O Canada! in Canada! and Belgium!

Tomorrow Falling In Love... Episode 1: "O Canada!" is screening in Lethbridge Alberta, Canada at a great little homegrown festival called Rhino In The Room. If anyone who reads this little ol' blog is near Lethbridege you should go check out that festival (see details below), or if you're a US American and by default oblivious to other countries and cities on your continent: google-map Lethbridge and give yourself geography lesson, jerk.

In other sass-ridden Canadian news, I think I forgot to mention a few weeks back that I was featured in the Edmonton weekly in an interview conducted by Lucas Crawford called Identities Aplenty. Read it and weep.

Also, last Sunday Greg and I and our Falling In Love... video project was mentioned on Belgian radio! A show called Bang Bang, which can now be found in podcast form. Don't ask me how. The show is in French, but they played an extremely awkward part of O Canada! (the last agonizing scene at the breakfast table) with an overdubbed translation in French. Whoa, awesome and weird! They concurred that Canadians are boring and that we need to work on our sound skills. Ok, we get it already-we suck technically-but isn't that part of our charm?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Rhino In The Room
Thursday September 16th – Opening Night –Sterndale Bennett Theater
($10 in advance $12@door)

Taking the Plunge – Ian Gustafson and Chantal Langley (Vancouver)
…A lesbian who is about to get married has second thoughts about the marriage. Her two sides come out to talk about it.

The First – Jeremy Hyler (NC)
A coming of age story for one girl who finds her life in the gay and lesbian lifestyle. She tells her of her personality and her friends who are all in this subculture. She is invited to a drag show and gay bar to see what it is like. from there she goes through a metamorphosis and not only choosing a lifestyle but able to choose what she want and become a woman who finally has a voice.

Falling in Love… with Chris and Greg. Ep: O Canada! (CA)
In the premiere episode of “Falling In Love…”, Chris and Greg tackle the issues of open relationships, Canadianism, and lactose intolerance.

Best Friends – Andi Meiers (Germany)
about the time when you are 15 and you don’t know if you are in love with your best friend or with her boyfriend. The only thing you know is that you wear these doc martens shoes and that you feel like being yourself when you are with your friends, and you know you will always be best fiends – because you had these wonderful moments in the evenings at the lake.

Dish – Brian Harris Krinsky (CA)
Emo kids Israel and Louie walk around their east Los Angeles neighborhood dishing and “sexting” about their high school classmates. After listening to Louie boast about his sexual escapades, Israel decides he has some catching up to do.

Baby Shark – Pascal-Alex Vincent (France)
Three teenagers. A precipice.

Communication – Christopher Banks (New Zealand)
An Orthodox Jewish student unexpectedly inherits the estate of his estranged mentor, and discovers a painful truth about their final days together.

Meeskeit – Neil Ira Needleman (NY)
This is the poignant story of two meeskeits and the beautiful relationship they never had. As with virtually all my stories, there are bits and peices of my relatives and family friends here. But these are really personalities that you’ll find in very family. I’m sure you will recognize an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, a parent, a sibling, and -perhaps- even a little of yourself in here.
Talk to your Daughter – Lisa Powell (Lethbridge)

PSA on the dangers of not educating your daughters of the lesbian recruitment agenda.
Public Relations – Gianna Sobol (CA)

A miserable Hollywood assisstant finds romance and a reason for being when her sexy New York counterpart arrives in town. Public Relations is a funny, fresh take on growing up – and getting laid.

Just Another Beautiful Boy – Peter Max Lawrence

A music video for the queer band Carletta sue Kay
—————-
Intermission
—————-
Allison, My Love – Richard Paro
A short film about a slip of the tongue…

Fagbug – Erin Davies (NY)
On the 11th Annual Day of Silence, Erin Davies was victim to a hate crime in Albany, New York. Because of sporting a rainbow sticker on her Volkswagen Beetle, Erin’s car was vandalized, left with the words “fag” an “u r gay” placed on the drivers side window and hood of her car. Despite initial shock and embarassment, Erin decided to embrace what happened by leaving the graffiti on her car. She took her car, now known worldwide as the “fagbug,” on a 58-day trip around the US and Canada. Along the way, Erin discovered other, more serious hate crimes, had people attempt to remove the graffiti, and experimented with having a male driver her car. After driving the fagbug for one year, Erin decided to give her car a makeover.

