THE PROGRESSIVE HOE...

I'm not sure what asshole cast this lady, but you know the question.... After a long night of drinking in a san francisco dive bar....?

Nancy Pelosi is Your President

For those of you who have stopped following the laughable and labyrinthine healthcare "reform" process, the next step is to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the bill. These bills are very different and the negotiations will likely reveal who a lot about the people who are trying to make this happen.

During his campaign, Obama said that given the significance of this legislation, all Congressional negotiations pertaining to this bill will be televised on C-SPAN. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not having it, stating that all negotiations take place behind closed doors. Given that most of these people are controlled by lobbyists and that horrible deals will be cut (see, for example, Congress agreeing to pick up Nebraska's Medicaid tab FOREVER in exchange for a vote from Ben Nelson), I can understand why she would want to keep a lid on the proceedings. But what about Obama's promise? From wire sources:

A reporter reminded the San Francisco Democrat that in 2008, then-candidate Obama opined that all such negotiations be open to C-SPAN cameras.

“There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” quipped Pelosi, who has no intention of making the deliberations public.

Pelosi's quote sums up where Obama is in Democratic pecking order. Can someone wake me up when Sandman Sims and Keyboard Cat dance these clowns off?

I have a feeling that this will be my only political-themed post of the year. I'm losing the stomach for this shit. Expect only the finest in rap haikus, questionable racism analysis, and fine girls from DMD in 2010. Fuck politics.

GRAFFITI ART

Regular viewers of the Steve Powers Show know you can call me anything but a Graffiti Artist. I I hate the term more than phase 2 hates the g-word. I love that word graffiti, its everywhere I want to be: Illegal, unlawful, longing to be where it doesnt belong. And I think in 2009 graffiti serves the same purpose it did in 1969, to bring life to dead spaces- rusted trains, brown track sides, Starbucks bathrooms.  But when you go and slap the word art on the end of graffiti it denigrates both words. Graffiti is good at being graffiti, until it starts apologizing for itself. "I dont do graffiti, I do graffiti art"-like youre justifying it to your mom. If your mom likes your graffiti, you may already be falling off. I wrote graffiti between 1984 and 1999. It wasn't after getting a rep in two cities for it, or after writing a book on the subject, but only after I did a good piece in the Bronx that I felt I had done it all, and it was time to quit. I wanted to go away and be a toy again at something else, so I started making paintings. Terrible, terrible paintings. I was a bad artist, but I was making art. The definitions to me are real simple- Graffiti is an advertisement for yourself, art is an expression that exists solely to depict a life and time. That said, I think some graffiti can be art; A lot of what Blade and Reas have done qualifies to me. But unless you are in the gallery world, and preferably the museum world, you're in the wilderness and people can and will ignore you. I wont be ignored. I want to be in league with Matisse and Tom Sachs, the way I was with Cope 2 and Kadism. I know that the art world is a weird place with weird pretentious attitudes, but have you been to a graffiti-art show? psssshh.

In the 10 years since I picked up a brush, I must have done 25 gallery shows, plus many public art installations, its a pretty insane pace, but I'm learning on the job, trying to master the craft, and I felt way behind, being that I started getting serious about art as a 30 year old. Plus 2 year old malcolm needs new shoes, and those european joints look good on him. Lately I've been branching out from the fancy galleries towards spaces I call "beautiful losers" galleries; Smaller, hungrier, showing more young artists and selling more work at a  slightly lower price point than the bigger spaces.  In the last 13 months I have had 4 gallery shows and realized a 50 wall project in Philly. All total- 50 paintings and 50 walls. Thats some renaissance era output there (right down to the 30 assistants I had helping me), and definitely a large percentage of that work that will be identified as important, maybe my best. no homo. 

