to earthly desires, passions, and vanity. All of the birds have it within themselves to be on the path, and they understand that the spiritual path is the way to God, the Simorgh, their true king. However, the attachments to the pleasures of the material world are strong, and the ease of remaining within the material world overshadows the suffering involved in human existence. The hoopoe sheds light on their hypocrisy and encourages them to leave behind their petty attachments to material things.

The Ibn al-‘Arabi essays and the Bahya readings discuss the spiritual path in more concrete terms. They are moral works in that they present actual prescriptions for following the spiritual path, but they do not tell how people should act. Instead, the morality is expressed through an investigation of how people want to be and behave. By having people recognize how they want to be, they show people that they want to be on the spiritual path.

Upon self-reflection, humans find moral behavior within themselves, it is not something imposed on individuals. The realization of innate moral behavior and desire for it leads to spiritual discovery. Moral behavior, as one component of the spiritual path, leads to happiness and spiritual fulfillment.

A major difference in The Conference of the Birds and the other two works is the goal of the spiritual path that Attar presents. The journey’s end in The Conference of the Birds is a meeting with the Simorgh, who is a reflection of themselves. At the end of the journey, they find that they themselves are the Simorgh, they are their own true king. Unlike the Ibn al-‘Arabi and Bahya essays, Attar implies that God is not at all an entity outside of us, judging and being worshiped by us, but is an intimate part of our natures. Self-realization is a central component of the spiritual path and being nearer to God. If the spiritual path implies “service to God”, then “service to God” involves an intense introspection into the Self and the nature of the Self and its behavior.

All three works suggest that all people have what is needed to follow the path, and all people have the potential to want to be on the path. But in truth, not all people want to be on the path, and not all people who want to be on the path find their way onto it. There must be gradations to the path since it would not seem reasonable that the authors are presenting the spiritual path as an all or none option. Attar does not consider gradations, however the Bahya reading makes the different levels of the spiritual path most clear.

It would be too difficult to discuss why individuals end up on certain levels, but the Bahya makes it clear that there are many different levels of the spiritual path, ranging from simple moral action to the ascetic lifestyle, and that there are many levels of aptitude for realizing the desire to be on the spiritual path and approaching it. However, in the reading excerpts, the attainment of the purpose of the spiritual path only suggest the final stage of entering God’s presence. There is little discussion of what happens to individuals who have lower levels of aptitude and who are on lower levels of the spiritual path. In The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan deals with the issue in a cursory manner by stating that some people are turned away from the Gates even though they have spent their entire lives reaching them. It is unclear what is said about attaining merit and aptitude to reach higher levels.

If the ultimate state of human perfection is to attain the highest level of the spiritual path as aptitude allows, then whatever means is taken in pursuit of that path is religion. The spiritual path is an individual path, one that must be accomplished by oneself. No one else can attain aptitude for someone else and no one can find it for someone else. Religious leaders, prophets, teachers, etc. can only point the way and give clues.


Part two:

What is the role or meaning (if any) of human suffering in religion? What do your sources understand to be the source(s) of human suffering? Is that suffering “evil”, unjust, and something that can/should be eliminated from the world?

Without suffering, there would be no religion. Likewise, as a result of suffering, religion exists. From earliest times of human existence, humans have suffered through physical hardships of survival in hostile natural environments and death. Out of those two sources of suffering, two concepts essential to the development of “religious” thought can be derived. The concept of powers beyond human control, or “gods”, can be developed out of the first, and the concept of a “soul” or the “self” comes out of the latter. Furthermore, religious concepts naturally develop from suffering as a source of comfort to help explain the unknown and to offer the idea of a divine purpose to misfortune.

There are many definitions and perspectives on human suffering. There are obvious forms of suffering which occur intermittently and affect people directly. Then there is a general type of suffering which is the basis of Buddhist belief; the first of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism states that “life is suffering”. This concept that suffering is inherent in human existence is tied to the transient and impermanent nature of everything in the material world.

In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, there is the idea of suffering as divine encouragement. Bunyan portrays it more simply in the form of Christian’s amorphous “burden”. Book One of The Pilgrim’s Progress starts with Christian’s recognition of his burden. Just as with the first Noble Truth, Bunyan is presenting the recognition of the need to transcend earthly suffering as the starting point of the spiritual path. The actual source of Christian’s recognition of his burden was the Bible. When Worldly-Wiseman asks how Christian first came across his burden, Christian replies, “By reading this book in my hand” (p. 61). Also in Christian’s exchange with Worldly-Wiseman, Christian states that the burden placed on him by reading the Bible is greater than any earthly burden or suffering possible. It is only because of the suffering caused by the recognition of his burden that Christian devotes his life to the spiritual path.

The suffering endured historically by the Jews is the direct kind of suffering which is manifested in actual occurrences, but a divine dimension is attributed to their experience and persecution. The stories in Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust detail the suffering inflicted on Jews merely because of their religion. The sentiment of divine purpose is frequently expressed in trying to find an explanation for their suffering. Their suffering is perceived to be all the more reason to have stronger faith in God. The idea being that it is only the truly faithful who can maintain faith in a God who can inflict such suffering and it is they who are the most deserving of His grace. In this case, human suffering is a test of faith and a reminder to be humble as a human being and before God.

