Wednesday, January 31, 2007
As January draws to a close, I have a deal with the landlord of the storefront I'm hoping to move into tomorrow, Feb 1, but I am still having trouble finding insurance...
Photos from Washington, DC, last weekend, taken by my photographer friend David Kidd from atop the Washington Monument, are posted at www.bodiescount.org -- you can see for yourself how close we came to hitting a grand slam home run... if we'd only had 1,000 people...
But I learned a LOT, and the project is alive and well, and happening mostly in private today...
ONWARD!
Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1...
Photos from Washington, DC, last weekend, taken by my photographer friend David Kidd from atop the Washington Monument, are posted at www.bodiescount.org -- you can see for yourself how close we came to hitting a grand slam home run... if we'd only had 1,000 people...
But I learned a LOT, and the project is alive and well, and happening mostly in private today...
ONWARD!
Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1...
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Just after midnight, early Sunday morning...
you gotta believe me, I had incredible FUN today, but while fun, for me, is indeed a very nice byproduct of this effort we're all involved with, it is NOT what I'm after...
and as i drop off to bed, exhausted, after a day that was exhilarating as well as fun, i am feeling a deep sense of loss... only 200 people or so showed up this morning, and although I am happy and satisfied to accept that result for what it was (and I absolutely value each of the people who DID show up), i am acutely aware of the overwhelming and certain knowledge of the ENORMOUS opportunity that was missed today... after the 200 of us did an hour of phone tree work, trying to rally more numbers, and after finally conceding to ourselves that we weren't going to get those numbers, we abandoned the idea of trying to fill the 410-foot-by-100 foot image we'd outlined with ropes, and instead scrunched ourselves down into an image that was maybe 130-feet-by-70 feet... when the photos are posted at www.bodiescount.org (soon, I hope), you can look at them and understand that had we been able to recreate in DC what we created in San Francisco, we would have had an image that was... well, probably incendiary... there were perhaps thirty factors that needed to work out for that incendiary image to have been created, and every single one of them worked out except for one... and that was the crowd...
the last three things I needed to happen today were 1) sufficient volunteer help to get the image down quickly, 2) to be ignored by the park police just long enough to get a photo of us all lying down, and 3) 940 bodies or so...
1) we managed to get enough volunteers to get the image down in pretty good time...
2) the park police NEVER came around... after the morning event we left the ropes in place, stretched out over their full 410-by-100 feet area, and four of us went out for lunch, regrouped, came back in the afternoon, sent the photographer up into the Washington Monument again, and again tried to rally a crowd... hell, the ropes were still in place, the parade was now ending, people were streaming past us by the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and still we couldn't corral a crowd... five and a half hours after we laid the ropes down, we picked them up again and called it a day... not once did we have any sort of visit from any branch of officialdom -- and the possibility of this, of the police arriving and shutting us down even as we were getting started... this possibility has haunted me for days... in fact, part of my strategy in this event was to wait until the last moment to send out email blasts, as, having no permit, I was afraid of alerting the authorities to the plan (seems nutty now)... if I had sent out my emails three days ago, or a week ago, instead of 24 hours ahead of time... well, i'd be typing a completely different story right now
3) 940 bodies -- this was the thing I was least concerned with, most confident about... I knew there would be tens of thousands of people on the Mall today, all of them desperately wanting to see our president sent back to his ranch, and the fact that i was only able to get the news out to a tiny fraction of them, or chose the wrong time for the event, or sent out my emails too late, or whatever factor or factors conspired to give us such a weak image compared with the image from San Francisco... well, I hope to find a way to take some wisdom from this day and carry it forward with me in this project... one thing I think I've learned, and it's probably a lesson every politician has learned the hard way once upon a time: DON"T EVER TAKE PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY YOUR CONSTITUENCY, FOR GRANTED!
When you do see the photos, and think about what might have been, you will undoubtedly understand my anguish...
And, as alway, thanks for your support and good wishes,
brad
you gotta believe me, I had incredible FUN today, but while fun, for me, is indeed a very nice byproduct of this effort we're all involved with, it is NOT what I'm after...
and as i drop off to bed, exhausted, after a day that was exhilarating as well as fun, i am feeling a deep sense of loss... only 200 people or so showed up this morning, and although I am happy and satisfied to accept that result for what it was (and I absolutely value each of the people who DID show up), i am acutely aware of the overwhelming and certain knowledge of the ENORMOUS opportunity that was missed today... after the 200 of us did an hour of phone tree work, trying to rally more numbers, and after finally conceding to ourselves that we weren't going to get those numbers, we abandoned the idea of trying to fill the 410-foot-by-100 foot image we'd outlined with ropes, and instead scrunched ourselves down into an image that was maybe 130-feet-by-70 feet... when the photos are posted at www.bodiescount.org (soon, I hope), you can look at them and understand that had we been able to recreate in DC what we created in San Francisco, we would have had an image that was... well, probably incendiary... there were perhaps thirty factors that needed to work out for that incendiary image to have been created, and every single one of them worked out except for one... and that was the crowd...
the last three things I needed to happen today were 1) sufficient volunteer help to get the image down quickly, 2) to be ignored by the park police just long enough to get a photo of us all lying down, and 3) 940 bodies or so...
1) we managed to get enough volunteers to get the image down in pretty good time...
2) the park police NEVER came around... after the morning event we left the ropes in place, stretched out over their full 410-by-100 feet area, and four of us went out for lunch, regrouped, came back in the afternoon, sent the photographer up into the Washington Monument again, and again tried to rally a crowd... hell, the ropes were still in place, the parade was now ending, people were streaming past us by the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and still we couldn't corral a crowd... five and a half hours after we laid the ropes down, we picked them up again and called it a day... not once did we have any sort of visit from any branch of officialdom -- and the possibility of this, of the police arriving and shutting us down even as we were getting started... this possibility has haunted me for days... in fact, part of my strategy in this event was to wait until the last moment to send out email blasts, as, having no permit, I was afraid of alerting the authorities to the plan (seems nutty now)... if I had sent out my emails three days ago, or a week ago, instead of 24 hours ahead of time... well, i'd be typing a completely different story right now
3) 940 bodies -- this was the thing I was least concerned with, most confident about... I knew there would be tens of thousands of people on the Mall today, all of them desperately wanting to see our president sent back to his ranch, and the fact that i was only able to get the news out to a tiny fraction of them, or chose the wrong time for the event, or sent out my emails too late, or whatever factor or factors conspired to give us such a weak image compared with the image from San Francisco... well, I hope to find a way to take some wisdom from this day and carry it forward with me in this project... one thing I think I've learned, and it's probably a lesson every politician has learned the hard way once upon a time: DON"T EVER TAKE PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY YOUR CONSTITUENCY, FOR GRANTED!
When you do see the photos, and think about what might have been, you will undoubtedly understand my anguish...
And, as alway, thanks for your support and good wishes,
brad
Whoa! What a day! Not the over-the-top success we were shooting for, but an exhilarating day in its own way. It’s 5:30 p.m. and I’m just getting back to my hotel room… gorgeous perfect weather, the site was a complete miracle, and my biggest fear (that the Park Police would run us off the minute we started to set up) never materialized (law enforcement never even sniffed at us). But the crowd… the crowd that I’d been so confident in, the 1,000 people I was sure we could siphon off from the huge group nearby… they didn’t materialize. We had 200. After an hour or so of phone-tree work, we decided to scrunch down into a smaller version of “IMPEACH!” Our photographer, David Kidd, directed us via cell phone from the top of the Washington Monument: “Make the “I” a little shorter…. Move that pile of clothes and things away from the exclamation mark… Give the “A” a point instead of having it square… Curve the ends of the “C” better…” Great spirit in the crowd, as at Ocean Beach, but we were all surprised and disappointed by lack of numbers. The photos (I saw one of them on David’s viewfinder) must look great, but they are not the “Wow” images from Ocean Beach. It wasn’t a flop at all, but it wasn’t the knockout I was hoping for. Still, you take what you get, and you go on… I gotta say this, though: No matter the result, days like the one I just had… I’m not sure a guy should be allowed to have this much FUN!
Photos should go up on website – www.bodiescount.org -- within a few hours, I’m told…
More later…
All for now…
Thank you for all your support and interest,
brad
…Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1…
Photos should go up on website – www.bodiescount.org -- within a few hours, I’m told…
More later…
All for now…
Thank you for all your support and interest,
brad
…Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1…
Friday, January 26, 2007
I'm in DC... I've found a perfect spot... please forward this far and wide...
IMPEACH FLASHMOB -- SATURDAY, JAN 27, 11:50 a.m., National Mall, Washington DC
(Gather on sidewalk, Monument side of 14th Street, at the National Mall, by 11:50 a.m.)
On Saturday, Jan 6 -- just three weeks ago -- 1,000 people lay down on the beach in San Francisco and with their bodies spelled out the message “IMPEACH!” in 100-foot letters. The story and photos (with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background) went worldwide – front page of the Christian Science Monitor.
On Saturday, Jan 27, we are going to repeat the event here in Washington on the National Mall at noon. Please come and be part of this historic event -- meet at 11:50 a.m. just east of the Washington Monument – specifically, on the sidewalk on the Monument side of 14th Street. A photographer at the top of the Washington Monument will take a picture of 1,000 of us lying down in the grass, spelling out “IMPEACH!” with the Capital Dome in the background. Please come – bring anyone and everyone you can.
We need 1,000 people to fill the lettering, but can accommodate thousands more. It will be a bang-bang affair –- no more than 15 minutes from start to finish. If we pull this off, it will be huge (possibly NY Times, Washington Post, etc…) and it will be historic. Don’t be late -- arrive by 11:50 a.m., look for volunteers handing out flyers with directions, follow the flyer’s directions and also the voice commands of the nearby volunteers. Stay off the grass, keep to the sidewalk, until the ropes that outline the lettering are in place. At 12 o’clock sharp, if all goes as planned, you will see a volunteer in the middle of the crowd raise a green flag. Walk slowly please into the lettering that you will see outlined in ropes and lie down (it’s a good idea, but not necessary, to bring a small tarp or blanket to lie down on), and wait until you see the red flag indicating that the photographers up in the Monument have gotten what they need, and that the event is over.
Volunteers Needed - If you can volunteer to help out with this event, please come to a meeting in the “Federal Room” at the Hotel Washington (515, 15th Street@ Pennsylvania Ave.), 7-9 pm Friday night, Jan 26th. Or call Brad Newsham at 415-305-8294.
THANK YOU! Please send this to anyone you know who is in Washington this weekend...!
(Situation is set, but fluid. For current updates call 510-277-5241)
IMPEACH FLASHMOB -- SATURDAY, JAN 27, 11:50 a.m., National Mall, Washington DC
(Gather on sidewalk, Monument side of 14th Street, at the National Mall, by 11:50 a.m.)
On Saturday, Jan 6 -- just three weeks ago -- 1,000 people lay down on the beach in San Francisco and with their bodies spelled out the message “IMPEACH!” in 100-foot letters. The story and photos (with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background) went worldwide – front page of the Christian Science Monitor.
On Saturday, Jan 27, we are going to repeat the event here in Washington on the National Mall at noon. Please come and be part of this historic event -- meet at 11:50 a.m. just east of the Washington Monument – specifically, on the sidewalk on the Monument side of 14th Street. A photographer at the top of the Washington Monument will take a picture of 1,000 of us lying down in the grass, spelling out “IMPEACH!” with the Capital Dome in the background. Please come – bring anyone and everyone you can.
We need 1,000 people to fill the lettering, but can accommodate thousands more. It will be a bang-bang affair –- no more than 15 minutes from start to finish. If we pull this off, it will be huge (possibly NY Times, Washington Post, etc…) and it will be historic. Don’t be late -- arrive by 11:50 a.m., look for volunteers handing out flyers with directions, follow the flyer’s directions and also the voice commands of the nearby volunteers. Stay off the grass, keep to the sidewalk, until the ropes that outline the lettering are in place. At 12 o’clock sharp, if all goes as planned, you will see a volunteer in the middle of the crowd raise a green flag. Walk slowly please into the lettering that you will see outlined in ropes and lie down (it’s a good idea, but not necessary, to bring a small tarp or blanket to lie down on), and wait until you see the red flag indicating that the photographers up in the Monument have gotten what they need, and that the event is over.
Volunteers Needed - If you can volunteer to help out with this event, please come to a meeting in the “Federal Room” at the Hotel Washington (515, 15th Street@ Pennsylvania Ave.), 7-9 pm Friday night, Jan 26th. Or call Brad Newsham at 415-305-8294.
THANK YOU! Please send this to anyone you know who is in Washington this weekend...!
(Situation is set, but fluid. For current updates call 510-277-5241)
Thursday, January 25, 2007
I'm In DC now... I think the site is going to work out fine... it's on the Mall, between the Washington Monument and the Capitol... time will be somewhere in the 10:30 to noon slot, I THINK... have to make a few calls and some visual observations in the morning... I'm in the Hotel Washington at 515 15th St... will be in lobby (or a meeting room if I can get one) at 7 pm Friday, looking to meet with volunteers... need a BUNCH of volunteers... please email me or call me if you can volunteer...
thanks,
brad...
newsham@mac.com
415-305-8294
(i think this may just work...)
thanks,
brad...
newsham@mac.com
415-305-8294
(i think this may just work...)
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
1. REVOLUTION IN A BOX
2. WISDOM FROM A SURGEON
3. MALL IMPEACH HAS ITS OWN PHONE NUMBER (415) 902-LUSH
4. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED EARLY SATURDAY ON MALL
5. POSSIBLE VOLUNTEER MEETING ON FRIDAY NIGHT
6. NO INSURANCE... YET!
1. REVOLUTION IN A BOX: I spent Wednesday getting my hardware in order for Thursday’s trip to Washington, D.C., and for Saturday’s attempt at what I've been callling "Mall Impeach" (JUST NOW I recognize that a speedily uttered "IMPEACH MALL" has a certain ring to it! but it's too late to fiddle, and I'm not packed). Three people showed up to help, and together, after a long day, we finally got everything into the box I’m taking with me on the plane – “Revolution in a Box” I call it.
