What did Ben Fong-Torres love about New Orleans? Everything and everyone.
"The moonlight on the bayou, Louis Armstrong sang in Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans." A creole tune that fills the air. I dream about magnolias in bloom, and Im wishin I was there.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Im prepared to miss New Orleans for a long, long time. What a wonderful city it waswith a sad emphasis on the past tense, as it can never fully be restored to its carefree days and ways, of a street called Bourbon and a drink dubbed Hurricane. The classic architecture, borne of its French and Spanish roots; the soulful Cajun cuisine; the life-is-short motif of the natives, who operated voodoo shops, gave tours of haunted houses, and told about the citys history of fighting floods and canes.
I visited the Crescent City several times, including once in 1995, when Gavin , a radio and record industry magazine where I worked, hosted a music biz seminar there. On the eve of that trip, I wrote:
Frankly, my dear, I don't remember much about the last and only other time I was in New Orleans. According to my calendar, it was in mid-March of 1978, and I was there for a vacation and to pop in on the NARM (National Association of Record Manufacturers) convention at the Hyatt. There was a big midnight bash at the Superdome hosted by Rolling Stone magazine, where I worked. But my notes say that Dianne and I spent most of our time at clubs and restaurants. Let's see: The Bon Ton, Cafe...
Ben Fong-Torres, our very own Renaissance man -- author, broadcaster, and former senior editor and writer at Rolling Stone Magazine -- wishes you a happy year of the ram. Or is that goat? Black sheep, anybody? Also, he confesses to being a TiVo-maniac.
Happy Year of the...What?
Its the Year of the Ram. Or is it? Weve had a minor controversy recently at KTVU, the station that broadcasts the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade. One sponsor insists that its the Year of the Sheep. As the co-host (with Julie Haener), and as a guy whos been around the Lunar cycle a few times, I resisted. But then I went online, where InfoPlease.com says its the Year of the Sheep, or, alternately, the Year of the Goat. To make matters even Ram-tougher, I happened onto a Chinese New Year site out of Scotland, where the year 4701 is called the Year of the Black Sheep.
Now Im totally confused. I already cant wait for it to be the Year of the Monkey. Or is that Chimp? Gibbon? Ape? Primate?
You Are Cordially Invited
It was my birthday, and there was a party, but it was NOT my birthday party. You know what Im sayin?
Of course not. Im just bitching and moaning about being an item in a recent San Francisco Chronicle gossip column, called The In Crowd:
Kimberlye Gold reports that when "A Whiter Shade of Pale" played at Ben Fong-Torres' karaoke birthday party at Yet Wah in Diamond Heights, the birthday man called it "Trent Lott's favorite song."
Immediately, the calls and e-mails started coming in. Not...
She loves Hello Kitty, karaoke, and a white guy. What more could you want in a novelist?
You get an idea of what Kim Wong Keltner is all about with the first sen- tence of her bio on the back cover of her first novel, The Dim Sum of All Things , published last year: In the fourth grade, Kim Wong Keltner won a cutthroat spelling bee, which encouraged her aspirations as a writer.
With Dim Sum under her belt (after a stop on the San Francisco Chronicles best-sellers list), shes published her second novel, Buddha Baby. And shes had a baby, Lucy. So, now, the authors note in the new book speaks not of an aspiring, but an established and matured author: When Kim Keltner isnt writing, she collects Chinese porcelain and plays Whack-a-Mole. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughter, whose first words were capybara and museum quality.
We met the other evening at Yet Wah restaurant in San Francisco, where she tried the Bens Special, consisting of fried rice with a side of almond pressed duck (and, yes, named after me. The dish, that is, not the duck). I go to Yet Wah regularly for meals and karaoke; she had her Buddha Baby book party there, and signed my copy of her book with a reference to my having sung El Paso. She mustve requested it at the party. Only thing is, I didnt do that song and, in fact, never have before. I figured I owed her one. Thus, Yet Wah.
With The Dim Sum of All Things, Kim, who is 36, made her mark as a refreshing new writer with a younger POV on...
From the Japanese internment camps came art. Beautiful art.
I am, as always, watching The Daily Show . The headlines are about George W. Bush approving the National Security Agencys wire- tapping of private citizens. We begin tonight, Jon Stewart shouts, as he is wont to do, with the war on terrorism! You know how sometimes during war time civil liberties take a back seat to national security? Nervous laughter from the studio audience.
Well, Ive got good news and bad news! The good news is this: No Japanese people are being sent to camps The bad news, of course, was a joke, about some horrible indiscretion of yours having been captured by the government.
Amazing. Just days before, Id visited a long-time friend, Delphine Hirasuna , to chat about her latest book, The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946. (Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California.)
To set the stage for her presentation of items created by internees who were being guarded by fellow Americans (Gaman is a Japanese word meaning enduring the unbearable with patience and dignity), Delphine tells how the government decided to relocate 120,000 Japanese Americans to ten hastily-constructed camps, in remote regions stretching from California to Arkansas.
If you take the premise that all of this had to be done out of military necessity, by June of 1942, after the Battle of Midway, the government knew there was no danger of a Japanese attack on the coast, says Delphine. But by...
Chinese New Year: Time to exchange those oranges!
Not long ago, I was invited to participate in the Porch Light storytelling series thats taken hold here in San Francisco. Produced by author Beth Lisick and various pals, it fills local nightclubs with people who wantof all thingsto sit and hear anecdotes. Not standup comedy; not improv sketchesjust plain old stories.
It was astonishing to walk down the stairs of Caf du Nord on upper Market Street and into a packed house, all these friendly people ready to lend an ear to the likes of Chuck Prophet, the singer-songwriter; Oscar Villalon, the book reviews editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, Andrea Michaels, former writer for the sitcom Designing Women and game show contestant (she won a motor home on Wheel of Fortune)and me (I lost an RV during my 1993 stint on the Wheel, but am still driving my prize Acura Legend).
I am not a story teller and cheated by riffing, as briefly as I could, on the topic for the eveningfamily, and then, because it was Christmas (remember that word?) and I was talking (vaguely) about how our family observed holidays, I cheated by launching into Elvis Blue Christmas.
It went over all right, but, still, it was cheating. But it couldve been worse. I couldve ignored a cardinal Porch Light rule and done a reading instead of telling stories.
In fact, until Beth pounded that into me, Id prepared to read from a chapter in my memoirs, The Rice Room. It told of my mother, freshly landed in Oakland, Calif....