MOTHER

YOU are the First
beginnings Of the first love I've ever known...
 kindness, warmth, trust,
  All this you have shown...
YOU are
the perfect rainbow
across the sky of every human being,
 YOU are the flower view
 my soul keep seeing...

Your nourishment gave me the power
to continue on
with strong motion,  you are
  the raw essence
   of truth
  and devotion...
your wisdom is the treasure,
your giving has no measure,
much higher and precious than any other...
you are the one
you are my mother.

Bernard Patrick
2/23/99

BEING POOR AIN'T NO STATE OF MIND

When the winds be blowin'
so very hard
and the cold is assaulting
one's bones, when
the very bottom of one's belly
cries out to a world
the just don't hear,
to a world that just don't
really know the
 serious push
  of the
pains that
 hunger their
 way
 above and beyond
  the heart...
When one's only dream
is to be warm and realized...
just to be realized.
 When one has allowed
 the neat commodities
 of pride
  to become vaporized
  In the fluttering wings of hope...
When one has engaged
in the vast theater
  of other people's stare
  and disregard.
When one must become an
actor or actress for the small
 but wanting
  facet
  of a meal.
Being poor is the tragic song
  that has no
 particular music, it's
  a song and a journey
that has no apparent end...
...It is the cracked reflection
 in a cultural mirror
 that often breaks
 into little
  jagged
  elements called terrible...
Being Poor
 is like the shadow
 squeezing in
  between two tan
  buildings...
Being Poor is deplorable... it is
 the profane exterior
 of hurt
  encrusted
 and shackled
 along the narrow lines of reality.
 

Bernard Patrick, 1999
GSP EF307420
100 GA, HWY, 147
Reidsville, GA
30499

Gary breaks it down about his reservation, what it means to be a father, keeping up Penobscot ways, the Indian Island School, talked a bit about the Casino Initiative (where the one in town got have one and a Indian Nation couldn't), Paper Mill chemical dumping into the Penobscot River, and much more!!!

Stars and Gripes: Thoughts on Pacquiao vs. Mosley

Seeing this past weekend’s world title fight between WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley brought to mind a quote I’d read somewhere: “The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register”.  After reading about and watching commercials for the fight, I gave my tithe to the church of pugilism (AKA the local cable company)—54 dollars and change—hard earned money from my Uncle Tom job as a doorman at an upscale (when I speak of upscale, I speak of the residents) apartment complex. 

 I wanted to watch Pacquiao because I have neglected him.  He is Pilipino, I am Pilipino-American and have not followed his career—a career that can only be described as brilliant.  My gripe is that the quality of the sport has receded due to a dearth of great fighters.   Fighters I watched growing up—Ali, Frazier, Arguello, Duran, Monzon, Hagler, Leonard, Sanchez, Hearns and Duran—were all active in the same generation—all future hall of famers.  My father collected boxing magazines while I collected Marvel and DC comics.  I graduated to collecting Ring and Boxing Illustrated Magazines, amassing an impressive stack under the bed.

I had first seen Pacquiao in 2002 on the undercard of the Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis heavyweight title fight.  Pacquiao was vying for the IBF featherweight title but my main focus was Tyson.  I wanted him to beat Lewis.  I didn’t give Pacquiao much thought although he was obviously a terrific puncher with good defensive skills and intensity cut from the same cloth as one of my heroes, Roberto Duran.  But my narrow-mindedness did not allow me to foresee the potential greatness of Manny Pacquaio.  I focused on Tyson because I didn’t like Lewis.  Lennox didn’t sound like a heavyweight champion; heavyweight champions had names like Muhammad, Joe, Rocky--or Mike.  That night Tyson got knocked out.  The champion’s name was Lennox (not Linux).  Pacquiao won that night too.

Fight night—clips of Pacquiao and Mosley’s fights are shown, footage of the two fighters training, posing for cameras and clips of Pacquiao at work as a congressman in the Philippines.  The announcer talks about Pacquiao’s humble beginnings prior to his boxing career, about his drive and perseverance which resulted in an unprecedented feat--the first fighter to win world titles in 8 different weight classes.  When asked about his political career, Pacquaio says that prior to being elected as Congressman, he saw the problems in the Philippines as being this big, illustrating the size with the space between his thumb and forefinger.  He then added that the problems are this big, spreading his arms wide.  Members of the press corps often referred to Pacquiao is being the smaller fighter, a distinction Mosley respectfully corrected--"He is the shorter man" Mosley said.

The weigh-in was shown and I became somewhat depressed.  As I approach the mid stage of life--along with millions of other sedentary members of my gender-- I watch these athletes and realize I will never achieve six pack abs.  I look at the body of 39 year old Mosley and remember his fight against Oscar De La Hoya in 2000.  He won that fight with speed.  I wondered how much he had left at age 39.  The prelim bouts begin and I drop to the floor, attempt a set of crunches when a text message from my friend Ezekiel--"Zeak" for short--the boxing fan, comes through.

Zeak:  You watching the fight?

Me: Yeah

Zeak: I think Pac’s gonna knock him out in 9

Me: How many crunches can you do?

Zeak: ?

I give up my crunches, jog to the kitchen and back, hitting the couch in  time for the main event. I sit. Mosley enters first with his team led by LL Cool J on the mic doing “Mama said knock you out”.  It was decent but I preferred the music video.  Leading the Pacquaio contingent is Jimi Jamison—of the group “Survivor”---singing “Eye of the Tiger” from the movie “Rocky III”.  I get another text:

Zeak: Pac should have sung that song himself.  He has the voice.

