I got a facelift! Well, my web site did.

I am blogging again only because my good friend and fellow web-nerd Bettina May has inspired me to start doing it again. Blogging is hard, ask anyone who ever aspired to be a blogger. You start and eventually you stop. Cause it's damn hard! And I was an English major with a focus in creative writing, and it's STILL hard. But since I revamped my web site CALAMITYCHANG.COM with a lot of new fangled bells and whistles like parallax navigation, video background, cinemagraphs, subscriber newsletter, and more - I feel rejunevated! Most importantly, the new SHOP interface looks and functions SO much smoother for buying my feather earrings.

Head on over and check it out. I will be blogging on the regular!

Bettina and I in Tulum this past winter in January!

Adding More to My Hotel Series Photos, This Set By Bettina May!

Only a Texan would plan a trip to Texas in July, and only a burlesque performer would plan a TOUR in Texas in July! And that is exactly what I did last month. I organized a nice little tour in my home state and managed to get in a week's worth of time with my family as well. The trip coincided with two other NYC performer's traveling schedules (Grace Gotham and Bettina May) so we all decided to try to organize as many shows together as possible while we were all in Texas. Since I lost my drivers license years ago (not due to anything as salacious as DWI but mere expired for too long...) I told my parents I was going to "borrow" my older brother and make him chauffeur us around the 100+ Texas heat. And chauffeuring he did! He drove us to Houston, Austin, Corpus Christi, and all my local gigs in Dallas/Fort Worth. I've never gone on a road trip with my brother so it was actually kinda sibling bonding time and for us, it was bonding over many episodes of the classic Twilight Zone series.

While we were in Houston, Bettina (ever creative and industrious) pulled out her camera in our hotel room and we shot a few photos for my Hotel Series. I love adding to this growing series on my web site especially photos from different photographers.

There is a funny story about this photo. I tend to not like photos of myself laughing or smiling. I find that I have to have a real laugh for the photo to appear genuine. In all the fake smile/laugh photos, I look like a demonic clown so I tend to prefer photos of myself like this:

"Hotel Series #5", Photo by Michael Webb.
See All in "Hotel Series" >

 Or this.

"Hotel Series #3", Photo by Michael Webb. 
See All in "Hotel Series" >

But Bettina managed to capture me in a moment of genuine joy and laughter mainly because of what Grace Gotham was doing in the background which a lady can not divulge! Let's just say that I will forever think of this photo as the wonderful moment where Grace Gotham elicited an authentic laugh from me during a photo shoot.

"Hotel Series #7", Photo by Bettina May
See All in "Hotel Series" >

"Hotel Series #7", Photo by Bettina May
See All in "Hotel Series" >

"Hotel Series #7", Photo by Bettina May
See All in "Hotel Series" >

See All in My "Hotel Series"

Bettina is also for hire if you would like to have her style you for pin-up photos >
Check out Bettina's Pin Up Class >

Back to Boston's The Beehive on Thursday 9/19

I'm so excited to return to Boston's restaurant and live music venue The Beehive on Thursday, Sept 19! This will be my third time performing there and I'm more than happy that Bettina May will be returning with me again. Lil Steph from Philadelphia will be joining me on this trip too. I love having a diverse cast: a blonde, a redhead, and me - the Asian Sexsation! I really love working with The Beehive staff and owners. They treat us really well and everything runs on schedule with no glitches.

You can read my previous two posts performing at The Beehive. One for New Year's Eve "Champagne Soaked in Boston!"and Boston Fashion Week October 3, 2012

Boston Fashion Week October 3, 2012

I was able to happily dodge New York Fashion Week by spending the majority of that stiletto-clad bitchy hungry women time away in Texas celebrating my mom's birthday. However, I will be smack in the middle of Boston's Fashion Week on October 3 performing with Bettina May and Medianoche at The Beehive in an event called "Undressed".

The Beehive is also where I rang in 2012 along with Stormy Leather. I love traveling and performing and this year I'm doing more and more of that. Here's a clip from my performance at The Beehive's New Year's Eve party.



As always, the proprietors of The Beehive treat us like queens. We will be spending a couple of nights at the luxury boutique hotel Revere. Any recommendations of cool speakeasies near the Boston Common neighborhood for us?

