Slam.

It finally happened. After a month of carefree skateboarding around New York, I slammed in the most unattractive way this morning on the way to school.
This one is up there with Martin's fall a couple of months ago. I should've seen it coming. Last week I hit a pot hole which sent me flying into an intersection but luckily I was able to catch myself and landed on my feet. Then yesterday, I was trying to squeeze between a car and the sidewalk and was met with the sewer grate which locked my shit up and sent me flying. I had a full backpack on so the weight of it went over my head and almost caused me to do a forward roll but again I was able to stop myself. This morning, I don't know what the fuck happened. I was pushing along half awake trying to make it to my 9 o'clock class and my board just stopped like I hit something. I slammed shoulder first into the ground, sunglasses and hat flew off, backpack stayed on. I looked to see what caused me to fall but there was nothing but smooth pavement and a gum wrapper on the ground. A passing car stopped to see if I was ok but I grabbed my shit and took off before he could see the look of shock and embarrasment on my face. Got this shiner on my shoulder now and a scrape on my knee and elbow. My neck feels jacked and so does my back. Over 30 skateboarding rules!

Mos't Definite

Went to the Mos Def show last night. Didn't think I would get in because tickets were sold out but on a whim, I walked all the way across town to the Highline Ballroom in Chelsea by myself to try my luck. The effort of walking all that way gave me good karma and I got in. He sang Poison by Bel Biv Davoe and Time After Time as well as some Stevie Wonder. Q-tip from Tribe Called Quest went up and did Bonita Applebum on the spot. The band was pretty tight with their horn section that Mos conducted whenever he felt inspired. For the encore, Talib Kweli came out to do some Blackstar stuff. Interesting non-hip hop feel for a hip hop show.


Today I went with my friend Dan upstate to check out the Dia Museum in Beacon, about an hour and a half up the Metro North. The building was an old cardboard printing factory that has been converted into this awesome space. It is very reminiscant of Beijing's 798 DaShanZi. Sorry no pictures of the space because I could only get pictures where the cctv's couldn't see me. I'm too old to get kicked out of places now.I think I liked the space more than most of the art. There were some cool drawings by Sol LeWitt who was I.M. Pei's draftsman. Only a dfatsman could make those drawing. The Richard Serra sculptures were nice. They may be trite and simplistic to some but I think they are pretty cool. They feel nice and are fun.
I heard one guy has died and a couple others severely injured while installing these massive sheets of steel.
I thought this was the coolest thing I saw and it was naturally made. A shadow on the scuplture made a nice synergy of the space and the piece.

Ladies Please.....

I can't hold my tounge any longer. Ladies, ladies, ladies, please stop the insanity! The sun is out and so are those stupid oversized sunglasses. Look at the picture below. That's reason enough not to wear these damn things. They should tack an extra 60 days on Paris' sentence just for wearing those silly glasses. Most guys do not find them cute and unless you are Lenny Kravitiz's drummer or Jackie O, you most likely can't pull them off, so just say no. I know it's hard, every mall in America is selling them these these days, but just try and stay away!
Same note to all the guys out there with motorcycles, Harleys and rice rockets alike. Reving your engine to redline at a stoplight doesn't prove how cool you are nor does it make ladies want to suck your dick it just makes people like me want to clothesline you as you pass by. I swear to God it's not out of jealousy, it's because I'm embarrased for you. There are a bunch of nimrods in my neighborhood that are doing this all night long.

Holy Crap!!!

My friend from South Africa sent me this with the following text attached. Read it before you watch the video. Damn, 606 takes! The things you can do with time, patience and lots of money. None of which I ever have enough of. Which if I was buddhist I wouldn't need, except for the patience. So I guess if I was buddhist I couldn't make a commercial like this? I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Just read and watch.
And you Thought those people that set up roomfuls of dominos to knock over were amazing? There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.
The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions.
The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence. In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime.
However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewings" (Honda isn't paying a dime to have youwatch this commercial!).
When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.
There are six and only six hand-made Honda Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film.
Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) is parts from those two cars.
The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphicshave gotten.
They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real. Oh, and about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet.

DAMN!!!

The only two things I hate about being Asian are both drink related. #1 turning red when drinking alcohol #2 Lactose intolerance.
I had to make the painful decision to quit coffee today. Even just the little bit of milk in it fucks me up. I had a cappuccino before school and was hating life all day. Bad stomach cramps and lots of gas. It sucks being in class trying to ignore the pain and suppress farts all day. I'm not hardcore enough to take it black(like my men), I don't like soy in coffee and I'm too lazy to carry around pills with me so I've got to find some other caffeine fix. Red Bull makes me shake which kind of scares me. Any suggestions?
I can still eat cheese, chocolate and ice cream without the cramps but I think eventually I might have to give them up too. Man, that's gonna suck!
Got any lactose intolerance stories?

Trippy

Get stoned and watch this:

Was at the NY Guggenheim this weekend with Mom. I walked in and I could hear 50 Cent blasting and I was very confused as to how his work could be considered art. Turns out it was part of an installation there that was a dance floor with lights that were syncronized to the club music. Clever design and totally trippy as you can see with this video but I still don't think it's art. My Mom doesn't understand why Modrian's work is considered art, but she liked these pretty lights. I guess everyone has their own tastes.

Who does this look like?

Bart Simpson or Anthony Michael Hall circa 16 Candles.
I need a haircut.

