Beatlick Travel #6: Open Mic in Bisbee

Beatlick Travel Report #6

It takes a lot of adjectives to describe the Old Historic Bisbee mining town in Southeastern Arizona. The labyrinth of roads, sidewalks and roundabout that create Bisbee were a total turnoff when we first tried to drive into town. But once we found our urban campsite in a parking lot in front of Saint John’s Episcopalian Church, we hit the streets and the charm of the district unfolded.

Bisbee cleaves to the Mule Mountains with terraced landscaping and stairways bustling up the sides of the hills like so many stays in a dance hall girl’s corset. The Copper Queen Lode put the town on the international financial map in the 1880s. The Stock Exchange Bar and Brewery still holds the only stock exchange board existing at the time between Chicago and San Francisco.

The old miner shacks troop down the mountain sides in a Byzantine hodgepodge. Each street follows the lay of the mountain edges as best it can. The slopes are steep, the churches are plentiful, so are the bars, with a great public library. Arresting vintage clothing, an unbelievable milliner’s shop, artists galore up and down every little byway and alley in every charmingly scruffy old building, are augmented with some genuine characters sitting on the benches and in the coffeehouses.

Open mic every Thursday was at the Stock Exchange Bar. I only got first names, but the event was hosted by drummer David. One guitarist was named Mike, from north of the Bay Area originally. We got there early and waited as folks came in carrying equipment and instruments. The sign up sheet was passed around.

The concept was the loosely formed band played a few songs then offered to back up anyone who wanted to come up, either another musician or spoken word folks such as ourselves. Well what grew to be about a six piece ensemble turned out to be a kick ass band. I just can’t find a better word for this group of guys who were so generous with their time and talent.

“Catdaddy” was on the sign up sheet, a most innocuous looking kind of guy, we had watched him earlier as he unceremoniously helped lug in the sound equipment. But when he got up to play he smoked the crowd with his “Mojo Working” and “Standing on Shaky Ground” I started to believe I was standing on shaky ground too. The Beatlicks had to follow “Catdaddy!”

But it was as I say a generous group of people. At the bar was a splash of what appeared to be second tier hairdressers and wardrobe staff clad “a la Euro trash” and sipping on beers and Cosmopolitans. Along the shuffle board table was the Paris Hilton lookalike (western-style) and her smaller entourage. At the table closest to the stage was our group, the folks who grew up with Bill Haley and the Comets.

The bartender was a phenomenal one. Dressed in vintage clothing with long hair she would flip around, our put up, or put in a hat, she danced on the dance floor, made small talk as she poured out the suds, and was absolutely charming even when the crowd swelled. Great lady with a lot of personality, I didn’t catch her name.

The old town is full of characters like the Buffalo Bill Cody clone, reeking of Pachouli and offering walking tours, and “Food Not Bombs” Bob who feeds the hungry at 4 p.m. every Sunday afternoon in Goar Park. He says the organization feeds people in over 200 cities around the world. We enjoyed his beans and rice, salad, and loaves of bread.

They were all great folks and when you see all the locals greet each other it’s with genuine affection, their eyes light up when they great each other. Their camaraderie gives the onlooker a sense of the bond that must have existed between townfolks back in the old hardscrabble days when the mine was first founded. We stayed a week.

Happy Trails!

Beatlick Pamela

Beatlick Travel #5: Urban Camping in AZ

Beatlick Travel Report #5 2009 Series

Third day out of Las Cruces, on a Monday, we woke up to snow so we curtailed our plans to linger any longer at the Old Hachita ghost town. We headed for Douglas, AZ , less than 30 miles away, and hit the Visitors Center before noon. I was surprised to find out we were only 15 blocks from the border of Mexico. Across the border lies Aqua Prieta, Sonoma.

The ladies at the Visitors Center claimed this border town has not been subjected to violence. I’m too intimidated to go to Juarez now for dental work because of the violence there. But “PR” says all is peaceful and calm over there and shopping opportunities abound. We declined shopping in order to explore our opportunities for “urban camping.”

We found our urban campsite in the city’s downtown parking lot behind the grand old Gadsden Hotel. From there I took a two-mile stroll east of the Pan American Highway encountering modest homes with charming yard art and quite a few elegant old homes closed and falling into decay. There was an enormous fountain, just beautiful, that reminded me of the grand fountain of Catalan Plaza in Barcelona.

I liked it there, looked a little like the Ninth Ward in New Orleans BK (before Katrina). The town was small and unintimidating, slow traffic, my kind of place. We passed the night in the parking lot outside the hotel and went in for breakfast the next morning. It’s an historical building with original Tiffany windows and is quite enjoyable to just look at. Lots of old furnishings give a visitor the genuine effect of the era. That made a good segue for us as we paid for breakfast, left a generous tip for some generous supplies of coffee, and headed to the old mining town of Bisbee, once the financial hub between Chicago and San Francisco.

Happy Trails!

Beatlick Pamela

DEEPAK CHOPRA’S NINE STEPS TO PEACE

Spiritual adviser and healer turned celebrity spiritualist by his appearances on Oprah Winfrey has offered nine measures to convert the American economy from war to peace. Pointing out that we are the world’s leading supplier of deadly weapons, spending more on military expenditures than the next sixteen nations combined, he offers nine steps of transformation. While they may fall under the category of fanciful (along with John Lennon’s “Imagine”) under the prevailing militaristic mindset, I find them both appealing and ultimately inevitable. Here they are as they appear in the January 11, 2009 issue of Tikkun Magazine (“Memo to Obama: How to Convert to a Peace Economy”):

1. Scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020.

2. Write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project.

3. Subsidize conversion of military companies to peaceful uses with tax incentives and direct funding.

4. Convert military bases to housing for the poor.

5. Phase out all foreign military bases.

6. Require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding infrastructure.

7. Call a moratorium on future weapons technologies.

8. Reduce armaments like destroyers and submarines that have no use against terrorism and were intended to defend against a superpower enemy that no longer exists.

9. Fully fund social services and take the balance out of the defense and homeland security budgets.

Jazz.

Re: Gaza & the Silence of Obama‏

[Note: "The Gaza Assault: Last Ploy of the Neocons" by Jack Random was posted 1/8/09 on Peace-Earth-Justice (www.pej.org) and the National Free Press - World Edition.]

Thanks for all the recent articles. Sorry I have been unable to respond or even say thanks for the time and effort you put into each one, not to mention the wide array of insights and provocations that we behave as rational,compassionate creatures.

Now that we have finished the election (well, almost) and the settling of debris that follows each one, we can begin to see through the haze. The neocons obviously fear that an Obama administration will be fundamentally different in both foreign and domestic policy. The bailout was/is nothing more than paying the bills to the real masters of the game. Israel's sudden turn to all out war is an attempt to settle the score in Gaza just in case they lose U.S. support once the neocons leave office.

You are right. This is bait. Will Obama toe the line and support Israel unconditionally? Nothing he says right now can change Israel's assault so he is saying nothing. If he is nothing else Obama is careful when speaking officially about policy of any kind. He will be difficult to pin down.

I also remember the the last time this same group of thugs were departing the White House and a hopeful young man was moving in. They left impending disasters in Somalia and Waco. Even then one could not help but wonder if it was a set up. If it was Clinton fell for it and botched both situations. We are still suffering the consequences.

