intellectual properties

nymphy

for the Midsummer Night’s Revelry party-within-a-party at Priceless, which was by all counts a raging success:

inspired by this:

i wanted to do more with body make-up to make me look really dirty (like this), but that seemed like a lot of work while getting ready in a tent on a 90+ degree afternoon.

more later on the dream.

rock bands and hottubs and bunnies, oh my

weekend was:

3:00 friday, left work, BARTed to millbrae with whit&nicole, jay picked us up and we went for yummy thai food dinner in palo alto, had pre-show drinks etc. on the sunny and grassy knolls @ google HQ which is right next to Shoreline venue, went to NIN/JA show, rocked out so hard i had neck ache for next 2 days.  two 90-minute sets, first NIN then Jane’s, both excellent in their own ways and i really hope it wasn’t the last time i see either of them. more than a little disappointed that there was zero on-stage collaboration, not even for an encore. perry farrell’s corset+custom clothing was super haute (can you believe he’s 50?), and dave navarro is still so HOT. jay’s got lots of linked footage on his blog.

saturday AM, woke up with neck ache and slight hangover, but got ready and picked up kelly and we drove the 2.5-3 hrs north through wine country to harbin hot springs to meet up with the current bride-to-be and friends.  spent sat-sun afternoon soaking in the sun and the pools, eating delicious foods, and pretty much just blissed out.  had a mini bride-appreciation ceremony-ritual next to the super cool cave-like waterfall underneath the roots of the giant fig trees, which we lit up with our headlamps tied to trees, other than that, no other “bachelorette” hullabaloo. it was a different experience being there without an obvious partner and did feel a little bit more defensive/skeeved out by the somewhat aggressive prowly types. definitely would never go there alone, not out of fear, but just….not as fun.

came back sunday afternoon, then went into SF for the evening and hung out in the mission and then with reagan & nicole in whit’s hot tub.  so much hottubing this weekend.

monday morning got up and went to china camp with jay and zach and hiked while they biked.  first time hiking with an iPod – and there was definitely dancing involved. i listened to fleetwood mac most of the 90-minute hike.  discovered i hike a lot faster to music and don’t pause/meander as much.  more aerobic. gorgeous sunny day with perfect blue skies.

later monday eve we watched “hank and mike“, a fairly twisted movie based on the premise that easter bunnies are real (not “THE easter bunny”, but millions of worldwide workers, kind of like postal carriers), with a very dark humor bent – kind of like “Elf”, but definitely, definitively, not suitable for children. in fact, not suitable for a lot of people. loved the overly evil corporate character played by chris klein.  the farcical opposite of FP-speak. better, and way darker, than expected reading the description. netflix it.

during the movie i also experimented with some new hair color and i now have EXTREMELY bright red hair. bordering on hot pink in the sun. not sure if i like it yet better than the other red – we’ll see how it fades. it’s an actual DYE that i used instead of a pigment, so if it holds up i’ll be super excited to not deal with the messy punk rock hair dye anymore.

i was all over the place this weekend – south bay, north bay, west bay, east bay.  i got a bit tired of driving around, but it was a good long wonderful weekend and actually felt like a little vacation instead of just a blur between friday and monday. 

this weekend:  ZimTrix wedding in the woods! yay!

dancing in the woods 2009

happy May Day!

come dance with me in the woods May 17 at Joaquin Miller in oakland @ Spring Training – Free day party! waterfalls! music! picnics! bay views! trees!

and then again july 4 weekend at the 4th annual best-disco-camping-party-ever, Priceless - tickets on sale today! and they *will* sell out! river! canyon! trains! music! costumage! art! trees!

i don’t intend to go to any of the other disco campouts this year…including burning man. so this is it!

saturday night

@alchemy with my twin, kamileon

double conjoined-at-the-waist corset by antiseptic fashion

earrings by kiyumi jewelry

airbrush by Icarus

Alchemy in the SFBG

alchemy v3.0

please come:

On Saturday April 25, False Profit, LLC and Missing Piece will present ALCHEMY, a live and interactive art and fashion event that turns the elements of your imagination to gold. Returning for its third year, Alchemy is packed with interactive art installations built to engage and amaze you: a collaborative live art event of carnivalesque proportions! Refashioning notions of standard art, the artists and participants will toy with and combine different mediums for unlikely results. Get there in time for the fashion show at 10pm, before the space fills up!

