In our industrialized, and now, "informed" world, the overload of information is starting to get the best of us normal peeps. Suddenly we need a major credit card, an ID, a social security number, a credit score, a large deposit, a clean criminal record, a physical address, etc... to do anything. To fly a plane, rent a car, get in a bar, buy beer, cigarettes, walk the street, eat, breathe, shit, or fuck. Employers, dating services, insurance companies, credit companies, car dealerships, stores, and god knows who else do background checks just to make sure you are not a risky investment or a liability. What the hell ever happened to a spit handshake and one's word? Whatever happened to a manager, employer, an employee, a person just dating someone else, simply trusting someone? Why are we believing the media when they tell us that everyone is a potential sex offender? Sex has been used as a means to oppress for centuries, by both the legit sex offenders, and by the institutions in control who are on a witch hunt. Why are we so scared of everyone else. "Oh no, I would never let an undocumented stranger stay in my house for the night. God only knows what they will do to me..." This is what we are trained to think. If someone has a DUI it makes it virtually impossible to get a driver's license. If someone doesn't have several forms of ID they can't get their Social Security card, or birth certificate, if someone has none or even just one of these, he or she can't get a "legitimate" job, can't vote, can't travel, and basically does not count as a citizen. Well, from where I am standing, these "non-citizens" are growing in numbers as it is becoming more and more difficult to become and maintain one's "citizenship" status. It is nearly impossible to follow every law and pay every debt in recent times. God forbid that someone should forget or not be able to afford to pay a speeding ticket. It turns into a warrant that they can't pay. They get their arrested, their license gets suspended. They get caught driving with a suspended license because the transportation system sucks, and they have to get to work. They get arrested again, spend time in jail. They have to pay court costs, fees, and surcharges. They get fired because they went to jail. Can't pay their bills, and gets completely dropped off the grid into "non-citizenship". They get caught in the bureaucratic spiral that gobbles anything and anyone it manages to catch.
Thanks to couchsurfing.com for some of us, some of these paranoid brick walls we have created from our fear of being "non-citizens" have crumbled a bit, brick by brick, at a time. Couchsurfing is a social networking website growing in popularity rapidly. Couchsurfing's mission is simple: "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."
Couchsurfing basically helps those who can't travel, be able to have the opportunity to really travel and see real people, real cultures, and real life as it is, not through corporate packaging, not through fast food and highway-side motels, not through scanned ID's, and check-in counters.
I went to San Francisco for a week without paying for a hotel and had the money to build the transmitter to run this radio station with because I did not have to pay for hotel. I met some cool peeps, hung out with locals, got a locals tour of the city and had great conversation over dinners and beers about some of the cultural and political issues that are important and relevant to them where they live in their particular geographical region in the world. In turn, with couchsurfers, I get the opportunity to explain issues that are relevant to my region of the country. Though sometimes heated, the debates always end in a better understanding of each other's own regional perspective. We do need not a court of law or a mediator. We are just grown adults who are sharpening each other's perspectives through conversation. I have had several couchsurfers come through my place. We eat, we drink, we broadcast on this little low power and internet station of mine, we go to parties, and if they skate, we skate. It gives me an opportunity to show someone that there is more to Austin than 6th Street and more to Texas than neo-conservatives, big highways, cowboys, and oil.
Brian and Amy came from California and were moving back to Maine where they are from originally. They came for two days and ended up staying a week. Freaking cool peeps! We drank an assload, skated, broadcasted, hung out with friends, swam in the local swimming holes that only locals know about, and ate some good BBQ and Tex-Mex. Brian was the Manager of the Beat Museum in San Francisco and is really into the beat culture. We had some heated debates about the civil war, the confederate flag, corporate skateboarding teams, and other stuff. I would never trade those types of good culture-crossing debates for a tame hotel experience. Amy, wanted a tattoo and I know a friend that does really good art, so I hooked her up with him. In the end run, she got a really nice tattoo at a locals price, something she could not have done had she not used couchsurfing. I think they are in Chicago by now and I hope their couchsurfing experiences have stayed positive.
Previously, I had another couchsurfer from San Francisco, Andrew. Andrew is a guy who left the corporate life in SF to ride his motorcycle down to the bottom of Mexico and then back up to Oregon in order to write a documentary/research project called Moments of Truth which is his attempt to catch a common thread of creative process through many people's different approaches at art. On his way back up, he stopped at my place for a week and did some rabble-rousing, some skating, eating, drinking, etc... He also ended up staying a week and I was sad to see him go but was thankful for the new perspective on life.
It may seem like the only couchsurfers I've had come by are from San Francisco, but on the contrary, I've had people come through from Spain, Vermont (Hi Shannon!), and Nebraska. The guy from Nebraska, Israel Cilio, a traveling musician under the moniker "Noone Conquered Wyoming" came and organized a potluck dinner concert. Click the image for my previous blog posting on this event.
I don't know. Maybe I am being unsafe, reckless, and stupid. But shit people! We need to take some of our own risks in life and not have the state continually tell us what we should think is safe or not. I know we are being barraged by too much information to process, but people are still people. The majority of them, just like you also want to keep on living decently, without slavery, and want to respect others. The police are around in order to protect us from those few people who want to terrorize us, enslave us and rob us. They are not here to enforce ID laws and oppress us. So go couchsurfing, and host a couchsurfer. Get a better understanding of your world as it really is!
I love me some thrash music and they definitely sound good over a ghetto blaster at a backyard ramp. Go to their myspace page and contact them to get one of their new cd's. They have definitely polished up their act and can usually be see playing at Headhunters down on 7th and Red River.