Axitia Mode 09.19.09

A few things to check out here on the Axitia Mode-ality: 1) this flyer for an upcoming event.



2) Radio Broadcasting:



and the supplemental info:
http://www.myspace.com/axitiamode
http://twitter.com/axitiamode

12 de Diciembre, Dia de la Virgen Guadalupe 2007

Palermo

Gridley



Luiseño 12 de Diciembre ReMix

¡Que Viva El Campo!

The Mysterious Finding of DJ Daniel Torres

DJ Daniel Torres had been in hiding—lost in a forest, he tells me. Take us with you, I say. It’s a one-man journey, he responds. Maybe we’ll cross paths. Daniel laughed loudly.

Jem Farms



5pm Mass

As I'm researching the Dia de la Virgen Guadalupe, these things stick out at me:

"...the Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery"-Octavio Paz -quote from Wikipedia

---and that as we document this mass, in Gridley, CA, with Mexicanos who have been here in varying amounts of time--from newcomers to many families who have been here for years--it is certain that the influence of central americans, latinos, and whatever other label we can come up with, is imminent, inevitable. In fact, it's happening now; we are in transition. The United States is being changed by Latinos, Hispanos, Latin Americans [your substitution here].

-tony in Gridley

news flash:

.................. HBO FILMS to begin filming in Gridley this October. ! According to C. Barajas an old friend since back in the El Campo days tells Luiseño this morning that his brother Jesse, Gridley High School Counselor and local soccer Coach was contacted from New York about the issue facing a lot of the soccer players in the leagues. Apparently the teams from Gridley, Orland and Yuba City have been doing very well for the last few years, yet no college scouts have come to visit or at least are reluctant to visit because of the fact that a high percentage of the players are undocumented.

More to follow.

Another documentary project being filmed around Gridleyland. HBO, exciting. !

latino house djs in outer-space

inspired by the music of casino versus japan, i accidentally click on tabs, open programs, try to ignore myspace, relentlessly log in to flickr, pointing and clicking....

the r. part of luiseño: i find my self inside a barn everyday, mixing music and sharing dreams with people of the west. construction of a new, dare i say second Luiseño Studio begins tonight. within days, our space continues to expand, this time with a mega sound system, five turntables, laptops and 2 million records.


my time is short in this green valley. driving back roads once again, long and drawn out sunsets filter into my afternoons, late at night i think about producing beats and finding more latinos in the mix. both are a struggle, yet a few breakthroughs are made.

r£uñîºn

Reflections/Thoughts of Beginnings

Toward future engagements, the day after our “inaugural exhibition” to the Gridley community.

I fiddle with normal things on my computer—the nytimes, Zapatista updates, music, my writing (this very document). I glimpse the photographs from yesterday. Another day documented, the beginning of an engagement with the community.

I think about yesterday’s events, I think about all the people we saw.

I slept from 7pm to 10:30 in the morning! Slept right through the New Year’s countdown.

Youth Group students took pictures of themselves lying on the ground like roadkill, good pictures.

My mom made posole.

First Gridley Exhibition

THE LUISEÑO ARTIST COLLECTIVE
Presents

Chapter 1:
NUEVO IDEAL

Photography, Video, y Radio
of
Gridley, CA, New York, NY USA Huejuquilla, Guadalajara JAL. MX

May 1st, 2006-December 31st, 2006

Born in Gridley, CA, the Luiseño Artist Collective is dedicated to supporting the arts in the communities it serves.

Nuevo Ideal marks Luiseño’s first engagement with the Gridley community. In this inaugural exhibition, artists featured are the Sacred Heart Youth Group, Shannon Bowers, Ricardo Ramirez and Tony Gannon, all of whom are Gridley locals.

Photos and video result from months of documentation in the Gridley area and during visits to New York City, Huejuquilla, Jal. MX, and Guadalajara, Jal. MX. The Luiseño Artist Collective is always seeking contributors from these regions and beyond.

The Luiseño Artist Collective will continue to seek out local voices deserving recognition. In fact, Luiseño hopes that this is the first of many regular exhibitions within the community.

Luiseño is presently seeking donors who support building community through art.

Please contact Luiseño at:
contact@luisenofilms.com
www.luisenofilms.com

First Days of Huejuquilla

We're fortunate to arrive just before the celebration of Huejuquilla's patron saint, San Diego. A perigrinacion makes its way through town, it's destination the iglesia. Dansantes perform in front of the church. The feathers and the cross, this is Mexico.

