More Appropriate as a Tweet, But...

...I'm listening to Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass at the moment. In related news, I find this image uber caliente:


Am I wrong? No, I am not.

Not To Go On and On, But...

...I will.


I couldn't bring myself to actually purchase this month's issue of GQ (the cover has a Barbied-up someone licking her lips and offering up her breasts for your, I don't know, intellectual edification?), but I had no qualms about reading this article about Arnel Pineda and Journey online:

ARNEL PINEDA, who turns 41 this year, has been performing in bands since he was a teenager, and by now he has mastered virtually every kick-ass lead-singer move known to rock. He can launch his compact body off the drum riser and land without twisting an ankle. He plays excellent microphone-cord air guitar. He knows when to do the reach-out-and-touch with the fans in the front row and when to turn the microphone stand upside down and lift it above his head, as if calling down the lightning. He knows how to do these things because he is a professional lead singer and a good one, which means he is a virtuoso whose instrument is his own charisma. He is also adept at the parts of the lead-singer job that involve singing.

Link

Speaking of people who are extraordinarily gifted at their work...at last night's debate, did Obama not clean the windows with what's left of John McCain's integrity? Yes, he did. I'm sure this kid agrees:


Via Yes We Can (hold babies)

My Throat Is Still A Little Scratchy

I sang every word of "Separate Ways."

Every word of "Open Arms."

Every word of "Don't Stop Believing."

Every word of "Faithfully.

And whatnot.

I made my presence known when Arnel Pineda—in a rousing one-word call to his people—yelled, "PINOYS!"

I, along with thousands of other complete dorks, held up my cellphone/lighter during "Lights."

And whether or not it makes sense, I am still giddy. Here I am on the lawn with two of my oldest pals/most favorite gals:


I would like to apologize to the Spousal Unit. He knows most everything about me, but I don't think he was prepared for my vast and astonishingly accurate knowledge of Journey lyrics. Nor did he know that I was capable of singing at such volume. Here is our self(s) portrait, taken on my flashless iPhone, right after the Wilson sisters (Oh Nancy how I adore you! How jealous I am of your jeans! And the way you appear to rock in slow motion! And the way you work the wind machine!) ALMOST stole the show:


Sadness that I didn't see Barbara Jane or Oscar, and that I only caught a fleeting glimpse of Sunny as we traveled opposite sides of a packed staircase. There's always next time...

Confession Regarding Last Friday's Date Night

I can't help it: I enjoy Chris Isaak.

And this despite the fact that he's a well-known SWiMWAiF.

I have written about SWiMWAiF's before, but can't seem to find the post anywhere, so I shall re-define. A SWiMWAiF is a "scary white man with a fetish" for Asian and/or Asian-American women. I coined this clumsy descriptor when I was in college and you couldn't turn the corner without bumping smack into some guy who was serial dating Asian girls in an attempt to find the one who might finally intersect with the lame fantasies floating around in his pea brain.

Anyways, if you had asked me to pinpoint the one woman in the audience for whom Chris Isaak would leave the stage and sing directly to, I would have said it would be the Asian woman sitting two rows down and to the left of us. And guess what? Chris Isaak left the stage to sing directly to the Asian woman sitting two rows down and to the left of us. SO NOT a surprise.

But he also covered Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me."

And he also asked his keyboard player to "Please play some musical notes to reflect the pain which I am feeling at this moment."

And when he growled that "Baby did a bad, bad thing," it kinda made me want to do a bad, bad thing.

And, finally, he sang "Wicked Game" just right, and it has one of my favorite lines from a song ever: "World was on fire no one could save me but you..."

I'm going to insert the video here because it's so beautifully shot, but OH MY GLORY I had forgotten how completely not-safe-for-work it is:

Best of, Lake Edition

Best sign visible from the road on the way to the lake: "Poot's House of Cactus"

Best Speedos (and headgear) in show:


Best Reading Material: Charlotte Bronte's JANE EYRE, illustrated by Dame Darcy:


Best ice cream treat that is NOT a Choco Taco: "Chips Galore," which is a bastard cousin of the remarkable It's It. Lea's vote goes to the classic soft serve twirl. Here we are partaking in our individual favorites:


Best fried item at snack bar that is NOT onion rings: shrimp

Best sighting of a lake animal: an albino deer *SCREAM*

Best lake song performed on sister-in-law's deck: this is a tough one, but I think it was nephew Charlie singing "My Angel" with Mike G. on drums. Click here (track 2) for a listen.

For The Wily Filipino

Awwwww.

