inspiring change

there are cheers, chants, and fireworks in the streets of dc. hope seems to have flood the air almost immediately, like a new year's eve come early. a new chance. a new opportunity. remembering back when i was sure i would never see a black president in my lifetime, now overcome with excitement and pride as our country takes it's next bold progressive step. just brought to tears by our president elect, i hope for the future of this country. "...nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change."

why i love jon stewart

below is last night's interview with peggy noonan, author of patriotic grace: what is it and why we need it now. jon makes a number of wonderful no-bullshit points and peggy draws a beautiful conclusion. enjoy.

see

watch

look

feet

i love this photo. i found it while browsing my archives yesterday. it was taken @ britiskink when the peong went to see paul to get tatted. sweet trini was there to keep the tatted from tears. much love to my west indies family.ps. i wanna point out that this photo 'feet' was only made interesting by sweet trini's need to elevate her foot due to a contusion suffered during the pack for trinidad. her crutches are on the wall to her right.

lively up yourself

the king of bongo

staying power

so after designing my last two tattoos and getting tons of positive response from a variety of people, i designed a couple tattoos for ms. sierra @ request. in fact, a number of people have asked me to design ink for them. anyway, she was so happy with the work that she's already got the first of the two done. there is something incredible and a little hot about seeing my work in that kind of life-long-permanence. try to forgive her wardrobe, she's working for the banquets department @ work for the moment. i left the images big so you can see the detail - and it's not a perfect shot because the tat is still peeling. ps: i was once told by an amasing tattooist (my artist paul roe) that i should leave room for the tattoo artist to add their own touch; something i don't do with my own ink but tried to do with her designs and i think the tattooists touches are really nice.

dc: what's going on?

less than 24hours after my last post went up (weeks since violence ravaged the neighbourhood) a drive-by shooter opened fire on 1corner of trinidad early saturday morning, wounding 7, killing 1; a 13year-old boy who was here visiting his grandmother from alabama. ... as a result, the trinidad roadblocks are back in place permanantly until further notice.

dc: there's no place like home

after 4days away from dc over independence weekend i returned to my stomping-ground. the house baron of groceries i decided to go down the street for food and found myself walking out into the path of a police pursuit. watching at least 4cop cars circling my block and several others i suddenly was in the path of a footcop who shoved me into a parking meter instead of going around. i nearly lost it, remembering why so many of us don't trust them, but he was moving fast enough that even my words wouldn't have caught up with that asshole. the police presence has been seriously strong in my neighbourhood recently. last month, before the us supreme court reversed the gun ban in dc, 12people were murdered with an 8block radius of my apartment. the trinidad neighbourhood (just 3blocks away) played stage to a majority of these deaths. the cops were dumbfounded. not knowing how to slow the violence, dc cops set up roadblocks around trinidad, stopping every driver+wanderer for identification to gain access into the area. for 6days these roadblocks rerouted anyone without a trinidad address into the hood and forced them around. returning from a trip to home depot one evening, i skipped the west virginia ave option due to back up and decided to take montello, which has often proven faster in the past. i was stopped by 2officers who directed me to pull behind a toyota corolla who's driver was being pulled from his car. after the typical license+registration questions the cop told me to i had to go around the neighbourhood to get home. i explained to the cop that i know trinidad very well and frequent the neighbourhood on foot from time to time. he said something like 'we're asking you around for your own safety,' which is when i got angry and told the cop to let me through. 'you can't block public roads,' i yelled. he obliged, clearly knowing they were in the wrong. the corolla was still road side and the driver had found himself sitting on the curb while the police searched his trunk. trinidad was the quietest i had ever seen it that night. a few people were gathered by a tree just past the community center that had become memorial to one of the victims; a stuffed bear, candles+flowers @ its base, signs+cards hung all the way to it's branches. the only other movement on the street were a few cops, who all eyed me a little too hard as i passed, sitting on penn and 4more as i exited the neighbourhood and made my way home. about a week after the roadblocks dissappeared this article was released in the washington post: Group Sues to Halt Police Checkpoint Program By Del Quentin WilberWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, June 20, 2008; 3:08 PM A civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit today to halt the D.C. police department's new checkpoint program, saying that the screening of motorists is unconstitutional. The Partnership for Civil Justice filed the suit on behalf of four District residents against what they called the illegal use of "suspicionless seizures and roadblocks." The plaintiffs are seeking to turn the suit into a class action on behalf of all who are affected by the program. The suit says that the plaintiffs want to stop the police before the use of checkpoints goes beyond the Trinidad area of Northeast Washington, where they were run for a six-day period earlier this month. At random times during that span, police stopped vehicles at a checkpoint and questioned drivers to ensure they had what authorities called "a legitimate purpose" to be coming into the area. "The District's military-style roadblock system was deployed, in part, to give the appearance that the government is addressing this deeply felt need," the suit states. "But it is neither constitutional, nor effective." Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier and interim Attorney General Peter Nickles crafted the checkpoint strategy after a series of shootings in the neighborhood. Nickles has said that he thoroughly vetted the law and was confident it would survive a court challenge. But at a hearing this week, some D.C. Council members said they had concerns about its legality. D.C. police put a checkpoint on Montello Avenue on June 7 and ran it randomly over six days, allowing only residents and those with legitimate business there to enter. Officers reported that more than 700 vehicles were allowed through and 46 were turned away. Lanier proclaimed the program a success, noting that no shootings took place in Trinidad while it was in operation. She has not ruled out setting up more checkpoints in what the police call "Neighborhood Safety Zones." But she has provided no details. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Caneisha Mills, William Robinson, Linda Leaks and Sarah Sloan. All said that they were stopped at the checkpoint. The American Civil Liberties Union, which monitored some of the activity, said at times that nine of 10 motorists were being denied entry. The ACLU also has been considering a lawsuit, officials said. with the gun ban gone, crime is expected to go down. i guess government officials figure we'll all be too scared to act up on each other since we'll all be carrying guns for protection from each other. seems to me we finally can have all the guns we need to protect ourselves from our government - which was the purpose of the 2nd amendment to begin with.

