April 7, 2009

Body Farm

For the second installment of my infrequently installed series of posts about things my friends are up to that I think are cool, I present to you a surreal video my friend Ben helped produce for VBS (Vice TV) about a research facility outside of Knoxville, Tenn., where forensic scientists dump dead bodies and then study the different ways they decompose in hopes of applying their findings to unsolved cases of suspicious dumped-body discoveries. My favorite part is when they talk about how they constructed a special scenario to study how people decompose in mobile homes, because trailer body decomposition is apparently a relatively unexplored field.

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April 4, 2009

Why does a letter always arrive at its destination?

I’ve been making collages on the outsides of the envelopes in which I put letters and other things that I send to my friends. Maybe you’ll get one some day.

(click the images to see even bigger, more impressive images)

I realize that these collages are kind of weak, artistically, because, at least for the front, I used images that were already “artsy,” which is a pretty incredible cop-out. The image on the back of the envelope is cut from a Camel ad I found in an old Playboy magazine I found sitting around in my parents’ basement. The guy is wading through a jungle river, pulling his load on a raft, smoking a cig, and the caption for the ad reads: “Where real men should be.” Priceless.

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March 26, 2009

Key bump for the Cause?

The FARC has for years funded its armed rebellion against the US-backed Columbian government with money from the cocaine trade, which depends on the massive demands from noses in the United States. Recently, the Shining Path guerilla army has resumed its struggle against the government in Peru using a stream of income from a similar source — coke cartels. At the same time, US anti-drug efforts to block distribution routes from South America to the United States has prompted the cartels to move their product through Mexico, which has exacerbated drug-related violence in that country to the point where Mexico is about as safe as any moderately war-torn African region you could name. Furthermore, the violence has crossed the political border between the US and Mexico, and now law enforcement in Arizona get to deal with beheadings and kidnappings and house raids the same as the Mexican police do.

I, like president Obama, have done “maybe a little blow” in my time, mostly during the zany days of college. I have since shrugged it off as something I have no interest in doing any more, for obvious reasons, but more and more I have thought of the political ramifications of snorting those white lines. I remember seeing a Bill Maher show on HBO years back that featured a charming graphic that said something like, “Columbia: 30 Years of Civil War Because America Can’t Kick Its Coke Habit.”

This is, for the most part, true. Without funding from the cocaine trade, rebels in Columbia and the rest of Latin America would be seriously hurting for cash in the post Cold-War era. Groups like FARC and Shining Path are dramatically flawed ideologically and enjoy little popular support outside of small, specific regions, mostly because they have burned so many bridges with villagers by their association with rampant drug-related violence. If drug money were to dry up, the guerillas would be trading their machine guns for machetes, which would be little match for the millions and millions of dollars of military support the US grants Latin American governments each year to fight against “the drug dealers.”

But, as we all know, the War on Drugs in places like Columbia has as much to do with fighting communism as it does with “fighting drugs” (ever try to shoot a pile of powder?). The FARC, the Shining Path, and most other serious rebel groups in South America are almost exclusively Marxist in their (professed) political stances. During the Cold War, the United States built up a massive funding infrastructure to battle cartels, mostly because the cartels supported Leftist guerilla armies. The claim that the United States was simply attempting to eradicate drugs for moral or societal reasons is a Reaganistic smoke screen at best (unless you consider that most people who do coke in its powder form are rich whiteys, which would explain why the government would battle against that while supplying cocaine in rock form to the black inner cities).

This begs a question, then: Should a person in the United States who supports Leftist armed resistance against capitalist governments in South America disavow the use of cocaine because giving money to coke dealers perpetuates violence, chaos and unrest in the lands of our southern neighbors? If the only active Leftist armies in the Western hemisphere rely almost entirely on money from cocaine, shouldn’t their supporters in the United States be buying up all the yay-yo they can get their privileged hands on in order to keep the struggle alive? Since it is true that all revolution demands severe sacrifice, isn’t this one we should be willing to make?

