"Weak Brain, Narrow Mind"

I'm tired of aspiring bourgeoisie. I'm tired of future white collar criminals of America. I'm tired of conventional disguised as underground. It's amazing to me how many seemingly smart people I meet who have such narrow minds, or are just completely apathetic. I want to congratulate them for their success at being such wonderful assholes. It's quite an achievement.

So, I'm an honest Midwestern girl. If people ask how I feel I'll tell them, but in California I think I might be better off putting on airs... Or maybe I've just been encountering a wave of pretentiousness lately. But come on! Seriously at least I'm honest about my neuroses and acknowledge it. My shadow is on the surface, what's scary is the shadow that's buried deep in someones heart---if they have one. That's some unpredictable shit.

Man, you know, I'm not trying to be so bitter. I'm actually pretty happy these days. I'm feeling San Diego. Someone said to me the other day, "So, you're still here." Yes. I'm still here, and you know what? I like it. I've realized I'm flexible, and I think this place is interesting. I think it's an especially interesting place for an artist... because there is just so much material... Lots of good dumpster-diving---as Freegan Kitchen proved... Lots of good and dark shadow material to work with.

Racism? and General Discontent

1)
This Fall 2007 there are going to be 27,000 students enrolled at UCSD. I'm guessing 1% of them or less are African American. That's 'interesting' when you consider that African Americans make up about 8% of the population of San Diego. Aaaaa.... I guess we're not reflecting the community, yet (2007).

2)
No one, including criminals, should be treated like 'slaves'. Also, people who are in jail, are not 'just crazy'. Some of them are ill, and some of them are desperate. Desperation leads people to do desperate things, and 'desperation' has a lot of causes. Desperation, and some illness, can be prevented and remedied, but as someone once told me 'prevention is not sexy' and no one cares about remedies.

By the way, thanks is owed to a new friend for teaching me about the 13th amendment. It says: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ***except as a punishment for crime*** whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Well, shucks, why are we worried about torturing Gitmo prisoners when all along we've been allowed to treat them like slaves and indentured servants? --- Oh, I guess Gitmo prisoners have not been duly convicted by our fair and completely unbiased justice system, yet. Right.

3)
I reserve the right to talk about racism even though I'm lily white and female. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.

4)
I consider myself an indentured servant to the banks and collection companies that hold my student loans. Oh, I know I should be grateful for for the fact that they allowed me to go to school. Thanks banks. Can you lower my interest rate now?

Art Engages the World

Here are some thoughts of mine based on a conversation last night...

I once asked an 'art star' I was studying under the question: If you make art, but never show it to anyone, are you still an artist? I thought her answer would be 'Yes' but her answer was 'No', to which I was very surprised.

To me, being an artist, has to do with making work and having an artistic practice, not showing that work. Her answer had some serious implications. I prodded her for more of an explanation, and I think she said something along the lines of 'things that are made but not shown to anyone are craft.' This conversation happened years ago, but it disturbs me to this day.

My belief is that being an artist is intrinsically tied into making work, not where or to how many people you are showing it to. Showing art happens after the fact. To the 'Art Market folks' this is probably naive thinking. If you buy into the Art Market, then you buy into the necessity of Market rules: fast production, customers satisfaction, visibility and marketing. Showing the work is why the work exist at all. Let's be honest. That is what it is. (At least part of it... It's complicated.)

Art does need to engage the world though, and there are different ways that engagement happens. Maybe a painting gets shown in a gallery on 5th Avenue and engages the world in that way... an Art Market way.

Or perhaps the painter when making the painting engages the world in an entirely different way, a way that is so subtle it almost isn't visible. Perhaps the painter (or photographer, or filmmaker, or whatever) goes into the world and looks at it, and thinks about it, and from that engagement, alters the way that she/he lives their life, alters the way they consume, and makes work that reflects their vision and alteration.

This type of direct artistic engagement seems the essential part of what makes someone an artist or not. And for me this type of engagement holds more value than commercial success, because whatever artwork results from this process inevitably reflects the world, and that is what makes the work relevant. After that, chance and circumstance (the whims and concerns of people at any given moment) dictate if the art becomes representative of something greater, or becomes a commercial success.

There is way more to say... but that's enough for me.

