wailed on my couch today. watched "hearts & minds" and lost both in the process. vietnam war documentary hollowed me out like dirt holes for graves, i tumbled on the floor trying to reach for my grandfather's ghost. imagine yourself a north vietnamese soldier, fighting for the ideal of a free country free from us imperialism, you lose a leg but your side wins the war. the next day you look around and you see coca cola and exxon all over your country. what did you fight for? this is a country that fought to be decolonized only to be recolonized again. was the war a crime or a mistake? or a mistake that we didn't win? or a crime that we didn't win? what was this about?

i'm looking for my reflection in the television set, trying to catch a glimpse of something i would recognize, did my grandfather run through these streets, is that him, climbing into a grave to be with his wife, or that woman holding the hand of the soldier calling her "mama-san," could she have been my mother?

this sky that is falling on us, is it a downpour of black b-54 bombers, the landings of helicopters full of camera men and photographers, or is it a fog of familiar faces - ghosts we used to know as father - never rising, never falling, just drifting two feet above our heads like a blue halo of clouds.

cheer up, like plastic limbs we'll soon have plastic hearts and minds.

rilo kiley, god i love it

--

i remember walking through the door and slipping into a dream of friends in a circle telling secrets to each other, yes i remember the brawl on the bed, yes i remember the hersheys and boxed wine, yes i remember all the long goodbye hugs, but the rest could have been a dream, a hazy dream of who knows what

finally, asians are making into comic book movies: ken watanabe is ra's al ghul in the next batman movie, kevin smith is making the green hornet (katooooooo)... now where's jubilee's feature film?

i don't want to let the cat out of the bag... but watch out now. friday, april 16. uc berkeley, churn pain to love...

i have a crush on this woman.

it's only politics, relax.

but for one moment, stop stressing your midterm, your papers, and your job, Love Jones, and take the time to know who and what you want to vote for in the California Primary elections come March 2nd.

until yesterday i was planning on voting for howard dean, even though he's officially out of the race. dean is more than a person, it's a movement for change, a roaming thriving movement that gave a lot of people a reason to believe in politics again. i wasn't going to vote for just howard dean, i was going to vote for the hundreds of thousands of other dreamers who believed for one moment that it was possible to change this nation.

but now this shit is real. it's HELLA close. kerry and edwards are going to neck to neck next week, i promise you that.

both can take down bush. both are "electable" (but fuck that word, that just means "it looks like everybody else will vote for him so so will i.") so the question is, who do you want in the white house until the year 2012?

who do you want guiding this nation and this world for the next eight years? who do you want fighting to reclaim control of the supreme court, in the congress, in the senate? whose hands do you want to trust our future in?

here's a pretty decent comparison of the last remaining candidates: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/graphics/issues/CompareTheCandidates.htm?referrer=emaillink

(kerry has a more liberal voting record in his 12 year senate term than edwards but don't forget that edwards comes from north carolina, a conversative state, and he has to listen to the concerns of his people.)

while i have no doubt that kerry will be a good president, i feel he represents an old form of politics that doesn't represent my generation. edwards, on the other hand, is young and energetic. i can see him taking us the whole way, taking back congress and senate for us, and really bringing back hope to our people.

i wanted to vote for horward dean...

but now i'm voting for john edwards, hoping that he'll pick us up and continue the fight

flu. and 2 papers, a presentation, a construction project, and 2 midterms all due soon. light blogging for the next week. unless i feel incredibly excited/depressed then i'll hit this shit up.

in the mean time, if you're bored and up late and desperately need some nightly reading, check these blogs out:

oliver wang (dj o-dub), margaret cho, tom tomorrow, billy corgan, j smooth, bao phi...

peace, and thanks for the killer cookie

ps:

best or worst mixtape ever?

Your instructions
Step 1: Open your MP3 [CD] player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 4: Profit!

1. ibrahim ferrer - no tiere telarana
2. joy division - ice age
3. sage francis - inherited scars
4. quannum - entropy
5. dr. dre and ll cool j - zoom
6. iggy pop - passenger
7. king geedorah - the pine print
8. roy ayers - e funk
9. gang starr - take two and pass
10. blonde redhead - i still get rocks off
11. sigur ros - ( )
12. jurassic 5 - concrete schoolyard
13. macy gray - sex-o-matic venus freak
14. guru - night vision
15. jack johnson - flake
16. iron & wine - a history of lovers
17. pigeon john - orange county
18. white stripes - we're going to be friends
19. quasimoto - the unseen
20. poets of rhythm -survival of the freshest

...

post your results on your respective blogs. don't be shy now.

so william hung is emblazoned on the cover of our school's newspaper singing in front of a stadium, backed up by a pair of azn dancers griding to his cutsy kitchy rendition of ricky martin's ode "she bangs." he's also been offered a $25,000 record deal by the same record company that first discovered 2pac shakur. congratulations, william, you're on the verge of becoming our first asian american popstar.

