Thursday, July 29, 2010
1969 Parade Main Street Flushing NY
This shocking video, no, not video, this shocking film was shot three months after I got married, about four miles to the North.
The "Peace on Earth" float was a nice touch, the Vietnam War still had a lot of wind in its sails. It just all looks so forever ago. Well, not all of it, the go-go dancers are very Quentin Tarrentino.
I managed to live in nearby College Point for twenty-seven years and I never even knew there was such a thing as the Flushing Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
ArmChair Martian Jessica Suicide
I can't believe that this one has been up for almost a year with only six hundred views. It's a great song. I'm familiar with it from Bad Astronaut's cover, which I've been loving for a while now.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Desmond Dekker - "Israelites" (1968)
I couldn't endorse the whole African-Slave-Israelite-Egypt thing, but this is one of the number one greatest pop songs of all time, with some wonderfully entertaining visuals attached by some very talented somebody out there.
Monday, July 26, 2010
My Life Is A Dream
I don’t notice the mosquitoes anymore. That must be it.
Certainly it’s been a long time since I actually saw one. I sleep, I don’t hear them, no buzzing around the ears. I get bites, it seems, the only evidence is usually a small red spot, no bump, no itching. If I don’t happen to see them, I don’t know that they are there.
“Mosquimotos,” one of my Thai friends calls them. I think that it’s such a wonderful word that I don’t correct her. MOS-KEE-MO-TOES, like little winged samurai, or tiny Mr. Moto’s with evil intent and penetrating proboscises. Such a more entertaining word!
I get bit occasionally by things with more power, more presence, more evil intent. Those leave larger wounds, surrounded by colossal lumps of histamine fluid, one inch across, lasting a day or two, and itching to beat the band. Spiders? A mystery.
These are the little, inconsequential things that I prefer to write about these days, the reason that this blog is rather dull. Maybe I’m a little dull myself, but not that dull. Does Khun Fred have anything to say today? Or is Khun Fred just fucking around, as usual. Cutesy little videos; fun photos; YouTube music videos; bullshit observations; South-East Asian marginalia. Dull, dull, dull.
Some day perhaps I will see my way clear to speak freely. To address more serious matters. To speak about the reality of Boomers facing late-middle-age, or, (dare I say it?) encroaching old age, our shared reality of marginalization, decrepitude, irrelevance, failure, and lost opportunities? Maybe I should explore my own nightmare world, which is fueled by obsessive worrying and a hyperactive cortex that knows only degrees of panic. Does anyone think that that would be a good idea?
Some people may wonder why I like living in Asia. Consider this: I get along okay in Thai, but I could never begin to describe these things in Thai. And no one that I know speaks English well enough to discuss these ideas in my own blessed language. So it’s a dream world really, the world that I live in. A world of smiles and platitudes, all sweetness and light, a vast, shallow ocean of interaction, limited by lack of language ability and enforced by the local custom of avoiding those emotions at all cost. Limited to a happy world of snacks and good cheer.
It’s like a dream come true, really.
Certainly it’s been a long time since I actually saw one. I sleep, I don’t hear them, no buzzing around the ears. I get bites, it seems, the only evidence is usually a small red spot, no bump, no itching. If I don’t happen to see them, I don’t know that they are there.
“Mosquimotos,” one of my Thai friends calls them. I think that it’s such a wonderful word that I don’t correct her. MOS-KEE-MO-TOES, like little winged samurai, or tiny Mr. Moto’s with evil intent and penetrating proboscises. Such a more entertaining word!
I get bit occasionally by things with more power, more presence, more evil intent. Those leave larger wounds, surrounded by colossal lumps of histamine fluid, one inch across, lasting a day or two, and itching to beat the band. Spiders? A mystery.
These are the little, inconsequential things that I prefer to write about these days, the reason that this blog is rather dull. Maybe I’m a little dull myself, but not that dull. Does Khun Fred have anything to say today? Or is Khun Fred just fucking around, as usual. Cutesy little videos; fun photos; YouTube music videos; bullshit observations; South-East Asian marginalia. Dull, dull, dull.
Some day perhaps I will see my way clear to speak freely. To address more serious matters. To speak about the reality of Boomers facing late-middle-age, or, (dare I say it?) encroaching old age, our shared reality of marginalization, decrepitude, irrelevance, failure, and lost opportunities? Maybe I should explore my own nightmare world, which is fueled by obsessive worrying and a hyperactive cortex that knows only degrees of panic. Does anyone think that that would be a good idea?
Some people may wonder why I like living in Asia. Consider this: I get along okay in Thai, but I could never begin to describe these things in Thai. And no one that I know speaks English well enough to discuss these ideas in my own blessed language. So it’s a dream world really, the world that I live in. A world of smiles and platitudes, all sweetness and light, a vast, shallow ocean of interaction, limited by lack of language ability and enforced by the local custom of avoiding those emotions at all cost. Limited to a happy world of snacks and good cheer.
It’s like a dream come true, really.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Proud Family
Down a little ways please find a vid of the graduate and a completely unrelated salute to graduates at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. This is the rest of the graduate's family that was with me there that day. They're a nice bunch, all university grad's themselves, not rich, but relatively prosperous. I'm lucky to know them.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Where My Facebook At?
More cause-and-effect mystery today: my Facebook page comes up plain white from corner to corner. Glitch? Blocked? Technical difficulties? Censorship?
Everything else is coming in fine. Censorship is always a good guess in Asia.
One terrible truth: I miss it. How starved for socialization must I be?
Everything else is coming in fine. Censorship is always a good guess in Asia.
One terrible truth: I miss it. How starved for socialization must I be?
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