Delayed Gratification

I turned 49 a couple of days ago and I am in my happy place. There's change in the air and even though I can't attend, I'm excited about Brendan Mullen's show in Los Angeles this weekend. Brendan is promoting his latest book, Live At The Masque - Nightmare In Punk Alley and has managed to assemble an old codger contingent that makes me want to run out and grab my Depends. The show is this Veteran's Day at the Echo and Echoplex. Scheduled to appear are The Plugs, The Eyes, The Controllers, The Gears...It promises to be fun. I saw somewhere that Geza X will be joining the Deadbeats onstage. Not only is Geza an ex-Bags member, but he also had a band at the time who were called the Jerrys (after Jerry Lewis). I thought it might be fun if he had a new band called The Geris (after geriatrics). I would love to be in that band! So climb into the wormhole and click on the flyer for a journey back in time.




The many photographers who contributed to the Masque book, along with Brendan Mullen and his co-editor are doing their part to preserve the legacy of punk rock. It's something I get asked about in almost every interview and I typically wrestle a bit with the answer. Truthfully, it's sometimes difficult for me to say which things have changed for the better (or worse) as a result of punk rock. But today, I saw some photos that gave me the answer I was looking for. More on that below.

Earlier this week, L.A. Record asked me to do an interview in conjunction with this event but because it was my birthday and I was out celebrating, I missed the deadline and only half my interview made it in on time. Click on the drawing to read the first part of the interview. I've included the missing second half below the drawing.



Drawing of me by Christine Hale

"When Necessary, Annihilate" interview part II

Q: Being female and Latina, did that present any obstacles for you in the scene or was it an asset to be female and 'exotic' in the scene?
A: I never felt that I was treated as anything other than a human being by the people involved in the punk scene. Being female was not a liability as the large number of women who were involved in the early scene can attest. Neither was being a Latina. At a certain point my band got a bad reputation because of our aggressive behavior and unruly fans, but that was well deserved. I am nobody's victim. I very often confuse people who get in my face with punching bags. You can take a girl out of East LA, but you can't take East LA out of the girl.

Q: Can you recall specific events that, for you, sounded the end of LA Punk and signaled the shape of things to come?
A: Yes, I remember one particular show where I looked into the audience and I realized that it was made up of people who were not connected to me (or connecting with me) in any way. They were there to "make the scene," hang out, act tough, fight with each other, whatever but they were not there to hear The Bags. Up until then my performances were all about interacting with the audience. I never wanted to make background music. I think I knew then that there was a new breed of punk on the horizon and that I had to move on to something else.

Q: What are your thoughts on 'music' today; how it is made, what is being made, and the way we experience and consume our music now as opposed to then?
A: Music today is just as exciting and creative as it was in 1977 - if you know where to look for it. There are lots of young musicians making their own recordings, putting out their own merch, exploring with new sounds and instrumentation, planning their own tours. The internet has made it possible for us to hear small, unsigned bands from all over the world. That's a good thing but I still feel that the best way to experience rock or pretty much any kind of music is live, in a club setting.
Mainstream radio is just as bad or even worse than it was back in the seventies when punk started. The whole music industry has become slick, sophisticated and geared towards image driven pop stars who are as interchangeable and disposable as the products they sell, from sneakers to cell phones.

Q: How did the closing of the Masque affect the scene? I'm wondering if the bands were maturing and growing up and out of the Masque?
A: You know, I hear people talk about how there were other venues for punk rock other than the Masque and it's true that there were clubs who would book punk bands who could draw a drinking age crowd, but the Masque was more than a venue. It was almost a clubhouse. Brendan wasn't selling liquor, he wasn't making big bucks off admission fees. He was just doing what he wanted to do. He opened his doors to a bunch of strangers, welcomed us in and gave us a place to express ourselves and create. I think the fact that the L.A. Scene was so strong was because it was unified and interactive. We were living, working and creating in many of the same places like the Masque and the Canterbury. Those places were like little greenhouses for us. As those circumstances changed the scene changed. I'm not sure if the closing of the Masque affected the scene as much as the natural evolution of the scene itself and the influence of outsiders affected the closing of the Masque. The scene just grew beyond the Masque and the original, tight knit community unraveled around the same time.

Q: How do you want to be remembered at your passing?
A: Truthfully, if you want to remember me do it now. I won't give a shit when I'm dead.

Megan Brown shreds on the Alice Bag skateboard.


