:: Music As Social Agitation Records::

:: Thursday, September 09, 2004 ::

just left state college, PA and josh and renda. it was really great to see josh and this was my first time meeting renda, his fiance. she was awesome and cheerful and sincere and her positivity made me smile often. they make a great couple. i guess dairy products are big here and it was a must that we stop at Myers Dairy Farms front store to get a milkshake. i sat that one out because during our five hour layover in harrisburg, PA there were cheap frozen treats at the station store and i got myself a Banana Jamma (like a banana pudding pop covered with a layer of chocolate) and a Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream treat... brenda had sent out an email to the kids in her grad department and we were set to play a show in her living room at 8pm. no one really cared if anyone showed up and we were hanging out eating burritos and listening to music. by 8:15 or so, 4 of their friends showed up. josh played a set of songs, though he was admittedly drunk and had only practiced for a bit earlier in the day. it was good to hear his music and his voice again. he writes such good songs. tim and josh did a couple MLB songs together, too. we were picking up free wireless from someone in the apartment building and i stayed up later uploading a lot of songs to myspace for some masa artists and watching the station agent and starsky and hutch and drinking more beers (sorry for drinking too many josh and brenda). i decided to go for a walk cause the weather was wet and autumnesque and once out the rains let loose and i got fucking soaked. fucking soaked. i actually had to strip the clothes off and wrench out all the water. i could have easily filled a pitcher with how saturated my clothes were. keeping with my tradition of leaving needed clothing and such behind, i symbolically (or for practicality sakes) disposed of the 2 dollar salvation army shoes i had purchased in NYC to demonstrate in.

the night before we were in binghamton, NY and played a house show at Phranks place. Phrank and Adam (who had set the show up) played an acoustic set of their songs (the band is called Nancy and i have been plastering their stickers everywhere since). it was good, acoustic punk and very assertive. also on the bill were two indie pop kids, Justin Clifford Rhody and Matty Pop Chart, they were from indiana and knew serene. i kind of have a bad taste in my mouth for that area and those circles right now because serene was so certain that some of those kids (via this message board so many people are on) would help me out with a show and no one every fucking even tried to point me in the right direction or help set a show up. justing seemed to know who i was when we introduced ourselves but kept quite about it. i dunno, in these DIY punk community environs, you have to really not like someone to not even try to help them come to your town/area, if you are of the sorts to set shows up and such, which tons of these people were. maybe some of it had to do with me not being able to help a few of them out when they came through bellingham, i dunno... i will have to talk to serene more about it... anyways, justin and matt both had cute tunes and voices, and pretty guitar playing. i realized that this toddler (or baritoned) voiced, mellow indie acoustic thing seems to be taking the nation by storm these days. so many kids doing it. so many thanksgivings and microphones and mirahs and blows. i think it is a good thing. what a mild punk revolution. huh... me and tim switched back and forth a bit but i don't think either of us was really comfortable. after a chunk of four of my songs tim decided people were probably bored with us and finished our set with one of his songs (abruptly at that, i think he might have played 3 songs to my 6). huh. we had to catch the greyhound that night and matt and justin, though stoned, were the soberest drivers to get us there. we also played with this band rookie from columbus, ohio and they were pretty good at the power pop punk bit. i could see them playing with axes of evil at the 3b nicely... the night ended with matt and justin begrudgingly accepting the rest of the roll of transparent duct tape i had left from NYC. damn, i wish i wouldn't have given it to them.

as far as our oneonta show. shit got fucked. we showed up at fine arts 212 (a classroom) around 6pm and wanted for vic/others to show up. no one did and by 7:30 (half hour past show time) we were exhausting our options of trying to get a hold of Vic. luckily we had wireless connection in the building so we could search on the computer for how to get a hold of him. we emailed him found a home number for him and called, found his AIM and buddied him (he was "away" for a long while). asked some of the musician students practicing about him they told us to search the school website for his campus number, so we did and called him and left messages. we decided to go to the student union building and there we got some food, watched good will hunting and used there computers there and kept trying to get a hold of him. we got kicked out at 11pm cause they closed and called a cab to take us to the all-night diner in town, and possibly to a motel. right before the cab came, we decided to go back to the fine arts building and try to hang out there all night (act like students practicing). it was unlocked and we set things up with our guitars to look like we were studying. btw, oneonta apparently has an excellent music industry program, though the university was the most elementary school looking college i had ever seen. i couldn't believe it was over 100 years old. once we got back to the building we set tims computer up and signed on to AIM, Vic was on and after about five minutes he replied to me and apologized and said he would come get us. we had been worried alot about where we were gonna be spending the night and it was nice to know that we would have a place now. the place was vics dorm room. we met his suite mates, got some pizza, drank some mountain dew and played Halo on their Game Cubes. seven of us were playing on two TVs. i got my assed kicked. vic was a nice kid, soft-spoken and well-mannered. i felt bad that only a few hours earlier i had been cursing him out and calling him Chumbley (the dude in menomenee who flaked on our show). i have yet to hear the cd of vics music that we got, but i am looking forward to it. its funny, and really cool, how many cds you get on tour of the artists you play with. good times....

