Lee.org

I’m off for a week to go see family. I’ll land in New Jersey and then we’ll be wisked off to Vermont. I haven’t been there in… geez… years. But I’m confident that the place will be relatively unchanged and comforting.

Cracked Magazine did a piece called

5 Works of Art That Can Probably Kill You
By Robert Brockway

It gives me a sense of tremendous pride and joy that my art made that list!

Here is the Serpent Mother portion of the article. If you click on the image to the right, you’ll see an image of the entire article. It’s funny and oh-so endearing!

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The Serpent Mother is an interactive sculpture, originally designed by The Lotus Girls for the Burning Man Festival which, for those of you who don’t know it, is essentially a bunch of filthy hippies getting burnt off of their asses, stripping naked, and then welding monstrous devices out of scrap metal in order to dance around them. Kind of like combining a Phish concert with the A-Team, if that helps.

(more…)

A while back I paid a dealer to “fix” my brakes because they were squeaking when I drive at low speed and put the brakes on. I would pull up to an intersection and SQEEEEEEEEK to a stop. Having the dealership work on my car did not work out too well. I paid $400 and I got… pretty much nothing for it.

Here is how to fix your squeaky brakes: just get your brakes very hot. That will clear the glazing off of them. Every now and then I have done this and my brakes stop squeaking. One way is to drive down the highway at about 50 miles an hour while holding your foot on the brakes pretty hard for 2/10s of a mile. After a riding like this for a short bit I notice that the brakes feel a little different and I am done. After they cool off, they feel the same only they don’t squeak anymore. just yesterday, I held the brakes on for two full blocks while driving through the Mission. No more squeaks.

:-)

I was speaking to a solar panel prospect of mine a while back. I was telling him how he probably should not buy panels made by Sun Tech because you can’t really trust the reliability of high-tech products from China. I started talking about Harbor Freight and he told me a story.

He went to China recently, up the Yangtze River and some of those “brand new” cities that are being built there. I had heard a while back that China is building a city every week (!!). He had gone into one of these cities of like a million people or so. He described how every building is built to eight stories tall because at nine stories you have to put in an elevator, so there are all of these 8 story walk-ups. He saw a person there and he actually asked, “why did they put you in this old city?” because everything was broken down. All of the concrete on the sidewalks was cracked and everything looked… old. he met this gentleman who lives on the first floor of this eight story building. it was a farmer who had been transplanted there by the state into an apartment building. He was one of the many refugees from a dam expansion. Actually, it was the farmers niece’s apartment. so he was in the first floor of this eight story building and there were all of these really large cracks in the wall. That just can’t be good, being on the first floor of an eight story building that is three years old and it’s cracking and it looks like it’s going to fall apart. “So -that- is why”, I explained, “you should not buy Sun Tech panels.” And there is also the bit about how they’re probably dumping all of their toxic solar panel waste into that same river. That sure makes the panels cost less.

China is being built like Harbor Freight builds tools. I can imagine them saying, “Chromium is too expensive to put in steel, so we won’t use it. We’ll be fine without it.”

Today: went to acupuncture. I feel great after.

Mailed off several boxes of photos from Morley’s house. Productive…

Went to the Box Shop. I was greeted with 3 different people wanting help from me :-).

1. Figuring out how to keep a Mac Mini cool on the playa (put it in an ice chest in a waterproof box, replace the ice daily, (to be experimented with))
2. batteries for Mutopia (loaned from the vast pool of batteries that Peter Luka gave SWARM)
3. Welding together some petals for this firey flower. I practiced and then was able to TIG weld the thin stainless steel for the first time. :-)

Finally got FL Studio. I’m excited about making 6 part music for SWARM. One thing I’m going to do is transcribe some poliphonic african drumming music I learned in college and have each orb play an instrument :-). That music from Professor David Locke’s class is STILL buzzing around in my head more than 15 years later.