Loneliness is Such A Drag. Rain

Thanks Jimi, truer words were never spoken. There is something so alienating about the endless sunny weather of San Diego, especially when you don't have someone to appreciate it with you. And if you have a relationship, even if the relationship is bad somehow grilling at the pool after a dip or lounging at the beach, alleviates the pain of it. The downside is that you end up stuck in bad relationships much longer than you should be, because well, the sunny day is calling! It's too much damn work to fight when you can sun yourself! Oh, woe is me! I can't sun myself.

But I'm happy now, because rain is in the forecast. Oh the lovely rain, expressing all our tender souls' sorrows so well in a few drops. Please, oh please, let it rain I say.

All these tall slender palm trees need a bath, and I need a break from the perfection. I need to feel a little miserable right now, a little lonely. It's healthy to feel the pangs of your heart... to be reminded it is there, if nothing else.

San Diegians need rain very badly.

Is San Diego Home?

I had an amazing conversation with a girlfriend of mine tonight. I've been filming her for the documentary that I've been working on about home. She was speaking to me (and my camera) and I was thinking that she was taking the words right out of my mouth.

We have both recently come to the conclusion that we might in fact be in living in San Diego for a long time to come, and we've been wondering about the repercussions of that fact. She just got her PhD in Molecular Biology, but instead of accepting a post-doc at a prestigious east coast school she decided that she would be happier if she went a different direction with her life. Kudos to those folks whom are that self-aware, esp. after spending 6 years working on a PhD! I don’t think she knew which direction was best, but she did know it was a different direction than the one she was headed in. So, lucky for me, she’s around to contemplate my queries about where and what home is. The elusive beast!

San Diego might, in fact, be home for us. Gulp! I’ve been here almost 7 years, and she’s been here almost 9! When do we get to, or have to take ownership, of this jalopy? A few things that make it hard to imagine San Diego as home: 1) The costs of housing. 2) The fact that there are hardly seasons. 3) The apparent lack of eligible and interesting men. (If you are out there, we can’t find you.)

If we could afford houses, and have money left over to decorate them (yes, cute), if we were reminded of the sweet and serene places of our childhood where Fall and Spring ushered in snowmen and running through the sprinkler, if we could find soulful men who weren’t intimidate by a couple of smart women, yes we’d feel more at home! I’m not convinced it’s impossible. But my dear friend and I agree we can’t wait around forever, or at all for that matter. We really have to make homes for ourselves out of what we’ve got now. However that works.

Part of having a home, is having a family, or at least is having people who entirely accept you for who you are… Don’t judge you for the little insignificant things. That’s why finding a companion matters. But San Diego is hard, with all these literal and figurative freeways separating us. So many people coming and going, but I’m resolute: It will happen. Home is possible everywhere, even in San Diego.

Occupations of Everyone I've Ever Dated

People that read blogs like lists. So here we go.

This is a list of occupations of everyone I've ever dated even if we only went out a few times. It's hard to meet people anyway, and I'm running out of occupations. Geesh! The astericks indicate best and the worst.

1) drummer/bartender
2a) guitarist/marriage councilor*
2b) bassist/waiter
3) sculptor
4) chef
5) politician/poet
6) mechanical engineer/inventor*
7) animator/teacher
8) construction worker/eccentric
9) philosopher/professional athlete/porsche mechanic*
10) philosopher/filmmaker/writer*
11) actor
12) sociologist
13) biologist
14) graphic designer
15) photographer
16) painter/IT consultant

Coffee and Creatives

I've been enjoying evening coffee with a new friend of mine at a local coffee shop named Cream located on Park Ave. in North Park. Cream is owned by a nice guy who also happens to be a UCSD Visual Arts graduate student. Located around the corner from Cream (in the same building) is a little fashion boutique called Neighborhood, which the owner of Cream also co-owns and runs when he is not busy working on his MFA. Both places are worth a visit. On any given night you can see a plethora of creatives doing their thing. People tote in their laptops and set up shop... graphic designers to sound artists. I've also met local poets and intellectuals milling about the place contemplating life these days, and I can't not mention all the teachers writing lessen plans. This is a place that makes me feel a little more at home in San Diego. It also actually reminds me of the Broadway Cafe and Roastery in the East Village of Westport in Kansas City Missouri, my old haunt.

Nice places to read books.

