You are currently browsing the archives for September 2010.

Jerome & Inception: polyester plot holes – the second.

  • September 30, 2010 1:20 am

I have been challenged to write about Inception once a week until the end of the year.  Not that this really changes anything because I was planning on doing that anyway.

September 30. 2010

The withdrawal is finally setting in.  With no real IMAX playing Inception in my area, my only option is to ride out this spiritual drought until the end of the year.  How appropriate that the end of this challenge coincides with the beginning of my renewal.  We will all be able to laugh about it then, but for now, it is pure, unadulterated anguish that courses within my being.

You would think that this new venom-filled column about these so-called “plot holes” would only tense me up and stress me out, and yet – my anger sustains me; this rage drives me.  I will survive.

Now, imagine Gloria Gaynor singing.

This week, I’m addressing yet another aspect of the greatest movie ever that people seem to take issue with, that being the matter of Cobb’s totem.

And before we go any further, I shan’t be discussing whether or not it was all a dream.

No, I’ll be talking about why the hell Cobb would tell Ariadne what the specific purpose of his totem was.  Read more...

3 Comments on Jerome & Inception: polyester plot holes - the second.

10 Asian Food Halloween Costumes

  • September 30, 2010 12:52 am

MICHELLE

Michelle Woo is the creator of Woo!, a daily blog about fashion, lifestyle and all the cool things that make her say, “Woo!” She is also a freelance writer and the online media manager at KoreAm. You can follow her on Twitter. 

The words “Asian Halloween Costumes” make me cringe (no more Geisha girls, please!) but for some reason, I find great pleasure in seeing people dressed as Asian foods and beverages. It’s quirky, it’s fun. Look what my husband and I went as last year. Can you guess? (Pssst, for all the kids out there, the answer is Vietnamese Noodle Soup Prince.)

And the year before that, my friends and I were the cutest sushi girls around, if I do say so myself. Check out our wasabi headbands and ginger earrings.

This Halloween, why not show your love for your favorite Asian dish or drink by becoming it? Here are 8 more ideas collected from around the internet to get your brains thinking and stomachs growling.

 Read more...

8 Comments on 10 Asian Food Halloween Costumes

A Deer That Knows How To Party

  • September 30, 2010 12:20 am

A deer in Weihai, which is located in China’s Shandong province, seems to have developed a drinking problem.

The deer in question has acquired a taste for beer and will no longer drink water (although it will settle for wine if there is a beer shortage). According to Zhang Xiangxi, a waitress at a resort in Weihai where the deer hangs out, this all started last November:

“I saw a bottle of beer was still half full so I playfully passed it to the deer. Unexpectedly, it bit the bottle … and drank all the beer in one shot… To begin with, it was half a bottle but now it is several big bottles in a row. Her daily feed is around two bottles. I don’t know what her maximum appetite is, though we once tried giving her four bottles and she drank them all.”

And the rest is hazy history.  Read more...

Comment on A Deer That Knows How To Party

Andrew Shirvell, Radical Homosexual Hunter

  • September 29, 2010 3:13 pm

You might have heard about Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell’s unhealthy obsession ongoing quest to expose an individual who may be one of our nation’s biggest threats: Chris Armstrong. Who is Chris Armstrong, you ask? Is he a known associate of Osama Bin Laden or other terrorist groups? Is he a spy for some foreign power who is threatening our national security?

Nope, Armstrong’s the first openly gay assembly body president at the University of Michigan. And why is he such a threat? Well, according to Shirvell, it’s because he’s…uh…well, he’s openly gay i.e. he’s promoting a dangerously radical homosexual agenda.

Shirvell is so concerned about this one student that he started a blog entitled the Chris Armstrong Watch (I’d check it out now before it mysteriously disappears) devoted completely to…Chris Armstrong. As Shirvell wrote in his inaugural post: “This is a site for concerned University of Michigan alumni, students, and others who oppose the recent election of Chris Armstrong – a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST, RACIST, ELITIST, & LIAR – as the new head of student government.”

