they're making up for my lack of artist-ness

I feel embarrassed sometimes blogging on here because I'm listed as an official artist but I'm not one.

To make up for it, I'll write about my two friends from LA, cool cats I've known since high school--they're true artists.

The first is Victor Chi ( check his IMDB here). He's an aspiring actor hailing from Alhambra, California. You can see his work in several indie flicks as well as small roles in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Balls of Fury, and several others.

I believe Vic will make it because he takes the craft of acting seriously and he doesn't aim to be a movie star, but an ACTOR. Think Stephen Chow from King of Comedy and you get the drift.

Second friend, Mike Liu. He's the most rock and roll and film-buffy guy I know (who's not like, a professional...yet). He was the guitarist in LA indie band The Sweet Hurta few years ago but quit the band because he wanted to pursue other things. So he worked his ass off at IndyMac bank (before it folded) and now he's at USC Film School.

Mike is the dude who educated me on movies and music. Get this, I met the guy Freshman year in PE, and all he could talk about was Reservoir Dogs. He told me I had to watch it and so I rented the thing from Blockbuster. Half way through, I sign on to America Online with my then-super-fast-28.8 modem, and instant messaged him, "dude this movie is a rip off of a Hong Kong film City on Fire starring Chow Yun Fat". Mike told me to focus on the dialogue and the brilliant shuffling of the scenes. So I did--and bam, it knocked my socks off. Yes, Reservoir Dogs lifted the plot directly from City on Fire but it's a superior film in every way (although Chow Yun Fat destroys Tim Roth in the acting department).

He recently wrote an 18 page thesis, "Batman in Media", it's about how Batman made the jump from comic book panels onto the big and small screen the past several decades. It's a great read for anyone who's into comics, movies, or superhero mythology in general.

As for the music part, Mike taught me how to play my first song on guitar (Green Day, Good Riddance), and he is a master of pro tools recording software (we recorded a quirky punk song together... I use we loosely because he wrote the song and played every instrument except the backup guitar--which I played--and then he used pro tools and layered all the tracks and remixed it.) We also caught The Strokes when they were revolutionizing the rock scene (according to UK music mags) in 2001. On that night, we also caught a little band named Kings of Leon. This was when they were rad rednecks and not the pretty boys you see today (music still bad ass though). We also checked out Interpol at the Paladium in Hollywood and Yeah Yeah Yeahs before their song "Maps" put them on the um, map.

It wasn't always so smooth though, we got into a fight Freshman year but as Mike puts it--that only strengthened our bond.

I'm proud to be able to call both of them my friends. Real artists.