Ya'll wanna see SXSW photos??

Well, you're gonna have to wait because I'm editing them.



You guys like nerdcore? Standup comedy? Hiphop? Chicks in boots? I got you.

a salaamu alaikum

EV

Eid mubarak!

Should i move to Providence, RI?

I am in London and desperately need cash. If you have any info or leads, please hit me up.

Things I will do for money involve:

heavy lifting

naked photos

naked dancing

regular dancing

regular photos

regular lifting


Appreciate it.

Cheers

I am going to be in the UK and France next week, insha'Allah for a little while, so if you live in those places and want to suggest fun things to do with myself or yourself let me know. You should probably go see one of the taqwacore shows with me. My pals the Kominas have a new album out today, check it out. They're amazing. here it is it's $7 or free. For some reason.

After that i will be in Palestine for a month or two. I don't think there are any Palestinian members, but I will be in Israel now and then so if you're in Israel and aren't a zionist racist that would like to grab a drink or movie with a Palestinian muslim, let me know

I'm wrapping the movie I've been filming tomorrow night. I am also very very tired.

Pictures of me, picture of me on my birthday in new orleans with haydenelder and justin kline and justin kline's roommate, picture of me someone put on the internet and advertising me as an escort. Respectively.

Thought I'd share some pictures from Sundance...for more on my Sundance experience and other tidbits on being Arab in America and Muslim in the Strip Club you can always read http://thegazastripper.tumblr.com/



Arjun Ray and Riz MC of The Kominas breaking into Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's condo. We were invited, I swear.



Waiting to see The Taqwacores premiere with Jesse (Alternative Tentacles) and Al-Thawra



My view from the merch table. I hope that Shahjehan is signing up for Filmstrip's email list, and not hi own email list cause that would be stoopid.



Faith (did costume and makeup for The Taqwacores) and I were pretty gay for each other. Right before this show we hid in the girl's bathroom and polished off an entire bottle of rum and talked about squirting.



I was able to take this picture because my motel in Chicago had a mirror on the freaking ceiling. It also had a porno channel, not hidden or blurry or anything. Clear as day, right up the dial from FX. All it showed were ethnic women with huge butts clapping to rappers, and then having sex with the rappers. Now you understand why Imran and I were still in bed. Heyyyyyoooooo.


SXSW IS COMING UP PEEPS!
The Taqwacores will be screening, as well as the documentary Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam.

AS WELL as Four Lions, a comedy about jihadists. It's like the movie was made for me! Not only that, but it features one of the most beautiful and awesome boys I have met in a very long time, Arsher Ali

Anyone going to SXSW? What do you plan on seeing/doing?

Interesting fact:

This is what I look like most of the time these days



I'm on a one-woman crusade to make islamic dress fashionable and relevant to the modern lady.


or something.

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

Whatup SG?

I got back from San Francisco which was amazing and perfect in every way. Should be moving to the Bay Area this upcoming August, unless I get in to UCLA and then I'll be...well, in LA.

Mostly it will be nice to be closer to Tatian and away from Austin where I know everyone and run in to everyone all the time.




In SF i visited R3X


and he took me to the really crooked street and the fisherman's wharf and chinatown and put up with me while i drank an entire liter of Sailor Jerry's by myself.
We also:
*harassed an old lady doing thai chi (sp?)
*peed in the woods while R3X was lookout
*smoked a cigar until i walked into a bar with it and the cigar was escorted out

Then i walked home from a bar on Market and Castro to my hotel on Powell. I felt like a badass.

The rest of the time I hung out with a really neat boy who was awesome and we had sushi and went dancing and back to the room. He also took me to the beach which was amazing and around some other little towns. He gave me some much needed perspective on things and also was a really phenomenal...host. Ahem.

What else is new? I will be spending the summer here:


otherwise known as :

(youlike? Got them done on Friday night)

otherwise known as the West Bank where I will be studying Jerusalem dialect and hopefully volunteering teaching English to children there.

Basically, life is good. Going to see Dead Prez on Tuesday, so freaking excited!

Found out last night that Russell threw all my stuff out. I have like, no reaction. It's sad to know that he would get rid of Avigails stuffed animals and toys when he professed to care about her so much, and one of the things i left behind was my suitcase full of every precious letter, keepsake, photo, etc. But honestly I really am not bothered. It's just stuff. And it's just that much less stuff I will have to tote with me to California.

I love you, I love life, the world is love.

Also, I had short hair:


now i have long hair:

So crack a bottle, let you're body waddle
Don't act like a snobby model you just hit the lotto
UhohUhoh bitches hopping in my tahoe (prism)
Got one of em riding shotgun and not on e of them got gloves
Now where's the rubbers? who's got the rubbers?
I noticed there's so many of them and there's really not that many of us
Ladies love us, my posse's kicking up dust...

Apologies, I just listened to that song 3 times in a row.

Rumour control coming soon, but in the meantime heres a summary and a bunch of picture hints.


Oh man,

while we're on that topic



Were you ever in a terrible situation but thought 'i just can't leave this person. it would be worse without them' but then you leave and your life is WAY better than it's been in years and you think, what the hell was I thinking? Probably you have. Well, that's where I am now.

No hard feeling, he was a real bro up until i left (packed up my shit while he was at work- wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on that wall when he came home?) and now he's being a dickhead but isn't that how it always ends?

"EVANGELINNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I'm inexplicably in love with you because of how you make me feel even though I haven't really done very much on my part to be invested in who you are. And now I'm FUCKING SHOCKED that even though we had almost nothing in common you are leaving me, what do you mean I didn't POSSESS you FOREEEVVVVVEEERRRRR?"

Seriously. Same ending. Every time.

So now I'm sitting at Spiderhaus with all the hipsters. But i won't be a snob, I look just as LookAtThatFuckingHipster as the rest of them. But at least I'm self aware, fools.

More new stuff:



at least im banking now. And that 's going to be a steampunk undersea-sleeve soon.

Let rumours fly until we chat next.

Oh! Almost forgot:

Didn't feel like rotating. My ass. It says "Weevil love you long time" which is amazing to you if you watch Veronica Mars. If you don't, you're probably just a bad person.

What the fuck am I doing? Just like...what the fuck.

I know what I SHOULD be doing, is my homework. But I'm stuck on a section right now and all the Arabic speakers I know are in Austin right now and I am in College Station.

Although, not for long. I am planning a secret and complete exodus soon. It's been 2 years of riding different highs that have eventually faded to realizing we don't really have that much in common. I've been listening to MC Lars and K. Flay's Single and Famous single almost every morning to give me strength and remind me what I'm doing.

Speaking of,MC Lars is my current celebrity crush. He's talented, educated, and a sexy beast who has played with the Aquabats and Wheatus but isn't afraid to talk about crying over a girl. He knows more about literature than you and he's friends with Weird Al. And I'm seriously obsessed with this video


I'm going to miss Tatian so very much. Trying to shoot with her before she leaves.


That's me in the picture because I chopped off my hair and dyed it. I'll post better pictures of it soon.

I also got a new tattoo on my butt...but I can't access gmail right now so picture of that later too. When I told my friend Lindsay, the discussion went like this -

Ev: What do you think?
Lindsay: I think that's a terrible idea.
Ev: Yeah, but it'll be on my butt so no one will see it...
(beat)
...except thousands of people on the internet.