Amy Adoyzie Enjoys Life and Junk

The depth of my sacrifices knows no bounds, I tell you! Packing up and leaving precious friends and family behind for a year and a half in a country where beer is illegal.
Yup.
I knew this before I moved to Bangladesh, but I'm only really beginning to come to terms with it. It's like grieving and I'm at the last stage of acceptance.
But don't worry too much about me because as a person who bears a passport from a first world nation, I have been granted an exemption. Bangladesh has also imposed prohibition, though some hotels and restaurants are licensed to sell alcohol to foreigners. The Chittagong Club, where one can play squash and swim laps, also serves beer. The downside is that membership is an entire month's stipend.
In the meantime, I'm gonna just hang out with something I found at the local Khulshi Mart. I wonder if it's drinkable.

Honestly, I'm just too bummed about leaving to be excited about Bangladesh. I have another four days in Portland, then it's NYC for about a week and home to LA for another week before I leave for Chittagong. My heart is too heavy to feel light with pre-departure joy.
If you're in town, join me as I get weepy in a cute dress tonight:

My brother, Alan, and his BFFs Jen and Dennis made this awesome video-invite to their New Year's Eve party.



Alan:everyone brought beer from around the world
we have about 100 beers left!
sick!
haha

From Razorcake #36



Kara-Not-Okay

Call me whatever you want: a privileged, first-world, bourgeois creep, but I just can’t be cool with kids shitting in the streets. Not metaphorical shitting like how some folks feel that graffiti and wheat-pasting is vandalism, but actual number-two-bowel-movement-turd-slipping-outta- miniature-yellow-ass- on-the-sidewalk shitting.
Huarong, the Chinese town where I live and teach, is just another small dot on the map of developing cities where the idea of private hygienic decorum has yet to catch up to China’s economic aspirations of becoming a world power. That’s why I can’t help but chuckle when a friend from home asks, “Been to any good shows lately?”
Nah, I haven’t seen any bands in Huarong, but some pervs might consider a five-year-old’s public defecation to be a helluva show.
***
I almost polished off an entire box of kleenex, while stuffing a trashcan with wadded tissues filled to the brim with my mocos. I was a sad sight, but I still had to teach six classes that day. Instead of a proper lesson, I played games or let some of the classes watch a Chinese show. In one class, I didn't have the energy to even keep a game in order so I brought in some speakers and just played music. Unfortunately, I was summarily told to put my iPod away.
It probably didn't help that I played a Bananarchy song. Bananarchy was the band I started with Abby and Aaron three summers ago, one night while we were drunk and spinning from adderall. It was "Dear Secretary of State," a socio-political punk rock nightmare of song, lambasting our administration for fighting wars like they were playing a video game.
Dear secretary of state
You're not a brother anymore
You're just a fucking token for Dubywa's arcade
Dear secretary of war
Oh Donnie what have you done?
This ain't no fucking football game, there are no more first downs.
Jab-jab, punch-punch
I want my hand on the controller
It's just a fun and dirty song about talking shit and punching things. But my students didn't think so. It was like I was shoving broken bits of glass into their ears. Even though they didn’t know it was me singing, I couldn’t help but have my feelings hurt when they all cringed.
But I am comforted by knowing that my students have anti-taste in music, that is to say that their collective opinion is total garbage. I blame Chairman Mao.
Some folks say that communism is only good in theory, but not so feasible in practice for a variety of reasons that I’m not educated enough to explain. However, what I do know is that China’s revolution created an insular culture. Lack of accessibility to information and a lack of choice bred love of boy bands and soft rock.
I finally realized the seriousness of the red scare when I sang Backstreet Boys songs twenty times in a single week.
During the week where I did a lesson on music, I fell into the pits of despair as my kids yelled out "Pass!" during The Beach Boys and Reigning Sound. My pity for their insulting and deeply saddening taste in music kept me from lurching across a dozen rows of desks in order to school these kids on f'real music.
Greg Cartwright sings for our sins!
If anything, communism ain’t no good if you want your populace to have some semblance of taste in good ol’ rock’n’roll.
Girls and boys alike have a metaphorical hard-on for Jay Chou (metaphorical hard-on because these kids don't have time in their schedule to deal with real ones.) He's a singer/actor from Taiwan that every teenager in China adores. I can't even think of anyone in the States that's has as much fanatical love as this dude. There's even a fan site that went as far as to list his blood type for all his stalker fans (it's O).
There were a few times where I asked a class what type of music they like and all 70 of them began to chant, “J-A-Y-J-A-Y!”
He’s a classic pop star, whose likeness has been branded on everything from bags of tomato-juice-flavored chips to fobbed-out Chinese kicks. Jay’s music is beautifully generic with its light ballads and he even raps. He’s an industry unto himself, mass marketed to appeal to everyone. Except me.
One of my male students had a Tiger Beat-esque notebook with Jay picture stickers adorning Jay lyrics he had copied down. I asked him why he loved Jay so much.
"He is just too cool," he said.
"Oh really?" All I could think by just looking at the mini-pictures of Jay's overly-coifed black hair and dour, squishy squirrel expression was, What a douchebag, but I refrained from saying so because I'm pretty certain these kids don't know what a douchebag is. "What does he sing about?" I asked instead.
"Love!"
"He only sings songs about loving a girl?"
"No! He sing songs about loving girls, to love our country and to listen to our parents," he declared proudly.
What a douchebag, I thought again.
But it makes sense that he's so popular, he's probably an agent of the Party, stolen from Taiwan to assert their power over that island nation. Jay proselytizes and the mass of pop-culture starved Chinese students just eats it up.
Love girls? Sure!
Love our country! Hell yeah, bitch!
Listen to our parents?! Are you motherfucking kidding me? I be obeyin' them even in the afta life!
***
In the middle of November, a few volunteer teachers and I were in the capitol city of Kunming, Yunnan for a foreign teacher’s conference. We were there for the weekend to learn how to better our teachering and also as a well deserved break from our respective school sites.
On our last night, we decided to visit a local bar that we heard had cheap beer and a good DJ. This was an extra treat for me because in Huarong the closest thing to bar-like establishments are the karaoke joints- which I’m not about to patronize since I’d like to leave China without having to sing a single Celine Dion track.
The Speakeasy Bar was unlike any I had seen in China. We climbed down stairs and paid 15 kuai to get in and I was reminded of LA's hipster dive, Little Joy in Echo Park. Dirty walls, a scuffed pool table, empty bottles and ashtrays within arms reach. But tucked towards the back was something that Little Joy doesn't have: a stage... with a band... playing rock music.
I hadn't seen a show since I've been in China and I was beyond stoked.
Just because we all look alike doesn't mean that China has a scene that is anywhere near the likes of Japan. Only a handful of Chinese urban cities have communities resembling independent music. And the long history with communism doesn’t really encourage anything of the independent type- especially music and youth culture. But things are changing, I’ve seen old Chinese dudes with fancy cell phones that feature Mao Tse Tung as its full-screen wallpaper. The Chinese have traded civil unrest against their red government for a more open economy. As an American, I’m not shocked that money trumps ideas, nor am I surprised that there aren’t more folks speaking out against these shenanigans.
While I doubt that the bands I saw that night owned any Fifteen records, I didn’t care just as long as they kept cranking the same three well-worn chords and singing through a fuzzy PA.
We were lucky to arrive just in time to see the first band wrap up their set with a soft rock ballad. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen a band play, I don’t think I can ever appreciate the rocker-perched-atop-a-barstool aesthetic a la Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora doing an acoustic set. Within minutes the second band set up with the utmost Chinese efficiency (all drummers played the house set). Their music was generic, mediocre pop-punk interspersed with covers of Blink 182 and Green Day. There were like the Chinese embodiment of every underwhelming punk band that I’ve seen play in garages and basements in the States. How you can fuck up a Blink 182 song is beyond me, but they did it and I relished every off-key chord that was strummed.
I plied my way through to the front, finally forgetting that I was stuck in another Chinese crowd and that instead I was just kid getting sweaty at a (literal) underground show (the bar is beneath an above-ground store front).
The final band brought down the house with their straight away metal and black-clad lead singer. Their sheer loudness pumped the crowd, who thrusted their double-pointed devil salute to rock'n'roll into the smoke-filled air after each song. I nearly peed myself when the opening chords to Metallica's "Enter Sandman" shot from their amps. That was one of the first riffs that I taught myself back when I began to learn the rock.
Days later, when I was given a surprise week-long vacation because the kids were taking mid-terms, I found myself in a Shanghai hostel being invited to another show by an English dude who pulled out a crumpled flyer from his messenger bag. That night at the 4-Live Fabrique club, I met a girl, Jessie from Chicago, who bought me shots of vodka because she liked my glasses. We flailed and jerked our unsober bodies to New Pants, a Beijing Devo-influenced trio, whose keyboardist was wearing tight yellow Bruce Lee sweatpants that almost forced us to yank down. We didn’t care that the rest of the Chinese audience only swayed slightly at the zip-zap electro beats, while we looked like manic American chimps.
I had been so overwhelmed with settling into China that I didn't have time to miss the shaken soda-can energy of a show. Waiting for the band to play your favorite song so that you can pop the top off the can and shove-dance with a nearby stranger who is possessed with the same explosion of untamed joy. The fizzing and popping spilling everywhere. How could I have forgotten how much I love that?
After those nights of sweating beneath low lights and loud guitars, I remembered.