At night the town gathers around the town square. In the church courtyard: music, theater, atole. Later, the traditional fireworks. This is really the holiday season now--in a week is November 20, Dia de la Revolucion, a secular celebration of course, but a reason for the pueblo to come together nonetheless. Following that is the Dia de la Virgen Guadalupe, and then of course Christmas, New Year's, Dia de los Reyes...Did I miss one? In between there's no reason not to have carnivales and bailes.

This is an aspect of small town living that I long for in good old Gridley, California: the regular rhythms of town gatherings and celebrations--days of explosions set off by days of work and peace. Maybe I'm idealizing the life of a Mexican pueblo, but Gridley by contrast seems constantly on the verge of exploding, and everyday is an effort to repress this urge, to control one's self.

Is Gridley poised for a riot, you're asking? No--far from it, actually. Gridley is under control, and any notion of resistance is quickly diminished by the rapid passage of Time. Time passes in astonishing ways in the US: one goes to work, one ends his/her day, and then it seems there isn't much left but sleep or TV. Time in Mexico, meanwhile, seeps by, it comes and goes like families visiting. Sometimes time is their, and sometimes it's not. At 11pm one still feels it's early--an hour before bed is so much time! The next day begins early, and it's oh so far away.

driving/riding

landscape of a travelling mind:


1) Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins
2) Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee
3) Don Quixote

Also, Oaxaca

El Paso feels like Mexico, but it's not. Getting into Mexico is no problem. Within Mexico: 1 military checkpoint, 2 casetas (tolls). Holiday Inn Express Chihahua however may as well be Holiday Inn Express Yuba City, CA.

Sundays

9:30 am. Why? Unlike Saturdays, Sundays always seemed to get away from me, homework, girls, family. ?
10:00 am Northbound Historic US 99, into Biggs. Richvalle. Nelson. Durham. Chico.
–
Butte County is breathing, the earth beneath it is blessed. Could everything be perfect?

El Corazon dise la verdad.

-



11:04 am KZFR Studios. Washington Quezada invited us to document his interview with Dr. Char Prieto, Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Chico State. She and two of her students were on the air speaking about their project and work involving the history of Franco's Spain. They spoke of mass graves left over from the Spanish Civil War, oppression and the dangers of unconditional nationalism. After Hitler commited suicide, and Mussolini was executed and hung by the legs in Giulino di Mezzegra, Franco persisted for another 30 years, prolonging the pain and devastation as long as he could for his unwilling peoples. Off the air, while an unknown singer sung about Federico García Lorca, political parrallels hung silently in the crowded booth.

Afterwards, I spent the afternoon with the three Espanistas at the Pluto's nearby. As the time flew by, more and more people entered in and out of the scene. Talking about our ultimate desires and fears = Instant community. Built within mere minutes, random passers-by became friends and collaboraters.

Awareness.

Lou Reed having a salad in the background.

–

Chico, can you restrain yourself from the temptations of the evil yuppie?

:::!:~:

3:10 pm Southbound Historic US 99. Durham, Nelson, Richvalle, Biggs, Gridley. Birds. Baseball. Packing. Blogging.

Princeton, I promise to visit this week.

-Glue

Los Nuevos Ricos

On the air, in the place. Thank You Emobos for letting us do whatever we wanted live on the air. We had fun and were glad to do our first on the air live Zelbond session on your show. I love the Unicorns. Emotional HoboCore friday nights 8pm to 10:30. Streaming online. KRBS 107.1 FM in Oroville. Podcast of the live Zelbond session coming soon.

Afterwards, we got invited into the home of a family of Musicians
and got an amazing performance of original material and general warmthness, Thank You Too. The potential for the Oroville Music scene is BIG.

We hope to help make it a reality, yet again another long term project.














Before all of this, we spent the day with Ms. Mahanna's 7th Grade classes at Sycamore School. Returning to my old stomping grounds was therapeutic at the very least. I remember walking around the open air halls with my friend Ramiro as he tried to find girls to make out with; I, feeling wired and distant, dreaming of Depeche Mode.

We brought most of our gear and laid it out on a table so that the kids could see our art and filmaking tools. Needless to say, they went straight for the cameras and started to take pictures of each other. They also delighted us with some skits about jewelry store thefts and muggings. Somewhere in between we gave an off the wall talk about the wonders of life in a small town.


