The Ink Farmers

Man Made Criminals

tyeyoshu — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:01:38 +0000

I am a criminal, because Man has made me into a criminal.

Ordinance 384: Skateboarding Prohibited.

Two words written on a piece of paper.

Two words of incantation

that, when written in the proper places,

can transform placid participants into what I am today.

A criminal.

An apathetic punk.

Let loose with no regard for boundaries.

No regard for the well being of personal properties.

I am no better than a grifter.

There has to be consequences for men like me.

Men who go to school five days a week.

Men who work part time jobs to pay for their rent and groceries.

Men who, at the end of a long week,

Think they deserve some time off.

Some time to go outside and participate in their sport.

So convict me.

Confine me to a fenced off square of asphalt

Tell me to behave or else.

And I will comply.

Why shouldn’t I?

This is exactly what I have asked for.

A confined piece of America where I can be free.

Where I can Live and Learn for free.

Free from worry. Free from prosecution.

Free to enjoy my hobby, my sport, my passion.

Free to skateboard without any legal repercussions.

Please vote in favor for building the heritage park skate plaza.

My view on universal health care

tyeyoshu — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:25:57 +0000

The american society is not responsible enough for universal health care. The tax payer can not afford to be paying for every blacked out college student that needs an ambulance ride to the hospital to get their stomach pumped.

Laughing away our freedom

tyeyoshu — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:00:20 +0000

In my Portuguese class we were discussing Portugal’s legalization of gay marriage. My teacher, who is from Portugal, asked if gay marriage was legal in the U.S. The class gave her a complex answer that summarized to a plain no. In response my teacher said, “Land of the free.” The whole class laughed.

Dear University of Minnesota Duluth,

tyeyoshu — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:15:02 +0000

Subject: Answering your question

From: yoshu682@umn.edu

Date: 18 Dec 2009 15:34:23 -0600

To: Vince Repesh

I agree with you that getting a drinking violation won’t make them drink

more; it was rash of me to say that. Still you have to recognize that

getting a drinking violation won’t make them stop drinking. People with

speeding tickets won’t drive any faster but receiving a speeding ticket

won’t make them stop speeding either. Just like people who have minors

don’t stop drinking, they just become more careful not to get caught. Some

are not so successful and that is why you are talking to numerous students

with multiple violations.

I am not trying to fight you. There is a serious drinking problem with

college students now days that needs to get solved, but I don’t agree

that raising the level of enforcement for these types of offences is going

to solve anything. I used to be a student at the University of Minnesota

Duluth. I have had a minor consumption ticket before. I am seeing the

effects of these alcohol policies from the other side of the spectrum. I am

coming from the students prospective and I think that my opinions on the

matter should be seriously considered and not just passed along without a

concern.

Thanks for replying and I hope it still continues,

Tye Yoshu

On Dec 18 2009, Vince Repesh wrote:

Tye,

Your email was forwarded to me regarding the alcohol policy at UMD, I’m the

chairman of the Alcohol Advisory Board. You bring up some interesting

points regarding drinking on campus. My question to you, if someone

receives a speeding ticket – will then only drive faster because of the

ticket? I’ve met with numerous students this year with multiple alcohol

violations and I truly disagree with your statement – they will only drink

more now. I’ve forwarded your email to Lt. Anne Peterson, Director of

University Police. If you have any further questions and/or concerns

regarding your traffic stop – please direct it to her.

Thanks for the email again and have a safe holiday break.

Vince

—–Original Message—–

From: Rebecca Thelen [mailto:rthelen@d.umn.edu]

Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 11:07 AM

To: Vince Repesh

Subject: alcohol policy

name first: Tye

name last: Yoshu

email: yoshu682@umn.edu

phone: (320) 248-7750

address: 2417 Plesant Ave Apt. #4

request: I knew UMD has been stiffening their alcohol policies, but after being spied on, followed, and threatened by the police I experienced firsthand how hard the Duluth campus is cracking down on alcohol. My friend is twenty-one and after being spied on at the liquor store we were followed and then pulled over as soon as we drove onto UMD property. We had to waste our time while the cops checked all our IDs, shoved a breathalyzer in my face, and retreated back to the police car to contemplate how they could ruin our lives. We weren’t doing anything illegal. They couldn’t have given us any fines or tickets, but the cops came back to the driver side window and lied to me about how they could search the car and arrest us but they

weren’t going to because they were “giving us a break” instead. Cops always say that they are giving you a break but it sounds more like a threat to me. I am very upset that I had to waste my time with this preposterous situation. I am sure there are even more upset people out there too, people who have been successfully trapped by the police.