Me: LL Cool J looks like he could give Pac a good fight

Zeak: Jamison looks like he should be carrying the bucket

Me: I know

Both national anthems are sung; the Philippine first, beautifully sung by Charice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW7UrZ5WveI) followed by the US anthem sung by Tyrese.  Somehow I don’t hear the words that Tyrese sings.  I keep thinking of his role in “Baby Boy”, in the python-like choke hold of Ving Rhames who whispers in his ear: Jody…little Jody before slapping his shiny head(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VywoZ8t2LyM&feature=related).  I wonder how Ving Rhames would sound singing the national anthem. 

I looked at the Philippine flag hanging stoically amidst the thousands of fans, moving slightly under the hum of lights and above the ocean of anticipation.  I thought about myself as a Filipino-American.  It felt good hearing the Philippine anthem.  I wanted to join in but didn’t know the words.  After Tyrese’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, Jamie Fox was introduced and segued into “America the Beautiful”.  Another text:

Zeak: Fox is taking this Ray Charles thing serious, huh?

Me: I like Ray

I wondered why the extra portion of patriotism was being doled out and it came to me via yet another text:

Zeak: It’s a dig on the Bin Laden Folk.  It’s code for:  WE GOT ‘EM

Me: Also a dig at Pacquiao.  It's the US saying, you might be the best fighter in the world, but ours is the best COUNTRY in the world.   It makes 'em feel better.

Round one.  Both fighters are jabbing and moving, respectful of each other’s power.  No damage done.  I score the round even.  That was as close as it got.  I had Pacquiao winning every round thereafter.  He used his jab and applied constant pressure, landing hard shots that took the steam from Mosley within a few rounds.  Mosley’s signature speed and pinpoint counter punching that had been brilliant in fights against De La Hoya, Forrest and Mayorga was not present.

Mosley seemed to age as the rounds progressed.  It was as if his mind knew what to do but was betrayed by an uncooperative body.  I was reminded of Sugar Ray Leonard, in one of his last fights, against Jr. Middleweight Champion Terry Norris.  Leonard absorbed a beating, taking punches he would have avoided in his prime.  Mosley, like Leonard, was past his prime.  Both fighters had much respect for each other—at times seeming too respectful—touching gloves before every round and in various times in between.  Prior to the fight, Mosley expressed resentment at being the underdog. Having been thrown off his rhythm by Pacquiao's power and speed, Mosley seemed to have left any resentment he had in his dressing room. 

During the fight cameras cut to each fighter’s respective Wife/partner; their faces etched with anxiety, concern, worry.  I get another text message:

Zeak: Who you thinks hotter, Pac’s wife or Mosley’s girl?

Me:  They're both beautiful...like models

Zeak: Come on, you got to have a preference

Me: It has nothing to do with the fight

Zeak: Hell, the way the fight’s going, I’d rather see the ladies go at it

Me: You got a point

At the final bell I had Pacquiao winning every round except the first, which I scored even.  Pacquiao was simply too fast and possessed too much power for Mosley to overcome with his famed counterpunching that made him one of the best pound for pound fighters in boxing for much of the past decade.  The unanimous decision verdict was anti-climatic.  Both fighters showed respect for each other during the post fight interview. “You’re the pound for pound king” said Mosley to Pacquiao through swollen but still handsome features.  Pacquiao nodded silently. 

The post-fight text message:

Zeak: Who’s hotter, Mrs. Pacquiao or Mosley’s girlfriend?

 (The 54 dollar question)

© 2011 RWS

The story of Dee and tiny, the previously homeless, currently at-risk mother daughter art duo, and co-editors of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork is a many layered, multi-colored panopoly of poverty, struggle and myth...

To support her family, an undocumented worker gathers recyclables from street-side containers. 'I do it out of necessity,' she says.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008;

para espanol, mira abajo

It's not yet 3 a.m. Juana Rivas grabs her shopping cart and steps off the curb into the dark.

She shields herself from the cold with a sweat shirt and jacket, along with a pink hat and gloves she bought at the 99-cent store. Only a barking dog interrupts the silence.

Rivas arrives at the first house, lifts the trash can lid and shines her flashlight inside. Nothing.

"No hay. No hay," she says in Spanish.

She peers into another trash can. Nothing. She zigzags back and forth across the street, stopping at each house to search for aluminum cans, glass bottles, plastic containers, anything she can exchange for money at the local recycling center. She reaches inside and shakes the contents, listening for the telltale clink of a beer bottle or the hollow tap of a milk carton. Nothing.

She starts to feel anxious. Her husband and four children are depending on her. The $2,300 rent check on their Pasadena home is due in one week. She already asked for an extension on the gas. The cable and the phone have been disconnected.

She speeds up the pace. The plastic bags attached to the cart swoosh against one another. The wheels rattle as they roll over pebbles in the street.

A few minutes later, she finds an empty Sierra Mist can, a few plastic water bottles and several Foster's beer bottles. She dumps them into her empty cart.

"There are bad days and good days," says Rivas, 48.

As she walks toward the next house, she says, "It's going to be a bad day."

Rivas knows what people think, that she digs through her neighbors' trash to make money for drugs or alcohol. She knows what people call her -- scavenger, digger, thief.

"There are people who look at me like, 'You aren't worth anything. You aren't anybody,' " she said.

For 13 years, she says, she has collected cans and bottles "to pay my rent, my bills. I do it out of necessity."

She has looked for more stable jobs, including cleaning offices at night. But nowadays, more companies are asking for immigration papers, papers she doesn't have.

Besides, scavenging pays OK, she says. The more hours she puts in, the more she earns. Her proof is in her recycling center receipts: Oct. 22: $70.12. Dec. 12: $143.08. Jan. 4: $134.91. Overall, in a year she might earn between $20,000 and $25,000. Combined with what her husband earns and what her children contribute, they can meet the rent and put food on the table.

