Great politically-charged hiphop video that mentions war taxes in one verse about 2/3 of the way through. It's also a great image collage.
I finally got around to editing some video I shot at this year's All Souls Procession here in Tucson (link):
The video features many friends of Sali Eiler, who was murdered recently in Oaxaca. She was a tireless volunteer and organizer who was involved with No More Deaths here in southern Arizona and had spent many months in Oaxaca working with CIPO-RFM and women's groups there. On November 9, her friends and family came together in Tucson, had a memorial at Dry River Radical Resource Center, and participated together in the All Souls Procession. This video documents their presence in the procession and some footage of the spectacular performance spectacle after the procession. [More info about Sali and her work: http://arizona.indymedia.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=509&category_id=1 ]
I like how it turned out and I'm glad I was able to document it.
The radio show I do every week (err, I mean, that my good friend Esteban Caliente does), The Difficult Listening Hour, is still going strong. I've discovered that the shows that are pre-taped seem to be the best, probably because of various technical problems and discomforts at the Free Radio Chukshon studio. So Esteban will probably continue to pre-tape in my studio and then bring in and play the show at its air time (fridays, 4-6pm).
Every week is a different theme around which floats a cloud of songs, noises, field recordings, and often interviews and conversations - so far the show has covered noise, technology, education, bicycles, elections/voting, and more.
The 8th installment, focused on religion, just aired last week and is now archived on the site. So go have a listen.
You can even subscribe to the show as a podcast at http://freeradiochukshon.org/station/archives/2/feed.
In the last 2 or 3 weeks Greta and I have had 4 sets of houseguests. It's been kind of insane. And they have ramped up steadily in terms of how stressful they've been. First our friend Peter from Bisbee, then Greta's friend from Prescott and her friend. Then our photographer friend from Germany. And now, for the past 5 days, 3 bicycle pornographers from Oregon.
I like having guests but it's hard to stay focused and to get work done and to stay sane when our small home is so disrupted over and over. Especially because as a filmmaker I have a lot of requirements in terms of equipment and space and concentration, especially when I'm editing. Hopefully things are going to turn around by tomorrow.
Meanwhile I'm still psyched about my experience last week working on Video The Vote on election day including footage of a little episode with an off-duty Border Patrol agent that evening. And of course I'm psyched about how the election went. It's interesting that now everyone and their brother, especially in the progressive non-profit world, is speculating about what Obama will mean for their work, and they're sharing that speculation with all their mailing lists. I've never seen such a heady atmosphere of anticipation. It seems anticlimactic with over 2 months to go before he's actually president.
For the first time in my life I'm proud of my country.