It's been a couple of weeks. Lots has happened. For starters. Hmmm... The whole world is going nuts. Is it just me? Or is this impending war on Iraq creating these tiny vortexes of destruction and madness in our relationships and lives? Or maybe this is the apocalypse. I've been saying that since 9-11, that I wake up almost every morning feeling like: "ugh, something is not right here."
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Well, I can't even remember what weekend this was. I think it was the weekend before Valentine's Day. But my friend Gennifer Hirano, asianprincess came over from San Francisco because she wanted us to go to the Mann's Chinese Theater and take pictures and video of us the way Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell did. So whatever, we did. And her friend David who actually lives a few blocks away came to shoot it. David is her friend from Middle School in South San Francisco. Anyway. It was a fun weekend. We actually opened the OPM show in our respective characters (Fannie Wong and Asian Princess is Marilyn Monroe).
Then on Monday, David mysteriously died in his sleep. It was so weird and unexplainable. And there was no cause for his death found. So Gennifer had to extend her stay down here and prepare for his funeral. I barely knew David. But it so weird how we spent a whole weekend with him. I came so close to him for such a brief moment. He showed me all his paintings, rolled up canvas in hidden in his closet. I think on the tape he shot of us, you can hear him talking to us. And we have two pictures of him that we took that weekend. He was so young. Only 27.
Here is a pic of Dave and Gennifer at the Hollywood sign.
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Gennifer and I lectured later that week at a Studio Art class at UCI. She showed her tape and asked for impressions and one student started totally shaking and saying how Gennifer's work was so offensive. It was kind of crazy. I haven't heard people react to art that way in a while. And what's interesting is that Gennifer and I were saying after class how what she was saying was totally where we were at, when we were starting college. The student was saying things like, "I am proud to be Asian, and I don't understand why you have to show your body that way and wear no clothes like that." Gennifer was really good about hearing her out and trying to create dialogue about this girl's feelings on her work. The student didn't say anything when I talked about my work. But I could tell she was irritated in general at the both of us.
In general, I feel like I am getting much more articulate and confident about lecturing about my work and intentions. And that makes me feel good.
Here is Fannie Wong with a stormtrooper.
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After my last site update I got a slew of emails from my mother saying things like: "Leave the Miss Chinatown people alone" and "I couldn't sleep all night, don't embarass your parents. We are still alive you know." She checks my sites religiously to make sure that I am still alive. And she also sent me this article about how the girl on American Idol was kicked off because she was in a porno-- I think that was her indirect way of telling me that porn is a lucrative and steady career option for me.
(Just kidding Mommy!)
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Valentine's Day was depressing. I went to a gay bar in Hollywood with some friends and watching these drag queens do some lip syncing. Then this gay guy stripper brought me onto the stage and was totally dancing all over me. It did nothing for me. Everyone was laughing at how he threw me on my back and was doing all these sexy stripper moves on top of me. As he rubbed himself all over me, I felt all sad on the inside.
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Later that weekend. Me and Miles went to the anti-war rally. The first rally I've been to since high school-- or maybe middle school in San Francisco. I never got into the rallies on campus when I was at UCLA. It was a really great and yet emotional experience. To see all these people who just wanted to live their lives peacefully. There were points were I was so moved by the whole scene that I wanted to cry. Though there was this mellowness to the whole thing.
Miles and I were joking that as a way to get people into coming to rallies and supporting the movement we would have to create a "Girls Gone Wild: Anti-war Rallies" video where we get girls to scream into the camera: "No blood for oil, watch me take my shirt off now!" It's sad that that's what it will take to get people interested.
Here is a pic I took of Miles at the rally.
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I was so exhausted but later that night I hosted the OPM show as Fannie Wong. It was a lot of fun. I was so tired, I passed out during the show in the couches in the lobby.
I wrote this scene with Charles about North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Il and President Bush and a lot of people don't get who these people are. Most of them are not familiar with our caricature version of Kim Jong-Il who is not too much different in our portrayal than he is in real life. Gennifer saw the scene and didn't know the whole dealio on the Bush twins. She didn't know that there were Bush twins, and that they have a rep for being wild and out of control. Aiya! Looks like I am going to have to find ways to educate the public on this stuff. Here is one of the celebrity polaroids I have taken as Fannie.
