The Breaking Dead for YouTube's Geek week



From the makers of What Kind of Asian are You? comes Breaking Dead. I collaborated again with David Neptune, Stella Choe and David Ury to make the video for YouTube's Geekweek. I wrote it with David Ury, and David plays a role in it along with Charles Baker from the tv show Breaking Bad.


This trailer is a parody of Walking Dead meets Breaking Bad. It is not on my channel, it's on director Davidury's channel so make sure to subscribe to him. If you don't know my long lost twin brother david then search youtube for ken tanaka and David Ury to see us meet.
Pre-order my new book from HarperCollins Everybody Dies: A Children's Book for Grown Ups.
http://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Dies-Childrens-Book-Grown-ups/dp/0062329642/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_2_har?ie=UTF8&qid=1385671838&sr=8-1&keywords=everybody+dies%3A+a+children%27s+book+for+grown+ups

Bulleit Rye Whiskey: Fruit Fly alcoholism is on the rise.



In the summer, my apartment gets visited by many fruit flies. There are so many I can't even name them all.

Last night I finished a bottle of Bulleit Rye Whiskey. It's a tasty whiskey that I like to mix with meyer lemon to make a refreshing whiskey sour. This morning I learned that it is also a very popular whiskey among my fruit fly friends. Overnight, I found about 23 of them floating in the last drops at the bottom of the empty bottle. In the picture above, they look like tiny little specs floating in the rye. They had drunk themselves to death. A fruit fly's life is very short, just a few weeks. That's probably why so many of them become obsessed with their own mortality and can only find comfort at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. I sometimes imagine myself shrinking down to a tiny Ken Tanaka size, standing on the top of a bottle of rye, and trying to catch the little fruit flies, before they fall in to the bottle and are lost forever.


I wish that they would have read my book, Everybody Dies: A Children's Book for Grown Ups before taking their final gulp. Maybe it would have helped them to accept their short lifespan, instead of making it even shorter. So long fruit flies. So long, forever.

Pre-Order the new hardback HarperCollins edition of Everybody Dies: A Children's book for Grown-Ups. http://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Dies-Childrens-Book-Grown-ups/dp/0062329642/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_2_har?ie=UTF8&qid=1385671838&sr=8-1&keywords=everybody+dies%3A+a+children%27s+book+for+grown+ups



David Neptune and I present White Samurai. It's our tribute to Kurosawa samurai films, and also Zatoichi, and Tom Cruise's Sake yell from The Last Samurai.

This was shot as part of the YouTube Comedy Lab. I also collaborated with the great youtuber SamMacaroni. Check out the white Samurai's appearance in his video too.


Actors interpret Racist comments from What Kind of Asian are You?



The video “What kind of Asian are you? has gotten nearly 5 million views and 16,000 comments in the past 3 weeks. For a while, the comments section became a very unhandsome kind of battlefield. We picked out some of the worst and oddest comments and had actors Stella Choe and Scott Beehner act them out in a scene.

This was very fun to shoot. It actually took longer than shooting the original because some of the dialogue is so long in this one.

We have gotten a number of comments saying that this video is funnier than the original video. What do you think?


Check out the original video below.

Funny Outtakes from What kind of Asian are you?

There was so much funny footage of actors Stella Choe and Scott Beehner from our shoot for What kind of Asian are you? that I decided to upload some funny outtakes. I laugh harder at this video than the original one, but maybe that's just because I have watched the original so many times. We have even more funny footage from the shoot, but I guess I can't spend all my time editing blooper videos. Yesterday Scott and Stella and I shot a video of them reading some of 14k youtube comments from the video. I hope to put it up soon.

Where are you from? What Kind of Asian are you? Piracy

Shortly after I put up my video "What kind of Asian are you" up on YouTube for Youtube's comedy week, it started to go viral. By the next day it had several hundred thousand hits which was a very nice surprise for all of us who made the video. Around that time, the video started to be copied and pirated versions were uploaded all over. The most popular one was a poor quality version uploaded to Facebook. They changed the name to "Where are you From?" and failed to list any info about the video. That one quickly became popular and had about 150k shares in a few days. I started getting messages from many of my viewers telling me about this and sending me links. Finally I asked the person on Facebook to take it down and he agreed to. But copies of his pirated version then began to spring up all over YouTube and other areas. It's very frustrating.

