GO JOE SUN! GO!

Erm, I mean, hold your ground.

Asking you to give away your present store building is like someone walking up to the folks at Jim Denny’s Lunch and saying, “Say, uh, we decided that it would be better for the area if we just tore this down and put up a Chipotle. We’ll give you, uh, $12,000 for your lil’ burger shack here. How’s that sound? ”

And you know what? Fuck’em. This Z Gallerie guy is just going to put a bunch of foo-foo trendoid stores in your present site that I’m not going to want to buy anything from, but that’s certainly not in the case of you folks at Joe Sun and Co.

Yep, I remember when Joe Sun was the only store in Sacramento that had the ALL black Converse high-tops that have been a longtime part of my required footwear (and in my size at that!) and the ever practical wool watch cap for winter wear. All kinds of people working in, say, a restaurant kitchen, beauty salon or construction site, or “big and tall” in stature, already know what’s up with Joe Sun. According to a profile on Manta.com, this store has annual sales revenue of about 1.5 million dollars. Not bad for a store with only 13 fuckin’ employees! SOMEbody is buying all those Dickies!

But here come these fools trying to offer 2 or 3 mil because, to paraphrase certain so-called experts, “eeyah, duh-uh, tha bildin is in poe shayeep!” The building is obviously not in poor enough shape to discourage business for Joe Sun & Company OR to scare away customers, so perhaps certain parties must avoid the overuse of the crack pipe before trying to negotiate on business matters.

And if the City of Sacramento goes through with some kind of eminent domain bullshit so that yuppie scum from Gold River can buy Dillon armoires and bread machines, shame on them and a massive voodoo curse on all involved in its undertaking. I hope that Joe Sun’s family owners win this battle and they have to build around the commercial monstrosity that’s proposed for 7th and K. If there’s a perfect opportunity for the “little guy” to tell the mindless representatives of the local developers' machine to suck his ass, this is it.

PSYCHO'S RECORD PILE
Eric B & Rakim- Follow the Leader (1988)


Yes, the newer school of rappers has had some big shoes to fill. There's something about certain waves of creativity that don't duplicate or top the spontaneous genius of its beginnings. After all, look at what happened after the American and British underground music of the late 70's and early '80s crested and crashed.

Eric B. and Rakim were just such an example. A duo from the NYC (Rakim from Strong Island, Eric from Noo Yawk's legendary WBLS road unit), these guys are to the history of hip hop what Chuck Berry is to rock n' roll at large. Their innovations (well thought out and versed battle raps, very smart use of sampling and sound layering, and a step forward in the evolution of turntable as instrument) are practically bedrock to today's generation of producers and performers.

Out of their four fine collaborations, Follow The Leader is their never disreputed masterpiece. This has the moments of prime inspiration and composition that classic 80's rhythm and rhyme was best known for. From the title cut: "A magnum as a microphone murderin' MC's"... sound familiar? Hell yes it should, if you were born before 1980 or so. How about these gems from "Microphone Fiend?" "Cool, 'Cause I don't get upset" ? Yeah you've heard that line in the groove somewhere... "A smooth operator operating correctly", what? You ain't recalling those now? All right, I'll give you an easy one... "a lethal weapon/An assassinator, if the people ain't stepping"... oh Hell yes, you'd better get that one right now or get to the back of the class. The point here is this: at a time when folks were still proceeding to bleed dry every Funkadelic and JB beat that ever existed, Rakim lines were in the mix as tribute and recognition of a (now relatively ancient) MC that was truly respected for his mic skills. And yet another notable moment in the early development of the music: the MC AS the sample.

C'mon admit it. Although we have a lot of skilled rhymers around nowadays (most of which aren't on your mainstream radio or TV, admittedly) you can name a few mushmouths out there who could use a sit down and a well intentioned playthrough of this album. Who am I kidding. These people all know Eric B. and Rakim. And if they don't, then they deserve to have the mic swiped and never returned.

I’ll address this openly, since the person I’m talking about is still busy yakking it up with interviewers (and, hey, they're calling him, so no one can blame him for responding) and he does not have the time to read a rant from lil’ ol’ me:

Vincent Ferrari: I feel sorry for you, brah.

Not because you tried to cancel your AOL account and were put through what those in the call center-industry may refer to as “stop save Hell.” You got your 15 minutes, yea, maybe close to 20 or 25 minutes, of fame out of this incident. (Almost creeping up to equating the 31 minutes you spent and taped with this glorious PR fiasco for AOL.) Hell, you’re already in the Wikipedia entry on AOL.

And not because you got someone fired (since I suspect that “John” or “Jon” or “the guy using John Doe as a fake name to keep from losing his SSI payments,” whoever he may be, didn’t seem to care at that point about losing his job anyway.) You probably did that now former rep a favor and now he can move on to a call center job where he's under less pressure to fuck with the customer's requests to cancel.

Or, that as time moves on, just before the Establishment Media and the sheep it leads around forgets about you and your story, I also have a gut feeling that you will be smeared by many as an AOL apologist, despite your repeated claims to the contrary. I’d be on the side to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe. Regardless, AOL probably would have downsized or outsourced "John's" job sooner or later just like they did at their call centers across the country, announced just this past May.

No, I don’t pity you for any of those reasons.

I feel for you, Mr. Ferrari, because, on all of these nationally broadcast stories and interviews, you had to freely admit that you were an AOL subscriber.

AOL is to Internet Service Providers what Match.com is to dating: a handholding, asswiping care attendant for users who should have the adequate amount of brain cells to be able to do most, if not all, of the work on their own. Employing good old-fashioned right-wing iron fist morality, they a have a Terms Of Service agreement somewhat resembling the civil code of Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1692. The average AOL user probably keeps folks like Larry the Cable Guy, Britney Spears and the shareholders and executives at Wal-Mart from ever worrying about where their next meal is coming from. And the bulk mailing of millions of AOL junk mail packs (complete with signup CD- “No Credit Card Required, Brokedicks!”) is the mass marketing practice of the Barnum Theory at its most egregious.

So congratulations, Mr. Ferrari. (Or, like that now-unemployed AOL scapegoat, may I call you “Vince?”) You escaped the AOL net, and for that alone, you should be commended. But, after reading some of your other blog posts, oozing with textbook right-wing whinefests about, for example, the liberal bias of the media (the same media that has gladly pimped your story ad nauseum,) it would seem that AOL and yourself are a match made in Heaven, and one would wonder why you would even bother to cancel your account at all.

Here's the conversation between Vincent Ferrari and "John"

Here's why "John" may have felt so, um, "valued" as an AOL employee

Hey, that new Kings arena seems to be coming along nicely. I took a look at the web page describing it, and I bet that people can’t wait to see Bibby and Artest do their thing inside this majestic palace of a quarter billion dollar stadium. It’s going to seat just under 19,000 and Sprint signed on for the naming rights, kicking down 62 million to name it Sprint Arena. Plus, get this- the 72 luxury boxes have ALREADY been sold, and the arena’s construction is still not completed!

What? You haven’t heard about this? There’s a good reason for that, IF you live in Sacramento. The new arena is going to be built in Kansas City. Yup, the former home of the Kings, who jumped over to Sac supposedly because, among other reasons, the Kemper Arena couldn’t satisfy an NBA team any longer. And, at least for now, the local media has had little if anything to report on it. I guess that, when your local news ratings and ad revenue and whatnot are so inextricably tied into the Kings’ presence in town, you tend to become something akin to a Democrat in Congress when it comes to standing up and asking some possibly provocative questions.

So, yeah, occasionally we’ve heard about how the NHL Penguins are being wooed into moving to K.C., but only the most clueless of the Kings’ present fan base shouldn't be able to read the writing on the wall. The Maloofs made statements re: how they’re unhappy with Arco Arena and how it’s in such sad shape because of the lack of luxury suites and whatnot. I guess that those consecutive sellouts game after game can get pretty unimpressive after a while, eh?

So suck it in and face it, all ye loyal Sacramento subjects to the Kings: the moving vans have possibly already been reserved. And before you start branding me as a Chicken Little, consider the statement that Joe Maloof made to a Sacramento Bee columnist after sacking Rick Adelman as coach:

"We're pretty impulsive people. We move quick.”

Maybe you need to back up and read that quote again. If you’re a wee bit slow, let me break it down to you. The Maloofs, it is implied, are pretty impulsive people and… move… quick.

Try to remember those words when the Kings are choking in the playoffs a few (or even just a couple of) years down the line in their future home, and if you still want to support them, they’ll be a just-under 1800 mile drive to the east.

(Click here for a peek at the Kings’ future home)

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=211649

A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM SOUTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR MIKE ROUNDS

Hey folks! Have I got some swell news for all you rapists and inbreeders out there!

Effective July 1, there will be brand spankin’ new legislation on the books making it a crime for ANY abortion to be performed in the State of South Dakota! Yep, you heard it right! I just signed legislation into law that will put any doctor in jail for five years for taking away the life of a potential future tax payin’ voter!

Of course, to appease the tree huggin’ liberals out there, we made an exception if the doctor can prove that the mother’s life is in danger. But since childbirth can be a potentially dangerous and life-threatening procedure to begin with, fat lotta good that would do! Hardly anyone could prove it and darn it, we WANT it that way! And what's more, a doctor can give a "morning after" pill to a victim of rape or incest BEFORE it's determined that she is pregnant! And as anyone can figure out, it should be real easy to find a "morning after pill", considering that there is only ONE Planned Parenthood in all of South Dakota, and a doctor elsewhere in the state MIGHT not be too conservative to keep 'em in stock! I ask you, now how fair is that?

But at this moment, I’d like to extend my warmest invitation to all of you rapists and inbreeders out there. Now I know that folks with your tendencies have a natural urge to breed just like anyone else of us in the U-S-of-A. And it does not surprise me that you may feel some sense of personal violation when that relative or rape victim goes to an abortion clinic and takes away a life that YOU helped to create. Well, now you can consider all of South Dakota as the land where you can finally find true justice AND fulfill your dreams to be fruitful and multiply your mustard seed until you are arrested and jailed.

I said it when I signed the abortion ban into law, and I’ll say it again. In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society. The sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is wrong because unborn children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our society. I agree with them.

And what’s more, a 3-week-old embryo is WAY more helpless and vulnerable than a woman who was viciously gang raped or a 12-year-old girl who gets impregnated by her biological father. That’s just plain as day! Um, isn’t it?

So anyway, I realize that it’s hard for people with your particular pathological view of society and family life to find a place where you can be accepted and understood. Well, let me tell you loud and clear. As of now, think of South Dakota as your personal paradise! Come on over!

Hey, Bono, what the fuck?

Why are you “bro”ing down so hard with Dubya, of all people?

It looks absolutely silly. It’s about as funny as when they took that photo of Nixon giving Elvis an honorary ‘lil tin badge to become an honorary drug enforcement agent or some shit like that. Perhaps even more ridiculous, since supposedly you don’t do drugs as much as Presley did.

I mean, going to a fuckin’ prayer breakfast with Bush? That’s like, if Charlie Chaplin hung out for omelets and coffee with J. Edgar Hoover! Although of course, THAT would have been worth seeing and listening to! Not full of the patronizing horseshit we hear the two of you tossing out to the media. “Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund-you and Congress-have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.” (Dubya didn’t really do shit except sign a couple of pieces of paper that were poked around since Clinton was in office, but I digress.) And we have Dubya flirting with, “The thing about this good citizen of the world is he's used his position to get things done. You're an amazing guy, Bono. God bless you." Geez fellahs, get a room will yers?

How about asking Dubya about his poo-pooing on the Kyoto accord, Bono? Oh yeah, this was about poverty. Okee dokee then… c’mon over to my neck of the woods and come over to the local county welfare office over at 29th and R Streets. Talk to the folks who are there to see their caseworkers because their assistance has been held up for the past three weeks because of a computer malfunction (courtesy of Electronic Data Systems, founded by H. Ross Perot, and ironically a top ranking campaign donor.) Don’t forget to meet the folks getting yet another cut on their payments or appealing some arbitrary bullshit ruling that claims some exaggerated or even completely false accusation of violation of the code. Hell, talk to the caseworkers too. Let them tell you how great it is to be working in social services in Bush’s America with little or no budget and resources to go by.

Then take the light rail over to 8th and Capitol and stroll east a couple of blocks to see Arnie (don’t worry, if he’s in, I’m sure he’ll make time to see you.) Ask Schwarzenegger about his proposal to take back the $114 million in promised funding for child care so that moms can meet their CalWORKS requirement to get off of assistance and go to work. Ask him how, if the Federal government will now require 60,000 more people off welfare and into jobs in order to sustain funding levels, then how will we get those kids in child care and those moms to work every day? And while you’re there, ask him about the aforementioned Electronic Data Systems and if their campaign dollars have any influence on the over bloated 250 mil or so (2003 estimate) that they bill the state each year to run the shitty aforementioned computer systems.

And to think that you got up in public and asked Dubya and those other assholes to tithe one more percent of the federal budget to the world’s poor. Oh my fuckin’ gawd! Are you high?

Let’s look at this realistically. Just like Tricky Dick and The King back in the ‘70’s, you both have had it stuck in your minds that this is a swell publicity opportunity for the both of yers. The parallels are almost frightening: the Chief Executive, badly waning in popularity among his own citizens, getting props from the aging rock star in the throes of his own comeback, each recognizing the opportunity to increase personal stock in the other. Bush gets to look like an open-minded humanitarian to the youngin’s (or so he hopes,) and Bono gets to sell more iPod downloads. And when you see someone like Bono hawking conspicuous consumption like iPods, many of us who already had U2’s plastic sociopolitical stances sussed (thanks to growing up exposed to Stiff Little Fingers and the like before U2 even started getting airplay,) are just scratching our heads in bewilderment and asking “both of you… what the fuck are you trying to prove?”

PSYCHO'S RECORD PILE
Johnny Cash- Johnny Cash At San Quentin (Original LP Release) (1969)

My folks had mostly comedy records when I was a lil’ tyke, and tended to ignore music in general, save for the occasional oldies station blaring on the transistor in the kitchen. My Mom maintained something (sort of) resembling a family record collection. (Dad thought that buying records was “foolish”, like a lot of other things- long story, and not the time or place for telling it now.)

What few musical releases were on hand comprised of folks like Sammy Davis Jr. and Peggy Lee, and myriad collections of Christmas classics, with the occasional contemporary country offering such as Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” and “Roger Miller’s Greatest Hits”.

And “Johnny Cash At San Quentin”. Some kids would be embarrassed to admit that they played the shit out of even just one of their parents’ records, but this was one that I nearly wore out, and lo and behold, the LP I grew up listening to is this season’s sound du jour, thanks to the recent release of the (entertaining, but mostly inaccurate and bullshit filled) motion picture “Walk The Line”.

As a naïve, impressionable kid, I loved every fuckin’ thing about this record: among other things, there's the stripped down chugga-chug of the band, driven by Carl Perkins’ smooth guitar runs (trademarked by Luther Perkins, who had died about seven months previous to this concert), Cash’s relentless shit talking, verbally clawing in on the prison authorities’ skin (sometimes good naturedly and mostly not), and a few barreling renditions of Cash classics like “I Walk The Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” performed with a tempo that must have been laid down and never restored from Cash’s pep pill days. Even the relatively dorky numbers, like the gospel tunes and the duet with June Carter Cash on John Sebastian’s “Darling Companion”, are performed with such a level of sincerity and vivacity that even the most arrogant purveyors of cool will kick their own asses in self-loathing at the admission that they may have actually enjoyed what they heard.

