Yup, I looked like that last night.
The last time I did this, I was moving to LA to be with the love of my life; now I was moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area to be with my very worried parents. Ah, what a difference 15 months can make!
Last night, I got drunk for the first time in a long time. I love drinking. Safe to say, I think many a fling for me has occurred over a good vodka/grapefruit. But in the past, I couldn’t drink at home.
Yes, the Lotteria fast food chain in Japan is now serving the ramen burger aka Menya Musashi Ramen Burger. Here’s the description of this new culinary creation:
The noodles are lightly fried into a ramen patty, which is placed between two burger buns along with tender pork cutlet and mayonnaise. The burger is also served with “katsuo dashi” (a type of Japanese broth) soup.
And if you need me to explain why this is awesome, then you are clearly reading the wrong blog.
Thanks to everyone who attended the work-in-progress screening of our YouTube adaptation of Offender David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play Yellow Face last week at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Fest. It was a sold-out screening and we were pleasantly surprised to also learn that we had won the Narrative Audience Award (tied with Ke’o Woolford’s The Haumana) at Thurs’ awards ceremony. Thanks to everyone who supported and voted for the film. You can watch the finished film in two parts on June 8 and 9 on the YOMYOMF Network.
If you want more Yellow Face, we’ll be participating in a FREE panel discussion this Weds., May 15 (6-8PM) at UCLA’s De Neve Auditorium. All the info is on the flyer above, but we’ll be having a lively discussion about Yellow Face and how YouTube is impacting the Asian American community and vice versa. The Tony Award-winning writer of Yellow Face himself, the aforementioned David Henry Hwang, will be flying in from New York to appear and he’ll be joined by YOMYOMF Creative Head Philip W. Chung, YF director Jeff Liu, YOMYOMF Network partner/YouTube star Chester See and Internet Icon season 1/top 2 finalist Lana McKissack. Again, the event is free and open to the public but you need to rsvp here in advance.
Song 4: “Union City Blue,” Blondie
I feel awful after going on yesterday about my imaginary girlfriend Siouxsie Sioux.
I mean, how do you think that makes my other imaginary girlfriend – Debbie Harry – feel?
I don’t want a cat fight breaking out because of my insensitivity. No, ladies, each of you is as lovely and cool and talented as the other. And again, I’m gonna go with a personal fave. Y’all can look up “Heart of Glass” or “Rapture” or “Call Me” on your own.
Debbie, Siouxsie, a big kiss to you both! Surely we can work something out – I’m thinking alternating schedules: who wants Tuesdays and Thursdays, and who wants Wednesdays and Fridays?
On the opening day of White Frog, just when I thought I could relax and have a meal with Jason Tobin and Chink’s production team to celebrate Jason’s winning “Best Actor” or “Breakout Performance for an Actor” award at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, I got a call from my producer Ellie Wen who said that the TCL Chinese Theater needed a new DCP because the movie was not in sync when they played back the DCP.
Flabbergasted, I drove to Pasadena to pick up the Laemmle’s DCP while on the phone in the car in a conference call with Garrett at Simple DCP, Ellie and the projectionist at TCL. We all agreed the solution was to test out the DCP Laemmle had and also deliver a Bluray.
“We can also cancel today’s screenings,” said the theater manager casually.
“No, we can’t. People have bought tickets and the cast is coming for the 7:40pm show,” said Ellie.
“I will be there by 4pm, and we’ll have it up and running even though we missed the 2pm show and may miss the 5pm show,” I said.
Song 3: “Into The Light,” Siouxsie and the Banshees
How could I not include a song by my imaginary high school girlfriend Siouxsie Sioux?
Picking the song was agonizing: do I go with something like “Spellbound” or “Christine” or “Kiss Them For Me,” y’know, something more people might know, or do I just play one of my personal faves? And even narrowed down to a personal fave, it just as easily could’ve been “Dazzle” or “Love In A Void” or “Swimming Horses” as “Into The Light.” All I knew for sure is that I don’t want to disappoint her. Being an artist, she’s mercurial and moody. I can’t let her see my indecisiveness. I’m on eggshells with her all the time, but it’s so worth it.
