Participate in the On-the-Fly Farms CSA!

[In the Spring of 2004, the Chicory Center rented a farm in Southwest Michigan, beginning to till the soil on April 30 of that year. By July 1, we were delivering produce to a dozen subscribers in Chicago . . . ]

By the seat of its pants, a small group of activists is starting the On-the-Fly Farm CSA. CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture, and means city people get to take a more active role in the production of their food, while supporting organic, sustainable practices. This could mean a thousand different things, and as On-the-Fly Farm is happening on the fly, we’ve only come up with a couple so far. New ideas are welcome, send them on!

One current option is this: On-the-Fly Farm is growing organic vegetables and fruits at its farm in Bridgeman Michigan. As those crops mature, we will get them to the city one way or another, and either deliver them to your door by bicycle, or you can pick them up. Pricing is subject to barter, trade, or some kind of work exchange. This informality is due to the farm’s on-the-fly nature, and to a desire to contribute to the overthrow of capitalism to the highest degree possible.

As planting is just now taking place, it will be at least several weeks before greens are available, and as the season progresses, many other crops will become available: carrots, tomatoes, blackberries, pumpkins, peppers, squash, melons, watermelons, beans, a hundred other veggies, some herbs, and even flowers!

What will be a unique addition to On-the-Fly’s offerings, will be fairly-traded, organic things, particularly those created principally through processes of mutual aid, co-operation, and liberation-seeking.

One of the fairly traded items, available now, is home-roasted coffee, roasted at On-the-Fly today, tomorrow, or whatever day you want it, the freshest coffee imaginable. Currently, green coffee beans are coming from the Mut Vitz Coop, a Zapatista project within the Autonomous Indigenous Communities in Chiapas, Mexico. The cost is $6 for a half-pound, $10 for a pound.

Also from Mut Vitz, available now, are 23 oz. jars of honey, made by bees feasting on the coffee flowers on the Zapatista coffee plants! Tasty. These are $7.

The other item, available now, is fairly-traded, organic olive oil from Palestine. This oil is a project of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), which prioritizes purchasing oil from those farmers most affected by the construction of the apartheid wall, and those most affected by Israeli closure practices. This olive oil costs $15 for a 750 ml bottle, and is the tastiest olive oil! Part of the proceeds go to PARC’s Rural Women’s Development Project, and part to the Chicago chapter of the International Solidarity Movement, to help send a volunteer to Palestine.

In solidarity.

Visions for the Future of Vieques: Vacation Playground or People's Paradise?

 

Why Go to Vieques?

Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 23:33:19

I thought you'd like to know that I have decided to travel to Vieques in a day or two, to protest the U.S. Navy's presence on this tiny Puerto Rican island, and I'd like to tell you a little about why I've decided to go.

Everybody likes kids' art, right? The happy little houses, the bright sun, the green flora, the smiling fauna. Well, at an exhibition of art created by the children of Vieques, one finds all the usual images of the joy of childhood overshadowed by an additional element. Bombs, falling near those little houses.

On August 1, the U.S. Navy, along with other branches of the military, resumed its assault on a tropical jewel, the tiny Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Some 23,000 soldiers, marines, sailors are practicing an amphibious assault, supposedly with the intention of increasing battle-readiness, in preparation for such real-world attacks as the one on Kosovo in 1999, the devastating bombings of Iraq throughout the '90s, and other attacks conducted by a government increasingly out to flex its muscle, to show off its new world ordnance.

The Navy's practice sessions on Vieques are not new. Begun in 1941, they continue to this day. In April 1999, a civilian guard and Vieques resident, David Sanes, was killed by an errant Navy bomb; close attention to the island's history will show that he was not in fact the first Viequense to die due to the Navy's presence. [Please visit www.viequeslibre.org for more in-depth history.]

David Sanes' death refueled the urge to resist a colonial oppressor among the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico, a people for over 100 years subjected to the tyrannical rule of the United States government. A people portrayed for decades by their mainland rulers as passive, stoic, and resigned to a degrading condition have once again risen to show that, despite the blatant disregard shown by the U. S. government, they too will have a voice, will take and make their place in history.

