The Seattle Diaries

Open letter to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn

2012-01-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

Mayor Mike McGinn

Seattle City Hall

600 Fourth Ave., 7th Floor

Seattle, WA 98104

January 12, 2012

Michael Dare

Seattle City Hall

600 Fourth Ave., The Peninsula

Seattle, WA 98104

michael@dareland.com

Mr. Mayor,

Occupy Seattle has been occupying your front doorstep at City Hall for three months now, the longest permitted occupation in America so I'm told, which is something we have to be proud of. Though some of Occupy's clashes with the police have been horrendous, Occupy City Hall, simply through attrition, has become a role model for occupy/anything, which is strange because we haven't really done anything other than outlast the rest. That's about to end as our permit will not be renewed and we have to be out by Friday night.

Since your invitation was open ended, I'm wondering what happened this week for the city to withdraw its permission for us to occupy our small slice of City Hall. It seems capricious, unless you also consider that the only other Occupy site in town, a house on 23rd, was also shut down this week. When the trucks come to remove whatever's left of our encampment at City Hall at 7AM this Saturday morning, that will be the last remaining Occupy site in Seattle since it all started in October. The message has changed from "we'll work with you" to "we'll squash you like a bug."

There's a reason we need a presence in city hall. Everyone in the movement is grateful for the lip service of Nick Licata's resolution 31337 in favor of the basic principles of Occupy Wall Street, which passed the city council unanimously and was signed by you, but a quick scan of the contents reveal that nothing you support has actually been done. When exactly has the City of Seattle actively addressed and come up with plans to immediately modify the "sustained unemployment, growing income disparity, banking system failures, stalled earning power, unjust tax systems, and corporate influence in politics" that this resolution calls for? Maybe I missed it when some bankster was arrested for fraud or some politician volunteered to refuse to accept any corporate contributions, or when any sweet tax deal on a local corporation was rescinded. I certainly wasn't there when our rights to free speech were expanded instead of contracted. I know it's only been three months, but that's been long enough for numerous other cities to declare that corporations aren't people. Why hasn't Seattle?

That's why we need to Occupy City Hall.

Mr. Mayor, please step out on your balcony and look down at the plaza. What do you see? You see the Puget Sound in between skyscrapers, the cranes, the courthouse, the county administration, the jail, and the walkway in the sky from the jail to the courthouse, with Rainier right behind. What you don't see is the homeless shelter in the basement of city hall. You don't have to be reminded of the underprivileged unless you look to your left at the peninsula, where there's a hopeless frankentent of tarps and twine belonging to the 99%, a homeless shelter on higher ground. That's what we're doing here. The homeless movement and the 99% are joined at the hip and they are ours. We have nowhere else to go. We're here to remind you. You need to be reminded. That's what we need to Occupy City Hall.

I've been told our permit is not to be renewed due to, among other things, lack of activity. As a peacemaker, I should consider it a compliment that I've kept things calm. As a member of the Occupy movement who is willing to work with the system to achieve our goals, goals I believe we both share, our relationship has served as a gauge between the forces of revolution and the powers that be. The very little steam that has been let out at City Hall has kept the pressure down. That's why we need to Occupy City Hall.

Look down now and you see some homeless people who've moved up in the world, from the streets to the peninsula, taking on the sacred duty of simply reminding you that the Occupy Movement has not gone away, we're just the hardy ones willing to camp out all winter, and like a garden, the movement is growing roots, strong roots, roots strong enough to support a mighty political tsunami that will rock this country to its core when it's reborn this spring with greater focus, lucid organization, common goals, and bigger numbers. Is that what it takes? Do we have to gather greater numbers than the entire Seattle Police Department to convince you that policing isn't the answer we're looking for?

Nobody has gone away. We've just retreated to get our bearing, to refocus and learn from our mistakes. The Occupy Movement is a rapidly evolving social experiment unprecedented in history. Never before have so many smart techies kept the waters roiling with activity throughout the globe and, well, it's winter, so we're staying indoors, but online, right now, the decisions are being made that will make the rebirth in spring a miraculous thing. The biggest question will be how to translate the initial Wall Street rhetoric of the movement to specific local action. We camp out on your doorstep and demand you show us any any actual evidence of systemic change in the City of Seattle that has come about due to the Occupy Movement.

Nobody is in control. Occupy is anarchistic at its core, full of splinter groups, like mine, or the anarchists recently thrown out of their house on 23rd, groups who can't claim to represent the movement, only to be part of it, mingling with the homeless, the hopeless, and the insane, the 99% is nothing if not LARGE, crackheads with torches and Iraq war vets with PTSD who are pissed off and willing to fight for the 99% with all the skills they attained as servicemen, and the peaceful, thoughtful, free speech advocates fighting for change within the system, butting heads with the frustrated, enraged, testosterone charged revolutionaries who see conflict and violence as the only way to achieve our goals. We haven't come to any conclusions. Nobody knows what's going to happen except we're not going to stop.

Mr. Mayor, the holes in the public safety net are so large that all but the fat cats fall through. We ask for economic equality. We lose our free bus zone. We've had enough.

There is a Navajo story of the two wolves within us - good and evil, hate and love, always battling - and the one that wins is the one you feed.

Every time the Seattle police force does battle with the Occupy Movement, it feeds the anarchists who thrive on conflict. Letting us peacefully camp at city hall feeds the other wolf.

Our disappearance from City Hall will mean the Occupy movement has no location in Seattle. This is unacceptable, and like Whack-a-moles, we're sure to show up somewhere else. Let's say we occupy Westlake again tomorrow. What would you do? Send Chief Diaz after us again and simply repeat history, only this time with more American soldiers in the tents?

You asked me to act as liaison between Chief Diaz and the Occupy movement. If I believe that all conflicts are worth avoiding, how do I do that? Call Diaz on my speed dial and beg him not to pepper spray me, tell him that if he just backs off, we'll all respect him in the morning?

If the movement has no place to call home, no place it is "occupying," it will inevitably be brought up at every General Assembly (currently being held at the convention center at least twice a week), and yes, it is random, it is what spur of the moment democracy looks like, and if the re-occupation of Westlake isn't immanent, you can bet that SOMETHING is. The movement is full of committed individuals who are not going away until practical results are achieved. They're not going to wait for the findings of an oversight committee. You're sitting on a powderkeg. Do the right thing and you can be a hero. This is what revolution looks like.

Though our success at City Hall might seem only symbolic, it's working. I'm connected every day to dozens of occupy sites around the globe who are looking at Seattle as a role model for positive relationships between the occupy movement and city governments. They are simply astonished that an occupation has lasted this long.

We have several other sites we're looking at. I have no doubt another permit is immanent. Will you please call off the hounds and give us enough time to secure a new location before moving?

Thank you,

Michael Dare

Lobbyist for the 99%

Paul Krassner's Predictions for 2012

2012-01-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

Predictions for 2012

By Paul Krassner

Politics: The electoral college will be replaced by a system where voters will choose the polling firm they trust the most. Barack Obama will be re-elected because his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden will be replaced by Hillary Clinton, thereby gaining the women’s vote. Failed Republican campaigners will all take other jobs. Mitt Romney will start smoking a pipe and portray the character Bob Dobbs in a movie about the cultish Church of the Subgenius. Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain will form The Adultery Party to run in 2016, joined by Democrats John Edwards and Bill Clinton. Ron Paul will unite with Ru Paul and they’ll perform on Dancing With the Stars. Rick Santorum will be caught in an airport bathroom stall having a gay encounter. Michelle Bachmann will launch a lie-detector company. Rick Perry will copyright the word “Oops.” And it will be revealed that Donald Trump was actually born on Mars; he will have a birth certificate to prove it, along with a photo of him as a Martian baby with the first comb-over ever.

Show Business: Vegetarian converts will include Lady Gaga, who will wear a dress made entirely of heirloom tomatoes, and Meatloaf will change his name to Tofuloaf. Hermit the Frog and Miss Piggy will win Academy Awards for best male and female actors. Angelina Jolie will legally adopt Brad Pitt. Kim Kardashian will get married and divorced on the same day. The Tea Party will become a popular sitcom. Capital-punishment executions will become a top-rated reality-TV series. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur live on a three-hour special to be telecast on every single channel simultaneously, with an offstage voiceover narration by God. Atheists and agnostics will picket the production, only to be struck by lightning. Howard Stern will expose himself on America’s Got Talent. The Taliban and al-Quaeda will be the final competitors on The Biggest Terrorists. Hulu and Netflix will merge as Huflix.