Admittedly, Enrique Iglesias is a cube of cheddar cheese deep-fried in oil squeezed from another block of cheddar cheese, and then dusted with parmesan. Simply put, he is cheesy. But look at him here and then tell me he doesn't move up like 100 spaces on the pop culture list that we all pretend not to have:



Can you think of one other self-proclaimed male heterosexual entertainer who would have done this? The ice cube I call my heart has melted.

I Can't Hear You 'Cuz I'm Sitting in My Time Machine

I just downloaded a song from Yaz, a song from The Style Council, and two from The Cure. Naturally, I am now bouncing around the kitchen like a...a...a woman bouncing around the kitchen. If anyone can correctly guess the titles, I will do one (winner's choice!) of the following:

1) If my passport arrives as promised, I will post my passport picture which looks—uncanny, I say!—like the mugshot of someone who drank a lot and then was found walking backwards down the freeway at three in the morning. I'm sure you realize the steep psychological price I would be paying should you choose this option.

2) Post a short video of Lea "playing" a Barbie guitar (it was a gift from Lolo; not many options available to me there, folks) and singing that Maroon 5 ballad, the name of which I can no longer remember.

or

3) Send you a handwritten letter from I, the Nesting Ground Mistress. Said letter to include...hold onto your cargo shorts... stickers. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Stickers, Ver? Really?!, and I'm here to tell you yes, yes dear reader, stickers. Speaking of which, remember A Call to Pens?! Come on, how fun was that? Um, rhetorical.

Pretty slim pickings there in the prize department, I'd have to agree. But is there another small blog out there running a contest I don't know about? I think not. So text, channel, ring up, or otherwise contact your inner competitor, and guess the songs already! I'll keep bouncing around the kitchen...

Knockin' On Your Door Just a Little

Oh my goodness, "Save Room" (go ahead, take 3 minutes and enjoy the show; it's the second video down) is all kinds of sexiness. I've listened to it like fifty times in a row.


You know what else is all kinds of sexiness? Having your first book published (um, not that I would personally know anything about that). Congratulations Gura!

I...I'm Just...I...Well. Okay, Then!

I don't generally make public fun of anyone except our current administration and Mariah Carey. And I don't intend to start now. It's just that when I checked out Patricio Ginelsa's blog for the latest and greatest in "Bebot" comments, I found the following (the comment has since disappeared into the ether, which is probably the way I should leave it but, really, why should I be one of the few who had to suffer through its reading?) made by someone whom—according to her MySpace profile—is a 32-year-old woman living in Ilinois:

Filipinas should be proud of what their momma gave them! Nothing wrong with dancing sexy! The video is about BeBOt! for crying out loud ! Why is sexy so wrong? Many Filipinas are gifted with beautiful bodies, we should all celebrate that and be confident! if you've got breasts, stick it out and be freakin' proud of it! Dance sexy and be happy and let'z all rejoice our "b-e-b-o-t-n-e-s-s"!

Talk about missing the point entirely. Or maybe it's me? Maybe I've lost my sense of humor entirely. Maybe i just need to calm my reactionary ass down and "dance sexy and be happy and...rejoice in...'b-e-b-o-t-n-e-s-s.'"

More Bebot

1) Two folks from the University of Washington have added their signatures to the Open Letter:

Kiko Benitez
Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature
Univ. of Washington

Rick Bonus
Associate Professor, American Ethnic Studies
Univ. of Washington

2) Please check out the the new About Bebot: A Collective Review blog. Eventually, you'll find the various responses to the letter collected here. So keep checking back! For now, there's a link to Patricio Ginelsa's blog at My Space, where he has posted the letter and asked for comments.

3) Patricio (a fellow Daly City-er!) has e-mailed us privately, and asked that the communication remain private. As much as I think sharing the exchange would benefit the discussion, I know we need to honor his request.

Open Letter re: the "Bebot" Video(s)

[ANOTHER UPDATE: So, folks, there is much ado about this letter in cyberspace at the moment. The undersigned are looking for a spot to collect the responses. Said responses are, as expected, both supportive and extremely harsh. The latter is disappointing, as the letter was written...eh, more on this later]

[UPDATE: Thank you to Luisa Igloria and Aimee Nez for adding their signatures!]

