Only One Sheet

Before you read on, please know that I have nothing important to say.

Tonight I went to Midas and had a pitcher of beer and a serving dish full of dry Duo Balls.  I studied the Korean that I learned long ago and on which I have since become hazy.  I can now tell you "I am not Duo Balls, Friend."  It comes up more often that you think.

What's the real shit that's been on my mind?  It's this far-to-late realization: there is a huge difference between being liked and being respected.  I have always gravitated towards being liked because it offers me an instant gratification.  Get some laughs, get some attention, and BAM!  I'm liked.  Feels good.  Fast forward, say, an hour.  All of a sudden I've used up all that bullshit I talk and I'm left being the one who won't shut up about insignificant things.  Now change my audience to 10 year olds.  Things get messy.

Tonight a man bought me a deep fried pancake smothered in sesame seeds because he had a hunch I might be American.  He was right.  He also seemed to know that I was hungry.  And while those oily snacks are far from what I ever crave, he saves me $2 and hooked me up.  Thanks, dude.

There are sweet potatoes boiling in my kitchen as we speak.  As I speak.  As I type.  Did you know sweet potatoes are the best food ever?  Neither did I.  Nor do I agree with that.  They're not.  But they're damn good.

I also had wine.

If any of you have any used clothes to spare, I would love to have them.  I'm not budgeted for shopping sprees and I'm tired of all the clothes I have.

That's really all I care to share right now.  Here are some helpful hints to get you through your life:

-Listen to Jónsi.
-Try the Insanity workout.
-Avoid YouTube.
-Don't sleep in.
-Buy one lottery ticket.  Only one.
-Make up a fake name for yourself.
-Get a scar.
-Befriend Buddy Pross.
-Send me clothes.

In Closing...

-LS^2

The duck is dead.

I don't know a single one of these kids.

I'm in love with Meg Foster,

and she's in love with me, too.

My niece has a mustache.

Proud Uncle here.

The Watchmen

If we started like this:

"Lucas, Lucas bo-Bucas
Banana fana fo-fucas..."

Would you say:
"...me my mo Mucas--LUCAS!"

Or:
"...fe fy mo Mucas-LUCAS!"

Or neither?  It's not bugging me at all, so don't pummel your brain in order to respond to me.  But do think about it.  You might realize there's a lot you don't know about yourself.

Lots of things drive you to question what you would do in a given situation.  And I think hypothetical "What Would YOU Do?"s are pretty bullshit.  I know what my answer would be, and I like to think I'd live by 'em, but when it comes face-to-face with the hot breath of temptation and morality, all the songs sounds different.  I recently did the right thing despite what the less-right thing had to offer only to be largely put upon as a result.  It made me think "Well shit, I shoulda just done the wrong thing."  But that's the natural response.  Maybe I'm just being tested.  Maybe Big Brother is gauging how I deal with being put upon to see if I'm all talk or if I've got the yarbles to man up and accept my lashings.  Or maybe it's just all coincidence and I'm too sensitive (but nothing is coincidence (I don't actually believe that (yes I do))).

Er, no I don't.  Listen to Kissing & the Hiccups.

Melissa gave me a small tupperware full of egg rolls she had made.  It was enough to last a human being with will-power and an appreciation for tasty foods perhaps two or three days.  Being who I am, I all but knocked her down as I yanked them from her hands, ran to my apartment and ate every last one of them in a shade under 5 minutes, all the while thinking quite out loud "This is why I can't have nice things."  It was sad, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I wonder if I'll stay here another year...

My brother Mateo sent me a care-package today including (but not limited to) the following:

-curry powder
-a AAA watch
-sweater vests
-quinoa
-oatmeal

If I can eat it or wear it, please send it.  And with that, I'm done.  You're welcome, Earth.

Forever Yours,
-LS^2

Entertaining tonight.

So rip Niko Niko open and take it.

I can't get enough of this behavior.

The teachers' manual I'm writing is one page long.

GOLGA

It's done.

Finally.

I've put together an album.  It's been something I've wanted to do for a long time and I've finally done it.  GOLGA is a selection of tracks from my 6 years in LA, so it's not "new" music but simply a way for me to contextualize it, wrap it up, give it away and move on.

Because it's not exactly new music, it's not entirely representative of my artistic sensibilities as they are at present.  But I'm proud of that which bred these songs and I'm satisfied that I made them.  I say this primarily to apologize for all the poor recording quality, out of tune harmonies, choppy editing and overall lackluster musical capabilities.

In the same breath, I say I love it.  I hope you enjoy it too.

-Click here to download GOLGA.  Included with it is my first album The King's Mind, which was recorded even longer ago and entirely in the first day I had ever even heard of Garageband.  So double what I said about musical sensibilities and all that shit.

-Click here to listen to the albums on SoundCloud.  The individual tracks are downloadable there too.


A million hugs and kisses to Jimmy Heberling and George Krikes for contributing some bass and guitar on a song.  It sounds like real fucking music with your hands in the mix.  Muaw.
Big giant thank you to Nathan Spidle for hosting the recordings.  Dude knows how to do everything.
Thank you Aprille Clarke, Evan Lampe, Marti Matulis and Bradley Laborman for lending your Photoshopping skills.  Y'all didn't have to do that and I appreciate the speed and knowhow with which you worked.
Muchos gracis Ben Shearn, Tara Jayne and Steve Whatevermyoldroommate'snameis for letting me use your recording equipment on a couple tracks.  For better or worse.
And finally, thank you Golga.  You're a freak.  Give your Mum a kiss on the mouth for me.


