The Pharmacy, In Philadelphia, August 6th, 2021

     Here are pictures that I took at The Pharmacy, in Philadelphia, on August 6th, 2021.  The lineup was Blanks 77, Submachine, One Sided and The Whiskey Bats.

Blanks 77:

Submachine (With a bonus picture of Oyo Ellis when he grabbed the mic):

One Sided:

The Whiskey Bats:

The Direct Line From Woodstock '99 To Right Now

 

     I took the time to sit down and watch the documentary about Woodstock '99 and, as the minutes went by, the sinking feeling in my stomach kept getting worse and worse.  I knew the festival was bad but I had no idea it was that bad.

     I do remember having had the opportunity to go to Woodstock '99 with some friends that I went to school with.  Once I found out how much outdoor living there was going to be I quickly turned down the invitation.  I was (and still am) an indoor kid and the thought of camping somewhere was enough to make me want nothing to do with an outdoor music festival that lasted for three days.  And after watching the documentary, I am so glad that I bailed on it.

     The ignorance and savagery of America was on full display that weekend.  Vendors price gouging on bottled water while people were bathing in the free drinking water stations that were set up.  Security guards that were confiscating food and water at the gates but letting booze and drugs in for a small bribe. People rolling around in mud next to the overflowing port-a-johns somehow not realizing that they were rolling around in human waste.  People who passed out from heatstroke were being taken to the medical tent and treated as drug overdoses with defibrillator pads instead of having their temperatures taken and treated accordingly.

     Then there was the escalating violence of the weekend that was capped off by looting vendors and setting fires in various parts of the festival grounds.  Not to mention the untold number of sexual assaults that occurred over the three days.  Very few of the assaults were reported so that's the statistic that the organizers stick to when questioned about it.  All these years later, scumbag promoter, John Scher still blames the women that were assaulted instead of the rapists that couldn't keep their hands to themselves.

     The speculation surrounding the root cause of a bunch of clueless white boys cutting loose for three days on what used to be a military base only scratched the surface.  Part of the sinking feeling that I had was due to the cultural ripple effect that occurred from the late nineties to this very moment.  I would feel comfortable wagering a large sum of money that the majority of those in attendance at Woodstock '99 went on to be T*ump voters or cops or have a high likelihood of beginning a conversation with “You know what I heard on J*e R*gan the other day?”

     The generation of white males that this event was pitched to had been culturally catered to since birth for no other reason than their expendable consumer dollars.  And I say this as a white male that is part of that generation.  We had cartoons, movies and sports jammed down our throats along with Happy Meals, soda and candy disguised as breakfast.  No wonder some of us have no attention spans, lack basic critical thinking skills or have trouble figuring out how to act in public.  That's not an excuse for the behavior but how can any other outcome have been expected when a concentrated amount of cretins are all in the same fenced in area for three days.

     The behaviors on display at Woodstock '99 did not start at anger.  This behavior came from somewhere further down the evolutionary chain.  The crowd was docile and looking to have a good time until they were denied what they wanted and then they immediately escalated to rage.  The facilities were shit so they broke them.  The food and water was overpriced so they tore down the vendor tents.  Women were seen as objects to be had so they were taken without a chance to even say “No.”  This was straight up caveman/toddler behavior.

     The parallels between the events of that weekend and the events of the past year became very clear. White males who have been practically handed everything they need to get by have complete meltdowns when they are told “No.”  Whether it's a poorly planned music festival or having to wear a piece of cloth over their faces when they go to the grocery store.  Any minor inconvenience is somehow seen as the greatest slight against humanity.  If something doesn't go their way, look out because they will be on a rampage.

     Musically, the lineup was not very impressive.  It was mostly forgettable, corporate rock flavor of the day type bands.  Unfortunately, the flavor of the day was Nu Metal so bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit were given much more of a spotlight than they deserved.  Those bands were all over what was left of MTV and radio which was starting to succumb to the spreading cancer of Clear Channel.  Empty lyrics over aggressive music was gobbled up by the target demographic like an ice cold Mountain Dew.

     I was (and still am) the angriest of angry white boys and I don't think I have ever acted out in that way. I could have very easily gone that route with music but it was Rage Against The Machine that told me to do the requisite reading to go along with the aggression.  I didn't have many friends so I had a lot of time on my hands to sit in my room and read as many books as I could.  I tried to feed my anger with as much information as I possibly could and to also deprogram myself from what my parents told me.

