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The title is real and you can read the story by following this link if you feel like it, or if you’re immature like I am, just look at the photos and skip this one. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?hp

Or so says this guy I met at lunch at work.

“They’re the last group of people you can make fun of!” he says “The rednecks!”

Then he went on to make a bad redneck joke. See, yes, I’m sensitive about all this stuff, so I don’t think you can make fun of Southern White Christians (never mind the fact that I doubly can’t b/c they are now my in-laws), but my biggest beef with these jokes? They’re not friggin funny.

My husband says a lot of comedy is based on lowering the status, usually someone else’s, and I feel like, as writers, maybe we should try a little harder then. It’s not that I’m pro-PC blandness when it comes to ethnic/demographic groups; I just need believeable characters and some dang funny jokes. Make me laugh damn it!

For example, let’s take Tina Fey. She’s done good and bad race jokes.

Bad Tina Fey: On SNL weekend update, she had a schtick about how this Chinese person in China couldn’t find his house b/c everyone looked alike. I thought 1) wow, you’re really not as liberal as we’re supposed to think you are 2) that’s kinda racist but MOSTLY I thought 3) You’re friggin lazy!!!! What is this, the 1950s? Am I destined to hear jokes from Dean Martin’s era forever?

Good Tina Fey: Recent “30 Rock” had her Middle Eastern neighbor seem like a terrorist, playing on all her sneaking paranoid feels. She calls Homeland Security, but then later finds out, he was just training for “Amazing Race.”

Okay? Got it? Racism = Bad Jokes. Subtle, social satire on racial relations = Good Jokes.

That’s all. I’m so sick thinking about all this stupid stuff. What is comes down to–just give me a good friggin part already.

In the elevator at work, I read this tip from a nutrition counselor for kids: Instead of traditional Christmas cookies, why not help your children decorate pieces of whole wheat bread with fat-free cream cheese and vegetables!

Sure, I think there’s too much sugar available this time of year and in general, but seriously, are you trying to depress children? That’s like when you’re kid wants a Barbie, and you give them like a Sassy Sue or a My Little Pony. They KNOW it’s not the same thing, dude. Just SKIP the friggin cookies, don’t do this sad, pale imitation of life as we know it.

Okay back to that audition, so I walk out and have this great speech in my head. Here’s the dream speech:

“Hmmm, I hear what you’re saying, and I realize I’m not the actress for this project, and this project is not for me,” I’d say, picking up my Coach bag [I don’t have one, but while we’re at dream mode, let’s also make me ten pounds less on a good hair day]. “Having Asians on stage with funny accents or speaking jibberish doesn’t work for me — since I still deal with racist behavior in my daily life, and gosh, I would never want to perpetuate this idea that offending Asians is okay. Lots of luck!”

And then of course, the playwright and director would be stunned by my shrewd, balanced speech. After I leave the room, they confer, and realize how insensitive they’ve been and offer, to make it up to me, to produce this operatic play I dream about writing. “Ms. Lee! Ms. Lee! Come back!” etc. etc. etc.

Of course, reality? Less interesting: I did the sides with an accent that kind of vacillated between vaguely French and Korean (I suck at accents and felt ambivalent at best about this request) and I just got out of there as quickly as possible, self-esteem still in tact.

In their defense, they were doing a “sendup of stereotypes,” but it’s too soon for that stuff. It’s not like we’ve come light-years from the time where Mickey Rooney’s bit as a bumbling Asian landlord in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” ruined that movie for me. “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” has a similar buffoon character (but I understand that film really offends just about everyone.) Do you see the picture I posted? What is that? Ironic? Yeah, still not funny.

And all this makes me think about what this blog is all about–family, race, and celebs–and confirms what Nancy observes, that I have strong feelings about being Asians. I don’t know what the heck they are, but they’re strong.

My husband says I could’ve walked out, and next time, I will. I like my husband.

So this play I’m currently in, as awful as it is, has cemented some of my more positive feelings about acting, like this is something I can do, I have some mad skillz, blah blah blah, and I cruised this regional theater audition got a call back, and then kaboom. Or a mild-ka-boom (let’s not be crazy). You know how you know exactly what to say AFTER the moment passes?

Here’s sort of how my audition for “Jewtopia” went:

DIRECTOR: Can you read the side again with an accent?
PLAYWRIGHT: Like do you have a Mongolian dialect?
ME (smiling, wanting to please): No, I didn’t have time to study one. You mean, read the Mongolian section with a Mongolian accent? (refering to the lines written in “Mongolian”): Oh, wait, is this part really Mongolian?
PLAYWRIGHT: Sort of. I don’t know. No. Just do the thing with an accent. The whole play is a sendup of stereotypes, so if you could do a funny accent, that would be great.
ME (slowly truth dawning on me): Oh, oh, oh you want me to do the whole part with an Asian accent.
DIRECTOR (smiling, happy I got it): Yes!

