week of girl rock!

last saturday:

yeah yeah yeahs (link)

yesterday:


sleater-kinney

tomorrow:

cat power!

Writers, quit whining

Spare us the self-involved moaning over the agonies of your art. Writing is no harder than anything else, and the complainers should can it.

By Garrison Keillor

May. 03, 2006 | OK, let me say this once and get it off my chest and never mention it again. I have had it with writers who talk about how painful and harrowing and exhausting and almost impossible it is for them to put words on paper and how they pace a hole in the carpet, anguish writ large on their marshmallow faces, and feel lucky to have written an entire sentence or two by the end of the day.

It's the purest form of arrogance: Lest you don't notice what a brilliant artist I am, let me tell you how I agonize over my work. To which I say: Get a job. Try teaching eighth-grade English, five classes a day, 35 kids in a class, from September to June, and then tell us about suffering.

The fact of the matter is that the people who struggle most with writing are drunks. They get hammered at night and in the morning their heads are full of pain and adverbs. Writing is hard for them, but so would golf be, or planting alfalfa, or assembling parts in a factory.

The biggest whiners are the writers who get prizes and fellowships for writing stuff that's painful to read, and so they accumulate long résumés and few readers and wind up teaching in universities where they inflict their gloomy pretensions on the young. Writers who write for a living don't complain about the difficulty of it. It does nothing for the reader to know you went through 14 drafts of a book, so why mention it?

The truth, young people, is that writing is no more difficult than building a house, and the only good reason to complain is to discourage younger and more talented writers from climbing on the gravy train and pushing you off.

Young people are pessimistic enough these days without their elders complaining about things. Shut up. Life is pretty good when you grow up. You own your own car, you go where you like, and you sing along with the radio or talk to yourself or chat on your cellphone. You pull into the drive-up window and order the Oreo Blizzard. What's not to like?

One day you get lucky and find someone who's willing to pay you to do something you do well or can fake, and on this you can build a life. You marry someone loving and sensible who makes you laugh, and you beget children, and go through the poop and puke and snot years, and somewhere around the age of 5 or 6, your kids start to fascinate you. There is nobody like them, except perhaps you. You would run into a burning building for them, and at the same time they're the cause of exquisite worry and consternation. At the age of 12, they look at you as if to say, Your replacement has arrived.

Meanwhile, you march forward and sample the pleasures of life. You read history and learn to grill fish in beer batter and find comfortable shoes. You go to Rome. You go to Montana. You come to love baseball and old jazz and the art of conversation. You admit to yourself that you don't care for Walt Whitman or Proust or Henry James, and you forgive yourself for that and pick up Elmore Leonard and J.F. Powers. You discover the pleasure of discarding stuff. You find a hairstyle that suits you. You go back to Montana.

Eventually you cross the line into your 40s, the mortgage years. And the 50s, when you stand weeping at graduations and weddings, and then, in the blink of an eye, come your 60s, and now you're on Easy Street. People who used to ignore you now treat you with reverence. There is great silence when you natter and pontificate, and people ask the secret of your success. You have become eminent. Inside you feel mischievous and jokey, but other people see you as a laureate, so you learn to harrumph.

Clarity is hard. Honesty can be hard. Comedy is always chancy, but then so is profundity. Sometimes one winds up as the other. Illness is, of course, to be avoided, and also megamalls and meetings involving vice presidents. But writing is not painful, no more so than a round of golf. Nobody was harmed in the course of writing this column. That is all I have to say at this time. Thank you.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Wild Speculation
a fiction reading and chapbook release
with Neelanjana Banerjee's workshop


Date: Sunday, May 17, 2006

Time: 7-9PM

Location: Space180, 180 Capp St, San Francisco

Cost: $5

Join Kearny Street Workshop for a reading of new works of fiction and the release of a new chapbook from KSW Press, Wild Speculation. Featured readers for the program are Lisa Wong Macabasco, Ravi Chandra, Corrie Bowe, Jimmy Cho, Viet-Ly Nguyen, Nina Fallenbaum, and Susanna Kwan.

Edited by Neelanjana Banerjee and KSW, with cover design and layout by Thien Pham and illustration by Susanna Kwan, the chapbook is the second in KSW Press' new chapbook series.

Reception to follow reading.

which person from asian american history would you most want to date?


Alex: I'd say "George Takei ... I've always wanted to be his Uhuru"
Alex: "and that voice!"

the last third is usually backwash
stephen colbert at the white house correspondents' dinner

yes, this happened today. gimme a break, it's friday.

crys: fave JADE one liner - "i'm a soldja sista, betta reckanize."

