New York NYC March Meet-Up

Cal,
I think of the Cantonese as the least hung-up of the Chinese people, and they have the most varied cuisine, which is enough for me. My mother, way back, is from real hick village-Cantonese stock, which my father was always fond of saying he rescued her from when he married her. He was of Hokkien lineage so I don't know what gave him the superiority, except he did go to to Harvard so maybe that was it.
Overseas Chinese, the vast diaspora, is a study in itself, which many people have tried to do, without, as far as I have seen, much insight. There is a fair body of American-Chinese literature though, which is part of the greater transplanted-culture writing genre.
Anyway(s), here's to much(o) individuality.
 
pyeh said:
Cal,
There is a fair body of American-Chinese literature though, which is part of the greater transplanted-culture writing genre.
Anyway(s), here's to much(o) individuality.
Click to expand...

Pete,

Way back when in NYC the biggest Asian minority use to be Chinese, but today interesting enough the biggest Asian ethnic group in NYC is accually Phillipino. As far as fighting goes one never wants to get into a knife fight with a Philipino because this is their weapon of choice and in particular they like Butterfly knives. Know that in Canada Butterfly knives are outlawed.

I was very active in the Asian community around 25 years ago, and I was a member of "Peeling The Banana" that was a group of performance artists that were based in the Asian American Writers' Workshop. At that time the AAWW was located in a basement underneath a GAP clothing store that no longer is there (Second Avenue and Saint Marks). I remember standing right outside and asking some passer by where it was because it was kinda hidden and invisible. All of Asian American literature was housed and sold there, and it really was not big.

Today NYC is about 20% Asian, and I remember standing out because I was made to feel like E.T. like I came from another planet outside of NYC. I happen to look in the mirror one day, I noticed I was an Asian, and realized that deep inside I was basically a white boy trapped in an Asian body. I ventured into NYC and became a member of the AAWW to find my identity.

Somehow, even though it is not in my blood, I think of myself as being biracial, and I skirt inbetween really not fitting in. I grew up during the Vietnam War, was targeted for hate crimes, and learned about discrimination, but I also knew of white privelige and entitlement because I was raised by white families as a white boy.

I was in my 30's back then, and pretty much still had the anger and rage of a teenager, but I put myself out there. With Peeling the Banana we performed throughout the Northeast at colleges and universities, but also at The Joseph Papp Public Theater and Second Stage Theater off-off Broadway.

Anyways my performance work involved processing and channeling a lot of that anger into art. The performances were actually filled with terror and anxiety because I really went into some dark spaces and put it all out there. It is very difficult to be so vulnerable.

I happen to have a really great director that could of been mistaken as my younger brother, even though he was Philipino, but Gary always pushed me into these scary places. I remember one gig at Cornell in Ithica.

On a Friday we had a gig at Rutgers, but not all of our group could go. I ended up doing my first solo performance at Rutgers, but on the way there near the Holland tunnel Gary approached me in the back of the van and asked me to develop from an exercise we did into a full blown performance piece because we needed added material.

So I was already stressed out because of my debut solo performance and now I had to get another autobiographical piece together that involved another actor who would portray my real father. It ended up that Rutgers was a great gig, but the best part was that it was over. I cannot describe the release of stress and tension that is created by performing.

So later that Friday night after Rutgers we went back to the AAWW to hook up with the rest of our troop and another van around midnight for the long drive upstate into western NY. There were about 20 of us and the white vans seemed like a mobile ghetto. We got to Ithica around 3:00 PM and the twenty of us, guys and girls, crowded into two hotel rooms sleeping on top of each other.

It was perhaps around 3:00 PM Saturday when we went to have breakfast, and I asked Gary who was going to open the show. "You are with your solo piece," Gary said. Around 5:00 PM we entered the "space" a rather large auditorium for perhaps a thousand people. From the stage I felt rather tiny, and I felt like killing Gary for all the stress I felt. I had this routine of doing 100 push-ups to somehow remove the tension from my mind and redistributing the tension physically into my body, but I thought I should of killed Gary earlier when I had the chance.

I waited off in the left wing by myself. In the theater the crowd violated the fire code and there was standing room only. I really hated Gary at that moment. On the stage was a coat rack with a lab coat and some hats. I wore a beret, knickers with work boots and a muscle shirt, and in my hand I held a vintage microphone that perhaps Elvis could of used. I was so scared, and I held it in my right hand like a club and stepped into the lights.

Onstage I was blinded by the lights and it was hard to see the audience, but there was a big pro level videocamera set up, and the show was going to be taped, but I only found out when I started my performance.


"Roll tape," I said, and then something odd happened, "Rolling," the cameraman responded. I was kinda surprise and was caught off guard.

"Testing-One-Two-Three," I said speaking into the mic I was using as a prop, "Can you hear me?" and then the entire crowd of perhaps 1.2K- 1.5K people created a deafining roar.

When they quieted down I began.

"V.O. one take one in three-two-one. The beret is an arrogant hat, and because of hat head, when I wear a beret I end up wearing it all day, and for that day it seems the beret projects into my personality. It is as if I become French and people respond to my open hostile aggressive rude behavior with tolerance, thinking although outwardly I look Asian, that somehow I must have some French in me, and I get excused for my bad behavior.

"In Ithica New York this is Calvin Lom reporting."

There is another roar from the crowd, and in the meantime I go to the coat rack and put on the lab coat along with a railroad engineer's hat, and when the crowd settles down I begin the second part of my performance.

I pull out a calculator from the chest pocket of the lab coat and press the keys while saying, "One-Two-Three-Four," while tapping my foot to the count, and then I start singing "I've Been Working On The Railroad" at a regular pace, but as I move around the stage things progressively speed up in my singing and movements become choppy and irratic. I mime flipping switches and turning knobs and towards the end I'm singing "I've Been Working On The Railroad" at a punk rock rythme and it appears that single hand-did-Lee I am operating a nuclear by myself and it is experiencing a melt-down.

At the end I change the refrain, and instead of Dinah won't you blow I sing "High tech you know, is where we go, that is where we belong..."

I change hats and this time I put on a skull cap.

In the monolog that follows the slapstick of the meltdown is a level of seriousness of where I speak of being trained in the arts, but to survive I became the model minority with the high tech job, but that is not who I really am, and basically I only became what society allowed me to become if I wanted to be successful. I only became what society wanted me to become.

I take the three hats into the front seats of the audience. With the beret I explain that all the anger and hostility are just defense mechanisms and I hand off the beret to someone in the first row, but with the Engineer's hat I walked the row and my targets did not take my hat and actually openly rejected it. One guy in particular who showed fear as I approached, like I would single him out, was the person I imposed the hat upon.

Wearing the skull cap I ended the solo performance saying, "All I am trying to do is be me, and its so hard."

Know this performance was part of a ECASU and the audience was all Asians. Pardon any ethnic or cultural offense. A few years ago I was contacted by NYU because they were setting up an archive for Peeling The Banana because it historically is relevent and important. I had a lot of scripts, programs and other emphemera that I donated. Every once in a while I get noticed/recognized and remembered even though more than two decades have passed.

We were widely reviewed and there are pictures of me in the Daily News and the Village Voice performing.

Cal
 
jszokoli said:
So Cal, is the recording of this performance hiding somewhere on the internet?
You never know...
Joe
Click to expand...

Joe,

Anything is possible. A while way back I did a Google search of my name and there were many tens of thousands of citations. Now it seems I'm more under the radar.

Anyways a while back we talked about all the stalking and data mining. It also seems that I got profiled as a rich guy and got "A" listed. I still get invites to meet dig-nah-taries, socialites, and heads of state. LOL.

All you need to do is buy a few/some luxury items and then one gets targeted. How did I get a free subscription to Forbes? Why do I get invites to meet Mayor Bloomberg four times at different events? How did I get into "The Hudson Society?"

Do a search for "Peeling The Banana." Back in the day it was a big deal but now decades have passed.

Cal

POSTSCRIPT: One of the members of "Peeling" was Reggie Cabico who is a Nuyerican Poetry Slam Champion.
 
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Cal, that really is an amazing story, and very brave of you to put it out like that.
You really ought to write that book, or maybe a new one-man show!
 
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