McSorleys Old Ale House

I live in Brooklyn and find any excuse to come here, especially when friends are visiting. So last night was not my first visit by any means, but by far, the most memorable to date. The bar was packed and everywhere we stood, we seemed to be in the way of the servers (no ale in the aisle, get out of my way I need to feed the fire, etc) until we found our way to the end of the bar taking one last look before leaving. The bar tender came over and asked if we wanted anything. When we said no, he asked if we were homeless and proceeded to bring us three mugs of water and a large tupperware of chilled strawberries. Later, he took one of my friends and made him help stoke that same fire we were pushed aside to feed. It was, hands-down, one of my favorite experiences in New York. But just one question remains: did he REALLY think we were homeless? I mean, come on, the net worth of our jackets alone was close to half a grand. I guess it just goes to show you it is, indeed, hard to stay stylish in the winter months without looking homeless.

Graffiti, Art and 5 Pointz

I have not always thought of graffiti as ephemeral. But I do, and have done for a number of quantifiable years. Part of it started in 2006 when I met students and artists working with stencils and wheat pastes in Atlanta. Their pieces were lucky to last a day (we must have stenciled the same public mailbox a dozen times) but the fleeting nature of the art form was lost in the adrenaline rush of the act and the learning curve of the culture.

It was three years ago that I saw this wheat paste in Mexico City. I was inexplicably drawn to it, returned often, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, to sit under a jacaranda on the opposite side of the street and watch the vomit convolve into zebra striped candy canes. One day, I took a then new friend but later roommate on a walking tour of local graffiti; when we arrived, it was gone, not even one fibrous stripe, one shred of proof left clinging to the wall to prove its existence. I continued to give that tour and it perpetually changed during three years of monitoring. Some became hotspots, with new graffiti layered on the old; others disappeared completely, usually reborn as expensive condos or poorly curated restaurants serving overpriced, insipid fusion food. But few pieces are as embossed in my memory as this one. After its disappearance, I vaguely expected it of all graffiti, battling its intrinsic impermanence by photographing in situ what I came across when I came across it, knowing replacement or extirpation could be just around the corner.

  

Graffiti, unlike the art lining the humidity- and light-controlled halls (no flash please!) of the Louvre, El Prado, the MoMA, etc. is 100% vulnerable to its environment - sleet, rain, sun, snow, smog, humanity - precisely because it is not behind guarded, entrance-fee walls. This is what makes it accessible to all creators and onlookers. Anyone that wants to can make or appreciate graffiti, with or without a degree from an Institute of Art and Design.

When I meet people who are are anti-graffiti, I think about the art in their homes and what they feel when they see The Mona Lisa and what they consider their child's finger painted rendition of a cow that is ironically held up by a cheese-shaped magnet on the fridge. Do they identify, instead, with George Bush's painting of himself in the bathtub? When they were in high school, did they paint a still life replica of a vase next to fruit on a checkered table cloth? One thing is for sure: They like some art to some degree, even if they do not know what they like is art. 

Unfortunately for graffiti, some people and politicians associate it purely with vandalism and or gangs. While this is not unfounded, viewing graffiti (and anything) as a black and white argument does not produce satisfactory answers because the resulting black and white answers excludes the needed  shades of grey to discuss graffiti, art and public space.

So what is art?

art¹

ärt/

noun

1. 1.

   the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

   "the art of the Renaissance"

   synonyms:

   fine art, artwork More
2. 2.

   the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance.

   "the visual arts"
3. 
   

Okay. Is all art good? Who decides what is art? Why? How? How does art change based on where you see it*? What is graffiti? Is graffiti art? Is all graffiti art? What is the difference between these two pieces? 

Graffiti version of Self Portrait with felt Hat, 5 Pointz  

Self Portrait with felt Hat, Van Gogh Museum

I spent saturday at 5 Pointz. I had never been there nor had I heard of it. I received an unexpected text inviting me to a graffiti rally, and I accepted. Simple as that. 

