Jewell's Esoteric Sapience

Update

2012-01-25T17:24:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging as often as I'd like, but thems exciting times!

I've been elbows deep in work the past week, and it's just the beginning of school. The Daily Sundial is keeping me busy. I wrote a teeth-gnashing piece on the passing of the NDAA and have been assigned the student government beat. However, I've also been given the privilege of having my own column on food issues in addition to submitting a healthy recipe a week for the Arts & Life section. I'm insanely occupied, but I'm looking forward to the opportunity to get some more published clips out there.

I'm also leaving tomorrow to cover Five and Diamond, a San Francisco brick and mortar shop for Auxiliary Magazine. I have a short deadline, so I'll be hiking up to the bay area and turning around the next day to hammer out the photos and copy. I'm also in talks with the editor about interviewing Lacuna Coil on their recent album release.

I'm also producing a documentary project over the course of the next few months. I'm going to follow Flip Cassidy, an LA artist and his involvement with East Jesus, the small artist space within Slab City, a desert community near the Mexico-California border. East Jesus is like nowhere I've been. So colorful and surreal. In the middle of nowhere, it's an oasis of culture.

There are also a few potential modeling gigs coming up, so stay tuned!

Photo by Matt Derrick

Slab City, Salvation Mountain and East Jesus

2012-01-05T23:55:00.000-08:00

Took a trip today to Slab City for the first time. Man, what a trip. It's Mad Max-hillbilly-hippie-artist destitute community. Wow, I love it.

We went over to visit Salvation Mountain, a three-story tall man-made structure that's been kept up by a man, Leonard Knight for over three decades. One of the most bizarre places I've been to.

Lastly, we made a stop at East Jesus, an evolving sculpture garden. I've never seen anything like this before.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- One of the many art cars found in East Jesus, Calif. This one's adorned in whippets if you look closely.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- Flip Cassidy, frontman of Flip Cassidy & the Junkyard Gospel, photographer and artist poses in front of the late mayor of East Jesus, Charlie Russel's memorial in Slab City, Calif.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- An installation at the esteemed art collective, East Jesus in Slab City, Calif.

Rosie Neuharth stands in the doorway of Slab City's welcome booth on January 5, 2012.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- Salvation Mountain, a man-made three-story structure that spans the length of a football field. Leonard Knight worked on creating and maintaining this piece of art for over three decades. You can walk through it and explore different rooms. Truly a sight to see.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- A couple embraces on top of Salvation Mountain in Slab City, Calif.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- The local church found in Slab City, Calif.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- A couple running a "yard sale" in Salb City, Calif. live part-time in this off-the-grid haven to escape the MidWest.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- Randy, a resident of Slab City posed for the camera at a yard sale on the side of the road.

January 5, 2012 Slab City, Calif.- A tree on the side of the road in Slab City decorated with shoes.

The Salton Sea's Bombay Beach Community

2012-01-05T22:44:00.000-08:00

So, I went on a morbid adventure with my girlfriend, Rosie today.

We took off to the Salton Sea and stopped in the Bombay Beach neighborhood.

If you don't know about the Salton Sea, it's disgusting. An accident with an aqueduct from the Colorado River busting into this valley resulted in one of the largest man-made lakes in the world.

What residents are left have a post-apocalyptic vibe to them that makes your skin crawl. The air is rancid with the stench of rotting flesh, nothing living can survive in its waters, as its salinity is uninhabitable and it's terribly polluted.

The "sand" isn't actually sand, but the bones of thousands of deceased waterfowl and fish.

Enjoy!

Pirates Invade Studio City and 29 Palms New Years Day Photos

2012-01-03T02:31:00.000-08:00

Moi! Photo by Chrix Lanier- No make up and rugged after two days of camping in Joshua Tree

Pardon the shameless self-promotion in the shot above.

Below are some samples I took from the Studio City farmers market of December 18, 2011 and some snap shots of my boyfriend in 29 Palms on New Years Day.

Chrix Lanier- New Years Day in 29 Palms, Calif.

Pirate invading the Studio City, Calif. farmers market December 18, 2011

Enjoy!

Sex Workers in Higher Education

2011-12-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

I recently had the privilege of snapping a portrait of Jessie Nicole, Director of Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP) for The Daily Sundial. Article written by fellow Sundialer, Karlee Johnson. Enjoy!

