Beefcake Bellhop
By Fiona Ma

One Sexy Guy: Hitting the newsstands on Nov. 5 will be People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue featuring 11 of the hottest working men in America. Chosen from the thousands of potential candidates from across the United States and appearing in the upcoming issue is San Francisco’s Darren Tong, a full-time bellman at the Ritz-Carlton. People spent two weeks in San Francisco auditioning candidates in talent agencies and combing the streets, looking for real working men. It found Tong, a 34-year-old of Chinese and Portuguese decent who was born and raised in San Francisco. An honors graduate of Sacred Heart High School, he went on to study psychology at U.C. Davis. Tong is also an aspiring model and got his first big break when he appeared in a national television commercial for the U.S. Postal Service in 1997.

So, how does it feel to be one of the nation’s 11 sexiest men? “I’m flattered and thrilled and didn’t expect to be chosen. But I’m going to make the best of the situation and hopefully some doors (in the entertainment field) will open up for me,” says Tong. When not at work, Tong enjoys basketball, skiing, biking, weightlifting, bowling, swimming, billiards, going to the movies and traveling.

P.S. For all of you single girls out there, Tong is currently single and available!

A Very Funny Lady: Comedienne Amy Hill displayed wit, creativity, spontaneity, and “star quality” as the emcee of the Golden Ring Awards held in San Francisco on Oct. 2. Named as one of Buzz Magazine’s “100 Coolest People in Los Angeles,” Hill is an actor-writer, whose film and television credits include: Dim Sum, Singles, Rising Sun and Seinfield. Hill had a regular role as “Grandma” in the ABC series All American Girl. In her award winning one-woman show, Tokyo Bound, Hill played to sell-out houses.

As a child isolated in the countryside of South Dakota, Hill explored her creativity by recreating television characters from her favorite shows and impersonating her family members, such as her mother, who is from Japan and her father who is Finnish American. Hill often entertained herself by playing different characters , changing her speech and mannerisms. Hill vividly recalls her first performances at age 6, for her family on their front porch in Deadwood, S.D.

When she turned 18, Hill traveled to Japan and studied at the Sophia International University in Tokyo while working part-time in radio and television. At 21, she traveled to Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Upon her return to the United States, she studied at the the American Conservatory Theater and became one of the top voice-over talents and improv artists in the Bay Area. Later, she moved to Los Angeles.

Her new projects include a solo show, From Deadwood to Hollywood and a film with Ice Cube called Next Friday. She is also filming Pavilion of Women in China with Willem Dafoe.

A Pent Up Explosion: The New York Times has proclaimed Rick Ebihara, Wayland Qunitero and Perry Yung of the SLANT Performance Group as “three extremely talented young Asian American men.” SLANT Performance Group is a resident company of La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, based in New York City. The group has toured colleges and universities across America as well as appearing in special performances in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and the former Yugoslavia.

The trio has created a hysterically intelligent brand of performances that is a dynamic tapestry of live music, theater, puppetry, shadowplay and airborne choreography that celebrates and satirizes their upbringing. Since exploding on the performance scene in New York City with its seminal debut, Big Dicks, Asian Men , SLANT has created other acclaimed productions, such as Squeal Like a Pig, Hotel California and Wetspot, in which the trio present stereotypes of Asian American men in this racist society.