My First Massage.

Nothing says, “YOU’RE FAT!” like a massage.

This past weekend The Franksabunch™ had his first ever massage.  Oh, I’ve had people give me back rubs in the past but prior to Saturday the closest thing I had to a real massage was at the state fair, where The Wife™ paid $20 so I could sit in a chair while a Chinese guy basically practiced Jeet Kune Do on me like I was Chuck Norris and he was Bruce Lee.  But that was shortly after we got married and I had been working out until that point, so I didn’t mind someone doing the 36 chambers on my back.  I actually think the guy had fun massaging me since I actually had muscles and wasn’t shaped like a Krispy Kreme, unlike everyone else there.  (I’ve never been lean and ripped like ibizajb…just thick with some extra love handles, two all-beef patties, cheese and special sauce.)  However, after a year of not lifting weights and bomb diggity cooking, Franksabuff™ turned into Franksablob™. 

The Franksabunch™ is here for my massage!  Get in mah beeeeellllllyyyy!!! 

The Wife™’s friends had generously cut a big slice of cheddar to get us a certificate for a couple’s massage as a wedding gift, so we finally cashed it in this past weekend.  I went into that place with much trepidation since I knew that my body was no longer in shape.  After seeing the shape—or rather misshape—of some of the other male customers and their abundance of chest and back foliage I didn’t feel as bad, but the embarrassment still hit me like a frozen herring seconds after they told me to get butt nekkid and under the sheet.

The last time I found myself butt nekkid under a sheet with a strange woman touching me was when I had my appendix taken out.  Unlike the appendectomy this moment wouldn’t leave me with a bill of $16,000, but it also wouldn’t give me any Fentanyl or Versed for sedation!

This massage revealed to me that I have fat tissue of Biblical proportions…and by Biblical proportions I mean the lady’s hands were like Moses and my adipose was parting like the Red Sea.  If it wasn’t for the new age music softly blaring in the background and my own silent screams echoing in my ears, I could’ve sworn that I heard some slurping sounds when she ran her hands down my back.

But that, my friends, was not the worst part.

I had no idea that the lady was going to actually massage my buttocks!  (Isn’t that illegal?!?!?!)  I almost screamed out, “OH NO YOU DIDN’T!” when she folded the sheet into a thong and started squeezing my poi bags, but I was too busy praying to God:

“Dear God, please don’t let me fart right now.  I promise that I will never ever tell a lie or vote Democrat again.  Just please keep me from farting on her.”

I felt more violated than a sumotori whose mawashi was 5 sizes too small and dipped in poison ivy. 

It’s time to hit the gym again.  Anyone with me?

But being in that vulnerable state (one swift hammer movement and the Netherlands would’ve been reduced to Luxembourg) got me thinking about how vulnerable the patients I take care of are.  Anything I do places me in a position of power over someone who has none, even if no nudity is involved and over the years I've become very nonchalant about it (still respectful, though!). 

Physicians are not the only ones who induce vulnerability in others.  We had lunch with Junshien the next day (for the record, Junshien was NOT there at the massage!) and we talked about how even in his job as a photographer he places people in vulnerable positions they may not feel comfortable with.  As a counselor you have the ability to bring healing where there had previously been hurt.  As a financial planner you can be the difference between spending the golden years on a beach in Hawaii or in a trailer on the river.  And as a mother you have the ability to shift the world’s balance in favor of love instead of hate.

We should always have pride in whatever jobs—big or small—that we have, but we should also have respect for the responsibilities imbued upon us for we all at one time or another will find ourselves at the mercy of another. 

I just would appreciate that we leave out the thong and poi bag squeezing part next time.

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In case any of my wife’s friends are reading this, I really do appreciate the gift.  I’m just still recovering from it physically…and mentally.  Bwahahaha!

For those of you BSG fans, everyone's favorite Cylon Grace Park's new series The Cleaner (starring the ex-Mr. Julia Roberts) starts tonight!  But did they have to describe her character as an "exotic" beauty?  Oh goodness.  Edit #2: Looks like AngryAsianMan and I have similar thoughts about this.  I didn't copy him, I promise!

