Yo Soy Oro

Yo Soy Oro is a state of mind, a feeling and a destination. I Am Gold means as good as it gets, the best that money can buy, constantly increasing in value. El Centro de Oro is all that and more. Third generation family owned businesses thrive, while new investments bring change to the streets. Lovely long haired ladies in shiny gold outfits stride confidently down clean sidewalks where bright yellow big bellies on every corner keep trash where it belongs. Taste the rich flavors of tropical dishes and rock to the sounds of solid gold hits from the best of Latin music. El Bohio Jerrys Lamboy

Obsessed with the Obsession

As many of you know, I am obsessed with our collective obsession with Frida Kahlo. And with all of the never discovered before photos, writings, and found artifacts, the internet is a playing field for all new things Frida. I try to catalog as many of these things as well as Frida inspired art, photos as Frida, Frida tattoos, and Frida products on obsessedwithfridakahlo.tumblr.com.

Mommy's Boobies

Nursing day and night is no joke. But hey don't take it from me.

I'm just providing sustenance to a human being.

Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez

Rio Yañez never ceases to amaze me... This time it's through his (FIRST!!!) solo exhibition, Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez. Just look at this dual punk rock meets hip hop (ghetto) Frida... Clearly, Rio is an artistic mastermind.WHAT: Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez.WHEN: Wednesday, April 11 – Friday, June 15 2012Monday-Friday: 8:00AM – 10:00PM,WHERE: UCSB Multicultural CenterUniversity Center room 1504Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6050 Acciones Plásticas プリクラ collaboration with Rio Yañez (2009)

Digital. Creative. Conceptual. Think Tank Team.

Ladies and Gents, life is good. I am the Creative Director for New Futuro.New Futuro provides Latino families with fully bilingual resources and tools to get students into college and beyond! We are committed to making you an education rockstar! We will teach you how to get into the college of your dreams with money to pay for it. It's all about making the right classes at the right time, knowing the right people, and getting involved with the right groups. College is your future, so why should it be a challenge to get there? New Futuro will help you achieve your dreams through education! Read more about my #awesome creative team here.

Schachter's Pocket Tzedek

ATTN: transient digital native Jews, the ever so talented Ben Schachter has come up with another brilliant Jewish pop culture piece, Pocket Tzedek. Ben Schachter has entered a competition that asks, “Where do you give?” Sponsored by the American Jewish World Service whose mission is “to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.” Support his design by voting for him here: www.wheredoyougive.orgCharity and Philanthopy are major parts of many religions. Judaism gives it a unique character. As the contest describes, “The word tzedakah (Hebrew: צדקה) comes from the Hebrew word tzedek, meaning righteousness or justice. It refers to the Jewish practice of giving money in order to help those less fortunate—using our financial resources to create a more just and righteous world.”Schachter’s design, “Pocket Tzedek,” combines wireless technology – a debit card reader – and a traditional “pushke,” or piggy bank. Instead of dropping in coins, the donor dips his card.Find Schachter’s design under the web interactive category on the third page at www.wheredoyougive.org/voting and vote for him every day until April 1.

Love is never too late.

I know it's almost April, but I would be remiss if I didn't share Rio Yañez's 2012 crop of valentines amazingness.Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends and lovers! El Rio’s Valentine’s Day Cards are back in the ring to take another swing! This is the 6th year of my cards and it’s turned into my longest running project. Enjoy!

As always, please post these cards on the pages of your online friends, real life enemies, booty calls, baby daddies, friends with benefits, people you're stalking on facebook, and people you would be stalking on Google + but don't want to go through the hassle of signing up with a new social network.

Calavera Elotera at SOMArts Gallery

ESCOBAR-MORALES PRESENTS:Your favorite fame whore Elotita aka The Fat Free Elotera is back... and this time she has taken it to a new level... she has faked her own death... and has returned as CALAVERA ELOTERA.Calavera Elotera in Illuminations: Día de los Muertos 2011Curated by Rene and Rio Yañez SOMArts Bay Gallery, 934 Brannan St. (between 8th & 9th)San Francisco, CA 94103Tues–Fri, 12–7PM, Sat 11–5PM, Sun 11–3PM.Opening ReceptionFriday, October 7, 2011, 6–9PMOpening will feature music, interactive performance and the unveiling of over 30 altars and installations. The evening includes a special performance by Herbert Siguenza, of Culture Clash fame. Siguenza will perform and live paint as renowned artist, Pablo Picasso.The exhibition continues to examine the ways technology shapes the celebration of Day of the Dead. Once again, a Flickr group enables the exhibition’s curators to accept digital photos as offerings to those who people want to honor. The public can upload their digital contributions here. Selected images will be printed and displayed as part of the exhibit.

Negotiating Latina Identity through Performance Art on the Web

Andria and I will be presenting Are You My Other? next week at the 2011 National Popular Culture Association Conference in San Antonio, TX.

Negotiating Latina Identity through Performance Art on the Webwith Maya Escobar and Andria Morales

Challenging mainstream and academic representations of Latina identity, performance artists Maya Escobar and Andria Morales publicly negate, deconstruct, and reconstruct their individual histories, identities, and conceptions of self. In their current project Are You My Other? a self-portrait dialog exchange blog, Escobar and Morales draw from popular culture, Latino/a cultural iconography, and their lived experiences to create and virtually perform conflicting representations of Latina selves. From devoted homemaker to hockey player, reggaetonera to construction worker, conceptual artist to human corn on the cob, the artists model the multiplicity of identity.

