Thursday, December 22, 2005

MERMAIDS INVADE MENS TOILET (Street Fair Project)


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Having the camera always at the ready offers you the opportunity to film everywhere, even in the public restroom of theConey Island subway station
 
Here's a charming couple minutes I spent there.  Bravo has its limits.  I just could't pull the camera out again when a young man excorted a young pregnant woman who looked very close to giving birth to the front of the line and comandeered a stall.
 
My other videos of the Street Fair Project can be seen at:
www.RandyWickderReporting.blogspot.com 

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

HOWL ! WIGSTOCK ! HIP HOP ! (Street Fair Peoject)


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In late August 2005, I rushed from covering the Jersey City Pride festival to the Lowerr East Side's annual celebration of the Howl Festival and Wigstock
 
This is truly the ultimate "countercultural" festival of our day.  Join me as I explore the varied gendered, ethnic and cultural varied offerings in Tomkins Square Park.
 
The amazing thing about "HOWL" is its ability to include so many dverse communities in its festivities.
 
This short tour gives an overview of all that diversity.  Join the festivities next August at the HOWL Festival on Manhattan's Lower East Side. 

VLOGGER ATTACKED BY CLOWNS (Street Fair Project)


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Even friends can become hostile to cameras. Here, yours truly, keeps that camera running and captures magical moment of clowning. Very Short two minute tickler.

"DRINKING WITH BOB" IN REAL LIFE !


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I'd been told that the legendary Bob, of "Drinking with Bob", was a really nice easy-going fellow in real life
 
Then, at a NYC Vlogger's meeting, I spied that familiar Irish alcoholic face.  I slipped my Sony camera out of my handbag, put on the night-vision, worked up super human courage and tepidly engaged that larger-than-life legend in conversation.
 
He was, of course, surrounded by social-climbing would-be vlogger want-a-bes.  Fearlessly, I broke through the barriers and asked the questions that needed to be asked.
 
Here is that exclusive story.... 

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

MERMAID STRIP PARADE (Street Fair Project)


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The Mermaid Fair celebrates the opening of Coney Island every June in Brooklyn. I'd been told it was an event with strong gay undertones. It proved to be a luscious celebration of the flesh
 
Indeed, it would be hard to find so many scantily clothed young women even in a strip club.  It was a digital phtographer's feast.  I wiggled my way to the ramp where the parade ended.
 
Here, you see the girls of both sexes, some deluding themselves that they're acting, others losing all claim to class by chewing gum.  Great free show.  Catch it next year in June at Coney Island.

Monday, December 12, 2005

EVERYTHING IS NOT BLACK & WHITE! (Street Fair Project)


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After decades of teaching, a woman has a vision whose central truth is represented by a rainbow zebra
 
She sees the truth of the rainbow zebra as an important message to share with the world.  She recruits her life mate into pursuing her dream by creating a series of products.
 
Economic reality is clashing with her dream as we catch up with this teacher with a message. 

Sunday, December 11, 2005

MORMONS MEET A VLOGGER WHILE SINGING IN CHINESE


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On the way home from the NYC Vlogger meeting, I encountered two fellows sining Christmas Carols in Chinese in the Grand Street Station of the NYC Subway
 
The gave me a short interview.  Apparently, MTV had shown up earlier and had used puppets to "ask them a bunch of silly questions".  After they refused to sign releases, the MTV crew simply left.
 
I asked if they thought Chinese onlookers understood their carols because they had heard the English versions. The said that most Chinese in that area were illegal immigrants who did not understand English.
 
The things you learn from Mormon missionaries. 

Saturday, December 10, 2005

JEWS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE (Street Fair Project)


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The fact that rachel, a spokesperson for Jews for Socail Justice" swould be afraid to sign a release for The Street Fair Project shows how fragile free speech is in today's Patriot
Act America.

HEALING POWER OF STONES (Street Fair Project)


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The street fair offers everyone an opportunity to sell their product and/or their belief system. In some cases, the two are the same
 
This young woman explains the theory behind the various healing powers of different stones.  Her business has been built around these ideas.
 
For move interviews with a variedf assortment of people selling their products, art and/or belief systems at street fairs, see my full vlog at:
http://www.RandyWickerReporting.blogspot.com 

Friday, December 09, 2005

OUR FIRST PORNO MOVIE (Street Fair Project)


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For some, the American dream is to be pornography producers and/or pornography stars
 
At NYC's Folsom Street Fair, I found a small crew of entrepeneurs out promoting their wares with their star on hand as well.
 
To call all of this white slavery would be a real misnomer.
 
Other interviews from the Street Fair Project can be accessed at:
 
http://www.RandyWickerReporting.blogspot.com  

ELECT ME CONSTABLE ! (Street Fair Project)


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At New Hope's first "Over The Rainbow" celebration in early June ,2005, I talked to two law enforcement officers about their jobs
 
I'm not someone who chats up the cops that often.  However, this was a charming enclounter.  I have to think it would be a better world if more cops had to stand for election every few years.
 
Other interviews from my Street Fair Project can be seen at my vlog:
 
http://www.RandyWickerReporting.blogspot.com  

BUY MY GAY GAME! (Street Fair Project)


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Selling is the goal of all vendors at street fairs. Some are more aggressive than others
 
This was one of the interviews I taped at Equality Forum on May 1,2005.  This interview and a few others that day inspired my Street Fair Project.
 
