Good Asian Drivers Tour

We’re starting to post blogs with exclusive new music and poems straight from our living room to you. Here’s our first. 

If you’re a dyke who’s ever been in the D.C. area, then you’ve heard of Phase 1, the oldest lesbian bar in the country, having been open since 1970. And where there’s lesbians, there’s tattoos, faux-hawks, guitars, politics, and Good Asian Drivers.

We took a nice long drive down to the capital to be part of PhaseFest, an annual queer art and music festival that had its debut last year in 2007, which featured Athens Boys Choir and God-des & She. This year, we’re sharing the weekend bill with greats like Alix Olson, Bitch, Mara Levi, and hoards of amazing poets, performers, musicians, singers.

The crowd was fantastic. You have no idea how proud I was to be amongst lesbians that were so supportive and inclusive of transfolk. Check it:

Our new friends from Asian Pacific Islander Queer Sisters (APIQS) came to support us! They are really the best. As always, it is nice to see some attentive queer Asian faces in the audience when we’re on stage.

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Truth is, I’m a music snob who doesn’t listen to a lot of music. Strange, I know. I won’t always admit this to anyone.

But Boston Progress recently featured me on Shuffled! section of their blog, where I have to hit “shuffle” on my iTunes and write about the first five songs that pops up. Only stipulation is that at least one of them has to be an Asian-American artist.

Guess which obnoxious tour partner made it onto my list? :)

Check it out here.

Sorry we have disappeared for a while. We’ve MOVED!!!!

Kit and I, though not living under the same roof, are both currently living on the border of Prospect/Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, where there’s lots of West Indian food, tree-lined streets, bodegas, and the Brooklyn Museum just blocks away. My cats and I have just settled in (with the help of my obsessively clean roommate and web designer Han), I used a Swiffer for the first time (call me old fashioned but I’ve always used a broom and mop), and my floors are currently spotless.

Please take note of the giant “Wu-Wu Acupuncture Clinic” sign above my bed. Photo to the right is my workstation.

Han also artfully hung my guitar hero guitars next to my TV.

Yay Brooklyn. There are, at the moment, no photographs of Kit’s home. This is because the apartment apparently is a bit of a fright. Minor cockroach and rodent infestation (this morning, he found his loaf of bread chewed through by a little mouse). No couch. No gas in the stove, yet. I’ve been to the apartment and the apartment itself is beautiful (and brand new - they just renovated it 4 days ago, which is why Kit was homeless) but it’s just not quite done yet.

We’re playing at PhaseFest this Thursday in DC. Can’t wait!!!! Till then, time to Swiffer to the tunes of Toby.

Quote of the Day:
“Thanks for being alive!” an audience member Lulu Yan*, said to us after our show at NYU.

*Note: She is not a relative of Kit.

Because why the hell not?

This was done with Comic Life in three minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

Hey ya’ll. Call me Mariachi Mel. Troubadour Songstress. Bodacious Busker. Whatever you want.

Here’s the skinny. Last Sunday Kit and I were invited to play at the Quincy 21st Annual August Moon Festival. As part of the contract, we got a free booth to set up our wares, so we thought we’d spend the greater part of the sunny afternoon eating shaved ice and watching festival goers pass by without so much as a glance at our table. Let’s face it. Nobody knows our music. Nobody wants our shirts. Plus, we can’t really compare to our neighbors, two guys from Wells Fargo, who were giving away free ice scrapers.

Maybe that wasn’t too fair. Three people actually bought our shirts, and two people bought our CDs. But what really made all of this truly worthwhile were a couple of “special moments”. Let’s revisit those moments.

Moment #1: It was like playing at the subway all over again.

I got to rock out. Hard. The best part was that no one - absolutely no one - was listening. Kit and I (and our friend Kristen who wasted her afternoon with us) practiced our entire repertoire, including a very energetic rendition of “Lesbian Love Song” in front of a crowd of little Asian children. No one cared. No one complained. No one listened. It was awesome.

Moment #2: Food makes our world go round.

It was a perfect day for mango and watermelon shaved ice. (And brightly colored fish-shaped nipple clamps, apparently.) Kit also bought me lo mein and stole me free popcorn and slices of moon cake. Continue Reading »

So…it’s time for the big move. Boxes are already packed. Kit has been going a little bit nuts trying to mail his new landlord back the lease. I fortunately already have a place to live in Brooklyn and don’t really need to argue with realtors and dig up old pay stubs or anything like that.

Put on an all ages show on Wednesday at the Cloud Place, a place I really consider home for many years. My history with it sorta goes back to when I was 17 and I attended an out youth theater troupe called True Colors, which eventually led me on this journey towards musical theater. I know the space well (and the folks who worked in the office downstairs) and together we brought together a show for the young people who love, appreciate, and support our work. 

We kicked off the night with Johnny Blazes’ gay cousin Swizzle Sticks, clad in all his fur coat and hula hoop glory. Indeed, Swizzle did meet us on the set of the Jay Leno show, which was when we realized we absolutely NEEDED him to be at the Cloud.

We did a couple of numbers from our “musical” (in quotations because it’s a 4 act musical with only 4 songs - I’m kind of a rebel composer, you see) including our new love ballad “This Time It’s Love” which is just like any other love ballad in a musical. I also got a chance to play the piano, which is nice, but I’ll betcha the cute girl in the front row who also said she played the piano could do a million times better than me because I messed up a lot. (That’s what happens when you don’t have a piano on tour…)

Kit did a lot of audience favorites, like “Food & Sex”, “Strap-on”, and even taking a request for Third Gender. He got nervous during “Badass” when Kayla’s mom got up in the middle of his piece, but realized that she was just going to the bathroom. Yay for Kayla for bringing her mom - did anyone else bring their mom? I know someone brought their 6 year old child, though.

