The life and times of an Asian American activist who tells all the truth (and dishes news and analysis) but with a leftwards slant.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Yellow Sticky Notes
Spotlight on Jeff Chiba Stearns' animated short "Yellow Sticky Notes" which I just saw on youtube. It's a simple yet refined personal history told through to do lists and art but it blends in 9/11 and the subsequent wars as well as some political commentary on global warming and hurricanes/ tsunamis. Short, eloquent and sweet, it was a joy to watch. Thanks for adding a bright note to my day, youtube and Jeff!
PS: Jeff happens to a hapa and mixed race advocate of Japanese Canadian descent.
Wow. I watched this thing more than halfway through and didn't know that it was a farce. Yeah, I am kinda clueless in that I don't know exactly what Tyra Banks looks like.
Forgive me, I was distracted by Dov Charney's craziness.
for those of you who don't know American Apparel as something other than super soft cotton T's made by US based employees and striptease ads with hipster model employees, you should also know that Dov Charney is currently facing several sexual harassment lawsuits.
Do I also own a few American Apparel items? Yes, and they are really soft. Anyway, this spoof was so zany that I really believed it.
Hmm, if I wasn't super in love with the first one, well, this one I am definitely not sold on.
It seems overly much hype and almost zero substance, like one of those sugary cereals that supposedly has some fiber in there somewhere, smothered under all the bright flourescent coloring, funny marshmellow shapes and gobs of icing.
I mean, I rewatched the yes we can video and got some hope out of it. This . . . this is just weak.
Also, I have no clue who most of the "celebrities" in the video are and Jessica Alba is the only person to make any real statement about WHY we should elect Obama. And, yes, hell just developed a few icicles as I wrote that last sentence.
The day that Jessica Alba is the smartest person in the room (in a video room) is well, unbelievable up until now. And the chanting of O- ba- ma O-ba-ma does not help with the people who think Obama supporters are cultists.
hollywood and the creatives are capable of promoting great beauty and art, and provoking us to think hard. To touch our heartstrings. The last video maybe had some of that. But this ain't it. "yes we can" is more like "where is the love" and this is kinda like "My Humps" in terms of substance, only less flashy and entertaining.
Actually, between this and the Jin video, I prefer the Jin video, because the vapid in this video is less endearing than the everyday families and people in the Jin video. Basically, this video reaffirms bad Hollywood stereotypes.
I have to say that if I was not an Obama supporter, this video would weird me out a lot more than it already does. Which is to say, this one is anti-effective. Good thing it's not being put out by the campaign.
So far, here is who I recognize.
Ryan Phillipe Macy Gray Jessica Alba will.i.am the other guy from Black Eyed Peas who isn't Apl.de.ap or Fergie George Lopez John Leguiziamo some white guy who looks like Justin Timberlake/ Matt Damon Daniel from Ugly Betty, but super scruffy (ick, get rid of it!)
Here's the spirited dailykos debate about it. I'm glad we can talk about things other than waterboarding once in a while. Otherwise I would be more bummed out than normal.
Will.i.am needs to make one with regular people. Who cares what Macy Gray and the cast of Friday Night Lights thinks?
Oh, I just realized that was the geek football player from Friday Night Lights, Landry. (which, if anyone at NBC is reading this, you would be stupid NOT to keep the show on the air. That show has more heart and soul than 200 other shows.) I never thought I would say this about a football show.
My last post was on whether we've just been too angry for too long that it's caused us to turn on ourselves.
Please don't take it as a sign that I mean that we should give up the struggle, but rather that we have to change the discourse so that progressive values are no longer the extreme or maligned, no longer left in a corner as "other." One of the things that Obama does an extraordinary job of is sidelining the GOP haters as extremists and building a popular consensus that progressive values are middle of the road values - family values if you will. He is an incredibly skilled communicator, and Republicans are already calling him our "Reagan" - someone with the innate ability to connect with and to draw voters from the opposite side of the aisle.