To be religious is not necessarily to be humanitarian. In a religious cosmology, suffering is a part of human existence and a necessary encouragement to follow the religious path. A strict religious reading perceives suffering as positive. Unfortunately, though suffering is often requisite for religiosity, religiosity is not necessarily the result of suffering. It would be considered heartless to suggest to a homeless person that their condition is divinely sanctioned and that they should perceive their plight as positive and that following a spiritual path is the best alternative to alleviate their burdens. It is also heartless to suggest that their plight is their religious station in this life and they will gain merit in the eyes of God because of it. It is difficult to reconcile the utility of religion when those who most deserve it find themselves without the spiritual aptitude to embark on the spiritual path.

It is difficult to account for the mass suffering which renders daily life a misery for so many. It is only when social consciousness is suspended that religion can offer any explanation. Religion would suggest that the world is perfect just the way it is, and that there is a reason for all the suffering and imperfections.

The films “Tender Mercies” and “Bagdad Café” portray suffering as an integral part of human interaction and as part of the perfection of the world. Suffering is necessary for realizing the value of life and appreciating it. In “Tender Mercies”, it is after Mac’s daughter dies that he breaks down and questions why things happen the way they do. Suffering offers a contrast to complacency and drives people to search for intangibles. But suffering is a part of life and life itself goes on, Mac breaks down and rants and then goes and plays catch with his stepson in the final scene.

In “Bagdad Café” the suffering people cause one another is the background of much of the human interaction. Jasmene ends up in Bagdad only after fighting with her spouse. The fight itself, which begins the film, is incomprehensible (in German) and is complete with petty unkindness, violence and abandonment. The cuts within the scene are sharp and disjunct and the camera angles are askew. As for Brenda, her character is introduced as verbally and emotionally abusive, but she gets little reaction or recognition from the people around her. Her husband leaves, but practically shrugs while leaving. It is her vicious treatment of Jasmene, further into the film, that opens her eyes. Only after the self-realization of being abusive towards a person who at worst was only trying to help does a transformation begin. Humans inflict suffering upon other humans, and in the course of daily lives it is the lack of questioning one’s actions that perpetuates that suffering.

The human world may be perfect, but it is not the Garden of Eden where there is no suffering. To be in the Garden of Eden is to be within God’s grace and “religiosity” is built into the fabric of existence there. The human world is a classroom filled with suffering, and it is through suffering that we approach the intangibles that lead us to spiritual questioning and realization.




Are all human beings equally “alone” with God, or are there other spiritual “intermediaries” between them? If so, who/what are they and what is their religious importance for us?

The spiritual path must be traveled alone. The distance between any person and God is a personal distance and closing that distance is a personal endeavor and does not affect the distance between anyone else and God. However, any number of sources indicate that there are intermediaries between individuals and God who are closer to God and help point the way. The Western religious traditions generally accept the notion of saints, angels, and prophets of God who serve such a function, and they are generally presented as necessary for bringing people closer to God.

The Pilgrim’s Progress begins with Christian recognizing his burden, and in his anguish he implores heaven for help. The next step in putting Christian on the spiritual path, on the second page of the narrative, is the entrance of Evangelist. Evangelist acts as the intermediary between Christian and God. He is already closer to God and he knows of the path. However, he cannot bring Christian to God and he cannot travel the path for Christian. He can only point in the direction that the path leads. Without Evangelist, as is Bunyan’s suggestion, Christian wouldn’t have found the path or embarked on it.

In the story of Teresa of Lisieux, Teresa feels that many people have the potential of realizing the spiritual path, but they need help. She recognizes herself as an agent of that help and she wishes death upon herself in order to transcend her limited terrestrial existence in which she can only help people one person at a time. From a higher level of existence, she could help people en masse and without physical limitations.

One portrayal of that higher existence is in “Wings of Desire”. Although “Wings of Desire” is more of a metaphysical portrayal, rather than a religious one, the ideas can be translated into religious contexts. “Wings of Desire” portrays two levels of existence on the same physical plane, and they don’t physically interact. One level of existence is tangible, the other, on which the angels exist, is intangible. The angels on the intangible level of existence are there by virtue of their command and understanding of the nature of the tangible level of existence. They have transcended their physical existence. They can observe us, but we can’t see them. They can influence us, but they cannot command us.

An analogy to the different levels of existence is dimensional space. A being existing in two dimensional space simply cannot see anything in three dimensions. It can see an object in three dimensional space, but it can only see a two dimensional cross section of it; basically something very, very flat. In the same way, a three dimensional being cannot conceive of how something looks in four dimensions. We cannot point into the fourth dimension in the way we can point into the three dimensions of height, width and depth.

To follow through with the analogy, angels exist as if they were in the fourth dimension. We cannot even conceive of their existence, but it does not mean that they are not in the same physical space that we occupy. They understand our existence in the way beings in a higher dimension understand beings in a lower dimension. To keep with the analogy, the ability of angels to interact with us is limited in a similar way to a fourth dimensional being interacting with a three dimensional being. The interaction that we feel is intangible and incomprehensible.

The angels in “Wings of Desire” are intermediaries between humans and God. They can wish to guide us, but they are powerless to interact. The potency of their guidance relies on each person’s spiritual aptitude, their sensitivity or receptiveness to the angel’s wishes or guidance. They whisper and we hear, but we choose whether or not to listen. God is not portrayed explicitly in the film, but the role of the angels as intermediaries may be interpreted from one of the final scenes when the circus performer exhibits great depth and insight to the angel who has come down to earth. Just as the birds in The Conference of the Birds find the Simorgh and it is suggested that they are the Simorgh, the angel in “Wings of Desire” fulfills his role as intermediary by opening her heart and leading her to her own insight.

