Queenkv’s Brainpickings

for the geeky little girl - lurking underneath my veneer of cool

mercury: my romance is … casablanca
Queenkv: you too?
mercury: you and me, kid
Queenkv: hahaha
Queenkv: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2337591883&category=12605
mercury: oh.. shit.. that is awesome..

Queenkv: yah!
mercury: wow! $2,000,000.00

Argh - how I love star trek!

I found this link first on RBJ forums….I posted this a while ago:

make it so!

hehehe….
In the UK - uh? well…maybe it’s more afforadable then living in the Bay Area, CA - talk about ridiculous inflation!
oh…just saw the price…sorry - too rich for my blood.
Wait a minute - in the future - I thought profit wasn’t an issue any more?????

i watched the sunset, from arlington road, driving home. it was so satsifying. i just finished my hankido class. i kicked ass. my technique was rusty - black belts kept correcting me….but it felt great. a blue belt punched me in the chin. i got smacked around by some other brown belts. it was worth it. taking control.

and working on it - healing my life. i looked at the climbing wall, the sunset gracing it on the side. yeah….i’m still climbing my way out of this darkness. i can see my progress. it’s going to be hard. it is hard. i will fall. i have fallen. but….i’m still here. i’m not very good at keeping myself down.

i like being happy. i enjoy life. now, i’m back on track to keep enjoying my life.

One of the girls from my ediets support group asked:

“what were you doing on 9/11/01?”

this is what I answered….

Elizabeth - on 9/11/01 - I was asleep with my honey. My bro woke me up that morning…I remember he told me to turn on the tv (when he was in college, he lived with us). In bed, in my pjs - I saw the first tower in flames. I thought it was a movie. This couldn’t be real. My bro said he woke up to the Sarah and Vinnie show and the morning djs were talking about the World Trade Center being hit. He thought they were making a joke. Then he turned on the TV and saw.

We got up - we all decided to go to work and school that day. I remember, we had the living room TV on. Before we left the house - we saw the next tower hit. My stomach dropped. I raced to call my mother and my cousin and my father. I had another cousin going to school in NY - she emailed me back. She was 9 hours away from NYC.

I had NPR on all day in my office. Many of my co-workers were shaken to the bone.

I was drowning in that whole chaotic mess of sorrow and outrage…and helplessness….

I found my best friend and ex-boyfriend. He saved my life once. We held on to each other - wondering why the world is the way it is.

I went to the radio station - looking for something to channel these emotions. I ended up on campus - interviewing students. Some didn’t want to talk. Others felt grateful to have another human being to pour out their grief and frustration. There was a make-shift memorial set-up at Sproul Plaza - students brought flowers, signed posters, and mourned together. Later a vigil - on the birth place of student free speech and actvisim. I worked with the news department on the community reaction to what happened. We broadcasted my interviews, that evening.

I was scheduled to go back to work - I asked my boss if I could shut down the lab early. He agreed. I wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t think I can handle any more customers. One MBA came in after I closed up - she was very upset. She asked - how dare I close up early the lab without giving students fair warning. I don’t think she was in touch with much of reality that….it’s not like the US was given fair warning for any of those lives lost, on that day.

so…that’s me…

After 9/11 - my brother was called up to serve. I was terrified. We were also concerned for his college career. This was his last year at UC Berkeley. If he had to serve, he would have had to drop out of school. Plus - he didn’t complete his Advanced training - all he would be good for would be to hold a gun….I think. Well, I was scared. Thankfully, his commanding officers understood the situation and allowed him to continue his studies.

from the debut mailing list:

“From: debutfilm@debutfilm.com
Subject: ‘the Debut’ NOW on DVD & Video; In-store signing in SF this Saturday!
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:1 UT

AVAILABLE (ALMOST) EVERYWHERE
We’ve been working overtime to make sure as many stores as possible
carry “the Debut.” Right now, your local Best Buy, Wherehouse, Tower
Records, and Virgin Megastore should be carrying “the Debut” Special Edition
DVD for sale at a suggested retail price of only $24.95. Starting early
October, over 200 Wal*Mart stores across North America will carry the
DVD as well. You can also rent the DVD and videocassette at Blockbuster
Video, Hollywood Video, http://NetFlix.com/, and at local video stores
across North America and the Philippines.

this movie made me cry. it had so much of my life in there….i connected to it more so than the Joy Luck Club - simply because, well - that was my family.