Edit: One thing (out of many) that was weird about the whole massage day was that I had called in stating, "I'd like to make an appointment for me and my wife to get a couple's massage" but when we showed up together the girl at the counter asked 1) if we'd be getting the massage together or separate and 2) if we'd like to split the remainder of the gift certificate into two different cards, one for each of us.  The first question I can understand, but the second?  Did she think that we were just friends or something?  Sigh.  I guess that's what happens when your wife is 3 moogabillion times more attractive than you are.

Seducing the married man.

So last Thursday The Franksabunch™ was at the Vbar lounge at the Hotel Valencia at Santana Row hanging with one of my friends while The Wife™ was outside waiting for someone else.  At one point I randomly turned and saw this girl a few feet away who looked as if she was coming up to say something to me but upon finding herself inauspiciously ensconced in my visual field suddenly turned and walked back to her group of friends.  A minute later she pulled the let’s-walk-by-him-and-I’ll-pretend-to-talk-to-you-so-I-can-turn-my-head-to-get-another-look move.  Twice.  My suspicions were confirmed when a few seconds later my friend proclaimed, “Dude, that girl was totally checking you out, she did the double-take.”  “Sure she wasn’t looking at you?” I said.  “Hella no,” came his reply.  “She was looking at YOU.” 

This was also not some seedy place and she was not some, well, seedy woman.  This was Santana Row, where the ballers come to bling and the wahines wear Seven Jeans to match their $7,000 butt lipo.  This particular wahine, though cute, smelled more of Stanford graduate student than platinum digger, however.  There was no way she could’ve guessed that I was a doctor because in a South Bay sea of men adorned in Armani and Affliction I was wearing the $5 shirt I bought on sale from H&M.  (Can I get a woop-woop from all the Taiwanese in the hizzouse?!  Represent!)  Like I said in my Googlie Eyes post, I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I’ve had a wahine give me the googlie eyes.  I’ve always been unattractive—think Rosie O’Donnell except male and Asian and with a brain—and having been to 24 hr fitness only 3 times since getting married, even my adipose tissue has developed adipose tissue, thereby relegating me to HMS (Heinous Male Status).  Knowing this I felt puzzled that she was checking me out instead of my single friend who is 300x more attractive than I am.  (I’m sure she saw that my ring finger was lit up since I was holding a drink in hand and it’s the first thing you look at when scoping someone out.)

Like the Loch Ness Monster, fat-free pizza and the ugly Korean girl, I always thought that the tale of women wanting married men was a myth.

I’m not sure if it is simply a matter of wanting something that you cannot have or if there is something more to it.  Perhaps it is also a matter of wanting something that is already packaged and polished instead of something that has to be built from scratch.  Relationships take work.  To be more specific, men in relationships need a lot of work with our manners, hygiene, wardrobe, commitment (or lack thereof), flossing…you name it.  So perhaps part of the allure of the married man is that you can get someone who has shown that he is capable of commitment and molding and that part of the domestication process has already been done by someone else.

Is that such a stretch to believe?  In this day and age of instant gratification we have microwaveable everything, NY Times up-to-the-minute updates on our Blackberry phones and wrinkle-free pants.  We want the finished product but don’t want to put the work into making it. We want to be hired as a full partner without being an associate first.  We want abs of steel but don’t want to diet and exercise.  We want the happily-ever-after with the white picket fence but are unwilling to negotiate the space between selfishness and compromise.

We forget that sometimes it is the journey that creates and necessitates the destination and not the other way around.

That happily married man that you see and desire to steal away…  Perhaps he is happy because the trials and tribulations he and his wife have worked through together have brought them to a place where understanding and desire can truly meet.  That full partner in your firm you wish you could be?  If you climb up the ladder to get there you'll find yourself always looking up but if someone hand picks you and plops you at the top you'll find yourself always looking down.

You can have your cake and eat it, too, but you have to bake it first.

Relationships, as with everything else in life, take work, but that work makes the finished product all the more enjoyable.

Even for us men with Heinous Male Status.

Have a great weeeeeeeeek!

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I saw Wanted last night.  At the beginning of the movie I thought it was going to be a rip off of Fight Club, but it turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be and the last 10 minutes were off the hizzook!

Edit:  Someone typed in on AOL search, "how to seduce my married doctor" and it led them to this post... @_@

Coffeehouse Weirdos (and extra post about Obama below).