Rivas is part of the expanding underground economy -- the hundreds of thousands of immigrants in Southern California who clean houses, mow lawns and wash dishes, making money at the margins and paying few if any taxes. Her story mirrors the contradictions that make illegal immigration such a flash point. She broke the law getting here and drains a municipal resource staying here. Yet she works hard, very hard, so her children won't have to do the same.

Every weekday, she wakes at 2:30 a.m., knowing that even an hour more of sleep means less money. She walks miles and miles, even when it rains, even when she is battling the flu.

"If I miss one day, I'm short," she says.

Her only company is the Spanish-language DJ El Piolin, Eddie Sotelo on KSCA-FM (101.9), who entertains her through a hand-held radio one of her sons gave her two years ago.

Her shoulders and legs ache from pushing the heavy cart up and down hills. Her hands throb from arthritis. This morning, two of her fingers are bandaged with white tape. Two years ago, she had to go to the emergency room to get stitches when a broken bottle gouged open her forearm. She left with several stitches and a tetanus shot. Emergency Medi-Cal covered the treatment.

Criando una familia con la basura de Pasadena
* Para comprar comida y pagar la renta, una inmigrante ilegal recolecta y vende reciclables.
Por Anna Gorman, Redactora del Times
March 12, 2008

Aún no han dado las 3 a.m., Juana Rivas echa mano a su carrito de súpermercado y pasa de la acera a la oscuridad.

Se resguarda del frío con una sudadera y una chamarra, así como un sombrero rosado y unos guantes que compró en una tienda de 99 centavos. Sólo los ladridos de un perro interrumpen el silencio.

Rivas llega a la primera casa, levanta la tapa del basurero y alumbra hacia adentro con su linterna. Nada.

"No hay. No hay," dice ella.

Mira al interior de otro basurero. Nada. Camina en zigzags hacia delante y hacia atrás por la calle, parando en cada casa en pos de latas de aluminio, botellas de cristal, recipientes plásticos, cualquier cosa que ella pueda cambiar por dinero en el centro de reciclaje local. Mete las manos dentro, sacude el contenido por si oye el sonido clave de una botella de cerveza o el sonido hueco de un cartón de leche. Nada.

Le entra ansiedad. Su esposo y cuatro hijos dependen de ella. Al cheque por $2,300 por el alquiler de su casa en Pasadena le falta una semana. Ya tuvo que pedir una extensión para el pago del gasóleo. El cable y el teléfono ya fueron desconectados.

Ella acelera el paso. Las bolsas plásticas atadas al carrito suenan al pasar unas contra otras. Las ruedas chirrían al pasar sobre los guijarros de la calle.

Unos minutos después, halla una lata vacía de Sierra Mist, unas cuantas botellas plásticas de agua y varias botellas de cerveza Foster. Lo echa todo en su carrito vacío.

"Hay días malos y días buenos," dice Rivas, de 48 años.

A medida que camina hacia la próxima casa, dice, "Va a ser un día malo."

Rivas sabe lo que la gente piensa, que ella registra los basureros de sus vecinos en busca de dinero para drogas o alcohol. Ella sabe lo que dicen de ella – rastrojera, buscona, ladrona.

"Hay gente que me mira con cara de, 'No vales nada. No eres nadie,' " dijo ella.

Durante 13 años, dice ella, has recolectado latas y botellas "para pagar la renta, mis cuentas. Lo hago por necesidad."

Ella ha buscado trabajos más estables, incluso limpiar oficinas de noche. Pero hoy en día, hay más compañías pidiendo papeles de inmigración, papeles que ella no tiene.

Además, recolectar rastros paga bien, dice ella. Cuántas más horas le dedica, más gana. Su prueba está en los recibos del centro de reciclaje: 22 de octubre: $70.12, 12 de diciembre: $143.08, 4 de enero: $134.91. En general, en un año ella puede ganar entre $20,000 y $25,000. Combinado con lo que gana su esposo y lo que contribuyen los hijos, pueden pagar la renta y poner comida en la mesa.

Rivas es parte de la incipiente economía clandestina – los cientos de miles de inmigrantes del sur de California que limpian casas, podan céspedes y friegan platos, que ganan un dinero marginal y pagan muy poco, o nada, en impuestos. Su historia refleja las contradicciones que hacen de la inmigración ilegal un punto álgido. Ella infringió la ley para llegar aquí y drena recursos municipales al quedarse aquí. Sin embargo, trabaja duro, muy duro, para que sus hijos no tengan que hacer lo mismo.

Todos los días se levanta a las 2:30 a.m., a sabiendas de que tan sólo una hora más de sueño significa menos dinero. Camina millas y millas, incluso cuando llueve, incluso cuando está batallando contra la gripe.

"Si falto un día, no me alcanza," dice ella.

Su única compañía es el locutor hispanohablante El Piolín, Eddie Sotelo de la KSCA-FM (101.9), que la entretiene mediante un radio portátil que uno de sus hijos le regaló hace dos años.

Los hombros y las piernas le duelen de empujar el carrito cuesta arriba y cuesta abajo. La manos le tiemblan de la artritis. Esta mañana tiene dos dedos vendados con esparadrapo blanco. Hace dos años tuvo que ir a una sala de urgencia para que le suturaran una laceración que le hizo un pico de botella en un antebrazo. Salió con varios puntos y una vacuna antitetánica. El servicio de emergencia Medi-Cal cubrió el tratamiento.

POOR Magazine has been focusing on Vallejo, CA, across San Francisco Bay from San Francisco.  Vallejo benefitted, at first, from San Francisco's institutional, governmental incompetence and disinterest in honestly trying to keep its Black population from fleeing to friendlier places.