Sex workers in higher education

By Karlee Johnson
December 12th, 2011
Section: Features - News

Jessie Nicole, 25, now director of the Sex Worker Outreach Project, became an escort after moving to Chicago for graduate school. Jessica Jewell / Contributor

Correction: The statistics cited in Sarah Elspeth Patterson’s research are from two separate studies headed by Dr. Ronald Roberts of Kingston University, London. The statistics on student debt are based on data collected from the New York Federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. Additionally, the study regarding discussion of sex work in the classroom is not conducted by Widener University, but independently by Patterson.

“I started stripping when I was 19 because I had huge debt. I was in a private college and I had student loan and credit card debt, and I decided that what was going on was ridiculous,” said Jane Doe, 32, a doctoral student at USC.

Doe, now pursuing her Ph.D in literature and creative writing, said she had a friend that had made her way out of debt by stripping and did not seem emotionally damaged by the experience.

“I loved it,” Doe said. “Of all the shit jobs I had ever had, it was the only shit job that was not a shit job.”

Doe’s story is not atypical; according to a recent study on discussing sex work by Widener University’s Sarah Elspeth Patterson, M.Ed. The study notes that “10 percent of students know of students who engage in sex work in order to promote themselves financially, with 16.5 percent indicating that they might be willing to engage in sex work to pay for their education.”

Sex workers, as defined by the Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP), are those who earn money by providing sexual services. This includes prostitution, erotic dancing, pornography, phone sex operators, fetish modeling and any other “transactional erotic labor.”

SWOP is a national social justice network dedicated to the fundamental human rights of sex workers and their communities, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education and advocacy, according to swopusa.org.

Sex work while enrolled in school

For Jessie Nicole, 25, sex work was the only employment option that allowed her to make ends meet and remain a full-time student.

“I was broke,” Nicole said. “I had a scholarship that paid my tuition and 70 percent of my books, but that doesn’t pay your rent, that doesn’t give you food, and you still have 30 percent of your books.”

Nicole, now the director of SWOP’s Los Angeles chapter, began dating “sugar daddies” when she was a 19-year-old undergraduate at Florida State University, but turned to escorting when she moved to Chicago for graduate school.

“One of the easiest things about escorting in grad school was that I could pay to live and work a couple of hours a week,” Nicole said. “That was so crucial to me. I had a thesis to write. I did a nine month master’s program. [My] time [was] really precious.”

Though sex work helped pay for both Doe and Nicole’s schooling, the cost of education left each of them in an incredible amount of debt.

According to the Widener University study, 2010 college graduates are carrying an average of $25,250 worth of debt, and student loan debt has increased 511 percent from 1999 to 2011.

“I did sex work to live and be a student and then I graduated and couldn’t find a job because I have a master’s in humanities,” Nicole said. “The economy is not kind to women in their early twenties with master’s degrees in humanities. So I kept doing sex work. And I’m still using sex work to pay off my student loans. College expenses don’t just go away.”

Doe, who took a break between earning each of her degrees added, “(Sex work) was about school debt, even when I wasn’t in school. My student loans were $800 a month.”

Though Doe has the ability to set her own schedule as both a stripper and a “sugar baby,” between her schoolwork, and participation in Occupy Los Angeles – where she was arrested during the police raid – the money she makes when she works does not allow her the ability to save.

“I don’t usually work a shift where I make less than $400,” Doe said. “There have been nights when I’ve walked $800, $1000, and there have been some nights when I’ve walked out with $200. But $200 for a shift at a job isn’t that bad. If I wasn’t doing Occupy I’d probably be working a lot more.”

Nicole said she also cannot afford to save the money she earns.

“Sex work helps pay for you to live, but it doesn’t let you save money and it doesn’t let you prepare for after graduation,” Nicole said. “It’s instant gratification most of the time. It’s, ‘my rent’s due. I’m going to see a client.’ Then pay your rent and that’s it. So you don’t have money saved up.”

The choice

Miss Claw, 18, is a digital animation student at Gnomon School of Visual Effects and a professional submissive at a Los Angeles dungeon, a gathering place for bondage/discipline and sadism/masochism (BDSM) play.

