JIMMY
Most people know of Jimmy Tsai in one of his roles as accountant, fantasy basketball commissioner, or purveyor of athletic sportswear. But what people do NOT know is that under the pseudonym Tequila Rush, Jimmy authored the “mockumography” Go! Opium Pandamonium! Go!: From the Opium Pipe to Saturday Morning Children’s Cartoons. It currently ranks #5,339,475 on the Amazon.com sales ranking list. Amongst Jimmy’s latest ventures is a website devoted to Asians and Asian-Ams in sports entitled beyondbadminton.com.
THIS BLOG HAS BEEN UPDATED AS OF 2:50 P.M. PST ON MARCH 18, 2010. THERE WERE SOME TEXT ISSUES THAT ARE NOW FIXED. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
Over this past weekend, I had a revelation on a topic that has been pestering my subconscious ever since I was a child. A revelation of “bake your noodle” proportions. Now, before I dive into both conundrum and subsequent revelation, let me preface this all by mentioning that if you were not a fan of the original 80s Transformers cartoon, you may find this rambling just as necessary or relevant as those goddamn accelerator suits in G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA (in other words, “not very”). However, if you were one of those inquisitive minds that wondered where the hell Soundwave was able to store all those damn tapes that popped out of his chest ad infinitum, then read on!
First, the conundrum (you may not have consciously thought this to yourself–or maybe you did—but trust me, as soon as I finish asking the question and providing the answer, you will suddenly feel as if a nagging itch has finally been scratched). You ready? Here it goes:
“Why the f*ck is Devastator dumber than the six collective Constructicons that form him?”
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ANNE
5 things about Anne Ishii:
1. Is a bicoastal writer and consultant.
2. English is her second language. Synchronized back up hip hop dancing is her first.
3. Hates the way we idolize celebrities but would sleep with a handful of them… if they filled her hand.
4. She can make you lots of money but she won’t like it.
5. Would always rather be somewhere else.
I’m always a little disappointed when I see signs for Ladies Only train cars in Japanese subway systems, because they were created as a stop-measure against (presumably only male) gropers and molesters. Chikan is a real problem in Japan, mind you, but in NY you’d beat the shit out of the fool who went uptown on the finger train. In fact, I willfully ride the co-ed train cars in Tokyo, hoping some asshole will grope me, specifically so I can break his fingers and chant “U.S.A! U.S.A!” I’m kidding, of course. Gropers would never finger an American. Read more...
DOMINIC
Dominic Mah is a writer, director, and ex-professional gambler. He is currently prepping and fundraising to shoot a movie, a feature-length dark-comedy-type-movie. He also blogs about pop culture, girl problems, casinos, and Robotech at http://dommah.com/. Mispronounced in the right way, his name is a strong Vietnamese curse word.
There are lot of writers in the world (96% of them seem to live in West Los Angeles), but only a few have written something that changed the world forever. For example, Karl Marx. The guy put something on paper that started most of the major wars of the 20th century. Even if you haven’t read his work (and who has, really?), people live and die and nations form and upheave, all under the spectre of his words.
There’s another writer whom I believe should be up for the Greatest Creative Output and Influence of the 20th Century: STAN LEE. I mean, Fitzgerald, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, yeah, they’ve all written some novels. They have created a handful of cultural icons between them. Stan Lee just sat down and made up Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Daredevil. And the Hulk. And those are just the ones you’ve probably heard of. He also invented a million villains, from the Green Goblin to Titanium Man. So we’re talking thousands of issues of the original comics. About umpteen billion$ of movies and TV and basically every event film of the early 21st century. But never mind all that. These are characters that are in our culture and in our heads every single day, even if you are cool and don’t like comics at all. Most writers would be geeked to create just one character about which someone could start a conversation in a bar. Stan Lee created FOUR of them, before he even had the idea that a guy with the proportionate abilities of a spider might be really cool. Read more...
STANLEY
Stanley Yung’s first date movies with his wife were Raise the Red Lantern and Midnight Cowboy, but he somehow convinced her to marry him anyway. He continues to encourage her to watch his “syllabus” of favorite movies, which she considers “dark and depressing.” A graduate of UCLA Film School, Stanley worked as a director for Roger Corman and produced the features The People I’ve Slept With, Ethan Mao, Catfish in Black Bean Sauce, and Shopping for Fangs.
With Roger Corman winning a Lifetime Achievement Oscar this year, I’ve been reflecting on my experience of working for the “King of the B-movies.” Fresh out of film school, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of great directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, and James Cameron. What do they all have in common? Yes, they all won Oscars for Best Director. But they all also directed their first features for Roger Corman.
