I survived my pick-up!
Well, it happened. I got a ride to the airport from an ex-reality tv star that I never actually met in person before that night and I have lived to blog about it.
So Spoon actually called at 4:10AM from outside my apartment. I had a last minute panic that he would really be a serial killer or flake or someone who had posed as Spoon on Instant Messenger and offered a ride, but there he was in the dark of night, double parked outside my apartment, in his little two-door car with his big Alaskan dog in the passenger seat.
I gave him a hug and was like, "Wow, you are like a jpg come alive!" (The last time I said that was when I met Asia Carrera and like Spoon, she was non-plussed by my amazing sense of humor.) I think Spoon was disappointed (as many men are) that I wasn't dressed like a schoolgirl and that I actually looked more like Kristina.
It was so odd, and yet so normal. Oh my god, there's an ex-reality tv star at my apartment and he's going to take me to the airport. The guy from TV is my 4am Super Shuttle.
Which gets me to thinking about how much lines are blurred in this age of Myspace and internet. How people that you see on tv can be your "friend" and show up at your house and it's not even creepy.
He was telling me about his life since he moved to LA a month ago. It's so weird to me how he hangs out still with people from the show. And it seems like all those pick-up artist teachers, contestants and student guys hang out together still like a big gang. Much like how the PUA community is depicted in "The Game" by Neil Strauss. Spoon actually lives with Brady (who was one of the finalists on the show). And he hangs out with the "Master PUAs" on a regular basis. A lot of their names I know because they are written about in "The Game."
Something is so odd about hanging out with the same community from the reality show you were eliminated on. I watch so many VH1 reality shows that at times I feel like I really know the contestants like old friends. But I think if I was ever on one, I'd want to still have my other friends back when it was all over. But that whole Pick-Up artist community is like Scientology-- the community is set up in such a tight cultish way that it in two-folds gives you an instant community, but it also feels hard to leave.
So along the ride to the airport, we stopped at a grocery store because I wanted to get something to drink and he busts out with, "You look so trashed! And tired!"
And I'm like, "What?! Wow, that's got to be best thing you could say to a woman."
And I'm thinking, is he trying to use "negs" on me? ("Negs" are the Pick-Up Artist term for comments that are a mix of insult and flattery that somehow force the woman that is "negged" to throw herself at the guy.) Knowing that he's been part of this whole show, I'm not sure what is a line and what's real.
Or maybe, he really does think I look trashed. It isn't even part of a come on. I really do look horrible. And then I feel all sad inside that I don't look like the gem of the Nile at 4am at the grocery store.
And then he was like, "I can say that, because I don't want anything from you."
And I'm thinking: Buddy, how much action did you think you were going to get on the way to the airport? This isn't a date, it's a ride to the airport and part of my "research."
And then there was this other beauty he blurted out on the ride over: "You speak perfect English! That's so weird..."
And I'm thinking... Is this how white Portland is that this poor Asian kid is not used to Asian people speaking English? I didn't even try to explain that I was third generation Chinese American and that in the year 2007 it isn't abnormal to meet Asian people who speak English. And wtf, only ignorant white people say things like that.
Spoon reminds me of myself when I was in college. So wide-eyed and slightly overcompensating. But he's also very sweet and boyish. He just moved from his parents' house for the first time which may have something to do with his wide eyed-ness.
I think what was so interesting about reading "The Game," studying the whole PUA workshop community on the web and watching "The Pick Up Artist" is it really reveals how vulnerable men are and what a "performance" masculinity is. The language of the PUA community is similar to that of a stand-up: there are "sets," "openers," "closers" and there is strategic positioning to the "set."
I never realized how vulnerable and desperate men would be to meet women. Those PUA workshops can cost up to $10,000! I always thought it was the other way around with how women are always trying to be more beautiful to bring a good guy into their lives. It was kind of oddly empowering to read about all that PUA stuff and realize men sometimes don't know how to be men and have to take classes on it.
Anyway, that's as much as I will divulge on the web. Here's Spoon btw on VH1 winning the award for dressing the most gay/fashionable.
VH1.com Videos
So Spoon actually called at 4:10AM from outside my apartment. I had a last minute panic that he would really be a serial killer or flake or someone who had posed as Spoon on Instant Messenger and offered a ride, but there he was in the dark of night, double parked outside my apartment, in his little two-door car with his big Alaskan dog in the passenger seat.
