CLASS

COLOR TIME

2012-01-25T12:15:00.001-08:00

AND WE ARE LOCKED!

final voices

2012-01-25T06:04:00.001-08:00

recording final voiceover with mariana marroquin and robbie williamson!! ...usually as a performer I use my voice to create these weird out of body experiences (like we did for FBQ) but with voiceover acting it's kinda the opposite- its all about expressing emotion/intention, because it is already disembodied. i had to learn a little stanislavsky to get it right..! sensory/memory tricks really WORK iiee

2012-01-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

today is the LAST day editing wildness. i never thought i'd see this 'punch list' get down to a couple pages- but here we are! after today we can't change so much as a FRAME (because that screws up all finishing stuff like soundtrack scoring color correction sound mixing etc). it feels soooo weird, given how long i've battled having a fixed story that was set in stone or pixles or whatever. = THE NARRATIVE. the frozen moment. yikes.

i just worked with a really helpful finishing editor, sally rubin. she showed me how to do fine-cutting: tweaking picture/sound, adding 2-frame dissolves so it's smoother on the eye, etc. all the little unconscious manipulations that sew the story into air-tight truth...

given the mess of tiny misplaced frames and sound cues, it seemed crazy, but we decided to completely REDO THE ENDING - two days before picture lock! basically the old ending was bitter-sweet and ambivalent; it left you feeling sad about what happened to wildness, but not necessarily sure if it was a good thing or not. all the characters kind of stray away, disconnected from one another... but now, by simply rearranging and tweaking a few interview clips we completely changed it to be unambiguously about wildness ending = SAD. for example we included a voice of one of the women of the silver platter saying "we miss wildness. we need it..." combined with a few nostalgic shots of birthday cakes and BOOM you actually FEEL loss.

on some level it felt INSANE to create this ending because it goes against all the complexity i'm invested in - but in a different way i GET how it's a way more powerful satisfying experience for the viewers. and thus can cast a different kind of spell or transform conciousnessss

so in the end this movie is about an art party that took place inside a safe space for undocumented trans women in a gentrifying neighborhood. i've learned from test screenings and festival programmers that some people (liberal and conservative) want this film to be "about" the women of the silver platter, whose stories are so-called "more real" or "edgy" (PLS SAVE ME from that word). i decided against that story, because it felt too problematic given my role as the filmmaker, and the weird labyrinth that is the film industry, ie what it takes to "get your movie out there."

the flipside ends up being a mirror/personal focus story, which i'm finding really rubs some people the wrong way. so this new ending definitely pushes the film fully in that direction. it feels scary but also like i need to go all the way in owning it, emotional honesty, etc and take whatever comes with that...

bending time

2012-01-10T21:55:00.000-08:00

right now makes my life up until this moment seem like i was on vacation...

DAYS away from wildness picture lock = WARP SPEED

i went to a little film screening recently, that stuart comer invited us to fritz haeg's home in LA after nyes.
i can't stop thinking about this early psychedelic film by john latham it looked like this:

the actual frames of film looked like that! early-mid 70s yes yes

i also liked the sound-music-scores of the italian guy paolozzi

tomorrow morning is a interview mag shoot. i'm going to dream they put balenciaga on my feet:

coloring

2011-12-08T09:01:00.001-08:00

FULL BODY QUOTATION TELECINE

wildness update

2011-12-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

tada! wildness movie poster ;) by carl williamson & ian crowther of familiar

i know it's crazy we are STILL working on wildness, but at this moment i'd say we're getting... VERY CLOSE! going through one final re-write of the script with roya rastegar and translation by claudia rodriguez.

we did a super mixed test screening a couple weeks ago (finally digesting) with film people, investors, community members, wildness participants, all together in one room. it kinda stressed me out beforehand because i was worried about speaking to everyone on all their important different wavelengths at the same time, but it turned out to be a magical combo cause we got some very productive feedback.

the main issue is my character ;) who we've started referring to as WU in 3rd person. (i know creepy!) but if i objectify everyone else in the story why not myself... so anyway, some people either thought there was too much of me or not enough - ie that my character didn't "pay off"- as they love to say. which initially threw me for a loop- like WELL which way is it?? cause it can't be both...

but then i realized it needed to make it more clear that this story is not about me. my character is like a vehicle. at the beginning, the bar says it's a story told "through" me (did i mention there is a 'TALKING' BAR?? the Silver Platter is a character that talks!!) so my personal biography (ie family, being trans or mixed race etc) which always felt weird and TMI, were actually just misleading. people always want to hear a story about gay/trans/X/misfits finding a place to belong. and that was exactly NOT the story i wanted to tell. so we are still working at it.

i was also reminded the original decision to make me a main character was about trying to have more complexity, like consolidating my identity = HELLO FOLLOW ME. it actually opened things up and allowed for more voices and stories. it also felt critical to have to put myself out front and be vulnerable in a way that the rest of my subjects already are. so i'm glad we went through that process of putting WU to task, and are now are pulling back a little from there... i AM going a little crazy though. i do now talk to myself aloud, especially when writing dialog between me and the BAR (who are both me)...

recutting the intro right now; it's all about twi light light

YES LA IS THAT REAL

the BAR talks!!!

LA now

2011-11-30T08:08:00.001-08:00

normal life

2011-11-29T21:54:00.001-08:00

SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS

dean spade's long awaited book on administrative law!! you should read this book! it's like miu miu glittery booties- some trends SHOULD be followed. so this is like an academic book but very accessible. you can order it from the extremely righteous south end press or if your morals get loose when you're impatient like me you can also overnight thru amazon... I SAY whatever you do GET IT

to me his words read like a kind of poetry/blade/waterfall in their truth:

Thestories I heard from my first clients and continued to hear from the transpeople I met through my work at SRLP [Sylvia Rivera Law Project] portrayed aset of barriers--both from bias and from the web of inconsistent administrativerules governing gender--that produce significant vulnerability. The impact ofthese conditions ranges across subpopulations of trans people: even those withprivilege, education, white privilege, US citizenship, physical and mentalability perceived as average or above, and English-language skills experiencemany of these hurdles. Those with such privileges have many of the same IDproblems, often cannot afford health care, experience incidents of physicalattack, have their parental rights terminated by courts, are arrested for usingbathrooms or barred from gender appropriate bathrooms at work and/or school,are discriminated against in hiring, are discriminated against by insurancecompanies, and lose family support. Most experience a downward mobility interms of wealth/income because of their trans identities. However, access tocertain privileges that serve in determining the distribution of life chances(e.g., whiteness, perceived ablebodiedness, employment, immigration status)often offer some individuals degrees of buffering from violences faced bypeople of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, indigenous people,prisoners, foster youth, and homeless people. The most marginalized transpeople experience the most extreme vulnerability, in part because more aspectsof their lives are directly controlled by legal and administrative systems ofdomination--prisons, welfare programs, foster care, drug treatment centers,homeless shelters, job training centers--that employ rigid gender binaries.These intersecting vectors of control make obtaining resources especiallydifficult, restrict access to zones of retreat or safety, and render every lossof a job, family support, or access to an advocate or a health care opportunitymore costly. The most marginalized trans people have the least protection fromviolence, experience more beatings and rapes, are imprisoned at extremely highrates, and are more likely to be disappeared and killed.
[BOLDS my emphasis]

for some reason the idea that poverty can actually "restrict access to zones of retreat or safety" feels like MIND BENDING. it makes me think about how often people use money to push boundaries and buy their way through closed doors, etc... but when you don't have that, it's like there can be no relief. no space where you are not completely bent over ass dominated by the law...

lately i've been trying to better understand what "safe space" really means, in terms of queerness transness - but also in terms of wealth. dean's voice inspires me to keep re-thinking how we create it...

it's also powerful analysis that can be difficult to share and communicate, this basic transformative idea that the most vulnerable members of our communities (trans or whatever X) experience the most violence and therefore should be put at the center of our movements as opposed to periphery. in my experience, "vulnerable" can also be tricky when put into practice particularly in organizing/service provision contexts, because it can strip people of their agency and turn them into victims or "clients." it's a wobbly but important line to keep walking...

**
post update.

this is some gay mag cover i held onto from a few years go... i think about this image a lot. (especially re dean's work) because it's it really feels like the time we are slogging through right now: the gay agenda, obama etc. from the moment of wildness's genesis til now - which is the filter i'm processing through. i notice the world paying a little more attention to trans stuff. i think our movement runs the risk just like any other of co-opting weird norms, if we end of fighting for inclusion or legal equality...

week in ny

2011-11-21T19:51:00.001-08:00

whew back in LA after an emotional week in ny... we were in FULL production mode for FBQ but also feeding off the intense energy of occupy/N17 etc SUCH AN EXCITING TIME right now ...!

morning after the eviction seemed like total confusion/loss but a lot of people say has made the movement stronger

total freedom setting up in the sky room at sunset... my favorite hour in there... the party did come that part for sure was FUN ;) but need to digest generational galala experience more before making comment

ON THE SET

LTR: performer mikeah jennings, special visitors hector xtravaganza wit such cute boyfriend jay, cherrye davis (performer), travis chamberlain (producer) and derek wright, our grip/electrician...

PA halston bruce operating our poorman's dolly (wheelchair = works!) while DP martina radwan and AC alvah chomes frame the shot... we had super awesome crew! other amazing people not pictured: performer nicholas gorham, makeup artist gage ofthe boone, PAs naomi huth & loreli ramirez, and eungie joo craft services ;)

keepin' it fresh at 2am last night ;)

full body quotation at the new museum

2011-11-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

tomorrow night is the official live presentation of full body quotation at new museum, but tonight we are performing at a private "friendraiser" for the museum's triennial. it's not an explicit fundraiser, but the purpose of the event is to develop the long term investment of young affluent/influential patrons. i've been worrying about participating in this event for a while... especially in light of the Abramovic stunt at MOCA Gala last week... and generally thinking about the role that performance artists often play in these situations, as being complicit "entertainment" jesters for elite patronage of museums.

i continue to struggle with figuring out a smart way to respond. one way would be to just not perform- but then i miss an opportunity to dialog with the thing i wanna critique. another obvious impulse would be some FUCK THE 1% gesture, but that so often plays right into the expectations of the audience, that you become this "transgressive" queer freaky artist. my friend alex (of my barbarian) warned me they love it when you bite their hand that feeds you...

ironically enough, my performance is about the film Paris is Burning. i may have been alluding to that for months now, but the context now demands it be more explicit. because when i look at that photo above (which was taken in the sky room, the event space at the new museum) i see an image equivalent to paris is burning, and a metaphor for the way that film (and things like it) function for mainstream audiences- to like capture and placate their fantasy of queer/poor/poc self-expression. (and i mean the IMAGE not necessarily the content, but how it gets used as certain kind of marketing etc...) i could go on for days about the nuances, but basically this work is about exploitation. not like in a judgmental way, but like a rubiks-cube way, like these are all the sides to the problem - there is no easy solution. and there are SO MANY ways it can go wrong... it's a really tight spot.

so the solution i came up with is to make this statement at the beginning of the piece, and also to share the source material.

this is the statement (well maybe it won't be these exact words, but this sentiment):

Dear Audience,
Tonight's performance features all misappropriated material. We are channeling voices of people involved in the making of the film Paris is Burning 20 years ago. Originally I wanted to keep this source secret because I didn't want you to take these voices for granted as being "authentic." But the site of this performance (ie a party at the New Museum, Performa, downtown Manhattan, etc) is not necessarily a safe space for all the communities referenced in this work. If you wanna witness this; please first recognize that we exist. In order to fall apart as complex beings, we need first to be able to live.

oops that might be a little abstract ;) i still have a couple hours to come up with the right wording... but i felt the need to get this information out there...

anyway here are the sources of the performance:

Characters (in order of appearance):
Octavia St. Laurent, Paris is Burning (1990)
Venus Xtravaganza, Paris is Burning (1990)
Crystal LaBeija, The Queen (1968)
Unidentified Photographer, Paris is Burning (1990)
Jennie Livingston, Paris is Burning archives (UCLA Film & Television Archives)
Junior LaBeija, Paris is Burning archives (UCLA Film & Television Archives)
Unidentified kids, Paris is Burning (1990)
Grandfather Hector Xtravaganza, interview, June 2011

if you are in NYC hope to see you there!!!