I feel it is the responsibility of those concerned with human dignity and self-determination, particularly those of us who pay taxes that pay for the weaponry - the bombs, the helicopters, the aircraft carriers, the night vision gadgetry, the guns, the artillery, the insult - to stand by the side of our island neighbors.

On July 29, if there were any questions remaining about the will of the people of Vieques regarding the presence of the U.S. Navy on their land, the Viequenses voted by an overwhelming majority that they desire for the Navy to leave their island immediately, and for all lands seized by the Navy to be devolved [returned] to the municipality of Vieques.

In support of the democratic urge of the people of Vieques, I am traveling to the island, as an act of solidarity with the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico, seeking to help halt the disrespect shown by the U.S. government and military towards the human beings, the creatures, and the brilliant bioluminescent bays and coral reefs of Vieques. The U.S. government is grossly violating not only the will of its citizens, but the very notion of human dignity, of just action. Joining with others on the island, I will seek to contribute in the most effective ways that I can.

I am traveling with the tremendous encouragement and support of a great group of Catholic Workers in Ithaca. The Ithaca Catholic Worker Vieques Support Group is a community organization that works in solidarity with the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico, to end the U.S. Navy's bombing and polluting of their island through education and direct action campaigns.

Finding inspiration in the creativity and resilience shown by the people of Vieques; in the land-based struggle of the Zapatistas; from the Haymarket anarchists, the current anarchists of Chicago and the world over; from my companions at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago; from my family and friends; and also from the environment that produces the baby blue chickens' eggs on Vieques, and in the spirit of resistance and of life and love,

David Meyers

Chicago/Ithaca

________________

Back from Vieques

Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001

This is just a quick email to say that I am back in New York, after a brief yet intense journey to Vieques. In a nutshell, I arrived on the island at dawn Wednesday morning, and walked the streets of the town of Isabel Segunda as redheaded roosters crowed from the tops of trees. The town was a veritable billboard for peace, with posters in a bakery extolling the results of the referendum of two weeks ago, and with wheatpasted signs, graffiti, soaped car windows, and chalk drawings all over town, all referring to "No. 2" - the referendum option chosen by nearly 70% of the residents, calling on the Navy to leave immediately. I then sat outside a town museum overlooking the harbor, watching as a massive Navy battleship steamed westward, towards Roosevelt Roads Naval Base on mainland Puerto Rico, I assumed. I had not slept in 24 hours, and was preparing mentally to enter the bombing range.

A few hours later I met with my contact person, a fisherman who is at the heart of the movement to free the island from Navy assaults. He told me that the Navy had announced to the media that bombings were to cease (for this two-week session) that very day, and that the movement was not sending any more protesters onto the bombing range. [Upon my return to Chicago in September, Jose Lopez told a large gathering at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center that my efforts had lead to the bombing ceasing for those two weeks. "Kudos." High praise indeed.] Evidently, the Navy has been getting rougher with the protesters, including with the religious delegation which had gone onto the range the day before, and he did not want to send in protesters alone.

My contact said the most effective thing those in the U.S. can be do right now is organize more people to go to Vieques for the next bombing sessions, coming up in September. I think it is particularly important that U.S. residents who are not Puerto Rican go to Vieques, to show solidarity with the economically poor, yet rich in spirit people of Vieques. If you are interested in going, please contact me at this email address.