     I do remember listening to the radio to hear Rage Against The Machine play their set.  During "Killing In The Name," the band set fire to the American flag that used to hang upside down over the bass amps.  The former Pittsburgh DJ that went by the name “Booker” was MC-ing the proceedings for KROQ and exclaimed “I am so angry right now!!!”  I couldn't tell if he was feigning anger or if his angry voice was just flat out whiny but it sure was funny to me.

     After seeing how awful Limp Bizkit was back in 1999, it sure is weird seeing them treated with some sort of reverence in 2021.  Given their recent appearance at Lollapalooza and the media attention surrounding it, I would like to think that band would have been better.

     I guess that's what happens when empty vapid culture grows up and has kids.  People are getting nostalgic for shit that never had any substance.  I could never imagine taking one of their records off the shelf and saying “Gather 'round, children. Let me show you Limp Bizkit.”

The Never-Ending Generation Of Swine

 

     I feel like we all should have learned something over the past sixteen months of global pandemic but it feels like things are going back to “normal” with a vengeance and with no lessons learned.  Over 600,000 dead and climbing in the United States and that statistic has been treated as nothing but a speed bump.

     Capitalism sure won out over human life in this round and the pandemic isn't over by a long shot.  We need to keep the meat grinder moving at all costs.  Fuck the body count, there's money in them thar hills of corpses.  All mitigation efforts have been abandoned, while the virus continues to mutate, all so bored Amerikkkans can be entertained while jamming Applebee's down their gullets.

     Society is being conditioned to treat a massive loss of lives with nary a bat of an eye.  Just wait until natural disasters become more catastrophic and wars start breaking out over drinkable water that has already been bought up by Coke and Pepsi.

     The Delta variant and beyond will have kids under twelve dropping like flies once schools reopen in the fall and there are little to no precautions being taken.  Where are all of the pearl clutching, “Won't somebody think of the children?!?!” assholes that are always trying to control women's bodies and strip any kind of information from school curriculums?  They're only “Pro-Life” until you're here and then you can fuck right off.

     I don't understand how people cry about wearing a piece of cloth over their mouths but then refuse the vaccine that would help protect them when not wearing a mask.  Some of these dunderheads say that it's out of personal choice but there comes a point where personal choice becomes negligence.  I can't drive down the wrong side of the road because I want to.  That would endanger the lives of those in oncoming traffic and that is negligent behavior.  Vaccinations and wearing a mask serve as the double yellow line in this analogy.  Suggesting that vaccines are for the greater good of society won't work because we have become way too selfish to give a shit about our fellow man.

     I haven't had a head cold in well over a year and I would like to keep that streak going so I will continue to wear a mask when I have to venture out into the world.  Judging from the dirty looks that I get while walking through a store, some people have a problem with that and they can shut the fuck up.  I'm expressing my personal freedom to keep my germs to myself and hopefully keeping the germs of others away from me.

     People have gone so far as to protest outside of cancer clinics because the clinics still have mask mandates.  Hey fuckface, cancer patients have no immune system so there always should have been mask mandates for everyone that entered the building.  Last I heard, a patient was attacked for wearing a mask as they tried to go to their treatment appointment.  The majority of Amerikkkans have proven themselves to be big, dumb, savage animals.

     After years of weakening public discourse and faux neutrality, calling someone dumb when they say something dumb can be met with fake outrage.  But we, as a society, should reserve the right to call someone dumb.  We don't need to respect someone's beliefs if those beliefs are batshit crazy, hold no basis in reality and could get people killed.  These anti-vaccine/anti-mask people are being dumb and very clearly do not need to be respected.  If you need proof of this, look up the nurses in Ohio that think the vaccine gave them powers of magnetism.  A group of them said this not only in public but on the floor of the Ohio state legislature.  The part that really makes my brain hurt is the fact that they are nurses.  How willful ignorance gleefully became a virtue in this country is something I can't figure out.

     I have lost all patience with these morons and I am all out of sympathy for them, if they do get sick.  It's sad to say but maybe these shitheads need to die of COVID or Wile E. Coyote off the nearest cliff before the next mutation learns how to hop the vaccines completely.

