Here... in my Vans

I have mixed feelings about this, but here they are: Descendents shoes. Check out Milo on the tongue! Available on June 1 at various skate shops and Van Doren outlets. ALL?



Enjoy!

Happy Memorial Day!

"Is that Freedom Rock? Turn it up!" Six songs for the troops--past and present.

Jimmy Cliff - Viet Nam

It was just the next day
his mother got a Telegram
It was addressed from Vietnam.
Now mistress Brown she lives in the U.S.A
And this is what she wrote and said:
"Don't be alarmed,"
She told me the telegram said,
"But mistress Brown
Your son is dead!"
And it came from:
Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam


The Clash - The Call Up

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
And you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up?
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up?
It's up to you not to heed the call-up
I don't wanna die!
It's up to you not to hear the call-up
I don't wanna kill!


Stiff Little Fingers - Tin Soldier

Tin soldier
He signed away his name
Tin soldier
No chance for cash or fame
Tin soldier
Now he knows the truth
Tin soldier
He signed away his youth


New Order - Love Vigilantes

When I walked through the door
My wife she lay upon the floor
And with tears her eyes were sore
I did not know why
Then I looked into her hand
And I saw the telegram
That said that I was a brave, brave man
But that I was dead


Black Sabbath - War Pigs

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!


Bouncing Souls - Letter from Iraq

They lost another friend today.
It's getting rough over there.
They say the whole things fucked.
I wish the boys were back.
At least I know they're still alive.
Another letter from Iraq.

Big balls

Just got home from Wendy's cousin's birthday festivities. Here's a hot tip for you infrequent karaoke singers: AC/DC's "Big Balls" is a crowd pleaser that's easy to get through.

Some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they're held for pleasure
They're the balls that I like best.
My balls are always bouncing
To the left and to the right
It's my belief that my big balls
Should be held every night

The hives

Today I spent the day with my dad. Not at a day-long rock concert but trimming the tree in front of my house. Usually I hate gardening but this time it was fun. Sickened by my lack of gardening and letting the yard go to shit, my dad has given me all sorts of gardening tools--weed wackers, sharp cutters, gloves, etc. (I know what you're thinking, no hoes. Sorry.) For today's job, we used a chainsaw on a pole!

Nothing against the trees, but the one in front of my guest room was getting too close to the roof and wires overhead. Before I knew it, the once-proud tree was reduced to a Charlie Brown Christmas twig. We filled four garbage cans and made a pile of trimmings that is now sitting on the side of the yard. It looks like something you'd see in the background of a Sasquatch photo.

But in the end, nature always wins. My arms are itchy, my eyes are dried out, my nose is stuffy, and I feel worse than Royce Gracie, who got his head bashed in by a young, tough Matt Hughes in the UFC tonight.

In a couple weeks, when the pile is reduced and I have more space in my trash cans, it's on to the next round, as I tackle the next tree.

RIP Desmond Dekker

When Johnny Cash died, my dad told me he was sorry that he never got to see the Man in Black play in concert. Ever since then, I started taking my dad to shows. I've taken him to see David Bowie, The Who, and James Brown, among others. How cool is that?

Now I hear that reggae icon Desmond Dekker died today. Even if you don't know his name, you probably know his hits: "O07 Shanty Town," "You Can Get It If You Really Want," and "Israelites." The first two songs are on the soundtrack to The Harder They Come. (Along with Repo Man, one of the two best soundtracks of all time.) The last song was a big hit in Europe and even made the Top 10 in the States. He was there for the birth of ska, was a king of rocksteady, and stayed smooth when reggae turned to roots, dub, and dancehall.

Dekker toured until the end, and even played in L.A. not more than a year ago. I mixed up the date, missed it, and now I'll never got to see him.