The concept of intermediaries is an integral part of all major religious systems. In Buddhism, the description and role of bodhisattvas are surprisingly congruent with “angels”. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who have transcended the physical world, however because of their boundless compassion, they will not enter nirvana until all beings can enter at once. There is much potential for the concepts of bodhisattvas and angels to inform one another.

There is no proof that there are intermediaries between humans and God, but their prevalence in religious belief systems and the popular psyche leaves no doubt about their importance. Evidence is not required, as with religion and God, the existence of intermediaries, whatever they may be called is a matter of faith.

Third World House, Oberlin

The Can Consortium had its first gig of the year at Denison University, which is about two hours away in the direction of Columbus. It was quite successful. Some songs reached their maturity during the gig and blew our minds. They just “happened”, and the audience really worked with us.


I'm almost positive this shot was really late at night when Hiromi came down for a visit after the Denison gig. I was doing laundry. She ate a squash.

The big news is that the Can Consortium has been invited to play at a competition style event at Lincoln Center! The last time we played there, I was thinking, “Remember to look out at the audience because this’ll never happen again”. I was also a novice back then, very bright-eyed and green. The gig is on Sunday Dec. 1st and we already have a gig scheduled for the night before. That means we’ll play a gig, load up, get last minute shit together and drive all night! I’m excited. I hope it happens.

Christine, Jean, Sylvia, and I were having fun with Sylvia’s psychic ability. Cards. She’s really good, there’s something about Sylvia, like she’s a locus for that kind of energy. What she gets out of the cards are shockingly congruent with peoples’ perceptions and claims. A lot of people say she’s almost always right.

So I chose four people, Amina, Diem, Neelam, and Lisa, and if I were to marry one of these people, it would be Lisa. So I chose the four people and could ask questions about them. Amina would be the first to be published. Diem would be the first to die. Neelam would live the longest and make the most money. No wonder. The cards gave “none or all” answers to both who would be the happiest with her life and whose dreams will come true. The same answer was given for which was the romantic. I thought if the cards were accurate, they would surely sniff out Amina as the romantic. But either all of them are or none.

In a relationship, Amina would get the most happiness out of me and there would be the most romance, average fights, and bad or less than average sex. Lisa collected a lot of the “sex” cards, which was a hoot and a holler to us, since none of us present thought of Lisa as being particularly sexual or sexually inclined.

What was funny was that I declared that if Lisa got married, wherever I was, I would go to her wedding. For no one else would I do that, not even my brothers, but if Lisa got married, I’m there. So at the end, when Sylvia turned over the card I had pulled out of the deck at the beginning, which represented who out of the four I would marry, and it was Lisa . . . a hoot and a holler. All very amusing. We were all very amused.

Tomorrow is Lisa’s birthday and we’re thinking of getting her a puppy. Christine is looking into it.

Third World House, Oberlin

I’ve become busy and three of my twelve credits haven’t even been implemented. Too much socializing, just the right amount of steel drumming, not enough physical activity. I ran a lot this summer and my muscles got accustomed to that. My classes contain a much needed overdose of religion. I wish I had been a religion major, I get such a charge from those classes, even though the people in some of them really annoy me. Sometimes it’s the professor.

I’m taking my first class in a “Western” religion. The Western orientation of the class is unfamiliar which makes it a trifle hostile, but I appreciate the challenge. And it’s quite strange how I got the class. Apparently it’s a really hard class to get into, especially for seniors since it’s a seminar intended for first years and sophomores who are considering being religion majors. And I hadn’t signed up for it. I had signed up for a class called “Life and Teachings of Jesus”, but when I got my registration card over the summer, it instead had “Self/Comm West Trad”, which I couldn’t even figure out what it was.

I looked it up in the course catalog and it turned out to be “Self and Community in Western Traditions”, and I read the description and was dubious. I was doubtful. But when it came time to fill out my schedule, no other class looked inviting and since it was already on my card, I figured I’d check it out.

It might do. My main reservation is that everyone else in the class seems somewhat familiar with the subject material, whereas my background is Buddhist. Well, I’m not sure I feel comfortable calling myself “Buddhist”, but it definitely speaks a language I have thus far understood and related to.

Third World House, Oberlin

The summer was uneventful and numb, but it was swift. I’m OK now. I think something’s been wrong, but I can’t tell. It feels like a rug has been pulled from under me and I didn’t notice. I’m back at Oberlin and I kind of hate the place. I feel old and everyone else seems so young. Four years is a good length for college life and I’m stretching it to five. Five years and my life isn’t pulling together at all. I still feel dysfunctional, directionless, useless, and without potential.

On the other hand, returning to Third World House has the advantages of familiarity and company. I feel like I fit in and belong here, so that’s comfortable. I’ve been unusually social. I miss Amina, she’s added so much to my life, even in her absence. It’s like nothing can go wrong with her in my life, even if we’re slated to just be friends. Someone I noticed last semester has moved into Third World House. Her name is Hiromi and I’d like to find a way to engineer meeting her. Maybe Japanese lessons.



Shiho and I got through my doubts this summer and there isn’t any bad blood between us. I don’t think she would hold things against me. She has a good heart and there’s so much I love and admire about her. If I got mad at her, she’d be very straight forward and tell me her side of the story and I’d be disarmed at her honesty. But I can’t say that I know her, so I don’t know. It’s been such a long time. We are going to have to see each other, meet up and find out what we’ve missed. Probably too much.

