You are currently browsing the archives for March 2011.

COMMUNITY QUESTION: What do you do when people make out in public?

  • March 31, 2011 12:46 am

Life is quite the adventure.  You never quite know where it will take you or what trite observation it will cause you to make.

One day, you’re in a local bookstore buying a coffee table books featuring puppies.  The next, you’re in a bar you’ve never been to before with people you’ve only just met and the individuals in the booth next to you are feverishly making out with each other.

Yes, I’m getting straight to the point this week.  I figure I’d give concision a go ’cause why the hell not?

So last week, I found myself in – well, I don’t really remember technically where I was.  But it was – oh yeah!  It was by Hawthorne, around there – yeah!  Read more...

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Movies That Should Have Starred Asians: Taxi Driver

  • March 31, 2011 12:01 am

Regular readers of this blog already know how huge an influence the work of director Martin Scorsese has had on me. Which isn’t really news considering his movies have probably directly or indirectly influenced everyone who has pursued a career in film since the mid-1970s. But reading the new book Conversations With Scorsese reminded me that the work of many Asian and Asian American filmmakers, everyone from John Woo to my fellow Offender Justin, owe a big debt to Scorsese as well, particularly his “gangster” films like Mean Streets and Goodfellas. And while I get that appeal since no one did that genre better than Scorsese, it struck me that his most “Asian American” film isn’t one of his gangster flicks, but rather his classic 1976 exploration of urban alienation…Taxi Driver.

In the film, Robert DeNiro is Travis Bickle, a mentally unbalanced Vietnam vet living in New York City. Suffering from insomnia, he takes a job driving taxis at night and finds himself both repelled and fascinated by the less than desirable neighborhoods his nocturnal journeys take him through. He meets two women—a “madonna” in the form of Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy who is a campaign worker for a Senatorial candidate and a “whore” in the form of Jodie Foster’s 12-year-old prostitute Iris. Travis decides he must “save” the two women but when both reject him, he goes on a violent rampage.  Read more...

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BJ – Urumqi, Xinjiang, China

  • March 30, 2011 8:48 pm

My backpacking journey has already started off with bad karma, or in this case, bad feng shui. As I connected flights from Hong Kong to Chengdu to Urumqi, I was already told my backpack was lost in transit. Not good! But obviously by sticking to my rules of hardcore backpacking, things will never seem bad. Like rule #4  for instance – wearing special and quickdry underwear and socks while traveling on a long bus/train/plane ride. No, not all the time. Just the days I’m in transit. And yes, sounds stupid and all my friends get a kick outta it. But in this case, I’m on day 3 currently without any of my clothes and it saved my ass, literally.

 Read more...

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Adventures in Hip Hop Classes with Viet Dang

  • March 30, 2011 12:05 am

My instructor Viet Dang dances a choreography inspired by Amy Winehouse

My friend Adrian dragged me to my first hip hop class almost five years ago. Without any background in dance, I was thrust into Jason Wright’s class where I could barely do the first eight counts. That was when I realized that dancing is really hard. But I would keep trying and learning. A week ago, Adrian called me again to try Viet Dang’s lyrical hip hop class out at the International Dance Academy.

“What is lyrical hip hop?” I asked. “Well to describe one’s style is kind of difficult. But I can tell you what people tell me when they see me dancing. It’s dancing to the lyrics of a song. Very sensual and edgy. People also tell me I dance like a snake,” explained Viet after class. Let me tell you, Adrian and I looked completely foolish in our first class. Our excuse was that we were not professional dancers and tried to laugh it off. Of course it didn’t help that Adrian is now twice the size that he was when we first started taking classes.  Read more...

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SNAPPED: Tiger Mom, You Better Watch Your Back!

  • March 29, 2011 8:26 pm

This is simply insane!  Is there something in the water down there in Florida? First, there’s the lady who attacked her roomie by biting her boob and now we have this strange story. According to MSNBC, an honors student pistol whipped her mother into submission, and at gun point, made her drive to a car dealership and co-sign papers for a sports car. Check out this news clip:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 Read more...

17 year old Rachel Hachero’s mom has decided not to press charges against her own daughter because, “she’s an honors student and has been accepted to several Ivy League colleges.” Wow, this overachiever is obviously really spoiled or crazy, or both!

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But Did You Really Have To Bite Her Boob?

  • March 29, 2011 3:57 am

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how warm and fuzzy I feel when Girl Scout Cookie season rolls around.

Apparently I’m not the only one who looks forward to Do-Si-Do’s, Thin Mints, and Tagalongs.

On February 22, at around 1 a.m, 31 year old Naples, Florida resident Hersha Howard woke up her roommate, Jasmin Wanke.  She wanted to know what had happened to her Thin Mints, and was convinced Jasmin had taken them.

It’s one in the morning, Hersha weighs 400 pounds (according to the police report), and she was hungry.

A presumably nervous Jasmin told Hersha that Hersha’s children had woken up at around midnight and were hungry.  So she gave them some of their mom’s precious Thin Mints.  Read more...

