wordstress

So I recently found out that people are starting to buy my CD in Australia and that it's making people think about things like Asian identity, colonization etc. That blows my mind away and I hope they build like crazy over there and that we'll be hearing about the revolution soon!!!

Also, I just discovered today that you can IM on myspace, never knew before!

(oh and to the person I was IMing with, yes for sure)

......so today was the first class of our Asian Arts Freedom School.......and it went really well! A whooping 30 people showed up and ethusiatically shared their stories with the class. To me the big turnout really shows that people want and need an asian arts space.......And we really put the pan in pan-asian as we had a really good cross section of the Asian Diaspora, a good number of arab, east and south asian, and some southeast asian and people from the carribbean. Also, a good number of queers were there as well! It feels good to create this sort of space in the t-dot.......

So I'm finally finished recording and mixing my CD and have sent it off to be manufactured, now I can get back to the important things in life like lj:

Our aboriginal sisters and brothers in Caledonia are under some serious attack right now by our wonderful government enforcement agencies as well as land developers. You can see video footage and and breaking news here:

http://auto_sol.tao.ca/

.....I'm always consciously mentioning how we are living on aboriginal land to people.....I feel I have to do that.....

....So I was at the d'bi young booklaunch today (thanks d and j for the guestlist treatment and dinner!)......it was good to chat with lillian allen tonight, I've always seen her as a poetic god and I was always too in awe to speak coherently in front of her......but tonight everything was calm and I realised that I don't really have to say that much, because she already understands....it was so heartwarming to see three generations of dub poets all on the stage....d'bi seeming like an extension and progression of those who wrote before her....this got me thinking, I feel a strong and inherent sense of artisitc connection to poets like Lillian and Dionne, but why is there such a great distance between myself and Asian-Canadian writers of past generations. Where is our version of Nobuko or Lawson or even Marilyn?.........I made a promise today that when I look at asian writers younger than me, I will always see a small piece of myself and of the continuation of a future.......

....mangoes in town this weekend.......it's like my two seperate worlds have come into phase for a brief moment of meaning, healing and passion....I think we spent most of the weekend trying to stretch the minutes of the day until they extended and etched themselves into our memories....mangoes, for those of you who read or stumble upon this page, always remember you are dear to me because of how you exist and move......

......about people moving from the states to canada is about to completely stop.....our federal election is going on right now and it looks like the country has elected the Canadian version of George Bush (with less guns, less stupid, but way more creepy).......

edit: okay so it' a minority government, but still not good......

....actually played on national television (CBC)
For those not exposed to many Canadian commercials, Lakota is a cough medicine made by non-Aboriginal people, but it's marketed as this 'mystical' native medicine that'll cure you in a jiffy!.

check this video out!

Oh how humour makes things easier to swallow......interestingly the actual commercial for Lakota is often played twice in a row, once with a Native guy speaking an Aboriginal language with English subtitles, and then a second time with the same guy speaking English......

.....so when I tell people that I'm composing music that mixes east asian accoustic instruments with electronic music I usually get responses like "that's really different" or "hmmmm cool" but noone ever says "are you serious that's what I've been doing as well"..... where are all the people with music asthetics similar to mine? And I'm not talking about the dude who thinks "wow I really like that cool sounding asian thing, it reminds of all the great songs by George Harrison and the Beatles. I'm going to use that sound to 'spice up' and add some 'flavour' to this techno track"...... I've always thought I would have to pack up my laptop and gear, haul my ass on a 14 hour flight and travel across the globe to some hot bar in Hong Kong (oh and B. I am thinking about it) or to some underground club in Bangkok to find my musical peers .......well it turns out all I had to do to find another asian-electro composer was open my door, head outside my building, and walk a block down the street....so I've been working with H. for a bit on a couple songs and it's been really exciting! She's got a really strong music background and it's really bringing out my musical side (usually i end up doing mostly vocals on stage and rarely touch an instrument) We're working on performing everything live with lots of improvisation using two laptops, electronics drums, drumpads, keyboards and whatever fits into the set. We're even working on the astheics of laptop performances and doing everything to be the exact opposite of that person who performs their music by just sitting behind a laptop, staring at the screen....this is going to be fun!!!... (by the way anyone know where to get some cheap crystals....and in the spirit of missruckus, why am I still up?!?)

......so I was walking around downtown yesterday in the rain, near Yonge Street, the media always give hope of a white Christmas, but instead of snow, everyone got wet on this particular Christian holiday...today, on those very same streets I was walking, tons of people were walking around Boxing Day shopping looking to get that incredible holiday deal (just like Black Friday in the States) and also along this same path there were at least two men firing gun shots right in the middle of the crowded streets.....1 girl dead, 2 people with serious gun shot injuries and many others wounded.....guns, death, guns, death, guns.......for the past while, the media has been painting a picture of a city exploding with violence, while communities are stressed out about the consequences.....people are saying/thinking things like "Toronto is getting more violent, like the States" and "this isn't the Toronto I know"......but personally I don't see anything that fundamentally different ( see why, here )

....Aside from graffiti, it's not too often you walk along the streets in Toronto and come across random displays of art....



...and I used to hate listening to music on monitoring headphones, but now I think it's essential, you hear so much more!......

