Blog Has Relocated! AWOOOO!

Hey gang--sorry for the late notice but I've decided to relocate my blog to WORDPRESS. Please visit it now at

http://kreenpananas.wordpress.com

And make sure to visit my photoblog at

http://gottabeb.wordpress.com

Thanks for your continued viewage and support--you all rock! No really.

Tagged teamed at the Barbershop

Mondays have a reputation for being the least enjoyable day of the week. At least Wednesday gets the cool nickname like "hump day" and weekends are, in most cases, a time for R & R. Today's Monday has been an exception. I wasn't on the schedule but I swooped in to work to swap clothing and fit in a quick morning work out at the gym.

I jumped on the bus on the way back home and excused myself from this mother and her two children that had their stroller littered on the aisle. A minute later this other lady turns to me and laughs exclaiming, "Wow, you have a big smile on your face" and proceeds to smile and laugh. Hah! It's funny that she caught that because I did beam a smile at the mother as I crossed over. I just thought it was interesting that that other lady would find it fascinating.

The oddballs didn't end there. I went to the barbershop directly after my bus trip and instead of getting my usual barber, I get the trainee (who I wasn't aware at the time, was a trainee). About 3/4 of the way through, my usual barber finishes with her customer and comes over to inspect. She then grabs her clipper and starts working on my hair too. Never have I ever had two barbers work on me at the SAME time. The feeling of two clippers buzzing atop my scalp was a quasi relaxing (if not tingly) sensation. I would love to have taken a picture of myself the moment I had both clippers dancing on my head.

Conclusion: It was a pleasant day off filled with infectious smiling and a barbershop menage a trois.

Heh, really?

I cracked open a fortune cookie today and got two fortunes:

1. Your dearest wish will come true.
2. This year your highest priority will be your family.

Hah...

Through Questions

A wealth of discovery upon the edge of questions
Sharp and pointed and thirsty for blood
Answers come through with asserted dedication
A cause for rejoice and a reason for dismay
Frolic in a subdued haze of mystery
Each step wrought with surprises
We walk, daringly true and committed uncaring
We sprint, cutting through ribbons of abandonment
We share and we are rich.
Richer. And caffeinated.

An extension of self

When inspiration hits, you just have to go with the flow. In this case, I started a photo blog/journal as I was inspired by a blog that was introduced to me by a friend. The URL to the blog in question is:

HTTP://TOTHETIP.WORDPRESS.COM

There's no real need for an introduction to it, just jump in and experience everything it has to offer.

And for those curious enough, here's the URL to the photo blog/journal I started. I'm looking to add a couple of authors as time goes by. So stay tuned.

http://gottabeb.wordpress.com

Child of warmth

I spent the last 10 minutes typing an intro to this entry only to delete it. All I really want to say is, someone give the person responsible for this AMAZING weather a hug. It could do with a little breeze here and there, but geez Louise, how can I even think of living in a place where winter rips through part of the year?!


Ideal.

The man in the mirror (no, not the Michael Jackson song)

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning and saw someone older. It could very well be the poor lighting in my bathroom, but I saw the same stranger when I washed the tangerine peel stain from my fingertips a few hours ago. Who is he? Where has he been? Why hasn't he spoken up sooner about the horribly humdrum ride he's been having?

He's me, obviously. He's been everywhere I've been. And I've turned a deaf ear to his rants and needs. We are equals but I discriminate him. I've never once offered my handkerchief to dry his grief. Why?

I remember now. He's not as harmless as he appears. I have reasons why I dislike him. Because whether or not I listen to him, he always finds a way to slip poison into my drink, my verbal tonic. He always finds a way to lace my thoughts with doubts and he always take me for granted. He cares too much for me but just as easily forgets my needs.

All to often I've been the backseat driver to my own life. There's a pro and con to this. On one hand, I get to enjoy (or dislike) the scenery. And on the other, I'm powerless to decide which scenery I'll be enjoying (or disliking). No...not powerless, no...never. Passive, maybe, but never powerless. Perhaps it's time to activate the emergency button on this ride and ask the stranger to help me read this sketchy, dismantled map.

Rambles.

Life is good. Do you think it's possible to throw yourself a curve ball? How often do we surprise ourselves? I feel it's often enough that it becomes unnoticeable and taken for granted. But once in a while an idea, whether a new discovery, or a seed planted ages ago, comes along that completely transforms you. Sometimes these ideas are pillow feathers blown in the wind; Unpredictable and deliriously amusing. The mundane air suddenly transforms into a batter of matter finally formed, dancing and caressed by these...ideas. These feathers.

I am the air. Today (I'm generalizing for relatively recent life events) a pillow commits harakiri (sepuku) and I am once again, changed. I am the air.

Music induced nostalgia

Currently listening to "FIJI".