--

dear person in oakland who is googling marg0t and reading my blog - you are a stalker!!! eat it.

my awesome writing teacher posted this on hyphen's blog about the whole How Opal Mehta Got Kissed... fiasco:

Go ahead, call me a snob. I’ll accept this label. But I am more interested in reading and supporting new Asian American authors who are pushing past the model minority stereotypes and writing about class struggle, passion and politics in a way that doesn’t have to include discussions of brand-names and, in this case, super-elitist academic institutions. I think my critique of Viswanathan goes beyond her chick-lit genre, because this critique applies to authors like Jumpha Lahiri as well, and is more about my frustration with the lack of fiction out there about the working class South Asian community. Can we only write about first generation immigration experiences, living in the suburbs or the homeland? I don’t mean to favor subject-matter over writing quality but I think if South Asian writers continue to write about the same subjects and place their stories in the same settings, we are just limiting ourselves.

while no one can call me a great fan of ishle or any type of objective critic of jhumpa lahiri (sob!), i agree with her questioning of these categories of fiction that all asian am. writers have to fall into in order to get published. if i see one more food-related asian am. woman narrative, i may eat placenta. anyways, scroll down and see how the wolves reacted to the post. jesus.

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in other news - m-dub is back!! but sake bombing makes my head hurt in the morning. ouch.

i used to think this was my favorite all-time photo of minnie.

but this definitely takes the...cake.



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the almost may playlist
"gatekeeper," feist (link)
"crazy," gnarls barkley
"the police and the private," metric
"this is hardcore," pulp
"love's lost guarantee," rogue wave
"lightness," "what sarah said," "someday you will be loved," pretty much anything by death cab
"i want to be buried in your backyard," nightmare of you
"love," keyshia cole

awesome version of "crazy" from TOTP (link from goldfid):

still got it!

ali w.'s birthday party @ 111 minna - drink count:
-gin and tonic
-jaeger bomb (jager bombed into red bull)
-lemon drop martini
-shot of patron (!!!)
-kamikaze shot
-vanilla stoli and ginger ale

then, nizario's and the cross fade.

in other news, steve threw up after our $100/person dinner on friday. yes, he threw up the foie gras.

thembi's aids diary: a really touching audio diary from a girl in south africa living with aids. almost made me cry on the shuttle ride this morning...

APOCALYPSE IS NEAR

me: are you at home?
steve: No I have a sidekick now

next, you'll want wet tee shirt swimming, too.

jesus mc-crimpy

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and by popular demand - papabasco!


dad watering his garden


the PI is the texting capital of the world - my dad can totally text in tagalog on his cell now.


minnie said: "look at his little hat!"

photo time


with our tricycle


around 6 am in pakil


rice fields and haze




the town where papabasco is from


everyone in the town has our last name, as seen here on this jeepney


CARIBOU!!


we climbed up this huge mountain at 6 am. it was as steep as the hill of my house in sf THE ENTIRE WAY. my knees were killing me.




my cute little cousin, gwenn


river "resort"


in uncle nito's (short for juanito) tricycle




just trying to fit in there


it's called turumba, and they parade a virgin mary statue around the town square


it's quite hectic.


my filipino daughter, rachel, with pancake in one hand and chocolate eggs in another


for those who have seen my baby photos in my room - isn't this me??


we made rachel pee on herself because we gave her four glasses of tang in about 20 minutes. i said to laurie, "umm, are you sure it's ok to give her this much?" and she said "yeah, why not?" rachel doesn't speak english, so laurie didn't understand what she was saying, and she ran onto the porch and peed on herself.


plaza in pakil


palm blessing on palm sunday




with gramabasco


in HK

Four jobs I've had
1. Coat check girl for private parties
2. Admin asst. at an environmental nonprofit
3. Summer day camp counselor
4. Nordstrom, Point of View dept.

