actual product – christmas lights with preachy product warning on box
Preachiest Christmas Lights Ever – ACTUAL Product Package
SO MANY SHARKS BEING JUMPED!!! :(
Some shows like Gossip Girl and So You Think You Can Dance are jumping the shark.
A Two Month Conversation On YouTube
Date an Asian has inspired 697 comments thus far – some loving, some passionate, some utterly bat shizz cray-cray, and an unexpectedly large number about whether Ph(F)ilipinos are “Asian” or not. It was like one loooong conversation with the public as one schizophrenic-ass commenter.
A Two-Month Conversation On YouTube
by Jen Kwok and YouTube Commenter
Asian American Warm Fuzzies
So I haven’t posted in a loooooooong time, due in part to an excuse, some other excuse and a variety of additional excuses I just made up because the first two seemed a little broad and inadequate.
The past couple of weeks, I did two of events that were completely awesome and happened to be rooted in the AA/APA community (and like LGBTQXZ-1, I’ll probably never take the time to figure out what the most inclusive acronym is).
The first event was Page Turner, The Asian American Literary Festival hosted by The Asian American Writer’s Workshop. I was part of a panel called “The New Eclectics”, which also featured the amazing and fun Sesshu Foster, Porochista Khakpour and Ed Lin. All the Asian American literati were there, including the highly decorated/awe-inspiring David Henry Hwang and Jhumpa Lahiri! Last night, I was also part of the line-up for Columbia University’s Cultureshock, hosted by their Asian Amerian Arts Alliance, which had everyone from uber-sexy FR3sh dance crew, and my comedy homie Eliot Chang, who just taped his Comedy Central Presents.
I’m not going to venture to explain what AA/APA/AAAAAA/AZN writing or entertainment is, but it’s clear to me that there is a certain recognition and community when you’re in a room full of people who share the same life-long identity crisis. We’re not post-racial, but I *think* we’re past Phase-1 rice jokes, and I know that I’ll write many more songs where the biggest laugh does not occur after the world “bubble tea”.
Even 5 years ago when I was in college, I don’t think there were as many established Asian performers out there that I could watch or read or visit the abandoned MySpace pages of.
Finally. Warm Fuzzies.a
FREE SHOW – Jen with Band Opening for Charm Face, Oct 9 at The Blarney Stone!!!
Hey dudes!
I’m excited to say that I’m playing with my band again next Friday, Oct 9 at The Blarney Stone!!!
That’s right – I’m plugging in my uke and rockin’ various tunes with Marco Bucelli (drums), Matt Butterman (guitar) with A Bass Player (bass) and special guest, my boy Soce, The Elemental Wizard. If you’ve ever wanted to hear the live band version of my hit, Date an Asian, this is your chance!!! I’ll be doing songs new and old, funny and “serious”!
We’re opening up for the album release party of my friend/former college flatmate/bandmate, Bracey Smith’s band, Charm Face (isn’t that an awesome name?!?!)! They are big in Japan. Seriously. They just came back from Japan, where they were big.
This is their logo:
They will, like, charm your face off.
Charm Face Album Release Party
FREE show!
Fri, Oct 9 at 8pm
21+over
Blarney Stone, 2nd Floor
410 8th Ave
(Right outside of Penn Station/MSG by the corner of 31st St and 8th Ave)
The party starts at 8pm
The Jen Kwok experience will start at 8:30
The Comfort Food music video premiere will be at 9:30
and Charm Face will start at 9:45
Big Girls Club (the Formula Play) opens THIS WEEKEND, Sept 26-28!
Come see this awesome play I’m in, opening this weekend at Here Arts Center!!!
Big Girls Club (The Formula Play)
HERE Arts Center
www.here.org
SEPTEMBER 26, 27 & 28th @ 8:30pm
ETG premiered Big Girls Club ( Happy Dance Dance Princess Show) at the Brick Theater this summer prompting extreme reactions from audiences and critics alike. Matt Johnston of nytheatre.com [...]
