Sorry Elana, but I have nothing to offer in regards to the recent city election. Tho it pains me to admit it, this was a year of pissing on the graves of billions– the poor subjugated people who have never known the sweet freedom of democracy. There was a moment’s hesitation on that fateful Tuesday morning, time afforded and excuses looking small and petty in the sunshine. I considered the candidates who would be spending their day in breathless anticipation for the results, I considered the ballot initiatives which would mold and shape my community for years to come. I considered the fact that I had given the year’s voter guide a perfunctory leafing and had no idea what the fuck was going on and then I considered making lunch and heading off to work.

The self righteous few who had collected the signatures or the money to land their names to the ballot did not speak to me beyond a general or focused revulsion. If Gavin Newsom had been challenged then I may have made a special trip just to mark one check-box, but he was up against local alternaculture luminary Chicken John, homeless cab-driving personality crisis Grasshopper and the slick would-be stuffed shirt Quintin Mecke who ran his campaign office a door over from my own. Having listened to his media savvy on the cell phone countless times I couldn’t even muster any sympathy to take me up the street. Now, had Chicken John or Grasshopper or Mecke had a chance in hell of winning I would have legged it double-time to oppose them but, as I said, this was a sleeper election at best.

I’ve skipped voting for candidates countless times, probably a couple in every election I’ve had the hard-won right and privilege to participate in, but I’m much more adamant about reading up on and forming half-baked, emotional opinions on local initiatives. This year, somehow, my weeks of note-taking and investigation came down to reading the first three in the book laying on the couch, sick, waiting for Amanda to pick up pants before I laid down in bed to prepare for playing a Halloween party. Not the ideal environment for civic duty, I admit, and it yielded a passing knowledge of a MUNI bill and two city hall procedural issues. The latter two made me drowsy but Proposition A stirred the dying embers of my heart momentarily. It looked like another step towards privatization which, broken as the bus system may be, is not the direction I would have things going.

Yet it wasn’t compelling enough of an issue to drag me off to the polls for another round of the ignorant ass awards, not this year. However, in the days leading up to America-day I received an interesting e-mail, followed by an even more interesting one. It’s worth reading the entire quote, people:

Correction! Election day is Tuesday, November 6th. We put the wrong date in our last email. Oh geez, we are so embarrassed, and so sorry for sending you a second email. This is the last you’ll hear from us. We promise.

Hey young San Francisco voter,

We got your email from the San Francisco voter file. See below for the legal mumbo-jumbo. We don’t mean to bug you, but we don’t have the money to send you something in the mail, and we’d rather not waste the trees.

Check out our voter guide to see what we think about the ballot www.theballot.org/2007/sf.

We just want to remind you to vote tomorrow, November 6th. Polls are open from 7am to 8pm. It’s so important that young people make their voices heard in this election.

Don’t know where your polling place is? Go here:
http://gispub02.sfgov.org/website/pollingplace/INDEX.htm
Or you can vote all day in the basement of City Hall.

Did you know that since February, only 154 new voters have registered in San Francisco? Crazy! That freaks us out, so starting Wednesday we’re going to focus on registering young voters. But for Tuesday, the city is expecting a record low turnout for this election, and that’s always bad news, because the Republicans always vote. So we’re going to get out there and vote. You should too.

We’ve been making voter guides for every San Francisco election since 2004, and we’re here to stay. There are three elections next year, and we’ll be making voter guides for young people for every one of them. We also throw parties, art shows, and poetry slams year round. Check us out and sign up to join at www.theleague.com/sf.
You can download a PDF version of it to print and take to the polls.
http://uploadway.com/files/1104/SF07_voter_guide.pdf

So please check out our voter guide to learn about the election and then go vote!

- The SF League

The League of Young Voters PAC (also known as the League of Pissed Off Voters) sent you this email blast. We’re not some vast right wing or left wing conspiracy, so don’t freak out. Don’t blame any of the candidates we endorsed.