......magic again.....so I was in this high school auditorium full of hundreds of restless 14 and 15 year girls, 95% women of colour.....I stepped onto the stage without any flashy intros saying who I was, and of course half the girls were in their own worlds just having conversations, making jokes, not wanting to be in school and just ignoring what was happening on stage......and if you know me I'm barely awake at 10 am in the morning so I was thinking in slow motion, but then the adrenaline kicks in and I start channeling the energy and the room goes silent.....and listens....and I'm talking about how media and images/expectations of women and violence swirl around us and what we can realistcally do about it.....they're really locked in to what I'm saying....and when my spoken word piece hits it's climax, they erupt with love and agreement.....and I pause my performance to let everyone have their space to cheer, shout out their thoughts and have a real moment that they probably don't have often in a school of white teachers.......and this moment becomes a naked reminder of purpose........magic.......


and this is from the toronto incite listserv taken from missruckus:

Although we all know that we should remember women who die as the result of violence, today is the "Official day of mourning" for murdered women in Canada.
As horrific as it was, that day in Montreal when Marc Lepine took his guns and killed 14 young women at L'École Polytechnique in Montreal , we know too, that our society in Canada has often turned a blind eye to the large numbers of First Nations, Aboriginal, Inuit and Metis women who have died violent deaths at the hands of men. One can't help but wonder if those women Marc Lepine killed that cold December day were anything other than white upper- middle-class women, if their deaths would have been ignored. Today we remember

......for a picture......One of the great things about having my picture in the Chinese newspaper is that my Mom gets excited about it, because Sing Tao gives her a frame of reference that is already in her daily life, rather than say CBC radio or an arts festival in another city. Most times I tell her about performing somewhere or getting some grant, it may be mildly interesting but she never has any idea if it's a big deal or not. But when it's a Chinese newspaper.......... I also like having articles in Chinese newspapers because then I can say "See Mom, pursuing the arts isn't necessarily a waste of time, impractical and a bad choice compared to a steady(boring) job, you can end up with a pretty picture in the newspaper!".........

.....whew!!! what a busy weekend, sleep's been a precious commmodity these last few days!....so the 2nd pan-asian conference against racism was in Toronto this weekend (and I managed to stop by for a bit). It was an interesting dynamic at the conference, there were Asians from all over the country (and actually a decent balance of South Asian and East Asian, though not as much with Southeast Asian), except there weren't that many people from Toronto. At one point in the conference the conversation actually became "Where are all the local Toronto people?". Was it a lack of outreach? Were people tired out? Were people lacking the funds to register? Were people disinterested? Probably a little bit of everything. No righteous finger pointing coming from me though because I know that people are doing a lot of good things around town and that there's a lot of legitimate reason why people weren't there. Toronto's a busy city and people are running around trying to do three things all at the same time (I'm actually scheduling two months ahead of time to meet people just for coffee!) but summit folks do take note, if Toronto people have problems walking down the street to attend a conference, how the hell are we supposed to get them to spend a lot of money and head to summit 07!..........The first conference 3-4 years ago seems so distanced right now.......I also realised this weekend that you can only watch a certain brazilian drumming troupe perform so many times in a three month period..... and that MIA's bucky done gun is possibly the best karaoke song ever!.......if you were to ask me what I would love to happen to the East/Southeast Asian arts scene in Toronto, I'd say that I'd absolutely want to have some sort of Asian arts centre set up close to the Spadina Chinatown or maybe Kensington Market, but what are the chances of that actually happening.......well this weekend the Kapisanan Phillipine Arts Centre had their opening in Kensington Market!!! Really exciting stuff, they fundraised for ten years in the community to do this, and here's a pic of their entrance area (yeah I know it's really bad, but I'll post a better pic soon).....

........So a big thing in the Chinese community is the Head tax issue that happened a hundred years ago.....it's a law that targetted only Chinese people (who mostly came to become railroad workers, miners and menial labour) that had them paying a head tax (equivalent to 2 years wages at the time)....
the government collected 23 million dollars in tax....so now the government wants to acknowledge how damn racist this tax was and they want to give 12.5 million dollars as compensation. Even though the money is way less than they should be giving, it's sounds half decent, no?......only thing is that they're giving all the money to some old conservative Chinese organisation that doesn't represent any of the people who actually paid the head tax, and certainly doesn't represent me or anyone I know.....you know, the government might want to change their mind and perhaps give the money to community organisations that actually service the Chinese and pan-Asian communities.....or perhaps actually give the money back to the people who paid the tax..........please take 10 seconds to sign this petition, it goes to all the members of parliament and may make a difference (I've already got a bunch of responses from MP's and the NDP party is officially speaking out about this)

.......just like anyone else, I love when someone offers free tickets to something.....so this time around I got a free ticket to the opening gala of the Reel Asian International Film Festival (thanks m.!)....the opening film was the Motel by Michael Kang (yes, yes I know, old news for all you in the States, since it’s already screened at your festivals)... not gonna type too much critical analyis of the film today, it's mostly for you hetero Asian guys, but also that the first half is really charming and will push those buttons in you that make you burst out laughing.........and today was a day I needed to laugh….....go see it when it goes on wide release and support pan-Asian North American cinema!.......

......so it's really interesting.....weird.....and explosive.....this whole internet interaction thing.....this is coming from a person who just realised this summer that you could use Friendster (which I've known about for years) to actually communicate with people......I was on this forum the other day and there are these pieces of audio that people on the forum couldn't hear clearly and were wondering about......a few of them tried cleaning up the audio (not doing a very good job of it, I might add) and posting what they thought they heard.....the audio was in such bad shape that I decided to take the clips, whip them through my computer and presto, some nice clear, cleaned up audio for people to listen to, I posted the audio and thought nothing else of it for a few days.......next thing I know 33,000 people have looked at my post and downloaded the audio, everyone's jumping up and down with thanks, my audio file ends up on a bunch of major websites and I get mentioned on a podcast as the major story of the week.......