So all that said, I paint more now as a 40 year old artist with a kid than I ever did as a 25 year old vandal with no scheduling conflicts. Besides the motivation that a kid provides, I have a lot more inspiration to work with in art, theres only so much you can do with 4 letters, or so I thought. In the last year, it's been clear that no matter how long ago I quit, gallery people were insisting on adding ESPO as a middle name or an AKA when they were promoting me. Its been going on since 1999, but this year I started to embrace it. In Feburary in Brussels at Alice Gallery I wrote a bunch of tags inside and outside the gallery. The Philly project was one giant graffiti extravaganza, and I started adding tags into the paintings I make, as icons that represent me, but it went to another level last week in San Francisco at the White Walls Gallery. Justin Giarla, White Walls boss, booked an ad in Juxtapoz for my show as ESPO Exterior Surface Painting Outreach. I had no idea that he had done this until I got to the gallery ready to work. Beyond the weidness as being promoted solely as ESPO, the Exterior Surface Painting Outreach bit was an acronym I cooked up to get people to not call the cops when I was painting gates in NYC in 1997-98. So I busted Justin's balls about it, but only a little, because it's really my fault that I havent defined myself better, I've been too busy painting to get my press releases in order.  After we went back and forth about it for 2 days, I asked him, "can you sell more work if I'm ESPO?" he said yeah, so I went let ESPO out for a walk, and we started tagging the gallery.

Lo and behold what happened was really graffiti art. There was plenty of just signatures and style, but there was a lot of writing that depicted the life and times of our people. Nemel caught a tag and I turned his N into a caricature of him while his nemesis Kaves rains fists down on him and HOT HEAD holds a pistol on him. SKREW driving with coke on the dash (aka dash snow) ok, skrew's more of a beer and hoagies guy, but its a good visual joke. SLOB declaring war on west philly with a slim jim in his hand. After Nemel seemed to be slipping back into darkness, I caught a tag in one shot and a quill brush of his recently deceased IRAK team mate Dash with an upside down cross on home plate and Nemel with a bat in the batter's box. The best of all the graffiti art I did was this; Buck 50 came around the gallery a few times, I asked him to put his man KERSE up, but I asked him to bring his own marker. He never remembered to. Finally Puzl came thru, and on request, put up a half dozen Kerse tags. Buck showed up afterwards and I said, "ahh, it's cool, another seattle resident hooked up Kerse" Buck asked who, and when I told him he laughed, "oh no, we dont fuck with that nigga, is he in there now?" I said, "yeah, come say hi" and a minute later they were shaking hands and squashing some 15 year old graffiti beef. Later that night, close to the opening, the security guard, a long time sf veteran, asked what he should do about taggers. I said "dont let anybody go over anybody" He said "thats gonna be impossible, I mean if this guy (points to a buck50 tag) sees this guy (points to a puzle tag) its gonna be war". I said "well what if its like this?" and I pointed to where I drew a crossword with the solutions PUZL KYT shaking hands with a BUCK 50 represented by a Dollar and 2 quarters. Security Guard said "I would love that to happen, theres been way too much bullshit in SF for too long now". He left the room and me and puzle just raised our eyebrows and went back to work.

"I HATE GOOKS; I WILL HATE THEM AS LONG AS I LIVE" -John McCain

Based on that statement, I hope that 71 yr. old John McCain is only able to hate "gooks" for another month or month and a half... Read on to learn more about grandpappy McCain's diversified portfolio of racism.
"I hate the gooks," McCain said February 18, 2000 in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live." McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, was questioned about the language because of a story last month in the Nation magazine reporting his continued use of the slur. Since then, reports of McCain's language have been circulating on Internet chat sites and e-mails among Asian Americans, many of whom find the the term offensive and inappropriate for an elected official. McCain's appeal to voters has been as a wartime hero and a feisty politician who speaks his mind and damns the consequences. But his comments on the eve of the key South Carolina primary show the candidate's vaunted "straight talk" in another light. "The use of a racist slur can't be acceptable for any national leader, regardless of his background," said Diane Chin, executive director of the San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action. "For someone running for president not to recognize the power of words is a problem." While McCain's words may have little effect in conservative South Carolina, where few Asian Americans live, they could come back to haunt him in other states. "Historically, straight talkers who say things off the top of their heads eventually hang themselves with those sorts of remarks," said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "While it might not hurt him now, Democrats are not going to have any hesitation about using this stuff to string him up later."