Neoconservatism is not a nationalism, even though that is precisely what it pretends to be under the name of patriotism. The neocons are capitalists first. They are a perfect fit for a Republican party that has been the party of big capital virtually from the start. After Jackson the country had swung hard in the direction of democracy (at least for qualified citizens - white men). Republicanism was in part an attempt to correct that shift and place power securely in the hands of the wealthy. That is what it is today and it is what neoconservatism attempts to enforce globally.

Will Obama make some adjustment in the other direction? He has the opportunity since at the moment capitalism is choking on its own excess. There's nothing but hard road ahead of him. We must wait and see.

Twelve days. How much more damage can be done. I am sure we're about to find out.

Take care brother. Keep us awake.

Peace,
Jake

Jake Berry (jakebridget@bellsouth.net)

Beatlick Travel Report #4: Highway 9 & The Border Patrol

It took a while to really hit the open road. We left Albuquerque to return to Las Cruces for our house sitting gig. Then one more tune up from Michael Elliott, our VW mechanic in Organ, before he gave us his blessing to head for California.

So Saturday we stopped off to share a meal and say goodbye to Mary E, Phillips, my peace activist sister-at-arms, then topped off our tank at $1.22 a gallon, up from $1.16 just three days before, and off we went.

There was no transition from all the hurly-burly of last minute details to our first destination hardly. We pulled out of town and within the hour there we were at Exit #49 off of I-10 and onto Highway 146. Bam, we were there, the black ribbon of a two-lane road, a complete circumference of mountain ridges all around us. It was almost too sudden. The sun was setting, the temperature was perfect, and after all this planning we were living our fantasy.

We turned onto Highway 9 and went a few miles past Hachita. There we camped and walked into the old ghost town of Old Hachita. We spent about four hours walking about. Beatlick Joe snatched his binoculars from his back pocket to survey the landscape. He looked in every mine shaft, every abandoned adobe structure, hop, skip, and jumping all over the place. He has planned this particular ghost town search for over two years.

So we encountered our first Border Patrol guard at the first juncture of our trip. We were in such a remote area on Highway 9, on the other side of a fence, and during the night a huge Hummer Border Patrol vehicle past us about 9 p.m. They were all over this place, some pulling a trailer with four-wheelers behind them.

There was a border patrolman in Old Hachita, out there in that lonely stretch. We stopped to chat. I had some trepidation about what kind of person he would be, stern perhaps, and authoritarian. But he turned out to be friendly, with a kind face, and young looking. He said he stays out there 10 hours a day, all alone. I asked if he could read books but he said no. Guess he is supposed to keep his eyes open. But he can listen to football games on the radio. I told him it looked like a lonely existence, but he just shrugged and gave us a smile. So our first encounter with the border patrol went well enough.

We stayed out there two days, getting more acquainted with the van, where to best store everything and all. We had anticipated a leisurely breakfast enjoying our little table and chairs outside, but we woke up to snow on the ground. We packed up fast and headed for Douglas, AZ. We put a towel across the passenger and drivers seat and placed the little stadium heater between us. Finally, we got warm.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Three Poems by Chris Mansel

****


Bare Outline


Bi-polar Anti-psychotic
existing in poverty
ability baptized in a manic state
(it reverberates in the ears) epileptic, a downward spiral,
like holy orders, piety
vigorous, mutilation, constraint

ah, the dialogue of a primitive
whose horror is immersion
a mosque so laminated
as to catalog the shakes and screams
the embroidered eyes of dreams

savage is the water in the abyss
adultery schemes for eternity
descending the skin by petal
communion by physical means

Zarathustra as a tarantula
hanging over a hospital bed.

****

Death Disliked Changed

the crime was violent - rough violets/ apocryphal
and often became ill - eating humanity/ execution
delirium, improbable that - nature desires/ illumination
the dead - ancient outside of the following scene/ snakes
were so spontaneous- cancer conscious/ adept
were torn to pieces-curtain of bats/ readings
ailments with the deceased- touch belief/ earth

a hunter where ideas, even death theory, nature
of our moon, no more giants as still as an eye

help him who he was...
a woman, afraid/ lion/Rousseau
produce/without exception
reducing, practiced/birds
pressure/reaches purpose

a flower in a fire, devourers....

****

Bush Shelter

a graying image (menacing like crows)
switching perennially (distraught, grisly)
of a sequential humid ligament
becomes the follicles arbiter
a natural impedance (village wisdom)
for skunk-like wasps splattering
submerged alibis (produce blackened)
slit through the pupil/ effects more stiffening
a curriculum vitae.

chris mansel (christophermansel@hotmail.com)

PRINCIPLES OF FOREIGN POLICY:

In the interest of justice, human rights and democracy, in order to fulfill the greater promise of our founding, recognizing that our intention should not be to dominate the world but rather to improve the welfare of humankind, we propose the following principles of foreign policy.

I. This nation will not engage in interventions that support non-democratic governments or those that violate the inalienable rights of its citizens.

II. This nation will take necessary and appropriate measures to prevent, inhibit or halt genocide and other crimes against humanity.

III. This nation will not act as the police force of the world but work in concert with other nations with respect to international law.

IV. This nation will take appropriate measures, including debt relief and forgiveness, to reduce and eliminate third-world debt. We will no longer sponsor or support the policies of exploitation by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. IMF loans will be based on humanitarian concerns without regard to economic policies.

V. This nation will not sacrifice the lives of soldiers or civilians for economic or strategic gains.

VI. This nation will practice a policy of restraint with regard to civil wars and civil conflicts.

VII. The United States will actively engage in diplomacy and negotiations to resolve international conflicts that threaten regional stability in the Middle East and elsewhere.

VIII. The United States will support the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and other international institutions as the appropriate venue for resolving international disputes.

IX. This nation will recognize its leadership responsibility with regard to the global problems of hunger, poverty, disease, human rights, water shortage, disaster relief and climate change.

X. The intelligence agencies of the United States will cease all covert operations not in compliance with these principles and will report all operations to congress and the American people within two years.

[Adapted from The Jazzman Chronicles, Volume One by Jack Random. Crow Dog Press 2003.]

RIP Master Harold

Born 10 October 1930, died 24 December 2008, Harold Pinter is the extraordinary playwright whose pen laid down the words for The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964) Betrayal (1978) and countless other works for the stage and screen. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

Here are excerpts from his Noble Lecture "Art, Truth and Politics”:

What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead?

….

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?

More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead.

….

Pinter’s activism began as a conscientious objector in 1946. He campaigned for nuclear disarmament and against apartheid before speaking out powerfully against the first Gulf War, the bombing of Kosovo, the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration. He is believed to be the only Nobel Award winner to label the American president a “mass murderer.”

Truly, we may never see his like again. RIP.

Jazz.

KILLING LABOR: The Columbia Free Trade Pact & Beyond

By Jack Random


In the last presidential debate, with his life’s ambition slipping away and with it the dream of free market fundamentalism, John McCain boldly asserted that the Columbia Free Trade pact was a “no brainer.”

He was right.

In Columbia they kill labor leaders. In the first eight months of 2008 alone they killed 41 labor union members (more than in all of 2007). Free Trade advocates, including the corporate media giants, argue that Columbia’s record on labor and human rights has improved. Their reasoning: They kill fewer labor leaders than they used to kill.