She has been part of the BDSM lifestyle since high school and now works at the dungeon to pay for her extra expenses.

“My parents pay my rent, tuition, gas and groceries,” Claw said. “I pick up everything else. I don’t have to be in the adult industry. But I love my work so much. Now that I’ve had this job, I could never go back to a regular job.”

According to Nicole, who conducts dialogues about the misconceptions of sex work with SWOP Los Angeles, many who critique and condemn sex work see the industry as coercive and degrading.

“(Sex work) is a job like any other job,” Nicole said.

Nicole said that she has never engaged in “survival sex,” prostitution that is one’s only viable means of staying alive. Survival sex is most common among street workers, who are primarily women of color or transgender, she said.

“The lines are drawn so clearly on class, on education, on race, on gender, gender identity,” Nicole said.

Misconceptions

The study suggests that, because sex workers are not immediately identifiable by appearance, it is easier for them to stay “closeted” and avoid the stigma and legalities of sex work. Because of this, it is difficult to gather accurate data, though according to Nicole, there are more student sex workers than one might think.

“I didn’t (out myself) when I was in school,” Nicole said. “When I did come out, I found at least three other friends that were doing sex work in Tallahassee at the same time that I was. I was like, ‘are you fucking kidding? Is this just my group of friends or is everyone carrying this around? Why didn’t we work together?’”

Nicole was quick to note that although student sex workers make up a large portion of the industry, they are not representative of the whole.

“(My experience) is normal in a sense that this is in every fucking college in the country,” said Nicole. “But it is not representative of the sex industry. There’s a radical feminist argument that says, ‘well, you’re sex workers of privilege so you’re not representative so your story doesn’t count.’ That’s not what we’re saying, and it’s really unfair to point at someone and say that their life doesn’t count. My life experience still matters. I know of a lot of people who have had a very similar experience to me.”

Doe concurred with Nicole, adding that she is a sex worker who has “started from a position of privilege and stayed there.”

According to Doe, there is a class and racial disparity between sex workers.

“(Student workers are) mostly white, as far as I know,” Doe said. “There’s a really disturbing class divide amongst women who do sex for pay, between indoor and outdoor workers, and between whose bodies are most criminalized. And we aren’t. Very rarely do we go to jail for it. Black women and Latina(s) in particular, a lot of them are not going to have stories like (ours).”
For Claw, fighting general misconceptions about sex work means telling her own story.

“People think that in sex work you are compromising yourself in some way,” said Claw. “It’s helped me grow and learn in ways that nothing else could.”

Shots from Occupy LA

2011-12-18T21:41:00.000-08:00

Occupy LA- Free hugs

Bunny gets interviewed at Occupy LA

LAPD at Occupy LA

The Pizza Parlor

2011-12-06T20:20:00.001-08:00

Trudging into the dingy pizza joint, she saw the writing on the wall, "And that's the way the pizza crumbles."

"Two slices of cheese please."

She sat down, waiting around for a good ten minutes, listening.

Her mind was hazy, as she'd just wasted an hour of her life, shuffling with the collective metal herd on the freeway-- like hideous track marks scarring the California landscape. They keep spiking the vein, and like a fix that'll never be satisfied, they build another, and another and another. Swollen with contempt, they invade like an insidious cobweb.

Checking back in, there was a familiar cadence around her. When she let her mind wander (which it so often does) it sounded like a song. As the echoes and inflections came back to focus, she understood.

"Quieres correr en el pinche parque, despues, guey?"

They went on, talking about the neighborhood.

Pizza in hand finally, she sunk her teeth into a slice, burning the roof of her mouth. The soft, spongy tissue went numb, but the throbbing remained. A dull ache.

The dough was browned around the edges and she had to gnaw through the crust like a stray dog trying to get the marrow out of a bone.

"La delgadita, la negrita...darle otra pieza."

She had recently dyed her hair black. She looked sick.

A young guy from behind the counter walked over and shoved a to go box with two more slices inside and said, "We burned the other two."

She looked up at him and forced and awkward, nervous smile. It's a shame that a nice gesture comes with a price these days.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it."

Whooping and hollering erupted as the kid walked back to his station. The teasing was incessant.

Clenching her jaw, she broke a sweat.