Suggestions of A Life Being Lived

Please join me tomorrow Thursday, September 9th from 5-8PM at SF Camerawork for the opening of Suggestions of A Life Being Lived. Greg and I will have our Falling In Love... videos on heavy rotation tomorrow night and ongoing during gallery hours til October 23rd. Jason Fritz's original drawing of Greg and I, the one we use on our website and on our promo cards will be beautifully exhibited in our living room/exhibition cube, and Criminal Queers (a work in progress) will play during the last half of the gallery opening as well as the last half of the shows run. There'll also be a great collection of Gay Shame ephemera on display. We'll all be there; me, Greg, Eric, and company plus it's Jason birthday! So come have a tasteful beverage with us in JOYful celebration!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Press Release:

Suggestions of A Life Being Lived, guest curated by Danny Orendorff and Adrienne Skye Roberts, presents queerness as a set of political alliances and possibilities, informed by the projects of 16 artists working in photography, film, video, activism and education. Untethered to institutions of sexual or gender normativity and in pursuit of greater freedoms, the work in this exhibition represents queer activism, intentional and imagined communities, self-determinism, and DIY alternative world-making.

Suggestions of A Life Being Lived begins from a place of ‘outness’ and considers how a sense of liberated queerness is pursued and mediated within public spaces and behaviors. Less concerned with catergorical sexual identities or coming-out narratives, this exhibition presents work that looks outward towards collective and resistant expressions of queer community existing outside of dominant gay and lesbian culture.

Featuring works by Steven Miller, Tara Mateik, Killer Banshee Studios, Gay Shame, Kirstyn Russell, Jeannie Simms, Lenn Keller, Mercury Vapor Studios, Falling in Love... with Chris and Greg, Jason Fritz Michael, Darrin Martin, Torsten Zenas Burns, Eric Stanley & Chris Vargas, Aay Preston Myint and Allyson Mitchell.

Opening reception: 

Thursday, September 9th 5 – 8 p.m.

September 9 – October 23, 2010

SFCamerawork

657 Mission Street, 2nd Floor

San Francisco, CA 94105

Michfest, Paris, and Twitter

The topic of Mich Fest (aka Michigan Womyn's Music Festival) is hot on everyone's minds and internets these days. I honestly don't know when it is -I'm assuming it's coming up soon, and over my queer lifetime I have mostly stayed out of the heated debates as I have never in my life had any desire to go, and always figured it was not worth the time or energy to demand transgender inclusion in such a staunchly woman-born-woman separatist space. "Woman-born-woman," a complicated term if one feels they were born a "woman" with a biological difference, and wait isn't the category "woman" a social construct? Am I late to this conversation, or what? Am I a femstudies undergrad? But this year, despite the now 4 year old change in policy I've managed to encounter a few interesting responses to the issue of transgender women on The Land....

 

Annie Danger: An open letter to my friends who attend the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

And, Tom Leger's xtra normal video called 'Let's Talk About Michigan" (if you don't know, this was made in a text-to-movie site/program where you plug in dialogue and simple gestures onto prefab animated figures, then pay to publish it. FYI, Greg did a shot-for-shot remake of our Hair Breakdown Special with robots and it was amazing! We were too cheap/broke to publish it). I think Tom's video is so witty!





And just for a glimpse into where the womyn are at with the trans-inclusion conversation, check out Michfest's website Transgender forum.

Besides all that, nothing much going on here except that me and my beloved are LEAVING FOR PARIS ON WEDNESDAY for 3 whole entire weeks! I've never been off the continent so I am so totally stoked, you have no idea! I'm sure I'll document it by way of millions of pictures, Flip videos, Facebook status updates, and maybe even a "Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg" Parisian Special! We LOVE a Special!

And, FYI, JIC you wanted to know, and I'm not even sure why I did it given that I don't have any sort of equipped mobile device, but I joined TWITTER. I'll TWEET you from Paris!

Extraordinary Pregnancies

This is the video I screened at the National Queer Arts Festival, Original Plumbing Event last month!

Extraordinary Pregnancies revisits the "First" Pregnant Man, Thomas Beatie and his wife Nancy, rescripting their vulnerable yet guarded interviews with the big shots of tabloid media.

