Capitalism: It’s The End Of Your World As You Know It And I Feel Fine

FUCK THE SYSTEM by vagabond ©

“Behold Your Future Excutioners”
– Lucy Ella Gonzalez Parsons

The Mayans predicted 2012 would be the end of the world. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it is the end of the world. Not in a global catastrophic natural disaster kind of way or a nuclear war armageddon kind of way… but in another way…

The African Spring (Algeria, Egypt) followed by the Arab Spring, followed by the unrest of the European Summer to the occupations of the American Fall of 2011, are the preview trailers for the upcoming feature…. All of these resistance movements are realizing that the cozy bedfellows that politrixters and banksters make, leaves little room on the bed for anyone else. And so the rest of us are left out in the cold occupying a space on the floor to sleep… Where we dream of improvising the world into a new existence…

Maybe the world of capitalism is falling like the Berlin wall fell in ’89. Maybe ’12 is when the wall on Wall Street comes down. Maybe it’s the end of the world as capitalism knows it… There isn’t much time left… Someone tell them, someone tell the capitalists that they might want to get their affairs in order and not to worry about writing a will, it was written somewhere that meek shall inherit the earth…

i’m not afraid of a world without capitalism… are you? It could be that these are the last daze… The final chapter and verse being written… Capitalism’s judgment day… And it could be that the apocalypse is just the screams of labor pains as the world gives birth to something new…

The Call from 1984 doing The Walls Came Down live on Swedish Televison

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They’d all been warned
And the walls came down
They just stood there laughing
They’re not laughing anymore
The walls came down
Sanctuary fades
Congregation splits
Nightly military raids
The congregation splits
It’s a song of assassins
Ringin’ in your ears
We got terrorist thinking
Playing on fears
Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They’d all been warned
But the walls came down
I don’t think there are any Russians
And there ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin’ with tanks
- The Walls Came Down by The Call

The image at the top of this piece is a remix of Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton holding a shotgun and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask… The text on the design – FCKTHSYSTM is a discreet way of saying FUCK THE SYSTEM…
You can get a T-shirt or 5 pack of 1″ buttons (to share with friends) of the artwork above from my design company Audio Visual Terrorism
And as always, much thanx for the support, until we find another way out of capitalism i’m forced to exploit my art in this way… Trust me when i say i’d feel better if i could just give it all away…

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-pd

Forty Four

Forty Four Self Portrait by vagabond ©

A few things you should know about me…

i want to be an artist… i am an artist but being an artist is to be in a constant state of creation… being in a constant state of creation is to be in a state of desire, so i want to be an artist… i don’t want a career… i don’t even know what a career is… i heard it has something to do with money… but i hate money, money can go fuck itself… it’s a waste of fucken time… it’s a hamster wheel… a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit while the big boys place bets… a merry-go-round they won’t let you get off and the dj only has one record and he keeps playing it over and over… besides i want to be good and the hate of all money is the root of all good…

i fear, fear…

if i wasn’t so talented i would have killed somebody or a few somebodies long ago… someone important, someone who has it coming, someone who knows they should die for the shit they’ve done, someone who went out of the way to make the world worse than it already is because they’re better off for it, that kind of somebody, the kind of somebody that when they’re killed the other somebodies start to get scared but not scared enough to stop making life a misery for everyone else… ok, maybe not scared but at least nervous… it’s a long list i keep and someday i’m going to write it down… (it’s not safe to do so now you can be arrested for that kind of thing and me and authority had a bad break up years ago and prison would only bring us back together – but not in a good way)

art is the process of me trying to figure something out…

i’m not that smart but i try… i only finished high school and only on the advice of my parents who love me. but i didn’t let it stick… i took m. twain’s advice and didn’t let my schooling interfere with my eduction… i stay restless, do my best not to respect borders between nations, claim no destination, although i have been known to check my baggage and claim it later… curiosity has corrupted the better of me. the other parts are wanted by the cops and the tax department but i’m doing my best and leading by example by ignoring them… hopefully they’ll get the message and give up one day… there are few floors that i will not sleep on for a sunset in another part of the world or to see the moon from another angle on this blue-green marble. what i’m trying to say is that i like to travel… my chosen name is vagabond – no it’s not legal and if i had it my way nothing about me would be legal, legality is for those who don’t know better. i’m not smart but i know better and i try… schooling is a building with walls and doors and floors and windows and labs and gym and cafeteria and an auditorium and a principals offices… education is an open road and you learn something every time you’re on foreign ground… sometimes you’re asked to show your papers or your passport or your identification… sometimes you get lucky and they treat you like a human being and they just leave you alone to wander and wonder… and without a set destination the journey can take you… as opposed to you trying to take it…

when i die play the mix tape i made just for the occasion…

i want a jazz funeral and a second line parade with um-ber-ellas and hired professional mourners to make it look good, to fill the street, but don’t get a permit, just take over the streets, encourage others to join in as you pass them by, invite them to partake in the joyful defiance of traffic regulations, but for god’s sake don’t tell them it’s a funeral, it’ll only confuse the proceedings… scatter my ashes off the coast of coney island, let me become a part of the ocean, let the riptide take me to places unknown… then take three rides ride on the cyclone. once to shake the sadness from your bones, a second to shake the melancholy from your souls and a third time just to shake the happiness of living back in… and remember me only when you ride deno’s wonder wheel at that magic hour when the street lights come up but the sun hasn’t dipped below the ocean just yet and the orange at the horizon fades to light blue and then to ink blue and when you reach the apex of deno’s wonder wheel look out toward the atlantic…

you may see me in silhouette dancing on the razor blade that divides the sea from the sky…
- vagabond

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-Qe

Enjoy Capitalism

ENJOY CAPITALISM by vagabond ©

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
- Edward Abbey

On February 1st, of 1968 Associated Press photojournalist Eddie Adams took a disturbing photo of an execution in the streets of Saigon, that would go on to become an iconic image of the horrors of the Vietnam War. It’s a photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon. When i was thinking about trying to create an image about the dynamics of Capitalism this photo came to mind.

Capitalism is ubiquitous. It can’t be escaped, everyone is forced to participate. There’s not a single aspect of our life that goes untouched. It affects the fundamental aspects of survival, where we live, what we eat, access to medical care, the ability to educate ourselves. It affects our relationships with family, friends, life partners. It limits our ability, constrains our creativity and dictates our potential. It’s inescapable, if you don’t cooperate with it you die. Capitalism is a gun to the head. The dollars coming out of the gun of the executor are multiplied as they come out of the head executed. Killing or dying it’s all profit for capitalism.

The fact that this photo came from the Vietnam era was also something that fit perfectly into what I was trying to do. The Vietnam War was framed as an ideological battle between democracy (dressed as capitalism) and communism. (As a side note communism is actually a democracy, but i digress.) The idea was to frame this gruesome image into an advertisement for Capitalism.

Advertising is the creation of seduction for the purposes of profit. Seduction is the emotional mortar that hold the building blocks of possibility in place long enough to promise some kind of fulfillment. So i flipped the dynamics of advertisement to soften the mortar to bring down the structure of a promise that can never be kept.

Coca-Cola is an avatar for Capitalism. Using the Coca-Cola typeface to advertise Capitalism made sense since everywhere you go in the world you can find Coca-Cola. Since the only rule in Capitalism is profit at any cost… mixing that up with the phrase “By Any Means Necessary” made infamous by Malcolm X completed my visual critique of Capitalism.

If you like this image and want to spread this critique of Capitalism around check out Audio Visual Terrorism… i designed it as a t-shirt and as a 1″ button… And no that doesn’t make me a capitalist… The definition of capitalism is here… i’m still the same struggling artist i always was and like everyone else i’m stuck in the shitstem of capitalism… Until capitalism is gone i’ll be forced to use capitalism against itself…

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-Ll

The Rising Phoenix of Malcolm

From Little to X to Shabazz by vagabond ©

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.” - Malcolm X

From son to orphan to hustler to convict to revolutionary, the constant and consistent personal rise of Malcolm is what made his ideas so politically dangerous. If the sum of his life were just his political work it would be brilliant enough, but his personal life gave his politics a greater gravitas. When Malcolm spoke of oppression he wasn’t just speaking from some far off detached perspective that had to imagine the full spectrum of that oppression but spoke from the physical wretchedness of personal experienced. A personal experience of oppression that he wasn’t supposed to survive much less conquer.

