If Jeremy Lin keeps playing the way he’s been playing, he’s going to have to negotiate a much bigger contract when he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. (Currently, he makes the league minimum.) But that’s for his sports agent to figure out.

And dude needs a place to live, since he’s currently–and adorably–crashing with his older brother Josh, who’s in dentistry school at NYU. But that’s for his real estate agent to figure out. Preferably after his sports agent figures out where Lin will be playing next year.

After all that, the next thing Lin ought to figure out is who his “And One” will be. Because nothing–apart from a lot of sparkly man-jewelry–says “I’ve arrived” in the NBA quite like a Basketball Wife, a boo to cheer you on when everyone else is, well, booing your sorry ass. And since it happens to be the holiday of bitterness, loneliness, cliched expressions of affection, flawed diamonds, deli flowers, teddy bears that give you allergies, cheap boxes of chocolates, and crying yourself to sleep, er, LOVE, I’ve taken it upon myself to be Jeremy’s matchmaker. (And, yes, my ten percent cut can totally come in the form of courtside seats.)

JAMIE CHUNG

Like it or not, at the moment, Jamie is arguably the most famous young Asian American female “celebrity.” (I use this word loosely because, ahem, Sorority Row.) And since Jeremy is the most famous young Asian American male celebrity, this match makes the most sense if you are of the belief that celebrity dating’s exactly like high school. Which it is. Other things Jamie has going for her: she already has Basketball Wife Hair. It’s all about The Hair if your dude’s a baller. And did you know Jamie’s middle name is Jilynn? J-Lin + Jilynn? Damn. That’s gotta be Korean for “kismet.”

Clockwise from left: Jamie Chung, Mrs. Lamar Odom, and the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Kobe

COUPLE “KNICKNAME”: JERAMIE

RIHANNA

After seeing Chris Brown’s face all over this year’s Grammys, a mere 3 years after he beat in Rihanna’s, and with rumors persisting that the two still see one another now and then, I find myself feeling a bit like Rih-Rih’s mother. Like, “Why can’t she just find a nice boy and settle down?” Jeremy Lin could be that nice boy. He’s humble. He’s all about family. He loves Jesus. It might be a hard switch converting Rihanna from The Thug Life–a posture I’m not sure I believe, anyway–to The Way, The Truth, and The Life, but if anyone can do it, it’s “The Taiwanese Tebow.”

COUPLE “KNICKNAME”: JERIH-RIH

SELENA GOMEZ

The other day when I was tweeting about #Linsanity, it occurred to me that Lin fans are rabid, fanatical, and have enormous potential. Belieber-level potential. Which I define as “Typically Nice, Harmless Folk Who Turn Into 4Chan-Type Vigilantes With Sharp, Flesh-Piercing Fangs When You Talk Shit About Their Idols.” That’s pretty much the only reason Selena Gomez came to mind. (That and she, too, has The Hair.) But first, Lin stans need a name on par with “Beliebers.” The Lindoctrinated? The Linfantry? The Lintelligentsia? Come on, people, work with me here.

COUPLE “KNICKNAME”: SELINA

ROONEY MARA

You’re thinking: This one’s a bit of a stretch. I’m thinking: This one’s a bit of a stretch. Or is it? Consider these points. Rooney Mara is sports royalty, hailing from both the Rooney family, who own the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Mara family, who own the Super Bowl-winning NY Giants (doesn’t it seem like that happened a million years ago)? If Jeremy stays with the Knicks and gets with Rooney, they could potentially give Jay-Z and Beyonce a run for their money as King and Queen of New York City. Also, Mara starred in The Social Network, which takes place mostly at Harvard, Lin’s alma mater. And she starred in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Lin was born in 1988, i.e. The Year of the Dragon. It’s currently 2012, another year of the dragon. The stars are aligning on this one. Trust.

COUPLE “KNICKNAME”: MARLIN

MICHELLE WIE

Athletes get each other. Just ask Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, Nomar Garciaparra and Mia Hamm, and Kristi Yamaguchi and, ah, Mr. Kristi Yamaguchi, aka That Hockey Player she married. Not to mention the genetic advantages Michelle and Jeremy could pass on to their children! And at 6’1″, Michelle could still wear heels–kitten heels, at least–around the 6’3″ Jeremy, without totally Tom Cruising him. Both went to elite colleges (Wie graduates Stanford next month), so when they’re not hitting the gym together, they could nerd out on, like, quantum mechanics or whatever smart kids are into these days. Oh, and they’re both sponsored by Nike. In other words, just do it.

COUPLE “KNICKNAME”: MICHELIN

KIM KARDASHIAN

HA! Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think I want to ruin this boy’s life?!

COUPLE “KNICKNAME”: K-LIN, KARDASHILIN, 72 DAY-CONTRACT

Oh, and Jer-Jer, when you do find your VaLintine, here’s a little advice on how to make her feel like she’s One Lin A Million:

Can I get a slow-clap from all my Angelenos for THIS: “Oh, I thought we were in Runyon Canyon”?

[Kristina Wong official website]
[Funny Or Die's Spoof Of That Horrible Hoekstra Ad]

That Ali Wong is pretty adorbs. Does this mean I have to start watching Are You There, Chelsea?, where Wong plays Laura Prepon’s–i.e. the Chelsea Handler character’s–BFF? I’m not sure I can handle that. My only takeaway from watching Handler is that she’s the King Midas of comedy, only everything she touches turns into a hacky racist joke that people somehow excuse because she’s a woman who says “cunt” a lot.

Anyone seen the show? What do y’all think?

What I’m really talking about of course is this crazy racist campaign ad that aired in Michigan during the game for U.S. Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra (R), directed by the same guy who got Christine O’Donnell to publicly confess, “I’m not a witch”:

The ad for Hoekstra–a hot mess of Vietnamese mise-en-scène standing in for China, California Girl-speak poorly disguised as bad Engrish, and some requisite chinky background music–managed to piss off Dems and Republicans alike with its creepy, unabashed Fear of a Yellow Planet storyline. (Though everyone’s favorite race-contrarian Michelle Malkin didn’t seem to mind it. But this is the same person who defended the internment, so, you know.)

And let’s not overlook the website that goes along with the ad! It makes the TV spot look kinda tame by comparison. Called debbiespenditnow.com (a hoek-y play on the name of Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic incumbent), it’s crammed with just about every Asian cliche imaginable. Oriental fans? Check. Dragons? Check. Red lanterns? Check. The Great Wall of China, a clay teapot, and everything written in that Chinese takeout font? Yep. It’s almost as though the Hoekstra campaign’s daring a half-blind person to stumble upon the site and try to order dinner from it.

Contrast that with Hoekstra’s other campaign site, titled petespenditnot.com [Is he serious with this shit?--Ed.], which is, frankly, a total snooze:

Now THIS is America: one old white dude talking to another old white dude

Rather than backpedal after the overwhelming criticism, Hoekstra’s defended his TV ad, saying “there’s nothing racist” about it and maintaining that the only people stereotyped are Stabenow and “the liberal Left.”

Then there was this whole kerfuffle about the Asian chick in the ad being called “yellow girl” in the HTML source code on Hoekstra’s site. Hoekstra’s team must have thought this, at least, was a little racist–they’ve claimed it was a typo–seeing as how they quickly changed it to “yellow shirt girl.”

Speaking of the girl in the ad, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell gave her a stern talking to on his show, sounding eerily like a Hardass Asian Parent when he said, “I’ve done things in show business…that I’m not proud of, but I’ve never done anything that I’m ashamed of.” All that was missing from his speech was a menacing shake of a feather duster and/or fly swatter.

The actress’ identity hasn’t been made public yet, although it’s just a matter of time–I’ll say this, if you do a little Internet sleuthing, it’s not that hard to figure out–though I actually feel sorry for her. She’s young, this was stupid, and it’s going to haunt her for a long time. Because the Internet never forgets, and Asians never forgive!

