The San Francisco Examiner came out with an article featuring Debbie Huey and her comic Bumperboy. Who is Bumperboy?
The hero of our stories, Bumperboy was born and raised in the Land of Bubtopia. He is always eager to learn and discover new things, as well as explore places he has never visited. He loves to meet new friends. Bumperboy is an avid marble player and one of the fastest borpers in Bubtopia. He wears a white rubber suit to protect him from high-speed borping. He is a bit on the competitive side, but he knows how to be a good sport. Bumperboy also enjoys watching cowboy movies and eating gummy worms in his spare time.
I'm a supporter of the arts on all fronts and know the power that music and theater can have, but let's be honest about this - the NY Philharmonic going to North Korea isn't a historical cultural event - it's just a publicity campaign for everyone involved.
North Korea - who took down its Anti-American posters and rhetoric before the Philharmonic dropped in to Pyongyang - gets to use this "event" as propaganda to show the world that even with their abysmal human rights record, stalled nuclear disarmament talks, and "Military First" policy, that they're open to cultural diplomacy - and really - maybe they aren't that bad after all.
I can see it now. There's Kim Jong Il relaxing with some poor girls he keeps skinny with a healthy does of poverty, the NY Philharmonic playing in the background, and Il touting the new "softer side of North Korea".
Just the thought makes me want to wet myself.
Then there's the NY Philharmonic. Musicians who hope that they can help build connections with North Koreans to bring the countries closer together - and while I don't doubt the real feelings some of the musicians have in going there - they've really just been bamboozled and hoodwinked by people like Lorin Maazel and others for the sake of publicity and the thought of being mentioned alongside with ping pong balls.
Do they realize that according to a UN report there's only 55 TV sets for every 1,000 people in North Korea and that only a fraction of people they hope to reach will even see it?
Who knows though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the NY Philharmonic, by playing one glorious night to be shown, edited, cut, and then re-edited, really can help bring the U.S. and North Korea together.
At least it won't hurt ticket sales.
Next stop for the NY Philharmonic: Curing AIDS and ending the conflict in Darfur.
Cinematical (and every other X-Men junkie) is reporting that Korean American Daniel Henney will be joining the ever growing X-Men cast as Agent Zero, who has the power to absorb kinetic energy. No word on how big his role will actually be - but it should be an interesting switch from his K-Drama film and tv credits where he's probably best known for being in the 2005 tv drama/comedy My Lovely Sam Soon and the 2006 film Seducing Mr. Perfect.
Sandra Oh will be in the new film Blindness from director Fernando Meirelles of City Of God and The Constant Gardner - and hopefully it should be a little better than her last screen credit from the much lauded film The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends - I understand - you gotta pay the bills.
According to the IMDB profile page on the movie, it's in post production and will be coming out sometime this summer. Oh will be playing the Minister Of Health.
19 year old Brenda Song, who's already accumulating an impressive resume through her Disney Channel credits like The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and Phil of the Future as well in movies like Santa With Muscles and Like Mike (and the TV/DVD movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior) is also making an appearance in the first G rated Martin Lawrence flick College Road Trip as Christina Wong.
Kat Ouano, the keyboardist from Crown City Rockers, released her debut album a couple of months ago called Natural Phenomenons - a trip hop and experimental excursion into music that Kat describes as "sweet seductive sounds" and "music to mentally massage your mind" - and she's definitely right - the music is filled with lush layers that just vibe.
The instrumental album comes either as a standard CD, or a limited edition POP-UP version. Check the info from the artist herself:
With this ever changing world of music, it seems to me that music is getting more and more disposable by the minute. Of course, we all have to, as a fact of survival, adapt with change and embrace these new technologically mastered days. And I am definitely one that loves technology, but, no longer is the day you wait in line at the record store and purchase that long awaited album from your favorite band/group and treasure the actual existence of it, reading the liner notes, examining the artwork, staring at the pictures, and holding it. Today, losing a song doesn't mean that you've misplaced your album, it either means you've deleted it from your playlist, or you're hard drive crashed.
Making this Limited Edition Pop Up CD is my romantic way of making the music personal again. Each Pop up CD is imagined, handcrafted and assembled by me, and if you choose, it can be autographed and dedicated.
To find out more about Kat 010 and listen to some sample tracks, go to her MySpace page, or check out the official page for her CD where you can pick it up.
While the movie 3 1/2 hour epic Jodhaa Akbar is getting some rave reviews by the likes of the NY Times, it seems the pic helmed by actress Aishwarya Rai (Bachchan) is also creating some protests - and getting banned - even though about 70% of the story is still fictionalized.
An Indian state on Friday ordered cinema halls not to screen a controversial film featuring Bollywood's most glamorous star Aishwarya Rai after violent demonstrations.
Many people from India's Rajput community have staged angry protests over the depiction of a romance between Mughal king Akbar and a Hindu princess, saying the film has distorted history and shown their ancestors in poor light.
