Gotham City

Linsane in the Membrane

Okay, if you haven’t gone Linsane as yet, time to get with the program. The summary: about 10 days ago, a barely known Asian American NBA player on the New York Knicks named Jeremy Lin managed to get a few minutes on the floor and transformed himself and the American sports scene as we know it. Seven consecutive wins later, with stats that rival the all-time greats (Jordan, Lebron, etc) Linsanity has permeated the entire nation (and beyond). If you need more info than that, Google it.

Then came last night, Lin’s eighth game and first loss after which the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader” (in sports presumably, but not clarified) ran a headline “Chink in the Armor” on their mobile app site describing the story. Uh oh. While the headline was taken down 30 minutes later, in internet time, that sh’t’s like a millennium. A million screen grabs later, the great American pastime - the race debate (and now with a  whole new face and complexion) - is well underway. The instinctive reaction: total outrage. And you hardly have to look very far to find it. For example, my Facebook page is book burning scale on fire with rage and umbrage.

Alas, if you ask me, that’s the easy way out. Here’s the obvious analogy: “would ESPN dare use the N word on in a headline? And yet, they use the word ‘chink,’ equally offensive in churlish racist vernacular.” Duh - no sh’t it’s objectively offensive. But let’s look at the larger context before we go all civil rights movement mad on this. The headline appeared circa 230 AM EST. Who exactly is manning the editorial stations at 230 AM? Probably some stupid intern or low level editor with a bad sense of humor and no exposure to the broader world. An excuse? Hardly. An explanation? Most likely.

But let’s wait until the investigation concludes to even worry about that assumption. The larger issue here is that someone thought it was okay to use the chink word to put up on a major internet network. It is a safe assumption that if that person is ever discovered, heads will roll at ESPN. And yet the truth is that person has done us a huge favor - along with Jeremy Lin - because they have raised to the surface a national conversation that’s yet to take place on account of there never before really being a major Asian athlete on the American sports scene. Yes - Ichiro is awesome and yes, there have been stellar tennis players, golfers, even NFL players of Asian origin (and of course, Yeo Ming in the NBA), but Mr. Lin has a certain story-book Tom Brady element to his narrative - not to mention the assistance of playing for the Knicks in the twitter era - to aid his unprecedented rise to trending status. In short, we’re just starting to find the lines on how we talk about the Asian American athlete on the national American sports scene. There’s hardly a current of anti-asian bigotry in the sports world, because um there’s no Asian American athlete worth the time to even discuss on sports radio. If anything, the sports world is one of the few cultural ecosystems where racism is relatively limited. Asians have hardly been prejudiced against, they’ve just been largely left out of the conversation for lack of anyone demanding attention. Now, on account of Lin’s heroics, we get to feel our way through it. Let’s keep in mind, we’re not even a decade removed from  Rush Limbaugh suggesting that perennial All Pro QB Donavan McNabb was celebrated only because he was black. Or what about the infamous Jimmy the Greek gaffe suggesting that black athletes were dominant because of their slave ancestry and generations of breeding that produced superior physical specimens? In other words, the road to just recognizing the fact that athletes for being great beyond their race is a long and winding one. Is part of Jeremy Lin’s incredible popularity due to his race? Um, f’ck yeah it is. I’m an entire nation away (Indian American as opposed to Chinese American), and the dude is my hero. The closest I ever came to Lin’s heroics was a sweet crossover and pull up in Taye Diggs’ face and I’ll treasure that moment for the rest of my life. A few more Jeremy Lin’s from now and we won’t be talking about his race, just his game. That’s the way it goes, folks.

One more thing. As Asian Americans - or anyone for that matter - we collectively can make the choice on how to react to this . Mock outrage for a childish usage of a 7o’s slang word? Or a simple shrug and swerve right around it towards a much higher purpose? Having sat court side to a few NBA games, I can say with great confidence that Lin has been the target of a lot worse then a few “chink” insults dropped by opponents trying to get him off his game. I suggest we all take his lead and not miss a beat while keeping our eyes on the far greater prize. The best comeback is winning. And winners don’t cry.

Ethiopia Through the Lens – Trunk Magazine

18 Days

Religion of Sports Part II | Intent Blog

Slacker

Yeah, sorry about that. Been totally slacking on my pimping. Truthfully, I have a hard time now thinking about anything longer than about 140 characters.

Busy times too being a media baron! Wrapping edit on doc which we’ve submitted for Sundance. Fingers crossed. Launching YouTube Channel, with YouTube I might add. Being concerned about the Patriots who aren’t looking so hot right now.

And then thinking about what I really want to create next. Have some ideas, but trying to be smart.

So that’s what’s going down. Does anyone care anyway? Do I?

