We Are Time

I arrived just in time for the screening of the Public Enemy documentary titled "London Calling". It was basically footage of the first PE show in London -- (most likely where the "London, Englaannd! Are you ready!" intro came from) with some more current footage from the last PE visit to London.
It got a little tedious at points, but it was overall insightful.
There was a pretty big focus on Flav and his role in the group (Chuck said he made his job "easy") which basically was to allow comic relief and added a balance to the mix when Chuck would be rhyming about some pretty heavy handed political/social subject matter.
At the same time, the directors addressed the controversy surrounding Professor Griff and his comments, and why he had such a tiff with Flav.
Griff brought a feeling of tension during the interviews. He still seems pretty steamed over a lot of things. He really felt (and from what I can sense-- still feels) that Flav was too ridiculous for the group.
He took his job serious. He mentioned how he broke a few of Flav's clocks and got into some pretty intense confrontations with him. His rationale was basically how could they be setting an example and sending a message when they had a person in the group that was basically the exact person they were trying to reach to.
Griff stated his comments on Jews was wrong, and if he could take the comment back he would-- but still felt it was also taken out of context.
Griff also showed more tension when he felt as though in the past he didn't receive credit for writing and co-writing some of the old songs. He was playing live drums for PE on thier last tour and also wrote the "Son of a Bush" song.
Also interviewed were a couple of the S-1's. They don't dress up in the complete militant regalia anymore (no dancing on stage with fake uzi's).
They instead seem to dress up in kevlar-looking body armor and do some dance moves.
They were really interesting guys---but i felt the story behind those guys and thier role had a little bit missing-- oh well.
There was a lot of comedic moments-- courtesy of Flav mostly. His antics are just incredible.
Anyhow-- there was some problems with sound cutting in and out-- and the PA system sounded a little low and mono-ish, which I think hindered the presentation of the film a bit and I think in turn it made the performance aspect of the film -- a very tedious one.
It was still good and informative-- and got to the heart of how they have grown since then as individuals.

After the screening they were going to have critics come in and speak (vivien goldman, robert christgau, alan light, etc)-- it would have been interesting-- but my bro and i jetted out to catch the Ralph Nader/Patti Smith thing up at an Ethical Society off Central Park West.

I get to the Nader/Smith Anti-War Rally-- there was around 300 people there (as oppsed to the 400-500 people that were probably at the PE docu screening)--
I have to break down here and also mention that there was a lot of rustling and people leaving during the PE docu,. I guess the poor sound quality got to a lot of people.

Back to the Nader thing.

I believed I missed a speaker, but arrived in the midst of a young military vet guy who is already back from the current Iraq War (as if it ever really ended).
He had a lot of interesting things to say during his short speech. He discussed how he was exposed in the military-- and how many soldiers are exposed to nuclear waste-- and how had an amount of nuclear waste in his body-- yet this is somehow considered "safe" by our government.
He talked about the post-traumatic stress disorder that a lot of soldiers find themselves in. He painted a good picture of what it was like for him and many others who he said are in the military and yet are very set against this war.
he was shaky and all but i really felt a lot of respect for the guy.
Next was some guy who was a Green candidate for NY Governor-- and I think he is thinking of taking the Green position in perhaps the nyc mayoral race-- I'm not sure.
He was pretty interesting and all. But his plan for no automobiles outside of public transit and taxis in Manhattan sounds like he made a few people in the crowd antsy-- especially those from the veggie oil/bio-diesel/hybrid crews.

Anyhow next came Patti Smith-- she had her drummer play guitar along with her-- and she played 5 songs. Man... I had never seen her before, and even though I have a few of her old lp's-- i've never considered myself a "big" or "major" fanatic of hers. But--- she really was captivating and her voice and delivery was just spot on. I think I have grown a huge amount of respect for her. She did a song where she let out some great kind of chorus and holding of notes in a similar vein of that one song she did with REM (which was perhaps the best song from that record-- and one of my fave REM songs ever because she makes that song so beautiful).
She was just so amazing.
Following that was Ralph-- who came and spoke on how he thinks people need to use thier voice to be heard-- he was just trying to energize the crowd of mostly die-hard fans of his to keep at it. I think the crowd was mixed though.
I do think there were some people that are fans of ralph that were there that voted kerry, but still view ralph as an asset to our country-- a guy speaking sense when even the majority of elected democrats are looking at the iraq issue as a "dead issue"-- or are just wondering how to put it on the table to discuss it anymore.

After Ralph spoke, he was to come back for a Q&A session --and Patti was to come back for an encore to end the night.- but before that-- they had a couple of the Students for Nader kids get up on the podium and ask for donations to help them get out of debt witht he last election.

