the ballad of gay adam.

November 24, 2009 by audreycleo

via People.com.

American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert pulled out the stops for your entertainment (album name pun!) at his sexually-amped performance on the American Music Awards, only to have his scheduled performance on Good Morning America canceled in light of some 1,500 complaints lodged at ABC after his AMA show. Glambert has called this a double standard: after all, haven’t female pop divas been shaking their no-no parts and engaging in same-sex mouth-to-mouth for, well, forever? And lest we forget, it wasn’t too long ago a young man named Elvis swiveled his pelvis much to the dismay and offense of pop culture consumers around the country.

Perhaps exacerbating the whole situation is the fact that Adam is openly gay. Lambert lovers have been abuzz, implying that GMA’s move underscores some latent homophobia. But is it REALLY homophobia or just a reaction to a bawdy one-off? The Parents Television Council would have you think the latter, insisting that his “tasteless and vulgar” performance — which featured serious S&M-inspired antics and an oral sex simulation, edited out for the West Coast airing — is, in so many words, corrupting the youth of America. (Strangely, I haven’t read any statements about all those uncomfortable erectile dysfunction drug commercials routinely free-balling on the airwaves…)

But this statement seems just a skotch naive. The same has been said about video games, TV shows (hey, Gossip Girl) and any other entertainment that’s remotely violent or sexually suggestive — and even when it’s not (hey, Tinky-Winky). The PTC also ignores other outlets where teens can look to for some old-fashioned moral corruption: YouTube. The Internet. The same home of Lady Gaga’s latest music video where she straddles her would-be “buyer” in a futuristic Russian bath house. The media stages for pomaded popstar thrustathons are fungible, because they no longer exist just on TV, although gay Adam will, indeed, get to sing his “ballad” on CBS instead, followed by a late night appearance on Letterman.

So what say you, culture vultures, on Glambert-gate 2009? This might be the last major popstar controversy of the year. Make it count.

Posted in American Idol, braincandy | Leave a Comment »

letters from afghanistan.

November 16, 2009 by audreycleo

No, I’m not in Afghanistan, but my friend C. is a reporter embedded with the troops over there right now. When the Internet connection isn’t horrendous, C. occasionally sends emails about his “adventures” (or misadventures, as they may be) from his posts in Kabul and Kandahar. It’s hard to not get a heaping helpful of perspective after reading these, so I’m going to post up a few excerpts. C.’s messages usually detail the day-to-day difficulties troops and journalists, such as himself, are facing over there and it’s not pretty — not on email, and most definitely not in real life, one could imagine. Simple things, like showers, are both a luxury and an ordeal that involves running up to the roof of a house to turn on the water pump before stepping into one. And then there is the occasional machine gunfire:

“Yesterday morning we finished up work around 2am, so by 5:30 I was dead asleep. Start hearing all this bang-bang-bang, guns firing. But it’s kind of sporadic – and honestly, back in Iraq you get used to gunfire as just something you constantly hear at night. So I rolled over went back to sleep. But then it keeps going another 10-15 minutes. So I throw some clothes on & go up to the roof – our cameraman **** is coming up same time. But it’s still just this sporadic firing. So we go back downstairs to go back to sleep. Not 10 minutes later, those guns start opening up – very intense, very frequent, all machine gun fire. So we go running back upstairs.

Turns out it’s the Taliban attack on the United Nations guest house, and its literally a block down the street. We see one guy running like hell away from the house – or hobbling like hell, he’d been shot in the leg but was damn near dragging that leg down the street pretty fast. There are all these UN vehicles backing up fast – away from the building that’s being attacked. And then we hear some large booms and see black smoke just start pouring up over the trees. We’d find out later that those “booms” were when some of the Taliban blew themselves up inside the guest house. Afghan police start pulling up, we see groups of them start running up towards the building. All in all 5 UN workers got killed, including an American.”

American troops are facing a unique set of problems as they train the Afghan National Police:

“At one camp, they [members of the Afghan National Police] had taken the metal plates out of their body armor and were using them to grill sheep on. The lieutenant patiently explained to them that no, body armor isn’t made for BBQing …and yes, having hot, bloody sheep roasting on top could potentially diminish the protective capabilities of the armor.”

And during a 4-hour drive (a longer one than usual since C.’s convoy wanted to avoid bombs), an interesting observation about the troops:

“They talked about Pop-Tarts, and the guy from California cracked on the other guy from Arkansas for being a hick. I never heard anybody talk about any of that big-picture stuff that’s always being debated on TV – like Obama’s troop decision, why are we there?, all that stuff. I heard soldiers griping because they didn’t get M&Ms or Jalapeno & Cheese in their MREs …but I never heard any of them complaining about any troop decision.”

Regardless of political leanings, these illustrations and excerpts from the life of an embedded reporter is pretty powerful stuff. When these images and words are packaged into news stories on TV, the comfortable disconnect and distance we, as viewers, can watch with is a luxury to my friend C. Since Thanksgiving is only a week away, let’s give thanks to journos like C. who — essentially — put their lives on the line to make these stories real for us in sight and sound.

Posted in political | 2 Comments »

facebook page.

November 10, 2009 by audreycleo

Photo by Jessica Szejn.

Don’t forget: my Facebook page is up. Shameless self-promo. Bold-face.

Posted in snaps, surf, tech/web | 3 Comments »

CotW: rep. anh “joseph” cao of louisiana.

November 9, 2009 by audreycleo

By Getty, via NPR.

I’m finally resurrecting CotW and this week’s crush is Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao (pronounced “Gow”), the freshman Republican representative from Louisiana.

Crushable why? Because he broke ranks with his political party to vote in favor of the Democratic health care legislation — a refreshing move in the world of divisive partisan politics. Educated by Jesuits after arriving to to the U.S. from Saigon, the 42-year-old is the first Vietnamese-American in the House, holds a master’s in philosophy from Fordham University and a law degree from Loyola Marymount, and previously worked as the in-house lawyer for Boat People SOS. He’s broken party ranks before by supporting the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Speaking of children, that pic of him with one of his two daughters is freaking adorable. I also have this weird affinity for Asian-Americans from the South because an AsAm with a southern accent is so delightfully incongruous, it’s charming (hi, comedian Henry Cho). Rep. Cao doesn’t have a Southern accent. Still. On a side and somewhat-unrelated note, I had a guy tell me he thought it was so funny that I talked like a SoCal valley girl. Like he was surprised I didn’t mix up my “r’s” and “l’s.” We didn’t have a second date.

So, Rep. Cao, consider yourself crushed. It’s nice to see a face that represents another thread in the fabric of American identity and politics. Also, please refrain from any regretful scandals that would force the revocation of your CotW status. Thanks.

Posted in CotW, asian invasion, political, snaps | Leave a Comment »

digital dating.

November 5, 2009 by audreycleo

From my friend Seth's desk. I'm sorry if this is offensive to people with inch-long ankles.

A friend of mine, out of both boredom and curiosity, recently signed up for Crazy Blind Date. A relatively new site that only serves a few greater metro areas around the country, the free service is run by the same folks behind OkCupid.

Billing itself as a place for “social, outgoing, and adventurous people,” basically, Crazy Blind Date is like the OpenTable of dating sites: coordinate a blind date on super short notice with little more than a profile of the other person, a super blurry picture and a meeting place/date/time. Communicate through the site to avoid any chance of a Dimitri the Stud situation, and options for a solo or double date means you can choose whether to face your fellow social strangers one or three at a time. Accepting a date is binding by the almighty Powers of the Interwebs, and if you cancel, you’re really really frowned upon. Major two thumbs down for you from the site’s overlords/lordesses.

It’s sleek (and a favorite price of mine: FREE!), effectively diminishing the meat market factor with the blurred-out pictures. And my friend, after one day of signing up, already had a date lined up for Friday (yes, “had”; more on that later).

Admittedly, I’ve never tried the online dating thing. The closest I’ve ever come has been with a site where I really just logged on to take the three-days-long personality test. When it came to actual match-ups, I did the equivalent of dipping your big toe into the ocean and running away really fast: I’d scan profiles and then immediately close communication by selecting 1 of the 20 or so checkboxes, a.k.a. “reasons” for not caring to know anything beyond his height and hobbies. I never found the checkbox for “Because you listed Rollerblading as a hobby.” I also had trouble filling out my profile. When you answer “What’s the first thing someone notices about you?” with “My unicorn horn,” the online thing might also not be for you. Although I did come across one dude who’s profile had the answer “My vas deferens.” Intrigued.

