Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me"

Last weekend at The Floating Kabarett at Galapagos (my favorite place to perform!), I brought back a number that I've been very fond of but have not had the opportunity to do often (stage size). I debuted it last June at Femme Appeal's Kitty Night's to a very positive reception. That was the only act Femme has ever seen me do and based on this act, she recommended me to another producer which led me to develop my Patsy Cline "Your Cheatin Heart" act. I absolutely love doing "Talk Dirty to Me" because it's so high energy and the choreography is very active. Unlike my fan dances which are languorous and melancholic, "Talk Dirty" is ALL ABOUT THE DANCING!

This time I invited Brassy to sing it live and Michael to play electric while I did my dance! The concept, very quickly, involves playing with the stereotype of Asians being really smart at school and general goodie-goodies. I come out dressed in a private school girl outfit (magenta sweater with letters, striped tie, plaid skirt, converse sneakers). In my hand I'm holding 5 composition books that have different messages on them. Since Galapagos has the huge screen that I can use, I made a slide projection of each message to match as I am showing them to the audience. They say, "Straight A Student", "Really Good at Math," "Perfect SAT Score" etc. etc. It's a riff on those chain emails that were popular a while back called, "99 Reasons You Know You Are Asian" and it includes things such as, "Your parents ask you why you didn't bring home a test score of 100 instead of 99" and "Your parents use the dishwasher to store dishes instead of washing dishes" - etc etc. I don't want to give away the whole act cause I want you to come see it, but basically the act is about rebelling against those things.

The act was made even stronger with live music. We all went to Beacon's Closet and found stuff to wear that tied us together visually. Michael had on a similar stripey tie that I wore and Brassy wore the same magenta color in her skirt and flower. We really rocked it out. The way Brassy sang it with all her usual sassy improved commentary and with Michael looking every bit like the rock star, I was INSPIRED. The knee pads helped too. Lucky for me, we get to do it again Monday night at House of Sugar's Monday Night Burlesque at Public Assembly! Come check us out! 10 PM.

This Sunday's 1/23/2010 Line Up!

Guest star Broadway Brassy will be rocking out some old and some new tunes with guitarist Michael Webb, Weirdee Girl will be doing a very special act that is clever enough to be a MFA thesis piece (I swear!), newcomer to Dim Sum Burlesque Bird of Paradise will give you an extra spicy kick to your eye palate, and your hostess Moi will also sacrifice our newest baby lamb, Stanqi Sex, and bring back our in-house psychic Christine Carvajal who will be available to give you tit for tat in her tarot readings for $10. Hope to see you this Sunday night, same place, same time. No cover courtesy of Chow Bar. 9 PM Sharp. Please call Chow to ensure seating!! 212.633.2212

Pocahontas

Is this kind of imagery okay again? I ask because I have a "Pocahontas" act that I am thinking of putting into early retirement. Not because I'm afraid of offending the left-wing ultra PC liberals who are incensed if you say "sitting Indian styled" or "Indian giver", but because I think it has - as it is now - weak choreography. In this act, I'm dressed like a Native American and I'm standing inside a caged box (a wooden frame structure with no real glass sides). The idea is to evoke the dioramas one sees in natural history museums, and what Mieke Bal calls the "museology" of racial and sexual representations from positions of cultural privilege. I break out of the box and undress and at the end of the song (Amy Winehouse's Back to Black), I go back into the box (which can symbolize the trappings of a self-imposed ethnic identity, and/or the imposed idea of ethnic identity by a cultural institution such as a museum). I return to the same position as I started out in.

Of course, that was the theory behind the idea. When I actually debuted the act, I didn't think my costume was right enough, the gestures weren't spot on, the story and character were not clearly communicated to the audience, and I was not pleased with my dancing. I think the box needs fake grass and tumbleweed along with a background landscape of sky so it looks more like a diorama.

I may need to take Dr. Lucky's Character Development class at the School of Burlesque and seek for help from higher burlesque places.

For now, I'll work on the kinky nun act for the Nurse Bettie show on Feb. 4.

-Posted on the fly!

Dinner @ Minnetta Tavern

This is the dry aged cote de boeuf for two at Minetta Tavern. It was a huge chunk of meat that is first "presented" to you then taken away to be sliced. When it came back, it looked even BIGGER cause it was all sliced up. Like it grew! We had this plus two appetizers - veal tartare and foie gras terrine - and a bottle of champagne. Finished it up with the coconut layer cake. I loved the atmosphere of the restaurant. It definitely feels famous. From the doorman to the sommerlier, the staff were impeccably dressed and their manners were equally impeccable. I can see why it's so popular with celebs and a place one would want to come and hang out to grab a bite to eat after curtain call. We were there at 10 pm and the place was completely packed front and back.

