Idolhands's journals

Sacramento is a city of politicians, not artists. Not to say there are no, or never have been any, great artists here of many different mediums and genres. Quite the contrary, we gravitate toward the sublime moods of Sacramento's landscape and atmosphere.

I've lived in many different places in America. Manhattan, Berkeley, Denver, Dallas. At a young age I travelled the U.S. on a cross country road trip with one of my grandparents and visited relatives in several different states. I got the itch at an early age. At that time I was about in first or second grade. I was drawing my own comic book at the time, on lined paper. I have no idea where that thing is now, but I digress.

The point was living and seeing different places as an artist. Seeing the different landscapes and environments art takes place. I've shown art in NY, it wasn't all that hip. I've performed in Denver, it wasn't all that groundbreaking.

The problem I see in our community, in any indie community, is back biting. The problem I see with the social structure of the big media in a city, is the inability to understand contrast.



Contrasting, from an artists perspective, is about adding values and tones that compliment one another, showing one another's strengths through personal weaknesses, thus making the picture a more enjoyable picture to speak of.



I remember Phantom Galleries. one of my first shows while at Mira Loma in I.B. honors art was a show on Del Paso. I remember Second Saturday before it became an extension of the defunct Thursday night market. Remember that Sacramentans, or are you a transplant?




Bottom line, Hip Hop here, Urban and Pop Surrealism artist movements here are almost non existent. There are nearly no collectors, no speculators, no agents, no galleries besides maybe Sara Jane Co. and now Upper Playground, Body Tribe alot of the time (Which seems to get overlooked in a lot of major publications about Sacramentos second Saturdays, WHY????).




If anyone knows the art scene in Sacramento, it's me. I don't say I know something very often, but if anything, I know that. I know venues. I was doing shows while cats were still freestyling at their kickbacks, and I'm still banging out heaters! lol...All that ego shit aside, cus I dont do that very often, I know Sacramento Hip Hop. I know the venues and I know the politics. You'd think we'd be able to organize better, ask for help. You'd think that we'd be able to convince the politicians, the club owners, the night runners, that contrast is a good thing.




There is no light with out shadow.

I had a reoccurring dream that I haven't had in along time, however there was a significant change and addition to the end.



At first it is set in a mall. And people are kind of in a huff that someone has gone missing. But when I talk to several people the, the story changes and I can see the person that is missing. When the person isn't missing they end up being accused of shop lifting
.


I make it out in the crowd to the streets and the streets cease to be the streets. They start to condense into the confines of a large room. And then that room floods. Everything stays the same as far as scenery, there are still trees there and what not.. I enter a building and there are faces I dont know, but everyone feels familiar. I know that at sometime, the feeling changes in the dream and I feel a sense of urgency. The urgency seems to be that my time of death is at hand. However, in this dream, I totally embrace it.



This is where the dream is added on to. I begin to see the architectural designs of a what seems to be a bath house. There are several baths in a row from left to right that look like they could hold many people. In front of that row is a set of stair and columns, like greek architecture. In front of that seems to be a statue of a rectangular pillar with several levels leading upwards. A small, flattened skull like crest is at the top, set on the side facing away from the baths. It occurs to me that when the light of the moon or day hits this crest that it projects a crown at the right time in the form of a shadow on the floor behind it. There must then be an opening in the roof. In front of it is a grid of 4 wide, 4 long squares, and in each there are numbers, letters, and symbols. the frist 3x4 grid, starting left to right is much like a phone set up. Except it starts with zero, not 1, but he letters are similar. The last row consists of various symbols in each square.

After decoding this and voicing that this important the crowd of people tell em that my work is done and that it is time to go. Everyone in the hall, who were behind me when I was looking down on the holographic representation of the bath house, is trying to sympathize, however they all know its my time also.



There is a machine there, elongated, rectangular, and it looks like it has a track running down the middle of it. At one is a gothic looking platform, that sits perpendicular to the top, much like a wall, but in the shape of a half hexagon. /-



In front of that is what seems to look like a train, but very Geiger-like. It pulses and emits a light from it that runs down the end, towards the crowd of people, an it stops at the that end in a quick flash. It does this in intervals, and I try to time it as best as I can. I think, " Im gonna take some people with me." In my dreams, Distances is hard to judge, so I can pick people us as they are, in the size I see them. I begin to throw people at the surges of light until a surge of mercury is ejected.



At that point, I go to the end behind the small wall like platform, and there is a woman standing in front of a door, leaning on it casually. I want to say she has the build and look of Courtney Cox. The mercury bubble that ends up falling to the floor morphs into and object. The woman reminds me that it is "Beater", which becomes obvious to me as if I have already known this object. The mercury ball, had become a small life form that is in the shape of heart, but only the size of a ping pong ball. I know once it enters me, death is finished, and life restarts. I lean on the wall next to her, and confess in utter passion, and remorse that all I wanted to do in this life was figure out how to explain love and know for certain that what I was explaining was the definitive truth, and that I don't want to come back.



She says that a lot of us are trying to do that and that the same "Link" keeps popping up at groovenet.com on the message boards trying to warn us or tell us something. I wake up.



I went to groovenet.com and the address doesn't exist, except in the Phillipines as a social network sight for that country.



It feels like I'm getting closer to understanding several things. But I wish I could project my dreams and SHOW people what I see. It still seems like I am leaving out so many things: color, tactile feels, sounds. Love for me is more than a sentimental emotion. It seems to be for me, that it is a continuity and definition of life. So this dream would have me believe.

I'm not only a painter. I happen to have fallen hopelessly in love with hip hop at a very young age. I think my first documented headspin was at 5 or 6. Notably, we tend to think that a lot of 5 year olds are pretty incapable individuals. When in fact, I wish I still had that energy store in me.



Subsequently, being a 5'9" mexican doesn't make things easy. Whether it was graffiti, or rapping, working with beats and djing, or bboying in my younger ages (before medical shit) this culture has shown me it is primarily about conflict. Someone makes a song about something worth a damn to talk about and the majority of constituents in the hierarchy of hip hop and their disciples get to ask it the question "BUT WHERE YAH HAWRT AT, YO?"



What criteria constitutes the having of "HEART"? Determination in the face of adversity? Courage under immense odds? The want to go into conflict DESPITE knowing what a situation calls for?And the inquiry didn't become apparent until I began to think why, when important information needs to be distributed, stupid people get to filter it? Why ignorant fucks get to sit back and have a laugh at the expense of the question "Where's your heart at?" It's a completely facetious remark under the pretenses of my hypothesis. I've defined how, when, where, who, what, but not why.



Granted the world doesn't run on hip hop alone, neither do I. However, everyone is expressing the same thing about the basic premise: It defies logic. That it does not require the preconceived notions of a given moment to correctly calculate it's determination of what someone else's emotions should be. Basically: Dat shit is faaaaaaawking ILL-ogical my nucca! ...........Seriously. Would you let your computer process survival plans for it's hard drive by filing them under "Trash Bin"?



Placement. Its a question more of Placement. WHERE is your heart at. Not, where is your HEART at. That question is not about the location, but the location of location. lolIt's about placement. Thennnnnnnnnn.....where are all the Hearts at? On fire on bare chests, or on fire IN bare chests? What fuel is keeping it running?



I could take the "CRACKED" approach and simpy make fun of EVERYTHING. I just don't know what the future holds. And maybe I make myself that way (self manifestation) or maybe I react. Maybe I'm one of those dumb ignorant people laughed at for thinking the humanity emulates an ideal centered around control of the lives of others. Probably. Definitely. The more people you control, the more revered you are. But, I think it's dependent on what it is in your Heart. And if a warrior in any conflict asks you where's your at, you better be prepared to answer with something other than "My shit."



Survival seems to me to be, a bitch.

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