Thought I’d post the 2012 stories as well, a year later! Artbound was a pretty amazing experience, they even made a short video based on my stories.
A Conversation on Chicano Art: Artist Jose Lozano and Collector Armando Duron
Art With An Agenda: An Exhibit Inspired by Kelly Thomas
Hijabistas: Inside the World of Muslim-American Fashion
Prison Dancer: A Transmedia Musical Hopes to Transcend Borders
I always think I should keep a tally of stories I write for other publications, especially since I don’t have a full-time reporting job anymore. Here’s an abridged list of everything I did this year (I only posted stories I liked, actually.) I sort of stopped doing so much over the summer because I was getting burnt out, but now I’m ready again!
Punk Rock Origins: The Story Behind Bad Religion
Local Filipino-American Artists Talk About Philippine Typhoon Haiyan and Raise Funds
Justin Timberlake – Honda Center – November 27, 2013
Here’s a story I wrote about one of my favorite artists for KCET’s Artbound: Parker Jacobs:
From the beginning, Parker Jacobs’ life has been one roundabout path to fame after another. I like to think of him as the most influential Huntington Beach artist that you’ve never heard of. In fact, Jacobs has been quietly impacting the American skate-pop-punk aesthetic since 1993, when GOGO13, the ska band Jacobs formed in his garage so impressed his older brother Christian that he promptly went out and formed the Aquabats.
1. “I got into art because I had really poor vision as a kid — I still do,” he says. “But back then being visually stimulated was really important because of my bad eyesight, and drawing was my outlet and my way to express myself.”
2. As a child actor, Parker Jacobs was in five episodes of “The Wonder Years.” “I even had a catch phrase: ‘UNBELIEVABLE!'”
3. The Aquabats once sold live tarantulas as merch.
4. The Aquabats were dropped by their record label because the record label (AKA Goldenvoice) lost money on the first two Coachella Arts and Music Festivals. Reportedly (from a friend who once interviewed Paul Tollett, the founder of Goldenvoice), the Aquabats is the only band that still makes Tollett starstruck after all these years.
5. Aquabats lead singer Christian Jacobs told Parker that Yo Gabba Gabba would be “a way to get a company to fund a really good Aquabat monster costume, because we were never happy with our monster costumes. So we created this universe,”
6. Christian Jacobs is blind in one eye, so he kind of identified with this cyclops — who eventually became Muno, a cyclops Christian started drawing in the 1980s. Muno was the first Aquabats villain.
7. Yo Gabba Gabba is not influenced by drugs. WHAT, REALLY? Parker says, “I’ve never done anything — I’ve never even drunk coffee! But looking back when I watch it, I go, ‘That show is kinda weird.'”
8. Gogo13, Parker’s band, wrote our favorite YGG song.