I will be sending out a much more detailed letter soon, with impressions of the amazing dedication of the people I met who are struggling for peace on Vieques. For now,

Paz & Peace. David

A Call for Dignity: Day Laborers Strike on May Day

 

A Call for Dignity:

Day Laborers Strike on May Day

On May 1, 1886, anarchists, socialists, and rank-and-file workers went on strike in Chicago, raising the stakes in a campaign that joined immigrant and native-born workers in common cause against the factory owners and bosses. The strike, which saw tens of thousands march north up Michigan Avenue, was part of a successful nation-wide movement demanding an eight-hour work day. On May 1, 2000, anarchists, socialists, and workers from a vast array of industries will take to the streets of Chicago again, in much larger numbers than in recent years, at rallying points all over the downtown area. Diverse activists will present a list of demands born of the anti-globalization, anti-capitalist movement that got a tremendous shot in the arm on the streets of Seattle last November. And if day labor organizer Jose Landaverde is successful, a majority of those protesting on International Workers' Day will be day laborers, or, as he calls them, the slaves of the new millennium. Jose Landaverde is one of those people whose passion for justice is both deeply felt and infectious, whose tolerance for injustice is just about nil. A fiery, 27-year-old radical Catholic from El Salvador, at the age of ten Landaverde suffered the murder of his parents by the Salvadoran military. He and the rest of his family were forced into the jungle, joining the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) guerrilla forces out of necessity. At age 17 Landaverde himself was arrested by the military, for his work organizing among San Salvador's poor. Blindfolded, imprisoned, and tortured, upon his release Landaverde fled north to Guatemala, Mexico, and Los Angeles, where he worked for a time with a homeless organization. Restless, he moved on to Houston and then Chicago, where he came to rest at Su Casa Catholic Worker house on the southside about three years ago. Recently Landaverde worked with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless' Latino Task Force, but he says his ideas fell outside the scope of the Coalition's work. "I wanted to create something bigger, something that respected people's dignity, something that wasn't counting people like numbers," says Landaverde, now 27. He left the Coalition, taking with him a proposal he'd developed while there, the seeds for the creation of a Latino Union. The idea? "To create consciousness in people. To get people in front of the movement. We need to develop and support leaders from the grassroots. It's time for Latinos to move." Landaverde is hard at work generating participation in the Latino Union,which has three goals, initially: support for the rights of workers; opposition to gentrification of poor communities; and the organization of one of the larger of this year's May Day rallies, the Day Labor Strike.

Somethin's goin' on. . . say the Roots, Philadelphia's acoustic hip hop band, who have played benefits for Mumia Abu-Jamal. . . In recent years, attendance at May Day events in Chicago, which after all is birthplace to International Workers Day, has rarely exceeded a few hundred souls. This year's commemorations saw over a thousand, and renewed movement around the country. Why? Dennis Dixon, who worked with the umbrella May Day Coalition and also works with Networking for Democracy, sees the renewed activity as part of a "nascent 'anti-capitalist' sentiment among people" whose wages have plummeted over the last 20 years, who see a government unwilling and unable to tackle crucial social problems. "People see the movement of capital away from areas where there are relatively high wages to places where there are no enforceable labor or environmental laws. They see the sweatshops, and we get a lot of support at our pickets at Nike and the Gap. Corporate greed is a veritable buzzword," says Dixon.