1991 inside now inside now

2011-11-09T23:55:00.000-08:00

long day in space

2011-11-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

yesterday was a double-header at elysain, the new space i'm working on that is my job. we had an all-day retreat for LGL, the legal clinic. LGL is undergoing yet another transformation - we are continuing now as a mobile clinic, which is actually working better than when we had Imprenta. long story short, we ran out of money and had to give up the space. now our clinic is every other month, at different locations around LA area... the last one and next one (nov 17) are with the east valley community health center in el monte. apparently there have been a lot of problems in this area with the cops harassing and arresting trans people without cause, one officer in particular. so there is need for this clinic, but at the same time we are trying to recommit ourselves to community accountability. another long story short: LGL was started by a group of predominately white non-trans lawyers, and last year we did a campaign to get more community participation, which was initially super successful, exciting time. but we had trouble with decision-making, structure, and ultimately power dynamics between the lawyers and community members were hard to overcome and community participation dropped off. at this point, given the the clinic is starting to gain traction, i see that it would be very easy for LGL to just push ahead operate as a lawyer-driven group. but we are committed to figuring out how to slow the process down, and find ways to sustain community participation in a more long term way.

later that night we did a test screening of wildness with a group of artists editors collaborators and community members... it was invigorating to have for the first time a small audience of many perspectives all in one room. i still have a lot of work to do :0

one thing i've been thinking about is how much storytelling is itself a master tool. like grand arcs and stuff. it's something i had never previously learned how to do, because i come from communities who are having to resist master narratives all day long every day.... so storytelling can be extra hard backbending when we are trying to represent our own communities because we end up either trying imitate or assimilate into these narratives where we don't quite fit, or if we say things in our own language with our own logic, it often gets dismissed as "community-based" art. so this project has been very much about trying to learn the masters tools - not to dismantle the house - but to build a different house in our own zone exactly the way we want it! or something ;)

*extra special TNX to roya raquel and hannah for talkin me through this week

FBQ

2011-11-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

getting ready for performa performance at new museum coming up NOV 19th!

TOTAL FREEDOM will b djing - i am so obsessed with this future beard

http://www.google.com/search?q=dj+total+freedom
ashland has always is in the future - his website is a google search

speaking of future the www### says FUTUREBROWN EP COMING SOON ♥ FUTUREBROWN IS Fatima Al Qadiri + Asma Maroof+ Venus Jasmin

my friend RACHEL BERKS is helping me to make FACES for the show

i requested to work in the sky room because i'm interested in the classy "event space"

how it feels and also how it functions for museums...

$economic$

thinking about my look for the show... time to reconsider thigh-cuts

ayshay

2011-10-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

my sister fatima al qadiri - there is NOTHING she can't do and without killing it. check out NGUZU remix of her latest Ayshay creation WARN-U

no rest til 2012

2011-10-19T01:02:00.001-07:00

something I learned about editing :P

GETTING READY FOR NEW MUSEUM PERFORMA... AND WILDNESS DROPS IN THE NEW YEAR (did I say that last year? this time for shurr)

life chances

2011-10-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

PREGGERS

2011-10-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

i'm SO FUCKIN PREGNANT movie movie movie land!!! soon. between workin on wildness and FBQ, i decided that documentary is such a trick. i was never very into the idea of making narrative movies (like with actors and sets and FICTON)- i mean it was cool but not my thing- why would you wanna construct reality out of thin air when what's around you is so flawed and amazing? but now i know documentary takes just as much extreme manipulation. so whether you're directing actors or interviewing "subjects" you always have an agenda and you are always trying to pull the performance out of people that you need... i don't say it's a bad thing but definitely LESSON LEARNED. one aint more honest than the other.

EXTREMELY DOCUMENTED

i had a dream the other night that ashland and i were riding in a taxi to an LGL legal clinic and it turned into a dance party with like a fog machine and everything. everyone was dancing their ass off and throwing name change papers in the air.

filming DAY INTO NIGHT scenes for wildness... endless pickups almost OVA

NEW EP OUT NOW

wwwmemory

2011-08-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

(keep sharing)

swirl

2011-07-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

(storyboarding for new project! FBQ ;)

hay! haven't been posting as much cause i'm writing a huge THING and re-writing wildness movie with my collaborator roya rastegar... so it leaves me pretty much worldless a the end of the day... but i wanted to share some other people's words that are really awesome and mind twirling...

this past april there was a project by QUEER COMMONS called "Queers are segregated. So?"
it was a survey and forum about queer gentrification of poc spaces : using the brooklyn party "that's my jam" (TMJ) in bed-stuy as example:

there is a really iiiiintersting Time Out New York profile on TMJ called "there goes the neighborhood" which touches on so many familiar questions about who belongs to a space, across conflicting identities/styles/races/authenticities/sensibilities/politics/voices/attitudes/areacodes.... Time Out is operated by same syndicate as LA Weekly, calling to mind a major PARALLEL MOMENT in wildness history... swirling stuff! and QUEER COMMONS has a fierce breakdown, read their summary here - which includes voices from their community survey:

Many of the people of color who responded to our survey emphasized their feelings of exclusion within virtually all queer spaces. Answers to the question asking respondents to identify white queer spaces included many neighborhoods in their entirety (Williamsburg, Chelsea, Park Slope); “if its not a *black party* (organized/thrown by black or black and Latin@ folks), it generally means its a *white party*”; “I'm sorry, but isn't every space a white space unless it is closed only for people of color?” and “pretty much all of them that aren't explicitly specified for non-white people.” Respondents varied greatly in their perceptions and experiences, and several spoke to their feelings of acceptance among queers of all races, the value of interracial romantic relationships (which one respondent noted are too often criticized in this context), etc. Undeniably, though, many were frustrated with ongoing racism in the queer community.

the huge THING i am writing with roya has a lot to do with these lived experiences. bernice johnson reagon's voice getting louder and louder in the BRAIN.
well, why not go there now. again even. i do every day- soooo inspiring!

this speech was given in

(don't know bout yall but that was before i was born ;)

bernice johnson reagon from Coalition Politics: Turning the Century

We’ve pretty much come to the end of a time when you can have a space that is “yours only”—just for the people you want to be there. Even when we have our “women-only” festivals, there is no such thing. The fault is not necessarily with the organizers of the gathering. To a large extent it’s because we have just finished with that kind of isolating. There is no hiding place. There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. It’s over. Give it up.

Now every once in awhile there is a need for people to try to clean out corners and bar the doors and check everybody who comes in the door, and check what they carry in and say, “Humph, inside this place the only thing we are going to deal with is X or Y or Z.” And so only the X’s or Y’s or Z’s get to come in. That place can then become a nurturing place or a very destructive place. Most of the time when people do that, they do it because of the heat of trying to live in this society where being an X or Y or Z is very difficult, to say the least. The people running the society call the shots as if they’re still living in one of those little villages, where they kill the ones they don’t like or put them in the forest to die.
(There are some societies where babies are born and if they are not wanted for some reason they are put over in a corner. They do that here too, you know, put them in garbage cans.) When somebody else is running a society like that, and you are the one who would be put out to die, it gets too hard to stay out in that society all the time. And that’s when you find a place, and you try to bar the door and check all the people who come in. You come together to see what you can do about shouldering up all of your energies so that you and your kind can survive.

There is no chance that you can survive by staying inside the barred room.
(Applause) That will not be tolerated. The door of the room will just be painted red and then when those who call the shots get ready to clean house, they have easy access to you. But that space while it lasts should be a nurturing space where you sift out what people are saying about you and decide who you really are. And you take the time to try to construct within yourself and within your community who you would be if you were running society. In fact, in that little barred room where you check everybody at the door, you act out community. You pretend that your room is a world. It’s almost like a play, and in some cases you actually grow food, you learn to have clean water, and all of that stuff, you just try to do it all. It’s like, “If I was really running it, this is the way it would be. Of course the problem with the experiment is that there ain’t nobody in there but folk like you, which by implication means you wouldn’t know what to do if you were running it with all of the other people who are out there in the world. Now that’s nationalism. I mean it’s nurturing, but it is also nationalism. At a certain stage nationalism is crucial to a people if you are going to ever impact as a group in your own interest. Nationalism at another point becomes reactionary because it is totally inadequate for surviving in the world with many peoples. (Applause)

Sometimes you get comfortable in your little barred room, and you decide you in fact are going to live there and carry out all of your stuff in there. And you gonna take care of everything that needs to be taken care of in the barred room. If you’re white and in the barred room and if everybody’s white, one of the first things you try to take care of is making sure that people don’t think that the barred room is a racist barred room. So you begin to talk about racism and the first thing you do is say, “Well, maybe we better open the door and let some Black folks in the barred room.” Then you think, “Well, how we gonna figure out whether they’re X’s or not?” Because nothing in the room but X’s. (Laughter) You go down the checklist. You been working a while to sort out who you are, right? So you go down the checklist and say, “If we can find Black folk like that we’ll let them in the room.” You don’t really want Black folks, you are just looking for yourself with a little color to it.

And there are those of us Black folk who are like that. So if you’re lucky you can open the door and get one or two. Right? And everything’s wonderful. But no matter what, there will be one or two of us who have not bothered to be like you and you know it. We come knocking on your door and say, “Well, you let them in, you let me in too.” And we will break your door down trying to get in. (Laughter)
As far as we can see we are also X’s. Cause you didn’t say, “THIS BARRED ROOM IS FOR WHITE X’S ONLY.” You just said it was for X’s. So everybody who thinks they’re an X comes running to get into the room. And because you trying to take care of everything in this room, and you know you’re not racist, you get pressed to let us all in.

The first thing that happens is that the room don’t feel like the room anymore.
(Laughter) And it ain’t home no more. It is not a womb no more. And you can’t feel comfortable no more. And what happens at that point has to do with trying to do too much in it. You don’t do no coalition building in a womb. It’s just like trying to get a baby used to taking a drink when they’re in your womb. It just don’t work too well. Inside the womb you generally are very soft and unshelled. You have no covering. And you have no ability to handle what happens if you start to let folks in who are not like you.

Coalition work is not work done in your home. Coalition work has to be done in the streets. And it is some of the most dangerous work you can do. And you shouldn’t look for comfort. Some people will come to a coalition and they rate the success of the coalition on whether or not they feel good when they get there. They’re not looking for a coalition; they’re looking for a home! They’re looking for a bottle with some milk in it and a nipple, which does not happen in a coalition. You don’t get a lot of food in a coalition. You don’t get fed a lot in a coalition. In a coalition you have to give, and it is different from your home. You can’t stay there all the time. You go to the coalition for a few hours and then you go back and take your bottle wherever it is, and then you go back and coalesce some more.

guess i'm just amazed by how relevant these debates still are today 30 years later... not to say that nothings changed, but SOMETHING is comes back around... maybe we need new language to talk about what we are experiencing... cause it's fucking real and hard... and real...

