Don't be a fool...

get schooled on some poetry!



See you all tonight...

Okay, Here Goes...

As if it wasn't bad enough, there are two of us who cant keep up with blogging, when we get a verbal thrashing from Xander on our Myspace, we both end up trying to do it at the same time. Of course with my compueter luck, there's always a reason why it never works out the way i want it to, hence the "dread" of blogging.

Its not that i dont look forward to writing one, trust me I like these things, but it's work to write one because you cant just paste any old html up in there, you have to do it the Blogger way - uploading and waiting and all that. So here we are trying again to re-upload what I spent yesterday doing.

So I won't be re-posting up the witty write-up I did for our homegirl Kristina Wong's show tonight and tomorrow in Philly since Michelle already did, but I will post up the flyer image for her Cuckoo Tour.


Kristina's funny as all hell, she has this website, www.bigbadchinesemama.com, and I dont know if it's still and up and going, but when I met her back in 2000 she had these fake mail-order bride profiles which were mostly very very angry women or men dressed in drag. But please check out Kristina's show, you will not be disappointed, she's a an amazingly talented and funny writer/actor/filmmaker/one-woman-show-doer. The last time we saw her, she walked around stage in a spandex leotard from the 80's. This show should be just as promising.

Also, next Friday we will be performing with these guys,

the Two Warriors, Mark and Harry.

Here's info on the event:
Spoken Diversity: The Art of Spoken Word Poetry
Univerisity of Sciences
AstraZeneca Auditorium,
in the McNeil Science and Technology Center
600 South 43rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4495

Show is 8pm-11pm
$5 for the non-students

There will also be a Writers' Workshop, from 6-8pm and an Open Mike at 8pm prior to the featured sets.

This will be an interesting event demonstrating the variety of spoken word in themes and performance styles, as Two Warriors will also be sharing a full show's worth of content. The show will be hosted by the Pilipino Cultural Association (yes Pilipino, no "h"), and is part of the multicultural week at the university.

To check out the Two Warriors on Myspace, it's myspace.com/two_warriors

Now that updates are over, we're gettting to the fun part. Okay, okay, so we know we've been lackin on the blogs... we're sorry. Especially to Xander... Sorry Xander, we're soooooooo sorry. To show how sorry we are, here's a video of Charlie the Unicorn... shun the non-believers!



I hope this works this time, I've been on probation for posting up youtube on the blog incoreectly and messing up the alignment so it better be worth the risk. This video's been out for a while, but apparently I dont hang out on the internet enough. It was acutally given to my friend Has, whose 30th birthday just passed and has a fascination with unicorns.


She doesn't look 30 does she? Guess what else? She's also a mommy.


Yep. This her son Jibril. Some people just have really good skin, I tell ya.

So some people, along with Xander, have been asking when we're going back to Cali, or just swinging their way. The thing is we would love to go (back) to Cali, whether it's San Diego, San Jose or San Francisco, and all the other places we've never been before. The thing with traveling so far, is the amount of time we have to take off. We both still have day jobs, and flying back and forth between two coasts would be brutal. Now if we could do a West Coast Tour and hit up all the fine cities along the Pacifc, that'd be great. But with things like that comes planning and coordination with other parties. If other parties are reading this, and are interested contact Michelle at michelle@yellowrage.com, and we'll see what we can do.

Speaking of Cali, I was actually recently there. I had a business trip in Vegas, and decided to take a detour to LA and visit some friends. I met with my friend Anwar and my friend Randy, whom Michelle and I first met as a film student at Frankilin and Marshall College, was also out there screening his film at the Pan African film festival. Here are some snippets from my personal blog.


This is Vaughn, my last minute picker-upper-from-the-aiporter and a mighty fine writer I might add too. If you ever get a chance, check out Prequel Magazine and words2herbs.com in your sparedomness.


This is where Vaughn got lost. This area here is called Marina Del Ray. It's pretty nice looking isn"t it? I wonder if it costs more to live in a house by the sea that overlooks a dirty canal?


We went to this spot called "Taste of Philly" because I freaking looooooooove cheesesteaks, and kept hearing about it and wanted to know if they really had "real philly cheeseteaks". Apparently they sold tastycakes and all kinds of Philly goodness so I couldn"t pass it up.


If this menu looks kinda suspect, u are a true Philly head. Why did Marty put "da wiz" it"s just called "wiz", you order your cheeseteak "wit wiz" not "da wiz". Some slang should?never leave philly, I tell ya.


