Moral: You can't take on Disney, Chase, and WalMart without paying a price

Six years ago this week, Cinema 21 hosted an appearance by performance artist and activist Bill Talen – aka the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping – in connection with his documentary What Would Jesus Buy?

Six years later, here's where we are: Black Friday has been extended back into Thanksgiving Day, WalMart workers are taking food donations for their fellow employees,workers are expected to work on Thanksgiving day and their managers are being fired if they don't compel them to do so, Disney controls Times Square, Chase is paying a $13 billion fine for its part in blowing up the world economy, a business expense for which it had already budgeted $25 billion anyway and which it claims should be a tax deduction, Screening Liberally is defunct, the Loaded Orygun blog is no more – and the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping is awaiting trial.

On September 16, BuzzFlash at Truthout posted a commentary on how Rev. Billy Talen -- street theater minister for the anti-consumer movement -- and his choir leader were arrested for leading a performance art protest at a Chase bank branch in Manhattan. The target of the theatrical presentation was how JP Morgan Chase is one of the key banks financing industries that are tumbling earth toward a climate implosion. On December 9th, Talen and his choir master will appear in a NYC court and face the prosecution's charges that could result in up to a year in jail.

Seriously folks. Buy locally. Don't run up consumer debt. Ignore the commercials. Don't stand in line for Thanksgiving sales or Black Friday sales, and don't tie up the internet on Cyber Monday sales. If you have loose change burning a hole in your pocket, send it to Portland's Radio Cab Foundation Turkey Project.

Screening Liberally presents: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, this Sunday at 7pm

Join Screening Liberally at Ringo's Bar and Grill, 7pm this Sunday, January 16th, for "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers."

At a time when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being chided by much of the American mainstream press, frozen out of financial support, and pursued by the Department of Justice, it might be a good idea to look back at the case that laid the groundwork for whistleblowing at this level:

(Here's background on Ellsberg and this award-winning documentary about him.)

Screening Liberally meets at Ringo's Bar and Grill (where they serve Portland's Best Burger), 12300 SW Broadway, in Beaverton (across the street from the Beaverton Bakery, just of Hall Boulevard. Admission is free, parking is plentiful, and the Beaverton TC MAX stop is 8 blocks away.

Screening Liberally tomorrow night: "Every War Has Two Losers"

Join the Washington County Peace Vigil and PDX Left Side/Screening Liberally tomorrow night (Sunday 12/19) at 7pm for a holiday film event to honor Peace on Earth.

Tomorrow night we'll be screening Every War Has Two Losers, a poet’s meditation on peace based on the journals of William Stafford. Stafford was an American poet and pacifist who moved to Oregon and taught at Lewis and Clark. He was named Poet Laureate of Oregon in 1975.

(Note to Facebook friends: For reasons of its own, when FB Notes reprints a blog post it disables video embeds. If you're reading this via FB, you'll need to click View Original Post, above, or go to http://everywar.com/, to see the video trailer.)

Join us tomorrow night, December 19th, at 7:00 pm at Ringo’s Bar & Grill, at 12300 SW Broadway St (across from the Beaverton Bakery). Admission is free.

Abbreviated Living Liberally calendar for December

Holiday schedules are going to bump up against the standard meeting schedules for Oregon and SW Washington chapters this month.

So to make sure we know who's meeting when this month, let's just go right to the source. Here are the web pages for the DL chapters in Oregon and SW Washington:

Vancouver WA

Portland Left Side (aka Beaverton OR)

St. Helens OR

Portland OR

Salem OR

And the fledgling Portland West Side Screening Liberally chapter is going to take December off -- we'll see you in January. Remember to drop me any suggestions for films. Meanwhile, what could be more apropos for the season than this?

So wherever you are, join the Living Liberally gang for political conversation, drinks, and great films.

Remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

And don't forget there's still time to purchase your copy of 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal.

Screening Liberally/PDX Left Side presents: "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the life of Robert McNamara"

This month's PDX Left Side/Screening Liberally pick is director Errol Morris' critically acclaimed 2003 documentary "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara."

"Fog of War" won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was screened out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

Join everyone Sunday at 7pm at Ringo's Bar and Grill, 12300 SW Broadway (across from the Beaverton Bakery) in Beaverton.

