Transmissions

I found this video on YouTube channel NAMASTE!

Blog title borrowed from this...half-ass documentary.

I’m just returning from this site being hacked and around nine months of pregnancy with my poop. John should (should!) have the new and updated site up this week. Back Tuesday (for real.)

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A quick goodbye to my beloved grandfather (Pop Pop) a loyal worker for NASA (which poisoned his lungs with Asbestosis) a lifelong farmer, an all around good ‘ole boy, a recovered alcoholic and my only real father: Raphael S. Lowe.

And hello to the thousands of you still checking in from Google images. I left that last post up as a kind of welcome and hello.  Say hello in more detail at amovingtrain@gmail.com

Since my unexpected return to the suburbs I have been reminded of how seductive this insane culture is.

I was talking to my best friend a few years ago on the phone; we were talking about the stress of daily life. Something I often say when thinking about the stress of working jobs we hate, sitting in traffic and so on is, “I’m just going to run away and join the Indians.”

Which he responded within one second with, “Yeah, if you want to freeze to death in the winter or starve.”  As if indigenous people were just rolling around in near freezing mud eating their own finger nails before the glorious liberators of Europe came to “Civilize” them!

Another moment with my buddy was when we mutually witnessed the sight of automated check-outs at his local grocery store for the first time. I sighed and said, “Another job and life down the drain.” To which he said, “No. It’s progress. Things are getting easier everyday.”

And he’s right. Ish. It is more convenient…if you can afford to shop there. I’ll have to finish this train of thought tomorrow night.

Back to my slide back to the suburbs:

No matter how horrific the obvious reality of the world is, suburban, “middle class” culture spins it all as an undeniable, positive march towards a dreamland. Where, “WHAT APPEARS IS GOOD;  WHAT IS GOOD APPEARS.”–Guy Debord

So back while I was daily driving to work through Bethesda Maryland, I heard this song almost everyday and thought of my friend’s response to our moments together. Here is the song and after my response:

Everything is going to be OK, you see, suddenly I see

Sea to shining sea, a hill and a shining city, always new always free

To view the march of Progress everything is out of sight!

And out of mind. The experts say that there’s plenty of time so I’m gonna get mine

So suddenly I see, so free, just me; and you just me

Just “gimmie gimmie!”

Just don’t look in the periphery

MUCH more tomorrow.

Oh the irony! You go and create a website to declare war on this culture and you end up representing it on the internet. Yes, now that we’re on hit number 6000 I might as well acknowledge our new group of comrades here: people who searched for Jesus on google images found this site as their first choice. I’m not sure how this happened but through some confluence of google magic about half of the images I’ve used here have gone straight to the top of the google hierarchy. A close second place is freaking ice cream of all things! I can only imagine what someone searching for an image of goddamn jesus or ice cream  must be experiencing while clicking through this madness: but it’s still pretty cool! So welcome mainstream America (and Central America, Africa, Middle East, Korea, Indonesia, Australia, that one person in Hong Kong, Western Europe and mother fucking Canada!)

I saw that a few thousand stayed around for a little bit and a few of you stayed on for a long time and even started coming back. Good. I found the above image on the same search engine that led you here. I think that it sums up what this whole website is about.

I think I should also introduce the writing here. A lot of the stuff in more recent months basically sucks. However, if you poke around in the archives there are plenty of little gems. Also there are a shitload of outstanding videos archived. But here is a list of my best work:

My Morning in America

The Omen: Killing Us Softly

Fear of Flying: Welcome to the Disneyland Police State

Joyous Treason: We Don’t Need Anymore Reasons

Being that indoctrinated people obviously are not usually aware of their state of enslavement in the “west” (it’s a sphere!) I try to point out the horrors of daily life that are often just overlooked as “normal” and “the way things naturally are.” So, if you are new here and have enjoyed yourself, email me at rejection08@gmail.com.

If you’ve been here before I’m also at the top of the google heap with David Gilbert, Arundhati Roy, Sleater Kinney, Atari Teenage Riot, Chomsky, Noam Chomsky, Huey P. Newton, Mickey Z and Derrick Jensen. Fucking cool! However–sadly–I’m getting more hits off of the above mentioned stuff and “turntable” and “arrow up.” Whatever. With google it could change tomorrow, so let’s just play with it!

But back to the newbies here. If you didn’t know already, there are thriving subcultures here subverting the DOMINANT culture we were all born UNDER.  And as a welcome gift I would like you to see what the news looks like within our culture: ENJOY!

Back soon suckas!