( !@!%?)

We'll be back again.

Gridley and Friends.

General Wandering and photographing. Finally finished watching Batalla en el cielo, hold on tight, don't fall over when the tension breaks...

Eventually we ended up in the Farm Labor Camp in Gridley late at night. It felt a little strange being there after dark, walking around and look for the danzantes that invited us. When we finally found the place where they practice, we realized that it must have been cancelled due to the heavy rain that had pounded the Valley all day –sending farm laborers home in time for lunch and a rare afternoon with the family.

When I lived in El Campo many years ago, we managed to keep busy, but what little art and music there might have been was a far 6 miles into town. Back then, as a child walking a mile to the nearest market took a full hour or so, the rest of the trip was not an option for me, so we would walk back to our sunken homestead with our bags of chips and pepsis in hand. Now that this community is gaining access to this type of art and dance culture many great things are at hand.

El campo is a special place, here you can find backyard weddings, palletas de arroz, bootleg Tears For Fears tapes that play both sides at once, discount clothes sold out of vans, small pets, directTV, a hopeful levee, garbage pail kids and an old carving in a tree that I made when I was 7. ( I couldn't make out my primitive markings, but lets just imagine it says "OAXACA")

~Glue

he’s standing on Frog Road looking at a tractor driver till a prune orchard. he waves at the tractor operator, driver waves back. it’s late october, all the prunes have been shaken off, sorted, processed, dried. The peach picking is also long over—the only thing left, according to the pickers on ninos heroes rd., are Kiwis and of course Walnuts. It’s 4pm and mexicanos are working, driving tractors.


frog road is adjacent to an irrigation ditch; he’s being attacked by ten slow mosquitos. In years past he’s spotted in the ditch: carp, crawdads. In still younger days, he’d wade into the ditch with Brother Jordan and Afsheen, catch crawdads, play with them until they died. Once he heard of a way to feed them and eat them so you wouldn’t get sick.

In the distance su carnal Glue Dobbs emerges around a bend, camera in hand. Juan Cicada takes a picture of him coming down the road with his plastic green and yellow camera:
“What’s the dealio, chamelio?” Cicada shouts.
“I backed the truck into a rock!” Glue likes to tell stories. He once had Cicada convinced that he peed his pants just so he could avoid going into McDonald’s. “The neighbors came out and looked. I think they called the cops.” the facts don't always match up but taht doesn't mean he's not telling the truth

Movement(s)

Luiseño Films y que?

Juan Cicada and Glue Dobbs outted live on the air?

Yes it is true. 90.1 fm KZFR dj Smiley introduced us the North Valley on his "Cultural Roots of Aztlan" radio program friday night. Despite the 80 thousand things on our minds; we had few words to say. But it was good being in the mix with the late night KZFR crew during the pledge drive, I even got a call from a fellow Grid-town native, sup Indiana Street Juan.

Besides that, as we started working on a commercial for the zeph' we managed to run into a few long-lost friends and random hippies at the KZFR costume crawl in Chico last night, for a few hundred moments, I felt like I was in Heaven, or Alaska ( I've yet to decide since I have not been to either).

Too good.

The next morning we found ourselves driving back up the historic 99 towards Chico again, on our way to the station again to introduce ourselves to Washington Quezada, host of "The Trip". Needless to say, he welcomed us in the station and on the air again. Since it is pledge drive time at the station we decided to offer as premiums, a set of portraits in the homes of the donor. We got three pledges within a few minutes and one call from another long lost friend and teacher who just happened to be mousing around on the lower edges of the fm spectrum. Too good, again.

As things begin to pick-up, we take more time to think and roam. Excuse the dust on our website, multi-tasking can be heartbreaking.

Being as this is our first official blog post, I would like to recognize a few of the new friends along the way;

The Walnut shakers and movers and sorters and fathers and sons and daughters and mothers and aunts and uncles, you make for fine human beings. The Kiwi pickers, if I can step in and do one thing besides follow you around with a camera I will.

RIP Bradley Will


~Glue Dobbs

Gridiron

We’ve returned to Gridley and found it utterly the same: conservative, contained, controlled. My brother and I went to the country vet to pick up our dog Moxie. Outside were two men in their late 30’s dressed in hunting gear—camouflage jackets, pants, hats, boots. At least one of them was also wearing a Butte County Sheriff’s uniform underneath. I saw his badge. The other was dressed similarly, though I didn’t see his badge.

