Keep St Joe Weird

The main artery of St Joe is without a doubt, the Belt Highway, leading in and out of the beating heart of our shopping destinations. But without quality-of-life adjusted jobs, who can afford the necessities (let alone the luxuries) our city offers?

Our jobs continue to slip through our hands and trickle down to other countries—of which see wages evaporate on the trip between leaving our hands and dripping on their feet.

Corporations were bailed out of their own bear traps, banks were bailed out of their own burning vaults, but you and I were sold for scrap because we don’t own a politician or two.

Saturday 3pm October 22nd at BELT & FREDERICK intersections, join us as we remind our government, and their bankrolling lobbyists, who tells whom when to jump.

The Occupy Movement is a loosely defined populist movement allowing for the tired, poor, and hungry masses to state their own grievances, but began on Wall Street as a quest to end corporate money in politics. It is the brain child of Adbusters magazine but remains leaderless. 99% of the public have little political influence since corporations were deemed ‘people’ and donations ‘free speech’. A march is planned for Saturday Oct 15 at City Hall. Groups begin meeting at 11 am and the march is set for 2 pm. All are welcome no matter your political philosophy.

“Come join OccupyStJoe. We are a group of people who love ur country and who are joining with other groups across the country who are deeply concerned about corporate greed and economic injustice. We have families and some are lucky enough to be employed even though, 8.8% of Missourians are unemployed or unemployable. Too many people have lost their jobs, homes and pensions because of Wall Street greed, fraud and criminality. The richest one percent of the world’s population and OUR Nation’s population have been and will continue to usurp the government through legislation bought by lobbyists to enforce failing and ludicrous standards of trade and economic policies as well as this country’s financial institutions. We are protesting the corporate takeover of our politics, a takeover which is systematically dismantling our democracy.”

Simon Fink is Still Lost Bird Music and he wanted you to know about the new SLBM album, August, that gets released tomorrow (8/23) and will be available everywhere online including iTunes and Amazon. You can preview the whole thing at http://stilllostbirdmusic. bandcamp.com/album/august and see videos/info at www.stilllostbirdmusic.com

Someone is trying to catch the eye of Keep St Joe Weird down in the South End. I guess it is true what Cinderella said: You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.

Keepstjoeweird.com is not over, but it has run it’s course of being a daily spotlight.

This is not due to St Joseph being boring or running out of weird stories. There are always stories to tell and I will occasionally tell some more.

The problem, for me, exists in the hyper-local nationalism—or cityism— associated with a project of this scale. KSJW is much like hiphop scenes around the country. The content is reliant on the context and becomes so insular that new languages and myths are created, thus requiring an outsider to ask for footnotes to understand or enjoy.

One must idealize and promote one’s homeland as a means of defense from encroaching cultures.

In the case of ksjw, there are not enough people to protect the fortress of the St Joe Weird Arts, and by all accounts we were defeated by outside culture long before ksjw began. Without naming names, there is more of a St Joe arts pantomime community than a defined St Joe arts community—with exception to a few ignored and fortified artists—very little is being created that can carry the title of St Joe Original.

To continue on a daily basis of promoting the few St Joe originals that make the town “weird” is to make few very redundant circles, further isolating any development and further promoting blind cityism.

There will still be sporadic accounts of St Joe weirdness, but only about as much as there are people willing to keep st joe weird.

Dsoedean ep ‘On An Edge’ available now as digital download on Bandcamp

Ephemera Friday

photo by Kiley Bodenhamer of Pompous Pilot and Sleep Empire, Sleep

Friday Night Blurbs:

The Late Night Buffet Comedy Show at Snake Bite Club

Gallery 7 celebrates three years with champagne and cake like all three year olds do. While across the street, the Sounds of Summer concert series continues with Private Stock at Coleman Hawkins Park at Felix Street Square.

The Robidoux Resident Theater’s Summer Music Camp presents “101 Dalmatians” at the Robidoux Landing Playhouse (103 W Francis, 816-232-1778)

The Motors play Ben Magoon’s Famous Deli

Sick B Twiztid rock Cafe Acoustic.

Gallery 7 (118 7th St) celebrates 3 years of showcasing an ever-evolving collective of visual artists next Friday, June 24, but first they are hosting the Cigar Box Art Event.

The gallery is selling artfully repurposed cigar boxes at, and for the benefit of, the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival on Friday, June 17th and Saturday, June 18th at the Coleman Hawkins Park at Felix Street Square. (7th & Felix)

The cigar boxes were donated by Smooth Endings (36th St & Beck)

On Friday, June 17th, The Ramey Memo will play Melt Your Face II on KQ2’s Live at Five from their new release Forget It.

Don’t have a teevee / have a scheduling conflict? Watch the live feed on http://ustream.tv/channel/outmouth where the show will also be archived.

The band will then debut the whole album + some very choice covers on Saturday, June 18th at Cafe Acoustic. You can pick up a copy of the new full length at the show, at Record Wear House (1401 So Belt) or at Lanham Music (2401 No Belt).

Friday, May 27, 2011

Nick Ford’s Birthday/Headed-to-NYC-for-Acting-School Karaoke & Comedy Send-Off Extravaganza at the The Rendezvous. (619 Felix St)

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Nick has organized a disaster relief show for the victims of the tornado in Joplin, MO on Thursday, June 2nd. Every month, Nick hosts a comedy open mic at Cafe Acoustic (2605 Frederick Ave) on Thursdays and this will be his last open mic. All types of performers are invited to participate in this event.

It’s hard to laugh and remain positive during a horrendous tragedy like what the people of Joplin experienced on May 22 and let it be known, this is not a situation to be made light of.

However, if laughter is the best medicine, then donation is the best nation. All donations collected will be sent to the American Red Cross for Joplin disaster relief. You can also donate directly if you’re unable to attend this benefit show at http://www.redcross-ozarks.org/joplin/