Many East Bay communities have grown as Black San Francisco has shrunk.  The Bayview newspaper did a story on this sad detail, among many others we and they have pointed to, of the realities of life in San Francisco for poor people of any skin color. 

the last two U.S. Census reports tell the tale, the Big Three People-of-Color populations (Asian, Black, Latin) outnumbers White Vallejo, with other brown-skinned people from the world Diaspora to Amerikkka making up the rest.  Why is this important?

Until a few years ago, Vallejo was considered an up-and-coming place to live, a great place to be for non-white folks.  Until recently, Vallejo was just like any other place in the Bay Area with more brown skin than white holding the place together--it was run by Whites. 

The current Mayor is Black, but you couldn't tell by what has happened to the city and the way the power structure responded to challenges facing the body politic, primarily a seriously messed-up budget leading the city to file for bankruptcy.  Vallejo has been trying to find new ways to make a buck, but they began with an attempt to destroy the Glen Cove/Sogorea TE Ohlone First Peoples' 4,500-years-old shellmound, to, as the song goes, "put in a parking lot". 

Sound familiar (without the bankruptcy proceedings...so far...) to anyone paying attention to whazzup in San Francisco?

San Francisco's Po'Lice Department is infamous for getting overtime pay from the budget of the MUNI public transit system, which has been hurting in a variety of self and governmental-incompetence-and-indifference-inflicted ways for years.  EIGHTY PERCENT  of Vallejo's budget, we are told, has gone to pay for Fire-fighting and Po'Lice services.

That's an amazing...appalling percentage of a budget for a city of approximately 100,000!  San Francisco has a mostly brown-skinned population, a Budget Brawl In City Hall that never ends (and the bruises are always found on brown skin).

When a baseball team doesn't try to stop one of another team's players from stealing a base it's called "Defensive Indifference".  What is it called when the white power structure of a mostly brown town doesn't even notice their budget is more full of plot holes than a Hollywood blockbuster disaster movie (until all they seem able to do is wring their hands, cry wolf, and make the un-skin-privileged pay for their incomptence and/or indifference)?

Business as usual.

I can't cry over the Vallejo Po'Lice Department finding itself staring into the budget headlights, getting run over like everyone else.  The San Francisco administrations of Gavin Newsom and the possibly interim Mayor Ed Lee (and others) want city workers to pay pay pay for the privilege of having been city workers for however many years or decades they worked.

Whatever happened to the I-Scratch-Your-Back-You-Scratch-Mine underpinnings of civilization (the reason we live in cities instead of being hunter-gatherer tribes wondering if somebody wants to count coup and steal our horses, or worse)?  What has happened to the hard-fought-for and hard-won rights of union workers, among other things many, or at least some of us look forward to as old age and Eldership Happens and new generations take over the burdens we drop?

The mutual Bonobo-like "back-scratchin' " only seems to be for the people with connections and money now. 

Vallejo's attempt to destroy the Ohlone shellmound has, for now, been defeated.  They need to find better ways to make a buck.  San Francisco does too.  The current issue of the San Francisco Bay Guardian editorially celebrates a hard-won victory over the Indifferent Ones who so love to carve cash cows out of the city budget without ever trying to replace them.

Maybe Charlie Sheen can help us win some more battles.  Or maybe not.  We do need more wins, though.  How many more San Francisco/Vallejo Budget Brawls In City Hall and China Syndrome-like Governmental Indifference budget-buster bombs are out there, waiting to go off?

In 2009 Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Robles asked me to write about Hoarding/Cluttering.  That article went where the Sock Gods take their prey from washers and dryers.

As I was saying, the San Francisco Bay Guardian just published ("Evicting Hoarders", May 4th-10th 2011) a good--though shallow--overview of Hoarding/Cluttering in general and in specific as it relates to the lives of the approximately 25,000 people classified with this particular brand of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in San Francisco.  Being a Hoarder/Clutterer can get you evicted from your apartment and most certainly from your SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel--aka Poor People Housing--room.

Is Hoarding a mental illness or the logical result of Capitalism run amuck in peoples' heads?  There is a vast economic chasm between the rich and the rest of us in Amerikkka today.  The gap between rich and poor wasn't quite so stupendously ridiculous in centuries past, and you could argue things weren't you-know-what as recently as 1980.

Many have become obsessed with being famous, becoming American Idols, sports stars, whatever floats your boat and gets you and your family out of poverty (or, well, obscurity...).  If you have little or nothing and everyone around seems to be conspicuously consuming stuff and owning lots of STUFF...well, Capitalism all by its bad little self can be as mind-bending as being a war veteran bit by PTSD, being a survivor of abuse, rape, or any other outrage to the body and soul.

I told Tiny once, when I was getting to know POOR Magazine better in late 2008, that I wished I'd become part of the family when poormag was founded in the late 90's.  I was not in a good state of mind.  I'd gone from being burned out on Activism 101 in 1989 to trying to figure out how to fit in with "The Real World" (TRW) to feeling like TRW wasn't my friend.  But the feeling wasn't strong enough to get me to really think about what was going on.

People getting on MUNI busses were hoarding or jumping their place in line to get on the bus (it's worse now with the evil Clipper Card and people getting on front, center and back doors while you're trying to get off the bus...), the number of people selling stuff on sidewalks seemed to be increasing like bunny rabbits...having too much fun.

Non-profits were working hard to get more corporate in their attitudes to money and the handling thereof.  I worked for the Alameda County Red Cross and heard a lecture on the subject at my first all-Bay-Area-staff gathering, and then came Bob Dole's Wife, appointed new national head of the Red Cross, who said the RC couldn't do AIDS awareness training, which generated considerable angst in my and others' workplaces. 

There were other reasons why I felt like a refugee in my own country, including being just as good at hoarding as anyone else.  Books, magazines, and newspapers float my boat just fine.  Not having the room to go all-out simply means occasionally getting rid of stuff and then adding more.  I hate getting rid of books, even if I haven't read a bunch I snagged several years after I snagged them!

My tv is dead now, but I've watched a few episodes of Martha Stewart.  She is, in my opinion, a PROFESSIONAL hoarder/clutterer.  I remember an episode where the camera lovingly moved around a room crammed with iron and stone furniture that looked like it would happily bite chunks out of you re THE AMITYVILLE HORROR movie--and maybe move in and eat the rest of you.  How anyone could enjoy a room like that I could not calculate.

What happens to rich people who collect lots of art, cars, motorcycles, whatever?  They are (if they haven't gone completely Capitalistically status-mad like the current soon-to-be-ex owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team) celebrated on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" tv shows, written up in other style and architectural magazines--they add a certain toxic pizzazz to The Spectacle of Life in the 20th/21st Centuries and they mess with our minds real bad unless we are strong enough not to buy into their crap.

I was well on my way into The Valley of I-Got-Mines, The Valley of Get A Good Job and Get Some Plastic and Buy! Buy! Buy! at the time POOR Magazine came along, but I never got where I thought I wanted to be.  Too much work.  Saved by non-enthusiasm for the rat race fast lane?

It is odd that there isn't even a hint of my kind of analysis of Hoarding/Cluttering in the SF Bay Guardian's article.  I don't expect them to write like I do, they kick ass often and their ass-kickin' boots go pretty deep into many of their targets.   Also, their article stays firmly American.

I've been an Oprah fan too.  One of her shows on how people live elsewhere in the world included a tour of an apartment somewhere in the Scandinavian world.  A small family with one or two kids.  They weren't into materialism.  Not a lot of stuff.

Their kitchen looked clean enough to eat off the floor and was so well designed you couldn't tell where to find anything unless you, well, lived there.  There were a few toys on the floor of the kidspace, but not as many as you'd expect an American child to have--or what I expect after being a Goodwill donation attendant!  Every holiday Goodwill donation attendants expect to get lots of donations because people with real money get rid of their old STUFF to make room for new STUFF.

Serial Hoarding/Cluttering!

I wanted to live in that apartment, but it was so clean and well organized and...not full of stuff I had a hard time believing anyone could actually be happy in it.  That's what excessive Capitalism gets you.

I hate to mention Japan.  Kick somebody when they're down!  But Japan and China can make us look like wimpo-Capitalists.  Until recently I had two copies of books about useless Japanese inventions.  I actually got rid of them, couldn't read them...the useless stuff was so...useless.

Japan is where the next big techno-thing goes to be born.  The movie LOST IN TRANSLATION has a scene where the American female lead watches a young Japanese man brutally (or is it desperately?) kick video game ass in an arcade.  The translated-to-English noir novel OUT (I loved it, and if you like murder mysteries and noir, read it...) has one of its doomed female characters long-infected by the buy-on-credit-get-hosed-by-huge-personal-debt bug.  In the realm of fictional hoarder/clutterers there is also a minor character in Ursula K. LeGuin's 1974 still-amazing-after-all-these-years utopian/dystopian science fiction novel THE DISPOSSESSED, a member of a semi-utopian anarchist society exiled to the moon of their homeworld, afflicted with hoarder/clutterer compulsion in a society where you wouldn't expect to find it.  Some psychic wounds bleed forever.

We ain't the only hoarder/clutterer folks around, but we're told so often we're the greatest country since pre-sliced cheese I think it gets easy to ignore them thar folks who don't live here (unless they cross the border "illegally").  Or the opposite can bite just as hard--them thar folks is just so much more economically and mentally healthier than we is why look outside the borders for other examples and what-not? 

Why not?  Other people may have other ideas and methods for fighting the problem if all you want to do is cover the scab.

But that's a wound that can't heal unless we do something about how we live and treat each other.  If the rich and the super-rich won't stop HOARDING and CLUTTERING wealth and influencing the ever-shrinking size of the crumbs grudgingly given to the poor, the status quo won't ante anywhere but up for them and down for the rest of us.

The story of Dee and tiny, the previously homeless, currently at-risk mother daughter art duo, and co-editors of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork is a many layered, multi-colored panopoly of poverty, struggle and myth...

(Photo Credit: Toby Kramer, Andy Kreamer and PNN staff)

URGENT UPDATE: April 19,2011: Devil-Opers & Po'LICE At Sogorea TE HAVE BEEN STOPPED - NO REMOVAL FOR NOW- NOW BACK TO THE REAL WORK OF STOPPING PLANS TO BUILD PARK ON OUR ANCESTORS LANDS... KEEP THE PRESSURE ON THE CITY OF VALLEJO AND KEEP UP THE SUPPORT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN RESISTANCE !

Indigenous leaders and community members resist the theft of Sogorea (Glen Cove) Sacred Ancestral Land on Turtle Island

“is there any land the “white man” hasn’t stolen from us,” My 7 year old son’s words sailed through the POOR Magazine van as our family of indigenous, poverty scholars drove up 1-80 to join the resistance at Sogorea Te (Glen Cove) a place of commerce, culture and life for indigenous peoples for the last 3,500 years. Sacred land for our ancestors which has been under attack from the City of Vallejo and developers for years who have plans to redevelop this ancestral land into a “park”. 

“Thank-you brothers and sisters for coming here, for joining us in this fight to save this sacred space for Creator, for our ancestors, for our children,” said Wounded Knee Deocampo, a Miwok elder who has been at the forefront of the battle to keep Glen Cove, un-harmed, de-anthropologised, and safe from the looming jaws of redevelopment administered by The Greater Vallejo Recreational District (GVRD). Deocampo spoke to a group of community members, indigenous leaders, legal supporters who gathered to begin a prayer ceremony Thursday night to resist an impending threat of bulldozers by GVRD on Friday morning.