 Read more...

8 Comments on Andrew Shirvell, Radical Homosexual Hunter

The Incredible Art of Li Wei

  • September 29, 2010 12:30 am

You may have heard of Li Wei, but for those of you who haven’t, Li is a pretty incredible artist.  He uses a mixture of acrobatics, illusions, harnesses and scaffolding to create his photos which seemingly defy gravity and the laws of physics.  Although his photographs are often touted as “not photoshopped,” technically, you would have to use some sort of software to get rid of the harness wires.  Still, his photos are nothing short of amazing.

I love how dynamic the photos are and the sense of humor and whimsy that’s inherent in them.  If you thought it was hard to tell a story in the 3 minutes allotted time for the Interpretations competition, just imagine how hard it would be to tell a story in one frame.  And yet, Li Wei’s photos are able to do just that.

Li reportedly dropped out of art school and dabbled in oil painting before finding his calling in “action art”.

Freedegree over 25th story  Read more...

3 Comments on The Incredible Art of Li Wei

“Take Me To Your Leader”

  • September 29, 2010 12:01 am

It’s comforting to know that the United Nations (yes, that UN) is thinking about and tackling the big issues of our time like who will make first contact with an alien from outer space if and when such an occasion arises.

And who is the UN’s choice for the individual who will be the chosen one to welcome those little green men to our planet? According to recent reports, that task has fallen to Dr. Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist and head of the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa). And I bet you didn’t even know the UN had an Office for Outer Space Affairs. Yes, you really do learn something new from reading YOMYOMF everyday.

Dr. Othman does seem like the right candidate for this position. She’s certainly qualified and considering that Asians make up the majority of the people on earth, it also seems appropriate for an Asian person to represent our population. The only problem is that Dr. Othman is now saying those initial reports were bogus and not only is she not the UN’s representative to our E.T. brethren, but the UN itself doesn’t even have such a position.

To which I carefully sniff the air and proclaim that I detect the scent of…bullshit.  Read more...

5 Comments on “Take Me To Your Leader”

homeless Joe

  • September 28, 2010 4:08 am

I spent the first part of my stay in Atlanta with my aunt.  It is a different Atlanta.  I want to live in that Atlanta.  Hotel/Downtown Atlanta, I do not want to live in.  When I was younger the whole ‘energy’ thing didn’t make sense to me.  Probably because I didn’t have the life experience to read my surroundings.  I was much more inward, it was all about me.  These days the people and surroundings affect me much more than I would like sometimes.  With that said I don’t like living in downtown Atlanta.  I’ve been trying to figure out why.  I’ve come to the conclusion it’s because of a man named Joe.  He calls himself Homeless Joe.  Anytime I step out of my hotel it’s just a matter of minutes before Joe appears and rushes toward me.  Joe has a distinguished face.  You can tell he was a good athlete.  He’s articulate and charming.  He knows asking for a  handshake is crossing the personal space boundary so he raises his fist for a bump.  I can do a bump.  But no hand shake.  He goes into his routine ” I’m Homeless Joe, just call ne Homeless Joe.  This is my city, welcome to my city. Where you from? Are you leaving tomorrow? You know what the greatest nation is?   DONATION.”  How about a couple of bucks?  Read more...

12 Comments on homeless Joe

Ohmigod! Quick! The kids are gone! Hurry, hon, pack up! Right now! It’s gonna be awesome – right? I mean, I’m not even asking – I KNOW it’s gonna be awesome!! I can’t wait! Can…Not…Wait. Okay: unplug the coffee maker and don’t forget the massage oil!

  • September 28, 2010 3:26 am

For those of you who have kids, I know you’ll understand this.  For those of you who don’t, just trust me.

When the stars align just so, and your kids are gone for the night, something happens.  A sense of giddiness and anticipation, along with their country cousins panic and dread, set in, because you know there’s only one thing to be done: the romantic getaway. 