Now go outside and do something in the fresh air.  You haven't even showered yet and there are incense ashes all over your table.

-LS^2

The King's Mind (2006)

photo: Matt Mallams

design: Evan Lampe

GOLGA (2012)

photos: Simon Edelman

design: Aprille Clarke

attitude: Russia

The Snowman

I hate to say it, but the writings of R.L. Stine were too formulaic.  Here's what happens:

Goosebumps
-1st chapter introduces main character who has a quirk or a favorite OCD twitch.  Ends in a false cliffhanger.
-2nd chapter introduces main character's spunky female best friend, and she's always clad head to toe in denim (insight to me: I thought "denim" was "tye-dye" for years).
-3rd chapter until the end is all ungodly atrocity no children should have to endure, culminating in the main character putting the aforementioned quirk or favorite OCD twitch to miraculous use for the first time ever.  Problem solved.  Hooray.  Ends in cliffhanger eluding to a potential sequel...

Fear Street
-Everybody's fuckin', they just don't say that.
-The quiet guy killed 'em all 'cause he's jealous (and is the only one not fuckin').

Any Other Book
-Who cares?

That's all for now.  Just thought I'd share.

Kiss Each
Other Slowly,
-LS^2

Is he how you pictured him?

Asa Phelps Has Died

The last Hellfish died on New Year's Eve.

But not me!  I'm still alive and largely the same person.  Same dirty clothes, same slug-like intentions and motivations, same loose grasp on the world around me.  Lucky for me I got a haircut this morning. No one will suspect I'm not a new man.

Generally on NYE, I build a soapbox (metaphorically) atop which I stand and shout my proclamations into the sky and into the faces of strangers (quite literally).  A lot of it is the same old garbage and some of it is specific to whatever the beautiful girl I met 2 months prior is doing with herself.  And of course there's the annual smoking gig: one year on, one year off.  Lucky for my lungsies, it's an off year this year.  363 more days 'til I can have another cigarette.  But this year, I didn't really do all the grandstanding that I usually do.  Why?  I think it had to do with being in a new place with new people and new responsibilities and new opportunities.  I didn't make any grandiose claims that I would or would not ever again engage in such and such behavior.  Also, I don't know the people around me well enough to want to impress them.  All this combined together resulted in me spending the yearly transition shooting some weak roman candles into the Korea Strait and drinking wine with a friend and her friends without much personal fanfare, eating some of a stranger's noodle wrap and going to bed early.

The next day was also without my usual January 1st gusto as I slept in 'til past noon with a baby-hangover (awesome visual), ate a veggie burger and watched some shitty movies.  I think 'cause I was a guest at someone's house I didn't know how to go about my aimless catapult into the new life I expected to live.  And today I came home after spending 5 hours from door to train to door and already having work I need to do.  Then it's two more days of work (with my new haircut!) and then the weekend.  I think through the next few days, I'll come up with a semblance of a plan.

Jürgen noted to me that he takes some time around New Year's to reflect on what he's done in the last year.  Oddly enough, with as much thought as I put into the transition, I don't really do that.  I think about where I was a year ago and where I am now, but I somehow find it natural to glaze over the ever-so-telling year in between it all.  So what have I done this year?

--1. Moved to Korea - arguably the biggest change I've made this year.  All in all, it was and is a life-changing decision I made and here I am living it.  I'm still piecing together what it means to me every day, so I don't have any concrete thoughts on it yet.  The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know.  Cosmic, right?
--2. Sobered Up a Bit - while not divulging too much, I've made a significant change in the chemical intake my body absorbs.  While some of it was purely circumstantial, much of it came from personal constitution and boredom.  No revelations or discernible differences in my psyche to speak of, but I'm sure there are whole wings of my brain breathing a little easier.
--3. Visited My Family - maybe that's an easy one, but it was a crazy thing to experience.  My parents and my brothers have grown up, out, in and around themselves in positive and negative ways.  As have I, but I spend so much time with myself that it never hits me as it does when I see years of it all at once embodied in another person.  I pray everyone can find peace with themselves and with those around them.  While I always held the family as an otherworldly vessel that had to be treated completely different than any other orb, I see now that we're all simply people on our own wavelengths.  Love us or leave us.  Or meander passive/aggressively on the line betwixt the two.
--4. Took iO Classes - that was fun.  I kicked some ass in there and would have loved to advance farther along, but I was mislead as to how I could do so.  Oh, and I moved a billion miles away.
--5. Insanity - I couldn't finish the entire workout period, but I did 5 weeks.  Holy shit.  Holy shit.  I would try again, but that's like them Lost folk goin' back to the island.  Give it a go if you've got the yarbles.
--6. Slept with Ol' What's-Her-Name - been dreamin' o' that for a while.  Thanks for never calling back, too.

What a lame list.  There are surely more important ones I missed, but whatever.  I'm lookin' ahead.  Lookin' ahead with no cigarettes in my pocket, fragile young Korean minds to teach, a language to master and an entire country to navigate.  I aint got time to be bloggin' around like this.  The past is the past, the future's now!  So much time, so little to see!  Here...it...comes!!!

Function Optimally, Y'all.

LS^2

Christmas, the only way we know how.

Min Young Gives Me a Potato (in D#m)

There we are.

Rawrseyo!