“The history and cultural use of the site has never been disputed. Native Americans continue to hold ceremonies at Sogorea Te just as they have for thousands of years,” said Mark Anquoe, Indigenous organizer with Indian Treaty Council who has been one of the groups organizing the media, legal and community work for this Sacred Site resistance.

The Glen Cove Shell Mound (Segorea Te) spans fifteen acres along the Carquinez Strait.  It is the final resting place of many Indigenous People dating back more than 3,500 years, and has served as a traditional meeting place for dozens of California Indian tribes.  The site continues to be spiritually important to California tribes. The Glen Cove site is acknowledged by GVRD and the City to have many burials and to be an important cultural site, yet as of Thursday night they were still were planning to move forward with plans to build a toilet and parking lot on this sacred site.

“We filed a civil complaint which had a powerful impact,” said Bradly Angel, with GreenAction, another organization which has been working with indigenous leaders to halt this desecration. “We even got a call from the Mayor of Vallejo, saying he might join our resistance.”

On Wednesday, April 13th, Sacred Site Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT), a Vallejo-based community organization, filed an administrative civil rights complaint to the State of California alleging that the City and GVRD are discriminating on the basis of race in threatening to destroy and desecrate significant parts of the Glen Cove Shellmound and burial site, for harming Native Americans’ religious and spiritual well-being, and effectively excluding Native Americans from their right to full participation in decision-making regarding the site.

“It’s a beautiful morning, and so far no bulldozers,” I got a call this morning (Friday) from Poverty and disability scholar Bruce Allison, who along with other members of POOR’s family and many other indigenous leaders and supporters camped out over-nite with plans to hold a prayer-ful  and peaceful resistance ceremony if the bulldozers came as planned this morning.

Andy Kreamer, another POOR Magazine extended family member who camped out over-night to re-port and sup-port, explained that they were going to march to City Hall in Vallejo and also go by the offices of GVRD.

“The Department of Justice got involved and have committed to mediating a discussion between indigenous organizers and the GVRD on Monday,” said Mark Anquo by cel phone from Sogorea Te this morning. He went on to explain that people will remain camped out over the weekend and so they need as much support from ALL community members to keep up this effort  and stave off the omni-present threat of GVRD, but that so far they are safe and it is because of our community-wide resistance and the pressure of media and legal action.

As father moon rose above the soft grass and elder trees of Sogorea Te, I walked quietly with my son and fellow poverty, youth and indigenous scholars from POOR’s family, Vivian Thorp, Queenandi Iris, Queena, Zosia and Janina  to a place where we held a quiet prayer circle for all of our ancestor spirits, Creator and Pachamama before we had to leave on Thursday night.  After our prayer, I remembered my sons conscious plea and the desecration by developers of sacred sites in Emeryville and the Presidio, just to name two, and we asked for the strength to resist yet another theft of our land by the “Man”.

Editors Note: Your support is STILL Needed to keep the pressure on - Food, Money and Prayers for Indigenous resistors on site and/or make calls to Vallejo City leaders - go to www.protectglencove.org for directions and information.

Watch the PNN-TV video of Sogorea Te Resistance by clicking on this link:

The story of Dee and tiny, the previously homeless, currently at-risk mother daughter art duo, and co-editors of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork is a many layered, multi-colored panopoly of poverty, struggle and myth...

I might get shot

Misunderstanding misrepresenting

Missing the point

Rolling down to LA

Car full of Kripples

Our politics, art & music we will display

Pop pop pop we might get shot

Wearing our politics on our sleeves

Goes deeper than what you can feel and see

Krip-Hop telling the story

Behind our name

Taking it back & we are not ashamed

Respecting the crips

Telling it like it is

Reclaiming what was ours in the beginning

Turning it inside out

But some will yell and shout

How we are disrespecting & pimping

From Blues to Hip-Hop honoring what got us here

Time for you to learn

Drop the guns & put your hands in the air

Krip-Hop schooling on the mic

No more fear no more staring

Educating/Advocating through music, poetry and comedy

Krip-Hop in Hollywood

On the corner in the hood

Behind a podium in LACC’s Classrooms

Fuck the fame

But we will have our own star on the Walk Of Fame

Once again, Krip-Hop goes deeper than a name

For all the Blind musicians who were ripped off

For the Latino break-dancer on crutches whom wasn’t mention in the movie Breakin

For Vernon Green who walked and sang on the streets of the Watts in the 50’s

Krip-Hop giving dues that is long over due

If you can’t understand than you must be a fool

We have no time for u we will go on doing what we do

Because it is bigger then I and you

Time for Spring Cleaning

Washing out old attitudes

Rolling down to LA in early May

Car full of Kripples

Our politics, art & music we will display

By Leroy Moore For Krip-Hop Nation’s gig in LA in May 2011

I met with John Neptune, Penobscot Tribal Council Member, and our first conversation was if I ate fiddleheads. Fiddleheads is a edible fern that grows by the water and is a traditional food of the Penobscots. I told him that I did not eat fiddleheads and only had moose meat. During this time of the year, many people have already run out of their fiddleheads as they are collected in May and then stored and ate throughout the year. 

John Neptune had a stash at his house so he invited me over for dinner to eat a traditional meal with moose meat and fiddleheads. It was awesome and tasted amazing!

He talked about the role of Tribal Council on his island, and how they are there to help out the community. He talked about the role of thinking seven generations ahead in considering decisions while on Council.

He works at the the Boys and Girls Club of the Penobscot Nation, which he started. He talks about the growth of the program which developed out of his house, and as I observed is a huge Adult Ally and Mentor to the youth there.

While there we talked about traditional food gathering, hunting, fishing as well.

It is very refreshing to meet tribal council members who think about the people first and see their position as a servant for the people instead of a politician.

The story of Dee and tiny, the previously homeless, currently at-risk mother daughter art duo, and co-editors of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork is a many layered, multi-colored panopoly of poverty, struggle and myth...

Diversifying Hip Hop-NYU 2010 Seminar
Posted by Bent Radio Jan 15th
Category: Bent Radio News
Tags: Hip Hop Homo Hop Leroy Moore NUY

The second Krip Hop/ Homo Hop seminar proved to be as informational as its first. The seminar brought together hip hop artists of the LGBT community as well as artists from the disabled hip hop community to discuss the visibility of both groups within the genre. Held at the NYU Kimmel Center for University Life, activist and founder of Krip Hop Nation Leroy Moore led the seminar with confidence and character as he presided over the event. Leroy who was born with Cerebral Palsy formed Krip Hop Nation shortly after he produced a three part series of disabled hip hop artists in conjunction with KPFA Radio in Berkeley California. Moore's quest to examine disabled artists visibility in the world of music today turned into what he called an "international project".

Unfortunately, I missed the film portion of the seminar where the Keith Jones documentary Un-Rapping Disabilities was a big topic of discussion. The seminar panel consisted of individuals representing both disabled artists and LGBT artists, who answered questions on the topic asked by the audience and Moore himself. Representing Homo Hop were Lester Greene, Soce The Elemental Wizard and activist hip hop group People With Teeth. Krip Hop panelists consisted of Kalyn from Wheelchair Sports Camp and Rob Da Noize Temple. Temple has performed and toured with the original Sugarhill Gang all across the globe. As a disabled DJ with Erb’s Palsy DJ Rob, is a veteran in the music industry of over 30 years that enlightened us all with his wisdom and experiences. The panel also spoke on the agenda of mainstream music, educating the community, their personal experiences so far during their careers, and what we as music lovers and independent artist supports can do to help our favorites become more visible in society.

Performances ended the evening and included a bit of spoken word by Moore himself. The Seminar hoped to educate, encourage, and enlighten attendees. No matter where or who it’s coming from if its good music, its good music. The seminar was a meeting of the minds, a showcase of talents, and informed us all in the words of Moore; it’s than just getting a label, its social justice.

Press Release

Issued: April 6th, Los Angeles, CA
Krip your mind and limp your style at "Putting Disability in the Mix," an event at Los Angeles City College's Tully's Cafe on Friday, May 6th at 7pm and Saturday, May 7th at 2pm. The shows and parking are free. The campus is located on Vermont Blvd. between Santa Monica and Melrose. There is a Metro Red Line stop nearby.

The show is sponsored by Krip-Hop Nation and Truth & Pain and will feature hip hop artists, poets, and comedians. It is brought to LACC by English professor Evan "Bones" Kendall who, with DC Curtis, co-authored “Truth & Pain starring the Gangsters & Retards in... The Mystique-cal Person-a of MC Cripple Crip,” a novel featuring teenagers with disabilities. The novel was discovered by Leroy Moore, the central figure in Krip-Hop Nation, an international group of performing artists with disabilities. Moore invited Curtis and Kendall to a San Francisco event in February, and now a similar show will take place in Los Angeles.

Coming from all over the state, performers will include poets Leroy Moore, Lateef McCleod, Nathan Say, King Montana, hip hop artists, Roxx Da Foxx, DJ Quad, comedian Nina G, as well as authors DC Curtis and Bones Kendall.

Celebrating the diversity of the disability community, "Putting Disability in the Mix" will make you sing, shake, and laugh with these performers, authors, and comedians of various abilities, attitudes, and attributes as they open minds and win hearts. The show is appropriate for adults and teenagers, though some explicit language may be used.

###

Performer bios:

Leroy Moore - is a black, disabled writer, poet, hip-hop music lover, community activist, and feminist. For well over a decade he has worked tirelessly promoting his perspective on identity, race, and disability. A performer and lecturer, Moore is known as "The Black Cripple." He has been a guest presenter in high schools and universities across the country and in Canada, the UK, and Holland. Moore has a poetry CD entitled "Black Disabled Man with a Big Mouth & a High I.Q." He is also the creator of Krip-Hop Nation. Moore was co-host of the radio show "Pushing Limits" on KPFA. He is a consultant on race and disability, a producer, a columnist at Poor Magazine and IDEAL magazine, and is co-founder and community relations director of Sins Invalid. His upcoming book of poetry is entitled "The Black Kripple Delivers."

DC Curtis and Bones Kendall - met studying literature at UCLA. Both worked in the entertainment business for many years before becoming English teachers, DC at a high school and Bones at Los Angeles City College. They co-wrote "Truth & Pain starring the Gangsters & Retards in... The Mystique-cal Person-a of MC Cripple Crip," a novel about a group of teenagers, four from the streets and four from a home for the so-called disabled. Though not disabled themselves, they are friends and advocates for people with disabilities. Their novel challenges stereotypes and argues for a kind of inclusiveness that is not based on pity.

DJ Quad LA - At the age of sixteen, he became paralyzed after breaking his neck while diving in the ocean at Venice Beach. A few years after that he became a deejay and after initial success found himself working as a music producer. DJ Quad is the CEO of his own record label, 5h Battalion Entertainment. In addition to being a disabled hip hop artist, he is a music producer, studio engineer, graphic designer, and founder of Fifth Gear Clothing.

Lateef McCleod - A phenomenal black poet with cerebral palsy who just published his first poetry book entitled "A Declaration Of A Body Of Love" this year. He is also in process of writing a novel tentatively called "The Third Eye Is Crying." He was also a cast member of the 2007 Sins Invalid performance and this year was in another Sins Invalid performance entitled Resident Alien. He works at United Cerebral Palsy of the Golden Gate as a grant writer and blogger and for the World Institute of Disability as an intern. He has earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and a MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. You can gain more information about Lateef from his blogs at teefdabiggafigga.blogspot.com and ucpgg.org/lateefs-view-of-the-bay.