So far, the Latino Union has drawn together groups that range from churches to activist groups like Jobs with Justice and Coalition for the Homeless, as well as radical Latino organizations such as Pueblo Sin Fronteras and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. Landaverde hopes to see over 3,000 day laborers at the Strike. Established unions, including Service Employees International Union Local 73, have endorsed the Day Laborers Strike, which will travel the same path as the historic 1886 demonstration, starting at Michigan and Balbo Avenues and proceeding north to the Tribune Plaza. Day Labor in Chicago As in 1886, one issue that ranks high on the agenda for the Day Labor Strike is the length of the work day. According to Landaverde, day laborers often work up to 16 hours in a day, in substandard conditions, without hope of union representation, without benefits of any kind. Day labor agencies deduct payroll taxes from checks, money the laborers never see and that often ends up in the agencies' bank accounts. Non-payment and partial payment of wages is not uncommon. Undocumented workers in particular have feared speaking out, for fear of deportation. "These are not people usually involved in politics, they're just hungry," says Landaverde of the day laborers, who are predominantly African-American and Latino. "They are people reduced to slavery because they are looking for food." According to needs assessments conducted by the Latino Task Force, over half of the Mexican families living in Back of the Yards are involved in day labor; over a third of the Latino families of Little Village and West Town/Humboldt Park support themselves through day labor as well. One of the day laborers who will be attending Monday's Day Labor Strike is Luis Padillas, a stocky, unassuming man who immigrated to Chicago three years ago from Mexico City. Padillas is homeless and lives at Jose Obrero shelter in Pilsen. Padillas has worked through various southside day labor agencies; sometimes he washes dishes at nearby Chinese restaurants. In either setting, getting $30 for a day's work that lasts 12 to 14 hours is the norm, for he and many people he knows. "But you can't complain, because then they treat you bad, or drop you. The day labor agencies also deduct money from your check for transportation to a job, and then the driver will demand another dollar-fifty for the ride on top of that," says Padillas, via translator. The illegal practices are bad enough, but the day labor industry is adversely affecting labor practices across the country, legally. Since the mid-1980s, the replacement of regular employees with temporary workers has mushroomed, as part of the new corporate agenda. The day labor industry saves employers a lot of money, and seriously impacts the ability of all workers to receive fair treatment and decent wages. Most day laborers would prefer full-time, traditional work if it were available, according to a report published by the U.S. Dept. of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in December 1999. The average worker in a traditional, non-temporary job earned $540 a week in February of last year; the average temporary worker made $342, less than two-thirds as much. For Latinos working day labor, weekly wages were little more than half of the traditional workers' earnings, at $296. These are the official statistics; unofficially, Landaverde says that Chicago's day laborers fare far worse. Problems of Gender in Day Labor Women face additional societal, gender-based factors that exacerbate the inequalities. Those over age 40 often don't get hired, says Landaverde, because of their age. And, as always, the possibility of sexual harassment on the job multiplies for women workers who are undocumented. "Maria," who like Landaverde is Salvadoran, has lived in the Chicago area for ten years, working for half a dozen different day labor agencies. With her daughter translating, she says, "The agencies treat people badly. Verbally and in other ways. They wouldn't pay our wages sometimes." Worse, male personnel in the agency offices sexually assault young women working for the agency. "Most of the women I know of, who are assaulted, are girls from Mexico, ages 13 to 17. The male supervisors tell these girls to go get fake IDs so they can work. Then they seduce the girls, who can't report the assaults to anyone. The girls feel intimidated, and the men do things like threatening to burn down their houses." One instance witnessed by "Maria" is all too common, she says. "At Western Staff Services, at 51st and Cicero, they send people to work, and they work three or four hours, and sometimes they run out of materials. Well, I saw the men, the other personnel, treat the women workers really badly, screaming at them, chasing them around like they were animals. "I'd like to be able to put cameras in these places, so people can see how temp work is." These young women are the majority of the workers at day labor jobs in the country. According to the BLS, workers for the day labor agencies are "more likely than traditional workers to be women, under the age of 25, black, and[/or] Hispanic." Landaverde shows a mixture of anger at conditions such as "Maria" has seen, and compassion for survivors of such experiences. He sees the Day Labor Strike as part of the process of bringing such injustice to light. He and organizers of the Strike also see it as a means of calling for unions to unify in confronting day labor injustice. The strike and rally will also petition politicians and other leaders to create laws regulating day labor agencies; and propose that the city put up a million dollars for the creation of Workers Centers, to be self-managed by the workers. Workers Centers have proven to be particularly effective in recent years among women and in immigrant communities and communities of color. Asian Immigrant Women Advocates in San Francisco has developed women's leadership while also providing English classes and workshops on contract rights, labor regulations, health and safety rules, and wage and hour laws. In New York, the Latino Workers Center offers similar classes and has led successful protests against abusive employers. Anarchists, the Illinois Labor History Society, and the Day Labor Strike The Day Labor Strike is also being sponsored by the Illinois Labor History Society (ILHS), whose participation has drawn some criticism from those whose history tells them that the eight Haymarket martyrs were tried, convicted, and four of them hanged not just for their labor agitation, but for being anarchists. According to Darrell Gordon, a gay anarchist of African descent affiliated with the Autonomous Zone, the ILHS has gone to great lengths to revise the history surrounding the martyrs, who, in addition to being workers, were also revolutionary trade unionists and anarchists. "A lot of anarchists are upset that the Labor History Society is a part of this march," says Gordon. "The Labor History Society waters down who the Haymarket martyrs were." Landaverde is sympathetic to the criticism, but sees the tension as part of the process. As the movement for social justice grows in this country, certain tensions will have to be ironed out. "The anarchists are going to play a real important role" in the future, says Landaverde, who takes inspiration from the Haymarket anarchists. "They're always going to be there supporting the issues. Anarchists take a position like Jesus - fighting the structures and institutions that create top-down problems. " He adds that poor people today, particularly Latinos and African-Americans in Chicago, are living in situations similar to those faced by the immigrant communities from which the Haymarket martyrs came.

