Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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I feel like i’ve somehow been very far removed from the sort of snap reactions i used to write. Either i don’t make them anymore, or i’m making them somewhere else, or… or now i know just who’s reading and i know if i came to these sorts of snap decisions in front of them it would be ugly or not quite kosher. So, i’m writing these massive meandering essays and it’s ridiculous because i’m hardly getting anywhere. I suppose the cost of an audience that you interact with is that you’re likely to be writing about someone who’s reading you at that very second, and so you have to decide if you want to trade alienation for freedom, and sometimes you don’t have a choice. But, anyhow, i have to go run errands now.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5277657/

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Today is a slippery fish of a life that i can barely hold onto, and i’m left trying to catch hold of it with my inadequate hands because i am oh-so-afraid to hurt it with my twines and hooks. Nothing is reeling in, but at the same time i am surrounded by possibilities. I just bought a plane ticket, for the first time ever; my grandmother set up the tickets for last year’s flights to and from Florida.

As life is swimming all around me, i have been spending a lot of time staring at this little white box with my head empty. Rereading the archives has this funny effect of proving that my life is endlessly cyclical, as i keep seeing the same topics churn up to the top. Next week is surely going to be all about once again packing my life into a single truck’s worth of possessions and obsessions and pulling up my roots, just like the first week was. And, looking into the fall, i see the same love/hate of classes, and the same wonderful slow-motion view of my life that i go into when sunlight streams in through new windows, and the chill creeping into the air as i pick a new favourite mug.

I was rereading the archives of the entire year i’m really glad that i have this, and you. My quality of life has improved, as ridiculous as that sounds, and i think this way i might be able to actually learn from my mistakes. And, to think, this all started just as a place to jot things down.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5252671/

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Hello, this is Blogger speaking. Yes, this is the voice of your personal publishing solution. Please do tremble in fear. Due to my capricious mythological god-like tendencies, I occasionally like to republish posts from January at the top of your page without telling you about it. You know, just for shits and giggles. And, then, if i’m feeling particularly jaunty i lock up so that the post from January just sits on the top of your page for an hour while you stare at it helplessly and feel dumb. Sometimes i also create a plague of locusts, or crave for the blood of your firstborn. Clicking reload cannot end my unholy reign of personal publishing terror. Only burning great heaping pyres of twenty dollar bills can satiate my dark thirst for eating your posts and mangling your page! Blargh!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5197159/

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With me there are intake phases, and output phases. They connect to everything. With writing music i will have a strong output stage where i’m not listening or learning anything unless i’m using it to directly focus back into my output of new songs and covers and things. The same goes for writing on the internet, or working on my webpage, or anything that could be construed as creative work. However, usually they don’t all line up. When i was busy writing new songs i wasn’t really in webdesign output-mode because i wouldn’t have the time to do both. But, somehow last month it all lined up over the course of the two or three days around the BlogAThon, which means now i’m all switched over to input and can hardly create anything. No designs, no new music, and it’s like pulling teeth to get me to blog something.


The more interesting switch that had been flicked somewhere along the way is the one where i used to be able to blog about anything, or nothing… especially nothing, but now i need some sort of inspiration or subject or hard kick in the pants to get me into this tiny white box. That switch was a gradual thing, and you can watch it happen if you read any length of the archives. The only thing is… it wasn’t really intentional, and i don’t think this spareness really represents what i meant to be doing, but neither did the constant rush of new post after new post with no respect for the ones that were scrolling off of the bottom of the page. Of course, my spareness obviously connects a little bit to my lack of output, but it makes me wonder where in the middle of my fifty three archived weeks i reached equilibrium, and how far back i have to track to get back to it.

Yeah, fifty three, i just counted. Because of weird archive-week math that doesn’t mean that i’ve really been here for an entire year, but we are six days away. Wow.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5174847/

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Two things were set into motion on Saturday, August 26th, 2000 that would forever alter the life of one jobless young Los Angeles area gaysian twenty-something named Ernie Hsiung.

The first was an ambitious little lark called SurvivorBlog, a somewhat nepotistically cast venture that featured some semi-regular Little Yellow Different linkees such as Kevin from Fury, Asian journalist du jour Min Jung, and hottie among hotties Gerard Reyes.

The second was an aimless little lark called Crushing Krisis – otherwise known as my blog.

I’m not sure what the true aims of either project were at the time, but i could venture a guess. SurvivorBlog was an attempt to pair the red-hot Survivor phenomenon with weblogging for fun and profit. Crushing Krisis was meant as a way to participate in the personal publishing revolution, and for me to have a place to bitch and whine on a regular basis. As luck would have it, both Sblog and CK were added to Blogger‘s directory sometime later that week, and the rest, as they say, is history.

(History being that we were deadlocked as #1 & #2 on PowerBloggers for almost all of our second week of existence, which was totally ridiculous, because i was trying to outblog 10 people all by myself. And, even more ludicrous i mostly won. Ha! Now, back to our story.)

Such was my introduction to Ernie and his addictive string of web reality games, which have brought him hundreds of adoring daily fans even more dedicated than myself. Of course, I despised him and his unholy creation with a passion throughout its entire original run because it represented something that i wasn’t yet a part of – something i never thought i’d lay hands on: relative blog-fame and a semi-attentive semi-regular audience. However, by the end of it I had stopped by so many times to check out the competition that I was thoroughly hooked, and so when SurvivorBlog2 rolled around I sighed a deep sigh and submitted a submission, and so began my entanglement with Ernie.

I don’t think i ever seriously expected to be cast on SurvivorBlog2, but somehow Ernie thought i’d push someone’s buttons, and so into the mix i went. And, out of the mix i came with double my normal visitors, having been cast as that annoying self-righteous boy who did nothing but write moody songs and talk about his girlfriend. After i got the boot life went on, i broke up with the girlfriend, and Ernie was off having fun as a nominee at SxSW along with various other sBlog cast members. I relegated myself to the background, content to post on PSB2 and occasionally commenting on Ernie’s site with the hope that people would recognize me and that Ernie might appreciate my contribution.

That all changed less then a month ago when i casually asked Ernie if he had any commenters lined up for his newest web-venture PuppetMaster. In that month i have seen Ernie procrastinate, speculate, celebrate, and hyperventilate while i’ve had some of the most fun i’ve had in my entire year of blogging. And that brings us up to the present: i would’ve never met Philo had i not hit on him for an entire month of PM and, somehow, when he decided to give Ern a little helping hand, he decided i was someone who should represent the cause.

August 26th is a less than two weeks away, and in the intervening year i went from knowing Ernie only as the creator of my most despised enemyblog to an actual friend who i’m planning to visit sometime in the near future. When he blogged about losing his job i was aghast, hoping that it was some kind of wicked PM crossover stunt, but alas it’s the god’s honest truth. In the wake of this news Philo has created a funddrive called ErnAid. It might seem like a bit of a light-hearted little lark, but know that this little lark really does come from the heart. I consider myself a fan and a friend to Ernie, and as such i didn’t hesitate at all to give a few dollars. If you consider yourself either of those things, think about doing the same.

For more reasons to donate (including exclusive photos and a new song), check out my stint as guest-host of ErnAid tomorrow @ East/West.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5072807/