May Day

ATTORNEY CAROL SOBEL who, over the years has helped us fight the good fight in the district, is in the headlines again this week. From the Los Angeles Times (September 7, 2007):

164 more claims filed over May 1 melee

Civil rights lawyers plan a class-action suit against the LAPD and the city over physical, emotional injuries at MacArthur Park.

by David Zahniser

Civil rights lawyers filed 164 more claims against the city of Los Angeles on Thursday in connection with injuries or emotional harm allegedly suffered when the LAPD broke up a May 1 immigration protest at MacArthur Park.

Lawyer Carol Sobel, speaking for scores of people who were in or near the park on the day when police fired rubber bullets into the crowd, said she and other lawyers would pursue a class-action lawsuit against the city and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Sobel said the move was designed to buy lawyers more time to identify all of the potential plaintiffs and to encourage people to come forward, regardless of their immigration status.

"We think that there literally are hundreds, if not thousands, of people whose rights were violated that day," said Sobel, who submitted the claims along with lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The city has 45 days to respond to the claims before a lawsuit can be filed. So far, 10 lawsuits have been filed over the incident and 258 legal claims have been submitted -- nine of them by journalists who covered the event that day.

LAPD Lt. Ruben De La Torre said the department would not discuss the May 1 incident until a report is issued on the matter next month. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo's office said it was "concerned" but had not yet read the latest complaints.

The May 1 incident prompted investigations by the LAPD and the FBI, and forced Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to return early from a trade mission to Mexico and Central America. Police Chief William J. Bratton responded by reassigning two high-level commanders.

The 33-page filing contains complaints from residents who said they were struck by batons, hit by rubber bullets or otherwise injured while fleeing from police -- including one woman who said she subsequently suffered a miscarriage.

The filing also includes a number of people who said they suffered emotionally, including children and senior citizens who said they were traumatized.

The plaintiffs collectively will seek monetary damages and changes at the LAPD, including the implementation of more frequent and consistent training on how to deal with crowds.

Sobel said the melee was sparked by LAPD officers who rode their motorcycles into a crowd of Aztec dancers on Alvarado Street. That version of events contradicts assertions by police that the incident was started by agitators who threw objects at officers, Sobel said.

"We've tried to tell [the story] with videos and with photos that demonstrate that the Police Department's preliminary report was false, that there was not the provocation that was claimed," she said.

Chunk's new furniture

BACK IN MAY, I bought a shitload of furniture. It's supposed to be built by hand by Amish elves somewhere in Indiana, but who knows. Seems like they even grow the trees and weave the fabric, cuz it took forever, an' it was startin' to piss me off. But I finally got the call and they hauled this stuff up here on my hill in Trabuco Canyon, U.S.A. That was on Monday.

When I was a kid, way up north, they used to call these things "Chesterfields," and, near as I can tell, people from back east call 'em "sofers." I just call 'em couches.

Somebody told me, nope, this thing is a love seat. But that can't be right. I'd have to be making love to a midget.

I went way out on a limb with this one. I'm happy to report that nobody's called it anything but a "chair." I chose the fabric. Pigeons or something. I like the blue.

That Red Emma. He's liable to walk in here and stare. Then, after a bit, he'll say, "It's rather masculine, isn't it?"

I hate when he does that.

Clancy Brothers - The Parting Glass

Will You Go, Lassie, Go, and We'll All Go Together

A lent copy of The Economist from this past summer (of all things) brought us the belated news of Irish singer Tommy Makem's passing in August and so our household this weekend has been filled with the sounds of his voice and that of his pals, the Clancy Brothers, of whom only one – Liam – remains.

Rebel Girl is more sentimental than one would imagine, so actual tears have been shed, though perhaps like most tears, some are for Makem and then some are for those others who she doesn't let herself cry for until the time is right.

Years ago, more than 20, Rebel Girl and Red Emma saw the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing at a community college, no less. It was grand. Drinking songs. Rebel Songs. Love songs. Good Stories. Red and Rebel wore their thrift store knock-offs of white Irish-knit Aran sweaters and looked, no doubt, absurd.

But they sang along to every song. Drinking, rebelling and loving it all.

Come all you young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game.

