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One of San Francisco’s best known restaurants, AsiaSF, is establishing a new restaurant in Hollywood, called AsiaSF Hollywood (which kinda sounds like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but I digress). Aside from the lethal drinks and pretty good small plates and entrees, AsiaSF is best known for their hostesses, who happen to be primarily transgendered male-to-female women and “gender illusionists”, who do fabulous choreographed song-and-dance numbers. It’s also one of the few places in San Francisco where transgendered women can find legitimate work, since many avenues for work are often shut out to them, particularly if they are working class. Many transgendered people, even if they have advanced degrees, are often forced to find other jobs because of the extreme transphobia in many fields, or must turn to sex work and other illicit occupations in order to survive. I’ve known many of the girls who’ve worked at AsiaSF as either former staff of mine when I was working as executive director of a nonprofit, or colleagues when I was doing my grad school research, and many of them look at AsiaSF as one of the first places that respected them for who they are, as people with goals and dreams, and not as something to mock.
One of the most famous hostesses there is Nikki Calma, otherwise known as Tita Aida, who’s been a tireless advocate for the queer and transgendered Asian community in San Francisco for years (and a very dear friend of mine), and who also happens to work full time at the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center as coordinator for a number of outreach programs. Nikki’s also known for hosting charity events showcasing transgendered performers, as well as being a member of the SF Pride Committee for many years.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote an article about the auditions for hostesses at AsiaSF Hollywood, and are also reporting a reality show featuring the restaurant and their hostesses is in the works. Given all the drama and cattiness that they have, but also their sincerity and drive, I’ll probably check it out.
1 Comment | Posted in: Entertainment, Food & Drink, LGBT
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So a couple of days ago, I gave a lecture for a good friend’s class in SFSU’s Asian American Studies Department on HIV/AIDS and the queer API men’s community. It brought up a lot of interesting memories, since I used to teach and lecture about the history and sociology of queer Asian American men in grad school, and it’s something that I haven’t really touched or thought about in ages since I made my dad really happy, er, left sociology grad school and decided to try to get into pharmacy school to improve people’s health outcomes more directly (and make more money doing it) .
Going through my notes and old bookmarked websites that I used for my research to prepare for this lecture, I came across a site that I hadn’t really been on in years, called downelink.com, a social networking site originally designed by and for queer Asians to date each other. The website’s based on the term “downe”, an expression first used by Asian men who wanted to date each other, but didn’t necessarily identify as gay/bi/queer/whatever in the mid-1990s, on AOL chat (that shows you how old I am, AND how long I’ve been involved in the community). Downe was more commonly used by West Coast (SF and LA) queer Asian men in their 20s at the time, who identified more strongly as queer men of color, rather than with the mainstream gay white men’s community, and who saw each other as friends and potential lovers, rather than rivals to date white men.
Downe isn’t the same thing as the down-low, another term used to vilify closeted queer men of color (usually black men) but that’s another thing entirely.
I remember being curious and interested as the term became popular among the queer Asian youth that I would hang out with a few years ago. I started to see it as a way to define young queer Asian men who refused to identify with the mainstream gay white culture whose emphasis on expressing individuality at the expense of one’s family and cultural identity was being actively rejected. Those who identified as downe wanted to integrate one’s sexuality with one’s ethnic/racial identity, and that ultimately identifying as being into the same sex/gender didn’t automatically mean rejecting one’s Asian-ness, and that those who identified as downe were mostly queer Asian men who wanted to date (and hook up) with each other.
Of course, now that downelink.com has been bought by Logo, I’m not exactly sure how progressive this term is anymore. Even now, as the term’s become more popularized among queer Asians, it seems that downe has now become interchangeable with using gay or bi. The site itself is now mostly populated by young queer people of color (according to one blog, 72% of all users are Asian, African American or Latino), mostly Asian/Pacific Islander men and women, and seems to be one of the few spaces out there that actually exist for these people to really meet that’s not like MySpace or Facebook.
However, talking to a guy who’s doing his master’s thesis at SFSU on the term downe and the young queer Filipino American men’s community, he said that he couldn’t pinpoint a common agreeable definition . “Ask 5 people what downe means, and you’ll get 5 different answers,” he said.
So to all my fellow queer folk who read this, what DOES downe mean? Is the term even relevant to the community? I’ve always felt more comfortable using “queer” to define myself, but downe seems to have been milked for all its worth (especially if the downelink website was bought by an MTV affiliate!).