Pin-Up Glamour & Burlesque Pole Dancing

This past weekend I signed up for Bettina May's Pin-Up Hair and Makeup class at Beauty Bar NYC on 14th Street. It started at noon on a Sunday morning. I rolled in with no makeup on and sunglasses. I couldn't believe I was up this early for makeup and hair! The course was 6 hours long, and I came prepared with an avocado, nuts, and some hummus. I know from shooting with other photographers that modeling is exhausting. Yes! Bettina shoots you at the end of the hair and makeup makeover so you go home with all your shots burned on a CD so you can edit them as you like.

It was really nice to have Beauty Bar as the location for the class. It was roomy enough for all of Bettina's accouterments, plenty of cool spots to pick a location for your shoot, and even enough room for Vintage Variety Shop (Atlantic Highlands, NJ) to bring a rack full of vintage dresses, gowns, slips, and plenty of jewelry and accessories to borrow or buy. Meredith, the owner of Vintage Variety, has incredibly fair pricing too. It's not like NYC-hipster price. I was able to take home a purple floral dress and a sheer black gown that I am going to wear to host in. It's slinky and extra sexy now that I put a collar of black marabou feathers... puuuurrrr!

Hot rollers - key to glamour if you don't have time to do wet-to-dry rollers

Jewelry and Hair stuff from Vintage Variety

So many great dresses! I scored two!

Sparkles!!!

We started with Bettina briefly explaining the history of the "pin up girl" and how minimal the make-up is because pin-up style developed during the wars so everything was rationed and women were home alone and started joining the work force, thus there was not a lot of time on their hands to spend on their daily beauty routines. It was all about black liquid eyeliner, false eyelashes, eyebrows, blush, and red lipstick. I was not used to doing such little makeup in my stage routine or going out routine. My burlesque makeup has been heavy on the glitter, but lately I've been reining back the glitter. My usual look for non-burlesque is dark smoky eye makeup and glossy lips. My favorite is MAC's Lip Glass in Viva Glam or any of the nude tones. I've gone through so many tubes. Doing this style of makeup was very different for me. And most Asians, I'd say, suffer from what I call the "small eye syndrome". That is, we line ALL around our eyes in an effort to make our eyes look bigger. Every beauty expert I've met say that is a mistake. Putting eyeliner all around the top and bottom of your eye actually CLOSE your eye. Bettina said the same thing that day so when I was doing my makeup I had to try really hard to resist the temptation to do stuff under the eye!

Pamphlet and a DVD for purchase

In class with Bettina!

The magic fingers of Bettina. Hair transformation underway!

My mane gets curled.

Bettina actually goes around and styles everyone's hair and style it in a way that is appropriate to your features and face. I couldn't wait to see what she was going to come up with. I think my second best feature is my hair so I was really excited to see the transformation. And mon dieu, look at the results!

A picture I can send to my Mom

After everyone got their makeup on (which was fairly easy considering the usual stuff I do which requires so much blending and trickery) and our hair done, Bettina took photos of everyone and gave tips on how to pose pin-up style. Again, another unfamiliar zone! I rarely ever smile in my photos. I rarely work with women photographers. The whole cheesecake stuff? I hadn't a clue. But I promised Bettina I would do a couple of smiling, toothy ones just for her.

A toothy one just for Bettina.

Pin-up poses and facial expressions are all about being innocent, surprised, and coy. The coy factor is almost a parody, an exaggeration - expressions I'm not comfortable making. But then I started to realize that although I am familiar with cheesecake expressions and pin-up culture (its everywhere), what was making me unsure is that the images I am accustomed to seeing are all white. Naturally, of course, it is because pin-up girls is specifically an American cultural phenomenon and as I did some research when I got home, there was no such thing during the war in Asia (when I say Asia I am only including China, Japan, Korea). With further research I found that indeed there were NO Asian pin-up girls because Asians were considered enemies during the war. Interesting! I found some Asian models on Model Mayhem self-described as "pin ups", and yes, they simulate the poses and the expressions but there's just something off about the imagery. I guess I felt sort of poser-ish knowing that what I'm referencing visually has nothing to do with my experience, my family's experience, and I do not share it's place in collective national memory. This is just my personal reaction mainly due to my over-education, heavy studies in postmodern literature and dabbling in deconstructive literary theory as an undergrad at Cornell which is why everything to me is an inter-reference (Pynchon!) or a pastiche - which is exactly what I felt like I was doing posing as an All-American pin-up.