They looked us over sheepishly as we got out of our car. Before we passed them they decided to go inside and wait. I might have seen a scowl across the sheriff’s face. Or maybe it was a scowl mixed with confusion. I guess people don’t know how to handle ambiguously ethnic looking people, especially ones with large beards and large uncombed heads of hair. I don't like to acknowledge that cops are looking me over, but they were.

Gridley hasn’t changed all that much in the years I've known it. The community shies away from its meth problem—despite all the drug busts in Butte County. In Gridley, there is one subdued outreach program, on the edge of its historic downtown.

The Mexican population is slowly taking over the town, but there are habits in town hard to overcome--the Mexicans don't celebrate enough, and when they do, there are plenty of cops to make sure "gangs" don't burst the seams of latent cultural tension.

The Highway 99 is both Gridley’s economic crutch and its major flaw. The 99 runs right through Gridley. Some would say the “middle” of Gridley, though it's a little more complex than that—it runs north-south on the eastern side of its historic downtown. Fast-food chains have become lasting investments because of it. For a long time Burger King was one of the only fast food places on the 99, along with a couple of locally owned businesses. Then a McDonald’s came--a momentous event, and then a Taco Bell and a Subway. More recently, right next door to McDonald's a Quizno’s has come up. Even more recently, a Starbucks has finally come to town, though unlike the Quizno’s owners, the proprietors were savvy enough to find a better location up the highway, nearer to the highschool, and almost encroaching on Gridley’s “downtown.”

Gridley’s downtown: El Toro Foods, Bremer’s, Sylvio's Pizza. There used to be a video store until Blockbuster came through (also along the Hwy 99) and put virtually every one of the seven (7!) video stores out of business. There a couple of bars, one of which is probably unwelcoming to people of certain shades of color. The Family T-Shirt Factory is also there, next to the police station. A couple of parks. Right in the middle of town, across the street from the police station, where the theater used to be, is a giant Church of the Nazarene.

East of the 99 the city limits approaches relatively quickly, as we approach that other side of Gridley. Between the train tracks and the Feather River lies an enclosure of public housing, once serving migrant workers, but now housing people with more permanent status. To natives, it's known as "el campo" and the "labor camp." "Segregation" might have a slew of heavy historical connotations, but this is what it is.

Gridley’s kids often work in agriculture of some sort. There isn’t much else around. Houses in town are large, opulent one might even say. They’re set back from the quiet roads with dutifully manicured lawns. But the larger, individual homes with unique designs are offset by the streets and streets of track housing. These houses are largely the same. People of all varieties live there though they often work in agriculture as well. There are a few other staple businesses of course--a glass company, cabinet makers, construction, mechanics.

Recently, jobs have become available as a result of the new housing developments that have gone up on the west side of Gridley—the type of semi-gated neighborhood with names like "Heavenly Meadows." Spacious, 2-story homes calculated to fit the needs of semi-affluent Northern-Northern Californians (or at least ones willing to go into large amounts of debt), they’re not that different from the flat 2-3 bedroom track homes a few blocks away, except that they're at least twice as big. Every house is basically identical. The residents may see the obvious similarities in their homes, but the streets are nice, all 4 cars fit in front, the rooms are spacious. Residents may however feel that they are twice as privileged as most people, perhaps with the exception of the old-timers with the older "classic" homes near downtown.

Did I mention that at the top of downtown, surveying it pasture, is a well-sized Church of Latter Day Saints?

Gridley: town of enormous churches, figuring itself out. Farmers struggling just as farmers struggle all over the world, though we wouldn’t know it (the Gridley Herald isn't exactly a bastion of investigative journalism). Mexicans, working for cheap, getting pulled over for driving without licenses, on their way home from building housing bubble homes.

Did I mention I love Gridley for some odd reason?

Socrates in Gridley

Shot Mass today. Helped my Papa set up for his youth group.

R___ A______
He might be the closest thing we have to an extremist in this town, of the intellectual variety. Like Socrates--short, pot-bellied, ugly in appearance and demeanor--he's harmless. But he may end up just like him, the way he bombards people with his politics in town. The Priest even runs away from him, sheesh.

Gridley also had Zelda and the Mid-Nite Cowboy--whom we hope rest in peace. They were loners, permanent Gridley drifters who always made us ask questions, even though they may not have talked politics.