For new readers (all 2 of you) and old readers (hi mom!), some background: I used to write about things I disliked in this space, and called it a series entitled “Sorry, You Suck” – but I’m switching the style. In my very last haterific edition of that series, I proclaimed ultimate suckage for myself and am now implementing a whole new M.O. here.

From now on, I’m gonna try talk about stuff I love. Solid.

Back in the day. Ice-T released a song called “99 Problems,” in which he talks about being a pimp and how various women in his employ – many referred to as “b-tch” – are not causing him problems. So the Jay-Z song of the same name uses a clever turn of phrase that is really not that clever after all, using each verse to refer to someone or something as a “b-tch,” but none of those times refers to a woman, instead it’s the music industry, a female police dog, and punk dudes. And while this does not represent a perfect upending of misogyny in our culture, it does indicate something.

On a meta level, it’s as though Jay is challenging the listener to hear the word “b-tch” and not assume its most sexist meaning; maybe it works, and maybe it doesn’t exactly work. Regardless, it can be seen as a response to the popular claim (made mostly by people who have never actually listened to hip hop) that rap music is all about b-tch this and b-tch that. Jay-Z was very aware of his standing as one of the few rappers mainstream America had heard of, so it was as though he wanted this song to be derided by cultural critics who would proclaim his sexism, only to be able to turn around and say I wasn’t talking about women; if you think that, maybe you’re the one with misogyny issues.

Clumsy as it may be, it’s an authentic attempt to stand up for hip hop culture by someone who was probably its best spokesman because he could speak the language of corporations and men in suits. (Check out his recent appearances on Letterman and Oprah if you don’t believe me.)

In addition, this track was produced by the one and only Rick Rubin, a producer who has worked with plenty of hip hop legends like LL Cool J, Run-DMC, and the Beastie Boys, but also with the most highly-regarded white folks in the industry like Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Mick Jagger, and the Beastie Boys. In the documentary/concert film “Fade to Black,” we learned Jay recorded the whole joint in Rick Rubin’s West Coast mansion all surrounded by like bear statues and palm trees and Mike D of the Beastie Boys.

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No I didn’t forget I did this movie, but many of you would be forgiven if you didn’t believe me because it has only screened in a few places. Although those places are really big places, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City…still, I don’t blame you for having doubts.

Well, this fall, The Humberville Poetry Slam is gonna be hitting mad more festivals, so DC, Toronto, Philly, San Diego, and the desert – you have no more excuses. Info below.

The 10th San Diego Asian Film Festival
(Oct. 15-29, 2009) – San Diego, CA
Schedule & tickets


Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival (sponsored by HBO)
(Oct. 9-11, 2009) – Philadelphia, PA

Schedule & tickets)


Albuquerque Poetry-Film Festival
(Nov. 9-11) – Albuquerque, NM
The Guild Cinema

The DC APA Film Festival
(Oct. 7, 2009) – Washington, DC
Schedule & tickets

Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival
(Nov. 11-15) – Toronto, Canada
Schedule & tickets

You could see him almost every morning going on a walk through Chinatown with his sister – he was just dedicated to the neighborhood his entire life. He passed away yesterday at the age of 90. Click here to read his obituary from the Boston Globe.

Also, check out this fun video from a few years back of him telling the story of growing up in Chinatown, being surrounded by bootleggers!

There’s been a lot of talking about how inappropriate Wilson was the other night, but I haven’t heard that much talking about how inaccurate he was. Olbermann went in on him on both counts.

Your comments were inappropriate and regrettable and wrong! You got up in front of the world, embarrassed your district, embarrassed your state, embarrassed your party, embarrassed your nation, shouted at the President like he was a referee at a ballgame and you were a drunk in the stands, and you were wrong.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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:

What up world?

I’m still kinda mortified of actually seeing myself acting in a movie. But there are a couple of upcoming screenings of this flick, and I gotta be at one of them. It would be weird to just know it’s screening in my time zone and not make any effort to see it. I have been hearing good feedback from others who have caught it, so shoot, I want to see what the fuss is about…

So folks in New York and surrounding areas, here’s info for one screening in Chinatown and one in Long Island.

Without a Paddle Film Festival
July 18 // 12:30 AM (yes that says AM)
The Creek, 10-93 Jackson Ave
Long Island City, NY
For more information follow this link.

Asian American Int’l Film Festival // “Fun and Fantasy” shorts package
(I’m planning to be here…)
July 26 // 2:15 PM
Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street
Manhattan, NY
For more information follow this link.

Before Biggie and Pac or Nas and Jay-Z or, uh, Lupe Fiasco and the Internets, there was Prince and Michael Jackson. Contemporaries who were both far more extraordinary than anyone else in their orbit; so naturally they clashed.

I don’t think they ever made nice and got along. (So if it ever comes down to it, know that I ride or die with Prince.) Nevertheless, I am also a MJ fan, I think I just forgot. It’s only last week that I decided to revisit his music, and it made me wonder why I had been away for so long. It’s honestly harder than I thought it would be to listen to his music – no matter how happy it all sounds, it still feels a little sad.

So, since I recently did a Top 10 Prince list, it’s only right…

One caveat: I’m using any song where Mike sang lead vocals, so that includes songs with the Jackson 5/Jacksons.

In descending order (scroll to the bottom for an imeem.com playlist, if you have an imeem account, you can hear every song.):

10. She’s Out of My Life (1979)
OK, so I’m going to start this list talking about Prince, but I’m not trying to be tacky. I think what always appealed to me about Prince was how nakedly he bared himself in music. Michael felt to me the opposite, that he was an amazing songwriter, but that his songs were not all autobiographies of pieces of his soul. That may be unfair, but that’s how he felt to me.

