Author Archives: bicyclemark

I react to Tookie’s Death, play his final interview and other observations from outside San Quentin. Also New Jersey’s number one newspaper is in my crosshair.

AudioCommunique #88(mp3)
28min+, 80kbps, 16Mb+

Discussed:

Tookie’s final interview on WakeUpCall
The execution and an actor-turned-governor’s decision to kill
Reviewing the useless content of NJ’s most important newspaper
Had Dinner with MsThingk and Jamie (read his account of the meal)
Jamie’s book Envy the Rain, will be discussed once Ive read it
The Listener/reader meetup, Thursday starting at 4pm, St. Mark’s Ale House on St. Mark’s place

Music:
The Stars – Celebration Guns
Rush – Closer to the Heart (yes Rush!)
Coralie Clement – ça valait la peine
Vinicius Cantuaria – Pena de mim
Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body
Simon and Garfunkle – America

Stare at this photo. Picture it… think about it… the lethal injection.. the solution so many Americans (and lots of people in other countries too!) see to the issue of crime. Stare at it – it is done in your name. In our name. Doesn’t matter what your nationality, you’re human, and these are follow humans who carry out this practice.


Did you stare at it? I have. I keep looking at it. The last phonecall they make will be to rich Austrian-American who a few years ago decided he should be governor and make such decisions about whether people should live or die. Apparently he can be trusted to make the right decisions. He spent a few days reading the case, and he’s now qualified to decide if the case of a prisoner on death row was fair or not. Even though everywhere there is evidence that the cases are anything but fair and properly carried out. Case after case have appeared where lawyers and judges and trials were botched and flawed, and yet they keep killing people anyway, believing they’ve carried out justice.

In a few hours.. this room will once again be occupied. Humans will strap another human to the chair. They will insert poison into that humans body and end his life. They do this because we have accepted this practice, we allow it to go on. We go out for coffee tonight and laugh at television programs, while a man is injected with poison, and people watch from behind the glass. The whole world watches this, and they think – “I don’t understand that country.” Of course, we don’t understand this country either. Yet another murder is being carried out in my name, and I hate it and I will carry the blood of Tookie Williams on my hands forever.

Somehow I wrote this post and lost it, classic move when Im somehow still jetlagged and dosing at the keyboard.

Place: St. Mark’s Ale House, St. Mark’s Place, right across from Cooper Union in the East Village
Date: Thursday, Dec. 15
Time: 16h / 4pm til dinner, so show up whenever
Who: besides moi, such blogstars as Ms. Thingk maybe, Mr. KnownUniverse himself, and hey – maybe the verbal chameleon. and you, yes You.

Not even 8 hours after arriving, I’m driving around New Jersey and recapping how terrible air travel has become thanks to paranoia and irrational policies.

AudioCommunique #87(mp3)
30min+, 80kbps, 17Mb+

Discussed:

I’m driving
Listening to WBAI New York member supported radio which I was raised on
My terrible flight with KLM
Irrational drama queen passengers
Apparently Air marshalls kill people for behaving strangely or being mentally sick
Disgusting cars on the highway
My brother’s blog
I mixed in Utah Phillips talking about the military draft
ended unexpectedly.. thats how it goes sometimes

Music:

“Im from New Jersey” theme that Tim sent me
Utah Phillips – Tom Stribner Story (Fellow Workers album)
Death Cab for Cutie – Brothers on a Hotel Bed (Plans)