I emerge from my blogging silence in a hotel room in Tulsa, OK where the short version of the story is I had a helluva week. The long version of this week is reserved for a shrink's couch or tell-all autobiography. But in short, I'm no longer the nauseous home-buying mess that I was in LA. I'm feeling much better. I'm ready to face the world again when I close escrow in mid-March and enter life as a mortgage paying slave.

That is, if I can ever get home. I'm on the road for another week so I can pay for said new home. I head to New York tomorrow where my friend Ann, who was a recently eliminated contestant on a VH1 dating show is having me out to her school to do a lecture and performance! I know people in high places!


Contrary to popular belief, I did not "get killed" here in the Bible Belt. It is my first time in Oklahoma and I was so happy to be welcomed with these big banners downtown where my receding gums were on the display for the whole city to see!

Oklahoma is not a bunch of people in overalls and no shoes standing in fields with guns! They are people who love theater!


I did a public egomaniac dance in the street.


I took this picture of me on the festival posters on "Cherry Street" and a woman inside this studio ran out into the street after me screaming, "Are you the girl on the poster?"


The shows went so well. Some people asked me before I left, "Are there enough Asian women in Tulsa to come to your show?" And my response was, "I don't need an audience of only Asian women! White people love me!"

Kristina Wong is the new black! And Tulsa came out to my show! Only one older Asian woman came to my show. She was very sweet. An older Asian woman who put $5 in a Chinese New Year envelope and during the pre-show walked onto the stage and whispered, "Miss Wong? Happy New Year" and put it in my lap.

I never got to thank her. So I just wanted to let that lady know THANK YOU. It was very touching. THANK YOU!


Before Saturday's show we went to Pawhuska, an hour from Tulsa to check out the Bison.


It was like a road safari. We were able to see the Bison from the car. Many of them were just 20 feet from the road. Bison eat and shit in the same place-- what many would liken to a "workplace romance."


I avoided stepping on Bison pie! I have the rest of my life to step in shit.

Bedtime! Eastward ho!

Labels: rednecks, road wong

From the snow to the desert. I am in the Grady Gammage theater right now and there are like 12 crew people setting up the stage for me. Oh no wait... they are BUILDING a stage for me. JESUS! Is this really my life? The show is almost sold out and I've never even been here before. My name shows up on advertisements next to Mary Poppins which also plays here. The talk I'm giving tonight will have like 80 people there.

I give talks in different classes every day and someone from ASU picks me up and drops me by. And they ask me what I'd like to drink and bring it for me. After having sat in the woods fighting my humidifier, and wondering if I am really an artist or not, I can't believe the fanfare here. I can't believe this is my awesome life.

Nine years ago, I wrote my first solo show and was scraping by making a living on ebay. I was playing whatever venue would have me. Now I have all these crew people here setting up a stage for my show. I am selling out cities I've never been to before. I feel like a rock star.

(A non-profit rock star.)

Labels: artist life, road wong

The trails of Space Shuttle Endeavor as seen from New Smyrna Beach.

It's my last full day at this three-week residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and it's been a full and idea-filled three weeks but I must say, I am ready to go home.


I'm bug eaten, 10 pounds heavier, attempted to watch the shuttle launch twice before a real lift-off, and I've not gotten much of my own creative work done. I've seen so much craziness that if I don't get a grip on reality soon, I may start smoking crack. I also randomly started work on a screenplay... which is kind of in a swirl now but if I get the time to keep working on it, it should look pretty good.

Everyone here is running around with cameras, projectors, or big messy props... and I found myself focused inward and just focusing on getting writing done. This particular residency is very active and distracting because we're made up of solo performers and performance artists (very needy and need attention), video artists (very nerdy and need space), and experimental composers (very noisy and need noise).

I think I said the best line this week is when I asked the master artist-in-residence, experimental composer Mark Applebaum: "So when reviewing work samples, how do you distinguish bad experimental composition from VERY bad experimental compostion?"

(Relax folks, he laughed.)