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Four Weddings and a Funeral
2. Manhattan
3. Annie Hall
4. High Fidelity

Four places I've lived
1. Manhattan
2. DC
3. Berkeley
4. Birmingham UK

Four TV shows I watch
1. The Office (UK)
2. Blow Out
3. America's Next Top Model
4. Flava of Love

Four places I've vacationed
1. Prague
2. Hong Kong
3. Paris
4. Barcelona

Four foods I love
1. brussel sprouts
2. tj's palak paneer
3. soup dumplings
4. sausage

Four sites I visit daily
1. goldenfiddle.com
2. wwtdd.com
3. weather.com
4. style.com

Four places I'd rather be
1. havana
2. berlin
3. moscow
4. reykjavik

Four random items in my bag
1. marlboro ultra lights, hk edition
2. three types of lip balm
3. foundation
4. i heart NY lighter

Four things most people don't know about me
1. I hate answering my cell phone
2. I read the new york times in print every day
3. I think being supported entirely by my partner would not be that bad
4. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a model

Four people I tag
1. itzjustjai
2. grooverobber
3. wildthangyang
4. allypoo

hilarious

Biff: she's turning all "Waiting to Exhale" and shit

emily won sf cherry blossom queen!

email from alex:

Does anyone want to have a celebration for April 20th, 2006?

Emily, will you be our ganja blossom queen?

minnie: ps love how jesus had crimped hair at palm sunday

damn, i thought i kicked the jetlag in one day, but here i am at 5:30 am, and i have been awake since 4 am. i am drinking water and contemplating eating toast.

today ali hu had a bbq, and i was probably the only one there who had not realized it was her birthday bbq until today. i always forget what sf native style is, but so many people were wearing north face jackets, hooded sweatshirts, knit caps, and timberland boots that i asked ali, "did you guys all just get back from snowboarding or something?"

i took the surrogate mister, sexy alexi (according to his dixie cup, courtesy of ali - a high school joke), who said "since when are there djs at backyard bbqs?" oh yeah, there were djs in the garage. and we were sitting right next to the speakers which were way too loud for just 20 people, so of course alex was chatting with his booming voice, and each time there was a break in the music, whatever alex was saying would echo through the entire garage. hilarious. i giggled over my fruit and salad (can't eat anything larger than that yet, still on my asia diet).

ok i made toast. with mascarpone cheese. try it. delicious.

i've got some pics from the PI and som thoughts from hk, to come tomorrow.

le tigre covers the pointer sisters' "i'm so excited"

---

the new republic takes on my only reason to wake up on thursday mornings, the thursday styles:

But it's one thing for a bunch of glorified ad vehicles--or even the rampantly capitalist Wall Street Journal--to be hawking designer duffel bags and skin cream priced higher than Jack Abramoff's legal team. After all, these publications unabashedly promote--and generally cater to readers who share--a Trump-esque mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude toward wealth and consumption. It's quite another matter, however, for the venerable Times to lend its imprimatur to a genre so awkwardly at odds with its own high-minded liberal sensibility and intellectual pretensions. This, after all, is the same paper that, last year, ran an eleven-part series on class in America, in which it described economic mobility as "the promise that lies at the heart of the American dream" and exhaustively pondered its apparent decline. Social consciousness for The Wall Street Journal may mean crushing the welfare state, but, for the Times, it means earnest editorials packed with noblesse oblige. (Classic snippet from last Thanksgiving: "There is no shame in the poverty Americans suffer today. The shame adheres to those who do nothing to change it.") Wretched consumer excess may be the American way, but is it really the paper of record's business to lend it respectability?

i don't entirely agree with this seeming calling out of thustyles, but i do agree that i am probably one of those ambivalent bobos who feels "a twinge of shame about their aggressive acquisitiveness."

"Thursday Styles," by contrast, is seeking new converts, reassuring its more skeptical readers that there's really nothing wrong with showing off their good fortune. This is delicate work considering that even many ultra-affluent Times readers belong to the ambivalently wealthy ranks of the "Bourgeois Bohemians" profiled so piquantly in now-Timesman David Brooks's 2000 classic, Bobos in Paradise. A new breed of elites deeply conflicted about their material success, Bobos are morally appalled by any gaudy display that could make them look like "the vulgar Yuppies they despise." Writes Brooks: "Maybe off in Vegas there are still some rich peasants trying to conspicuously consume, buying big limousines, powerboats, and sports franchises and piling up possessions to demonstrate their net worth. But the Bobo renounces accumulation and embraces cultivation. He must show, in the way he spends his money, that he is conscientious and not crass." Unlike the typical in-your-face luxury porn, "Thursday Styles" grasps the conflicted code of the Bobo.

and i see myself here, too:

Similarly, complaining about the drive out to a mall well north of the city, she once quipped, "On my deathbed, I would like to be able to say I read Pushkin in the original Russian, not that I spent 12,458 hours in the pursuit of shopping." It's fine to spend absurd amounts of time and money acquiring absurd stuff, Kuczynski is assuring us, so long as you recognize the absurdity. Because the real vulgarity isn't greed, but rather a lack of self-awareness.

