backpacking through taipei

I literally spent the last three hours sitting on the floor of some office style casting agency. I was one of the first to audition for this bizarre Taiwan laptop commercial. However, in Taiwan, callbacks don't exist. If the client likes you, you wait for everyone to audition and then you'll audition again. I felt a little bit out of place at this audition because I was asked to play a "backpacker, someone who loves to mountain bike."

Casting director's translator:You jump off your bike and walk it to a bike rack. You walk into a hip cafe and take off your backpack, super excited about the amazing laptop you are going to pull out. You pretend to check your email and chat with your friends. Look like you are having fun. Finally, pull out your camera, take out the memory card, upload your photos. Turn the laptop towards us and show us your amazing adventure in the mountains of Taipei.

Keep in mind that none of these props exist. Keep in mind that I haven't been on a bike since probably the age of ten. Oddly enough, they loved me. And I guess when I think about it, I probably fit "mountaineer" better than all of the Eastern European girls with their pointy stilettos, long blonde hair, silver eye shadow, and short fitted dresses. I do, after all, clip my keys to the belt loops on my jeans. You can't get more rugged than that in the modeling world. Which, by the way, people in Taipei are totally confused about. I get asked, what is wrong with your keys, about three times a day.

So, right. They liked me. I waited for every model that exists in Taipei to try out. I read a million issues of "Frame" and then paced outside on the porch for about thirty minutes. And then the five of us that they liked went back into the conference room, stood in a row, and they told us "thank you" and said we could leave. That was it. For real.

Earlier in the day I had an audition for a Coke Zero commercial. There was no translator, just a lady with a camera yelling directions out to me in Mandarin. Quite helpful. I tried to decipher what she wanted by her body language. I probably looked like an idiot.

Honestly, I think at this point in my life I would rather look like an idiot for a few minutes than waste hours of my precious life span sitting on a tile floor in Taiwan surrounded by models talking about the club scene in Taipei.

As a sidenote: My good friend Kevin has been working on this web TV project for a little bit now...the trailer is finally up and definitely worth checking out.

terms of agreement, model style.

Taipei is nice. And weird. A friend of mine in New York once said, Every time someone leaves this city for an extended period of time, you might as well consider it rehab. I have to agree with the statement. I feel like I am detoxing from New York. I feel a little bit mental, to be honest.

The fashion market in Taiwan is bizarre. I am required to wear makeup everyday. It's a little bit backwards. You moved me out here because you liked the way I looked - right? I try to get around it by throwing on some mascara and telling my manager I have lipstick in my bag. It's worked out so far. Yesterday morning, my roommate decided she was NOT going to wear makeup. She told our manager: No, not today. Besides, I look younger without it. To which my manager replied: But your face looks bad. Younger makes your face no good.

And then earlier today after I had finished my strikingly stunning poses for a client (in a quite ridiculous street market, business casual outfit) the client just went off (in Mandarin) to my manager. She was pointing at me, touching me, and looking at me as if I was absolutely disgusting. You know, I'm not college educated or anything like that. But. I have some basic intelligence. It's like - you think because I'm white and don't speak Mandarin that I can't figure out that you are talking about me? I knew she was saying I was too skinny. And of course, her clothes were huge and gross. Why I even tried them on in the first place will probably keep me up at night for the next week. But get this, she then turns to one of my roommates and does the same thing to her - except she made it clear that she was too big.

That is kind of when I lost it. That is when something came out of my mouth that probably shouldn't have. Because honestly, it was fucking unbelievable. Luckily, she was running her mouth so much and didn't speak a word of English, so it went completely over her head. My manager, however, heard and burst out laughing. And then my roommate looked at me and said, you at least have to smile while you say things like that. Lets be honest. I get that I am in this industry. That this is "what I do." But there have to be ground rules. I'll put up with just about everything as long as I feel some sort of respect. The second that line is crossed - my mouth is allowed to run as well. I had no idea that once the language barrier is involved -moral decency and manners are allowed to vanish.

