Podcast Party: Talkin' Art & Tragedy with the New England Unsettler

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking with Elias Kozniak on New England Unsettler radio show, a self-described audio journal of minor sabotage.

The two of us chatted at length about the commodification of the Boston Marathon bombing; the role of art in reaction to tragedy; and the terrifying normalization of militarized policing. So ya, know, all fun topics!. (No really, it's a blast, I swear!)

Semi-related, Elias is also a dopeass songwriter and I'm kind of obsessed with the awesome sigil magic he invokes on the show's logo, but that's a topic for another time.

You can listen to the podcast below, or subscribe to the Unsettler on iTunes for weekly Communiques about fringe theory, deep ecology, radical politics, the unusual, and the underground.

Communique 006: Marky Mark & the Dunkies Bunch

Elias goes deep with writer, storyteller, and musician Thom Dunn on Hollywood commercialization of tragedy and the militarization of local police forces in the years since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Is there room for reflection in the culture industry, or is it all toxic schlock? How can the stories we tell make the world a better place? Can Mark Wahlberg just fuck off already?

Talking points: Brother West on militarized policing, a different kind of reading, Sean Boo-urns, stories are about people–they’re people!, reading our Miranda July Rights, reflection in the mainstream, obscuring the lesson, whom does optimism benefit?, Darth Vader police chic, cooks with AR-15s, state vs capital: a lover’s spat, a very American Hustle, talking tragedy profiteers and merchandising, Thom and Elias are friendly dummies, what kind of lefty are you?, toxic schlock, Heavyweights with SWAT LARPing, we believe the children are our dystopian future, fun in a bleak way.

Happy 20th Birthday, Buffy! Here's a new birthday song:

Here's a little tune I wrote about that really unhealthy relationship you had with that vampire guy:

Don't Break A Window

"a protest song is defined as a song they don't play on the radio."

(hey guess what this one's about)

Whatever you do, just make sure that you don’t break a window
‘Cause when your outrage smashes the glass, it lets them know how the wind blows
Not the black kids who died for the march,
Or the women and trans folk who want control of their own parts
It’s the shattered shards of pane they look through,
that’s where the real problem starts.

You can take to the streets just as long as you don’t punch a nazi
Exercising rights is like the gays: it’s fine as long as no one has to see
a way of life that doesn’t fit
into the narrow view controlling it
reality’s a one-way road you can’t just quit

It won’t go away
when the man upstairs says that “everything is great”
change won’t wait
for an open space in your Outlook calendar
Lives mean more than people’s property

Do I have your attention now that I’m condoning violence?
Well it’s funny how that works, and you should know, ‘cause you’re the one who came up with it
Make a profit while you’re promising rights
Keeping order never works when they’re fighting to survive
Justice only comes when we rage against the dying light

Now don’t get me wrong, I still believe that non-violence should work
But when the rules of the game have changed, things are bound to get worse.
Now that our truths are free of fact
Well, how else are the people supposed to react?
You can’t expect them all to keep the peace when you broke your part of the pact

We’ve heard say
that justice and truth are the American way
Things don’t change
at a convenient time for your Outlook calendar
Time is right to do what we’re gonna do
okay well technically the time that was right is now way overdue
But it all has to start with those same self-evident truths.

---

The inauguration of Donald Trump felt like a nightmare. The Women's March across the country was amazing. Here's a much more hopeful look at that inspiring day:

It was Christmas eve, babe, in the drunk tank...

This is a few years old, but I thought I'd share again. Enjoy!

In other news, Bill O'Reilly is still an idiot.

It's frankly embarrassing that Bill O'Reilly could be so oblivious to the blatant subtext of his own words. But sadly, it's the same logic that's used to spook people about "illegal voters." It's not about people of color or women have voting power, they say; it's about people of color and women largely leaning toward the Left.

Respectfully, this is totally B.S.

I actually got an argument about this with a friend-of-a-friend, just a few months back. It started as a discussion about voter ID laws, which I explained had recently been used in places like North Carolina to suppress black votes. "You just want all the black people to vote because they vote Democrat!" the other guy said to me.

"No," I replied. "I want black people to be able to vote because they're US citizens with a right to vote."

(Of course, when the North Carolina GOP got caught in the act of voter suppression, even they argued that it wasn't about race, but about stopping people from voting for the Democratic Party.)

The lesson that the Bill O'Reilly's of the world should be taking away from this is: perhaps there's a reason why POCs and women tend to vote liberal. Maybe, just maybe, it's because conservative platforms are at best, unwelcoming to them, and at worst, actively oppress them? And maybe instead of dividing things up into race and party lines, maybe we need to be looking at what the best ways are to help people, in the ways that we both need and want to be helped, so that we can improve our society as a whole.

(This is not to say that the DNC is necessarily better at handling issues of race, gender, or privilege; but they do at least try to address them, which is more than I can say for the RNC.)

If you do actually want people to stop thinking "in terms of race," then you need to abolish the White Establishment. "True meritocracy," for those who desire it, is also impossible without first abolishing the white establishment. Because issues of race are rooted in the existence of "whiteness" as a concept, which creates tension with those who are deemed "other."

tl;dr — Bill O'Reilly continues to be a loud-mouthed, narrow-minded idiot who refuses to examine his own pre-conceived notions about the world. Surprise?