This year, Self Help Graphics & Arts celebrates its 36th Annual Dia De Los Muertos in a new location–the East Los Angeles Civic Center, in Belvedere Lakeside Park. With so much space we are able to expand SHG booths to accommodate more of our faithful vendors, increase the kid’s arts space, and expand the entertainment area. This year, we need many more volunteers than ever before. As an experienced Day of the Dead volunteer, we are asking that you join our efforts by giving us your time to make our signature event a dynamic and memorable evening for all who participate. Our main event will take place on Monday, November 2, 2009 between 5 PM-11 PM. We can use your help with event set up, event design and décor installation, face painting, vendor assistance, entrance guardians and event breakdown. For those who cannot assist in the main event, other opportunities to volunteer at Self Help Graphics & Art (in the Upper Level of the building located at 3802 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, 90063) are:

· Workshop assistants on Saturdays in October between 12 PM – 4 PM

· Noche De Ofrenda, Saturday, October 24th, 2009 5 PM to 10 PM

· Deadly Stylish Art Exhibit Opening, Sunday, November 1st 4-8 PM

· Deadly Stylish Art Exhibit Docent, Tuesday, November 3-28*

*Additional training required, Docent schedules to be determined upon availability. As you can see, there are many opportunities for you to participate in. We are requesting:

· A three-hour commitment per shift and

· Attendance to one brief Volunteer Training Session at Self Help Graphics on:

Tuesday, October 20, at 7 PM or Thursday, October 22 at 7 PM. If you’re interested in volunteering, please read and fill out the attached volunteer form, email it to volunteer@selfhelpgraphics.com.

Muy Agradecidos,
Day of the Dead Volunteer Committee
Self Help Graphics & Art

~ Pics are from last year ~

It’s that time of the year again where everything that is evil is fun again. That also means that Universal Studios Hollywood is ready to scare the crap outta you with their yearly horror nights. There’s nothing like some pig faced, seven foot goliath scaring the crap out of you with a chain saw buzzing over his head. Yes, Halloween is the most wonderful time of the year.

Last year the scaremazes based on the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St and Texas Chain Saw Massacre movies gave everyone a good scare. We can all use a good scare or a good laugh from watching people get scare. For this year, the movies Saw, Halloween, My Bloody Valentine, Shaun of the Dead and Child’s Play. They’re also including some lives shows based on the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure. Not only that but you’ll be able to go on all the regular rides at night with special twist to them and walk around the Halloween’ed out back lot while riding the terror tram. This will all be ongoing every weekend starting this Friday until Halloween. Event dates are: October 2-3, 9-11, 15-18, 23-25, 28-31. It starts off at 7:00 p.m.; closing hours vary by night throughout the event. If anything else, it’s a great date night because chances are your date will get freaked out and run into your arms. Strangers will also be running into your arms too. trust me on this.

Engaging the audience in multiple facets of the immigration debate, playwright and attorney Evangeline Ordaz has crafted an amazingly powerful story in “Visitors Guide to Arivaca.” This powerful, emotional and thought provoking play highlights the numerous viewpoints that are intertwined with one another when people cross the border, protect it and when it lands at their front door as Ordaz ingeniously shows how one simple act, can cause a butterfly affect.

The play focuses on the journey Valente, who is played by Justin Huen and his wife Linda, played by Marissa Garcia make crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. via the Arizona border. The hardships and tribulations Valente and Linda face all mirror the same experiences other immigrants face when crossing the border through the desert, which includes carrying enough food and water, knowing which trails to take, dealing with criminals and surviving the arduous trek alive and healthy. This sets off a chain reaction of problems that begin to trickle down to near by residents who live near the border and how the act of people immigrating from Mexico to the U.S. causes numerous live to be intertwined.

Originally commissioned in 2007 for the Borderlands Theater Company in Tuscon, Ordaz spent time with the humanitarian group, “No More Deaths,” which is composed of volunteers who provide medical aid and nourishment to immigrants crossing. The play came as a response to two activist being arrested on the grounds that they helped smuggle an immigrant across the border when they actually drove the person to a hospital to get them immediate medical help. During her time in Arivaca, Ordaz participated the various forms of help the volunteers provide to people crossing whether it was keeping an eye out for people that needed help, setting up water stations or carrying supplies. She also interviewed various volunteers, residents and immigrants crossing to get a better understanding of the reasons why everyone does what they do. This influenced the characters found through out the play.

