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June 08, 2003
Logorrhea
I miss my mother terribly. Drove me to tears this morning.
I’m a little scatterbrained because I’m homesick, actually sick and going through a summer nostalgia thing. Plus, my hair smells like smoke and it’s distracting me. I was in the studio last night with my hometown Tampa friends who are in LA recording another album. I’m so proud of them. Such talented people. Weird as hell, too. They were representing Tampa like always. They are kind and generous, but also strange people. Harold, my half Korean singer/songwriter friend was looking for Red Dog at 2 in the morning. Red Dog is a homeless man he met on Venice Beach last week who “sings, has all the raps and he does comedy!” They’ve been eating together, and hanging out on the beach. Meanwhile, Milton whose alter ego is Chongo (a character who sniffs passersby for amusement) has been gallivanting around LA with a red mesh tank top and white tuxedo pants on. He says he’s bringing back the moustache. “No beard,” he says, “just the ‘stache…” They chain smoked while Coral and I listened to their new stuff. The four of us exchanged stories about who appeared most recently on the Hillsborough County Online Arrest Inquiry and even a story where the quote of the night was, “That’s like doo dooing at the club. How you gonna have on a miniskirt and doo doo at the club?” Well, the other great quote of the evening was, “That fool was beat boxing in my toilet!” When I smelled my hair this morning, rather than disgust, I laughed out loud at how funny last night’s haps were. Then, I missed my mom.
My mom gets Filipinas Magazine in the mail. My dad just bought this huge satellite dish so that she can get this one Filipino channel. And he’s been bugging me to buy him these Tagalog tapes so he can brush up on my mama’s native tongue. I need the tapes my damn self. I have a big surprise for Miss Mercy this summer!
So, I just did an interview with the magazine. The writer of the story was also Filipino so we had a one-hour conversation about Filipinos and how they are represented (or not) in pop culture. We discussed Filipino celebrities. You know, we sometimes claim Tia Carrere, but not always. We talked about my mom, his mom, the big wooden fork, spoon and knife that hang in every Filipino home. We covered the use and re-use of Country Crock butter containers. Think you’re getting butter? Wrong! Squid eyes are staring back at you and suddenly that toast doesn’t seem too appetizing. Don’t you dare flip over those carpet runners! The pointy-side up carpet runner trick kept my brother and I laughing for summer after summer. Wasn’t so funny when Shorty was the victim though. He’d say, “When you leave that bedroom, you’ll leave it as old white people…” We never really stayed “grounded.” We were grounded for an hour tops. We were back on that Nintendo and running in and out of that screen door before we could put the Kool-Aid pitcher back in the fridge (empty).
Glenn, the writer, said that they use existing artwork, meaning they could just pull any old pictures of me and use them. No way. I abandoned that Cobra Kai Never Die haircut three years ago. I happen to be friends with a photographer who likes to “capture one’s personality” and so he took pictures for me and we’re giving those to the magazine to use. I absolutely hate having my picture taken, and it was the most terrible hour of my life. Not the most terrible, but I’m melodramatic and moody today for today the cycle has begun. I haven’t really explained anything to my mom. I just want her to get the magazine in the mail with my picture on the cover and see what happens. I can’t really tell her anything about what’s going on with me in LA until there is actual proof that it has occurred. I told her about this magazine where they mentioned me in a six-word sentence once, and she spent the next three weeks asking me where to get it. She goes, “I go to Oriental store, nobody has it…” I kept saying, “It has Justin Timberlake on the cover. It’s called Entertainment Weekly, man. What is so hard about that?” She would call back and say, “I only see one wit dat damn Britney Spears. No Justin…” First of all, why is she at the Oriental store for a newsstand magazine? These things I can’t explain. I now just send her the shit. I can’t have these circular conversations. And she can’t keep going to the store confusing cashiers about a magazine that I’m hardly in. She ends every conversation with me like this: Do you hab dat tape? I don’t know what tape she wants. I do know that she watches Oxygen every hour on the hour waiting for Girls Behaving Badly to come on. Even if I’m not featured in the episode, she goes on and on about my voiceover work. She’s a mom. I’m happy that she’s happy, but I can only have that conversation about me jumping out of the box maybe two more times before I have to say no more.
My mother is too precious, I could scream.
Speaking of screaming, I saw Andre from Outkast on Sunset yesterday. I wanted to scream at him. Andre, I love you. Let’s make out. I didn’t. His hair was so big that day anyway.
Oh, and big ups to Nupur, the little girl from Tampa who won the National Spelling Bee a year ago, maybe. I just saw this movie Spellbound, a documentary about a handful of kids who went to the Bee. I love words, I love spelling and I love a documentary about kids who love spelling. The winning word was logorrhea – a condition I may have this morning, so see you later.
P.S. In the Filipinas Magazine interview, I mentioned a few of my favorite Filipino clothing companies. Just in case they don't get the necessary props they deserve in the article, here they are! Check them out if you get a chance.
Tsinilas.com
FiliIslander.com
PnoyApparel.com
Posted by melissah at June 8, 2003 03:09 PM