Thank You Lord

Jamie Foxx

Jamie Foxx is incredible. Props to Steve.

By The Way...

These are really cool

Vincent Cassel

This

almost makes me believe he did this

Ocean's Twelve - Laser Dance Capoeira (Oceans 12) - The most amazing home videos are here

(sorry for the dubbing)

I love the Gene Kelly pants

I Like Her Style

www.unabashedlyprep.com

Cheap Airfare

Rafa flies economy. The legend lives on.

Catch Me If You Can

Am I the only one that's synonymously associated Christmas music with depression? Please comment if there's anyone else out there.

I've always felt that Catch Me If You Can was a really underrated movie. It was what a lot of critics call a "nice" movie that's worth the ticket price, but would never shake that reputation (I mean, how could you right? It's Tom Hanks) and that may be true, but in my book, there haven't been very many entertaining movies that have done the whole coming of age story with a human condition plot as well as Catch Me If You Can. I thought Leo was perfectly cast.

Where am I going with this? I'm going to embed this clip with the disclaimer that you really can't understand how incredibly sad this scene is without having watched the entire movie leading up to this.

I think my Christmas music association has something to do with my having watched The Godfather at a very early age and never forgetting the image of Luca Brasi putting on his bulletproof vest and load his gun to 'White Christmas'. I know. Parents pay attention to movie ratings. Rated R means Rated R.

Maybe I have mommy/daddy issues, but this scene always cuts to the core of me (Ron Burgundy reference--yes I still have a little college in me). How sad is it that young Frank's literally begging Carl to get him in the car?

Merry Christmas to you too.

Spoiled Brat

I thought about naming this post Spoiled Brats, but the only reason I would have done that was in a desperate attempt to deflect some of the blame to the larger community of those reading/working/being anything close to remotely human. But for the most part, these are just my thoughts and I'm not in any position to drag anyone else down with me so here's my dose of reality potion.

It's so strange, for the past few weeks I've been asking myself, "What if you had lived in another time?" Greed and selfish ambition were always there, I'm not about to convince myself otherwise, but let's say I had grown up under different circumstances-- the kind of circumstances that we've seen throughout history; microcosms that the historians love to cite, referencing a time that was purer and full of the morality that's lacking today.

We've all read/seen/heard of Tom Brokaw's 'The Greatest Generation'. An entire 300 page obituary of the American golden age, full of countless examples of those that endured, courage under fire and all that good stuff. Forgive my sarcasm, it seeps through uncontrollably.

But what if corporate success, a home in the suburbs and a $60,000 car were luxuries that only served to get me slapped. What if the only formal education I was allotted was working a steam press or tightening gears in an assembly line. All of this until I was ripe and ready for absolutely nothing except for more of the same. And to think this was adolescence for the longest time for so many, if you could even call it that.

It's ironic how I catch myself calling work a 'grind' without once stopping to think how that association stuck.

Spoiled brat. I call myself that because there are and have been people with far less to hope for with much harder jobs paired with nothing to look forward to other than more of the same that still took joy in their work; people that were only surprised by how old they were because they looked in the mirror and looked at least 10 years older than they actually were. Surprised because they felt so much older and not younger than the years told them they were.

People keep saying that it's all relative, which is fine, but regardless, it doesn't make it any easier to swallow the fact that I'm being put to shame.

Watch

As soon as I can.

Strange

Ads

I'm not quite sure as to why (I'll dissect this later), but this ad really works:

Sorry about the poor quality, I tried looking for a better one, but hey, this is just a blog. This whole campaign has a very autumn in New York type of feel to it. I like the vintage bike (almost guaranteed that it's a single gear). It just works. Life At Work, how clever.

Been a while

"Every man had to test himself, and if he was courageous and lucky he found maturity. That was all the reward you could ask for, or were entitled to: growing up.

- Ward Just, The Translator (1991)

When I think about all of the age-old Asian-American, or for that matter, Korean-American mantras of the Issei (not sure if I'm allowed to use a cross-cultural reference in reference to a separate and completely unrelated cross-cultural reference) aka our parents, the American Dream obviously comes to mind, but the American Dream of our parents was somewhat different than the one that we learn about in history and sociology textbooks. The comparison is incomplete and imperfect, but when I put myself in my parents' shoes when they first decided to leave Korea and come to America in hopes of a nice car, mansion and maybe more important than any of that, a reputation back home that they would never get to enjoy, something doesn't really make sense.