TONIGHT: Outfest-Platinum Original Plumbing Party

Tonight's the night of the Outfest-Platinum Original Plumbing magazine release party for issue #3 at the REDCAT theater in Downtown, LA. The pre-reception starts at 8:30PM in the REDCAT lobby at which time guests may gather for drinks and face-to-face chats with Amos and Rocco, the co-editors of the mag, other performers and videomakers (such as myself) AND peruse the books from The Miracle Bookmobile-which I happen to be particularly excited about! The bookmobile will be parked just outside the lobby glass, in the adjoining parking structure. My good friend and LA host, Besser quickly put me to work in LibraryThing.com cataloging and "social-tagging" (a new term for me. for you, too?) the two boxes of book donations from my household that Greg and I so-painlessly checked aboard the easiest flight of our lives from OAKland to BURbank airports. God bless, you Southwest. And Goddess bless you, lezbrarians! Check out the tag cloud for the books in the collection. Pretty hilarious, and affirming to me and my affinity for bookish queers everywhere!

Hope to see you tonight, mystery blog readers!




A couple of the books you may find FREE for the taking from Miracle!

No Justice...

no peace.
just us.

I'm in LA, but got my eye on Oakland. I am not one that believes the criminal justice system can or will offer "justice" to the people but the verdict of involuntary manslaughter for the case of Officer Mehserle, shooting an UNARMED BLACK MAN, LYING FACE DOWN on a BART platform is an insult.

Here is a small bit of thoughtful reading/watching material about this whole mess of a racist, fucked-up verdict:

The American Prospect, Oscar Grant A Victim of American Fear by Adam Serwer

The AK Press blog, Justice for Oscar Grant by Zach [pictures of the downtown Oakland aftermath]

Youth Radio blog, A Broken Window, That's Not a Human Life, That's Not Violence

Democracy Now


Please feel free to send me links to more news coverage and critical writings on this subject.

Will you receive justice, Oscar Grant?

Oakland is on the edge of its seat waiting to see what the jury decides for Officer Mehserle, the cop who shot and killed Oscar Grant as he lay face down on at the Fruitvale BART platform a couple New Years Eves ago. There's a call for assembly circulating that asks for people to gather at 14th and Broadway at 6PM in Downtown, Oakland on the evening the verdict is to be read, which may possibly happen as soon as tomorrow. There is much concern that such an assembly could lead to more rioting instigated by so-called by "outside agitators" and more private property destruction. So, the Oakland PD is out in full force, freshly trained and ready to fuck some people up or at least intimidate them into passivity, and many storefronts downtown (even as far north as Grocery Outlet on Broaday, near 29th) have boarded up their window glass anticipating the worst. But no matter what the verdict; 2nd degree murder, manslaughter (voluntary or involuntary), or acquittal, it's not going to restore anbodys faith in the law or its enforcers. It certainly won't undo the trauma of witnessing a very public execution by a white cop of a prone black man, and it's not going to bring that black man (or any "disposable" person killed at the hands of a cop) back to life. R.I.P. Oscar Grant III.










A recent Colorlines article by Juliann Hing that breaks down the potential outcomes of the case.

Silence = Filth

A nasty, and semi-educational video about gay sex slanguage brought to you by some very talented local arteests turned mime. Shot on location in SF's own Rainbow Grocery Co-op, even! I'll be honest, I still don't know what an Alysa Milano is but I'm determined as hell to find out, maybe from one of the many blogs/online forums on which this hot-off-the-deck video is already featured!

"Spot of T" and "Says Who? Gender Variant Representation In Media"

Thursday, June 24th is a big day for me!

In addition to the screening of Falling In Love... Episode 3 in the Transtastic Program at 9:30PM at the Victoria Theater (see previous post), I am speaking on a panel that same day at 2:00pm called Says Who? Gender Representation In Media. It is a free Frameline34 event at the Castro theater.

At 8:00 PM in the evening I will be debuting my new video about "The Pregnant Guy" (as well as selling some important product tie-ins) at A Spot of T, presented by Original Plumbing and the National Queer Arts Festival. This event takes place at the African American Arts Complex (762 Fulton Street @ Webster) and admission is $12-20 (no one turned away).

Frameline 34 & Outfest

It's finally complete! Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg, Episode #3 "Food!" is done! Greg and I finalized the post-production this weekend, made a MiniDV master of it, and sent it to get transferred onto the exhibition copy which will be sent around to the two confirmed festivals it's playing in this Summer! So far on our list:

Two screenings at Frameline34, the San Francisco Itn'l LGBT Film Festival:
Sunday, June 20, 1:45 PM
Roxie Theater
16th@Valencia
in the Skinnyfat program
*already sold-out! RUSH tickets available at the door, the day-of.