Due to their shared physical similarities, followers of their online exchange often mistake Escobar and Morales for one another. The merging of their identities is further perpetuated through their activities on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. By locating these performances within the space of the web, where they are free from restrictions of time and place, the artists are able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously forming a unified (Latina) hybrid self.

Valentines Day LOVE from El Rio

You them saw and loved them last year...Check out the new crop of Valentines by El Rio.and as always:

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my friends, lovers, and drunken makeout partners! El Rio’s Valentine’s Day Cards are back for 2011 like a Sir Mix-A-Lot song! This is the 5th year of my cards and it’s turned into my longest running project. Enjoy!

As always, please post these cards on the pages of your online friends, real life enemies, booty calls, baby daddies, and friends with benefits. - El Rio

Barbara Kruger Meets Kim Kardashian

oh Kim...

Shomer Negiah Panties HUGE SALE!!

For a limited time Shomer Negiah Panties will be available on Are You My Other? at 1 for $15 or 2 for $20.choose from: S-XL in Black & Hot Pink, Black & White, or White & Hot Pink

All I want for my birthday is to go to Texas

Tomorrow I turn 27. And everyone keeps asking me what I want, what I need. Things may be tight, but I have what I need: a roof over my head, food to eat, an adoring husband and wonderful family and friends.But what I want more than anything, is to be able to go to Texas with my collaborator Andria Morales. She and I were just accepted to the 2011 National Popular Culture Association Conference in San Antonio Texas, where we will be presenting our self portrait dialog exchange project Are You My Other? We are thrilled about this opportunity and think it is the perfect place to situate our work. But after totaling our expected expenses, we realized that collectively we need to come up with $1,500 just to make it happen.So Andria and I are launching our first-ever Are You My Other? fundraising campaign Taking it to Texas. In exchange for donations, we are offering Are You My Other? goodies, alongside favorites from our individual bodies of work... but at a fraction of the price!SHOMER NEGIAH PANTIES (usually $20 each now one pair for $15 or two for $20) and Andria's BLASTER BIKE TOTES ($15) and T-SHIRTS ($20)

Do black leather pants qualify as a tax deduction for rock stars?

Loren's long awaited legal music database has finally arrived!here is the official video:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uht1lm-oApE]and here is the official press release:

From writing-off leather pants to copyright disputes: New database chronicles legal side of music industry

School of Law's Center for Empirical Research in the Law and a recent law alum launch thediscography.org

By Jessica Martin

Do black leather pants qualify as a tax deduction for rock stars?Fans, musicians, journalists, researchers and anyone else interested in music can see how the courts dealt with this question and nearly any other legal issue involving the music industry at The Discography: Legal Encyclopedia of Popular Music accessible through thediscography.org.The site was created by Loren Wells, JD, musician and recent graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and is supported by the Center for Empirical Research in the Law (CERL) at the School of Law.The site’s database — the most elaborate of its kind — covers 2,400 court opinions spanning nearly 200 years of the music industry.The opinions, ranging from copyrights and contracts to taxes, torts and more, are fully summarized and searchable by a number of variables such as artist, location, timeframe issue and more.“You can see nearly all of U.S. law through the cases and while the cases are educational, they’re also immensely entertaining,” Wells says.“The Discography is for anyone who legitimately wants a balanced perspective of the music industry and an appreciation for the people who make it happen.”

Wells started in the music industry with small rock shows and then moved onto playing the House of Blues and record label showcases. He strayed from the stage briefly to attend law school.

Thediscography.org also features a blog that highlights interesting cases, artwork by Wells and a news section on current legal events in the music industry.CERL provides the technical platform to deliver Wells’ database to anyone who would like to access it.“We took an uncut gem and presented it in a defined form,” says Andrew D. Martin, PhD, CERL director and professor of law.“The Discography is exciting because it’s an extraordinary collection of information that did not previously exist.Martin says the project is being driven by a “very passionate student” and is a departure from the staid, faculty projects that CERL normally supports.“The value of the database is immense,” says Martin, who is also professor and chair of the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences. “Through the lens of music cases we’re able to understand a great deal of American law.”CERL’s research technologist Troy DeArmitt says “Wells put a lot of energy and knowledge into constructing this body of information.“It would be criminal if this information was not accessible to the world,” DeArmitt says.Editor's Note: Loren Wells, Andrew Martin and Troy DeArmitt are available for live or taped interviews using Washington University's free VYVX or ISDN lines. Please contact Jessica Martin at (314) 935-5251 or [email protected] for assistance.

yer boy matis is back, and this time he's wearing a santa suit

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv-7WdpB72o]Matisyahu also ice skates and dances in a Shakira Loba cage.Happy Hanukkah, Channukah, Hannukah, Chanukah, Feliz Janukah...(or all of the above)

Ultimate Promo Model for Jewish Identity

have you been kiruv'd lately?

On Being Pauly D by DJ Pauly D

Over at Are You My Other? AM and I have been having some pretty intense conversations about what it means to become oneself. Needless to say, when I saw this video of DJ Pauly D as DJ Pauly D, I was speechless.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMBMbvLzK8k]

and...

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_pbnMIhunE]because this is somehow oddly fascinating and YES because we are still watching

want more? here is a recent Snooki tumbl.