The Modern Corsair Issue #7: Censorship
Content
THE CREW
Editor in Chief ................................................................................................ Ian Adams Editor/Design .................................................................................... Aaron Rosenberg Editor ..................................................................................................... Katie Lee McNeil Editor...................................................................................................... Amanda Galindo Editor..................................................................................................................Jason Khieu Press Relations .........................................................................................Jazmin Lucero Head Photographer ........................................................................... Frankie Concha Master Illustrator ................................................................... Mauricio Bustamante Commander Illustrator ................................................................. Lawrence Alfred Philosopher .................................................................................................... Oscar Valle Interim Photographer ......................................................................... Vivian Ortega Interim Photographer
....................................................................... Eian Siddiqui
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Singular Man - Various Authors The Parade Ground - Christopher Amador Undressing the Construction of Femininity - Dana Sami Get Rich or Die Tryin Review - Gregory Poblete Standing for Community - Ian Adams Black Books: Art from the Censored A Poem - Anon 4 7 10 14 17 22 28
A Singular Man
A story written by six people
by Michael Pfirrmann, Johnny C., Aaron Rosenberg, Ian Adams, Andrew Henry, and Josh Craft
Ted Tonks was born in the back seat of his father’s 1955 Chevrolet, pick-up truck. It was a dark, stormy Tennessee evening on his birth. As he grew, the boy was exceptionally smart. At a tender age of six months he began walking and talking. This became problematic for his back woods, uneducated parents. His parents took him to shamans, witchdoctors, and even a voodoo priest to expel the “demon” that had their child. Even as a small child he knew that he was different. His parents neglected him, not for the lack of love, but through fear of the child’s sophistication. He spent many days reading books in his room. Even in his earliest memories Ted battled the rage of austerity and self-destruction fueled through a lack of love and affection. As he grows up his mom and dad try to teach him to read, talk, count and spell. Then he goes to school to study and play with the toys. He starts to try to make friends, girls and boys. At their age they play tag, hide and seek and dug, duck, goose. He would avoid eating vegetables. The parents would force their son to eat healthy food. One major thing they wanted him to avoid eating was candy, because a lot of kids get hyper off it. Around that age the others started video games. Ted began to rebel through food. He took the doctrines set by his family and embraced an introverted life where he lived to eat. His mother took to hiding cash after realizing Ted would steal to clear out the jelly doughnuts from the local Dunk in Doughnuts. He had the exceptional ability to sniff out dollars, and each hiding spot was intercepted the next day. Ted began to demolish anything he could set his hands on. Despite a strict diet, his father would regularly receive calls in the early morning. Walmart employees found him strewn across the tiling with empty candy wrappers overflowing his pockets, at least once a month. He was hated by his peers. They watched him grow throughout school on a diet of fast food, sugar, and stolen school lunches. Every day he would sit along alienated and too smart for his own good. Connection was what evaded him. Nemesisim was what he had. I realized something in my 21st summer. A pall was lifted from my eyes; I went on reanimated to see that if I could not coerce connection with others I would take it. I felt that the ol’ Tennessee Hoodoo Doc had been correct. There had been a demon in me, named hunger, but now I hungered for much more than food. I joined in an over eaters group that met Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the strip mall by Churches, where we’d meet up after. Not that I cared for any of them. They aimed greedy snouts on battered crap and
I set mine on Tabitha Riddle. She loved me. So she said just before I met her father, a senator of the great state of burbin. When I mentioned, after graduation, how I would like to apply for an apprenticeship under Senator Riddle, Tabitha said “Oh Teddy that will be tremendous! He can do with help!” she was wright. After our marriage Ambrose Riddle II fell ill and degenerated rapidly. So I ran, practically unopposed (man hardly and threats less so). With a degree and a command of law I would cut my fiefdom into a shape I saw fit. I have many regrets in this life, but my hunger isn’t one of them. My hunger started with knowledge, when it was suppressed by the ignorance of those who gave me life it shifted to food. I fed my hunger by feeding my face. Later in life I met the only person who I ever felt any real connection to, Tabitha, my Tabitha. Eventually my hunger ceased, I became a Senator. Once I tasted power I would never be hungry again. My thirst was awakened, a thirst for power that I have not been able to quench. I sit in this sphere that is my office and cringe at what could have been. I could have stayed in a backwater town and lived a backwater life, or ended up obese and died before my time. Instead, I met Tabitha and became the man I am, the man I was always meant to be. My poor Tabitha, so beautiful, so young. I sit at this resolute desk and know without her I’ll always be alone... Well, if you don’t count the secret service. “President Tonks, it’s time”. About time; days are obnoxiously present until dusk makes you feel like you were never there. All throughout the bird-watching period two years ago. I did not educate myself about the names of the creatures and assume the quaint desperation masked as convulsive earnestness attendant upon late-life hobbying. I do not even remember what sparrows are called. My memory remembers, but life is a matter of finding yourself locked out of things, which you accept with nervous humor, until you no longer find the charm in this rhythm, by which point you are already throttling toward the final arms-up predicament of getting locked out of your own flesh. I recount things as if time has passed in a novel, I describe the Way I Live now. If my intelligence has learned anything, and most days it feels like it knows only one or four things(there I go again), it is that everything is aggressively simple. You end up talking this way. The terror to know that you are not safe from things happening as suddenly and softly as a badly edited film on mute. One morning after Tabby died I decided I was old and I have not felt different since. I hate figures of speech like cats hate leaps. During the bird years, I didn’t use binoculars or pack a lunch for a day beneath a willow. I sat in the yard and watched the jays walk onto the clothesline and then leave. The only takeoffs and landings subject to an immaculate lack of longing. I don’t remember that I don’t remember the names. The idea that people died because of my administration feels like when we used to talk about waste, in my college days, when the apocalypse was cute, and how throwing gum out the car window was a profanity to nature. Not only was it not real, it was beyond me. If I believed in metaphors and understatement—which I don’t, because presidents don’t read books, they appear in them—I would talk about the fable about the wary fisher who, in fear of wave and beast, built a vessel so large he was no longer at sea, falling asleep now to the sound of the sea, instead of cowering in terror. But I don’t find it relevant.
The ending, anyhow, is that he starves, now with no access to the fish, but who really cares. Presidents are bulls who have to believe they are matadors. That’s probably not true. I hate metaphors. My brother told me that. He walked into a propeller three years ago. It was too ridiculous to care if it was an accident or not. I only measure things in numbered years to entertain the idea that time means anything. Life is large and quiet. I rarely hunger these days. Do I really believe that breathing is but a bad habit? Having become boring, and so now I watch younger men ride dramatically expensive horses, and go to bed sometime between the news about death and the shows about death. The ethnicity of the groundskeepers is so convoluted these days I can’t even be bothered to resent them for it. I looked out the window and saw the bird but did not hear a sound although the window was open. I realized that the grass was not my chair and the sky was not the wall but the hanging bird beside my body was there, full of all in this world yet not a caress of utterance, telling me primordial things with the removed universe of its flurried audio that might have impressed a boy or kinder man. I wonder if birds can hear. A wheezing likely rises from my collar. Isn’t that all life is? The question of who was listening? But I’m not doing this. Poignant reflection upon life while dying. That doesn’t happen. Who cares who heard? Saying it’s enough. There were better things. You don’t remember the end of the novel at the end, you remember what they remembered at the end of the novel, Tabitha wearing blue on a Monday afternoon beside a cloud.