Stanley directing "Shadow Dancer"
Working for Corman was definitely a grind, but it’s where I learned the most about the filmmaking process. Being at Concorde-New Horizons Studio was like going to film school, only better. Where else can you go from being a P.A. to directing a feature film in just 18 months and get paid to do it? But we weren’t working on highbrow material by any means. On the spectrum between art and commerce, Concorde was all about pumping out movies designed to make money. It was a factory for genre and exploitation films, where plenty of gratuitous sex and violence was committed to celluloid. Read more...
DOMINIC
Dominic Mah is a writer, director, and ex-professional gambler. He is currently prepping and fundraising to shoot a movie, a feature-length dark-comedy-type-movie. He also blogs about pop culture, girl problems, casinos, and Robotech at http://dommah.com/. Mispronounced in the right way, his name is a strong Vietnamese curse word.
A recap: California casinos are specially-regulated dens of gambling which originated as cardrooms for poker and expanded to include the so-called “Asian” games: modified versions of blackjack, pai gow poker, baccarat. They tend to be in the tax-revenue-hungry cities of East and South LA, wherein the Cirque Du Soleil shows are few. The main differences between Cali casinos and Vegas or Indian casinos is a) you have to pay a service charge for placing a bet, because usually you’re not playing against the house, you’re playing against the corporation banker (that was my job….more on that later), and b) unlike Vegas, which only has Tons of Asians, Cali casinos have a 24/7 Gigantic Horde of Tons of Asians. Asians rule these joints with their own special insane gambler subculture, which I’ll be discussing in this series. Any social progress you think the people have made over the last few centuries is instantly rolled back the second you step into the place, which has rules and laws, but they are all basically Mongol Horde rules and laws. Here are 6 Asian Stereotypes That Are Actually Proved True Inside California Casinos: Read more...
QUENTIN
Quentin Lee would like to think he’s a part-time drag queen and and full-time hustler moonlighting as a filmmaker. He went to UCLA Film School with fellow Offender Justin whom he co-directed his first feature SHOPPING FOR FANGS with. Subsequently, he made DRIFT, ETHAN MAO and the upcoming THE PEOPLE I’VE SLEPT WITH. He also blogs as Film Hustler.
We made Shopping for Fangs in the summer of ‘96. And like everyone else, we had the dream of getting into the Sundance Film Festival. I was lucky enough to get a grant of 35K from the Canada Council for the Arts, and I scraped together another 50K from friends and relatives to complete the film. Justin and I canned Fangs under 40K on 35mm, which I thought was a pretty amazing feat.
Read more...
JIMMY
Most people know of Jimmy Tsai in one of his roles as accountant, fantasy basketball commissioner, or purveyor of athletic sportswear. But what people do NOT know is that under the pseudonym Tequila Rush, Jimmy authored the “mockumography” Go! Opium Pandamonium! Go!: From the Opium Pipe to Saturday Morning Children’s Cartoons. It currently ranks #5,339,475 on the Amazon.com sales ranking list. Amongst Jimmy’s latest ventures is a website devoted to Asians and Asian-Ams in sports entitled beyondbadminton.com.
The crane kick.
Everyone knows it. Who doesn’t get chills up their spine when Daniel Larusso (played by Ralph Macchio) sets up for the kick, Kreese yelling to Johnny from the sidelines, “FINISH HIM!,” dramatic horns blaring as part of the film’s score? It has been firmly embedded in the public consciousness ever since Daniel used it to snap back Johnny Lawrence’s head and win the All Valley Karate Tournament in The Karate Kid.
And since that time, the crane kick has become synonymous with martial arts—at least in America. How many times have we seen someone idiotically assume the crane kick stance when trying to show that they’re ready to unleash some martial arts on yo’ ass? All this despite the fact that the move itself was just a figment of screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen’s imagination, with no ostensible basis in reality.
As both an avid fan of cinema and an out-of-practice martial artist, I’ve always wondered: is it a real move? Or is there at least a real kick that’s reasonably similar? Can it be accomplished in real life? Would it even work? Read more...
MICHELLE
Michelle Woo might possibly be YOMYOMF’s first “normal person” guest offender, which is exciting for her, though she hopes she doesn’t have to follow Playboy’s Miss November. (Michelle has no sex tips for you other than “Girls, occasionally ask him if he’s been working out.”) Michelle likes doing normal things, like watching Glee, eating spicy food and blogging about her deep thoughts and wedding plans at MichelleWoo.com. She’s also a freelance writer and the online media manager of KoreAm Journal’s website. You can also follow her on Twitter.
Somehow, without me noticing, my world turned yellow.
Let’s see. I am marrying an Asian American man. All my closest friends are Asian. I work for an Asian American publication and thus, all of my coworkers are Asian. I pretty much only eat Asian food. (If you ever have to do an autopsy on me, you’ll find that my body is made entirely of ramen and pho—and about a half gallon of Sriracha.) I write about Asian Americans, I follow Asian American blogs, I listen to Asian American music artists.
