Echo

Last Thursday I took Michael to Houston’s in Santa Monica for a “last night in LA” dinner. Reggie was working the bar so we ate our dinner there, and somehow, a conversation was struck up between a guy sitting next to us. He was very nice and friendly, and what started as a conversation about The Spanish Prisoner turned into talk about LA, writing, etc. (I was particularly amused when I told him I was a writer and he asked me what I was like in high school. “A loner,” I told him. “Did you wear army pants and things like that?” “No, I didn’t dress rebellious [for god’s sake, I had a perm], but I just didn’t ever feel comfortable around people my age.”).

It turns out that he’s the founder of The Writer’s Boot Camp, a screenwriting program whose name I’ve heard of but I didn’t know much about (LA is saturated with screenwriting programs, many of which only serve to capitalize on the ridiculous amounts of money that can be made from all the desperate people in LA who want to be the next big thing). The headquarters is in the legendary Bergamot Station which is known as an oasis for artists, and he invited me to check it out.

I had lunch with him today and not only is he a very articulate, intelligent and nice person, but I was really excited about the program. It’s something that I always wished for but didn’t know existed–a writing program that is just as much educational as it is nurturing of the creative process and a writer’s focus on catharsis for growth. What I liked best was the vibe of the place and the people, and how it felt like a safe community. The program itself consists of 48 total weekly and bi-weekly sessions with about a 10 -hour weekly commitment to creative work. The objective is to teach a whole new concept in discipline and approach, and overall, I think it teaches new writers how to effectively write, and seasoned writers how to be more effecient and focused. It got me excited because I felt like this was a place I had been looking for for a long time and especially lately, with so much going on, I haven’t been as focused or disciplined, and that’s been upsetting. I’m going to sign up for it soon; I’m not sure when exactly, it depends on their schedule and I’ll probably have to do it after this lemonade thing gets off the ground and this short film is in the can.

Exciting. This reminds me of how important it is to remain open to the gentle currents of life and where it takes you. If you trust it, it leads you towards some interesting adventures and journeys through chance encounters.

Weekend Recap

I come from a little bunghole hicktown. Yes, while those of you who are from Fremont may object and say, “What’s with the hometown hate, Shih? What’s with rejecting your roots?” It’s not about hate; it’s just what it is…Fremont is a little bunghole hicktown, complete with an obsession over arts and crafts and do dads and knick knacks.

This weekend Reg and I drove Michael back to Fremont. Michael had spent the last 10 days visiting, and left us with such fine quotes as, “I’m a PARTY animal,” “You can’t go outside without pants. People will think you’re inappropriate” and my favorite, “You have to put it in your mouth and suck on it,” which was declared vehemently over and over while he thrust an Altoid in my face as I giggled uncontrollably.

I had told Reggie that Fremont doesn’t have a whole lot going on and that it’s fairly hickish as, for example, the entrance of my road features a goat farm and a horse stable (the cows have since been relocated). I don’t think he believed me until we turned onto my road behind the pickup sporting a “Cowboy Up” sticker in the back window, and I pointed out the “Goats 4 Sale” sign hanging proudly on a crumbling shed.

The tour of the town took less than an hour, as I showed him: 1. The gym; 2. My high school; 3. The bustling town “center” featuring all the big commercial chains (Barnes & Noble, Jamba Juice, Target, etc) whose arrival meant that lil’ Fremont finally had a place on the map. While driving around town, Reggie said, “Blankets. You guys really like to make blankets.” They’re quilts, I said. It’s our thing, man. He asked me what I usually do when I go home, and I told him that I usually go to the gym in the morning for a couple of hours, then eat lunch, then go to a coffee shop to write, then go to the gym for a couple of hours, then surf the net until it’s time to go home. Outside of heading out to San Francisco, Tahoe or doing something outdoorsy like hiking, there’s really not much going on. I will admit though, that the local community college flea market that comes around 1 weekend a month is usually the highlight of the month. I will also admit that I don’t try very hard to find more interesting things to do when I’m at home. Being at home makes me lethargic.

On Saturday we went to the gym, but I have this severely sprained ankle so I just hobbled around and did some weights. Afterwards, we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and then drove around trying to decide what to do. We ended up driving in a huge circle (from Newark down to Milpitas because we thought we would go to visit my cousin, then up towards Pleasanton because we considered going to see a movie at this really nice theater, then turned around and went home when it was deemed no one was really interested in any of these activities). We went home and took a nap, then headed over to Santana Road, which is this upscale area with shopping and restaurants, much like the Grove in LA. We met up with my aunt and her family for dinner at this Italian place, then headed over to the V Bar at the top of the Hotel Valencia (?) for mojitos and a virgin pina colada for Michael. There was a high school reunion going on (Pioneer Class of ’85) so I walked in and tried to convince everyone to crash it with me. No one else was as excited about this adventure as I was so we headed to the outdoor patio instead. I did make Reggie promise he would crash a reunion with me at some future date.