Have to have it.  Now or never.  And the kids are never gone.  Well, maybe one is, but then the other isn’t.  But for both for them both to be gone at the same time?   This is a precious gift indeed, and you have to have a sublime romantic romp now, now, now.   Read more...

3 Comments on Ohmigod! Quick! The kids are gone! Hurry, hon, pack up! Right now! It's gonna be awesome - right? I mean, I'm not even asking - I KNOW it's gonna be awesome!! I can't wait! Can...Not...Wait. Okay: unplug the coffee maker and don't forget the massage oil!

Thai Girl + Foreign Man = Ruv

  • September 28, 2010 3:17 am

There is a small province in northeastern Thailand called Udon Thani.  It’s the kind of place where John Rambo would retire.  There, about 11,000 foreign men have descended, taken a Thai lady for a wife, and made that area their new home.  I learned about this from a NY Times article via Angry Asian Man and, to be honest, I clicked on it with a slight motivation of disgust (or perhaps a desire to move there myself.  I can’t remember).  I really wanted to hate the contents of the article, thinking that it would just be a continued evolution of the 1960′s – foreign, western men getting their juicy fix of exotic Asian lady-love.  I read and reread the article and watched the accompanying video several times too.  As much as I was hoping to cry foul, I did not.  In fact, to my surprise, I found myself becoming rather introspective about how creative people are willing to get to find their version of hope, love, and happiness (and I did this all while eating 2 hotdogs and a bag of Cheetos).

I understand this topic is a polarizing issue and has pissed off as many people as it has given pleasure to for decades.  I, for one, am not a fan of rich people tempting the impoverished or the needy with their hard currency in exchange for sex or love or some sort of perverted version of love.  Yes, there are “Man Tours” of Thailand and Latin America.  Just go online and google it and you’ll find tours specializing in taking the Western man on an adventure of sightseeing, cultural exchange, and all you can eat foreign pussy.  They’re great.  Just kidding.  I don’t leave for another two weeks.  I’m not here to debate the morality of it or whether it is right or wrong.  What makes this whole east/west/south sex, love, and money exchange so complex to understand is that there are so many different versions of it.  But is it all bad (or good)?  A slippery slope indeed but it’s something I find fascinating, especially this whole Udon Thani phenomenon…  Read more...

25 Comments on Thai Girl + Foreign Man = Ruv

The U.S. Military’s Secret Weapon: Ghosts

  • September 28, 2010 1:00 am

Bullets and bombs aren’t the only weapons the U.S. military has used in its quest for victory. Ghosts, superstitions and even vampires (and not the kind that “sparkle” and won’t have sex with you) have all been employed to defeat our enemies on the battlefield.

According to this recent piece in io9, the U.S. military has used local supernatural beliefs as an ongoing part of a psychological warfare agenda against its enemies. Following are two examples of how this was done against our Asian brethren; in the Philippines during the 1950s and then again a few years later during the Vietnam War.

Major General Edward G. Lansdale spearheaded the aforementioned effort in the Philippines while fighting the Communist Huk rebels to make it seem as if an Asuang, a traditional vampire-like creature in the Filipino culture that can fly (she has wings) and has a taste for unborn fetuses, was present in the area. Yup, the big military strategy was to pretend there was a vampire lose. Here’s how Lansdale explained it:

 Read more...

7 Comments on The U.S. Military’s Secret Weapon: Ghosts

Where East Weds West

  • September 27, 2010 3:50 pm

Check out this New York Times story on Udon Thani, a poor farming village in Thailand where marriages between Western men and Thai women is so exclusive, it’s become an industry.

The husbands are predominately white men who are retirees and their wives are half their age. A couple of interesting observations:

- The hippie dude, who reeks of SPTM syndrome, who at the 3:12 mark, compares “Thai women to American women 50 years ago.”

