oblivious nerd girl
hood chronicles

Many thanks to Ryan at Black Lava for letting me and Strawberry Farm Boy Mike invade Black Lava headquarters to create these buttons!

Come and pick one up!

Flipping The Music Video
Thursday, February 13th
8-10pm
Echo Park Film Center
Music Videos, panelists, live performances
Light refreshments
$5 suggested donation
Proceeds to benefit The Harmony Project & Sessions LosAngeles

When the idea of this music video showcase was in it's infancy I had a mini panic attack. I thought to myself, "Where am I going to find these videos? Who will be out there?" After taking some deep breathes and calming myself down I realized I could look to my own musical library for a start.  It was fun to go through the music videos for artists that I totally dig.  Here are three artists who's videos we'll be showing at Flipping The Music Video.  These aren't the videos that will be screened, however these are other works in their repertoire.  So call it a sneak peak into what may be shown. 

Imago - Sundo by Marie Jamora.  I met Marie last year when her film Ang Nawawala screened at Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.  I immediately became a fan of how the film. The style. The actors. Even the way tumblr was used as a part of the film.  In addition to that the music was awesome. The soundtrack is full of OPM artists that are amazing.  

I've always had a thing for OPM. I am terrible at singing along since I can't really speak tagalog, but I really love the music.  Imago's Sundo is an example of my own musical taste in OPM.  When I hear this song I want to go on a road trip up PCH, stare at the ocean, and feel the wind in my hair. It's a song that reminds me of summer and being carefree. 

Rocky Rivera - No Love. It's funny, but I remember being a fan of the MTV show "I'm From Rolling Stone." I love reality tv. This is no secret. But I flipped my shit seeing this Filipina on screen competing for a spot on the Rolling Stone payroll. I even messaged her on MySpace and told her how I was a fan. (yes yes MySpace, I'm a nerd okay!) When she moved to LA a few years later, it tripped me out that I could consider this woman a friend.  When she decided to stake her own claim as a hip hop artist I was immediately intrigued. I've never been disappointed in the music she puts out.  

I am a fan of booming, hard hitting bass in my music. It's the reason I loved deep house in high school. It's the reason why Warren G's records still are some of my favorites.  When an emcee utilizes that sound I will instantly stop and listen.  No Love does that for me. And the lyrics. Hot damn. Listen to what she's spittin at you. It's as Dylan said on Puff Daddy's Making the Band - Hot Fire! 

Bambu (Featuring DJ Q-bert) - Crosshairs by Kevin Prudencio. This fool. I almost want to leave with just those two words, "This fool." I don't know if he knows this but my first memory is of him slanging cds at FPAC many, many, MANY moons ago. I was super young and my gut instinct was to roll my eyes at him.  For some reason whatever he said convinced me to give him my $5 or $10 whatever he was charging that day.  Since then I've worked with him on several community events and consider him a homie. Strawberry Farm Boy Mike and I have been in the audience of several of this mans shows. As all the other LA homies know, we do it because we are family and also fans. When he played the Roxy for the first time it was pretty insane. As much as we kid each other, I am a fan of his work.  

This song tripped me out because of DJ Q-bert being featured on the track.  Being married to Mike means I've learned quite a lot about djs through osmosis.  When we first started dating it would quite normal for him to play Invisible Scratch Pickles vhs tapes in the background of us studying for class.  The fact that I can remember the words "Invisible Scratch Pickles" is all due to him.  When Bambu's Crosshairs came out I geeked out at DJ Q-bert being on the song.  I'm a nerd. I blame Mike for this nerdy. 

I'm excited to see all these artists music videos in one place. I'm truly a fan and to bring them all together has been an awesome process. Come geek out with me. It will be fun!

Flipping The Music Video
Thursday, February 13th
8-10pm
Echo Park Film Center
Music Videos, panelists, live performances
Light refreshments
$5 suggested donation
Proceeds to benefit The Harmony Project & Sessions LosAngeles

Last year someone on tumblr determined that Jan 20th was the official "Good Day" that Ice Cube raps about.  I officially made this calendar note to always remember the day the Lakers beat the Supersonics.  And the Good Year blimp did this today! 

Today was indeed a good day since it meant a day off to celebrate the life of MLK. How did I celebrate it? Screening films that were in my VC homework queue.   

