What I've been up to lately

It's been a while since I posted anything!  Honestly, I feel like a lot of the balls I was juggling have dropped for the moment.  Balls like social life, street art photography and tagging, and blogging.  Most of my extra time has been taken up with rehearsals for Hollywood Fringe Festival 2012.  It's a piece of experimental dance-theatre called Tearing the World Apart.  I've been in rehearsals three times a week since the middle of April helping develop this short piece (only 45 minutes).  We're exploring the theme of what happens when you're pushed to the edge, what happens when the world as you know it hangs in the balance, will you push forward to create change? even if that involves the painful destruction of all you know?  Just to make it even more fun, we're using projections, original sound design and performance poetry, and LIVE PAINTING.  It's messy.

        Working on this piece so far has been awesome.  It's been a while since I've done any physical theatre; I'm reminded of why I love it.  As an artist my goal is to serve as a vehicle for expression, to go places that others are unwilling or unable to explore, to take viewers on journeys they wouldn't embark on alone.  This piece, this strange little avantgarde piece of theatre so far has given me that.

And that's kind of the problem.  This piece is developing into something intensely personal.  How could it not?  I'm collaborating with an amazing team of artists (director Naomi Bennet, playwright Barbara Ishida, cocreator Mercedes Manning, actor Alejandro Ruiz, actor Carrie Newell, production designer Heather Fipps, and a couple of other people I haven't met) to create a piece of theatre taking into account the state of the world today, along with our personal stories.  So along the way, my feelings and my journey have wormed their way into the piece.  And that's kind of scary.

So here it is, I'm asking you to come out and see it.  It frightens me to do so, because you may come see this piece and think it's weird.  You might not get it.  You might disagree with some of what's said.  You may learn more about me than I am comfortable telling you.  You may hate it.  Or you might love it.  You might see something like you've never seen before.  You might learn more about me than I'm comfortable telling you.  You might be motivated to take the plunge and change your own world a little bit.

There are a few ways you can support me in this.  Come to our fundraiser on Saturday at 12pm.  We will perform an excerpt of the piece, and then invite the audience to join us to play with paint.  Come get messy!  It's $20, which is kind of steep, but all proceeds go to supplies and rehearsals space and costumes and that kind of good stuff.  If you have kids, bring them!  It will be fun!

Or come see the show!  We have three performances: Sunday June 17 at 5pm, Saturday June 23 at 3pm, and Sunday June 24 at 4:30pm.  It's $10, but if you're really broke I can get you a discount.  Or if you come to the fundraiser AND the performance we have discounts for you.

Or you can donate directly via Indiegogo.  I would really appreciate your support in any capacity.  I feel awkward asking people to give money to something, or to come to a fundraiser and a performance, but I guess I've just got to be humble.  Please help.  Even if all you do is come see me perform, I will notice.  And you'll get something out of it too, I promise.  All my love to you all, thanks for reading!

Mistake!

Never make the mistake
of looking at the Lost and Found page
on Craig's List.
A sadder thing you'll never find.

Sample subject headings read:
LOST!!! Male Jackapoo SoFierce
missing cat (neptune's net)
Lost - Two white doves
Lost Cat/Gato Perdido - Grey and White

Messages include identifying marks and habits,
different colored collars,
and where they were last scene.
Honest unaffected cries to the community at large:
"Please help me find my dog!!!"
"If you have any info, please contact me.  We miss her."

These messages tug at my heart.
I've lost cats.  Not Zaphod.
Normally I skim the internet,
here I take in every word.

Have you seen me?

Miike Snow at the El Rey

I saw Miike Snow at the El Rey on Tuesday.  They played Wednesday too, and also both weekends at Coachella.  I wish I could've gone to all four shows.  I wish I was there right now.

I had one of those ecstatic crowd experiences; everyone was in an awesome, great mood.  We were all there to enjoy the music and the show.  There was no bullshit or drama or weirdness.  Just a bunch of hipsters having a merry old time.

When the show started (I'm sorry to say I didn't recognize the song they led with, so I can't link to it here) the band came out wearing matching black satin jackets with hoods and bronze neutral masks.  Their set consisted of a large circular console in the middle of the stage, painted black and fronted with rows of gold lights.  With the massive amounts of smoke and the yellow lights the whole thing gave the effect of a spaceship made of fire. Manned by attractive aliens.  I turned to my friend and say, real excited like, "I love space!"  I realized after the fact that, out of context, this could've been a confusing statement.

I don't consider myself a music reviewer.  I don't have the vocabulary, and also I sometimes feel shy about my musical taste, because some of it wanders towards what some might call "techno" (slander!).  So I'm not going to go into great detail about the music.  But I'll say this, my only gripe about the show (other than the abysmal opener, The Big Pink) was the lack of dancing space.  But I can't really complain about that because I got down despite the tight quarters, and everyone was busy having too much fun to mind the occasional neighborly bump.

