Cold Pop

Since 1908 Americans have been celebrating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, a day set aside to honor mothers and motherhood, and a time when families traditionally attend church, present mother with flowers (typically carnations) and gather for family dinners. Judging from the number of people crowding the beach and pool yesterday, a good many families also like to bring mother to the beach for Mother’s Day. Personally, I marked the day as one that brought to my attention two great performances.

Poreotics is an American dance crew from Westminster, California formed in 2007 by Matthew Nyugen. The group specializes in popping, choreography and robotics which led to the name: Po-reo-tics. One of their trademarks is dark glasses which they all wear for their performances. In 2009 and 2010 they won first place in Hip Hop Internationals in Las Vegas. They are also the winners of America’s Best Dance Crew, season 5 in 2010. The six dancers are: Matthew (Dumbo) Nguyen, Can Trong Nguyen, Charles Viet Nguyen, Lawrence (Law) Bravo Devera, Justin (Jet Li) Valles and Andrew-Chad Fausto Mayate. All of them are of Southeast Asian heritage. Matthew “Dumbo” Nguyen, Can Trong Nguyen, and Charles Viet Nguyen are Vietnamese while Andrew-Chad Fausto Mayate, Lawrence “Law” Bravo Devera, and Justin “Jet Li” Valles are Filipino.

Sweet Brown is an Oklahoma City woman who was interviewed by a local news station after evacuating her apartment building in a fire. On the morning of April 7th, a fire broke out at the Chateau Deville Apartments, leaving one person hospitalized for smoke inhalation and five units in the building damaged. KFOR News was first to arrive on the scene and interview one of the displaced residents, Sweet Brown. During the interview Mrs Brown said that she had gotten up to get a “cold pop” when she smelled what she thought was barbecue. Realizing a few moments later that it was a fire in the building, she ran out of the apartment without shoes. In describing the heavy smoke from the fire, Mrs Brown came out with the memorable line, “ain’t nobody got time for that!”