I miss the beach, the island breeze, the laid back-wear slippers-shades-one layer of clothing feel. It's like a love affair where the consequences consist of tans, genuine smiles and desire to find the closet available pair of coconut trees to hang your hammock.

Hook, Line and Thinker (erratic musing)

My curiosity is like a fishing hook. Fishing, now there's a word for the ages. I find women who arouse my curiosity over anything else are the ones I feel emotionally smitten over. As if, by some weird paranoia, I'll never meet anyone quite like her. The more I resist the more this hook tears into me. Sometimes it's a "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE" pain...and other times, it's a "OH IT HURTS SO GOOD!" kind of hurt.

What happens when I'm not longer curious about them? It hasn't happened yet. Nothing helps, except time. And even then, time is a double edged sword. A thief even. A double edged thief sword!

Blargh!

Coincidences, or am I too much in the moment?

According to Wikipedia (I like the way they worded it, give me a break!), a coincidence "is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection".

Here are a few coincidences I've read online:

• In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man's bother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver - and even carrying the very same passenger! (Source: Phenomena: A Book of Wonders, John Michell and Robert J. M. Rickard)
• In Detroit sometime in the 1930s, a young (if incredibly careless) mother must have been eternally grateful to a man named Joseph Figlock. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother's baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby's fall was broken and both man and baby were unharmed. A stroke of luck on its own, but a year later, the very same baby fell from the very same window onto poor, unsuspecting Joseph Figlock as he was again passing beneath. And again, they both survived the event. (Source: Mysteries of the Unexplained)
• Mark Twain was born on the day of the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835, and died on the day of its next appearance in 1910. He himself predicted this in 1909, when he said: "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it."

When faced with (supposed) events like these, should random coincidental real life situations elicit focused worthy emotions? My answer is, why the heck not, especially if it's relevant to your minute to minute actions.

And when I say random real life situations, I'm not talking about the time when your significant other drapes the entire apartment with red cloth for your anniversary, only to find out you lose complete control of bowel movements when bombarded with the color red. Yeah, no.

While it's not unusual to encounter small coincidences, it's interesting to note how it seems to go hand in hand with causality. Again, going back to Wikipedia, Causality "denotes a necessary relationship between one event (called cause) and another event (called effect) which is the direct consequence of the first"

Don't worry, I won't even start on what I think about the cosmos and how I think it's related to coincidences.

You may be thinking to yourself, "Okay Tasi, what exactly is the point to this entry?". I hate to disappoint (really I do), but I don't think I had a single point I can stick a thumbtack on. Instead, I'm reveling in a coincidental "in the middle of the block, in front of a frozen yogurt shop with smiles on our faces" meeting (or as I'd like say, bumpature) with a friend.

You may now be thinking, "Okay Tasi, it must be a really special friend if you're taking the time out of your day to write about it". Sure, you can say that. I have a lot of acquaintances but only a handful of truly wonderful people in my life I'd consider special friend, or, "I'D TAKE A BULLET IN THE GONAD" kind of friend. So yes, this friend is special. Satisfied?

You may now be thinking, "Well, I'm not THAT satisfied but that explanation will have to do. So what now about coincidences and causality, you have my undying attention..." Well, this event got me thinking about luck and how paradoxical luck and coincidences are. Is it not true that if you work hard enough, your chance of luck increases exponentially? I'd like to stick my neck out and say, "yes". At the very least, I feel I've been caressed by luck induced hard work, especially when it deals with Acting and the various opportunities I've been able to explore. I think coincidences are similar in that each occurrence is, dare I say, like a snowflake: unique, often elegant and many times, easily missed.

So what if I bumped into some friend during an interesting time of the day, at a notable physical intersection of human traffic, with a sunny disposition towards hanging out and sharing a few hours together? So what, you ask? What do you mean so what?! The moment! That's the moment! I live for that. That's the snowflake dissolving on the tip of your tongue, and faster than it can change from a solid state to liquid, your brain has already received information that, yes...a snowflake has coincidentally landed on your tongue and now you are smiling. Coincidence and causality, boy, they must work out together.

Is it a coincidence that, this person lives in the same city as me? I don't think so. Same country? I can put some money on that, sure.

Is it causality that I'm writing this blog entry because of earlier events? Debatable, maybe I just felt like writing. Is it causality that I'm in a great mood because of earlier events? You're warm. No, you're red hot!

Is it a coincidence that as you're reading this, you're probably missing out on a favorite television show (I can wish), or forgetting to fetch your laundry from the dryer? Forecast: "Highly Unlikely". What it most likely falls into is: Timing.

And according to Wikipedia...

Cinequest is back (2009)!

Weird. I thought I blogged about my Cinequest experiences from last year but I realized I actually wrote it in a journal and NOT online! Well, this year, it's going to this blog. For those that are unfamiliar with it, Cinequest is a widely known Film Festival based in the Silicon Valley. The organization utilize The California Theatre, Camera 12 and San Jose Repertory Theatre to host the films and local establishments for various uses.

