absense

just realized I haven't posted in 2 years.

Really into this artist today.

http://cocobula.blogspot.com/

aka, Fernando Elvira.

what a good day. I guess life really is better when you make yourself look at the glass half full bullshit.
I don't know, I guess I have just been reflecting on the year a lot since people put out there 2008 lists.
It's funny 6 months ago I though This was the worst year of life to date. I've come to realize its been an amazing year.
I lost a lot of friends and didn't really make any new ones. I've been broke 80% of the time. But I've been really fucking happy.
I'm pretty excited for the future. I've accepted how horrible its going to be and I"m pretty sure nothing can be as bad as my imagination. So It's looking good.

People need to write to me, I miss conversations and stories.

Greek riots last week after riot police shot and killed 15-yr. old Alexander Grigoropoulos. The photos are breath taking.

http://www.boston.com/
bigpicture/2008/12/2008_greek_riots.html

High School Record

I'm tired of talking to much.
It's always followed by a day of solitude.

Old days bring better days

Yesterday was so horrible I couldn't see happiness on anyone.
A couple hours of desperation and too much thinking finally lifted off my shoulders with some great old records.

Tsunami Bomb-The Invasion from Within, felt ten times better then I remembered it.
The lyrics stud out like never before. Agent M, I feel silly for thinking I understood you 6 years ago...

"it could be more then just sound and words, it gives me something that saves you from yourself. Your thoughts, your life, your world."

Remember this video. This used to make my day every night when I was 16. hahaha.



And Jasmin's myspace playlist is amazing. I fell asleep able to breath better.

Dec. Events

First.



Second.



$5 includes vegan lunch and dinner.
Southern California Library
6120 South Vermont
Los Angeles, CA 90044

Panels/Discussions:
Anarchism and the Black Panthers
APOC caucus
APOC in practice
Anarchist Tendencies
Experiences of the Asian Hardcore
Urban Zapatismo
Rethinking National Liberation - Punjab as a Case Study
Queer Communities of Color
Puerto Rican Liberation Update
Xicanx Anarchism
Animal Liberation
FBI Surveillance & Intelligence Gathering

Workshops/Skillshares:
Earth Architecture
Anarcha-feminism
Local Hxxtories
Anarchism and Economics
Latin American Radical Movements
Copwatch
Open Source Software
Publishing
Panochas Poderosas
Riot Grrl
Art & Resistance (puppet-making and stencil-making)
Inter/ Intra-Relationships

Films:
"We're Still Here, We Never Left\" - the truth about police brutality on May Day 2007 in MacArthur Park

Childcare and radical kid's activities.

Vegan food by Food Not Bombs.

Tabling by revolutionary and community organizations.

Todays good articles

I scared myself the other night when I realized that the gap and fear we have been building our entire lives is finally here. That idea that we are soon going to be living in this Nazi type era. Were people all over are going to harm each other for their own common wealth. Well, I guess what scared me is that I already feel that gap is closed. We are already living in it, we are just waiting for who will make the first move to start the chaos. And The reason I believe in this is simply because were going to use life as our excuse to kill for resources. To the point that everything will become a commodity.

Great Article.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/107988/?page=1


I just read this one, its a bit vague. But you can get the actual pdf on there.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/11/200811211209635276.html

The Nazi's killed for wealth and power. They picked off the most weak for their beliefs. I think this is coming again. And we won't feel like monsters while its happening because will justify it as a need.

Shopping for slavery

As I was shopping with Noney last night via telephone, she was telling me how she always feels bad shopping at target. Loves the prices but always makes her feel morally wrong. I laughingly pretty much responded, we got no choice, all stores are fucked.

I can't stop thinking about it today. Its insane how our country has gone so far out.
You can find something wrong with any company now, and indecency in everything.

For example, The production company I work for is gonna lay off half our staff in the beginning of next year because what they pay one person here to do photoshop they can pay 22 people in india. And thanks to the internet, its super easy and absolutely free.

My mother lost her company earlier this year and now has to work two jobs to keep up with the bills. Her night job verbally abuses her and the conditions are horrible. She feels that she has to put up with it because there is no other work and she doesn't want her finances to fall behind.

Rage is all I've been feeling. I'm just tired of feeling like I can't help the situation anywhere. I don't even know who to blame.

I'm pissed at the World Trade Organization for only being financially responsible for there regulation, instead of environmentally and humanely.

I"m pissed at our country for not looking ahead. I'm pissed that americans have to work two jobs and still have to pay there rent late. I'm pissed that this happens everywhere in the world and us being the strongest most powerful country in the world allow it.

I'm pissed that everything seems so powerfull and massive and untouchable. And I feel like an ant alongside a giant monster.

Positives:
This is the first time in my life that I have felt physically connected to my city and the people around me. This city looks beautiful even in the toughest economical breakdown. And out of this people are being brought together because when we fall on hard times we realize that we need each other.

Artist for President

We assert that there is a culture of artists that may be different and
separate from all other cultures and that our culture may be governed or
ungoverned according to principles which non artists find peculiar or
offensive.
We are tired of explaining ourselves.
We are tired of feeling guilty for how we are.
We are sick of feeling like frauds in comparison to people who are just that.
We are tired of making apologies for who we are.
We demand the right to not make sense.
We demand the right to contradict ourselves.
We demand the right to change our work.
We demand the right to call what we do work.
We demand the right not to call what we do work.
We demand the right to align ourselves with the social class we find most
interesting.
We demand the right to call ourselves working class.
We demand the right to be elitist.
We demand the right to do what we want including not doing anything at all.
We ask that our neighborhoods be returned to us.
We condemn the forces of greed that have caused our evictions.
We condemn the forces of greed that have turned us into products.
We condemn periodicals that, in a gladiatorial fashion, pit one artist
against another in a series of picks and pans that erect false antagonisms
and vulgar difference.
We condemn patriarchal drug laws.
We condemn all encroachments on our freedom of speech.
We condemn those who would seek to divide artist culture by developing and
maintaining models of difference based in essentially fascist notions of
race, gender, ethnicity or preference.
We condemn those who would assert that art or artists are anything but
universally found.
We condemn those who blame the artist.
We condemn dealers who do not pay their artists.
We condemn dealers who lie to us.
We condemn dealers who do not return our phone calls.
We condemn dealers who dump us.
We condemn dealers who close their galleries but keep our work.
We condemn dealers who make us do their dirty work.
We condemn dealers who cancel our shows because they can’t support the work.
We condemn dealers who see us as an easy buck.
We condemn any art venue that thinks we like staying in third class hotels.
We condemn any art venue that thinks we can transport our work like a mule.
We condemn any art venue that invites vulgar people to our dinners and
expects us to kiss their ass.

This is for failed artists who feel like failures.
This is for successful artists who feel mauled and mutilated by the empty
promise of stardom.
This is for the faded art star who wonders what went wrong.
This is for artists who never got a chance.
This is for the secret artists who are too embarrassed to admit it.
This is for the artist who found the reception for their retrospective the
most depressing day of their life.
This is for artists who can’t afford to go to the doctor.
This is for artists who can’t afford to have a family.
This is for artists who can’t afford to be artists.
We reserve the right to hate America.
We reserve the right to hate any and all organizations that hate us.
We reserve the right to have contempt for those organizations while enjoying
their privileges.
We reserve the right to be suspicious of the family.
We reserve the right of obscurity.
We reserve the right to make things nobody understands.
We reserve the right to make things nobody likes.
We reserve the right to make things nobody buys and believe they have value.
We condemn efforts to turn art schools into universities.
We condemn efforts to turn art schools in businesses.
We condemn the idea of the artist as manager/ bureaucrat.
We condemn efforts to turn artists into cartoons.
This is for the idealistic artist who still believes.
This is for the tragic artist who accepts.
We reserve the right to escape the moralistic gaze of power.
We demand the right to claim books, records, magazines and cable T.V. as
deductions on our income tax.This is for the artist who wants to describe the adolescent but not be
treated as one.
This is for all the adult male artists suffering under the label “bad boy”.
This is for all female artists who strap it on.
We condemn critics who do not check their facts.
We condemn critics who write reviews from gallery press releases.
We condemn magazines that do not print letters.
We condemn periodicals who do not pay critics.
We condemn periodicals who underpay critics.
We condemn the reactionary support of youth culture.
We condemn museums who don’t clean the glass on our works.
We condemn museums who don’t plug-in our work.
We condemn museums who have chic openings to which none of our friends are
invited.
We condemn institutions who ask us to donate for auctions then don’t invite
us to the event.
We condemn raffles that make our art works into party favors.
We condemn museums as branches of the commercial gallery system.
We condemn museums who are afraid to hire curators with ideas.We condemn museums that can’t stand up to their Board of Directors.
We condemn museums who are cozy with business.
We condemn granting institutions that use funds to curry favor with political
interests.
This is for the young artist.
This is for the early mid-career artist.
This is for the mid-career artist.
This is for the late mid-career artist.
This for the early late-career artist.
This is for the late late-career artist.
This is for the artist suffering from the prescriptive nature of those
categories.
This is for the dead artist.
This is for the dead artist we remember.
This is for the dead artist we forgot.
This is for the dead artist we forgot for awhile but are now remembering.
This is for the artist’s boyfriend.
This is for the artist’s girlfriend.
This is for the artist’s widow.
This is for the artist’s first wife.

We condemn curators who show up late for studio visits.
We condemn curators who make visits with no obvious purpose.
We are insulted by collectors who explain our work to us.
We are insulted by collectors who brag to us about other artist’s work
We are insulted by collectors who think they own us.
This is for artists of all imaginable disadvantage who were not allowed in.
This is for the artist who wanted to quit but knew nothing else.
This is for artists hoping for ideas.
This is for artists hoping for money.
This is for artists looking for a sense of purpose.
This is for artists longing for purposelessness.
We condemn all cultures that allegedly love art but hate artists.
This is artist’s culture.


Meg Cranston 1996-1999
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I found this while searching for grad schools today.
Meg Cranston is a professor of public practice at otis.