one love, madrid

from nyc




if you were in The City on september 11th it's hard not to feel a special kinship with other places decimated by terrorism.

man, just thinking back on that feeling of being totally unsettled--of being unsure and struck through to your core with a violence-induced exhaustion...

sleep was fucked up

people filled tables in restaurants and barely said a word to one another

everyone's head was filled with the images from TV

(you drank and smoked, you smoked and drank)

the headaches...The Cough

(the one some people still have)

the low simmering anger

the spanish aren't holding it in like we did, party people.

i don't know what it was, but we turned into sleepwalkers who couldn't wake up.

we just couldn't get over the shock of it all.

(we were attacked...AMERICA!...how can that be...how can someone hate us so much...was it because we were so rich? what the fuck had we DONE?)

we kicked our legs like a turtle on its back

we showed the whole world our flabby, unprotected belly

we got stupidly introspective and in typical, christian style wondered if we didn't somehow deserve what had happened

we didn't demand answers like the spanish are doing.

taking to the streets!

they're blaming their government for not protecting them.

and i'm sorry but that's what it comes down to

what the fuck else is the government there for?

why am i paying taxes?

i don't think it was so my president would fly the hell out of there supersonic style in airforce one as soon as the shit hit the fan.

to the americans reading this

(especially my fellow new yorkers)

how come we didn't take to the streets and demand to know who was running the country that morning?

our president was AWOL

the vice president and them were in the bomb shelter

who was actually on the scene, running the show commander-in-chief style?

we give all these props to that tyrant giuliani

just because he didn't run on out of there like everyone else

he actually did the job he got elected for

and so we're like, wow, way to go, man you're a hero

we forgive you all the crap you did

and the way you ran this city into the ground emotionally and financially

thank god mike's here to pull us out of the hole you dug.

(ground zero indeed, motherfucker.)

i'm not going to praise you.

i don't know who i'm going to praise

i feel like the praise is issued to humanity itself in the form of tireless rescue workers and ordinary citizens giving blood and time and tears

i feel like whatever i say is just empty words and it's time to go out and do something.

here at BRANDTRUEBOY we believe it's time to take action

it's time to demand the capture of those cowards who attack innocent citizens

as the practical implication of their ideals

i AM NOT one of those idiotic liberals

who believes, "yeah, well, everyone is ENTITLED to their own ideas"

no man, sorry. yr not.

a person should be allowed to peacefully express whatever they want

but as soon as their ideas include the necessity of exterminating or subjugating another group of people

then those ideals are just not OK

even as a means to an end

religious or otherwise

fuck that. if you come up into our piece with that

then you and you're ideas are going to get flattened.

it's like how we've gotta let the klu klux klan march in rallies

but we sure as hell don't let them get away with burning crosses.

like, i'm sorry i just don't think it's OK or that i have to honor your culture if you believe women are little more than property and treat them accordingly.

why do certain liberals say, well that's their culture and we need to be sensitive to it but when it came to apartheid they were all up in arms, demanding south africa to change?

how do they get the nerve to pick and choose and then blame others for doing the same thing?

why do we blame our government for acting in its own self-interest (like every other government on the face of this planet) when what we should be blaming them for is doing such a fuck-up job of it?

why aren't we out there MAKING NOISE about the failure of all those republicrats who allowed us to be attacked and then made us go to war after having the audacity to lie about the reasons?

who chipped away at our rights at home under the guise of keeping us safe, while admitting just yesterday that "hardly anything" has been done to protect" our rail system, which is perhaps the most exposed and likely target of the next al queda attack?

what the fuck is the point of keeping 13 and 14 yr old kids in prison in cuba for a year without charging them for shit when you leave your train tracks sitting there like big, fat, yellow ducks?

i'm sorry. yes, i'm pissed. i'm going to have to go now and walk around the block with a bop. i'm going to listen to some hip-hop and smoke some la la la so that the rhymes lift off and levitate over the beats. i'm going to imagine what it would be like if all the young people stood up and said fuck you and your polls and your censorship and your hissy fit over janet jackson's titty and your moral high-horse crapola and your money going to anti-aging drugs when little kids are dying of cancer and your greed and failure and stench of war and racism and homophobia--all of you who grew up divided, with your culture and their culture, your food and their food--right there in the same goddamn country. you and all your sad sack academy award winning movies and your viagra and over produced, deep meaning ballads and your pathetic po-mo ad campaigns and your good intentions turned flaccid like the no cholesterol, no taste soy cheese in your fridge. we're coming it's our turn we're sick of your shit

the beat is over.