But this song came early in his solo career, maybe before he became more guarded about his privacy. And the connection between the song and the voice – and the specificity, like saying “2 years” – manifests itself in dude obviously crying at the end, you can hear it as he sings. So…yeah, I always give props to songs that feature crying.

9. Rock With You (1979)
I love the way this joint starts, that little tingly googly sounding note that slithers up and down. Don’t that sound like a musical representation of closing your eyes and throwing your head to the side? And in case you don’t think so, Michael tells you in the first line: girl, close your eyes…

8. Billie Jean (1982)
At the time, I had absolutely no idea that this song was about denying fathering a groupie’s baby. Crazy! How come parents didn’t make a big deal about this? And I didn’t fully grasp the story until probably a couple years ago, because of the multiple meanings of the word “baby.” It’s pretty scandalous!

Even though he was already a star, why do I feel like this was when he started to become Michael Jackson, you know? The vocal style, the fashion sense, and the dance style started to become really specifically him.

7. The Way You Make Me Feel (1987)
I remember watching this video and thinking that girl he was harassing on the street was gorgeous. I also remember thinking he should not be harassing her in the street. I also remember thinking that he was not very threatening, so maybe that was cool.

But that beat was hot, it kept ambling steadily forward as if chased by the vocals. Mad 80s but mad futuristic. I wished I was a grown-up so I could jack Michael’s swagger and kick it to ladies. I had outlandish goals.

Read the rest of this entry »

When I was 6 or 7, my dad bought a cassette tape at the mall while we waited for my mom and sister. We sat in the Cutlass and grooved to it.

Come on and do the love dance…

Around that same age, I watched the Jackson 5 cartoon on Saturday mornings. There was an episode where they were drafted into the Army and I think they ran away when they wanted to shave their Afros. There was something about peeling potatoes.

His hair caught fire shooting a commercial.

I’d cover my eyes when I went to my friend Tufu’s house because his sister had a “Thriller” poster on her door and the zombies scared me. The video did more than scare me; I feel like it taught me how to be afraid.

He invited Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, and Dan Akroyd (?) and others to record the greatest song ever in history. Looking back, it’s still really impressive.

A few years later, “Bad” came out in stores. Wesley Snipes was in the video, and I was surprised that Michael was playing a high school student. Prince said Michael called it “Bad” because “Terrible” wouldn’t fit on the album cover.

I fell in love with the girl in the music video for “The Way You Make Me Feel.” But even at 10 years old, I knew “Moonwalker” made no sense.

I’m gonna make a change for once in my life…

I grew older. Michael’s videos were on after “In Living Color” for some reason. He smashed a car. He yelled. He touched his crotch from outside his black jeans. It was on CNN.

There was a video with Michael Jordan, Heavy D, and Kris Kross. Michael (not Jordan) drop-kicked a basketball backwards into a hoop. Seriously.

Naomi Campbell. If the phrase “FTW” had existed then, I would have said it.

“Remember the Time” had a goofy video. But the song made me wish I was 25 so I could understand it. Now I understand it and almost wish I didn’t.

“An American Dream” – a mini-series about the Jacksons – aired on ABC. Vanessa Williams played Suzanne What’shername. Freddy Boom Boom played Joe Jackson. Angela Basset played Mom (and Betty Shabazz the same year) – and Boyz II Men played bullies from the neighborhood. I identified with Michael. His only friend as a kid was a mouse.

“Human Nature” was sampled on Illmatic.

I have a skin disorder…

Jacko molested kids. Did he? Yeah he definitely did. No he didn’t. I bet he did. No. No he’s a target. No, he’s just sick.

There was a marriage to Elvis’s daughter; that was unexpected. They divorced; that was expected.

Then a double album. New stuff and old stuff. All of it was great. People made a big deal over the fact that like a million dollars were spent making the music video for “Scream” – the duet with Janet. But the video was cool, and that song was not recognized for the instant classic it should have been.

Who is Debbie Rowe? So are his kids white or black? I’m sorry, did he just name his son Prince?

You rock my world…

We were all reminded that parents on balconies shouldn’t hold their children on said balcony. More accusations. Chris Rock said he showed up to court looking like Cap’N Crunch. He danced on top of a car; he didn’t seem entirely well.

I set “PYT” as the ringtone on my cell phone when my wife calls. And only my wife.

He danced with N*SYNC at some award show. People made pedophile jokes.

He said he slept with young kids. He said it on tape. He said he just wanted to share love. He may have been lying; he may have been telling the whole truth.

He moved to Dubai. He went bankrupt. He said he meant to book 2 shows in London, not 50.

He had a heart attack. He died.

None of these memories are facts i looked up on the Internet. These are just the things I remember. And I could stay here another two hours and not run out of more things I remember. Who’s Annie? Flirting with his sister in the video with Paul McCartney. White socks. Sidewalk lighting up underfoot. Yeah he starred in a video game too. Is that him singing backup for Rockwell? He poked fun at himself in Men in Black 2. My aunt said “look at the way he spins!” and I looked.

He was a headline and a punchline his whole life. We all remember.

But there’s so much we forget. Like when he was no older than 10, how could he pack so much pain into his voice? Whooooo’s loooooooving youuuuuuu. How could any ten-year-old understand heartache and loneliness like that? Or was he just channeling all the hurt he’d feel over the next four decades?

Did he spend his whole adult life trying to find a childhood?

Michael Jackson was far from perfect. As flawed as any other human being is. Maybe more so.

But he was still a human being. So let’s just honor that and give him a chance to finally get some peace.

Never can say goodbye, no no no.