80s movies

It is tempting to view Hollywood in the eighties as an incredibly restricted world creatively speaking. Really the decade us full examples of creative critique of the world of business and the status quo. It is a real skill to work with the bounds of official censorship, but still be able to deliver a serious message.

Freedom's just another word...

As U.S citizens we, along with much of the west, look at other oppressive regimes around the world and think of ourselves as a free society. Case in point the recent Nobel Peace Prize given to Lui Xiaobo of China. However I wonder if Mr. Lui's dream of Chinese Democracy would resemble that of the United States of America. Much like the press in Venezuela is owned by the elites of the country who hate Chavez despite his mass popularity among the people, ours is owned by a hand full of media moguls with a little bit of room left for alternative press that is usually portrayed as representing the far left. But one does not have to be a Marxist to oppose the neo-liberal global rules being forced on other countries by Western elites. In fact you could have the values of a conservative in the United States and still oppose our aggressive foreign policy especially considering that our radical interventionist approach is going to disrupt the "American" way of life in the not too distant future (if it has not already.) My question is a common one: why do the issues we all care about get constantly ignored by the press?

Diary of an unemployed man

A young man of my class and education in my position is expected to do one of two things if they are to be successful. They either find a profession and become that thing until they can retire comfortably or they work for money while pursuing their own true passion with the hope that that passion will someday become a profession. I would prefer the later for my passions do not line up with my ambitions. Or should I say I am ambitious, but I am not economically minded. I am bad with money. But even more then that I am bad with working.

Yes I fear that 'little death' that comes with the first paycheck earned with disinterested sweat and energy. So much energy is expended that the rest of the waking day becomes a state of imprisonment in ones own body. The mind is awake, but does not want to do any more work. But the money is enough to pay the rent, bills, and then some. And I know the longer I can keep this up the better the chances that I can remain 'stable' financially speaking. So to hell with passions right? For now I am in an unusual state of opportunity or inertia depending on my mood. But when I do things, I really do them. I prey that I can fit myself into that second path to success that I mentioned, but I have to recognize and even appreciate the pains that go along with it.

Sunday

As musicians we tend to use the holy day of rest for working. But God would never punish us for that.

Drugs in the City

San Francisco's Mission district drug scene has changed drastically in the last ten yeas. In 2000 when I lived on 24th and Mission there were Mexican dealers on the street that sold coke and weed. Actual powder cocaine, not crack. These guys were not people who'd come to your house when you called them like most dealers of these kinds of social drugs. They just posted up on the street and waited for people they knew to come by. Down 24th street towards Portrrero Hill there were other Mexican dealers who sold $15 pieces of tar heroin. It was not the best, but it was always around. Then you had the real heroin center on 16th and Mission right outside the BART station. It was a little odd to have an open air drug market in such a high profile neighborhood, but there it was. Mexican, white, and black dealers, some addicts themselves working for dealers, would sell $5 balloons of heroin and coke called one-and-ones. The dealers gave local addicts one balloon for every three they could get another addict to buy: Credits. This system kept a screen between the dealers and the possible undercover agents. Addicts would do the actual transaction so if it was a set-up the addict/worker and not the dealer would take the fall. It also encouraged addicts to try and market their dealers product to possible buyers. This system worked well, and addicts came from all over the Bay Area to score. There was a heavy police presence, but they could not shut it down.

What did happen over time however, was that crack flooded the market and the other higher quality drugs got phased out. By 2008 the powder cocaine all but disappeared from the Mission district. Dealers who used to sell powder now sold crack. If a junkie wanted to shoot up cocaine they had to break the crack back down into its original form. They had to undo what the dealers did to make the coke into crack. It was dirty and far less potent. Crack is a course and unrefined market environment. Everyone is trying to rip everyone off. Local addicts would no longer get credits so they began to prey on outsiders and each other. The heroin addicts went to the Tenderloin. What is left today is a dirty, unorganized world where there once was a quality street drug market. Unfortunately this does not deter addicts, many who make risky moves trying to find one of the few remaining heroin dealers. I am sure police feel they were successful in dismantling a serious drug scene, but it has just been replaced by a messier, more violent one.

Nov Picks

Unless Meek can make a momentous break to the front ( Which is what the party should have supported all along), Marco Rubio will win the Senate seat in Florida.