i actually enjoy reading the critical shopper, and i feel like she understands the conflicted nature of conspicuous consumption that more and more people are now able to participate in. i like her self-conscious asides at the shock of price tags and the reality checks. i too would like to say on my deathbed that i read pushkin in original russian (or anything in original russian), but i'm not going to be ashamed about being gold-collar either.

insomnia
while my body is still on hong kong time, there are lots of things rattling around the attic at 2 am. i liked what rj wrote recently:

i've been in california for about 8 months now. i haven't really danced since i left michigan. sometimes i worry whether or not i am still capable of doing everything i used to do, all those things i was known for. the thing with personas is that they aren't fictional representations, false identities that one might play on television, then shed like dead skin when the cameras stopped rolling. they're more like different sides of the same die, numbers that turn up when the conditions are just right; they are the shards of our ideal selves, made real and public if only for a moment. when they are gone, it is as if a portion of our soul has disappeared beneath the currents of time, leaving us with the bittersweet taste of nostalgia on our tongues. not even the wine of california's napa valley can mask its flavor.

potent images from new york, dc, london, berkeley ebbing and flowing in my dramamine addled head. it all seemed so long ago, a totally different world. i have been blessed and cursed with a bad memory that i have worked hard to achieve over the years with drugs and more alcohol than i would like to admit and a little bit of will. i stumbled in five inch heels three weeks ago in an empty dive bar with a pool table in the back off polk street. i got drenched in rain on bush near the stockton tunnel and had fernet and soggy cigarettes at a dark round table. i shivered in shorts in a windswept smoking area in front of circolo and passed along parliaments and gossip.

but how does that compare to hennessy goldschlager 151 tequila captain kamikaze shots on the ground floor of dream, dancing and smoking next to minnie and margot, buying lin a liquid cocaine and not teling him what it was, watching alice puke behind a couch at a club on H street, seeing that couple go upstairs into rj's room, telling the twins i really don't want to do another shot, not being sure if you are sweating alcohol or sweat, getting jaime some water, hey your friend is cute, hitting a foil pipe that margot made, buying from my SGM hairdresser, was my skirt this short when i left the house?, doesn't clarence look exactly like arthur?, i think he likes you, the power of suggestion, let's call him while he's on his date, she's not even that cute!, not the beer bong again, not those annoying guys again, oh my god let's do a shot. but isn't margot in the shower? she doesn't mind doing shots by herself. what is she doing in the shower at 11 pm while there is a party downstairs?

or later, stumbling through chinatown in head to toe crushing marc jacobs, thinking only of soup dumplings, and how many excrutiating steps it will take to get there, having a few drinks in the lower east side and zipping home across the bridge in a taxi in ten minutes, eating my first deviled egg and hearing minnie drunkenly scream at a bitchy looking asian girl for saying shit about wellesley, hearing a white guy do a perfect karaoke of shaggy's "angel", feeling like alice in wonderland at the dove bar, laughing in rite aid with minnie and bot about a random guy saying that caramel candy was not so good, seeing bear heads in the snow in philly.

dear lord, it's 3 am.

CONVERSATIONS I'VE HAD
DURING A NORMAL DAY
IN LOS ANGELES,
MODIFIED TO
INCLUDE THE SHOCKING
DEPICTION OF RACISM
FOUND IN PAUL HAGGIS'S
2005 FILM CRASH.

alex: man you must be a pain in the ass to fight against
alex: in WSG
alex: with all your dynamite
alex: and shit like that
me: what?
alex: HAHA
alex: OMG wrong window

asian american film lives!

so, i think most of you know how big a hater i am on asian american film. saving face? snooze. the debut? eh. charlotte sometimes? right. i just don't think i should have to lower my standards just because they're asian american films. i hold them to the same standards as any film. to me, there is no affirmative action program for asian american film, or music for that matter.

i always go into these heavily hyped films (see examples above) with high expectations - this WILL be the film that redeems my faith in asian americans' ability to make good films, to have interesting stories, and good acting. after being so disappointed so many times, i pretty much avoid all asian american film unless it's GUARANTEED to be good. which is impossible to guarantee, i know. but that is kind of the way i approach all movies i see - i want them to be in the 98th percentile of films. or have really hot guys in them.

