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I’ve have GOT to think up a way to get out of my Public Policy seminar from 4-7pm, because Wednesday, November 4th, SFSU will be providing FREE screenings of ridculously talented filmmakers, Tadashi Nakamura’s “A Song for Ourselves” (about revolutionary Japanese American artist, activist, & educator Chris Iijima) & Eric Tandoc’s “Sounds of a New Hope” (about O.G. LA/BAY Hip-Hopper, educator, cultural worker, activist, Kiwi Illaphonte). Know about MassMovementTV!
Hoping I won’t be stuck in class,
C
p.s. If you are a student in Dr. Ueunten’s AAS335: Japanese American Personality course, you can get extra credit for attending the screening and writing about these films! Holler at me in class for details.
[Real Time with Bill Maher - "New Rules" (July 24, 2009)]
This dude perplexes me. Personally, watching Bill Maher is like a being on a roller-coaster. I go from laughing out loud uncontrollably and praising him for making a brilliant point, to scowling at the TV and thinking, “this dude needs to shut the f*ck up.” The FUNNY thing is, I think this is probably how a lot of people feel about me. =P
Roller-Coastin’,
Senbei
[(500) Days of Summer Official Trailer]
The homie drizzle recommended this and I just watched it with wifey tonight. This flick was effing great.
This is hella emo of me, but I hella appreciate when actors/filmmakers are able to convey the ways that men can behave while lost in lovesickness. Watching Joeseph Gordon Levitt’s character “Tom’s” isolation in heartbreak was hilariously painful to me. It was turrible…but I couldn’t look away. =) Due to my beautiful partner and our collective work, I’ve been blessed enough to have these feelings be distant, fading memories – but I’ve still def got enough scars on my heart from years past to connect with “Tom’s” trials and TRIPulations.
The way this film was edited was insanely creative and provided a rich, lush backdrop for two middle-class, eastcoast transplants to fall in love in the City of Angels.
In any case, try watching this with someone you love (in any way, shape or form) and respect, compare notes of battles won and lost in love, and then laugh together at how simultaneously ginormous AND trivial life is.
Don’t sweat the small stuff,
C
p.s. It’s ALL small stuff.
p.p.s. I want more Asian American/people of color in movies like this. =T
p.p.p.s. I just totally contradicted myself because I’m either “sweating the small stuff” or am saying that some things are NOT “small stuff”.
p.p.p.p.s. ….And so goes the miscegenated, ginormous/trivial life of Masashi. =P
[DVD Trailer of Pick Up the Mic]
[Tim'm West of Deep Dickollective]
In the many hours I have spent researching Hip-Hop, masculinity/patriarchy and Asian American authenticity/identity this year, I must admit that I still have so motherf*ckin much to motherf*ckin learn. Most Hip-Hoppers (myself especially) could fill a library with everything we do not know about how expansive Hip-Hop culture is, and how many different definitions of “authenticity” there are that exist within it. Case in point, one of my Professors let me borrow a copy of the DVD “Pick Up the Mic,” and it opened my eyes to a world I previously did not realize existed (in the same way I am sure a billion people are unaware that there are Hip-Hoppers who make music regarding Asian American of mixed heritage identity). As hard as I try, the heteronormativity I’ve internalized as a heterosexual American male blinds me to a multitude of struggle that I not only am not forced to see, but am privileged by.
I find the more I witness different people explaining their own love and devotion to Hip-Hop (specifically when used to addressed external and/or internalized oppression), the more my own definitions of what is “real,” and “fake,” within the culture begin to shift and take new form. When I was a teen and pre-teen, my internalized homophobia sadly/truthfully would have probably made it very difficult for me to watch this trailer, let alone taking the entire film seriously (despite amazing LGBTQ family members and role models in my life). While my miniscule and feeble brain remains a vast ocean of ignorance, I’ve kicked my own ass enough to come this far and am continuing to push myself forward with all my might.
To me personally, it must never be forgotten that at its roots, Hip-Hop is Black music/culture/expression and that those who are not of Black/African heritage are guests in someone else’s home. I don’t necessarily believe that anybody should participate in Hip-Hop, but I do believe that if an Hip-Hopper (who is not Black) is aware of the foundations of Hip-Hop, is working to fully acknowledge their positionality and express their own reality, it has the possibility of being a powerful thing. I also know that not everybody is able or willing to do so, and that different Hip-Hoppers (such as myself) are in different stages of self-examination. I also know full well, that people will do exactly what they want to regardless of what I think, that my definition of “authenticity” is completely subjective, and that billions of other unique definitions exist outside of my own.
The fact that I am acknowledging Homohop (LGBTQ people creating Hip-Hop) at all may bring my own authenticity/credibility/masculinity as a Hip-Hopper into question, but at the same time, people who would question my place in Hip-Hop for this reason are probably the same ones who would write me off for being Asian American and/or a mixed heritage person of color with Anglo ancestry (who is not Black: I am in a place of realizing how important it is to stress this in regards to acknowledging my own positionality and privilege). From where I sit today (in the very privileged space of graduate school), it has become apparent that the emasculation I have seen take place in the lives of fellow Asian American men will be best combatted by my challenging sexism, heterosexism, and gender roles, as opposed to puffing my chest out and exuding mysoginy and hypermasculinity. For Asian Pacific American men with a much different positionality than this, the tactics used in challenging disempowerment that comes from emasculation may (or may not) look very different.
