Ahahahahahhaha....This fits in perfectly with my recent conversations with people about masculinity and differing views about sex in our society. I bolded my favorite parts.

( American Teen Somehow Develops Unhealthy Attitude about Sex )

Last night we talked about dogs. How different suburban dogs are from city dogs and how our pets couldn't survive a week in the wild. About packs of quasi-feral dogs that roam through the rougher parts of the cities.

Tom, the "insurrectionary" postmodernist philosophy grad who always has shit to say, put it best: "Look at this decaying post-industrial apocolypse we're living in...Packs of wild dogs are roaming through our streets attacking children."

Suddenly I don't feel so crazy about feeling that the collapse of our civilization has been happening for a while now. There's no natural law stating that the end of the modern world will happen in a single instant.

hey, do you guys remember how racist mad tv was?

Today I listened to "The Best of Chester A. Arthur" -- a mix I made for my brother a couple years ago. They're all songs I loved in high school, by bands that provided a gateway into other music. Alex was never as interested in actively pursuing new music as much as I am, so I hoped to give him a little jumpstart based on my own tastes. Ironically, his favorite track on the mix was "Soon We'll be Dead" by Leftover Crack.

So I'm back from Bloomington. Alina and I decided to leave early, since I was getting sick (just sore throat n' shit) and we'd both seen enough. Strange how emotionally draining it can be to live in the midst of a gathering for just a few days. Meeting dozens of new people, going to workshops and punk shows can take a lot out of you when you're in a new environment.

It's weird...even though I'm only 20, I felt really old sometimes. Several times throughout the event I wished I had known about Plan-it-X Records in high school. Going to shows reminded me of seeing local punk bands that my friends were in, and I wish I knew the extent of the bigger community surrounding DIY punk when I was 16.

Hmmm, what else? The place was kind of a sausage fest, alas. Punk rock is indeed, still a boys club. It's changing, but it's got a long way to go.

Ooh! I met Beck (absurdsluttery) after nearly three years of cyber-friendship.  She is, to date, my oldest internet friend, so it was great to finally meet her.  She and another woman put together an excellent workshop on feminist direct action.

Also!  I saw my friend Daniel, who I haven't seen in 2 years.   I met him in Food not Bombs in 2003, and he's been one of my biggest inspirations as an activist.  He showed me that if you're not having fun being an activist, there's no point in doing it.  On May Day, he stole a red flag off the communist bookstore, called them and told them where they could pick it up.  The point?  To engage the communists in a city-wide game of tag.

He and I were able to catch up a bit, but not too much, since he's coming to Cleveland soon.  When I asked him what he's been up to he kinda danced around happily saying "You know, livin', learnin', traveling, growing...."  He's developed more of a southern accent since being away.  He's from Tennesee, but has been on the road a good deal.  I love that phenomenon with traveler kids -- the amalgamation of American accents they pick up.  I told Daniel that I'm envious of him in some ways.... I wish I could just quit school, leave home and travel.  "I can see the little gap that's necessary to jump over, but I just can't do it, even though I can see the other side" I told him.  "What are you afraid of?" He asked.  I'm still trying to think of the answer to that question.

I bought a ukulele.  My first goal is to learn "Tiptoe through the Tulips." 
Um. 
Tell ME something.  How's by you?

With Alina and Tom and two traveler kids I have never met.

Oh my. I cannot wait.
Here are the classes I'm taking:

-Creative Commons/Free Culture (copyright)
-Re-approaching DIY, Re-approaching “Activism,” Re-approaching Power
-Creative Commons/Free Culture: creating, remixing, and sharing Free Culture
-The Situationist International and Art as Intervention
-Screenprinting


And oh, there'll be so many stories, I promise you. See ya Tuesday!

http://crimespree.org/pixcamp/Main_Page

Last night I watched "This is What Democracy Looks Like", IndyMedia's first film, about the first WTO protest in Seattle. Aaron sent me a copy of it for Christmas in 9th grade, to date one of the most inspirational and incredible gifts I've ever received. Then we watched "Breaking the Spell," another film about the same event.

