We went to see the movie Lord of the Rings last night at the Sony Metreon, a capitalist consumerist mall hell of a movie threatre. Anyway, the line to get into the movie stretched all the way across the length of the entire building, up a flight of stairs, around the entire fourth floor and was starting up towards the fifth, when I got into line one hour before the movie was scheduled to start. The people in Guest Services or whatever were being difficult. They were trying to tell Ian to wait in line, even though it traversed a staircase and he’s in a wheelchair. And there’s only so many wheelchair spots, so it’s not like he’s waiting for general admission seating. Anyway, all of this was moot because as the line was growing behind my towards the next staircase, somebody pulled a fire alarm.
Do they give the movie theatre staff any training on how to respond to an amergency? It seems like no. A bunch of guys came out and quietly told a few people that the building was being evacuated. People sort of milled around, thinking of this as an opportunity to get a better spot in line. Eventually, they cleared off the third floor, and only the third floor. A bunch of people went outside, but the hoardes started streaming back in. I stopped on of them, “What’s going on? Did someone say it was a good idea to come back inside?”
“I dunno.” the guy said, “I’m just following everyone else.”
There was a possibility, however remote, that the building was actually on fire. People were like lemmings, following each other in every direction. It makes it kind of clear how all those people in the second tower all got killed in New York last year. Somebody with a bullhorn says, “Everything’s ok.” and they start being like lemmings. But nobody at the metreon had a bullorn. Nobody knew what was going on. So we went outside. The alarm was false. There were over a thousand people on the second floor, waiting to be readmitted to their movies. Giant, crushing crowds. By the time they got everything figured out, they skipped all the previews for our movie, because it was late. Anyway, it’s a good thing it was a good movie.
Category: Uncategorised
I went out to look at the tree again this afternoon. It smells funny. I’m hoping it’s just the orange gaurd anti-bug stuff and we can just wash it off. At least there’s no sign of the snails. I can’t figure out where they might have gone though. The tree is not touching anything and the pot is in a saucer thingee that has a couple of inches of water in it from the last rain. So either the snails are all drowned trying to escape, they jumped for it, or they’re hiding and waiting for their chance at the Coffees of the World gift-pack.
Earlier I described a mushroom as “evil looking.” It’s joined some sort of axis of evil with the snails. The mushroom is two or three inches tall. The stem of it is yellow and textured like a banana slug. The cap is grayish-brownish like American Cheese that’s been sitting in your fridge for too many years with what looks like spots of white mold growing on it. (Can mushrooms mold? Aren’t they already fungus?) No one would go out in the forrest and get confused mistaking this thing for an edible mushroom. Unless it were hallucinegenic or something. (Lord I hope I have not just described myself as growing hallucinegenic mushrooms in my blog.) It just looks poisonous. And dank. And too much in the reality of midwinter festivals like Christmas, but not enough in the spirit.
Christi’s cat is the enemy of all plant life. She chews on everything. We had to put our Poinsettia outside because she was eating the whole thing (and somebody heard a rumor they might be toxic). Would she smiliarly chew on an evil mushroom? And if it were hallucinegenic, would she lead to her death from the highest point in the house, believing she could fly? (I’ve seen anti-drug videos. I know she would have a bad trip or leap to her death if she were tripping.)
If we had a pet Chicken, it would eat all the snails.
