SPCC A Casa Amarela

thank you for reading my blog. no, seriously. this is my personal story on my stay at the house. it has nothing to do with the house itself, the people and what not. but still, whenever i go into a tantrum like yesterday, it gets amplified and broadcast all over the place, complete with couriers to the house. it's almost like i'm a spokesperson for the house. i'm not. it's my journal, stop watching big brother okupa. geez.

so thanks to the courier effect (like media coverage, it's complete with bias, "this week on SPCC"), we had an impromptu meeting this morning. the rest of the issues, since i was there, were skillfully avoided and disregarded, changing subjects or just staying quiet (i'm happy, less lying is good). the main issue is, as usual, the stage. i now see that there was a lot more going on than just setting up some walls. they told me all the plans and so on. had i known, or had they told me "hey, we want to reserve the stage for this", it would've been different. so i think people are back to the peaceful self. they are going to do the bar and are excited about the possibilities. communication has always been an issue, since day 1 (remember L and the fresh guests?).

now the big irony is that we got our deadline. it's 2 weeks! we only have two weekends left before demolition. with this, comes another irony: had we gone with talking over, discussing, etc etc, there would be no time for this concert.

so i guess it will be this event and a demolition party and that's it. SPCC to dust.

now, please, punk scene, stop watching TV (like this blog) and step up to what you represent. make a big fucking party, fuck up the place as much as you want, paint it, break it, but above all, show there is still some substance under the flair, that there is still ideology and community values that can unite you and make a great concert for everyone. how about united for a change? beyond your petty grievances and egos, beyond privileges classes and borders, how about a real squat-anarcho-punk concert with everyone actually living their ideology? i know, an idealist as usual. the non profit i was part of failed with the industrial scene because of this exact same issue. there is little uniting us anymore. capitalism has succeeded in clearing all ideology from underground scenes. music is not enough. there is nazi punk these days, have you heard?

SPCC is being demolished. it's over. but it doesn't mean it can't be fucking beautiful. now lets get cranking.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

i just got some more news from the demolition crew. our building is definitely going to shit soon, we'll hear the dates probably today or anytime in the coming days

from what i heard, our residents already have a backup plan, and only have been using my money to get high and eat seafood (no shit). i don't think they will start another squat. i think they will just move on to the next group they can leech.

it really is about the money and the drugs. we're not dealing with real squatters. we're dealing with bourgeois junkies. there is no shame in taking advantage of others, in lying to their face, in being a hypocrite, i could go on. mohawks and tattoos are a gimmick, a distraction. the real wardrobe is a suit and a comb over. unfortunately, i can't do anything about it. this pattern is too ingrained in the lifestyle and won't change. they are an embarrassment to the punk movement, the squatter movement and the anarchist movement in general. some therapy might help, but capitalist democracy created this niche for development. a welfare state and a wasteful society allows for a purely narcissistic existence, with no work ethic or sense of respect. and the very fact that the left wing movement is driven by social help and tolerance allows it to be very cunningly exploited by this kind of selfish behavior. look cool, wear a leather jacket with spikes, get in for free in every concert, get free health care, free food, free money from your family, free drugs (not kidding). if anything, human beings are masters of survival and deceit. whenever you give change, you give some money for a ticket, buy a beer, you enable this kind of behavior. the wonderful puppy dog look, the crouching shoulders, the creaky voice. but behind your back, the laughter, the enjoyment, the glee for outsmarting someone else. maybe this is what fidel castro meant.

that smile remains hidden in their private moments. but thanks to T's room design, there are no secrets anymore. this cleverness is therefore exposed. i have cleared any myths i had about people needing help. there are real people with real problems and really need help, and there are fake people with fake problems that don't need help. they are mostly indistinguishable and easily mistaken.

if your nomad base design doesn't have a "no walls" model like this place, here are some hints:
- no work done for others except cooking or getting food
- no contribution to any house expenses, yet always with some money for personal items

why is cooking and getting food there? this was one of the most amazing revelations i had here. people cook for you sometimes because they want to do something nice, but sometimes because they don't trust other people's cooking! how insane is that? i've heard it straight from the mouth of some people here.

spot the freeloader: count work hours day for a given period, and compute the average for others. a freeloader stands out. the irony is if you are too liberal, you won't have the guts to take disciplinary action (because of your ideology), which will eventually cause self destruction via freeloader induced entropy.

without some kind of authority, anarchy won't work! how ironic is that! hah!

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

the upcoming concert brought up a lot of issues between the crew, except for me and T. i think mostly, there is a lot of childishness on how things work around here. i think maturity and humility are not something that most people understand.

in over 6 months, me, T, and our guests, turned the building into a fully working cultural center. during that time, little to no work was done by the rest of the crew. in fact, for 6 months, no work was done on the stage that was their main focus. it was necessary for someone from the outside to show up and start doing some work.

but it wasn't free work. while our work for the house was made for everyone's enjoyment, the new stage was a different story. i now realize that the work being done was only for themselves. when the kids asked to use it, we obviously said yes, we always do. but that triggered the childish side of the crew that built the stage. "we built it, it's ours".

objectively, there was more work done by myself, T, Ma, M, P, D and other guests, than the stage itself. overall, i'd say we spent maybe 2 months of work there, against about 2 weeks of work for the stage. we don't like punk music, yet we are for any kind of cultural action. but i guess this "scene" is full of issues, and therefore, we gave up trying to be a part of it.

i look forward to saturday, and to what i expect to be a teenager brawl. a small scene of supposed punks looks more like a drama filled high school dance. instead of sharing and uniting for a common cause, what i see is what always happens. shit talk over nothing.

what is the most important thing? me? the guys that built the stage? the bands? or the people we're making happy by creating an event like this?

in my opinion, i count very little in comparison to the 50+ people expected. what is the most important thing? our ego, or our capacity to make others happy?

as i said, maturity and humility would solve all issues. but they assume everyone chooses to be so. it's not the case. it's getting so bad that R isn't feeding T's dog anymore and hides his dog food in the room. wtf, seriously. the baby tantrums are becoming so ridiculous, i'm not willing to be a part of this.

it was enough to be exploited. it got worse when i was lied to. it is too much when i'm being made fun of.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

over and over, the words "fight and defend this place" echo. more so since we knew the demolition was coming. this is a tiny explanation on why i prefer to celebrate, and not fight, the demolition and the coming destruction of many months of work.

1) everything has a life cycle, grows and withers, and like a plant that dies but leaves new seeds, i think SPCC has given enough fruit. in fact, it gives fresh, delicious fruit every day. the fact that we document it pays enough homage to everything everyone involved has done for it (and we're talking about hundreds of people by now). if it were to last forever, it would become an institution, exactly what it is meant to fight. it would become a stereotype, a monoculture, a "safe place" within democracy to be part of an underground movement. tourists would visit and feel "underground" for a week, before going back to desk jobs selling diet pills. upper class youth would smoke their joints there so that, 10 years later, they could validate their new capitalist lifestyle by saying "i was a squatter back then! i fought the system!". police and city hall would thank its existence, for channeling the angry youth to some place where it's far from the main streets and neighborhoods, happy that they now had "contained" the underground movement. who knows, maybe they would even start supporting it with money, a clear sign of defeat. the fact that none of this would help any constructive cause, and in fact would hinder it, is a sign that CHANGE must be permanent, to enable a dynamic movement. permanence and stability allow for the power to adapt to the structures created by the underground movement and control it. we need motion for revolution, not happy stable sustainable houses. we're living in a terrible age, an age of apathy, so it is key to understand (and avoid) the underground stereotypes, and how they can suck the life out of a movement. i'm not saying sustainable underground is bad. i'm saying it's part of the system we're trying to unmask.

2) i'm not angry. i'm not angry at any human being for being alive and trying to make the best out of what s/he gets when s/he is born. i don't perceive a policeman any differently than i perceive any other working class citizen. it is not the policeman i should be fighting. it is his boss. but his boss will never be in the front line, instead, his privileges will remain untouched, like the fair maiden in the castle tower. and as the butchering of the peasants revolt continues, her worries remain in her treasured patchwork. we do not touch any part of the ruling class with molotov cocktails and riots. we touch the ruling class by becoming emancipated by our own critical reasoning, by the facts we reveal and by our own conscious choices as consumers and workers. by being part of strikes, by refusing to be exploited, by consuming consciously or not consuming at all, we have better, easier vectors of battle. and none of these require a mohawk or an angry face. the anonymous citizen is the most powerful agent for revolution.