Our creation is a pretty tricky and complicated piece of work (lots of ropes and knots) and I’m NOT AT ALL sure that this event is going to come off – there are still about seven or eight unsettled factors, any one of which might doom it, but I’m going for it. I’m emotionally prepared for failure. Any success, even partial, will be considered a bonus -- as well as a learning experience to be put to use during the upcoming “Plan”. BUT I am not at all convinced this CAN’T come off! We shall see… And soon…
2. WISDOM FROM A SURGEON: All little tidits of knowledge can be stored away for future use, and I took note of one worth-noting, worth-saving, worth-sharing tidbit today. One of today’s three volunteers was a retired vascular surgeon from my neighborhood, Bob Davis (the people who’ve been showing up to help have been INCREDIBLE people – Bob’s been the only two-timer so far). Bob kept plugging for making everything as simple and as uncomplicated as possible. Saturday’s event may have to take place in a narrow window of time (I believe the lettering can be put in place in about three minutes if all goes right) and so we certainly don’t want anything confusing. Bob said, “Make everything as clear as possible. When you’re amputating a right leg, you write a great big “NO” on the left leg, and you write a great big “YES” on the right leg. Make everything as clear as possible.” And that became our rallying principle for the day. And for Mall Impeach… (Or Impeach Mall...)
3. PHONE NUMBER – (415) 902-LUSH (5874): Mall Impeach has it’s own outgoing-message-ONLY phone number. Right now, on Wednesday night, I am aiming at noon on Saturday as the TIME for the event, but that’s NOT certain. The LOCATION is definitely uncertain, but I’m thinking somewhere on the Mall, probably to the east side of the Washington Monument, but that may easily change. I’ll be in DC on Friday, scouting around. As soon as any information about time/place/situation/needs becomes known, I’ll change the outgoing message on the phone number. By 9 a.m. Saturday morning I should have clear instructions in place. (415) 902-LUSH (5874) My personal cell phone will probably be very busy (it never stops ringing for long any more), so it’s best to keep updated via (415) 902-LUSH (5874).
4. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED EARLY SATURDAY ON MALL: One of the tasks of this event calls for 7-8 volunteers to be on the Mall by no later than 7:15 a.m. on Saturday morning. You will be there for approximately one and a half hours, and the weather forecast is for very cold, and you will probably be standing around quite a bit, but this task is CRUCIAL to the event. My friend Heather Muchow is in charge of this task. If you can help, please email Heather at (I don’t want to have Heather’s email address compromised, so you’ll have to figure this out) heather underscore muchow at yahoo.com. Or phone her at (Nine-One-Seven) 689-8267.
5. POSSIBLE VOLUNTEER MEETING ON FRIDAY NIGHT: On the flight Thursday I'm going to do some figuring and some prep work, and after my day of scouting in DC on Friday it may seem like a good idea to have a volunteers meeting on Friday night. I may need up to a couple of hundred volunteers to help pull this thing off, and the more they know in advance, the smoother everything will go. I don't know where or when (or even IF) that meeting will be right now, but as soon as I do know, I'll put a message on the phone number. (415) 902-LUSH (5874).
6. NO INSURANCE... YET! If you're one of the people still in the storefront insurance mix, or if you know someone who SHOULD be, please... This WILL happen... I'm just not sure how yet. But I'll start dealing with that next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Hope to see you in DC...
If you're not coming, I hope you find a peace march near you (the biggest in several years in SF takes place Saturday)... and whatever the case, please wish us luck in DC... And, yes, I know that you of course DO!
All the very best,
brad
...... Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1....
2. WISDOM FROM A SURGEON
3. MALL IMPEACH HAS ITS OWN PHONE NUMBER (415) 902-LUSH
4. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED EARLY SATURDAY ON MALL
5. POSSIBLE VOLUNTEER MEETING ON FRIDAY NIGHT
6. NO INSURANCE... YET!
1. REVOLUTION IN A BOX: I spent Wednesday getting my hardware in order for Thursday’s trip to Washington, D.C., and for Saturday’s attempt at what I've been callling "Mall Impeach" (JUST NOW I recognize that a speedily uttered "IMPEACH MALL" has a certain ring to it! but it's too late to fiddle, and I'm not packed). Three people showed up to help, and together, after a long day, we finally got everything into the box I’m taking with me on the plane – “Revolution in a Box” I call it.
Our creation is a pretty tricky and complicated piece of work (lots of ropes and knots) and I’m NOT AT ALL sure that this event is going to come off – there are still about seven or eight unsettled factors, any one of which might doom it, but I’m going for it. I’m emotionally prepared for failure. Any success, even partial, will be considered a bonus -- as well as a learning experience to be put to use during the upcoming “Plan”. BUT I am not at all convinced this CAN’T come off! We shall see… And soon…
2. WISDOM FROM A SURGEON: All little tidits of knowledge can be stored away for future use, and I took note of one worth-noting, worth-saving, worth-sharing tidbit today. One of today’s three volunteers was a retired vascular surgeon from my neighborhood, Bob Davis (the people who’ve been showing up to help have been INCREDIBLE people – Bob’s been the only two-timer so far). Bob kept plugging for making everything as simple and as uncomplicated as possible. Saturday’s event may have to take place in a narrow window of time (I believe the lettering can be put in place in about three minutes if all goes right) and so we certainly don’t want anything confusing. Bob said, “Make everything as clear as possible. When you’re amputating a right leg, you write a great big “NO” on the left leg, and you write a great big “YES” on the right leg. Make everything as clear as possible.” And that became our rallying principle for the day. And for Mall Impeach… (Or Impeach Mall...)
3. PHONE NUMBER – (415) 902-LUSH (5874): Mall Impeach has it’s own outgoing-message-ONLY phone number. Right now, on Wednesday night, I am aiming at noon on Saturday as the TIME for the event, but that’s NOT certain. The LOCATION is definitely uncertain, but I’m thinking somewhere on the Mall, probably to the east side of the Washington Monument, but that may easily change. I’ll be in DC on Friday, scouting around. As soon as any information about time/place/situation/needs becomes known, I’ll change the outgoing message on the phone number. By 9 a.m. Saturday morning I should have clear instructions in place. (415) 902-LUSH (5874) My personal cell phone will probably be very busy (it never stops ringing for long any more), so it’s best to keep updated via (415) 902-LUSH (5874).
4. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED EARLY SATURDAY ON MALL: One of the tasks of this event calls for 7-8 volunteers to be on the Mall by no later than 7:15 a.m. on Saturday morning. You will be there for approximately one and a half hours, and the weather forecast is for very cold, and you will probably be standing around quite a bit, but this task is CRUCIAL to the event. My friend Heather Muchow is in charge of this task. If you can help, please email Heather at (I don’t want to have Heather’s email address compromised, so you’ll have to figure this out) heather underscore muchow at yahoo.com. Or phone her at (Nine-One-Seven) 689-8267.
5. POSSIBLE VOLUNTEER MEETING ON FRIDAY NIGHT: On the flight Thursday I'm going to do some figuring and some prep work, and after my day of scouting in DC on Friday it may seem like a good idea to have a volunteers meeting on Friday night. I may need up to a couple of hundred volunteers to help pull this thing off, and the more they know in advance, the smoother everything will go. I don't know where or when (or even IF) that meeting will be right now, but as soon as I do know, I'll put a message on the phone number. (415) 902-LUSH (5874).
6. NO INSURANCE... YET! If you're one of the people still in the storefront insurance mix, or if you know someone who SHOULD be, please... This WILL happen... I'm just not sure how yet. But I'll start dealing with that next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Hope to see you in DC...
If you're not coming, I hope you find a peace march near you (the biggest in several years in SF takes place Saturday)... and whatever the case, please wish us luck in DC... And, yes, I know that you of course DO!
All the very best,
brad
...... Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1....
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
At the Beach Impeach event I met a man named Russ who looked to be somewhere around my age (55). Russ showed up early wearing a red sweatshirt and quietly went about helping me get the lettering etched into the sand. Afterwards, through email, I came to know that the red sweatshirt belongs to Russ' adult son, who is in Iraq, "on his second tour of duty... a machine gunner on a humvee... 25 miles north of Baghdad." I asked Russ how that is for him, having a son over there. Russ said it's hard, especially since his son is "losing faith in his government... When he enlisted, he was pretty gung ho, going to retire from the army and all that..." But now, Russ says, his son has begun to "understand the brainwashing that he's been through... he's beginning to see things as they really are." Russ says: "So, for me, lying on the beach, carrying a sign in a parade, anything else I can do, helps to keep me busy and helps to keep me from losing my mind from worry."
Russ says his son communicates with him fairly regularly and easily via telephone and email. I've got one child, a ten-year old daughter -- and Russ' situation... I can't even IMAGINE! A couple of days ago, when Russ and I were emailing (about our plans to meet up in Washington DC this weekend), I said, "Gotta ask -- how's your son?"
Russ replied: "I haven't heard from him in over three weeks. I'm beginning to get worried (more so than usual). He's stationed (in an area that) has been in the news lately as the site of a Blackhawk helicopter crash that killed 12 U.S. soldiers. And since October it's been a real 'hotbed of resistance' - daily attacks, car bombs, ambushes, etc. We have got to get these kids out of there!"
Amen, Russ! And the first step is to get this administration GONE BY APRIL 1... !
1. STOREFRONT INSURANCE: I'm shaking the tree as hard as I can. Something will fall. If you know someone who can help, please...
2. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I'm leaving in 36 hours. The Mall Impeach may come off, it may not, but I'm giving it the best I've got and right now I like the way it's looking. If you want to be part of it (Saturday, around noon, site uncertain) please send me your name, phone #, and email at newsham@mac.com.
3. NEED HELP IN OAKLAND ON WEDNESDAY MORNING -- I'm putting the finishing touches on my hardware for DC, and I'm going to need some help Wednesday morning at 10:30, in Oakland, near Lake Merritt. Near the Grand Lake Theater, in fact. If you can come: newsham@mac.com -- 415-305-8294.
Bush and Cheney... GONE BY APRIL 1....
Russ says his son communicates with him fairly regularly and easily via telephone and email. I've got one child, a ten-year old daughter -- and Russ' situation... I can't even IMAGINE! A couple of days ago, when Russ and I were emailing (about our plans to meet up in Washington DC this weekend), I said, "Gotta ask -- how's your son?"
Russ replied: "I haven't heard from him in over three weeks. I'm beginning to get worried (more so than usual). He's stationed (in an area that) has been in the news lately as the site of a Blackhawk helicopter crash that killed 12 U.S. soldiers. And since October it's been a real 'hotbed of resistance' - daily attacks, car bombs, ambushes, etc. We have got to get these kids out of there!"
Amen, Russ! And the first step is to get this administration GONE BY APRIL 1... !
1. STOREFRONT INSURANCE: I'm shaking the tree as hard as I can. Something will fall. If you know someone who can help, please...
2. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I'm leaving in 36 hours. The Mall Impeach may come off, it may not, but I'm giving it the best I've got and right now I like the way it's looking. If you want to be part of it (Saturday, around noon, site uncertain) please send me your name, phone #, and email at newsham@mac.com.
3. NEED HELP IN OAKLAND ON WEDNESDAY MORNING -- I'm putting the finishing touches on my hardware for DC, and I'm going to need some help Wednesday morning at 10:30, in Oakland, near Lake Merritt. Near the Grand Lake Theater, in fact. If you can come: newsham@mac.com -- 415-305-8294.
Bush and Cheney... GONE BY APRIL 1....
Monday, January 22, 2007
1. STOREFRONT
2. WASHINGTON, D.C.
3. NEED HELP IN OAKLAND ON WEDNESDAY
4. POSTCARDS
5. "THE PLAN"
6. MAILING LIST
BUT FIRST: Can you believe the feeling in the country today compared to three months ago? Impeachment in the air. President on the run. In late October I was telling friends of mine, "He's gone by Christmas!" They scoffed, yawned, guffawed. And, yes, he's still here. Yes, I was wrong. But lately I haven't heard anyone laughing, not even one person, when I say, "Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1."
I'm proud to be a part of this historic taking back of our country. I'm a little drop of water in a pot that's coming full boil. Here's what's been happening in the molecules of my newly busy, newly heated-up life:
1. STOREFRONT -- Still lacking insurance. It's coming from somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Storefront sitting there empty, just waiting for us. Stay tuned. Yesterday I picked up from the printer two enormous blowups of John Montgomery's incredible Beach photos -- five feet by four feet each -- and they are breathtaking. If you were at the Beach Event, you can look at these posters and see yourself lying in the sand. Not your facial expression, but you can identify your clothes. And these'll be hanging in the storefront by February 1, I do intend.
2. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I'm leaving on Thursday. Organizers are predicting 100,000 to 500,000 protestors for the big march on Saturday. I'm planning to pull off on the Mall what we did on the Beach. Five days in advance, Mall Impeach feels about as iffy as Beach Impeach felt five days in advance. All the same variables to nail down, plus a few more, plus the weather, and only a few days to travel 3,000 miles to unfamiliar territory. But occasionally in life we all feel the wind at our backs, and the wind has definitely been at my back recently, and I'm just going to point myself in the direction I want to go and let this wind blow me there...
3. NEED HELP IN OAKLAND ON WEDNESDAY -- Last Friday an incredibly talented crew (no kidding!) of five showed up at Ocean Beach and we accomplished quite a bit (we also, really, had a wonderful time). I'm going to need some help again Wednesday morning, this time in Oakland, near Lake Merritt. If you're interested in coming: newsham@mac.com -- 415-305-8294.
4. POSTCARDS -- I've now mailed postcards to everyone who registered for the Beach event. The last batch went out in today's mail. If you registered with your real name and address yours should arrive within a couple of days.
5. "THE PLAN" -- It's still cooking, very nicely, but it's too early to take out of the oven. I'd share it with you personally if you were here, but I'm not ready to put it 'out there' just yet.
6. MAILING LIST -- Please sign up for my new -- all impeachment, all the time -- email list. Go to www.beachimpeach.org, hit the "email list" bar at top of page, follow instructions. Will take you fifteen seconds. You'll get updates to your inbox, and I promise to not flood it.
Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1....
2. WASHINGTON, D.C.
3. NEED HELP IN OAKLAND ON WEDNESDAY
4. POSTCARDS
5. "THE PLAN"
6. MAILING LIST
BUT FIRST: Can you believe the feeling in the country today compared to three months ago? Impeachment in the air. President on the run. In late October I was telling friends of mine, "He's gone by Christmas!" They scoffed, yawned, guffawed. And, yes, he's still here. Yes, I was wrong. But lately I haven't heard anyone laughing, not even one person, when I say, "Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1."
I'm proud to be a part of this historic taking back of our country. I'm a little drop of water in a pot that's coming full boil. Here's what's been happening in the molecules of my newly busy, newly heated-up life:
1. STOREFRONT -- Still lacking insurance. It's coming from somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Storefront sitting there empty, just waiting for us. Stay tuned. Yesterday I picked up from the printer two enormous blowups of John Montgomery's incredible Beach photos -- five feet by four feet each -- and they are breathtaking. If you were at the Beach Event, you can look at these posters and see yourself lying in the sand. Not your facial expression, but you can identify your clothes. And these'll be hanging in the storefront by February 1, I do intend.
2. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I'm leaving on Thursday. Organizers are predicting 100,000 to 500,000 protestors for the big march on Saturday. I'm planning to pull off on the Mall what we did on the Beach. Five days in advance, Mall Impeach feels about as iffy as Beach Impeach felt five days in advance. All the same variables to nail down, plus a few more, plus the weather, and only a few days to travel 3,000 miles to unfamiliar territory. But occasionally in life we all feel the wind at our backs, and the wind has definitely been at my back recently, and I'm just going to point myself in the direction I want to go and let this wind blow me there...
3. NEED HELP IN OAKLAND ON WEDNESDAY -- Last Friday an incredibly talented crew (no kidding!) of five showed up at Ocean Beach and we accomplished quite a bit (we also, really, had a wonderful time). I'm going to need some help again Wednesday morning, this time in Oakland, near Lake Merritt. If you're interested in coming: newsham@mac.com -- 415-305-8294.
4. POSTCARDS -- I've now mailed postcards to everyone who registered for the Beach event. The last batch went out in today's mail. If you registered with your real name and address yours should arrive within a couple of days.
5. "THE PLAN" -- It's still cooking, very nicely, but it's too early to take out of the oven. I'd share it with you personally if you were here, but I'm not ready to put it 'out there' just yet.
6. MAILING LIST -- Please sign up for my new -- all impeachment, all the time -- email list. Go to www.beachimpeach.org, hit the "email list" bar at top of page, follow instructions. Will take you fifteen seconds. You'll get updates to your inbox, and I promise to not flood it.
Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1....
Friday, January 19, 2007
1. FRONT PAGE -- CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR!
2. NEW OPT-IN EMAIL LIST
3. STOREFRONT INSURANCE
4. WASHINGTON DC NEXT WEEKEND (JOIN ME)
5. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FRIDAY, JAN 19 – OCEAN BEACH
6. THE “PLAN”
Dear Everyone,
1. FRONT PAGE -- CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR! -- The lead photo on today’s Christian Science Monitor website -- www.csmonitor.com -- was taken from “our” Beach Impeach helicopter! “IMPEACH!” The Monitor is one of the world’s most respected news organizations -- articles and images from its pages are widely circulated, and the staffs of every Representative and Senator in the US Congress regularly read the Monitor, as do every major and most of the world’s minor media outfits. This is incredible exposure for the “I” word. I could not be more pleased. Are not anything and everything possible?
The photo has been up since about 3:30 Thursday afternoon and will stay there until, I believe, 3:30 Sunday afternoon. It will probably be seen by...
millions? The story accompanying the photo is also running on the front page of the Friday, Jan 19, print edition of the Monitor -- the photo is on page 4, I’m told. I’ve been referring to John Montgomery’s incredible photos as “The Shots Seen Round The World” -- and if it was hyperbole before, it ain’t no more!
2. NEW OPT-IN EMAIL LIST: If you want to hear from me regarding my plans and actions and news and writing, please take 15 seconds and register for the new email list I’ve started at www.bodiescount.org. Hit the “email list” bar at the top of the page and enter your email address. It’s that easy. It’s also that easy to unsubscribe. I promise I’ll TRY to not send more than one email a day. And I will not share your email address with anyone ever.
3. STOREFRONT INSURANCE – In order to secure a lease until April 1 on the PERFECT storefront that I have found (it is five steps from the front door of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland) I still need to find a legal entity – a business, an LLC, a non-profit, SOME group with bylaws and legal standing and all that good stuff -- to be the named party on the insurance policy I need to purchase, and to be the named party on the lease itself. If you know anyone who can step up here, please let me know. I will handle all the money (insurance, rent, utilities, everything) -- it won’t cost the named party a penny and will probably pay off for them in all sorts of good karma and priceless publicity. I believe that sooner rather than later, the world’s media will beat its way to the door of a storefront rented by a San Francisco cab driver who took $20,000 out of his savings yesterday and told his boss not to expect to see him for ten weeks and who is throwing every single ounce of himself (since the inspiration for Beach Impeach hit me, my weight has dropped from 181 to 165.5 lbs) into seeing Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1. Some things in life you HAVE to do alone, and some things in life you CAN’T do alone. In advance, I suspected that if I’d been working with a committee, Beach Impeach would never have come off -- I HAD to organize it alone. But this next thing -- I CAN’T do it alone. At least not THIS part of it. I NEED someone to step forward and take this on! Please. There’s gotta be someone on this list who knows someone who wants to have a little fun… no? Again, my cell phone: 415-305-TAXI (8294). I know someone’s out there, headed my way… I’m getting darned curious to see who it’s gonna be! If you knew how many emails I’ve had, how many calls I’ve had, how many friends have stopped me to say, “Oh, my god – I WISH I HAD KNOWN about that thing down at the beach…!” Well, as soon as this lease is signed, I’m expecting the same sort of thing: “Oh, WE”D HAVE DONE THAT IN A MINUTE, IF WE’D KNOWN ABOUT IT.”
So, who’s it gonna be?
4. WASHINGTON, DC, NEXT WEEKEND -- United for Peace and Justice, an activist coalition of 1500 groups, is organizing a huge march on Washington next weekend, and yesterday I bought my airplane ticket. I am going to do my best to pull off, somewhere on the Mall, what we pulled off on the beach on January 6. Are you going to DC? Let me know, and I’ll try to keep you in the loop. I haven’t got this one organized yet – don’t have a permit, don’t have sand, haven’t figured it out, but I’m going for it... So if you’re there, and you suddenly see a lot of people start to lie down on the grass, well, figure it out, and do what comes naturally…
5. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED ON FRIDAY, JAN 19 -- OCEAN BEACH: The first thing I’ll need to do to make Washington happen, is to go down to Ocean Beach in a few hours and work something out in the sand. I could use a few able-bodied people for a few hours starting at 10 a.m. Same spot… If you can make it, please… My cell: 415-305-8294.
6. “THE PLAN” -- It’s coming together quite nicely, I think, but I’m still not ready to share it quite this… publicly? But no one who’s heard it so far has scoffed… Stay tuned. Join my other email list -- over at www.beachimpeach.org.
........Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1
2. NEW OPT-IN EMAIL LIST
3. STOREFRONT INSURANCE
4. WASHINGTON DC NEXT WEEKEND (JOIN ME)
5. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FRIDAY, JAN 19 – OCEAN BEACH
6. THE “PLAN”
Dear Everyone,
1. FRONT PAGE -- CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR! -- The lead photo on today’s Christian Science Monitor website -- www.csmonitor.com -- was taken from “our” Beach Impeach helicopter! “IMPEACH!” The Monitor is one of the world’s most respected news organizations -- articles and images from its pages are widely circulated, and the staffs of every Representative and Senator in the US Congress regularly read the Monitor, as do every major and most of the world’s minor media outfits. This is incredible exposure for the “I” word. I could not be more pleased. Are not anything and everything possible?
The photo has been up since about 3:30 Thursday afternoon and will stay there until, I believe, 3:30 Sunday afternoon. It will probably be seen by...
millions? The story accompanying the photo is also running on the front page of the Friday, Jan 19, print edition of the Monitor -- the photo is on page 4, I’m told. I’ve been referring to John Montgomery’s incredible photos as “The Shots Seen Round The World” -- and if it was hyperbole before, it ain’t no more!
2. NEW OPT-IN EMAIL LIST: If you want to hear from me regarding my plans and actions and news and writing, please take 15 seconds and register for the new email list I’ve started at www.bodiescount.org. Hit the “email list” bar at the top of the page and enter your email address. It’s that easy. It’s also that easy to unsubscribe. I promise I’ll TRY to not send more than one email a day. And I will not share your email address with anyone ever.
3. STOREFRONT INSURANCE – In order to secure a lease until April 1 on the PERFECT storefront that I have found (it is five steps from the front door of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland) I still need to find a legal entity – a business, an LLC, a non-profit, SOME group with bylaws and legal standing and all that good stuff -- to be the named party on the insurance policy I need to purchase, and to be the named party on the lease itself. If you know anyone who can step up here, please let me know. I will handle all the money (insurance, rent, utilities, everything) -- it won’t cost the named party a penny and will probably pay off for them in all sorts of good karma and priceless publicity. I believe that sooner rather than later, the world’s media will beat its way to the door of a storefront rented by a San Francisco cab driver who took $20,000 out of his savings yesterday and told his boss not to expect to see him for ten weeks and who is throwing every single ounce of himself (since the inspiration for Beach Impeach hit me, my weight has dropped from 181 to 165.5 lbs) into seeing Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1. Some things in life you HAVE to do alone, and some things in life you CAN’T do alone. In advance, I suspected that if I’d been working with a committee, Beach Impeach would never have come off -- I HAD to organize it alone. But this next thing -- I CAN’T do it alone. At least not THIS part of it. I NEED someone to step forward and take this on! Please. There’s gotta be someone on this list who knows someone who wants to have a little fun… no? Again, my cell phone: 415-305-TAXI (8294). I know someone’s out there, headed my way… I’m getting darned curious to see who it’s gonna be! If you knew how many emails I’ve had, how many calls I’ve had, how many friends have stopped me to say, “Oh, my god – I WISH I HAD KNOWN about that thing down at the beach…!” Well, as soon as this lease is signed, I’m expecting the same sort of thing: “Oh, WE”D HAVE DONE THAT IN A MINUTE, IF WE’D KNOWN ABOUT IT.”
So, who’s it gonna be?
4. WASHINGTON, DC, NEXT WEEKEND -- United for Peace and Justice, an activist coalition of 1500 groups, is organizing a huge march on Washington next weekend, and yesterday I bought my airplane ticket. I am going to do my best to pull off, somewhere on the Mall, what we pulled off on the beach on January 6. Are you going to DC? Let me know, and I’ll try to keep you in the loop. I haven’t got this one organized yet – don’t have a permit, don’t have sand, haven’t figured it out, but I’m going for it... So if you’re there, and you suddenly see a lot of people start to lie down on the grass, well, figure it out, and do what comes naturally…
5. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED ON FRIDAY, JAN 19 -- OCEAN BEACH: The first thing I’ll need to do to make Washington happen, is to go down to Ocean Beach in a few hours and work something out in the sand. I could use a few able-bodied people for a few hours starting at 10 a.m. Same spot… If you can make it, please… My cell: 415-305-8294.
6. “THE PLAN” -- It’s coming together quite nicely, I think, but I’m still not ready to share it quite this… publicly? But no one who’s heard it so far has scoffed… Stay tuned. Join my other email list -- over at www.beachimpeach.org.
........Bush and Cheney GONE BY APRIL 1
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
1. NEED HELP WITH INSURANCE
2. NEED HELPERS AT BEACH ON FRIDAY
3. POSTCARDS
4. GOING TO DC NEXT WEEK FOR PEACE RALLY
1. The biggest problem facing me today is that in order to get the liability insurance (I have a carrier willing to sell it to me) that will allow me to complete the lease and take possession of the storefront (it is just five steps from the front door of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland -- it is PERFECT), I need a legal entity, a business, an LLC, a non-profit group, someone who will sign the insurance policy and lease… I will be resposible for all rent, utilties, insurance payments, etc, but the insurer requires an official legal entity, other than an individual, to be the named party. Anyone? Anyone know an impeachment-friendly group with legal status -- bylaws, incorporation, that sort of stuff -- willing to step in here?
2. I'm planning to go down to Ocean Beach Friday, Jan 19, by 10 a.m., and spend the day putting the message IMPEACH! into the sand again, and then creating a contraption of ropes and twine that will allow me to carry out the rest of the Plan which I have not yet shared publicly, and which I intend will see Bush and Cheney out the door, GONE BY APRIL 1. FIve or six able-bodied, eager helpers would be a dream. Three to five hours. I'll buy lunch. Email or call, please. newsham@mac.com 415-305-8294
3. I've filled out about 125 postcards, which takes me up through the Ds on the alphabetical volunteers list. If you registered for the event, yours should be on the way soon.