Yellow pages

One of the cool things about making GR is going to comic-book events like Comic-Con and sometimes APE. Our mag isn't really about comics, but for some reason we do well in places like that. We can also relate to indie comics makers and companies, and have made a lot of friends... That's how we met Jordan Crane, Brian Ralph, Ron Rege, and tons of other artists. Some of them happen to be Asian. Jason Shiga and Gene Yang are two of the guys we see every year. Here's a link to an interview with them and a few others regarding Asian Americans in comics. Some interesting quotes in there.

p.s. The San Diego Comic-Con is late August! Save the dates.

Banquet

Remember the article our pal Dan Wu wrote about filming on location in butt-cold Mongolia? Here's the trailer for the movie. It's called The Banquet, and it stars Zhang Ziyi.

Typhoon!

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a press screening of Typhoon. The movie, which will be distributed by Paramount Classics, is billed as a high-budget Korean blockbuster about pirates. How could I refuse?

Indeed, it's an epic story that stars Jang Dong-gun (the psycho soldier from The Coast Guard!) and Kang Se-jong (who starred in Lake House, which has been remade with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock). Jang plays a refugee from North Korea who hijacks a secret shipment of American nuclear devices and plans to release Chernobyl fallout over South Korea; Kang is an elite naval officer recruited to handle the situation before the Americans can secure and cover up the situation.

Naturally, the pirates have cool tattoos, sport rock 'n' roll haircuts, and keep their stash in an amazing cliffside dwelling. They live in awesome bungalows, too. You get to know Jang's character through multiple flashbacks, and actually see North Korean troops gun down his family. He also blames South Korea for not giving them amnesty. Ultimately it's okay for him to be bitter and a terrorist because he's a badass with heart.

Jang's South Korean counterpart is as square as you can get. When you're first introduced to him, he's playing football on the beach and it's impossible not to think of the greased-up Tom Cruise and company playing volleyball in Top Gun. It's total eye candy for anyone who digs men. Allegedly, he is a badass, but he generally plays by the rules, and even writes a letter to his mom when the going gets tough.

It's not as syrupy as one might expect. Except for the sweeping, orchestral music that you'd expect from a Korean epic, everyone keeps their emotions in check. There's also a side-plot involving Jang rescuing Jang's long-lost sister from the Chinese and Russian slave trade. I was sure that would blossom into a weird love story, but the manly men clearly have no time for that sort of thing.

There's some dialogue suggesting that the foes understand each other on a John Woo level, but that seems like a stretch. What they have in common is that while they fight each other with knives in a sinking boat, an American sub is firing torpedoes at them. An allegory of Korean history?

The movie has a slick-but-not-obnoxious style, impressive special effects, great attention to detail, and settings that hopscotch around the eastern hemisphere: Thailand, Russia, Korea... As an action flick, it succeeds wildy. I'd put it up there with any Bruckheimer movie. That is also the film's shortcoming; in the end, it's just another well-done blockbuster. It won't change your view of cinema or the world, but it's about time the world sees a good chase scene with Hyundais.

Typhoon will open in select U.S. cities on June 2.

Tequila returns!

I don't usually dork out on video games, but I suddenly want an Xbox360... The reason? Stranglehold is a sequel to Hard Boiled, with full-on support from John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat! I'm also suddenly craving a ginger ale...

Fade to black

Practice on Mondays and play on Thursdays.

Cleaning up

With Eric tending the GR store business, Souther Salazar art opening, and maybe even some interviews for articles in New York City, I spent a few hours at GR2 helping Michelle take down an art show, pack the pieces in an archival manner, and spackle the walls.

At the end of the day, one painting was left hanging--the one I had my eye on for the duration of the show. I kept wondering when someone was going to buy a certain piece by Jack Long, a Philly guy who went to RISD and wound up in L.A. A lot of the art we show at GR2 is illustration-based, but Jack's stuff is the opposite. It's painterly. He plays in punk and noise bands, yet when the brush is in his hands, the chaos ends and time stops.