But the real villain here is Hoekstra. This ad is exactly the kind of pernicious shit that dupes people into believing we “yellow people” are all just a bunch of greedy foreigners trying to put real Americans out of work.

“We take your jobs”? Nah. We just don’t want racist dickheads like Hoekstra to take them either.

To that end, Senator Stabenow’s started a money bomb campaign in response to Hoekstra’s ad. Hoekstra spent $144,000 on his Super Bowl ad. If you hated it, consider contributing to raise the same amount for Stabenow’s campaign.

[Detroit Free Press: Pete Hoekstra defends Super Bowl ad featuring Chinese woman amid claims of racial insensitivity]
[Mediaite: Lawrence O’Donnell Targets Asian Actress In Hoekstra Ad, Calls For ‘Dirty Politics’ Boycott]

[The New Yorker: MIA Shouldn't Have Apologized]

You can be an artist, and still rule at the maths. That’s true, at least, in the case of Korean American graffiti artist David Choe, who painted the walls of Facebook’s first corporate headquarters back in 2005. Instead of taking cash for his work, Choe chose to be paid in Facebook stock, even though he thought Facebook was “ridiculous and pointless” at the time. (This was his right brain talking. His left brain, meanwhile, was ignoring the right brain as it crunched the numbers.) As Facebook prepares to go public at a valuation between $75 and $100 billion, Choe’s stock will reportedly be worth $200 million.

Now that Choe no longer has to rely on art to pay the bills, he’s free to pursue his real dream…of becoming a doctor!

[NYT: From Founders to Decorators, Facebook Riches]

Michael Patrick King and the 2 Broke Girls at the TCA Event

A few weeks ago at the Television Critics Association’s (TCA) Winter Press Tour, 2 Broke Girls‘ co-creator Michael Patrick King, who’s best known for his work on Sex and the City, became defensive over reporters’ questions concerning the broke-ass racial and ethnic stereotypes on the show.

If you haven’t seen the show, the stereotypes in question involve the show’s secondary characters who work at the same diner as the two broke girls. There’s Oleg, the pervy Ukrainian cook; Earl, the black, jive-talking cashier; and Han Lee, the diner owner, a Korean immigrant who speaks in heavily-accented Engrish and is frequently the butt of jokes because of his “foreign-ness.” Andrew Ti, the razor-sharp mind behind Yo, Is This Racist?, describes Han in a Grantland post as a “tiny, greedy, sexless man-child.” Most of the questions that appeared to anger King at the TCA event concerned the particularly offensive portrayal of Han Lee.

Here are some of King’s choice quotes from the press tour, defending these characters:

1. “I’m gay! I don’t find any of it offensive. I find it comic to take everybody down.”
2. “[Being a comedy writer] gives you permission to be an outsider and poke fun at what people think about other people.”
3. “In the last three episodes, we haven’t made an Asian joke. We’ve only made short jokes.”
4. “I think [the show's jokes are] fun, sophisticated and naughty, and everybody likes a good naughty joke. I also think that if the show only existed in naughty jokes without pathos, I would not be happy. So I see no need to pull away from the brand of 2 Broke Girls, which is basically in-your-face girls.”
5. “I think that our show is a big ballsy comedy, but it has a bigger heart than it has balls.”

Now here are the problems with King’s defense:

I’m gay, therefore I can’t be prejudiced. GTFOOHWTBS. Just because you’re a member of a marginalized group doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of marginalizing another. Even people within the same marginalized group can’t often agree on what’s offensive and what’s not. You should see our hate mail pile! I wonder if King has ever tried googling “racism in the LGBT community”? Or maybe “anti-Asian racism in the LGBT community”? Not saying racism is more prevalent in the LGBT community–although I’m Asian! So I can say that! Ha. No. See what I did there?–just saying it exists.

Poking fun at what people think about other people isn’t the same as ridiculing other people. “Poking fun at what people think about other people” implies you’re critiquing the stereotypes you’re putting forth. But making an Asian character unable to drive, unable to speak English, unable to grasp any shred of American culture, and unable to deal with anything involving a woman’s lady bits isn’t a “send-up” of a stereotype, it’s just the stereotype.