In this case, no, probably not. The FARC and the Shining Path are Cold War remnants who attract only those who have yet to figure out a better way to fight against capitalism in the globalized age. Although their spirits are admirable, they are destined to lose because they are not even fighting the correct wars, and they show their desperation by aligning with drug lords who really do not have the good of the people in mind. Even Hugo Chavez, despite his professed support for FARC, is a step up from the formerly grand Columbian Marxist army. The Left must find new ways to forward itself, and the FARC and Shining Path are doing little to help. I am not saying that everyone should give up on armed resistance altogether, but the time for an incubation period during which ideologically like-minded members can get together and regroup is at hand. The cocaine-fueled rebel army model is broken, whether it be the classic Columbian version or the new Peruvian. Their efforts to continue down the same path, which was forged in a direction that may have been appropriate for the Cold War but is not now, seem a bit sadly pathetic these days, and buying cocaine in the United States is actually probably the worst thing you could do for any serious Leftist progression in South America. So, stop it.

If the coke money runs out, maybe their buzz will finally wear down, they’ll drink a few beers, doze off into a light sleep and wake up with their party leader as president. That’s what just happened in El Salvador.

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March 21, 2009

Cut scenes from a short story in progress

There’s a problem at the paper with my check. The pay clerk’s cheeks shake when he talks and I can’t make out what he wants. Una factura, he says. He shows me a sheet stapled to a payroll receipt. Una factura, he repeats. He spreads the paper slip apart on his counter, making sure his fingers don’t block any relevant text.
English translations of “factura” I am familiar with: pastry n : a glazed baked good, sometimes filled with cream or fruit. I imagine handing the clerk a cruller in exchange for cash. His tongue works rogue flakes of fried dough from his lips after a big bite, a squirt of filling escapes down his wrist, his sticky hand shoots aloft to bid me happy spending as I turn to descend the office steps. Instead, I shove away from his window and a native takes my place.
This kid doesn’t understand anything, I understand them say.

Even Carl’s superior command of Spanish couldn’t fill his checkless hands this week. He also neglected to hassle with the work visa process and, like me, is technically a “tourist.” He says it’s not that the country is in the throes of a gringo purge or that an argument erupted on the Parliament floor over a bill that damns illegals’ abilities to make a working wage — the company just decided to get legit and demand employees present facturas on payday. My mind drifts to the pay clerk gobbling a frosted croissant. Facturas are tax forms, he explains, ignition switches that keep the public funding engine humming. The ministry tracks you check to check to ensure it gets its proper cut. You and I were duty free, but now we have to pay the piggy.

The brush-fire smoke is in everyone’s lungs. The coughing inside the police station makes it impossible to concentrate. It wheezes at intervals from the crowd in the rows of chairs bolted to the floor, from behind the counter where the paper sorters sort, from the admin offices, the conference pods. It chokes from the vents in the ducts that run between the lobby and where the beatings take place: Cough up the information, chump.
I fill in the parts of the forms I can understand (nombre, appellido, fecha de nacimiento) and hope the rest are optional. This is a Carl lead, and will require plenty of smiling. He said the police will confirm I have a permanent address in an actual residence, then stamp a sheet or sign a slip or teach me a secret handshake I can use in the tax office to get a number with thirteen digits. I present my number at a licensed print shop to receive a stack of facturas so I can give one to the clerk at work for my check and buy a ticket to wherever Doug is alone in a bar and cave his skull in from behind with a thick bottle of hard liquor. As long as the officials here neither notice nor care that I have nothing whatsoever that indicates any right to citizenship status or benefits, I’ll have money in my pocket, a bloody glass bludgeon, and peaceful sleep on a return flight South.
I understand so little of the police teller’s spiel that I’m afraid they’ll arrest me straight out of my seat. Her face and cadence express the boredom of a seasoned military torturer. I hope I can pass this off as confusion — I was trying to buy a cruise ticket. Aren’t these the right forms to fill out for the cathedral tour? Where is the cultural center? The translating part of my brain shorts out and the teller’s lips produce a noise I’m certain begins to mean: The cot mattresses are continually damp with piss and blood, but this won’t affect you at least until Thursday because handsome foreigners attempting to commit citizenship fraud almost always spend their first nights with the lights off on the floor being raped by their guards and cellmates. Breakfast is at seven — mostly gruel and mold — and if you kill someone for drugs you can trade them for lunch. Your embassy knows you’re lying to us and would rather avoid a spectacle, so since you have no prominent family or powerful friends you’ll most likely be denied phone privileges until you hang yourself with your sheet.
Can I take these home to fill out? I ask.
Si, the officer sighs.

++

If there’s one thing Agnes has learned to hate it’s a backpacker. Look, she said to a swarthy blonde one who had approached her in our corner expat bar, I know the mystical beads you got in Quito from a shaman dispel the spirits of conquistadors who in death still insist on ravaging native customs that you in your multicultural grace are hell-bent to preserve, but as soon as your brain adapts to the potency of the local cocaine you’ve been snorting you’ll realize it’s better sooner than later that you end your wild post-collegiate rite of passage abroad and go back to London to trade commodities because every stupid tale of adventure you’ve got to tell me is exactly the same as a thousand others I’ve already daydreamed through.
I carried her out at the behest of the barman after the ensuing scene. It was really just us laughing,

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March 12, 2009

Cheap socializing

Below is an article I wrote for the Chicago Tribune, my first to be published in said publication. It’s totally framed as a “ways to have fun during the recession” piece, but the more I thought about it, I realized that I’ve been finding cheap/free ways to have fun my whole life. (Relative) poverty breeds innovation. When I was doing research for this article I came across lots of pieces titled things like, “How to go out for under $25!” They usually went something like:

Stop 1: Chanelle’s bar (7:00 pm)
Here, my friend and I had one drink apiece for $3 each

Stop 2: Bob’s Italian Cuisine (8:00 pm)
Here, we ate appetizers that cost $7

Stop 3: Da Club (9:00 pm)
Here, we each had two drinks that cost $4 — Whoops, we went over our limit! Tee hee hee!

I thought about what I had done the previous Friday night: I ate leftovers at my house (free — they were my roommates’), bought a 40 and a half-pint of whiskey at the liquor store ($8) and hung out at a house show all night (free). What’s more is that I would have done the exact same thing had their not been a recession.

Anyhow, here’s the article:

Creative hosts conjure recession-friendly entertainment
With money tight, living-room events proving popular

In these recessionary times, people who don’t want to give up on the social scene regularly search for club drink specials and dinner deals. But some creative young hosts are getting innovative with just a circle of friends and a living room.

Ryan Wilson, 27, is one such host. Last July, the landscape architect began hosting monthly intellectual “salons” in his Logan Square residence.

He got the idea from a University of Chicago professor who invited colleagues into her home a couple of years ago to talk about what they do and share stories. Wilson was inspired to re-create that setting after watching a physics professor enthrall his small audience with a series of magic tricks.

“I realized I’ve got all these friends who I think are interesting who have pretty unique lives,” Wilson said. “I started this salon to provide a sounding board for them to talk about their professions and hobbies.”

For his first salon, Wilson rounded up a photojournalist, a trauma surgeon and a neon sign maker from his extensive social network and asked them to come to his home and talk about their crafts. He then e-mailed invitations to his friends, cleared the furniture from his large living room and let the salon commence. It has been occurring on a monthly basis since.

A few blocks away from Wilson’s apartment, amateur film buff Dave Gunn and his girlfriend, Danielle Basci, have recently begun organizing front-room events of their own. Equipped with a Netflix account, a digital projector and a big white wall, they host biweekly film screenings that accommodate 10 to 15 friends. They moderate discussions about the films afterward and supply the popcorn.

“It’s a way for people to get in conversation,” said Gunn, 32. “Basically we want to get everybody together to talk and have a good time without spending any money.”

Events such as Wilson’s salon are an alternative for budget-conscious people, but they also are attractive to people just looking for something other than dinner and a movie, said Black Hawk Hancock, a professor of sociology at DePaul University.

It’s also a way to help friends who are going through tough times without the embarrassment that can come from offering to lend them money or buy them a drink, he said.

“It’s a more sophisticated economic transaction,” Hancock said.

Wilson said his salons now host 30 to 50 people each month, mainly from word of mouth. They are on a variety of topics, and Wilson no longer has to find presenters; they come to him.

At his last salon, held this month, a family counselor and psychologist talked about the use of psychedelic drugs as treatments.

The month before, the speakers were Claire Bidwell Smith and Greg Boose, husband-and-wife bloggers (shewrotehewrote.com), members of an artist collective (thepostfamily.com) and an ad designer-copywriter duo, talking about partnerships.