4. I've bought a ticket to Washington DC for next weekend's big peace rally. I'm hearing the number 100,000 going around. I'm excited.
G'night
2. NEED HELPERS AT BEACH ON FRIDAY
3. POSTCARDS
4. GOING TO DC NEXT WEEK FOR PEACE RALLY
1. The biggest problem facing me today is that in order to get the liability insurance (I have a carrier willing to sell it to me) that will allow me to complete the lease and take possession of the storefront (it is just five steps from the front door of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland -- it is PERFECT), I need a legal entity, a business, an LLC, a non-profit group, someone who will sign the insurance policy and lease… I will be resposible for all rent, utilties, insurance payments, etc, but the insurer requires an official legal entity, other than an individual, to be the named party. Anyone? Anyone know an impeachment-friendly group with legal status -- bylaws, incorporation, that sort of stuff -- willing to step in here?
2. I'm planning to go down to Ocean Beach Friday, Jan 19, by 10 a.m., and spend the day putting the message IMPEACH! into the sand again, and then creating a contraption of ropes and twine that will allow me to carry out the rest of the Plan which I have not yet shared publicly, and which I intend will see Bush and Cheney out the door, GONE BY APRIL 1. FIve or six able-bodied, eager helpers would be a dream. Three to five hours. I'll buy lunch. Email or call, please. newsham@mac.com 415-305-8294
3. I've filled out about 125 postcards, which takes me up through the Ds on the alphabetical volunteers list. If you registered for the event, yours should be on the way soon.
4. I've bought a ticket to Washington DC for next weekend's big peace rally. I'm hearing the number 100,000 going around. I'm excited.
G'night
Monday, January 15, 2007
It's a good thing that I got (an almost shocking) 9 hours of sleep last night, as it was an ACTIVE day over here and I needed all my energy for it...
I can tell you about ONE of the big things that happened... The Impeachment Movement now has not only a killer visual or two, but in a matter of days will have a physical place, a storefront a mile from my home, where interested folks can drop in and say hello (and maybe send a postcard to their representative or senator or family and friends) between now and April 1, by which time Bush and Cheney will be gone. The landlord and I agreed on general terms today (it'll cost about $3,000 a month, including utilities and insurance) and as soon as the insurance is worked out, we'll sign a lease. By February 1, at the latest, you'll be invited to come see... US! Or at least ME! I'll be needing help on a lot of fronts very soon -- thanks for all the kind offers of help and support... I'll let you know REAL SOON exactly how you may help, but right now -- tonight! -- I need help with just one thing:
-- IF YOU KNOW OF A FREE SOFTWARE TOOL for creating and managing an opt-in email list, please send that information NOT to me, but to Chris Kula at oakland@bluebottle.com.
There's more going on, but that's it for tonight...
See you again... soon!
brad
I can tell you about ONE of the big things that happened... The Impeachment Movement now has not only a killer visual or two, but in a matter of days will have a physical place, a storefront a mile from my home, where interested folks can drop in and say hello (and maybe send a postcard to their representative or senator or family and friends) between now and April 1, by which time Bush and Cheney will be gone. The landlord and I agreed on general terms today (it'll cost about $3,000 a month, including utilities and insurance) and as soon as the insurance is worked out, we'll sign a lease. By February 1, at the latest, you'll be invited to come see... US! Or at least ME! I'll be needing help on a lot of fronts very soon -- thanks for all the kind offers of help and support... I'll let you know REAL SOON exactly how you may help, but right now -- tonight! -- I need help with just one thing:
-- IF YOU KNOW OF A FREE SOFTWARE TOOL for creating and managing an opt-in email list, please send that information NOT to me, but to Chris Kula at oakland@bluebottle.com.
There's more going on, but that's it for tonight...
See you again... soon!
brad
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Got nothing to report tonight -- actually, I'm just too tired -- but I hate to have had you come here and not get SOMETHING, so here's a piece I wrote for the Chronicle six years ago. Funny how it has become... relevant?... again...
Thanks for staying tuned... Have a great MLK holiday...
brad
TO OCEAN BEACH AND BEYOND
Before I moved to San Francisco 25 years ago, I lived for a time in Northern Idaho, four miles down a dirt road from a town of 300 people. Two friends and I had purchased 60 stunningly beautiful acres surrounded by mountains and lakes and, almost entirely, by national forest. Our land's centerpiece was a 20-acre meadow with two streams cutting across it. At the meadow's edge, beside one of the burbling streams, we built a log house. From our picture window we saw moose, cougar, deer, and the occasional bear stroll out of the woods to loll in our meadow. The land had a stillness, a quiet that touched something deep inside me, which, I told myself, was vital to my being.
The theory that three heterosexual 25-year-old males could indefinitely share a one-room cabin in the boondocks was, in our case, rather flamboyantly disproved, and before long I found myself living alone in the Haight-Ashbury, thirtyish, a wannabe writer making a living as a cab driver. I had packed up at the distant deadend of one of America's most remote dirt roads and had traveled to the very heart of one of its biggest cities. At first, I did indeed feel overwhelmed, but it wasn't long before I found the activity and the place - the sanctuary - that would allow me to forge my urban peace: a walk to catch the sunset at Ocean Beach.
Roughly three times a week (often more, rarely less) I would shut the door to whichever struggling-writer apartment I was living in, nod greetings to Haight Street's other regulars, stroll past the Booksmith (where I fantasized that I might someday give a reading), cross Stanyan, and fall through the city's trap door - into the great green arms of Golden Gate Park. Beyond Hippie Hill and the Children's Playground, the bang and muscle of the city would all but disappear, and so would I. A tiny opening in the woods past the tennis courts led to a faint path through the rhododendron dell, a path connected to a network of other faint paths, which, for the next three miles, allowed me to walk in near-bucolic solitude. Rarely did I encounter vehicles or even other walkers. A friend I invited on one of my walks dubbed me his "urban aborigine" and this was certainly my outback. I would skirt the Japanese Tea Garden, pass through the homeless encampments hidden in the tangle of trees below Stow Lake. In summer, I might gorge myself in the blackberry patches behind the baseball diamond. Once, in January, in the thick woods near the casting ponds, I planted a live Christmas tree that I'd finished with. Near the polo fields I often veered off to say mass at a personal shrine, the thicket where I curled into the fetal position three nights in a row while my first marriage was dying.
But the walk's highlight was always the emergence from the last grove of wind-bent Monterey cypress, to behold the wide, sandy plain of Ocean Beach in the evening light. After an hour-plus of bamboo, eucalyptus and redwood groves, sculpted lakes, and mowed meadows...here was this enormous, sprawling wild thing—the Pacific! As soon as I learned that fires were allowed here, I made the beach my living room; almost every party I've thrown over the past 25 years has started at dusk around a bonfire on Ocean Beach. From my spotless new picture window you can, on the right day, see the occasional seal lolling in the breakers, catch a wet-suited surfer in silhouette against a blood-red sun, or make out the Farallone Islands, 26 miles offshore. But just about any day, if you let yourself (and I do), you can see way beyond that—Hawaii for sure, perhaps bits of Japan and China, and, as often as not, the shimmering tips of the Himalayas. It's not exactly Idaho, but for me it's always been more than enough.
San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 2001
Thanks for staying tuned... Have a great MLK holiday...
brad
TO OCEAN BEACH AND BEYOND
Before I moved to San Francisco 25 years ago, I lived for a time in Northern Idaho, four miles down a dirt road from a town of 300 people. Two friends and I had purchased 60 stunningly beautiful acres surrounded by mountains and lakes and, almost entirely, by national forest. Our land's centerpiece was a 20-acre meadow with two streams cutting across it. At the meadow's edge, beside one of the burbling streams, we built a log house. From our picture window we saw moose, cougar, deer, and the occasional bear stroll out of the woods to loll in our meadow. The land had a stillness, a quiet that touched something deep inside me, which, I told myself, was vital to my being.
The theory that three heterosexual 25-year-old males could indefinitely share a one-room cabin in the boondocks was, in our case, rather flamboyantly disproved, and before long I found myself living alone in the Haight-Ashbury, thirtyish, a wannabe writer making a living as a cab driver. I had packed up at the distant deadend of one of America's most remote dirt roads and had traveled to the very heart of one of its biggest cities. At first, I did indeed feel overwhelmed, but it wasn't long before I found the activity and the place - the sanctuary - that would allow me to forge my urban peace: a walk to catch the sunset at Ocean Beach.
Roughly three times a week (often more, rarely less) I would shut the door to whichever struggling-writer apartment I was living in, nod greetings to Haight Street's other regulars, stroll past the Booksmith (where I fantasized that I might someday give a reading), cross Stanyan, and fall through the city's trap door - into the great green arms of Golden Gate Park. Beyond Hippie Hill and the Children's Playground, the bang and muscle of the city would all but disappear, and so would I. A tiny opening in the woods past the tennis courts led to a faint path through the rhododendron dell, a path connected to a network of other faint paths, which, for the next three miles, allowed me to walk in near-bucolic solitude. Rarely did I encounter vehicles or even other walkers. A friend I invited on one of my walks dubbed me his "urban aborigine" and this was certainly my outback. I would skirt the Japanese Tea Garden, pass through the homeless encampments hidden in the tangle of trees below Stow Lake. In summer, I might gorge myself in the blackberry patches behind the baseball diamond. Once, in January, in the thick woods near the casting ponds, I planted a live Christmas tree that I'd finished with. Near the polo fields I often veered off to say mass at a personal shrine, the thicket where I curled into the fetal position three nights in a row while my first marriage was dying.
But the walk's highlight was always the emergence from the last grove of wind-bent Monterey cypress, to behold the wide, sandy plain of Ocean Beach in the evening light. After an hour-plus of bamboo, eucalyptus and redwood groves, sculpted lakes, and mowed meadows...here was this enormous, sprawling wild thing—the Pacific! As soon as I learned that fires were allowed here, I made the beach my living room; almost every party I've thrown over the past 25 years has started at dusk around a bonfire on Ocean Beach. From my spotless new picture window you can, on the right day, see the occasional seal lolling in the breakers, catch a wet-suited surfer in silhouette against a blood-red sun, or make out the Farallone Islands, 26 miles offshore. But just about any day, if you let yourself (and I do), you can see way beyond that—Hawaii for sure, perhaps bits of Japan and China, and, as often as not, the shimmering tips of the Himalayas. It's not exactly Idaho, but for me it's always been more than enough.
San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 2001
Saturday, January 13, 2007
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13 -- ONE WEEK SINCE BEACH IMPEACH PROJECT
It's 11 pm and I'm driving my taxi tomorrow, so I'll keep this brief. (I'll also add, just below, something I wrote and that the SF Chronicle published several years ago, and which I find particularly relevant tonight). The things set in motion by Beach Impeach are creating ripples too complicated to explain, and to me, tonight at least, it seems almost obvious that Bush and Cheney can not stay in office much longer. The political world has changed dramatically in the past week. So many voices have risen against this administration, demanding change. If we keep the pressure up they are GONE BY APRIL 1. My action plan is coming together nicely, I think, and as soon as it's ready, I believe I'll post it here. Thank you for your support. G'night... brad
THE SPIRITUAL CENTER OF THE EARTH
By Brad Newsham
San Francisco Chronicle, November 21, 1999
ONE MORNING SEVERAL YEARS AGO, at a bus stop in front of the American Embassy in New Delhi, an Indian man wearing a turban and rubber flip-flops (plus what might once have been someone's draperies) asked me where I was from.
"Oh, how lucky you are!" he fairly sang, when I told him I was from San Francisco. "Everyone knows that San Francisco is the spiritual center of the world."
Really? This assertion would jolt any American who'd drifted to India seeking, well… something better.
"Oh, yes-yes," the India man said. "The Earth's spiritual center shifts every few hundred years or thousand maybe. It used to be in India, but now it is San Francisco. All our gurus are moving there to open ashrams."
My bus's arrival cut short our talk, but during the next couple of months I ran the man's thesis past several other Indians I met. Surprisingly, every one of them regarded my conversational tidbit as old news. All unquestioningly accepted San Francisco - not India, not Tibet, not Mecca or Jerusalem or Rome - as humankind's new spiritual center.
You are scoffing right now, of course, and so did I - initially. But that first night, when I asked the desk clerk at my hotel in New Delhi to define "spiritual center of the world," his response wiped the smirk right off my face. "Oh," he said, as matter of factly as if I'd asked directions to a chai shop, "that is simply the place where new ideas meet the least amount of resistance."
Voila! I have circled the globe four times, and if there is some place where new ideas meet less resistance than they do in San Francisco, I have neither seen nor heard of it. If you can't be what you want in San Francisco, you don't have a chance elsewhere.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS had differing ideas on the boundaries of the earth's spiritual center. Some said it was specifically limited to the area burned by the post-quake fire of 1906 - the purifying flames were said to have left behind an environment as fertile as the field in which Jack grew beanstalks. Most, however, included the entire Bay Area in their spiritual maps - although one woman in Calcutta drew hers from the tip of Baja to the tip of the Aleutians. Regardless, all agreed that spiritual San Francisco did not follow trends, but - like the San Andreas fault - unleashed movements. Harry Bridges seized the waterfront and galvanized the Labor movement. The first television was invented at the base of Telegraph Hill, unleashing whatever you call that. The United Nations convention was held and its charter was signed inside Herbst Theater. The beats, the hippies, and the Free Speech Movement burst from the hills and the bay as though they couldn't help themselves. When Jack Kerouac hit the road, a nation of readers took it as a given that he would wind up in North Beach.