Fort Lee, NJ

Summer school began at the beginning of the month. I stay in the apartment above the ‘rent’s office and commute to the Village three times a week. There’s nothing special about the class, “Sociology of the Family”, a Women’s Studies course. It’s not difficult, not ground-breaking stuff, but it offers useful information and fresh perspectives in a non-challenging fashion.

It has so far been a well-balanced, serene type of Summer. Almost numbing. The tone of the Summer has been set by my own thoughts and feelings, which I keep to myself. When just left to thought, it gets a bit serious and somber, but also serene.

I go running frequently, and I have my stereo and my computer and it’s Summer. I have no complaints about this, it’s easy living. Occasionally I get together with Liz or Myung, who is in New Jersey for the Summer to spend some time with his newly discovered mother.

I like going into New York three days a week. I enjoy the mindless hour commute and deadpan faces staring into oblivion. I like playing the part of a consumer on a regular basis, getting my poppy seed bagel with cream cheese and coffee, cream no sugar, before every class. I love being nocturnal again.

I love the feel and the smell of Summer nights. There’s something mysterious and vast about them. It’s as if they’re stirring something in my memory. I can’t tell what. They remind me of some other place, a different time and different place, but I have no idea when or where. Something about the breezes, cool and silent. There’s something yearning and inviting in the Summer night sky. Something about Summer nights make me feel that this world is very much a part of the entire cosmos. And a certain flavor is given to the feeling when you’re missing someone far, far away.

My feelings towards Amina have warmed to a comfortable understanding. Whatever gets assumed from now will be what is already known. I’m not going to push anything. I know I love her and probably always will and I’m just glad that she is permanently in my life. What I’ve felt for her is real and always has been and now we know our relationship to each other and our limitations. It doesn’t change how I feel, but at least I know.

It was brave of her to use the words “I love you”, but then turn around and say “yes I do, but I’m committed, I’m sorry”. It seems she has always been honest and sincere and I greatly appreciate that.

I can’t say she did anything wrong. She didn’t lead me along, she didn’t deceive me. She gave me credit. She made a mistake but she could have waffled over it for fear of my reaction and that would have been worse. Instead, she stayed straight on the line and didn’t play any games. I should learn that, it might help me handle something in the future.

I’m trying to develop a new attitude towards the ‘rent’s. I need to be more tactful in getting what I want with the least losses and the least risks. The hate here is just not worth the energy. I do owe them. Regardless of the sluggish economy of emotions, they have financially sacrificed and invested. As for the return on the investment, I have no idea at this point.

84 S. Park, Oberlin

Still in front of the computer working on an outline for my second paper for Modern Japan. I hate this.

Hours inside, lit by incandescent light, lit by computer screen, contemplating gender stereotypes and the post-war psychology behind them in a country currently very much in daylight.

And then I walk out the front door and awestruck by the waning crescent moon. How rare to see it, usually being asleep when it’s lit on the left side. So thin and the sky already a deep indigo and only the brightest of stars visible, yellow and looking so fake so low over the horizon. Thought of Amina far over that horizon.

Take my breath away to save that image forever.

Breath taken, image saved, what about samurai values still being expressed through mass media? Any connection with worshiping women’s feet? Hey, I’m onto something now.

84 S. Park, Oberlin

I’m still trying to get words onto the computer screen for those incompletes. I’m so worthless. I’m changing sentences because they don’t fit right on the screen. Well, maybe I’m not that bad, but I think about it.

I hate my life with all the various expectations on me and all I’m trying to do is figure out what kind of person I’m to be. The ‘rents thwart that effort time and again. They’ve never recognized themselves as the problem nor do they realize that they still are. They’ve been the cause of some difficult situations. But as messily as I handled them, I think back and realize how much worse I could have handled them.

Something has to happen. Something has to change. But how do I change if they don’t? For a while I was thinking how little right I have to complain. They aren’t hitting me or being outright, intentionally malicious. They provide and pay for me in full. But what I’m doing is just swinging to the complete other side of the argument, the side in their favor. For every argument giving them the benefit of doubt, there’s a counter-argument that invalidates or overrides it.

The ways that they abuse their wealth and privilege and aren’t even aware of it. It’s disgusting, sad. I sit and wonder whether my life would have fallen apart without all the things they literally bought. Things that make it feel as if I’ve been bought.

That’s how they see it. Money means so much to them and that is how they express their love. But money is money and love is love, and if you think one is the other, you find that the receipts just don’t add up. People see their money surrounding me and see no reason why I shouldn’t be glad for what I’ve got. As if I owe them something.

People say they’re not bad. I sit and ponder what they’ve done to my life. Some things I can readily identify, many more I’m sure I won’t discover until later. Is it a coincidence that I’ve just given up on music and that is exactly what they’ve always wanted? It’s a strong position of power parents have, and they’ve put a psychological stranglehold on all my interests until there’s only one option left.

Clever. They don’t do anything. They don’t have to do anything in a mind-play. They never say, “No, you can’t”. But they know and they wait until the only option I have left is business school or law school and thank god I don’t have the merit for those options or I’d have a bullet in my head by the time I’m twenty-six.

Money works for them, so they think it’ll work on me. They’re counting on my greed and material comfort to get what they want. Bastards. But it’s my life and unlike them I can take or leave it as I please.