The Parade Ground
Christopher Amador
The grave rhythmic step of the immaculately dressed Honor Guard resounded throughout the great and cavernous hangar. A dozen uniformed men stood beside the red velvet rug and saluted as the flag-laden coffins were carried off the C-130. Behind them, the band played a martial somber note. There were six today. Six families stood waiting just beyond the tail and watched as their sons were returned to them. There were no cameras or camcorders. Pictures and videos had all been forbidden. In its great and powerful wisdom, the bureaucracy had also seen fit to proclaim cellphones as verboten. The return of the honored dead would be nothing but a footnote in Jericho’s Daily the next morning. They had seen to that. Six families could only watch in silence as the caskets came toward them. Privates Jefferson and Coulson were blown to pieces by a road-side bomb. Lance Corporal Ramirez took a .357 caliber in the neck. Private Curtis had been captured by the enemy and beheaded. Sergeant Sew killed five enemy combatants in a single engagement before tripping over a forgotten mine from the old scuffle with the Persian neighbor. Specialist Williams survived having his left leg blown off at the knee but did not survive the trip to a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit. Their shameful treatment appalled the citizens of Jericho. Old Billy, Johnny, and Uncle Al exchanged looks with each other. They each in turn exchanged solemn looks with the men of the other families. They knew what they had to do. Auntie May saw the exchange and leaned over to whisper in Al’s ear. “Are you sure about this?” She asked. “We promised these boys a parade when they got back, and by God, we’ll give it to ‘em.” “But… it just seems so rash.” Auntie May replied. Johnny butted in, “Auntie, it’s alright. We’ve already got everything set up. Come on now, this is no time to chicken out.” A whimper escaped from the lips of one of the mothers nearby. The men consoled her, “This is no time to be cryin’. Our boys have come home.” Old Billy shouted to them. “Boys? What boys? Boys that go to war never come home. These are men.” “It’s time. Get ready!” The crowd silenced. Somewhere in the mob a whistle blew and announced the signal. The strongest and fastest men of every family surged forward. The great wave reached the stunned and startled funeral procession and smashed into it like a hurricane. The men took great care not to harm the Guardsmen. After all, they were patriots too. But all resistance against this assault was crushed and contained as swiftly as they could manage. Al was the first to reach the stars and stripes. He came to a halt and knelt down quickly to grab a hold of the handlebars. Looking around, he motioned for the others to quicken the pace, “Hurry up now, ya hear! I can’t carry them alone!” Amidst the struggle, there were enough men now to pick up the caskets and make a run for the hangar doors. The rest pushed, shoved, and wrestled open a gap through the line of open-mouthed wide-eyed servicemen. Al and the others promptly followed through and weaved and bobbed their way around to the women at the front. The mothers, and sisters, wives, and daughters had fallen back to pull the great doors open and clear the way through to the runway. Outside, the honking, hooting, and hollering people of Jericho had smashed the gates with their
rickety old pickup trucks and were waiting anxiously for the dead. A battered, exhausted and thoroughly incensed Army chaplain called out to them from the Hercules’ cargo hold, “What in the damn Hell are ya’ll doin’?” Johnny heard the righteous call and yelled back, “We’re going to the parade ground!” In short order, all six of the heavy coffins were loaded on to the flat beds. The women hopped up onto the pickups as well to watch over their cradled fallen. The men loaded themselves up on to whatever vehicles had room to spare and yelled out to the drivers to take off. Cindy Curtis cried out in dismay, “I’ve lost my right shoe.” “Leave it! We ain’t got time to go back.” And so the vehicles were off at top speed down the long runway. They weaved and bobbed through the confused MPs (Military Police) and flew out through the hole they had made when they entered. They revved their engines and were now on the highway. A mile down the road, a squadron of Sheriffs’ patrol cars sounded their loud alarms and siren calls. Al held his breath. The police surrounded the convoy and drove at top speed around them. Sheriff Henson blazed over the lead car’s loudspeaker. “We’ve got ya covered. Make like your asses are on fire. The town’s ready.” Al sighed sweet relief and smiled. Everyone laughed, giggled and waved toward the deputies around them and looked to be having a gay old time. A triumphant cheer erupted from the running procession as they passed the beautiful and proudly displayed words, “Welcome to Jericho.” A thousand trumpets and the church’s choir blew out their lungs to the heavens as the convoy passed into the town boundary loud enough to raise the dead. Fireworks and applause blasted all around the trucks as the long line of cars now slowly marched inevitably toward the town square and the city paper. Young children straight out of elementary sang out the tried and true, “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” The Jericho high school marching band filed alongside the convoy and beat their drums and twirled their batons. Flashes of brilliant white light blinded the riders and irritated the drivers as hundreds of pictures were taken in moments. Cameras and cellphones, tablets, and helicopters whirled about blinking their lights. The people of Jericho smiled and cheered. Not a single tear was shed on the way to town hall. Mayor Grayson waved them on to enter the red brick road into the plaza. He stood upon the steps of the great hall and raised both his hands up in praise. A microphone soon found itself pressed to his lips as he shouted over the hollering crowd. “Jericho is proud of its sons. Welcome home.” The crowd died down and calmed itself as the women hopped off the trucks and formed a circle around the convoy. The men followed them and pulled out the coffins and their colors to lay them upon the ground at the feet of the town square’s fountain, and the great statue of Atlas holding the entire world on his shoulders. The men and women all took off their hats on this scorching hot day at noon and gave a final and well-deserved salute to their fallen heroes.
Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art. -Pablo Picasso
Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the curious things about censorship is that no one seems to want it for himself. We want censorship to protect someone else; the young, the unstable, the suggestible, the stupid. I have never heard of anyone who wanted a film banned because otherwise he might see it and be harmed. -Edgar Dale
Undressing the Construction of Femininity
Dana Sami
Stay Gallery is the center of Downey’s youth scene as well as the pulsing heart of art culture. The gallery is where I was first contacted to write for the Modern Corsair. It makes sense that my first column for this magazine would be on the challenging sort of work the guys at Stay would court. I went in blind. And I am grateful to have made that call. I walked in three fashionable minutes late to the newest exhibit on female perceptions of beauty in media. “Nearly Naked” is the title. A foot or so past the entrance a four by six foot mirror
sat in a handsome frame, bearing a sign, challenging guests to ‘Be Seen Naked’ and use the baby wipes to the side to spend a night out with no makeup making the fetchers. Seeing as I had not put on any makeup before stepping out, I took a saunter around the room. Along Stay’s counter was complementary baklava and reasonable beer. I helped myself to a brew and bummed around looking at the art. Outside, through the threaded curtain of naked Barbie dolls, I could see minors being turned away by staff. I was informed it was a standards thing.
Nothing is more dangerous to high school students than exposed breasts. When the DJ stopped playing songs to hate from the 90’s to the 00’s, the art director of the gallery invited up a poet, Trista Dominqu. She declared herself the mother of a baby girl who she wished to not suffer the damage of media expectations of body image by the time she grew. Welcomed by applause from the millennials in attendance, the star artist read out the poem she named her first solo show after: To them we are always Nearly Naked. Picking away fabrics with imagination, until we are but shadows of skin. Outlines of what we are told is beautiful By the end of their gaze we have grown larger breasts, shrinking waistlines to hourglass proportions. They can turn a Jane into a Helen in minutes, causing wars within themselves. Finally when they are victorious, taking us for prizes, they often feel cheated as clouds roll in blocking out the sun of their thoughts.
Washing away fantasies, they run for umbrellas, not realizing how much we need the rain. It is then Rita Labib approaches from the hip crowd. Dressed in white she beams a confident smile that left me feeling like a slob of a man with a beer can in hand. When the formality of our introduction passed, we sat between the two main aspects of her Nearly Naked show for an interview. DS: This is a grand exhibit, Rita. You must be very proud. Is this your first? RL: This is my first lone show. Yes, I’m very glad. DS: We can go around and talk about individual photos. But, what can you say about “Nearly Naked” as a whole? RL: This show is really important to me and really important to women, old women, young women. There’s a lot of expectation on women. This one photo, (She points out a large work of a tight shot on a woman’s face with one-half done in makeup.) It’s as if some women, some I know, think they need makeup to be seen. They can’t go out unless they put on, even just to go to the store. Not that I’m against makeup.
I split the show into two halves. Over here (to the right) is art dealing with media perception and in fact, other women’s perceptions. This side (she broadly gestures to the left) is my work on feminine self-acceptance. Loving just who you are. DS: Let’s start with this sculpture. What can you say about this? (The only non-photographic work in the show depicts a full figured woman from this up to her shoulders. Her genitalia and neck a craggy cavities where withered roses droop. Amid this dull crumpled plant matter one bright, lively red rose teases its bloom.) RL: This is about growing up. Women are trying to counter the clock. They may have been beautiful or like a model but still there’s internal beauty. What makes them beautiful can’t age. DS: How long have you been interested by this particular subject?
