| "No, but I play one on T.V.!" | |
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| Posted by gza on July 4th, 4:32 PM EDT |
A fucking idiot!!!
I have once again had the pleasure doing an interview for a "friend of a friend" & having it blow up in my face. I was asked to talk to the East Bay Express last week and out of 45 minutes of what I know wasn't complete idiocy my long conversation was boiled down to about four short quotes, all of which include me repeating the word "like" several times "like" a 1980's valley girl stereo-type. This is not neccesarily the interviewers fault, as there is an editor above them, but it's also not...not their fault.
Why do people hate crusties? Because people like me do interviews and have all of our rational thoughts and wit filtered through the vice-like strainer of the media-controlling hater. and we end up with such gem like quotes as "[crusties] always show up drunk" and "there are only like one or two bad seeds"????
ONE or TWO BAD SEEDS???? I'm never doing another interview sober again. You can read for yourself in this weeks East-Bay Express(.com) which features my ugly mug on the fucking cover. Never trust the press, even if your friends vouch for them (I'm looking at miguel from oakland). Everybody hates crusties, they just veil it thinly under their smug patronizing demeanors.
just, like, um, like, don't quote me on this,
sturg
p.s. I'm actually really busy organizing a sock monkey tea-party this month and, you know, between my two musical projects and all...I'm kinda' busy... |
| "presenting...The fucked-up hand!!!" | |
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| Posted by gza on July 4th, 4:31 PM EDT |
I've posted the x-ray from my broken hand in our brand new "broken bones" picture folder.
If there are any hand surgeons looking for some practice, get in touch! the doctors in the E/R immediately stopped giving a fuck about me exactly half-way between my answer of "no" when asked if I had medical insurance.
What would Eeyore do?
strg
<img src="http://a58.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/80/l_319f6f2d0023a5f2ad31372181a737f9.jpg"> |
| "Broken Bones & Empty Hearts. Donate & march fourth." | |
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| Posted by gza on July 4th, 4:30 PM EDT |
I can't write much at the moment, I'm typing lefty & my dominant right is achin up a storm. I need surgery on the thing, it didn't break the skin, but I've needed surgery since pheonix 10 days ago. I was trying to put it off until after the tour, but I couldn't when the nausea from the shock wouldn't let me sleep or eat for 6 days. I'm really sorry about the Eureka show for many reasons, first off: it was my idea to play up there in the first place because we have been getting a lot of requests and I've been up there a few times and understand that punk bands on tour pass through rarely and I understand about the fact that it is really difficult to get there or away without a ride as public transport does not exist. I know alot of people worked really hard to put the show together and that folks drove from far and away to get to our show only to find that we had canceled. Bad stuff has happened and if I want to play guitar/write songs again, I need to take care of this hand so that (and I promise) we/I can come up to play another day. Please forgive me & have a little sympathy for this devil.
I promise to return and make it better.
I have to stop typing and get some sleep before I show-up penniless to the E/R tomorrow. I'm sorry if I got some hopes up, but at the end of the day, does that one show mean more than the fact that I might not be able to play the guitar or write more songs because I pushed my health one step beyond? It might not mean much to you, but when my hand's fucked-up for the rest of my life, it'll mean the world to me or the end of this chapter.
It has to be understood that I've been striving to play gilman for more than half of my life, so despite it all and my poor performance, we'll be back in full stride and I still dream of playing in humbolt as well, so hooked up, it will be.
Also I'd like to talk about the benefit we tried to put on in Nogales. The soup kitchen bus never made it down through the border, but most of the bus's volunteers amongst other folks involved with the no more deaths organization were down there for months feeding upwards of 1000 people a day at their busiest & when the bus got turned away, some people left, but others stayed to keep the activism/feeding alive and in turn the starving poor folks just trying to help their families and friends stay fed and alive. There are still good people in the same place feeding and there will be actions involving getting water, food and other vital supplies to the courageous southerners willing to risk their lives to cross into our over-rated/disgustingly affluent country through the brutal, punishing desert where the temperature can and does reach upwards of 130 degrees farenheight during these long summer days. And this is all happening while we throw away enough food everyday to feed almost every person on this earth and well. It's the politics of supply & demand versus the pockets of rich, fat "first" world pigs "struggling" to squeeze out that last quarter of a cent from their "developing-nation" slaves.
