Tuesday, September 18, 2007

News Casualty

This is a rather sharp article I wrote which didn't make the cut for my newspaper. It might be a little old now, but really, it's timeless.

Violent Protest – 9.11.07
by Ed Weinberg

Twenty minutes before a September 10th anti-casino protest is scheduled to occur, pro-development advocates are already at the site of the proposed SugarHouse casino, preparing for a battle with light conversation and laughter. The group, FACT (Fishtown Action), holds mass-produced signs reading "No Delay, Build Today," and wears matching white t-shirts with the SugarHouse logo. They talk with excitement about the revitalization of the area, and a picnic the casino threw two days earlier.

Across the six lanes of Delaware Avenue, on a traffic island at its intersection with Frankford, a group of rival protesters calling themselves FAST (Fishtown Against Sugarhouse Takeover) hand out colorful signs and shout their own slogans. There's no dress code for this side, and their styles range from blue-collar to shorts and loud t-shirts. The demographic skews noticeably younger, with a handful of toddlers holding signs which read "casiNO!" About the only thing the two groups have in common is talk about the revitalization of the area and the picnic, albeit with a markedly different slant.

Where FACT supporters ask, "Why should Atlantic City get all the business?" FAST responds, "We don't want what's happened to the city of Atlantic City to happen to Philadelphia."

And where FACT sees the picnic as a sign of SugarHouse's generosity and future benefits, FAST tends to focus on one ugly incident in its closing hours.

The incident, in the details everyone can agree on, consisted of FAST supporter Ed Verrall arriving at Penn Treaty Park late in the afternoon, when the cleanup was on and the last of the attendees were leaving. He'd come on bicycle, by himself. He took some pictures. He got into a shouting match with FACT member Donna Tomlinson. Some other attendees approached the two with contentious motives. Verrall was punched, and went down. The police didn't take any names.

Tomlinson says of the incident, "He threw the first punch, and he threw it at a woman."

Daniel Hunter, an organizer with Casino-Free Philadelphia, claims, "His arms never left his side" – although he wasn't present for the altercation.

Mary Ann Worthington, a FACT Board member who witnessed the incident, says, "He was arguing and cursing at Donna, saying that we're paid off, saying nasty things about the Catholic Church."

Verrall says, "I didn't go there to talk to anyone."

If you split the accounts along political lines, the story starts to fill out, and gains more contradictions on final analysis. In FACT's reconstruction, Ed Verrall came to picnic late in the day, taking pictures of the dwindling crowd to simulate a failed event. When approached by Tomlinson, Verrall started yelling things like, "You're ruining our neighborhood!" More people came over. Worthington thinks the skirmish started with Verrall pushing his bike into a woman she knows by first name only, Jerri. John Flanagan, one of the men who came to intercede, says the bike didn't play a part. Tomlinson says he lunged at a woman named Dolores, then one of the men stepped in and it became a shoving match. Worthington says the woman's husband punched him once, and he went down.

This they all agree on. The fight wasn't much of a fight at all.

It came to an appropriate conclusion, Tomlinson says, when the cops came and didn't take any names. "They said, 'Listen buddy, it's common.' Then he started screaming at them!"

The FAST version differs in small but crucial ways. Verrall, a 52-year-old teamster turned activist, face still colored by the remnants of a black eye, says he was taking pictures of six city trucks at the picnic, disturbed by their presence. Tomlinson picked a fight with him, and called other people over. A man – not a woman – grabbed his bike, he grabbed it back, "they punched me from behind and I went down. They said I punched a woman."

Verrall says that other descriptions of the event had inconsistencies, and the police let these witnesses walk away. "They took me back to the station and had me look through pictures. But of course I didn't find anything – these guys aren't criminals."

Hunter has more to say about the ramifications of the incident. He thinks that the casino may have hired thugs, since Verrall – who lives across the street from the SugarHouse site – didn't recognize any of his assailants. He's also disturbed by the lack of police reaction. Though he doesn't say it explicitly, he's clearly concerned that the fight could get uglier.

Hunter says, "This is the first time they've been involved in politically-motivated violence. These are scare tactics. We want SugarHouse to say they don't condone violence – we've said this in the past. But their aim is to divide Fishtown, and this is the way they do it."

One thing stands out in Hunter's conjectures as fact: The casino is dividing Fishtown. Whether this is an intentional maneuver or a side-effect of a controversial issue, the SugarHouse plans have become a polarizing issue.

Late in the protest, after the sun, sloganeering and constant roar of rush-hour traffic have taken their toll, the tension comes to a head. Moon Mullen, a large man with a booming voice and a FACT Board member, says, "It's nice to see Society Hill here."