Last year I spent most of it wandering around, watching films and just talking to some filmmakers. I was mostly a passive observer. At the closing night gala I told myself, "next year, I'm going to be involved in Cinequest somehow", lo and behold, I'm fulfilling that by being part of a media team that's diving into the festival with a show called "Inside Cinequest", appropriate, no? I mentioned in the previous entry that I was fortunate enough to participate in Adobe Youth Voices and here is a wonderful clip from that event (can you spot me in it?):



Inside Cinequest has a host of exceptionally talented people behind it. Among them are Sinohui Hinojosa, Thomas Koch and Amy Puzia from Emerging Artist. A fellow 48hr filmmaker (and San Jose coordinator), Vincent Lowe and a slew of other great folks. As an aside, there's a terrific web series you have to check out, especially if you love theatre! It's called EXIT STAGE LEFT created by Sinohui. I highly recommend it. In fact, keep an eye out for future bloggage. Following is the latest episode of Inside Cinequest:



At any rate, I asked myself recently, "What am I looking forward to to this year's Cinequest (19)?". My head flooded with answers, each one of them valid and worthy of my best efforts. Here are some of them:

• Meet new people and reinforce friendships from prior networking
• Watch at least 10 films
• Work work work work work (yes, work)
• Fulfilling my commitments with Inside Cinequest
• Earn some exposure with filmmakers, local and out of towners alike

I'd like to toss a shout out to my friend and Cinequest alum, Alejandro Adams. His film, "CANARY" is featured this year (some of you may remember "Around the Bay" from Cinequest 18). Some of you may also remember him from previous entries regarding BABNIK. Show dates will be March 1st 6:30p and March 7th 4p. Both shows will be hosted in San Jose Repertory Theatre. You can purchase your tickets HERE.

Don't forget to bookmark or RSS for updates on the Cinequest romp.

Adobe Youth Voices

Today I had the privilege of attending one of Adobe Youth Voice's workshops. I was originally asked to help present, interview and document the event but as the day progressed so did my involvement. Just a quick background for those I haven't told already, I'm part of a media team lead by Vincent Lowe and I am assisting in helping document (ala behind the scenes glimpse) Cinequest.

Today's planned format went straight out the window, and in the end, I think it turned out a better experience for me, and I'm sure for many others. I ran into some familiar filmmakers from San Jose State University too, so that was neat. Richard from Barkada Inc was also in attendance because, as coincidences would have it, he was assigned to work the event!

It was heaps of fun learning about what the young participates found inspiring and what they wanted to get out of the program. Part of AYV's goal is to make sure their voices/ideas are heard and what better way than through the visual medium, right? Right. When formal introductions concluded, we went straight to work. The first thing that caught my attention was that they provided the students/participants with Canon HV30's! And if you've kept up with my blog, you should know that that's the exact camera I own! BONUS: their editing software, obviously, is adobe premiere, so I had some familiarity with the evident trouble(s) the premiere pro has with capturing hdv footage from a canon hv30.

I felt like 'Johnny-on-the-spot' with the quick fixes. But the real credit goes out to those that spent hours assisting with creating something out of nothing by incorporating years of experience to help guide these students through tasks. Who knows, there could be another Speilberg in the bunch, right? It could happen, why not? At some point I assisted with a trio of student's documentary project. I helped them conduct the interview and offered suggestions on how to always keep an eye and ear out for footage that you didn't mean to capture initially because there could be a gem in them. More is better, in the case of documentaries. I hope their project ends up being something they can look back on and know that they'll always remember the small lessons it taught them.

Well, that was my day at Adobe. I left with a smile, experience in my pockets, new friends and a slew of free Adobe software training books. Chhhheeeeehhoooooo!

The Phantom of the Opera (SF 2008)

THREE words: PHENOMENAL, MEMORABLE and BEAUTIFUL.

I could go on writing volumes about how mind blowing the tech was, or how elaborate the costumes were; I could probably chat your ear off about how intelligent the staging was, or how memorizing the cast was. I could even go on about how this production has provided me "passion-energy" the way the sun re-energizes Superman after a long day of hard battles with evil-doers.

But I won't.

Instead, I'll just use those THREE words. And coincidentally they're exactly how I'd describe my date (in a very non-traditional sense of the word date, mind you) for the evening.

All in all, a terrific way to have spent a Friday evening.

Bakitwhy.com

As some of you may know, I'm not exclusive to my own blog but I do write entries in several other *blogs. Recently I wrote an entry regarding Barkada Inc's documentation of Bakitwhy's Mixer in San Francisco.

For the uninitiated, Bakitwhy(.com) is an organization that promotes, cultivates and but certainly not limited to, discovering talented Filipino Americans while promoting the Filipino American lifestyle. As I mentioned, it's not limited to just Filipino Americans, it extends to Filipinos in general.