Fashion Trends: Square Hitler-style mustaches will finally become stylish after decades of ridicule. Botox will become a soft drink that will get rid of unwanted wrinkles from the inside. Pornography will be allowed in public libraries, but moaning out loud will definitely not be permitted. Fetus transplants from poor pregnant girls to wealthy anti-abortion women will become a controversial new fad. Arizona, Mississippi and Tennessee will refuse to recognize Leap Year. Lottery winners will be fingerprinted. Private prisons will be turned into ashrams. Inspired by Steve Jobs, many industries will continue his legacy by transforming planned obsolescence into a virtue. Prescription drugs will become children’s names, such as Ambien and Lipitor. Travel agents will begin arranging guilt trips for clients who have given up on airplanes. Combination vibrators and insomnia cures will be invented, trademarked as Dildoze. Pope Benedict XVI will permit condoms to be marketed if there are tiny pinhole pricks in the reservoir tips in order to ensure a fighting chance for spermatozoa to get through. Serial pedophiles, gay bashers and Internet hackers will form unions.

The Economy: The Department of Energy will release a report concluding that so-called “clean coal” is, in point of fact, “filthy dirty.” The Bank of America will stop doing business with Veriozon and switch to Credo. largest protest in history will take place by ongoing Occupy-the-Federal-Reserve-System demonstrations. The recession will evolve into a depression, which will end quickly as the war on drugs morphs into the legalization of every single strain of cannabis will be designated as medical marijuana. Facebook members will be taxed for every friend, Twitter users will be taxed for every letter, Monsanto will be taxed for every genetically modified food, and masturbators will be taxed for every ejaculation. The Supreme Court will download all corporations into embryos. Several million jobs will be created as Unemployment Insurance clerks.

International Relations: North Korea’s new leader will be caught cheating on his SAT examination, but he will redeem himself when he allows almost 70 McDonalds restaurants to open all over his dictatorial realm. Saudi-Arabia will outlaw laughter. Iraq will become our 51st state. Afghanistan will require all men to wear burkas. Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, than drop it by accident on Libya and Syria. World War III will be fought entirely by drone planes attempting to destroy each other in the air. Products made in China will be increasingly pirated by American entrepreneurs. Global warming will continue to melt icebergs as well as Sarah Palin’s cold heart. The world will end on December 21st, but will begin all over again on December 23rd, just in time for last-minute Christmas shopping. The most popular gift will be cans of pepper-spray in a variety of flavors. Pakistan will continue to be bribed by us. The Nobel Peace Prize will be secretly awarded to Anonymous.

Paul Krassner is the publisher of the infamous Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster. His latest book is an expanded and updated edition of his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture, available at paulkrassner.com and as a Kindle e-book.

Personal message to everyone who thinks the permit holder for Occupy Seattle should be on a rotating basis

2011-12-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have accepted the personal invitation of the Mayor of Seattle to occupy City Hall for more than two months now, making this the most successful and long-lived occupancy in America. No one else did that. Not to go all Ayn Rand on your ass, but I did that, and without one single penny of funds or ounce of encouragement from the Occupy movement. Mike McGinn has been kind enough to offer me, not you, a permit to sign every week, and every week I have accepted. This occupation is only continuing because I now have a proven track record of making agreements with the city and abiding by them. The only other person in Seattle with such a track record is Vivian McPeak, permit holder for Hempfest for 20 years, my mentor, and the only person I consulted before signing my first permit. (FYI, he considers the idea of "rotating permit holder" to be absurd and counter-productive, and I'm infinitely more prone to listen to his advice than anyone else's.)

There is no precedent for any of this. We're all blazing trails in the wilderness. We can't follow any previous revolutionary model. This is a new thing. I'm not following any game plan other than keeping it alive. A US mayor offering a chunk of city fucking hall to a political organization in order for then to live and thrive so they can expel corruption from the bowels of government in conjunction with hundreds of other Occupy sites around the world? Impossible. Yet it's happening because I've persevered when others gave up, I actually trust that Mayor McGinn and the city council have got the movement's back, and I won't let this incredible relationship be jeopardized by some peculiar notion that personal success must be punished and all duties must be shared.

It's not like it was ever my goal in life to be a permit holder. The only reason I am one is because nobody else was willing to step up and sign the paper, but this isn't what I want to do. I want to write best-selling novels and make movies in Hollywood with a swimming pool full of bimbos. Instead, I'm a permit holder in a leaky tent in Seattle. C'est la fucking vie. If anyone else wants the duties of permit holder, I got no problem delegating authority. You want to run the tent, all you've got to do is ask. You want me to tell the city that your signature is as trustworthy as mine, I won't, because I don't know that. I just met all of you, and we're the easiest organization on earth to infiltrate. I have no idea what you have in mind. You might be a CIA agent or undercover cop or just plain psycho out to destabilize the movement, because that's what a "rotating" leadership is, destabilized.

The only person who can evict Occupy Seattle from city hall is Mayor Mike McGinn, and he can do it with a snap of his fingers by simple withdrawing his invitation. We mysteriously have a relationship of respect, made obvious when the Mayor emailed my phone number to Police Chief Diaz as the person to talk to if he has any more problems with the Occupy movement. I've asked to be on the police oversight committee, where I believe the Occupy movement needs to be represented. Anyone else ask to be on that committee? Please don't be shocked if it turns out to be me just because I was the only one who asked. (More likely, no one from Occupy.)

In any case, as long as a permit is offered me, I will accept it. We are not a leaderless movement, we are a leaderful movement. If anyone else wants a permit, please, I actively encourage you to go get one. We need more Occupy sites. I hope to inspire you. But this one's mine.

An Occupied Hempfest Christmas

2011-12-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

Occupy Seattle met at Gasworks for a pot luck Christmas eve dinner.

There was an overabundance of sweets. If you're diabetic, you might have died.

There was real food too, ham and turkey and salad and stuffing. Everyone was well fed.

The fire was nice and just the thing we need at all the other Occupy sites in winter. (Good luck with it.)

The only ones who had anything to complain about were the actual occupants of Gasworks, the homeless who were living there under the radar, and who worried that Occupy Seattle would draw attention to them and get them thrown out. They were sitting at their own table saying "Fuck the Occupiers, they're going to ruin this for everybody if they set up camp." Luckily, even though the invitation was made, nobody set up tents, and the actual occupiers of Gasworks were free to remain. This is a problem we have to face. The Occupy movement has got to advocate for the homeless and not fuck things up for them. They are us.

The next morning, Christmas day, Hempfest had its annual drug war protest at the city jail. It was a trek for everyone else to get downtown. For me, it was just a walk across the street from the Occupy tent at city hall.

It's a strange event, sad but hopeful...

that nobody sees...

the streets are almost vacant...

but we're not doing it for them,

we're doing it for everybody in this horrible building who doesn't belong...

and we know they can't hear us when we sing them Christmas carols...

but we do it anyway...

hoping every prisoner on earth who is a victim of the drug war can somehow feel our presence, that there's someone out here who cares, because what else are we going to do...

let the DEA get away with ruining lives,

destroying families,

preventing sick people from getting their legitimate medicine,

and refusing to budge on the issue until every corporation currently making a killing on the outlawing of pot gets to wet their beak on the decriminalization?

When it should be free, with no more regulation than tomatoes, as safe as a medicine can be, a sacrament, a blessing, and the greatest and most useful plant on earth.

We wish you a marijuana,

and a hempy new year.

Protesters in Westlake for a major American hero

2011-12-22T12:37:00.001-08:00

Does being a liaison between Occupy Seattle and the Chief of Police make me a traitor?

2011-12-22T12:06:00.001-08:00

I live at city hall. The first thing I do every morning is read the mayor's newspaper in his waiting room on the 7th floor. This morning, the lead story concerned the US Justice department ripping the Seattle Police department a new one for its use of excessive force. They were particularly hard on Chief of Police John Diaz who was actively defending his department.

Ever see a picture in a newspaper and look up to see that person standing in front of you? Chief Diaz came right out of the elevator and went in to a meeting with the Mayor.

Afterwards, they both emerged from McGinn's office and stood there talking in front of me. God knows what inspired me to butt my ugly head into a conversation between the Mayor and the Chief of Police, but I walked right up to introduce myself. I thanked Mayor McGinn for making our site at City Hall the most successful and long-lived in America. He said he was waiting for someone to notice that.

Diaz saw this happen, an open and trusting relationship between the mayor and an occupier, so I took advantage of the moment. I told Chief Diaz that I was from the Hempfest and used to working with the police to put on protest events. I offered myself as a liaison between himself and the movement, making it very clear that I was taking this action unilaterally, without approval from the general assembly, but I was deliberately disobeying the rule not to talk to police because we need a dialogue going. I was very clear I was speaking only for myself, not FOR the movement, but simply as a member OF the movement. He agreed and asked for my contact information.

I searched for a pen. He searched for a pen. Mayor McGinn told me to just give my information to his secretary and she would send it on.

Cool. When Chief Diaz got back to his office, there was an email waiting for him from the Mayor saying if he ever had any problems with the Occupy Movement, give Michael Dare a call. Hilarious. I'm not holding my breath.

In any case, Mayor McGinn was more than pleased to see such an exchange, and renewed his commitment to working with those in the movement willing to work with instead of against the system. He agreed to sit down later to discuss the future of the movement and how we can work together to further both of our goals.

Like it or not, Occupy Seattle now has a liaison with the Mayor's office and the Police Department.

