Our Ben Fong-Torres loses a job and gains a half-dozen others, from New York to San Francisco, with a stop in Cincinnati.
I lost my job a couple of months ago, and life couldnt be better.
I was just about ready to run out of the office in South San Francisco, screaming from sheer boredom with the job (VP of content at a marketing company that produced branded magazines sent out by e-mail), when the company got sold.
Yes, it was a big-salary; yes, the people I worked with were great. But spending a third of your life doing something youd just as soon not be doing is well, its something too many of us do.
Not me; no more.
And it seems as though the moment I was set free, a happy houseful of doors flew open, inviting me in for a look-see. Radio! Television! Movies! Books! Magazines! And, of course, more!
Some of these opportunities came before the downsizing at my company. Its been months, for example, since David Ling, an attorney-turned-film producer, called from New York to ask about a film option on The Rice Room, my 1994 memoirs. Weve now signed a deal, so Id advise getting in line immediately to see the film And Ive been writing, on and off, for Parade magazine since a couple years ago. Its on again, with profiles of Tim McGraw, the country superstar, and Ellen DeGeneres coming out (if youll pardon the pun) in August and September.
To check on a couple of these doors, Dianne and I went to New York in early June. Actually, we were there to go upstate, to a renewal of...
Ben Fong-Torres sings on stage in Texas with rock legends and lives to tell the story.
[Editor's Note: This article was written for the music maga- zine Paste and will appear, in a slightly differ- ent form, in its October issue.]
We were re- hearsing, and Id just run through my Elvis number when Jim Messina issued a threat.
Hey, Ben, he said, I just want to let you know Im gonna be writing a review about this!
Fair enough. After all, back in the day, when I was at Rolling Stone , I used to write about Messina, who was in Buffalo Springfield and Poco before becoming half of Loggins & Messina.
Standing near Messina was Richie Furay, his bandmate in Springfield and Poco. And huddled in a far corner were Mickey Raphael, the harmonica wizard behind Willie Nelson, along with Tony Brown, Nashville label executive, producer, and former keyboard player foryes, Elvis Presley. Yikes!
We were in the Hunt Suite in the Mansion on Turtle Creek, the Dallas luxury resort hotel where Dean Fearing, the ebullient executive chef and guitar-slinging leader of a mostly-chefs band, the Barbwires, gathers as many ringers as he can every year to play at his fundraising Summer Barbeque Fest.
On this seasonally hot July Saturday, some 600 people would soon show up, at $250 a ticket, to sample grilled and barbequed dishes whipped up and served by celebrity chefs from around the country, and to be coerced into overspending for items in an auction run by Al Roker and Peter Greenberg of the Today...
Ben joins jazz singer Cookie Wong in a tribute to pioneer music makers. And then he takes off for Vegas!
October, for me, was chock-a-block with events: I officiated a wedding; MCd a set of readings at LitCrawl, an annual literary event in San Francisco.
Did an onstage interview with Albert Maysles, the legendary documentary filmmaker for the Mill Valley Film Festival; hosted a dinner celebrating the 30th anniversary of Asian Mental Health Services (with David Henry Hwang and Tamlyn Tomita as keynote speakers), and sat on a panel of music journalists at UC Berkeley, sponsored by the Asian American Journalists Association and the Journalists of Color at Cal.
Oh, and I began production on a radio show of my own. Must write about that someday.
But one of the most illuminating -- not to mention rockin' -- events was Dancing on the Roof, a dinner and show honoring San Francisco Chinatown dance bands from the 1930s to the 70s, which I co-MCd with Cookie Wong. (We did the 70s group, while Doris Him Grover and Gerrye Wong covered the pioneer bands that played from the 30s to the 60s, such as the Cathayans and the Chinatown Knights.) The dinner was presented by the Chinese Historical Society of America to raise funds to repair its museum roof. The banquet room at the Marriott was packed, and the roof has been patched up nicely.
Cookie and I brought on members of such bands as Jest Jammin, Majestic Sounds, the Intrigues, and one group that went through five names: Persuasions,...
Asian Americans on TV? What a Concept! And Ben goes to a paradeand the Grammys.
If it strikes you as odd that Asian Americans, for all of our inroads into the mainstream, have yet to be seen widely on television, you are not alone.
And, in recent times, there've been some noble attempts to raise APA profiles, ranging from Stir TV (on the International Channel as well as KTSF in San Francisco) to Pacific Fusion, a San Francisco production thats airing locally and on a Hawaiian station.
Now comes word, by way of a report by San Francisco Chronicle TV columnist Tim Goodman, of ImaginAsian TV, which hopes to become the first 24/7 Asian American channel.
Based in New York, ImaginAsian hopes to present what it calls Pan-Asian programming in English. Besides a Web site, a movie theater in New York City, and a radio show in San Francisco, it's launched a sitcom called "Uncle Morty's Dub Shack." According to Goodman, "It's about four friends in a rap groupnone of them too brightwho pick up cash helping Morty dub really bad Asian films into English. Its 'Mystery Science Theatre 3000' meets the Beastie Boys."
ImaginAsian, Goodman says, is pretty low-budget and will be facing some pretty stiff competition soon. For one, MTV is launching three channels: MTV China, MTV Korea, and MTV Desi (aimed at South Asian Americans). For one thing, the International Channel, home of the lively Stir TV show, is planning to drop African, Arabic, French, Iranian, and other programming in late March,...
Our Ben Fong-Torres sings with music legends, then joins Tamlyn Tomita to say 'Happy Birthday' to Mike Honda.
After I did my three Elvis Presley tunes at chef Dean Fearings fund-raising BBQ Bash in Dallas, keyboard player Tony Brown , who was Presleys last onstage pianist, leaned into a microphone and intoned: Elvis has left the building. All around the Mansion on Turtle Creek, the luxury hotel and site of the BBQ, guests called me Elvis, and one man told me, I wasn't into Elvis before, 'till I heard you singing Elvis."
But I dont think Elvis ever sat, a half hour before a gig, in a hotel lounge, listening to his songs over a headset, still trying to memorize Dont Be Cruel and Teddy Bear.
But thats what I had to do, after realizing that just because Ive known a song for most of my life doesnt mean I can perform it with a live band and get it just right.
Ive had that awareness beforelike, say, every time Ive sung in publicbut its especially challenging when the band includes such pros as Brown, who also heads a record label in Nashville and has worked with dozens of country greats, including George Strait, Reba McEntire , and Trisha Yearwood . On sax is Johnny Reno , whos worked with Chris Isaak and many others. Also on board: Richie Furay , of Buffalo Springfield and Poco fame, along with Holly Williams , singer-songwriter daughter of Hank Williams, Jr. And last years guest stars included Jim Messina (of the recenty reformed Loggins and) and Mickey Raphael, Willie Nelsons...