Thursday, October 10, 2002
There's no need to tell you how we got started talking, or how it is they told me their entire story. There's hardly any need to change voice. I'll just convey the story as I heard it. Like you were sitting there in jail for the weekend, sans camera, and happened to meet these two beautiful terrible souls. And chat it up.
Because you know I'm not a chatty person. You know I didn't pry. You know I just wanted to mind my own damn business. But there was something deeper connecting us, and we ended up connecting, communicating.
Fuck you.
In history, you only get famous by doing great things. For most people that means killing as many people as possible. Want to be famous? Do some old fashioned serial killing. Kill people, drill holes in their heads and pour in Drano, have sex with their body parts, keep said parts in your freezer for later. Or drive around in a van and shoot people from a distance. Do whatever it is your do for as long as you can without getting caught; but the important thing is to get caught. Get caught and spend the next year in front of the cameras. Your face remembered by all. Your name in the history books of our age...New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, US Fucking News and World Fucking Report. If you're really lucky you'll get a hip write up in GQ or Maxim. The Poor Little Misunderstood Serial Killer.
This is what's important. The killing, the getting killed, that's just the means to an end. Read your self help. Read your Stephen R. Covey. Read your 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Begin With The End In Mind.
Then read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Christians.
Then read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Husbands.
Then read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Spousal Abusers.
Read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Psychotics.
Read 7 Habit of Highly Successful Killers.
They'll all tell you the same damn thing: Begin With The End In Fucking Mind Asshole.
Fame.
Some people get famous doing sports or music; but most of the time that's not good enough; they need to kill their wives or themselves and then they'll be properly remembered by the rest of us.
That's the only imortality we can be sure of.
Even Jesus Himself wasn't famous. He had to die and then his estate had to sign with a really good agent, Paul. Paul was the Spin Doctor for Jesus. He'd already killed a lot of people, so he had that going for him, too. Eventually, Paul got tired just representing God all the time, so he decided to get himself killed so that he himself would be properly remembered. Followers are always trying to one-up their leaders. So God had to sign a new agent, Constantine.
I say all this in order to say that nobody ever remembers the victims. These new friends of mine? You'll read their story and tomorrow you'll forget them. You'll be busy with buying your Newsweek; you'll wake up with CNN on, an ad for NASDAQ reminding you that you're not rich enough yet or smart enough yet and by God definately not beautiful enough yet. You'll be busy choosing between your healthy and your unhealthy cereal for breakfast. You'll be busy scheduling the rest of your day so that you can work out and burn off that unhealthy cereal. You'll have your head down, chin to chest, poking that little silver electronic tablet with that little plastic leadless pencil, squigling little lines that turn into D-no-fuck-I-meant-B-no-fuck-not-P.
See how easy it was to forget them?
Name the last victim your remember. What was his-or-her name?
No, not you, you pathetic fuck.
Go back to your handheld meta-widget, you victim.
Don't bother listening.
I don't know why I even retell this story.
Nobody listens anymore.
Because you know I'm not a chatty person. You know I didn't pry. You know I just wanted to mind my own damn business. But there was something deeper connecting us, and we ended up connecting, communicating.
Fuck you.
In history, you only get famous by doing great things. For most people that means killing as many people as possible. Want to be famous? Do some old fashioned serial killing. Kill people, drill holes in their heads and pour in Drano, have sex with their body parts, keep said parts in your freezer for later. Or drive around in a van and shoot people from a distance. Do whatever it is your do for as long as you can without getting caught; but the important thing is to get caught. Get caught and spend the next year in front of the cameras. Your face remembered by all. Your name in the history books of our age...New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, US Fucking News and World Fucking Report. If you're really lucky you'll get a hip write up in GQ or Maxim. The Poor Little Misunderstood Serial Killer.
This is what's important. The killing, the getting killed, that's just the means to an end. Read your self help. Read your Stephen R. Covey. Read your 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Begin With The End In Mind.
Then read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Christians.
Then read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Husbands.
Then read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Spousal Abusers.
Read 7 Habits of Highly Successful Psychotics.
Read 7 Habit of Highly Successful Killers.
They'll all tell you the same damn thing: Begin With The End In Fucking Mind Asshole.
Fame.
Some people get famous doing sports or music; but most of the time that's not good enough; they need to kill their wives or themselves and then they'll be properly remembered by the rest of us.
That's the only imortality we can be sure of.
Even Jesus Himself wasn't famous. He had to die and then his estate had to sign with a really good agent, Paul. Paul was the Spin Doctor for Jesus. He'd already killed a lot of people, so he had that going for him, too. Eventually, Paul got tired just representing God all the time, so he decided to get himself killed so that he himself would be properly remembered. Followers are always trying to one-up their leaders. So God had to sign a new agent, Constantine.
I say all this in order to say that nobody ever remembers the victims. These new friends of mine? You'll read their story and tomorrow you'll forget them. You'll be busy with buying your Newsweek; you'll wake up with CNN on, an ad for NASDAQ reminding you that you're not rich enough yet or smart enough yet and by God definately not beautiful enough yet. You'll be busy choosing between your healthy and your unhealthy cereal for breakfast. You'll be busy scheduling the rest of your day so that you can work out and burn off that unhealthy cereal. You'll have your head down, chin to chest, poking that little silver electronic tablet with that little plastic leadless pencil, squigling little lines that turn into D-no-fuck-I-meant-B-no-fuck-not-P.
See how easy it was to forget them?
Name the last victim your remember. What was his-or-her name?
No, not you, you pathetic fuck.
Go back to your handheld meta-widget, you victim.
Don't bother listening.
I don't know why I even retell this story.
Nobody listens anymore.
Homeland Security Cultural Bureau
Don't believe what you've heard. This is for real. This is really happening. This ain't the movies. This ain't satire. This is real life.
Don't believe what you've heard. This is for real. This is really happening. This ain't the movies. This ain't satire. This is real life.
Sunday, October 06, 2002
Guy and girl not alright. Not alright at all. Scratched and bleeding and frowning deeply. Woman shaking. Man spitting like crazy, making a little puddle between his legs, forcefully blowing the saliva and flem from his mouth, which is situated between his knees as he sits curled up like one of those one-in-a-million african wood carvings you can buy at the street fair for $20.
Auras in the negative. Not dark auras, but an absence. Like black holes. Like how we call them black holes because they are the absence of matter, but really they are sucking all matter into them because they are so needy.
Not at all like the US is a black hole, sucking all the worlds energy and culture and food and blood and land and wood and water and oil and love and hate and contempt into itself, just like the Greeks, Romans, and Ottomans did before us.
And not really like white means light and blackness means darkness which means the absence of light. I'm hearing an evangelist somewhere, right now, once every 8 seconds in this country, statistically, saying "like when a room is in darkness and when you flip on the lightswitch the light drives all the darkness out." And right now, once every alternate 8 seconds, someone is thinking, "yeah but that makes a lot of shadows." Unless it's an empty room.
But very much how lightness isn't very light and darkness very dark to a fly that sees through ultraviolet eyes or a bat that sees through sonar eyes or even a dog who sees through black and white eyes but has a nose that can triangulate the location of any object based on its odor.
Blameless, pure need. Blameless, pure darkness. Darkness that is automatically, karmically redeemed, but that is always going to have to be paid for.
No payments or interest for 90 days. As if, if you don't die within those 90 days, it makes any difference.
Jesus paid for someone's sins against you on the cross, but you are going to be paying for them for the rest of your life.
Victims.
Auras in the negative. Not dark auras, but an absence. Like black holes. Like how we call them black holes because they are the absence of matter, but really they are sucking all matter into them because they are so needy.
Not at all like the US is a black hole, sucking all the worlds energy and culture and food and blood and land and wood and water and oil and love and hate and contempt into itself, just like the Greeks, Romans, and Ottomans did before us.
And not really like white means light and blackness means darkness which means the absence of light. I'm hearing an evangelist somewhere, right now, once every 8 seconds in this country, statistically, saying "like when a room is in darkness and when you flip on the lightswitch the light drives all the darkness out." And right now, once every alternate 8 seconds, someone is thinking, "yeah but that makes a lot of shadows." Unless it's an empty room.
But very much how lightness isn't very light and darkness very dark to a fly that sees through ultraviolet eyes or a bat that sees through sonar eyes or even a dog who sees through black and white eyes but has a nose that can triangulate the location of any object based on its odor.
Blameless, pure need. Blameless, pure darkness. Darkness that is automatically, karmically redeemed, but that is always going to have to be paid for.
No payments or interest for 90 days. As if, if you don't die within those 90 days, it makes any difference.