84 S. Park St., Oberlin

The Can Consortium got back from Spring Tour yesterday. It was really good, much better than last year. We had kick-ass gigs at Wesleyan, Hampshire College, and an “illegal” gig in Washington Square Park in NYC since we didn’t have a permit. It was probably the climax of the tour for the stress alone.

Our first gig was at a bar-restaurant in Ithaca called “The Nines”. I took a bus there from New York on the day the rest of the band traveled from Oberlin, and they picked me up at the bus station right before the gig. We didn’t play very well, but the audience liked us and the energy was enough to make it a near kick-ass gig.

We had a horrible gig at Tufts in Boston. The turnout was bad and the energy was low and I was pissed at the band. A lot of it was stress being smack in the middle of a bunch of white people playing black music and not feeling I fit in one way or another. We had a free day in Boston and I met up with Lisa, Linus and Art and we went out for dinner at an amazing Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant. It was such a breath of fresh air.


Tufts University, Boston. Myla Goldberg, future author of bestseller "Bee Season" on the left. Me with a bad attitude.

The band left Boston with a lot of negative energy and we were all kind of sick of each other by the time we got to Hampshire College. Getting lost several times didn’t help the situation. We arrived screaming rude and cocked full of attitude and went straight for the beer and alcohol. But the tension helped us when we had to play because we rocked our asses off and it was amazing. We were playing outside and it was cold and people were dancing and there was a balcony above and behind us where people were dancing and cheering.


Hampshire College, balcony view. Myla on the boogie down playing percussion.

After that gig, I slept in one of the cars because I found the “hosts”, the people who were putting us up for the night, particularly offensive, racially speaking. It was flurrying when I woke up, but I think I had a better sleep than most of them. Then we had to decide whether or not we wanted to play at Washington Square Park. We had discussed doing the gig back at Oberlin, but since it was in public and wasn’t booked, it wasn’t something we had to do.

It looked grim. We were split and under the gun since if we wanted to do the gig, we would have to leave immediately and about half of us were up for just chilling. It was also snowing and we were all pretty tired. We decided to head down to New York and left the decision up in the air.

When we got to New York, the weather was actually pretty nice. It was an ordeal getting all the vehicles into the Washington Square Park area and parked since we all got separated on the way down (apparently the Ryder truck carrying the instruments had a pretty harrowing experience going through one of the tunnels leading into Manhattan).

It was a quick decision to play, no real discussion, just a few adamant “let’s do it”s and anyone against didn’t have much say. There was particular urgency on the part of the person driving the truck. Once the Ryder was on the sidewalk, either we were playing or the truck was getting the hell out of there. So we schlepped and we schlepped and set up the pans faster than we ever did before. A huge crowd gathered on all sides and the excitement was electric and we ripped through our set. It was quite scary. The police were present but they didn’t bother us, they were content just to ticket the Ryder truck.



After playing for about 40 minutes, we broke down and packed up faster than we ever had before. At the end of the day, we got a $60 ticket for parking the truck on the sidewalk, but we managed to collect over $200 in merchandise and . . . pan-handling.

Our last gig was at a lower Manhattan church on Sunday morning since one of our member’s father was a priest or something. I went home to New Jersey after the Washington Square Park gig, and drove in for the gig. It was a pretty good gig, and afterwards I parted ways with the band, picked up Ching Ching who was staying in Harlem and we headed back to Oberlin.


Spontaneous band shot just after arriving in Middletown, CT, for our Wesleyan gig.


Wesleyan University

I felt really strange being back today. It felt as if something had changed; nothing permanent I’m sure. I really didn’t want to hang out with Asians and I didn’t even eat dinner at Third World House. I felt a distinction between personal identity and community identity and I didn’t feel like I wanted to attach myself to crowds, be them Asian or white.

It seems odd that it’s possible to separate community and personal identities, but it’s something about the Asian American community. The feeling is that it’s just a clique, or a bunch of cliques, bunches of people who have something in common but don’t feel it deep within. It’s superficial.

It’s so hard for us who have to identify ourselves through community, rather than have our identities define the community. I don’t find any support through the community per se, they’re just the friends that I have through default. I don’t like hanging out with white people. It would seem that community should be able to act as some sort of support structure and this one doesn’t.

I look at people in the Asian American community, both people I know well and people I hardly know, and something seems intangibly sad in them. So many are so fucked up it’s incredible. The politics exist and are valid, but psychologically a lot seems to be going ignored. The community here is characterized by some social pathology it seems.

I don’t feel like being a part anymore. There is something humiliating about it. Something humiliating on the same lines as living in this white society and with a white culture which erases you, ignores you, appropriates your people, their identities, and their culture at their convenience. It is humiliating trying to put yourself in any group of people when you really don’t belong. And it’s not the color of your skin or your roots or origins, it’s the people. And what kind of community is it when you didn’t even know it existed until college?

84 S. Park St, Oberlin

School business has started. I really regret being an EAS major, what a stupid major to be. I regret not having taken more substantive classes, things like Sociology, Women’s Studies, and Third World Studies. I simply didn’t come to college with that kind of focus. College was assumed to follow high school, no choice in the matter. What a waste.

Sakuko has started calling me, I wish she wouldn’t. Everything has changed and what’s in the past has passed. After we broke up, I wrote two nice letters to her and she didn’t respond. Her silence has set how I feel now and I don’t want to hear from her now. We can't resume something now. It’s too difficult.

