Danilo Parra | Lovebryan

Farther East Side

Danilo Parra — Sun, 06 May 2012 05:31:19 +0000

I spent the last month wondering around China working on a few documentary pieces and learning about how massive China is. Everything is massive in China. From the restaurants to the shopping malls. I only got to see the Eastern part of China, but I can’t wait to return for the West. The stops we took were to: Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Here are some of the pictures from that trip.

Building of the future. Shanghai – 7:00 am

My trouble maker roommate contemplating his next move.

This is not happening in my hotel room, I swear…no…really, ok fine…you caught me.

Yes, monkeys ride bikes to work in China. The myth is true.

Early morning McDonalds delights.

Shopping area in Shanghai.

Not as bad as it looks, actually, way better than it looks.

This doll was six year old child size. Pretty creepy.

This is Homer Simpson’s new donut shaped apartment.

Hitler inspired play.

The Chinese have a boogie man too.

This is what Chinese dive bar bathrooms look like.

It was painful to watch Chinese calligraphy.

This place had salmonella poisoning written all over it.

Japan isn’t Japan without Yuka from Triple Nipple.

We stayed in Shinjuku which is where all the host clubs are located. The hosts bring people into the clubs rain or shine.

Cherry blossom festival.

At the cherry blossom festival a lot of alcohol poisoning injuries occurred.

Should we do it? Should we Karaoke?

Karaoke!!!

Yuka is amazing at Blondie songs.

The East is a vast place to explore but they are no longer strangers in my mind. Cheers to the East.

Fight for Christ Sake

Danilo Parra — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:23:19 +0000

The Chumbivilcan Province of Peru is the Wildest of the Wild West. The area consists of farmers, miners, and drunks. It’s considered the poorest region of Peru and the majority of the population is under 16 years old. In this region, a violent festival is held on every Christmas Day called Takanakuy. The festival gives the participants the right to fist fight their enemies in front of the whole town in hopes of solving their problems. Whether it’s a fight over a lost lover, or a fight over land, the winner claims what’s at stake until the following year. This is law in this lawless land. An old fashion judicial system that for these people works.

What may look like a halloween costume, is in fact a disguise worn by the local fighters on Christmas day. Their voices are even concealed as they taunt each-other in very high pitch cartoonish kinda way. Before the fight, the mask is removed and the opponent is revealed.

Shopping during this time of year is in full force just like anywhere else in the world. But the items in demand are much different. A woman sells traditional cowboy wear to the eager fighters.

Santiago, the director of the documentary we were filming, suits up to blend right in.

The festive music they played was on repeat the whole time we were there. All hours of the night. It seemed like it was just one song over and over again.

They wore local dead animals on their heads. My favorite one was a skunk hat. Maybe he was notorious for smelling really bad. Or he was a pot head.

Hawk hat.

Seagull hat.

The fox hat was pretty cool too.

It gave him super fox jumping abilities.

I loved the harp’s that they used. They would parade around with them as if they were weightless. But those things were super heavy.

The fight usually happens in the town bull ring, but since it was muddy from the rain, they moved it to an even muddier location.

This was the first fight I saw a day before Christmas. People were drunk an impatient and everyone was excited to get the ball rolling on the fights.

It was a heavy vibe. I think people were still getting used to gringos being on their turf. Little did they know, one of us was planning to participate in a brawl.

I don’t think anyone anticipated that Thomas would enter the ring.

I think I was more afraid for Thomas than he was for himself. I could be wrong though.

Advice was given on how to fight Takanakuy style by the man on the left. I think that helped ease Thomas’s nerves. I think the bottle on the right also helped out.

Nerves were then heightened when we saw the aftermath of the drunk fighters. Pulverized, and still spinning in circles.

That night, Thomas had a few more convincing words of encouragement before the fight the next morning.

These men were the only law in the ring. They whipped the crowd when they became too rowdy.

This man used his belt.

At one point during the fighting, Matt walked into the circle of mayhem holding only his camera eye piece. He looked at me and calmly announced that his video camera got stolen. Entering the circle was almost the most dangerous part of the event. People were generally welcoming to us but some of the locals were annoyed that we were there, and things got hostile. A man grabbed Matt’s camera and took off, but our driver, Rene, located the thief and eventually got the camera back. The story was on the local radio the following day. Rene boasted about his heroic acts for the following three days.