"The screening of the film has been suspended and not banned," Shivraj Singh Chouhan, chief minister of central Madhya Pradesh state told reporters in Bhopal. "Jodhaa Akbar" -- said to be one of the most expensive Bollywood movies ever made -- depicts a romance between the 16th century Mughal ruler Akbar and Rajput princess Jodha Bai.
I know you feel guilty about breaking down and getting some Chinese journalists jailed - I mean I can feel you on that one because my conscience would be talking about what a traitor I was as well even if like you said you were put in a hard position.
But let's get real here shall we? You have Microsoft going directly to your shareholders to take over your company. You have News Corp. who you've been dealing with to try and see how you can get a deal done there - and that's not really going anywhere. And at the same time your company still needs to get its a** in gear no matter you do so you can somehow capitalize on the strengths your company has left (because you know you don't want to get Google involved).
So I ask you dear Jerry - what the hell are you doing sending a letter to Condoleezza Rice asking for the State Department to help out in the release of the Chinese "dissidents" that you in fact help put away?
I know you're still working on some PR issues, but don't you have enough on your plate already?
I'm all for PSA's on voting, and this is at least better than the reassed MTV PSA - but still, even though a couple weeks old, doesn't quite make me want to get out and vote any more than before I watched it - and as ImaginAsian TV has some more bucks now - maybe as the time gets closer to the general election, they'll be able to kick out something with a celeb or two.
So another article down at The Daily Pennsylvanian caught my eye - yeah I know - on Asian eyelid surgery and one thing I wish people would talk about in these articles is that the surgery goes on in Asia frequently - not just here in America where the perception is that Asian American women (or men) just want to look more white - which in so many ways - that perception - is completely offensive.
What a lot of people who like to pontificate on the subject don't understand - or decide to leave out - is that half of all Asian people are born with the eye crease and the other half - those who might end up having surgery - aren't.
So when an Asian person decides to get Asian eyelid surgery - maybe it's just about looking like their Asian counterparts - and not about looking white.
Police, the FBI, and the US Postal Service are investigating hate mail sent to black students at an elite prep school, the New York Times reports. Sources say students at St. Paul's School in New Hampshire received letters containing their photos from the school's directory with the words "bang bang get out of here" beneath. The letters had apparently been posted from a nearby town.
A federal judge in Florida must decide if the actions and racist banter of two South Carolina sheriff's deputies are enough to dismiss evidence against two Egyptian students arrested with explosives material. Attorneys in Tampa have spent two days picking apart the August 4th traffic stop by Berkeley County sheriff's deputies near Goose Creek. Two deputies who stopped Youssef Samir Megahed and Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed have said they made racist statements, equating them to the Taliban and joking about them being suicide bombers.
It seems that one of our very own senators, Shirley McKague, wants Congress to do something about the number of illegal immigrants in Idaho. The good senator thinks that the president and Congress should remove the birthright citizenship of children of illegal immigrants. I really hope Congress has more sense (I have no hope for the president).
With the selection of Barack Obama as the first black Democratic nominee for president seeming more possible by the day, racists and white supremacists are posting increasingly ugly and even threatening remarks on the Internet.
On the finale of Dance War - and you know how I felt about that show - the new contestants were announced for Dancing With The Stars - and one of them is Asian American figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi who will be paired with dancer Mark Ballas - and I while I couldn't stand Dance War I do like some DWTS because where else can you see Penn Jillette try and ballroom like the pros?
At the same time, it's nice to see that AA dancer Cheryl Burke finally got a partner who wasn't a bust this time around (no offense Wayne - you're still tops in Vegas babe) so maybe she'll actually have a shot at winning this time around.
Screenshot from Silence directed by Kurt Nishimura
Born in Hawaii and settling out in Portland, Oregon, 22 year old Kurt Nishimura who won the The Re-Animate the Decemberists Contest (and got nominated for a mtvU Woodie Award in '07) is out with a new video for Olivia Broadfield's track Silence that you can view here.
Nishimura is also working on his first full length feature film about the culture of Hawaii called Obake - and judging from the work in his music videos as well as his shorts, it should be pretty interesting.
I know some people don't get this - and I can understand that - but there's just something inviting about a film festival which is strictly for cell phones - either films to be shown on a mobile phone, or taken with one.
I think part of it is just curiosity. How well can someone actually make a movie for that format? Will it really be any good? Could it be even more personal even though it's not on an AMC sized screen?
The inaugural Pocket Film Festival in Japan, showing movies made entirely on mobile phone cameras, will kick off Friday in Yokohama.
Forty-eight films, chosen from more than 400 entries from 18 countries -- including Japan, Singapore, China, South Korea and Germany -- will screen in competition at the weekend event, organized by the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
The competition has two categories, one for films to be shown on regular screens and the other for films to be viewed on phones. The winning film will receive 500,000 yen (US$4,500).
If you're interested in being a mobile phone filmmaker you might also want to check out the French Pocket Films Festival (4th edition) which is taking submissions up through March 1 and will take place at the Pompidou Center, Paris June, 13-15th.