The man he addressed, Casino-Free Philadelphia lawyer Paul Boni, says, "It's nice to be here."

Mullen asks, "Do you know where this is?" stomping the pavement. "This is Fishtown!" he yells, "Fishtown!"

A man standing next to Boni responds, "I know, I live here!"

Mullen yells, "This is Fishtown!" one more time, and walks away.

When the dust settles, SugarHouse PR man Ken Snyder walks over from the side Mullen had been standing on and shakes Boni's hand. He says, "No hard feelings, I love this guy. We have season tickets together."

Daniel Hunter, Ed Verrall + John Domlen (l. to r.) in front of Sugarhouse site

General George Patton's 6 Past Lives

[From The Book of Lists, Wallechinsky, Wallace and Wallace, 1977 edition]

Patton had "subconscious memories" of these previous incarnations:

1. A prehistoric warrior who "battled for fresh mammoth" and "warred for pastures new."
2. A Greek hoplite who fought the Persians of King Cyrus.
3. A soldier of Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre.
4. A legionnaire with Julius Caesar in northern Gaul.
5. An English knight at the battle of Crécy during the Hundred Years' War.
6. A Napoleonic marshal at a time "when one laughed at death and numbers, trusting in the emperor's star."

–Farago, Ladislas, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (New York: I. Obolensky, 1964).

Frieze in Belgrade, "the most bombed city in the history of the world"

Grace Paley says...

"Two ears, one for literature, one for home, are useful for writers."

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Illadelphia

I moved in to a new place (a new, new place for anyone who knows how I've been living) Sunday and it might be the nicest one yet. At least, after I flea bomb my room (a half-hour ago) and Rug Doctor some of the darker traces of the cat who used to chill there, affectionately known as Mr. Shittypants.

On my initial sweep, I found a dead bug in one of the corners. I checked for it today, intending to pick it up, and found I'd already done it. This is something I likely wouldn't have done in the past – I would have seen it and, having no paper towel handy, I would have left it for later. I would have forgotten it and found it again. But I didn't. For some reason, this strikes me as significant.

I live with three guys, all seem very nice. Me, two roomies and a couple other people had some drinks last night. Fun times. Just like my travels, hanging with a Hungarian (roommate), French from France (roommate), German and American. No girls however, very unlike my travels.

Vince (French guy) and I played a French card game this morning with an oversized deck. This is called Tarot, but if it told a fortune I don't want to hear it – I lost. Just really relaxing, chill times, reminiscent of my dear departed Montreal, and the future looks equally dope. I've been killing as a reporter for the Spirit, a community newspaper in NE Philly – my editor tells me to "keep writing the hell out of those articles." I might have a job as a part-time waiter for a service that caters banquets at the Kimmel Center, Perelman Center, The Academy of the Arts, The Free Library, etc. Things are looking up.

So yeah, this is a pic of my neighborhood, Powelton Village, an old hippie enclave. Apparently, it's famously the home of a radical black group that got firebombed in the '80s (Ed. did a little research, my undoing, and found out the group had actually moved to West Philly (my former area!) after a blockade had cut their Powelton food supplies in 1978). My Dad told me the area's okay, just stay away from that house. So of course I won't.



Saturday, September 8, 2007

Mr. Pyramid, Zahi Hawass

Zahi Hawass, world-famous Egyptologist and Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities – the last word on pyramids – was speaking at UPenn on Thursday, I had the date circled on my calendar and was looking forward to going. I felt like this was the thing that would get me writing again, a little kick in the ass from a volatile genius. It seemed like a chemical equation – put me and Zahi in one room and watch the sparks fly.

Something came up, and I got there late. I had heard stories about the man, stories which conjured a bigger image than the white-haired Egyptian I watched sign books. The man was squat and heavy like a brick, well dressed in gray wool, a smile of deliberate joy fighting the accustomed frown.

The man had condemned the Bosnian pyramid project I volunteered on as "ludicrous," and refused to investigate further. Everyone had something to say about him. He loomed like God over the project. Semir Osmanagic, his crazy Bosnian equivalent, claimed that Zahi protected his interests by not acknowledging the possibility of pyramids. Amir Moustafa, a student journalist studying in Zahi's Egypt, told me he thought it was a larger issue – he protected the interests of orthodox science by not traveling to the fringes. Nancy Gallou, a tough archaeologist and dear buddy, told me about the Egyptian consulate's unaffiliated mission to Bosnia with a black humor characteristic of the time: "This Ali Barakat came here and told everybody lies. Boy, was Zahi not pleased!"

