In the week leading up to our CD release, Make An Animal Noise, Grubstake has had some fun!

This past Sunday, we played a live set and had an interview with Jake Rabid and John Viteese from Y-Rock.  I’m working on getting an MP3 of the show up soon.  Grubstake also played live on Sunjay’s Brekky Shift Monday afternoon radio show on WKDU.

I put the lay out for the CD to bed around 4am this morning.  It is a pure pleasure, working for myself and setting my own schedule.

Pat also alerted me to a write-up for our CD Release show this Saturday in Philadelphia:

Grubstake

Sat., Aug. 2, 10pm. Free. With Dr. Tommy Thunder. Fergie’s, 1214 Sansom St. 215.928.8118. www.fergies.com Named for an arcane mining term, Grubstake have been hammering out mud-caked guitar-drum blues for about a decade now. Patrick McHugh led the band in Boston for much of that time before returning to his old stomping grounds in Philly and nabbing drummer/engineer Steve Bozzone to make a fifth album, Make an Animal Noise. It’s another gritty, ground-down outing, with McHugh hollering about TV dinners and other mundane miseries on “Delaware” and trafficking heavily in spite on “Sophisticated Whore.” Most garage-rock duos putter out when they cease to mix things up musically, but McHugh’s been around long enough to know when to throw a wrench into the works. (Doug Wallen) – Philadelphia Weekly

Grubstake has been a great experience, it’s been a good time working with Pat McHugh, playing random shows in Pittsburgh, Boston, Providence, NYC and Philly on weekends and putting together a CD.  Come catch my last show with the grubbers this Saturday at Fergies!

After for working in Camden, NJ for the past year, I’ve had the experience of visiting an impoverished, third-world country right across the Delaware river.  It is hard to describe it’s condition, but two recent local media pieces have tried:

From a recent Philadelphia City Paper article:

Most of Camden looks like the deadly Badlands of North Philadelphia during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early ’90s — if not worse. While signs of rebirth sprout along the waterfront, whole swaths of North and South Camden are urban disasters reminiscent of Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Kingston. Countless open-air drug markets occupy rubble-ravaged corners like bargain circuses, the blaze-eyed dealers momentarily turning their heads toward the sky and scratching their goatees whenever a police cruiser drives past. Newly organized gangs furiously murder off independent drug dealers in a battle for limited turf. And then there are the more mundane, but equally deadly, street operas, like the one involving Jason Santos, which play out almost nightly. – Who Will Pray for Camden?

And from local filmmakers, Camden advocates, and friends Sean Dougherty and Father Michael Doyle:

Poet of Poverty

John Leslie writes:

This is close to Jena, and also is the close to the area where Marquee Haspeth was ‘shot 48 times’ by cops a few years ago (you can read about that here. )

CNN reports: Man dies after cop hits him with Taser 9 times

WINNFIELD, Louisiana (CNN) — A police officer shocked a handcuffed Baron “Scooter” Pikes nine times with a Taser after arresting him on a cocaine charge.

He stopped twitching after seven, according to a coroner’s report. Soon afterward, Pikes was dead.

Now the officer, since fired, could end up facing criminal charges in Pikes’ January death after medical examiners ruled it a homicide.

Speaking of Tasers being deadly:

A Statesville man died after being shocked multiple times by Tasers at the Iredell County jail over the weekend, sources say.

Anthony Davidson, 29, was unresponsive when he was taken to Iredell Memorial Hospital Saturday afternoon. He was put on life support and died late Sunday night, police said.

His death is the second Taser-related death this year in the Charlotte area. In March, 17-year-old Darryl Wayne Turner, died after Charlotte-Mecklenburg police used a Taser on him at a Food Lion store in Charlotte. – Suspect Dies After Taser Hits In Jail - Charlotte Observer

And to further wrap up our coverage of criminal acts by our men and women in blue, from the recent Philadelphia City Paper:

Daniel “Scotch” Williams was pacing around his living room, alternately distraught and despondent. Several of his friends were present, seated in a circle; they were not officially in vigil, but might as well have been. The following morning, the group was headed to a funeral. Just four days prior, their good friend Butter had been shot dead by police — shot at 85 times, hit about 20.