We need to include all Americans under the auspices of hope, because at the end of the day, the girl growing up in rural Alabama who is not receiving a quality public education is being denied equality the same way that a boy growing up in Harlem is.
Anyway, here are two songs that I treasure deeply that represent both anger and hope, and how we need both.
I've blogged the Dixie chicks' "Not ready to make nice" before, but I really think that this is a masterful video that powerfully demonstrates the black and white feelings that we have, the pent up anger and frustration that so many progressives have had these 8 years - "shut up and sing or your life will be over?!?!" We're not okay with being told that we are on the fringes that our opinions don't matter because it's not okay. So I and many others ask, "Where is the love?"
We wonder where the love is, and we want people to join together, to reach out to their neighbors, to build something new, something special. But in order to get people to hear us, even people who agree with us, we can't always shout through a bullhorn. We have to inspire them, move them, give them a reason to believe. Give them a solution that can work. Give them the tools to build their new dream home, to fix the schools, to learn the skills needed to find a new job. Sometimes we just have to speak or sing softly, croon our vision.
Bright Eyes - First day of my life
You thought I was going to post the Yes We Can video, didn't you?
Oh, okay, here you go.
*Thanks, youtube, for helping me express what sometimes cannot simply be written.
Sounds like what I frequently pull, but no - it's in reference to a movie that the lead singer once made about vampires invading Cape Cod, like the setup of some perfectly arched WASP joke: "wolcott, All the way to New Jersey, All the way to the Garden State, gotta get out of Cape Cod tonight/ wolcott, fuck the women from Wellfleet, fuck the bears out in Provincetown, gotta get out of Cape Cod tonight." Vampire Weekend sounds like a very young Belle and Sebastian, with quirky upbeat notes and prim almost-Oxfordian diction. They're young men at the intersection of privilege and class, armed with a little knowledge of the world, looking in from the inside of a WASP-controlled life where protocol is key ("I Stand Corrected",) where movements are stiff and malice is callous. Think of OK Go's "A Million Ways" for the Upper West Side prepster crowd, but infectious as the energy that Vampire Weekend brings. It's also a fitting soundtrack to the awkward inter-class pissing matches that sometimes go on in relationships - shades of Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr, anyone? (Speaking of which, apparently the intrepid young jackass is now at some kind of evangelical Christian media company.
I have to say at first I hated Oxford Comma but now I can't stop finding and playing Vampire Weekend vids on youtube. Why? Because the Afro-pop allusions are pretentious and the white boy embraces the natives' music thing has been done to death. Salvation and filtration through a young Ivy League graduate's world lens is not always the prettiest thing you've ever heard. But Vampire Weekend makes fun, easy listening music that I can get up and dance to. Plus, how can you hate a bunch of college guys who say they're influenced by Kate Bush?!?
The guys are fully in on the joke - they filmed Mansard Roof on a boat in the Atlantic, with full on 80s style graininess and cheesy sunglasses. If there was a 2008 remake of the Graduate, Vampire Weekend would be the soundtrack (and the lead singer looks not a little unlike Dennis Hoffman as Ben Braddock.
Think of it as a very fine freshman effort, that will grow and develop. read this Last.fm user's rant on why Vampire Weekend is merely puerile, it also contains part of my core unease with the music and sums up some of my ambivalence. This cover of Radiohead's Exit Music shows how thin their chops can be, granted that it's incredibly hard to cover Thom Yorke's voice and moods. (And yes, if they don't evolve, they could be the next John Mayer, x4, and yes, they look just like the guys I went to college with.) So hopefully I'm not just obsessed for a weekend, but we'll see.
Nonetheless, my favorite song? The young-sounding Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, about the awkwardness of courting. What is Kwassa you ask? Wiki has the answer: Kwassa kwassa (or kwasa kwasa) refers to a dance rhythm from Congo (DRC), where the hips move back and forth while the hands move to follow the hips – that was very popular in Africa in the late 1980s.
