intellectual properties

QOTD

“don’t invent too many reasons for what you have decided to do!”

–from Susan Sontag’s “In America“, a book i am very much enjoying and highly recommend.

january fitness report

i did it. even with being sick all last week and not going to the gym even once, i still beat december.

i lifted fewer pounds than in december but scored more points because cardio gets more points than weight lifted (1 Point for every 100lbs lifted vs. 5 points for each cardio minute), so if it’s raining and i’m not riding my bike, that’s 60 minutes a day in cardio i probably won’t get, because when i go to the gym i’d rather lift weights than run on a treadmill.

now that i’m feeling 99% better with my back problem i feel like i can be much more active, and now that it’s getting lighter out every day, as soon as this rain goes away i look forward to really getting in shape for spring. yay!

a dozen

12 years ago today jay and i went on our first date.  i can’t tell you where the years went, or “how we do it”, or what it means for our future.  our relationship has been minute by minute, day by day, month by month, and now, year by year.  i won’t say it’s easy, i won’t say it’s perfect, and can’t even say with any certainty it’s forever.  these expectations have never been there with us, yet here we are, years after other promised marriages have failed. is that the key?   i can’t even tell you that i know what love really is.  all i know is that every day i wake up next to my best friend,  and i can’t imagine my world without him.

besos to you, darling.  and many more.

here’s something you don’t see very often.

original uploaded by Owen Geronimo

me, on stage, with a microphone. i held it together though, i think.

i was judging the creations of some of SF’s finest at @ FASHION FEUD Finals, San Francisco, Jan. 26, 2010. more on that later.

words about oakland

this has been slapped in large typewriter print on 8.5×11″ paper onto telephone poles all over my neighborhood, and i’ve been reading it/meditating on it while waiting for the bus at peralta and 24th street all this week. thx to oaktownart.com for typing it up (and for all the other stuff about oakland art/music/food they’ve been posting too…). i added some line breaks, because i wanted to.

There are millions and millions of people in the city. There are people arguing in the streets. People looking out their windows to see what all that noise is about. People driving their cars, riding bikes, walking, staying put, people moving just because they can’t stand to stay still. Cowboys doing tai chi in the park. Single moms jogging. Cops giving tickets. Haters hating. Old Asian ladies playing hacky sack. Kids throwing fits on the bus. Scam artists sitting outside of grocery stores with a typewriter, selling what he calls poems. Baristas getting hit on. Hipsters calling each other hipsters. Teen girls wearing pajama bottoms and flip flops.

People are putting their trash outside of their houses, cuz Earth Day is once a year but trash day is every week. Some people are taking that trash home, sleeping on it, dusting it off, eating it, hanging it on their wall and then throwing it away again after a week.

This one kid was killed by a cop who meant to taser him. People are rioting because of that kid. This one girl is saying that it’s lame they should torch some innocent stranger’s car and this one guy is saying that some white artist hipster slumming it up in what she thinks is the ghetto being more concerned about the destruction of property than the violence against youth of color is a part of the reason that kid was killed. Oh snap, those people aren’t talking to each other after that shit!

Someone is just going to work, minding her own business. Someone around the corner used to be in a popular band in the 90’s, The Counting Crows I think. Someone is quietly doing charity work. Someone is spitting on the liars and hypocrites in the name of Jesus Christ. Someone fell asleep on the bus.

People are playing music. They’re walking down the street, rapping. They’re performing for elementary school children. They’re only playing to the sound guy. They’re making country music, city music, fifth wave ska, traditional Balkan dance songs exactly like they have been played for centuries (they imagine). They’re taking old music and adding electronic dance beats, beats antique. They’re making the newest sounds. They’re imitating their favorite bands. They’re playing music alone in their room.