DOMINIC
Dominic Mah is a writer, director, rock musical aficionado, and ex-professional gambler. He can be found on the internets as dommah, paranormalstatus.com, and @ThorHulkCritic. His personal heroes are Stan Lee, Bruce Lee, Annabel Lee and Barbara Lee.
The villain in Marvel’s latest Iron Man film is the Mandarin, a character who fought Iron Man about 600 times in the original comics, and has always been totally Chinese. That is, until Sir Ben Kingsley was cast to play him in Iron Man 3. Now that the movie’s arrived, we can throw out speculation and see what they did. Here’s a short primer to the original comic-book Mandarin to arm you with nerdy talking points for comparison:
The Mandarin is a ridiculously powerful half-Chinese man. He owns ten alien rings, each with a devastating alien power, which he wears on all ten fingers all the time, because you never know on any given day if you’re going to need the Mento-Intensifier Ring or the Vortex Beam Ring (or the Matter Rearranger Ring, which one imagines is super-useful for the lactose-intolerant). Like Will Smith’s son, he is a master of karate, and presumably some Chinese martial arts as well. He does grand, Genghis Khan-scale evil mastermind type things. He has his own giant robot named Ultimo. In one particularly great X-Men storyline, the Mandarin captured Psylocke (a telepathic British lady, up to that point the prissiest of the X-Persons), and literally turned her Japanese, so that she could become his sidekick ninja assassin. She’s still Japanese, too. Apparently people just liked her better that way.
This past Wednesday, two days before White Frog’s theatrical opening in Los Angeles, when I was helping my DP Yasu Tanida shop for a blazer in the Beverly Center, I got a call from producer Ellie Wen who told me that they were having problems with the DCP of White Frog at the Laemmle’s Pasadena Playhouse.
That sent me into a panic so I called the manager of the Playhouse who indeed said that they couldn’t read the drive the DCP was on.
What is a DCP? It’s short for “Digital Cinema Package” and it has replaced the use of 35mm film prints in the exhibition world. Apparently over 80% of the world’s cinema screens now project on DCP.
I caught a glimpse of actress Reese Witherspoon apologizing on some morning talk show about being charged with disorderly conduct when she and her husband were pulled over on suspicion of DUI a couple weeks ago.
While her husband Jim Toth was being arrested, she apparently played the “do you know who I am card?” and got bitchy. ’course she did! Duh! She was a drunk celebrity. She was acting like an entitled ass. That’s what they do.
On the morning show, looking prim and contrite, she said of the arresting officer, “I was so disrespectful to him. That night I saw him arresting my husband, and I panicked. I said all kinds of crazy things. I said I was pregnant. I’m not pregnant. I said crazy things. I had no idea what I was talking about.” She went on about how she knows cops, loves them, etc.
As if North Korea wasn’t problematic enough, it is apparently now home to some of the greatest supervillains.
German artist Aslan Malik has taken Korean won notes and reimagined them to feature some of Batman’s greatest foes (along with one Superman supervillain) to create his The Injustice League of North Korea series. Check them out here:
The cover story in the current issue of Sports Illustrated is that NBA player Jason Collins has come out as gay.
I know, big snooze, right?
Well, actually, no. He is the first athlete in the American big four – basketball, baseball, football, hockey (hockey? really?!?) – to come out publicly while still an active player.
Do you know what this means? This means that there are still 9.9999999% of professional athletes who feel they must hide their sexuality, who lead split lives, who worry that what they do in their bedrooms could ruin their professional lives.
In the 21st century.
Usually, I’m a person who would rather not meddle in other people’s affairs. Even when it’s family, I may have opinions and disapprove of certain things, but I don’t want to get involved in debates about their personal affairs. But sometimes, there comes a point when I feel there is a need to intervene, especially when it involves someone’s safety. Alcoholism and drug addiction are examples that come to mind.