Common misconception about Philly, we dont not substitute "ph" for "f" for everything. Phuck that, I mean, fuck that. And what the hell is a "real philly phrank"? we don"t even have hot dog manufacturing here, do we?


Here's the cheeseteak. From a glance its looks kinda gross. From a taste it was equally disappointing. Sorry, Marty, but The onions were chopped too thin, and although I think the bread mayhave been Amoroso"s, it kinda tasted chewy and almost doughy, like they knew they were gonna send the rolls across the country and who would notice? I did, that's who.


So I stayed with my friend Melissa, and although she lives kinda near Hollywood, I found a snail on her doorstep. I had never seen a snail with its shell before so I had to look. Cute, isnt it?


Here we are outside the Magic Johnson Theatres after the screening of Randy"s film "Harlem"s Blues" which won Honorable Mention. Randy is the one in the director"s baseball cap, of course. And those guys are all his friends who also came to support. We're all so proud of you, Randy Wilkins. But don't you forget about me though, I drove you around in LA before you could afford a limo driver, you hear me?


This is me and my friend Areia, she's also from Philly, but moved out to LA. In Cali, you always need your sunglasses. Mine are Bruce Lees, as in Fist of Fury Bruce Lee. You like?


Before we set out for our road trip to Vegas we stopped by Santee Alley in search of some good bootlegs. I only cared about some bootleg Louis Vuitton, but no one seemed to have any. When I asked this one African lady, she gave me the evil hiss and whispered "That's dangerous". Interesting... I didn"t know there was a hierarchy to bootlegs.


They did happen to have gold jewelry though, and if you ain"t got it all, they got a special plan for you. I completely forgot about layaway until I saw this sign. Anwar was so impressed by the chain I think he almost considered a down payment.


I forgot to turn the indoor camera setting off, so some of these pictures are very cyan hued. Here is a mountain we crossed that we thought looked like big breasts, you cant see it from this view but it definitely did. Since I was driving, I asked Randy to take it, and when I didnt heea anything coming form the back, I turned around and this is what I saw...

asleep in style.


Can you see the rainbow, see the rainbow, see the rainbow?


Since we had gotten so far behind on our schedule, I decided I could gun it and get us there in no time. Nottttttttttttttttt!!! Yep you guess it, they caught my ass going 109. Now you know if that"s what they caught me at, then I was definitely going faster before I saw them.


When my friend Steve from Hawaii was here, we tried this trick where we pretended to be such tourists and distracted the copper with a "hes-from-hawaii-and-never-seen-a-casino-before-so-can-we-take-a-photo-with-you-officer" moment and the trooper let me slide. Not this one. He agreed to take the picture but it didn"t get me out of the ticket. Even Randy got one for riding without a seat belt. Who gives a "No Seatbelt" ticket to a sleeping passenger?


We made our way into the good ol town of vegas, stopped by the nearest bar to use the bathroom. I had also been holding it for the last hour so I had to go to the ladies room, errr, the Gold Digger"s room, complete with an old man waiting outside the door.


When we finally made it to the hotel room, Anwar and Randy feel fast asleep. You would think the driver who was speeding her way tryna get there on time and holding her pee would be the first to get on the bed, but nooooooooo...

So, um, because I was going so fast (I'm not gonna lie, I was killin it on the gas pedal) they did not set a fine for me, and instead sent me a notice in the mail, to make a "Mandatory Appearance" in the Superior Court of the San Bernadino County. My friend Vaughn who also got caught speeding was given two options: go to driving school or pay a months rent in fines. Bastards... I like Cali and all, but I'm not going to driving school, so I guess I'll be eating cereal and ramen for a month. Let me know if you see a drastic change in my physical appearance, will ya?

Somewhere in here, I should be posting up some pictures from Messiah College but I'm at work so I dont have the pictures with me. Next one, next one, promise.


See you in a few weeks...


- Catz

I Tried!!!

I just spent the whole entire afternoon typing up the most wonderfull goodness for a blog, and after checking and re-checking and previewing and editing, making sure everything looked fine, I go to post it and it tells me there are errors to links of pictures that I know are legit.

I thought this was supposed to be easy...?

Look for another one tomorrow Xander, promise.

