4-30-04

Hey TRUE baby, you're in my head again. I have five minutes to write because I am so busy (hmmm..lots of military maneuvers tonight), and I missed the debates.

I guess by now you've met my friend Johnny. Not the 'anybody but Bush" straw man, but the hero who talks like a senator because that's what he is, bitches.
"Because of his mother's narrow escape from the Nazi armies, John Kerry learned that there is indeed evil in the world which no amount of money or privilege can deflect. Living in post-war Berlin during one of his father's diplomatic postings, Kerry saw the bombed-out buildings, the refugees who were everywhere, and the tens of thousands of people who left everything behind to flee the Soviet sector. Kerry learned that such evil must be confronted. In the experiences of his parents, John Kerry developed the nuanced, intricate and informed view of the wider world that has since defined his life".

He will end the war in Iraq.

However, at this late date, this is a little better than stopping the bleeding.

We need to roll up our sleeves. Lock and load like I said before.

Think about our neighbors and cousins still over there on their way home.
"Is Anyone Really Prepared to Kill?"

"Many say Americans must learn to be honest about the nature of combat. In a culture saturated with media violence, killing has become almost trivialized. Many veterans have the wrenching experience of being asked, "How many people did you kill?"

"They should not be treated as some sort of figure from a video game," says French.

Throughout history, cultures have had various means to purge warriors of their combat experience and help them readjust to civilian life. "Many had purification rites the whole community took part in," Shay says. In ancient Greece, drama provided a cathartic experience for the veterans and the community. Some African societies today have cleansing ceremonies that reintegrate fighters into community life.

He would like to see some interdenominational, nonpartisan civil or religious rite in the US that goes beyond parades and welcome-home ceremonies.

"People coming back from having killed aren't necessarily injured, but need to purify themselves," he says. "And we sent them and need to be purified, too."

Man your positions.

Resist the draft- Bring it on .
Listen to the dissent of returning warriors - Bring It On.
It bears repeating - Resisting the motherfucking draft- Bring It ON
Be a Vote Jedi- Bring It On

Tim, Matt, Hera, Curt, all the regular crew, we need you.
Bring it on.

Who's ready for a march of mothers and disgruntled Filipino boys? What will you bring to the squad?

Whew, gotta get back to my position. Get ready to welcome home these boys I'm talking to, with a "new dream".

A poem by Alice Walker:

Two: S.M.
I tell you, Chickadee
I am afraid of people
who cannot cry
Tears left unshed
turn to poison
in the ducts
Ask the next soldier you see
enjoying a massacre
if this is not so.
People who do not cry
are victims
of soul mutilation
paid for in Marlboros
and trucks.
Resist.
Violence does not work
except for the man
who pays your salary
Who knows
if you could still weep
you would not take the job.

6-09-04

If it takes me a week to decide whether or not I have anything to say on this Bush Fuckery, does that mean I don't?

Does anyone else have some uuuuggggglllllyyy memories regarding parties?
Show of hands? I'll go first.

I could always do without other people easier than anyone I knew.

Teenagers hate this. Especially girls. Parties were hell.

Concerts were tolerable because I went alone.

I was always the only girl in my milieu who had ever even heard of the bands I wanted to see, so I got used to going alone. Then I preferred it. Then a funny thing happened- I got asked backstage. There was always a party going on, but the people I wanted to hang with were always alone, too.

There is always at least one member of a band who wants to hook up with an attractive fellow Voluntary Hermit for a mutual communion of silence. There's at least one in every group like us. We love you all. We appreciate the music as much as you. We want to party, at least in the abstract. We just aren't very into it.

So that's the kind of guest I am. Invite me, and I always come. Or go.

The last night I went to that tired old bar the Odyssey, I was dragged by friends who found my isolation insulting. "Let's just go. Maybe you'll meet a guy, or run into some old friends."

As the car passed the DuPar's sign,I knew I wanted to be home alone drinking Pernod and staring at the wall. Inside the Odyssey the music was horrible, the vibe cold, and I ditched everyone.
I heard footsteps behind me as I walked outside. I thought it was Orion, running away from the music over my head.

I was so sick of being alive, tired of everybody I knew, that I hardly noticed when some dude exuding speed sweat grabbed me . He threw me against a parked car in an awkwardly romantic way. His blue eyes went dreamy when he described how he would stuff dirt in my vagina and mouth after he killed me because I wasn't acting scared enough

I asked myself what I thought was happening.