Jack depicts castle-like homes, suspended in the air with mysterious cables, birds, and occasional hooded figures walking around. The mood is very peaceful, but there are hints of a story in every piece. There's some gravity-defying technology going on and the wafting energy is suggests AD&D-like powers at work. Not only is the subject matter compelling and execution masterful, but the work comes in a frame so you don't have to pay someone in Chinatown to make it displayable!

After buying the piece, my tasks at GR2 were done.

Beat L.A.

My brother Greg and I walked out the door and headed down Haight Street on our way to the MUNI line that would take us to AT&T park. Both of us were wearing Dodgers jerseys in a Giants town, and we didn't take more than a dozen steps when a woman walking the opposite direction pointed at us and said, "You're going down! Giants are going to take the series!"

We just smiled and kept walking. What could we say? We had attended the previous afternoon's game and saw the Dodgers squander a 5-2 lead in the ninth inning. Damn.

I had anticipated animosity since we got off the plane. Of course inhabitants of that city by a bay would hate the Dodgers, just like we in L.A. hate the Giants, but our worries were unfounded. Now and then, a couple frat guys walking the other way would whisper "Dodgers suck" after passing. Oooh, so scary. I have no idea how many "Dodgers suck" and "Beat L.A." shirts we saw, but that's consumerism not intimidation. Can you believe they actually sell shirts that say the former and beer cups that say the latter at the stadium? I can see bootleg stuff of that ilk, but to have MLB gift shops and concession stands selling that stuff is bush.

In the end, no one spilled beer, threw peanut shells, or hurled insults at us. Just "Beat L.A." chants now and then, all prompted by the Jumbovision and organ player. Actually, our neighbors were downright nice to us. I'd like to think it's because people are classy, but probably not. Factors include:

1. We went to afternoon games. People just aren't as tanked in the afternoon. Also, it was unseasonably sunny, which probably sapped the energy out of some hecklers.
2. Mother's Day. It was probably more family-oriented than usual with all the moms around.
3. AT&T park is not Candlestick. More expensive seats = a better-behaved crowd.
4. L.A. vatos are "harder" than S.F. vatos. I'm not being racist; I'm just saying that there are a lot of tough fans at Chavez Ravine with shaved heads, locs, and "laugh now, cry later" tattoos. Not so at AT&T.
5. The Giants suck. It's hard to be cocky when your team is in the basement and the only reason to watch is the most-hated player in the Major Leagues trying to reach a record that is generally considered tainted. (For the record, the Dodgers stink, too. At this moment, both teams share the same record and are tied for last in the NL West.)

When the Dodgers' three-day stand was over, they left with two wins and a loss. Just as importantly, Barry Bonds did not hit a homer (he was terrible on offense and defense) and remained one long-ball behind Babe Ruth. A Dodger pitcher will not be the answer to a trivia question. Walking away from the stadium, it was drunk Dodger fans who were stirring the pot, pointing at home fans in their Giants gear and saying, "You lost. You lost. You lost."

Ahh. Can't wait to go to Dodger Stadium.

Se7en

Whoa. Just went to Sweet Lady Jane on Melrose with Wendy and Lisa, I mean Linda, where I had the frothiest cup of hot chocolate and shared a massive slice of Seven Layer Mocha Cake. It's described as such: "Thin layers of yellow butter cake are alternated with fresh coffee buttercream. The cake is domed and coated with a poured chocolate shell, then decorated with white buttercream roses." Time to pass out and fall into wild, sugar-induced dreams.

Proofs

I was a little stressed out this morning when I realized that our package hadn't arrived from Canada. WTF? Our printer said that our page proofs would arrive today. After locating the FedEx slip and making some calls, I arranged to have the deliverer come back sometime before 4:30. That would be too late to sign off and return the pages, but it was surely enough time to grab some food. Ad guy/self-defense columnist/movie reviewer/drunken master Kiyoshi made a Tacos La Flama run, and sure enough I had the box in my hands when he returned.

