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These days, Asian/Pacific Americans, and Asians in general, are a constant, comfortable presence in mass media, in the movies, on television and on stage, on TV news, on the radio, and on the New York Times bestsellers lists. But being from the old world, when, in the early Sixties, there were virtually none of us on any of those media, I'm still surprised - pleasantly, of course - to see, say, a Chinese-American character pop up as a regular person in a major motion picture. This fall, that character is going to be me. The movie is from Cameron Crowe, the writer and director of Jerry Maguire. He began his career as a teenaged freelance writer for Rolling Stone magazine, and the movie is based on himself, following a fictional rock band on tour. But while he and the band are make-believe, Cameron decided to recreate the offices of Rolling Stone in San Francisco, and to cast actors to play three actual Rolling Stone editors, Jann Wenner, David Felton, and me. Cameron had told me about this movie after he'd agreed to write an introduction for my book, Not Fade Away, a collection of articles from Rolling Stone and elsewhere. He asked if he could use me as a real-life character in the movie. I had been the editor who gave him his first assignments and edited his first cover stories. Soon after I agreed, I began getting e-mails from various actors around the country, asking how I looked, dressed, and said "crazy," a word Crowe apparently had me saying several times in the script. I used to say "crazy" a lot, as an approving response, as in: "Ben, I just got an OK to interview Neil Young."
After a two month search, they found a 20-something year old, Terry Chen from Vancouver, B.C., who did a great job, and the film will be out in October. I can hardly wait to rent the video. Well, I've had a few other media moments in recent years, all of them fitting into the theme of convergence. They included the hosting, for about a year, of a weekly live arts and interview show on KQED-FM, called Fog City Radio. One clear highlight was the day Amy Tan came on to discuss a children's book, then, after a break, came back out and sang the song, "These Boots Are Made For Walking," decked out in dominatrix gear, complete with biker hat, net stockings and whip. And don't even ask about the boots. For the last four years, I've been co-anchoring KTVU's broadcast of the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade. I also appeared, this spring, on a syndicated show called Your Big Break, in which I was costumed to approximate the mid-Sixties version of Bob Dylan, and sang "Like a Rolling Stone," faking strumming on a guitar, while dancers dressed like protestors marched behind me. It was every bit as weird as it sounds. But the TV appearance that has stayed with Dianne and me - and with family and friends who saw it almost seven years ago - was on Wheel of Fortune. I'd gone to the tryouts to write about them, wound up on the show, and, after jawing with Pat Sajak about karaoke, and after getting in a plug for The Rice Room, I wound up with almost $99,000 in cash and prizes - mostly prizes, and mostly stuff that we chose to forfeit, because we didn't want them and didn't want to pay taxes on them. There were two things we did keep, however. One was an Acura Legend. The other was a Rolex watch for Dianne from Van Cleef & Arpel in Beverly Hills. Retail value: $8,000. So, guess what? I got my gold watch! And it was 1993 - 25 years after I'd joined Pacific Telephone. Well, technically, it was Dianne who got the gold. I guess I could still try and go back to the phone company?�Any offers? Page 5 of 6 --END-- More
articles written by Ben Fong-Torres
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