No one ever knows she can understand. She's a sleeper cell, a halfie as white as a loaf of wonder bread on a shelf at Walmart. Little do the unsuspecting hoards know on either side of the fence is she can slip between two worlds. She's stratified. Alienated by both parts of herself.

She's Colombian and Scotch-Irish. Someone recently said to her, "That's a passionate combination. You're like the FARC meets the IRA."

"Busca su numero! Cual es su nombre?"

Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, she felt the fissures in the plastic seat pinch her ass viciously.

She got up, smiled, nodded and scuttled out-- the pizza burning her hands through the box.

AAA Electra 99 Gallery & Museum

2011-12-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

Check out this video I put together for the AAA Electra 99 Gallery & Museum in Anaheim, Calif.

Richard, the founder, is such a character.

Occupy LA Eviction Tonight

2011-11-29T22:53:00.001-08:00

A photo I took at Occupy LA.

November 28, 2011, LAPD stand off with LA Occupiers.

Right now, there are a reported 900 cops at Dodger Stadium prepping a booking station. Numbers project around 1,000 people at Solidarity Park right now

North Hollywood Orthodox Jews

2011-11-24T02:03:00.001-08:00

I went on an excursion to see what the North Hollywood Orthodox Jewish community was all about. As someone who doesn't have much religious frame-of-reference, it was a good experience. Here's a mini-cross-section of some of the personalities I met along my journey.

Cambridge Farms, a kosher market serving the local community.

Shimon, Cambridge Farms' masgiach. He identifies as an Orthodox Jew and has lived in LA for 12 years since his immigration from Israel.

Maurice Moshe Gabay, owner of local bookstore, House of David. Moshe comes from a long line of Jewish educators. An immigrant from Morocco, Moshe is proud of his family's role in proliferating Jewish life in LA. Two of his brothers are rabbis at local synagogues, one of which boasts 400 children enrolled in its day school. When asked how he managed to keep his family Jewish over the generations, he emphasized the importance of Jewish education through adulthood. His children all attended boarding schools with seminary programs. He attends temple three times a day to pray and one of his daughters also is a teacher at his family's synagogue.

Corset Connection

2011-11-21T23:03:00.001-08:00

Some shots from the shoot this weekend for Corset Connection

Enjoy!

Stop by the shop here

Finding Myself

2011-11-21T22:40:00.001-08:00

Letting go.

Breathing.

That familiar warmth stirring.

Solar plexus vibrating.

Opening up again.

Reaching out, letting go of fear, of expectation.

Valuing every moment and being here right now.

Every second a microcosm of wisdom waiting to be tapped.

Learning from every blink, every word, every thought.

Smiling.

Hair standing on end.

A spiritual dowsing rod.

Here I am.

Back again.

No matter, I will always be here, right now.

Things Fall Apart

2011-11-19T23:14:00.001-08:00

She lay in bed, sinking into her memory foam thumbprint. Imprint. While her eyes grew heavy and she sedately drifted away, she violently jolted back to conscious reality. The phone rang- vibrating, shaking molars in their sockets. Her head spun, hazy, as she failed to recall her place here.

“Hello?” she asked shakily.

The voice answered, “You sitting down Catherine? It’s your father. He's... he's...”

She felt her knees buckle as she slumped onto the closest piece of furniture.

“Go on.”

The voice narrated a story; a story that as surreal as it sounded, she shook the news off like an inconvenient swarm of horseflies. As much as they flitted around, tearing her skin, sowing seeds of parasitic doubt, she was numb. Nothing. It felt like a fishbowl was on her head, warping her vision like a mirror in s twisted, sick fun-house.

His wife, a woman who was nearly Cathy’s age left for a trip, and upon her return came to realize she was done. Fed up with his dysfunction. He’s a drunk. Always a drunk. Completely dependant on others. He’s blind in one eye and his anxiety robbed him of his sanity and autonomy. He can’t leave the house without falling victim to a crippling attack. Walls closing in, everything going black, chest crushing his lungs. All he does now after losing his mind his intellect is blather on about conspiracy theories and cryptozoology. A far crty from the brilliant, self-taught civil engineer he once was.

His new “project” is making cardboard box “condos” for the homeless. Founding a defacto Hooverville in their backyard.

She’d had enough.

Oh, the tangled webs we weave.