which is why this year when 500 people asked me if i was going to the film festival, i said "(hell) no(!)" i guess it's a tribute to how popular the festival has become that so many people are asking me about it. but i was still so wary of the quality of the films. and after hearing from various folks who had seen movies at the fest. this year, i was ever more skeptical.

so i almost didn't go see the short film collection mystery arcade last night. but alex bought tickets, and i figured it would be good to do something asian american scenester-y because i haven't done much of that since the bot went british.

the first few films were total conceptual films that were trying way too hard to be art house. people, narrative is your friend. hiro was cute and interesting. steve brought up a good point during the films - what makes a film "asian american." some of these films felt more "asian" than "american" especially with all the english subtitles. which is fine, but i wonder what the criteria is. one film was made by an asian american, but featured no asian actors or plot elements. is brokeback mountain an asian american film?

but the best one by far was a canadian short called astronaut. it's a mockumentary that's not immediately apparent it's not a documentary. think of it in the same vein as the office. which is amazing in and of itself - an asian american office. crazy!! it's about three "typical" asian american young men who manage to come off as both pathetic and sympathetic at the same time (like david brent). you want to cringe but then you also want to laugh. the acting is so perfect, you almost can't believe the characters aren't real. the film is also throughly asian american (whatever that means), dealing with issues of alienation from family, acclimation to the united states, disillusionment with the american dream.

this is what asian american film should be doing - exploring new territories, really pushing the envelope to see what can be done, not merely retreading the same things that have been done before in hollywood 10,000 times. true, mockumentaries are no new thing (christopher guest). but it was so refreshing to see asian america(n males) portrayed in all their uh....glory. that was a cheap shot at all the apa dudes who play video games for weeks in a row (have fun while you can, right?), but i meant in all their complexity. apa males always have complexes about their media portrayals and masculinity, so they feel they are practically entitled to positive portrayals that boost their egos or show how lovable they are. BARF. what's should be happening is a push for more accurate portrayals of apa males (and apas in general) - that means the good (their struggles to make ends meet, to find companionship, to make human connections) and the bad (their need to control women, to be the hero, the inability to see women as more than objects that have to be taken care of and given material things). this movie showed men as they are - you want them to succeed and be happy, but then at times they're just so ridiculous.

why republicans are better in the bedroom...why liberals are (written by my co-intern at MJ!)

from the GQ one:

10. NIGHTSTAND READING
You will never hear a Republican say, “Let’s just cuddle and read The New Yorker tonight.” They understand you do not want reading materials in bed. You want a man.

Yesterday:
APPETIZER: Japanese Pork Gyoza with Chili Soy Sauce
SALAD: Red Miso Chicken Salad (Red miso marinated chicken breast tossed with spring mix)
ENTREE: Unagi Donbori (Eel, with rice and micro beans with teriyaki sauce)
SIDES: Assorted Tempura Vegetables

smoked salmon bento box:
-Ohlone smoked salmon on sushi rice
-soy-glazed fingerling potato
-blanched asparagus with sesame dressing
-pickled napa cabage

lunch menu:
seared yellowfin tuna, spaghetti in olive oil and garlic, pesto penne, artichoke bowties

new job. yes, it's true.

i'm going to start to blog what i eat for lunch. just to gloat. and, yes, it's all free!

yesterday: halibut, salad, asparagus, brussel sprouts, chickpea pattie (what?)

today: crab and spicy ahi tuna poke inari (delish!), mango and pineapple smoothie

new asianweek piece:

Woman Miscarries Twins After Attempts to Deport Her in Philadelphia

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FINALLY



GAWKER STALKER MAPS

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Alex: ask Steve about "mas­turb­at­ing to the Marshall Plan"

IT'S TRUE....steve.
HAHAHA.

itinerary:

this weekend: l.a. for la's future-in-laws' engagement party
march 24-26: buffalo for FIND conference
april 1-14: hong kong and the philippines family vaycay
may 19-21 (and longer): england for all tomorrow's parties
may 26 weekend: cabo for bachelorette party

jetsetter yeaaaaaaah! BUT i haven't been on a vacation in two years. so there.

Alex: and on his way out he said "you bitches are hella mediocre."

Another piece up on the MJ front page (as of today):

The Train of Death

minnie won this freakin awesome project barbie contest. check it out. when she told me about it, i said, perhaps a little too excitedly, "is cyndi lauper really going to be there?"