Gunn and Basci are happy to give their friends that opportunity. Both have felt the recession’s effects firsthand. Basci, 24, was unemployed for three months until mid-January, when she landed a job as manager of Loyola University’s radio station. Gunn, who works for Playboy magazine, said that three of the eight people in his department were laid off in October.

“In times like these you feel the need to give a little more,” said Basci. “Some of our friends are struggling a bit right now. They’re job hunting or have lost jobs. So this is our way of spreading the wealth.”

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March 8, 2009

Roustabouts

It was at the end of a long day of mucking sludge from the inside of an oil tank with a shovel-headed pole and a hose that we scared up the gopher that ran beneath the bucket of the backhoe — the wide one in front with roughly the dimensions of a coffin that resembles the bulldozing apparatus of a bulldozer. The front bucket of the backhoe was resting, turned downward into the dirt, when the gopher ran under it, so it must have been a gigantic chamber to him, looming and dark, though certainly safer than the outside world from which he had escaped, in which rocks as large as his body hurtled toward him from the hands of my coworkers, who aimed to cripple and kill. We all had our hardhats and safety glasses on, plus t-shirts with their sleeves torn off to expose our tan arm muscles, blue jeans, steel-toed boots, all slimed with mud and oil. My fingers were cut and gouged from slips of wrenches and I kicked around at the edge of the well site waiting for the gopher to outsmart them and flee into the protection of the surrounding desert so we could go home. I wasn’t in a hurry to leave — the desert was as good as any other place I had to be, plus the sky was an impressive shade of gray — but my role as outcast appeared all the more defined during these attempted animal slayings, as it did when anyone talked about race or immigration or homosexuals or politics or women. The only person on our crew other than myself who was profitably killing time between college semesters was David, a geo-engineering student at the University of Wyoming who affected a Southern accent when he said things like, “Niggers get no pity from me.” His father was also a racist engineer and had gotten David this job through his connections at Chevron, although it’s unclear why anyone would need connections to get this job. David was skinny and somehow seemed dumber than everyone else on our crew, but it’s likely he had some sort of slow intelligence that would suit him perfectly for driving around on dirt roads from oil well to oil well, monitoring their gauges, napping atop plateaus in his truck, and condescendingly telling the roustabout crews what was going wrong so we could fix it. There were several of these people working in our field and they fawned over David when they found he was being groomed as one of their own, but their enthusiasm for him faded as the summer went along and his lack of contribution to lunchtime banter grew increasingly conspicuous. Idle chat fills the oil field’s long days, and David just never had much to say.

The front bucket of a backhoe is as heavy as any huge boulder a gopher could run under, but decidedly inferior cover, as it can be lifted with the easy pull of a lever to expose all that’s underneath. Jeff, the lead rodent-killer of our pack, whose poor aim with a stone did nothing to damper his excitement at the prospect of murder when any small fauna appeared in our midst, was quick to realize the inadequacies of the gopher’s hiding place and was outwardly proud of his plan to exploit it: “Chris,” he said, “get up in the backhoe and lift the bucket up.” He laid out the script for the second act wordlessly by picking up a football-sized chunk of sandstone. Chris, an Alabama native with whom I shared a similar adolescence as a small-town punk rocker and thus got along with pretty well, despite his insistence to refer to me as Napoleon after Jeff had pointed out that my poofy brown hair bore resemblance to the indie-film antihero’s, was quick and happy to oblige. He hopped in the backhoe’s cab and maneuvered the bucket, still pointed downward and looking from the side like the appendage of a praying mantis, eight feet into the air. I could imagine the gopher’s surprise at having his sturdy cave lifted from above him, a grim sky and the figure of Jeff’s aggressive frame replacing it. So great was his terror that when Jeff’s first effort to spike the rock onto his spine failed on account of poor aim he did not run away from the puff of dust that had erupted a foot to his left. An embarrassed fury welled in Jeff as he scooped the rock up for another shot and brought it down powerfully on its mark. Something broke in the gopher’s back and it propelled itself around in circles with its still-functioning hind legs, its limp forward torso acting as a pivot point in the dirt. Jeff, a 220-pound ex-Marine from Florida with a shaved head and a bully’s smile began to jump up and down like a cartoon ape, landing his thick boot soles on top of the screaming animal. Aaron, a genuinely smart and slightly teddy-bearish person who in partnership with Jeff oversaw our crew, stood with his arms crossed looking amused and parental. David egged Jeff on with the shrill yeahs and fist-pumps of a weakling who backs the stronger boy in a fistfight out of self-interest. I looked on in nonchalant amazement, and in the cab of the backhoe Chris reeled with howls of glee and accidentally bumped the lever that controlled the front bucket and brought all 800 pounds of it crushing down across Jeff’s back. He flattened to the ground like hot syrup splashing onto a pancake. The back half of the dead gopher stuck out from under his leg, which was spread-eagled along with the rest of his limbs. Thoughts of what to do in the event of Jeff’s death reeled through everyone’s heads until he rolled onto his side and began moaning, proving he was still alive. I wandered out into the sagebrush, staring at the sky, my path a shallow arc.