She rang him from the seedy train station.

“Don’t be afraid, Jaime. I’ve fallen. Three times- there’s blood everywhere,” he slurred.

Scared shitless, she called the local police. It’s a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere. They know Roger. Oh, how the know him. This sad man.

They escort her onto the property. Caked in his own filth, teeth rotting out of his skull, matted and mangy. Vodka bottles and pills scatter the floor like confetti while a rat scuttles by- an innocent bystander.

He screamed. He begged. Sloppy, inebriated droll dripped down his face, glistening in the moonlight. He can’t do this again. Not again.

“Hello? You there? Hello?” the voice spoke.

“What? Oh, yea, sorry,” Catherine answered, coming to.

“I love you, Cathy. It’s not your fault. Please don’t blame yourself. We know he’s been gone for years. You haven’t even seen him yourself for what, almost eight?” the voice said.

“Yea, sure. Listen, I gotta go.” She hung up the phone.

Listening to the sound of her breath, her chest rising and falling. Ribs framed her helpless vulnerability. She looked like a house of cards. Her frailty tempted savory miscreants. Like ringing the dinner bell for proverbial jackals to come and indulge in a carnal buffet.

Her heart beat. Consistent. These things were unchanging, for now.

Using what little strength she had left, she lifted herself begrudgingly off the couch; collected her disheveled self and thought… Well, nothing. She thought nothing.

Goddess Bunny

2011-11-17T00:00:00.001-08:00

Fiercely rolling down an Inglewood sidewalk in an electric wheel chair, she sports a tight, silver spandex dress and holds her head held high, working a flamboyant, black fall perched atop her head like a teased glamorous crown. Sandie Crisp AKA “Goddess Bunny” is a transsexual drag queen living with polio. A unique individual who conquered the odds, Crisp has as much sass as she has stories.

“Rolling down the street, men are honking their horns. I still got it, I guess,” Crisp says.

She calls Centinela Skilled Nursing and Wellness Centre home. Crisp, 51, is an international underground star. A YouTube sensation, one of her videos has almost 3 million hits. In it she’s decked out in frilly lace and holds a parasol, tap dancing away. Her frail body holding herself up precariously, one hopes there’s an invisible armature to support her.

A SAG and AFTRA member, she has a long history of working with famous artists. Such as her cameo in Marilyn Manson’s music video, “Dope Show.” She also modeled for one of Joel Peter Witkin’s most famous images. Crisp said she also appeared in the porn, “The Boys of Venice” in 1979.

Needless to say, the span of her experiences dances across a Technicolor spectrum of bizarre. The funny thing is, she comes across as a calm and collected individual despite her unique experiences. Past and present.

A knock at her bedroom door comes from time to time. A patient shuffles in. They ask for cigarettes or spare change.
Crisp’s friend, Dianne Vaughn drops by. She wears a huge green shirt, pendulous breasts hanging. She isn’t wearing her teeth. She’s quiet and says that they’ve been friends since she moved in.
“She still has her mind, unlike most of the residents here. We’ve always gravitated toward each other,” Crisp says.
Crisp gripes the majority of the patients in the facility are senile or have mental problems, so it it’s difficult to make friends at the facility.

Vaughn joined the home when her sister committed her. Apparently Vaughn tried strangling her to death. She was thrown in jail for 27 days and was charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
Vaughn shifts on the mattress nervously, coils creaking.
“You’re here for a reason. You can barely take care of yourself,” Crisp told Vaughn.

A head pops in, clad in yellow scrubs. Cynthia Warren, a caretaker at the home starts rambling about Crisp.

“I work 16-hour days, eight days a week, I love my job. What else do you want to know?” Warren cackles.
Looking around, more questions come to mind. There’s a cosmetology certificate hung, a portrait of Jesus, a license to preach and a picture of her late mother.

Despite the religious symbols littering the room, Crisp says “this is it” and religion is used to control the masses.
One of her favorite past times is making “art” on her laptop. Using her delicate atrophied hands, she crafts pictures of male celebrities’ heads composited onto explicit images of male porn actors. She proudly shares one she recently made of Mario Lopez hodgepodged on a guy with a raging hard-on.
“He said it was close to the real thing,” she shares.
Apparently, Crisp and Lopez are friends, along with a myriad of other household names.
The lines of reality start to blur the more time that’s spent with Crisp.
Crisp has been living full-time as a woman since 1984. When asked if she had plans to go under the knife to go “all the way” she said no, as she is covered under Medicare and the procedure costs upwards to $55,000. She also expressed that it can be difficult to find a doctor who will do the surgery in the U.S. Considering that Crisp is living off of disability and social security checks, this simply isn’t a feasible option.

