exploitation of trans women in mainstream movies - part zillionth

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?

real time arizona

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

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

DIS

ready to wwww

more fall ready to wear

(vivienne westwood, viktor & rolf)

one of the reasons i started CLASS was to try to be transparent around my experiences doing wildness... and since wildness has more or less turned into a movie, i feel equally compelled to make THIS process transparent. i haven't been able to do that as much recently cause i've been caught up in the DOING of everything - mostly editing & fundraising on crazy deadlines - that i haven't had much time to reflect. but now that we've reached our 12K kickstarter goal (less than 48 hours to go!!!!), i feel the gravity of this moment as both momentum and weight. periodically i try to FULLY take time out in order to check myself about what's at stake (and spent the last 2 weeks in san francisco retreating THINKING and taking care) so ready to do that now.

the main question for me continues to be what does this MOVIE form do to creative process... in other words how does story-telling for sit-down audiences in dark theaters require serious skill at conventions (or manipulating them). 

on one hand i feel deeply responsible to several social issues- mainly the intense struggles of trans/gender-variant people worldwide, and the strategic importance of centering our movement on the most vulnerable members of our community- in our case, undocumented trans folks and therefore in LA, the latin american context. mobilizing people's HUMANITY (documentary ta da!) can actually be a badass means to an end- like to represent more radical possibilites for the LGBT movement, and if a movie can do that, I SAY YES !

on the other hand, i'm totally restistant to that whole illusion of objectivity thing, and the sacrifice of complexity that documentary requires. to become truly skilled at it, it kind of changes your brain- makes you look at things like: how can i make everyone and everything look/sound a certain way, so i can say what i want?

the reason why this negotiation matters so much is that it shapes the movie, and the form ultimately determines who and how many people might want to watch it... and given that my subject is both fragile and important (to me & community) - it continues to be a fine line between raising conciousness versus exposure.

so i find myself somewhere in the middle,

possibly had a major breakthrough tonight working with my editors suzanne mejean and kaliisa conlon (!!!) which made me stop trippin about which way documentary. basically we discovered how to represent something super basic, essential, and epically complex about wildness, through a performance by ariel prodigy (left). it was one of those moments where i could really appreciate what a blessing it is to be able to WORK on something for so long that you are no longer actually LIVING with it. just when you think you can't eak any more meaning out of it, you realize you can finally SEE it, instead of yourself... or something? yea it's late... so excited to see how this spins everything around!!!! see u on the other side ;)

kickstarter success!

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

three words:

ready. to. wear.

(chanel F2010 RTW)

holay versace

 

gaultier ay ay aya

(barbara palvin in numéro - from FGR)

pass it along

there are a number of places where you can follow the controversy about RODARTE's new cosmetics line with MAC that is inspired by JUAREZ, Mexico. mainly i've been reading RACEWIRE. this is the most chilling fucked up example i have seen in a really long time about how wrong race politics can get in fashion. i'm catching up a little, but according to a style.com review of F/W 2010 RTW:

Before their show, the sisters explained that a long drive from El Paso to Marfa, Texas, got them thinking they might like to explore their Mexican roots. From there, they became interested in the troubled border town of Ciudad Juárez; the hazy, dreamlike quality of the landscape there; and the maquiladora workers going to the factory in the middle of the night. And that, according to the designers, who certainly know how to romance a pitch, led to this conclusion: They'd build a collection off the idea of sleepwalking. 

dreamlike quality? maquiladora.

so now this new collection of MAC cosmetics expand this concept to deathly/pale/bloody eyeshadows and blushes with names like "Juarez" "Factory" and "Ghost town."

both RODARTE & MAC have issued apologies, promising that they will donate SOME (???) of the proceeds to helping fight the devastating violence in Juarez and according to MAC "We are diligently investigating the best way to do this."

i mean, you can read about this everywhere, so i will leave it at that. but this information NEEDS to be shared and some, um CRITICAL THOUGHT would be awesome coming from EVERYONE in the fashion industry at this moment. thanks

trans law

i've been thinking a lot lately about what it really means to be working with trans communities & the LAW. both LGL and the movie are related, and most other things that excite me lately have to have to do with this general zone...