Friends know how i feel about the massive amounts of money that the Democrats (some of whom hired Republican law firms, and even the DNC and PAC'S like Moveon.org got in on the game of "smear Nader") used to oust nader from ballot access in several states (including here in Pa)-- my beef with them has been discussed at length here on this board. Let's just say I saw some blatant illegal actions and dirty tricks that these goons did to ralph AND many of thier own registered democrats in Philadelphia county--who only signed petitions to allow ralph on the ballot-- NOT to vote for him.

anyways...

even though i felt as though ralph was wrongly treated , i noticed the crowd shrunk in half. i guess it did get to sound like a pretty sad begging for money thing for a bit===but what can you say? they have the right i think to do that after the way they were treated.

Ralph came back to do a Q+ A session. Some of the questions were excellent. it seemed as though there was some dispute between a guy and a couple of the Greens who helped curate the rally-- which kind of made me feel a little uneasy and more and more away from the Greens in a slight way.

Anyhow, Patti came back and did an ecnore with her "People have the Power" song.
It was good, and I had a nice discussion with some Socialists at the place afterwards...

but the real highlight and actual kick in the pants i needed came the following day with the Revolutionary Voices panel with Chuck D ...

ok, so I went back Saturday afternoon/eveing for the panel discussion called "Revolutionary Voices". I missed a couple of other things, such as the Glen E. Friedman Political Activism thing

(*side note* Friedman's website had photos of the Nader/Smith thing on Wall Street that he did the day prior to election day-- and he seems to be an unabashed Nader supporter, so that makes me feel somewhat not so left out when most "moved on" and went for Kerry-- understandably in some ways, and not so understandable in other ways I think-- but that is not really for discussion right now, as I think I've beat that to the ground in the last several months) and the Def Jam team , Producers, and PR people for PE at that time.

The place was packed. No room literally. The place was swelling, and unlike the previous night-- there was hardly and shuffling about. People seemed to be very engaged in the discussion.

The panel discussion included -- Chuck D, Hank Shocklee, Fab Five Freddy (and his daughter), Daddy-O from Stetsasonic, Vernon Reid and Corey Glover from Living Colour,and two original members of the S1 W's.
The moderator was the guy that put the event together at NYU. Daddy-0 was probably the most halarious of the bunch. His reminiscing of the "old days" gave this kind of tingly feeling to you, even though I was just in elementary school and junior high during the times they discussed.
Fab Five Freddy was also really cool-- I had no idea his godfather was Max Roach-- or that he grew up in such a political household (then again, maybe this was mentioned in the discussion segment of the Wild Style dvd--- speaking of which -- Charlie Ahearn who did Wild Style/co-wrote "yes Yes Y'all" was in the audience and Fab gave a shout out to him-- with some wild applause for Wild Style from the audience-- I spoke briefly with Ahearn after the discussion ended)

Vernon Reid also had some incredible things to say, both politically and on music in a social context. I was honestly floored-- both he and Chuck D I think hit the nail on the head for me.

Chuck was just great. He called the current state of music "R & B music" meaning--"Reagan and Bush Music."
There was a Q&A session afterwards and people asked about how musicians and activists can approach the current state we are in and work on it to make things work out. Chuck gave some really thoughtful answers.
Vernon Reid talked about how he went and visited some black villages in Uruguay and how we as americans live in this phony, sheltered :"reality tv" world.
CHuck had some things to say about that when a question was posed about Flavor's current star of that reality show on vh-1. he said flav tells them that "I'm doing reality tv"-- and Chuck said that he had to tell him that "The reality is, is that Tv is doing you."
I had a guy that was sitting behind me that runs some hip-hop label, he has been working with some guy that is in jail right now-- and has been trying to get him to read philosophy and great works of literature. But this guy just wants to rhyme about "the streets".
He asked Chuck and the panel how to go about it. Shocklee told him that it was something he probably didn't want to hear--but you can't change someone like that. They've got to change themselves-- abnd he would have to do something bigger than he is, or that anyone for that matter-- can handle-- which would be to change the industry by himself.
Daddy-O chimed in and said he would have to get some of his guys out and hjad one of his big friends in the audience stand up and tell him if he spent a day with him and a few of his other pals-- then that might set this guy straight (I'm imagining like some sort of "Drop Squad" type situation!).

In regards to "Night of the living Baseheads" Chuck mentioned about the old days and how crack was this massive epidemic in NY at the time, and how they would roll into town after playing a tour and they would see guys playing basketball at 4:30 in the morning. he said he knew they were on something.
Also, he mentioned about how though Baambaataa was truly the 12" king, he remembered how dj's would bring in tons of crates and sometimes they would be like, "man, why do i have this Meco 12", or this lame Giorigio Moroder track? What did i pick this up for?"--