The other thing Scotch couldn’t understand was how the police could shoot at a man 85 times and call it justice. After the shooting, he’d gone to a community meeting where the police commissioner had, in essence, defended the cops. Eighty-five shots!  Read the entire story.

Further reading: Stunning Revelations: The untold story of Taser-related deaths – In These Times

No comments

After spending time in Portland and London, I’m convinced Critical Mass is unproductive and reduces respect for bicyclists on the streets.  HOWEVER, the type of state-sponsored violence depicted in this video, is completely unnecessary. It offers further proof the NYPD, and police agencies around the United States, are a modern day hit-squad.

As we bicyclists continue to violate the rules of the road, we contribute to the criminalization and elitism of bike culture.  As Alina Josan put it yesterday, “I’d give up reading red lights and stop signs tomorrow, for respect.”  Philadelphia, while touted as a bike-friendly city, is still a stressful place to ride a bike.  The same can be said for New York City.  Once we double and triple the number of riders in the streets and on mass transit, we can start to enjoy more livable cities.

Guess I’ll be stopping at reds, a hard habit to break!

Lawrence Lessig defends Barack Obama’s vote to support WARANTLESS WIRETAPPING and RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR CORPORATIONS WHO FAIL TO DEFEND THE PRIVACY OF U.S. CITIZENS:

1. Obama is no (in the 1970s sense) “liberal”
2. Obama has not shifted in his opposition to immunity for telcos:
3. Obama’s shift was in his promise, as relayed by a member of his staff, to filibuster any bill with telco immunity
4. Unless, of course, it was good politics
5. But assume you reject #4 completely. Then one more thought: Isn’t it time for Obama to resign from the Senate?
6. Finally, and 2bc: please, fellow liberals, or leftists, or progressives, get off your high horse(s).

I edited for simplicity, read his entire reaction, “The Immunity Hysteria“.

Meanwhile, two critically important organizations, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have taken action:

The ACLU is suing on behalf of journalist and human rights groups, asking the court put a halt to Congress’s legalization of Bush’s formerly secret warrantless wiretapping program. The ACLU contends (.pdf) the expanded spying power violates the Constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

In passing the FISA Amendments Act, Congress gave the executive branch the power to order Google, AT&T and Yahoo to forward to the government all e-mails, phone calls and text messages where one party to the conversation is thought to be overseas.

“We are also preparing a new case against the government for its warrantless wiretapping, past, present and future,” said EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston, who said the details were being withheld to keep the element of surprise.

“But suffice to say it will be quite different from the other cases against the government that have been filed so far,” Bankston said. “Like with our case against AT&T, however, the ultimate goal will be the same: to halt the mass interception of Americans’ communications and to dismantle the dragnet spying network that was first exposed by our witness, AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein.”

You don’t have to be a liberal to believe this far-reaching power to spy on Americans without judicial oversight is a complete disaster.   But let’s be honest with ourselves: this type of work has been going on for a long time.  It was a secret program which journalists uncovered, and now we’ve missed our opportunity to actually disable illegal wiretapping programs and enable accountability for politicians who violate our trust.  And by the way, Barack Obama voted in support of this, along with both of Pennsylvania’s Senators.

I have remained optimistic about Obama as president, but I have not supported him or any major party candidate this far.  Lessig jabs a bit at folks who are “fair weather” liberals, who surge when Obama does something cool, otherwise bashing him for not being liberal enough.  I voted Democrat in 2006, with the expectation that we would see a swift end to funding of the occupation of Iraq, and impeachment proceedings would move forward against George Bush and Dick Cheney.  What we received was a session of complete mediocrity, which has done it’s part to continue the current administration’s abuse of powers.

This election, third-party candidates Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader remain alluring.  Obama is a far better candidate than his major-party contender John McCain, especially considering what he might be able to do for this country.  What I have learned however, is we must consider a peaceful revolution the United States, in order to properly heal our wounds and move our world forward.  Until we put people before profits, a position Democrats and Republicans have not supported, our cities and farms will remain oppressed by the people who profit from our silence and imprisonment.

From Collateral News, Dennis Kucinich’s 35 articles of impeachment: