The Bus Bench

Edith Abeyta. Street Wear.

I was the shelf for artist’s Edith Abeyta’s interpretation of a walking alter at Tropico de Nopal’s Calavera Fashion Show.

 

The art was called: Street Wear

Street Wear is the representation of homeless woman. There are lots of them in downtown LA.

She made a kimono out of a mattress, which I’m going to steal from her house. All of the materials for the outfit were “found” materials that Edith then created something new with. She hand makes everything, which is rare nowadays.

Edith's Street Wear with in the background with me as the hanger, stolen from a photos taken by Robert Gauthier at the Los Angeles Times.

Obama wins. A bittersweet win for California.

Picture from yahoo.

Obama wins, so stop asking me if something bad is going to happen.

I was in downtown LA and several white people asked me if I thought something bad would happen to Obama and I say to people who don’t have faith in Americans that, no nothing bad is going to happen to Obama.

How to properly vote for keyboard armchair activists.

However you cast your vote remember the most important vote is the vote you make with your wallet.

If you are for Measure R and you have a car and you don’t really need one, but are driving one mindlessly (or your spouse or partner is doing it) because it’s convenient, which wastes gas and causes pollution and makes the world an unpleasant place you’re telling the politicians what you want Measure R to be.

The vote you make with car ownership is a more powerful vote than what you check on a ballot.

If no one had a car think how much more of a convincing argument making public transportation work in Los Angeles would be.

And the same thing goes for Prop 8, Prop 4, Prop 5 and Prop 2. Look and see who supports them and who doesn’t. Look to see when you spend your money where does that money go. What kind of world was created with the money that certain people obtained from their profits.

I’m not going to tell you what to vote for, but I’m just telling you that in general the vote tomorrow is meaningless because the real vote for the kind of America that we want is rooted in how we spend our money, how we live our lives and how we treat our neighbors.

by Browne Molyneux

The Economy by Ill Doctrine

Palin's Metro Link

When McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin was the Mayor of the town Wasilla, she secured $15 million for a rail project. Her town had a total of 6,700 people. That would be approximate $2,200 per person. I guess you could say she’s pro-public transportation.

Info from the Washington Post, September 1 edition.

-The Bus Bench

Choose your master 2008: McCain vs Clinton

McCain vs Clinton

Wow, this is turning out to be some race.

I told BusTard and the boyfriend/fiance that McCain’s campaign wasn’t dead. Old dude has heart.

I have to say if I were an old white man and loaded (all of those things combined can make you completely out of touch with reality, well at least reality for the people not in your demographic) McCain would be my guy. Yeah I know it’s crazy, but he is old school Republican. The kind of Republican who hated darkies because god damnit it was the best thing for the country and truly thought that being prejudice would some how make America a better place.

It wasn’t about friends or money, yeah it was totally wrong, but at least that guy cared. At least that guy cared about America. Yeah he didn’t want me in America, but he did care, which is not like the guy we have in there now.

I don’t think George Bush cares.

I don’t think it’s about god or country or honor, I think it’s just about how can I hook my friends up right now.

Not even Reagan who people loved cared about the US. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to me were two peas in a pod.

Bill Clinton wasn’t really a Democrat and Reagan wasn’t really a Republican, inside they were both pretty moderate, but they both just picked the team that would help them get into the best parties. That’s great. I’d probably be that guy, but that guy (or gal) shouldn’t be president.

I blame many of the horrible things happening in the economy, not so much on Bush, but on Clinton. He started this, “fuck it, it’s all about me” attitude.

To me Reagan was the downfall of the Republican Party and Bill Clinton was the downfall of the Democratic Party, in regards to actually giving a shit. As I said, I’m not saying the ways of the past were ok, but I think deep down inside people used to care, well a little bit.

Now Hillary. If she were a guy, I really think she would have had this thing all wrapped up. Is that me saying I believe in her campaign one way or the other? No, just me saying if she were a guy the American public in all it’s wisdom (or at least the Democrats) would have put this to bed already.

Gloria Steinem wrote an editorial in the New York Times. I didn’t like it. It kind of made me a little annoyed being a person of color and my gut reaction was, “that’s why I fucking hate feminists.”

But then I remembered I am a feminist and she is not a feminist. Though she thinks she is the Goddess of the feminist movement, because she has money and she’s pretty and she went to Smith and she had lots of rich friends and she dressed up like a Playboy Bunny and exposed the heinous working conditions of Playboy Bunnies, well she’s not!

She is just a rich jerk with privilege that uses feminism to fuck with people; it’s kind of like with Jesus. It’s not that Jesus was a bad guy, it’s just the nuts that follow him.

I think I used that analogy with Charles Bukowski on some post or maybe a comment.

It’s not that Bukowski was so horrible, its just the morons that read one book by him and now want to drink and write bad poetry and not work that make the idea of him so horrible.

"No I don't want to hear another one of your damn poems!!!"

That’s who Gloria Steinem is. She’s the reason people made third wave feminism. She’s the reason women of color won’t say they are feminists. To me if you’re a member of an oppressed group whether it be a woman, a homosexual person, a black person, an Asian person, a person who is an immigrant, a bisexual, a latino person, a person who is disabled you never ever play the “we are the most oppressed” game.

That is a stupid fucking game.

Everyone’s struggle is valid and how dare anyone regardless of how hard they have had it tell another oppressed person “your struggle isn’t or wasn’t as hard as mine.”