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After the Quake

  • March 29, 2011 12:01 am

Got this link from several readers and also saw it on Disgrasian’s twitter page–it’s a series of post-earthquake/tsunami photos from Japan including images of “everyday” items that were found in the rubble. There’s something haunting and almost lyrical about these photos. They humanize the disaster in a strange sort of way; making the tragedy feel even more immediate and real for someone like me who is half a world away. Here’s a sampling:

 Read more...

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What’s So Bad About Eating Alone (Except for Making You Want to Die)?

  • March 28, 2011 2:37 am

I knew things had taken a turn for the worse when I searched for “Good Places to Eat Alone” on Yelp.

They came up with nothing.

How had we gotten here?  Why were we in this situation?  When did we start on this slippery slope?  These were the questions I posed my supplementary personalities, for as great a gang as they might be, it gets super creepy carrying on with them in public.

Surprisingly, none of them had an answer for me (Jasper gets awful shy sometimes) and since genuine introspection on my part was definitely not gonna happen, I needed a way to rationalize away my distaste for eating by myself.

I’ll be the first to admit the occasional solo meal is not the biggest tribulation in the world.

But there comes a point when the silence in your restaurant booth becomes so oppressive; when the server’s pitying eyes become too overbearing; and the conversations around you become enviable enough to make the temptation to talk to yourself nearly irresistible.  And let me tell you: that’s no way to enjoy a Tostada Pizza at CPK.  It just isn’t.

But okay – maybe I’m just bringing in my own baggage and insecurities into the act of eating alone and that’s what’s making it trying, but I’m not about to air my sexy laundry out in public so we need to go deeper but just in another direction.  Read more...

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5 Movies You Think are Adorable but are Really Creepy & Disturbing

  • March 28, 2011 12:01 am

The title says it all. Here are five films that everyone considers to be fun and “innocent,” but if you really examine them closely, you’ll see that they’re really fucked up.

1) BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) 

It’s a credit to director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale that they were able to make such an endearing family film where the main subject is incest. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time and meets the younger version of his own mother who falls in love with him instead of his dad (although as I’ve previously blogged, if your mom looked like Lea Thompson, well…I’m just saying). That should be creepy enough but here’s where it gets even more disturbing: when he returns to the present, shouldn’t his mom recognize him as the same guy she tried to do the nasty with back in high school? And wouldn’t that make the home situation—oh, I don’t know—really, really uncomfortable. Imagine this scenario: Mom is doing the laundry and picks up one of Marty’s Calvin Klein briefs just as Marty walks in. He sees her holding his underwear. He notices. They make eye contact. Awk-ward!

 Read more...

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SAF Seeking… the joy of pubes

  • March 27, 2011 7:37 am

Due to the fact that i’ve had a foot cast on for almost a month, I now have pubes.

Allow me to explain.

Since I currently have to shower with one foot constantly outside of the tub, it has been difficult to hold a steady razor against my mons pubis while balancing on one foot. Since sex is also on hold (disappointment is a great birth control), I figured this might be a good time to go furry. Au natural. Cover the mound of Venus, per say.  Read more...

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Lock Up Your Daughters!

  • March 26, 2011 7:04 pm

Starting early, I suppose…..

(Thanks, Jeff!)

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What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week – March 19 – 25, 2011

  • March 26, 2011 2:49 am

What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week is a capsule of the week’s blogs with sarcastic commentary from Yours Truly (that’s me!).  If you’ve been busy and missed out on a couple of our daily gems, this is a perfect way to catch up.

But seriously – what was more important than reading YOMYOMF?

So this glorious March week brings y’all astounding new insights from the YOMYOMF family, including examinations of interchangeable Asians; 80s masturbation trends; and modern high school cliques.

How’s that for a Sociology lesson?

Oh, that was a lame way to cap the intro, wasn’t it?  Geez…

Yes, I’m typing to myself.

RED DAWN REDUX: PLAN BETTER:

“So I guess the message here is–if you’re an inbred hick who can’t tell the difference between a Chinese commie or a North Korean commie and just want to see other inbred hicks kicking some form of Asian commie ass, well then by God, Red Dawn is the movie for you!”

I think the bigger, less funny joke is that judging by those criteria, this movie will find a substantial audience.  HOORAY!

I HOPE YOU ALL KNOW THAT MY FAMILY READS THIS.:

In which I spell out the fact that my family reads all of the dick jokes I make for you.

Okay, also the vagina jokes – but those are genuinely hilarious.

 Read more...

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Hawaiian High School Cliques

  • March 25, 2011 3:28 pm

This is a list of cliques from the school newspaper at Waiakea High School on the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s an interesting 21st Century, Island style take on “a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse.”

#5, #8, and #9 , I wonder what these cliques are all about!!

(Via Chris Lee)

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My Kryptonite: Mascara

  • March 25, 2011 3:57 am

FACT: female styling reached its apex in the 1960’s.

Everything came together perfectly.  Some of the Barbie Doll blandness of the 50’s was gone, the flowing, frizzy excesses of the 70’s were yet to come, and in this golden moment, women’s styling managed to be sexy, but not trashy, independent yet feminine, geometric and playful.

And just all around super, super cool, and super, super hot.