As for Brown and Whitman I am still leaning toward Brown, for he has the "wind in his sales" (like Rubio!).

My great hope is that a new conglomerate of anti-war protesters emerge that are not part of Cindy Sheehan's generation but a coalition of people who are of age to have participated directly in the battles of today. College students, charismatic figures and the like are needed to spark a fire that spreads through the whole generation. The great orators and actors of the sixties still alive are now busy working to maintain and nurture the institutions that have resulted from their individual movements; despite the fact that the left is losing the war, we have won many battles. This is how the true spirit of a democracy of the likes we have never seen before hangs on to the edge of the cliff, clinging for life and maintaining hope that she will someday soon be rescued by the very people who left her there. It could be something less dramatic of course, but the point is the old vanguard is busy and unable to bring the passion needed to really take on the military industrial complex at home. It is a new day for them and the production of weapons of war are important to the economies of almost every state. The militarists are better and more powerful than ever. The street fighters are uninspiring to date, re-enacting scenes of protest using sophisticated rhetoric that make them seem all the more disconnected from the realities outside of their universities. Meanwhile the cities around them contain the remnants of black nationalist revolutionaries mixed with profiteers and a horrible kind of blood feud that leaves many like my friend Willeye dead for no good reason.

A fight against militarism is warranted. It is not a fight against the Obama administration or even a fight against Bush and his people. It is a fight against an institution that has long been too powerful and out of control. Viet Nam made the business of war and fighting Communism visible to the public who reacted with disgust. It was becoming clear to many Americans that dirty things had been done and were still being done in the name of our empire. Since then the underground movement has grown and moved into the electronic age. I feel optimistic about the fact that a new and fresh anti-war movement is brewing, though due to the actions of the current administrations it is currently holding back criticism of the current government. But it is well know among media circles that president Obama has continued most of the militaristic operations he inherited, and even increased the controversial predator drone strikes. Still the militant attitude built into our defense institutions is always ripe for attack and a President in this case can be heavily swayed by the public to follow through with certain demands. The end of combat missions in Iraq is a good start, but the war in Afghanistan not to mention the drug wars in Mexico and Columbia are devastating and brutal and many people consider them imperialistic. A new generation of war protesters with youth and passion and empathy for their brothers and sisters in combat is being trumpeted in. I do not know if making this request is cowardly or not, but I admire the courage of anyone who is truly inspired to build action due to the Wikileaks video they saw about the helicopter slaughter of civilians in Iraq. Greece's democracy was put in jeopardy by its military institutions. In the end Greece was hijacked by the military and imperialism defeated democracy.

Americn Music

The legacy of American starts from two distinct points. One is the aristocracy who did create a Democratic government, but one which was still dominated by the wealthy. The other is the fellow traveler, or the person who's not really a beneficiary of the new government. The story of America always includes elements of both sides with the moral being that a have-not can become a have. Today the musical elite use the image of the fellow traveler to capitalize on the industry. But that makes sense seeing that at root America would not be the same if it were not for the influence of the wanderer, the bum, the undesirable. The same is true for most countries, but this country is the mold from which all musical trends are cast. That may seem nationalistic, but who will argue that America is not behind the wheel of the global economy. Not as a country per say (which can be seen through the many public poles on policy that continually show the American people in opposition to their government) but as a symbolic force. American music has a powerful and succinct legacy.

The Anti-smoking movement is classist and racist

The anti-smoking movement in this country goes hand in hand with the phony environmentalism of middle class suburbia. In an attempt to 'improve' public health, these advocates ( who Im sure are a minority group of upper-middle class whites) have made the unfriendly streets even more unfriendly. And who are the people that smoke? Mostly working class people and minorities who may be undereducated and who definitly use smoking as a way of releiving stress. The sighns that say people need to be 25 feet away from the entrance of buildings if they want to smoke is just a way to keep 'undesirables' away from the proper middle class working people. I have not heard a single word from these people about what smokers are supposed to do or where they are supposed to go. To them smokers are unimportant people who should be kept out of sight. It is a law made by people who think they are superior to those of us who god forbid might have a flaw or two. It is a law against the poor and working classes.

