Last week was loaded with all kinds of bad things among people very close to me. Luckily, we’ve come out on the other side of it, and are miraculously relatively unscathed. So what better time than now to throw up some more movie reviews. Bang. Watch out for spoilers; that’s your only warning.

Superbad
I had thought this looked good when it first came out. You know how it can be for bro-mance films. Anyway, I never saw it because I was scared it would be racist. It’s weird, a lot of movies I want to see, I end up avoiding because I’m scared it’s going to be racist and make me really mad. This had all the makings of subtle racism: the nearly all-white cast, the juvenile humor, and the subpar acting. Lo and behold, I don’t remember there being anything very offensive. Hooray for you Superbad! Weird that all a Hollywood production needs to do for some kudos is to not be too racist.

Regardless, only one scene was laugh out loud funny to me – when dude is in the room and those older bros come in doing lines, then notice him in there. And they think he’s another guy who’s a really good singer, so Michael Cera starts singing. I fell out over how into it the other dudes got.

What you were expecting some film theory or something?

Pineapple Express
Surprise surprise kids, I don’t get high. So I was skeptical going into this movie because I was concerned it was going to be only jokes that are funny to stoned people. Un/Fortunately, I was wrong. The jokes were not funny to any people. The one character I thought was really good was the Danny Mcbride character Red. I liked how he used the phrase “bros before hoes” twice in the same movie, and both times it was totally wrong for the context.

I wish they had kind of gotten a little deeper into the fact that they constantly referred to the rival gang as “The Asians.” Only once did a character go, “what kind of Asian?” Like, so they were Korean, but for a movie that actually cast a bunch of Koreans to play Koreans, they may as well have acknowledged that they had done something right.

The Nine Lives of Marion Barry
Marion Barry has been a polarizing figure during my lifetime, but more recently, he’s been treated like a punchline. Here’s the truth: he was a community organizer from the streets, who rode the support of regular people in DC to the mayor’s office because he wanted the poor and underrepresented to have a say in their own city’s governance. The fact he’s been down so many times and continues to get up, is an inspiration for the people of DC.

But he’s a story because, as my friend Neel says, “he’s a really intelligent man with a ridiculous amount of character flaws.”

This documentary was great to me, but probably because I’m sympathetic to Barry’s plight. For those who hate him, this is probably not the movie for them.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
A little too precious and a little self-consciously hip, but overall I enjoyed it. Norah’s friend character was grating, but served her purpose for the plot. Aside from her, and the title characters, and possibly Nick’s two homies, the other characters were very poorly developed, and were pretty obviously there to be a part of Nick & Norah’s story. That’s kind of annoying if you allow it to be, but I chose not to.

But I’m kinda wondering when Michael Cera is gonna jump the shark.

X-Men
I saw X-Men 3 – totally awful – but never saw the first one until recently. I guess it was OK.

Definitely, Maybe
So does Ryan Reynolds act or simply exist? He is a delivery vehicle for the story and superior performances in this film, kind of like cupcakes for frosting.

Isla Fisher owns this movie. I’ve seen her in other flicks, but I didn’t know she was this good. I am now motivated to see every movie she’s done.

I am not averse to date movies or so-called chick flicks. This – even with Reynolds kind of moping his way through the whole thing – is pretty fun front to end. There are some inconsistencies in plot details but oh well, that was a small price to pay for the happy ending.

When I first started blogging here, it was a two birds, one stone kind of thing. One reason is that I hoped it would give people a reason to keep coming back to my website, and keep me in the minds of people who might potentially book me for a show. It’s more business-oriented than I usually am, but it’s easier than cold-calling. (Which I did as a job when in college, and which is no fun.)

The other reason was that I have a lot of thoughts that I need space to process, and sometimes those thoughts are processed in the form of poems, and sometimes I just throw blog posts up.

So early on, I started writing this feature called Sorry, You Suck, because I’m a hater. I wanted to use this Internets forum to tell the world how bad certain folks and things annoyed me. But what I was really doing was telling the world how much of a sucka I am.