- Catz

"You asked for it, Xander": Updates and thoughts

OK, ok, so this post is a personal apology to Xander from San Diego who requested a new blog post, and since we don't have any shows planned for San Diego anytime soon (hint, hint--you guys have to invite/bring us out! That's how our bookings work :), I thought I'd oblige him. Hopefully, Catzie will post soon as well.

First, some updates: I did manage to put together a new post at Anti-Racist Parent. It's about when parent-child relationships go to shit, and it also talks about my experiences as a troubled youth growing up in a racist family. I believe the post went up on Friday, March 2. I'm behind getting another post together for Anti-Racist Parent, too, but I'm planning to write about the complexities of raising children in multiracial households and, in particular, my concerns as a mixed race mother of children who are 1/2 black. I'll let you know when it goes up.

Also, an amazing performance artist from LA is in Philly right now. Kristina Wong is here performing her one-woman show "Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (if you recall, I talked about Kristina in the post about our LA performance back in September 2006). Here is the announcement released by the Asian Arts Initiative and The Painted Bride.

* * * * *

The Asian Arts Initiative and Painted Bride Art Center invite you to experience the offbeat humor of artist, writer, and filmmaker Kristina Wong as she explores and upstages the blunders of society in her one-woman show entitled Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Known for her culture-jamming and insurgent style, Wong takes a look at the epidemic of mental illness among Asian American women and challenges the issues of obtaining health care within marginalized communities.

Kristina Wong
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Friday & Saturday, March 23 & 24, 8 p.m.
Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine Street (Old City, Philadelphia)
$20 admission, $10 for members

Special discount with this e-mail
25% off! $15 Tickets! When you mention code: KWA20

Or visit www.asianartsinitiative.org to become a member and get 50% off NOW!
Box office: 215-925-9914

Incisive writer and performer Kristina Wong mixes sharp humor and psychology in Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a semi-autobiographical, serio-comic portrayal of anxiety, depression and incidence of mental illness among Asian American women. The show asks the evolutionary questions: Which came first? The chicken or the egg? The suicides of Asian American women or the maddening world? Wong's irreverent and provocative work has given her a national cult following for "politically charged art with unapologetic humor." Knitters-cuckoo and not-are invited to knit in the audience during the shows.

Wong Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project commissioned by Asian Arts Initiative and La Peña Cultural Center. Funding for Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Ford Foundation, and La Peña's New Works Fund supported by The James Irvine Foundation. Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is also a Project of Creative Capital.

*****
And don't miss...

Kristina Wong, Finding Your Language Workshop
Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine Street, Philadelphia
March 24, 2007, 10-1 p.m.
Registration: $20

Spaces are limited! Please RSVP to Chon at chon@asianartsinitiative.org
For more information: 215-557-0455

Finding Your Language: Playing with Different Performance Tongues

You don't have to be the best actor, singer, or dancer to tell an
amazing story. Finding the honest place and dabbling between different
disciplines might be where you find your strongest voice. Sometimes your
award-worthy performance may work best offstage for an unsuspecting
audience. This workshop is focused on process rather than product. We
start with some warm-ups, movement and theater games-- the rest is playing!
Be dressed to move! In a non-judgmental space, participants will play with
movement, text, visuals and working in site-specific contexts to forge a new
performance language all their own.

* * * * *

On a final note, I've been preoccupied by the movie Pan's Labyrinth, which I saw for the first time this past weekend. It is sad, beautiful, horrifying, lyrical, and haunting all at once. I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone, so I won't go into detail here, but I've been thinking about the events in the movie and its dominant themes, and I've been struggling with what I want to take away from it. On the one hand, it's about the horrors of reality, and it questions layers of reality--What is the actual reality we can't escape? What is the fantasy we seek to escape into? Does the fantasy ever really quite live up? Who are we at the very essence of our being? The way you interpret and answer these questions in many ways will determine how you will view the end of the movie: whether tragedy or triumph. My husband didn't like it as much as I did, but I think perhaps people were anticipating something like The Lord of the Rings, and that's why many people (at least from what I've read online) were disappointed with it. What people want is an escapist fantasy; Pan's Labyrinth to a certain extent offers a critique of such escapist desires by shoving your face violently into reality--at least as far as a film can do so. But remember, the real question is: How many layers are there to "reality"?

Next time: I will post about our recent show at Messiah College. April is a busy month for us in terms of performances. We will do our best to keep up with you all.

Thanks for the kick-in-the butt, Xander.

Best,
Michelle