Five funniest moments of unsettling, non-Monty Python's The Meaning of Life eating by powerful men (or women) in movies and TV

This list is inspired by a hashtag tweeted by Harold J. Lee on September 2, 2010 ("Deniro and Pesci eating latenight food from Pesci's mom in Goodfellas with the body in the car trunk. #UnsettlingEatingByPowerfulMenInMovies").

By the way, if Lee's name sounds familiar, it's because Harold & Kumar creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg named the John Cho character after their friend Lee.

WARNING: NSFW language ahead.

1. De Niro's loud sandwich-chewing in Cop Land



2. Bernie Mac's loud orange-chewing in Bad Santa
Right at the 2:00 mark:



3. Kali Rocha, as a pregnant and surly receptionist for a city councilwoman, attacking a hot dog filled with sauerkraut in the Monk episode "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall"

4. Robert Wagner as a "Sloppy Eater" on SNL in 1989 (starts at 06:12)

5. Paul Sorvino's oyster-slurping in Dick Tracy
At the 0:28 mark:

Stuff White People Like But This Brown Man Can't Stand #4: Unfunny jokes about former enemies of the U.S. when they experience national tragedies

Joan Rivers defended Gilbert Gottfried's controversial Twitter jokes about the disaster-stricken Japanese by saying comedians cope with tragedy through humor and then using her plastic-and-adamantium-coated face as a shield to protect Gottfried from the bullets from his angriest critics. I'm all for using humor to cope with tragedy, but when someone uses it to slam the victims of a terrible situation like Gottfried, Family Guy writer Alec Sulkin, several conservatards and countless others on Twitter did, it's not funny at all.

I appreciate how The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and my favorite new podcast Sklarbro Country handled the disaster in Japan and managed to find humor in the situation without veering into anti-Asian racism. Stephen Colbert came up with the funniest bit of disaster-related humor when he described the earthquake/tsunami/radiation crisis as a "disaster-ducken."

Meanwhile, the Sklar Brothers, whose hilarious podcast pokes fun at the often odd and insane behavior of sports celebrities, elbowed New York Liberty guard Cappie Poindexter in the face for her moronic tweets about the disaster being God's payback for Pearl Harbor and the way Japan treats their own people in "there" country.

"That's who we want commenting on this disaster. A guard from the WNBA. Yeah, we don't wanna hear from the head of the Red Cross or anybody from the State Department. We wanna hear from a women's professional basketball player," joked Randy and Jason, who were so appalled by Poindexter's tweets that they resurrected their discontinued "Douchebag of the Week" segment and picked "the Alexandra Wallace of the WNBA" as the segment's first-ever female douchebag, or "Douchebaguette of the Week."

"Now is not the time to blame Japan for anything, even Sudoku," said the twin brothers. "Leave them alone!"

Now is the time to help Japan, so I've taken part in the SIUniverse for Japan online auction to support GlobalGiving's Japan relief fund. For the next few weeks, fans of the 2009 graphic novel Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology can bid on artwork and other items donated by Secret Identities artists and writers like myself.

I've donated a couple of pieces of artwork that will be up for bid. One of the items is a poster of an illustration of Hideaki Akaiwa, an ordinary office worker in Miyagi prefecture who was named "Badass of the Week" for refusing to wait around for rescue workers and venturing out on his own with scuba gear and duct-taped-together plastic wrapped around his legs to rescue tsunami survivors like his wife.

When I first heard about this badass, I kept thinking, "Damn, this is like a real-life Sea Hunt," as in that old TV show I've never watched but I'm familiar with from the "By this time, my lungs were aching for air" running gag during Mystery Science Theater 3000's Lloyd Bridges/Rocketship X-M episode and Bridges' own spoof of his old show during Hot Shots! Part Deux. I Googled Sea Hunt, stumbled into old covers from the comic book version of Sea Hunt and drew for the auction a sketch of Akaiwa that I modeled after those covers.

Like Akaiwa has done for his family members and neighbors, go lend a hand to the disaster victims now.

APRIL 9, 2011 UPDATE: Here's my illustration of Akaiwa, entitled "Hideaki Akaiwa: A Real Life Superhero," which is now up for bid. It's a 20" x 24" poster that's printed on heavyweight coated paper.

APRIL 17, 2011 UPDATE: Sold! To Gary in Arlington, VA!

APRIL 21, 2011 UPDATE: The other item I donated to the auction is an illustration of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle that I did for my upcoming self-published print compilation of the most responded-to posts from this blog. The title of the book--and this is the first time I've posted the title here--is I Suck at Math: A Trio of 10 Articles About Pop Culture.

My Harold & Kumar drawing is a 14" x 23" poster that's printed on heavyweight coated paper. It's now up for bid.

MAY 10, 2011 UPDATE: Sold! To Quentin in Concord, NH!

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Classic & 86, "Ridin'"

Song: "Ridin'" by Classic & 86
Released: 2004
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in the Jersey-set Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and may be the best song to bump in your ride while driving through Jersey since "Woke Up This Morning."
Which moment in White Castle does it appear?: Both the opening and closing credits.

White Castle fans who enjoyed "Ridin'" might have wondered, "Who the hell are Classic & 86? Did they skip the planet?" I didn't know who they were either. At first, I thought that after releasing "Ridin'," Classic ended up as a UPS driver like Thugnificent on The Boondocks, while 86 is toiling away in the same kind of office from hell where Harold would spend his workdays being a walking doormat. I did some digging around the Web and landed on an Urban Dictionary entry that actually listed some useful information about them instead of feeding me info that Classic & 86 is a new expression for getting a tug and chug.

After following a paper trail that started from Urban Dictionary, I found out that the two rappers, who have separate careers and teamed up on "Ridin'," each have recorded more than just that one song and are still making music. Classic is Chris Classic, a protege of the late Jam Master Jay who's frequently contributed hip-pop tracks to prime-time soaps like Gossip Girl and a bunch of movies I want nothing to do with (Harold & Kumar star Kal Penn's 2007 masterpiece Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies and most recently, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps), while 86 is Miss Eighty 6, who's also had a few tracks turn up on Gossip Girl. Before "Ridin'," Miss Eighty 6 recorded under her real name Sarai. A commenter under Sarai's 2003 "Ladies" video on YouTube wrote: "bring Sarai back - will trade for Ke$ha."

"Ridin'" is good, solid hip-pop with lyrics that are actually more than four words long--it's not the same kind of hip-pop Eminem astutely criticizes and ridicules in his just-leaked track "Syllables" when he says "nowadays these kids jus'/Don't give a shit about lyrics/All they wanna hear is a beat and that's it." The 2004 tune also showed up in the Usher rom-com In the Mix, The Air I Breathe and the Melrose Place revival, but it will forever be identified with a cult flick that's one of my favorite comedies of the '00s.

This is literally my "Rock Box"

I like to use shoeboxes to store the complete runs of three of my favorite comic book series--Y: The Last Man, Gotham Central and the Vertigo version of Human Target (Y ran for 60 issues, Gotham Central lasted for 40 and Human Target had 21, so the complete run of each title can easily fit in a shoebox). I also sometimes use shoeboxes as portable filing cabinets for CDs that have to be utilized for AFOS. One of these boxes contains the CDs that carry all the non-score music tracks (a.k.a. existing songs) I have to presently re-edit and re-upload to my Live365.com music library without the old AFOS "F Zone" sweepers they used to open with--all in time for the "F Zone" programming block's name change to "Rock Box" on January 3.

The time slots for "Rock Box" on AFOS are 4-6am, 9-11am and 3-5pm on Mondays and 5-7am, 9-11am and 3-5pm on Fridays.

"Always funky fresh, could never be stale"--Run, "Rock Box"

Reefer Madness live-tweet recap

On 420, I live-tweeted the original 1936 version of Reefer Madness. The movie's so boring I wanted to jump out the window like that overacting pot dealer lady at the end.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------


In a few minutes, I'm live-tweeting Reefer Madness. I haven't heard Nelson/Murphy/Corbett's RiffTrax of it. I bet it's hilarious.
12:01 PM Apr 20th via web

#ReeferMadnessLiveTweet starts now. This propaganda piece is apparently a classic in the drug-scare genre.
12:05 PM Apr 20th via web

The movie paved the way for such drug-scare gems as the Dragnet "Blue Boy" episode and the Quincy punk episode.
12:06 PM Apr 20th via web

The Quincy punk episode? Yeah, punk isn't a drug, but...
12:06 PM Apr 20th via web

... Jack Klugman, at his most self-indulgent and toupeed, preaches against punk as if it's a drug.
12:07 PM Apr 20th via web

MTV now reruns movies like the Star Wars prequels and The Matrix. But back when the channel was about videos...
12:07 PM Apr 20th via web