It's a group that knows no conventions or rules. And there's trash everywhere that people are using for their projects. I have just relinquished my hoarding ways in this move to Silverlake, so it's hard to watch so many of these artists accumulate so much crap for use in their work. A few artists drove from across the country so they could have their cars handy to drive to stores to buy things for projects and drag the stuff they make back home. The thrift stores here are insane (imagine how many retirees are dropping dead every second in Florida and the stuff they leave behind). I don't want to become a walking Sanford and Son again, so now when I travel, I purposely pack small carry-on sized bags to prevent accumulation.


One of the locals agrees to be a kitschy prop for my photo.

Tonight, we're putting on a showing of our works-in-progress for what will probably be about 30 residents in the local community and it's turning into a full on carnival of video projections and walk through performances. Chaos everywhere and I'm not sure how many of the artists (including myself) will get to see each others' work. I've opted to do something I never do in performance situations-- scale the f*ck down. I'm doing a five minute character based scene that I'll perform alone. With no props, no projections, no audience interaction, and no signature overhead projector. For the first time in my entire life, I feel like the most simple and conventional artist of the entire lot. Next thing you know I'll be doing hokey one person multi-character shows where I educate people about diversity and how we're all the same inside. ("There's only one race folks. Human.")

My project tonight is modest. I am having folks audition to be "the pick up artist" and I'll possibly use the footage to be part of my development for CAT LADY. I have scripts from pick-up artist instruction manuals that people will read on-camera like audition sides. Just borrowing a camera, tripod, etc is becoming a ridiculous ordeal. There are some people here who know how to sodder machines together to make movement sensitive lights. I can't even find a freaking tripod for my fake audition.


Last night Brian Feldman (Think of him as Orlando, FL's balder, broker, and more brilliant version of David Blaine, if David Blaine didn't actually have magic powers but just an intense need to put himself in strange situations for long stretches of time) started yet another project here. He decided to jump for 24 straight hours in the amphitheater. Mind you, it's Florida in the Summer so the amphitheater is full of bugs, very humid, and lonely.

Why would someone do something so seemingly organ-failure inducing?

Well, duh, because he was trying to enact the situation from an obscure film created by an Italian filmmaker who was in residence here 10 years ago. In that obscure film, the artist describes jumping up and down for 24 hours straight. He didn't actually do this in real life, but for the plot of the film, he does. So Brian thought he'd reference it using the same area of the compound as the Italian artist.

It seemed very amusing and like it might be fun to watch Brian hopping up and down at 4am. But I guess we (well, mostly he he) did not factor in that staying up 24 hours straight causes delirium and for even the most motivated of artists, is a task that is not actually physically possible. Even with breaks (especially if you have not slept the night before), it's completely and totally physically dangerous and could cause death.

At lunch before Brian started, I became concerned. Brian was carbing up with wet noodles and bread. Add to all of this... Brian is a vegan too-- yes, that's right, a vegan jumping non-stop for 24 hrs (Eat your heart out drunk guy who lost his arm when he went swimming in a swamp of alligators) ! Brian was eating with his bare hands. He was shaking and his eyes were flittering back and forth-- he hadn't slept the night before because he was working so hard on preparing for this piece.

I normally am so embroiled in my nutsy productions that I can't help do production for other people, but I found myself saying to him, "Ok, please dude, let me help you. " I bought him VHS tapes at Walmart so he could document the jumping on this old camcorder for two hours at a time. Mind you, I just shed dozens of new VHS tapes at last month's yard sale, so having to buy more was heartbreaking. Brian had no money, so I just bought them for him, and now he says I have full rights to the work. (Yay, I'm rich?)

PTA Mom of performance art, I also helped Dawn Weleski sew her costume. She's another one of the artists who is doing 6 million things while she is here. Her project is her going around dressed as Dr. Andrew Turnbull, the founder of New Smyrna Beach, FL and doing historical re-enactments of his journey in public areas around the city. She got kicked out of the Publix but for some reason, the people at the local pub took to her quite well.

Here's Dawn as Dr. Turnbull at a bar telling the locals about her contributions to New Smyrna Beach.



When we returned to the compound at 1am, I became very concerned about Brian who had been jumping for over five hours. He was clutching his stomach saying that he was cramping, and a few times would kneel in ways that looked like he was collapsing. I'd scream, "Brian! Brian!" And he'd get up and say, "Don't take a picture of this!" And give his minimum jump per minute.