“Like Chaz Bono, I myself have a problem, the body’s the wrong thing,” Crisp said.

Her resilience was reflected in her stories about her past addictions to crystal meth and crack. Crisp was homeless on the streets of Hollywood for a time and had to resort to prostitution-- her boyfriend Tom Draws coerced her to hit the streets to support their habits after getting her hooked on meth.

Crisp said the deal-breaker was when she came home one day to find Draws in bed having sex with a 13-year-old girl. She said she called in the gay bikers that lived upstairs and “had a gang-bang on his ass.” This lady has been through the ringer.

For a time she was living in a garden shed in her boyfriend, Carlos Gilbert Sandoval’s driveway. She had an extension cord running from the house to her shed charging her wheelchair and had to use a port-o-potty. When the conditions became deplorable, she turned to PATH (Peoples Alliance to Help the Homeless) where she lived for nine months. From there she moved to the New Image Shelter in downtown LA.

“There are close to 85,000 homeless people living in LA,” she said.

During her time at PATH, Crisp was a member of the resident’s council and helped open a computer lab to help people living at the shelter find work.

She paints an eccentric picture filled with fantastical stories that push the envelope. The party’s just begun.

Juan

2011-11-13T19:01:00.001-08:00

Occupy LA- Juan, a lovely man who shares his ideas on how to conquer homelessness and his experience being a homeless individual.

Bradley Sills

2011-10-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Check out my loved one's blog, Deer Diary.

Deer Dairy: Oct 11, 2011 (Sounds)

He's pretty prodigal.

Paving the way: updates, contests and finding clarity

2011-10-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

Picking up momentum.

Some news; a photo I took at Occupy LA was entered into a Global Photojournalism Photo Contest. Vote for it! I also may have a shot featured in NBC LA's online photo gallery. Stay tuned to find out if I make the cut!

Also very excited for the topic of my next multimedia piece. Next week I'm going to go and spend the night at Occupy LA for a couple nights and do a day-in-the-life and interview some occupiers. I look forward to the conversations and the inevitable inspiration.

I met the editor in chief, Ken from The Daily Sundial today and he invited me to be a contributing photographer for the paper. I think it would be a lot of fun and look forward to the opportunity!

Now, to wax poetic:

I'm slowly feeling more confident of my work than I have in the past. Though I am completely aware that I am pretty darn green. Now is the time to choose a path and carve it out.

There are so many avenues for my passion and I can feel that a niche is on the horizon. I like being multi-faceted, but I think I'm beginning to find my bearings in regards to the environments I want to immerse myself in.

In a nutshell, when it comes to visual content, I feel a strong resonance to a couple themes. One would be finding those colorful people in the world and giving them a platform to be seen and understood. I love getting to know people, period. One of my talents is my ability to make people comfortable and open up. That paired with the way I like to frame things visually I think can create an opportunity to feature the "freaks" of society with dignity. Ever since I was introduced to Diane Arbus I knew we were kindred spirits. Captivating viewers into worlds they may have never felt were accessible.

Another angle I'm finding myself more and more attracted to are those topics the public tries to push out of their minds. More specifically, controversial topics and finding the human story in them.

On a purely aesthetic level I love gritty, "grotesque" subjects (inanimate or otherwise) and making them beautiful. It's ironic because the way people depict me when I'm the subjet is almost diametrically opposed to what my choices are for the work I produce.

Will find a way to make it work.

With love and dissent,
Jewell

29 Palms photoshoot

2011-10-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

I decided to go on an impromptu visit to the desert yesterday with Rosie. We ventured out to the Joshua Tree area, 29 Palms to be precise. I went with the intention of taking shots of the abandoned buildings but I ended up getting caught up with Rosie as a subject. She's great. Beautiful head, eyes, amazing bone structure and lips. Enjoy!

