Henry Nam

I want a beauty product that'll help me feel beautiful on the inside.  Do that Loreal, and I'll be able to support your motto of "because you're worth it."

Tips for myself dot com .  Advice we feel we need to tell and learn ourselves more than others.

All around me, I'm seeing reminders of everything other than what I should be reminding myself of.

If curiosity killed the cat, we have a serial, cat-killer on the loose.

World War I was known as the Great War until World War II happened.  Will the same happen with the Great Depression?

Yes, I understand the hypocrisies of spending time I do not have complaining about how little time I have, but I'm hoping this'll help me focus for a bit.  Today, I got out at the earliest I have all week: 9:30pm.  Considering bedtime for me has been between 2-4am with a wakeup between 8-9am, I'm surprised I'm not worse off.  Certainly not going to complain about that.  Relatively speaking, things are pretty wonderful, but being a human being, I'm excelling at our primary purpose in life: complaining.  

Really, it's not the work or the wetness or even the lack of sleep (ok, just a little bit of the last part).  What's got me ticked off is that my glasses broke for no good reason.  They're less than 2 years old, I don't abuse them, and I wasn't doing anything excessive when they broke: just ... driving.  The windows weren't even down.  They were broken in such a way that not even tape could salvage them.  They're barely sticking to my face.  

It stinks how much we depend on vision to do anything.

Anyway, I need to do what I need to do, but before I get into that:

Veteran's Day.  Despite the petty little things I complained about here, I'm very thankful to have the life I do in no small part thanks to the veterans.  Regardless of political affiliation, opinions about world events, or even pro/anti-war sentiments, the reasons people join the military are not all simply to fight.  I feel that a large part of the spirit of Veterans Day is to have a day set aside when we can look at everyone as human beings regardless of whether or not you're on "our" side of the war or not, and pay respects to those that must endure because of the petty nature of humans.  

Love and Peace,

Nam

I do not own the rights to this photo but feel that it is one of the most poetic and telling ones I've seen in a long time.  If you do own the rights to it and would like it removed, please let me know.

It's simultaneously become easier and harder to advertise yourself as a musician. These days, everything from child prodigy-turned-50-year-veteran to a person with no musical training tinkering with Garage Band or FL Studio can count as a musician. Social networking sites in addition to many marketing websites make it incredibly easy to put up a professional-looking, professional-sounding website (present company excluded from professional-looking/sounding) with very little effort. Because of this however, the music world has become diluted (this also applies to the non-musical world too of course) to the point that saying that you're a musician or have a band or play shows or put forth an album means very little. Well, ok, I should be careful with my words. I'm talking more about a general, public notion of the word and not so much a personal one. To some, I'm sure those things do mean a lot. But as I feel deja vu about writing this entry, I digress.

I believe I've talked before about how little releasing a CD-album means in a day and age where iTunes dominates the circulation of music (iThink). I suppose from the moment that people started talking about music and musicians, it became a commodity, a statement substantiated by how many concerts you've seen turned to how many records or tapes or CD or DVDs or gigabytes of music you own. Perhaps it's because I'm past an age where my powerful, teen-angst emotions are (mostly) behind me, but it seems like a good song doesn't go as far as it used to. We've stopped really listening to music and let it become a social statement of sorts. But I suppose that it's not like 100 years ago, every music listener contemplated on how the music they listened to touched their soul and inspired them.

Anyway, I'd like to move my thoughts to brainvomit some ideas about musical success. Ultimately, feelings of success has to come from the musician. Yet, so many pursue a dream of becoming famous or getting that recording contract or filling up their tour schedule or even simply attracting people to them. Recently, I've been working on some music that really challenges and frustrates me, but to see that all turn into an incredible performance never ceases to inspire me and helps me remember why I do music in the first place. Yeah, I like the money, the recognition, the gigs, and all, but the times I am most happy playing is when all of the practice I put into my craft bears fruition in a performance whether private or public. Seeing everything line up is absolutely sublime and unexplainable.

I'm incredibly fortunate to have musicians in my life who push me to become better at what I do and broaden my appreciation of something that I once hated. I just hope that I'll never lose touch with what is "essential" to me in and about music.

Short version:  Boo hoo.  Whine whine whine.

Long version:  My head feels heavy.  Really, being a student shouldn't be that hard, but like many (oh so many), it feels like school's the least important thing as far as my actions go.  I'm struggling again.  Despite such a wonderful start, a really good previous semester, and all, I'm burning out.  

I think the weekends (or lack thereof) are really killing me, but at the same time, how much would I get done anyway?  I'm so close to the end.  Compared to the years I've been alive (and hope to continue to be!), these next 2.5 months are but a blip on the radar.  Yet, so much of my being just wants to stop having to worry about the school system and work as a musician and artist.  I think I just yearn for independence, but I know the moment I get my "wish," I'll regret not taking advantage of this precious time in my life.  

