I will be in San Francisco from the night of Thursday, October 16th til the afternoon of Monday, October 20th! Come hang out with me San Francisco friends! Also I will be playing two shows down there. On the 18th @ DNA Lounge for the Super Ego Party and on Sunday the 19th at Pink for the French Kiss party. I am so excited!
The Presets in Portland
Current mood: froggy
Category: Music
Here's a video shot by my friend Cosondra http://www.myspace.com/cosondra at the Portland Presets/ Cut Copy show last Tuesday. It was one of the most fun shows I have been to this year. I certainly hope both bands come back to Portland again soon:) Thank you, Minh for taking me to the show with you:)
XLR8R magazine's October issue is all about Portland music and art! I am one of the lucky people who was featured in this issue. You can buy a copy in Portland at Local 35, Powell's books, and Rad Summer. Or you can download the issue for free at http://www.xlr8r.com/magazine/121 You can find me on page 37 in the On Deck article. Check it out! It's awesome!
This is a post that Jennifer Robin made on her blog two days ago and she's given me permission to post it on mine. http://www.myspace.com/babygirlrobin
On the US governments 700-billion dollar bail-out of dodgy investments, gambles, and other Wall Street Scams.
Yes the government is BUYING--is TAKING OVER all the companies that cheated and gambled people's money to substantial losses--and REWARDING these companies for it. The financial wizards who orchestrated all this are NOT FIRED--NOT BROKE--in fact will pocket MOST OF THIS dough as executive bonuses. These are executives who have supposedly run their companies into the ground--but they will not be selling their clothing and furniture and houses to pay this debt back! The US taxpayers who have very little knowledge or understanding of these strange scams have to bail them out. This is essentially like rewarding someone who has maxed out a credit card--someone who could pay but flat out REFUSES TO--by giving them UNLIMITED credit.
The US government takes 700 billion taxpayers dollars to seize these fraudlent companies, run them, and do whatever they please! This is the CONSERVATIVE estimate, because only 700 bil can be outstanding from taxpayer money at any given time. The way this plan is written means that the amount taken (YES LIKE IN A 'COMMUNIST' regime)--for the government to PRIVATIZE and run the financial institutions of America is UNLIMITED, and the borrowing can carry on into the trillions, INDEFINITELY. There is NO TIME LIMIT WHEN THIS BAILOUT ENDS. DIG? In other words, CONGRESSIONAL STOOGES are signing into law A NEW BLACK HOLE where uncountable amounts of taxpayers dollars can go, and according to this law, the decisions of how this money is used cannot be publicly 'reviewed.' Take money from the public and they are not allowed to know what is done with it? Isn't this called THEFT? This is a carte blanche to the US government MUCH BIGGER than the War in Iraq--much bigger than anything ever decided in this nation in its ENTIRE HISTORY.
AND what is worse, most of us have no idea how economics work, ON ANY SCALE, and none of us are going to learn by watching any TVs, or reading newspapers, either. The gap between what politicians and business moguls understand and what the average citizen understands has grown SO VAST THAT THE AVERAGE CITIZEN HAS GIVEN UP EVER BEING ABLE TO UNDERSTAND.
WHICH MAKES US CYNICAL SLAVES--look around. They are EVERYWHERE, getting tattoos which say 'Slave' and 'No Future' and racking up several hundred grand in debt. NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THE FUTURE. Our ability to imagine a positive future has dwindled to the point that people on every social level are living in a grand destructive orgy of PRESENT-PRESENT-PRESENT. The rich do it, knowing their connections will guarantee a bail-out. The poor do it, knowing that the sums they owe are so great, so fictional, and so INCOMPREHENSIBLE--that there is no point even trying to save or improve. Let youth buoy you unto your ultimate collapse.
-----Following are some excerpts from a Glenn Greenwald article in salon.com. It is well worth reading the whole thing--but if it starts to make your head hurt, please just skip ahead the the LAST PARAGRAPH. Let it sink in. I think decisions in this country are made by people who think: 'I'll just let this little amount of freedom be taken away. Nothing really can change--nothing can really get worse.' But guess what? Things have gotten worse. And they can get still get MUCH WORSE! The dream is ending, and we aren't able to digest this. I don't even think I can...yet...how can the 'stable world' I've known for so many years actually change? Well...let's wait a few years, and find out!
The following is taken from Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com:
What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.
More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn't resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains? This is "redistribution of wealth" and "government takeover of industry" on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzzphrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't. And all of this was both foreseeable as well as foreseen -- see the 2002 grave warnings from Warren Buffett on pages 14-15 of his shareholders letter (.pdf), among many other things -- and it's also happened before, when the Federal Government bailed out the S&L industry that (with John McCain's help) was able to gamble recklessly and then force the country to protect them from their losses. The people who did this have no fear of anything -- they completely lack the kind of healthy fear that impedes reckless behavior -- because they know how our Government works and that they control it and thus believe that their capacity to suffer is limited in the extreme. And they're right about that.
What's most vital to underscore is that the beneficiaries of this week's extraordinary Government schemes aren't just the coincidental recipients of largesse due to some random stroke of good luck. The people on whose behalf these schemes are being implemented -- the true beneficiaries -- are the very same people who have been running and owning our Government -- both parties -- for decades, which is why they have been able to do what they've been doing without interference. They were able to gamble without limit because they control the Government, and now they're having others bear the brunt of their collapse for the same reason -- because the Government is largely run for their benefit.
If there is any "pitchfork moment" -- an episode that understandably would send people into the streets in mass outrage -- it would be this. Nobody really even seems to know how much of these losses "the Government" -- meaning working people who had no part in the profits from these transactions -- is undertaking virtually overnight but it's at least a trillion dollars, an amount so vast it's hard to comprehend, let alone analyze in terms of consequences. The transactions are way too complex even for the most sophisticated financial analysts to understand, let alone value. Whatever else is true, generations of Americans are almost certainly going to be severely burdened in untold ways by the events of the last week -- ones that have been carried out largely without any debate and mostly in secret.
Third, what's probably most amazing of all is the contrast between how gargantuan all of this is and the complete absence of debate or disagreement over what's taking place. It's not just that, as usual, Democrats and Republicans are embracing the same core premises ("this is regrettable but necessary"). It's that there's almost no real discussion of what happened, who is responsible, and what the consequences are. It's basically as though the elite class is getting together and discussing this all in whispers, coordinating their views, and releasing just enough information to keep the stupid masses content and calm.
Can anyone point to any discussion of what the implications are for having the Federal Government seize control of the largest and most powerful insurance company in the country, as well as virtually the entire mortgage industry and other key swaths of financial services? Haven't we heard all these years that national health care was an extremely risky and dangerous undertaking because of what happens when the Federal Government gets too involved in an industry? What happened in the last month dwarfs all of that by many magnitudes.
The Treasury Secretary is dictating to these companies how they should be run and who should run them. The Federal Government now controls what were -- up until last month -- vast private assets. These are extreme -- truly radical -- changes to how our society functions. Does anyone have any disagreement with any of it or is anyone alarmed by what the consequences are -- not the economic consequences but the consequences of so radically changing how things function so fundamentally and so quickly?
Other countries are debating it. The headline in the largest Brazilian newspaper this week was: "Capitalist Socialism??" and articles all week have questioned -- with alarm -- whether what the U.S. Government did has just radically and permanently altered the world economic system and ushered in some perverse form of "socialism" where industries are nationalized and massive debt imposed on workers in order to protect the wealthiest. If Latin America is shocked at the degree of nationalization and government-mandated transfer of wealth, that is a pretty compelling reflection of how extreme -- unprecedented -- it all is.
But there's virtually no discussion of that in America's dominant media outlets. All one hears is that everything that is happening is necessary to save us all from economic doom. And what's most amazing about that is that the Natural, Unchallenged Consensus That Nobody Questions can shift drastically in a matter of days and still nobody questions anything. This is what Atrios observed as I was writing this post:
It's fascinating to watch how easily consensus is manufactured. A few days ago elite opinion seemed to be cheering Paulson's "no bailout" line, and now they're cheering a trillion bucks thrown down the crapper. All the Very Serious People will spend their days coming up with their pony plans, oblivious to the fact that the pony plan is not an option. The Bush administration's plan is the option.
The way it works is that Bush officials decree how things will be, and then everyone -- from Congressional Democrats to the Serious Pundits -- jump uncritically and obediently on board, even if they were on board with the complete opposite approach just days earlier, and then all real dissent vanishes. That's how the country in general works. As Atrios says: "We've seen this game played before."
