"If success or failure of this planet and
of human beings
depended on how I am
and
what I do...
How would I be?
What would I do?"
-R. Buckminster Fuller
Showing posts with label DO SOMETHING. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DO SOMETHING. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Radio, Radio
My favoritest thing, my superhero power if ever I had one, is moving people.
Y'know...stirrin their hearts an stuff.
Gettin em to feel things.
Anything.
Putting raw nerves on the table, of whatever emotion, through a thousand means (wordsoundbeat), and watching people react like they thought they wouldn't, watching people startled by their emotional involvement, watching people get swept away by a heart-tide they never saw comin when they stopped for that last mirror-check on the way out the door...it's the most magical thing I've experienced. And it is absolutely magical, absolutely every time.
I Want To Do That With Radio.
I can do it on stage, spitting or singing.
I can do it with written words.
I want to do it with commonplace objects, with sounds we've come to take for granted.
I wanna make people laugh at stuff they've never thought funny,
cry over what they've previously refused to consider,
get angry at what they formerly ignored,
get smitten like kittens when they thought their hearts were long long dead.
Sounds a little lofty, but, in my experience elsewhere, it's really attainable and really powerful.
I don't wanna bludgeon anybody about the head and shoulders to make them feel,
I just wanna lay it on the table
Just
So.
Wanna find the perfect speed where going fast looks like standing still.
Wanna slip people popping inside those pregnant moments of time where everything is mad chaos and perfect meditation,
is alarmingly full and sweetsoftly clarified.
Like butter.
Y'know...stirrin their hearts an stuff.
Gettin em to feel things.
Anything.
Putting raw nerves on the table, of whatever emotion, through a thousand means (wordsoundbeat), and watching people react like they thought they wouldn't, watching people startled by their emotional involvement, watching people get swept away by a heart-tide they never saw comin when they stopped for that last mirror-check on the way out the door...it's the most magical thing I've experienced. And it is absolutely magical, absolutely every time.
I Want To Do That With Radio.
I can do it on stage, spitting or singing.
I can do it with written words.
I want to do it with commonplace objects, with sounds we've come to take for granted.
I wanna make people laugh at stuff they've never thought funny,
cry over what they've previously refused to consider,
get angry at what they formerly ignored,
get smitten like kittens when they thought their hearts were long long dead.
Sounds a little lofty, but, in my experience elsewhere, it's really attainable and really powerful.
I don't wanna bludgeon anybody about the head and shoulders to make them feel,
I just wanna lay it on the table
Just
So.
Wanna find the perfect speed where going fast looks like standing still.
Wanna slip people popping inside those pregnant moments of time where everything is mad chaos and perfect meditation,
is alarmingly full and sweetsoftly clarified.
Like butter.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Truth and Power
(1/one)
Meet The Kid From Brooklyn.
While I strongly disagree with some of his obviously post-911, NYC propaganda-infected views, his balls-out take on the injustices in his world are fuckin beautiful.
These days, when we so obsessively obsess about politically correct speech, when we pretend so hard that we Really Do Care whether or not we hurt other people's feelings, it's a wonderful thing to see a guy so joyfully, fuckin gleefully! sink his teeth into so many fleshy flanks. Not because he's afraid (as so many evangelicals and propaganda anchors are), but because he does not shy away from the sight of what he sees as injustice. He does not hesitate, at least in this instance, to speak truth about power.*
...And he totally says "fuck" way more than I do.
Color me impressed.
(2/two)
Concerning Truth and Power:
While Speaking Truth to Power is incredibly important,
I believe it is even more imperative to Speak Truth About Power.
To wit,
Power already has a pretty good idea how corrupt and malicious it is. I mean, it can dance the Verbal Justify all it wants; at the end of the day, it knows that both Side Effects and Results of its blind pursuit of questionable priorities are Remarkably Shitty for whatever's on the sidelines of its goals. Speaking Truth to Power is only so effective when Power knows the story already and has decided it doesn't give a shit.
Speaking Truth About Power, on the other hand, is actually starting to have some positive effect again. There was a time in 'Merican history when muckraking was viewed as a valuable service to the public.
Muckrakers went where the vast hordes of the public could not;
they exposed injustices and indecencies to which the public might not otherwise be privy;
they saved a lot of fuckin lives, when it comes down to it, and should have statues and plaques and fawning Thank Yous plastered all over every town square left in the corporation-infested, rotting corpses of our country's once diversely wealthy towns.
