Sooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

I started writing this as I was stuck at the airport in Atlanta, a layover from Minneaoplis. Its raining and thundering and our flight home to Philly got delayed because its also windy in Philly, and they're having some kinda limit on how many planes are allowed to fly in and be on the runway, or something. That sucked big time. I had been sitting on the floor charging my laptop, and my ass, well you get the picture. Since I was there, I'll decided to start the update, a little synapsis of this past weekends adventures. Little did I realized that I was gonna be soooooooooooo exhausted that my update would be a tad late. Sorry, no pictures of our own yet, we didn't have a cord to connect to my laptop. I'm gonna borrow some flicks for the time being. Michelle will upload them later...

The LA trip was quick and fun. We were in and out in 24 hours. Yun, who organized the "Building Peace in Our Communities & Campus", picked us up from the airport, ran red lights, like she did in Detroit when Michelle met her. I think I was too jetlagged to notice. We met up with a couple other good friends, Kristina Wong, Allison De La Cruz and the Iletos, who were the very reason we were there. If you've ever heard about Filipino hospitality, Deena Ileto takes the cake - she kept offering to take us out to dinner, and if we ever come back to LA to stay at their house she she'd give us a our own bedrooms with bathroom and even take us to Disneyland. I dont know what Michelle's thinking, but I never been to Disneyland...

Just kidding. Deena we love you, Ish, and the whole Ileto family, thank you for everything. We also got re-acquainted with John Eric Concordia whom we first met at the very first APIA Poetry Summit in Seattle. He was singing with/for his friend, and fellow performer Bambu. Those guys were pretty dope for not having a regular sound system and doing acoustic Hip Hop. Very noble. But probably not as noble as the three youths who came all the way up from San Diego to see us. San Diego!!!


Yep, Xander Fernandez, Carmela Capinpin & Janice Sapigao drove all the way up from SD, on the first day of school, no less. I hope in exchange you guys learned something. You guys are so cute, and thank you for the trip! Im glad you liked it. The funny thing is I went on Myspace to update our profile and there this picture was, already a profile pic for Xander... Sigh... Michelle of course, wore her voice out by the end of the night, so everything was a whisper from then on.

Minneapolis blew us away with the I.C.E. Open Mic (was it in St. Paul?), and with the Equilibrium audience. The I.C.E. (Innovative Community Elevation) is an Open Mic organized, support and particpated by mostly predominantly South East Asian Youth. They made me so proud I wrote a poem about them the next day for Equilibrium. Now that show was the show!!! Not only were we open by Palabristas, a dope collective of Chicano poets in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area, I dont think Michelle and I have ever done a show where the audience is finishing the lines with us and I think Bao's laughing at my Laos in the House poem was the longest I've had to wait to get to the next line. We were so blown away at the openess and reception of the audience, even watching our friend Juliana, who is a fellow "performer/artist" and also a grad student in American Studies take notes during my poem freaked me out a little bit. I do this poetry thing for the kicks and here she was using me as a source. I feel smart.

Larry, Lorena and Brandon... They're Chicano, not Hispanic, godammit!!!


Rodrigo with his daughter, a pequeña Palabrista-in-training.


Me and Julie matched with our hot pink and purple zebra and python prints. Michelle thought that was funny.


Ice Ice Baby!!! You think youy got talent? You should see what they do.


As tiring as it gets, its important to sign those autographs...


and spell those names right. Even after I took the time to ask Tou Saiko Lee how to spell his name right and write something nice for coordinating ICE, that fool left his CD on the floor. Sheesh, you'd think that if you were saved a CD before they were sold out, you would treasure it. No worries, I let him have it when I saw him later at Dinkytown, where I also saw local Hip Hop acts, including Bao's favorite, Toki.

On the way home, going into the airport, guess what happened? I was delayed because I had to take off all metal above my shoulders, so I rook all all my jewelry including my famed Wu Tang earrings. When it went through the X-ray the security resent it through and inspected it. Why? Because they looked like ninja stars...


Now do these look harmless to you?

Michelle will add on anything I forgot, and post up more pictures. Im tired, yawn...

Catzie

LA and Minneapolis, We're Coming For You!

LA homies, we're coming to your city in 3 days to kick it with the Big Bad Chinese Mama of the west coast, Kristina Wong, then we're off to Minneapolis to hang out with the Joy Luck Thug himself, Bao Phi. Check us out if you're in the area.

Los Angeles, 9/21:

The Joseph Ileto Hate Crimes Prevention Fellowship, Asian Pacific
American Legal Center, Japanese American National Museum, and the LA County Human Relations Commission present:

BUILDING PEACE in OUR COMMUNITIES and CAMPUSES

Thursday 5pm-Whenever
Japanese American National Museum
369 East First Street

Program
5-5:30PM Reception
5:30-6PM Welcome
6-7:30PM Community Panel Discussion
7:30-8:30PM Our Performance with Kristina Wong
8:30-9PM Open Mic
FREE TO THE PUBLIC

J. O. S. E. P. H. I. L. E. T. O. - JOIN OUR STRUGGLE, EDUCATE to PREVENT HATE INSTILL LOVE, EQUALITY, and TOLERANCE for OTHERS


The focus of the Joseph Ileto Hate Crimes Prevention Fellowship is to support community education, victim advocacy, and strengthen inter-community networks as a means of preventing future hate-motivated crimes.

