man looking at my other post about getting sober, I keep living such a cyclical life in my 20s that needs to end right now. i dreamed i smoked weed last night thank god i didn't actually do it. im on day 7/8 of my sobriety/no vice no pornography quest and i feel a lot better. really i do. and im trying hard to ACTUALLY do things i enjoy like read magic material that makes sense to me now that ive performed for a while, and to save up money to travel, and to get a higher paying job and things like that. its getting to the point where i cant break the good part of the cycle anymore

I had to repost this somewhere, so I thought I'd do it here though I don't post anything here, (I might start soon though)

It is really depressing, and something most asian people are aware of (who am I kidding, ALL asian people over the age of fucking nine are aware of this in this country) and something that means a lot to me

Leo Zinger

1 hr ·

I need to get something off my chest. I have been doing comedy for 8 and half years now in San Francisco. I have enjoyed it immensely, but also I've seen the dark side of it. While I've met a lot of nice people, I have also met a lot of people who are full of hate. I have personally endured a torrent of racism towards me since the beginning and it doesn't seem to abate as time goes on. It comes in the forms of from casual bantering to outright racist slurs to my face (I've been called a gook and a Chinaman for no particular reason), it's specially hurtful when it comes from even so called "friends", because, you know, "That's what 'friends' do..". No it isn't. Friends enjoy each others company, friends see friends only as individuals, not just lump them with the racial group they are in. And friends certainly don't call each other racist names. Frankly I don't understand all this hate. I've never done anything to you except being nice and this is how you treat me? People f****** suck. I know you have some negative experience or prejudices towards certain groups but I have I am just an individual. I can't answer for all that. I don't live in Chinatown, I don't drive badly, I don't eat dogs and I don't have a very small penis even though I sometimes say it on stage.

And for some strange reason racism towards Asians seems to be widely accepted. Now I have a corporate day job and people never treat me that way. But when it comes to comedy community that's all out of the window, people seem to think it's open season, just because you're a comic, you should be able to "take a joke".

I'm a nice guy most of the time and I try not to be mean and racist back to people. All I ever want to do is come out, tell some jokes, be funny and make some friends. But when people treat me this way simply because I look different, it is been wearing on me. Just yesterday alone I could count three occasions this happened on the mics or hanging out with comics afterwards. I pretend it's okay most of the time but it f****** HURTS and I. f******. HATE it.

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  George Ha I couldn't agree with you more Leo. It's fucking horrible and an unfortunate part of being Asian in this country. It's partially why I created my patrick character, someone so fucking over the top with his accent and his mannerisms that he shoves it right in the fucking face of everyone like that, hopefully making them uncomfortable themselves. And even though he's meant to be an over the top caricature I really try hard not to tell a single racist joke in my act, instead choosing to focus on things that pretty much everyone can relate to, love, family, friends, careers, things like that. Because I just don't want to repeat the same fucking jokes and bring up the same stereotypes that everyone has heard a million times. I don't even want people to hear those things anymore. It makes me feel so sad whenever I see an Asian comic talk about something really stereotypical, like driving jokes or math jokes and well the joke everyone knows about Asians that I fucking refuse to repeat here. It's like I see a sad look on their face like they know what they're saying isn't even funny but they feel like it's the only thing people of other ethnic backgrounds can understand.
  
  Luckily though we live in a time where it's slowly changing. It's still pretty bad but it was a lot worse for our parents, and our generation actually has a chance to succeed in show business although it's a pretty small one. We have platforms like YouTube and things where people can be successful which makes me pretty happy.
  
  But I think it starts with us, showing people that we're fucking better than that, and avoiding everything stereotypical in our performances. We need to be original unique and really good at what we do so people can't question our talent and just reduce us to lousy fucking trite stereotypes.
  
  I'm glad you made this post and I'm sure every Asian person can relate not just comics. Let me know the next time you're holding a showcase I'll try my hardest to get out there man. Keep your chin up and remember to tell people to fuck off whenever they're being stupid like that.

I needed to do a new post, just to get the whole drug thing out of the way. I went a little while (24 days without weed, and 19 days without masturbation) and went on a one day binge Saturday indulging in both those things. I ended up passing out for nearly 18 hours afterwards. I felt better today though. 

