Sep 19, 2017 Animal Style Revisited in Chicago
This weekend I got to spend some time in Chicago with my friend Tim Hugh. In my past life as a magazine editor, Tim would get Eric and me speaking gigs that went along with the Asian American Showcase film festival that he oversaw. How did we meet? I don’t exactly recall but it was probably through the guys who started the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media, Sooyoung and Billy from the band Seam that would stay at my house in the early ’90s…
But that’s boring and ancient history. It was five years ago when I asked Tim if my pals Tad and Thy’s indie, arty skate videos might have a place in his film fest. I knew he was a skater and would dig the pieces, but was totally taken aback by his awesome response: Sure, but I’d have to build a program around it.
Tad and Thy’s The Working Man and Perfect Time would be the starting point, and I was actually in one of the latter short. I knew the documentary about Chicago’s first-wave skaters Jesse Neuhaus, Stevie Dread, and Eric Murphy that my buddy Wing Ko had been working on would be a great fit, and he said he could finish off The Brotherhood for the occasion. My photographer friend Ben Clark was just experimenting with video, shooting music-related pieces with pro skaters Ray Barbee and Mario Rubalcaba called Wide Angle Sounds. He was down, too.
I talked to some acquantances in Thailand about their new shop video and, later on, when the film festival got picked up by the Hawaii International Film Festival and San Diego Asian American Film Festival, we found local pieces from the APB skate shop and my friend Willie Santos to mix and match in the programs. The momentum was real and, even better, Tad, Thy, and Wing, as well our friends and contributors John, Pryor, and others who could join us all traveled with my family to the different cities promoting skate video as film festival worthy and having a great time in the process. The next year, we were invited to attend the Asian American International Film Festival in New York City!
Just talking about crazy ideas with friends–isn’t that how everything that matters starts? Looking back, the project I called Animal Style (after the Bones Brigade’s Oriental-themed Search for Animal VHS tape) helped me move on from post-magazine doldrums, providing a spark and reentry into sharing cool things, promoting subculture, and connecting old and new friends. Since the Son of Animal Style sequels ran their course, Eloise started going to school and my creative energies have turned toward Castelar and Chinatown, education and community, punk rock shows and zines, arts and activism.
I love the turns that have come my way but seeing Tim in Chicago and driving by the Siskel Film Center where it all began makes me think that it would be fun to get the gang together for the L.A. show that never happened… Who’s got a screen? And who wants to go skating at the ditch?