Minneapolis, 9/23:

EQUILIBRIUM

Saturday, 8:00 p.m.
Our performance with Pababristas
The Loft Literary Center
Suite 200, Open Book
1011 Washington Avenue South
$5 general public/$3 Loft members

The Equilibrium series connects recognized spoken word artists from around the nation with powerful local voices. The series also pays tribute to established artists who have pioneered spoken word art in our community over the years. Equilibrium is dedicated to showcasing voices of people of color, indigenous artists, and other marginalized communities. Passionate interaction with the audience… tears, cheers, bringing people to their feet… are all part of the experience!

Pababristas is a Minnesota-based collective of Chican@s/Latin@s who affirm and celebrate the arts, culture and identity through the written and spoken word. More information at www.palabristas.com.


Hope to see you all then!

Catzie has a new crush

Oh my god, I have a new crush. I don't even know where to begin. I just found him and fell in crush, sigh...



Okay so his name is Cool Calm Pete. He's an MC from the group Babbletron, for which he also produces beats (this story sounds real familiar to another Asian MC/Producer from Philly by the name of Chops, but trust me its not him). He also designed clothes for this street/skate brand/store in NYC called Supreme. Any who, back to how I stumbled upon this lovely goodness of a man. In my sparest of spare time I write for dorkmag.com, which is an online magazine about art, lifestyle and habitat. I particularly happen to cover the streetwear section of it and I was looking for people to interview, when my friend Koyuki suggested Pete, because she also knew him personally. She talked about his background in clothing design and mentioned that he was also MC. I was like "Yeah whatever, isn't everybody?" So I looked him up, downloaded a few songs and googled his image. First of all I didnt even know he was Asian (Chinese, specifically) until I saw the pictures. In my mind I had an idea of what he might sound like but when I heard him I was actually impressed. There are times when he sounds like MF Doom, in others like Slick Rick, but he's really good and not so Im-so-smart-with-my-words-I-might-bore-you-with-them. My favorite song is "Dinner and a Movie" because its like 3 songs in one. It's about dating, of course but you'll have to buy the album to hear it. I think it's called Lost. He also has a new one called Black Friday.


So on top of having a crush on him, I found him on Myspace, the one place where you can't hide if you have an account. I friend requested him, and he accepted of course because he's a music guy, they have to accept everybody for any accessibility. I wanted to write him, but I didn't know what to say, I mean, how do you put into words and tell a guy you want to have his babies? I couldnt think of any so I wrote just that "I want to have your babies". I dont think he even looked at my profile. whatever, at least I let him know how I felt.

The very next week, I went to Vegas to visit the Magic Show, which is this big tradeshow event for anyone who cares about what they wear and how to sell it. So I was just sitting there chatting it up with my friend James when I saw this Asian guy with the most plushest lips standing in front of me. He looked familar and I couldnt tell why I thought I knew him but not really. Until it dawned on me that it was Cool Calm Pete. His hair grew out a bit, but I recognized those lips. I guess the reason I thought I knew him was because I was internet stalking him, and when you do that you think for some reason that you really know the person. I know, I know I need help, but look at him, man, he's fucking fetching. My friend James was annoyed with me because for 20 minutes my mouth was open but I wouldnt say anything. I watched him for a little bit, waiting for my opportunity. He was busy talking to other people, and then when he was finished he started calling on his phone. The people he was trying to reach must not have been picking up their phones or something because he would hang up and call again, I know this because when he was finished I would get up to walk over to him and then stop midway and turn back around when he picked the phone up. I did this dance three times and then decided to just wait until he was really off the phone. But then he got up and left. I think panic set in that I would never see him again, so I kinda, uh, chased after him. I felt stupid tapping his shoulder so I just came around from behind, stood in his way and asked him "Is your name Pete?" The rest of the conversation was very professional thank you, and he agreed to an interview for the magazine and even gave me his new email address. Yippeee!!! Now I have to pan out how to stalk him without making him feel uncomfortable, because then he wont wanna meet with me anymore. I hope he doesnt recognize me as the girl from Myspace who said she wanted to have my baby. Damn...


I got this picture from my friend Ray who runs a brand called Mighty Healthy and a blog site called crazysteezyo.com. That's me all the way on the right with the black shorts on, and thats him all the way on the left with the yellow shirt. We totally connected, dude. Okay, this is probably the longest Yellow Rage post not related to spoken word or the state of current affairs, but so what? I have a crush. Its consuming me for the moment so Im writing about it. I mean he is an up-and-coming Asian American brother with talent, I was just letting the world recognize that too. See, there was some consciousness to that. In the meantime I'll leave you with a pic of him and his lips. Sigh...