While no longer stigmatized as that thing socially inept people in chat rooms do in hopes of meeting a fellow social lameball to procreate with, digital dating has become–gasp!–normal. It’s no longer the method of the desperate and, indeed, a good chunk of my attractive, educated, employed girl friends have tried it out albeit with mixed results.

I can’t lay claim to being a person-who’s-friends-with-that-married-couple-who-met-online just yet, but plenty of us can. We hear it all the time: “so-and-so met so-and-so online.” I get the appeal. Online dating services are, all at once, modern matchmakers, social organizers, and also time managers: Are those Crocs he’s wearing in that picture? X’d. Did she actually write that the Twilight series is the greatest piece of contemporary literature written thus far in an un-ironic way? Banished! (From your list of “potential matches,” that is.) It makes sense. We’re all busy enough as it is, so why not let someone else aggregate our list of potential suitors/hook-ups/fiancees/spouses for us and let us do the cherry-picking thereafter? In the economics of dating, it seems like hitting the WWW has the comparative advantage over, say, practicing the Secret. Or my preferred method in the past: prayer.

But beyond the carefully-selected list of favorite bands, movies and quirky Twin Peaks references, at some point, www.cutepre-dateinstantmessaging.com turns into omgreality. Real life meetings give way to the very thing digital dating can’t avoid: those in-the-flesh first impressions — and it’s usually at that point, I start hearing the horror stories. The disconnect between web-reality and reality is almost always a physical one, and is anyone really surprised? All that emo self-reflection and introspection that goes into filling out profiles asking you to finish sentences like “People say I resemble ____________” is just begging you to put down “Jarah Mariano” when you really should write “Bai Ling.”

Conversely, I’ve also seen and heard the upside to letting the Internet gods take Cupid’s bow and shooting you in the email with it.

So, folks: digital dating. What do you all think? What are some of your best (and by “best” I mean “worst”) online dating stories?

Oh, and about my friend who signed up for CBD: She and her would-be Friday night activity partner couldn’t agree on a meeting spot. But she’s already been pinged for more dates. I smell an adventure on the horizon. Or at least a really good story.

Posted in braincandy, girlstuff, huh?-larious, tech/web | 2 Comments »

on the straight & marrow, #1.

October 22, 2009 by audreycleo

Not to get too cheesebucket here, but those moments that make you transcend the day-to-day pettiness/silliness/minutiae can be far and few between. I’m certainly not immune, if my proclivity towards road rage is any evidence. Tensing at the smallest of grievances, getting irked at the slightest of slights; it’s easy to sweat the small things. Way too easy. Somewhere among the long lines, impatient customers, rude waitresses, and traffic jams, the magical “p-word” — perspective — gets totally lost in the shuffle. But it gets recovered.

One of the best sources for that “recovery,” personally, has been being a part of the Asian-American Donor Program/Be the Match registry. Okay, so just reading that sentence makes me think I just wrote a line for a PSA. A little history: when I was in college, my friend Paul asked me to register my blood in the AADP as part of the drive he was sponsoring for Hapa Issues Forum (now the Mixed Student Union). Ethnic minorities are hugely under-represented in the National Registry; matches for mixed-race patients are difficult to find by default. And 10 minutes wasn’t a ton of time to take off between my next class and La Burrita, so I let the labcoated lady prick my finger. Paul rewarded me with a package of Dora the Explorer Band-Aids.

I didn’t hear anything for about a year, until one day, I received an early morning phone call about being a potential match for a baby boy with leukemia. And that’s all I knew. There are certain conventions and rules about what information can and cannot be revealed about patients to their potential matches; this extends to even after a transplant has taken place. But when you get this phone call, what you lack in information, you make up for twofold with thoughts and questions. Who is he? How old is he? Where does he live? Who are his parents? What are they feeling? Could I be the one to, possibly, save his life? And what if I’m not?

Six vials of blood and a dizzy spell later, there weren’t enough markers in my blood to warrant a match to his, this nameless baby boy. And when you’re not a match, there’s a certain unwarranted, unreasonable disappointment that goes with that — unwarranted and unreasonable because it’s not like you can do anything about it, except hope that someone IS the needle in that proverbial haystack.