Our film team, Barkada Inc., was fortunately enough to attend the Mixer and we had a great time. If you're interested in viewing the vlog, it's available on Youtube & Vimeo. In any event, we were excited to find out that Bakitwhy has decided to post our video and give us a quick shout out on their website! I, for one, am stoked. Here's a screenshot of their front page with our video hosted.

If you're a Filipino please take the time to visit their site. Actually, even if you're non-Filipinos but find interest in learning more about the culture, then by all means, visit them at: HTTP://WWW.BAKITWHY.COM

*http://www.barkadainc.com/blog
*http://babnikmovie.com/blog

Dorito's Commercial Contest Vids are IN!

Here they are folks, all three videos made for the Dorito's commercial video contest. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was fortunate enough to work with EyeQ Films on this project and here are the fruits of the labor. Please enjoy and spread.





Or visit:

http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/video/1013/
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/video/932/
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/video/1803/

Barkada Inc announces new blog

Just as the subject suggests:

http://www.barkadainc.com/blog/

Please visit and see what we're up to. I'll be blogging there as well.

Cheers with Peers

Due to the nature of my career path, I'm always mixed with an assortment of people. They say networking is one of the most important aspects of an actor's job but to what degree? How aggressive should the networking be? I'd like to think that you should only push far enough that you're not putting yourself in a position where you're not presenting the most truthful representation of yourself.


October moving into November has been an exciting ride for me. Not only have I been a slew of new people but I've also reinforced some of the recent friendships I came across during the last 48hr Film Festival in San Jose. Not even a year ago Cinequest was in town and I remember whispering to myself that one day I'll be fortunate enough to work with a director whose work was presented in the festival.

Boom, enter Alejandro Adams. A wonderful man, a terrific director and one whose work I do enjoy. You may remember a previous entry I made in regards to his current film, Babnik. I look forward to working with him again soon.

Last weekend in a very interesting turn of events, I was, again fortunate enough to work with a crew I've looked forward to meeting. The folks at EyeQ Films offered me the chance to work with them on a few videos for the Dorito's contest! You'll see the results of our hard work soon. While I could go into detail about what who's and what's, I'll save that for another entry when our vids are actually online. In the meantime, here's a short they entered into the last 48hr Film Festival: The Animals

I guess what I'm trying to say is, when you're building bridges...make sure you build it good and strong.

Food and Passion

Original post found here: "Babnik"

Some people have passion in food. Others feel that passion is food for the soul. Regardless of how you look at it, working on an indie film is very much the combination of food and passion.

When Alejandro invited me to join them on the set of Babnik, I was more than delighted. But at the same time I couldn't help feel like that neighbor you bring along to a picnic. If you think about it, an indie film can easily take on a very family-like atmosphere. There are rules, there's work and there's play.

The location for the shoot was remote so a carpooling system was put in place. Due to the nature of indie films, it's easy to see how close the cast and crew can be. I carpooled in Alejandro's vehicle and it took on a very comfortable picnic-like appeal, complete with bottled water and tasty snacks. Fast forward 2hrs and I've met the bulk of the cast and crew and immediately I feel at ease as they're incredibly cordial and generous. Food arrives just as shooting starts and there's an energy that reminded me of family gatherings: plates passed around, laughter smothers the air, and stories start being shared. Regardless of where everyone came from, they all share a common destination: The realization of the project in the highest quality.

Filming started as the last paper plate was crumpled and trashed. Perhaps the greatest angle about being active in your passion is how it doesn't feel like work. Maybe it's different for others, but that's how I look at it. When I'm acting, or participating in performance art, I've never been weighed down by the fact that it's still work. There are certain rules that each person is responsible to abide by: being on time, listening to directions, completing a task to the highest degree possible. Sure, after a 12hr day my feet are sore but I'd be more than willing to throw down another few hours if needed. Watching everyone contribute to the project reminded me that the set of a movie (or stage production) is probably one of the most organic work places.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all work in rustic Calistoga, there were enough shenanigans taking place to make any High Schooler jealous (in a good way). There was dancing, running, walnut cracking, gun trotting, food gobbling, and all around goofiness shared by the cast and crew.

All in all a fantastic experience!

My deepest thanks to Alejandro for having me along to share the magic of filmmaking, to meeting new friends and to spark in me the belief that family extends beyond blood relation and that maybe all we need in life is food and passion.

For more information please visit: http://babnikmovie.com/about

Project March has begun

They say the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Or something to that degree. Well, I've officially embarked on a journey that I hope will make a difference in this world. It's a project BARKADA INC has decided to complete. I won't let the cat out of the bag just yet but we'll probably be starting a blog about it soon so keep your eyes open. If you're itching to find out, just follow this LINK.