WTF Asian Moments

So I really dug this video created by a very funny guy with the name of Ken Tanaka. He's a white guy adopted and raised in Japan! Anyway, if you haven't seen the video, check it out here:

What Kind of Asian Are You?

I laughed. I was born in Chicago, raised in New Jersey, went to school in New Jersey and New York City and now work in California. So I'm what people call a solid ABC - "American Born Chinese." In my travels around the US, having driven twice across the country, people are generally pretty nice to my face. But once in a while, you do encounter eyebrow raising incidents which tend to make one do facepalms inside ones head. The following is a TRUE STORY. As I said in the premise of my blog, I DO NOT MAKE ANY OF THIS UP!

In one of my cross-country drives, I had to do a pitstop in Kansas. If you've ever driven thru Kansas, you would know it to be the most grueling state to drive thru. This is because you suffer from driving dejavu every five minutes because the landscape NEVER CHANGES. Kansas looks about the same from one part to another. It is a long flat state full of those long flat boring plains you see in tornado videos and it is the most tedious and longest mother-effing state to drive thru. IF you do make the attempt, plan to lose at least 10 fracking hours or more of your life. Kansas is about as central as you can get in the United States, so suffice it to say, the people of Kansas are not the most metropolitan. (read: they don't have as many minority people as other states)

I took the pitstop to help keep myself awake. Walking out of the ladies room, a mousy brown-haired white gal looks at me and says, "Gee, sorry to bother you, but can I ask you a question?"

Nodding my head in puzzlement, I stop and turned around. She says to me, "You see, I don't know anybody of your kind. So I'm just curious what it's like."

Having never encountered such a question, my brain slams shut on itself. I stutter, "well, I woke up this morning like most people, ate breakfast and got into my car to drive...like everyone else."

"Really?" she says, "I mean, how is it for you? Is it good?"

"uhhh, yeah, I guess. People are people, you see."

"Oh, that's interesting." (really? I say to myself. wtf?)"So," she continues, "you have a good life?"

"uhh, yeah. I have a good life." Then I start to walk out still thinking WTF? in my head.

Turning my head, I say to her, "Have a nice life."

WTF!

Another time I was driving around San Francisco (which if you don't know, in the main metropolitan areas, is about 80% Asian) Anyway, a guy drives past me yelling, "Go back to your own country!"

The guy was obviously Middle Eastern.

WTF!

Then another time I went into a movie theater and while in line to buy a hot dog, the lady in front of me turned and glared at me and said, "We'd be in better shape if it weren't for you gooks."

All the people around us froze.

I gave her the evil eye and said loudly, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

She calmly replied, "If it weren't for you gooks, we'd be in better shape."

People start to gather around.

Again, I said, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?

She said, "You heard what I said."

"What the hell gives you the right to say that to me?" I yell.

At that point I lunged at her and was blocked by some guy the size of an NFL linebacker, who turns to me and says, "It's not worth it."

I let her go inside. And then asked for the manager, who promptly took two bodyguards to find the woman. He asked me if I wanted her tossed out the building. Which I considered but then thought I should be the better (wo)man and said, "no, ask her if she would give me an apology in exchange for not being thrown out on her ass."

She apologized. I told her she needs to get the right race. For me, it should've been "We'd be in better shape if it weren't for you chinks."

So damnit, that old problem of we all look alike.

WTF?

Do Radio People Dream of Sheep? Pt 2

Back on the subject of dreams, Radio People share two common themes (there are more, but these are the two main ones that 'we' seem to discuss amongst ourselves). They are both anxiety type dreams. One is related to being on time. As I said, if you are late, it's more than obvious to the universe. No sneaking in late in radio.

I often have "Late Dreams" that arise from circumstances beyond my control. For instance, I dream I have taken a wrong turn inside the building and I have somehow wandered into my sister station and yet, for some strange unfathomable reason, I am unable to navigate back to the studio to which I belong, the building having turned into a weird kind of labyrinth covered with posters of Howard Stern, Don Imus and warthogs. There are also normal 'Late Dreams' that are due to the normal kind of situations everyone else in the universe experiences. We are talking, late due to alarm not working, late because of traffic, and late because you tripped over the dog getting out of bed and broke your nose.

Other anxiety dreams arise in relationship to the dreaded "Dead Air." Nobody likes the idea of 'Dead Air." See, I bet I don't even have to explain to you what that term means. But just in case you don't, "Dead Air" is nothing but complete silence on the radio. Either you stopped talking and you can't think of anything to say or somehow the song you were playing suddenly stopped, won't continue playing and you can't find ANYTHING else in the studio to play...except a hoary old obscure Lawrence Welk single covered with dust leftover from the previous format.