THE MUSIC BLASTING out of San Francisco - the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin - forever changed the world - with help from Owsley's LSD. Seemingly overnight the idea that gays were human flourished in the Castro District, and Harvey Milk, the "Mayor of Castro Street," became America's first openly gay elected official. The American Indian Movement scored its biggest victory (since Custer, and before casinos) on Alcatraz. Oakland's Black Panthers awoke a complacent nation - some say two. And the human potential movement leapt naked and quivering from the hot tubs at Esalen. Now the world's economic engine throbs in Silicon Valley, while the creative heart of the Internet beats south of Market Street. North of Market, Charles Schwab leads a brokerage assualt that rocks Wall Street and mints new millionaires at a rate not seen since the first Gold Rush.
India had its run - giving civilization the zero, infinity, and the Taj Mahal. Now it's San Francisco's turn. That shaky ground under your feet may be as good as ground gets. Throw down the best you've got, and stand back!
San Francisco Chronicle, November 21, 1999
It's 11 pm and I'm driving my taxi tomorrow, so I'll keep this brief. (I'll also add, just below, something I wrote and that the SF Chronicle published several years ago, and which I find particularly relevant tonight). The things set in motion by Beach Impeach are creating ripples too complicated to explain, and to me, tonight at least, it seems almost obvious that Bush and Cheney can not stay in office much longer. The political world has changed dramatically in the past week. So many voices have risen against this administration, demanding change. If we keep the pressure up they are GONE BY APRIL 1. My action plan is coming together nicely, I think, and as soon as it's ready, I believe I'll post it here. Thank you for your support. G'night... brad
THE SPIRITUAL CENTER OF THE EARTH
By Brad Newsham
San Francisco Chronicle, November 21, 1999
ONE MORNING SEVERAL YEARS AGO, at a bus stop in front of the American Embassy in New Delhi, an Indian man wearing a turban and rubber flip-flops (plus what might once have been someone's draperies) asked me where I was from.
"Oh, how lucky you are!" he fairly sang, when I told him I was from San Francisco. "Everyone knows that San Francisco is the spiritual center of the world."
Really? This assertion would jolt any American who'd drifted to India seeking, well… something better.
"Oh, yes-yes," the India man said. "The Earth's spiritual center shifts every few hundred years or thousand maybe. It used to be in India, but now it is San Francisco. All our gurus are moving there to open ashrams."
My bus's arrival cut short our talk, but during the next couple of months I ran the man's thesis past several other Indians I met. Surprisingly, every one of them regarded my conversational tidbit as old news. All unquestioningly accepted San Francisco - not India, not Tibet, not Mecca or Jerusalem or Rome - as humankind's new spiritual center.
You are scoffing right now, of course, and so did I - initially. But that first night, when I asked the desk clerk at my hotel in New Delhi to define "spiritual center of the world," his response wiped the smirk right off my face. "Oh," he said, as matter of factly as if I'd asked directions to a chai shop, "that is simply the place where new ideas meet the least amount of resistance."
Voila! I have circled the globe four times, and if there is some place where new ideas meet less resistance than they do in San Francisco, I have neither seen nor heard of it. If you can't be what you want in San Francisco, you don't have a chance elsewhere.
MY INDIAN FRIENDS had differing ideas on the boundaries of the earth's spiritual center. Some said it was specifically limited to the area burned by the post-quake fire of 1906 - the purifying flames were said to have left behind an environment as fertile as the field in which Jack grew beanstalks. Most, however, included the entire Bay Area in their spiritual maps - although one woman in Calcutta drew hers from the tip of Baja to the tip of the Aleutians. Regardless, all agreed that spiritual San Francisco did not follow trends, but - like the San Andreas fault - unleashed movements. Harry Bridges seized the waterfront and galvanized the Labor movement. The first television was invented at the base of Telegraph Hill, unleashing whatever you call that. The United Nations convention was held and its charter was signed inside Herbst Theater. The beats, the hippies, and the Free Speech Movement burst from the hills and the bay as though they couldn't help themselves. When Jack Kerouac hit the road, a nation of readers took it as a given that he would wind up in North Beach.
THE MUSIC BLASTING out of San Francisco - the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin - forever changed the world - with help from Owsley's LSD. Seemingly overnight the idea that gays were human flourished in the Castro District, and Harvey Milk, the "Mayor of Castro Street," became America's first openly gay elected official. The American Indian Movement scored its biggest victory (since Custer, and before casinos) on Alcatraz. Oakland's Black Panthers awoke a complacent nation - some say two. And the human potential movement leapt naked and quivering from the hot tubs at Esalen. Now the world's economic engine throbs in Silicon Valley, while the creative heart of the Internet beats south of Market Street. North of Market, Charles Schwab leads a brokerage assualt that rocks Wall Street and mints new millionaires at a rate not seen since the first Gold Rush.
India had its run - giving civilization the zero, infinity, and the Taj Mahal. Now it's San Francisco's turn. That shaky ground under your feet may be as good as ground gets. Throw down the best you've got, and stand back!
San Francisco Chronicle, November 21, 1999
Friday, January 12, 2007
Topics below:
-- NEGOTIATING TO RENT A STOREFRONT
-- TWO FLAWS TO BEACH IMPEACH
-- 2,000 POSTCARDS ARRIVED
-- BEACH IMPEACH ARTICLE PUBLISHED ONLINE
-- GROUNDING
STOREFRONT: I am in negotiations with a landlord's representative over a vacant storefront in my neighborhood. The landlord is out of town and out of contact until Monday, and I'm very antsy to get this going. The space is perfect, and I want to rent it between now and April 1, by which time Bush and Cheney will be GONE. The intention: to give the impeachment movement a PHYSICAL ADDRESS where anyone can drop in -- it has existed only in cyberspace for far too long. I believe I could pay the rent (about $3,000 month) by making available postcards (of the Beach Impeach event) and stamps; inviting the world to come in a send a postcard to their representatives (or to anyone they want); and making a donation bucket available, too. Also, it would be a great place to hatch the rest of my plan, the BIG part, which is still cooking.
TWO FLAWS:
1. My good friend Larry Habegger (of the publishing house Travelers' Tales) tells me that I was just a few feet away from him and his two daughters at one point on Saturday, but I was surrounded by people and so Larry didn't push through and say hello and give me a hug... I hated hearing that -- Larry and his partner James O'Reilly published the book I spent ten years working on and seeking a publisher for (Take Me With You)... and that Larry and I were so close and didn't connect and I thought he hadn't even come... oh, well, I'll stop by his place in North Beach one of these days and we'll laugh it off...
2. I do NOT know for a FACT that Nancy Pelosi has personally laid eyes on these images that were created specifically with her in mind. I called her office on Tuesday, and I spoke with a few different people, each of whom claimed they had not heard about Beach Impeach. Really! I don't know if they were being coy, or had been warned against commenting on it, or...? Or were they actually telling the truth, and none of them -- not in DC, not in SF -- had heard about this thing that was all over the media in Nancy's district and in much of the country and world. I do not want to embarrass her -- I want her to be President, and soon -- but if someone in her office doesn't get back to me soon and tell me that Nancy has seen our images, I don't know what I'm going to do... But I do have a couple of ideas that I can pretty much guarantee will put these things all over the media again, and maybe that's the thing to do... And I got the same story out of Barbara Lee's office -- no one admitted to having heard of the event -- weird! About two-thirds of the people in my cab today had heard of it, and when I walked into the Noah's Bagels on First and Mission today they'd ALL been waiting for me for a week, they said, as they'd seen it on the news and recognized me as one of their regular customers... So it strains credibility that I could talk to, really, more than half a dozen people in those two offices, and no one had heard of it... (Last week I even called and INVITED Pelosi or her anyone from her staff -- and the woman I spoke with ASKED ME for my name, phone number, website, etc.) This has pissed me off a bit -- and I let them know it... I will not consider this event complete until I KNOW that the Representative in whose district this was held, and the Representative in whose district I live and vote, have personally laid eyes on these images. I consider it not so much a personal insult, but simply not something I, as YOUR representative, can consider acceptable... It brings up all sorts of uncomfortable questions for me.
2,000 INKWORKS POSTCARDS: They are beautiful. I stopped by Berkeley and picked them up today, and I asked all the workers in the Inkworks office to sign their names, and we mailed one card to Pelosi's San Francisco office and one to her Washington office. So the photos should physically be IN her offices by Tuesday. Still, I want to KNOW that she has laid eyes on them. And I want to know if she has any comment I can pass along to you -- the 1,000 people in MY constituency. Even if the comment is No Comment.
ARTICLE PUBLISHED WORLDWIDE: Michael Rudolph, founder of Impeach for Peace, today published an article (complete with John Montgomery photo) in an online magazine with a global audience. To see it:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=339642&rel_no=1
GROUNDING: Finally, tonight, I feel like I'm somewhere back down near the ground again. Driving my cab around San Francisco today I just had to keep pulling myself back into my body... a week ago I had no idea whether this thing was going to come off or not... and I still can't believe how almost perfectly it DID come off... and that those two months of hard, hard work paid off in such a massive, massive way... Really... Can't you feel it? Bush and Cheney Gone by April 1...!
-- NEGOTIATING TO RENT A STOREFRONT
-- TWO FLAWS TO BEACH IMPEACH
-- 2,000 POSTCARDS ARRIVED
-- BEACH IMPEACH ARTICLE PUBLISHED ONLINE
-- GROUNDING
STOREFRONT: I am in negotiations with a landlord's representative over a vacant storefront in my neighborhood. The landlord is out of town and out of contact until Monday, and I'm very antsy to get this going. The space is perfect, and I want to rent it between now and April 1, by which time Bush and Cheney will be GONE. The intention: to give the impeachment movement a PHYSICAL ADDRESS where anyone can drop in -- it has existed only in cyberspace for far too long. I believe I could pay the rent (about $3,000 month) by making available postcards (of the Beach Impeach event) and stamps; inviting the world to come in a send a postcard to their representatives (or to anyone they want); and making a donation bucket available, too. Also, it would be a great place to hatch the rest of my plan, the BIG part, which is still cooking.
TWO FLAWS:
1. My good friend Larry Habegger (of the publishing house Travelers' Tales) tells me that I was just a few feet away from him and his two daughters at one point on Saturday, but I was surrounded by people and so Larry didn't push through and say hello and give me a hug... I hated hearing that -- Larry and his partner James O'Reilly published the book I spent ten years working on and seeking a publisher for (Take Me With You)... and that Larry and I were so close and didn't connect and I thought he hadn't even come... oh, well, I'll stop by his place in North Beach one of these days and we'll laugh it off...
2. I do NOT know for a FACT that Nancy Pelosi has personally laid eyes on these images that were created specifically with her in mind. I called her office on Tuesday, and I spoke with a few different people, each of whom claimed they had not heard about Beach Impeach. Really! I don't know if they were being coy, or had been warned against commenting on it, or...? Or were they actually telling the truth, and none of them -- not in DC, not in SF -- had heard about this thing that was all over the media in Nancy's district and in much of the country and world. I do not want to embarrass her -- I want her to be President, and soon -- but if someone in her office doesn't get back to me soon and tell me that Nancy has seen our images, I don't know what I'm going to do... But I do have a couple of ideas that I can pretty much guarantee will put these things all over the media again, and maybe that's the thing to do... And I got the same story out of Barbara Lee's office -- no one admitted to having heard of the event -- weird! About two-thirds of the people in my cab today had heard of it, and when I walked into the Noah's Bagels on First and Mission today they'd ALL been waiting for me for a week, they said, as they'd seen it on the news and recognized me as one of their regular customers... So it strains credibility that I could talk to, really, more than half a dozen people in those two offices, and no one had heard of it... (Last week I even called and INVITED Pelosi or her anyone from her staff -- and the woman I spoke with ASKED ME for my name, phone number, website, etc.) This has pissed me off a bit -- and I let them know it... I will not consider this event complete until I KNOW that the Representative in whose district this was held, and the Representative in whose district I live and vote, have personally laid eyes on these images. I consider it not so much a personal insult, but simply not something I, as YOUR representative, can consider acceptable... It brings up all sorts of uncomfortable questions for me.
2,000 INKWORKS POSTCARDS: They are beautiful. I stopped by Berkeley and picked them up today, and I asked all the workers in the Inkworks office to sign their names, and we mailed one card to Pelosi's San Francisco office and one to her Washington office. So the photos should physically be IN her offices by Tuesday. Still, I want to KNOW that she has laid eyes on them. And I want to know if she has any comment I can pass along to you -- the 1,000 people in MY constituency. Even if the comment is No Comment.
ARTICLE PUBLISHED WORLDWIDE: Michael Rudolph, founder of Impeach for Peace, today published an article (complete with John Montgomery photo) in an online magazine with a global audience. To see it:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=339642&rel_no=1
GROUNDING: Finally, tonight, I feel like I'm somewhere back down near the ground again. Driving my cab around San Francisco today I just had to keep pulling myself back into my body... a week ago I had no idea whether this thing was going to come off or not... and I still can't believe how almost perfectly it DID come off... and that those two months of hard, hard work paid off in such a massive, massive way... Really... Can't you feel it? Bush and Cheney Gone by April 1...!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
A year and a half ago I made myself something of a pest by calling the offices of several representativees and senators and demanding they join the impeachment movement. Time after time staffers in those offices told me in surprisingly candid terms that, no, their bosses had no use for Bush and Cheney, and believed the two of them had almost certainly committed impeachable offeneses, but it was too risky for their bosses to stick their necks out and call for impeachment. The Bush machine was too strong and ruthless and slick, and there was not a loud enough public clamor. What these officials needed, they said, was some backup, and during the last election we the people gave it to them. And now, just a week into the new Congress, it’s a whole new political world. As far away as Ocean Beach in San Francisco, you can almost hear the jeers of opposition pouring out of the Capitol. Just three days ago a neighbor of mine sent me an email saying that, although he was torn, he thought the wise course was to wait things out, to not call for impeachment. Today he stopped me as I drove past his house: “I’ve changed my mind! Did you see the morning paper? Twenty thousand more troops! I’m with you now.” Another friend who has taken the "pragmatic" road the last several years answered his phone the other day, “Impeach Bush Now!” Yeah, he probably had caller ID, but the clerk at Safeway this morning didn’t. “They just gotta go,” she told me, and the two customers behind me spoke their agreement out loud. The man who married my wife and I served in the infantry in Vietnam. This morning I asked Jack, “So what’s it feel like to be told, ‘Get on the plane soldier -- you’re going over’?” “Oh, he said, “your gut twists into a knot. You knew it was coming sometime, but you can’t believe it’s actually TODAY. Your whole life is turned upside down…” I’ve got to believe that the soldiers getting on those planes today are happy to know that there are people on the streets tonight -- and on the beach last Saturday –- demanding change. We can change our government any time we want to if we demand it clearly and loudly enough. Tonight, I’m heartened. With plans still cooking. I’m not trying to be coy, I just don’t want to take the thing out of the oven before I’m halfway sure it won’t just fall apart. Thanks for sticking with me. Stay tuned.
