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Car(e) Free Los Angeles: The Wong Sans Wheels Chronicles #2: I CAN ROCK A SHOPPING CART
2008-08-17 11:27AM / 標準BLOG / 會員可以看
1個評論Last night, my friend Greg came by to comfort me in my new car free existence. Greg is a dancer/ performer and doesn't even have a driver's license. Yet he performs all over town, parties and does all sorts of stuff in Los Angeles with no car. I think this car free life will mean I will be entertaining more around the apartment, as people will have to come to me more than I am able to come to them. I cooked fish for us and we drank wine.
Already, being car free has reintroduced alcohol into my life. I had two glasses of wine before my audition yesterday, in fact. It feels very New York to me to be able to drink at all hours like this and not worry about how I will DRIVE myself home or leave the house to go out. This is also why I had decided I couldn't be a permanent New Yorker-- because three Long Island Iced Teas a night and drunk dialing my parents from my Brooklyn sublet is funny for a week, but not a way of life.
We watched my UCLA commencement speech on DVD. It just arrived in the mail. I had a hard time watching myself on the DVD. Did you guys know that I have the strangest voice in the world? Where did the Midwestern thing in my voice come from? From growing up in San Francisco? The edit of my speech looks great except the sound source from my mic doesn't match evenly with the non-mic'd reaction of the audience--- so it almost seems as if all my jokes are landing flat. I swear there was laughter that day! I swear! It doesn't help that when the cut goes to the graduates in the audience, that they just wave to the camera and smile instead of looking extremely involved with my amazing speech.
Greg and I took the bus to the Promenade (only .75 cents each!) and walked to Venice to go to the Roosterfish (the local gay bar). Greg taught me how to pack for these night ventures sans car. No packing a purse or wallet, instead, just the basics were carried in his pocket-- cash, credit card, ID. And I put my phone in my pocket.
We were walking and walking and walking to get to Venice. At one point I screamed out, "I don't know why, but I feel homeless right now!" It was kind of unreal (mostly because I was tipsy) to experience so much Los Angeles by foot for function, not leisure. I felt like such an outsider with no big machine to go back to at the end of the night when I walked by all the obnoxious frat people on Main St. This car free thing is making me feel like a college freshman all over again. Like I'm rediscovering the world for the first time, from a new and more vulnerable space.
I was such the enabler at the Roosterfish thanks to the two long islands. At one point, I demanded reparations from a cluster of men, and got $2 from them. I put the money into my underpants and later handed the bills to Greg to pay our tab. I also kissed a couple of the gay men. Neither of us seemed to really enjoy it, but it was funny and that's what matters. And at one point, this one guy told me to feel his boyfriend's package from outside his pants. And who was I to say no?
A few times I'd spot two men talking together and scream, "Give him a kiss! Give him a kiss!" And the response more often than not was, "Sweetie, we've already fucked like ten times."
At one point I had a huge cluster of men around me adoring me and hugging me for being so awesome (apparently, I was hilarious). Despite their love, I kept demanding reparations from them in one dollar bill increments. This one guy who is a hotshot hairdresser offered to cut my hair for free in my kitchen. And outside, Greg was nursing some guy who kept punching his fist against the wall because he was mad that his boyfriend was flirting with other men.
Me and Greg took a cab home (it is possible to hail a cab in LA, btw). We stopped up the block from my apartment for the world's worst tacos and managed to freak out the cooks without trying to freak out-- we were just trying to order. I woke up in the morning on the living room floor and "The Room" DVD was playing on the TV. I crawled to bed. Greg was passed out on my couch with his hand in his underpants.
What is the point of this story? To show you that not having a car in Los Angeles is bringing out new kinds of social depravity I never knew I was capable of at my age.************
Today was my first Saturday being car free. I put little flyers up on my neighbors' doors telling them I was car free and renting out my carport for $90 a month. That's right! I now have some valuable real estate on my hands. If someone rents it... that's $1080 a year! Enough for 108 Long Island Ice Teas at a mid-scale bar. If nobody uses the carport, I will set it up with a hammock and read poetry.
It also took me a good two hours to psyche myself up for running errands via little black shopping cart on Santa Monica Blvd.
So there I was, pushing this shopping cart down Santa Monica Blvd to go get kitty litter and toilet paper from VONS and also to check my PO box. It was getting hot. The gridlock of cars on the road is overwhelming and it feels totally vulnerable to be one of the few pedestrians walking on a big boulevard packed with moving cars. As I am dragging all my belonging in that little hand cart, I found a remarkable kinship with other Angelinos pushing shopping carts-- homeless people, Latino families, older people, and people who talk to themselves.
Did you know there are people in Los Angeles over the age of 50? Yes! You can see them if you walk along Santa Monica Blvd!
