Japan relief efforts in Los Angeles should get a big boost next weekend from the all-star concert being organized by Asian American organizations including the Asian Bar Association and the Asian American Journalists Association. “A Thousand Hearts” promises to be a great show as well as hopefully, a great fundraiser.
As always, wish I lived in Cali, but if any of you readers are in the area, don’t miss it.
Here are the details via press release:
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I’m disappointed that the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is pulling out of Unity, a partnership of journalists of color with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA — full disclosure: I’m the president of the Denver chapter of AAJA).
It’ll diminish the power of next year’s Unity convention, which is slated for Las Vegas. The four Unity orgs have gotten together every four years for a combined confab since 1994.
My introduction to both AAJA and Unity was an inspiring convention in 2004 in Washington DC, when both then-President Bush and presidential hopeful John Kerry spoke to the gathered attendees. Kerry got a noticeably more robust welcome from the assembled journalists of color, which was noted in the mainstream media.
I also attended the 2008 Unity convention in Chicago, where candidate Barack Obama spoke. Both conventions were great learning experiences, and emotionally powerful experiences as well, for just being part of a large group of people of color.
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It’s one of those things that you taste and go, “Damn! Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?”
We bought a bag of Wasabi Doritos at our local Costco the other day, and though I try not to over-indulge, they’re hard to resist. I’ve always considered Nacho Doritos the perfect American snack chip. But I think Wasabi Doritos outdoes them. They’re what you’d expect: Crunchy, salty and satisfying, but instead of cheesy they have the flash of wasabi that floods your mouth and makes you go “aaaaaah.”
Wasabi’s no stranger to the U.S. Ever since sushi became mainstream in the 1990s and made for the most memorable of the early 2000s’ Budweiser “Whassup” TV commercials (see below), Americans have embraced the green glob of fiery horseradish that you mix with soy sauce to dip sushi.
Wasabi’s a common snack flavor in Japan already, as anyone who shops at Asian groceries in the U.S. knows. You can find wasabi-coated peas and wasabi-flavored rice crackers that can bring the familiar horseradish burn that makes you inhale (and sometimes cough) and brings a tear to your eye.
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“Live My Life,” the lead track from the new album, “Close My Eyes” by Curt Yagi and The People Standing Behind Me (great band name) grabs me right away.
It reveals Yagi’s wide-ranging musical palette with dabs of color — Yagi’s funky acoustic guitar, then a drum flourish — before he splashes the canvas with bass and very cool horn section riffing, and then Yagi’s vocals and grungy electric guitar add a sonic signature that has me tapping my toes and nodding my head to the catchy melody.
The album (which is officially released on April 12 but is available for advance purchase online) is full of such sweet pop confections that take diverse musical elements and mashes them together into memorable hooks and melodies. “Sweep Me,” the second track starts with a ballad intro but kicks into an acoustic ska arrangement pushed along by that horn section.
Yagi, who’s a Yonsei, or fourth-generation Japanese American born and raised in the Bay Area, credits the reggae and ska influences to his love for the genres when he was in high school. He added alt-rock influences when he was in college. He became a musician relatively late in life — he started writing songs after his father died of a rare disease 10 years ago — and started singing at open mics.
He holds down a day job as executive director of a non-profit, Real Options for City Kids (ROCK) that serves at-risk children with enhanced public school and after-school programs. He started as a volunteer in 1998 and was also a board member before taking on his current role. So he’s an artist who already invests his heart and soul in his day-to-day life and is talented enough to also express it musically.
Yagi’s now 40 (he looks 25) and he and his band were voted “Best of the Bay” by the alt-weekly SF Bay Guardian, and they regularly play Bay Area venues. I wish I could see him live just to experience the intriguing mix of acoustic, electric and horns in person.
It’s tempting to pigeonhole Yagi’s music as steeped in R&B because of the horns, funky rhythms and his often soulful vocals, but after a few listens to the album, I’ve decided he’s a musical omnivore, who likes a lot of different sounds and is able to call on them all as elements to mix in like pigments a painter might use to get just the right shade, the right tone, the right light and shadow.
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One of the heartwarming positive ripple effects of the tragic disaster in Japan has been the worldwide outpouring of support for the country and the earthquake and tsunami’s victims. That’s true locally in Colorado, where a handful of benefit events have already been held, and not just by Japanese or Japanese Americans.
A couple of weeks ago Colorado’s taiko groups got together to perform an evening of Japanese drumming to raise money for earthquake relief. On Saturday April 16, the Asian Pacific Development Center and 16 — count ’em, 16 — other local Asian community organizations who’ve signed on as partners are hosting “The Power of Solidarity,” a pan-Asian event of epic proportions. (Click the flier for full size.)
The event, which will be held from 5-8 pm at Abraham Lincoln High School, 2285 S. Federal Blvd. (Federal and Evans) in southeast Denver, will feature some of the area’s best talent, starting with Mirai Daiko, the popular all-women taiko group, along with award-winning singer-songwriter Wendy Woo, killer guitarist and songwriter Jack Hadley, Chinese dance group Christina Yeh Dance Studio, Indian troupe Mudra Dance Studio, Indonesian ensemble Catur Eka Santi, the Filipino American Community of Colorado, Korean youth drumming group Dudrim, renowned classical guitarist Masakazu Ito and the United States Vietnamese Veterans Alliance. Phew, that’s a very diverse lineup gathered together for one good cause.
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