We had played a very NPR singer/songwriter acoustic style set, but Seth was not interesting in modifying his work for this marketplace. He didn't think he should curtail it because of the low turnout. His 41 Shots into Amadou Diallo were shots heard round the store. Citizens, browsing magazines, dressed like exmarines in new polo shirts, perked up their ears, began to be disturbed. Every time a customer asked, "What is This?" Joy and the night manager Rich ran up to us and reported , "The CUSTOMERS and ASKING 'What IS this?'"

They didn't like Seth's show, the customer reaction, Seth's domination of the caf* area, his art projected large on the wall, the sound of his prophetic, condemning voice under the brite white fluorescent selection. If it's not God books, it's Cooking books. Break through? They don't have Soft Skull books. They didn't even order Seth's book in advance for this. We should have read the runes.

Greg Allen started getting pulled in via cell phone. After the fact, he told me I couldn't call Seth's book by name any more. In the middle of the final carousel of slides, Joy decided Seth couldn't use the microphone anymore. He put it down, but then decided that at age 42, he was too old to be treated like a child. He picked it back up, and finished the narration. Joy flipped.

Seth had acceded to my request that he not narrate the title track You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive. But the real problem was the lack of coffee being bought, because Seth was there, in the caf*, with a sound system, a projector, 120 images of revolt, violent, focussed resistance. It's People Vs. Pigs. It's Art vs. Coffee. Don't you want something different just once in your controlled environment? No, we want to maximize profits for the higher-ups. Impress the Regionals. Not one speck on the floor.

Needless to say, Greg was cell phoned again. He got me on the store phone, a little angry, but still that joking chuckle riding his voice, parasite laughter, nervous spasm, telling me we had stopped commerce in the caf* and that all the middle managers across the broad plain of this literature Wall Mart were flipping hard. I was fucking up his dinner date with his straight wife I couldn't meet and her new bosses he may or may not be entertaining with his wicked sense of humor. I said we're out of here ASAP. We're wrapping up now, and you will never see us again. He wasn't trying to even hear that; it didn't mean much. Dinner was real for him now. We were just the kids on the phone.

Back in Harrisonburg, the year after Greg graduated, and I was a sophomore, I had learned to deal with white-out-blinding rages. The Gulf War broke that year. There was a lot to fight with all you got even when that was little, alone in a crowd. I got kicked out of the radio station that year. I too crossed boundaries with my end of year issue of the magazine, and during wartime aberrations were not acceptable. The feeling I got back then for the first time was animal. You are physically trapped, and outside yourself, you begin to touch the binds, you jack into a very dark force. You intuitively feel there is a binding network much much bigger than any organization you are in, a black nylon web that has taught people to cave in, cover your ass first, sell, sell, sell.

I'm not just talking about corporate christian capitalism here, I'm talking about the culture it spawns, the life in the crust, the greenery over the core. Everything is indicted now. Coca-cola, Rock and Roll, American kitsch, bohemian commodities, the myth of America and the myth of rebels. There is no rebellion other than armed insurrection against the nylon web. Trust your intuitive feelings. The web is there. It's very strong. The picture of the conflict goes from blurry to clear with age: People vs. Pigs. Majority vs. Superstructure. Praxis vs. Automation. Class vs. Compromise. Try the traitors under streetlights, in effigy and in the flesh.

So when I had not one but three Border's managers on my ass, it was just like being back @ J.M.U. The one guy 10 years ago who used to cry late at night at parties because people were so shallow, so cowardly, so sheepish in their herds, this guy, my beautiful hero was now on a cell, telling me the sale of two cups of coffee was more important than the work we had travelled a long way to bring him. We packed up.

Joy asked me outside. I was angry but able to focus the rage. I wasn't going to win any arguments here being a revolutionary. It was time to go business class. David Mamet helped, it was time to play the role, drive the meeting, be the ball breaking managment motivator, NOT the child they could discipline. Rich was there with Joy, but he was emptying the ashtrays of the outdoor trash cans as I began to explain myself.

I began, "I've decided, we're not going to sell you any books, we're not leaving books behind and I will tell you why. Hey Rich, could you stop what you're doing for a minute and listen?"

"I can hear you fine while I do this."

"Rich, I don't know who taught you about business, but it is pretty unprofessional to empty ashtrays while someone is trying to truly get across to you and FUCKING communicate."

That stopped him.

"OK, but you have to stop using profanity."

I agreed to that. It seemed like such a small symbol.

I caught my breath and let fly, "You all are not running a real bookstore. You've created something else. You think it's a problem for a customer to ask 'What's going on?' THIS panics you? What are the customers allowed to get? What level of interaction is allowed? You're making everything conform to the lowest common denominator of community standards on decency and politics. It's not even political anymore, it's off the scale. It's just cowardice."

Rich came back and said he wasn't informed there was an event here, that he didn't know how long it was going to be. He hadn't read the instore bulletin. All of it was plausible. They had their case. They felt right according to the standards they had been trained in. The same place that trains its managers to detect words in employees' speech that might indicate early warning signs of union activity, words like "organize," "grievance," and "interests."

I tried to get to Joy and Rich with this analysis, "Border's sells a lot of books, but doesn't understand the fundamental original purpose of books: to spread fire among the mortals. Distribution of truth/wealth, a light breaking open the possibility of real democracy, real knowledge, real freedom.

"We were asked to tone it down and we did. We tried to meet you half way, you didn't budge. You haven't done us any favors, and I think it's more appropriate to find an indie store downtown and sell there. Selling is the only thing that you understand, it seems. Well, you don't get to sell us."

At one point earlier, I had asked Seth to cut it short. It didn't seem like anyone really cared. He felt strongly that he should go on regardless. He polled the store via microphone, "Does anyone want me to continue?" One person said yes, a caf* worker named David. He was fully behind us. I turned around, and said, OK, and with gusto changed the carousel on the projector. Reloaded, Seth finished his show.