The food was good, and the new mag looks good, too. We found some mistakes--a typo, a change in cover price (four cents more for U.S. readers, almost a buck less for Canadians), an unwelcome caption, shifted graphics, blah blah blah. It's probably not that interesting to you, but everything that slips through is like a dagger to us. How could we miss that stuff the first time around?

After dropping off the proofs at the local Kinko's with plenty of time to spare, I walked down to Sawtelle. There were shoppers, people eating late lunches, and uptight drivers all around. I ran into Eric and we plowed through a boxload of CDs and DVDs to review for next issue. No victory laps for us, it's onto the next mag just like that.

Buzzer beaters

Last night in San Francisco, my brother Greg and I had dinner with our cousins Anthony, Scott, and Carey, as well as Scott's wife Angie and Carey's girlfriend Jamie. We had just ate a table full of food at Axum, a restaurant on Haight that served up some pretty great Ethiopian food. No Ethiopian coffee, but that was okay. There's nothing wrong with going somewhere else for that or dessert!

When Scott, Angie, Carey, and Jamie left for home in farway Los Altos, that left Greg, Anthony and me. We got down to business and broke out the Scrabble board.

When we were kids, Anthony's dad always crushed us at Scrabble, and one of Ant's goals has always been to beat him. Our cousin plays against his computer regularly, and has gotten pretty good. Greg and I are pretty decent, too. Scrabble was big in the GR office for a while, and I consider our level of play to be pretty high.

I started the first game with HAVOC, a high-scoring word that didn't leave many options for double-word scores. That defensive play actually set the tone for the entire game; the board was jammed up pretty good. I did a pretty good job of stifling Greg, and I think he did't have very good tiles. He was a good sport about it, though, and played through. I think he had the lead for a bit. Ant was complaining about his tiles from the get-go, but eventually unloaded a bingo and took the lead. It looked like Ant would win, but I bingoed out to end the game and win. Using all seven of your tiles means you get 50 extra points. Yes.

My brother and I figured Ant would have to go back to his Oakland apartment to resume studying--our cousin is just about to finish his first year of law school--so Greg asked if he'd leave the game behind for us. Perhaps it was Ant's competitive drive to get a win or maybe we just gave him another reason to procrastinate, but he was up for another round

Once again, Greg took the early lead with a bingo only to be leap-frogged by Ant who had an even higher-scoring bingo. Damn. I was left in the dust, but had a pretty good rack (with the versatile SS_NG tiles) but there were no openings until the very end. Once again, in my last move, I used all seven tiles to spell SITTINGS. No big letters or spaces, but it was enough to make Greg and Ant subtract the points they had on their racks and give them to me.

That play wasn't enough to give me back-to-back last-second wins, but it was cool to go out like that twice in one night. That was probably as close as I'll ever get to feeling like Kobe Bryant, making a ridiculous score as the buzzer goes off.

The truth is out there

My friend Prodip is probably best known for his work with the HK music group LMF and artist Michael Lau. But he's also a filmmaker and UFOlogist. Check out the trailer to his UFO documentary.

The tree taketh away

If you look closely at the picture of me at our homepage, you'll see that there's a nasty gash under my right eye (the one on your left). What happened? Everyone's been asking me that, and usually I point at Wendy and then make a punching motion.

Really, it all started when we finished the mag and needed a photo of Eric and me for the launch page. We thought it would be cool to have the avocado tree in it, since it's been going off lately--practically exploding with produce.

First we tried some angles from the ground level. Meh. Then we climbed onto the roof, practically inside the tree. It was great being up there in the branches, but since we're not a Swiss family or a Freakies cereal monster, we had to climb down. Getting up from my squat, I jammed my face into a branch! We wound up taking the pic on the ground.

Later on, Eric told one of our proofreaders, "The tree giveth, the tree taketh away."

I think my eye is still a little swollen, and my face stings when I wash it. I hope it doesn't scar... I'll post a photo on Monday when I get back from SF. We got a pretty good much shot that makes me look scary.

Stamp man

This is the last weekend of the Iamu Noguchi exhibit at JANM in L.A. Now that the mag is at the printer, I'm finally going to try to check it out.