This is especially relevant to me now that Sophia and I have a baby on the way. I can feel myself selling out. I’m imagining scenarios where she comes to me for help with her history presentation and I send her in with a full presentation of The Ludlow Massacre. How does one newly suburban anarchist explain the context of that at the PTA meeting? Too much to go in to here, but I still believe in my convictions and dreams. I’m just not sure what to do next.

In related baby news: I was told that any baby bedroom needs a theme. I didn’t know this. This “theme” is supposed to (of course) originate in the corporate hologram industry. We have worked out our choices down to two (just like ‘our’ ‘democracy’!) My vote: The Lorax. Hers: Alice in Wonderland. The good news: I think I’ve won!

I promise though: I’ll never back down!

We all have a lot to live for and a lot to fight for!

Maxwell Black

Years ago when I was trying to pull myself out of white trash Northern Virginian existence to a DC hipster delusion, I found myself in a bar in Arlington. I was talking to the then owner Alice Despard about great writers. At the time I didn’t really know much about “great writers” I mean I had read Emerson, Whitman, Voltaire, a girlfriend had turned me on to Tom Robbins and that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance book, but I was still in way over my head.

Though I was creative and charismatic enough to bullshit my way around the DC indie rock subculture I always felt that if I let my guard down for one second my southern accent would return and the charade would be up: “we found you out boy, back to Manassas with you now, to work in auto parts stores!”

[To those who know me personally, this is where that strange and sudden insecurity comes from.]

More on this later, back to Alice:

She asked me if I was getting into any particular authors lately. In the social position I was in at the time, I was just barely learning to think for myself at all. I wasn’t doing things like “getting into any particular authors” I was mainly concerned with making sure my language usage, fashion and attitude mimicked those that I wanted to be around. I had fallen in love with DC culture and wanted to be apart of it and for some reason I felt compelled to be around rich or middle class people with some education and a desire to wear gas station worker jackets when they didn’t have to.

At that moment in my self education I had just bought a Nietzsche anthology and when she asked me what authors I was into I just blurted out his stinking name: Nietzsche. She started to laugh politely and I asked, “Are you a fan?” and she replied, “I might read him for a laugh while taking a shit.” Wow, who knew!

So fast forward to a few hours ago; I was having my morning coffee, cigarette and then planning my daily massive shit and I arbitrarily chose between that big Emerson book and that old Nietzsche book on the bookcase. The first page I turned to on the shit-pot—I’m not making this up—was this:

“The Labor question. — The stupidity — at bottom, the degeneration of instinct, which is today the cause of all stupidities — is that there is a labor question at all. Certain things one does not question: that is the first imperative of instinct. I simply cannot see what one proposes to do with the European worker now that one has made a question of him. He is far too well off not to ask for more and more, not to ask more immodestly. In the end, he has numbers on his side. The hope is gone forever that a modest and self-sufficient kind of man, a Chinese type, might here develop as a class: and there would have been reason in that, it would almost have been a necessity. But what was done? Everything to nip in the bud even the preconditions for this: the instincts by virtue of which the worker becomes possible as a class, possible in his own eyes, have been destroyed through and through with the most irresponsible thoughtlessness. The worker was qualified for military service, granted the right to organize and to vote: is it any wonder that the worker today experiences his own existence as distressing — morally speaking, as an injustice? But what is wanted? I ask once more. If one wants an end, one must also want the means: if one wants slaves, then one is a fool if one educates them to be masters.”

What an honest statement from a clearly sadistic (and for me) useless mind! But I kind of dig it. I wish Lou Dobbs would get on the air and just be so fucking direct, (or Obama for that matter!)

You do know that you’re a slave…right?

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In somewhat related news I and everyone else in “my” company just met a raise and bonus freeze coupled with a 6% salary reduction. Yippee!

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When I first had this thought, I was nervous that I had become a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I had this suspicion that the current “financial crisis” was in some way manufactured. I don’t feel paranoid or incorrect anymore. This is a step in the right direction. American workers are going through a Structural Adjustment Program

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New essay? It’s coming. Most of you that come through here are writers, amateur writers (like me) or friends. From the “writers” portion of you, you know the creative process: you start writing what you think you want to say and then something else comes out…what you really want to say and write!

It’s turned from my usual bombast and word-games to something I’ve not tried yet: sincerity. If I can pull it off it should be pretty freaking beautiful. Wish me luck and grace. I wish everyone the same.

Hey Max, where are the fun and games? I’m not sure your aim, but it seems time for a rhyme.

Our blood is red and theirs is blue,

you ask me what we ought to do?

Seize the streets and pillage the estates,

It’s time for civil war in the united states!