To Apl.de.Ap, Patricio Ginelsa/KidHeroes, and Xylophone Films:

We, the undersigned, would like to register our deep disappointment at the portrayal of Filipinas and other women in the new music videos for the Black Eyed Peas’ song, “Bebot.” We want to make it clear that we appreciate your efforts to bring Filipina/o Americans into the mainstream and applaud your support of the Little Manila of Stockton. However, as Filipina/o and Filipina/o American artists, academics, and community activists, we are utterly dismayed by the portrayal of hypersexualized Filipina “hoochie-mama” dancers, specifically in the Generation 2 version, the type of representation of women so unfortunately prevalent in today’s hip-hop and rap music videos. The depiction of the 1930s “dime dancers” was also cast in an unproblematized light, as these women seem to exist solely for the sexual pleasure of the manongs.

In general, we value Apl.de.Ap’s willingness to be so openly and richly Filipino, especially when there are other Filipina/o Americans in positions of visibility who do not do the same, and we appreciate the work that he has done with the folks at Xylophone Films; we like their previous video for “The Apl Song,” and we even like the fact that the Generation 1 version of “Bebot” attempts to provide a “history lesson” about some Filipino men in the 1930s. However, the Generation 2 version truly misses the mark on accurate Filipina/o representation, for the following reasons:

1) The video uses three very limited stereotypes of Filipina women: the virgin, the whore, and the shrill mother. We find a double standard in the depiction of the virgin and whore figures, both of which are highly sexualized. Amidst the crowd of midriff-baring, skinny, light-skinned, peroxided Pinays – some practically falling out of their halter tops – there is the little sister played by Jasmine Trias, from whom big brother Apl is constantly fending off Pinoy “playas.” The overprotectiveness is strange considering his idealization of the bebot or “hot chick.” The mother character was also particularly troublesome, but for very different reasons. She seems to play a dehumanized figure, the perpetual foreigner with her exaggerated accent, but on top of that, she is robbed of her femininity in her embarrassingly indelicate treatment of her son and his friends. She is not like a tough or strong mother, but almost like a coarse asexual mother, and it is telling that she is the only female character in the video with a full figure.

2) We feel that these problematic female representations might have to do with the use of the word “Bebot.” We are of course not advocating that Apl change the title of his song, yet we are confused about why a song that has to do with pride in his ethnic/national identity would be titled “Bebot,” a word that suggests male ownership of the sexualized woman – the “hot chick.” What does Filipino pride have to do with bebots? The song seems to be about immigrant experience yet the chorus says “ikaw ang aking bebot” (you are my hot chick). It is actually very disturbing that one’s ethnic/national identity is determined by one’s ownership of women. This system not only turns women into mere symbols but it also excludes women from feeling the same kind of ethnic/national identity. It does not bring down just Filipinas; it brings down all women.

3) Given the unfortunate connection made in this video between Filipino pride and the sexualized female body both lyrically and visually, we can’t help but conclude that the video was created strictly for a heterosexual man’s pleasure. This straight, masculinist perspective is the link that we find between the Generation 1 and Generation 2 videos. The fact that the Pinoy men are surrounded by “hot chicks” both then and now makes this link plain. Yet such a portrayal not only obscures the “real” message about the Little Manila Foundation; it also reduces Pinoy men’s hopes, dreams, and motivations to a single-minded pursuit of sex.

We do understand that Filipino America faces a persistent problem of invisibility in this country. Moreover, as the song is all in Tagalog (a fact that we love, by the way), you face an uphill battle in getting the song and music video(s) into mainstream circulation. However, remedying the invisibility of Filipina/os in the United States should not come at the cost of the dignity and self-respect of at least half the population of Filipino America. Before deciding to write this letter, we felt an incredible amount of ambivalence about speaking out on this issue because, on the one hand, we recognized that this song and video are a milestone for Filipina/os in mainstream media and American pop culture, but on the other hand, we were deeply disturbed by the images of women the video propagates.

In the end we decided that we could not remain silent while seeing image after image of Pinays portrayed as hypersexual beings or as shrill, dehumanized, asexual mother-figures who embarrass their children with their overblown accents and coarseness. The Filipino American community is made up of women with Filipino pride as well, yet there is little room in these videos for us to share this voice and this commitment; instead, the message we get is that we are expected to stand aside and allow ourselves to be exploited for our sexuality while the men go about making their nationalist statements.

While this may sound quite harsh, we believe it is necessary to point out that such depictions make it seem as if you are selling out Filipina women for the sake of gaining mainstream popularity within the United States. Given the already horrific representations of Filipinas all over the world as willing prostitutes, exotic dancers, or domestic servants who are available for sex with their employers, the representation of Pinays in these particular videos can only feed into such stereotypes. We also find it puzzling, given your apparent commitment to preserving the history and dignity of Filipina/os in the United States, because we assume that you also consider such stereotypes offensive to Filipino men as well as women.

