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Music to Write to

I’m lucky to live with 3 and a 1/2 lovely and inspiring queers, a gay calendar boy, a literary star, a queer indie musician, and a Chihuahua/Whipper mix with  multiple personality disorder. Today my musician roommate Yes Alexander’s new album Slow B urning Lights was released. She recorded it in collaboration with a production duo from San Francisco called Blue Sky Black Death. Recent reviews of the album on Spin Magazine online and PopMatters.com have compared Yes Alexander’s ethereal vocals to those of Mazzy Stars or Johanna Newsom. To all the writers! I attest that this album was a crucial component to helping me write my first novel! It has that hypnotic quality that is perfect for getting you deeper into the kind of creative trance that allows you to disappear from the world and write for hours and hours on end.

oBAMa!

Last night I was dance rioting in the street with my neighbors. You could feel the whole city explode in cheers at the moment CNN announced that Obama had won enough slices of blueberry pie. Bam!!! People were shouting Obama! out windows, hooting in front of the bars, and flying out their doorways to jump up and down in the street. A block away from my house at the intersection on Valencia and Nineteenth the dance party stopped traffic and spilled down the side streets. A cab parked in the middle of the crowd provided a mini stage for people to dance up on. The energy was so intense and exciting that I forgot all the petty small things of the world and life and felt only the hugeness of the moment. Election Elation  (Aside from prop 8 grrrrr…) 

To the left is my Halloween Sam Ronson persona. My Lindsay Lohan almost bailed on me last minute, so I came close to morphing into JT Leroy using the same wig paired with some big glasses, but then my friends ‘bisexual-experimental-confused’ (to quote the jackass media) starlet costume pulled through. I was relieved because JT Leroy was for sure a less “hot topic” costume. But then a few days later and literary co-hoaxer Savannah Knoop is on the cover of the SF Weekly, and there’s an article about her newly published memoir, and once again those bad taste pranksters have got my attention. I’m a sucker. I bought the book. This morning I was skating aimlessly past the bookstores, attempting to smoke and skate off my One 2 Many Obama Victory Celebratory Shots of Whiskey Hangover, and I went looking for it out of pure guilty pleasure. Yeah, I bought it for the gossip. OK, and an explanation as to how Savannah managed to have sex with Asia Argento while in drag as a male, who has transitioned into a girl, who dresses to pass as a boy. Huh? My favorite quote from the SF Weekly article is from Stephen Beachy, "I do think the story matters to San Francisco, a place where people often come or stay in order to reinvent themselves," Beachy says. "But as a story about how a girl gains a sense of power and entitlement by living as a boy, Savannah's insights are pretty shallow. There's a huge community here, including many writers, who are living and examining gender roles in really complicated ways."

Nicole J. Georges!

My friend Nicole J. Georges, who drew my lovely buffalo tattoo, is a zinester, illustrator, and pet portrait artist who has been publishing her own zines and autobiographical comics for over thirteen years. The most recent of which, Invincible Summer 2 was just released on Microcosm Press and includes a tour diary from the 2007 Sister Spit tour we were tourmates on. She also does an advice column called Ask Nicole: America's Smartest Girl which can be found HERE Also here is a new video of Ask Nicole that includes pertinent dating tips!

#4

It was a hot week in San Francisco. It was an excellent week for checking out girls. There was the first annual 18th street block party, an abundance of yard sales (I got a feathered dream catcher for a buck), a pie eating contest in the sunshine, a late-night-hot-night queer party in the park, and it was even smokin' hot at the beach. It was too hot even. The annoying part was that my room was unbearable to be in, with its windows facing the beating sun, but I had to be in it because that’s where I go to school, at my desk computer. My Library and Information Science grad school program is all online. We have class meetings in chat rooms. I listen to pod cast lectures from my instructors on my ipod. My textbooks tend to be downloaded pdf’s and PowerPoint presentations. It’s all so NetGen.   

So I’ve been busy trying to adjust to the back to school hustle, and I also just moved back into my room in the Mission, which I’d subletted for August in order to take a break from the city, and spend a month house-sitting and writing in suburbia. There was also a break up this week. Break up #4 with someone I was “dating” off and on for the last year. Yes, we broke up 4 times. This is because the sex was awesome but our dynamic was not. Whenever we weren’t having sex we were making each other miserable. It’s weird to break up with someone who I was still having good sex with. It’s not the usual experience. Usually the break up happens after torturous months of lackluster sex, or none at all. And the break up seems justified since you can’t even remember the last time you fucked, or the last time it was good. But in this case, it was still good till the bitter end, fighting about nothing, and then fucking away all that tension. So yeah it’s hard because I still want to have sex with her, but there will be no drunk dialing, because getting to the point where it's break up #4 is just ridiculous. And four is my lucky number so this must be the lucky break up.

Art XX Magazine is about to hit the press!

Some awesome women from the East Bay by the names of, Paulina, Lex and Francesca recently founded a much-needed new women’s art magazine and the first issue is going to print any day now. The mag is stuffed with new art by women from all over the world. It also includes some stories by me, Anna Joy Springer and others. There's featured art and interviews from talented geniuses like, Cristy C. Road, Tina Butcher, Twincest, Scream Club, Dawn Kasper, Enid Crow, Invincible, Joey Hateley, Maya Hayuk, Monica Canilao, Tara McPherson and more. I interviewed my friend, illustrator and zinester, Nicole J. Georges for the issue. We got to talking about her lounge wear fashion, upcoming projects, Dr. Laura, Narwhales, and some debaucherous tour highlights from the Sister Spit tour we were on together last year.

Part of the mission statement of Art XX magazine reads, “Art XX is a magazine dedicated to the promotion of women in the arts. The magazine showcases female, queer, trans, outsider and non-white artists.”

It’s about time!

The magazines website has a lot more exciting details so check it out:

artxxmagazine.com

the badass skater girl of the month award goes to...

ESTHER GODOY!

She's 22, been skating for ten years and rides for Vans, PSC, Folklore, Rip Curl. Also it's okay that her name is Esther because she’s Australian and the name probably doesn’t sound like your grandma's name when it’s combined with an Australian accent. It's like how names like Agnes or Bridget suddenly sound sexy in French.

Check out how cute she is doing a five-o to fakie...