RICK CASTRO: DIARY-5/8/2020

So This Is How The World Will End: by Rick Castro 5/7/2020

I am vacuum challenged. I bet you’ve never heard someone admit to that?

When I say vacuum, I don’t mean vortex or void, I mean cleaner. I am vacuum cleaner challenged. I have never owned a vacuum in my life… and I am really old. I bet you’ve never heard anyone admit to this either?

When I moved out of the family home waaaaaaay back in 1976, (!) Bee, (me mum) gave me an old Hoover. Within the first week of Hoovering, it broke.  At the time I couldn’t afford to buy a new one, so just used a broom. About ten years later, (yes ten) me dad gave me an old industrial type vacuum. The kind with a hose attached to a bucket on wheels. It broke within a month. I went to Sears to look at vacuums and decided they were a waste of $$. I was fine with a broom. I never lived in a place with carpets. My residencies  were always concrete floor industrial artist spaces or vintage hardwood floors. 

I was fine with a broom, in fact I acquired a beautiful collection of exotic magical brooms from far away lands, like Thailand & Bangladesh, even Oaxaca. I was very happy with my brooms. Then about five or so years ago, me circa 1948 apartment with hardwood floors was becoming unbearably dusty. The accumulation of ancient cat hair and dust bunnies was too, too much. Even for me. I’d hear my upstairs neighbor Jenny, Hoovering every few hours, at all hours. I guess she’s a clean freak… 

So I thought I’d bite the bullet, take the plunge, and ask her if I could borrow her vacuum. 

“Of course, she said with glee, this is a DYSON, It's the best!” She was so proud of her vacuum. I had no idea what a Dyson was, but pleased she said yes so quickly. I’m sure everybody is familiar with Dyson’s, but I was not. I was impressed with the aerodynamic design. Like a slim robot. Then I turned it on… whoah it was incredible. The suction! This baby was sucking more dirt and dust than could be seen by the naked eye. This Dyson was literally giving head to my entire apartment. Now I understood why Jenny vacuumed so much. It’s a pleasing feeling to see your place absolutely sparkle with clean. Suddenly the Dyson stopped. It just turned off… for no reason. It wouldn’t go back on. I’d somehow broken Jenny’s Dyson. I looked them up online. They were seven hundred dollars! To start! What was I gonna do?…. Sheepishly I climb the steps with the broken Dyson in my arms, dreading the look on Jenny’s face when I tell her I broke her dildo, I mean vacuum.  I hand her back her baby and wait for the ball to drop. “Oh, it does that sometimes, no big deal.” She plugs it in and it starts right up. Ok, I was spared bankruptcy by a vacuum. Now I was definitely a broom only guy. 

The first time I came to Bee’s cabin, (October 2019) there is no way to handle all this desert dirt and seven years of accumulated dust with a broom. I tried to use Bee’s original Hoover, (circa 1968) and it was leaving black marks. Ok put that away. I then asked me sister if I could borrow her’s. This was last year when she wasn’t part of the Christian-cult, so she said yes. I used it very gingerly, mindful if I made one false move it would all be over. After using it all afternoon I returned it to her, still intact, but full of dirt and dust. 
I didn’t know how to remove the dirt cup. It took us both awhile to clean it to her standards. 

That was a year ago, now living at Bee’s cabin for going on three months, something’s gotta give. When I was visiting my cousin Minguini, (not his real name) a few weeks ago, I spotted a Bissell in the shed he hooked up for my Wifi usage. “Does that vacuum work?” I asked. “You can have it,” He happily replies.  I take it home plug it in and start to vacuum. Suddenly I hit a rock or something larger than it  doesn't like....  I broke it! 
When I was in LA  three weeks ago, I brought from home an old Eureka that an old roomie left about six years ago. I never used it before. I plug it in and Hoover away, only to realize its not picking up dirt, only pushing it around.
It doesn’t work. 

Today is my vacuum red letter day! My dear friend Corley sent me a gift card for Target. Off I go to Hesperia, (remember I wrote about it- HERE) not my fave place, but the only town around with a Target. I’m sure I can pick up a cute little vacuum with $50 gift card. 
I realize you’re laughing at my naiveté. In the world of vacuums I am ignorant. I am dismayed that every vacuum is at the very least $150, most are well over $200 and if you want a Dyson or this new brand Shark, (everyone seems to be talking about) they’re over $400 fucking dollars! I ask the overweight masked sales boy, who just happens to be gayer than springtime, if any of the sample vacuums are actually in stock. Turns out they are not. There is only one to choose from under $100, a petite Dirt Devil: cordless, $90. Ok I'll take it, just get out of Hespira as quickly as possible and back to my comfort zone of Bee’s cabin.

