2.19.05-- I am what ass tastes like.

So what does Kristina have in common with inner city Asian American high school kids from Detroit?

Here's your answer...

Absolutely nothing.

I am in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I had the worst gig of my life. I sucked. SUCKED. I BOMBED. It was like my ass was handed to me on a platter and I had to figure out how to eat it as slowly as possible with a toothpick.

I can't be so hard on myself. I've bombed before. But this was really bad. The kind of bad where I totally lost control and should have just done what my friend Paul Zaloom says to do when a show goes bad--"chuck the script and surf the insanity"-- but I didn't. I just thought to myself, "Whatever, I'm speaking, they don't care, just keep going. Talk about poo, oh look, some of them perked up. Now lean against the podium, talk about how you hear voices... that's a girl... now talk about poo again, look two more of them woke up. That's good... now talk with an inflection so you sound unsure of yourself. Alright!"

Well, I gotta give myself some credit. This was a conference for inner city high school kids that U. of Michigan puts on for APIA kids who live in Detroit. Most of them aren't even planning to go to college. The students there who organize the conference asked me to do a short performance and a keynote speech. I was all pumped to do it and thought, "I'm going to be like Michelle Pfeiffer in 'Dangerous Minds' and rock them out of the inner city into college-bound activist stardom!"

Yeah, not really.

High school kids I found out today are not my standard audience, and as I suspected, I was a bit too intellectualized, theoretical, jaded and ironic for them. What I should have done is give a keynote speech while dancing to Usher. They seem to like that stuff.

Kids these days are a trip . Man, when I was their age, the Olsen twins were babies and these kids are growing up to the Olsen twins full grown. (I tried to point this out during the speech and it seemed to not humor them. ) I'm so amazed at the technology they have access to-- the cell phones, the dsl, the blogs-- all things that could have made my life a lot more revolutionary and easier.

Can you imagine being a teenager now? There's no innocence. It's so easy to download porn, hook-up sex, and the tv programming now is beyond unreal to grow up to. It's no wonder they had no attention span. It's no wonder they were totally lost on my social commentary.

I started the performance by doing my "auction" piece. Most of the kids had no clue what was going on but were still into it because it allowed them to scream bids at me from the audience. Kids love the opportunity to scream. They weren't sure if it was a real auction. They weren't sure if they would get to keep my stuff after. But they were entertained because they got to scream their heads off, and scream bids back at me and call attention to themselves.

Then after the auction was my speech. Kids like to chant things likes the names of sports teams and what school they are from-- that is what I learned today. I started my speech by calling out, "What's up Detroit? Home of the Pistons!" They went crazy. Chanting and screaming back! Then screaming, "Detroit! Home of the Tigers!" They went nuts screaming back.

And then it went sour as soon as I pulled out my speech and started reading from it.

The very moment I started to read, I watched as half of them slouched down deep into their seats and closed their eyes. Unbelievable. They didn't even try to listen. I think as soon as they saw me whip out the paper, they said to themselves, "Ok, pep rally is over, it's time to sleep."

I tried to not take it personally, and kept reading. And reading. And reading. Even as kids started to talk to each other, laugh at things that weren't funny and snore at things that I meant to be funny. I was lame, and I wouldn't do anything about it except let my lameness stretch. Students began to get up and leave and I kept trudging through the script.

Did I really write a 10 page speech? Oh my god. This wasn't a speech, it was a lullabye.

Anyway, one of the conference coordinators finally snuck onto stage to tell me I was 20 minutes over. So I just thought: Thank god. And I cut the speech off 3 pages early and said to the kids, "Ok, and that is why I hope you go to college and find yourself."

Ugh, I just wanted to be held after. All the high school students were so nice to my face, but I know they were thinking, "What the heck?!" Some of the coordinators tried to comfort me and said, "Thanks for coming though" and "Well, it's ok, you aren't used to working with high school students right?"

The craziest thing is they cheered and screamed their heads off when the speech was done. Probably because it was a place for them to scream in the speech.

If the number of Detroit Asian kids who apply for college drops dramatically this year, it's on my head.

Yikes!

Kristina

Here I am putting the kids to sleep. Well, at least I think I'm funny.

Don't ask me what I'm wearing. It looked good in the hotel room. This was my way to get the kids on "their level."