On Friday evening, Adams Morgan’s pizza and beer-fueled sinners met their match: A group of pizza and God-fueled “soul winners.”

At around 1:30 a.m., a sizeable crowd gathered outside Columbia Road watering hole Chief Ike’s. The hundred-strong mob jumped, fist-pumped, and chanted in unison. Some wildly brandished flags, possibly made of their own shirts. From my perch across the sidewalk, the driving two-syllable chant was indecipherable.

Were these revelers footballers? Kickballers? Goths? As I ventured closer to the seductive chorus, its message became clear: “JE-SUS!” the mob shouted, again and again. “JE-SUS! JE-SUS! JE-SUS!”

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ThugArmyLife says, for one, he wouldn’t buy food, gas, or bandanas anywhere in D.C. from May 25 through May 31. The boycott planned for D.C. and NYC and promoted on the Thug Army Tupac-fansite is in protest of cops getting off for shooting 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings in Southeast and 23-year-old Sean Bell in Queens on the morning of his wedding.

It’s being organized by Black Legacy, a student org at Lehman College in the Bronx. The reason this will work is: “Society has a responsitility to protect all its citizens, yet society consistenly turns its back when black men are killed by the police. Yet black dollars drive the American economy. It’s time to send a message with money—or lack thereof.”

The boycott week includes Memorial Day. Anyone think people will actually refrain from buying meats for the grill to save the next DeOnte?

T’helah Ben-Dan, co-president of Black Legacy, says that’s up in the air. “To be totally honest I’m not sure of the reaction in D.C., but I do know we’ve been doing a lot to spread the word,” Ben-Dan writes in an e-mail. “I recently got a message from DeOnte’s cousin, who works for an organization called PeaceOholics, and I forwarded information to her so she could help publicize the boycott.” Ben-Dan’s also blitzing PR and media types, who’ve yet to pick this up with any kind of fervor.

 photo by jlmaral

Naked people on bikes! Who doesn’t love that? Well, I guess anyone who doesn’t like to see how the business end of a saddle reacts with riders’ nether regions, but other than those freaks, EVERYONE!

Yes, it’s time for the third World Naked Bike Ride DC, an event on June 7 that protests car culture and dependency on foreign oil. Because nothing changes Americans’ hearts and minds like people getting bouncy-bouncy on their Bianchis.

If you’re the type of person who would normally participate in a naked biking protest but frets that a public-indecency arrest might affect your security clearance, the Web site advises wearing “a flesh colored sack or G-string.” You might want to order yours now: Excitement for this event is building, and who knows how much you’ll have to pay for your techno-merkin if you put this purchase off till the day of.

One last thing, folks: sunscreen.

Photo of the 2007 Portland, Ore. World Naked Bike Ride by BikePortland.org

5:30 p.m., near the Vatican embassy.  John Wojnowski, who has been protesting across the street from the Vatican embassy every day since late 1997, early 1998, is up the street a block or so from his usual spot, accompanied by a tall photographer who is smoking a cigar.

John holds his sign—POPE HIDES PEDOPHILES—and begins to tell his life story, which is very sad, and just after the point where hs is 15 years old in a small village in Italy and the priest molests him, a reporter from the Washington Post turns up.

“Where were you today?” the reporter asks John.

“I was here,” he says.

“Why weren’t you here at noon when the Pope came by?” she asks.

“I had no plans to be here,” John says. “I come on my time. I have other things to do.  Go to the library.”

The reporter looks flummoxed. “You’re a hero,” she says.  “People told me you’re a hero. I’m on deadline. I wrote the story how you weren’t here, now you’re here.”

“My only access to the Internet is at the library.  I have my routine,” John says.

“Do you have a cell number?” asks the reporter.

“I do but it’s private,” John says.

The reporter looks even more flummoxed and tries another tack. “What do you think of the pope’s visit?” she asks.

“It’s an opportunity for reporters to see me,” John says.

Other pedestrians walk by holding up their thumbs in support, and John thanks them, then starts to tell his story again, starting from where he is a 20-year-old refugee working as a dishwasher in Canada, and suddenly remembers being abused. Meanwhile, the photographer hands out business cards to the reporters and to John. “I do freelance work,” the photographer says, still smoking his cigar.

A police officer drives by on an ATV on the sidewalk and says, “How you doing John?” and in response John holds up his other sign, which reads: My Life Was Ruined By A Catholic Priest.

A pedestrian walks by and says, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I’m proud,” John says. “Never been prouder.”

—Arin Greenwood

How low can it go?

Wall Street sent Six Flags (SIX) closer to the floor. Stock in Dan Snyder’s amusement company fell to $1.70 per share during Friday’s trading, its lowest level in at least 10 years.

For perspective, the same stock traded at $11.91 in January 2006, shortly after Snyder installed a new board of directors and put himself atop it.

Two-legged folks aren’t the only ones taking a beating from Six Flags.

Last week, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, the company’s Vallejo, Calif., outpost, was named the worst park for elephants in the entire country.

The honor was bestowed by In Defense of Animals, a San Rafael-based animal rights group, for offenses including cruel treatment, lack of exercise, and lack of proper medical care.

An IDA spokesperson also said Six Flags elephants are routinely “hit, hurt, prodded, poked and beaten” with a device called a bull hook, which is a metal hook on the end of a long pole.

The group has asked the federal government to investigate the same Six Flags park because one of the giraffes there died in a fire last fall.

Yuk.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

Last night, I was standing in line at the Safeway on Columbia Rd. & 18th St. I was preparing to trade 11 dollars and 70 cents for two cans of soup and six beers. A man to my right began to gesticulate forcefully. “Fuck you!” The man screamed. “You’ll never work at Safeway again!” He moved very close to a man in a black leather jacket, a black shirt, and a black winter cap. This man said nothing. “Fuck you, motherfucker! The man screamed. “Don’t ever try to check me without a badge!”

The screaming man pivoted and zeroed in on a cashier. “Are you the manager?” The man screamed at her. “Are you the manager?” he repeated. She was not the manager. “You better watch your job if you’re employing people like this at Safeway!” He was referring to the man in a black leather jacket, a black shirt, and a black winter cap.

A security guard began to direct the man out of the store. He flailed briefly, stuck himself in the doorway, and screamed. “I don’t need to steal anything!” The man screamed. “I’ve got plenty of money! I’m a millionaire!” The automatic door shut upon him.

“That will be eleven dollars and seventy cents,” said the cashier. I paid him and exited the supermarket. The man was loitering outside. He gestured absently at a line of cars. “You better watch out for them. You. Better. Watch,” the man said. I smiled at the man and walked away. That man is a millionaire, I thought.

“You’ll never see me shopping in Safeway again!” The man screamed after me. He was probably right.

Let’s close the week out on a Fun Fair note. On my way back from the DC courthouse this afternoon, I passed by what remains of the former store, alleged by neighbors to attract drugs and prostitution, known as Fun Fair Video-Movie. This most reviled neighborhood institution was protested by local residents back in September. Since then, the Coalition to Shut Down Fun Fair Video has vigorously pursued their goal of closing the place once and for all. (And provided a press release play-by-play of their bureaucratic journey.)

Just last week, Coalition president Cary Silverman sent me an e-mail about his latest efforts in the fight, writing “we had to file a letter in opposition to a requested delay in the effectiveness of its order yesterday with the BZA and are now in the process of gathering affidavits to file with the court.”

But, if I had to judge by the front entrance alone, I’d guess the Coalition’s pretty satisfied right now. On the door, there’s a paper stating “We are closed.” Friday business hours are 9 a.m. to 24 hours, according to a nearby sign. In addition, Fun Fair’s two overhead plastic signs with the business’s name both have gaping holes in them. Whether this was done by a triumphant local or an angry crackhead wondering where he was going to get his fix, I have no idea.

One of D.C.’s most annoying blowhards is crying foul (again). Perennial protester Adam Eidinger is complaining on the Adams Morgan message board about getting arrested during Monday’s recent anti-war/anti-global warming demonstrations.

