Book club

One of my earlier blogs was about a book that I had started to read, Jian Ma's The Noodle Maker. I finally finished it on the flights back from Boston. (There was a stopover in Denver...) The framing story is about a blood donor and his broke professional writer friend whose subject matter comes from town locals, ranging from a father who tries in vain to ditch his retarded daughter to a philandering poetry editor and his more talented novelist wife to a performance artist who kills herself onstage to attract attention from her lover. The lover is the writer himself? Or is it the blood donor?

The facts and fiction get mixed up, kind of like a Chinese version of The Canterbury Tales, and the friends' commentary during the storytelling isn't far removed from the shit-talkers in the balcony in The Muppet Show. Yes, they are harsh and sarcastic, but you know they party together, too.

Lots of dark humor and criticism--not only about the moral state of China but the human condition in general. My type of book. Ma wrote another novel that has also been translated into English. Guess what my next book review will be?

Due dilligence

So deadline time is coming up and for two weeks we always wind up eating food from at the same places: gr/eats, Talay Thai, La Salsa, Benitos.

Anyone have suggestions on other good/affordable places that have delivery or to-go in West L.A.?

Game on

We've had a GR softball team for about five years now. Chi and I are the only ones who have been on this squad for the whole run. (I guess you could say that of Mike, George, and Jason, but they took off for a bit to start a team on a higher level.) The sad thing is that after all this time I still suck. I don't hit very consistently. My reflex is to duck, and not stop line drives. I still walk batters. But it's fun--the only team sport I've ever been into my entire life. Maybe it's the dudes I'm out there with. These aren't classmates who wish I were on a different team; they're friends, relatives, and GR conspirators.

The first Giant Robot softball game of the Spring-Summer 2006 season is tonight. I already feel jittery. I woke up half an hour before the alarm clock went off. I wanted so badly to go for a run around the Silver Lake reservoir to dispel my nervous energy, but I had to put it off to keep the juice intact. Tonight we start in a new field against all new competitors. We even have new button-down jerseys made out of mesh, like something a vato would wear.

I'd better Mapquest the location. Only six hours to go...

Headphones time

We get a lot of requests from aspiring contributors who want to review music, but the answer is always the same. No. We like writing reviews because it's easy and fun.

This afternoon, Eric and I divvied up CDs to review for GR42. It's a weird process that you'd never be able to discern by reading the mag. First, we go through the tub of CDs and take out all the junk. For example, we remove the releases with crummy packaging or terrible names, as well as major label things that we would never listen to. Actually, maybe it's easier to say what we do pick: labels and bands we already like, intriguing cover art, funny band or album names. We're a little more lenient with Asian or Asian-American artists, but that doesn't guarantee placement. Then there are the total random ones. If there's a CD with the word "Watsonville" on it, I might give it to Eric because he has family from there. If there's something with a picture of a rabbit on it, he might throw it in my pile because I had a pet bunny for a while. In the end, there is no strategy and we review whatever we want. Too bad most of the CDs really suck.

It's been noted that we don't really tear apart CDs in our reviews, and a lot of that has to do with the selection process. The really bad stuff is weeded out right away. And then if I start listening to something that's terrible, I'll just stop listening. No time for crap, and no space in the mag for easy shit talking.

Driving home, I listened to a few of the CDs. So far, so good. I like the new Bell-Rays a lot. A friend of mine described them as Aretha Franklin singing for the MC5, and that's pretty right-on. I already know the new Monsters Are Waiting is great. Currently, they're my favorite L.A. band, and I had them send the CD to me as soon as I got their email blast annoucing it was coming out. Also, I'm stoked about the newest release from Spider & The Webs (pictured) because I bought the CD after their amazing set at the Smell last month. Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill and Chris from Dub Narcotic Sound System and COCO--what else can I say?

Chinatown

All Chinatowns are the same--trashy, smelly, and full of loud people. I love it. When Wendy and I were in Boston, GR reader and new friend Landon took us to Buddha's Delight, a veggie restaurant that's buffet by day and pretty good by night. It's a favorite of our mutual friend Susie Ghahremani, he said. We saw lots of hippie kids, vegetarian Indians, and even a few Chinese families there. Honestly, it's not in the same class as Vegetarian Wok, Happy Family, or Vege Table, but what can you do? Like the old punk compilation says, this is Boston, not L.A.

