Thanks to the helicopter lift, we arrived in Sao Paulo earlier than planned. This hotel is something else! It’s in one of the jardin (garden) neighborhoods, some of which resemble a more tightly packed version of Beverly Hills—the same mish-mash imitation of fake chalets or small palaces. Here, they are wrapped by high walls, which function like the high hedges in those LA neighborhoods. You can’t see more than the tops of the houses, the tops of Corinthian columns or fake Tudor roofs. The inhabitants must have this experience in reverse—the front windows of some of these mansions are barely a meter away from the wall. Passersby may be excluded, but those who live behind the walls are prisoners.
These neighborhoods are surrounded by the more typical Sao Paulo high-rise apartment and office buildings, which are hard for a foreigner to identify one from the other. The buildings stretch to the horizon, covering the low, rolling hills that lie underneath this city. The transition from garden districts to high-rise zones are sudden and abrupt, and from a plane (or helicopter) one can see the borders easily.
The hotel, Unique, lives up to it’s name. In the lobby is a rough painted statue of St. George slaying the dragon. St. George has been syncretized by Afro Brazilians, and to interpret the inclusion of this statue as strictly Catholic might be a mistake. St. George is also the patron saint of Sao Paulo. Anyway, like a lot of things here, it’s a mish-mash—the St. George himself is an old carving, the horse was created more recently, and the dragon was commissioned from a Japanese artist.
Here is the hotel:
It’s tucked into one of the garden districts, and you can see the high rises all around in the distance. The waitresses in the hotel restaurant wear some kind of Comme des Garcon bondage trousers—all in black of course. The first night I woke up in what seemed to me to be the middle of the night (I’d fallen asleep early), to the sound of a woman screaming. I immediately thought something terrible was happening outdoors on the street, and I began to get up. Then I realized it was coming from the next room. Her screams were high-pitched, shrieks really, and if she had a male partner he was keeping a low sonic profile. Was she having a great time? It was hard to tell. For such a fancy place, the walls must be paper-thin.
We went to dinner with Fernando Andrade and Luiz. Fernando directed Quebrando o Tabu (Breaking the Taboo), a doc about alternatives to the war on drugs. The Brazilian group Afro Reggae and I did a song that plays during the end credits. The film begins from the admission that the ‘war on drugs’ initiated by Nixon isn’t working, and never did work. In fact, it has caused suffering to increase, while failing to eliminate the drug trade—and has cost the U.S. and other countries plenty of cash as well. As Fernando pointed out, it’s one thing for people to accept that the war on drugs is a failure (most folks, even North Americans, do), but quite another to agree to abandon it. Most folks shudder at the thought of abandoning the failed war, saying, “if we stop there will be chaos, the disease will spread, so we have to continue, we can’t give up.” The film shows that there is in fact a third option—actually, more options in general—that some cities and nations are trying. There are alternatives to the war that aren’t 'giving up,' and the film interviews and examines the communities that have tried these approaches, with varying amounts of success. The ex-president of Brazil, Cardoso, appears prominently, and acts as a bit of a guide. He has taken this cause on since leaving public office. Good for him, but sad that so many politicians only find their spine and balls after leaving office. Those body parts get checked when you get elected, I guess.
Others make appearances—Bill Clinton, who admits he was wrong about needle exchange programs, and public officials in Zurich, Amsterdam and Vancouver. In many cases, it is the decision to view addicts as people needing help, rather than simply as criminals, that motivates a lot of changes. Needle exchanges, treatment, testing for STDs and providing methadone or other drugs are controversial, because the public sometimes views these programs as coddling addicts—at the public’s expense. The fact is these programs, and Hamsterdam programs like the one depicted in The Wire, not only contain the spread of addiction, AIDS and crime, they’re cheaper than throwing addicts in prison. In the U.S. prisons are big business, so it’s no surprise that imprisonment is widely accepted as the best option.
The film also brings up legalization. It’s been said that if marijuana were legalized and taxed in California, then that state wouldn’t be in the nasty financial state it’s in. The crime and killings in Mexico and elsewhere would be wound down, and the use might even be managed to some extent. This seems to frighten a lot of people—when I mentioned the film in Brazil people reacted by saying "it’s very controversial." Some of that controversy has been generated by the press, who have simplistically painted the film as a 'legalize drugs' polemic. It’s not—but it does propose that legalization might be one of a number of better options than what we’re doing now.
Recently, Hillary Clinton was interviewed on Mexican radio and was asked why the U.S. didn’t take legalization seriously as well as stemming the tide of guns flowing into Mexico from the U.S. Her response stunned the Mexicans; she said that the U.S. couldn’t consider legalization because “there is too much money in it.” Too big to fail, or something like that, eh? Of course, this drug (and the associated gun) industry already has a huge influence in U.S .communities, cities and government—so why not make it at least a little more transparent? Anyway, the Mexicans, their jaws now on the floor, didn’t quite know how to react. The U.S. press ignored her statement.
Fernando said that as a result of all the controversy his film got a fair amount of press in Brazil, and he was told that had he had ready a bunch of 35mm prints, a lot of theaters around the country would have booked the film. Unfortunately, he didn’t—his budget was tight and the price of prints is around $20K per print (for a 60 minute film). And then there’s the price of ads and marketing, which local theaters don’t completely cover. Digital prints are cheap to reproduce—the cost of a serious hard drive, but unfortunately there are few digital projection cinemas in Brazil, so that wasn’t really an option.
The song I did was an expansion of an unfinished song idea I had on file. I sent a few of these to Fernando to see what seemed appropriate to him—which wordless beginning had the right energy, or an uplifting or dark vibe. Whichever seemed right to send the audience out on. Fernando didn’t like any from this first batch I sent, so I sent more, and one clicked. It happened to use a Brazilian beat as a foundation, so it was appropriate in that way too. I then began to work on it more—expanding the song and adding to the arrangement. All of this was done at a room at my home. I wasn’t in a recording studio yet.
I began writing words. They weren’t directly related to the film—I wasn’t going to lay out a message, but they did touch on it obliquely. Oddly enough, when it was all done, the lyrics seemed to actually respond to the subject. I may have done it intentionally, but it almost seemed to happen just as much when the two were connected in sequence—that a continuity from one to the other seemed to be present.
At one point I suggested that I could either hire Brazilians and other drummers in NY to create the groove as it should be, or we could ask the group Afro Reggae—who are featured in the film as an example of a community based initiative that turned a favela away from drugs and crime. I couldn’t go to Brazil to oversee their recording, but basically they’d be covering the groove as it was sketched, and would have a song structure and my guide vocal to follow and overdub to. It would cost me—it would be more that half of my recording budget, but as a way of tying things together musically and culturally it seemed perfect, and worth the risk.