His life is an epic poem that encompassed the full arc of possibilities. From those early years when the agents of oppression burned his family’s home, to the murder of his outspoken father, to the scattering of his family after his mother went mad from it all, Malcolm was forged in the fire. From the orphanages, to the streets, to the prison and the pulpit Malcolm was in the process of not allowing his oppressor to define him. From his tour of African nations and African leaders to his pilgrimage to Mecca his metamorphosis seemed to never cease. He reversed the polarities of macrocosm and microcosm. Turning the machinations of his personal life into a grand microcosm of political oppression and using it like a weapon in his political life as a minor macrocosm of political oppression. It was this process of defining and redefining himself to both his oppressors and the oppressed in which Malcolm declared his victories.

In Egyptian mythology the Phoenix rises from the ashes of the fire. It recreates itself, gives birth to itself from within the adversity that’s tried to destroy it. Each time it falls, it rises and it rises from it’s own will. It’s the cycle of life and death and life. Malcolm was a Phoenix rising from the ashes of his home, from the death of his father, from the oppression induced madness of his mother, from the orphanages and schools that furthered that oppression from the streets where he hustled, from the prison where he studied, from the pulpit where he preached, from the betrayal of his mentor, from the pilgrimage of his faith… Malcolm rose again and again like a Phoenix giving birth to itself, refusing to cool in the ashes… Malcolm isn’t dead… his life is a shining example that finds new life as we rise from the ashes of a fire that tries to destroy us and fails…

Shorlink: - http://wp.me/p1eniL-JS

The Politics Of Less

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In the back of a Pathmark Supermarket in the Bronx abandoned shopping carts sermonize the end of rampant consumerism in the age of capitalism. Scattered and empty the shopping carts preach of the ongoing apocalypse of scarcity in the land of plenty.

The message is drowned out by the din of UPC codes being scanned. No one is paying attention because the politics of less comes at a greater cost.

The congregation has been told to ignore these interruptions in the pleasure of consumption by veteran journalist talent show hosts occupying 24 hour news cycles. The oracles of soap opera reality show stars have said that we are past the tipping point. They would know… after all, they are the authority on these matters…

Shortlink: - http://wp.me/p1eniL-Jw

A Good Night

Drive by bridge shot by vagabond ©

One of those beautiful nights with nothing but this exquisite pain of living as I drive around really listening to the music speak to me…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) May 12, 2012

Good driving tonight windows down feeling the cool night air & my dog defying speed with her head out the window & the music moving thru me.—
vagabond (@vgbnd) May 12, 2012

The cop with the flashing lights can't stop me. I'm in sync with the pain & beauty of things as I keep a steady 65. I'm untouchable tonight.—
vagabond (@vgbnd) May 12, 2012

 

A Realists Eulogy For Idealists

How do the possibilities remain impossible?
There is so much light and love in the beginning.
The inferno consumed into glowing embers.
Who would have thought that this monkey wrench thrown into the gears of the machine could become mangled so quickly?
That monkey wrench seemed so invincible, that machine so vulnerable.
These decisions get wrapped like a stone around your heart tossed into the depths, falling away from the surface, falling away from the light and the warmth of the sun.
In the end there is no blame, only responsibility.
When this righteous anger is past due and spoils to turn to bitterness, it will make complete sense to turn your back on the beauty of what could be.
Your strength turned against you so the fight is within you and the struggle is without you.
The failures of idealism piled up like dead bodies and the reasons are excuses dressed as wisdom and wisdom is a realists eulogy written for idealists.

-vagabond

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-GB

Pawnshop Poetry #2

Pawnshop Poetry #2 by vagabond ©

Pawnshop Poetry #2 #PAWNSHOPDREAM #nothingtobegainedhere #ows #vagabond
nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/paw…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) January 14, 2012

Pawnshop Poetry #1

PAWNSHOP POEM #1 by vagabond ©

FADE FROM BLACK

EXT. STREET – DAY
DYLCIA walks down the street listening to her headphones. Something catches her eye as she walks past a pawnshop window. She stops and looks into the window. She looks at her watch and see the second hand ticking then walks inside the pawn shop.

INT. PAWN SHOP – DAY
SAM the pawnshop owner is doing some accounting on a glass display counter with watches and jewelry.

SAM
No kids allowed in the store.
DYLCIA
I wanna see something that’s in the window.
SAM
I don’t care. No kids allowed in the store.
DYLCIA
I wanna buy it.
SAM
What do you want to buy?
DYLCIA
This… (she points to a box in the window)
SAM
You have money?
DYLCIA
Yeah. I got money.

