boston progress radio

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: Kit Yan

Kit is a transgender slam poet originally from Hawai’i but like many argyle wearing transplants traveled to Boston for college.

He attended a conservative, stiff, snobby business school only to graduate and become a full-time loud mouth slam poet as part of the Good Asian Drivers, a music and spoken word duo that only pretends to gig and mostly uses touring as an excuse to eat random foods. Occasionally, you might catch Kit and Melissa Li (the other half of the GAD) perform about topics such as queer and trans life, APIA issues, and other politics. Kit has performed and competed all over the country at the National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, and numerous stages in over 20 states. Kit Yan is as obnoxious as Melissa says he is. He attributes it to his veganism and overall badass nature.

[Editor's Note: The Good Asian Drivers return to Beantown on October 7, 2008. Check them out at Northeastern University at afterHours. Oh and from what I know, Kit is only obnoxious when he hasn't been fed in awhile.]

And now, on to the shuffle… Read more

Tags: Shuffled!.

5 comments

East Meets Words Open Mic featured Emily Lawsin in September. Emily has been involved in community organizing for about two decades and on top of that, she’s well-versed with the academic side of Asian America. So needless to say, I was honored to watch her perform at East Meets Words. A truly amazing experience.

Before Emily came out to perform, she and I exchanged some e-mails about logistics. At some point, she asked me if I would stream the open mic live. And I told her, “Unfortunately, BPAC isn’t well-equipped enough to be able to do that… yet.” Then I added, “How about I do a podcast?” Secretly, I was hoping she would say, “Ah, don’t worry about it, if you can’t do a live stream of the event, then don’t bother.” What she actually said was: “A podcast! Wow, my friends back in Detroit, L.A. and Seattle would love to hear me via podcast.” At that point, I couldn’t really say no. So I said, “That’s a wonderful idea! Let’s do a podcast.”

Luckily, we are equipped to do some recordings of our events. During Emily Lawsin’s open mic performance at East Meets Words, I managed to record a few tracks. I hope you’ll forgive me for chopping up the performance, the battery to my portable flash-based recorder died on me. (I’m sorry I forgot to recharge by batteries.) And actually, I had forgotten the SD card for the recorder. So I had to steal the card from my camera. I know… you don’t want to hear this sob story, you just want Emily.

Oh, and if you were looking for a recap of the open mic, well, you should check out Emily’s recap. It is much better than anything I could have come up with. So please, check out her recap on her new site www.emilylawsin.com.

Tags: Boston Progress, Podcasts, Recap, spoken word.

2 comments

So according to Ain’t it Cool News, the role of Kato in the upcoming Green Hornet movie will be played by the man who was born to play the role: Stephen Chow.

But more than that, he’s set to direct as well.

Well. What can I say, but HELL YEAH.

I’ve been a Stephen Chow fan for well over a decade now, from the time when we used to rent VHS tapes from that woman in the South End who ran a bootleg Chinese video store out of her apartment. He started his career as a serious actor, but he eventually moved into comedies because he had a gift for it. Most recently, he’s been seen by American audiences in special effects-based action/comedy flicks like “Shaolin Soccer” and “Kung Fu Hustle.” But he’s been incorporating new uses of movie technology for years, from “Fight Back to School,” “King of Beggars,” and “From Beijing with Love.”

He also holds a place near and dear to my heart because as a younger man, he influenced his good friend Tony Leung to pursue a career in acting, which allowed us to now be living at the same time as the greatest film actor in the history of the world.

But this newest development is interesting because Kato was the character whose screen incarnation was originated by Bruce Lee. Read more

Tags: Movie.

2 comments

Ed Bok Lee is a Mid-Westerner. But look closer, he speaks several languages. One of them I bet you cannot figure out with only one guess. Ed is a well traveled artist, not a bit impressed by habitual country hoppers. In this interview, Ed reveals some alternative views on everyday attitudes that seem more like old wisdom rather than a slip of the brain. And he was quite the sport, answering all of my questions. As you will see, he gives no vague answers, leaves out no details and definitely has no fear of looking deep under that rock. [Editor's Note: Ed Bok Lee featured at East Meets Words on August 8, 2008. Check out the recap of his performance here. Maybe you'll recognize that photo.]

Jess Man: I saw you holding a 40 at East Meets Words. Do you usually have a beer during a show?

Ed Bok Lee: Not usually on stage, unless like that night in Boston—the cans were already there.

JM: I guess that’s how Boston rolls. Are your shows always in a blissful blur?

EBL: I don’t usually drink before a gig, but sitting on a bus for seven hours right before I got there made me really thirsty for those 40’s.

JM: You seem to always be on the move. Do you travel a lot?

EBL: After the book (“Real Karaoke People”) came out, I was traveling a lot. I did gigs all over the U.S., Korea, Taiwan, and Europe.

JM: Do you ever miss home? Or is traveling your lifestyle? I just know that you flew to New York City and then came to Boston to go to East Meets Words, intense.

