tmj blog site

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Letter To TMJ people

Yesterday I opened up my mailbox to find a link to an article, from a concerned friend, in NYMag about the latest trend in NYC nightlife. I am a DJ who runs a mixed queer dance party in Brooklyn so I had no choice but to read it. To my dismay, That’s My Jam, the party that I throw with Trent Brooks was on the list being described as follows:

“A roving affair that sets down in three bars in Brooklyn. Its original intention, allegedly, was to promote interracial hookups. It seems to be working.”

Without having interviewed any of the parties organizers, or doing some basic google research, the author, Liz Armstrong, felt comfortable summing up a music-focused dance party (called That’s My Jam) as a space designed with the intention of promoting interracial hooking up. That’s My Jam is a space that the queer community values as a safe space because it aggressively avoids alienating labels like gender, race, sexuality, etc. That’s what makes the party a success, not who hooks up there. How a queer person could not see the problematic aspects of describing one of the few truly diverse regular queer events in BK as an interracial hookup party simply reveals the fact that neither the writer nor the magazine have any regard for how it represents diverse queer communities.

TMJ is a party that focuses on the politics of fair representation in a way that is central to it’s existence. We take our own photos and use social network media instead of relying on mainstream press so that we don’t get misrepresented or written up by people who don’t really understand what’s going on. So when a magazine writer decides to use her queer card and take license to write about her community in broad strokes like this, she is essentially glossing over a lot of representational work that has been done by this community to create a space that is safe from the types of labels and descriptions that people who don’t get diversity need use. If Liz thinks that TMJ is there because the organizers wanted to make a space for NY Magazine readers to access an interracial lesbian hookup, and that seems to be her interpretation of the party, she clearly didn’t do her research.

In fact, if the author had actually contacted the organizers prior to writing about TMJ she would have gotten two simple responses from us that would have made it more difficult to include us on her list of “Brooklyn centered Sapphic circuit” (gag)

1) We’re not a lesbian party so don’t call us that.

2) We don’t exist to provide NYMag readers with a place to find an interracial hookup with girls, so don’t write us up that way.

Please stop giving New York Magazine your queer money and save it for a publication that prefers to represent diversity in a more dignified manner.

Peace

DJ Tikka

New Blog Location:

www.djtikka.com

The blog has moved to a new location! please update your aggregators.

Trent In Time Out NY!

Check out TMJ's best boy T-Bone Trent in Time Out NY. Yes, it's true, he's single and very eligible.

TMJ News

Finally there's an order developing out of the chaos that has been TMJ over the past few months. There's a permanent new space that can accommodate the entire party, all at once. The party will continue at Sputnik as well. But now the key is to get together a schedule that Brooklyn Queers can set their clocks to. So here it is:

1st Saturdays: TMJ at Sputnik

3rd Saturdays: TMJ at The Bell House

Every Friday Night: BK's freshest DJ's at Fresh Fridays in Bushwick.

From TMJ #14: Bell House

Tikka's Opening for Pharoahe Monch : Saturday : October 17, 2009

Sputnik, is after all a Hip Hop centric venue, so come see what happens when TMJ's resident DJ Tikka gets in the mix before Pharoahe Monch. Our DJ's are opening for some really accomplished Hip Hop artists, thanks to Sputnik. Thanks Sputnik!

The Queerist Wrote us UP

Thanks Queerist!
Check this out.

And the party people last TMJ were HOT.

Thanks Shay!



TMJ wants to let folks know that we're having our next TMJ at Tandem, in Bushwick. This is a new venue, that deserves our attention and support. It's two sisters starting up a club space on the Jefferson stop on th L train. It's the type of project that we should feel good about putting queer cash into. They have queer staff, are focused on having diverse programming, and have a genuine interest in supporting queer programming and people.

We are also looking at another Gowanus venue, The Bell House, as a possible new home. The space is massive, but we want to see how the crowd feels about it before committing.

We've got some video clips from our first anniversary bash. Yalini Dream, Princess Lockaroo, and Ganessa James graced us with their fabulous spoken word, dance, and musical performances.



And TMJ veterans, She-Dick, are simply... amazing. We have been in love with them since the first time they played for us at Sputnik in the Spring.