"Don't be that guy"- least favorite go-to phrase of 2004. It's five years later now, why are we still using it? We're more creative than this, I just know it.
I meant to post this last night, but lost patience after an unfortunately timed power outage at the studio-zone where Brennan and I rent space. Behold, the drama: http://twitter.com/selfishsteam
Came across this today. Ok, so I don't care for the band The Mentalists at all- in fact I find their music kinda whack! And, sure it's not the most exciting thing to watch, but I do think it's pretty cool that four girls are standing around doing an actually note for note good sounding cover song on their cell phones!!!
(PREVIOUSLY POSTED ON MY PERSONAL BLOG @ www.myspace.com/elusivetspot Go there, send money to my paypal account: email address: elusivetspot@yahoo.com)
Unconvential behavior breeds resistance from the unaware. What could look like a drug deal may be in actuality, two socially-awkward individuals with spacially-challenged (they like to stand next to each
other) roommates attempting to exchange a key. Seriously, don't listen to conventional wisdom; its stupid.
Which leads me to today (I said "tutu"). I was walking by the Lloyd
Center's parking garage towards 12th Avenue to apply for jobs in an
otherwise bleak market on a dismally-grey day. In the intersection was
a panhandler, a female. As for me, I had been planning to cross the
street to drop off resumes at non-existent employers whom their
employees would delight in increasing their job security by alley-ooping my crumpled application in the rubbish bin.
A meeting of two souls with an audience: the driver's being solicited by the female panhandler, waiting to turn the red light into green by some sort of though alchemy.
Then, I noticed her! It was Brianna, the homeless girl I had once shared a few conversations and one desperate night in the industrial district of Portland (near the Waterfront, by Front Avenue. Ish...) Yeah, it was her, alright! She looked at me by cue, and we waved in recognition. (The protagonist, dressed in a dapper navy-blue peacoat ensemble waves/beckons to the girl, slovenly-dressed and holding a sign that read "Spare Some Change" and other platitudes for your monetary love.)
"You should come over here!" I yelled to Brianna. She came.
In that instant, I could feel the eyes of the onlookers--a girl abandoning monetary prospects on this grey day... for what? To meet with me, an old friend. To the cars, ummm....
"Hey, how much for a piece, you slut?" sort-of-said a passenger making a turn westbound towards Interstate 84. Brianna hugged me and we exchanged pieces of our lives--she's still on the street, back with her boyfriend (one of the Tweaker Twins), and--"Nice hickey!" I said--she
corrected me: shooting heroin into her neck with a hand motion of pushing a plunger and a glottal-stop that sounds like "kik-kik".
The light turns green.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPP, says one car, pausing, and then resuming--BEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!
It looked bad and I stared at her breasts that were popping out of her dirty white shirt. "Its a tit nipply. Breast to get a coat on in THIS weather!" She laughed, we hugged, and everyone was a little bit more entertained. As for the jobs, I'm still working on the stripper thing.
For those who don't know who Oscar Grant is or what happened to him, he was a 22 year old from the SF Bay Area. In the first hours of new years day Grant was involved in a fight on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), cops arrived to break it up, while handcuffed and laying face down Grant was shot in the back by Police officer Johannes Mehserle. This article is not about the exact details of the murder, it's about technology's role in the shooting and aftermath.
While traditional news sources were censoring video footage and giving warnings like "You may find this video disturbing to watch, you may want to turn away" the internet was a buzz with outraged citizens uploading video footage they took and blogging like an angry hornets nest. The following video is a compilation of the traditional news treatment of the murder and then other footage the news did not release.
This is perhaps the largest scale and most publicly documented blatant abusive of power by law enforcement that America has ever seen. Mehserle is the first California police officer in decades to face murder charges for an on-duty incident. However, the "Oakland Riots" that have occured pale in comparison to the LA riots after the Rodney King beatings despite Grant's murder being clearly a larger and more tragic abusive of power. Below is a video of some of the riots.
Perhaps it is simply that racial tensions in America are more at ease- Obama is to be inaugurated just a few weeks after Grant's murder- or perhaps its technology that is responsible for keeping the Bay Area at peace. There has been a tremendous amount of action by citizens in the Bay Area and the world via the web. In this journalistic video "Oakland Riots" a user by the name of panchito captures the feelings of people on the streets after the riots. In the below video a rally has been formed and the leader claims "Our phones are our Weapons," what she means is that she is steering people towards CAPEOAKLAND, a Twitter group dedicated to keeping protesters organized and connected to what is happening.
When an injustice occurs and people feel powerless they get angry, when people get angry and connect with other angry people violence occurs. Before the age of the internet information flowed slowly and came from top down sources (governments, newspapers, and television) which acted as amplifiers to the emotions and actions of the collective people but not thanks to technology we as a populous can now mobilize, idea share and communicate at incredible speeds and reach vast audiences- this is tremendous and will lead us to an incredibly bright new future. Let's turn tragedies like Oscar Grant into triumphs, let's do as Obama said in his inaugural address and user our "imagination joined with a common purpose" to shape the world to become a better place where we don't need armed cops to begin with.
Del.icio.us
Digg
Technorati
Stumbleupon
