watch a slightly long and heavy video of the whole thing

The zebra theme I’ve been working with for quite a few years now, finally finished a new border piece with the visuals and writing all complementing eachother

Out of respect to physical tangible reality
I waited til it was over to move this experience onto the digital world, both in text and in words.
I held back from even taking pictures, only gave in to the urge once of twice. If the presence of a camera can serve to dissociate the mind from the present moment, then the constant presence of so many cameras takes the whole event out of the context of a real meaningful organic experience making it exponentially less amazing to be one of those who are not holding a lens, and therefore impossible to experience as social reality, but only as some schmoozy disconnected photoshoot scenario.

I would propose here to us, what I would propose to any event space or organizer aiming at providing a healthy direct experience: let’s discourage cameras. Healthy food is not enough, the body has to be present to receive it. Let us discourage living through the dissociating power of the lens. No need to ban them, just make it clear, that the event is about the experience, and we would like to empower people to reclaim their autonomy of imagery. Take one picture if you need to remember a moment. Make sure youre not intruding, respect peoples refusal to participate in your experiment. But unless you feel like you have some special authority, and Im not just talking from the ‘organizers’ Im talking from some divine entity or something, please stop attacking our people with your flashing jedi sword while they are trying to eat.

With that permeating feeling of glitz, we may have put the finishing touches on an over-stimulating social scene that is already a challenging feat, even to some of us deep within it. One can only imagine, that whatever connections we may have made with neighborhood folks who are not directly in our usual circle of friends, to come check an alternative experience out, we have failed to provide a warm welcoming environment to absorb them into. Which, I myself, would consider is our most important goal, and (to let us off the hook here) also the most challenging goal. To breach the borders of our collectively familiar circle of hipsters, and provide an alternative that is based on something beyond a photo op, beyond the party. I dont want to say I am sick of parties, but I did not join this project simply to celebrate our ingenuity as a community to gain access to these resources, I am looking for a transforming experience, I am looking for a change in attitude.

That said. I am the first one to carry the blame. Stuck with my head deep in the computer, I made a flyer. I thought I facilitated the planting of the seed with a spanish translation on the flyer, with imagery that I hope did not get perceived as offensive.

Though who knows, I can see it re-contextualized. The farmers out in the field in this image are people of color. Thats not intentional on my side. Searching for ‘farmer’ images online will find you the obvious proportionate racial factor that is not only a result of the reality of how food is grown in our world, but more so, once again, points to the romantic subjectivity of the hands that point the lens. All this thought into the image, but never did I walk around the block to distribute it to people in the neighborhood that I’ve lived in for years now.

The seed has been planted, and though the sprout seems different than what I thought we were planting, seedlings often are this way. They gotta come out punching in order to survive that first impact. Let it grow into that original intention. It may not change the world like we hoped, but it is possible that the world is not ready to be changed. The silly romantic optimist in me wants to believe that lessons will be learned. That the core organizing group would grow more diverse with time to represent a more diverse community that is being served. That the hipsteria, like most social ailments, is a question of collective attitude, not of any particular individuals, and that it can be easily fixed with intention and practice over time. That’s the side of me that worked hours to make this little information poster a reality with the hope that it will inform and inspire that process. The side that researched histories, layed out maps and synthesized mission statements into paragraphes, while knowing fully well that hipsteria is easily capable of swallowing all that and spitting out the pieces on myspace and facebook pages, without a mention of why this is supposed to be different. Thats the side of me that will continue thinking of ways to make the next iteration be better than this one, oh…Silly me.

The unsustainable world we live in today is (and has been for some time now) crumbling infront of our eyes. Though most will agree it’s about damn time… we also know that there is a great deal of work that is needed in order to construct a new one from the rubble.

The Proto Post Collapsible Institute is specializing in the art of controlled mental demolition and it’s repercussions in the physical world. We are therefore interested in creating ideologies and systems that allow things to pack down and migrate to better pastures, not necessarily in the scenario of a disaster, but also to avoid the necessity for such scenario to occur.