Because when it comes down to it, I’m no better than any of the folks I’ve been hating on. I just got wrapped in being petty, when the truth is I’ve made more mistakes in my life than I can remember. And if I could remember all of them, they’d be too numerous to count. So who am I to believe I hold moral authority over anyone?

It’s fun to be petty and it’s easy to hate on shit. It’s a lot more difficult, emotionally-draining, and time-consuming to engage with ideas and arguments in any kind of meaningful and authentic way. What’s weird is that I know this, man: I have been trying to live my life as nuance for a long time. I have long aimed to be non-judgmental, and only interact with people in the way that makes sense based on how they interact with me. The problem is I don’t know Glenn Beck or anything about horse racing. What I do know I tend to not feel too good about, but do I know enough to say anything really?

Or to put it another way: would I appreciate it if someone caught 15 minutes of one of my shows and pronounced all over the Internets that I sucked?

I guess what I’m saying is I’ve been acting like the exact people I’ve been criticizing. I’ve been too closed-minded – too much just going for a laugh or a clever comment so folks will go “OH SNAP!” like Biz Markie when he saw that guy tongue-kissing his girl.

So, I’m no longer proclaiming that people and things suck. From now on, I’m gonna share things I love. So all those that I have dubbed as sucky, I hereby withdraw my proclamation.

(Except Miss Saigon. Fcuk you.)

Ten years ago today, Joseph Ileto was murdered by a white supremacist while delivering mail in Southern California.

Sometimes, it’s hard to trace the impact of any monumental event on one person’s life. But it may be easier for me in this case, for reasons I’ll explain here.

Ten years ago today I was in my final week as an intern at the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) in Washington, DC. In general, that experience was life-changing for many reasons, but to put it very succinctly, I learned we are never alone. (If you want to talk more about this, holla via email.)

So on Tuesday of my final week in the office, we were kind of just goofing off all day. (I honestly remember it was a Tuesday, without having to look it up.) And I remember hearing the news that a Filipino American postal worker had been shot and killed as part of a racist shooting rampage. It definitely shattered the loose vibe we were cultivating there, and as we learned more details, I prepared myself to draft the agency’s public response. (Of the six interns in the office that summer, I had established my niche as the one who wanted to write press releases and such.)

And as I sat at the computer, facing something so much more serious than I wanted to be facing at that time, a sense of purpose overcame me. Over the previous 9 weeks, I had felt so supported and loved by people I met from across the country, from different campuses that I had never been to; I was new to this world, I had no plans beyond that summer, whereas a lot of other interns were mapping out law school or their careers. I was – for lack of a better phrase – a scrub compared to all of them. And during this time, I had learned that no matter how unsupported or beaten down I felt, there was always going to be hundreds of others feeling that same way, fighting the same fights. And that even if I never met them, they were my support. I would never have to meet them, I’d just have to believe they existed.

And so typing out the date on that blank Microsoft Word document, I felt that I could return some of that love and support to Joseph and his family. This was bound to be my final real work of the summer, I should put everything I had into it. And I truly did, I can relive that moment like it happened yesterday. I remember typing the gunman’s name (which I still remember but won’t type here) and thinking his name sounded like a white supremacist’s name, all awkward consonant sounds and long vowels jumping on each other. The day is still one of the most vivid days in my memory. (more…)

Got this from the Andrew Sullivan blog, after seeing it on the Ta-Nehisi Coates one:

“In an effort to honor the life and service of Strom Thurmond, Senator Lott made some comments that he probably wishes he had phrased differently. I do not believe Senator Lott meant to be malicious or racist with the comments he made. I believe he was merely honoring a great American on his 100th birthday [...] I do not believe he harbors racist sentiments in his heart,” – Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), December 13, 2002.

“There is no other way you can interpret [Sotomayor's "wise Latina" speech]. She thinks that a woman with her experience can make a better conclusion than a white male – and to me, I consider that racist,” – Inhofe, August 4, 2009.

Bonus:

I had the pleasure of seeing Roger Bonair-Agard perform this piece at Amherst College several years ago. I like to use its written form in workshops to start a discussion about word choice. Absolutely phenomenal poem: