The Insect Carnival
An Experiment Towards Sustainability and Peace
by Bite the Hand Productions &
The Boogie Room and Gardens

On Labor Day weekend, a group of young artists and activists worked together to create an event called “The Insect Carnival.”  For three days and three nights, this do-it-yourself festival celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. People from all around biked and carpooled to the small farm where The Carnival was held, and shared in a lively and inspired weekend with over 30 music acts, public workshops on poetry and farming, a huge mud pit, bonfires, storytelling, and theater.  It was an event that embraced local art and was created by a local consciousness.

The young people of Sonoma County have been working together for quite some time to create a strong underground community.  We are seriously discussing and implementing principles of sustainability, peace, and self-sufficiency. The time we are living in can be discouraging and fearful, and we are responding to a population that is feeling hopeless and bored.  Events like The Insect Carnival are hopeful expressions of our intention for sustainability through creative expression.

This strong new community has been forming out of the creativity and courage of artists and activists.  The two groups who put on The Carnival have been working hard to steward this growth.  They are called Bite the Hand Productions and The Boogie Room and Gardens…

Bite the Hand Productions is the group that organized the Insect Carnival.  It is a collective of artists who put on local events and produce a monthly publication called “The Pharmakon.”  Bite the Hand works to publicize and comment on local activity, and to help artists and activists connect.  According to their manifesto, “‘Bite the Hand’ means to refuse to be led into a life you had no part in creating and instead find real sustenance in the world around you… to feed yourself.”

The Boogie Room and Gardens is the group that hosted The Insect Carnival.  They are a small group of people who believe that there is beauty in self-reliance and self-representation.  They encourage people to provide for themselves and find the balance between work and play, teaching and learning, under the umbrella of artistic expression.  By creating a space to share arts and skill The Boogie Room encourages others to recreate their own culture.

The Insect Carnival was the product of these two groups and a community that was willing to evolve a simple musical event into something greater. It was an effort to look beyond the huge and costly mega-festivals that seem to dominate the summer and to create a rewarding experience that is more about inspiration than inebriation.  At the Insect Carnival, the performers were part of the community: workers, neighbors, and friends

If you want to stay informed on what we are doing, you can pick up The Pharmakon at coffee shops for free.  There will also be a film coming out titled “Pharmakon” which documents some of Bite the Hand and The Boogie Room.  Now, more than ever, we need to reach out, participate, and make connections with each other.  We hope to inspire others, as we have been inspired.

This is a crucial time to be active in Sonoma County. We are standing at a point of great decision and it will take a sustained effort and an open heart from everyone in order to change our course and protect our future.  The Insect Carnival is a gesture in that direction.  Now, it is time to settle into the dirt, find our roots, and rise up.  It is time to learn how to work together.

To learn more about Bite the Hand Productions, go to www.bitethehand.org or e-mail thepharmakon@gmail.com

To learn more about The Boogie Room and Gardens, go to www.myspace.com/theboogieroom

It’s the end of the summer
Come to the time when we have to say goodbye

After watching seven different bands at Daredevils & Queens tonight, and after spending three days watching countless bands at the Insect Carnival last weekend, I have to say: summertime’s elusive promise, that delicate combination of freedom and togetherness so impossible to contain, has come and delivered its sweet kiss just in the nick of time. Soon it will be October, and we’ll spend our nights at home, and read Neil Gaiman novels and watch Richard Widmark movies, and talk about them to computer screens. But these last few weekends, at least, have been a last gasp of what living in Santa Rosa is all about.

It’s hard to put into words, these shows at the Insect Carnival and Daredevils & Queens, aside from saying that they’re probably best not put into words. They breathe, but how do you describe a breath? You inhale air, you exhale air. Right? Is it that simple?

The oldest of friends, the newest of strangers, the coldest of beers and the truest of bands. All under a sky just enough unclouded by city lights to allow a few stars to poke through. Shooting stars, even—the kind that you catch in their split-second streak, and when you discover that the person you’re next to saw it too, for a moment you are bonded if not by the music or the laws of attraction than at least by the very fact that you’re both under the same big sky.

The end of the summer means that people play John Prine and Jesus Lizard songs in the middle of a field, next to a mud pit full of naked people. The end of the summer means Jolie Holland ballads and clanging chains and bullhorns and a floor bending under the weight of people jumping up and down in rhythm. The end of the summer means sharing amps and sideways smiles and a hundred hugs. The end of the summer means a downtown alley full of people drinking free beer and fuck it if it’s Coors.

And the end of the summer means that as the wig-wearing auctioneers of Wine Country Weekend raise money by clowning their own dead counterculture of the 1960s, there are walls both concrete and wooded, both inside city limits and out, where a new culture is constantly being reborn. Where fresh blood is funneled into art, and music, and community, and life, and where money does not rule all. I repeat: where money does not rule all.

So thanks to the bands, and the people like Travis and Bryce and Kyle, and the hordes of people in this town who know a good thing when they see it and who seize it while it lasts.

Gabe is a hell of a writer and he knows Sonoma County.  Be sure to check out his frequent posts at his blog, “City Sound Inertia.”  You can get to it by clicking here:  http://www.bohemian.com/citysound/

This is a conscious event that is being held at a private residence. We appreciate your cooperation and your respect. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you attend the celebration:

• We encourage bike riding and camping at the Carnival. Our guided bike rides will be departing from Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, and Cotati. See the schedule for departure times.
• If you cannot bike to the Carnival, please carpool.
• Please show up before 6:30pm if you intend on camping at The Boogie Room.
• Gates close at 10:30pm each night.
• We are asking a $5 donation per day that you attend the Carnival.

We will be having amazing performances in the day and the night! The performances are listed in the order they will be appearing:

• Friday the 29th of August
  • 12:00 noon
    • Guided bike rides leave from Santa Rosa’s Community Market, Sebastopol’s Whole Foods, and Cotati’s Oliver’s Market
    • The Insect Carnival begins!
  • 3:00pm
    • Guided bike ride leaves from Santa Rosa’s Community Market, Sebastopol’s Whole Foods, and Cotati’s Oliver’s Market
  • 3:00-6:30
    • The Crooks, The Mighty Chiplings, Banjomama, Eucalypt, and The Highlands
    • Guided bike ride leaves from Santa Rosa’s Community Market
  • 6:30-7:30
    • “The World’s Biggest Comedy Duo” Improv Comedy Show
  • 7:30-8:30
    • Yarn Arms and Gitar
  • 8:30-9:00
    • “Fire and Ghosts” Storytelling by the Campfire
  • 9:00pm-1:00am
    • The Semi-Evolved Simians, Litany for the Whale, Not to Reason Why, and Goodriddler

• Saturday the 30th of August
  • 10:00am
    • Yoga
  • 12:00 Noon
    • Breakfast and goat-milking
    • Guided bike rides leave from Santa Rosa’s Community Market, Sebastopol’s Whole Foods, and Cotati’s Oliver’s Market
  • 1:00-3:00
    • Mud Wrestling with Laundry Detergent (Batman vs Predator)
  • 3:00pm
    • Guided bike ride leaves from Santa Rosa’s Community Market
  • 3:00-4:30
    • The Haxaw Ditch Dwellers, Travis Hendrix, and Andrew Maurer
    • …and The Free School with Richard Speaks!
  • 4:30-5:00
    • Boogie Room Public Meeting
  • 5:00-8:00
    • Banjomama, Low-Five, Ferocious Few, and Santiago
    • …and workshops on gardening, fermented foods, and cheese-making!
  • 8:00-8:30
    • The Crux Tent Revival, Chapter Two
  • 8:30pm-2:30am
    • Nikos Eliot, Fishbear, A Pack of Wolves, The Iditarod, and DJ Underwater