---
it's a motherfuckin' forehead-off

good call, goldenfiddle:



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things you didn't learn in journalism school, part 1

[In Touch writer] Baer said she resorts to novel methods in her attempts to subvert the humiliating celebrity-journalist dynamic. "When I do phone interviews from the comfort of my own home, sometimes I put porn on in the background on mute for my own enjoyment, especially when artistes like Julianne Moore prattle on and on about their craft."

---
i'm going to be doing a session at the FIND conference on march 24-26 in buffalo. anyone care to join? PLEASE? OH COME ON!!!!!!!

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unemployment = dvd time
this past week i saw infernal affairs (decent) and oldboy (sick). asian movie week continues with tae guk gi and ocean's 12 (what?). recommendations welcome, as long as they are old enough to be checked out from the library.

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sheeps get their grooves on

what the fuck you doin' emmett?

TimesTalks with Death Cab and Larry David.

subject: memories
from: RJ

it was totally the american history museum. the whole thing was a lecture series focusing on korean adoptees. i think we got there a little late. to
the best of my memory, it was me, lisa, margot, and ting -- that huge (she was like "my giant") vna intern that no one really knew. there were probably more of us, but whatever.

first, it was that woman who shot that documentary about the adoption center she rolled in until she was adopted by an american family. i remember that she would have been kinda hot, except she had this crazy mole on her upper lip. she was saying some pretty heartwrenching and inspiring stuff, but the only two things that were going through my mind the whole time were, damn, her mole is fucking huge; and, boy, am i an asshole.

then it was that illustrator guy. he was funny because he didn't really talk about adoption at all. he just sort of talked about how he drew his pictures. in fact, none of his lecture actually stayed with me. i don't remember anything, other than the part when he admitted that the 10 year old boy in the picture was actually his wife, ying. his appeal came primarily from his speaking mannerisms. it was like he was telling a long, neverending joke, with each sentence on the verge of being the actual punchline.

after that, i think we all went home then met up at that place in georgetown, to drink really thick, strong coffee and smoke hookahs. my favorite part of the night was trying to get lin to make a move on candice, and lisa throwing up in the bathroom.

at least that's how i remember it.

two new articles up on motherjones.com:

1) Oceans and the Media
2) Toxic Fish and Poor Communities

also, check out the big feature on the state of oceans. i checked every inch of that sucker.

pink-ass SF sky, from my bedroom

a late valentine for all of you

the new pop 77 mix

jesus! one of the interns i worked with last summer just wrote this in last week's ny times magazine. damn.

is anyone else watching #1 single? how disgusting was it when her horridly anti-feminist sister (e.g. tells lisa to let the man do/pay/think everything!!!) folds the huge rice crispy treat square into a big fat BRICK of rice crispiness and then gnaws on it for like 20 minutes? the best part? "i need a diet coke to go with this."

rock out with your red rocket out!...more on the makers.

two more years

happy anniversary



BARF!

ziggy got married?

terry gross v. david bowie

the famous salmon scramble!!

i had to write this for a friend, and thought i might share with you all.

it's so so simple to make. the trick is that you HAVE TO HAVE sticky rice (calrose or whatever, it has to be short grain).

you need to make the salmon ahead of time - i budget about 1/3 of 1/2 a salmon steak (or 1/6 per salmon steak) per person. maybe more. anyways - you can grill or bake the salmon, any way you like - you can just do a simple salt and pepper seasoning or marinate it in some soy sauce and garlic, whatever you like to do. cook the salmon pretty much all the way through. then shred the salmon into little bits - after it's cooked it's easy to just use a knife and scrape off the salmon into little bits into a bowl. doesn't have to be tiny tiny bits, just like diced size.

also, chop up a few stalks of green onions to 1 cm wide bits - not too many to overwhelm the mixture, though, but enough for taste.

i use about 2 eggs per person, more for big eaters, less for small eaters. beat the eggs together for 30 seconds to loosen, then use a little bit of milk to lighten it up. add the salmon to the eggs and then the green onion too. add some salt and pepper.

put some butter on a pan over medium flame; when the butter gets foamy, dump all the eggs in at once, let them sit for 15 to 20 seconds, then whisk them to get a good loose soft consistency. whisk them for only until they are just cooked, then take them off the stove and top over the rice. YUMMY YUMMY.

open apple, option, escape

this was sent to me twice today, which means that you've probably already seen it.

rolling stone did a story about larry wachowski a few weeks ago - a good read. this paragraph was interesting:

And some experts believe that men who want to be women also tend to be what Larry Wachowski appears to be: a guy with a jones for technology. In 1974, Donald Laub, a plastic surgeon, and Norman Fisk, a psychiatrist, conducted a study at the Stanford University School of Medicine of 769 patients considering sex reassignment. Of the male patients, Laub and Fisk discovered an interesting predisposition: "Observation of the male-to-female group showed them . . . to be interested in mathematics and computer sciences."

i never thought i'd say this, but - my friend is on fleshbot! d is the one on the far left.

marg0t, this one's for you

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i swear, people who romanticize riding muni ride the white people muni buses. in related news, i watched an old chinese man fall asleep on the bus today. he had the roundest head i'd ever seen on a chinese man.