May Day 2000: A Century of No Progress? (pub. Chicago Reader)

On May 1, 1886, thousands of anarchists, socialists, and rank-and-file workers marched up Michigan Avenue to fight for an eight-hour workday.

On May 1, 2000, anarchists, socialists, and workers from a vast array of industries will take to the streets again, in much larger numbers than in recent years, at rallying points in and around the downtown area.

Dennis Dixon, who works with the umbrella May Day Coalition, sees the renewed activity as part of a “nascent anticapitalist sentiment among people.” But if Jose Landaverde gets his way, a majority of those protesting on May 1 will be day laborers.

As in 1886, the length of the workday is a primary concern. According to Landaverde, day laborers often work 16 hours a day, in substandard conditions, without hope of union representation and without benefits of any kind. He says nonpayment or partial payment of wages is not uncommon and undocumented workers can’t speak out for fear of deportation. “These are not people usually involved in politics, they’re just hungry,” says Landaverde. “They are people reduced to slavery because they are looking for food.”

According to a September survey by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, 75 percent of people in shelters worked at day labor, and more than 95 percent of these workers wanted a permanent full-time position. Unfortunately, they may be trapped by day labor–many agencies pay minimum wage and require their workers to sign waivers forbidding them to accept these jobs as permanent.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average worker in a full-time job earns $540 a week, while the average temporary worker makes $342. For Latinos working day labor, weekly wages are $296. These are the official statistics; unofficially, Landaverde says, day laborers fare far worse.

Landaverde, a fiery, 27-year-old radical Catholic from El Salvador, hopes to attract more than 3,000 day laborers to his May 1 Day Labor Strike. Participants will march along the same route as the historic 1886 demonstration. The march kicks off at 11 AM in Grant Park at Michigan and Balbo and proceeds north to converge with other marches (see below) at Pioneer Court, 400 N. Michigan. For details, call 773-593-1800.

Other May 1 events include:

The performance poetry group I Was Born With Two Tongues and Marvin Tate’s band D-Settlement will perform at a fund-raiser for the Day Labor Strike, following a May Day discussion, beginning at 6:30 PM Sunday, April 30, at HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo. Admission is $10 to $20, on a sliding scale. Call 312-362-9707 for more.

The “Protest of Global Capital and Corporate Dominance” begins at 8 AM May 1 at the Chicago Board of Trade, LaSalle and Jackson. This rally will head east to join the Day Labor Strike at Grant Park. For information, call the Eighth Day Center for Justice at 312-641-5151.

“Global Crimes, Local Action”–a demonstration supporting amnesty for undocumented workers (recently endorsed by the AFL-CIO) and freedom for all political prisoners–begins at 11 AM at Division and Western. The march will head southeast to join a Pilsen-based amnesty march at Halsted and Grand; both groups will then join the Day Labor strike at Pioneer Court. For details, call Prairie Fire at 773-278-6706 or Pueblo Sin Fronteras at 773-772-8383; for details on the Pilsen march, call Casa Aztlan at 312-666-5508.