I take the Dirty Devil outta the box… it is soooo tiny… and flimsy! If I look at it too hard it will crack. This is not gonna last me…… 
Ok, Instructions…. I have to charge it… for six hours! So…. in six hours I will be able to use this stick figure vacuum with the hope it doesn’t snap in my arms. I am definitely vacuum challenged. I’ll stick to a broom. After all, I’m used to them.

On a positive note, I purchased gas in Hesperia for $2.33 a gallon! When was the last time you could say that? At least I’m not gas challenged. 

So this is how the world will end.

copyright- rick castro- 5/2020

please donate to Rick Castro: It’s the right thing to do- here or -here-

RICK CASTRO: DIARY- 5/5/2020

So This Is How The World Will End: by Rick Castro 5/5/2020

auntie nicky's dormant cabin

The crows have taken over my auntie Nicky’s cabin.

I can see them fly onto the eves, then ... where do they go? They disappear into the dormant palatial ski lodge, abandoned and forgotten for thirty years.

My vantage point to view this phenomena is from my cousin Minguini’s, (not his real name) shed. He hooked it up just for me to use whenever I want to connect WiFi. The shed is cool. It has a comfy day bed, cute discarded furniture and a fridge!

cousin minguini's shed- auntie nicky's cabin right background

I’m here pretty much everyday, even though my sister is right next door. She arrived yesterday morning unannounced. When I went over to greet her, she wouldn’t open the door. The excuse is I might be contagious, but she never said that. I tried to call her at the beginning of the plague, and she wouldn’t take my calls. Reluctantly she’d text a couple days later. I texted about using her WiFi, she said she didn’t know the password. Now I’m asking her in person behind a screen door and her non-response is, “oh, I’ll have to find it.” I will not be asking again, in fact I’m through with her. As my therapist said; “when she remarried, she made her decision.”

I am now making mine.

So once again, even though my sister & her Christian-cult husband are right next door, I am at my cousin Minguini’s shed on his WiFi. Looming to the West is auntie Nicky’s abandon cabin. It is huge, like a desert Manderley without Mrs. Danvers. Weathered and ashen the wooden estate sits there like a stubborn old broad in the glaring sun. 

Where are these crows going? I fantasize breaking in and discovering a huge cabin full of birds! Like Tippi Hedren in the Hitchcock classic, they attack me, but Rod Taylor isn’t here to save me. 

Ok my curiosity has reach the point of a cat. I want to see what the crows are up to. Over the years there are rumors that Nicky’s cabin is rat infested. Is it also crow infested? I have to find out. I walk over to the fence separating Minguini’s property to auntie Nicky's. If I was younger I could scale it, but I am too old now. I will fall and break my neck. I’m also wearing those flimsy pony hair slippers I had repaired in Hesperia a while ago. Remember? I wrote about it HERE- These slippers are not made for 60something old men scaling chainlink fences. 

Ok, I’ve found a tall chair and metal folding chair, this should do the trick… Nope, too precarious. Ok, I’ve found a step ladder, I am set! Nope still too short. Since I threw my back out a few years ago I am extra cautious. I know! I'll walk over to the West side entrance. From what I remember, the gap may be wide enough for me to slither through. 

I walk down Minguini’s long driveway making my way down the road to the West side entrance of Nicky’s abandoned cabin. There’s the gate… Nope I’m too fat to fit thru this, even though I recently lost 25 lbs, I would need to loose another 50 lbs to get thru this narrow gap.

Awww there’s a cute little bunny…. and look where it went! Underneath the fence in a sandy wash. The bunny is now inside Nicky’s property! I follow the bunny’s clue and flatten myself as much as I can and slide under the fence. The hot sand feels good against my chest. I am in! I am now wandering the property of auntie Nicky’s haunted ski lodge. It is amazing… so still… I have all these memories, looking at them now they’re dead. Frozen in time. The cabin is so weathered, but I remember it in its full glory. I remember the huge fireplace with open bricks every so often. This confused me, until Uncle Mike explained the openings created more heat. I remember one winter we were all at Nicky & Mike’s cabin. The fire was raging. It was so toasty. All of a sudden a huge flaming log rolled out of the fireplace and onto the rug. Without hesitation uncle Mike picked up the flaming log and threw it back into the fireplace. That was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen to date.