While reading Mike Davis's City of Quartz I cannot help but to think of my upbringing in the suburbs of San Francisco. I too was suckered into supporting the local "slow growth movement" by way of their environmentalist rhetoric. I was saved by a group of friends who saw the hypocrisy our upper-middle class town's message, and who saw the town for what it was; and enclave for middle class and upper-middle class whites to be safe from the horrors of the city. (I now realize they were also avoiding the horrors of higher property taxes as well.) Yes my dear friends despite being of middle class backgrounds took on the values and mannerisms of the working class. There was always a radical and socialist tint to our language, and our views on environmentalism were far to the left of the "liberal" leadership of the city. It is a fortunate thing that in suburbs all over America this type of reaction against the conservative views takes place, and ultimately the newly produced "hipsters" will join with their inner city counterparts and also find each other. An endless celebration is then at hand for we have over come what so many suburban youth of today cannot; fear of the world around us.

Big Willie will be missed

Big Willie, a Funktown local was gunned down Thursday during the Meserlie verdict riots on 7th and Foothill. As far as anybody knows this incident was not related to the riots and was most likely a case of mistaken identity. The incident is tragic beyond belief. Big Willie was a hustler and I did buy drugs from him on occasion, but he was a gentleman and a gentle man. A gentle giant. His voice could be heard bellowing a block away yet I never saw him get angry. Even though I barely knew him he always remembered my name and waved to me when he passed by. He never pushed drugs on me and the kids around the neighborhood saw him as a powerful but kind representative of the block. His memorial is growing to be the size of Princess Diana's and I imagine it will remain in place for a long time. It is not the first memorial I have seen on that site, but it is by far the most brilliant one with full size photos of Willie the man and his family. Big Willie I hope the fact that a mere stranger like myself appreciated you so much can at the very least have some positive impact. I am sure you would want it that way. You will be missed.

By Cdub and everyone at Hoodpushin records

Many of the current political races are polarized between ideologies. One is a welfare state kind of situation and the other is a libertarian utopia. It happens on high and low levels. Americans are kind of libertarian by nature, but with that comes a socialist movement who can always depend on the victims of the free market to add to their numbers. The leftists are losing out even though right now regulation has become such a big deal. On a global scale neoliberal capitalism is the system. But a new breed of dirty hippy socialists, or anarchists as the OPD calls them, are gaining rank on a global level. What worries me about this is the level of militancy on both sides. It is building up to be a strange insurgency. In a way the term 'global south' has already been outdated since basically the whole world is an open shop. I continue to look for a viable third option, but so many of my hopes for humanity have been crushed lately. I fear that for the general public the world is deteriorating. Its hard to say, for no statistics can tell you weather we are living better or worse than we did in the past. But a dismal gloom hangs over many a mid level city ( as in Oakland where so many feel that justice has not been carried out in the Oscar Grant case.)

Oscar Grant

Bad verdict. Not much going on, but wait till dark. Funktown is being monitored from above for some reason, but people might just be getting ready.

july 5th

I imagine in any city of America the Fourth of July holiday is marked by random explosions throughout the night. Its interesting that we blow up stuff to celebrate our Independence. Our militaristic society was almost inevitable wit such symbolism. but i love it.

