C.A.M.P.

Cure 8 Cinema

Hello People of Oakland and Beyond!

May I tell you about a little thing I am starting called Cure 8 Cinema?

No?!

Well why are you still reading then? You tell me that, tuff guy.

Cure 8 Cinema is an attempt to have a series of unique and entertaining film screenings in Oakland this summer. Primarily outdoors because it is just better that way.

The idea is to have a different curator each installment. Curating would consist of choosing and presenting a film, booking a musical act and directing the meal if not cooking it. All in a theme of their choosing.

This is rough format as envisioned. The best laid schemes of mice and men…

Food is cooked up 7p to 8p with beer and good conversation. The curator may provide an activity based on the theme or film. Or maybe they DJ. Or they have drinks with their friends.

Sun goes down. Projector comes on. The musical act will perform while I mixed together other films that are selected by the curator on the theme.

Following the music the curator will talk. They'll introduce themselves, their theme, their film, their reasons and any instructions for the viewing. Creativity is encouraged. I just ask that people make a genuine effort to convey why they've chosen their films. Irony won't be banned but it shouldn't be the driving force of the evening. These speeches should be at least five minutes but really no longer than 20 mins.

Then film viewing. Discussion. Good dreams and memories.

Curators are encouraged to interpret the format in anyway they please. I ask that they attempt a coherent and cohesive evening. Cure 8 is intended to be more like a rowdy discussion group than a raging party. Some of the films will require quiet and close attention. Other times the curator may encourage vocal or physical participation in the film.

Food is the only thing we will be charging for and that money goes to the house, venue, cook for hosting the event. That is the only money exchanged. We'll feed the musicians very well and look the other way on merch. The curator should not expect to be paid and will have to make a bit of a time commitment. However, it is also an amazing opportunity to share, entertain, inform, enjoy your friends and people you've never met.

For right now, Cure 8 is set for its first three installments at the Space Station (12th ave and East 8th). The first one,"The American Dream" will be May 8th, curated by myself. I will be announcing the next two dates and curators soon.

Resident chef, Nate Mayhem will be serving up five dollar plates. So come hungry. You'll be glad you did and you'll support the compound for housing these events.

Also I'm very excited to have The Dronetones (Oceanside,CA) be the musical act.

See you this summer,
Luke Judd

A Snap Shot into the FUTURE!

After studying under "Master" magician Kris Angel for 5 years, I move to Branson, Missouri and perform my family friendly brand of razzle dazzle for crowds of tens.

I meet Butter or Gary as he is known then, at an Evangelical Recovering Gays meeting. The chemistry is instantaneous. I spend the next six months in my granny unit showing him the world .....of magic.

Butter is a born star and steals every show. I grow resentful and turn to cheesing which Butter provides out of pity and a sense of obligation.This picture was the last of the good times.

I can barely do the shows anymore. Butter meets a foul mouthed upstart nicked named 'the Gutter'. I am too high to notice that I am losing him. Butter and the Gutter, behind my back work up a racy routine and move to Kanas City in the middle of the night. I am left without pee and more importantly a partner.

I drowned face down in Butter's litter box. Not in cat urine but my own tears.

Or I make a comeback. Whatever.

Living Next To The Stork Club Sounds Like This

Stork Club March 24 2011 by Hungry Deity

Thumbs Up

I should have known that today would not take prisoners. I woke up typically late. Massaged myself into consciousness. Or out of it. Dressed, packed for work, opened my bedroom door to Mr Do, my 80 year old Vietnamese landlord, standing in my hallway. He proceeded to call me a handsome man, his favorite compliment, then asked me to make a copy of my keys for him. I wanted to ask him why he didn't have copy to his own building. Or "how hell did you get in then?" But I just agreed and left.

A slow Monday at work aided in floating through the day. I spent most of it networking, beginning to plan for an outdoor film series this summer. The shift was almost over. I ordered a burger from the kitchen and then I remembered that my roommate/co-worker Jesse had burnt a tray of brownies the day before. He had just left them sitting in what is supposed to be a wine bar. I decided to see if they coud be salvaged. They were definetly tuff. Also black on the bottom I discovered. "I can take care of that." With a huge knife I began to surgically remove the bottom, which was harder than I expected. Resistance then SLICE!