Finally, for those of you who asked about the Alice Bag skateboard deck, it's done. Gridlock Skateboards has produced a limited edition of Alice Bag skateboards and the last I heard, they were planning on selling a few at the show this weekend. All proceeds go to supporting a youth skateboarding mentor program organized by Michael Fox. The art for the boards was designed by Zeroxed in conjunction with Gridlock Skateboards. So if you've ever wanted to step on my face here's your chance.

Today, I saw some photos of a young female skater named Megan Brown riding my board on MySpace and I've posted a couple of them above. It's hard to describe the many feelings I get from these photos but I can tell you that I couldn't be more proud. Seeing a young girl riding a board with my face on it really brought home the "legacy of punk rock" idea for me. It's like the whole thing has come full circle. When I was a kid, girls didn't ride skateboards; if they did, they certainly didn't ride them aggressively like the boys did. Seeing this image of a young girl, empowered on a skateboard with my face on it, well...it's kind of the ultimate delayed gratification for me. It tells me that punk changed something about the way young women feel about themselves and the way society views young women.

No Excess Bagisms!

For someone who's just starting to sew, one of the easiest things to make is a supermarket bag. It’s a good project because not only do you get to practice your sewing skills, if you feel like it you can add some personal touches to your grocery bag. If that weren’t its own reward, you also get to feel good about not adding more non-biodegradable flotsam to the environment.

This morning, I had to make a quick pit stop at the supermarket to pick up some sandwich bread. I didn’t take my cloth bag, figuring I wouldn’t need it for just a loaf of bread. I shoulda' known better. I couldn’t pass up the freshly baked puffy cheese bagels. The scent of them immediately had me salivating and then the French bread loaves were peeking out of their bags, flashing some very sexy flaky crust at me. Anyway, I don’t want to turn this narrative into kinky bakery porn. Suffice it to say that I ended up with plenty of warm bread in my basket.

Which brings me back to my story. When I got to the cash register with my loaves and bagels, I asked for no bag. In the past this request has been met with irate indignation, which I’ve never been able to understand. Is it too much to ask that the checker or bagger pause his/her robotic impulse to bag my groceries? Well, this time it wasn’t. To my surprise and delight, the cashier responded to my request with “Oh, you're trying to do your bit for the environment. Good for you.” Though that was a nice touch, it wasn’t the payoff. As I wheeled out my cart full of unbagged bread I heard the man behind me say “That looks like a good idea. Don’t bag mine, either.” Now that would’ve made my day, but as I drove out of the parking lot I saw ANOTHER customer coming out of the market with an armful of unbagged groceries. I couldn’t believe it. It was contagious!

You don’t know how many times since I made those darn bags I’ve forgotten to take them to the market, or felt dumb for asking the cashier to take my merchandise out of the bag when they jumped the gun and bagged stuff before I had a chance to stop them. There have certainly been plenty of times when I’ve thought that taking my cloth bag to the market was never going to make any difference but today I caught a glimpse of the power that each one of us has to make change. Sometimes all people need is a little encouragement and someone to start the ball rolling.



Sometimes I think I can be obnoxiously positive, but then I remember that I can be angry and mean too, so I guess it all balances out. I think positivity has gotten a bad rap. I'm not positive in that "don't worry, be happy" sort of way; my positivity has more to do with tenacity. It can even be confrontational. In fact, I just saw a case study in what I would describe as confrontational positivity - a documentary which is out on DVD , The U.S. vs. John Lennon.



John Lennon's rebellious, in-your-face attitude, his idealism, and commitment to rallying the youth of the world to demand peace and an end to the Vietnam war are inspiring. In fact, I'm struck by how little anyone is doing to stop the current war and how bold and shamelessly President Bush asks for more funds to finance a war which is becoming increasingly unpopular.

In one scene from the documentary, a group of antiwar protesters stands outside of the White House chanting "Fuck War, Fuck LBJ!" (referring to then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson), middle fingers waving in the air - wow! Can you imagine chanting that sort of stuff anywhere, let alone outside of the White House, now? I don't think we'd get away with it. What the hell is wrong with us? How did we become so afraid of our own government? I wonder if those activists in the early seventies thought they'd get away with it back then. Guess what? They did. There I go being positive again...but really, what the hell is wrong with us?

Here are some statistics related to Bush's increased war budget that should get you pissed off.

Source: AP 10/22/07
For the Pentagon, the latest request includes:

$1 billion for military construction projects, including improvements at airfields and other U.S. bases in Iraq;

$1 billion to expand the Iraqi security forces; and

$1 billion to train National Guard units.