The night before we were scheduled to mix in a proper studio in NY, they uploaded their tracks from Brazil. I was a little nervous—it could have gone all wrong musically or technically, but other than the fact that they had a slightly earlier song arrangement to work on, it fit perfectly.
We heard the story of the movie release over dinner at a nice restaurant that billed itself as a mozzarella bar. Besides other dishes (pasta, pizza, etc), you would approach a long salad station at the rear manned by two attendants. There were about 8 different kinds of mozzarella available to choose from—soft, small, herbed, smoked, chewy, and then a series of leafy greens and other options that could be added to make a really tasty salad.
All the museums are closed on Monday, so we decided to bike (the hotel has loaners) to Liberdade (the Japantown here) and the old downtown. Sao Paulo, based on this first foray into biking, comes close to ranking as one of the worst biking cities in the world (a second foray would temper that impression a little).
We got a little lost, as we attempted to stay on side streets or streets that run parallel to the large Avenidas that criss-cross the sprawl. Eventually we made it to Liberdade, and ducked into a Japanese fast food joint that was pretty tasty. Downtown there were older buildings, plazas and even some pedestrian streets.
The streets are filled with people down here. The nearby Praça da Sé (Se Plaza) is at least half nice—the part with trees. The other part—similar to the concrete plazas all over the world, was devoid of people except for a couple of homeless sleepers. The buildings around here have some character, and it isn’t too hard to imagine it becoming a vibrant area at night, as well as at lunch hour.
I love the various lunch counter joints we passed everywhere. Inevitably, these use displays of colorful tropical fruits to entice you in—as a kind of edible décor. These, as opposed to the gated community look elsewhere in Sao Paulo, were wide open to every passerby. They were welcoming, and while the food in them might be diner food, they feel comfortable and friendly.
The next morning, we rode to the modern art museum that is in the middle of the park—they were installing a new show, so it was closed. The Afro Brazilian museum nearby was open, and is choc-a-block with stuff: shrines, banners, offerings, slave ships and shrine/costume combos (like this one below). Having done a documentary on Candomblé years ago, I was familiar with the iconography—I love it. And some of the artists, like Mestre Didi and Pierre Verger, were people I’d met back then.
The museum was, to my eyes, overcrowded. They’d shoved everything—wonderful stuff—into the two floors, and there wasn’t a lot of order to it. Glad to see it gets a showing though, and that it’s about a vibrant culture—not just a story of slavery.
In the afternoon we were escorted on a group bike ride to the venue. We rode along the fairly quiet streets of one of the garden districts. I could see that these neighborhoods could be good conduits for getting from one area to another. There were about 20 of us, which tended to inhibit aggressive cars, and a local department of transportation cop on a motorcycle, who occasionally stopped traffic when we crossed an intersection. We were privileged, and though it made for a lovely ride, it gave a completely artificial sense of how well one could get around in this town. Ronaldo’s (the Brazilian football star) house was pointed out—that’s how fancy and expensive some of these places must be. Someone told me that after a period of partying, the press was reporting how out of shape he was getting, so he was seen riding a bicycle in the neighborhood. I couldn’t find any pictures.
We did pass through a newly revitalized neighborhood that seemed to have some real street life—Vila Magdalena. Granted the street life there seemed to be mainly bars and restaurants, but it’s a start, for Sao Paulo anyway.
The presentation went fine, though we all talked a little longer than we should have. I vowed to do some editing of my own presentation before Buenos Aires. There is a small grass roots movement to re-think the transportation situation in Sao Paulo, but there’s so much inertia there it’s hard to imagine much will get done unless things get worse than they already are (I was stuck in traffic for 3 hours once when I was there to do a TV show with Caetano—the traffic can be unbelievably bad). A mayor who can cut through some of the corruption and bullshit might make some headway, and the support from the ground is there—but the grassroots folks can’t do it be themselves, not here.
Tom Zé was there and it was great to see him. He was in rehearsals for a NY show at Lincoln Center—getting a new guitar player up to speed, and seemed preoccupied that the new guy could get the feel of his material in time.
I have begun this Latin American tour. I’m doing a series of “Bikes, Cities and the Future of Getting Around” panels in various cities here with the help, coordination and sponsorship of a combination of the local book publishers (my Bicycle Diaries book is finally out in these countries), local bike organizations and the Instituto de Politicas para el Transporte y el Desarrollo, or ITDP as the acronym has it.
As with the similar panels that were done in North America, these usually have a city representative (dept. of transportation, the local mayor or similar) a local NGO advocacy rep, a theorist or historian and myself. We each give short presentations, under 15 minutes, and then do a Q&A with the audience. In North America most of the questions were addressed to the city person, which to me was a good sign that the audience was there for the issue and not to see me.
The first stop was atypical. A literary festival called Flip set in a small seaside town in Brazil, called Paraty. The festival began in 2003 by Liz Calder, a British book editor who worked at Bloomsbury and got them the first Harry Potter book. They fly a handful of foreign writers down every year and mix those in with Brazilian and other Latin American writers. I heard about it from Hanif Kureishi, who was here years ago and must have had a great time as he wrote and said he now loves Brazil.
Because it’s a literary event my panel was a bit of an anomaly. For a while they tried to get Caetano or Tom Ze to join me, but Caetano is wrapping up a Gal Costa record and Tom Ze had a concert somewhere in Brazil—so it was me and Eduardo Vasconcelos, a writer on transportation and equality in the developing world, who is based in Sao Paulo. He’s perfectly appropriate, and he passionately draws lines between the kinds of transportation in a town and the relative equality and representation of the citizens. Like some others, he maintains that when one mode of transport is privileged over the others (usually the car), then one class of people are being represented and catered to more than others (wealthier car owners in much of the world).
We landed in Sao Paulo and were met by Alexandre Agabiti Fernandez and his wife. Alex is a journalist and he was slated to be the moderator of my panel and that of Joe Sacco, the great graphic journalist from Portland. We drove east through rolling farmland—this would be a 4-hour drive, and then hillier grazing land that was pockmarked with waist high termite mounds. We stopped at a roadside food place, which from the outside looked like anything you’d see on a US or European highway, but inside there were some differences. The first thing you encountered was some glass cases filled with a selection of local cheeses. Near that was an arrangement of local breads and jams. I bought some local honey with propolis and a jar of pollen—nature’s antibiotics. You can even smear honey with propolis on wounds.
Eventually we passed into the range of low green mountains that border the Atlantic from Rio to the south. Most of this area is preserved now—the Atlantic tropical forest, a huge repository of biodiversity, used to stretch from Bahia in the north down to south of here—now there is only about 7% of it left.
