Blue Ruin

My friend Andrew keeps a very good Portland photo blog BlueRuinPDX, with lots of great perspectives on Portland architecture. However, what I really dig is his documentation of graffiti. I liked this recent one by a writer named 'End.' Well its either 'End of communique' or, signed by 'End.' Who knows? Anyway, End must be some form of Anarcho-Hipster who likes to comment on the state of Portland, gentrification and that sort of thing. The irony is and I'm sure End is aware of it, is people like him or her, (possibly a young arty white male or female but maybe not... Reed graduate?-- I'm being terrible now...) pave the way for gentrification. First the young white hip kids move in and make the ghetto safe for the home-buying middle class whites (like Basquiat in Brooklyn?- yes I know he wasn't white).

But here's my favourite. If you've lived in Portland more than five years you might sympathize with this. I rode my bike and skateboard past this one many times, each time meaning to take a snap but never did. So thanks Andrew. Again, who is the hipster and who is the criminal? Either way, I'm enjoying this conversation with the End.

More of this in Foulweather #3. Andrew, care to contribute?

...if you're tired of politics...

Crass Art by Gee Vaucher


‘Are you for CND?’

It must be about 1982 or 1983 and I’m seven or eight years old. I’m in the playground of Oystermouth Primary School in Mumbles, the small fishing village on the outskirts of Swansea, Wales. I’ve just been approached by three of the more lively lads in my class, all of who have older brothers. I have older brothers also but mine don’t live with me and have not provided me with any ‘political instruction.’

‘What?’ I reply.

‘Are you…’ dramatic pause ‘…for CND?’

‘What you on about?’ I shrug my shoulders.

‘Just say yes or get punched.’

‘All right yes, I am.’

‘You are what?’ ‘I am for CND… but What’s CND?’

‘Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament. Right, Pete come with us.’

And with a welcoming arm placed around my shoulders, I’d been accepted, for that day at least. And now it was my turn.

‘Are you for CND?’ I asked a small unassuming boy.

‘Not sure.’ He replied.

Thump.

‘Now you are.’

Of course CND was a pacifist movement but eight year olds had to have the pacifism beaten into them.

Many years later, I understood that 1980s Britain was a pretty fascinating time and place. At the time, all I knew is that my teacher’s went on strike and I got to stay home, or that because of Maggie, we no longer had free milk at lunch time. I remember seeing striking miner’s fighting police up the valleys, on the telly. I remember worrying about my dad getting called up to fight in the Falklands. I remember seeing CND peace symbols and Circle As spray painted here and there but had no idea what they meant or who was doing it. I liked the Circle A because Rik from 'The Young Ones' used it a lot, although I wasn’t allowed to watch 'The Young Ones' that much, and that was my principle concern.

I moved to Bahrain at age nine and would not get a chance to figure it all out for nearly a decade but, piece by piece, I began to discover the music, culture and history of '80s Britain with my own political awakening. Through the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the forces of globalization were still relatively weak. Coca Cola and MacDonald’s had yet to invade Bahrain and neither had the youth and alternative cultures of the UK or US. Well, they did but in bits and pieces and incredibly diluted and out of context.

Of course, recently arrived expatriate kids would bring snippets of the culture they left behind and we’d lap it up. Then we’d search the bootleg tape shops for the bands they told us about. Soon, I had quite a collection of tapes including Dead Kennedy’s, The Stupids, DRI, Corrosion of Conformity, Suicidal Tendencies, The Clash, Agnostic Front, along with the heavy metal and rap that was a bit easier to find. I kept reading about the this thing ‘punk’ in some of the magazines I’d get my hands on and was curious as to what the hell it was, not knowing I was already pretty deep into it. Then things went shitty and all my friends got more into the metal thing. I dug the crossover stuff and Bay Area thrash bands but I had to draw the line when people started getting into Motley Crue, Poison and WASP. I wasn’t sure why but I knew it was wrong. Then I went down my own little indie rock path. With the introduction of CDs it was now easier to get a Pixies disc than it was a rip-off Minor Threat tape. Anyway, I’m not trying to write a punk rock 'High Fidelity' here…

Upon return to Wales, as an eighteen year old, I was be-friended by a group of people who unlike myself had been able to live through the entire era and dwell on its historical context and significance. The day, my parents dropped me off in Aberystwyth, we drove past a young man with dread locks down to his rear end, skin tight black jeans, combat boots and an oversized army jacket with a large Crass logo painted on the back. My dad turned to me and shook his head, ‘What is this country coming to?’ I was little intimidated also but my dad’s comment really irked me so I responded, ‘Well, there is every chance I’ll end up sitting next to him in an English literature lecture.’ And I did. But it was a little while before we became mates.

