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Martin discusses the significance of the anniversary of the start of the Civil War with the firing on Ft. Sumter.  How the war, which focused on the elimination of slavery, was also a war about class power, in this case, the Southern elite.  The slave owners were determined to hold power and economic power by keeping people enslaved.  Once the war ended, the next approach was to disenfranchise the newly freed Americans through Jim Crow.  This was successful for almost a century until the rise of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.   With civil rights came again the war on poverty which was truly an attempt at equality among the classes.  This attempt was ultimately thwarted in many ways with the rise of the Republican party persuading Southern Democrats to switch.  The rise of partisan politics, the Tea Party and eventually MAGA has been the continuation of trying to maintain and expand the 1% of society.  Like their plantation forebears, these politicians have managed to persuade some of the yeomanry to "arms" on their behalf.   While not exactly an overt war, it is nonetheless a war on equality: economic, rights and social standing.  This has spilled into the 2024 election.  Holding the funds for Ukraine, under the idea guise of border safety (in spite of a bipartisan compromise earlier this year) has endangered not Ukraine, but the standing of the United States.  The Gazan war and the extreme right government in Israel has furthered endangered the west.  Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria has once again directly brought in the United States into conflict.  Oddly enough, the need for funds for Ukraine and Israel are hostage due to the erosion of the Republican Party.

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David Rocco Facchini is an artist's artist.  He's at once a visual artist, making amazing sculptures out of found objects, such as bits of old movie equipment, he's a storyteller, a stop motion movie maker whose most recent film was featured at the Cannes Film Festival, and also an adventurer of sorts.  He recently set out in a Sprinter Van to explore the psyche of America.  The result is a new film, USA2Z, which is in the final stages of production.   Facchini has a fun website with a lot of examples of his film and art and interviews.  Check out www.dellaroccostudios.com.

This episode continues to delve into the complexities regarding community.  As Facchini did his social experiment of word association, he became aware of how people percieve themselves.  That community, government, religion and other social gatherings are somewhat skewed in this era of sound bites, social media, talking points and anger.  People seem desperate to hold onto something as their very sense of self is under attack from variety of sources, all intent on making that self, theirs.  Tune in to a wonderful insight to the state our human condition--now.

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Creator of independent films, found object artist, college professor and cultural intellectual, David Rocco Facchini joins me for a two-part conversation that is a must-listen for those who truly wish to be an independent artist. 
 

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If there is one critter in the world that defies any logical explanation as to the benefit of its existence, consider the tick.   Having been around for over 120 million years, the tick feeds on the blood of its host.   The saliva contains an analgesic, an anti-coagulant and a glue to bond it to its host.  And oh, a bunch of various parasites that they are host to that cause such diseases in humans as Lyme's disease.   According to the CDC treatment for Lyme's disease is a 1-billion-dollar industry.   Climate change (global warming) has resulted in populations of ticks moving north and local populations surviving winter.  In 2022, the moose tick wiped out 90 percent of the calves studied in the state of Maine.  That is a serious blow to hunting and tourism.   The Asian long horned tick is now in the United States as well.  This tick has been found as far north as Missouri and is moving towards Canada.   There are a surprising variety of ticks out there and even cities have their resident populations of dog ticks.   What are we to do?  Thankfully there are some common-sense prevention practices that can help avoid a bite.  And science is to the rescue as well.   

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The Irish have been a race of people that have known their share of suffering.  Millions died during the An Gorta Mor, The Great Hunger or better known as the Potato Famine.  The uprising of 1916 resulted in the partition of Ireland, a bloody civil war and untold dead.  English politics and the result of having an island next to a world power ended up with Ireland oppressed and made to seem by their rulers, less than human.  That sentiment was brought to the United States and pushed by such people as Thomas Nast, who gave us the wholesome image of Santa Claus, but with the same pen also gave us African-Americans and Irish the shared image of subhuman apes. 
Enter Albert Balfour, who felt his suggestion to partition Ireland could work in other parts of the world.  Thus Palestine, taken by the British after WWI was thought to be partitioned to create "a Jewish Ulster" and so keep the hostile Arabs at bay.   The Jewish state came to fruition with the post WWII creation of Israel in 1948.  The idea of two states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian has been the holy grail of peace lovers ever since.   The recent events in Israel and Palestine, horrific and tragic, only serve to make it plainer to those who have been victims themselves of the utter uselessness that violence and pain will never give either side any satisfaction, let alone peace. 

