Detour due to Gremlins

Dear Friends,

Please click on my link at the right for my Poetry page, till Edren gets the Gremlins takin care of in this session. Thanks

Letter of Intent for Session 22

Dear Edren,

            I want to be part of the Undeniables for Session 22. This time I will go back to writing Poetry. There are some more Poetry genres I would like to try, Limericks, Prose, Songs, and some of the other types of Poetry as well as Haiku, and Tanka. My goal is still the same, to make a great Poetry manuscript to get published. Either doing it the hard way by sending them to other publishers and magazines and if that doesn’t work, I will then self publish.

            I like being part of this writer’s workshop and I feel bad for missing days in Session 21 because I was sick. I will work harder this time around. Hope you will allow me to stay and write with the Undeniables.

NAME: Eikichi Lane
GENRE: Poetry
WORDPRESS LINK: http://eikichilane.wordpress.com/

Odds and Ends and Other News

         Hey I noticed that I have only one day left of this session and I am still short 12 pieces. I really don’t think I will be able to catch up now, since I have to spend awhile writing my letter of intent to be able to write for the next session. Next session I will indeed write Poetry again, but I don’t really know what kind yet. I want to try writing prose and maybe try some limericks, preferably dirty ones lol. As well as some songs, maybe I will write a theme song for the Little Tokyo Paranormal Research Society.

         My Paranormal group is taking a break till we figure out where we will investigate. Need some help from my fellow group members to help find places we should investigate and I need someone to step up to contact some of the places for us. I am also looking for some contacts in the paranormal community to help get us into some places. Has anyone of my readers here seen or heard a ghost lately or know of any haunted places? Or is your home haunted and would you be willing to let us investigate it to get some proof of a haunting?

            In other news, my wife is still sick with a really bad cough and she is making me get my cold again. She is trying so hard to give me her cough, but I am refusing to let it take hold of me. I really hate being sick, I can’t write when I am sick, that is the reason I got so far behind on my writing. Some of those days the room was spinning around me and it was hard to even type during that time. I do feel bad for not keeping up with my daily writing, but what could I do, with my dizziness?

          Now I am watching the Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg on Netflix, trying to get myself motivated to write poetry again the next session. My favorite Poets are Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Garrett Hongo, Lawson Inada, Basho and David Romero, and more that’s too much to list here.  These are the Poets, I look up to and admire. Ok this is it for tonight. See you all tomorrow.

I Love to Sleep and Dream

            You know what I like to do on a cold night. I want to snuggle up with my wife under three warm toasty blankets. My bed is so comfortable, that I want to sleep in it all day and night. I love soft, fluffy and velour blankets, love the way it feels against my skin. I have spent years sleeping on a Japanese Futon bed, now I sleep on a western mattress on the floor. I miss my warm fluffy futon mattress.

            If someone asked me what my favorite hobby is besides writing poetry, I would just tell them that I love to sleep. Whenever I sleep I live a separate life in my dream world. A place I can do just about anything I ever wanted to do. But lately I have been having the weirdest dreams. They say that whatever you dream about has something to do in your waking life. If that was the case, I am I having dreams of running away from and hiding from Edren, with a couple of the other Undeniable’s writers? If it means that I am running away from my goal, I am not running. I am just going in a different direction in order to get my book of poetry published. I am not leaving the Undeniables, I am going to keep on trying, even if it means I get continually rejected over and over again from the real book publishers.

            I want to try the hard way of getting published before I give in and publish my book myself. I need to put more effort into getting this book published, if I want to get my book into all the bookstores and libraries. So the conclusion to this piece is that I love to sleep and dream.

The World Today

            Today it is freaking cold outside. It’s so cold that it snowed in the foothills of Griffith Park. I only wised it snowed here in the hills near my place. Since the New Year started a lot of strange things have been happening lately. The weather in Southern California is at the record lowest it has ever been, and the wettest too.  Since the oil spill that is blamed on BP, other strange disasters and deaths have been happening at alarming rates.

            Like the weird deaths of birds falling out of the sky in two countries miles apart, to dead fish floating in areas not affected by the oil spill. If you believe that the world is going to end in 2012, this may be a Warning for more bad things to come. If the world doesn’t end then it is indeed dying from what we all are doing to the environment.  The poem I wrote back in 1991 pretty much sums up what is happening.

The World Today (1991) 

Forrest’s are burning,
Animals dying,

Nuclear missiles
Overhead are flying,

Children are crying,
And some are dying,

Is this really necessary,
No, it’s not.

What’s happening to us?
Student’s dropout,
Instead of learning,

The whole world seems
To be burning!

Catching Up As Fast As I Can

Dear Friends,          

      Hey, I was wondering how come nobody ever comments on my work? Are my letters that bad? Are they not worthy of your comments and critique? If it’s my letters you don’t like, don’t worry I am going back to writing Poetry and try my hand at writing songs for the next session. I guess I made you all suffer long enough with these letters to some of my old friends and to you my so-called fans. Do I even have any fans left when I started writing these letters?

       I don’t think Edren is reading my stuff anymore. I know that some of my close friends have kept reading me through all these sessions. At least a few people love my work, as long as I am not writing for just myself. I will explain what I will do in the next session in my letter of intent coming soon to a screen near you.

Having Fun with My PS3

                 Ever since I got a PS3 for my birthday, I have been having a lot of fun watching Netflix on it as well as playing games. I went to Gamestop and traded in my old PS2 and 3 games that are not compatible with the new Playstation. I bought two games Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Yakuza 3 for a start. Boy games for the PS3 are expensive, the highest being $59.99 for a new game. I also subscribed to Playstation + for 3 months, so I can get game discounts as well as free games and Demos. Now the fun begins.