We emerged on the other side in a town called Ubatuba, where everyone seemed to be riding bicycles—young, old and in-between. If this was a harbinger of Paraty, then this event would be redundant, or too obvious, but in a good way. Ubatuba is a holiday beach town as well, but as it’s easier to reach than Paraty, it’s not as charming- but the scenery is amazing.
Paraty was about another hour up the coast, and its center is a beautiful preserved colonial town that is now a host to many events like Flip. There is a film festival (even though the town doesn’t have a cinema) a jazz festival and a cachaça festival (a lot of micro distillery cachaças are produced around here). The town was founded in 1667, and when gold was discovered in 1696, it became the place where gold from the state of Minas was shipped out, and where the supplies to extract it went in. Slaves built a rudimentary road through the mountains, and it took days to get things in and out to Ouro Preto, the still beautiful town in Minas where the shipments were controlled. Paraty is on a bay inside a larger bay, and besides being a tranquil port, this meant that gun emplacements on nearby peninsulas and islands could protect the town and its gold from outsiders. Many of those islands are now owned by Brazilian billionaires who park their yachts and host parties on them.
Access to the town was only through this very controlled road over the mountains—and from the sea—so the town was fairly isolated. The road from Ubatuba didn’t get built until the ‘70s.
The streets were designed to be lower than high tide—so the water would fill these shallow gullies and folks could clear out the street waste. Ugh. One can only imagine.
Eventually, Rio, the capitol at that time, decided they wanted to be the gold exporters, and a rail line was built, also by slaves, to Minas. I suspect the lords of Paraty were siphoning off a little during their period of control, and now the capitol wanted to have their turn at it. The supplies still went in via Paraty, but this boom period was over for them. (thanks to Michael, our bike trip guide, for this history lesson)
Another boom followed though, this time with coffee. The slaves were put back to work and Paraty flourished again. But in 1888 slavery was abolished in Brazil, and the cheap workforce was no longer available, so the town went into another economic slump.
There was one final trade boom—cachaça. There were hundreds of distilleries around here that fermented and bottled up the sugar cane liquor. It can be produced incredibly quickly and isn’t often left to age very long, so production was continuous. But even that came to an end. Now there are only a handful of artisanal cachaça distilleries around here. The town was more or less abandoned, except for a few fishermen who could eek out a living. Its days as a trading center were over. The houses were abandoned and because of the isolation of the place it was preserved. It never got developed, and the colonial streets and churches fell into ruin but remained intact.
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s it was rediscovered by a new generation—the Brazilian counter culture and bohemians happened upon it and bought up the incredibly cheap and charming houses (there was still no land access), and here they could make art, write and frolic out of sight of the dictatorship that ruled Brazil at that time. There are still some of those folks left—some artist’s ateliers where their work is on display. Now it’s charming, but pretty touristy. The pousada where the guest writers and I stayed had photos on the wall of celebrity guests—Brazilian models and Mick Jagger among them.
I attended a couple of the literary events, sadly just those of the English language writers Joe Sacco and James Ellroy. I’m a huge fan of Sacco’s work, so it was a thrill to hear him explain a little how he works. I could have listened for a lot longer as he described his process—researching historical photos of Gaza refugee camps, interviewing various folks who remembered streets and parts of the camp from the past, and then reconstructing a scene for a flashback as only a graphic artist could do. His drawings are sometimes like cinematic crane shots—a bird’s eye view of a place or moment that captures way more than pages and pages of written description ever could. He puts himself in his journalistic narratives are well, and claimed Hunter Thompson (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail) as a big influence—as someone who called out the bullshit and political maneuvering as he saw it.
Later in the afternoon I saw James Ellroy, the popular noir writer (LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia) make his presentation. I saw him in the hotel the night before, holding court with some young Brits, and complaining that he’d ordered his spaghetti carbonara 1 ½ hours ago—ah, Brazil, it does take some getting used to sometimes. His presentation couldn’t have been more different than Sacco’s. Ellroy is obviously a seasoned performer and he made an appropriate entrance. He’s a big guy and he clomped downstage in his hiking boots and a Hawaiian shirt, spread his legs apart, and began declaiming the opening paragraphs of his recent book. His scansion, meter or phrasing—where he would break and pause in a sentence and what words got accented—was bizarre and completely unnatural. I was reminded of a description in an Oliver Sacks book of mentally damaged patients howling with laughter while watching a Ronald Reagan speech on TV. Like many politicians, he taught himself to artificially break his sentences into bite size chunks, and give dynamic emphasis to various words, which varies the dynamics to hold interest. Though, in Reagan’s case, the choices of where to pause and what to emphasize were almost random—hence the laughter, as the brain damaged could see right through his performance, whereas we tend to accept such speechifying as normal. Ellroy was a bit like that. Not really pompous in the normal sense, he’s down to earth and sometimes funny, honest and even self-deprecating, but it was definitely larger than life as we know it. He was refreshingly honest about his likes and dislikes—doesn’t like Chandler and when compared to Dostoyevsky by Joyce Carol Oates, he had to admit he’d never read the Russian classics.
In the evening there was a small festival in front of a church. A band that sounded a little like Mundo Livre played a kind of sloppy but infectious samba rock, and an 80-year-old woman was on stage with them the whole time, dancing and occasionally playing a tambourine. In the audience were giant puppets with people inside, constructed so that they would appear to be dancing to the music as they mingled with the rest of us. One smaller one—a frog type creature—had a little kids face sticking out of the belly.
Not sure if this was part of the Flip event, or if it was associated with Santa Rita, whose church, built for mulattos, is in Paraty. The Italian Santa Rita had a swarm of bees fly in and out of her mouth as a child. Miracla!
My presentation went fine—I got laughs at the appropriate parts, so I knew it was being understood. Eduardo made a good speech as well—a passionate plea for a re-think on the connection between transportation and equality, especially in this part of the world. My publisher, Amarilys, is an imprint named after a young woman who is the daughter of a publisher of technical and trade books—Manole. This is the first book they have done, but it seems they are off to a good start. Her dad came to Brazil from Romania, fleeing repression of the Jews there. He ended up in Brazil selling English language encyclopedias to wealthy Brazilians who would display them proudly on their shelves. He eventually moved into technical and medical books, a steady and guaranteed source of income for decades. Now however, the technical book market is threatened by eBooks and other developments, which may have prompted the decision to diversify into other sorts of books, like mine.
We were invited to go on a bike ride out of town—to a cachoeira (a cascade of water) and back. It would be about 3 hours. The town itself is impossible to ride in—those paving stones are set far enough apart that the water will wash out the garbage in between them but it’s insane for biking, or for heels. As we left, we were trailed by press—who ran after us until we outpaced them. Brazilian newspapers Globo and Folha de Sao Paulo are both very present at Flip, the latter being a sponsor. The route lead upwards, through the outskirts of town, where the remaining locals got pushed when the center got gentrified. There are no colonial houses here, but it’s still pretty beautiful in parts.
