A year ago at the Flowershop

Disclaimer-

Before you read this, there are a few things I would like to state. 

First off- this is what writers do naturally. We write. We take what we know and what we've seen and we give those experiences an extension so that we may feel complete.

It's who we are. It's how we deal. I often expect that nobody is interested, that the writing I put out won't be seen by anyone, and I've never expected anything to come of it other than my self. 

The written self, for me, is like a third person that exists almost as a voice of reason. I've had a log history of bi-polar disorder. It's like there are five of me. I have no idea how to explain the sensation of coming out of an episode and looking back and thinking- holy shit shit, who was I the past few days? My written self is often my resolve, my therapy, my voice of reason. It's why I've been writing since I was a kid. It's me here now without the shit show.

Second- if you're here for a reason to gossip, to judge me, to make me out to seem fucked up or crazy or filled with sob stories or sorry attempts at redemption or gain- then you can kindly fuck off now. Trust me- I've done enough bashing of my own self, damage, trashing and near death attempts at punishing myself, to be bothered by anyone's scrutiny of my honesty. And gladly even, am I to look upon others judgements and know that at least I am granted the freedom to write whatever the fuck when in other countries you can get killed for speaking about the wrong things. At any rate, I may be lonely and hundreds of miles from home, but at least I'm healthy, sober, and on my way to greater successes. That's a guarantee.

Everyone I have ever admired growing up fought for things they believe in, exposed themselves when it wasn't  fashionable, and went against every battle forced upon their lives. of themselves they beseeched forgiveness by being honest, yet sometimes explicit, provocative, and perhaps enticing a grave discomfort in anyone willing to acknowledge them.

This is the story that set the stage for my whole year. In sharing, I only hope to let go.

Thank you 

***********

December 18th 2015

A year ago today I was attacked in my studio by a strictly platonic co-tenant, friend, and band mate in the result of a hate crime and his views on my gender and sexuality.

Not a day has gone by that I don't think about the incident and the turmoil and attacks that followed, but I do believe that too will pass.

After being physically assaulted in my room and home, sexually harassed, told I was a sex
object, and then stalked.. After being accused of lying, being blacked out, and exaggerating the situation... After having my honesty about my mental health issues used against me...
After being threatened with the attackers suicide and chased by car on the bay bridge at 6am.. After being threatened and harassed with my eviction for demanding action.... After losing a lot of my resources, a lot of friends, a lot of important relationships, being driven homeless, driven to madness, and being forced to leave a whole life I worked restlessly for behind.. After all the nightmares, arguments, bouts of confusion, depression, and real life fear... And after parting with the love of my life, the golden gates of the nirvana I longed for as a child, the place I imagined I could finally call home, the grey, shitty, shiesty, grimy bum of a town in shiny new paint with a trick ups its sleeve or perhaps just a killer set in a dark venue, the place I thought I found a home in, San Francisco... all I can honestly say is thank you.

I'm not afraid anymore.

From the bottom of my heart, I am so grateful for these experiences and the lessons I've learned.

Thank you to San Francisco and the Flowershop for years of both good and bad memories. In chaos comes order. In tragedy comes beauty.

Thank you to the mystery people who left presents at my door after I fled- pieces of jewelry, a book on Frieda Khalo, a book on a child Native American cartoonist living in amongst a suburb with deep rooted prejudices, a book on Native American uprising in Central America, little toys, a necklace, and a sticker that says "We are all in this together" - you were my heroes that day and you have no idea how much you moved me, to elation and tears, and guided me through the motion of having to pick out as much of my stuff as I could to again flee my space in fear of my safety.

Thank you for these challenges- for helping me become a better person and reminding me the power in standing up for yourself and what you believe. In many ways I'm grateful that it was me going through this and not someone else. I've been conditioned to harassment and prejudices my whole life. Thank you Burlingame for prepping me.

I truly wish and hope good things for everyone.

I hope for that the Flowershop continues to stand as a sanctuary for the freaks, the punks, the outcasts, the vandals, the gross skaters, the sluts, the weirdos, these so-called street angels that inspired me to keep believing that the charmed artist, though definitely endangered, doesn't need to be shackled to conformity by fool's
Gold and chains but comfortably flows through the winds of hope with wings made of color and perhaps a skateboard.

I hope to find forgiveness from those affected by my state following the attack, and from myself.

If you find yourself surrounded by friends, family, the things you love, and most of all, love for yourself, I think maybe then you have found peace.