Mother's Day

My Mom's visiting after giving a talk up in Rochester. They gave her a new digital camera as a gift so we were trying it out.
We hung out in the park and talked. It was nice spending some down time with Mom.
My Mom took this picture of an evil squirell. After we took the picture, I fed him a piece of garlic and he exploded.
On our way out of the park we saw a music video being shot. Everyone was dressed in 80's Old Skool out fits and looking dope! If you've ever been to Roppongi in Tokyo, you'll see the Africans trying to pass themselves off as African Americans still dress like this.
We then had dinner at Sushi Samba. A Latin/Japanese fusion place that's suspicously a lot like Nobu, in terms of flavors. The Chinese sushi chefs recognized me and flowed us some free stuff. The Chinese connection in effect again! I only ordered the row in the middle.

Back Online

Oh Man...back on line finally. The wireless connection in the apartment I'm staying at cut out a couple days ago and couldn't get online. I felt like a junkie unable to get my fix. Bottom line is, landlord is a lazy loser. If you're reading this...where's the fucking tv remote!?!
Skated down to the WTC site Wednesday. The first building up is ugly. The orginal plan by Daniel Libeskind, which won a worldwide competition, was butchered by the developer into something really stupid and ugly. Developers suck.
Went to the Whitney Museum. No photos of the art allowed so I took a picture of the ceiling.

Last night went to see Cornelius. Won't talk about it much because he has been interviewed for next issue, but the visuals were rad. I like his music but they don't really rock out live, so the visuals saved the show. How the hell does he manage to keep everything in sync? I guess that's the secret to the show.

Katz's Deli

Can't blog about New York without talking about the food. So I'm gonna have to incringe upon Eric's food territory here. This place is a New York institution serving up awesome kosher deli food. I think the orgasm scene from When Harry met Sally was filmed here. I didn't mean to have dinner here but I was walking by and couldn't resist.
This guy slices meat all day long. He gets an average of a dollar tip per order and probably does 20 orders per hour. Nice tax free income supplement.
I had a pastrami on rye with a bit of mustard and some pickles. The pastrami was incredible, the guy in front of me was moaning with each bite. Maybe Meg Ryan was orgasming because of the soft, succulent and fatty pastrami.
Like a Georgia O'Keefe painting in sandwich form. I ate and I ate but I couldn't get throught the thing. Just a bit too much meat for me. One more bite and I probably would've puked, luckily I was able to walk it off on the way home.

More NY...

Was hanging out with my other friend Erin from architecture school today and her little baby Milla. Milla is blonde and blue eyed like the Children of the Corn kids. When I was pushing the stroller down the street, people would look at the baby, then at Erin(who is also blonde and blue eyed), then at me, then back at the baby, then back at me and I could see them thinking "I wonder if he knows he's not the father?". It happened many times, pretty funny.
We were walking down an empty street and saw this...
WTF? What the hell is this kid doing outside peering into the window like that? Doesn't someone need to be watching over her? Then we got closer...
It was just a little manequin set up to attract some attention to the store. Kind of sick if you ask me.
Baby Milla was very confused. Rightly so. She was probably thinking, "Why are her wrists tied to the gate with steel wire?"

Oh yeah and if you have a few gajillion dollars to spare, buy an apartment here www.40bond.com. It's designed by Herzog and De Mueron. They did this crazy trippy Prada building in Tokyo. Some people collect designer funriture, but you're ballin' if you can collect designer architecture.

New York! New York!

San Francisco to Hong Kong to New York in less than a week, not fun. Specially the heinously long flight from HK to NY. That sucked shit except that I ran into Russell Wong and his wife(yes, that Russell Wong) at my stopover in Seoul. He gave me a Chinese taxi service number that I ended up having to use when my arranged ride from JFK didn't show up. Thanks Russell!
Been here two days and am just settling in. Walking rocks! I love walking around, something I don't do in HK anymore. My legs and back are sore as shit but it's awesome gettting to know the city this way. I haven't even used the subway yet but plan to do that tomorrow. New York is so rad.
Can't figure out how to turn this upright(Eric,help?) so tilt your head to the left. This is one big ass piece of meat. I've seen these at shwarma joints before but this one is fuckin' big!! I walked past it and had to do a double take.

This is my best-friend from architecture school Dan. He designed that place in the background. It's the Aveda institute. Looks cool on the inside, too bad it wasn't open. We went to some crappy bar to watch the De La Hoya- Mayweather fight. We paid $20 to get in and there were no chairs or air conditioning in the joint. We were stupid and forgot there were undercard fights so we stood for 3 hours watching lousy fights before the main event. When we got out, we were sweatier and more tired than either De La Hoya or Mayweather.
Overall, I am liking New York a lot. It definitly kicks LA's ass. (Sorry Eric and Martin)

Back from SF.

I've finally made it back to Hong Kong from California. The second half of the trip was insane. The San Frincisco Film Fest was awesome. All the boys from ALIVE made it down. Martin and Wendy drove up from LA and all my old firends and family made it to the screening. I never thought I'd be quoting Ice Cube but..."Hell Yeah, It was a good day!".


This bombass photo was taken by Tommy Lau, a photogrpaher who was covering the festival. Check out his stuff at: tommylau.net
The screening was at the Castro theater, one of the oldest and biggest theaters in the city. They certainly don't make 'em like that anymore. They even had a wurlitzer jamming fresh tunes before the start of the film. It was a whirlwind four days and I just wanted to thank everyone who had a hand in this festival for making it such a pleasant experience. Special respect to Cathay Pacific Airways for upgrading Conroy and I for our flight back. Sleeping on a flat bed was totally essential in recovering from this trip!