Though we respect the heart felt intensity of anti-civilization ideology, we do not subscribe to the rejection of modern civilization as a whole. If nothing else, we see the unsustainable modern world as a good lesson, and we believe, with no disrespect to the millions who have been carrying the burden of this world, there are simple and quick steps that we can take, to rewrite this catastrophic scenario into a minor detour on our road to some utopian un-futuristic present moment.

We have therefore been researching the hybrid intersection of vagabond and beduin culture with modern bike messanger and backpacker lifestyles, to assist us in the difficult transition to this much simpler existence. We have come up with some of our own solution, and are still researching others who have made incredible advances in these fields.

Please contact us if you would like to join forces in the research department of this project, or if you have resources you would like to donate or trade and are interested in learning more about our specific products and services. email: azulah (at) gmail (dot) com

Some examples of our ideas

This all became an obsession around 2001 when, disillusioned from the fact that Y2K didnt make not a dent in the machines back, I’ve become annoyed by the everpresent gap between the wild human imagination and the intense evasion of looking the present moment in the eye. There was no mission to jupiter. There was no mission to anywhere. The one mission to the moon, with it’s image of neil armstrong marking his plot of land on the moon was as faded and unrealistic as ever. If could have easily been special effected in the pixar studio. We were obviously regressing.

Not that anyone ever expected any of that to be true. Not at all. They always say that science fiction clears the way for science to come and pave the road, but nobody ever assumes that reality would follow fiction to the note. We might not have explored any other planets, but our cellphones do seem mildly reminiscent of StarTreck communication devices, and on that note, people do actually carry tazers on their person, and those can kill or shock another human being no problem. They havn’t started feeding us tofu made out of processed humans, instead they feed us cows that eat other cows… rings a bell? The gap was indeed closing.

What I was looking for in this experiment, as I do with this whole project, is to redirect the attention we give to fiction back into reality, which is to say, direct experience of the Present Moment. if I can dance back and forth along the line in the hope that the illusion would blur the seperation, even just for a minute, and if that drives me crazy, so be it, I am determined that the present can prove its superiority given a fair try.

At some point, of course, I got tired of the dance, of tracking the distance between the future and the past. I got distracted by the destruction of our natural habitat and studied more narratives of direct actions against that trend. In the end though, those go hand in hand with science fiction. As time goes by and things speed up, it seems there isnt much difference between hollywood and the hightech industry and oil corporations and the military industrial complex. They all suck the living juice out of the present moment with promises of using those in the future to fix a problem they created in the past… The idea of a deciding moment is as old as religion and and as extensive as science or the world economy, It can be contextualized in almost any system that uses time as a basic assumption. We project our ideology back into the past and use that to try to determine a course as far into the future as possible, but the whole thing is just a subversion to what is going on in the present. It is therefore all fiction, all a spectacle that is designed to capture our attention, and I do mean all of it.

Here is a slightly more poetic interpertation of our general environmental crises then the one unfolding in the news and triggering my response below.

I am reading about all the officials and accompanying activists that are meeting in copenhagen for a climate summit. The US rejects the idea of owing a debt for its share of the climate disaster, pointing out that we didnt know, nobody supposedly knew, that emissions were harmful. Thats to be expected. But then you read a lot of talk about numbers, scientist say 350 CO2 parts per million in the atmosphere equals 2c degrees increase, the US is offering to reduce 17% of 2005 CO2 emissions levels which equals 4% of 1990 CO2 emissions levels, which US Presideng Clinton did indeed sign a commitment to reduce by 20% by 2020 in Kioto, but, of course the US Senate refused to ratify into law.

Combine all this jumbled information: Having been informed, and let us remember that this did mean that at the end of long negotiations with scientist and politicians arguing about the facts and possible scenarios, an American president put their signature on the treaty that did not make it’s way into law. After that moment in history, the US spent the next 15 years between 1990 and 2005 basically ceasing the moment, gaining further ‘advantage’ over all other nations being bound by the treaty, doing almost the exact opposite: we have increased our emissions 5 fold. No one can deny that we did not know about the consequences during those 15 years. Doesnt matter how stupid the monkey sitting at the white house during that time was. Lets put a price tag on that crime.

