jumping back into blogspot to catalog things i make and imagine and dream about

i've been in a whirlwind directing my first music video since luc was a baby - it's for a wonderful kpop band. feeling vulnerable feeling fresh, gotta push it forward  

i'm back from a wonderful trip to vietnam, drifting across saigon, reuniting with old friends (hi chuong, toshi) and meeting some great new ones. the filmmaking world in saigon is warm, embracing this lost soul with beers, hugs, and deep fried frogs.

i'm touched by the kindness of the creative souls here, i'm touched by my cousins who insist on taking me out to dinner and to lunch and to coffee and to dinner and to lunch and to coffee day after day, for the long stories a celebrity tells me, for the comic book recommendations, and, most of all, the chance for luc to meet his ancestors.

thank you vietnam, for being my home after i've been gone for so long

it's my show, i hear, i got your back

just have to find a way to rise up to this moment

had brunch with p the dp. very insightful and inspiring. our career struggles we're all young and we're always just the beginning.

thai omelette and comic book. "the sculptor" by mccloud. always wanted to read this.

c drives all the way to meet me at a korean coffee shop. we talk about casting. i'm worried about one of my actors. she gives good advice. i wish i got her advice sooner. i keep things in too often.

m calls me while i'm watching game of thrones.

i call her right back... i go outside for some privacy. walk around in my socks through the wet crass and concrete. a helicopter flies across the night sky, documenaing a car chase. she gets super deep... we talk about spirituality and life and children and "nana." i'm lucky to work with such giving artists

when i was lost i listened to "a tribe called quest" and felt found

rest in power to phife dawg

woke up late this afternoon, around 1:30 pm. my brother woke me up. i asked what time it was and he joked that it was 8 am. been up all night making weird SFX graphics and patterns for a new film, KTC.

groggy, i check my phone. i have a text from SG, my colorist for IDB. he wants me to come by Warner Bros to look at the film. we have a big meeting on monday and i should get ready for it.

RL also texted me this morning about a bachelor party. i don't text back yet. schedule is changing so fast, not sure if i can go yet.

on the drive to burbank, i think about asian american cinema, how i haven't done much as a filmmaker yet in terms of representing exploring asian american life or issues...  i'm disappointed in myself. this filmmaking life... it's a process, i tell myself ... and i'll get there.

watching IDB in the color labs of WB... i have a chance to not think and just watch images. it's relaxing. some scenes that i was worried about turned out fine. i think that we can do something special here.

f e-mails me two crazy scripts. one about a pop star, another about a fighter. both sound amazing.

on the drive away from WB, i decide i should blog again.

i haven't blogged in a while... maybe i can get back into this game somehow

i'm writing from my mother's house in torrance, california, it's lunar new year, and we just spent the night eating thit kho and playing poker.

i asked my mom what my real vietnamese name was today and she told me i didn't have one. she said that my dad believed a bad name would bring bad luck and he was afraid of picking the wrong one for me. so i asked my mom over lunch if she would give me a full vietnamese name and she got excited and started brainstorming ideas. "truong hoang buu" was the one she settled on.

ps my default vietnamese name before this was "vinh," based on a poem my great grandfather wrote a while back (each male descendant is named after the next word in the poem.) my mom felt my brother was more like a vinh so she wanted to give that to him instead.

pps kinda cool my mom chose "buu." "bruce" is the name my dad gave me, "booce" is what my brother used to call me as a kid, and now finally i have "buu." b

had a dream last night where i adopted Bea, one of the orphans i met in Chiang Mai this summer. she didn't like living in NY at first so i rented a motorcycle and took her out into the country side. we parked our bike on a dirt road and i carried her down a hill all the way to the ocean. it was the first time she's ever seen the Atlantic.

i woke up feeling sad that she wasn't there. i don't think i'll ever forget her.

today, drifting from spike's office of tisch, to a surprise chris rock lecture in 1027, meeting up with hye mee to talk about our agnes b commercial edit, rushing to bill reilly's memorial (heartbreaking and inspiring), walking in the rain under umbrellas to a beer and burger spot with film friends, to riding the A train to james' book release party in chinatown, to a subway car ride home to wish jean good night

an epic day, i think, i couldn't believe it.

dark, unsettling, beautiful story of revenge and redemption. gorgeous movie ... it left me at a loss, feeling somehow both at peace and haunted at the same time.

j and i watched this film tonight on netflix streaming while eating grimaldi's pizza.