SAM gets a beautifully decorated wooden box with a Puerto Rican flag painted on it out of the window. He puts it on the counter. DYLCIA picks it up.

DYLCIA
I wanna buy it. How much is it?
SAM
How much money do you have?
DYLCIA
What do you mean how much money do I have?
SAM
How much money do you have?
DYLCIA
What kind of question is that?
SAM
A simple question. Now, how much do you have?

DYLCIA reaches into her pocket and pulls out a bunch of bills and puts them on the counter. SAM counts the bills.

SAM
It’s not enough.
DYLCIA
How much is it?
SAM
What does it matter how much it is if
you haven’t got enough to pay for it?

DYLCIA picks up the box and looks for a price.

DYLCIA
It doesn’t have a price.
How do you know how much it is?
SAM
I know… that’s how I know.
DYLCIA
You don’t put the price on things
so people can know?
SAM
No. I don’t put the price on things.
If people want something bad enough they’ll pay.

DYLCIA turns around and looks at the guitars hanging in the store with prices on them.

DYLCIA
You put the price tags on those guitars.
SAM
Yeah. Some things got prices tags on them
others don’t. It doesn’t matter because
you can’t afford this.
DYLCIA
But I still want it. Tell me much it is
and I’ll find a way to pay it.

SAM thinks for a moment…

SAM
You want it so bad? I’ll make you a deal.
I’ll take this money you have here and when
you get more money you come back and
you bring it to me. If you have enough money
next time to pay for it I’ll give it to you.
DYLCIA
What happens if I don’t have enough
money the next time to pay for it?
SAM
I’ll take that and I’ll apply it to the final price.
DYLCIA
And you won’t sell it to anyone else?
SAM
No. This money says it’s yours.
DYLCIA
If that money says it’s mine why can’t I have it?
SAM
Because you haven’t finished paying for it.
When you finish paying for it you can have it.
DYLCIA
So this money says it’s mine
but I can’t have it until I finish paying for it?
SAM
Yeah.

DYLCIA gives SAM a dirty look she puts her money down on the counter. SAM pockets the money and smiles as DYLCIA walks out with an uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction.

FADE TO BLACK

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A Riot To Clear The Air Of The Stench From Capitalism’s Corpse

The Right Of Riot by vagabond ©

“We have a lot of kids graduating college, can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.” - Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC warning of rioting in the streets if Washington doesn’t get serious about creating jobs

“Ordinary people should depose leaders who enrich themselves at the expense of their countrymen.” – Nelson Mandela

It’s easy to understand why the shitstem doesn’t want riots in the streets of NYC or Washington DC. It profits handsomely on the inequality of a shitstem that is designed for the few and financially strong. The shitstem’s always busy telling the ones who suffer the most, that violence is not an option, riots are not a solution. Those are easy things to say when you constrict the definition of violence to obeying the laws that protect profit and property created by and profiteers and property owners.

We need an expansion of the definition of violence to include the lack of access to healthy food, the lack of access to decent healthcare, the lack of access to decent education, the lack of access to living wages… These are the subtle forms of violence that are used by the shitstem to keep us in line. These are some of the forms of violence that manifest themselves in a daily attrition that accumulates to a physical, psychological and spiritual violence.

The eruption of violence in the form of riots is a recognition that the shitstem’s subtle violence has diminished our lives. A little rioting on the streets of Wall Street and East Capital Street and K Street may be just what we need. A little fear injected into the state and the corporations is just what we could use in these daze of privatized profit and socialized risk. Capitalism is dead. The foul smell of the rotting corpse is heavy in the ether. Maybe a riot is just what we need to clear the air.

We live in fear of a shitstem that requires our compliance and cooperation in order to function. Upset the politics. We have a right to change them with the right of riot. If we give away that right then we’ll have no teeth to puncture the wound that is necessary to convert these threats into promises.

We can wait patiently as we beg for the compassion of few more crumbs or we can turn the tables. Subject the shitstem to change without notice, clear the air, with the right of riot. Declare war in your action. Capitalism is in shock and refuses to accept its own death. It’s surprised at it’s own suicide and it won’t lay down. It’s up to us to put it down and write the fuck you eulogy.

A Riot To Clear The Air Of The Stench From Capitalism's Corpse #nothingtobegainedhere
nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/a-r…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) September 19, 2011