(while it's completely absurd to compare william hung to tupac shakur, there are some noteworthy parallels: one was used to perpetuate the corporate and suburban fantasies of ghetto life, the other finds popularity through america's exotica of difference, the enchantment of a non-threatening foreign accent)

william, we fell in love with you when you told us that you had "no regrets." we cheered with you when you were parodied on SNL and talked about on Entertainment Tonight, we wondered how far this craze will go when you appeared on Ellen's talk show, and now we're all deathly worried when you reveal your plans of naming your debut album "the white dragon" (take what you will from the symbolism, everybody.)

what started out as a popularity of earnesty (the "aww-shucks, ain't he something!" attitude) has become a popularity of mockery, a perptuation of america's subtle superiority complex towards fobs and new immigrants.

(what's also interesting to look at is jin's rise to fame, his video-within-a-video music video, but that's another topic.)

william hung! how does it feel to have your image usurped to embody a stereotype, to be thrust into the limelight as a spectacle for all of america to laugh at? i say, fuck them. claim the stereotype. when you're invited back to american idol as a wild card, show and tell your rickshaw and roasted dog meat, dress up in sandals and buddha beads, rock pocket protectors and nunchucks, drape yourself in a cape of the communist flag, and tell simon in a thicky thick accent that you will teach him all there is to learn about mathematics and mysticism, jump around like a little imp, bang your gong, sing of your homeland, and when you are done, drop your pants and ask america if they still think your penis is small and humbly ask if they would be so kind to suck it.

and if that doesn't work, we still got another shot. asian america, get ready because the camile and jonah madness is about to begin...

grouchy grouchy grouchy

a thousand tigers pulsate out of my chest, tearing through my skin like bees darting out of a shattered honey comb. a halo of angels drop with a beat to strap my neck in a noose - i can't breathe as the devil tapdances on my skull. this noise, this noise, this cracked laughter of a children's show host strung up on crack, bicycling through an electronic thunderstorm singing about birds, this soft murmur of librarian heads banging neon golden sounds that contort our bodies like crash test dummies, this noise this noise this noise of heaven and hell that i can never hope to hear again

the raindrops dance like
wild bees, cursiv
and dizzy, as if
spinning with the quick
steps of a young
lady, her curves
made out by
the fast breaks
of falling water
against her shadow,
the raindrops sing
her name on every city
street, on every roof
top, on every window
panel, begging to
catch another
glimpse of her, itching
to drop and
kiss her ground

fox news and the free republic (conservative news site) report the next bush scandal? whether it's true or not, it's so damn nice to see pro-bushies panic for a change.

download the grey album now (or buy it, i got mine from amoeba on haight.) a must listen, you have to hear jay-z rap his "what more can i say" over samples from the beatles' "as my heart gently weeps." outstanding!

talib kweli on politics and rap. snoop and ja rule boycotted in brasil. al qeada sympathizers turn to rap.

campus budget cuts could swell to $39 million! fuck!

mayor gavin newson: smug fake-ass. but now i sorta like him.

scholarship for whites only.

faces of us soldiers who died in the iraqi war.

the movie that i've dying to see for three years now 2046.


my valentine's day felt like this.

i'm getting mindfucked so good i need to take a shower after every lecture.

there's no time to
waste we never knew we
were so gorgeous so
dangerous so hurry up
and wiggle
your hips like they
got hickeys all over
them the sweat on our skin
glisten listen to the swish
of our lips cause they got fast
breaks and lay ups we
are poised in mid-air
like high notes hold each other
tight like piano wire or guitar strings
whatever music you like better
we'll build sunsets
out of bricks kiss so
good solar eclipses forget
how to talk game climb up
up so high we'll chew on the full
moon like a peach and have
sunlight
for breakfast

craaaaaaaaaaaaaazy night of poems so slamming the guillotine would be put to shame, those kids were sharp, tore it up like janet jackson's right cup, words so tight jay-z would be inspired to come out of retirement. and to think i even thought about skipping out on the night to work on my paper. jason bayani dreams of a woman with lips of mercy and jose of all four girls from the movie blue crush (even the one who's still in high school.) jimmy almost made me cry twice on two different verses. look for his bright red-purple face in a crowd of pile diving poets. congratulations to all. to all those who missed it: it was unbelievable. the last poem of the night left the crowd as orphans, desperately holding onto themselves and unable to utter another word.