HAVING SOME FUN: My remarkable therapist for the past ten years, Shellie Hatfield, has her office in a building shared by several therapists, and all clients share a common waiting room. (Won't Sean Hannity, whoever he is, get a kick out of this! And does anyone know how to get a clip of his dig at me, us, whatever it was? It would be good for the website.) This morning I was sitting silently in the waiting room with one other client, a woman who was reading a magazine, when Shellie came through the door with a big smile on her face, chuckling, and clapping her hands. The Beach Impeach event has been all over the Bay Area news. This morning's Bay Guardian called our photos "iconic" and noted that they've already gone worldwide. "Aww...," said my waiting room mate, "my therapist never claps for ME!"
This evening, Shellie stopped by the "Impeachment Surge" rally at a busy intersection in my neighborhood. At the rally's height we surged to perhaps 40 people (including 10-15 who'd been at Beach Impeach) and a Channel 2 news crew (not sure if we made the news -- I didn't watch). It was cold out, and the event sure seemed small compared to the crowd at the beach. And, darnit, no helicopter. Cars honked their support of our impeachment placards. When the news crew came I gave a short speech. And then we all went home to news reports that said we had not missed anything good in Bush's speech.
SAM RUBIN: Thirteen-year old Sam Rubin was at the rally with his video camera. The Beach Impeach clip he posted on You Tube was, in the first 24 hours of its posting, the 51st most-watched clip on You Tube, his mom Sally told me. And it really IS something. Blake Rodman, best man at my wedding, called me to say Sam's video made him tear up. Apparently lots of people have been touched by it. Sam said: "I'm getting 100 emails a day from people I've never met!" He's having fun. I'm having fun. When Shellie was leaving, I called Sam over, told him to turn on his camera, put my arm around Shellie, and said, "This is my therapist, Shellie. Now, Shellie, tell this crowd what you told me this morning when I asked you if you thought I might be insane." And Shellie, game, but a little uncomfortable in front of the camera and all those strangers, said, "You're not psychotic, you're not manic, and you've never been medicated. You're grounded, and you're passionate..." And so I let her go...
But as much fun as the past few days have been, this all revolves around a very serious subject. People are dying in Iraq, the world is heating up. And we have a president who seems psychotic, manic, and who knows about his meds...? He simply must go. By April 1. And while I'm having fun basking in my 15 minutes here, I'm doing my best to stay grounded. On Sunday, after the European Pressphoto Agency called me in my cab (and is there anything more grounding than cab driving?), I heard my little voice say, "Wow, aren't YOU cool, mister?" I've had 15 minutes of fame before, and I know that the little voice that says those types of things to you does not have your best interests in mind, and whenever its presence is noticed, it is always best to put up your guard. I immediately pulled my cab to the side of Ceasar Chavez Avenue, pulled out my worn Eckhart Tolle book ("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose"), opened it at random, and began reading:
"To do whatever is required of you in any situation without it becoming a role that you identify with is an essential lesson in the art of living that each one of us is here to learn. You become more powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity. Every role is a fictitious sense of self, and through it everything becomes personalized and thus corrupted and distorted by the mind-made 'little me' and whatever role it happens to be playing. Most of the people who are in positions of power in this world, such as politicians, TV personalities, business as well as religious leaders, are completely identified with their role, with a few notable excpetions. They may be considered VIPS, but they are no more than unconscious players in the egoic game, a game that looks so important yet is ultimately devoid of true purpose. It is, in the words of Shakespeare, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Amazingly, Shakespeare arrived at this conclusion without having the benefit of television. If the egoic earth drama has any purpose at all, it is an indirect one: It creates more and more suffering on the planet, and suffering, although largely ego-created, is in the end also ego-destructive. It is the fire in which the ego burns itself up."
Oh-KAY! Back to the fire we go...
POSTCARDS: The first offer I received has been the best. Inkworks, a very gracious worker-owned cooperative in Berkeley, four of whose members came to the beach on Saturday, are delivering 2,000 postcards to me for FREE on Friday. I've been saving all the other very kind offers, and when I digest those first 2,000 I'll figure out what the next step regarding postcards is.
MY NEW PLAN: Still shaping itself. I'm trying to let it be. I like what I see so far. Got to figure out the first step and take it.
VOLUNTEERS: I'm looking for from 1-5 volunteers to help me in the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood of Oakland, Mondays through Thursdays, between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Anybody? Email me, please: newsham@mac.com.
G'night.
brad
This evening, Shellie stopped by the "Impeachment Surge" rally at a busy intersection in my neighborhood. At the rally's height we surged to perhaps 40 people (including 10-15 who'd been at Beach Impeach) and a Channel 2 news crew (not sure if we made the news -- I didn't watch). It was cold out, and the event sure seemed small compared to the crowd at the beach. And, darnit, no helicopter. Cars honked their support of our impeachment placards. When the news crew came I gave a short speech. And then we all went home to news reports that said we had not missed anything good in Bush's speech.
SAM RUBIN: Thirteen-year old Sam Rubin was at the rally with his video camera. The Beach Impeach clip he posted on You Tube was, in the first 24 hours of its posting, the 51st most-watched clip on You Tube, his mom Sally told me. And it really IS something. Blake Rodman, best man at my wedding, called me to say Sam's video made him tear up. Apparently lots of people have been touched by it. Sam said: "I'm getting 100 emails a day from people I've never met!" He's having fun. I'm having fun. When Shellie was leaving, I called Sam over, told him to turn on his camera, put my arm around Shellie, and said, "This is my therapist, Shellie. Now, Shellie, tell this crowd what you told me this morning when I asked you if you thought I might be insane." And Shellie, game, but a little uncomfortable in front of the camera and all those strangers, said, "You're not psychotic, you're not manic, and you've never been medicated. You're grounded, and you're passionate..." And so I let her go...
But as much fun as the past few days have been, this all revolves around a very serious subject. People are dying in Iraq, the world is heating up. And we have a president who seems psychotic, manic, and who knows about his meds...? He simply must go. By April 1. And while I'm having fun basking in my 15 minutes here, I'm doing my best to stay grounded. On Sunday, after the European Pressphoto Agency called me in my cab (and is there anything more grounding than cab driving?), I heard my little voice say, "Wow, aren't YOU cool, mister?" I've had 15 minutes of fame before, and I know that the little voice that says those types of things to you does not have your best interests in mind, and whenever its presence is noticed, it is always best to put up your guard. I immediately pulled my cab to the side of Ceasar Chavez Avenue, pulled out my worn Eckhart Tolle book ("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose"), opened it at random, and began reading:
"To do whatever is required of you in any situation without it becoming a role that you identify with is an essential lesson in the art of living that each one of us is here to learn. You become more powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity. Every role is a fictitious sense of self, and through it everything becomes personalized and thus corrupted and distorted by the mind-made 'little me' and whatever role it happens to be playing. Most of the people who are in positions of power in this world, such as politicians, TV personalities, business as well as religious leaders, are completely identified with their role, with a few notable excpetions. They may be considered VIPS, but they are no more than unconscious players in the egoic game, a game that looks so important yet is ultimately devoid of true purpose. It is, in the words of Shakespeare, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Amazingly, Shakespeare arrived at this conclusion without having the benefit of television. If the egoic earth drama has any purpose at all, it is an indirect one: It creates more and more suffering on the planet, and suffering, although largely ego-created, is in the end also ego-destructive. It is the fire in which the ego burns itself up."
Oh-KAY! Back to the fire we go...
POSTCARDS: The first offer I received has been the best. Inkworks, a very gracious worker-owned cooperative in Berkeley, four of whose members came to the beach on Saturday, are delivering 2,000 postcards to me for FREE on Friday. I've been saving all the other very kind offers, and when I digest those first 2,000 I'll figure out what the next step regarding postcards is.
MY NEW PLAN: Still shaping itself. I'm trying to let it be. I like what I see so far. Got to figure out the first step and take it.
VOLUNTEERS: I'm looking for from 1-5 volunteers to help me in the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood of Oakland, Mondays through Thursdays, between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Anybody? Email me, please: newsham@mac.com.
G'night.
brad
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Topics Below
1. IMPEACHMENT SURGE RALLY TONIGHT!
2. MY HIKE IN THE WOODS
3. BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL 1
4. BEACH IMPEACH HAS GIVEN ME SOME POLITICAL CAPITAL, AND NOW I’M GOING TO SPEND IT!
1. IMPEACHMENT SURGE RALLY TONIGHT -- 6 pm, Wednesday, January 10, Under the Clock Tower, Piedmont Av and 41st Street, Oakland, CA 94611. This evening I’m going to take my two-step ladder down to the little plaza under the clock tower in my neighborhood. President Bush is scheduled to start speaking (his new Iraq plan) just a few minutes after 6 pm, and that’s when I’m going to start too. If there is no rally planned in your neighborhood you could start one, but if you’d rather not, then come meet the good folks of Piedmont Avenue. Bring placards, candles, and musical instruments. BRING YOUR KIDS – what better way to teach them democracy! I’m going to invite all the media folks I can – my stock has surged this week, and I’m betting some of them show up. They’re going to need something in opposition to Troop Surge for the evening news, and I don’t see any other events scheduled in the Bay Area, so let’s give them something. My events tend to start pretty promptly and be short, so I wouldn’t recommend coming late or traveling too far.
2. MY HIKE IN THE WOODS: I had a great 8-mile hike an hour’s drive north of San Francisco on Tuesday. I thought I might be able stop thinking for a while. That didn’t happen. I found myself, of course, processing the last ten unforgettable weeks. (The inspiration for the Beach Impeach Project came to me at the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon in October, about two minutes after my 10-year old daughter asked my wife and me, “Have you ever heard of Google Earth?” -- and exactly ten Saturdays later Beach Impeach images went worldwide.)
I came out of the woods convinced that we Americans can indeed change our government, and more easily than we think we can, and for the good of the world and for the good of our future generations, we simply must.
3. BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL 1: I also came out of the woods COMMITTED. Here’s my new goal: Bush and Cheney are gone by April 1. No fooling. I have in my head the outline of an entirely new plan, but it will take me at least 2-4 weeks to “cook” this one...
Except for my webmaster Chris’s help, I organized Beach Impeach virtually single-handedly. This time around, I’m going to need some help. I’ll keep you posted on that… If you’re at the Impeachment Surge Rallly, I’ve got a couple of small jobs I’d like to give away…
4. BEACH IMPEACH HAS GIVEN ME SOME POLITICAL CAPITAL, AND NOW I’M GOING TO SPEND IT! This morning I received an email from someone in Italy containing page 4 of her local paper. I can’t read a word of Italian, but big bold lettering saying “USA protesta nel distretto de Nanci Pelosi -- Sit-in balneare per l’Impeachment a Bush” was above a photo taken by a friend of mine named John Montgomery while he was riding in a helicopter above Ocean Beach Saturday, and, well, I figured it out… someone from a Chinese newspaper called asking for permission to use John’s photos, but I haven’t seen that paper yet… a friend from Pennsylvania emailed that she’d been coming down the stairs into her living room and saw beachimpeach on CNN… and when I got home from the woods this afternoon there was an email from my old writing group leader Donna Levin saying that someone named Sean Hannity had ripped me by name on a national radio show… My email account froze up after Donna’s email came in – I can neither send or receive on my .mac account, so I don’t really know what else may have happened today… But while they’re still talking about beach impeach, I’m going to let my voice be heard…
brad
PS -- IT APPEARS ALL EMAILS SENT TO ME AFTER 11:30 A.M TUESDAY WERE LOST, SO IF YOU SENT ME SOMETHING IMPORTANT YESTERDAY, PLEASE TRY AGAIN
BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL 1
1. IMPEACHMENT SURGE RALLY TONIGHT!
2. MY HIKE IN THE WOODS
3. BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL 1
4. BEACH IMPEACH HAS GIVEN ME SOME POLITICAL CAPITAL, AND NOW I’M GOING TO SPEND IT!
1. IMPEACHMENT SURGE RALLY TONIGHT -- 6 pm, Wednesday, January 10, Under the Clock Tower, Piedmont Av and 41st Street, Oakland, CA 94611. This evening I’m going to take my two-step ladder down to the little plaza under the clock tower in my neighborhood. President Bush is scheduled to start speaking (his new Iraq plan) just a few minutes after 6 pm, and that’s when I’m going to start too. If there is no rally planned in your neighborhood you could start one, but if you’d rather not, then come meet the good folks of Piedmont Avenue. Bring placards, candles, and musical instruments. BRING YOUR KIDS – what better way to teach them democracy! I’m going to invite all the media folks I can – my stock has surged this week, and I’m betting some of them show up. They’re going to need something in opposition to Troop Surge for the evening news, and I don’t see any other events scheduled in the Bay Area, so let’s give them something. My events tend to start pretty promptly and be short, so I wouldn’t recommend coming late or traveling too far.