If nothing else, the 2012 movie plot line can stand in here to represent the widespread world view of the upperclass of the developed world. This is a world where tickets can be bought to get out of the mess we created with the mere pricetag of a billion dollars, the rest of us will go through some genetic testing or the obstacle course of natural selection, that would allow everyone to rejoice in our inclusive human nature.

So whats missing from this whole cop15 scenario? maybe the realization that no nation state based system is going to solve this crisis. The US, as a state apparatus, is not willing to compromise because it would mean the end of it’s world market dominance, and it’s internal class system dominance, which will eventually lead to it’s dissolution. It would rather bet on some controlled demolition scenario that is a soft version of the 2012 movie plot. The negotiations here are not between equals. and I dont think looking at GDP differences is enough, neither is average income and emissions per capita. The missing factor is the internal class disparity multiplier that would tell you how close the heart of the person sitting at the negotiation table is to the suffering of climate refugees, both in the world at large, or in their country.

The US made it through Katrina with mild bruises. The upper class remained untouched, possibly even made off with some extra cash for overpriced reconstruction projects. The world that they are suggesting is one where nature steps in where terrorist and rouge states left off. Where the lower classes have to work to pay for the empire apparatus to provide basic protections from the climate to sustain their life. In their script, if we enter into this world slowly and with caution, there is a good chance they can maintain control. Basically, they want to save the planet, but only if they can still maintain their power and privilege. Good luck. I suspect mother nature has a different idea of how things will go down. Further, I suspect that the rest of humanity is in the process of writing another script. One where the earth crust shifts in a way that leaves everyone standing on the red carpet that leads to the luxury escape pods floating in mid air, desperately holding to a virtual reality recreating the now distant memory of the good old status quo.

Walking down Dolores ’street’ from 16th towards the park the other day
I was confronted by a certain realization which I’ve had many times before, surely you had it too
San francisco, just like so many american styled cities, does not put pedestrians at the center.
big deal! I know… but bare with me here… I have a point… or hopefully… more like a circle.

As usual, I wanted to be the center of attention, so I hopped onto the grass on the median. This is very literally a hop, as it is for some reason almost a full foot raise from the fairly hectic river of cars that is flowing on both sides, and yet it has no pedestrian access points in it’s siding , it has no paths and of couse no benches or any other human friendly infrastructure. It is obviously there, for the visual effect only. a nice backdrop to look at. A useless historic relic.

I crossed 17th in the middle of the intersection, which felt somewhat unusual, eventhough I’ve done the same in so many other cities around the globe, here I was a human in the middle of the river of cars, and had no excuse to why I wasn’t happy with my very literally side-lined mentality of the side-walk, why did I, an engine-free human, care to stand in the center of an intersection and see the expanse of sky open to the horizon in all four directions.

Dolores, is indeed a boulevard, not just a street. in so many other places in the world, including New York City, there is a prevailing culture of allowing for parks in the centers of boulevards where people can walk or just hang out. Some cities are big on roundabouts and squares that are somtimes big enough for little parks, some cities go to the trouble of accomodating humans with diagonal crosswalks, which usually happens in shopping or business areas where pedestrian traffic serves the city machine, and yet here in san francisco, and all over the US, you sometimes find yourself in an intersection where in order to accommodate traffic needs, you have to cross the street 3 times in a U shape in order to make it to the other side, or dutifully ask for attention by pressing a button. And here in our precious little neighborhood, this center divider is obviously a destination only for those dog owners who don’t have the time or inclination or making the trip all the way to the park.

I got down to 18th street, where I was tempted to cross over to the west side of the boulevard, where the sidewalk by the fenced up tennis courts would eventually open up into the ‘vast’ two city blocks green expanse on the hillside that is dollores park and I would be free at last. This park would allow me to finally escape this oppressive car culture for a hot minute. The way so many of us who live here in this neighborhood do on a regular basis. A square shaped perimeter of ‘natural’ existence where were allowed to breath freely for a minute, no horns, no traffic lights, no immediate scent of burning gasoline and engine oil. To walk in non-straight lines. pheeeewwww…. what a vicroty.

