In Hindsight...

I realize that the previous post was rather preachy, but I feel strongly about the lack of attention paid the internment of Japanese-Americans and their involvement in WWII. I also feel strongly about supporting Asian-Americans in the arts. Support your local Asian-American artists! (I need new shoes!!!)

Significant Changes Afoot

I haven't blogged about my show lately because it was postponed due to lack of funds. It's still going forward, though. There will be some significant changes that will be happening this week (cross your fingers). I'll be updating when they happen and when they can be public.

The playwright of my play was in town this past weekend. Lane Nishikawa, along with 2 of his actors and his producer, were in town to screen his newest film, Only The Brave. The film is about the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team and their mission to rescue the 141st Infantry Regiment, who were surround by German forces near Bruyeres, France during WWII. The 442nd was comprised of Japanese-Americans from Hawaii and internment camps scattered throughout the interior of the US. It is a war film, but it's a war film that talks about an under-recognized battalion and their valor and loyalty to a country that imprisoned them & their families just because of their ethnicity. It's a period of US history that continually fails to make it in the history books and is rarely taught.

On an artistic end, I thought they did a good job by focusing on the on the individual soldiers as opposed to showcasing epic battle scenes. This was due in part to the limited budget. It allowed us to learn more about the individual soldiers and the families they left behind. The film is not without it's problems, but overall, it was a very good movie. If you get a chance to attend a screening, go!!!

http://www.onlythebravemovie.com/

Just Waiting for Nemesis To Comment...

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$50 for WHAT???

Dad: Do you have $50 for your niece?

Me: $50 for what?

Dad: She needs a stroller.

Me: Another stroller?

Dad: Not for her. For her dolls.


I've noticed that the word "no" seems to disappear from my parents' vocabular when it comes to my niece. "No" has and is prominent when talking to my brother and I ("Daddy, could you get me this pair of shoes? It's only $350.00." "NO!"). When it come to my niece (aka. The Carry-On, Munchkin, their Only Grandchild), it miraculously disappears. So Munchkin has informed her grandparents that 3 of her dollies NEEDS a stroller. The stroller has already been ID'ed and my parents didn't flinch at the price tag. Apparently, this stroller is NOT $50. That's just my share of the cost. I asked my dad if this stroller came with gold-plated rims or anything special like that. He only laughed and merely informed me that hauling 3 dolls across the house is quite a task and she NEEDS the stroller for her dolls.

Please note 2 exceptional points:
1) Needs. Not wants, but needs. This word came out of both my mom & dad's mouths. (Want = item that's nice to have, as long as someone else is footing the bill. Need = item that is necessary for life to go on.)

2) My father is, while not a cheapskate, fairly tight with his money. Except when it comes to his only grandchild. Not only has he not batted an eye at the price tag of some of his gifts to her, he has actually gone shopping for her! Sometimes of his own accord and sometimes by himself! And unless it's electronics (for himself) or sports equipment (for himself), he HATES shopping! I have seen him go shopping for clothes for his grandchild, by himself!!! He never goes clothes shopping for himself until my mom drags him out.

I think these are some of the signs listed in Revelations forcasting the end of the world.

Where's My Gun???

A friend and I always joke about the stage management gun. This theoretical gun and a number of bullets would be issued to the stage managers, one bullet per cast & crew member plus 2 per director and designer. Now I'm wondering if there needs to be one issued to each designer. I'm currently doing sound design for a comedy. This is not a hard show to run - or as I told a friend of mine, this is not the theatrical version of rocket science. In fact, this is about as easy a show (from a lights and sound end) as possible. Instead, we're having "operator issues" (ie. the stage manager is not calling the show correctly). The lighting designer, stage manager and myself have now had 3 cue-to-cue rehearsals. For the theatrical outsider, cue-to-cues are rehearsals where we go from one sound/light cue to the next, in order, without all of the acting in between. For this show, this means going from the very beginning when the audience files in, to the curtain speech where they tell you to turn off all audible electrical devices, to when the actors first enter the stage. After that, we go to 2 sound effects in the middle of act 1, then intermission. After intermission comes the actors entering the stage for act 2, 6 sound effects, then curtain call. Not that difficult. Did I mention we held 3 cue-to-cues for the benefit of the stage manager? The last 2 were held right before shows with an audience. It's very disheartening to get there early for a hand-holding, private coaching session with the stage manager only to not see and hear any of the fixes during a real show. At this point, it's not a difficulty issue, it's a competency (or lack thereof) issue. This person should not be in the position of stage manager. Heaven forbid this person work on a show that's actually difficult. I think it would drive this person to a sanatorium!

