The puzzling thing about the whole Kenneth Eng controversy — for those of you not keeping score at home, he’s the columnist for the San Francisco-based weekly newspaper AsianWeek who wrote the inflammatory “Why I Hate Blacks” column — is how this guy got hired in the first place. (We are now inevitably treated to the spectacle of various Asian American leaders having to step up to the mic and condemn the shithead individually. But, oh leaders — it’s really AsianWeek you should be going after for giving this guy a bigger venue. And as an afterthought, you could also address the fact that Eng isn’t the only Asian American racist — but that’s not something you want to think about right before you hold the townhall meetings with African American leaders.)

The article itself — pulled from the AsianWeek website, but the Chronicle helpfully provides a scan of it (see below instead) — is appalling. It’s also quite badly written — just the sort of nonsense you see on bulletin boards and not on nationally-circulated newspapers. And it isn’t his first foray into ranting either (see his November 2006 column, “Proof that Whites Inherently Hate Us”, or a later January 2007 column, “Why I Hate Asians”). Clearly not a one-off satirical piece (if it could be called satire). What, then, were AsianWeek‘s editors thinking when they hired someone who called himself “God of the Universe?”

I’m guessing it’s because Eng — correction, “Kenneth Eng, God” — is “the youngest published science fiction novelist in America.” I’m guessing someone found his musings on the Theory of Nothing / The Conceptual Theory of Everything (they’re Parts 2 and 3 and I can’t be bothered to find the first part) and figured they had a philosopher on their hands. Or maybe they found his short (semi-autobiographical?) piece, entitled “Glasses”, from a website called Bewildering Stories:

It had been a day since last Johnny Spectic saw something spectacular. And already he was bored. So bored that he felt like killing himself. You see, it was the end of his college years and he had nothing left to celebrate. The parties were over. The classes were done. Now, all he had to look forward to was getting a job, working for the next 30-odd years and getting a house that he would brood in until dying of dullness. Sigh, what a way to spend your life. Everything that was remotely spectacular was behind him.

Contemplating many deep thoughts, he took a stroll and wandered to a lens store nearby. That reminded him he needed new glasses.

Contemplating many deep thoughts, I can say that he obviously had a career as a columnist at AsianWeek to look forward to.

All the five-star reviews on Amazon.com notwithstanding — almost all written, suspiciously, by people who’ve posted only one review, i.e., Eng’s book — Eng also has a profile on Amazon with the blog entry “Religion Is For The Inferior:”

…most religious people I’ve met tend to be incredibly stupid/poor. They are usually black/hispanic immigrants who do not have the brains or the balls to understand science and thus resort to reading retarded stories about saviors and saints. (Oh, by the way, for those of you who want to scream at how “racist” I am for mentioning negroes and hispanics in such a way, go to someone who gives a sh*t).

Well. You’d think this would have sent off little alarm bells at the AsianWeek offices, but no. Or perhaps they missed his essay entitled “Discrimination Against Asians at NYU” (scroll further down) and didn’t read between the lines enough?

Come on, AsianWeek. I know you folks will wash your hands clean and say that the op-ed columnists don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, et cetera. But to run a column like that and not expect criticism is sleeping at the wheel.

But I think I know why — or more important, how — they hired Eng in the first place.

It’s because Eng is them, and Eng is in them:

“Reincarnation is not limited in time, space and material,” says Eng. “I could essentially be anyone living in the present, past, or future, or any imaginary being drawn from the Omnitemporal Realm. All consciousness is one. I am in everyone, friend or foe.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Here’s the situation: I live in a basement apartment (1354A) right under 1354, where my landlady lives. For the last two years, my mail would always arrive according to schedule, though there were times (more often than I thought) when my mail would arrive at 1354 instead, and the landlady (or, earlier last year, the renters) would bring them down to my apartment.

Sometime in December, my mail started slowing down to a trickle. Some packages went missing. A couple of checks never arrived. I had thought at first that my mail was somehow sitting upstairs at 1354, and that they had gone off on vacation (which they did). One eBay seller wrote back and said that the package had been returned; she resent it to me and it actually arrived.

The thing is, I would have caught it earlier if the mail had stopped completely; the problem was that it was intermittent, and there were times during the week when the mail carrier himself would stick the mail into the slot. I had also lodged a couple of complaints earlier, and then mail would arrive immediately after (leading me to suspect that it had to do with the particular carrier on a particular day). I’d gone to the local post office and asked to see if they had any of my packages; they had none. But all my credit card bills still arrived. My vehicle registration stickers arrived. And I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Was my mail sitting in a similarly-numbered apartment a block over? Was someone stealing the packages?