UPDATE: So on more listening, I like A-Punk best - it sticks in my head. The video is only so so. and their Letterman performance was painful. I'm no music critic but it looked like they were trying too hard to look cool and to "rock" plus the lead singer and the music were off time, so that it all seemed rushed and very tepid. Greg Kot of the Chicago Trib has a pretty good review of Vampire Weekend as essentially one hit wonder. Or perhaps in my case, a one weekend wonder. I can already sense my interest waning. . .went and listened to some Belle and Sebastian nonstop recently and well, these kids can't match up.
Hot track that I found on Fred Wilson's new tumbler player. (It's on the left hand sidebar and it rocks!) It's the hidden track on Nux Vomica by the Veils and the lead singer's got a misty, ironic voice paired with some jangly coffee-fueled beats. Think of a revived Morrissey crossed with Erasure's DNA.
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
Take the scalpel, Miss Ivonne Time of death is 1 am The blood is going to my head, By God, I’ll never touch another’s heart again
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
Pass that ashtray, Miss Ivonne I’m gonna stick it into his ear Let’s dance the night away in peace my love Come in we’ll flee like hounds in search of something [lessen sincere](?)
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
But this is all I’ve ever known No one does it like I do There must be something in my blood ‘Cause all I know right now is that I love you still
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
And here's another track from Fred Wilson's player - Apartment Story - The National
The singer has an amazing just-past 4 am voice that alternately caresses and alienates with a distant fuzz as if broadcasting from our inner radio hearts. This one is perfect for a movie soundtrack.
This guy in Japan made a whole bunch of instruments out of vegetables. Here is a broccoli ocarina and him playing "Angels we have heard on high" - this is one of the cooler things I have seen on youtube.
Hmmm, this kinda left me speechless the first time around. (The guys are actually American and affect the accent.)
Then I watched the Soulja Boy video. And I thought it was a half decent parody of Crank Dat. But it's still really dumb entertainment. (And ouch!)
So I guess that begs the question of why I'm sharing (inflicting) it with you? Because one of the genius things about youtube is that home videos that should have stayed at home can now be shared globally. So suffer and suffer alike.
Well, if Mitt Romney had anything to say about it, this would be one killer Roundhouse Kick:
Plus Huckabee is a picket-crossing scab despite having received the endorsements of some unions and having said he supports the writers. Don't go on Leno and say you support labor. Do as you say, not as you do, Mr. Preacher Man. Also check the writer-creator of Brothers & Sisters on his thoughts about Huckabee as a smoove-talkin' devil.
Then he'd look into my eyes Lord knows to my suprise
The only one who could ever reach me Was the son of a preacher man The only boy who could ever teach me Was the son of a preacher man (azlyrics.com)
Rachel Sklar has an analysis of the (aw) sHuckster's media gambit of putting together a massive press conference to announce that you are NOT running a negative ad that is dominating the news, much like his earned media coverage of the infamous cross ad. That's a hell of a way to get your ad aired all over without paying for the media time, which is the REAL expense - not the creation of the ad. I have to agree with Sklar and say, "New York Times and the mainstream media, you got pwned. Damn your confusion, the Huckster played y'alls like a fool."
And this is why in the previous McCain vacuum, I have been hyperventilating over Huckabee as a stealth killer GOP candidate. He's damn smart, and this idea plus the cross ad (which is probably the modern day equivalent of the Daisy ad) is probably a son of the gun genuine Dick Morris special. I'd lay $50 on it, but the preacher probably wouldn't approve of me betting. But he'd sure as hell take mah moneez.
Courtesy of Americablog. This was so corny/cheesy/ridiculous, but in a great way.
"Man without fear, HERCUBUSH Stronger than a steer, HERCUBUSH Making war on war, knocking evil to the floor Never quite elected but always quite erected, HERCUBUSH!!!"
What are you doing for the holidays? Me, I'm catching up on missed shows. And watching Juno.
Check out Project for the New American Bachelor. Very quirky and cute. Will resume regular posting after this week - some friends and family in town and work is a drag. Happy unofficial summer!
