Speaking to Students & Coffee Shop Hangouts…

So I’ve been back and forth lately across the country and it’s been a trip… Literally. Now that I’ve had a little time to catch my breath, I can sit in the lobby of this resort in Palm Springs and reflect on my last month.

I’ve had the pleasure to speak to many students from a handful of UC schools in Cali to a bunch of schools on the East Coast including Duke, Brown and Swarthmore. At this point in my life and career, to be able to spend time and talk to the next generation, has been a real education for me. Half the time when I’m talking to the students, it feels like I’m as interested in them, if not more, than they are in me. If you we’re in the audience, I thank you for coming. It’s been great to discuss my career and really see what it’s meant to many people. I’ve been acting over twenty five years, longer than most of the students I’ve been talking to have been alive… and when people tell me that not only have they grown up watching me, but they’ve seen me grow up… It’s kinda special. And further more, to talk about Asian American issues and what my career has meant to the widening of what it means to be Asian American, is something I’ve have just come to terms with recently. So often in Hollywood, we as actors are so busy keeping our boat afloat in this town that we don’t always recognize what we’ve accomplished, especially being ethnic in this predominantly caucasian business. Talking about it all helps validate it for myself, as well as helps getting a blueprint for the next generation to ultimately surpass my generation.

So, it’s been amazing, if we’ve got to meet lately while on the road, you’ve all taught me so much. I hope in future I’ll get to speak to more schools and continue the conversation.

Now traveling so much lately has really taken it’s toll… I’ve always thought of people who travel as much as I have lately as something very desirable. From rockstars to traveling businessmen, hoping on and off planes, always in a new city. It’s always been somewhat of a romantic thought for. But traveling as much as I have in the last six weeks, I longed for my bed at home and to actually wake up in the same time zone. It was definitely harder than I imagined. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time, but when I travel, I prefer to spend more time in these wonderful cities.

Through my travels, on my day off, I got do something fun… I got to just hang out with people that follow me online. I don’t know how I came up with the idea, but I just figure, I show up in a new town and not knowing a soul… You know, that’s a lonely feeling and if I can just reach out online through, twitter and tumblr and just let folks know that I’m here having coffee if anyone wants to hangout. Honestly, I originally figured maybe a handful a folks might come by, if anyone is free and it’s always fun for me to meet new people. I just dig that, especially people who I might of shared a conversation online with. It’s cool to see that all these people actually exist… like, in real life. So, I just hoped at least one or two people would show up. Maybe I would buy them a coffee and we can talk… Like friends do. I don’t know if it’s weird or not… maybe it is… maybe I’m weird… But I’ve just been blown away. I can’t believe how many people have come out on last minute notice to just hangout. I love talking about anything and everything, meeting all of you around the country. It’s strange sometimes when you walk into a coffee shop and it’s literally filled with people who just want to say hello. It’s weird because I never have anything planned, I mean, when you grab coffee with friends, there’s never really any plans… I mean, grabbing coffee is the plan. But these hangouts in these coffee shops around the country have been some of my favorite times as of late. Just want to thank everyone. I promise to keep them going as travel around the country… And there are so many places I’ve never been. What better way to discover these new towns than through hanging with some locals.

Hope to see you soon… I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.

Philly to New York… Swarthmore

So I’m back in LA and just wanted to blog about my trip last weekend to Speak at Swathmore University. It was an amazing trip. Shout out to Allison and Wendy for bringing me out. First off… The campus is beautiful, yo. Walking around Swarthmore was like walking around what you dream of a quaint college campus would be like… Old stone buildings filled with character and vast open spaces and fields and capped off by a train station right out in front of the main field that opens to the campus… Reminded me of Hogwarts or something.

I was tickled to see that the promo of my coming to campus was chalk drawings in front of a few heavily trafficked buildings… like the cafeteria. (Check the pics…)

Then I was pretty blown away how well attended the event was… I mean, Swarthmore really represented for me… And the talk was great. I hope everyone enjoyed the poems and the discussion about Asian American. All the students were intelligent and the conversation was poignant and… hopefully I was entertaining!