I looked down and the pad of my thumb had fallen away from the nail. I take one good look, grab it with my other hand and run to the office. I yell something unintelligible and kick the door. No body is there. I run to the kitchen where we debate what to do while I run my hand under warm water. The first set of gauze we applied was soaked red in 30 seconds. I would later learn at the hospital that I'd hit an artery. The manager calls the owner for insurance information and he makes it clear that if I'm going to miss work tomorrow I need to get it covered. Such compassion. He's not getting any of the brownies. Speaking of which I packed up the brownies with my bloody hands before my friend Alex drove me to the ER . They'd cost me too much to leave behind. I did forget my burger however.

I have a smoke on the ride to the ER and blood begins to run down the front and back of my arm. Alex hands me some jeans from the back seat that he claims he was throwing away. He's a good man. I walk into the ER with dried and wet blood all over my arm and both hands. The receptionist leans around the patient in front of me and her eyes widen. She quickly gets me a towel and suggests I keep my hand elevated. I spend the next two hour giving the waiting room thumbs up. Way up.

I talk to a nice, but troubled young man about his girlfriend's miscarriage. I listen to an old wealthy Berkeley man complain about his leg and how it was going to keep him from all his important meetings tomorrow. I listen to a daughter call her uncle about her father's heart attack. I watch a man in the process of passing a kidney stone. The whole time I am there with my thumb up. Way up.

There was one couple who had been there since before I arrived. A middle age black man and a younger, larger white woman with a SARS mask. The boyfriend was getting pissed and every person that got called would set him off. Then I got called. He said nothing as I walked by with blood covered arms. I gave him thumbs up.

When I got into my curtained world a flamboyantly gay, tall, asian nurse with hipster glasses offered me a HIV test. Sure, why not. When he returned 20 minutes later to tell me I was negative I joked, " Well that's positive." He quickly shot me a look over his shoulder, " NO, its negative."

The nurse removed my bandages and set me up. Within a minute my hand was in a puddle of blood. That's when we discovered I had hit an artery. I spend 45 mins squeezing my thumb with my other hand to get it to stop again. Making conversation with the doctor I asked how her day was and was informed that it was a lot worse than mine. Later, while she was sewing up my finger she told about the irritating two hours she spent at the Apple store that day trying to fix her I-phone. AND THEY COULDN'T EVEN FIX IT?! Can you believe that?! I kinda wanted to ask if her she was bleeding all over herself while she waited but I figured that wouldn't improve the quality of the stitches I was currently receiving. Seven of them in the end.

After the nurse had finally bandaged and released me, I caught my bandage while putting my backpack on and it shot down the hall. Following rebandaging I called my roommate to pick me up. I start walking, in what I think is the direction of Telegraph. I end up at College and Ashby, next to other theatre my Bosses' own. I see my roommate Evan pulling up. I give him the most visible hitch hiking gesture you've ever seen.

Thumbs up! Way Up!

Santafriends III: Hail Santa

http://www.vimeo.com/17799829

On a weekend in November 2010, a group of artists, musicians and friends hailing from Oakland, CA set out to record a christmas album in a cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each song would be a lead by a different friend as Santa. Santafriends is what they called themselves. This is their story.

Go to hellabaked.com/​santafriends/​ to download the album.

Epic Show this Saturday!!

Rub Muse

She swallowed my tongue with her eyes
standing in the darkest of shadows
I could tell her no lies
nor a truth
so porous and cooth
my praises fell short
And though I'll never touch her flesh
Maybe its for the best
Now I will have her every night before I rest.

3 New James and Evander teaser videos

Moss Less Rocks, Rocks Less Moss

Inside a bouncy room
a limbless man soared,
shouting
"The money is in the treatment,
Never the cure."

Life tax is a heated deliberation
on the house floor.
Genetically modify at conception,
and cap life at 80 with no exception.
Breed out variety.
Grey is purity.

Not knowing life's origins
never stopping attempts at its redirection.
Coup of cosmic visions of perfection.
Fucking Gaia sans erection.
Screams heard as moans.
There are no shadows dark enough
to hide your face once its been shown.
You won't shake the lonely
after torching your home.

L.J. 3.22.2010

This House Is No Home

No anesthesia.
Just open me up.
Heart full of tar.
Lead lined guts.
I want to feel the pain as I slowly bleed out.
Biting at my tongue as they're sowing up my mouth.
Sometimes the my thoughts drown out the city.
Sometimes the city drowns my thoughts.
Sometimes the streets pulse through my veins.
Sometimes sitting on my stoop I am lost.
Kamikazing my worth with the stain of my deeds.
I dig moats around my prisons despite burning to be freed.
Screams silenced by sirens.
Yearning met by begging hands.
Bloody shoes and perspiring walls
impede the fallen's efforts to stand.
Hungry and broken.
No one hearing the calls.
We must take from this house.
All that gives are the walls.

Luke Judd 3.15.2010

Christmas Thoughts of a Reagan Baby on the Twilight of the 00's

The dollar is the weakest it’s been in a generations. Arguably the weakest it’s ever been. Two wars aren’t even saving our economy. Its purchasing power is decreasing as it inflates but we don’t see it reflected in the wages. Most of us make less money and buy more and more expensive items and gadgets. We decide things like cable TV, I phones, drugs (legal or illegal), fashionable clothes, ECT are necessary goods and not wants and desires.

So we shackle ourselves with debt. Imaginary money to buy things we don’t need and, this time of year, other’s things they don’t need. Credit, made from thin air, manipulated by a few that hold huge power over the masses. Yeah you can have it today but you’ll pay for it every month for 5 years.

Meanwhile we approach the anniversary of the unfathomable sized gift, we, the taxpayers gave the banking industry. The same men and women that will tighten their grip around the throat of the world. Endorsed and sold by the marketed face of hope.

Santa Claus belongs on the dollar bill. It’s the lie that continues because we willfully pass it along. There is no gold to backing your cash. There hasn’t been for nearly 100 years. It is just paper. Paper that increases or decreases value at the will of the gate holders at the Federal Reserve. And distributed as the bankers see fit.

None of this is an accident. And nether will be the giant economic collapse that is coming. It will be planned and it will be profitable. All the fingers will be pulled from the cracked dam at the same moment. Most likely by the same company that gets the contract to clean up the aftermath.

Rather than thinking about what it really means that both the paper and plastic in our pockets don’t correspond to anything, we dress up in red suits and white beards to swipe our cards as fast as we can. Cause I bet my Aunt doesn’t have an ipod shuffle in purple yet.

All that said enjoy your family and friends and your time. They are all you really have and what you can hopefully count on.

New The Aimless Never Miss Ep out soon

The Aimless Never Miss' - Trans E.P. promo, originally uploaded by Rumspringa.

Busy Start to December

Hello my people. Here's a little update on what I've got going on in this the last month of the first decade of this millennium.

This friday I will be doing some video mixing on the streets of Oakland for Art Murmur. 23rd and Telegraph ave.
My friends' band Careerers will be performing on John Benson's bus. I will be projecting on the bus.

On the 13th, my new short film Achievement will be premiered at We Artspace in Oakland with some other films I have not seen but I'm sure will be stellar.


Also going on this month at We Artspace as part of their Stocking Stuffers show, I have seven prints for sale. As well as very reasonable art for tons of talented local artists. If you are going to give gifts this season, make them awesome and not factory produced.

Finally, here's some of the results of a photo shoot I did with Silian Rail last month. Happy Winter!

Three Judgement Days

Over the last two months I've made three music videos for the awesome bay area string metal band, Judgement Day. Anton had asked me to make a video for a song on their album Dark Opus, which is in its 5th year of release. They are doing a show on Nov 19th show at Annie's Social Club in SF to celebrate, where they will be projecting videos for each song while they play. Come out if you're in the area!

I also made a couple live videos out of the footage Andrew Wilson shot at a show I did with them at the Rickshaw Stop in SF in October. They are a bad ass band and if you like to know more about them, check out http://www.stringmetal.com/judgementday/

942 Channels of Static

The Joneses cry behind closed doors.
They are tired of setting the pace.
Shotgun retirements come to them
without a break in the race.
No pause for the disgraced.

The house on the hill is a sink hole.
A bottomless well
that begs to be full.
Poisonous picket fences.
Heads on spikes.
There are no paper routes anymore,
just red rusted bikes.

Hiccups *' #'
in the machine.
Displayed as static on screens.
Cracks
snaking towards each other,
like sisters and brothers
embracing
over decaying dams.
Outsourced shepherds
drive lemmings over water
to crash below into
.
.
.
.
the land.

No protection against the surge can be assured.
No power can remain unbroken.
No truth can be spoken.

Honesty found in browning lawns,
and electric shocks from rugs.

