VexVox

At some point on Wednesday, I was left alone to watch over my dad while my mom ran some errands.

It was the last day my dad was communicative, but I wouldn’t know it that at the time. I thought maybe he could join me in some Christmas carols by squeezing my hand in rhythm of the songs. It was a tall order, but I wanted to give it a semblance of a college try. Of course, he didn’t squeeze back as I murdered my way through "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night".

At the end of that mini-recital, I asked him if I was out of tune.

He squeezed my hand in confirmation.

That was the last thing my dad said to me.

I think it’s pretty damn funny.

69 + 68 = 137.

In 2008, Austin had 69 days of triple-digit heat. In 2009, it had 68. Those are 137 reasons I wanted to move from Austin. I have many more.

But rather than gripe about all the reasons Austin annoys the hell out of me, I would tell people I wanted to move to be closer to Hawaiʻi. My dad is sick, I said, and it’s so hard to fly home from Austin.

That’s a more sympathetic story than my hatred of six-month summers, five-month allergy seasons and living in Texas. I’ve yet to meet anyone who grew up in Hawaiʻi whose life-long desire was to live in Texas.

I used my dad as a smoke screen. I didn’t want to be closer to him, I would tell myself. I wanted to be there for my mom, who was killing herself to keep him alive. That was the subtext which gave the sentiment some kernel of truth. But for him? Shit, Austin is actually the perfect distance.

If I hated Austin that much — and if I hated my dad that much more — I could have moved anywhere. To Chicago, where my sister lives. To New York City, where I’ve lived before.

But on paper, the west coast made sense. San Francisco and Seattle were both tech-driven cities. San Francisco has a more visible gay community, and I know a lot of people who live in Seattle. It’s also cheaper to fly to Hawaiʻi from those cities than from Chicago or New York City.

How could I argue with the facts?

Continue reading »

Here’s what how I imagined it would happen.

I’m in Austin, minding my own business. I go to work in the morning, I come home in the evening. I’m working on one of my myriad projects — recording tracks for Eponymous 4, doing homework for C# class, writing a review for Musicwhore.org. Maybe I’m watching an episode of Good Eats for the umpteenth time.

Then I get a call. "Son, you need to come home." I get on a plane. I go to the funeral. I get back on a plane, and life resumes.

Intent and outcome are rarely coincident, Morpheus once said in The Sandman. The same, of course, applies to reality and fantasy.

One aspect of that last scenario came true — I did get a call, a few actually. And the message was simple: Dad doesn’t have much longer, and it would be good if you could see him before he went.

I had already bought a ticket home. I timed it for my mom’s birthday — and also the last day of C# class — and I wanted it to be a surprise. (Another example of intent and outcome being rarely coincident.)

But the conversations had turned urgent. At first, I spilled the beans about the surprise visit. That bought some time but not enough for my dad to hold out till December.

So I rescheduled the flight from Dec. 9 to Nov. 22, and I sent an e-mail to my office saying, You know That Call I said I might be getting at any time? Any time has become now.

Eleven hours and two-layovers later, I was back in Hawaiʻi.

Continue reading »

I don’t think this is a good idea.

Participating in Holidailies — no, not a good time. But here I am.

I make it a point not to talk about family. I run under the assumption that somehow, somewhere, someone I know can read this site, and given my tendency toward … mature language, I prefer those readers not to be related to me.

But events from the past two weeks which have dominated my life deal directly with family, and despite my reservations, I feel some misguided responsibility to log these events for that nebulous notion of posterity.

My dad passed away a week ago and a day.

You probably have some knee-jerk reaction to say something comforting at this point because perhaps you have filtered that last sentence through your own experience, or you’re trying to picture your own life without someone so significant.

Hold off on that sentiment for now.

We can most likely agree this situation is all kinds of suck, but what compounds the suck for me is ambivalence. I can’t say I liked my dad, and manners prevent me from being more forthright.

The gap he leaves in my mom’s life is heart-breaking, and the fact that he’s gone — not just away, but flat out gone — is something that probably won’t make itself apparent till a week from now, when he is buried.

Damn. Happy holidays.

Continue reading »

I’ve been meaning to bring this site back into the self-hosted fold for a long time.

VexVox was originally a Vox site, but Vox didn’t have an export function. I experimented with some Movable Type plug-ins to exploit the RSS feeds on the site to no avail.

Then Vox announced its closure and provided a means to move user sites to other services. I moved VexVox to Typepad, then exported from Typepad into Movable Type.

So now VexVox has come home.

I could blame the lack of updates on this site to that inability to export, but in reality, my mom quoted back to me something I wrote on Musicwhore.org, which pretty much ended more than a decade of anonymity on the Net.