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March 3, 2009

On the fistfight

I have a strange obsession with fistfights. It comes from my being bullied throughout junior high and loathing myself for not standing up to the kids who picked on me, then feeling the wonderful rush of it all after I reached high school and started to fight back. I found that I had sort of a knack for it, and I’ve since held on to that as a proud part of my identity, although I must admit that I’m probably much softer now than I was then.

Hardly an instance passes when I take a long walk in the city and something I see doesn’t flip a switch in my brain and start it reeling into daydreams — some more elaborate than others — in which an aggressor enters my midst and I am obliged to defend myself or someone else by bludgeoning him with my appendages. I imagine all sorts of variations to the initial scene, in depth and with emotion, and before I know it I’m seven blocks further along than I was. These are the things that happen in my head.

I’ve isolated two rational, almost conflicting personal perspectives on fistfights. The first is that they are a totally pointless and therefore a shameful waste of energy and misdirection of rage. I’m reminded of some Dead Prez lyrics: “You talkin’ ‘bout niggaz hatin’ on you. I’ll tell you who really be hatin’ on you: The motherfuckin’ police and the judge and the DA be hatin’ on you, nigga.”

I’m interested in violence and how it can be used constructively, and therefore I think of it often in political terms. Violence can be used constructively by freedom fighters who overthrow oppressive governments and liberate those who were previously persecuted. Violent acts can create focal points that draw the public gaze to an unjust institution, as when a militant group bombs a symbol of that organization and can communicate its rationale for the attack to the people, thus exposing the injustice. When I think of two drunk construction workers clutched in mutual brutish embrace rolling around on the floor of a bar, sweating and struggling and pawing at each other in the throes of a physical altercation, I can only think: “No, boys. Direct your anger at the State!” As long as imperialist governments are acting in tandem with multinational corporations to reap profit at the expense of and maintain power over the Third World and the international proletariat while denying the people the chance to pursue any life that is not bogged down by the tedious chase of capital, part of me thinks there is absolutely no excuse for the average person to engage in fisticuffs. Why not throw your shoe at a president instead?

On the other hand, the real possibility of an asskicking can work wonders for smartypantses and rich kids to keep them from feeling too superior (although it may be much more effective for the former — as my friend always says, “Never beat up a rich kid, because he’ll hit you with his lawyer”). I might be, according to any number of select criteria, simply and objectively better than hundreds of thousands of people. I might be smarter, savvier, more compassionate, more ethical, a better friend and son, drive a cooler car and fuck hotter lovers than what could amount to the population of an entire metropolis, but I know in my heart that, given the right circumstances, a terrifyingly large number of those people could beat the living shit out of me and there would be absolutely nothing I could do about it. I try to remember this, and when I do, it humbles me.

There will be a part of me deeply saddened if I go through the rest of my life without getting in another fistfight. I am neither a domestic terrorist nor an urban guerilla, nor do I have any idea of how to go about becoming one. I have no plans of becoming a police officer or joining the army, but I remember the pure rush of life that comes with the immediate threat of violence and the urgency to exert violence back. So, as dumb and wasteful as they may be, fistfights are really my only option.

It has been nearly five years since I got into what I would consider a real fight. I was on a porch at a college house party late at night and made a loud comment toward some of my friends who were running naked down the street. A young man leaving a party next door misunderstood me and thought I was directing an insult at him. The surliness with which he approached me in response to what had appeared to him an affront did little to persuade me to bother explaining the whole thing. There was also an underlying tension to begin with between the house he was coming from, which often hosted parties for lacrosse players and other swarthy jock types, and the house I was at, which had been christened “the Gangsta House,” because its residents were all gay and seemed constantly troubled by angst.

