I haven't posted since March...

So let me put in a random, possibly tasteless, message saying that:

Between the tragic stabbings at the Olympics, and the decapitation of a young man in Canada, it seems that Chinese people have a knack for brutality. But we already knew this given their affinity for raping Tibetan nuns with cattle prods, didn't we?

(I have some friends who are into electro-torture, but that's their S&M thing, and it involves important things like consentuality and a safe word. But anyways...)

Is Random Acts of Severe Violence a new Olympic sport -- yet another sport that China intensely pushes their athletes to excel in (treatment akin to broke-ass circus animal training) in order to boost that nationalistic sense of glory, because China so desperately wishWishWISHES they could be "1st World" country?



Beijing is ready...to stab the shit out of you, World. Let the games begin!

I love the fact

that a synth-pop band from the 80's is now a birth-control pill!

Yaz, the baby-making stopper:versus Yaz (as they were know here in the US):

Asian Dancers Be Breakin' It Down

Okay, so we got two (next to all-) Asian American dance groups leading the top ranks on MTV's American's Best Dance Crew. And, the viral videos on youtube of the dancing Filipino prisoners made its sweep through pop culture a while ago.

Well, the orange jumpsuits are back. And they are (switch to Bay Area hip hop-ism): Hella breakin it down now!



Soulja Boy, Hammer, and drill formations!

I had two moist explosions in my mouth tonight

Thanks to a trip to a sushibar for my friend Daniel-Linh's birthday. (Which, by the way, it's not good to bank of good sushi when you're in the Midwest and in a landlocked state.)

One of the things I ordered was nigiri sushi of ikura (salmon roe) with a raw quail egg on top. It's delicious; savory and little bit sweet. And the large orange balls that are the ikura just pop in gooey goodness against the tongue when you bite.

Some of Linh's friends around me were horrified by the order when it came out. They asked how I could think about eating a raw egg. And why is the color so outrageous. I told them: It's delicious. Between eating fish eggs and quail eggs: it's like two abortions going on in your mouth at the same time.

Then I did three finger snaps, in the shape of a Z.


* I stole the photo from someone's flickr page

Happy Vag-entines Day

In the words of Cartman's hand, speaking as Jennifer Lopez (pronounced Hennifer Lopez):

Taco-flavored kisses for my baby!
David made that photo. I told him it looks like he's kissing Grace Jones (with a facial hair and lighter skin).

I (Heart) David

My hands-down favorite song at the moment is "Tiger Phone Card" off of the new Dengue Fever album, Venus on Earth. It's a duet sung from the point of views of two lovers living apart, overseas.
At first, it sounds like a simple dancey number. (That's generally what you have to go on when you don't understand Khmer: just the sound of the music itself.) But "Tiger Phone Card" is one of the few DF songs that's actually sung in English, so I had to listen to it over and over again to desifer the words (the guy's singing isn't all too clear, and the girl's Khmer accent is quite thick). But having been able to sift through the lyrics, to my surprise the song turns out to be a clever modernization of a tradition Southeast Asian "I Miss You" song.

These "I Miss You" songs come from a folk tradition and are always about a woman waiting at home (while either working on the farm, or with child; and the sky is probably raining) for her lover to return (and he's usually working elsewhere to support the family, or in the army; either way, the fact is: he's not there with her). These duets pretty much just serves as a vehicle for these lovers to lament over missing one another.

"Tiger Phone Card" follows the exact same structure the "I Miss You" (or for the Vietnamese-mind, I'll call it the "Em Nho Anh, Anh Nho Em") song. One of the staples of the structure is that the beginning has to always set up I'm over here, and you're over there, and we're thinking of the other.

Now when I listen to the song, which is on heavy repeat through my speakers, it reminds me of David. We've been living apart from one another for about 2 years now (if not counting the year and half of him at UC Santa Cruz). And though we're handling distance fine--no crazy drama, thank god--it doesn't mean that being this far from each other is emotionally easy. Ever since I was able to transcribe the lyrics to "Tiger Phone Card," I can't help but convert into a trite kid who finds insight in pop music, in this homage to cheesy SE Asian love songs. The song now feels like it was designed for us (especially how the girl starts the chorus).

Tiger Phone Card lyrics (song link here)

Guy: You live in Phnom Penh
Girl: You live in New York City

Both: But I think about you so (so, so)
So much I forget to eat

Guy: It’s 4am I check my email
Girl: I’m just about to fall asleep

Both: So I write you back and forth
For days until we'll be together


[Chorus:]
Girl: The first thing that I’ll do
Both: Is throw my arms around you
Guy: And never let go
Girl: And never let go

Guy: I call you from my hotel room
I’m sitting on the hallway floor
I know that we are so (so, so)
So tired my phone card will expire.

Girl: You only call me when you’re drunk
I can tell by your voice
It’s the only time that you
open up to me
and tell me that you love me

[Chorus]

[guitar solo]

Guy: I’m 30,000 feet high
Flying through the dead of night
I took an ambient
So you can visit me in my dreams

Girl: You were red and blue lights
Floating right in front me
Your face was so (so, so)
So bright I had to close my eyes to see

[Chorus]


(Credit: I got the audio link off of The Hype Machine blog. Also note: I'm not 100% sure on all the lyrics, such as when she says "I'm about to fall asleep" to his "4am" line, since 4am in NYC would only be 4pm in Cambodia.)

Chuc mung nam moi!

Happy new year (of the rat).

I have nothing inspiring to say or wish upon folks, so I'll just quote something that the singer from Dengue Fever kept chanting at a show, which Meling and Denay find amusing:

"New money, new money, new money!...But boyfriend stay the same."