To You

2011-10-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

Porcelain; alabaster skin, smooth and flawless with just a hint of a five o’clock shadow. Despite unkempt whiskers littering his face, he remains angelic. Kind, wide hazel-green eyes telling to a softer side.

Luscious latissimus dorsi taper in elegantly to a nipped-in waist; juxtaposed. Wide, supportive shoulders; reinforced by provocative trapezius, like butrices, bulging and solemn. A lean, angular frame.

The framework, oh the bones. Clavicles jut out, tempting the onlooker. When lit just right you could swear they’d tear through the confining, albeit appealing, tempting shroud of skin they try so desperately to conceal themselves in. A square, mandible you could cut with a knife.

Always polished and dapper with just a hint of flamboyance, he commands the room when he debuts. A natural.

What’s more is his shrewd wit. With a tilt of his head and an innocent, dismissive laugh the words uttered from his lips send a chill. Not sure how to react. The dichotomy of his nature.

Forever entranced.

Peter Murphy- "See Saw Sway"

2011-10-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Video I recently had the privilege of working on with Peter Murphy from Bauhaus!

OccupyLA & AAA Electra 99 Gallery

2011-10-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent photos:

Som of them are from my visit to the AAA Electra 99 Gallery in Anaheim, Calif. and the others are from mt recent visit to OccupyLA

Sweat Lodge

2011-10-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

Oh, the familiar ache. Pressure, disappointment, fear, pain, loss, uncertainty, sorrow all accumulating. It's been years since the last time I stepped into that womb. Scalding, my skin feels like it's lifting away from sub-dermal tissues. Separating. The steam, the sweat, the places you go, the things you see. Howling at the moon. It was here where I got my name, "Dances with Shadows." It's time I return.

Occupy LA

2011-10-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

So, after dragging m feet for little while I made it down to Occupy LA for the first time yesterday. I can honestly say that in my years of going to various protests and demonstrations that this is the most salient movement I've seen. When I was visiting it wasn't necessarily as impassioned with people marching and chanting, but it is more organized. The grounds were clean with tents designated for different needs. There was even a meditation tent. I appreciated that. I headed down to the media tent where the organizers looked a bit haggard from the days of reporting. I included my name on a list so they could contact me for content. I definitely think it'll b something I'll have to follo up on myself as they seemed stretched thin. I took a handful of picture while I was there. Pictures will follow.

Governor Jerry Brown Signs in The Dream Act

2011-07-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Today is a day to be celebrated.

Jerry Brown annouced that he is signing into law the anticipated Dream Act. The plan is for him to meet with Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo this afternoon at Cal State LA for an announcement and speech to follow. This legislation is monumental in the fight for the rights of undocumented people.

In the past, college student who were undocumented were able to pursue a degree, but were denied crucial financial aid, and their degrees weren't considered valid after they graduated. Despite being educated, employers wouldn't recognize their credentials.

With the Dram Act in effect, undocumented young people have the opportunity to get on a path to citizenship if they either enlist in the military or better yet, complete a degree program in college. Not only is this beneficial in assisting a marginalized people in gaining some upward mobility, but educating a larger portion of a population normally mired by poverty will greatly improve our relationships and strengthen our social fabric. America needs more educated people in the work force. We need to eliminate poverty. Giving these people a chance at fully integrating into American society and contributing either with brain or brawn (in the case of the military) will forge a greater sense of unity within our community and self-dignity.

There are some stipulations to the bill.

- The individual must have entered the states prior to being 16-years- old.
- Must be between 12-35 upon application
- Must have lived in the U.S. for five consecutive years
- Have a "good moral character" (Too vague if you ask me)
- Must be a high school graduate or at least have a GED

This legislation was in the pipe for years. Beginning in 2009, the Dream Act was drafted by Senator Richard Durbin and Representative Howard Berman. Though not in effect at the Federal level, California's passage marks a huge milestone in the advancement of our society. We can look towards coming together as a people and helping one another along with promoting personal and cultural growth.

Today is a happy day.

Rain Storm

2011-07-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

A slow rumble
Stirring that cavernous place
Between ribs
Rubbing together softly
Growing steadily
Beating a tenacious war cry
Drenched in humility
Lightning
Ripping above
Tearing
Jarring
Cleansing
Comfort
I am home.