As I was skimming through the CNN headlines a while back, I came upon an article header something to the effect of “despite family’s shame, Asian man finds success as DJ”. Got to admit, I didn’t actually read the article, since reading CNN articles is like reading its headline… but packed with even more frivolous sentences. The problem for me is the unnecessary use of an oriental vocabulary when it comes to discussing Asians and especially their ties to the family. Had this person been any other race, family wouldn’t have even come up in the headline and at best, they would only note that the family was reluctant or disapproving of his choice of career. But not if you’re dealing with Asians.

In that case, they need to suggest the inner turmoil of being Asian and the high expectations of an authoritarian Asian family weighing down upon the passionate bohemian spirit of the culturally tethered Asian offspring. He must overcome his family’s immense shame to teach these foolish backwards people that there is glory in his choices. To use the word shame in today’s speech is to say one is ignorant. I could have sworn we were in the 21st century. Perhaps it was purely innocent and the writer CNN hired just happened to be from the 1880′s and writes his headlines by the glow of an oil lamp. This writer is the same one that would accuse and chastise Asian American males for patriarchal tyranny and use Chinese foot binding from the f-n Tang Dynasty as unequivocal proof (*Asian American men look puzzled – shrug shoulders* huh?). I don’t even have an Asian family but I find it strange when the media praises the Asian family and its rigid structure as the source of Asian achievement and model minority status, but place blame when interracial relationships and freedom from oppression come up.

I’m not saying Asian families aren’t a little heavy handed at times, but to place them in the forefront of an article about an Asian’s rise to fame as a DJ shouldn’t be necessary to explain the story. Whites would find it equally annoying if they read a headline such as, white Irish man graduates at the top of his class at Police Academy, much to the shame of his habitually drunk and rowdy Irish family. Being adopted I know first hand Irish love to be drunk and rowdy, even the ones that are police officers. So can we just drop this concept of family shame and ancient traditional lineages. Perhaps I read too deeply into it. Last thing I want to turn into is an over-sensitive liberal. I mean, it’s just words. Words don’t mean anything. Ask Ann Coulter, whenever she gets interviewed about whether these are “her words”, her rebuttal is always sarcastically “oh yeah, I believe everything that I write.” See, why are people under the impression that words have to actually convey meaning. True neoconservatives accept the idea that words have no requirement to convey anything substantial. Thinking they should… well, that’s just so pussyboy leo straussian-ish of you. I don’t even know what that means… pussyboy leo straussian-ish… so I guess I’m on board. Are you? People need to stop projecting what it is they want to see and face up to the reality of what actually exists — ink on paper folks, nothing more. Speaking of which, I got this really cool magazine sent to me concerning tourism in Asia.

Hmmm… geisha games? *twitch* bamboo curtains? *squirm* jewels in need of ravishing? *sweat* freshly-shucked yantai?? *nose-bleed*… wait… hold on… how exactly does one go about shucking the indigenous persons of China’s Yantai prefecture? *hard contemplation* … Ohhhhhh… *wink wink nudge nudge*… clever bastards. One might have mistakenly viewed this as a thinly veiled attempt to imbue a sexual subtext, suggesting an exotic playground tinged with a hint of eroticism… where in actuality, it was a well played and clever reminder to faithful readers that the Yanti prefecture of Shandong is a leading market of fine Chinese oysters. Sir, I can only admire your attempt to educate through your glib playfulness. Like the way he tried to anthropomorphize those bamboo curtains and jewels, I was practically convinced there was something hidden for me behind that bamboo curtain. Anthropomorphizing makes it seem like we’re talking about a person and not just an “it”, using this technique you can take an object (say… those three geishas on the cover) and imbue them with almost human characteristics, in turn creating a more personal message that attempts, in a very human way, to reach out to us. Hahhaa like if you stare at it hard enough you can almost start to believe it has feelings… wow, I find that an irresistible quality in a woman. In fact, you can almost imagine that if you punched it, you could probably make “it” cry. Masterfully done sirs. Clever wordplay like this should be rewarded with equally clever rhetorical wit… … Asia and Away? gucking fay.