I recieved messages froma lot of good people wondering how they could help in this effort to save lives in these desert regions and many wanted to send money to help somehow, somewhere. And so I finally got the info I needed although the actual benefit-show idea never came together.
So, if you would like to help these suffering people and learn more about their plight, please go to: www.nomoredeaths.org & there is a link on the lower left-hand side of this sight that says "DONATE NOW" through "groundsprings" which is a secure "paypal" like system where you can send monetary donations. So look for the green-springs box on the page and you can directly donate money to the no more deaths people who started and are continuing the work that the soup kitchen bus was to be involved in.
that's : NOMOREDEATHS.ORG & then click on: DONATE NOW via groundsprings
If you are sincere about helping, these folks are who you need to send your money to.
I will write more when I'm out of the E/R & I will correct any of my mistakes up above, as for the mistakes I've made in my life; there are no excuses that I can make & no apologies that I could give to right the wrongs in my past, I can only try to obsess about the future and try to do some good in these present days (however dark they may seem), while not forgetting about the past. For those that forget about the past are doomed to repeat it, while those that hold onto the past too tightly, blinded by all of their grudges are forgeting about the future and are only helping to DOOM US ALL!!!!
I'll post some more soon, maybe I can show you the nauseating X-ray of my hand and tell you about the embarrassing story behind it.
Just try to look out for each other, and I mean everybody, everywhere,
strg f'n hipsta
P.S. I know it says that I'm reading T.A.Z., but I'd like to recommend the "Winnie the Pooh" series of books by A.A. Milne for a real solid insight into our human socio-politics, ya' know, how "we" interact... |
| "tip of the u.s./mexican border politics iceburg. help us do a benefit in" | |
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| Posted by gza on May 20th, 12:50 PM EDT |
nogales,mexico.
Be forewarned, if you don't care about politics or people from other countries trying to make better lives for themselves, then feel free to skip this blog, it's a long one...
We are trying to book a benefit show to raise money for a soup-kitchen set up right where the I.N.S."dump" all of the deported immigrants that are forced back into Mexico through the border near Tuscon, AZ.
I believe that for many people deported back to Mexico, this day is one of the worst in their lives. Many of the people brought back into Mexico have either (1) spent several days in the punishing desert starving and dehydrated, freezing at night and burning in the scorching sun during the day after paying a "guide" hundreds of dollars (U.S., usually pooled together by several family members). Or (2) they have been living in the states for years and have made homes and lives for themselves working menial jobs that most americans would never even consider doing at all for far less than our minimum wages to support their families here and in Mexico where an honest 10 hours of work usually pays less than $10 a day. Or (3) they paid thousands of dollars (U.S.) to be herded into the back of a truck or van and often dangerously into cargo containers where they can easily run out of food, water or even oxygen and forced to piss & shit into bags and buckets that they must smell in incredible heat for many days where many get sick & die from these subhuman conditions only to be caught or worse, abandoned. By the time they've been arrested, processed, humiliated and sent back into Mexico to a random street corner in Nogales, Mexico they are most often penniless, disoriented and starving. Most don't even have family in or near Nogales & no means of getting to their homes, some of which are thousands of miles away.