Sunday was my nephew’s 1 month anniversary of his birth, which is a big deal in Chinese culture. I think. I don’t know. They held a banquet at this restaurant, and we got through it okay; many people had heard through the grapevine that I was dating a black guy, so while there were many glances over, everyone was fairly polite and well-behaved, though at the beginning of the meal, my grandmother, who likes Reggie, did ask that he not use his chopsticks with his left hand. We explained to her that he’s left-handed and can’t help it. I asked my mom if it was a sign of bad manners to use chopsticks with the left hand, kind of like it’s rude in some cultures to eat with your left hand because that’s the hand you wipe your ass with. She said, no, you’re grandmother’s just anal.

We were supposed to leave Sunday afternoon but my mom asked if Michael could stay with us for another week, since she planned to come down for Labor Day anyway so he may as well stay. So essentially, we drove him up just to drive him back down with us. We were on our way back to LA when my dad called and was disappointed that we had left already, as he had wanted to have dinner with us. It was a nice gesture since things have been strained between my dad and I this year, so we turned around and had dinner before leaving again.

Only 4 bathroom stops and 1 po-po sighting before we got back into LA just after midnight.

Creepy…

With the show over, I’ve finally been able to find a moment to sit down and reflect a bit. Things seem to always be in constant motion in my life lately, with people always around, that I rarely get that much-needed space to get really quiet inside my head and look out at the universe with a deep enough introspection to feel truly rested.

My brother has been staying with me, and watching the way he processes life and human interaction has always been the greatest learning tool I’ve been blessed with. No one is more optimistic about kindness and the generosity of human beings as a collective, and no one wants to see the best of everyone he meets more than my brother. In fact, he can only see the good in people and can’t understand why you can’t love every person you meet, just because they are a fellow man and we’re all walking this often difficult life together. Being with him always reminds me of how humble we all are within this huge universe, yet how basic and simple the truth of the universe is once you realize its complicated contradictions.

What is the past? It’s my obsession, because how can life be a flowing series of events and incidences and coincidences, if every single moment and micro-moment is a singular and independent reality from which you attempt to relate? I believe that every single moment, I am a different person, a person independent of who I was and who I will be, and it is only through the growth and movement of each of these different people that I become who I am when captured at a specific moment in the future. The Me of 5 years ago seems like a foreign person, a person I no longer keep in touch with, whom I would need time and interaction with to become reacquainted with. The same as the me of 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or even 2 weeks ago. It’s not a matter of if I have accepted or rejected the person I was–opinions and judgments don’t alter absolute realities. It’s a matter of evolving or moving in a direction of your personal growth and looking back upon where you used to stand and recognizing each state of you as being different, or an unfinished state of an infinite process.

I’m happy that no matter what happens in my life, no matter what decisions I make for better or for worse, the unequivocal code in which I live my life is that everything must be done for the sake of growth. That even when I walk down the wrong path, that I walk it so that I will know that this only leads to my experience of life and my experience as a human being, and that by not taking any experience for granted, I will have gained something, if only experience and knowledge and perhaps, material for reflection.

I’ve learned that you can not be weighed under the history of your family or its influence; you can only be compassionate to your fellow comrade in life, particularly if they have weathered the same experiences with you and have offered a collective support. But you can not sacrifice your own life path and growth if others cling to a fear-born status quo or “customs” because they themselves don’t trust that life is a learning experience and that risks with whatever results are still benefits in the long run.

We all learn that life is often not fair because people make the rules and as a whole, human beings are ignorant. They are selfish out of fear and they are cruel out of fear and they do harm to others because they fear that without doing so, there will always be an unknown threat around the corner. Children can be the same way; theirs is a simple mentality, that the world is so big with so many risks and dangers, that they must shut down and play an offensive defense if they are to protect themselves if there is not a system already in place which protects them.

We have to trust that there’s more to this world and that there’s a purpose. We have to trust that gut feeling that being a good person, leading an open, positive life where you strive to better your understanding of the universe and practice patience, tolerance and kindness, leads to something very important down the line even if it seems to mean something ephemeral or nonsignificant within the mundane. We have to lead by example even though it’s so easy to give up on people and reciprocate nasty attitudes, duplicity and full on corruption and cruelty, because we have to trust that we are big enough people to accept the brunt of others’ ignorance, and that by being bigger people and trying to reach out and teach those around us, that we open up others’ outlooks and behaviors so that they can overcome their narrowmindedness and we can all live more connected lives.