... this public-domain piece of shit was the only movie MTV could afford to broadcast.
12:08 PM Apr 20th via web

The opening credits begin. "Marihuana is that drug--a violent narcotic..." Just like cokane and hairrowhen.
12:09 PM Apr 20th via web

"Marihuana" finally leads to "acts of shocking violence"? Someone is feeding you bad intel, opening credits guy.
12:10 PM Apr 20th via web

A violent stoner is like a black Gossip Girl viewer. They don't exist.
12:10 PM Apr 20th via web

Pineapple Express shows what it's like if stoners try to get violent. As action heroes, they're the clumsiest.
12:11 PM Apr 20th via web

Reefer Madness, a.k.a. Tell Your Children, opens with the ugliest credits font ever.
12:11 PM Apr 20th via web

The ugly credits font is a cross between church bingo sign writing and the Dukes of Hazzard font.
12:12 PM Apr 20th via web

The opening crawl goes on forever. A stoner was probably responsible for the speed of the opening crawl.
12:13 PM Apr 20th via web


The exciting PTA meeting sequence influenced similar PTA meeting sequences in The French Connection and Ronin.
12:15 PM Apr 20th via web

Drink every time you hear the word "scourge."
12:16 PM Apr 20th via web

What is this? Fox News? The principal creepily repeats phrases like a Republican pundit.
12:18 PM Apr 20th via web

"Scourge." "Deadly narcotic." "Deadly drug." Get a thesaurus, motherfucker!
12:19 PM Apr 20th via web

When I hear the word "scourge," weed doesn't come to mind. What comes to mind is the Decepticon who had a beard.
12:19 PM Apr 20th via web

How did Scourge and Wreck-Gar grow facial hair? Was that the Transformer gods' equivalent of the platypus?
12:20 PM Apr 20th via web

The principal is doing Adam Sandler's "You can put your weed in there" shtick from Rob Schneider's The Hot Chick.
12:20 PM Apr 20th via web

"They are hidden inside jewelry cases, in the heels of shoes, women's shoes especially."
12:21 PM Apr 20th via web

The principal with the weird accent looks like the type of guy who's got a fetish for collecting women's shoes.
12:22 PM Apr 20th via web

Female weed dealers didn't look like Mary-Louise Parker back then.
12:24 PM Apr 20th via web

Female dealers in the 1930s looked like the butterface from Peanuts who brags about her naturally curly hair.
12:24 PM Apr 20th via web

Instead of MILF Weed, the movie's female dealer is selling MIWF Weed, as in Mama I Won't Fuck.
12:24 PM Apr 20th via web


The shots of the butterface slipping on her stockings were tacked onto the movie by an exploitation producer.
12:25 PM Apr 20th via web

The movie was originally funded by a church group. I bet the sight of the dealer chick's bare knees infuriated them.
12:25 PM Apr 20th via web

The director's idea of a scandalous opium den-like hangout is the Ricardos' living room from I Love Lucy.
12:26 PM Apr 20th via web

A teen warns his friend that Ralph the leering, very Aryan-looking pothead is "a little too old for us."
12:29 PM Apr 20th via web

Ralph's first scenes are dripping with Top Gun-like homoerotic tension.
12:29 PM Apr 20th via web

The camera is obsessed with Ralph and his friends' asses as they walk to the diner.
12:30 PM Apr 20th via web

The camera must be omnisexual like Captain Jack. It leers at ladies' stockings and checks out guys' asses.
12:30 PM Apr 20th via web

The diner is the whitest hangout I've ever seen. It's a Denny's employee's wet dream.
12:31 PM Apr 20th via web

If these ragtime piano-playing diner folks were really potheads, the music wouldn't suck so much.
12:32 PM Apr 20th via web


The movie traces how chronic ruins the life of 40-year-old high school student Bill Harper.
12:33 PM Apr 20th via web

'Cause day n' night/The dorky stoner won't stop saying "swell" tonight.
12:34 PM Apr 20th via web

Bill and his boo horrendously recite Romeo and Juliet to each other. The Bard is doing a pinwheel in his grave.
12:34 PM Apr 20th via web

"I'll buy you a soda." Bill says, "I never drink that stuff!" Bill prefers the blood of young virgins.
12:37 PM Apr 20th via web


Bill's new homies are the least convincing movie potheads ever. The actors flunked Fake Inhaling 101.
12:41 PM Apr 20th via web

