In a cramped Oakland warehouse, covered in graffiti from floor to ceiling, a battle is raging.  The air is thick with [medical] marijuana smoke while onlookers guzzle 40oz's in anticipation, their minds already warped from the sideshow freaks and heavy metal bands that opened the evening's festivities.  The microphone chirps as the announcers prattle off the next bout; “…Hoodslam is proud to present, Zombie Vinny Boutabi versus Gotho the Bi-Polar Clooooooown!!!”  What emerges from backstage is as absurd as it sounds and delivers the clown vs zombie gore-fest that the crowd has been waiting for. 

This is not your average small time amateur pro-wrestling circuit.  This is as Oakland as it gets.  Hoodslam is a bizarre fusion of East Bay hipster, thug culture, metal and pro-wrestling with a sprinkling of sideshow freaks.  The story lines are insane; the characters surreal.  In the world of Hoodslam, zombies, cartoons and video game characters do battle against traditional luchador and WWE style wrestlers.  At the moment, the Street Fighter/CAPCOM characters reigning over Hoodslam with an iron fist of tyranny.  We're seriously talking about Ken and Ryu in the ring; I think that even MegaMan made a cameo at some point.

The Displayed Labors sideshow entertains between fights.

THE POINT: The aptly titled 'Hoodslam 2 FOURTH STRIKE: Tournament Edition 3D' is tomorrow.  And it's free for the last time.  This last show of the season promises to be a big one.  Ryu will fight a masked Luchador.  E Honda battles a guy in a banana costume.  The 'Stoner Bros' will be pitted in a tag-team match against Carmen San Diego and Where's Waldo.  Referee Pink Panther vs. Senior Official Winnie the Pooh.  It goes on and on (Facebook event details here).

So tomorrow at 8pm, make your way to the 'Victory Warehouse' at 24th and San Pablo in Oakland, for Hoodslam: “The only 420 friendly, b.y.o.beer, music, wrestling, entertainment event of its kind”.

Oh, and if you actually want to know more about this bat-shit insane plot, there's a ridiculous five minute video below that explains the background of the 'Capcom Wars' and previews this Saturday in painful detail.

Again, cause yer dum: (Facebook event details here).

On December 1 (World AIDS day of all days), this 1987 film piece, A Fire in My Belly by the artist David Wojnarowicz (who died of AIDS) was removed from the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery exhibition entitled Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. The publicly funded Smithsonian Institution was politically bullied by Catholic League president William Donahue, who called the film “hate speech” when he misinterpreted a shot of ants crawling on a crucified Christ as anti-Catholic. On December 3rd, on behalf of the estate of David Wojnarowicz, P.P.O.W. Gallery released an official statement addressing this controversy in order to illuminate the artists original intentions. The statement reads:

In a 1989 interview Wojnarowicz spoke about the role of animals as symbolic imagery in his work, stating “Animals allow us to view certain things that we wouldn't allow ourselves to see in regard to human activity. In the Mexican photographs with the coins and the clock and the gun and the Christ figure and all that, I used the ants as a metaphor for society because the social structure of the ant world is parallel to ours.”

Further, adding more hate than Serg's war against burritos are top GOP House members John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric Cantor (R-VA), who threatened the Smithsonian Institution's finances by cowardly flexing their political muscles if the Institution did not remove the film from the exhibition. Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said, “Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves [in].”. Cantor, the #2 Republican in the House and the #1 little bitch labeled the exhibit “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.” Unbeknownst to Cantor, he is actually offending every single gay and straight allied person in America by furthering the hatred and misinterpretation of Wojnarowicz's work.

Seems like a lot of bah humbugs going on from the right-wing these days, and the political censorship of the freedom of speech/expression must be stopped. Starting this Friday night, two arts organizations in San Francisco will join the alliance of museums and arts centers around the country for a national protest over the removal of Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly. SF Camerawork and the Queer Cultural Center will present a 7 p.m. screening of the film, followed by a presentation by art historian, writer, and activist Robert Atkins. Atkins will then provide historical background concerning political censorship and lead a panel discussion that will include queer activists, scholars, and artists. The discussion will culminate with Jonathan D. Katz, curator of Hide/Seek, joining the discussion from New York via Skype. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will also screen this film Friday night continuously from 11pm until 2am in YBCA's Screening Room.

David Wojnarowicz, Untitled,1988-89, drawing/ gelatin silver print and acrylic on paper

But what is the SFMOMA doing to acknowledge their support of Wojnarowic's work as the only museum in San Francisco to own a work by the artist in their permanent collection? On Tuesday I was at the SFMOMA when I came across an exhibition entitled, The More Things Change, which opened just 10 days before Hide/Seek. The exhibition's mission statement reads, “revealing the museum's collection as a seismograph of shifts in contemporary culture, this continually evolving exhibition considers how the past persists in the present and how art engages with the world at large.” The work seen above is the Wojnarowicz from SFMOMA'S collection. Untitled is a piece that depicts a film still of a Mexican man missing the bottom half of his legs and the image on the right of the piece is a small drawing that Wojnarowicz did of legs to give to the man. Most of the footage in A Fire in My Belly was shot in Mexico on a trip Wojnarowicz took there, and it has been confirmed by the people of P.P.O.W. Gallery who represent the estate of Wojnarowicz that the still in Untitled was most likely from that time in Mexico.  I realize that the goal of The More Things Change is to use works made in the last decade, however, what better way to acknowledge the fact that their collection really does persist in the present and engages with the world at large than by adding Untitled to that continually evovling exhibiton? What about placing that piece in the show accompanied by A Fire in My Belly to contextualize the works importance with a statement by the curators explaining why Wojnarowicz is relevant to the present as his work is once again in the spotlight of a major national debate?

I'm extremely happy to see so much support from the San Francisco community against the censorship of artistic expression in the United States, but SFMOMA can do better. If you cannot make either of the screenings this weekend, you can watch the vimeo of A Fire in My Belly at the top of this post.

• UPDATE: SFMOMA is set to provide the public with a free screening of A Fire in My Belly on Tuesday, January 4th at 5:30pm with a discussion to be held directly after. 

To learn more about this work, the artist, and the controversy surrounding the film and exhibition please check out the links provided below:

• P.P.O.W. Gallery
• Silence Still Equals Death
• Modern Art Notes
• C-Monster

Want to help raise money for a good cause and take home some fresh dildos?  The Phone Booth this Sunday is the place to be.

(pic by nattles)

This certainly sounds like fun:

Unlike Kevin MacAllister's mom, we didn't forget anything for this holiday party at the Roxie. Presents? Snacks? Treats? Holiday cartoons? What about Santa Claus? Is Santa Claus going to be here? The answers are: check, check, check, check and YES!!! In addition to alternately heart-warming and brain-melting holiday videos, we're very excited to facilitate a rare 35mm big-screen presentation of the Macaulay Culkin revenge fantasia HOME ALONE. Get in for just FIVE DOLLARS if you bring a wrapped present for Santa. Co-presented by our favorite ice cream team Humphry Slocombe and those tender hearted gangsters over at Prohibition Brewery. 

I probably won't be going to this showing because, as anyone named Kevin who was born between the years of 1980-1985 can tell you, this movie brings back terrible memories of kids is grade school repeatedly yelling, “Kevin, you are such a disease!”  I still can barely sleep at night.  Anyways, if your name isn't Kevin and Santacon wasn't enough for you, The Roxie has all the deets.