I woke up the other night to the sounds of a police helicopter circling for what sounded like hours. I fell asleep and then woke up again to the sounds of homeless people crushing cans in the alleyway. Yep, I'm back home in Los Angeles.

I just got off a Skype call with my director Katie Pearl where I cried and cried and yes, cried to her. We just finished an amazing run of Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in Arizona last weekend. It was sold out, standing ovation, they put me up in a 3000 seat theater (but the seating for my show was 200 seats on the stage... a stage which they built for me thankyouverymuch), then the (Republican!) mayor came as well as ASU Gammage's very generous theater patrons with extremely warm feedback.

Creating and touring Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has been a helluva journey. From the first miserable runs of this show that clocked in at 2 hours, Q&As where I held back angry tears because every audience question sounded like a personal attack, walking the streets of cities I've toured through catatonic and shaking with depression because I felt like I handed over my soul for the price of a pay-what-you-can-ticket.... this show has come a long long way baby. It's was like a deformed baby that now could place in a kiddy beauty pageant. I am so blessed that I had so many shots to get this show down right. And I am so proud of what I've accomplished with it.
I am proud that people I've never met organize themselves in groups to come. I am proud when I get emails after from people telling me how much the performance affected them. I am proud when people tell me how fearless the writing is.

And most importantly, I've survived what has easily been the most excruciating and lonely life that one can imagine (dragging around an exhausting show about suicide which is performed alone and supported, virtually alone) and returning home to unsatisfying and/or non existent romantic relationships (which includes an abusive relationship with my spraying cat).

I cried and cried to Katie because I really felt like the process of doing this show (going into YEAR 4!!!!) has been a bittersweet learning and growing experience. But what I'm really learning, is how important self-respect is. I've played the shittiest venues, I've worked hard for no pay, I've worked with (and dated!) people who claim to want to help but have put me down.

My time at MacDowell was a real time of creation but it also was a ripe time for me to reflect on how hard I work and how I do not deserve anything less than how hard I've worked.

I've been through the trenches and as Mary J. Blige would say, "No more drama." I'm on a "no-bullshit" diet. No more depleting gigs, depleting relationships, and no more depleting collaborators.

So what better way to celebrate my newfound pride and self-respect than take on the totally demoralizing activity of trying to buy a home in Los Angeles?

I started looking at houses today with an approval letter for a home loan in hand. Can I just say that banks are really good about not laughing in your face when you explain what it is you do for a living?

What can a performance artist buy in Los Angeles you ask? And also, a performance artist who still refuses to buy a car? And actually, cannot buy a car if she is to also pay off a mortgage? And finish a show about not owning a car which hopefully will help her pay off the mortgage?

Um, well... right now, the options are not plenty. What I can achieve in affordability, I compromise in aesthetics and safety.

In fact, I must confess that a certain panic has set in as I look at these homes.

Am I really ready to commit to a mortgage for 30 years? Am I going to be making enough as an artist the next 30 years for my mortgage? And am I going to be ok living in some of these neighborhoods I can afford?

Suddenly, the thought of taking that low-ball gig where I am splayed out afterwards too exhausted to cry sounds so good. That collaborator who tells me I'm half-assed but doesn't charge much for her time sounds like a good bargain. Suddenly, "taking my time" before moving in with someone I'm dating sounds completely fiscally irresponsible.

Suddenly, when confronted with a mortgage, all those bets on all those self-respecting aspirations... they're off!

Labels: Open House

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

A film I co-wrote and acted in last April in Chicago is playing in a film festival in Gstaad, Switzerland! And it's up for an award called the "Golden Cow"! It was a blast working with my crazy talented director friend Masahiro Sugano and it felt like one of those really exciting true collaborations where you are just running with ideas and going going going.

But the best part is you all get to see me making out with this guy Dwight on a lawn full of goose poop while old Chinese men watch us. Yes, it's true. Sex is unnecessary when you have yarn.



