Cool Happenings

I've had some amazing experiences this week. John Cleese and Ed Solomon taught my UCLA lecture class. They spoke for hours on the creative process and the realities of Hollywood screenwriting. Lucky, lucky me.

And tonight I saw Margaret Cho's Assasin tour. She's so frigging fracking cool. They better make a DVD of Assasin (so far they aren't going to be, so start emailing asking for one!). She's got some great new material ("I've used a strap-on dildo before, but only on straight men...but you have to be careful. You have to really love him. Because you are not getting rid of him after that. He will stay by your side. Trust me, I've got the restraining orders to prove it.")

Loooove her. It was really interesting, too, because I went alone as I often do to these things. It was at the Wiltern, a somewhat questionable area of Korea town, near an old apartment of mine.

Anyway, Margaret is all about The Personal is Political, and always speaks out about what it's like to experience racism as a minority in this country. On the way out, grinning from laughing my ass off, I decided to buy a t-shirt off a scalper. Really cute black guy who couldn't believe I went alone, or understand why I thought she was funny. Then he leaned in real close and conspirationally said, "You know, there's a lot of Asians here." At which point I showed him my Asian tatoo.

How weird is that? I'm as transparent white as Europeans come, and somehow this guy just knew I knew where he was coming from. It's so strange to me that people always default to believing the people around them think the same way they do. I was friendly and open, therefore I was an ally in racism? It's so sad. Reminds me of the Oprah with Lisa on it this week about the realities of prison life, and how it's segregated by races...and they self-regulate to make sure no one crosses the lines. What is that? It's so foreign to me. And yet, the UCLA quad looks exactly the same way. Don't know if anyone gets shanked for crossing a line, but you're sure made to feel uncomfortable.

Don't know how this turned into a racism pondering. I really was going to tell you the inside scoop on the great performances I saw. But this seemed more pressing.