Daily Archives: May 22, 2008

APA Month Day 22 – Baseball player Johnny Damon

Johnny Damon was born in Kansas. His mother, Yome, is Thai and his father, Jimmy, is a Caucasian American of Croatian and Irish descent. He was an Army brat most of his childhood and eventually settled in Orlando, Florida for his senior year of high school. He was rated the top high school prospect in the country by Baseball America, named to USA Today’s High School All-America team, and selected as Florida Gatorade Player of the Year.

Straight from high school, Johnny Damon was drafted in the first round by the Kansas City Royals in 1992. After stint with the Royals and Athletics, he landed with the Boston Red Sox. In 2004, Damon was instrumental in helping the Boston Red Sox win their first championship in 86 years. (He hit a grand slam against the Yankees in the ALCS.) He caught a lot of flack from Boston fans when he signed with the Yankees in 2005.

Boston Red Sox Johnny Damon

New York Yankees Johnny Damon

During the 2004 post-season, Johnny Damon was compared to looking like Jesus.

After being with New York for three seasons now, most people know Johnny Damon as one of the leaders of the Yankees. However, away from baseball, the outfielder is an active leader in the Thai community, trying to get more Asian athletes involved in the sport. Even though he’s not generally thought of as an Asian athlete, he takes pride in being an Asian American role model.

Watch Johnny Damon in this special report:






Grace Moon wins Doodle 4 Google

Grace Moon, 6th grader from Canyon Middle School, beat out 16,000 kids to win the Doodle 4 Google competition. The Google competition for K-12 students challenges kids to reinvent Google’s homepage logo. Grace’s doodle is entitled “Up in the Clouds”.

Here’s a quote from Grace about her doodle.

My doodle, “Up in the Clouds,” expresses a world in the sky. This new world is clean and fresh, and people are social and enlightened. Every person here is treated as family no matter who they are. The bright sun heats this ideal place with warmth, love, and brightens everyone’s day.

Watch Grace Moon on the Today Show talking about her doodle:

Dale Talde ousted from Top Chef Chicago

Dale Talde, a sous chef at Buddakan, one of New York’s hottest restaurants, was born and raised in Chicago, where he helped open the renowned restaurant Jean Georges Vong. With his Filipino background, Dale focuses on Asian flavors. One of Dale’s kitchen favorites is a dry aged kobe rib eye. Dale says cooking meats is one of his favorite things to do in the kitchen and the technique that goes into properly searing and basting a rack of lamb or steak shows a lot of love. A motto that drives Dale is “expect perfection , because if you fall short your left with greatness.”

Unfortunately, he was ousted from Top Chef Chicago. He’s been a very outspoken chef on the show. Butterscotch scallops did him in. Watch a clip from the Restraurant episode.

Watch Dale Talde’s exit interview:

Flashing Lights in San Francisco

lighting the past, present, and future

celebrating APA Heritage month

Thursday, May 22

10PM – 2AM

21+ | $10

Poleng Lounge

1751 Fulton Street @ Masonic

San Francisco, CA

The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) throws sweet parties. Here’s a clip from their film festival’s opening night party in San Francisco a few months back. In the video, H.P. Mendoza is interviewed and talks about his next project with CAAM, Fruit Fly.

Happyslip and KevJumba attending Houston YouTube Gathering

Happyslip and KevJumba will be attending the Youtube Gathering on June 15 in Houston. (That’s Father’s Day weekend.) The gathering is expected to take place from about 12 noon til 5pm. No location is set yet ‘cuz they need a headcount of how many people will go. Let’s see Happyslip subscribers + KevJumba subscribers = 300,000+ subscribers. So if you are in the Houston area for Father’s Day weekend, join the gathering. You can RSVP here.

Happyslip wrote a song about it. Wanna hear. Well hear it goes: