Lyrical Revolt XIII

Rebel Diaz performing at the Lyrical Revolt X.

Denice MsMisconception Frohman performing at Lyrical Revolt XII.

Abraham Velazquez of The Peace Poets, at the Lyrical Revolt X.



So it's that time again....The ANSWER Coalition's popular spoken word/hip hop event, the Lyrical Revolt (number 13) will be happening again this Saturday, at the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective located in the South Bronx. ANSWER stands for Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, and is a coalition of fantastic, compassionate, driven community activists. The event is a fundraiser for ANSWER which organizes these insanely huge and powerful national marches against war and racism, so if you come out, you'll be coming out for a very important cause. I'm super excited about this event..this will be my 4th Lyrical Revolt, and the 4th one I've photographed! Also, if I don't chicken out ..I'll be performing my first poem on stage EVER.....I'm a bit jittery when I think of it now, but I know a miracle will happen when I get up there and I won't be nervous at all! :)

Doors open at 8:00PM, show begins at 9:00PM...seriously, be there or be missin' out!!!

Location, location, location:

478 Austin Place, 2nd Flr.
South Bronx, NY 10455
by 149th and Bruckner
6 train to E. 149th St.
BX19 to 149th and Southern

Review the old Lyrical Revolts through my Flickr site:
LR X: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157613501426095/
LR XI: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157619288867194/
LR XII: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157622026506911/

Cheater (Re: Bloomberg.)

I took the union workers' Bloomberg flyers and threw them in the trash next to a pretty Naked juice bottle. And while in the grand scheme of things, I probably didn't do much, I was still able to demonstrate to the union workers that it doesn't take much to disobey orders and make a political statement at the same time.

Also, I was able to take this pretty picture of Bloomberg being in the trash. Immature, obnoxious, annoying? Yeah, maybe. But definitely conscious, which I think above all, is more important.



The image above demonstrate Bloomberg's sneaky tactics to hoard more votes (much like Obama's "working families" and Democrat options). When you have billions of dollars, you can do stuff like that. Thompson and Bloomberg's two name listings were to the farthest left, which, in this country, we read beginning at the left side, while socialist candidates were all to the far right. Perhaps this is the order of voting booths, to stick Democrats and Republicans first, but really? How fair is that? And of course, if you read my earlier post, Frances' name didn't even appear at some voting booths. Please, don't try to convince me that it was just an accident. They wouldn't have made that same mistake with Thompson or Bloomberg.

My vote for Frances!

Frances Villar came in with over 3,500 votes, which is the most any socialist mayoral candidate has gotten since the early 1980s. The work, outreach, political message was well worth it. The working class will awaken and when we become conscious, our movement will be unstoppable, because we are the nuts and bolts of this country. There's just too many of us, and too little of them.

Our bank accounts may have smaller numbers, but our shit doesn't stink any less than Bloomberg's (and with the way he is aging, I'm sure we eat more beautiful-er than him :) ). Our passion for life and living could never be outshined by dollar signs.

Congratulations to the PSL for a job well done, and I am honored to have been a volunteer in your movement.

A Democratic Right.

Frances Villar, 2009 NYC Mayoral Candidate, and the Party for Socialism & Liberation, standing in solidarity with LGBT peeps at this year's PRIDE Parade.

I was a bit behind on my emails, but today when I caught up I found this newsletter from the PSL, who has been working their tails off on Frances Villar's mayoral campaign. Apparently, she didn't show up on the ballot in a few spots.

Here's what the e-newsletter said:

"Don’t let them steal our vote!

Vote Frances Villar!
Socialism and Liberation

In a massive effort, tens of thousands of Frances Villar flyers demanding “Put Poor and Working People First!” are going out across the city. Volunteers across the poorest neighborhoods of the city are reporting a good response with people excited to vote for a candidate who will stand up to the city’s billionaires.

The Frances Villar for Mayor campaign has received several reports of going to the polls and receiving ballots that did not have Frances’s name! If you encounter any difficulty, please send a report with all details, including the polling place, to nyc@VotePSL.org or call 212-694-8762.

A voter from the Bronx reported, "It was around 7:50 am when I went to vote at the 143rd St Community Center and there was a "problem" with the polls: Frances's name wasn't there. After I protested about her name not being on the ballot, they told me, 'she probably didn't make it on.' I knew that was wrong and kept telling them that Frances is supposed to be on the ballot. Finally, they got out the paper ballots -- and her name was there."

“The attempt to try to silence the voice of poor and working people is a crime and a slap in the face of democracy,” charged PSL campaign co-coordinator Yenica Cortes. “We will challenge any attempt to commit fraud against us in the courts and in the streets.”