Eidinger writes:

Dressed as a polar bear I was incarcerated for lawfully demonstrating at the US Capitol at the No War No Warming protests Monday. All the polar bears arrested are planning to fight their charges on November 15 when we appear in DC Superior Court on charges of unlawful assembly. The direct action of simply singing and dancing is not a crime. Police shouldn’t be so overbearing …. just because its time to step it up on ending war and global warming before its too late, is no excuse for cracking down on the lone voices who a few years from now will be the ones who got it right, just like the groups (I among them) who protested the war in Iraq 6 months before it started.

Eidinger doesn’t say whether he was blocking traffic on Independence Avenue or doing the arm-lock thing at an entrance to the Cannon House Office Building. Police had given the traffic disruptions as a reason for the arrests. Nor does Eidinger charge the police with using Pershing Park style tactics when they arrested him.

Eidinger just uses the news of his arrest as a way to pitch for more volunteers and to preach about the war. Great. Eidinger has been working this same schtick for years. Has he ever done anything more substantial than blocking traffic and vomiting up anti-Bush rhetoric in a city that is already very much anti-Bush?

Eidinger also seems or at least pretends to be woefully naive. Let me see if I understand this—the man dresses up in a polar-bear suit and stages a protest in a heavily fortified part of the city. Is it a surprise that he got arrested? Wasn’t that the point? If he didn’t get arrested, would there have been any press coverage? You can’t willfully play in traffic and not expect the police to notice. If police didn’t notice, the Post wouldn’t have either.

You just can’t complain about your arrest if that was the whole point.

There’s one thing in Eidinger’s message board rant I can get behind. He lists all the items seized by the U.S. Capitol Police:

Item Taken by USCP
Cost/Value
One Large Wagon (Red Metal and Wood trim)………$60
One 250 watt powered speaker……………………………$800
One Microphone……………………………………………….$100
One Pitch control CD Player………………………………. $40
One 1500 watt mobile power battery and inverter…….$440
Approx 60 music CDs……………………………………….. $900
One Large Chrome Courier Bag w Purple Fur…………$120
Various XLR and RCA Cables………………………………..$60
Approx 20 handmade paper mache polar bear masks…$200
Approx 6 Handmade Polar bear hoods……………………..$90
Approx 4 pairs of handmade Polar bear gloves…………..$80
One Stainless Steel Thermos …………………………………$20
Two Stainless Steel Water Bottles……………………………$20
Two dozen Alpsnacks snack bars…………………………… $50

TOTAL Value/Cost basis……………………………………….$3,100

No one should have to endure getting their Alpsnacks snack bars taken from them. No one.

Today is a sad, sad day in the life of Washington City Paper, which is what staff writer Jessica Gould and I explained to the owner of Ko Gi Bow, the Korean bakery on Adams Mill Road. People are losing their jobs today, we told him, asking him to write “This sucks.”

The “s” was lost in translation, but no matter. We think he captured the sentiment perfectly. I mean, what goes better with a severance and a kick in the pants than some whipped cream frosting, moist, delicious cake, and a couple of slices of fresh fruit? I’m open to ideas.

Because the truth is there is nothing we who are staying can say or do for the talented, funny, smart, wonderful, hard-working, stylish, liquor-swilling, disco-loving, fabulous, fun (did I mention smart and funny?) people who are leaving. Our production department and our art director are truly the heart of CP. They can never be replaced, even if Atlanta is, in the words of our new CEO when he announced the sale and the loss of their jobs, “a great place to live.”

They will be missed. Let’s eat cake.

The brouhaha over Fun Fair Video continues. Last month, Mount Vernon Square residents staged a protest outside the porn shop complete with color-coordinated signs, cute photo-ops of local protesting children, and a crowd with a noticeable proportion of media people. But apparently that wasn’t enough to close the place, which is operating without the proper permit (and attracts a lot of crime, neighbors say).

Last Thursday, the publicity-happy Coalition to Shut Down Fun Fair Video issued yet another press release about its thus-far futile efforts. On October 1, the group announced that it was starting a countdown to the closing of Fun Fair, after the Board of Zoning Adjustment issued an order revoking the Certificate of Occupancy, which was supposed to be effective in 10 days, according to the press release. On Thursday, several locals marched down to the video store to check out if the order had been enforced. It hadn’t.

