If you STAY Reddy, you ain't gotta GET Reddy

beautiful. photo by @moonslut_jones. makeup by me....

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:49:06 -0800

beautiful. photo by @moonslut_jones. makeup by me. :)

moonslutjones:

 Moon Goddess  : another tester. ( @sunnydaysies & @na562 w/ @stayreddy ) (Taken with instagram)

positive thoughts and meditations for you,...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:20:29 -0800

positive thoughts and meditations for you, amit!!!!!

superamit:

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.

Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.

Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.

Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.

9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!

Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.

Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.

Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

indian fashion shoot ft. amrita’s custom elegance

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:26:00 -0800

indian fashion shoot ft. amrita’s custom elegance

TiRon & Ayomari Upcoming Shows

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:22:08 -0800

hoping to see a bay area date soon!!

ayomari:

goronnie:

Mark your calendars:

Los Angeles (Villa) 1/4

Seattle w/ Blu (The Crocodile) 1/5

Portland w/ Blu (Someday Lounge) 1/6

Riverside w/ Blu (The Vibe) 1/8

Los Angeles w/ John West (The Roxy) 1/25

Virginia w/ Blu (University of Virginia) 1/29

More Dates TBA!!

TiRon & Ayomari’s “A Sucker For Pumps” is available on Bandcamp & iTunes

REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG!!!

@marahruby headling @yoshisjazz in oakland. pre-show...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:03:14 -0800

@marahruby headling @yoshisjazz in oakland. pre-show reflections.

@marshaambrosius never disappoints. and looks great every time!

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:36:27 -0700

@marshaambrosius never disappoints. and looks great every time!

new stuyvesants. yeeee!

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:32:02 -0700

new stuyvesants. yeeee!

blown away by @miguelunlimited. thank you for rockin’ the...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:25:02 -0700

blown away by @miguelunlimited. thank you for rockin’ the fox theater in oakland!!

vertical lines. ybca. sf jazz. @marahruby

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:20:28 -0700

vertical lines. ybca. sf jazz. @marahruby

ravi shankar. davies symphony, sf.

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:45:56 -0700

ravi shankar. davies symphony, sf.

please, please, PLEASE put yourselves on the bone marrow...

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:26:53 -0700

please, please, PLEASE put yourselves on the bone marrow registry!!!!

superamit:

Two weeks ago I got a call from my doctor, who I’d gone to see the day before because I’d been feeling worn out and was losing weight, and wasn’t sure why.

He was brief: “Amit, you’ve got Acute Leukemia. You need to enter treatment right away.”

I was terrified. I packed a backpack full of clothes, went to the hospital as he’d instructed, and had transfusions through the night to allow me to take a flight home at 7am the next day. I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks.

—

I have a couple more months of chemo to go, then the next step is a bone marrow transplant. As Jay and Tony describe below, minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow pool, and I need help.

A few ways to help:

If you’re South Asian, get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.

If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event my friends are putting on.

If you know any South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka), please point ‘em to the links above.

*NEW* Organize a donor drive near you (the most helpful thing you could possibly do!) email 100kcheeks@gmail.com. They’ll send you kits, flyers, tell you what to say, and make the whole process easy cheesy.

jayparkinsonmd:

My friend Amit Gupta founded my favorite photography site Photojojo. A few weeks ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Amit is one of the nicest, most genuine, most creative people you could ever meet. Prior to founding the awesome Photojojo, he also co-founded Jelly in 2006 in NYC, a coworking community, that’s now spread to 60 cities across the world and helped spark the coworking revolution. It looks like Amit will need a bone marrow transplant quite soon. We can help him with that.

tony b:

Unlike blood transfusions, finding a genetic match for bone marrow that his body will accept is no easy task. The national bone marrow registry has 9.5 million records on file, yet the chances of someone from South Asian descent of finding a match are only 1 in 20,000.

This is where we come in. We’re going to destroy those odds.

How? By finding and registering as many people of South Asian descent as we possibly can.

Tests are easy– a simple swab of the cheek. If you’re a match, the donation involves an outpatient procedure. It’s not fun, but it’s not dangerous either. And doing it could save a life.

We are encouraging anyone of South Asian descent to take a test to see if you’re a match.

You can get a free test by mail, or, if you’re in New York, you can join us Friday, October 14th for a special party to rally support.

We’ll have test kits on hand at the party, as well as music, booze, and maybe even a photo booth. It will, for the first time, combine a House 2.0-style party with a New Work City-style party, and if you’ve ever been to either, you know they are always something special.

Please spread the word and please do everything you can to help Amit beat leukemia. He’s a superstar.

Much thanks to Tony and pals for organizing this event, and EVERYONE who’s been tweeting and reblogging.

Please help get the word out any way you can. My life quite literally depends on it.

super dj. super gorgeous. super woman. @djrashida @aclfestival

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:07:45 -0700

super dj. super gorgeous. super woman. @djrashida @aclfestival

#savetroydavis

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:13:07 -0700

#savetroydavis

free tattoos at #acl. they’re a hit. olivia and her bro...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:57:26 -0700

free tattoos at #acl. they’re a hit. olivia and her bro (from sf!) both got this one…

wow. super dope! melodysblog: Empire Line (2005) series by...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:43:06 -0700

wow. super dope!

melodysblog:

Empire Line (2005) series by British photographer Gavin Fernandes.

Fernandes describes the series in British Asian Style: Fashion & Textiles / Past and Present:

By subverting representations of British “memsahibs” and their indigenous Indian servants, and through the interaction of period British costume and native Indian dress, Empire Line explores the politics of clothing and its relationship with class and caste in 19th-century colonial India.

Though so rooted in colonial imagery, I love how Fernandes’s work also speaks to the complex and often problematic cultural exchanges of the contemporary fashion industry.

WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:54:09 -0700

anywhere that i haven’t been… i love traveling.

pure genius. @jamesblake @aclfestival

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:47:36 -0700

pure genius. @jamesblake @aclfestival

two talents. two beauties. @marahruby @amellarrieux

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:52:07 -0700

two talents. two beauties. @marahruby @amellarrieux

@sadeofficial one of my fave pics from her show

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:13:51 -0700

@sadeofficial one of my fave pics from her show

summa, summa, summatime! #film stayreddy shot by @joshfarria

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:37 -0700

summa, summa, summatime! #film stayreddy shot by @joshfarria