     I really don't want things to go back to the way they were before COVID.  A few months ago, service industry and frontline workers were being lauded as heroes and now it's “Get back to work and bring me my bloomin' onion, you lowly servant.”  Maybe your favorite place to go for shitty food might be closed because the employees were sick of putting up with your dumb face and found something better to occupy their time or maybe all of the line cooks died of COVID because there were no precautions being taken in the kitchen.

     I guess that's my fault for thinking that a country full of dickheads would actually be capable of learning something from a tragedy when they're preoccupied with trying to figure out the plot details of the next Fast & Furious movie.

Brick By Brick, Wall By Wall

 

     Since 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal has been incarcerated for a crime in which he is factually innocent.  But because the crime he was convicted of resulted in the death of someone who just happened to be wearing a uniform issued by the Philadelphia Police Department, the State is more than satisfied if Mumia does not breathe another breath of free air.

     There has always been a large amount of reasonable doubt surrounding Mumia's trial and conviction, at least enough to have his original death sentence changed to life imprisonment.  That was all before there were six boxes of evidence found in a storage room, in the Philadelphia courthouse, that had never been examined.  Some of that evidence includes statements from prosecution witnesses asking about payments they were promised in exchange for their testimony.

     There was enough judicial, prosecutorial and police misconduct involved with Mumia's case that even if his innocence were a question, the original conviction should have been thrown out as soon as it was handed down.  For whatever reason, there is a mindset in this country that the “Justice System” is infallible and makes no mistakes.

     And the State definitely wouldn't convict someone for the sake of closing a case, would they?  And they wouldn't lie through their teeth for a conviction, would they?  The West Memphis Three found that out the hard way when they were convicted of murder due to witchcraft, listening to heavy metal and some other silly bullshit.  So the State upholding Mumia's conviction out of stubbornness and vengeance is not surprising.  It is in no way right but it's not surprising.

     Philadelphia District Attorney, Larry Krasner, whose office found the six boxes of evidence, has said there is nothing he can do about Mumia's case and refuses to allow this new evidence to be entered into the record.  Even though he has done this with other cases where new evidence was discovered.

     The Pennsylvania Governor's office has said that Abu-Jamal's case is out of their hands and refuses to take action.  That's kind of hard to believe since pardons and clemency fall under the purview of the Governor's office.  So if the District Attorney and the Governor both say they can't do anything, then whose hands is the case in?

     I would have thought that Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman would be all over this since he claims to be all about commuting sentences and restorative justice.  I guess he's too busy cosplaying as the working man's leftist to actually do the work.  It feels like he only wants to legalize marijuana so he can court the Joe R*gan demographic when he runs for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

     I'm not certain why the obvious issues surrounding Mumia's case are of no interest to the Governor's office.  According to a former intern, there are data filters set up on the office email system that redirect any emails with Mumia's name in them to a file that goes unread.  Aides also put letters and faxes about the case into the garbage.

     Heading into the later parts of his second term, Governor Wolf should have nothing to fear about upsetting the Fraternal Order Of Police or the majority Republican legislature.  He has nothing left to run for so he doesn't need a bullshit endorsement from law enforcement and the Republican Party refuses to work with him on anything meaningful for the people of Pennsylvania.  The only thing that I can think of is that Wolf is afraid of any boycotts that the FOP might organize against his personal businesses after he leaves office.  It seems that any time someone comes out in support of Mumia, the FOP suddenly pretends to have hurt feelings and tries to drum up negative press against whoever spoke out.

     Mumia was one of the few journalists that would take the Philly PD to task for their myriad civil rights abuses and mafia like acts of thuggery.  Add that to Abu-Jamal's associations with the Black Panther Party and the MOVE organization, he put a fairly large target on his back by pointing out that the Philadelphia police department were (and still are) a bunch of corrupt, racist goons.  From the first raid on MOVE in 1978, the firebombing of a city block in 1985 to teargassing protestors that were pinned down on the side of highway in the summer of 2020, the police in Philadelphia have always been quick to commit war crimes on a local level.  They do these things because they know they will get away with them and never face consequences.

     Kurt Vonnegut said something along the lines of Swedes having long memories but short dicks.  The same principle can be applied to the Philly PD and the police “union” in this instance.  They will never get over that Mumia was tangentially involved when they lost one of their own so fuck him and his life regardless of the facts of the case.  He had the temerity to point out the obvious and the Philly PD will make him pay for that with his life.  And if you don't think the police have a hard time getting over things involving the Black Panthers go ask H. Rap Brown and then take a look at Fred Hampton's bullet riddled headstone.

     This can be added to the ever growing mountain of evidence that the police and their fraternal organizations are no longer intended to protect and serve.  They have become an occupying force on the streets of America that have pulled off a coup with the support of white suburbanites who fear the “other.” This is one of the many reasons why qualified immunity should be eliminated and that law enforcement “unions” should be expelled from the AFL-CIO.  Every time I was ever on a picket line, my “union” brothers were always on the other side of the line to protect the bosses and their property.  If that's not the behavior of a Scab, I don't know what is.

     Abu-Jamal's death sentence may have been overturned on paper but the State is more than willing to try killing him through medical neglect so they never have to answer for his conviction and unjust imprisonment.  Mumia has contracted several life threatening medical conditions due to his incarceration. Heart disease (for which he recently had surgery), renal failure, a skin condition which has been described as organ failure of the skin and he has survived COVID-19.  The man's physical and mental resilience through all of these years is astounding to me.

     The surviving members of MOVE and their children are still working tirelessly for Mumia's freedom. Even in the face of the recent passing of MOVE elders and the news involving the mistreatment of the remains of children that were murdered in the 1985 bombing by medical examiners and universities, they keep pressing on to bring Mumia home.

     Time is of the essence and unless there is someone in a position of power with a sympathetic ear that doesn't fear the retribution of the police, I can't help but see that clock running out.

     For more information, and resources to lend a hand, go to:  https://letmumiaout.com/.  Where there's people, there's power.

Submachine At Porky's Bar July 3, 2021

     Here are pictures of Submachine that I took at Porky's Bar on July 3, 2021.  This was their first show since the "Before Times."

     My apologies tho the opening bands.  My camera was still set to "outdoor civil disobedience" instead of "dank bar hosting a punk show" so they were all lost to blurriness.  Lesson learned.

All Politics Is Local

     And sometimes politics is so local that it crash lands on my front porch on a snow covered morning before I even had a chance to put the coffee on.  Which happened a few years ago when a car came tobogganing down the hill in front of my house, took out the porch railings and came to a rest on top of the gas meter.

     Luckily, no one was hurt.  Fire and EMS showed up in case the gas line that was broken open decided to misbehave and blow my house to bits.  The cops showed up to create the accident report and to act as spectators because, if it wasn't my house that had a car where it didn't belong, it was quite the sight to behold.

     All of the public safety types were on their radios telling dispatch to send a salt truck immediately because the firetruck was unable to get anywhere near the house or the hydrant that is directly across the street from me.  This was at 9am.  The salt truck did not come through the neighborhood until about 2pm which was well after everything had settled and the scene was cleared.

     The lone police officer that spoke to me, and actually treated me as a human being, advised me to call the city's 311 number to tell them what happened so they could send a crew out to put a guardrail in front of the house.  That was over three years ago and there is still no guardrail in front of my house.  I have left messages and emails at the offices of the mayor and my city council person, Anthony Coghill, all to no avail.

     Since then, I've gotten myself a new porch and the gas meter has been moved out of the line of fire.  My neighbor ended up getting himself a new porch when a car lost its brakes in the middle of summer. There have also been several near misses with other cars over the past three years.  We've both got work orders with the city to have a guardrail put in but the city hasn't bothered to show up to put the thing in the ground.

     Once the chemically induced antics of the late Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, became public knowledge, everyone wondered how he kept getting elected to various public offices.  Rob Ford kept getting elected because if a constituent called his office with a problem he'd go visit the person to get a better handle on the issue and then he would see to it personally that the problem was fixed.

     The point I'm trying to make in this long winded tale is that I would much rather have the crack addled ghost of Rob Ford representing me than Bill Peduto or Anthony Coghill.  Fuck it, I'll take the crack addled ghost of Marion Barry at this point.  Barry and Ford may have had their problems with extracurricular substances but at least they seemed to care about the people they represented.

     Bill Peduto is a corporate shill that's gentrifying his way across the city.  He's too busy counting his campaign donations from real estate developers to try to figure out where everyone will live once housing costs have surpassed far beyond the incomes of Pittsburgh's residents.  His campaign slogan may as well be “Fuck The Poor.”

     Peduto's indifference toward the less affluent citizens of Pittsburgh shows that he represents the worst of this current crop of “liberal” politicians.  He shows more concern over luring corporations to the city with tax giveaways than the actual functions of a city government.  And that's not even taking into consideration his inability to prevent his police officers from tear gassing and macing peaceful protestors.

