Zuccotti Park is an expanse of granite benches and a few granite tables, dotted by trees. There are sleeping bags on the ground, rectangles of cardboard, coats, a guitar left on a bench that reads, “This guitar kills cops.” People at tables have laptops open in front of them. At the lower end of the park, a patchwork quilt of signs has been laid carefully on the ground, like a tapestry of voices. A naked woman wearing only panties stands at the sidewalk. There is something written on her chest about “the naked truth.” I don’t remember exactly because I didn’t want to stare. She is holding up a sign that says, “I didn’t say look, I said listen.”
On one side of the park, a general assembly is being held. A large crowd sits in a circle, maybe a couple of hundred strong. Because the police has disallowed the use of bullhorns, the crowd repeats, in unison, the statements made by each speaker, so that they can be heard. At the front of the park, a few people stand holding up signs so they can be seen by the passing buses of tourists and the choked traffic of Broadway. They are joined by a man playing a drum, energetically, and a guitarist whose yellow guitar strap reads, “Police line, do not cross.” An impromptu, lively dance breaks out beside another man playing the guitar. Members of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra gather, playing horns, drums, and a clarinet. They launch into a rendition of “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” A march on Wall St. is scheduled for 3:30. On time, a man rushes into the park yelling, “March in five minutes!” I join the march, a boisterous affair chanting and singing to the accompaniment of the marching band.
Many of the people present are counterculture types, with matted hair and dirty faces. Some you can smell as they pass by. But I am in no way put off. These used to be my people — the anarchists, dreamers, and travelers — when I was a volunteer for Food Not Bombs for several years. But I don’t talk to anyone, except for the “vibe watcher” who flits by with a bouncy smile to ask how I am doing. There are other types in the park as well, who are part of this effort to Occupy Wall Street. There are lawyers in suits and ties there to lend their expertise. There are students and other mainstream-looking folks whose professions — or lack thereof — I cannot guess. A well-dressed woman in trendy sandals and short, well-coiffed gray hair joins the march, delighted. She carries a sign picked up off the ground that says, “Castrate the bull.” It is decorated with an illustration of a bull with his testicles cut off and left bleeding on the ground.
This is my second visit to Zuccotti Park to support this effort. I would do more, but I am so exhausted all the time that I can only offer up scraps of my time. I am so disgusted with the state of affairs in the world that I can’t tolerate standing idly by. Parasites who speculate on Wall St. and produce nothing of value get rich by placing cynical bets on the misery of others. Wall St. is not, as we are led to believe, a barometer of the health of the real economy in which actual goods and services are produced, it is a parasitic structure built around gambling on the future perceived value of stocks and commodities. As long as greed fuels speculators to place larger and larger bets, the face value of stocks continues to increase (regardless of the actual value of the companies and goods that the stocks and commodities are meant to represent) until the bubble is no longer sustainable, and it bursts. The speculators take home the profits they have amassed along the way, and the unwary small investors watch as the real worth of their savings dwindle. An economy based on gambling is not and will never be sustainable. More importantly, since it does not produce, it cannot create real wealth that can lift anyone’s boat except its own.
As a result, economic inequality is soaring. Poverty is rising. And the very-wealthy few are getting richer — and make no mistake, their wealth is amassed at the expense of the many.
The grubby encampment in Zuccotti Park may seem like a counter-culture carnival or — less charitably — a congregation of wingnuts, but it is a truly heroic effort to call attention to a fundamental issue that is keeping — and further burying — the majority in poverty while enriching a tiny minority.
I don’t know why I’m so tickled by this, but it’s just so damn cute! It’s like a punk rock fairy tale.
As you know (I posted about this a couple times in the sidebar, and here’s the full story if you missed it), the Free Press of Mankato, MN has launched a campaign to bring Green Day to play in their town, where Green Day has a cool little history. They played there in their early days, before Dookie, and they went there primarily, it seems, because Adrienne lived there at the time, and uh, one of the boys just couldn’t stay away. I remember Tre mentioning this in Behind the Music (I think that’s where it was). He said Billie Joe kept suggesting that they should go on tour to Minnesota, and Mike and Tre were like, “Why Minnesota? Hmmm…? Oh… Adrienne!”
