They Say It's All We Need To Keep Us Together

I’ve been a bad little blogger of late. Or perhaps absent. I didn’t realize how much time it takes to work a full-time job, take care of school work, try to write comedy, and still pay enough attention to a woman to make sure she remembers I’m her boyfriend.

A lot’s been going on.

I did take a break from myself this weekend, though. Friday was a unique experience, thanks to the Flaming Lips. It was like Studio 54 got wasted in Vegas and had unprotected sex with the Palms, and the sparkly but somewhat family-friendly love child just had its super sweet sixteen party. It wasn’t too substantially different from the last time I saw them, except no one was hawking a ridiculously slick pop album and the whole deal was outside. Oh, and there was a giant UFO. It was good, but when it ended I was ready for it to be over. I wasn’t ready for the half hour it would take me to get out of the parking lot, however. Shitty end to a great night.

The next day (yes, Saturday) I found myself in Norman, at school, at 8:30 am, considering a new career option. It turns out I have a talent for writing speeches. I think it’s the sort of thing that if I cultivated it, I could be really good. Anybody need a speechwriter? Let me know. That evening, I said goodbye to one of the people I’ve known my entire life. She’s going to rural Mexico for two years to help... someone. I’m not entirely sure. Of all the people I know, I would have expected her to join the Peace Corps and offer herself bodily to the effort to make our world better. I’ll miss you, Sarah. You’re an inspiration.

Less altruistic, but equally inspiring was Asian Night at the Riverwind Casino. My girlfriend called in to a local radio show and won two tickets (which I think is the least that corporate radio can offer as reparations for what they’ve done to music). So we went. And it was beautiful. There were three musical acts, which I enjoyed to no end. They sang in Vietnamese, with the occasional “Come on!” or “Let’s go!” and once, just once, “Let’s get this party started! Techno!” Then there was a comedy team. I didn’t get as much out of that. I did walk away with the impression that a tubby dude in a leopard print jacket and a skinny guy dressed up like a woman are Vietnamese comedy gold.

I was was struck by the wide range of people packed into the standing-room-only auditorium. There were toddlers. There were children. There were teens, adults, and the elderly. And they were all having a great time. They were there to see their culture, their people, and to hear it in their language. It was drenched with Western influences, of course, but it was definitely not American.

And I’m sorry for this mega-post, but I’d like to close by stressing the importance of culture. While social science grad students will go round and round with you trying to define what culture is, it’s much easier to simply go out and see it. And see it, we did. It made me think about my own culture, and how it is so vague and muddled in my mind. Part of that comes from the fact that I draw my culture from many lands, some of which like to go to war against each other. I wanted to learn more about my past as well as my present. Are there any Welsh Nights at Riverwind? Perhaps not. And maybe in a hundred years Vietnamese culture will be so intertwined in American culture that there will be no more Asian Nights.

Honestly, I’m on the fence about that one. Obviously, culture binds individuals together along ethnic, linguistic or national lines, but it also divides us along those very same lines. Can we really be together and apart? I don’t know. Any thoughts?