After 4 years of med school, 3 years of residency and 2 years of fellowship it has all come to an end.  Today is the last day of fellowship!  Woop-Woop!  Okay, now on to the post...

In preparation for my final research presentation I spent countless hours at coffee shops sifting through journal articles, data…AND all the weird people that came through.  After all the time I spent there I came to the conclusion that most frequent customers of coffee houses who are not normal fall into one of 5 categories.

The Baristaphile

I never knew whether I should regard the Baristaphile with pity or irritancy, but I have to admit that it’s quite amusing listening to him trying to finagle a date from the workers.  Baristas, you see, are paid to smile, flatter and converse with you, which for most men = “she likes me, she really really likes me!”  As a result you have men all over the country afflicted with a penchant for flirting with baristas.  (One loser even took a barista’s photo off of the employee wall and took it home, the super freak!)  It’s a win-win situation for a single man.  With the captive audience it’s kind of like speed dating, except there’s no time limit and she’s forced to listen to you blabber on and on and in the end you’re buying a drink for yourself, and not her.  (Genius!)  Just be careful, young hustla, since the place is napalmed with the smell of all things coffee, you have no idea whether the wahine on the other side of the counter has breath that smells like rotten gouda cheese and you won’t find out until you lean in for the win and pass out from the noxious fumes emanating from her mouth.  As Plato once said, if her breath is so stink that you can see the words coming out of her mouth, it’s time to make like a tree and leave. 

The Cheapskate

Similar to the loser in the booth next to you at Red Lobster who instead of paying 99 cents for lemonade tries to make it himself by mixing lemons and sugar packets in his water, the Cheapskate in the coffee shop tries various tricks to get more out of his dollar dollar bills y’all:

• Orders a small coffee in a large cup in the hopes of getting extra
• Brings in his own bagel, asks the barista to toast it and then pays 25 cents for a single serving of cream cheese
• Orders a shot of espresso in a medium cup and asks to top it off with hot water or orders coffee topped off with hot milk, thereby avoiding paying for a café americano or café misto.

I guess the Cheapskate forgot that buying a drink at a coffee house—whether at Starbucks, Peet’s Coffee or The Coffee Bean—is a luxury and not a basic need.  It’s like going to Chinatown and buying a pair of Kalvin Clein jeans or a Caoch bag.  If you’re too cheap to buy the real thing, don’t try to be a faker!

The Eye of Sauron

Nothing weirds me out more than those people who purchase a drink and sit there with their pedophile sunglasses on, doing nothing but staring out into space for 60 minutes.  It gives me the heebie-jeebies.  What are they thinking about?  Reaganomics?  The identity of the 5^th and final Cylon?  Roseanne Barr in a speedo?

The JABBER-wockeez

I don’t know whether it is out of loneliness or a pathological need to use their mandibles, but the JABBER-wockeez just won’t stop jabbering on and on with random victims sitting next to them.  Once he made eye contact with me and asked, “excuse me, are you Oriental?” I knew that I was in trouble.  Despite seeing that I had a stack of journal articles and was furiously typing on my laptop, he persisted in talking to me for 15 minutes.  Being the passive-aggressive person that I am, instead of ending the conversation I began asking him how he liked growing up in the 51^st state, since Canada isn’t a real country.  He left shortly after that which was good for him, because The Wife™ was about to give him the HAI-YAH karate chop to the frontal lobe.

The Verizon Tireless

One cousin removed from the JABBER-wockeez, the Verizon Tireless person seems to forget that brevity is the soul of wit and that the person s/he’s talking to is not hard of hearing.  I know that talking on the phone is a ploy that wahines do when alone at a bar to look busy instead of lonely, but yapping loudly and incessantly on your cell phone in a coffee shop is just plain rude and makes me want to get all Cobra Kai up in here and sweep the leg. 

Use your cell phone at Starbucks and we'll put you in a body bag, yeeeeaaaahhhh!

So if any of you fit into the above categories and catch me in a coffee shop, please do America a favor and don’t sit next to me so I can do my work.  In return I’ll buy you a small coffee in a large cup topped off with hot milk.

Have a great weeeeeeeeeek!

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Bonus post about Obama:

Obama and the Race Game.

Some of you may have seen the post I briefly had up about Barack Obama’s appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show where he basically said that people of Asian descent are short.  I was upset when I wrote that post, so I took it down and am writing about it again now that I have had time to chill and think about it.

I had written that Obama was in err to propagate a racial stereotype about the height of Asian Americans, to which some people replied, “well, Asians are short.”  I’m sure that you could produce some statistics that the average Asian American is shorter than the average white American, but does that justify what he said?  Consider this…  There are statistics out there showing that African Americans score lower on IQ tests than their white counterparts.  If John McCain was questioned about being a fighter pilot and responded with, “well, I was competing against African Americans who statistically have lower IQs, so it was easier to beat them out to become a fighter pilot,” would everyone reply to that with, “That’s RACIST!” or “He’s right, African Americans do have lower IQs.”  When the Bell Curve was published, it was immediately received with accusations of racism, but if someone makes a crack about Asian Americans being short, everyone simply nods and accepts it as fact.

I’m Asian American and from Hawaii (the population Obama was referring to) and I’m 6’1”.  I have patients from all walks of life of all colors, and I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of my patients are shorter than me, be they white, black, yellow or brown. 

“But Franksabunch™,” you say, “you’re just an exception to the rule because you’re tall.”  Well, how would African Americans feel if John McCain said that Barack Obama managed to graduate from an Ivy League law school because he was an exception to the rule because he’s an intelligent black man?  (For those of you who are going to argue that IQ is not the same as a physical trait, do you think it would be any less offensive to African Americans for someone to go on David Letterman and make comments about an inordinate amount of African Americans having large noses or nappy hair like Don Imus?)

I find it ironic that someone who has run his whole campaign as if race shouldn’t matter and severed ties with the pastor who officiated his wedding and baptized his children because of racist comments he made would go on a a national television program and propagate a stereotype about another minority group.

I find it sad that he said this despite the huge support he has had from the people of Hawaii (I think he had 75% of the vote) and from certain prominent, nationally known Asian Americans.

I find it disappointing that the media and everyone else are so enamored of him that they are essentially giving him a free pass over this.

Yes, Barack Obama has Asian American (and Asian Canadian) members in his family.  But that excuse is the same as someone saying, “I’m not racist, I have friends who are Latino,” while tagging “Mexicans are fat” at a wall outside of Taco Bell. 

Yes, John McCain used the word “gook” years ago when referring to the Vietnamese people who imprisoned and tortured him.  It took a while, but he eventually apologized and to my knowledge hasn’t used the racist epithet again since.  Obama made his “Asians are short” comment in the middle of a presidential campaign and has yet to apologize for it (as far as I know).  This was not a comment made by someone drinking at a bar or some disgruntled shopper at Target, it was made by a man who may very well be the next president of the United States.  Ask yourselves, is it okay for the president of the United States to affirm a negative stereotype about a minority group?

I don’t necessarily feel that people should not vote for Obama simply because he made that remark on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.  However, Asian America should still hold him accountable for it and ask for an apology, otherwise we are doing nothing but laying down and accepting the fact that at least in one respect Obama’s campaign for “change” is not change at all, but rather a preservation of the racial status quo where yellow is the lowest color on the rainbow.

My children deserve a future better than that...and so do yours.

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Edit: I actually think that being labeled "short" is a negative thing, statistic or not.  I can't remember the last time someone called someone "midget" or "Frodo Baggins" to compliment them.  I am also very well aware that there are multiple factors that influence the results of IQ testing besides race (i.e. socioeconomics, etc.) just as with height.  My dad was 5'4" and grew up in rural Taiwan eating fish and noodles while I grew up in America eating chicken katsu plate lunches and Quarter Pounders.

Edit #2: These xanga popups are killing me. ("Would you like to subscribe or get email updates?")  Anyone know how to turn them off?  I don't think xanga will stop those popups until we all agree to get microchips implanted in our brains notifying us of subscription updates.  @_@

Secondhand Lions.

Your heart is only as good as what you would sacrifice it for.