Check it out:
Neighbourhood Boutique

Commitment in San Diego

I went to Citizen Video last night to drop off some movies, and ended up going to the Whistle Stop with the owner of Citizen Video (the most charming lady ever). We met up with some new friends and ran into some old friends, and danced the night away to One Nation (Djs Blackstone and Atari). Whistle Stop is a happening little place in the South Park/Golden Hill part of town.

At any rate I ran into a friend and we had a long conversation about San Diego. We discussed common San Diego themes: transience, impermanence, disenfranchisement, and commitment. There is a whole contingent of people who live in San Diego, and have lived here for years that can't commit to the place. No matter how long they live here, 25 years even, and they still don’t think of it as home. They just resign themselves to it. Being a Midwesterner, the fact that there are barely seasons makes it hard for me. It’s the whole issue of feeling disenfranchised from the place. For a lot of new residents of San Diego the perpetual good weather just makes life and time slip by so easily. Ten years go by, and people never have to deal with the city. You deal with a city when, for instance, there’s a huge ice storm or snowstorm that turn routine activities on their head. That is when you are forced to deal with a place. Forced to come to terms with where you are. I suspect that for a lot of people who live here, they just exist in a kind of figurative homelessness. That can't feel very good. Or I should say, it doesn't. I vacillate between feeling at home here and feeling foreign.

People come and go from this town pretty quickly too, but the fact of the matter is, there are people here who call this place home. There are a lot of people who grew-up here, and went to high school here. That’s important. Those of us who are unable to deal with San Diego should take lessons from the long time residents. It might bring some much needed peace-of-mind. Maybe if we all started surfing the San Diego angst would fade.

Check it out:
Citizen Video
Whistle Stop Bar

A Life in the Day of San Diego

Who am I? I am someone who inexplicably found herself moving to San Diego in 2001. I think I got here on August 2, 2001. I was at the beginning of serving my time in graduate school for an MFA at UCSD in the Visual Arts. No sooner did I get comfy here, and get to know some of my colleagues, then 9/11 happened, and everything was different. 9/11 forced us to rethink the purpose and meaning of art production, because after 9/11 what good was art? It was so small, so powerless, so insignificant, and so shallow, and so were we. At least that is how it seemed then. Perhaps that is because that is how so many people felt with 9/11 forcing so much perspective down our throats. Now, of course, the shame I felt for being an art maker, and not a doctor, firefighter, or whatever, has faded, and I again see the value in art, sometimes. At any rate, 9/11 was my introduction to San Diego. I was recently talking to one of my classmates and he mentioned he actually moved here on Sept 11! Ouch.

I survived three years of graduate school and existential crisis, and graduated in 2004. And even though I’m regularly told I can’t be an artist in San Diego, I have to be in LA or New York, I’m still here, being an artist my way. Cities need artists. San Diego needs artists. I don't feel like abandoning this place, because I think there is energy here. It just needs to be harnessed. I'm working on that part.

I realized today that maybe I should have called this blog "A life in the Day of San Diego". That might actually be a more accurate description on what this blog is going to become.

The First of Many

San Diego needs voices, and I'm just one of many possible, but I think I have a perspective worth sharing. I'm not from here, but who is? I grew up in Nebraska and came out here for graduate school. I've now lived here almost seven years, though I did a brief stint in LA, but got drawn back (like many). The more time I spend in San Diego the more she opens up to me. Let's face it, this can be an alienating town. A lot of people who move here experience a kind of culture shock they were never expecting, because this place is like no other. For one thing, it sits on one of the largest border crossings in the world, it lives in the shadow of Los Angeles and Hollywood, it's rubbing elbows with some of the richest communities in the country, and sharing art-culture-cuisine and language with it's Southern neighbors (Mexico and beyond). It also takes lessons from immigrants from all over the world, including a huge population of Somali and Ethiopian peoples. San Diego is fusion. That's its blessing and its curse, because all those voices echoing about the endless sunny freeways make people feel a bit disenfranchised. That's my opinion anyway, and that is what this blog is, just my opinion. If you have a different opinion, you should share, because like I said before San Diego needs voices.

This blog is going to be about what I think makes this city great, hard, unwelcoming, and beautiful. It's going to be about art in San Diego, film in San Diego, and culture in San Diego. I'm going to write about all the things I love: inde film, local art, local music, great stores, restaurants, venues, people, poetry. Let's get to it already.