Again, we want to reiterate our appreciation for the positive aspects of these videos – the history lesson of the 1936 version, the commitment to community, and the effort to foster a larger awareness of Filipino America in the mainstream – but we ask for your honest attempt to offer more full-spectrum representations of both Filipino men and Filipina women, now and in the future. We would not be writing this letter to you if we did not believe you could make it happen.

Respectfully,

Kiko Benitez
Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature
Univ. of Washington

Rick Bonus
Associate Professor, American Ethnic Studies
Univ. of Washington

Lucy Burns
Assistant Professor
Asian American Studies / World Arts and Cultures, UCLA

Fritzie De Mata
Independent scholar

Diana Halog
Undergraduate
UC Berkeley

Luisa A. Igloria
Associate Professor
Creative Writing / English, Old Dominion University

Veronica Montes
Writer

Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Assistant Professor, English
State University of New York-Fredonia

Gladys Nubla
Doctoral student
English, UC Berkeley

Barbara Jane Reyes
Poet and author

Joanne L. Rondilla
Doctoral candidate
Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Rolando B. Tolentino
Visiting Fellow, National University of Singapore
Associate Professor, University of the Philippines Film Institute

Benito Vergara
Asian American Studies / Anthropology, San Francisco State University

In the Immortal Words of KISS

Sang the chocolate chips to the oatmeal and the oatmeal to the chocolate chips: I was made for loving you, baby/You were made for loving me...

Which is to say that I baked a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies today. But I didn't eat one. Apparently, the act of making them was what I desired; not the actual partaking of. A bit of a strategic mistake, though, since the kitchen is now sweltering.

***

Been hanging out at Gladys', too, to lurk while the smart girls partake in a stirring discussion about the video for the Black Eyed Peas' "Bebot."

***

Stayed up late, late, late last night writing (oh, and okay, for reasons I don't understand, I watched one episode of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. Can you spell c-r-a-z-y?!) and am now feeling all cotton-headed-like. Must stay alert, though, because I have to take R & V to their first soccer meeting of the season. If I'm not, I might offer up some odd suggestions for their team name. I might, for example, try to get "Nosepickers" on the ballot. Or "Geckos." Or, "Beasts of Burden."

Or "The Rabid Mole-Like Creatures in the Fire Swamp from the Movie The Princess Bride."

Or "The Rats of NIMH." (Whoa. Where'd I get that? I haven't though about Mrs. Frisby & The Rats of NIMH since I was but a wee one).

Or, "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves."

"Heartbreakers, Dreammakers, Love Takers"

"The Delta Dawns."

Okay.

Let's face it.

I could keep this up all evening. And life is just a tad too short.

Time for a cookie.

Remiss!

I have been remiss. I have failed to post about an event at which I heard my name being called from the heavens. I looked up to see the Wily Filipino himself, Sr. Sunny Vergara, waving and smiling. The venue at which this most pleasant interaction occurred was Red Devil Lounge, where the spousal unit and I coerced good pals M. & D. (also a spousal tag team) to join us for a musical romp down memory lane, 80s style.

After dinner at Le Petit Robert (do you know why I married the spousal unit? I married him because he lets me eat all his pommes frites if I wanna), we jumped into a cab and asked to be taken something like five blocks, a terribly selfish request which rightfully annoyed the cabbie. "But it's all very uphill!" I wanted to say. "And I'm wearing my feathered heels!" But I didn't because I've found that it's best to just shut up and be grateful during such moments.

Once inside the lounge, it was only a matter of moments before Animotion, fronted by my newly and astoundingly bleached-hair brother-in-law, graced the stage. As Sunny points out, the band opened with "Let Him Go." What Sunny failed to point out is the way he himself bopped his head and sipped his drink and sang at the top of his lungs. By the time they got to "I Engineer," Sunny was long gone, having skillyfully maneuvered himself to up-front-and-center, where I could just make out his still-bopping head.

Look at my crazy brother-in-law! Rockin' the Billy Idol hair! The Billy Idol sneer! The Billy Idol semi-squat! It was too fun, I tell you. At some point he assaulted the pole in the middle of the stage. Not sure what that was all about. Again, sometimes it's best to just shut up and be grateful.

{An aside to dear M.: tomorrow you will thank me for not posting our picture. It was close to midnight, after all. Let's just be fabulous in our imaginations...}