However,
since the early 1970s, I would say,
since Watergate,
folks speaking Truth About Power have become just another form of entertainment. They have been manipulated into just another tool of the 'Merican School of Instigatory Mockery. It's another part of what is now the Same Old ('Merican) Story: the Big Guys have finally figured out that fighting the Little Guys head on, hand to hand, isn't very effective. There's way too many of us Little'uns, and, really, there's only so many of us they can kill before we go all Freaked Out Angry Mob on their asses and start marching to our local Wal-Marts and houses of corrupted Government with torches clenched in our vilified and vitriolic fists.
Y'know?
Big Guys found out, most obviously during the 1960s and early 70s, that the best way to fight us is to delegitimize us between and amongst ourselves.
Single us out and make us appear to be crackpots with no discernible grasp on Reality (another thing they've recreated for us).
Turn us into clowns.
Into fools.
Into entertainment.
It's a divisive device that's been working for the Rich and Powered since the foundation of this country. ...Well, it's worked for lots of empires, large and small, for milennia before our inception, but the U.S. really has polished it up, made it shiny and marketably legitimate.
Divide and Subjugate was the big tool used to keep 'Merican slavery in place for so goddamned long. It's what keeps wage slavery in place now.
It's the prybar between skin colors and political parties and religions and all the town-to-country regions of this vast tract of land.
It is the smoke screen between Us and the Truth.
It is what makes and keeps us poor.
It is what destroys our communities.
Our neighborhoods.
Our ways, our means of living.
Our food.
Our health.
Our lives and our children's lives.
And now,
we're catching on
and we're getting pissed off.
We're finally starting to realize how much we've been lied to.
We're dying of the things we were told would save us.
We are beginning to wonder if maybe there's something to some of those crazy doomsayers and old-wives' quacks.
We're maybe, hopefully beginning to remember that,
no matter how vociferously anyone claims to have the corner on Truth,
Truth is always found in the eyes.
It is found in the bones.
::: And where are the bones of Propaganda? :::
::: Where are its shifty eyes? :::
Instead of listening to the Experts, to the Majority, to the Scientists,
we must listen to each other.
Instead of telling the corporations that have invaded our countryside and our cities, instead of telling them how much their practices are hurting our communities,
we must tell each other how we and our communities are being hurt and
we must take action to protect ourselves.
In this age of demonization of anyone who would stand up to power, we are finally beginning to revalue the Muckraker.
We are remembering that the Muckraker is fighting for us.
That the Muckraker is one of us.
Is
us.
Speak Truth About Power
between ourselves, between each other.
Where we can do something about it.
On a scale we can manage.
Speak Truth where it will count.
Where it will truly matter.
Where it will make a real difference.
Meet The Kid From Brooklyn.
While I strongly disagree with some of his obviously post-911, NYC propaganda-infected views, his balls-out take on the injustices in his world are fuckin beautiful.
These days, when we so obsessively obsess about politically correct speech, when we pretend so hard that we Really Do Care whether or not we hurt other people's feelings, it's a wonderful thing to see a guy so joyfully, fuckin gleefully! sink his teeth into so many fleshy flanks. Not because he's afraid (as so many evangelicals and propaganda anchors are), but because he does not shy away from the sight of what he sees as injustice. He does not hesitate, at least in this instance, to speak truth about power.*
...And he totally says "fuck" way more than I do.
Color me impressed.
(2/two)
Concerning Truth and Power:
While Speaking Truth to Power is incredibly important,
I believe it is even more imperative to Speak Truth About Power.
To wit,
Power already has a pretty good idea how corrupt and malicious it is. I mean, it can dance the Verbal Justify all it wants; at the end of the day, it knows that both Side Effects and Results of its blind pursuit of questionable priorities are Remarkably Shitty for whatever's on the sidelines of its goals. Speaking Truth to Power is only so effective when Power knows the story already and has decided it doesn't give a shit.
Speaking Truth About Power, on the other hand, is actually starting to have some positive effect again. There was a time in 'Merican history when muckraking was viewed as a valuable service to the public.
Muckrakers went where the vast hordes of the public could not;
they exposed injustices and indecencies to which the public might not otherwise be privy;
they saved a lot of fuckin lives, when it comes down to it, and should have statues and plaques and fawning Thank Yous plastered all over every town square left in the corporation-infested, rotting corpses of our country's once diversely wealthy towns.
However,
since the early 1970s, I would say,
since Watergate,
folks speaking Truth About Power have become just another form of entertainment. They have been manipulated into just another tool of the 'Merican School of Instigatory Mockery. It's another part of what is now the Same Old ('Merican) Story: the Big Guys have finally figured out that fighting the Little Guys head on, hand to hand, isn't very effective. There's way too many of us Little'uns, and, really, there's only so many of us they can kill before we go all Freaked Out Angry Mob on their asses and start marching to our local Wal-Marts and houses of corrupted Government with torches clenched in our vilified and vitriolic fists.
Y'know?
Big Guys found out, most obviously during the 1960s and early 70s, that the best way to fight us is to delegitimize us between and amongst ourselves.
Single us out and make us appear to be crackpots with no discernible grasp on Reality (another thing they've recreated for us).
Turn us into clowns.
Into fools.
Into entertainment.
It's a divisive device that's been working for the Rich and Powered since the foundation of this country. ...Well, it's worked for lots of empires, large and small, for milennia before our inception, but the U.S. really has polished it up, made it shiny and marketably legitimate.
Divide and Subjugate was the big tool used to keep 'Merican slavery in place for so goddamned long. It's what keeps wage slavery in place now.
It's the prybar between skin colors and political parties and religions and all the town-to-country regions of this vast tract of land.
It is the smoke screen between Us and the Truth.
It is what makes and keeps us poor.
It is what destroys our communities.
Our neighborhoods.
Our ways, our means of living.
Our food.
Our health.
Our lives and our children's lives.
And now,
we're catching on
and we're getting pissed off.
We're finally starting to realize how much we've been lied to.
We're dying of the things we were told would save us.
We are beginning to wonder if maybe there's something to some of those crazy doomsayers and old-wives' quacks.
We're maybe, hopefully beginning to remember that,
no matter how vociferously anyone claims to have the corner on Truth,
Truth is always found in the eyes.
It is found in the bones.
::: And where are the bones of Propaganda? :::
::: Where are its shifty eyes? :::
Instead of listening to the Experts, to the Majority, to the Scientists,
we must listen to each other.
Instead of telling the corporations that have invaded our countryside and our cities, instead of telling them how much their practices are hurting our communities,
we must tell each other how we and our communities are being hurt and
we must take action to protect ourselves.
In this age of demonization of anyone who would stand up to power, we are finally beginning to revalue the Muckraker.
We are remembering that the Muckraker is fighting for us.
That the Muckraker is one of us.
Is
us.
Speak Truth About Power
between ourselves, between each other.
Where we can do something about it.
On a scale we can manage.
Speak Truth where it will count.
Where it will truly matter.
Where it will make a real difference.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
High Winds of Frustration
(this is what happens when you ask me about the weather while I'm stirring hurricane frustration in my coffee:)
A little windy, incredibly humid, off&on rainydeluge.
During the blowover, it was so fuckin humid that our hardwood floors were damp.
Didn't realize it until I walked across and saw my footprints in dewdrops.
That was odd.
Otherwise, the weather is sniffin around the skirts of Autumn, and I am jittery with anticipation.
No one's really exhaled yet, watchin Ike and Josephine do their Atlantic buildup.
We've got another month of hurricane season left, y'know.
Got friends staying at the house until they've got power.
Gotta get back to town to start workin as soon as possible, but then
the conditions at home are often pretty unearable.
Weather gets like this, and the termites start swarming,
the palmetto bugs running,
the fleas and mosquitoes laying and hatching in diabolical droves.
Got no electricity, got no air conditioning, gotta leave the doors open...y'know?
There's only so many bugs that bug spray repels.
And without electricity, there's not even a fan runnin to break the turbid air.
Coy says most of the cooks and servers are back at work,
but that the utility folks (dishwashers and the like) were largely shipped out by the state,
and thus,
must wait for the state to ship them back in.
Our friend T is in a shelter in Memphis right now
(after bashfully declining our offer to stay out the storm with us).
He lives in a shelter here, regularly,
so had to leave town without any clothes or toiletries or anything after the shelter
locked down for the storm while he was still at work.
Y'know?
This is a guy who makes obvious what debaucherous losers most 'Merican people really are;
he doesn't drink or smoke, he works hard, he's kind as can be, and truly honorable.
But, he's also poor.
Thus, his few belongings are locked away while he is off working to better his situation.
After helping Coy haul home a truckload of perishable food from the evacuating restaurant,
T is packed onto a school bus for the evacuation, with no recourse.
At the shelter, apparently, he and most other folks are being given things like sauerkraut (& nothin else) for supper.
Yes, at least there's some kinda food available, but really...
We Can Do FAR Better Than That.
