I have a new favorite website... REGRETSY.com.... They basically take the most tasteless craft offerings on Etsy and rip them a new buttonhole. I laughed out loud at the above item they found for sale. I'm afraid my sadass yoga bag from a pair of pants will hit their list should I ever try to sell it.

I also appreciated their commentary on this plastic bag holder that looks eerily like a Wilt Chamberlain flaccid penis. Not that I know...

It was a half-assed Halloween. I was a doctor for Halloween (or as I like to say, "My family's wet dream"). Seeing as that I am a living breathing year-round Halloween, I was so out of ideas on what costume to take on to the point that I contemplated doing what most adult women acting out on their unaddressed daddy issues do....stripping down to my underwear and saying it's a costume. But even that seemed too exhausting.

It was suggested to me: "Why don't you wear that crazy cop costume from Cuckoo's Nest"?

(I almost puked at the thought of having to wear a costume from a show.)

It was also suggested to me: "Put a fake penis in your pants and tell people you are Kristina Wong!"

(Bleh... That's so obvious...)

So I put on some scrubs and a lab coat. I don't know why I own such things, but I do.

I am in super turbo mode trying to crank out massive amounts of content in a very short amount of time. I basically am getting my ass handed to me from Nov 10-15 when I'm to crank out 4 different shows in like five days in two cities. I'm still riding the adrenaline from doing five original shows in New York across five days. I feel like I can still output at that level. As exhausted as I am.

Somewhere between all of this I caught this interview with porn starlet Jesse Jane (it was feminist research... I swear...) who describes how she has branded herself and creates a demand through "exclusive" appearances.



I got it all wrong it seems. Unlike Jesse Jane, I don't do just 6 or 7 contract films a year and then pick 6 or 7 clubs to exclusively appear at to make thousands of thousands of dollars. I'm like running around to every small and large theater across town, dropping my art pants for whoever will show up. And don't get me started on how insane my gigs are during API Heritage Month... that's like me trying to set some kind of gang bang record.

Nope. I've not been too good at the whole "aura of exclusivity" thing. It's like, I'm an amateur porn star who makes movies with a crap home camera, then uploads them for free on xtube.

Oh Jesse Jane, the art world has so much to learn from you.

Labels: artist life., crafty, crazy, crochet, crochet diy, losing my mind in los angeles, uck you, vacation?

Ok, I know I've been blogging a lot. But now that I feel somewhat less spooked I can write about this. Basically. There's a ghost in this house. This has been confirmed by the Director. It's the grandma of the guy who built this house in 1907. And during some seance they had way back when, she said she was happy with how this house is now being used. And she's friendly. And her presence has been confirmed by the board. I wish she would help me kill these roaches and write the novel. But it's creeping me out a bit. I think this only happened this week with the advent of the roaches takeover which has made me ultra antsy. Though tonight, there was only one tiny roach and a big roach that ran back into the walls when I came in for the kill.

I am not one to "feel" ghosts. But I feel this one. I can't describe it. But I'll be brushing my teeth and it's clear I'm not alone.

I'm beginning to feel like Sarah Winchester.

So I'm on this totally nocturnal schedule. Where in my freakouts, I am wide awake at night staying up with the ghost and the roaches. Doing computer work. And all sorts of weird crap happens. Like frogs inexplicably appear and throw themselves against the window and breathe. Floorboards creek.

So I'm slowly moving back to a regular sleep schedule. Because being up late at night, I know, can bring this out in a person. Delirium. Cabin Fever.

On a bright note. Here are some video blogs I made right before sunset.


Me talking about how much I love Obama kissing babies.



A tour of the Manasota Key.



This is really bad.



If you were wondering how I am progressing with work.



I made this for my friend Double G who says stuff that sounds psychotic if you say it back slower and more breathy.