Thursday, June 24, 9:30 PM
Victoria Theatre
16th@Mission
in the Transtastic shorts program


And at Outfest, The Los Angeles Itn'l LGBT Film Festival:
Saturday July 10th, 9:30PM
REDCAT
Downtown Los Angeles

I'm really thrilled that we're a part of this event! Not only is it an OP #3 Release Party (the issue in which I interview the talented painter Sam Lopes), but Greg and I are sharing the bill with some really wonderful people, including old and new friends from LA and the Bay. I'm familiar with most everyone's work in the show so I can vouch that it's going to be really great. Plus, my good friend and LA host-Kelly Besser, along with Irina Contreras and the Miracle Bookmobile (a death-defying blue Jeep) will be there slinging some free gay reads out in the parking lot.

LA is my homefield so this awesome of a homecoming event feels extra good! and not at all like when The Rose returns to her hometown...

Queers on the Run

It's finally here! The interview Eric Stanley and I did with Yasmin Nair about our new movie Criminal Queers, out now in the latest (Summer 2010) issue of bitch Magazine!

You may purchase it at news stands or read it online: Queers on the Run

"The Sacrifices We Make for Love"

Check out Greg's new short video piece, co-starring me and MY cat Holiday!

Screening: Works from the Eisner Prize Competition

Please join me for a public screening of the Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg "Hair Breakdown Special" and my own solo video "Have You Ever Seen A Transsexual Before?" (see image above)

Friday, May 7, 2010
7:00PM
Pacific Film Archives
2575 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA

"The Eisner Prize is the highest award for creativity given on the UC Berkeley campus. This program presents work by this year’s two winners in film and video, aZin seraj and Curtis Tamm, along with a diverse sampling of videos from the competition. Seraj will screen Whisper my name, a visual diary of her journey back to her abandoned childhood school in Dehkadeh, Iran. Tamm presents hour) or a fis…, which builds on medical training films to construct a densely edited, visceral experience of the human body’s orifices. A program containing written descriptions by the artists will be available at the screening."

• Continuum (Taro Masushio, 2009, 2 mins)
• Exhibit #61, SGv8-PH-013109, The Closest I’ve Ever Been to Masha (Merav Tzur, 2009, 8 mins)
• Falling in Love with Chris and Greg: Hair Breakdown Special (Chris E. Vargas, Greg Youmans, 2009, 4 mins)
• Have You Ever Seen a Transsexual Before? (Chris E. Vargas, 2010, 4 mins)
• Audio Report of Refinery Surveyor Black (Galen Jackson, 2010, 25 mins)
• Hannah’s Ringer (Ella Andersson, 2009, 5.5 mins)
• White Path (Pierre Camarena, 2009, 6.5 mins)
• Initiative (Asali Echols, 2009, 4 mins)
• Reika (Nagisa Kodama, 2009, 16 mins)
• Whisper my name (aZin seraj, 2009, 4 mins). hour)
• or a fis... (Curtis Tamm, 2009, 10 mins)

(Total running time: c. 90 mins, Color, Digital video, From the artists)

Against Equality postcard project

I just got word from the Against Equality editorial collective that my design has been chosen for their postcard project! All 3 designs, which critique in some manner critique the mainstream gay rhetoric of equality, will be distributed in their 4" x 6" glory for free all throughout the US and Canada. So clutch your pearls and lock your doors!

Puppet twins

Drawings that Greg and I did in February during our underwhelming stay at the gay B&B in Guerneville. Everything else about that loverly Valentines trip was awesome, the lush green hike, the seals 'pupping' at the beach, helping make Greg's Super 8 exploration of the town, watching Dreamgirls stoned, drawing this drawing! But the alienating and offensive breakfast conversation among the other guests talking about how Oakland is so scary and dangerous- dear god, avoid it at all costs!, about how poor people can now afford to live in their once expensive neighborhoods and now they're bringing down their property values, and how laws should be stricter putting people in prison longer because they read in the paper that one person recently released from prison went and committed a crime again. Appalling! I'm not making this up, it was like a racist American upper middle class script.

Guess who drew which! I'll send some 50% Easter candy to the first person who guesses right, within a reasonable time. This is a test to see if anyone's out there reading this. (click to enlarge)

Against Equality book project

Earlier this week the Against Equality collective excitedly announced the launch of a new book project for which I designed the cover! See their press release below for more official info, as well as the original design that I was so thrilled to create.