As we munched on our food, Landon gave us the scoop on the neighborhood. He grew up there, so he should know. Apparently, a bunch of mom and pop shops were recently shut down to make space for lofts. The construction was going on outside. Yet the porno shops and strip joints remain. What gives? Walking around, we heard a lot of Cantonese, so you can tell that the residents are Old World--not well-heeled Mandarins from Beijing.

Other ways Chinatowns are the same. From our second-floor corner, we could see movie rental places everywhere. People were pouring each other tea. The host snags the check. We told Landon we'd get him back by treating him for dessert. He probably knew, because then we walked to a super-fancy, deluxe dessert place. Not in Chinatown.

Green Dragon Inn

It's not an AD&D module, but this pub in Boston where Sam Adams, John Henry, Paul Rever, and the Sons of Liberty plotted the American Revolution. It's totally tucked away in this alley by Faneuil Hall. Wendy and I went there because a friend told us there was good clam chowder there. Wendy said it was good, packed with stuff. Even better, there were people dressed up in 16th century gear. Whoa. I don't eat meat, so I got the Boston Cream Pie. It was yellow cake with chocolate on top, cream between the layers, and whipping cream on the sides. No crust! What's up with the misnomer?

On the way to Cambridge, we passed by another pub called Asgard. Didn't get to check that out, but one can only hope that it's full of beardy guys wearing hats with horns and wenches are dressed like valkyries drinking grog. There seems to be a strong role-playing, swords-and-sandals vibe all around the area, as well as a Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science... Perhaps everyone in Boston isn't a frat dude or Sox fan after all.

Cambridge

The GR talk at Harvard at GSD went well. There were tasty snacks, a hi-tech projector, a packed house, a great Q&A session, and gracious hosts who took us out to eat at the amazing Baraka Café, an incredibly tiny and delicious Tunisian restaurant. The lemonade with rose petals was a sign of great dishes to come... Our friend Ali was there, too, and the restaurant's host was his biggest fan. "A-li, A-li," she chanted when he came in, putting the Cheers bar to shame.

Ali was the only other dude from Harvard in our dinner party. Why are Eric and I always surrounded by women when we go on trips like this? Don't guys get involved in stuff like this? I'm not complaining--just making an observation. Too many fine ladies to praise and thank, but they know who they are.

Eric and I parted ways the next morning. He split his time between Providence and NYC. I hung out in Boston with Wendy. After grazing the buffet and checking out of the Irving House B&B, we went to Harvard's Natural History Museum to check out the glass flower exhibit. An father and son team from Germany blew over 3,000 glass models of flowers for the college. Their work is amazing, obsessive, and somewhat disturbing. It seems like an oddball story from the Museum of Jurassic Technology, but it's real and worth checking out.

On the same floor, there is the most amazing display of taxidermy I've ever seen. Imagine glass cabinets full of dead animals from apes to bison to wolves. It's very Old World, and the pieces have been on display for so long that you can see stitching becoming undone and glue coming out of eye sockets. Wendy was really freaked out by the bird display.

Although we spent the next two nights in Boston, we returned to Cambridge for great pizza at Cambridge One (long wait, impossibly quick service) and an awesome hardcore show at the Middle East (freaking Avail), and then brunch at Veggie Planet, which is a vegetarian spot in this beatnik-style basement, complete with an onstage folk musician. I had always equated Harvard with preppies, but this was straight-up Bohemian.

Other stuff in Cambridge worth noting: a Frank Stella show and The Tablet and the Pen: Drawings from the Islamic World (see pic), both at the Sackler Museum, and the Million Year Picnic store, where I bought some New England zines.

Gahdan pahty

Sorry for the bloggin lag. After Eric and I finished off the Harvard gig, I spent a couple days in Boston where I got a deal at this fancy hotel. It was the type of place that has bathrobes for guests, but also has sensors in the fridge that automatically add your bill if you move cans and also charges for Internet access! I'll be unloading Beantown stories in the next couple days after I catch up with emails, articles, shitwork, etc.

Slash

Crap! I've been on the same set of softball cleats for so long that some of the screws have been ground down into rivets... Changing them for the Giant Robot softball team's upcoming season, one was ground down beyond repair, and I hard to remove the cleat by wedging a screwdriver under it and working the piece back and forth until it started to tear. Anyone who knows how I'm always bumping into, dropping, and breaking things would be able to predict that I'd totally gash myself.

Now there's a gnarly bite out of one of my fingers, but I think it's okay. The full moon just ended, so I won't be turning into a cheap socket-set screwdriver tonight or wake up with screws in my mouth.

That last part sounded bad.

