19 November 2011

Something Better Change


If a man can, he should afford himself a luxury. I think I may have learned that from Kerouac. Remember the stories he wrote about eating big plates of Chinese food on cold dirt poor San Francisco dark sweet chocolate nights of the soul? For some it is fast cars, speedboats and old motorcycles; for others it is heroin, cocaine and drugs you never dreamed of. Mine is the occasional bottle of good whisky. Buy it when the horses have been especially kind to my wallet. Tricks me into thinking I have it fucking made, which I do.

I need to be tricked into thinking I have it made every so often because, in my head, it is always 1982. That was when my first sawmill closed its gates and I found my prospects to be poor and none. I was reading Kerouac then, wondering if I would have to leave Dope City, find my fortune on the road. Looking in the steamy windows of Chinese restaurants without a fucking dime, nevermind a bottle of scotch, in the pockets of my black leather jacket or my ripped up jeans, my underwear hanging out long before it became fashionable to do so.

I am not the only man to deeply identify with the empty pockets no bottle no drugs no motherfuck all dreams of the Occupy Movement. Their dream, our dream, the Anarchist dream, is the same dream Hugh Cornwell sang about in the Stranglers, the band I named my first dog after: Something Better Change.

Yes, I am rambling. Often happens after a week of working in the sawmill without a typewriter to compose some sense out of the chaos of the brainstorm I have been both gifted and cursed with.

Which brings me to what I think is the most important conclusion I have come to as a result of bringing my brainstorm to a few weekends at Occupy Vancouver and more than a few hours here on my computer with Occupy the Motherfucking World. I have been reminded that there is a hunger, down here in the street, for direct democracy. People, better informed than ever in history, know what to do to improve the civilization we share, grudgingly, with the upper crust of society we have threateningly labeled the one motherfucking per centers. We must all be integrated into the decision making process, integrated more fully than the every three, four or five years we are permitted in general elections now. The top down bullshit of democracies past is not cutting it any more.

We want the world, as someone once said, and we want it now.

Without any great immediate changes to the way we do things, there are some things we could change right away. We need to get the direct democracy train out of the station. I bet everybody has ideas on this subject that would work or at least be worth trying. Some democratic experimentation, the boogeyman of our present day democratic institutions everywhere, is overdue.

For example, recently Suzanne Anton, who makes me cringe because she is about as real as Occupying Mars, put forward a motion that Occupy Vancouver be shut down. No one seconded her motion. Therefore there was no discussion. There should always be discussion, even if it is a discussion the majority are not comfortable having. One of the duties of the mayor, of any meeting chair, ought to be ensuring that all motions be seconded. Everyone has the right to a length of hemp generous enough to both hang themselves or their opponents.

Same goes for the Occupy Movement: no one should be shouted down just because a consensual majority thinks they have shit for brains. No one.

Same goes for unions. If a member makes a motion, no matter how contrary it may seem, such as, "I move the President go fuck a goat," if no one else seconds the motion, the president should. Those in favour of Presidents fucking goats have a right to be heard just as much as those who think Presidents should not partake in such goat fucking. Pardon the hyperbole.

The sun is shining through the trees. My dog is waiting on me. So are the polls. A member of the Dope City Free Press Nation has made a motion that I go fuck a goat. I second the motion, motherfuckers.

6 comments:

Joe said...

"We want the world, and we want it now" The Doors. The tune is titled When the Music's Over. From the Sixties. Thing's have only gone downhill since then.

Jim Parrett said...

Elegant weaving of Kerouac and Occupy. Although that writer wouldn't particularly like the association just like he fought his tie-in with hippies and the 60's. But it works for me. Despite my advancing years, Kerouac is always with me in some form or another. And now so is Occupy.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

At least we had somewhere to go downhill from. Going downhill assumes, I hope, we can climb the hill again. The Ramones used the same Doors line on "We Want the Airwaves" to which they added, "Gonna take it any how!"

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Schoolmate of mine in England gave me a copy of "On the Road" when I headed back to the colonies. Forever grateful to him for that. Nobody knows America like their former masters. Kerouac did get a little cranky as he got older, as you would be, if you were living with your mother and drinking two bottles of whisky a day.

Anonymous said...

I agree they must be heard, you have to start small to make this work I think. So letting each have their say might take a while, nothing wrong with that.

I heard that some occupiers figured out a way to be heard in their public meetings without a megaphone, instead they make a statement and everyone repeats it to those in the back. Cool idea, I wonder what it sounds like. Short statements I guess.

-Jonku

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

The human microphone idea was invented in New York to overcome the the City's insistence that no amplification be permitted at the original Occupy Wall Street. How quaintly Luddite of the City. Hereabouts, Occupy Vancouver has used the technique in public meetings to cause chaos and impress themselves upon what are usually dull as dishwater affairs. I'm not so sure about using the human mike in this way. It comes across as being a tad uncivilized, a tad anti-individualistic. Better to have articulate individuals, be they part of a group or not, expressing themselves, in my opinion. I have done this on occasion : talking about and asking questions no one usually brings up at such affairs. It works. It gets people's attention. It makes people think. It makes people who may have similar thoughts think they are not alone.