Californication meets Tranpacificism

Aaah..

1st reminder) so, Boycott any (at least new, on the Manifesto label) Dead Kennedy’s stuff, because they took Jello to court for years to take all the rights back so they (Easy Bay Ray et al) could sell the rights to songs to Levi’s and the such.

So! Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County had a fundraiser, a talk by Jello Biafra, former DK lead singer, now social activist and of the Alternative Tentacles (who has Wesley Wills on their label, which is what they started playing after we walked into the room. (KB Room on campus here at HSU.)) Sliding scale, $8-25, supposed to start at 6 (didn’t until after 6:45p), and I just got back a little while ago. Yeah, he can talk for a few minutes. And you thought *I* was verbose!!
It was interesting, for sure. I’d heard his name before, and was talking about him with some other people years ago, either something related to Nader in ’00 or (relatedly?) him running for something around then as a Green Party candidate. However, I didn’t really know much about him before this week, and there was a small piece about him in the campus paper, the Lumberjack, and a mention (possibly an article I didn’t see?) in the North Coast Journal (.com): “At the Kate Buchanan Room Saturday get an earful from former Dead Kennedy vocalist Jello Biafra, who has become something like a punk rock Noam Chomsky, offering his considered opinions on current events in provocative, scintillating rants.“

ANYWHO! To the protein (carbs?) of the story! (You might need to hit the link for more below this)

What did I think of this guy? I saw it with James and Erin (and Michelle who bailled out early because it was too long or something), both of whom Really liked him, a lot. I saw a few random guys later that were saying some of the same. I didn’t care much for the first part (that went until 9pm-ish..!), because it had a lot of Ad hominems (“ad homs” for short/Debate speak) in it, which is exactly what I didn’t like about Michael Moore. The second part got a lot better though. He talked about many things, a lot of statistics that were quite interesting, many of which debunked the “Red State, Blue State” idiocy (I thought I was the only one who thought that was moronic!), his talk was “Iraq-naphobia”, so he talked about some “Middle East” history that was way cool, politics stuff.. Early in his talk he tried to tell the Kerry supporters not to be permanently jaded and all, rather to consider it a baptism. As I never cared much for Kerry that didn’t necessarily apply to me, but it was cool. There was a lot of stuff, particularly in the “MidEast” part of him talking, that was kind of depressing, but it was _very_ important to hear, and have affect you, or at least me. He did end up bringing the tone of his talk and message to be motivational and encouraging at the end. He listed things he wanted to see when he ran for Mayor of SF (which he still believes in and wants put out there), as well as some more recent things that’s he’s thought about, that people should think about, and help push for. To be proactive, since that’s the important part and thing, and the one thing I mentioned that Michael Moore had right too.

The part about his talk that surprised me the most was his bashing of Gavin Newsom, the current mayor of San Francisco. (Who I coulda sworn Jello said got in by a sort of landslide, though he also claimed that the green party candidate almost had it, so I don’t know which is true.) I heard an interview with him on KQED-FM (SF NPR affiliate), talking about the hotel workers’ strike, and it sounded like he really cared, was very thoughtful.. generally a good guy, you know? Maybe this is just a case of Jello not liking him because he’s not “liberal enough” or something. If the more extremist remarks out of people like Jello are what a politician needs to be in office, then I don’t think that’s what I need to see in a candidate. And San Francisco was trying to push that way cool.. what was it? Like 10-20c tax for each plastic bag for grocery stores, that’s so awesome.

Here’s Jello, off the linked site above:

* [OT] Linkage to the max in this entry, huh? I went to a talk, “Blackboard vs. Moodle” put on by (?) on campus a few days ago, which was way interesting. The developer mentioned that one of the cooler features of Moodle (asides from the option to email you new forums (or all new content?)), was a Glossary. Any time the professor mentions a word with a glossary entry, or a student in one of their posts, it AUTOMATICALLY links that word to the glossary link. (A per class glossary, as I recall.) Which is _WAY_ cool and useful! Much better than going to a dictionary and trying to figure out which definition or how it applies, and sometimes way easier than going back to your book. Genius! So, that’s pretty much the style of linking I’m using here. And Erin just told me that’s what she does/uses her web log (on lj) for, and.. ya know? It seems so obvious!

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