Let’s think about that. If you killed a dozen labor leaders in the US – a larger and more populous nation with at least some established labor tradition – it would take at least a decade to replace them. In other words, you don’t have to behead the snake twice. Once is enough.

In Guatemala the killing of labor increased decisively after the passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). So it seems signing a free trade agreement with the US is equivalent to a free pass for human rights and labor abuse.

We should not be surprised. For while we are world’s loudest advocate of human rights, we have long been labor’s most powerful enemy. It does not stand to reason that any functioning democracy should be anti-labor but we are just that. The anti-labor propaganda campaign has been so persistent, permeating all levels of mainstream media, that it has turned the world on its head, convincing a majority of working people that labor is actually against their interests – or conversely, that corporations have the interests of workers at heart.

Even now, when it is resoundingly clear that the dominant international corporations are unfeeling monsters that would march us all off a cliff for a short term profit, the media are holding out for a continuing Free Trade mandate and the continued evisceration of labor.

If the new congress even considers the Columbia Free Trade Agreement, it will signal that they have failed to comprehend the nature and depth of the current global economic crisis.

As Congressman Barney Frank commented, people are not buying cars because they have no money. They have no money because the only jobs that are available must compete with the labor forces of other nations where organized labor does not exist. Now, having sacrificed benefits and decent wages, they are losing jobs because a consumer-based economy cannot be sustained in a society that pays substandard wages to its working people.

It is a vicious cycle that can only be broken by rebuilding the economy from the ground up – that means labor.

Fair trade is not only the alternative it is the only alternative. It is not sufficient to have the language of labor rights in trade agreements if there is no means of enforcement. Further, the practice of approving trade agreements now and expecting improvement in labor practices and human rights later is laughable. Once approved, it requires a level of outrage rarely sounded in the corporate media even to review no less repeal such agreements.

We are in a bold new world and if the Obama administration does not wake up to the realities of this world, he will at best soften the blow by offering compromise measures such as tax incentives to keep jobs home. Worst-case scenario: He adopts wholeheartedly the Free Trade policies of the Clinton administration.

The Columbia agreement is of course intertwined with other interests that have their roots in the wars of the past. The drug war is another we can no longer afford. Like the war on terror it was always an oxymoron. To the extent that illegal drugs are the enemy, we can no more fight a war against drugs than we can wage war against terror. Both are multibillion-dollar boondoggles employed by politicians to secure and influence power. In the Cold War era we routinely supported rightwing military dictatorships under the guise of fighting drugs. Now we use the war on terror to affect the same end.

If Obama is serious about breaking with the past, he would do well to reject the trade agreement with Columbia. He would do well to cut off support for ruthless leaders like Columbia’s Alvaro Uribe Velez. He would do well to adopt a new Latin America policy that acknowledges the failures of Free Trade. For while they have enabled international corporations to rape the land and steal the natural resources of underdeveloped nations, they have done nothing to improve standards of living for the people of those nations.

It is a system built on corporate exploitation and corruption. It has enriched the privileged few who use positions of power to skim money off the top but it has done nothing to lift the people out of poverty or to build sustainable economies.

The people of Columbia and throughout Latin America have experienced firsthand the failures of Free Trade. That is why they have turned to more progressive leaders – even avowed socialists and Marxists. If America continues to turn its back on these realities, insisting on a pledge of allegiance to the failed policies of Free Market fundamentalism, we will continue to lose ground throughout the hemisphere.

There is no inherent reason why we cannot be friends and allies with the democratically elected governments of Bolivia and Venezuela. There is in fact nothing anti-democratic about socialist economic theory and democracy, not capitalism, is the heart of the American ideal. Indeed, there is not a democracy in the world that does not incorporate elements of both socialism and free enterprise; it is a question of balance.

What history strives to teach us is that economies are evolving systems that must constantly adapt to the parameters of an evolving world. In a globalized world any economic system that is constrained by ideology, that fails to balance individual initiative and the common good, that rejects needed reforms on ideological grounds, is bound to fail.

We have inherited a world badly out of balance. The experiment of corporate dominance has reached an end. We are charged with restoring balance. That requires not only a government that will counter the excesses of corporate greed with diligent regulation; it requires rebuilding labor both domestically and internationally to achieve an equitable balance of economic power.

It will not be easy overcoming the irrational prejudice acquired across generations but that is the challenge we face. If we fail to achieve economic stability we will soon be overwhelmed even greater challenges: global climate change and nuclear genocide.

Rejecting the Columbia Free Trade Agreement is only a modest first step but it is, as John McCain suggested, a “no brainer.”

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE DAILY SCARE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, PACIFIC FREE PRESS AND NEWS DAILY OF CANADA.

Jake Berry: Capital Rule

[A response to Jack Random's recent essay: Killing Labor - Beyond the Columbia Free Trade Pact.]

Sometime in the long ago, can we be sure when exactly, Capitalism took control of the global economy. Marx seemed to believe it had already happened, at least in the developed economies, by the time he began writing. Niall Ferguson, in his book, The War of the World, demonstrates in the opening chapter that global capitalism made the world's bounty, whether by manufacture or harvest, available to the average citizen of the British empire at the beginning of the 20th century. Certainly the last three decades have seen an expansion of that global economy to unprecedented proportions. Where Communism, almost always by way of Totalitarianism, held against the tide for several decades, we now witness various hybrid economies. Russia appears to have become a form of nationalized Capitalism. China still clings to Communism for social organization, but has surrendered so thoroughly to Capitalism that not even the poisoning of its own children with contaminated product can be prevented or easily halted. When you consider that the penalty for such excess in China is often the death penalty it is easy to see just how deeply ingrained the system of maximum profit as the primary motive for economic activity has become. Likewise, Vietnam, Nepal, even Cuba are all increasingly capitalistic.

Why then are we not in the Golden Age that the world's leading capitalists predicted? Why has the ascent of Capitalism not been accompanied by the ascent of democracy? The two are halves of the same whole, right? This is the gospel most of us have heard all of our lives. Since the beginning of the Reagan administration it seems the default doctrine underlying all American policy, foreign and domestic. Free trade zones have been opened in all directions. Lately Columbia, and presumably the rest of South America soon, is under pressure to join the party. So then, how could it possibly be that the world's largest economy has slid into it's worst recession since the 70s and totters on the brink of a depression? According to the United Nations, 2008 is the first year since the 1930s that total economic activity has not increased.

What happened? Capitalism is what happened. Capitalism without ethical or legal restraint. At the very moment Capitalism arrived at its greatest expansion it also found itself in peril of total collapse. Any system that functions without competition will invariably consume itself. If the foundation of capitalism is competition what happens when nothing competes with capitalism, not even morality? We are witnessing what happens.

This isn't the first time. There have been cyclic recessions and depressions throughout American history. A notable case is that of the McKinley administration in the 1890s. Finding itself deeply in debt and fearing a depression without end, the administration sought help from some of the wealthiest benefactors of the previous decades of capitalism without restraint. J.P. Morgan and a cadre of his fellow tycoons bought the country out of debt through the purchase of bonds at a highly discounted rate. Once the economy was booming again they sold the bonds at enormous profit. But the collective wealth of all the world’s billionaires cannot buy the economy out of its current crises. $700 billion is beginning to look like a down payment on the abyss.

