Even in a multicultural, polyglot city like L.A. (which has the largest population of Asian-Americans (1.4 million) in the country and where the percentage of the population which is Asian-American is roughly equal to that which is black) most discussions of race appear to still be framed in the outmoded, bipolar terms of  black and white.  For example, whereas a lot of people and many organizations honor Black History Month, Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month is almost completely unrecognized except by some Asian-Americans. The centuries-long struggle and strife of blacks in America is well-documented and worth honoring- but Asians have also been subjected to legal segregation, racist violence, widespread discrimination and harassment. So why is it that the Asian-American experience is so downplayed?

According to polls, 23% of Americans are uncomfortable voting for an Asian-American to be President of the United States. This is in contrast to 15% compared with an African-American candidate and 14% compared with a woman candidate. A lot of Asians are suspected and viewed of holding allegiances to Asia, and not the U.S. which plays into the "perpetual foreigner" syndrome. True, many Asians are more recent immigrants than the white or black population but even Asians born in America often speak, in my experience,  of "Americans" only in the third person. Last year, coming up with movies to showcase for APA Heritage Month resulted in the suggestion of Chinese Kung Fu movies the distinction between Asians in Asia and Asians in America remains a lot harder than distinguishing African-Americans from Africans or white people from Europeans partly because America loves Asian movies and Korean dramas seem to show at all hours of the day, but Hollywood almost never casts Asian-Americans in anything and, to date, there have only been three TV shows to focus on Asian-Americans.

I went to a baptism the other day for one Mateo Gareza in the city of Montebello. Montebello, for those not in the know, is situated between the more interesting East Los Angeles, Monterey Park and Rosemead. They used to have a Puerto Rican parade, the only one west of Chicago but was deemed too much fun and moved to the Pomona Fairgrounds. It still has a lot of Mexican restaurants, chain stores and bakeries.

Mateo wore a white Ralph Lauren with popped collar and white trousers. Several other boys wore similar outfits although some sported white dress shirts and vests and the girls all dressed like child brides.

  13 year old child bride with 37 year old husband in Maine
 


Judi Evans, from "Days of Our Lives" is from Montebello ...

You figured it would be in the South, hanh? Racialist.

                              Young Master Gareza                                            Glamorous Montebello Town Center Mall

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I drove to Granada Hills today to buy a rug. To get there I used the Ronald Reagan freeway named after an actor from Illinois who made some films which are widely regarded as being universally unmemorable.



The ex-actor, after retiring from Hollywood went on to sell weapons to the Iranian dictatorship using the profits to arm death squads in central America. He also used funds designated for cleaning up toxic waste to fund instead the campaigns of sympathetic politicians and he closed institutions for the mentally ill which flooded the street with hundreds of thousands of crazy new homeless people that now fill our jails.

     

In 1959 Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States with two requests which revealed the Hollywood movie-lover in the famous shoe-banger:
1. To go to Disneyland
2. Meet John Wayne.

The United States had a better idea; show him a modern suburb on Sophia Drive in Granada Hills. Instead of inspecting an aerospace plant, he was taken behind the scenes of 20 Century Fox's "Can-Can"

    Lars... whoops- David Arquette                                                               The real Lars

In Lars and the Real Girl Ryan Gosling plays a shy loner who is henpecked by nagging family and friends determined to engage him. He reacts to their attempts to set him up on dates and hang out in familiar and realistic shy guy fashion. Then he buys a sex doll which he falls in love with and all at once we're transported to a world I could only recognize as the familiarly formulaic "quirky indie film". Of course it's in the Middle West (Ontario in real life), the last bastion of quirky, lovable, soft-headed townsfolk with hearts of gold and fresh-baked good intentions.
     What I had hoped was going to be a semi-comic observation along the lines of Punch Drunk Love or Chuck & Buck in one contrived bit plunged straight into the territory of an SNL sketch-cum-movie or an Improv skit that goes on for way too long (i.e. over 3 seconds). OK, it's not as bad as those examples, mostly because of the casting and because you don't have Horatio Sanz cracking up at the hilarity of it all. Ryan Gosling goes a long way in making Lars a character we care about even while the script or direction provide almost no insight into what's going on in his head aside from contrived instances with a psychiatrist. We never know if he really thinks the doll is real, does he ever have moments of clarity? What made him change from a believable loner into a delusional cinematic joke? We never know much of anything that goes on inside. You won't laugh, you won't cry even though it's calculated to make you do just that. Ultimately Lars is just an icon with funny hair, funny clothes, a funny name and a funny relationship with others a la Napoleon Dynamite. Here's hoping he doesn't similarly inspire a legion of "hipster" imitators or else I'm going to have to make a lot more calls to the Redneck Squad.
     I get the feeling that director Craig Gillespie (who also made the critically-despised Mr. Woodcock) didn't keep us distant from Lars deliberately like Todd Haynes did in Safe with Julian Moore.  Lars is viewed as a curiosity from arms length through the eyes of a guy whose prescription for social heterogeneity seems to be getting the world's "weirdos" laid or at the very least, some hugs.
     There are a couple of shots of the sex doll that register on the outskirts of funny and disturbing but for the most part Lars and the Real Girl is (like Waitress or Little Miss Sunshine) only about as quirky as a Halloween episode of Friends. Almost too edgy for an in-flight movie or your great grandmother. The story slowly flows along toward inevitable plot markers at molasses speed and then ends, gratefully, sort of abruptly.
     If you need more convincing if the film's mediocrity, check out these particularly rote hyperboles it inspired among some of the nation's blandest critics:

Joe Morgenstern of Wall Street Journal "nothing short of a miracle"

Ann Hornaday for the Washington Post "a small miracle"

Wesley Morris for the Boston Globe "something miraculous has occurred"

The other night I went with Em and Bao (and my co-worker Hiland) to see the filming of the pilot for a Chris Elliot vehicle called "Chrissy Plain & Simple". I like the name and concept. Just pure, unadulterated Chris Elliot without any bells and whistles and jangles and bangles and be-bops and re-rops and  flee-flops... or something to that effect. If you're a fan, you know how he just stupidly starts rambling to that effect.
On the downside- it's sketch comedy with pre-filmed satirical segments that we had to watch a couple of times and force some laughter for the second time around. At one point I looked up at a monitor and the entire frame was filled with my chin and some teeth laughing at nothing but the instructions of the episode's director, Bobcat Goldthwait.
The show takes place on a stage cluttered with Chris Elliot cut-outs of Chris in different poses, always wearing socks regardless of the character being portrayed and, I have to say, his stupid expressions forced me to smile over and over before filming whilst Jimmy Kimmel cracked jokes- and talked about the fact that he, I and some other guys were all coincidentally wearing maroon shirts.
The show started with an introduction and the first skit was a parody of My Super Sweet 16 which gave Chris a chance to do his annoying, entitled brat shtick which is one of my favorites but, of the MTVs, I only have MTV trés which seems to be mostly videos and not reality programming so some of it might've gone over my head.
The second skit was a parody of Most Dangerous Catch. Do I need cable? I don't think so. This time Chris and crew fished for eels in a la s behest, to love himself resulting in him having an affair with himself and subsequently shooting himself in jealousy that I found extremely funny.
So, there's pretty much no chance that the show's getting picked up which is a shame but I really would rather see Chris in a sitcom than sketch comedy anyway and I'm glad I saw a vastly under-appreciated comedic genius perform live.
Although one of my favorite characters of his is the Canadian hitchhiker on Letterman who foretold bad things happening before passing on; I've never been able to find any of those clips so I leave you with other highlights.