No need to be a dick. Share your struggles. Give advice. Don’t try to prop your struggle up by shitting on someone else’s and that’s what Gloria did in that editorial. And that is a very shitty, unfeminist thing to do.

A real feminist wouldn’t try to step on another oppressed group just to prop up what she views as “her” group. That’s something a straight white guy would have done openly, in the 1950s.

Bad sportsmanship Gloria. You are a bad feminist.

By Browne

Choose your master 2008: Obama and Huckabee

Now according to the media Clinton was a shoo-in. Well that’s odd, because she didn’t win in Iowa.

Again with this journalist PR thing. I swear if you are going to work in PR get paid PR wages. Don’t be a journalist and starve to death when you really want to do PR.

So Wonderboy Obama won in Iowa, even after all of the old black people pretty much demanded that people not vote for him.

The old black guard, the media and pretty much the entire Democratic Party is firmly behind Hillary, which is why Obama is the Wonderboy.

Keep in mind even though this is a supernatural slant, it would not be characterized as the Magic Negro syndrome. Owing to the fact that his supernaturalness is independent and has nothing to do with helping white people find dead boyfriends, lost children, or curing urinary tract infections. (sourced from Wikipedia, so that’s like fact right?)

And who the hell is Huckabee, I thought that was the name of a movie. He apparently is a Baptist, but the non-annoying type, which means he doesn’t do that holiness weirdness. There will be no rolling around on the ground and feeling the spirit for this Baptist. He also has no money? What the hell a Baptist from Arkansas running with no gigantic cash war chest?

The Existential Baptist and Wonderboy came on top with virtually zero help from the mainstream media machine.

I guess with Obama you could use the old adage there is no such thing as bad publicity, but I don’t think you want it implied that you were a drug dealer in your youth.

And see Rudy Giuliani in regards to the old adage there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Do I actually believe voting will make a difference, nope, not really, but I do it so when I debate with people and they go “Did you vote?” I can say “Yeah fucker, I voted.”

That’s pretty much the only reason I vote. I usually vote for a person that according to some is destroying the chance of a much more viable candidate.

“Why did you vote for that person? They have no chance in hell of winning,” a person who believes the system works, which is why they don’t vote for the person that they want, but the person the system wants, because the system thinks better than them. No, the system actually thinks for them completely.

I know the theory of democracy doesn’t actually work, because when you have democracy in action for real in other parts of the world (the theory kind, not the fake kind we have going on here with the electoral collage and gigantic war chests of money to smear other candidates,) the vast majority of the time things get burned down and people get killed.

You know like in Kenya. See democracy only works in a country where you have lots of crap like candy, fastfood, cars, and toys to distract you and a fake media that the public thinks is objective. Usually the person the people want to win, never actually wins, but we settle for that other guy. We can’t be that concerned about it, because we have to watch American Idol and eat ice cream.

In Kenya there is no American Idol, which is why when the candidate that they wanted to win didn’t win, they got mad. Not blog mad, but they got mad for real.

That’s real democracy right there. Do we want that? I don’t think so, because that would entail spilling blood and truth and honesty and who wants that bullshit when we can just recycle and write very long blog entries.

And why do I want to die for my political beliefs. My political belief is nothing works and this entire system is smoke and mirrors. Why would I want to die for nothing?

Choose your master in 2008 and please invite me to the Master(or Mistress) of the Universe after-party I heard those things have lots of alcohol.

By Browne

Mitt Romney, the Magic Mormon

Mitt Romney said he saw his dad march with Martin Luther King Jr, not in the sense that you and I see, but in a magical sense. Sort of like how in the movie Green Mile the big black guy played by Michael Clark Duncan cured the character played by Tom Hank’s penis by touching it. Not touching it like the way you and I would think one man in jail touching another man in jail’s penis might mean, but in a magical sense.

If you don’t believe in magic, then you must be a cynical bastard.

Mitt Romney explained in a 12/21 Boston Globe story by Michael Levenson, “"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described."

Oh yeah man, I totally get that. Please pass the joint.

“"It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort,” said Romney the Magical Mormon.

If you don’t believe in the Magic Mormon, the above may sound like an internet chat room explanation to an outlandish assertion. But you know I believe in magic, because I have a dream. I have a dream that one day we can all just pull anything we want out our ass and defend it by saying things like:

• In the Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition it clearly states that my definition is completely valid, of course it’s the 31st entry down, but it is there.
• I sourced this from Wikipedia.
• I’ve got this personal anecdote; when I was in the third grade this Turkish girl beat me up, so therefore all Turkish people are the anti-christ.

I have a dream that people even in vapid Southern California will stop fact checking, completely.

I have a dream that people will take everything at face value and if anyone disagrees they will be banned from all major “social” blogs and labeled a troll.

I have a dream that one day everyone will clear their minds completely and know that magic exists.

Midwestern Mormons in the 1950s and 1960s marched hand in and with African-Americans in the south and in the 1960s and 1970s Southern Baptists marched hand in hand with Chicano-Americans in the west and the internment of Japanese-Americans never happened, slavery never happened, the Chinese Exclusion Act never happened, gay people have always had civil rights, (oops not yet, back to the magic) nothing bad has ever happened, and everyone has always helped everyone else, it’s like magic.

Let magic reign over everyone, so we can be positive and nice and happy. So what if we’re stupid.

Most magic is stupid, that’s what makes it so god damn magical.

By Browne

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The quotes from Mitt Romney were taken from the 12/21 Bostom Globe story by Michael Levenson: Romney never saw father on King march