And then there’s the moment when you’re the needle. Right after my Tokyo trip for Qore this past summer, I received yet another phone call that I was a possible match, this time for a woman only a few years older than me. So the questions started: who is she? Is she married? In grad school? In love? How much of a life has she experienced and how much has she not but wants to? I wanted to know where our lives intersected, where they differed. Your perspective on aging, your own age, and your personal “I should be here by X number of years”-timeline all shift when confronted with someone else’s limited one.

I told Paul, who was moved since he indirectly had a hand in the process. He forwarded me Michelle Maykin’s blog, the personal account of a fellow Cal Bear (we graduated with the same major, different class) who desperately looked for a match before succumbing to her illness before she could find one.

More vials of blood (this time EIGHT! And they were big ones!) and another dizzy spell later (I still haven’t learned to ingest anything other than Starbucks before these things), I was nowhere closer to finding the answers to those seemingly-rhetorical questions. And then — over a month after my blood was submitted — another call to a) apologize for the delay but b) also let me know that I’m a “very suitable match” for the patient. She’s not ready to receive a transplant, but (hopefully) that needle will be BFF with my pelvis once she is. Even though she doesn’t know who I am, I don’t know who she is, and that cold anonymity is somehow juxtaposed with an undeniable intimacy of a (possible) transplant.

I’m writing about this not to rack up good karma points but to raise awareness about something that is important to me and has impacted members of my own family. I’m writing about it because I think it’s pretty amazing that you could save a life just because of your default settings: what’s flowing in your veins and inside of your bones, with nary a muscle pulled (only a sore pelvis) or a sweat broken. I’m writing because of the p-word, and as someone who doesn’t usually have the time to stop and smell the roses. So, if my status as a potential donor changes, and I gear up to donate, I’ll be updating accordingly under these “straight & marrow” posts in an effort to get you all to sign up and spread the word.

www.aadp.org

www.marrow.org

Posted in asian invasion, straight & marrow | 3 Comments »

some more pics.

October 8, 2009 by audreycleo

Oh, bloggy blog. I’ve neglected you. So many Crushes of the Week logged in my memory, yet I can’t seem to find the time to blog about them (although somehow I find the time to make totally out-of-the-way Pinkberry runs? Where are my priorities!?). And I’ve had thoughts, too. Many many thoughts that are begging to be blogged about. That’s right. My thoughts beg.

But I digress. Because the main subject of this post? PICTURES! Just a couple from some shoots I did. I suppose these would fall under a “sexier” category, but I manage to confuse “sexy” with “doofus” a lot. Sexy fail.

All photos by Jessica Szejn Photography.

barrow3

barrow2

gamer18
gamer19

gamer20

Posted in Qore, asian invasion, girlstuff, snaps | 7 Comments »

“i hate yoga” and other blasphemous statements.

September 16, 2009 by audreycleo

I hate yoga. Okay, maybe I don’t hate it as much as I’m just “not into it.” Unfortunately for me, though, if Californians had an official religion, yoga would be it with instructor yogis our clergymen/women, stretchy pants from Lululemon our “Sunday best” outfits, and those sprawling mirrored yoga studios our churches. And there I would be: the rebellious atheist refusing to Warrior Pose, doing jumping jacks in the corner in a headband and baggy sweats. Hot. Bikram hot.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. In college, I would wake up well before my 8 AM classes to take advantage of the sessions offered at the Recreational Sports Facility, crammed in a room with 50+ other undergrad/grad students and hole-y foam mats that smelled like stale sweat. I figured that free sessions on how to become more flexible, relax my mind and realign my chakras or whatever it is that makes yoga the extra-special spiritual workout (and makes Jennifer Aniston look like she has a perpetual halo around her) would be worth a shot.

So I tried… and I tried and I tried. I so desperately wanted to be able to stick my head on a purple foam block, balance my feet against the wall and slowly bend my legs into a perfect headstand. I wanted to leave every class looking like I’d released all the toxins from my body, all the worries from my brain and that I was floating blissfully on a post-yoga cloud, with the afterglow of someone who’d just gotten a really satisfying colonic.

In all my attempts, that’s never happened. For me, letting go of worries and outside distractions are things best done when you’re not making the conscious decision of doing so and that’s where yoga has failed me… or maybe that’s where I failed yoga. I can’t just let distractions go because a lithe lady in leggings holding finger cymbals tells me to; it betrays my nature which says, “Thou must think about 15 different things at once.” It’s the same “nature” that says I should always have at least 9 tabs with 9 different websites open whenever I’m online, Tweet regularly, and be okay with eating things from the fridge even after the expiration date just as long as there’s no visible mold. Who am I to betray nature? Also, whenever we would Downward Dog in class, I was always scared that the dude in front of me would rip one in my face, like Rev Run did on that episode of “Run’s House.”

