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

Saturday

I remember when Saturdays meant that I finally had time to wander around the valley, alone and happy. Books about Russian Lovers, View Cameras, the ORB, Grain Elevators, overcast skies and cheap gasoline. I spent most of my post high school years doing this, thinking it would go on like this forever and ever.
-
Driving towards Knights Landing–alone, brings back many great memories of my random visits and perpetual picture taking back in my early 20's. Now, as I drive south on Highway 113 I can look left and see the miracle of community and art in this small island town. Luiseno first encountered the work being done on the side of the Plug N' Jug gas station wall back in September, two women sat atop scaffolding working globs of paint into the primered surface. Even then, the mural was an amazing site. People and Place. In an otherwise lonely little town, colors shifted out from the surface, resonating the history of the sleepy hamlet. I received an email from Alyssa Nelson a while ago inviting us to grand celebration in honor of the artists and community that supported the mural's creation.

When I first arrived, I wondered if it was all a dream. The whole thing, did September 2006 ever exist? Was I still 20 years old, dreaming of something like this in the next town I stumbled across... but it couldn't be. I was looking at the completed mural, more alive than I remembered. The shapes and figures within it, swaying back and forth. Colors shifting. Winter on the horizon, cold air and perfect grey skies one minute, breaks of light the next moment; sweat beading up on my forehead. All the while, videotaping... Trucks passing by.

At this point, my disappointment in missing the festivitess had been flashed out of existance and I was just happy to be in Knights Landing again, alone, Saturday.... As I panned the video camera south, a small procession began to appear. Slowly, it move quietly north towards the Mural. Dozens of people, children, neighbors, college students, artists, musicians, farmers, high school kids; everything into my camera. No longer dreaming I stayed still. Eventually, as the crowd grew thicker and thicker, the drumming began.





Saturday, will you marry me?

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.

Dream of the Falling Party

We were at someone’s "apartment" located in a tall building. It was called an apartment, though it was more like a giant structure made of 4x4s, a skeletal edifice of painted brown wood, the color of the wooden steps at the mobile home. We climbed to the top, or took an elevator. Everyone had to be careful and balance on the wooden skeleton. At the top, a very precarious party. I dont' remember much about the girl who was throwing it, except that she was white, had brown hair. Despite the danger, everyone was having fun fun fun.

Then the structure collapsed. It happened slowly, it gave plenty of time for everyone to brace themselves. I remember gathering my equipment close to me. I did a practice jump, and then I timed it just right just before we all landed. I remember 'Cardito shouting with joy when we realized we were all still alive.

Our equipment however did not survive. We were completely ruined, stressed. I remember looking at my bolex, beat up beyond repair. We felt some resentment toward the girl who’s apartment it was: why'd she have the party there, anyway? Then she called us over and faced us, saying frankly: “none of us really want to talk about what happened up there, but we have insurance for your equipment.” Vindication.

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

dia de los olvidados

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

where are we? where we are.

Today. We drifted down Concow Rd. towards the end of the world.

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

Then I almost lost the Battle of Assimilation out in New York City

We sold our clothes to the state. I don’t mind. I made a lot of mistakes in my mind in my mind.

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?

The Great Balloon Race

New York City: Money-city$$$$. Take a walk, spend $2.00 for the subway, $1.50 for bottled water, stop at a bar, get a $6.00 drink. If you smoke, $7.50 for pack!

Sunday. Sunny, bright. Hotel New York enjoys the business. Money city, money people, watch movies, buy drinks. Puerto Ricans run their bodegas, squeak out a living. Mexicans and Chinese deliver the food. Clubs open for business, charge fees for walking through their front doors, unless your name is Paris. Movies open and die. People talk about buying property, open entire businesses dedicated to the buying and selling of real-estate.

New York Exegesis

October 7, 2006

Luiseño Films

Initial Findings:
•The community of Gridley, CA, immigrant community:
GRIDLEY→BUTTE COUNTY→NOR-CAL VALLEY→Some Surrounding Areas

Contributors:
Glue Dobbs
Juan Cicada
Poky Pokerson
Semo Simon
Apple Juice
Peter Paradise
Monica Kaczinsky
Batthew Marney
Alvin Alda
Peter Fisher Price
Don el Hijo de Juan
Mauricio Mano
Sebastian Zargossa
Nigel Kafka
Red Bluff

www.luisenofilms.com
P.O. Box 1465 95948

Fotos Here

First Photos Finished!!!!!!!!!!!

YESSS>>.....
talk about a fulfilling experience.

I was completely exhausted after we finished. We left at something like 11am. Ricardo saw some hot rockera chick smile back at him as we were pulling out of downtown. She was driving some bad-ass old-school Ford Falcon, baby blue. And we didn’t even have the energy for that. Then we passed some day-laborers at Home Depot, picketing! Normally, we would have straight up stopped. Today, we just had to honk. We finally went to my sister’s cushy house. I slept for 7 hours.

Also:
R.W. Apple has died.

Prisoners of Democracy

Prisoners of Democracy

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.

Belwether

From: a#*@$!^0-+++n@gmail.com
Subject: Belwether
Date: September 1, 2006 4:28:45 PM EDT
To: ee@vxe$$$2.nxt

It's been four years of work! Hustling!! Making that $$$$!!!!!!!
For a minute i thought i was living here. Calling this place home and shit. There's a shower in avid 9, check it for real!!! And a treadmill! I ran on that thing day and night!!!! And I still gained a belly while I was here, somehow.

For those of you who haven't experienced it, the view from our wrap-around balcony is particularly nice at 5am. But the real secret is that I once woke up in Avid 1 and saw a stubborn dragon careening past the guard rail! Like he had somewhere to be and shit. Max knows. Tina believes me. Vito's a believer too. I've got a ride now to the West, to Gridley. That took an incredible level of persuasion, but i won him over in the end. So now I have a blazing orange dragon on my side, an invitation to a party in the sunrise, feathers bristling!

Oh, before i forget, it's possible also to walk from the balcony to Scores with a tightrope I've set up. You can also set it up to go toward that sunset, and march into the marijuana dream.

I've learned to accomplish incredible feats of perfection with all of you. The value of hardwork. I wish you the best.

Toño

Al Otro Lado

Just heard about this cool doc that showed on the PBS series POV, Al Otro Lado. By Mexican/American director Natalia Almada, it examines illegal immigration and drug trafficking through the lens of corrido music.

http://www.altamurafilms.com
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/alotrolado/

also check out this article in the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/arts/television/01lado.html


We're jealous.

Lola Alvarez Bravo

Hope to visit The Center of Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ one day (which may or may not have this photo, though they have an archive of her work).