It's been a long time.
Like a stretch of barren desert, baked dry by heat so intense it leaves goosebumps on your skin and nothing can survive there.
It's me sex life. Or lack thereof.

So, that's why, if for some reason you've flown all the way to China, knew exactly which buses to catch, found building 16 on the Huarong Yizhong campus and climbed into my third-story window to spy on me and caught me perusing the Portland Mercury Personals ads, please refrain from judging me. I'm merely checking my prospects for my return to that beautiful city.

It's been a long time.

Catching up on a month's worth of traveling between three countries is not a task to be taken lightly, especially if I want include all the silly nuances of like how one of my top three moments in Laos involved a Lao kid wearing white plastic vampire teeth.

More importantly, there's the semi-OCD side of me that can not sit down and write about my latest misadventures without first putting together an entry about my time in Hong Kong, all those many months ago in late December and a day in January. I did manage to post a couple entries while I was in HK, about my unexpected cash/culture shock and being homeless. But I barely even mentioned our time in Macau and how that whole trip was a huge bust. I didn't get into the details of how my right ankle turned into a big purple turnip, what we did on New Year's eve or being skeezed-out in Macau.
Let's begin with the turnip.
. . .
The dancing queen ain't got nothin' on us! We pranced up and down Lan Kwai Fong bringing life onto barren dance floors while reticent club goers stood by idly nursing their overpriced drinks.
It was an interesting routine, we slid onto those empty spaces and made asses of ourselves bobbing and flailing at each other as people watched on. Eventually, they would set their drinks down and joined us in our revelry. We were dancing fairies, we didn't leave any dance floor empty.
Fairies need juice to keep their magical powers in full force. Daniel's powerade came from a half dozen beers and mine was a 70 HK$ long island iced tea (and when I tasted that the drink was too weak, I sent it back for more liquor [I would never do this in the States, but it seems to fly in Asia]).
Our night was winding down when we emerged from the underground bar, Apartment, and we were going to cross the street to stuff ourselves with a falafel- something we haven't been able to savor in a long, long time. I walked off a curb, not realizing that it was a foot-high drop rather than a six-inch step, and landed on my right ankle.
It hurt. Bad.
But in my inebriated state, I thought I could walk it off and propped myself up immediately and limped to the falafel stand. I tried to ignore the throbbing, stabbing sensation and did a fairly good job at pretending that I didn't just sprain my ankle while I enjoyed those tasty fried falafel balls smothered in tahini and wrapped in perfectly warm and toasted pita.
It's been three months since the injury and my ankle is still sore and doesn't have the full range of motion it used to. It's slowly healing and isn't purple anymore.
A day later, I made a new year's resolution to not fall down.
* * * * *
New Year's Eve was spent in front of a stage outside of the World Trade Center mega-mall where I hobbled on my good leg and watched Hong Kongnese hip-hop dancers for six hours. Daniel and I were crazy mad stoked because we both secretly aspire to be booty girls in hip-hop videos, shaking our asses on yachts as blinged-out rappers sprayed us with champagne.
Some of the dancers were barely clothed and shook their yellow butts like they were wiggling off the unfortunate stereotype that Azns can't dance.
The two of us couldn't help it but to holler, "You go, you slut!"
"You a damn fine ho!"
"Work it, bitch! Fuck yeah!"
You know, stuff you say to performers when you're enjoying the show.
In hindsight, we were probably really lucky that no one asked us to leave or shoved their fist in our faces because the Hong Kongnese are generally familiar with English- seeing as how the Brits colonized them for 100 years.
* * * * *
Macau. What can I say about Macau that hasn't been said about Reno, Nevada? Our impression was that it was a third-rate Vegas wanna-be seriously lacking in nickel slots.
It didn't help that we stayed at Central Hotel, which looks like every seedy hotel you see in films about some type of international drug deal where there's a massive shoot out- with peeling wallpaper, stained everything and it looks like millions of tubes of crazy glue is keeping the building erect. And if you're lonely, just take a quick trip down the decrepit elevator to the lobby where there's a bevy of working women lounging on the torn vinyl couch, just waiting to keep someone company.
It was amazing that the place was listed in Lonely Planet, where the euphemized review said it "had seen better days."
That night in Macau, Daniel and I both slept with our clothes on. We didn't want to contaminate ourselves by exposing skin while changing into pajamas.