84 S. Park St, Oberlin

Time passes so quickly. Winter Term is running down to its last few days and I still have a lot to do with this recording project. Ken and I have run into tensions. He seems to have flip-flopped and instead of being stressed about getting it done, he’s not so concerned about it and tells me not to stress or worry about getting it done. He said something the other day which I think really puts it into perspective. He said the project is more mine than his. And that’s the main source of the tension because that one comment made us both look unfavorably on the project.

He does have a point, though. They are his songs, he did the writing and it’s his expression, but the recording is my production and more of me is going into these songs than he would ever intend. Maybe I’m diluting the songs by putting a dimension of me into them and so I think he thinks I’m trying to usurp the songs or the project. Which would explain why I’ve been losing sleep doing this project. But if he’s disassociating himself from the project because he thinks I’m taking control of it, that makes me disassociate from it because these aren’t my songs, they aren’t my expression, I’m not the talent involved here. The value of my work only exists if he sees value in it.

Today I worked for about five hours on “The Ballad of Charlie Ohara”, “The Damage is Done”, and “Seven Years”, getting them ready for Ken to put down vocals. I ran into the time that we had agreed to get together and I think he was pissed at having to wait. It pretty much summed up the tension between us. But when he put down some vocals and they turned out really well, I think he was happier about that because he could finally hear results of what we’ve been doing. But then I think I pissed him off again by cutting things short because I had to meet Pasha and Ann for dinner and I wasn’t about to cancel on time with Pasha.

Weekend had more babies. I’ve got thirteen gerbils in that ten gallon tank. There were eight new babies total, but two died. Such innocence. Such life, not knowing anything, just doing what it does - live. Then being crushed, having that life squeezed out and feeling pain, but not really since it didn’t know what pain is. Then being dead. Was that a soul right there, come and gone?

84 S. Park St, Oberlin

Winter Term
For Winter Term, Ken and I are arranging and recording a bunch of his songs on my four-track. I finally accepted how good his songs are and I approached him last semester about recording them. When I first heard his songs I was able to admit they were clever, but I condescendingly brushed them off as being lightweight because they were humorous. I think it was a blow to my pride to admit that he was a much better songwriter than I am.

But the more I heard and the more he played them at coffeehouses, there was no denying that he is an exceptional songwriter. He writes a lot of songs with Asian American issues and themes and what he invokes with his lyrics are stunning. The more I get to know the songs, I’m realizing that this is quality material in every aspect. The lyrics are amazing, the melodies are catchy, the music is simple but solid, the stories are developed, and the subject matter relevant.

My doubts are now about whether I can rise to the occasion and contribute to them without taking anything away from them. My own stuff is pretty inaccessible and I think my arrangements are also overly complicated and equally inaccessible. So my approach in recording Ken’s songs will have to emphasize simplicity and taste.

Aside from recording Ken's songs and rehearsing with the steel drum band, which I just rejoined after they were kind enough to let me back in (after I quit for a semester because I didn't like being the only person of color in an all white band playing black music), I’m re-recording the vocals of the "One After Another" set of songs I recorded in 1989. My voice back then was so bad that I can hardly bring myself to listen to those songs. But it’s bad, that collection was done, why can’t I just let it rest? That’s what I did back then, why can’t I just accept them the way they are? I hope this isn’t the pattern of my life where I’m constantly going back to re-do things that I should just let go of. Two steps forward, one step back. I’ll make an exception for this project because I think re-recording these vocals will be a significant improvement over what’s on tape now.

Future insertion: Songs with vocals/guitar re-recorded during this time period:

You Don't Have To

I guess you got a problem if you're only happy hurting yourself

But who am I to say it's a problem?

After all, you're happy

There are some things you'll never do

Some things you'll never say

Some things put off for another day

Any time now, any time

Why not tomorrow?

Why not today?

Right now, right, right now

If it's really right

I guess you got a problem if you got a goal no one can agree with

I guess you got a problem if you're stuck on labels of the human myth

I guess you got a problem if you're caught between expectations and images

I guess you got a problem with communication

I guess you got a problem with relationships

I guess you got a problem if your only wish is to be someone like yourself

Hey there, over there, are you waiting for something?

Something you know may never come

Something you're sure has already begun

And you tell me you'll never see the stars the same way again

In each one lies a memory, but in each one also lies a destiny to choose

And you choose 'cos you have nothing to lose

So you lose it and you can't decide on how you're gonna prove it's alright

Your vision's still in sight or so you think once or twice every day

So you know it as a fact but is that all there may be

To keep your ideals intact and what about your sanity?

A string of indecision may be all you may need

To find yourself off the track, are you scared you won't see?

The crossing up ahead is not for safety

It's not gonna make your crossing risk-free

You may be free of care, but still not carefree

Instead you're gonna have to realize

How many people survive to keep you alive

Some people tell you to be more serious

Some tell you to stop thinking so much

Some people tell you to be more social

Some tell you to stop drinking so much

Some people tell you to not burn yourself out

Some tell you you're not doing enough

Some people tell you you're much too blatant

Some tell you you're not open enough

Some people know that they know it all

You think you know nothing at all

Some people kill to get up that ladder

You're willing to let yourself fall

Because they tell you keep it on the inside

Don't let it out, don't let anyone know

And don't care that you don't want them to cry

'Cause believe me, they'll cry

Though you may keep on asking them why

So where do you draw the line?

They don't want your kind around here

Don't bring your suicides around here

Can you only draw the line?

Will you ever realize?