Jesus paid for someone's sins against you on the cross, but you are going to be paying for them for the rest of your life.
Victims.
Disgrace at Freedom Plaza
By Shawna Bader, AlterNet
October 4, 2002
Last Friday morning, I was illegally arrested along with more than 600 others, the vast majority of whom had committed absolutely no illegal act and had not planned on being arrested...
When Egyptians and Jordanians get arrested in their countries by the hundreds simply for peacefully demonstrating in support of the Intifada or against their governments' relationships with the U.S., doesn't the State Department human rights report cite that as examples of civil rights and free speech violations? (It does, I've read it). What's the difference between them and us?
I've given you the bread now go read the meat!
Also, add AlterNet to your daily favorites...
By Shawna Bader, AlterNet
October 4, 2002
Last Friday morning, I was illegally arrested along with more than 600 others, the vast majority of whom had committed absolutely no illegal act and had not planned on being arrested...
When Egyptians and Jordanians get arrested in their countries by the hundreds simply for peacefully demonstrating in support of the Intifada or against their governments' relationships with the U.S., doesn't the State Department human rights report cite that as examples of civil rights and free speech violations? (It does, I've read it). What's the difference between them and us?
I've given you the bread now go read the meat!
Also, add AlterNet to your daily favorites...
Friday, October 04, 2002
First, my experience:
On bus. People talking, laughing, still shouting. Cops come on bus and shout back. Silence. Quiet. People start whispering to each other.
Ride on bus. Not from this city. No clue where we're going. Could be headed for South Carolina for all I know. Quantico. Join the other terrorists detained without cause.
Go through gates. Big bump. Pull up next to some building. File off bus. Lots of cops. Some normally uniformed. Some the storm troopers. Lots of chaos. Caffeine wearing off. Headache beginning. Led in line through some hallways, filed into big room. Pits grabbed. Tits felt. Pants reached down. Crotch grabbed. Thighs hit. Calves slapped. Pants legs pulled up a bit, boots looked at.
Filed into another room. Oh. This is a cell. Twenty of us in here. Twenty next door. Ad infinitum.
Slouch into corner. Talking begins again in earnest. All about this morning. All about injustice and lawsuits and pigs and power and money and in general just really pissed off.
Time passes. Unaware of such. Head still pounding. Guy and girl let into cell and end up sitting next to me against wall opposite cell door.
On bus. People talking, laughing, still shouting. Cops come on bus and shout back. Silence. Quiet. People start whispering to each other.
Ride on bus. Not from this city. No clue where we're going. Could be headed for South Carolina for all I know. Quantico. Join the other terrorists detained without cause.
Go through gates. Big bump. Pull up next to some building. File off bus. Lots of cops. Some normally uniformed. Some the storm troopers. Lots of chaos. Caffeine wearing off. Headache beginning. Led in line through some hallways, filed into big room. Pits grabbed. Tits felt. Pants reached down. Crotch grabbed. Thighs hit. Calves slapped. Pants legs pulled up a bit, boots looked at.
Filed into another room. Oh. This is a cell. Twenty of us in here. Twenty next door. Ad infinitum.
Slouch into corner. Talking begins again in earnest. All about this morning. All about injustice and lawsuits and pigs and power and money and in general just really pissed off.
Time passes. Unaware of such. Head still pounding. Guy and girl let into cell and end up sitting next to me against wall opposite cell door.
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Well, I guess I'll skip the bit where a LOT of us people, some of us with the signs and the big mouths, some of us just hanging about, got the ever living shit beat out of us by riot shields and very large night sticks, got zip-tie handcuffs (some feetcuffs, too), and filed into buses for a trip "downtown." My camera was kicked about 20 feet by some overweight white-boy-in-blue-with-aforementioned-big-stick-and-zip-ties, and I haven't seen it since. PROPERTY OF THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. I suppose. I'm pretty pissed about that, and I'm quite sure I'll never get a penny in return. So $500 and a weekend down the tube for standing in the street with a bunch of other people standing in the street. Great.
But soon I'm going to have to switch to second person, because I have to re-tell these two (similar) stories I heard in here. But first I have to tell you what happened between getting carted onto a Metro bus and being in this cell with these people, specifically this one guy and this one girl, and hearing these stories. Just cuz.