The desert where the play is set is also part of the Tohono O’odham Nations land, which highlights how the native American tribes that live on or close to the border manage with people crossing and dying on their lands. It also touches on the ethical and legal ramifications that residents face when trying to provide immigrants with aid.

The story is carefully crafted like a hand knit sweater as the focus goes from one character to another, while at the same time giving each character enough time to develop throughout the play. This adds to the multiple layers found in the play that synchronize with one another, never getting tangled up or confusing the audience.

This makes it easier to see some of the critical points Ordaz and Director Armando Molina make about the events in the play and the personal ethical judgments characters encounter when they become involved. This is because they are all linked together by their passions whether it’s trying to work for a better quality of life, fulfill their patriotic duty, clear their conscience or just trying to stay out of it all together.

The design and lighting crew has done an amazing job of creating a small patch of desert inside the Alexandria’s black box theater. Half way through the play the audience will forget that they’re in the middle of downtown and that they’re actually there in the dessert crossing over with Valente and Linda. Especially when the play can take an emotional toll on the audience as the subject matter can hit close to home for audience members who have family members who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico.

The rest of the cast does an amazing job helping craft the over all story and bringing their own characters to life with vibrant passion and enthusiasm. “Visitors Guide to Arivaca” continues on through October 4 with performances at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and at 7 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $15 for students. As a special promotion, LA Taco readers who buy their tickets online can get a discounted price by using the code: randomhero. The Company of Angeles Theater Company is one of Los Angeles’ oldest non-profit theater companies and is celebrating their 50th anniversary this October.

Show was going off, lots of people.  Didn’t get any shots of the photography but it was great.

video:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/organdonor/3910716260/

However, these are not for sale.

Conan O’Brien has officially left New York for his new home in our fair city. If you see Conan around town, please welcome him and offer him advice for which taco shop should become his local hang. Then post your Conan sightings in the comments below.

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that:

A businessman who led police on a more than three-hour chase in a luxury Bentley sedan shot himself to death early today after more than a dozen police cruisers surrounded his halted vehicle near Universal City, a source close to the Los Angeles Police Department said.

He was taken to a local hospital, where he later died, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

What they didn’t mention was the circus-like atmosphere that developed at the scene in North Hollywood, as rubberneckers, the paparazzi, and the media were joined virtually by thousands of Twits furiously posting their thoughts (in 140 characters or less), speculations, jokes and unbridled glee at being part of the surreal, and ultimately tragic, scene.

Because the suspect was in an expensive automobile and there was speculation he was actually singer Chris Brown or DJ Khaled, the public’s attention was piqued. Local TV news drones tried to fill space with comments on the chase and users of Twitter posted speculative thoughts and jocular updates, even as it became clear that a tragedy was unfolding under the helicopter spotlights.

Twitter is a lot of fun and very useful, but let’s not pretend that the twits tweeting away are somehow different or more interesting then people taking pictures at a car crash, or vacant news reporters talking to fill up dead air while watching a dangerous chase unfold from high above the city. Those who participated in the twit-fest as the chase went on were patting themselves on the back, marveling at the speed of their updates and the number of people virtually chasing the chase as speculation and rumors flew past at internet speed. Rubberneckers on the side of the road, real or virtual, are a fact of life and not something to be proud of, regardless of the technology involved.

The Associated Press reports that it’s going after Shepard Fairey for his use of a photograph they claim copyright of in his Obama poster:

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington. The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.
“The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission,” the AP’s director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement.

The AP’s claim is based on somewhat shaky ground, given the way the image was used and the precedent in manipulating photos for these types of campaigns. However even more damning is the fact that the photographer says he doesn’t have a problem with Fairey using his image, and that he claims the AP doesn’t own the copyright anyway! This, of course, is not the first time that Shep’s techniques have been questioned.