There was a term that we kept repeating during this trip: shitshow. Everything was a shitshow and a half which colored everything into a surreal dream where we escaped from the grey of mainland China to live a in technicolor.

Ya'll don't realize how much you'd actually miss PBR until you're halfway around the world chugging down 50 cent bottles of Tsing Tao out of tiny glasses and missing the feeling of a hefty pint glass in your hand.
We had our first formal-esque dinner last night with the big honcho principal of our main host school. He invited 50 other headmasters to dine with us in the most extravagant meal to date. Tall bottles of beer, beading with condensation, welcomed us from the lazy Susan. After stuffing ourselves silly, we were told to walk around and toast all of the tables. To avoid any type of misunderstanding with my atrocious Mandarin, our small group would saunter up to a table where I'd say, "Yo!" and then we'd just say "Yeahhhh!!!" and raise our glasses (or lower them, depending on how respectful you are).
Mostly, it was comforting to just see all dem fellow Chinese with the Asian glow after a couple glasses!

Here's my Monster of Fun column from Razorcake #33. Enjoy prease!



Poor Muddled Asses

A boy from Alabama offered me the American Dream once.
I declined.
I thought it might have been too cumbersome to carry with me on my long bus trip home.
We were at Bradley’s mother’s home in Gadsden, Alabama. I was sitting on a camo comforter, perched on Bradley’s old bed as he rummaged though some of the keepsakes that he had left behind. He pulled out a long, rectangular, black case that opened to reveal a Fender Squire P-Bass with a red body, white pick guard and a blue strap. Bradley had played that bass while he was in a band called The American Dream and named the guitar after it. He asked if I wanted the bass along with the Peavey Patriot amp that sat in the closet.
Bradley wanted to bestow the total package to me. A red, white and blue four-string Dream and a patriotic amp to blast my pledge of allegiance.
I appreciated the gesture, but couldn’t accept. It was enough just to be offered such a gift and I already had a sweet cherry red midget bass at home. It ended up with me through some botched tweak deal and came fully stocked with a peeling mohawk skull Exploited sticker. Dreams do come true.
*****
I don’t care that this is probably the most un-punk-rock thing to say: I’m so stoked to be an American.
The U.S. is far from perfect—our governing administration is run by a reactionary, shits-for-brain, war-mongering chimpanzee passing for a fifth-grader who hears super secret messages from Jesus. But I shudder to think what my life may have been like if I were born and raised in China (victim of infanticide, due to one-child policy and a preference for sons), Vietnam (uneducated, married with five kids, wear pajamas all day) or Australia (kidnapped by wild dingo pack, best friend is a koala bear).
There’s just no other place in the world like a small Los Angeles suburb where you can get grilled onion In N Out burgers, perfectly seasoned bowls of steamy pho or a veggie burrito so plump and delicious that you’d you swear you eating God’s pinky toe. There’s just no other place where you can escape to as a refugee from war, raise a daughter who earns a B.A. with honors, so that she may someday write columns for a punk rock fanzine calling the president of the United States a jerkface dickhole. There’s just no other place, period.
So many of my character-shaping experiences are so uniquely American/Immigrant-American/Vapid-American that I can’t imagine them occurring on any other space-time continuum, in any other country with any other Americans. Here are a couple of the shining moments of my soon-to-be-made-into-a-TV-movie epic saga of a girl and her American life:
Like Father, Like Cocksucker
As a 16-year-old girl growing up in California amidst body-image issues, insurmountable insecurities and enough angst to write volumes of clichéd poetry, the last thing I needed was to have my father call me a cocksucker.
Y’see, I was crushin’ hardcore on actor Kevin Spacey and would obsessively watch him play an innocent gimp who was a masterful conman in The Usual Suspects. During one of my many viewings, dad walked in just as the line-up scene began where each of the five main characters repeated the line, “Hand me the keys, you fucking cocksucker.”
He stood for a while, eyes affixed to the screen, to let those lines absorb into his yellow skull before continuing into the garage. I didn’t think much of it, until later that day when I heard dad call one of my younger brothers a cocksucker.
And so began the phase in our young lives where dad lovingly referred to us as his kin who sucked cock. He never said it with any malice, as a matter of fact it became a term of endearment. We were amused initially, chuckling nervously like a parent who hears his toddler cuss for the first time. Dad continued to call us cocksuckers for so long that the crudeness and inappropriate nature of the word no longer held weight. Since he never came home with a black eye or spitting bloody mouthfuls of teeth, I assume that he refrained from addressing others as blowjobbers. It seemed that he reserved that term exclusively for his kids, his rittle cocksuckers.
The term no longer meant one who was a dick slurper, instead it came to mean one who was claimed as a dependent on dad’s tax return.
Even though he has a very limited English vocabulary, I doubt that dad was completely ignorant of what cocksucker meant—but even if he didn’t know, I, his only daughter, wasn’t about to inform him.
How was I supposed to explain to him the meaning of the word?
“Father, perhaps you don’t quite understand the American colloquialism for fellatio. Please let me clarify…”
There’s just a surreal sitcom feel to hearing your dad say in broken English, “Wat you cocksuckas want fah dinnah?”
These are the stories that fill the American consciousness with hope and pride.
Import Beer, Export Piss
It’s easy for dudes. Drink beer, pee anywhere. Sidewalks, bushes, tree stumps, dumpsters, walls, inanimate object within your blurred field of vision.
Not so simple for the ladies. We need coverage, toilet paper and the willingness to expose our entire ass in order to feel the comfort of a relieved bladder. Dudes don’t ever think about how little they think about unzipping and whipping it out. It’s not penis envy. It’s pee privilege. Just acknowledge it the next time you’re at a party and taking up room in a long toilet line when there is available shrubbery outside.
