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Lonely Tears

  • April 4, 2012 8:21 pm

My grandmother and me at 3 months old.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’d love to see you but I want you to finish your first quarter of school. I know it’s very important,” said my grandmother on her hospital bed over the telephone seventy two thousand miles away.

Just a month away from finishing my first quarter at film school. I was really hoping that she would make it till the end of the month. But she didn’t. Those were the last words I exchanged with my grandmother who bought me my first video camcorder and supported me unconditionally throughout her life.  Read more...

30 Years Ago Today: Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder Make the World a Better Place Musically

  • March 29, 2012 10:20 pm

Exactly three decades ago, on March 29, 1982, what may quite possibly be the greatest song about the joys of black/white man love brotherhood was released—Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s “Ebony and Ivory.”

The song spent seven weeks at the top of the Billboard 100, but that’s not what makes it the classic it is. Sure, there’s a lot about the song we can criticize: it’s a simplistic and overtly idealized look at race relations, the race relations in the song doesn’t even extend beyond the black/white paradigm (what—no love for us Asians?), the piano key metaphor thing is pretty obvious and silly, and no way does this song even come near the heights of the best work of either artist. But despite its many flaws, this song is awesome for one very important reason: without it, we would have never gotten this:  Read more...

R.I.P. Ralph McQuarrie

  • March 4, 2012 12:42 am

Conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie has died, at the age of 82. He was the guy, instrumental in realizing the world of Star Wars for George Lucas. With his concept drawings for the likes of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and pretty much the whole shebang of the Star Wars universe, his work sold 20th Century Fox in giving a young Lucas a chance in directing a film that pretty much changed everything in Hollywood.

When I was a kid, I was amazed to see these “not really Star Wars” art floating around in magazines like Starlog, especially art depicting a more slender Darth Vader with a different type of helmet or a more feminine looking C-3PO trekking through the desert, as if it walked off the Metropolis set. What I would later learn is that these were early concept drawings of Star Wars, which made it cooler because to me, they were now alternate universes of what Star Wars could be and just opened up that world for me even more. Check out some of the early concept art:  Read more...

Music of the Heart

  • January 19, 2012 12:12 am

I got inspired by my fellow Offender Jerome’s “Around the Horn” and decided to write about the music of the heart. Once upon a time, I fell in love with a bisexual guy in college who was also an advocate of non-monogamous relationships. He was always dating a guy or a girl when we were dating in college. He was my first boyfriend. Between my junior and senior year in college, I listened to New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” like a broken record. I was surprised that cassette tape survived my rewind and play for two years. I was obsessed… or in love the very first time!?

 Read more...

Who Are These Brave Women?

  • December 8, 2011 4:17 pm

Yesterday commemorated the 70th anniversary of the attack of Pearl Harbor. Over at MSNBC’s photo blog, this amazing, iconic, empowering photo was posted with the headline, Do You Know These Brave Women From Pearl Harbor? Apparently, these tough ladies were firefighters but their identities are not known in the halls of history.

That’s a shame. This photo of non-white women with great determination in putting out fires and risking their lives under a military attack, is so iconic. Yes, I have used that word twice already. In my opinion, it stands up to other iconic WWII photos like the following:  Read more...

First Halloween

  • October 26, 2011 12:05 am

I started trick-or-treating at 6 when no one was celebrating Halloween in Hong Kong. No one in Hong Kong really quite knew what Halloween was at that time. I accidentally stumbled upon some make-up kits and greeting cards with a smiling Jack-o’lantern that year in an American store and I asked my mom about Halloween. My mom explained the whole American tradition of trick-or-treating to me and I thought it was a brilliant idea. On my first Halloween night, I put on a pair of fangs, glued some cotton to my face as decaying flesh and put on two bug eyes with plastic tape… I was trying to be a vampire of some sort.

I knocked on the doors of different neighbors in my apartment building on different floors and very few answered. Even if they did, they were totally puzzled at “Trick or treat.” My mom told me to hit up this kid whom I used to play with when I was two, and so I did. His mom opened the door and I said, “Trick or treat.”  Read more...

8 X 10: Bringing Dad Home

  • October 7, 2011 12:05 am

CURTIS

Curtis Chin is a Motown-born, New York-bred, Los Angeles-based writer, producer and community activist. He’s proud to have co-founded the Asian American Writers Workshop and Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and for writing and producing the documentary Vincent Who? He’s less proud of having started the Young Republicans Club in high school. He’s currently working on a new website with a former ABC and HBO exec, widelantern.com, and developing a teen comedy with director Quentin Lee and producer Chris Lee.

Last week, my friend, Arthur Dong, sent me an email asking, “are you related to this person?” He was referring to a photo that was being auctioned on ebay. Arthur had accidentally stumbled upon it while doing research for another film project.

Anyway, I clicked on the link and was shocked. The caption read, “You are bidding on an original 8 x 10 Wire Photo of Detroit’s Chinatown store owner Allen Chin. Photo is dated May 27,1961 showing Allen Chin store Owner in Chinatown.” It was my dad and he was standing in the store that my great grandfather had opened in the 1930′s. Talk about a blast from the past.  Read more...

It’s the End of R.E.M. as We Know It (And I Don’t Feel Fine)

  • September 22, 2011 12:02 am

I don’t think I’ve followed R.E.M. since the 1990’s—no new CDs or downloads, no concerts. When original drummer Bill Berry left the group in 1997, R.E.M. just wasn’t R.E.M. to me. But when the band announced yesterday that it would officially be calling it quits after 31 years, it still had an effect on me.

You see, R.E.M. was my band. As much as I love groups like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, they weren’t mine. They were handed down to me by previous generations—I wasn’t even alive during their true heydays. But I discovered R.E.M. on my own as an impressionable, music-obsessed kid—before the masses knew they existed. They belonged to an elite class of ‘80s bands that were mine in that sense—U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, Public Enemy. Even at that age, it was clear those guys had something “special” that distinguished them from most of the one-hit flavors of the month. They were the real deals. And there was a certain amount of pride I felt that I recognized their artistry before most other folks did. I still remember exactly where I was when I heard each of these guys for the first time.  Read more...

On the Origins of Things: “Dragonsaurs”

  • August 17, 2011 12:01 am

As people become more educated and knowledge circulates faster and faster around the globe, we begin to understand why certain things happen and how people possibly came to believe in things that seem absurd once you know the facts. You know, things like lightning bolts being thrown down by Zeus, the earth being flat, people walking across water (I’m referring to David Blaine, of course).

Which got me to thinking: what about the myth of dragons? How can two vastly different cultures – European and Chinese – produce such a similar mythical creature before the advent of telephone and Skype?

The answer: I believe definitively that the legend of dragons was birthed by dinosaur bones found in the days of yore.  Read more...

Bring Your Mind To A Complete Halt

  • August 16, 2011 4:11 am

Recently fellow Offender Anderson brought to our attention the super cute and well dressed Kim Sisters, a band that history might otherwise have left behind.

Well, my conscience won’t let me rest until I tell you about another female pop trio called The Shaggs.

Okay: say your mother went to a palm reader who told her three things would happen to you, her son:

1. You would marry a strawberry blonde woman.

2. You would have two sons, and both of them would die, and

3. Your daughters would form a popular music group.

Now: what would you do if the first two came true?  Read more...

What we need is an Americathon!

  • August 13, 2011 11:32 pm

Who knew this forgotten late ’70s comedy was so prophetic? Can’t wait for the Americathon…. Especially if zombie John Ritter and Harvey Korman come back to entertain. I’ll be so there!YouTube Preview Image Prophetic, indeed. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

(Via Matthew Kiernan)

The most badass anime techno music video ever

  • August 5, 2011 12:59 am

Released way back in 1996, the music video EXTRA by Ken Ishii is still one of the most badass music videos I’ve ever seen.YouTube Preview ImageThis gruesome smorgasbord of sadistic, dystopian anime deliciousness was directed by Koji Morimoto, the animation director for AKIRA. You can definitely see the connections.

To me, it’s even better than Daft Punk’s anime phase of the early ’00s, which went for more of an old school Leiji Matsumoto feel. Ah, time to revisit one of their signature music videos. Why not, maybe just ONE MORE TIME? YouTube Preview Image

(Via Kozy Kitchens)