I posted this information to an Occupy group and someone responded with this... "If you talk to a cop and he beats you then you are a hero. If you talk to a cop and both you and the cop are civil and even discuss your different opinions.... Well then you're just a snitch and a traitor! But good for you!"

Let me clarify what I believe a "liaison" does by inventing a fantasy situation.

Let's say we're gathered somewhere surrounded by police. We are quite rationally fearful of getting pepper-sprayed or worse, so we prepare for a clash.

The liaison walks up to the police and says "Hi guys, what's up? Why are you here? What are we doing wrong?"

The police say "It's the candle."

The liaison says "What?"

The police say "You can't have an open flame."

The liaison says "You've got to be kidding me. You're not here to suppress free speech?"

The police say "You can have as much free speech as you want. What you can't have is an open flame."

The liaison says "So if we blow out that candle, you'll go away?"

The police say "Yep."

The liaison walks back to the Occupy gathering and says "All they care about is the candle. Blow out the candle and the cops will go away."

The liaison is stared at in disbelief. Somebody takes it upon themselves to blow out the candle just to see what will happen. The cops go away.

Voila. Incident averted. A peaceful protest is allowed to continue because somebody talked to the police.

This is obviously over-simplified but you get the idea. Sometimes mis-communication is the only problem. The police don't know what we're doing so they are naturally fearful of entering the situation. Their entire training has to do with how to handle unstable situations. As for being a "snitch," sometimes, literally, all the police need to know is what we're doing.

Once again, let's say we're gathered in a park. The police are there prepared for anything because they don't know what we're going to do. Somebody goes up to them and says "We're marching from here to the Federal building for a short rally, then returning here."

The police have an INSTANT change of tactics. Knowing where we're going and what route we're taking, the police move in front of us to CLEAR THE ROUTE. Suddenly, they're working FOR us to make sure nobody gets hurt.

Okay, this tactic wouldn't have worked at the docks where we were clearly breaking the law, but there have been other situations where all we were doing was exhibiting free speech. In those situations, violence can have be completely averted by simply informing the police ahead of time where we're marching,

As a liaison, obviously I know a lot of things I'm not telling the police, like where marijuana grow rooms are situated in Seattle, or where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. (In one of the grow rooms.) But if I tell the police "We're going to be meeting here at this time and marching to there at that time," does that make me a police informant? Not any more than Vivian McPeak is a police informant when he tells the Seattle Police department that hundreds of thousands of people are going to be gathering in Myrtle Edwards Park in an open act of civil disobedience in protest against the War on Drugs.

Hempfest is the world's largest peaceful protest rally. In a city park. With the co-operation of the Mayor and Police. This is a city that lets Hempfest happen. This is a city that will let the Occupy movement happen. All you've got to do is talk to them.

How to Deal with Corruption in One Easy Lesson

2011-12-10T12:41:00.001-08:00

Corruption trumps political systems. In a corrupt democratic government, those with the most money tell the government what to do. In a corrupt socialist government, those with the most money tell the government what to do. If a government is corrupt, it matters not what particular system the corruption uses to express itself. Corruption IS the system. A corrupt dictatorship, in which the moneyed puppetmasters actually pull the strings, is no better than a corrupt Republic in which the moneyed puppetmasters actually pull the strings. When corruption permeates the system, it doesn't matter who's in charge because they're not in charge, they're just figureheads for corruption, like the Pope or the President, they only keep their jobs when the let the money river roll on, no matter how many drown.

So what do we do when all three branches of Federal Government, legislative, executive, and judicial, are undeniably, completely, and utterly corrupt? How do we use the system in place to root out the corruption when corruption specifically won't allow the system to work that way? Voting is meaningless when the voting system is corrupt. Suing is meaningless when you can't go any higher than a Supreme Court who are the active enemy of the public domain, appointed for life, who will only make pro-corporate decisions. Petitioning is meaningless because the puppetmasters behind the puppets can't be petitioned. Give me a choice between a corrupt Democrat and a corrupt Republican and I might as well cut my throat, they're both from the same party, the Corrupt Party, loyally in the hands of whoever's willing to pay. When corruption rules the day, money gets whatever it wants. Want to pollute the air, poison the groundwater, go to war to protect the bottom line of the fuel market? All it takes is money. And guess who rules the monetary system? Not you.

Our argument is not with democracy. A genuine democracy is a beautiful thing. But a corrupt democracy, in which money literally buys votes, is no better than corrupt monarchs or corrupt commies. The system is simply the method by which we all get screwed, even systems that were specifically designed to protect us.

They keep saying they don't know what we're for, only what we're against, as though being against corruption isn't enough to define us.

The movement has a flat structure. I can't claim to be speaking for the 99%, but I can claim to speak AS one of them.

I want it to be a felony for a candidate running for or in office to accept one single penny from anyone, RETROACTIVE to the year 2000. I want every one of those corrupt bastards who put Bush in office in jail. I want the entire Supreme Court fired with a new system in place in which they're not appointed for life but for ONE YEAR, then we get to vote on whether to keep them. I want everyone at Fox News to commit ritual hari-kari, live, on camera, at half-time during the Superbowl. I want Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump to dress like Vikings and fight each other to the death for the title of Douchebag of the Year. I want every debt erased. Period. Every one. After a certain reasonable amount for one's children, say a hundred thou, I want a 100% inheritance tax. I want everything a person owns, all their copyrights, patents, and art, to enter the public domain upon their demise. What do they care? They're dead. Now everything they made is ours. The public. I want more public bathrooms. I want Barack Obama to tell Ben Bernanke to go fuck himself. I want the responsibility for health care to be completely taken away from employers, insurance companies, and HMOs and be available for free, just like the police and fire departments, to anybody, as a human right. When they're not actively engaged in fighting the enemy, I want the US Navy to clean up the oceans, the US Army to clean up the land, and the US Air Force to clean up the air. I want everyone in jail for a victimless crime to be set free and restitution paid. I want the FDA to tell the pharmaceutical industry what to do instead of the other way around. I want the EPA to tell polluters what to do instead of the other way around. I want the FED eliminated. I want the DEA eliminated. I want Boeing to stop building killer drones and start building rapid transit. I want Seattle to expand the free bus zone to the entire city.

There. That's my position. I'm sure I'll think of more later, but it's a start. Let's start negotiating.

Occupy the holidays in Seattle City Hall

2011-12-07T15:05:00.001-08:00

Meeting with the 1% in city hall

2011-12-07T12:09:00.001-08:00

I was watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann on my Chromebook in the lobby of city hall when I couldn't help but overhear the conversation at the table next to me, three guys, well dressed, one larger, older, clearly one of the 1%, and as they talked I understood him to be an expert in the affairs of landlords and probably a landlord himself. This was a guy I had questions for.

So as they broke up and he headed across the lobby, I walked up, introduced myself, and asked him if he'd mind answering a few questions. I never got his name. Maybe that's why he was so forthright. My main question, is there any way to LEGALLY occupy a vacant space in Seattle? Here's my interpretation of what he said...

As soon as you move into a vacant property, you are de facto legally creating a landlord/tenant relationship with the owner of the property. This makes the owner of the property legally responsible for all those things landlords are liable for in their area, in Seattle, upkeep, like fixing the plumbing, etc.

Of course there are landlord/tenant agreements where the tenant agrees to take care of such things, so everything is negotiable. So one good thing to do upon occupying a vacant property is draw up a legal paper indemnifying the landlord and not only agreeing to but actually doing all necessary repair work. The whole idea is if you're not costing the landlord anything, if you're actually improving the property, they won't have an incentive to evict you since eviction itself costs money.

Having a vacant property isn't a tax write-off. There is no monetary incentive for landlords to leave properties vacant, just laziness. Pay the legitimate landlord ANYTHING and it's profit they weren't making before. Mail off that check for $10 rent every month. All they have to do is cash one of them and you're set.

Owen Meany's Sacrilegious and Hilarious Christmas Pageant

2011-12-06T12:52:00.001-08:00

Have yourself a rollicking, perverse, slapstick Christmas with Book-It Repertory's new production of Owen Meany's Christmas Pageant, based upon chapter four of John Irving's novel A Prayer for Owen Meany. It tells the enchanting tale of the valiant attempts of the Reverend Wiggins and his wife - of Christ Church of Gravesend, New Hampshire - to put on a normal, humble Christmas pageant but who, through no fault of their own, find themselves trapped in a chapter of a John Irving novel, and Irving won't be done with them till he's wrenched every drop of pious ooze from their trembling bodies.

Never has more gone wrong with a Christmas theatrical production. It's almost a Jerry Lewis movie, the laughs keep rolling in, but Irving is smarter than that, and the whole affair is drenched in sadness due to the strange relationship of the narrator, Johnny, to his best friend, the diminutive and irritating Owen Meany.

According to the book, not only was Owen's growth stunted to under five feet, he damaged his larynx and has to shout through his nose in a wrecked voice. I can't imagine a harder acting job than having to play someone completely irritating to everyone IN the play but not so much to everyone in the audience who better not hate the main character. Josh Aaseng pulls off this complicated task with a simple falsetto and a lot of comic dexterity.