Murakami #3

A while back I blogged about The Noodle Maker book. I'm still reading the novel, but as is often the case, I got hijacked by another book! I got sucked into a paperback review version of Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup and finished it in three nights.

We ran an interview with the author a couple issues ago, and he talked about not being an otaku and how he is a regular guy who likes to go boating. You wouldn't know it from this book, which delves into the creepy worlds of the Japanese sex trade, gaijin, and serial killers. You'd think he's a freak.

The book is a real page-turner. It reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Choke), but without the dark humor. It's pure psychological terror with some scenes of shocking violence, and I was totally gripped by Murakami's observations on the underbelly of Shibuya, society, and humanity in general.

I don't want to cheapen the book's value as literature, but the batting cage scene, pick-up bar slaughter, and other passages would make for incredible cinema.

Okay, back to the Chinese novel about the life of a novelist and his blood donor friend. How quaint.

Heavenly

Eventually, you'll read about his project in a Giant Robot magazine article, but my friend Daniel Wu has making a documentary about Alivenotdead, the Hong Kong "man band" he started with some buddies. The goal: to have some fun exploiting the star-making BS machine of the HK media. The movie premiered at the 30th HK Film Festival, and the press is already talking shit about it! The Heavenly Kings opens there on April 20. Check out the trailer for yourself!

Cream (not C.R.E.A.M.)

Today, Wendy and I went down to O.C. with my sister Angelyn and brother-in-law Carlos to my parents' house. My brother Greg and his daughter Saoirse came up from San Diego. There wasn't really an occasion like a birthday or holiday or anything. We just hadn't hung out for a while.

Saoirse is the first grandkid of her generation, and you might have seen her on the cover of the Kumquat baby clothes catalogue. Today was the first time she had strawberry shortcake! Actually, at 2 1/2, she knows all about strawberries and shortcake, but this was her first experience with whipped cream. Her eyes got super wide when it was sprayed out of the Reddi-Wip cannister. "Do you like it?" we asked. "I do! I do! I do!" was her spirited response. She looked like she was going to explode.

She's also into rolling the yoga ball all over the house and walking up and down stairs. Sometimes it takes a little kid to remind you how cool simple things are.

Afterwards, Wendy and I went to the art show at Junc (the backside of GRSL) where I saw a lot of friends and met Allison Cole. Cool because (1) the Providence indie comics artist has suggestions about what to do in our upcoming trip to Boston and (2) I picked up a flyer for a show with Slayer and Mastodon. Whoa... Saw them on tour together last year and they were amazing.

Scratch scratch scratch

All the recent rain forced me to weed and mow the lawn yesterday. Now my forearms are rashy and itchy because I'm super-allergic to practically anything that grows, runs, or floats around. It sucks.

This reminds me of my junior high days. Younger than everyone else and one of the only Asians in school, I was small. I didn't like wearing my super-thick glasses but at least I only had top braces and didn't have to wear headgear to class. I also had asthma and allergies, and was among the last to be picked in P.E.

If I lived in cavemen days, I would have been left to die...

Wartime

Perhaps a perfect double feature for The Promise is The Great Yokai War from director Takashi Miike. Miike has done everything from trashy gangster vehicles and straight-to-video exploitation to arty horror flicks and super commercial swordsman movie. This one falls under weird kids movies, kind of like his Zebraman effort.

Like a live-action Miyazaki flick, The Great Yokai War features a timid son of divorced parents who has been moved from the city to the shadow of bullies in the countryside. He is chosen in a festival to be Kirin Rider, a defender of freedom who is asked to get a magic sword from Goblin Mountain to battle evil spirits.

It's a story that's been told a million times, but this one is interesting for a number of reasons. First, Miike isn't afraid to be silly. The ghosts, goblins, and creatures range from scary to goofy, and it's okay if they don't look realistic. Kind of like the odd animated parts of Happiness of the Katakuris; they didn't fit in that movie at all but they were so weird it didn't matter. Another hallmark of Miike has been his unflinching attitude toward violence, gore, and violent gore. Yes, this kids movie has cuddly, furry yokai, but Miike isn't afraid to show them being sliced, crushed, and squished with yellow pus coming out. Why don't American kids movies show this sort of thing? They dig it.