All told, the $189.3 billion Pentagon request for 2008 includes:

$77 billion for military operations and maintenance;

$30.5 billion to protect U.S. forces from roadside bombs, snipers, and other threats; and

$46.5 billion to repair and replace equipment that has been damaged or destroyed in combat or worn out in harsh conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

**************************************

Source: CBS NEWS 10/22/07
POLL: WHO IS WINNING IN IRAQ?

The U.S.
24%
The insurgents
12%
Neither side
60%

Source: Alice Bag 10/22/07
POLL: WHO IS WINNING IN IRAQ?
Defense contractors and big oil companies
100%

Ghost Town Travelogue

It’s beginning to look a lot like Halloween. Not that I need a special reason to start crafting with skulls, ghosts and other ghoulish creatures, but each autumn I feel my love of the dark side rekindled. When I lived in Glassell Park, I used to have my house done up in Dia de Los Muertos decor year round. My walls were painted with bright, bright colors and a permanent collection of devil masks, calaveras and little skeleton shrines were on display regardless of the season, which led my mother to place cut out paper crosses on the foreheads of my "demonios" for my own protection, but I digress...I really meant to talk about Halloween.



This past weekend, we drove up to Jerome for their annual Ghost Walk. We had been to a Ghost Walk last year in Prescott and I’ve started to wonder if this is a uniquely Arizonan tradition. I’ve taken ghost tours in different cities but usually they involve a tour guide relating spooky stories as the group visits various locations purported to be haunted. It’s done differently here.

In Jerome, we began our evening by meeting in the town hall where we were sorted into small groups while a trio of musicians sang about death, murder and phantoms. Each group departed from the town hall and from there we went to different locations around the small town. At each location, we were met by the "ghosts" of Jerome who told us the details of their own passing. The actors were costumed in period dress and put on a little skit reenacting the significant moments leading up to their deaths. It was fun and entertaining.



I’ve written about Jerome before. It is a colorful place, as befits a mining ghost town that refuses to rest in peace. Inhabited by the type of people who would inhabit a ghost town, it is quirky, spooky and artistic. The ghost walk was fun, but not scary at all. Walking around Jerome on any given night is much scarier. There are places here that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. If you ever drop by, take the unpaved road up to The Jerome Grand Hotel and have a drink at the Asylum. If you should plan to stay and don’t mind a sleepless night, you could get a room at The Jerome Grand Hotel, The Connor Hotel or The Inn at Jerome, all of which are reputedly haunted.



I like to actually sleep, so The Ghost City Inn with its homemade peanut butter cookies suits me just fine, although it is also reportedly haunted. The last time we visited, we ate at the Haunted Hamburger, but this time, we opted for the delicious veggie burgers at the Mile High Inn & Grill. Locals say that just about every place in Jerome has its own spirits. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, it's a good place to visit anytime of year, but especially when there is a chill in the air and you're in the mood for some spooky fun.

Learning The Ropes

I have been collecting aprons for a few years. I’ve always had one or two pretty ones that I’d dig out when my mom was making tamales at Christmas time or when I used to serve up lattes at Troy Café, but ever since my days as Mothra Stewart in the apron-wearing band Stay at Home Bomb, my love for this useful little accessory has grown steadily. A few years back I began scouring thrift stores for vintage aprons and recently I’ve started sewing my own. They’re relatively easy for a beginning seamstress like me. A simple waist apron requires that you be able to sew a few straight seams and that’s all, but they can be very feminine and elaborate too.


Stay at Home Bomb

I started sewing about a year and a half ago after having to whip up a poodle skirt for my daughter to wear to a school dance. After a little success with that I started making bags, simple gifts sewn from Mexican oil cloth, homemade dresses and skirts, and worked my way up to a button down shirt. My friends are always gracious and seem to appreciate the things I make for them. I like to think they really like their gift, but I’ve had a nagging doubt that makes me wonder if they’re just being polite and they’re secretly rolling their eyes when I gift them with yet another homemade treasure.


Homemade "treasures"...

This weekend I decided to put myself to the test. I wanted to see if my aprons were something that only I and my friends would like or if they could appeal to impartial shoppers. My friend Angie came out to visit me from California with the intention of joining me in our very first craft fair. We gathered up a bunch of aprons that we’d sewn over the summer, rigged up a coat rack with a CD holder on top and set up on the street. Phoenix’s art galleries hold openings the First Friday of each month and local crafters set up tables in the vacant lots that dot the downtown art neighborhood. There are usually musicians who set up makeshift stages. There are no fees, no auditions to play; it’s completely DIY so you have to be willing to take charge of everything. Some vendors mooch power from the galleries and shops by running extension cords; a band last night brought their own gas powered generator, some go unplugged. Angie and I took some camping lanterns, but we didn’t need them because we found a good spot under a street light on the busy corner of 5th and Roosevelt.


"Get Your Red-Hot Aprons Here!" The tenacious Angie Skull.


We were so excited all day, ironing our aprons, pricing them, making a cute poster, rigging up the coat rack so that we could hang our aprons. No sooner had we set up our aprons than a huge gust of wind kicked up and knocked our rack of freshly pressed aprons onto the ground. We picked them up dusted them off, but the wind wouldn’t let up. Our apron poster fell over about a hundred times, our rack and all the aprons fell over 3 more times and we were seriously bumming thinking that we would have to take turns holding up the rack all night. When my husband and daughter showed up with sandbags they’d “borrowed” from a construction site. We weighted the coat rack down so that it would teeter in the wind but not fall over without giving us a chance to catch it.

Our mood improved after that but we still had to hover pretty close to our stuff. The up side of that was that we heard everything people said about our work and it was all complimentary. The downside is that we behaved like preschool mothers on the first day of school, not because we were worried about our aprons but we didn’t want to have an unsuspecting shopper get knocked over by an avalanche of aprons. I think we scared the customers away. After a couple of near accidents, Angie and I really did end up having to take turns holding up the rack. It was demoralizing. I was ready to pack the stuff up and give up, but Angie, who is one of the stubbornest people I know, insisted that we stay. After a while a large parade of zombies passed by. About fifty or sixty people dressed like something out of Night of the Living Dead walked through the crowd, all of them in character. Not one was smiling or chatting with a friend. That cheered me up, as zombies always do. A few minutes later, a group of people dressed in very fine and elaborate Ghostbuster outfits rushed by on their way to solve a case. A local roller derby outfit, The Coffin Draggers were there selling sweets to raise money for their team. How could I be bummed?



After three and a half hours, Angie had sold three aprons and I’d sold one. I had told myself that I’d be happy if I sold even one apron, but the one I sold was to a friend, so I proved nothing. I did learn lots of things my first craft fair. I learned that I should iron my aprons the night before, that I should check the weather report and most importantly, that I have friends who appreciate (and even pay for) my homemade goods just because they’re my friends. That is the sweetest lesson of all.

Click on my Flickr badge in the blog margin to see some more of my homemade aprons.

Pogo Proof Cameras - Punk Rock Pix

I’m thrilled to tell you about the exciting things that are happening to some of my talented friends. This coming Saturday night from 7:00 to 10:00 pm, Drkrm Gallery will be hosting the opening reception for Destroy All Music, The Masque and Beyond, a photography exhibition featuring the work of Dawn Wirth and Louis Jacinto.




Both Dawn and Louis have been pretty quiet about their photos of the early L.A. punk scene for many years. They’ve finally decided to dust off their proof sheets and share the treasures they’ve recently unearthed with the rest of us. It should be a fun reception with lots of faces from the past. It's too bad that I can't make it out to L.A. but I will certainly be there in spirit and perhaps in a few of the photos. Coincidentally, the Drkrm Gallery is located in Glassell Park, walking distance from my old home. Stop in at King Taco on Cypress Ave after the show, I used to love their carne asada tacos back in my carnivorous days.

The internationally recognized work of Ms. Jenny Lens is also currently on display in the new Punk 365 coffee table book. Jenny has been tirelessly documenting the punk and rock scenes for decades and many of her photos have achieved iconic status. She has her own book in the works and you can read about it on her website and blog.

Punk 365 also features the photos of former Dead Boys tour manager and Whisky A G0-Go ticket girl Theresa Kereakes.

I'm extremely proud to have three of the photographers whose work is featured in Punk 365 in my Women In L.A. Punk section: Dawn Wirth, Jenny Lens and Theresa Kereakes. Congratulations to you all!

Wild Books in Public Places

A couple of posts ago I started writing about books and in the course of researching links for that entry, I found a website called BookCrossing. BookCrossing's main objective is book recycling or sharing; they define it as "the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise." Because the books are registered before being released into the wild, their journeys all over the world can be tracked and one of my favorite features of the BookCrossing site is the "catch/release map", a global map that updates constantly to show the titles and locations of books recently caught or released.

The person who captures the wild book is encouraged to go to the website, enter the location where the book was found and write a comment if desired. The person who releases the book gets to follow up on the book by reading the comments from subsequent readers. It's a strange sort of international, anonymous book club.



