Ballaké Sissoko/ Asa Branca- A Take Away Show

not quite there

long sighs tucked between short ones torn
open and close until permanence is reached seen
nodding at strangers to find you inside their eyes why
gradual why not
immediate after a release of null feeling
nothing complete just fragments of
grief

Carried Away

Sometimes I forget that there's this small machine in my chest that keeps my breath going. Waking up after the sun is directly above my eye lids, tripping over covers tucked too tight from the night before. I forget that theres this small machine inside of me while I'm brushing my teeth. And I start to feel this immense sadness when I hear about her small town that was demolished in one pass. Her entire life swept away in the loudest noises to ever enter into her ears. Her family taken with the thunder of it all.

And all at once that machine in my chest stops moving. It starts to cry for her and everyone who suffers today, yesterday, and tomorrow. And the next day my eyes open before the sun reaches the horizon and I sit for a while, until my feet fall asleep, until my chest has a small pulse again and I continue, I don't know what else to do.

United Voices of Pomona For Environmental Justice

Dear friends,

As some of you know, I'm part of a non profit organization called "United Voices of Pomona for Environmental Justice."

This group joined together for one cause which was to stop a regional trash station from being built in our city. We have been fighting this for a very long time and we finally have a site up to help us spread the word about what we have done, what we are doing, and what this fight is all about.

We have evolved from one issue to many issues in Pomona that surround the health of our environment and the living beings in our city and beyond. I beg of you to share our site with your family, friends, and strangers so that our voices become united and we can fight the corruption that surrounds our city.

Please share this site with as many people as you can, we need all the help that we can get to save our city.

http://unitedvoicesofpomona.wordpress.com/

http://www.gofundme.com/savepomona

Thank you!
Love,

Processed. Print. Twelve.

Pentax K1000/ Fujicolor Superia 400

February 1 2013

I met Daisy about two years ago. I was going to a show in Echo Park and when I was waiting in line I saw Andrea, which at that point, I hadn't seen or talked to her since 2006, five years!

I remember the feeling of re-introducing myself to Andrea again and how nice it was to meet a familiar person again but knowing nothing about her. I think we were completely different people in high school, I know I was so I felt this sense of a clean start even though Andrea and I never really talked in high school. Daisy was there with Andrea and I met her for the first time.

This was May 2011 so it was almost going to be a year since graduating from college and moving back to Pomona. At this time I was still struggling with the transition of living a fairly independent life for four years to living at home again. There was a lot of conflict going on with me due to the stress of navigating life after school, trying to find a way to be productive without professors giving you assignments, finding a job that I actually liked and paid well enough to help with my student loans, trying to meet people in the art world to build some sort of community. This on top of many things caused a lot of conflict in me at the time.

Daisy told me she was about to graduate in June and she shared some of her anxieties about life after college but it didn't seem to bother her as much. I think seeing someone that seemed to be fearless really helped me find peace with where I was. Also it just helped to talk to someone that seemed to understand what life after college could be. I've never told her that but as I was looking at this photo that I took of her in February of this year and I remembered the first time we met and I remember that feeling.

Daisy reminds me to work harder at being a present friend because she lives in Los Angeles and even though it isn't that far, it seems more difficult for me to make time to see friends that don't live in the cities right next to mine. A big lesson I've learned and am still learning this year is to make time to enjoy life, enjoy friendships, enjoy meeting people and getting to know them better and sharing.

I like this photo of her because it reminds me that people embody so much, and they offer more than you can imagine, and contain a vast complexity. Yet, at the same time, we are really simple and sometimes all we need are things that are really simple to be happy or to be at peace. In this case I was happy to get a day off to hang out with her, look at art, and just talk about how simple and complex our lives are.

Processed. Print. Eleven.

Echo Park, December 18 2011

Pentax K1000/ Kodak Portra 400

I've always been fascinated with store fronts, but mostly those mom and pop store fronts, those are the ones that get me. I like little markets like this one because they are organized but chaotic at the same time. And the amount of what is in the store is aesthetically enjoyable compared to those big box stores that have an entire thirty foot isle stocked with all kinds of sandwich breads. Whereas these markets have just a few types of bread.

I was riding my bike up Sunset to see Beach fossils on this night and the glow from this store front made me stop. Lately I've been so busy that I haven't really let myself stop, just stop and take it all in. It happens to me a lot, getting stuck in this whirlwind of loud processess. But here I am, stopping for a while, and it's nice. Maybe I can work towards some sort of medium, a medium that lets me continue to utilize what I have to offer as a community member, a person of this planet, but at the same time gives me enough space to breathe, to enjoy the work that is past, present, and ahead.

Maybe stopping or pausing might help me see something that I would normally just past right by.
I like that you can't make out the address number in the photo, it leaves room for something else, something I haven't yet seen. 

Hip Hip...

