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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: Janet S. Kim

Janet S. Kim is an actor/writer/director living in New York City. Most recently, she got to go back and relive high school as a cool kid in the award-winning play, “The Seed” in the Strawberry One Act festival 2008. She’s performed and/or seen her stuff across the country in various projects in Boston, LA, Chicago and NYC. She also penned the short-lived but to be revived webcomic “Office Supply Theatre.” When she’s not playing under age teens or writing dialogue bubbles, she likes to look for good burgers or random jerky stores in chinatown to fill her red meat quotient of the week.

The S stands for Shuffled! Read more

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Last Thursday, the premiere of The Cho Show, a peek into the life of Margaret Cho, aired on VH1. Since I don’t get VH1, I actually didn’t catch the premiere on TV, but I was able to download it on iTunes and watch it on my lovely new iPod nano. Of course, you can also go to VH1’s website to watch it. The episode, entitled, “Korean of the Year,” was about Margaret receiving the 2007 Korean of the Year award from Koream Journal. In the episode, she’s a little wary of attending the award ceremony, because in her mind, she has never been accepted by the Korean American community.

In the first episode, there is a scene where she is trying on dresses to wear to the Koream award ceremony. In this scene, she is modeling a dress concocted by one of her assistants for her parents. But basically, there is no dress. She’s wearing a painted on dress with glued on crystals that looks like a Chinese qipao. Her parents are a little shocked, but their reaction is subdued: “Why are you wearing a Chinese dress?” The idea is neat, though not entirely new. I do think that it was totally inline with Margaret’s outrageous MO.
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Tags: television.

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

Today’s Shuffler: Van

Van is a SoCal girl transplanted in the craziness of Boston. The proud mama to cats Tom and Jerrie, she spreads her time over many, many different interests - traveling the globe, learning new languages, working to support Asian American college students, and of course, enjoying good music. She also misses palm trees. Frequently.

Van’s passion for creating change—with the students she works with, with her involvement with Boston Progress, and her own continuing journey—guarantee that her Shuffled! will be exciting.

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

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Boston Progress & The Re-Up Proudly Present… Make It Rain: A Birthday Art Show & Fundraiser for New Orleans

The party will include an art show, silent art auction, short films looping, live painting, musical performances, beverages and a birthday cake! There will be music by DJ Brek.One, featuring a live performance by LA Artist Jarell Perry & other special guests.

The show is going to go down at The Re-Up at 1 Brighton Ave, Allston, MA around the corner from the Super Eight Eight. All proceeds from the benefit will go to RETHINK. Rethink is a group of students in New Orleans who want to rethink and rebuild their schools after Hurricane Katrina. Their vision is simple: a great education for every kid in New Orleans, no matter the color of their skin, what neighborhood they stay in or how much money their parents make. No one deserves a voice in rebuilding New Orleans schools more than the students who go to these places every single day.

We will be accepting donations of $5 on behalf of this non-profit, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

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!! Read more

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August 2008’s open mic was another awesome show. I was really happy to see so many people come out to the open mic given that the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies was being broadcast (not live) on NBC at the same time. So let’s get to the recap.

I started the show by reading excerpts from a children’s book called “Sixteen Feet in Sixteen Seconds” by Paula Yoo. The book tells the story of Dr. Sammy Lee, a Korean Japanese American diver who competes for the United States in the 1942 London Olympics and wins a gold medal. He is the first male athlete to win back-to-back gold medals in the Olympics. First Asian American to win gold. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

Up next was Eric who shared his view on animals. In particular, he talked about the tiger and crane, two important animals in Chinese martial arts. Which would you rather be? The Tiger or the Crane? After Eric, I was excited to see Charles step up with a hawwt new beat. This time, he rapped over it. What was also very cool was a unfinished piece called “Bougie Women.” It is a personal story of Charles and a girl he dated. Enough said.

I forget the order of the performers after this point and indeed, I might even have forgotten people who stepped up. Here are a few folks that I do remember—no disrespect to those who went up—I just forgot!

