Apparently I only blog on SG now when I'm about to travel. I have referred to the trip I am about to take as 'my taqwacore hajj' or 'the crown jewel in my diadem of cocks'. Either way it's going to be fucking.epic.

So, taqwacore. I don't think I've talk about it on here because I didn't really get into it until right before the trip to San Francisco. In fact, if it weren't for San Francisco, I wouldn't know what taqwacore was at all. Possibly.

The internet is amazing, did you know that? Halloween night I watched an indie horror flick called The Hamiltons, and I really dug this one actor. At the end of the movie I watched the credits, looked up the actor on IMDB, did a search on his name which yielded his facebook page, added him, saw he was online at the time and within 10 minutes of the movie's completion I was chatting with Jospeh McKelheer online. The internet is fucking amazing.

So back in October...how do I put this...I sortof met a moderately well-known musician via Twitter and then went to San Francisco to hang out with him for a few days. Refer to earlier RE: The Internet. It was a sexy few days but we're just buds now, which works.He and I felt like there was this sort of higher purpose to our meeting, even though I don't usually believe in that California bullshit, so it puzzled me for a while how things ended. But here's why I bring this up:

How San Francisco Birthed Taqwacore (the birth of punk Islam) in My Life

So to prepare for my trip, I thought I would make this musician dude a t-shirt in Arabic. The t-shirt had to include the word 'punk' and when I sat down to stencil it I realized I had no idea how to say 'punk' in Arabic. I had just never had to say that word in an Arabic conversation. I tried everything, every dictionary/google translate resource I could. I called relatives. I called classmates. None of them had a clue. Finally I just googled the phrase 'punk rock in Arabic' and an article came up about this band Al-Thawra and on their lovely myspace page along with displaying their hauntingly hardcore music, it encourages people to email them about anything, anytime. Really, just like, go nuts. So I did.

For a VERY quick rundown: this author Mike Muhammed Knight wrote a book called The Taqwacores which tells the story of a punk rock house in Buffalo full of young Muslims. A dude in Texas found the book and emailed Mike Knight saying 'where can I find these awesome peeps? I've been looking for kindred spirits for a while' and Mike Knight was all 'Sorry bro, I made it up' and dude was all like 'fuck that, I'll make it real'. And then the internet did its amazing fucking magic and taqwacore became a reality.

You'll forgive me my sappiness, but the whole scene has been a bit life-changing. I've always had a wretched imbalance in America of being more religious than the heathens I roll with and too goddam heathen for anyone at all I could share spirituality with. Yes, I do porn and dance. Yes, I also wear hijab on occasion. Yes I drink and fuck and love Allah and was raised Jewish and spend half the time wondering if any of it is real at all.

So I am writing this to you now from Sundance in Park City, Utah. I drove here from Austin, stopping one night to see redmess for a hot second and then on through the longest, most perilous drive of my life. I'm in a condo with Mike Knight, two of my new Favorite Bands of All Time and All Around Awesome Dudes the aforementioned Al-Thawra and The Kominas , one of my new Favorite Bloggers of All Time and All Around Awesome Girl Taz and so many other amazing people I can't even go into it. Oh, and um, we're here because The Taqwacores was made into a movie and is screening here.

But seriously, check out how hot these boys are:






I mean, I would like their music and sparkling personalities anyway but jeeeeeezus

Anyway I"m driving some of these boys back to Chicago, dancing at the Admiral and then heading back to Austin. Hit me up

http://twitter.com/arisayeed