For a Double-shot of McCain Racism, Remember that Public enemy video Chef Rykwon posted a few months back that references McCain's staunch opposition to the Martin Luther King Holiday? Peep game:

PLAYER HATER

One of San Francisco's many cultural offerings is this dude who kicks it on Market Street all day with this huge sign that lists all of the different kinds of sex you shouldn't be having. Apparently Holmes doesn't have an internet connection at the crib, because we noticed several things that he completely overlooked. As luck would have it, my associates and I were able to help him out with a few suggestions for some new additions to the sign while waiting at the stop light: "What about bukkake?... -Can you do bukkake? How 'bout gay bukkake??... Can you Toss somebody's salad?? How about a Tossed salad?...What about scat munching and golden showers??..."
Although, there were some obvious substantive gaps with the information on his sign, I still gave him an 'A' for typography and graphic design.(Click image to enlarge the many ways you are a going to rot in hell)

SAN FRANCISCO RULES!

I have varying thoughts on the city of San Francisco. It fluctuates regularly between "FUCKING AWESOME!!" and "This place is a fucking nightmarish hell-hole". For the most part, I like San Francisco; if nothing else, that city has character. You'll see some shit you're not gonna see most places. Wether it's a fully nude 70 -year old man covered in tattoos riding a mountain bike, or 4 consecutive blocks of people smoking crack openly on the street at 2:30 in the afternoon, you're gonna see some wild-ass shit. Read below to Learn another fun fact about "The city by the bay": (And if you're extra bored click here To read some older posts that may or may not have something loosely to do with San Francisco.)San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot today. Backers of the measure, who for several months circulated a petition to place the measure on the ballot, turned in more than 12,000 signatures on July 7, said organizer Brian McConnell. The Department of Elections today informed those supporters, the self-proclaimed Presidential Memorial Commission, that they had enough valid signatures - a minimum of 7,168 registered San Francisco voters - to qualify for the November ballot, he said. McConnell, who came up with the idea over beers with friends, often donned an Uncle Sam outfit to drum up support for the petition. Other signature gatherers - all volunteers - often carried around an American flag and blasted patriotic music from a boom box to attract attention. He said today that the campaign to pass the measure will be an equally grassroots effort.
The measure, if passed by a majority of voters, would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. McConnell said the intent is to remember the Bush administration and what the group sees as the president's mistakes, including the war in Iraq. Some people aren't laughing, including the San Francisco Republican Party, which sees the measure as an embarrassment, even to this famously-liberal city. Chairman Howard Epstein has vowed to fight the measure with all means available to him.A White House spokeswoman, when asked about the measure several weeks ago, refused to comment.

(Good looking out Josh)

2 PRIESTS SENTENCED TO 5 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON (AND IT'S NOT FOR BONING CHILDREN)

I gotta give it up; and much as I tend to hate on everything associated with organized religion, I must give credit where credit is due. In this case 2 priests, each doing a 5 months in a federal lockup for actually standing up for what's right, and presumably having real conviction in the basic principals of their religion. Not only that, but they seem like some bad-asses...-In a Jeesusy sort of way)

Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were each sentenced today to five months in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were taken directly into jail from the courtroom after sentencing. Fort Huachuca is the headquarters of military intelligence in the U.S. and the place where military and civilian interrogators are taught how to extract information from prisoners. The priests attempted to deliver their letter to Major General Barbara Fast, commander of Fort Huachuca. Fast was previously the head of all military intelligence in Iraq during the atrocities of Abu Ghraib. The priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer halfway up the driveway to Fort Huachuca in November 2006. Both priests were charged with trespass on a military base and resisting orders of an officer to stop. In a pre-trial heating, the priests attempted to introduce evidence of torture, murder, and gross violations of human rights in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and at Guantanamo. The priests offered investigative reports from the FBI, the US Army, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Social Responsibility documenting hundreds of incidents of human rights violations. Despite increasing evidence of the use of torture by U.S. forces sanctioned by President Bush and others, the federal court in Tucson refused to allow any evidence of torture, the legality of the invasion of Iraq, or international law to be a part of the trial.Outside the courthouse, before the judge ordered them to prison, the priests explained their actions: “The real crime here has always been the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca and the practice of torture around the world. We tried to deliver a letter asking that the teaching of torture be stopped and were arrested. We tried to put the evidence of torture on full and honest display in the courthouse and were denied. We were prepared to put on evidence about the widespread use of torture and human rights abuses committed during interrogations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in Iraq and Afhganistan. This evidence was gathered by the military itself and by governmental and human rights investigations.” Fr. Vitale, a longtime justice and peace activist in San Francisco and Nevada, said: “Because the court will not allow the truth of torture to be a part of our trial, we plead no contest. We are uninterested in a court hearing limited to who was walking where and how many steps it was to the gate. History will judge whether silencing the facts of torture is just or not. Far too many people have died because of our national silence about torture. Far too many of our young people in the military have been permanently damaged after following orders to torture and violate the human rights of other humans.”
Fr. Kelly, who walked to the gates of Guantanamo with the Catholic Worker group in December of 2005, concluded: “We will keep trying to stop the teaching and practice of torture whether we are sent to jail or out. We have done our part for now. Now it is up to every woman and man of conscience to do their part to stop the injustice of torture.”The priests were prompted to protest by continuing revelations about the practice of torture by U.S. military and intelligence officers. The priests were also deeply concerned after learning of the suicide in Iraq of a young, devout female military interrogator in Iraq, Alyssa Peterson of Arizona, shortly after arriving in Iraq. Peterson was reported to be horrified by the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
Investigation also revealed that Fort Huachuca was the source of infamous “torture manuals” distributed to hundreds of Latin American graduates of the U.S. Army School of Americas at Fort Benning, GA. Demonstrations against the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca have been occurring for the past several years each November and are scheduled again for November 16 and 17 this year.

"The Beautiful People of San Francisco"

SAN FRANCISCO WAS OFF THE CHAIN!!

While on my trip to the....city of...Goddammit! I was trying to remember what they call San Francisco. -You know how cities have those little taglines, like Milwaukee = 'Beer City,' or Philly is 'The City of Brotherly love'. Anyways, I can't remember what S.F. is, so for lack of knowing it, I'll just make up my own tagline for the time being. So... While I was on my trip to 'The Fruity, Wierdo, Homeless city" this past weekend, I brought along my video camera and put together this lil' video montage set to one of my favorite gay jams©. Checkit out y'all, it's goin' down in the Yay errrrea. -Holla! This is kinda fucked up, but doesn't homeboy at the beginning look like a young, gay Barrak Obama?

I'M GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO UNTIL SUNDAY, SO IF THE BLOG SUCKS, YOU HAVE TODD AND THE REST OF THE STAFF TO BLAME.

As a white leather wallet from Tokyo once read "DON'T BLAVE ME; FUCK!!!". So yeah, your boy S-dot is gonna be 5000, up out this piece,
in the 'Yay Area' home of many LOA OGs including our boy JOSH LAZCANO!!! So that means all you motherfucks on the staff need to bring your 'A' blog game while I'm gone. While I'm there I'm planning on listening to my "Gay Jamz" mix tape on my ipod including everyones favorite "You spin me round like a record baby", -that is UNABASHEDLY Jim the RZA's favorite Gay Jam of all time. He discussed with me at length recently, how back in the day, "in da club" he would literally lose his mind on the dancefloor to this; -bare-chested, swingin' his shirt around his head like a helicopter etc... I dont blame you my friend. -Hell, I might be bare-chested, swingin' my shirt around my head like a helicopter the entire time I'm gone. -Me and Josh Lazcano both. -In a goth club... -HOLLA!

WAS HERO PAT TILLMAN MURDERED BY NEOCONS?