i had a super impactful conversation the other day with my friend vera miao (artist actor queer woman of color extraordaire who also haaaapens to be a no bullshit non-profit managment consultant) about this exact subject. vera was feeding back with me about IMPRENTA organizing (the space the legal clinic etc) and she offered up some words that kind of made everything crystal clear. i can't remember exaaactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of summarizing trans legal issues. she said, "basically what you are dealing with, is the the most oppressed brutalized marginalized population being acted upon by the most repressive arm of the state (ie the prison system, the police, the ICE, the government etc- especially since 9/11). so just know that you will always be one step away from total crisis." and i was all, "OOHHHHHHH." right. that's why it feels so intense all the time. thank you vera, for helping me to have that frame. just wanted to share it with yall ;)

and now, that i've used up my last brain cell, just wanetd to share some of the other things i got excited about this week...

CONTRE BLACK @ mustache last monday (holy shiiiiit

more dysfunctional jean pockets

recent video by zackary drucker at the ORIGINAL PLUMBING outfest release party last night !!!

outfest in general HELLOO so central to my scheduuule right now. places to be people !! absolutely everyone is hangin around ie TRACY CHAPMAN um what.

on the outfest tip here are two of my favorite people in the whole world !!! at the inspiring good feelings OP event as well... mariana marroquin (actress, genius, diva, associate producer on damelo todo lalala...) & raquel gutierrez (performer, genius, writer/performer on damelo todo) mariana did a FIERCE new version of the ongoing live romantic comedy COSA RARA directed by raquel's troupe butchlalis de panochtitlan. psst heres a dish- mariana plays HERSELF ;)

another favorite person and glamorous to-do this week: ryan trecartin opening at moca. also GO SEE rj messineo at steve turner gallery for seriously queer art


no visual for this one but how about ashley love's upcoming panel july 15 called WOMEN DEMANDING CHANGE NOW: THE DEHUMANIZING MISREPRESENTATION OF TRANSSEXUAL WOMEN THROUGH THE GAY MALE HOLLYWOOD LENS ?? um i say yes

finally back to the original thing - mia yamamoto is speaking about trans legal issues at the ONE glbt archives on july 18th BE THERE. daaamn she is so hot i dream about her. aaand that's right after outer space journey to M.I.A. at hardfest to see asma maroof who is now officially en orbit... will report back on all fer sure

richer

(love fake jean things of all kinds - especially w working pockets!)

holy shit- i'm exhausted!
not much to report except the movie- which is at this point a 24/7 operation... shooting pickups, editing, and fundraising day in, day out. that's it. super thrilled that our kickstarter is TWENTY SEVEN percent funded!!! 29 days to go!!! got faith.

also two movement-related things i got excited about recently!
SUSPECT is a new group of queer and trans migrants, Black people, people of color and allies whose aim is to monitor the effects of hate crimes debates and to build communities which are free from violence in all its interpersonal and institutional forms. (re: judith bulter refusing berlin pride award citing racism)

AND FINALLY! SOMEONE MADE A WEALTH CALCULATOR.
this is so fucking amahmazing!!!!
at the height of my wealth, 5 years ago, i was making about 35,000 a year cutting film negative at a big movie post house - turns out at 35G i'm in the top 4.6% of the richest people in the world. what's amazing, is that even now, although my income feels SRSLY less than that, i'm still in the top 10%. try it - possibly a transformative tool to start conversations with friends about wealth, not being anxious about having it, resisting capitalism etc. ALSO a problem, is that there is no way to factor in inheritance and other forms of stored wealth, which obvz majorly changes the numbers. it's a common thing i see: people feeling "broke" in their everyday lives- but it's a very different kind of broke when we know there are sums of money or property etc looming in the future...
(thanks to enough for sharing!)

so DAMELO TODO.
i am working on a new interview with my friend tanya* who is young (baby 20!), from honduras. i wanted to share a chunk of interview, to give a sense of how meaningful things can be in their entirety, in the realtime, and therefore all the more difficult to EDIT. but we got a movie to make so inevitably a story to tell... this part of the process is so so important to me.