My behavior while inebriated hasn’t so much shaped my life, but has informed me of the extent to which I may take the American liberty of the pursuit of hap-pee-ness. All niceties of a civilized culture are out then window when I have to go, because I really have to go.
In this, the age of Oprah and unapologetic empowerment, I am beginning to own my drunken pee experiences and not let them own me. I’m a proud American who likes to drink cheap American beer and piss bonafide American pee.
I’ll be honest, I’ve peed myself before. Not like sitting-around-shootin’-the-shit-and-then-all-of-a-sudden-my-ass-is-nestled-in-a-puddle-of-my-urine, but more like I’m-inside-a-restroom-stall-trying-to-aim-into-the-bowl-without-touching-the-seat-because-God-knows-how-many-other-drunken-girls-have-pissed-on-the-toilet-seat-and-then-the-beer-that-I-set-on-top-of-the-TP-dispenser-spills-on-my-jeans-so-when-I-pee-on-myself-I-drunkenly-think-that-it’s-okay-because-I’ll-just-say-it’s-PBR. And those were the times where I was lucky enough to even get near a toilet.
Earlier this year, I found my yellow ass in a precarious position as it hung off the ledge of a fifth story window—all in my pursuit of hap-pee-ness.
We were at a hipster loft gallery space in downtown Portland, shoveling cans and cans of beers into our faces to let the terrorists know that they have not won because we are drunk with freedom and Coors Light at an afterparty. The restroom line was always a dozen deep, half of them were invariably tall lanky white belt boys who were too refined to piss out the window of a small room across the hall. Jacie and I had enough, she grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd of unmoving bodies.
“We’re not going to the bathroom! Let us through, you wieners!” I shouted at their glaring faces. “For serious! I’m not cutting in your stupid line!”
We shoved through and found ourselves in an unfinished room with bare plywood floors, a couple bags of trash and a guy passed out in the middle. Here’s where my logic fails me, since the room was practically empty and completely dark, Jacie and I could have conceivably pissed in the corner and no one would have been the wiser. I was weaving-staggering drunk and I think Jacie was somewhere near my side of the breathalyzer, we had every excuse to just pee in the corner. But somehow it wasn’t in our decorum and we deemed it un-lady-like and decided instead to pee out the window like we had seen all the dudes do earlier.
I can vividly recall three details of this momentously retarded event.
1. Before climbing out the window, I suggest that we pee on passed-out-guy. He heard me and mumbled, “No, don’t do that…”
To which I replied, “Will you be my valentine?”
2. Jacie and I squatting on a small outer ledge, five stories high, a breeze brushing pass our pale asses. We were hanging backwards, with our hands haphazardly clutching the rickety window pane.
3. Safely back inside, zipping up our jeans.
I can’t remember how we were able to perform the complicated maneuver of unzipping and pulling down our jeans, while defying gravity and our complete inebriated incompetence. I can only imagine that Jacie and I had two exhausted Angels holding us up, shaking their heads disapprovingly and reluctantly saving us from a horrific death with our pants and panties down at our knees and our bodies splattered against the concrete.
In this great land of ours, we can do patently idiotic things and still remain in one piece because we have been blessed with an Angel known as an overwhelming sense of arrogance
That’s our can-do, go-getter spirit. We’ll fix anything. Hey South Vietnam, is North Vietnam bullying you into becoming pinkos? Let us rescue you with our big white hairy arms of justice. Hey Earth, did you hear that Sadam might-be-maybe-not-really-for-sure hiding a hugemongus load of WMDs? Let us rescue all of mankind from Hussein’s insane destructive force with our gleaming weapons of humanly-tolerable destruction. Hey urethra, are you flooded with metabolized beer and need to release it quickly? Let Jacie and I crawl onto this windowsill and pee like we’re invincible patriots shocking and aweing folks with our deft urination skillz.
*****
This August I’m leaving for China, ostensibly as a volunteer English teacher in the Hunan province. I plan on photographing Super Wal-Marts to show them the abundance of our beautiful nation, and to assure them that all the junk they’re producing in sweatshops with the “Made in China” stamp is showing up on store shelves to satiate our God-given right to consume. Pictures of rows and rows of SUVs sitting in traffic will inspire them to aspire for great wealth and a leather interior. My fellow patriots needn’t worry, for I shall educate them in the ways of the true red, white and blue. For the next year, you’ll be reading about Operation: Engrish Prease!

The FUNrazor was a super spectacular awesome! There was tons of crazy butt-shakin' dancin' and general hoppin' around and junk! So fantastic! And The Fuck You Charlies debuted our amazingly retarded set of about five minutes. We stormed through our first two songs and then our drunkeness got the best of us and we stank up the last two songs. All our friends still enjoyed us because we "reserved the right for do-overs," and we had a butt-load of hilarious do-overs. Our ineptitude was endearing to say the least. We all blame Sparks. And the fact that we hadn't practiced for two weeks because Jacie was in Michigan and we hired Chad to be on our team only three days earlier as our keyboardist. After our set, the four of us gathered together and meekly approached all of our friends to offer a band apology for having been put through our music. Everyone was very gracious and didn't throw rotten vegetables at us.

All in all, it was a success because I almost broke even on the keg and vodka ($10 short) and Gus and I stayed out of trouble all night! We didn't raise any funds per se, but we had tons of FUN so who gives a hoo-hah? I figure that it's good party karma, cause god knows I've been to tons of parties where I didn't buy any beer and this is my way of giving back into the party circle of life. Yeah, I just got all party philosophical and shiz!