On a different note, I judged a kareoke contest last Sunday (see my Nemesis' blog). I noticed he failed to mention me in his blog. (Ahem, ahem, cough, cough.) Judging the finals (thankfully) meant that I was judging the good singers. It was a tough competition, and as I predicted, I was the Simon of the judging panel. We had each finalist sing 2 songs (one fast, one ballad) and after their second song, we each gave our comments. I thought I was going to be lynched or at the very least, have my tires slashed. Yes, I was very critical (this was the finals, after all), but all of my criticisms were constructive. Let's just say I was not very popular with many of the cheering sections that attended that night. My life and my tires, however, remained intact and I was able to leave in relative safety, if not a little less popular.

Some Of The Greatest Words In The English Language

Open Bar Reception

If one has to commit matrimony, that's the way to go.

Did Y'all Know That PST Is 2 Hours Behind CST?

Monday, 11:30am

Nemesis: What are you doing for lunch?

Me: I have to work through lunch since I'm late.

Few minutes later after I explain to nemesis that I'm waiting for the guy behind me to open the garage gate.

Nemesis: (rolls off his seat with laughter) I thought you got in late. I didn't realize you just got to work!!!

I flew in from LA late last night. (I was in LA for my cousin's wedding - topic for another blog.) Knowing that I would have to get up early the following day for work, I set the alarm on my phone. (My alarm clock needs to be replaced and I haven't bothered to replace it yet.) In fact, I set the alarm and double-checked it while on the airport shuttle back to the car. The one thing I DIDN'T do was set my phone back to CST. For some reason, my phone doesn't automatically update the time. When I woke up this morning, I saw that I had missed a call from my boss. My phone said it was 8:10a, so I couldn't figure out why my boss was calling me so early. I then looked at the clock in the kitchen and it said it was 10:10a and I realized I didn't set my phone ahead!

Yeah, it's gonna be a productive day today!

Munchkin Duty

I took off today because I had Munchkin duty today. My niece (aka Munchkin, The Carry-On) is staying with us till Tuesday because her mom and dad have a wedding to attend. She's at the fun stage now. She can chat up a storm, too. It was a very busy day today. We watched Veggie Tales (for those of you not in the know, Veggie Tales is a show featuring computer-animated vegetables), colored, cooked with her cooking set and wooden fruit & vegetables, hunted down the cat that was trying to avoid her and tried to get the dog to stop licking her. After naptime, we played on the swing and played in the sandbox. I was talking to my friend while we were playing outside (my first conversation with an adult for the day) and he was laughing at me and he kept saying I'd make a good mother. I don't think I can do the stay-at-home thing.

FYI - Calls to England are MUCH cheaper than calls to Saudi!!!

Tomorrow's A Whole New Game!

Tom DeLay's dropping out of the Congressional race!

It's gonna be a busy day at the office tomorrow!!!

I've Got A Question...

Here's my question: why do guys like long hair?

I just got my hair cut. Chopped, actually. The shortest lock that was lopped off was at least 3 inches. My hair went from about 2 inches past my shoulder to chin length. I told a male friend how short my hair is now and his response was "I don't think I like what I'm hearing".

Long hair can be a pain to take care of. My hair is very wavy. I live in Houston (high humidity). Summer is around the corner (the season of high humidity). All this equals frizzy, unruly hair. I will spend 30 minutes straightening it, step outside and have all my hard work kink up in less than 5 minutes. Long hair looks plain and boring on lots of girls. Yet guys seem to have this infatuation with long hair. Why?

As One's Getting Out Of The Pot, The Other's Getting In

Bro: I'm getting out of politics right when you're getting in. You're just getting in with the other side.

I've been telling my brother about my new job. Unlike my mother, his reaction is not one of incredulity or even resignation. He thinks it's neat that I'm hopping into the political pot. We had to laugh at the timing, though. He officially got out about 1 month before I got in. Of course, he got a great kick out of mom's response. My mother's justifying my job by focusing on the fact that I'm getting a paycheck.

