Jake Shimabukuro's career took off after a YouTube video of him went viral.
Shimabukuro been called the Hendrix of Ukulele (or for you 80s heavy metal fans, the  Yngwie of Ukulele, as former Hyphen Music Editor Todd Inoue described him). I sawShimabukuro play at Yoshi’s San Francisco on Monday night, and along with his mad ukulele skills, he had an engaging stage presence when telling the little back-stories to each song before performing it. Read more…
Flash Forward star John Cho says that a script for the third Harold and Kumar has been written and that it will be a holiday-themed movie that takes place a few years after the last film. The new Star Trek script is being written, Cho says, but he doesn’t know what the story is about. I can’t wait to see both of them.
Deborah Gibson and Vic Chao make out in 'Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.'
“Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus“: the title alone should have kept me away, but flipping through the channels to SyFy, my curiosity was piqued when I saw that it starred 80s teen sensation Debbie Gibson (who’s all grown up and goes by Deborah now). I started watching and lo and behold, before I knew it, her character and a fellow scientist played by Vic Chao were making eyes for each other and heading to the closet for some, shall we say, intense research. Read more…
The legal saga of the Miley Cyrus chinky-eyed photo is coming to an end. A judge has tossed alawsuit filed against Cyrus for posing in the image that’s been all over the Internet. Read more…
Fox commentator Bo Dietl goes all-out on Don Imus’ show the other day, even pulling his eyes back to make the point that Katie Couric looks “Oriental.” Read more…
Recent protests over the Pearl Harbor scene in The Goods (in which Ken Jeong’s character gets attacked by fellow car salesmen for looking Japanese) succeeded in getting the offensive bit removed from trailers. But did it really change the attitudes that screenwriters or directors have about race or stereotyping? Did it show that Asian Americans have influence over how Hollywood portrays us? Read more…
The Nichi Bei Times, which has been covering the Northern California Japanese American community for 63 years, will cease publication after its Sept. 10 issue. Read more…
Margaret Cho channels Gallagher for the Hyphen cover photo shoot.
I’d like to thank Margaret Cho for graciously agreeing to be the cover model for Hyphen’s Action Issue. The theme is right up her alley. She’s known as much for her community activism as she is for her comedy. Read more…
This subject gets rehashed every few months, and this article in Marie Claire magazine by Ying Chu doesn’t add much to the discussion.
The article just seems to point out that a number of rich and powerful white men are married to Asian women, so therefore, they are trophy wives. Woody Allen and Soon Yi-Previn have been together forever, so there’s nothing new to report here.
I'm a journalist by trade, working now as a writer, editor and social media manager for the University of California Office of the President. I worked in newspapers for more than 15 years.