SO MY QUESTION FOR YOU IS:

how do you think that raising the level of enforcement for alcohol laws will solve the problem? College kids are still going to drink no matter how much booze and money you take away from them. It will actually make the students want to drink even more. If you tell a child not to do something they are going to want to do that exact thing you told them not to do. If you give a

college student a ticket for an alcohol offence the first thing they will want to do is have a drink. Raising the level of enforcement is unsuccessfully attacking the symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. Take a step back and ask the question, “Why do college kids want to drink?” then maybe you will see the actual problem and hopefully think of a successful way at solving the alcohol problem.

I am hoping to hear back from you,

Tye Yoshu

Best Friends Bathe Together

tyeyoshu — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:46:52 +0000

I doubt our dogs ever really liked each other, but we still took them on walks, play dates, and once bathed them together. It was our excuse, the reason to spend time together. Let Ali and Trixie go unleashed while we find a nice ledge to sit on that over-shadowed the quarry. We could talk about anything. How great things will be once she goes off to college. What a dream boat Nathan Walters really is. How great of friends our dogs are. It didn’t matter. If there was nothing to talk about, we could make something up. Most of the conversations we have end up being a stream of made up bullshit. It didn’t matter that no one else could follow the conversation. We were having fun and working our abs at the same time. But as we sat on the edge of the quarry during the final days of summer, our dogs scuttling around sniffing everything, something was different. There was a tension between us.

Ali is fourteen now, so that makes Trixie fifteen. The undelivered birthday card I am holding helps me recall this tidbit of information. I recently sifted through my stack of “important files” that I keep heaped in the only drawer of my night stand. I was searching for a late loan payment, but I found a plain white envelope instead. It was licked sealed and completely blank. I can never avoid these kinds of tempting distractions. Maybe that is why my loan payment is late. I wiggle my finger underneath its flap and rip it open as neatly as possible. Inside is a birthday card. It is made of a blue piece of construction paper, folded hamburger style, with a picture of two dogs glued to the front. One nervously clung to the rim of the bath tub, the other was enjoying the warm bath water, and both of them were covered in soap suds. Inside the card it says, “Best Friends Bathe Together!” This was a cheap inside joke we had. I laugh at my disappointment.

I remember the day you told me about Ali’s fourteenth birthday. “It was two days ago,” you said and gave me some playful guilt for not knowing or attending the make believe party with streamers, fire hydrants, and a paw print cake. The only thing that was missing was Trixie. I am sorry. In an attempt to make up for my apathy I promised to make a card despite the fact that the date had already passed. I made it that night. Now it lays open in my hands and I am wondering why I never sent it. How could our relationship be different if I did? Maybe we wouldn’t have drifted apart when we left for college. Maybe we could still have made up conversations. Maybe we could still take our dogs for walks even though their joints were developing arthritis and they lacked the energy to finish the entire circle. It’s always better late than never I am told. So I lick the card shut in a new envelope and send it on its way.

On my way back home for Thanksgiving, I receive a call from you. Amongst your laughter you explain that you received the card and that it is, evidently, the funniest thing ever. “Sorry it was so late,” I say, “We should set up another play date for those two soon.” You agree.

When I got home I looked for Trixie but only found her empty food dish.

“Where is Trixie?” I asked my mom.

“Dad took her to the V-E-T.” she informed me, “Something about her kidneys failing, I don’t really know. There weren’t many details.”

“What happened?” I asked, “Did she fall again?”

“No, she just stunk really badly. She stunk up the whole bedroom.”

Every time I come home I am a little surprised that Trixie is still alive.

“Maybe we should kill her.”

“Tye Ma!”

“What? I’m serious.”

“You put it so horribly though.”

“Maybe we should let her go.” I correct myself.

“We probably should, but it’s your dad’s choice.”

“Hopefully he makes the right one.” I tell her as she leaves the kitchen. “This isn’t Grandma you know. We can’t just stuff the dog full of meds for the next ten years!”

