My letters on naivete

In a recent edition of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, there has been some mega-naive letters written.

Here's a sample

http://starbulletin.com/2004/12/26/editorial/indexletters.html

And here's my response to those lame letters

Two letters in the 12/23/04 edition of Star Bulletin expressed wishful thinking at it's worst.

The first letter, by Paul M. Gundlach, said that high-rise buildings should be banned because people have died falling off the lanais of those buildings. Nevermind that those in single family homes are more vulnerable to flood damage (and flood drowning) than those living on the 20th floor of a high rise. And let's not forget that high-rises are there because we dont have enough room to give everyone single family houses, nor can everyone afford it.

The second letter by Wilbert W.W. Wong, said that a one-world government will bring world peace. In reality, a one-nation government can't even stop gang warfare, so how is a world government going to stop tribal warfare? And Wilbert Wong says that a world government can by led by "highly principled leaders possessing high intelligence, common sense and humility." More likely, a world government would be lead by a corrupt person possessing excessive arrogance. If you thought Hitler or Stalin were scary ruling one nation, just imagine someone like them ruling the world!

The Star Bulletin only printed my response to the 2nd letter, which is reprinted at

http://starbulletin.com/2004/12/26/editorial/letters.html

Movie & Music Review

Finally, an article that tells the truth about film critics

http://home.frontiernet.net/newsdetail.asp?cat=1&id=2168

and some excerpts

Critics of critics say professional reviewers have snooty tastes, applying the same criteria to an Eddie Murphy comedy or Vin Diesel bust-'em-up as they would to a Kurosawa or Fellini film.

AND

"You can't take a movie which is designed to be an action-adventure film and have it critically reviewed by somebody who's interested in independent, intense, dark, in-depth character portrayals like `Taxi Driver,'" said Nicolas Cage, whose adventure film "National Treasure" opens just before Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, the same phenomenon occurs amongst music critics. All those alternative indie-rock loving critics are given full power to comment on genres like teen pop. Who the fuck are those indie-rock lovers to even comment on teen pop or other music genres?

The magazines, newspapers, etc should just have the alternative indie-rock lovers to review alternative indie-rock, reggae lovers to review reggae records and (sarcastic gasp) teen pop music lovers to cover teen pop.


Let's also remember that most film/music critics are hippies from Berkeley, Greenwich Village NY, Madison, and other hippie-town and they don't relate to the average American. Magazines need to start recruiting late teens/young adults who are into the non-hippie trends to respectfully review the pop scene. There has got to be some in that crowd that can write.

My Christmas

My Christmas vacation started off good with the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, with Hawaii defeating Alabama-Birmingham 59-40. If you're not into football, try learn about it and watch some games. The game is more complicated than soccer or basketball, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes fun.

Then on Christmas, I visited some relatives. One of the visiting relatives was my cousin Don from Waianae, who was fighting in Iraq. Earlier this year, his arm was shot. Now, he has to wear a brace for his elbow.I was talking to Don about his experiences in the military, boot camp, his travels to Atlanta & New Orleans, the time he was in South Korea and his time fighting in Iraq. I now consider Don Wegesend one of my heroes.

I was also talking to Don's father, "Uncle Puddy" who was once in the military and is now a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ & Latter Day Saints (aka Mormon Church). I also got some "dont give up advice" from my uncle Warren, which was great since that motivates me to work on my goal in the music industry.

As for presents, I got some gift cards from my parents and my brother & his wife. I'll go on a shopping spree, mostly to buy clothes. I now need to buy some professional-looking clothing now that I'm out of college.

I Graduated

Earlier this morning, I have graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

If you've never been to a UHM graduation, you gotta go to at least one. There is the Hawaiian oli chant in the beginning, the usual national and state anthems, and speeches. And it ends with the UH Alma Mater and the graduates walk to the athletic fields to recieve leis from family.

Baseball legend Tommy Lasorda was the speaker at our graduation. It was a relief to hear non-political rants at a UH graduation ceremony. Lasorda was funny and inspirational, though he spoke louder than neccessary.

I took a lot of pictures, though I didn't get a chance to take pictures of everyone I knew there.

Now I'll have to enter the real world. I'm going to miss school now, though I wont miss the exams. I'm going to miss all the good people I've met and all the fun memories I had.

My Graduation tomorrow

Tomorrow (Sunday, December 19,2004) I will be graduating from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a bachelor's degree in sociology.

I'll have to change the words on the top of my blog.

I'm glad to accomplish my childhood dream of graduating from UHM.

I'll be glad to not have to put with studying for exams for now. More free time.

However, I'll have to enter the real world and be economically self-sufficient. Scary stuff for me. Especially with me having my own apartment, one bad move, I can be homeless.

But forget that gloom & doom nonsense, I'll be more independent, and I could possibly make more money that I ever had sometime in the near future.

I'll be job hunting , while still working on my rap career.

See you tomorrow :)

The passing of musicians

1) It's been more than a month since Ol Dirty Bastard passed away. I was too busy to post a comment on the blog. He was a funny guy!

I'll always remember the remix he did with Mariah Carey's "Fantasy", though it was the original version of that song had the better beat.

And the Grammy awards in 1998 when he ran on stage upset that his group Wu-Tang Clan didn't win. He said he wasn't against Puffy, just that he wanted his group to win.

2) Dimebag Darell, formerly the guitarist of Pantera, then Damageplan was shot to death a few days ago.

I remembered from 1992, when my older brother introduced me to Pantera! They were one of the greatest and under-rated heavy metal bands in the 1990's. However, MTV was too chicken-shit to play their videos while playing over-rated crap from over-rated alternative bands. MTV was also too-chicken shit to play stuff from Sepultura (a Brazilian metal band) and Biohazard (an NY rap-metal band who talked about the dangers of the NY streets).

If you dont know much about Pantera's music, I suggest you get their greatest hits CD. You get to know classic stuff from Pantera.

Talent Show

Last night I was performing the song "I Like That" by Houston, Chingy, Nate Dogg and I-20. I was good at memorizing the words and did a few funky dances.

That was my last talent show as a UH student. Now I must look for other forums to perform.

Unlike last year, however, this time around I didn't win any awards.