Art and Labor

We spoke with SAG-AFTRA member/twitch streamer Joe Hartzler (@jokehartzler) about how recent changes his union’s health insurance plan directly harms rank and file workers. The changes are the latest example in a decades long pattern of cutting services/wages for lower income actors. In the second half OK discusses recent actions Tenants Unions across the city … Continue reading "Episode 90 – SAG-AFTRA’s Failure of Leadership with Joe Hartzler"

Sorry sorry, we aren’t trying to delete him. What is it going to take? We’ve been talking about the governor’s abject failures for years. The newest on the list is invalidating 21% of the primary votes and announcing the reopening of schools with no real plan for protecting employees and students. The corporate media has … Continue reading "Episode 89 – Cuomo Crud x 100"

Welcome to the stage Ms. “Show” Bezos!! We watched the congressional antitrust committee lightly prod the four biggest tech company CEOs in the country. Surely the system will be able to hold these monopolies accountable and protect our user data! What could go wrong? Excuse me Mr. Google, how do I open PDF? Between surreal … Continue reading "Episode 88 – The Four Horsemen of Economic Collapse"

lmfao, that title makes this episode sound insufferable, but it’s excellent trust me. Lucia is watching One Piece!!! Holy shit, this is about to be the place for One Piece political analysis. We discuss how many people have achieved a certain level of class consciousness, but aren’t sure how to act on it, and how … Continue reading "Episode 87 – The Synthesis of Anime and Cancel Culture"

SPOILER ALERT: turns out the zombie was capitalism this whole time!! And it rises from the ashes to remake itself regardless of the size of the market and who benefits from it!! Phew! We discuss the art market discourses happening in small press, commercial art, and fine art. We’re on a sinking ship, but are … Continue reading "Episode 86 – Art and Markets"

We discuss our extremely overburdened public education system, which has been helping millions of families during the pandemic and yet is being gutted by austerity (via “progressive” Democrats!!). We also talk about how teachers are having to protect their international students from ICE, and how many schools have no emergency plan for the staff and … Continue reading "Episode 85 – Broken Education System"

We discuss the bleak the state of art institutions. Schools and museums have been laying off staff without many cuts to executive pay or dips into endowments. They started with low level freelancers, moved on to anyone who to dared unionize, and are now making serious cuts to full-time positions. We use the viral gun-toting … Continue reading "Episode 84 – Art Institutions Update"

We hung out irl in a graveyard and ate watermelon!! I sounds great because ok.glass is an incredible sound tech!! We discuss sticky ways media confuses issues of discrimination away from capitalism, even leftist media! We have an incredible moment of popular uprisings complete with solidarity actions from labor so our course the discourse has … Continue reading "Episode 83 – the Right’s Culture War"

Hey friends! Send your confused relatives #8toAbolition. The best the democrats can do is pretend to ban chokeholds, it’s sickening. We must counteract the Deray-ification of activism, support longstanding anti-gentrification tenants rights orgs in your neighborhood. We talk about all that stuff plus the tricky balance of participating in the protests and staying safe from … Continue reading "Episode 82 – Crowdfund Strikes!"

OK and Lucia are back after having to make massive moves during a fucking pandemic. There are de facto evictions happening all over the city right now. Living in the heart of a failed state is pretty overwhelming. People have nothing left to lose, which is fueling the rage the streets. We discuss the landscape … Continue reading "Episode 81 – Jail Support"

While OK was in the midst of an epic move, Lucia got a chance to speak with the painter Christine Tien Wang about teaching art remotely, the atemporality of making meme paintings, group psychology as taught by Andrea Fraser, and volunteering for prison abolition groups at a crucial time when prisons have become hotbeds for … Continue reading "Episode 80 – Interview with Christine Tien Wang"

We talk about localization and the great yuppie exodus of New York City 2020. Propublica confirmed everything we’ve been saying on this show for months, that Cuomo and De Blasio murdered tens of thousands of people through their refusal to shutdown the city. Kicking houseless people off the subways and adding a couple UV lamps … Continue reading "Episode 79 – Global Super Fights"

This episode we turn over a new leaf and decide we love Cuomo and landlords now. JK it’s another update from the eye of the plague zone. Strap the fuck in cause New York state is asking for a fed bailout!!! They’re pissing our futures away, but those of us still surviving will defend our … Continue reading "Episode 78 – At Least Landlords are Fucked"

While OK battles the land owning class, Lucia is here to read you a selection from Byung-Chul Han’s “Topology of Violence”, a text that describes how biopolitics of the neoliberal hellscape brought us all to become achievement subjects. There’s some reference to the concept of Deleuzian accelerationism, where it’s totally wrong, where its inevitable, and … Continue reading "READING – Topology of Violence"

We discuss a couple of bleak pieces of news and what it could signal for our disappearing futures. We also discuss the hope and solidarity we’re building in our neighborhood organizations while maintaining social distancing and fighting surveillance. For our takes about the recent dirtbag left discourse check out the part 2 of this recording … Continue reading "Episode 77 – Plague World Updates"