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story of the day: i have a small obsession with all these fake writers. maybe it's because dot dot dot

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el sueter! mire!

amazing.

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creepy.

google stereotypes

a store called "forever 21"

" When do the designers eat? We never see them eat!" they queried. "They have dinner breaks," he calmly replied.

"But does that time get taken out of the time that they have for the challenges," they specified. "No it does not - they can eat at their stations if they like," he calmy replied.

"Yes but WHAT do they eat and do they go out to eat?" they attacked! "The food is always brought in for them and it is different every meal," he calmly replied.

"Yes but WE DON'T SEE THEM EAT!!!! The show needs to be 2 hours! We want to see them eat!" the wolves cried.

...

Liza called this morning with a confession. "I DID dress for Tim last night. I was praying he'd say something about my shirt. I got it at a store called "forever 21" because I wanted to be hip and cool. I took a risk, which the judges seem to respond to. When I first saw him he put his hand up to his chin, paused, and I thought he was going to say 'I don't know about this - I'm concerned' but he said nothing, thank God. I was actually relieved. I am absolutely in love with him. I don't want him to ever be upset or anything to happen to him. If I heard from you that he was ever in a bad mood or if I ever see Santino give him grief, I swear - I'll start crying."

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from an mj interview with burt bacharach:

MJ: Just one more question I have to ask. Everyone is wondering, did Dre fall off?

BB: Did Dr. Dre what?

MJ: Well, years after his success, in the early 90s, with NWA and his massive solo album The Chronic, Dre wrote a track, "Forgot About Dre,"about how people were saying he'd lost his touch—that he'd fallen off.

BB: Why would he write that? Dre never went anywhere. Never been gone. The guy is so present. He's one of the great record producers of all time.

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FINALLY.

i got to go to skywa1ker ranch today for a job interview. even if i wasn't interested in the job (which i am), i would not have passed up the opportunity to see our generation's xanadu.

the interview was for a very-well paying fct-chcking (fruit-fucking?) gig at lucas' magazine. i can do the work from nyc, luckily, and it's not that many hours of work each month. but i know you'd rather hear more about the digs, so this is my reportback:

it's about a full hour drive from the city, and then about 15 minutes of driving along this curvy road through the countryside. when you get to the ranch, it's gorgeous. lots of green pastures and rolling hills. there were even two beautiful horses in the stable area. i got a glimpse of the map, and there is also an organic garden (apparently the staff cafeteria gets ingredients from there). all the buildings look like 1) english manors 2) ski lodges 3) wasp-ish connecticut homesteads.

no, no yoda. in fact, i saw nothing star wars-related. if i knew more about that movie, i would make more jokes here - but sam did say that maybe i will get a holodeck.

i'm moving back to new york to live with minnie in brooklyn next month!

source: just jared

my hipster lover, according to minnay

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kitten war: dos and don'ts

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how to write about africa

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new girl crush: nina garcia!

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minnay: "you are filled with racism today. good job."

"so let's talk about that oreo, when you put that oreo in the deep fat
- tell me how that works and what it tastes like..."

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from l.a. weekly's political highlights of 2005 (all worth a read):

2. Are Women Necessary?
Not in Hollywood, it seems. Once again, prize givers are struggling to come up with standout female performances — Carla Gugino flaunting her rack in Sin City? Judi Dench playing Judi Dench, yet again? But the problem isn’t the studios’ alone. When Warners brought out North Country, a stolidly worthy film about sexual harassment, reviewers clobbered it for being just like like Norma Rae — as if the problem with Hollywood is its insistence on churning out feminist dramas. (The same thing happened to Mona Lisa Smile.) When Fox released In Her Shoes — a touching, beautifully made film with wonderful performances — it got written off as just another “chick flick,” a fate that never seems to befall “guy flicks,” even when (like Sin City) they wallow in the most sophomoric and masturbatory male clichés. Which isn’t to say that the media don’t like so-called women’s pictures — Brokeback Mountain left reviewers weeping. They just don’t want them to be about women.