We got stuck behind a bullock pulling a cart that contained a baby calf, just born that morning. I saw a very dirty satellite dish in the jungle—so someone is managing to enjoy their telenovelas, even in this fairly remote place.
The waterfall was a little underwhelming as a spectacle, but there was a nice swimming hole and a few of the biking party jumped in. It wasn’t warm enough for me to try it. It’s winter here—though it never gets really cold, you do need a jacket at night.
Dinner at night, courtesy of Amarilys. I was seated next to Jorge Forbes—a psychiatrist, essayist and philosopher from Sao Paulo—and his wife.
We had a good talk and he drew diagrams on a napkin to help explain his concepts while I took notes. I haven’t read Lacan, but he figured in there somewhere. The food at the restaurant, Punto Divino, was amazing—lots of fresh seafood, as you might imagine. Jorge’s wife said they arrived by helicopter, and the view from one is wonderful and we should try it. Well, maybe someday. I had accepted the inevitability of the 4+ hour drive back to Sao Paulo tomorrow.
So, the next day, as we were preparing to go on a smaller scale bike ride, we got a call from Jorge saying we had been invited to hitch a ride on the helicopter back to SP—we jumped at the chance. It turns out our hosts for the ride were really a young man and his girlfriend. He owns a fleet of 200 planes in Brazil (Go is the name of his company). He was wearing a Ramones T-shirt and jeans. Jorge is psychiatrist for both of them. Here is a clip of the helicopter rounding an Atlantic forest hill to reveal a bay and islands on the other side.
Over the last couple of years I participated in bike events, usually titled “Bikes, Cities and the Future Of Getting Around,” all over North America. Usually these would be in some small (800 seats or so) theater and the format would always be the same: 4 folks on stage—a city person (sometimes a mayor), a local advocate for bikes or new transportation ideas, a historian or urbanist of some sort, and myself. We’d each talk and show slides for about 15 minutes each, and then take questions. The whole thing usually lasted about hour and a half. The events began as an alternative to a book tour. I refused to do readings from Bicycle Diaries, but signed books were available in the lobby, so the publisher was happy.
My presentation evolved to be a kind of background and introduction to the subject. I’d show early 20th century ideas about what our cities could be—utopian or dystopian visions, depending on your point of view—which, coincidentally, were not heavily influenced by car and oil companies. There is a way to accommodate the automobile into our lives, but I think that in the 20th century, the scales tipped rather heavily to accommodate the car at the expense of almost everything else. The question then becomes how can we make our cities more livable again, without denying the occasional value of the infernal combustion engine or other forms or private motorized travel. How do we tip the scales towards cities that are more people-centric, more enjoyable, more sustainable and easier on the eye?
My short bit then usually segued from background into positive examples of what various cities around the world are trying—which are succeeding, which are experimental. I do have an axe to grind, I can’t deny that, but I try not to make it a rabble-rousing talk, or to position myself as some sort of expert. My talk tips more towards informative stand up comedy, with a little bit of a take away. Generally though, it is the other speakers who deliver more of the concrete local information—what is actually planned for their town, what is being discussed and what are the next steps.
Overwhelmingly, the questions afterwards go to the city person. The audiences were all much more interested in what’s happening in their town than asking me about a Talking Heads reunion, for example. That is as it should be, and a relief—and a bit of a surprise sometimes to the city people, who, except for the mayors, might not be accustomed to talking to a live general audience (they might usually have more experience addressing press scrums and TV cameras).
Question from an audience member at the Boston event.
I did 16 cities in the US and Canada: Philadelphia, Providence, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland (are you kidding?), Vancouver (went for a bike ride with the mayor) Ottawa, Toronto, LA (a long shot, there), San Francisco, Austin and NYC. In New York, I also did an edited version as a way of introducing a panel of mayors, who were speaking on sustainability at the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas event. Some cities are fairly active, trying new ideas, while others are awash in rhetoric and mired in politics. Others—Atlanta and LA are obvious examples—are cities so thoroughly given over to the car, that only small pockets of what one might view as city life are ever going to be possible.
So, though I’m loath to view myself as an activist, I might accept the idea of being a catalyst, as the folks assembled at these things may have used me (in the nicest way) to get folks together to discuss their own situations—as it should be. And, I think I’ve done as much as I want to do of those events in North America.
Through the NY organization Transportation Alternatives and Janette Sadik Kahn, NYC’s DOT commissioner, I met Enrique Peñalosa, the ex (and possibly future) mayor of Bogota, who made sweeping, economical, successful and popular changes in that city’s transportation and urban infrastructure. It’s become a model that others look to. Helping Peñalosa, and sometimes Sadik-Kahn as well, was Oscar Diaz, who asked a while back if I would consider doing some of these events in Latin America. Oscar is the go-to guy down there when it comes to these issues, and he gets called to various countries as an advisor, so this would also help his agenda (or so I would imagine). I said I’d love to (it’ll be a whirlwind trip, but I love Latin America, so why not?), and mentioned the idea to Bernardo Baranda in Mexico, who is the Latin American Director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). He joined in the planning and organization of the tour as well, and now we have dates and venues coming up—just around the corner!
Will Oldham and I wrote songs for director and writer Paolo Sorrentino’s new film This Must Be The Place. Needless to say, that Talking Heads song is in the film as well, in various versions, one of which is a live performance by my band and me. The film stars Sean Penn as a version of present-day Robert Smith of The Cure—an aging rock star who still wears makeup and dresses all in black.
They had a screening in NY recently, but I didn’t want to see the film in rough form, as I figured they’d eventually want me to be present for some public screening when it was done. I offered that they could pick a later screening for me to attend. They picked Cannes—whoa.
I flew Thursday night, arriving the day of the screening. Took a nap, got up and showered, dressed all in white (they said it was OK) and headed towards a rendezvous with the rest of the film people. In the hotel elevator on my way to meet up, two guys entered that looked like private security, but something was off. Their outfits were impeccable, perfectly tailored to their trim physiques—a little odd for cops. Their patches, upon closer inspection, said Beverly Hills Police. I thought to myself “this is probably a precursor of the unreality to come.” I walked to the hotel down the road and in a room were the sound editor, the picture editor, the DP the American line producer, the many Italian, French and Irish producers, Paolo the director, some LA agents and of course some of the actors.
The sound editor advised me that he had been asked to make the live performance of the song “bigger,” and he hoped I wouldn’t be shocked by what they’d done. I’m glad he prepared me! When the song started during the screening, it was more or less as I remembered us playing and recording it in Detroit, but then, as the camera pulled back and you saw more of the “audience,” the sound got bigger and you could hear audience members shouting and some singing along. I bought into it. I believed the crowd was actually that excited and rambunctious, though I knew they were not. They did a good job with the mix to create that illusion, but I wondered how he did it, as none of the extras sang along during the filming.