I gave him a hug and was like, "Wow, you are like a jpg come alive!" (The last time I said that was when I met Asia Carrera and like Spoon, she was non-plussed by my amazing sense of humor.) I think Spoon was disappointed (as many men are) that I wasn't dressed like a schoolgirl and that I actually looked more like Kristina.
It was so odd, and yet so normal. Oh my god, there's an ex-reality tv star at my apartment and he's going to take me to the airport. The guy from TV is my 4am Super Shuttle.
Which gets me to thinking about how much lines are blurred in this age of Myspace and internet. How people that you see on tv can be your "friend" and show up at your house and it's not even creepy.
He was telling me about his life since he moved to LA a month ago. It's so weird to me how he hangs out still with people from the show. And it seems like all those pick-up artist teachers, contestants and student guys hang out together still like a big gang. Much like how the PUA community is depicted in "The Game" by Neil Strauss. Spoon actually lives with Brady (who was one of the finalists on the show). And he hangs out with the "Master PUAs" on a regular basis. A lot of their names I know because they are written about in "The Game."
Something is so odd about hanging out with the same community from the reality show you were eliminated on. I watch so many VH1 reality shows that at times I feel like I really know the contestants like old friends. But I think if I was ever on one, I'd want to still have my other friends back when it was all over. But that whole Pick-Up artist community is like Scientology-- the community is set up in such a tight cultish way that it in two-folds gives you an instant community, but it also feels hard to leave.
So along the ride to the airport, we stopped at a grocery store because I wanted to get something to drink and he busts out with, "You look so trashed! And tired!"
And I'm like, "What?! Wow, that's got to be best thing you could say to a woman."
And I'm thinking, is he trying to use "negs" on me? ("Negs" are the Pick-Up Artist term for comments that are a mix of insult and flattery that somehow force the woman that is "negged" to throw herself at the guy.) Knowing that he's been part of this whole show, I'm not sure what is a line and what's real.
Or maybe, he really does think I look trashed. It isn't even part of a come on. I really do look horrible. And then I feel all sad inside that I don't look like the gem of the Nile at 4am at the grocery store.
And then he was like, "I can say that, because I don't want anything from you."
And I'm thinking: Buddy, how much action did you think you were going to get on the way to the airport? This isn't a date, it's a ride to the airport and part of my "research."
And then there was this other beauty he blurted out on the ride over: "You speak perfect English! That's so weird..."
And I'm thinking... Is this how white Portland is that this poor Asian kid is not used to Asian people speaking English? I didn't even try to explain that I was third generation Chinese American and that in the year 2007 it isn't abnormal to meet Asian people who speak English. And wtf, only ignorant white people say things like that.
Spoon reminds me of myself when I was in college. So wide-eyed and slightly overcompensating. But he's also very sweet and boyish. He just moved from his parents' house for the first time which may have something to do with his wide eyed-ness.
I think what was so interesting about reading "The Game," studying the whole PUA workshop community on the web and watching "The Pick Up Artist" is it really reveals how vulnerable men are and what a "performance" masculinity is. The language of the PUA community is similar to that of a stand-up: there are "sets," "openers," "closers" and there is strategic positioning to the "set."
I never realized how vulnerable and desperate men would be to meet women. Those PUA workshops can cost up to $10,000! I always thought it was the other way around with how women are always trying to be more beautiful to bring a good guy into their lives. It was kind of oddly empowering to read about all that PUA stuff and realize men sometimes don't know how to be men and have to take classes on it.
Anyway, that's as much as I will divulge on the web. Here's Spoon btw on VH1 winning the award for dressing the most gay/fashionable.
VH1.com Videos
Labels: hollywood wong, losing my mind in los angeles, Spoon, the pick up artist, Vh1
posted by kristina wong at
5:17 AM
1 Comments:
Damn, I'm glad this didn't turn out to be the lead story on the news Christmas morning. "Performance artist gone missing -- Police questioning minor reality star."
No one in the world looks good at 4:30 a.m. I don't believe even someone as delusional as Spoon expected Schoolgirl Kristina at that time. How did Spoon look? Fresh and fashionable? Or Dawn of the Dead?
So congrats for surviving (and maybe even thriving) on the superstar shuttle. Next time, maybe you can get as your driver Tila Tequilla? I see a possible HBO series here -- a reverse on Taxicab Confessions.
P.S. If they are really getting $10K for PUA classes, I think this should be a new side line for you. Pays a hell of a lot better than running your own traffic school.
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