Oh, got to add this video. Yuka and I went for a drive recently during a light rainstorm. We were chatting as usual but this song came on and we both stopped and listened. Hard to describe… it’s like when you hear a song on the radio that you like and even though your destination is coming up, everything feels so good at that moment that you’ll purposely drive past just to extend that moment. It’s not that you’re hearing the music coming off the radio or through the speaker, it seems more like a score in a movie that comes in at just the right time, when everyone’s feeling it. Not too abrupt or so loud it pulls you out of the scene… like I said, it’s hard to describe this feeling. It’s just one of those rare moments where everything feels right without requiring any explanation. Anyway Bic is a great singer, she should be bigger in the US. Found a version on youtube. Try and smile today, bye bye.

[ youtube=http://youtube.com/w/?v=Dm41j3zBatU]

I’m sitting at the table with the rest of the people on this committee and i show what i have for the advertising that needs to be finished and ready for the printers by wednesday. Everyone takes a look at it and this girl who i have not seen before at the meetings, objects. i was wearing what Yuka refers to as my “can’t believe you’re that stupid to say that publicly but hey, go ahead” face. what bothers me is that there is really no controversy, no one had a problem until she forced her issue. She’s a drama queen that finds a single opportunity to exhibit her “skills” learned in women’s issues classes, which is to create an issue where none existed. i just wanted to lean over and rub her under the chin with my hand… awww, isn’t she scrappy! It took a great deal of self-control to keep from making her look like an ass in front of her friends. Afterwords she goes on this spiel about how she deals with asian women who have these destructive habits and that somehow this could be a potential outcome due to my drawing of women. First off, don’t preach issues of self-image to me, i’m an asian male… i got it. Second, if you’re an asian girl and you want to use my DRAWING conceived totally from within my imagination with no reference to any actual living person as the basis of your self-image, then yea, you either need to overdose or you need to re-attend grade school and learn properly how to differentiate you the corporal being from the unreality of the rest of the world. This isn’t a photo, this isn’t a celebrity, there’s nothing to aspire to… it’s a fucking pencil sketch! that’s like me looking at jon in a Garfield cartoon and saying to myself, oh my god i have to be that! I want his thighs. you want to starve yourself to be that perfect cartoon character, you have more than just self-image issues.

Her breasts are too big. that’s your criticism? and what makes you believe the stereotype that asian women are all flat chested? Everything was done reasonably proportional to the rest of her body. Then it became an issue of making sure she was covered up, the image is her in a inner-tube floating in the crest of hokusai’s classic wave. too much breast was showing and somewhere someplace an evil man might get an unwelcomed erection. So i ask how she wanted to change that, and she wants her to have a wet suit on. then it became an issue of the inner tube, couldn’t it be a surf board she asks? Basically she wanted the breasts covered up with a surf/wet suit and she had issue that the inner tube was suggesting helplessness. I’m being completely fucking serious, women who ride on inner tubes stop it, you are making the female race look weak. So i tried to explain to her my understanding of the asian american experience, the dichotomy of holding onto a crutch (the inner tube was painted up to be similar to an amiercan flag) and large looming force of nature which was represented by the classic asian wave. In a way i feel that asian americans are holding on and drifting, that a sense of being asian doesn’t just come to you, it sorta crashes down upon you depending on the situation that causes it.