There are also some aspects that make it worth watching for post-kids. The yokai war is caused by unhappy spirits of items such as used shoes, which are tossed with no care after being used by humans. Humanity not giving a shit is ultimately the cause of the suffering. In one scene, it is revealed a grown-up is able to see the ghosots only after drinking a beer! You won't see that in a Disney movie. There is also some sexual tension provided by Chiaki Kuriyama (of Battle Royale and Kill Bill fame) who plays the cruel and cool assistant to the main villain. Yes, she's hot and when she goes around turning yokai into mecha-monsters it's very cool.

The movie is dumb, predictable, and anything but perfect. Yet it's great because that's all you expect. Too bad Chen Kaige doesn't get those breaks for his foray into fantasy.

Promising

Tonight I missed out on the Giant Robot softball team's trip to the batting cages to attend a press screening of Chen Kaige's martial arts movie, The Promise.

The movie is typically described as a trainwreck, but I didn't think it was bad. This could be because 20 minutes have been trimmed for the U.S. cut. This could also be because my critical thinking has been dulled by years of watching (and enjoying) really bad fantasy movies from Hong Kong.

The Promise is not perfect, and the flaws are amplified because of its world-class director and all-star cast from Korea (Jang Dong-Gun), Japan (Hiroyuki Sanada), and Hong Kong (Cecilia Cheng and Nicholas Tse). Everyone expects it to be Crouching Tiger or even Hero, but it's really more of a fairy tale than an art movie.

True, some of the special effects are pretty bad, the plot isn't super compelling, and the characters aren't very deep. The girl everyone's fighting for is kind of mean. But the movie is amazingly beautiful to watch. The colors are cartoonish but sumptuous. And when the protagonists hit rock-bottom, it is an epic moment.

Those who expect a heart-warming crowd-pleaser or historically charged epic from Chen will be disappointed. It is kind of unfair to expect him to make serious movies every time. Maybe that's the problem; he's making a fun movie, but everyone is so serious in it that you can't really tell. The only actor who really hams it up is Tse, who seems perfectly comfortable as a bad guy. In the end, if you're into stuff like campy action, ridiculous love triangles, and stories about princesses, generals, slaves, and river goddesses, it's a dried-mango-and-tea good time.

Funnies

I just got back from the Bay Area where I primarily went to help out Wendy's Girly Fries table (and GR) at the Alternative Press Expo, but also to take her to the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. Maybe you read about it in Giant Robot 29. It's basically Snoopy Mecca, where a rotating number of the world famous cartoonist's original strips are shown, as well as works from others (Bill Watterson and Christo!).

The current show is an overview of the treatment of females in Peanuts over the years. The first two girls, Patty and Violet, basically terrorized Charlie Brown, Shermy, and the other boys. When Lucy arrived on the scene, she was even worse, physically, psychologically, and emotionally scarring Charlie Brown strip after strip. When Sally arrived, things changed. When she caused trouble, it was due to being young or naive. Pepperment Patty arrives as the strip's most complex character. Although she was a terminal D- student, she was capable, athletic, and sharp--capable of having her own comic. By the end, Lucy started to show weaknesses, and we even the butt of jokes now and then. It all seems obvious now, but when I read the strips every day, I never saw the development.

Driving back, I realized that this was a true comic nerd trip, but I never even read the comics in the newspaper anymore! There was a time when that was the first thing I'd look at: Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side. They're all gone and the newer ones don't do it for me. Neither does Doonesbury. Was I just lucky enough to be there for a golden age of comic strips? To me, Schulz, Watterson, and Larson are up there with anything like Little Nemo or Krazy Kat. Are comic strips just over?

It's like Saturday morning cartoons these days. Kids watch crap and don't even know it.

Sir Eat-a-Lot

I try not to eat out too much, but today's a special occasion. Um, it's a nice sunny day.

Lunch was with Eric and my uncle at Wahoo's on Wilshire in West L.A. On the way there the latter told us about his colonoscopy! But it was okay because my uncle wasn't trying to be outrageous or anything. He was just letting us know what he's been up to. Or what's been up him, perhaps.

Tonight, I'm going with GR designer Wendy and my sister Angelyn to the famous Taiwanese dumpling restaurant chain, Din Tai Fung. It's famous because you can see the dumpling makers through windows right when you walk in the place. No mystery. It's genuine Latino cooks making good food.

A nice break from cereal for two meals a day. Recent favorites: Maple Brown Sugar Smart Start (like the original version with fewer vitamins and a Waffelo's twist) and Vanilla Almond Special K (another less healthy but better tasting offspring of a classic). The organic soy milk from Ralph's is good, too.

Skate and destroy

Fullerton's Alex Kim is working his way up the minors into the NHL...