This Will Make A Fine Ruin

Rising Tide North America benefit w/Desert Rat gig - 5I just posted another installment in the Me Encanta Los Sonidos podcast, a performance last weekend by Desert Rat of his song "Tucson, City That I Love." It's a wonderful anti-sprawl, anti-mall, anti-development, pro-nature ditty full of great lines like "this city will make a fine ruin when the Santa Cruz runs again." Desert Rat is a Tucson native, now living in Seattle, an antisocial nerd, a semi-famous activist folk singer, union longshoreman, and snarky anti-anarchist socialist (trotskyist maybe, even?). I recorded a lot of other great songs of his that night which I hope to put online a little later, though you may have to remember to check phonophilia to listen to them because i don't know if i'll post again here about it.

It's funny because Desert Rat left long 10-minute voicemails for 2 of my friends and fellow BLAC members yesterday, letting them know that he disapproved of our political agenda for the no-border camp but that he did want to attend some of the off-topic workshops this weekend... His objections seemed to be based on the misunderstanding that People's Global Action is directly connected somehow with the World Social Forum phenomenon, which is not true. He disapproves of the World Social Forum process and structure, which I and most of our collective do too, recognizing that it's been coopted and corrupted by NGOs, but the No Border Camp operating under PGA Hallmarks has nothing to do with the WSF or any other social forum.

Anyway enjoy the music, even if the man is kind of confused and hard to get along with.