Former Publisher of the Pasadena Weekly’s Attempt at Humor Sounds Racist

I hate invoking the R-word. And I certainly hate directing that word at people. So before anyone gets on my case for calling someone a racist, let me just say that I think there is a difference between someone actually being a racist and someone doing/saying racist things (though some may ask “What’s the difference?” — a topic for another post!).

But after reading an article (Hearing is not believing, 8/26/2010) in the Pasadena Weekly written by Jim Laris, its former publisher and owner — who evidently has a regular column called Cigar Smoke published in the Pasadena Weekly every other Thursday — I don’t know if there is another word other than “racist” to describe his article, except maybe “unfunny.” The article seems to be trying to telling an “amusing” story about how the sound from his TV/cable box seemed to be coming out in Chinese — I’ve republished it in its entirety in case this gets pulled offline or edited — but it has drawn the ire of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), who issued a Letter to “Pasadena Weekly” for Racist Remarks.

Again: I just want to make clear I’m not calling Mr. Laris a racist. But I wonder if he had any consideration how the following excerpts might sound to Chinese-speaking (not all of whom are from China or “commies,” by the way) or South Asian people: [emphasis is mine]

• …we started to hear the Chinese guy Kung Powing in Chinese.
• It made me exclaim to Marge [his wife], “Holy communist plot, what is happening?”
• Nat King Cole singing “Oh Holy Night” in commie would have killed me.
• Should I call Charter? Well, I would probably get some Indian techie guy and when I told him I was hearing Chinese coming out of my TV and then it switched to Nat King Cole, he would hold his hand over the speaker of the phone, and turn to his buddy in Bombay and laugh his tandoori-ass laugh and regain his composure and ask me, “Sir, vat is a Nat King Cole?”

Ok, so I get that he’s trying to be funny. He makes reference to his wife calling him “Couch Potato Face” and to imaginary conversations with the late Richard Feynman. But as a former publisher and owner of a publication based in the San Gabriel Valley — one of the largest concentrations of Chinese American populations in the nation — is it really a good idea for him to say things like “kung powing in Chinese” or refer to the language as “commie?” And exactly WHAT is a “tandoori-ass laugh?” Who is trying to be, Joel Stein?

What do you think?

Hearing is not believing
Who knew Nat King Cole sang in Chinese?
By Jim Laris 08/26/2010

OK, I was doing something very out of the ordinary the other night. I was sitting on the couch watching TV. Usually I’m out volunteering for charities or out trying to save the environment. But on this particular night, I was just sitting there watching “Hung,” and trying to explain to Marge that the title was not in reference to the first name of an Asian gentleman.

Anyway, we are watching the show and out of nowhere we hear some Chinese guy speaking in Chinese. I said, “Marge, do you hear that?” Marge said, “Hear what, Couch Potato Face?” I knew it was hopeless, but I said, “There is some Chinese guy speaking in Chinese on our English-speaking television set, that’s what.” And Marge said, “What?” Variations of this conversational exchange went on for 14 minutes.

Before I continue with this TV tale, I must tell you that what I am about to relate to you is the damn truth. I know I have had the tendency to maybe fudge the truth a little in some of my past columns. But there is no truth-fudging here, baby. I is speaking da truth, so help me secular somebody.

I must correct something already. Before we started hearing the Chinese guy speaking Chinese, we did not hear anything at all. The sound had gone deader than an overweight doornail. No sound at all.

So I fiddled with the remote and I fiddled with the TiVo box and I fiddled with the Charter box, and I would have fiddled with my fiddle if I had a fiddle, but I couldn’t get the sound to go on. And just at that time, we started to hear the Chinese guy Kung Powing in Chinese.

It made me exclaim to Marge, “Holy communist plot, what is happening?” Marge had decided to ignore me and was reading her Kindle, but that didn’t stop me from talking to her. (Many of our most rewarding conversations have occurred while she was ignoring me.)

I inquired as to how could the sound be in Chinese. I thought maybe we had accidentally set the language to Chinese like you can set it to Spanish or subtitles. So I clicked through the settings and discovered that there are no Chinese settings, which I liked, but it didn’t help me figure out what was going on.

So then, with monumental effort and appropriate cursing, I got up off the couch and went over to the TV and refiddled with the boxes and then got up on our little step stool and checked out the speakers. I figured sound comes out of speakers so maybe I flipped some speaker switch, although I was doubtful that had made it go into Chinese instantly.

And then (I am not kidding you) the sound went into Nat King Cole singing Christmas songs. At least it was in English. Nat King Cole singing “Oh Holy Night” in commie would have killed me. So I yelled at Marge, “Are you hearing what I’m hearing?” She said, “What are you hearing?” I said, “I am hearing Nat King Cole singing Christmas songs.” She said, “Hmm. Are the bats in your belfry flapping their wings?”

So I went back to the end of the couch to think this thing through. Should I call Charter? Well, I would probably get some Indian techie guy and when I told him I was hearing Chinese coming out of my TV and then it switched to Nat King Cole, he would hold his hand over the speaker of the phone, and turn to his buddy in Bombay and laugh his tandoori-ass laugh and regain his composure and ask me, “Sir, vat is a Nat King Cole?”

I didn’t call. I just sat there. Weeping. And wondering what Richard Feynman would do. I speak to Richard quite often. After a while I heard Richard say, “Maybe you could just figure it out, Ass-wipe? It’s not rocket science. It’s only Nat King Cole Chinese science.”

So damn it, I did figure it out. Yes, sound does come out of speakers. But it has to come from somewhere. So I asked Richard where it came from, and Richard told me to buzz off because he was trying to rest peacefully, being dead and all.

Then I went up to the control boxes and hunted for the sound source. And damned if I didn’t find it. Get this. We had a Bose sound system, which we hadn’t been using, stacked between our Charter box and our TiVo box, and the Charter box had slightly moved a little and had fallen onto the Bose on/off button. It had turned the AM/FM tuner on. That was where the Chinese was coming from. And then when I fiddled with things, I must have nudged the damn Bose system into the CD mode and that’s when old Nat King Cole started singing his Christmas carols to make me think I was going insane and make me weep.

I looked over at Marge, who was still reading her frigging Kindle. I said, “Richard and I are going out to that dive on Colorado Boulevard to look for some babes.” She said, “When you get back, could you fix the TV. I didn’t know Nat King Cole was Chinese.”
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Jim Laris is a former publisher and owner of the Weekly. Contact him at [email protected].