Some words were exchanged between the young man and myself. He reached back and in what almost seemed like slow motion swung a roundhouse right fist at my head. I leaned back to dodge the blow easily, cracked him in the face with the thick-bottomed bourbon glass I had in my hand, threw him onto the hood of a car and was about to commence pummeling when three of his friends accosted me from behind. I fell to the ground, but not without taking one of them with me. I remembered some advice once given to me by my brother, who went to West Point and actually took college classes in hand-to-hand combat: “The last thing you want,” he said, “if for a guy to straddle on top of you and start wailing on you. What you do in that situation is reach up and grab the guy by the front of his shirt, pull him down close to you, then roll him over and get on top of him.” I executed two thirds of this tactic — the grabbing of the guy and the pulling him down, so his face was right next to mine — when I realized I had probably gone far enough because the guy’s friends were attempting to kick me in the head but more often than not landed their shoes square on their buddy’s cheeks. By that time people were crowding around and, my friends at that particular place not being the type to jump into a brawl on my behalf, the situation diffused after a couple seconds and nobody really got hurt.

I long for the fistfight at the same time I loathe it, and cannot help romanticizing the times I’ve spent with it. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, or a childish nostalgia that would be utterly foolish of me to recreate. I imagine myself somewhere in my forties, just having divorced whatever wife I had at the time, suffering the gastric acids in the belly of some career I hate, and rather than go down to the dealership and buy a sports car or some hunking fast motorcyle to relive my youth and fulfill my mid-life crisis, I will head back to Wyoming, where fistfights are practically still legal, find a mildly tough oilfield hand and badger him until he kicks my ass.

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February 28, 2009

There are a few reason why I think I would enjoy living in Los Angeles. FAMILY bookstore is one of them.

Family
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323-782-9221
www.familylosangeles.com

(This article originally appeared on STOP SMILING Online)

The owners of Family bookstore in Los Angeles curate their inventory according to a strict standard of awesomeness: Each hand-picked item must abide by select criteria to earn placement on the store’s shelves: “The book itself has to be an elegant object,” says Family co-owner David Jacob Kramer. “Even if there’s an author I really like, and I think should be in the store, if their book cover is really pedestrian and thoughtless, then I don’t want to carry it. I really believe that the form that literature comes in is just as important as the content. The form is the content.”

Family began in late 2006 after three Australian transplants — Kramer, Sammy Harkham and his wife, Tahli — rented a storefront on Fairfax Avenue and transformed it into something of a tribute to their adolescent selves.

“We have a lot of in-store shows here,” Kramer says, “and when we were teenagers those were the only shows we could go to. And just the experience as a teenager of going into a record or bookstore, you were discovering stuff that would radically change your perception of the world.”

Family events are not meant to sell books as much as generate an element of energy and excitement about the space. “You want the place to be alive,” Kramer says, “something that lives and breathes, not just a place where people come to buy stuff.”

Their traditional literary happenings, which have included a reading series curated by LA author Trinie Dalton and a number of events in conjunction with McSweeney’s, fit seamlessly into a docket of events alongside concerts by groups like No Age and Ariel Pink. Family also works in tandem with the Hope Gallery for art exhibitions, and with the Silent Movie Theatre, where Kramer and Harkham program the film series CineFamily.

While the old warhorses of the book business wring their hands trying to come up with solutions to save print publishing in the era of the Web, the Family staff, from top to bottom, is native to the Internet age. “The Internet has really made a store like ours possible,” Kramer says, “because with it you can discover a publisher in Switzerland or a publisher in Japan, you can email them out of the blue, put in your order, PayPal them their money and a week later you have these books, and you’re the only stockers in America. Fifty years ago you would have to go to Switzerland and stumble into this store, but now you can find it on the Internet and get an order into your store in a week.”

Among the international rarities Family offers are selections from Nieves, a Swiss publisher of art books and zines like The Times they are the Changes and Chapter 3, as well as mono.kultur, a handsome interview zine from Berlin, and There Stands the Glass from Australia’s Serps Press. Other books that are particularly emblematic of the Family vision include the new two-volume Gary Panter retrospective, photographer Peter Sutherland’s Muddy Treads, conceptual artist Lawrence Winer’s children’s book Something to Put Something On, Ian Svenonius’ The Psychic Soviet and Emmett Grogan’s autobiography, Ringolevio. Each of these books is a complete unit: aesthetically astute, well conceived and highly conceptualized. As long as books are “elegant objects,” Kramer says, they will remain irreplaceable by an electronic screen.