There's a four year collection of local art, zines, pieces, books I've grown up with, clothes, furniture, etc... It's for anyone's taking. Please come and take all of these things from me- so much work and love went into some of this pieces from artists I will admire for the rest of my life. I will post a date soon before. It will be sometime early mid January.

People- love your mother's, daughters, sisters, and lovers and always remind them that they're worthy of welcome, peace, and love. Even if they know it. these people who survive these types of attacks are all gems in the history of the pursuit of freedom. Your thoughts on people shape much more than conversation or a good thing to gossip over, they can cause earthquakes and shift people's lives in way you couldn't even imagine. In writing this I hope to inspire people to treat each other a little better, to recognize when there is somebody in need, and to view people who you may think of as a poor freak or drunken fuck up as someone who might be trying to survive something tough and scary.

To my friends and family- thank you so much for understanding when I needed you the most. I promise to treat myself better and others as I would like to be treated.

Mom- thank you for always being there. I love you so much.

We're all in this together.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
☮

One of many: Last breaths in San Francisco

This was written in response to the "black robot butler" marketing campaign earlier this year.
I was honored to have been given the unique opportunity to read this poem privately to a group of artists and poets in Tony Avala's office during the tenth annual Poems Under the Dome pre-party at City Hall. Amongst the party were Alex Nieto's parents. It's a moment I will certainly never forget in my writing "career".

Viva San Francisco...


*****************

You disgusting black butler robot marketing scheme

When will it stop

The shoving in our faces 

that you've enforced a reconciliation amongst our city's people XX 

that we have lost so many of our good 

That our walks home from work XXwe have to be reminded that something absolutely inhuman has taken over the steps of the library where I go to read about the world because school is too expensive

That this kind of reasoning for widening the gap between the rude greedy slobs and the ever hungry is a blasting cardboard sign of the 

Times

Insensitive to the displaced

You know!

the ill, poor, fucked up, unacceptable subhuman

Beautiful freaks

My friends

All the millions

That you claim to be cleaning up

Are still here

And you dont even care

But maybe one of your boxes will turn into a home for somebody in the L's

Tonight my cab driver told me about a shooting he witnessed around 14th 

In the mission

So recently.  

And not on the news because if you idiots XX 

from bumfuck wired hashtag no where USA knew about it you might not be as keen to take over somebody's home who lived there some twenty or thirty years before you 

And so many of those who step on the streets new to the places we worked hard to claim,

Just as we got comfortable,

Something you might translate as satanism XX

And I see

As many sins

Under a nation you claim to be under god

You became greedy of the pavement 

Greedy of the foundation

Turning our bones into useless garbage XX

turning our politicians and your  self righteous phone version of yourselves into perverted masturbations of a rectangle version dollar sign capable of obliterating a whole city's soul

Just so you could go to sleep at night 

Rest in peace

I wanted to say the other night drunk and tired from working hard 

During the Day of the Dead procession in the mission october soothing air

In a place i dont recognize anymore

To the businesses and people i have lost within the 49 squared 

and aching 

and nourishing 

miles

I have called my home 

But the peace wasn't reacher at the end of the night when I realized I looked around at the sloppiness of a drunk that can only come from Silicon Valley ignorance 

RIP

 To the ghosts inside walls that had the intentions of feeding our brains a piece of gorgeous life whether it be booze or a pair of ben davis

Rest in peace to my battles and rants against the techie convenience and all of its faux pride

Rest in peace the moments in time in which my family 

Had in a big blue house on harrison

And an apartment on Dolores where my mother had to move my then eight year old sister because of the color of their skin and its association to gangs

So that i could grow up in a racist republican town that bred kids who are probably just now moving back in

Did anyone know that Burlingame got sued for a billion or something dollars for dumping human shit into the bay illegally?

http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Burlingame-being-sued-over-sewage-3295262.php

Rest in peace

The presence and dreams of the last 40,000 students who got pushed out of city college of san francisco since the last time I attended in 2010

Live in peace to the Flowershop.

Rest in paradise

Too many homies

Its usually

Drugs

The game

So called

Life and 

Maybe on some gang shit

Suicide or heroin

An d sometimes it freak

But what can we do but stay

Outcasts together

And keep on

Keeping on?

RIP

Mire

Jade

Artem

Vote

AKO

And my best friend, Regina. 

I miss you so much.

