Rated R—for racist?

As a half-Chinese guy with a western-sounding last name, I don’t cry racism often, if ever. I think the last time anyone called me a “chink” with anything remotely involving invective was back in the 3rd grade. And that boy is dead now, thanks to my Triad brethren. (Kidding--just seeing if you’re paying attention––we just roughed him up and branded him with gang-tattoos).

Even in high-school my best friends affectionately called me “half-breed," on occasion—a geeky homage to Bones giving Spock the same nick-name in Star Trek. And my first car at sixteen, whose paint bore the same color as a lemon, was lovingly (and accurately) dubbed “The Yellow Peril.”

What I’m getting at is that I’m not a hypersensitive, militant cracker-basher––I can take a joke and am not one easily offended. But, I am prone to what scientists might call…the heebie-jeebies.

It’s that sour feeling you get, not when confronted with racism, but its six-finger banjo-playing in-bred cousin—ignorance.


Today's challenge: See if you can spot the tokenism in this photo? In this case, it’s the notion that Hollywood needs to whitewash film scripts to make them more marketable. I’m talking about the hullabaloo over the movie 21—about a legendary M.I.T. card-counting ring that traveled to casinos on weekends, taking them for millions. The movie is based on the bestselling book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.

When I read Bringing Down the House a few years back, pseudonyms were given to the main characters, but it was pretty obvious that these were Asian kids. It was part of their cover story.

But now we have 21. A movie “based on a true story” except the main characters have all been recast as white-folk. Hmmmm….let’s see: M.I.T. students, into gambling, good at math…what’s the first thing that comes to mind? An Ashton Kutcher look-alike? C'mon, if you're gonna recast the lead character, at least gimme a bankable star.

The whole thing is subtle and strange (and rather moot, since the film is a total dud). Still, it creeps me out.

Where the boys aren't

Roswell Book Club, Roswell, GAI love book clubs. Actually, I love the idea of book clubs since I’m not actually in one. But, trust me, if there were a book club where guys could all read Band of Brothers and eat hot-wings––I’d be in there. (If you know of one in my area, by all means––hook a brother up).

The closest I get to being in a book club is having a collective of guy friends that read. We swap books like power tools. We sometimes even return them. That’s how I came to read The Road, Peace Like a River, V for Vendetta, Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live and the DaVinci Code, just to name a few. We have water-cooler conversations about books, but that’s about it. Guys will go sit in a bar and watch golf reruns, but somehow this half of the species can’t figure out how to do the book-club thing––at least not in my neighborhood.

Why am I riffing on this?

Because my more literate half just got a free book in the mail from the Random House Reader’s Circle book club. They sent her a copy of Lisa See’s Peony in Love, just for being the leader of “Leesha’s Hotties”––ahem, evidently they let you choose your club name. You sign up online, get free book catalogs, can schedule phone chats with authors––it’s pretty cool.

What do I get? Dog-eared copies of Sports Illustrated and half-price nachos.

Are you in a book club?

God is in the details, along with a whole bunch of other people, including you

(In case you’re in need of a quick April Fool’s joke, I just helped little sister fill big sister’s shampoo bottle with dill pickle juice. It works every time).


Some epigraphs are  better than othersOn the book front, I’m catching up on all the little things you don’t really think about as a debut novelist. (At least I didn’t). I mean, I sort of immersed myself in the story and the research and the editing. But what about:

Dedication—Can you believe I completely forgot about a dedication page? My editor’s wonderful assistant asked me about it last week and I sort of drew a blank. Maybe I can auction it off on eBay––“This book is dedicated to _______, thanks for bidding. I take Paypal.”

Frontis––Since the story of HOTEL is set against a backdrop of actual events, I’d been pouring over hundreds of historical photos, one of which was perfect for a frontis page. The only problem was, I couldn’t find who the photographer was. A museum in California referred me to the National Archives. I ended up searching a database of 20,000 images. The image I was searching for was #50. Yes, there is a God and he/she/it––reads.

Epigraph––I don’t know if it’ll make the final cut, but I found a lyric from a Duke Ellington song that seemed to fit perfectly. Obtaining the rights is new challenge.

About––I don’t even know what to call this, but I’ve written an “About the Book” page that addresses the non-fiction elements in HOTEL. Like Bud’s Jazz Records in downtown Seattle and the real life character of Oscar Holden, a legendary, but somewhat unknown jazz figure who appears in the book, courtesy of his family. (Thank you Grace!)

Acknowledgments––And of course a veritable who’s who of people who’ve read, critiqued, encouraged and otherwise propelled me to the finish line. I may need an expanded edition for these names alone. How do I spell your name again?

Festival of the Book report

I came. I read. They clapped. I wish I could say that in Latin––like Veni Vidi Vici, but with a literary twist. It wasn’t a standing ovation or anything, but at least I didn’t throw up on my shoes. And it was cool to finally meet novelist Pete Fromm, who lives here in town as well as Aaron Parrett, who blew everyone away with a short story about a hilarious, yet heartbroken man selling stuff on eBay.

This whole reading in public thing is a strange new adventure. The public thing doesn’t bother me––I’m actually one of those shameless fools that digs speaking in public. (Which means I’m frightening with a karaoke mic. Consider yourself warned). The part about reading in public that is most intriguing is the reading part. It’s definitely an art form that I’ll keep working on.

Which is why I hung out the next day to take in the poetry readings. These were from award-winning poets like Henrietta Goodman, Mark Gibbons, Larry Bauer, Fred Bridger, Elsie Pankowski and Lowell Jaeger who played with words like puppets on a string, dazzling the audience––which unfortunately was scarce due to a flash blizzard that shut down the city. We were like the Donner Party, trapped in the library. At least we had something to read.