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Tuesday, February 10, 2004
It's almost 5pm and the sun's still out. Winter's waning, but it feels like all the rain and cold up to this point has been a long run up to...? When I lived in New York, I'd be swearing under my breath as it froze in mid-air every time I stepped outside. By February, Winter seemed interminable. But somehow, on this coast, it just seems anti-climactic. Sure, there were a few bone-chilling days, some weeks of rain (more inconvenient in SF because the city's not used to it), some fits and starts of Winter. But where was real Winter? Now it's sunny all day and I don't feel relieved; I miss the drama of Spring, that sense of jubilation and freedom. Here it just seems to mush along, one not-unpleasant day into the next, slightly less unpleasant one. Mild and even.
That said, I've never been colder than I have been in San Francisco. It wasn't Mark Twain who said "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," but it's no less true for the misattribution. I think there's this presumption that it never really gets cold in SF, so that when it actually does (at night, especially) there's little provision for it. Houses have thin, uninsulated walls. Heaters burst into flame if you use them for more than an hour. The damp, foggy cold gets in your bones and won't let go. Warm weather is wishful thinking.
Oddly, Californians, who have the mildest, most consistent weather, are more obsessed with weather than almost anyone else. When people talk about moving to the East coast, we routinely say that we couldn't handle the weather. All that snow. I never met anyone in New York who stated that weather was their number one reason for NOT moving somewhere. But maybe that's just my extended family, trying to find some common ground. You can talk about the weather with anyone.
At any rate, I find I miss the most unpopular aspects of New York weather most. I miss the first snow of winter, when the city becomes soft and quiet for a change (before it descends into a mass of grey goo). And I miss humid and sweaty New York summers where it's warm all day and all night and no one wears any clothes.
Instead, I've traded it all in for benign little San Francisco. No bite, but no bliss, neither
5:37 PM
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Sunday, February 08, 2004
William Hung set out to become an American Idol and ended up a pop icon. The civil engineering student's performance of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" has set blogs everywhere a twitter, and spawned at least two fan sites (williamhung.reallyrules.com, williamhung.net), a radio interview, a remix, a newspaper profile, and "Lord of the Hungs" (random?!) artwork. What is it about William that inspires such fervent fascination?
I think it's the "awww" factor. His awkward, heartfelt performance (amid its ever-increasing digital permutations) never fails to elicit an "awww" from me which, as Oliver (collector of the wealth of William above) has noted is neither unequivocal praise nor damnation. "Awww" starts out as the bright, familiar sound reserved for something cute and endearing, and then slides ever so slightly down to a darker, mournful note of pity. William, as my friends in junior high used to say, is "puppy-dog cute" which means we like him, but are slightly embarassed to admit it because he's not "cute cute" (i.e. hunky). Just cute enough to feel sorry for.
In an age where people will do/say/eat anything to be on tv, we're charmed by William's sincerity. His response to the judges' rejection: "I already gave my best. I have no regrets at all," is completely devoid of the entitlement that turns other would-bes into divas. To William, a winning performance is a process he has yet to perfect. Like engineering, stardom will eventually fall prey to hard work and perseverance; he is undeterred by this minor setback. William had the guts to take the secret dream of every shower-singer and karaoke devotee and make it real. His courage touches on one of our most treasured American desires: we wish life were an even playing field. If you only work hard enough, and believe in your potential, one day, everyone else will see it too.
But William's apparent faith in the fairness of the music biz also arouses our pity. He's so earnest and so completely ill-suited to pop stardom -- we know he's never going to "make it." But his bravery is so poignant in the face of insurmountable odds. It's like that climactic scene in the Civil War movie Glory. You know the black battalion is going to be decimated attacking the fort, you know the Union army has set it up that way (black lives being more expendable than white), but by golly, you want those soldiers to take that hill. Never mind that the Civil War was more about economics than emancipation. Though they know they are doomed, those men fight on, not for their lives, but for their freedom. It's a valiant gesture, totally sacrificial, and completely moving. Ok, that's a little dramatic, but anyone who's ever read People Magazine knows that William is up against the same odds.
Why couldn't he get a physical trainer, a little nip and tuck, a ProTools plug-in and find himself in the Superbowl half-time show? Because he'd probably have to get a sex change and expose a nipple. Popular music is saturated with one-dimensional images (if not music) of Asian women, but Asian men are all but invisible compared to white and black male stars. Chinese American rapper Jin takes a cue from Eminem with his single, "Learn Chinese," wearing both his ethnicity and machismo on his sleeve, but it remains to be seen if this bravado will carry over into mainstream recognition. In the conflation of sound and sex that is American popular music, there are no precedents for Asian American success.
Masking this racism, and built into the American Idol premise is the notion of "talent." It's fascinating how this word has become hard-coded in our heads to encompass a very limited range of traits. We recognize good singers as people who sound like famous people (but not TOO much like famous people). I was dumbstruck watching the Hawaii auditions by a woman who introduced her song saying, "I'm doing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' by Beyonce." The whole notion of songs as archetypes that require personal interpretation has been completely bulldozed by the power of celebrity. We sing the singer, not the song. The American Idol judges purport to be looking for singers that show their personality, who "make a song their own." But they repeatedly choose contestants who remind them of famous people: the next Lauryn Hill or Aaron Neville.
Granted, most of the people on American Idol just want to be on tv. It's not just a singing contest after all, it's entertainment, and the producers (who make the first two behind-the-scenes cuts) make sure that the program has its complement of men in Pooh bear suits and women with baritones. Then along comes William Hung, who actually did make a song his own (not to mention single-handedly reviving Ricky Martin's career) with such heart and goodwill that it was almost impossible to laugh at him. Almost. He doesn't fit within our narrow definition of talent, but there's no denying the sincerity of the attempt. There's a real person singing that song. His performance restored what is fun and heartening in music, taking it away from the cookie cutter pop idol and giving it back to us.
12:35 AM
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