But outside of the fashion world.

*I was in a cab yesterday and we passed the "Taipei Experimental Elementary School." I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that means. But it was comforting to finally see something in English.

*I see the most hilarious t-shirts with English phrases and sentences printed all over them here. It is the same as it is in the US. There are people who love things printed with Asian symbols. Even though it is quite possible they have no idea what it means. I've seen some funny shirts (Abraham Lincoln quote shirts, kids wearing shirts with swear words). But today topped it off. Today I saw an older lady wearing a blue sweatshirt. And on the back of the sweatshirt read: WANTED: A boyfriend as a sex slave. Will take all applications. I'm NOT kidding. I wish I had a photo.

*One of my managers asked me if I carried a gun in America. I laughed and said, Right. Everyday. And I wear cowboy hats, too. But here is the thing, he was dead serious. In fact, he then said, You all DO wear cowboy hats, right?

I am very intrigued by the Chinese way of life. It is quite serene and pure. Taipei is so safe, it's unreal. Everyone I meet seems incredibly at peace with themselves. Things aren't that bad here. I am officially considering myself as a part of some shock therapy treatment and as soon as the initial fever is broken, I think I am going to like it here quite a lot.

By the way: my friend who is an excellent writer and takes some rad photos has started a great blog, http://www.thehistoryofmyfuture.blogspot.com, check it out.

Getting into the Slurpees.

I made it to Taipei. For those of you who haven't taken the time to skype me or email me. Kidding. But for real - who has skype? Add me!

So far no natural disasters. No creepy guys luring me in for some slave trade. And I've been good - no reason to go to jail (yet).

As far as my roommates go - super nice. Two Russian girls. I heard a guy is moving in with us in a couple of weeks. As you all know, I love eighteen year old boys who "go the gym."

But Taipei is....weird. The fashion market here is so so so weird. I have a driver who speaks NO English. He drives me from casting to casting. When I get to a casting I have to try on clothes and then give these people a series of "poses." I have always believed modeling is ridiculous - but this is the first time I've actually felt a moral disagreement with it. The positive side is that the market is lucrative. The most famous magazines on the planet don't pay a thing, but putting on outfit after outfit in Taipei is worth a ton of money.

I don't really have much to say about Taiwan yet. I can't talk to anyone. I stare at characters all day and try to guess what they mean. I have a really hard time finding food I can eat. I've been almost hit by probably twenty scooters. And there are more 7-Elevens then Starbucks in New York. There are cameras all over the streets, police everywhere. My roommates both made fun of me for carrying a knife on me. One of them said, "This is not New York."

I listen to a lot of bad pop and dance remixes all day while I'm being driven around. I'm a little bit lonely and I genuinely miss New York.

Anime in a day.

Yo.

I'm back.

New York got crazy and busy for a few months. More crazy and busy than usual. And then two weeks ago I found out that my agency wanted me to get out of here and go use my enamoring manga looks in Asia.

I need to leave for the airport in fifteen minutes. I'm "almost" done packing. Have not showered. And I need to get dressed. I should be fine.

For the next fifty seven days I'll be in Taipei. From Taipei I go to Hong Kong for another fifty seven days. After Hong Kong, I will be on my way to London. I think it's about time I start recording what I see again. Not to mention, if I don't post once a week - you can all assume I have been arrested or sold, white slavery trade style. Or even worse, crushed by some natural disaster that I couldn't avoid.

I do want to make my flight. Check back in a few days, hopefully I'll have a post confirming that I made it and my sixteen year old model roommates aren't all that bad - in fact, intelligent and mature.

xx

I work for Myspace.

I worked a job for American Eagle a couple of weeks ago. At one point I found myself standing next to a pre-pubescent, white, groomed male model. In an attempt to get to know me he started off our conversation like this:

Him: What's yo name? He said this in a tone as if he grew up across the street from my apartment - Marcy Projects style. I mean really, he probably comes from a wealthy suburban home in Connecticut.