Mariana: When you close your eyes what do you see when you picture the Silver Platter?
Tanya: Waiting for a nice boy to arrive. He talks to me, I talk to him, and I flirt with him, and if he asks me out, so- "yes!" If I like him, and he's attractive and all that. So it's worth it to go out with him. Taking the risks that might be involved also. But it's worth it, and one has to see how he behaves too.
M: So the first image when you close your eyes is seeing a man walking towards you?
T: Yes. Or he would drive by and say hi. Or calling me.
M: How does that make you feel?
T: Stronger.
M: When you're inside, close your eyes and tell me when you see when you think about being in the bar.
T: When I'm inside, what I like is that me and my friends start drinking. They pay or we pay for each others drinks. And many guys are looking at us. And one them will come to us and ask us to dance. And then we drink and we have fun and dance. And at the end maybe he will take me to his apartment, or I will take him to mine.
M: In comparison to how you felt in Honduras is there a difference in the way you feel now? Is there a big difference inside the Silver Platter?
T: Very much so. What I haven't felt in Honduras, I felt here. I feel more freedom. Despite the fact that I'm by myself because I have no family here. So yes, I feel more freedom. I feel like here, I am with my family despite not having it. But I do feel like I'm with my family. I'm in a good mood, I'm always happy. More daring.
M: Making plans for the future?
T: Yes, making plans. I know I will accomplish it.
M: Why?
T: Because that's what I'm here for. I don't want to go back to my country, and not have accomplished what I set for myself to accomplish. Get there and be the same person? No. I don't want that. And I know I will accomplish that. So when I get there all my friends will say, "Wow she got back from there and she accomplished this and that. She is fun," And I know that when I get there, all my family will be there with me. Because they will see what I have accomplished.
M: Including your dad?
T: Yeah, including him. And I have a hope that yes, I have changed. I changed a lot. Despite being here, lately he's been calling me more often. I think he will change and he will accept me. Because in the same way that my mom and my grandmother accepted me, I know he can too. And it doesn't matter what people say. What's important is how he feels and what he sees in me.

*name changed.

a menu, or half thoughts on food

menu

for GROWN DINING ROOM tomorrow night

MAINS
pork sliders with pickled green tomatoes
green garlic & scallion crepes with beet-ginger glaze
farmers market fried rice

SIDES

spicy fried green beans with black sesame mayo

larb chicken salad with daikon slaw & frise

AFTER

peach-cream pastry with espresso-dusted lime wedges

one thing i like about cooking is that -like other related creative fields- there is this super rad under-layer of access for those of us who labor to enjoy what usually only the wealthy can afford to buy. FOOD is commonly thought to be exclusively defined by "taste" (as in value/judgment) but actually good food can and should be accessible. there's definitely a culture of connoisseurship around fine dining (just like art film etc) but there's also a radical trajectory of people using food as a base for all kinds of social experimentation- and that's my jam... in other words FOOD can be another zone to explore (and create!) complex class environments - ie not just what's in your mouth but how it's served to you = how you're ADDRESSED = therefore determining how you're free to act and be! or some...thing... ya know? whoops sleepy ;)

(gordon matta-clark's artist run cooperative restaurant FOOD: 1971, soho nyc)

good business

CHEF @ GROWN LOOK
IE NOT FUCKEN AROUND WITH THAT SHUN LOOK

the other day at an LGL meeting, april saravia said something that really changed my brain: she said "can someone tell me why we're doing this legal clinic- besides just for a pat on the back? what's in it for us?" blowing my mind question!!! "whats in it for us" seems to be a major filter for how i'm tryina think about anti-capitalism lately...

as a teenager i participated in general youth/punk anti-capitalism - believing in alternatives to capitalism (socialism, ecofeminism etc.) in the day-to-day, it was about having like integrity and not selling out; not commercializing your creativity or exploiting your subculture etc. i still believe in those values, but lately i'm interested to recognize totally other ways of resisting capitalism that don't revolve around reaction and rejection.

to me it's actually a bigger question for activism & cultural production: just generally how do you work with a group of people when PROFIT is not the guiding principle? any seasoned organizer will tell you it's exhuasting. for example there's an unspoken tentent that we're all allowed to take time off to avoid "burn out" or being driven by "guilt" obligations. everyone is supposed to contribute out of our own free will - our sense of purpose - and through these choices we build an alternative way of living and being...

i mostly work with groups of people where there is little or no money to made, and we produce STUFF - parties, legal services, movies, art whatever. i continue to be fascinated by trying to understand what drives everyone - why these projects continue to be the things we really love to do, as opposed to the things we do for money. in the case of creative projects - i find that something often under-estimated is cultural capital.

for example, take GROWN dinners. ashland invited me to start cooking there - so we've been trying to work out a system that is marginally profitable - so i can serve crazy delicious food at affordable prices, not loose money, and maybe even make some money. 2 weeks ago we did a tasting, and then we took this past week off in order to assess and fully negotiate the monies with Mickey (owner of Dinner House M).