I wrote a few years ago after my father passed away that time doesn't heal all wounds, it just makes it easier to forget.  Another Father's Day has come and gone, with the father I am supposed to celebrate it with no longer here.  The wounds have healed, but not because of the time that has passed.  Perhaps you could say that the salve was one part Jesus, one part the love of my wife, one part the love of my family, and one part finally growing into the skin of the man my father wanted me to be.  Time is a trickster, though, a chronological Loki wreaking mischief in our memories.  I spent most of my Father's Day forgetting that it was Father's Day, only remembering later that night, spurring a phone call to my mom to see if she was handling things okay.

I watched Secondhand Lions with my wife earlier today [SPOILER ALERT, however this movie is from 2003] which is about a young boy who is raised by his two granduncles on a rural property.  2 important scenes occured with one where the boy is saved by an old lion finally realizing its true nature after being raised in captivity, its heart giving out in the act of rescuing him and the other when he receives the "How to become a Man" speech from his granduncle.  We don't hear the talk in its entirety but I think the point is not what is in the message, but rather that there is someone there to give it.

After the movie was over I thought about the conversation I had with my dad that day when he decided to go to hospice.  For almost a year he had been battling a cancer that most succumb to in 3-6 months, his will to survive partly influenced by his desire to keep his practice around long enough for me to inherit, leading to painful trips to see his patients, the piercing side effects of chemotherapy and an extra surgery which I felt at the time was unnecessary and almost led to his early demise due to a complication.  Though his spirit was indefatigable, his body was not.  Things were progressing the wrong way.  The surgery did not serve to grant him significantly more time, the standard chemotherapy regimens had failed and yet he was still willing to fight, still willling to drag his feet to work, one excruciating step at a time.  I never asked him for any of it yet there he was, a Secondhand Lion willing to give his heart out for his boy.  After he was hospitalized again he mentioned to me that he was considering an off-label chemotherapy agent but for the first time I could tell in his voice that instead of telling me, he was asking.  I pondered my answer, the silence over the phone masking the maelstrom of emotions within me.  How do you tell your own father that it is okay to die?  Though the wounds have healed, the pain from that day still remains and will never leave me.

I never really had the specific "How to become a Man" talk with my father, but the point is not what he would have told me, but rather that he was there to show me. 

I thought about that as I went outside to the porch, as I am wont to do on the nights that I try to find somewhere I can be closer to him.  I gazed at the night sky, the first in a long time where the stars were visible due to the fires burning in the distance.  It was there only for an instant, but a falling star made its presence known, flashing brilliantly as it faded away, as if the world beyond was winking to tell me that everything is okay, and on the inside I heard his voice again.  "Your heart is only as good as what you would sacrifice it for...and being willing to give it for your family is how you become a man."

I went in and woke up my wife, telling her that I had just seen a falling star for the first time since college, when I was lying at Sandy Beach in Hawaii next to a girl I had a crush on watching the heavenly tapestry being woven above.  She laughed and asked me if I made a wish.  I lay there and watched her as she went back to sleep, the look in my eyes telling her that my wish had already come true, because I have something truly worth sacrificing my heart for.

Happy Belated Father's Day, Dad.  I miss you.

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Edit: It's currently available free on Comcast on Demand in the TBS section!

Everybody loves a Kaba Modern girl.

Literally. 

[Disclaimer: I do not know these girls in real life, neither do I claim to know who they are as people, this is based on the perceptions engendered through the media and America’s Best (Rigged) Dance Crew season 1, which is what all the boys are basing their crushes on, anyway.]

So The Franksabunch™ was at the Glas Kat (aka Tabu) this past weekend rollin’ with my VIP wristband and a gangsta lean (did you expect any less? ) where the main draw was a midnight performance by Kaba Modern.  Suffocated by all these Asian boys screaming out, “Yuuuuurriiiiii!” I wondered why so many guys were genuflecting to her—or rather, the person they think she is—as opposed to the other two, and it hit me…it’s because she fits the ideal woman to them.  The three Kaba Modern girls, you see, fit the three categories of wahines that all men, even if it is the end of them, pursue. 

The Cindy aka the Mysterious Girl.

Picture stolen from jonasapproved.  