Me: Um... (clearly unimpressed).

The conversation only had one more interaction. It went something like this:

Him: Yeah, you know, I need to find a veterinarian. My pythons are looking really sick.

He then lifted his arm and while pointing to his "bicep", flexed. I blankly stared at him and then looked around to see if maybe he was making a joke to someone else. Realizing that he was in fact hitting on me - I turned away.

That was the beginning of my New York fashion week. The rest of the week was filled with endless castings. Running from place to place all day. Literally, jumping on the train and almost running to each casting. Only to arrive upon endless amounts of skinny girls waiting to meet "whoever" for maybe fifteen seconds. Waiting and waiting. Rushing and rushing. Hurry up and wait. Arriving to castings dying to sit down during the wait - but finding that all of the chairs are usually taken up by fifteen year old models and their mothers.

I arrived at my agency during this whole process fairly early in the morning on a daily basis. I would arrive and my booker would print out my schedule. The schedule consists of anywhere from ten to twenty castings. Most castings run for about two to three hours. They are scattered all over the city. About half the time there is no crossroad given with the address. I can honestly say it is incredibly stressful to figure out how to make it to all of them. After getting my schedule, I would sit down and decide on an order based on train locations, priority castings, the castings I could walk to without getting on the train, etc. etc. It helps that I know the city well. It helps that I have a friend who works in an office that I could text all the addresses I needed crossroads for.

One morning, I was sitting down at my agency waiting for my schedule. The girl sitting across from me received her schedule as well. Her booker asked her, do you feel like you know the city yet? She shook her head no. Do you have a map? She shook her head no. Do you have a subway card? She replied with, I think so. The agent printed out a black and white map on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. She then tried to explain how to get to the first few castings while making a few markings on the map. I gathered from the conversation that the girl was about sixteen. The conversation ended with the booker telling her to, just call me if you get lost or confused. The girl then explains that she had lost her phone charger the night before and her phone was dead. So, how are we supposed to get a hold of you? The girl offers an idea that she has her Romanian phone but can only text on it, maybe I could text you?

Like my friend said: Models need Blackberrys and assistants.

The Calvin Klein wait was over two hours. After an hour and a half of sitting in a narrow hallway on a dirty, cold, tiled floor a chair opened up. I found myself sitting across from an extremely beautiful Russian with long red hair. She introduced herself immediately to me and then said,do you have any drugs?. After laughing and telling her "no", her phone rang. It was her agent who told her that after the Calvin Klein casting she needed to go to the Bronx for a job. She hung up the phone exasperated. Is it true that if I go the Bronx I will get KILLED the second I come up from underground? She asks me this while wildly making quick stabbing motions with her hand above her head. I choked back laughter and a series of sarcastic comments. And then after a second thought, replied, maybe not the second you reach sunlight, but yeah it happens. You should be really careful. Wide-eyed, she stared at me for a second and said, this is no good.

The only other observation I am going to bring up is the interactions I observed at fashion parties. A lot of people at the fashion parties I attended are incredibly successful. However, sometimes I ran into people who felt the need to rattle off their resume and impress me. I was talking to two friends at the Prada party. Some random guy came up and asked if he could "join the conversation." My friend and I immediately took a step away leaving our friend to fend for himself. For whatever reason, we got into a relatively intense, serious conversation (yes, I do have those, sometimes). The kind where you are standing fairly close to the person, lots of eye contact, that style. Out of the blue, in the background, I hear the random telling my friend in an oh-so proud voice, yeah, I mean, I work for Myspace. Looking at my friend I said, I'm so sorry but did you... My friend cut in and exlaimed loudly, I work for Myspace! We were literally bent over laughing and left the scene immediately. It really is just so funny to hear what people have to say about themselves within the first minutes of meeting them. We met up with our friend a few minutes later and he informed us that the guy also works for Facebook, records music, and owns an art gallery. Talk about success - what a catch.