Connor Toms, from Book-It's previous production of Irving's The Cider House Rules, is particularly good as Johnny, the narrator with a hole in his heart he never talks about.

It seems one day they were playing baseball when Owen hit a high fly ball that killed Johnny's mother, one of the many of random acts that appear throughout Irving's books in his deep-rooted philosophy that life is uncontrollable.

When you've got a line in a book like "Simon and I never spoke of my mother because it was just too painful," it's too important to leave out and yet impossible to delegate to dialogue. Once again, Book-it provides the perfect solution by having Johnny say the line from the book directly to the audience.

This isn't your mother's Christmas Pageant. My favorite moment was when the little baby Jesus had to throw cues at the angel of the lord who forgot his lines - just the way it really happened. If you're looking for reverence, look elsewhere. If you're looking for the most subversive Christmas play ever, get your tickets now.

The program for the show.

An Occupy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T12:16:00.001-08:00

I started the day, as always, at the Occupy Site at Fifth and James at City Hall

Normally, I"d head upstairs to the City Hall lobby and get something from Rick Farley at the City Grind, where they put up with me even when all I want is hot water, but it's Thanksgiving and City Hall is closed, as is the library.

So I head down the street to the entrance to the transit tunnel when I notice something happening in the park at Jefferson and Fourth...

A park with no name where the trees have mufflers...

And there are tents and people lined up...

And I wonder if I'm hallucinating. What is wrong with this picture?

Maybe this guy knows.

Nobody seems to notice that they are surrounded by the gayest trees I've ever seen, each with a Jewish mother, and ever since they came out of the closet, she won't stop knitting. You'll never guess, bubala, for Thanksgiving, I'm making you a muffler.

What is everyone lined up for? Amazing food prepared fresh in the park for absolutely anyone who gets in line. There's fresh bacon...

And ham and muffins and mashed potatoes...

And Shasta soda and smiles...

And all these people...

Who are now my heroes...

Have gathered in the park on a cold morning where the trees are normally warmer than the people...

And spread the warmth by feeding everyone, those with one leg...

And even those clothed in trash bags.

Yeah, this kid's my hero too, for passing out cookies, pears, and water.

Why is this guy my hero? Because he's passing out silverware out of the goodness of his heart.

These are my heroes too.

And I'm going to show you every one of these wonderful people who appeared out of nowhere to make fresh pancakes.

They didn't do it for fame or fortune.

They don't expect to be paid back.

They're doing it because they're decent...

And nowadays, simple decency is a valuable commodity.

And they're enjoying themselves while they do it...

Actually taking orders and giving out numbers so people can pick up their individualized breakfasts.

They went to all this trouble...

For these people...

And these who are usually ignored.

Not checking for ID or doing breathalyzer tests or making anyone listen to a sermon, even though they were from a church...

Feeding everyone with a mouth,

Creating a whole park full of happy people.

I was once walking around Santa Monica, CA, when I saw a bunch of people in an alley. I walked down to see what was going on and saw somebody had a truck full of food they were passing out, and it wasn't just street grub but fancy to-go dishes from expensive Beverly Hills restaurants. I moved in closer and saw it was Martin Sheen. There were no lights or cameras around. He wasn't doing it for publicity. He personally drove around to all his favorite restaurants at closing, picked up their leftovers, and distributed them to hungry people. He became my hero that day. Like these people. I wish there were more like them.

George W. Bush joke of the day

2011-11-24T02:20:00.000-08:00

First...

Sex with Animals Causes Penis Cancer

Men who put their penises in animals have a higher likelihood of penis cancer, a new study in the Journal of Sexual Medicinereports:

We think that the intense and long-term SWA [sex with animals] practice could produce micro-traumas in the human penile tissue. The genital mucus membranes of animals could have different characteristics from human genitalia, and the animals' secretions are probably different from human fluids. Perhaps animal tissues are less soft than ours, and non-human secretions would be toxic for us.

http://gawker.com/5859297/sex-with-animals-causes-penis-cancer

Then today...

Hopefully it's by fucking an elephant.

Thank you very much.

Typical morning in Seattle City Hall

2011-11-23T10:19:00.001-08:00

I wake up here...

stumble up the steps to City Hall...

and go to the seventh floor and read the mayor's newspaper.

I go out to the mayor's balcony and look down at my humble abode...

then I go downstairs to the main lobby...

where I plunk myself down to get some work done. Since my laptop was stolen, Nathan Shields (a prince) has loaned me a Chrome, made by Google, that only has one program installed, Chrome, an internet browser, so that's all I can do, browse the internet. Every once in a while I'm inspired to write something, but it can only happen when I'm online. With no WORD or NOTEPAD program to open, you literally can't do anything with this when you're not connected. Luckily, City Hall has great WIFI, even though they're probably secretly listening in to everything I say. So if I ever slip into gibberish, you'll know it's just me fucking with their heads and not the mescaline kicking in.

The mescaline kicks in and I have a daymare about being pepper-sprayed by Seattle Police while innocently crossing the street.

I open up my eyes and THIS guy is looking at me.

Something's going on in the lobby.

Who let all these people in my room?

Wow, a buffet, croissants and coffee, just what I need. I don't know who these people are but thanks for the grub.

And swag, what's with the swag?

I grab one of everything and hope no one notices.

Something bright and shiny manifests itself.

Never offer free candy to a tripping caffeinated prowler who has mysteriously gained access to the gates of power. Even though he can't really tell what this stuff is, he will dump it all in the pouch in front of his raincoat and bring it to the crew downstairs...

then he will stumble past the fireplace that can never be lit...

and get back to writing. I'm in City Hall, goddamit. There's news to report.

From Occupy Everett to Occupy Seattle

2011-11-21T16:23:00.001-08:00

Occupy Everett is the most civilized occupy site I've ever seen. There's space, all this space, and the tents are all neat and tidy.

The main tent has, get this, a door, a real door, made of wood, and looks waterproof and cozy.

If Martha Stewart were to join the Occupy movement and create her own tent city, it would start like this.

A corporation is not a person and neither is this lighting fixture.

So I'm taking the 510 back to Seattle from Everett. I've gotten a call from City Hall and, as the permit holder for Occupy Seattle, I'm needed for some sort of crisis. The bus pulls off the 5 at downtown, takes a left on Fifth, and can precede no further. The intersection is being blocked by Occupy Seattle. Yeah, that's right. Occupy Seattle was blocking the bus taking the permit holder for Occupy Seattle to the site in City Hall. Fuckers. The bus driver had no choice but to take another route but was kind enough to let me out. Here's what I saw.

As near as I can tell, this sign says " Banks are flammable, cops are ticklish." THIS is why they stopped my bus?

Oh great, these guys. Perfect. That little old lady is about to get pepper sprayed and make it on Keith Olbermann while I get pepper sprayed and don't make it on anything. AGEISM!

Oh great, these guys. Perfect. They really look like they've got my best interests at heart.

Not strictly true. He wasn't counting on a feisty old lady getting pepper-sprayed.

Radioactive Man makes a grand appearance.

I ate a banker once. Tasted like chicken.

Hello Kitty got pepper-sprayed. Why didn't THAT make the news?

Shiny happy people

Featuring Fidel Castro on drums.

Red-eye not caused by pepper-spray. Red-eye caused by camera. Bad camera.

Actual pepper spray actually getting sprayed into crowd on street and then on me on sidewalk.

So at this point I'm asking myself why, why, why did the Occupy Seattle movement block my bus to the Occupy Seattle movement? So I'd have to get off the bus and get pepper-sprayed? Fuck this shit.

This is what things look like AFTER you've been pepper-sprayed.

I did not allow anyone to do this to me. I suffered my pain in silent rage at the bastards who did this to me.

This woman was pregnant and had a miscarriage days later that she blames on the Seattle Police Department.

In the sixties, the civil rights movement had sit-ins in cafes in the south that had signs outside saying 'No niggers allowed." When they were arrested, they brought the signs to the media's attention, proudly proclaiming that this was an outrage that shouldn't exist in America. The sit-in was site-specific. And so I am left asking myself What exactly was so important about occupying the corner of Fifth and Pike? It just seemed a stupid way to rile up the police. I got pepper-sprayed, and so did 84-year-old Dorli Rainey, who ended up getting an apology from the Mayor and appearances on national television where it turned out she was a perfect spokeswoman for the movement. I guess it wasn't so stupid.

I claim this peninsula

2011-11-21T14:39:00.001-08:00

I claim this peninsula in the name of Occupy Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy America, and 99% of the entire human species who are goddam tired of seeing the greediest liars and corpulent thieves in the world get away with the greatest monetary theft in history, where corruption and extortion rule the day, where the word "sharing" is equated with piracy, where the system itself is broken to the core and seemingly beyond repair, where there's nothing left to do but stake a claim in a triangular piece of earth owned by the city of Seattle and refuse to budge until the change, the big change, the one that's coming, I guarantee it. I claim this peninsula in the name of the revolution. This is the real thing. It is local, it is national, and it is global. It is readily apparent to anyone paying attention. We've had enough. If you got a government bailout, take notice. We're the 99% and we want our money back. With interest. Now.