It’s just a metaphor, perhaps too kitchy, hell i’ll even accept that criticism, but to cover her up and give her a surf board or her suggestion of giving her a boogie board so the breasts can be concealed… what the fuck, are you a puritan? i asked her if she wore a wetsuit when she went to beach swimming in the ocean, didn’t get a response. I don’t think she got it, she was constantly pushing for this idea of empowerment, that this woman should be (fully clothed) nonsexual, and physically conquering this wave. The problem was I had too negative of a view of asian american experience. Right, they’re so empowered and so sure of themselves. That’s why so many asians you think are empowered, go back to korea or japan and during the course of many years will never have single native asian friend. who the fuck goes to asia to come back home with more white friends? they hang out at the tourist section, eat at the tourist restaurant, and hang out at the foreigner bars and then come home and complain about not learning the language and not feeling incorporated into that society. yeah, it evades you, or perhaps you evade it. They want to see “asian” as the place, the toys, the food, but sure as fuck not the people, they’re an obstacle to getting all the tacky plastic goodies. if i want to create anything to do with the asian race, i pull from, either asian men, asian women, or puffy panda bears. That’s the face of asians, not gayed out import civics, sushi, chop socky films, dragon tattoos, or manga, that’s just cheap products for the world market. Asia isn’t the products, I draw asian people and last i checked i wasn’t white, yet your attacking me because somehow i’m misrepresenting them?

Then she gets all haughty, looks over at me, “do you want me to draw it for you?”… i’m like yeah, i would like you to draw it for me. I want to see what a non-offensive asian women is drawn like. Again, that too is avoided. Everyone has left and she’s still spieling on about this. Many hours and lost sleep and a wasted weekend on this project, i’m not too chipper anymore knowing i have to make something new in one day. So i asked her, “ok you know all the things that you don’t want to see all the things you don’t like, what exactly about the image needs to change”. This sets her off on the history of feminism and how women are exploited by the media and advertising…. stop. that’s not criticism you shitwit, that’s a monologue. i’m not interested in that or your shitty philosophy, so don’t waste my time. listening to you, i’ve heard this before, i’ve heard it articulated better and spouted more poetically by smarter better people. so why the fuck am i listening to this.

So i ask her, if you aren’t going to draw me anything then tell me of an artistic rendering of an asian woman that does not in any way instigate a negative connotation. Where are these images of asian women that are immune to negative assessments, works of art i should be aspiring to. After thinking for a bit, she came up with two, one was a drawing of a asian woman protester that marched with Martin Luther King, i called her on that because the woman in that image wasn’t actually drawn by her. I asked for self-representation, not someone rendering a photo-op ala courtroom sketcher. second she gives me the name of _________ (i wasn’t listening closely enough) who drew a picture of an asian women in the pose of rosie the riveter. that’s it? that’s the best you have for all your complaining? some weak-ass kitch mockup of a 50 year old poster (replace white woman with asian woman) is the best in positive reaffirmation of being asian-american and female? please. the reason Rosie was white cause all the asian women were interned, nobody would let them bolt a single rivet cause they were all suspect as foreign enemy agents. Yeah, nice one. But you still didn’t provide what i asked for. You’ve given me examples of art that relies on a historical reference, i’m talking about art born from the imagination that’s not accompanied by a visual reference, no kitchy appropriation of older texts, i want examples of art actualized and realized from within the artist’s imagination. That’s self-reflection, not pasting an asian girls head over rosie the riveter. she changes the conversation to what is wrong with my work and keeps apologizing to me about offending me with a faux sympathy, like i’m just too dense to understand where she’s coming from. I am dense… but I’m also aware you don’t have a clue how asian women ought to be represented, you know only what you don’t want to see. philosophy of negation is a byproduct of having no vision.

For the most part I wasn’t insulted, i was annoyed. She didn’t really insult me until she said, it looks like manga (makes a disgusted face) and “i have a huge list of problems with manga”. I’ve grown up with manga and anime, it probably has a great deal of influence on my work. It is one of the few art forms that portrays asians (go ahead, name that asian superhero in the marvel/DC universe). I’ll ignore the fact that you’re ignorant about the topic, considering that the richest mangaka (manga artist), and one of the richest persons period in Japan is a woman. you’ve obviously never seen much manga before and what little you’ve witnessed has probably assaulted your sensibilities. what offended me was the tone she said it, like somehow it was an inferior art. It doesn’t have the class and dignity like feminist Judy Chicago’s porcelain dinner plate shaped like her vagina, or defecate on a picture of the virgin mary. That’s deep and telling, not silly and shallow.