• Sunday the 31st of August
  • 12:00 Noon
    • Breakfast and Performances
    • Guided bike rides leave from Santa Rosa’s Community Market, Sebastopol’s Whole Foods, and Cotati’s Oliver’s Market
  • 1:00-3:00
    • Lemonade and Open Mic (come play!)
  • 3:00pm
    • Guided bike ride leaves from Santa Rosa’s Community Market
  • 3:00-9:00
    • uMana, Erstwhile Medicine Show, Leila-Anne, Ramon and Jessica, Mark Growden, and Kyle Martin
    • …and a workshops on cheese-making, event-organizing, and goat-milking!
  • 9:00-12:00 midnight
    • I Cut People, Shampoodle, Bill Wild, Brandon the Clown, and The Crux
  • 12:00 midnight
    • “The Pharmakon,” a documentary about Sonoma County

Call us at 707-326-5274 for…
… specific times of performances and workshops!
… directions to The Boogie Room and Gardens!
… help finding carpools and bike rides!
… opportunities to volunteer!

START PREPARING FOR THE CARNIVAL RIGHT NOW!

1. Get August 29, 30, and 31 off work!
2. Organize Carpools, Bike Rides, and Camping with your friends!
3. Save up $15, we are asking a $5 donation per day!

SHARE IN OUR D.I.Y. FESTIVAL!
We are looking for volunteers for this year’s carnival, so if you are interested in helping set-up, take-down, arranging carpools and bike rides, or anything else… call us at 707-326-5274 or e-mail us at thepharmakon@gmail.com

REMEMBER…AUGUST 29, 30, and 31, CAMP OUT WITH BITE THE HAND PRODUCTIONS AT THE BOOGIE ROOM AND GARDENS!

Cheap Art is a movement that Bite the Hand Productions is supporting in Sonoma County.  The idea is to make art that is cheap to make and then sell it for prices that anyone can afford.  We create art together, we create it alone, and we create it often.

You can stop by our Cheap Art Gallery at Free Mind Media. Take a look around, and if you see something nice, you can buy it for 25 cents to 20 dollars.

Keep reading The Pharmakon and stopping by bitethehand.org to find out when you can come to our next Cheap Art Day!

Bite the Hand Productions is a collective of artists and activists.  While we do not endorse specific candidates, we totally encourage grassroots participation in our elections from a variety of angles.  Community action and community governance is essential to our mission to feed ourselves.  We need to actively choose and watch the people that represent us.

We ask everyone to register to vote and to ask important questions when considering each candidate in Sonoma County.  These are the people who will be making decisions on  issues such as bike lanes, accounting for police brutality, planning and development, water protection, and loads more.  Who do you want them to be working for?

We will continue writing about local politics as the months go by and we get closer and closer to the November election.

It has been brought to our attention that a Sonoma County lost one of its young artists this year.  20 year old Phoebe Washer of Petaluma died this last May, leaving a life of art and loving friends and family.  Bite the Hand Productions has produced this post in memory of her, and to show our appreciation for her artistic vision and commitment.

Her art is amazing and she touched many lives in her community.  We encourage everyone who reads this post to learn about Phoebe’s life and see her amazing art here: Phoebe Washer Web Page

COLOR issues are for sale at Copperfields in Sebastopol and at Community Market in Santa Rosa.

FREE BLACK AND WHITE copies are at Community Market, Treehorn Books, 1710 Coffee, The Boogie Room, Free Mind Media, The Last Record Store, Aqus Cafe, Coffee Catz, Hardcore Espresso, Infusions Tea House, North Light, and Zone Music.

This summer-starting issue tells the tale of Community Gardens in the United States, features a new letter from Aren Diego, presents a “Nimby the Dog” comic strip,  and much more! Buy one if at all possible, or you can always pick a black and white copy up for free! Enjoy!

Watch the Cops

“Copwatching” is the act of publicly observing and documenting police
activity as a way to keep them accountable. In other words, it’s
watching the cops. People copwatch for lots of different reasons, for
example, if cops know they’re being watched or video taped, they are
less likely to harass or abuse the person they’re interacting with for
fear of getting caught in the act. Another reason to copwatch is
simply because it’s important to keep track of what cops do, because
they are public officers who we pay (via taxes) to keep us safe, so
they better be doing what we want them to be doing. Some people
copwatch as a way to build community resistance by spreading an idea
that doesn’t have much legitimacy in mainstream politics - the idea
that the system of police, as a whole, may not be on our side.
Whatever the reason, Copwatch groups continue to pop up all over the
country.

