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Adventures in Comic-Conlandia: A Nerds-eye View

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By Brent E. Beltrán

It all started with Star Wars in 1977. My tia Maggie and her husband took me the year it came out. I was 7 years old at the time. Saw it at the Mission Valley Theater. That was followed of course by Empire and Jedi. I was hooked. Still am.

The Christmas it came out my parents bought me all kinds of Star Wars toys including a Landspeeder, an X-wing and the most badass toy one could hope for at the time, the Death Star. They also got me a bunch of action figures including Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, R2-D2, C-3PO, a Jawa, a Tusken Raider, Hammerhead, Walrus Man, Greedo, and a Stormtrooper….

…The summer of 1985 was a big year for me. It was the first time I had the opportunity to attend Comic-Con and I was super stoked! My buddy Tri Huynh and I planned to attend. I was in summer school at Clairemont High between my 9th and 10th grades. I was taking an extra class, Geometry, to get ahead. I took the city bus to school and that day I carried a small duffle bag filled with comics to get signed by my favorite writers/artists.

Back then the Con was held at the San Diego Community Concourse near City Hall. It was a much smaller event than today’s corporatized, Hollywierd monster. It was mostly comic book centered.   [Read more…]

Las Monthly Ondas July Edition: Free Speech Chalk-In at BofA Barrio Logan and Other Branches

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Last week floundering Republican City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, at the behest of Bank of America, chose to prosecute Occupy San Diego protester Jeff Olson for writing anti-bank slogans on the sidewalk, in washable chalk, in front of their North Park branch.

Mr. Olson was charged with 13 counts of vandalism and faced a year in jail and a $1000 fine on each count. He faced a total possible sentence of 13 years in jail and $13,000! Luckily a San Diego jury on Monday, July 1st, using common sense, found him not guilty on all counts.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith wasted over one hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer’s money to prosecute someone for exercising their 1stamendment rights, on public property, to do the bidding of his corporate master.

Freedom loving progressives and liberals all over San Diego are tired of right wing politicians working on behalf of corporations and the rich instead of defending the rights and interests of average citizens like Jeff Olson.

So tired that a Recall Jan Goldsmith Facebook page has garnered over 230 likes in less than a week. So tired that a nationwide Chalk-In is taking place this Saturday at various Bank of America branches throughout San Diego and the rest of the country.   [Read more…]

New Documentary Captures Existential Crisis of Burning Man, Temporary Metropolis in Nevada Desert

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By Elizabeth Limbach / Alternet

Keeping the cameras rolling during trying times resulted in an insightful examination of the world-famous event.

In 2012, after 26 years of ballooning in popularity, Burning Man was on the verge of popping. And Steve Brown’s documentary crew was there with cameras rolling.

A year earlier, the entrepreneur and first-time filmmaker set about making a feature film that centered on a trio of artists as they struggled to realize their visions for Burning Man, a week-long gathering in the Nevada desert that takes place around Labor Day each year. When the Burning Man Organization (BMORG) granted the film access to behind-the-scenes meetings at its San Francisco headquarters, Brown and co-director Jessie Deeter could not have anticipated what was in store.   [Read more…]

Volunteers Celebrate Black Music Month With Soulful Fundraiser for Malcolm X Library

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By Annie Lane

Longtime library clerk Jimmy Lovett celebrated his June birthday early and the same way he has for more than a decade–paying tribute to underappreciated African American singers in honor of Black Music Month.

Hosted by the Say It Loud Committee, Lovett and crew presented Unsung and Off the Chain, a performance best described as a lip-syncing version of Soul Train.

“It’s like karaoke without the singing,” said Lovett, a Normal Heights resident who will be 45 this year. “We literally become the artist.” ……

In addition to Mayor Bob Filner, roughly 50 people were in attendance.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: Artist Mario Acevedo Reflects on Golden Hill

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Mario “Torero” Acevedo is one of those crazy cats that you look at and instantly think this guy is an artist. He rocks the cool shades with a stylin’ hat, neatly trimmed white beard and occasional outlandish, paint splattered threads.

But he’s more than just a crazy artist. He’s San Diego history. He is Chicano history even though he’s from Peru. And since he came to San Diego in 1960 he’s been an integral part of Golden Hill’s history.

Torero has a long history of being an artivist in San Diego. From the founding of Chicano Park and the Centro Cultural de la Raza to the Community Arts Center and Sol Arts Gallery to Reincarnation, the Art Station and more. He was instrumental in leading the effort to change the name of Crosby St. in Logan to Cesar Chavez Parkway. His artwork can be seen all over San Diego.   [Read more…]

Las Monthly Ondas June Edition: Taco Shop Poets Dream of Sugar Skulls

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Read Tacos. Eat Poetry.

By Brent E. Beltrán

Has it already been twenty years since a band of guerrilla word slingers thought to share poetry with taco shop patrons? Apparently so, as the Taco Shop Poets are back in poetic motion for a gig at The Front in San Ysidro.

Founding Taco Shop Poets member Adolfo Guzman Lopez told me “it’s been 20 years since the idea for taco shop poetry was put in motion. We’re presenting the group’s 2011 book Sugarskull Sueños at the Tijuana book fair and what better place to reflect on our personal journeys as Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Latinos, cuarentones, border vatos, and fathers than a homegrown community space in San Ysidro.”

