day at the (long) beach
Sunday, August 24

woke up late.

checked email and signed in to aim, almost by reflex. there was an email reminder about beach trip. pat (via im) confirmed that i should go.

so i took the LIRR to long beach at 1:48. tried to study a little on the train, gave up after a while. my mind wandered to the comedy clips of chris rock and bernie mac that steve (citizen wah leung) had sent me last night.

compared them to some of the other comedians that weren't as funny. what made chris rock and bernie mac so funny, i wondered? tried to analze it.

things that make comedians funny

- they pick material that their audience can identify with. COMMON material.
- they're not afraid to rock anyone, including themselves, their people, the audience.
- very, very confident.
- they do not laugh at their own jokes. (hm.....)
- 90% acting, 10% funny material.
- it's ALL about the DELIVERY.
- good-timed cursing. this is one thing i struggled a bit with. bad comedians will curse all the time (martin lawrence), and stink it up. good ones with curse with good timing, for effect, and it can bring down the house.

those are some of the points i came up with. so then i thought, what are some of the things i would say if I were a comedian?

spent the rest of the train ride coming up with material, thinking about how i would deliver it. even mumbled some of the stuff to myself, adding to the image of crazy guy that i've been maintaining, lately.

(i might share some stuff that i came up with later... on open mic? in LA, for
kollaboration? hahaha)

***

so i got to long beach at around 3. very nice. much nicer than jones beach. fine sand. good, cold water. pretty clean.

called friends to see where they were. my calls went mostly straight to voice mail, except for one.

A: "you're here? we just left!"

doh. great.

can't blame them. they were here since 9am, and i'm the lazy bum that woke up so late.

after the initial disappointment, i decided that i would just chill here and relax on my own. good thing i came prepared!

so i read Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (which is AWESOME, by the way, but very intense. won't allow for quick reading. requires deep thought and digestion, and even requires breaks from reading to think a bit and reflect on your own.), sunbathed, napped, dipped when it got hot, prayed (for yooie (my prayer sponsee), esther (gf), STORM kids, ppl of south central LA), and spent a lot of time thinking.

all in all, i really enjoyed it. it was my special time with me. no distractions, no mindless preoccupations. it was just me and God. threads of thoughts and prayers ran amuck, weaving in and out, creating organized patterns in some areas, an ugly mess in others, and some, some were just lonely threads out by themselves...

i think i'm grown up.

okok, let's not get all rash and hasty. i'm growing up.

i'm now becoming more comfortable with myself and my thoughts. i don't need to have people around me at all times anymore. always with someone, always doing something.

now, i can just BE.







yakob at 12:23 AM

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