- The first couple’s son, who looks like the Indonesian smoking baby.  Read more...

6 Comments on Where East Weds West

The Perks of Growing Old As An Artist

  • September 27, 2010 11:04 am
YouTube Preview Image

(video is of a rehearsal of a work-in-progress that my friend is still developing… enjoy it!)

Sometimes you meet people and you don’t realize how long they’ll be in your life.  That was the case with me and my friend Kennedy.  I had met him in the early 1990′s when he and I were both working the same show in San Francisco.  I initially insulted him by laughing at his age (he was 3 year older and that seemed sooooo OLD!) but somehow he and I kept bumping into each other for the next 15+ years.  When I moved to LA and found myself alone and friendless, I saw Kennedy again at an event and he was the one who said, “Give LA 9 months.  Then you’ll see if you really like it or not.”  (I took his advice.)  Read more...

6 Comments on The Perks of Growing Old As An Artist

A History of Asians in TV Shows

  • September 27, 2010 2:53 am

To build on Anderson’s take on the new Hawaii Five-O, here’s Complex blog’s Asian Invasion: A History of TV Shows with Multiple Asian Stars. Some highlights include HEROES, LOST, ALL AMERICAN GIRL and the new 5-O, but also MARTIAL LAW with Sammo Hung and Kelly Hu and yes, even ER.

4 Comments on A History of Asians in TV Shows

Eh, you da kine ah?

  • September 27, 2010 2:27 am

The series premiere last week of the new Hawaii Five-O reboot won its much coveted timeslot with almost 14 million viewers tuning in. Not too shabby, especially since CBS has been hyping this show all summer with billboards, bus ads, and any poster or flyer all over the Los Angeles area (it is nice to see Daniel Dae Kim on the side of a bus though).

Growing up in Hawaii, FIVE-O was pretty prevalent on TV. I was still very young, but the show was still a first-run series on CBS, with late night repeats through syndication. I remember family friends being on the show, especially if they worked for HPD.  Read more...

4 Comments on Eh, you da kine ah?

This Bra Can Save Your Life!

  • September 27, 2010 12:01 am

You heard right—there is now a bra that can literally save your life in the event of an emergency. Invented by Dr. Elena Bodnar, the Emergency Bra is designed so you can quickly unsnap it, separate the cups and slip it over your face like a mask—one for you and for your non-bra wearing friend (like…uh…me).

On the surface, this may sound like another one of those silly inventions I like to blog about, but once you actually read more about this bra, well, I think it really could come in handy in a bad situation. Check out this description:

It sounds silly, but Bodnar, a Ukraine native who now lives in Chicago, started her medical career studying the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. If people had had cheap, readily available gas masks in the first hours after the disaster, she said, they may have avoided breathing in Iodine-131, which causes radiation sickness.

The bra-turned-gas masks could have also been useful during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and for women caught outside during the dust storms that recently enveloped Sydney, she said.

“You have to be prepared all the time, at any place, at any moment, and practically every woman wears a bra,” she said. Her patented devices also look pretty, no different from a conventional bra, she added.

 Read more...

3 Comments on This Bra Can Save Your Life!

What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week – September 19 – 25, 2010

  • September 25, 2010 12:19 pm

Fucking hate paper cuts.  They’re the absolute worst.  I was cleaning out the house again and came across some old papers.  Over the course of thumbing through them for any old embarrassing writing, I acquired more than my fair share of the bastards and boy, do they smart!

Always boggles my mind though, how something so innocuous like a sheet of printer paper – in the right time, in the right circumstances – can cause such a shock of pain.  Really makes you think.  Then scream.  Then curse.  Or just scream curses.

Also, looking at the wound after always gives me the shivers and they seem to take the longest time to heal over so that the next couple days, you feel unpleasant jolts whenever you disturb that particular area of your skin.  I think I can say without hyperbole or exaggeration that paper cuts are pretty much the worst pain a person can endure, physically and mentally.