The park is a destination, and I dont just mean Dolores park being my personal destination at that particular moment, I mean we city dwellers think of parks as destinations for an immediate escape. we are used to the oppressive city culture that inhabits public spaces and city streets, and we are used to going to little squares where we can just be, hopefully with some nature around us, maybe we can even socialize, even if just for a minute before we return to the city scape. Dolores is the most sizeable park in the mission valley, there are smaller ones like Garfield, Potrero Del soul, or close by Douboce park. Most other examples in san francisco are the tops of hills which exemplify the idea of the green space as an endpoint rather than a route. Golden Gate park, of course, a big green rectangle, is a very big exception, but even more so, the PanHandle proves to be the most poingniant one, showing the viability of this alternative thought pattern, of green routes. Both are the result of long drawn struggles of humans residing in those neighborhoods to maintain continous safe green paths where engine free transportation is prioritized over the usually prevailing engine-centered culture.

I’ve always found it amusing, (or depressing, depending on cynicism levels) that the bikeride, or walk from the ocean back to the mission, narrows from the vast green expanse of Golden Gate park to the long trail through the PanHandle and then, very symbolically, that safety zone, ends with the image of no other than the highest institution of the state machine control mechanism, the main hub of private ownership of engine based transportation, otherwise known as the DMV.

Oak and Fell both offer amazing traffic death traps on the way up and down the wiggle, and so do any of the complex 6 way stoplight intersections that Market street lines the way with. From there, there is the option of doing a detour through Dolores park, either on church or straight down through Dolores all the way. Though for some reason there are zero bike paths on any of the streets surrounding the park. Dolores itself has a sidewalk big enough to park a truck on, and each side of the boulevard offers two lanes of traffic plus a third for parking. But no bike paths… hmmm?

I heisitantly stepped into the middle of 18th street, which is a very hectic intersection, connecting the mission and the Castro and managed to resist the urge to also cross over to the park side, I kept walking on the center divider of the bullevard, between the river of cars that now separated me from the view of the green hill.

How many times have I sat there on the lawn and watched and listened to the cars in the distance, being reminded continously that this is only a temporary escape, and that as soon as I get out of the green zone, car culture, would again be dominant and threaten to kill me if I did not pay enough attention to the traffic rules.

So here I was walking the center island in the car river approaching 19th, this is where dolores goes up the hill and on my bike I usually turn towards the mission, or get on the sidewalk to get into the park. This intersection is less busy, being that 19th street only goes in one direction it is a less viable hub of transportation and therefore there isn’t as much turning happening, cars mostly just zoom by, only sometimes bothering to stop for the occasional human traffic. So before I arrive at my escape destination, I decided to again step into the intersection, one last time, before I cross over.

I stood there in the center for minute and turned around slowly and looked down the four directions. I didn’t feel very welcome there, but I also didn’t necessarily feel very threatened. the intersection is big enough to accomodate multiple vehicles trying to turn at the same time, and you might say, right there in the middle of the street, is where things literally came to a point.

it dawned on me there, that up what would be 19th street stretching into the park, beyond the impressive little bell square with its pruned flowery bushes and large chain perimeter, I was looking at what is also a boulevard, and up there, where cars can technically drive, like the park service and the cops do all the time, Technically can, yes, but not really welcome. Up there, there is the equivalent of a roundabout with a huge palm tree in the center. but down here, on dolores, where I was standing: Nothing but pavement. Out here in the world, even in a boulevard, anything that would inconvenience cars… is BAD. Thats the same mentality that doesnt want to accomodate for people comfortably taking the centerstage of the boulevard. They would be in the way. It would be dangerous. It would slow things down.

The united states doesn’t really do roundabouts, they slow down traffic and therefore aren’t welcome anywhere but very suburban or likewise strictly residential neighborhoods. There, a roundabout is not such a big deal, neither is a boulevard, there is no triumph in walking there, there is probably nowhere to go either. But here in the midst of the dense peninsula of san francisco, the idea that pedestrian culture, or other motor-free travel, would find to be in the center of attention in the street, or god forbid, the layout of the whole city, seems to be a direct confrontation to the machine that is an american city, a machine which based on, and powered by the powers of commerce and consumption, the exchange of products and services, and of course, at the underlying level of this big engine, is… OIL.