“Protest the U.S.-Sponsored Dirty War Against the Colombian Labor Movement” will be held at noon May 1 at the Colombian Consulate, 500 N. Michigan. Call the Colombia Labor Monitor at 773-794-2605.

A “May Day Rally for Justice,” sponsored by Neighbors Against Police Brutality, the Christian Council on Urban Affairs, and the Coalition to Protect Public Housing, is scheduled for 2:30 May 1 at Daley Plaza, Dearborn and Washington. For details, call the May Day Coalition at 773-794-5226.

 

Luck of the Irish: My Night As a Pogue

[Author's note: this is a little story about the kind of thing that happened to people in the late '80s, a time that seems long, long ago and far, far away...I thought one or two of you might enjoy it . . . David]

I was at home reading when the phone rang. It was Randy, saying that Joe Strummer was touring with the Pogues, and that the Clash guitarist might show up at Phyllis' Musical Inn after their show that night at the Vic Theater.

"Wow."

I called Sara at the restaurant where she and I worked, told her the news. She told Jim, our bartender friend. They said let's go, hurry up.

I put a Clash album on the record player. Loud. Singing "I'm so bo-o-ored with the U. S. A." at the top of my lungs as I got dressed. I put all of my five dollars in my pocket and sped over to pick up Sara and Jim.

We sauntered into Phyllis', found one empty table, and parked ourselves at it. I think we all felt like star-gazers, but what the hell, it's Joe Strummer, not Madonna. We talked amongst ourselves, occasionally looking over at the door.

A guy come over to our table from the bar, a guy named Clem. He shook our hands, saying, "Listen, I love your music. I know you guys must be pretty tired, but would you play a song for us after while?"

Sara looked at me uncomprehendingly. I racked my brain, wondering why Clem thought we were tired, let alone why he might want us to go up on stage and sing a song in the first place. I'd been sitting quietly at home only an hour before. Maybe he'd heard my crooning to the Clash album?

When I looked over at Jim, I saw mischief in his eyes, I saw his snot green plaid shirt with the top button buttoned, the black jacket and tousled hair. I thought of my own tousled hair. Suddenly it became clear as the waters of the Liffey: nestled as we were in some little dive on Division Street, Chicago, our 15 minutes of fame had just begun. We were Pogues.

Clem asked us what kind of shots we wanted. I started to see myself as Clem must have seen me. I turned discreetly towards the wall and hooked the top button of my shirt.

The back of my brain began to tingle, it formed strange, broken words I couldn't really understand. All of a sudden they came tumbling out, in some half-assed Irish brogue: "'Ave you gawt a jug of Jameson?"

Jim chimed in: "Ay, Jameson! I'll 'ave Jameson!" Sara smiled obliquely, unbelieving, saying nothing.

Clem went to fetch the bottle of whiskey, and the three of us looked at each other wide-eyed. Free shots!

We all kept hush, wondering how what was happening was happening. Jim always looks vaguely Irish, and I could feel a gap forming between my two front teeth, and Sara—Sara, my girlfriend—a groupie?

Then I couldn't remember how to spell my name, was it S-E-A-N or was it S-H-A-N-E?

We tried on our new-found accents, like trying on a pair of very stiff shoes.

People were beginning to look at us. Whispering in their neighbors' ears. When they started pointing, discreetly at first, fear crept around our table.

Clem came back with the bottle, and poured out four shots. Lucky guy!, I thought, drinking shots with the Pogues in his own bar on Division Street in the U.S.A. He poured out four more, we tossed them back.

Leaning towards Clem, I muttered, "Listen, mate, we'd love to sing a toon for yas, but our throats is a bit tyred, you know." Clem understood.

"Maybe we could sing for yas loiter," offered Jim, the shoe in his mouth slipping over the water from a brogue to a sabot. "And how's about another spill from the jug?" Clem poured out three more; Sara was slowing down.

The whiskey helped us fill out our roles a bit. We smoked like rock stars, laughed as only Pogues can laugh. People were starting to stare, but no one dared approach. Clem begged us for a tune again, but I couldn't think of even one song I knew all the worlds to. A tin whistle from hell was ringing in my ears, how could I possibly sing? Just then, Jim said to Clem, "Can't do it mate, gawt to get go-in', gawt a gig toomarra up in the Mota City."