Originally started as a large, loose knit group of mostly Chicano and Latino raconteurs the Taco Shop Poets almost singlehandedly helped recreate the California spoken word poetry scene. They eventually whittled themselves down into a tight collective of border bards that have toured the nation and beyond. Their influence on the Chicano poetry world can still be felt today even though they’ve been relatively dormant the past few years.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan’s Las Monthly Ondas May Edition: Cinco de Mayo is Not Mexican Independence Day

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Cinco de Mayo commemorates El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla) where in 1862 a ragtag Mexican army lead by General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated a much superior and better equipped force of the French army. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It’s not even a significant holiday in Mexico except in the state of Puebla where the battle took place.

After the great liberal Mexican president Benito Juarez decided to stop paying Mexico’s foreign debt for two years to help it’s near bankrupt national treasury France’s Napoleon III, pissed off by this move, decided to invade and build up it’s empire.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Koch Brothers’ Coachella Failure-fest Set for this Weekend

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By Doug Porter

This weekend (Apr 28-29) hundreds of business executives and wealthy conservative donors will descend upon the Coachella Valley, hoping to forge a strategy to turn last fall’s drubbing of conservative candidates into future victories. I imagine the crowd will be considerably different from what locals have seen over the past two weeks.

Since 2003 billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch have been hosting regular retreats at luxury resorts seeking to focus the resources and energy of wealthy and politically ambitious conservatives in the US.

Their latest invitation-only gathering, originally scheduled for January, was postponed.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: Chicano Music Legends Join Forces to Play Adams Avenue Unplugged

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I’ve known Chunky Sanchez of Los Alacranes for at least fifteen years and worked with him on numerous occasions including organizing a fundraiser in 2007, called Musicians Helping Their Own, for local Latin jazz trumpet player Bill Caballero who was stricken with cancer and on a project in 2009 called Deportation Nation: Musical Migrations that featured a concert with Los Alacranes, Quino (of Big Mountain fame) and Son Sin Fronteras where the three groups at the end of the night jammed together on the Woody Guthrie classic Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).

Los Alacranes and Los Lobos go way back.

As a matter of fact the first time Los Lobos played in San Diego was at the Centro Cultural de la Raza at the invitation of Chunky. And usually when the baddest band out of East LA plays a show in San Diego they give a shout out to Chunky y Los Alacranes. These two groups started out during the same era and continue to share a musical brotherhood.

  [Read more…]

Drums Beat at the Heart of Chicano Park

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By Olympia Andrade Beltrán

Drums pounding like a heart beat at the center of Chicano Park, Aztec dancers adorned with feathers and gourd rattles pound out their blessings for another year’s celebration with their feet. It has been this way since the beginning. The Aztec prayers are honored in the murals of the park by the founding artists who became danzantes in their own right, a resurgence of centuries old traditions born again in La Tierra Mia.

I was 13 years old when I first donned feathers on my head and rattles on my feet for the 19th Annual Chicano Park Day celebration. I nervously stood in line with other dancers, listening to stories from the elders about The Toltecas En Aztlán and the founding of Chicano Park, awaiting the sound of conch shells to tell me it was time to begin the procession. The smell of smoke and copal incense helped me to focus my thoughts and prayers and as I looked out at the cheering crowd, I raised my head high with a sense of pride, humility and honor.   [Read more…]

I’m not Sure if I Adopted Barrio Logan or if It Adopted Me…

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By Letitia Rogers

I’ve moved around a lot. From where I was born, in El Cajon, to rural Oregon and even more rural Alaska. Wherever we lived, though, we were still San Diegans, listening to the Beach Boys Christmas album — even with snow outside. I spent 20 years in LA and never seemed to settle, always hinting at a return to San Diego.

In 2007 I made the move and while working downtown, my car got towed. The impound lot was near Barrio Logan. Uh oh. I’d never been there and only had vague stories of why not to go there. Danger was implied. We exited at Cesar E. Chavez and driving by old houses with bars on the windows, I wondered: who lives here?

That move didn’t stick and I ended up back in LA. While figuring out my next move after a film job ended, I got a call from a family friend in San Diego about an opportunity. Gayle is a caterer & chef and had decided to open a restaurant in Barrio Logan. Very little foot traffic and a down economy wasn’t ideal but she’d moved her catering kitchen to a building at Newton and Beardsley and taken over the old Guild restaurant space in the front.

She was going to give it a go. I was intrigued. It was to be friendly and relaxed with affordable, good food for the people working and living in the community. I think my ever-on-the-move brain only heard the word “community.” That’s what I was looking for and I said “Yes.”   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: West Coasting Tour Brings More Love to Barrio Logan

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At the end of March master graffiti artists, Isaias Crow and Werc Alvarez, returned to San Diego for the first stop on their West Coasting Tour 2013. In addition to painting in San Diego, they are creating murals in Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and others spots in between as part of their tour. While here in town they created three beautiful, unique murals. The first one in San Ysidro at Casa Familiar’s The Front, another at Pedal Pushing Bicycle Shop on El Cajon Blvd in Talmadge and the third and final San Diego mural at La Central Market in Barrio Logan across the street from Chicano Park.   [Read more…]

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