Everyone’s dumpster diving. Everyone’s watching lots and lots of TV shows on DVD. Everyone’s littering like crazy. Everyone drives up on the weekends to hit up the bars. Everyone’s wearing oversized white t-shirts and baggy jeans so the cops can’t tell them apart. Everyone’s jaywalking inhumanly slow. Everyone’s having unprotected sex. Everyone’s putting up signs saying they reserve the right to refuse service, for any reason. Everyone’s playing dice on the sidewalk. Someone’s saying its a pity. Someone’s gonna call the cops if you don’t get out of here this very second. Someone else lives here too, you know.

She’s getting the shit kicked out of her. She’s singing the Dead Kennedys songs while she bikes home. She’s teaching yoga. She loves the Lord, Lordy Lord. She walks into a restaurant, sits down at a table that still have food on it and eats.

He’s applying for a job at every goddamn corporate eatery on this goddamn street. He’s waiting for the library to open. He’s telling every young woman who walks by that she’s beautiful, but in the most obnoxious ways possible. He’s going to night school so he isn’t pushing a broom when he’s forty. He’s selling bootleg DVDs and drugs.

They’re reading the Koran, books on how to fix appliances, Found magazine, Chick tracts, the whole Harry Potter series for the 2rd time and the newest issue of Cometbus.

You are being racially profiled. You’re dressing up like a goblin for your jug band’s concerts. You’re looking good! You’re hooking up with people from the internet. You aren’t racist or anything, but you won’t go to certain parts of town after dark. You’re just looking for a decent cup of coffee. You have the right to remain silent. FOR FEAR THE HEARTS OF MEN ARE FAILING.

is this the work of some white neo-beatnik from LoBot? or a conscious hiphopper from the other end of the hood? who can tell, but i like it.

illin’

jay got sick last thurs night with what was at first thought to be food poisoning, from what unsure, and he was in bed and didn’t eat for 2 days.  which, you now, for a diabetic, is a little scary.  we went to a dinner party saturday night, and he sat in a room full of food and didn’t eat a thing.  i was feeling fine right up into that dinner party, although sluggish that afternoon, but at around 5AM sunday morning i woke up to a headache like i haven’t had since the last time we went to las vegas and my stomach in knots. i then spent all day sunday and all day monday in bed, under covers, eyes closed, unable to eat or drink a thing without it coming back up, my body literally shutting down.  yesterday i pulled myself together to go to work for a few hours and then attend the SF Fashion Feud, where, fueled by a red bull and a burrito, i finally started feeling like myself again.

however, going to bed after having your first meal in 3 days be a red bull and a burrito isn’t a recipe for a good night’s sleep, and i had some seriously tumultous dreams last night. i don’t remember all of them except the one right before i woke up, but i do know that they were all anxious, stressful, uneasy.

this is the one i recall:

i pulled out of the gate of my loft building in west oakland (a neighborhood often riddled with street crime IRL) onto the one-way street, going the wrong direction.  i was in some sort of high-speed golf cart type thing.  i was driving fast, the wrong direction.  i had a machine gun, or some other automatic weapon. i was firing streams of bullets randomly across the plaza intersection of West Grand and Mandela Parkway, in all directions, at oncoming traffic. i was full-throttle.  i was alone.  i was brazen.  i did not care.  i was blank.  i headed up mandela parkway, still going the wrong way, until i saw, parked ahead, a police car.  i abandoned my golf-cart and weapon.  i made it look like i was on foot.  i went running up the police car, suddenly the victim.  i was crying.  i was telling what i saw, giving the witness account but knowing that i was the one who had done it, guilt tying my stomach in knots, hoping to not get caught. this went on for a while, me playing the victim while knowing i was the offender. the anxiety, the self-hatred, was overwhelming. i couldn’t tell if i was remorseful about what i had done, or if i just didn’t want to get caught.  there didn’t seem to be a lot of remorse. just a lot of not wanting to get caught.