While watching them, my heart was beating really fast and I was completely enraptured. I couldn't believe that the video clips being shown represented the birth of a worldwide anticapitalist anti-globalization movement. November 30th through December 3rd of 1999 marked the United States' entrance into this phenomenon. Several times I became misty-eyed...the sight of a burly, masculine Steelworker and a black bloc anarchist holding hands walking through the streets...the sights of people willing to block the city streets off for nearly five days just to make their voices heard. To stand off against riot cops, getting pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed, begging the officers to have some compassion, some human feeling....the sight of the riot cop welling up in tears before striking a line of non-violent demonstrators -- she clearly did NOT want to be a part of this....

These films elucidated many of my core beliefs about anti-globalization, beliefs that seem clear as day. It boggles my mind that, despite our differences in class and upbringing, the majority of the country is not willing to believe that:

-Seattle was a WARZONE for 5 days. A war zone in the United States. Cops wearing armor, driving through the streets in military vehicles, using violence to clear the streets that they paid for....That is not democratic. They are employing war tactics, plain and simple.

-The cops are NOT there for the protection of the protestors. They are protecting the WTO and the interests of global capital.

-Big business does not serve the interests of the people. They serve the interests of those in power, and will use any methods of coercive violence to remain on top. This seems so self-evident to me that it feels ridiculous to even type, but it's so bizarre that so many don't recognize it.

-Violence against property is not violence. To break the window of a shop that exploits millions at the expense of that company's profits....that is not violent, that is justice. Trade organizations and corporations do not listen to letters and marches....but financial damage shows them just how serious people are about taking their power back.

-The events of Seattle in late November/December 1999 were just a small part of what's going on all around the world. Everywhere the WTO, World Bank or IMF goes, thousands stand off against them. This is not a movement of coddled, white, middle-class kids with dreadlocks... It's a movement of everyone from labor activists to environmentalists to teachers to Democrats to anarchists who ultimately believe that their future is being sold off, and democracy is becoming scarcer by the second.

This is what unites us...Democracy.

I can't tell you how grateful I am to have seen this movie at the age of 14. When Seattle happened, I was in 8th grade, and all I remember is seeing that there were broken windows and pissed-off people. To view real perspectives from the streets is something that radicalized me like no other. I've been instilled with a sense of urgency, that the time is now to be vigilantely pro-democracy.

"Sometimes you just have to shut up and smoke this bowl"

Okay, another one only for the Cleveland folks....


Sun, Aug 13 in Akron, OH at the Akron Civic, Mr. Tom Waits will be performing

Let's go, okay?

if you live in the cleveland area....
come to Lakewood Park (Belle and Lake Ave in Lakewood) sometime today. Look for the black flags a-flyin'

INTERVIEWER: How would you rate yourselves as musicians?

YAMATSUKA EYE: I never think myself as a musician. If there's any part in me which is a musician, like to be very spontaneous.

Boredoms change. Boredoms adapt. Boredoms happy. Boredoms sad. The Boredoms are like a moon on a lake. Only there is no moon and no lake. Only Boredoms. So do not talk as if there is an actual things called Boredoms-Nature.

The student asked his master, "Do Dogs like the Boredoms?"

"Mu!" Replied his master.

"Why do I find the Boredom's music difficult to listen to?"

"You are a dried piece of shit."

"What is the sound of shit happening?"

RECLAIM THE PARK!
Where: Lakewood Park, off Belle and Lake Ave. in Lakewood
When: 12 Noon-Whenever, July 4th

Come to Lakewood Park at noon on the 4th of July for a day full of positive radical action!

Bring whatever creative outlet you see fit -- instruments, music, jump-ropes, sidewalk chalk, food to share, literature to distribute....the sky's the limit.

This event is not for spectators. Come prepared to participate in any way. Get them creative juices flowin'!

Meet at the artillery (the big cannon near the pavillion) at noon.

See you there!

Questions?  Comment here or email me.

What a dapper fellow.
I think he kind of looks like William S. Burroughs. It's that cranky Missourah old-man demeanor.

Here's a challenge for you all:

Find a picture that best represents the internet.

Best submission will receive a mail present.

I just updated my profile like whoa.  Go there and at least check out the song!

Woo! Hee!  Ha-ha!

