empire

jeffery deitch MAX offended me at the Xtra benefit last night when he talked about how great it is that 70s artist gusmano cesaretti "brought cholo graffiti into Art" like it was his great "discovery" - it's like each one of those words in sucession eww - can someone tell me again where is the forum on how craaazy it is that he's the new head of moca? i want to join.

speaking of moca...

 MSSSSS VAGINAL DAVIS

 10 courses for 30 people! 4 times in a row!

cohortesses
(photos by hector martinez & kas chmielinski)

a little mugler magic...

also i can't stop watching this part of the nicki minaj documentary where she says

YOU KNOW WHY ISN'T THERE A FEMALE RAPPER TURNED MOGUL?

I MEAN MOOGUL?

HAVING AN EMPIRE

THAT LIVES ON BEYOND YOUR RAP CAREER

AND SO I DON'T KNOW WHY WOMEN HAVEN'T DONE IT I JUST KNOW I WANT TO BE THE FIRST ONE TO DO IT.

AND I WILL BE.

parallel universe

 

do you ever get obsessed with an idea, and then all of a sudden it seems like everyone around you is talking about it?? i was just listening to an NPR show about quantum physics and i could've sworn they were talking about queer community. or it's just this idea more generally that 'community' only exists through the process of representation. this guy was talking about subatomic particles. but basically it's the same idea, that the act of measuring something changes it's location. so you can never simultaneously KNOW where something is- you can only predict- cause as soon as you make the calculation it changes the data. umm or something. but that just feels so much like COMMUNITY - like act of making a representation of a group always changes its MOMENT. like there is only a true feeling cohesion if you don't name it, or record it, or whatever. and as soon as you do, it's over. not that that's at all a bad thing, it's an important failure. cause people always think that respresentations are supposed to REPRESENT them. WRONG. riiight?

i got a new bag today and it made me feel so good about the world. it was one of those things i chased down, after seeing a bright blue one on nyc-based moca dejecta producer jonathan berger - i was all "wait a minute get over here and tell me who did that" and it turns out its from mid-wilshire! funny little design store called plastica $22. i mean, it's just a tote, but it's proportionally a little extra deep so when you reach into it to get something it feels so luxury. it makes you want to walk around and do things. i used to have an extremely fancey designer leather one of these but i traded it for a piece of art. this one is way better.

i'm presenting about community-rep at XTRA benefit this friday at pacific design center. it's a one-minute talk about a silver platter snapshot by nightlife legend paul monroe, who coincientally has a show opening at the ONE archives verr soon.

TOTAL FREEDOM just uploaded a remix of hi11 nye party sound - it plays REALLY GOOD right now if you click on it - at new museum rhizome bloggy

SO YEA. THE MOVIE! i just started working on the last final and epic layer. it's gonna be blockbig. so big that the movie is turning into a LIVE PERFORMANCE. coming soon to every theater near you...

feast

TOMORROW NIGHT IS GROWN (1263 WEST TEMPLE AVE 11PM-? EVRY WEDNESDAY)

IF ALL GOES WELL THERE WILL BE HANDMADE PASTA

WE ARE SOLD OUT

MOCA MOCA MOCA THIS SATURDAY !!!

VAGINAL DAVIS'S DEJECTA

FEATURING OUR 10-COURSE FOOD COLLABORATION

RICHARD SERRA NOUVEAU RICHE MINIMALIST FEAST

PRODUCED BY THE MIRACLE-MAKING JONATHAN BERGER

who remembers LA nightlife 2004??

the first time i ever visited LA i went to the LAST legendary bricktops party 

- it was THE reason i moved here

IF YOU DON'T KNOW DJ/GHE20 G0TH1K MAKER VENUS X THE WORLD DOES NOW

V MAG + SOUNDS HERE

SO LESBIAN SO REAL

CRAMAHZILY STYLED BY KHALID AL GHARABALLI

those heels

this week in colors

 GROWN TOMORROW NIGHT

(DINING ROOM NEXT WED JAN 19th)

 is this the most beautiful gt2 flyer ever riight?

MORE PUBLIC FOOD THINGS SOON

i'M COOKING/HOSTING MS VAGINAL DAVIS'S "DEJECTA" PERFORMANCE 

@ MOCA on JAN 22

GET TICKETS 10 COURSE MEAL GUARANTEED

a couple months ago matt wolf fedexed me his beloved vhs copy of THE SALIVATION ARMY for inspiration editing damelo todo. the film by scott trevleaven is basically the final "issue" of a zine he did with friends for a couple years in the MID 90S that spawned a mini-cult and tons of queer culture. although i had to mail the video back to matt (waaaaaaa) i keep replaying it over and over again in my brain because it was so impactful. in general right now- been psyched to reflect on nightlife in a more macro way, about failure, and about how sometimes the feeling being part of a movement is so close to the feeling of just sharing something really hot and intimate with friends...

THE 90S!!!!

"the best thing for us was not to be original but to be a part of an ongoing history"

"sometimes the best way to keep something going is to wait for the right moment-

and then take it away..."

20 teens

so the world is a teenager all over again! it's a good time for teenagers right? they teach me so much.
here's the nye LA report: epic party installation chez trecartin was = POSITIVE VIBES = i have to say despite hype usually undermining fun, it was sooo fun!!! so thought out, so put together and labored over. B12 and free booze and folks just generally all around PSYCHED to be there and be together. seems like a good omen for 11. i even appreciated the decorative art collector echelon, in their cocktail dresses (and i'm remembering tuxedos but they prob weren't), who were perched around atop sofa sculptures by lizzie fitch. why not include them in the fun too? so many amazing artists and friends blood sweat and tearing all week for this event. and then the dramatic swarming LAPD helicopters! swoon. WELL DONE AND DONE.

fb photos by maurice de la falaise - i like NEED to post about ASMAS OUTFIT LOOKING FOR PIC

i also want to talk about (DJ) FATIMA AL QADIR A LOT IN GENERAL

more for her later. everybody is buttoned up to the neck i'm really into that lately, more and more a butch queen in heels...

DAMELO TODO UPDATE

sooo it's the new year and we are STILL EDITING. this has been the most massive humbling experience of my life. sometimes i feel like i'm literally in hell, or like only half of me is in this world and the other half is stuck in a past moment that keeps repeating frame by frame over and over... but other times i'm ecstatic to realize how much progress we are making! ALMOST DONE. EAK EAK.

to summarize: originally when i started out, i thought i was making a film about the silver platter and throwing the wildness party - and i saw those 2 things as TOTALLY SEPARATE. but over time i have come to realize that the only real way to tell the story of the silver platter is through telling the story of how i "discovered" it through doing wildness. a film about the silver platter film alone would have been a more conventional social issue documentary - like an ethnography of "trans immigrant" experience and "real life" issues. and i argue that would be more comfy for a viewer, because it's something you can have some distance from, like a window to a world. why make that movie? d2d. done to death.

i felt way more challenged (in a good way) by the dilemma of having to implicate myself and my friends (and therefore audiences). obviously the idea of "discovering" the bar is a huge problem itself, because it touches on deeper issues of gentrification, exploitation, and even documentary filmmaking in general. so in the movie i try to confront this head-on by premising: "i can't tell you about the history or politics of this place, outside of my own experience of how i collected the information and put it together, and what i wanted to see from it." so i originally thought i was making a like a conceptual trans resistance film, and i find myself now with something that is much closer to the messy unfinished process of my life. but the politics (and the technical demands!) of doing this turned out to be waay harder- so that is why we are STILL EDITING.

nye trecartin pics rebma droflah