Will's Personal Manifesto

Hey, hey, hey, everybody out there! Please allow me to  properly introduce myself. For starters, I'm an unabashed teetotaler, and I like to think of myself as an international man of truth and justice for all. I don't drink or smoke, and I honestly never get bored. I love action figures, and all sorts of other types of pop culture iconography. I love my country, too. God bless America!


I am a highly artistic and creative guy, and I've been that way since before anyone who really knows me can even remember. As a result, I've never been bored a single day in my life. As far as I'm concerned, there is just way too much to see, do and create in this world, so even though I do know why some people get bored, I don't truly understand why anyone should have to.

Just about anything requiring artistic talent I tend to be not all that bad at. Just for starters, I've been a natural mimic since childhood, and though I've yet to learn any musical instruments (though I just got a used guitar), I can actually carry a decent tune when singing. Not bragging, it's just true.

Unfortunately however, I grew up in southwest Missouri... where seeking non-blue collar work (or just about anything related to my talents and interests) was mostly out of reach and unfortunately, deemed (mostly by my constantly feuding parents) to be more or less out of the question.

So, I suppose, in the beginning, a big part of the reason I originally sought work in Asia as an English teacher, was to get the hell out of the Midwestern American "sticks," and well away from the "redneck" mentality that I felt was suffocating me.

But, even though I like to try to make friends with everybody, from everywhere, regardless of race, color, creed or whatever, please do not mistake me for someone who is not patriotic. In fact, I love my country, the United States, dearly, as I'm sure you love where you're from too, so if you truly want to be "friends," as the old saying from the American Revolution goes, "Don't tread on me." 'Cause I figure, if I can be polite, and respect and admire others, and keep from shooting my mouth off about all that they personally hold dear, I do expect everyone else to reciprocate - whether they happen to have the right to have and bear arms or not.

Here's the deal. All mean stereotypes aside, I've personally never owned a firearm, and unless there were to be dire circumstances required, you couldn't give me one.

And no, all Americans are not "dumb," and the mere notion is prejudiced, pure and simple. Needless to say, the United States is a big country, made up of people from every single nation, color and creed in the world. So, if you want to get mean and judgmental, I'm going to expect you to clarify just exactly which Americans you think are stupid. The Asian Americans? The Native American Indians? The African Americans? The Mexican Americans, or perhaps the European Americans who fled wars and religious persecution in their former homelands in Europe?

In any case, as a political and social entity, the United States isn't perfect, and nobody that I've personally ever known has ever tried to claim that it is. But here's the real point:

Just like everybody else before us, as a nation, we have been guilty of most of the same things every other major world power has been guilty of since the dawn of human civilization (like our then feuding parent countries, mummy Britain and papa France). However... I firmly believe that America has had, and continues to have, a greater positive effect on the world than a negative one.

In fact, if you've studied even a little about world history, you might see that despite its flaws, there has never been a country truly like the United States before. You're entitled to disagree (in some countries, that is), but I'm afraid you'd have to work pretty damn hard to get me to believe that you aren't unfairly and irrationally biased, so... if you do have an anti-American bone to pick, you may just be better off to drop the issue and leave it at that. In fact, please do.

I'm here to have friends and be a friend. I'm here to learn and share with everyone, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, anti-religion, or social, monetary or political affiliation. Or whatever else separates people instead of bringing us together. For me and quite a few Americans (and non-Americans) I know, none of that amounts to a hill of beans in the end anyway.

In any case, nowadays, I'm so far removed from Hollywood that I probably will never get anywhere in the entertainment industry, but I've reached the point where I'm not sure if I care anymore either.

As far as my foreign language ability is concerned: My spoken Mandarin Chinese is conversational, but I still have quite a ways to go to master both the Traditional and Simplified Chinese writing systems (which should be understandable given the fact that I was not born in China (thank God), and one has to be literate in roughly 3000 characters to be able to read a modern Chinese newspaper!!!), but I read Romanized Chinese Pinyin with relative ease. I'm still very much in the process of learning both Korean and Japanese as third and fourth languages, respectively, so that's all there is to that.

Just like everybody else, my life is a work in progress, and just as I like to live and let live, I do expect the same courtesy in return. So, peace out, everyone!

The Importance of Moderation

Take all things in moderation. Or you will lose your way.

It's Not the 80s Anymore, But... I STILL SAY, "HELL NO TO DRUGS!"