UPDATE: Looks like the director is taking this down in a few days because we need to let this film make the rounds at festivals all over the world first. So enjoy it while you can. In the event that it's important to you to see the film and can't wait til it goes online because you are someone in a high position of power or relative of mine, email me and I'll send you a link where you can download the film. Thanks!

Labels: a shot at love with kristina wong, artist life., asian men, hollywood wong, sex is unnecessary when you have yarn, sex is unnecessary when you have yarn.

Today the staff at MacDowell did a mid-day champagne toast. The deadline for summer residency applicants was today and they got over 1000 entries for 70 slots. It's a record for them and a new feat in their popularity. Jesus, it really has me questioning how I managed to get in here.

I am writing a poem called "The Mother Teresa of Pussy." I also wrote a three page monologue about how cats are better than men. I wonder if Aaron Copeland is turning in his grave.

I feel introspective but am not sure if anyone else would agree. Folks here have offered to look at my stuff and help structure it, but I'm feeling insecure like this baby isn't ready for her party yet.

I have nine days left to make brilliance shoot out in a stream of cat pee.

Labels: cat lady, MacDowell

I've edited another video in my process for you all to see.

Labels: cat lady, MacDowell, the pick up artist

I started writing a monologue about faking love, based on some facebook input to my question, "At what point do we fear the same human intimacy we want/crave? And, why will we settle for faked love?"

And next thing I know, I'm like cutting text and hitting the tab key all up in here and suddenly I had the first poem I've written in years.

I've been reading a lot of poetry here which I don't do too often. When I'm stuck on words I like reading them shilled down to their essence.

I am still pretty creatively constipated though. Right now, I'm at the place, where this script is now just labor. I know what needs to be in it. I just need to buckle in and go go go.

I'm not sure where my creative process is taking me. But it's taking me somewhere crazy introspective and this play has yet to get done already.

In the meantime, enjoy a rare dose of Walt Whitman Wongster!



WHEN THE MOTIONS WILL SUFFICE

Like buying a New York City umbrella during an unsuspected storm.
I didn’t have time to test it.
Just open it
above me, and have
faith it would work
until I made my way home.
(You were there and I was wet.)


We imagine doing this in the most imaginable honest way imagined but
our eyes still turn away as our arms stretch open for each other.
(This is how people get hit by cars. Because they don’t look where they’re going.)


I still hold with me
this last moment of you tangled here under four layers of bedsheets
that flipped their original order
during our earthquake.
Like a geologist got drunk then diagrammed the earth from its crust to core
from memory.
(sense of order so we too lost all when motioned like love in we were)
(order of sense lost like we were in love when we motioned too like)


I made my bed before you came by, as if I had always been a neat one.
With each pat and swipe, I erased
the previous guests like a hotel maid.
I stretched the sheets so tight it was as if my bed had never so much as been seen before.
I wanted us to leave
an imprint on this canvas together.
I wanted you to leave
feeling like we penned a masterpiece together.
I wanted you to leave
believing you were a wunderkind.
I wanted you to leave.
I didn’t want you
to leave.
(But rather than risk hating your writing, I just assume not read it.)


Say we are driving a rented BMW convertible on the freeway.
(Put it on the charge card. I will figure out how to pay it off later. )
My ponytail goes
undone and the split ends of my hair
scrape, whip, and stick to
my face. My contact lenses
go dry on my eyeballs.
I’ll blink until my eyes secrete natural tears
so I can see the road ahead without squinting.
(So my eyes don’t scratch themselves blind in the fury of speed.)
That’s why people love convertibles.
You grab that much more sky by convertible than by foot.
(Though, with the sky, you can’t take it with you. Plus, it grabs you.)
And, I will scream to you from the passenger seat how
this windy ride, where we cannot even hear
each other, where my palms press but cannot hold
those almost new black leather seats, where
you may hear me and then
forget sooner than I will, but
I will scream dry eyes, messy hair and all:

This is the best ride ever. The most fun I’ve had in my entire life.

Labels: MacDowell, Walt Whitman Wongster

Another video transmission from my first New Hampshire winter.

Labels: MacDowell