However, I heard stories of stormy arguments with thrown beer and some dude stepping into pee and then rubbing his shoes on someone's face! Yuckies! And apparently Loren blacked out and did some sleepwalking where his face met some concrete. Yikes!



Pics of THE FUCK YOU CHARLIES!

And check out the Pinata Head! We were so drunkeneds and too busy dancing and forgot about the pinata! Luckily, it was saved and Scott ate all the goodies. It is now back at our place where Gus will hang it up in his new No Amys club house. And a few words about the "pinata." Y'see, Gus and I have never paper mached before, no less created a pinata. We blew up a balloon and draped strips of newspaper dripping with our flour and water mixture. Unfortunately, the balloon began to deflate and my face sunk in and then it just went kapootz. Since we're not people to accept failure, and we're particularly lazy, I decided that we ought to use the mushy face anyway. I spray painted the head a beaming yellow and Gus did the rest of the magic. Don't tell him I told ya because he doesn't want people to know that he is responsible for this pinata atrocity. Personally, I think it's kinda awesome and endearing. It's even got freckles and horn-rimmed glasses!



Then we got our dancing on!
Pics of DANCE CRAZYNESS

Slightly tipsy from sipping a mug-ful of whiskey and coke, I placed both hands on the sides of the ladder and steadily made my way up to Andy's roof. A few of us gathered up there as July Fourth turned darker and the neighborhood began setting off illegally awesomely huge explosions in the sky.
Southeast Portland lit up like a garden of twinkles while Gus sang "Bombs Over Baghdad." The shingles felt rough on the ass of my jeans as I tried to balance myself on the slope.
Andy looked over the skyline of multi-color bursts and beamed, "I love America! I love Portland! Look at this!" He was the drunkest of all.
Suddenly, Andy turned to me, in all seriousness like he was the head of the CIA and asked, "Amy, do you love America?"
All I could think was, "What answer will save me from getting shoved off the roof?" and I just muttered, "Uh... Yeah, sure."

The truth is that I totally dig this country and I'm so gonna miss sitting on rooftops with drunk friends daydreaming about hot dog buffets. I just can't stop thinking of all the junk I'll miss.

If any of ya'll reading this junk will be in or around the Portland area this coming Friday, July 7th, ya'll are welcomez to come and get our drunkeness on! Gus and I are in The Fuck Your Charlies along with Jacie and perhaps Anna if she wants to get on the kazoo. We have four songs now! In addition to our diddies abour Sriracha, robots and dinosaurs, we now also have a song that Gus wrote where all the words are insults and mean shit he has said to me like, "Why don't you build a great wall and live behind it?"

Gus and I also began working on a paper mache of my head for a pinata, but it's failing miserably (pics soon). As a result, we might just get a cardboard box, spray paint it yellow and draw some slanty eyes and glasses and fill it in with some Asian candies and call that a pinata. If you come by, you can take a swing at a fake Amy head either way!

Quite often I am accused of talking about my Asian-ness too much. "You know, like that gay friend that only talks about being gay and shit." Quite often I think that's bullshit.
How come you get uncomfortable when I point out that there are only two people of color at the party we're at? How come its cool to read and write about social justice, but when it's clear that there are divisions made in *our scene* we never discuss it?
Listen, I don't have a rice chip on my shoulder. I don't think you're racist because the majority of your friends are white. I don't give a fuck. I just think its funny to talk shit, on Asians, on honkies, on Gus. That's it. I just like to laugh. That's why I'm more amused than insulted about what transpired a couple Thursday nights ago.

I was at the ACME with friends I met last summer in the south, they were on tour and playing that night. Bradley had just finished his set as the one-man band Almighty Do Me A Favor and we were drinking cheap beer and shooting the shit when a woman came up to us. She must have been in her early 40s, a slender white woman with shoulder length dark hair and eyes so crazy you'd think they'd start shooting lazers if you weren't careful.

"I hate to interrupt," she said, interrupting. "But I really have to talk to you about something."
I began backing away, assuming that she wanted to talk to Bradley, congratulate him on his awesome set, offer a blow job or something. But then she looked at me and said, "No, I wanna talk to you."
Bradley walked away and left me with this twitchy sketched out lady as she stood close to me and began explaining herself.
"I'm starting an all-Asian band and I think you should be in it!"
"Really?! That's awesome!"
Besides Marah, who is half Chinese, I am the only other Asian in the joint. She was able to hone in her Chinkee detector skillz and root me out and asked me the join a band based solely on my ethnicity.
"Yeah, because Asians are hot!" She said as she stepped in close, her mouth blew hot air into my ear. "I just want to start a hot all-Asian band and you would be perfect!"
"I would be perfect! Because I'm Asian!" I was both enthused and cautious about this. I looked around to see if my friends are keeping a lookout for me in case this crazy lady tries to kidnap me. "Are you gonna be in the band?" I asked.
"No! I'm not Asian," she gave me that 'oh you silly girl' look. "I already have a gay Asian girl and a trans boy. The gay girl, she's kinda shy about it, doesn't know if she wants to do it. She's butch. You know how butch girls are about being shy."
"Actually, no, I've never heard that."
"Anyway, gay Asian girls are hot," whenever she declared something is hot, she placed her hand on my arm, and leaned in and almost whispers it into my right ear. "And the transgender boy, girl to boy, is so progressive."
"Yeah, progressive..."
"Progressive is hot," I began to think she might be trying to stick her tongue in my ear.
"Awesome!"
"So, do you play anything?" She finally inquires about whether I'm even suitable to be in a band.
"Yeah, I guess."
"I knew it! I could tell by looking at you that you're a musician."
"I'm not so good though."
"Don't worry about it. Listen, I've been putting bands together for a long time. I used to own a record store and everything. But now I teach, and I have lots of spare time and I want to start another project. And Asians are hot! This band is going to be great. What're you doing next week? We should get together and do a photo shoot. My roommate has a photo studio in the basement. It'll be hot."
"So, photo shoot before our first practice?" Dreams do come true.
"Yeah, what's your phone number?" I'm not one to pass up on one of the most ludicrous opportunity ever and she scrawled down my cell number on a crumpled ATM receipt. "I'll call you!" was the last thing she said to me.