One thing that's been bugging the hell out of me recently is this whole "legalization" issue that's taking America by storm. Some dude from a country north of my own, who also has a Korean wife, who also lives in the same slummy, littered up Korean high rise my wife and I are on a loooong government waiting list to get out of, recently "friended" me on Facebook. And in person, unfortunately. But I didn't find out exactly what his agenda was until it was too late. Unfortunately.

It always seemed like every damn conversation was about hemp! Hemp, hemp, hemp, man! Hemp, hemp hooray! Grass. Pot. Pud! Okay. Yes, Mr. Canuck, I do know that George Washington, the father of my country, grew hemp. In fact, in all those years on his plantation, he probably oversaw the growth of all sorts of your beloved ("My precious!") hemp. Actually, he farmed it, see. So people could make cloth and rope and useful stuff like that, see.

But that doesn't fit snugly enough into our little agenda, now does it?

But maybe... just maybe... good old George didn't sit around toking up all damn day in his mother's basement. And maybe he never baked it in brownies and spent days or just hours laughing it up with Martha while they had a curious case of "the munchies." And it's not like pot smoking could really impair your driving skills in "the olden days," now could it? All you could really crash was a horse or two. And maybe the family buggy. But maybe... just maybe... there simply weren't as many people sitting around trying to get high in the late 18th century!

Ever think of any of that, dude?

Maybe people in British colonial times weren't trying to use "medicinal purposes" as an excuse to stick it to "the man." Whatever... man... that may be. I don't think, even since the drugged up glorious 60s, we've yet learned just exactly which man it was that all the hippies were sticking it to. Nixon?  Sorry. Nice try, but he resigned in disgrace. And he's been dead for a while, you know. Psst! Put the roach clip down and read a current newspaper. Maybe? Might help.

But damn! I mean, we were just getting to the point where a lot of people around the world are beginning to realize that it's just not fair to make everyone around you second hand smoke tobacco, just because, when you were maybe 10 to 12 years old, which research clearly shows is when people become addicted to this very toxic drug - when they are still children, for God's sake!

So now, you want to legalize something else that, when smoked, is harmful to the Ozone Layer?   Crikey! Is everybody dumber than ever these days? Crazier, maybe.

Okay. Sure, "legalize it!" Let chemists extract the beneficial, non stupidity inducing parts of good old Mary Jane and put it in pharmaceuticals, just like every other potent drug that should be regulated and used responsibly (as in, not recreationally).

I mean, come on, people! Tell all this happy hemp crap to some dummy who is buying. On the corner. Or in the alley. From the dude who's probably also been selling Crystal Meth for quite a while, too.

On the Nature of Liberty Versus Abstinence

Sometimes, truly valuing "freedom" is actually a kind of self discipline. It is a genuine civic responsibility. Because we are all responsible to one another, in the end. It's knowing that, yeah, there's a big candy store right there in front of you. And you've got a pocket full of change.

And you're one happy kid. But real "freedom" comes with responsibility to your fellow man. Oh, sure, you could go in there and put yourself on the way to losing all your teeth in a drunken, sugar coated orgy.

I mean, they're your teeth, right? So who cares who may have to chew your food for you when you lose 'em all, right? Or what kind of "public assistance" you may have to sponge off of because of your own selfish actions.

But you indulge, because it just might kill the pain of living just a little. Just for today. But then again, hopefully, you just plain don't; you abstain. Because life can't be lived in one day anyway. And there are always consequences in this life. And besides, "no man is an island."

Ode to the Fox

They dress all in their jack-booted finery, mount their battle steeds, and aided by their duty-bound dogs of war, do give chase. But what did the fox ever really do to those equestrian brutes in their fancy coats? Ah! The fox, you see, is clothed in beauty bestowed by nature. S/he may appear diminutive, but is illusive, ever so quick and surpassing in intelligence. Catch her/him if you can. A crafty one, that fox. Forever challenging fools to abandon their careless errands. But at what price comes the coveted trophy pelt? The murder of beautiful things for mere sport is never rewarded with the kind of wisdom that is ultimately robbed of the world when the primitive ones slake their thirst for innocent blood.

To thine own country be true

Before you "dis" (or let anyone else disrespect) your own country, you may just want to shut your mouth, and learn a little about what's really going on outside (or even and especially within) your own borders. There's never any grass greener than what you can take your shoes off and walk in, right smack dab in the place you were born. Because as always, there truly is no place like home.

The Edification of Friends and Foes Alike

Sometimes friends are hidden enemies. Sometimes enemies are hidden friends. Be grateful to all for the lessons that they may teach you.