More evocatively, the Boston University-employed geologist Robert Schoch told me a story. He had actually met the man once. He had gravity, Schoch said. One time, he was having a disagreement with another scientist – the story goes – he threw him onto the ground, stepped on his neck and asked him to reconsider. The man did.

I watched him from the cluster of photographers in front of the signing table and its line, my camera out for camouflage. I got nothing from this, his wavering between smiling and serious, posing for pictures, head bowed in signing. I wanted to ask him my question, not really a question but more of a platform, a test. "Why didn't he deal with the Bosnian pyramids more decisively? Despite his one-time condemnation, they still soaked up scientific funding, etc." Looking at him talking with his fans, signing the same Indiana Jones hats Semir had worn, the anxious crowd waiting for their moment, I decided my timing was off and my question that wasn't really a question got put away forever. At least until I ran into Josh Bernstein outside, host of History Channel's Digging for the Truth.

I asked him my question, hungry for some sort of confrontation with an emissary of popular science. He had never heard of pyramids in Bosnia, he said, but it sounded like a tourism stunt. It was, I told him, but worse. It took money intended for science. Grasping at straws, I asked him if he thought this was wrong.

He said, "It's an impoverished country and I guess they have to do whatever they can to get tourism. In Afghanistan they sell opium..."

"Alright, thanks, see ya," I called over my shoulder, unsatisfied.


Monday, August 27, 2007

Mtl 4eva

While I do another late-month scramble for an apartment in Philly, sometimes my arrow slips onto the Montreal CL pages. Then I see some $100/month apartment – and you can be sure it's not as dangerous as Rittenhouse Square (my 93-year-old told me about a mugging there) – and my heart breaks all over again.

So, why is Montreal the best place in the world? This is a question scientists have been asking for at least 8 years. Their answers will rock you.

1. Smoked meat, bagels, poutine and shockingly good health

2. L'hockey

3. Les filles du roi – the "king's daughters" that were sent to Quebec to make babies in the early settlement days and contribute to a heritage of loose morals

4. The art scenes, which are all interrelated and pretty easy to infiltrate. It's really a kind of small town

4 1/2. Autodistroboto, the cigarette vending machines repurposed to sell pack-sized art items

5. Sweet memories of Miami

6. Montreal summer – the best summer I've ever spent

7. Halloween, 2003

8. King Heroin

9. Montreal really listens when you talk shit

10. The lead sentence of a Berlin music column I read in 2006, "Now that Montreal is more New York than New York..."

Kisses to you, ma chere fleure

Friday, August 17, 2007

Monday, August 13, 2007

On odd jobs

Last week, I officially joined the ranks of the good-hearted but annoying folks who go door to door and guilt you into giving for the environment. And then I dropped out. It was a Thursday and I had nothing better to do.

The idea had taken hold the day before: Get a job today. I gave out doctored resumes and hastily filled out applications. This was a version of what I'd been doing for the past month, selling myself continually to the far-away and noncommittal mandarins of my future life. Each sent email was a reminder of the immeasurable distance between my aimless wanting self and my direction in life. Was I following it? Was I even getting close?

I liked this paper filling and hand shaking a great deal better than the internet stuff, it felt more real and possible. I could see the distance and it was not insurmountable. If I chose to, I could have held the hand of my potential employer and never let go.

On a lark, I called the black number on the lime-green poster, framed by the words, "NEED A SUMMER JOB?" I did, and they were out there. I was the best man on the market for this sort of work. I'd worked in national parks in Utah and cleaned penguin shit on the Jersey shore. I'd been paid to take photos and sold stuff on eBay. Like a guy ordering Girls Gone Wild via express mail, I was confident I would be getting my rocks off soon.

The canvassing job started off holding my hand, and it was very soon sticking its tongue into my ear canal. It tickled. I didn't know if I wanted to kiss it on the waxy mouth, so I played coy for the moment. It was 1:30 pm Thursday, and I was being introduced to smiling faces.

A 22-yr-old Temple film student named Justin was my trainer. His favorite film was Good Will Hunting and I kind of liked him for not saying something pretentious. There were some other kids in the group with us, a high-schooler and a twenty-something teacher doing this for the summer. We read from a script, and it affected the way we thought. It shrunk our personalities to a letter-size page. It was a complaint in three beats: terrible environmental fact, terrible environmental fact, appeal for money. I went into it doubtful for this exact reason. Shadowing Justin and smiling, I got the friendly/commiserating eye roll a couple times. It's not that these people didn't believe in what we were doing, it's just that we were annoying them.

