This is an amusing, but slightly bizarre music video with one of the members of Lonely Island (which brought you the Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia) and Kal Penn from Harold and Kumar along with a surprising what-the-fuck cameo by Brandon Routh aka Clark Kent aka Superman.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlxhD284RKM]
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A pretty decent hip hop video poking fun at MySpace. Are you emo enough for it?[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TnlSVKuy34]
Asian Americans inevitably deal with racial stereotyping in the US. This commercial is clever, because it highlights the gross absurdity with which many ignorant and/or prejudiced whites in America perceive their Asian American neighbors. This distasteful situation is an obvious point to many of you reading this, but it's interesting to me to see it played out in a commercial. Other than the slight caricature of the (white) parentals portrayed in the commercial, the ad captures the sensibility and atmosphere of what it's like to be a minority youth in this country. Less so than our parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparent's generations, it's less of a taboo (of course, it's still forbidden in some families, etc) kids today to date someone of another "race" or ethnicity. Today, traditional lines of demarcation--religion, class, and race--aren't as rigid as they once were. So it's interesting to see an inter-racial white-Asian couple in this commercial.
The only problem I see is that some people aren't going to "get it" and only reaffirm their ignorance. Anyway, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the ad agency that created it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwQkU7jLXRY]
I'm very cognitive of how difficult it is for actors to get gigs. Gigs are far and few between. An actor's motto seems to be you take what you can get even if that means dinner theater, Red Shoe Diaries or in the case of Brandon Routh aka Superman, an informerical for rope yoga (how many fucking variations of yoga are there?). [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8A4Q75D6lg]
Funny. I woulda thought Superman was more of a Bowflex kind of a guy.
Stuyvesant students are so spoiled. Not only do they attend a fantastic high school (from what I've heard), but then they get always hilarious Conan O'Brian to speak at their graduation. I don't even know who spoke at mine. It was probably the Lieutenant Secretary of State or someone equally obscure. Although Conan's words were directed at 18-year-old kids about to make the momentous step from one chapter of their life to another (college), his message resonated with me as well. I think no matter how removed one is from their high school or college past, it's always good to hear a commencent speech as a form of reassurance and needed inspiration to those of us who are still attempting to find an onramp onto the highway of our dream career.
Anyhoo. Here is Conan's speech (broken up into two parts):
Part 1 of 2
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi4-1d9DB9Q]
Part 2 of 2
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLeVKGSJWE]
(Via) If you've got an hour to kill--if not now, then bookmark the link below for viewing at a later date--you must watch this documentary that exposes the manipulation by and of the news media.
Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.
For most of you, the general thesis is well known, but despite the slight out-datedness of the documentary, it's still amazing to see for example, Larry King unctuously kissing the asses of Bush, Clinton, Gore and Perot in order to land a spot moderating their first presidential debate. This is a must see for both the media expert and the novice as a reminder that what you see isn't exactly the whole picture.
To view...Click Here (Google Videos)
Life is indeed stranger than fiction. Evidence: A girl with a phobia of pickles. Yup, pickles. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S89Y4shxtE]