The fans were blowing on either side of him, it was hard for him to hear, plus he was delirious, and he was wearing sunglasses (as the actor does in the film being referenced in the piece). I'd scream, "Brian, you don't have to do this all night." And he'd mutter, "No, I can keep doing this" and punctuate it with a very sickly jump.

I imagined us at 4am, someone coming to check on Brian, him collapsed on a pedastal. And us having to explain to the paramedic:

"Ok, so what happened here? He looks exhausted, malnourished and he's balding."

"Listen, he wanted to jump up and down for 24 hours straight. I guess he had already been doing it for 7 hours before he collapsed."

"Why was he jumping up and down so long? Is he mentally ill?"

"No mentally ill people aren't as theatrically lit and thoroughly self-documented as Brian is. This was art."

"It was art?"

"You see, he was trying to re-enact this fake performance in the video."

"You mean like kids who jump out of windows so they can fly like TV superheroes?"

"Yes, but in a post post meta way, yes."

It was turning very quickly into a bad sitcom. He was smelling of sweat from 25 feet away. He was clutching his stomach in pain. He was wobbling. It was at first amusing to watch, then exhausting, then worrisome.

I pulled Heather aside and said, "We can't let this continue. This is seriously a lawsuit waiting to happen. I was shaking watching him. He's going to die. If I have to throw him over my shoulder and tie him into a bed I will."

And then I thought, hmmm... maybe this is what Brian wanted. It wasn't art. It was getting women to fetch him fans and water to cool him down, to update his twitter for him, and insist with sweet coddling voices, "Please Brian Feldman, go to bed. Please we need you to go to bed."



The women gathered round him. And after what was apparently, quite an intervention, and a lot of reasoning that "Yes Brian, it's still art, even if it wasn't for 24 full hours," he was coaxed to bed.

After speculation at lunch that he might be dead, I am happy to report that Brian Feldman is alive and scheming. And he's planning to resume jumping as people arrive for tonight's festivities. And next week that crazy SOB plans to stay inside a Vegan restaurant in Orlando (what may be up to five days) until he's eaten every item off the menu. This means he will be sleeping and passing waste in the same space 600 square feet until he's eaten every dish they offer.

This can only illuminate the Vegan lifestyle.


Tonight, we are singing a duet of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" as part of his redux of "Under the Covers"... the site-specific cabaret in his room where all the singing is done under the sheets.


And then I get to go home.

Oh! I'm counting down.

Labels: artist life., rednecks, road wong

My legs look straight out of a medical textbook.

This week was long and went by fast. I definitely had a moment mid-week where I was homesick for Los Angeles. (What?!) There's a reason why people who move from out of state to Los Angeles go on and on about "how great the LA weather is." With the absence of seasons in Los Angeles also comes the wonderful absence of mosquitos. I am reminded quickly that in every other city in the world must deal with the reality of flesh eating bugs.

This week was rough on me, I couldn't sleep a couple nights because I was so bitten. I'd wake up at 4am, rub any and all of the offerings at CVS for bug bites, pass out, and wake up again to itching. I have also not been able to get the exercise I normally get in LA because there are so many bugs out here it's a whole process of spraying intense amounts of deet on and still getting bit when you walk out.

In this week alone, my legs have provided the sustenence to singlehandedly double the population of NO-SEE-UMs here at New Smyrna Beach (see photo above).


On Tuesday, a beekeeper came by and talked to us about honeybees. There's a hive here at the residency. It's quite fascinating. Honeybees are dying out! Pesticides is one reason. Also, people aren't getting into the beekeeping profession the way they used to. Though there is a resurgence of independent beekeepers. There are hobbyist beekeepers who have bee colonies on their rooftops in New York City.

He gave us plastic spoons to take bites of pure honey in the honeycomb. It was so delicious.

The story of the honey bees is perhaps an allegory for migration, greed, and working together. But I couldn't tell you why. Too complicated for this blog.


After his talk we went over to the hives at the ACA compound but unfortunately, there were no bees there because some beetles who are not native to Florida had eaten all the bee larvae.

It was kind of anti-climatic to come out after his lecture and look at empty and deserted honeycombs.

He was talking more about how bad pesticides were for the bees and at that moment the No-see-ums were totally feasting on my thighs, I wanted to squirt down with bug spray right then but felt the moment wasn't appropriate because he was going on and on about how bad chemicals are. As a result, I ended up with very itchy, very hot swollen and bug eaten legs.