I also continued my series of #adrawingaday and #nailedit drawing series by drawing this forest of trees.  A week ago I felt the urge to draw this kitten.  As a I drew it, I thought of an article I read about how adults stop drawing.  We stop because we feel we aren't good at it. But as children we are always encouraged to draw and doodle. I've challenged myself to do one drawing a day and a friend commented with the hashtag "nailed it." I look forward to finding something to draw each day.  It's an easy thing that makes me happy. It helps me fulfill my "Enjoy Life" mantra that I titled my 2014 mind map. 

A great way to start the week. Hope yours was a good day as well!

Yesterday was January 17th, 2014. Local and national news outlets ran stories about the 20 year anniversary of the Northridge earthquake.  Pops called me to ask me if I was scared when the earthquake happened. Was I? Not really. The earthquake happend at 4:31am. The house rocked and rolled. I remember sitting up, looking at my alarm clock and then going back to sleep. It was 4:31 IN THE MORNING! It was too god damn early. I didn't think anything of the earthquake. I wanted to go back to sleep.  

Pops tried to open my bedroom door and when it wouldn't open he back to yell. That's the first instance I felt panicked. The sound of my bedroom door scraping against a bookcase that had fallen over and was now in the way. I yelled at him to stop and rolled out of bed.  Pushing the bookcase up with books strewn all over my floor, Pops slammed the door open.  

"I'm fine!" I yelled and motioned to go back to bed.  Pops was not having it. He ordered me to put on some shoes and head downstairs.  This sucked. It was so early. I didn't think it was so bad.  I walked downstairs from my bedroom to the second floor of our townhouse.  Our kitchen was a mess.  A cabinet that held all our cups and glasses had tipped over. The kitchen cabinet doors were hanging half open and some of our plates had spilled out.

The phone lines didn't work.  Everyone was tying up the lines.  My neighbors had spilled out into the driveway of our townhouse complex.  We all waited. Waited for what, I don't know.  Nothing was on fire. Nothing had collapsed. An aftershock rolled and panic crept into everyones eyes. 

Daylight creeped up. Pops had decided to turn off the gas in case there might be a gas leak.  Power was out in our townhouse complex. Or at least I think the power was out. If not, no one wanted to turn anything on.  We watched TV on this tiny 1inch by 1 inch screen. It ran off of batteries. When the news stopped I remember watching the movie "Clue." Since it was winter we had to go to bed early since there was no light in the house!  That meant going to bed at like 6pm. I wasn't allowed to sleep in my room. Pops made me and mom sleep in the living room. It was like we were camping in our house. 

Pops was worried that people would try to come and rob us since there was no power.  He placed a black clutch type bag on the coffee table. It was a bag that I only saw during Halloween. It was the bag that held his 45. I didn't question whether or not it was really necessary. I was more concerned that I couldn't watch TV on our regular TV. Whenever shit goes down Pops takes out the 45. It's his go to gun.  He owns other guns, but that's the one that I always associate with Pops. 

Two miles away my cousins house as fine. My parents decided to take me there so I could take a hot shower. They had hot water because they didn't turn the gas off of their house. They still had power, so I sat in front of the TV and watched all the cartoons I missed.  We should've been in school but class was cancelled.  I think it was cancelled for a week. If you lived out in Santa Clarita you were out longer since the freeway had collapsed and the Old Road into the Valley was severely impacted.  My oblivious nerd girl self thought, no school for a week? Sweet! Earthquake damage to our house, whatevers...

Last night Strawberry Farm Boy and I were talking about the Northridge earthquake.  I mentioned that I didn't realize how big a deal it was.  He was surprised. He commented on how it was one of biggest national disasters that we'd ever experienced.  And I said something that revealed the way I process things.  

I never thought that the Northridge earthquake was a big deal because I couldn't let it be a big deal. If I had to think about how major the earthquake was it would scare me shitless. Instead I focused on the normal routine. School. Hanging out. Family life.  Seeing collapsed and condemned buildings became normal. Not being able to go to the Northridge mall, sadly normal. A cosmetic crack that lines one of the walls in my parents house to this day, normal. After a while, I guess when FEMA funds finally kicked in, things were torn down and rebuilt. The Northridge Earthquake became a memory. Something to use when folks talk about earthquake preparedness. 

The news stories yesterday were fully expected. Pops reaction to the earthquake being his 45 also fully expected. Me trying to go back to sleep during the largest national disaster at the time, completely expected. But me figuring out that I processed that scary experience through compartmentalizing everything, totally unexpected. Thanks Northridge earthquake press. It took twenty years to figure that all out!

