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Shuffled! is a weekly column appearing every Thursday here on BPRLive. Each week, we welcome a person from the APA community to share some thoughts about the music they listen to. Check out the Shuffled! archive for past articles.

Today’s Shuffler: Eugenius

Eugene is a computer scientist superhero by day and a salsa dancing everyman by night. Or maybe it’s vice versa. When he’s not entrenched in his graduate work with computers and ambulatory devices, you might find him at the beach, off hiking, or jumping around watching hockey. Eugene spent much of his youth playing piano, and now dabbles with the guitar and mandolin.

A native of Canada, Eugene enjoys Asian American activism and social justice work in many different forms. Some day, you might find him growing his own fruits and vegetables. Or maybe not. Eugene wishes he could bike more, likes trying to rock climb, and enjoys giving foot massages. His favorite blog (besides BPRLive) is The Home Engineer.

Shuffle on!!

For the month of August, the crew members of BPRLive are sharing music from each of their own music collections.

I do not own an iPod or portable MP3 player and a bunch of my music is on CD. so before I wrote this Shuffled, I had to convert many of my CDs into digital format on my laptop. I could have done the Bao Phi thing and simply created multiple mixed CDs, but that would just make me a poser, so hence I’ll shuffle using my laptop. Here goes…

“You’re the First, The Last, My Everything”
Barry White
This is one of those tracks that I don’t listen to very often. Perhaps the candid expression of how much he loves this one woman is a little too much to swallow for someone who prefers subtlety. That doesn’t mean I haven’t ever had those feelings for someone—I’m just too chicken to write and sing a song like that. Some people love the deep Barry White voice? Me, I think it is kind of creepy sometimes. Moving on…

“No Me Acostumbro”
Rey Ruiz
The reason why I own this song is because I like to salsa dance. The first time I was introduced to this dance, I admit I went reluctantly because it wasn’t my idea. A friend of mine wanted me go with her. I was late and pretty much was terrible on the dance floor. Needless to say, I didn’t go back. Then, in 2006, I decided to pick up salsa again and obtained some salsa music to help me find the elusive clave.

I wish I could understand Spanish because then I could understand the lyrics. Luckily, the Internet can translate it for me. This song is about love too. Except this song is about how you feel when a loved one has left you. I know what he’s feeling. It’s how I felt when a loved one leaves you to go back home and home happens to be 5000 miles away.

“North By Northwest (Jake One Remix)”
Blue Scholars
This track is off of the Joe Metro EP that was released in 2007. The Scholars hail from Seattle and this track is about that wonderful city. Like any Blue Scholars track, the lyrics contain political messages, but this one is more about the Emerald City than anything else. I’ll admit that this is not my favorite Blue Scholars track about Seattle. The version on Bayani is better, in my opinion, and they have so many other songs about Seattle that are so much better. But, I suppose it could have been worse—a song from Enchanted the Movie could have shuffled up. Are you as surprised as I am that Amy Adams has a great voice? Well she does. (Oh shit, I’m doing the other Bao Phi thing…)

“Burn Your Life Down”
Tegan And Sara
This track is off of Tegan and Sara’s 2007 album The Con. I guess I like the angsty, alternativey voices that these two Canadian sisters bring to the table. They don’t have those awesome set of pipes and the lyrics don’t sound all that happy, but yet, the electronic poppy stuff in the background is still kind of catchy. Their music is good, but I don’t think they make my top 25.

“A.J. The Housefly”
The Bar-Kays
The main reason I own this funk track is because besides learning how to salsa dance, I also wanted to learn how to body pop. Based on the extensive information available online, funk is the preferred musical genre of body poppers. So, I obtained several funk CDs from the library and started listening to them. This is a song from one of those CDs I borrowed. Doesn’t it make you want to do the wave or robot man when you listen to it? Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Last 5 posts by shuffled

• On The Shuffled! Side Of The Ear: Bryan Thao Worra - November 20th, 2008
• Shuffled! Saymoukda "moOks" Vongsay - November 13th, 2008
• Shuffled! Charles Jang - November 6th, 2008
• Shuffled! Emily Lawsin - October 30th, 2008
• Shuffled! Grace Talusan - October 23rd, 2008

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