This is New Smyrna Beach. The big deal with the beaches from here to Daytona is you can drive your car right on the sand. For some reason the sand is wet and packed flat which keeps the cars from sinking in. The flat wet sand is annoying to put your blanket on because the towel gets wet fast, and when you pick up your blanket to go home, there's algae growing under there! The joys of moisture.


My fancy lady artists friends hit the beach.


On Tuesday, we cancelled the workshop to watch MJ's memorial. It was pretty surreal that the entire country/world was focused on this ceremony. I found the whole thing pretty fascinating. Talk about your use of euphemisms and generous verbal editing!

We were all in tears when Paris Jackson, the daughter so shielded from the press, took the mic, and screamed how much she would miss her father. It was real. Three children who now don't have parents. I found it so ironic that all her family could do was coach her into the mic and groom her hair. Showbiz family instincts.

When it was over, I asked aloud, "So can we go back to the American past time of ridiculing famous people until they die unexpectedly and then we feel bad and miss them?"


My new favorite artist is ACA Associate Artist-in-Residence Brian Feldman who perhaps is Orlando's answer to "What else you got besides Disney World? And for cheap?"

Brian does endurance and site-specific performance. Stuff I wish I could do more of. As it is, doing the stuff that you can charge people tickets for is a stressful enough way to make a living. So there's only so much 24 hour ladder jumping or 8 hour newspaper reading that I can imagine doing before I am thrown in complete financial peril. My hats off to the artists like Brian who execute every crazy and brilliant idea that comes to them.

He owns a portable marquee which is so smart for what he does. An instant theater in every space! Even a bedroom!


His show was a site-specific cabaret called "Under the Covers." Basically, he sang songs by request with a live accompanist all from underneath his blankets. It came from a dream he had the first night he was here and genius that he is, he turned it into real life. I was in awe and hysterics the entire time and told him that when he comes to LA, he is welcome to perform in my bedroom!!! (Shut up you wiseguys!)


Eli is son of Master artist Carol Kim. He is 5 years old and announced at lunch that he was holding a robot drawing contest at dinner and that there would be a prize for the first and second best drawings. It was so charming and probably the first time we had been galvanized as a whole to produce creative work on the fly. He produced and juried the competition. We found ourselves all drawing robots. It was so seemingly low pressure but I was struck with the need to win. I snuck glances at everyone else's drawing to borrow robot features I might have forgotten.


This is Eli on the left and Chris (the winner) on the right. The prize was a "crane/blaster" made of plastic tape, paper, and plastic knives.


My drawing is on the right. I tried to pull Eli's heartstrings by naming the robot after him (the "Eli-tron 2000") and I presented the only 2-headed robot. In one hand, ice cream! In the other, a $100 bill. But the kid was not bribed nor swayed by my amazing drawing. I didn't place.

Last night we went down to Daytona Beach which can best be described to Miami what Jersey is to New York City. We're going again tonight. White trash anthropology at its finest.

Labels: artist life, road wong

No, it's not my new boyfriend. Nor a local... well, yes a local, but a local artist named Brian Feldman who is also in residence here at Atlantic Center for the Arts. He's in costume because we all went to see the race at Daytona. His work is brilliant. In fact, today he hosted a 10 hour hot dog eating contest. I would be competing... but... read below at my agony...

Last year at this time, I was wandering around the Manasota Key (on another artist residency) with Larry the Cracker (an older fella with a confederate flag hat who taught me to fish). We watched the fireworks go off, said goodbye, and then I ran back into the artist residency house and locked both locks of the door.

This 4th of July, I celebrate my independence by working for the umpteenth day in a row on a grant application. Oh yes, and watching the clip of Sarah Palin recite that run-on sentence from yesterday for a live audience of seven. (WTF?!)

I want to run about with the other artists, but unfortunately, I gotta lock in the dough.


Here is the view I have from my laptop, chained to miserable narrative questions.




But on a brighter note! Here's my report from yesterday's trek to Daytona....



Last night we got tickets from the Chef who works here to go to Daytona 250 to watch cars go by. We had to buy two tickets from scalpers so the six of us could all get in. The value of each ticket was $60! But we only had to pay $60 for the extra two tickets.