Some friends of mine along with a rotating staff of volunteers have set up their mobile soup kitchen, serving at least 600 meals a day, 3 times a day for 6-7 days a week. These tireless folks (many working 12 to 16 hour days, often more) rely completely on food and monetary donations. Other places they have fed recently include down-town L.A.s skid-row and the victims & non-government volunteers in New Orleans following the Katrina/FEMA disaster. I helped them serve last November at the NO BORDERS CAMP gathering and protest and I have known people involved with the bus for 7 years since they were serving in the winter-time in a really fucked-up neighborhood in west Philadelphia. I even remember them serving food to the poor and hungry on 9th st. & ave.C in NYC 15 years ago (though the bus was called "no more hungry children" at the time and the volunteers were an almost completely different crew) when this neighborhood was the "hood" and the only white folks down here were us dirty squatters.
So the point is that we are trying to raise some money to feed down & out, but good folks at a time when they can really use a good meal and a place where people can network to find out when their relatives and close friends are coming home, where they can wait, without worrying about where their food is gonna come from at an emotionally vulnerable time. I have rarely found a cause so worthy of attention as the plight of Mexicans, central americans and other neighbors of ours to the south of the U.S./Mexican border as they struggle through many dangers and save up money for years to make it to this country with the hopes of making a better life for themselves and their families. And I've never found a place or organization where my meager donations actually make a direct difference without a bunch of idealistic, naive (albeit good-hearted) white college-kids spend hours upon hours of nonsensical "meetings" upon "meetings" before they part with a penny that often does not even benefit the people that need it the most like these hungry people, many of whom have just lost everything, literally. Many even separated from their own children and their extended families (children born in the united states are considered citizens, while laws were past several years ago that made U.S. citizenship revocable if the person had ever committed a crime in this country, the law was passed to be retroactive as to whenever the citizen had entered the U.S. and many people that had been living in this country after gaining citizenship were deported and the only crime they had ever commited was entering the U.S. illegally, some were here for 20 years and even much longer than that!!! Some that had been deported were grandparents whose children that were born here had children that were born here!!!) .
Anyways, the point of this message is that we need somebody reliable to help us obtain a venue, a P.A. system, Amplifiers and drums and hopefully a couple of politically minded Mexican bands to get this thing rolling.
If you can honestly, truly help, please contact me at the following myspace page:
www.myspace.com/starfuckinghipsters
with the type of help that you can offer in the subject field ie: We have a venue in Nogales, we have a P.A. in Nogales, we can help in Nogales, etc.
The show will need to be on saturday, June 21st and it will be Leftover Crack, Creosote (from Flagstaff) & a couple of local and/or Mexican bands. We don't want the show to go too late if possible, but I understand the way shows in Mexico usually go down, so, the earlier in the evening that we can do this, the better. This day would normally be a day off for our band, but it's really important to us to help out if we can down there.
Thanks for reading this whole long thing,
Necesitamos un mundo sin fronteras!
Sturg "stza" Crack
ustedes hermano en la lucha
P.S. the book listed below has a chapter that touches on the southern u.s. border politics and if this blog had reference footnotes, that chapter would be the main one (it was also the main informational resource for "burn them prisons", which is almost a butchered rhyming paraphrasing of the whole book) and I suggest it to anyone that wants to know more concerning what I am talking about among other horrifying facts about the police state that we are all living in (and the author is the son of Michael Parenti, the "spoken-word guy" that gave us permission to comb through many of his spoken word cassettes to find suitable pieces for Choking Victims' "No GODS/NO MANAGERS" record. I literally spent months listening to about 30 hours of his lectures at least 3 hours a day to find what we finally used on that album, he made so many good points, it was really hard to not wanna just kick-off my songs to make way for somebody that really knew what they were talking about). That book might actually destroy your preconcieved notions of just how far the police are ahead of us in their technology & tactics, I was depressed solely from the facts in that book for almost a whole year after I read it in 2003. |
| "things fall together. hawaii subjugation/best spring break everrrr!!!" | |
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| Posted by gza on May 14th, 12:23 AM EDT |
So, we didn't get as wasted on this last tour and I think it went pretty good. I didn't forget song lyrics (well, maybe once). We'd like to thank all the folks that played with us, lent us equiptment, booked our shows and showed up to see us play. I think it's safe to say we all had a good time on this last tour and we have a couple more short ones planned for the next few months. I'd make a list of all of the great bands we played with, but I'd be afraid to leave anybody out and I don't have a list of all of the names, so I'd probably get a few wrong. A couple of notable bands I'd like to recommend include all of the bands from the East Los show: Union 13, Resistant Culture (my first circle pit in many, many years) and Media Control. Creosote were great at the Flagstaff show, which I heard made the newspapers due to the large (and completely unnecessary) police presence which seemed to include the entirety of the city's pigs. They not only deployed at least 15 black & whites, but they also had two heliCOPtors circling the venue which was packed to the gills unfortunately leaving over a hundred kids out of the show. Big-ups to the Navajo kids for coming out in full-force and sorry to the folks that couldn't make it inside, I know alot of kids drove pretty far to attend and we plan on coming back in June to make it up to y'all, we may even play at a venue on the reservation, details will be up soon enough as to where we're going.