Over the last few days, I’ve cleaned house in a few ways.

I went to my neighbor Samantha’s apartment and her place looked so gosh darn airy and serene. I vowed to make some of that happen in my apartment so I’ve cleaned the house and put lots of things AWAY. Clearning the sight-lines is the best… I cleaned the tops of bookshelves so you can see more wall and glass-doors. Charlotte got into the act and cleaned such that it’s easy to open and close the doors between the kitchen and living room. I was really struck that in Samantha’s place, all the doors were workable; in our place, we’ve blocked open one set and blocked closed one set :-(. That’s got to be some feng shui no-no. In any case, it feels better to have a clean place.

I’ve been cleaning at the Box Shop. SWARM’s work space had become a mess. Under our work table was this scary jumble of parts with no order. I found all the items that don’t belong and told the mailing list “claim it or it gets discarded”. Some items were claimed and some are destined for the trash bin. I put all the scrap in a scrap bin, put all the long items in one pile, got some parts boxes and put parts away. I threw away like 5 large cardboard boxes and 30 tiny boxes. I found that we have duplicates of lots of bolt-y things. Hopefully, that process now has a chance of reversing itself. Everything fits in 2/3 the space and is much more findable. There’s a ways to go with sorting through electronics items that we might or might not use any more but things are way way better.

WATCH THE TRAILER

SF-based, female-driven and fuel-powered art collective The FLAMING LOTUS GIRLS announce a benefit with the screening of “Dust And Illusions”, by director Olivier Bonin for our mega fire-art project MUTOPIA, destined for the playa of Black Rock City 2008. All proceeds go directly to the Flaming Lotus Girls.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE!! JUNE 28th 2008 at CELLSPACE.
2050 Bryant St., San Francisco, CA 94110. MAP IT

Door Cost: $10-$20 Sliding Scale

Doors open: 8pm

Movie at 9pm. Make sure to come early, 100 seats limit.

Meet the director at 10:30pm after screening.

Film Synopsys: Once a year, on a vast Nevada lake bed surrounded by mountains, the Burning Man festival brings together tens of thousands of people who are attracted by the festival’s promise of seven days of “decommodification,” “community,” “artwork,” and “revelry.” But increasingly, many question whether Burning Man’s mainstream appeal threatens—or even upends—the festival’s utopian vision. Through a series of in-depth interviews of the festival’s founders, organizers, and participants, DUST AND ILLUSIONS traces the festival’s history, while examining whether the festival is a victim of its own success.

Thanks for all your support!!
Your Flaming Lotus Girls

Heh.

Beer: Now Cheaper Than Gas!
“Drink, Don’t Drive”

Last week I went to another wedding with Charlotte. This one at the Shipyard in Berkeley. The vows were performed by several Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Yes, really. It was a blast!

And yes, that’s the Neverwas Haul

Handfasting

And the space! That’s Charlotte and I in the lower left, talking with Michael P and his friend.

Comparing TJIC’s blog ranking to Lee.org on Alexa

Trav said he had only 15 readers. I disagreed, did the math and then…. agreed.

15? You must have many more lurkers than that. I get like 1000 page views a day. How many do you get?

Oh yes, that’s right. you have no idea because you don’t have any stats tracking. ;-)

Hmm. Maybe you’re right… click here

Wow…
.000097 / .00121 = .08
my 1000 page views * .08 = your 80 page views/day
your 80 page views/day / your average 6 posts per day = 13.3 readers.

OMG, you really -do- have 15 readers.

Then again, I’m betting that his readership is less likely to install the Alexa toolbar.

Some fliers made it to the front step of the building. They remind me that I live in San Freaky Cisco.

From the website…

Rent control has been a road block for Landowners, but it does not stop them from taking advantage of renters. For example:

- 2 bedroom apartments being advertised as 4 bedrooms
(calling the living room and dining room bedrooms),
charging twice the value of the apartment to maximize profits.
So, this guy didn’t actually notice he was moving into a tiny city apartment?