We were out in a rustic suburb on a brutal night, and no one even offered us lemonade. I went solo after a two hour introduction and racked up $30. Justin said I was doing really well, he said I was a natural. I dropped my intellectual hangups and learned my lines. I found it a good exercise in canceling ego. And of course all the rhetoric about making a difference left me with a pleasant feeling. It's only when the glow wore off that I remembered it bored me deadly.

That night I drank cheap margaritas and woke up the next morning regretting the whole thing.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Statement

Ok, I was trying to refine this a bit before going public, but the kind folks at My Ninja Please tossed a link my way so here it is. My name is Ed Weinberg, I'm a 26 yr old creative type living in Philly for the past 40 days. I write, dj, cut my own hair. I'm at a cafe right now in Center City called the Last Drop, and I feel comfortable here. They're playing an old torch song and the fans are humming.

I chose the name Riot in East Egg for a sense of revolution I'm trying to foster, in myself if nowhere else. I've done some things in my life -- I dug for pyramids in Bosnia, hitchhiked from Berlin to Paris, knocked out a couple of issues of a rad magazine in New York City -- and I know that these things are my true calling. Accomplishments, always changing focus. Not the day job I have 17 minutes to get to.

So I'm trying to accomplish something here, every day. This is something like a public journal, and I hope you like it. One of my favorite concepts is the lattice Dave Eggers goes on about in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I hope this small riot can contribute in some way to this energy, something strong enough to overcome apathy and the sad directions of the world.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Last night:

I dream I am talking idly to some girl at a club. It is a noisy, leather-upholstered place. She shows some interest in me and I stay to see how much. We're on a couch in the back room, unsure, bored. I'm probably wondering, "What am I even doing in this place?" as I often wonder, wandering about my life.

I'm looking off into the distance when a cop comes into the bar, steps on a barstool and removes a gun from his ankle holster. He walks slowly to the large bay window, gun held up at a 45 degree angle. When I see the gun I think, "What is he doing?" and watching him investigate the high angles of the window I say outloud, "I don't trust that cop." Someone seated near says, "He's probably FBI."

He whirls and shoots, a bullet lands softly and noiselessly beneath me. Another in my neck. I wake up in the empty room where I'd been depressed last night – it's 8 am. My eyes are open, but I've been inclined to sleep till 10, 11 most days, not having much to do.

I think "show the bastards you want to live" and I get up.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Thursday, July 26, 2007

West Philly Communal House Throws Party, Gets Egged

If you were on Kingsessing and 49th this Monday, you probably heard the high-pitched indie warble floating out of The Mitten’s fenced-in yard. Several of the neighborhood kids did, peering in at vegans sitting cross-legged on thrown-out couches and grilling veggie dogs. The indie community is very open, and these kids were invited in even though they hadn’t the faintest grasp of indie rock etiquette, which they demonstrated by sitting onstage next to a solo guitarist, one picking his nose and filling the space between songs with hilarious covers of ‘70s disco hits.

However, tension was brewing on the block. Cars rumbled by, and deep bass upset the mellow mood. As Frontier Ruckus, who had driven in from Michigan, was putting on a rockin’ headlining set, we hooted and hollered praise, and it could have been that it was getting late. In any case, their bassist’s coif was the recipient of a well-tossed egg, which led to a few sour notes and much squinting. Most of us were horrified, and the party soon broke up. But some of the less seemly characters present were frankly amused. They pointed out, heartlessly clever: Can there be a more fitting punishment for a vegan who’s pissing you off than an egg in the head?

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Most Extraordinary Character I Ever Met

An alternate title for The Man Who Planted Trees, a short story by Jean Giono that was originally written as an assignment for a magazine who wanted a story of the greatest human being who had ever lived. They rejected it when they found Giono had created a fiction, but in my mind this just makes it more powerful. I take it as a great and simple metaphor of the good one man can do, when I get down and existential. When I went to Bosnia to join a wild archaeological undertaking on a hunch, my friend sewed (crocheted? quilted?) a book for me that reads "Dear Eddie, Go Plant Trees" under a tree of golden thread. It's one of my top five possessions.

The others are:
1. Ipod
2. The book -- In Praise of Older Women
3. No Mas sweatshirt featuring Tecmo Bo, the most unstoppable athlete in the history of sports video games
4. My VHS copy of The Man Who Planted Trees

Frederic Back, himself a cult genius, made an animated film of the story, and it won the 1987 Oscar for Best Animated Short. Best movie ever? Probably.

A cool thing I came across is the story of Abdul Karim, a man who accomplished a similar, but actual, thing -- the creation of a breathing forest from nothing. Fuckin' unreal.

if you reading this fuck you


figure it would be nice to hook my girl, zoe strauss, up with a recommend

I'm going to start blogging



Heads up.