"This is rape", I said.
"What?" came a comical voice from inside the car we were struggling against.

It was a friend I had lost touch with,a Mod who worked at Bonwit Teller. He was crying against the chest of another mutual friend. He had waited two years to talk to a boy who had just rejected him.

He got out and sniffed me.
"That's the same perfume my sister uses".
Thus did I become a person, and not an incipient victim.
And my attacker let me go.
He meandered away as if waking up from a nap.


Mod Dude and I had a cigarette together, watching the scene literally dissolve. Rapist Dude broke character and ambled onto one of the busses chugging through the city full of East L.A. natives who had never seen the beach. I looked back up at the nightclub, and wondered what did I think was in that for me? The stories are out here.
"What happened?", asked Mod Dude.

"I met a guy and ran into some old friends", I said.

There is always the truth behind the facts, like the real Forrest Gump said.

So when someone gets in my face about prison torture photos, or the Nick Berg snuff film, I think, okay that's what happened. But what really happened? Who were those people before they became propaganda-objects?

Who knows the stories of the innocents who die alone, despised for not acting scared enough?

And TRUE, and Sterling are goddamn right about not wanting to be victims.
If you can look around and say "This is rape", you're no longer prey. Not what anybody else will try and make you.

So uuuhhh, yeah, topic.

I always show up where I'm invited,and I hate to come empty-handed. Hit the bell with your elbow, you know.

If I can bring anything to this party, I can find, listen to, and remember the stories.
The off-center points. The opposite of truth in Greek isn't untruth, but oblivion. So I guess my place at this thing will be the equvialent of the guy getting cried on in that car. The person who hears and sees the stories of how you got to the party.

So, hermits and lurkers? I feel you, and I want to see you there too.


"...Ma's eyes passed Rose of Sharon's eyes, and then came back to them. And the two women looked deep into each other. The girl's breath came short and gasping.

She said, "Yes".
Ma smiled. "I knowed you would. I knowed it!"
....Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. ...She looked up and across the barn and smiled mysteriously."

- John Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath

I was right. I don't have anything to say.

6-11-04

Because he lit matches just to see some light before he lost his sight forever;
because he could dance like a mofo sitting down behind a piano;
because he mopped his brow with "Can't Stop Loving You", said here, all y'all crackers, you can have your song back, it's mine now;
because he was the inspiration for a kickass Joan Osborne lyric;
because he never denied his drug use , but didn't milk an outlaw image;
because he stole every scene he was in in SNL and Blues Brothers;
because he was beautiful, never knew and didn't give a damn.....

...I was proud to have been in a world with his music in it.

Rest in peace Brother Ray.

May the Lord rest your sweet soul.

6-13-04

So, how are everyone's travel plans going?

Anybody coming from the Miwok Rez territory? Time to circle the wagons. Carpool and caravan are such lame-ass words for such a revolutionary act.

N8 , you're right. Americans are a metaphor for fat slow cars blocking up the fast lane. Our idea of activity runs a short gamut of filling up a cart with crap at K-Mart, to asshole-to-armpit channel surfing from Man Show reruns to that tornface cow Coulter on FOXNews, and back.

No wonder we only feel real bumping along to mass bass in a bigass car.

Unless you count sitting alone in front of free Internet porn .

Never mind both trips are equally as self-limiting as the blind mule turning a mill wheel, or a fattening chicken amok in a stony hen-run.

Okay,I'm picking you up, so be ready. Get in the car. Hit the road. Budge up and make room, and get off my map.Quit fighting back there, kids. If you drink all that you're going to want to pee, and I'm not stopping.

Who are you going as? Where will you stay? Do you have a bail bondsman, firstaid kit, digital camera, Hitachi wand?

Whether we find ourselves at the Skullfuck Bush Soiree, or anywhere else, at least we're not all asleep at the wheel anymore.

We're not on the road to nowhere and running like hell to get there.

(C'mon, what do you people want from me on my last hour of overtime, Michel Foucault? Christ.)

Oh, and since it hasn't been said here in awhile - FUCK BUSH.

6-17-04

Sometimes it's better to let someone else tell it.

"As if as if British or American soldiers had not only executed German prisoners of war, but had force-marched them to Dachau in order to commit the atrocity"-
in case you've already quit thinking about Abu Ghraib .

I sure hope there was air-conditioning in that coffin because hell will get hotter when he gets there.
' A rictus of senile fury'

It's gettin' hot in herre.

Oh, FUCK BUSH .
Fuck him with an Irish broom.

Have a nice weekend. It'll all be alright.

6-21-04

Okay, the Iraq handover is getting better planning than the SkullFuck Bush tea-dance.

So, que onda?

This thing is set to happen in less than two months, and it's still in the finger-fucking stage.

I took it upon myself to invite a few folks.

First, I sent an e-mail to Mr. Morning Fix - he's PoMo like a mofo, but he has what used to be called 'wet dream demographics'.

There's the NYC Craigslist, which I brought up before, but they didn't like the words 'Fuck' or 'kill'- (and I'm still working on a press release to beat the Gold Standard, Sean's weblog link, May 29).

These people look pretty intense ,but if they were planning a week in my town, I'd invite them.

MRTT is now on the official NYC Regional Edition of the Burning Man Events Letter, Afterglow . Not exactly a hip-hop crowd, but they know how to party with a vengeance and a conscience. They also have good drugs.

That's all I could think of for now.

It was the least I could do. And I always do the least I can do.

Now what? Ferris? Anybody?

P.S.- Jeroen, Wat denk u Nederlandse von ons Americannen?

6-30-04

I'm in a bad mood today.

I think it's because I haven't showered yet. You know how you can feel on a hot day, when there's no water pressure to wash your hair good? Or on a cold day when there's not enough hot water for a good long bath?

A few years ago, I remember reading in Soldier of Fortune magazine a story about a medal being considered for certain types of valour.

You know, the kind of grown-up, shuthefuckup and suck it up type of fortitude that's so out of style these days. A medal for being able to go long periods without food, without sleep, without water, without complaining.

Rumor had it that it was scrapped when it was discovered that only non-white Americans were being considered as candidates.

I can dig it.

I spent the hottest part of every summer for many years on a reservation that would make Manzanar look like the O.C. The running water was dependent on a well, which was dependent on a very iffy electricity system. If the electricity went out, no water.

If you wanted to throw something away, you burned or buried it.
You had to pay for things you hauled to the dump.

And, one of the reasons Vollman's Unwashed Depressive portrait so captured my imagination is because no matter how depressed I was, or how scarce the hot water, I made myself presentable every single day.

I went to middle-school dances groomed in nothing more than a half-cup of boiled water and some Dr. Bronner's. Smoked those O.C. chicks, too. Self-respect.

"Attention to the lower parts is the first rule of self-respect"- Collette.

Now, imagine all the things you do to get pumped out of a lull.

I don't know about you, but I am one of those people who would have wanted that medal, and I am dependent on the grid to get myself up for the day ahead.

From the Zen-loke void of a post-espresso crap, to the hot shower and clean towel, to your hair drying just the right way, to the soundtrack morning music, what would we do without water and electricity?

Imagine going for months with no power.

Literally.

Imagine sitting in your home too hot to move, with maybe just enough clean water for baby formula or to flush the toilet once, but not both. Imagine the hopelessness and proven psychological stress of prolonged heat. Picture pursuing your self-actualization with no reliable electricity or clean water.

I flatter myself...but I couldn't get my game on to look for a job under those conditions, let alone rebuild my poor bleeding country.

Last weekend, I went to an outdoor concert in 100+ degree heat. I paid to be there and it was still intense and brutal. And it got me thinking, what if our FUCK BUSH party were held under those conditions? How perky and sassy and kickass can you be when you feel power-less?



So, here's the deal;
If you have to travel as far as I do to Bring The Beef, and if you're as broke as I am, you'll probably be feeling-not-so-fresh at the big FuckBushProm.

Do what my Catholic grandma used to call 'offering it up for a sacrifice'.

Represent.

Get your game face on like our missing party-people.

For every BTB-er who washes up in a bus depot, you are partying on behalf of a National Guardswoman burying used tampons in the desert.
For every hungover road-tripper showing up with a rockin' bedhead; a Gitmo detainee cleans up with baby wipes before seeing his wife for the first time in a year.
Your perfect outfit wrinkled enroute? Shake your ass once or twice for the Iraqi mom boiling the same bandages over and over for her baby's wounds.

We are all in the same blood-filled gutter, looking at the stars.
Someone has to prime the pump to the well to wash it all away.

Dance yourself clean. Sweat like you're crying.

And remember- first round's on Fitz.