finally.... more scratch.

photography lesson #1

take your camera everywhere you go. yesterday while walking the streets+national mall of dc i (had i brought my camera) would have had the opportunity to photograph: a bulldog drinking from a starbucks cup. a duckling swimming. ducklings playing. ducklings following their mother. geese lined up poolside like they were ready for a polo match. three helicopters hovering just above the trees. children climbing+playing in those trees minutes later. faces of the passionate german+espana fans (felicitaciones) cheering on their club @ the espnzone... and plenty more. the beautiful sun (while the infamous 'they' were calling for thunderstorms) contributed her share of shadows+highlights which only made the would-be-photographs even more spectacular. this mistake will not happen again. i'ma glue my viewfinder to my eyelids. ... and to prove i'm worth my stone as a photographer, i'm working on a photo post to showcase some of my favourite images in the last few months. talk soon.

artomatic 2008

2weeks of sleeping on my stomach and i was ready to wander back into the place that left me scarred for life; artomatic. this time, ms.mundy made the trip with me for increased companionship, entertainment and perspective - not to mention awesome art. we were both involved in shows @ the time (she's still is: doing great work as bette in the marriage of bette and boo in the black box @ montgomery college and about to rock the capitol fringe festival in rock muscial bear beach @ the warehouse) so we could only reach artomatic late 1friday night, having just enough time to get lifted and see 3 of the 12floors of art.
we grabbed a couple beers and hit 12th floor so i could take my shoulders to paul for final judgement which is when touch-ups were originally discussed (scheduled for monday coming). two other floors made their way to our makeshift agenda; 11 and another which i can't recall. while looking @ the awesome art, mundy+i found ourselves creating too; leaving our marks in crayon, in chalk, and in blacklight paint. again, i'll let the photos do the storytelling... and run commentary whenever necessary. oh yeah, and i tend to shrink the images on this block from their original size so that they a. load faster, and b. can be viewed as a whole in one browser window. enjoy.

this first exhibit is one of the first things that really stunned me. the work is basically a graphic novel spilled all over the wall. there are tons of diary entries that go with the smaller images. i didn't minimise this one so you can see all the detail (can't really read it though).

artomatic stabbing...