I guess you got a problem if you're only happy hurting yourself

The Flow of Water, part II

That razor's gonna fall

That razor's gonna fall

Someone is gonna stand at the top

Of the Empire State Building and drop

The contents of a telephone box

All the words that were were complex verses

Poetry in motion, Times Square in a clock

Unusual habits of usual plots

Unusual habits of usual plots

I've been told many times before

To not play games I can't afford

I'm ashamed pathetic and I'm terribly bored

Of this rat race where everybody wants more

That's one game for which I'm totally broke

For which my engines are throwing up smoke

The one thing certain can't stand to debate

But it's a losing endeavor to change a fate

So I throw the rubber ball

To anyone at all interested

In some genuine moonshine

Revealing contrails against the sky

The paths of maximum resistance

Leads to lesser known planes without assistance

It's a tricky charade to a better existence

Oh I know, do I know?

How would I know?

That day is gonna come

That day is gonna come

That day is when you're shocked by the truth

That you never knew you let go of your youth

And the world from which you thought you were safe

Is here in your hometown throwing guilt in your face

And you can't ignore it and you can't escape

The social Frankenstein we all create

Oh, I can see America at night

And I can see it without any life

I'm scared plenty by the armies of ants

And the giants who crush them with their chemical plants

Oh, one more schoolgirl out on parade

In a fashion show with an image they made

With a conscience overloading heavy in red

With a load of coal for a heart that's dead

Oh, I know, dropping spit on birds

Catching venomous words, flash of light

Retrieving manuals from the Western land

To form the expose of demands

In the house of our ideal

We hear heads against walls, cooking chickens for meals

And the creaking of the stairs to the kitchen revealed

Oh sunshine, the sun shines

Some still shine

So what do we do now after all we have done?

Do we settle and feed the ending we have begun?

It isn't right, it can't be right

To prove the instance of our worth

Crawling on the edge of the railing

At the crux of our birth

This isn't what technology's about

To make us lazy and not care throughout

The process made to detach our doubts

That we may be crashing on our way out

It takes one moment in infinite time

To finally reveal we're in the firing line

To acknowledge our role in accepting our crime

To impersonalize our human kind

It's our loss if we just shake our hands

And tie knots with rubber bands

To weave our tongues within the rotting frame

Seeking someone else to take the blame

In the image of our peers

We know nothing to hear or remove the stains

So we drag the years through finger paints

So we cover our balls to conceal our pain

And we flash our smiles to pretend we're saints

Are we saints? To re-paint or remain?

A Living Room

You and I we sit

Our living room is lit by moonlight

Inside our retreat from the rest of the world

We can see the outside through closed eyes

The traffic goes by

The Hudson seems still out our cold living room window

Ripples shatter reflections of the glow of the city on the other shore

The glow is like a solid dome keeping warm the children safe at home

Streetlamps and windows make patterns of the nightlife's flesh and bones

Points of lights rise into the night from airstrips that stretch and moan

Thousands of crawlers we watch make our gazes towards each other freeze like stone

You and I, we sit

The dawn filters through the trees and we kiss

The sun never shines in the daytime or keeps us warm in this soul abyss

Trapped in mist

We'll stay on these cliffs

The chill air of autumn is a Saturday review of Monday

We close our eyes and ears and hear the cars on the parkway on their winding trip

Seasons twist their romantic shows and leave their marks by the side of the road

Reaching like vines spiraling, it's everything they'll ever know

Caught between the earth and sky confused by which way to go

Traveling through gravid space, it's a hand over hand searching for some room to grow

You and I, we sit

We don't know where to turn, but we know we just can't quit

To leave this sacred ground just leads us to the same perspective shift

In your mercury-lit heaven do you find your dreams so dimly lit?

But how do you just live off bits destined to drift?

And how do you just defy the mould you comfortably fit?

And how do you justify when you can't even admit something's wrong?

How do you?

How do you do?

You and I, we sit

The world is eerily lit by sunlight

Growing up in a way to find that growing up is growing apart and on your guard

Playing so many parts

Each moment is a lifetime

Each sight makes me tremble

My mind assembles fantasies

That send me to the precipice of this towering cliff

  
I’m also recording three new songs. I’m getting the feeling that I want to stop doing my own music after this. It’s just too painful. It’s hard to write and writing makes me look too closely at my source of inspiration, and everything I write is borne out of pain. Every feeling I have is borne out of pain. It’s my very nature, the result of my life experience. When I laugh and make jokes, it’s all out of pain. There’s nothing I feel or am that doesn’t relate back to being in pain. If that’s all that’s in me, if that’s all that I have to express, why bother? Everyone has their own problems.

The three "new" songs from that period:

Hype Money (Not Far Enough)

Here I am, wondering what goes on

At home now I'm on my own

Out here on my own

After so many years of neglect

I wonder if it's had an effect on

Do they worry about me?

Do they know what they have done?

Do they feel any responsibility?

How do they see just what went on?

God, what went on?

Here I am, but what went on in their minds?

When their lives were gripped in distilled expectancy?

Here I am now, here I may be

But what about the time before my memory?

When I could have been anyone

Anyone I could have become

A lump of clay in trusted hands

Trusting hearts for trust in any...

It could have been anyone

Looking for questions to answers I know

And thinking of things I never would show

Rearing and raising, nurturing and aiding

What's the point if you never let them grow?

Should I tell them how they are mistaken?

Cause nothing's given when nothing's taken

Don't tell me I'm one of you

It doesn't feel like I'm one of you

What do I have to prove?