Luke Judd 10/8/09

Why? "Fatalist Palmistry"

i sleep on my back cause it's good for the spine
and coffin rehersal
i know a psychic who reads her own palms
and the findings are personal
she keeps her fists shut tight and she sleeps on her side,
well maybe she knows something i don't know

but i am still alive and loving
wide eyed in my time
not a mummy shrinking in its cloths
your cat clawed out my eyes while i's
distracted by your smile
and now my sockets sit like empty catcher's mitts waiting
and you ask me if there's anybody else that i'm dating



what's your painted pony is fading
walks like a snakeskin in high grass
and out to thrashing like a pet bird caught in a jet stream, that's me
you count them blessings cause your net worth
oughta be less cream in your best dreams
but god put a song on my palm
that you can't read

i'm lucky to be under
this same sky that held
the exhale from your first breath
like a
i knew my tongue may stutter
but my gift heart screams clear and swells
to burst between your red lengths
of its own bone briden self

but i am still alive and loving
wide eyed in my time
not a mummy shinking in its cloths
there's a moth caught in my gut, groan
i tug at my groin like tides trying to
pull women towards them, i can't ignore them
and when we say your name our tongues catch flame
and you wonder why we ain't got nothing to say

what's your painted pony is fading
walks like a snakeskin in high grass
and out to thrashing like a pet bird caught in a jet stream, that's me
you count them blessings cause your net worth
oughta be less cream in your best dreams
but god put a song on my palm
that you can't read
i'll be embalmed with it long before you'll see

Identical Homes

    My talented friend and former roommate, Daniel Mackenzie released an album this week under the name Identical Homes (Out on 500 Records). Its a solo project that he been working on for at least three years, since we were living together. Great electronic, moody rock music. At that time I set out to make a video for each song on the album, which I completed. It was at the time I'd just began playing with live video.

    I grew a lot as an artist working on the series of videos with Daniel. But that was two years ago. And some songs have come some have gone. Those that remain have changed. 
    So I'm setting out to do this again with a really good head start. So I've been review the work that I did already. 
This one was rejected, but still cracks me up. I knew it was going to be rejected as I was making it. But I had to keep going. Creepfest! Enjoy.

Naked

I have been naked for a little over a week now.

No one seems willing to call the cops.

Or maintain eye contact for the most part,

So it’s a push.

 

The first couple days

it made my heart race

Now I feel trapped

In a twilight zone

Episode

 

One area

People always object over

Is furniture.

A towel

or plastic wrapping

 are pretty standard reactions,

from my experience.

 

Which is kind of a bummer, you know?

Having all your nakedness

touching awesome fabric

 was a major selling point

when I was considering

nakedness.

When ever they cover

That sweet soft leather lover seat

With that Knight Rider beach towel

Or you bring in that faded

deck chair that everyone knows is about to break,

I look longingly for a pair of pants.  

 

But I catch myself

And I chuckle,

with a fist covering my mouth,

But I chuckle.

“I’m naked in this guy house.”

Can’t give up the game,

Not just yet.

Maybe tomorrow,

It supposed to be breezy. 

a job and a home and a new music video

I looked at this page for the first time in a long while today and I felt a lot better about my current circumstances. Also I figured it'd be good to let all you nice people know that I'm longer jobless and homeless. 

My second attempt in 2009 to move to Oakland is far more successful than the first. I'm living in a house at 51st and Telegraph with three swell gents. Two of which are old dear friends; Jon and Winston. And I like Chris, my third roommate, more every day.  

My tiny room requires me to crawl through windows in the living room or walk through my roommates' room. But one step at a time since I do have a min wage job at this point, a cool min wage job but still. A second job is on the horizon I'm sure, but more time being Oakland has been kind to me. 

I'm working at an awesome restored 1935 movie theatre in El Cerrito. It used to be a speakeasy theatre but they went under. If you want you can read about the interesting story here. Its not going to be as cool before, but we will be serving beer and wine and delivering pizzas to the seats. Pretty awesome. 

Before I got hooked up with a job and a room (god bless good friends), I finished a new music video while in Placerville. Its for a band called Carcrashlander from Portland. My friends' Jon and Mimi Fee, who started a record label a couple years ago called Parks and Records, asked me to do it. I've said a few times to friends that I'm done with making music videos, but my boredom at that moment, lack of live shows, and being a fan of Cory Gray's previous band Desert City Soundtrack, I agreed. 

Here's the result, let me know what you think. Take care of yourself kids.