Superstar Utada's 28th single Heart Station/Stay Gold, officially drops today on the heels of her still red-hot '07 where her music sold 12 million digital units.
Shoji Doyama - president of EMI Music Japan - talks about how Utada is helping to pave the way for how music keeps getting distributed:
The success of Utada Hikaru shows that our strategy of providing access to music across multiple formats and platforms has been embraced by the consumer. We will continue to offer more opportunities for more people to enjoy more music and will keep breaking world class records.
Asian superstars who continue to blaze new paths on the music scene - definitely cool.
How sad is it that the A & E channel is letting Dog the Bounty Hunter come back to television all for the name of profits? Remember - this is the guy who if his daughter brought home a black date he'd say f*** y***.
Let's recap for a moment the whole conversation that started all of this:
Duane "Dog" Chapman: I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore or whatever. It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word 'n*****' sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some f*****g n***** heard us say 'n*****' and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa [Dog's daughter] was dating a n*****, we would all say 'f*** y**!' And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home … ya da da. It's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word 'n*****.' We don't mean, 'you f*****g scum n***** without a soul.' We don't mean that shit. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because 'I'm in love for 7 months — f*** that! So, I'll help you get another job but you can not work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I can't handle that s***. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder....
So I guess the moral of the story here is that you can be as racist as you wanna be, but as long you make some faux attempts to say you aren't - as long as you're making money - A & E will take you back.
Has A & E been covering up for the Dog all along though?
Fight this all you want - but you know that a slew of racist slurs must have came out of Duane's mouth a ton of times during the filming of his shows - so the question I have is this - what did A & E producers do when they saw those shots?
Obviously they must have edited them out - but how many and for how long?
I'm curious to know to what extent A & E producers have been idly sitting by as they watched Duane make racist comments.
The Japanese female trio Foxxi misQ who's brought us Ultimate Girls, Luxury Ride, Alive, and Party Booty Shake just released their latest MV for their single X-B-F, which will be out and available for purchase on March 19th.
Reports are out via AllHipHop that Snoop Dogg will be teaming up with the Indian Rap Trio RDB (Rhythm, Dhol, Bass) for their new single and video - which will be the lead track for the new movie featuring Akshay Kumar.
Snoop Dogg and Bollywood? What took so long?
Rhythm, Dhol, Bass
If you're not familiar with RDB, here's some info on them from their Wikipedia profile:
RDB are essentially a group of three Sikh brothers from Bradford although; Kuly, Manj and Surj who over the past four years have been performing, producing and djing for thousands of people in nightclubs, festivals and parties.
Originally club DJs, the RDB brothers play a blend of Bhangra, House, UK garage, Hindi, Bollywood, RnB, Hiphop, Ragga and Dance music. Even having firmly established a fan base worldwide, the RDB team still say they represent their own country, the UK, where they have performed in many well known clubs.
They have performed alongside celebrities from the urban world of music, including Tim Westwood, Mc Romeo, So Solid Crew, Shola Ama, The Dream Team, Misteeq, UK Apachi
Yahoo News is reporting that Asian American Ramiele Malubay, the 20 year old Filipina who's made it to American Idol's Top 24 - is the #3 most popular contestant right now generating some of the most buzz:
Ramiele Malubay may hail from Florida, but California is taking the strongest interest in the petite powerhouse singer -- as does New Jersey, Washington, New York, and Virginia. The geographical appeal bodes well, and that's just in the United States. Philippines media has been rooting for the "Fil-Am" competitor. Most importantly, her buzz among the traditional "Idol" Search audience (ladies in their 30s) are better than number 2 Kristy Lee Cook.
If you needed some more stats on Ramiele, here is some info from her AI profile, and you can also check out her MySpace page:
Age: 20 Hometown: Miramar, FL Favorite Quote: "If you're hated, you're doing something right." Audition City: Miami Musical Influences: My musical influences would be Aretha Franklin, Jackson 5, Mariah Carey, Lani Misalocha, and Regine Velasquez.
This is pretty cool - the human rights organization Breakthrough launched a new video game on immigration called ICED - I Can End Deportation which you can download from the site at http://www.icedgame.com/.
Here's the scoop:
In the game, you can step inside the shoes of one out of five immigrant teens, each of a different ethnicity and immigration status. The game teaches how U.S. immigration laws detain and deport immigrants while denying them due process and human rights.
I've played through the first part of the game - won my citizenship - and overall it's pretty slick, and a great concept, so check it out if you get the chance.
The slantyapolis/seftre blog has served millions of views trying to help in its own way, to give voice to the Asian and Asian American community, as well as document it, over the last 18 years. Sometimes op-ed, sometimes straight news, sometimes off the beaten path--the continued impetus remains that there's power in sharing voices and in sharing your own voice and reflecting that back into the communities you belong to.
If you're looking for the 2008 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).
2007 In Review Posts
If you're looking for the 2007 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).
