Jam and I spent Saturday whoring around the Feshly Plucked Festival in Orange. It was damned good fun. Our favourite acts were (of course) bluejuice and Frenzal Rhomb, but snaps for DJ Accent for mashing Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' up with James Brown's 'Sex Machine', and kudos to DJ Kit Kut for bringing some Cyprus Hill to the party.

We want to show bluejuice some love while we're here and we urge you to do the same. They deserve it.  You may have heard of them already; one of their singers (Jake Stone) was the guy who was arrested for "impersonating a police officer"... and by "impersonating a police officer" we mean that he wore a cop's shirt and was arrested and removed from the stage. Anyway... they were super sweet to us and they played an awesomely exciting set. [insert massive fucking grin here]

Anyway... single = "Vitriol" album= "Problems"... buy it bitches.

My rant seems somewhat, well....lame really, compared to Fig's.

But, has anyone else seen that new add on your home page? With the two hamsters. The caption reads "Don't get screwed". Can anyone guess what the hamsters are there for?
Yer....hard isn't it *sarcasm*. I just found it a little offensive and invasive to log into a site (that, might I add, caters for those UNDER THE AGE OF 14) and to see a couple of cartoon hamsters consumating in the normal hamster way on my screen.
This is actually an add for a phone company, I believe. Completely unneccessary.
I know sex sells but...hamsters?...buttsecks?...OK...whatever floats your target audience's boat...

Uber Love
-Jam

Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't continually rant about politics or news but what I saw on the news tonight made me want to cry or at least walk up and slap someone in the face and say "Seriously man, what the fuck?"

I'm sure you've read the story. Jena, Louisiana has become the most obvious example of the racial tensions that still exist in America's Deep South. The problem became apparent last August when a black student at Jena High School, Kenneth Purvis, requested that a long standing "tradition" at the school be broken by allowing the black students to join their white counterparts in sitting under a tree during the breaks. The head teacher informed him that they could do whatever they liked. However, it was discovered the next day that the white students had hung three nooses from the tree. The students involved were given a few days worth of in-school suspension, their actions considered "bad taste, silly, but just a prank". On 30 November an attempt was made to burn the school down, and on the same weekend racially charged fights broke out between teenagers downtown. On 4 December racial tensions boiled over again, resulting in a white student, Justin Barker, being attacked allegedly by six black boys. One would assume that the charges laid against these boys would have amounted to battery and assault at the most. This was not the case. Rather than recieving the expected charges the boys were charged with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. Nine days later the District Attorney released the following statement to the local paper: "I will not tolerate this type of behaviour. To those who act in this manner I tell you that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and with the harshest crimes that the facts justify. When you are convicted I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law. I will see to it that you never again menace the students at any school in this parish." The bail for the accused was posted ridiculously high, considering the impoverished state of most of the black students in Jena. This resulted in most of the accused remaining in custody.

This story has resulted in the massive civil rights protests at Jena, which stir memories of those in Montgomery or Selma in Alabama. And people are well within their rights to protest. Examining the current climate of the town it is easy to feel the Jena is stuck in a bygone era. 85% of the population is white. There are almost no black employees in the main street of the town. The majority of black citizens live in an area called Ward 10, which contains a great number of trailers and wooden shacks the serve as homesteads. The section of town that is predominantly white is referred as 'Snob Hill', and only two black families live in that area. One is a teacher at the high school, and even he had difficulty moving into that areas of town with real estate agents refusing to show him 'white' property. (The agents told the teacher that all the houses were "under contract". They lied.) Eventually the teacher approached the owner and offered him cash, securing ownership of the house. "But since we moved in three years ago, we haven't been invited by single neighbour." A 56 year old black resident who is a former member of the air force and has a business management  degree says that "I couldn't even get a job in Jena as a bank teller. Look at the banks and the best white collar jobs and you'll see only white and red necks in those jobs." The barber in the main street has never cut a black man's hair because "they just don't come here. Anyway, their hair is different and difficult to cut." It's clearly a backward town.

I am not so naive as to think that racism has been completely eliminated since the Civil Rights Movement. I don't see any reason why racism should exist and I will actively work against its existence, but I do acknowledge that it's there. But I did not think that it would be so blatant that racial segregation would still exist in what is supposed to be the world's leading power. How are the US going to go leading the rest of the world if they can't even acknowledge that all their citizens are equal? (Oops, I forgot that icky little thing called capitalism...as long as the wealthy are happy, who gives a shit about the rest of them, right?) But wait! It seems to be OK to have racial segregation, as long as you give it a nice name: "tradition". The black students can't sit under the tree because it's "traditional" and that makes it alright. "I'm sorry, you can't come into our pub if you are black, Jewish or a homosexual... don't worry... it's traditional." 