Lazy Lot

I read this article today in the Times about the rising percentage of women who make more than their counterpart.

One of the things the article mentions is men's need for marriage for mental and health well-being, which I have read before. I also know that married men live longer lives than unmarried men. However, the opposite is true for women. Not all that surprising considering men typically don't have the kind of support network that women create for themselves through friendships and community relationships. So marriage often becomes the center point of communication and the stabilizing factor. (Assuming it is a healthy happy marriage)

This article also talks about how increasingly more and more educated and higher earning women are marrying men with less education and less earnings. For men, getting married not only means happier mental lives but also a financial gain!

I consider this phenomenon as one of the after effects in this post-feminism era (I define feminism as the early 1970s movement). The other after effect is the popularity of pole dancing along with the entire culture of "girls gone wild" as forms of female "empowerment" and "confidence". Sadly, that's the face of feminism now as interpreted by popular culture.

Now, am I part of this wave of role reversal? Yes. I have had many boyfriends who hold Ivy League degrees (I have two myself) and earned as much as I made (I work in advertising as an art director). They were equally interested in the arts, theater, films, music. Most of them were from a solid family background with parents who also hold at least a bachelor's degree. But these boyfriends didn't last. I find myself increasingly drawn to working class, blue collar men who didn't go to college, does not earn a lot, and often live paycheck by paycheck. Am I being a romantic classist? Maybe. I've been on my own since I left Texas and earned money on my own through college and graduate school. I've never borrowed money from anyone, friends or family. I actually send money home to my parents when I can! So unlike some girls I've talked to who crave to marry someone rich like a doctor, I've never thought about marriage as a goal or something I wanted. Why would I? I make my own money. What would I gain by marrying someone? I've been thinking about this long and hard. And the answer, I think is a house husband.

Yes. Someone who can take care of my domestic life because I have no interest in "nesting". I don't enjoy cleaning. I don't find it therapeutic or calming. I don't like cooking and I eat food out of the container so I don't have to wash extra dishes. I rather spend my time designing something whether its web site, a costume, a new choreography, and I rather socialize than stay in. If I ever spawn a human being from my body, I will kill myself if I have to be a stay at home mom. So I need someone to balance that part of my life. And to do these things, you don't really need fancy college degrees. You just have to look pretty, keep me stimulated and sane, give me emotional support and praise, and have sex with me. I want a male wife like the wives from Mad Men.

So maybe with this new role reversal, it's time for men to step it up and re-evaluate their market value outside of the market, so to speak. Instead of bank accounts, cars, and social status, perhaps its their emotional intelligence, intuition, listening skills, and skills in the bed room that will give us women the kind of domestic bliss that we can't buy with our fancy earnings.

New Site Launch!

My new site has launched! http://www.CalamityChangNYC.com - now you can find out about the shows I'm producing and performing in and other juicy tidbits on my blog too. Big xoxo to photographer Michael Webb, stylist Rebecca Walsh, and the people at Double Crown & Madame Geneva for making this site so elegant and beautiful! I hope you love it as much as I do.

This goes on my wishlist

One of the things I love about NYC is walking around and randomly seeing beautiful things in the store window at night. Maybe it's because of the way the things are lit silently yet brilliantly in the dark that make them so desirable. For the same reason I dislike NYC - rampant consumer desire.

This Sunday's 1/17/2010 line-up

Guest Star Broadway Brassy rocks out with guest guitarist Michael Webb with burlesque performances by Dame CuchiFrita, Ruby Valentine, Calamity Chang, and our weekly sacrificial lamb - boylesquer Stanki Sex! No cover or table/drink minimum during this January Customer Appreciation month. Show starts at 9 PM.

Chef Peter has a few weekend specials such as homemade oat bread with a tasty twisted version of a kickin' Monte Cristo - It's spread with green olive tapenade, layered with buffalo mozzarella and holy basil, dipped in egg then panko, panfried with olive oil til crisp and delicious, served with some duck salami and paired with one of our wines by the glass. We are also simmering up a Hot and Sour Miso soup with soba noodles, sesame, tofu and hijiki seaweed. Call Chow Bar to make a seating reservation. 212.633.2212. First come, first dim sum!

Hello!

This blog is now dedicated to my show announcements, new act ideas, burlesque gossip, and whatever else that strikes a calamity fancy. Isn't the background photo sumptuous? That's taken by my boyfriend Michael Webb who has sole proprietory rights to photograph me. Just kiddin! But it is a sumptuous photo taken in the downstairs bathroom of Double Crown, one of my favorite restaurants, and also named the #1 Best Restroom to have Public Sex by Time Out in 2009.