Sorry, I got lost in nostalgia. I follow the bunny and now I am standing in front of Nicky’s cabin. Suddenly there are two black crows, they are huge! They fly away in anger, cawing at me that I have invaded their territory. As I get closer I see the most spectacular thing I’ve seen in a longtime. A large crow’s nest with at least two crow chicks, (is that what they’re called?) maybe more. The nest is huge and messy. It looks soooo……. occult. Like a massive omen looming in the late afternoon sun. I am mesmerized. It is not often I see something I’ve never seen before. I’ve never seen this before. I take a picture, then feel like it’s sacrilegious to do so. Not in a religious way, more like in an invasion of privacy way. The crow chicks look so vulnerable. 

I decide to give them their privacy. I wander down back to the sandy wash where I entered, and there is the bunny! He isn’t afraid of me, its like he was waiting for me. He doesn’t move at all. He knows me, (maybe it’s reincarnated auntie Nicky!) he knows my soul. I slide back under the fence of auntie Nicky’s mystical property and I am back in the real world. The parent crows are across the road perched ontop a telephone pole, waiting to see what I would do, and I did nothing. I only observed and learned. 

I remember a commercial when I was a kid…. something like, “It's not nice to fool mother nature.” I didn’t and she accepted me. Now back to my mundane Christian sister & brother-in-law neighbors, invading my privacy and the sanctuary of Bee’s cabin.

So this is how the world will end.

copyright- rick castro- 5/2020

my sister's christian-cult cabin

please donate to Rick Castro: It’s the right thing to do- here or -here-

RICK CASTRO: DIARY- 4/3/2020

So This Is How The World Will End: by Rick Castro 4/3/2020

This is my great uncle on Bee’s, (my mother) side. 

Tío, (uncle) Cuco was about 90 when I took this photo, circa 1987ish. He was camera shy, and didn’t want to pose, so I took it when he wasn’t expecting.  Cuco Medrano lived with his wife and six children on a 500 acre rancho just outside a tiny little town called Calera, close to  El Ciudad de Zacatecas, in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico.

El Rancho was constructed from adobe sometime circa 1830s. It has always been in the family. To this day it’s a working ranch, currently run by the grandson’s of tío Cuco. He grew chili, garlic, corn and livestock- chickens and goats. During a summer visit, 1970ish, they slaughtered a goat and cooked it underground overnight. Just for us, the visiting familia… 
I’ve never had such tasty meat… I don’t think i’ve eaten goat since.

The Medrano’s also cleared their feed barn and held a fiesta just for us!

To this day, (I was about 10 yrs old) I remember Bee’s face beaming with love as she danced with her Uncle Cuco to a local Mariachi band. Then the younger primos, (cousins) placed 45’s on a small record player, and we danced to the hits of the early 70s, 
(Osmond’s, Jackson 5) as the elders looked on.

As the story goes, during 1914 the Mexican Revolution was in full force. Poncho Villa was a hero to some, and enemy to others, 
like land owners. Rumors were circulating thru the town of Calera, that Poncho Villa’s Men were on their way. This being part of the historical, Toma de Zacatecas, (taking of Zacatecas) . Villa’s men had been instructed to  steal all the silver, burn all the crops, kill all the livestock and impregnate women with their seed. My great-grandfather, (Bee’s grandfather) gathered all the women and girls, loaded them with all the silver & gold they could carry on their bodies, and put them on the train to Silver City, New Mexico. Poncho’s army did come to the ranch, they wreaked havoc, pillaged, burned crops, killed and ate livestock, destroyed a couple walls, but there were no women to have their way with. 

When the war ended, my great-grandfather summoned all the women to return home. 

All except for my grandmother, she met my grandfather in Silver City and fell in love. 

My grandparents married, then followed the mines as laborers. They traveled throughout New Mexico, Arizona, then to Southern California in the early 1920s, eventually buying a modest home in Boyle Heights.

My grandmother, Lupe Medrano was a spoiled ranchers daughter.

Once she married my grandfather in Estados Unidos, she became a second class citizen for the remainder of her life. 
She never learned english, never became more than a housewife and mother to 10 children, three that died at birth. She died at age 34 of tuberculosis, way before I was even a concept.

I sent a copy of this photo to El Rancho right after tío Cuco passed. That November my photo of Tio Cuco was the centerpiece of the altar for, Dia De Los Muertos en El Rancho de Zacatecas. I also framed and gave this copy to Bee for her Birthday. 

Mi Portrait del tío Cuco Medrano: Ranchero de Zacatecas, has proudly hung at Bee's cabin since 1987. 
We have tea together every morning.

So this is how the world will end.

copyright-rick castro- 4/2020

Please donate to Rick Castro: It's the right thing to do- here-

CHECK OUT RICK CASTRO- FERTILE LA TOYAH JACKSON VIDEO SCREENING- SEPT 8TH!