WrdlessMouthplay:   "making love is not just becoming as one, or even two, but becoming as a hundred thousand."
poornancucumber: hey panorama, got a sock of chend?  i've vocalized strictly mamd for slintendo times of ragabond.  we fjond on thimformation, formating murder and blocking growths beyond our flavorful fancifications.     i propose and put balls in all courts, mix balls and moles, words of worth dissolve, particles saving extra extra slipping out and upsy daisy
poornancucumber: holding puppies, watching them run, henderuntelga coasted clear of trees out of parks, parked in the car with tears on glasses like bugs on windshields like the grasses missing this way, choices and dire implosions, implosions, self-indulgent or unfairly situated in regions overlapping haphazardly to perceive an isolated node of cartesian magic, glowing inside out
poornancucumber: oozing around, winding down, sliding out into omnidirectional projections, pontifications and proclamations of fanciful embededness      "WHAT HAVE I DONE, HOW HAVE I BECOME???", someone asked, penetrating tinted, shaved, and fogged imagery to tiny histories and devised ideas
poornancucumber: who is the guilty party, and who is the guilty party who will punish?  who must change the world, or who has always been an agent of change, or who swims down or at an awkward angle to twist things a bit this way or that way?
poornancucumber: jamblep     is an image or a screen not a hologram, has the light shined in then to project the ghastly likeness, no longer an image, but a half shadow?  and whose shadows are being cast?   slandeples crumple pust.  abjab drundle crumb.  she slonded me at night in russia, slonded me like america was looking for me.   well wrote and off, madness may be fashionable or it may be terrible or a bit tender and sweet, but irritating cliches multiply like fears in denial
poornancucumber: and if i live inside a musical TAZ, debussy and satie, french pastes smelling like  the coffee shop intellectuals that might exist if the coffee shop intellectual image was not trivialized, tasting sweetly here and there of a first flower plucked in an all too particular romantic zone fleshed out in the acceptance as being with one's own body
poornancucumber: am i to be afraid of the harshness that presumably must exist as an attribute of my responsibility to the pain that is reappropriated elsewhere?
poornancucumber: and what are these words tossing about like absurdly heavy machines dancing with the lightness of a handful, 9 or 10, splashes of sea water touched for a moment by the piss from the beach's suburban souls, breathing space from a coast, worried about who is worrying?

In my web-based Anthropology class, our class participation grade is based on our responses to links posted/the chapters we read. 

From my post entitled "No gods, no masters"

I read the Humanists' website and found some interesting things. The group fails to account for the multiplicity of customs within cultures worldwide. While it is good to promote universalism to some degree, we cannot turn a blind eye to the oppression (namely against people of color, women and homosexuals) that already exists.

Their call for a world without gods and masters and their rejection of global capital resonate well with me. Indeed, we live in a world where everything is being commodified before our eyes. Everything we hold dear -- our cultures, our histories...everything that makes us human is being sucked up and exploited by global capitalism (or communism). I am reminded of an anecdote told among workers in the IWW union... A man was covered in fleas and stayed up all night scratching himself all over. He finally found a flea, picked it off, looked at it, and promptly put it back on his skin. His friend asked him "Why'd you put it back?" The man replied "That one wasn't biting me." If we continue to accept subordination to invisible forces, then indeed we're selling our humanity short.

Have a Good Day

Whooo wants to go see The World/Inferno Friendship Society and Mischief Brew at The Trumbullplex in Detroit with me on Monday?
I might drive up.  I might want to see you if you live in Detroit.

Can we plan some sort of awesomeness around this, please?
khrihngiuerhjkgekrrhng
AND THEN THE BOREDOMS SHOW TWO DAYS LATER
jdhgdkfjg
AND THEN PLAN-IT-X CAMP IN EARLY JULY.

This summer's not looking too bad after all.

oh snap! i've been tagged!

list seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. post these instructions in your livejournal along with your seven songs. then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

1. Scared of Chaka- All my Friends are Ghosts
2. Tall Dwarfs- Bob's Yer Uncle
3. Slim Thug- Like a Boss (Chopped and Screwed)
4. Menace- GLC
5. The Carter Family- Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
6. The Magnetic Fields- I Don't Want to Get Over You
7. Loituma - Leva's Polka

I tag....
Seven people who want to do it.