✴︎Bang pow✴︎

Fast paced independent journalistic writing and essays

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  • Take back telegraph, they did.

    Take back telegraph, they did.

    The goal was to attract a crowd, to get attention and host an audience of everyday people looking for a place to exist free of charge, or expectation-and they did. On Saturday was a quasi street fair jam session protest with the intention, and name to match, Take Back Telegraph. It was set up on the corner of Haste and Telegraph in front of the old Mad Monk Music, across the street from the classic berkeley tourist trap amoeba records. 

     It was planned in the wake of the city’s crackdown on the Berkeley chess club, and occupation of peoples park. Take back telegraph was the community pushing back against what could be described as a systemic attack on places where people gather. The Berkeley Chess club was an informal gathering of people who wanted to gather and play chess, it was on haste and telegraph, the same spot as the event. 

     One of the event planners Josiah, of Kinda Good band, talked about the damage caused by the shutdown of the chess club by the city, “the impact of that loss is seen by hundreds of people. People who couldn’t find their friends since this shut down.” In our phone call he talked charismatically about his ideas surrounding spaces where people can just be without having to pay to exist. Spots where people of all different walks of life have freedom to do what they want and don’t have to worry about arbitrary rules around expression. 

    There used to be more spaces like this, there was people’s park, and in the same spot was the Berkeley chess club, where people could walk up, play some chess, and just hang out. Even before that was the downtown plaza, which would host open mics and free jam sessions before it was renovated and the more free speechy stuff was shut down.

    I spoke to Josh, a server with food not bombs about this,

     “We used to serve in peoples park and then you know, we got moved here. The city and I think the telegraph business improvement district has continued to target this space. Taking the furniture we rely on to distribute food… I know the building is up for sale so it’s always a question where we’ll go next” 

    This is far from the first time bands roll up and jam in front of the closed mad monk music and jam with some of the locals, as Josh described it. Food not bombs serves at haste and telegraph every Friday, Saturday and Sunday starting at 12. 

    I talked to Tren-he was young and relaxed. He wore a red mushroom hat and a baggy white t-shirt, he talked about people taking back the streets and gaining power, and the importance of these types of events. When I asked him why there aren’t more of them he said, “This is super illegal” 

    You could hear the jam band play near endless brain melting songs, one after another, and the people ate it up! There was no cost to enter, and it naturally attracted a crowd of people who didn’t know it was happening, or only had a vague idea. While there were people who didn’t get it, straightened out college kids who couldn’t imagine that lifestyle, plastic punks who treated it like a zoo; watching from the sidelines-fetishizing the aesthetic without the energy and passion. Throw in a couple of finger waggers, shaking their heads and gossiping to their friends as they speedwalked past-folks like these you see why the bay area turned into the silicone phoenix, counterculture nearly dead and replaced with 21st century wasps and fleece wearing fleecers. The thing to remember is the movement never died, it just fell out of the mainstream. 

    The people fighting for free love and music never stopped, they’re rallying around the just cause of living unbound by societal expectations and political norms-why aren’t you! Every person should be a hippie, a beatnik, a punk, or some combination. If you’re not somewhere in that spectrum you’re missing the point, losing an opportunity to live life to the full extent.  For every person annoyed by the sound there were 5 kind souls dancing in the streets, throwing footballs, or joining the band to keep the music going.

  • Tucker Carlson, and the curse on the elderly

    Tucker Carlson, and the curse on the elderly

    By Barley Lewis-McCabe

    I started my day as I do every day, by looking at my phone in bed-a dangerous and self destructive habit. I would be better off vaping and doming myself at 7 in the morning. I instantly watched alt right lego man  Tucker Carlson host former house representative, and alleged 9/11 whistleblower Curt Weldon. I watched minute long intervals of them discussing 9/11 conspiracy theories. I further researched what they were saying, and spent the first hour of my morning reading about Able Danger, George Bush, and Mohamed Atta. At the end of my hour long intro to the alt right pipeline I realized something, not the truth about 9/11, but that this was a horrible way to start my day. 

    My grandparents wake up with the sun, go into the living room, sit on their recliners and watch Fox News. No plans for the day, just wandering around and polluting the quiet with inverse entertainment “news”, media that provides an escape from our world to one of more fear and division, where your neighbor has 1 more gun than you, and is going to use it to kill you. So you’d better get 2 more guns just in case. 

     Everyone knows Fox is unreliable, and exists to manipulate the elderly, but to what extent. To spend so much of your day consuming a never ending stream of hateful theories wears on the soul. It leads a person to dark places. 

    I don’t trust the government, but I don’t need to hear it from an off-brand Zyn salesman. How is it that people see him pretend to be a journalist for a brief stint and forget that he is fundamentally a grifter. Tucker Carlson covers himself in layers of flannel and talks about Montana so the impressionable masses don’t look at his Florida mansion, or hear about his childhood home overlooking the La Jolla tennis club. 

    You shouldn’t have to be told not to trust the government, you find it out yourself when you see your tax dollars explode in a fiery wreckage of former hospitals while our own citizens disappear in the night, or sleep under crooked benches in the glow of AI IPA billboards. Someone going on your screen and telling you to focus on the disappearing Epstein list and a supposed deep state/permanent government is just trying to alter your mind and distract you from something more sinister. Maybe its Alligator Alcatraz, the continuing genocide in Gaza, Ice parades in MacArthur Park, or even Grok.

