Hey guys, I just wanted to point everyone in the direction of two new artists that we just added to Alivenotdead.com today.


No, you're not seeing double... They're twins and they're both actors, directors and wushu athletes. Yes, they're good additions to our growing army of wushu guys (of which includes "unofficial" wushu guys, Etchy, rottendoubt, narom, Daniel, and myself...) which is always welcome.

In any case, you might have seen them as ass-kicking (and Twins-kicking) baddies in Twins Mission which I actually DID watch primarily in order to see another wushu-mate Wu Jing in action...

As you can see from their profiles, though, these guys have been spending alot of time behind the lens directing shorts and commercials so be sure to check their other work out... oh, and their wushu tricks videos...

Thanks to my hometown buddy, Carolyn, for referring Herbert and Albert to the site...

So it's been two weeks since my oldest brother David and his wife Hilary gave birth to their first baby boy:

This is in line with Terry Tye Lee's recent post, but I decided to make it fun...

This month, every time you hear a Western reporter say one of the following, drink a shot!
- "Communist dictatorship": Get it right... China has the world's largest BUREAUCRACY, not dictatorship. If you're going to complain about politics, at least get the form of government. A dictatorship is government run by a single individual. China is the EXACT opposite of a dictatorship -- it's the world's most frustratingly large bureaucracy.

- "BAY-ZZZHEEENG": Gaaah... if you're going to fly around the world to get to cover the Beijing Olympics, please at least learn how to pronounce BEIJING correclty. It's "BAY-JEEENG" -- a hard J sound like "JESUS Christ, stop fucking up our beautiful language!", not a soft ZH sound like "Jean Claude Van Damme". It annoys the heck out of me that my favorite fake newshost, Jon Stewart, still pronounces it wrong, too... Jon, I don't mispronounce your name as "Zzzzzhon Stewart", so stop fucking up ours...

- "Coming out party": You know, Chinese people have been coming out of China for a LOOONG time now. It's not a prison! There are more Chinese emigrants than any other population in the world. Last year, there were more than 50 million international travelling Chinese tourists, making Chinese one of the most populous tourist nationalities by quantity. Maybe it's the fact that Americans by-and-large are so content with learning about the world from their couch and NOT travelling out of the United States (witness our current President who had travelled so little internationally before taking office).

- Any shot of a run-down hutong w/ a modern skyscraper/Bird's Nest/etc.. in the background followed by the words "a country of striking opposites": You know, when we had the Atlanta Olympics, we didn't see any shots of the run-down, poverty-stricken inner city parts of Atlanta right next to the CNN Center... and yet they're not really that far apart. So why do you insist on making China look like a shithole built with gleaming, decorative icing on top? Just to cover up your own country's feelings of inadequacy for not improving your growing and increasingly impovershed lower class citizens?

Can you guys think of any other infuriating Western journalistic cliches?

Here are some photos from last week's events...

Alivenotdead.com has just signed up to help sponsor "HK Live" which is Hong Kong's premier showcase of emerging bands here in Hong Kong. It's been going on for a little over a year now and has been a good starting ground for live performances by many of the bands featured on Alivenotdead including 24 Herbs, Audiotraffic, DP, Soler, Hardpack, and more...

There wasn't quite enough time to adequately promote the event so the turn out was a bit sparse for Terence's first time emceeing the series.


I really hope that we can recapture some of the spirit that made the previous HK Live's so good for new bands.


On Tuesday, Race from 2R invited us to check out the "Dior Iconic" showcase. This was a commissioned showcase of "iconic" photos designed by Alivenotdead artist Alvin Goh and had work by Sean K and Wing Shya with Race and Josie Ho serving as models. A really interesting collaboration of different Alivenotdead artists.






Sean and Wing have successfully collaborated on countles other projects together, but this is the first time for me to see them work their magic on Race and Josie. Congrats to all!