While in Philly I was able to meet up with some friends and it’s always great to reconnect with old friends.

One in particular is my boy, Derrick Savage, who I always called… DBlack. The crazy thing about him is he now heads the film department and teaches at Kensington CAPA. We got to know each other when he was getting his Master’s degree somewhere around a decade ago at AFI. It’s crazy to see him as a teacher now.

I was planning to spend my one day after my speaking engagement in Philly getting together with fans in a coffee shop or something. One of my now infamous, impromptu “Hang Outs” I’ve been doing around the world. But last minute, I got the opportunity to speak to the students at Kensington. These kids were great and I was so impressed that my boy, DBlack got 98% of his graduating class into college. Cheers to making a real difference in the lives of the next generation. Now, the thing is, all these kids are all studying film, so what happened is, they wrote a script and asked if we can shoot it for youtube! What am I supposed to say? I said hell yeah!

So we shot that… Looking forward to getting the edit soon from them and I’ll post it on my youtube channel. It was so fun working with them, I definitely got the feeling that the next generation is going to be alright.

From Philly I was off to New York so hang with some New York friends. I’m not going to get into all that, I posted som pics for you guys to check out and if you saw me in New York, you saw what I was up to… but let’s keep it on the hush. Nothing I love more than getting lost in the Big Apple.

Today I Post A Poem About “Freedom”…

Land of the brave
Home of the free
Where you can do what you want
And be anything.

Ironically
We’ve come so far
To get back to how it’s supposed to be
Free
To worship the god that you choose
No rules
To tell you who you can love
And who can love you

So cheers to those who have died
Who have insured we have these inalienable rights
& to those who continue to fight
For this sweet freedom is not free, it comes with a price.
& furthermore to be wise
We must protect this precious prize
And honor our freedom
By doing our best to make something of our lives.

Collar Shirts…

I was just thinking… How many days can I go in a row wearing collar shirts instead of a t-shirt? It’s like, when I walk around LA everyone is so casual… it’s like everyone is wearing t-shirts and jeans… I’m talking EVERYBODY! (I’m really talking about guys) I just feel, now as a grown up I want to get my shirt game up, I don’t want to be so casual and informal about life… I want to be able to dress up a little more in life, without having to do it for some event or what not.

I look at pictures from the past of people that I look up to and see them in their everyday life and I see all this great fashion and look, whether it be skinny ties and tailored suits of the Rat Pack or just the simple elegance of Cary Grant. Even just looking at pictures from the 50′s, 60′s & 70′s… they are just great images of a fashionable American Culture. I fear we’ll look back on this time as a whole generation walking around in somewhat witty graphic t-shirts and over priced denim.

I just want to look better than that… or maybe I’m just growing up.

The Rufio Show!

So here’s the complete little season of the The Rufio Show we did… all in one place. It was fun putting this together with my brother and friends. It all started with me going up to Victor Yerrid, who does all the amazing puppet work, at me and my brother Derek’s birthday. (We share the same bday… Aug29th! Shout to all my Virgos) And asking him what he thought about doing something for my youtube page. I was originally thinking I would just be talking to a puppet in a funny sketch… He came up with the whole idea to actually make a Rufio puppet and that blew my mind! My brother and manager, Emily got involved to produce and this is what we came up with! Thanks for everyone who has enjoyed it so far… Hopefully we’ll do more soon!

Rehearsing “Midnight Makeout Session”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So I’m doing this play… Well, I wrote this play and I finally decided to do it. I actually got inspired to do it… I wrote this for me and my friends and one of my friends has been going through a rough time for the last few months and I thought working together on this project would be therapeutic and a good thing for both of us. Also, recently I became friends with Beau Sia, I’ve loved and respected his work for years, but recently we actually became friends and this was a great first project for us to work on together.

