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I'm so famous.
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009 5:15AM / Members only
Hey everyone! This week I'm the featured reader on angry asian man.
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The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles #24: Carlessness... The Greatest Career Boost Ever.
Wednesday, Nov 18, 2009 12:16AM / Members only
I did it. Four DIFFERENT shows in one week. Two cities. And unlike Jesse Spano... NO NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!
I just got back from San Francisco. I presented my Carless Comedy show Sunday. Saturday was the LA Storyteller Festival where I did two different pieces. Then Tuesday and Friday, I did the "Whoring for Hollywood" show with D'Lo at the LA Comedy Festival.
The storytelling community is no joke. Imagine folks from a renaissance fair and like an audience whose median age is 65 all mixed together. I wasn't sure how this crowd would take me. They are so sincere and so into folklore and myths. And I just do the strange things that I do. I was programmed in the "Fringe Tales" concerts which was their way of saying, "Filthy, saucy, dirty stories". I kept joking that they should have named "Fringe Tales"-- the "Motherf*cking Stories!" show.
My whole family came out to see me! And didn't disown me after!
The adrenaline from NYC and doing five new shows in five days still follows me. It was a huge challenge, but I made it through this week and kicked ass each time. It feels so great.
How'd I get through this week? I just took it day by day. On Sunday after my plane landed, I worked furiously at my parents' house to tack on 10 new minutes of material to my carless show. I was wondering if the disconnect between LA and SF would make a difference, but it really was a hit. The San Francisco audience was with me even though I was talking about trying to get around LA. And can I blame them? Who else could tell this insane story of owning a money pit car that ran on vegetable oil and then it catching on fire? Followed by my stories on the bus. I got this topic on lock down!
THIS CARLESS SHOW IS KILLING!!!!
I'm dreaming up more places that this carless experience can take me, and already, opportunities to tour and talk about this are presenting themselves all over the country. I'm talking books, radio, panels, commissions-- it's endless where this can all go.
Jesus! Spending all that money on a shit car, almost dying in a car fire, and then going carless in Los Angeles is the best thing that ever happened to me!
I've been really fulfilling my recession year goal of creating as much new work as possible, not getting stuck in a creative rut. Nelson Mandela wrote books from prison... I can certainly make shows for any space. I hit a lot of post-partum creative depression when Cuckoo's Nest was finally "done" but I'm feeling so good as I look ahead and finally see that I'm going to do the work, not the work around doing the work.
Give me a concert hall! Give me a lecture hall! I can do it! And most importantly, I'm more in practice as an artist than as an artist than as an arts administrator.
I think life is lining up nicely. I've just decided to run forward and not look back. Who's coming?
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The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles #23: Sans Home
Friday, Nov 13, 2009 3:33AM / Members only
Ok, I know that I was supposed to not blog or Facebook for a week. But I had my great bright idea already.
I'm not only giving up owning a car, but also, having a place to live in Los Angeles!
That's right! I'm going homeless! Yay!
Hear me out! There is logic in this horrible idea!
I tour so much anyway, that for the last two years I was wondering, "Could I actually get away with not having a lease somewhere?"
So, I am putting my things in public storage next month. And starting January, will be without an address of my own. I'm going to couch surf and see what address will come to me next. I'm going to float about, and see what it's like to have no tethers whatsoever.
It does help that I have friends everywhere that have room for me to stay, that all of January, parts of Feb, March and April, I'm on tour. Oh yeah, and that technically, I still do have my apartment in West LA (my cousin lives there but there's a couch with my name on it).
But yes! I'm going to see what it's like to live out of Public Storage and a PO Box! Hoorah! It's the kind of unstable life that I thought I outgrew 10 years ago, but heck, better late than never!
And best yet... what great material for the show! (yes, just like women trying out porn acting for a day is "feminist research"!)
Woo hoo! Who's got a couch? Because here comes the mooch!
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A Tall Hot Glass of Shut the F*** Up.
Monday, Nov 9, 2009 10:18AM / Members only
The images in today's blog showed up when I google image searched for "nothing."
After a few conversations this weekend among friends, I realize how important it is to take a break from hustling so feverishly. Especially from social networking sites. I know, I know, blogging is good marketing.
I mean, I know that keeping up your tweets is all part of how we show that we're here and important.
But dude, I'm tired now of living life, then reporting on it, so as to keep people interested in purchasing me as a cultural commodity. And not all things need to go said. And people won't totally forget me if I stop blogging and updating FB right? At least for a week or two? I mean, will I not be able to make a living if my "pixels get old"?
I was reading in an article in the Huffington Post how to get your free time back. It recommended getting off of Facebook.
I'm going to take break from Facebook and blogging as I take a moment for some inner dialogue.
I also need to study my lines for the four different shows I have this weekend. I need to get situated in what I care about again.
There are four shows this week I'd like to plug. They are listed below.... If you want to know what's on my mind, come to the shows instead!LOS ANGELES
November 10, 9:30pm
and November 13, 8pm
Hooray!!! Whoring for Hollywood!