My family and I have planned to release some books into the wild this morning. Part of the fun is strategically planning where we are going to leave our books. My daughter will be leaving some of her pet care books on benches in front of the local pet store. I might leave some crafting books near the entrance of Joann's. My philosophy and theology books are being released in or around churches. My husband plans on sneaking his copy of Fast Food Nation into McDonald's and leaving it in a booth.

I have been hoarding books for a long time and always hoped that someday I'd have a large personal library with tall bookcases and a window seat where I could in the sit in the sunlight and read for hours. My goals have changed over the years. My family and I are really embracing a nomadic existence these days and hope to do some traveling over the next few years. That means keeping personal belongings to a minimum. I've come to a point in my life where I feel that I have to choose between gathering experiences and gathering material possessions. Somehow, I'd managed to exempt records and books from these periodic purges, but I think I'm ready to part with many of them. I don't have many expensive things, nor do I want them. Records, books and photos are my most precious material possessions, but of those, only the photos are irreplaceable. So I'm saying goodbye to some of my old friends, a few at a time. I hope they make new friends out there and make others as happy as they've made me.

A Tree Grows in Jena

The White Tree in Jena, LA.

I am pissed off again. Have you heard of the Jena 6? I hadn’t until yesterday, when a friend sent me an email telling me about a legal battle raging in Louisiana. Ironically, it all began with a tree on a high school campus in a small town called Jena, nicknamed the "White Tree" because only white students sat under it during lunch and breaks. One day a black student asked the school principal during assembly if blacks were allowed to sit under the tree. The next day three hangman's nooses appeared, dangling from the tree. If you want to find out what happened next, click on some of the following links:

Jena Six Wikipedia

freethejena6.org



If you have heard of the Jena 6, then I hope you’re as angry as I am that this sort of insidious, institutionalized racism is still happening. No, I'm not surprised that racism is still around but I am surprised by what short memories our elected officials have. I was in Los Angeles in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict and I remember the feelings of unease and anger that brewed during that trial and then exploded in the L.A. Riots/Rodney King uprising - whatever you want to call that insurrection doesn't make a difference here. What matters is that Los Angeles proved that it would not tolerate institutionalized racism in that instance without a fight and Jena, Louisiana will do the same. Oh yeah, I am pissed and I am not alone. Newsweek quotes a man named Ray Hodges who claims to have planted the tree (which has since been cut down) 20 years ago: "I watched that tree grow...It was planted as a tree of knowledge. But guess what it became? It became a tree of ignorance."

There is a peaceful march planned for tomorrow morning in Louisiana. Let’s hope that peaceful measures work. I signed the online petition and am doing my bit to spread the word but I’m too old and crotchety to be satisfied with that. When the charges against those kids are dropped (and I know we will make that happen), we must make sure to write down the names of the politicians who showed support, the celebrities who showed their support, the businesses that showed support. Clip their names to your bulletin board, get a magnet and put them on your fridge, but do not forget them. We must vote at the ballot box and with our dollars because these 6 kids are just the tip of a giant iceberg. When this is all over and the marchers and media go home there will still be other kids at that high school who will still have to contend with hostile conditions. We need to make sure that we set those kids up for success. All children, regardless of color, deserve leaders who teach them about justice and equality with their actions. Inaction sends a message of cowardice and who needs cowardly leaders?

I hope you will join me in spreading the word, signing the petition, and calling for our leaders to step up and tell us where they stand on this! It's disgusting that in 2007 we are still dealing with the strange and bitter fruit wrought by America's economic roots in the slave trade, but it does us no good to look the other way. When racism rears its ugly head we must kick it in the face.

Billie Holiday sums up my emotions at this moment much better than I can express in words. Here's Ms. Holiday singing her great song, Strange Fruit courtesy of YouTube.

Books Are Good Food

If books are good food, then this guy is starving.

A few days ago, my dear friend Teresa asked me to recommend some good books by Latina novelists. I'm embarrassed to say that I could think of very few. Isabel Allende's The House of The Spirits and Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo... after that my mind went blank. I had to go to my online book club Books are Good Food to get some tips from them. I was comforted by Sara, the group moderator, who reminded me that the literary world is still dominated by white males. Sure enough, I started to jot down a few of my favorite books and I realized that most of the authors are white males. I don't want to apologize for my choices. I love the books that I picked out as my Baker's Dozen (see below). I'm just saddened by the fact that women are still published much less frequently than men, especially Latina writers. I've also started to understand that I have to take a proactive stance. I have to seek out Latina authors and buy their books if I want to vote with my dollars.

I've been doing this for years with my music selections. I love new music and I appreciate creativity regardless of race or gender but I go out of my way to support bands with women in them because I want to see the playing field leveled. I'd like to see the same thing happen in the world of literature. If you have a favorite Latina writer, let me know so I can check out their work.

