MEDIA ALERT: I.E. Casinos and Asian Entertainers

On Thanksgiving, Riverside's Press Enterprise featured a story on the Asian entertainment acts booked at local casinos to rake in even more "yellow dollars." The story reveals what I know from my own sordid experiences in the card rooms of southern California: it's a good bet you'll find plenty of Pinoy, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese cardsharks hunkered down at the tables.

According to the story, bringing in Asian acts (and acts popular with Asians) not only services the growing communities in the Inland region, but also convinces those of us who live further afield in L.A. or Orange County to drive in for more prolonged overnight gaming getaways. Not that we need all that much convincing. [LEFT: The Golden Divas--a campy trio of Pinay mestiza vocal stars of yore-- performing tonight at Pala Casino].

"Agua Caliente is seeing patrons from Orange County and Morongo is pulling from San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

Ferrari [director of marketing operations for Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula--one of my fave places] said the resort's Saigon Thanksgiving show this weekend was booked only a month ago and was selling very well.

Ferrari said sometimes acts have crossover appeal, such as rock band Journey, whose show sold out quickly when the band played Pechanga earlier this year. The band's singer, Arnel Pineda, is from the Philippines.

Other acts are teaming up with American artists, such as Martin Nievera [Emperor: an old family friend], who will perform with Brian McKnight at Morongo in December."

Click HERE for the full story.

In the meantime, I'll let the Golden Divas take us out with their cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella" (performed live on the Filipino variety show, S.O.P.)

I.E. Holiday News Round Up | Shooting at Toys 'R' Us + Mission Inn Gets Totally Lit

Riverside Countians had to one-up the Long Island Walmart trampling with a shooting that left two men dead at a Palm Desert Toys 'R' Us store. Though the gun battle was NOT about a toy, circumstances were inflamed by the long lines and buying frenzy of Black Friday. The Riverside Press Enterprise reports (click on the map for the full story):

"Bargain hunters scrambled from a Palm Desert Toys "R" Us on Friday after two men were shot and killed on one of the nation's busiest shopping days.

Riverside County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said the men were involved in a nonshopping-related disagreement near the checkout stand of the busy store.

'This confrontation was not over a toy,' Gutierrez said.

Police in the Coachella Valley city arrived at 11:32 a.m., a minute after receiving reports of shots fired inside the crowded store on Highway 111. Retailers such as Toys "R" Us generally offer deep discounts to draw customers on Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving is known."

****

On a much happier note, yesterday also marked the start of the 16th Annual Festival of Lights at downtown Riverside's The Mission Inn. I hadn't really thought about it 'til now but in the years since grad school, I've managed to bring friends from all over the world and So. Cal to the Mission Inn's twinkly, animatronic wonderland. It wasn't (just) because they were too broke to fly home--but more often than not, because they were too broke to fly home AND to the MLA for job interviews, papers and other professional tortures. Thank goddesses this will mark the last year that dreadful gathering is scheduled between Christmas and New Year's. (Click the picture for the Press Enterprise's account of yesterday's festivities).

The Emperor dedicates this year's Festival of Lights to all the loved ones--our beautiful, improvised families--from Koeln, Paris, Marseilles, Iowa City, Lexington, Seoul, Salinas, Bell Gardens and The Valley who have each claimed these lights as their own some time or other. Please come again soon. Y'all know you're always welcome. xoxoxo, I. Emperor.

L.A. TIMES: Unemployment Surge in the I.E.

With an unemployment rate of 9.1%, the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro region ranks even worse than Detroit.


From Dan Pierson of the Los Angeles Times (click the picture below for the full story):
"The percentage of people unemployed in the Inland Empire has more than doubled from a year ago, and some experts predict the situation will worsen before it improves.

'It's a perfect storm,' said Brad Kemp, director of regional research for Beacon Economics, which recently conducted the second annual Inland Empire Economic Forecast Conference.

'It was one of the fastest-growing places in America,' he said. 'And when you have that kind of growth, you have the potential for loss.'