Off to press

About half an hour ago, Eric and I dropped off a FedEx box with GR42 files. Tomorrow morning, some Tobins in Manitoba will open it up, put the CD-Rs in their computers, and get to work. When we get proofs back, hopefully we won't see too many mistakes.

Don't start checking your mailboxes just yet. It takes a while for the mags to be printed, bound, and shipped. A lot of mags are shipped to distro centers, where they are sent once more... Hang in there, it'll be worth it. Eric and I will probably be leaking info in the next couple weeks. It's hard to keep good stuff to yourself.

This weekend I'm leaving the mess we made and going to San Francisco. My brother bought us some plane tickets and Dodgers/Giants tickets. The Dodgers are on a roll and so is GR. Even if Baroid hits 714, that won't get me down.

Playing hooky

A moral dilemma. The mag goes to press in two days but I had tickets for tonight's Dodgers game. After struggling with the conflict for days, I wound up going since I know the mag will go out either way. And it will be an excellent issue; I shit you not.

The contest against last year's NL champs (and World Series losers) the Houston Astros wound up being really fun. Jae Seo has a mixed outing, but guys like Nomar Garciaparra, J.D. Drew, Kenny Lofton, Olmedo Saenz, and Jeff Kent came up with big hits to defeat Andy Pettitte. The lead changed a few times, the bullpen hung in there, and there were even more hits. Errors by the Astros made it seem like a softball game, and the Blue Crew prevailed 12-7. Topping everything off was the fact that it was "fleece blanket night." So when it got chilly, we had blankets to cover us.

Walking down the hill to the street where cheapskates like us park for free, we looked like homeless people with the blankets over our shoulders but felt like Superman.

Back to reality. I dug back into GR42 in the later hours, doing some online stuff. Tomorrow morning, I've got to wake up early and get into the GR office for a long, productive, great day. The game was fun, but I really enjoy this part of the publishing cycle, too.

Factory workers

Last evening, everyone was in the office and working on the new issue. Everyone's been working hard at it for the last week, but never all at once. Eric was cranking out material, Wendy spent most of her time laying out a hellacious travel piece, and Pryor got caught up with the color balancing. The work we do in the relatively small amount of deadline time is massive, but there's nothing I love more. It felt like the team was back to together.

Too bad the Lakers couldn't come together as well. We had it on in the background, and it was a bummer to see them outplayed from the beginning. Maybe they ran out of juice? The challenges that Purple and Gold face over the off-season are too complex for me to think about now, but the Clippers have to view this as a massive opportunity to win fans in L.A.

Beat and bones

After the Giant Robot softball team beat down Privileged & Confidential 18-13 last night, I was wired and feeling good. Perfect time to go home and watch a long movie. The one I had been saving for a time like this was a Region-3 DVD of Blood and Bones.

Directed by Yoichi Sai and starring Beat Takeshi, Blood and Bones is 2 hours and 20 minutes of pure id. Takeshi plays Kim Shun-pei, a Korean immigrant who moves to Japan in 1923 with his knocked-up bride (whom he supervised in a factory). In Japan, he proceeds to beat up his family, abuse his girlfriends, and generate a fortune making fishcakes and being a loanshark. He is as ruthless in his moneymaking as he is in raising a family.

Kim is a violent asshole who brutalizes the people he should be protecting. But Takeshi plays him with such intensity that you can't take your eyes off him, and I even started to admire his character when he his first business takes off. That lasts for a moment, until he throws his wife down the stairs and knocks out his daughter's teeth. Or is it the other way around? The incredible violence becomes a blur after a while, but it's hard to forget the buck-naked dad breaking his son's ribs in the public bath.

There are historical forces at play, such as the Japanese occupation of Korea, the rise of Japanese communists, the Korean independence movement, and general racism toward Koreans in Japan, but in the end, Kim is portrayed as a fucker on his own. When his mistress becomes bedridden, his chilling solution is surprisingly heartfelt but revealing of his incredible potential for destruction. After becoming too old to do the intimidating by himself, Kim resorts to hiring yakuza to help him collect money, and even they consider him a freak.