The Debut - Interview with filmmaker Gene Cajayon
April 25, 2001, Episode 3 of KALX’s news magazine: On the Record

Movies define fashion trends and catch phrases. Films also define our identities. For some people, it’s difficult to find anyone to relate to on the silver screen. For Filipinos and Filipino Americans, it’s almost impossible to find Pinoy and Pinay role models and trendsetters in mainstream movies…until now.

[cut – dialogue from the soundtrack]
“…alright man? Peace.�

And that was a clip from “The Debut,� a new Filipino-American film by Gene Cajayon that goes beyond a simple definition of his ethnic heritage. From its initial stages as a college to thesis to its casting of big name Filipino talent, such as Eddie Garcia and Tirso Cruz III, the Debut is a window into the heart and soul of Filipino culture in the United States. The Debut is Cajayon’s way of bringing Filipino images to American theaters

[cut]
Cajayon – Because we always promoted ourselves as not just a movie, but as a way for us to not only give Filipino Americans something they can look up to, but also give the world-wide Filipino community a world-class film that can stand up to all the other movies out there, you know what I mean? It’s empowering our community, as simple as that. Hollywood is not going, number one, they were never going to make this movie in the first place and now that we got this movie made, they’re not going to open up their distribution channels to. So that’s fine. We’re going to take control of that ourselves. And we’ve been fortunate to be given the chance by the movie theaters but by the people coming out to support the film, like you know, huge support of the film. We’re beating most of the Hollywood films out there in the theaters were in. What it really means is that the Filipino community and the Asian American media is coming out and saying, we matter too. American media right now is predominantly white American, occasionally black American, thank God for that, and nothing in between. And we want to make sure we’re represented alongside everyone else. The only way to do that is to make an economic statement.�

The Debut’s antagonist, Ben, played by Dante Bosco, is a Filipino-American teenager at a major crossroad in his life. On the eve of his sister’s Katillian, her “debut�, Ben faces the pressure of his family’s expectations for him to go to medical school and his own dreams of becoming an animator. Ben, who has embraced American pop culture for most of his life, is forced to face the reality of his ethnic identity, that evening.

[cut – dialogue from the soundtrack]
“Actually, I was thinking that Augusto is right. That I am a sell out, a coconut…�
[cut]

Kristina – “What is the reality of seeing a Filipino face on the big screen?�
Cajayon – Nonexistent. I grew up in the 80’s and came of age in the 90’s. Think about when you saw a Filipino on the big screen, probably never. Maybe they were a prostitute, or a big strapping white military guy’s sidekick, that kind of thing. And whenever you hear about us in the news, it something really negative, you know, kunnan, the little league team that cheated its way to a world series, you know, Imelda and her shoes. Just crazy off the wall, sideshow feakshows. For me, that’s what I saw growing up. So I turned myself into a white person, much the same way Ben did in the film. Just to survive. Because you know, we were the only family of color, on our block in Garden Grove. There were no Latin-Americans, no African-Americans, no Asian-Americans, just us. And every Saturday, Friday night, the kids would get rowdy and stuff and toilet paper our house, and egg it, and they would defecate all over on our lawns. You know, just all sorts of horrible stuff. And they would do it every week. And my parents shielded me from that, because they told me it was a mistake, every single week. And of course that was a mistake every single week, they meant to do the house two doors down where there’s a kid with down syndrome. And I believed them too, because I didn’t want to think we were hated that much our community. I believed them when they said they meant to do the house with the boy who was mentally retarded, down the block, not our house. And that was the kind of denial I grew up with. For me personally, the fact that I never saw myself on television, and anytime I did see myself it was something like Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles. Just ridiculously negative portrayals. It hurt me a lot growing up. And that motivation has taken me a long way. Now that I’m a dad, I have two sons, and I never ever want them to go through what I did.�

One of the most difficult things about making The Debut was finding the funding for it. It took Cajayon and his creative team 8 years to finish shooting and editing this film.

[cut]
Cajayon – We hit up the doctors associations, the teachers associations, all the professional organizations, churches, you name it, they all said no. Our parent’s generation does not understand how important it is for their kids to have a positive image to look up to. Then they get confused and wonder why their kids are getting pregnant when they’re 14, and why they’re getting into gangs, and why they’re dropping out of school, and why they can’t handle college, or why they’re confuse about being Filipino and they act white or they act black or they do other things. They don’t have any positive images to look up to. And if you don’t support stuff like The Debut, I’m sorry, but that cycle is going to continue. “

For information on The Debut, you can visit www.debutfilm.com

On the Record, I’m Kristina Vera.