We were off the hook for the moment. Until the band, Tribe, looked over at us, offering their guitars and drumsticks for us to use. The pressure was reaching a crescendo, and we made a beeline for the door. The phony accents couldn't hold up much longer, and all those leering fans, and now the band looking to us. . . .

We laughed hysterically as we drove towards Jim's apartment. Too bad we didn't have the nerve to carry the charade on, but we really couldn't sing. Joe Strummer hadn't shown up, but we had a good time anyways.

Then, something snapped in my head again, in a different part this time. Why the hell not carry the charade on, somewhere else? Sara looked doubtful (groupies often do), but eventually she saw the limelight, and we headed over to the Lizard Lounge.

Joe the bouncer recognized us first, our accents and tousled Pogue hair tipping him off. No cover charge for us? Great. Shots? Sure, 'ave yas got Jameson? One of the waitresses took a liking to Jim. Told him we should go to a joint called the Riptide later on, they had a four o'clock.

"A four o'clock whot?," asked Jim coyly.

Joe poured out some shots for us. We downed them and took off. Jim wanted to go to the Dearborn Social Club, in the Rush Street area, of all the unlikely places. It felt good to be normal, non-Pogues again, no one recognized us there. But those tinglings started in my brain again, and I asked the bartender if he couldn't stand us three drinks for the price of one, "You see we just gawt to 'merica, Ir-r-rish you know, don't 'ave much green. Thanks, mate." No problem.

Next stop, Exit. We considered; this was going to be a tough nut to crack. Exit people might actually know what a Pogue looks like. We sat in the car, debating. Finally I climbed out, and went up to the doorman. "Listen, Oi've gawt a Pogue with me out in the cah. We'd loike to come in, but we'd loike to keep it real low key. Alroite?"

Alright. Sara parked the car, Jim donned sunglasses. The doorman waved us in inconspicuously, waving the $5 cover charges at the same time. He saw to it that we weren't bothered during our stay, and we danced a bit to get some of the whiskey out of our systems. No one recognized us though, so we got bored and left. On the way out I slipped the guy a few bucks. "Thanks for the good work, mate."

We headed over to the Riptide in Bucktown. By now we'd had so many shots, felt so many stares piercing our veneer, stardom was wearing thin at three in the morning. Jim didn't even care that his waitress from the Lizard Lounge wasn't at the Riptide, and the folks in the bar didn't give a fuck who we were. We had to pay for our beers.

Jim started singing and yelling at the top of his lungs, slamming his beer bottle on a tabletop. Sara yawned as I half-heartedly tried to quiet Jim down. We weren't appreciated any longer, it was time to call it quits.We stumbled out to the car. I threw my beer bottle towards a dumpster, it shattered with a crash on the pavement.

Jim climbed in the back seat, and Sara turned the key in the ignition, and the engine warmed up. I heard a knock on the window; some guy and three of his buddies from the bar. He asked if we were looking for trouble. I rolled down the window to say no, puga mahon, I don't know what trouble you're talking about, but his fist bopped me on the forehead before any words, Irish or not, could get out.

Sara quickly put the care in gear, and we pulled away, leaving our assailants behind. So much for stardom, I thought, a vague throbbing working its way through the whiskey and beer in my head.

We all laughed (although I only laughed half-heartedly, otherwise it hurt), and dropped Jim off at his apartment. Sara said something about the bubble being burst. I guess that's how stardom works in America, one minute you're loved, and the next thing you know you've got a bump on the head. Jim called the next afternoon. "Better cancel Detroit, ay mate?"

"Ay."

I checked my pants pocket for money. I still had two dollars.