That was the most insulting thing, i have absolutely no regard for your opinion now. She calls herself an artist but no artist, at least not in the art society would ever demean another artist. Their is a mutual respect among the group, we understand the many hours spent drawing, years spent perfecting technique, teaching oneself how every medium reacts to every different artistic tool. It’s a solitary lifestyle and we sacrifice a great deal of the social joys in life to become better at our work. No artist would ever mock anyone’s skill, no matter their style be it high art or cartoon scribbles. I don’t care what kind of “artist” you think you are, writer or poet or whatnot. you’re an unimaginative fuck, whose talents i’m guessing are mediocre at best. You have a critical eye for knowing what’s wrong but no vision to know how to right it. Where’s your vision, or do you just espouse other people’s crappy theories as your own. You’re part of that NYC art crowd, artists… but… not really. but they play one at parties. they are the superstar artists and musicians whose work is always in a perpetual state of “refinement”. but nothing ever comes to fruition, your thoughts don’t actually materialize into something, anything tangible. one of those idiot rockstars in their mind, who would really be big if they could just finish that last chapter of their book, or perfect that last chord of their song. their feminist critical art theory is bogus, it’s just learned complexity, anyone can read a book to learn what to say. it takes skill to make things look easy and effortless, it takes skill to take that theory you spout and produce what ought to be. That’s why you’re a hack. You preach it, but you don’t have the discipline and the willingness to sacrifice socially in order to gain that skill. I would love to see any of the artists you think are great try to draw even the most simplistic dot and line manga face. it’s not as easy as you think. all the precision of a critical eye, but lacking the talent. how unimpressive of you.

At that point i didn’t want to listen to any more of her shit. tired of this… tried of these people I thought i left back at college. self-anointed “scholars” because they read the lineup on Germaine Greer’s Amazon wishlist. the way they look down on you so sure of themselves that they have this vast knowledge you aren’t privy to. I’m just some lowly cheap manga scribbler, and that gives her cause to speak down to me. academically, i couldn’t classify myself as an artist. in my 4 years of college i took one art class, introduction to drawing. so basic, i was given 5 hours in a class to sketch a bowel of fruit. That was the one and only art class i’ve ever taken. rest of my classes were in architecture, physics, world literature, film theory, photography, politics and history, film production, philosophy/ethics/aesthetics, japanese culture (they didn’t have an asian-american studies course/not enough asians) and yes, i even took a semesters worth of feminist critique of 20th century art and literature. i was one of 3 men in that class and probably one of the few people that actually read all that was required. you on the other hand probably took 4 years of women’s issues classes, and it shows. you’re ideas are uninteresting and your scope is lacking.I’m sure when she goes back to relay this story off to her friends, i can already see her as one of those women who absolutely cannot tell a story without demonizing the characters in it. i’m hoping i come off munching on dead babies and spewing fire, but that would require more imagination then she has. i will never work for an asian-american group again. while they were out partying and clubbing over the weekend i was sitting at my desk for 3 days in 16 hour sessions. i’m not getting a single dime for this compared to what i usually get paid. I’m doing this for free because you’re asian americans and for some fucking unknown reason, i feel some responsibility to aid and in the process help YOU look good in the hopes that YOU’RE event turns out well. there is little pride in stomping down a feminist, it’s easier than making a neo-conservative look like an ass. it’s a social gimme. but it sickens me that at a time where the UN is gearing up to apply economic sanctions to North Korea to starve even more of their people (or my people i guess) people who have no ill toward the US but are dictated over by a cock, and you’re deep social concern is the size of titties of a two dimensional pencil sketch. you’re a douchbag. end of story.

so i’m sitting on the train on the ride back home, it’s practically empty and i’m still fuming. we make a stop and with a divine finishing touch, a young asian woman gets on with her chubby white boyfriend behind her. classic timing, for when you already feel miserable, i’m sure the expression on my face was none too pleasing. I’m guessing i looked pissed. She gave me a smile. I smiled back, reflex i guess. perhaps she saw a firebreathing, woman hating, psycho fiend who makes improper represetantion of asian american women, and smiled to herself as she envisioned my demise. perhaps she saw i was pissed and wanted to offer a nice gesture. either way, it was cool of her. i even forgive you for dating that paunchy white guy you’re with (kidding!). no… it was cool and it reminded me how great asian women can be, even to asian guys who are strangers. I’m taking some time off, after this post and working on some personal projects. i wanted to make some tutorials on how to draw, especially asians. As a child teaching himself to draw, i could never find a book that illustrated asians, or Hispanics, or blacks. facial and physical structure was the same i guess, you just had to squint the eyes and color with a different colored pencil. i think we all know the race that constituted the main portion of “how to draw a person/human being” books. bye.

a small piece for a project i’m working on.  it gets sent to the printers on wednesday so i’ll post the finished piece up on thursday for you.  I haven’t seen actual sunlight for 2 days, i bet it was all bright and shiny and stuff.

more quick anatomy sketches, with no reference. i have a project i’m working on (at least for the next 6-7 hours) and hopefully i can get it painted by the start of the week. i’ll have it posted so you can check out more finished work. bye

“To put this little piece of braggadocio in context it should be noted that no other American president has ever admitted to such a serious violation of law. Although assassination is specifically forbidden as a course of action open to U.S. officials including Presidents, no one seems to have noticed — perhaps because they were so caught up with the theater of what was happening on the screen — what was said.”

Oliver then proceeds to list US laws that state the prohibiting of assassination.  Now granted both Oliver and I are cut from the same mold, men of outstanding principle and concerned almost purely with accountability.  But in this instance Oliver North has proven that he doesn’t have the nuts to be a hardcore right wing neoconservative.  That pussy-ish “we are a country of laws, we must abide by laws” attitude is something I would expect coming from nancy boy “we are the world” democrats or an unwashed hippy, not a battle and controversy hardened men of principle like Oliver North.

Is he really saying it is morally wrong to engage in assassination, even if it is Bin Laden simply because assassination directly violates a statute of US law?  So you want to allow him to keep on terrorizing the US and all you want to do is drag him in front of an international court instead of snuffing him by a US government sanctioned assassination squad?  When the fuck did Oliver North become a liberal wuss?  Even democratic pretty boy Kennedy offered suggestions of wiping out Castro, Kennedy has more right-wing cred than Oliver North.

The same man who fears the legality issues concerning assassination is the same Oliver North, who oversaw the slightly illegal selling of weapons to Iran, a known haven for militant islamic terrorism.  Why does Oliver North hate America and why was he giving aid and comfort to the enemy?  Well, the reason was to make money in order to provide support for clandestine operations (clandestine = only illegal if people know about it) of Contra rebel groups so that they in turn could assassinate known sandinistas.

So assassination is fine as long as we build the gun, provide the bullet, place the gun in someone else’s hands and draw them a map to the target, but we don’t actually pull the trigger, than somehow we are left morally uninvolved and morally untainted by whatever will result.  That’s crappy Christian logic, but it is a Christian nation.

Is this the same Oliver North who met with drug lord and dictator Manuel Noriega and agreed on the idea of using money raised by drug trafficking to fund the contras, at the same time when Reagan’s America was fervently fighting the war on drugs on the home front.  Thank god Noriega was taken to the US and jailed in federal lockup (I’m sure his extradition was done peacefully and lawfully) on various counts of racketeering, money laundering, drug trafficking and basically doing everything the Regan administration supported in their actions against the Sandinistas.

This is the same Oliver North who was getting Noriega to help sabotage and as … depose the sandanistan government.  This is the same guy that lied to the joint congressional committee overseeing the investigation of Iran-Contra, lied while under oath which goes against some funny rule of some weird US law.  That was the man who is beloved by Regan conservatives.  That man was willing to use any illegal means to justify what he felt was a righteous cause.  The legality of the means was irrelevant, the focus was the goal and that’s what made Oliver North a patriot.  And now it looks like he’s become some cut-and-run liberal, angrily riding his moral high horse simply because he doesn’t have the guts it takes to get the job done.  Now some of you might thinking, wait Oliver North isn’t a liberal, he’s just so full of Clinton hatred, so blinded by his hate of Clinton, that he’ll take the contrary position to whatever position Clinton has even if taking that position ironically places him on the opposite side of the political spectrum.  No!  That’s something I’d expect from CNN, but not my beloved fox news.

again he states:

“Not one of the “experts” has, as yet, observed that in all of this, the biggest loser wasn’t on the screen; it was the American people. The tape of a former president arrogantly proclaiming on international television that he personally authorized the assassination of a foreign foe may be great stuff for the screenplay of “Rambo V,” but U.S. and international law specifically forbid it. Over the course of fighting the jihad being waged against us, Mr. Clinton’s intemperate words will come back to haunt us many times over. And of course, he won’t be the one to pay the price.”

Notice how Oliver chooses his words.  He purposely quipped about the hypothetical Rambo V, purposely skipping over the hypothetical Rambo IV.  That’s because Rambo IV is Rambo: the Iran War Years.  You know, Iran, the avowed enemy of the United States and the same fuckers Oliver North sold American made weapons to for money.  Funny how that comes back around to haunt you?  So let’s not rush to making Rambo V until we get Rambo IV out to the theaters.  See, and you probably thought he was saying that to be facetious.

So what does this all boil down to?  That Oliver North is a bat-shit liberal pussy in disguise, or that surprisingly I’ve found myself more right-wing than a fox news pundit?  Perhaps it comes down more importantly to phrasing.  “Unlawful use of force” is just and warranted in the toppling of another countries government, however to openly admit that one has attempted, merely attempted to set into action a plan of assassination has done more grievous harm against the American people, rather than having just done it.  One must first declare an ambiguous moral cause like “war on terror” to justify skirting around US laws in order engage in the assassination of foreign individuals unlike that pansy Clinton who wants to assassinate a person instead of starting the whole war first.

I don’t know where to go from here.  Now that fox news is no longer a haven for my opinions to be voiced, I guess I’ll be tuning into Jerry Falwell’s radio broadcasts.  How utterly disappointing.

If I could compel myself to make just one small criticism (*blush*) of Oliver it’s his use of the word braggadocio.  If you’re going to use SAT words to criticize someone, at least use it correctly.  A braggadocio is empty boasting, bragging about things one cannot really provide.  One doesn’t usually brag about things that they openly admit of failing to accomplish.  Secondly, if you’re criticizing Clinton’s admission of planned (note, not actually attempted) assassination by saying braggadocio, you’re technically criticizing him for not being able to fulfill his boast of assassination.  How can you both chastise Clinton on the moral grounds against assassination and at the same time criticize his boast because he couldn’t pull the assassination off?

just a page from my sketchbook. cachet select sketchbook, which is 65lb paper… i think. the pencil work was done with 2mm lead, i like a soft dark lead like a 4B sharpened to a fine point. that requires fixative to keep it from smearing since it tends to lay on the paper moreso than a harder lead you carve into the page. i shot it with aquanet a little too close so the marker color had a slight shift in tone. i’m not concerned since it’s not a finished piece. just a basic anatomy/perspective sketch (kinda why i wussed on the facial area)… and ‘vag censored for the children of abraham!