MTV Iggy Interview!
Hey guys,
So I did a lil interview with the folks at MTV Iggy about the “Date an Asian” video, addressing some of the issues of race, answering some questions from YouTube commenters and talking about comedy in general. Check out here: MTV Iggy Interview
Mad props to Woody and Samantha at MTV Iggy for being so crazy supportive.
Thank you to all the friends and fans for the overwhelming support of this video! This was a labor of love a year in the making, and I’m so glad that people are enjoying it.
<3 Jen
New Music Video – DATE AN ASIAN
My new music video, Date an Asian, is a hot (and hilarious) R&B joint about dating Asian men.
Here it is:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG9vYZmoqmg]
After fun ass day of shooting and a star studded live premiere at Sulu Series, this video is ready for all the world to see!!!
We hope that you enjoy it, and please please please help promote it!!!
HELP PROMOTE DATE AN ASIAN:
1. Email this vid to all your peeps, groups and listservs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG9vYZmoqmg
2. Post the video link to facebook, Twitter, MySpace, tumblr, blogs, etc!
3. Embed the video wherever you can!
4. “Favorite”, share, leave comments, “thumb up” on YouTube!
5. Stream the video on a laptop strapped to your chest!
Asian men are finally gettin’ their due, so please spread the love!!!
http://www.dateanasian.net (designed by the lovely Donna Kwok).
Thank you to everyone who helped make this video happen!
<3
Jen
A Horribly Productive/Destructive Weekend!
My dear Tommy went back home to Staten Island for the weekend, and I was left to my own devices.
Friday Night: Stayed home to nurse the contrails of my never-ending flu from last weekend. I ended up drinking about 6 servings of miso soup, while watching the following: five hours of Bravo (split between Real Housewives of Atlanta and Las Vegas Taxi Cab Confessions), an episode of Amazing Wedding Cakes, an episode of Bridezillas, Gwyneth Paltrow’s View from the Top, and a horrible Lifetime movie about a Mormon love quadrilateral starring Jennie Garth called A Loss of Innocence. So basically, I drank two gallons of salt water and had estrogen pumped through the television and into my eyeball. It was horrible. I might as well have cut myself or eaten a quart of Rocky Road Ice Cream while dressing up my Barbie doll collection. I literally watched TV for 9 hours. It started at 7pm and lasted until 4am. WHAT KIND OF FREAK AM I?!?!
Saturday: Went to brunch with Adina in the East Village, wandered around Urban Outfitters, and picked up my books on reserve from Greenpoint Library. And you know what? It turns out there’s another Jennifer Kwok who goes to my branch! I know this because I certainly did not order a Japanese manga written in Japanese with no pictures in it (seriously, what is that? )! Then I went home and started reading my actual somehow-in-my-mind-less-dorkier book choice, The Golden Compass. Then, realizing that I probably shouldn’t have ANY more miso for the rest of my life because I had consumed about 12,000 grams of sodium the night before, I decided to order in a Papacitos fish burrito. I ate this while watching Kubrick’s Lolita and marveling at the great acting – Peter Sellers rocks it in this movie, and James Mason and Shelly Winters are no schlubs either. After the movie, I fulfilled my weeklong craving for Haagen Daaz and bought a pint of Bailey’s flavored ice cream at my local pseudo-gourmet grocery market. I went to bed EARLY – like 9pm, after Friday night’s fiasco.
Sunday: Woke up relatively early after 12 hours’ sleep and started going through emails. I grabbed a shower, ran some errands at Rite Aid (where they already have Halloween stuff up, BTW – horrifying!!!!) and bought a couple donuts and coffee from Peter Pan’s, which is now infamous for its Donut Ice Cream Sandwiches. Got back home and edited/practiced my verse for “Trapped in a Dungeon”, a guest-rap-laden song by my buddy Soce, The Elemental Wizard. Then I wrote and practiced my rap verse of a song we’re doing together, “Ride the Bus”, which will be released as a B-side to my single (also produced by and featuring Soce), “Date an Asian”.