I find that Hip-Hop in all its forms, will at times prove problematic and irrational because we live in a problematic and irrational society run by problematic and irrational people, and are all therefore at certain points, forced to do problematic and irrational things. At the same time, when individuals and communities are able to access the rawest nerve of their own existence and communicate it through rhyme, spoken word, beats, dancing, graffitti, DJing/producing or any other expression that does not require the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth, something truly human comes to fruition and our irrational society gets a chin-check.
Pick Up the Mic,
Senbei (is still working on himself)
p.s. I posted these already but they’re still a great reference.
[An Old Person's Guide to "No-Homo"]
[Byron Hurt's "Barack & Curtis: Manhood, Power & Respect"]
[Trailer for "RoboGeisha"]
OMFG. The homie Pahee showed me this. My brain doesn’t even know how to process this one. “Tengu milk” burning ppl’s eyes out. Nuff said.
This is simply more evidence that Japanese people are repressing some seriously ridiculous sh*t and it erupts and overflows in the form of artistic expression. Not sure if this is more positive or negative (probably more the latter than the former), but it does make for some insanely interesting/insane theatrics.
C
[YEESH.]
[Over before it started...]
Damn. I sincerely hope Ricky aint brain damaged. Manny made QUICK work of the Brittish brawler. Not much you really need to say other than, “when is Pacquiao vs. Maywether Jr. going down?”
Manny being Manny,
C
p.s. Score one for API masculinity.
[Pacquiao vs. Hatton 24/7: Episode 1]
I know that no other sport today is more brutal and carries so many connotations of ethnic, racial, national, historical, etc. pride than boxing (this fight has been dubbed “war of the worlds” for f*cks sake), but OMFG…I can’t wait to see this sh*t!!!
Hatton will go down in the fifth…maybe the sixth.
C
p.s. Don’t get it twisted tho – Hatton aint no punk. This will be far from an easy fight for Manny.
[LOL @ "...the goddamn Lox..."]
[Part II]
“Flava in ya Ear’ was cool but…there was no flava in the face.”
Daaahahahahahaha!
Brilliant. Cindy showed me.
Colinresponse
p.s. “B*tchassness” is NOT a word.
[Bill Maher is an intelligent dude & a douchebag.]
Saw this a while back when HBO was doing their “try us out free for 2 months and then we’ll take your wallet’s innocence by force” special.
Bill Maher is an interesting mofo. I think he has a lot of thoughtful things to say, but he begins to lose me when he takes on a condescending tone and begins to simplify things that are in actuality extremely complicated. In his new film “Religulous,” he takes some strong stances on the evils that various religions have perpetutated throughout the history of the world, including but not limited to: racism, mysoginy and sexism, homophobia, war, etc.
["Religulous" Trailer]
I love the ways that Maher is able to pinpoint many of the laughable elements we observe in religion. The ginormous leaps of faith we find in almost every religion can many times leave me bewildered. It seems silly to me that the same people who know that “Santa Claus isn’t real,” because the thought of a guy going around the world and knowing if all children are deserving of a present or not is crazy, do not find it the least bit difficult to believe that there is an old (white) man in the sky who hears all of our thoughts and prayers.
[If God lives in the Heavens, wouldn't some melanin actually help him out with being so close to the sun? Why would he choose to be European? And on that note, can God get a sunburn from the sun he created himself?? *sigh* So many questions...]
What Maher does fails to mention however, is that while American terrorist groups like the KluKluxKlan DO shroud their misguided, obscene, schizophrenic hate in Christianity, the gains in the realm of social justice, equity and equality made by practicioners of Liberation Theology (MLK, Cornell West, and my grandaddy) have made a lasting impression on America and the world over. In addition to neglecting this fact, he acts as if secular society has never produced war, mysoginy, heterosexism, etc. In many communist states where religion is forsaken (or in some cases, outlawed) we can still find remnants of all of the forementioned negative aspects of human society.
All in all, I’m glad Bill Maher is alive and asking the questions he does. I’d even recommend that you netflix this badboy and see what you think! What becomes problematiic is when we, like those who allow terrible things to happen in the name of religion, blindly follow any particular set of beliefs and ideas without being critical and questioning.
On a mission from Buddha,
Colinresponse
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of New Demographic, a diversity education firm. Her perspectives on race and diversity have been featured on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, USA Today, and The New York Times.
Carmen is an Asian Pacific American of mixed heritage who facilitates workshops on race, racism, diversity education and is the author of an incredible blog, RACIALICIOUS. This Shero speaks on everything from fetishization to institutionalized racism and all the myriad ways that race intersects with the media and American popular culture.
[Cute But Confused: Myths & Realities of Mixed Race Identity]
[CVK on CNN speaking on the Spanish Basketball team's "chinky-eyed" picture at the Beijing Olympics last summer]
[Not Just Fetishists and Race Traitors: On Interracial Couples]
CLICK HERE FOR MORE. The Truth Hurts (So Good).
Cute but confused,
Colinresponse