The undertaking of opening Family has already fulfilled the hopes of its founders; they have been able to stay in business without compromising their curatorial vision.

“I was so terrified before we opened,” Kramer says, “because the idea of the store — the concept of it — was kind of novel. I’d never really seen a store with this idea, so I didn’t know if it was even feasible. But we opened, and we’re still open. Not only that, but the stuff that sells well is the stuff we really love. It was gratifying to see that, and it meant that we could really go for it and indulge ourselves. We have a lot of people working here now, and it’s all kind of just us kids doing it. So as long as we can stay afloat, I’m pretty proud of ourselves.”

02

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February 14, 2009

Letters to a young Nigerian

I received an email the other day from someone who had hacked into my friend Rollin Hunt‘s Hotmail account and sent a message to his entire contact list asking them to wire money to Africa on behalf of his sick sister. I was pretty sure Rollin didn’t have a sister (apparently, I find, he does), but regardless was pretty sure that Rollin was not in Africa, but down the street from me, in his house, where he usually is. I decided to have a bit of a chat with the person who hacked his account, and what follows in the transcript from that exchange:

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 6:26 AM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

Hello
How are you doing today? Fine I presume. My reason for writing you this emergency letter is that I am currently in Africa to visit my ill Sister, am sorry for not informing you before embarking on my journey to Africa it was quiet an argent move i took to Africa because of the news of her illness arrived to me as “EMERGENCY” she is suffering from a critical uterine Fibroid and needs immediate family support to keep her alive, her condition is deteriorating and the doctor told me that she will need to under-go a surgery to keep her alive because her fibroid is getting worse (70 pounds Large) and has done a lot of damages to her abdominal area. They require a deposit of $2500 because they are inviting professional surgeons from Israel to perform the (hysterectomy) operation because it had gotten to a critical stage. That brings me more to why I have written you, I need a financial help of $1400 from you to deposit for her surgery because the cash i traveled wasn’t enough to make the payment asap. I didn’t expect things to be the way it is right now. I really need this money from you soon because I am in a terrible and tight situation here, I have short time to get the money before the surgeons arrive. Even if you can’t afford the whole sum, I will appreciate whatever you are able to come up with because I don’t even know your financial status before asking you for money. I promise to pay you back when I get back.I am desperately waiting to hear from you soon so that I will know what step to take next.
Thanks
Hotmail® goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone. See how.

++

Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:06:00 -0300
Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

Hi Rollin,

I’m really sorry to hear about your sister. I will take all of the money out of my bank account and send it to wherever you want. This will mean that I won’t be able to pay rent next month or buy food, so I hope you don’t mind if I move into your place and eat everything that you have. I’m sure it will be worth it to keep your sister alive.

On another note, I’m trying to fly to Cairo in the spring and am looking at flights right now. Pretty expensive. I found some United flights to London for less than $200, but then the fees and taxes are something like $300. You’ve flown to London quite a bit, right? Know any secrets for cheap airfare?

God be with you and your family in this time of need.

-Nate

++

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

Thank you very much for your swift response to my email and also for your great concern to want to help! it goes a long way to show how much you care about me and my family and the good heart you have, you are the best friend one can ever have, a true friend indeed to a friend in need. May our almighty GOD in his infinate mercy and compassion continue to bless you and enrich you with more wherever these help is coming out from. Regarding how to get the money to me pls go to any gross store or shopping mall that operates western union money transfer or a money gramm and request to send the money to the name and address provided below.

Name: daniel jatau
Address: 15 marina hospital
City: surulerel
State: lagos
Country: Nigeria
text question: my colour
text answer: blue

And you will be given a 10 digits mtcn number…..and the amount sent with the senders name.
thanks
rollin

++

[Nate does not respond...]

++

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

Gooday nate.
please i write to you concerning the money,please try send it to me so i can deposit it for the surgery,please reply asap

thanks
rollin

++

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:19:48 -0300

Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

Yeah, Rollin, jeez, hold on. It’s not like sending money to Africa is absolutely the only gosh darned thing I have to do with my time. Hold the freak on.