The (British) Granada TV special that this album is forged from is a fine time capsule of interviews with San Quentin inmates and an interesting perspective of the era’s Death Row atmosphere. Unfortunately, the documentary does no justice to Cash’s performance as it chops the actual concert into terse particles and we only get mostly halfed-or-worse segments of practically all of the songs that made the final cut. A more accurate title for the TV special may have been “Life In San Quentin (with special guest Johnny Cash).”

Nah, if you want to feel the true atmosphere of the actual show that went down between those walls and guard towers, you will have to listen to this record from start to finish. And even though the first vinyl release is changed around (with the set list “corrected” and extended on the later CD re- issue,) it may be worth it to hit the nearest used record store and pick up the original article. Shit, the original LP was at Number One for 20 straight weeks, so in any big city it couldn’t be THAT hard to scare up a copy.

Ah, Sacramento’s venerable Alhambra Blvd. Safeway. Here is a store allegedly smitten with tons of bad karma by the aficionados of the movie theater that was razed previous to the supermarket’s construction. And yet, rejoiced over by so many generations of twenty- and thirty-something Midtown recreational alcoholics, grateful for that special place to score one more 12 pack of Hamm’s at 1:50 AM. in order to continue the partyin’ into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Playing catch-up to its newer sister store at 19th and S Streets, the Alhambra store recently underwent a makeover. One truly positive note: unlike the newer store there’s no tin horse sculpture or lame water silo that can’t actually hold water (yet.) That's why I, simply overwhelmed with curiosity, just HAD to go check the newly remodeled digs out. (OK, I lied: it was the 10.00 discount coupon that was about to expire which I received in the mail ad as part of the store's Grand "Reopening" hoo-ha whoop de doo campaign.)

Of course, like many businesses nowadays, Safeway is trying ways to endear the public into feeling special simply because they walked in for some Napa wine, cat food and Brie. At least that seems to be the target audience they’re attempting to attract with their, um, creative use of words for their section signs.

For instance, you’re not just among fruits and vegetables- you’re having a “fresh from the fields” experience! Whee! How wonderful is that? And all I wanted was some Macintosh apples and broccoli crowns! And to contemplate the amazing idea that they are going to be “fresh from the fields” to boot! Wow!

And that’s not just any ol’ gallon of milk that I'm taking home, honey! THAT is a “pure and wholesome” specimen of godly nectar which I'm going to pour on the morning cereal! I just tingled inside when I realized what I was partaking in!

Vegans are probably going to be rather unpleased with the declaration of the meat counter as “the main course.” Come to think of it, they probably won’t be thrilled with the dairy section’s “pure and wholesome” tag either. Especially when you consider that the Veggie Burgers and other vegetarian meat substitutes are tucked away in the frozen section. But now, like its younger sibling on S Street, there’s a pseudo- Trader Joe’s/Whole Foods Market- like section with a large variety of overpriced excuses to avoid the lower classes in other parts of the store. (Is this a possible future trend? Stores segregating their merchandise by a perceived ideological caste?)

Of course, my most rational reaction I could possibly have to this literary license of the grocery store wall would be something along the lines of “Why the fuck would anyone do this?” Perhaps there was a fancy overpriced demographic study done at some point suggesting (for all stores and not just due to Midtown’s large literati/cultural Nazi scene) that these flowery phrases on the walls would somehow reinforce a sense of fondness and loyalty, that is, a reliable and regular consumer base. My advice: if this actually happened, please demand a refund. Now. Here. You can use my cell phone. Call that marketing firm and get your money back. Pronto.

At least the courtesy booth still reads “Customer Service” and not some fruity euphemism like “dedicated to serve and please.” Sure, most folks won’t give a shit either way: they just hope that there’s enough registers open in order to get the Hell out of there as soon as their shopping’s done. However, I have a gut feeling that, like any other store, Safeway will be hearing from folks in its more vociferous customer base who don’t quite “get” the attempt to stand out and be charmingly different from the other markets. In a matter of time, if there’s any writing up there at all, we’ll see a return to the more generic “Meats Fish and Poultry” and “Dairy” back in place, and the Grocer’s Poetry Project will be a thing of the past.