Oh yeah, this is a reminder why I’m not a fulltime actress.

It’s finally winter today, and the sight of ice-covered branches always reminds me college, when I would return to my dorm when the library closed at midnight. It was a cold, unbearable schlep in February and it always made me want to give up on life, you know, b/c I’m so positive. I’m so happy that I don’t ever have to study ever again.

Hey, for my friends I’ve been sneak-communicating with via facebook.com, that site is now among the blocked at my office. Busted!!! No worries. I will find another way to smuggle messages to the outside world. He hhe hehee

So the current play I’m working on feels like a Mexican soap opera. I’m not trying to be totally racist. Allow me to explain. I read some interview with Salma Hayek where she described as her old soap opera days in Mexico as insane, because you’re in a scene and have to wear an ear bud because they constantly give you new lines to say.

This play is nuts. I have no idea how it’s going to turn out. There are fight scenes, music, singing, dancing, there’s a dog in the show, two actors were out because of illness, one threw his back out. We show up to rehearsal and get scene rewrites. Today, I’m supposedly getting a new song for the recorder, which I just learned how to play two weeks ago and kind of suck at. My husband tutored me in a few monologues last night, and he was like “I don’t feel like you have a point of view. What’s your objective?” And really, I feel like a beginner all over again, because I have no objective other than to memorize my lines in time. We open Saturday. You feel me?

Completely unrelated and true, the fight choreographer asked us to pose in martial arts stances and make those “whooo-aaaaawe” sounds they used to make in those old pics. I felt like a douche bag (DB) but I tentatively raised my hand and said, sorry, I just can’t do that. I can’t make Asian gibberish sounds, because it makes me uncomfortable. To completely overthink the matter—does it bother me when other people do it? I don’t know. Old-time martial arts flicks are so ubiquitous and a part of American culture that everybody kind of does the crane pose with accompanying noise—BUT I CAN’T DO IT! IT MAKES ME FEEL CREEPY and like a total traitor. Other people are doing it in the play, which I don’t care about. But if it offends you, please know that I’m honoring the cause. if you come see me in the play and listen carefully, you’ll hear me say “NoIdon’tthinkso,” “Whatchoocallit,” and “Ilovechocolatemilk.”

My husband gives me advice like “Don’t worry about it” and “Have fun with the part,” which is like against my nature, but I’m to try. That sounds so healthy.

Oh dear god. I don’t think my mom should be allowed to interact with anyone famous. My parents, husband, and I went to the movies tonight (saw “Beowolf,” which was okay, kinda stupid, but who cares, I seem to like all movies, good and bad) and Paul Giamatti was there alone. I hate running into celebrities b/c they make me nervous. I just have like this inane smile plastered on my face and any ability to speak quickly flees from my body. We were all shoved in together like cattle being led to slaughter (it’s packed on a Friday night with teenagers) and David actually says hi to him b/c the Oscar winner is shoved between him and my dad. After he passes us, I inform mom who he is. “You know, the guy from ‘Sideways.'” And she says aloud, “Oh! But he’s so much chubbier and uglier in the movies!” And right then, he passes us again–possibly, POSSIBLY within earshot, which made me want to hurl.

I’m sorry! I’m SORRY PAUL GIAMATTI!!! MY MOTHER HAS NO INSIDE VOICE AND DOESN’T MEAN ANY HARM!!! COME BACK! GIVE ME A JOB! I’m so mortified.

I’m playing the flute, learning the recorder (staving off Alzheimer’s–big yay), memorizing lines, putting on a newanchorwoman accent my husband kinda despises, and trying not to kill people in my fight scene for this farce called New Amsterdames. I’m going to play a Chinese adoptee TV reporter, who’s as aggressively cheerful as they come.

It’s at HERE theater Dec 1-16, and in Queens Theater Dec. 17 and 18. What else? Go to www.flyingfig.org for more info.

The other thing I’m going to see is a night ten-minute plays, one of which is mine “I Like You LIke a Brother,” originally produced by Christine and Michelle and their cohorts at Fluid Motion Theater & Film Company. That gig will be on Dec. 1-3, 7 p.m., Spoon Theater. I’m going Dec. 2, if you want to join me cringe or hold my head up high, I’ll make reservations. It’s $10 and proceeds go to NY Cares.