PSL volunteers collected 14,000 signatures in two weeks in July, more than twice the number required to get on the ballot. The France Villar campaign was the first independent candidate to file petitions, and is supposed to appear on Column F, immediately after the parties registered in New York State.

“The billionaires and ruling elite in this city might try to silence me, but it won’t work,” France Villar said. “This campaign is about fighting back.”

Call the New York City Board of Elections (212) 487-2170 and tell them that we will not allow this fraud to go unchallenged.

There is still time to vote! Don’t let them silence our voice!

Vote Frances Villar * Socialism and Liberation"

Regardless of whether or not you support the socialist cause is aside from the issue. This country is a Democratic Republic, meaning that it is run by a government that is for and by the people. If a legitimate mayoral candidate is shut out of the debates and not showing up on ballots, how can this country be called a democracy? The point is is that it is not. If you want to run as a politician, your bank account, race, class, and gender matter. Hence all the old rich, white men who run for office and win.

Last night I bumped into more Union workers (it was a wood-worker's union) who were handing out Bloomberg flyers even though they definitely did not support him. Again, I took their flyers for them and threw them in the trash. I'm seeing more and more of a "cool" callousness and carelessness in our community that is widespread and dangerous - if you are only concerned with your everyday life and not much outside that circle, what role will you play in society? Some people say, "Oh, I don't vote." Whether they realize it or not, their inaction becomes a part of a mass movement of inaction across the country. If we can only extend our consciousness to what is in our world and with only the people who we care about in it, and we don't recognize and respect the existence and quality of life of others, then who will stand up for us when a crisis reaches our front door?

I am proud that I pulled the lever for Frances. It feels good on my conscience that I voted for an alternative who will stand up to bankers and billionaires and represent the true working class of New York City. When people ask me why I voted for Frances, I know exactly what to tell them, and it won't be, "Oh well, I voted for the lesser of two evils."

Here are a few slideshows from the mayoral campaign:
Frances Villar for Mayor, at Grand Concourse, Bronx:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157619413761866/show

Frances Villar for Mayor, at Fulton Street Mall, Brooklyn:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157620805377370/show

Frances Villar for Mayor, at the PRIDE Parade, slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157620677609581/show

Frances Villar for NYC Mayor!

Frances' two adorable babies, Justin and Jana.

Jana posing with my keffiyah.

Danny ripping up an LGBT supports Bloomberg sign, because we know conscious LGBT peeps know Bloomberg's a wormy little bastard.

Frances posing with Danny at NYC PRIDE, 2009.

Frances speaking at a PSL Socialism Conference in DC.

To counter my Bloomberg post, I thought I'd go ahead and talk about PSL (Party for Socialism & Liberation)'s mayoral candidate, Frances Villar. Frances is an Afro-Latina from the Bronx who is a young, single mother of two beautiful children, a student, and a community activist who stands up against Obama's wars, stands in solidarity with Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, and the rest of the international working class. She rejects capitalism, colonial-type wars, zionism, and evil private corporations that like to suck dry natural resources of our country and others while profiting off of them. Basically, she kicks ass.

You can read/find out more about Frances at: http://www.votepsl.org.

I had the honorable opportunity to photograph her over the summer and help collect signatures for the campaign, so I'll post a few photos that I took. Also, when you go into vote on November 3rd, be sure to check the ballot for her name, and if you're a supporter, go ahead and vote for her. NYC Councilman Charles Baron (who I have also had the privilege of photographing) supports Frances, and so do I!

The Secure Man.

I'm glad my buddies Eddie and Jinnette can be my models for this photo. The body language (more specifically her arm on his lap) communicates to me a man who is secure enough about himself to be in a relationship with a strong and dominant woman. Looking back in my past relationships I realize all but one of my exes were intimidated by me, and the one that wasn't was truly able to love me fully and was in fact a self-proclaimed feminist.





At a PSL fundraiser party this past weekend I had the privilege of catching up with some old friends from ANSWER Coalition, one of the largest and most left (if not the most) Anti-War organizations in the nation. This is a shot of who I like to refer to as the Original Eddie Pages (posing with a Che ANSWER banner), who is ANSWER's unofficial videographer. You can see more of him at http://www.youtube.com/eddiepages.

These lovely ladies are also a part of PSL and ANSWER. The NYC PSL branch just keeps getting better and better looking, lol.
This was outside around 1AM in Inwood Heights right before we started getting into an argument with some sexist street mo'fo's who referred to women as "broads and bitches," and felt that we were failing our significant others by being out on the street for a cigarette break. Luckily there was a fence between us and them, otherwise I think we would have had to resort to some serious nut-crushing.

See the rest of these party pics at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanissa/sets/72157622549946089/