Here I am, but tell me where I should stand

Here among the distant people I call friends

Funny how they try to look like me

Seeing how they never even look at me

Should I try to be somebody?

Should I try to see what they see?

On the edge of the far periphery

Counting time in the skyline by the riverside

Counting time in the skyline by the riverside

By the riverside I touched the water

I touched the water and somebody called my name

Somebody called my name and I came alive

It's so hard to tell what to think of us

Of you, of me, of we, community

Tell me something wrong with what's in common

Between you and me, between you and me

Between you and me

I won't compromise my lifestyle

By refusing to compromise my lifestyle

Open doors after open doors

So many options on as many piles

Just because thoughts are on ink and pages

Don't think they're there for ages on ages

Though you've bled no one knows

What you meant or what you said

Here I am, but I can't figure it out

Trying to see what you're about

Means so much to me

Indigo and Grey

I've got nothing to say

And no one wants to listen to the nothing I've got to say

So I keep my mouth closed, I keep my eyes shut tight

I keep my ears plugged, and my hands out of the daylight

I don't think I wanna know the candy from home

Where the people only judge your pain by their own

They could've sent a life jacket, a cradle or a cousin

I thought it was a girlfriend, when I kissed it I found it wasn't

It could've been a maniac by the way it groveled and moaned

And the way that it asked me, "what is so important about all this flesh and bone?"

He said, "that's the way that we speak"

My attention was drawn and I turned to look

God, how I wanted to be

Be part of that scene, part of something going on

Part of someone else, part of somewhere I'd belong

Maybe I'm half dreaming, half wanting only a fantasy

But it's not enough, it's not enough, not enough

Everything keeps looking blue, but is it exactly blue?

Or is it one of the thousands of shades between indigo and grey?

Is it my imagination that leads the parade?

Like a funeral procession to its final deception

That there really is no blue, and there really is no grey

And there's really no today, tomorrow or yesterday

How can I think what I say?

It's a trick, it's a loss, it's a double-cross

It's when people ask me to stay

When I can't stand them, I stay there anyway

When I wanna kill them, they tell me it's a beautiful day

I'd really like to see them, but why can't they see me first?

They always seem to give up

So I take my .44 to prove I can make it worse

How do you learn to see the sickness?

When it always seems so absurd

This is how we speak, this is how we speak

How do we learn to be heard?

Well I see something lacking in me 'cos I'm not what I'm supposed to be

It's something to hide, and realize and brutalize and never come to terms inside

And Hollywood never had a chance it could've in a second glance

See that it wasn't good, for me, for you, and still it comes in simple words

I guess I finally blew my cover

I guess I let myself get scared

I guess with what I found, should I let myself drown?

I guess I couldn't face another round

God forbid, treating me this way is just to much in such a little space

And alcohol is something not addressed tho' I can see that I'm a mess

This isn't personal, I'm much too busy running from whatever I see coming

And it's near again to me, to you, and still it comes in simple words

I pulled my hands out of my pocket

And rolled the cuffs up on my jacket

I felt the chill of the wind

I wondered where I had been

And turned to looked for where to begin

My Room

I've got four walls and a door

Music for two and a picture of you

Sunlight and spring with winter melting

Shade from trees, a distant bell rings

2 o'clock in the early afternoon

Two plus five is being alive

When we can do whatever we want to

I want to love you the way you love me

If only these dreams could be reality

Future come faster, I'm tired of waiting

It's so cold when you're not here

And I can't hear you whisper in my ear

That there's no more to fear

Take and touch a little and not too much

Be careful with your concrete

It's only where your feet touch the ground

Be careful with your concrete

A soul poured into a shell of a man

That's all you see, that's all that I am

Do you love me for my clever company

With conversations that always seem to be

No more than a kiss in the afternoon?

Who can you trust when you near the end

And all your friends are so uncertain you have to hide?

Their friendly smiles try to conceal

Their prying eyes all in disguise

Best to stay alone

Somewhere to lay down your load

With you within my home

I've got four walls and a door

Music for two and a song for you

Sunlight and spring with winter melting

Shade from trees, a distant bell rings

A kiss from you in the early afternoon

Future addendum (recording notes):

All of these songs were recorded on a first generation Tascam PortaOne Ministudio 4-track cassette tape recorder.

The big difference for me between the tracks of the vocal re-recordings and the new recordings at the time was that for the new recordings the drums were recorded in the Oberlin Can Consortium steel drum band's panyard on our drummer's Yamaha kit with Paiste cymbals (I later turn out to be an adherent of Yamaha drums, and Paiste cymbals are also my favorite, but I don't use them because they break too easily for my style of playing).

The older "One After Another" collection drums were recorded on a cheap Remo Pre-Tuned Head Series set with ridiculously bad cymbals.

A key reason for the re-recordings was that Boss came out with a reverb stomp box that previously didn't exist. Reverb effect boxes otherwise were prohibitively expensive. The original vocals from 2 years prior didn't have any reverb, which was part of the reason they were unlistenable. As bad as the vocals are here, they were originally even worse, believe it or not. 

The guitars were an Ovation that I later sold when I was trying to quit music and I think some tracks used a Guild 12-string acoustic guitar that was later irreparably broken during a "make out" session with some woman named Hiromi.

My bass guitar was a Kramer Duke headless bass that I bought during high school and it also got ruined not long after I graduated from college.

The keyboard was a Roland Juno-106 analog synthesizer that I sold years later after I went to California, which is something I regret since it is now considered a vintage synthesizer.