There were moments during the Great Depression when the general consensus was that Capitalism had run its course. Military spending in Germany and Japan, followed by the war that required an explosion of military spending around the world, put people to work who had never held a job in their lives outside their homes or farms. After the war a combination of preparation for the final war, nuclear holocaust, the arms race, and a demand for consumer items allowed the expansion to continue. Everything was rosy until the fuel ran out in the 1970s. This was too easily remedied by rapidly increasing the import of more expensive fuel from the Middle East and wildly superfluous defense spending. Barring a couple of recessions the economy has continued to grow, aided in part by two waves of technological integration as computers entered the business sector in the 80s and our homes in the 90s.

Unfortunately, there was a downside to all of this. Every generation alive today in virtually every corner of the world can look back to a time when the world seemed simpler, when our demands seemed less urgent and less complicated. In the U.S. we can recall a time when owning a home, a car, a washer and dryer, refrigerator, stove and oven, a television and radio was quite enough. The economics of the American dream were realized for most of a thriving middle class. Then came computers. Interesting tools by themselves for business, design and creativity, but overwhelming when connected to the internet which offers a store of information and entertainment to anyone with a phone or cable line. What was once only available to citizens of the metropolis, if that, is now available to billions. Once again Capitalism succeeded. So what happened? Again, the answer is the thing itself. Capitalism.

Virtually anyone reading this has experienced the discomforts of information saturation. And many of us have asked when observing the continuing arrival of an abundance of products of all kinds in our homes if perhaps we aren't losing something in the bargain. We used to go outside for a walk or to chat with neighbors, now we stare at screens and chat with friends around the world or consume a cornucopia of entertainment in isolation. We wonder what kind of values will result from this level of disconnect from the actual world at our feet.

If these doubts rise in the minds of those of us who have grown up where consumption was the rule, imagine the doubts that arise in the minds of those who have witnessed a much more rapid and aggressive transformation. What if you were born a farmer, or a herder into a nomadic life? A way of life that had been unchanged for thousands of years. Then in the space of a generation your life became urban, consumer and information centered. What might be uncomfortable for us, might feel like an assault to others. When they raise their voice in opposition they discover that they are in the minority. The majority enjoys the new comforts and entertainments. The minorities band together and appeal to the government where an appeal is not met by violence. Eventually they become desperate. They demand a return to the old values. They take to the streets. They riot. They return violence for violence. When this fails they look to the origin of the change and they strike against the governments of those countries, the representatives of those countries and eventually against the citizens of those countries. Mumbai, Madrid, London, New York and Washington and all the others. Their violence is not justified nor is it rational since it will only result in further violence against them, but it is the inevitable result of present circumstances. They are doomed to fail. They are the desperate acts of vanishing cultures.

Capitalism wins. Or does it?

What if capitalists believed so blindly in the power of the market that they believed anything could be measured by market values? What if they believed that all problems could be solved by market forces? What if their faith in the market was so blind that they would even purchase shares in nothing more than a bet on the behavior of the market? What if there was no government, media or any other agency to restrain this blind faith?

Bear witness. Where do these believers go when the markets fail? Who will bear the burden?

Will capitalism survive? Probably, but at what cost? Global bankruptcy? Depression? Global warfare? Environmental catastrophe?

Who will capitalism survive for? If allowed to continue along its present course the global economy will resemble a third world economy with perhaps five percent wealthy and the remainder struggling to survive. The middle class vanishes.

At some point in the last three decades government should have governed, but it did not. Now government is summoned to pay the bill. If that bill is paid without enormous compensation and compromise on the part of capitalism then the governments will continue to fail and falter and disappear.

Imagine corporate feudalism on a global scale where corporate economic agents and militias wage war for the world's resources. If government on behalf of the people and for the people refuses to act aggressively the 21st century may very well look like a high tech version of the Dark Ages.

If Capitalism is the only rule, everybody loses.

Beatlick Travel Report #3: Lorca in Albuquerque

2008 Series

Great fun revisiting Albuquerque, haven't been there in almost three years and we found many changes in the poetry scene. It seems that most of the people who used to attend the Winnings Coffeehouse readings, associated with the poetry zine "Central Ave." and hosted by Dale Harris, are now gathering at the Fixed & Free Bike Shop in Knob Hill. We found a crowd of over twenty in the shop's art gallery, held on the third Monday of the month.

The host there is Billy Brown, a regular attendee at Winnings, according to Dale. "Billy gave a lot of spirit and heart to that venue for five years. So I'm delighted to see that Knob Hill has poetry and the old "Central Ave." community supports the bike shop readings," she said, "plus, the poets still have a home."

We also attended a private poetry reading and open mic well into the hinterlands of Santa Fe. "Poetry with Paul" is a venue held in the private home of glass artist Paul White in Tesuque. The featured act during our visit was poet Gary Brower, flamenco dancer Susana ?, and guitarist Nino David aka David Briggs.

Their presentation included Nino David's flamenco music performed on his Jose Ramirez guitar. He accompanied Susana as she danced and recited poetry from Federico Garcia Lorca in the original Spanish. She dressed in black and her slender frame, with a long black Spanish scarf embroidered with red roses wrapped around her waist, sent the long fringe flying about her trousers as she performed her staccato dance. Very intense, very moving.

Gary Brower read poems influenced by Lorca. His gave a short history of the Spanish Civil War and also acknowledged in his work the experiences of the late Angel Gonzales of New Mexico University.

The poem most enthusiastically received portrayed the death of Lorca, assassinated along with two matadors. The murder scene depicted in a crescendo of Spanish guitar was dramatic and tragic. Gary reminded the audience, "We need to remember that poets must speak truth to power."

Zero City reflected on Gonzales' experience:
bullets, blood discovered on the ground...
the incomprehensible sorrow of the grownups...
rage and the desire to weep...


The opening act of border narrative poetry featured Sylvia Ernestina Vargara reading from her book "Scream." Her poem "La Frontera" discusses issues on both sides of the border here in New Mexico. I found some of her most moving lines, not necessarily in order, to be:

The border is holding me back.
Death! Flash! Border Patrol!
A knife that cuts human bonds
of those who once worked together.
Small farms are slipping away
Chain link knuckles rap in the wind
Don't make friends
Don't make the world a better place
"Give me your money bag"
Take the border and wrap it
around the black knight stabber of hearts
and the white knight of twisted lies.

I really enjoyed a poet who called himself only Orlando. He claimed he was going to mail his poem "It is Blackwater Again" in with his IRS payment this year. His work criticized the Iraq contractors who "guard the devil himself when he comes to Baghdad."

Dale Harris was in attendance. As a resident of Miami for 30 years she said winter was a novelty to her when she moved to the Southwest. She reminisced about winter scenes on the Old Salt Mission Trail and the amnesty of the snow that draped winter clean.

I asked our host Paul how he came to sponsor a monthly open mic. He said, "Paul Glazner got me started. I went to his readings and he helped me get poets to my house." It's quite a trek to his home on a long and winding trail, dark too, but there was a friendly fire in the fire pit when we arrived.

