Each a monkey

Our friend Eric, from self-described 90's band i tramonti made a video for his HPU class. He was nice enough to not only invite us to be in it, but to let us molest the pretty ones! You know what a yellowphile I can be. But actually Korean's not my favourite colour anymore. I'm totally into Brazilian now. It's the new blast.

My favourite part, is after knowing Eric probbly over 10 years, I got to watch him direct us. He had a basic concept in mind, but listened to everyone & let things evolve. How you say..."making it upp as he went along".

After everything we shot, it's cool to see how he tailored & trimmed & timed it all to go not only with the music, but the lyrics. There's some discarded footage that won't be missed; as well as some other shit that woulda got the video flagged.

Eric knows how to tell a story, while splicing in them performance shots, with random teases of hot chicks dancing thrown into to reach a wider audience. Can't blame him. Sex sells.

Check out "i tramonti" on Shaka Talk in November 2010, Thursday nights at 11:59pm HT on channel 52.



Incidentally, we shot our episode before Eric made this video. OOPS! The band footage we used in the show was all kinda ghetto. One's barely a practice before they even finished a song. No more even lyrics. Small kine shame, but it's cute. Alex loves it, and he's my favourite local rock star, so nothing else matters.

Girl Feist 2010

Some people are so mad at men, they don't even know how to "boy"cott something. In fact, what they did was more like a protest, but these amateur activists apparently can't come correct. I think they believe they're doing the right thing, but unfortunately burning bridges instead of building them. I don't find them to be a very welcoming group, so I couldn't say for sure: but it feels like their attitudes and actions are motivated by money & misterogyny (that's boy for 'misogyny').

They're an offshoot of Girlfest, which in a few months will be the subject of a plethora of puff pieces in Honolulu's papers. It was founded on the credo "to prevent men's violence against women". They've since erased the sexism from their slogan, but is it just semantics? Having been on the receiving end on this woman's antics, because I guess I piss her off, I wonder if I should start a Boy Fest?...OOH! I love it! By evening, we could have a Man Feast! (There'll be a Cherry Bustin' Cabaret... we'll burn jockstraps... hold guys-only events and stage elections without female votes ~ very Founding Fathers minus the Meddling Mothers! Thanks Girl Fest for the inspiration!)

My story keeps evolving as these she-nanigans unfold, so I'll give the basic rundown: some friends of mine Downetowne had planned to do a Pimps-n-Hos party called "Hookers Bring Your Pimps". While the term 'pimp' could be expanded to include anyone who acts as an agent for a prostitute (brothel owner, person who tells someone where to solicit sex workers, etc), I'm referring to the connotative "abusive male who forces a woman to have sex with people for money, and then takes her money". I believe that's the most widely understood definition of 'pimp', and to welcome such men to a party thrown for "Women Who Love Women", seems a little paradoxical. As a self-employed sex worker, had I known about the party before they changed the name, I probbly would have expressed it)

But a maxi-moronical group beat me to it, shamelessly flaunting their trademark lack of tact or class, with a complete refusal to engage in civil conversation, by staging a bullshit "boycott" of the party on Facebook. What was more confounding was how - without evident provocation -they even went so far as suggesting a full-on boycott of the venue too! While I can't stand how cowardly and obnoxious this tacky tactic was,I can't deny that these arrogant actions did draw attention to the 'pimp issue'. Even Ruby & company realized the insensitivity of their party name & promptly changed it.

It seems our theme for August’s party has caused quite the controversial discussion amongst some of our peers. First of all we’d like to thank you for all of your support and kind words at this time. We appreciate it all and of course you!

Second, while we do understand the views of those who oppose the chosen theme, we certainly don’t agree with how they have chosen to express their concerns. We would hope that an organization that defines itself as ‘raising awareness through education’ would do just that… make us aware of our insensitivity through direct discussion instead of attacking through a Facebook protest. It’s unfortunate the organization felt the need to raise conflict within the lesbian community in order to raise awareness for their cause. We do not condone these actions. We are not afraid to admit our mistakes and still hope that organizations with a common purpose can learn from each other.

We are honored to represent the LGBT community and are humbled by this experience. We sincerely apologize to those we have offended. We have since changed the theme to this party. We look forward to continuing our mission to provide a hip and social environment where lesbians can come together in a safe and non-discriminate manner.

Sincerely,
DowneTowne Events, LLC
Ruby Hong

Hmmm.... Lesbians on an island? You know if I ate pussy, I'm sure I could think of a few other ways to communicate my concerns, rather than an aggressive public attack via social media. How about a open-minded discussion via that same resource? Why not pick upp a phone, reach out and touch somebody? That wouldn't be dramatic enough, and you might not get the credit for the name change.

I can understand why this group has abandoned ration & reason. Showing respect to anyone involved in prostitution, could jeopardize their funding, so I can't fault these opportunists for also being capitalists. And since they're extremists, criticism only feeds their egos. Pissing people off is it's own reward when it helps you get your way, with the added bonus of publicity. Negative or not, any press is good press. Since they silence all opposition, and cloak themselves with victims, they can convince fools to part with their money.

But, we don't feel that this has been misguided and if some people in the club-scene consider us "grumpy grumps" well, we'll take that criticism if it means standing up for our clients (survivors of sex-trafficking) because events like these do not help their morale at all.

Our paths don't cross in "the club-scene", so I'll refrain from calling them "conniving cunts". But how does it help their clients' morale to be represented by someone who (on their behalf) single-handedly alienates entire communities, then hides behind their clients to justify such self-righteous misbehaviour? A "Non-Executive Director" with a 9-paragraph bio, who's best described by a single finger? But don't mind me. I'm just speaking from experience.

Someone once said something that contradicts me. Whoever left the comment at the end of that last link: I like your name!