A bit of unsolicited side commentary: Just so that you know, I don't frequently go to these kinds of fashion-related events -- or at least I very rarely did until I landed in Hong Kong where they seem to be part of the game. Coming from the down-to-earth San Francisco Bay Area, it's a bit "other-worldly" to see these kind of fashion events and, to be honest, a little off-putting. I really applaud a brand like Dior commissioning work from true artists like Alvin, Wing, and Sean -- without sponsor support, alot of the artists would not be able to flourish. Nonetheless, there's the "positive" part of corporate commissioned artwork and then there is the down-and-dirty work done by the events or PR companies who are hired to create as much media noise as possible for these events. I'm by no means an expert as I've only been here in Hong Kong for a year and a half, but I think I've already witnessed enough isolated incidents of off-putting behavior to know that there are some very GOOD event/PR companies and some very unprofessional ones. The good companies make events that people would want to naturally attend because they bring something unique and positive to the scene. In the long-run, they build a reputation for creating really great events and I just have to see their association with an event for me to be certain that I want to attend. The bad companies, in my humble opinion, are the ones who chase the short-term gains: They invite or pay as many celebrities as possible to participate in an event. Their interest is short-term only in that they try to crowd as many of the celebs together as possible so that the photo can appear in the tabloid mags and entertainment broadcasts. It's basically a noise-making factory where both the celebs and guests are treated like meat: Grade A means that you're treated delicately, but if you don't "belong" in the picture then you're excess cattle. All of this is handled this way so that they can assemble a "nice-looking" clips book after the event for their corporate client that shows them how much tabloid coverage of celebs they had for their event. It all seems so short-sighted to me for the corporate because this one-time noise factory is promoted at the long-term expense of the corporate brandname. I don't think anyone walking away from these meat-processor events feels enriched by the brand... It comes off as very gauche and dehumanizing which is obviously the exact opposite of what their corporate clients want. Is there a way to promote and run an event in Hong Kong that BOTH gets wider attention in the press AND treats all of it's attendees with simple respect and common courtesy? In any case, I'm not trying to lay a blanket assumption of all the corporate events here in Hong Kong, but just a portion of the ones that I've attended.

Okay ... just had to get that off my chest. I try to be diplomatic whenever possible, but sometimes the anti-social engineer in me just wants to cut through the bullshit.

As uncomfortably, out-of-place as I am at high-end fashion events, one thing I am definitely down for are Jun Kung's live jazz/rock nights. This man is a TREASURE in Hong Kong ... After the Dior event, I headed quickly over to Backstage where Jun was doing another night of Jun's Junk Unit -- assembling some of the most talented musicians in Hong Kong including guitar-extraordanaire Eugene Pao for some awesome rock/jazz.


The reason why I call him a HK treasure is because this is the third time I've seen Jun recently where he's managed to completely pack a house with lines going out the door with JAZZ music. And his fans for these shows are actually pretty young... alot of college students and 20-somethings really excited to see him play live jazz... The reason why he has such a following is both because the Junk Unit are just so damn good when they perform AND Jun is funny as hell, especially when he's performing. It's always guaranteed to be a fun night when Jun is performing as I'm sure alot of you guys who've checked him out know. Props and congrats to Jun for another sold out night!

Finally, last but not least: A very happy birthday to comic-book lovin', Rat Pack followin', Alivenotdead.com-co-foundin', and all-around nice guy Andrew Lin. A bunch of people came out for his birthday party @ Racks.






It was topped off with a very appropriate Batman "pinata" filled with candy. Somebody should have told him that the pinata was actually nearly indestructible...

I spent today doing more work on improving my media server rig that I've been doing as a pet home project for a couple of weekends. A couple of weekends ago, I bought myself a cheapo PC that I could experiment with and eventually turned it into a media server that could hook up to my TV.

The computer was CHEAPO cheap! $2000 HKD (or about US$250) for a underpowered computer but a huge honking hard drive for all of the music, videos, games, and several automated backups of Alivenotdead.com (heh... yes, I have Alivenotdead currently backed up in my home).