I don't pretend to know anywhere near enough -- in terms of either raw information or expertise -- in order to opine on the necessity or lack thereof of The Latest Plan in terms of whether the alternatives are worse. But what I do know is that an injustice so grave and extreme that it defies words is taking place; that the greatest beneficiaries are those who are most culpable; and that the same hopelessly broken and deeply rotted institutions and elite class that gave rise to all of this (and so much more) are the very ones that are -- yet again -- being blindly entrusted to solve this.
UPDATE: Here is the current draft for the latest plan. It's elegantly simple. The three key provisions: (1) The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled "assets") [Sec. 6]; (2) The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10]; and (3) best of all: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency" [Sec. 8].
Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One more thing--a good way of translating what the number 700 billion is:
From a blog called 'techpresident':
Big numbers are hard for people to process. 700 billion can start to sound like 300 billion, or 900 million for that matter. It becomes like sand grains or moon strands, magically big, past the point of counting; an amount you sit with a nephew and contemplate in wonder. Or, if you're rushing through the paper, "a whole lot." But since Congress is seriously considering giving 700 billion to be spent at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, I thought I'd ask for some distributed help on describing this number to other people. Here's what I've come up with so far:
It is one third of the total amount of money received by the federal government in 2007, including social security, income tax, corporate tax, and all other receipts.
It is $140 billion more than has been spent on the Iraq war since the invasion.
It is $120 billion more than that spent on social security benefits.
It is almost 3 billion nonrefundable bus fares from Durham to San Francisco, leaving tomorrow.
It is nine times the amount spent on education in 2007.
It could pay for 2,000 McDonalds apple pies for every single American.
It is 35 times the amount spent on all foreign aid in most years.
It is more zeros than the calculator that comes with my computer allows.
It is 7,000 times bigger than the Sierra club's yearly budget.
According to some estimates, it is three times what it would cost, over 10 years, to reduce oil dependency by 20%.
Its over twice the amount of all money given to all charitalbe organizations in the United States in any given year.
It is more than $100 for every person in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It is also worth adding that the same administration which refuses to give a FRACTION of this amount to health care, public schools, hurricane victims, renewable energy research, or ANYTHING LIFE-AFFIRMING...saying that more 'time'--even DECADES must be spent to research the benefits of investment---WOULD IN A HEARTBEAT spend THOUSANDS of times as much to bail out big bankers and FURTHER IMBALANCE the fiscal network of this country INDEFINITELY...for due process, my dears, appears to be DEAD.
Oh, and those who say that if the banks are allowed to collapse, anarchy will prevail. But the REAL anarchy is the domino effect of the Greedy Seeing New Territory! People who never dreamed they could take over the assets and resources of this country as much as they have! And now that they have the taste of blood...there is no more ability for them to be rational.
IF you want to bail people out--why not look at the people who lost their mortgages, the ones who have had their houses bought up by these banks who now get to be bailed out and resell the houses, and make profit of each house, two, three times. Maybe boost or give incentives to independent credit unions, independent businesses, etc, etc...but that would be socialsm, eh? A dirty word, not to be equated with corporate bail-outs.
NEON 10/3 CULTURE PROPHET (live/SC), SERIOUS BUSINESS (live/PDX), NEON DJs
Current mood: excited
Category: Parties and Nightlife
NEON is very proud to present 2 live guests for our next party:
CULTURE PROPHET (live/South Carolina) www.cultureprophet.com www.myspace.com/cultureprophet http://www.iheartcomix.com/blog/joeeirwin/culture-prophet-do-you-wanna-funk Michael Barksdale (Le Chevre) and Sean Neuse (Backseat Drummer) are South Carolina's over-the-top dance party duo, Culture Prophet. See them perform live at Neon on October 3rd. Please visit their web addresses to check out their original music and remixes-you'll love it! My favorite tracks are "Death of the Party", "Touch You", and "Loose79".
SERIOUS BUSINESS (live/PDX) www.myspace.com/isseriousbusiness Jason Mample is Portland's new sensitive, darkwave electro band, Serious Business. I am proud to say that the first Serious Business show will happen at Neon. Expect confrontational, yearning, dramatic, passionate lyrics and 1980's style synths and drums. His music comes from the heart, but is made for the dancefloor. Serious Business will be accompanied with a performance by the one and only Dannypack:) Be there and be moved!