LA home

2011-07-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

HARMONY SANTANA IS 20 IS KILLING ME

she is really fun on the carpet and gorgeous and talented it's too much

what better way to return to LA than outfest extreme gay lala movie land = OPPOSITE UNIVERSE of where i just came from ;))

living it NOW

tonight is the BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE

possible haircut?

titling inspiration - sirk

working on WILDNESS again!!!!! dears we are so close to premiers we can taste it ;))) well sort of lol

after the gala last night roya and i had a midnight/9am skype-reading with the legendary vaginal davis in berlin to work on some new scripting voiceover stuff... keep that a surprizzzz for now!

(here with the young talented alex from the chocolate grinder film kollective and his blue robed beau)

dominique deveraux = movement research for FULL BODY QUOTATION performance at new museum in november!!

NGUZU AND TOTAL FREEDOM ON TOUR W GANG GANG DANCE

2011-07-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

whose streets

2011-07-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

nytimes reported today that the sexual assault case against strauss kahn (director of the international monetary fund) might get dropped because the victim - an immigrant hotel worker from guinea - is being discredited as a liar. they say she lied about her immigration situation, she lied about how she was raped and beaten when she fled from guinea - and they recorded a phone call to her boyfriend in an arizona detention center, which apparently reveals she had financial motives to report kahn's attack. she's being further discredited by the fact that her boyfriend has a criminal record for counterfiting designer clothing in chinatown and being a "drug dealer."

why do rape victims always have to prove they're not lying- as if being a "bad" person in society's eyes somehow disqualifies your right to justice? basically the legal system cannot even do justice, because it entangles us through our desperate need to survive. if you are not a citizen, how many options do you really have to make money, besides selling pot and designer fucking clothing? or work at a shitty rich person hotel until they shove a fat imf cock down your throat and then call you a liar, and maybe deport you too.

i mean look at this guy do u think he's ever gonna lose in life?

i'm not a journalist or anything so i'm not necessarily trying to speak truth i'm just looking for a read, and fucking over it... the trans march in nyc was hard this year cause it was rainy and we had to march around the block on the fucking sidewalk, corralled in by cones and cop motorcycles yelling "whose streets? our streets!" and then that night they claimed stonewall for the the gay marriage victory party. just feelin the ouch...

might real

2011-06-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

over french toast the other day, gregg bordowitz was explaining his recent performance strategy as "i'm just trying to be real." i can appreciate that as a sincere dude ;) but also as a "host" who often has the nebulous task of trying to make sure that everyone and everything is ok... ;))

or also the JOB of just b ing natural - right b?

ey los angeles (where i belong miss u) TONIGHT IS SPECIAL MM

maluca mala - this lady had some early wakes at wildness... and NOW see

another incredible thing is the cast of FULL BODY QUOTATION in development at the the new museum :::

(LtR: DESIREE BURCH, MYCHAEL CHINN, NICHOLAS GORHAM)

IEEEEEEEEEEEEE

THE TABLE @ NEW MUSEUM

2011-06-23T14:15:00.001-07:00

luna luna

2011-06-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

UGGHHH EMBARASSMENT. DID I NOT POST TIL JUST NOW? EWWW SORRY.

what happened since we last? well i temporarily re-located to nyc ;) but the reeeeaaaal news is that columbian artist hunkness carlos motta just gave me their new norwegian book

which has mind-blowing chapter titles like

THE EQUALITY FRAMEWORK: STOP BEGGING FOR TOLERANCE

DEFYING ASSIMILATION: BEYOND THE LGBT AGENDA

THE DEMISE OF ACT UP

GENDER TALENTS

COOL.

also totally honored that LUNA ORTIZ AKA THE LUNA SHOW graced our newmu panel with an entourage including HECTOR XTRAVAGANZA - the panel was with jonathan oppenheim who edited paris is burning, hector is in the orig film - in fact she popped up the clips - doesn't look a day older than the day he was filmed 20 YEARS AGO !

what's her secret to agelessness?

"my drama is my drama / yours is your drama"

!!!

PS JONATHAN IS AMAZING.

when we were saying goodbye, he looked at me and said, "in the absence of knowledge there is always worry..."

um hum RIiiiiight

got THESE SHOES from united nude i don't have pic of my own feet lame but still worth looking

inspired by THESE LOOKS

josh goot

which reminds me that opening ceremony sample sale should not even be talked about it

also went to hamptons to research new film and had dinner at the trendy surf lodge in montauk - and WHO WAS 2 TABLES OVER AT THE END OF THE EARTH but k8 hardy w handsome beau patty doublING with our own friends leilah weinraub and venus X !

END OF THE EARTH PEOPLE. TINY TINY EARTH.
nyc is cute like that.

3 acts

2011-05-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

@alex segade @http://howtobeafuckinglady.tumblr.com/

today begins part 2 of my retreat w WILDNESS's new writer/collaborator roya rastegar

i know it seems impossible to imagine after a year and half of editing- but we are re-writing the whole fucking movie! i guess that's just what happens in the 11th hour... ;))

still new to me = 3 ACT STRUCKKTURE. BOOM.

also NEW MUSEUM just posted june events!!!

see you soon nyc

GROWN 66 = THE SECOND TO LAST ONE

2011-05-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

after 20+ years miki saito is closing the doors of dinner house M :(

(psst: there is a rumored new location and apparently she's bring the stained glass drop ceiling with her!)
(TOTAL FREEDOM photorealism as usu)

WORKING CLASS FEMINIST WORKS HER WAY TO THE TOP OF THE SHOWBIZ MOUNTAIN

AND GETS MORE REAL LESS FAKE THAN EVER

basically this is a must read

(thanks andrea!)

POWERFUL WOMEN ON THE WWW IN GENERAL

AL STEINER + ZACKARY DRUCKER FOR ARTFAGCITY

IMG MGMT: Before/After, 2009-present

THE TABLE @ THE NEW MUSEUM NYC JUNE 23RD

2011-05-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

THE TABLE is a 5-hour day-into-night performance by KINGDOM, NGUZUNGUZU, TOTAL FREEDOM and WU TSANG. THE TABLE places the four DJs on four opposing sides of a table in the middle of the floor. The artists face each other, working together and/or against each other to produce a constant stream of ad-libbed new ideas in sound. The unusual set-up gives the audience an unconventional role as co-conspirator, huddled around the table like students at a schoolyard brawl. The particular placement of the table uses bad feng shui to pleasantly disrupt our experience of entertainment and hospitality.

Brought to you by THE NEW MUSEUM and RHIZOME.

JUNE 23RD - STARTING AT 4PM ONWARDS

AT SOME POINT DRINKS START FREE-FLOWING

THE NEW MUSEUM - 235 BOWERY
7TH FLOOR - SKY ROOM

tickets available soon!!!

(photorealism by total freedom)

pulp gay exploitation fiction from another era

2011-05-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

reading justin bond's blog response to v's new york mag feature i felt a piercing burst of anger followed by a more familiar wave of resignation. mainstream media have always expressed EXTREME hostile attitudes towards trans communities (if they acknowledge we exist at all- which to this day is mostly- only? white trans folks) and in the back of my mind i wonder if that may always be true. if you wanna follow this drama in detail, bond breaks it down in the most thoughtful and emotionally honest way. v's observation that "it was like reading some sort of pulp gay exploitation fiction from another era" struck me as SO FAMILIAR. because, somehow journalism about trans people always feels like it's a crazy time warp other zone past century burning place.... where it's all like WHAAAAAT? would you EVER talk so exploitatively about a body or what it fucks before you EVEN get to the point of who someone is maybe what their amazing contribution to the world might be? oh well. here comes that sigh of WHATEVER again.

but seriously forreal. maybe it's better this way. if fighting for visibility means fighting to be somehow DESCRIBABLE in this sad media vocabulary then skip it! but not in a reactionary way. in like a double-timing bless us for the infinite interweb platform lets just hear each other in our own dialects etc etc

news format- really?

ps if you wanna GASPP big time here's another one from nytimes weekly spew: Chaz Bono the reluctant transgender role model.

i once heard dean spade say that he was terrified of mainstream media for these very reasons- which was one of the original things that motivated me to want to make WILDNESS- i wanted to create a not terrifying option. so WORK continues ;)

SONJI!!!

2011-04-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

<br>g

IF YOU FEEL THAT YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

2011-04-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

having some sort of electric blue thing now..

READING READING READING

"lavender ain't white" john c hawley

the original single ladies silhouette

SONJI KIMMONS HONOR

2011-04-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

SONJI KIMMONS IS A LIVING LEGEND
THE SCORCHING VOCALIST OF MANY SEASONS AT THE OTHER SIDE PIANO BAR
SHE HAS FALLEN ON HARD TIMES

like too many of us - because our world is not built for the unrich
a health problem led to medical bills to financial hardship to housing situation :(
extreme snowball of hard time

IT'S TIME FOR THE CHILDREN TO GIVE BACK
GET A QUEEN BACK ON THE PIANO BENCH WHERE SHE BELONGS
INTO OUR EARS AGAIN

Whether you know Sonji personally or have been blessed by the presence of her warmth and talent - please give to this cause because all queer elders need their children to support them! Do it because you believe in queer family and growing up and growing older together - do it because nightlife is a place of fantasy but when the lights come up we all gotta to live!

basically this is a party & simultaneous internet fundraiser
so if you can't make it, or don't live in LA - you can still help out!

SONJI KIMMONS HONOR EVENT

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 8:30 - Midnight

GROWN (Total Freedom / SFV Acid) @ Dinner House M

LIVE BIDDING ON INDIEGOGO

LIVE SHOW - FATHER-SON-DUO

CHARLES AND MALIK GAINES (PIANO & DRUMS)
GUEST DJS NGUZUNGUZU

CURRY DINNER BY ANNA MARGARITA ALBELO

HOSTED BY REN-YO HWANG, RON ATHEY, WU TSANG, ZACKARY DRUCKER
& MIKI SAITO AND THE DINNER HOUSE CREW

$$LOGISTICS$$
The way this works is if you come to the event, you have the option of paying a door cover or bidding online (we will have a computer and internet access)... A donation gets you free admission and curry dinner! Hopefully we will reach our 2K goal at Midnight! After Midnight, the regular GROWN continues free as usual... IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT OR DON'T LIVE IN LA JUST RETWEET AND STUFF THANKS!!!

getting ready (again!!!)

2011-04-27T22:47:00.001-07:00

coalition is dangerous

2011-04-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

recently roya rastegar shared with me a speech by bernice johnson reagon called "COALITION POLITICS turning the century." in it, reagon offers a definition of coalition that changed my understanding of everything. the basic idea is that coalitions are the OPPOSITE of safe spaces. coalitions are dangerous and painful but we need them to survive.

i will paraphrase the basic idea analogy, but read it here for yourself. it goes like this

in this society if you are poor and brown, life is DIFFICULT to say the least. sometimes you need to create spaces to get away from all the struggle where you can be with your own kind. all it takes is a ROOM with a DOOR where you can check people by saying this is a space for US and if you're not down then you don't belong. safe spaces can be both nurturing and destructive.