Sure, of COURSE the White House is in complete denial (anticipating an upcoming BBC documentary). Supposedly, Dubya claimed to a guy who now happens to be the Palestinian information minister that the POTUS got divinely direct orders to fuck up Iraq and Afghanistan, AND create a Palestinian state! Hmmm... should I accept the White House press secretary's denial? I mean, this isn't a fella who'd come up with all kinds of rhetorical bullshit to sway people over to his side, now would- ... um, yuh. Actually, that sounds RIGHT on the money. Like the Blues Brothers, this brah thinks that he really IS on a fuckin' mission from God. God help us all.

Here's the really funny story about the BBC documentary and the denials from the White House

William Bennett inspired me to come up with a wild idea.

Y’know, I just realized that, if we just aborted every single Republican family’s baby, the environment would improve, jobs would stop leaving the country, schools would have more resources to provide a quality education, everyone could afford medical care whenever they needed it, and we wouldn’t be getting shot at in the middle of some other nation that we had no business invading in the first place. And that would just be the tip of the iceberg. Oh, and thanks to the improved quality of life, the crime rate would probably go down as well.

But of, course, snicker snicker snuckle, that would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do. But I just thought I’d throw it out there nonetheless. Uh, yuh, that’s all I’m doing. Just showing you how ridiculous it would be. Yeahrite.

PSYCHO'S RECORD PILE
Phil Ochs- There But For Fortune (1989)


Some time ago, in a land not far from where Dubya was schtupping college co-eds and pretending to be serving in the Army National Special Air Reserve something-or-other, there were a class of troubadours with a goal to influence the national psyche through an acoustic guitar and a loud and angry voice. These tunemongering rabble rousers eventually earned the label from various sources of illiterati of the time as Freedom Singers. Such luminaries of the modern folk genre as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger brought in and after the Depression era this musical movement, seen as noble by some and dubious by others, into mainstream America’s ears and concert halls. It helped line the wallets of Bobby Dylan and Joan Baez. And it produced a frontlining Hellraiser with probably the most impressive street cred of the 1960's protest folkies, one Phil Ochs.

There But For Fortune is a choice assortment of selections from Ochs' early work on the Elektra label. When I first spied the track listing for this in the record store, it appeared as only half done as far as collections go. I presumed that any purported Ochs anthology would include later classics such as "Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends" and "Chords Of Fame". But those were done in his later stint with A&M. Elektra after all, released this. Besides, the slice of time captured on this anthology shines the brightest light possible on Phil Ochs as the textbook example of the American Protest Singer.

Ochs may strike many novice listeners as just another public radio darling of the gourmet beer sipping Trader Joe's crowd. For one thing, occasionally he broke into that smooth yet stilted "I am self-righteous and you know I am right" tone of voice. Sort of like a politically charged Jonathan Richman with a snootier tone mixed in there somewhere. But once you tell your conditioned dismissal defenses to just shut the fuck up for a minute, Ochs' incredible ability to push the message and tell the story through the music registers loud and clear.

Even though songs like "Draft Dodger Rag" and "Here's To The State Of Mississippi" are now coated in the dust of history, they give an unwavering editorial on the State Of The Nation, circa 1965. And there are so many tunes pulled for this collection alone that will withstand the test of time. "What's That I Hear", "One More Parade" and "Is There Anybody Here" are filled with a compelling mix of cynicism and discontent. And yet by their relative negative tone they are crafted to instill hope in the targeted listener. Word for word I would dare to opine that they equal or even surpass the meaning and significance of much of the collected works of the artist formerly known as Zimmerman.