My top twenty albums of 2007.

Two posts in a day. I'm on an offical "roll."

My Top Twenty Favorite Albums of the Year 2007:

Ready? Here you go!

***
Honorable Mentions: A Place to Bury Strangers, Ghostland Observatory, Crystal Castles, Coco Rosie, Chase Pagan, The Shins, Black Lips, Pete Bjorn and John

Biggest letdown: Interpol

Album I got into a year late: Datarock
***

20. Foreign Born, On the Wing Now: I randomly saw this band play during CMJ and couldn't pull myself away from it. My friend called them "epic." I have been obsessed since. "Union Hall" is a must have.

19. Blonde Redhead, 23: Not every song is great - but the good songs definitely resemble good Blonde Redhead. Enchanting.

18. Panda Bear, Person Pitch: Basically perfect. And simple.

17. Rosewood Thieves, Lonesome EP: This band is creative and into doing everything themselves. Besides reminding me of Dylan - they release EPs, not full records and I am never dissapointed.

16. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend tied with White Rabbits, Fort Nightly: Both of these bands kind of blew up this year. I've seen both play a few times and loved each performance. It's good rock.

15. Dan Deacon, Spiderman of the Rings: The first time I heard Dan Deacon I was completely turned off. My friend had it playing and I said, "THIS is the guy everyone is talking about?" He kept it playing and it started to grow on me.

14. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: Spoon never really changes. I'm totally fine with it - I like what they have going on.

13. Menomena, Friend and Foe: When I worked in an office I listened to this album everyday. Everything about this band is cool.

12. Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam: My friends are HUGE Animal Collective fans. I really don't like their band name and for some reason I've never got into them as much as everyone else. But I can't deny that this is a classic.

11. Against Me!, New Wave: This was my favorite record for awhile this summer. I still want to put it higher on the list, but I feel like I favor the other albums a little bit more. Still, I avoided this band because I thought they were a lame punk band. This album proves that opinion wrong.

10. Dirty Projectors, Rise Above: I got into this band a little later in the year when I started seeing posters around the city and Brooklyn EVERYWHERE for them. The next thing I noticed is that everyone started talking about them - all the time. They were the band to see. Turns out, they are totally worth the hype - and completely unique, too.

9. Deerhunter, Cryptograms: I actually saw this band play with Battles this summer. I feel like people are always disregarding Deerhunter. People always say it's hard to get into, too instrumental, boring. I disagree. If you like that Factory Records sound I don't see why you wouldn't like this band.

8. Battles, Mirrored: People try to knock them down by calling them "math rock." I call it "really good math rock."

7. Studio, West Coast tied with Burial, Untrue: Both these records totally rock my world. They are my winter albums, for sure. "Origins" by Studio is another must have.

6. Liars, Liars: I am also a huge Liars fan. This album is more "rock" than their last album. "Pure Unevil" is a must have.

5. The National, Boxer: I was totally hesistant to jump on the train of people who raved about The National. My first response was "lame." But I can't stop listening to it.

4. Bear Hands, Golden EP: I can't enough of these guys. And I don't know why the rest of the world doesn't agree with me.

3. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible: They are classic. End of story.

2. MGMT, Oracular Spectacular: Hands down this was my summer record. This was the music that was in the car stereo that I listened to with the windows down.

1. Radiohead, In Rainbows: No surprise, I'm a huge Radiohead fan. It's like Thom Yorke meets Ok Computer. I love it.

Last resort only, please.

This post is overdue - but as usual I have been incredibly busy during the past month. Things are going very well, but I won't bore you with the details. Good things are happening and I couldn't be more excited about it.

My family is the type of family that is "into" holidays. And I mean it when I say it - they go all out. They like chaotic (or maybe not like - but opt for) big dinners and gatherings. They like puppets and blowing things up. I'm not exaggerating. They LOVE traditions. Every holiday is basically the exact repeat of every year prior to it.