I took photos and listened to the stories. I examined the pieces and the onlookers and their signs. I heard genuine conviction from the speakers even felt something during one of the speeches that I did not expect and was surprised by the urge to let out a small amount of high-sodium liquid from the corner of my eye because this is not really my fight. That being said, people are so bored or disgusted or cynical or distracted by relentless and unfettered spectacle and so many confuse liking something on facebook with real social change that it was inspiring to stand in a parking lot in Queens and watch these folks fight for something larger than themselves.

I was converted, baptized in spray paint, ready to jump on board. Handcuff myself to the place? Maybe not, but who knows. I did not get a chance to test my own conviction because about 48 hours later, the fight ended when the developer bought 20,000 dollars worth of white paint and covered the artwork in the night. He told media something about wanting to spare the artists the pain of watching their works be demolished †.

So. Art is subjective and emotionally charged. The best definition I can find comes from Tolstoy's 1904 essay, "What is Art?": 

"Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity."

5 Pointz was art to many people across the globe; when that building goes down, New York will lose a part of its humanity to gentrification. I only hope it does not end there and that people continue to think about art / community / social justice after this leaves the newspapers and support people fighting for 5 Pointz when they channel that same energy and creativity into a new project ‡. 

/////f o o t n o t e s//////

* Watch John Berger's Ways of Seeing series.

† A coward's way to end the discussion but also almost cartoon villainesk, like something Mr. Burns or the Grinch would do before his heart grew three sizes in one day and he discovered the true meaning of Christmas.
‡ See Atlanta's Living Walls

I moved to New York City

I moved to New York City.

In my first 24 hours, I went to a (bad) warehouse party after a (very bad) house party, where (I will be the first to admit) I may have flexed my ironic muscles a little too much after realizing the room could and would understand my every entendre, pun or faint hyperbole, I ran down Bedford Avenue at the same pace as my friend traversing fire escapes atop closing bars, I missed something because of the G Train, I walked by a relatively famous however not-so-exciting celebrity, I toasted champagne at an overpriced Manhattan restaurant that hosted Robert De Niro's wife's surprise birthday party last week and boasted a guest list of Harvey Keitel, Sting and Mayor Bloomberg, I fielded questions about my shoes/glasses/shorts/boots, I purchased my very first educated phone*, I inherited clothes from a model, I met an Indian pop star who wants to go more in the direction of Britney than Madhubala, and I definitely spent over 100 American dollars on cab fare †.

I moved to New York City. 

What can I say? Sometimes it feels like I am cheating on D.F. or something, but when I really think about it, the two are not as different as no one every claimed they would be. Street vendors dishing out paletas. Check. Pirated CDs and or DVDs. Check. 4-dollar-plastic-diamond-rings (for that special someone). Double Check. Mildewed records swarmed by middle-aged men with beer bellies. A little more D.F. but Check. Streets replete with variegated and sometimes poetically beautiful refuse. God yes, Check. New York even has those same predictably unpredictable metro lines, strangely inhabited by the same older gentleman playing Los Panchos in a knockoff Stetson. 

Hell, you might as well still be in Mexico when you are in Bushwick or Spanish Harlem, where the shear magnitude of tiendas, taco joints and telenovela-like characters imbue the streets with a replica more accurate but less kid friendly than Disney's Epcot center. That same feeling that you are in a theme park and you need to keep exchanging money for more tokens to keep this crazy ride going is alive and well, though it is a less dangerous and more expensive than D.F. or even Disney.    

New York City is probably the most logical place for any returning seasoned expat likely to suffer from real or imagined reverse culture shock induced by 99.1264% of America's empty sidewalks next to manicured lawns in class- and or race- homogenous neighborhoods. That is because all countries seem to be represented here and have a designated part of town, where communities continue as if they are in an insert-nationality snow globe. And even when they leave the confines of their uprooted-but-replanted society, they are, at the very least, tolerated by other members of society because everyone has their own snow globe and, like, gets it, it being that at its core, New York is still a city of immigrants and is a living memorial to the foundations of the States while most other cities seem like sad anniversaries. 

I moved to New York City. 

I always said everything in Mexico City is either Lynch or Tarantino, but in New York, Lynch is replaced by Allen, Tarantino by Cassavetes. The fading colors of a pulp existence fade into the black and white of the Baumbach film projected on a temporary screen amongst graffiti.

I feel like I have never been around so many Americans in my life; that might actually be true. A woman held open a door for me and I was disappearing into the building she told me that she has the same pair of shoes. Really? I asked, how? I made these, literally painted them years ago, and she said a few blocks down there is a shop with them, that somebody must have had the same idea to paint shoes in those particular colors and patterns (better said splatters). I was such an oddity in D.F., a collectors item for eccentric mexicans or older artists wishing to prove they were still in touch with a younger crowd that had interesting, convoluted jobs outside of the arts, but here I blend into the public transport and concrete among the millions of creative, impressive, intelligent types writing a screenplay or web series or acting or doing standup or starting a start up because this is the town where you get back what you put in and confidence goes a long way if you can back it up with content. I cannot emphasize enough that people are way more friendly than portrayed on television in the 80's, say in "Ghost" or "Escape from New York." Weirdly, people's shells are mostly non-existent. That is not to say that New Yorkers are not sassy. They are. In the best possible way. But there is this very accessible humanity to people that I could write off to a returned expat relishing in the simplicity of understood language while blending in, being just like no one and everyone.

I moved to New York City, a place where I can already tell one gets frustrated but never bored. A place where I already feel at home. 

/////f o o t n o t e s//////
*  My phone went to Berkeley and was considering"Double-Bearing" but decided that a Master's is just not worth what it use to be and with all of that debt and has in-differently and -definitely deferred his acceptance status. Aside from us hooking up a few months ago, he also works as a barista in a coffee shop in the Lower Eastside.
† At least. My god. It is the one thing I still have not come to terms with. I admit that i feared for my life a handful of times in D.F.'s infamous cabs but when it comes right down to it, were I to take cabs here with the same frequency in which I did in my previous Mexican life, it would probably be equivalent to a two fast-food-kidnappings.

International Documentary Challenge

In mid-December, I agreed to move from Mexico City to a remote beach of the Oaxacan coast. By late December, I had decided on my equipment. By early-January, I was opening up my B&H packages that would be my gear for my first solo project.

That may sound strange as I have worked in video now for many years. But this project would be my first shot at something that had no given stricture, no rules, no funding, no maize, no wheat no scientific/organizational/governmental/not-for-profit-but-still-possibly-a-registered-trademark message.

So that meant I needed my own equipment. I trawled gear reviews while liquor, cinnamon and deep-fried turkey wafted in the air. And needed everything before January 4th, when I would return to D.F. So what was in my suitcase: an Iomega 2 TB hard drive, Cards Against Humanity, a Panasonic gH2, two new and six vintage lenses ranging from macro to fish eye, various stabilizing devices, an h4N Zoom, a Rode ntg2, two new bathing suits and "The Complete Rhyming Dictionary and Poet's Companion" by Clement Wood, 1936 edition

In the process of designing my acquisition system, I ran across the International Documentary Challenge, a timed filmmaking competition from February 28th to March 4th. It was 5 days to make a short, non-fiction film based on 2 randomly assigned documentary genres as well as a theme, like this year’s “harmony.” I sent the information to the guys at the beach and it was agreed upon. we would eneter the contest and hope that, for my sake, we were not assigned the genre “Sports.”

And we did not. But I was still nervous. I had been nervous. The average team included 8 people. So I made a deal with myself: turn something in even if it is not perfect. Learn from it.

And I did. Specifically, I learned about audio and that it is hard to hold and a boom and pull focus and interview and keep giant roaming puppies from licking equipment and take a bandana to wipe the high sodium liquid seeping out of skin and onto surfaces and electronics and glasses. I use to use Sennheiser lavalieres, which are microphones you pin to the subject. This allowed me focus for interviewing and filming. But I use to interview individuals in slightly more controlled environments. When I designed this system, I went for a shotgun microphone because this project was more about the group and day-to-day interactions.

My one regret is having not duplicated myself to hold a boom, even if that duplicate may have been a doppelgänger that I would have to tell every 4 minutes, "boom in the shot." And that made more sense, the duplicate consistently doing a sub-par job, after I did some extensive research watching the movie, “Multiplicity,” in which Micheal Keaton duplicates himself like four times just to realize he must take control of his life and send his extra selves packing. So I decided duplication was not the way forward (yet) but that I would need someone else on boom forever and ever, amen.

And, hey. Lesson learned. We did not win the contest and that was not, nor was it ever the goal. For me, leaving Mexico City for Oaxaca, gathering the equipment, creating the product and submitting all of the paper work correctly and utterly alone makes the effort a success. At least in my biased eyes.

Watch the final product here:

A sense of place (despite lingering fear of tropical spiders)

On January 29th, 2013 I moved from Mexico City, one of the most populous cities in the world, to an empty beach about an hour outside of Puerto Escondido in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. My city friends called it the "super-soft-fade-out," like those from the end of 80's movies. The protagonist raises his arms in the air after overcoming the numerous, unlikely trials of the last 93 minutes and 27 seconds. The camera freezes on the fist and slowly fades out to credits...

In my case, the trial timeframe was more like 5 years and there was no super-soft-fade-out-ending. The idea of moving back to the United States crossed my mind, but starting another 9-5 after working one straight out of college for half a decade? I became dizzy. On top of that, I wanted to clear somethings up with Mexico, a country now so woven into my fabric I can hardly tell where the southern quilt begins and the fringed serape ends.

So I came to Oaxaca to document my friend's progress to build a personal utopia. He had just signed on some land in the small pueblo of "El Venado" or in English "The Deer." This name was a sign to him as he had grown up on a back-to-the earth-project in Arkansas named "Deer," which was (possibly) ((one of)) the inspiration(s). Buying the land had taken two years, but he had managed. And while the ink was drying on those papers, I was planning my own escape, just minus the personal utopia. He read discontent in my internet trails and wrote to say it was time to make the documentary we always joked about me making.

Okay.

I came with few expectations, and for the best. The city slicker in me scoffed at the land: no structures, no water, no electricity, no internet. What had I done? What am I going to do next? Is that a spider in your tent? I mean, have you seen the movie, "Arachnophobia"? How fast can I get to concrete shelter, preferably with a fan and cupboard containing, at minimum, one chocolate croissant? I stayed the night in a hammock figuring it would be the best bet against spiders but failed to realize I was opening up an all-you-can-eat mosquito buffet. I left the next morning, not staying even 24 hours and not to return for a week.

When I did return, volunteers from the helpX, a website that connect people willing to work for food and shelter, had started to trickle in. I could not understand them. Not because of language or anything. I mean to say I could not understand their motivations. They were willing to break their backs for tortas and a place to pitch a tent? I knew there must be more but was not sure what it could be. So I prepared my gear and started filming. First little things like clearing paths with machetes or painting the bottom of fruit trees with white lime and then building earthbag structures, a design popularized by Iranian architect Nader Khalili, which involves lots of heave-hoing of dirt-like substances into polyethylene bags originally intended for seed/food.

And at some point, that I myself cannot point out, I stopped watching them and started rooting for them. I stopped seeing them with the pre-constructed labels I applied because of dreadlocks or vocabulary choices. I stopped being afraid to leave my camera gear laying around because they were strangers. And I missed them when I went back to civilization to charge up my batteries and ingest footage. I will never forget the first time I came back and was greeted with "welcome home."

I realize that to be part of this I have to put aside what I learned in the chaos and traffic of Mexico City. And the first step is already underway: just seeing people as people and valuing connections that instinctively exist if you let them surface.

Machetes

Yesterday morning I took a break from all things video to sling a machete to (re)understand the principles of manual labor while listening to "Hootenanny," from start to finish. I forgot (never knew) to wear gloves, so by the time I got to "Take Me Down to the Hospital" certain parts of my hands looked up, begging me to heed Paul Westerberg's words. I showed them who was boss by covering them up with a bandana until I had poorly finished the job and the album.

   

Somewhere else

When life is predictable the smallest aberration can fuel a brilliant story. A new trick for peddling made-in-china-flashlights on the metro from a man missing at least one limb or the guy selling you cigarettes insinuating that you are a hooker (working early today, aren't we?). You know, for example. But things are now so shaken up and I cannot see the start. 

I guess it was Berlin. Within a week of looking, I had a bite for an interview. I had never focused on a city so intensely and it paid. I did not go to Berlin, no, but Berlin taught me that one can push one's agenda easier than I, for one, realized. Though loath to leave D.F. and harboring the fear I would sink, I knew sooner rather than later change would come or else I would drown in a stagnate puddle.

So I left, stored my record collection with a friend, gave away decorative skulls and clothes with horses stitched on the front and packed almost 5 years into 2 suitcases destined for the coast.

I arrived less than a week ago. The taxi brought me to a stripped down, large house with heart-shaped-bars on the windows and a tetras-shaped swimming pool in the front yard. A friend and an unidentified Mexican guy sat with their feet in the semi-chlorinated water, which they tracked on the concrete in human paw shaped prints but that evaporated before we got my bags out of the airport cab. When I told the cabbie in D.F. I had lived in Texcoco and Mexico City, he asked if I had put chunks of the two in my luggage. 

Upon entering, I found a mostly white, mostly empty, mostly tiled narco-style-mini-mansion. Nic came down the staircase and the first thing out of his mouth was about how he had been sick and shitting everywhere. Mexican food. I found the information somewhat secondary. We went for a walk to pick up his giant puppy Machete, an Irish Wolfhound with a mow-hawk and a penchant it turns out for tackling nude females along the coast line. The walk gave us a chance to talk about the project and expectations. Everything had happened so quickly that, well, we only touched on the latter tangentially  The main focus was getting down there. Now I was Oaxaca, Nic on one side, the Pacific ocean on the other. So I dove right in. What was his timeline? Goals? Budget?

It was 5 p.m. and I had scrambled some eggs around 8 a.m., so we stopped for some food. Nic knew the guy. (Of course). I ate a quesodilla as he explain how the progress was going to build his dream. I wanted to jot down quotes and ideas but was without paper and had slept very little in the week leading up to that moment due to a post-wisdom-teeth-extraction-infection.*

I was pounding some agua del dia hard when he told me his main goal is to create and host Burning Man Mexico from December 27th 2013 to January 4th 2014. I chuckled inside. I should have guessed. This coming from the guy who explained buying an $800 fur coat for his (first) despedida by rationalizing that, "it will be great for Burning Man." †

Nic was quitting his job for the month of February so that he could oversee and participate in a "work party" on the land. About an hour outside of Puerto, he now owned the site for his utopia after two years of searching and fighting with the Mexican bureaucratic system.‡ 

We drove out Friday night to greet the first volunteers from the website HelpX, which connects people willing to work for accommodation and food. And that is fascinating. These people will break their backs for a few tortas. But I think/know there is more to it than that. I tried to lead one of the girls, a Canadian, down the road of (my) enlightenment as to why she chose this project. Did she grow up on a farm? Did she remember when she first realized she wanted an alternative lifestyle? Had she seen an example of this type of community when she was younger? § I gave up as she her answer to 87.33333% of my questions was, "to live off the grid" (even though when pressed she could not explain what that meant or why she wanted it). I decided to put interviews on hold until we had more volunteers.

I took some good test footage, in both the day and night, as it was my camera's maiden voyage and I wanted to see how she handled different lighting. I also tested out my new audio system, composed of an h4n and Rode Mic with Plural Eyes in post. Needless to say I was super eager to check out the results, to learn my new workflow and to do this with coffee and a chocolate croissant on the porch of Cafecito.

I put on the old rucksack, grabbed my gear and hitched a ride with Nic and his cousin Dagen to the main road. From there, I started walking towards Puerto until I could catch a passing convi. I want to get this system down before official filming begins later this month. 

/////f o o t n o t e s//////

* Firmly excruciating pain that leads to eating sub-recreational painkillers like Tic Tacs ®
† Throughout the time I knew Nic in Mexico City Burning Man was a recurring theme in conversations  He once bought a dark purple leather vest with 4 huge pockets on the front from the used clothing market in Pino Suarez for the sole purpose of wearing it at Burning Man, which at the time was approximately 8 months down the road. Affectionally known as "Burners," people like Nic see the world tinted by their memories of the art festival deep in the Nevada desert. While the roots are unequivocally non-commercial, some feel that the festival has grown too much and is becoming too corporate. That is why across the States, many have already started mini-Burning Man events. Read more here.
‡ I always says the wheels of Mexican bureaucracy move slowly. Nic says they move backwards.
§ Nic himself grew up on in the backwoods of Arkansas in a back-to-the-earth-type-project. 

Cuauhtémoc

A few years ago I got a tattoo on my back. I put in on my back because I did not always want to see it. But I knew it was there. I got this particular tattoo, having never particularly wanted a tattoo, of the metro stop Cuauhtémoc, which is located in Colonia Juárez, which is located in Mexico City, which is located approximately two-and-one-half-blocks from my first apartment in the city. And I put this on my back not because of my enthusiasm for public transport (which, believe me, is very real) but, instead, to remind me to do the scary things in life. I was so terrified to move from Texcoco. (Anyone who has lived in Texcoco will recognize the irony in this statement). I did not know how I would find an apartment or meet friends or navigate such a daunting mega-city. But once I made that big, scary move, I saw how easy it was. How is was actually much easier than my life in the violent, semi-urban-periphery.

That move was a good one because I fell madly in love with Mexico City. So I got that tattoo to show my commitment, my adoration, my appreciation to a city that both schooled and mentored me while sharing its chaos and old buildings and traffic and scenes straight from a Lynch film and scenes straight from a Tarantino film and hilariously wonderful/intelligent/crazy/kind people with whom I have had the distinct honor of piling into cabs and then piling back out when the driver reveals he wants to charge double. But I also got that tattoo that I never thought I wanted because I knew one day I would need to be reminded, once again, to change. To do the scary thing that I already knew to do. And so I leave behind the city that I love so much with a permanent reminder that I may not always be able to see but that I will always know is there.

Nada personal

As I sit drinking coffee, ingesting footage, occasionally cackling in a public place, I think about my return to the functioning chaos of D.F. and my life eating lunch at predictable hours.

I try to synthesize and mentally apply metadata to all that has passed in the last 9 days.

I realized:

1.     Be/Play nice. Everything else falls into place.

2.     Genuine enthusiasm is contagious, beautiful and palpable. This has something to do with Limbic Systems.

3.     Everyone, deep down, wants to be a movie star. Especially in remote villages.

4.     Conservation agriculture is more of a philosophy than an agronomic practice.

5.     The guys here, the dream-team of 5, work. They are patient, sympathetic, hilarious people both amongst themselves and with the farmers.

6.     Jokes are vital as are papausas.

How to evolve

I have made mistakes. Flat-out, without excuse and (now) harboring little to no regret. Why? Because I am a sociopath. (I am totally kidding). Let's try that again. Because I, like the rest of you, am currently and will continue to be a work in progress. And that is not a bad thing. It is a distinctly good thing. At least once you realize it and use it like upgrades to your mac. So, yeah, periodically you will be like that spinning colorful wheel as you change from lion to snow leopard and you really wish your computer would stop freezing and get on with it; that this is taking way longer than you had expected and you want to rush it to the end but the only way is to force quit and that just takes you back to the start when you really know that without this upgrade things will not necessarily get worse but they definitely will not get better, so you go make a cup of coffee and crack open some non-required reading and as soon as you stop waiting and wishing and thinking about this upgrade, how long it is bloody taking, then it just happens. Always. Like water. Except if you watch water it will boil. Trust me.