2. MY HIKE IN THE WOODS: I had a great 8-mile hike an hour’s drive north of San Francisco on Tuesday. I thought I might be able stop thinking for a while. That didn’t happen. I found myself, of course, processing the last ten unforgettable weeks. (The inspiration for the Beach Impeach Project came to me at the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon in October, about two minutes after my 10-year old daughter asked my wife and me, “Have you ever heard of Google Earth?” -- and exactly ten Saturdays later Beach Impeach images went worldwide.)
I came out of the woods convinced that we Americans can indeed change our government, and more easily than we think we can, and for the good of the world and for the good of our future generations, we simply must.
3. BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL 1: I also came out of the woods COMMITTED. Here’s my new goal: Bush and Cheney are gone by April 1. No fooling. I have in my head the outline of an entirely new plan, but it will take me at least 2-4 weeks to “cook” this one...
Except for my webmaster Chris’s help, I organized Beach Impeach virtually single-handedly. This time around, I’m going to need some help. I’ll keep you posted on that… If you’re at the Impeachment Surge Rallly, I’ve got a couple of small jobs I’d like to give away…
4. BEACH IMPEACH HAS GIVEN ME SOME POLITICAL CAPITAL, AND NOW I’M GOING TO SPEND IT! This morning I received an email from someone in Italy containing page 4 of her local paper. I can’t read a word of Italian, but big bold lettering saying “USA protesta nel distretto de Nanci Pelosi -- Sit-in balneare per l’Impeachment a Bush” was above a photo taken by a friend of mine named John Montgomery while he was riding in a helicopter above Ocean Beach Saturday, and, well, I figured it out… someone from a Chinese newspaper called asking for permission to use John’s photos, but I haven’t seen that paper yet… a friend from Pennsylvania emailed that she’d been coming down the stairs into her living room and saw beachimpeach on CNN… and when I got home from the woods this afternoon there was an email from my old writing group leader Donna Levin saying that someone named Sean Hannity had ripped me by name on a national radio show… My email account froze up after Donna’s email came in – I can neither send or receive on my .mac account, so I don’t really know what else may have happened today… But while they’re still talking about beach impeach, I’m going to let my voice be heard…
brad
PS -- IT APPEARS ALL EMAILS SENT TO ME AFTER 11:30 A.M TUESDAY WERE LOST, SO IF YOU SENT ME SOMETHING IMPORTANT YESTERDAY, PLEASE TRY AGAIN
BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL 1
Monday, January 08, 2007
THESE TOPICS BELOW:
UNFORGETTABLE FOR ME
GREAT SONG
I PROMISE: No email tomorrow
SPECIAL VIDEO
WHERE TO SEND MONEY
TWO TOUCHING EMAILS I’VE RECEIVED
UNFORGETTABLE: If you had been sitting in my seat for the past 48 hours, with amazing emails and phone calls bombarding you from all over the country and even other countries, and seeing yourself leading a crowd on tv and all of that good stuff (today I’m told we were on Democracy Now, Air America, Michael Moore’s website, and on a smashmouth conservative site littlegreenapples – so you KNOW we’ve hit a nerve)… if you had been sitting here, you would be – as I am – damn near giddy, and you would be convinced – as I am, and increasingly so every minute – that BUSH WILL BE GONE BY APRIL FOOLS AT THE LATEST.
GREAT SONG: Listen to this song that was just sent to me by the artist, Yikes McGee, and tell me if you don’t just feel it – the change of administration – coming, and propelled by the gentle spirit that was present at the beach Saturday:
http://www.yikesmcgee.org/Pelosi.htm
I PROMISE: No mass email tomorrow. I’m getting up early, going hiking deep into the woods somewhere, and I’m going to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and lie down and take a nap… and then I’m coming back home and we’re going to FINISH THIS THING OFF! BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL FOOLS!
SPECIAL VIDEO: Saturday morning I arrived at the beach about 8:05, got all my equipment out of the van, dragged it down to the beach, and was bent over in the sand trying to unravel a knotted 300-foot tape measure when I heard the voice of 13-year old Sam Rubin of Oakland call hello from up on the sea wall. Sam’s mom Sally had emailed me the night before, wondering if it would be ok if Sam and his friend Otto shot their first video documentary at our event, and of course I said of course. Sam and his sidekick Otto, also Sam’s age, are an incredible pair – these two are going places when they’re older. They touched me, and Sam’s is the ‘first’ footage shot that day. There is a lot of great Beach Impeach footage up on youtube, but for some reason when you enter “beach impeach” Sam’s doesn’t come up. Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSuEVYcixA
OK, OK – HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN SEND YOUR MONEY! Dozens of people have asked me how they could help with the event expenses. Just so you know, as I would want to know, this whole two-month, once-in-a-lifetime experience cost me less than $2,500, including supplies, permits, insurance, tape measures, tools, and both the November and January helicopters – January’s helicopter was up there 1.4 hours at $463 an hour. If I got this kind of return on every investment, I’d be filthy rich, which, by the way, I am starting to feel! Anyway, I have suggested that people please donate to one of the established impeachment groups – they all struggle for money – and everything we did Saturday was accomplished by standing on the shoulders of all the hard work they’ve done over the last few years. Then, this afternoon, I got an email from Working Assets, the good people who put together the volunteerforchange event management tool (it’s the site where you registered, and from which I’m sending this one email to all 1,100 of you) and without which we simply couldn’t have pulled this thing off . Working Assets asked that if I could help get the word out about the nation-spanning Peace Train Democrats.com is sending from Sacramento to Washington DC on Jan 23. Democrats.com and Afterdowningstreet.org were the two organizations whose mailing lists made the crucial difference in getting people to know about Beach Impeach. Democrats.com needs about $5,000 to help finance the California portion. I sent them $100 today, but I’ll bet that a donation bucket at the beach would have wound up with $5,000. If any of you still want to make a financial difference in the impeachment movement, please: the Peace Train. Details at http://www.peacetraintodc.com or from Tim at 916-225-5176.
TWO OF THE EMAILS I’VE RECEIVED:
“I was the guy in the maroon sweatshirt. That sweatshirt belongs to my son. He's in Iraq right now on his second tour of duty. He's a machine gunner on a humvee at… 25 miles north of Bagdad.
“He's also loosing faith in his government. He has 10 months left there, then he gets out of the army 6 months later. When he enlisted, he was pretty gung ho,
going to retire from the army and all that. It has taken longer to permeate through the brainwashing that he's been through, but he's beginning to see things as they really are.
“So lying on the beach, carrying a sign in a parade, or anything else I can do, helps to keep me busy and helps to keep me from losing my mind from worry.”
(Name withheld)
And this from Bryan Adamson
Brad,
Thought I'd drop you a congratulatory email for the success of the beach impeach project. Wonderfully done! My brother was there… I'm very sorry I missed it.
I was surprised when I saw your name.... I wondered if this was the same Newsham who wrote one of my favorite books, All The Right Places…
I read your book around 1990 while poking holes in the Pacific in a nuclear sub. Your book is important to me because it marked a turning point in my life from conservative, local boy to liberal, travel junkie. In fact, your book got passed around on the sub and contributed, I'm sure, to a travel bug that infected many crew members. Several went on 1-year walk-abouts after leaving the Navy.
Anyway, congratulations again and keep up the good work.
Bryan Adamson”
GOODNIGHT: Ten days ago I was afraid I might be heading over the cliff of yet another massive embarrassment, and I just kept driving, and my goodness – YOU incredible folks… I KNEW your were out there… but to see you actually SHOW UP and lie down and do the thing with me and to then be hit by this blast of humanity and approval – NO ONE should be allowed to have this much fun! THANK EACH OF YOU FOREVER!
Love,
brad
UNFORGETTABLE FOR ME
GREAT SONG
I PROMISE: No email tomorrow
SPECIAL VIDEO
WHERE TO SEND MONEY
TWO TOUCHING EMAILS I’VE RECEIVED
UNFORGETTABLE: If you had been sitting in my seat for the past 48 hours, with amazing emails and phone calls bombarding you from all over the country and even other countries, and seeing yourself leading a crowd on tv and all of that good stuff (today I’m told we were on Democracy Now, Air America, Michael Moore’s website, and on a smashmouth conservative site littlegreenapples – so you KNOW we’ve hit a nerve)… if you had been sitting here, you would be – as I am – damn near giddy, and you would be convinced – as I am, and increasingly so every minute – that BUSH WILL BE GONE BY APRIL FOOLS AT THE LATEST.
GREAT SONG: Listen to this song that was just sent to me by the artist, Yikes McGee, and tell me if you don’t just feel it – the change of administration – coming, and propelled by the gentle spirit that was present at the beach Saturday:
http://www.yikesmcgee.org/Pelosi.htm
I PROMISE: No mass email tomorrow. I’m getting up early, going hiking deep into the woods somewhere, and I’m going to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and lie down and take a nap… and then I’m coming back home and we’re going to FINISH THIS THING OFF! BUSH AND CHENEY GONE BY APRIL FOOLS!
SPECIAL VIDEO: Saturday morning I arrived at the beach about 8:05, got all my equipment out of the van, dragged it down to the beach, and was bent over in the sand trying to unravel a knotted 300-foot tape measure when I heard the voice of 13-year old Sam Rubin of Oakland call hello from up on the sea wall. Sam’s mom Sally had emailed me the night before, wondering if it would be ok if Sam and his friend Otto shot their first video documentary at our event, and of course I said of course. Sam and his sidekick Otto, also Sam’s age, are an incredible pair – these two are going places when they’re older. They touched me, and Sam’s is the ‘first’ footage shot that day. There is a lot of great Beach Impeach footage up on youtube, but for some reason when you enter “beach impeach” Sam’s doesn’t come up. Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSuEVYcixA
OK, OK – HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN SEND YOUR MONEY! Dozens of people have asked me how they could help with the event expenses. Just so you know, as I would want to know, this whole two-month, once-in-a-lifetime experience cost me less than $2,500, including supplies, permits, insurance, tape measures, tools, and both the November and January helicopters – January’s helicopter was up there 1.4 hours at $463 an hour. If I got this kind of return on every investment, I’d be filthy rich, which, by the way, I am starting to feel! Anyway, I have suggested that people please donate to one of the established impeachment groups – they all struggle for money – and everything we did Saturday was accomplished by standing on the shoulders of all the hard work they’ve done over the last few years. Then, this afternoon, I got an email from Working Assets, the good people who put together the volunteerforchange event management tool (it’s the site where you registered, and from which I’m sending this one email to all 1,100 of you) and without which we simply couldn’t have pulled this thing off . Working Assets asked that if I could help get the word out about the nation-spanning Peace Train Democrats.com is sending from Sacramento to Washington DC on Jan 23. Democrats.com and Afterdowningstreet.org were the two organizations whose mailing lists made the crucial difference in getting people to know about Beach Impeach. Democrats.com needs about $5,000 to help finance the California portion. I sent them $100 today, but I’ll bet that a donation bucket at the beach would have wound up with $5,000. If any of you still want to make a financial difference in the impeachment movement, please: the Peace Train. Details at http://www.peacetraintodc.com or from Tim at 916-225-5176.
TWO OF THE EMAILS I’VE RECEIVED:
“I was the guy in the maroon sweatshirt. That sweatshirt belongs to my son. He's in Iraq right now on his second tour of duty. He's a machine gunner on a humvee at… 25 miles north of Bagdad.
“He's also loosing faith in his government. He has 10 months left there, then he gets out of the army 6 months later. When he enlisted, he was pretty gung ho,
going to retire from the army and all that. It has taken longer to permeate through the brainwashing that he's been through, but he's beginning to see things as they really are.
“So lying on the beach, carrying a sign in a parade, or anything else I can do, helps to keep me busy and helps to keep me from losing my mind from worry.”
(Name withheld)
And this from Bryan Adamson
Brad,
Thought I'd drop you a congratulatory email for the success of the beach impeach project. Wonderfully done! My brother was there… I'm very sorry I missed it.
I was surprised when I saw your name.... I wondered if this was the same Newsham who wrote one of my favorite books, All The Right Places…
I read your book around 1990 while poking holes in the Pacific in a nuclear sub. Your book is important to me because it marked a turning point in my life from conservative, local boy to liberal, travel junkie. In fact, your book got passed around on the sub and contributed, I'm sure, to a travel bug that infected many crew members. Several went on 1-year walk-abouts after leaving the Navy.
Anyway, congratulations again and keep up the good work.
Bryan Adamson”
GOODNIGHT: Ten days ago I was afraid I might be heading over the cliff of yet another massive embarrassment, and I just kept driving, and my goodness – YOU incredible folks… I KNEW your were out there… but to see you actually SHOW UP and lie down and do the thing with me and to then be hit by this blast of humanity and approval – NO ONE should be allowed to have this much fun! THANK EACH OF YOU FOREVER!
Love,
brad
Sunday, January 07, 2007
FIRST, a tip of the hat to my sweet wife, who does such a great job of supporting our family, which allows me to go tilting after windmill after windmill after windmill…
Also to Chris Kula. We met at an Oct 5 World Can’t Wait rally in our Oakland neighborhood, and have been impeachment partners ever since. He created and handles the website impeccably, despite his November wedding and January 1-6 cross-country road trip from NYC to Ocean Beach.
And a deep, deep bow to YOU. Not only for the incredible job you did of forwarding the impeachment movement and enabling the upcoming retaking of our government and our country, but especially for the personal contribution you made to me. To have my 10-year old daughter there on Saturday, and to know that she saw her dad flat-out LOVED by 1,000 people, mostly complete strangers… now THAT, I promise you: priceless.