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We take a little break from a lot of things to focus on one thing: that it is the young who will have to make the decisions sooner than later.   And in this case, I thought it would be interesting to interview my daughter Aine and hear what she (and her peers) are thinking about what worries them most, what sort of music they like, their grasp of current politics, the wars and more.   Thankfully, there is more hope than fear, more focus on being 10 years old here in the US.   And perhaps that is the best thing that democracy and strength can afford our children: the right to be kids.  Listen in!

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Chicago has had a poetry scene for decades, going back to the 1980's when such events as the Uptown Poetry Slam began.  Chicago poetry has a unique cadence and flow that today is found almost everywhere.  Poet Howard Friedman has been part of the scene for some time now.   His approach to poetry is akin to the way Jackson Pollock would take on a canvas--stream of consciousness, take-no-prisoners sort of writing that eschews self-editing.  To look at his handwritten prose is to see hastily lettered words, much more akin to a typed page than cursive, writing.  It is that which makes his work so interesting.  The structure and presentation is down to what sort of pen flows easier across the paper.  Add to that the presentation, live on stage and the artistry of Friedman's work is totally revealed.   For the avid poetry lover--here is a slice of that deep-dish poetry that makes Chicago still the epicenter of the written and spoken word. 

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I have a habit of collecting interesting sounds.   Since I do a lot of traveling with my band, I find myself in places where it is easy to hear something.   So on this podcast we listen to the shoreline of Lake Michigan in the winter, New's Year gunfire.  A Mexican restaurant in Phoenix.  Bell choir rehearsal in Scottsdale.  The quiet of the desert near the Superstition Mountains.  Some Mexican grackles in Tulum.  And the chaotic airport of Cancun.   

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Oh, Chicago.   Once upon a time you had the WLS Barn Dance.  Once upon a time you two professional football teams. One upon a time you had the stockyards. Once upon a time you had the world's tallest building.  Once upon a time you had a music scene that was the envy of the world.    People would migrate to Chicago to play here.  Sure, there were other scenes like Greenwich Village and Haight-Asbury, but for a while (and I don't mean that tiny era with Green and Smashing Pumpkins) that Chicago was the epicenter of great singer-songwriters.  Goodman, Prine, Holstein, Smith, Koloc, Dundee, the list goes on. Add to that Jim Post. 
Jim Post is the iconic singer-songwriter of that era now long gone and almost forgotten.  A "self-made man", Post reinvented his style of music, themes of music and in a truly Chicagoan fashion, gave the middle finger to the music industry and set out on his own to make his own. 
Poet, theater director and producer and part-time historian recently held " A Night With(Out) Jim Post" at the SPACE in Evanston, Illinois.   There were the singers still around from that era (and still going strong, such as Anne Hills, Howard Levy and Corky Siegal to name a few) but the tone of the evening was a nostalgic look back to Chicago's Folk Heyday, when clubs like the Earl of Oldtown would bring around luminaries to catch the latest, hottest folk act going on at the time.    Do we mourn what we once had? Or do we suck it up and determine that to be a Chicagoan is to truly go it alone?  Richard and Martin discuss that.  Musical clips from the evening at SPACE are also here to enjoy.  You can enjoy the entire evening here.   And yes, Martin pressures Richard to create a Chicago-centric award, the Posties. 

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Film maker, social activist and artist David Rocco Facchini returns to Strung Out to discuss with Martin his years practicing Freeganism.  According to Wikipedia, Freeganism is an ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with "dumpster diving" for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology and their engagement in a wider range of alternative living strategies, such as voluntary unemployment, squatting in abandoned buildings, and "guerrilla gardening" in unoccupied city parks.

Facchini relates how he was able to live for a year mainly on food that was thrown out in area dumpsters of Chicago during his social experiment with Freeganism. 

Support the show

We are always grateful to have you listening to STRUNG OUT. Here are some important links:

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Music | Martin Laurence McCormack (bandcamp.com)
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Support the show

We are always grateful to have you listening to STRUNG OUT.    Here are some important links:

SUPPORT THE SHOW:
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MARTIN'S WEBSITE:
http://www.MARTINMcCORMACK.COM 
(note---you can get my weekly bulletin when you sign up on the list!)

MARTIN'S MUSIC:
Music | Martin Laurence McCormack (bandcamp.com)
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