Paul felt there was a real need for a venue such as his. His reward is meeting all the impressive people who come out. "It's a community," he said.

I will soon notify you regarding extending posts on the poetry of this night at www.beatlick.com.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

[From The Beatlicks: Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst.]

DEMANDS OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT

by Cindy Sheehan

The Peace Movement demanded from Bush and will demand from Obama a complete and immediate withdrawal of US Forces and independent contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan and a declared end to the USA's War of Terror.

We demand that ALL torture prisons, in Guantanamo Cuba and around the world be closed and that the humans incarcerated in those prisons be released, or tried with full protection of commonly held law (that used to exist in the US) and that the Military Commission's Act be repealed.

We demand that the US take a more balanced approach to Israel's occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people and work with the international community to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We demand that the USA PATRIOT ACT be repealed. (Obama voted to renew it).

We demand that the FISA Modernization Act be repealed. (Obama voted to take away our 4th amendment rights).

We demand that most of the 800+ US bases around the world be closed and our troops brought back to their home bases and attrition be used to reduce the size of our "standing Army" that is un-Constitutional, anyway.

We demand that the US military be reduced to a size that can be used for defensive purposes, natural disasters and international emergencies only---not be built up with another 100,000 troops (another Obama campaign promise).

We demand that the budget for the Pentagon be reduced dramatically and the money be used for education, jobs and health care here in the US. If everyone (not just the wealthy) had easy access to these basic human rights, then why would there become a part of the US military Empire?

We demand that the Posse Comitatus Act be fully restored so US forces and weapons CANNOT be used against we citizens.

[Excerpted from “Peace” by Cindy Sheehan 12/7/08. Contact@CindyforCongress.org.]

Word of the Wz: On India

[Editor's Note: Jim Wz has traveled recently in India. Here are his thoughts on the recent events in Mumbai.]

on India.... though I have my head in the sand and ignore almost all media...I catch snippets from Newspaper headlines (even if I don't read the articles) and sounds from conversations or radio/tv news that penetrate into my wandering space. My first instinct was a desire to go over there right where it occurred and put good energy into the confusion. Upon hearing of those who passed that were on a spiritual journey...my hat goes off to them in congratulations on how they ended their book on this planet.

As far as why and who.... my gut feeling is that it goes deep... much deeper then a small group or individual... more like a punishment from somebody the leaders were playing cards with who wanted to knock the table over and win the game in a tantrum instead of using reason to work something out. The effect that acts such as these have on an economy is tremendous and takes decades to recover from... A whole country has to suffer because of an act that swallows up headlines on a worldwide scale. Too easy...and terrible...childish, low spirit and cheap shot. And when all else fails to reason...follow the almighty dollar....the answer will lie somewhere in the zeros.

Jim wZ

Jake's Word Re: Saving Big Auto‏

[In response to "The Nationalization Option: Saving the Auto Industry" by Jack Random -- reposted below.]

As always you see clearly what most everyone else, including those in government and big business, either miss or choose to ignore. You recognize as well the variety of options that should be on the table.

It appears Secretary Paulson would prefer to reward bad behavior and hope the "smart guys" would go and sin no more. That might be too optimistic though. What once seemed cynical has all too often proved realistic when considering the machinations of the Bush administration. The bailout may have originally been intended as one more pay out to old colleagues in the corporate world for loaning us a few of their own to run the country. A final flourish of 28 years of supply side economics as they slither from the stage with bags of taxpayer dollars.

Paulson's hand was called when the first installment resulted in the nothing at all except large banks sitting on their largesse. Now, looking increasingly like a man on the verge of a total breakdown he seems willing to compromise, perhaps, and either help homeowners directly or at least encourage the banks to behave like banks again and start moving money. The result appears to be more of the same - another failure of an administration whose legacy will most likely be to serve as an example of everything a President can do wrong.

If we were not but a few weeks from the inauguration of a new administration the automakers would probably be left to crumble or in the name of a compromise with congress be handed the money they request with no conditions at all.

We wish that the ideal world you detail was an option. In a saner, more rational world it might be. However, we must recognize the bias of the society and the governments it empowers.

I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that congress rebuffed the automakers like poor students told to correct their homework and return to be graded a second time. They will no doubt behave like C students and return with a plan that they hope will get them past the gates and into the vault. At that point congress will once again be required to show enough spine to send them away empty handed once more with a stern warning that they will be given one last chance.

Automakers, foreign and domestic obviously know what needs to be done. Your recommendations are precisely those that I hope the President-Elect is receiving. If the transition team actually reads the suggestions posted at change.gov they will have those recommendations before them because I posted an almost identical proposal there last week. One hopes that the incoming administration would not have to look so far afield for advice. I am sure they know the options and details much better than I ever could and are weighing them. The questions is - with what measure? How much will political expediency weigh when balanced against rational policy?

Frankly, nothing less than a total reformulation of the auto industry will suffice. The transition phase would necessitate a combination of hybrid and maximum fuel efficiency vehicles (35 mpg/city minimum). The next stage, which must be ready within five years, would be electric and alternative fuel vehicles (ethanol discounted unless it is cellulosic in origin from a variety of sources - the rest of the world cannot afford us burning their food).

Consider that with the inception of WWII the American economy completely retooled in a matter of months and in less than two years became the most efficient and productive in the world, the envy of the world. If some combination of government and business attacked the current financial and energy crises with the same urgency it would produce millions of jobs via new and renewed industry assisted by new research and development.

We have seen the alternative. It means waging war for resources. That is our choice. We can invest in a transformed economy or slide into depression and literally fight our way out.

The failure of three decades of supply side blind faith in markets has forced an opportunity upon us. We can call it a crises and allow greed to continue to capitalize on our fear or we could seize the opportunity and once again make the U.S. economy the envy of the world - and it could be done while decreasing our impact on the environment. All it requires is self-confidence and the determination to accept nothing less than success.

Forgive me for sloganeering, but if that is what it takes to motivate the populace then so be it. We can transform failure into success. We can reinvent the economy and do it quickly. We can demonstrate to the world that we are not imperialists, we are benevolent innovators. It will require unprecedented cooperation among all sectors of society, but we can do it. Yes, we can.

Peace to you my brother,
Jake

[Jake Berry (jakebridget@bellsouth.net)]


JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.

THE NATIONALIZATION OPTION:
Saving the Auto Industry

By Jack Random


With the economy still stuck in a spiral descent legislators who could not find the bearings or strength of character to oppose the trillion dollar bailout of the financial sector are suddenly finding old time religion in opposing a bailout for the auto industry.

Those on the left say: Why save the collapsing remnants of a failed capitalist system?

Those on the right say: Live by the sword, die by the sword. Let the market manifest. It’s how the system is supposed to work.

Both are wrong.

We accepted the financial sector bailout because the alleged “smartest men in the room” told us there was neither time to delay nor options to consider. They had already played out the string and lost. The next roll would push us over the edge. They had so mismanaged our money that there was no more gambling to be done. The book was closed. The marker had to be paid down or the players would be locked out.

We were lucky congress paused just long enough to lay down a few conditions, including one stipulating that some significant portion of the enormous allotment would be applied to lower the rate of home foreclosures. When Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson said he was not authorized to attack the problem directly he was lying. Paulson must be shown that he is not the king’s henchman and he has not won the unconditional trust of the people. It is not solely up to him who shall be saved and who shall not.

