Local city politics

Normally my city, Rosemead, does not generate much news but that changed when our local city council voted to approve the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Soon after the approval there was an election for city council for three of the five at large seats. A coalition of anti-Wal-Mart candidates won two of the three. Nonetheless, in losing one seat, the city council retained a majority in support of Wal-Mart.
Now a campaign has begun to recall the remaining city councilmen, Mayor Jay T. Imperial and Gary Taylor led by the anti-Wal-Mart slate, Councilmen John Nunez and John Tran and former write-in candidate Polly Low. Never mind that Imperial and Taylor served honorably during their tenure on council; Imperial himself has served his country well. While I do not criticize Nunez and Tran for their questionable moves when they were on the Garvey School Board, I am deeply disgusted at this recall campaign, and more specifically, disgusted by the style it is being waged.
Now, I pride myself as a son of immigrant parents. And like many immigrants in the San Gabriel Valley, my parents’ education and mastery of the English language are limited. This means my parents rely on their elected officials to do the right thing and explain to them policy. For many immigrant families in my community this is especially true for elected officials that share the same heritage.
Recently my mom signed a petition to put the recall on the ballot; this is peculiar considering she supports the incoming Wal-Mart Supercenter. She signed it because the people who claim to protect her, tricked her into it. What my mom expected was for the Nunez and Tran’s petitioners to tell the truth. What she did not expect was to be tricked into signing the petition when told that local Assemblymember Judy Chu supported it.
Three petitioners walked to my house where my mom was standing outside. One of them, a translator, tells my mom that “these people” (Imperial and Taylor) have served the city council for 30 years and what they wanted was a “regime change”. Despite the fact that their underlining reason for a recall was Wal-Mart (as their literature points out), none of that was mentioned to my mom.
After I told my mom about what the petitioners wanted, removing the two city councilmen so they could revoke Wal-Mart’s charter, she asked if there was a way to revoke her signature. She now realizes that this political machine is not there to help her; instead its purpose is to use immigrants her to meet its own objectives. They trick people who don’t know English well into supporting certain issues that end up harming the community.
Tran and Nunez are using their constituents for their own political game, taking advantage of a community that does not understand the language and ramifications of their actions. Instead of informing these people about Wal-Mart, their campaigners delve right into indoctrination and talking points as they coerce people to sign their petition. There are no real discussions to the benefits and consequences of a Wal-Mart. And yet these at-large city councilmen are supposed to be representing the city.
What Nunez and Tran’s petitioners do not mention is that under Imperial and Taylor, we’ve seen a growth of business in the community. These businesses include bringing commercial chains like a Target and Starbucks. But more importantly, they helped bring about small, ethnic, family businesses that showcase the diversity of the city. Also under their leadership, they are addressing the city’s changing demographics. This is a city whose population is growing as more immigrant families move in and make America home.
These actions cannot be accepted in a community that has faced adversity as they climb the latter toward the American dream. We cannot allow these practices to continue unabated. This is why I bring this issue to light and ask the citizens of Rosemead and the San Gabriel Valley to be vigilant against those who try to bully immigrants to causes that they do not truly understand nor support.

Scotty passes on....

Looks like James Doohan passed on today... I remember growing up with the Star Trek Movies, so it's sad to see the original cast leaving us...

Besides, who spawned more impressions than Scotty? Well, maybe Kirk. But who else?

LOS ANGELES(AP) James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said

Comic-Con Revisited

Ok, since Comic-Con appears to have eaten Numbah One, I figure I'll do a bit of a post on it. (For far too much detail on our trip to the land of freaks and geeks you can check out Pererro, or LYTrules, whom we hung out with on Saturday night)

As a warning, due to far too many unforeseen circumstances we didn't get there until 3pm on Saturday.

Overall it was alot of fun. We've been to GenCon and Wizard World and they didn't hold a candle to this one. The exhibitors hall was huge! We wandered around there for a good six hours and still didn't see everything. Lots of cool booths, I thought the SciFi channel and AeonFlux booths were the neatest looking ones, but Star Wars had pretty much everything you could ever want to see from Legos to the most awesome lightsabers ever.

Also went to the masquerade on Saturday night, which was much fun. Watched most of it from Sails Pavilion which had a really big screen and free nachos. During intermission they had a live DJ who was pretty good, but it was kind of obnoxious for us because they were also playing some cool movie trailers I actually wanted to see and you couldn't hear them at all over the music. On the upside, if you like to get your groove on and don't like trailers it would have been cool. Phil Foglio was very funny as the M.C. and did a good save when one of the contestants wasn't ready with a goofy duck joke.

Lastly, got some fun autographs from Kenny Baker (R2D2), the guys from Penny Arcade, and Phil Foglio (who was kind enough to sign my SPANC box, a copy of Girl Genius, and an original sketch of Dixie). Almost got in line to get Jonen Vasquez's signature on something, but I didn't have my copy of Squee! with me, and the line was insanely long.

Anyway, that is all I have to say in a nutshell. Go next year if you didn't go this year - Slackers!

Star Wars Christmas Special

I just watched the worst thing ever... the Star Wars Christmas Special. Long, long stretches of Wookies with no narration or sub-titles. Horrible dance numbers. Costumes and production levels well below the movies it was based on. And Carrie Fisher sings. At the end, making it a suitable, horrible ending. I bought a bootleg at Con, and I sort of recommend it, just so you can see the worst thing ever. It's unintentionally hilarious, etc.