After all that musical mayhem, I made some N0-Pudge Brownies and cleaned the house before my Tommy came home (it’s all the Mad Men watching that’s got me acting like robo-live-in-girlfriend). Actually, the brownies were for my former boss, who is letting us stay at her house during our vacation, and Soce, who is hard at work producing all these awesome tracks! I headed over to Manhattan (going from the G to the 7 because there is no service to Manhattan from 23-Ely Ave for the fourth weekend in a row) and met with my former boss to grab keys, directions, etc. Then I headed downtown to record my rhymes with Soce.
Continuing with the self abuse, I came home not having eaten any dinner – BUT buying a goddamn Van Leeuwen ice cream while waiting for the bus on Bedford Ave. WHY?!?!?!?! Ugh, that ice cream is so good it’s hard for me to eat other ice cream now…. It didn’t melt once while I was waiting 15 minutes for that bus – not a square millimeter of it. It’s perfect!!!!
Finally, I got home and found my dear Tommy there, uploading a ton of pictures of his weekend at home, along with adorable 10 second videos of his dog running around and drinking water – videos that, BTW, would probably get more YouTube hits than all my videos combined if uploaded!
It was nice to be kind of left alone this weekend, but between the miso/ice cream diet and 9-hour lady film festival, I really don’t think I’d last very long. However, it was superfun to indulge, and I was glad to channel my inner rap star and try a new outlet for my creativity.
And now, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to go to bed just yet. But…a girl has to try.
Good night!
Date an Asian – AWESOMENESS Recapped!
The “Date an Asian” music video premiere last night at Sulu Series was AWESOME!!!
The evening started off with amazing spoken word/poetry from Jenny C. Lares, Simone Jacobson and special guest Marco. Supercool band Paperdoll also rocked the house with some original songs – and a fantastic cover of A-Ha!
We rolled into the music video premiere, which elicited a lot of positive responses – from laughter to “awws” to people genuinely being touched by the tribute to Asian guys, it was amazing to see such great reactions to a project that has been in the works for almost a year.
After the video premiered, we had had a bunch of great performances from the guys of “Date an Asian”, who are some of NY’s top Asian male performers:
YouJean Chang got the crowd going with his hilarious, racially charged humor.
Air Tabigue did a bunch of amazing new material after literally hopping off a plane from Vegas to make the show – what a guy!
Comedy improv group Asian Flush also had its world premiere last night! The all-Asian, all-dude group consists of: Joel Arandia, Keith Huang, Roy Koshy, Binu Paulose, Nikhil Rao, and Jamaal Sedayao.
Narinder Singh kept the crowd going with his cunning one-liners, which I dubbed “non-Sikh-uiturs”, teehee!
Phil Nee, the Godfather of Asian Comedy (who plays my dad in the video!), totally lived up to his name and annihilated the crowd with his set.
Finally, The Part-Time Models dance crew brought down the house for the grand finale!!!
All in all, it was such a great night, and I want to thank everyone again for making “Date an Asian” possible. The song and music video were a TON of fun to make, and it’s such a damn thrill to finally have it out in the world!
Also, a massive shoutout to the Sulu and Bowery Poetry Club crew: mucho thanks to Taiyo Na for giving a home to Asian American artists – Sulu Series coming up on 5 years!!! Thank you to DJ Boo for manning the turntables, Nick for teching up a storm, and the lovely Diane O’Debra for keeping us well hydrated.
Look for the video in the coming days, very soon!!!
AND, if you have a hankering for a LIVE performance of “Date an Asian” with myself and Soce, come to K-Date on Thurs, 8/20 at Comix! Click on “Shows” for full details about this hit Asian matchmaking show!!!