            There is also the Playstation Home, which is their version of the game Secondlife. Were you make an avatar of yourself, you then go about different worlds and interact with other people online, make friends, Play games, and decorate your own home. It makes me miss playing Secondlife and miss my friends in that game. It’s kind of like the SIMS game and other role-playing games. I miss being sucked into the game where I can forget the real world and be immersed in another life that’s better than my own. So you know what I have been doing when I am not wasting my time on Facebook.

Catching Up and Strange Dreams

                       Hi everyone, I just noticed that I am missing like 18 letters during this session. I have four days to catch up. So I guess I need to write like five pieces per day, Plus a letter of intent for session 23. Can’t believe it is taking me this long to get over this freaking cold. Changed from Nyquil to Contact Cold and Flu and the new drugs seem to be working. But, I have been having these really strange dreams.

                        Lately I have been having the same High school dream of me missing classes. Some days, I go to the first three just fines then I forget where the rest of my classes were, and I’m struggling throughout the dream searching and lost. This morning I had a dream with one of our writers Serena in it. We seem to be on the run hiding from Edren for some reason. Strange dreams like that under these drugs.  Other than that I seem to be getting better, since I am no longer dizzy and drowsy all day.

Self Identity: Part B (High School and College)

Dear World,

                        Today I want to continue my story from the tenth grade through college. Throughout High School, I spent a lot of time reading a lot of books on Japanese Buddhism and Culture. In High School I was around mostly Asians and my High school was a majority Filipino, Chinese and Vietnamese, as well as Hispanics and a smattering of other races. You can see how I got involved in the Asian Community from the people I grew up around. Besides going to school, I spent a lot of time in Little Tokyo at JANM (Japanese American National Museum) and my Temple.

                        After Graduation from High School, in 1992 I had the chance to go to Japan for a Dobo Conference and study tour of the places associated with Shinran Shonin the founder of my Temple. I got the rare chance of staying at the Higashi Honganji Retreat center in Kyoto Japan. One of the members of our branch Temple, West Covina Buddhist Temple unofficially adopted me after we came back from our trip. He was a father figure to me since my real father died of cancer when I was 7 years old. We have been really close for over 18 years.

                        After High school I went on to Pasadena City College, where I took a lot of Film, Art and Asian American Studies classes. During these years I was a member of the Chinese Student Association, The Asian Student Coalition, Fencing Club and my Buddhist Club in which I founded. During these years, I was on the staff of AISAREMA, a group formed to help fundraise for the Amerasia Bookstore, and when the Bookstore closed we merged with the literary group Disorient. I was also President for a while of the APAN chapter of the local JACL chapter.

                        As you can see is that I was immersed in the Japanese American Culture through out my life, and sometimes I feel like I am Japanese American in my heart.  My wife calls me an Egg as in White on the outside and Asian on the inside. Kind of like the inside out Twinkie. So together with all the races that I actually am and from what I grew up in and around, I consider myself as an American MUTT. Here is the break down of what I am, Scottish/Irish, English, Cherokee, Micmac, with my extended family Hawaiian, and unofficially Japanese American. I sometimes think that I may have some Asian blood in me, if you consider that the Native Americans originally came from Asia long, long ago.

                        Six years ago, I married in a Chinese/Vietnamese family. Wait till I have kids and see how confused they will be growing up as Multicultural child in this melting pot called Los Angeles. This concludes my piece on Self Identity. If you are in Little Tokyo, you may see me dancing in the bon Odori at the local O’bon festival or dancing in the Ondo during the Cherry Blossom Festival or Nisei Week.

Yours

In Gassho,

Eikichi

Self Identity: Part A (Sixth Grade and Jr. High)

Dear World,

                        Today let’s talk about ethnicity.  I want to come out of this self-imposed closet of my identity. Some of you will say that I am either weird or strange, but what I am about to explain is what I grew up to believe about myself and ethnicity. Let’s explore when it all started in my childhood. So sit back and keep an open mind for what I am about to say.

                        It all started when I was in the sixth grade in this melting pot we call Los Angeles. Back then I had a reading level a few years above everyone else, and I remember checking out multiple books about China and Japan from the local Library. I even remember writing a report in class on Japan. I don’t know why I was so obsessed with Asia back then, I think it might have been who I was in my previous life that had drawn me to Japan. In elementary school, I grew up around mostly Hispanics and a few Asians and a couple of white and African-American kids. Most of my brother’s friends in High School were Asian too. I remember when I was little of going to China town, Little Tokyo and to Various American Indian Pow Wows.

                        My Mother was taking Anthropology classes back then too; around this time is when I also learned about my Native American Ancestors from the tribes of the Cherokee and Micmac. Also about my Great cousins who were mixed with Hawaiian and some other type of Asian we didn’t know about, probably Japanese or Chinese. When I was in Jr. High School, most of my friends were Hispanic and Asian, Mainly Filipino and Chinese/Vietnamese. About that time my brother was in College and he had a Room Mate from Japan that my Mom unofficially adopted who became my second brother.

                        When I was in the 9^th grade, my Mom and I joined the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo. I was 16, close to 17 when I joined the YABA group. I have been involved at the Temple every weekend since then. Also around that time, I became a volunteer at the Japanese American National Museum, and worked there for over 11 years. This was the time when my Community Activism years started. Volunteering in various groups; like Aisarema, A3M, and The Los Angeles Friends of Tibet.        

                        So this was the beginning and the formation of who I am today. I will end this section here and continue tomorrow from High School. From all the people I met and worked with at this early age and the Japanese American Culture I was immersed in molded me into a Multicultural person.

To Be Continued…