Michael Jackson and the Magical DJ

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Like many geniuses, Michael Jackson had major issues, but his music moved people. I mean literally, you could wield a MJ song and move crowds of people. I’ve seen it. Indeed, I am one of the fortunate DJs to have experienced that sublime moment where the crowd is riding your set and you feel the music controlling the crowd. For a bedroom DJ like myself, it’s a rare thing and I’m ever grateful to Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” for allowing me those beautiful moments. I’d groove along until the peak hours and then mix the high horns over the rolling bass line of Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines” and well, whaddayakno, people moved. I was finally a magical wizard! Muahahaha! It was pretty awesome and no other song guaranteed such an enthusiastic response. Here’s the White Lines to Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough bit from my DJ Toro archives.

His hooks are addictive, but oddly not ear-wormish. The sheer breadth of his 40 years of musical production and definitive dance style crowned him the King of Pop. He also served as the tragic poster child of surgical options for victims of extreme internalized racism. And speaking of children…

Although never convicted of child sexual molestation charges, his large settlement payments and convoluted and painful attempts to explain his behavior revealed a man living in some Neverland light years from the rest of the world and its moral conventions. His isolation was creepy and sad. I would not allow my children to play with MJ. I thought to myself, here is a man who should not be hanging out with children. Next thing you know he’s hanging his own child out of a window, shrouded his kids in veils and given them names befitting storybooks (Prince, Prince II, Blanket), not the real world.

Michael Jackson had a freakish personal life, but aaawww, his music was freakish too.

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APIQWTC Team Dragon Fruit

≡ Category: Photography, queer, Semi-daily thoughts | ≅ Comments Off

A few weekends ago, I cheered on Dragon Fruit, APIQWTC‘s dragon boat team as they raced next to the cranes at Jack London Square. Not going to write much because as they say, a picture is worth…

Check out the photo album here.

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Up!:Hi Pixar, awesome movie, no girls?

≡ Category: Books, fliks, tunes..., queer, Rants, Semi-daily thoughts | ≅ 2 Comments

Up is excellent. Beautiful. See it in 3D on the biggest screen you can find. I laughed out loud. I cried at 3 scenes. I just might pay $11 to see it again. I rave.

I was so moved that after the credits, “awesome!” was the first word out of my mouth. Then I exploded with “WHAT THE FUCK Pixar? Would it have killed you to have a lead female character?” For real, Just One woman, girl or animal that is not: 1) dead, 2) wordless and myopically focused on returning to children when not cracked out on chocolate and named Kevin (because all cool stuffs must be boy gendered until proven otherwise), or 3) Mom patiently sitting on the sidelines while Son pines for Dad or Grandpa figure.

I’m so jaded by the father-son, boy-man character relationship dominating most films that I rarely get this riled up anymore. Plus, Disney/Pixar is the veritable King of the Mother-less child, Father-Son bonding odessey (Finding Nemo, Pinnochio, Bambi et al.) I shouldn’t expect radical gender bending here.

But I’ve paid good money to see 8 out of the 10 Pixar movies in theaters because they are consistently smart, creative and moving storytellers.

Ultimately, my distress is not about Pixar movies per se, but about the deeply entrenched ideas about gender and how they restrict our imaginations and sense of possibilities, especially for girls and young women. I mean, really, you charge a boat load of the best creative minds with making a movie and they can’t create a cast of characters that operate beyond typical gender relationships? Pixar’s cast isn’t even bound by human characteristics. They are fish, robots, animals, toys, monsters, race cars and imaginary super heroes. Yet, they imbue strict human gender identities in each character.

The always secondary female characters Pixar creates shows their team can make funny, complex and engaging female/girl characters: The Incredibles, Eva in Wall-E and of course, Dory in Finding Nemo. Gender roles aren’t encoded in our DNA. They are created and enforced by each of us and promulgated by wonderful storytellers like Pixar.

10 Pixar films and not one with a lead girl/woman. It feels like a deliberate snub. C’mon Pixar! Use your powers for good! Give us a girl!

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