Women’s perceptions of beauty, I mean. RL: probably since I started. I started photography at fourteen and I got a professional studio at fifteen. It was a portable studio, but I still use it out of Sana Monica. DS: So you started photography only five years ago and now you have your own show in a gallery’s display. RL: Great, I know. And I’m just eighteen. I think it’s funny. A few weeks ago would they have turned me away from my own show? Not allowed to take my pictures? That is one thing that’s frustrating. When I post my art on websites it always tends to be flagged down as pornography. Like, its breasts. DS: Do you think this speaks to the notion of sexualizing women’s bodies? If it had bear chest or va-
gina you’re straddling the line of pornography? RL: I do, really. I mean it is like this photo: (She indicates to s side by side shot of a shirtless man and woman with marker labeling ‘nipple’, ‘areola’ and ‘breast tissue’. It is titled “Same”.) The breast on the woman has to be censored out with a pixilation. DS: One of my favorite portraits here is titled “Natural”. Can you talk about it, how it’s so different. RL: In other shots, like “Before and After” I had to learn computer manipulation. Women in ads and celebrities, even they are warped, skinnier and that is with the program I learned on the computer. That sort of thing projects a false expectation. Even the models in those magazines don’t look like that. This shot is all natural. This model is beautiful. I love the colors. DS: “Le Violon d’Ingres [by Man Ray] is what this reminds me of. Did that shot inspire you? RL: I hadn’t really thought of that. I know of that photo. I feel her body shape reminded me of a jug. That’s what others have said, curvy like a water pitcher. DS: Do you think you’d like to do this again if given the opportunity?
RL: If the people get it, yeah I would. It was then I said good night to the talented and thoughtful Rita Labib. Those interested can find a full portfolio of her work on her website. And she has had a few of her astounding photos featured in Vogue Magazine. She works not only on the issue of feminism but also starvation and the industrial plights of the poorer class in America—but that is for another day. Her show will carry on until the twentieth of the month, but I sense that an artist of her caliber will inevitably return. Her raw talent will continue to uncover issues of femininity, and she will not go unnoticed or remain dormant.
The Story of a Rapper – “Get Rich or Die Tryin”
A Review
Gregory Poblete
No matter how old you are, I can guarantee that you had a friend who entered your birthday party and greeted you with a “Go shorty, it’s your birthday, we gonna party like it’s your birthday,” as you violently shook your head with shame. The rapper of the hit single, “In Da Club,” Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson made his acting debut in 2005 in the Jim Sheridan directed film, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” The film loosely based on the rapper’s life follows a troubled drug dealer, Marcus (played by 50 Cent) living in New York who attempts to escape the dangerous lifestyle of being a drug dealer to pursue his passion of music. However, as seen in the film, Marcus’s goal of leaving the drug game and being a rapper becomes difficult when the drug lord of the territory tries to censor the music he is creating because of the message his music is preaching to the rest of the community. The film begins with Marcus’s childhood to establish the relationship he had with his mother. Being the only child to a single parent, Marcus and his mother had a strong relationship while living a fairly comfortable life with his grandparents. Living in the area they were in, being a part of the drug dealing business was common and Marcus’s mother was no exception. Everything seemed to be going okay for their family until one day his mother got mixed up in a drug deal gone completely wrong that resulted in her being brutally murder by an unknown suspect. Feeling completely distraught about his mother’s death, Marcus decides that the only way he can move on is if he joins the drug dealing business himself. Slowly but surely, Marcus begins to grow his street-cred among the drug dealing community by earning enough money for him to buy a new pair of sneakers as well as his very own gun. Years pass by and we see that Marcus is still in the drug business and living with his
grandparents. Although Marcus is making enough money selling drugs to have a comfortable life, his real passion is still in rapping. It wasn’t until he moved out of his grandparent’s house where he decided to give up his rapping career to exclusively sell cocaine because he was not making any money with music. Now that his focus is completely on drug dealing, he starts earning his stripes by gathering his own crew and selling under one of the biggest drug lords in the city. It is now when things begin to look up for Marcus being able to afford a brand new car as well as reconnecting with his childhood sweetheart, Charlene. However, Marcus slowly comes to the realization that drug dealing is a dangerous business and wants to get out before he gets into any trouble, or worse. In attempt not to spoil the rest of the predictable gangster-to-good-guy film, I will just say that there eventually is a battle between the drug lord, Majestic, and Marcus’s crew. Understanding that this film is loosely based on 50 Cent’s life, you might be able to figure out who wins the battle. Now to connect the film with the theme of censorship, it is very significant in the second half of the film where Marcus begins to refocus on becoming a rapper under the name, Young Caesar. Just like the Roman dictator craved power, Marcus finds that rapping gives him power and a sense of freedom to be able to express his feelings about his past experiences in the drug
business. Having been on the other side of the fence of being a drug dealer, he understands the way in which things work and he lyrically takes stabs at Majestic with lyrics such as “your boss is a bitch he snitched on Levar” emphasizing that Majestic received the head position of drug lord in an unjustly manner, just like a bitch. “End it. And get rid of the manager, too” is Majestic’s response to hearing Young Caesar’s lyrics. Majestic realizes that Marcus is trying to take him down by spreading his music around on the streets so people can hear the truth about the drug lord. Majestic attempts to censor Marcus’s music from being heard by any means possible, so he sends one of his crewmembers to
attempt kill Marcus. If Marcus’s music were to be heard, then Majestic knows that his position as the drug lord would definitely come to an end. As more and more people start hearing the music of Young Caesar, they come together and protest against the drug war chanting, “Stop the crack! Give us back our neighborhood!” Majestic can no longer control his neighborhood with the negative lyrics about him in Marcus’s music. In a final attempt to stop Marcus’s voice once and for all, Majestic and his crew show up to Marcus’s hometown gig to reason with him to not go on with the show because Majestic knows that Marcus will make a complete fool of him. It’s pretty obvious how this conflict will end. As clearly depicted, Majestic represents the figure of power that cannot afford to have the truth be revealed about his business, so he tries to sweep it under the rug as much as possible and censor Marcus’s voice from being heard by the masses. Marcus represents the force against the current who is in favor of the people who have no voice or power to stop the man keeping their neighborhood oppressed. Even beyond the confines of “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” every genre of music attempts to preach the truth to the masses. Take for example, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s song “Same Love,” which attempts to showcase the hatred that homosexual people deal with today. There were many groups of people who were offended by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s performance at the 2014 Grammy’s because 34 same-sex couples tied the knot at the award show during their performance. However, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis wanted to express their beliefs about homosexuality and that everyone deserves a chance to be loved, whether they be of the same sex or not. Musicians will always have an oppressing force trying to censor their voice, but there will always be a stronger force trying to listen. Overall, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” wasn’t a bad film, but it also wasn’t good. There is a thin line between absolutely laughable and somewhat bearable and this movie is fits perfectly in between. If you can handle the unmovable lips of 50 Cent as well as his subpar acting, then you can definitely survive watching this movie. The story is extremely cliché, but it did hold my interest throughout despite the fact. In addition to the catchy soundtrack, there are a number of memorable lines that will be stuck in your head for hours such as my personal favorite, “I’m a gangsta, grandpa, and I’m proud of it.” For a rating, I would give this movie 2 and a half microphones out of 5 because I watched the entire thing and did not regret a single minute of it. If you want to feel inspired to become a rapper, you can stream Jim Sheridan’s film, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’’ instantly on Netflix or torrent it for free, which I do not condone.