Since I haven’t been able to get into the spiritual side of it all, I don’t feel that I’ve been able to grasp, in its entirety, the yoga experience. Yoga’s been shelved.

Running is another one that I’ve tried, but only recently have I just fully come to terms with the fact that I not only hate it but I’m just not very good at it. And I’m okay with that. There was a period when I strived to run an 8-minute mile on the treadmill or pound the pavement until I got a runner’s high. I’ve totally wanted to be that chick who’d brag about this “great run” I just went on or some new route I’d found or that I’m training for a marathon. I want to be able to eat that power athlete gel stuff from the pouch without irony.

The truth is, I’m not sure if I’m cut out for that kind of non-stop flatlanding, which is probably why I head into the ocean: surfing is my yoga. When there is little between the water and me save for my board and a wetsuit, I’m able to leave whatever distractions on the sand, paddle them out and then when I’m done, leave them there. The hunting-and-gathering of waves leaves little room for meditation on anything else, lest you feel like getting mowed over by nature’s version of a laundry machine spin-cycle (and it can be brutal). I emerge feeling stronger, more energized… total post-colonic glow.

Maybe I’ll give the running thing another shot (and sometimes I still DO run…. er, jog at a brisk pace), and maybe one day, I’ll overcome my fear of Downward Dog-induced farts enough to take a yoga class again, although I’m still weary about doing it Bikram: there are far too many people out there who think deodorant is so passe.

Posted in braincandy, rants, surf | 3 Comments »

(girl!) CotW: jessica szohr.

September 8, 2009 by audreycleo

More Szohr! via about-knowledge.com/Gossip Girl

Sometimes, I fancy myself a sophisticated TV connoisseur, the type who can’t bear to go without her Jim Lehrer Newshour and is above, say, episodes of South Park. But then I’d be lying to you. And it wouldn’t even be a straight-faced lie; it’d be one of those where I start laughing in the middle of it and totally give myself away. The reality is sometimes I barter with myself and my DVR by trading Newshour for The Daily Show and leaving old episodes of SP lodged in there for months at a time. I still can’t bear to part with the “Make Love, Not Warcraft” episode. It brightens my cloudy days.

When it comes to sharp-tongued tween-aimed night soap operas like the undeniably addictive Gossip Girl, I’m only as good as my basal desires. Unfortunately, my basal desires always seems to scream “YES! WATCH MOOOORE!” when it comes to promiscuous fashionable teenagers living out their lives in big cities. It’s an addiction; what can I do? But without GG, I wouldn’t have this week’s (Girl!) CotW, Jessica Szohr, a.k.a. Brooklyn babe Vanessa Abrams.

Crushable why? The Wisconsin native can wear sexy-ugly clothes with the aplomb, quirk, and insouciance of a rockstar. Her mixed Hungarian/African-American heritage means primetime gets an infusion of diversity, which I’m always down for. AND she’s just plain gorgeous, wouldn’t you agree?

J-Szo, consider yourself CRUSHED.

Posted in CotW, braincandy, girlstuff | 1 Comment »

crush of the week: stephen hawking.

August 30, 2009 by audreycleo

(via Columbia University)

I’ve been bedridden for the past few days thanks to a flash flu bug whose origin I’m still totally uncertain. Seriously, who gave it to me? I want to kind of smack you.

But without further delay, this week’s CotW is the incomparable Stephen Hawking, award-winning British physicist/genius guy/blackhole solver/quantum theorist extraordinaire. Yeah, guys with curriculum vitaes weighing more than entire encyclopedia collections? Totally crushable. Did I just date myself because I wrote “encyclopedia”?

On a more serious (and personal) note, without Hawking, we wouldn’t have the ability to feel small which — in times of personal turmoil or strife — is one of the most humbling and necessary things to feel, if only to put ourselves in perspective against things so much larger, more colossal than ourselves (like, um, the UNIVERSE!). So, Stephen Hawking… thank you. And consider yourself CRUSHED (upon).

Posted in CotW | 1 Comment »

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