Yo!Peace

I stumbled upon an art show at the Jack Hanley on 15th and Valencia while on my way to Thrasher's Skater of the Year Awards. There was supposed to be free bar at ye ol' Great American Music Hall while some dude get annointed by the golden skateboard saber and then bands would rock out and the thrash would commence. It was more mellow than that. Booze was la8ers and the leeches were exiting to exploit something else. The bands played to a pacified crowd with blunted eyes. Oh my god am I drinking Hateraid? I know there are diamonds in the rough, I am just sick of the sludge.

Anyhow, the art show beforehand absolutely got my eyes to sparkle.
It was a group show of posters questioning "What Happened To Peace?"

There were some political poster kingpins like Emek, Mear 1, and Shepard Fairey, as well as enraged designs by artists from around the world. This event was celebrating the release of Yopeace.org's release of their book YO! WHAT HAPPENED TO PEACE?




The bright colors in the flock of posters created a visual disturbance, many a poster designed to be screaming. I saw a many new takes on our depressing past and dismal future. A comical print boasted our modern day world leaders in the "evil" category sharing bongs on a couch and Osama Bin Laden casually eating chips out of a bag with his missing face printed on it. Or you have the stark oil drilling silouettes, the delicate beauty of an enlightened soul nurturing nature, and the sheer ugliness of mindlessness. Check out the prodigous list of artist who are involved in this project at YOPEACE.ORG


Talked to a nice fellow, Yem, who came up from L.A. for the show. He was full of smiles and positive affirmations. He has been around LA like a wall virus. We talked about how important it is to support your fellow artists, because the economy you are in will immediatley swell. The significance of a healthy community is imperative in our wan world state of affairs. He has a music project under the name Abraham Jones.








About Yo!Peace:
Yo! What Happened to Peace? was started in 2003 with 14 prints and an opening hosted by Cross World Connections in Tokyo as a response to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Committed to highlighting the beauty of hand-crafted printmaking techniques as a method of visual protest, the show has traveled the globe continuously adding new artists and artwork. In the spring of 2007, a Yo! What Happened to Peace? book was published, featuring 144 color pages of over 200 prints from the show, a die-cut stencil cover and an introduction by Winston Smith. Currently based in Los Angeles, the show is put together by John Carr (curator), Katherine Kirby (coordinator), Ra (operations), and Caton Volk (producer).









During the opening, a few fellas were doing a live silkscreening. Spoke to Ra for a minute about the tour. They are going around, prying the hole in our consiousness just a little wider. The book has a stencil cover for immediate use. These fellas went out of their way to inspire immediate action and creativity. The amalgamation of the iconic artistist of our turmoil times is far reaching. International viewpoints on our sticky little situation. The urgency in the messages was a rewarding outlet for internal stife and sadness at injustices. Express yo'self hay hey hey hey. They are so officially members of RAD AMERICA.








I ran into Big Daddy of Cyclecide and he informed me that there will be a movie screening featuring our fine freaky friends next weekend, January 26th in Alameda. There will be a shuttle bus for each of the two showings. The bus will leave from Ritual Coffee in SF, stop by another spot in the East Bay, and go to the Alameda viewing spot. Adventure City!



Head Trip

A documentary film by John Law and Flecher Fleudujon
Showing at The Roxie New College Film Center

3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA
Part of the Pranks Filmfestival.

New Hype Ma'am for Art Now SF

Hype Ma’am Shazaam!
This just in:
My Street Credits transferred from the Hipster's Bank of Portland to The Scenester's Bay Area Bank. I am now a proud intern at ArtNowSF. This is particularly exciting because it is the next level of what I was doing with Upper Playground, minus the folding of t-shirts. We work with Juxtapose Magazine and set up music, art, and fashion events featuring up and coming artists. We are constantly looking for submissions. Check out the myspace here.
Here is what is in store soon:
SUITE JESUS LOVES THE LADIES!
This Friday @ 111 Minna SF

Great in 08!