The downturn has all but erased the glow of optimism the Inland Empire enjoyed only two years ago, when newly minted mansions and an array of upscale retailers fashioned parts of the region into a more affordable Orange County in the making." [Right: The historic Fox Theater in downtown Riverside. Perpetually under renovation]

***
Sadly, this offers more fodder for the O.C./I.E. rivalry subplot in my book.

Calendar Alert! | Riverside Pride '08 (September 13)

Polish your rainbow bling, and buy an ample stash of Mac's "twig and fetish" lipstick--RuPaul is one of the featured performers at Riverside's first local pride festival on September 13, 2008! If memory serves, there have been local pride parades and protests in the past, but none have been as ambitious as this year's program of performances, activities and an "art walk" in downtown's White Park (located right next door to ye olde Le Sex Shoppe and the all-you-can-eat Cabin Sushi--aka "porno sushi"--beloved by Media Sheep).

In my adolescence, White Park was the classic downtown wino park (like the one where Cornelius Hackl in Hello Dolly sings "It Only Takes a Moment"). But all the civic-led gentrification has seen it turn in to a more respectable picnic spot--proximity to Le Sex and all. [Above R: Cabin Sushi, photographed by Yelper Jan G. || Below L:White Park now]

The event is organized by the Jeffrey Owens Community Center, an Inland support and advocacy group that came together after the 2002 murder of a local AIDS activist and North High School Alum. Jeffrey Owens was stabbed to death in the parking lot behind The Menagerie (the I.E.'s oldest queer club). Unlike most corporate pride events that tend only to benefit the unholy triumverate of light beers (Bud, Coors and Miller), as well as other opportunists, Riverside Pride is being staged to increase awareness and raise money for local charities and local non-profit LGBTIQ organizations like JOCC. Click the poster below for a link to the Riverside Pride myspace page with more info about how to participate as a Volunteer, Vendor or Performer. Tickets are $10.

I.E. Summer Songs with Soul Sides

Inspired by Paho Mann's "Reinhabited Circle Ks" project, my contribution to Oliver Wang's annual "Summer Songs" feature on Soul Sides crawls from the I.E. up to the Bay Area and back. Click on Club Tattoo for a peek and a listen...

Home-o for the Holidaze || A Photo Essay

The fuzzy little fella under the tree is my parents' very cuddly, very effeminate boy dog, Yukon. For all intents and purposes "Yuki" is my younger sibling. Like all bullying older sibs, I'm having the little one do the dirty work for me--soften up the crowd with those shiny button eyes for what will be a quick and dirty post on this night of the 23rd...the eve of Christmas Eve.

To get to Riverside today I took the Metrolink, So. Cal's commuter train system and a distant cousin to something like the LIRR. On weekends the Metrolink goes the roundabout way (the only way available to the Empire from L.A.'s Union Station on weekends), through San Bernardino, Riverside's scrappier and scruffier neighbor to the Northeast. What is usually about a 50 minute drive on the 60FWY door-to-door from my place to my folks' took about an hour and 45 on the Sunday San Berdoo line that chugs alongside the 10 past El Monte, Baldwin Park, Covina, Northern Pomona, Claremont, Montclair, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Rialto and downtown San Bernardino before docking in downtown Riverside. The train was filled with holiday travelers, mostly Latino and African-American teens heading into the I.E. to see the cousins, aunts and uncles who re-lo'ed to the 'burbs in the 80s or 90s (see Next Friday, which was set in one of my scenic station stops today, Rancho Cucamonga).

The Metrolink ride yields plenty of stories, especially because the route provides picture-window glimpses at the backyards, freight doors and storage dumps that families, businesses and cities like to keep tucked out of view. I too will keep these stories close to the vest for now and let a few pictures do the talking. Part II of this post closes with a tableau of what the holidays look like at the parental abode on Santee place. In the meantime, this is how we enter the Empire...