Labels: crazy, Obama is hot

New Crafts
I haven't been knitting much lately if you have figured it out from the blog. It's been nicer on my wrists and now I don't feel like I'm going to have carpal tunnel by age 30. I brought much of my yarn stash up to my parent's house where it's hiding much to their chagrin. I'll knit again, but for now I'm taking a breather. I am making a lot of these felt dolls though. I can stitch a doll up in about 40 minutes while watching TV. They make nice thank you gifts. Here's a stash I made for folks in Miami and at CBS.



I make them out of reclaimed felt and the stuffing is from an old pillow. Yay for green crafts!

Cuckoo's Nest
I am in Santa Barbara tonight staying at the "Faculty Club"-- the campus accommodations. I have a show tomorrow. Yay! What a great way to spend Chinese New Year-- talking about suicide and depression! It's been about four months since I've last done Cuckoo's Nest and I swear it's a lot harder for me now than it was a few months ago. It is beginning to feel like a pair of pants I've outgrown. A lot has to do with the great reality that the depression/mental illness topic doesn't seem as impossibly elusive to me as it first was when I was trying to tackle the show. Also, I've done the show so much that it's sometimes unreal to me. I also don't knit as obsessively as I once did, and my body is changing.

So Nurit and I have been reworking parts of the script, finding more places to tighten and slice.
It's fun when we figure out those moments. It keeps it fresh.


New Show
Even though I swore I wouldn't make any more performance art shows that were a pain in the ass to tour, I've been dreaming up a new show that will be a pain in the ass to tour. I'm working very slowly on a new piece tentatively titled "The Cat Lady" which will be about being a cat lady, pick up artists, dry humping, reality tv, Ross Dress for Less and look at bigger issues of human isolation. I imagine now having newspaper cat sculptures all over the stage that I talk to intimately.

Yeah, not autobiographical or anything.

I'm actually not interested right now in touring it or thinking too big about what I'll do with it. For once, I want to make a show for myself that is not overtly save-the-world-esque, is not aimed at furthering my career, and instead, is really for me and nobody else. I think touring Cuckoo's Nest for my livelihood has turned this "love of theater" into a whole other monster. Artmaking becomes so different when you rely on it to pay the bills.

I want "The Cat Lady" to be my return to what I love about my craft. An exercise in having fun as an artist. Not that Cuckoo's Nest wasn't fun! It was just really stressful to take on such a nutso issue for a show.

I just hope it isn't career suicide to expend energy and time on a piece that may have zero financial returns. If anything, will just cost money to make! But I really don't care tell you the truth. And I have faith that I'll be fine.

I didn't become an artist to be rich. Right?


Barack-- His middle name is Hussein?
Yay Kristina Wong for coming late to the party. I kept reading "Barack Hussein Obama" on blogs and stuff and just assumed that it was just people being racist a-holes-- but YO! That's really his middle name!

I think Super Tuesday really stunned me in how awesome Americans can be. For some reason I just assumed that most of Middle America was racist and ignorant, but maybe not so much if they are voting for Obama.

My boy Barack took Utah? And all sorts of other states where I never thought they'd ever consider a black president! And the whole "Hussein"/ Muslim connection of his name that you'd think would bother the most ignorant of Americans, has obviously not affected his numbers.

It gives me faith again in Americans... maybe we aren't as stupid as we seem!

How great it will be to hear that name "Barack Hussein Obama" when he takes the presidential oath. To see a black man, mixed race, who didn't come from money, a new generation of leadership take the white house.

It really truly will be the America we've been waiting for.

Labels: cat lady, cat pee, crafty, crazy, Obama is hot, sex is unnecessary when you have yarn., the pick up artist

my show opened last night to a packed house and i felt like i was on auto pilot. it wasn't my best, that's for sure. no, not my worst either.

i can't sleep. i've awake for hours listening to the traffic in the street outside my window. i think i heard a car crash a few hours back.

why am i doing this again with my life?

and now, i have to do two more shows today?

i want to cry. i'm so tired. i'm just so so tired.

Labels: crazy