Russell Peters + Mr Choe

Hung out with Russell Peters and David Choe. They're definitely brothers from different mothers. Meanwhile, the magazine issue 53 is at a later stage. David fresh back from his home away from home, and Mr Peters about to strike the big awards show in him homeland, Canada. It was Asian jokes of all sorts for a while especially because we ate curry.

Clippers tickets tonite against the MAVS - gone

Clippers tickets who wants them. 3 seats good location, sec 111, which puts you down low. Parking in lot 8. It's all that you need. 3 tickets. If you want them, you have to pick them up.

sorry folks tickets gone in about 2 minutes.

Marine?

Remember the marine I blogged a bunch and who was on the news and wanted for murder? See how we all forgot about him, and he's still on the loose somewhere maybe in Mexico, maybe not? Everyone figured he was going to get caught, but that MacGyver in him has probably given him a few extra months. That said, here's the old story about him. Will it be this year when he's caught? Or is he going to be somewhere far away with a new family, identity, and name? Eventually, someone will find "fugitive island" where the all of the wanted folks will be found. In a sick way, I wanted him to get away just to show people that, if you're smart you can beat the law, like Prison Break, but this guy is wanted for murder, it's real life. Time to catch him.

RIP Dith Pran

Dith Pran is the dude the movie The Killing Fields was based on, and I'm not talking about Pol Pot. He was played by Haing Ngor who won an Oscar for Best Supporting role, and the movie chronicles him getting out of Cambodia when Pol Pot went ape shit and started his killing spree. I remember as a kid, how freaked out I was seeing that film, and I remember the Oscar awards show, which was touching. Although I never met Dith Pran, we were in the same line of work. Yeah, he was a photographer and a journalist of slightly different nature, at the New York Times.

There's still a generation of folks in America who have seen the worst horror, and they're blended into our society. You don't hear about them or from them...

How Pol Pot got away with his war crime, I have no idea. The freaky thing, although not more than death of millions by ethnic cleansing in Cambodia, is that Dith Pran's friend, Sydney Schanberg was played by Sam Waterston, the prosecutor Jack McCoy on Law and Order! John Malkovich played a third friend in that movie. On a continuing side note, Amadeus won the Best Picture, Ghostbusters won nothing, and Karate Kid's Pat Morita righteously got beat out by Ngor. Two Asian Americans up for an Oscar in 1984, that's crazy.

Dith Pran died in New Jersey, and left behind a family, who I'm sure are proud of his accomplishments.

Read about it better on the ABC news site.

Patagonia Santa Monica store art show

Art show at Patagonia? Sure why not. Shops are doing it these days, and that doesn't exclude a shop as large as Patagonia. How would it work? The art is by Kitty Botke, Jeremy Collins, Chris DelMoro, Peter McBride, Nikki McClure, Geoff McFetridge, Jason Munn, Jason Stowell. Patagonia has the power to actually make this work, even without a real art space. How? Easels, small wall space, but integrated product, a warm and friendly environment, snacks, Honest tea, music, and that's good enough. Yes I picked up a few shirts.

Nikki McClure art. This is an important piece by her.
Recognize it? There were a few Nikki t shirts which are nice.

Geoff McFetridge. He's been doing shirts with Patagonia for a while now, and they're always great, and they're $29 which is a good price for the quality you're getting. No, his art work wasn't for sale.

Another important Nikki piece.

Live Simply by Geoff. Yes I picked one of these up but in Green.

Live music

That's the postcard drawing.

Whoa, that's the cover of his zine book

work by Jason Munn

The window of the shop.

Got Ganked. Mystery meet ID help?

Today I was eating chicken tacos and our order from Tacos LaFlama had a box of three extra tacos in it. Martin told Brian who's helping in the office that it's tripe! Brian walked in and said, guess what? We got bonus free Tri-tip tacos. I was thinking awesome, Tri-tip... Then on closer inspection, this was entirely something else. I ate one, and now a couple hours later, I'm feeling something in my stomach. What is this? We've come to a conclusion that it's either brain, definitely not tongue, cabesa (head) meat? It didn't stink like liver and they don't have that on their menu... it was soft, so that rules out tongue. It wasn't smelly or anything... so I'm not quite sure. It's a bit on the spongy side. Any clue?

GR X MM

I guess we're guilty of the X thing by neck-deep.com. We don't get press often for our products even though we've made a ton, and keep working on projects. But here's one and it's funny. My friend Kohei is the man behind Mountain Mountain, and I am proud that the shirt came out alright. That's Serina in the photo on left giving the salute.