I uploaded this version to my second channel kentanakajapan in the hopes that it would come up in searches when people went looking for the removed "Where are you from?" video from facebook. There are still about 10 new fake ones a day uploaded to youtube. Jacob the Happy Rabbit told me I should ignore them. I know that rabbit gives great advice, but it's hard for me to ignore.

What kind of Asian are you? goes viral.



I co-wrote this video with David Ury (my long lost twin brother), and co-directed with David (Takeo) Neptune and with the help of John Coyne doing sound and some of the camera work. Scott Beehner and Stella Choe are the talented actors who brought this idea to life.

The video has now appeared on Reddit's front page, Huffington Post, MSN, and many other blogs and sites.
Thanks to all of you who have shared this video. I am very flattered by all the nice messages and comments I have gotten from people who have experienced this type of situation in some context. I would love to hear your personal stories. The comments page on YouTube has been taken over by a nonsensical debate on race, so if you have a story you'd like to share, please comment here instead, where nobody will call you names :-), and your comment won't get lost in a sea of very angry people.

I love you.

Ken

How to say Panda and "it's Bread" in Japanese.

This is lesson 5 of How to Speak Japanese. Or maybe it's lesson 6. I lost track.

The very handsome Remi and I teach you how to say Panda and "it's bread" in Japanese.

It's important to learn these two words. You don't want to make the common mistake of putting butter and jam on a panda bear.

It can make them angry and their furs get very sticky.


I painted the panda toast with white and black acrylic gesso. It's the best medium for painting panda toasts. I checked in all the art books.

I scanned the piece of toast in my scanner. It was the first time I'ver ever put bread in my scanner. I did scan some pudding once though. Pistachio.


This video was done with Remi February. She is very handsome. This is art of our how to speak fluent Japanese series. Other episodes include.





Please be Ken Tanaka's Valentine



This is a special holiday.
Valentines Day.
It's when we exchange hearts with each other.

Like when a person gets a monkey's heart or pig's heart transplanted into their chest after a massive heart attack...only different.

I wanted to celebrate this day with you.

I got out some scarlet red and rowney blue inks and painted this valentine heart for you. Yes, it's for you. You! The one who is reading this right now. Happy Valentines Day.

Ken Tanaka Loves You!

Valentine's Lion. My heart is full of hearts for you.

My good pal Toby Lion lives in Kenya beneath the frosty capped Mt. Kilimanjaro. Toby spends his days resting, sleeping and eating zebra. It's a good life for him. Toby contacted me yesterday through Google Plus...it's his favorite social networking platform. Toby told me that he wanted to be your Valentine and asked me to pass the message on to you. From the picture above you can clearly see that his heart is full of hearts for you. Will you please be Toby the Lion's Valentine?

Giant Robot- 2012 Post-it Show Ken Tanaka art

This is my 2nd time being asked to participate in the Giant Robot Post-It show. The show is going on now till Dec 16th. I painted my friend floppy dog, and also Floppy dog with his friend The Batman (Der Fleetermaus). Special thanks to The Batman and Floppy Dog for holding still for 75 minutes while I painted them. These are done on 3inch Post-Its made by 3m. http://www.giantrobot.com/gr2/gr2-post-it-8-opening-photos/

You are what I eat!

Meet my friend Jacob the lion. He lives in the Masai Mara nature reserve near Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya, Africa. His hobbies are lioning through tall grass, lioning under the bilbao tree, and also resting. I have spent a lot of time with Jacob. He is a very nice lion. If you should ever meet him, he asks that you don't wear cologne or perfumes of any kind as they can spoil the sweet flavor of epidermis. Jacob the lion looks forward to getting to know you.

Ken Tanaka's Spotted Dick

Spotted Dick is a famous dessert (pudding) in England. On my recent trip to London, I decided to try this delicious creamy dessert. It was quite tasty,so if you are curious about the flavor of spotted dick, I recommend getting a hold of one. ONe shop I saw called it Spotted Richard. I asked if it was the same as a spotted dick, and she said it was but the name Dick is old fashioned so they changed it. I think spotted dick sounds fine. Which would you rater eat, a spotted Dick? or a spotted Richard?

Floppy Dog black and white paintings

This is my friend Floppy Dog. He's been holding still for me a lot lately so that I can paint him using black and white acrylic gesso. You might have seen floppy dog in the t-shirt below.
Or, you might have seen Floppy and his mate in this stop motion video Floppy is getting tired of looking at pictures of himself in black and white so I'll have some color ones coming soon. Prints are available. Inquire if you'd like one. Ken Tanaka and Floppy Dog Love You!

Ken Tanaka in London

This May I visited London and have been putting up some videos about my trip. This first video shows a few of the things I learned about England..such as, how to drink beer at room temperature and where to find girls and infants as well as coffee that comes out of a cat's butt. This 2nd video talks about looking for Smiths in London and also where to get breakfast beans. I had a very lovely trip to London and I am hoping to go back soon. There are still so many Smiths. People often talk about the food being bad in England but I found many delicious things to eat...especially at Burrough Market. I will have at least one more video about London coming soon.

Ken Tanaka piece in the "Elvistravaganza!" art show at Bumbershoot

This is for the 2012 Elvistravaganza art show at Seattle's Bumbershoot music festival.

The Title of this piece is "Almost". I was invited to contribute this for the 2012 Bumbershoot music fest's Elvistravaganza art show. From Sept 1st thru Sept 3rd. Here is a list of participating artists.

Scott Aho David Amoroso Bruce Anderson Shannon Anderson Arqo Crystal Barbre Barry Joey Bates Susanne Melanie Berry Bill Blair Jim Blanchard Chris Bradley Kevin Bradley Laura Brodax Laurie Lee Brom Michael Brown Tubby Brown Christopher Bruns Lisa Buchanan David Burbu Charles Burns Liz Carroll Matthew Causey Diem Chau D. Ciesielski Collide-O-Scope David Cowles James Crespinel Charles Cross Chris Crites Jo David Jim Dever Jim Demetre Ron English Dorothy Feeney Scott Fife Rod Filbrandt Howard Finster Roy Finster Ellen Forney Alan Fulle Paul Gallagher Janet Galore Art Garcia Gillian Garr Kurt Geissel Marty Gordon Troy Gua Nancy & Joe Guppy Laura Jane Hamilton Robert Hardgrave Marlow Harris John Hawkley Hubba Sean Hurley Mary Iverson Elizabeth Jameson David Kane Billy King Markku Laakso John Larson Grace Kelly Laster Deborah Faye Lawrence Rich Lehl Denise Loder-DeLuca Kelly Lyles Joni Mabe Jeff McMillan Ryan Molenkamp Pat Moriarity Theresa Neinas Krysztof Nemeth John Ohannesian Craig Orback Joe Park Tatjana Pavicevic Jim E. Peschel Rhonda Porter Dave Price Kathryn Rathke Bonni Reid Larry Reid Roderigo Rudy Venus Sadler Isabel Samaras Cathy Sarkowsky David Schmader Chris Sheridan Sholt Alan Simensky Dale Sizer Deborah Scott Tim Silbaugh CR Stecyk D. Sturtevant Shaun Swick Ken Tanaka Siolo Thompson Torronio Kendal Tull-Esterbrook Larry Vanover Joey VeltKamp Andy Warhol Alfred Wertheimer Lance Whitney William Wikstrom Willard J Jennifer Zwick

Jacob Phillip Lazarus looks down

Jacob P Lazarus always looks down, for Jacob P Lazarus is concerned with the ground.

He has next to no interest in clouds floating by or birdies or airplanes that soar through the sky

Whether on rubble, or grasses or a freshly paved street, He'll only look down at his own little feet.

He'll almost nearly never look you in the eye unless your lying beneath him, looking up at the guy.

And his friends and his daughters must do exactly just that, or get down on all fours like some strange human cat.

Some say that he suffers some kind of condition, others think Mr. Lazarus just prefers that position.

No matter their speculation, one thing is sure, as you read this he's looking right down at the floor.