The Who Sell Out

My Syd Field book showed up in the mail today. Maybe this effects my integrity somehow (the TORTURE!) but I'm willing to accept any advice that gets my silly screenplay about Windsor written.

And no, I will not be plotting the whole thing on the paradigm.

Thanks for the mail, Mom & Dad!

London, Some Poems, the Byrds, and the Cardiff Occupation

The much-hyped London weekend has come and gone, leaving me with a lighter wallet and loads of empty calories. I was once again entertained by Mr. Gary Barker and his lovely ladyfriend, though I joined this time by some American compatriots. Benny "Bach" Martinson was there, along with crowds from Leeds and Bristol and Kevin, a new-ish Cardiff companion. Nothing spectacular to spew forth about London weekend. I can say it was fun. I can say that.

On yet another lead obtained from watching the walls of Bute Library for fliers I ended up at a recitation of some Eco Poetry tonight, courtesy of Susan Richardson. Throughout the duration of the talk it was clear that Susan has a great passion for things Environmental, and I wondered for a bit how this would fit in with her poetry. Actually, it worked quite well. She read in beat-like fashion - very stacatto, very exaggerated - about melting penguins, ice caps and relocated Icelandic families. Here book is called "Creatures of the Intertidal Zone." I didn't get my own copy, but it's worth checking out, if the selections she presented are any indication.

After poems and questions were through, I made the initial mistake of try to find my way out of the main building without assistance. I got down two hallways before I realized that I a) didn't know what the hell I was doing b) was surrounded by threateningly important science equiptment and c) didn't want to spend the night hopelessly wandering the halls. This is a very big, very old looking building. I'm sure there are ghosts.

Making my way back to the room to pick up a sherpa, I ran into Chris, who immediately guessed why i was walking back toward the lecture hall. I was lucky to run into this guy not only because he provided me with an escape route, but also because he shared with me an interest in a group of people we had heard mentioned in passing who were very intentionally spending the night in the main building.

Like so many other colleges and universities in the world this week, Cardiff has its own occupation. the goals of this group is to get the university to divest not only from stocks within or in support of the weapons industry, but also to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In the lecure hall I saw some familiar faces from the Guantanamo Forum (one of whom, I believe, was the guy who filled me in on some stuff I omitted in my rant on that subject - thanks, man!) and got a welcome earful of information on the kinds of things that have been going on. What was most notable to me was that their actions had already yielded not only praise from numerous local groups (and Noam Chomsky) but that they had also managed to convince the administration to sell some of the questionable stocks. I would go on at greater detail about the kinds of events they've been putting on - dialogues, debates, lectures, video-links to Palestinian students - but I was only there for a brief few minutes. While I was happy that students not unlike myself were causing some progressive motion, I will say that there are probably few stranger feelings than walking out of an occupation after 20 minutes or so of conversation. I've got my escuses for not taking a fuller part (phone calls, reading, the prospect of deportation is I miss too many things, etc.) but certainly not unique in that I've got other things going on; these guys are missing their fair of engagements as well, I'm sure.

All said, the best I can do at present is to talk about it and encourage people I know to read about what's going on and, if they are so moved, to do something about it all.

On a totally apolitical note (there aren't many of those in this blog, are there?) I've been on a Byrds binge. So it's been a pretty good day, all and all.

Later dudez.

Where have I been?

Cardiff, mostly. My update frequency has been admittedly lame, but give me time...I'm finding out more about this strange little city every day.

I've also left out a bunch of things that happened in the past few weeks, mostly due to that firestorm of political / humanitarian rage that consumed me / this blog after the Guantanamo panel (still pissed off, by the way). I went to London and spent a fantastic weekend with one Gary Barker and his brother Sam. The mission was to intercept some Manitounians, which was mostly successful, even though we missed KG and Tambini. We also found many bars, some of them huge (one of which looked like the inside of a Catholic church) Mark Stagg, who is as cool as ever, and a fake Kiwi named Holly who claimed to be a chef with between 3 and 4 Michelin stars. He also claimed to be from San Francisco. He had that happy-come-volatile way about him that we just kept confusing him and making him laugh about things so that he wouldn't start swinging. I miss him already...

Went to Swansea the next weekend, where I was hosted and shown around the city by a pair of sisters and a network of other Swanseans. It was a nice weekend jaunt, but I got hit in the face by a nasty cold a few days before (a strange and excessive night out with Declan helped this along, but it was worth every sweat-drenched Metro minute) so I wasn't able to enjoy it to the very fullest. I did eat lots of pureed seaweed, deceptively called "Laverbread." It was not bread. It was very much seaweed.