Kill your TV. Or, as Le Tigre so eloguently puts it:
Get off the Internet
Destroy the right wing
Get off the internet
I’ll see you in the streets
My “No War Against Iraq” sign has undoubtedly convinced all of the neighbors…
The rain around here finally let up, so I decided it was time to drag the Christmas Tree back indoors. It’s a potted tree, now on it’s third year of life with us. Last year we seem to have pushed it too close to a wall, so I discovered all the low limbs on that side are dead and being eaten by snails. It’s covered in snails. Weird little ones. I sprayed the tree with orange oil to get rid of them, but they’re still swarming
(Do snails swarm?). Anyway, it’s weird. Who ever heard of snails attacking a connifer? Maybe banana slugs might. So now the tree is all sticky with orange anti-bug stuff and snail slime of dead and wounded snails (and the little bastards that got away). And I noticed that there is a weird evil-looking mushroom growing on the wall side (henceforth refered to as the dark side) of the tree. I’m all for nature and the slithery slimy poisoness things that lurk in the forrests, each of them playing a major role on in the eco system. I’m even ok with them lurking on my nice patio provided they don’t kill too many of my plants or my dog or anything. But dragging a million snails, bettles, bugs, things that creep in the night and fairy-tale looking evil mushrooms into the house and putting christams presents under there is a differnt story. What if we wake up Christmas morning and gather around the tree only to find the Coffees of the World set I’ve given to Christi is now swarming with slimy snails? Yuck. I’m hoping that the short hours of winter sunlight falling on the now-exposed dark side will chase the slimy creatures away. And another day of rain should wash off the sticky orange oil and perhaps the sticky snail slime. (Can’t you picture this? Precious homemade ornaments in the family for years covered in snail slime because one year the latte liberal of the family decided what we really needed was a live tree complete with live snails!) Arg! This is a disaster! I should spray the tree with my moonshine-sih meade! I used to have a situation with unwanted compost bin inhabitants. Then I had a batch of beer get kind of funny, so I poured the bottles into the compost bin. The microrganisms in the bin were extremely pleased. The creepy crawly things were not. Anyway, all of this explains why the tree has been looking kind of sick all year.
I bottled 40-something bottles of honeymade-ish stuff today. (Today is still Tuesday as far as I’m concerned.) It tastes like moonshine must taste. As far as I can recall, it’s got pears, honey and malted barley in it and maybe some hops. The barley gets to be good after 4 weeks and quits being good after three months. The pears are good after three months and before six months. The honey is good after one year and keeps getting better forever. It’s been about nine months, so all the elements are missing each other. So it looks like beer, tastes like something illicitly distilled. The champagne yeast gives it more alchoholic oomph than normal beer or wine.
I asked Christi what she thought of my break-away-republic manifesto and she avoided answering me directly. I had been drinking some soynog when I wrote it. She seems to think it’s goofy. Here’s my attempt at keeping a pretentious jounral to be reprinted when I am a famous composer and she thinks I’m a bit overly optomistic about how change will come about. Artists are supposed to have goofy politcal views. Anyway, who was it that said, “A reasonable person adapts to fit her environment, whereas an unreasonable person seeks to adapt her environment to fit her. Therefore all change comes from unreasonable people.”
product review: biodiesel
Well, my car has about 5% less power, as expected. Not a big change or a
big deal. Some of the drivers who were not looking for the power
difference didn’t notice it. Gas milage is 5% worse as well.
The car now smells like burnt french fries instead of stinky diesel. No
more gross, stinky diesel on my hands at the gas pump.
i can go to bed at night knowing that i’m not inadvertantly contributing
to the war drums beating against Iraq. I’m not using their oil!
It is entirely clear that in our current system, few people other than artists enjoy their jobs so much that they would keep doing them if they didn�t have to. It is also clear that our current system is entirely unsustainable. Our primary goal in our current system is economic growth. This means we must keep making more things every year than we did the year before, over and above any population growth. And such is our system that if we fail to grow in a year, we are in a recession and many people end up out of work. Popularly, this is not seen as a shortcoming of the system, but rather as a moral failing of the individuals affected. Furthermore, the system requires the middle class to consume more and more every year. There is only so much stuff that people want to have, however, so that it is necessary to make things disposable. The only way to keep the middle classes consuming more and more is to make them throw away what they already have. This ever-rising so-called �standard of living� does not grow higher when people must work at jobs that they do not like so they can buy things to throw them away. Meanwhile, the environmental and human costs of raw materials continue to mount. For a few to live like disposable aristocracy, others must live in poverty and environmental damage and wasting of resources must mount higher and higher.
Because this kind of capitalist excess is socially and environmentally unstable and unsustainable, it will fall. The only question is how. We can sit and wait until the ocean levels rise, disastrous uncharacteristic weather patterns pummel us, and asymmetric warfare rains down upon us from all sides, or we can act now and avert carnage, extinctions and continuing genocide.
Aside from these points, the primary weakness of our system is over and under centralization. Some systems are over centralized. Other systems have no central planning whatsoever. All of these systems are setup as inefficiently as possible so that elite individuals can profit off the inefficiency and pocket the difference between dollars spent and value received.
We can build a better system. We can break away from the old one.