17 Comments | Posted in: LGBT, Lifestyles, Observations
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Last week, I had a chance to go with my friend Adam to the Warfield to see Margaret Cho’s latest comedy tour, Beautiful. Margaret Cho has been on my radar for years - first as one of the first visible Asian American comics out there with her own television sitcom, then using her comedy as a way to assert herself and a positive attitude in I’m The One That I Want, then become the raunchy comedienne for queer people, of which I am one. When her second book was released, I finally got the chance to meet her at a book signing and tell her, “oh hey, I’m Ernie, and you link to my blog from yours. Hi.”
But I digress.
So here’s my thing about Margaret Cho - I LOVE it when she makes Asian jokes. I make Asian jokes. But I don’t like my comedy political; I don’t like my comedy angry, either - I can’t stand Bill Maher, and Stephen Colbert initially made me wince. So when I sat down and tried to read her book I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, I couldn’t finish reading the first chapter: it didn’t make me laugh, it made me angry. And I don’t watch stand-up comedy to make me angry, anyway. There are still political elements in her newest show, and I wonder how truly effectual she is when she’s essentially preaching to a very gay choir that already agrees with everything she says.
But all of that being said, I LOVE how she keeps things real and transparent. She’s crass, explicit and unapologetic. She rallies the crowd to the idea that everyone is beautiful and important despite the forces in life saying otherwise. And to this day, she’s still one of the most visible Asian American comediennes out there.
(Flickr photo credit: knightbefore_99)
4 Comments | Posted in: Entertainment, LGBT, Reviews
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For those of you who haven’t seen the television reality show Beauty and the Geek, a synopsis: Pretty girls are matched up with classic geeky men as a “social experiment” of sorts - the girls try to teach the geeks basic social skills, while the geeks try to teach the girls basic skills in quantum mechanics, rocket science and relativity theory. (Or at least, how to change a tire.) The show always stresses that it’s not a dating show, but usually a geek or two gets a makeover and hooks up with one of the girls anyway. It’s a symbiotic relationship that’s fascinating to watch, provided that you love the CW (check) and reality television (check.)
But one geek that definitely will NOT be hooking up with the girls is Greg: a 23 year old “Sole Proprietor/Clothing Designer/Pastry Chef” and self-proclaimed Gaysian. Because he’s gay AND Asian! Aaah, good times.
I’ll be honest: I’m totally on the fence on this one, even as a fellow Gaysian. While I’m all for more of us on TV, look at him - he’s got the hipster glasses, the Panic and the Disco! haircut, the fabulous gray shirt / argyle sweater combo. If he was spotted in the Mission district in San Francisco, people wouldn’t think “geek” so much as they’d think “on his way to buy a soy latte at Ritual Roasters.” Also, since when has a clothing designer become a geeky job? Are the girls going to teach him how to dress? He designs clothes. Add to that that the Beauties now compete against the geeks. Shark jumping, anyone?
The show did introduce the world to Rubik’s Cube world championship solver Tyson Mao, however, so I’m still keeping the faith. And who am I kidding? If Greg sticks around for the makeover episode, I’ll be keeping notes; I do have the same glasses and haircut as the guy.
4 Comments | Posted in: Entertainment, LGBT
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From Current: Rainbow Nation, a five minute “pod” on stereotypes and Gay Asian males.
That’s a way to get a response from me; create a video that starts out with the line, “Asian men have a lot of diseases [and] small penises.”
Gimmicky way to start off a documentary aside, some interesting points are raised by this video: stereotypes of Gay Asian men exist - that they’re skinny, smooth, only date white guys and that they are effeminate and thus passive. The pod also asserts that non-Asians feel that the stereotypes of Asians are justified because that’s all they see when they walk around in the Castro on go on chat rooms.
Usually it’s easy to write my own personal opinions on the matter, but for this post I’m having a strangely difficult time on this one. Maybe it’s because I’m definitely not a gay Asian stereotype - I’m definitely NOT skinny, I can’t dress for shit (ask my friend Royce; he’ll tell you stories) and I don’t think I’m THAT effeminate (other 8A writers, feel free to shoot me down if I assume wrong.) While fighting stereotypes sound like a noble thing, when you’re coming out of the closet you WANT to fit in somewhere, be in a tribe, look and act like everyone else as a way to not feel ostracized. I had huge self-esteem issues where I’ve felt like the only way I could ever find a boyfriend is if I were to somehow magically lose fifty pounds and dress in DKNY, because that’s the only thing I saw - horrible, but true. As a result, I hung out with the bear subculture for a while, but that didn’t make things any better - an experience with discrimination there is one of the reasons why I started 8Asians.