But the biggest thing to be aware of is how much people can project their own inner negative feelings out into the world. How, if someone is mad at something or hates something or is unhappy with his or her life, how an ignorant and petty person will attempt to hurt others around them by passive aggressively lashing out. We are all in control of the world that is inside of us. If a person would rather put a dark shadow over others rather than deal with why they have one inside of themselves, or even why they’re ALLOWING themselves to keep dark shadows within themselves, then I feel like that person is selfish, unevolved and overall, a coward for trying to blame the external world and other people for the way they actually make themselves feel. Life is hard enough; but the best a person can do is to support themselves and show kindness to themselves by taking control of their own happiness and seeking out a support system that would provide them with positive regard and comfort. If they need to try to bring other people down because they themselves feel angry or scared or helpless, then they are what the ancient philosophers called, “Assholes.”

So don’t be an asshole, guys. They’re enough of them in this world and they are basically spiritual children. Life and this journey is such an adventure with so much to be learned and experienced, that for us to be busy pissing on other people’s feet in a tiny backyard seems like such a waste of time and opportunity.

This guy serving a life sentence, despite looking like a serial killer in that photo, has some really interesting things to say, as well as links and statistics. I think a lot of people aren’t concerned with what happens in our justice system and law enforcement factions because it doesn’t involve them and it serves a community need, but I also think that our system is incredibly flawed, and by our not being vigilant in keeping the system in check, it becomes overrun by corruption and ulterior motives.

It so often feels that the legal system tries to break everything down in black and white, and it loses the entire purpose of justice and the protection of the community and innocent people.

8/17 Recap

Last night’s show got off to a rocky start when the actors were for one reason or another, off on the rhythm of the skit so they were talking over people’s lines and just overall, had their timing off. They managed to make a recovery and knocked the white trash skit out of the park. When Reggie stands up as Latisha, the angry black woman in spandex shorts and a headband and threatens to bust a cap in his white ass and goes digging for a gat in a tiny Louis Vutton purse, we had to hold the skit until laughter died down. Overall, that was smoothest skit of the night.

The problem with the show is that we don’t audition the comics and just go by the word of Vargus, our talented cast member who’s on the stand-up circuit with these guys, or referrals from other standups. I didn’t think our first comic the night before was that great, but the other ones were decent. Yet tonight, Sheldon, who had been solid the night before, came in with a different act but seemed to get frazzled by the “front row” who was a “tough crowd” and he couldn’t get any laughs from them. Unfortunately, that front row was made up of my family, who didn’t have the best grasp of English but more importantly, he hadn’t won over any of the crowd yet. So he never got into his act from the first night and got so frazzled with the crowd that he didn’t really follow up his great performance from the night before. From now on, I want to audition the comics so I know what kind of material and energy they’re bringing.

The comedy act that we didn’t have on Tuesday but we had on Wed. was a duo called The Dos Spanish Flies. They were like Tenacious D but with a mariachi/Spanish Variety show theme and really dirty, hilarious songs. Amazing performers with the crispest comic timing I’ve ever encountered. They’re playing the Comedy Store this Sunday at 8pm, so if you’re in LA, I highly recommend catching them. One of the guys looked like this guy I used to date, who looks like Jack Black so in a way, they ARE Tenacious D but with a latin theme.

There’s a possibility of another encore performance. Last night was technically a sold out show, but a lot of people who had prepaid for tickets didn’t show up. Regardles, we’re in the middle of transitioning the show so that it’s going to be run by Reggie and I, with it being bigger and better. They’ve always been tied to Tuesdays and been a small show, but this one was a lot bigger and I want it to start running on the weekends in a bigger theater that’s better suited for media as well, so we can also run video skits with the live ones. It would be cool to find a place where we can serve drinks and afterwards, turn it into a little party with a DJ spinning before the show and after the show. I want to give people an event.

The best show related event hands down though, was not my mom in the lobby after the show teaching Ernie Halter Chinese (note: Ernie was our amazing musician with a voice like butter…check out his site for his music), but the effect the show had on Michael.

For those of you guys who were at the show…do you remember in the Ralph’s skit when Vargus’s old lady character watches the girl walk by and goes, “Bitch.” ???

Reggie, Michael and I were all sleeping in the same room last night and sometime in the middle of the night, it’s completely silent and Michael talks in his sleep and goes, “Bitch.”