vermont, upstate new york and pennsylvania are all beautiful with all their rolling hills and deciduous trees. too bad falls only last a few weeks out here. i am sure they are beautiful, none the less. the hills and rivers and trees get a little boring after awhile, or maybe the stuffy, drab greyhound is tainting our appreciation of the surroundings... i dont know...

okay. back to the RNC story, i guess. pier 57 is a place of big contention and a legal case now. the cops had announced only a week before (about the same time they were bragging they were gonna be able to handle 1000 arrests a day) that they had created a temporary detention center for protester arrests. well, actually, one article in the village voice, claimed the cops had plans to keep the pier open afterwards for such violent events as the US Open. huh. anyways, it was a huge old warehouse that had stored metro busses and seen them get fixed. as such the ground was black with oil and anti-freeze and other chemicals. apparently, when all the critical massers got arrested in friday, the ground was soaking wet as well. there is more legal issues with the floor, in that a lot of people were having respiratory problems and breaking out with rashes. (let me just disclaim here that i was frustrated a lot by how whiny and wimpy a lot of the people i was arrested with were). most of these folks were white and middle class, though some of the loudest were older and not white. people were bitching the whole time, rightfully so for the most part, but often it got old to hear so and so go on about the gross sandwiches again. mostly i thought it was disrespectful to those who live this prison-industrial complex on a daily basis, and to those who have been wrongfully or rightfully imprisoned for political and non-political causes. plus, we were getting special treatment, be it the extra food or water, or the extra patience the cops had with us). anyways, people were getting sick i guess form the unavoidable floor. they had created with tall, razor-topped chain link fencing a series of about ten fifty by fifty foot pens or so. there were benches inside that could hold about 15 people total. there was water available and a portapotty in each. there were enough people in each, though, that it was tough to find room for everybody to sit (on the grease-drenched floor), let alone for people to lay down. when we arrived, they checked in our clear garbage bag with all or belongings and we were sent to various pens. it took about an hour and a half to get through the line and eventually assigned a pen. i met 30-something Carmal McMahon from Ireland, who had lived in NYC for ten years and was going to NYU for english education work. non one really knew what to expect, there were rumors that we were to be arraigned and possibly released here. all throughout the two days, the cops responded to inquiries by playing confused, but being optimistic about how long it would take. this is a strategy they use to try and keep us calm and rulable throughout the process. they have a legal right to lie to us, though we cant lie to them. i spent the first four or five hours in my first pen with about 80 people or so who kept arriving and departing. every time, over the course of the two days, someone got their name called and advanced to the next detention, everyone would clap in solidarity. no one still, or would ever, really know what process and stage was next (despite however prepared, researched or experienced they were beforehand). once i was called out from the first pen, i was taken to a desk and me and my arresting officer and another cop went through my belongings and listed them. i got a receipt of all the cops had and was shipped to the next pen, even more crowded, though a bit larger and with mostly new people. things, at times, were unruly. protest chants occurred and every time a new busload of people arrived from later protests, the whole place would erupt in cheers. we spent till about 8am in this next pen. afterwards were moved to a very large pin and lined up in rows. this pen was larger than all the others put together, and some people had had the luxury of being kept in this one all night. word spread around that they were gonna bus us to corrections now. and they used a megaphone this time to call out the names. there never seemed to be any order to who and when one was chosen. beforehand, though, they tried to pass out sandwiches (bologna or cheese) to everyone, though a lot of people didn't get one. oh, and also, we were sex-seperated. boys in ones et of pens girls in the other. apparently they decided that all the boys were gonna be moved along first (perhaps becuase their was more of us, i dunno).... oh, i forgot, they also were taking polaroids. 3 were taking at the arrest site, three more once in line at the detention center. one of each was a picture of you and your arresting officer. one picture was attached to your bag of shit.... anyways, i was put on a jail bus with a whole new group of people and we were bussed to the corrections facility. the PD officers warned us that corrections is a whole new ball game and that the officers there were vicious and mean. about 10am we got off our bus and lined up alongside of it. we were being shouted at and such and the guards were definately meaner. the bus that came in behind us had chanted and cheered the whole way there and when the head of a five person team watching over us heard them come in, he told his boys to put on there riot gear, which they did. that dude was an asshole and looking to cause trouble. we were brought single file, handcuffed in a chain, upstairs to a floor with three holding cells. we were searched (for the 3-4th time) and loaded into first cell. i spent from 10am till 3am in two of these cells. people got stir crazy not everyone could lay down, or even sit down at once these cells were so crowded. there was a shitty toilet and a sink that barely worked. in the first cell we were made to wear our cuffs for about two hours and people increasingly complained about this. for the longest time the cops were not sympathetic, but finally they decided it wasnt cool to keep us cuffed when we were locked up. a lot of people had issues with their cuffs and i know several that were gonna go to a doctor to document it. again with the random name calling and we were moved to the third tank over. outside the tank, officers were busy with paper work, by late evening, all the officers had arrived back and were sitting around waiting to get the paper work for their arrestees... -matt

:: brs 2:25 AM [+] ::
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