44’s on Fallout Central (part 3) / Announcing part 4
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Part I was our discussion on 80/20, Part II was 44’s vs. Reappropriate, and Part III was yesterday, where I discussed “Free Food for Millionaires.” Hear the full interview here. See my previous 44’s article here.
Those who know my blogging know that I’m usually very cautious about praise. I make certain that I’m comfortable with a work or project before recommending it, and I never ever recommend or endorse anything without fully understanding it. With that in mind, I have to give my wholehearted endorsement to William, Albert, and John’s program: Fallout Central keeps getting better and better. I thought my part of the podcast was good, but I nearly died of laughter when I was listening to them discuss “The Importance of Being Earnest” right afterward. It was especially hilarious to hear William link it up with “Falling For Grace.” They really know how to keep it real. And their delivery keeps improving. How many projects have succeeded in delivering constant improvements in quality–other than the 44’s of course, because we also keep on getting better too! These guys are awesome, and I can’t wait for them to get their own satellite radio show.
So my comments on the podcast itself:
I tried to be as fair as possible during the interview. I have no idea what Min Jin Lee’s motivation was in writing it, but I was floored by the emergence of the typical stereotypes during the last 100 pages or so. I talked about the stereotypes of the Asian worker bee while refraining from questioning Lee’s intentions. I also had to be a bit conservative in what I revealed, since I didn’t want to give away the story to those who hadn’t yet finished it.
One great thing about the podcast was that I had the opportunity to recommend some really good pieces of Asian American (or in this case, Asian Canadian) writing. In the podcast, I gave a strong recommendation for Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings and Terry Woo’s Banana Boys. As I mentioned on the podcast, it is the depth of examination that differentiates a book like Shortcomings from a book like Free Food for Millionaires. Shortcomings is about the movement and examination, while Millionaires is about the sex–and white guys.
I hope you all enjoy the podcast. Check out the Tony Lam interview as well. I worked with Curtis Chin on bringing the first Vincent Chin movie to Portland through Thymos, and I have to give them props for their excellent organizing last year.
ALSO, at this point, I wanted to announce that the Fighting44’s will be the featured Fallout Central topic on their May 25th podcast, and I will be the featured interview. It is entitled “Why I hate the Fighting 44’s,” and they are encouraging people to call in (The title reminds me of “What’s Wrong with Frank Chin“…great people think alike!). It’s a great opportunity for us, for FOC, and for the entire Asian American blogosphere. Remember–we’re the #1 Asian American intellectual blog on the web, and people need to hear about us. I’ll be presenting a short intro on the culture and foundation of the 44’s, and then the Fallout Central guys will open the phone lines. Let them know why you love us–call in between 2pm and 3pm Eastern time–and we’ll encourage people from other sites to call in so we can set the record straight about our place in the blogosphere.
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Makulita
12:21 am | May 15, 2008Completely unrelated but here’s a brisk etymological history because it IRKED me to hear them stumble around to figure this shit out:
Hapa as the term used primarily by the Asian American community to denote a person of half and/or partial Asian ancestry originates from the Hawaiian language.
The term translated is simply “half”. Like half and half for my coffee, two and a half men, half an hour before class gets out. However, its use in its original Hawaiian was “hapa-haole” which translated means literally half-foreigner. Or in this case half white, why most non-European languages’ words for foreigner comes to be synonymous with white is something else entirely however.
Anyway, the supposed controversy comes from hapa’s slight homophonic relation to the Japanese word “haafu” which as I understand it is a derogatory way to refer to someone of Japanese mixed blood. And also “Amerasian” is fucking stupid because the Amer from American ISN’T A RACE, MOTHERFUCKERS. You can’t magically be a mix of nationality and ethnicity in the way its being used. Numb nuts.
… ‘Kay. Done.
Good podcast <3
groinpull
4:45 am | May 15, 2008good podcast. once again IR dominates the conversation. I had a tough time understanding what John was saying. He talks too fast, connects all the syllables of every two or three words, trails off, it’s frustrating. Albert and William and JJ deliver clear, concise speech and on John’s turn I really really have to strain to hear what he’s saying. I LOOOVE fallout central podcast but that one thing just pisses me off so much.
John, dude, slow the fuck down, pronounce each word clearly, form complete sentences. I hate for this to be so harsh but i literally boil with anger when it’s John’s turn on the mic. I can’t possibly be the only one.
did anyone watch the Asian awards? Where there are a lot of Asian women and white guys in the audience as some of the guys alluded to?
JJ did a great job. He brings back a lot of that sense of humor we lost when Telly left.
Thank god the political ticker is on hiatus, at least for a few months. I won’t have to endure that beast Jenn Fang for a little while.
Looks like ‘..something something of a thousand cringes’ is Will’s favorite phrase now.
Looking forward to the next podcast.
howstrange
8:49 am | May 15, 2008cool, good job Jaehwan, I only wish the Author was there to respond. I look forward to the next podcast about why everyone hates the f44s. It should be quite interesting, I didn’t realize the f44s were so disliked! Dialectic, are you going to be on the show?
SoulSnax
11:06 am | May 15, 2008Hey, you can actually see Min Jin Lee in the interview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wNtnmInv4Y
Not what I imagined from listening to the podcast.
jaehwan
11:48 am | May 15, 2008Groinpull,
Easy on John. Remember, he’s only been doing this for a little while, while the others were original. Plus he’s from Queens. (that was just a joke, John) My own delivery is even worse than John’s, so I can attest that it takes practice. I am getting better though…I hope…
SoulSnax,
Thanks for the link! That’s totally different from what I imagined while listening.
Dialectic
12:27 pm | May 15, 2008I don’t think we’re all that “hated”; most people who’ve heard of us, I’m sure, couldn’t care either way, and anyway we’re just misunderstood =P The title’s an attention-getter.
Lopan and I should both be there, and JadeD might say hi as well. I say “should” and “might” because we just have to get the logistics sorted out with Jaehwan, who’s been awesome enough to set this up and develop a relationship with FC.