The terrible acting reminds me of the late Mitch Hedberg's bit about movie pot: http://bit.ly/9fIITN
12:42 PM Apr 20th via web

I wish Method or Redman or @johnthecho or Kal Penn or Cheech or Chong would show up to liven up this movie...
12:42 PM Apr 20th via web

... because without cheeba, this movie is boring and not the campy wild ride everyone makes it out to be.
12:43 PM Apr 20th via web

The movie's public-domain status has resulted in a few colorized or re-edited versions.
12:44 PM Apr 20th via web

Maybe this movie would be more watchable with a new soundtrack provided by Redman, Cypress Hill or Lil Wayne.
12:44 PM Apr 20th via web

I'd re-edit the movie so that Bill gets high to the sounds of "Kush" by Lil Wayne: http://bit.ly/dvSZvA
12:45 PM Apr 20th via web

"Hit and Run" by the Bar-Kays would be great for the scene where a stoner kisses an old man with his car hood.
12:46 PM Apr 20th via web

This film says weed makes you a speedy driver. Yeah, that's as likely as Leno giving up The Tonight Show.
12:46 PM Apr 20th via web

After the apocalypse, all that'll be left are cockroaches and Leno, carrying a mic and testing the roaches' I.Q.
12:47 PM Apr 20th via web

Post-apocalyptic Leno: "So Mr. Cockroach, can you tell me who the cockroach in this picture is?"
12:48 PM Apr 20th via web

So when the anti-pot principal suffers from glaucoma, how's he gonna treat it? With optic nerve restoration tonic?
12:49 PM Apr 20th via web

Nothing says teenage rebellion like ragtime piano.
12:50 PM Apr 20th via web

In addition to making you drive faster, mary jane also turns you into a rapist.
12:57 PM Apr 20th via web

If this were real life, Ralph would be in no shape to get it up. This movie gets so many details right.
12:57 PM Apr 20th via web


Attempted rape. Fistfights. Gunshots. In 2010, this is what's known as a Jersey Shore cast party.
12:58 PM Apr 20th via web

Jack: "She's dead. Mae, get me some water." Jack, this ain't the time to show off your corpse ventriloquism act.
12:58 PM Apr 20th via web

Bill: "Mary! Mary!" I keep expecting him to next say, "You want the moon, Mary? I'll throw a lasso around it..."
1:00 PM Apr 20th via web

The creepy anti-pot principal keeps looking at the camera. He's trying to take over the viewer's soul.
1:04 PM Apr 20th via web

"It causes errors in time & space." Someone should write a sci-fi movie about blunts that can make you time-travel.
1:08 PM Apr 20th via web


Ralph's crazed Michelle Bachman-esque expressions are the most disturbing thing about this movie.
1:16 PM Apr 20th via web

The shitty print I'm watching suddenly doesn't have the audio in sync with the image.
1:16 PM Apr 20th via web

The out-of-sync audio makes Reefer Madness look like a dubbed kung fu flick.
1:18 PM Apr 20th via web

It looks like Jack is going to say to Ralph, "For someone who's a Shaolin monk, your kung fu's really lousy!"
1:19 PM Apr 20th via web


The movie has turned into a tedious courtroom drama with a bit of '80s Divorce Court-caliber overacting.
1:23 PM Apr 20th via web


The principal reminds the viewers to "Tell Your Children." About what? That you look like a registered sex offender?
1:29 PM Apr 20th via web


The Kristen Bell version of Reefer Madness is probably something the original version is not: watchable. End of #ReeferMadnessLiveTweet.
1:30 PM Apr 20th via web

My starting six for Asian American cinema

A discussion about supporting Asian American cinema inspired blogger and R&B/hip-hop scholar Oliver Wang to invite experts on Asian American cinema to post their lists of six films they would recommend to people whose idea of an Asian American film is Rush Hour. Phil Yu of angry asian man, who helped spread the word about Wang's little starting six project, contributed his own starting six and had a couple of surprising picks on his list, like the corny Flower Drum Song, which he even admitted had some cheesy moments.

I saw Wang's starting six and wanted to post my idea of a starting six on my blog to show people who are underwhelmed by a lot of Asian American cinema that there are a few gems out there.