    A lot of people have money tied up in americans fearing scarecrows, when they reduce you to a mess of fear and bigotry you’ll buy whatever they sell you, raw milk, nicotine pouches, online workshops, what a disgrace.

    The infectious power of the alt right is multigenerational. We have a bludgeoning generation of brain dead nazis, kids who aren’t getting their fix from Joe Rogan and want something stronger. You’d buy what they’re selling you, anything to remove this fear Its not just old people. I know folks who cant drink but consume the same brainwashing slop as the worst uncle. We need to do what we can to cut off the snakes head.

    One morning of a conspiracy theory deep dive made me angry, it made me fear the world. Until I sat outside and read my book. Imagine what happens if that’s all you do, from the moment you wake up to when you go to sleep you listen to men in toupees and women from utah overwhelm you with manufactured hatred. when the only thing that would truly fix it is changing the channel.

    Some people say he wears a wig.
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    War. What ISNT it good for?
    
			
    

    They’re developing a nuclear bomb. They have WMD’s. They are a threat to global peace. They’re a country full of terrorists, it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. The great power of The Pentagon is its ability to reuse the same lingo invasion after invasion and people still buy it. 
    





    On Saturday June 21 the United States carried out strikes on 3 Iranian nuclear sites in an attempt to eliminate Irans nuclear program due to suspicions that Iran was on the cusp of developing a nuclear bomb.  The strikes were first reported 40 minutes after I ate a weed brownie, which led to an interesting few hours. Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER as they call it was said to be a success, obliterating Irans nuclear program. If they did what they wanted to why keep going, whats next. Some would say World War 3.
    




    What does world war mean anyways, at large we (America) didn’t call World War 2 World War 2 until Roosevelt said it, and in England they just call it “The War”. it’s all about branding. We always jump to World War 3, it’s the never ending fear. We’ve been scared of World War 3 since we broke up with the soviets. Maybe it’s just a second gulf war, or a Vietnam, we could just do a proxy war through Israel, or maybe this is all a distraction from something more sinister. 
    





    There are a few important things to note, for one thing this is awful journalism. What I’m doing here is biased and ridiculous, but should be taken entirely seriously. Second, the honorable secretary of defense Pete Hegseth is a nazi alcoholic ken doll whose kids roll their eyes at his drunken easter rants.
    




    




    They didn’t have WMD’s in Afghanistan or Iraq, defense.gov disagrees but that’s just a fact. After the invasion of Iraq no substantial weapon stockpiles were found, and we invaded to topple their government and protect our own interests. But that’s old news, and a one off mistake. 25 years later the same justifications are used to defend Saturday’s bombings, and to garner public support for an attempt to overthrow the Iranian government and put in someone who’s more American friendly. We overthrew the Iranian government once, why not do it again. 
    




    President Trump suggested a regime change with the attitude you bring to ordering fries for the table. But stateside we have a very fractured view of what’s going on. Take a step back, go outside and smoke, look at the grass and stand in the sun. Question what you’re hearing and what everyone’s telling you, why would they say that, what’s in it for them, where could you hear it. Truthfully this goes down to people not getting their news from reputable sources. Read, AP, BBC, CNN (in moderation), Al Jazeera, Reuters, anything but me. Read me too though. 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    #nokings
    
			
    

    from Barley Lewis-McCabe
    




    What does change feel like, to see nonviolent protestors dressed as giant chickens below hand painted signs made by betrayed voters, or is it something more raw. A national day of protest to draw attention away from the president’s military themed birthday bash. A grassroots push with the aim of bringing as many people to the street as possible.  Social veterans and people who’ve never gone to a march, people who get their news where they get their slippers dropshipped, #nokings. 
    




    In speeches people alluded to the Civil Rights movement, to the women’s march, to social actions that tried to mold a more fair America post Vietnam. But It’s a new world, new methods but the root causes are the same.
    




    

    Thousands of people gathered in the heart of Chinatown, kids played on a sun baked play structure in something that more closely resembled a block party. I wandered around with my camera, looked at the signs and made conversation until I stumbled ass backwards into the media pit. Suddenly I bumped into Barbra Lee, mayor of Oakland. 
    

    




    

    I staggered back and looked around, on all sides I was surrounded by real journalists waving their cameras, trying to get their shot. I joined them of course and listened to her speech calling for us to remember our laws of democracy, and to resist the powers at be. 
    

    




    See?
    




    The speeches finished the march to city hall began. Thousands of people marched through Chinatown following a truck broadcasting chants and songs. In the middle of it all I stopped to lean against a bike rack and talked to a woman with a bubble wand. There were a lot of bubbles, so I kept getting soap on my lens. I can’t imagine what it was like for the people holding the sign at the front. 
    




    I asked the woman if she brought them from home, turns out someone’s been handing them out. But that’s not all,  past the parade and blocker truck, a one legged man zig zagged a recumbent bike with a bubble machine on the back and parked in front of everyone to blast his suds. 
    




    




    Soon the people were packed like tinned fish in the block around city hall, people with flashy clothes and signs as far as the eye could see. I sat in the middle of the grass with a group of old hippies what does change feel like-what does it smell like? Pot. 
    




    People walked in circles waving their signs, or they sat and listened to their congress people decry the administration. This is the world we’ve inherited, not just one of kidnapping and fear-but a country filled with people who want to do something. Who wont just let the world pass them by.