...millions of them actually. i went to my artist, paul roe, not too many weeks ago, anxious for another round of jet black stabbed into my skin. i took the design, originally created for sweet trini, to paul with great anticipation for what would become my second tattoo. i had a very distinct idea of where these new images would be placed on my body and @ paul's suggestion found myself awaiting an appointment three weeks later to get inked @ the dc area's largest local art exhibit, artomatic. this year, 800 artists filled a 12story building with every kind of art imaginable (even a lawn chair made entirely of aluminum can tabs+wire). britishink's tattoo parlor could be found in the 12th floor ne corner penthouse... or you could just follow the buzzing, as many seemed to upon exiting the elevator.
i arrived for my 6pm appointment, ready to feel complete again and came to realise that it was 'meet the artist night,' meaning paul and his cohort cyn would be answering questions all night long, and i would be continueously answering the same question with the same answer: 'no, it tickles.' what started as a cloudy, dreary day suddenly became a beautiful skyline on two walls of the parlor as sun seemed to kiss the low, dark clouds and the newly green treetops with an incredible orange light, before eventually giving way to the horizon and turning those walls into the faces of the crowd behind me. the needle buzzing in one ear @ a time, i was able to watch the reflections of 'oohs,' 'ahhs' and 'ouches' on each viewer's face as they watched me literally becoming my own living art exhibit.
i found myself in my head a while, the buzz+tickle drowning out the questions+comments, leaving me to think about the new images being branded onto my body. their meaning, their purpose, how somehow they make me stronger; carrying with them a strength not my own, like armor passed down from a braver generation.
upon completion, just over 4hours after the first prick, i followed paul (who carried a large mirror) toward the restroom through artomatic with an immense sense of pride, displaying my work on my body; my canvas. it turned heads. the restroom+paul, decked out in his classic victorian drab, centered me between their mirrors so i could rejoice in the inks beauty and nearly shed a tear, before losing my head with excitement and the feeling of being whole again. it really was a great night.
the next 4 shirtless days were followed by 2weeks of sleeping on my stomach to allow the tattoo to heal proper. with a few touch-ups scheduled next week, i couldn't be happier with journey and the product. the images tell the story better than i do.

in memoriam

pandora's jukebox

pandora.com. check it out on the sidebar.

ill

for the first time in years, i'm sick. perhaps i shouldn't be complaining since it's only the flu when it could be so much worse. but my head throbs when i cough, my chest burns when my head hurts, my stomach turns when my chest burns, my body aches when my stomach turns and i've never been so cold in all of my life while living in an apartment that probably doesn't get much above 60degrees farenheit at any time. i realise, only now, that i felt this coming days ago and should've immediately went for my stay healthy regimate of h20, oj, hot tea, and h20, but it's been so long since i've felt sick that i didn't recognise the symptoms. i anxiously await a broken fever.

natural bobaraba

everyone loves a woman with bobaraba; big bottom in one of cote d'ivoire's local languages, djoula. but now ivorian women are taking it to dangerous heights in response to dj mix+dj eloh's song/video entitled bobaraba that even had some native footballers shaking their ass on the recent cup of nations pitch. some ivorian women are now buying unknown drugs, commonly liquid injections+creams thought (hoped) to be b12, from black markets said to increase the size of their bottom. while b12 is not known to be harmful, it is impossible to know what else these women could be injecting into their bodies. no injections of b12 or silicon or anything else will ever beat the beautiful quality of a natural woman, ass+all. real hair, real face, real breasts, real bottom and a strong will are all we're looking for. so ms. fat booty, please keep it natural and i guarantee you'll be getting stuck with something more than a needle.

