Gerardo Suave

Somehow “Rico Suave” come back to me last night and I had to fired up my Mac to check it out on YouTube. My wife thought I was nut. You guys remember Gerardo back in the early 90s, right? Hip-hop was still in its infant stage and there was this Latin dude blew up the pop chart with “Rico Suave” and “We Want the Funk.” I didn’t know what the funk he was rapping about (I still don’t), but the beats were infectious.

Cast Her Final Ballot

A 93-year-old woman wanted to vote for Obama before she died:

On the morning of Oct. 8, Fitzgerald scratched her signature on an absentee ballot from a bed in her North Charleston, S.C., home, where she had moved to be close to some of her nine children.

She died an hour after the ballot was mailed, said her son, Terry Fitzgerald, of Woodland Road in Foxboro.

Isn’t that a touching story?

Weezy’s Baby Mama

Lil Wayne has recently announced the birth of his first son and the baby mama is Sarah, a young Vietnamese-Caucasian who juggles her time between taking classes at the University of Cincinnati and working as a nail tech. I guess she won’t need to work so hard anymore.

McCain Campaign’s Crashers

New York Times Magazine reveals the behind-the-scene tales of “The Making (and Remaking) of McCain.” The articles is filled with details on the tactics McCain’s advisors had used to run the negative tone as well as the picking of Sarah Palin. New York Times has done us all a favor by putting the last nail in the McCain campaign’s coffin. The story is highly recommended:

John McCain’s biography has been the stuff of legend for nearly a decade. And yet Schmidt and his fellow strategists have had difficulty explaining how America will be better off for electing (as opposed to simply admiring) a stubborn patriot. In seeking to do so, the McCain campaign has changed its narrative over and over. Sometimes with McCain’s initial resistance but always with his eventual approval, Schmidt has proffered a candidate who is variously a fighter, a conciliator, an experienced leader and a shake-’em-up rebel. “The trick is that all of these are McCain,” Matt McDonald, a senior adviser, told me. But in constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the “true character” of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky.

KKK Endorses McCain

Of course they don’t want to come out and say it. Black president goes against everything they stand for.

Thu Minh – I Do

Although Thu Minh’s new album is titled in English, seven of the ten tracks are Vietnamese. Not sure what she tries to prove, but her Vietnamese English doesn’t do the justice. She should have left the last three English tracks off the record.

I Do would have been a perfect ballad album because Thu Minh is a fantastic ballad singer. With her clear voice and big tone, she could make a popular tune her own. With the help of Duc Tuan, she gives Vo Thien Thanh’s “Uoc Gi” a powerful cover and her rendition is as good as if not superior than My Tam’s. Likewise, her version of Huy Tuan’s “Nhung Giac Mo Dai” is so gorgeously romantic.

On Van Phong’s “Giac Mo Mang Ten Minh, ” her voice is constraint to accommodate the jazzy groove, but she sounds best when she could move beyond control. The result is just stunning when she turns up her pitch a bit too high for comfort on the chorus of Nathan Lee and Chu Minh Ky’s “Pho Vang Anh.” I have to cover my ears whenever Bang Kieu pulls out a stunt like that, but not in her case. Her high pitch and shrill seem to work well on big, belt-out ballads.

Asian Americans Feeling the Power

Washington Post

According to leaders of the large, affluent communities of Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans and Indian Americans in Northern Virginia, sentiment among those groups favors Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), although Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) enjoys a core of loyal support among older Asian refugees who suffered at the hands of communist regimes.

Al-Qaida Endorses McCain

AP:

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, “impetuous” Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Isn’t this a good enough reason not to vote for McCain?