I claim this peninsula because one morning I was told there had been a vote the night before and, if I wanted, I was in charge. I claim this peninsula because Geronimo said "I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honor was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust" so I claim this peninsula in the name of all native Americans who understood that land can't be owned and trust must be earned. I claim this peninsula in the name of the tired and the poor, the wretched refuse yearning to breathe free, yes, I claim this peninsula in the name of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, so good on you, France, I claim this peninsula for you too, and promise to learn the lessons of your revolution.

I claim this peninsula for every gay, every straight, every transexual and every confused. I claim this peninsula in the name of truth, justice, and the American way of revolution. To try to stop us is futile. I claim this peninsula because it was sitting there waiting to be claimed, a prime piece of downtown property that was under-utilized to say the least, a minor sub-plaza of city hall which, on a good day, was occupied by three people, all smokers, most with fancy new phones I can't afford because I can't get credit because all my money is stuck in Paypal and can't get out. Oh yeah, I'm going there. Fuck the banking system. Fuck it good. You know what I call the bankers and stock brokers who jumped out of windows during the Great Depression? A good start. I claim this peninsula in full support of more Wall Street professionals committing suicide and leaving the world a better place. (But first change your wills and leave everything to me. I'll use the money to hire professional lobbyists to lobby Congress to regulate your industry and make lobbying itself illegal.)

I claim this peninsula because every penny given to a public official or someone running for office is a bribe that should be prosecuted as a felony, because the Supreme Court of the United States, the Senate, and the House of Representatives are completely corrupt and most of them belong in jail. If I believed in the death penalty, I'd be asking for their heads (once again, thank you, France). Many of the 99% want Congress and the Supreme Court publicly flailed, but I'll be content for every one of these slimeballs to spend the rest of their lives getting gangbanged by Bubba, Charles Manson, or any random member of the Crips and Bloods who happens to be taking a shower in their local federal institution.

I don't claim this peninsula for Steve Jobs, I claim this peninsula for the Chinese indentured servants who put together Apple's iPads and the American workers who should have those jobs. I claim this peninsula for the American worker because you REALLY don't want to piss them off. I don't claim this peninsula for anything remotely similar to a stock exchange or money peddler, I claim this peninsula so every individual gets to thrive without the rules stacked against them, and for most corporate CEOs to be strung up by their nuts. I claim this peninsula because "I've got a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for my stockholders" is the new "I was only following orders." I claim this peninsula because if corporations are people, I want BP charged with manslaughter, Union Carbide charged with genocide, and Halliburton charged with rape. (And I want Victoria's Secret to marry me.)

I claim this peninsula to invite George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice to commit ritual Seppuku and kill themselves to atone for the atrocious crimes they committed against humanity. I claim this peninsula to end the war on drugs retroactively to 1970, for every prisoner to be set free, and for reparations to be paid to everyone who was prosecuted during this heinous crime against humanity.

I claim this peninsula for the children, what about the children, isn't anyone doing anything for the children? I claim this peninsula because pizza isn't a vegetable and the Coca Cola Company are corporate criminals (check out http://killercoke.org/).

I claim this peninsula to get my life back on track, to do what I do best, to learn from my mistakes, to take responsibility and keep it, to do right and to get it back. I claim this peninsula because I led a broken and devastated woman to a homeless shelter a block away and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said thank you, thank you, I can't believe you're doing this for me. I claim this peninsula for everyone who has ever said thank you.

I claim this peninsula in the name of every manic depressive, bipolar, can't-cope, schizophrenic misfit who ever cried to the stars with an unanswered prayer. I claim for the lazy, I claim for the misbegotten, I claim for the minority of one, for the individual, whatever their make-up. I claim this peninsula because my favorite color is flesh, in every human manifestation, I claim to be human, I am human, I have rights as a human no matter how many others may find me reprehensible, because after all, everyone is reprehensible to someone. I claim this peninsula for HUMAN rights, for the rights of every member of our species to live a life uninterrupted by assholes. I claim this peninsula for everyone who has ever been busted for no damn rational reason, for those who languish in jail while the real criminals roam free in their penthouses and private islands surrounded by gunboats.

I claim this peninsula for Eugene Debbs, because I recognize my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I claim this peninsula in opposition to American imperialism, for our soldiers overseas fighting for the petroleum industry and other corporate tools of the military industrial complex. I claim this peninsula for every living veteran, especially those without a job, without healthcare, without a home, with PTSD, with hidden rage against the system that taught them how to kill, squeezed them dry and left them flat. I claim this peninsula in the name of creating less veterans of foreign occupations by simply not being in 172 countries who somehow don't appreciate our presence.

I claim this peninsula because I've always been a renter and this is probably the closest I'll ever get to owning a piece of land in my life, even though any pitiful human who thinks they own a piece of the earth is delusional.

I claim this peninsula for the Joads of Wrath, so I’ll be ever’where – wherever you look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad – an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our people eat the stuff they raise, an’ live in the houses they build, why, I’ll be there too. I claim this peninsula in the name of plagiarism, the creative commons, and copyright infringement. I claim this peninsula in the name of file sharing, child bearing, and artistic daring. I claim this peninsula because I'm not a ruler, I'm a rudder, and maybe, because I can't be bought or sold, because I'm nobody's tool, because I understand and sympathize with both sides of the problem, I might be able to steer the occupy movement into a situation where things can move beyond getting talked about and somehow actually done.

I claim this peninsula because I love Seattle, every season, every bridge, mountain, waterway, and lock. The waterfront, the parks, the lakes, free first Thursday, the free bus zone, the parade of tugboats, the fireworks in Lake Union, the theater, the music, the monorail, the needle, the best library system on earth and a central building that's an architectural wonder, the international fountain where naked lesbians frolic in the water after the gay parade, the hempfest, the biggest peaceful protest event on earth where 350,000 people gather in a city park to commit an act of civil disobedience with the permission and approval of the mayor and police force, man, I love it here, Ballard, Green Lake, the arboretum, the transit tunnel, Seattle is,the Paris of America and if you disagree you can step outside right now for a sound thrashing, We can lead this movement from Seattle, where the mayor and city council are on our side. We can show the rest of the country how it can be done.

I claim this peninsula in the name of my father, his son, and the holey toast (bagel). I claim this peninsula for whoever else happens to be standing around at the time. I claim this peninsula for the derelicts, outcasts, and societal dregs I won't even let in my encampment. I claim this peninsula in the name of Paul Krassner, Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, George Carlin, Timothy Leary, Eugene Ionesco, Robert Anton Wilson, Bill HIcks, Charles Bukowski, Art Kunkin, Jay Levin, Jim Channon, Abbie Hoffman, Jean-Paul Marat, Leonard Peltier, Geronimo, John Lennon, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Sam Kinison, Hunter S. Thompson, and Mitch Hedberg. I claim this peninsula in the name of pot, booze, and loose women. (Donations accepted at the tent.) I claim this peninsula because Mayor McGinn offered it to me and it would be rude to refuse. I claim this peninsula because I've got a tent and a trusty crew of street-wise roustabouts who've got my back. I claim this peninsula because it's a responsibility I've discovered I can handle.

I claim this peninsula for you, the person reading this, because whatever you want, I want that too, because I want everyone on earth to thrive and be happy, and think, deep down, it's actually possible if we all just respect each other's rights to do the same. I claim this peninsula for freedom of religion and freedom from religion. I claim this peninsula for everyone's right to believe any damn fool thing they want and my right to criticize their idiocy. I claim this peninsula because the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is only in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, and so carries no legal weight. Fuck that. I claim this peninsula so everyone can have as much life, liberty, and happiness as they can possibly stand as long as it doesn't get in the way of anyone else's right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

I claim this peninsula for rock & roll, for Abbott & Costello, for Larry, Moe, Curly Joe, and the Bowery Boys.

I claim this peninsula because I have nowhere else to go.

I claim this peninsula because somebody had to and it's just pathetic it had to be me.

MD

Thank you Geoffrey Gribbin for the amazing photos.

Seattle activists deliberately start riot

2011-11-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

Poster clearly stating the march starts at 6PM at Westlake Park

6 arrested and pepper spray deployed in Occupy Seattle protests

I was there at Seattle Central Community College at 3:30 when the march set out. A speaker at the campus specifically said they were headed towards Westlake Plaza to join a bigger crowd and march to the bank from there. Westlake Plaza was plastered with posters about the march, which was to start from there at 6:30. By 5:00, the march still hadn't reached the people waiting in Westlake, even though it's an easy 20 minute walk. Why?

The marchers took off from the college campus south on Broadway towards Pike, where I believe everyone, me, the police, even the marchers themselves, expected to turn right towards Westlake Park. It was a march I'd taken many times before with the Hempfest, escorted by the police.

But then instead of turning right, the leader turned left, crossed the street, and turned left again, making a complete U-turn, now heading north on Broadway. I was wondering where the hell they were going, so were the police, and so were the marchers themselves.

