Author: F C

Hot. Hot. Hot. The news today had power outages on the 7th Avenue subway lines, power lines blowing up in Astoria, and parts of LaGuardia without power. Stayed cool by slurping a crazy sized Jamba Juice and watching Colma: The Musical again (sans technical difficulties) from a free ticket courtesy of P’s friend YKC. I think the second time around I appreciated the movie much better (seeing the first 15 minutes that actually explained Colma were probably a good idea).

Today’s Asian American Films included the Music Video Contest, which was a collection of videos made by APA’s this past year. My favorite was the Chemical Brothers (video at YouTube), which cleverly integrates a Sunday afternoon Shaolin chop-socky movie.

In between was a food interlude at Souen, a macrobiotic place down the street. It’s been there 30 years, and it still provides skillful food. We had our benchmark Chirachi-zuchi dish, which consisted of eel, salmon, and chopped tuna on a bed of brown rice and an assortment of veggies. The best part was the Japanese pickles that were used to keep up the salmon teepee in the center of the plate – so crisp and refreshing!

Afterwards, it was Colma – the Musical. The Musical Motion Picture genre makes a comeback – it’s something like a cross between Rent and Grease, set in the town of Colma, which is to San Francisco as Elizabeth is to New York – across a bay, sparsely inhabited, and full of cemetaries. The lead trio spend their post-high school lives figuring out whether they want to stay home to make their lives or to go on elsewhere. The music is catchy and infectious. There were a few technical problems by the theater when we saw it, so catch it when it comes out generally this September.

The night was capped off at the afterparty at Parkside Lounge with the Riding Motors Records Magic Mic Experience. The concept: original flavor karaoke — instead of bouncing balls and random bit actors strolling along beaches, you have a complete 10 – member superband backing you up. Need a horn section – they got it. Bongos – check. I played backup singer on Weezer’s Say It Aint So, and it’s really a completely different experience – so much of a thrill! The song list is only about 50 songs, but that is more than enough for an evening of wild entertainment. If you ever have the chance, grab the mic.

Yesterday: dinner at
Vermicelli . Good Vietnamese food, although it has a lot of Malay and Thai influences. Not bad.

Saw the New York premiere of Train Man yesterday at the Asian Film Festival. Based on a true story, it is like Six Degrees of Attraction, not separation. Japanese geek saves an office lady from being accosted by a drunk on the train, and then the rest of the movie traces the ensuing romance and the horde of Internet supporters who support him. The main character has a passing resemblance to my bro. Recommended for all otokus.

If it’s July, it’s time for the New York Asian American International Film Festival, one of our favorites. The venues include the Asia Society and Quad Cinemas on E 13th St. Of course, it’s impossible to see everything, but we’ve made a few selections. We’re watching Train Man, Music Video Showcase, Colma – the Muslcal, the 72 Hour Shootout, and American Fusion.

Save the date for the New York area Asian Alumni Picnic, Saturday, August 5, again at Van Cortlandt Park!

2 movies this extended weekend (I did work Monday, but it was bogus): “Superman Returns” and “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Superman was 2 and a half hours of pure fun, designed for the detail-oriented fan – the same demographic of “Batman Returns”. OK, Lois wasn’t that exciting – but do you really expect someone jilted for 5 years to be any other way? Some paper (I don’t remember which) mentioned Perry White’s controversial clipped quote “Truth, Justice, and all that stuff” instead of the traditional “Truth, Justice, and the American Way”. Today of all days, we are idealists and we think that all three belong together. However, I don’t think that Superman is solely for Americans today, and “original intent” be damned, even though one of Superman’s creators was Canadian. Why we need Superman (or Superperson?) more than ever? — the same reason that we need a Santa Claus: we need hope.

“An Inconvenient Truth” shows what ought to be happening with American discourse. Back in the days of Lincoln, it was not unusual for a speaker to go on tour at meeting halls around the country, having an exposition that went on for one or two hours about a topic of the day. It is difficult to criss-cross the country holiding these speeches (although Al Gore estimates that he has given his road show over 1,000 times), but this is the next best thing. Complaints that it is too much like a college lecture belies the anti-intellectual attitude that Stephen Colbert paradies; that it is too partisan the view that people ought not to have views anymore. Good job.