Thanks to Intro5pect for coming out to one of the final Showcase Theater shows last minute and especially to Gregg for helping us pull off the show without our eternal bassist Mr.Alec Baillie. It was great to play at the 3805 house again in Vegas and San Fransisco was really fun at Thee Parkside with Mr. J.Lo Biafra helping us out on "Baby Punchers" & a thanks to James McMann & Fat Mike for lending us amps so we could get the show on the road.
Hawaii was totally dude-bro and we learned about how the U.S. government knew about the Pearl harbor attacks ahead of time and let several people die to help support U.S. involvment in W.W. II ( I've heard many stories vaguely similar, but inextricably more insidious about certain high-ranking U.S. government officials helping finance, set-up, execute & finally erasing all of the significant evidence concerning the "attacks" on the world trade center in downtown manhattans' financial district previous to, on & following September 11th, 2001). We learned about the colonial destruction wraught by the U.S.A. starting in the late 1800's & the continuing culture-rape wraught by the imperialist subjugation of the native Hawaiians including the over-all militarization of the beautiful volcanic archipeligo with the almost total waste laid to one of the smaller islands due to weapons testing & gained some information on how the U.S. plans to use the Hawaiian islands as a staging point for all of their meticulously planned future wars with Asian countries including places like China & North Korea.
Oh, and Hawaii loves SPAM ( not the computer thing silly, the canned pork thing...) .
Anyways, I've been blabbing away for hours now, so I'll wrap this thing up;
We are gonna be doing another set of shows in June starting somewhere between San Diego & New Mexico and we will be joining Citizen Fish for the final leg of their tour going through Colorado, skipping Salt Lake City (as we just played there) & wrapping it up with them in Reno & their final show which I'm so excited about that I don't wanna jinx it & mention it yet, but I'll just say that it's in the east-bay and it's been my dream to play there since I was 14 years old and it just so happens to be the place where I saw my first all-ages D.I.Y. punk show ever which happened to include Citizen Fish as the head-liners (along with Spitboy, the Gru'ups & the totally awesome Paxston Quiggly). After that we have some shows planned in the north-east including places like Philly, Maine & the 20th anniversary of the Tompkins Square Park police riots in NYC this August. And in the midst of that there should be a couple of local S.F.H. shows (for more info check-out our myspace through the top friends area below).
All in all we have more energy and are playing better than we have in a while & we're still working on Japan & Australia for the fall/winter, so if you see the Slackers in Japan next month and want to help get L.o.C. there, give our drummer Ara some solid info not written on a napkin.
From the D.o.D./N.Y.C.,
Sturg Fuckin' Hipster
P.S. Extra thanks to Kristen, Sully & Angela for hosting/helping
& Team Crack (Spring Break '08): Brad, Alec, Ezra, J.P. & your connect: stzzle
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