It's like the march organizers didn't know that all you have to do is tell the police what route you're taking to and they won't give a damn what your march is about, as a matter of public safety, they will escort you, block off intersections making it safe for you to pass, make sure no one gets hit by a car, and get ambulances there as fast as possible in case one of the marchers has a seizure (I saw this happen).

Either that or they were deliberately provoking the police because they thought the issue was us vs. the police instead of us vs. Chase Manhattan and the international cabal of bankers who rule the world.

The only reason the police weren't working with this march to make it a peaceful act of civil disobedience where no one got hurt is because the organizers saw that veteran in Oakland get shot out of a tree and said to themselves Good Idea, let's get shot out of trees ourselves. I blame them for the violence, which was unquestionably deliberately provoked.

You know what else would have worked? The entire crowd marching into the bank and simply sitting down and saying nothing. Give the police a hundred people to peaceably cart away.

Follow Vivian McPeak's advice concerning dealing with the police when committing an act of civil disobedience. Don't act so surprised when they bust you. You know it's going to happen.

That's why you're there, so to suddenly go OMG, look what this police officer is doing to me is disingenuous to say the least. That's the plan.

Try this next time. Everyone go up to a cop and introduce yourself. "Hi, I'm Heidi, and you're about to arrest me. I just want you to know that I will not resist arrest, though I may go limp and you may have to carry me out. I understand you're just doing your job. It's nothing personal. Please don't mace me. I don't have any weapons."

They will appreciate it. They will still arrest you, but if you treat them with respect, they might end up respecting you too. You're both just doing your job. No reason to get nasty.

There are those accusing the "leaders" of this march of working undercover for the enemy to try to splinter the movement. I'm not saying it's true, but if it WERE true, they couldn't be doing a better job.

It's time to start a new work group called "Enemy Reduction," the idea being that the less enemies you have, the more chance you have of accomplishing absolutely anything. Every enemy we've got, let's make them our friend.

10 Things Occupy Seattle is Asking from City Hall

2011-10-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

10 Things Occupy Seattle is Asking from Seattle City Hall

Occupy Seattle's permit to occupy City Hall is up at the end of the month so I'll be signing the new permit to keep us going for at least another week. I'm thinking of all the things I need to ask for, like more space and the occasional use of a Xerox machine and the rights of children to camp.

It's a legitimate negotiating strategy to deliberately include things you don't really want in order to give them the opportunity to turn something down and feel superior, so here's my official list of the 10 things I'm inviting Seattle City Hall to say no to...

A bonfire.
Pony rides.
A tropical fish tank full of piranhas for leftover vagrants.
Turning the plaza into an ice rink and doing a show called Homeless on Ice.
A bunny farm so we can all wake up surrounded by hundreds of bunnies.
A merry-go-round.
A public hanging in effigy of every bankster in Seattle who got away with stealing millions of dollars, through fraud and deception, from the innocent who now suffer.
An Occu-pie-fight, where we invite the 99% to City Hall to throw pies at each other.
A job, a home, some food, maybe a little medicine, preferably pot.
A theatrical production of The Occupied Piper, about an Ian Anderson wannabe who leads the homeless out of City Hall to the city park of their dreams, only to have City Hall renege on the deal to pay him, so he teams up with Anonymous to close all their bank accounts, default on their loans and mortgages, and lead them to Ivar's Acres of Clams where they all have one final bowl of chowder before marching off the pier into the Puget Sound like lemmings.

The Lobbyist

2011-10-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Michael Dare, and since I don't live on a private island surrounded by gunboats with a harem devoted to peeling my grapes, since I haven't fleeced mankind with economic corruption and terrorism for nothing more than my own personal benefit, since I'm not doing high dives into a pool of gold like Scrooge McDuck, since I haven't abandoned the basic precepts of human decency we're all born with for nothing more than my own personal betterment, since I haven't turned into a corpulent slavemaster whose soul can only be measured in micropayments, since this is the best of times for money shufflers and the worst of times for the entire rest of the human race, since I now find myself completely and utterly fucked by a system that puts corporate greed over human need, since I'm now reduced to stealing material not only from Charles Dickens but from signs I read in the park, since the chasm between the haves and the have-nots in this city, this state, this country, this planet, is so wide and so deep that somebody, and it's not me, is looking to get pushed into it, because of all these things, I am part of the 99%, I fully support Occupy Wall Street, and I have been a member of Occupy Seattle since day one.

I had to get that out. Run-on sentences are no good for the public microphone where I've been speaking lately. It's an acquired skill (It's an acquired skill). You speak in short bursts (You speak in short bursts). Everything takes twice as long (Everything takes twice as long). You have to be an insta-poet. Ta da DA da da (ta da DA da da) Da da TA da da da (Da da TA da da da) Writing's so much more simple, where my words only echo endlessly in my OWN head, thank you very much.

From that first day where everything was a triumph, one of the most exciting of my life, the park coalescing into little pods of discourse, interactive amoeba, a big bang of expanding social evolution in front of my eyes, to the fourth morning where I woke up to find a dozen Seattle Police headed by an intimidating officer surrounded by media and lights asking me to take down my tent, to sleeping in the park without a tent, getting my backpack stolen, getting another tent, setting it up on the night of 500, waking again to at least 50 Seattle Police on bikes and the park surrounded by barricades, no way out, no way in, from the first rain where we were forbidden to stand under the awning to the war of the umbrellas where we were literally ordered to get wet, to seven blocks away where I now mysteriously find myself the central facilitator of Occupy Seattle South in that little building called city hall, I've been completely convinced that the movement is organic, embracing all strata of humanity, a living breathing frustrating disorganized mess that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Compared to Westlake Park, City Hall is the goddam Hilton. Westlake Park is absolutely one of the worst places in the city to try to get a good night's sleep. City Hall has a whole other vibe, peaceful, organized, sanitary, a place where things got done instead of talked about.

Mysteriously, I was called a traitor. How dare I accept the Mayor's kind offer of a place to sleep, bathrooms, running water, dozens of free electrical outlets, no police, and a safe place to leave my stuff where I can find it when I get back? Why was I giving in to THE MAN? I asked if the Mayor offered them a room in the Hilton, would they take it, and was told No way, man. He's the problem. It would be like accepting cake from Marie Antoinette. It's all just a ruse. They want us where they want us so they can surround us and BAM, round us all up.

Well, first of all, that's not what the permit says. Second, no Mayor in the history of Seattle has EVER offered the front plaza of City Hall for occupation by a political movement, much less suspended the fees which should be running up to $500 a day. Third, if there was any political pressure on the Mayor to do something, it was surely NOT to offer us City Hall, it would have been the opposite, to squash us like bugs. Fourth, if the Mayor hadn't offered it to us, we'd be demanding it, and fifth, I asked him if he'd ever heard of the Trojan Horse. When the Mayor invited us to occupy City Hall, he surely didn't expect ME in the lobby.

Writing in the lobby of city hall, I try to figure out what to call myself. Days ago, I was told that the night before they had a vote and I was now in charge. I was uncomfortable with being called a leader so we settled on facilitator but I'm not happy with that because it makes my kids facilitator tots.

So I need a new word for myself. I'm in a goddam lobby. The city council and the mayor are upstairs. I have been, and I cannot stress this enough, invited.

The one thing I've done outside is listen to people's stories. I cannot claim to represent Boeing, but I can claim to represent the Boeing worker I met in Westlake Park. I cannot claim to represent the hotel worker's union, but I can claim to represent the needs of the member of the hotel worker's union I met in Westlake Park. To claim to represent the 99% means to claim to represent everything from crack addicts to cops. That's a big bridge to gap, but I guess I represent them too.

I didn't choose to do this. I'm filling a vacuum, much as my cat once did. What I am is a very non-professional lobbyist for the 99%.

Dear Mayor McGinn,

I have decided to accept your brave and generous offer to occupy city hall, and for the first time in my life, I'm not being the least bit facetious. I speak both in my volunteer capacity as primary facilitator for Occupy Seattle: City Hall, and in my personal capacity as a homeless person in the City of Seattle. Occupy Seattle and the homeless problem are now joined at the hip and they're both mine. I am both a relentless advocate for social change and a fellow human being with no place to stay tonight. I'm couch surfing, and mean it from the bottom of my cold cold heart, I appreciate the place to crash.

That being said, you should know I'm right here, dude, in the southeast corner of the main lobby, sucking up your electricity with a broken laptop, and I'm going to be here till you throw me out. I'm in City Hall for the long haul. This isn't going to take days or weeks or months. This is going to take years, and I'm going to be here, sometimes in full support, sometimes a massive obstruction in your sigmoid colon. I'll try to be a nice guest. I am here, after all, at your invitation, and I'm not a shmuck. I know that a courteous person leaves everything behind as they found it if they ever want to be invited back. This chair I'm sitting in? I moved it. I promise to move it back when I'm done.