Take a look at the pic and the link at neck-deep.com

Pho 99

Westside pho? Yes, it does exist. Some people go to Le Saigon or Phoreign, but I think one place does pho closer to how it's supposed to be done by leaps and bounds compared to the other two. It's tucked away near Baja Buds, and pretty much hidden by a Chinese buffet spot, it's Pho 99. They have everything. It's a one stop shop of all that is Vietnamese, which makes it generic, but it's also the westside of LA where this stuff shouldn't even exist. The pho shown above is medium size and is 6.95. High for pho, I know, but it's pho nonetheless. Is it kick ass like what you get, when you hit the south bay? No, but see the tripe? Their everything pho is pretty good, and with the basil, lime, and beansprouts, it's like how it's supposed to be. You even have to pay at the counter. That's OG.

11819 Wilshire Blvd
Suite 106B
West Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 312-7881

Bobby Duong

Bobby Duong makes cakes. This is a gigantic mother lode of cupcakes he generously brought over. On the left is the plain cake, then chocolate, then strawberry, and lemon merengue. So good, so nice, and they weren't heavy at all. You can even eat two no problem.

Souther man redux

This is what an unfinished painting looks like by Souther. Is this a total bust or what? But in other circles, people will probably pay big bucks for the geometric abstraction he has going on. You can see what's going to happen. Below is cool, that's his studio. The painting higher up, that cat, is the left part of a large work he did. I have the middle. And my friend Diana has the right part. The three piece will or may never go back together again. But who knows. Reunions are in right now.

Short film by CAAM

A pretty cool interactive "film" got made just during the Toyota Matrix outdoor event. It's a simple idea, and the results become cool interactive content. It's great how an isight can become the medium in which you can put together a documentary of sorts. The folks had a questionnaire that you answer on video isight, and wallah, they put it together and now it's a film.

LA Times. LA Now Blog

Oh my the words will continue in the comments section at the LA Times post. The intelligent Quotient will vary, but the stupid ass to a moderately smart person who probably is on par with the 5th grade reading level that's used in print. I think GR at times, is at 3rd grade, but who's counting. Check out the LA Times blog of it. We're getting a few emails here and there, nothing too much. I especially like the folks who try and dismiss the affects of Long Duk Dong without having any experience living through that. Sure, I'm fine now, and I don't really give a shit, nor do I think about LDD at all anymore, but for a while, it was tormenting. You might think, what's the big deal? But imagine if you did the same to an African American character, ala Gods Must Be Crazy?

Donger online at NPR All Things Considered...

The story of Donger surfaces once again. It's been decades, but even now it sort of affects us. It's nearly gone, and most people you ask, if they're young have no idea who he is and what the film is about. There's already two generations of teenager movies which have come and gone, but this one still hits below the belt. The weird thing is that John Hughes should get the finger, not just Gedde. Thanks Alison MacAdam for helping us relive it one more time! The audio won't be up until later today. I'll add the link later.

If you want to see the link. Then go here.

Easter 2008

That's cousin Michelle with Sofia or is it Sophia with boxing gloves. You won't see babies here too often, but this one was funny. What's up with the boxing gloves? Also is she going to be called Sofie as a nickname?

baby coma - sleepy sleep - yes, I'm lame enough to have timed it with an intriguing image on the TV set. What does it mean?

food coma - sleepy sleep. That piece of stained glass is from way way back in my life. My mom got into stained glass, and it's really expensive to get it custom made, so she found a hobbyist who did it on the side for fun. So she had him make a bunch of pieces and they look good to me. How did my mom know that whales would be so cool more than 20 years later?

That's Eugenia sitting in some yoga pose. I've seen the fighter Rickson Gracie do this move on the beach.

That's cousin Jon. He won a tennis tournament today. Kind of a piece of shit trophy for playing a bunch of matches in near 100 degree heat in the San Fernando Valley. Jon's shirt is super loud, isn't it? Why are some articles of clothing that's tennis related so weird looking? I can't see this as being the cool vintage re-release in 15 years. His hat isn't that cool either. Jon's the type of guy who just wouldn't care that much, since he's the guy with the trophy and the national ranking. If you give him some wood, he'll build you a cabinet.