It's been a couple weeks now, and I haven't heard from tweaker band producer. For a second, I thought perhaps that I might be able to partake in a bunk-ass Asian gay/transgender/monster version of the Spice Girls. That woulda been sweet! And HOT!

Summer's schizophrenic here.
Three days ago, I wore my black hooded wool coat on a bike ride to pick up a craigslist purchase. The sky had been grey all day, threatening rain. The day before that, on Thursday, it had sprinkled dark water spots on my pants as I rode from work.
It's muggy and hot now, leaving me with a thin layer stickiness. Today, as I rode close-in to the river, the air had a stagnant poopy stench. But it could just be that I'm so goddamned hungover too.

Last night we crowded into Nat and Rene's house for Nick and Joni's going-away party. It was hilariously drunken and fun and complete non-stop nonsense. It was also filled with weird dynamics and small dramas that make you rethink putting so many drunken young people together in such a small space. I recall two missions I had: 1) to poke all dude's right nipples and 2) to poke all girl's left boobies. I succeeded mostly on mission #1, but got distracted by mission #2 when Elizabeth repeatedly rubbed her booty on me.
I also ate lots of tasty salmon.
Earlier that day, we had a yard sale where Nick and Joni gave away lots of their clutter and I sold Holy Shit! cookies for a dollar. I sold 8 and they're going into my Tampon Fund!

This weekend had been filled with a weird air permeating my pores. Maybe it's summer finally arriving.
As I left my shift at Green Noise on Friday, Ken told me about how a very young teenage girl bought The Post-It Diaries. He and I laughed at how I just destroyed her prospects of imagining anything but a lackluster adulthood amidst cubicles. I can't accurately describe how it feels to destroy hope and optimism, but it made me laugh nonetheless.
Then later that day, I stopped by Safeway to pick up some butterscotch chips for my cookies. The grandmotherly woman who was ringing me up asked how I was doing.
"I'm fine. How're you?" I automatically replied.
"Well, I'm good. But not as good as someone with such miraculous freckles! Look at em! There's just something so wholesome about freckles!"
"Oh, well, thank you," I said, slightly shocked by her declaration of my miraculous freckles. I really had to bite my tongue from telling her that I am about as un-wholesome as a the fast food industry and that lots of Asians don't dig freckles and they're almost considered blemishes.
It's bizarre to go from future-ruiner to miraculously wholesome in the span of a half hour, but I guess there's not other way of doing it.

It's nearly 1 AM and my armpits are sweaty. Welcome summer.

My, what a busy busy week or so.
Here's a list run down because I'm not feeling particularly eloquent and prose-y.

. Finished Post-It Diaries. It was quite odd revisiting my old LJ posts of my short-lived career. I completed the zine exactly one year from the day I quit, May 20th. So many incredibly awesome things have happened within this past year that it made me realize I may have too many lucky stars to even begin counting.

. Did two readings! Paid readings! If we're talking about pay in exchange for time, I think I was paid about minimum wage per MINUTE! Keith hooked me up because he thought that my overtly obnoxious personality would make me a suitable reader-mate. We read at University of Oregon and an alternative high school. Jaden from Eaves of Ass was there too, and we were all collectively more nervous about reading to teenagers than at the Uni.
It was lots of fun, even though we spent most of the time recuperating from a party the night before. Ryan, our gracious host, had to drive our asses to and from Eugene (2 hours each way) and listen to us whine about our collective hangovers.

. Surprised I didn't get in a fight! So that party I mentioned above, it was for girl who busted out her front teeth while drunk on a bike. She had replacement dentures, that fell into the toilet while she was drunk vomiting, and consequently flushed. So that party was a benefit for her to get permanent teefs. I don't know the girl but that didn't stop me from loudly calling her "faces of meth" a few times after I had enjoyed about three cans of Sparks.
And then when Jacie's jaw dropped to the floor from hearing me say such terrible things, I justified it with, "What? It's true!"

. That same night Anna and I had a hankerin' for burritos and walked to La Casita where I found a wallet on the sidewalk. Anna googled the lady, whom the wallet belonged to, and called her up. She gave us a $50 gift certificate to a fancy schmancy restaurant on 17th and Hawthorne and we got to live like very poor versions of celebutantes for a couple hours where money was no object (as long as we had a gift certificate).

. Ordered a MacBook. !!!!!. I got the white 2GHz model (with upgraded 1G of ram). I was initially concerned with the white version, because they do offer a black version for $150 more (aesthetic rip-off), due to the fact that when I was a child a fortune teller told my folks that white was a bad luck color for me. But I asked internet's I Ching about the purchase, and it said it was a good idear. Gus relies heavily on the internet I Ching to help him make important decisions, and he's a white man who eats well and has never been to prison- so if the I Ching has been good to him then I figured it would work for me. So yeah, even though I was initially hesitant about the white purchase because of chinky voodoo- this thingy on the internet persuaded me with virtual voodoo.
Thanks Cormies!

. Got a physical. I need it to obtain a Chinese Visa because they don't want any inferior or infectious American folk fuckin' up all their billions of slantees. Getting a physical isn't a big deal, but when you don't have health insurance, it's a lot of wrangling. I've had a bad experience with a county health center and wasn't looking forward to this. The first place I called said they didn't have an appointment available until two weeks after I needed it. After many other disapointing calls, I phoned the SW Community Health Center that gave me an appointment two days after I first called!
I went yesterday and saw that it was a volunteer-run non-profit, staffed with seasoned MDs and first-year med students. It was kinda bizarre to see the young yellow faces of two Asian med students as I walked in because of our career-economic disparities. This is a leftover from having been raised by immigrant folks, when you see yellers in a place that is usually all honked-out, you notice all the little things. One of the med students, Monica, who didn't even look older than me, had to take my pulse using her cell phone timer because she forgot to wear a watch. It was kinda surreal to sit there in my dirty jeans, as she flipped open her Razor and felt for my heart beat.
In all, the SW Community Center visit was amazingly fantastic. I've never seen such a nice non-profit health center that relies solely on donations and government funding. Their staff was courteous and super friendly. It took me an hour and a half to get out there, but completely worth it considering that I only donated $20 and got a physical out of it.