This truth is also nothing new. I know. Big news: america is an oil based imperial machine! oh really? But what else dawned on me here, at this point, Is that here I was standing in a place, an intersection, where the potential to reverse the paradime, is absolutely incredible. This park, which exists only by virtue of there having been a cemetery on the grounds until the 1809 quake, has been the staging ground for oh so many demos and marches, which are but temporary rehersals where humans, with or without the consent of the police force, gather under one social ideal or another, and literally take that ideal into the center of the city streets. We’ve all walked these marches and noticed the temporary rush that comes of reclaiming the space that cars inhibit on a regular basis.

There is a place for those temporary explosions of social change struggles that leave an ideological mark on society. But we are now in a very unique time in history where society is in the process of acknowledging it’s need to change by nature of the issue of the machine faltering. Oil and money, and by proxy engine-based culture, are being so deeply implicated in war and destruction and a collapse into depression, which may or may not go as far as to turn the park into a tent city again, but is definitely increasing the pressure to make this city sustainable for it’s human residents.

In this green amphetheatre that is Dolores park,There is, quite literally, a huge crowd of walking and biking humans readily available on any given sunny day. If not as participants, than as allies and spectators. And so if ever there existed a time and a place to translate these concepts into a more sustainable approach, a way to carve a channel for this energy to flow into the physical street, I say the center of the intersection of 19th and dolores would be a first step in that direction, where, dare I say, we can reclaim the streets, and I mean that in a much more ongoing and sustained way than a roving street party can ever hope to achieve, though this kind of spontaneous flashmob action might be a good first step in manifesting an opening ceremony to a more permanent campaign.

So…to initiate the process of reclaiming that space from cars
four of us symbolically sat down and had a little tea party in the middle of the intersection, brainstrormed visions and feasibility of taking this project forward

What Im talking about is NOT a ROUNDABOUT
because a ROUNDABOUT would be too much like beating around the bush
a ROUNDABOUT would be framing it as a car centric project
which is exactly the problem
this issue… of human vs machine
is so deeply rooted in this industrial civilization
that it digs down to the core of the planet
and changes the radiation from the sun we revolve around
this
thing
im visioning
is much more
like a CENTERPIECE
something from which things radiate…

It went something like this:

We’ve gathered here to celebrate the fact
the way people have been gathering here
on this very street corner
every thursday going back six years
to share words
Saturday May 21st 09
The sixth anniversary of the16th BART station OPEN MIC

Why 16th and Mission?
See, this is not just a major hub of transportation,
For start, 16th street marks the spot where the zip code changes from soma 94103 to the mission. 94110
Technically, we are on the mission side.
Soma is historically more of an industrial district, being just next door to the downtown commercial district.
The mission has some industry, but is zoned mostly residential,
Go back a couple of generations
poor irish folk started moving up the racial/class ladder
and off to better neighborhoods with colder weather
So a few wars later
a couple economic depressions
when this BART station was opened in 73
the mission has already evolved to something similar to it’s current more ‘Chicano’ version.

Now
I want you to imagine
DOWNTOWN
just north of us
like a gushing fountain of capital
that ebbs and flows in the usual supply vs demand fashion
This fountain is self proclaimed
to be always in session
non fuckin stop
it’s easy to see
they even leave the lights on
when the people in the offices go home

Still, it’s emanating aura
of capital flow
is sometimes harder to pinpoint
It’s imprint on society
being a process of negation
is vague and abstract
and therefore it lurks in the dark spaces
in between the many institutions and organizations
that make up our so called civilized nation
And it takes an extra conscious effort
to actually connect the dots
that trace a long line back
to a supposedly discontinued practice
of imperial colonialization

And the machine that pumps the fountain
is constantly being expanded and upgraded
getting well lubricated with the souls it sucks
it is bigger and better and faster than ever
by now every decade or so
comes a new iteration
and right here
on this intersection
you can read
a new chapter being written
in the glorified book
of GENTRIFICATION

My roomate used to tell me
about being a junky on this very streetcorner
back in the early 90s
what we have today
a few SROs
is pretty tame
he would say
compared to the shit that used to go down
in a three block radius in any direction
which he would describe
as the drug and crime stripmall superstore
most of which
is of course
by now
gone