Anyway, so I'm kinda checking myself out in the reflection of all these store windows and checking out how silky my black hair is and how tight my little body is in my sundress and the cart is bumping along behind me.
I'm thinking: "Hot damn! I look good for a girl pushing a shopping cart down Santa Monica Blvd! I bet I'm the hottest girl pushing a shopping cart in Los Angeles right now."
As the big wheels clunked up and down the squares of gum stained pavement, my hotness was confirmed with a nice long whistle from a homeless man crawling (on his hands and knees, no less) in the street.
That right America! I push a shopping cart filled with kitty litter and toilet paper down Santa Monica Blvd. and I look damn good doing it.
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统计信息
- 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.....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... a woman who takes life's absurdities very seriously," her body of performance work includes short and full-length solo performance works, outrageous street theater stunts and pranks, subversive internet installations, and plays and sketch comedy. She was awarded the Creative Capital Award in Theater and a Creation Fund from the National Performance Network to create her third full length solo show, "Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" exploring the remarkably high incidence of mental illness among Asian American women in a world that’s more nuts than we are. Cuckoo's Nest has shown in dozens of cities in spaces that include the Kirk Theater in New York City, the Painted Bride in Phildaelphia, La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley and numerous universities around the country. Kristina was recently selected to write and perform in the 2008 CBS Multicultural Comedy Showcase. Her show "Free?" was also featured earlier this year at the South Beach Comedy Festival in Miami. She is also completing a novel started with the PEN USA Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship. She is also a freelance contributor to anthologies and magazines that include Playgirl Magazine. Her spoof mail order bride website is www.bigbadchinesemama.com.
Past Performance Highlights-- Partial list
South Beach Comedy Festival, Miami, FL
NYC Hip Hop Theater Festival at the Public Theater
Bay Area Hip Hop Theater Festival
Painted Bride, Philadelphia, PA
National Asian American Theater Festival, New York City
TeAda New Works Festival, Los Angeles, CA
Off-Centre, Austin, TX
Jumpstart Performance Company, San Antonio, TX
Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA
Mark Taper Forum at the Ivy Substation, Los Angeles
University of Illinois, Chicago
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Michigan State University, East Lansing
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
The Egyptian Theater, Hollywood, CA
University of Virginia at Charlottesville (ECAASU)
La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley, CA
Asia Society, San Francisco
REDCAT, Los Angeles
Single File Festival, Chicago, IL
DeAnza College Cupertino, CA
University of Florida, Gainesille
National Asian American Students Conference at USC, Los Angeles
The Fake Gallery, Hollywood
Wet Daddy Literary Festival, Altadena, CA
Split ID Space, Hollywood, CA
David Henry Hwang Theater, Los Angeles
University of Texas, Austin
University of North Carolina, Asheville
Wellesley College, MA
University of IL, Urbana-Champaign
DePaul University, Chicago
New Chinatown Barber Shop Gallery, Los Angeles
SOMARTS, San Francisco
UC San Diego
Guest Lectures/ Demonstrations/ Keynotes/ Panels
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Michigan State University, East Lansing
University of Illinois, Chicago
DePaul University, Chicago, IL
University of North Carolina, Asheville
Mercy High School, San Francisco
St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY
Nazareth College, Rochester, NY
University of Southern California
California Polytechnic University, Pomona
San Francisco State University
Los Angeles City College; University of California, Irvine
University of IL, Urbana-Champaign
Wellesley College, MA
University of California, Davis
University of California, Los Angeles
California State University, Northridge
University of California, Santa Barbara
Asia Society, San Francisco
SOMARTS, San Francisco
California State University, Fullerton
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Awards and Recognitions
Creative Capital Award in Theater
Creation Fund from the National Performance Network
NEA Grant- Artist in “Community Action Series” La Pena Cultural Center
DBD Scholarship, Rachel Rosenthal Company
American Delegate, Korea Multi-Cultural Leadership Program
Davis-Putter O'Connor Scholar Award
Durfee Artist Resource for Completion Grant
City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Artist in Residence Grant
Rosenthal PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellowship
TeAda New Works Development Lab, Selected Core Artist
15 Minutes of Fem, Winner "Best of-- Night"
Poets and Writers' Grant
Visual Communications' "Armed with A Camera" Fellowship
Mark Taper Forum's Asian Theater Workshop Performance Commission
Guest-in-Residence, Unit One Allen Hall, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
UCLA HOTHOUSE Program: A Residency for the Creation of New Work
East West Players Conservatory Scholarship
Finalist, San Francisco Foundation Literary Awards
Jean Irwin Dance Memorial Scholarship
- 職業: 戲劇 , 脫口秀喜劇演員 , 作家
- 性別: 女
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