Segue: an introduction going someplace, at least...

(Note: For the original piece, it's still on www.geocities.com/burninjae along with the gloomy-ass background. I'm way too lazy to post anything new so I might as well recycle.)

one day when I go start writing my memoirs, i can look back at the last months of my teenhood spent in front of a computer, snatching desperately at ideas and trying to make them come out as nifty, witty prose that I'd hope would head somewhere.

at 19: when my life, which always ran on fast forward (at times, aimlessly), was yanked off the reel and set aside for the meantime. i can put no amount of misery upon my predicament. after all, it was my own, free choice, to be put in what i may call a self-imposed sabbatical.

a few months back, i was a first year medical student, just another med student leeching off my folks' dough. now, well, i am a bum of sorts, still leeching off my folks' dough. what can I say? plus ca change, plus la meme chose. the more things change, the more they stay the same. those frenchmen couldn't sound much haughtier.

if all seems dark and gloomy on this page, i guess it's not without reason. after i moved to the US not too far back, i told myself that yeah, i had lost the angst-not all of it but much of it dropped off by the wayside. but like lost baggage, somehow, it found its way back to its owner.

i don't want to sound like a fallen rock icon or a stoned, starving artist tripping on the current drug of choice. and so instead, in stereotypical gen-X tone, i have to say that my pain is mine and mine alone.

so quit pestering me that it isn’t that bad because you're seeing it from your frameset, your scheme of things. ok, maybe it really ain't but right now, i'm trying not to think of it. out of sight, out of mind. i'd prefer not to see what isn't quite there. a problem doesn’t really exist until you identify it as a problem. hey look, i'm still here. plodding punch drunk and weak-kneed thru the rounds. i’d prefer to laugh it off.

self-immolation won’t get you anywhere. of course if i were female, i could sign up for a hateful bitch album ala alanis morrissette and i'd probably rake in millions…kidding. nah, not a mean soul myself: actually, to my friends (and they are a select few) I am, (acccckkkkk), one of the sweetest persons they know.

now regarding the gloomy (and at times, boring) art, the whole concept was this: to use black, white and gray in portraying a somewhat jaded view of the pop world. life in mono, as it were. and yeah, film noirish to a certain extent ('the dark side of human nature') though it lacks the violence and needs a few more shady characters. that was pretty much the aim but technicalities got in the way.

i consider it a real challenge because i'm not working with color. sigh. you can always pick out a color chart and find that this kind of green goes well with a tinge of this yellow. in using the life in mono theme---i have to create and re-create images one way or the other so as to highlight themes in a certain, meaningful way. sometimes it works out so well, I doubt I even did the image. other times, it doesn't sink so fine so I don't feel like owning up to it either.

on the other hand, not using color also simplifies things. you are after all, merely working with pencils and shading: black, white and gray. however, please do not get the idea that i'm a high-sounding vanguard of modern art: the last neat piece i ever did was "vernon's chicken" (mosaic) which used rice grains and chinese watercolor.

i was in fifth grade then. real nice. ahhh, those were the days. that aside, black and white, gives a rather classic feel. right?

it's hauntingly warm in an inanimate sort of way, like photos of someone's long dead relatives.