And so it continued — this constant ebb and flow of appearing and disappearing mail, of issues of The New Yorker or The Wire gone missing and reappearing a couple weeks later, of writing Amazon and asking to have items redelivered.

Last week, the mail finally stopped dead. I went to my local post office demanding an answer, and the woman behind the counter gave me a local number, different from the 1-800 customer service number where I had previously lodged my complaints. So I call the number and get Ronnie, a supervisor, and after I tell him my address, he goes:

Ronnie: Oh. According to our records, that address doesn’t exist.

Me: What do you mean?

Ronnie: It’s not registered at City Hall as an official address. It’s an illegal address.

[Short history here: according to the previous landlord, Jim, the unit was in fact legal and built according to code with all the accompanying permits. It was indeed legal, according to my new landlady, Janice, but the only problem (she had told me this when we were out to dinner earlier last week) was that Jim had failed to file the proper paperwork after the unit was constructed.]

Me: I didn’t know that.

Ronnie: Well, it’s been three months, and we can’t hold your mail any longer.

Me But if I had known you wanted me to do this, I would have done it! I didn’t know you were holding my mail for me!

Ronnie: We wouldn’t have been able to give you your mail in any case. We don’t give mail out to customers.

Me: This is insane! So how was I supposed to get my mail?

Ronnie: Your landlord should have gone to City Hall and registered your address as a legal address.

Me: Well, I wasn’t informed about any of this! And besides, you folks have been delivering mail to me for two years!

Ronnie: That’s right. But we did some investigations and discovered the truth.

Me: [getting really upset now] But it’s not as if I’m hiding the truth from you; I mean, this isn’t my fault! This is insane!

Ronnie: It isn’t the Postal Service’s fault either. We don’t deliver to illegal addresses.

Me: [sigh] Can’t you just put the mail in there anyway? I mean, it’s right underneath the house.

Ronnie: We don’t deliver to illegal addresses.

Me: [trying a different tack] Well — can I go down there and pick up my mail anyway?

Ronnie: [pause] I’m afraid we sent them all back yesterday. It’s been three months.

Me: [panicking] What do you mean?

Ronnie: We can’t hold them here any longer.

Me: You mean you just returned three months’ worth of my mail that was just sitting there in the first place???

Ronnie: That’s right. And from now on, any mail sent to that address will have to be stamped “return to sender.”

Me: [incredulous] So how am I going to get my mail?!?

Ronnie: You can get your landlord to file the registration at City Hall, or you can give them a different address. Hopefully those people who sent you mail will contact you and ask for a different address.

At this point — unwilling to say, “How are these people supposed to contact me? Through the mail??” — I hang up and leave a message for my landlady. Then I call again.

Ronnie: Didn’t I just talk to you earlier?

Me: [trying to be placating] Yes, I wanted to know if you could help me in figuring this out.

Ronnie: [sighs] You should get your landlord to file the registration.

Me: But that might take a couple of months! Can’t I just file a change of address form?

Ronnie: You can’t do that. What’s the original address?

Me: [dumbfounded] It’s 1354A …

Ronnie: That’s right. That address doesn’t exist.

Me: [unable to think straight now] But it’s right here! [I run outside the house, pointing to the door, but Ronnie obviously can't see any of this.]

Ronnie: You can’t file a change of address form to change from a non-existent address to a different one. You can’t change an address that doesn’t exist.

Me [feeling like I'm trapped in Terry Gilliam's Brazil]: I can’t change an address that doesn’t exist. So what am I supposed to do?

Ronnie: Again, talk to your landlord. Or you can contact all the people that send you mail and give them a different address.

Me: [stupefied at the work that would entail] So you can’t just put a sticker with a new address on my mail?

Ronnie: No, because all mail to that address has been killed. [pause] Oh. I just checked on the computer and it looks like your first-class mail is still here.

Me: Oh — I thought you had already sent them back?

Ronnie: No, you were lucky. They’re still here. You can come down here and pick them up. But remember — we do not give out mail to customers. This is a favor — remember this — this is a favor, and I am only doing this once, you hear?

Me: Oh, that’s wonderful, thank you very much! [Though my jaw is clenched hard at this point.]