Rip to the nation's lonely children

Alex nieto

Taryvon martin

Oscar grant

Michael brown

To all the people the cops killed unjustly

Maybe I knew you in person or on some lonely yard or cracking jokes psycho and drunk

Maybe we slept and dreamt dreams that died along with the verdict meant for hanging on a tree.

Maybe we will grow past the walls set up for detaining into long vines of freakishly strong fruit to be rained on the growing number of people who move to this country in hopes of finding where to lie their heads a night

In peace

Maybe we will be remembered

In peace

Or there after.

When I was a kid my moms used to say

You have to love all people

I said

Moms if i married a woman would you still love me?

She said to me "Mija,

i'll love you no matter what"

For you the Him from Always

To you I wish you many gardens.
I am a writer and a reader
and I only wish good things for you
Like gardens filled with food for life.
Books with lessons.
Smiles and kisses from those who sleep
kind and simple dreams at night.
Only a writer and a reader,
are the things I have to offer.
A misguided
Underachiever

Goals

I would like to be up and fed by the time the sun is animating past Mount Diablo

There was once a time I saw the morning sun with no rays as a dark, blood red ball bulging, both dangling and floating in front of a soft lavender sky on the way to the emergency room with my drowsy, life saving mother.  I thought I might be dying. I contemplated Buddha- that he or something eone without reproductive organs or something without a face had sent me the most beautiful morning sun I had ever seen while I spit up blood from my throat into a vase filled with ice. That maybe this is what I would be gifted right before I died. A sun you could stare into without burning your eyeballs. Fifteen was such a curious age to be.

earlier in the navy blue night of morning, I woke up in my mother's bed bleeding in hot strings out of my mouth soon to find out that my wounds from surgery had opened and a main artery exposed. I began to choke on blood clots pushing out of the exposed vein in my throat where my tonsils used to be. They pushed like old chunks of turkey meat refrigerated in its own greasy goo trying to escape a skinny red coffee straw. I think I lost close to a pint and a half or so of blood that day.

The nightmares that followed were of bathroom sinks filled with red oceans that eventually turned into tidal waves. I was drowning in them. After watching six hours of footage of the tsunami in Thailand I dreamt of tsunamis until the present time. The dreams continue on in anxious episodes and creeps the feeling always so slightly that one day the ocean will eat me, unless it all ready has and I am still dreaming. 

I would like to touch my hand to ink or lead and then again to paper in this ménage a trois of instability and humor at least once a day.

That I haven't a single straight line in my career doesn't disrupt the fact that I have starved and starved again just to have time to sleep these weird figures into a childish hour and wake up with the desire to draw them for the next seven hours. I've always hated drafting. I would rather spend thirty sleepless hours hating myself for wanting to draw the messiest angel than spend the next year avoiding her wrinkled, incomplete song trapped underneath something molding in that damned hell of a closet that is the flower shop freezer pretending that one day she will be perfect. And after all this I've never blamed anyone for saying, "Bianca, you need to get a real job."

One day, I'd like to step on the balcony ledge at the Louvre again. 

The last time I did I had a crowd beneath me in the plaza pointing up, my aunt, drunk, next to me laughing wildly, and a black flowing dress on. The ushers in the museum rushed out to scold me but I wondered what was so wrong. Did they actually think I would jump? Next time I will take that picture and I still won't jump. It would be such a tacky way to go, like, "That crazy bat, did she have to do it in such a fine setting in front of such fine people in such a fine city? She hasn't even a fine art degree of any sort." 

Even still- it would look good.

"You need to relax"

"You need to stop talking"

"You need to watch the ways in which you are honest"

"You need to stop reading so much"

"You need to watch your back"

"You need sleep"

"You need to wear less black"

"You need to stop dressing like you belong on a corner"

"You need to learn how to speak to people without offending them"

"You need to be to on birth control"

"You need to stop taking any pills, ever"

"You need to get a real job"

"You need to know what you need to do and everyone else knows except for you" 

That one show at Everyday back in Feb- A delayed account of JENKS AND DAE ROCK

Both rooted on the rough edges of San Francisco, artists and musical soothsayers of the city, tape master Dae Rock and killer with the can Jenks saturated Everyday Skateshop with their colorful personas at the City Nights art show in February. Having just been laying low in the mountain tops of Northern California, I managed to shake the greenery off my clothes to be welcomed by some of Frisco's finest at the opening party.

BG: What inspires you to do a show at a place like Everyday?