That night the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem concluded, as they often did, with "The Parting Glass:"

…Oh all the comrades that e'er I've had, they are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had, they would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call good night and joy be with you all…
…A man may drink and not be drunk, a man may fight and not be slain
A man may court a pretty girl and perhaps be welcomed back again
But since it has so ordered been by a time to rise and a time to fall
Come fill to me the parting glass, good night and joy be with you all

Will You Go, Lassie
Tommy at the White House, 1962

Whadoo-I-do?

This is the college: Irvine Valley, Irvine. I work here. I carry a badge.

9:30 a.m.

It’s the start of the third week of the semester, a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. I am starting my morning Intro to Philosophy class.

“OK, let’s get back to logic,” I say.

A kid’s hand shoots up. He says, “I wanna add the class.”

I stare at him for maybe three seconds. Then I say: “It’s already the third week of the semester. It’s too late to add the class.” I proceed to lecture, but the kid interrupts:

“Yeah, but I wanna add the class. Whadoo-I-do?”

I don’t want to deal with this guy. I say: “Don’t do anything. It’s too late. Like I said.”

He immediately starts to talk. I need to shut him up. I glare at him a little. I say: “Talk to me after class.”

Later in the hour, I remind students, probably for the third or fourth time, that I keep a log of each lecture, and it’s kept very up-to-date. (True.) If they miss a class, I tell them, they should just consult the Blackboard website, where the log is kept.

It’s filed under “Course Log.”

“Everything,” I tell them, “is on the Blackboard site.” Sometimes, I’ll add: “Isn’t Blackboard wonderful?”

Yes, wonderful. Am I joking? —It’s hard to say.

After class, the kid who wants to add the class is nowhere to be found.

11:00

Later, I’m in my office, turning on my computer. I hear a voice behind me: “Professor Wheeler?”

I turn around. I smile an easy smile. “What’s up?”, I ask.

“I had to miss class. Sorry about that.”

“OK,” I say, deliberately looking at the student expectantly.

Students invariably assume that instructors want to know the tiny factoids of their life that prevent them from attending class. Not so, my little solipsists. Just fuckin' show up. That's all I want.

There’s a pause. Finally, she speaks: “Did I miss anything important?”

I knew it! Instructors hear this question all the time. You have no idea. Sometimes we answer: “Oh, no. It was the usual trivial shit!” Then we smile broadly.

Feeling chirpy, I let this one pass. I tell the girl: “Go to the Blackboard site. It’s all there! I keep a log, remember?” There’s not a trace of sarcasm in my voice. Honestly. That comes later in the semester.

“Oh,” she says. There’s another pause. “But I can’t get onto the Blackboard site!” she blurts.

It’s the third friggin' week of class. Already, two assignments have been posted at the site, assignments that, in class, I have told students repeatedly to access there. “You’ve gotta keep checking the Blackboard site,” I say, incessantly. “That’s just part of taking this course,” I say.

It feels like some sort of performance art to actually say such things, over and over again, each time as though they've never been said before. I should show up wearing tiger pants. Yes.

The girl seems nice, so I don’t give her a hard time. I quickly figure out her Blackboard problem—it ain’t rocket science, believe me—and I send her on her way. Then I check my email.

Several students have written to tell me that they’ve missed class. Some politely ask me—and some tell me—to respond ASAP with an account of what they missed. To the polite students, I write: “No problem. Just go to the Blackboard site, read the course log.” Chirpy, chirpy, chirpy.

To the louts, I betray some ‘tude. I'll leave the details to your imagination.

12:45

I’m fifteen minutes into my afternoon Intro class. A student raises his hand. He asks: “What’s on the test?”

He’s referring to Test 1, to be given next week. I have prominently displayed the STUDY GUIDE for the test on the Blackboard site. I have referred to the study guide, and the test, often in class. The study guide answers every conceivable question regarding what will be on the test. Guidancewise, my study guides are helpful to the point of friggin' absurdity.

I’ve been doing this a long time.

I’m polite to this kid. I say: “Well, the Study Guide is posted on the course Blackboard site. Check it out! You’ll love it!” Am I having a little fun with this kid? Dunno. Maybe I'm just chirpy.

