Jan 07, 2014 2013, revisited
I thought 2013 was pretty rad. But why? I thought about it and boiled it down… A lot of these events and topics (not to mention my wardrobe) will be familiar if you’ve been even been reading this blog casually, but at least you know I’m not fabricating them or maintaining a secret life! My posts and interests are quite real.
WORK LIKE A DOG. 2013 was pretty great and a lot of it had to do with Imprint. Helping to put together Long Beach: Work in Progress in April was a dream come true, paying tribute to one of my favorite (and most underrated) cities through friends in music, food, skateboarding, and architecture. That’s Joe Escalante above, who served double duty as a panelist and moderator for the music panel with Jack Grisham from T.S.O.L. and Chhom Nimol and Zac Holtzman from Dengue Fever. I was a gracious audience member for the David Choe talk at the National Center for the Protection of Democracy and Architecture for Dogs stop at the Long Beach Museum of Art, as well. So stoked to attend and contribute to events like these all the time–and get to involve my family as well.
MAKE TIME TO VOLUNTEER. I also dedicated time and energy to Visual Communications, a nonprofit group committed to Asian and Asian American media–mostly independent. I had covered the group’s festivals for Giant Robot mag for years but have somewhat recently been conscripted into its features committee, which means I spend many late nights watching submitted movies. Some are pretty amazing. A lot aren’t or just aren’t right. But the hours of eyeball-drying note-taking are worth it when one gets to introduce and moderate Q&As with an awesome, world-changing documentarian like Kalyanee Mam (A River Changes Course) or conduct panels with badass filmmakers like Andrew Lau and Andrew Loo (Revenge of the Green Dragons).
CARE ABOUT YOUR CULTURE. Perhaps one of the most pivotal moments in my life was when my dad opened up a newspaper and read an article about Marvel Comics to my twin brother Greg and me. We must have been in second grade. That afternoon, our family went on a trip to a mall in Torrance, where we got our first comic books (Fantastic Four 182 for me). That lead to reading, drawing, collecting, and fandom… The latter is crucial–breaking down walls between creators and consumers. Being active about culture. We attended our first Comic-Con with our in 1979, and I still go with my brother and friend from elementary school every year. At the most recent Comic-Con I got to interview the comics-influenced lowbrow maverick Robert Williams, which was very cool, and later on in the year I got to drive my friend and comic-book artist/professor Brian Ralph around when he was on a book tour.
GO OUT. It’s easy to stay home and read a book. And it’s nice to go out to get coffee or food with friends. But there’s nothing like seeing live music. I still go go to shows whenever I can–often by myself, usually in the $10-12 range–and I like to take photos as a hobby. I once heard Flea attest that music is the ultimate form of human expression, which anyone at any age can participate in and everyone from anywhere around the world can understand. Well, there’s a lot of bad music out there as well, but I really enjoy punk rock in all of its forms and will stand in front of a short, dirty stage for hours to be close to a band that I like. However, the photos of Les Savy Fav and FLAG, above, are from the photo pit at this year’s FYF. Now and then, blogging (and helping to found a magazine) has its benefits.
LEAVE HOME. I thought the selection of skateboard short films by friends that I put together ran its course last year with festival appearances in Chicago, Honolulu, and San Diego, but it was invited out of the blue to show in New York City. That’s filmmaker R.B. Umali (NY Revisited) and my longtime pal Wing Ko (The Brotherhood: Chicago) at the AAIFF screening. My wife and I thought we’d take our 5-year-old daughter to museums everyday while we were there but we wound up eating with different friends in different parts of Manhattan for our trip. Amazing. I had the best time I’ve ever had in New York and would totally move there–if we were insanely rich, I mean. Lunch with my long-lost friend Tae Won Yu then led to a trip to Portland and Olympia, to see his art show opening as well as performances by his new band (Poses) and reunions of his old band (Kicking Giant).
DO SOMETHING. Perhaps the biggest development for me in 2013 was Eloise going to kindergarten, which led to Wendy and me volunteering at her campus every morning, and eventually got us throwing Save Music in Chinatown benefit concerts to raise money for the elementary school’s music program. I never thought that my writing career would lead to something tangible–and not just on a printed page or computer screen–and hopefully even help kids and the community in the Chinatown. I’m no expert at doing stuff like this but it’s been a blast working with friends in the worlds of arts, music, and other creative fields to make the shows happen. Can’t wait for the next ones in 2014, and hope we get a little better each time.