No wait. The best show-related event was when I drove my mom home after the show and she said, “You have to teach me some of the bad language that you guys were using. I asked Albert [my cousin]…what is a ‘golden shower.’ And he said, ‘It’s when a woman stands over a man and pees on his head. Is that true?”

And I answered, “It is. But sometimes the man will also pee on the woman’s head.”

So now with the show over (or potentially only soon over), I’ve gotta switch gears to the short film. A shitty-ass industry publication, I won’t say which one, accidentally (and non-remorsefully) printed my phone number in my ad looking for actors so now I’ve got actors calling me morning to night. It’s ridiculously annoying, and the publication admitted the mistake but in the process, more or less told me I could eat it because they have so much to do that they really can’t be bothered about mistakes. So certain third rate publications whose employees are arrogant assholes because they think that just cuz they have a monopoly on the industry that they can be arrogant assholes, I have a creme brulee torch and I’m not afraid to use it.

In other news, new tag for the lemonade:

J&R: “We Stole This Shit”

8/16Show Recap

So last night show went well despite some a technical issue in the opening sketch (key music did not play) and the fact that the main actor in a skit forgot his lines and skipped to his lines at the end of the skit, thus cutting out the entire middle. It happened during a skit about tolerance when a white trash guy and his girlfriend interrupt a tolerance symposium wanting to talk about how he’d also been oppressed. The symposium featured an Asian guy, two lesbians, some black people and an Arab woman, and he skipped over choice bits as him telling the Asian guy, “Did you guys ever think to put a railroad here? NO. We gave you the idea and you stole all the credit!”; him telling the black people, “Speaking of railroads, what’s up with your underground railroad? For your information, it ain’t a railroad if it don’t have trains. And furthermore…isn’t an underground railroad called a subway?”; him telling the lesbians, “What have you ever contributed other than softball, really really bad poetry and the female mullet?” Regardless, what worked was that they all recovered and still made the skit look like a complete skit, even though it made me look like I didn’t understand skit arcs.

The best part of the show was just doing it. That was the first time I had directed for stage and I was really proud of the show, the performances of the cast and the overall energy and vibe of everything. I hope people who were in the audience enjoyed themselves. The cast was glowing afterwards because they felt that they had really showed themselves in a good light, and I felt like a little league mom, running around backstage telling everyone how amazing they were.

The worst part of the show, was when the tiny spaghettie strap to my top broke. I’m up in the booth next to the tech station running the video camera, but the only way up and down is by a ladder. So instead of using the steps, I usually get down to the first step and leap the 4 feet down. We’ll I kept running up and down and finally, I must have ripped it because I go running through the lobby and suddenly realize my left boob is damn near hanging out.

And the only reason I realized it, was because one of our actors, Mike (The Sausage Man) takes one look at me and announces, “Why’s everyone’s girlfriends running around with their boobs hanging out?”

Overall, great night. Felt so good about this, felt affirmed in my creative aspirations, and was so proud of everyone that we had such a strong product to show for all of our hard work.

I want a t-shirt that says, “I’m telling you Officer, the hooker was already dead before I got here.”

It’s Monday and the show‘s tomorrow. This was my first time directing for the stage and I’m so nervous. We had our last rehearsal last night and the thing I’m worried about is the tech stuff, especially considering it’s still Mercury retrograde so the most random things could go wrong with equipment.

We ran our secret skit for the first time in front of the cast (it was a secret because there are only 2 cast members in it so we ran separate rehearsals from the main one) and the cast loved it. It’s about this crazy Eastern European lady who runs a video dating service, and what her idea of sexuality is. Things went really well outside of the fact that Reggie and I had had a fight the day before so due to our not talking to each other, quintessential show things were left at our respective homes and I had to leave rehearsal for an hour to retrieve them.

The weird thing about going from film to stage is that with film, if someone doesn’t do something exactly right, you can keep trying until they do. They only have to do something right once. But with stage, you can have people doing things really well 100 times in a row, but come show night in front of a live audience, they could forget all their lines. Or we could have some sort of wardrobe malfunction, such as what happened last week when this guy playing an old lady had his “bosom” drop to his stomach so all of a sudden, he looked like a pregnant old lady.

Overall, I just hope it’s a good show. I have so much pride and I really hope people walk away liking the show. I know the material is good and the cast is very talented; our rehearsals have been strong and people who sit in on them have said that it’s hilarious. But it really all comes down to luck after that…that nothing bizarre happens.

