I <3 making videos: my two latest spoken word rants "inconsequential…" and "Grabbing Christmas"

I am falling in love with making videos. It is not a coincidence that the national news is simultaneously terrifying (a fear based stimulant) and despairing (a dread-based depressant). I need a new pursuit of political art that I can sink into.

Right now, that pursuit would not be fiction. I am doing a very fine edit on an old novel, Operation HOLOGRAM, about FBI surveillance of an African American eco-racial justice organization. While I love the novel, I am editing 70,000 words. One. By. One. It’s slow and tedious, and I need a creative outlet from my creative outlet.

I have probably always wanted to be a filmmaker. When I was a young woman, a person needed expensive equipment and hours of studio time to film and edit anything. But now, with my iphone, and the cameo app, I can make a short video in minutes. So I made two this week.

“Grabbing Christmas,” is a mash up of Tr*mp’s speech last week at the Christmas tree lighting with his “locker room talk” on the bus.

The second one I finished yesterday, “inconsequential: a sexual violence choose-your-own-adventure.” I shot it in uptown/downtown Oakland, particularly at the Impact Hub.

And of course, there’s also the video that started my latest craze, “Puerto Rico & Mr. Jones.” I shot it on my iphone, and a friend was supposed to edit it, but she got backlogged with other work. Finally, I decided: I can do this myself . And I figured it out with cameo.

In these days of rage, I need this type of outlet. However, the second video highlights the good news lately, that sexual predators are finally getting some comeuppance. May this trend extend all the way to the White House…and Alabama. Now that would make it a very happy holiday…