The WEA-zel

Is back... Did you miss him?

Gladiator

I can't decide if this is good or not--from unlinkable IMDB.

'Gladiator' Sequel on Horizon?

A follow up to Oscar-winning blockbuster Gladiator is being planned - without Russell Crowe, who was killed off in the original movie. Crowe, who played General Maximus Decimus Meridius and Joaquin Phoenix's character Emperor Commodus both died in the first movie. But Djimon Hounsou, who starred as African slave Juba, survived and insists the sequel is in development. He says there is "definitely the desire to do a sequel. They're not happy about what they have for now, so they're still working on it." And the 41-year-old actor is convinced he will grab more of the limelight this time round, adding, "I would probably be in the centre of it as one of the leads."

Hm.... well, it's not a shlocky, bring-em-back-from-the-dead type sequel. But... a sequel with no major characters from the first movie? Huh?

Paul Feig -- Geeks and Sex: American Style

Since this Wednesday marks the beginning of my favorite international geekfest, The San Diego Comicon, I thought that I would mark the occasion by reviewing the most recent memoir by Paul Feig the creator of Freaks and Geeks, his website can be found here and he is a regular commentator on Huffington's Post.

June 28th saw the release of Paul Feig's latest memoir Superstud: Or How I Became a 24 Year Old Virgin, the follow up to 2002's Kick Me. Superstud contains a series of linked essays in which Paul Feig discusses the development of his sex life, from childhood to the loss of his virginity (though he does have an afterword to let us know he has in fact survived the harrowing experience and is a happily married man).

Before I get into the "meat" of the matter, I would like to point out one small part of the writing craft in this book. Feig displays an amazing proficiency with being able to end one chapter with a sentence that seemlessly ties it into the next story. In fact, this particular feature made it impossible for me to put the book down until I had finished it. Not surprisingly my favorite seque was the first, "Little did I know that my own mother was conspiring against me." This line comes mid-page at a chapter break! Who wouldn't have to turn the page after reading this line? What does he mean that his mother was conspiring against him? You'll have to read the book to find out, but it has to do with the same reason I was continually attempting to "borrow" the "girl sitting in front of me in 7th grade's" copy of Vogue.

In his discussion of how one self-described geek struggled through the trials and tribulations of sexual experience, Feig makes one thing clear -- the universality of "dating" horror stories. Whether you lost your virginity at 24 or 14, you will still come across many examples seemingly plucked from your own life and placed in the pages of someone else's memoir.

Feig's narrative takes a straight forward and linear approach to the issue. So the first section, or book, (the one with the most essays if not the most pages) covers the quintessent and overpracticed activity known as masturbation. From his days of pre-understanding "good feelings" to his rabid hunt for visual stimulation, these chapters are thoroughly entertaining. As an aside though, I have to note that his comments during his "book store" days regarding the "Freaks and Jocks who beat him up in school" being the ones shoplifting from the local bookstore are unfair. More likely it was someone like me, in fact if he weren't a decade older than me and a Michigander I would have thought he was directly insulting me. You see, I was the kid who had found an affection for reading, but was too poor to buy books and whose parents dispised "Role Playing Games" so I acquired some by 5 finger discount. And to be honest...how many stoners and jocks do you know who would steal books?

Feig ends his "book" about masturbation with the most natural of endings...that of parental discovery and transports us into the world of middle school and high school dating. We all remember those days. People cooler than us constantly going out to parties or to go "cruising." We all have our use the concert to get the woman story, but I have to admit that mine pales in comparison to Feig's. Feig's date with Jill Holsteader to an REO show rates among the all-time most nightmarish and hilarious experiences penned to date. Just when you think the date can't get any worse, it does. But the whole thing is made tolerable, as these things can be in the best of cases, by the love of Feig's father.

Now would be a good time to mention that Feig's representation of his parents in this book is wonderful and demonstrative of the love he feels toward them. He states in his dedication that his parents probably wouldn't have wanted the book dedicated to them if they were still alive, but given his kind and loving presentation of his parents I would have to disagree. They might have thought their son was a little crazy, but they would have had the one great parental mystery answered for them and known that their child loves them dearly.

After the high school dating section Feig moves us into his post-high school dating days, divided into two sections Wayne State years and summer before USC (with a brief Christmas first SC semester reprise). The last section, naturally, contains a biblical stylized chapter in which Feig loses his virginity.

I could go into detail as to how each of his dating experiences reflects some part of my own, but to do so would be to give up too much of the ghost and not allow any potential readers of Feig's memoir the joy of self discovery. I am also now tempted to write my own memoir of my personal sexual adventures. In a way that is the highest compliment one can give a book, the desire to produce something similar to share with the world. In that way we can participate in a dialogue with someone who connected with us.

In a world where most people aren't Don Juan, it is refreshing to read the escapades of someone almost just like us.

Oh and before I forget, read the chapter that Feig begs you not to read. He really does mean that you shouldn't read it, and the subject is disturbing, but for some reason I thought even more highly of him after reading the chapter. That is the opposite of his fear.

Oh right, I also command you to go out and buy Freaks and Geeks right now, or at least put in on your Netflix queue.