Jimmy Tsai x Jessica Yu x Ping Pong Playa

I've been doing interviews for the Directorschairsite.com. Some of you know about it. This is one I did with Jimmy Tsai the star of Ping Pong Playa, a Jessica Yu film. See the interview here. And click around I did all of the live interviews and some of the written content.

Foot pain

Those are my feet. They may look like other people's feet, but these are mine. I shall care for them including feet massage for a better tomorrow. I may be able to walk a bit further, or climb that extra step, or put my foot into one more person's ass when needed with the extra care. I'm glad I cut my toe nails, they were long.

The pain. Yes, it hurts pretty bad. Pain in my foot? And it might be because of bad digestion? I just ate lunch and maybe I had some gas. How did they know by pushing my foot? Ancient Chinese Secret! That's what it is.

Long Duk Dong on All things.

NPR's All Things Considered this coming Monday. There'll be a story about Long Duk Dong. Maybe this is the end of it finally. Let's hope. Martin and I have some words in the story, so tune into NPR. They said it's probably going to be 10 minutes to the hour on one of the hours of the two hour show.

Check out this sound bite.

Sir Souther Salazar

I haven't seen this gent in a long time. And I'll admit, that this is one of the worst photos I could have taken of him. But I think it's all I got. We ate at the Blue Hen in Eagle Rock after I got my automobile serviced. The Blue Hen is pretty good. I ate the curry and it was nice. We'll get the Sculpey Kids back in order very soon.

Adrian Tomine on the cover of the New Yorker again...

3af and the ride back

I spoke in a room just like this. Actually it was this one... a ton of folks, sitting at round tables, and I was actually interviewed one on one. It's not supposed to be creative... I hope people understood it all. I know many specialize in the foreign language market, as in ads that go into let's say a Vietnamese newspaper. Do they understand the world of Giant Robot? Do they care? I'm not sure. Perhaps 25% care about it and the 75 leftover just sat and listened politely. For some it's their job to be there. For others, it's their future.

Take a look at the airport. This is nuts. Casino at the bottom on the way out, and masses of people on top. This airport is more crowded than LAX. That's Vegas, it's a place I seldom visit and who knows when I'll be back.

Fortune cookies

Killing of a Chinese cookie. The documentary is out in select places, mostly in the Asian American film festival circuit. Derek Shimoda is a funny dude, and he interviewed me a while ago for it. I didn't feel like I knew much at all about it, but lo and behold I must have said funny things since I was complimented a lot on it. I hope it does well.

Check out the trailer here
Read at article about it here

Pop culture slots

McGee Rojas

The machine keeps rolling with Barry McGee and Clare Rojas, but throw in Pettibon, and it's going to be great. Jon Roach and Dan Nguyen... good luck. I don't know your work,
but what's there will be tough to beat. This is at Riverside Museum Beginning March 30 where you can see Clare turn into Peggy Honeywell... It'll be a hot ticket.

Vega$

Yes, I'm on my way to Vega$ to do a talk. It's been a while since I've been there, but this should be neat. I've only heard stories via David Choe as to what happens there. And I guess yes, things do stay there, and only rumors make it out at best. We'll see what happens. Will I gamble? Last time I did I won $100 in quarters.

Young Dong / Explosions in the Sky

Yung Dong restaurant serves a slow cooked beef soup. As Jonathan Gold said, "pho is the best one" but this one is pretty good too. The name alone elicits great laughs, so it was a must try. The deal is, it's a Korean soup spot and the waitress walks up and says something like "first time?" We answer yes, and it's practically a nod of disapproval. She seems keen on explaining what were in for as if maybe we don't want to be there. The soup comes flavorless and it's your job to add salt, pepper, chilis, and kimchi style juice to make the soup better. I got oxtail soup and the waitress said good choice. The banchan, is basically kimchi, and it's actually good because you get the radish type along with the cabbage. The green onion, I have no idea what to do with. They give you scissors to cut it down to bite size pieces. The oxtail is great, the sauce you get is tasty, and it's a good call. But, I still think Soontofu will beat this.

3828 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA, 90010 (213) 386-3729

We got a tutorial from the waitress. See the sauce container with the chilis in it? That big vat of green onions is to put into the soup when it's hot. The banchan comes in that metal container. See that tea kettle? It's filled with kimchee juice.

Explosions in the Sky is the best band of the moment. They don't have vocals, but they do rock the Friday Night Lights music. I don't know how long people will love them when they don't sing songs, but I hope it's a while. Live, these dudes rock harder than you'd think. The rad thing about them playing at the Wiltern is the pre or post Korean food.