As of April 2nd 2013-

I officially paid off one entire student loan,
now I just have two more.
I'm thankful for my family,
because without them
I would be homeless and full of student loan debt
and this would not have been possible.

Time to eat a bagel and go to sleep.

(cheering inside myself,
and theres also a huge party/celebration
with carnival rides and foods from all over the world in my imagination)

Hooray!

twenty-five years later

February 19, 2013

Slowly now, slowly so my limbs move away from sheets soaked. My eyes not yet open but I can see the light that seeps from under the door, radiant on my forehead down to my shins. Slowly with my legs stretched, I'm only a surface piled on top of a much further depth.

As a lone voice echoes across high ceilings hoping they hit the inside of your ear, hoping you can only see what I've been keeping. Backs leaned against walls owned by others and the hope disappears into the small cracks we can't see. Please.

And I see you, long awaited joy forced into a small cramped room with your brother, sister, mother, father. Your hands grabbing onto a single finger, shivers sent down my spine as my mother tells of how she once held her father in the same way.

Long awaited fragments pieced together over a satellite line, the sound of tears spilling, nose sniffling. The sound of decisions made, no more time to wait. Yet, I couldn't help but to take it as it was, or else we continue blindly until we are completely lost and alone. The only sounds you didn't hear was this silence that has swept across my days.

Slowly, slowly now, a heart mends on top of a new shape. One that is less, less of what this month has been, and more of what is ahead. Those little hands growing everyday, a smile from her eyes on slower days, a tune played from his sweet hands, more stories from her small garden. A depth that will continue as long as this chest is rising and falling. Today is another day to celebrate life, what could be more wonderful than that.

Dog Days

February- you are something else.

Elijah Kai

Today is my nephews birthday, Elijah is now seven years old! I can't believe that he is already seven. Every time I see him, he is bigger and bigger. I took him on a hike with Xavier and Toph a couple of weeks ago and I trip out that he is this little kid now, not a baby, but this kid that can jump, run, climb, and a ton of other kid stuff.

And he sure can talk a lot now, the constant "why" question.
"uncle tony, why didn't you take me on hikes when I was 5 years old?"
-"because you were still too small Elijah"
"why?"
-"because you would've gotten tired really quickly"
"why?"

-"because your body isn't really developed to the point where you have much stamina"

"why?"
-"because your lungs are smaller so they can't take in that much oxygen"
"why?"
-"because you see Elijah, humans need to breathe, and they need their lungs to breathe, and.. oh hey  look at that squirrel!"

I told him since he is seven now, we will go on more hikes. Elijah only has two uncles, and I hope I'm his favorite. Happy birthday Eli, love you my dude.

Roots

February 1 2013

Lately I've been trying to imitate something, someone, some idea that might help me feel and be more peaceful, stable. With this constant movement happening all around, it seems so hard to grab onto something. Getting caught up in a wild whirlwind of words, emotions that stay in small sound proof rooms, and feelings poured in between the small cracks of the tile floor becomes a weight that pulls and pulls until my chest is level with the ground and I can't feel a pulse.

Walking away, I could hear the quietest creaks inching their way closer to the other side of my feet. I look up and the wind is pushing the top of my head closer to the branches of a towering sycamore tree. Concrete poured over its roots, these same roots lifting these concrete blocks until they are knee high.

I thought if I'd imitate anything, it would be this sycamore tree. Something that has been so resilient, something that lives through generation and generation of concrete being poured over its roots but somehow it finds a way to resurface. Somehow, after all this time it's branches and leaves still sway with this light wind. And it lets me place my hand on it's trunk and all I can feel is a completely solid core. Something that can't be moved, a middle that stays and grows.

So I'll learn from this tree. I understand that I'm only so much, but I'm also as much as I try to be. I'll continue through this constant movement, but with a much stronger and grounded depth this time.

Moving forward together

January 22 2013

Today is Martin Luther King day. I'd like to include a few quotes by Dr. King that I feel have stayed so powerful for many years and are so relevant in our current generation. 

"They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream."- Eulogy for the Martyred Children 1963.

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed"- Letter From Brimingham Jail 1963.

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”-Martin Luter King Jr. "Why am I opposed to the war in Vietnam" 1967.

"One day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s market place. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” You begin to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?” You begin to ask the question, “Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?” These are questions that must be asked."- Martin Luther King Jr. "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" 1967.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”- Martin Luther King Jr. "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" 1967.






I honor this man and the countless people that have given their hearts, their souls, to making this world a better place for everyone. I honor Dr. King and the countless people that have been prisoners to help people gain equality, to help people become self aware of how connected we all are. Today I honor Martin Luther King Jr. and the countless people that are no longer with us but will stay in our books, our minds, and in our hearts to help us continue to move forward into a positive and better world.

Thank you.

the end of a full year

but who am I

Find