Happy Days after the fall of Post Modernism

Nobody can truly be happy any more. Some people accumulate great wealth and do a great many good things with it, but there must be some unhappiness that drives them to do good. Maybe it is possible that there are poor, dumb people out there who have everything they need and are happy. They can only be relatively happy for there must be little annoyances, drama, and/or loneliness in every body's life. No in the postmodern world that we live in happiness is just a construct of a previous era like 'truth'. It is not something that can be truly attained. In fact there is no longer reason to believe that it is something to be obtained, or that it is even an 'it' at all. Happiness is a feeling with which we identify, but some of us have become aware that our use of grammar implies a lot about subject and object. That is to say we pose happiness as some kind of goal, at least I know I do, and we ignore the fact that we can only identify happiness as a feeling, but we cannot know when we are going to find ourselves in that state, and we certainly do not know how to put our selves permanently in a state of happiness. Still we say it is what we want. Misery can become a constant state of being in a way. Humans can suffer to the point where the slightest bit of good news can never outweigh the overwhelming problems at hand. This is the indifference of nature at times, but it is also the problem that the thinkers of the enlightenment and all of modern society set out to solve. The problem of poverty. And it has not been solved, and has only gotten worse to where we have a global 'Dickensian-ism' of sorts currently on our hands. Without poverty happiness might become something that holds weight again. It might be a reachable goal. Unfortunately there has yet to be a truly sustainable solution to poverty. Because of this impoverished mind set our whole race is rapidly becoming extinct along with millions of others. What I am saying here is that whatever it is that has made us unable to care for all of humanity has become an entity that is now destroying our planet. Obama is not facing his 'Katrina' in the gulf of Mexico, but rather his '9-11'. There is not a great evil out there that is perpetuated by some individuals, at least not in nature's view. We can sight specific incidents like the one in the gulf as the problem. But what leads to creating the system that allows such a disaster to happen. No I think we have to all take blame for what is happening to the world because this is the only productive way to move towards sustainability as a culture. Right now I pose that we work towards this goal of happiness with soft eyes and humility. This is a serious incremental approach to a problem that has never been solved and we should not expect this approach to appease nature, or be what we hope it could be, but I applaud any attempts to really work on a global community in the true sense of the words.

I want to say "Yes" more often, but I have to be somewhat consistant.

Beyond Good and Evil -UC Berkeley edition

What to talk about today. Mike Huchabee? Nah. I am more concerned about my future employment than anything else. I do have a service job and have held about half a dozen service jobs in my life, but now I have a degree and I want more. Its kinda funny that most of the students (at least in my department) would show interest in these human rights/equal rights/advocate for democracy type jobs, but now that we have to go to work and think of our own livelihoods the whole do-good er/UC Berkeley spirit of fairness goes out the window. My whole time at Cal I tried to point out that we, Americans at least, are capitalists and therefore should probably watch out for the anti-capitalist rhetoric that spouts out of the mouths of almost every student under the age of twenty-five. It is not that I am conservative or establishmentarian or libertarian or anything like that, I am just conscious and aware of where I am and who I am. That is to say I see no point in talking about a revolution that will take down our system and leave the country in chaos because we are no where near that scenario in real life. And even more important is the fact that if we want to have any power in this global neocapitalist environment we must have money! This is a fact. Why do you think Move-On .org and other effective organizations on the left are always looking for donations. Rhetoric alone will not topple the empire. Believe me I know for I was a rhetoric major. I cannot speak for the graduating students who feel financially secure enough to not worry about their future. Maybe these people can buy the freedom that they need to live an idealistic life. If that is the case more power to them, but recognize that we cannot all be free. I had fortunately lost a lot of my idealistic views by the time I returned to college to finish my undergrad. Now I am keeping an open mind and really trying to pick my battles so that I do not end up using all of my intelligence and energy on trying to live out an ideology that will most certainly not work out in this complicated and ever changing world. Think about that all you hippies. You are about to become yuppies and you may be surprised at how easy the transition can be. You shouldn't be shocked about your shallowness, for nobody could really expect to live up to the ideals of the average Berkeley student. Nobody can be that good.

Gulf Oil Spilt

I dont know if I should continue to follow the news. Politics and the environmental movement have come together in a really ugly way with the problem unsolved. I do not doubt that a battle on behalf of the public is brewing. But I dont know why I bother to give these political opinions and declarations. I do think I can call a political winner almost every time and I would put my money where my mouth is. Still as a human it is all horrible and none of it is new. The Apocalypse does not look like 2012 nor the bible's version. It is slow and ongoing and started in the beginning ( and it shows itself at times in ways that horrify us all.) I guess I gotta talk about something.

Gaza Blockade

So it looks like Israel is going to loosen the blockade on the Gaza strip. I guess even the Israeli government has had to admit that it is inhumane. What is surprising is how long it took them to come to this decision. The price of Israeli security seemed to outweigh the prospect of starving an entire city of its people's most basic of needs. I just hope the Gazans can now repair their sewage plant. I do not like to weigh in on who is worse the Palestinians or the Israelis, but I can say without a doubt that it is wrong to force people to live in their own sewage war or not. The health of the planet is a concern of mine, and when people are forced to watch their entire environment rendered toxic and unusable that is a crime. A crime in India and a crime in Israel.

Rant and Rave

I was wondering why I found the two people rehearsing their ballroom dancing in front of the music library so irritating. It was not just that they were bad, but they were arrogant as well. Rehearsing in public means the public has a right to be entertained. But these two obviously only care about impressing teachers or a class. Basically they are not doing it for the right reasons. Not in my mind.

Ear Training

Nightly Business report on PBS last night reported on a study done some time back which showed that humans were more likely to prefer what is familiar to them as opposed to what is new. They were saying that people tend to only buy stock that is familiar to them. They also said that this is why people prefer to hear hits on the oldies and classic rock stations all across America. That is true to a certain extent. People everywhere train their ears to prefer certain sounds over others. Its usually subconscious but it happens to everyone. Do yo like country? yes or no. Everyone should know the answer to this question. When it comes to 'classic rock' stations, they have consolidated all over the country and are more homogeneous as opposed to the times when fm radio was a new and experimental way to play music.
Now consider this: A new song comes on the radio and I like it. It gets played more and more and that is good because I like it. But then it gets played more and more and even more and when you think it cannot go on it gets played again until it is totally played. Then I can't stand the song even when it is good. Maybe at that point I discover that music and sound is more about moods then about what's good or hip or available for mass consumption daily for free. Now in the computer age we are get to the point where we can make our own music collections more accessible by using the shuffle mode. This I believe is a good invention. I like to have 1.5 thousand songs that can be categorized and broken into more and more easy to find segments. Its hard with the records I have. But I have to say I would rather have both than one or the other.

What is this blog about

Blogs to me are places where people can voice honest opinions over the internet. That's great, but they obviously have a larger effect on news and ploitics than a simple bulliten board would. The internet is the church door. Unfortunately not everybody realises this and people post all sorts of hateful, offensive, and false information. So that is the situation as it is. I try very hard not to come across as a flaming leftist while at the same time I do not want to turn the left off. Nor do I want to be neutral. I just like to think that what I think and believe cannot be placed into existing catagories. I hope I am right.
As for this blog I like to take on the news of the world, but I also want to make room for truly important topics like Mad Men, the Simpsons, and the comedy of David Cross. And I realise nobody has been reading these posts, but I will continue to present things as if they are to be posted on the church doors. A virtual secular church, but a church none the less.

Israel and Gaza

I am predicting that despite the horrible international press Israel continues to receive due to the incident with the Gaza relief ships, they will continue to keep the harsh embargo in play. The reason for this has to do with the fact that Israel is in a constant state of vigilance. Its not just because of the Hamas doctrine to destroy Israel, though this is why the embargo started. It is because they believe that their Arab neighbors weather they say so or not, do not want them there and if they let their guard down the natives will push them into the sea. Its the same thing that has been going on since the inception of Israel. When Helen Thomas made that remark she probably knew what the consequences would be. She was dismissed as a xenophobe, but what other solutions have been proposed? Relations between the two countries have deteriorated since the Clinton years and there is no sign of peace to come. What the activists did was useful for before this the only people that talked about the embargo were academics like Noam Chompsky. But Israel will weigh not only their future existence, but their current existence against the breaking of International laws and pick the former. They have done it before and will do it again.

Wikileaks and Whistleblowers

I watched "collateral murder" and I think every American should see it. People get hung up on picking sides on both the right and the left when it comes to this kind of thing. Here is what I think: Private Manning was not being unpatriotic by releasing this video to the public, and Assange is not crossing any lines. If this was about the Viet Nam war then there would not be so much objection to the truth on the battle field. But this is about a current war and the behavior of our country right now. That is too much for some people to accept. I do not think that these particular soldiers should be punished either, for the film really reflects an attitude that we all carry responsibility for. We do not live in an age where one side is morally correct either. America is a machine with a fierce military component that has no sympathy for the weak and powerless. Our actions and attitudes in our everyday lives contribute to what happens out there no matter what we think we believe. Assange did our country a favor, for the world will blame us, the American people, for this mess, and this video explains why. We are becoming monsters and nobody seems to care. Instead the news media argues over weather or not the Reuters reporter's camera looks like a gun in the grainy film. But what strikes a chord with me is the wrath that our military technology can bring down on a body and how unemotional we are when it comes to operating such weaponry.