Can we not all agree, if the sound went out on our televisions, we’d still be glued to Mad Men?  There’s a reason for that (and it’s not just to promote smoking among young women).

 Read more...

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The Rise of the Leftover Chinese Woman

  • March 25, 2011 12:01 am

File this under the category of you learn something new every day. It seems that if you are an unmarried woman in China over the age of 25, you are what is known as a “leftover woman.”

Like in many other traditional Asian cultures, one is expected to be wed by a certain (usually young) age and pop out babies shortly thereafter. China is no exception, but as you’ll see in the news video below, more and more people are marrying at a later age or *gasp* not marrying at all. This can be partially attributed to longer life spans and the growing number of “independent” women who are more educated and have successful careers. Which is bad news for all those Chinese men already facing a shortage of Chinese women to marry.

But it gets even more detailed than that. Supposedly there are sub-categories of leftover women that breaks down as follows:

 Read more...

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Yoshi Sodeoka’s ’70s Mixed Media Magic Carpet Ride

  • March 24, 2011 2:03 am

Yoshi Sodeoka is a mixed media artist and musician based in New York City, who’s no stranger to the psychedelic. His work  over the last 10 years has captured the trippy and acid-soaked imagery of the Summer of Love and updated it for the 21st Century. His work that is inspired by LP album artwork, in particular, is pretty amazing.

For his latest project, Sodeoka is making a series of short videos inspired by ’70s prog-rock concept albums, in collaboration with the composer Daron Murphy. According to the artist, “Each piece will be autonomous, but when viewed together will create a larger whole.” He will release each new video piece online, like this piece called “Sibyl,” which just popped online. Again with the acid trip visuals and experimental noise, it almost makes me want to put flowers in my hair, live in a yurt and take some LSD.  Read more...

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Telling it like it is: What we can learn from African American cinema

  • March 24, 2011 1:37 am

Here’s a short, but very wise segment from journalist and social commentator Roland S. Martin about the hypocrisy of African Americans when it comes to supporting African American film and entertainment.YouTube Preview Image Martin is referring to two indie features starring predominately African American casts that are slowly rolling out in theaters now — MOOZLUM starring Nia Long and is about a young Black Muslim entering college during 9/11 and I WILL FOLLOW, a drama about a woman grieving after the death of her husband.

He preaches the truth, but if apathy continues, then the market place has spoken and African American cinema will die a slow death. This, of course, applies to Asian American cinema as well. Is it necessary to find our Tyler Perry to turn the tide or at the very least, carve a sliver of space in the lexicon, where Asian media images can somewhat thrive?

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1,001 Reasons I Love Movies: (#22) Elizabeth Taylor Whips Marlon Brando Into Submission

  • March 24, 2011 12:02 am

It was considered a critical and commercial failure upon its release in 1967, but I love the film Reflections in a Golden Eye. Directed by the legendary John Huston and set on a military base in the 1940s, Marlon Brando stars as an Army Major trying to come to terms with his repressed homosexuality and Elizabeth Taylor is his unhappy, adulterous wife.

When I heard of Taylor’s passing yesterday, what immediately came to mind was a moment in that film that lasts only a few seconds long, but for me, perfectly embodies the qualities that made Taylor the movie star that she was.

In this scene, Brando and Taylor are at a cocktail party. It’s already been established that Taylor’s character’s great love is her horse and earlier in the movie, we witnessed Brando angrily beat that horse with a riding crop after the animal threw him and dragged him. Taylor finds out and she is pissed. So this is what she does:

 Read more...

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COMMUNITY QUESTION: Does fake food make you hungry?

  • March 24, 2011 12:00 am

You’re not eating.  You see some food – a bowl of soup, a slice of pizza, a scoop of ice cream.  Then you get hungry.

Normal enough.

This week, I ask of you, YOMYOMF community:

Come on.  Don’t lie.  Admit it.  We’ve all been to some bakery that sells cakes and those bakeries have their display models adorned with everything from Dora the Explorer to Iron Man.

And for the briefest moment, that urge flashes in your brain to reach out and touch it, to get a bit of icing on your finger and give that cake a test taste.  Because your stomach deems it so.

Then you realize it, either because common sense just bitch-slapped some sense into you or because you actually went ahead and felt the coarse plastic texture of the cake’s whipped border.

Yup, it was fake.  But did it make a difference to me?  No.

I still got hungry like a motherfucker.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Read more...

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My Most Anticipated Film of the Summer!

  • March 23, 2011 3:33 pm

Update: Well, I spoke too soon. Just read that the film got pushed back to October, because of more time needed to work on the special effects. OK, so it’s now my most anticipated film of the fall season!

It ain’t TRANSFORMERS 3, THOR, or SUPER 8 (well, okay I’m actually looking forward to checking that one out). No, it’s Indian superstar Shahrukh Khan’s sci-fi actioner RA.ONE! It is purportedly the biggest budget Bollywood film of all time. Not much details have been released, but a 10 second teaser has just been leaked on Youtube: YouTube Preview Image No idea what the story is about but it looks like Shahrukh Khan, or SRK to his legions of fans, is some kind of sci-fi superhero and his love interest is the incomparable Kareena Kapoor.  Read more...

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