New Video: talking with Dallas

During my recent trip to NYC I had the privilege of linking up with the big homey DALLAS PENN of dallaspenn.com, XXLmag.com, and iNternetscelebrities.com fame. We've built in the past for various sneaker- and blog-related activities, not to mention exchanging kicks and the like, so when I was in town for about 20 hours last Tuesday, I knew I had to connect to the homey if at all possible!

We broke bread on 8th and Broadway at the famous Cozy Soup n' Burger, where we even got to spend some time talkin g with COZY'S SON, born and raised in the spot! With me moving forward in my rap career, I needed input and feedback and Dallas was quick to oblige. And you know we had to hit off the internets to say what up...

Still winning

The homeboy Derek representing SBTG/Royalefam just friended me on facebook. I assumed that he friended me through my facebook connection to Mark "SBTG" Ong and thought, cool, good to network with a fellow Asian streetwear/lifestyle head - and maybe we can build, at some point after I move to China, connecting the bustout movement + Royalefam.



But it turns out that he had more of an immediate concern - in the last royalefam online mailer, they announced a simple enough giveaway: a silkscreened SBTG hoodie to a randomly selected respondent who could identify one of their AJ5 customs.

And so, a few minutes after Derek friended me, I'm tagged in this image:


(Bustout X SOS New Haven, representing in the studio! I miss those guys, thorough hip-hop heads and emcees to the fullest!)

"Derek says: Royalefam would like to thank all our die-hard fans for taking part in our hoodie giveaway contest! Out of the 300+ entries we have received, we have randomly picked Jason G.L. Chu as the winner! Congrats! Thank you all for participating, look out for our next giveaway contest!"


Internets - stay winning

formspring

ask me anything

pressin coverage

I'm going to buy a camera.

This weekend i was covering the trinity international hip-hop festival (big ups to magee & ben, kosha dillz, flex mathews, self-suffice, and a special shout out to jamnopeanut for the space to crash) and i realized two very important things:

(1) in some circles - of as-of-yet undiscerned radius - "I'm a blogger" serves as a credible shibboleth. this weekend marked the first point at which I realized that my stringing together a couple of words here and there on the internets actually means something to someone not related to me (hi mom). in this world of hyperattenuated attention spans, the blogs are the go-to media incarnation.

thus embodied, my digital voice translates into physical form, an even tangible perk. or so it felt as I fingered the press pass hanging around my neck, stretching out to push my voice recorder (read: cell phone) a foot away from KRS-One.

Chilling with the Blastmaster behind closed doors because it's 2010 and the blogs is watching.

(2) if you have a camera (particularly in conjunction with a press pass - see the first point), you can do some real wild things that would otherwise be thoroughly gauche. at one point, my cameraman/bboy was up to battle, and so he passed me the camera for an hour or two. within 15 minutes, i found myself kneeling, craning, and instinctively pushing to the front of crowds, knowing that the camera i held was enough to grant me respected access to the attendant goings-on.

Wielding that power authoritatively - confidently - allowed me to interface with people around me in new ways. Strangers who might otherwise give me the ice grill would hear - hey, can i get a picture for the website? - and subsequently pose, shuffle about, even contort themselves to allow my gaze to fall upon them. i felt like Buscape' in City of God - the ultimate observer-participant, caught up in the front lines but set apart, objective, even judgmental - granted the decision of selecting those sufficiently noteworthy to rate the camera's flash.

and that judgment could be used foolishly or with discernment: i discovered how easily i took to being invasive, inhuman as i "went for the shot". but then, the next moment, the camera might become a tool for unity - joy, even - collecting groups of mutual strangers and binding them together - eternally in that moment - with the honesty of the flash, the revealing, recording, light. discernment.

things looked different through the glass eye. midway through the bboy battle, when the camera's batteries finally ran down, i realized that i had been missing the flow of the dance almost in its entirety. obsessed with capturing a clever, well-framed, energetic glimpse, i had forgotten the movement - drama - action of the dance. the very geist i had been seeking to exemplify, i had missed. foolishness.

paparazzi.