Jenks: Number one- Skateboarding and Graffiti. Streetlife and all the ways those mold together. It’s all been connected for a long time. We understand each other.

BG: What inspires you visually?

Jenks: Just like, living in San Francisco and collecting things as I go. Walking around in the streets looking around.

BG: So like, everything?

Jenks: Yeah, I guess so. Haha. I love to paint animals, too. I love wild animals.

BG: What kind of stuff are you into these days?

Jenks: A lot of our friends' stuff. I really like the abstract work thats coming out these days. Collage work. My friends are who I really pay the most attention to like Peace, Dae Rock obviously, Piper, a lot of bay people

Dae Rock and Jenks are long time pals whose beat driven, dance inspiring lifestyles have correlated seamlessly at the Everyday exhibition adding a funky touch to the sounds and sights of San Francisco. Both artists have decorated walls, trucks, and fences with intricate murals for over a decade. “Dae and I have been drawing cartoons together since we were young kids, like ten or eleven years old.” says Jenks, a wild animal himself, to me over brews in the L’s. With Dae’s boom box always in hand the party follows the two through the streets and sways people to move their feet. As much of a night disco these two can be they still work very hard to keep up with their work and stay super productive. I've personally seen Dae complete multiple, full, detailed ass paintings in a sitting! So admirable.

The show consisted of acrylic, oil, and spray paint along with in an in-house window and shelf display. The window was decorated with many 5sh0p findings, toys, trinkets, thingys, and items from Jenks’ studio. People kept saying how much it felt like they were in both of the artists’ room meshed in one. Tape reel guts bled over the balconies that are fixed over the skate shop creating a messy curtain of visual enthrallment. Shit cracked that night- people we're spilling from the back of our shop out to the streets dancing and smilin'. People definitely crushed. Someone asked me to fight some chick I don’t even know? Naw, dude. Ur in the box for a reason!?? (FREE CR?) damn, haha, for real though I really hope you're well... Anyway... Let's see, there was break dancing, booty shakin, a scandal over tits recorded (#freethecleav?) lots of long lost stars, shit.... it felt like home again, finally... Maybe even for the first time since I had come back from Freance six months earlier.

The city paid us a pretty one with a few warnings, but what happens out our door is in the hands of the people and the streets- that shits for them to figure out. We're just trying to live out here!

Meanwhile Everyday continues to book shows for the misfits of SF. Next to be covered is Rabitt Garcia's show.

The next art show at Everyday is May 29th, 2015

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Have flix from the art show!? Contribute them here! email: biancag8989@gmail.com

JENKS has a mural up now at the knife shop that neighbors Everyday on Geary and Larkin. Shit, of course, is stupid fresh.

In the meantime-

Stay up.

$

JENKS COLLAGE 

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DAE'S PAINTED STEREOS

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JENKS PAINTING TOP LEFT

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Live from SFPML

Almost sat on a needle just now trying to take a shot of two homeless people sleeping in front of the flag, in front of hundreds of police, many squad cards, idle paddy wagons, in front of a large group of very passionate, mainly young, people.
Passion when did you first sweep me?
We're all tired.
If ever I have felt passionately tired, this is the most it has taken over I think in the 25 years I have lived.
It's good of course. Perhaps worrying to those around me, 'B you should really get some sleep..."
Maybe I can't.
Maybe it's instilled in my bones. It's why I'd rather not pay taxes. It's why I make excuses.

These people are mine.
They have me at my best and my worst.
We all know what we're talking about.
This is San Francisco.
We're still here.

Took a break for a moment to breathe and get in touch with all the loved ones, you people, who drive me to celebrate.
Who drive me at my weakest to be on the column in city hall around hundreds of screaming people, some crying, some masked, telling the cops at the top of our lungs- Inside the mother fucker- in the middle of city hall- FUCK THE POLICE!!!
They just locked a bunch of people inside of city hall for the meeting of the board of supervisors.
Somebody broke the one of the front doors of city hall with a skateboard.
It looks beautiful.
They're still out there and now I feel lazy. Distracted.
 I'm about 15 pictures in and still I feel like not much has been done. I hope they're ok out there, fighting.

I hope the crowd gets larger always. 
That whoever dies today at the hands of the police unjustly is exalted.
That the meeting inside remains peaceful, at best.
And radically speaking, maybe not.

On Satire

What satire does, that maybe is a little dangerous, is not tell the worth of people but the worth of the contradictions found in people- then laughs.

 Long live the cartoon!