The sound editor said he was working on another film in London and had about 35 actor/performers on hand in a recording studio, so he threw up a karaoke version of the song and asked them all to sing along. He’s from Sarajevo, and said he was a refugee during the war. His family was totally mixed—Serb, Croat, Muslim—and thus didn’t fit into the emerging post-war situation there, where each of these ethnic groups are now more or less assigned to their own region. What was beautiful about that place before it fell apart was that families like his weren’t uncommon—families in which all the ethnic groups were represented and were cool with one another. Now he’s pretty much permanently relocated to London.
The other songs, the ones Will and I wrote, were meant to be demos that a young character, a singer, hands to Sean’s character, who listens to the CD sporadically as the movie progresses. This conceit wasn’t all that apparent, or so it seemed to me, but the songs did get heard, in bits and pieces, providing a kind of emotional commentary along the way—which was what Paolo intended.
Anyway, back to the screening ritual. There were about 20 town cars lined up at a side door of the hotel, and we were assigned specific cars—Paolo in #1, Sean in #2, me in # 3… These cars drove the 10 blocks or so along the seaside promenade up to the festival building, where crowds, a red carpet and security awaited us. There were no quickie interviews on the red carpet as one sees at the Oscars. This red carpet was carefully managed by a couple of men in formal suits. As if we were being choreographed or conducted by these guys, they directed us using hand signals to face one bevy of photographers, and then, by making a turning motion with their hands, let it be known that we were now to turn to face the photographers on the other side of the runway. Then they used other gestures to herd us a few meters further down the runway, where the same dance would be repeated. Eventually this conducted procession was led up the stairs, and we were directed to stop at various levels and once again turn and face the photographers. Then we entered the theater where there was applause for Sean and Paolo, as a voice of God spoke their names and the title of the movie for all to hear.
Our names were on our seats, so no confusion there. In the row in front of us was Pedro Almodovar, who has a new film in the festival, and we all said hi.
After the film, the lights came up and the applause started—and didn’t stop. The audience stood, as did we all, and a man with a video camera appeared in front of me, shooting Paolo and Sean receiving the applause. It went on and on…is that common here? Does it mean they REALLY liked the movie? On and on it went. I look around, beginning to fidget. Oh, there’s Rosario Dawson in the row in front of Pedro—wow, she’s gorgeous—and oh, that’s Jane Fonda, and there’s some Hollywood exec whose face looks familiar. A publicist motioned for me to go congratulate Paolo, which I did and then I tried to invisibly step to the side so the attention can go back to him.
Eventually the applause died out, and we began the parade back to the waiting cars. Inside the theater women in matching brown outfits confine the audience to their seats while we filed out into aisle. They did this by standing along the sides of the aisle, all holding hands with one another—like some strange feminine cult. They said nothing, smiling, but only a little.
Outside the security was more robust—burly men in gray suits formed a phalanx between us and the photographers, who were no longer confined behind the barriers. As we slowly advanced (and the sound system segues from Saint-Saen’s mysterioso Aquarium movement from The Carnival of the Animals—we were the animals, I suspect—into the Talking Heads version of the title song), this human barrier advanced in front of us, physically pushing the photographers back. The photographers were used to this I guess, but inevitably one or two tried to squeeze in one more snap, and the pushing became a little more forceful. At one point I was distracted as one photographer was somewhat violently shoved back in with his own kind. He slipped to safety behind a barrier.
How did all this feel? Umm, slightly surreal to be sure. Not to be taken too seriously. Flattering, yes—the ovation, of course—but even that might be taken with a grain of salt. This is show business after all, and even the audience is a willing participant in the show. That might sound cynical—their enjoyment and appreciation of the film was largely genuine—wasn’t it? But the cars and the security and the red carpet—it’s all engineered to pump up the glamour and distance the “creators” from the “consumers.” The latter is something I’m a little uncomfortable with.
One works on these things (movies, songs, whatever) often alone, or with relatively small groups. The cast and crew that were present during the couple of scenes I was on set in Detroit was small, and there’s almost no glamour during that creative production phase. The contrast with what happens here is simply hard to imagine, though who would deny that it isn’t flattering? Seductive too, I’d imagine—it’s easy to see how this monster could get a grip on one’s sense of reality.
Onward. Into the cars again and down to a large tent set up down the beach. The entire beach was covered with these white tent things. You can’t see the sand in this town—there’s the promenade, the tents and then the water with its luxury yachts floating nearby. The tents are all party spaces, clubs and restaurants, aligned one after another. A security gal at the tent asked who I was, and looked for my name on her list. I told her my name, and one of the producers jumped in and told her I’m “OK.” Inside girls in VERY short skirts offered everyone champagne. The same group as before gathered in the tent, but we were supplemented by even more invitees. I chatted with a few folks—the head of the Venice Film Festival, whom I met just recently—and then headed to the back area where I was told we folks from the movie are to go. I chatted with Judd Hirsch and his agent. He plays a Nazi hunter in the movie. The women in skirts brought out raw oysters. I heard that Luca, the film’s DP, and some of the crew (production design, costume, etc) are shooting a low budget movie in Napoli, so they would go back to work the next day, just like me. He did an amazing job on this film.
Many American directors and DPs have a habit of covering a scene to death, shooting every angle and approach as a hedge, since they often don’t have a preconceived concept of how each scene will look. I’m generalizing of course, but I think the factory approach of much American filmmaking encourages this, as do the producers who can then have scenes re-cut if they don’t get a good test result. Luca and Paolo didn’t do that. They pretty much knew how each scenes shots would piece together, so, although there was certainly coverage, it wasn’t excessive. Their approach is generally cheaper too, and though I heard the budget bloomed a bit, I suspect it was still done fairly efficiently.
I made my way to the back room, behind the back room, where Sean and some others were sitting around a giant low table chatting. He was engaged in conversation with a tall woman with bleach blonde hair—a singer, I think. She said hi to me after a bit, but I didn’t catch her name. I sat next to some business guys, and we slurped more oysters. Someone ordered a cheeseburger and fries! Courtney Love waltzed in and plunked herself close to Sean, who was at the far end of this massive lounge table, but he didn’t seem to pay much attention. She spotted me and shouted something about “I wish it went for more money!” I didn’t know what she was talking about at first, but then realized she was referring to some of her late husband’s LPs that she donated to Creative Time, an NY arts organization, for a benefit auction—among them were some Talking Heads LPs, I was told. She moved to our end of the table and began to engage with an agent sitting on the other side of me, as well as some other folks—carrying on about 3 conversations at once, all at high speed. She mentioned to the agent that she was clean, except for sleeping pills sometimes and something else—cigarettes? Wine?