Standing for Community
Ian Adams
Community can come in many forms in a person’s life. Each of us: are born into a family, interact with co-workers, form close knit friendships, join religious groups and social clubs. These are communities that we may associate with as humans are social creatures. Whether Introvert or extrovert, humanity functions on the notion of not wholly being alone. There in the dark hours when in need of consultation or on those bright days of achievement and celebration—there are others who make those moments count. Protecting these bonds and the good of those people who we choose to keep in our lives is normal. Some groups can go bigger, however, some groups not only look out for their family and friends, but they look at the bigger picture of humans. They look at the common good of all people. The Social Equality Club (SEC) of Cerritos Community College set sights on big issues that have impacted students and the surrounding communities. On April 2, 2014, the campus hosted a meeting of the District Board of Trustees. After pleas-
antly announcing the employee of the month, the Board brought forward a number of voices from the Social Equality Club (SEC). The topic rallying SEC club members to speak (and a horde of students and faculty from several disciplines brandishing signs well beyond the glass back wall of the meeting room) on section cuts. From the economic downturn of 2008 that caused schools across the state of California to cut summer classes and artistic courses from high schools, colleges, and universities. And now nearly seven years on, with a new president in office and the national economy stabilized there has been zero alterations to the slashed classes. Along the front two rows of observational chairs, The Social Equality Club in coats, guarding agents, next to the AC’s rattling chill adorned bright red squares pinned to the lapels representing, “equality on all sides and solidarity with others suffering.” Earvin Chavez as a strong representative of the club stood before the College District Board of Trusties to present a clear message of need for classes. A 100 section goal had gained traction from the student body almost immediately and from the subsequent testimonials it became abundantly clear just why that was. Mr. Chavez laid out a sequence of facts to the trends of Cerritos College academically and financially. Summer of 2008 saw a semester offering 1,091 classes. This was then compared to the recent summer of 2013 where the college offered 432 sections. This also followed with a downward trend in students bothering to register. Mr. Earvin Chavez then explained with the aid of a sequence of monetary graph projections that 100 additional courses to a summer semester would not only be richly beneficial to the students and faculty but would also be financially simplistic. He described the channels through which an academic institution (such as Cerritos Community College) is funded. The SEC having crunched figures from open government information on where state money plays into everyday function found that funding the proposed 100 sections of predominantly Mathematics and English would require less than 3% of the schools budget. The Social Equality Club went on to invite members of their red square adorned coterie to the podium to share
the human element of the issue. Placing a face to these bureaucratic injustices, they elaborated one at a time on how long they had been held back on wait lists, petitions, and if they had not been shut out from those necessary classes completely. Some had been denied financial aid who were in the 43 percentile of Cerritos Community students below the poverty line. And then one of the most impassioned speakers was a woman of mid-twenty. She began by letting the Board and any gathered to observe in that gallery know she is a community college student of seven years. She still has only accomplished an algebra level math class. The cuts in summer sections left her few options between working to support a family (who yes, is in that unfortunate 43% on Cerritos campus) and to take those classes she needed to move on. This time wasted also means she would no longer be eligible for financial aid as a student even if she ever advanced to a university. In a heartfelt declaration she said, “A community college was meant to be a two year institution. A stepping stone. Well, I’ve been here seven years. Some have been four or five. When a stepping stone becomes a roadblock, something has gone very wrong.” One SEC member, Jimmy, resonated on this theme of being stuck. Coming from a family rife with gang violence and poverty, he sought out a college degree to escape this cycle. Though Jimmy is the first in his family to graduate high school let alone attend a college, he fears the lack of necessary classes will lead to a dangerous stagnancy. An atmosphere shift occurred in the Board of Trustees meeting when Dr. Joanna Schilling, the Vice President of Academic Affairs, spoke directly to the young woman who just sat from her charged address. She said, “To the young woman who is just getting a Math 60 class, we do have a wait list priority form.” Rumbles begin here. “Going to the administrative offices there is a form that if you have but one or two classes holding back a transfer to state or university, we will place you on top of the wait list. Have you heard of this?” Responded the club president for her associate “No.” along with a muffled chorus of “no” from those gathered who set the air stiff and descended into grunts and sighs of disgust. Jimmy Valdez, Earvin Chavez, and their President Jennifer Ovalle suffered through the crowd’s disruption as another Board member attempted to assist Dr. Schilling’s point by pondering aloud “What do we call [the form]? I’m just not sure.” After the meeting was adjourned, Juan M.
Ramitez, leader in the AssociatedStudents of Cerritos College (ASCC) stated, “The student government voted earlier today in solidarity of the 100 section addition to the summer semester. This $450,000 may not be a solution, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.” I can proudly report that this chapter of the Social Equality Club’s endeavors end happily. Rather than the typical slog of bureaucratic mess it would take to move an estimated 450 thousand dollars, theBoard took a rushed vote on the sixteenth at the mounting displeasure of the students. Eighty classes will be added to this coming summer and then a remaining twenty will be added to next fall. This will mean less stress for professors, less congestion, and fewer people missing the registration for the higher education of their choice. One victory alone however was not in the minds of those forming The Social Equality Club in the early days. This will be far from an end in fights for student and human rights. With half a million going toward adjunct professorships and new classes, club President Jennifer Ovalle described the inspiration for her club (having formed around the early days of The Modern Corsair). “My sister and a friend are organizers. I was invited to revive the California Student Union that died out a few years back. You know, I am motivated by education. The effect that it has on developing children. How it can negatively effect a society if there is none. I am involved with education since mine was screwed over.” With the help of the Make it Happen Club’s Mr. Chavez and Miss. Ovale’s chum Valdez, SEC has come up from the “textbook campaign” to find affordable books as well as a larger selection of rentals for those who cannot afford them. The Social Equality Club now sets its sights on state wide issues. They wish to counter state wide tuition hikes a problem compounded by the textbook publishing monopolies. Mr. Chavez took some time to describe to me his lobbying of
Speaker Perez and Kevin Delean. State politicians countering a bill named SB-1017 (Evans) also called the “California Big Oil Giveaway” which if passed would levy taxes on the biggest oil corporations in the state who presently pay little to nothing. Taxes collected from this bill’s passing would fund the expansions to healthcare, parks and recreation, and the education system. Said Jimmy Valdez, “I told the Senator this bill would have helped kids like me and can help my younger siblings. Why is this the only state not taxing oil corporations?” SEC President Ovalle has said the grander scale goal of her and the California Student Union is that, “In the 1960’s, there was the Master Plan for Education. Free education. Free of tuition, though still a cost of textbooks and medical fees. This Master Plan sent the top most proficient students around the Golden State to a UC and those middle tier students would be sent to a USC. Those lowest performing kids would go to a two year community college with the option to then work up to higher education. But the age of Governor Jerry Brown saw the end of that system. There was money to be made and they took it.” What opponents would call socialism, The Social Equality Club and their hundreds of supporters within the L.A. area would argue is a human right to education as much as health or freedom from hunger. Said one SEC member, “You see it on the Board of Trusties and up to the government—power structures filled predominantly with old white men who are out for money first.” What then is the next campaign for The Social Equality Club? They do not know. They have scored victories in education reform within one campus and will seek farther change with the securing of Student Body President seat by Daniel Flores. Each new issue is chosen by popular election at the club meetings. What certainly is next for the Red Squares is a visitation to a California Student Union rally held in Dominguez Hills on April 25th and 26th, 2014. They invite their fellow students and concerned community members to come out and support basic human rights.
Art from the Censored
Aaron Rosenberg, Ian Adams, Malory Carrera, Andrew Henry, Josh Craft, Michael Pfirrmann, Alexander Vasquez, and Carlos Garcia
At the Modern Corsair we are aggressively anti-censorship. We believe our writers as well as our readers have a right to their opinion as well as a right to be offended when one person says something stupid or crass. We have a right to be heard but not agreed with. But we at the Modern Corsair tried a form of censorship that actually makes something new. It is called “blackout poetry.” A nifty little trick developed by writer Austin Kleon who recently released his book Newspaper Blackout. In his book of poetry Kleon does what we call the poetry of sculpture. The raw materials of a verse are present but the detritus that is not the poem must be first stripped away. It is a fun experiment in creativity you may wish to try at home. We bought a stack of newspapers from a local stand and went at it as a group. We all found most interesting how some of us independently chose the same articles yet produced such drastically different poems in both theme and tone. Take a look at what we can do and maybe try it yourself. If you find you are rather proud of one of your blackout poems, you may consider sending it in to us here in the editor’s room.
Black Books:
Gaius Valerius Catullus
An Ancient Roman Poet
I will fuck you in the ass and in the mouth, Aurelius you sodomised ass pony And Furius, cock-sucking little pervert, Who think me, from my little verses Which are sensual, to be far too wanton. For it is proper for a poet to be Pure, pious and unsullied by naughtiness Himself. The same need not be true of his verse. My verses, in short, then, may have wit and charm, If they should be sensual and lewd enough, And because they are sexy and able to Arouse--I will not say boys, but these hairy Men who cannot stir their cocks into stiffness. Because you have of many thousand kisses Read, you pair think me to be less than manly? I will fuck you in the ass and in the mouth.
CREDITS
The Modern Corsair for April 2014 Issue Number 7 This issue was: Censorship. I have no mouth and I must scream every single exploitive in every single language. Repeatedly. The next issue will be: Transcendentalism. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. Seriously, we’ve got an entire civilization down here. They just put in a Coffee Bean. Check out our subreddit at www.reddit.com/r/themoderncorsair Send all entries, comments, or suggestions to [email protected]. We’d be happy to hear from our readers. Special thanks to: Rita Labib The Stay Gallery And the biggest thanks of all to: You. Not you as the reader of this magazine, specifically you as the human reading this text in this moment. Keep on reading, beautiful person.
