why don't you get a real job

my friend alissa was my roommate in my early years in the city. we lived in a tiny two bedroom with roaches two blocks away from the nice part of morningside heights.

she was a college graduate- a bachelors in something serious and ordinary. her father a doctor. she wanted to be an actress. so here she was in nyc. casting after casting. bit part after bit part.

every morning she woke up at 8am like she had an office job. she would make her coffee then plug away at her computer sending out submissions and headshots and scheduling and confirming auditions.

then she would pack up a huge duffel with her gym clothes and her hideous work uniform and head out.

she waited tables at caroline's comedy club. it was a tacky club in a tacky part of town. maybe she didn't know any better- maybe it was the first job she found when she came to the city and just stuck with it. but i really don't think she cared- her 'job', how she payed her bills didn't matter to her.

she was an actress.

this was when i was still unsure of it all.

i had the gall to make the move out here to new york. and i knew exactly what i wanted to do.

but i was scared.

brought up by stereo-typical korean parents that raise you up to be one thing. well educated to be well paid. that was all there was to life. you go to school. you get good grades. you become a doctor, lawyer or non-descript business person. you wear chanel. you drive mercedes. the only other option was to starve yourself. get plastic surgery. marry doctor, lawyer or non-descript business person. then wear chanel and drive mercedes.

i was torn. one part of me felt i should just go back into working in fashion. claw my way into the showrooms and shmooze my way up to the pr dept. but i knew i couldn't do it. build my life to bullshit around with people that make me want to vomit so i can wear pretty things.

the other part of me wanted to do it. really do it. free myself from all of my inhibitions and let myself flow creatively. that sounds so gay. but that's all i've ever wanted to do. dance like a mad woman. sweat dripping so hard it smears my eye-brows. write and sing out at the top of my lungs what i am too embarrassed to speak. and act out in ways that are unfit for everyday mundane life. it's all i ever think about. even now. although now-

i do dance.

well, i got a call back to tour with some latina pop singer who just signed with a major. who cares if they never called me back after the call back.

and i do write and sing. so what if it's about booty hang and wanting to ride guys faces like a bicycle seat. and so what if it's just to a club of fifteen.

and i do act. well, i was in a music video for about 30 seconds.

i used to wonder about alissa. she had a really good education. she came from a rich family.

yet she spent five evenings a week in servitude. wearing a boxy electric blue long sleeved button down.

then one day she made this statement. it changed me. i don't even remember why or how it came up. i think i was smoking weed in the afternoon and watching something on vh1 while she was stuffing her gym clothes into her bag, getting ready to take off for the day. i must have asked her how she does it, how she stays so disciplined.

she frantically spat out,

"I DON'T CARE IF I AM A FUCKING WAITRESS UNTIL I AM 80. AS LONG AS I GET TO ACT"

here's to you alissa.

i still question myself sometimes.

i went back home recently. all my old friends from back in the day, they talk about their mortgages and their 9 to 5's. insurance and investments. i can sense some of their judgements. but i'm not defensive like i used to be.

i smirk inside.

i get to see some cool shit waiting on people they only read about.

i get to taste some cool shit they only see on the food network.

i wake up at noon and walk around the corner to have brunch on a sidewalk with my out of work actress roommate.

i get to wear tiaras and ruffled panties on a stage.

and i will never. ever be confined to a cubicle.

he was only cool in pulp fiction

one time, while i was working as a front waiter at Jean Georges, i dropped a bottle of wine that bounced off the table, that hit a glass, that shattered and cut a lady on her arm.

jean georges sucked. but atleast i got to fuck some people up.

and i got to meet bruce willis. it was the second time i saw him in my life of service. the first time was when i was cocktailing at a club in boston when i was like, 19. his crappy band performed to a house full of over weight middle-aged bostonians with femstaches. 

this time i got to wait on him and some hollywood suit type in the outdoor seating area of jean georges' self named restaurant located in the trump tower across the street from central park. its beautiful. and it smells like horse manure from all those horses they use to drag tourists around the park. 

baldy bruce totally checked me out. i thought i was hallucinating it until i noticed it was so much so, that hollywood, (who refused to make eye-contact with me) was getting irritated and gave him this 'slumming it?' look. they ordered a sparkling water. bruce ordered the egg and caviar. hollywood only consumes human souls so he ordered nothing. baldy handed me a hundo as they left.

EAT me OUT

time out new york has always held a little spot in my heart. 

i discovered it about a month into my new york city transplantation. 

i devoured the restaurant reviews. 

you see, this was before i even knew the term 'foodie' existed. and this was when i wasn't embarrassed to dine at red lobster. i didn't give a fuck about stars, michelin or celebritay, and definitely didn't give a fuck about who was seen in what scene. i just loved the descriptions of food, how they were prepared, words like buttery and flakey, pictures of fat juicy steaks and tiny little of concoctions of colorful layered vegetable shavings in sauces i've never heard of.

i felt the same warmness in my heart and tingle in my belly as when i watched yan can cook as a kid or read each and every recipe in the land o lakes country cooking cook book my moms ex boyfriend had laying around our house. sometimes, i just happily read menus out of our yellow pages.

eventually, in my later service years, i used the magazines restaurant guide to know where to apply for jobs. 

and now, when i pick up a time out, not only have i been to most of the restaurants listed, i've been fired from most of them as well.

here's to Time Out New York EAT OUT AWARDS 2010

my current place of employment won 

'BEST INSTANT CLASSIC SINCE THE CHANEL SUIT'

my place of employment prior, (last place i got fired from before this gig) won

'BEST NEW COCKTAIL LOUNGE'  and  'BEST NEW BAR-RESTAURANT HYBRID'

cheers fuckers. congrats!

i wish i could pay rent with salami

so you are one of the select few in the city that is a bona fide new york times four star and michelin rated three star chef.

so its your birthday. so you have a ridiculous french accent. 

so you decide to throw a bash in your lounge. so you're going to keep your employees for an extra four hours without gratuity or overtime to wine and dine a hundred of your closest fancy friends with equally ridiculous accents.

so i scored more than fitty bucks worth of house cured salami and murrary's cheese. plus lemon macaroons and a platter of organic baby veg in a basil puree that make my panties moist. 

they're fucking lucky that deep down inside, i am just a big ol' fat kid. 

happy barfday fancy pants chef de blah blah.

dreams and the pursuit of

I am amongst countless brave souls who come to this city to pursue theirs. I am a singer. A dancer. An actress. A bad ass triple threat. Which means, well, you know when you read the tabloids and gossip magazines with all of the celebrity sightings listed with the impossibly hip places you'll never get into?

Well, I'm the girl that gets to refill the sparkling waters and remove the bread baskets because how dare I try to feed them carbs?

I have worked in the hottest eateries and watering holes from uptown and down. Soho, East Village, West Village, Greenwich Village, Meatpacking District, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Tribeca, Midtown, Gramercy, Chelsea and when I didn't know any better, Morningside Heights.

Three star, four star and so fucking cool it doesn't even have an address no star. 

I constantly battle between bitterness towards the ungrateful superficial upper crust and thanking my lucky stars that I get to rub elbows with some of the greatest creative minds of our time, like Betsey Johnson. Oh, and did I tell you I was once thisclose to Edward Norton? The only thing that stopped me from dry humping his face was the fact that rent was due in a week. Am in regrets.