I’m nowhere near Minnesota so it doesn’t affect me personally if Green Day play there or not, though I’m certainly rooting for the folks in Mankato and hope they get their wish. What I think is just so sweet and interesting are all the stories that people have been sending in to the Free Press reminiscing about Green Day’s times in Mankato. You can read them all on Amanda Dyslin’s blog. One of my favorites is this one:
I guess my big Green Day story involved playing on a street corner with Billie Joe once while he was in town. I was actually playing Green Day songs with a few of my friends in front of the Barmuda Triangle trying to make a few bucks off of drunk people when he came out of a bar with Adrienne (who I only casually knew) and he jumped in and played along. He was so drunk that he couldn’t hit the high notes in the chorus of “Christie Road” — that was funny.
I can imagine Billie Joe doing that even now if he got the chance.
There are also some terrible-quality videos (hey, it’s more punk rock that way, right?) of a show Green Day played at a farm in 1992, and stories about that event as well. You can see enough to tell that the crowd — and it was quite a crowd — is absolutely loving it. The videographer tried to take some close ups of Tre, but all you can see is a funny halo of green hair.
And in the latest post, Amanda Dyslin got an email from Adrienne. Keep up the good fight Mankato!
June 17, 2009 at 3:47 pm
[ Category: News, History ]
Warner Bros UK just sent out an update. They write that Green Day are currently in the UK, where they filmed an episode for Abbey Road today and will be recording one for Zane Lowe tomorrow. Update: According to Green Day World, the Abbey Road special will be shown (in the UK) on 4Music on May 14 at 9pm and 11pm. “It will then be broadcast at midnight on Channel 4 the same evening, and as part of Channel 4’s T4 on May 17th (1pm) and again on May 23rd (11.30am).”
Also, the new Green Day Game has just been launched. Answer new questions every day about the band to win prizes, and you can get bonus points for referring your friends.
And The Sun in the UK will have the live stream of 21st Century Breakdown a week early, along with Rhapsody and MTV/VH1.
—————-
Green Day will be in Germany in the next few days. For Green Day’s itinerary, and info, check the Events Calendar.
Update: audio and webcam photos from today’s radio interview were posted on GDC. [Download] (To be honest it’s a bit annoying to listen to because it’s simultaneously translated from German.)
May 5, 2009 at 11:51 am
[ Category: News, Contests ]
Germany’s NRJ radio and Energy TV posted a short video interview with Green Day. (Actually, only Billie Joe talks. The other guys just nod sagely…) They’re also having some promotions for German fans to win tickets to see Green Day in the US and Germany. Look for those on Energy.de.
————————- Update: Another short interview video is on MySpace. [Via GD.com]
I seem to remember reading a whiff of a rumor about this, maybe that Green Day had met with some theater producers to discuss a theatrical, Broadway-style, production of American Idiot, but I have to admit I never thought it would come to pass. Yet, here it is, and the news is from The New York Times so it’s a more than reliable source.
The punks are invading the theater. A new musical production adapted from American Idiot, the best-selling album by the punk band Green Day, is scheduled to make its debut in September at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California.
The article says that Michael Mayer, a Tony Award-winning Broadway director, is a big fan of American Idiot, and even had the album on his mind when working on earlier projects. He envisions the possibilities for a theatrical adaptation, with full-scale production, of this album that we all loved so much and know so well. It’s pretty thrilling.
The guys seem quite excited about it too: “The project is also causing some shock to the band members, who acknowledge that they had grand aspirations for American Idiot but perhaps not quite this grand.” Billie Joe also comments, in the article, that they now have done what The Who was able to do, whose Tommy and Quadrophenia made it to the stage as well, but surpassed the Clash, who never had a musical made of any of their albums:
“I guess maybe we’re a bit more fruity than the Clash.” Ah, you gotta love Billie…
MTV just sent out a press release saying that the video for “Know Your Enemy,” the first single from Green Day’s eagerly-anticipated-with-loving-drool-hanging-off-our-chinny-chin-chins album (uh, my words, not MTV’s), will premiere on MTV to worldwide audiences on April 24, 8pmET/PT (international times will be announced locally).
This is the “first global cross-channel video premiere for MTV and VH1 networks,” says MTV. “Green Day is one of the world’s most successful bands with hard core fans from The US to Japan, and only MTV can connect them on literally hundreds of platforms.”
Video Static says the video’s director is Mathew Cullen. MTV published an announcement as well, here, with more info. It says the video is being shot this weekend!
Okay, I’m eagerly awaiting!
——————– Update: MTV interviews the director, Mathew Cullen, here.