We got your email address legally from the San Francisco voter file. You can unsubscribe from our list below. To take your e-mail out of the voter registration database, re-register to vote and write “delete” in the space for your e-mail address. But we hope you don’t. Email is the only way broke groups like us can contact voters, except for robocalls. But those things suck! We wouldn’t do that to you.

Paid for by League of Young Voters Political Action Committee (LYV PAC) 45 Main Street, Suite 628 Brooklyn, NY 11201, William Wimsatt, Treasurer. Not paid for by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Voter Guides posted on this site may not reflect the position of LYV PAC or its affiliated organizations.

If this offends you it’s worth continuing on to their website which is run out of New York, Brooklyn to be specific. Brooklyn, you know? Where the cool white kids live?

A couple of days after my failure to participate, my insult to the oppressed masses of history, I was standing outside work smoking a cigarette and chatting with a fellow wage-slave. A ragged looking, but obviously not homeless, bearded dude came out from the store doing his best Abby Hoffman, carrying some clipboards. “Hey, do you guys wanna hear about some, like, totally boring liberal stuff?” he asked making vague gestures with his hands and rolling his eyes. We both stared at him until he shrugged and started walking off. “No, I want more condescension” I offered but he didn’t turn around.

The next week the hip volunteers for Mecke’s failed bid were clearing out his rented office. I walked through the sad-parade of ratty chairs and tattoos and suppressed my smug laughter. Taking the trash out later that night I opened our blue bin to chuck the recycling and found it had been filled to the brim with campaign propaganda. So had the next bin down the street. Thousands upon thousands of unused, never touched, never read, never cared for and never needed newsheet pamphlets were standing between me and a simple civic task. I had no recourse but to leave a couple of paper bags alongside the trash where they would be kicked over and strewn about before the evening’s end. I wish I had the guts to follow my impulse and upend both industrial-sized containers into the former Quintin Mecke campaign office doorway.

PS– The top graphic wasn’t specific to this year’s democracy hootenanny, it’s the record cover of Funeral Shock’s 7″ that came out last time Gavin was up for office. Local band you’re not gonna like.

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Popular among marketing executives who’ve reached that point in their career where the cocaine and booze can no longer create the necessary plasticity to do their jobs is having adults attempt to use hip-hop slang. This lazy tactic started in the 80’s and quickly spread through pop-culture sending titters through middle America and your parents. It should have died out and never been reborn but, because the gene pools have been diluted beyond repair, the hilarious grey-haired matron talking jive to the kids returns time and time again to sell you cell phones or Sunny Delight or whatever the fuck people buy. “Hahahahah! How clueless is she, that retard, trying to talk slang like she’s down?” thinks shiny happy white people holding remotes.

These commercials always, without fail, cause extreme embarrassment for me. I don’t know why, I’ve never done the market research to unearth what deep-rooted trauma lurks in my past to cause such discomfort when some nameless day-actress says something like “keep it on the DL” on national television. Okay, my mother has probably humiliated me in this fashion but I can’t think of a specific instance except for one wonderful Thanksgiving where she was conversing with a younger cousin and it popped out onto the table and began infesting the Turkey with tapeworm. She wonders why I always loved working holidays.

Well, perhaps my horror at witnessing these displays of out of touch adults is an issue of empathy. I don’t understand many of the popular trends currently corrupting society as a whole and the greatest wormhole of confusion can be found here on the internet. The very fact that within a short period of time computers went from being something that, if you knew how to turn one on, could get you physically attacked and verbally ridiculed to being an indispensable daily asset baffles me; I distinctly recall them as being a very uncool thing that labeled users as insufferable nerds and caused my dad to think I was gay. Now he knows about youtube and rappers have websites and myspace pages. Myspace baffles me. I’ve seen people lurk on it for hours at a time, posting comments and trolling through profiles. There’s people who pimp other people’s myspace pages. This is making me feel very much like a clueless adult.

