well, it's been a while since i posted one of these blog entries. i guess i have been busy 'doing' and less busy 'talking about' lately. i mean that specifically with reference to The Yarden. the yarden is what i am referring to as our house's sideyard. it used to be a house. then at ome point in the last couple decades it was condemned and demolished, then it was a crappy yard/dog pen for a while, and now it is well on it's way to being converted to a food producing garden with social capabilities of a fire pit and hangout area, and a work area - for chopping wood, building vehicles, etc. the peas are climbing, the carrots are popping out of the ground, the lettuce, greens, and radishes are coming out to play... the dormant (and questionably alive) blueberries planted in november are alive, there are some small herbs bought at the farmers market in the ground, the bush beans started inside from seed are in the ground and about 4 inches high, and a bunch of tomatoes and peppers are under glass and enjoying the magnified warmth of the sun.
oh, i also turned 31 yesterday. i got birthday wishes from various people who might find themselves reading this. (thank you!! ), and several local friends stopped by for some fire pit & beer action into the night. overall things are great here in terms of social and practical preparation for impending economic collapse - but what a crazy mental week! since the election season has begun, i continue to be annoyed (ok... baffled. the screaming neighbors are annoying. baffled) by people who are normally alert to the political farce and then every four years start to think the electoral system is worth a damn. well, i started off my birthday week with a house screening of the film Zeitgeist. I am not a stranger to all the 911 conspiracy theories.... yes, i know "bush knew".... but zeitgeist put a bigger wrapper on it for me that not only enlightened me on some of the origins of religion (not just christianity) and ... well, just watch the movie if you want. my point is that with the food riots... more people indiscriminantly killed by the weather in burma.... and another jump in the predictably increasing price of oil, the flimsyness of of our whole situation just continues to become more apparent... add the fact that there is a vast economic and religious farce that has ensnared us all for as long as our history books can remember.... i just am not sure how to process that all. so thats where i am at.
oh. and then sean bell's killers were let off?!?! wtf. well. that almost could have been predicted. sad but true. check out the video i threw together after a street march in NYC last year
thinking about how this shit is all gonna go down. then realizing it is going down. then looking around and seeing that no one else seems to notice ... i mean sure people notice food prices. people notice gas prices. people notice that obama got fucked and we better get our 'better hillary than john' buttons on.... but shit, is it just me or is there some bigger stuff happening here?
ok. so the need, personally, is to process some of this while continuing to 'do' th do. .... in a place, unlike nyc, where activism is so much mor subtle, an well... scarce. and thanks to this blog i can do it publicly (for whatever that is worth.... maybe feedback... maybe additions to my fbi record - eventual or existent)
things i am trying to process (deep thoughts):
what is the meaning and significance of owning property (paying a mortgage actually) when my belief in property ownership is questionable at best? this isnt about the problems of fixing the pipes and paying for the water and those types of things that people often reference as the annoyances of house ownership, but about the notion of actually saying it is 'ours' (vickie and myself) or 'mine' when fundamentally, i would rather create a co-op or live on a piece of land not 'owned' by anyone. afterall, the whole country was stolen in the first place, and as the recent scandal has further unveiled, the lenders are a major part of the ruthless and predatory system that we all comprise and are forced to participate in (even if we are so radical as to create intentional communal situations - they still exist within a larger scheme of exploitation of labor).... so. whats up with ownership.
is it important or significant to identify oneself as a scavenger? for a while now i have claimed to be 'artist' or 'educator' or 'media worker'. but i am a scavenger. within the mainstream economy i am a frugalite with a reputation for hardly buying anything, and practically nothing new. the primary result of much of my 'labor' seems to manifest itself in reducing my cost of living. in fact the decision to move away from nyc revolved around that as a first big step. finding a cord of free firewood to me is an artwork in itself, as is building a cart to scavenge slate and bricks from the site of a demolished house a block away without having to use my pick up truck - despite the fact that the gas used in driving one block and parking is pretty low. but furthermore... does identifying as a scavenger allow one to come more to terms with our true existence as prisoners of an exploitative global economic system? is there any ground to be gained (from an activist perspective, i suppose) in understanding how one fits into the bigger picture by understanding that it is a fulltime job to harvest and process the material and cultural waste that the system generates? just a thought.
income tax? fuck income tax! i just paid mine. ha. well actually i got money back. well, actually, i got a little money back after the IRS skimmed off what i owed them from last year (or two, or whatever). income tax is not legally binding. its a farce just like paper money. but we live in fear of not paying it despite the fact that we see no benefits from it and the country we live in uses those dollars to kill people and dominate the globe. so, income tax is a mindfuck. every year around this time, my head gets all twisted up in hating everything and i think taxes play a big part in that. i came across a post by fellow bloggerguy and indymedia activist Steev Hise's blog which highlights his letter to the IRS this year. worth a read. i dont know steeve personally although weve probably met somewhere at sometime... but he is clearly on the same page, so if for whatever reason you ade it this far and want to read some more coherent blogposting, check out some of his.
ok. i leave you unspellchecked, unproofread, and with some of my 'valuable' day put towards these words
check out flickr for pics of the garden and whatever else percolates.