Our permit is up for renewal at the end of the month, and hopefully, the month after that and the month after that. My personal needs directly correlate to the needs of the movement I hesitate to claim to represent. I need a job and a place to live. I need food and transportation and entertainment and companionship. I need to know that life isn't like joining a game of Monopoly already in progress, a game that never starts over, where every square is already owned, so anywhere you land except Free Parking, you're screwed, you never pass go, and you never collect $200 (or, in the case of Seattle, $197). There's got to be a way out of this. I know there is, and it's not just me.

The OCCUPY movement has spread across the country. Every mayor in America is facing the exact same problem you're facing. The mayor who figures out how to deal with us with grace and compassion, the mayor who can take the principles of Occupy Wall Street and successfully apply them to their own town, could end up leading this country out of the second great depression.

How do I know this is a "depression" and not a "recession" or "downturn in the market" or "bump in the road that will correct itself?" Because of the people I've met. Because making a claim to represent 99% of Americans, in all their splendor, with their wildly divergent sizes and shapes and colors and religions and IQs and political affiliations and endless personal needs seems completely outrageous until you enter an OCCUPY camp and find men and women, big and small, black and white and everything in between, preaching the gospel and preaching anarchy, brilliant people who have never had the chance to share their views in public finding, goddam, there are others who agree with them, the good looking mingling with the ugly, macho scumbags high-fiving semi-transsexuals all in the name of one thing, to secure a place on this planet where our basic human needs are seen to, a social safety net that applies to everybody whether anyone thinks we deserve it or not.

You've got it particularly tough since this is a company town where the companies are Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon, etc., some of which are completely cool, and some of which are part of the problem. You want to lead this movement instead of oppress it, you've got to start dealing with local corporations according to the national guidelines set by Occupy Wall Street.

We want money out of politics. How about banning all political contributions in the City of Seattle and setting up a taxpayer financed electoral process? Seattle can show America how it can be done. (Don't ask me.)

You can personally stand up to the Supreme Court and say No thank you, in Seattle, corporations aren't people and money isn't speech. We all know these are both legal fictions that only exist to codify corruption, making it possible for you, right now, to squeeze local corporations for dough for your own personal benefit. Want to join us? Squeeze corporations for the benefit of the city. (Easy example, the current plan to lose the free bus zone downtown. This is easily branded as part of the war against the poor, and a war against the poor is a war against Occupy Seattle. Personally, now that general relief checks have stopped coming in, I can't afford ANYTHING, much less public transportation. Get a corporation, or a conglomeration of corporations, to pony up for the free buses.)

The one thing you can't do is ignore us. I may seem to be representing the dregs of the earth, but there's a militia that's got our back. They've made themselves known to me. Seattle is on the verge of the showing the US how NOT to deal with us, and it won't be pretty. This isn't a threat. I don't like it any more than you do. I want to defuse the situation.

Mayor McGinn, I genuinely think you're on our side, that if fate had sent you careening into a life other than mayor, you'd be with us.

There's a fireplace in the lobby of City Hall I understand is rarely used. On some beautiful, cold, windy, and obviously rainy Seattle day, how about a fireside chat? I'll bring the marshmallows.

Sincerely,

Michael Dare

Lobby

City Hall

Seattle, WA

Dear Occupy Seattle,

Let me tell you about the Seattle Hempfest. It is not the biggest political event in Seattle. It is not the biggest music or cultural event in Seattle. It is the biggest event in Seattle, period, and the biggest peaceful political protest and act of civil disobedience on the planet earth, maybe ever.

How do we do it when we're a political protest in a public park governed by a city ordinance that bans camping, just like Occupy Seattle? We work with the mayor and the police who, amazingly enough, agree with us that the war against marijuana is outrageous. There's a three year waiting period for police to volunteer for working the Hempfest. They want to be there.

This year they cut their staff way back. There were basically only four Seattle Police for the whole park.

Are you listening to me? Every year, up to 250,000 people gather in a public park in Seattle as a political protest against the drug war, openly buying and selling paraphernalia, openly sending giant white clouds of pot smoke into the air, and the Seattle Police and Mayor not only let it happen, THEY'RE ON OUR SIDE.

What's the difference between Occupy Seattle and Hempfest, where the city ordinance just as clearly forbids camping? We don't camp. That's it. You think we don't want to let venders and performers spend the night? You don't think we've asked for a variance? No way. On that point, they won't budge. We've been fighting this exact same battle for 20 years. They have threatened to do to Hempfest what they've been doing in Westlake, coming through the park at night and hassling people who might be sleeping.

But they don't. Why? Because we do it for them. I personally have gone up to people at Hempfest and ordered them to take down their tents. I don't like it. I think they should be able to stay. But it's a small price to pay for Hempfest to happen. How many of you think we should have allowed the city to cancel the Hempfest permit this year and stop the entire event by drawing an imaginary line in the sand concerning the enforcement of this one stupid law. We had bigger fish to fry and so do you.

You want to change a city ordinance? You believe in democracy? There's an app for that. It's called the initiative process. Getting it on the ballot and getting the 99% to vote this inhumane ordinance out of existence will be MUCH more effective than pitching a tent in the rain in a deserted park.

It's particularly not worth fighting for since the mayor has already acquiesced to so many of our demands.

You can't ask for 24 hour access to bathrooms. He's given them to us at city hall.

You can't ask for permanent booths devoted to medical needs and food distribution. He's given them to us at city hall.

You can't ask for a safe place to store your things where you'll find them when you get back, you can't ask for a location to pitch a tent without fear of police interference, and most importantly, you can't ask for a bongo free environment where you can actually get a full night's sleep, because he's already given them all to us at City Hall.

You may have had a bad experience with cop. I'm not surprised. So have I, but you can't carry that baggage with you into this movement and apply it to all police, any more than you can take a bad experience you had with an Eskimo and apply it to all Eskimos. Do you know any police who live on private islands surrounded by hula girls and tidy mile-high stacks of hundred dollar bills? If they're not the 1%, they're the 99%, and I personally invite every Police Officer, every Social Worker, every bus driver, and every city employee to come join us at city hall in protest of the corporate takeover of the United States of America.

I'll put it as simply as possible. When we started, we were living in a single. We slept and worked in the same place. Now that we've grown, we need a one bedroom. Let City Hall be your bedroom and nothing more.

At night, downtown Seattle clears out and turns into a standard deserted urban shithole. What exactly is the point of occupying Westlake at night? You can demonstrate up the wazoo and it'll only be seen by three crack addicts and a pigeon.

At Westlake, there are no Honey Buckets, so at night, the alleys surrounding the area have turned into public urinals and worse. This should be a Parks Department issue. They provide free trashcans they routinely empty, regardless of the political affiliation or race or gender of the pedestrians disposing of their empty Starbucks cups. They don't want trash in their parks and they shouldn't want crap in their alleyways. It's a public health issue. Whatever the may think of our possession of the park, the city should provide Honey Buckets in city parks where there are hundreds of people, whatever the purpose. Depriving anyone of the simple right to empty their bladders and bowels is intestinal terrorism and pretty goddam despicable. (Personally, I think it should be the law that ANY business open to the public must have bathrooms open to the public. Call me crazy but shitting and pissing are the smelliest human rights that the Occupy movement should be fighting for.)

I have nothing but admiration for the brave souls who got themselves arrested in Westlake. There was a particular moment when it was a direct strike for the movement, the tents symbolizing everything we stand for. Hell, I was there with you in a borrowed tent. But that moment has passed. Now it's just an unfortunate distraction from the real issues.

It seems to me that you have been surround by the police doing terrible things for so long that you have deluded yourself into thinking they're out to stifle free speech and squash the movement. It's not true. They don't give a shit about what you're saying. Ask yourself. Have they ever busted a SPEAKER? No. All they're interested in is tents. and allowing the Park Service to do their job cleaning the park. THAT'S the only law they care about. If the tents are gone, POOF, so are the cops. No more paranoia about being busted. Really. Just like Hempfest. I've talked to them (before I found out I wasn't supposed to). As soon as they're convinced there will be no more camping at night, the only cops you will see in Westlake are the ones off duty who are joining us. You've got to pick your battles. Corruption in politics or tents.

MD

Dear Anarchists,

You're part of the 99% so God help me, I represent you too, even though you don't want representation, even though you believe we've reached the tipping point where the only possible solution is to bring down the system. I'm with you. The problem of corruption is systemic and has to go. It's like cancer that has spread throughout the structure of society so surgery, radiation therapy, whatever it takes to kill the damn thing without killing US in the process.

It's like the aqueduct. It had to come down. But that doesn't mean it had to be blown up while people were driving on it. Step by step, the old structure will be replaced with a new one, just like we're going to do with society.

When society crumbles, there will be anarchy. It is a necessary part of the transition process from one system to another, but the open mike at general assembly is positive proof that order and responsibility will naturally evolve and arise out of anarchy and chaos. Nobody could have planned it that way. I watched. It just happened and nobody could have stopped it. The natural impulse towards structure and safety is one of the trademarks of our species.

The first man to hurl an insult instead of a rock invented civilization. You can't fight FOR civilization with rocks.

Occupy Seattle - October 1, 2011

2011-10-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

86 more pictures of Occupy Seattle - October 1, 2011

Occupy Seattle: Protest at Westlake Center : Seattlest

2011-09-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

I will be there.

Occupy Seattle's 99 Sign

It all started in July, when Adbusters published a call to arms (more specifically to unarmed occupation and protest), which kicked off the Occupy Wall Street movement, which you may or may not have heard much about.

Occupy Seattle is a grassroots satellite protest that stands in solidarity with the New York movement. Groups in major cities across the country are staging similar protests, calling themselves the 99%.

Their website proclaims: “We are here because we are tired of corporations running our government.” If you’re tired too, and want to participate, this group is meeting Saturday, October 1st at 10 a.m. at Westlake Center. It’s suggested that everyone wear a dollar bill with the eye of Providence facing out so that protesters can find each other.

Occupy Seattle Protest // Saturday, October 1, 2011 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. // Westlake Center

Occupy Seattle: Protest at Westlake Center : Seattlest

Hempfest loadout, Tuesday, 08-23-11

2011-09-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

Gallery of Hempfest shots

Rapture by Proxy

2011-05-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Send $20 for a full size blow-up doll, or $10 for a mini-sized blow-up doll, along with your name, or the name of the party you would like to see Raptured by Proxy [TM], to Michael Dare, 2405 NE 113th St., #3, Seattle, WA 98125.

On October 21, 2011, I will write your name on the doll with a Sharpie, fill it with helium, and live blog the release of all the dolls into the Seattle sky, whatever the weather.

Don't let the next Rapture catch you with your pants down, and don't accept any other offers for Raptures by Proxy. This is the only one with a personal guarantee that you will fly into the clouds.

The Startling Truth about Pioneer Square

2011-03-09T18:37:00.001-08:00

Dickens redo too faithful to the book

2011-02-18T12:21:00.001-08:00

Who's the least interesting character in Oliver Twist? Oliver himself, of course. Fagin, Artful Dodger, even Bill Sike's dog Bull's-eye have more personality than that wimpy orphan. Anyone who walks out of the film Oliver singing "Where is love?" instead of "You've got to pick a pocket or two" is an idiot.

Unfortunately, the same is true of Great Expectations. Everyone is more interesting than Pip and damned if he isn't the central character. Lee Osorio gets the most stage time as Pip, reminding us once again why all the major actors in every film of Great Expectations played every role but Pip (except Ethan Hawke who doesn't count). Pip's just not that interesting, and Osorio hasn't solved the problem of the central character who has no personality. Pip is such a cipher that there's nothing much you can do with him.

Sir Alec Guinness and John Mills celebrate the fact they're

not playing Pip in David Lean's version of Great Expectations

I sat through the Royal Shakespeare Company's six hour production of Nicholas Nickleby and wasn't bored for a second. Book-It Repertory is right up there with them so I can only conclude that a mere three-hour Great Expectations bored me because Nicholas Nickleby is a WAY better book than Great Expectations.

In one peculiar piece of double casting, Sylvie Davidson, who was brilliant in a previous production of Emma, plays Estella and Biddy, the two women in Pip's life, turning Pip into Dylan McDermott in My Best Friend's Wedding where he has to choose between Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz. Awww, poor baby. We're suppose to want him to go with the one that's nice instead of the one that's devious, but believe me, every male in the audience was thinking "Either one, dude." When Pip has the choice between two characters played by the same incredibly beautiful actress, we're pissed off he doesn't get a happy ending with either one. As my rampantly heterosexual companion pointed out, the only thing that kept him going through the boring parts of Great Expectations was imagining Sylvie Davidson naked.

Gwyneth Paltrow took off HER clothes in Great Expectations.

Why didn't Sylvie Davidson?

Like David Copperfield, Pip isn't the hero in his own life, that role goes to Michael Patten as Magwith, or is it Jaggers? So many dual roles can screw with your brain, which is why I like them, and characters like Pumblechook and Joe and Miss Havisham are such extravagant caricatures that they virtually demand the actors go over the top. Jane Jones excels as both Pip's sister and Miss Havisham, both entirely disagreeable harpies, and once again giving Pip a strange choice between twin devils, the one he knows and the one he doesn't. Everyone in the cast has a ball.

I admire Book-It's work so much that I tend to blame any problems I have on the book itself. When they do a book I love, I love the production, and when they do a book I hate, I want to tear my hair out. So I guess what I discovered is that I hate Great Expectations, but that can't be true, Charles Dickens is my hero, so it must be something else, like my own great expectations that they will enhance the simple reading of a book with stunning performances and brilliant stagecraft. They did an excellent job of convincing me that watching this production was WAY better than having to read the book. Though they publish a Great Expectations study guide, it's hard to imagine that this, or any production of Great Expectations would turn a modern teenager into a Dickens fan without making Pip a werewolf.

If this sounds unreasonably harsh, it's only because this production comes in at a 9 instead of their usual 10. The book didn't feel enhanced, only performed, leaving the brilliance to Dickens in what is unfortunately one of his most plodding books in which the style has not aged well. Adapter Lucinda Stroud did a splendid job adapting Dickens' writing style to the Book-It style, and Director Kevin McKeon kept things moving, but it goes on and on and could use losing at least half an hour.

I don't remember which half-hour it was that put me partially to sleep, slipping into the Dickens of my mind, flashing through all the other adaptations, both faithful and un, David Lean and South Park, strobing between black-and-white and color, Miss Havisham creating the Genesis device that collects the tears of Estella's boyfriends in order to make a potion to make her young again, walking down the grand staircase, ready for her close-up, Pip making love to Estella in the swamp, or is it Biddy, Davidson madly changing characters back and forth like Faye Dunaway at the end of Chinatown, reminding me that Book-It has GOT to do a Raymond Chandler or Jim Thompson or Dashiell Hammett or Robert J. Parker or anything with a hard boiled detective, noir for moi, when I was suddenly woken by robot monkeys defending Miss Havisham from hordes of theatergoers who already read the book. That's the half-hour they should lose.

As long as you're not Pip, take me!

The moral lesson Pip learns is one of Dickens' best but it happens to a character about as interesting as Candide, the least interesting character in Candide, and whose quest to be a "gentleman" is one we don't even partially heartedly endorse. The ending is particularly pathetic if you don't give a damn about Pip. I certainly don't blame the actor who gave it his all. I'm afraid the only way to save this production is to get into a time machine, go to London in 1860, and threaten to break Charles Dickens' fingers if he doesn't make Pip a more interesting character. On the other hand, an all nude Great Expectations would be pretty fabulous though pointless. Maybe if only the poor people wore no clothes.

My humble suggestion? Lose the fake English accents, move the whole thing to post-civil war New Orleans, and make Pip black. Miss Havisham is a character right out of a Tennessee Williams play anyway, and the struggle of newly freed slaves to be accepted into white society is a peculiar mirror of the class struggles in the England of Dickens. The script wouldn't have to be changed that much, and since there's virtually no set, all they have to switch is accents, costumes, and a little casting. (Sorry Lee Osario, you were great, really, it's just that you in blackface is problematic.)

And put the robot monkeys back in.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

by Charles Dickens
Adapted by Lucinda Stroud
Directed by Kevin McKeon

February 8 – March 13, 2011
Previews: February 8-10
Opening Night: Friday, February 11
Student Matineés: February 16, March 8 & 9

Center House Theatre, Seattle Center
BUY TICKETS NOW

Book-It's production of Red Ranger Came Calling is a classic

2010-11-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

One approaches any new holiday classic with a bit of trepidation. What magical treakely message are we to receive, what illumination of the human heart that's supposed make us better people by awakening our power to believe?

The magical twist in Book-It Repertory's Christmas production of Berkeley Breathed's illustrated children's book Red Ranger Came Calling is so unexpected, so site specific to a local landmark, so outrageously silly that your first reaction is "that's it?" Can't be. And then it sinks in that buried beneath the joke is a twisted unspoken message about the nature of wishes that's pretty damn far from your standard Christmas hogwash. It's completely from left field, unguessable, as though the play ended by saying "and that's the REAL story of how Stonehenge was built."

It didn't make me believe in Santa Claus but it sure made me believe in theater.

Most Book-It productions depend upon a perfectly cast central character, and 23 year old Jerick Hoffer's depiction of 9-year-old Red is a jaw-drop amalgamation of Tom Sawyer, Alfred E. Newman, Pee-Wee Herman, and Dennis the Menace, petulant, nasty, and completely hysterical.

But the real star of the evening is the adaptation by Myra Platt and Edd Key. As directed by Myra Platt, it's got enough good old fashioned stagecraft, show tunes, and dance routines to keep your toes tapping, just enough childish humor to keep the kids paying attention, and just enough subversion to keep cynical schmucks like me from skipping out during intermission.

Forget that warhorse Amahl and the Night Visitors. Samuel French should jump on this "guaranteed true Christmas story" crowd pleaser so it can be performed by high schools across the land.