Earlier videos I've posted can be viewed at my vlog:
http://www.RandyWickerReporting.blogspot.com 

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

"GAY WEDDING BANDS?" (Street fair project)


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This is another of the interviews I did before i realized I should be professional
 
I hope you lilke my "street fair project".
 
I hope to post new vlogs daily. 

"PAINT PILLOWCASES! MAKE MONEY!" ( Street Fair Project)


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It was my first day out with my new camera, May 1,2005. I wandered around a street fair in Philadelphia sponsored by Equality Forum just filming whatever interested me
 
   Three or four interviews I did that day so intrigued me I decided to spend the summer going to street fairs, mainly gay street fairs, and exploring how art and commerce intersected on "the stage" of the street.
 
Thoroughout the summer, I would shoot thirty-five hours of video at a dozen different street fairs in three states.  I was just constructing my first storyboard for a proposed documentary using that material when I discovered vlogging.
 
I decided it would be wise to hone my editing skills on smaller pieces first.  This is my second vlog from my street fair material. 
 
The first was an interview ("Hang Your Love on the Bedroom Door") with a woman who had built her own business designing and selling S&M sex toys.
 
This fellow didn't win my heart with his greeting "Hello, old man."  However, his success startled me.  Art is ceertainly in the eye of the beholder. 
 
Actually, his "success story" would contrast with many laments about failure from other artistic entrepeneurs I'd hear in the months to come.
 
I'll be labeling vlogs like this as (Street Fair Project).  Hope you enjoy them.
My wildly varied vlogs can be seen collectively at:
http://www.randywickerreporting.blogspot.com  

Thursday, December 01, 2005

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO VOGUING & BOOTY DANCING?


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Dances come and go. Sometimes, the memory of them lingers in your mind. This is a fun tape from my archives.

EVERY BALLOON A PERSON; LOST RITUALS OF MOURNING


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Before 1993/1994, AIDS meant certain death. Today, for many it has become a manageable (but still frequently debilitating and sometimes fatal) disease
 
When one is surrounded by countless deaths, new methods of communal mourning are created.
 
During Gay Pride Week every year in NYC, the community would gather to mourn those they had lost.  Nearly everyone had lost several friends so these services were huge.
 
Methods of inclusion included the ritual shouting out of names of lost loved ones.  Another ritual consisted of taking a lavendar balloon, writing your loved one's name on it and then letting it fly skyward mixing with others as you called out the names.
 
In 1991, the annual mourning service moved indoors to St. Veronica's Church.  This vlog shows these rituals of mourning: the calling of names and the releasing of balloons.
 
It was always interesting to hold "your balloon".  When you let it go, your eye would desparately try to keep track of it but very shortly it would be lost and swallowed up by all the other balloons.  It was a beautiful way or ritually letting go. 
 
1991 was the last year balloons were released.  Their were hundreds of them released at different services.  Ecologists pointed out that the balloons were blown out to sea and became death traps for sea turtles.  So, that ritual was abandoned.
 
After 1994, medications greatly decreased the numbers of the "newly deceased" and the annual memorial services grew smaller and smaller.
 
For all the pain, for all the loss, there was a beauty in these rituals of mourning.  Thankfully, they are no longer necessary.
 
Lynda David sings a beautiful song, "Time To Say Goodbye", that is nothing short of being a secular hymn about losing someone you love.  It really makes up nearly half this vlog. 
 
Spending this morning, December 1,2005, AIDS AWARENESS DAY editing these two vlogs where two of my friends ashes sat on the altar and were later carried to the river, and in which I release a balloon with "David Combs" on it was emotionally wrenching.  David Combs was my better half for eighteen years before his death in 1990.
 
Editing this material from 1991 was a return to a personal holocaust.  Thank God, it is over in the USA. 
 
But I think of that sculpture entitled "Who Will Care for The Child?" from my vlog about Zimbabwe sculpture. It was done by a sculpture who himself would alter die of AIDS.  It depicts two parents looking skyward as if pleading to God for someone to help cazre for their child as the child clings to their legs as if to try preventing them from leaving.
 
AIDS and horrible pain still haunt this Earth.  And to think, President Bush won't fund anti-AIDS programs that promote the use of condoms.  He will certainly burn in Hell if such a place really exists. 

CANDLELIGHT, MUSIC & LOST LOVE: Before the cure when all died.


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Massive death causes a community to invent new ways of communal mourning
 
This is really a "mass funeral music video".  While flutes play Pacbel Cannon in E Major, a church full of mourners start with the light from the altar and light the candles of others.
 
From a soft beginning, the candlelight multiplies as the music grows stronger.  It is a beautiful tapestry of music and light.  The stated symbolism was that light represented hope and in lighting others' candles, you were passing along and sharing hope.
 
Before 1993/1994, AIDS was a death sentence.  Many others, like myself, lost nearly every love and close friend they had.  I lost eight out of the ten people I considered closest to me.
 
However sad it may be, mourning conjures up art to soothe emotional pain.  In this instance, music and light flow together to the very center of one's being. 
 
This is the first of two videos excerpted from the same communal service in the gay community on Christopher Street in 1991.  This part is almost entirely about music.  The other part "Every Balloon a Person" shows lost methods of mourning.