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?

Xmas Thyme In LA

I'm here for a week total, today I'm just over the hump and it's Christmas Eve. The first sock in a pair I'm knitting for my Mom is only 3/4 done so she's getting a wrapped up IOU for the second. Oops, I had no idea how long socks would take to knit since this is my first pair, and despite the labor intensity it won't be my last. So rewarding, so wintry!



On Tuesday I got it in my head that taking a bus from deep San Fernando Valley to anywhere would be a good idea so I made plans to go the Hammer museum in Westwood to see the show of my Fall semester's video teacher, Desiree Holman. First, for some potentially perfectly good reason unbeknownst to me-I'm sure, the first bus that came just passed me by, I tried not to take it personally. The second bus drove me 1/4 of a mile down the street to the next stop and made me exit the bus while he went across the street and used the TGI Friday's bathroom then came and sat back on the bus looking pissed and angsty while I stood out in the cold trying to stay excited about my LA bus trip! Yay! Well 2.5 hours, 2.5 podcasts, 2 transfers later I finally arrived in Westwood. Really, yay! The show was great, as was R.Crumb's Book of Genesis, and a giant exhibition of Charles Burchfield's beautiful and sometimes blank note card-looking paintings.



I spent way too little time at the museum in relation to my transit time, but fuck it. I was done. I hopped back on the bus to see KB in Echo Park and along the way I saw a festive Xmas motorcycle man with his big, white, slightly terrified dog half lounging across his lap and half slung over the body of the bike. Oh, LA! It could almost be Berkeley but with different ideals and a slightly more polished aesthetic. I love you, sprawling land of my birth. Here's the picture:



KB and I had a lovely night out, starting with brown rice and vegetables-like a couple a good Showgirls. Then off to La Plaza for Byron's performance event Tranza, a benefit for Angels of Change, a transgender youth harm reduction and health clinic part of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. I could not easily find a link to more info, so dear readers you're on your own. KB bought me one of their lovely fundraising calendar to enjoy a full 12 months worth of glamor and transgenderosity, and got the couple of girls that were present to autograph it for me. KB and I played a pathetic (on my part) match of Ms. Pac Man, drank some dranks then left to eat more. In-N-Out this time, what a Showgirl eats after a rough day. We went back to her place watched some cable (yep, it's still there) and I fell asleep in the solarium among the swaying tree tops.

Original Plumbing interview

(click above to read)
Did I forget to mention that I interviewed Greg for the inaugural issue of Original Plumbing, "the premier magazine dedicated to the sexuality and culture of FTM trans guys" which came out this Fall?!

Well, I was contacted by the admin of a French website dedicated to trans men/FTMs attracted to men and the men who want 'em, and he asked to translate the interview into French! How wonderful is that?! Check it out here and tell all your Francophone friends!

P.S.
Look out for me saying and doing inappropriate things in the second issue of OP, I get a whole feature and photo spread!

A new installment of "Falling In Love...with Chris and Greg"

This is the video Greg and I showed at K'vetsh's 13th Anniversary this past Sunday at Eros gay man bath house. We made it the night before at the Santa Cruz Travelodge. I'd like to have reported that it was a wild success and that everyone laughed their brains out, but no. It was kind of a failure. The sound was terrible and no one got the jokes, we left feeling unfunny and totally deflated. We spent the rest of the night wondering what went wrong only to find that the camera's sound input was so low it picked up more ambient noise than our lines. I'm not good at failing, I want everything I do to be perfect and celebrated! So, the first half of my week was spent coming to terms with failure and forcing myself to suck it up and learn from it. Failure is good, you learn more from 1 failure than 5 successes, it builds character, failure is a feminist practice, practice more failure, etc. Well, now it's Friday and I'm happy to report I did come to terms with it and feel much better. It also helps that Greg spent all yesterday fixing the video's problems using various Final Cut audio filters and it's finally up on youtube!

So, behold the fruits of our failure and labor. Hope you like it.

Norman McLaren's Nu Shooz

What the hell am I doing in art school, because let me tell you: It's already been done! And, Nu Shooz did it! In the 80s! Or rather, who ever made Nu Shooz'a videos in the 80s did it! Whoa.

(please feel free to take note of the type of masculinity that earns the singer's affection in the end, which as some may have been able to tell has been a model for my recent look)


All of these videos employ pixilation, a stop-motion animation technique which uses both animate objects-like people and inanimate objects-like Jelly shoes! Check out the 1950s Norman McLaren films below, which are both pixilated (not to be confused with pixElated) and gay (with a misogynist moment thrown in to keep it real)!

Guess who's playing Folsom Street Fair today?

Please take note of my shout out in the above video. HAAAY!

Ssion

Fat Face goes to a Buffet

Jenna Riot's "Won't You"

BONUS: Adorable video performance and interview with Ice Cream Socialites
Jenna and Rocco, all over SF and at famous Alemany Flea Market, 2007.

"Queer Puberty" program

at Homo-a Go Go, $5
Sunday, August 16, 3:00 PM

Artist Television Access
992 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110-2322

A humorous foray into nostalgic fantasies of body ambivalence. These films and videos explore the mythic, perpetual adolescence of queers. They invite all of us to lock the bathroom door and take a full-length look at our awkward, sexy bodies…forever. Featuring work by Barbara Hammer, Charles Lum, Michael Lucid, K8 Hardy, Zackary Drucker & Rhys Ernst, Chris Vargas & Greg Youmans, Samara Halperin, Shana Moulton, Jen Smith, and maybe more! Programmed by: Jen Smith, Chris Vargas, and Greg Youmans

Websites & Anxiety

This is what I did all summer in my Berkeley City College web design class!

Falling In Love... with Chris and Greg [dot] com

&

Chris E. Vargas [dot] com

Today is my last day and I'm quite emotional about it. I've really been enjoying my 7 mile (roundtrip) bike ride to downtown Berkeley, with an occasional re-route on the way home to the Ashby Garden, 3 days a week for the past 6 weeks. The structure it gave me was much needed and it really made me nostalgic for my community college roots (big ups to LA Valley & City colleges). It also made me feel more or less nervous about UC Berkeley's Fall semester starting and entering the university system once again. I know academia can provide me with the most stability out of any of my career options at this point, but I can't help but be nervous about the (relatively minor) debt it may cause me. But, the last thing I want to talk about is anything related to "in this economy" because I have been in quite a cushy 9 month paid vacation thanks to Uncle Sam and his EDD program. But still, these times of transition aren't any easier or less anxiety-inducing when you can't even sell your old furniture on craigslist to make a quick buck.

P.S. I broke it off with my therapist, thanks for listening.