This has been quite the different ending to the long year.
In multiple years past I have spent my XXXma$ in some fabulous paradise city on the Mexican coastline. This year it was just West Oakland and me. No jugo fresco or tacos pescado. No Malecon with spanish clowns and native beaded power bracelets. I still feel like I'm in paradise. As I slowly twist awake I peer out the window and see the palm tree exploding in the blue sky, and my omnipotent lemon tree bursting with offspring. The air is comforting and moist, with a slight sea chill. "I'm on vacation, I'm sure of it." I lay my head between the folds of the down comforter and my pillows and drift into perfect happiness. For the next ten minutes, that is, until I hear the techno galloping of my ascending alarm, not nearly threatening enough to actually get my ass out of bed. I squeeze my phone until it allows me back in through the gates of slumber. I run through instantly. I can spend hours of good dream time in this ten minute state. This week I was immensely tardy for my duties at work because I spent each day sleeping for three hours in 600 second chunks. I should figure out a way to use the ten minute intervals to program my mind to lucid dream. Or get my butt out of bed so I can be on time for my dear, understanding job.

Around the solstice I bid farewell to my dear friend Shannon. The Great Shanzini and Agent Pulse were leaving for their sexy single world tour. We held a marvelous dinner with wheat-free chocolate cake with pomegranite sourcream frosting. It was absolutely the best cake I have ever eaten. Hands down.



The fine lady in the picture is the creator. She is Hollis, and that fateful night our roomate, Rev. Pasteurized (see also,
lil' B) married Hollis, Shannon, and myself to eachother. It was raining and we had two witnesses hold umbrellas over us. We vowed to be non-sexual life partners and always have each other's backs. We didn't make up this cultural ceremony. Many of my female friends down here in the Bay have female NSLP's. There is a whole Wifey network down here, where the lines between marriages are severely blurred.

The weeks before actual XXXma$ day were spent galloping like a young reindeer through the Christmas spirit circuit. Many a new friend out here happens to work for Burning Man, so I was invited along to the Department of Works Holiday shindig. Many people were dressed like santas, plenty of booze, some dusty, playafied bottles from the clean-up shenanigan's. This was so exciting to me. I felt like a detective, piecing together the story of this "Burning Man" phenomena. An outlaw city in uninhabitable space, filled to the brim with artists and craziness. These were the garbagemen and the problem solvers and the gate inspectors for this semipermanent autonomous zone. I am virgin to the "playa" experience, but with the successful artistic and social experiment now unavoidable, I start thinking about how the thing works. Who does what. I feel especially intrigued due to this years history making chapter involving the "bostonia tea party-esque burning of the man early" thing. That's not a light thing to bring up at a DPW party. In my excitedness towards the anarchist offering, I forgot that these were the people who had to work around the clock for 72 hours to restore something that was destined to burn. They weren't so stoked on Paul Addis and his antics. While walking to the party, I was trying to imagine what BMHQ would look like. Fuzzy walls, metal revolving zoetropes? Witchy fire pit performances or double loud techno? There weren't any crazy fire spider glow in the dark shit, just offices, festive trees and garlands, and a lot of beautiful freaks scattered among norms. It was raining and all the smokers huddled under an exhibition awning atop pallets to avoid the mud. I finally met thee mister Johnny Payphone, which was very pleasant. He is an historian that has been delving in to mutant bike culture and is now in Australia scooping things out. He hails from the Rat Patrol on Chicago and has seen the rise and fall of

A few days later I went to Cellspace for a party. I got in free because I vowed to help make cookies. Cellspace has been a model for creative space for my chronies and I when we were working to set up our own art village. Last year the founder died in a car accident and I think the space is sailing through rough waters. Anyhoo, it was really, really, really fun to spend a big ol' DJ dance party baking cookies looking over the crowd, sending wafts of delicious holiday cheer throughout the sweaty night.




On Christmas eve I found myself alone at the house and I was feelin' Hyphy.
So I decided to document it.


"HYPHY HOLIDAZE from West Oakland"







For New Years I went to Slab City. It was nice to have the solitude of the desert. I was there for threeish days, drove down on the bus. Played in an impromptu band at a stage some folks set up. Soaked in the questionable hot springs. Did whatever I wanted. Helped some stupid kid who sat in the fire while consumed by a psilocybin demon. That moment, the first few long moments of '08, I decided I need to know more about nurse style activities. Here's to the challenge of knowledge!







What a breath of fresh air.
This year shall be a good one.