     The current mayor's reluctance to stand up to the police union shows that he really has no power when it comes to the functions of the city's “law enforcement.”  He'll supposedly makes some sort of decree which is completely ignored and then the buck is passed back and forth until the news cycle stops caring about the controversy and then it's back to the usual business of cracking skulls and violating the rights of the citizenry.

     Anthony Coghill is a different ball of weirdness.  He reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where George got a job for a company and had no idea what he was supposed to do so he pretended like he was busy all the time and hoped no one would notice how incompetent he was.  That seems to be Coghill's approach to being on city council.

     It feels like Coghill is a throwback to the public servants of the 1980s who didn't do anything noticeable for the communities they represented but still somehow managed to get reelected for some reason.  The few times that he did manage to get my attention was during the social upheaval of 2020 when he said some spectacularly dumb things about why police funding couldn't be diverted into other, more necessary, parts of the city's budget.

     The councilman said something along the lines of having friends that were police officers so the budget shouldn't be lowered.  I have relatives that were city police officers and I can say without equivocation that they fell into the category of “Fucking Assholes” on more than one occasion over the years.

     Coghill also said that there were a lot of hills in his district so we in fact would need more police.  As someone that lives precariously perched on the side of a mountain in Beechview, I am not disputing that there are hills in the city's fourth district but I fail to realize how more police are the answer to any possible issue that the topography of my neighborhood may present.  I'm not a civil engineer, nor do I play one on television, but I don't think that tanks, teargas and rubber bullets would stop the flash floods on Route 51.

     The other thing about Coghill that bothers me is that all of the houses in my neighborhood that had (or still have) T*ump signs in their yards a few months ago now have signs supporting Coghill.  I don't know what that's saying but it's definitely saying something that I want nothing to do with.

     If you're looking for a mayoral candidate to vote for, check out Ed Gainey.  He seems to be willing to give some attention to neighborhoods that have been cut off from the city by highways, sports stadiums and casinos such as the Hill District and the North Side.  Hopefully, he'll be able to stem the tide of gentrification that's been brought on by the tech boom in neighborhoods like East Liberty and Lawrenceville.  And maybe some sort of assistance can be given to the citizens of neighborhoods like Beltzhoover that seem to have been completely forgotten about over the past several decades.

     If you live in the South Hills, please consider Bethani Cameron to replace Coghill on city council. She's worked as a staffer for a few council people over the years as well as environmental groups.

     Their websites can be found here and here, if you'd like more information.

     Keep an eye out for the handful of questions on the ballot as well.  The Republicans in our state legislature want to rewrite Pennsylvania's state constitution to give themselves more power over emergency declarations.  As if having a dumb fuck like Daryl Metcalfe in charge of making decisions more important than what he should have for lunch would be a good idea.

     There's a ballot measure to ban no knock warrants in the city and another to ban solitary confinement at the Allegheny County Jail.  Getting both of those over the hump would be steps in the right direction.

     There are dirtbags in both political parties trying to drag their stinking hides all over us.  Electoral politics does present itself as a steaming heap but the only way to keep the pigfuckers at bay is to vote against them.  So let's get the bastards.

Crayon Death's Last Show On July 10, 1999 At Club Laga

     Here are pictures of Crayon Death's final show that I took at Club Laga on July 10, 1999.

     Here's a link to audio from the show:  https://thecazartchronicles.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-club-laga-pittsburgh-pa-7-10-1999

     The show was an all day thing that was billed as "Scourge Fest" which was to counter the "Surge Festival" that was held at what used to be known as Starlake Amphitheater on the same day.  Scourge Fest featured local hardcore and metal bands whereas Surge Festival was mostly popular bar bands from the Pittsburgh area.

     Crayon Death played towards the end of a very long and frustrating day of bands not knowing how to use their equipment.  By the time they went on, Jeff The Engineer had pretty much given up on running sound with any semblance of quality control.  I remember every time that I looked in Jeff's general direction, he was either shaking his head or had put his head down in defeat.  In other words, this is not the best sounding recording.  Especially when, Crayon Death's former backing vocalist, Scott Fisher and Scott Evens, the vocalist for the band Allan, jumped on stage to sing and grabbed two of the hottest microphones to ever be plugged into a PA system.  This recording serves more as a document for a thing that happened.