LoBot

My brother lives at a place called LoBot. Lobot is this very cool live/work space warehouse in West Oakland. They have a gallery and sometimes have shows. I had been there a few times before my brother even lived in the bay area and some a some bands play. It seemed like a cool place in a not so nice industrial area of Oakland, California. Each person that lives there has their own room, I spent most of the time in my brother's room...

...or in the kitchen. The kitchen ins a big space a with a couple refrigerators and lots of cabinets and a nice big table with lots of fun chairs. Through the doors where it says "enchanted forest" is a fully equipped screen printing studio. I wanted to use it but never got around to it. To the left of the studio is the "hang room" a large space with sofas and games and to the left of that is the "music room" a sound-proofed room full of instruments and equipment where anyone can go in and jam or record or practice or whatever they want to do.

Some of the instruments look like they haven't been touched in a while. There was one guitar covered in dust and had no strings, but don't worry there were plenty of functional instruments. Recently my brother and a couple of his roommates have been playing reggae and one night we stayed up late in the kitchen discussing reggae and ska and if they should be a cover band playing reggae songs or covering songs and turning them into reggae.

When you go past the kitchen you walk back into a long curvy hallway covered in art and posters with various looking doors off to the sides. Sometimes a door is open and you get a peek into one of these doors and get a small glimpse into the life of the person that lives on the other side.

This is my brother's door, I love that it's pink. Above his door to the right is a huge pink painting of Willie Nelson. I'm a sure someone who once lived there made it. All of the people that live there are artists. There are 13 people that live there give or take a few because there are always sub-letters and guests.

A few weeks ago there were so many people staying there that they put up pictures with each persons name, so that everyone knew who was living/staying there. I think this was while this group of Germans part of a German art collective were there. It is not uncommon for them to have visiting artists stay with them, there is even a "visting artist's studio" for them to work and live in that is right of the gallery. While I was there there were two guys from Seattle visiting.

my bro and my new cousin

where my brother lives


new cousin, 7 months

zines

I have come across all my old Riot Grrrl and Anarchist zines from way back when. This is just a small sampling of the zines I found. It's been fun reminiscing and thumbing through these zines from across the country and a few are even from out of the country. Most rant and rave about modern pop culture and praise the underground whether it be music, clothing, people, or activism.
Here are a few of my favorites. One is a DIY (Do It Yourself) craft guide with sample on the inside. Another is a collection of poems and photographs that are made to look like they are in a composition book some copied onto lined paper. Another has cool screen prints and includes stories, poems and yet more art. An other is full of short stories, the cover is made out of a brown paper bag and includes "A Pirate's Guide To Vancouver".


And yet an other is a limited edition signed piece of art. Every edition of Hello Nothing. is different and is signed and is a limited edition series. This one is 29/99 and is made into a small little envelope that holds a canvas patch and small little strips of paper with different quotes. These zines are each unique and much blood and sweat went into physically cutting and pasting the pages together and then going to Kinkos to make photocopies or steal photocopies as so many zinesters did. Oh the days of Kinko's copy keys and cards.

So much effort went into making a zine as well as distributing it and advertising it. Many zines and distro catalogs included small little bits of paper sometimes copied onto the back of some other paper that was an ad. Each little ad contained so much information and was almost a mini zine itself. Sometimes a distro, record label, or zine would put all these little ads together and cut and paste them on a regualr size piece of paper.
Even I ran a short lived distro, here is my ad on one of those cut and paste ad sheets. Along with all of the paper waste that went on with making a zine there was so much thought that went into using the least amount of paper for ads and even reusing old paper to copy ads onto the back to cut down on paper waste.

Every time i recieved a zine it felt so personal. some would personalize the zine for you by hand writing your name onto it some where. All were always hand addressed. And sometimes zines would be accompanied by a hand written letter or note from the author, editor or distro. A zine was like a persons baby, holding so much of themselves inside of it.
Zines in the 90's were full of people speaking out and speaking their minds. As well as sharing ideas and propaganda and personal life experiences. Zines offered individuals with a forum to share what was on their mind and who they were.
Zines seemed to have become so popular that even clothing companies were making their own "zines". Amongst my zines was this FOXY "zine". I don' know if I would call it a real zine since zines were much more DIY and usually much more rough around the edges. But I guess Foxy wanted to jump on the underground bandwagon and make their own.

When I was looking through all of these zines I realised that blogs are really just the new zine, with a lot less paper waste. Blogs offer anyone and everyone to speak there mind, share pictures and stories and anecdotes, write short stories, share art or speak about whatever seems important to share with the world. Just like zines it is hard to know who actually reads them or if anyone really is. What is it that makes us feel that we need to have a forum to share our innermost thoughts with perfect strangers. Why do we even want to share? And does anyone actually read it anyways? Do we really need the validation? Is this a way to get validation? I don't think we will ever know the answers to any of these questions.
So I write on and read on...

Peoria

Before my birthday we went on a family trip to Arizona. We stayed in this little town called Peoria which is pretty close to Phoenix. And I have to say I think it was the best family trip we have ever had, not that we have had that many, but it was really fun with all of us. We started out the trip at the Grand Canyon.

The rest of the trip we didn't do much of anything which was great. I don't usually like vacations like that where we just sit by the pool, but this time I enjoyed it. It was really relaxing and great bonding time. K and I shared a room so we got some good bonding time. And M and I went on a couple little adventures, which I hope to share some of, but am just waiting waiting waiting for him to send me the proof that our adventures really happened.

At the end of the trip we went to the Desert Botanical Garden.

In one of the last sections we explored we came across this amazing instillation by Patrick Dougherty. It was so beautiful on the inside and on the outside. It was amazing to see the views that were created by the windows in the sculpture. It was so humbling to be inside of this enormous wooden womb and see the sun setting over the absolutely stunning scenery of the Arizona desert.

I am learning that I LOVE the desert, and luckily Israel has plenty of it. I don't know what it is but the desert is beautiful and extremely peaceful and humbling. It is amazing to see the vegetation and animals that live on basically no water and in very hot hot heat. We are so fragile, us humans, and could barely survive in a desert, but if one looks carefully one an survive on many of the magnificent creations that God created to survive in deserts. There are so many types of cacti and various other plants that live in these harsh conditions. B"H for all of these creations!