Ben Fong-Torres discovers an Asian blueswoman, plus an online locker for all your music.
I was at Biscuits n Blues, a combo plate of blues nightclub and restaurant (with a Southern accent) in downtown San Francisco, working on a feature about a band comprised mostly of chefs. At B n B, the Back Burner Blues Band likes to invite people from the audience to jam, and, as I sat at the bar, taking notes, I couldnt help but take special note of a young Asian woman with long black hairand an electric guitar.
Heres how shes introduced in the article I wrotepublished in a recent San Francisco Chronicle. Im quoting one of the chefs, Gordon Drysdale , telling why he likes the jam sessions.
Its nerve-wracking, but exhilarating, and weve had some great moments. Like this woman, Angelawow! The ferocity with which she attacked everything. Im under-confident, so to see anybody get up there and do it with such convictionIve had to rethink how I approach everything.
Angela is Angela Lum , a 25 year-old with flowing black hair, dressed in a cowboy shirt and jeans, slinging a guitar and wailing an original blues ('B Minor Slide') with a throaty, gravelly voice, the flip side to (Back Burners co-lead vocalist) Leah Tysses smooth gospel tones.
Turns out Lum is a tech consultant (specializing in Web 2.0) from the Napa Valley. She met a couple of the chef-rockers at a blues club in the wine country a few months ago, and they invited her to play with them at Biscuits n Blues, where they play the...
Pee-Wee Herman is back, and he talks with our Ben Fong-Torres.
I hate to be a name-dropper. Diana Ross told me it was gauche. But Ive got to drop at least one on youactually, two: Pee-Wee Herman and the guy who created and played him, Paul Reubens.
He was honored by SF Sketchfest, an annual celebration of sketch comedy, and the organizers asked me to conduct the interview, in the theater at the Palace of Fine Arts. I accepted immediately. Way back in 1983, hed brought his Pee Wees Playhouse act to a nightclub in North Beach, and Dianne and I were immediate fans of his quirky character. Next came the movie, Pee-Wees Big Adventure, followed by CBS putting him on Saturday mornings for kids (and the young and goofy at heart). In 1988, he had his second film, Big Top Pee-Wee.
And then came his arrest in an adult theater in his hometown, Sarasota, Florida, and a couple of years away from the spotlight. He has since appeared in numerous films and TV shows, from Batman Returns and Mystery Men to, currently, 30 Rock and Reno 911. And, after years of pointedly not doing his Pee-Wee character, even as the shows were being rerun and distributed on DVD, hes working on two films centering on that beloved character.
Before our interview, he made it clear that he didnt want to rehash his arrest. He had nothing to worry about. This, after all, was a tribute, a celebration of his work. And with as rich a career as his, I was barely finished with questions about the Pee-Wee projects when it...
Ben on the Fangs and their AsianWeek publication of Kenneth Eng's 'Why I Hate Blacks' column. An apology is not enough.
Ben then joins the 'You Tube' video generation and shares behind the scenes clips of his fun prepping for and co-hosting the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade broadcast on KTVU. Plus a session with The Doors' Ray Manzarek.
Fun & Games with a Videocam And a Multimedia Montage Site
BUT FIRST: Before the fun and games, do take a look at my colleague Bill Wong's essay on the whole controversy at AsianWeek, a paper that shouldve known better, but didnt.
As a long-time reporter and editor myself, I will add this: I agree with those who believe that higher-ups at the weekly wanted to stir up the pot. When youre a national publication, a self-proclaimed Voice of the Asian American Community, and are wallowing with a circulation of fewer than 50,000, it makes sense that you want to do somethingespecially when newspapers with ten times that circulation figure are fighting new media, losing readers and ads, and slashing budgets.
AsianWeek dismissed the writer of the offensive essay, Kenneth Eng. But until Ted Fang, the front man whos been doing all the apologizing, takes real action and fires editor Samson Wong and/or whoever was responsible for allowing the column to be published, Ill assume that hes not all that sorry about the publicity (albeit negative) that his paper has generated. The Fangs know, as well as anyone, that theres really no such thing as...
Fresh 'n' frazzled from a Rolling Stone reunion, and with a new radio show, Ben Fong-Torres comes out of hiding.
I have not been on vacation. Au con- traire .
Actually, for a few months there, I felt like I wasn't doing much of anything. But, then, those few months slid by, and I realized I hadnt written anything for Asian Connections sinceI dont even want to know.
What I do know is that, now that I've just agreed to do a couple of major projects, I'd better write before I have to hunker down to work on the new assignments.
They're nice gigs, actually. One is already underway. I'm doing a radio show on KFRC here in San Francisco (It's at 106.9 FM hereabouts; kfrc.com on your computer). It's a two-hour show on Sundays, airing from 7 to 9 a.m. (Pacific time) and repeating at 7 p.m. Its called "Backstage," and, essentially, I do whatever I want, in the disguise of a DJ show. KFRC, a legendary set of call letters in these parts, is a "classic hits" station, playing rock mostly from the '70s, but with some '60s and early 80s as well. In my second show, I played a baseball song from the '40s, and in an upcoming program, a guest, Judy Collins , names Sheryl Crow as a fave rave, so I'll spin a modern-day tune and pray that I'll keep my brand-new job. But I think I will. CBS Radio's put out a press release and everything.
The other thing is another book. I think its my seventh or eighth. I hadn't planned on tackling another long-term writing project, so soon after the two books...
Our Emmy award winning Ben Fong-Torres weathers his 12th year as co-host of the SF Chinese New Year Parade televised broadcast and finds a silver lining with the weather forecast for rain - Ratings!
You know how, sometimes, those meteorologists on TV get their weather forecasts a tiny bit wrong?
Hard to believe, I know, what with all their computers and radars and satellites and fancy Doppler maps and storm tracking weaponry.
But it happened big time the other weekend, when every weather guy and gal and the radio traffic-and-weather people, and the newspapers, too, issued warnings that the San Francisco Bay Area was about to be blown off the face of the earth, by a storm that would rival the January assault that blacked out tens of thousands of homes, some of them for as long as four days and nights.
I had more to worry about than stocking up on batteries and Dewars. The weekend happened to include, on Saturday, February 23rd, the Chinese New Year Parade. I've been co-anchoring the TV coverage of it (on KTVU, Fox 2) for 11 years. This would bring me full circle in the lunar cycle, and would be the 8th year with co-host Julie Haener . Eight is an auspicious number, just as red is a lucky color, and noodles ensure longevity.
But the forecasters told of how the parade was a target of the storm; how, despite the parade's 55 year-tradition of going on, rain or shine, Ma-Ma Nature was likely to wreck floats and knock marchers off their stilts.
The parade begins at 5:30; our...