Here's an excerpt from Roger Ebert's review:

Morris is uncanny in his ability to bring life to the abstract, and here he uses graphics, charts, moving titles and visual effects in counterpoint to what McNamara is saying. There's also a lot of historical footage, including some shots of Curtis LeMay with his cigar clenched between his teeth -- images that describe whatever McNamara neglected to say about him. There are tape recordings of Oval Office discussions involving McNamara, Kennedy and Johnson. And archival footage of McNamara's years at Ford (he is proud of introducing seat belts). Underneath all of them, uneasily urging the movie along, is the Philip Glass' score, which sounds -- what? Mournful, urgent, melancholy, driven?

Living Liberally calendar for Oregon and SW Washington in November

(Updated with new locations for St. Helens, below!)

Okay, the election's over, so everyone take a couple of days to reacquaint yourselves with your family and pets, then everyone meets back here for 2012. But you know where to go to relax: Drinking Liberally. Am I right?

Yet again, the first of the month snuck up on me. So tonight I send my sheepish apologies again to Ann and everyone at DL/Corvallis, who will just about be winding up tonight's meeting as I finally get this drafted last night. (Consider this the early promotion for the December Corvallis meeting: First Thursday of the month, address and time below!)


Here's the run-down for Drinking (and Screening) Liberally chapters in Oregon and SW Washington this month. (Click on the chapter's link to join their email list.)



Corvallis: Tonight! Oops!

Meetings: First Thursday of each month, 5pm - 7pm at Squirrels, 100 SW 2nd St., in Corvallis.


Vancouver: Next meeting: Tuesday, October 9th.

Meetings: Second Tuesday of each month, 7pm, at the Fatty's Sports Page, 11606 NE 71st Street (Located at the south entrance to Lowe's)


Portland Left Side (aka: Portland Metro West): Next meeting: Wednesday, October 10th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of every month, 7:00pm at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd), in Beaverton.


St. Helens: Next meeting: Wednesday, October 10th.

Meetings: Second and fourth Wednesdays of every month, at the Village Inn, 535 S. Columbia River Hwy (We have a room off the bar), in St. Helensin the Cantina at Ixtapa Mexican Restaurant in Scappoose.


Portland: Next meeting: Thursday, October 11th.

Meetings: Second and fourth Thursdays of the month, at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby, Thursday at 7pm.


Salem: Next meeting: Thursday, October 14th.

Meetings: Third Thursday of the month at Browns Towne Lounge, 189 Liberty St NE # 112 (Old Sportstop next to Read Opera House) in Salem.

And Portland West Side Screening Liberally is having its next meeting 7pm Sunday, November 20th at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd.--easy parking and MAX access). Vote at the Facebook page or drop me a note for your choice: Either The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. MacNamara (2003) (last month's runner-up), or To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Suggestions for future movies are also welcome.


There are over 300 DL chapters around the country; to find the one near you -- or to start one in your neighborhood--go here.)

And if you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction -- including keeping the whole Living Liberally network up and running -- consider sending them a little love via Tipping Liberally. Or check out becoming a regular pledge donor.

So wherever you are, join the Living Liberally gang for political conversation, drinks, and great films.

Remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

And don't forget there's still time to purchase your copy of 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal.

Reminder: "A Face in the Crowd" at Screening Liberally tonight, 7pm at Ringo's

(Map from MAX line to Ringo's.)

October Living Liberally calendar for Oregon and SW Washington

Have you been out canvassing? Phone-banking? Applying adhesive address labels to mailers? Reading up on the issues? Then Drinking Liberally is the place to kick back afterward!

Once again, the first of the month snuck up on me. So this is a little late, but there's big doin's out there, including the second meeting of Screening Liberally in Beaverton.

Here's the run-down for Drinking (and Screening) Liberally chapters in Oregon and SW Washington this month. (Click on the chapter's link to join their email list.)

Technically, I promoted the October meeting of the Corvallis chapter of Drinking Liberally in last month's calendar entry, but they met last Thursday niht at 5pm - 7pm at Squirrels, 100 SW 2nd St..


Vancouver: Next meeting: Tuesday, October 12th.
Meetings: Second and fourth Tuesdays, 7pm, at the Back Alley Bar and Grill, 6503 E. Mill Plain Blvd. (West of Andersen, in a strip mall 1/2 block west of Safeway on the south side of Mill Plain. It's deep in the lot.)