- realtors bribing senior tenants to move out so they
can jack up the rent to “market value.”
Hmm, good idea

- renters fixing their apartments themselves instead of calling
the Landowners afraid inspections will force them out.
So this guy would rather continue to live in a place that -should- be condemned rather than use the existing laws and force the landlord to make repairs? Ok… umm…

I like that the website has a (insane) poison pill statement

The FBI in the Bay Area with help from the police have been known in the past to spread disinformation to prevent popular movements from interfering with business as usual, (COINTELPRO era and beyond). DO NOT TRUST any rent strike statement you see that is racist, authoritarian, anti immigrant, sexist, factional, or contradicts anything you read in this statement. With the economy in the state that it’s in today a rent strike could very well scare many wealthy Landowners and realty companies (look up COINTELPRO).

Removing Landowners’ control over properties they don’t live on would be real property reform. They definitely shouldn’t control or profit from land they don’t need (use your imagination). Striking rent could be the beginning of this process. Our ability to organize our community will determine how successful striking rent will be.

I went to his recommended website and found this list of how terrible CitiApartments/Skyline is.

* Showing up at tenant’s doors late at night with a couple of big guys, for “inspections”
The law says they have to be “announced” and appear at a “reasonable time”. Dude, just tell them to come back tommorrow!

* Snooping around tenants’ apartments on false pretenses like inspections, and then looking for things they can use against tenants
What illegal activities were you hiding?

* Telling tenants “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way”
So you did something that caused the building to be condemned, got caught and the landlord asked you to leave. It was time to quit yesterday. Why didn’t you just leave?

* setting up tables in the lobby with a photo copier and demanding ID from tenants
Huh?

* putting notices up saying tenants aren’t allowed in the building
Wha?

* refusing to repair elevators in buildings full of seniors
If the elevator is in the lease, make them fix it. If not…

* telling tenants they will call the FBI, homeland security, or immigration on them
Ok, what did you do? Really?

* (in at least one case) showing up at a tenants’ door wearing fatigues and a firearm
The landlord has a license to carry in your San Francisco neighborhood? Man, you live in a shitty neighborhood. You should really move!

* pretending they didn’t receive rent and then issuing evictions for lack of payment of rent
You didn’t pay by check and you didn’t get a receipt. Ok.

* issuing evictions for roommates “in violation of lease” when roommates are legal tenants
Are they? What -exactly- does your lease say? Your friends can’t crash on your couch forever, really.

* refusing to pay interest on security deposits
Dude, it’s like 1% interest.

* telling immigrants or people of color that their “money isn’t good here”
???

* videotaping tenants as they walk out of their doors
That sounds like a good thing, since even the landlord, who is packing, got mugged with your rent money.

* letting bedbug epidimics run unabated
Umm…. get a new bed? Bedbugs are hard to get rid of, really.

* doing construction on buildings in such an irritating way that tenants are forced to leave
Yes, you’re right, they should use hammer muffs.

* demanding meetings with tenants at the church and market office
Those Bitches!

* trying to impose draconian house rules on tenants
Like…. “Turn off your faucet before you go out of town”?

* trying to require that tenants tell them when they’re leaving town
See previous item.

* issuing evictions when tenants leave town for the weekend
Evictions take weeks. And why are you getting evicted? Oh yeah, you left the faucet on for 3 months while you were out of town.

* issuing evictions for messy apartments
Dude, if it smells, you really should clean it up.

* requiring tenants to hand deliver their checks
Or their cash, as the case may be, right?

* failing to fix the heat
San Francisco law is quite clear about how much heat an apartment should get. If you want a sauna, move to Iceland. They have lots of those there.

* claiming tenants are “nuisances” and then offering them market rate rooms in other buildings
Wha?

Here’s the new chant for our picket line:

Free Housing! No Rent!

Free Rent! No Housing!