But that space while it lasts should be a nurturing space where you sift out what people are saying about you and decide who you really are. And you take the time to try to construct within yourself and within your community who you would be if you were running society. In fact, in that little barred room where you check everybody at the door, you act out community. You pretend that your room is a world. It’s almost like a play, and in some cases you actually grow food, you learn to have clean water, and all of that stuff, you just try to do it all. It’s like, “If I was really running it, this is the way it would be. Of course the problem with the experiment is that there ain’t nobody in there but folk like you, which by implication means you wouldn’t know what to do if you were running it with all of the other people who are out there in the world. Now that’s nationalism. I mean it’s nurturing, but it is also nationalism. At a certain stage nationalism is crucial to a people if you are going to ever impact as a group in your own interest. Nationalism at another point becomes reactionary because it is totally inadequate for surviving in the world with many peoples.

reagon's idea of coalition means so much to me in thinking about all the fallout post-wildness - the general exhaustion i feel that i know is something bigger than just cause i'm working on the movie. the silver platter was and IS an amazing safe space for the Latina transgender community in Los Angeles. wildness was a weird anomaly that for a brief moment created a space for true coalition-building. we ALL had to put ourselves out there, to WORK through discomfort of trying to all occupy the same space. it was hard and painful, but it was vital and real. now that moment has passed we all retreat back to where "we came from" / where we "belong." even for me and my DJ friends. back to our different words of nightlife and fine art. for LGL, many have retreated too. back to our activist circles, back to law offices and classrooms.

i miss that moment where we were truly coalescing but i recognize that these movements come in cycles and waves, and sometimes we DO REALLY need to retreat and be with our own kind - whatever that my be. in my case i'm still trying to figure it out ;)

time going on

2011-04-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

since koky got his job back at silver platter, things seem to have gotten way back to normal... almost as if nothing (including wildness ;) ever happened... silver platter is as it ever was... AHMAZING !

last night was koky's 47 birthday the platter was poppin with a-list ladies, including mexican pop/cumbia singer AMANDITITITA (3rd left)- a recent hollywood hills resident -escorted by our dearest dani carrera- who came to see the geishas do her impersonation !!! so graceful. beyonce did the metrosexual hit

(vid still by dani c)

new channel

2011-04-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

i want to take a minute to call out the fact that this CLASS blog doesn't seem to be as much about partying anymore. not cause i'm not going out, but because those experiences aren't affecting me in the same way. sometimes going out is just going out, you know? it's also because so much of club culture is about hotness & newness, and the THING i'm working on is now officially a past moment. that energy keeps migrating to other clubs and other kids doing stuff in other places... and always will... = a good thing!

while it was always personal, it used to feel more political to be reporting on my friends and nightlife, in a way that just doesn't feel genuine now. so basically gears are shifting. gotta stay true to what i'm actually excited about, which right now happens to be a lot more nerdy stuff like this worksheet (above) that LGL uses to train white allys. (or this book i'm reading called POPULAR CULTURE IN THE AGE OF WHITE FLIGHT - FEAR AND FANTASY IN SUBURBAN LOS ANGELES) the legal clinic is perhaps less glamorous- or differently glamorous? but all these activities have really pushed me towards wanting to deal with race & class stuff more head on. and the closer i get the more real and hard it is to talk about = exciting again yay! so stay tuned to the new channel........ ;)

there is this book about gentrification in wicker park, chicago and some of my friends are on the cover (rhys and/or ashland i think?). i'm not, but i may as well be- because i participated in that scene in the early 2000s. so you see that THING i care about- it keeps going. it's ain't going away...

i realize i might lose some of you in this process but hopefully you'll find your way back when the wildness movie drops and things get a little more entertaining again ;)

wildness movie update

2011-04-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

can't stop caring about the kirkwood for rodarte spring/summer '11 foot...

so here's what's up w WILDNESS: we've been editing now for 15 month- and we got about 6 more to go. I KNOW crazy. hard to explain WHY editing takes so long, but basically TIME is the only way to make a story better... it gives you more perspective on how the thing plays for people who don't know anything. and THAT feels important because a "movie" can become widely available- like on netflix or whatever- where ANYONE can find it and watch it. so that's why it's so important to get the story as "right" as possible.

it's kinda the same as throwing a party- the hotter the thing, the more popular it might get- and if the party is also an important safe space for you and your friends then you have to be careful how word gets out... cause it is a public event in a way that ANYONE could should up. so every little decision you make affects the kind of people who will be attracted to it and feel like it's their space.

there's a 2-tier structure in the film world: the "mainstream/straight" circuit and the "gay" one. most queer films end up on the gay circuit (festivals, distribution, audiences etc). it's sad but obviously true that gay is seen as "lesser" cause these circuits are driven by straight-up commercialism. whatever sells = value. so programmers, producers, reps, agents, everyone is dealing with the fact that the most dollar$ spent are by straight whites - and for the most part those people want to see movies about themselves, like stories they can identify with. OR if the movie has queer/poc content, then it has to be made in a way that straight whites are comfortable viewing.

so basically if you are anyone other than straight & white - and making a movie about anything different, you have 2 choices. you either say FUCK IT, and make the movie you wanna make, for the people around you, who you know are going to get it. or you say YES i wanna reach those outter circles- and then you have to translate your message into a language that straight white people understand. that is basically the language of standard documentary.

there's a movie that just got released to netflix instant play - so it's really easy you can watch it NOW - called WHICH WAY HOME. it's about immigrant children who migrate to the u.s. by cargo trains in search of their families. it's fucking heartbreaking. but the story is also told in that HBO-style that is super comfortable for white audiences. cause it distances you, puts you in this total space of pity, thinking you've done something positive by just watching the movie and becoming more aware of the problems of migration, and then turn off your tv and go back to living your life in the exact same fucking way. i say fuck that. but do watch the movie! it's amazing, and it definitely makes me feel more and more like WILDNESS doesn't need to get on a cargo train, cause clearly that story is out there. let's move on to something more complicated!

last chambers - seriously LAST TIME EVER at crocker club

tomorrow

2011-04-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

"STRANGE DEMOCRACY"

7PM AT HAMMER MUSEUM

my bff WILDNESS movie collaborator

MARIANA MARROQUIN speaks about LGBT struggles in Latin America

6:30 AT CHILDRENS HOSPITAL LA

(sorry ya gotta choose one thing! art or community event - win win)

AND THEN

RSVP TO GET IN THERE

MONTHLY DANCE SITUATION

10PM AT CROCKER 453 S SPRING DOWNTOWN

week in flight

2011-03-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

GROWN WEDNESDAY @ DINNER HOUSE M

SOUNDLINK FRIDAY @ DINNER HOUSE M

2 PARTYS SAME FAM ENDLESS SOUND

THIS TIME WE'RE WAY IN THE BACK IN THE GHOST BAR

hey yall i've been traveling - nyc - midwest - so not much time to post although pretty epic stuff going on promise i'll write soon. NGUZUNGUZU is on world european tour and TOTAL FREEDOM is in Istanbul... but somehow we'll all make it back and see you there!

chambers at the crocker (first tuesdays)

2011-03-16T00:34:00.000-07:00

WOOAAAH. YEAAAAA. SURE

DO YOU SEE THOSE SPEAKERS???

THAT GIRL IS A FUNKTION ONE.

this is my new obsession thanks to ashland. i feel. like i can't go back, i can never have another sound experience. i've been turned permanently. OUT.

yes.

total freedom

(clipboard means i'm WORKING ;)

so yea we did our first new tuesday party CHAMBERS with kim ahn and aaron castle! ...it was cuuute. it will keep going i think! first tuesdays. next month (APRIL 5) we moving to the waaaay back of the crocker club- to a room called THE GHOST BAR. it's called the ghost bar cause it's smaller and enclosed and there's ghosts that live in there (i hope!)

crocker is a funny location for sure. it's a little bit like this:

HA HA HA i know but it's totally also like this:

RARE LADIES HITTING HARD

crutches are VIP

stroke stroke

i'm starting a new project at the new museum (can i talk about this yet??) S/F 2011. i've been thinking a lot lately - especially working w ashland - and about how important it is to me to always try to find ways to bring different people together in a way that we can all SEE EACH OTHER and feel good (beyond what we normally assume is possible in terms of our class differences), no matter what our power background is. so like, that involves EVERYTHING about social gathering - from the way you are invited, to the way you walk in the door - everything about sound and light EVEN matters. it's funny- when we got to the crocker club, the first thing we did was unplug the douchey glowing flower vases and tape cocktail napkins over all the light fixtures. in one way, it's a totally whatever JOB, but in another way it's a kind of community care. it's about dealing with bullshit fanciness and at the same time wanting fanciness to be something for everyone... or at least for now, it feels good to be doing again ;)

(photos by le panda - tnx!)

3 HOURS OF TOTAL FREEDOM NGUZUNGUZU KINGDOM & MIKE Q

2011-03-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

los angeles balcony jam

ok i know if these cuties are not your best friends you may not feel the NEED to watch 3 HOURS of USTREAM - but you COULD just let it play in the background while you werk the internet and read more about THE WOMEN OF EGYPT FOR EXAMPLE

today in los angeles

2011-03-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

there are few people as mind-bendingly smart as MALIK GAINES

5PM @ MACHINE PROJECTS

Malik Gaines will be presenting ideas, images and interpretations from his dissertation, Radical Differences: 1960s Performance, Gender Eccentricity, and the Black Transnational Imagination

WOOOOA RIGHT?

FUSION QUEER PEOPLE OF COLOR FILM FESTIVAL!!!

last year WILDNESS was in the IFP Labs with Pariah, an amazing narrative feature that just premiered at sundance... meet the director today at 3pm! also see HOOTERS (the making of cheryl dunye's THE OWLS) at by Anna Margarita Albelo at 1pm and MARIANA MARROQUIN stars in "remember me in red" shorts program why wouldn't you stay all day and afterparty after yay!

story thinking behind the WILDNESS title part 2

2011-03-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks for sharing this news.

I first heard about the production of Damelo Todo a couple months ago and thought it was a necessary work and vehicle to allow the voices of these women and community to be heard outside of the streets. It does seem like a lot of the footage I've seen from certain videos is heavy on "Wildness" the party/event/community of yesteryear, and so changing the working title from Damelo Todo to Wildness is probably a smart one.

Also, it can be a rather touchy issue to do so in terms of promoting a work that on the surface seems to be about the party/event/community that was initially supposed to be based on the legend and history of the Silver Platter. Depending on how the work is presented I can see how folks could perceive it as a form of artistic gentrification.

i wanted to re-post this comment because i think it's a super helpful jumping off point for talking more about the movie's title change... (and if you missed it, here is part 1)

to start, i think we have to agree that SILVER PLATTER and WILDNESS = 2 CAMPS. silver platter = immigrant transgender women and WILDNESS = young hip artists. obviously there are problems with these blanket categorizations, but let's just say there is a general perception that bears a fair amount of truth. and if you take into account the bar's proximity to downtown and echo park (2 major poles of gentrification in LA) you get a pretty obvious equation- although i'm not sure exactly how to say it? one group has more power over the other? one group threatens the other? it also brings up the issue of storytelling. there are NOT a lot of stories about immigrant transgender women out there in the mainstream - it's an underrepresented subject. and there is definitely a need to get those stories out and spread consciousness. particularly in the film industry (or any culture industry), there is blatant discrimination. so there are entire circuits of festivals set up to support films about queers and people of color, so that they can find their audiences. without these efforts, so many stories would never be heard. (FOR EXAMPLE THERE IS A RAAAAAD ONE THIS SATURDAY IN LA CALLED FUSION GO THERRRRRE)

this was my general worldview i when i started making the film: i wanted to give voice to these amazing women, who needed to be heard and appreciated in a major way. being in the 'artist camp' i saw my role as 'having' a lot of power, and therefore responsibility to my subjects. that was like square one. i thought: THEY need support, and that subject-matter is way more important than me, or anything i got going on.

and then over the course of making the movie, i had a shift of consciousness, that felt real.... real. trying to find words for it now.

to me the old title DAMELO TODO represents an older consciousness, which has a more traditional filmmaking politics behind it ('giving voice to underrepresented subjects'), and the new title WILDNESS represents a newer consciousness that is equally as politicized but in a different way.

