2009 has started out great already. I recently finished a short film with Jimmy Lu at USC, am currently another feature "The Screening Room", and now have just been cast in a new "transmedia" project called Headliners which is being directed by J.F. Lawton, who has written such hits as Pretty Woman, Under Siege, and Dead or Alive. This is going to be a web-based series, and the idea is that the audience can contribute and suggest how the story will go. I'm so excited to be a part of all this!!

   The main story takes an anti-utopian future, like in Blade Runner, where artificial intelligence has advanced to the point of almost being human. I will play one of the robot girls in this futuristic caberet. The costumes are going to be amazing-- they are being designed by Mr. Lawton's niece, Hannah, who is only 16 but is very talented. There's going to be lots of corsets and fishnet! Yeah!!

This link is J.F. talking about what transmedia is, and what the plans for Headliners will be (sorry I don't know much about posting YouTube things):

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZAob2NhVe8&feature=channel_page

This is the website for the Headliners Project:

   http://headlinersproject.blogspot.com/

Please check it out and tell me what you guys think! Your support always means so much to me, thanks guys!!

Happy 2009, hope it will bring you all great success!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!  I have always loved the holidays and celebrations. While the are presents to be opened and good foods to be eaten, I am most honored and grateful for all of my family and friends, and for all of our good health. There were people that I lost this year, and yet, new family members and friends came happily into my life. This is life. The most precious things we all have is time to spend with the people we care until time is not enough anymore.

I wish all of you good health and happiness. 2009 will be a wonderful year!

   "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." This is the opening of the Declaration of Independence by the American colonies from the British Rule. Yet, at the creation of the nation, not all were within protections of these words. Somehow, "all men" did not denote all of mankind; only white men. It did not include black men or women, who were mostly slaves, or any women at all, who were mostly seen as property (like the slaves). It was only through the tenacity of a few, forged through the suffering of many, that now, somehow, we call ourselves "civilized". We cast forth the belief that all are created equal as our sword and shield to the world, a righteousness tattooed on our lips. And yet, last Tuesday, we dragged our self-righteousness limping and bloody to the polls to deny our neighbors their rights to pursue their own happiness.

    Even as we stood on the shoulders of giants now long gone-- those giants who ran the Underground Railroad, who marched in Montgomery, whose lawns were set afire, who refused to sit on the back of a bus, the giants who dreamed-- to elect our first black president, we sawed of the legs of those giants just across the road from us-- those who were tied and dragged behind pick up trucks, who were rejected by their own families, who had no legal rights to their own child. On election day, I am sorry to say, I was part of a state that institutionalized hate and a country that believes that the pursuit of happiness is not, in fact, a right to which all entitled.

    For those that are unaware, I am talking about the now infamous Prop 8 that passed recently in California, as well as similar laws that passed in other states that now deny homosexual persons the right to get married, or, in one state, the right to adopt children. I remember the day back in May when the California Supreme Court announced that gay people could marry. I was in San Francisco at the time, and hearing the news on my hotel room TV, I cried. Not because I personally gained any new rights or opportunities, but because a part of me felt vindicated. As if I had won a new society where people were finally understanding what it means to really treat each other equally. I felt so proud that just a few miles from where I was standing, justice reigned and a righteous history was beginning to form. I thought it was a beginning of a new time. But on November 4th, I found out I was wrong.

   The proponent of these new laws advertised that gay marriage was bad because kids would be taught about gay marriage in schools. This tactic reminds me of the Reverend's wife on the Simpsons who goes around screaming "Think about the children!!!" What about the children indeed. Because this law passed, many children of gay couples can only have one parent legally, not two. Should that parent die, the deceased parent's partner has no legal rights to that child, even if he or she help raise that child. In the eyes of the law, such a parent/child relationship is non-existent. What about the children indeed.

   The law that passed in Arkansas is even more sinister. It denies the ability of non-married couples to foster and adopt children. As intended, no gay couples could marry anyway, so that means gay couples cannot foster and adopt kids. Good move considering that there aren't enough good, stable homes for foster and adoptive kids anyway. Arkansas, I'm sure the needy children of your state thank you for denying them loving parents.

   I was even sadder to learn that in California, this unfair amendment garnered the bulk of minority votes. Considering the history of this country, I would have thought that minorities, better than all people, would know how it feels and understands what it is to be treated differently and worse for simply being who you are. To be denied something as fundamental to humanity and civilization as marrieage simply because of the person standing next to you.

   Not too long ago, there was a US Supreme Court case called, appropriately, Loving v. Virginia. In this case, the court ruled that Virginia's law that a person of a certain race could only marry another person of that same race was unconstitutional. The Court said that such a law was meant to support the idea that whites were better than blacks, so this law cannot exist. In a similar vein, a law that says that a person can only marry someone of the opposite sex only propels the idea that heterosexual people are better than homosexual peoplee. Proponents of those laws will never say this out loud for fear of seeming like bigots, but that's what they mean. The idea that all the rights that come with marriage can only be conferred upon heterosexual couples suggests that the law prefers heterosexual couples. This is inequality no matter how you cut it.

   The reason that the courts won't apply the logic of Loving v. Virginia to invalidate measures like Prop 8 is because while race is a protected class, sexual preference is not. I think it's funny that whether you are heterosexual or homosexual is even called "preference". As if people all over the world "prefer" to be demonized by society, alienated by their family and friends, and even executed in certain countries. The fact the sexual identity is not a protected class is criminal.

   But I do have hope. I can't wait for the day that I will hear on the news that Prop 8 has been overturned, and I will cry tears of vindication again. The day that each one of us is judged by the contents of our character, and not by what is in the pants of the person we love.
  

At 7:15 PST today, I got up and went to cast my vote for Obama. As with usual election days, I will now commit myself to hours of CNN on the TV and on the internet. Tonight, I hope to be celebrating with my closest 2000 or so Democratic brethren here in Los Angeles.

After 8 years and 2 major elections full of frustration and disappointment, I am both cautious and hopeful to put my expectations into one election again. I remember the Gore 2000 and the Kerry 2004 elections well. Those were also days of campaigning and watching the news endlessly. Waiting well into the morning jumping between NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN. Undeclared still in the morning. Waiting for Florida, and then waiting for days afterwards...

Yet, after so much disappointment, I will throw myself completely into the excitement and emotions of the election again. It's kind of like falling in love-- even after you get hurt over and over, you pick yourself up, try to think of the good times, and try again. Again, I'll keep the peep of the possibility of failures silenced in the back of my mind. Because this time is different. This time is special. This time we are on the verge of a too-long awaited history.

I am filled with this moment.

I watched this movie today. It was incredible. Incredible. This is one of the best movies I've ever seen in my entire life. I'm still at a lost for words.

The movie's main setting in the former East Germany. It deals with a Stazi (German secret police) operative trying to build a case against a writer as a dissident. While doing so, the operative gets caught up in the writer's world. I don't want to say too much, but the movie did not have a single moment that was uninteresting. What's even more amazing is that this was the director's debut, and also it was written by him. I will certainly look forward to more of this director's work, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Beautiful, moving, and insightful. You will be glad you took time to take in this piece of art.