But the truth depths of modern perversion were, until quite recently, hidden from me. I thought that myspace was the ultimate in hyperactive media saturation until livejournal came into view. Message boards have changed significantly from the times of BBSs, although fundamentally they remain populated by geeky recluses who know that appearing at the local mall will elicit mockery and death by being pelted with pennies or small, hard candies. Yet they’re sleek and snazzy and in color with pictures and wobbling icons and, most horrifying, their own slang. In a way it’s a natural evolution of shorthand. You’re typing and you’re excited about the exchange– you need to relate the thoughts bursting from your head as quickly as possible. OMG has been with us for a long time and most of the western world can understand the implications. Kewl has, blessedly, disappeared entirely from usage.

It goes beyond a simple matter of slang, tho. There’s an entire generation coming up that has successfully integrated the internet into their mannerisms and interests and, unfortunately, their lives. A perfect symbiosis has occurred and millions of little wingnuts the world over have been fucking sold on the concept. Little shits posting video diaries of themselves on youtube capture the attention of nations while disaster, fire and brimstone reign supreme unnoticed. There’s a level of humour solely dedicated to online chat and postings. There’s memes. Imagine being airlifted from your safe hovel where you can walk through the room with no light and not bang your knee and being dropped in the middle of a Krystal Meyers concert. Then replace everyone with computers and give them programs designed to allow their unabashed inflation of personality present itself in technicolor with streaming video and audio.

Fortunately there’s an oasis out there where you can kick back for a spell and follow the links, absorbing the terms and cultural fads which populate this hinterlands we’ve created. Last week at work we were busy speculating as to what this new room across the hall was being used for. Actually, those of us who’ve not been in a coma or terminally stupid know exactly what is going on in there but we were speculating all the same. When they first began using it I taped a picture of an alien autopsy on the window which had, for the sake of privacy, been spray-painted opaque. This did not suffice. They’re growing pot in there, someone said. What is this, the 20’s? It must be something sinister. Someone brought up the fact that all employees in the new room must sign confidentiality waivers. This same someone also invoked the memory of a former owner/manager who had been bought out and removed after incurring repeated accusations of sexual harassment and general leering creepiness, suggesting they were being brought back into the fold to run this new top secret department. That’s right, my friends, they’ve put a production studio in at Amoeba and they’ve begun producing and streaming child porn.

We needed to do something about it. Posters, we must make posters and cover their door and its opaque window with evidence of our knowledge. But how do you communicate child porn besides writing on a piece of paper, “We make child porn in here”? Why, you find pictures of pedobear on the internet.

WTF? Pedobear is a pedophile bear that crawls through the internet in search of lolis. Pedobear is an unstoppable force lurking in online forums and virtual worlds hunting for underaged girls. Pedobear can be seen on youtube dancing with bananas. Pedobear became the poster child for the new room across the hall from us. I fired the first salvo finding a suitable image and scribbling a clever caption underneath and taping the shit out of it all over their door. Some prissy fucktard tore it down. I found a more disturbing image and someone devised an even more clever caption which I taped the shit out of all over their door. Some prissy fucktard tore that down too. Someone realized we had a lot of label paper on hand and soon were were populating whatever surfaced were handy with pedobear stickers. The denizens across the hall tried to fight back by taking our own posters and sticking them on our own door. We were not amused but responded by more posters, more stickers, more clever captions. We totally pwnd them, is what I’m saying.

Yet where did pedobear creep in to our collective consciousness and begin to fondle us inappropriately? Our source material came from The Encyclopedia Dramatica. As the Onion is the cool-kids lampoon of American news, politics and general going-ons ED is the internet’s bastion of in-jokes, snideness and being horribly offensive for the lulz. It’s toilet humor for people that are smart enough to see the joke in the fuck you but geeky enough to appreciate painstakingly photoshopped pictures of cartoon bears and young girls. It completely consumed our entire Thursday and left everyone following each random link lustily, laughing hysterically and calling one another to our computers. Friday saw a resurgence of fascination as well as a continued assault on the neighbors. It also saw someone figuring out that you can have animated gifs as your desktop’s background. It’s the perfect distraction for whiling away the idle hours at work, it’s horribly addictive and it may be the greatest summation of today’s internet culture that has been pointed out to me.