The thing about it is, I haven’t been onstage for awhile, I did do a play with East West Players a few years back and I actually wrote this play in their writing program, but to get back in shape (acting wise) to get back onstage… There’s always a bit of nervousness when it comes to that. Also, to top that, I wrote this play, so it means a lot to me.

But something happens when you start rehearsing, something really magical… You start to do the work… And when I say the work, I mean you get into it with other actors and the director, you start to investigate the material and start to speak the words and breathe life into these characters… Something magical happens, at least it does to me… I remember why I’m an actor.

I do love rehearsing, there’s a certain joy in working out the character and trying to fix the so called problems. I mean, I wrote the play and as a group we’re trying to figure out what it all means. The crazy thing is sometimes (and when I say sometimes, I mean often) the director or one of the cast explain something new they understood in the text, something their character is trying to say or a truth they uncovered… I often just nod my head as if I meant to write that, when in actuality, I am amazed that there are deeper levels in certain characters that I’ve ever imagined, so I just nod and listen.

This play, you know, sometimes you just have to do somethings. I don’t know what will come of this… We never know as artist what will happen once we create something. I just know that this is one of those project that no is doing for money, I don’t even know how many people will see this play… I just know it’s important while we’re here now, doing the work and actors at play doing a play. I mean, we’re all here in Hollywood, everyone trying to make a name for themselves and fortune while they’re at it. But at times like this, projects like this, it gets me back to the basics of how it all started, how I started… how this whole town started. A handful of actors, under the watchful eye of a director, on a stage… just acting their asses off.

Now, the invite is here on this blog, if you’re in LA, you’re welcomed to be one of the few eyes that will witness what we’ve put together… I hope there will be more shows in the future, but you never know… In any case, it’ll never be like the one going up that night… It is theatre, it happens in the moment, then it’s gone.

My Reddit AMA…

I Am Rufio & Prince Zuko… AMA

So last week I did this reddit interview and it was the first time I’ve ever been on it… I was a little nervous. Well, in my short life on social media, I’ve learned, that you all know more than me about this, so I try to just listen and hope you guys lead me in the right direction. In this case, a few people had told me I should do this reddit thing and I took mental note, but then when a bunch of other people shed light on it all, including a friend of mine, Matt King, I decided to commit to doing one and see where it takes me.

Well, of course I sent a little blast out to let everyone know I was going to do it… And to hope to have a few people there when I started. You know, it’s like throwing a party and scared that no one was going really show up! (I kinda hate that feeling) Well then, a bunch of folks got excited, but then, some of the folks on tumblr started telling me how the reddit folks can be a bit harsh and mean… So I got nervous. To top off all that when I signed into reddit and started my AMA, I saw that Emmy Rossum was doing hers at the exact same time! Now I’m thinking… Oh great… Now no one is really going to be at mine, hell, I would be at her’s too! And ironically, just a week before this, someone on tumblr asked me who my “celebrity crush” was… And flippantly said Emmy Rossum, I actually love her show Shameless and happened to see billboards around LA that day promoting the new season. Anyway, somehow that led to whole Emmy Rossum incident, which I have to admit was kinda funny.

Well, the whole AMA went really good… I actually answered questions for like 5 hours! About my whole career and take on life and also I wanted to help promote my new production company, Kentic Films as well as our first movie, “Hang Loose.” (If you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out at hangloosemovie.com) And being that this is my actual blog that I want to hold the history of my online life, I definitely needed to blog about this and have it here for good measure and documenting value… It was fun, the reddit folks were actually great and super nice to me… and somehow I managed to be more popular on the front page than Emmy’s AMA… go figure. Anyway, hit the link on top to read the whole thing or hit BestofAMA for the cliff notes version… Maybe I’ll do it again sometime, but you know, you can always ask me anything here, on tumblr or twitter!