This youtube video made me laugh at the end of a very long day. George W Bush prays before bedtime, and Jesus appears to him with long brown hair and brown eyes (as hesupposedly look in real life.) Dubya shoots him, calling him "Osama" and Jesus has to miracle away the wounds repeatedly until Jesus reapparitions as a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus.
So I am in a really good, if tired place. Work is crazy but I am happy.
AAAAAAARGGGHHH, I had a four part post that went the way of the dodo when I had too many windows open and Firefox crashed, and even when I hit restore session, the "recover post" link on the new blogger didn't do jack for me. What use is the new Blogger I ask?!?!
So now I have to do a really abbreviated walk-through of what I was thinking because I already wasted 2 hours of time that should have been spent working/sleeping.
Item one: congrats to Beau Sia, slam poet extraordinaire, who finally got Rosie O'Donnell to apologize (not in the trite "I'm sorry if you're offended" way but in a genuine fashion (hat tip Mike2Cents.) I know that I didn't think Rosie's outburst was very funny or a big deal, but I'm glad that others pressed the point and turned it into a teachable moment, a means of educating through discomfort.
Item two: I've been following the Anna Mae He story. My heart broke when I heard that as a result of all this conflict, she no longer considers herself Chinese, but Mexican:
The attorneys representing the Hes were also upset by comments made in a national newspaper by Anna Mae saying she was Mexican not Chinese.
"Our hope is that the Bakers will do everything they can, to make this transition easy for Anna Mae and not have her say things that don't really serve this transition process," they said.
It reminded me a lot of the young girl in the "A Girl Like Me" video which replicated the psychology study that the Supreme Court referenced in Brown v. Board of Ed which ended segregation (officially if not practically.) The interviewer gives a young African American girl 2 dolls, one white and one black. She asks the girl to point to the good doll, and the girl points to the white one. Then she asks "which is the bad, evil doll?" The girl gestures to the black doll. Then the interviewer asks, "give me the one that looks most like you?" and the girl's eyes, hands stray to the white doll, but then she hesitates and pushes the black doll across the table. The pain in her round eyes is as deep as the racial divides that still exist.
The Bakers even put out photos of Anna Mae, in a desperate attempt to win public support, even after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in favor of her biological parents. I hope that they can come together to help ease the transition because this is one confused girl and she's going to grow up really angry if this isn't handled properly.
Item Three: Kenneth Eng's op-ed in Asianweek called "Why I Hate Blacks" which was taken down by the site (you can find a copy of it within the link.) I haven't been reading the papers as much recently because I have been slammed with a double whammy of work and travel, but I had read Eng's increasingly deranged writings and dismissed them as the work of a science fiction writer, which is to say "not based in reality." However, this one included jawdropping statements like this: Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It’s unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back. On the other hand, we slaughtered the Russians in the Japanese-Russo War.
I don't even know where to begin with this one. Eng needs to apologize and Asianweek needs to stop running his "thought" pieces. I read Asianweek because of strong writer like Emil Guillermo, Phil Tajitsu Nash, and Maeley Tom. I enjoy it because it is a weekly publication that I can go to for national and Bay Area APIA news. But I will stop reading and publicizing it if Asianweek does not amend its ways.
I am so in love with light-painting/ graffiti for the new age. The first time I saw light applied to the sides of a building was the delicate curlicues that adorned the wedding cake that is Philly's City Hall -- ethereal, but tourism nonetheless.
So when I saw Graffiti Research Lab's beautiful protest art on youtube, I followed them over to their site. It's the progenitor of the mooninite ad hoax that Comedy Central hipped Boston and 9 other cities to. Some people ask why no one in New York freaked out when Boston like the dainty priss it is cried masshysteria after 2 weeks of no one noticing. GRL's Jesus 2.0 video and the Homeland Security threat tower might help to answer some of your questions. Although the postaLED does look more like a bomb than the mooninites, and I could see people getting panicked about that.
Don't forget to check this awesome public art culturejam in NYC done collaboratively with the Anti-Advertising Agency.
