Slam Bush

"Slam Bush is a groundbreaking national contest for MCs and Slam Poets that will prevent George W. Bush from snatching another term in office. This summer the nation's most talented battle MCs and Slam Poets will step to the mic in battleground states to call George W. Bush out on his lies. The top lyricists will win cash prizes and earn a chance to perform in front of music industry insiders."

Stuff

This is cool, and it's in NYC (soon to be West Coasted): Yellowarrow! This half-graffiti-half-tourguide-half-interactive art project allows anyone to stick a SMS-tagged yellow arrow sticker to any urban monument and upload their ideas about that monument to yellowarrow.org. To retrieve these ideas, passerbyers send a textmessage to Yellowarrow including the yellow sticker's alphanumeric code. Yellowarrow then returns the goods.

What feature of your city would you annotate if you could only choose one?

fuck new york

watch this, or don't, or kill me. (c/o yuda c/o pandagon)

1000 Reasons

Here are, quite literally, 1000 reasons not to vote for George Bush.

Premptive war on....

Cyprus Indymedia?????
Seems the Cia has been Directing local Cyprus law enforcement to investigate the Cyprus Indymedia and one of it's founders, Petros Evdokas, including his family and supporters. News of this began to surface last week, including large stories on the state run news channel, with the Cheif of police saying that yes, the CIA was the main controller during this investigation.

for more info, read more here.

about 10 years old and british

hmmm, seems i have found the anthem ...
took me a while to find it, long out of print (deleted the day it was released. hehe)
We said we were looking for music.

Mobius Mixdown

Lovesick in J-Town
01. Highschool Lover - Air
02. Oh Sister - Bob Dylan
03. All My Love - Led Zepplin
04. High Tide or Low Tide - Bob Marley
05. Good Feeling - Violent Femmes
06. Tumblin' Tears - Gregory Isaacs
07. Girl Dreams - Beck
08. Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
09. Wond'ring Aloud - Jethro Tull
10. Chickfactor - Belle & Sebastian
11. Once I Loved - Shirley Horn
12. Like Someone in Love - Bjork
13. Parallel Lines - Kings of Convenience
14. Changes - Ozzy Osbourne
15. Distant Lover - Marvin Gaye
16. April Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel
17. The Luckiest - Ben Folds

Israeli influence on rotation:
Gucha (it's Serbian gypsy music that sounds like Slavic ska), Tobin+, Snakefish & Sagol 59 (all of which are Israeli hip hop)


From my library:
MF Doom - Operation Doomsday
Stereolab - Cobra & Phases Group
Dufus - Neuborns

Playlists

Now that we're on the topic of music, I have something to share, too.

One, I own a 20GB Rio Karma (note that Circuit City does a price match [Walmart sells it for $250], thereby you can get it at Circuit City for $250, purchase their $50 protection plan and feel cozy and safe with your Rio purchase for the next 5 years). I admit that it's my second Karma; the first having died within 12 hours of the purchase. And nowhere on the Internet does it say this: YES, you can hit the reset button and not lose all your files. This is good to know, because the Karma does freeze on occasion. But more than occasionally does it please me; I've got over 11GB of music on mine already and take it everywhere. I don't own a CD or cassette or record player - this is a new epoch in free music!

Two, I've discovered that the local library will loan me up to 50 CDs at a time! Here are the CDs I am uploading onto my Karma at the moment:

Etta James, R&B Dynamite
Yo La Tengo, Fakebook
David Bowie, Aladdin Sane
Aretha Franklin, Queen in Waiting
The Best of Carly Simon
Pink Martini, Sympathique

Since I haven't listened to these CDs yet, for recommendations I'll have to say: PJ Harvey, PJ Harvey, PJ Harvey. Oh Lord!

5 Recent Picks from a complete nutjob.

OK ok here we go
1. Spiritualized "Complete Works Vol. 2"
2. Ministry "Houses of the Mole"
3. Rock Against Bush vol 1&2
4. Deicide "Scars Of the Crucifix"
5. Mayhem "Chimera"

OK, a little varied, but then, the same thing over and over again gets boring. 4&5 are death/black metal bands, but pretty much at the top of the heap, so if you are looking for something a little (ok, a lot) violent, yea go for it. The Spiritualized disc is worth it for Do It All over Again (live) and the cover of the X-files theme. The Ministry album is a screed against Bush, and we all know what to expect from Al, and he gives us Psalm 70. hehe. Hope that helped. And if you want, I will burn all the music i have made thus far and mail it to you.

Oh, and John Kerry flip-flops?

"The American people are safer! — Uh, just kidding! Cower in fear, wait no, wait yes, wait! Vote for me!

Yeah, Boss!

Bruce Springsteen has officially endorsed John Kerry and plans to play his campaign dates throughout the next year!

"Bushism" or Freudian Slip?

During his signing yesterday of the $417 billion defense spending bill, our fearful misleader, said: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Well, obviously.

Bergen County Peoples Brace Yourselves

Puffy is moving to Alpine.

High gas prices? Blame the Democrats!

Er at least, that's what Dick Cheney has done.

See the little monkey? Look at the little monkey!

Independent research concludes that whenever a news story breaks that spells trouble for the Bush Administration, the very next day the administration releases an unfounded terror alert.

Yet somehow when John Kerry says the threat of terrorism is exaggerated, he's proclaimed unfit for office.

Who'd a thunk that declaring a terror alert would be a Bush campaign tactic...

Oh, I did.

yup, that's about the size of it

(c/o adbusters)

Patriot Games

I came very prepared to transcribe this entire Vanity Fair article by Judy Bachrach, but luckily someone else has already done so: John Ashcroft's Patriot Games. Considering the source ('Patriot Games' follows a more in-character VF expo on the upper crust social set of southern Florida), this article need not be taken with a grain of salt. Aschroft is already bitter yucky! Great reading! Thank you, Windy City Mike!

[Postscript] Also, this article by Jeffrey Rosen in April's Atlantic Monthly is very telling about Ashcroft. I found it particularly telling that Ashcroft compares politics to American sports like Baseball and Basketball (instead of time-tested games like chess and parchisi) and - to paraphrase - believes that a true leader doesn't help lead a populace where they are headed, but instead uses the power of persuasion/coercion to lead them where he thinks they should go. Rosen also makes nice contrast by comparing Ashcroft to his hero, Abraham Lincoln. Try to find the magazine; the article is worthwhile.

Save See Spot!

So while I was living up in Ithaca I was volunteering at a community art space there called See Spot. See Spot is a radtastic free space where artists of all stripes are invited to hang their art and to perform in whichever capacity it is they perform (musically, theatrically, etcetera). It was there that I first exhibited my own artistic work, as well as performed on many occasion as a DJ, and hosted my weekly underground film series. (I also designed and host their website for free.) But beyond that, See Spot is also an activist organizing space, and has a fully stocked anarchist 'zine library in its basement, as well as a video library containing many a wondrous activist film. And not ONLY that, but See Spot also provides art classes to homeschooled students in the Ithaca area. And not ONLY that, but See Spot is also the only place in Ithaca where you can see a free punk show. That being said, See Spot is in financial trouble and could really use your help. So if you've got an extra $10 or $20 or even $100 bucks laying around that you'd like to put to good use, and to help a struggling free space stay open, pleae send a check to See Spot, 108 The Commons, Ithaca, NY 14850. If you'd like to make a bigger, tax-deductible donation, you can call Michelle (or anyone else there) at 607-277-7560.

We now return to your regularly scheduled program...