Oh cops, I kid!  That was a little taste of the freak show I’m about to unleash on tens and tens of you. I basically let Derrick Jensen and Guy Debord fight an epic battle in my mind. And I took notes! You can guess who wins.

It’s been a good week. Do you ever feel so tuned in that its like you could kill a cop with your mind? It’s so fucking great to be alive!

It should be up in a week or so. xoxo

To those still paying attention, I’m doing my thing. I’m working on the most ambitious adventure of my tiny “writer” existence. I’ll go into it in more detail soon, but anyway, I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone and in to history and philosophy for the next one.  It has a title, which is usually a good sign that I’ll finish it: The Big Lie: ‘Nothing Has Ever Happened Here and Nothing Ever Will’.

During our move Sophia found this Bad Religion  CD that was the catalyst for writing it. I’ll be myself again soon. Enjoy!

“Boot Stamping On A Human Face Forever”

“Drop dead, it doesn’t matter,” she said
“It only hurts when I laugh,” she said
“Sometimes it’s never a crime
“To spend the day in bed”
She made certain that the curtains were red
To dream better by the light they would shed
She leaned back, tilted her head
And this is what she said…

“You can’t win; think it over again
“I can’t win; look at the trouble I’m in
“We can’t win and we’re stuck here together
“Yeah, I hope it will last forever.”

“Don’t ever dare to hope,” he said
“So I’m never let down too bad
“I know there’s nowhere to go
“So I’ll just stay here, instead”
He knew better than to pull at a thread
They unravel like the thoughts in his head
He looked out; it filled him with dread
And this is what he said…

[Chorus]

With good books and looks on their side
And hearts bursting with national pride
They sang songs and went along for the ride
And the other side complied
They said, “Hey, man, where do you reside?”
“And could it be mother’s superior lied?”
“And is it possible too many have died?”
It’s only natural to reply

[Chorus]

Earth 911: A Wake Up Call For Obama Nation

Mickey Z and Derrick Jensen

 Yes, on April 25 Dams of the world will moan and rumble with long awaited relief, abusers will have second thoughts, rape crisis hot lines will go silent, salmon everywhere will make plans for a future and Capitalists of the world will commit mass suicide as an offering of apology to all of life on earth!

Well, not really.  However, I suspect there may be some discussions on strategies to accomplish these possibilities.

Here is the needed info I snagged from Press Action:

When: Saturday, April 25, 2009. Doors open at 6 p.m. for book sales and signings. Forum begins at 7 p.m. Refreshments.

Admission is free to the event.

Event sponsored by Press Action.

Where: Arlington Temple United Methodist Church, 1835 N Nash St., Arlington, VA 22209. The church is across the street from the Rosslyn Metro Station in Arlington, only one Metro stop from Washington, D.C. Directions.

RSVP at Facebook

Also, I’m offering my radical tour guide services to anybody coming to DC from out of the area. Need a lift? Hungry? Got arrested shop lifting? I’ll be there homies. Whether you’re from out of town or a local, anyone interested in hanging out at the event just give me a jingle at rejection08@gmail.com.

Transmissions will resume tomorrow. xoxo

So I’m going to disappear for about a week and half to two weeks. The good news  is that part of that time will be spent moving out of my in-laws dark depressing basement. Fuck yes! The bad news is part of the time I’ll be in total lock-down in DC for the coronation, I mean inauguration of Obama.

I’ll be at my restaurant for the next six days with Secret Service in full presence. Many offspring of the powerful and “important” will be residing in the hotel I work at in Georgetown.  In short: I’ll have to shut up and keep my head down as they say. There is a massive military and police presence building up there. Please understand.

On the upside Sophia and I are ecstatic! We are finally going to have a home together again and frankly, I’m happy to not blog until then. Due to the total lack of personal time and stunning lack of privacy, I’ve been mainly writing off the top of my head at like three in the morning.  And when dealing with topics so serious I hate coming in so half-assed. I happen to believe that if one is going to bother getting into a fight one might as well at least aim to beat their opponents senseless! WINNING should always be the goal. I’ve been blogging lately just to “stay in the game.” It’s mostly laughable. But there are a few little gems.

After posting this I’m going to immediately post some great stuff from Mike Davis that I just want in the video archive in my absence. And tomorrow I’ll post a great advert for an event of such importance and excitement for me that I almost giggle when I think about it. See you on the other side.

Hello person who has never been here before! If you’ve had a look around and feel comfortable and excited about what you’ve stumbled upon, check out the biggest influences on my politics:

Derrick Jensen

Joe Bageant

Arundhati Roy

Mickey Z

Guy Debord and here

Say hello at rejection08@gmail.com.