I used to be really cool.

I used to be a hardcore kid, in ever sense. Straight Edge, vegetarian, empathetic, the whole deal. My friends in Stretch Arm Strong made a video when I was 18 in New Jersey and invited me up. Some bros and I drove up and rocked out in Newark, the shittiest place on earth. Check out my dance moves.

Hudson River Skate Park and Painting the Subway red

Jarod, being the grand-motivator, got us out of the house yesterday and over to the West Side Bike Highway to check out the Hudson River Skatepark. As I was waiting for the G-train, eating my KFC like a rabid animal, I leaned on one of the columns only to find myself stuck to it. I thought it was gum, and in my panic to get on the approaching train threw my bag over my shoulder and hopped on, only to notcie the red paint covering my arm, bag and shirt moments later.



It felt great to skate again. Jarod was ripping. A guy, whose name I never caught, was also giving the place a going over.

Run For The Fallen

My friend Grant "Hank" Zubritski is taking part in a protest of sorts this week. He is leaving tomorrow for Arizona where he will run for the next week, taking part in the "Run For The Fallen". One mile is to be run for every american life lost in the Iraq war. The route stretches from San Diego, California all the way to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Good luck Grant. Have a cosmic run, we are behind you.

http://www.runforthefallen.org/

http://blog.runforthefallen.org/

ONE MILE FOR EVERY SERVICE MEMBER KILLED
IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

Beginning Flag Day, June 14, 2008, a dedicated team of runners will run across America from Fort Irwin, CA to Arlington National Cemetery, one mile for every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen, and Marine killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. For ten weeks, team members will mark each mile with an American flag and signcard in an apolitical reflection of remembrance of each service member.

New recruit.

I have known Jarod Ruzkowski for my entire conscious life. My family moved into the neighborhood when I was 3 and Jarod was the first kid I met. We have been friends ever since. After High School we each went separate ways, me to California to be a professional surfer, Jarod, a Christian at the time, headed to Orlando to pursue an education at Fullsail in TV production. As different of paths as we have taken, they have both led us to very similar conclusions about the nature of the universe, leftist politics and beer. Jarod is an incredibly intelligent, soft-spoken, angry young man and I was overjoyed to hear that he was moving to New York. He has been cruising in from Astoria to ride bikes, skate and share brews with us. Lady's and gent's , I give you J-Rad Ruskinator the 1st.

Have You Seen Him?

I smell Hard Body.

Sorry, son, you'll have to speek into the microphone.

So, I have been a bit MIA lately. Explanation: I got super busy with work, writing on my new typewriter and playing Halo3 after Dukes and Sis left. Then I got sick. Really sick. Strep throat--again. Went to the hospital--again. Spent four days sweating, hallucinating in my bed, with a high fever and sea urchins in my throat. Here are some pics of late.


Our Dad is a truly enlightened cat. Our anchor, he is always there with one line of cutting wisdom when we need it. He is a father, in a truly traditional sense. He taught us to think on our feet. He sharpened our teeth.

Siblings.
I recommended going to the Olive Garden in Times Square. I thought it would be priced according to the rest of the Universe's OG's and that seeing the madness that is TS might entertain the visitors. No dice. Price food and terrible service. The lack of view was free of charge.

Pops and Sis are remarkable together.
And they were off, back to the land of sand and honey.
For those of you who have wondered "what magical debauchery has A Goggans been up to lately?" here is your answer: Dying.

From the depths

comes a breath. Sickness, flat-spells and the holy-rolling preacher down the street can't keep us down: http://magicseaweed.com/Rockaway-Beach-Surf-Report/384/

Obama's Chicago Boys

Jack dug up this recent article by Naomi Klein, author of the utterly necessary book, the Shock Doctrine. From the Common Dreams website. Check it out

Obama’s Chicago Boys

by Naomi Klein

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, “Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market.”

Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed 37-year-old Jason Furman to head his economic policy team. Furman is one of Wal-Mart’s most prominent defenders, anointing the company a “progressive success story.” On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged, “I won’t shop there.” For Furman, however, it’s Wal-Mart’s critics who are the real threat: the “efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits” are creating “collateral damage” that is “way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing ‘Kum-Ba-Ya’ in the interests of progressive harmony.” Obama’s love of markets and his desire for “change” are not inherently incompatible. “The market has gotten out of balance,” he says, and it most certainly has. Many trace this profound imbalance back to the ideas of Milton Friedman, who launched a counterrevolution against the New Deal from his perch at the University of Chicago economics department. And here there are more problems, because Obama–who taught law at the University of Chicago for a decade–is thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School.

He chose as his chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist on the left side of a spectrum that stops at the center-right. Goolsbee, unlike his more Friedmanite colleagues, sees inequality as a problem. His primary solution, however, is more education–a line you can also get from Alan Greenspan. In their hometown, Goolsbee has been eager to link Obama to the Chicago School. “If you look at his platform, at his advisers, at his temperament, the guy’s got a healthy respect for markets,” he told Chicago magazine. “It’s in the ethos of the [University of Chicago], which is something different from saying he is laissez-faire.”

Another of Obama’s Chicago fans is 39-year-old billionaire Kenneth Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. Griffin, who gave the maximum allowable donation to Obama, is something of a poster boy for an unbalanced economy. He got married at Versailles and had the after-party at Marie Antoinette’s vacation spot (Cirque du Soleil performed)–and he is one of the staunchest opponents of closing the hedge-fund tax loophole. While Obama talks about toughening trade rules with China, Griffin has been bending the few barriers that do exist. Despite sanctions prohibiting the sale of police equipment to China, Citadel has been pouring money into controversial China-based security companies that are putting the local population under unprecedented levels of surveillance.

Now is the time to worry about Obama’s Chicago Boys and their commitment to fending off serious attempts at regulation. It was in the two and a half months between winning the 1992 election and being sworn into office that Bill Clinton did a U-turn on the economy. He had campaigned promising to revise NAFTA, adding labor and environmental provisions and to invest in social programs. But two weeks before his inauguration, he met with then-Goldman Sachs chief Robert Rubin, who convinced him of the urgency of embracing austerity and more liberalization. Rubin told PBS, “President Clinton actually made the decision before he stepped into the Oval Office, during the transition, on what was a dramatic change in economic policy.”

Furman, a leading disciple of Rubin, was chosen to head the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, the think tank Rubin helped found to argue for reforming, rather than abandoning, the free-trade agenda. Add to that Goolsbee’s February meeting with Canadian consulate officials, who left with the distinct impression that they had been instructed not to take Obama’s anti-NAFTA campaigning seriously, and there is every reason for concern about a replay of 1993.

The irony is that there is absolutely no reason for this backsliding. The movement launched by Friedman, introduced by Ronald Reagan and entrenched under Clinton, faces a profound legitimacy crisis around the world. Nowhere is this more evident than at the University of Chicago itself. In mid-May, when university president Robert Zimmer announced the creation of a $200 million Milton Friedman Institute, an economic research center devoted to continuing and augmenting the Friedman legacy, a controversy erupted. More than 100 faculty members signed a letter of protest. “The effects of the neoliberal global order that has been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive,” the letter states. “Many would argue that they have been negative for much of the world’s population.”

When Friedman died in 2006, such bold critiques of his legacy were largely absent. The adoring memorials spoke only of grand achievement, with one of the more prominent appreciations appearing in the New York Times–written by Austan Goolsbee. Yet now, just two years later, Friedman’s name is seen as a liability even at his own alma mater. So why has Obama chosen this moment, when all illusions of a consensus have dropped away, to go Chicago retro?

The news is not all bad. Furman claims he will be drawing on the expertise of two Keynesian economists: Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute and James Galbraith, son of Friedman’s nemesis John Kenneth Galbraith. Our “current economic crisis,” Obama recently said, did not come from nowhere. It is “the logical conclusion of a tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long.”

True enough. But before Obama can purge Washington of the scourge of Friedmanism, he has some ideological housecleaning of his own to do.

Naomi Klein is the author of many books, including her most recent, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.Visit Naomi’s website at www.naomiklein.org, or to learn more about her new book, visit www.shockdoctrine.com .

MoMA and Museum of Natural History

With Kayla and Dukes in town we decided to visit MoMA and The Museum of Natural History (separate days), two things we should have done a long time ago.

MoMA was free for everyone save Dukes which seemed to set the mood for the visit. Everyone was enthralled, having seen the works of Picasso, Van Gogh, Rothko and others our entire lives in our Parent's books. If you have never been, you must go; it is surely worth it.

Mollusk Madness: A Weekly Event

Andy Davis, Jeff Canham and my long lost friend Tyler Warren were in town for a little art shindig/ ando and friends tour and stopped by Mollusk for a BBQ meet and greet. Here are some shots:


If you are a girl in New York, and you don't watch your drinks when you are out, this will be the last face you see:

Jon Bless Bon Voyage, Goggans clan aloha

Bless took off for Brazil on Thursday as Kayla and Dad arrived from Florida. We sent JB off with a micro surf sesh before his 9:25 flight out. Franco, Terrence, Singles and Pete all gave in and paddled out into the less than pleasant conditions. Bless took off on the A-train and we threw seaweed at eachother for a bit and headed back to BK to meet Pops and Sis.

Really? You're gonna get wet for this?

At this moment, as Singles and Bless trudge to the water, FM Cynial was running like a cartoon monkey to the "peak" on the right. I reall missed a good picture op.



"This is an 8th avenue bound L-train"
What a stylish bunch.



Pete was psyched on the walk, constantly asking "why are we stopping?".

ROPE

Dutchstar Mike melted vinyl and screened some 80's surf jams last night in our hood. His lovely lady, Miss Heidi, came prepared with brown-bag reese's catering. Watched a whole lot of neon and thigh slash across the screen.

Why Jack and I are here, why we care.

Last night, Jack and I went to a panel discussion concerning the war crimes committed during the Iraqi conflict, particularly with respect to Blackwater mercenaries and other sub-contracted shadow armies operating in Iraq. On the panel was Jeremy Scahill, Seymour Hersh, Chris Hedges and Laylai Al Arani. The discourse proved as inspiring as it was disheartening and scary. Here are some clips concerning the issue.

What do y'all know 'bout this?

(poached from SW&G)

Second times a charm

The Lafayette Luftwaffe got down and dirty multiple mission style. Terrence, Bless, Pumpkin Eater, Devotion and I all loaded in Terrence's girlfriend's Cherokee and headed to Gilgo. We were greeted with some swell and even more wind. After a few frustrating laps, some "chemical crumb cake" from the Gilgo Beach Inn and a failed Baja Fresh mission, we headed back to the burg for some Taco Chulo and a walk to the Brooklyn Flea.



The Lafayette Luftwaffe:



Around 2:00, Bless and I got texts from Francisco M Borroughs, more familiarly known as FM Cynical. Cynical was feeling a little optimistic about the afternoon tide push and wanted to head back east for another round. Jack The Ripper (aka Cactus Jack, my brother), Pumpkin Eater and Terror chose to eat their respective pastramis on Rye at home and to not pile in. Bless, Cynical and I were rewarded heavily for our efforts as the wind slacked and the surf built. Chest high fun bump was had by all. The Medal of Honor went to Francisco for his first wave and subsequent ear to ear grin. The kid got down. Bless and I performed a double cutback for the eager onlookers. Good times had by all.

Post-session, we headed to Clams' Casino to drop off Bless' board which had been damaged by a particularly attractive young Asian woman.




Look at this guy.

Bones via Clams
Bless blessing
This dog was fucking huge. A malamute, his name was "Loverboy" and he was fucking amazing.

I got home to headquarters and fell face first into my bed. It was a good day.

Why I enjoy smart people..

Jon Stewart on "Crossfire" during the 2004 elections. A sound argument made by an utterly funny and infinitely intelligent man.