britishink

my tattoo artist, paul roe, was nice enough to provide me with free cover into the baltimore tattoo convention over the weekend. i couldn't pass up such a great opportunity to shoot and w/ camera in hand traveled with a couple people up 295 to the sheraton where the convention was being held.
as expected, hundreds of freaks and geeks crammed into two ballrooms filled with the endless buzzing of dozens needles, the stink of sweat, and some of the best tattoo artists on the east coast - each exhibiting their art in books and in person. bodies (some more beautiful than others) full of art paced the hotel all day and some of the pieces left me wishing i could feel as free with my own skin; but then, why would i want a slain dragon or evil pez dispenser on my forearm?
i'm not judging anyone else, but i believe tattoos to be a mark in time, engraved to remind us of who, what and where we've been. each line a different memory. paul and cynthia, the other half of britishink, understand this concept and have a true passion for their craft; paul even designs his own tattoo machines - which after yesterday's convention i realise is a pretty popular trade, though none more beautiful and intricate as paul's.
paul wasn't selling any of his custom machines but he+cynthia were busy tattooing at the britishink booth in full victorian drab proving to be the most interesting exhibit going. i'm posting a couple pictures as well as a few full back tattoos that i spotted while wandering around.
a master of his craft, you gotta check out the work paul's done on grims' shoulder. it's freehand and looks like it could be finished, but there's another sitting to come. it makes me jealous already and paul worked on me only two weeks ago.
oh, paul also turned us on to this guy @ yourmeatismine.com which inspired some of the sketches @ the bottom of this post.

marking time

i drifted off in my head as the ink bled from my chest, concentrating on the pain at times, trying to figure out which line was being drawn. other times were spent thinking about this beautiful piece of art that i was becoming, and how somehow this tattoo was completing my chest - as though it had been missing all along.
the tattoo: my design, paul roe's artwork, came from a page in my notebook from a time ago, but something i knew belonged on my body - memories branded for life. it was a time of growth, experience and change, finding me, now, a better version of myself. that kind of thing deserves to be documented. the design is, for reasons i can't even put into text, the most important thing i've ever sketched and i suppose that is why it covers my solar plexus now. it is placed at my center, my core.

feel free to laugh at my hairy-whiteness, but in my defense, i've lived in a basement for the past year while working in one for the last two. the hairiness is just a result of italian genes.

photographer: grims.

move

ultimately, i see music all over this thing, but this perspective allowed for the greatest interpretation. peace.

to the wall

i'm finally about to get back to painting the wall. i figured i'd show you where i left off.

in other news, i've begun developing my photography portfolio and hope i'll at least have something on flickr shortly. stay tuned.

the christmas show

saturday night i was lucky enough to bare witness to a most amazing piece of theatre called the christmas show, ie. hamlet. it was an invitation only, free event gifted from the cast to their friends+family, and gifted to me by my friend+family. the invitation prompted an intimate audience who, while enjoying the complimentary hot chocolate, were asked to physically follow the action as it happened - starting @ a quaint holiday party and ending with a rather bloody new year's eve. we, the guests, moved with the play around the space (the clarkstreet playhouse) from lobby to warehouse to outside and back again; we even crammed into the men's bathroom. we followed, we watched (sometimes in the most voyeuristic sense of the word) and we became a part of the play as the action literally unfolded around us. the beauty in the show was in it's simplicity.... a well placed beam of light from a flashlight or cracked door in an otherwise pitch black scene, or a piece of chalk used to draw us to the next scene. listening in on terrifying conversation from behind closed doors, or being forced a little too close to the guy with the knife by the crowd behind me; the scenes grew organically allowing each audience member to decide their own involvement. some scenes i found myself right up front, others i let the audience become a part of the scene and watched from a distance. it was so beautiful that wish i could come back and photograph the show, though i'm pretty sure i saw the last performance. furthermore, someday in the future i'm gonna produce a piece of theatre like this one. something interactive but not invasive, small and intimate and makes full use of a space in it's natural form. i felt privileged to see the christmas show and loved every minute of it... minus the two audience members who couldn't get their high school giggling under wraps. this post doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the show... thank you to everyone responsible for my seeing it.

pom: pop-up creativity

while wandering the net one day about a month ago i got bombarded with the typically annoying pop-up ad challenging me to create a 90second television spot for pomtea; a pomegranate-tea blended beverage brought to the refrigerated section of your grocery by the people at pomwonderful. having had the tea before i almost immediately had a concept and took it directly to my talent, braintrust and bestfriend; a sweet trini whose proven brilliance has recently been seen rockin' the dc stage in wsc's production of the house of yes. i presented her with the storyboards below which we later further developed into a stronger, more simplistic idea.