There is another type of 'Dead Air Dream' that resulted from having been locked out. However, it is more than real for many, the majority of times due to the location of the Porcelain god. My locked out nightmare was a reality. I was working in San Francisco, when after having checked out the facilities down the hall, I returned and realized I locked myself out (the door rigged to lock behind you once you leave). After bellowing and banging on the door (it was early, a little after 6:00AM in the morning), the news guy finally heard me and opened up the door. I was locked out long enough that the entire record had tracked thru. I distinctly remembered the sweating and the dread had he not heard me, altho' I'm sure he would've noticed me not patching him in for his 6:30 newscast. If I had significant amounts of "Dead Air" that morning, there'd be hell to pay. Luckily, it was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which tracks together, so there was no dead air in between the tracks.

After my last post touching on dreams, I received this post from Jon Melander, a radio guy I connected with thru Google Plus. He wrote about his 'locked out' experience:

"I once worked for a station that was in the last 4 rooms of the ground floor of a Holiday Inn...the two bathrooms that were a part of the area the air staff had access to, had been converted to a record library and storage, so when you needed to go, you had to put on a long song (not real easy at a Top40/Easy Listening station, depending on who was in charge of the format that week) and then run down the hall to the restrooms by the pool area. One early morning, I managed to leave my key sitting on the broadcast console, realizing this right as the door locked shut behind me...I had to run to the restroom, then run to the hotel front desk and wait for the attendant to finish checking someone out before asking for their spare room key...I got the door back open just in time to key the mike as the song ended (didn't even have time to sit down), threw a PSA cartridge in and started it, then cued up another song, read two commercials, started the next song, grabbed my key, then ran back to the front desk to give them back the spare key...I still have nightmares occasionally where I can hear the song ending and can't get back through the door.

Do Radio People Dream of Sheep? PT1

One thing I know for a fact, is that true radio people share similar dreams when they are trying to slumber. First off, there are no great shifts in radio. This being because you must be ON TIME, if you are late, people/listeners/your boss/your mom, all listen and then EVERYONE KNOWS. There is a public shaming factor at work, you have to get to work on time to avoid people whispering behind your back what a lame-ass douchebag you are in getting to work, plus, when you do get there, the person in front of you stares at you with big disapproving reproachful eyes that say "you are a lame-ass douchebag for making me wait" and who needs to see that?

So, radio people are obliged to be punctual. That doesn't stop some people. For instance, I was hired one time as the third wheel for a morning show team in San Francisco and BOTH of the guys were notorious for being late. And we are talking two hours late at times. So if the news guy was two hours late, I did the news for two hours and if the jock (radio slang for DJ) was late, I was the jock for two hours. Of course, I didn't complain because it was nice to be able to rotate my job description. The only problem was when both of them were late, well, needless to say, that became a bit tricky. If you inspect the time-shifts people have to work, which in most stations nowadays aren't based on the previous 4 hour shifts of yesteryear, they all suck.

How can that be, you ask? Well, ok, let's take a quick look at the time-shifts (based on the stations I see nowadays, some still have different times). Mornings are from 5:30AM to 10AM. That automatically sucks because who really wants to wake up at 4:30AM? And assuming you live only 5 minutes away from the station (which I don't, more like 40 minutes) then the latest time you could wake up would be 5:25AM, assuming people you work with don't mind your obvious lack of hygiene.

Middays (10AM to 3PM) suck because you will never be able to keep a lunch date. That, and you will never get to make a doctor's appointment either, unless they have hours after 4PM, which, I don't know about you, is rarer than seeing a monkey's butt on the street. Not that I really want to see a monkey's butt. And don't even try a 9AM appointment, you will be sitting there in constant fear and sweat hoping the doctor is not late because then it will make you late.

I never worked the Afternoons (3 to 7PM) on a regular basis but I have filled in. While you don't have the issues of waking up and/or missing lunch dates, you have the issue of getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Of course, that could only apply to the bigger cities like NYC and Los Angeles. THis does not apply if you work in some bum-f-ck desolation like Midville, Idaho. So ok, afternoons are the least obnoxious, but then again, I don't know because I never worked Afternoons on a regular basis.

The Evening shift (7PM to Mid) has similar problems as middays, but during this time you are missing out on all kinds of events. We're talking dinners, get-togethers, cool TV shows and alot of concerts. Not to mention that you are out of sync with the rest of the universe because you probably ended up going to sleep at 1AM or later. And in one station I worked at, because the production guy didn't want to stay later than his alloted 8 hour shift, I ended up voicing and producing all the radio spots that happened to come in at 5PM. After a while, people nicknamed me production director. This doesn't happen to Evening people nowadays as most stations seem to be paranoid about jocks using the production room.