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Tongue-tied with a sudden sharp ache in my chest as my faltering heart becomes overrun with an adrenal sneak-attack. The prospect, the very idea, of attempting communication– the simple art of opening my mouth and flooding the local atmosphere with my wit and humour– sends shock-waves through by body, one powerful surging tide of anxiety laying waste to vital organs and clumsy limbs alike. Just a little self-contained Nagasaki, babies bursting into flames created by the friction caused when I come into contact with the outside world.

An extreme example: another collision with a mystery wandering around the neighborhood where I find myself employed. For all intents and purposes she remains a fictional character, an empty husk in a demure coat flitting from vague instances of imagination to the busy streets of anonymous obstacles clogging my day like a drowned rat clogs a toilet when you try and flush the little bastard. However, as these non-interactions become more frequent the little monkey living in the back of my brain where the lizard became the man has begun to take a pair of pliers to various nodes and nodules responsible for a variety of impulses best left alone. Yet as the growing desire or compulsion to attempt some form of communication beyond awkward eye contact and reflexive looking away there also grows the more overwhelming physiological impact of a possible exchange.

But as I said this is an extreme example. Typically social interactions are fraught with nausea, faintness, a burning desire to leave and my hands and mouth cross-dressing. It’s a very rare occasion when I find myself at a party and a nearly extinct one where I leave feeling that the evening wasn’t yet another challenge to my right of existence. Against any available wall-space or tucked into some convenient corner a mental checklist is checked more thoroughly than any examination by Santa Claus or the CIA. I don’t know how to behave, how to approach anyone, how to effortlessly and naturally become part of a conversation, how to think, how to dress, how to talk and even if I did what the fuck am I gonna talk about? There’s a million and one rules of engagement in any social gathering and I will violate each and everyone until I’ve shamed the poor sods who invited me into leaving to make sure I get home okay.

Not that I need to go to parties and attempt to fit in, make nice, meet people or enjoy myself. This is an avoidable pitfall and nine times out of ten I’m smart enough or balanced enough to decline any well-intentioned invitation to leave the safety of my little hovel. Unfortunately, while life is full of parties, it’s also full of various obligations which require even more stringent application of communication skills and an ability to stand in the correct line with the correct paperwork and the correct questions and answers. I’ll be taking to the friendly skies soon and my excitement about this impending vacation is tempered by an acute fear of dealing with the airport, getting stressed out and anxious, then boarding a death-trap which will use the force of gravity against my stomach and fill my head with visions of corrupted fuselage breaking apart. I’ve been told there will have to be an exchange with the plastic smiles lurking behind the check-in counter instead of the animosity expressed by the automated tellers. I think the last time I checked-in through the counter one of my bags was x-rayed and my other bag and I were both stopped by security and humiliated publicly.

This would be more of a brick-wall in my life if my job was better paying and I found reason to, I dunno, check out pyramids somewhere. Trouble commences whenever I need to ask someone at a store where something might be– I know that it won’t exist until I ask some over-worked and under-paid future assistant manager for life who will drop everything they’re doing to take me right back to where I was looking and politely point out the neon lights and bells and whistles surrounding the product of choice. Hell, ask the guy down at one of my liquor stores how well I deal with paying the correct amount. Then there are times in your life where you have to enter some strange place with bad carpeting and worse lighting where employees have compulsory attire and perfect, white teeth. A faint memory of intentions long drugged, murdered and dismembered slowly began to haunt me after reading an article detailing the recent protests which briefly interrupted the shareholders’ meeting for Berkshire Hathaway. (more…)

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Sunshine, cool breeze, pot of coffee down and crawling slowly up towards the base of the spine– pretty good for an earlyish morning walk to work… Passed Buena Vista and caught the locals cracking their breakfast 40_oz.

