Date: January 11th 2010

First of all… before I even go off on the funding for the arts tirade or jump up and down about making art being the most significant and relevant thing you can do to create the kind of positive change that Obama slightly eluded to while he was hypnotizing you with his shamma-llamma and allowing you to hear exactly what you wanted to hear… There is something that you can do… right now… to create the kind of world you want to live in. NIMBY is involved in a bare-knuckled fight to the death with the civic apparatus of Oakland and they are winning. The city is draining them of funds, but one by one the permits are getting signed off… but the holidaze creamed them. Do you have any money in your Paypal account? Ya do? Good. A burrito and a beer costs $23 for you and your pal. Do you have $23 in your Paypal account for NIMBY?




I wanna tell you about an experience that I had on Friday night. I went to a place called the Audium. www.audium.org/. It’s been there having ‘shows’ since 1967. It’s a room with 50 chairs in it in a circle formation. They turn off the lights and you listen to a sound college through 200 speakers all around you. In the dark. This ancient guy has been doing this for 42 years. Every Friday and Saturday. He’s on his 9th opus. He’s on something… Jesus. But this guy… he’s a believer. He’s a City of Art and Innovation guy. He doesn’t advertise. He just very quietly does his thing. He talked a little before the show. Mentioned something about triggering memories. Sounded like some pseudo-intellectual blathering. I sat in the chair listening to his sound collage FLOODED with memories. People, events… things I haven’t thought of in years. Some dark, some giggly… exploding like popcorn in my mind. The recording is like water flowing and Moog synth blips and phones ringing and lava flow ing. Emitting from 200 speakers around, below, above and somehow inside of you. I mean… there you are. In a room of total strangers. It’s pitch fucking dark. And you don’t have $23 to give to NIMBY? Ah… now it’s all different, huh?




Fucking SF Opera voluntarily shaved 1.7 million off it’s 62 million dollar budget last year in preparations for hard times. So if an art space needs $23… well how can you react? The Operas’ budget is 62 million dollars. That’s more then entire fiscal budget of Palau which has 260 islands and 25,000 people. It’s insane! The Audium show was $15. So if we don’t support the people who need funding, who will?




Now do you have $23 for NIMBY? They are responsible for the build sites for all my events like the boats and Vegas and all that crap. It’s where I keep the bus and all my trailers. The city is crucifying them. We need to fortify arts funding until such time our politicians see the value in the arts. We need to do it. Now.

School budgets get cut, what’s the first program to lose funding? Arts. Mr. Obama is trying to ‘fix’ the ‘mess’ that the last flailing redneck made… but it won’t work. Close-minded redneck to polar opposite liberal Mr. Dignity guy… just watch the tennis ball go back and forth over the net. Disengage! How much worse could it have really been if Mcarthy or whatever his name was got elected? Mr. Obama didn’t hire an arts minister like Quincy Jones told him to. More troops to wherever. The only thing we get out of an Obama administration is we don’t have to lie and say we are from Canada when we go to Thailand. I can’t wait for the Guardian headline “Obama worst president in history” or some such nonsense. In the meantime, we have to fortify the troops defending our flanks. If we were in a real war, you’d want to be on NIMBY’s side. Trust me.




Paypal a little something to NIMBY. Show ‘em you care. They are fighting making it possible for other art spaces to be legal in the future. They have no choice. So they are shouldering more than their fair share. Lets show them that they can act in good faith and we’ll be there to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Forward this. Or write your own pep rally and send that. Tell ‘em thank you, and to not let the burn out set in. If you don’t have money, offer to come over and help move shit from over there to over here or whatever it is they do there with all that stuff…

Activate!

Paypal here: http://shrinkify.com/1lf3

www.nimbyspace.org/