I guess you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure why the Overnight shift (Mid to 5:30) sucks. But here is actually one shift that has a big advantage over other shifts and that is, you stay out of the way from the whining and office bulls--t that eventually spew around radio stations like a constipated monkey butt.

I should stop now, yes, more useless and unimportant information in my next post about the nocturnal habits of radio people.

Why Ten Bucks is Ten Bucks, eh?

Oftentimes people pepper their speech with jargon that nobody else understands. I know this to be true in the rock world. For instance, when I say jokingly to people in a Canadian accent "Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?" I often get blank looks. What IS she talking about? That particular saying relates to an instance in time when Geddy Lee, the bassist/vocalist for the band Rush recorded with Bob and Doug McKenzie, a fellow Canadian act, albeit a comedy act. He sang the chorus in their tune "Take Off." Very funny stuff, the video is here:

Take Off Video

"Thanks for coming down to do our hit."

"Well, it's my pleasure, eh."

"Did, did our lawyer call you?"

"Yeah, um, I, you know, ten bucks is ten bucks."

Now don't you feel smug knowing what that means?

My Connection to Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin was a one of a kind singer. Many singers, such as people like Melissa Etheridge, aspired to be like her, the raspy voice, the effortless passion, the 'being in the moment' kind of singer. I love to sing, but I'm a different kind of singer. I sing in a pure and simple way. I'm not into the current craze for curlicue. Sometimes I just wish some of the singers nowadays would just calm down and sing. But, maybe that's just me. I'm guess I'm an old-fashioned throwback kind of singer. Sure I wouldn't mind being able to sing like Janis, but truthfully, I never wanted to sound like that. Singing is a very personal kind of activity and I'd rather just sing like me.

Back to Janis. At one point, she did have a vocal coach. And here is my connection to Janis Joplin. Her coach was MY vocal coach. OF course, Janis was long gone by the time I studied with said coach. Judy Davis was her name. Judy was famous for the litany of singers she'd trained, including Judy Garland (yes, Judy Davis was already really old when I met her), Barbara Streisand, Steve Perry and other very well known singers. She didn't accept just anyone to train with her. I remember she told us that she had one requirement in accepting singers. She said that they had to be able to sing on key because there was no way that singers with bad intonation could be trained to sing on key. And if there was one thing she couldn't stand was singers who sang off key. She said she tried one time and discovered it was an exercise in futility. Judy is up there in heaven with Janis now. I'm sure she'd be horrified to hear the excessive use of auto-tune on today's recordings from people who pass themselves off as 'singers.' I say that word with sarcasm because these folks truly can't sing better than a box full of yowling cats.

I remember her talking about Janis Joplin. The way she related her story was tinged with sadness and regret, so I could tell she cared about Janis. Judy said she studied with her for three years. And in all those years, there was nothing she could do to 'save' her. She was alluding to Janis' tendency for self-destruction. Guess we'll just have to continue to curse alcohol and the drug laden lifestyle that burdened young people back then for taking her away from us too early.

More On That Oyster Cult

It's not that I go around thinking about Blue Oyster Cult every day, it's that something happens to remind me of them. This time I blame it on the new movie from Tom Cruise, Oblivion. There is a scene where the name pops up and then then I'm stuck with the mind worm. Oh, alright, I won't do a spoiler. I'll be more specific with a short sentence at the end of this missive and if you don't mind spoilers, that is where you can find exactly what I'm talking about in terms of what reminded me of them in the movie.

But when I mentioned this to a friend, this is what she wrote to me.

"Here is my BOC story. Somewhere in 1972 my friends and I went to the Pocono Fest. You know a big hippie festival. I do believe we all ate some acid and after it came on my G/F and I were separated from our group of friends. We walked for something that seemed like decades and found ourselves in a big wide open field. It was early evening and a rain storm was coming. As it began to sprinkle we saw a big tent. These guys were waving to us motioning to come in the tent and get out of the rain which we did. They were very nice fed us and let us spend the night in their tent. The were all gentle men just in case you though differently. We had the usual hippie fun, they took out their guitars and played music and we all sang James Taylor song. Thorugh the course of the night the boys told us they were in a band and invited us to come see their show in NYC. We asked what the bands name was and they said. We call our band Blue Oyster Cult.

In the morning we all headed down to the stage area. A year or two later they were on the radio.

This is a true hippie story."

I don't know about you, but these chance encounters always strike my imagination, how they always leave a small imprint on people and make for great stories. I suppose this is why I decided to start this blog. People just tell me so much good stuff that needs to be told."

And as for what happened in Oblivion. It's where Jack goes to this idyllic retreat and rifles thru his album collection. One of the albums is...ta dada dah! A BOC album, of course!