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A TASTE OF TASTE WITH...

Christopher Chang

Christopher Chang on Bad Dog Los Angeles, Leaving Gifts with Hotel Concierges, Sweet Charity (1969), and more.

May 10, 2022

Christopher Chang
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Christopher Chang is a Los Angeles-based charlatan, which he described to me as being “a useless middleman…a filter, like a kidney, or something” but in reality, he’s got his hands in all aspects of the film world. One day he’ll be writing and the next he’s the on-screen talent. You can even spot him in the new Jackass picture (sans face) but you can see his back as he scurries away from Chris Pontius’ giant penis. Chang is also one of my favorite people to follow on Instagram and Twitter, and he’s a great photographer. Lucky for us, Christopher is here to tell us what he’s been into.

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Leaving gifts with hotel concierges
When I have a friend coming into town for a birthday, work, or some family trip, a thing I love to do is to leave a little gift with the hotel concierge to leave in their room prior to their arrival. Flowers, a bottle of bubbles, a joint, a small tchotchke…anything, really. Just something small that says welcome home. It’s not very much effort for a really big payoff because it’s thoughtful, and what’s better than being thoughtful?
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“I Ain’t Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again” by Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt is a crucial figure in the great American songbook, and outside the music, she’s just so cool: She’s a daughter of Burbank, she’s got the stripe of white hair against the red, the big old double pickguard Guild, she plays slide on a Strat, Stevie Ray Vaughan inspired her to get clean…I could go on for days. I always joke that I’m Bonnie Raitt’s premier Korean superfan, and until someone can dispute this, I’m claiming the title. The song itself is a two and a half minute tearjerker that you listen to alone, and when you get to the bridge, you mutter “Oh, don’t hurt ‘em, Bonnie!” to yourself.
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Bad Dog Los Angeles
Bad Dog is a love letter to Los Angeles. While LA is pretty segregated based on race and socio-economics, each neighborhood is within driving distance of each other, so eventually the subcultures of each marry one another in some beautiful mess. Zoë, the brains behind Bad Dog, is a pretty good anthropomorphic model of this subculture stew, I think, and she isn’t afraid of sentiment or being a fan, which is what makes Bad Dog so special. BAD DOG FOREVER!!!
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eBay Saved Searches
I’ve got all sorts of stuff in my eBay saved searches and if I’m patient, I can usually get exactly what I want at a pretty good price. A fun story I have related to saved searches is that awhile ago, a friend’s apartment was burgled, and very specific pieces of heirloom jewelry were taken. I saved some keywords and forgot all about it. A few months later, I got an alert and saw a piece that looked vaguely familiar, so I checked the seller’s items and realized they had EVERYTHING! I emailed my friend, and she ended up retrieving all of her jewelry. It was so nice to be part of a happy ending where I was crucial, but didn’t really do anything.
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Sweet Charity (1969)
I don’t know if Sweet Charity is actually a good movie, but I know that Shirley Maclaine whips ass, and I know that I like it, so I’m recommending it. It’s the first movie Bob Fosse directed, and I think you see him leaving behind “show business” Bob Fosse, and coming into sticky, pill-fiend, All That Jazz Bob Fosse. The first time I watched it, I thought it so electric I actually muttered “what a picture!” aloud to myself…What a picture!
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