If you want to trace
this recent altracation between the two sides
back to an opening shot
you would probably have to mention
94
when the police station
moved to the corner of 17th and Valencia.
and from there maps were redrawn
and things started shifting direction

in the late 90s
The fountain produced the most destructive wave in recent memory
which we all have conveniently come to call the BOOM
and the shockwaves of this BOOM
Swept up through the soma and then
all the way up through the mission
like a giant broom
coming as usual with declared intentions
to clean up the dirt and the drugs and the crime
but of course we know
it went down
the same way it always goes
it closed community spaces
it swept up social infrastructures
evicted poor immigrant families
and artists living in commercial warehouse structures
And in a relatively short span of time
it changed the face of this neighborhood
with it’s tight weaved social network
that fought it any way it could
to damn near exhaustion
Just as
seemingly by a miracle
the economic bubble finally popped
having been mortally punctured
not by the Y2K bug
but by two airplanes
flown into two skyscrapers
seemingly in slow motion
at the other side of the continent
supposedly by people
who came all the way across the atlantic ocean
and also happened to be brown
that was 01 of course

And while the people who supposedly owned that bubble
were going through the motions
of going after whoever they said made it burst
The people here in this neighborhood
were pretty annoyed
with having to clean up yet another mess
while being profiled as terrorists.
The mission was a gaping social wound
and there it was
sitting in the murky polluted capital water
left in the economic void

But having seen the resistance to the war in afghanistan
barely making a blip in the mainstream press
When it became clear
that the war in iraq
was going to go down
with or without the public’s blessing
Thousands of people in this town
mounted something of a grassroots organized civilized unrest
by literrally shoving their bodies into the mouth of the fountain
in an attempt at shutting the economic reactor
that indirectly, inevitably and intolerably
fuels the war

That, was six years back
give or take a couple of months
And I suppose
somewhere in the mix
of ecstazy and passion
which comes with the reclamation of public space
right here
at the bart station
some people got together
and shared some POETRY
and probably beers
in brown paper bags

By then
Valencia street
was already a dense strip of fancy stores, restaurants, and bars
by 05, there were fancy condos coming up pretty much a block in every direction
with fancy bulky pastel grout facades
designed to provide zero shelter from the weather
complete with security cameras
taping suspicious activity around the clock
and internal parking garages
to make sure you can avoid
suspicious things from even infiltrating your thoughts.
In 06
They remodeled the BART station
And they installed new benches with extra armrests
to prevent people from being able to lay down and sleep
And then in 07
A giant steam roller
came down the hill From the Castro
all the way to the Bayview.
block by block
tearing up and then re-paving 16th street
and wherever it touched
like little mushrooms
fancy businesses and restaurants would start to pop
to feed off of the projected flow of fresh new capital

So if it didnt hit you before
maybe now it clicked
There is
a real unified front
It’s been decided
in speculators’ offices
and private meetings in city hall
They call it the 16th street corridor redevelopment plan
and we let it happen
right here in front of our very eyes
while we were drinking beers
and reciting lines
And weather you like it or not
weather you think youre a hipster
or a literary snob
we are
all
part of it

Cause I remember a time
when one of those people
who we so easily dismiss as a crackhead
came raging into the circle with a trash can in hand
and emptied the content
right in the center
and we just stood there
and booed
and when he left
we cleaned it up and kept going
maybe nobody realized
that we were having our open mic in his backyard
and he simply wanted to voice what he had to say
which is that he’s feeling cornered
he’s feeling under attack
that he’s sick of intellectual bullshit
he’s not going to let you push him out of his own neighborhood
in fact
he’s going to do whatever he can
to take it back
and he’s going to use a trash can
because thats just all he’s got
But for some reason nobody clapped…

And we DO
We do… for offensive old white man
who are too drunk
to do anything but slur out shit like
“bravity is the soul of wit”
And we DO for sexist racist jokesters
who might as well have raped welfare moms
to get material for their skit
but I suppose angry crackhead trash performance
is just not LEGIT?
THE FUCK PEOPLE?
THE FUCK WITH IT!
if anything
THAT
is more offensive
than whatever whack shit anyone says!