Gee, I'm caught!

As a reference, in the 1940s this is how Chinese women looked.

Famous film star and singer from Shanghai: Zhou Xuan

Academic art dissection aside, it was a GREAT class because I finally learned how to create those big glamorous Veronica Lake hair waves that cascade down one side of your face and I learned how to do victory rolls which has always been a mystery to me.

The waves, the waves! I want to have hair like this ALL the time!

This week I started a six-week course in "Burlesque Pole Dancing" at Shockra Studio with Peekaboo Pointe. I've never gotten on a pole before and Peekaboo made it look so easy and effortless, but it is not. It's all upper body strength and I have about as much upper body strength as the average girl who isn't weight training for something specific which is not enough to get you up two climbs on the pole OR to do the baseball lift. At least I think that was what it was called. The names for the moves were really funny like "the fan kick," "the fireman something", and another hook something or another.  Since it was a burlesque pole dancing class, Peekaboo did not show us "stripper aesthetic" like spreading your legs wide open as you come off the pole. In the burlesque aesthetic, you keep your knees together and point your toes and stand up slowly from your waist and look pretty. I liked that! By the end of class, my ankles, knees, and wrists were all bruised. I already bruise easily and I have knobby knees and ankles and boy, the metal pole was NOT gentle. Today I am sore as I expected. It feels like I was working with a personal trainer. It's a good feeling and I can't wait for the next class!

"I am the Walrus" Beatles Burlesque 1 Year Anniv Show

Drunk Guys at Shows

I hate St. Patrick's Day. I was able to avoid all visual reminders today because I didn't leave the office at all. My lunch was delivered to me via SeamlessWeb.com by using their app on my iPhone. The only time I saw some dumb people wearing all green and wearing leprechaun flop hats was on the subway going home. And why is it always white people who get all greened up for this holiday? I was anticipating the worst tonight at Nurse Bettie and was probably a bit prickly when I got there. But pleasantly to my surprise, it was not douchey at all. Generally speaking, Nurse Bettie does not attract a fraternity crowd or a more "ghetto" crowd like The Delancey. But every now and then, you get that ONE stupid guy who is drunk and misbehaves, and I picked him out right off the bat! His friend was okay and acted like he was embarrassed by his friend's loudmouth, obnoxious behavior. During the dance-off game, the obnoxious one particularly threw himself on the stage without knowing what he was in for. Then he actually SLAPPED my butt!!! I was like, "Oh, no you didn't!!" I stopped explaining to the audience the rules of the game and said, "If you touch me again, I will kick you out of this bar." I felt like I had to say that so many times tonight! Sometimes doing a show at a bar environment is great fun cause its rowdy and wild, but the crowd management and reading the audience can piss me off really quick. So his poor friend did the dance off, and he was a good sport. But the obnoxious one refused to dance! I wanted to hang him by the balls on the hangers on the wall!!! Alex, the bartender that we all love, grandly stepped in and helped finish the game. The best part? When the judging time came, NO ONE clapped for the obnoxious guy's friend. It's not his fault but I think the audience was on my side and transferred their dislike to the other guy. Seriously. I even asked twice for their applause and I think a girl actually boo-ed. The rest of the show was grand. All the girls were great and really "brung" it as always.

I can't wait to upload the amazing pictures that Francine Daveta took of the last Beatles Burlesque One Year Anniversary show! As soon as I have some downtime over the weekend, I am going to take care of that and edit a couple more of our popular montages too. Here's a sneak preview!

Curtain call

Ekaterina

Charlie Gunn was sacrificied

Bettina May

Another Beatles Clip "Helter Skelter"

Monday, March 14, 2011 is our ONE year anniversary show! I am so excited about the line-up and I'll announce it now on my blog for my readers - EKATERINA, BETTINA MAY, myself with Gogo Dancing by SYDNEY SUNRISE (you can see her in the video above) and a fresh new hottie whose name is TBA!

This anniversary show will have an open bar by my favorite down under sponsor 42Below Vodka from 9-10pm AND treats by "the burlesque baker" herself The Naughty Housewife! Guest musicians and singers are in the works so make sure you check our website for latest updates!