Maybe something that kept Ochs from the level of superfolkie status enjoyed by many of his peers of the era was the fact that his general appearance and demeanor seemed a bit too goshdarn cleancut. Sure, he could drink Dean Martin under the table, but alcohol has always been accepted by the status quo of Establishment America. But really, there was not a shred of latent hippie-dippiness in the guy. He was someone you could just as easily picture in the booth of a truckstop as strumming tunes on a bench in People's Park. Too "male" to some, not rock n'rolled out enough to others.

I only wish that he'd decided to live past '76. Who knows what kind of response we'd get from, "So Phil... heard these Sex Pistols yet? Whaddya think? Wild shit eh?" We need an equal to Ochs today, now more than ever. But if one did step up, for starters, he or she would never get a major label deal. So, the next Ochs would have to have enough shit together to put out self-produced and self-marketed releases. But then, some self-righteous hacks would just shoot it down. They'd ignore the lyrical content altogether and whine and wring their hands over the lack of instrumental ability and use lazy, unjust labels like "sloppy" and "boring". Hmmm, in the closest comparison, I think that there’s a young lady from Buffalo carrying that cross nowadays, but the name escapes me…

In a nutshell, here’s the basic breakdown of the overall descriptive representation of the victims of Hurricane Katrina,
as described by Establishment Television News:

WHITE PEOPLE: escapees, survivors, casualties, adapting, finding food for survival, triumphant and resilient victims.

BLACK PEOPLE: refugees, killers, rapists, thugs, looting, stealing food for survival, pathetic and helpless victims.

Yes, I do think that is a fucked up thing. No, you’re not being overly judgmental, that WAS how the shit was being
played out.

When Kanye West broke away from the teleprompter during NBC’s “A Concert for Hurricane Relief,” and started to tell the nation what he REALLY thought about the situation down in the Gulf Coast, he was just saying what too many of us were thinking of at home. "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food." Yup. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Here’s the (mostly) black people of the New Orleans Superdome slowly starving and thirsting to death, wondering what the HELL happened to the evacuation that was promised, among dead bodies and the stench of backed up toilets, and then let’s cut to Mississippi, where the (just about all) white folks are mugging their somehow freshly scrubbed faces for the camera as they push their fully loaded carts out of fuckin’ Lowe’s Hardware declaring, “yeah, wanna tell my kinfolks in (insert name of quaint lil’ mostly Caucasian town here) that we all right, everybody’s ooookay.” Cut to New Orleans cops grabbing their fellow ethnic minority citizens by the collar, making them dump their pile of freshly acquired goods, and then tossing them into the toxic lake of floodwaters in the street. Then let’s segue to yet another town and talk to some clean cut ol’ WASP gent warmly cooing over “Big Bertha”, or whatever he called the shotgun in his hand, and telling anecdotes suggesting to the effect that “she” makes him feel safe from “certain o’them kinds of people.”

Then we have fuckin’ Dubya (who took two whopping days off his vacation time just to get his ass in gear and get down to the disaster site) eventually showing up and bellying up for the prime photo op. Oh, look at our POTUS warmly embracing not one, but TWO African-American ladies! Hear him as he gently gives them fatherly kissies on the forehead. Then he hops over to New Orleans and takes a quick looksee at the “progress” on the levee repairs, then makes some feel-good rhetorical observations from the portable Presidential press podium at the airport before getting the Hell out of there.

In the coming months, we’ll be hearing and seeing the spotlight on the “heroes” who stepped up to the challenge of rescuing and aiding all of these poor people, many of whom lost everything, and realistically, Mother Nature tends not to discriminate with anyone in her path. But I put forth the sentiment that the REAL heroes are the thousands who lawfully and peacefully showed up at the locations where they were instructed to go, only to be left on the shelf for days at a time, and yet somehow staying alive until Uncle Sam finally got his shit together and shifted the aid machine into gear.

To add a fitting final note to my rant, I leave you with this brief snippet from a story by Mary Foster of the Associated Press re: the final evacuation from the Superdome:

"At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the (nearby Hyatt Regency) hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday."

Gee! What do you suppose was the ethnic profile of most of THOSE folks, eh?



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