Sheila Bair, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, got it right: An investment in foreclosure prevention will pay in generous multiples while buying toxic assets is like throwing paper money into a raging inferno. Paying for corporate buyouts and mergers is like contracting our own demolition. It ought to be a crime.

The very last thing we should be doing now is refinancing a consolidation of wealth to create even more corporate dynasties that are “too big to fail.” We already let the “smart” guys – the gurus of the American Enterprise Institute, the Free Market fundamentalists, the Neocons of economic theory – play that hand and they busted like greedy frat boys at a professional’s table. The least they can do now is step aside and let someone else have a seat.

The auto industry is apparently not too big to fail but it is the last stand of American industry. We have sacrificed textiles, plastics, packaging, canning and manufacturing of all kinds. We no longer produce: We transport, promote and sell. We have become the middleman of the world’s economy and in hard times the middleman is the first to go.

In an ideal world, a world in which the accusation of socialism has truly lost its sting, the government would purchase the auto industry at current market value (a bargain at less than nothing) and transform its production facilities into a model of fuel efficiency: Fuel efficient plants producing the world’s most fuel efficient vehicles.

In an ideal world the best minds would devote themselves to developing technologies that would revolutionize technology itself: Not only clean and efficient personal transport vehicles but integrated mass transit, a modern grid for distribution of energy, climate control and industrial power.

Needless to say we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world that requires compromise. If we cannot nationalize the auto industry then we must stipulate the conditions that will lead to the same end: a viable industry with state of the art fuel-efficient vehicles.

The auto executives appear to have miscalculated. They assumed as I do that the government cannot allow the industry to fold. We can neither sacrifice the jobs nor the industrial base of our stumbling economy. If anything we must reclaim an expanded industry in a new and more advanced form. But that does not mean that we cannot bargain. Our government must be willing to show the nationalization card to compel the industry to negotiate in good faith.

We should put it on the table straight up: Accept reasonable conditions or prepare to be nationalized. Once the industry is re-established as a sustainable and profitable concern we could then resell it to the highest bidder on the open market.

Put it on the table and suddenly all the chips are on the government’s side.

Much has rightly been said about the shortcomings of the auto industry but the government has in fact been a party to many of their critical errors in judgment. The government has subsidized large vehicles, exempting them from even modest fuel efficiency requirements and providing tax incentives to buyers. The government has subsidized oil, enabling the auto industry to believe it could continue to ignore the looming crisis in the cost of gasoline.

Accepting that both sides share in responsibility for an industry that cannot be sustained may enable us to move forward with the hard measures that must be taken.

First, all plants currently operating must remain operational and all current employees retained except for cause.

Second, all plants that have been closed but remain in the possession of the industry will be reopened and retooled for fuel-efficient production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

Third, union representation of industry employees must be protected and strengthened. If the auto unions must yield some portion of their current wages or benefits to bring them into balance with foreign automakers so be it but for every cent sacrificed there must be a proportionate gain in representation on the boards of directors. The industry must be compelled to open its books and involve labor in the decisions that will affect long-term viability.

Fourth, the world’s brightest authorities should be recruited to lead research and development for fuel-efficient technologies. For decades we have been hearing about vehicles that run on water, compressed air and other clean, renewable sources. Remove the mindset of short-term profit and we can be sure that the results will be remarkable. Replace that mindset with one geared to the public good and working in concert with a government committed to freedom from oil and we will likely lead the world in the technologies of the future.

Members of congress were rightly outraged that the leaders of the Big Three showed up without a plan for restructuring and without a vision for the future. We should all be outraged that congress has not come up with its own plan and its own vision.

Like the viability of the airlines industry and indeed the viability of all industry in America, the problems of the auto industry are not new. It is an insult to American democracy that our leaders have not foreseen these failures and drafted plans to address them.

Ultimately, even after the auto industry is saved, the viability of the American economy will depend on revising trade policies so that industry can once again thrive in the nation that pioneered the modern industrial revolution.

Jazz.

[This Chronicle posted on NewsDaily.com of Canada.]

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE DAILY SCARE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.

Jake Berry: Shades of Havel & Kafka

Screenplay: THE INFORMATION by Jake Berry 11.24.08

Characters: Two women, in their 30s or 40s.

Two women stand in a room before a large window. We see them at first whole body from behind, but quickly zooming into shots above the waist, sometimes only their heads are in frame. We never see them from the front and we never see either face entirely. The camera moves and zooms throughout the play, but the most we see of a face is a profile. On the other side of the window is a scene rich in moving color. Perhaps a house or other large structure on fire or some other scene of destruction that generates violent bursts of color. They might also be standing before a large video screen upon which is a violently colorful scene is developing. Alternatively, the other side of the widow could be colorful and active but peaceful, such as the wind blowing trees and leaves on a autumn day.

FADE IN

One of the women is standing before the window looking out. We move in closer. For a few seconds she is alone, passively observing, long enough for us to study the scene, notice the details and feel ourselves waiting for something to happen. The second woman arrives, steps into frame and assumes a posture similar to the first. The first woman does not turn to look at her. They stand together silently, passive before the window. After a few seconds:

First Woman (speaking forward toward the window): Did you see him?

Second Woman (also speaking toward the window): Yes. Well, what I mean is, I did see him, but I seem to be having trouble…

FW: Remembering him. Remembering his face.

SW: Yes. Exactly. We spoke for several moments face to face. I remember noticing things about his appearance, but all I remember clearly now is the conversation.

FW: Can you remember any impression his appearance made on you?

SW: Vaguely. He seemed tired, older than before, as if he had aged years in a matter of days. (speaking more to herself): Why can't I remember his face?

FW: Do you remember what he was wearing?

SW: No, but I remember the condition of his clothes. They were worn almost threadbare and wrinkled as if he had slept in them. They agreed with my general impression of his condition.

FW: What about his voice? Do you remember anything distinctly about it?

SW: Yes. It was strong and clear, but with something new, a bit of an edge, slightly raspy. He coughed a few times while we were talking. He apologized each time.

FW: But he still spoke with same sense of authority?

SW: Oh absolutely. Nothing has changed.

FW: That was what I expected. He sounds more or less in the same condition as when I saw him.

SW: When was that?

FW: A few days ago. Maybe a week.

SW: Do you remember his face or how he appeared?

FW: No more that what you remember. More like impressions than actually remembering.

SW: Confusing isn't it? Frustrating?

FW: It would have been at one time. You get used to it. You have to or else you'll go crazy. It's a miracle we remember anything at all. As many times as I've seen him and had long conversations with him - once we even kissed - I still cannot manage to bring his face or any other details to mind.

SW: That's the way of things now isn't it?

FW: Apparently.

SW: You say you kissed?

FW: It was nothing. A gesture of friendship. (She pauses, continues to look forward.) So what is the information?

SW: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew.

FW: How would I know? I haven't seen him in a week. Maybe longer.

SW: I thought maybe one of the others…

FW: No. None of them seem to know anything new. No one has seen him until today.

SW: That's peculiar. He spoke as if it was common knowledge.

FW: It might be to him. I've never been certain what his sources tell him or when.

SW: His sources, yes. Do you have any idea who they are?

