Everyone knows that spaceships are really time machines and that aliens are clearly future humans changed through evolution stemming from a post-apocalyptic world.  The words “Asian” and “Alien” are strikingly similar and, with their advanced technology, along with the following footage, I finally feel that it’s safe to publicly assume that the Japanese race was originally sent back in time thousands of years ago to shape our technological futures and to create the ultimate dance machines.

U-Min (aka: Woomin) was a dance crew from Japan who’s name means “unknown”.  They have a strong foundation working with popping, the robot, and an “animation” dance style.  From my understanding, 2 of the members (pictured) had left the group to start a crew called U-Min No Kokoro (meaning “core” or “soul” of U-Min) but, last year, they appeared collectively in Missy Elliott’s ‘”Ching-A-Ling‘” video from the film Step Up 2: The Streets. Although the video features the crew dressed in homage to the Baseball Furies gang from the film The Warriors, it didn’t truly showcase what the crew was capable of.  I saw a video of them over a year ago, where they were performing on stage and it blew my mind.  I had planned to post it, but never got around to it.  Tonight I stumbled across another video from the group that triggered by memory; both are posted here.  Leave a comment and tell us what you think.  If you have any more info on the crew, feel free to drop that info here as well.

thanks,

-Dead C (more…)

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The major news from this week was obvious to anyone that’s been paying attention.  Tearful speeches of hope and redemption poured through the airwaves and moved all of us that were watching the national broadcast.  The struggles ahead are clear but the idea of “CHANGE” remains the focus.  At a time where there are feelings of being backed into a corner with no way out, there is now a light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course I am referring to when, underwear designer, Shawn from Tool Academy was caught point blank and confronted in a room by his other “real” girlfriend Aida right in the middle of apologizing and pledging his loyalty to Jaimee.  OMG! WTF! FTW! PWND! ROTFLMAO!  What are the rest of those acronyms the kids are using, these days?

Oh yeah, in less prominent news, Barack Obama was also innaurgurated as the first African-American president of the United States ever.  Some of you might have missed that but, apparently it went down yesterday.  I think that it may have gained coverage on some of the other stations that aren’t VH1.

Other nations around the world seem very supportive and enthusiastic about the new presidency, except, of course, for the Iranians’ burning of Obama’s image in effigy.  I sent an email out to our writer DW. Patton in Japan to see how the country is responding to the news, if at all.  However, based on a recent discovery posted today, I think we may already have our answer sooner than expected.  Gamu Toys, a provider of anime and robot action figures, just released their version of a fully-poseable Barack Obama action figure today.  They seem to clearly view the role of his presidency and as a public figure more in the light of a John Woo film.

Below is a copy of the product page for the doll.  It is a choppy read due to the fact that I used an automatic translator for the original text, which I’m assuming was written in Japanese.

Enjoy,

-Dead C

■ DiD US Presidential Election 2008 Barack Obama ■

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One of the first people contacted after starting MonsterFresh.com, was our writer known as D.W. Patton. It may have been the last time that I saw him face to face when we were sitting at the China Town bar in Olympia, Wa. We traded manuscripts. I gave him a 19 page paper I had written about my theories on time travel and Satan while he gave me a copy of a play that he had written entirely of Elizabethan dialogue involving a half-man/half-woman Brian Bosworth separated vertically down the middle. He is currently teaching children in Japan and has written 3 articles for the site about his experiences living in the Island Country. He has covered such topics as spending the 4th of July in a foreign land, Japanese Porn, and even cultural transplants such as McDonalds. I had hoped to receive more content based around these observations from an outsider and have had occasional emails with Patton pertaining to such aspirations. He had planned to send an article to me about the bar scenes and drinking in his current location but it has yet to happen for one reason or another. There was even hope that I could get the Zomba group to grant him free access to a Backstreet Boys concert in Japan so that he could report on the continued boy band frenzy and the juxtaposition of the two pop cultures coming together, but that didn’t work out either.

D.W. has been very busy with work and other responsibilities as of late. I was recently thinking about him and his work. I had thought to contact him about possibly writing some more facinating content for us when I noticed a message in the MonsterFresh email account. Somehow during a correspondance with a friend of his, their email conversation was accidentally forwarded to me. Although I still hope to receive some material tailored specifically as an article and/or to work with him more in the future in one form or another, I quickly realized that the email that I had in my posession was a genuine article that represented some very deep and honest feelings for him at the time it was typed. It was written from a sincere place of evaluation for both his environment and his place within it. I know that he holds his time and experiences in Japan very dear, and that he truly does have respect for the culture and opportunities that he’s had over there, however, if I plan to print honest unfiltered material on this site, and I do, I felt that I could not overlook what I had read. I contacted him and Patton agreed to let me post his letter without hesitation.

I hope, as I’m sure that he does, that this is read, not as a document of slander for a place and its people and culture, but as a look into the effects of culture shock on one’s psyche and emotional health and well-being. He has confirmed that this letter accurately represents his recent feelings as a foreigner living in a distant and very different land. Hopefully, this will further help those of us who read it, to re-evaluate the way that we too treat and view people around us who have ventured outside of their own cultural safe-zones with adjusted and more conscious approaches to what they may be experiencing. Below in bold type is that letter.

-DEAD C (more…)

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