Trixie is technically my dog. Grandma bought her for me on my fifth birthday. She was a farm pup, born on the outskirts of a very small town named Appleton. I watched her run around in the dusty yard with her siblings while the grownups negotiated a deal. We snatched her up, hopped back in the van, and floored it back home. It was a successful dognap. During show ‘n tell I would show a picture of her and tell everyone “This is my dog Trixie,” and “no, she doesn’t know any tricks.” I would say she was my dog but my dad was the one feeding her, walking her, and letting her outside during his lunch breaks. He even once took a shower with her. Killing two birds with one stone I guess. When Dad roamed the house, Trixie would be right at his heels. When he would come home from work, she would always run towards him wagging her stub of a tail, balancing on her hind legs, and scratching his pant legs with the other pair. He would pick her up and play with her as if she were a puppet. Spreading her two front legs and pretending she was a bird. On trips to the movie store he would act as if she was the one steering the car and yelling at the other drivers in a phony falsetto that resembled Bob Saget’s voice during the America’s Funniest Home Video clips. My dad really loves that dog and she loves him too. If anyone is going to decide when Trixie should be put down, it would have to be my dad.

I saw Trixie later that day. She was alive and lying against my father’s chest as he reclines in his arm chair watching his big screen T.V. I bent down at the chair’s side to pet her. She doesn’t seem to notice me. She lays still and her eyes stare past me and life itself. If her little rib cage wasn’t slowly rising then descending I would have pronounced her dead. I ask my dad about the trip to the vet and he tells me about her kidney infection. “It was a close one. I almost lost her this time.” He pretends that everything is fine.

I go upstairs and open the fridge, as I do so often when I am home. I never appreciated all the food and space until I moved out. Next to the bag of cold McDonald’s there is a medicine bottle. A little rectangular cube with its lid torn on one side and the word Clavamax boldly printed on the front. The box has so many warning labels I am afraid to even be holding the medicine as I read the fine print. It is an antibiotic, and it is only to be used on cats or dogs. Since I am neither, I returned the medicine to the fridge and debate eating the cold McDonald’s burgers. I know they are for Trixie. “Hamburgers are Trixie’s favorite food” Dad tells me. She must have stopped eating. So I settle for a cup of yogurt, and I eat it without a spoon. I live by the rule that all yogurts packets are go-gurt packets if you squeeze hard enough. I lap the yogurt out of its plastic cup and think about how Trixie’s death would impact the world. Dad would be devastated even though he wouldn’t consciously show it. He is a sensitive man that suffocates his emotions just like he was taught to. Mom’s life might be a little easier since she wouldn’t have to fret about the carpet anymore. The piss, puke, and carpet cleaning bills have started to pile up. I have accepted the cold reality that death is inevitable but still can’t fight the craving to chug a bottle of wine. As for our excuse, it will die with Trixie and the last time I will see you would be at Trixie’s back yard funeral. This thought upsets me the most. Trixie’s death is expected, but I am not ready for our relationship to die. It is still young and still has so much potential. What we have is precious. The jokes may be complete bullshit but the connection we have is real and I am not ready to give that up yet. I don’t want to lose you. I will miss your whit, your ability to look past the bad and keep living, your realism. If you are gone, who would laugh at my jokes? Who would hit me with reality when I am being a douche? I am not ready to let you go. I wonder if we can keep our relationship alive when the only thing holding it together is dying.

Tye Yoshu

Literary Event Response

tyeyoshu — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:43:01 +0000

I didn’t understand a word Ray Gonzolas said. My mind was too preoccupied with psychoanalyzing the girl who sat next to me. I have met her before. Many times actually, but I haven’t seen her in a while. She snaked through the library’s aisles, and plopped right in the collapsible chair next to me as if it were part of the protocol. It was a bit awkward, but I can only blame myself. I was the one who smiled at her as I was stuck in the over-crowded, post lecture isles of the belle auditorium just fifteen minutes ago. Was it a mistake? I am not sure, but what is done is done so just keep rolling with it.

“How have you been?” I asked

“Fine, except I think my boyfriend is bipolar.”

Boyfriend? So that is who she has been sitting by during lecture. It’s been two weeks and she was already in a serious relationship with serious problems. She moves fast.

“That’s unfortunate.” I didn’t know what else to say.

I endure the awkward silence while the improvised bookstore auditorium fills up.

“Oh no there’s that T.A. again. He hates me.” She hunched over a little and leaned back against her chair putting my face between my T.A.’s and hers.

