Please Happy

I’ve been thinking a lot about meat recently. About packaging. About how real and natural it felt in Australia to kill a lobster (called a “cray” over there) and eat it. About how when we went fishing with Dad as kids, we would thank for the worm for giving its life and thank the fish we would eat that night. Been thinking about the disconnect between people and food. Glad this issue is so publicized. Glad movies like The Cove and Food Inc. have brought this thinking to the fore.

On that note, Jake found this response to The Cove winning an Oscar. I think it’s worth re-posting his blog entry.

From More Perfect Market:

“Everyone around here knows about it. The water nearby turns red during the hunt. The actual killing is done in a concealed area because it is unpleasant to look at, as is true of killing cows or pigs or any other animal.”

Hisato Ryono said that. He’s a town councilman in Taiji, Japan. And he doesn’t think it’s fair that the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove calls Taiji “a little town with a really big secret.”

While I’m sure he’s downplaying the secrecy, he’s right to compare what happens in his cove to what happens in slaughterhouses worldwide.

So I hope we don’t dismiss him entirely. I hope we see that he’s accidentally reminding us to look.

Again, another first radio story. Maybe the second one I ever did. Again, recently posted on Southern California NPR station KPCC.

It’s about psychic José Ledesma whose South Central L.A (city of Vernon) business has taken off in the past year. He’s a character. Tried to get in touch to let him know the story published. Apparently, some Moroccan family has paid Ledésma’s way to Africa for some private tarot readings and über secret cleansings.

Glad I got in while he was still around.

Photos by Jake de Grazia.

Psychic Brings in the Money from 89.3 KPCC on Vimeo.

Psychic José Ledesma helps clients with woes – from health to wealth. This audio piece comes from Lauren Whaley, a graduate student at University of Southern California, who finds out what it takes to get the money flowing back into her life.

Two things:

1. I am a vegetarian.
2. My favorite food used to be bacon.

I can understand the love for bacon, the familial gatherings around burgers, the comfort of pork chops at Granny’s house.

But.

Well, for one, industrial farming is not good for you (stuff they inject into the animals, meat mixed together from different farms, meat cleaned with ammonia), not good for workers (bad conditions, poisonous substances) and obviously not good for the cooped up, injected animals.

But, that’s not the point of this story. The point is the cute and creepy art painted on the outside of a pork packing plant in Vernon (near South Central L.A.).

I made an audio story about it last semester – one of my first radio pieces ever  – that was recently posted on Southern California NPR station KPCC.

Photos by me and Jake de Grazia.

Profile of the Farmer John pork packing plant in Vernon, Calif. from 89.3 KPCC on Vimeo.

Here’s more from the concert last night. I posted my acoustic vid on YouTube and Vimeo. Maybe this’ll be my big break. Maybe Apple will hire me to shoot iPhone vids on rooftops across the world!

Last night, we waited in line with a few hundred others outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We were herded into an elevator. With an elevator attendant. She pushed the 5 button.

Jake: “What’s on the fifth floor?”

Her: “Awesomeness.”

She was so right. The doors opened on to LACMA’s West Penthouse where pieces from the “set” of the Rube Goldberg machine were on display. We saw the mousetrap flags, the spinning, water-glass-playing guitar and the original suits the band members wore when they were blasted with paint!

The rooms opened up on to a rooftop space where we listened to OK Go play a few acoustic songs (guitar, xylophone and a hand-held “chaosilator” that made distortion sounds). We watched the now-viral music video on a big screen that rotated down to play (likely also built by Syyn Lab), then headed in for a Q & A and an evening of dancing to DJ Tim Nordwind (the band member with the big glasses).

Here are some stills we shot with the iPhone (again, future career as iPhonist) set to the album version of “This Too Shall Pass.” After hearing the vid version, the album version and the live version, I think I have to go with acoustic as my top choice.

Bonus Tracks:

1. I saw Susan Sarandon in the bathroom and all I could think of to say was “Excuse Me,” as I reached for the soap.

2. Jake and I spoke with lead singer Damian Kulash on the roof. Jake asked him about smashing the TV in the vid. And, yes, that is the real sound that TVs make when they’re hit with a sledgehammer. “It’s an implode, not an explode,” he told us. They smashed a lot of TVs in that Echo Park warehouse. Some they bought for $40 each. Some they bought at the discounted rate of $15 for all the TVs one thrift shop had.

3. OK Go will play in Los Angeles on May 21 at the Henry Fonda Theater. We’re hoping to be hired as dancers for that show. Stay tuned.

OK Go came to L.A. on Friday, March 5, 2010 to celebrate the release of their new video “This Too Shall Pass.” They played a small acoustic set on the roof of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, showed the vid, answered questions and let the party goers finish the evening with a DJed dance party. Oh, AND, they had parts of the Rube Goldberg machine inside for Photo Opportunities.

More later. For now, enjoy this vid that I shot with my iPhone.