Interactive art installations include:
* Perceptron Project, your movements create the music

* Spontaneous Combustamotion, a reactive video installation

* Mr. Potato Friend, movable body part portraiture

* The Painted Lady, add to her beauty or add to yours

* Kinetic Sculptures, to crank and turn

* Phosphor Essence, multi-controller video feedback game

* Split Personality Reorder, add your thoughts into its head

* Live Painting, Balloon Games, Shrinky Dinks, Creative Writing, a Photo Booth, Face Painting, Prizes, Cotton Candy, and more!

* Don’t miss the “Solid Gold” fashion show by Missing Piece @ 10pm
The show features performance and alchemy-inspired fashion from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Europe. Participants include: Mandeep Sethi, Laura Stokes, Bodhi Cole, Montree, Ivana Ristic, Fou Fou Ha!, Miranda Caroligne, Callibug Designs, Invisible Hero, Antiseptic Fashion, Chrystie Cappelli, and Missfortune Designs

Saturday, April 25th @ California Modern Art Gallery
1035 Market Street, SF
9pm-2am
$15-20 at the door
Cash Bar
www.false-profit.com/alchemy

i will certainly be in attendance, if not on the runway.

2 requests/demands

i know i am about to eat my tail because i haven’t blogged about last weekend yet and this one starts in -3 minutes, but i just. haven’t. yet. i hope to do so tonight.

in the meantime, 2 items for you about 2 things that are very important to me:

1. i am going to ask you again to please sign this petition for a sustainable USDA. scroll down to read the petition and request. if you have questions, ask them, and i will do my best to answer or point you in the direction of some further information. but the gist is: our current food production model really sucks. we are raping the environment. we are making bad food cheap, and good food expensive. farmers are struggling nationwide. and i say WE, because it is our government, and our tax dollars. so sign it.

2. if you are within reasonable distance of san francisco, i urge you to come to this party tomorrow night, BEFORE 11pm, to see jay blow up the dancefloor. srsly. no joke. you do not want to miss this.

Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 10:00pm
Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 4:00am
Cellspace
2050 Bryant Street
SF, CA
$15 at the door
SPACE IS LIMITED, so come early. if you come late and don’t get in, blame yourself, not the recession.

voteVOTEvoteVOTEvote

halloween was fun and all, but because prop8 was my pet issue this election, i failed to voice my opinion earlier on some of the other things on the ballot that i think are super important and/or i’m passionate about and i think i should blog about those first.

Proposition 2: Fair Treatment of Farm Animals: as a vegetarian for almost 10 years out of concern for animal welfare and the environment, i’m in full support of prop2. this measure will give farm animals more room to do things like lie down that unfortunately many animals don’t already have because industrial farms will do anything to maximize profit, even cruel, disgusting things. also, smaller, better managed farms protect your air and water which are polluted by huge factory farms, which is not only good for the environment but helps family farmers. mostly though, if you vote no on this, you are heartless and cruel.

Proposition 4 aka “Sarah’s Law”: Waiting Period and Parental Notification for Abortion. the third time’s a charm, people. VOTE NO, AGAIN. while i understand the stated fears of repercussions for very young girls (not getting proper aftercare, sexual crimes not reported properly), i think the repercussions the other way (like minors going to people who are NOT doctors for abortions instead so their parents won’t be notified) far outweigh the few instances wherein this might make a difference. this essentially will create a black market for non-parentally-notified abortions, which will cause more problems than it will solve, guaranteed.

and while it might seem intuitive to vote YES on alternative energy propositions, the fact is that both Prop 7 and Prop 10 are flat-out greenwashing that will only result in certain groups/people making tons of money with little benefit to citizens or the green energy market. specifically, vote NO on 7 because it “Caps price impacts on consumer’s electricity bills at less than 3 percent” and “Utilities entering into contracts with alternative fuel providers will be required to sign 20-year contracts.” caps the price? 20-year contract? since when has the energy market stayed stable for 2 years, let alone 20? why is it a good idea to cap and control prices on something that should fluctuate with market demand?  hell, even the UTILITIES are against it, and they’re the ones who probably stand to profit most! the only backers of this are some billionare dude – something is sketchy here. likewise, prop 10 is being funded by one petroleum billionaire who just wants to make a fuckton of money. oh, and it’s expensive and not actually very feasible.

