HISPANIC PANIC!: PUNKHISPANIC PANIC!: PUNK

[Nowhere Bar NYC]

	Wednesday, March 30 · 7:30pm - 10:00pm

P-U-N-K is a four letter word that arouses myriads of pop and underground culture imageries and emotions—for some even nostalgic memories of radicalized music, fashion, and art somehow commercialized. Many of the alleged “originators” of the movement have even questioned punk’s very existence—often claiming that the media used this word to more easily refer to multiple brash and burgeoning musical styles and fashion sensibilitie...s, and the youth worldwide who were attracted to them, beginning in the 1970s.

But the word P-U-N-K now carries more meanings than it did back then—so what en carajo does this have to do with HISPANIC PANIC!? Although Latinos are not traditionally associated with punk culture, it has undeniably seeped its way into the global conscience, and many Latinos worldwide have been seduced by its revolutionary fire—as lives on in the “desmadre” music scene in Mexico City and in the top-secret punk underground in Cuba.

Host Charlie Vázquez has assembled a dazzling lineup of writers and poets who will share with you original fiction, poetry and memoir dealing with the word P-U-N-K and all of its tentacle-like literary manifestations. Grab a beer, kick back and listen to the work of Dan Lopez, J Skye Cabrera, Sam J Miller, and Charlie Vázquez—plus we’ll be joined by iconoclasts Roberto Plena Irizarry and the inimitable Ms. Penny Arcade herself for an unforgettable evening of words and noise. And beer.


The Writers/Performers:


Penny Arcade - legend, icon, wild-hearted demoness bad-girl bitch. It is impossible to describe the juggernaut that is Penny Arcade without entering the world of hyperbole that she not only inhabits but also personifies. Since first climbing out of her bedroom window at age 13 to join the fabulously disenfranchised world of queers, junkies, whores, stars, stalkers and geniuses she has become one of the most influential performers in the world.

Since 1999 Penny has spearheaded the award winning documentary series Stemming The Tide of Cultural Amnesia, The Lower Eastside Biography Project, an oral history and downtown performance project cum training program sponsored in part by Manhattan Neighborhood Network. In addition, she is a founding member of FEVA (Federation of East Village Artists), the producer of The Howl! Festival of the Arts.

http://www.pennyarcade.tv/

J Skye Cabrera was born in the Bronx, has featured at the Nuyorican Poets Café, Bowery Poetry Club, and City College of New York, and is a member of the New York City Latina Writers Group. She is the speech for those who cannot speak. Her next project is to write a one-woman show; she likes the underground.

Roberto Plena Irizarry is a writer, musician and creative hustler of life, born in Ponce, Puerto Rico and raised in the Soundview section of the Bronx. He has performed with renowned poets at legendary venues all over New York City and hopes that one day marijuana can be traded for all goods and services. Be on the lookout in 2011 for his first EP of poetry, entitled “Plenadventures in Bombaland”.

Dan Lopez is a graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Central Florida and a past Associate Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts where he worked alongside poet and novelist Sapphire. His work has most recently appeared in Ducts, Prick of the Spindle and Time Out New York. He currently lives in Brooklyn.

Sam J. Miller is a writer, a community organizer, and the coeditor of Horror After 9/11, a critical anthology forthcoming from the University of Texas Press in the fall of 2011. His work has appeared in literary journals such as the Minnesota Review, Fiction International, Washington Square, Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, and the Rumpus.

http://samjmiller.com/

Charlie Vázquez is a radical Bronx-bred writer of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. His fiction and essays have been published in various anthologies and print and online publications such as The Advocate, Chelsea Clinton News, New York Press, and Ganymede Journal. He is a former contributor to the Village Voice’s Naked City blog and a retired experimental musician and photographer. His second novel Contraband, was published by Rebel Satori Press in spring 2010, and his third, Corazón, is wrapping up for future publication. He is also working on a short story collection and co-editing a gay Latino fiction anthology with novelist and cultural producer Charles Rice-González.

http://www.firekingpress.com/