also to break it down further, the two titles obviously privilege different languages; spanish vs english. they are also entirely different FRAMES for the subject matter. the phrase DAMELO TODO ("give me everything") is a pretty open concept that could be applied to a lot of themes relating to the bar, whereas the word WILDNESS, while it may be a word in itself, it's also the NAME of the club that gets referenced in the movie - so that's kind of a major over-determiner. like the title WILDNESS implies the film is 'about' the club Wildness. yes.

and initially, or still on some level, that feels hard for me as the filmmaker, because it's uncomfortable. the idea that i would work in a space that has a MAJORLY EPICALLY INSPIRING history and an UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLY POWERFUL COMMUNITY- and not only not just focus on them, but instead kinda focus on myself and my friends? yea that feels craaazy. are bombs going off in your brains?? they are in mine.

but actually this shift in consciousness, which came about slowly, painfully, and with a lot of failure, was about discovering that all my thinking about power, privilege, and representational responsibility was severely limiting the possibility of understanding something fundamental that i feel when i'm at silver platter. which is that i am a part of this community, i'm not more powerful than anyone else, i'm not 'better off,' and i don't pity anyone (which i think is implied by the word 'privilege'). it true that i'm not latina, and therefore waay on the outer layers of cultural distinction within that community space. i also come from a different class background, so i can't relate daily to everyone's life experience, but i can listen, understand, and act in solidarity. i can get angry, just like everyone else. we all get angry, and we all do what we need to survive. there is no hierarchy of being or meaning. i don't mean to get overly philosophical about it, but i do think that words and ideas limit (or create) the possibilities of how we SEE each other and treat each other.

i've always loved nicol's response to the LA Weekly article, which classified us as "art damaged hipsters" and "third world gender illusionists" (ouch). she said: "what [the journalist] saw is not what the Silver Platter is. it is only what his mind dictated him afterward, to write." i think she brilliantly hits on the basic problem of representation. places are places, people are people, and representations will always reveal something about what the maker wants to see.

so when i started making the movie, i wanted to see this amazing solid community of transwomen, and make a film about their struggles. what i didn't want to see was myself, and the role that my friends and our party was playing in shaping all of my fantasies about what i thought the silver platter was. at a certain point i had to come to terms with the fact that, as well intentioned as my fantasies were, in the spirit of radical transness, and celebratory of queer community of color, they were still fantasies. and i think there is nothing wrong with that, if you can own it. so this consciousness shift has been about saying THIS is about the silver platter, from the perspective of who i am and what i wanted, as an filmmaker, a community member, a person of a different ethnicity and class, as a friend, as someone who cared, as someone who fucked up - a person. one of many people. it's like nicol says: it's like a chess game, we are all at play here. and everything we do (including wildness, including making this movie) has an effect on the bar's incredible long-standing history. no one is more important, no one has the power to 'change' it or end it.

THAT SAID, there are all these external great forces of race class & gentrification at play - so basically i'm trying to say: i hope the film can be a vehicle for the women's voices, and 'about' the legendary history, and INCLUDE (and provoke) explicit reference to how the story is being told and who is telling it.

power of silver platter

2011-03-03T00:54:00.000-08:00

hay everybody guess what. this photo was taken tonight at 10:49 of our friend KOKY ON HIS FIRST NIGHT WORKING AT THE SILVER PLATTER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW! (if you don't know there's a loooooonnng saga backstory- which also is the story of why WILDNESS ended)* 2 b con't....!!!!!

in other news, our first LGL mobile clinic = total success!!!

aick! cuteness. mariana marroquin hosting us at friends community.

OH YAY FEMININIST VIBES FEEL YOU

(thanks alex! for femininist wordlog)

*this entry has been edited

getting ready

2011-02-23T23:45:00.000-08:00

i just found these cuuute gianmarco lorenzi ripoffs at chinese laundry - needed new dancing shoes for our

NEW PARTY THIS TUESDAY.

RSVP YOU GOTTA

i just made soup for my new collaborator crew kim anh (booby trap) aaron castle (rhonda) and total freedom (mustache/grown) to discuss how it's all going to go down... the bar is giving us a cut of their sales, which means our event can be FREE yay! we also bargained down their drink prices - $5 well $3 shots all night bottle service etc etc... it's that subtle balance between needing to keep the thing sustainable, but also making it as welcoming and inclusive as possible for our friends. bottom line: we CAN party and dance, which means a lot! you'd think there wouldn't be much to it, but it's actually pretty hard to achieve, getting all the elements right... it feels really good to be hashing details - like finally ready to think about crafting new space. i've been (we've been) NEEEEDING. TO. DANCE. CHAMBERS is at this funny "developed" downtown joint called the CROCKER CLUB- inside of an old fully restored bank vault. the regular crowd is like, bankers i think. but we have a vision for transforming it, we're bringing our own laser beams. it's gonna be classy. and messy ;)

ALSO GETTING READY FOR

LGL is about to have it's first MOBILE LEGAL CLINIC!!!! we are piloting the first one at Friends Community Center. i have NOT been updating enough about LGL ;) there has been waaay to much going on with us over the past couple months! for one thing, we lost our space next door to silver platter.

saaaaad!

but everything comes to an end.

i think it's actually been a really good thing for our organization because now we will be roaming to different spaces where the trans community is already gathering - like tagteaming onto support group meetings and stuff - and probably be able to reach a lot more people that way. we are also again reconfiguring our mission and body. one of the scary cool things also about deciding not to incorporate as a non-profit is that we can continually reassess and redefine. i must say over the past couple months a lot of things have not been working. but that's also the pain and gain of doing this work. people gotta believe. so we're going to pilot the new clinic and see what grows.

the story behind the WILDNESS movie title

2011-02-21T22:02:00.000-08:00

for those of you who are interested, here is a little more information about the evolution of the WILDNESS MOVIE title...

in a nutshell: the original title (from 2008) was LA BIENVENIDA. this past year, the working title has been DAMELO TODO (Give Me Everything), with WILDNESS as a potential alternate. Somewhere along the way during the process of editing, we discovered that the more appropriate title would be WILDNESS- but we are only finally announcing it now, because we just spent the past 6 months getting feedback from different community members, specifically about the title and the roughcut. when we felt like we had enough information to stand behind this decision, we announced it. i believe it's potentially a controversial title, because it raises important issues about representation that are at the heart of the film. so in other words, WILDNESS is: the same film, same issues, same story, new title.

a little more backstory about where DAMELO TODO (the title) comes from: in august '09 i approached writer/performer raquel guiterrez about writing a script for a narrative sequence of the movie. i gave her a description of a character, which was based on a recording of FLAWLESS SABRINA doing an "energy read" (channeling/remembering the past) at the Silver Platter.

Sabrina is one of our spiritual leaders ;) she has been performing and organizing shows and fighting in the streets since the late 1950s. she's a living work of art. you can read about her everywhere ;)

when Sabrina walked into the Silver Platter, she remembered meeting a regular there in 1965:

SABRINA: I think that she had the power to be understood, and I think that she was grounded, and I think that she not only had the integrity of knowing that things should be made better, as opposed to just being angry about it, like most of us were, and I think that she just you know took it on, and chewed her way through the problems. That's what I think... that's what it think. I think you know, somebody has to raise the fist first, and it seems to me like she was the gang leader. Yeah.
WU: And she was here?
SABRINA: She was a regular here. Yeah, she was a regular here.
WU: Do you remember her name?
SABRINA: That's what I'm trying to think of... “Blondie” comes to mind, but that's not right... She was blonde. Yeah, she was blonde, she was good lookin, she was tough as nails, steel trap mind. Very nice, wonderful person, I mean really nice person. But when she got her dander up, there was no stoppin' that chick. And she was very very good at making the other people understand... And there was a gal out of this bar that should be researched, should be documented. Yeah, one of the people who changed the world. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where you get the power. You can feel the power in this space [gestures]. All those ghosts are still here.

so i gave raquel that transcript... and raquel wrote a GORGEOUS story that we eventually turned into a narrative film!

so here is our "blondie" character!

raquel named her RUBIA and she is played by yasenia geitan, who is one of the geishas from the weekend show.

as time went on and the editing process really took over, i had to let go of all my preconceived notions of what i wanted the movie to be in order to find the story... and eventually the DAMELO TODO material kind of seceded, and is now its own short narrative film! we will hopefully be sharing it with the world very soon... ;)

i would also like to say more about the potential "controversy" of the wildness title - and how i've been thinking through that one - but i will save it for another day xx

DAMELO TODO TITLE CHANGE

2011-02-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

so after a long long time of sweating this out - i am here to say that the new official title of DAMELO TODO is

WILDNESS

we arrived at this decision after many months of editing, and struggling to discover the real story of the film. for those of you who don't know (and for those who can appreciate!) editing a documentary is like finding a needle in a haystack - the majority of time is spent in the cutting room trying things out- and FAILING ;) BUT! it makes the eventual success of storytelling all the more rewarding...

when i started making this movie 3 years ago, i thought it was going to be "about" the Silver Platter. I saw myself (and my Wildness friends) as being outside of that community - but as time went on, and our communities grew together, i realized that the most important challenge for the film was to find a way to talk about the connection that we all shared with each other. so calling the film WILDNESS feels like a way to be most honest about my relationship to making this thing. i realize it potentially raises questions about representation, and i want to have that dialog with all of yall, because i believe it's the harder one to have - AND ULTIMATELY hopefully the film will allow you to come to your own conclusions.

i also just did an interview for ORIGINAL PLUMBING that talks more about this stuff if you're interested check it out...

so thanks! LOTS more news on the way on that front ;)

(silver platter photo by paul monroe)

3-yr anniversary of wildness

2011-02-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

today wildness would have been 3 years old...! it's amazing to reflect back on how much has changed in a year - and at such an incredible moment in time.

update about the movie: we are so close to done we can TASTE it.

in the process i have humbly learned that voiceover does not necessarily = authority. sometimes it's necessary to OWN UP to, and be able to SPEAK TO the images you are showing. it gets real REAL.

RESPONSIBILITY REPRESENTATION.

a little photo w AL steiner...

i'm starting a new party with my friends TOTAL FREEDOM AARON CASTLE AND KIM ANH

ITS CALLED CHAMBERS

EVERY FIRST TUESDAY OF THE MONTH

RSVP FOR FREENESS

www.chambersecrets.com

HARD & RUFF

thanks to alex segade - i love this tumblr - it's my favorite kind of gay/straightness

one year + dining room + hardcore lezbian art XXX

2011-02-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

DINING ROOM SPECIALS THIS WEEK:

RABBIT RAGU (YEAR OF THE RABBIT!!!)
WITH SAUTEED PEA TENDRILS

BLOOD ORANGE RICOTTA POUND CAKE

WEDNESDAY - DOORS AT 9 NEVER CLOSE

DINNER HOUSE M - 1263 WEST TEMPLE

AL STEINER AND AK BURNS PRESENT

COMMUNITY ACTION ALERT MOVIE

THURSDAY @ REDCAT

http://www.redcat.org/event/community-action-center

debut

2011-02-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

NEW PARTY EVRY 1ST FRIIII

BROUGHT TO YOU BY TOTAL FREEDOM NGUZUNGUZU AND KINGDOM

DINNER HOUSE M 1263 W TEMPLE

FRIDAY

demand

2011-02-03T20:15:00.001-08:00

tonight free show & GROWN

2011-02-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

MEN RECORD RELEASE FREE SHOW!!!