For a second there, it seemed like the group was losing steam. The canned publicity quotes sounded a bit sour, certainly less empowered: “We are optimistic” turned into “we hope.”

But yesterday, the coalition was back! Oh boy, was it back. Cary Silverman, the organization’s president, sent out an e-mail trumpeting a press release from the District of Columbia Attorney General’s Office.

“Fun Fair Video has been operating outside of the law for too long,” D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer states in the release. Her office has requested the D.C. Superior Court to order Fun Fair Video to immediately stop operating.

“The hearing on the request for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) will be heard Wednesday October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m. in Judge in Chambers,” the press release states.

The drama is unrelenting.

For weeks, we’ve seen large yellow signs about the September 15 anti-war march. Now that the big day is almost upon us, one question weighs heavy on my mind. Once this protest thing is over, who will decorate D.C.’s utility boxes?

Back in mid-August, the city threatened the antiwar organizers with $10,000 in fines for illegally posting their signs on utility boxes, according to the Washington Post. The protestors ignored the complaints—as anyone who has recently stepped outside in D.C. can attest. It’s hard to imagine a more passionate bunch.

However, one group does come to mind, and they’re already making some headway on the streets of our city. Walking up Connecticut Avenue NW the other day, I noticed Ron Paul bumper stickers on several stoplight posts.

Of course, it only takes one zealous person with a little extra time on their hands to slap up a few stickers. But, Paul’s an antiwar candidate, so maybe one of the A.N.S.W.E.R. sign-hangers just decided to multitask and put up some Ron Paul stickers while they were out.

I put this theory to Paul’s spokesperson Jesse Benton, who swiftly rejected it. He said some Paul devotees would most likely be heading down to the protest on Saturday. But aside from that, there was no connection between march organizers and Paul supporters.

“Your typical Ron Paul supporter would probably disagree with A.N.S.W.E.R.,” Benton said. “They’re very socialist.”

But, Benton says there’s a pretty strong contingent of Paul supporters in D.C.; 176 District residents have signed up for the local meetup.com group. This despite the fact that Paul doesn’t really like our city.

“For someone who’s been in D.C. for years, he’s not much of a Beltway guy,” says Benton.

Lawyers from the Public Defender Service are wearing red felt arm bands in D.C. Superior Court today. I chased after several to try and find out what they were protesting. Most scurried away, and one even advised his buddies to especially not tell me. I finally found one who ’fessed up: The defense attorneys are protesting the detention last week of one of their own. Judge John Bayly Jr. got into it with public defender Liyah Brown—apparently over a dispute about whether her client was homeless—and threw the defender in a holding cell. I’d like to know what the point is of being secretive about a protest.

The Washington Post just reported that the District government has fined an anti-war group $10,000 over its posters. Apparently, the group, ANSWER, violated city law when it glued its yellow-and-black signs to “traffic control boxes” which I think are the bases of traffic lights.

The fines stem in part from ANSWER’s refusal to remove the sticky posters.

I know we need a way to pay for rising baseball-stadium costs, but this is ridiculous. As far as protest signs go, these are pretty decent though not quite Borf worthy. And the fine of $10,000—a price that would more than cover a decent used Corolla—is plain over the top.

The problem is, well, ANSWER’s response strategy. They’re smellin’ conspiracy, writing on their Web site:

“This is part of a systematic effort to disrupt the organizing for the September 15 Mass March that is timed to coincide with the report of General Petraeus and the debate in Congress on the Iraq war. Iraq war veterans and their families will lead this dramatic march from the White House to the Congress on September 15. The last thing the government wants is to see the streets of Washington DC fill up with throngs of anti-war protesters right in the middle of the debate. But we will not be stopped.”

Do they really think George Bush is behind this? Please. Most of Congress hates the war. And I’d guess that the 90 or so percent of District residents that voted for Kerry don’t like the war either.

So who thinks the signs should stay? And what should ANSWER’s PR strategy should be?

On Monday Punk Planet magazine announced that its latest issue would be its last, citing “bad distribution deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of subscribers.” It wasn’t surprising news—when the owner of distributor Publishers Group West declared bankruptcy last December a lot of independent publishers took a huge hit—but it was still sad to hear.

In the mid-’90s the biggest punk zine out there was Maximumrocknroll—a finger-staining rag that was forever lecturing you about something or other when its prose wasn’t outright unreadable. Stepping into that arena, Punk Planet made the genre feel like something that wasn’t trapped in 1982—its spiritual point of reference was the Ian MacKaye who started Fugazi, not the Ian MacKaye who started Minor Threat—and it took a self-critical, follow-the-money attitude toward its own scene without being ridiculously doctrinaire about it.

That might be PP’s greatest legacy: it took punk so seriously that it was willing to apply real reportorial energy into it. In 1999, when I was working on a story about the Dead Kennedys suing each other, I quickly learned that PP had done some fine advance work on the story and had the (convoluted) facts of the case straight. In time, I got to know one of the zine’s editors in San Francisco; when he asked me to write a blurb for the first edition of its excellent collection of interviews, We Owe You Nothing, I was more than happy to pitch in. And I was thrilled when I was asked to contribute a story about a group of activists who changed the signs on San Francisco’s Bush Street to Puppet Street the night before Dubya’s first inauguration.

Still, I don’t recall so much as flipping through an issue of Punk Planet in the past five years. Maybe it started sucking, though I doubt that. Maybe the Web killed it: Thanks to blogs, you no longer have to go to a record store and find PP to read poorly written, wrongheaded reviews of CDs that five people care about. (The zine’s enthusiasm was infectious, though: Surely I wasn’t the only person who got suckered into buying a Snapcase album because of something PP wrote.) Maybe the generation that grew up with the zine got cynical and realized that doing stuff like changing street names in the dark of night is ultimately a toothless gesture. More likely, though, the means by which punk-loving, politically aware people interact with one another no longer involves a nicely designed, perfect-bound magazine. Whatever that replacement is, it has big shoes to fill.

As reported last week in the New York Times and the Akron Beacon Journal, Alan Canfora—who was shot in the wrist during the Kent State shootings in 1970—recently released a recording of the incident in which, he claims, the listener can hear members of the Ohio National Guard being ordered to fire upon students. The digitally-enhanced 20-second clip comes from a 30-minute-long recording of the shootings originally made by former Kent State student Terry Strubbe, who recorded the incident on a reel-to-reel machine from his dorm room.

The article goes on to detail where and how Canfora obtained a copy of the original recording, and how he hopes the clip will convince the government to re-open the case. An interesting side note to the story, however, is who Canfora turned to for help with the recording: Dischord Records co-owner and Evens guitarist Ian MacKaye. It’s a revelation that has many people, including those at Idolator.com, scratching their heads:

There’s no explanation of how MacKaye got involved with all of this; perhaps Canfora thought he’d found a political ally in the Minor Threat mastermind, or perhaps he was just really impressed with the remastering job on In On The Kill Taker.

According to MacKaye, he and Canfora met years ago, when Fugazi performed at a benefit show for Canfora’s Kent May 4 Center in the mid-’90s. “He called me asking for advice, and I offered to take the tape to Inner Ear Studios and give him some thoughts on it,” MacKaye says.

“I remember Kent State, when I was eight years old, and it affected me profoundly. It was one of the first times I realized that the government was capable of killing its own people,” MacKaye says. “I studied Kent State in the ’80s. I was fascinated by it. But I’m not as well-acquainted with the case. I wasn’t there. He got shot…He can picture shit that I can’t.”

Though Canfora’s recording is bound to ignite some controversy, MacKaye is quick to downplay his own involvement in the events leading up to its release. “I’m just helping out a friend,” he says. MacKaye says he took the recording to the studio and simply adjusted a few EQ levels and attempted to filter out some of the excess noise.

According to several news sources, Canfora is reported as saying he could hear the words “Right here. Get set. Point. Fire,” yelled out in the enhanced clip. For his part, MacKaye isn’t as adamant as Canfora regarding the contents of the recording. “You can hear someone say, ‘Right here.’…You clearly hear a cadence,” he says. “The problem with the ‘Fire’ is that there’s a woman yelling. When I sent it back, I said, ‘Hey, I don’t think it’s totally evident that you hear a ‘Fire,’ but what you do hear certainly merits a review.’”