East Meet Words was also very proud to host Kay Barrett of Mango Tribe in our space. A veteran performer of the spoken word genre, Kay shared some words about moms and identity. Jessica stepped up and shared a personal story about growing up in the Midwest, about wanting to be a white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, so that she could fit in. Sahra then shared a piece about how she remembers her father trying to make their lawn green and lush. Having a lawn is such a suburban thing and really quite unnatural, but I digress… I thought the poem was hi-la-ri-ous.

August’s open mic was also lucky to have the Good Asian Drivers in attendance. Back from their road trip, they looked as fresh and alive as ever. I think the collaboration between Kit and Melissa is a good one. I think they have both benefited. I hear however that they are hauling to New York City. I admit I’m a little sad that they are moving. Both of them are near and dear to my heart. I wish them luck in NYC. Here’s the piece they performed at East Meets Words this month.

Before the main act, Dave and MC Popadop, Analyze did some freestyling, beatboxing. Dave’s beats were as on as ever and man, Analyze was freestylin’ like a mother. He was amazing especially considering doktor skool keeps him awake for hours on end.

The feature this month was Ed Bok Lee. He’s got many accolades and awards, but you can peep them at his website. From what I had heard, he’s an incredible writer and and incredible performer. He did a few new pieces and of course some poems from his first book Real Karaoke People. His new pieces are supposed to be part of an upcoming new book of poetry, but it is still a work in progress. His last piece, Real Karaoke People, makes me wanna go out to the local Karaoke bar and belt out Wicked Games or Boyz II Men on the mic. Anyway, for your pleasure, here’s a new poem by Ed courtesy of BPR:

Tags: Boston Progress, Open Mic, Recap, spoken word.

Hi nerds! Did you all realize there is a new generation of “Beverly Hill 90210″ in the works for the CW? For those who don’t know, “90210″ was a huge hit TV show when having virgin high school student characters was still marginally believable. So, like 20 years ago. (Full disclosure: I own the “Beverly Hills 90210″ Soundtrack. I specifically wanted the Brian McKnight/Vanessa Williams song which I will still bang out to this day. Try me. I DARE YOU.)

I recently read that some gaggle of television producers thought it was a good idea to revisit the concept of following a group of rich white teenagers living their completely inaccessible and unrealistic-to-most-people TV lives. You know, because there haven’t been any shows like that on television since the first 90210 went off the air. Or have there? i haven’t been watching much TV over the past 12 years…

But this time it’s totally different, like there’s going to be a Black kid from the wrong side of the tracks. That’s a wholly original concept and I’m totes 2 C it!

Oh, and there’s a character named Navid. Navid Shirazi in fact.

Well isn’t this interesting? Are we talking about an Iranian character on this show? The only Iranians I’ve seen on TV in recent memory are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and TJ Houshmandzadah of the Cincinnati Bengals. Not the most representative sample I guess.

But I’m intrigued, I mean, one of the lead characters is Iranian, meaning he’s not likely to be a terrorist mole or something. So now I’m getting curious, and I started looking for more information about the character, as well as the strapping young Iranian man - Michael Steger - who will play Navid.

But wait, there it is plain as day on IMDB.com:
He is of Ecuadorian, Austrian and Norwegian descent

I missed something right? Is “Austrian” an alternative spelling for Iranian?

Now…I got that info from IMDB, which I have found to be wrong on multiple occasions. But, somehow I think I’ll have to wait a little longer to see a third Iranian on TV.

Tags: television.

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: Delia of BPRLive

Delia is the baddest mother of all time.

Delia’s goal in life is to make the world a better place. For the past six years, she has spent time mentoring Asian American college students. She enjoys talking about identity politics with college students and her almost four year-old daughter (sometimes at the same time).

When she’s not busy saving the world and thinking seriously about serious things, Delia enjoys hanging out with her precocious daughter. She also revels in going to the beach where all of life’s complications can be swallowed up by the endless ocean. She loves puzzles of all kinds, books by bell hooks, fancy gadgets, and receiving foot massages.

In addition to blogging for BPRLive, Delia also blogs about Asian American parenting at Kimchi Mamas.

Now, shuffle it up shuffler… Read more

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