brownroundboi

i cannot watch video of myself, because i look far too much like you.

after every performance i thank my ancestors, graciously circle my pauses, my beats, the crowd’s laughter or held breath, re-tracing how i can innovate my tools, my limited gift to serve my people, serve youth, serve the person who looks at me with sideway glances, serve the strangers who fear our palm clasp held hands, our most intimate revolutions. i tell people as joke how unmusical i am. there’s no singer in me, no piano virtuoso or drumming soul scale, only a few times do i beatbox in the shower. confession: whatever music i had was all really you, the late night dancer, making heel to toe maps, hardwood tossled by human skin to cha-cha, to boogie, to your one more time anak, just dance with me. 

during my first stab at puberty, i had flushed cheeks, harbored a resentment as thick as the rice served on tables just before the music came to speaker. embarrassed as your dancing partner, the youngest probably there, you never had any shame. genderfluid and unabashed, you were taught me my trans and queerness without theoretical basis or polysyllabic discourse, without you even meaning to. here, is how you spin. by this, you come back to a solid position, now watch your feet. look down only if you have to, be firm and careful, you have to be careful with all your movements, you’d say. ay! ang galing mo, ah. ang anako is a dancer! you’d say. so awkward in my body at the time, so dysphoric, your efforts would try. in habit, i learned explosion and loved my body only when it collided into something, a punching bag, a roundhouse kick to the under ribs of a stranger. definitely a choreography, a tact in martial arts, but where i was coming from, there was no room for compassion.

i never brace myself when i talk about being kicked out by you anymore, imagine your pointed fingers cursing me after i was unwrapped, couldn’t hold back, discovered kissing a girl.  my tongue won’t censor your disgrace and i tell ones who look, maybe speak the same languages as i speak, i came out so many times, over and over, it took years. it took fist throngs, prayers by a god i never believed, public gossip, another hungry child on the street. however, i understand your determination, how god didn’t have your back, and still, your ceaseless dedication had no wandering. this country asked you to be the worst of you, watch your homeland country from a staged distance, follow a script that never had intentions of happy endings. i was your only hope. i see this now, your mark on a world, how i came exactly from your making, from microscopic hair follicle to the love of tart foods to vehement beliefs. too similar for our own good, we make unbending fists on tables and in the air whenever pertinent.  

i forgive you, you know that? 4 years honoring your passing this month and i can covet how i was pacing on sidewalks without food and how i lovingly understand my homeland, all by you. this is a complex place. a place of blood sting and bountiful songs on saturday nights. this is the smallest example of love of the colonized and struggling free, like my people, my homeland—-  the wrath and the joy. my truths are on the microphone, keynote, conversation with comrades over pancit and solidarity movements. i can never deny my love for you, however have grown to distinguish the violence you’ve brought to me, how this parlays in the people i conduct meetings with, hold placards and poem with, how i adore stern women and queers who give it all up in uproarous ways but who may not take care of themselves, taxed by their organizations, flung from approval. how in spite of that, i lament them. how i may stay one meeting, one month too long for those who just need some time  i’ll tell myself, they’ll change.  you have made me a believer sometimes to my own demise.

you can’t help it can you? garnish all of my emotions, because yes i do miss you, but i’m also so thankful you are rested, kickin’ it with ancestors, probably playing pusoy to your favorite beatles songs, no longer bothered by my manly face on television screens, how i might embarrass you, how i talk too loudly, am too emotional, move so awkwardly and unacceptably by society, just like you, but so different, the remix. how i mourn your death and all it took, but cackle on how i don’t have to carry your malcontent as my own rhythm, your judgements into my ears, how i chose to shift my self-making in order appease you. it’s complex enough with your body as ashes back home. it’s complex enough in my half chuckle and sigh, how i allow all parts to change this world in ways you never wanted to imagine, but eventually accepted step-by-step, song by song, until you could no longer move.

BARANGAY LOS ANGELES ANNOUNCES ART GALLERY TO RAISE AWARENESS &
PREVENTION OF LGBTQ YOUTH SUICIDE

LOS ANGELES, CA - Barangay Los Angeles, a Filipino LGBTQ organization,
will host a 3-day standing art gallery from May 26 to May 28, 2011 which will
showcase art created by Filipino-American artists. The theme of the gallery
“TULAY: Bridge to Help Fight Youth Suicide” aims to raise awareness about youth
suicide in the Filipino LGBTQ community and provide resources for prevention.

“TULAY: Bridge to Help Fight Youth Suicide” will be held at Monk Space
LA - 4414 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90004. BarangayLA will host an
opening night reception on THURSDAY, May 26, 2011 from 6:30pm to 10:30pm.

TULAY
will be a safe, productive environment that will promote discussion and
acceptance in the Filipino LGBTQ community to explore the causes that lead to
youth suicide. Artists are tasked to explore cultural nuances relevant to the
subject matter. Through their thought provoking art Barangay LA will engage the
community to a solution-focused symposium which will close the gallery with a
panel of faith based representatives, family members, LGBTQ & social
service providers.

SCHEDULE:
May 26, 2011 - Opening Reception from 6:30pm to 10:30pm

#brilliant #qtpocholditdown #palmtrees! #spiritflow #challenge #compassion #uplifting

#laughsatmyself #mmmmhomefood #thankgoodnessitdidntspillonmybowtie.

coreydylan21:

Oh Jujubee I couldn’t have said it better myself. :p

[sometimes this is how i feel about some people. oh jujubee!]

—via my kasama dara cooper

caaav:

In the last couple days, a video has been going around where a musician was pinned down by the police and arrested in Chinatown.  Below is CAAAV’s statement on the incident which is getting translated into Chinese for outreach.  Many thanks to Christine and PJ for agreeing to do a KYR training.

Here is the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RHmd1-ZHyQ

CAAAV Statement on Police Violence in Columbus Park
May 11, 2011 

On Mother’s Day last Sunday, Yi Zhuo Wu, a Chinese immigrant, was pinned down by four NYPD police officers who beat him bloody and then handcuffed him in Chinatown’s Columbus Park. Wu, a musician, is a member of the Street Musical Club, a group that has played music regularly in Columbus Park for more than four years. Aggravating the situation even further, as the community was watching Mr. Wu being arrested and calling for him to be released, a police officer threatened to mace people who did not move back.

According to the police, the Street Musical Club did not have a sound permit. In a statement to reporters, the NYPD has characterized this as a misunderstanding, that this would not have happened if people in the community knew that they needed a sound permit to play instruments in the park. Their solution is to hold a community information session to let people know what procedures they should follow.

 

Read More

tofuboots:

white thin bodies

white thin bodies

white thin bodies

white thin bodies

white thin bodies

blowing up my dash.

And all the comments are about people squeeing over them or jizzing over them, ‘cause ya know…. it’s only white thin bodies that are attractive.

—mia mingus
http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/

(Written for the RESIST Newsletter, November, 2010.
Initially posted on the RESIST website.)

—Dean Jackson, Director of Hilltop Urban Gardens 

continue reading this FIERCE FOODIE interview at:
RECIPES FOR THE PEOPLE.