Teacher Lip Sync Performance 2012 Part 2

Giants Opening Day Weekend and Rock of Ages

The weekend I have been looking forward to since November 3, 2010.

Like many San Francisco Giants fans, many of us wondered when we would ever see a championship banner fly over AT&T Park. The Giants office knows how to organize a party and celebrate the team's achievements. Willie Mays brought out the flag, each player touched it while passing it down the line, and finally, Brian Wilson accepted the banner and ran it across the outfield, into the bleachers, so he could raise it up the flagpole. My next favorite moment was Matt Cain throwing out the first pitch. As the longest tenured Giant, he truly represents sportsmanship and excellence.

Thank goodness for personal necessity days so I could make my twelfth consecutive Opening Day. However, the festivities did not end with the extra innings back-to-back Aaron Rowand walk-off hits for the second straight year. I rocked all night long at the Curran Theater to revisit 80's hair metal in Rock of Ages. And yes, the show felt like the 80's complete with women decked at in high hair, long t-shirts, bandannas, and fishnet stockings. The show entertained the hell out of me, especially the one-liners, "Phil Collins can rock." Although a couple of the songs felt a little forced into the loose plot, I enjoyed hearing the different takes in which they were infused for the most part. Constantine looked ridiculous in his boy band outfit, while the women made me miss 80's fashion. Luckily, I was able to share this with Lance, Mary Anne, and the newlyweds, Macho & Gina, my 80's queen.

Saturday night - Opening Night
I truly loved the ring ceremony. The ceremony moved all 40,000+ of us. Though I was disappointed I didn't get my ring keychain giveaway (I had no idea people were going to line up at noon as if this were a Lincecum bobblehead day), I was able to witness the moment I longed to see. The Giants wearing championshiop rings. However, I didn't think I was going to last the whole night to see Miguel Tejada hit a walk-off double to win the game, because my coughing worsened in was one of the coldest nights I have experienced at the ballpark. I love cold weather, but my four layers and heaviest jacket could do nothing to protect me from a hellish wind chill. I suffered in the cold, but I watched another dramatic win and knew there would be no way I would be able to attend Sunday's Posey rookie of the year ceremony.

So the weekend concludes and I look forward to state testing week at work... I hope our school continues to improve...

Enjoy the two newest plaques on the portwalk commemorating Lincecum's 14 K's and the world championship win and parade.

Straight No Chaser

Thanks Macho for introducing this to me.

Filipino references in pop culture

A couple of days ago my brother and I were talking about the many Filipino references that seem to pop up on 30 Rock. Admittedly, I don't know whether or not to laugh or not. I usually don't find too much humor in stereotypes, even if the speaker of the joke is of the targeted group (as I am watching Robin Williams on Ferguson discussing how he offended Australia). References can be both positive and negative, and I usually just let it be and remain a "silent witness."

Oddly, the first time I can really remember hearing "Filipino" in a song was in Motley Crue's "Same Ol' Situation." I thought to myself "What exactly is Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx saying about Filipino women?" and really... just about every song objectified women... and I was just a teenager screaming along to they lyrics without much pause...

College, Life, a near run for a political seat in local politics, teaching have all made me much more aware and sensitive to all aspects of different "-isms." But do I ever really say anything? No. I've wanted to blog about every reference I have heard over the years, but then I felt overwhelmed and lazy and never did.

So, why comment now? Not sure... I'm on spring break and have some time to procrastinate. It's Good Friday, and I was always taught not to enjoy myself, but rather I should contemplate the seriousness of life...

... I woke up this morning not wanting to get out of bed and decided to catch up on the newest Entertainment Weekly, which could fuel all kinds of discussion on pop culture... The first thing I saw was this little blurb that said Glee "is looking for a fifty-something Filipina or Hispanic actress to play... Sue's (presumably long-suffering) maid." Then I began to imagine all the tirades that would emanate from Sue's mouth and how rife with offensiveness they could be. I'm curious how this will be handled.

So after having perked my interest, I see another curious entry from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. They have a new album called Here Lies Love... the concept for this album... let's read Byrne's own introduction for the CD... “The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!”

The featured track on the website is an imagined duet between Imelda Marcos and Estrella, as sung by Cyndi Lauper and Tori Amos (two artists I tend to like). A picture of Imelda graces the cover and the entirety of the album reflects her story. The idea of a theatrical story being told in a dance club does seem interesting, although I don't know how many of the people there will be visualizing the story of Imelda Marcos.

I am curious and will listen to all the short bits on the website linked above on the album title and probably even more on iTunes when the album is released next Tuesday. I probably won't write any review, but I put this out there for some of you to consider. For those curious, EW gave the CD a "B." If you want to hear some of the songs until the CD is released, you can check out NPR. Personally, I'm finding the collection quite intriguing, especially growing up in the age of 70s disco.

Et tu, AIG? & more rally cam

Happy Belated Ides of March

Who would have realized another great nation feels a sense of betrayal after yesterday's news that the taxpayers are footing the bill for AIG execs getting millions of dollars in bonuses. Screw the bailout... let all these companies file for bankruptcy. Save the small businesses and the middle class!

Well, we know that won't happen...

So here's more video to keep you laughing and distracted from the economic crisis.

FLOOR CAM


SENIOR P.O.V.



IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS FOR NEXT YEAR'S THEME, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

Oh yeah... there was an actual class competition... here are the winners... the sophomores!

Crazier Than Average

Last Saturday at the SF Giants Fanfest and I met Coach Ron Wotus... yes, Gina, you're pissed off at me, but I don't care, for you were at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii and you sent me a pic from Rainbow Drive-in. So here's my picture for you... Both Ron and Dave are great gentlemen, very personable and it pumped me up even more for the upcoming season.



Today was also the greatly anticipated reward for being the Most Spirited High School in the Bay Area competition. Flo Rida came and performed four songs at our school. I'm impressed with how well our students responded, for they conducted themselves like the INSPI(RED)they are. The picture is of Jocelyn, one of my friends and co-workers, Flo Rida, and little ol' me.

More America's Best Dance Crew

SoReal Cru TV posted a video of their visit to the Bay Area and El Camino makes an appearance... and not just our school, but also our hoodie... The school shows up at about 3:02 in the video. The hoodie much sooner...



December 4, at lunch, Joesar of the Boogie Bots will be visiting our campus to sign autographs and take pictures. Apparently, El Camino has an excellent reputation for supporting and teaching dance. Now, this is no surprise to me, but the fact that this is know beyond our city amazes me, especially since people are hearing about us in Los Angeles. Thankfully, we have a few alumni involved in the dance world. One teaches at Millennium and a couple others tour and perform in music videos. Congrats to them and thanks for representing your alma mater.

Dr. Horrible

I rarely ever find myself actually paying for anything on iTunes, for most things I want I can get for free and for some reason I still want to own the CD rather than just download it. I'm sure that will end soon since I have no space for anything else in my life, yet I found two things for which I actually bought a season pass: Dr. Horrible and Invincible.

But first let us explore Dr. Horrible. While at leadership camp this past week, one of the few things I had to keep me away from all leadership all the time was my ipod. I was able to get a couple hours in during the 5 days of camp. By far, the best thing I watched was Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible sing-along blog. Most of you may know Whedon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dr. Horrible does echo the Buffy musical episode.

But let us learn more from the actress of the show, Felicia Day, who discusses the short film and working with Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.





need more to whet your appetite... of course you do... that was only an interview...
so here's the trailer



If you like comics, superheroes, music, comedy, Doogie Howser, this is for you.

Jabbawockeez

My newest guilty pleasure has been watching America's Best Dance Crew. These guys are just cool with their team chemistry and masks. Oddly, many of my friends who first watch our teacher lip sync video think we have masks on and that we are trying to emulate these guys. Ummm... we'd never get close to being this good. I also found it interesting that many of my friends are also watching this show.

Last Thursday when I got home from a long day of dealing with elections, appointing new officers, and being kidnapped by R, who forced me to eat dinner, I had missed all my Thursday night television. Believe it or not, I fired up the DVR and the first show I couldn't wait to see was this one and not the newest episode of Lost.

So the finale of the show is this Thursday. You have until Thursday afternoon vote for the Jabbawockeez. Do it now! 1-866-ULOVE02




Here's a link to a compilation to some of their earlier performances.

Teacher Lip Sync (Center Cam-best view)

Here's a copy of the video from the judges' point-of-view.

I am so off. I couldn't hear anything with all those students yelling. Ha! Ha!
But it was fun. I was so pumped up afterwards.

Drumline Battle Answer #3 meets Lip Sync Rally - Joyful, Joyful

So some of my students asked for suggestions as to what performance they should do for the lip sync rally. Well, the seniors took what of my suggestions to heart and I know many of the teachers loved it, because my young staff grew up with this movie, while most of the students in it were just starting kindergarten.

This scene also happens to be another one of those films my siblings will stop to watch, especially when it gets close to the finale as you will see here.

here's the students version first




and now the scene from the movie




i swear the students should have performed this last. It was my favorite lip sync routine of the whole rally, although the Freshmen composed themselves quite well.

Lance and Derek Drumline Battle Answer #1 - Babysitting Blues

So as Lance and I began the game of what's better than Drumline, there were only a couple of obvious responses in terms of movies. You'll notice that many of them are musical numbers from some of the movies that have embedded themselves into our childhood/adolescent psyches.

I remember trying to hook up my Sony Walkman recorder to my old VCR to record the audio output. We would listen to some of our favorite movie scenes this way, especially on road trips.

So here's one of the first clips we were obsessed with (oh, and for argument's sake, we didn't allow Star Wars into the discussion for it would have been too obvious).




Enjoy the flashbacks!