The Bangkok Five

My old drummer and his band have a new album, It's in Taipei but not Tainan

If you want to buy it please go to myspace.com/thebangkokfive

Tell Ray, (the drummer) John sent you ;)

SUPPORT THE ROCK!!!

Pumpkin season

I have a pumpkin

It sits on my left speaker...I'm listening to smashing pumpkins

On the right speaker is a plastic halloween pumpkin.

It's strange for to be looking at pumpkins during summer

I bought my pumpkin from a lady on the side of the road in nantou

While I was buying my pumpkin a tiny obnoxious blue truck drove by blaring a loud speaker...selling something or someone I never can tell the difference when all of a sudden the blue truck, starting playing Beethovens "ode to joy" I thought that was funny, I wonder if he ever thought his music would end up coming from a blue truck in the middle of noweher nantou, that can we really say what will happen in the future at all, who knows where anything ever ends up?

Rita seemed to be in tears.

I ran into your classmate on my way down the stairs. I stared at the math teacher's three hairs on his head and how his face turns red after walking five flights of stairs. I heard your classmate, well x-classmate because she is in the gratefully dead happy class that does nothing but sleep and watch movies say to me... "be nice to her." And I remember thinking that was strange, I have always been nice to her as I'm with all who are nice. and she is. even if her ethics may run astray at times, Rita wants to be nice...and she even wants to be brave, bold, to show the world the truth...but she can't, she has too many people to answer to, and this why she has tolerated some one like me for so many years...I have pissed everyone off at your school. From the Dean to teachers, to nuns, but Rita knows why...because I have done it all in the name of the students, for the students, she has trusted me to always be honest, even when it is not popular among nuns, teachers, or deans...so I was stricken odd by the fact that when I walked into her office indeed, her eyes were red. I asked what was wrong, and she told me she had no money. That she couldn't pay for the happy music class I had wanted, that she needed to borrow money from the bank to pay for a swimming pool and I told her to look at me and I said..."I would teach the class for free." and then she told me the truth...a truth that is the ugly nature of that school of yours and one that I will not share with you until you are completely free of it...

My faults are that I want to believe
I want to trust what comes out of mouths
My faults are that I'm no different than her and that at times I want to hold my head in my hands and ask myself..."Why didn't I just tell them this...why didn't I just I say it this way instead of that way...why didn't I tell them...

there is only one truth
everything is a lie

There is an Italian story that says it much better...Italians are the kings of Liars...

An old man was walking away from a village and he see another man walking towards it. He tells the man, "don't trust anyone in that village they are all liars." The other man replies "why?'
and the old man says...

It sounds better in Italian...

Your faults are there to make sure you dont' become a robot. a cog..a pencil pusher...a tax accountant...embrace them like bad teeth... and cipher through the people who smile with you and those who say..."you know...you should really straighten those teeth." Don't talk to people who talk of dentistry....there is nothing worse than false teeth.

about the question i wanted to ask you...
what are my faults?


i was going to ask you in person
(this is a question that has haunted me ever since tinna during six grade suddenly annouced that she didn't want to be my friend anymore, i think i've gotten over her but this question still facinates me)
but you hurried off for coffee with rita
hope you had a good time :)

I've being thinking about this too

measuring time is strange...the koreans have a word for the longest duration of time in the world.
like we say year...and you think one year. you know its lengths and how long it takes. in korean there is a word which tells a story about a magic water fairy who springs out of the ocean every 1000 years or so and flies up to touch the sky, in doing so she always accidentally scrapes her fairy wings along the top of highest mountain in korea on her journey towards the sky. The time it will take for her to scrape the mountain, little by little, every thousand years, until the mountain disappears into the ocean, that's how long this word is.

we could surely think of better ways of measuring time instead of using birthdays

I just found out that it takes exactly 412.3 licks to get to the center of a "totsie pop" we could measure lengths of time this way

I knew a guy who measured his walking distance from point a to point b by how much beer he drank while walking towards his destination. "It's five beers away."

driving home my thoughts went like this

"Why does the guy with the motorcycle with all that white smoke feel he should be at the front of the motorcycle line waiting for the red light to change? Does he know he's filling my lungs with mercury and lead?"

I always think I'm this close to saying something to him, even giving him money to fix his motorcycle even, because his pants are covered in paint and I can tell he doesn't care if the sunlight changes the color of his skin. He is probably poor, and I keep my mouth shut

Then I think about Taiwan. I think it's a silly place, runs on silly juice.
My second thought reads like this, "Taiwan is a country of children."

And that is good and bad. They are curious...Good. They are immature and expect the government to raise they're children, teach them how to drive ect. Bad... yet I'm the one in my thirties with an electric guitar on my back and a pair black drum sticks sticking out the bag. Silly country, silly thoughts, I hate the foreigners who take themselves too seriously here...why?

Well, back to age...According to the bible, your not even human until you are eighteen which if I read right...that means you have another year...the word "neshema" means "soul" and according to the bible you don't even have one yet...another year I'm afraid...so without a soul, how can you be human and contemplate such things?...ohh right...the bible is full of things like that...your right...lets put that book down for a nap

well...can you simultaneously be entering adulthood and menopause at the same time? hmmm...
well...only if your fed up on your current state of being...I recommend watching the film "Dead poets Society," and then getting back to me regarding this question. The one things science hasn't figured out is entropy and we are victims of it...get used to it...laugh and make laugh lines...
happy birthday who ever you are...17...god...your like a half life to me..

Birthdays are a ridiculous kind of thing. Man, after learning how to use fire, being able to chew gum and walk at the same time, and walking on the moon, still measure people by how many earth-years they have lived through. Earth years i may be seventeen, but actually i feel six or fourteen or fifty-seven all rolled up in one.

What I have found in Senior Three

A message

To C301
You asked me if I was happy and I was honest. You showed your heart and became my favorite class from the start. As time went by I lost a few of you and I wondered why? I realized later that I can not reach everyone and I must cherish the time with those I can. The great lesson in life. I saw you at the bottom of my stairs. I was going out to excercise and you later told me that the owner of the shop is a mean lady with a lot of money, I smiled, and every day when I look at her with her new "surgery widened eyes." I think of you
you know who you are

To C302
I have been here for four years, and for four years I have searched for a voice. I didn't know it was what I was looking for until I heard you sing. Soon Taiwan will know you voice
you know who you are

To C303
We stole the music teachers classroom for a day and I heard you try and find a 3/3 tempo on the drums. I didn't get hear you sing because you had to scream to let the drummer hear you becuase the tempo was difficult
you know who you are

To C304
This is the class that I never saw coming and I'm sure the world will have the same feeling. Expect great things from this class. Remember...sound never actually dies, it just bounces and ricochets until it gets smaller and smaller, but it never actually dies.....make a sound C304, you will be heard! And your song will be sung
you know who you are

To C305
This was a rowdy class full of students trying hard to pass exams who just went crazy in my class becuase they had no other place to do so. But they were sweet, and they spoke out, probably to distract me from giving them further tests
you know who you are

To S301
I have seen the face that holds a laugh that I will know forever. I want the person with that laugh to call me when I'm down, far away. Just to hear it, would bring both tears and joy,
you know who you are

To S302
I was there for you when a student had lost it all, and I took you outside of the classroom, looked down on a school that for better for worse tries to live within a system that tries to make us all small. We looked out on the long abandoned lawn surrounding a statue that no one seems to know and I told you that I loved you all and that is still true. Then we ate sushi
you know who you are

To S303
They say good things come in three's and bad. I have yet to feel I have reached any class that ends in 3. I have been lucky to find a few of you...That can dance, that have seen the birth place of my father, and it has been a great lesson for me, you can not reach them all, always focus on the few you have
you know who you are

To S304
This is the after bell class, there was conversation always after the bell. We learned Turkish, Spanish, and the true origins of Christmas. This is a class that has no individual moment or student with whom I don't feel we shared something special. Even if I'm not a good Christian, you listened and showed you were.
you know who you are

To S305
This class was waiting for me to take off my head and show them that I was really a space alien. I could tell they were waiting for me to go crazy and I never gave it to them. My favorite student had a hard time finding a home in this class, but I know she felt comfortable with me and from there I got to met a whole grip of talent. The Bass teacher who taught my students on Friday's. The quiet biologist who likes to study human anatomy. The girl with the boys name who grew her hair long. You have all scared me like a tattoo, even if I told you never to get one
you know who you are

To S306
This is the dead poets class. I didn't have a chance to speak to everyone because I was too busy being caught in acting like the teacher from dead poets society. There were students who's English was well...INSANE! And I ran with it for better for worse. This class was the one I wish I had every day nonstop for 8 hours. I'm sure we could cure cancer, end wars, steal Christmas trees and top it off with soldier boy all within a days work...oh wait, we did. This class brought me my worst feeling as a teacher and that with great responsibility there is always a price. I will seek out years of constructive therapy to right the feelings I had that afternoon
you know who you are

To all Senior Three

Never forget who you are
Never forget where you come from
It is only an illussion that we are seperate
we are one
the world is listening
it's time to speak out

yours forever
john