Month: July 2003

Tak Toyoshima looks at the lack of Asian representation in TV and movies and the touchiness that sometimes results in the latest installment of his web comic, Secret Asian Man:

You can’t accuse me of not doing my part. Last year, I appeared on the HGTV series Love By Design as one of the eligible bachelors — I was both “the funny one” and “the guy who doesn’t live in squalor.” This year, I played “the quirky accordion rocker” on MuchMusic, and come September, on a new W Network series called Living Romance, I’m the guy they send out on the street to pick up women armed only with his wit and an accordion.

(At one point during the Living Romance shoot, someone phoned the producer, asking her if they had to “wrangle” — TV/movie talk for getting stuff or people; in this case, women for me to serenade — girls to appear on camera for my street serenading scenes. She answered “Joey had no trouble wrangling them himself.”)

So when I do get my guest appearance on 24?

Recommended Reading

Other relevant Secret Asian Man comics:

• SAM plays “Count the Asians”
• SAM looks at Asians in space! The last great ones were Sulu from the old Star Trek and Wang from Space: Above and Beyond. Don’t even get me started on that wuss Harry Kim from Voyager.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang has two articles on Asian characterization in the media:

• Beyond “Spot the Asian”: Teaching our kids to critically read and deflate media stereotypes
• The Power of the Relic Hunter: Okay, so it’s a silly show. But Tia Carrere’s “Sydney Fox” isn’t the stereotypical “Asian girl”.

Where are the rock stars? As far as MuchMusic goes, my guess is that the rockers of Asian descent who’ve had the most live air time are (in order):

• James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins
• Dave from Sum 41
• Me

I suspect that the situation is worse on MTV, as their list has only James and Dave. MTV, feel free to call me.

The webcomic Soap on a Rope nails it right on the head in the July 3rd installment:

(This particular comic was the last one of a storyline that begins here. Here’s the poke-fun-at-liberals one, and here’s the poke-fun-at-conservatives one.)

I enjoy MC Honky, and after sampling his wares, shall buy his album. My thanks to the wonderful BBC 6music for introducing me to his stuff!

The web site says that MC Honky is a potter whose first exposure to popular music came from his job as a janitor at the Capitol Records building. He supposedly later rose to the rank of first engineer and worked on a disastrous Frank Sinatra recording project. The explosion of electronic instruments in the ’80’s and ’90’s brought him to back to the world of music from the world of pottery. The end result is the album This is MC Honky: I am the Messiah, a lovely disc of indie-rock-meets-turntablism that’s worthy of your collection if you like Beck, MC 900 Ft Jesus, the Beasties’ more experimental stuff, MCs Paul Barman or Frontalot or Hawking.

(If you want my honest opinion, I think MC Honky is really E from The Eels. But that’s me, just sayin’.)

If you have RealAudio, you can hear every track on the album at two levels of fidelity: crappy 56K or decent 256K.

I’m still busy — as Doc Searls says from time to time, “expect light blogging”. However, I’ll leave you with this quote from Maya Angelou:

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, “I’m with you, kid. Let’s go.”