The origin of copwatching may be arbitrary, so it won’t be examined
very much here. You could say it started in the 1960s with the Black
Panther Party, who recognized that their communities in fact needed
protection from the violent, racist, corrupt police who would
regularly terrorize black communities in Oakland. You could say it
started in Berkeley in 1990 when the first group calling themselves
Copwatch appeared. You could say it started any time a community
wanted to monitor the actions of their law enforcement agencies on a
street level. The term “copwatching” itself is arbitrary, but will be
used here as an all-encompassing word which refers to the act of
observing and documenting police activity for the purpose of
accountability. Copwatchers do not wish to interfere with police
activity or to physically resist police misconduct. They observe and
document instances of police interaction with the community.

Copwatching is absolutely necessary for any community to be safe. If
the cops are not being checked by the public, they could theoretically
get away with whatever they want (and often times, do). If the police
are law enforcement, there needs to be someone making sure they are
enforcing their own laws on themselves. Without a way to check the
power of the police, a community is living in a police state, where
the cops decide whether what they are doing is right or wrong.

There are many forms of police accountability, such as civilian
oversight committees, the legal system, the press, and the police
department’s official complaint system. While these are useful and
important aspects of police accountability, none of these systems can
directly help someone who is suffering at the hands of the police at
any given moment (for example, the 50 people who have been murdered by
Sonoma County law enforcement or have died in custody since 1995).
Copwatching is the only way to directly observe what
police are doing on the streets that they are hired to protect. It is
also unique in that it does not require the services of any
institution or enterprise, and is accessible to anyone, even those who
are disenfranchised, have limited access to these services or
institutions, or are hesitant to use them for whatever reason.

Copwatch organizations (as opposed to lower-case copwatching, which
merely describes the act) often participate in rights training
workshops, where they share their knowledge of constitutional rights
with the community. People who are familiar with these basic rights
will often have a better chance of avoiding arrest or harassment, and
knowledge of one’s rights is certainly a fundamental necessity for any
democratic society.

So what’s the problem?

The phenomenon of organized Copwatching exposes some important truths
about the role of police in society. Police often ignore, slander,
harass, and even arrest copwatchers who use their constitutional right
to observe the police from a safe distance. In Santa Rosa alone there
have been many instances of people being harassed or arrested for
legally observing police activity. Participants of Santa Rosa
Copwatch, a copwatching organization, share stories of police
conspicuously photographing them, following them, or attempting to
interrogate them or discredit them (for example, during public events,
individual police officers will often position themselves in places
that make it seem like copwatchers are participating in police
activity, therefore discrediting them to the community members at the
event). Sonoma County law enforcement officers have been caught on
tape numerous times refusing to identify themselves to a copwatcher
(either by name or by badge number, which they are required to do, by
law, on request). Robert Edmonds, a resident of Santa Rosa who often
participates in copwatching, has filed several harassment complaints
against the Santa Rosa Police Department. Joe Willis, also of Santa
Rosa, was arrested for observing the police at the weekly Wednesday
Night Market event downtown. In some of these instances, interfering
with police activity is cited as a reason for the cops’ actions. In
others, the police admit that it is the very act of observing them
that resulted in their taking action against copwatchers. The
punishment for copwatching can be even more severe for those who are
at a social, political, or economic disadvantage. Being on parole,
probation, being an immigrant subject to deportation, being homeless,
being on the arbitrary and racist Gang Database, or having a mental
illness are all things that can keep people in fear of copwatching
(and singled out as a target for arrest) as long as it is
criminalized.

Most recently, on May 1st, 2008, Ben Saari was arrested for
copwatching as the immigrants rights and Free Trade awareness
protest/rally arrived at Julliard Park. Santa Rosa police officers
were moving a group of mostly Latino youth out of the park,
threatening them with extended batons and attack dogs. Saari moved
with the group, walking backwards as he kept a video camera pointed at
the agitated cops. The officer gave him a warning (though he was doing
nothing illegal). Saari asked if he was being arrested or detained,
and the officer said no. When Saari refused to stop video taping, the
officer physically attacked him and arrested him without reading him
his rights or giving him a reason for his arrest. He was later
formally charged with interfering with a public officer.

