Archive for August, 2008
What is the message you are trying to spread, and the goal of your church?
We offer a “Fabulous Worship”that is designed to blow the shopping out of your body. Amen!
How did you hook up with Morgan Spurlock to make the movie, “What Would Jesus Buy?”
Morgan was our neighbor in the East Village and saw us preaching and singing in Community Gardens, praying in Starbucks, dancing in Thompkins Square Park. Then suddenly he walks up to us in a dark dive we frequent, there’s Mr. SuperSizeMe! – and he says, let’s Retail Interventions – in which we see where the things we buy come from.
What are the ‘false idols of the Christmas spirit’ and can you explain how people, swamped with advertising, believe that shopping will give them certain tangible experiences?
The idolatry comes at us from the false utopia, the promised land of American STUFF…
That’s a trick question. Jesus only dealt in the gift economy. He forgave and gave. He wasn’t one of these prosperity Christians who whip themselves into a lather trying persuade each other that “God wants me to be rich.” In fact, the only time Jesus is known to have shown anger and gotten a bit violent was driving the money changers out of the Temple.
When we BACK AWAY FROM THE PRODUCT the body of the American consumer responds almost immediately. Messages go down into our memory and we begin a reverse Alzheimers process that takes us to gestures of clarity, generosity and a burgeoning imagination.
Are you saying that shopping hurts our memory?
Absolutely, it is what we call “The Deadly Discount!”
Why are you banned from every Starbucks in California and have you adhered to that ban?
All social change comes from committing our bodies and souls to public space. Starbucks is public space because it has not redeemed its NOT FAIR TRADE corporate behavior. It invites us inside, but hurts everyone from the baristas it steals tips from all the way to the grandparents and children that must tend the coffee beyond our horizon of privilege. OH IT IS THE SHOPOCALYPSE! Never ever buy a gingerbread latte from that company, and give its billionaire boss another buck. Join our church in EXORCIZING THE CASH REGISTER. We ask the “Fabulous Unknown God That Doesn’t Sell Us Things” — blow the dead presidents in this computerized cash register the other way, away from the Devil Howard’s pocket.
We are encouraged everyday by the faithful. They contact us through social forums or Revbilly.com and talk ecstatically about new spending discipline that their families are adopting, new approaches to Christmas, to their cars and fossil fuel, to EVIL STUFF, Amen. Now the commercial press of course will say that all of us have lost our “consumer confidence,” as if we’ve slipped into the lake of neurtoic hellfire… Actually, many of us have been saved and this economy never made sense in the first place. Can I testify now? The Earth loves how the American consumer has reduced shopping six quarters in a row.
Shopping is Evil. We must stop our shopping. We pull away from the Demon Monoculture, which must be left to die in its own FETID LOGOS. Trading, giving, buying what we need – of course we have to live. And, where do we do this? Thrift stores, trades on the Net, and always buy local! The green markets are the fastest growing sector in the food economy. Oh – soon we’ll be DELIVERED FROM INIQUITY!
We don’t understand how it is completely predictable that we will respond in slow motion to this great crisis. Products have been sold with marketing campaigns that use the language and imagery of change for decades. We have not moved quickly and boldly enough to make real change since – well some say the Civil Rights Movement – but I would say since Stonewall, Harvey Milk and ACT UP. But that was more than 30 years ago. We have to defeat the hypnosis of consumer marketing. We have to wake each other up. No, we haven’t done it yet. We’re waiting for something. We’re on PAUSE. Maybe we think Al Gore and Barack Obama will change everything. They won’t. They are centrists. They will need a parallel radical movement, like the way the Kennedys needed to be forced into action by bus boycotts and the freedom fighters.
There is only one authentic preacher, and the message comes in the form of fires and droughts and tsunamis and epidemics and extinction spikes. We must listen and the only way to listen is to transcend the advertising, listen and see out beyond the narrow product world. The Earth is showing us the way. STOP SHOPPING AND START LIVING!
Don’t forget!!!! Chalk It Up is this weekend! The musical line-up looks great featuring the likes of Ricky Berger and Baby Grand, there will be beer, and of course lots of fabulous art, all for a great cause. If you don’t have the do re mi for a full 5’x5′ sponsored square, smaller personal squares can be purchased inside the park for $10. Please, come out and support this great event and give to children’s art charities.
This year’s race for the arts was a tremendous success and a really good time!
The Sacramento Banjo Band charmed race goers with their toe tappin’ medlies.
Fleet Feet Racing was out in force.
There was this bug guy.
And many triumphant trips over the finish line.
John Yamagata, Ernie Takahashi,and Arnold Utterbach came in so quickly it was like they never left.
Jeri Clinger of Galena Street East Productions came over and introduced herself.
Meanwhile our fearless publisher manned the Midtown Monthly table…
There is some crazy shit going on musically in town this week, and no, I’m not talking about Jessica Simpson at the fair tonight. At Club Pow in the Press Club, there are some guest djs in addition to the superb local Mike C. (he played “lookin’ for love in all the wrong places” last time I saw him), members of !!! are dj’ing and the new band Touchez is playing. And then tomorrow at Harlow’s !!! and Touchez are playing. Buy your tickets today because they tack on five bucks at the door.
By William Burg
Before the days of air conditioning, Sacramentans used any available means to beat the heat. Homes were designed with broad porches and plenty of windows for ventilation, but the easiest way to keep cool was to find the nearest body of water and jump in. In order to provide a more genteel environment for swimming than leaping into the river, Judge Charles E. McLaughlin formed the Sacramento Riverside Bath and Park Company and built a large enclosed bathing house on Riverside Road, about three miles south of the old city limits at the Y Street Levee (now Broadway). Read more »
I always have you, my loyal readers, in mind, so on a recent trip to Nashville, I selflessly endeavored to eat the maximum amount of barbecue and Southern food that was humanly possible within a three day period. I ate pulled pork until I pulled a jaw muscle, I ate grits until I gritted my teeth in exhaustion, and I ate fried green tomatoes until I turned green in the face. Read more »
Picture this: it’s the second Saturday of the month and you’re in Midtown. The streets are alive with people eating, shopping, drinking and visiting galleries. A quick ten-block stroll might take you 30 minutes or more to complete because of the sheer mass of bodies on the street and suddenly you wonder to yourself, ‘can this really be Sacramento?’ Read more »
The farmer’s market is a real inspiration this time of year, and with the influx of peppers of all kinds (including the lightly bitter gypsy peppers that Rick Mahan loves to put on the menu at the Waterboy), it’s the perfect time to make peperonata. Peperonata is a versatile pepper dish that can be served with pasta are as an antipasto with bread and other good stuff. First, chop up a buttload of peppers. Next, chop an onion, and saute it briefly in a 1/4 cup of olive oil with red pepper flakes and 3 anchovies. Add the peppers and cook covered on medium-low heat for about 40 minutes. Take off the heat and add some balsamic and salt and pepper to taste. Best eaten at room temperature and can keep for a while.
I made this, pasta, grilled summer squash, and some Morant’s sausage for a late summer lunch. I drank it with a Muscadet (it went OK, not great, I could have picked a better wine with this, but I felt like drinkin’ it).