1. Union Station














2. L.A. River














3. Three














4. Mobile Home Park














5. Montclair Station (Mt. Baldy, Hinterground)














6. Yellow 1.0














7. Yellow 2.0














8. Boxcars near Rialto















9. Yellow 3.0 (between San Bernardino and Riverside)














10. End Stop














11. Raincross














PART II: Santee Place
We all know the holidaze are chaotic, but they feel especially tumultuous for a Virgo like me when I schlep out to the parental hoarding pit. My folks have got to be the worst pack-rats EVER. I know they look sweet, well groomed and tidy on the outside, but at their very core they can't resist squirreling away every soy sauce packet* or spork in the event of the apocalypse (or "The Big One"--the latter being more immanent). I think their Bohemianism crossed with some of their "Fisher King" tendencies account for my unbearable Virgoan obsessiveness and minimalism now. [Left: Graveyard of craft books, hall closet]. When I arrived this late afternoon, I had my annual hissy fit about all the stuff crammed into every nook and cranny of the house: an assortment of catalogues for things like dog visors and Kleenex cozies; unread Rodale's "Organic Gardening" magazines from 1989 onward; DVD's from Columbia House that they forgot to reject through the monthly mailer; ceramic dolphin clocks gifted to them by acquaintances from the church of Religious Science; coupons from Dr. Butchko, I.E. Vet. It's all still here. Clearly I need therapy to work through all the residual immigrante and class shame triggered by all my parents' stuff. [L: Santas and Friends]. This time, I just decided to take pictures.

I know this might sound a bit too "American Beauty," but taking pictures of all of the oddities chez Mom and Dad really helped me see things differently. It made me actually appreciate some of the accidental beauty behind their otherwise chaotic accumulation. It helped me breathe. So in the spirit of Christmas sharing, here's something from my family to yours...Maligayang Pasko! Mele Kalikimaka! Frohe Weihnachten! And all that jazz...

a. Beethoven and Friends














b. Everything but the kitchen sink














c. The kitchen sink















d. Crown Rib Roast














e. Capicolla fr. D'Elia's














f. Gallery














g. Nativity Scene + Buddha Guest Stars














h. Notes














i. Screen, Elephants and Rudolph














j. Bongos || Romy Katindig Model














k. Hip-Swaying Outdoor Santa














l. Santa's Sleigh + Great Ideas Book Series, 1961-1974














m. Mom














n. Dad w. Sick Puppy














o. Tannenbaum





















* The genotype "soy sauce saver" isn't mine, but belongs to the venerable HN Lukes.

Devil in the "Details"

I woke up this morning to Ben Affleck's face on my doorstep. Another sign of the apocalypse. And another sign that it's time to get crackin' on finishing (or starting to finish) Relocations. This month's issue of "Details" unfurled to reveal not only Ben's "serious face" and dewey chin-dimple, but a teaser headline about "Why the Suburbs are Cooler than Downtown" (?!?!?!?) Talk about zeitgeist. Or is this just more proof that The Secret works? Anyway, I could rant ad nauseum about why the article is lame and why the idea of a "cool style culture" relocating to the 'burbs is totally NOT what I'm saying in my project. People always assume.

But then I'd have to explain why I subscribe to Details in the first place. (Note to self: consider cutting wispy man-bangs off this week). In the meantime, check out the Details guide to the "hottest 'burbs" below. I'm sad/glad to see that the I.E. is nowhere to be found on the list.

FR. DETAILS, November 2007

THE CITY: CHICAGO
THE ESCAPE: NAPERVILLE
Naperville, 30 miles west of Chicago, has the character—innovative restaurants, independent shops, fairs and festivals—that the city has started to lose.

THE CITY: LOS ANGELES
THE ESCAPE: MONTROSE
Set in the foothills of the San Gabriel and Verdugo mountains, Montrose is just 20 minutes by car from downtown L.A. It feels more like a small town than a suburb—albeit one with a nationally recognized wine and cheese shop, Goudas & Vines.

THE CITY: NEW YORK
THE ESCAPE: COLD SPRING
An hour from Grand Central on the Metro-North railroad, Cold Spring has panoramic views of the Hudson River, good restaurants, downshifting creative types from the city, and proximity to the vibrant art scene of Beacon.

THE CITY: SAN FRANCISCO
THE ESCAPE: MILL VALLEY
Mill Valley: Across the Golden Gate, 10 minutes north of San Francisco, you’ll find a renowned farmer’s market, outdoor tai chi classes, redwoods, and canyons—and not a Gap store in sight.