FW: No. He speaks of them by name as if they are people we all know, but no one I've spoken to has any knowledge of any of them. For all I know he's imagining them as well as the circumstances under which he spoke to them. That would surprise me though. He's always been very reliable and he seems to be entirely convinced that he saw and spoke with them, as if they are regular companions. They pass familiarities, ask about one another's families, make jokes. I doubt it's all in his imagination.

SW: That's my impression as well. And he always seems completely at ease, even today when he seemed so fatigued.

FW: That concerns me though. I mean his appearance, the slight change in his voice, the coughing. It feels like something has gone wrong, as if conditions have deteriorated.

SW: But he remains calm.

FW: On the surface anyway. The information, was it bad? Was there any indication that circumstances have changed?

SW: No. He said we should continue with our work. He did mention that he expected the shops to be running sales and suggested it might be a good time to stock up on essential items in case the prices rise again later. He said we could expect the streets and shops to be a bit more crowded, but nothing like a panic.

FW: What about the other thing?

SW: The other thing?

FW: Yes, the weather device, with the holidays coming.

SW: He mentioned it in passing, but only to say it was operating efficiently. I don't think there's any reason to be concerned.

FW: Did you ask him about his appearance or his apparent fatigue?

SW: No, considering there was nothing unusual in his demeanor. He spoke in the same tone as always. And since there was no alarming information I assumed that whatever the reason for his appearance it was none of my business or he would have told me. Did you ask?

FW: No, and for the same reason.

SW: It does make one wonder though doesn't it?

FW: I try not to worry.

SW: That's best I suppose, so long as the information is reliable.

FW: Precisely.

The scene continues before them. They are completely passive before it, too lost in their thoughts to notice.

FW: So, will I see you here next week?

SW: Oh yes, of course. If you see him between now and then will you let me know or tell one of the others?

FW: Certainly. As soon as I know anything I'll pass word. I hope to see you in the shops.

SW: Not likely. I can't stand it. I let Jonathan do that.

FW: How is he?

SW: Fine, fine. The same.

FW: Tell him I said hello.

SW: I will.

Without ever looking directly at FW or saying goodbye, SW turns and walks away. FW continues staring forward absent-mindedly. She begins humming a tune in a low voice.

FADE OUT

Beatlick Travel Report #2 (2008 Series)

Las Cruces
San Rafael
Albuquerque

After we moved into the van and out of our little "casita" on Van Patten Ave. we relocated to the campus of New Mexico State University for four days. Joe volunteered to work the Fifteenth Annual International Mariachi Conference. He was thrilled to be back on campus at his alma mater and spent hours in the libraries.

On Sunday we attended a Mariachi Mass. About 7,000 filed into the Pan American Center greeted at the entrance with a troupe of twenty or more dancers dressed in huge feather headdresses at least three feet high and costumes that appeared to be Aztec, but I'm not sure. Their ankles were covered with rattling nut shells.

The mass honored all the 15-year-olds, quinceaneras and quinceaneros who were born the year the conference began. On stage Mariachi Cobre of Epcot Center and Mariachi Real de Chihuahua performed before a mass administered by the Most Rev. Ricardo Ramirez, the Bishop of Las Cruces. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as a choir sang "Ava Maria."

The pageantry was overwhelming. Young girls were dressed in beautiful white dresses and veils. Female dancers were enveloped in the colorful ruffled skirts, men wore sashes and conquistador like hats with blue feathers. A procession of priests in flowing white robes were followed by a subdued parade of women in black.

The Hispanic culture is so rich. I watched in amazement as the beautiful women of all ages managed their three and four inch stiletto heels up and down the stadium walkways! A procession of numerous groups approached the alter to bring gifts such as pumpkins, flowers, fruit, wine, and sundry other items. It was a fitting exit from Las Cruces, so moving and majestic, we felt blessed, humbled, and happy as we finally left town.

After three days in San Rafael visiting my friend Andrew, whom I met in Alaska back in the 80s, we are currently urban camping in Albuquerque before heading out to Placitas. So we continue to roam New Mexico.

Regardz

Beatlick Pamela

(Joe Speers & Pamela Hurst: publishingpamela@yahoo.com)

Jake's Word: Rant (on the nature of being)

Another Pointless Act of Desperation
Jake Berry

In response to a section of Jon Berry’s Fang Mask of Black Venus


Anyone that is awake recognizes the delicious trap, the explicit message - just sit back and watch the show, everything has been arranged - when it is time to work take your time for work medicine and go to work - when it is time to go home take your go home medicine and go home, turn on the big screen and slide back into your cheaply manufactured cocoon and enjoy the colorful images. It doesn't matter if those images are hi-def or dream so long as you follow the line your education (i.e. indoctrination) has prepared for you. Should you break with this sequence of events the whole world crumbles into ash and dust, the fantasy disappears and we are timid creatures with our backs to the wall in a safe cave. In short, we see ourselves as we are. The spectacle is our safe harbor and we will do anything to protect it. We will pay any amount of money, even if it means going into great debt, debt that can never be paid. We will kill to protect it. We will amass great armies and send them halfway across the planet to kill on our behalf. We have to keep the screen on, keep the images coming. Once you are aware that this is happening you can no longer take any joy in it, everything is reduced to its fundamental particles, the illusion, the screen has been shattered and try as you might you can never return it to full operational order.

It has been widely broadcast for several generations that there is no one behind the curtain. The horror comes when we recognize there is no one in front of it either. Such is the nature of reality. Too much reality makes you too human and therefore distances you from the rest of the species. In fact (ah, facts), you are quite insane. You have become unreasonable. By becoming a rational being you have lost touch with the others - those from which you came. It renders you alien to them and to yourself. Immediately you try to escape this dilemma, but it is too late. Not even suicide will fix it. Suicides are just another type of failure of the system, just so much trash to be discarded. As long as you are breathing and feeling, you are present, standing in front of your own broken screen, back to it now, facing the crowd, blocking the view of their own screens and therefore disrupting their comfort. If you persist they will remove you. Being awake, you are aware of this so you walk away and allow them to slip back into the collective coma and forget what just happened.

We perch on the edge of a high cliff overlooking a great field of humans all sitting watching the screens. We turn away from them and walk around in the hills, turning over the rocks. Fossils! Sweet reminders that something happened long ago, left its trace, left its joke. We know it is a joke, but do not know its language except that it is the language of all last jokes. The herd grazes with their eyes. The sun rises. We continue. We make our homes in the cliff face. We wonder far away for days at a time, but we always return to our home in the cliffs. We etch pictures and scrawl symbols on the wall for no reason at all. If there were a reason there would be no point in doing it because we would only be perpetuating the virus, the virus of blindness that is the sustenance of those that dwell in the valley. Your pictures and symbols are indecipherable. But there will come another, another kind in another world who will look upon the pictures and symbols and read them the way we read the fossils. They will indicate something vacant and precious. They might even be preserved the way we may carry a fossil home and set it on a shelf and look at it from time to time remembering something that it is entirely impossible for us to remember.

Jake Berry is the author of Brambu Drezi, Liminal Blue and other works of extraordinary insight.

The Death of Old Man White

A Short Play by Jake Berry.

Characters:

The Gravedigger: a man in his mid-60s. An inhabitant of a small town for many years. A widower of less than a year.