A half hour later, another kid asks, “Are we gonna be tested on this? When’s the test?”

I smile.

2:05

I’m back in my office, checking my email. A student has written to explain that he’s missed the first two and a half weeks of class—owing to a vacation “that could not be avoided.” But, he says, he’ll be in class this week! “So don’t drop me,” he writes.

I’ve already dropped him.

The next email is the kid from 9:30. He writes, “I need to add ur class. You said talk to you after class. Send me the code I need. Theres a deadline.”

—I smile.

I should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair.
I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.
We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,
Me and you.

—Sylvia Plath

This just in: One Irvine resident actually owns a book, but uses it as a missile

We are ugly, but we have the music (Red Emma)

—Posting for Chunk: RED EMMA

—"We are ugly, but we have the music"

.SO SANG Leonard the C and so sings Red this afternoon. There is the war (always and forever, there is the war) and there is the latest candidate of the Spectacle, a Republican movie star whose campaign really is, I shit you not, “the role he was meant to play.” And there are the media enablers like Jay Leno, who should know better but has a lot of bills to pay, and there is the tumult at Pacifica radio station KPFK, the latest tumult I mean, which we read about in Marc Cooper’s excellent LA Weekly article and despair at the long knives stuck in the eyes of the Ideal, as Emma Goldman called it.

.But then, early afternoon, and the trusty US postal service carrier’s delivery of CDs which are, as it happens late pledge premiums from our household’s recent donation during wonderful, nutty, beleaguered only-game-in-town KPFK’s most recent fund drive. So that, yes, we had the music right there in our hands, which got Red to turn off the public radio and the war, lo, even turn off KPFK for a few hours and listen to and dance to and celebrate the music and poetry, to revel and be heartened and remind himself.

.I know, it’s only rock’n’roll but we like it. So, not that you asked, but the hopefulness and energy that animate us today is catching, and so here’s what’s in rotation on the Now Playing list at Emma’s House of Harmony and Transcendence in the Face of What Passes for Reality, offered in hopes that you will dig it too.

.1. Chumbawamba – “Get on With It: Chumbawamba Live.” If you are not already hip to the best musical ensemble currently on the planet, this is a swell enough introduction. English folk-punk harmonies, anarchist politics, wit and history and an audience of fans singing along, this is a live “best of” record of their twenty-five years that you can get only as import just now, but worth it, so very worth it. If you like the Clash, Billy Bragg, Mekons, the Oyster Band then you are likely already a Chumba fan. If you don’t want to spend the dough, buy their three most recent, cheaper studio CDs instead, “A Singsong and a Scrap,” “Un,” or “Readymades.” Here’s lyrics to their anti-consumption, anti-war, anti-Spectacle anthem (but danceable), “On E-bay”:

.Mr Kokoschka, it just happened again/Sad, so sad
.They struck the museum like a hurricane/Sad, so sad
.All of our culture, it's dead and its gone/Sad, so sad
.From Babylon, baby, back to Babylon/Sad, so sad
.There's stuff you find along the way and stuff you leave behind
.And it all ends up as stuff that you can buy
.On eBay, from Babylon back to Babylon
.In old Bahgdad they're dusting off the antiques/Sad, so sad
.It's the fourteenth Guernica we've had this week/Sad, so sad
.I got twenty-five dollars for a Persian vase/Sad, so sad
.Hold the critque! I think I'll go large!/Sad, so sad
.That stuff inside your houses and that stuff behind your eyes
.Well it all ends up as stuff that you can buy
.On eBay, from Babylon back to Babylon
.They're building a tower out of wrappers and cans/Sad, so sad
.Now we speak in a language that we all understand/Sad, so sad
.T-t-t-t-toungue-tied and starry-eyed/Sad, so sad
.It's the ancient history of old school ties/Sad, so sad
.There's stuff dressed up as truth and then there's stuff dressed up as lies
.And it all ends up as stuff that you can buy
.On eBay, from Babylon back to Babylon

.2. Mavis Staples – “We’ll Never Turn Back.” Ostensibly an homage to the American Civil Rights Movement, but with arrangements and accompaniment by Ry Cooder, this is a funky, dark, deep opera with layers and texture. Go right to “99 and a half.” Turn up the bass. Then check out the homemade music video somebody posted of the song on YouTube, with visuals from the May 1 LA police riot.