I foresee the western parts of the United States breaking away from the Union. People in Northern California, Oregon and Washington will say no more to a system where civil rights have been whittled down to the right to chose what color car to buy. We will say no more to enslaving the third world for private profit. We will say no more to people being poisoned by pesticides, condemned to poverty and stuck toiling away our lives in stupid jobs that offer us no freedom or leisure time.
We will couple automation with sustainable development. Nobody�s time will be more valuable than anyone else�s. Production will be to fit human needs rather than capitalistic growth. Things are valuable only in so much as the benefit human lives. We will cease production of pointlessly disposable items. Durable goods will actually be durable, re-usable and recyclable. Buildings will not be knocked over for no reason. Instead of principles of capital and ownership, we will have principles of use and collectivization. People will form voluntary associations locally to meet local needs. Every home will be a squat. The residents will have the means to maintain their homes and their collective living arrangements.
Corporations will cease, with all factory production automated and run by the government. Less will be made, because less will be needed. As much as possible, items produced locally will be consumed locally.
People will brew their own beer, and their own biodiesel, and generate their own power with the solar arrays on their roofs. Yet many tools will be owned in common. Few people actually need their own vacuum cleaner. Almost no one who has one uses it everyday. Because of growth, inefficiency and systems of ownership, people currently must buy all the tools they might ever need. However, alternatives exist even now. In Berkeley, there is a tool library that residents with a library card may check out tools from. I foresee a future where many tools are owned in common by neighborhoods, blocks, buildings or associations. The interconnectedness and interdependence of all people will be clear. No one�s time will be worth more or less than anyone else�s. The currency will be measured in hours.
People will still work as teachers, as nurses, as firefighters as repair people, but fewer hours will be required. These people will have time to peruse art, sports, music, crafts, and passion. No one will be made to live in poverty for the benefit of anyone else.
This can and will come about. There is no reason to continue our unequal, disposable and militaristic social systems. Too often we resemble what is worst about human nature. There is no reason not to resemble the best. The technology we require is present. All we need is the will to make our vision happen.
Christi told me a few days ago that people would be coming over to jam today. “Fine.” I said. “You’re playing too.” she said. I whined. she said, “It’ll be fun.” Meanwhile, Tiffany was campainging to get me to jam with her friend Ed. “I’m not really a jamming person.” I explained. He same over thursday anyway. I made synth noises and he ran them through a groovy little fx box. It was awesome. But I still whined at Christi. She said, “I need to find out how well Ed plays cello.”
So today Chand, Mitch and Ed came over. Chand played drums. Mitch got his guitar. Ed got out his cello, but it took a long time to figure out mic placement and Ed seemed timid improvising, so he started singing. He’s excellent. Chand’s a good drummer. Mitch has always been a good guitarist. Then Ed played bass and I sat out. (He was good, but all I play is bass, so I’m not in favor of this setup.) The he picked up the guitar that Chand brought. He’s a good guitarist too. Mitch is also a good guitarist. So I guess I’m in a band now. Christi’s trying to schedule the next practice. I think we should be called The IHOP Conspiracy, but I haven’t run it by Ed or Chand. Mitch thinks it’s funny.
So I guess Christi decided to be a band manager, or that I should be in a band. When my old band broke up, I kind of felt releived about it, but Christi kept saying, “You guys were really good.” But we were going nowhere. I’d like to be more serious. Mitch says no more being half-assed. Christi wants to schedule us recording time at Expression New Media (they do free recording for bands). We don’t even have any songs yet. She says, “Who cares, you sounded great jamming. Just go in and play for half an hour.”
This being pushed into music by other people thing seems to be ok. I finished my last piece of music in June. I’ve got a score for a call for scores put out by Jack Straw Productions in Seattle (no relation to the British leader), but it’s not done. Almost all the music grad school applications are due January 15th, except for Berkeley and Stanford, which are due monday and are not going to happen for me. But I don’t really want to go away. I want to build big cabinets downstairs and have a super-usable work area. But then what will I do with myself if I don’t go to school? I think I probably need a masters degree to be a serious composer. (What will I do with myself when I’m a serious composer?) Maybe I could just go to Cal Arts and keep Tiffany living at my current house and come home frequently. Maybe I could somehow complete the Berkeley application by Monday. I don’t really want to go to Berkeley. Actually, I don’t really want to do antything. Maybe somone will push me into something.