i woke feeling sick to my stomach, some of which leftover from my actual illness, some from the dream. i have never in my life been inclined to such violence. there is no part of me that even wants to play “shoot ‘em up” video games, where one pretends to kill. i have had a few violent outbursts in my life, and they totally caught me offguard.  so waking from this dream - in which initially i was utterly void of guilt, willing to kill innocents to express my anger and rage (at what i still don’t know) - i was horrified at myself.  that any part of my psyche could even have that ability. and then to flip to the role of being the guilty person pretending to be the victim - a person who would steal and rob and kill and then blame others, and then claim it was an act against them. that mindset was, in the end, even more disturbing than the initial role, more gut-wrenching. to live with that.

my coworker suggests that in our dreams, we are all of the roles, and that in this instance i was 1. the aggressor 2. the cop and 3. the victim.  and that some part of me is doing/wants to do something i know is wrong, then another part of me that stops me from doing it, and then i feel restrained, but guilty for even doing/wanting to do the thing in the first place, finally representing my feeling of restraint as being a victim. upon reflection i do not know what this thing is in my life that i could be feeling this way about. i could take some guesses, but there is nothing front of mind.

OR, perhaps i was putting myself in all 3 roles as a sort of empathic exercise.  there hasn’t been any recent significant bout of violence in my immediate ‘hood, but i still see signs of it on a daily basis, and reading the news there is no escaping the reality that life for the poor is only only getting poorer, and imaging that frustration is maybe where these dreams come from, as i ride the bus or bike through the city and see the homeless with their shopping carts, the youth with their attempts at making themselves feel big and part of something bigger, the elderly just trying to get by as invisibly as possible, having learned that standing out often only means being beaten down.

regardless of interpretation, i awoke with all of this in my consciousness, still feeling a little ill, waiting restlessly for the day when the entire world can take a global sigh of relief.

TONIGHT: Fashion Feud @ Mighty SF: Free!

I’m judging this event @ Mighty tonight, the finale of a series of events that have been going on for a while now.  it’s like a “Project Runway” sort of thing, where each designer has an hour to make something live on stage.  during that hour+, the audience shops the vendors and has cocktails, and then votes by applause at the end.

come check it out if you’re into such things, and/or find yourself needing a cocktail around 119 Utah at about 7-8:00.

FASHION FEUD San Francisco, FINAL COMPETITION on Jan. 26, 2010.

Sponsored by SCION in collaboration with SAN FRANCISCO FASHION AND MERCHANTS ALLIANCE, INC. http://www.sffama.com/

FASHION FEUD is a live “Project Runway” like competition on stage. Designers are given an hour to create a design to prepare for a runway on stage. The audience will choose who the best designer of the evening by their resounding applause. Fabrics will be provided from”Mood Fabrics New York”. This event is sponsored by “SCION”. Final Feud is on January 26th, 2010.

The audience with the help of the judges (in case of a tie) will decide who the best designer of this competition with their resounding applause. Fabrics will be provided from”Mood Fabrics New York”. This FREE event is sponsored by “SCION”. Invite your friends.

FREE EVENT. NO COVER. CASH BAR. 21+ OVER.

Venue Location:
MIGHTY, 119 Utah Street, San Francisco, CA
http://www.mighty119.com/

MORE DETAILS AT EVENT’S WEBSITE: http://www.fashionfeud.net/

Featuring Local Designers:
- JULIA MEEKS - http://julia-meeks.blogspot.com/
- GAIL B. SHRIVE - http://www.gbshrivedesigns.com/
- ALEXANDRIA VON BROMSSEN - http://www.vonbromssen.com/Home.html

Models:
- ASHTON ROUNDS (for Julia Meeks)
- JEN LAZORACK (for Gail B. Shrive)
- KARA KRAUSS (for Alexandria Von Bromssen)

Judges:
AMY LEBLANC - http://www.amyleblanc.com/
BACCA DA SILVA - http://www.baccadasilva.com/
OLIVIA ONGPIN - http://www.fabric8.com/

Make-Up and Hair By: San Francisco Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology
- http://www.sfiec.edu/

With Your Favorite Local Indie VENDORS:

Live Heartfelt http://liveheartfelt.com/
Colors By Liza http://colorsbyliza.com/
Edible Love Chocolates http://www.ediblelove.com/
Rachel Lloyd www.papergirl.vpweb.com
Gypsy and Lord http://www.gypsiesandlords.com/
Left Bank Shop http://leftbankshop.com/
Elle Bang http://www.ellebang.com/thucelle.html
Intwined http://intwined.etsy.com/
KT Mo Designs http://kathleenmcmahon.com/
Weberglass http://www.weberglass.com/
J Dash http://www.dashetc.com
Thu Pham http://www.thucelle.com

…AND MORE!
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS:
FACEBOOK INVITE: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=215367591902
PRINT FREE TICKET:
http://fashionfeudfinals01262010.eventbrite.com/

MLK and the dream

today, remembering that only 50 years ago, white people in this country thought it was just fine to separate people by color, to deny them freedoms and rights and treat them like animals.  may it be so that in 50 years from now, the people who are still fighting for equality in America today (gays, immigrants, among others) will look back at now as a time in history when people fought for change and won.

a few choice quotes from MLK, Jr:

“I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land.” - 1964 Nobel peace prize acceptance speech

“Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word “maladjusted.” Now we all should seek to live a well—adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things.”

“…it is no longer the choice between violence and non-violence. it is the choice between non-violence and non-existence.”

Realize the Dream

the results are in

in the ongoing saga of my body pain (10 weeks in):

first, as reported, since i modified my desk at work to be a standing desk, my daily pain level has all but disappeared unless i do something bad to aggravate it. this is GREAT, but the condition is still there, and can be aggravated.

the results of my MRI last friday are as such:

there is, still, as of last friday, 9+ weeks after the pain started, a continuing deep muscle spasm going on in my upper back that has been unresponsive to heat, massage, and muscle relaxers. the muscle spasm is also constricting all the other muscles around it and is likely what’s causing most of the pain.

also, two of the discs in my upper spine/neck are “bulging”, one of which is impeding the movement of my spinal cord, but probably not causing much of the pain/discomfort as i don’t have too many nerve-related symptoms, but the bulging discs could be what’s causing the muscle spasm, but maybe not. inconclusive.

at this point, there is nothing more really to do other than what i am already doing to try to relieve the muscle spasm and ease the pressure on my discs as well as strengthen the muscles around my spine. modifying my life to do these things and also avoid aggravating this problem hasn’t been difficult, but i’m not sure what it means for the long haul (i can’t stand and work for the rest of my life, i’m pretty sure). unfortunately the fact is that as you age, problems like this only get worse, but i’m trying not to think too much about that right now. i’m just relieved there is SOME explanation, and knowing that there was nothing worse going on and that i’m doing all the right things is a huge relief. sigh.

butoh

i never imagined i’d perform butoh before i did it. sometimes i see myself dong this crazy thing, this macabre expression, this walking slowly with fists clenched looking as though in anguish and/or frozen joy, face painted white and knees trembling, this shamelessly raw unfettered expression, this adoration of the self. who would want or need this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butoh

the workshop i did last weekend involved walking really, really slowly across a room but maintaining intense presence, resistance activities with partners (e.g. pushing eachother backward as hard as you can),
imagining an object is the physical manifestation of everything good about yourself and offering it to others (projection), imaging an object is everything bad about yourself and sharing it with others,

running ecstatically, using breath to create energy waves in the body.

i know it might sound silly, but think about it: it’s the kinds of things you might have done as a small child, games to play with yourself and others, and don’t do anymore.  it feels good.

also: it can be physically intense. i was sore for 3 days after last weekend. but it doesn’t have to be.  you can take it easy on yourself too.

there is a free workshop this weekend in SoMa SF.  if you are interested, let me know, and i will point you the way.

Bad Unkl Sista is offering free introductory butoh and multi-genre performance training for anyone interested…no performance or dance skills required…the only thing required is a desire to see yourself and others from a different angle..

http://www.badunklsista.com