Pat Tillman walked away from a three million dollar football contract to fight terrorism. He was a genuinely patriotic American. Afghanistan had a large al Qaeda presence and Osama bin Laden was rumored to be there. Tillman joined the Special Forces and was fighting al Qaeda over there. But then, George Bush declared war on Iraq. Tillman didn’t believe that Iraq had anything to do with the 911 attack. Tillman was ordered to serve a tour of duty in Iraq and was eventually sent back to Afghanistan, where he was killed. The original report claimed that Tillman was killed by enemy fire. Five weeks later it was admitted that he was “accidentally” shot in a friendly fire incident. The parents of Tillman were outraged that the Bush administration had lied to them. It seemed at first that the neocons were trying to build up Tillman as a bigger hero for propaganda purposes and did not want the public to know he died in a pointless accident. Some additional information however has been revealed that would provide a strong motive for the neocons to have Tillman assassinated so that he would not embarrass the Bush administration by going public as a “hero-turned-dissident”. One news article reports “the San Francisco Chronicle examined more than 2,000 pages of testimony, as well as interviews with Tillman’s family members and soldiers who served with him. Sunday’s article by Robert Collier said the newspaper ‘found contradictions, inaccuracies and what appears to be the military’s attempt at self-protection.’ The Pentagon belatedly confirmed that Tillman had been killed by friendly fire last year in Afghanistan. His family hopes a new inquiry launched by the Pentagon in August will answer some of their questions, for example, why testimony was changed and why the military waited five weeks to notify the family of the friendly-fire aspect. ‘There have been so many discrepancies so far that it’s hard to know what to believe,’ his mother, Mary Tillman, told Collier. ‘There are too many murky details.’ The files the family received from the Army in March were heavily censored.” The same article continues “The Chronicle also revealed that interviews ’show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought, and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author.’ The massive Chronicle article contains the testimony of a colleague who watched him die: ‘I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, ‘Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f—ing Tillman, dammit.’ Tillman said this over and over until he stopped, having been hit by three bullets in the forehead. After 9/11, Tillman decided to give up his career, saying he wanted to fight al-Qaeda and help find Osama bin Laden. A colleague who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, said: “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. … We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush. Another soldier in the platoon said Tillman urged him to vote in the 2004 election for Sen. John Kerry.” The San Francisco Chronicle article reports “…other Tillman family members are less reluctant to show Tillman’s unique character, which was more complex than the public image of a gung-ho patriotic warrior. He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the battlefield, writing in it regularly. (His journal was lost immediately after his death.) Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death.” In an age of Big Brother, Carnivore and a government that spies more on its own citizens than on terrorists, it seems likely that the Bush administration caught wind of the meeting between Chomsky and Tillman. This situation would almost certainly lead to a massive publicity incident with headlines of “Hero Condemns Iraq War and Bush.” This pending disaster for the neocons may have driven them to take extreme measures. Obviously the neocons didn’t want a war hero turning against George Bush (who evaded serving in the Vietnam War when it was his turn to fight). The big question is: “Would the neocons order the assassination of a disgruntled war hero to avoid a publicity fiasco?” We have seen how much political damage one determined person can do in the Cindy Sheehan case. Early in her peace vigil outside Bush’s ranch, Mrs. Sheehan was threatened by a crazed neighbor of Bush who fired a gun into the air. There were rumors circulating that Cindy would be arrested early during her Crawford vigil. Whoever started these rumors obviously intended to scare her off. If an American mom could be treated this badly, how would the neocons deal with a war hero, who was thinking of going public? Pat Tillman’s Special Forces unit split into two groups to try to encircle enemy forces. While it’s easy to imagine a poorly trained National Guard unit firing on itself, the Special Forces soldiers spend thousands of hours training and are extremely unlikely to make this mistake. During the incident, in which Tillman was killed, he had called on the radio for the other soldiers to cease fire. The fact that he was shot three times in the head AFTER pleading on the radio for a cease fire is highly suspicious. Whoever shot Tillman was close enough to shoot him in the head, which implies they had a good look at him. The Afghan rebels typically have beards and turbans –quite a contrast from a US army helmet. An assassin could have been laying in wait for Tillman’s unit to pass by or may even have been a corrupted member of Tillman’s unit. The fact that the neocons lied about Tillman’s death when it was first announced to the public, suggests they have something to hide. Were they hiding an embarrassing friendly fire incident. or an assassination?
(article by James Buchanan from altermedia.info)

IMPEACH!

More than 1,000 people gathered yesterday at Ocean Beach in San Francisco to spell out the message "IMPEACH!" "America is a great country," said event organizer Brad Newsham. "But President Bush has betrayed our faith. He misled us into a disastrous war, and is trampling on our Constitution. He has to go. Now. I hope Nancy Pelosi is listening today." Ocean Beach is located in the congressional district of Pelosi, the new speaker of the House.