AND THEN GROWN

1263 WEST TEMPLE TIL WAAAAY LATE

empire

2011-01-29T15:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-11T22:06:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

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

LAST GROWN DINING ROOM OF 2010

2010-12-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

STANDARDS

2 PORK SLIDERS WITH PICKLED GREEN TOMATOES

SPICY FRIED GREEN BEANS WITH BLACK SESAME MAYO

MARKET FRIED RICE WITH CHAR SUI BRAISED CHICKEN THIGHS

SPECIALS

SUNCHOKE KIMCHI PANCAKE WITH A FRIED EGG

HANDMADE GRAHAM CRACKER FIRE-ROASTED S'MORES

COMPLIMENTARY FRENCH ROAST COFFEE

SOUNDS NOW

http://soundcloud.com/totalfreedom/bone-structure-file-torn-on-accident-from-yung-bukkake-and-tf-they-take-no-blame

completely obsessed

zackary drucker for interview magazine

2010-12-08T16:50:00.001-08:00

tonight is GROWN - 1263 w Temple Street 90026

rejuvenation

2010-12-06T01:04:00.000-08:00

via little sis ساميه ميرزا ;)

soooooooo unfinished

2010-12-01T23:15:00.000-08:00

CLASS anniversaryishness! i started this blog over a year ago (oct 12!) but for some reason today feels like the day to mark change.

i started writing cause i felt like a DESPARATE NEED to go PUBLIC about WILDNESS and address the race and class tensions that were swirling around our event at the Silver Platter. our partay ended abruptly in february due to a family/ownership conflict at the bar.... sooooo the focus of CLASS has kind of morphed into the MOVIE i am making about this whole experience. ya ya you know this already ;) BUT it just seemed worthy to note the major CHANGESSSSS - because i think they are at the heart of my most fundamental questions fears hopes when i began this process.

especially what happens when you make a representation

a different time now

i've been revisiting women of color feminism writings like THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK - looking for inspiration for the damelo todo voiceover (thanks aleX!(), but also just cause i want to reflect on like how VOICES get stuck in TIME, and how they can also MOVE through time at the same time. i love that!

i like to be reminded of the unfinished challenge of social movements to do the work beyond the white middle class priorities whether it's the GAY/TRANS/WHATEVER MOVEMENT...it's. the. same.

my friend ren'yo hwang changed my brain about this recently. they pointed out that the problem is not white middle class women or gays making demands, it's that folks need to qualify FROM WHERE they speak- so the assumption is that they don't speak for everyone. right! take for example i have always been WARY of being anti-gay marriage, but also in solidarity with class critique of it. and then i realized, i would be SO MUCH MORE OKAY with hearing someone say, "as a white middle class gay man, i want __ (to visit my partner in the hospital, to pass on my inheritance, etc.)" there needs to be a way for more incoherency and like multiple value/need scales for different people at the same time. not like that's the answer, but it seems like a place to do work.

oh and TONIGHT! if you're in LA go to GROWN! if you're in miami rest and go to DIS tomorrow!

etc etc etc

instead of listening to the woman-beater

2010-11-20T00:15:00.000-08:00

THE ORIGINAL IS WAAY BETTER - KIM MORRELL !!!

ALSO NGUZU SIKKKK CIARA DEUCES REMIX

YOU HAVE OPTIONS PEOPLE

tonight wednesday

2010-11-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

GROWN DINING ROOM is a live food installation, and latest collaboration with TOTAL FREEDOM. featuring resident community leader SONJI KIMMONS (The Other Side) killing it on grand piano. this month DINING ROOM is declaring itself officially a non profit venture, which basically means that your experience = flavor experimentation + high quality ingredients at cost.

"It's the talk of Los Angeles and beyond." - Vaginal Davis (read more)

FOOD SERVICE FROM 9PM - 1AM

DINNER HOUSE M
1263 W TEMPLE 90026
http://grownnight.com

NOVEMBER MENU

2 PORK SLIDERS WITH PICKLED GREEN TOMATOES

SPICY FRIED GREEN BEANS WITH BLACK SESAME MAYO

MARKET FRIED RICE WITH CHAR SUI BRAISED CHICKEN THIGHS

NIKUJAGA (JAPANESE HOMESTYLE BEEF STEW) WITH SAKE TARRAGON FINGERLINGS

OPEN FACE BURRATA MARGARITA SUB

WITH TOMATO CONFIT AND SPICY TURKEY SAUSAGE

THE FALL-WINTER "TEXAS DONUT"

HANDMADE DONUTS, HANDMADE PERSIMMON ICE CREAM

A LA CARTE $5, PAIR ANY 2 $9

anyone can do it

2010-11-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

ha ha this is exactly what mustache 3-yr anniversary felt like when diplo showed up ;) THAT GIRL definitely on a mission

photos at BDP

i have an old favorite trick i want to share w you...

TURN YA COAT UPSIDE DOWNNNNNNNNNNN

anyone can do it!!!

it works really well with just about anything

get the mustache 3yr mixes here:

JOSH PEACE

TOTAL FREEDOM http://www.box.net/shared/norla0p3y0

tonight mustache 3-year anniversary!!! feat diplo

2010-11-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

mustache turns 3 tonight!!!

this family spot is so super important to my heart & los angeles in general

SEE YOUR DER

what now

2010-11-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

ahem THESE are the perfect height of the ankle (at the ankle) for now. thank you andrea white! and rick owens.

so undercover cops have been hanging around Dinner House M and everyone is on high alert. apparently micki (the owner) got arrested last weekend, although she's not in jail and doing ok. we postponed dining room this week cause i was sickkk (STD NOV 17!!) but also ashland is warning me now there's a chance we may not go on much longer.

a couple of weeks ago, during GROWN DINING ROOM a friend of mine, who is a queer woman of color (API/latina) joked with me, "so i see you traded the mexicans for the asians!" i guess i could see the humor for a person of her particular mixed ethnicities, but it also really hit a nerve- an old wildness nerve. a sensitivity to people making light of a very loaded dynamic between young party throwers/goers and the native proprietor/scene. a very fragile dynamic, that walks the line between building safe meaningful community spaces and just like... LAND USAGE. it's hard to articulate without over-simplifying - but it's at the heart of making damelo todo.

around the time that the LA weekly article came out about wildness, we all felt a very real fear and responsibility about whether it was going to do "damage" to the safety of the silver platter. as the story goes... was wildness going to destroy the thing it loved most? that FEAR is the realest thing, and the only thing i know for sure. it's hard to say, after the article came out, were there more obnxoious gawking tourists? were more women getting arrested and deported? would that make us at fault? i actually had a yelling confrontation with the journalist months later, when we met in a cafe in silverlake. i accused him of everything. i was haunted by the lurking fear of not knowing what our "impact" was. i felt guilty, responsible, powerless.

those feelings now are the realest thing to me as i edit the movie. trying to trace, in a really critical way, where do those feelings really come from, and to what end?

nicol says something in her interview, which i think is theee most brilliant insightful thing of the entire movie. she says:

"what [the journlist] saw, is what the Silver Platter is.
it is not what his mind dictated afterward that he wrote."

i feel profoundly affected by how much this idea translates across the board to everyone, and particularly implicates the film. the bar is a PLACE. it is a physical location that draws people together. but what it means, we can only grasp at what it means beyond ourselves. so in that sense, the movie is no more what the bar is than sam slovick's stupid article. it is what my mind dictates it to be, and that's it. and i guess that's a lot. to me. ;)

(me & nicol, more rick owens)

ryan trecartin for W magazine (aka the origin of the microbraids)

2010-11-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

(above: lizzie fitch, veronica gelbaum, telfar clemens, total freedom)

HAY CALI DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!

positive and negative images

2010-10-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

after much ado, our DAMELO TODO rough cut is finally starting to see the light of day! yay!! we just launched a series of community screenings to get feedback on the cut while there's still time to make changes... so far it's been encouraging and SO INTERESTING. yesterday, i did a screening with Mariana at Bienestar for a group of about 30 trans women, mostly Latina, many of whom frequent the Silver Platter. i was of course super nervous because this group is one of my main constituencies. particularly nervous about the subject of Wildness (as Nicol calls it "parties for gueros") and this whole question of gentrification. to my surprise the presence of the "gueros" Wildness kids was a total non-issue- basically not seen as much of a conflict at all. if anything, Yasenia (who was in the audience and also is one of the main actors in the film) was complaining that I portray the Silver Platter as too much of a unified, supportive place, because in her opinion there is a lot of animosity between the girls. this was echoed by a general sentiment amongst the other women that within our community we don't support each other enough, or like one of our biggest struggles is that we tear each other down.

it was profound to realize that for so long i have been preoccupied with the idea of wildness as an "outsider" community who threatened the inside community of the bar, whereas FOR this community the primary conflict is internal.

and also that this community is not fragile. in actuality it seems that the wildness community is/was way more fragile. the contingency and mobility of our class, and our cultural/career/identities, make it hard for people like us to commit to doing anything for a very long. doing wildness every week for 2 years, in actual labor/hours was the biggest commitment i've ever made to a group project. and of course people do it for way longer. but 22 years is unfathomable.

there was also a lot of talk at the Bienestar screening about positive and negative images, which also caught me off-gaurd. 2 obvious examples would be that people saw my portrayal of the bar as positive and the LA Weekly article as negative - but in the sense that both representations were true. which kind of shocked me because 1) i feel so uncomfortable with the idea that my film creates positive images of my community - like that feels like way too much of a resposibility and woah IMPOSSIBILITY!! and 2) i think the LA Weekly article is just plain wack - like not true at all. but one girl here said that she saw the article as being just "focused on the dark side" of her community... but like meaning there was truth to it.

so.

this all just OPENS MY BRAIN UP IN A MAJOR WAY.

basically i feel more and more convinced that there is this really important subject out there, that the movie touches upon, which could be described as maybe something like "liberal desire" a phrase that came out of the other community screening, which i did with a group of artists and intelllectuals... but i'll save that for another dayyyyyy.......

we are still editing and making major changes. but i feel like i can finally see the film, and finally being able to have these discussions in an interactive way feels like DEFINITELY THEE most important part of the process. i am so excited to finally reach this point! major milestone. maybe someday the movie will actully even be done ;)

my boss just gave me this insane burberry trench - it's like cropped - perfect for shorts and a sweater and heels...
all fall baby all fall

creepy

2010-10-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

HUMAN RESOURCES IS A REALLY SOUL-GRATIFYING COLLECTIVELY RUN PERFORMANCE VENUE THAT IS ORGANIZED BY A GROUP OF MULTI-TALENTED MULTI-TASKING MULTI-BODIDED ARTISTS AND THEY JUST GOT THE BOOT FROM THEIR SPACE SO LETS GO GOUL IT UP ONE LAST TIME - 510 BERNARD ST CHINATOWN

tonight los angeles

2010-10-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

DINNER HOUSE M

1263 W TEMPLE

NEVER ENDS

i hate words

2010-10-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

maybe what i'm trying to say is this...

as i'm WORKing my brain about DAMELO TODO, i keep returning to the events of the LA WEEKLY article ("best of LA" 2008).

to quickly recap, the LA WEEKLY article was written by sam slovick in sept 2008. it was supposed to be positive publicity for our party but it turned out to be extremely racist, classist, and transphobic in it's characterization of the silver platter community. (example: "This is a lovely little pit stop where a she-male doing car dates can stop in for a breather. A place where a lady-boy can take a load off her feet and wipe a load off her skirt before getting back to business in the back of a Toyota.") you actually can't read the article online anymore because they took it down. basically there was an outright war between us and the journalist, which involved a letter-writing campaign, a blogosphere blowout, a physical confrontation, and even a sit-down interview with the journalist for the movie.