FERTILE LA TOYAH JACKSON

Sunday, September 8, 2019, 7:00 pm

Plummer Park - Long Hall Courtyard

7377 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90046
FREE!

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Rick Castro, Fertile La Toyah Jackson, miniVHS on HD video, 52min., 1993
RESTORATION PREMIERE!

Vaginal Davis launched her groundbreaking publication Fertile La Toyah Jackson in the late 1980s. The photocopied zine brimmed with local art and music factoids, with styling and photos by Rick Castro (working under the alias Beula Luv), pieces of celebrity gossip and quickly established the queercore music scene by detailing (one could argue “exaggerating”) Ms. Davis’ musical projects: Cholita; The Afro Sisters; Black Fag; and Pedro, Muriel and Esther. Establishing Davis as an erstwhile chronicler of the alternative musical movement, Tower Records even signed an international distribution deal for the black & white 8.5x11” publication. Dennis Cooper likened its loquacious contents to Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon series, on account of its insider gossip, celebrity sex stories and fantastic lore that the Davis presented as fact.

In 1993, Davis teamed up Rick Castro (Hustler White) to make Fertile move. Together they created two VHS volumes of the zine, which captured the zeal of the publication, but also documented Los Angeles in transition, as shows like Melrose Place began to make their city streets a mass culture stomping ground. Posing as an MTV VJ, Davis walks the Santa Monica strip for segment “Streetwalker Fashions” interviewing the trans sex workers there, transforming the boulevard into a red carpet affair as she asks, “who are you wearing?” Other chapters depict lost West Hollywood haunts like Eat A Pita, The French Marketplace and the mirrored hustler haven, Numbers. Brimming with local talent, like Taste of Latex editor Lily Burana, Iris Parker of Madame X, RuPaul even makes an appearance, as she promotes her breakout single “Supermodel” and sits for a one-on-one interview with Ms. Davis. 

RICK CASTRO & FERTILE LA TOYAH JACKSON- CIRCA 1994

Dirty Looks is thrilled to screen a new restoration of Fertile La Toyah Jackson Volume 1, produced with the support of the City of West Hollywood Arts Division’s Transgender Arts Initiative, under the stars of West Hollywood and in the former hustler haven of Plummer Park. Copies of Dirty Looks Volume 4 will be distributed at the event, featuring a chapter chronicling the title, with contributions by Rick Castro, Joshua Chambers-Letson, Rudy “Bleu” Garcia, Brontez Purnell and Linda Simpson.

Rick Castro is a Los Angeles-based photographer, filmmaker & writer known for his work focusing on fetish and desire. In 1994 Rick's VHS footage of hustler interviews inspired Bruce LaBruce to collaborate as co-directors/writers for the film Hustler White, (1996). The film was a great success internationally and is listed by the Los Angeles Times top 100 underground films of the 20th century. Castro also directed a documentary for MTV called, Plushies & Furries, (2001) the first mainstream project about the furry community. Fertile LaToyah Jackson video magazines, (1993) are examples of Castro’s early raw, jovial film work with then unknown “blacktress" Vaginal Davis as star. 

Vaginal Davis is the internationally revered intersexed doyenne of intermedia arts and sciences. She takes public discourse to Dementia 13 levels as she spells out the queer and blatino experience in her own inemitable fashion creating new words out of thin air and crashing bull-in-a-Madame Mau China-Shop style over notions of propriety and reality.

This event was made possible with the support of the City of West Hollywood through a Transgender Arts Initiative grant.

ALL PHOTOS- RICK CASTRO AKA BEULA LUV

RICK CASTRO BY THE DAY

RICK CASTRO- PORTRAIT OF ALICE BAG: MACARTHUR PARK 2019

RICK CASTRO- PORTRAIT OF ALICE BAG: MACARTHUR PARK 2019

BIO

LAMY MEN BY RICK CASTRO

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With a tip of the hat to Paris and Roma. Working to get it right. #lamymen #1987 #michelelamy #annecrawford #charleschill #ericengler #asvoff10 #dianepernet #paris #roma #wanderingthroughframe #someonesintheshot #thetroopsareready #action #cut #richardnewton

A post shared by Ric Marin (@ric_marin) on Nov 26, 2018 at 8:17am PST

YES, I ACTUALLY DESIGNED THE FIRST MENWEAR LINE FOR MICHELE LAMY- CIRCA 1987-88

CLOTHING- RICK CASTRO

PHOTOS- RICK CASTRO

HOUSE MODEL- TONY WARD

LAMY MEN DIRECTOR- RICHARD NEWTON