But soon I'm going to have to switch to second person, because I have to re-tell these two (similar) stories I heard in here. But first I have to tell you what happened between getting carted onto a Metro bus and being in this cell with these people, specifically this one guy and this one girl, and hearing these stories. Just cuz.
The Onion
UNITED NATIONS—In an address before the U.N. General Assembly Monday, President Bush called upon the international community to support his "U.S. Does Whatever It Wants" plan, which would permit the U.S. to take any action it wishes anywhere in the world at any time.
UNITED NATIONS—In an address before the U.N. General Assembly Monday, President Bush called upon the international community to support his "U.S. Does Whatever It Wants" plan, which would permit the U.S. to take any action it wishes anywhere in the world at any time.
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Anyway, these anarchists, the angry looking ones, they had stones in their hands and were lighting some kind of not-really-smokey-or-stinky-or-even-explosive thingies, but not really ever hurling them, moreso just dropping them and kicking them around. They were also the group yelling the most "fuck"s. "Fuck you pigs" or something like that, I think. Anyway, fine by me.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Gratuitous fucking Fuck.
But mostly they were off to the side. The "real" activists and the police were the ones that were now really doing the mexican standoff, about ten feet between them, the activists in their sweatsuits, hooded shirts from 1972 last washed in 1982, dreadlocks, some of them closer to Japanese chic, some of them with digital cameras, trying to get the whole thing on tape, some of them with signs, "Gates has the bomb," "We don't need an enemy," "World bank was made to fuck you." I might be making some of these up but they're pretty close. "Bush: so many bombs, so few countries to lob them at," "Cheney: Enron pensioners one day, impovrished arabs the next." Etc., etc., etc.
The cops in super Doom rage gear. Like the video game where somehow you are able to carry 10 gigantic weapons of mass destruction (not to steal that phrase or anything), plus super armor and a shield and a helmet and a radio and a GPS and a supercomputer and a battering ram and a canteen and a and a and a and a and a really bad fucking attitude and a need to enforce something anything just give me something to fucking hit will you!
Then a couple rocks were lofted up over the protestors and in the general direction of the badasspolice. I think I saw one bounce off a riot helmet. Kinda like a superball you dropped from the balcony as a kid.
Euw. Bad news.
The cops moved to within a couple feet of the protestors (by the way, just to give you some perspective, I'm like in the far corner of the crowd, conveniently at a place where I can see just about everything). The tension in the air is like frozen butter. You couldn't even cut it with a knife.
Then, all of a sudden, and I didn't see anything flying through the air, this window right by the crowd of cops breaks! One smaller window completely shatters, and another gets a huge spider-crack going all the way up its story-height. I'm like "whatthe?" when the cops storm forward, shoving the first row of protestors to the ground with their riot shields.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Gratuitous fucking Fuck.
But mostly they were off to the side. The "real" activists and the police were the ones that were now really doing the mexican standoff, about ten feet between them, the activists in their sweatsuits, hooded shirts from 1972 last washed in 1982, dreadlocks, some of them closer to Japanese chic, some of them with digital cameras, trying to get the whole thing on tape, some of them with signs, "Gates has the bomb," "We don't need an enemy," "World bank was made to fuck you." I might be making some of these up but they're pretty close. "Bush: so many bombs, so few countries to lob them at," "Cheney: Enron pensioners one day, impovrished arabs the next." Etc., etc., etc.
The cops in super Doom rage gear. Like the video game where somehow you are able to carry 10 gigantic weapons of mass destruction (not to steal that phrase or anything), plus super armor and a shield and a helmet and a radio and a GPS and a supercomputer and a battering ram and a canteen and a and a and a and a and a really bad fucking attitude and a need to enforce something anything just give me something to fucking hit will you!
Then a couple rocks were lofted up over the protestors and in the general direction of the badasspolice. I think I saw one bounce off a riot helmet. Kinda like a superball you dropped from the balcony as a kid.
Euw. Bad news.
The cops moved to within a couple feet of the protestors (by the way, just to give you some perspective, I'm like in the far corner of the crowd, conveniently at a place where I can see just about everything). The tension in the air is like frozen butter. You couldn't even cut it with a knife.
Then, all of a sudden, and I didn't see anything flying through the air, this window right by the crowd of cops breaks! One smaller window completely shatters, and another gets a huge spider-crack going all the way up its story-height. I'm like "whatthe?" when the cops storm forward, shoving the first row of protestors to the ground with their riot shields.
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