The first place I met this girl was during my creative writing class at the kick off of the semester. She wasn’t actually in my section but she wanted to be. So she stayed after class to ask my T.A. if she could switch. Ever since then she hated him and I never got a clear answer as to why. As Ray Gonzolas began to rattle off prose from his newly published book, I started to piece things together. I begin to understand her motives for giving me her number just before running for the bus. Why she would playfully push me every time my words would get remotely close to a joke. I thought she was just an awkward person, but now I realize what she really is. This girl is horny! She wanted me, but when that didn’t work out she landed on that bipolar bear that soon came around. I can only image what her conversation with my T.A. could have been like.

“Can I switch into this creative writing section?”

“I’m sorry there just isn’t enough room.”

“Please, I’ll do anything.” She probably ruffled the collar of his denim jacket and slid the back of her other hand down the side of his bearded cheek.

I turned to her and gave one last look at her moustache and told myself, “I need to get the hell away from this crazy bitch.”

An afternoon burn leads to a late night scheme…

roosterredshoes — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:57:45 +0000

Okay. I have a proposition. And I think it may just change the debate on legalization of Marijuana.

The way I see it now, weed will never be completely decriminalized tommorow because there is a huge and vocal section of the population that will cry anarchy. There aren’t nearly enough politicians or law makers willing to support complete decriminalization for it to ever be seriously considiered.

So how do you convince otherwise rational and logical people that smoking weed isn’t the harmful life ruining gateway drug it has been made out to be?

Show them dollar signs. Here is where I’m proposing a different angle. We’ve all heard the standard argument of “tax the hell out of it”. And yea that does make some sense. But why stop there?

The government should just monopolize Marijuana production and selling. Treat it just like any other cash crop. Government officials would supervise the growing, buy at low prices directly, and then sell to the public at an inflated price. We all know that there are large-scale growers supplying pounds of weed to the public. Because there are so many steps in between the common 30 sack guy and this producer we pay a huge mark up. I propose having the government step in and cut out all those various middle men. In short, I want the government to become my drug dealer haha.

By having a hand in every level of the trade the government would be able to control both supply and demand. It could create a whole new industry in which it reaps almost all the profits.

The last step would be to control the where/how/who/how much that the public is allowed to do. I propose a simple licensing system. Just like when you get an I.D. you would simply pay a small fee to get a “I can smoke bud legally” card. Someone caught with weed or paraphernalia not owning a card would be subject steep fines. How steep? Steep enough to make it unquestionably worth it to buy the card.

So thats my plan. It’s two in the morning and I have been brainstorming about this all night. I needed to share it. I considered facebook but I just didn’t want to be ‘that guy’. So I figured this seldom seen, utter ghost town of a blog would be a good place to dump my late night ramblings. If someone does happen to stumble across this go ahead and leave me a comment or a rebuttal.

Jurrasic Narc

Mellow Yellow — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:12:09 +0000

http://stuffstonerslike.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/breaking-news-worlds-oldest-weed-stash-uncovered

-Mellow Yellow

The Foreign Five

The New McGoo — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:46:27 +0000

One more new song of mine for ya. This one is entitled The Foreign Five. The name came from my guitar teacher saying four and five fast and that is what it sounded like to me. I thought it was pretty cool so I named my song that. This song kind of reminds me of a surf song but I can’t really say for sure because I am not to familiar with the genre as a whole. All I am basing that off of is it makes me think of surfing. I found after I recorded it that I accidentally snatched a couple riffs from the White Stripes (I Think I Smell a Rat, and Offend in Every Way). See if you can find ‘em. One aspect that sets this song apart from my other recent songs is the use of the charango. The charango is a Chilean folk instrument with 10 strings and 5 tunings. Well here it is, enjoy!

Sincerely,

The New McGoo

Botswan-o-gram!

The New McGoo — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:13:05 +0000

I have a class called “Exploring Majors and Careers”. This week we had a group of speakers that talked about working abroad, the job opportunities that may come with it, and their experiences in foreign countries. One of the speakers discussed simple cultural differences, so he told us a story about a mix up he had in Botswana. He was trying to describe the height of a person to a group of people. He raised his hand to about his eyes suggesting that the person was about that tall. The people he was talking to gasped and looked horrified. He found out later that when describing someone’s height you’re expected to have your hand out with the fingers pointed up. When you do it how us westerners do it (with the palm down) you are saying that the person has a limit, physically and psychologically. The Botswanan way of showing height suggests the person is limitless. Not that this is an enormous cultural difference or anything, but I found it a fun lil’ factoid.

Forever yours,

The New McGoo