THE CITY: WASHINGTON, D.C.
THE ESCAPE: TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND
Takoma Park, Maryland, one of Washington’s first suburbs, is more affordable than other neighborhoods and has a great variety of restaurants. It’s a little crunchy, but it’s hard to argue with the well-regarded schools and impressive music and arts festivals.

THE CITY: BOSTON
THE ESCAPE: WALTHAM
Twenty minutes west of Boston, Waltham is home to Brandeis University and has the sophistication of a college town without Boston’s hordes of overserved undergraduates. The restaurants around Moody Street provide city-quality offerings.

Emperors of the Felt: Poker Stars from The 'Side

Hometown boys alert!

Two of the poker profession's greatest young players are Inland Emperors. Phil Ivey (L) and Allen Cunningham (R below) were both born in good ol' Riverside, CA. Each have 5 WSOP (World Series of Poker) bracelets, and Cunningham was named the WSOP Player of the Year in 2005.

Ivey actually grew up in New Jersey, which is, let's face it, an entire state with a Riverside ethos. Cunningham, though, stayed here in So. Cal, and even attended my college alma mater, UCLA, before giving up on his engineering degree for the pleasure and profit of the felt. The dude couldn't afford NOT to quit school to become a poker pro. Cunningham raked in bank at the cash games at the card rooms off the 5 and 110 (The Bike, Commerce, Hustler) before he moved to Vega$ to "work" full time.

As some of you may know, I fantasize about this scenario all the time, and have recently started hitting up the card rooms on a bi-monthly basis to keep the "live game" skills sharp. In fact, I'm going to quit smoking at the end of the month so I have a modest tournament bankroll to play with.

I started playing poker in my first year of grad school ('96-'97) with galpals and manfriends from my Berkeley English Department cohort. We knocked back shots of Jameson and bottles of filling, Bay Area micro-brewed beers (why?!?), while playing mixed, low-stakes cash games like Hold 'Em, Anaconda hi-lo, your 5 and 7 card varieties of stud, Black Mariah, Queen's Baseball, and even our own made-up games like "Cabin Fever" (4 up, 4 down, no one wins). It was a great way to blow off steam. As I learned in my eerily accurate horoscope today, strategic card games like "pinochle and poker" are a perfect way for Virgos to unwind when they aren't using housecleaning as therapy. All of us needed our poker time to get sloppy, maneuver, act-out, be sexy, clever or weak--things we weren't allowed to express in our everyday grad school lives. The cards and the game were a repository for all our displaced competitive energies and fears of failure. We dealt by shuffling up and dealing.

This probably explains why the poker world is filled with former academics, teachers, and lots of Ivy Leaguers, from Yale homegame compatriots like Alex Jacob (2006 US Poker Champ) and Vanessa Selbst (heroic butch final tablist at the 2006 WSOP Hold 'Em Pot Limit Event--pictured L), to Andy Bloch from the infamous MIT Blackjack Team. Nicknamed the "Professor of Poker," Howard Lederer and his bad girl sister, Annie Duke, are the children of a boarding school English instructor. Their Harvard-educated parents, now divorced, jokingly refer to themselves as "The greatest breeders of poker players in the country." Even the infamous "Poker Brat," Phil Hellmuth, ended up marrying a woman from the Stanford University psychiatry department. Ah....a match made in heaven. Or perhaps required by social services.

Poker is also the profession for choice for lots of badass immigrant Asian dudes and their sleek and sexy "dragon lady" counterparts (as ESPN likes to hype them). It all started with the legendary Johnny Chan, whose skills were immortalized in Matt Damon's poker flick, Rounders. Some prefer the mulleted "Prince of Poker," Scotty Nguyen, or the trash-talking Men "the Master." And we all gotta give it up to the "soft and silent" Indonesian national hero, Johnny Juanda, and lady sharps like Dee Luong and the media darling, Asian-Canadian sistah Evelyn Ng (R).

As for me, I've been ramping up my Hold 'Em game this summer. Kangagi and I have been lucky enough to find a cool posse of dykes of color scatttered up and down the 5, 105 and 405 FWYS for regular home games, tourney excursions, and tribal casino trips. I've won big (Pechanga). I've lost big (Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas). I've made it to 5 final tables for 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th place finishes (out of 90 players) in the 2K "play money" tourneys on Full Tilt. And I've experienced full tilt after bad beats in cash games against the zumanity at the Riviera, or even just in our homegame at the hands of Maria "bulitlit" Butalid, our resident "Just For You" pocket-rocket demon.

