ON THE (ALT) MEDIA: COVERING THE CHOP
ON THE (ALT) MEDIA: COVERING THE CHOP
Listen to the first ep of my new podcast for the real story of Seattle's no-cop zone
Howdy from Los Angeles, where I’m doing a quick pitstop before I hop to New York City’s Occupy City Hall to continue my summer of chasing autonomous zones. Earlier this week, I sat down with two stellar Seattle-based journalists—Jasmyne Keimig, staff writer for The Stranger, and Gregory Scruggs, freelance reporter for The Washington Post and Bloomberg. (Greg and I also worked together back at VICE.) My head was still spinning as I tried to parse a coherent narrative to the CHOP—the six-block no-cop zone in Seattle where I’d been hanging out for the last two weeks. Both Jasmyne and Greg have done excellent work covering the CHOP and surrounding Seattle protests, so I wanted to debrief and compare notes.
Our conversation was a banger—covering topics like:
What the mainstream media narrative got wrong + left out
The conflict of interest between pandemic safety and scoops
The protestor hierarchy of media toxicity—and why livestreams are trusted sources
The object impermanence of the CHOP’s constantly evolving narrative
Telling stories of trauma and healing vs. violence
My shroom trip
This convo is the first episode for my new podcast called On The (Alt) Media—where I will be talking to bloggers, podcasters, newsletter-writers, and other journalists doing cool shit outside the mainstream media framework. I have zero podcast editing skills so here is the full recording, warts and all. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did, and feel free to reply to this email and let me know what you think!
REQUIRED READING:
Jasmyne Keimig on the CHOP’s Black Fist sculpture (The Stranger)
Gregory Scruggs embeds with the CHOP’s antifa sentinels (The Washington Post)
Gregory Scruggs’ magnum opus on the CHOP’s history and context (Bloomberg)
My CHOP art story for Artforum will also drop tmr, will drop link on my Twitter :)
CLUB SOBER’S FIRST VIRTUAL MEET-UP!
Club Sober—the online community I started for party people interested in recalibrating their relationships to drugs and drinking—is having our first virtual meeting this weekend! So far, this crew has been chatting on the Rave New Wold’s private Discord, and the conversations have been very raw and real. This meeting will be a chance for us to get to know each other better, and share how our sobriety journeys have been since we started a month ago. I’d also like to discuss throwing a Club Sober party next month, what non-cheesy sober rave culture could look like, and the party landscape of the pandemic. If you’d like to join us, please upgrade to a paid subscription tier and you’ll get an invitation link to join the group!
QUICK HITS
Lindsay Maharry on falling in love with indica strains during quarantine (WeedMaps)
DJ False Witness critiques how European club architecture has colonized techno and house music—while stressing the need to reimagine ideal listening spaces during the pandemic (Electronic Beats)
Gabriel Szatan analyzes the future of partying in a post-pandemic world (Dazed)
RAVE ALERTS
OAZ—A secret open-air rave (masks and social distancing required) blooms in Brooklyn, with a Black Lives Matter focus message and the location sent through Telegram. Welcome to the future of IRL raves, ya’ll. (July 12)
Junction2—A blockbuster fundraver with a main stage of Detroit OGs curated by Carl Craig, music film screenings, and even a discussion panel on Palestine’s electronic community’s rave resistance (July 12)
RETROSPEKT—A two-day virtual music festival on trendy VR concert platform Wave, featuring Anabel Englund, Autograf, and SOFI TUKKER. (July 11-12)
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