I've been thinking a lot about my life, and what I want to do with it, and to be completely honest with you, I'm still as unsure as I've ever been. I tell myself that I'm floating along in a good direction, but who the hell knows really? my to do list as of tomorrow:

-vacuum

music/surveys

915-1015

magic 

1030-1130

x stretch

1130-1230

-----

intuit (survey)

145-345

work

5-10

this is generally what my to do lists look like every day. there is generally some combination of music/surveys, magic, and exercising. this music/surveys combo is the time of day where i fill out random surveys on craigslist, applying for various survey gigs in which i tell white lies to companies for cash. i remember seeing this old asian guy wearing a leather jacket at one of these, long slicked back hair, talking about how he used to go to uc berkeley to eat food from a lab, and how they didn't do that anymore and how it was a shame because of how much money he made, and i remember wondering to myself, "am i going to keep doing this until im his age?" and feeling kind of sad about it.

but why should i? maybe he's happy with where he's at. some things i tell myself:

YOU'LL BE HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN VOICE ACT AND NOT HAVE TO DO THESE SURVEYS AND WORK AT A PIZZA PLACE WITH A BUNCH OF FUCKING NINETEEN AND TWENTY YEAR OLDS

YOU WILL BE HAPPY WHEN YOU DEVELOP YOUR MAGIC SKILLS AND MAKE A MORE THAN DECENT LIVING

when typed in caps they seem a little silly, and although my original intention was to BE silly, they are both actually very true statements. im also happiest after an exercise session, mostly because i'm breathing properly and letting the sun shine in my face, and also drinking excessive amounts of water, which has traditionally made me feel very at ease with myself. i remember telling my acupuncturist this a while ago, and he looked at me cockeyed and said, "why? you eat too much salt?" and i thought about it for a while, and this one little quirky thing that i thought was kind of cool about my personality i was forced to attribute to my overwhelming intake of salt. which may be endearing in its own way, to people who love salt as much as i do anyway

ive been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. maybe its cause i slept 18 hours on saturday. could be a big part of it, but maybe its because i really like writing and its starting to suit me more now that i have other activities to go around it. i should sleep soon. i mean i want to, only because i dont want to be tired in the morning. i dont think ill end up doing that magic, and doing a workout in the morning always seems to depress me because it feels so difficult to do. i prefer doing it in the afternoon after ive had my nap. speaking of which, i seem to function a lot better with those lately. if only i could do that professionally. 

i've decided, starting tomorrow, im going to read at least 1-2 pages of tarbell each day and start from there. im miserable thinking of doing magic and not doing it, so maybe i should give it a try. i think my problem is that i have no idea where to START, so i may as well start there. it's such a large all encompassing art form, with so many different paths to take, it can feel a little bit overwhelming. my whole life feels overwhelming lately, when it shouldnt. i do a few simple things each day, i eat, i fill out a couple forms, i play my ukulele, i think about love for a while, i tell myself ill do magic and slip some cards in my pocket and end up not doing a trick for anyone, i tell myself i want to get house plants and look them up on amazon, i tell myself im going to learn how to cook then go to Z - P I Z Z A for a meatball sub and a salad, wash dishes for 5 hours at a time at patxis, jump up and down inbetween. im starting to like this blogging thing. im starting to feel more honest. time to take a 5htp and head off to bed and see where this journey takes me. 

tomorrow is my first day of magic school. hopefully it can take me in a new direction!!! also im going to try to write a song during my "music/surveys" section of my mornings even though ive never written a song before and have no idea what im going to write about. it's about time i start doing something new though. thats the whole point of this blog

i needed something to do between the to do lists

every morning i tell myself to do a set number of things; vacuum, get groceries, read a magic book, play a song, jump up and down, deliver pizzas, tell companies im a father with kids, act sick on the phone so i dont have to perform, lots of things. in any case, i needed something to do to fill in the gaps. maybe i just need an audience for some of these thoughts, im not sure. maybe i dont. the problem with an audience is that im too afraid to be completely honest about people, about interactions i have, about relationships that I have, which probably shouldn't be the case at all. so ill just try and be honest.

blogging feels a lot different than journaling in that i know someone's going to read this. it's going to take me a little while to get used to this, all the post settings and the blog tools are already getting to me. i generally just write in an empty notepad file.

Maybe I'll try writing with proper capitalization. I feel a little more dignified this way, and I've been starting to write this way in my actual journal for quite a while now. It does make me feel like I'm composing my thoughts a little bit better, though that might just be an illusion.

I've been watching extras and for some reason the scene where david bowie sings little fat man sold his soul made me really anxious about my own career in a way, like I've sold out performing magic tricks for kids who don't care about it. But then there are kids who really love it and make me feel happy that I'm performing for them. I'm not even sure anymore. There's so many things to fill my time with that I'm constantly unsure of which things I should do, and even when I go with the ones that my heart tells me make me feel the best about myself, I still end up feeling pretty miserable about my choices. This could be the drug comedown. Since we're being honest, I ended up doing coke for a year straight and not getting enough sunlight. I've been a month clean from the stuff, exercising and getting sunshine and getting my life together. It's been pretty good.