I made friends with the young fighters so their bigger brothers wouldn’t stomp me.

Hands were wrapped in colorful fabric to soften the blow.

Fights were mostly ended pretty quickly. The long ones were usually due to the opponents taunting one another for the first few minutes of the battle. Then someone would fall or be knocked out and it would either end in rage or a peaceful hug.

A knee to the face never felt better.

It is said that after a fight the issues are solved. This was one of two peaceful hugs after the match that went down. A very uncommon sight.

Woman fought too.Woman fights were the crowd favorites. They were also the most brutal.

These woman got down. They were too tough for the colorful fabric I guess.

A punch to the face that was probably well deserved. But who knows.

A return punch to the left punching bag.

I cannot reveal the outcome of Thomas’s fight, but you will be able to see the documentary here: www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/takanakuy-part-1″

After the festivities, life in the Chumbivilcan Province of Peru returned to normal. The sheep were herded and the mines were mined. Revenge is on hold till next year.

PACHAMAMA LAND

Danilo Parra — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:56:59 +0000

Cusco peru: Trying to ignore the altitude while drinking mate de coca.

The coolest gang I ever laid eyes on.

A game of hide and go seek!!

Thats hanging in my living room.

Babe the pig is now an x-pat in peru. And so are his kids.

Pisac is where the hippies go to do intoxicated soul searching. It didn’t work on me though. I guess my soul has been searched already.

The clouds would cover it, and it would disappear. I see why it took so long to discover.

I took this for Mindy’s mom.

And I took this for me.

This one is for Mindy’s mom and me at the same time.

Guinea pigs in Peru are really cute but…

They eat guinea pigs in Peru.

New Years in Cusco.

A tourist from the Matrix showed up.

A beautiful wedding on new years eve. 2012 welcomes you.

A Life on the Floor

Danilo Parra — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:50:29 +0000

A month ago I started working on a project about my friend Dashaun Evisu, a Vogue Ball Room MC and Vogue Fem dancer. I was quickly thrown into the vogue scene, going to gay bars where the vogue balls went down, and I got enthralled in the vibrant history. I became obsessed and wanted to know everything. I watched Paris is Burning and only found myself getting more and more into it. Now I’m a dancer who wins every competition in NYC. JK, you thought that is where this story was going though, right? RIGHT? I wish. The dance is incredibly hard to do. Way more than putting frames around your face with your hands at different angles like Mandonna. I tried a few moves on my hard wood floor which led to arm pain, and then a few dips on my bed, which led to back pain. I told Dashaun I have been trying to dip and that maybe I can help him out at his dance class and he said, “Danilo, Oh my god, Noooooo, your gonna break your neck,” and he began to laugh. Maybe I won’t be a vogue dancer, or vogue expert, but I made a short film that will maybe inspire you to give it a shot.

And here are some pictures I took during the shoot.

NO TO LIGHT, YES TO TOOTH

Danilo Parra — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:55:59 +0000

Location: North Carolina
Mission: Have fun
Other Mission: Make a Sweet Tooth Nelson music video.
Tour Guide: Bryan Derballhandler.
Pictures: Were fun to take too.
Hypothesis: High Octane.
Target: We stopped by there.
Food: Was amazing.
MVP: Me
Who else: NO ONE ELSE!
You sure: no comment
WAIT WHAT?: next question.
Nudity: Hallies
Rated: R++
Aspect Ratio: Slut-Teen by 69
Anything Else: Look and see…

And the video:

Thanks to:
Jacobs one night of fame
Bellemes fire kit
Hallies mothership
Bubba for scarring me
Alex is the new Dicaprio
Annalese’s hut building skills
Matts wang piece of minds eye
Jesse’s project safety managing
Derballas DJ’ing
Camerons chief captain of mission control
John Chu’s fear conquer-ship
Christine’s amazing at swimming
Rope Swings power and agility
Bella’s strength and finess
Ariels awareness
Mindy’s delicate nature explorer-ship
and last but not least
Sweet Tooth’s blade skills and uncontrolled method acting.

Order of How Things Unfolded…

Danilo Parra — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:32:56 +0000

Try and make some story out of looking at these pictures and in your comment tell me what that story was so I can steal it and use it as my caption for this photo blog entry. Winner gets a your story in my caption. That’s like…SUPER AWESOME FOR YOU. So give me your best go. Disassemble the story. And….GO!