Oh How I Hate You Leftist Bastards

Just to clear up what my intended audience is, I have to point out that I am a leftist bastard myself. I am not endorsing any kind of "tea party" here at all ( in fact I hate those rubes just as much.) But really I am getting sick of these phony socialist views that come spewing out of the mouths of millennial egotists who want the newest free speech cafe to be named after them. Their sense of entitlement is bewildering considering that they are fighting materialistic values. I mean its fine to be critical of the bougoise as long as you aknowledge that your part in it all. There is an elite attitude too in their reluctance to admit any failings of their own and to instead blame indescrepancies on outside agitators. The new young leftists of Berkeley who seriously think that this nation will somehow dump capitalism for communism are as ignorant and irritating as the "rabble" who make up the tea party; a group that has no real political message, but none the less feel the need to impede any progress that might be made in congress. Both groups do have legitimate gripes with the government. The raising of tuition at Berkeley is fucked and in general our government has had a poor track record as of late. But this knee jerk reaction shit is not only counter productive but actually divisive. And both parties (much like the Christian missionaries of yore) want to force a lifestyle on people who don't want it. Now as for the demands the left is making, lets say the state of California gives in and cancels the budget cuts to higher education. Then they will have to take the money from other employees of the state. Its in our goddamn constitution that the state budget must be balanced, and our fucked up property tax laws all but guarantee that cannot happen without cutting government jobs and programs each year. I have heard of some academics who are working on this problem and this is what I think we really need. But more often I just hear "capitalism sucks." Weather it sucks or not this argument ain't making things any better. In fact it is because I expect more from the left that I am so angered by the bullshit propaganda that is going around. I challenge any of the leaders of this new quasi revolution to a debate on the subject. I am ready to be proven wrong, are you?

rant

I was reading about David Simmon's "rants" and I found he and I to have similar complaints bout the world. It seems like he tries so hard to give everybody an equal voice and to do this embedded, non-shot gun style reporting, and yet editors respond by saying its good, but where is the problem to be solved. The problem with the problem is that it is so unwieldy and so blurred that it cannot be comprehended to the point where it may not even be a problem at all but rather more of a sealed fate. In the real world people are not always anything, and that is why an intelligent observer of life at this point should be beyond good and evil. Yet as the President reluctantly reminded us," Make no mistake, evil exists in the world." ...I would say at least to the point of an ethical consensus. If a man rapes and kills a child maybe he should be put to death. What bothers me are the judgements people so readily make about people they know so little about. The need to find evil, and to maintain the myth that aside from occasional crime, We Americans are safe and our institutions are in control is essential to most of them.
I know a different truth; one that I have yet to fully grasp and put into words. Here is a beginning.

Funktown-my stomping grounds 2004-present.
Im a bad dude in tha town. But my roots there are in my relationship to the community. If I did not give back, I wouldn't have the kind of respect that I do. But I am not one of them. Still, gentrification scares me more than tha corner boys. But what really is gentrification? It is a word people liked to use around the turn of the last century. People in a neighborhood like mine, not quite the ghetto but still tha hood, fall into a few class groups. There are the working class families who usually fit a lot of people into a small place, the first apartment/young urban hipster type (which has many off shoots or subcategories) and then the lower classes. How low can the classes go you ask? Well if you have a house on section eight you have much lower living expenses. The stereotypical image of a section eight recipient is someone who uses drugs or is utherwise unemployable. Really there are all types, but many of them are depressed. As I stated earlier, depression is linked to substance abuse. I will try and pick up on this thread for my next rant... giving some examples. But back to Simmon. I had always felt that drug addicts were unfairly criminalized. Similar to Simmon, I find that the only way to explain this world is to recreate it from the inside, and to get into the head of several different addicts to paint a picture. Thats ideal for many situations, but almost necessary if one wants to understand the life of a nock. For my next rant I will remember to: get into some people's housing situations in detail, and get into West Coast heroin language based on Simmon's attention to detail. In the end I hope to get out enough real information that can be assembled into a journalistic essay. Hopefully I get to do it in conjunction with my studies. Whatever i am doing, I will finally put this knowledge to use in a way that is meaningful to me.
Thank you and goodnight
Cdub