Amor y Lucha

This one day may actually be a blog about something. However, for the most part my creative outlet has been on the musical side of things, and my writing confined to the labor policy wonk arena that pays my bills. It would be nice to do a bit more writing, but first I'm interested in doing a bit more reading. Who knows? Maybe it will inspire me to write more. Time will tell.

Kick-Starting the New Year

Joao (Discoparlante) and I (Dozer) decided to kick off the new year, by kickstarting the label again. The label was dormant for years, in part due to other financial priorities and the starting a new chapter of my life post the break-up of my old band 1905. After 3 years of dormancy, Joao has come into help, and it has now been reborn. We are now two heads instead of one and we are scheming and planning on ways to keep the label alive and interesting. We have quite a few projects on our plate, one of them is an online and traveling distro of international/foreign punk and underground music.

We've put up an online store, feel free to check it out here. We'll be repressing some of the releases in the near future and we'll even have some new releases before the year is out as well. Check out the the label website for news. 2009 will be bringing some surprises.

Also, I'm playing music again, with Joao, Willie Hoffman, and John Seager. Geographically we are half DC, a quarter Philly, and a quarter Brooklyn, which equals the sume of 100% awesome. Check us out the band Our combined past musical offenses were 1905, Redencion 9-11, Midvale, and Aghast.

Everybody Brace Yourself, Economic Turbulence Ahead

Last night the rescue of the U.S. auto industry collapsed. This morning GM is already talking about closing 21 plants across North America. Looks like even more workers will be getting some form of a pink slip for the holiday.

I am no fan of how U.S automakers have done business over the years, nor am I a fan of their environmental negligence. In fact I know Henry Ford was a fascist fond of the Nazis and GM had its tendencies as well. If you have seen Roger and Me you are not likely to be too fond of General Motors' business practices. However, I am aware that the U.S. auto industry is one of the few manufacturing bases in left in the United States.

The failure of providing U.S. auto companies a heavily conditioned bridge loan of $14 billion dollars by a Senate that eagerly provided Wall Street with 700 billion no strings attached dollars I find rather sickening. Not to mention, some of the same people voting against this rescue package voted for huge incentives and tax breaks to bring foreign auto-makers into the United States.

… and it goes a little something like this.

I’m a firm believer that communities should exist in real life, not just on-line. Most of us interact with the people we care about via some form of technology more often than we find ourselves in the presence of those people.

As life would have it, most of the people I care about live a great distance from the place I call home. Those of us residing in the same geographic region, do not see each other as often as we’d like due to work and family constraints. Meanwhile our lives go one.

It seems there is more and more technology to keep us connected with each other. The unfortunate effect of this is our attention spans fade, and we no longer make as much effort to actually spend time in each others presence. It seems we stay in touch for the sake of staying in touch.

The return of this online presence, is my acceptance that too many of us remain stuck in offices at computers, or tied up with our lives, when we could be enjoying the world around us. Aside from a diversion in our everyday lives, I’d like to use it to share information about events where we all could spend some time together.

Since I am me, and this is also a vehicle of pushing the music my friends and I make on you, you can figure that many of these events will be music and art related.

I’ve been an active counter-cultural taste-maker here in Washington, DC since the turn of the century, why should I stop now?

Stay tuned.

Amor y lucha,
Dozer

We are free, truly free, when we don’t need to rent our arms to
anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths.
~Ricardo Flores Magon, speech, 31 May 1914

Kick Off

Once upon a time I had a DIY record label, aspirations of writing a 'zine, and played in a couple bands that toured.

I never quite seemed to have the time necessary to do any of it well, except the playing in bands.

I managed to sell a few thousand copies of some records, but I am left with a few thousand more sitting at home. Turns out there may be some folks still interested in those records. This is an attempt to test those waters.

This is also a chance for me to put up some of the things I have been working on writing wise, giving me a bit of a creative outlet for all the ideas I have stifled away over the years.

Aside from the rants and musings I am bound to put up here, those who take the time to stop by here on occasion will be treated to my own shameless promotion of things I find of interest. Most of the time that will include the propping up of my friend's efforts.

So until I am inspired to add to this again, I leave you to ponder the above.

- Dozer