When we were in high school/middle school/or maybe as far back as preschool for the really unfortunate, our parents always told us how much they had sacrificed for us in coming to this country without money, friends or language and went on and on about how it was our obligation to repay them through studying hard, earning a decent living and taking care of them so they could finally be comfortable. I'm almost 100% positive I'm not the only one in this and if you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, please just read this post as a Korean-American sociological/cultural case study.

But one thing that my parents at least regretted to mention is that they had dreams of their own that were either crushed, thrown aside to be picked up in daydreams or arrested for their kids to carry through at some point later on. Some were successful, most weren't. I'm sure most of us have had this point communicated to us by our parents in subtle forms that we were too young and stupid to understand. Now in retrospect, I realize that these subversive pressures weren't so much for betterment as much as they were just the torch of their dreams passed on to their children regardless of whether they were forced or willing.

And please don't take this as some bitter kid (not sure if I can still call myself a kid at 23) ranting about how his parents put pressure on him to bring home a report card free of minus blemishes and tardies. What I'm getting at is actually closer to the opposite. Just bear with me.

My point is that at some point, there was proverbial waking up. Or if you're a pessimist an "Oh (enter preferred interjection here)" moment. There was a moment wherein our parents realized that this American Dream that they had twisted, filled in, defaulted to be perfectly their own wouldn't ever come true. In fact, most probably realized that they would be working by the sweat of their brow and the tired bones in their fingers for the remainder of their productive years. Here's where the sacrifice part comes in.

I remember back when I was in college, I was having dinner with a good friend of mine at Cheeseboard when this lady began talking to us out of nowhere. Aside from the strange incense smell emanating from her clothes and the fact that she claimed that Biography of A Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda was the greatest work of literature to have ever been written, she was a nice lady. But one thing that she said really irked me, so much so that it still bugs me to this day. After the general awkwardness of letting her know that my friend and I were not boyfriend and girlfriend, she told us that we shouldn't be pursuing law, engineering, business like all of the rest of the asian mainstream (her words, not mine), but that we should go into fields where we could be the proverbial sacrificial lamb (see above) for the future. What I thought she was hinting at was that we had to die to ourselves so that we could aspire to be unsuccessful only to realize that we had to defer to the next generation.

That's exactly what our parents had to do. They didn't know the language, they didn't know the customs (if you're a complete idiot and this is completely lost on you, wikipedia L.A. Riots) and most of all, they didn't have the opportunities that we have today. And all of this is so painfully true.

What that lady told me over dinner that cold night in Berkeley killed me inside because it was so evident, so prevalent in my own life. I saw my parents and I hated that they had to die to their own dreams only to see someone live vicariously through everything that was provided by their hard work and anguish. What is love? That's a question that's been asked of me countless times over the past year. All I can do is point to Christ, but I'm beginning to see that the love of our parents had/has so much more depth than we thought we realized.

Is it wrong to have selfish desires? At this point in my life, I could care less. It doesn't make what our parents had to go through any less tragic. They're the tragic heroes of our short and very hopeful lives. It almost hurts me to say that, only because I can't imagine what I would feel having to do that.

I guess there's really no point to this post other than to get that off of my chest. Sorry if it sounded depressing, there are just a lot of things happening right now and please don't take that as anything other than what it means.

Revelation Song

Can't get enough of this song after hearing it at the Driscoll Conference.

Creature of Habit

I've come to the realization that I hate change. A few thoughts:

1. I've been listening to The Herd with Colin Cowherd for 10 years now. Started my freshman year in high school. The reason: he's just smarter than all the other idiots on ESPN and pretty witty too.

2. During my last 4 months in Berkeley, I had the hummus sandwich with lentil soup at Smart Alec's every day for lunch without fail. The reason: tasted good.

3. I've driven the same car for 6 years, going on 7 and I refuse to get another one until I absolutely have to. The reason: I really don't know. But sometimes I find myself giving my car a pat on the dashboard for all the faithful years of service...even when I'm alone.

Happy belated Valentine's Day