3) the left has lost. it has failed every single chance it had to change everything and mobilize the people. faint hope remains in south america. but in the west, from financial crises to oil spills and genocide, the left has failed in mobilizing the masses. the few that remain, squatters, anarchists, or just any concerned citizen, are now completely overpowered, outnumbered and outgunned. squats are being closed down, anarchists are now being compared to terrorists, and the anger it causes only feeds this stereotype. we are no longer fighters for a better world. we are a movement designated as a threat, and it will be eliminated. it's only a matter of time. the left wing must accept its defeat and choose new ways of fighting. it must accept its defeat as an ideology and embrace the same immoral methods as the right. we are not dealing with "good hearted working class" anymore. we are dealing with soma-induced brainwashed grayed out drones slowly pacing to the slaughterhouse. if the left wants to save anyone, it must become a possible future alternative free from past stereotypes. those have been destroyed by propaganda to the point where we can buy a che guevara t-shirt on a mainstream store. it's over. get over it. we lost.

4) fighting a losing battle is in essence, no different than the fight for survival and the delusion that we will last forever. from our brittle bones to the fiery doom of cosmic cataclysms and the cold death of the universe, we are a species defined by our irrational belief in a better future. there is no better future that will last forever. therefore, arguing for sustainability, veganism, squatting, or even democracy is just as delusional as arguing for free market capitalism, monarchy or the armageddon. a choice must be made. are we choosing to be diverse or are we choosing to become a human monoculture? are we trying to make this world livable for everyone, or just a select few? are we to become a species with no memetic diversity, with a common culture, language, globalized and moralized, or a radically subjective species with cultures so different that they become mutually incomprehensible, but tolerated? are we supposed to accept that only a few of us will survive (the alphas, the educated ruling class), or should we continue fighting for a world that allows not only for ethnic diversity but also cultural and memetic diversity?

are we willing to accept a world of capitalists and anarchists, of clean and dirty, of good, bad and ugly, or are we just trying to make the entire human reality into our own little narrow point of view? i, for one, don't want to live in a planet of anarchists. i want diversity to be the key aspect of our reality.

in that sense, i can't help but celebrate the destruction of diversity by the ruling class. i can't help but celebrate the defeat with laughter. because it is the proof that we lost, and the proof that we are right. when the demolition ball destroys all our work, and all the laughter it contained, we know that the beast has shown its face. and as the building collapses into dust, the hand that pushes it will become tainted with the happiness it took.

celebrating our destruction is a way to reveal the beast for what it is. an agent of entropy and cultural colonization. and like any other colonizer, i can't help but giggle at the brittle logic it carries with it.

we cannot be victims of our own cultural dogmatism. we must be aware of the middle way, and understand the agents of creation and destruction as part of what makes our species evolve. and with it, show, by example, how we are the agents of construction, of exuberance and diversity, and how the oppressor is our nemesis, and stands for the exact opposite.

there is no problem in being the loser, life is not a game. it is a cosmic privilege to be honored, treasured, and promoted. so keep seeding the seeds of ectropy, like tears in rain.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we all went crazy this weekend. the result is a lot of painting done, so the truck way in now looks like a war zone, complete with a plane with a cannon, and all kinds of things hanging.

our italian guest has also been painting all over the place, and painted an AMAZING and huge picture on the side of the building. we painted another part of the stairway, and the fact that we're painting more is adding to the life of the place. we also had many visits, a lot of live music, great food and spontaneous workshops on DIY solar.

the stage is ready, and i think we'll be having gigs soon.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

currently, from what i heard, people that live in the squatted land around where we live got a notice to leave in 6 weeks. this means that, if we get a notice, it should be with the same time (hopefully).

luckily, work only started at the other end of the area where we are. they still have to demolish a lot of buildings. so this means that we can, with some confidence, make plans about a month ahead.

therefore, we're working on getting events started in september. the stage is nearly finished and we already have several people interested in participating. so we now have a clearer idea of what the window for planning is.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

yup. one of our new guests found our place through google. he said he googled "squat lisbon" and found our place. this opens up our house to a whole new "scene". for now, our guests have been CSrs, HelpXers, hitchhikers, boomers, homeless people, referrals and friends, and now, we have our first googler!