for information on things on YOUR ballot, wherever you live in the U.S., visit Ballotopedia. For info on CA ballots, click here for statewide or here to find your city/county. for a local SF cheatsheet, i suggest the False-Profit 2008 Voter Guide.

it’s the end of the world as we know it

we arrived at the little mining town (population: 26) on the river thursday night, put up camp and went to sleep, and when i woke up friday morning to a blue sky and sun coming through the leaves of trees through the mesh ceiling of my tent, i was genuinely happy. i can’t remember the last time i woke up happy, which is sort of sad, but i was so happy to feel happy i didn’t dwell on that too much.

the weekend went as well as it could have, no major SNAFUs although with the shift in timing it was much cooler and the nights were downright cold. the beach party wasn’t as crazy this year because the sun never really hit the sand and the river water was incredibly chilly, but on the upside we weren’t sweating buckets in 115 degree july heat again either. i slept a fair number of hours, although broken up into chunks of 3 or 4 instead of 8 straight, and danced to my heart’s content throughout the cycles of days and nights, in the middle of the night and at dawn and in the morning and in the glorious afternoon, feet endlessly shuffling in the dust. the dr. seuss party was certainly a highlight, the whimsy and creativity of my friends being utterly delightful, and even the manual labor activities like sorting through refuse seem fun when you’re surrounded by forest and friends.

we stayed an extra night after the sound was turned off and the party was dismantled and the ground cleaned and the truck loaded and everyone else hustled off back to the cities. the little mining town had reverted to it’s normal mode as a pit stop on the long winding highway up the canyon. gone were the brightly colored lights and decorations and hundreds of laughing humans and groundshaking speakers to satisfy the incessant dancers, and again there was just a quiet country road and the rush of the river and the trucks on the highway and the trains rattling through the canyon and the occasional bang of the screen door on the only game in town: the saloon. we had a quiet dinner and a few beers in the bar and talked to 3 hikers who’d come down off the nearby Pacific Crest Trail into town for some showers and food. 1400 miles they’d walked so far, from Canada on their way to Mexico. when asked what was the strangest creature/finding they’d come across all those days in the wilderness, they answered “Randy”, Randy being a true feral human who is somewhat of a legend on the PCT.

we went to bed early sunday night and slept and slept in the quiet darkness, snug in our sleeping bags, looking up at the stars. think it was important that we stayed another night, after all the dancing and sound and social activity and labor, to chill out and rest and really take a break. we had a lazy monday morning in the quiet little town and came home to oakland in the late afternoon, almost exactly 4 days after we’d left.

when we got back to the loft, before we’d even entered the building, our neighbor came out to report that someone had just attempted to rob him at a restaurant down the street (walked by and swiped his iPhone off the table while he was eating lunch, but was tackled on his way out), and had we read the news today? the stock market crashed! banks are collapsing! things are getting weird! the madness! and jay and i both just sort of said…..hm. that’s interesting. i feel fine.

so, yeah. it turns out that spending 4 days in the woods dancing and making fun with my friends relieved pretty much all of my symptoms. this is majorly relieving in that at the moment i am no longer worrying that i have some sort of neurological problem or other physical malady, but unnerving in that it would seem that i apparently just suffered what might be classified as a nervous breakdown at the age of almost 32. what i need to do about that remains to be seen and indeed some things need to be sorted out.

on the other hand, it also proves that all this tomfoolery is a worthwhile human endeavor and not a gigantic waste of time and energy, as some might think, and as i have often pondered. healthy doses of unreality and hedonistic escapism are increasingly important in today’s mad world, and i’m just not very good at being a hedon. some people who spend countless hours in front of the television watching NASCAR and the NFL might find what we do totally inane and silly; people search for their escape from the mundane and heavy realities of this world in many different ways (television, consumerism, fanatacism (sports, religion)); some are more productive than others, but i digress on that point. all i’m saying is that apparently i desperately needed to chill the fuck out and have some fun, and this past weekend provided that for me as nothing else has been able to in quite some time, including burning man. at the risk of being cheesy, that’s priceless.