Whew! No it's onward with planning the FUNraiser for moizes. There'll be a keggerz and mixed rink for a small donations. Anna and Jacie have helped find bands and a DJ for this party, so if you live in the PDX area, give me a holla and get up here!

From "Monster of Fun" column in Razorcake #31.




Beer Tears of Joy

"I'm like Jesus," I told Connie. "If Jesus was super stoked on PB&J."

We were playing the 'What if...' game and the hypothetical was this: Imagine that you, (insert your name), were a nation and the World Almanac folks were compiling facts about You, the country, and needed to know your main import and export. What would they be? What shapes the economy of You?

Without question, Connie's main import is pot. What does Connie-country export the most? He responded enthusiastically, "Riffs."

After an unscientific survey of friends, I wasn't surprised to learn that the majority of my allies primarily import beer and export piss. Speaking in binary economic terms to learn more about my buddies was amazingly efficient. It had me feeling like the poor man's metaphoric Alan Greenspan- which brings us back to why I'm like Christ, your lord and savior and junk. As a nation, my most popular import is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and my super awesome export is joy. Aside from the fact that I never pass up an opportunity to commit blasphemy, it's quite obvious from my Jesus-flavored joy export that my birthday has the potential of becoming another consumerific pseudo-holiday. Sermiously, I'm like God's 21st-century kid- born and raised Buddhist without a guilt complex.

Although I don't have Christ-like magical powers, I can offer proof of my export with The Effects of Emanating Joy.

Joy is the Color of Innocence

It was still early when the sun sunk below the horizon and we settled onto our stools to enjoy Harold's happy hour. We gulped down $2-bottles of Bud as our friends began to trickle in to play a show at the working-class San Pedro bar. Fose, who imports whiskey and exports beer, was chatting with a mustache that was attached to an older man in a plaid button-up. It sat there, a two-inch thick grey bristle brush sprouted across check bones and jutted above an upper lip, wobbling on his face as he smiled. In the middle of their conversation about Alabama, where Fose is from, Mustache Dude pointed to me and asked, "Well, what about your lady friend?"

"She cost me 700 dollars," Fose answered. I grinned and nodded while Fose explained, "Got her off the internet. She's from China."

"Oh, the internet," Mustache Dude was intrigued, his eyes beamed for a moment. "I wish I was better at the computers."

"He got a good deal," I said, without any hint of an accent.

"Yeah, I tell her if she wants to leave me, she better give me 700 bucks."

"Have you been to Al-ah-bama?" Mustache Dude asked me, over-ennunciating loudly.

"Yeah, I've been there."

"What did you like the most about Al-ah-bama?"

"Waffle House!" I gushed excitedly.

The mustache heaved as a jolly chuckle escaped his round body.

Exporting joy grants me an aura of innocence, the type of wide-eyed naivete that helped me pass for a 17-year-old in order to avoid a $250-fine for riding the local train without the right fare- and two weeks later I wasn't even carded when I visited a swinger's club. Mustache Dude looked into my slanty brown eyes and saw the hopeful innocence of a girl living her dream with her illiterate construction worker owner/husband, shedding off another tiresome work-week with a few cheap beers on a Friday night.

He mimed his next question. "If you go back to Chi-nah," his fingers drew a big square, "what would you," points to me, "bring back as a soo-ven-air?" He used an awkward gesture that looked like he was stroking a football at both ends to represent "soo-ven-air."

I thought for a moment and looked at Fose quizzically.

"Say it slower," Fose told the Mustache Dude. He complied and repeated his question slower and mimed bigger.

I looked at him squarely, flashed a manic grin, and responded with, "Cheetos!"

His head arched back, the mustache swayed upward towards heaven as he chortled loudly in delight. At that moment, Mustache Dude existed in a reality where, for the price of a 1985 Toyota, you could buy a young, dutiful, Asian bride who wants nothing more than a bag of twig-sized, simulated cheese-flavored, crunchies. At that moment, despite our dishonesty and perpetuation of the icky sex trade industry, Mustache Dude had a half-full bottle of beer and a belly full of joy.

Joy is the New Bling

Happily-dizzy-drunk from our trip to the Hungry Tiger, we arrived at the bus stop a half-hour after the last bus was scheduled. After having shared three fish-bowl sized drinks with Gus, who imports love and exports jive, I was in no mood for the 45-minute walk home in the frigid Portland cold. Marah, Joni and Gus stumbled ahead of me, beginning their trek as I stubbornly lagged behind.
"We should hitch a ride!" I suggested.

Before anyone could disagree, I twisted around and thrusted my gloved thumb at every pair of headlights that passed going our direction. But the cars kept moving. In vain, thumb out, in vain. Just as I was becoming discouraged, a shimmering bronze sedan slowed down and actually stopped. I walked over and peeked into the passenger window as it slowly crept down. A young woman in a cropped, fur-lined parka sat smiling in the passenger seat, she looked like a classed-up booty girl straight out of a generic hip-hop video.

"Are you really going to give us a ride?" I asked before bursting into a huge-mongus smile, flashing every tooth in my mouth. "We just need to go down the street."

Her male counterpart was the driver. His eyes scanned over the four of us before saying, "You guys don't look like you're gonna rob me."

Before I knew it, I opened the back door and we scrambled in.

We were passengers of Stephen Lee Ford (*not his real name*), who was both flattered and impressed that we didn't fear climbing into a black man's car. I remember his full name because he showed us his driver's license in interest of full disclosure. We were also informed that he is an ex-convict- he was sent to prison for dealing crack, for which he apologized.

"Yeah, I was dealin'." He shrugged. "I'm sorry."

"You did your time. It's cool." I tried to reassure him as he sped down SE 39th Ave.

"And attempted murder too."

"Oh..." The backseat troopers fell silent.

"These guys came into my house and tried to rob me, so I was defendin' myself," he explained. "And they ratted me out for dealin' to get a lesser sentence."

While he was telling us about his criminal past, he pulled into a convenient store lot where his girlfriend went in to buy him a bottle of pop.

I asked him a few questions about what they had been doing earlier that night, where they had just come from. Friendly banter about our alcohol consumption and how we missed the last bus.