So. When I am not around my family during a holiday I feel a little bit alienated. It's like - so now what do I do? This year I decided to visit my all time favorite friend from Iowa and his boyfriend in Philadelphia. I made the plan a couple of weeks in advance. I arranged to have a vehicle I could drive to Philadelphia. I find out at nine PM the night before that I don't have anything to drive. I get online after work and look at train tickets. They turn out to be incredibly inconvenient. You know, asking me to leave at something as early as 9 AM. Not happening.

I somehow get talked into taking a bus. Not any bus - the Chinatown bus. The selling point of the Chinatown bus is that it is basically free. But from getting to the bus, getting on the bus, riding it, getting off the bus, and after getting off it....all a nightmare.

My friend and I get up and take the subway to Chinatown. After about twenty seconds I realize I might have taken the subway to hell, really. I don't go to Chinatown often. When I do - it's usually at night for some birthday dinner, so it's a little more tame. There are people everywhere. It's like I didn't even need to move my legs, the masses of Chinese people just kind of carried me down the street. There are tons and tons of stores with gross dead, raw food in the storefronts. There are piles of dead fish in the street everywhere. It doesn't smell very good. No one speaks English. And it's so fucking loud. We somehow make it on the bus. Everyone is yelling across seats to people they recognize - but not in English. The bus starts up and all of these kids open up their backpacks and bring out gross/weird food that they all start to eat. It took over an hour to get out of the city. I was horrified.

Anyway. We make it Philadelphia. My friend made us food that we ate. All in all, I had a great time.

Getting back to New York was a different story. There is a line to get on the bus. We get on and realize we can't sit next to each other. We both have to sit next to strangers. I get stuck next to the super black gay guy. He has the huge black Prada shoulder bag on his lap. He is wearing a bright pink and maroon zig-zag sweater under a fitted zip up hoodie. He is decked out in tan ankle boots with jeans that are perfectly cuffed at the ankle. He is listening to his iPod SO LOUD that I can almost clearly hear every word of "Its My Life" by Gwen Stefani. Turns out he has the song on REPEAT. So I listen to it over and over and over again. He is reading one of those black literature books with the large typeface and the hilarious title. Not to mention the slutty girl on the cover. I looked over his shoulder once and saw the sentence, And then I shot him. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.I start to wonder just how many times he would keep Gwen on repeat. Which made me think of a great blog discussion: What song would YOU listen to for two and a half hours on a crowded loud bus? I'm not too sure, it's a tough-ie. Maybe something in the Dan Deacon world - kind of zone out and forget it is there.

While this is going on the person I am with is stuck in the seats across the aisle. He is smashed against a very old and large Asian man who is rocking out spiked gray hair, gel and all. I really thought it was over - you know, my sanity. Gwen never failed to start after it had finished and I of course, had nothing to keep my mind off of It's my life, and it's now or never!.

Luckily, by the grace of God, the old man wakes up about forty five minutes into the trip and sees the two of us talking. He offers to trade us seats. We were saved and totally at peace for a second until we realized that super gay guy has fallen asleep with his iPod on! Surprisingly, the worst part of the trip was not the Talk Talk cover on repeat, but the parents a few seats behind us. The type of parents that talk to their kid in third person. The type of parents that have to completely engage their child every second of the trip. They were singing songs, quizzing the kid on trivia, pointing out every vehicle and every piece of nature out the window....and contradicting each other at the same time.

Mommy thought that was a firetruck but Mommy was wrong. Daddy was right.

No exaggeration. The whole ride. I just wish I could be there in fifteen years when they ask: Where did we go wrong?

Although I did make it to both destinations safely, I can't say I would recommend the Chinatown bus as a means of transportation. Last resort only, for real.

By the way - way to go senator of Idaho. AND I'm working on my best albums of 2007 list. Watch out for it.