Chinatown was a blur when I hung out with my brother today. We ate at Great Noodletown where my Dad would take me to eat char-sui fun when I was in grade school and junior high. The last time I hung out with Dan we rendezvoused in 8 Ave and ate at a noodle store which had crap service and I was surrounded by my own people. Of course the only issue that swirls around this statement "my own people" is a matter of imagined communities. Unfortunately they had nothing in common with me. I other them because they look mostly FJ which means fook jow, a different type of Chinese because they come from an area next to Canton as my bro Dan told me. But I have heard that Toisan and Mando people don't get along with FJs because they are associated with gang members or chain immigration tricks parlored by frivolous neighborhood bosses or dai lows. This doesn't exactly hold with me because I get along with Dan just fine. Then again I don't even recall my Chinese ethnicity and I don't identify myself as Chinese. In fact by case of self determination I think I am a twinkie because I am yellow on the outside but really white on the inside. Perhaps I'm even an Americanized brat who has been jaded and blinded by the world around me. I have been fully indoctrinated since first grade when they blasted me with mindless party music and preached to me the importance of Christopher Columbus only to find out in college that Columbus did not discover America but he simply sailed a few feminine ships and he committed heinous acts upon the "natives" and "indigenous peoples" of the original land which he conquered and enslaved. I do not identify as Chinese but when I am in Chinatown I reach into my roots mostly when I'm at the restaurant and when I'm ordering bubble tea. Recently I have become comfortable speaking in Toisan or Chinglish around my white friends. Perhaps this is because I know that they will not be paying attention to the legitimacy of my Chinese and they will even be astounded that I know my own language. But when I'm around my Asian friends, I speak Chinese with caution because I know they will subject me to criticism and censorship especially if my Chinese is embarrassingly incorrect and improperly pronounced.
Hanging with my brother hearkens the four times we have hung out, once at Baruch, and three other times around these streets of New York. Even though our conversations are not as brotherly and surely our differences have become pronounced (he treats math with less contempt than I do and he is more in tune with his Asian side), Dan pesters me to be serious and continue looking for a job. Go to every store and ask. If there is a sign, go inside and ask for a job. He goaded me to go out every single day and search for work because work will not come to me if I sit home and read books and pretend to write novels in silence. He makes a good point by saying that I am avoiding my search. By reading books at home I am avoiding the reality and I am avoiding life as it moves on with or without me. I suppose my reading is a form of avoidance. I claim that I have so much reading to catch up on when in reality I need to find a job. I need to focus on finding a job right now, and not occupying my time with shelves of books and accumulating mounds and mounds of books that I know I will put off until two or three years later which will only feel like a few days [later]. I avoid a lot of stuff by
I open my small box of busking money and I count over five hundred bucks. I have a few gadgets I want to obtain before the end of this year. I want a digital camera to replace my battered up Canon Digital Elph which I purchased during Black Friday five years ago. The lens is busted up because a piece of the hood is missing. This camera performs poorly when I point the lens at the sun as the missing piece is needed to correct the unwanted blur spots. I want to get a mirrorless system but I am not convinced of its integrity and quality of the lens, especially because Canon does not make mirrorless systems I might not want to invest six hundred to a grand on a mirrorless system when I can purchase a used Mark 2D or DSLR camera for half the price and still have Canon's lens quality. Updating my digital camera will allow me to shoot amazing photos. Most importantly it will allow me a better facade; it will let me look presentable and more professional because using a point and shoot digital camera is very unprofessional and noobish. Only a greenhorn uses an auto point and shoot camera that is devoid of manual focus and manual settings. A new digital camera can also double as an amateur video camera; although the battery life is close to extinct on digital cameras I pray for a camera with full HD video capability and respectable battery life. I suppose with a new camera I can restart my Youtube channel and have a new lease on my music career by recording full HD videos with crisp sound...which means I will have to eithe renew my microphone or learn how to master my recording tracks on Sony Vegas Pro. At the moment my Blue Yeti mic is treating me alright; it could be better. Maybe I am not using it to the best of its ability.
In addition to purchasing a digital camera I would also like a Canon full HD video camera so I can return to filmmaking when I feel the sensation. As of now I don't feel like making any movies because I fear an inscrutable budget lurking behind me and I fear the mess on set once we get a crew together. The lethargy of the crew dwelling together in the heat is not a desirable sight.
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