There is no excuse for repressing the act of copwatching. Police
officers are trained to handle extremely stressful situations, and
someone watching them should have no negative effect on their
performance or the situation as a whole. When we are convinced to stay
inside our homes as the police harass someone down the block, to look
the other way as we drive by the cops kicking homeless people out of
Downtown, when we are too afraid to question a police officer’s
actions, we are facing a fundamental social problem. Police are, in
fact, held accountable to their superiors (as we have seen from recent
internal problems within SRPD), to the courts, politicians, and the
wealthy. But if police cannot be held accountable to regular people,
to the people they interact with the most, to the vast majority of
society, then they do not serve the purpose that we are told they
serve. They are not here to protect US, or to serve US. They are here
to carry out the orders of those they are accountable to, to shut down
all-ages music venues in downtown Santa Rosa, to disperse crowds of
Latino youth, to harass homeless people, to help federal Immigration
agents deport innocent people, to make sure nobody is watching. If
those in power wish to gain our trust, to convince us that the police
are on our side, or even to convince us that the police are a
necessary and positive presence in our communities, then local law
enforcement MUST be accountable to regular people, and copwatching
must be a part of every-day life in our communities.

——-

The following local organizations are doing police accountability work
or are otherwise fighting against police brutality or harassment. They
are not necessarily co-signers to this article.
Santa Rosa Copwatch is a group of people who copwatch as an
organization. 707 579 1605

The Police Accountability Clinic and Hotline (PACH) is a Santa
Rosa-based legal help organization that documents testimonies from
those who have specific complaints about police officers. 707-542-PACH

The County of Refuge Campaign works towards passing a Sanctuary Law
for immigrants living in Sonoma County. This would prevent local law
enforcement from collaborating with ICE (Immigration Customs
Enforcement, the federal immigration enforcement agency under the
Department of Homeland Security). Local law enforcement has no legal
requirement to aid or collaborate with this federal agency. 707 523
1740

Sonomadefense.org is a website that, at the moment, serves to spread
awareness about Ben Saari’s case

To our community-

Wow.  We have come full circle: one complete cycle of our Pharmakon, and this, our 13th issue is our portal issue into the next.  Thirteen.  The number of spheres, twelve fitting perfectly around one, or twelve disciples around the master (there is also a Friday the 13th this month, the day of chaotic luck).

The Pharmakon is a glowing ember.  It’s like the single grain, all that’s left of Fantasia: the breath of your wish makes it grow.  This energy is the creative force.  We find ourselves in its current.  We are already home.  It surrounds us: penetratingly.  From this cosmic dust we arise into form.  From this one, this great cosmic principle we have come.

I am a hunter of light.  I stalk it patiently from the shadows.  I duck behind dumpsters and large wooden boxes and I wait.  Small movements continue around me: the breath of a scarred ally cat listening, the decomposing shoe, stringed from above, a flickering street light.  It’s glimmer can be seen reflected as two luminous search lights, jewels of green and gold: the retinas of a human photographer.  I pounce and cling then grapple in the dark (room).   

Everyone has felt themselves of the battlefield of light and dark.  Some teach the concept of yin and yang, that polarities are the two forces, manifesting simultaneously, engaging in a never-ending dance of perfect equilibrium: at times one seems to rise.  While this appears to be true, others teach that there is only one force, universal.  Light and dark are but expressions of a higher force that guides and directs: every revolution leads us forward.  It’s like the continuing spin of the potter’s wheel; around and around it goes.  The guiding force-hand of the master potter gives to it shape and creation, a vessel for our intent.

     “Size matters not.  Look at me.  Judge me by my size do you?  Hmm?  Hmm.  And well you should not.  For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.  Life creates it, makes it grow.  Its energy surrounds us and binds us.  Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  You must feel the force around you: here, between you, me the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.  Even between the land and the ship”  

     - Jedi Master Yoda, on the nature of the Force

-Aren