Yo Momma Don't Work Here!

It's 6:30p on a Saturday and where am I? At the office. Cleaning up after these boys. I like to call it my stint in the frat house. Let me explain. This office is currently occupied by 5 people (including yours truly) and out of the 5, 4 are boys. Messy boys. Messy boys who can't clean up after themselves, put things away or replace things. It's like stepping into a frat house. I finally realized enough is enough when 3 of us were fighting over a ballpoint pen because that was the only one that could be found in this mess we call an office. I'm not a neat-freak, but I do like some order in my life. Besides, when the fight is over the only known writing utensil in existence, something's going to give. I'd like to take a blowtorch and incinerate everything to ashes. It would be easier starting over than trying to deal with this chaos.

Speaking of chaos, it's a mess downstairs in the lobby. It's NBA All-Star Weekend and all sorts of big names are in town. There have been VIP parties going on in the ballroom downstairs and security has been crazy. You'd have thought the Economic Summit was being conducted downstairs with all of the uniformed and plain-clothed security they have downstairs. At least it's just for the weekend.

Moving Forward With Great Speed!

I landed yet another job! I am now an associate director for a non-profit cultural organization. It's a grandiose title for administrative assistant. So it's everything I've been doing for my friend, but now it has an official title and a paycheck. (Yay, paychecks!) It'll be a lot of fun and I'm excited.

Yesterday, we had a fund-raising kick-off for my show and the responses were great! We had some major players in the cultural charity scene and in the community there including the Consulate General from Japan and the Vice-Chair for the DNC who was there as a favor to my producer. I had 2 guys do a staged reading of one of the scenes in the play. The reading went very well (I think the audience was hooked) and then the congressman spoke. Originally, my producer asked if he could just speak briefly on his family's experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. I was sitting there listening to him and he starts off talking a bit about the play. I figured he would comment a bit on the show based on my description and the scene we performed and then launch into the camps. He just kept talking about the show and as he was talking, I was thinking, "he's talking like he's seen the show. Wait! He HAS seen the show!". One of the playwrights used to live in his district and the congressman saw the show about 5 years ago and was deeply moved and impressed with the story. He kept commenting on what an impressive story it was, how this was a story that needed to be told and the people there needed to fully support this production because it would make such an impact on the Asian/Pacific-American and Jewish-American communities here. It was the best endorsement we could have asked for and we had no idea he was even going to fully endorse the play like he did! We didn't even know he had seen the show before!

After the meeting, my producer and I met back at the office to celebrate and then met with the congressman's staffer who accompanied him and continued celebrating. The congressman called later and invited all of us up to his suite to hang out with him. He is such a laid-back, personable, down-to-earth guy - he was just cool! We finally called it a night 4 bottles of wine later. Definately a productive day!

New Job!!!

Responses from others (upon hearing about my new job):
1) SH: So what's the new job?

Me: For all intents and purposes, I'm an executive assistant.

pause

SH: WHAT?!?!?! How did you get that???


2) Mom: (after about 10 seconds of silence)
That's not nice. I don't think that's nice. Have you told you father?

(He is one of the leading Democratic political consultants in town, in the state, actually. My parents are hard-line Republicans.)

3) Me: I'm not working at Rice. I am, however, downtown working out of The Rice.

(The Rice was one of Houston's grand, landmark hotels.)

SM: I thought The Rice was a classier hotel than that.

(I'll give you a minute to figure that one out.)

4) (After telling some friends about my mother's reaction.)
Me: She had that tone of voice that made it sound like I was only a step above being a hooker.

C: Now, maybe if you were a Republican hooker...


I just landed a new job working as an assistant for one of the leading political consultants here in town. This job just fell into my lap. I was helping out a friend (in dire need of an assistant, but doesn't have a enough of a budget for one at the moment) and I was telling him I was looking for a day job. He tells me the guy whose office he uses needs an assistant. It's mostly administrative stuff. Anyway, 30 minutes later, I find myself in a new job. Yay!!!

For All You Mockers

For all of y'all who mockingly call me princess...

Why, yes, I am.

DONE!!!