We spent the day making a big pot of turkey chili, and then we made our way to the Brooklyn Promenade to see the Macy’s Fireworks. I thought it was a much better view than from the FDR Drive, and you don’t have to camp out like you do for a Manhattan vantage point. P’s brother was working security at the site, but we didn’t see him until afterwards.

Picked up some sauces that are the exact opposite of what you would expect.

Tobasco Worchestershire Sauce
Picked up from a Publix Supermarket in Ft. Lauderdale.Tobasco is known for their aged red pepper sauce, which is incorporated in this sauce. Apparently it is only available in the South. It’s a little too smoked (there’s soy sauce in it) for my taste, but goes well with beef BBQ.

Lea & Perrins Hot Pepper Sauce
From a C!ty’Super supermarket in Harbour City, Kowloon, this is your straight up Carribean style red pepper sauce. Flavorful, complex, with a vinagar aftertaste. Not bad.

Peter Luger’s Steak Sauce
From the beef emporium from Brooklyn, true believers know that their steak sauce is really for the steak tomatoes, but are pretty good for dipping tender morsels of medium rare meat. Also doubles as a cocktail sauce.

Observation: when your family becomes a composite of every TVB Hong Kong soap opera, what can you do? Cops, check. Lawyers, check. Financial people, check. Cooks, check. Medical professionals, check.

YouTube is gathering a lot of depth in its collection of videos, even stuff I thought were not around anymore. My favorite TVB soap opera – The Greed of Man I watched it during my 1991 trip to HK. One of the most well known songs from the show was Red River Valley , a Cantonese version of the American folk song. P and I were looking for the DVD version of the series in Hong Kong, but apparently it was sold out because of the recent Vivian Chow concert.

I also found a video for one of my favorite Vivian songs, “Because of You”. I’m going to pitch that for the Cantonese wedding song. Big shout out to YC for that one, if he remembers it. P’s pitching Nora Jones’ “Come Away” as the English wedding choice. What do you think?

Much to celebrate – went to 2 graduations yesterday – P’s brother and my cousin graduated from the NYC Police Academy and my mom decided to go back for her GED and had a “certification” ceremony yesterday. The former was at Madison Square Garden, and was large, very formal and regimented; the latter was at City Tech and was small, unregimeted but joyous and full of song.

Koreatown buffet place Minato becomes a part of the Todai buffet empire. After the takeover, the food is actually a level better than before – it seemed there was a bit of a decline towards the end of Minato. This would now add to the visits to Honolulu and Hong Kong, and Las Vegas branches. Now I guess we’re going to have to try to hit all of the others.

On Friday night, saw Disney’s “Cars” at the world’s largest drive in movie theater. The experience was pretty unique, but I don’t think it is better than your modern movieplex experience. First of all, the sound quality over a radio is not as good as THX booming sound. Second, car seats do not provide the same comfort as theater seats. Third, the jockeying for position in the lot is fierce, and hard to do without headlights ( I ran over a few pylons in the dark). Then again, traditionally the movie is not the main entertainment of the night… Anyway, took some long exposures of the screen – check it out on the Flickr bar.

Saturday’s drive back involved a stop at Sawgrass, a really huge outlet mall. Bought father’s day stuff, a pair of sandals, and got a 20 minute massage. Then, the drive down to Miami was generally uneventful other than the last minute finding of a gas pump before the car return.

On the flight back, got an upgrade on American and sat next to a New York based captain. Food wasn’t too bad, but the direct to video movie Last Holiday kept us hungry. Queen Latifah and LL Cool J managed to con a movie studio to fund an extravagant vacation. As the FAs were wheeling chicken breast and bbq sauce, Latifah was being wheeled whole turkey. Anyway, the captain was very nice about pointing out different landmarks. We were also talking about noise cancelling headphones.

Waiting for the baggage to come out of the carosel, this guy that was sitting in front of us was complaining about how long the wait was. The taxi home was uneventful other than that he had no idea where downtown Brooklyn was, so I had to direct him. I made it by 11 pm.

Sunday, we took P’s dad out for dim sum, and I formally asked him for permission to marry P, which he gave his blessing. So now we’re loading up on watching the WE channel, which is having a 21 day wedding show marathon. We’re shooting for 2008, because we want and need to take our time, and the Wall Street Journal says that 2007 is a bad year for weddings (2006 is one of the best years), because it is lacking a lunar spring.