The tone is unflinching, the acting is excellent, and the production value is epic. Blood and Bones is easy on the eyes, but not easy to watch. All the men are shown to have their flaws, pointing fingers at Kim in public while doing their share of wife beating, back stabbing, and flip flopping at home. Meanwhile, the women are depicted as helpless pawns in a sick, male-dominated society.

When the movie was over, I was still wired but my mood was considerably dampened. Taking gear out of my softball bag to throw in the washing machine, all I could think of was Beat Takeshi's character and his son going at it with a stick and a baseball bat.

Sweet teeth

So anyway, our new friend Landon was taking us around Boston the other week. He got Chinese on us and snagged the check at Buddha's Delight. Wendy and I said we'd get dessert. Maybe he was onto us?

The three of us wound up going to Finale, this high-end joint on a sharp corner with stuffed booths and windows all around. Not far from the Theater District, most of the clientele were dressed up in suits or dresses. Then again, everyone looks dressed up when you're visiting anywhere from L.A., probably just because it's colder so everyone's wearing sweaters and coats.

But the great thing about Finale is not the seafood, prime rib, or steaks. There are some appetizers, but menu's focus is fancy dessert. It's not cheap--dishes range from $9 for crème brulee to $11 for Manjari Mousse to $27 for a chocolate sampler for two--but everything is ridiculously good. (Each item is matched with fancy wines as well as liqueured-up coffees, but we had straight joe.) It's a place for special occasions, for sure, but totally worth it.

I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say it's a good thing we walked from Chinatown to Park Plaza and back to the hotel by Boston Commons.

Are there other places like this? In L.A., we've got places like Sweet Lady Jane's and Susina, but I don't know about anything this fancy. Maybe it's for our own good.

Give an Asian a pat on the back today

For Immediate Release:
May 1, 2006

DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Vice Chair Mike Honda Commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Washington, D.C. - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Vice Chair Congressman Mike Honda issued the following joint statement commemorating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which begins today, May 1st:

"On behalf of the Democratic National Committee, we are honored to join all Americans in paying tribute to the contributions made by the 13 million Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders to our nation's social, economic, and cultural identity. When it comes to public service, Democrats remain committed to working with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community to promote civic engagement and participation at every level of government, and getting more AAPI leaders elected all across the country.

"Democrats are leading the way in changing the old politics that kept minority elected officials in minority districts. The fact is, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Americans can represent Americans of every background - and in many parts of the country are already doing so. From Satveer Chaudry, who serves as State Senator in Minnesota, to Jennifer Kim who serves as Austin City Council Member in Texas, to 22-year old Nathan Shinagawa who serves as Tompkins County Legislator in New York, and all the way to Madaleine Bordallo and Eni Faleomavaega, our Pacific Islander members of Congress from Guam and America Samoa, respectively, AAPI leaders all across America and its territories are breaking new ground and representing not just the AAPI community, but the full diversity of the cities and districts they represent.

"As a Party, Democrats want the AAPI community not just at the table, but also on the ticket at every level. The overwhelming majority of AAPI elected officials are Democrats, and we intend to keep it that way. Democrats have long championed the values we share with the AAPI community, including a strong work ethic, a commitment to education, and respect for families. As we commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Democrats renew our commitment to working together as we forge a future that strengthens our country, protects our democracy, and defends our civil rights for all our citizens. Together, America can do better."

###

March in May

Driving down Sunset Boulevard this morning, there were a lot of businesses closed in support of the marches for immigrants' rights. Millie's, Eat Well, and even Bank of America on Glendale and Silver Lake. I was relieved that the gas station was open or I wouldn't have made it to the GR office today.

I'm for immigrants rights, but shit. I think our work is on the breaking barriers and borders side of things so I gotta keep plugging away.