Yes, yes, I know that’s a fallacy, a delusion. But my parents are of a generation where the concept of double-click can be daunting. (I may recount the tale of the minimizing/maximizing window one day.) But I’ve always gambled on said parents’ technical know-how to allow me some wiggle room for such public expression.

Now I guess I have to bite my tongue.

The way I live? How would you know?

Many, many months back, I received this advertisement in the mail.

t first, I thought, "How the hell did I get this?" If these marketers paid for my credit report, they'd see I wouldn't have the income to afford a stay in New York City, let alone at a private club. Then I saw the photo, and thought, "That's pretty gay."

Then I looked closer at the text.

"Manhattan and diversity go hand in hand. From Broadway shows to Lincoln Center performances, chic restaurants to matchless shopping."

Huh. Those are all the gay keywords all right.

"Located across the street from the newly opened Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center."

OK. Now, that's eerie. I saw Kronos Quartet at Alice Tully Hall twice when I lived in New York City from 1992 to 1993. I also bought tickets to a concert at Lincoln Center in 2005. I didn't look at the date of the concert closely, and it turned out to happen the week after I visited.

Lincoln Center. "Diversity". New York City.

As it turns out, the marketers for this private club did indeed do their research — and very well. It made me wonder who sold my information to them, but it probably wouldn't have mattered.

They knew I live in Austin, Texas.

They knew I visited New York City.

In fact, they knew I have an interest in the events of Lincoln Center.

They knew I have a history of patronizing gay-targeted media.

And they want to tantalize me with the idea of staying in New York City at their club.

What's worse? It worked. Of course, it was a pipe dream to stay at a club, but I had to admire just how narrowly they pinpointed me for this mailing.

I see what they did there. Well played, Phillips Club. Well played.

It's done.

The trip that has caused so much ambivalence has been completed. I can now say I've been to Japan. And yes, I would like to return.

I really only wanted to go there to shop, and shop I did. I didn't want to go with inflated expectations. Too many people think Hawai‘i is all grass huts and hula skirts, not realizing Honolulu is a major city like any other city on the Mainland.

I had some notion of what the topography of Japan would look like from media — music videos, anime — but I kept my mind open about everything else. And I'm glad I did.

On a more personal level, this trip really demonstrated the stark differences between my brother and me. At the very least, my efforts at more healthful living have paid off. Also, it would really be nice for everyone in my family if dad could just let go and shuffle this mortal coil. (Yes, I said that out loud.)

So, how do I proceed? Report on the sequence of events as they transpired from day to day? Summarize the experience in more general terms? There's the trip to Japan, and there's also my current stay in Hawai‘i. (I return to Austin on Dec. 2.)

The flight to Hawai‘i managed not to piss me off as badly as it usually does, even with a four-hour layover. I think I've discovered the secret to make it tolerable — alcohol. I had a pair of margaritas at a Mexican restaurant in LAX, and it made me sufficiently tipsy to sleep on the plane. I know what I'm doing on my flight back to LAX.

Before leaving for Japan, I spent five incredibly uneventful days in Honolulu, just watching TV or surfing the web. I paid a visit to Ala Moana to see if I could get some items on my shopping list before heading to Japan, thereby allowing me to get more things there. I was unsuccessful. I did, however, get my ABC Store Men of Hawai‘i calendar.

It got a bit boring, but it just feels nice to be away from Austin — from the angst about money issues, from the disillusionment of living in a city of which I've grown tired, from work. I would get restless, but then I would pull back and realize I keep myself busy enough when I'm in my own place. Why not relish this time to do absolutely nothing?

The trip would be activity enough.

Five Things that Would Draw Me to Living in the Bay Area

• A chance to catch the Mythbusters at work.
• Easy access to Kronos Quartet concerts.
• Kinokuniya and Book Off. Have yet to see how Amoeba Records compares with Waterloo, though.
• Teh gay
• Work

Five Things that Make Me Sick of Austin

• Longhorn Football
• Rednecks
• 70 days of triple-digit heat
• Allergy seasons
• Texas self-aggrandizement

I bought a guitar today. No, I can't really afford it.

Guitar Center was offering 12-month no interest on their store card, which I have. I thought about getting some bass traps, but I don't want to install anything in the studio if I may have to uninstall it, should I relocate. I could have gotten a Shure SM58 dynamic microphone or some Sony MDR-7502 headphones, but I don't really use the dynamic mic I already have. The Sennheiser HD280 headphones I already have are good enough for monitoring.

So I got a guitar. It's not even a priority purchase. (I would like to get a Nord 2 synthesizer, for the time I may want to start playing live.)

But it's one that's reasonable when spread over a year.

