Our very own Renaissance man Ben Fong-Torres was the co-host of the Emmy award-winning telecast of the Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year Parade the largest parade of its kind in North America.
When he is off-camera, Ben is very busy working on his new books soon to be released.
The guy does take a break every now and then - you might be lucky to spot him in a jam session on the second Tuesday of each month at a local hang-out in San Francisco.
In the following feature, Mitzi Mock writes of her close encounters at the All-Star Jam session.
This time out, I'm giving my space over to Mitzi Mock , a student journalist at San Francisco City College. She showed up at the monthly All-Star Jam that I visit, at El Rio in the Mission District, and wrote it up as an assignment for class. I thought she did an excellent job capturing the quirky scene, that she came up with an excellent lead paragraph -- a skill that's vital for news writers -- and did a good reporting job, talking not only to band members, but also to patrons of El Rio. I told her she deserved an "A" (which she got from her professor) and a larger audience (which her teacher could not give her). So I'm proud to present...Mitzi Mock.
One Man's Train WreckBen Fong-Torres is scanning the room for women. He'll take one or two. Three would be ideal. He wants them all at once.
But only for about two minutes.
"Do you know the chorus to 'He's So Fine?'" he asks, whispering to a woman who...
Ben Fong-Torres, our very own Renaissance man -- author, broadcaster, and former senior editor and writer at Rolling Stone Magazine -- still gets called to be a TV talking head. Especially when the subject is pop music, and stars like The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.
For a moment there, I thought Bruce Springsteen had died. Back at my home office after a lunch in San Francisco, I had messages from a TV network and a local station, wanting to interview me about the Boss.
That's usually a bad sign. Previously, I've been called to weigh in on the deaths of George Harrison, John Lennon, John Entwistle, Waylon Jennings, Bill Graham, John Belushi you get the idea. A pop figure dies; my phone starts ringing.
But no. They wanted to talk about Bruce because he'd just released a new CD, The Rising, and it was getting the royal media treatment. The cover of Time. A five-star review in Rolling Stone, which offered "the gospel according to Bruce." A live mini-concert on the Today show, broadcast from his troubled but fabled hometown, Asbury Park, New Jersey.
This is the way it is these days with acts from the Baby Boomer generation. Because boomers now run the controls at media outlets, stories that were sniffed at years ago are now Page One: McCartney weds; the Who plows on, and, of course, anything Elvis.
But Springsteen does give good hype. His recording truly is significant, inspired, as it is, mostly by September 11 [and can we PLEASE stop calling it "9-1-1," as someone on CNBC just...
The Olympics, Ryan Seacrest and Me
As the old song goes, “it’s been a long, long time.”
I apologize for not writing sooner. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. Just not for this space. For example, I just had a short piece published in The Hollywood Reporter, about the Olympics’ opening ceremonies, with a focus on music. It’s in the August 10 edition of “THR,” which is an interesting blend of trade magazine (for showbiz industry folks) and consumer mag (for people who like backstage peeps at the business known as show).
My piece—about the 60’s music that producer Danny Boyle featured during that wild, wacky event—was nothing special. But one thing about it really amused me. Just below my story was a Q&A with Ryan Seacrest, who was among the talent NBC shipped to London to work the Olympics.
A few months ago, when Dick Clark died, I wrote my first article for The Hollywood Reporter, recalling a sometimes contentious interview with him from ‘way back, for Rolling Stone. The editors chose a quote of Clark, something he said to me, for the headline: “YOU’RE A LIBERAL, AND I’M A F---ING WHORE’. This, right after a glowing tribute, “What I Learned from the Master,” by…Ryan Seacrest.
We are fated to be together!
This is to say that stuff happens.
Just the other day, I was on Castro Street here in San Francisco, and a guy asks, “Aren’t you Ben Fong-Torres?” I admit that I am.
“Well, that’s reassuring,” he says.
I didn’t...
Clint Eastwood: A Ramblin’ Guy
by Ben Fong-Torres
All right, all together now, with Neil Diamond in mind:
"I am," I said, to no one there
And no one heard at all, not even the chair
"I am," I cried. "I am," said I
And I am lost, and I can't even say why
Leavin' me lonely still
Well, Clint Eastwood must’ve felt pretty lost and lonely after his debacle of a speech at the Republican convention. Here he’d turned his back on the Democratic Party by attacking President Obama – or at least his imagination of Obama, represented by the now infamous empty chair on stage, with which Eastwood conducted a one-to-none conversation. But he’d done Mitt Romney and the GOP no favors by screwing up the convention’s rigid time line, looking slightly disheveled and rambling for 12 minutes when he’d been given five, delaying Romney’s big moment. And, in line with previous convention speakers, Eastwood issued statements that either were inaccurate or did no service to the anointed candidate.
Among his missteps: He chastised Obama for his timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. But Romney himself has endorsed that strategy. Eastwood wondered whether it was a good idea to have attorneys (like Obama, a Harvard Law School grad) to be in the White House.
Backstage, Romney probably wasn’t wondering, since he also holds a degree from Harvard Law School.
That’s how it went. Eastwood threw off the schedule, then grabbed most of the headlines, for all the...
Events are conspiring to hurtle me into my distant past, to my childhood years in Oakland’s Chinatown, where my sisters, brothers and I served time at our restaurant, the New Eastern Café.
First, there was the closing of the Silver Dragon, an institution among restaurants in Chinatown; one of the first ones built for banquets and special events. Since 1974, when it settled in at Ninth and Webster Streets, it was a gathering place for the community, whether it was a young couple on a date or a family hosting a red egg and ginger party or a wedding banquet.
It’s being replaced by Asian Health Services, and that organization had a fundraising dinner gala the other night at the nearby Marriott, with 600 people in attendance. The featured entertainment was a tribute to the Chee family, the clan behind the Dragon.
Sherry Hu, the MC for the event, asked me to speak as part of the tribute, and, although I didn’t have the time, I made time.
You see, my family’s restaurant was sold, in 1954, to the Chees, who turned it into the first Silver Dragon. I was nine years old then, but my time at 710 Webster Street helped shape my life.
As I told the audience at the Marriott, the title of my memoirs, The Rice Room, is about a space in the back of that restaurant. “We were all in the rice room,” I said, “where rice, soy sauce and children were stored.
I continued, “This is where, while my parents were cooking and running a restaurant, I grew up. This is where I...