I also love the response of the District  Attorney's Office to claims that the trumped up charges laid on the black students were racially motivated. "This case is absolutely  not, nor has it ever been, about race." Oh yeah? So why are there reports flying in from the leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union as well as people flocking in for the protest of citizens of Jena and the surrounding areas flying the Confederate flag as the protestors drove past? Why did the white students hang nooses from the tree if this was never about race? The DA's Office is clearly in denial if they think this type of thing isn't motivated by underlying racial tensions. Perhaps they should ask themselves: if the victim had been black and the attackers had been white would the charges have been so trumped up?

You may be wondering what the President's response to all this would be? Fear not! Saint Georgie had something to say. "These events sadden me." Awww. These horrible racial tensions make Georgie Peorgie sad. Could you really get much more of a pathetic response than that?  You'd think he could come up with something a little more intelligent.

You will be happy to note though, that the charges have been reduced.

Also, in the great tradition of American problem-solving the tree HAS been cut down. THANK GOD!

This is Fig,
Over and Out.

Ok, so... BOOM is not a politically charged group. We can do social commentary, but usually opt not to. This is for several reasons.

1. We probably don't have enough well rounded general political knowledge to give you a cohesive view of the world, and provide points for or against something.

2. We are an art organisation, so if we do do political commentary you know that it's going to be stuffed away somewhere in some obscure visual piece and not parading around in a blog like this one.

3. We're really fucking lazy.

But (and it's a big 'but' people... note that it is spelled with one 't' and is therefore NOT referring to my own sizeable lady lump) this doesn't mean that we can't have an opinion. And if we have an opinion you KNOW you're going to hear about it.

Having said that I want to open up for discussion Australia's deterioration in a Big Brother state which seems to have coincided with Sydney's hosting of the APEC Summit. For those of you who have been living under a rock (or just not in Australia) the government has taken upon itself to rearrange the laws to "tighten security" for the summit. This means giving more power to police, even more power to foreign security teams protecting their dignitaries and taking the freedom of speech away from the protestor.

It may just be me, but Howard and his cronies seem to have opted for the most ridiculous and over the top measures they could possibly find. Their first measure corresponded with Dick Cheney's visit to Australia in February of this year, when they gave foreign security teams the right to carry arms. This law change, which was rushed through parliament, now applies to the APEC Summit as well. In Australia, guns seem to be less embedded in the national psyche than they are in America. Does this explain my concern at the the fact that there are now a number of armed men parading around Sydney? Well, if it doesn't, I'm pretty sure that the snipers and helicopters positioned around the place ought to cover it. Oh! And the fact that police are asking business people in the heart of Sydney to "close their blinds and not look at the helicopters". In other words, don't give them a reason to notice you.

This brings me to my next point. The people that they are giving warning to are unfortunate enough to work within the walled perimeter that they have erected along Bridge Street, Macquarie Street, around Circular Quay and across the Botanic Gardens (blocking public access to the Sydney Opera House). Yes. You read right. They built a wall around Sydney. When I first read about this in the papers, I thought they were joking. Then they actually put it up. Don't believe me? http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-great-apec-wall-rises/2007/09/01/1188067428053.html See for yourself. If you read the article you will also note that the police have to right to question anyone entering the "exclusionary zone" and to ask for ID. I'm sorry, but when they were going through thinking of practical solutions to the problem of security at APEC, which genius went, "I know! A WALL! That will solve all our problems."

Then there's that other fun thing they did. Howard and Co. have cleared up space in the jails by sending the prisoners home for the week... no, wait for it... this is the kicker... to make way for the legions of protestors they intend to arrest. What exactly are they expecting to happen, I wonder? FEAR NOT! Howard explains all : "Australia has a history of violent protests." Excuse me? Yes, that's right. We can blame all of the inconvenience being caused to Sydney on our nasty violent protestors. Our history is littered with them.... or was that France?

The real kicker in this whole shebang is the fact that, after all of the millions of dollars that they spent on security and just generally making a big old nuisance of themselves, a team of ABC comedians somehow managed to get a motorcade through that security and come within meters of Mr. George W. and his Yes-men. The Chaser team has twice thwarted the security at the Summit, and I am delighted to see that the rest of the world thinks it's as funny as I do. I am also pleased to see that some other media sources share the same opinions as I do, with one implying that the only reason a similar stunt hadn't been attempted in the US was because they would have been shot on the spot.

In other news, BOOM is running a shoot this weekend. It's going to be hot, so keep and eye out for the results of that. Coming soon to a theatre near you. Also keep an eye out for the BOOM zine, which is planned for the coming months. *gasp* Moving from the digital realm to the physical. How exciting.

This is Fig, over and out.

Hello Hello.
Thought it was high time we got this train a movin' (please excuse the expression.). So I have taken the liberty of uploading our first pictures. And as this is indeed MySpace, I thought we should keep in the spirit of it, so I uploaded a couple of 'MySpace-esque' photos. Excuse the lameness and quality. Photos were needed, and the theme was 'MySpace'. This was about all I could dig up.
Stay tuned for actual photoshoots with real themes, proper costuming and decent camera angles.

Until then, adieu!
-Jam