My show is DONE! I finished my work 4 hours ago and it's OVER!!!!!! No more fixes, tweaks or additions. I've handed the show over to my stage manager and sound board operator. I'M DONE!!!!

P.S.

It's nice to know that someone misses you.

All The World's A Stage

I just realized it's been almost a month since my last post. My friend finally made it to Saudi Arabia and we've been IMing each other on a regular basis. I've been working on a new show as the sound designer. I've also secured a venue for the show I'm planning to direct this summer.

This show that I'm sound designing is such an emotional rollercoaster! It's a play that's written by a local actor and it deals with a couple and their child who's in neonatal ICU. It's loosely based on the experiences the playwright went through when his daughter was born. It's a good show, but this definitely not a fuzzy, feel-good comedy. I've now seen it at least 10 times and I still boo-hoo through the show. This show has definitely not been the easiest, but it's been the most fulfilling show I've designed in awhile. I actually got to work as a designer as opposed to working as just a sound editor. Let me explain. The past few shows I've worked on as a sound designer has been mostly taking the music the director has picked and burning them in order onto 1 or 2 CD's. At most, it's been hunting down instrumental music from the period. Easy (most of the time) and very little creativity going on. This show, however, is about an hour of background sounds - no music until the very end. 1 hour of beeping hospital monitors and hospital hallway noises. That's means building it all from scratch. While the monitors weren't as hard as I thought they'd be, the hospital bustle has been eating my lunch. They can't sound too sparse, too noisy, too jarring, too quiet, and I have to keep it from sounding like white noise. It has to sound like we're in a nurse's unit in a hospital. That means that my sounds have to have some sort of logic to them. Phones that ring need to be answered, so the footsteps have to sound like they're going to the phones, other footsteps need to sound like they're passing through the hallway, etc. I know that's a long, overly detailed way of saying that I actually get to design on this show. It's been a lot of work (many days that would start at 9am and end at 4am) but a great experience and it's a show I'm proud to have my name attached to. Not to mention working with a great director, cast and crew.

And now you know more than you'd every want to know about my life as a sound designer. Wait till I start directing.

Not Goodbye, But See You Later.

A very dear friend of mine is leaving to go work abroad for about 18 months. It didn't really hit me till last night that he was leaving in less than 48 hours and that would probably be the last time I see him for awhile. I've had friends leave before, but this particular departure is a little rough for me. He's a very talented and intelligent person who has become a close and trusted friend. I wish him good luck, godspeed and safe travels. I'll see you soon.

I'm Baaack!

It's been an energy-sapping, drama-filled holiday season. We FINALLY closed our show amid multiple blown fuses. I think that was one of my more exhausting shows I've worked on in awhile. It gets tiring sitting on pins and needles 5 hours a night, 4 nights a week, waiting for something to break, fail or blow. On to my (pathetic) personal life...

I really dislike being dragged into other people's drama. I especially hate being involved in the middle of drama. I have been witness to people making stupid decisions and if it wasn't for the fact that these people ranking higher than "acquaintances", I would have written them off a long time ago. Unfortunately, because I know and care about these people, I can't just write them off and be done with it. Dealing with drama and craziness is very draining. One of my resolutions for next year: no more new crazies. I work in theatre, my PDA is full of crazies.

Oh, and it's the Christmas season. That's enough stress to last me till Lent.

Now for stupid stuff that makes us laugh.

A friend of mine drove from Houston to L.A. about a week ago. I get a phone call at about 9am the morning (breaking my crack o'noon rule) after he left Houston.

Me: Morning.

C: How much do you know about international law?

pause

Me: Not enough to bail you out of a Mexican jail, if that's what you're asking. WHERE are you?

C: I'm in Mexico.

another pause

Me: How did you get into Mexico??? I-10 doesn't run through Mexico!!! L.A.'s a straight shot down I-10!!!

He then proceeds to tell me that he and his buddy wanted to get breakfast in El Paso. He turns on what he thought was an exit ramp off I-10. What he actually turned onto was the border crossing in to Juárez, Mexico. He's never been out of the country before and he's armed with only his driver's license. I'm laughing my head off while he's panicking slightly and worrying that he won't be able to get back into the U.S. (Don't worry, he made it back into the U.S. and gave the U.S. border guard something to laugh at.)