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by kym september 8. '04 two hours later, as we left the theatre a little more sober and desensitized that we had been upon entering, the ticket man was at an arcade machine. his huge hands wrapped around a joystick and the red cape to his superman costume tied up around his neck, the emblem blaring his uniform shirt in a pile on the floor. it was so fucking incredible. i was like: man, i wish i had a goddamned superman suit i could wear under MY clothes when i had to do stupid things like go to work. it totally makes sense to secrete things away like that. im convinced it changes your outlook. i was packing a fake pistol (cap gun) whenever i put on an annie oakleyesqe outfit just because it made me feel like a secret badass and made my day better. likewise, for almost a month i was obsessed with having this arlo guthrie tape on my person at all times, either in my backpack or purse. that is a little harder to explain of course......
johnson 11/15/04
On Saturday night Lisa and I were trolling the streets of Shimokitazawa, an old, neighborhoody part of Tokyo known for its tiny bars & good music, when we caught glimpse of a small upstairs joint called Little Soul Cafe. We poked our heads in, and took up stools at the narrow counter and ordered a couple of beers... shocked at our find: a library of over 11,000 soul records. Not one cd. Nothing but vinyl, lovingly tended to and played by the 35-year-old owner/barman. Imagine a living room in which three walls are covered floor to ceiling with the emotions of soul musicians preserved on cardbord and twelve inch records, comfy seating for maybe 10-12, fine drinks poured by an expert hand. Here's an example of depth: I asked the curator if he might happen to have something by Bobbi Humphrey. In 30 seconds he pulled out 11 of her albums and asked, "What do you need to hear?" Man, oh man. One good turn deserves another and we happened to have some records on us, so we had ourselves a bit of a pillow fight, you dig. I lead him in with a track from Mark de Clive Lowe's new album Tide's Arising, and the ka-boofed him with Roy Ayers doing a cover of Lonnie Liston-Smith's Expansions. Feathers everywhere. Lisa hit him blindside with Bobby Womack's live version of California Dreaming. Thwack! But this guy rope-a-doped for a minute, then came at us with a series of body blows and sharp jabs to the head like it was a walk in the park. He KO'd us and then continued to beat us to a soft happy pulp for the next two or three hours.
Sweet Jesus, daddy got hisself a mistress.
2 days after the election '04 Did we find and stop voter fraud? Yes. Did we meet voter intimidation and intimidate them back with our cameras? Yes, they ran like children. Did lawyers respond on behalf of a community that cannot afford lawyers, scrapping toe-to-toe with a republican legal machine? Yes, one vote at a time, tenaciously. Did a community rise beyond its resources to rally for representation? Yes, the mood was fever-pitch in Broward. Did it make a difference? No. Despite the unprecedented solidarity and effort-- which I can't imagine will ever be matched again-- ignorance and finance triumphed. Did they try to steal votes? Yes. But DID they steal this election? In my observation, no. The reason they won was not because of ballot fraud, or because some brilliant conspirator rigged the touch-screen voting machines, or because Jeb Bush "delivered" a victory. They won because Americans voted for them. Let's stop pretending that we live in the America dreamed of by intellectuals in 1776. We don't. We live in the America settled by religious wackos and land barons who wanted to use an exploited labor force to monopolize the natural resources of an entire continent.
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