We’re no longer making Asian jokes. Just short jokes about an Asian man. Is there a difference between a short joke made about an Asian man and an Asian joke? I’ve never known one. Because the idea that all Asians are short is another prevailing stereotype. And it’s going to take 1000 Yao Mings to get drafted into the NBA before that changes.

Stereotypes are just “naughty.” And our show is naughty. That’s our brand. This is my number one problem with how this show is perceived and how it–quite grandiosely, I might add–perceives itself. Because it features two strong, funny women leads who tell “raunchy” jokes involving vaginas and sex, somehow it’s okay that its other characters are weak, outmoded, ethnic buffoons? There are plenty of female-led comedies on television now–30 Rock, Parks and Recreation–that also feature funny people of color who don’t exist just to be the butt of jokes. Also, somewhat beside the point but: women telling jokes about vaginas and sex isn’t really all that edgy, so enough with the self-congratulation already.

The show has a bigger heart than it has balls. Okay, on this point we agree. When I think of 2 Broke Girls, I don’t think of balls. I think of a tiny eunuch named Han Lee who had his balls cut off, and the gaping space left between his legs where they used to be.

And then I think of the even tinier man who created him.

[AV Club: 2 Broke Girls co-creator defends show's racial humor in worst possible terms]
[DISGRASIAN OF THE WEAK! 2 Broke Girls' Han "Bryce" Lee]

“NO SHAKY LEG!!!” reminds me of the time my cousin, when she was 7 years old, told me her HAM told her that shaking your leg at the table meant you were a slut. Or, in the words of this vid, someone who goes out “every day tryna have the sex.”

[JustKiddingFilms on YouTube]

The victim was robbed and treated for a laceration to his lip, bruising, and abrasions, according to WaPo.

The Chicago police have ruled out that the assault was racially motivated–you can hear the perpetrators calling the victim the N-word throughout–while the Internet police on various forums have corroborated that notion by publishing the perpetrators’ names, addresses, phone numbers, Facebook pages–even their parents’ names–since the video surfaced. At least 4 of the 6 assailants are also Asian American (Chinese, to be specific, judging by their names).

Now comes these two videos, uploaded by a female friend [commenters on various sites have claimed she's the one who filmed the attack but that can't be verified--Ed.] of the assailants, who contends that the 6 on 1 attack was “payback” for another attack in which either the victim or the victim’s friends took part as perpetrator(s). Apparently all of these kids know one another and belong to different Asian cliques in the same community (the Fobs–Fresh of the Boats–are one group and the other doesn’t appear to have a name), in what seems like a plot lifted from an S.E. Hinton novel. The girl who made the following two videos contends that there’s been a back-and-forth of violence between these two groups and the 6 assailants were “attacked first.”

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has confirmed what this girl is saying, that the 6 (or 7) on 1 was in retaliation for a 20 on 2 attack. Which doesn’t lessen the horror of what we’ve witnessed in the video but should serve as a reminder of how violence begets violence and quickly spins out of control.

Though you wouldn’t know that judging by the reaction to the video online, where the addresses of the attackers have been published, where one commenter on YouTube has listed the numbers of the assailants and written, “BEAT THE FUCK OUT OF THEM ALL,” while on a Facebook page originally created to support the victim, another commenter’s called on the perpetrators to be “killed” and to die a “painfull (sic) death.”

Bravo, humanity.

[WaPo: Chicago police question 6 teens in beating of teenager that was filmed, posted online]

[UPDATE: The 7 teens involved in the beating have been arrested. Two 16 year-old boys, three fifteen year-old boys, and one 15 year-old girl, who filmed the attack, were charged with robbery and aggravated battery. One 17 year-old, Raymond Palomino, whose face is uncovered in the video, is being charged as an adult.]

Thanks, Nick and @mikeycho

What do you think, Asian Girls? Does this shit sound familiar? Reply below in the comments section!

Thanks, Kenny!