I've added a list of some books to the side panel of my blog along with links to pages that will tell you more about them. I call it my Baker's Dozen because I couldn't stop at just twelve. It's difficult to explain in a sentence everything I like about these books; suffice it to say that they all gave me plenty to think about and I regard them so highly that I would list each of them among my all time favorites. I've listed them in alphabetical order.

• A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway The internal dialogue of the main character is fascinating to me and I found echoes of it in Bukowski's writing. A timeless love story that avoids romantic cliche and expresses something true about human needs.
  
• Adolf Series - Osamu Tezuka Historical thriller about the rise of Nazi Germany and anti-semitism told in graphic novel form by the God of Manga.
  
• Aztec - Gary Jennings A fascinating glimpse into the hitherto unknown world of the Aztecs.
  
• Buddha Series - Osamu Tezuka An epic series of graphic novels that captures the important concepts of Buddhism with Tezuka's unique blend of humor and humanism.
  
• Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole Brilliantly funny and scabrous satire.
  
• Frida A Biography of Frida Kahlo - Hayden Herrera This book introduced me to the life and work of Frida Kahlo. It's hard to imagine a time when Frida was not a household name. This book remains my favorite biography of this amazing artist.
  
• Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski One of my favorite modern writers, this was the first book I read by Bukowski. Even when writing about the most painful or ugly memories, there is a sweetness that makes his stories compelling. I also like the way he gives me a man's eye view every time an attractive woman enters one of his scenes.
  
• Hardcore Zen - Brad Warner I studied Eastern Religion in college but I don't think I ever really got Zen. It's nonsensical riddles were usually the butt of my jokes. Warner writes about the subject clearly and with a sense of humor. This is the first book I've read that gave me a clearer idea of what Zen is about. I especially like the bit about questioning authority.
  
• Love In The Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez A beautiful, romantic tale of obsession told by a master.
  
• Post Office - Charles Bukowski Sums up every crappy, clock watching job you've had in your life. Bukowski as the hero of the working stiff.
  
• The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky An obvious choice but well deserving of its classic status. I love the way the characters slowly reveal themselves, seeming to evolve as the story progresses.
  
• The House of The Spirits - Isabel Allende I love the atmosphere and magic of this book. Social commentary, politics, feminism and generational change all come together in the framework of this marvelously written story of a family and a country in turmoil.
  
• Tipping The Velvet - Sarah Waters The author captures the turn of the (20th) century milieu in this tale of forbidden love. An absorbing tale of a woman's struggle to express her sexuality and find love in a society dead opposed to homosexuality.

Craftivism, Viral Marketing and Grizzly Adams

An interesting topic came up on our Destroyers of Mass Production MySpace group. Someone brought up the desire to really destroy the establishment in more sweeping ways than just crafting. The thing is that crafting is a part of it. As much as it may seem that sewing your own clothes is just a means of self expression, it also sends a message to the clothing manufacturers.

Let me back up. I recently went with my family to see the 11th Hour, a movie about global warming produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. One of the women interviewed reminded us that one way to achieve change is to vote; not just by casting a ballot she said, but with our purchases or lack thereof. I agree with her. It was partly the decrease in revenue that made the boycotts of the ‘60s so effective and brought about the changes that were being sought (although many would argue that it was also the threat of a militant, armed alternative which forced the establishment towards reform) and it is the decrease in revenue that would ensue in a crafting revolution that could create real change today.


Grannies by Banksy

I’m not talking about macrame plant holders or crocheted doilies. I’m talking about the kind of crafting that uses recycled materials, transforming them into utilitarian goods that don’t create waste. I’m talking about learning skills that provide us with the ability to meet our own needs. Sewing, cooking, building, gardening - all these and many other skills used to be part of everyday life. Learning to do some of them doesn’t make us cuckoo extremists, it allows us the freedom to choose not to be completely dependent on mass produced clothes, furniture, food, etc.

It’s true that crafting is a drop in the bucket and that’s why I wanted to start a crafting group online - because lots of drops fill the bucket faster. Using the internet and especially the corporate owned and ad-filled MySpace to spread the idea of destroying mass production is delicious irony and, to use corporation-speak, viral marketing at its finest. Turn the tools of mass consumerism towards a new purpose. Even technophobe (and Unabomber) Ted Kaczynski wrote in his manifesto,

"It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to attack the system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing else they must use the communications media to spread their message."

This movement has even got a name and a Wikipedia entry - it's called Craftivism.