Maybe what it is is this constant state of transitions I feel like I'm in.  I'm always moving from one stage in my life to another, but that's life though.  Knowing myself, I may not enjoyed the "settled" life so much.  In this stage, I'm definitely feeling torn between my academic life and my quasi-professional life.  In a matter of speaking, I want to do more music and dedicate more time to art and do more of those books but school is getting in the way.  What a backwards way of looking at it, huh?  

Water break.

As I've been going through life, I keep hearing that once something becomes an obligation, it oftentimes becomes less pleasurable.  School's definitely feeling like an obligation.  A whoppingly expensive obligation.  I feel I really just need to grow up and deal with it, but I feel like a car trying to win a race on flat tires.  Going through this process has taught me a lot about myself, but self-enrichment isn't something you can really get certified in let alone support yourself on.  

I've long tinkered with thoughts of leaving it all, joining a commune, and doing whatever the heck I wanted.  Sounds nice!  I know I'll get bored of it though.  However meaningless everything I'm doing now feels, it'll translate to the rest of my life once I release myself from any obligation aside from tending to my own selfish needs in addition to the needs of the commune.  

Energy.  I need energy!  Even more so, I need will power, and that's something only I can give myself.  What I'm doing now feels so devoid of substance.  I'm doing what I need to to graduate.  I'm "learning" what my academic community has deemed important to know so they can certify me as a relative expert in some general field.  It's all for a sheet of paper that says I did it.  

One way of putting my seeming inability to fulfill obligations are these mini-vibrations of mindless ticks.  Computers, cleaning, cooking, researching, writing, doodling, daydreaming ... it's all over the place.  I'm terribly afraid of even the prospect of being put on medications that "help" me concentrate in fear of losing the dynamic way my mind works.  I depend on it creativity, but perhaps I'm only leading myself to my own destruction.

I need to sleep.  I'm not going to solve anything by staying up and worrying about all the stuff I should have done.  It isn't done, it won't get done, and tomorrow's going to come anyway.

I thought it was pretty funny to be cycling through radio stations and come across one that was talking about a fart heard over a sports cast interview that made even Tiger Woods laugh.  It really seems like bodily humor jokes are among the few lowest common denominators among guys.  That said ...

What stinks more, a fart fart or brain fart?

Your authoritative source of deeply philosophical, envelope-pushing thought,

Nam

THOUGHT ABOUT FOOD:  I'm only now realizing the irony of eating veggetarian buffalo wings with an omlet.  

I've been doing pretty well for myself.  Thanks to some wonderful teachers and an incredible support group, this semester turned out to be the most successful of my entire college career.  I actually heard today that I got put onto the Dean's List!  Go figure.  The summer has been far more chaotic than I thought it'd be.  In the span of about a week and a half, I drove 3000 miles.  I've been waking up bright and early (for me) every day to make it to my 8am class.  Today was my last day, and I have to say that even though the work load was quite something, it was thoroughly enjoyable.  I feel like I got a lot of really valuable and relevant information from the class.

Pictures are currently uploading on Photobucket.  I'll fill them in once they're all done.

First is a picture of the Monsterpocalypse Series 2 Booster set I picked up and gave out as gifts to my fellow gaming friends.  It's a really fun game that most people are reluctant to play at first, but it's pretty simple and easy to pick up once you play a couple of games.  Plus, I think the world is really cool.  Just imagine taking the monsters from all those movies you saw growing up:  Mazinger, Aliens, Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, Cthulu, and so on, plopping them in the middle of a city, and letting the mayhem ensue.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to play more than a few games since the new year.

Next are some pictures from kite flying at Buttermilk Falls.  The Justice Kite is falling appart.  We used a bunch of plastic bags and my mini carbiner to make a string and hook for the thing.  It worked just fine.  Once I set aside some time, I'll do some more repairs.

Here are some pictures taken after I got out of class early.  It's a side of SMCM that I haven't really taken very many pictures of.  Then again, I haven't made the time to really soak in the beauty of this place.  Schedule's mostly been wake up, maybe food, class, work, homework, sleep, repeat.  I really want to go kayaking, swimming, and sailing again.  Just a matter of finding the right day and making the time.

The following are some snapshots compliments of Csernski of the CreamCenter show at the Charm City Art Space.  There was a HUGE SMCM turnout for some reason.  We welcome new member Paul Lemley to our amorphously ameboid group.  Audience participation was excellent!

Then the following day, Sk8N8, Csernski, and I attended a Breast/Testicular Cancer fundraiser/race.  The turnout was impressive.  We had people from all up and down the East Coast.  The event was the first non-outlaw skate event I've been to (that hasn't been at a park).  I got a chance to ride my Hammerhead.  The poor thing doesn't get very much love.  

Once the pictures are done, I'll be uploading the videos to YouTube and posting them here.

I've got a busy weekend ahead of me (once again) followed by the begining of the second session of summer classes: American Comedy!  Very much looking forward to it.  Hopefully, I'll be able to work some more on my SMP.

Love and Peace,

Nam