Editor in Chief ................................................................................................ Ian Adams Editor/Design .................................................................................... Aaron Rosenberg Editor ..................................................................................................... Katie Lee McNeil Editor...................................................................................................... Amanda Galindo Editor..................................................................................................................Jason Khieu Press Relations .........................................................................................Jazmin Lucero Head Photographer ........................................................................... Frankie Concha Master Illustrator ................................................................... Mauricio Bustamante Commander Illustrator ................................................................. Lawrence Alfred Philosopher .................................................................................................... Oscar Valle Interim Photographer ......................................................................... Vivian Ortega Interim Photographer
....................................................................... Eian Siddiqui
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Singular Man - Various Authors The Parade Ground - Christopher Amador Undressing the Construction of Femininity - Dana Sami Get Rich or Die Tryin Review - Gregory Poblete Standing for Community - Ian Adams Black Books: Art from the Censored A Poem - Anon 4 7 10 14 17 22 28
A Singular Man
A story written by six people
by Michael Pfirrmann, Johnny C., Aaron Rosenberg, Ian Adams, Andrew Henry, and Josh Craft
Ted Tonks was born in the back seat of his father’s 1955 Chevrolet, pick-up truck. It was a dark, stormy Tennessee evening on his birth. As he grew, the boy was exceptionally smart. At a tender age of six months he began walking and talking. This became problematic for his back woods, uneducated parents. His parents took him to shamans, witchdoctors, and even a voodoo priest to expel the “demon” that had their child. Even as a small child he knew that he was different. His parents neglected him, not for the lack of love, but through fear of the child’s sophistication. He spent many days reading books in his room. Even in his earliest memories Ted battled the rage of austerity and self-destruction fueled through a lack of love and affection. As he grows up his mom and dad try to teach him to read, talk, count and spell. Then he goes to school to study and play with the toys. He starts to try to make friends, girls and boys. At their age they play tag, hide and seek and dug, duck, goose. He would avoid eating vegetables. The parents would force their son to eat healthy food. One major thing they wanted him to avoid eating was candy, because a lot of kids get hyper off it. Around that age the others started video games. Ted began to rebel through food. He took the doctrines set by his family and embraced an introverted life where he lived to eat. His mother took to hiding cash after realizing Ted would steal to clear out the jelly doughnuts from the local Dunk in Doughnuts. He had the exceptional ability to sniff out dollars, and each hiding spot was intercepted the next day. Ted began to demolish anything he could set his hands on. Despite a strict diet, his father would regularly receive calls in the early morning. Walmart employees found him strewn across the tiling with empty candy wrappers overflowing his pockets, at least once a month. He was hated by his peers. They watched him grow throughout school on a diet of fast food, sugar, and stolen school lunches. Every day he would sit along alienated and too smart for his own good. Connection was what evaded him. Nemesisim was what he had. I realized something in my 21st summer. A pall was lifted from my eyes; I went on reanimated to see that if I could not coerce connection with others I would take it. I felt that the ol’ Tennessee Hoodoo Doc had been correct. There had been a demon in me, named hunger, but now I hungered for much more than food. I joined in an over eaters group that met Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the strip mall by Churches, where we’d meet up after. Not that I cared for any of them. They aimed greedy snouts on battered crap and
I set mine on Tabitha Riddle. She loved me. So she said just before I met her father, a senator of the great state of burbin. When I mentioned, after graduation, how I would like to apply for an apprenticeship under Senator Riddle, Tabitha said “Oh Teddy that will be tremendous! He can do with help!” she was wright. After our marriage Ambrose Riddle II fell ill and degenerated rapidly. So I ran, practically unopposed (man hardly and threats less so). With a degree and a command of law I would cut my fiefdom into a shape I saw fit. I have many regrets in this life, but my hunger isn’t one of them. My hunger started with knowledge, when it was suppressed by the ignorance of those who gave me life it shifted to food. I fed my hunger by feeding my face. Later in life I met the only person who I ever felt any real connection to, Tabitha, my Tabitha. Eventually my hunger ceased, I became a Senator. Once I tasted power I would never be hungry again. My thirst was awakened, a thirst for power that I have not been able to quench. I sit in this sphere that is my office and cringe at what could have been. I could have stayed in a backwater town and lived a backwater life, or ended up obese and died before my time. Instead, I met Tabitha and became the man I am, the man I was always meant to be. My poor Tabitha, so beautiful, so young. I sit at this resolute desk and know without her I’ll always be alone... Well, if you don’t count the secret service. “President Tonks, it’s time”. About time; days are obnoxiously present until dusk makes you feel like you were never there. All throughout the bird-watching period two years ago. I did not educate myself about the names of the creatures and assume the quaint desperation masked as convulsive earnestness attendant upon late-life hobbying. I do not even remember what sparrows are called. My memory remembers, but life is a matter of finding yourself locked out of things, which you accept with nervous humor, until you no longer find the charm in this rhythm, by which point you are already throttling toward the final arms-up predicament of getting locked out of your own flesh. I recount things as if time has passed in a novel, I describe the Way I Live now. If my intelligence has learned anything, and most days it feels like it knows only one or four things(there I go again), it is that everything is aggressively simple. You end up talking this way. The terror to know that you are not safe from things happening as suddenly and softly as a badly edited film on mute. One morning after Tabby died I decided I was old and I have not felt different since. I hate figures of speech like cats hate leaps. During the bird years, I didn’t use binoculars or pack a lunch for a day beneath a willow. I sat in the yard and watched the jays walk onto the clothesline and then leave. The only takeoffs and landings subject to an immaculate lack of longing. I don’t remember that I don’t remember the names. The idea that people died because of my administration feels like when we used to talk about waste, in my college days, when the apocalypse was cute, and how throwing gum out the car window was a profanity to nature. Not only was it not real, it was beyond me. If I believed in metaphors and understatement—which I don’t, because presidents don’t read books, they appear in them—I would talk about the fable about the wary fisher who, in fear of wave and beast, built a vessel so large he was no longer at sea, falling asleep now to the sound of the sea, instead of cowering in terror. But I don’t find it relevant.
The ending, anyhow, is that he starves, now with no access to the fish, but who really cares. Presidents are bulls who have to believe they are matadors. That’s probably not true. I hate metaphors. My brother told me that. He walked into a propeller three years ago. It was too ridiculous to care if it was an accident or not. I only measure things in numbered years to entertain the idea that time means anything. Life is large and quiet. I rarely hunger these days. Do I really believe that breathing is but a bad habit? Having become boring, and so now I watch younger men ride dramatically expensive horses, and go to bed sometime between the news about death and the shows about death. The ethnicity of the groundskeepers is so convoluted these days I can’t even be bothered to resent them for it. I looked out the window and saw the bird but did not hear a sound although the window was open. I realized that the grass was not my chair and the sky was not the wall but the hanging bird beside my body was there, full of all in this world yet not a caress of utterance, telling me primordial things with the removed universe of its flurried audio that might have impressed a boy or kinder man. I wonder if birds can hear. A wheezing likely rises from my collar. Isn’t that all life is? The question of who was listening? But I’m not doing this. Poignant reflection upon life while dying. That doesn’t happen. Who cares who heard? Saying it’s enough. There were better things. You don’t remember the end of the novel at the end, you remember what they remembered at the end of the novel, Tabitha wearing blue on a Monday afternoon beside a cloud.
The Parade Ground
Christopher Amador
The grave rhythmic step of the immaculately dressed Honor Guard resounded throughout the great and cavernous hangar. A dozen uniformed men stood beside the red velvet rug and saluted as the flag-laden coffins were carried off the C-130. Behind them, the band played a martial somber note. There were six today. Six families stood waiting just beyond the tail and watched as their sons were returned to them. There were no cameras or camcorders. Pictures and videos had all been forbidden. In its great and powerful wisdom, the bureaucracy had also seen fit to proclaim cellphones as verboten. The return of the honored dead would be nothing but a footnote in Jericho’s Daily the next morning. They had seen to that. Six families could only watch in silence as the caskets came toward them. Privates Jefferson and Coulson were blown to pieces by a road-side bomb. Lance Corporal Ramirez took a .357 caliber in the neck. Private Curtis had been captured by the enemy and beheaded. Sergeant Sew killed five enemy combatants in a single engagement before tripping over a forgotten mine from the old scuffle with the Persian neighbor. Specialist Williams survived having his left leg blown off at the knee but did not survive the trip to a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit. Their shameful treatment appalled the citizens of Jericho. Old Billy, Johnny, and Uncle Al exchanged looks with each other. They each in turn exchanged solemn looks with the men of the other families. They knew what they had to do. Auntie May saw the exchange and leaned over to whisper in Al’s ear. “Are you sure about this?” She asked. “We promised these boys a parade when they got back, and by God, we’ll give it to ‘em.” “But… it just seems so rash.” Auntie May replied. Johnny butted in, “Auntie, it’s alright. We’ve already got everything set up. Come on now, this is no time to chicken out.” A whimper escaped from the lips of one of the mothers nearby. The men consoled her, “This is no time to be cryin’. Our boys have come home.” Old Billy shouted to them. “Boys? What boys? Boys that go to war never come home. These are men.” “It’s time. Get ready!” The crowd silenced. Somewhere in the mob a whistle blew and announced the signal. The strongest and fastest men of every family surged forward. The great wave reached the stunned and startled funeral procession and smashed into it like a hurricane. The men took great care not to harm the Guardsmen. After all, they were patriots too. But all resistance against this assault was crushed and contained as swiftly as they could manage. Al was the first to reach the stars and stripes. He came to a halt and knelt down quickly to grab a hold of the handlebars. Looking around, he motioned for the others to quicken the pace, “Hurry up now, ya hear! I can’t carry them alone!” Amidst the struggle, there were enough men now to pick up the caskets and make a run for the hangar doors. The rest pushed, shoved, and wrestled open a gap through the line of open-mouthed wide-eyed servicemen. Al and the others promptly followed through and weaved and bobbed their way around to the women at the front. The mothers, and sisters, wives, and daughters had fallen back to pull the great doors open and clear the way through to the runway. Outside, the honking, hooting, and hollering people of Jericho had smashed the gates with their
rickety old pickup trucks and were waiting anxiously for the dead. A battered, exhausted and thoroughly incensed Army chaplain called out to them from the Hercules’ cargo hold, “What in the damn Hell are ya’ll doin’?” Johnny heard the righteous call and yelled back, “We’re going to the parade ground!” In short order, all six of the heavy coffins were loaded on to the flat beds. The women hopped up onto the pickups as well to watch over their cradled fallen. The men loaded themselves up on to whatever vehicles had room to spare and yelled out to the drivers to take off. Cindy Curtis cried out in dismay, “I’ve lost my right shoe.” “Leave it! We ain’t got time to go back.” And so the vehicles were off at top speed down the long runway. They weaved and bobbed through the confused MPs (Military Police) and flew out through the hole they had made when they entered. They revved their engines and were now on the highway. A mile down the road, a squadron of Sheriffs’ patrol cars sounded their loud alarms and siren calls. Al held his breath. The police surrounded the convoy and drove at top speed around them. Sheriff Henson blazed over the lead car’s loudspeaker. “We’ve got ya covered. Make like your asses are on fire. The town’s ready.” Al sighed sweet relief and smiled. Everyone laughed, giggled and waved toward the deputies around them and looked to be having a gay old time. A triumphant cheer erupted from the running procession as they passed the beautiful and proudly displayed words, “Welcome to Jericho.” A thousand trumpets and the church’s choir blew out their lungs to the heavens as the convoy passed into the town boundary loud enough to raise the dead. Fireworks and applause blasted all around the trucks as the long line of cars now slowly marched inevitably toward the town square and the city paper. Young children straight out of elementary sang out the tried and true, “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” The Jericho high school marching band filed alongside the convoy and beat their drums and twirled their batons. Flashes of brilliant white light blinded the riders and irritated the drivers as hundreds of pictures were taken in moments. Cameras and cellphones, tablets, and helicopters whirled about blinking their lights. The people of Jericho smiled and cheered. Not a single tear was shed on the way to town hall. Mayor Grayson waved them on to enter the red brick road into the plaza. He stood upon the steps of the great hall and raised both his hands up in praise. A microphone soon found itself pressed to his lips as he shouted over the hollering crowd. “Jericho is proud of its sons. Welcome home.” The crowd died down and calmed itself as the women hopped off the trucks and formed a circle around the convoy. The men followed them and pulled out the coffins and their colors to lay them upon the ground at the feet of the town square’s fountain, and the great statue of Atlas holding the entire world on his shoulders. The men and women all took off their hats on this scorching hot day at noon and gave a final and well-deserved salute to their fallen heroes.
Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art. -Pablo Picasso
Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the curious things about censorship is that no one seems to want it for himself. We want censorship to protect someone else; the young, the unstable, the suggestible, the stupid. I have never heard of anyone who wanted a film banned because otherwise he might see it and be harmed. -Edgar Dale
Undressing the Construction of Femininity
Dana Sami
Stay Gallery is the center of Downey’s youth scene as well as the pulsing heart of art culture. The gallery is where I was first contacted to write for the Modern Corsair. It makes sense that my first column for this magazine would be on the challenging sort of work the guys at Stay would court. I went in blind. And I am grateful to have made that call. I walked in three fashionable minutes late to the newest exhibit on female perceptions of beauty in media. “Nearly Naked” is the title. A foot or so past the entrance a four by six foot mirror
sat in a handsome frame, bearing a sign, challenging guests to ‘Be Seen Naked’ and use the baby wipes to the side to spend a night out with no makeup making the fetchers. Seeing as I had not put on any makeup before stepping out, I took a saunter around the room. Along Stay’s counter was complementary baklava and reasonable beer. I helped myself to a brew and bummed around looking at the art. Outside, through the threaded curtain of naked Barbie dolls, I could see minors being turned away by staff. I was informed it was a standards thing.
Nothing is more dangerous to high school students than exposed breasts. When the DJ stopped playing songs to hate from the 90’s to the 00’s, the art director of the gallery invited up a poet, Trista Dominqu. She declared herself the mother of a baby girl who she wished to not suffer the damage of media expectations of body image by the time she grew. Welcomed by applause from the millennials in attendance, the star artist read out the poem she named her first solo show after: To them we are always Nearly Naked. Picking away fabrics with imagination, until we are but shadows of skin. Outlines of what we are told is beautiful By the end of their gaze we have grown larger breasts, shrinking waistlines to hourglass proportions. They can turn a Jane into a Helen in minutes, causing wars within themselves. Finally when they are victorious, taking us for prizes, they often feel cheated as clouds roll in blocking out the sun of their thoughts.
Washing away fantasies, they run for umbrellas, not realizing how much we need the rain. It is then Rita Labib approaches from the hip crowd. Dressed in white she beams a confident smile that left me feeling like a slob of a man with a beer can in hand. When the formality of our introduction passed, we sat between the two main aspects of her Nearly Naked show for an interview. DS: This is a grand exhibit, Rita. You must be very proud. Is this your first? RL: This is my first lone show. Yes, I’m very glad. DS: We can go around and talk about individual photos. But, what can you say about “Nearly Naked” as a whole? RL: This show is really important to me and really important to women, old women, young women. There’s a lot of expectation on women. This one photo, (She points out a large work of a tight shot on a woman’s face with one-half done in makeup.) It’s as if some women, some I know, think they need makeup to be seen. They can’t go out unless they put on, even just to go to the store. Not that I’m against makeup.
I split the show into two halves. Over here (to the right) is art dealing with media perception and in fact, other women’s perceptions. This side (she broadly gestures to the left) is my work on feminine self-acceptance. Loving just who you are. DS: Let’s start with this sculpture. What can you say about this? (The only non-photographic work in the show depicts a full figured woman from this up to her shoulders. Her genitalia and neck a craggy cavities where withered roses droop. Amid this dull crumpled plant matter one bright, lively red rose teases its bloom.) RL: This is about growing up. Women are trying to counter the clock. They may have been beautiful or like a model but still there’s internal beauty. What makes them beautiful can’t age. DS: How long have you been interested by this particular subject?
Women’s perceptions of beauty, I mean. RL: probably since I started. I started photography at fourteen and I got a professional studio at fifteen. It was a portable studio, but I still use it out of Sana Monica. DS: So you started photography only five years ago and now you have your own show in a gallery’s display. RL: Great, I know. And I’m just eighteen. I think it’s funny. A few weeks ago would they have turned me away from my own show? Not allowed to take my pictures? That is one thing that’s frustrating. When I post my art on websites it always tends to be flagged down as pornography. Like, its breasts. DS: Do you think this speaks to the notion of sexualizing women’s bodies? If it had bear chest or va-
gina you’re straddling the line of pornography? RL: I do, really. I mean it is like this photo: (She indicates to s side by side shot of a shirtless man and woman with marker labeling ‘nipple’, ‘areola’ and ‘breast tissue’. It is titled “Same”.) The breast on the woman has to be censored out with a pixilation. DS: One of my favorite portraits here is titled “Natural”. Can you talk about it, how it’s so different. RL: In other shots, like “Before and After” I had to learn computer manipulation. Women in ads and celebrities, even they are warped, skinnier and that is with the program I learned on the computer. That sort of thing projects a false expectation. Even the models in those magazines don’t look like that. This shot is all natural. This model is beautiful. I love the colors. DS: “Le Violon d’Ingres [by Man Ray] is what this reminds me of. Did that shot inspire you? RL: I hadn’t really thought of that. I know of that photo. I feel her body shape reminded me of a jug. That’s what others have said, curvy like a water pitcher. DS: Do you think you’d like to do this again if given the opportunity?
RL: If the people get it, yeah I would. It was then I said good night to the talented and thoughtful Rita Labib. Those interested can find a full portfolio of her work on her website. And she has had a few of her astounding photos featured in Vogue Magazine. She works not only on the issue of feminism but also starvation and the industrial plights of the poorer class in America—but that is for another day. Her show will carry on until the twentieth of the month, but I sense that an artist of her caliber will inevitably return. Her raw talent will continue to uncover issues of femininity, and she will not go unnoticed or remain dormant.
The Story of a Rapper – “Get Rich or Die Tryin”
A Review
Gregory Poblete
No matter how old you are, I can guarantee that you had a friend who entered your birthday party and greeted you with a “Go shorty, it’s your birthday, we gonna party like it’s your birthday,” as you violently shook your head with shame. The rapper of the hit single, “In Da Club,” Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson made his acting debut in 2005 in the Jim Sheridan directed film, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” The film loosely based on the rapper’s life follows a troubled drug dealer, Marcus (played by 50 Cent) living in New York who attempts to escape the dangerous lifestyle of being a drug dealer to pursue his passion of music. However, as seen in the film, Marcus’s goal of leaving the drug game and being a rapper becomes difficult when the drug lord of the territory tries to censor the music he is creating because of the message his music is preaching to the rest of the community. The film begins with Marcus’s childhood to establish the relationship he had with his mother. Being the only child to a single parent, Marcus and his mother had a strong relationship while living a fairly comfortable life with his grandparents. Living in the area they were in, being a part of the drug dealing business was common and Marcus’s mother was no exception. Everything seemed to be going okay for their family until one day his mother got mixed up in a drug deal gone completely wrong that resulted in her being brutally murder by an unknown suspect. Feeling completely distraught about his mother’s death, Marcus decides that the only way he can move on is if he joins the drug dealing business himself. Slowly but surely, Marcus begins to grow his street-cred among the drug dealing community by earning enough money for him to buy a new pair of sneakers as well as his very own gun. Years pass by and we see that Marcus is still in the drug business and living with his
grandparents. Although Marcus is making enough money selling drugs to have a comfortable life, his real passion is still in rapping. It wasn’t until he moved out of his grandparent’s house where he decided to give up his rapping career to exclusively sell cocaine because he was not making any money with music. Now that his focus is completely on drug dealing, he starts earning his stripes by gathering his own crew and selling under one of the biggest drug lords in the city. It is now when things begin to look up for Marcus being able to afford a brand new car as well as reconnecting with his childhood sweetheart, Charlene. However, Marcus slowly comes to the realization that drug dealing is a dangerous business and wants to get out before he gets into any trouble, or worse. In attempt not to spoil the rest of the predictable gangster-to-good-guy film, I will just say that there eventually is a battle between the drug lord, Majestic, and Marcus’s crew. Understanding that this film is loosely based on 50 Cent’s life, you might be able to figure out who wins the battle. Now to connect the film with the theme of censorship, it is very significant in the second half of the film where Marcus begins to refocus on becoming a rapper under the name, Young Caesar. Just like the Roman dictator craved power, Marcus finds that rapping gives him power and a sense of freedom to be able to express his feelings about his past experiences in the drug
business. Having been on the other side of the fence of being a drug dealer, he understands the way in which things work and he lyrically takes stabs at Majestic with lyrics such as “your boss is a bitch he snitched on Levar” emphasizing that Majestic received the head position of drug lord in an unjustly manner, just like a bitch. “End it. And get rid of the manager, too” is Majestic’s response to hearing Young Caesar’s lyrics. Majestic realizes that Marcus is trying to take him down by spreading his music around on the streets so people can hear the truth about the drug lord. Majestic attempts to censor Marcus’s music from being heard by any means possible, so he sends one of his crewmembers to
attempt kill Marcus. If Marcus’s music were to be heard, then Majestic knows that his position as the drug lord would definitely come to an end. As more and more people start hearing the music of Young Caesar, they come together and protest against the drug war chanting, “Stop the crack! Give us back our neighborhood!” Majestic can no longer control his neighborhood with the negative lyrics about him in Marcus’s music. In a final attempt to stop Marcus’s voice once and for all, Majestic and his crew show up to Marcus’s hometown gig to reason with him to not go on with the show because Majestic knows that Marcus will make a complete fool of him. It’s pretty obvious how this conflict will end. As clearly depicted, Majestic represents the figure of power that cannot afford to have the truth be revealed about his business, so he tries to sweep it under the rug as much as possible and censor Marcus’s voice from being heard by the masses. Marcus represents the force against the current who is in favor of the people who have no voice or power to stop the man keeping their neighborhood oppressed. Even beyond the confines of “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” every genre of music attempts to preach the truth to the masses. Take for example, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s song “Same Love,” which attempts to showcase the hatred that homosexual people deal with today. There were many groups of people who were offended by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s performance at the 2014 Grammy’s because 34 same-sex couples tied the knot at the award show during their performance. However, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis wanted to express their beliefs about homosexuality and that everyone deserves a chance to be loved, whether they be of the same sex or not. Musicians will always have an oppressing force trying to censor their voice, but there will always be a stronger force trying to listen. Overall, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” wasn’t a bad film, but it also wasn’t good. There is a thin line between absolutely laughable and somewhat bearable and this movie is fits perfectly in between. If you can handle the unmovable lips of 50 Cent as well as his subpar acting, then you can definitely survive watching this movie. The story is extremely cliché, but it did hold my interest throughout despite the fact. In addition to the catchy soundtrack, there are a number of memorable lines that will be stuck in your head for hours such as my personal favorite, “I’m a gangsta, grandpa, and I’m proud of it.” For a rating, I would give this movie 2 and a half microphones out of 5 because I watched the entire thing and did not regret a single minute of it. If you want to feel inspired to become a rapper, you can stream Jim Sheridan’s film, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’’ instantly on Netflix or torrent it for free, which I do not condone.
Standing for Community
Ian Adams
Community can come in many forms in a person’s life. Each of us: are born into a family, interact with co-workers, form close knit friendships, join religious groups and social clubs. These are communities that we may associate with as humans are social creatures. Whether Introvert or extrovert, humanity functions on the notion of not wholly being alone. There in the dark hours when in need of consultation or on those bright days of achievement and celebration—there are others who make those moments count. Protecting these bonds and the good of those people who we choose to keep in our lives is normal. Some groups can go bigger, however, some groups not only look out for their family and friends, but they look at the bigger picture of humans. They look at the common good of all people. The Social Equality Club (SEC) of Cerritos Community College set sights on big issues that have impacted students and the surrounding communities. On April 2, 2014, the campus hosted a meeting of the District Board of Trustees. After pleas-
antly announcing the employee of the month, the Board brought forward a number of voices from the Social Equality Club (SEC). The topic rallying SEC club members to speak (and a horde of students and faculty from several disciplines brandishing signs well beyond the glass back wall of the meeting room) on section cuts. From the economic downturn of 2008 that caused schools across the state of California to cut summer classes and artistic courses from high schools, colleges, and universities. And now nearly seven years on, with a new president in office and the national economy stabilized there has been zero alterations to the slashed classes. Along the front two rows of observational chairs, The Social Equality Club in coats, guarding agents, next to the AC’s rattling chill adorned bright red squares pinned to the lapels representing, “equality on all sides and solidarity with others suffering.” Earvin Chavez as a strong representative of the club stood before the College District Board of Trusties to present a clear message of need for classes. A 100 section goal had gained traction from the student body almost immediately and from the subsequent testimonials it became abundantly clear just why that was. Mr. Chavez laid out a sequence of facts to the trends of Cerritos College academically and financially. Summer of 2008 saw a semester offering 1,091 classes. This was then compared to the recent summer of 2013 where the college offered 432 sections. This also followed with a downward trend in students bothering to register. Mr. Earvin Chavez then explained with the aid of a sequence of monetary graph projections that 100 additional courses to a summer semester would not only be richly beneficial to the students and faculty but would also be financially simplistic. He described the channels through which an academic institution (such as Cerritos Community College) is funded. The SEC having crunched figures from open government information on where state money plays into everyday function found that funding the proposed 100 sections of predominantly Mathematics and English would require less than 3% of the schools budget. The Social Equality Club went on to invite members of their red square adorned coterie to the podium to share
the human element of the issue. Placing a face to these bureaucratic injustices, they elaborated one at a time on how long they had been held back on wait lists, petitions, and if they had not been shut out from those necessary classes completely. Some had been denied financial aid who were in the 43 percentile of Cerritos Community students below the poverty line. And then one of the most impassioned speakers was a woman of mid-twenty. She began by letting the Board and any gathered to observe in that gallery know she is a community college student of seven years. She still has only accomplished an algebra level math class. The cuts in summer sections left her few options between working to support a family (who yes, is in that unfortunate 43% on Cerritos campus) and to take those classes she needed to move on. This time wasted also means she would no longer be eligible for financial aid as a student even if she ever advanced to a university. In a heartfelt declaration she said, “A community college was meant to be a two year institution. A stepping stone. Well, I’ve been here seven years. Some have been four or five. When a stepping stone becomes a roadblock, something has gone very wrong.” One SEC member, Jimmy, resonated on this theme of being stuck. Coming from a family rife with gang violence and poverty, he sought out a college degree to escape this cycle. Though Jimmy is the first in his family to graduate high school let alone attend a college, he fears the lack of necessary classes will lead to a dangerous stagnancy. An atmosphere shift occurred in the Board of Trustees meeting when Dr. Joanna Schilling, the Vice President of Academic Affairs, spoke directly to the young woman who just sat from her charged address. She said, “To the young woman who is just getting a Math 60 class, we do have a wait list priority form.” Rumbles begin here. “Going to the administrative offices there is a form that if you have but one or two classes holding back a transfer to state or university, we will place you on top of the wait list. Have you heard of this?” Responded the club president for her associate “No.” along with a muffled chorus of “no” from those gathered who set the air stiff and descended into grunts and sighs of disgust. Jimmy Valdez, Earvin Chavez, and their President Jennifer Ovalle suffered through the crowd’s disruption as another Board member attempted to assist Dr. Schilling’s point by pondering aloud “What do we call [the form]? I’m just not sure.” After the meeting was adjourned, Juan M.
Ramitez, leader in the AssociatedStudents of Cerritos College (ASCC) stated, “The student government voted earlier today in solidarity of the 100 section addition to the summer semester. This $450,000 may not be a solution, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.” I can proudly report that this chapter of the Social Equality Club’s endeavors end happily. Rather than the typical slog of bureaucratic mess it would take to move an estimated 450 thousand dollars, theBoard took a rushed vote on the sixteenth at the mounting displeasure of the students. Eighty classes will be added to this coming summer and then a remaining twenty will be added to next fall. This will mean less stress for professors, less congestion, and fewer people missing the registration for the higher education of their choice. One victory alone however was not in the minds of those forming The Social Equality Club in the early days. This will be far from an end in fights for student and human rights. With half a million going toward adjunct professorships and new classes, club President Jennifer Ovalle described the inspiration for her club (having formed around the early days of The Modern Corsair). “My sister and a friend are organizers. I was invited to revive the California Student Union that died out a few years back. You know, I am motivated by education. The effect that it has on developing children. How it can negatively effect a society if there is none. I am involved with education since mine was screwed over.” With the help of the Make it Happen Club’s Mr. Chavez and Miss. Ovale’s chum Valdez, SEC has come up from the “textbook campaign” to find affordable books as well as a larger selection of rentals for those who cannot afford them. The Social Equality Club now sets its sights on state wide issues. They wish to counter state wide tuition hikes a problem compounded by the textbook publishing monopolies. Mr. Chavez took some time to describe to me his lobbying of
Speaker Perez and Kevin Delean. State politicians countering a bill named SB-1017 (Evans) also called the “California Big Oil Giveaway” which if passed would levy taxes on the biggest oil corporations in the state who presently pay little to nothing. Taxes collected from this bill’s passing would fund the expansions to healthcare, parks and recreation, and the education system. Said Jimmy Valdez, “I told the Senator this bill would have helped kids like me and can help my younger siblings. Why is this the only state not taxing oil corporations?” SEC President Ovalle has said the grander scale goal of her and the California Student Union is that, “In the 1960’s, there was the Master Plan for Education. Free education. Free of tuition, though still a cost of textbooks and medical fees. This Master Plan sent the top most proficient students around the Golden State to a UC and those middle tier students would be sent to a USC. Those lowest performing kids would go to a two year community college with the option to then work up to higher education. But the age of Governor Jerry Brown saw the end of that system. There was money to be made and they took it.” What opponents would call socialism, The Social Equality Club and their hundreds of supporters within the L.A. area would argue is a human right to education as much as health or freedom from hunger. Said one SEC member, “You see it on the Board of Trusties and up to the government—power structures filled predominantly with old white men who are out for money first.” What then is the next campaign for The Social Equality Club? They do not know. They have scored victories in education reform within one campus and will seek farther change with the securing of Student Body President seat by Daniel Flores. Each new issue is chosen by popular election at the club meetings. What certainly is next for the Red Squares is a visitation to a California Student Union rally held in Dominguez Hills on April 25th and 26th, 2014. They invite their fellow students and concerned community members to come out and support basic human rights.
Art from the Censored
Aaron Rosenberg, Ian Adams, Malory Carrera, Andrew Henry, Josh Craft, Michael Pfirrmann, Alexander Vasquez, and Carlos Garcia
At the Modern Corsair we are aggressively anti-censorship. We believe our writers as well as our readers have a right to their opinion as well as a right to be offended when one person says something stupid or crass. We have a right to be heard but not agreed with. But we at the Modern Corsair tried a form of censorship that actually makes something new. It is called “blackout poetry.” A nifty little trick developed by writer Austin Kleon who recently released his book Newspaper Blackout. In his book of poetry Kleon does what we call the poetry of sculpture. The raw materials of a verse are present but the detritus that is not the poem must be first stripped away. It is a fun experiment in creativity you may wish to try at home. We bought a stack of newspapers from a local stand and went at it as a group. We all found most interesting how some of us independently chose the same articles yet produced such drastically different poems in both theme and tone. Take a look at what we can do and maybe try it yourself. If you find you are rather proud of one of your blackout poems, you may consider sending it in to us here in the editor’s room.
Black Books:
Gaius Valerius Catullus
An Ancient Roman Poet
I will fuck you in the ass and in the mouth, Aurelius you sodomised ass pony And Furius, cock-sucking little pervert, Who think me, from my little verses Which are sensual, to be far too wanton. For it is proper for a poet to be Pure, pious and unsullied by naughtiness Himself. The same need not be true of his verse. My verses, in short, then, may have wit and charm, If they should be sensual and lewd enough, And because they are sexy and able to Arouse--I will not say boys, but these hairy Men who cannot stir their cocks into stiffness. Because you have of many thousand kisses Read, you pair think me to be less than manly? I will fuck you in the ass and in the mouth.
CREDITS
The Modern Corsair for April 2014 Issue Number 7 This issue was: Censorship. I have no mouth and I must scream every single exploitive in every single language. Repeatedly. The next issue will be: Transcendentalism. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. Seriously, we’ve got an entire civilization down here. They just put in a Coffee Bean. Check out our subreddit at www.reddit.com/r/themoderncorsair Send all entries, comments, or suggestions to [email protected]. We’d be happy to hear from our readers. Special thanks to: Rita Labib The Stay Gallery And the biggest thanks of all to: You. Not you as the reader of this magazine, specifically you as the human reading this text in this moment. Keep on reading, beautiful person.