Now I’m a little older and I know that if someone is trying so hard to live up to a certain label that they’re not really worth my effort anyway. Dating is still a challenge but if someone is not into me, then their bad. Gaysians, what are your experiences?
27 Comments | Posted in: Discrimination, LGBT
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Considering that I’m the other gay man on this blog, I think it makes sense for me to write about a gay Asian Am porn star. (Even though this is really extremely obvious, all links to any of the sites I’ve linked to are generally not suitable for work. You have been warned.)
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing or at least knowing of various gay Asian Am porn stars, from Brandon Lee, the first gay Asian Am porn star to be picked up by a major porn director, Chi Chi La Rue (NOT to be confused with Bruce Lee’s late son of the same name); to knowing (in the Biblical sense and otherwise) various guys who have been featured on magazine shoots and (ahem) educational videos, who for reasons of privacy I won’t name here. I’ve always had a special place in my porn-loving heart for Van Darkholme though.
Van Darkholme is a guy who is best known for doing gay leathersex and kinky videos (primarily sadomasochism), the bulk of which has been self-produced, and makes a stop every year at the Folsom Street Fair to wow the crowd and for self-promotion, of course. I actually got to know him more personally through some mutual friends, and from reading his journal. Although he comes across to many people (in the circles that I know where he’s mentioned) as being standoffish and fairly one-dimensional, the e-mail conversations that I’ve had with him have always been pretty cerebral. In one of his earlier posts in his journal, he talks about coming to the US as a Vietnamese refugee, his mom having just married an American soldier, and how he and his family have survived. Reading the post helped me reinforce the respect I have for him as a person who always remembers where he’s come from.
Of course, it also helps that he is extremely hot. And that he spanked my ass at Folsom Street Fair when I was manning a booth in order to get more people to donate to the nonprofit that I was working for. That made my day (or year).
No Comments | Posted in: Entertainment, LGBT, Lifestyles, Observations
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The second annual blog battle sponsored by QueerClick has begun: Gay Bloggies 2007. Twelve contestants have been selected to blog against each other in competition. The master of ceremonies presents to these contestants various topics to blog about or tasks. Readers in the blogosphere vote for their favorites and at the end of each week, contestants with the lowest votes will be kicked off.
This year, our beloved Ernie, of the award-winning “Little. Yellow. Different.” and the founder of 8Asians.com, will be competing for the grand prize of cash and…and other prizes? Ernie, do you want to comment here on what those other prizes are?
The first challenge has gone underway, which is for each contestant to introduce himself. See Ernie’s here: “This is the part where I introduce myself.” To vote for him, click on the “thumbs up” image at the end of the entry on the right hand side. Check back weekly as each new challenge is given and click into Ernie’s post to give him the thumbs up!
5 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Entertainment, LGBT, Lifestyles
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I remember the moment when Gianni Versace was shot: It was ten years ago and I was in college hanging out with my friend Jen. When it was discovered that Versace’s murderer was serial killer Andrew Cunanan, Jen just rolled her eyes. “Damn it,” said Jen. “Just when Filipino Americans were getting somewhere, one of us has to go out and kill Gianni Versace.”
Don’t you want to live that moment over again? Now you can, thanks to the Most Wanted, a new musical inspired from Andrew Cunanan’s life.
When the Cunanan story was on the news all the time, I remember the media playing a heavy gay angle - Cunanan, who murdered his former lovers, Cunanan who prostituted to older men. In media interviews, both scriptwriter Jessica Hagedorn and composer Mark Bennett try to interpret a similar story, but from an angle focusing on American culture and racial identity:
…Bennett said the musical instead will explore American pop culture, racial relations (Cunanan and playwright Hagedorn are Filipino-Americans) and the seductiveness of celebrity, money, power and fame.
“The important thing for me in writing this piece was to address the question of why this culture of celebrity is so prevalent today,” said Hagedorn, whose play about Filipino culture, “Dogeaters,” had its world premiere under Greif’s direction at the Playhouse in 1998. “And how do people of color play into that? This play explores the dark side of the American dream. What does it really mean to be a person of color in this country? What does being American mean? Does it mean you are fine if you are famous?”
Thankfully, the musical will be narrated through a drag queen named “Stormy Leather,” so seriously, it’s still pretty gay.
[via Towleroad]
2 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Entertainment, LGBT, WTF
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