THIS IS MICKEY

(photo by luke!)

YEAYUH.

it turns out that at the tasting i spent $140 dollars on ingredients and we only made $66 (albeit wonky accounting). Mickey thought i was totally insane. "That is not good business." she said. "If you spend $140, you have to make $300. that's good business." i mean, she's totally right. but it's hard to explain why i'm not doing it for money- cause i'm not exactly just doing it out of the goodness of my heart either. i'm doing it because it IS a venture - of art, ideas, creativity, however you wanna frame it. because you can! (and that ABILITY to frame it takes a whole other set of skills/resources that i can't  get into here) and it WILL be tradable at some point somewhere... sooooo i guess i'm just really into exploring that stuff cause it bothers me when people act like there is this great divide between art and commerce, or social justice and profit, etc. that's the zone i find exciting.

also major shock and awe about Mickey letting me cook in her kitchen. i can't think of hardly anyone anywhere that would let us do that. major boundary crossing. i mean it's her kitchen, her staff, her maintenance, her liability, etc. what's in it for her?? cause TRUST me she is ALL about the BIZNESS. for sure, there's an argument that my food will bring more customers earlier = more alcohol sales. in the end we settled on a 15/85 % split of profits - which is like INSANELY nice for me. so actually i think there is another level that she's down, possibly having to do with queer community... more thinking for another day... similar ambiguities at silver platter...

at LGL (which actually IS a movement-building project) we are working on this idea lately of not so much helping other people, but HELPING EACH OTHER. it reminds me of many conversations i've had with gregg bordowitz about ACT UP, so i know this mode has been explored before (also makes me think we're on the right track!) for example at the clinic last month a young woman came in seeking services - help with a name and gender change. turned out i needed to change MY name too, so we decided to go to the courthouse together. it worked! i guess in one sense, that was me being an "advocate" -but in another way, maybe more like co-conspirator. another interesting blurry boundary...

at Silvia Rivera Law Project (the org that LGL is modeling off of) one of their guiding principles is that social and legal services are not an end in themselves - they are tools for movement-building. we can help the most vulnerable members of our community to get on their feet so they can join us in the streets so to speak. the model being that through services people can become transformed into constituents (fighters). i think it's a STELLAR idea, and sooooooooo interested to see how it will play out in our own project.

(photos by michelle & luke!)

modeling & colonialism... surprise!

i just read a super interesting nytimes report about the ubiquitous white european body type in modeling. i mean, we all know that people of color are for the most part not imaged hardly anywhere in mags or on runways, with the caveat occassional interest in "real" "ethnic" or "new" body types - usually tokenized etc. so duh. this report traces the economy and practice of scouting all the way to it's roots in colonialism.

RESTINGA SÊCA, Brazil — Before setting out in a pink S.U.V. to comb the schoolyards and shopping malls of southern Brazil, Alisson Chornak studies books, maps and Web sites to understand how the towns were colonized and how European their residents might look today.
...

“If a famous top model looks German with a Russian nose, I will do a scientific study and look for cities that were colonized by Germans and Russians in the south of Brazil in order to get a similar face down here," Mr. Pessoa said.

WOW! more than just a canvas you say? there is also a suuuuper interesting VIDEO (won't let me embed wah) -love to watch a video! watch the EYES on the scouts when these brazilian high schoolers are walking out of class. TOT.alleeee says everything about everything