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

It’s been a busy couple of months. Last year, I dove into several big projects – all exciting – but each requiring more attention that I probably was prepared for. There were two books – Walking Wisdom, and then The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes, as well as my commencing a year-long journey with my father on a documentary film called Decoding Deepak. These projects, each with fabulous and resourceful partners and collaborators were in addition to the already weighty responsibilities I shouldered as being one of the founders of Liquid Comics, a company I started with partners several years ago alongside Richard Branson and the Virgin Group and expanded aggressively in part by collaborating with such celebrity creators like John Woo, Guy Ritchie, Nic Cage, and yep, Jenna Jameson.

Why am I telling you all of this? Who are you, actually? Why do we have this need to share these words, these ideas between us? Why do any of us really interact anonymously on the toll road of the internet?

Alas, let’s not dive into the deep end just yet. Back to the top: so the point is I leapt in head first into a bunch of projects all the while knowing that my weakest skillsets are organizational and strategic thinking. What I found though is that each of the projects I got involved in were thematically aligned in that they all involved a version of storytelling. Each was an effort to unpack and decode deeper questions about who I am (Walking Wisdom), who my dad is (Decoding Deepak), who any of us really are (7 Laws of Superheroes).

Now, a year later I can’t tell you that definitively I have the answer to any of these questions. I can say that the film, which will be finished later this month and that hopefully we’ll be bringing to the world shortly thereafter is something I am really excited about. Not just because it’s a culmination of over a years worth of work, hours upon hours of film boiled down into a 90 minute narrative, but really because it’s the product of a much grander search, a descent down the rabbit hole and all of the dust that inevitably gets kicked up in the process. Because the film is not just an effort to decode Deepak, or in doing so decode myself, but something even bigger: it’s an inquiry into the deeper mystery of existence – really an attempt to decode all of this stuff: who we are, why we are here, and what we’re supposed to do with this strange gift of life.

Important to note: this ain’t no New Age thing. In fact, that was really important to me from the start. My assumption was that that’s what the world would expect, for son of Deepak to walk in the footsteps of the man himself, or what they perceived those footsteps to be. On the contrary, the film (and my dad) are full of contradictions. You think you know, but you really don’t. Isn’t that the way the world works? Enough with the buzz kill, I’ll let the film speak for itself. Stay tuned for more on that front.

There is one anecdote though from the road that’s worth sharing, especially because like the best stories, I’ve let my imagination craft the edges of it to crystallize some meaning. At the beginning of the year, in an effort to find some sort of ending on the long road I had already been on trailing my dad for the film, I arranged a trip to the Indian city of Haridwar. Haridwar, a holy city on the edge of the Ganges river, is a few hours train ride from Delhi, a most cinematic odyssey in of itself. It’s probably most well known as the place to which Indian families journey at critical times of transition – births, graduations, weddings, and most notably deaths. Indeed Haridwar is the destination where millions of Indian families travel every year to deposit the ashes of loved ones after they’ve passed on.

For generations, during these ceremonial trips, visitors will often meet up with local priests and undergo an interview of sorts. During the interview, the priest will mine out details like which village the family is from, the names of some of their ancestors, and other bits and pieces of information which then are babbled over to cellphones to other priests spotted around the crowded town. Then ensues a scavenger hunt of sorts through the narrow alleyways of the town. Invariably you’ll end up in some small nook and cranny where is housed a register – a long roll up scroll of paper on which thousands of visitors have previously scrawled their stories. In short, on those registers is the story of your ancestry, the literal of code of all those that preceded you and made the same trip to Haridwar to record their existence. The farther you go back, languages change and you start to see the literal trail through the ages that your lineage has traipsed. And of course, once you start to track 6,7, 8 generations back, as the languages change, and the family tree sprawls, you start to realize your own origins are the product of an almost incalculable amount of probabilities. The mystery of existence is unfurled right in front of you in black and white and it’s as staggering and mindblowing as you can possibly imagine.

I’ll leave the details of our trip to Haridwar to be revealed in our film through it skillful edit, but the truth is I’ve already drawn my conclusions. These are tricky times full of chaos and contradictions and I fit right into them. I’m a guy who thinks about big existential questions about the meaning of existence…but also is a news junkie who indulges in the minutia of congressional debates on the debt ceiling. I wonder about the tribalism that pits countries and faiths against one another, wreaking havoc and igniting genocides, but also work myself into a passion rooting against sports rivals like the Jets and Yankees (I’m a Boston Fan aka ‘Masshole’ through and through). Once every few weeks, I agonize over my own indecision in all things – am I a creator or business person? Do I care about creating wealth or just creating stuff? Should I be focused and strategic or just sing in the shower not caring who’s really listening? I badger my wife, my sister and her husband, my parents, and my friends with these anxieties and irresolutions, settle down for a bit…and then broker the same conversations a few weeks later.

And now I’ve drawn you into it too, whomever you are. I don’t feel bad though, because for some reason I suspect I’m not alone. You wonder about all this stuff too, don’t you? You wonder about whether this is what you were meant to do, why you are here, and where exactly your fate relies, right?

It’s actually nice down here in the rabbit hole. For now anyway, until the next project takes hold and kicks up all the inevitable dust and stress. Until then: Go Red Sox. Yankees suck.