it was gorgeous. good night.

i can name j lo's ex boyfriend but i can't name my own congress person.

must watch soon: bruno bozzetto's "allegro non troppo," alejandro gonzález iñárritu's "21 grams," nathaniel kahn's "my architect"

must listen to soon: dj danger mouse's "grey album," finger bangers' "virus," dizzee rascal's "boy in da corner"

must read soon: krs-one's "ruminations," haruki murakami's "wind up bird chronicles"

movies watched over the weekend: "fog of war: eleven lessons from the life of robert s. mcnamara" (d: errol morris), "suicide club" (d: shion sono), and "the happiness of the katakuris" (d: takashi miike)

music listened to over the weekend: nada surf's "let go," notwist's "neon golden," digable planets' "blowout comb," the beatles' "rubber soul," fugazi's "13 songs," the smiths' "queen is dead," the shins' "oh, inverted world," lovage's "so how's your girl," the stranglers' "rattus norvegicus," doves' "last broadcast," air's "talkie walkie," and mixtapes by jimmy and s.

weekend reading: "coin locker babies" by ryu murakami, "white on rice" (part 1) by adrian tomine, res and fhm magazines, and the 1922 montgomery ward catalogue.

aren't weekends great

jaylee's ode to a loved one's mind (he has a line along the words "she mind fucks so good she could make an atheist drop to his knees and worship the holy ghost") blows me away. jason mateo echoes 2pac when he admits he probably won't start the revolution but he wants to spark the minds that do. jin talks about nothing really but i admit he does have one nice line ("we should ride the train for free/we built these railroads.") i wonder if korean american leonardo nam will get with scarlett johansson in the upcoming "perfect score."

strange how people in real life comment about things you wrote in your blog less than 24 hours ago.

adrian tomine just released part one of his three part "asian american" optic nerve epic. epic is way too lofty a word. everyday is more like it... and i mean everyday with all the beauty that it implies. can't wait until part two. was it hypocritical of me to call indiana jones and the temple of doom racist but not lost in translation? jimmy and i practiced poems in 145 dwinelle tonight for a while. we will probably never perform on these dwinelle stages again.

what are you thinking when you stop believing rabbits can come out of hats, birds can soar out of shirt sleeves, and beauty can stride out of a mirror to waltz with you

song: pixies' "hey"

i've found things that i would die for here.

so junichi not only hooks me up with a dope mixtape, he delivers some excellent news that could potentially save the SASC concert. junichi gets the person of the day award. no wait, today is cyrus' birthday. cyrus gets the person of the day award! cyrus! cyrus! way to rock the ukulele.

to s: thank you for the cd with hamster llamas all over them.

taquiera cancun on the mission makes everything better.

don't you get the feeling that once you've been to one api issues conference you've been to them all? there is a vital reason why we have annual api issues conferences (not to keep all of us student-activists busy every spring) and that's the crucial duty of digging deep into what's new this year, to look back at history through the new lens of today, to interpret the news and the media and see our own reflections in them. how can students feel that talking about the war on terror is beyond us, too complex, too foreign, too abstract and not about us? if we feel that way, what's the point of an undergrad degree if we can't even read the news properly?

just whining. the meeting went well though.

oh, and how am i supposed to raise funds for a fundraiser?

quiet grey day.

not much to note. did a lot of reading and studying. my book case collapsed on me. good thing i didn't leave my camera on top of it. cleaning up the debris now.

so sorry jerry killed his blog today.

these past two nights have been jay gatsy dreams, roaming on penthouse rooftops mid-drift between the pink lights of drunken little italy and the casual flirting of tipsy stars, climbing fire escapes like fire, throwing it down for shrimps as big as corn dogs, trays of sashimi, and downing raging bulls and screwdrivers like holy water, the luxury of disco noir, the digital double vision of ming and ping, i'm moved like seasick busrides, pages on murakamis at japanese bookstores, and shabu shabu spitfire water, we're lost in translation