He's been calling Coy every day to check in, to make sure he'll still have a job when he gets back (not understanding, I believe, that Coy would sacrifice part of his own meager salary to keep our friend employed. Easy). T was surprised when we told him Mayor Nagin had reopened New Orleans. No one bothered to tell the people in the shelters there, even as late as 10 hours after the fact, with Memphis only 6 hours away by car. All those folks sittin caged and hungry and worried, not having any idea what's happening at home, and the people with access to that information refused to share it. I know why they did it. Y'know? People in power, however great or meager that power may be, are always always freaked the fuck out by the thought of their "charges" gettin riled. Like they're mindless reptilian hydrophobes. Like they're not real people who can and will behave honorably if given the information and the opportunity.
Dirty dirty dirty. Just fuckin dirty.
So, the weather here is lovely.
Nice break from the shinythick dog days right before the storm.
Tell you what, though:
you know how fuckin frustrated I get over injustices, especially against poor folks.
You know how tear.myself.apart Angry.
I am ever more so here.
The obviousness of rich vs. poor,
of corruption on a hundred thousand levels,
of overt racism in the most intricate patterns I have ever seen,
everything everything is so unbelievably unfuckinFAIR!
Especially for those who deserve a break of Fate.
But Here,
Here I have a chance to do something about it.
It might not be much, and it might be everything.
Y'know?
So, thanks for askin after us.
It's actually really cool to know other people in the world are keepin an eye on this magical place.
A little windy, incredibly humid, off&on rainydeluge.
During the blowover, it was so fuckin humid that our hardwood floors were damp.
Didn't realize it until I walked across and saw my footprints in dewdrops.
That was odd.
Otherwise, the weather is sniffin around the skirts of Autumn, and I am jittery with anticipation.
No one's really exhaled yet, watchin Ike and Josephine do their Atlantic buildup.
We've got another month of hurricane season left, y'know.
Got friends staying at the house until they've got power.
Gotta get back to town to start workin as soon as possible, but then
the conditions at home are often pretty unearable.
Weather gets like this, and the termites start swarming,
the palmetto bugs running,
the fleas and mosquitoes laying and hatching in diabolical droves.
Got no electricity, got no air conditioning, gotta leave the doors open...y'know?
There's only so many bugs that bug spray repels.
And without electricity, there's not even a fan runnin to break the turbid air.
Coy says most of the cooks and servers are back at work,
but that the utility folks (dishwashers and the like) were largely shipped out by the state,
and thus,
must wait for the state to ship them back in.
Our friend T is in a shelter in Memphis right now
(after bashfully declining our offer to stay out the storm with us).
He lives in a shelter here, regularly,
so had to leave town without any clothes or toiletries or anything after the shelter
locked down for the storm while he was still at work.
Y'know?
This is a guy who makes obvious what debaucherous losers most 'Merican people really are;
he doesn't drink or smoke, he works hard, he's kind as can be, and truly honorable.
But, he's also poor.
Thus, his few belongings are locked away while he is off working to better his situation.
After helping Coy haul home a truckload of perishable food from the evacuating restaurant,
T is packed onto a school bus for the evacuation, with no recourse.
At the shelter, apparently, he and most other folks are being given things like sauerkraut (& nothin else) for supper.
Yes, at least there's some kinda food available, but really...
We Can Do FAR Better Than That.
He's been calling Coy every day to check in, to make sure he'll still have a job when he gets back (not understanding, I believe, that Coy would sacrifice part of his own meager salary to keep our friend employed. Easy). T was surprised when we told him Mayor Nagin had reopened New Orleans. No one bothered to tell the people in the shelters there, even as late as 10 hours after the fact, with Memphis only 6 hours away by car. All those folks sittin caged and hungry and worried, not having any idea what's happening at home, and the people with access to that information refused to share it. I know why they did it. Y'know? People in power, however great or meager that power may be, are always always freaked the fuck out by the thought of their "charges" gettin riled. Like they're mindless reptilian hydrophobes. Like they're not real people who can and will behave honorably if given the information and the opportunity.
Dirty dirty dirty. Just fuckin dirty.
So, the weather here is lovely.
Nice break from the shinythick dog days right before the storm.
Tell you what, though:
you know how fuckin frustrated I get over injustices, especially against poor folks.
You know how tear.myself.apart Angry.
I am ever more so here.
The obviousness of rich vs. poor,
of corruption on a hundred thousand levels,
of overt racism in the most intricate patterns I have ever seen,
everything everything is so unbelievably unfuckinFAIR!
Especially for those who deserve a break of Fate.
But Here,
Here I have a chance to do something about it.
It might not be much, and it might be everything.
Y'know?
So, thanks for askin after us.
It's actually really cool to know other people in the world are keepin an eye on this magical place.
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