Portland Left Side (aka: Portland Metro West): Next meeting: Wednesday, October 13th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of every month, 7:00pm at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd).

Portland: Next meeting: Thursday, October 14th.
Meetings: Second and fourth Thursdays of the month, at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby, Thursday at 7pm.

Salem: Next meeting: Thursday, October 14th.
Meetings: Third Thursday of the month at Browns Towne Lounge, 189 Liberty St NE # 112 (Old Sportstop next to Read Opera House)

And Portland West Side Screening Liberally is having its next meeting Sunday night, October 24th at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd). Vote at the Facebook page or drop me a comment, below, for your choice: either A Face in the Crowd or The Fog of War.

There are over 300 DL chapters around the country; to find the one near you -- or to start one in your neighborhood--go here.)

And if you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction -- including keeping the whole Living Liberally network up and running -- consider sending them a little love via Tipping Liberally. Or check out becoming a regular pledge donor.

So wherever you are, join the Living Liberally gang for drinks and political conversation.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

Don't forget there's still time to purchase your copy of 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal.

The definitive liberal lifestyle handbook

(Update: Armed with Justin's book, Matt Labash at the Weekly Standard tried his hand at living liberally for about a week. Predictable results.)

Somewhere between here and New York City, my review copy of Justin Krebs' 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal is making its way westward.

From the publisher's website:

There are hundreds of ways to lead a more environmentally friendly, socially conscious, and liberally minded life -- ways that can even be enjoyable. What readers will find in this friendly inclusive book are simple steps, lifestyle adjustments, and ideas that entertain.

Many of you already know of Justin as the co-founder and executive director of Living Liberally, the just-turned-7 national network of over 300 chapters promoting social organizing for progressive politics. LL is the umbrella for Drinking Liberally -- and Laughing Liberally, Screening Liberally, Eating Liberally, and Reading Liberally. (In the Pacific Northwest, Oregon has 5 DL chapters, Washington has 15, Calgary, Alaska has 2, and Hawaii and Alberta each have 1.)

More about the book when my copy arrives (although you don't have to wait on me; you can always order your own).

(And for those of you who like a mystery to puzzle over while you wait for your own copy of 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal: There are 538 electors in the Electoral College, and 538 ways to live liberally in Justin's book.

Coincidence?)

WWJB? Cinema 21 and Morgan Spurlock kick off a half-trillion dollar holiday shopping season

Note: Producer Morgan Spurlock announced Friday night that he'll be on ABC's "Nightline" tonight (Monday 11/26), talking about "What Would Jesus Buy?", although I can't find any online confirmation of that. Probably just a coincidence that Disney owns ABC and I can't find any promotion of Spurlock's interview. (See below.)

You can set your own markers, if you care enough to bother.

For me, the moment when it became no longer possible even to pretend that the Christmas season was about anything but naked pursuit of consumerist crap came in December 2000, during the Bee-like marketing blitz surrounding the release of the live-action "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" movie. The specific trigger was a Grinch-themed MasterCard commercial, tying its "For everything else, there's MasterCard" campaign to the Ron Howard/Jim Carrey bomb. (No copies of that ad appear to be available online, which I'd like to think means that at least someone connected to the operation is capable of a wisp of shame.)

Just in case anyone needs reminding: This was the punchline of the original "Grinch" story:

He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"
"It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!"
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

And what happened then...?
Well...in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch's small heart
Grew three sizes that day!

There's a special circle in hell waiting for the tin-eared philistines who sold out that story in the name of ratcheting up consumer debt.

All of which brings us to Screening Liberally's first outing, to Friday night's premiere of "What Would Jesus Buy?" at Cinema 21 in NW Portland.

The documentary follows the cross-country tour of Bill Talen (aka the Reverend Billy) and the Church of Stop Shopping Choir as they carol for less expensive consumer ephemera, preach the gospel of simple gift-giving and local merchants, and conduct an exorcism at the Wal-Mart corporate headquarters.

Those are the main themes: Christmas marketing and ballooning credit card debt, a generation of consumer-droid children, harm to Main Street merchants, unbelievable quantities of packaging waste generated in a mere thirty days, and--lest we forget--the selling out of Christmas. (Bill O'Reilly can be counted on to point to "Happy Holidays" as proof that there's a war on Christmas; think he'll get on the bandwagon to save families and communities? I don't, but anything's possible. Even the Grinch's heart grew three sizes.)

