The Space Needle
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The Robocube Analytics has been on hiatus for a couple weeks due to my illness. But I’m back on my feet now. #fixingcapitalism will be firing on all cylinders from here to the election. If you have time, please check out my new piece about intersectionality, the old left, and #fixingcapitalism.
The Battle of Seattle was the event that put me over the edge. I was on my way to the practice room one morning when I saw the newspapers featuring photos of anti-globalization protesters. They were dueling with police wielding tear gas and rubber bullets.
I bought a newspaper and read it while I ate my breakfast. I went to the practice room, but deviated from the program. A new blues head popped into my mind. That rarely happens. Like, it literally popped, all in one piece. Then I played what might have been my best solo ever (too bad no one heard it) and I played the head again. I called it “The Space Needle.”
Then I put the horn back in the case and went back to my room to book a flight to Seattle. I used my roommate’s computer to look up flights. I didn’t own one myself. I felt helpless at the realization that I barely knew how to use the internet. And I couldn’t find any affordable flights to Seattle anyhow. I mean, I could have bought the ticket, but I wouldn’t have enough money to cover my expenses for the rest of the semester.
Like anyone, I could have found a way to make money, but that would mean giving up practice time, and I wasn’t there yet. I was making progress as a musician but there was still a huge gap between where I was and the “great musician” status I was after. I suppose I was also continuing to have doubts over the morality, as well as the risks, of civil disobedience.
So I didn’t go. Instead I spent the rest of the day reading about the protests on the internet. It dawned on me that there were other people in the world who could see how evil capitalism was. These people had been communicating over the internet to organize the protest. I had totally missed it because I didn’t own a computer and I spent most of my time in an 8x8 room. Even though my social life was great for once, my friends were apolitical musicians and artists.
I had seen that being too greedy for money would lead to a life of slavery to evil capitalism. But the Seattle protest was the first time I couldn’t do something I wanted to do because I wasn’t rich enough.
You could be controlled by the lack of money as well as the lust for it.
