This is my final version of the piece called “The Genesis of Obesity”.

“The Genesis Of Obesity” is a video that portrays the predatory tactics that fast food corporations use when marketing to the consumer, specifically youth. In watching this video you will go through a storm of images and sound that are meant to reflect the style that is used by these multinationals when flooding the media with their images.

Furthermore, it is a commentary and reflection on the direction that Big Media has taken and it’s role in portraying, and therefore transforming, pop culture.

This Political Remix Video is a critical, satirical and transformative work that constitutes a Fair Use in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

Yesterday, I spoke a little about oral tradition throughout history and the importance of verbal communication in the development of society. Ancient tales like the Iliad and the Odyssey were passed on by orators who kept the entire story in their heads. In Roman societies the tribune was the person who stood up in the middle of the city and told everyone the news. Here in North America, indigenous people kept a deep oral history of their people and the words themselves were sacred. With the invention of the Gutenberg printing press stories were no longer kept sacred because they were now more readily available for widespread distribution. Communities and tribes were broken up by the absence of this tradition. This decline in civic dialogue has continued well into the modern era where there is little or no communication even between families. If parents think their kids aren’t happy in life they’re quick to give in to the anti-depressant drug complex and bypass the more personal act of actually talking to their children. I believe this pattern is a design of a group of people who are trying to deconstruct the family base.

Sorry if I went on too long. What I’m trying to say is that yesterday was very inspiring for me because we all got a chance to speak to each other face-to-face without a computer screen dividing us. It was a great act of sharing and important because this doesn’t happen enough in society.

In the manner of a certain vocal goddess, lets call her Amy JuiceHouse, I did away with all my ethical standards and relinquished my soul to the process of true creation. Begin with a concrete image, burn it, and let the smoldering ashes guide you like tea leaves at the bottom of a porcelain cup. What I’m saying is that I started off with a clear picture and now have a plethora of possibilities going off into different tangents floating into outer space. Right now I’m in the process of letting gravity pull me back down.

In my post about my “Poison” remix idea I’m sure I was convincing when I wrote how great it would turn out. Don’t get me wrong, that remix would have been powerful but it just felt like I wouldn’t be utilizing all the tools that I have available to me. So after putting the mirror up to myself I knew that I wasn’t going to be satisfied with the final product. I had to cast the line into my ocean of thoughts and try to reel in something that spoke about what I wanted out of this remix.

For some time now I have been on a crusade to reclaim the human mind and body from multinational corporations. I want to rip the blindfold off peoples’ eyes and tear the chains from their feet. I talked to people about this before but some are stuck in their ways. I feel like I’m flying down this tunnel…being torn from this world of false claims, blind trust, subliminal messages, and overpowering images and I’m trying to grab as many people as I can so that they can see the light at the end.

My focus will be on the world diet and how it has changed since the introduction of fast food corporations who control the media and influence their “customers” in ways that shouldn’t be allowed. One of the first videos will definitely be about the truth behind High Fructose Corn Syrup and how it is in (almost) everything that we eat. If you’re reading this please make an effort to decrease your HFCS intake. I will post something that explains why this is something that you need to do if your serious about taking control of your health. I’ll keep you posted (as they say).

Salud y Paz (Health and Peace)

Yesterday evening the class was thrust into the, otherwise unknown, “other” layer of the internet world through the eyes of a ciber-activist, hacker, media-savvy rebel. I speak about the “ciber underworld” that, most people think, exists only for computer geeks or kids who are into anime, or the people us mortals ask for help when our tech problems reach apocalyptic levels. Most of us are used to taking things from the internet for free and/or finding ways around doing things the “legal” way. But I don’t think any of us were prepared for what we seen when the veil was lifted and we were exposed to the raw, unpolished, under workings of the web. As Johnny Mac (Jonathon) was guiding us all down this road that he has probably taken countless times all I could think of was the FBI or suits with warrants rushing in and shutting us down. They would shove the PATRIOT act down our throats and crucify us in the name of national security. As terrifying as my predictions were I still felt compelled to let myself fall backwards blind folded and hope fate catches me. It felt so illegal…but sooooo right (or left).