With the Winter Olympics quickly approaching I fully expect an onslaught of figure skating posts.  Buzzfeed created this list (24 Reasons You Were Obsessed with Women's Figure Skating In The '90s)  plugging the next episode of ESPN's 30 for 30: The Price for Gold.  This 30 for 30 highlights the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan controversy of the 1994 Winter Olympics. 

Figure Skating, like it's summer Olympics cousin Gymnastics, is the sport Filipinos seem to become experts in when the Winter Olympics comes around.  When it was Winter Olympics time it mean Figure Skating. The US athletes like Kristy Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano go hand in hand with international figure skaters like Katerina Witt, Viktor Petrenko, and Surya Bonaly.  These were the faces of Winter Olympics for my childhood. Figure skating took precedence over any other winter sport. Which sucked because I am partial to a good hockey game. 

Watching figure skating means color commentary from my parents.  If a skater fell, it was over. If they were stiff and had precision but no grace, mom immediately wrote them off. If they weren't Kristy Yamaguchi, mom wrote them off for many years because Kristy Yamaguchi was the queen of ice skating. Although she did enjoy Katerina Witt. She was graceful on the ice. I learned the words "triple lutz/sowcow/axel" and that meant you were going to win if you could land them.  The hamill camel is one of my favorites a) because it rhymes, b) it's a pretty sick move, and c) Dorothy Hamill rocked the shit out of that pageboy haircut. 

I recall the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan fiasco with boredom. Sure it was salacious but I recall my parents being utterly bored. Neither skater was worth cheering on. I think Mom enjoyed Nancy Kerrigan's elegance on the ice, but in the way only a blunt Filipino mom could (because all Filipino mothers are experts at throwing shade) she would state, "She's not that pretty..." 

Ice skating means one movie: The Cutting Edge. This blasted movie is one of my favorites. I remember renting it from Wherehouse and watching it twice! Once on the Friday night we got it and then a second time on Saturday morning. And I know it wasn't just me. Almost everyone knows the phrase "Toe Pick" and honestly I wanted someone to try a Pamchenko in competition. 

Blades of Glory is a close second on top ice skating movies, but The Cutting Edge always takes it with it's epic 90s-ness

Ice skating also takes me back to an early childhood memory where I thought all Russian kids were ice skaters. Yes, ALL RUSSIAN KIDS. Why?  Because of this girl in my class at Pinecrest. Her name was Irene and she was Russian.  In second grade during show and tell she brought a video of her ice skating competition.  Now as a child who has experienced the Winter Olympics I recognized what was happening on the video.  As Irene did a single axel and attempted to do a camel spin, I flipped out. Like HOLY FREAKIN SHIT. I know someone who can do those moves?! My 7 year old oblivious nerd girl brain was trippin out.  

My friends back then were a United Colors of Benneton bunch. I was the Filipino girl. Pinky was the Thai girl. Jen was the Hawaiian girl, although I thought she was really Filipino and just said Hawaiian. Janell and Kim were the black girls. Lori was the white girl. Kelly was the blonde girl. Irene was the Russian girl. Her older cousin who also went to our school was also a figure skater.  They would have to go to practice after school and before Irene's mom would pick her up she would have her ice skating outfit under her clothes. Her cousin would also have an outfit on too.  My oblivious nerd girl brain made the assumption RUSSIAN equals ICE SKATING. 

When I told my parents about Irene, they shrugged their shoulders like it made sense. When I asked if I could do something like that, they sat me down in front of the tv and let me watch figure skating on tv. After school activities beyond afternoon TV did not exist in the oblivious nerd girl house.  Figure skating was out. Karate lessons were out. The only thing that I ever did after school was piano lessons, which I sucked at. 

It wasn't until years later when I met a Russian kid in college, that I finally realized how ridiculous my assumption was. I even asked, "Were you an ice skater?" and as the words came out of my mouth I smacked myself in the head.  I had to explain why I asked the question I was faced with laughter.  It was simply another notch in my obliviousness. 

In college I wrote many papers about Asian American representation in film and television. I can distinctly recall a paper about the film "The World of Suzie Wong" where it began with an angry poem about how fucked up it was that the beautiful Nancy Kwan's character Suzie had to have a hero in the knight in not so shiny armor played by the very attractive Bill Holden. (Yes the Bill Holden that Lucille Ball obsesses over at the Derby).  I believe the paper went on about how screwed up it was that Asian representation in film was split between the virgin or the dragonlady/whore. The paper was angry. I was angry. But the worst part of it all, I still love that damn movie.