(photos: alek wek AAAGGHHHH CHANEL CLOGS, aline weber brazilian conquest - both from fashion rogue)

back to the kitchen

i started cooking again at canele restaurant cause i wanna get my chops back for GROWN DINNERS (coming soon!) so i've been pretty braindead for the past 48 hours... not much to report except OH for LA readers you probably noticed that the TABLE is not happening anymore... sorry i soooooo meant to write about that in a timely manner. in a nutshell there was no drama, it just wasn't coming together in an organic way. so while there were all the right reasons to do the party- sometimes that's not a good reason to throw a party you know what i mean? especially for javier i think because there was more pressure to make income. also i think there was some pressure to recreate wildness which none of us wanted to do, and we couldn't anyway. plus now it seems everyone is so likE BIZNESS READY all of a sudden, like MS ASMA going on tour with MIA and NGUZUNGUZU & TOTAL FREEDOM in general flying on planes to dj gigs and stuff. wut wut? and me, well i'm making a lot of quiche ;)

that's right bitches i made that quiche!

it feels good to be able to cook and focus on the movie -cause we are DEEP into editing world... so i'm trying to stay loose and be a little more of a normal person who sees my friends and stuff. friday i went to a community screening at the new artist-run human resources (OMG mariah garnett's new VIDEO ART shitkickness) & champagne toast for my barbarian's DOCTOR malik gaines. yesterday went to a picnic in griffith park to share some quality lawn chair lazing with my LGL pal saul sarabia and susan burton founder of a new way of life- which is like you guys THEEE raddest prisoner re-entry program in LA... seriously though i feel like i have a lot more thoughts about TABLE in the end, about collaboration and like i dunno SPACE and MONEY, so i will share more as it becomes "available" to my brain... kissy

where does oil come from

"Well, that's interesting!"

(reposted from tavi's tumblr)

um.

can i just say that if google is really just an algorithm then THIS IS the culture we live in. and TRUST and believe that my voice does not sound whiny when i say that. it actually just seems really accurate to show how capitalism saturates our brains and shapes life priorities in general. i mean, it's HARD i imagine for the majority of us whose lives are not directly affected by the oil spill to wrap our minds around it. if you are like me and feel enraged and powerless about it at least once a day, still you live your life. i drive around LA, which is like one of the most perverse oil-driven metropolises, listening to blow by blow coverage of the spill on the radio and just think i need to end life about this fucking mess. RIGHT?

83 PERCENT OF THE TURTLES HAVE DIED.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN??

another telling piece of news the other day was a RACEWIRE/feet in 2 worlds report about ICE officials showing up to search for undocumented immigrants amongst the oil spill clean-up workers. what could be more illustrative of this moment in time? here we are pouring hundreds of MILLIONS of gallons of toxic waste into our environment, and our government wants to deport the people who "illegally" are trying to help. THANK YOU.

i think it's time for a mass-based movement. (there, had to say it!)
since i was like a kid, i have always participated in counter-cultural free thinking non-hierarchical grass roots stick it to the man socially concious lifestyle etc. but still TODAY i find these commitments to be very different from my actual LIVED EXPERIENCE- and i guess i'm just dyin to bring it all together... one of the things that motivates me to do CLASS every day, is to try to think about how we can work on capitalism - how to empower myself and the people around me to use it as a force of resistance. like we have these resources - why do we feel so imobilized?? that is the crux of wealth. and i call it wealth because it's something we all HAVE to some degree or another. what will it take to mobilize these resources?? that is the work i see that needs to be done, like on a human level but even just on a personal one.

live and work

i had this old friend eric luken from chicago who moved here and used to say all the time in the most extremely special faggotry upswing: "all i do in LA is LIVE and WORK. LIVE AND WORK!"

today was another typical day of random post production mayhem for damelo todo... my new producer dreamboat kathy rivkin and i were busting for a Latino Public Broadcasting grant that was due at 5pm. Kathy finally crunched real numbers and apparently the overall cost of this film is above $300,000! i was completely floored, but apparently this is on the low side for a feature doc... in between doing that i also had a LOVELY telephono talk with my IFP mentor ira sachs in nyc. THANK GOD ira is my dad officially he is wise about everything movie-making related and gay life in general. emailing with editor brian kates (FAN OUT) who has offered to give notes- bless me! 1pm another phone date with SRLP founder law prof team champion dean spade in seattle who is friend-consulting about the movie as well. another super meaningful conversation had here about the inspiration and pressures of making things in response to your community, and realizing that representation is inherently a failure. and that failure should be the fun part - doing it knowing that you can't - but that also inevitably some people being disappointed - but also most importantly at the same time OWNING EVERYTHING about doing it. dean also shared with me that his forthcoming book (!!!) about critical trans resistance involves this idea of trans being "beyond recognition" which i think is really beautiful... looking forward to THAT. then 5pm meeting with my editor suzanne mejean about the new rough cut. which is like swimming and KICKING along - we'll get there! aiming to finish by september. breath holding. trying to schedule a pickup shoot for kyky womens lib scene with my friend erika... more people people people... laboring over GROWN dinner menu (think: arancini w panko & porkbelly) and secretly i'm all WORN out from a late night poolside soiree in bel air = mary kelly house. werk that CHIC let me tell you some serious art world decadence crazay. and tonight is mustache!! see you der