1. The Breakthrough Film: Chan Is Missing (director: Wayne Wang, 1982)
I first saw Wang's comedy about assimilation and Asian American identity on KQED when I was in high school, and I dug how the film is unsentimental, smart and documentary-like, whereas Wang's other signature Asian American film, the Joy Luck Club adaptation, is annoyingly sentimental, syrupy and cartoonish, with a point of view that constantly and Frankenstein-ishly screams out "Asian man bad!"

2. The Serious Filipino American Film: The Fall of the I-Hotel (director: Curtis Choy, 1983)
This outstanding hour-long documentary about the razing of San Francisco's Manilatown is a landmark work in the short history of Filipino American cinema, and it contains powerful footage of the 1977 protests against the eviction of 50 manongs (elderly Filipinos) from their soon-to-be-demolished Manilatown residential hotel.

3. The Actioner: Big Trouble in Little China (director: John Carpenter, 1986)
Twentieth Century Fox marketed BTILC as a movie in which Kurt Russell's Jack Burton is the hero ("Jack Burton's coming to rescue your summer"). In actuality, Jack is the buffoonish sidekick in a role that's usually reserved for the Asian guy, while the real heroes of the piece are the resourceful badass Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) and the wizardly tour bus driver Egg Shen (Victor Wong). That sly and subversive role reversal is one of the reasons why I admire Carpenter. It's a shame that no Asian American filmmaker has yet made an Asian American-centric action flick as enjoyable and empowering for APA viewers as BTILC (Enter the Dragon and later vehicles for the likes of Brandon Lee, Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu don't count as APA-centric). When are we going to see the APA equivalent of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Shaft, Coffy or El Mariachi?

4. The Humorous Filipino American Film: The Flip Side (director: Rod Pulido, 2001)
José Sáenz is a comedic standout as an untalented Pinoy baller who thinks he's black in the most obscure of my six choices (it's never made it to DVD). Though Pulido's only feature film is more like an 80-minute sitcom than a movie, I prefer it over The Debut, and the sharpest and most dead-on parts of Pulido's screenplay deal with Pinoys who wish they were black and Pinays who pass themselves off as "Hawaiian," whitewash their looks and date only white guys. No other Asian American feature film has irreverently poked fun at self-hating Asian women like The Flip Side did (c'mon Pinoy screenwriters, it's time to rip Michelle Malkin a new one like Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Boston Legal did to Nancy Grace).

5. The Indie Film: Better Luck Tomorrow (director: Justin Lin, 2002)
I prefer the pre-MTV Films version with the ballsier, Taxi Driver-esque ending over the final cut with the slightly modified ending. The conclusion Lin opted for in the final cut is like if Martin Scorsese took Paul Schrader's Taxi Driver screenplay and tacked on a couple of lines at the end in which Travis Bickle says he plans to turn himself in for murder because he suddenly felt sorry for slaughtering all those pimps.

6. The Mainstream Film: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (director: Danny Leiner, 2004)
This hilarious cult favorite annoys Asian American film scholars who find it misogynist and slam it for being lowbrow. But it's lowbrow humor for smart people, and even Stephanie "Actresses with not-so-toned bodies should be allowed to do nude scenes too" Zacharek didn't call it misogynist and enjoyed how it's "so unaggressive in the way it addresses the issue of what it means to be a minority in this country that it coaxes you into thinking about it." (If those haters want to see better-written female characters, the somewhat inferior sequel Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is up their alley. It appears to have been written to appease them.) The fact that many Asian American viewers like myself find Harold & Kumar--which was written and directed by white guys--to be more accurate about our experience than rather shrill and heavy-handed indie dramas with similarly aged lead characters made by Asian American filmmakers is a sign that those indie filmmakers need to step their game up.

Six honorable mentions

The Crimson Kimono (director: Samuel Fuller, 1959)
A lengthy Asian male/white female kiss in 1959? Wow. We have Fuller and his brass ones to thank for that.

Who Killed Vincent Chin? (directors: Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña, 1987)
I don't think I can watch this hard-hitting staple of Asian American studies movie screenings again because the subject matter infuriates me so much.

Robot Stories (director: Greg Pak, 2003)
Matt Zoller Seitz is right. This low-budget anthology from Greg, whom I'm honored to be in the same graphic novel with, is a great sci-fi movie. It contains several terrifically written roles for actresses of color. Lesser-known actresses like Wai Ching Ho (as a grieving mother with a comatose son) and Julienne Hanzelka Kim (as a laconic yet very expressive android) are among the standouts in the cast. If that silent movie I always wanted to write ever gets made, Kim would be perfect for it.