Nathan Say - Poet & Community Organizer found poetry by accident during a literature class he was taking. Prior to moving to San Diego, California to start a new life and dedicate large chunks of time to poetry, he worked at the University of Hawaii's Center on Disability Studies, where he was Project Coordinator of the My Voice, My Choice Project, a youth program for youth and young adults with developmental disabilities. He was also on the organizing committee for Abled Hawaii Artists/Art Enabled, Honolulu's yearly celebration of the Signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nathan's first full length show is set to debut November 2011 in San Diego, California. He maintains a blog at http://www.nathansaypoetry.wordpress.com

Nina G - Bills herself as the world’s only female comedian who stutters (or at least until she finds another one). She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and performs at comedy clubs and events. She blends a combination of humor, activism, and education about the experience of people with disabilities.

Roxx Da Foxx - An all-American singer, rapper, songwriter, model, and advocate for women against domestic violence as well for people living with disabilities. Roxane was born and raised in Los Angel

King Montana is a Hip Hop Recording Artist/Song Writer from Albuquerque, New Mexico. King Montana is first cousins with Grammy Award Winner Max Baca of Los Texmaniacs. King Montana has shared the stage with artists such as Baby Bash, Gorilla Zoe, Lil Flip, Frankie J and Zig Zag of NB Ryderz. In Feb. 2010 King Montana signed with R&D Entertainment. His new album "How I Feel" will be released and distributed by Royal Fam/R&D Ent./Bungalo/Universal Music Group Distribution. Featuring Grammy Award Winners Los Texmaniacs, Don Cisco, Philly B, Kristine Mirelle, Da Stooie Bros and more!! The first radio single is called "Call Me Up"feat. Kristine Mirelle. King Montana is also CEO/Founder of Royal Fam Records, which is his own.

The story of Dee and tiny, the previously homeless, currently at-risk mother daughter art duo, and co-editors of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork is a many layered, multi-colored panopoly of poverty, struggle and myth...

Hello Peeps,

I'll be doing a limited release of Black Kripple Delivers Krip Love Mixtape for valentine's day 2013

In 2011 I made this mixtape and since that time I added 3 new song/poems to the mixtape. I like to reintroduce you again to Krip Love Mixtape by The Black Kripple, me.; You know its about time that everybody (Especially the media) know that people with disabilities like everybody else experience sexuality, are in relationships, have sex and wants that feeling of being wanted.  This should be nothing new.  The Black Kripple Delivers Krip Love Mixtape explains some stories through poem/songs that I and many peeps with disabilities have to go through expressing their sexuality and disability in this society and in relationships.  Of course most of the poem/songs comes from my experiences as a Black disabled man expressing my sexuality and love to the public in general, other disabled brothers and sisters and of course to my girlfriend who is not disabled and not Black but has grown up in the Deaf community and is a mother of a disabled young man plus working in the disability field.

This 12 track CD has three new songs that will blow you away. The latest is Droolilicious coming up with our own language to flip the script. Stop The World is a song that wants to sneak some time alone with the one you love. My old but sexy poem, Forbidden Acts, makes taboos desirable. The three tracks joins the nine with Beautiful Kripple Angel that brings new concept by using a known image and krippling it like the notion of an angel. We have a popular image of an angel of being perfect in body.  Beautiful Kripple Angel not only gives love to disabled people but also reshapes our thinking of who can be an angel.  Red Eye is about long distance love and the desire to catch a late night plane to his lover. Poet Wants To Sing is how love makes you do things that you would not think of doing.  Being a poet some times I want to sing my poems.  You will hear I'm no Luther Vandross but I just had to do it.  Krip-Kissing once again takes something we know, Kissing and Krippling it in a hot way saying people with disabilities have their own way of kissing.  Ummm r u interested? hahaha.  I'm Beautiful, is a very old poem dedicated to Black women with disabilities and also at the same time displaying my hotness through race and disability.  Love How U Love Me is my poem/song dedicated to Darla who loves all of me including my krippleness, brown skin, my art...  Bed Time Blues is once again how long distance lovers get lonely at night when it is time for bed..  Believe me, I hate that time of day!  Tell Me & I Do It is once again a song/poem on how I want to do anything for my lady.  Red Eye is dreaming poem/song wishing I could catch a red eye to my lady.  The reason Red Eye is on there twice because the song has two different mixes one from Keith Jones an R N B sound and the other by Rob Da 'Noize Temple with a Ray Charles Blues kind of beat.

I know there are so many experiences of people with disabilities dealing with sexuality, love and relationships and I hope everybody will express their love in the way they want to.  I also hope more musicians/poets/singers express the experiences of people with disabilities in a powerful political and honest way.

I would like to thank all the music producers on this mixtape who were mostly Black disabled musicians except for Jay Williams who is not disabled:

Rob Da 'Noize Temple who really kicked some butt with music production on 5 out of 9 songs in three days.

Jay Williams who mixed and provided music to my first every poetry mixtape back in 1999 I'm Beautiful has been one of my favorite poems and the public eats it up.

Rinnessy who funked out my song for Darla, Love How U Love Me then Jay laid his touch on it by mixing it.

Keith Jones who smooth out Red Eye and Bed Time Blues

Thank u everybody!

Contact info:

Kriphopptoject@yahoo.com

Blackkrip@gmail.com

The story of Dee and tiny, the previously homeless, currently at-risk mother daughter art duo, and co-editors of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork is a many layered, multi-colored panopoly of poverty, struggle and myth...