Let's just say this auto racing shit is the armpit of masculinity. I don't get it. I learned that the number after the race (in this case "250") is not the combined IQ of the stadium but it means how many miles the cars go around. Yes! There is seriously a subculture where thousands of people gather to watch cars drive 250 miles. This race takes HOURS. We were at the top of the stands and it was friggin loud. We didn't stay til the end. After the obligatory gawking at the locals and trying to wait it out for the fireworks, we trudged back home.

We stopped at a bikini bar called "Bottoms Up" that's near our compound. It was standard depressing fare but as curious visitors we had to see the dredgery for ourselves. There is a 23 year old artist named Chris from Wisconsin who is here. Poor thing is a vanilla cupcake and was freaking out and processing out loud with me about how he felt like he was "feeding the patriarchy."

I handed him a dollar and said, "Dude. Just give this to the dancer and help her pay the rent."



Here I was earlier in the week giving a presentation on my entire life's work. I had five minutes to do it. I put on my nice dress for it. It went over ok.

Ok, back to begging.

Labels: artist life, road wong

Here's a quick tour of my new Silverlake home as seen through the eyes of Oliver. Check out Oliver's sexy gold collar which I hope will keep him from getting misplaced among the raccoons of Silverlake (and by "raccoons," I don't mean the hipsters).


The new view from my home office overlooking the hills of Silverlake and a glimpse of the big giant deck. The days go by a little slower and the sunlight from three windows has been so much better for my health. And now when the sun goes down and not enough work gets done, I only bawl like a crazy person, not like a maniac.


The bathtub in the bathroom. There is a separate shower and bathtub! Note that the duffel bag filled with my setpieces is stored in the bathtub. I have about 1/3 the closet space I did before.


The full kitchen and a shot of Oliver's cornhole. For some reason, there's more storage in the kitchen than anywhere else in the house, so my old journals and pictures are stashed in the cupboards.


The separate craft area! I previously did crafts on top of my computer table and loose threads and buttons would mix themselves into my paperwork. Finally! A hobby station where I can sew my own costumes and props! Also, check out my new sewing machine which I will have to own for the rest of my life because it cost an Indiana mortgage payment! A limited edition Project Runway Brother sewing machine!

Before I got Oliver out of West LA he was spraying repeatedly in the bed, in my luggage, It was my cat lady swan song.

I thought for half a second of leaving him behind... I was prepared to flip the mattress and wash the sheets again and again in Silverlake. I bought cat pheremones to spray in the house which supposedly calm a cat down (because it makes them think they already sprayed there... yes... lovely). I bought white vinegar to neutralize the smell. I even arranged to have the cat psychic talk to Oliver (through me) to prep him for the move (she was on vacay and couldn't do an appointment...).

But he's totally gotten into our new Silverlake digs. He's chilled out and mellow. And as far as I can SMELL, no accidents. Perhaps in hipsterville, my cat lady days are numbered?

It was kind of a wonderful thing to see Oliver leave West LA for the first time in his whole life. I put him in a mesh laundry hamper and sat in the backseat with him as my cousin drove us down the freeway towards Silverlake. Watching Oliver react to all these new things must have been how that woman in Austria felt when she and her kids were released from their basement dungeon her father put them in (minus the incest and having seven kids by her father and living with no natural sunlight in absolute hell for 25 years). Oliver was scared, but also very curious of the freeway and of his new home, of trees (not just West LA palm trees, which I guess count as trees) and the sounds of birds, of sunlight streaming in. I finally live in a home that I'm not embarassed to have guests over at. Even with the truckloads of boxes still in the living room, I feel I can still show people the place.

I write you now from the Atlantic Center for the Arts where I am on a three week artist residency. This residency lands me as last year's did-- off the coast of Florida, this time on the EAST Coast. The bugs haven't been as cruel as they were last summer. And rather than drink myself into a stupor as the only artist-in-residence, there are about 27 people here who can join me in "drunkeness-as-artistic-process." It's quite amazing. Unfortunately, I have a grant application to finish up the first few days that I am here, but after that, I can tear back into the projects that I've neglected in this move. Including "Cat Lady"-- the new show that I just got a MAPFUND grant to work on!