-Nate

++

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

please help me nate i need ur help, its not like u sending money to me i will pay back i promise you nate, Regarding how to get the money to me pls go to any gross store or shopping mall that operates western union money transfer or a money gramm and request to send the money to the name and address provided below.

Name: daniel jatau
Address: Divine Grace Hospital surulere,
city: Lagos
Country: Nigeria
text question: my colour
text answer: blue

And you will be given a 10 digits mtcn number…..ad the amoutn sent with the senders name.
thanks
rollin

++

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:55:42 -0600

Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

You don’t even have a job, Rollin. How could you possibly pay me this money back?

-Nate

++

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

i will sell little of my things ok. to pay u back i promise.

++

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:02:37 -0600

Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

Like what? You sold your television and stereo the last time you went on a heroin binge. You don’t have anything to sell except that old car.

-Nate

++

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 12:12 PM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

PLEASE NATE DONT MAKE FUNNY OF ME, I NEED UR HELP.

++

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:13:41 -0600
Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

I’m not making fun of you. Answer me one question and I will send money: What is the name of your girlfriend?

-Nate

++

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

what has my girlfriend got to do about this nate, thanks for everything and ur concern, u have shown me how much u care nate,

++

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:20:16 -0600

Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

Sure thing, Rollin. I’m always willing to help out a stranger.

-Nate

++

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

i need you now nate.

++

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:28:06 -0600

Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

I need you, too.

-Nate

++

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:58 AM, Rollin Hunt wrote:

please i write to u concerning the fund u want to send to me for the surgery, please try get whatever u can i really need ur help now,and i promise i will pay u back.
thanks.
rollin

++

Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2009 10:28:06 -0600

Subject: Re: EMMERGENCY
From: nathancmartin@gmail.com
To: ringaling@hotmail.com

I saw Rollin Hunt on the street last night. I asked him how his sister was doing. He said he does not have a sister.

I asked him about the emails he sent me, and apologized for not sending money. He had no idea what I was talking about.

I do not know who you are, where you come from, or how much you really need money, but you will get none from me. I give my money away quite often to those who need it, and to some who don’t but who lie to me and say they do. I have no problem doing either, but since I know absolutely nothing about who you really are except that you stole my friend’s email account and pretended to be him, I will give you nothing except good wishes for the future.

I am not angry at you, nor spiteful. I wish you all the best.

Take care.

-Nate

6 Comments

Filed under humor, nonfiction

February 10, 2009

NeverNotWorking Radio Baile Funky

Ugh. I am sick. Sick and tired of gringos stealing all my people’s names to use as their own: Los Angeles, Amarillo, San Antonio, Taco Bell. But seriously though, I’m sick, and am unable to finish the epic blog post I had intended to get up tonight. I’m too weary. Vomiting blood. That sort of thing.

So, instead of finishing my fantastic tale of infiltrating a scientologist compound in Wyoming told in second-person choose-your-own-adventure style, I’m going to kick off an idea I’ve had for awhile but have never put into effect, which is to keep GRATING SPACE fresh by hyping cool things that my friends are doing.

The first instillation of what will probably be a regular component of this here blog deals with my friend Kris in New York and his radio show, NeverNotWorking. An aficionado of myriad musical genres, he and his cohost play rare and mindblowing cuts that span soul, jazz, hip hop, and, on my favorite show of his so far, favela funk straight from the City of God. Favela funk, or baile funk, or funk carioca, is the contemporary native sound coming from the drug-gang-run slums of Rio de Janeiro. It’s a derivative of Miami bass, beat-wise, and its lyrics, while in Portuguese, are often just as explicitly sexual. But like any genre worth its weight in decibels, favela funk emcees and DJs vary dramatically in tone and approach, and some of the best artists currently working in it are those who temper its violent nature with strains of Gil Scott Heron-esque soulfulness. I’ve found lots of people who find favela funk grating, overly aggressive and generally inaccessible on first listen, but the growing handful of us to whom it speaks swears by it.

This episode of NeverNotWorking radio features tracks pulled from dusty shelves in Sao Paulo and Rio record shops, as well as a live in-studio with Brazil’s own MC Zuzuka Poderosa and DJ Supervixen.

Toma, toma t-toma, toma!

1 Comment

Filed under amazing people, music