Also, the acoustic guitar I bought back in 1998 is … OK. But I could never really play it. I always chalked it up to my deficiencies as a guitar player — piano is my primary instrument — and I put up with the too-narrow bridge for my thick fingers. I never really got as much pleasure playing that guitar as I did playing my piano.

Then a few weeks back, I started browsing Ask Metafilter for pointers on how to buy a guitar, and the advice I saw was to audition as many guitars as possible. A cheap guitar that feels comfortable will trump an expensive guitar that doesn't, the consensus seemed to say.

So yesterday, I decided to cure my cabin fever by going to the Guitar Center down south. I played on a few guitars but didn't fall in love with anything in particular. I aimed for instruments in the $250-$400 range, and I could tell they felt different than the one I have. I got there late enough that the store closed half an hour later.

Today, I went to the store up north and played another few guitars. The salesguy pointed out a few models, and I checked them out. I was leaning toward a Seagull guitar, but then I was shown a Breedlove. I'm no good with barre chords, but on this guitar, I managed to make them without much effort. The action felt comfortable, the sound was great, and the neck was wide enough to accommodate my fingers.

Yes, I connected with the guitar, and I wanted to bring it home with me.

So I put it on the Guitar Center card, and for the next 12 months, I'll be chipping in approximately $32 to pay it off.

With trips to Seattle and Japan coming up, plus trying to square away my credit card balance, I haven't let myself get anything fun. I spend all my money on bills and food. I haven't bought any CDs, and last week, I agonized whether to get both a haircut and an oil change for my car. I was about to buy Please Understand Me II from the bookstore, but I put it back on the shelf.

All this self-control, and I lose it for a guitar? It's not inconceivable, but in reality, I'm tired of waiting.

I'm tried of forecasting my finances and discovering that, no, I cannot renew my Flickr account, and no, I cannot get a replacement for the wireless access point just yet. No, I cannot go CD shopping this weekend, and no, I cannot go to Oilcan Harry's and ignore guys who may want me.

I'm tried of waiting to make myself happy. I'm tired of waiting for the trips to see how much is leftover. I'm tried of breaking even. I'm tired of getting paid half of what I should be making. I'm just fucking tired.

I can't afford this guitar — and I am seriously considering selling the old guitar to help pay for the new one — but I don't want to just maintain my vital signs. I want to live a little, even though I know full well a little is a lot to ask right now.

I went out to Oilcan Harry's on Thursday night with Skitzfiggitous, and she asked me what I've been doing during my vacation. I told her I spent one day reading a book about … management. Her reaction was the same as mine — surprise.

I told her about a prediction Kramer made last year. He told me to look into taking a management class, or to read a book about management. He sees management in my future. I made noises to Skitzfiggitous about how I don't consider myself management material, and she said, "Yes you are."

Oh crap.

Maybe I'm revising history or something, but the last time I tried my hand at management, I sucked at it. First, I was the features editor at Ka Leo O Hawai`i, then managing editor. It didn't take me long to develop the reputation of bad cop, and I struggled with filling my section with copy because, well, I scared the hell out of my writers. I felt a lot of frustration because I wanted to do some ambitious things without having to provide instruction first. Hell, I thought that was what classes were for. I wanted writers who were ready to do the job. They weren't. Not till after I was done with them.

(The conventional wisdom, of course, was that the paper was the real learning experience, and classes were something you did to get the degree.)

After college, some supervisory positions opened up at Austin 360, and I was passed over for them every time. It turned out for the best, really, because I probably would have gone through the same kind of power trip I did at the student newspaper. Those votes of no confidence, however, spurred me to think more laterally, and I learned web development. Goodbye, editorial! Fuck the corporate ladder!

So back to last night with Skitzfiggitous telling me I was manager material.

I told her to explain to me just what I was doing to give off that impression. I know what kind of manager I am — one who rules with an iron fist and is just as willing to rain shit on people as shit was rained upon me. She had a laundry list.

First, I'm opinionated about things about which I know, which, to her frustration, is a lot. That kind of expertise gives off a manager vibe, I guess. She also said I have a better understanding of big picture stuff than some managers she's encountered. I'm also not the kind of person who takes shit from anyone, but I'm not inaccessible either. I understand the former; the latter, I still don't get.

Skitzfiggitous said she pictures me in a managerial role but not at our workplace. I don't picture that either.

I've designed my career in such a way to avoid management altogether. I consider myself a tool, something you use to make a job easier. You want what to do what? Sure, I can script something to do exactly that. Just … leave me alone.

Before the new year, I was one of two people in charge of a committee to update a specific web tool. I've mentioned it before. Something tells me that's my leadership style.

Deity save us now.