Her image: Cindy was given a lot less exposure on ABRDC than the other two.  In fact, I don’t think I remember her being interviewed until the end of the season.  Why?  Was it because she had a really bad FOB accent (not true), was ditzy (not true) or unattractive (mos def not true).  Whatever the reason, she had less exposure, which only served to leave more to the imagination and the imagination, as you can certainly surmise, fills the gaps with things attractive and promising.  She’s certainly no window dressing as she was a leader for the UCI campus KM, but she’s not the type of person snobby enough to tell you she was.  Shrouded in secrecy, the less you know...the more you want to know.  Unlike everyone else out there, I found her image the most alluring, even above that of Yuri. 

Typical occupations: artist, writer, girl across the [fill in the blank] counter, speech therapist.

Guys she attracts: Innocent nice guys who are afraid to admit it, nerds who play World of Warcraft and have never been on a date, and bad boys or rico suaves looking for a challenge.

The Jia aka the Independent Girl.

Her image: Strong and accomplished (currently or previously was the director for KM), Jia was clearly one of the leaders and choreographers.  She also threw in the occasional wisecrack, throwing an element of Sara Silverman into the mix (except Jia doesn’t look like her grandfather was a descendant of Mr. Ed), and had the most spunk.  Self-assured and capable of running a house or Fortune 500 company, beauty is an accessory and not a weapon for her.  I’ve always been attracted to the Jia type, figuring that if I can find a wahine who can take care of herself then our relationship would be centered on something else than her needs.

Typical occupations: lawyer, surgery resident (in which case, run for the hills, young hustla, don’t date a girl who can filet you in 30 seconds flat), high-powered businesswoman.

Guys she attracts: Guys who like having the woman run the marriage (i.e. Chinese/Taiwanese guys…hey, I’m just telling the truth, homies), starving artists.  (What is the difference between a pizza and an artist?  A pizza can feed a family of 5.)

The Yuri aka the Girl Next Door

Her image:  From her tears and “I love you, Umma and Appa!” in the 1^st episode to her, well, tears after making a mistake in the Thriller Broadway episode (after MTV changed their music the night before, mind you) Yuri emanates through her million-dollar smile the image of the sweet, compassionate and emotional flower, the girl next door that you want to roll up your sleeves and protect from the world, come hell or high water or Randy Jackson.  Others just like her because she’s drop-dead gorgeous.  She may not need to be rescued, but you think she does, and that's why you can't escape.  In the end, she’s probably the most wanted girl because all men like rescuing wahines and want a girl they think will take care of them.  I’ve always had a soft spot for the Yuri type because it kills me to see a wahine cry.

Typical occupations: Teacher, nurse, social worker.

Guys she attracts: Boys with KGF (Korean Girl Fetish…don’t lie, you have it, too!), churchgoers, everyone else with a Y chromosome.

And for me?  How did I end up falling for my wife?  When we were both single she was inundated by a lot of date requests because as someone who was cautious with what she would reveal and to whom, she gave off the Cindy vibe.  People thought she was mysterious.  At work she’s definitely Jia and can crack the whip, but at home I’m the only one who gets to see her Yuri side.

I guess you can have it all, after all.

Have a great week!!!

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For those of you with a facebook and rep Fear to Faith gear, don't forget to join their group! 

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My thoughts on last week’s America’s Best (Rigged) Dance Crew season 2 auditions:

• ASIID is this season’s Status Quo, and Randy Jackson will make sure they make it all the way to the semifinals.
• Sassx7 is this season’s Femme5, we’ll see them last for a few weeks, unfortunately.
• Team Millenia should’ve stayed and they should’ve kicked out a crew from another region (Sassx7, DistortedX or that boy band crew from Naperville).
• What happened to the Asian guy with bleached hair in HIStory?  Why was he not in the live audition?  Perhaps that’s why they got the ‘ject!
• SoRealCru for the win!  I know they won’t, but I’ll be pulling for them.  I think that crew from Philly with the Love shirts (So Phresh) might take it.
• It was nice to see not all-Asian crews, but actually Asians inserted into many different crews.

Some pics and youtube I took from last Saturday (click to enlarge).  Sorry, I didn't really have a good view from where I was, the extreme right side of the stage, but I did get a chance to stalk Jonasapproved (2nd pic), haha! 

1st part of their performance.  Last part of their performance.  (There's a minute missing in between.)