This is why Jay-Z is the man.

EDIT: You can watch the whole thing here. Clear your lunch schedule.

mad props to iamthelostgirl

I was listening to KCRW this morning and this is now part of my summer jam mixtape.

Little Jackie’s Myspace.

The whole soul revival (Amy Winehouse, Marc Ronson, Duffy, Sharon Jones, et al) is pretty nice.

BTW - I saw Wanted yesterday. A fun movie, but I would NOT see it if you’re a disgruntled office worker, a confused highschool student or if you tried to fly after seeing Superman.

Curving bullets . . . pfft . . . I would hate to see people trying this at home.

When you’re talkin to yourself
And nobody’s home
You can fool yourself
You came in this world alone
(Alone)

So nobody ever told you baby
How it was gonna be
So what’ll happen to you baby
Guess we’ll have to wait and see
ONE, TWO

Old at heart but I’m only 28
And I’m much too young
To let love break my heart
Young at heart but it’s getting much too late
To find ourselves so far apart

I don’t know how you’re s’posed
To find me lately
An what more could tou ask from me
How could you say that I never needed you
When you took everything
Said you took everything from me

Young at heart an it gets so hard to wait
When no one I know can seem to help me now
Old at heart but I musn’t hesitate
If I’m to find my own way out

Still talkin’ to myself
and nobody’s home
(Alone)

So nobody ever told us baby
How it was gonna be
So what’ll happen to us baby
Guess we’ll have to wait and see

When I find out all the reasons
Maybe I’ll find another way
Find another day
With all the changing seasons of my life
Maybe I’ll get it right next time
An now that you’ve been broken down
Got your head out of the clouds
You’re back down on the ground
And you don’t talk so loud
An you don’t walk so proud
Any more, and what for

Well I jumped into the river
Too many times to make it home
I’m out here on my own, an drifting all alone
If it doesn’t show give it time
To read between the lines
‘Cause I see the storm getting closer
And the waves they get so high
Seems everything We’ve ever known’s here
Why must it drift away and die

I’ll never find anyone to replace you
Guess I’ll have to make it thru, this time- Oh this time
Without you

I knew the storm was getting closer
And all my friends said I was high
But everything we’ve ever known’s here
I never wanted it to die

I appreciate the concern, but will everybody please stop forwarding this article to me? I get it. I should leave the house more often.

orig via miraclemax

I love this video up until the end when all the dudes join in on the party. Girl dances like me in my bedroom lead singer Tim Harrington when I saw them back in the day at the Black Cat in DC (Fred Armisen was also on the bill doing comedy).

I am in total agreement with Michaux-Fo-Chaux’s post today, tho I’ve been down with Night Ripper for a while and Mr. Gilles’s remix of Knife was my jam of Oh7. I could have went to his show with Dan Deacon last year but opted to see The National instead, which was still a rad show.

Three tracks in and I hear a Procol Harum sample? The Band? Sinead? This could very well be my “album” of the year.

When’s your next party in LA, Greg?

Come here for the lowdown. Brace yourself for the onslaught of imitators. Your move, Go Home Productions.

I forgotten how powerful this was. I lent this DVD to my roommates years ago and never bothered to ask for it back as they had moved and communcation lines got really fuzzy between us all.

I’m determined to own this movie by the end of the week. Maggie Cheung (In the Mood For Love, Irma Vep) and Leon Lai’s (Fallen Angels) best film.

I saw this one yesterday afternoon and have to say that I loved it.

I think a lot of people are going to hate on this because of it’s predecessor, Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003), but this movie really stands out on it’s own and delivers more (possibly better?) action than Iron Man. Fine performances all around esp. from Ed Norton and Tim Roth. It even has credited cameos from Wire alumni and an Apatow crew member.

Go see it. You will not be disappointed. No need to stick around for the credits, FYI.

I just called my dad and had a nice chat. Supposedly dad and mom went up to Francis’s place on Wednesday to plant some flowers in his backyard. This is “news” in our family.