So here we are again, at the end of another week, and you’re spending it, in part, with me.  Sucks to be you, for real.  This week, Y-to-the-O-to-the-M-to-the-Y-to-the-O-to-the-M-again-but-with-an-F-this-time cooks up some blogs about men behind men; making women love you; and the relationship between inner drive and Frosted Flakes.  Tastes good to me!

 Read more...

3 Comments on What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week – September 19 – 25, 2010

Chop Chop: Blackhawk Clown

  • September 25, 2010 12:01 am

Today is National Comic Book Day. In honor of the holiday, l’ve been looking back this week at some “classic” comics that relate to Asian and/or Asian American subject matter. Here’s my final entry on this subject.

If a comic book character like Stuff, the Chinatown Kid was atypical for the 1940s in that he was a non-stereotypical Asian character (and Asian American at that), then a character like Chop Chop represented more of the typically offensive norm.

Chop Chop was the Chinese member of the heroic Blackhawk Squadron (a.k.a. the Blackhawks), an international organization of fighter pilots who battled the Axis during World War II. The Blackhawks were created by famed comic book legend Will Eisner along with Chuck Cuidera and Bob Powell for Quality Comics; making their first appearance in the pages of Military Comics in August 1941.

But while the other Blackhawks wore military uniforms, for some reason, Chop Chop was relegated to wearing a stereotypical “chinky” costume complete with buckteeth, a queue and Pidgin English dialogue. By today’s standards, it was about as bad a representation of Asians as you could get.  Read more...

1 Comment on Chop Chop: Blackhawk Clown

Of Tornadoes, Psychoanalysts and Frosted Flakes

  • September 24, 2010 3:31 am

On Monday I got an e-mail from John Brosio, an old high school classmate of mine.   John is a professional artist and he emails me once a year or so, sending me updates of his work, and his work always reminds me of my favorite season. 

It’s the way he contrasts his foregrounds and backgrounds.  After a fall storm, when the sun breaks through the clouds and throws a building or tree into brilliant bright relief against a dark, threatening sky – it gives me a charge.  Always has. My senses come alive.  There’s an electricity in the air.  I think John captures this.

 Read more...

2 Comments on Of Tornadoes, Psychoanalysts and Frosted Flakes

Stuff & Wing: The Fallen Asian American Superhero Sidekicks

  • September 24, 2010 12:01 am

Tomorrow, September 25 is National Comic Book Day so in honor of the holiday, throughout the week, I’ll be looking back at some “classic” comics that relate to Asian and/or Asian American subject matter.

You would think that trying to find an Asian American superhero of any kind in mainstream American comics during the 1930s/40s might be a losing proposition, but DC Comics (home to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, among others) had not one, but two of them. Granted, they were sidekicks to white superheroes and had their share of stereotypical traits, but they’re also worthy of being re-discovered; having been all but forgotten except by a handful of comic aficionados.

I start off with Stuff, the Chinatown Kid. First appearing in Action Comics #45 (Feb 1942), Stuff was the young Chinese American sidekick to Vigilante, a superhero who dressed up like a cowboy.

 Read more...

4 Comments on Stuff & Wing: The Fallen Asian American Superhero Sidekicks

Jurisdiction (1) Under (2) God (3)

  • September 23, 2010 3:28 am

Can’t really blame the Jesuits.  Poor things.  After all, they have to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  So: no money, no sex, no backtalk.  It’s enough to make any man snap.  The first two vows thwart the things which drive 99% of all human activity, and the third asks you not to be grouchy about it. 

(I know you’re rolling your eyes at the chastity thing, but for the record, I know of only one priest from my high school who got sent up for molesting boys – and it wasn’t at school – he conducted “summer spiritual retreats.”  Just like summer camp, only with lots of praying and scarring sexual conduct instead of s’mores). 

 Read more...

1 Comment on Jurisdiction (1) Under (2) God (3)