She doesn’t look as botoxed and surgically enhanced as I suspected, at least based on recent photos, but when she put her hand on my knee (we’ve never met before), I figured I’d better go. So, when she was fully engaged with the agent, I slipped off, saying I needed the toilet.
I walked back to my hotel along the Croisette (the promenade), which was packed with people. On the other side of the street were luxury shops and soon another screening would be letting out. Some people in the hotel lobby recognized me from the live video feed from the festival screening and shouted “bravo.” In my room I read a New Yorker article on my Kindle about the crazy expansion of the NSA post 9/11, which I think I blogged about at one point, and then I fell asleep. It was a little after midnight, and I wondered if the party would be getting more interesting now.
SINGER/SONGWRITER DAVID BYRNE AND INDEX MUSIC INC. RESOLVE LAWSUIT AGAINST CHARLIE CRIST, CHARLIE CRIST FOR UNITED STATES SENATE, THE STEVENS AND SCHRIEFER GROUP LTD., AND RED OCTOBER PRODUCTIONS, INC.
TAMPA, FL. – April 11, 2011 – Singer/songwriter David Byrne and Index Music Inc. have resolved their lawsuit against former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Charlie Crist for United States Senate, The Stevens and Schriefer Group, Ltd., and Red October Productions, Inc. The lawsuit arose from a web campaign video made by Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd. And Red October Productions, Inc., which Charlie Crist used in his primary campaign for United States Senate, that incorporated portions of the song Road to Nowhere, a song written by Mr. Byrne and recorded by Mr. Byrne and his band Talking Heads. The lawsuit, filed on May 24, 2010 in the United States District Court in Tampa, alleged that this use of Road to Nowhere required licenses which were not obtained. The financial terms of the settlement are confidential.
Former Florida Governor Charlie Christ, Charlie Crist for United States Senate, The Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd., and Red October Productions, Inc. apologize that a portion of David Byrne’s song and the recording of Road to Nowhere was used without permission. Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Charlie Crist for United States Senate, The Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd., and Red October Productions, Inc. do not support or condone any actions taken by anyone involved in the 2010 election campaign for United States Senate that were inconsistent with artists’ rights of the various legal protections afforded to intellectual property.
The Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd. And Red October Productions, Inc.:
Michael P. Matthews
Foley & Lardner LLP
100 North Tampa Street, Suite 2700
Tampa, FL 33601-3391
Phone: (813) 225-4131
Here are statements in addition to the official press release:
Following the case settlement, Byrne issued this statement: “I was shocked to discover, while working out our settlement, that the use of songs for political ads is pretty rampant. It turns out I am one of the few artists who has the bucks and cojones to challenge such usage- I'm feeling very manly after my trip to Tampa! Other artists may actually have the anger but not want to take the time and risk the legal bills. I am lucky that I can do that. Anyway, my hope is that by standing up to this practice maybe it can be made to be a less common option, or better yet an option that is never taken in the future.”
Lawrence Iser, of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP, represented Byrne in the case. “This settlement again confirms that the U.S. Copyright and Trademark laws apply to politicians and their advertising agencies, just like everyone else,” said Iser. “If a politician wants to use a popular song to generate interest and excitement or popular appeal, he or she must obtain a license to use the song. There is no difference between selling cars or toothpaste and selling a political candidate, and the law doesn't provide a free pass to persons running for office. We are hopeful that given the recent examples of the cases filed by Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and now David Byrne, politicians will obtain all necessary licenses before doing this in the next election cycle.”
It was sort of a coincidence. I’d been reviewing the CDs I picked up on my trip to Japan a few months ago, and then I sat in with If By Yes as part of the Japan music festival here in NY last week. Then the earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear mess all hit—all of which made me want to get this Japanese playlist together faster than I normally would have. Thoughts of Japanese friends, culture and countryside welled up, and this music became a kind of soundtrack to my thoughts and feelings.
This music arrived largely through friends. Thanks to Yusuke, and all the folks at Vacant Gallery in Tokyo, who invited their musical friends round—who tipped me to a lot of new stuff I didn’t know about. Thanks Deerhoof for arranging that Ichi, from Nagoya, perform here at LPR. (One of the most pleasantly surprised NY audience reactions I’ve seen since Tune Yards opened for Dirty Projectors!) Thanks Diego Cortez for the Oorutaichi CD. Thanks Hideaki Matsuura for the tip about Soothe.
Can we help?
Traditionally, the Japanese have issues with charity. They see themselves as proudly self-reliant, and offers of aid after the Kobe earthquake were initially refused. However, times change, and maybe now there is an understanding that offers of help are as much a gesture of solidarity and mutual feeling as they are about money. The urge to reach out is as much about our own feelings as it is about Japanese needs. For folks outside Japan, it stems from an altruistic urge to show some connection and a human bond in a time of crisis. To say “you are not alone.”
Here are two ways to donate. Yuka Honda sent a link to a fund set up by Japan Society here in NY who are donating 100% of the donations that get sent (they’re even swallowing their administrative fees): http://www.japansociety.org/earthquake
Needless to say, this Japanese situation is causing a lot of countries to both examine the safety of their own reactors, and question the wisdom of nuclear power as an energy source. Germany shut their plant down in order to do full inspections. However, no matter what our local power companies or government representatives tell us, we know that our nuclear plants (though not actually manned by Homer Simpson) are probably not as tightly maintained as the those of the Japanese. Anyone who’s been to Japan can tell you that although there are a lot of communication quirks, things generally run well and incredibly smoothly. We look pretty backwards in comparison. So when they can’t get their nuclear plant under control, you know we definitely couldn’t under similar conditions.
As a recent NY Times article points out, more deaths occur yearly due to coal than to nuclear energy, including Chernobyl. That’s one way of measuring things—body counts. The other way of measuring cost was brought up in another article in that paper focusing on the cracked and leaking “sarcophagus” that encloses what’s left of Chernobyl, and how “the contaminated area is around the size of Switzerland,” and “will be affected for more than 300 years.” That doesn’t mean it will be clean in 300 years, but that it will be manageable. The 200 tons of melted nuclear stuff that has burned down into the earth inside the sarcophagus won’t be approachable for the foreseeable future. We don’t usually make things without a shelf life.
As that article says “the death of a nuclear reactor has a beginning… but it doesn’t have an end.” The comparison to the contaminated area being the size of Switzerland is sobering. Can you imagine suddenly Switzerland is gone? Contaminated? Off limits? Can you imagine lots of contaminated Switzerlands dotting the globe? Huge swaths of the oceans and lakes also off limits?