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Then the week went by, can't remember anything significant really. Other than hustling. I watched the Joe Millionaire finale. I have never seen it before. It was so stupid. And lame. So bad that I watched it intently for those two hours...
I think it's so dumb how at the end the woman he picks just has to decide if they want to take it further. And not marriage. If I were that girl, I'd be like, "Ok, sure, I'll hang out with you beyond this show and see if it works out." That's nothing. No stakes. But marriage, that's big stakes. And it's so lame how they gave them money after. They can get three times that in endorsements and celebrity appearances anyway.
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Last Saturday night, I performed with "Corpus Delicti" on the promenade. The group is spearheaded by my friend Joe. Basically what he wants to do is use butoh movement to protest the war. It's really exciting and ambitious. He wants to engage both dancers and non-dancers in doing this kind of movement in response to the war. Here is a picture below of what they did at the rally. His ultimate vision is to get 1,000 people in front of the federal building to do butoh movement to protest the unwarranted deportations.
Here is what Joe uses to describe what he is doing with this project...
About BUTOH A form of dance/theater originating in PostWWII-Japan in 1959. Beginning as an expression of protest to U.S. occupation & the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki - the dance form has developed over the years, holding on to its signature white body makeup and ecstatically slow, often grotesque, body gestures. Butoh does not have a rigid language in the form of dance steps, its more about improvisation and getting in touch with the wisdom of the body. Since its inception, Butoh has spread all over the world, like a virus that causes a subversive kind of awareness
**CORPUS DELICTI: The body of the offence; the essence of the crime. It was a general rule not to convict unless the corpus delicti can be established, that is, until the dead body has been found. Instances have occurred of a person being convicted of having killed another, who, after the supposed criminal has been put to death for the supposed offence, has made his appearance - alive. The wisdom of the rule is apparent; but in order to insure justice, in extreme cases, it may be competent to prove the basis of the corpus delicti by presumptive, but conclusive, evidence. THERE IS PLENTY OF EVIDENCE OF THE HORRORS AND GENOCIDES THAT THE UNITED STATES HAS INFLICTED UPON OTHER NATIONS OVER THE LAST 50 YEARS. WE WANT TO EMBODY THAT EVIDENCE THROUGH OUR QUIET YET POWERFUL AND GHOST-LIKE PRESENCE ON THE BODY OF LOS ANGELES.
So I've always wanted to try out butoh because my friend Malia is so good at it and this was the perfect opportunity for me to try it out because Leilani and Malia were doing the procession. It was hard work! And just getting ready and painting my face all white and making an interesting costume was challenging. Most of the folks on the promenade didn't get what we were doing and were screaming at us, calling us names. Screaming things like, "WOW Zombies!" A couple of people tried to get right up in our faces and intimidate us. The craziest thing is that we actually crossed the street doing butoh. And people were like, "Hurry up zombies! Cross the street!" It was so interesting to see how people take their fear of what they can't categorize or understand and turn it into hatred or jeering. There were some people who followed us because they did get it and were so mesmerized by the sight of all these people in white moving so slowly down the promenade. At some points within our group we create some really interesting scenes and interactions between us. It took us like two hours to move across two blocks. It was so hellish but at points it was nice because I was able to move and just meditate and focus on making my body empty and translating that feeling into movement. And to take all the negative energy and translate it into peace.
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Then I went by the Flight Theater to say hi to OPM and we stayed at the theater til 5AM eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, and cleaning. Here are some of the polaroids that were taken of us. I didn't write the caption on the one of me and Charles. Fred did. The ones on the bottom are me holding a tape measurer. Ahem.
I'm starving. I am going to have to go shower and get something to eat. Then more work.
Check out Larry's auctions. We will get him out of debt soon! A bid of $40k on a transformer will help! Click here.
Last night I did an interview with a grad student for her thesis at SF State. I was a total mush mouth.
Don't worry. Soon the "Fannie Wong is not a criminal!" page will be up. Check back soon. Busy here. It's busy.
I've also updated some pages on this site: Writing, Solo Performance, Upcoming Events, Acting, Bio. I learned to do this new thing with Dreamweaver, so that I can have people click directly to the page section instead of having to scroll all around. I'm so proud of myself.
take care,
kristina