Here are some ironic Father’s Day classics:

You’re Not My Father

You Are Not the Father 1

You Are Not the Father 2

BONUS DANCE DANCE DANCE: Back in high school I was a devout reader of SELECT Magazine (defunct Brit-pop monthly) and one issue came with a mixtape called Secret Tracks. This tape would greatly influence my musical tastes (among the tracks was one of the first recordings by Oasis, an unreleased version of Fade Away). I dubbed the following track onto a ton of mixtapes that I left in the family car and every time the song came on the stereo, Dad would turn up the volume and say “I like this one.” My dad’s really into music, mostly Vietnamese saxophone jams, Creedance Clearwater Revival and anything on Paris By Night, so it’s quite special when we agree on something.

I never got around to digitizing the track from the original cassette tape, but luckily one of the music blogs I frequent digitized the whole tape and I grabbed the mp3 and posted it below for your listening pleasure. I usually don’t enjoy live versions in comparison to the studio versions, but this is an exception.

Muchos Muchos Gracias to Dalston Oxfam Shop.

Primal Scream - Don’t Fight It, Feel It (Alive in Tokyo)

BONUS BONUS YOU CAN’T STOP THE ROCK:

Speaking of Paris By Night, here’s a banger from the show that I listened to constantly for a few months in the summer of 2005. I once volunteered at a Tet Festival in Little Saigon promoting Journey From the Fall and during one of my breaks I went to the performance stage to watch a friend’s Wushu demonstration. I stuck around the performance area and caught the Mt. SAC Vietnamese Student Association’s talent show and a girl named Thao Nguyen (not that one) performed this song with some background dancers.

I was blown away by the performance and ended up emailing the Mt. SAC VSA in hopes of getting a copy of the song. For some reason or another I never got the performance, but I did find out the name of the song and info on its origins (Paris By Night volume 57).

Don’t ask me why I listened to this song daily for months as I have no rational answer.

Bon Mau Ao (4 Colors of Dress [or something like that])

Non Sequitur: When La Cita used to do Karaoke Nights on Monday, this regular girl got up to the mic and mumbled something like “alright, Paris By Night, here we go.” I think about that often and I wonder if she was Vietnamese or half-Vietnamese like Tila Tequila or just into stupid weird stuff like me.

and I even found free street parking!!!!

Thanks, Hulu.

Steve Jobs really stepped on the nuts of early adopters today.

In all honesty I will probably wait a good year before switching out.

Francis, when does your contract with Sprint expire? You can expect a free iPhone from your bro.

I had like 5 minutes to kill at lunch, but unfortunately I did not bring my USB cable in today so you don’t get a pic of me and my creation just yet.

LINK to DOWNLOAD - the pic above is for preview purposes only!

Feel free to send it around.

Aside from the excellent performance, the thing I like most about this clip is how long Arianna Huffington shakes Pharrell’s hand at the end, illustrating the sexual magnetism of both.

Really? To this guy?

I need to start thinking of web 3.0 apps and make piles of cash if I’m to survive in this game.

I wish I had done this.

Matt, you now owe me 2 bowls of Pho at Golden Deli.

via http://minneapolisfuckingrocks.blogspot.com/

In trying to find a clip of Homer Simpson watching Def Comedy Jam and responding to the fact that “(White people are) so lame . . it’s so true” I came across the trailer for White Chicks, a movie I actually enjoyed when I watched it with my cousins years ago on DVD.

But it looks like I will have to watch it again as there was one actor who was not on my radar at the time. Let’s just hope he’s not forever type casted as the stiff, older authoritative police figure:

see what I’m talking about at 15 sec.

This is probably my favorite SNL skit of all time and fueled my obsession of the black comedian imitating a white person bit.

Eddie Murphy as a White Man.

Now, if only I can find that Simpsons clip of that black comic making fun of how white people drive.

I think it’s only the white press who are up in arms about the meaning behind Barack and Michelle Obama’s recent fist bump, because the underlying assumption is that the fist bump is African-American code for “Us, motherfucka.”

Now, this assumption is solely based on what I have seen among a small fictional group of African Americans on a TV show called The Wire. Then again, Obama’s a fan of the show too.

Watching the two clips below, one senses a striking similarity in the plight of both sets of partners.

Barack and Michelle’s fist bump:

Stringer and Avon’s fist bump pound. (towards the end, but well worth watching):

nb: GREATEST SCENE EVER.