.3. Patti Smith – “Twelve.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that this is possibly the best covers album of all time, with literate, enduring songs you might think you know well here completely revisioned and transformed by the great singer-poet-shaman (and Ralph Nader supporter) Patti Smith. Some of the choices you might expect, like the Stones and Jimi Hendrix, but her version of Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble” and the incantatory Stevie Wonder “Pastime Paradise”? I was especially delighted to hear her do an obscure Dylan song which I thought perhaps only I really admired, “Changing of the Guards,” from the often overlooked but amazing “Street Legal” album. Patti makes it sound like “All Along the Watchtower” in a way that even Bob didn’t.

.4. Ry Cooder – “My Name is Buddy.” A history of labor and justice and anti-fascist struggles offered as fable or allegory or kid’s story. Characters include the narrator, an activist cat named Buddy Red Cat, and his pals, a mouse named Lefty and the Reverend Tom Toad. J. Edgar Hoover is a pig. Smart, funny, and you can sing along. Great guest musicians, including Mike and Pete Seeger. Play “Sundown Town” loud, very loud.

.5. The Klezmatics – “Wonder Wheel.” You probably figured out that Red Emma is a folkie, so this interpretation by the amazing klezmer ensemble of Woody Guthrie songs.

.They got mentioned in last weekend’s New York Times review of Woodymania, along with Billy and Wilco and Bruce but it might actually be the best of all of them.

.I also recieved the Joni Mitchell tribute album, with her songs performed by Bjork, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Casandra Wilson, Annie Lennox but haven’t opened it yet, saving it for tomorrow and the weekend. I thought I heard that Joni herself just released a revised version of “Big Yellow Taxi” but when I went online all I could locate was the guy with the funny hair from Counting Crows singing “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” which, ironically or not, caused me to pull out the original.

.I know what I’ve got.

Andrew Tonkovich

Classroom Drama: selected scenes from a temporary classroom with a hole in the ceiling

YESTERDAY I was about 20 minutes into my lecture when a student rose up and walked toward me, a small device in hand.

"My boss just texted me that I have to go to work now," the student announced. "Can I go?"

I looked at the student and then searched my brain for a reply. "I don't want to have this conversation now," I replied. I could see the rest of the class; they were becoming restless, shifting in their chairs.

"But my boss wants me now," the student continued. "Can I go?"

"You can do whatever you wish to do," I said. "This is not my decision; it's yours."

"Can I go?" The voice was plaintive now.

"I'm not going to tell you that it's fine for you to leave class," I said, "I'm not. It isn't. I am going to continue to do my job now, which is to teach this class."

The student stood there a moment or two and then returned to seat.

Previous to this exchange (in case you think I appeared peevish, testy perhaps, impatient, or unsympathetic), at the beginning of the class session, I was approached by another student.

"I missed the last class," the student announced. "I need the handouts."

"I've posted them on Blackboard," I replied, feeling slightly triumphant, organized even, with a thin frosting of professionalism. I've been trying hard to make it easy this semester.

"I couldn't access Blackboard," the student went on. "Do we have a draft due today?"

"Yes," I replied, "and even if you missed the previous class, you should have known that because it was listed on the assignment sheet."

"I don't have the draft," the student replied. "Can I have the handouts for the last class?"

"I'll give them to you at the end of today's class," I replied. "Right now we need to get started. Even though you don't have a draft, you can participate. Take a seat."

"But I can't stay," the student said. "I need to leave now."

"Now?" I asked. "Why?"

"I have to go to work," the student said.

"We need to have this conversation another time," I replied. "You should have come to see me in my office before class. I have an office hour before this class. Now is not the time to talk about this."

"I didn't know you had an office hour," the student said.

"It's on the syllabus," I replied.

"Can I have the handouts for the last class and for today?" the student asked.

"No," I said. "I need to begin class right now. We need to have this conversation another time."

Obviously angry, the student left.

I walked to the podium, placed my notes on it, only to be approached by two more smiling students.

"We need to leave early today," one of them said. "We have a game. Can you give us the work?"