The view from my cottage. It's a jungle out there filled with bugs, birds, and lizards. I exclaimed last night, "Wow! It sounds just like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland!"

One thing I've noticed, the artists here are all very young. I've grown accustomed to feeling like the youngest person in the room in other settings, but some of these folks look like they just finished their undergrad. I hear over and over again that studies have found a lot of practicing artists stop making work past 40. Is the demographic here indicative of that truth?


My unmade bed.

I'm wondering why I've not applied sooner to be here. This place is amazing. We get 24 hour access to studios and libraries, our own cottages with bathroom, we get fed, and we're not obligated to produce any final work, just be artists and soak in the process of being around other artists and doing our work.

I think of Oliver and our new home. I see myself here given full permission to create work, and I wonder how it was I went so long in my 20s living in such abject post college conditions.

I toast to the steamy sundown here in Florida with cheap booze in my hands, sticky with sweat and bug spray. I still have to raise a ton of money to get Cat Lady (the new show) made and have yet to piece together enough touring shows in 2009 to make a living wage... but yes! Here I am in Florida! Treated like royalty? Well more like a summer camp for artists.... but good enough!

Finally, I get to live up my life as a non-profit Britney Spears. Kristina Wong, you have arrived.

Labels: Moving to Silverlake, road wong

There's a lot going on now.  

Labels: Moving to Silverlake, road wong

My set gets filthier by the city.

Congratulate me. I have survived yet another Asian Pacific Islander Nervous Breakdown Month. (Technically, it is in May, but schools get out in May, so it if often pushed to April). Yes! The month in which my heritage is "celebrated" with Kristina Wong's arrival to various campuses also coincides with when schools finally get it together to spend what funds they procrastinated on spending earlier in the year.

It's been slow for all my artist friends, so I was very very grateful for April this year. And yet, I wasn't actually being programmed as part of API Heritage Month, I was just being programmed.

I returned to Los Angeles last week, but I have yet to unpack. My apartment looks ransacked and I have yet to get back on schedule. Yep, welcome back to your normal life of chaos Kristina.

Three cities in three and a half weeks. Chicago, New York City, and Minneapolis.

I learned a lot during my travels this month. These lessons in short:

1. I will never fly to Minneapolis from New York City on ATA again (they stop in Atlanta which turns a two hour flight into a six hour flight) and they have all of two inches between rows. When I finally got to Minneapolis, I passed out in the hotel, woke up not knowing what time it was, my phone rang, and I started crying like a startled baby because I was so disoriented.

2. I am happiest when I am working (and being renumerated), making art, and helping others make their art. I get sad when these three things are not in place in my life. So all I want in my life is a constant influx of these three things, and I will be happy.

3. I still got it. And I always will got it. And I can never forget that I got it.

Chicago was the first city of this April whoring stint. I woke up the second night that I arrived and didn't know where I was.

It happens so often from all the travel that I don't panic anymore. This time when it happened, I pulled the sheets closer to me as my brain calculated:

"Ok, Kristina. You're not at home. Are you in Los Angeles? No. You aren't in Los Angeles because this isn't your apartment. And there's nobody next to you, is there? Nope, so you didn't get lucky last night which definitely means you aren't in Los Angeles. Ok, you are definitely in some city in America. Well, this isn't a hotel room. It's too small. It's a dorm. Oh, that's right, you are in Chicago. You are in Chicago at the University of Chicago where you are an artist-in-residence!"


The University of Chicago didn't have any theater spaces available on campus to present the show. The only option was the non-denominational Rockerfeller Chapel on campus. (But really, can a cathedral architected in the shape of a cross actually be considered "non-denominational"?). So yes, I did the show in a church that was completely unedited. Talk about a one-way ticket to hell.

It was definitely not the easiest space to work in. It was a nightmare focusing lights during the day because we couldn't get the sun to turn off long enough to see where our lights were focused. We had to run all the sound cues off a dying boombox with a lavelier propped next to it.

After I did a two minute orgasm in the first 20 minutes of the show, one guy walked out. I can only imagine he headed straight to the confessional to tell of what sin he witnessed.

Still, I would say it went well enough. I was surprised journalist Paula Kamen who was a college friend of Iris Chang showed up on her own to my show. She wrote a book looking at Iris' death, and gave me a signed copy. I'd read about her book and totally knew who she was once she introduced herself.