This bubble I’ve found myself in is rather comfy. My fiancé never had to go through Chopsticks 101 or any sort of cultural training before meeting my grandparents for the first time. My girlfriends and I share a schoolgirl-like infatuation with Daniel Henney, an actor still unheard of by most Americans. Our office often reeks of kimchi and no one is offended.
Still, sometimes I can’t help but look around and think, “What the hell?” Read more...
DOMINIC
Dominic Mah is a writer, director, and ex-professional gambler. He is currently prepping and fundraising to shoot a movie, a feature-length dark-comedy-type-movie. He also blogs about pop culture, girl problems, casinos, and Robotech at http://dommah.com/. Mispronounced in the right way, his name is a strong Vietnamese curse word.
If you ever need a reality check on human nature and its propensity towards evil, go to a Los Angeles casino. I mean, in these complicated times there is good and bad in everyone and there are grey areas and moral ambiguities and blah blah blah, but chronic gamblers are just some villainous motherflowers. It’s because their pursuit of money, and constantly losing it, has replaced any human feeling in their hearts with pure black tar.
(Explanatory side note: California casinos are specially-regulated dens of gambling which originated as cardrooms for poker and expanded to include the so-called “Asian” games: modified versions of blackjack, pai gow poker, baccarat. They tend to be in the verdantly-named cities of Los Angeles like Bell Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens, Gardena. Never heard of those places? Maybe because there are no actual gardens there. There are, however, casinos: the Bicycle Club, Commerce, Hustler, Normandie, and the eponymous Hawaiian Gardens. The main differences between Cali casinos and Vegas or Indian casinos is a) you have to pay a service charge for placing a bet, because usually you’re not playing against the house, you’re playing against the corporation banker [that was my job....more on that later], and b) unlike Vegas, which only has Tons of Asians, Cali casinos have a 24/7 Gigantic Horde of Tons of Asians.) Read more...
GRACE
Welcome to a special Guest Offenders/Valentine’s Day edition of our mailbag feature. We put out a call to our readers for sex and relationship-related questions via our Twitter and Facebook page and picked a few to respond to below. Joining Offender Philip to dispense advice to the lovelorn is the lovely Grace Kim a.k.a. Playboy’s Miss November 2008 a.k.a. Playboy’s first full Korean Playmate. So without further ado…
Question #1
“My boyfriend won’t make love to me unless all the lights are out. Is there something wrong? I’d like to do it with the lights on or in the daytime once in awhile.”
–Marsha Read more...
QUENTIN
Quentin Lee would like to think he’s a part-time drag queen and and full-time hustler moonlighting as a filmmaker. He went to UCLA Film School with fellow Offender Justin whom he co-directed his first feature SHOPPING FOR FANGS with. Subsequently, he made DRIFT, ETHAN MAO and the upcoming THE PEOPLE I’VE SLEPT WITH. He also blogs as Film Hustler.
The first time I wore women clothes was when I was six. I was hanging out with my mom on a lazy Sunday afternoon while my dad was out. She let me try on her evening gown and carry my favorite glittery purse of hers. As I pranced around on her bed, I playfully dubbed myself “the nightgown chicken.” In Cantonese, “chicken” is the slang for “prostitute.” My mom was cracking up. We both had so much fun. I remember I really enjoyed playing a character… being someone whom I’m not.
But she only let me do it that once. Read more...
KONRAD
Konrad Ng, PhD is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he teaches film theory at the Academy for Creative Media (ACM). Originally from Burlington, Ontario (that’s Canada, folks), Konrad, on occasion, has cravings for Smarties and maple syrup. On January 20, 2009, Konrad became mistaken for someone else.
As the inaugural “Guest Offender,” allow me to treat this post as an opportunity to express some long-gestating thoughts about new media activism and Asian America. An appropriate starting point, I think, is Phil Yu’s blog, Angry Asian Man.
FYI, this is not Konrad, it's Angry Asian Man
I read my first Angry Asian Man post soon after the blog was established in 2001 and since then, the site has been a regular stop in my cyber-neighborhood. At the time of Angry Asian Man’s inception, the internet was seen as the new frontier of cultural, economic, media and political opportunity, a novel playground for chatter and exploration. The blog’s first post staked out new terrain for Asian America by expanding the constellation of Asian American activism to include cyberspace and introducing a playful, cacophonous and satirical pop culture infused pedagogy. Angry Asian Man is now iconographic of a brand of Asian American blogging that has grown in influence and audience. Of course, the rise of Angry Asian Man and sites like it, is now well-known and seemingly on the verge of being canonized in Asian American studies. So, let me turn to YomYomF, a site that offers an interesting addition to this trajectory of new media engagement. Read more...