Ronnie: And remember — as of tomorrow, all mail delivery to that address will be suspended and returned. That address doesn’t exist. Your mail has been killed.

So I drive off to the sorting center and pick up my mail — overdue bills, checks, magazines, CDs, rejection letters, a couple of books (and yes, I gave the poor bookseller a bad rating on Amazon.com, so sorry), Christmas cards, newspapers — 3 months of my life in a box, minus all the catalogs. I’m thinking grimly about all the mail that’s already on their way. And you can probably imagine what I did the rest of the afternoon.

(P.S. to Ruthie, who I’m hoping to finally meet in June: unfortunately our vinyl wasn’t in the box. But I’m confident it’s on its way back to Jeremy deVine, owner of the coolest record label in the world right now, and who will hopefully send them back to me…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Sometimes those seven Safeway dumplings / slice of pizza from the Indian restaurant next door / vegetable quesadilla just won’t do:

Trio of Sashimi:
Japanese Fluke, Hearts of Palm, Honey-Lime
Tasmanian Trout, Avocado, Green Apple Ponzu
King Amberjack, Scallion, Mushroom Yuzu

Sonoma County Duck ~ Foie Gras:
Saffron Couscous, Asian Pear, Pistachios
Barley Risotto, Cranberry, Pecan
Quinoa, Huckleberry, Almond

Berry Shortcake ~ Ice Cream:
Raspberry, Devonshire Ice Cream
Blueberry, Creme Fraiche Sherbet
Strawberry, Milk Chocolate Mousse

2005 Segue Cellars Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, Sonoma

Popularity: 1% [?]

So I’m about to break my Concert Rule #1 (no arena/stadium venues) after hearing this bit of news. Holy cow. My very first “favorite band of all time” ever, back circa 1982-83 — at least the very first band that inspired me to go save up my allowance and buy their entire discography. On vinyl even! (Indeed, the very first CD I ever owned* — bought second-hand, still at a piggy bank-breaking price, from an early-adopter friend — was Every Breath You Take: The Singles.)

I remember my dad — who was the big Nat King Cole / Tchaikovsky / Richard Clayderman fan — being quite skeptical of my new obsession. “Paulit-ulit lang ‘yan, ah,” he said, dismissing the repeating “Keep it up” coda of “Walking on the Moon.” I tried in vain to point out how Stewart Copeland was clearly playing different drum patterns, but to no avail: my music had been dissed.

U2, Talking Heads, The Cure (in that order) then followed, in typically youthful hyperbole, as My Favorite Band Of All Time, but The Police was always the first. And now they’re going on tour.

*Side note: I’m thinking now of how kids these days probably have little conception of their first CD, or even the first time they heard a CD. Ah, the days of record cleaning fluid and dipping a Q-Tip in rubbing alcohol to clean the rollers and heads… I still remember the first time I popped the Police CD into the player and almost fell back in shock — perhaps too trebly, especially those early pressings, but sonically, a total revelation; Hugh Padgham’s work on Synchronicity never sounded better.

Popularity: 1% [?]

See you Bay Area folks here:

STOP THE KILLINGS Benefit Show
Saturday, February 17, 2007
7:30pm @ SOMArts (934 Brannan St., SF, CA 94103)
All Ages – $10 (Proceeds go to KARAPATAN)

Performances by:

Blue Scholars
Kiwi (of Native Guns)
Rhapsodistas
Echo of Bullets
Golda Supernova
Power Struggle
Praxis Rocks
The Movement Show
Kapatid X

Art by:

Speaker Fruits
CELL68

ACT NOW!!! Sign the online petition.

Did you know that 825+ people have been killed in the Philippines since 2001? Regular people…students, teachers, lawyers, workers, journalists, clergy, human rights workers, etc. Witnesses have pointed to elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in carrying out these killings. Yet not one person has been tried or convicted for any of these deaths. President Arroyo’s government has done nothing to stop to these atrocities.

For us living in the U.S.A. it’s a little sticky. The U.S. government has been providing excessive amounts of military assistance to the Philippine government. Reports from the Library of US Congress state that the total U.S. military assistance to the Philippines rose from $38 million in 2001 to $114 million in 2003 and a projected $164 million in 2005. That’s our tax dollars potentially subsidizing death squads of the Philippine military at the cost of the Filipino people.

Come out to the show to learn a bit more about the issue and find out how you can get involved.

Popularity: 1% [?]