Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Friday evening's talk at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena turned out to be pretty cool. Maybe it's because I was already familiar with my co-presenter, Arthur Dong, who I shared the billing with on the venue's monthly Active Cultures program. Or maybe it's because there wasn't much pressure since a December event should have been pretty empty, right? Well, Arthur had a multimedia extravaganza putting the spotlight on his most recent documentaries. And the room filled up until it was fairly packed. No, high expectations and a good turnout do not suck. (Below: Not a rabid audience member but Pacific Asia Museum's Curator of Education/AV crew Amelia Chapman.)
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My year of rad weddings came to a conclusion on Saturday in Laguna Beach, where my friend and GR58 cover artist Stella Lai got married to Janak Dudakia. We knew it was going to be amazing when the two dropped off a punjabi for Eloise to wear a couple weeks ago. Cool and cute. After that, we knew we'd have to get a sari for Wendy as well. One of the first people we saw was our friend/supreme stylist Thy Mai, who met Stella at the GR Biennale 2 closing party and has gone on to become good friends with her. Naturally, she helped out with Stella's look. (We also saw Thy's dude/rad skater Tad Suzuki, artist seen in GR/ace curator Gina Osterloh, gallerist Danielle Laverty, and Ted and Angie from Poketo.) Stella's entrance from the rear stairs to the temple's front was unreal–like something out of a movie. She could have walked out of one of her own paintings, and her family from Hong Kong must have had their minds blown. The ceremony was traditional Hindu, consisting of seven marriage rites, and the modestly ornate room became more and more packed as they went on. It was obvious that Janak's parents are viewed in super high regard by the locals. After the ceremony, we managed to grab a few moments with Janak and Stella and had to take a picture. They don't usually dress like this. After the delicious meal, Wendy, Eloise, and I went to the beach and walked around. What a surreal and beautiful day that Stella and Janak will never forget and neither will we. Did I mention that Eloise really got into the Indian style and even busted out some Bollywood moves?
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The Pacific Asia Museum invited me to take part in this month's Active Cultures program, and it takes place this Friday night! The deal is that two unrelated speakers from different backgrounds give short presentations about what they do, and then they field questions from the audience and each other afterward to show commonalities and contrasts and complement both. Cool, right? I'm being partnered with indie filmmaker Arthur Dong, who gained a serious reputation for three documentaries on being gay in the military, being gay in a conservative family, and murderers who killed gay men, but recently proved that he can also make crowd-pleasers with Hollywood Chinese, which celebrates and criticizes the treatment of Chinese and Chinese Americans in front of and behind the camera. I've actually interviewed him a couple times–once in the pages of Giant Robot and once for an event hosted by the Chinese American Museum. He's a cool dude who does important, interesting work, and he knows how to talk about it, too! As for my portion, this will probably be my last speaking engagement for a while and I want to make it count–not that I ever mail it in. No one wants to hear about how crummy the magazine business is going these days, so I'm going to discuss editorial, which is what I do anyway. I've spend the last day or two selecting some of my favorite stories over the last 68 issues and recalling anecdotes about weird things that happen during the interviews, how ideas evolve and mutate, and how certain articles have had unexpected, interesting repercussions. The stories behind the stories, as a certain radio announcer might say. I think it will be an interesting 30 minutes (bookended by Arthur's talk and the Q&A) and if it isn't, at least there will be images like the ones in this blog so you won't be totally bored! Admission is 10 bucks, but who knows? If I have a small guest list, maybe I can get you in since Eric is out of town and Wendy might stay home with Eloise (since the wine tasting part isn't exactly right for a 2-year-old). Send me an email or message on FB because I could use some support!
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This weekend I attended Hero Studios' annual holiday cookie gathering off Melrose and enjoyed an unofficial gathering of GR photographers. Above: Eloise and me with Ray Barbee, who has been featured in GR mag as a skater, musician, and photographer. What a Renaissance Man and nice guy. Look for him on TV in a Ford commercial soon! On Saturday night he was snapping away with a new used T4, but his real love is shooting Leica. Two other Lecia dudes and GR contributors, Ben Clark and Doug Kim. In GR68 (on stands now), you can see Ben's photos of FMX stud Taka Higashino… … and Doug's pics of the post-hardcore band from Japan, Envy. Ray, Ben, and Doug are all over the place, so it was very cool and special to see them in one spot–one spot that had a table full of homemade cookies! Thanks, Bret and Happy!
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Today I had lunch with Robin Laananen and Sandra Vu. If you get the new GR, you can see Robin's amazing photo of the Dum Dum Girls covering 1-1/3 pages. As for Sandra, she is a Dum Dum Girl, as well as the focal member of SISU! Usually, I like to conduct interviews in person, but Sandra's piece was done via email because Dum Dums were in the middle of a gigantic tour and I couldn't wait for her to get back. A benefit–besides the fact that Sandra gave thoughtful, interesting answers–was that we got to run photos by Robin, who is a kick-ass photographer and tour manager for the likes of The Locust, Warpaint, The XX, Bloody Beatroots, and Broken Social Scene (not to mention Dum Dum Girls). So it was rad to finally meet them. You'd think it would be easy since we all live in L.A., but Robin and Sandra are constantly on the road. Robin takes off for Australia with A-Trak in just a week or so, and Sandra is going to record with Dum Dum Girls in New York next month! But if you want to stalk them when they're in L.A., I know a restaurant where they're total locals…
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