EBL: Now I am kind of traveled out. There’s this line in a book by Don Delillo. Something like: “No one is as boring as the well-traveled.” Traveling too much can begin to make everything seem generic. Maybe a lot of travel is good for journalism. But poetry is about the human heart. That’s the rock you’ve got to look under.

JM: Where do you reside now?

EBL: Minneapolis, the oldest city on the West Coast, they say. In fact, the Mighty Mississippi is next to where I live. I cross over it every day. When I lived in Fargo, I used to live by the Red River, which flows north. It looks like a calm brown green thing that you could swim across in 20 seconds, but the undercurrents are deceptive. Sometimes I think that’s what people in the upper Midwest are like. You have to look closely to know what’s really going on below the surface. Read more

Tags: Interview, Minneapolis, spoken word.

2 comments

I may live in Boston, but I love the Mariners. They may be the worst team in baseball this year, but I still love them, I love Ichiro. Besides, the Mariners are still owned by Nintendo.

So yesterday, Ichiro Suzuki tied the Major League record for most consecutive 200-hit seasons by getting his 200th hit on an infield single in a game against the Kansas City Royals. It was the eighth year in a row that he has achieved that mark. Incidentally, he’s only been in Major League Baseball for eight seasons.

You can say what you want about Ichiro. That he has a terrible OPS, he doesn’t hit for power, and all he does is hit singles. He’s quiet in the clubhouse. And he only cares about his bat and his records. But you know what, he’s never used steroids. He doesn’t brag about his accomplishments. He cares about winning. He’s got a gun for an arm and he runs out all his hits. And he still manages to score a ton of runs even when the Mariners are stinking it up. So, yeah, I love Ichiro. And so does Hyphen.

Tags: News.

2 comments

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: DJ Marlino “da5footafunk”

As a 20-year veteran to the DJing game, Marlino’s DJ career started as a mobile disc jockey in 1988, which led to an opportunity to work in the radio industry in 1995 at WILD 107.7 FM (which shortly changed to WILD 94.9) in San Francisco. In 1997, he landed himself a spot as an On-Air Personality and Mixshow DJ at Jammin Z90.3 FM in San Diego where he made his mark as the first DJ in San Diego to spin live on the air on 3 turntables.

After over 11 years working in radio, in the Fall of 2006, Marlino passed on an opportunity to return to the radio industry in order to develop the podcast show Heavy Rotation – The Rise of Filipino Hip Hop and R&B. The idea was realized on December 8, 2007, as the first Filipino Hip Hop and R&B radio show on the world wide web. The idea was to establish a media outlet for Filipino Hip Hop and R&B music.

Aside from his professional experiences in radio, Marlino earned a Bachelor’s of Art degree in Communications from California State University, San Marcos, and is Certified as a Media and Marketing Specialist from San Diego State University. Marlino also founded Bitanga Advertising, Inc., a boutique Asian American Advertising Agency specializing in reaching an Urban Asian audience. As a community leader and role model, Marlino also facilitates workshops at local and regional Filipino American high school conferences, and offers advertising and marketing-related seminars for schools and businesses.

Here’s the shuffle… Read more

Tags: Shuffled!.

1 comment

Some of you may have heard of the upcoming film entitled “W.” in which Josh Brolin (the cowboy from “No Country for Old Men”) plays George W. Bush and Richard Dreyfuss plays Dick Cheney. (Thandie Newton as Condoleeza! Holla!)

The flick is directed by Oliver Stone, which is code for will be needlessly complicated and not follow any discernible narrative structure. It also means there will be too many actors-with-a-capital-A in the cast, all of them wanting to chew scenery.

And while I tease, I can’t help but be excited. These kinds of all-star jams are the only reason I still have to get excited about movies, especially when you know all the characters already. I love seeing who gets cast as who. James Cromwell as George H. W. Bush? Nice. Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush?? Totally unexpected! Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell??? Is there any role he can’t play?!

Naturally, I cruised all the information about who would play the Asian characters. You know: Secretary Norm Mineta, the first API person to serve in a president’s cabinet, and the first Democrat to ever serve in a Republican cabinet. He was the Secretary of Transportation, the one who gave the order to ground all planes on 9/11. Who did they get? George Takei? James Hong? Randall Duk Kim? Dustin Nguyen? Steve Park? Daniel Dae Kim?

What do you mean nobody?

Read more

Tags: Movie.

2 comments

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: Melissa Li
Melissa Li is a singer-songwriter, filmmaker, musical theater composer, and all around snob. Despite not being the perfect singer or the perfect songwriter, she obnoxiously bashes other people’s music skills. Recently she has teamed up with equally obnoxious slam poet Kit Yan for the Good Asian Drivers Tour, during which they traveled for 12 weeks across the country and back eating food and occasionally performing. Melissa is a lesbian and therefore loves Ani DiFranco but finds it annoying when other people tell her they sound similar. She wrote a queer Chinese musical, Surviving the Nian in 2007 and won a ridiculously coveted Broadway award. She loves East Meets Words and Boston Progress. She is a full-time performer living in New York City.

Now, let us peep her shuffle… Read more

Tags: Shuffled!.

2 comments