There's also a really important sub-theme related to freedom of speech and the dwindling of public spaces where subversive messages like the Reverend Billy's can even be spoken. At one point, the Reverend guesses in passing that he's probably been arrested about fifty times. The reason is that, while the malls and theme parks where Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Choir do their performance art may be hyped as America's new town squares (or, in the case of Disneyworld, its "Main Street USA") . . . they aren't.

A classic moment in WWJB? comes when an exasperated security guard at Disneyworld explains to the Reverend, "This isn't like US public property--you can't come in here and just . . . sing."

And taking on Wal-Mart has other free-speech implications, noted Spurlock in a Q&A session after the film, since many distributors don't want to piss off the corporation controlling about 40% of the CD and DVD sales in America (and who isn't hesitant to use that clout to squelch messages it doesn't like). After the film was premiered at the Sundance festival, distributor after distributor told Spurlock that they would love to take the film, but it was simply too big a risk to incur Wal-Mart's wrath, and its long memory.

As what may or may not be a case in point, consider the KGW coverage of WWJB's premiere, including an interview with Spurlock. Through the miracle of editing, they managed to make the whole movie (which, in fairness, I imagine they didn't get the chance to see, and were only covering because of its eye-catching title in the first place) about consumer debt. No hint in the segment that the film has anything to do with some of its biggest ad clients.

(Another sub-theme is the story of two people committed to hanging onto what must surely be one of the most difficult-to-maintain marriages imaginable.)

Spurlock shared another great story with the audience: At an early screening of the film in Austin, some Christian fundamentalists from Dallas drove down to attend. During the Q&A after the show, one of the group told Spurlock they had come there fully intending to ream him a new one--after all, the film's sacrilegious intent couldn't have been clearer, with "Jesus" right there in the title!--but having seen the film she was a convert. She praised Spurlock and WWJD for rightly denouncing the materialism that had taken over the Christmas season.

Spurlock also gave a shout-out to local projects Local First and the Radio Cab Turkey Project.

Are there sensible-giving/buying-locally projects in your area? Let's hear about them!

The show runs at Cinema 21 until December 6th. As the good Reverend would say, "Change-alujah!"


(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

"What Would Jesus Buy?" See the light tomorrow night!

Sitting there in a tryptophan haze this Thanksgiving, and contemplating the money you're going to shell out tomorrow (also known as Black Friday)?

Then you need to join Portland Screening Liberally tomorrow (Friday) night at 7pm at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Street (map) to see "What Would Jesus Buy?"

From the WWJB web site:

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!

From producer Morgan Spurlock (SUPER SIZE ME) and director Rob VanAlkemade comes a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas. Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer's jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands.

Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland.

Will we be led like Sheeple to the Christmas slaughter, or will we find a new way to give a gift this Christmas? What Would Jesus Buy? may just be the divine intervention we've all been searching for.

As a special treat, producer Morgan "Supersize Me" Spurlock will speak at both showings tomorrow night.

Check out the trailer . . .

. . . and join us at Cinema 21 tomorrow night at 7pm for "What Would Jesus Buy?" We'll meet in the lobby a little before seven, and afterward those who are interested can migrate to a nearby café or pub to continue discussing the film.

See you then. Hallelujah!

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Drinking Liberally, 7pm tonight

Join the Portland DL chapter at our old meeting site, the Lucky Lab brewpub at SE 9th and Hawthorne, tonight at 7pm. (Our regular space at Madison's is rented out this Thursday, so it's not available.)

(DL meets the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month.)

Only 431 days left for George Bush to continue somehow getting the congressional Democrats to cave on issue after issue. Depressing.

We recently had our first meeting of Screening Liberally--we watched a few classic cartoons, followed by Laughing Liberally stand-up comedy, and the main event, Robert Greenwald's "Iraq for Sale." A good time was had by all--and now we're starting to plan our next event! If you're interested (and you haven't already replied to any of the earlier emails about Screening Liberally), drop me a note and we'll get you on our temporary mailing list.

See you this Thursday--this time only, we're back at the Lucky Lab.

(And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.)