at the time i was so enraged in my desire to get the article taken offline that i didn't see the extremity of my behavior. but now with more perspective as i'm editing the movie, i'm less interested to recreate the personal drama, as i am to reflect on WHY i was so mad and so obsessed about obliterating that language, and why it basically transformed my life. and in a nutshell, i truly believe that it's not as simple as that i hated the article because it accused us of gentrifying the bar. like, it wasn't just that i didn't want to hear it, although of course maybe a little. but really.

instead, i think that the article was a watershed event in the life of our little club, because it was the most tangible evidence of the widening GAP between what wildness was to us and how it was seen by the wider public.

i think what's most important about that GAP, is that it raises an essential question about how do we describe, understand, experience community? like if wildness felt a certain way to me, or to my immediate circle of friends, or even to the folks at silver platter who were intimately involved (Koky, Javier, Nicol, and some of the women patrons), or even to this audience of blog readers who feel personally invested in these issues - what does that mean about everyone ELSE who encountered silver platter/wildness? knowing that HOW those 'outsiders' encountered us was directly affected by what WE ('insiders'?) did. i mean, Wildness was a PUBLIC event. the Silver Platter is a business establishment that has a physical location, address, and by law it must admit anyone. so WHO ends up crossing paths there is a constant variable. but more importantly WHO decides who belongs, and who doesn't? but obviously some people DO belong, and in this scenario, for the people who made the silver platter their home- that sense of belonging is such a precious valuable rare and fragile thing. or is it? it is. is it?

the indisputable fact is that the bar was, and is, a safe place for a community of transgender/latina/immigrant women and their friends and allies. and it has been that way for a decade and beyond.

the other fact is that wildness temporarily messed up that equation - or disturbed the equilibrium or something. or did it? it did. did it?

i find that it's really hard to make these statements definitively - without being fucked up (on the level of language) to one person/group or another. sometimes i really hate words all together, which is maybe why i'm so involved with nightlife where complex experiences can be so wordless. but i'm trying here.

emerge

2010-10-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

ok so i haven't been posting AT ALL - i know! we were in an EPIC EDITING HOLE and i just started to emerge again. it happens, sorry. what i can say though, is that i think we have found the movie. although SRSLY in roughcutland, i can finally see the form! one part i am still struggling with is this whole question of gentrification. it's like - been pushed on me as the DZAma of the story, but i guess deep down in my heart, it doesn't genuinely feel like TENSION, or like what's REALLY AT STAKE for me in talking about the intersection of wildness and silver platter communities. that is to say i have MANY fears and sensitivites that i hope will play out in the film, but gentrification feels like sooo not enough of the right word for it. still writing, still searching. i want to dedicate a post to this actually, so if doesn't happen in the next few days pls remind me?

last night was another sweet GROWN of many birthday cakes and candles and the renunion of NGUZUNGUZU-! asma is home for 3 days while in the middle of another MIA tour and KINGDOMM moved to town too! so we all got to hold hands for a minute. i continue to live under a rock - getting ready for CA biennial and new series of nyc projects for the spring summer and fall!! and TONIGHT IS MIA IN LA at the lyon followed by

oh yea! what was that photo up up above? it's LGL ! we just had our monthly core meeting yesterday. I FUCKING LOVE LGL it's been such a looong erratic endearing path, but our organization continues to grow and define itself. we are officially HUNG IN THERE. one thing i used to obsess about was whether our clinic was "sucessful" enough - like were we helping enough people?? but i feel committed to the slow spread and accumulation of trust, and realize that the idea of GETTING RESULTS can be a pitfall for organizations like ours. so goez the NPIC, efficient quanitifiable RESULTS are often achieved at the sacrifice of radical governance (ie not just the white legal "experts" making the decisions and setting the agenda). so we are developing more slo.w.l.y., but i believe we have what it takes to get there. there is something so FUCKING AMAZING about getting to hang with a TRUE COMBINATION of qpoc community folks and lawyers (AND qpoc lawyers!) - it just feels SO GOOD. we are committed to building this safe space above everything.

tonight!!!

2010-10-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

GROWN DINING ROOM

CHEF WU TSANG BRINGS YOU THE I'VE BEEN EDITING IN A CAVE FOR 3 WEEKS

MINIMALIST COMFORT MENU

PORK SLIDERS WITH PICKLED GREEN TOMATOES

SPICY FRIED GREEN BEANS
NIKUJAGA (JAPANESE BEEF STEW) WITH SAKE-TARRAGON FINGERLINGS

THE TEXAS DONUT (HANDMADE DONUTS + HANDMADE ICE CREAM ON TOP)

SONJI KIMMONS ON PIANO AS USUAL FOREVA

TONIGHT AT GR OWNNIGHT.COM DINNER HOUSE M

human stories

2010-09-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

haaay back in touch with a computer for the first time in days!!! seriously been ON THE GO. i've got way too much to say, but for now something quick about the ever evolving hardcore process of making damelo todo. ps i have now been editing 1 year and 4 months.

for so long, i thought that the major negotiation of this project was between like ART vs FILM. ie what kind of form, voice, representation, audience, exposure, etc. but NOW i realize that for me, this negotiation is really about intellectualism vs emotional honesty - or like brain vs body or something hardly put into words...

it's funny cause i know most people think that being a visual artist is all about self expression. but for me and lots of folks i know in the art community, it has kinda meant the opposite. or like art is a mask of ideas and concepts to hide how i really feel or what i really want to say. all of this in the name of resisting "authorship." so yes that's where my art train brought me personally. and for some reason the film world has presented itself to be the antidote - not AT ALL because it is, but because the alienness of this new zone has enabled me to reflect on the alienness of my old native zone.

forreals especialy coming out of FILM WEEK and the IFP MARKET alls i have to say is that the film world feels like a much more barbarian landscape than the art world - where people are super transparent eek about their motives and needs (ie capitalism in full effect). so i definitely want to REVEAL everything about those experiences. but for now, i'm trying to focus on editing - and seem to have reached a critical point where the only way forward is to get extremely honest and speak from my heart eek. something i strangely hardly ever do creatively. it's extremely mind-blowing. but these damn film people they love it! it's all about the "characters" and the "human stories" etc.

WELL. rather than be judgemental, i'm just gonna take it as a personal challenge to do exactly that. fingers crossed!

slightly old but just love this fake fur vest closest i'll get to chanel fall rtw

and no apologies i'm still OBSESSED WITH THE MICRO BRAIDS i will keep posting about them until they're gone which maybe be already today but i wouldn't know cause my head has been in a cave

mustache pic by buttdick & microbraids part 3 and 4 by robert ;)

micro-braids part 3

2010-09-16T12:24:00.001-07:00

DIS report on TELFAR s/s 2011

2010-09-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

TELFAR COLLABORATES WITH LIZZIE FITCH, RYAN TRECARTIN & RHETT LARUE

READ

(photo by DIS)

club looks past

2010-09-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

party girl just got released on netflix instant play... so everyone watch it again!! ok! i'm kind of obsessed with dated 90s club fashion right now (also see young soul rebels) - especially anything jp gaultier... THIS MAY POSSIBLY BE my favorite look ever? can someone please replicate these pieces and mail them too me?? i will build you a box with your name in lights and then wear them every day forever. also thinking about VOD (as they say in the movie biz "video on demand") as possibly a totally rad desirable distribution format? as in wide-reaching, easily accessible? could VOD be a peoples medium? um DEF wouldn't go thaaat far but comments?

*thinking more about distribution, i mean VOD as opposed to old school distro houses, which can become tombs for many experimental and independent films by locking them away at institutional rental prices. i mean, how many amazing movies have you tracked down only to find out you have to mail order rent them for like $400?? in other words FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. saaaad!!! i think VOD is possibly making movies more readily accessible to more people faster... and because there are more and more projects like that launching they compete with each other and have to become more inclusive or more specialized, in order to find markets - which CAN mean more options for independent filmmakers! or at least that what we learned at the IFP lab back in feb.... ;)

one of my first art projects was a video-collective-collaboration-event called pilot TV. one of the basic premises was that everyone involved would gather together to help each other make videos, and then when we were done, we would compile them and go back to wherever we came from put our shows on public television. it was a pretty chaotic utopian model of horizontal distribution - but it did have many inspiring outcomes. one of which was that our program actually DID air on danish television! on an artist-run channel called TVTV...

*added

new york next week

2010-09-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

A.K. Burns and A.L. Steiner

Community Action Center
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 18th, 6-8 PM

TAXTER AND SPENGEMANN
459 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011

SEE YOU DER ON SATURDAY !!!

aaaaaaaaand DAMELO TODO is participating in INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK!

PUBLIC SCREENING!!!!

IFP'S INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER LABS SHOWCASE

TUESDAY SEP 21, 2010 @ 8:00 PM

@ SOLAR ONE PIER AT KIPS BAY, 2420 FDR DRIVE

micro-braids part 2

2010-09-13T00:42:00.001-07:00

pico union police state

2010-09-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

last sunday LAPD shot and killed Manuel Jamines outside of the upper level of the Home Depot parking lot at 6th and Union. Jamines was a 37-year old indigenous Guatemalan day laborer, and father of 3. LAPD claims the man was armed, and shot him twice in the head. on thursday the LA Times reported that a witness has publicly countered this report to say the the man was unarmed: "At the moment when the police were shooting, he had nothing." according to the times, "She said the man appeared drunk, and was having trouble keeping his balance. He stepped toward the officers, but it appeared to be an attempt to keep from falling forward, she said."

i think this is an intensely moving example of how there are multiple overlapping classes of people in this country who are not able to exist as human. whose lives can be treated like wild dogs. immigrant, criminal, poor. substance abuse, mental health, unemployment, and so many other vectors of violence that limit our life chances. solidarity from the trans movement.

(photos from cop watch LA)

old team

2010-09-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

i just got a new frida book for inspiration... endlessly editing damelo todo is bringin me back to my visual art roots... wanting to make sense the old way...!

plussss frida is also the original gay style icon. that's right- this is where the POWER BALL (hairdo) began.

i'm collaborating with an old friend, comic artist EDIE FAKE on damelo todo titles. a couple months ago at the one institute's film festival, i saw a '70s short film called THE LIBERATION OF GRIFFITH PARK, which really got me thinking about handmade fonts and titles... super excited to bring it all together!

speaking of pop culture / visual art marriages have you said yes to MEN yet?

