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DAVID LESTER ART

Normal History Vol. 21: The Art Of David Lester

davidlestervol21Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 25-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.

Howard Zinn is from Lester’s Inspired Agitators poster series. The song below, “This Is My Summer Vacation,” mentions Malcolm Lowry, author of Under The Volcano. The author drank himself to death near where the annual Under The Volcano Festival is held.

I saw Howard Zinn on TV a couple of years ago when we were in a motel room in Anacortes, Wash., for What The Heck Festival. I felt like jumping up and down on the bed listening to Zinn, whose opinion seemed to be that progressive social change will occur through a new social movement of small groups working independently and overlapping here and there. In a question-and-answer session, a young woman came up to the microphone to ask, in a frustrated tone, “How do I find these groups? Where do I find a group to work with? How do I begin?” This was a sentiment that resonated with me on August 10, National Prison Justice Day in Canada, when I attended a small rally in Vancouver. On this day, prisoners take action—not working, not eating—to protest prison conditions and to mark the lives of those who have died inside Canada’s prisons. Speakers talked about their work with prisoners and about specific situations: a mother-and-baby program has been cancelled at a regional facility. It used to be that if a woman delivered her baby while incarcerated, she could keep the baby with her. Now, if a woman delivers during her sentence—even if it’s only a month-long sentence—the baby is apprehended by social services. This situation is not good for the mother, the baby or society at large. It can take a lot of time and legal attention for the mother to get her baby back once she is released. Being released, I learned, can be very problematic. One speaker told a story about the release of a prisoner for whom he was an advocate. Basically the guy was let out the back door of the facility with four cardboard boxes of his stuff dumped beside him. No services were provided to assist him in any part of whatever was to happen next. Even with the advocate’s assistance, it was extremely difficult to find the guy a place to stay. Social services on the outside were no help; they required that he have a fixed address before they would become involved, and it was assistance in finding a fixed address that he required. The advocate ended up dropping the guy at a hotel one block from Hastings and Main on Vancouver’s infamous downtown eastside, Canada’s poorest neighborhood, rife with property crime and drug use: exactly where the guy requested he not be placed, to be tempted into negative behaviors that could propel him back to prison. Another speaker, a woman who works with prisoners in a legal capacity, pointed out that prison is the punishment. Having liberty taken away is the punishment. Prisoners are not there to be further punished by guards, wardens and administrators. I wanted to understand how we, as Canadians, as humans, tolerate cruelty in prisons. Like Zinn, I believe prisons should be abolished, but that is a less popular vision. I wanted to know how I could contribute to the process of reinstating the mother-and-baby program. I signed a petition and walked home at dusk, stopping at a gas station to buy a rice-crispy square. I was cold and damp after sitting outside for two hours listening to activists speak. I felt sort of useless. I could join a group or visit women in prison, but most likely I’ll write a song or a story. I walked home thinking I’d gone out for song ideas in the same way another person might go out for milk—not a particularly noble feeling. Mecca Normal had, the day before, performed at Under The Volcano, a political festival where I suspected my online-dating songs were deemed not political. I could defend my writing by saying, “The personal is political, man,” or I could illuminate class and gender issues within the lyrics. My songs seem imperfect at such events. I want to say everything the right way, to make a difference, to be seen as useful, but I feel like an interloper whose activities don’t measure up. This can be a debilitating position to work from. Because I don’t gravitate to collectives and roadblocks, I sometimes feel like I’m not political enough, but I accommodate this feeling by including inadequacy in my creative process—I don’t expect anything to be anything other than entirely uncomfortable. Howard Zinn’s comment gave me an impression that what I do might be of value, that we can respond in many ways and this is how progressive social change occurs. Perhaps it is his intention to encourage participation rather than thwart it by expressing the inadequacy of idiosyncratic activities. I can express enough inadequacy all on my own. Inventing methods to stay—or become—involved in is the challenge. At the very least, can we be less critical of individual attempts at political and cultural activism?