~It’s official: GreenDay.com’s splash page now reads: 21st Century Breakdown, coming May 15th. News of the release date spread quickly. Here’s a few examples: New York Times, Billboard, Spin.
Green Day will be the cover story of the new Q Magazine. Billie Joe is quoted as saying, “I wanted to start saying things in songs that I could be really proud of – that wasn’t just songs about masturbation.”
They also posted an online photo gallery of the Green Day guys at work in the studio. See all the photos here. A big thanks to Lisa for the info!
———————– Update: The scans of the magazine are now posted on GDA.
John Roecker is a cool guy. He’s made a sick puppet movie about Charles Manson, he hangs out with assorted punk rockers, and he’s got a biting sense of humor, but what always gets me, and what I noticed the most in his interview with DJRossstar, is the underlying sweetness. Maybe it’s just the Green Day brand of sweetness rubbing off, or the punk rock sweetness that tends to get lost in translation when people interpret punk from farther away and see only the tartness. When he started following Green Day for the documentary, Roecker noticed right away that there was no drama, and that everyone was getting along, having fun. He said it made him feel “optimistic and creative for the first time in a long time.” There’s no irony, no posturing, it’s plain old uplifting.
It must truly have been amazing to see the songs come to life as American Idiot came together, and, after the album was recorded and the band was doing rehearsals, to hear the guys play all sorts of stuff, from Queen to Led Zeppelin. Ah, to have been the large fly on the wall that Roecker said he himself was… But hey, he was a fly with a video camera, so I won’t complain. (I think, and hope, we’ll all get to see the movie soon enough.)
Yes, okay, I noticed the tidbit about Mike and Tre being naked in the pool, but I won’t dwell on that. Back to the sweetness… Billie Joe shrugging and saying “no” when John asked him if the footage with the unreleased work should be locked up in a safe. The guys not getting invited to important parties because they don’t want to pose for photos. Billie Joe telling John he had to get off the phone because he was walking in a bad neighborhood (“Billie’s a walker.”). And maybe this isn’t sweet exactly, but I liked Green Day’s reply to Juliette Lewis, who is a Scientologist, when she asked if her band could open for Green Day: “If you leave your religion you can join us.”
It always takes me a few days to write about something — other than the announcement before and after in the sidebar — but I really like first person stories by people who were there, and whose perspective is similar to the band’s, so I enjoyed this interview quite a bit, and I just wanted to mention it.
March 23, 2009 at 12:09 am
[ Category: News, Movies ]
The Arkansas Times reports that another Little Rock musician (as you know, Jason White is from Little Rock too) will join Green Day on tour as an additional guitarist: Jeff Matika, guitarist for the Magic Cropdusters and Ashtray Babyhead, will be Green Day’s third guitarist on their upcoming tour, after the May release of the new album, 21st Century Breakdown.
The article also says that the tour will be 19 months long, and that it will open on Later With Jools Holland in London “followed by a few weeks of press touring surrounding the release of “21st Century Breakdown” and SNL in May.”
They also write:
“The addition seems geared to further pushing Green Day into U2 territory. Billie Joe’s apparently going to do less guitar playing and more frontman-ing on this tour. White will play first guitar and Matika will play second and sing high harmonies.”
I think this is some pretty cool news, because it gives an idea of the direction Green Day will be taking with the tour, with Billie Joe being more and more of the showman. That was already the trend with American Idiot, and even more so with the Foxboro Hot Tubs.
~Prosound reported that in a recent email, Butch Vig, who is producing the new Green Day album, wrote that they “hope for a late May/June release, but we haven’t penciled it in yet.” They also quote some comments from Vig about the album, from a chat they had with him last fall: “I’m in the middle of a Green Day record now–we just started tracking about a month ago [Fall 2008] and are just getting a head of steam. We’re going to try to track through Thanksgiving. It’s going good–we’re making a pretty interesting sounding record. It’s a little too early to tell exactly how it’s all going to sound. But Billy [Joe Armstrong] and the band have written some great songs. Billy again has written some amazing lyrics. I think it’s going to be good.” [ Via 1039 Sweet Children ]
~Warner Music UK sent an email update. They say the info they can release on the new album is limited, “but all seems to be on track for midway through the year.” They’re currently working on the Green Day sub-site that they had announced in the fall. They’re also asking people to display the banners announcing the new album with a link to the official site.
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