My red hot date with Fedde Le Grand

Photos courtesy of Lady Pun

It was a better date than with Bob Sinclair, that's for sure.

A Break from Fedde, Part 1

Cheers, Ladies! I love you bitches.

A Break from Fedde, Part 2

DYY & LADY PUN, YO

My apologies

Sorry y'all. Just busy with life. It's all good. Will post more real soon.

I just posted on Grub Club though. Enjoy!

Weekend story #2

Lady Pun in deep thoughts...

So a few of us hiked the trail at Bear Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains today. It was an intense five hour hike, mainly due to the heat and lack of water on the return back. But like usual, Mother Earth is absolutely beautiful and wondrous so it's all good.

As we migrate toward the creek, we pass a group of older Asian people, maybe in their 50's or 60's, sitting at a picnic bench. There are about four men and two women. We pass them and say hello, even kind of bow our heads a little because, you know, we're taught to respect our elders. Then one of the men says with a smirk (and speaks only to the woman in our group, by the way), "Hey, are you going swimming? Did you pack your swimsuits? Let's see your swimsuits!"

We continue walking, speechless and of course grossed out.

Fuck! We were totally disarmed by their race and age. I hate when that happens.

Weekend story #1

Art near restrooms...

On Friday we met this dude at Mandrake who owns this denim company called UBI Jeans. His name is Ubi in fact and it's short for "ubiquitous" he tells us. As UBI specializes in women's jeans, Ubi says, "My job is to make your ass look good." I say, oh yeah? So you must have names for different categories of asses? He says yes. I turn around and stick my ass out and say, what would you call this ass? Without hesitation, he says JUICY!

Hilarious.

I respond, right on. Then I ask him to label Lady Pun's. He immediately says BA-DONK-KA-DONK!

And for readers unfamiliar with Lady Pun's ass, let's just say, the description is perfect!

Alec Baldwin's kid ain't a selfish pig...

The Cops are! Well, maybe that little skank is too...

On May Day in LA's Macarthur Park:



In NYC:



No violence in Chicago... thank god!

Ho ho ho!!

A festive cross-dressing hooker in Echo Park.
Pictures courtesy of Tonkhero who literally turned his truck around and got out of his vehicle to snap a few pics of one of Santa's little ho.
Nice. Better than my karaoke pose below.

More from before

As promised, Tonk forwarded a picture from the Tigers and Jaguars exhibit:
Pretty fucken tight, huh? I don't remember the artist's name (a Japanese American who grew up in East LA), but it's a mixture of graffiti art and 3-d animation.

Here's one by another artist:

I'm not sure if you could tell by the picture, but it's a militant bird forced to use a gun, and any other means necessary, in nature's fight against the industrial takeover of the world. That's how I interpret it anyway.

Recent museum and gallery excursions

Okay, I must either be getting older or lamer but I must say... I had a blast at the Huntington Botanical Gardens when my family visited last month. We were suppose to go to the popular Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena, but lucky for me, there was a Rosebowl game and so the museum was closed. As a fairly new fan of horticulture, I was in heaven.

Here I am with the special men in my family.
We're striking a pose in the Desert Garden.

Here's another marvelous work of nature.

Here's my dad picking a tiny unknown fruit from the tree... and yes, he ate it. The white people thought we were strange and probably a bit ghetto or foreign, and my sister walked away in embarrassment, but I found it very amusing and encouraged my dad to eat as much fruit as he could pick... we paid a hefty admission fee so I felt it was acceptable. He just ate one though, just for taste and curiousity.

Two weeks later, Tonk and I went to the opening reception of Street Signs and Solar Ovens: Socialcraft in Los Angeles at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Mid-Wilshire. This exhibition is so so cool. I encourage all my artsy and/or environmental friends to check it out... it runs until December 31, 2006. The exhibit is described as a thought-provoking exhibition featuring artwork created with social activism as its inspiration. The exhibit explores the inventive objects & strategies created by artists in response to the environmental, political and social issues of our time. The objects featured will include protest art meant for public display as well as tools for socially concious living... such as a bicycled-powered blender. I'm totally for real. Another piece I thought was totally cool was Fallen Fruit: A Mapping of Food Resources in Los Angeles. Three artists/activists created map legends of fruit trees in Los Angeles that are accessible and available for picking by the public! When my dad visits next, you know what we're going to do.

We were also able to check out Tigers and Jaguars: LA's Asian-Latino Art Phenomenon on the same night. Unfortunately, the exhibit ended that week, so it's too bad if you missed it here or at LACMA... because it was really rad. Dude, an artist made a low-rider rickshaw. Enough said. I did not have my camera to take pictures, but Tonk took several photos from his camera phone... perhaps he'll share them in a future post.

Finally, a few of us went to the Calavera Fashion Show & Walking Altars at Tropico de Nopal Gallery in Echo Park, in celebration of the Day of the Dead. Since I love love love fashion, as well as Day of the Dead celebrations, and had missed the annual Dia De Los Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary (one of my absolute favorite places in LA), I knew the fashion show was a must-see. And I am so glad I was right, like usual...

The organizers did an amazing job tranforming the back courtyard into a real professional-looking fashion show runway.

Poli, a close friend of Tonk's grandparents, was jamming! I was so impressed by her artistic vision and dance skills. She was paying homage to her grandmother in this homemade outfit.

A Keith Herring inspired skeleton dancing to Madonna's Vogue.
Let your body move to the music...hey hey hey... C'mon Vogue!

The three women above inspired me to learn how to sew. After all, I do own a classic old school sewing machine. Yeah, it's a paradox.
Anyway, Tonk agreed to teach me. YES!

I'm not generally into goth or death metal, but I was really digging the pinhead dude.

Long Live The Dead!

Last post about halloween, I swear!

Sorry, but it's one of my all-time favorite holidays...

Annual Halloween Carnaval in West Hollywood
10/31/06

Finally, someone wore a Kim Jung Il outfit! I tried convincing my Korean friends to be him this year but to no avail.

These trons were Tron's favorite.

This is not a joke. This is real.
K-Fed was one of the acts for West Hollywood this year.

I love Halloween.

Sun setting on my street

Photo by DYY

Culture Clash taught me to speak like a Vato

I just found the program for Culture Clash's latest production, Water & Power under a pile of junk mail. Tonk and I were fortunate to get tickets to the final show of the production at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown a couple of weeks ago. Although not as impressed with the actual performance, I was tickled to find a glossary in the program filled with Spanish slang that both Gringos and Chinos can appreciate.

Here are my favorites. I took the liberty to mix and match words and phrases:

Poquito mas mota -- A little more marijuana
Poquito mas gavachita -- A little more little white girl
Poquito mas pedo -- A little more drunkenness and/or trouble
Callate, Viejita! -- Shut up, Old Lady!
Clamate, Chavala! -- Calm down, Little Girl
Poquito mas cabeza, Chavala! -- A little more head, Little Girl
Que casualidad, que curioso -- What a coincidence, how strange (this is an actual phrase from the program booklet)

Oh how I love learning other languages. But in retrospect, I should have went to the Banksy exhibit which happened to have ended that same Sunday.

Check out the controversially painted Elephant in the Room:

I'm ambivalent about the elephant issue. It's such a beautiful art piece with a meaningful message. During the show, cards were handed out explaining: "There's an elephant in the room. There's a problem we never talk about. The fact is that life isn't getting any fairer…. 20 billion people live below the poverty line." On the other hand, I could see why animal activists were upset. Although nontoxic, the paint was unsafe and illegal to be used in such a manner. Plus, there was a huge crowd and it was very hot for the elephant.

Despite this, Banksy is cool as hell. His graffitti art has been all over LA. He's very anti-corporate, anti-government, yet his art is not didactic or obvious. It's actually very artful. It makes you think but not too hard. Just the way I like it.

So Banksy's just as political as Cultural Clash, but different. You should check out both websites that I conveniently included in my entry above (especially Banksy's).

Me entiendes, Chingadera? You get me, you piece of crap?

Si? Sabes! Palabra.

Yummy or yucky?

Krispy Kreme Fried Chicken Sandwich

Find it at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona

Supporting a local artist

Min and I at the Tofu Fest last weekend, giving love to a Canto singer.

Sounds (and Sights) Eclectico

Nortec (from the combination of "norteno" and "techno") is an electronic musical genre from Tijuana that first gained popularity in the late 1990s. Nortec music is characterized by hard dance beats and samples from traditional forms of Mexican music such as Banda sinaloense and Norteño - unmistakably Mexican horns are often used.

I fucken love horns.

Tonkhero and I went to a free KCRW-sponsored concert of the Nortec Collective as part of the Grand Performances at the California Plaza in Downtown LA. I love outdoor events that are free to the public. I truly think it's a great service.

We jammed to electronica dance music Tijuana-style yo. They totally rock.

Lastest Album.

We then migrated to Night Visions: MOCA After Dark (late hours every Saturday night in the summer), and drank and danced with the fucken hipsters. Despite my personal distaste for them, I do love their fashion. It's the only time I people-watch.