 

The Wicker Park
Problem:

A Proposal

--David Meyers

Yes, the closing of Hot House, Urbus Orbis, and the Busy Bee is sad. Worthy of a funeral procession like the one held early in September during the Around the Coyote festival of property. Worthy of a movement to stem the flow of gentrification?
Imagine if you'd been born and grown up in Wicker Park, and every single candy store and restaurant you'd ever known had been shut down, demolished, torched, rehabbed, gentrified. Worthy of a funeral procession? Worthy of a movement to stem the land grab that destroys homes, families, whole communities.

Here is my proposal.

Whereas:
Even the healthy aspects of bohemianism have been fouled by the agenda of real estate developers, some politicians, and some lovers of art, transformed into a cog in the engine driving Latinos and other low-income people out of Wicker Park;
Opposition to gentrification by the artist and activist newcomers to Wicker Park has taken diverse and creative forms, but have been disconnected and somewhat isolated, and in retrospect ineffective;
Displacement of Latinos and others - including newcomer artists and activists - from Wicker Park continues, and we artists and activists are part of this process and therefore partly responsible;
Displacement is taking place in other areas in Chicago, and in cities across the country;
Gentrification is in large part a manifestation of racism, and to take part in racist movements is harmful not only to the displaced and marginalized, but to the displacer, who becomes overcome with the cynicism, apathy, and inhibited creativity that would threaten a truly vital arts community;
Effects of the current invasion of urban ghettos on low-income people mirrors the (continuing) decimation and displacement of Native Americans over the past two centuries, a decimation accomplished in fact by the westward movement of common pioneers and settlers, who allowed themselves to be used as pawns of government, the wealthy, and alligiance to the reprehensible practice of "white makes right";
Life without a sense of justice, freedom, and cultural integrity and autonomy becomes boring, deathly, oppressive, and in becoming pawns we have lost our own autonomy;
All people ought to have equal access to at least the minimum necessities of living, and gentrification denies one of those necessities, fair and equal housing;

And If:
Newcomer artists and activists have an interest in stemming the flow of a racist agenda;
Our declarations of love and appreciation of humanity and other cultures are to have any meaning;
Maintaining health, home, and social bonds are deemed to be as important for one set of people as for another;
We believe that racism and its local manifestation in gentrification are a bad business to be involved in, and that our indifference to the plights of others harms our own spirits and lives;
It is possible to put respect for others and their differences into practice on a more
comprehensive scale, and become a positive force in this area;

Then:
Those of us white, European-descended people and others living in the Wicker Park/West Town/Humboldt Park/Logan Square areas come together to form a group or a group of groups dedicated to acting in concert to challenge racism and its clearest local manifestation, gentrification. This can be an opportunity to take responsibility for our place and actions in the world, as well as
generate community spirit of our own;
Newcomer activists, artists, and individuals involved with Centro Sin Fronteras, Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Autonomous Zone, Anti-Racist Action, West Town Tenants Union and other organizations as well as independent or unaffiliated artists, activists and
concerned people meet and move to action. We all come from different places, have different ideas and talents; this doesn't need to inhibit action.
Of course, this can be a multiethnic grouping, as some people of color are in somewhat the same boat. To be real, though, the coloring of the Wicker Park invasion is 96% white.
This is a call to action, not further theorizing divorced from action.
I think it's important now to resist the urge to keep on moving on, into Humboldt Park, Pilsen, wherever, and say clearly, "NO. I will no longer be manipulated like a pawn in service of a racist agenda."

You must be some island ...

 

Speaking of independence

You must be some island ...

that you fill the hearts of so many so far away
with dreams of shimmering waters and a thousand sweet fruits

It must be some magical caribbean night
that gushes salsa up to the stars and back down to Division Steet into that bombastic trombone known as Willie Colón

It must be some fancy fruit-filled pastry you concoct
that your bakery-in-exile sells out of them by ten every morning leaving hundreds without their sugar fix, with anguish and despair

It must be some forbidden pleasure
that makes so many want to pillage your land
and send you away for having known its secrets

It must be some perverse logic
that keeps sending your children far away from home
to a land that wants to vanquish them without leaving a trace

You must be some island
that your children will never stop longing
and fighting to set you free