My personal favorite Serious Business tracks are "White Knight" and "Home". Check them out and add to your friends:)
Today I received the photos from my most recent shoot with Portland photographer, Elisa Lado de Valdez aka Visioluxus. The photos below are part of a "ghosts in the asylum" series she is currently working on. In this series, she visits the dark times for women in the Victorian age wrongfully deemed mentally ill and placed into mental health institutions for the rest of their lives. Women suffering from postpartum depression, depression in general, PMS, or menopause were deemed mental ill and placed in these asylums where they were subjected to torturous and non-effective treatments like the Rotary Chair, "in which the patient was strapped, would be turned on its axis at very high velocity, thereby creating a centrifugal force that caused extreme discomfort and fright from intense pressure to the brain, nausea, and the sensation of suffocation". Other commons reasons women had been placed in these institutions were disobedience to men, refusing to marry (spinster), lesbianism, frigidness, anorexia (in a time where 14 inch waists were considered the beauty ideal for women), refusal to comply to gender roles, too healthy of a sex drive, and promiscuity.
In the below series of photos, I portray a woman who had experienced a traumatic miscarriage and was overwhelmed with sadness, a great sense of loss, and deep feelings of inadequacy for not being able to produce a child for her husband, as was considered her duty. As a convenient way to rid himself of his wife, my character's husband places her in a mental asylum where she was left alone to deal with her loss, physical pain, and mental anguish. In these photos, the character I portray is playing the innocent game of Cat's Cradle, but is reminded by the red thread of her loss.
It's a dark subject, but an important one to address for it reminds us of the great leaps and bounds women have made in achieving equal rights to men. It also reminds us of the great distance we have covered in understanding the human mind and body since the Victorian Age.
To see more in this series and other work by this artist, check out http://visioluxus.livejournal.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/visioluxus/ www.visioluxus.com
I just found out that a photo of me was published in Fine Art Photo Magazine. The photo is featured in an article about Elisa Lazo de Valdez also known as Visioluxus. It's from a shoot I did with her last year on my birthday.
I'm the girl in red with the strips of fabric on my chest opposite to the page with words. Check out her website at www.visioluxus.com I did my second shoot with her 3 weeks ago and am expecting the photos back any day now. I haven't been modeling much lately since I've been Djing more, but I might do a couple more shoots this fall since I have a new look with longer hair.
Also, I'll be DJing a fashion show on October 30th at the Camel Beast House in downtown Portland, OR. There will be 3 talented Portland fashion designers and 9 professional models walking the runway. The designers are Jayme of Fleshtone http://www.myspace.com/fleshtone, http://www.myspace.com/fleshtonemusic (she hasn't chosen a new name for her label yet, she gave her old name, Birds of Prey, away to a friend, Elizabeth Dye http://www.elizabethdye.com/index.html, and Frocky Jack Morgan http://www.frockyjackmorgan.com/. I'm going to be selecting the music during the walk, which is very exciting for me. I'm going to design my set to be a soundtrack for the stylish world that each designer has created through clothing. It is an invite only event, 21+, no cover, and all drinks and smokes are free. Kiki, http://www.myspace.com/kikiband, a fun, beautiful, and talented all girl Portland band will be performing live at the show.
Also, my contract at Bent Image Lab www.bentimagelab.com ends on Tuesday, since the project we're on will be finished. I'll have to look for a new day job soon. Now I can say I have experience in the animation/ commercial/ art department industry:) It was a lot of fun working there. I have a chance of getting re-hired when they get another job, but until then I'll be looking for work:)
NEON Sat, Sept 6th @ BRANX: KILLBOX VS JIMM (live PA electro/techno)
Category: Parties and Nightlife
This Saturday, September 6th @ Branx Neon proudly presents special guests: KILLBOX VS JIMM preforming a live set of their original electro/techno music! check out their myspace pages to listen to their awesome tracks:) www.myspace.com/killingnoxes www.myspace.com/jimm83
Supporting DJs are NEON residents Tre Slim & Patricia Furpurse
I really hope to see all my friends Saturday night! Let's have some fun!
froggy
excited