I had to buy gym shoes yesterday, but what started as a quick trip to a shoe store ended up with me coming home with fishing equipment. We headed over to the Santa Monica Pier because we only had about 3 hours of sunlight left and it’s the only place close by where you can fish without a permit. Now, I’ve never seen anyone catch anything off the pier, even though there are always a hell of a lot of people with poles out there. It took almost an hour to get the pole strung up and for me to learn how to cast (I kept unlocking the thing and letting it unravel on the ground), not to mention trying to get a raw mussel on the hook for bait. I don’t know what I was more afraid of…the raw mussel or getting impaled by the hook (been scared of fishing hooks ever since seeing Something About Mary). Finally, we got everything set up and embarked on our fishing experience, only to pack up an hour and a half later as the sun was going down and our cooler was empty. Truthfully, in the entire time we were there, I didn’t see a single person catch anything, which makes me think that this whole fishing off the pier thing is a coverup, that maybe all those people with poles are really disguised drug dealers and the undercover cops who love them.

So the moral of this story is, stay away from people who fish off piers. They’re probably packing heat.

A Few of My Favorite Surreal Life Quotes:

(as the gang gives the backyard of a battered women’s shelter a makeover)
Janice: “You’re not screwing fast enough.”
Bronson: “You said that last night, and I think it’s rude either time.”

*****
Omarosa: Most people call me a bitch, but it doesn’t matter because I’m more brighter than Donald Trump.

*****
Omarosa: (To Jose) Doesn’t that make your penis small? I hear steroids make your penis small.
Jose: That’s a misconception. It’s your testicles, not your wiener.

*****
Janice: (About Jose) I hope he rips his pants when he bends over.

It’s Not Prostitution

8/11 Update

This Mercury Retrograde period has been awful. Gathering evidence from friends around me, we’ve got 2 lost wallets, 2 broken down cars, 3 computers/laptops gone into cardiac arrests for no apparent reason. Our phones at work have been sporadically deciding not to work the last week, causing an inability to hang up on phone calls, and then an inability to pick up on calls. People have shown up to the wrong places for meetings, transcribed the wrong addresses and phone numbers, and we’re hitting a record high for returned merchandise due to mechanical failure. Mix in the arguments over miscommunications and the last two weeks have been hell. The good news is it ends next week. I figure, if we can put together this comedy show during a retrograde, future shows will be a piece of cake.

Things that excite me this week:

We have FDA compliant labels coming in next week for the lemonade. We already have some coffee chains and small markets interested in carrying the product, so once we get our labels in, we may have our lemonade in local stores as early as in two weeks.

I went to Best Buy and looked at the 60″ Sony LCD TV. I’m determined to have it in my living room by the first week of September.

I’ve finalized the deal with a restaurant consultant to begin the business plan for my restaurant idea. He’ll have it done within a week or two.

My home computer which was decimated by a virus is very close to being fixed.

The Surreal Life. Omarosa and Janice Dickinson battling to be top bitch? Balki trying to get with Janice?? Janice pulling out a vibrator because Jose Canseco won’t give her any play??? Good God, why didn’t I discover this show sooner…

Hu Szechuan in Culver City on National. The Orange Chicken.

*****

I found this story very moving and I’m glad people are supporting her. Bush is such a fuckhead.

Crazy T-shirt site

This shirt is SO wrong.

Things everyone needs to know.

Blood, Sweat and Tears

Ready or not, the comedy show is going live next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Frequently Asked Question:

Will there be a baby with a big dong?

Answer:

Yes. There will be a baby with a big dong. A very big dong, indeed.*

*now try yelling that really fast 50 times in a row at the top of your lungs while spinning around in the middle of traffic as you try not to spill your liter of Peach Schnapps and the fat white cop with the bushy moustache just stands there, tapping his toe, contemplating whether he should take you downtown or just barter a warning for a blowjob. Anyway, I digress.

Yesterday I was driving to rehearsals in rush hour. We finally found the 18 inch summer sausage we needed and I was given the task of bringing it to the theater. I couldn’t stop holding it because it was just absolutely, grotesquely monstrous. As I was stopped in traffic, I saw an Asian guy in a suit talking intensely into his cellphone headset, serious business stuff. I contemplated smiling at him until I got his attention, then waving my big beef stick at him. I felt like that would have given him one hell of a bizarre story to take home.

Link to the show and Paypal for tickets:

http://tuesdaynightlive.blogspot.com/

Our website isn’t up yet because we’re going through a change in management.

Last night was my mom’s birthday. Rie was in town as well so we all went to Mix for dinner then to Zanzibar for dancing. Quote of the night:

“Julia! Don’t skeet skeet your mother.”

-Reggie