having drawn a circle down on the concrete
and called it an open mic
try
to pay a little respect
to keep in mind
some very relevant social perspective
your’e six years of history
are but a fingertip
of the amazing poetic mystery
that is
this corner
of 16th and mission street

here I am sitting on the computer trying to figure out how to come to terms with the fact that I managed to lose my cellphone.

five years ago I had a pay as you go phone for a couple of months, and I was relieved when I lost it, and I never gave it another try, until last year while visiting NYC I finally gave up and got an iphone.
I got one of those pink rubber sleeves for it, to keep it warm and dry and impossible to lose
but I took a bikeride through the post apocalyptic side of alameda island today, and noticed a certain lack as I returned

I am trying to call it and it rings and noone answers… and I am having a good time imagining the crickets ringtone going off in the bushes by the side of the road in the moist night

the less funny thing is to figure out how to get some phone able person to come with me on a bikeride through the island before the battery runs out. considering peoples busy schedules is one thing, but contacting them without a phone, and without my contact list, is another.

HELP!

PS
the worse case scenario turned out to be true
I found it yes
but only after the tide had it’s way with it
it shined it’s pink self at me from the bottom of a crevice of rocks on the bay front
sitting in a shallow puddle
im looking at it’s insides all salty and damp
and I suspect it is probably dead
and perhaps this is the beginning of a new venture
into the cellphone free life
I once used to inhibit

At the San Francisco International Film Festival last year, I got to see an amazing, and ironically relevant movie called Sleep Dealer which is a futuristic distopian border theme action movie, and it ties in a lot of ideas of border militarization and digital technology. It encapsules this more ‘nightmare’ side of the borderline digital theme in the best possible Hollywood production value. which I have to say, having been working on a parallel storyline, was really amazing to see.

Every year, the festival happens around Mayday, which other than being a reclaimed pagan celebration of spring, is also supposedly international workers day, celebrating something as seemingly natural, ancient, and taken for granted as the 8 hour work week. I’ve been to many maydays in san francisco, and they have always been large festive affairs. It was therefore maybe appropriate, that this year, in this bottomed out economy climate, that the sky broke open and rained on our parade.

Mainstream news might go as far as reporting that workers are indeed the ones getting fucked in this scenario. Their pensions funds are being used as a last resort to bail out the companies that their bosses plundered. It is however mostly neglecting to remind us, that this nothing out of the ordinary, workers have been getting fucked on a regular basis before this recent meltdown, by nature of employment under this capitalist system being equatable to part time slavery. What is really making the news here is that someone got a little careless with the routine of cooking up the books.

In san francisco, a supposed immigrant sanctuary city, as well as in other large cities in the US, mayday often takes on an immigration theme. In 2006, threatened by legislation that would criminalize undocumented immigrants in the US, millions marched in white shirts at mayday events across the country and the itself legislation failed to pass. And though public attention has waned since that victory, we know now that ICE has not folded, and in fact managed to expand it’s raids and crimilnal prosecution programs against migrants.

I was running around in pink and black on mayday weekend, from the rained out main march, where the Dance Dance Insurrection Flag core had a little pink flag comeback, to the joint benefit for Queer Youth Organizing Project and Deporten a la Mirgra at El rio benefit in El Rio, after which a black and pink Brass Liberation Orchestra led a little spontaneous temporary takeover of a couple of lanes of traffic on mission street… and so I found myself several times having to answer questions about the connection between queer activism and border issues.

It’s funny, that while it’s easy for me to see how these issues link simply with the equal rights to employment, independent of prejudice about sexual orientation or immigration status, I cant help but find that to be only a superficial link. It’s hard for me to fight for equal rights for immigrants when I know those rights under this exploitative system, dont amount to anything I want to preserve. So when I answer these question, I try, I try as much as possible to dig deeper into anti capitalist thoughts. into decentralized power structures and how solidarity against a common enemy builds networks of resistance. You might say, that the flash mob that happened downtown on mayday night, however tactically controversial and challanging message wise, fills the emotional and ideological gap.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been developing this piece of text under the current titleThere is a border which is meant to be complemented with a yet unfinished graphic of the american zebra, and is the closest attempt I’ve made to date at linking these issues together.