But it also gave me an excuse to check out the Robert Rauschenberg exhibit. Even though it's not my aestetic, I admire his use of so many random-ass materials to make his art. He'd use a neck tie, a stuffed eagle, all types of metals, door knobs, a tire, wires, mirrors... all types of bullshit. It's very masculine installation art, I think.

Here's one of my favorites because, it's like, who would think of this shit? Gotta give the man some credit.

End Times by Jill Greenburg

Misinformation

Jill Greenburg's exhibit of crying children, featured at Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles, has drawn public criticism by those who are probably hypersensitive, narrow-minded, overtly judgmental parents who have no life or ambitions to make real positive change, so they complain cowardly 0n the blogosphere, and send anonymous hate mail to the artist and gallery exhibiting the photos.

Faith?

The work depicts how children would feel if they knew the state of the world they're set to inherit, explained Greenberg, whose own daughter is featured in the show. "Our government is so corrupt, with all the cronyism and corporate lobbyists," she said. "I just feel that our world is being ruined."

Four More Years

To be fair, however, the reason why no-life bloggers are up-in-arms is because of the method Greenburg used to elicit such powerful emotional responses -- she took a tootsie pop away from the children, I presume, while the kids were enjoying it. Hmm... art imitating life? But the wailing and the shoot lasted 20 or 30 seconds. The kids "sniffled a little" afterward, but then got multiple lollipops in trade for the stolen one.

Shock

Wow, she's really pissed about that lollipop.

The Truth

The images were enhanced during postproduction, Greenberg said, to make the children appear more upset than they really were. She used Photoshop to darken furrows in brows, shine tears until they glistened.

Torture

In the end, "This is more a story about blogging than about photography," said Stephen White, formerly a gallery owner and currently a private dealer and collector in Studio City. "It's about a generation that's so caught up in itself that everything it says it thinks is significant, even though it's not saying anything at all.

Trillions

I recall first seeing these photos on a billboard at the intersection of La Brea and Beverly. I was with Blu-Tooth, who was disturbed. Yeah, I guess I can see why people are bothered. I just don't agree. I think the raw-ness of anger and frustration and hopelessness, especially in subjects as pure and innocent as toddlers, is beautiful and breath-taking. We as adults try to shelter kids from "negative" emotions, but those emotions are real, you know? How can you truly appreciate joy if you don't experience sorrow?

I absolutely adore the photos. Jill, you rock in DYY's world! Fuck the rest.

"Twin Nipples"

Last Friday night, Tonkhero and I ventured into an off-beat journey with the Midnight Riders, a group of about 300-400 bicyclers who reclaim the streets every second Friday of the month. The theme of the month was "TWINS". And yes, we were a pair of breasts, even though everyone called us Twin Nipples.

Some people didn't understand our costume because they're stupid idiots. But the smart people thought it was very funny and creative. People gave us strange looks when we were a single boob though. That's when I replied that I had breast cancer.

The strangest remark a cyclist said to me was, "That looks like my daughter's nipple on your head." I gave him an unusual look and said, "That's a really weird comment." He immediately became embarrased and said that he has a 9-month old and he was actually referring to his kid's baby bottle... yeah right.
The experience was very liberating. Since there are hundreds of us, there was no way that we could all pass the intersections of the streets in a timely manner. So when the light turned red, either organizers or volunteers would plant themselves and their bikes in front of cars and buses who had the right of way, so that the rest of us could pass and stay together as a large mass. It was really frightening at first, because drivers would get pissed and honk or even come out of their cars and bitch at the bicyclists in their faces. I honestly thought a fight was going to break out, or that some psycho LA driver would become ballistic and run us all down. Still, the human roadblocks wouldn't budge. It's quite a public service, I think.

The crowd were all carrying beers, drinking as they rode. Some of them were visibly drunk but, surprisingly, I only saw one crash, and I think that resulted more from lack of coordination than inebriation.
The SKEET brothers made me take their picture. It's funny and all, but they thought they were so clever... homeboy on the right kept bragging that he came up with the idea and made the shirts at 9:00pm. I pointed at the nipple on my head and said 10:15.
We started in Echo Park at 10:30 pm. Then to Downtown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Skid Row (which I thought was tasteless actually), and ended up here at Mariachi Square in East L.A. We reversed the route and returned to Echo Park by 1:30 am. We ended the night with more beer, pork rhines and tacos from this awesome taco truck next to the ghetto Vons in Echo Park. Very yummy...