I feel like Miike Snow is intelligent music for science fiction nerds that like to dance.  I feel like Miike Snow is branded towards people who reread Fahrenheit 451 every couple years and are ashamed to admit they like "Toxic" by Britney Spears.  Miike Snow, for me, builds upon my years of listening to David Bowie and DJ Shadow and Massive Attack and Daft Punk and makes perfect sense.  I'm friggin obsessed right now.  They put on a great show-it kind of made my week.

Instagram self portraits

One morning I received a text saying, "We should start a series of Instagram self-portraits." Here is my series.  You may already have seen them...

     

The Best and Brightest Cleanse Ever!

I did approximately 17 days of cleansing this month.  That's consecutive, of course, since one day on/one day off would hardly be effective.  I recently noticed a tincture at the back of my cupboard to cleanse your lymph system, and I thought, "Maybe I should do that.  It's been a while." Generally when I have a spontaneous thought-germ like that I try to follow it.  I figure my brain fed me that idea for a reason, so I decided to go for it.  My herbalist counseled that in order to properly cleanse my lymphatic system I needed to clean my elimination organs first (liver, kidneys, colon).  Seemed like a good idea; I knew my liver for one could definitely use a good bath.

Let me give you a bit background on your lymph system, and please, forgive any errors, I'm a total laymen.  Your lymph system is comprised of your lymph nodes, tonsils, spleen, and thymus gland (I have no idea what that one does).   It's like a highway for your circulatory system and your major organs: removing waste, toxins, cancer cells, pathogens, and dead blood cells, and also providing nutrients, white blood cells and hormones to your blood.  Unlike your circulatory system, which has this great pump called your heart to keep it going, the lymph system has no pump, so when it gets clogged up it's more difficult to drain.  Exercise is a great way to stimulate your lymph system.  Stimulating your lymph system promotes healing.  

Cleansing my lymph system seemed like a good idea because I'd been sick a couple times lately, and when I get sick it often starts in my tonsils.  Also, I had sort of a tough month February (as if you hadn't noticed) and I needed something difficult to sink into.  I'm a glutton for punishment I guess.

I decided to do 10 day whole body cleanse first, and then move on to my lymph cleanse.  This isn't one of those things where you fast and drink only a wacky version of lemonade.  No, instead it's just a bunch of supplements to take every day, while eating clean.  I assumed that cleansing would be pretty easy.  I mean, I had already pretty much cut out alcohol and caffeine, because I knew I wanted to cleanse, and after the holidays I needed a break.  And I already eat pretty healthily; I don't eat gluten at all, and I don't eat that much starch either.  I don't eat lots of red meat, I like eating lots of raw veggies and salad, no fast food; you get the picture.  So the main thing was to cut out dairy (except yogurt - it doesn't deserve to be called dairy), and really commit to no alcohol.  Easy.  Besides when I first started seeing my herbalist, Jeff, I cleansed very successfully for about a month.  Now that I'm all enlightened and shit I got this.

So it turns out that was really the wrong attitude.  Surprise!  Going into something assuming victory doesn't always lead to victory.  Whaaaaat?  Right around day 3 or 4 of my first cleanse I REALLY didn't want to be doing it.  Without the motivation of a recent major illness my resolve to cleanse was seriously disabled.  I wanted to have a glass of wine with a friend.  Not 3 glasses of wine, just one.  And I wanted to be able to eat a little ice cream at work.  On numerous occasions I had a cleanse-fail, usually involving alcohol and a friend I hadn't seen in a while.  At first I was really bummed, down on myself.  I wanted this to be the Best and Brightest Cleanse Ever!  But then I decided okay, this isn't the last cleanse.  And I started it, I bought the supplements, I'm going to finish it.  I mean, if you fall off your bike you've got to get right back on, yeah? 

So I recommitted, and went on to cleanse number 2.  And fuck, it was just as difficult!  Turns out, I'm pretty tough on myself already, as far as food goes, and I have no interest in making life more difficult in that arena. I'll cleanse again, and when I do it I'll approach it with less hubris and more humility.  Because I think it is a valuable exercise, both physically and mentally.

I'll close with an anecdote.  A new enthusiastic student of Buddhism went to her teacher and asked, "If I meditate four hours a day how long will it take to reach enlightenment?" His teacher told him it would take 10 years.  To which the student asked, "If I meditate for eight hours a day then how long will it take to reach enlightenment?" Her teacher's response: "Twenty years."  Nothing gets easier as you advance.  The lessons become more complex and difficult as your ability to rise to the occasion grows.