Since then, I've been in and around Cardiff, looking for adventures and kindred souls. The two greatest discoveries thus far have been Milgi's and the Buffalo Bar. Milgi's is what my living room would look like if I ever became a successful filmmaker and had enough money to cover the wall with strange art / mirrors. Incidentally, Milgis is, more or less, my living room, where I've been going and (creepily) splaying out notecards to work on a feature-length screenplay. At those creative moments, I miss my screenwriting buddies, Tetz included, who provided so much good criticism. It's going okay, though.

ANYWAY...I spend a lot of time and money at this place. They have good foods. And 85% of the staff now knows me.

Buffalo Bar is my newest favorite place to end up. Unsurprisingly, I was lead there by a Brooklyn band, Crystal Stilts. That show was memorable, but more or less what I was expecting, although the openers, Wetdog, thorugh me for a bit of a loop. The sound was good - kinde like The Slits getting into a fistfight with Joy Division, with no clear winner - but the drummer was clearly pissed off about something throughout the set. Strange vibes. Crystal Stilts all seemed to be friends at least.

I didn't know at that moment that I would soon witness a show by the friendliest band in the world, Das Wanderlust. Here my (overlong) entry finally enters the VERY recent past. I was bored and knew that I didn't have class until 3 tomorrow, so I felt obligated to go and do something. Benny was hangin' with the Music kids, so I ended up back at Buffalo Bar to see what there was to see. The first band put me in a funk. Why do some bands base their entire repertoires on minor key faux-epics that are undoubtably about politics, even if you can't hear the words. Ugh. I didn't get this group's name and didn't really care. Technically proficient but just...too much 'cool' and not enough fun.

Das Wanderlust, on the other hand were cool-fun-awesome-precocious-awesome times 10. By the end of their set, which managed to make 3 people sound like an army of cute robots with toy pianos and fuzz pedals, I was sold 100%.

I'll stop gushing, but really. Check this band out.

myspace.com/daswanderlust

If you got to the bottom...wow. Good job! Thanks!

Short Pointless Monday Update

The economy is fucked. The government is still blowing people up. Dick Cheney refuses to disappear.

And today's best CNN.com video headline: Obama Bumps his Head.

In a perfect world, I'd just start reading New York Times, but CNN is too alluring. They're widely viewed and somewhat acceptable in their coverage...and then entire months go by where the top story is Anna Nicole Smith dying.

There's a film society fancy dress (read: costume) party on valentines day with the theme "famous couples." Since I don't really know anyone in this town (and I don't think Declan's up for it) I've been trying to think of something appropriate that I can do on my own. The best option so far is Eric Cartman and Jennifer Lopez, but...I don't know. Could I go as both Gavin AND Stacey (British T.V. joke. Sorry, Americans. Just pretend I said 'Dharma AND Greg')? It'll be very positive, either way. I'm hoping I'll find some common ground in the Film Society crowd. The JOMEC PhD Film Club is pretty cool (shout outz) so my intution is that the odds are pretty good. Either way, I've still got the city, the GORGEOUS countryside, my shitty little travel guitar and movies like Role Models to go and see.

Role Models is really funny, if you were wondering. That McLovin guy rules. And most of The State is in it.

Chris Arendt & Moazzam Begg

Here are a few videos I found of two of the guys from the panel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdX1h7CkzE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UolZz_iq3Ms&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RTiqr0jaM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41m5_lmWUMU

Clarification

I might've made it sound like I was a Sprinsteen hater back there. Not so. Jann's just obsessed. I realized as I published that that I had, in fact, passed out last night (this morning?) blasting Born to Run on my headphones. It strangely suited the mood.

Why I no longer subscribe to Rolling Stone

If Rolling Stone were a word, i think it'd be SPRINGSTEENdemocratdeppsnarkSPRINGSTEENsnarksteveperry-
-fogeyismrevisionismbutfuckgeorgelucasism
-SPRINGTEENblablahblahsnoreTHEJANNWANNERINTERVIEW.

My God, where does all this anger come from...

Going to watch The Battle of Algiers at Bute now. I've heard great things, so it won't disappoint, hopefully. I wonder if every event I go to NEXT week will also have to do with the shameless exploitation and imprisonment of Muslims as well. I'd go into detail at this point about the AMAZING panel discussion I went to last night, but that's a half-written entry just waiting to be finished.

Cheers!...er...later.

Guantanamo Bay Comes to Cardiff

[Note: I might be going over this and making some revisions and / or updates in the coming weeks, but I felt it was important to get a draft out while it was still fairly fresh in my mind.]

It was fittingly ironic that the first thing I read when I returned from the Great Hall was an e-mail from the U.S. Marine Corps. offering me a paid summer internship. Clearly in recognition of the new, more left-leaning Bossman, the text was peppered with references to the "failure of corporate America to police itself" and the faltering economy. My eyes were drawn, as they were, of course, meant to be, to a capitalized segment near the end, PROMISING that I would not be obliged to actively serve, that this wasn't the ROTC.

Had the good Sgt. known where I had come from only moments before...well, he probably still would have sent the damn thing. It's his job, isn't it? Well done, Sarge.

This kind of entry isn't what I typically do, but I'd honestly feel like a fraud and liar if I didn't make some sort of mention of what I attended in the Great Hall at the Cardiff University Students' Union. Along with a few thousand fellow students and citizens, I had the IMMENSE privilege to hear the stories of three men who spent from 1 to 6 years at the Guantanamo detention center. Furthermore, while two were prisoners, one was a 23 year old from Chicago who had joined the National Guard when he was 17 in order to get a college education.

Needless to say, that isn't exactly what ended up happening. Now the irony of that e-mail kicks in.

The first speaker was a British citizen named Moazzam Begg, who was taken from his residence in Pakistan in the middle of the night by U.S. and Pakistani forces. After a period of time, he ended up at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Second speaker, whose name I don't recall, was held in Gitmo for 6 years. Both men were tortured, berated and held without formal charges. They were also innocent.

Rather than transposing from memory the detailed content from the panel, which would hardly do it justice, I think it's more apt for me to relate my personal feelings. I was, first and foremost, horrified. Here were three men who suffered through the trials and misfortunes of the alleged "War on Terror" that we read about statistically every day, yet rarely, as citizens, are made to face on any sort of visceral, personal level. In my circles, which are, admittedly, fairly progressive, opposition to the CONCEPT of Guantanamo Bay and other similar facilities - aptly described by Chris Arendt, the American Guardsmen as Concentration Camps - is routine but, ultimately, alien. At Connecticut College, or Kimball Union Academy, or Brooks School, or, to an extent, in Windsor, Vermont, these constructs, as atrocious and terrifying as they may be, remain merely concepts pieced together from bits of secondary information. God willing, neither myself or my loved ones will EVER have to face the realities from which these shadowy ideas are constructed. In hearing firsthand the very real atrocities that are being committed against everyday people BY everyday people, I, as a human being, American citizen and critic, am forced to wonder: "Why not me?"

Chris' situation hit as hard as those of Begg and his fellow detainee. Chris described how, upon hearing that his company was being sent to Guantanamo (he was trained to fire cannons, by the way), he did everything he could to get out of it to no avail. Against his will, he was sent to guard a camp full of abused, innocent people. "It turns out," Chris told us, "that it's easy to run a concentration camp. You just follow orders. You go to work. You do your job." After his tour ended (though he was only at Gitmo for a year) he was terminally angry and is currently homeless. He's one of the lucky ones too, when i think about it. I remember reading not too long ago a New Yorker feature about an ex-Marine who, though zealous and proud of his service, was dirven to suicide after several tours in Iraq. Even this week, I'm reading about how more and more soliders are blowing themselves away every month, just following orders and doing their jobs.

It was not, for the most part, an uplifting night, but there was an air of hope in the presentation. Here were three men who chose to come together to oppose something that they knew was wrong, despite their differences. Begg, like many other former detainees, regularly speaks out against inhumanity, and has founded and organization called Cageprisoners to further this cause. Chris, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, came over from Illinois and ended up befriending some of the same men who he had guarded at the camp. Despite the anger that I was feeling at the time, the importance of their common cause was far from lost on me.

I like to think that I learned something from these three men. Atrocity transcends politics. As happy as I may be that many of the people who authorized these forms of torture have been democratically ousted from power in America I am no longer happy to rest on my laurels and take faith that their successors will be able to put an and to it all. Now that the panel's just a memory, I still feel traces of the energy in the overfilled lecture hall. There were some truly dumbass questions posed by a couple of ignorant audience members (one woman sheepishly brought up the holocaust without really posing any sort of question, while another guy tried to deride Begg for making money from his books. He was kidnapped and tortured, for fucks sake! How can you give somebody shit when they've responded by devoting their lives to promoting human rights and going on lecture tours...oh man...), knowing that a few thousand of people in Cardiff, not to mention the thousands upon thousands all across the world, were being informed, getting pissed, and standing in opposition to the inhumanity and detestable actions that have spattered blood all over the first decade of this century left me with a greater sense of purpose. I, like all of the others, can do my own part.

Check out:

Enemy Combatant: The Terrifying True Story of a Briton in Guantanamo by Moazzam Begg
Road to Guantanamo, a film by Michael Winterbottom
The Battle of Algiers, a film by Gillo Pontecorvo