ON POINT IN POLAND-POINT

Danilo Parra — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:14:02 +0000

I went on a trip to Poland recently to document the behind the scenes of a film being made there. I went from Greenpoint, Brookyln, where I live, to the real deal, and it was interesting to see the similarities and differences. It was a awesome time because of how beautiful the small town we were filming in was. Plus the catering was off the chain. I never knew how much I liked Polish food. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

A man peels potatoes outside the bar bus catering vehicle.

The director of the film. Jan Kwiecinski.

I had a fun time making friends with this actor in particular. He was super funny and always down to be in front of the camera.

All of a sudden this majestical horse came trotting through the set being guided by this big bellied polish man. I found out later the horse was for the film, but it was funny how the bellied man took the horse to and fro.

A Journey to Dadaab

Danilo Parra — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:12:24 +0000

Leaving Nairobi to Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, and knowing what awaited was both exciting but also made me feel a little nervous. The hardest drought in 60 years hit Somalia sending what seemed to be mostly Somali farmers to Dadaab for support from the UN, MSN, and the Red Cross. When we talked to the refugees and we found that it wasn’t only the drought that sent them to Dadaab, but in some cases it was fear.

Somalia is considered to be a failed nation. Some of the farmers came to Dadaab from fear of their corrupt government which allowed bandits to come and steal livestock from their farm lands. This is a photo taken from a water tower in the refugee camp of the structures being built for the hundreds of families entering the camp each day.

The structure in the foreground is a school. One of the many benefits of coming to the camp is the education programs.

One of the hardest parts of being in the camp was seeing the beautiful children who were so interested in what we were doing and why we were there. I never met a Somalian outside of this trip, and had no idea how beautiful they were, especially their very unique light brown eyes.

Ibraham was a true homie on the trip. He assisted the driver and photographer we were with.

Muhammed was our translator on the trip.

This is home built by a family that had been in the camp less than a week. I was very impressed by their resourcefulness.

This man brought me over to his home to show me his son with an ear infection. You could see the wound inside his ear when he tilted his head. A lot of families show up at the camps with members of their family suffering from severe sickness and exhaustion. Unfortunately, those were the lucky ones. It seemed that each family who trekked from Somalia to Dadaab, lost at least one or more of their family members to the harsh desert landscape. Some families would travel more than 60 days through the desert.

These men took their cattle on a search for water. I had never seen cows so ghastly thin in my life. You could see every one of their bones.

Every area of the camps we entered, we seemed to find at least one boy who had lived in the camp their whole life, and were practically fluent in english because of the camps school systems. I befriended this boy who was very kind and smart. He told me all the problems his community faced in the camps. He told me about the Hyena that would enter his camp at night to attack the donkeys and goats. When I asked how much they gave him for rations, he replied, “a few pieces of ciabatta and some cooking oil.”

For some reason, when they burnt their trash, it had this incredible scent that smelled really good. I never found out why it smelled so good. In the background you can see James Mollison, the photographer for the trip.

Muhammad D, our driver. D for driver. He was a Somali born Kenyan from the Mesai Mara region who was stern but also had a great sense of humor. He drove for hours through the bumpiest roads to and from Dadaab while chewing on khat to keep his energy up.

After Dadaab I decided to refresh my mind and rediscover Kenya through a tourist’s eyes. I went to a Safari alone with a hotel driver.

Just when I thought I had found a peaceful afternoon in Kenya, things got heavy. We found zebra sprawled out on the dirt that was freshly killed.

The attacker came minutes later with a few of her cubs to enjoy an afternoon snack. I saw parts of zebra intestines that I never knew existed. Watching it was like an intense course in a zebra’s digestive system. I stayed and watched for at least an hour.

On a cuter note, I did get a chance to see the feeding of baby elephants. They were sooo cute and playful.

You can see the piece I shot on Dadaab here:

http://www.vice.com/picture-perfect/james-mollison#ooid=dva3BzMjrywGpUW_8S1vJGnSeljbw8Gw

DAYZED IN TOKYO

Danilo Parra — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:36:05 +0000

Santiago and the Karaoke Hangover.

Al Cu In

Going Gaga for…

Lady Gaga.

Yuka and Thalia gossip.

Triple Nipple.

The ultimate tour guide.

BABES OF TOKYO

Danilo Parra — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 04:45:48 +0000

Assisted by Al Cu IN and Thalia Mavros