MEN's JD sampson in front of performance painting backdrop by celeste dupuy

MEN single out on trouble records - painting/cover by ulrike müller

URGENT DEMONSTRATION TONIGHT AT 6PM

2010-09-08T17:00:00.001-07:00

Demonstration at the shrine at 6th and Union at 6:00pm where Manuel Jamines was killed. If anyone plans to come, those who were present at last nights demonstration advise that you please come prepared, covered up and with plenty of water and first aid supplies. Also, those who participated in last nights demonstration are asking that others please spread the word among other comrades - especially people who have medic training or legal observer training, because if last night was any indication of what can be expected tonight, help will desperately be needed in both those areas.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gREzQQDTEsm9naE3aIZkpn_orNyAD9I41HO81

TOTAL FREEDOM's MICRO- BRAIDS

2010-09-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

ARE FINALLY HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GHE20 GOTHIK MIX SERIES

2010-09-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

DOWNLOAD NOW
NEW YORK GO THER ENOW WEDNESDAY 120 ORCHARD ST (2 FLOORS)

pregnant

2010-09-03T00:48:00.000-07:00

yo! so i know posting has been slowing down, but i promise not for much longer! we are in the final stretch of an editing deadline for DAMELO TODO. EPIC TRANSFORMATION GOING ON OVA HERE. for one thing the title is changing (as i suspected it might for a while...), because the story is revealing itself. can't divulge yet, but one thing is for sure; the actual movie is finally emerging!!! what's amazing is that there are over 100 hours of footage, but in the end, this movie is more about what i DIDN'T shoot. meaning that the times when i turned my camera off (or didn't want to turn it on), are turning out to be the most significant and revealing parts. ie the things i shyed away from, initially dismissed, the most painful, honest, self-critical parts have now become the backbone of the story. as case in point, for the three years that i was filming at silver platter, i always thought that wildness had nothing to do with it. i told myself, "i'm making a movie about this place and the community here, and wildness is just something i happen to be doing on the side that has nothing to do with it." yall are probably scratching yr heads at me like DER. but believe me, sometimes the thing that is closest to you is the thing you really cannot see. so amazingly, there was like this GIANT VOID HOLE in my process. which now that i have gained enough tiny amount of distance to see it, i realize it's like THEE most incredibly messy powerful shit. looking forward to sharing more soon, but in the meantime gearing up for NY INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK IFP MARKET thingy. that's where we werk it werk it with industry execsxxx. will TELL ALL fo sure

ps UUGGGG i have some serious style updates i just need like a body double to do the typing and posting

or maybe asma can catch me up but um seriously more soon!!! we are already on to FALL

GROWN DINING ROOM THIS WEDNESDAY

2010-08-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

hay los angeles! here's some dirty food talk...

the GROWN DINING ROOM menu is a cross-inspiration of whatever's seasonal at the farmers market & BAR FOOD. this week's menu features SOLID GOLD HEIRLOOM TOMATO GRILLED CHEESE (sourdough, basil butter). THE TEXAS DONUT - hand-made donut, hand-made strawberry-sherry ice cream - a tribute to the south-side chicago diner huck finn's where ashland and i first courted our teenage best friendship. aaaand our guest sous chef math bass brings us the BÁNH MÌ FEAT. LAMB MEATBALLS - this is like your basic vietnamese sandwich except with handmade everything, including quick pickled carrots! also featuring live serenade at the grand piano by legendary sonji kimmons (the other side)

GROWN DINING ROOM IS EVERY FIRST WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH - 9PM - 1AM - AND THEN A PARTY FOREVER

GROWN NIGHT
PRESENTED BY TOTAL FREEDOM & SFV ACID
WEDNESDAYS @ DINNER HOUSE M
1263 WEST TEMPLE LOS ANGELES 90026

DAMELO TODO TEASER IN TRANSGIVING FILM FEST TODAY

2010-08-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

hey los angeles this is a totally righteous event!!! ALL DAY TODAY

(DAMELO TODO 13-MIN TEASER IS SCREENING IN 7:30PM PROGRAM!)

TG Film Fest
August 28th 11:30am - 9 pm
The Renberg Theater, 1125 N McCadden Pl, Hollywood

DJ, live performances, art for sale
$5-20 suggested donation, no one turned away

CLUB LOOKS 8

2010-08-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

finally! asma's back from MIA tour so we can do club looks for ya-

where better than in the kitchen of GROWN

aackaagggooogggooggggga!

THIS WEEK HAS BEEN 2 THINGS

1) triple-timin DAMELO TODO post-production if you can believe that's possible - we are less than a month away from locking picture! and 2) outta nowhere warm fuzzy amazefeelings about los angeles nightlife! it started with an intensely epic show at mustache mondays by brooklyn-based LIGHT ASYLUM - what can i say about this except I CRY. shannon funchess and her aquarian collaborator bruno coviello are crazily talented and definitely making the music of our future. then, wednesday was an especially adorable GROWN featuring none other than MOTHER FLAWLESS SABRINA, all the way from central park east. again I CRY. for those of you who don't know her, sabrina is a 70 year-old legendary queen-mother/oracular/shaman/artist, and i think that every young queer artist carrys a piece of her soul whether we know it or not. so anyway, sabrina just like poof APPEARED on the couch, giving $10 tarot readings to all the kids all night long... so blessed! total resurgence. so comforting to remember that nightlife magic is an endless cycle ;)

(btw sabrina's hosting tonight at victor rodriguez's otter magic party @ burgundy house!)

FOOTAGE FROM WAY OUT WEST SWEDEN!!

2010-08-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

SOMEONE CAUGHT AWESOME FOOTAGE OF MY 15 MIN SET BEFORE M.I.A AND THE INTREO TO HER SET!!! AWESOME! CHECK IT OUT!!

the limits of community

2010-08-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

i've been thinking a lot all the time about andrea fraser - who is an artist and a friend that i've had the good fortune to study and work with over time... and the more i do anything creative, the more i feel indebted to her practice and her contributions to institutional critique (of the art world).

i haven't been posting much lately because we are DEEP into editing DAMELO TODO - and coming up on an epic editing deadline - so i haven't had too many cute things to say slash/ i keep changing my mind about absolutely everything. but one thing is for certain: this movie is increasingly about the limits of community. it's NOT a social history of a bar, and it's NOT like a fantastical portrait of the trans movement. i still kind of wish it was the latter, but the politics of making this movie have actually become so paramount, that it feels unethical to obsure it with any sort of aesthetical wanking. so the movie is and will be about: 2 communities mixing for a brief period of time: wildness & silver platter: a group of young queer artists & a community of trans latina women - and all of creativity and the race and class tensions that resulted from it. in the words of brian kates: "wildness creates comraderie and conflict." TRUE THAT. there's your industry takeaway if ya need it. or an art world takeaway might be something like: a critical representation of the limits of community and its modes of production. riiiight?

exploitation of trans women in mainstream movies - part zillionth

2010-08-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

i was recently contacted by a warner brothers casting agent to audition for a role in an undisclosed major motion picture that features a "truly beautiful" thai-chinese trans woman. i'm guessing by the sides it's possibly a bro comedy (bromedy?) check it out: i actually almost went into the studio because i wanted to be able do more in-depth reporting for you my readers, but i couldn't go though with it! memorizing these lines was way too toxic.

i know it's kinda hard to read - but basically: tranny hooker speaks broken english, drops load in ignorant wasted bachelor dude, and doesn't know what a condom is. comments?

BIG CHILL

2010-08-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

HEY! I havent had internet for awhile cause it costs hella money to use it out here, but now i got it free in Oslo, Norway!
This is a photo from our last show at the big chill festival in UK, we let people come up on the stage to drink tequilla and the stage was bum-rushed instantly!! No one got hurt, it was a lot of fun, but were now dealing with all these legal issues due to the event promoters being assholes... THE SHOW MUST GO ON!~!!!

real time arizona

2010-08-09T01:19:00.000-07:00

on aug 2nd, two tucson AZ police call border patrol on a woman during a traffic stop. border patrol takes her away into detention.

3 days later, the senate approves $600 million in "emergency border security funds" - which includes 1,500 new enforcement agents; $32 million in unmanned aerial drones, and $15 million for communication equipment

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

i have seen and read a lot of things about SB1070 but the above video keeps haunting me.*

those last bulleted bits are from a washington post investigative report on "top secret america." took me forevs to track down the article, cause i remembered reading it but blew my brain trying to recount WHERE. i guess like many modern folk i'm constantly absorbing current events through phone (news blogs & FB), so whenever i want to remember where some information came from, it's usually most helpful to try to remember where i was STANDING when i encountered it. this mostly works, but today my problem locating this article was because i read it on an actual physical piece of paper = total short circuit!

i've been thinking a lot about visual art lately. my friend stuart comer was in town from london, who's a curator at the tate modern - so i got the MOTHERLOAD backroom treatment while escorting him on his rounds one day. we hit over a dozen galleries, highlights including: nick relph at overduin & kite, group show at michael benevento, thomas eakins at LACMA, mario testino outside of mark foxx, & witnessing michael kohn give a 5-minute aquistions pitch as we were sailing out the door... amazing.

then last night i saw alex segade's brilliant new multimedia epic-act video theatre troupe piece entitled "replicant vs separatist" - which played 3 sold out nights at the REDCAT now fest.

i've been generally reflecting on visual art lately as a traditon of creative *freedom* - as in, opening up, asking questions, taking things apart, & taking pleasure in not making straightforward meaning out of stuff. it's like veiled, you know? as opposed to documentary movie-making, which kinda feels like the opposite equally hard process of putting things together and trying illustrate an idea as clearly and effectively as you can.

this continues to be my negoation with DAMELO TODO, which is a movie that engages some very intense queer/immigration issues particuarly surrounding RACE & CLASS tensions, and therefore is being worked on squarely in the "making sense" zone, but which wants at the same time to be free... i'm not sure exactly what i mean by that, but i guess it has something to do with trying to show something (wildness & the silver platter) accurately without totally killing it. they have an expression called "kill your darlings" - which means cutting out most of the stuff you care about - all the excess that doesn't expidite meaning and move the story along. at every impasse, the operative question is WHY would anyone care about this scene? and with 91+ hours of footage, the answer to 95% of it is, they wouldn't. whoever THEY is, it continues to be a very powerful challenge to my natural way of working... also my friend ryan trecartin just moved back to town so my social art zone just majorly expanded... as in los feliz mansion rental yea wat !

*thanks to daniel for sharing SB1070 video

DIS SUMMER TRENDS LA EDITION

2010-08-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

TOTALLYEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! INFLUENTIAL

DIS

TOMORROW NIGHT WEDNESDAY

2010-08-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

CHEF WU TSANG - kitchen

SONJI KIMMONS - piano

DINNER 9pm-1am
...LIVE MUSIC 10pm (sharp!)

as always GROWN is free before 2am

no drink minimum for diners
two drink minimum for other guests

DINNER HOUSE M

1263 w Temple Street 90026
Los Angeles, CA

LIGHT QUALITY

2010-08-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

the other day fritz haeg asked me to contribute to his upcoming Frieze essay, by answering the question "why do you live in LA?" in one or two words. at first i thought THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE but then i realized oh yeah,

LIGHT-QUALITY.

for some reason this image reminds me of the light quality in LA. vibrant, illusory, and super FLAT.

ready to wwww

2010-07-30T02:06:00.000-07:00

kickstarter success!

2010-07-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Dearest Friends,

It is our greatest pleasure to inform you that, sometime around 5am this morning, we passed our Kickstarter finishing mark at $12,126!!! WE ARE NOW GUARANTEED FUNDING!

It took 37 days & 216 supporters, and thanks to EVERYONE we totally DID IT - we are now fully on our path to finishing DAMELO TODO by the end of this year! Thank you SO MUCH for hearing our urgency and making it RAIN with your dollars. This is truly a moment to say that we could NOT have done it without each and every one of you!

Special shout out to those of you who pledged early, in the middle, and at the end - together we created a tidal wave of momentum! Extra special thanks to the many folks who reposted, blogged, and whispered into ears about our efforts, and WOW to those of you who gave over $100!! ALL of your combined resources had a super powerful effect. And last but not least, MEGA thanks to the 85 PERCENT of you who pledged $100 or under!!! Your unbelievably generous offerings (whether it was a dollar or x10) were the BACKBONE of this operation. In other words in a nutshell, this is a COLLECTIVE THANK YOU WAHOO TO EVERYONE!!!

READ MORE

it's fake

2010-07-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

three words:

ready. to. wear.

(chanel F2010 RTW)

LA art world

2010-07-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

the art world was all agog last weekend about ryan trecartin's us premier 7-part movie installation "ANY EVER" at MOCA... it was a creme crop over at the pacific design center, and then afterwards things got foolish in the heated pool chez jeffery deitch... according to ARTFORUM, los angeles of late is both a "nonplace" and "the place to be" so go figure. anywayz she just moved back to town, so excited to expand the nest! brilliance.