properly EVACuated

so, yes, the huge party we planned to throw in the mountains this weekend was postponed due to those mountains being on fire. however, not content to just throw up hands and spend the weekend drinking beer, BBQing and watching fireworks like the rest of America, the False Profit crew instead rallied to create a replacement event, properly named EVAC!, on the fly. there was too much energy, too much excitement, too many resources, too much WANT to let mother nature keep us down. there was still a BBQ and beer drinking and badminton and frisbee and traditional enjoyment of the 4th of july on Friday afternoon at Lake Anza in the berkeley hills, and the tradition of watching the fog change colors from the comfort of jason’s hot tub later that night, but then it was back to reconstruction.

thankfully, a venue was available, a warehouse space of a friend, and as soon as the word “yes” was uttered, the team began shifting everything from outdoor to indoor focus. saturday morning around 11 am jay and i arrived at the warehouse, which had already been cleared out by a team the day before, and from then until about 6:30 pm it was the usual procedure to transform an empty cement box into a comfortable, inviting, and aesthetically appealing entertainment venue. there was carpentry to be done (build DJ booth), electrical work to figure out (patch custom power box into existing system), sound system placement, lighting design, outdoor perimeter to be defined, food and beverage organization, art to be hung and presented, and creation of a comfortable, fluffy chill space for people to relax into. to have put it all together in more or less 8 hours is no small feat. having compressed amount of time means everything is done much more minimally, but in some ways also makes it all more efficient.

we went home for about two hours to eat and change, and then headed back. from the time the doors opened, the party expanded rapidly to the point that we had to stop letting people in. it was a sweaty mass of people inside, having a brilliant time. the night flowed perfectly, with only one moment of “oh shit” when someone hit the “the cops are here” button by accident. false alarm! please continue partying.

at one point, i realized i was having one of those moments on the dancefloor that i’m always searching for: i wasn’t thinking about tomorrow, or yesterday, or work, or relationships, or any of the little things that tend to spin in my brain, or even occupied with keeping tabs on the logistics of the party as i am wont to do (especially when i had volunteered to be the sober police liaison for the night); i was surrounded by beautiful humans and i was completely happy and enjoying myself. i realized, again, at that moment, how much all of this means to me, particularly those moments. like everything else (most especially burning man), i tend to constantly weigh the merits and drawbacks of putting such extensive amounts of time and resources into something so decadent that many others would not only see as “wasteful”, but perhaps even selfish, and for this reason am generally not the most optimistic or most “psyched” when it comes to investing in these things. i often let the nagging guilts associated with such privilege get to me, which makes me reluctant to enjoy. is simply creating a joyful experience a good use of so much energy, so much thought, so much money? is escapism a valuable product? forgetting any moral imperatives or contexts outside of our own, when you consider this in terms of our limited time on this planet, the answer can only be yes. and not only were we having an excellent time and releasing some steam ourselves; many guests throughout the night expressed their gratitude and enjoyment.

when the morning light began to creep in the skylights and the crowd began to thin, we started to slowly shift gears away from blissed-out back into logistical mode. after the last beat dropped at 6:00AM, like a video in rewind we quickly took apart, removed, undid, cleaned and repacked everything until once again there was an empty cement box. to say it was surreal to stand there and look at that empty room after when not but a few hours before it was filled to capacity with people and lights and sound is an understatement.

at 8:00am jay and i left and went to our friend’s house for some breakfast and a much needed soak in his outdoor hottub to soothe our tired bodies. by 11:00am, we were home and in bed, 24 hours later.

it’s so mind-boggling to me, not only that such a thing CAN happen, but that WE can make such a thing happen (i said to someone who asked how we were dealing with it all – “shit happened, and so we’re making shit happen”) . it’s also rather mind boggling how some 24 hours are so, so much more filled with life and joy and love while others are so completely mundane. i admire those who strive to produce as many of the joy-filled time capsules as possible, not only for themselves, but to share with others, and i feel incredibly blessed to have a group of people who are HELL BENT on making those moments happen.

Sweet visuals at EVAC!, originally uploaded by JasonUnbound.
dealt an unexpected, last-minute load of wildfire-singed lemons, false profit deftly enters the lemonade business.
and this was some serious lemonade.

despite being 100% sober throughout all of EVAC and getting tons of sleep yesterday, my brain is still totally fried. i also have one of those deep body aches that only means i danced like Gumby for a lot of continuous hours, but it hurts good.

props: to everyone who worked so hard to pull that one out of a striped hat. FEMA needs crews like ours.

giving it all to keep the Fun Index from dropping like it’s hot: priceless.