All this is to say that if you combine my cumulative poker experience with all of the nature/nurture/kismet called forth by the demographies I discussed above--Inland Emperors, Asian immigrants, and disgruntled academics--a future with poker is definitely "in my cards." (Kick drum, cymbal crash).

Cue Belle and Sebastian's "It Could've Been a Brilliant Career."

If any of you out there on the "interweb" from the Greater or Lesser Los Angeles area would like to hook up with our modest home tourneys and cash games (with buy-ins at anywhere from $10-$25, and a winner take all or 1st-3rd place payout structure), holler via email.

The more, the merrier and the bigger the prize pool.

Let's shuffle up and deal, yo!

Media Alert: L.A. Times hearts UCR + Student Blog Links

Bear in a Highlander outfit! OK folks. I'm gonna try to force myself to work with short form here as other "true bloggers" do, and post a few links to keep y'all amused until my next dispatch from Inlandia. In fact, the next installment is most likely to be a brief review of the new anthology of writing from and about the smogtastic empire called Inlandia, edited by Gayle Wattawa. For those of you still waiting for a review of Laura Dern's twitchy half-lit face in David Lynch's Inland Empire, you're going to have to wait, since I can't quite motivate to see it. The guys in bunny-suit heads--yes, just the heads--are throwing me off. (For the curiosa, a trailer is embeded in a comment on one of my previous posts, "Show Me the Mizithra" thanks to the original mediashepherd and a former HighlanderBear himself, Alex W).

I also want at some point (apropos last week's "Valet of the Dolls" post on the L-Word) to address Alice's search for "papi" pronounced in true white grrrl fashion like "Pappy" of Poopdeck fame. Alice winds her way through the seedy, travesti and drag king infested clubs, dive bars and taquerias of what seem to be Echo Park or East L.A., or whatever their equivalents are in Vancouver. Lots of neon palm trees, and oh-so Jack Twist in "Brokeback." But I digress...

MEDIA ALERT: Actually, the Kangagi alerted me to this news item, since I've been too busy workin' workin' day and night. The venerable "Los Angeles Times" published an article on MLK day about UC Riverside as the choice institution for many Latino and Black students in California. Here's their lead, and the link (just click on the title):

For many minorities, UC Riverside is the campus of choice -
By Richard C. Paddock, Times Staff Writer
January 15, 2007
When it was time for Woodrow Curry to decide where to go to university, he had several choices. An African American with good high school grades and test scores, he was accepted by UC Berkeley, among other schools.

But Berkeley is not where he ended up. Spurning one of the nation's premier public universities, he picked UC Riverside. Although Riverside is sometimes scorned as the lowliest of UC campuses, it offered Curry something that Berkeley did not: a place where he felt welcome.

Lots to say about this piece and its tone, and lots of love to spread to the folks I know at UCR who make it such an amazing, if ridiculously underappreciated institution. But I'll refrain for now. On to more links...

In the vein of letting others do the talking/blogging, I've assigned "blog reading journals" to my students in the undergrad English seminar I'm teaching this semester on "Race and Sexuality in the Suburbs." Thus far they've been great fun. Here are links to some of the more loquacious of the bunch.

The Boy from Glendale
Nuclear Sluts Have Thoughts Too
Victor's Tree of Knowledge
Uffish Thoughts
The Sexy Suburbs
Rhuminations
Confessions of a Token

And finally, another Riv-uh-saiiiiiid! shout-out to my Inland Empress sistah, J-Sto. She's going to do the hetero thing and get married, even though I always thought she'd pull a Charlize or Brangelina and wait until "everyone who wants to marry in this country can." Keep your eyes peeled in Riverside's very own "Press Enterprise" for the announcement. I'll be the big lezzie "bridesman" wearing "summer formal" seersucker. Above is a preview of the bridezilla-to-be rocking the mic with Starship's "WE BUILT THIS CITY" at Virgil Village's Smog Cutter. (Let's hope she doesn't retaliate with any Sierra Middle School yearbooks of shame).