He introduced us to programs like Audio Hijack which allows you to capture ANY audio (yes those are capital letters) that is playing on ANY source from your computer, so whatever output there is. That means you can record audio playing off of the internet, or from any software that you have offline. Pretty snappy!

There was also Zamzar which allows you to take any video or audio from the web and convert it to, virtually, any type of file that is convenient for you to work with. For example, if I wanted to remix something from Go Army I would just insert the URL and choose which type of file I would convert it to. Amazing.

But I think the most inspiring tool jmac showed us was the wikicommons which is a place where people around the world can upload there own media to the web and share it with other people who interested in maybe using that media for another purpose. But I should also mention that there are several different types of Creative Common licenses that are used and it would be best to learn about them before using that media.

So, there’s no turning back…we’re all jedi knights now. May the force be with you!

Salud y Paz

The first time I ever heard a song by NAS I was on my block watching two cops check a few kids on their bikes. The boys had their hands on the cop car and looked pretty scared. I thought to myself, “they couldn’t be much older than me.  Then a car that was blasting this song flew by the stop sign and the people inside told the cops “Chin*a su madre” and some other nice things. The song was “Poison” and it was pretty radical to me at that time.

The song talks about how people in the country are being blindfolded and “injected” with poison (sometimes literally). The “poison” is all around us and inside of us from birth because our mothers are toxic. But this poison is all around us: in our food, in medicine, in water, on T.V, and in our schools.

I want to put a real video and/or picture behind his words so that viewers can see that this process of injecting “poison” actually exists. So that means showing images of doctors injecting babies next to junkies shooting up. Showing books being binded on an assembley line and show images of “hate books”. Other examples of juxtapositions: McDonalds vs. rat poison, oil vs. toxic waste barrels, prisoners in jail vs. public school students walking through a security check, cosmetics vs. images of someone with skin cancer, drug industry vs. weapons manufacturing.

The great chinese philosopher Confucious once said “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. I’ve carried that idea with me whenever I started a  project that I felt was daunting and would require great sacrifice. Despite this great concept in my mind I always asked myself “how am I sure I’m on the right path, or even on the right journey”. That was in my mind on my journey here coming to FURI. There are moments in your life when invisible and incredible forces in the universe contort the magnetism of the planet and focus metaphysical energy on the greatest miracle that has ever existed in time…you. This event, a miracle in itself, happens to all living things in the universe. People experience this different ways. For some, things begin to just “fall into place” and people believe in “lucky days” and even attach luck or good fortune to inanimate objects like boxers and necklaces. But I don’t believe that is luck. For me, I have always believed in feeling, recieving, and putting out energy. I want this to be a good experience for everyone and for me. The first day at FURI I could feel everyone’s energy! It felt contained because no one knew eachother yet but once we started talking the energy was off the hook!

So, what I tried to say up there was basically this: If you put forth “good” energy into something you want it will happen (Law of Attraction), second, FURI is a burning hot slad bowl of bad*ss activists, artists, media savvy chaps, and just awesome people who got your back. We will be the ones who broadcast social change as it unfolds. Peace

Martin Macias Jr. likes to be called Xavi, pronounced “Ch-a-vi” (with the Basque “x” from northern Spain) not because he is an avid fan of linguistics but because the name starts with an “x” and thats just cool. Xavi is a lot of things but he is primarily a multimedia artist, activist, radio journalist, and other weird things like beer vendor and chicken wing enthusiast (yes, that’s a real job). His focus is on health and the environment but is also a media activist. He is also the host of a news/talk show called First Voice that airs on WRTE Radio Arte 90.5FM. More info on Radio Arte and First Voice here. Xavi’s video work has been screened at film festivals and is part of an art installation. His audio commentary was aired on NPR with the help of Youth Radio in New York. He will also be representing youth at this years Democratic Convention in Denver.