I spent the rest of my trip reading the book and finally finished it when I came back to Los Angeles. This trip was rough at points, but when I read the first chapter and was brought back to the details of Iris' life and tragic death, I cried and oddly, felt grounded again. It's easy to forget that the reason people in cities all over the country come to my show. Because the topic intrigues them, and because beyond all of my theatrics, this show came from a real place.

On the Saturday morning, hours after my show, I woke up at 3:30am to catch a 6am flight to New York City (Thank you says my body). When I arrived, I had a few hours to prepare for hosting the showcase at the Asian American Student Conference at NYU. I was at my friend Jessica's place in Brooklyn peeling through what odds and ends of costumes I had brought. Because of these new airline baggage limits, I could only bring odds and ends of various costumes and actually didn't have complete concepts for characters down.

When I got to NYU, the students asked me to host their quiz bowl. That had to be the strangest, funniest, off-the-cuff performance in the world. It was a five teams of three kids each using those press-on lights from the dollar store as their low tech game show buzzers, and I was calling out questions like it was World Wide Wrestling.

Imagine me bellowing into a mic while standing on a chair: "And the correct answer for 'who was the author or Orientalism'... Edward SAID!!!!!! You answered WRRRRRROOOOONNNNGGGG!!!!!"

The kids got so into it. Even from the audience they were jumping up and down in their seats whispering excitedly what the right answers were to themselves. And I really credit my own earnest overdramatic hosting of the event for how well it all went over.



Because I didn't actually pack full costumes to the show, I had to improvise with what I brought. So I created a new character named "Kristina Kamikaze, Tila Tequila's taller and also bisexual sister." I wore my pajamas, used safety pins to give it shape, and shoved a tote bag in my butt. It was fun and a hit.

Then 48 hours later, I was off to Minneapolis to do a two and a half week residency at Pangea World Theater. Can I stress AGAIN how I will never fly ATA, or at least try to save a few bucks by doing the flight that stops in ATLANTA?!


Some of my favorite friends in Minneapolis include Nadine and her husband Michael. Nadine I met completely by accident. She sent me some books off of my Amazon wishlist, along with a nice note, and I gave her a call to thank her. As it turns out we were linked by arts groups and were only separated by a couple of degrees by other artists we knew.

When I was in Minneapolis last June at the Asian American Theater Conference, Nadine and Michael took me and my friend Sam to the Mall of America. They told us about their extensive collection of board games. They have thousands of board games including weird ones like the "Spiro T. Agnew American History Challenge Game." I never thought about the phenomenom of board games until I saw their extensive collection in their basement. Board games to point to our American obsessions of "winning" and sometimes reveal specific moments of history and even problematic conceptions of race. See below...


And here's another gem from their collection. No, you don't need to be Chinese to play Chop Suey. But it's ok if you are a douche wearing a child's cop hat.

One day when I become a middle aged married white couple living in a nice modest house in the Midwest, I too will find something to obsessively hoard. Oh wait, I am just looking at my yarn collection in the corner of my office. Well, I guess I have found something to hoard. I'm getting over yarn. It's been almost a year since I've really knit or crocheted anything. I guess it really was a biproduct of my obsessing over making my show. And the sad thing is that much of this collection, I have already hidden up at my parents' house in San Francisco.



They put us up in these hotel apartments in Downtown Minneapolis. And we finally checked out what they call the big shameful eyesore of Downtown-- a three story building called "Sex World" which boasts the title of largest sex store in the Midwest. Yes, there is a 12 foot gold penis you can ride. No, I won't post pictures of me with it.

The run in Minneapolis was wildly successful. Standing ovations every night. Post show discussions that were intelligent and sensitive. A few people who came up to me and told me that the show changed their life. It was so gratifying and humbling.

When people asked what my impressions were of Minneapolis, I could only say the same thing over and over again: "This town really has surprised me."

If you don't know, Minneapolis has some of the greatest per capita spending on the arts. So a lot of amazing artists flock there and the audiences are pretty cultured. I visited my friends who live in an artists loft. And surprisingly, it's actually artist friendly. It's not like in Los Angeles where "artist loft" really means, "Overpriced dump downtown that no artist can actually afford." My friends, Katie and Katie pay about $1100 total for this totally fancy artist loft with access to rehearsal space, kilns, community rooms and a rooftop garden.