i guess our greatest wealth remains our excess of tribes mixing together and creating a permanent exchange and growth of our community.

yesterday i got home and had H calling me to go with the car to the old construction place. they had demolished everything! it was time to start scavenging! we found so much stuff it was insane. there was a huge styrofoam airplane from an old tv studio, we managed to take back its wing and some camouflage stuff (great party deco!). a lot of useful, useless and just funny stuff! N also showed up during the night and dropped off a lot of furniture, couches and a bed. soon, we'll have too much stuff, since T told me that PAGAN was being evicted, and they were sending over their free shop stuff.

now what i think this signals, is the beginning of the destruction of the neighboring areas. since we're already over 6 months into our deadline, i'd say we should start getting our minds ready for the great eviction party and sweeping this mandala back into dust.

check out how post-apocalyptic cyberpunk M looked with the stuff we found!

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

after a short holiday, i came back to our place, overflowing with guests again. a lot of people from boom festival. the boom crowd has been a revelation to me (thanks T.). a lot of interesting, beautiful people, something that the underground scenes i've been part of lack terribly. i may have been part of the wrong scene for a while and missing out.

D gave me great feedback on how people were taking care of the guests. slowly, but surely, openness comes. i think the main issue is language. there are small conflicts because of misunderstandings, which then develop into full conflicts for no reason. but actually, it's been pretty good. the guys started cleaning up and getting the first floor ready, and also put gas in the generator (for the first time). they are also taking better care of our guests, a great improvement in my view. we still face the usual self centered mindset, but it is evolving positively. 6 months, it's about time, right? at least the coke high is being used productively.

i guess even though i extensively explain the differences between solar and gas, clean and dirty energy, it doesn't register, since what matters is cold beer. so now that we have a generator, it will be used often for such things. but since i chose not to put gas in the generator, it also makes everyone aware of the energy they spend, and how much that amounts to in the end of the month. in fact, if we were to have electricity all day using the generator, it would be somewhere around 400€ a month.

my choice to put a generator up was to fast-forward the concert infrastructure. if musicians bring their amps, we can have gigs now with cold beer.

as for the solar energy, i've been lazy. i should finish the new panel i have in the works. our first DIY panel is now giving less power, due to a broken cell. i tried to move it for efficiency, ended up fucking it up. we're back to about 80W of power, which works on sunny days, but definitely doesn't for future days.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

christoph's windmill is working and giving some power. in fact, it spins so fast sometimes i think it's going to take off. for now, i don't think it's giving off much power, but we're adding it to the main power system as soon as i get a proper diode.

the generator + stage circuit is also finished. we set up the drum kit, the stage, and soon the backstage should be done. in fact, we can have concerts there right now. i look forward to some artwork by CCC.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

it came to my attention that people are taking our personal journals so seriously they are mistaking them for the actual stuff that goes on at the house. these are PERSONAL journals, they represent a subjective, personal perspective of what goes on. the REAL, FACTUAL stuff can be read in our front page.

to date, we have hosted over 100 people from all over the world, held workshops on DIY and sustainability, had endless multicultural parties, restored an abandoned building from complete wreck to a working cultural center, including solar energy, dry toilets and plumbing, helped countless homeless people, provided free food, care and nurturing, and not a single time our open house paradigm failed. we did this with no private funding, no public funding, no rich family, yet we succeeded in having a squat that is not only tolerated by local authorities, but also recommended by local police to homeless people.

in less than 6 months, we turned a wreck into wealth, and we are quickly becoming a pit stop for travelers from all over the world. we are making people happier every day, with no property, no authority and funded only by our own work. without a single sponsorship or state institutional label.

if you, reader, choose to confuse my blog (or anyone else's for that matter) with the actual house, choose to confuse our personal issues with the main project, our personal perspectives with the actual house, then maybe you shouldn't visit at all. we do not need people that get caught up on personal issues between people. we need people driven by real ideas and willpower, not fear, insecurity and prejudice.

we do not need people that don't visit because the house is dirty. we need people that come visit to help us clean.

unfortunately, capitalism is great at eliminating everyone with that kind of mindset. so stay home, fearful, keep on consuming. keep watching big brother okupa, sitting in your couch, thinking about what it could be while you gray out into submission.

meanwhile, we'll continue working to make the world just a tiny bit more exuberant. don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