We know just enough to light these fires, but we don’t yet know how to put them out. Would you set something on fire in your house if you had no idea how to really, really put it out (you’re not allowed to toss it out the window in this analogy)? That mind-boggling scope of contamination and long timeframe is the difference between nuclear and coal. Though, realistically, coal is not the answer. It has been responsible for much of the climate change we are experiencing, and it is not a viable energy option going forward. Besides, it will run out. Quite a few environmentally aware folks have advocated re-approaching nuclear power, as it won’t cause the same kind of climate change that we know for certain coal is causing. I saw Bill Gates at TED last year make a presentation about small nuclear plants that re-use spent fuel. The idea of dealing with the fuel disposal issue seemed very smart, but now, after Japan, does any reactor seem like a safe, secure and viable way forward? There are just no guarantees with this stuff.
Some places are looking at alternatives, and some of them are working! Not just theories either. Portugal—little Portugal!—45% of its electricity will come from renewable sources this year (that’s up from 17% five years ago)! To get some perspective on that, Obama’s goal for the U.S. is to run on 20-25% renewable energy sources by 2025. Those renewable sources in Portugal are wind, hydropower, solar and ocean waves. Not all of those are right for everywhere in the U.S., I admit, but some of them are (the U.S. has geothermal as an option, as well).
This amazing change meant a big outlay for Portugal and her people—they pay plenty for electricity (though maybe that will level out after the initial capital outlays have been paid back). They were laughed at by Berlusconi, amongst others. Something tells me Berlusconi won’t be having the last laugh on much of anything these days. But Portugal’s case proves it CAN be done, and in a short time—five years! And they’re not exactly the richest country in Europe either.
The Swedish city of Kristainstad took a little longer—a decade, but they’ve made even more impressive progress. That city of 800,000 (the size of present day Detroit) uses NO fossil fuels to heat their homes, offices and businesses. No oil, no coal, no gas. 20 years ago all their heat came from fossil fuels (nuclear wasn’t an option, I guess). As it’s a farming region, they went for bio fuels, as opposed to wind or solar. Even many of the local cars run on fuel produced from bio fuels. All the city vehicles do.
This is a combined fuel and heating plant in that town. It was built with the help of a company, Fallon Consultants, in Victoria, British Columbia.
What do they use? Potato peelings, wood scraps, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig guts. Ugh—but it works. Truth be told, not every single amp and bit of fuel is produced this way in town (though all the heat is). But everything connected with the city itself uses this fuel, and the city is also trying to convince locals to convert their private cars to use this fuel as well. So, though they are not quite at zero carbon footprint, they are getting there.
Even the pretty conservative town of Salina, Kansas is converting to geothermal and other technologies and unplugging when they can. The government didn’t mandate those changes—they just want to save money.
Small African villages are using power sources that result in not being reliant on the national grid. The local sources are renewable and cheaper than the grid, too.
So, before we throw up our hands and say nuclear is our only option, maybe we should look at what these other places have already done. These are not just ideas and schemes that some pie-in-the-sky-green-advocate is pontificating about. This is what some practical-minded communities have already accomplished.
Maybe the Japanese tragedy will cause more folks to give these options a second glance.
On Sunday I rode with my daughter, Malu, and her boyfriend, Will, along the path that runs beside the Bay here. We passed a marina and a horserace track, and then ventured out to a peninsula that seemed to be composed entirely of concrete rubble. Trees and bushes and a fair amount of earth on top, so I questioned my idea that the rubble was all bits of the collapsed Cypress Freeway from the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989—though that’s exactly what it looked like. Could the trees and dirt grow and accumulate so quickly on top?
Near the end of the peninsula we saw a man on a bicycle dragging an empty shopping cart with a skinny rope. I mused that he might be going into town for supplies, but Will said how would he get a full cart back with a bike. Hmmm. We saw the cart abandoned a little later, as we pedaled around this area. Here and there we saw tents in the bushes, and others tucked in the shade of trees. There were no other folks about, but it was obvious this was a hobo village of sorts. One path to a tent read “private property.”
This has to be the most bucolic hobo village ever (The unseasonably warm weather helped give this impression.). If one didn’t know better one might mistake it for a recreational campsite. New York City used to have more homeless people on the streets than I saw in India—Calcutta on the Hudson—with at least one person per block, which makes 4, if you count all sides of the block. With the economic crash (crash for some, windfall for others—still unregulated!) you’d expect to see more homeless folks on the streets, but they’re not there. The relentless grooming of Manhattan in particular, begun under Giuliani, has cemented into policy. All seaminess gets taken away to present a pretty face.
We rode on, past an industrial building that seemed to have a kind of half finished crossword on it.
We rode around Alameda, an island slightly south of Oakland that used to house a massive Naval Air base. About a third of the island is still mostly abandoned air base buildings, acres and acres of them. The rest seems to be developer-built retirement homes and homes of former navy employees. We passed a few massive hanger-type buildings.
There was a bike path and promenade that went for miles along the beachfront. It was very nice, though the occasional inspired bit of topiary work was the only thing that saved the unremarkable houses on the other side of the street:
Rented a bike from Mike’s Bikes in Berkeley—an 8 speed city bike, perfectly adequate for getting around the East Bay. Went for a ride from my hotel in Berkeley down the bike “avenue” (Channing), to a jogging/biking trail that runs along the edge of the East Bay. It was gorgeous, warm day—admiring the California bungalows that increased in number as I got into the low-lying flatland area.
There was also the occasional Victorian house that still stands on this side of the Bay. It’s an easy area for biking, as it’s relatively flat throughout Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, and Piedmont.
I always loved the way these bungalows looked—the protecting and sheltering eaves (it rains here fairly often), the slightly Asian aspect, the cozy scale and the windows with chunky divided frames. This one looks like the “porch” was an addition, nicely done to match the rest of the house. Should I presume, based on the car in this driveway, that these houses, though modest in scale, are not cheap?
Wikipedia says they are indeed of Asian origin—a British adaptation of common houses in the Indian province of Bengal. They are not big enough to house servants; though I imagine the larger Victorian houses out here were. That would have been a significant change—that people without servants could now afford their own homes. Next stop, mortgage crisis!
Leslie Freudenheim, in her book Building With Nature, posits that the influential Arts and Crafts movement, which took root in California and spread from there, was begun by a Reverend Joseph Worcester—the minister of a Swedenborgian church across the bay in San Francisco. It seems appropriate that this Arts and Crafts style, though not exactly austere by today’s standards, might have emerged out of a religious—particularly a Northern European—ethos (What about those Bengal cottages, though?).
The Arts and Crafts movement actually began in England, spearheaded by James Ruskin and William Morris, and had Protestant overtones of moral and honest work—often produced by hand (being good in God’s eyes). Mass-produced machine made work was after all, well, evil. Though much of Morris’ wallpaper designs look frilly to us now, at the time (1880’s) the work was considered simple—almost austere. The craftsman and the artist were viewed as equals. It was hoped that hand-in-hand they would create surroundings that had integrity and would add to the richness of living. Interesting that the school my daughter goes to in Oakland used to be called California College of Arts and Crafts—a holdover from this ideal, I guess.
The creation of the Swendenborgian church in San Francisco was influenced by a group of big names at the time: the painter William Keith, naturalist John Muir (Muir Woods), architect A. Page Brown, draftsman Bernard Maybeck (who built a lot of the larger more impressive Arts and Crafts buildings) and most particularly by the Reverend Joseph Worcester, its first minister. The spirit of the church arose from an appreciation of the beauty of nature, and a will to express that beauty as divinity itself. I see a little of the later Frank Lloyd Wright prairie house style here, and some of the nature-based spirituality maybe carried over as well. I can sense that spiritual aim being realized in these little bungalows—no joke. Maybe that’s why I like them—not that I agree with all those Luddite aims of the movement, but I can sense that these houses are not just houses—they’re expressions of an idea.
Between August and October 1882, shortly after Oscar Wilde had spoken in San Francisco, Worcester presented a series of lectures in which he subtly attacked Wilde and the whole concept of art for art’s sake espoused by Wilde and his friend, the painter James McNeil Whistler.
Swedenborgian Church, San Francisco (photo: Jim Karageorge)
Joseph Worcester, was not only the clergyman responsible for building the Swedenborgian Church, an icon of the Arts & Crafts Movement (1892–95); he was also an amateur architect and the man most responsible for the design of: 1) what may well be the first American bungalow (it was constructed as his own home atop a hillside in Piedmont in 1878); 2) four unpainted, brown-shingle Arts & Crafts houses on Russian Hill erected between 1887 and 1889 (two are still standing); 3) at least one of painter William Keith’s three studios; and 4) the Stratton house in Berkeley, about which the Strattons wrote:
If our house was not planned in the fear of the Lord, it surely was planned in fear of the late Joseph Worcester [...]. Worcester’s quiet disapproval or clear acceptance of any feature proposed had in it for us something of a pope’s finality.
The Stratton house, 67 Canyon Road (The House Beautiful, May 1916)
According to Charles Keeler, a poet, ornithologist and advocate of the Arts & Crafts style for Berkeley homes, Worcester’s “...word was law in the select group of connoisseurs of which he was the center.”
Rev. Worcester’s Piedmont cottage (detail from a painting by William Keith)
And here's a nice quote from that Wikipedia article that highlights the moral and spiritual underpinnings of the movement:
A quotation from John Ruskin formed the Roycroft "creed":
"A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness".
Another Arab nation’s corrupt leadership is being toppled—first Tunisia, now Egypt, Yemen and Jordan are rising up as well. Though thousands have been beaten and arrested and probably tortured by those states’ security forces (the ruler of Yemen immediately offered a pay raise to the police—way to deal with your people’s problems!), what is heartening is that all-out civil war has not broken out in these countries. It has been peaceful, relatively speaking. The ouster of the Tunisian despot was done without the country descending into all-out civil war. Tell that to the folks who were beaten and tortured, I know, but compare it to El Salvador or Nicaragua, where the U.S. financed and supported wars to reinstall friendly dictators—instigating decades of massacres and armed conflict. So, though not exactly a Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia), or even People Power (Philippines), it’s not as bad as it could be—as far as bloodshed.
Wisely, the U.S. is at least refraining from continuing to back the bad guys in most of these uprisings—or so it seems (at least so far). The U.S. isn’t exactly supporting the protesters though; we espouse democracy, but let others make it happen. As some of the protesters said in an interview on Al Jazeera—they don’t need the U.S., they can do this themselves.
This from one of the demonstrators in Cairo—via Huffington Post:
The military made no attempt to disperse some 5,000 protesters gathered at Tahrir Square, a plaza in the heart of downtown that protesters have occupied since Friday afternoon. They have violated the curfew to call for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak's regime, which they blame for poverty, unemployment, widespread corruption and police brutality.
Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei appeared in the square around 7 p.m.
"You are the owners of this revolution. You are the future," he told the cheering crowd. "Our essential demand is the departure of the regime and the beginning of a new Egypt in which each Egyptian lives in virtue, freedom and dignity."
This guy’s sign says, “Game over.”
What is mentioned in every story over the last couple of weeks, is that the U.S. has been supporting and propping up these criminal dictators for decades (most of them have been in power for at least 30 years). The rationale for support is that these dictators are our allies in the battle against Islamic fundamentalism. The Egyptian president encourages fear regarding the Islamic Brotherhood and insures backing from the US as a result. The Islamic Brotherhood is not a terrorist organization, but given its name it is easily portrayed as one in the West.
In decades past, we backed monsters because they professed to be anti-Communist. Now the slightest lip service that they are anti-terrorist and they get weapons and excuses from Hillary Clinton (the latest in a very long line of excuse makers). This is truly counterproductive. Supporting repressive regimes is what gives rise not only to young advocates for reform, but also to the very organizations that are planting bombs and teaching hatred. Both the reformists and the radicals share a distrust for the U.S.—unfortunately a common bond. The people in those countries know that their rulers have been supported by the U.S.—they’re not ignorant, they know way more about it that most Americans.
Needless to say, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran aren’t in love with the U.S. either—the dominoes are falling. The whole region is changing political shape, and we should be encouraging reform, not funding its repression anymore. The principal oil states—Saudi Arabia, Russia and Nigeria—speak for themselves: corrupt oligarchies, monarchies or just plain corrupt. Even W knew we had to get off the oil tit ASAP. Instead of wasting billions making enemies, we should be investing those billions in our children’s future (education) and funding alternative energy models. Whole towns in Sweden have reduced their carbon footprint to zero—it can be done, it’s not a utopian pipe dream.
The amounts being spent for no positive results in Afghanistan and Iraq are mind-boggling—to believe that there is no connection between a nation with a growing level of mostly financial-based unrest (that’s the U.S.), and the money spent on illegal wars without end, is to not see history being remade. These U.S.-led wars are financed by money borrowed from China (who holds much of the U.S. debt)—any wonder the Chinese are zooming ahead? I suspect the Chinese will begin some serious arm twisting soon, as they’ll want to be sure their debts can be paid back. And if they see a nation in financial disarray that can’t pay its bills, the Chinese may start dictating how we get our house in order—as any bank would do to a loan holder in danger or default.
Anyway—exciting, thrilling days. Who would have expected all this to grow from a single street vendor who refused to pay bribes?