First I met my friend Craig. Craig had stopped me in the street because I was wearing a pair of vans that were barely hanging onto my feet. ‘You skate?’ I was not sure what the appropriate response was but affirmed ‘yes’ noticing his own pair of vans (not quote as worn as mine). But it wasn’t skateboarding camaraderie that attracted me to Craig (we were the only two enrolled in the University of Wales Aberystwyth as far as I knew) it was the political and musical education he soon provided. Craig was a vegetarian and I’d been contemplating it, so he invited me around to his place for a vegetarian curry. In his room, I saw posters for Anti-Fascist rallies and fox hunt sabotaging and numerous punk LPs and lapped it all up, like a little innocent thirsty kitten. To be fair, I was already pretty aware of this stuff but coming from a privileged middle class white expatriate existence, I needed someone like Craig to help me connect the dots. Craig gave me the liner notes of Crass' 'Christ The Album' to read, 'Last Of The Hippies' by Penny Rimbaud. Was I too middle class for this shit? I wondered to myself. By the time I’d finished I knew the answer was no and my political fate had been sealed (for the time).

...to be continued...

For now here is Penny Rimbaud being interviewed by Ian Svenonious on Soft Focus (VBS.TV). Whether you know who they are or not its pretty much essential viewing. Sometimes, the internet proves its worth.

Nabat

I just finished reading 'Five Years In The Warsaw Ghetto' by Bernard Goldstein. It is the most recent memoir in AK Press' Nabat series and certainly the most harrowing. Goldstein was a key player in the Jewish resistance to Nazi occupied Warsaw and recounts the conditions, narrow escapes and eventual armed uprising against the Nazis. His tone is modest and unassuming. You really have to sit back and digest what these people went through and consider how long it took the populous to finally accept that armed resistance was their only option and that cooperation only led them to the concentration camps and gas chambers.

Anyway, I've been collecting this series since they re-published Jack Black's 'You Can't Win' in 1999. In their own words,

Nabat Books is a series dedicated to reprinting forgotten memoirs by various misfits, outsiders, and rebels. The underlying concept is based on a few simple propositions:That to be a success under the current definition is highly toxic - wealth, fame and power are a poison cocktail; that this era of triumphal capitalism glorifies the most dreary human traits like greed and self-interest as good and natural; that the 'winners' version of reality and history is deeply lame and soul-rotting stuff. Given this it follows that the truly interesting and meaningful lives and real adventures are only to be had on the margins of what Kenneth Rexroth called 'the social lie'. It's with the dropouts, misfits, dissidents, renegades and revolutionaries, against the grain, between the cracks and amongst the enemies of the state that the good stuff can be found. Fortunately there is a mighty subterranean river of testimony from the disaffected, a large cache of hidden history, of public secrets overlooked by the drab conventional wisdom that Nabat books aims to tap into. A little something to set against the crushed hopes, mountains of corpses, and commodification of everything. Actually, we think, it's the best thing western civilization has going for itself.

I'd highly recommend the whole series with the exception of "Memoirs of Vidoq: Master of Crime" that does not really fit in with the theme or period of the others. Each one is a brilliant insight into the lives of historical misfits and rebels who lived on the fringes of twentieth century society but who were apart of its most defining historical events. Most recount their lives in a matter-of-fact style, unapologetic but at the same time, incredibly modest except Vidoq who comes across as a egotistical maniac, who sold out his kind to work for the law. Check them out. This IS history and a big inspiration for Foulweather.

Where's foulweather #2? At the printers!

Couldn't resist (another teaser)

OK, I couldn't resist. Here is the centerfold poster art for FW#2. You really will have to pick up a copy to appreciate this Apocalyptic surf vision by my long-time co-worker and Hessian artist pal extraordinaire Dennis Dread. I've wanted to ask Dennis for an art contribution for a long time and it finally came togther after I convinced him that I am genuine fan of his art and not just being polite ...and that I actually did used to listen to Sacred Reich... Check his blog to read his thoughts on how this piece came to fruition.

As long as it makes you happy

Terrible weather, no surf for weeks, everyone is running to the mountains to play in the snow, we run into the sewer like rats. Clackamas car park island hop... while pretending I'm pulling into a tube in the Maldives or somewhere. Photo by Egbert from Merde Skateboards.

So I went to a new acupuncturist the other day. We did the usual talk about lifestyle, diet, occupation, health history and so on. Now I neglected seeing any health care practitioners for a long time until I became a dad but since then I've been making more of an effort to take care of myself, particularly with preventative and alternative health care. But every time I see an acupuncturist, chiropractor or naturopath, the inevitable question arises

"So you still skateboard?"

"Ah, yeah."

And I get the same response, "Wow every time I see skateboarding, I just think to myself how incredibly harsh it must be on your body."

"hmmm mmmm."

"But as long as it makes you happy. Now, you said you have some aches and pains in your knees and back, right?"

...last minute (another teaser)...

Frank 'Patch' Cubillos contributed some last minute art to Foulweather #2: The Beach. FW#2 is now more of a little book than a 'zine weighing in at 76 pages...