His sister: A widow of several years, also in her mid-60s. Recently moved to the small town.


Scene:

The gravedigger comes in, late afternoon of a cold, rainy day in November. He removes his raincoat, shakes the water out of it and hangs it on a hook by the door.

They live in a small house. The house the gravedigger and his wife lived in for most of their married life. The back door opens directly into a kitchen with a stove, oven, sink, stove/oven, refrigerator, table and chairs.


Sister: You could shake that thing off outside on the porch before you came in.

Gravedigger: Yeah. Sorry about that. It's just so cold and damp. I guess I was eager to get in.

Sister: Job's done then?

Gravedigger: Only half. The hole's dug.

S: What about the rest of it?

G: Body's in the coffin, lid on, but not yet nailed.

S: And who does the nailing?

G: Not sure. It won't be the man that dug the hole unless they pay half again. Won't be the priest or the preacher. They never raise hammer toward a nail. Maybe the young kid that just came on. He has both ignorance and enthusiasm going for him.

S: What's the issue. They die, they get boxed, nailed in and laid to ground every day. What's so special about this one?

G: I wouldn't exactly call it special, just a long time coming, and some remain what you might call… doubtful.

S: Doubtful of what? Why? Who is it?

G: Old Man White.

She hesitates a moment. Struck by the painful memories of the ancient face. She quickly regains her composure and continues:

S: Yes. I remember him in a general way. He was very rich and powerful in his day wasn't he?

G: He was that and more. No one made it through a door, held land or build a structure without his approval.

S: How could one man have so much importance? I can't say he seemed like much when I saw him. Just a scary, withered old face. Maybe a little intimidating to look at, but that's it.

G: You saw him weak, old and humbled, and you only saw the one. He was, in his prime, one man, but also many. What he spoke came from a chorus of mouths. What he wrote fell into many brains. Some believed it came from more than a brain. It was like a a white ghost hovered over every word.

S: And those that are afraid to drive the nails, they believe all this?

G: No, but they remember it and fear it. They don't expect him to rise from the grave, but no one's quite convinced that he's dead just yet. It's hard to accept that so much authority can ever entirely pass away. No one wants to seal the box. It's almost as if as soon as they do they'll turn around and he'll be standing there watching them.

S: What? Like a ghost?

G: No, like the man himself. Nailed in the box, but up and alive walking around just the same.

S: That's just a bunch of foolishness.

G: Yes, it is. But foolishness was the old man's stock and trade. He sold it like food, set fires with it, drove engines with it. You can't turn your back on a man like that. He can be everywhere at once.

S: Sounds like you caught a bit of that foolishness yourself.

G: No. I'm just telling you what people think and how they feel.

S: I say nail the lid, drop the box in the hole and throw dirt on it till the the hole is filled.

G: Like I said, I'm willing, if they'll pay me fair wage to do it.

S: So then, do it. Sooner the better. Put an end to this silly chatter.

G: Fine, if they'll make me, or someone, the deal.

S: Get it done then. Shake the hand, sign the paper. What's the hold up? They want you to work for free or what?

G: No. Problem is, no one is sure who'd be the authority on the other end of the deal. The one who'd pay the extra wage.

S: Why not? Where'd the authority go? Don't you have laws in these matters?

G: I don't know about laws exactly, but we did have a method. It's just that the authority is holding his tongue, so to speak.

S: Why? Out of fear?

G: No. Out of death. He's the man in the box.

S: Oh.

She falls silent again, gets up from her seat at the table and goes to the stove where she stirs something in a pot, thinking. He takes a seat at the table, rubbing his hands, still trying to shake off the damp and chill.

S: Well then, someone else has to be the authority.

G: That's the same conclusion we came to up on the hill. A fellow offered to do the job, if we'd help him with the tough bits since he'd be new to it.

S: Good then. What's he say?

G: He's thinking the matter through. He's a smart fellow, but he's consulting with some others on the matter. As smart as he is, he thinks he should ask around to see what we all think about it.

S: So he thinks and we wait. He talks to everyone from geniuses to gravediggers. Meanwhile, Old Man White lies in his box pretending to be everywhere at once?

G: Something like that.

S: Yeah, sure seems like that foolishness was contagious.

G: I hope not. I'm glad to do the job and we need the money.

S: That we do. Still, we have to wait.

G: Yes. We wait, for a while. We wait and see.


Jake Berry 11.5.08

Beatlick Travel Report #1

2008 series

Beatlick Joe and I have officially moved into our VW van. We're parked on the NMSU campus where Joe is volunteering at the 15th International Mariachi Festival. We walked through the campus at sunset, a magnificent pink and orange display, down to Pete's Cyber Cafe and watched the election results.

Honestly I have been concerned about the state of mind I would have as we hit the road. I wanted so badly to have my faith in America restored, and last night it was. So we will begin our journey with just a short trip up to San Raphael and Albuquerque NM before we head out for Arizona and Southern California, taking the low route south of Interstate 8.

I'm on the lookout for trends towards thriftiness along the way. Hard times are coming and we have pared expenses down as low as we can go. It's a grand experiment to live the good life, more in control of our circumstances, puttering through the more obscure places.

Expect a report on Truth or Consequences, NM. Talk about sustainability, a town sitting on vast reserves of restorative hot springs. We found a bath house there where we can park our camper for $100 a month. My jaw dropped when I heard the price. I plan to spend January there and save up some money before we set out for the Salton Sea and Slab City, amongst other intriguing places.

Regardz from Beatlick Pamela

Jake's Word: A Mutt Like Me

This is from an article in the NYTimes about Pres. Elect Obama's economic transition team and his possible choices for cabinet members. This paragraph was interesting:

Near the end of the brief session, he alluded to a domestic choice facing his family: what kind of dog to bring to the White House. Perhaps, he said, the Obama family should visit a shelter and pick out “a mutt like me.”

I wrote a draft of brief play last night called "The Death of Old Man White". (It was common in the small town where I grew up to refer to an old fellow whose history was generally but not clearly known as Old Man Jones, Old Man Smith or whatever.) The point is that Americans are all, as Jack said long ago, collages. We are made of different ethnic groups. To be classified as White in this country meant that your ethnic group, which would be a minority by itself, had been accepted into the collective that generally ran things at almost all levels of society. Obama's election makes that distinction, already an illusion, a very problematical condition. Isn't it time to admit that there is no nation, state, or region called White? It was an illusion established in order to allow certain groups of people rights that were not allowed to other groups of people who by virtue of recent immigration, or worse, the color of their skin, were denied those same rights. Isn't is time to do away with this designation "White" and admit that Americans are all collages, we are all mutts. And proud to be. Obama looks like America and though he and I are different mixtures of mutt, I am a mutt like him.

"The dogs on Main Street howl because they understand
if I could take one moment into my hands.
Mister, I ain't a boy, No, I'm a man.
And I believe in the the promised land."

Bruce Springsteen - (Dutch-English mutt) - from his song "The Promised Land"

Let's see what happens.

Love to you all,
Jake Berry

[JAKE BERRY IS THE AUTHOR OF BRAMBU DREZI, LIMINAL BLUE AND OTHER WORKS OF EXTRAORDINARY CRAFT AND QUALITY: jakebridget@bellsouth.net.]