Kosha Dillz remix contest winner

The homeboy Kosha Dillz (a/k/a the flyest guy to the goyim), who I linked up with when I interviewed him for Nomadic Wax, had a contest co-sponsored by lifestyle heavyweight DQM and the Diamond Music Group to remix the last single from his album Beverly Dillz.

"Cellular Phone" has been getting some good buzz around indie circles, and now GMJ's remix won the Kosha X DQM X DMG remix contest. Big ups to the winner - I just listened to the track, and I gotta say that its pretty fly. As much as the original production fit smoothly into the aesthetic of the whole album, the remix is a great standalone track. Check it out.

And the Cellular Phone music vid:



Find more videos like this on ThisIs50.com

More brothers ballin it up

Congratulations to the homies (and my ex-housemates) Yier and Nate for balling out on the electrical engineering circuit (pun always intended, you know that).

Yale is not a school to which honors often go, but I guess these guys were able to rise above the vapid sea of mediocrity surrounding them and overcome the odds... who knows, "that school in New Haven" just might become a credible academic institution (nah) with guys like this around.

Complex.com - 50 Most Racist Movies

Full disclosure: my homegirl sooey is on her hustle over at Complex mag's digital division, so I have a personal stake in this...

Still I am not gonna front like complex.com's commentary is anything but 50/50 (at best) in their track record... half of the time, they're profiling dope outfits, brands, personalities, etc.; and the other half of the time, it's puerile attempts at lowest-common-denominator frat boy comedy that blow up in their faces (sorry, "ironic" misogyny is still misogyny...).



And this time, it looks like they got one mostly right, calling out 50 flicks that (more or less) deserve to be called out for their B.S.: Complex.com's 50 Most Racist Movies.

I'm not all that crazy about some of their choices - Passion of the Christ, for one - but all in all, I'll shoot off some props (none) where they're deserved.

these happy golden days

As I lazed about my Korean apartment, preparing for the final week of my summer employment, I realized, abruptly, that I yet have, stewing at the bottom of my to-do list, forgotten in the piles of half-written blog posts and abortively discursive discourse, the last few weeks' worth of pictures from the Spring semester.

Oops.

Tuesday05.19.2009

Wherein Emily Chen and I ramble around New Haven.





The sun glared down on us so reprovingly that neither
of us could muster the indecency to gaze back,
apparently.

Yale's famed Peabody Museum - home base and patron
institution of seminal paleontologist O.C. Marsh - is one
of the few major sights around New Haven to which I
had never previously addressed myself. Finding
ourselves nearby, Emily and I had a look in.












This one was for Ray.

Wednesday05.20.2009


SBTG Dunk SB Lows.

At lunch with a friend, he mentioned his work on
the Commencement Issue of the YDN; seeing that I
had effectively skipped half of my own
Commencement Week festivities, I never had the
chance to peruse the 2008 edition. The archives of
the YDN, however, are voluminous, and easily
called-upon when a YDN staffer is at hand.

Thanks D!


Congratulations Nancy (and Max)!

Thursday05.21.2009

K and Mo were hanging out, so, you know.


Like a kangaroo.


My Tiffany Dunk SB Lows matched K's... t-shirt
apron hybrid?


Forlorn, waiting for Ben, in a cape we scavenged.


The guys and gals (and me).


Ms. Bryan dropped by Esther's room for a minute.

Then we all played: tag and hide and go seek, on Old
Campus, in the dark, crashing into rows of neatly-
arranged chairs; ultimate frisbee on Cross Campus.

Friday05.22.2009

I was in Erin, Mieka, and Lillian's room
catching up with Erin and hanging out.

This insect was HUGE.


At the time, I described it as a dragon-moth,
or perhaps a raptor hybrid. I still stick to my
description.