Sucker Free City (director: Spike Lee, 2004)
I know it's a made-for-TV Spike Lee Joint, but this Alex Tse-penned unsold pilot about San Francisco gang life, which co-stars the always superb Ken Leung, premiered first at the Toronto International Film Festival before debuting on Showtime. It ranks with the Twin Peaks and EZ Streets pilots as one of the best feature-length pilots ever made, and it's a more satisfying Tse film than Tse's Watchmen adaptation.

The Motel (director: Michael Kang, 2005)
I appreciate how this indie comedy has none of the formulaic touches that Rotten Tomatoes Show hosts Ellen Fox and Brett Erlich skewered in their "Ode to the Indie."

Beerfest (director: Jay Chandrasekhar, 2006)
The first Broken Lizard flick I ever saw is the funniest one the troupe has done so far, with a hilarious performance by Chandrasekhar as a fallen beer pong legend who's turned to whoring himself out and giving $15 "ZJs."

Coming either later this year or next year: My starting six for Asian American comic books and graphic novels.

About a Pinoy (Part 1)

Throughout this year, I'm posting older material--like non-Blogspot posts, unpublished writing I've kept buried in my computer and transcripts of interviews from A Fistful of Soundtracks' terrestrial radio years.

Below is Part 1 of a bio I wrote about myself back in June for my user profile at a Wetpaint.com wiki community that the Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology editors launched as a place for the book's contributors to see each other's scripts and character sketches.

On the profile page, the user had to finish sentences like "I joined this wiki because..." and "My superpower is..." The ability to assume many different accents is indeed a superpower (it trumps the lamest powers on Heroes, like the ability to melt toasters). A convincing British accent can get you some tail.

---------------

Hello, my name is Jimmy Aquino.

MORE ABOUT ME...

I joined this wiki because: I got kicked out of the Hannah Montana wiki for scalping tickets.

The best word to describe me is: lazian

Interests: scriptwriting

Favorite movies: GoodFellas, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Election (1999), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The President's Last Bang, Dog Day Afternoon, Do the Right Thing, Three Kings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek II, Midnight Run, Cheung fo (The Mission), Anatomy of a Murder, Chan Is Missing, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, The Incredibles, Blazing Saddles, Raising Arizona, Repo Man

Favorite TV shows: The Wire, The Larry Sanders Show, 30 Rock, The Venture Bros., The Soup, Flight of the Conchords, Human Giant, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Keen Eddie, Freaks and Geeks, The Shield, Veronica Mars, Lost, Battlestar Galactica

My hero(es): anyone who supports Asian American comics

My superpower is: the ability to assume many different accents. I can sound like a British actor doing a lousy American accent. They're all over prime-time now. They think they can nail our American accents like Damian Lewis and Hugh Laurie can, but the truth is they're bloody awful. Actually it's not hard to imitate these outsourced actors. Instead of "been," say "bean" and instead of "Los Angeles," say "Los Ange-leez."

If I could live anywhere, it would be: New York City. This reluctant Californian is sick and tired of Cali and wants to move to NYC, where grabbing some Slyders or an egg cream isn't so difficult.

My dream job(s): Writing graphic novels. The creator-owned material of writers like Brian K. Vaughan, Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka and Gene Yang brought me back to reading comics after I lost interest in them a few years before. Those guys are incredible writers. Then I told myself, "I wanna do what they're doing. I don't care how little it pays."

What else you should know about me:

-I started out in journalism.

-I chose "SamplerCreator" as my account name because on other sites, every time I try to use my own name as my account name, it's already taken. "Jim Aquino" is the Filipino equivalent of "John Smith."

-I like chicks who hate Sex and the City as much as I do.

-My favorite Chinese food is pizza.

-I ghost-wrote most of the rhymes on Nick Cannon's rap album.

-I orchestrated the merger between UNICEF and Smith & Wesson.

-I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

-Other true or fake facts about me can be found at jim.aquino.com or afistfulofsoundtracks.blogspot.com.

---------------

To be continued in Part 2.

More Obamicon fun

Here are more Obamicons I've created. The first two refer to something I watch on every Martin Luther King Day ever since it first aired in 2006: The Boondocks' awesome "Return of the King" episode, in which Dr. King (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, a.k.a. Rockefeller Butts) awakes from what was actually a coma and is dismayed by what he's returned to ("Black Entertainment Television is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life!").