the concept was simple: use stop-motion animation to tell the journey of a glass of pomtea (typically marketed toward women for its antioxidants and low calories) from purchase to resting place in an empty cabinet via sweet trini's hand. she'd be seen pulling the tea from the shelf in the grocery, buying the tea, drinking the tea, and finally putting the empty glass away. the journey would repeat a number of times through the ad, each time showing the cabinet with more saved glasses. once full, the next glass would instead go to the recycling bin and thus drive the tag line 'renew (yourself). reuse (the glass). recycle.'
the wrench came when i began looking for a grocery that would allow me to shoot in their store... none would. most had a screening process that could take a week that i couldn't afford to lose, so with some serious brainstorming the trini and i refined the concept. the grocery was abandoned and the cycle became: open it, drink it, store it in the clean empty cabinet which we realised pretty quick wasn't going to be clean+empty. the cabinet to be filled with pomtea was going to already contain some items because the cabinet's dimensions were larger than expected and i didn't have 500dollars to spend on tea. it also occurred to us that starting empty would beckon the question 'why is there an empty cabinet in this woman's house?' ... and so we staged the cabinet with a gathering of random kitchenesque items, added the tea glasses we already owned and then estimated the amount of pomtea glasses required to fill the remainder. 19.
i ran to the 'ghetto giant' and the 'not so safeway' to purchase enough tea to shoot the ad and upon placing them in the 'frigerator found that the fridge light really brought out the colors of the beverages. that night the brains of a football peong and a dc bassist were poked and prodded for further input over a nice chilled glass of pomtea while i pitched them the storyboards to the right. the bassist, an amazing musician, agreed to provide the music for the ad and the peong made me a believer that the fridge shots should definitely join the cycle (they did).
we sorted through sweet trini's infinitely colorful wardrobe, picked some outfits and spent the next 3days shooting all of the photographs needed for the ad. we shot about 2200, used about 150. on a side note, sweet trini photographs incredibly well regardless of what she might say or think.
the editing process began with me sorting through all of the photos and selecting the best 450 or so. i built the first draft. then a second. then a third before taking it to the bassist to add the score.
i got trini's company at the editing suite for the next 3nights, each taking us well into the wee hours. it was worth it. the ad, later titled she drinks pom tea for youtube's sake, came together; video+audio complimenting each other beautifully. it is colorful and fun and artistic and still seems to successfully push the product.
my frustrations and failures with the piece begin at the end. the original plotline was to fill the cabinet so much that the woman has no other choice but to recycle the glass. but the last four frames fail to read, leaving the concept lacking. maybe the cabinet needed more glasses, maybe the video needed more frames - or specifically cabinet frames. i haven't figured that part out, but i do know that if the recycle concept fails it's only because my other gripe is that the reuse concept doesn't read as i had hoped either. again, more glasses might've helped, but ideally i think i should have listened to advice to fill more of the glasses with greater variety than the existing glass of straws+glass of chopsticks. the now considered good advice was left behind because i wanted to believe that the viewer could see an empty glass and know without being shown that one can put things in it. i see now that had i listened to those smarter voices, the reuse concept would've hit harder and the ad would've been stronger. removing the flower in the glass seen in the storyboard, however, was a good decision, allowing for a tighter, cleaner shot of the cabinet.
somewhere along the way we found ourselves playing around with the pomtea lids at sweet trini's request and were suddenly shooting hundreds more images of pomtea lids (each flavor a different color) moving about a stunning green wood table. creativity spilled onto the table; the peong even got involved, creating the fucking brilliant flower in the middle of the spot. i snapped one photo for each frame which made editing the piece together simple enough and we were lucky enough to raid the bassist's music for another original score. the second ad, titled pom pop-tops, presents a completely different marketing scheme than the first commerical but still carries an artistic appeal which i know everyone involved appreciates.
we find out tomorrow if either ad becomes a top 10finalist. if they do, the voting process begins and i'll be asking everyone to go and vote. if you're interested, here are both ads. enjoy.