AND THIS THING AINT OVER: We may get slightly more than our 24 hours in the media spotlight. As I was driving my cab out of the cab lot this morning my phone rang – a man from the… European Press Agency? – he’d heard about some impeachment event – were there any photos they could have? I said, “Are you at a computer?” When he opened our website I heard an audible, “Oooo…” I said he could have them, and asked where they might appear. He said they had a large list of clients, newspapers all over Europe -- I couldn’t catch all the names – and I did hear him say, “five papers in New York, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times…” So, who knows? We were on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bay Area Section – black and white. I thought we belonged on front page, in color, but you take what you get, and you keep moving forward.
WHAT’S NEXT – I’ve been hearing this question a lot. I do in fact do have an idea or two. One of them should be pretty easy: one will take a little time to cook. Please stay with me.
The bottom line: I REALLY THINK WE CAN SEE OUR PRESIDENT UNSEATED, AND WHAT WE DID YESTERDAY WAS A GIANT STEP IN THAT DIRECTION. THANK YOU. LET’S KEEP UP THE HEAT ANY WAY YOU CAN.
I’ll be back…
brad
Also to Chris Kula. We met at an Oct 5 World Can’t Wait rally in our Oakland neighborhood, and have been impeachment partners ever since. He created and handles the website impeccably, despite his November wedding and January 1-6 cross-country road trip from NYC to Ocean Beach.
And a deep, deep bow to YOU. Not only for the incredible job you did of forwarding the impeachment movement and enabling the upcoming retaking of our government and our country, but especially for the personal contribution you made to me. To have my 10-year old daughter there on Saturday, and to know that she saw her dad flat-out LOVED by 1,000 people, mostly complete strangers… now THAT, I promise you: priceless.
AND THIS THING AINT OVER: We may get slightly more than our 24 hours in the media spotlight. As I was driving my cab out of the cab lot this morning my phone rang – a man from the… European Press Agency? – he’d heard about some impeachment event – were there any photos they could have? I said, “Are you at a computer?” When he opened our website I heard an audible, “Oooo…” I said he could have them, and asked where they might appear. He said they had a large list of clients, newspapers all over Europe -- I couldn’t catch all the names – and I did hear him say, “five papers in New York, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times…” So, who knows? We were on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bay Area Section – black and white. I thought we belonged on front page, in color, but you take what you get, and you keep moving forward.
WHAT’S NEXT – I’ve been hearing this question a lot. I do in fact do have an idea or two. One of them should be pretty easy: one will take a little time to cook. Please stay with me.
The bottom line: I REALLY THINK WE CAN SEE OUR PRESIDENT UNSEATED, AND WHAT WE DID YESTERDAY WAS A GIANT STEP IN THAT DIRECTION. THANK YOU. LET’S KEEP UP THE HEAT ANY WAY YOU CAN.
I’ll be back…
brad
Saturday, January 06, 2007
January 6, 2007 (evening)
YOU GUYS ROCK! Everyone who was there already knows -- it was an incredible, a unique event, with a group feeling which, if it can be replicated (and of course it can be) will change the world -- and could certainly overturn this administration! More about that another day... but TODAY:
I'm told by folks who know, that the single most important thing WE can do right now (before this is yesterday's news) is to forward the press release and the links below, containing the photos, to everyone we know all over the world, and ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW TO ANYONE IN THE MEDIA, NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT THEIR POSITION MAY SEEM TO YOU. The photos are phenomenal -- and please tell anyone that they are free to use them (for free) as long as photo credit is given to JOHN MONTGOMERY, our amazing photographer.
Much more later, I'm sure, but for now, take a look at the photos at the links below, and SEND THEM TO THE WORLD, PLEASE.
Easily one of the best days of my life... THANK YOU -- You guys ROCK!
brad
(and forgive me if i'm slow to answer personal emails for a while... there were a couple hundred waiting for me when i got home... the Los Angeles CBS 6 o'clock news says they're running footage and want to speak with me for three minutes... my old friend Bird from northern Idaho just called to say that on his local 6 o'clock news he saw an enormous IMPEACH! deal on the beach in San Francisco...! A Chinese newspaper just called asking for permission to use the photos...)
YOU GUYS ROCK! Everyone who was there already knows -- it was an incredible, a unique event, with a group feeling which, if it can be replicated (and of course it can be) will change the world -- and could certainly overturn this administration! More about that another day... but TODAY:
I'm told by folks who know, that the single most important thing WE can do right now (before this is yesterday's news) is to forward the press release and the links below, containing the photos, to everyone we know all over the world, and ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW TO ANYONE IN THE MEDIA, NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT THEIR POSITION MAY SEEM TO YOU. The photos are phenomenal -- and please tell anyone that they are free to use them (for free) as long as photo credit is given to JOHN MONTGOMERY, our amazing photographer.
Much more later, I'm sure, but for now, take a look at the photos at the links below, and SEND THEM TO THE WORLD, PLEASE.
Easily one of the best days of my life... THANK YOU -- You guys ROCK!
brad
(and forgive me if i'm slow to answer personal emails for a while... there were a couple hundred waiting for me when i got home... the Los Angeles CBS 6 o'clock news says they're running footage and want to speak with me for three minutes... my old friend Bird from northern Idaho just called to say that on his local 6 o'clock news he saw an enormous IMPEACH! deal on the beach in San Francisco...! A Chinese newspaper just called asking for permission to use the photos...)
Friday, January 05, 2007
Channel 7 News came to my house an hour ago. They say they're doing a piece on us tonight at 11 -- and they're sending up their own helicopter tomorrow....
PEOPLE ARE ASKING: Who's paying for this? I am, and happy to do it. If you want to give money, give it to one of the groups that have been working for impeachment -- afterdowningstreet.org, democrats.com, worldcantwait.org, Congressman John Conyers, and I'm leaving out a million others, but you know who they are... And Working Assets -- this whole thing wouldn't have been possible without Working Assets organizing tool -- volunteerforchange.org
Time to pack the car...
See you in the a.m...
brad
PEOPLE ARE ASKING: Who's paying for this? I am, and happy to do it. If you want to give money, give it to one of the groups that have been working for impeachment -- afterdowningstreet.org, democrats.com, worldcantwait.org, Congressman John Conyers, and I'm leaving out a million others, but you know who they are... And Working Assets -- this whole thing wouldn't have been possible without Working Assets organizing tool -- volunteerforchange.org
Time to pack the car...
See you in the a.m...
brad
Thursday, January 04, 2007
GROWTH NUMBERS: Please don’t stop spreading the word, but for six straight days we’ve had bigger numbers than the day before (we’re up 102 today, at 709)... Fourteen new people registered while I was taking a 20-minute nap… I don’t sleep any more, have invented a new weight loss program: Start your own impeachment project, stress out, toss in a colonoscopy, lose 14 pounds in a couple of weeks!...
THE POWER OF THESE EVENTS: Check out this link to a similar event on a beach near Hiroshima, and tell me if you don’t get some goosebumps thinking about the potential in our event…!
http://www.barewitness.org/photoalbum/Hiroshima.htm
LOGISTICS: Several people have asked about parking (plenty), directions (easy), transportation (lots available) -- at www.beachimpeach.org, top of page, the link “directions, etc” has all that information and more… Regrading dress: the photographers say dark colors show up best, but the Hiroshima photo shows that color is attractive too -- the splashes of white are a nice contrast… A veteran of these events has suggested we bring small mirrors – the helicopter will make several passes, and on one pass the photographers may radio to the ground for us to use our mirrors (or to stand and wave, or whatever…)
MEDIA: If you know anyone at a media outlet, please bug them… The SF Chronicle will have at least a photographer on the ground – not sure about a reporter… A couple of other outlets considering putting their own photographers in the air (not holding my breath)… This morning CKUT in Montreal recorded a ten-minute interview with me and you might hear it on the Pacifica network in the next 24-36 hours. You can hear it now at:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/01/04/18343955.php
AFTERWARDS: When the helicopter clatters away from us, let’s leave the beach as clean as we can… Unless it’s horribly windy (and so far I haven’t ONCE looked at the weather, but people say it’s for sunshine), I’m probably going to stick around and have a bonfire somewhere near the “I” in “IMPEACH!” Come say hi. After that, I’m going to go have a massage and then a long, long nap…
THE POWER OF THESE EVENTS: Check out this link to a similar event on a beach near Hiroshima, and tell me if you don’t get some goosebumps thinking about the potential in our event…!
http://www.barewitness.org/photoalbum/Hiroshima.htm
LOGISTICS: Several people have asked about parking (plenty), directions (easy), transportation (lots available) -- at www.beachimpeach.org, top of page, the link “directions, etc” has all that information and more… Regrading dress: the photographers say dark colors show up best, but the Hiroshima photo shows that color is attractive too -- the splashes of white are a nice contrast… A veteran of these events has suggested we bring small mirrors – the helicopter will make several passes, and on one pass the photographers may radio to the ground for us to use our mirrors (or to stand and wave, or whatever…)
MEDIA: If you know anyone at a media outlet, please bug them… The SF Chronicle will have at least a photographer on the ground – not sure about a reporter… A couple of other outlets considering putting their own photographers in the air (not holding my breath)… This morning CKUT in Montreal recorded a ten-minute interview with me and you might hear it on the Pacifica network in the next 24-36 hours. You can hear it now at:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/01/04/18343955.php
AFTERWARDS: When the helicopter clatters away from us, let’s leave the beach as clean as we can… Unless it’s horribly windy (and so far I haven’t ONCE looked at the weather, but people say it’s for sunshine), I’m probably going to stick around and have a bonfire somewhere near the “I” in “IMPEACH!” Come say hi. After that, I’m going to go have a massage and then a long, long nap…
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
DREAM: No genius required to interpret this one: I’m underwater, wrestling a giant optopus, have just managed to get the tips of all its many tentacles gathered into my left hand, and am frantically pondering my next move when I snap awake... and instantly recognize the morphing of my current life: helicopter, insurance, event permit, photographers, credit card, 300-foot tape measures, 1,200 people, newspapers, radio stations, weather forecasts... Yes, and Onward!
THE CROWD: As we close in on 600 registrants (584 just now), I'm fully confident of a capacity crowd. People ask what we'll do if we get too few or too many people. Here’s the figuring: Our “IMPEACH!” will be 100 feet tall, with lettering ten feet thick. Each prone person will (on average) occupy a spot six feet tall and two and a half feet wide. A “mere” 700 bodies will fill the message “loosely” -- but adequately, I think, for our photographic purposes. 940 will fill it “solidly” (it is “designed” for 940). And we can easily squeeze in 1,200. If we get a true overflow, we've got options: add an underline, add a border, or all or some of us can just sit up or even stand up. More than you wanted to know? Don’t worry – it’ll all work. People at the beach Saturday morning will be directing attendees and handing out fliers with this information and more. Also, I’ll have a bullhorn.
MEDIA: News organizations often decide in the last 24 hours whether or not to cover something. I once spent ten years working on something I thought important (and imagining much media interest), but it wasn’t until the last two weeks that media came calling -- and then it was a landslide. The best I’ve gotten from the SF Chronicle’s assignment editor is, “I’m not sure if we’re going to cover it…” The Chronicle photo desk is undecided. The first media interest is from Canada -- but the distance may work in our favor. I’m scheduled to be interviewed Thursday afternoon or early Friday by a Montreal station which is part of the Pacifica Radio network, and when one outlet cracks the door, the entire media swarm often barges right through. So, we’ll see… tick, tick, tick… But it’s hard to imagine that 1,000-some people will gather in the Speaker of the House’s backyard two days after she takes center stage and no one, not even the local paper, will cover it. In any case, we’ve got our OWN helicopter, and on our beloved internet OUR photographer’s photos will go as far and wide as we feel like sending them.
All for now -- see you Saturday… First, let me check our tally… ah, I love this: 607!
Brad
THE CROWD: As we close in on 600 registrants (584 just now), I'm fully confident of a capacity crowd. People ask what we'll do if we get too few or too many people. Here’s the figuring: Our “IMPEACH!” will be 100 feet tall, with lettering ten feet thick. Each prone person will (on average) occupy a spot six feet tall and two and a half feet wide. A “mere” 700 bodies will fill the message “loosely” -- but adequately, I think, for our photographic purposes. 940 will fill it “solidly” (it is “designed” for 940). And we can easily squeeze in 1,200. If we get a true overflow, we've got options: add an underline, add a border, or all or some of us can just sit up or even stand up. More than you wanted to know? Don’t worry – it’ll all work. People at the beach Saturday morning will be directing attendees and handing out fliers with this information and more. Also, I’ll have a bullhorn.
MEDIA: News organizations often decide in the last 24 hours whether or not to cover something. I once spent ten years working on something I thought important (and imagining much media interest), but it wasn’t until the last two weeks that media came calling -- and then it was a landslide. The best I’ve gotten from the SF Chronicle’s assignment editor is, “I’m not sure if we’re going to cover it…” The Chronicle photo desk is undecided. The first media interest is from Canada -- but the distance may work in our favor. I’m scheduled to be interviewed Thursday afternoon or early Friday by a Montreal station which is part of the Pacifica Radio network, and when one outlet cracks the door, the entire media swarm often barges right through. So, we’ll see… tick, tick, tick… But it’s hard to imagine that 1,000-some people will gather in the Speaker of the House’s backyard two days after she takes center stage and no one, not even the local paper, will cover it. In any case, we’ve got our OWN helicopter, and on our beloved internet OUR photographer’s photos will go as far and wide as we feel like sending them.
All for now -- see you Saturday… First, let me check our tally… ah, I love this: 607!
Brad