Still confused despite the coffee and the shower and the leisure hour before needing to hurry to do anything… As I’m walking a woman is approaching with a stroller while dangling a four or five year old from one shoulder– they are catalogued as probable obstacles to be observed closer to contact and my thoughts wander off. When I check back on their progress they’ve started crossing the street I’m coming up on and I scan the terrain for my maneuvering. The four or five year old has succeeded in detatching himself from the more traditional piggy-back position to a semi-simian swinging down the woman’s back… One arm has been reached back so that she can contain the child… I give myself a wider berth than originally intended and wander off into my head again…

As they come up to the curb, as I come up to the corner, I notice that the four or five year old has begun sliding down the woman’s back and she reached with both hands to contain him… This leaves the stroller free to ride the slight incline of the street towards the gutter and it begins to explore the possibilities of motion with timid steps… She looks up from her wrestling match and gauges the stroller’s progress, then turns around to remove the little parasite completely from her back… I guess she’s got it, right?

But she didn’t have it at all and when I finally reached that conclusion and began running towards the stroller it had hit ideal velocity so as to elude both of our outstretched grasps… From a foot away, leaning forward and clutching at air, I watch the stroller collide with the curb and pitch forward– I catch a brief but detailed glimpse of a little blonde toddler whipping forward like a boneless chicken at a clown convention just before the arc had completed and the toddler and stroller slammed face-first into the sidewalk… Not very good with public speaking I tried a very loud and robust “Jesus!”…

Both the woman and I grab the stroller but we have different ideas about how to raise it from the sidewalk… My gentle lifting did not suffice and she instead chose to yank the handle back so that the boneless chicken baby inside whipped backwards with such violence my little lizard brain forced my arms out to grab the head of the child and steady it… There I am cradling some baby’s head as it begins howling– I let go of the kid… The woman is standing shocked, gaping, unsure– the four or five year old is staring at me with eyes of true hatred…

A cookie is inserted to the screaming baby and the howls stop… Red in the face, damp cheeked, but lacking obvious signs of trauma the baby begins to cover its face with crumbs… The woman looks at me and says, “I guess the carriage must have protected him somehow” and continues to stand and gape… I check the four or five year old who has not yet forgiven my existence and continues to glare at me in an attempt to cause spontaneous combustion… I find myself on one knee gathering little toys and baubles which have spilled out onto the ground in the crash… The happy little trio rambles off the way they were going… A woman halfway up the street I was crossing calls out, “Is the baby okay?” I guess so…

In other news I’ve recently signed up as a member of shelfari which resembles myspace for people who don’t have any personalities and try to impress everyone with their book collections… It might just be stupid but it could also be a way to share books you’re reading and find out about things that might interest you… It’s free and it doesn’t appear to have any evil corporate ties beyond the obvious amazon linkage… Sign up if you like and learn me some– my member ID should be familiar enough…

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Last Summer, UK’s Channel Four ran a documentary about Tony Blair’s failed attempts at rock stardom whilst at University. The band were named Ugly Rumours and tallied an impressive six gigs before implosion. Unfortunately, that streak of destruction never left our smiling leader, and decades later he waged an illegal war in Iraq.

Stop the War Coalition organised the march of close to two million people in London just before the invasion of Iraq. You may recall a post on the charismatic and egotistical George Galloway. As head of the Respect Party, he is a key player in the Stop the War Coalition. George Galloway makes a cameo appearance as the arresting officer at the end of the video.

Stop the War Coalition has formed a band under the same moniker, Ugly Rumours, and fronted it with a Tony Blair lookalike. (The physical similarities are pretty poor). The single, released in January only as a download version is now tipped to top the UK charts this Sunday.

View the punchy, low budget version of Edwin Starr’s classic song War.

This proves to me one thing - Despite the ongoing denial in mainstream media about the heinous crimes and lies of Blair, Bush and their governments, the opposition still has humour, invention and truth on their side. They also have a voice … and some great lip sinking to boot!

Blair’s Dream of rock stardom has arrived, and I am sure Tony appreciates the the cooing street-level pedestrians, ala Beatles.

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