Why? Because of Nancy Kwan.  She is beautiful in those 1950s films. And there was no one else to look up to as an Asian American child obsessed with film.  I even hoped she was Filipino, so that I could claim her. The narrative I created in my mind was that Nancy was Chinese-Filipnio because she just had to be. She could dance. I thought she could sing (See Flower Drum Song for that story).  She was super talented. She was everything I wanted to grow up to be. 

As a child I latched onto seeing Asian Americans and especially Filipnos on screen. Do you know how many times I've seen Operation Petticoat? Pops would get so excited hearing tagalog on screen! I honestly thought Anthony Quinn was Filipino when he played Andres Bonifacio in Back to Bataan. Why not? There were other Filipinos around him in that film. Sure they were a foot shorter than him, but I didn't care. It worked for my young impressionable oblivious nerd girl mind. 

These days seeing Filipnios on screen is easily accessible with TFC and GMA to most cable and satellite subscribers. The TV at Strawberry Farm Boy's parents house is always on TFC. Most of the time the shows are telenovelas or variety shows. It's all quite normal now. However seeing Filipinos and Filipino Americans in music videos still gives me that charge I felt from seeing Nancy Kwan on screen. The excitement of seeing someone who could be me on tv doing something mainstream.  

That's what Flipping the Music Video is about to me. These artists are using the music video medium to showcase their talent. These videos tell our stories and that's more than my oblivious nerd girl self ever got as a child.  Seeing all these music videos in one place is going to be epic. College oblivious would be so proud.  

PS - I still heart Nancy Kwan. She'll forever be one of my heroes. 

Hope to see you there folks!

Flipping The Music Video
Thursday, February 13th
8-10pm
Echo Park Film Center
1200 N. Alvarado St. (@ Sunset Blvd.), Los Angeles, CA 90026
Music Videos, panelists, live performances
Light refreshments
$5 suggested donation
Proceeds to benefit The Harmony Project & Sessions LosAngeles

2014 means new things.  One of the new things I'm tackling this year is curating.  Last year Irene Suico Soriano invited me to work on this project with her.  Brainstorming music videos from musical artists from the Philippines and the US has been rad. Finding artists and seeing what's out there has been crazy informative and enlightening.  It's allowed me to tap into the film background I studied in undergrad. 

Speaking of undergrad, that's when I first met Irene.  In 2002 a mentor encouraged several Filipino American students at UCI to attend the Filipino American National Historical Society or FANHS conference at Loyola Marymount University.  I recall it being a week of workshops and meeting Filipino Americans who were based in different parts of the US. Irene spoke at the spoken word component to the conference. 

I remember being totally inspired and blown away by her performance. In addition to performing poetry she also curated a film program for the FANHS conference. Being able to co-curate Flipping The Music Video with her years later is a bit surreal! I'm so happy to have connected with this awesome person! 

Mark your calendars folks!

Flipping The Music Video
Thursday, February 13th
8-10pm
Echo Park Film Center
Music Videos, panelists, live performances
Light refreshments
$5 suggested donation
Proceeds to benefit The Harmony Project & Sessions LosAngeles

See you there!

Last year I did a mind map for 2013. This year I continued the tradition in a fresh new moleskin notebook.  I'm testing out the bullet journal method this new notebook. New year. New way of organizing my mind.  I spent an hour or two thinking about what should go on my mind map. The theme "Enjoy Life" came about.  I feel like 2013 really prepared me for this new mantra. 

2013 had several rough patches, but I tried not to let it skew my view of the year.  As much as I wanted to say "fuck this noise" and revel in the negativity that 2013 brought me, I seemed to find my way to positive people, positive vibes, and simply a positive life. 

2014 feels like more of this mind set. Perhaps it's because Saturn's return is finally over and done. Perhaps it's because I'm seeing things in a different light. But no matter what it is, I feel like 2014 is hopeful. I feel hopeful. Even though today actually marks the last day of my winter break and I usually am totally bummed out. This time around I'm not. I'm actually looking forward to work and getting back into the swing of things. 

I've also spent the first day of 2014 getting my daily planner set up.  In 2012 I started journaling in a mini moleskin daily. I progressed to a small moleskin daily in 2013.  In 2014 I've moved onto the 8 x 5 daily.  Big book for big plans. I'm even trying to do a couple of these 52 Week challenges on lifehacker.  

Speaking of big plans. Excited for Flipping the Music Video coming in February and Kraftwerk in March! 

Cheers 2014. Looking forward to what you'll bring this Oblivious Nerd Girl.