Folks were trying to convince me to move out there for a couple years so I could apply for the Bush and McKnight grants. I told them I need to prepare myself for the Minnesota winter first.



When I went for a look at the Best Yarn Store in Minneapolis (above), I not only found a creepy Asian mannequin but the ladies there were like, "Oh hey! Are you the one doing that show this weekend?"

I was all flattered that they recognized me just from the postcard, and then realized that I had my name on a sticker on my dress.

The biggest highlight of my trip was looking out into the audience the last night and seeing one of the Asian students from the high school matinee (the high school audience was so saavy!) had returned to see the show again! And brought five friends with her, also Asian. That was definitely one of those moments where I saw myself in high school and realized that beyond all the bullshit of being "post meta post meta" in grant applications... that there was a reason I came to doing this work. That it has importance, that I am good at it, that people connect to what I'm doing and their lives are changed for the better because of it.

I'm feeling much better as an artist. I feel inspired. And it was nice to have a few weeks to not have to panic about the economy. Sure, when I came back home there was a rejection letter waiting for me for a 10K grant I've gotten the last four years (due to City budget cuts, not a lack of merit thank you very much). I was reminded this last tour that I'm really good at what I do. That people's lives can be made better by what I have made from nothing. And nobody can take that pride from me (but they can unfortunately, yank my money from me.)

I'm not a trust fund baby. I don't get handouts from my parents (I don't condemn those who do, more power to you!). I built this life from scratch on willpower and a dream. When those audiences filled with strangers who stood and applauded show after show, I knew and could accept finally, that I've been doing something so right to keep on dreaming.

I am proud of myself.

Labels: road wong

Greetings from the International House Dorm at the University of Chicago. I'm the artist-in-residence at the University all week. So far I've done such official things as use the campus wifi to watch the season finale of Rock of Love 3 on my laptop. I've also been watching MSNBC and cannot understand why the GOP insists on feeding the comedy gods by naming their protests "Teabagging Parties." I've also hung out with my friends and their new baby. And above, you'll see how I met this guy who apparently ran for President in 1984.



Something is up with my camera. It's shooting everything as a half-assed Ralph Ellison literary metaphor. Here, Jesse Jackson becomes a black blur. Tell me if you think my photos look more blurry than usual. And does this mean that I finally have to give up my seven year old camera for something new?



It's cold out. Yet again, I've packed wrong for the weather. I'm in the boonies of Chicago.. ie "Hyde Park" in the Southside of Chicago. These are Barack and Michelle's old stomping grounds. Sasha and Malia's old school is next door to the International House.


The Hyde Park Walgreens, shows that even their history-making hometown hero is not above being marked down on clearance.


I do have to give a talk tomorrow and will be doing a show on Friday. I decided last Sunday that I'd totally veg out at the nearby Science and Technology Museum. That place is quite the scene. Photo opps every ten seconds. Souvenir machines at every exhibit. It was like Disneyland with content. And people eat it up. I wish I could charge my audiences every 10 feet for some memorialization of my show.



One of the most fascinating parts of the museum was watching chicks hatching live. I'd never seen it before. But it's really profound to see a chick be born. When they finally break out of their eggs, they are wet and dirty, exhausted and hang out of their shell, barely moving but breathing, half hanging out of their shells, slowly slumping out for air. And yet, that's just the beginning of what life has in store for them.


They reminded me of what I look like after I mail a grant to the airport just under the deadline.


Then they get cute once they dry off. Then they get eaten.


Space cadet.


Gave a talk at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago today. My friend Roberto had me in his class. The tuition there is insane. 35k a year to make art, listen to Kristina Wong speak about her work, and get a Mother Freaking Artist (MFA) degree!


This is Baby Minara who for some reason has Rod Blagojovich's hair. "Minara" is both a Japanese and Cambodian word that means "Kristina's womb ticker."

I've got to go to bed. Unlike Los Angeles where the days are fast, I am feeling the days more here and getting more work done. My friend and I are shooting a short film. We will be up early in the morning to shoot some more, and then I give a lecture here... and pull my weight!

Labels: marriage grown up crap, road wong