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.

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.

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.