Saturday05.23.2009

Steve was in town, and wanted to get a haircut; Ray and
I tagged along, and Ray followed suit.




Chinese barbers ftw.

Sunday05.24.2009

Dinner with a group of the charming men and women of
Living Water (and friend).


D.Tam looking fly






Ethiopian

Sunday05.25.2009

Graduation 2009!


As I waited for the ceremonies to start, I ran into not
one, but two of my former suitemates: Charlie and
Rhasaan had shown up to join the proceedings for the
day.


Sandi and I linked up for a large amount of the day's
proceedings.


EGO86 tag, Davenport courtyard, New Haven, CT.
I hadn't even remembered this was there...


Mr. Nicholas Pierson.


Mr. Wilbur Hu


Ms. Mieka Sanderson


Mr. Lucas Kwong.


Ms. Joshu I Sky


The family Sky.

For the past few years, after each of the individual
Residential College ceremonies wrap up, a group of
graduates, alumni, and friends gather together at the
Women's Table, on the Rose Walk, for a final send-off.


Ms. Anne Lucinda Lee.


Mr. Eric Klein and Mr. Kyle Gong.


Mr. Jaeyoung Yang and Mr. Joseph Oh.

Monday05.26.2009

The day after graduation, I headed into NYC to spend
the day variously catching up with friends, having my
Korean work visa interview, and so on.

A few of the guys from the Navigators ministry at
UMass-Amherst also needed to do a visa run for their
upcoming summer missions trip to the Philippines, so
they drove into town, parked at my apartment, and
we headed out in a large mass (transit).


Mr. Joel Lee.


The scene on the train.


Tags in Manhattan.

After a quick processing time through the Korean
consulate, Emily Chen - who was also in town,
awaiting her late afternoon flight out to the West
Coast - and I met up in midtown Manhattan.


Tom Sachs' Hello Kitty installation.


Proceeding to Grand Central, we met up with Lucas


Then headed over to Yup's place. man, Yup has some amazing
clothes, and one of the best wardrobe solutions I've ever seen: if you
lack closet space, just make your entire wall your closet.

I want his room some day.




Emily: "TELL ME EVERYTHING"
Lucas and me: "?"
Emily: "AGGGH"

The three of us then motivated our way back to Grand
Central, where Yup joined us to escort Emily onto the
airport shuttle bus.






Last time I'll be seeing this girl for a couple years.

After seeing Emily and Yup off to the airport, Luke and I found
ourselves in a not-uncommon state when we're together: hungry.

We called Steve up and found that he had just finished work; so, we
decided to all head over to Koreatown and grab a fresh Korean
meal, to celebrate my heading to Korea and eating plenty of Korean
food this summer.


My homeboys.


Bibimbap... yo they did it good there.

Best of all, Ms. Taryn Nakamura had just completed
the first day of her summer internship; calling her up,
we discovered that her job site (with the Asian-
American Writers' Workshop) was literally across the
street from the restaurant at which we were located.




Banchan, with the mad taste.


Afterward, pinkberry.


Lucas, despairing of ever having his name spelled correctly at a fast
food location.
(label reads: LUCS)

Parting ways, Lucas headed up to Columbia, Taryn to
her summer sublet, and Stephen and myself to his
place in the pj's.

After kicking it with Stephen for a while, I got a text
from the UMass boys that said they were with our
boy Landon (of the NYU navigators), and headed
uptown for the night. I made haste and hit the
subway system, meeting up with them on a shady
platform around midnight. By 12:30, we were safely
ensconced in Harlem House.




Look carefully.

Tuesday05.27.2009


I try.


Got the ill flavors (Soho, NYC)

Homeboy Dallas got me linked up via twitter with his girl sooey, a
fellow young, fly, trend-setting 2nd-Generation Asian-American
intellect. Knowing that we were both in the area, I hollered at
homegirl to connect, politic, ditto.


Note Sooey has the lime nail polish...


...matching her AM95 retro's in the OG colorway.

Sister got it made.