"I like you," he said, turning around in his seat to get a better look at me behind him. "You've got lots of questions." He stuck his hand out and shook mine. His head turned to the small storefront and nodded toward his girlfriend inside, "She's my sister."

Wink wink.

Joy is a currency all its own. An atmosphere saturated with joy gives a feeling of openness and acceptance regardless of circumstance. Granted, Stephen Lee had been drinking and was not exercising sound judgment in driving or revealing his criminal past, but he didn't give a shit because he was having a good time- hitting on the least likely urban booty girl candidate ever, ever. Joy is the new bling.

I felt like we were making a connection, Stephen Lee and I, cutting through all of the –isms that plague our society with joy and crack-dealing confessions.

"Do you still deal?" I asked.

"Well..." He winced slightly and didn't answer completely.

"It's cool. You've gotta dibble and dabble." I don't know why I said that, but it seemed completely appropriate at the time.

"Don't call the cops," he joked.

All four of us exploded with a chorus of, "No way!" He felt confident enough about our refusal to involve law enforcement that he gave us his phone number.

After his girlfriend returned, we zoomed back south on SE 39th Ave. Beams of pale orange-yellow rays shot from street lamps and into the car, creating a strobe effect as we hurtled down the street. Stephen Lee asked us if we would have picked him up if we saw him hitching. We all euphemized that we didn't have cars. I added that as a woman driving alone, I wouldn't give him a ride. He liked my honesty.

"Sorry about the shitty ride," he said. "My other car is a Lexus, but it's at home."

Our peanut gallery responded with another round of, "No way! This car rules!"

He got us home unscathed and asked us to recite the phone number he had given us earlier.

"Call me for anything!" He said before his car peeled away from the sidewalk. Perhaps he wanted to stay in touch because he got a taste of pure, unadulterated joy- and now the crack dealer is hooked. May there be a day where joy is sold freely to experimenting teenagers, bored housewives and necktie schmoes. Until that time arrives, I shall be on the forefront, fighting all nay-sayers, negative Nellies and the Man to bring you another shipment of joy.

While in Los Angeles, I harbored a deep love/hate relationship with that city and more specifically, their parties. Sometimes I couldn't help but feel like I was in a Sugar Ray music video, in somebody's impossibly chic back porch clutching to my cheep beer stuffed into a coozy while everyone around me posed in the perfect ambient lighting. Then there were occasions when we stomped up to BD's rooftop, tipsy from whatever you could afford at the mini-mart around the corner. looking across the city's blinking skyline and endless string of traffic lights. When I didn't feel suffocated by hipster eye-rolls and/or feeling like I'm some street urchin that snuck into their overpriced apartment, I really liked meeting new assholes! I miss that.

Friday night, we rode the 9 bus to a party on 11th. I was told that it was, in fact, a party full of high-school kids and I didn't care. I knew that I was going to be a decade older than a good percentage of the crowd, and I still wanted to go. It was surreal, teenagers stuffed into every nook and cranny of this two-story blue house, enthusiastically warning me before entering the bathroom, "Dude, there's a dude in there and he's faded." Faded! Who says 'faded,' anymore? Teenagers! They say it with so much authority, like they just learned the word and how to become that word. So innocently retarded! There was also an overabundance of unrestrained spastic hormones which lead to awkward public make out sessions in the stairways, doorways, middle of a crowded room. So innocently pimply and virginal!

And there were corn dogs. Corn dogs. Hot dogs that have been battered with corn bread and then conveniently shoved onto a wooden stick because teenagers are too clumsy and incompetent to handle those free-ballin' hot dogs and their unwieldy buns. In the dance room where overly made up teenage-moms-in-training grinded on equally doomed teenage-dads-in-training, there was a snack spread against a wall. It was such a sincere offering that it was almost adorable with its little plastic containers and their varied snack choices and napkin stacks that were fanned to look fancy.

Joni hated it. She hated high school parties when she was in high school. I loved it because it made me appreciate being older, more mature and less apt to stumble off the front porch into a prickly bush. Because that exact scenario happened as Joni and I stood on the stairs to the porch. The bespeckled teenage girl was wearing a skirt and pointy-toe heels when she slo-moed her way into a prickly bush. There were about a dozen people around and we all just stood there for about 15-seconds before a boy uttered, "Someone should check on her." Joni and I didn't move. We even started to chuckle. Because we're bitches. (To further prove my bitch-dom I found myself thinking, "Pointy-toe heels are soooo 2002.") And as it turns out, she was fine because teenagers are resilient like that.

When Saturday night reared it's gorgeous head around, I found out that there was a party around the block. This is a big deal because one of the worst parts about attending social functions in this city is my dependency on public transportation and their unwillingness to cart my drunk ass home at 3 in the morning. I was ecstatic when I learned that I wouldn't have to worry about catching a bus, asking for a ride or paying for a cab.

There were bands playing in the basement of the yellow house that I pass frequently, I made it a goal to find out who lived there and introduced myself to half of the renters. The bathroom featured bad/good 80s porn playing in the shower. There was a man in the kitchen selling independently brewed beer. Most everyone there were old enough to legally drink. I offered to punch a dude in the stomach to make him vomit so that he'd sober up if his band had to play, he declined and patted me on the head. A close-talkin' dude professed his love for MacGyver and I don't know why I didn't give him a high-five. A spaced-out girl told me I had nice teeth and accused me of giving her weird looks. Lots of nice folks and nary a corn dog in sight.

We got drunk standing around the living room, listening to the bands thud and buzz from the basement. Gus had to take a shit, and just walked right home to unload before returning without missing a beat. It was glorious! A party 'round the corner from our house!

To celebrate an end to a fabulous Saturday night, we invented a triple decker snack-attack to satiate our drunkie hungers, a recipe that might be the best to have crept from this household .



Ingredients: air-popped popcorn, Trader Joe's Cheese Crunchies (Cheetos would work too) and a 99 cent bag of Funyuns. Mix and serve. We enjoyed our heavenly snack orgy (that would shame Chex into rethinking the garbage that they pass off as a 'mix') while watching Radiohead's "7 Television Commercials." It was hard not to smile with a mouth full of Fun-cheet-pops, greasy fingers with orange "cheese" residue while watching Thom York's eye get lazier.