Kristina Wong and D'Lo's Big Industry Showcase!
Acme Theater in Hollywood
LA Comedy Festival
November 14, 1:30-2:45p (the Quest) 5-6:30pm (the Journey)
Los Angeles Storytelling Festival
Culver-Palms UMC Complex, 4464 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230
(Check website for ticket prices.)
December 2, 7pm
Mass Transit Themed Comedy Show
18th St Arts Complex
1639 18th St.,
Santa Monica, CA
FREE
SAN FRANCISCO
November 15, 6:30- 8:30pm
Kristina does carless comedy for "She Who Laughs Last" Fundraiser for SF WAR
(San Francisco Women Against Rape)
Victoria Theater in Mission District
San Francisco, CA
(Check website for ticket prices.)
See you when I emerge from this great big thought I'm working on by myself. Wish me luck.
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The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles #22: Name that show!
Thursday, Nov 5, 2009 11:18AM / Members only
I find that great public transportation days will completely restore my faith in Los Angeles living. I had an audition in Hollywood Monday morning then was to shoot a short film in Woodland Hills later that afternoon. It was one of those hypothetical carless situations I've dreaded for so long... having to get from one place to god knows where in a short time frame.
I worked it out with the director of the short film to meet at her school in Reseda and she would take me from there to Woodland Hills. The schedule gets so crazy, that I don't shoot a lot of student films, but she sought me out from my website and was willing to chauffer me from Silverlake if I wanted... so who was I to say no? I decided it was ridiculous to make her drive down the 101 and back up, so I volunteered to see what this "orange line" was and if it was possible to get to BFE Reseda in such a short amount of time.
But it turns out, it's actually easier for me to get to Reseda from Hollywood than from Silverlake to West LA. The wonders of our underused subway! I'm a huge fan of it. I actually think I got there faster than if I drove the freeways. The orange line runs on this dedicated street called "Busway" where no other cars go. I got there and back in a predictable and reasonable amount of time. I even hit Happy Hour at Akbar with my friend Greg before cruising home. It was so... New York. I loved the novelty of riding the bus for convenience in LA!
Sure, there were some moments at the bus stop. The man with the adult diaper peeking out from his stained denim jeans who volunteered without solicitation "you beautiful girl." Or the older Latino man at Vermont and Santa Monica who mumbled "Chinatown" while pointing at my face.
As a modern woman, I should embrace any and all compliments! Even if they come from derelicts at the bus stop!
Ugh.
In other news.... I'm still looking for a name for this Carless show. And I'm taking your votes and suggestions... I can't seem to find anything as clever as "Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Here are some bleh ideas I had for titles:
The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles
Carless in LA (I find this too easy)
Car Porn (trying too hard)
Car Porn: My Love Affair with an Older Car
I put a call out on Facebook and my friends contributed these suggestions, notice how people tried to be helpful by beating the shit out of my last name...- The Kristina Wong Show
- DMV... DOA...in LA!
- Post- Fire, Walk With Me?
- in my shoes, literally.
- "How Pedestrian."
- Wonging in LA
- B*U*S*T*E*D
- Grease fires; not just for kitchens anymore
- Soles on Fire: Wong on Wong
- "That's Just Wong"
- "That's So Wong"
- Walk This Way-
- When the Veggie Breaks"?
- "All last night sat on the veggie and moaned/ Thinking about my baby and my happy home/ Going down down down down down now"
- Like water and oil Kristina and cars.
- green fury
- Who's Gonna Drive Me Home, Tonight?" (you can't go on, thinking nothing's wrong)
- "I'm on the Highway to Hell"
- "Lord, Won't You Buy me a Mercedes Benz?"
- "I Can't Drive . . . 55"
- "It Ain't Easy Being Green"
- "Who's Gonna Drive Me Home, Tonight?" (you can't go on, thinking nothing's WONG)
- "I Fought the Car . . . and the Car Won"
- "Shitty, Shitty, Bang, Bang"
- "The Up In Smoke Tour"
- Hoofing the Wong
- Hoofing Wong
- My Greasecar Done Blow'd Up Real Good
- Grease
- I am sexiest at the bus stop
- Karmama
- For I Have No Car And I Must Scream
- crisco inferno
- Wok no Roll
- Without a Car in the World
- Bicycles and the Big Blues
- 'on foot veggie car kaput'
- Wong Turn
- BUSting Loose!
- Foot Traffic, Veggie Car Blues and other stories
- Pun Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, oops, wrong show....I mean, WONG show
I am liking the ones with song titles kind of built in. Any ideas for me?
Stats
- Kristina Wong is a nationally presented solo performer, writer, actor, educator, culture jammer, and filmmaker. Described by the East Bay Express as "brutal but hilarious.....
- Occupation: Theater , Stand-up Comedian , Author
- Gender: Female
- Total visits: 35,041