Few people want to build a log cabin in the wilderness, drop out of society and eat bark and berries. It’s fine if you do - it’s just not for me or for most people I know, but having a group of friends that teach each other new skills, discuss politics, art and music, inspire and challenge each other can produce meaningful change, even if it’s only one person at a time.

Here are just a few links I've found to other like minded crafters:

• Revolutionary Knitting Front
• The Street Knit Project
• Betsy Greer's Craftivism.com
• Steal This Sweater
  

Anarchy in Venezuela

I've been working on an email interview for the past few days and this one's been a bit challenging because I'm corresponding with a writer for a Venezuelan anarchist publication called El Libertario. Even though he initially wrote to me in English, I answered his email in Spanish, which led him to believe that I was more fluent in written Spanish than I actually am.

One of my concerns in doing interviews is that my statements could be taken out of context or (in this case, literally) misinterpreted, so I made the extra effort of answering the questions both in English and in Spanish. I quickly realized that my command of written Spanish leaves something to be desired and I struggled to find adequate translations for U.S. expressions and idioms.

Here are a few of the questions that didn't seem to touch on subjects I've written about before. I've posted my answers in both English and Spanish.

In 1976, you formed the Bags due to the influence of, among others, the music of David Bowie and the New York Dolls. Why did you want to form an all female band at a time when rock and roll was dominated by male stars?

Precisely for that reason it seemed to me that a change was long overdue. We’re talking about the late 1970's - a time when the women’s movement had lost momentum and many men and women believed that equality had been achieved. At the same time when women were earning pennies to every dollar a man could earn, rock and roll stars could strut their stuff on stage, make loads of money, influence the young and pretty much have the world laid at their feet. I wanted a piece of that and I wanted other women to be able to have a piece of it too.

Prescisamente por eso me parecia que era tiempo para un cambio. Estamos hablando de los anos ‘70 - un tiempo en que el movimiento femenino habia perdido velocidad. En ese tiempo en los Estados Unidos, la mayoria de las personas de ambos sexos quizas por los logros de los anos 60 empezaron a pensar que la igualidad habia sido lograda. Al mismo tiempo las mujeres aun ganaban una pequena fraccion de lo que ganaban los hombres haciendo el mismo trabajo. En el escenario del rock los artistas masculinos gozaban de una libertad tremenda, podian ganar muchisimo dinero, y tenian el mundo a sus pies. Yo queria la oportunidad de tener todo eso y queria que todas las mujeres tuvieran esa oportunidad tambien.

On your website, you state “It is my hope that visitors to my site will understand the burning desire for change that was behind the early punk scene.” Can you explain in detail what you mean by this statement?

It must be hard for young people to imagine a time before bands made their own records, CDs and booked their own tours. In the time before punk, musicians and artists who hoped to ply their trade and make a living from it had to prove that they could sell their product. Record companies controlled the means of production. Nobody made their own recordings or pressed their own records. It just wasn’t done that way. Artists worked hard and waited to be discovered (they even had a phrase for it, called “paying your dues”) and some even tailored their music or artwork to the demands of these companies in order to land a record deal. Once these deals were struck, a record company might decide to change your music, your image or even your name and the artist usually complied because they knew that a record company’s support was everything. Record companies, publishing companies and all the other businesses that profited along the way were making the decisions as to what was being played on the radio. Not surprisingly what WAS being played on the radio was shit. The most diluted, safe and boring tunes imaginable. We disparagingly called it muzak.

It was out of sheer disgust that many us turned our radios off and turned to live homemade music for something better. The irony is that many of us hadn’t thought things through. We hoped to wake up the record companies and turn them on to new music. We hoped they would be so impressed with our live shows and homemade recordings that they’d give us some money to release records that would actually reach a bigger audience and enable the artists to support themselves. It wasn’t until the punk scene had been around for two or three years that the bands realized that we were going to have to take control of the means of production, but once we did it was like a dam bursting. Bands began booking their own tours, making their own swag, recording, pressing and selling their own music. The profits were smaller, but for many it was enough.

Things are not much different today. Young artists still have to make choices about their work. I have three daughters and each of them has very different taste in music. They watch the Disney channel, and/or American Idol, and don’t understand why I say that the people on those shows, although in many cases very talented, are not real artists or real musicians. They are like very fine pieces of clay that will be molded by another’s hands. They are the pretty packages that wrap the TV commercials. They are a product that sells other products.