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also from l.a. weekly:

Annual Anagrams

America + Iraq = CIA REAM IRAQ

Rumsfeld = DR. FLUMES

Rumsfeld + Iraq = ALFRED SQUIRM

Bush + Rumsfeld = BLUSHED SMURF

Bush + Rice = U.S. BE RICH

Katrina = ANTI ARK

Gov. Arnold = VALOR DONG

Antonio Villaraigosa = A VAGINA SALON OIL RIOT

Mayor Antonio = AMATORY ONION

Tom LaBonge = A BONG MOTEL

Brad + Angelina = BAGEL AND RAIN

Tom Cruise = MR. SO CUTIE

Katie Holmes = LAME HOSE KIT

Tom Cruise = I, SO RECTUM

Katie Holmes = TOES LIKE HAM

Heath Ledger = THE LARGE HED

Kanye West = SWEET YANK

Conor Oberst = BORN TO SCORE

Arcade Fire = A DIRE FARCE

Sufjan Stevens = JESUS FAN VENTS

Fiona Apple = A POP FINALE

White Stripes = HE WRITES SPIT

= HER PIES TWIST

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some new tunes, courtesy of here:

"you are what you love," jenny lewis and the watson twins
"love's lost guarantee," rogue wave
"i love a man in uniform (yeah yeah yeahs remix)," gang of four
"breathe me (four tet mix)," sia
"la patte," saian supa crew

new article up here.

link to my site on your site and increase my google rating!

http://macabasco.com

more birthday pics
and the many, many lap dances...

my problem is my inability to be independent of people who are utterly undependable.

playboy bunny

"make them look like deer."

top sign i don't love christmas - i had to hold myself back from saying: "there's not even any evidence jesus christ was born today!"

instead of christmas cheer, i've been catching up on months of lucky magazine, drinking ghiradelli mocha-hot chocolate, and listening to kazuo ishiguro's never let me go on CD. also been catching up on my project runway - i love daniel v. (be still my hipster heart) and tim gunn, of course.

i got some great gifts this year, including a featherbed and cashmere hoodie from mom, the marc jacobs perfume set and a single-serving coffee pot from italy from laurie, a soft non-snap bathrobe from my aunt, and a really nice tan-colored portfolio for my clips from steve.

we had our mwdc christmas party on wednesday at mr. smith's, which was pretty swanky. it used to be this bar called heaven and hell or something, and upstairs it was all white (heaven) and downstairs it was all red (hell). it's pretty yuppie, but on wednesdays, it's $5 all martinis, so i had something called a "christmas joy" - kahlua, amaretto, and egg nog, with a cinammon rim. there was another party there too, and part of the promotion involved two topless women wearing white antlers with silver body paint in a design on their chests and serving cardboard-tasting cookies. i tried to take one furthest from the nipples.

i only took a few pics at my birthday. i know more are floating out there somewhere, but i probably won't see them for six more months.

BAH HUMBUG
i'm a scrooge every year - big shocker, i know. i've been in a pissy mood all damn weekend. last night eug's birthday was so sf azn5000 - gross. total azn meat market. i need to go be with white people to balance. to fillmore it is!

cutest little bunny

my gift to you this season: ricky gervais podcast (number one on iTunes podcasts)

O.
M.
G.
!!!!!!!

new caption contest


whiteface?

"riding with my bitch in my escalade - whaaaat."

there are some interesting race/gender things happening here, especially with that little black girl wearing chinese pajamas. i'll let you come to your own conclusions. or maybe i'll have a caption contest for this - post in comments!

*from the ny times children's gift ideas

new article in this week's asianweek

also, i totally saw lyrics b0rn last night at the MF D00M show! in the stairway! and he checked margot out! there were like five guys for every one girl at that show. and all those five guys were white. i love the SF underground hip hop scene.


"first rule of margot - you do not touch margot."

spike jonze, i love you.

laurie: "well, the thing is that i think we'll need more than one person to play the music for our wedding."
dad: (snickers)
me: "what's so funny?"
dad: "well, i can play the harmonica."

birthday info:

Lisa's Macabirthday

Medjool
2522 Mission Street at 21st Street
San Francisco
Saturday, December 17, 10:00pm

feel free to bring yer friends!

guess who has a new razr!...also, saw "rent" last night. steve fell asleep and i was ready to leave after an hour. bo-ring.

slate's photo essay on inner-city youth in london - well worth checking out