"The Against Equality editorial collective is excited to announce our first book project, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. This pocket-sized anthology of writing compiles many of the essays in the marriage section of our digital archives. We are self-publishing this book and it will soon be available through a small handful of independent distributors.

The essays will be published along side striking visuals specially commissioned for the anthology and our hope is that releasing them as a published book allows our critiques to reach a greater audience. The cultural lives of books are very different from that of online texts and the credibility that comes with printed matter still far exceeds the weight of blogging. We are also particularly interested in reaching people with little or no access to high speed Internet browsing like people in prison, older generations, and those living in rural areas.

Edited by Ryan Conrad and with an introduction by Yasmin Nair, this first book focused on gay marriage is just the beginning of our publishing projects! By making as many of the texts in our digital archives available in printed editions, we hope to create even more time and space to have critical dialog about our most radical queer futures and to revive the queer political imagination."

Welcome Spring!

I am on Spring Break and feelin' IT! I took these photos a week ago or so, riding my bike to and fro UC Berkeley campus from my pad in Oakland. The fragrant scents of the season, as well as the girl scouts and their cookies, were in full effect and I officially caught the fever. The SPRING fever, that is. It's really no joke. All the horny, blossom-power energy took hold of me and I had to stop drinking coffee again, for the 500th time (I know!). But, I was so hopped up naturally I wasn't sleeping.

There's so much more to update, but I'm off to go hump trees in the forest...

Wanna talk about reading?!

Let's talk about me reading tomorrow March 11th, 2010 at Books Inc. in the Castro at 7:30pm! Yep, live and "in person," yours truly with other such notable transgender personalities Cyd Nova, Tuck Mayo, Amos Mac and Rocco Katastrophe, reading from our stories and interviews.


Books Inc. in the Castro
2275 Market Street
San Francisco, California 94114

It would be great if you could make it!

Footnote 7

Me and my classmates are exhibiting the stuff we've been working on the semester-and-a-half that we've been in the program! Check us out...


"Footnote"
UC Berkeley's First Year MFA Exhibition

Opening Reception: Wednesday February 24th, 4pm - 7pm

Worth Ryder Gallery (near Bancroft and College)
in Kroeber Hall, University of California at Berkeley

Seven Artists:
Narangkar Glover
Plinio Hernandez
Corrina Nicole
Merav Tzur
Chris Vargas
David Wallace
Sandi Yi

I will be exhibiting the 2 minute transgender trip-out animation that I have been working on in After Effects (for which Michael Hyde aka DJ Bunnystyle is creating an original score) as well as the 4 minute "Hair Breakdown Special" from the "Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg" project, and the 4 minute "Have You Ever Seen a Transsexual Before?" video I made for Sam Lopes. I've never installed video in a gallery before so this a great and an appropriate 'first' for me.

I hope to see you there!







Oh, and another potentially interesting and self-affirming thing I did, I became a "fan" of myself (and Greg)...

Chris Vargas is a fan of

Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg

Create your Fan Badge

you should, too!

"Covergirl! Put the bass in your walk!"

Oh my goodness! It's totally almost finally here, the 2nd issue of Original Plumbing and guess who's on the cover!? Me?! Yes! Me! The Hair Issue will be available January 27th, but is available for pre-order on the Original Plumbing website. Can you believe it?! Little ol' me in 2-dimensional living color (or is most of the content B&W?), plus a tell-all interview where I disclose all my dirtiest little secrets like what I've been working on in art school and when and how I lost my virginity, I also confess my most delicate insecurities to the world like my hair-loss, and my "lesbian-leanings." It should be a great 'beach read' in the dead of winter, and/or a funny/pathetic attempt at self-promotion. Get your copy NOW!

While I'm at it, a couple of blogs I am now reading, as of today, thanks to a Facebook invitation and a tip from Eric.
Wu Ingrid Tsang's CLASS
and Eve Fowler's Treasure's From A Lesbian Library.
Both bloggers are LA friends. I love a good blog! Did you know that about me?

Speaking of knowing things about me, I started a twitter account but have yet to "tweet" a damn thing. Just in case you (or I start to) care: Twitter.com/chrisevargas. Who knows, maybe now that I'm a covergirl someone will start to want to know when I take a bubble bath or what I think of the new Lady Gaga video-is she still cool?