Debe de ser dificil para la juventud de hoy poder imaginarse un tiempo antes de que las bandas hicieran sus propios discos y CDs o que lanzaran sus propias giras. En el tiempo antes de punk los musicos,y artistas que deseaban ganarse la vida con su profession tenia que demostrar que podian vender su producto. Las companias disqueras controlaban el medio de produccion. Nadie hacia sus propias grabaciones ni sus propios discos. Las cosas no se hacian asi. Los artistas estaban acostumbrados a esperar la oportunidad de ser descubiertos, hasta habia un nombre para esa espera le llamabamos “paying your dues” que significa pagar lo debido. Algunos artistas trataban de ajustar su arte o su trabajo al gusto de las companias disqueras con el anhelo de obtener un contrato disquero. Si ese contrato era logrado las companias podian decidir cambiarles el nombre, la musica, la imagen a sus artistas. La mayor parte de artistas no protestaba porque sabian que el apoyo de una compania disquera lo era todo. Las companias que publicaban la musica, tanto como las disqueras y todos los otros negocios que se beneficiaban de la labor del artista estaban en la posicion de decidir lo que se tocaba por la radio. No es ninguna sorpresa que lo que se tocaba por la radio era pura mierda. La canciones mas diluidas, sanas, y aburridas, imaginables. A esa musica le llamabamos Muzak para distinguilar de la musica verdadera o music.

Fue por aversion a esa Muzak que muchos de nosotros apagamos nuestros radios y fuimos en busca de la musica real, viva, y hecha en casa. La ironia en esto es que muchos de nosotros no lo habiamos pensado bien. Queriamos despertar a las disqueras con una musica nueva. Esperabamos impressionarlas tanto con nuestras actuacciones en vivo y grabaciones que nos darian dinero para grabar mas y nos ayudarian a distribuir la musica a una audiencia mayor. Esto significaria que un artista se pudiera sostenerse con su labor artistica. Nos tomo dos o tres anos darnos cuenta que ibamos a tener que tomar control de los medios de produccion, pero en cuanto sucedio fue como una presa que se abrio. Las bandas empezaron a lanzar sus propias giras, a creear su propia mercancia y a grabar e imprimir sus propios discos. Las ganacias era pequenas comparadas con las de las grandes companias disqueras, pero para muchos eran suficientes

Las cosas hoy no son muy diferentes. Los artistas jovenes aun tienen que hacer decisiones sobre su trabajo. Yo tengo tres hijas, cada una con su propio gusto en musica. Ven el canal Disney, o el programa American Idol y no comprenden cuando les digo que los jovenes en esos programas, aunque tengan mucho talento no son verdaderos artistas o musicos. Son mas bien pedacitos de barro o plastilina que seran formados por las manos de otros. Son los bonitos paquetes en que vienen envueltos los commerciales en la television. Son los productos que venden otros productos.

30 years after the birth of punk, what things do you feel should be discarded and what things should be revisited by subsequent countercultures?

After 30 years, rebellion has to be reinvented by the youth of a new generation. It’s ok to sing your parents’ songs but each generation has to write their own songs as well. The ideology of punk: the DIY ethic, the desire to challenge conventions of dress, social attitude, ethnic, gender bias, etc. has to be taken to the next level by today’s youth.

I want the youth of today to challenge me. I don’t want their art or music to be so easy and familiar to me that I immediately like it. Nothing that has ever made me grow has ever been comfortable for me. Progressive ideas, like progressive art and music are sometimes an affront to the spectator because they are new and unfamiliar. If everyone in your group dresses like you and likes the same music as you and thinks like you then you may as well live in a vacuum. Life is most exciting when we’re put in the uncomfortable position of having to evaluate our beliefs and either having them be strengthened or having to toss them out.

Despues de treinta anos la rebelion tiene que ser reinventada por la juventud de la nueva generacion. Esta bien cantar las canciones de sus padres pero tambien tienen que escribir sus propias canciones. La ideologia del punk, la etica DIY (hazlo tu mismo), el deseo de desafiar las convenciones sociales, de vestuario, de prejuicios sobre etnicidad o genero, etc. tiene que llevarse a la proxima etapa por la juventud de hoy. Me gustaria que la juventud me brinde un desafio, que no me ofrezcan lo familiar, lo que me guste immediatamente. Nada que me ha hecho creecer a sido comfortable o familiar. Las ideas progresivas, como el art progresivo, a veces afrenta al espectador precisamente porque son ideas nuevas, no familiares. Si todas tus amistades visten como tu, escuchan la misma musica que tu y piensan como tu seria como vivir en el vacio. La vida es mas emocionante cuando estamos en la posicion incomfortable de tener que evaluar nuestras creencias. Esto nos hace fortalezer nuestras creencias o deshacernos de ellas.