alexander wang you put it on and go

(photos by me, luke, and quentin)

deluxe what

so i got wisked away for the weekend to the opening night gala of portland's QDoc film festival... FOREVERS GONNA START TONIGHT (directed by mah special interest michelle lawler) starring san francisco's legendary VICKI MARLANE - who dazzeled in the flesh at 76 years old. there was also a mind-blowingly stellar short film called GET HAPPY about teenage liza minnelli wizard mark payne. QDoc is a lovely affair co-organized micheal weisman (director of THE COCKETTES), who was smartly dressed in 7 different striped silks - and we toasted into the drizzly night at a smorgasbord of cocktails and punk rock luminaries. QDoc is hosting us at a swank hotel and as usush whenever there's a kingsize bed and flat screen tv i've been gorging on network television... just flipped on the TV and weirdly enough there was a show about a transgender prison inmate: an msnbc episode called "LOCKED: RAW - gangster gay boys" that featured a young transwoman named holly berry. i'm actually so glad for this briandead interlude- cause in an instant it reminded me WHY i'm making damelo todo... getting so pissed off about the devastatingly sad mainstream representations of transgender prisoners.

when i tuned in a camera guy was following miss berry out of the her cell as she sashayed gracefully down the corrider, while a voiceover said something like "when i met holly she instisted that i call her 'she.' whereas in reality we know she is a man, as evidenced by the over-exaggerated way she walked, swaying her hips from side to side in a way that no real woman would walk..." holly is in prison because she stabbed to death her abusive boyfriend. she got 25 years for what basically sounds like self defense. an msnbc expert continues, (parsed- just took quick notes as i watched): "holly cries when whenever she thinks it's going to gain her an advantage. for example when we were arguing about whether or not i should call her 'he' or 'she' i had to remind her that in fact she had a penis, which is why she is in a mens prison. so then she starts crying and pulling this whole greta garbo routine..." althought it may be pointless to analyze network television for being exploitative, it reminds me how our culture is SO far from understanding transgender inmates as human.

one of the things i hope to do with damelo todo is show the interlocking effects that crime and poverty have on trans people, especially people of color. how being poor and trans inevitably puts you in positions where you have to break the law (because of widespread transphobia and job discrimination), and then how the criminal justice system generally makes things worse. and it seems obvious but also worth sayin that putting transwomen in mens prison in an inhumane cruelty.

another thing i'm struggling with is representation and violence of stereotype. this is griselda. she was a friend who used to come a lot on tuesdays, and was a very close friend of nicol's. when she first starting hanging out at silver platter, she didn't "dress" (vestidos). shortly after, she started coming and going as a woman. we did a short interview for the film, and she was very shy and didn't say much. i have a little clip of her in the 13-minute teaser, which is starting to play on the festival circuit. i noticed that people always laugh when they see her. she is saying "i don't have a job... because, because... i don't know why i don't have a job." at this point people always laugh. i kind of yell in my head "why is everyone laughing? why is that funny that she doesn't have a job??" i meant that part to be serious, a turning point where the film transitions into talking about sex work. then i realized through discussing it with others is that maybe people look at griselda and think "tranny hooker" and maybe that's why they don't take her seriously. that is one of the main challenges of this movie is to try to talk about the complexity of trans experience while at the same time showing the humanity. (and i don't mean get all enlightenment on yr ass when i say "human" - but literally i mean HUMAN because most people don't even see trans people that way). so i have to re-edit this part, and work extra hard to figure out how to show the gravity of her situation.

last year griselda was arrested for sex work, and deported back to guatemala. nicol has spoken to her on the phone so i know she is doing ok, but also that she really misses LA and hopes to come back. i guess i'm also glad that she didn't suffer too long in a detention center, as so many people do. when damelo todo is done (ever!!!) i'm going to dedicate it to her.

