Tzarist Russia in the Lunchbox, or why poetry has always been a cucumber for those without beer.

In the process of cleaning my office (an agonizing and seemingly endless process) I came across some "socialist mad libs" that we did at a "radical academics & activists' conference" while we were staffing the "radical bookstore cooperative" table. We randomly chose books from the selection available there, and wrote out mad libs by eliminating key words, etc.

I would like to present a few of these choice classics, as I sit here in a conference call (also agonizing and seemingly endless) with the people I'm going to Iran with.*

I should mention that we were very drunk.

Tzarist Russia in the Lunchbox

by Ralph Trotsky

How did the tzar's cheesecake, supported according to its own mechanical pencil by grass, survive for a year and a half after the nutcracker? A sweet success of the Russian pantry undoubtedly coagulated its lampshade. The success at the front soon slammed, but the toenail at the rear cracked. However, the chief brick wall of the successful opening of the monarchy was to be found in the tawny potato, in the sexy discontent.



Actually, we weren't that drunk for that one. The handwriting on the next one (not to mention the words chosen) is much more bizarre.

Bride of Conscience

(formerly a Statement of Conscience by people in opposition to the Iraq war)

Poetry has always been a cucumber for those without beer, a nosering and a song lifted up in the service of booger, in praise of girls, in lament for crackers passed on, in whine for the zipper. Those values—staple of buttplug, puppy for the twinkie—are antithetical to the policies this horse is pooping in Wisconsin. The human boobies of a smelly dyke will be unspeakable.**

*(Did you know that we should try to be culturally sensitive, and "act with discretion and tact"? No, really? These kinds of admonitions are so pointless because, if people knew they were being jerks in this type of intercultural context, they mostly wouldn't be).

**Formerly, "The human costs of a pre-emptive war will be unspeakable."

a little hilarity from the front lines...

...of revolutionary struggle. Or if not the front lines, maybe the sidelines, or maybe the line for pretzels & soda.

Story #1

Apparently a group of comrades went to Cuba sometime recently. Among them were Brad, who doesn't speak Spanish, and Laurel, who does.

So Brad shows up somewhere with two Cuban women and asks Laurel to translate for him so he can chat with them. They talk for a while and then the women invite Brad back to their place to stay with them. Stoked at this opportunity to really bond with the revolutionary camaradas, Brad rushes up to his hotel room to get a few things.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Brad asks Laurel. Laurel laughs. "No, Brad, I'm sure." At his blank look, she explains, "Brad, they're prostitutes." "WHAT?????" Brad is shocked and so mortified that he makes Laurel go back downstairs and send them away.

[Interjection into the story from Isaac: "How did you know they were prostitutes?" Laurel: "You've never been propositioned by a prostitute, have you?"]

So apparently the really funny part was when they were reporting back to their branch, when Brad reported earnestly that "you can really see the benefits of state-sponsored health care, because Cuban prostitutes are very healthy, not like the prostitutes here in Detroit." You can just imagine the teasing he got for that, and apparently nobody has ever let Brad forget his report on the healthy Cuban prostitutes.

Story #2:

As part of our attempt to improve the democratic functioning of the organization, and make sure everyone's comfortable, and generally annoy the heck out of people, we have been having "check-ins" to see how things are going. (This reminds me of Franklin's post about his miserable job training retreat thing..I felt guilty reading it even then, because I feared I was going to unintentionally inflict similar torture on folks myself within a few short weeks...)

Anyway, during one of these sessions I was recording people's suggestions & feedback on a big flip chart when several people exchanged glances & started giggling. Later it turned out that I had written "facilitators give heads" as one complete item. Nobody has any idea what I thought I was writing, although we did all agree that if the goal was to release tension and make everyone comfortable, perhaps the performance of sexual services by the facilitators woud be useful....

Yes, it's true, we're just a bunch of big geeks. Havin' a ball, wish you were here....

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P.S. Apparently while I've been out of touch the AFL split in two (!!) and the London cops shot the wrong guy in the head seven times. I guess they admit it was the wrong guy because they're Brits. I shudder to think what kind of bizarre and elaborate cover-up they'd have pulled in L.A.

god

[warning: material may be offensive to some readers. comments blasting me to hell and damnation will be deleted, unless they're really funny]

Handy tip: If you want a LOT of people to tell you to pray every day, you can either (1) attend a religious revival or (2) put your Mom in the hospital for surgery.

Sheesh. I don't think I've ever been so frequently exhorted to relgious activity outside a location where my presence announces my willingness to engage therein (i.e. a church). Of course I expect it from my mom's friends, but now everyone—from the cafeteria worker at the hospital to the lady who delivered flowers—is telling me to pray. And what do you say to that? "No thanks"? "Mango chutney"?

I mean, I don't exhort random strangers to "keep up the fight for the glorious revolution." Maybe I should start doing that.

But one thing always stops me from doing this (though it obviously doesn't stop them): fear of being an asshole.

But then, at the funeral on Friday, there was just such an asshole at the reception, and it was great. We had slogged through the Mass* led by an Irish priest with a strong accent, which allowed me some private moments of amusement ("caught up in the Lord" pronounced as "cut up in the Lard"). At the reception, I dutifully commented that "It was a nice service, wasn't it?"

"Oh yeah. Great that the priest had an Irish accent. That was really essential," said the asshole.

"Really completes the whole atmosphere, eh?" I said and we smirked at each other. Nobody else was at all amused. But it was a little moment of reality that helped me stay sane. So who knows. Maybe if I were more of an asshole, I'd be helping others stay sane. They do, after all, have nothing to lose but their chains.**

This reminds me of Franklin's recent reference to my difficulties with "suffering fools gladly," and I have been contemplating a post confessing my past sins in that department, and defending myself that I'm not like that anymore. Even though maybe I am a little. But the past sins are funny. But I'll save that for another time.

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*including a bible passage informed us that God had tortured the deceased with heart disease just to see if he would really stay faithful, and only after that was he allowed into heaven (1 Peter 1:6-9). What kind of sadistic, fucked-up god is this, anyway????
** Our local bookstore cooperative tried to put its new ad campaign on the local public radio station, but it was completely bowdlerized, because apparently the FCC would object to (among other things) the slogan: "Patronize independent bookstores: you have nothing to lose but your chains."

One wonders (I did anyway) whether (1) the objection was to quoting the Communist Manifesto, per se, in which case, that doesn't really seem Constitutional—not that I am under any illusion about the strength of that document these days; or (2) the person doing the censoring didn't recognize the quote and just feared FCC objection to the implication that chain stores were bad.

I don't know which interpretation is less appealing: draconian censorship or devastating ignorance. The surrounding text suggested the latter.

Maybe I do need to start randomly preaching socialism at complete strangers.

Happy May Day, part II

Of course, I can't let this day go by without saluting its history.

You can read more about it here, here, and here.

But today I want to conjure in our imaginations is the spectacle of eighty thousand people marching down Michigan Avenue on May 1, 1886, on strike and proclaiming (not demanding) an eight-hour workday from that day forward.

That's one-sixth the population of Chicago at that time!

Imagine them marching. It is reported as a beautiful spring day. The street is lined with police, national guardsmen, and anyone willing to wield a weapon to protect the ruling class, because rumors have been circulated that murder and mayhem are planned.

I like to think that these folks felt pretty silly as they stood there "protecting" the trembling, cowering wealthy folk of Chicago...protecting them from a crowd of families and children, reportedly in holiday spirit, dressed in their best, singing songs and enjoying themselves.

The eighty thousand won—the eight-hour day went into effect immediately—not because they smashed things or killed people, and not because they moved the cold hearts of "the bosses" to pity and benevolence.

They won because eighty thousand people with a single goal are uncontrollable.*

The eight-hour day had been signed into law years before in many states, but the law was ignored. In contrast, unions and strikes were illegal. None of this had any bearing on the struggle or the victory. When hundreds of thousands of people across the country (estimated 400,000 total went on strike) announced that they would no longer be working more than eight hours a day, what could "the bosses" do but agree?

This power is what has been forgotten.

My point is that creating the world we want is not about the ballot box or the law. It's not about getting someone else (a president, a senator, a judge) to do what we want them to do. It's not about waiting for a great leader to take us to the promised land.

It's about organizing ourselves collectively to create the future we want to see.

¡La lucha continua - unidos venceremos!

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*n.b. Eighty thousand, or eight hundred thousand, or eight million people who just gather with signs or candles... can be comfortably ignored, as we saw on Feb. 15, 2003 (although the pictures still make me cry...). This is why I don't put a lot of energy into protesting anymore.

Angela Davis visited here last year and she said something like, "When we used to protest, it was a demonstration of how much power we had, of how many people we had organized, who were determined to get something accomplished. The 'powers that be' knew we were unstoppable and they better not get in the way. But now, the protest is the goal in itself, and it's nothing more than street theater."

Sheep:	"We need a permit to protest the fact that you keep eating us."
Shepherd:	"Be my guest, protest all you like."
Sheep:	"See how many of us are here, begging you, to please stop eating us."
Shepherd:	"Make me."
Sheep:	"But you're supposed to love and protect us!"
Shepherd:	"You obviously don't understand the point of my existence."

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And just for fun...

Happy May Day from some dead white men!

(But who's the guy in the middle?)