Kit gave away some CDs and a shirt as a trivia prize - a sort of an unexpected surprise, since we didn’t even think of the questions beforehand. 

The theme of the night was lesbian sing-along. That included getting the entire crowd to sing “Such a Nice Guy” with me (which was totally fun, esp Gio who was the loudest of them all), and our new hit folk song entitled “Lesbian Love Song”. Kit busted out his alter ego, Lesbian Heather, who played the finger cymbals and sang along with me.

We didn’t talk a lot between our set, though - we figured folks just wanted to hear us do pieces. Afterwards, we offered folks a chance to take pictures with our in-house photographer Andy to be posted on our new fab fansite that will be launched within the next month or so. It was great to see Erin and her friends Lauren and MK, who all came up to talk to us afterwards and take pictures. They all posted the pics on their Facebook profiles - I was especially grateful for Erin as she (as well as many others) helped get me back on Facebook during the debacle.

Allix, with her hot new haircut, made delicious vegan ice cream pies, even though some of them melted. Thanks to James, Audrey, Caroline, and a million other people who helped - I’m so sorry if I didn’t mention you here. Thanks for making this happen so smoothly! :)

We’re going to start posting video blogs about our day soon, including new unrehearsed pieces, jam sessions, and other video goodies, so check the site frequently!

I’m getting sick - have a serious splitting headache - and I’ve been lying in bed all day even though it’s been beautiful out. I hate getting sick. Tomorrow we’ve got a short set at the Quincy Asian Festival, which hopefully won’t go long.

For years now, on the 2nd Friday of every month, a small independent volunteer-run Asian-American bookstore is crammed with poets, writers, musicians, storytellers, rappers, artists, students, thinkers, and listeners. This is East Meets Words, a convocation of minds, positive energy, and activism through art. The bookstore, for many, is the one place where the experienced and inexperienced come together to share. At the back of the bookstore is a huge sign shaped like a “Hello…my name is” name tag, completely covered up with signatures, praises, and declarations of love from artists that have featured there, amongst them Kit and me, individually. 

Last Friday, we stopped by to participate in the open mic. With the upcoming move to New York City, it’s hard to tell when we’d get a chance to come again in the next year. Earlier in the day, we had lunch with Kay, who, as a first time EMW attendee, did a piece about his mother.

Clearly, I am not a photographer. Or not so clearly, in this case. I did take some video of a sick freestyle performance by Victor and Dave. Check it out.

The feature this month was Ed Bok Lee, published Korean-American poet from Minneapolis. He read from his recent book, Real Karaoke People. His pieces were deeply moving. Kit and I bought his book because he totally blew us away on the stage. 

Here’s Kit mesmerized…

Tour Quote of the Day:

“I use vaseline cuz I got fat lips.” Victor trying to find a way to incorporate “vaseline” into his freestyle. 

A couple of weeks ago, when my good friend Henry told me that he was gonna start busking on the sidewalks, I had a vision of him cradling an acoustic guitar crooning some emo song crackling through an electric amp. After all, that was me when I was a street musician.

“My friends and I are playing some music in JP,” he said. “Come check us out.”

I asked him half-jokingly, “Do you need a lead singer?”

He chuckled and said, “It’s not that kind of music.”

Well, last Thursday, in front of the Harvest Co-op in JP, I finally got it. As I neared the small but attentive crowd, the band’s spirited Irish folk music brought a much-welcomed energy to the neighborhood. It was a three piece band: Tessa on the fiddle, Travis on the guitar, and Henry on the bodhrán (he didn’t even play the guitar!). And Henry was right. It really wasn’t that kind of music. It was better.

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First of all, apologies that I didn’t post photos of everyone. A lot of them were too dark and most of the time I was too busy mesmerized by the powerful words of everyone else to be paying attention to the damn camera.

But, man! What a night.

As folks drifted in around 7 and the air at the Middlesex Lounge started filling with the electric energy of queer people of color and their beloved friends, partners, allies and family, I knew I was gonna witness magic happening. As I mentioned in a previous post, QWOC+ Week is historic - there’s never been anything like it in the nation. And last night (and the rest of the week, I’m sure) was proof that QWOC+ Week should continue for years and years to come and set an example for other diverse cities across the country. The sheer importance of giving us a space to connect, share, and celebrate should not be underestimated. 

Letta Neely, a mentor, a friend, an artist I admired since I first stepped on the scene over 11 years ago, played MC and read some of her work. One in particular I enjoyed the most was a poem that was a list of things that she’s heard white people say. “Can I touch your hair?” “I love Bob Marley!” “I’m not responsible.” “I’m so responsible.” It was hilarious and appalling.

Speaking of people I admired, Judah Dorrington brought the house down with a soul version of “Superstar” and Teddy Pendergrass’s classic “Turn Off the Lights”. I mean, really. These are songs to which babies are conceived. The power of her voice alone knocked everyone off their seats, so when it was announced that, after decades of performing, Judah was finally releasing her first album, the crowd cheered as if there was no tomorrow. In a way, Judah (like Letta) had literally watched me grow up and had really encouraged me and pushed me as an artist. So it really warmed my heart to be on that stage. Kinda like coming home.

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