brown solidarity

back in january the nytimes released a report about the influx of chinese immigrants crossing the US border through Arizona- the numbers have increased TENFOLD this past year. the reason is primarily economic within a super complex transcontinental human trafficking system but whatever the reason, these statistics are grounds for evidence that there is growing solidarity amongst brown people within the immigrant rights movement. standing FIRM reports that the asian & pacific islander community in arizona is one of the fastest growing minority populations in the state, nearly doubling in size between 1990 and 2005. this week the asian pacific american legal center and the asian american justice center filed a lawsuit with other national civil rights organizations to challenge SB 1070.

WERK.

there's also a really cute moving video by a young undocumented gay iranian student named mohammad - LOOK.



i'm interested in the intersection of this stuff on a personal level cause my dad immigrated "illegally" the to US from china when he was young, and like mohammad i grew up with the expectation of being able to take advantages of opportunities he never had. unlike mohammad, i didn't have the traumatizing experience of having my opportunity to go to college taken out from under my nose, because of the simple difference that i was born here. i went to college- in fact i was lucky to get a stellar education but the point is there are so many many many young people out who are in this same position. if you take 2 MINUTES to read or watch youth responses to SB1070, i think nuff said.

just to bring it all back to da club, when wildness was getting criticized for gentrification at the time of LA Weekly's 'Best of LA' article - there was an obvious backlash that we didn't "belong" at the bar and our presence was destroying something. did we belong? the question revolved around whether we wildness (myself TOTAL FREEDOM & NGUZUNGUZU) could be a part of the Silver Platter community, or even claim solidarity on the basis of identity race class etc. were we specifically trans Latina immigrant? no. we were collectively trans, Latino, African American, South and East Asian, and queer. i'm not saying that's the answer either, but those are facts. another fact is that we came from different class backgrounds- we were predominantly 1st & 2nd generation immigrant, from varying lower-to-middle income backgrounds. some of us had higher level education (including myself), some no college education at all... more facts that don't necessarily answer the question, but it's a place to start thinking.

speaking of education- there is something that continues to kind of blow my mind when i think about wildness being criticized as an "art school party" - not to say that it was or wasn't. i mean anyone who walked into wildness (or THE TABLE/Jalisco) might look around and make a judgment about the people partying based on age, style, and perceived income level, race and class etc. but actually just the idea that art and school is an inherently bad thing- and it makes me uncomfortable to question this. but i guess i want to put it out there since i've been thinking a lot about the immigrant rights youth movement. because i guess the underlying assumption that i question is: what do people WANT when they encounter oppressed/low income/immigrant community spaces? do we want communities to remain separate and oppressed or do we want to exchange? who decides? what are we really saying when we say that classes don't belong together?

another thing that stuck with me from the whole wildness debate was a comment someone made about asian not being BROWN, which is also unfortunate cause it reminds me that we often don't focus on racism between communities of color, or mixed race communities (i'm mixed) etc. and how that finger pointing just perpetuates the larger (white) racism...

i guess it REALLY comes back to the problem i have with the idea of privilege. i want there to be another way to talk about power. the word privilege is a problem for me because it implies you have like PITY on someone else. it's like this idea of owning one's XYZ privilege (racial, economic, educational etc) is really like saying "i have something that other people don't." but then it's like- who am I to decide what other people DON'T have? how about instead focusing on what I HAVE- isn't that all we can ever really know? or at least if we can start from there, instead of being ashamed, because that is how i often see privilege played out around me... and it causes a LOT of anxiety.

white people get richer people of color do not

just in case there was any question about it...

Racewire reports that  a study released today shows that the wealth gap between whites and blacks in america has increased X4 in our generation's lifetime. i also think the span of the early 80s to almost now (pre-recession) is significant because it's culturally considered our country's so-called "growth years" -aka time of relative economic prospertity...

(thanks again to Jorge Rivas for pointing me to this amazing online journal - go there people go)

(...)

sorry for the slow down in posts... i've been editing up a storm of Damelo Todo with editor suzanne mejean = brain dead + too much to report! aaaaand more exciting news as soon as i'm allowed to share ;)

(wwwwwaaaat viktor & rolf mcqueen combo)