And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI New York.
It's seven o'clock, time once again for Off The Hook.
Hey there.
Lou.
Jim.
Hi.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Mike.
Hi.
And Bernie S. Down in Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
And tonight, this is the fourth week in a row that we're having a fun drive.
It's part of the fun drive.
It's the final week of the fundraiser for February.
And I want to thank everybody who's called in so far
because we've done really, really well these first three weeks.
And I think after you hear tonight's show or while you hear tonight's show,
you'll help us do even better tonight.
But before we get started tonight, there's something I'd like you to hear,
something that I think is rather apropos for the subject matter of tonight,
something that I hope people are sitting down and will pay attention to.
So if there are noisy children in the room, shut them up.
If a car is honking, pull over or something, close the window,
and listen to these words of wisdom.
Children, this is the gospel.
Oh, it feels so good.
It feels so good not to buy.
This is the good news.
Throw open the windows, shout it out into the streets.
Everybody everywhere in the world, listen to this.
You are safe now.
American products, they've all been locked inside the big boxes.
Our salesmen are under house arrest.
International common sense has grounded our jets.
Yes.
We stopped our shopping.
Yes.
Now, how many people in the studio know who that is?
Everybody knows who that is.
Okay.
Who wants to talk about who that is?
Come on.
Don't be shy.
It's a radio show.
Why should we do the talking?
Go ahead.
I believe it's the representative of the good Lord.
That's very good.
Yes.
That's quite true.
Anything a little bit more specific than that?
I think it's St. Billy, is it?
The very Reverend Billy.
Future saint.
He's known for all kinds of very topical remarks about the evils of shopping
and is basically somebody who is at the forefront of that movement,
the anti-shopping movement.
What you might say is the anti-shopping movement.
Do you know the name of his church?
Do I know the name of his church?
We're going to ask him because he's with us right now.
He joins us from the Bronx.
Reverend Billy, are you on the phone?
Amen.
Hallelujah.
Yes, I'm listening to you.
Corley over here in the shadows of the church.
Wow.
Amen.
I'm up here in the Bronx.
You are, yes.
Hallelujah.
Tell us about your church.
First of all, what's the name of your church and what does it stand for?
The name of our church is the Church of Life After Shopping, praise be.
Now that this apocalypse has taken place, we can't shop.
Consumerism is no longer an option because it's blown up in our faces.
Now we have this exciting but daunting prospect of figuring out
what life will be like after consumerism.
Amen.
And what will life be like after consumerism?
We see a revolution in the neighborhoods, in communities
that are not dominated by the megacorporations.
Right now Americans are rolling up their sleeves.
It's like they're hacking.
They're making new networks with neighborhoods.
They're converting hobbies into money-making ventures in their garages
and they're going to green markets.
And the barter economy is now stronger than ever.
People are farming.
People are gardening.
There's a new, you know, people just looked around and said,
well, you know what, the corporations, that model isn't working.
They're not taking care of us.
And people are taking their last couple thousand dollars
and trying to do something with it.
That old cliche that Americans are practical and they'll rise up
and do what if they have to, I think they are.
I think we are.
And there's some statistics to support what I'm saying.
The commercial press, they're not motivated to make these reports,
but people who track city neighborhoods, small towns, rural economies,
people who do that, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance is an example.
They are just amazed at what Americans are doing.
I mean, we have to.
We simply have to take matters into our own hands at this point, don't we?
And you do that, I believe.
You have No Shopping Friday or something after Thanksgiving.
Tell us something about that.
Buy Nothing Day?
Buy Nothing Day, yes.
In the old days when consumerism was rampant,
just to say let's not buy anything for 24 hours was a radical thing to say.
Now lots of folks can't shop.
So Buy Nothing Day is going to be very interesting.
What sort of tradition Buy Nothing Day will be next year?
Already this last Christmas it was very different.
It was lots of people made their Christmas gifts.
Lots of people spent time with each other and just said no to gifts entirely.
As we know, many of the supermalls just went dark.
There were 10, 20, 30 percent drops in retail among these companies that,
in the church of life after shopping,
we always thought those companies were bad.
The sweatshop economies, they have long supply lines,
emissions intensity, over-packaging, over-advertising,
indebtedness, you know, plastic,
and putting everybody in automobiles to get to those malls.
So, I mean, that was a disastrous design.
Certainly in this era of climate change we just can't do it anymore.
Now you've been involved in this for how long now?
What's that?
How long have you been involved in this movement?
I've been preaching the gospel of stop shopping for over 10 years now.
Started back in the sidewalks of Times Square
trying to keep people out of the Disney store.
Mickey Mouse is the anti-Christ job.
I want you to see a little tourist family back to Iowa.
We've got nothing but sweatshop products on these shelves.
It's a damn iniquity child.
Amen. Praise be.
I've got a kind of seizure remembering it.
I'm sorry to start you off like that,
but one of the reasons we're having you on tonight
is because you recently had a bit of a victory
involving a parody website,
and perhaps you could tell us something about what that was all about
and what the fight was
and how you were able to come out victorious in the end.
Well, the director of the Church of Life After Shopping,
director of our performances and our political actions,
is Savitri D.,
who I think will be on the show a little later, is that right?
Yes, she will be.
Savitri and I are married and run the church together.
Our work has been in Union Square
with increasing intensity over the last couple of years.
It's this park in the center of downtown New York
at 14th and Broadway where our history is summed up.
It's where George Washington entered New York
and got off his horse and met the city fathers.
After the British left, he came in with the Continental Army.
It's where everybody signed up after Fort Sumter was bombed.
It's where the first Labor Day parade was in 1882.
And then all through the 20th century,
the labor struggle really took place there.
Paul Robeson and Emma Goldman and Dorothy Day,
just everybody that you think of
contributed decisively to social justice that we enjoy now,
the freedoms that we walk around inside of and take for granted.
It all happened right there,
the crucible of the American progressive conscience.
And it's been surrounded by a business improvement district
called the Union Square Partnership.
They're friends of our Mayor Bloomberg
and some of the former staffers of Bloomberg.
And they try to privatize that park.
The pavilion, the building where the reviewing stand of the parades and so forth,
our temple of free speech, we call it,
they want to turn it into an upscale restaurant.
So they're intent on gentrifying this national historic landmark.
And this is happening all across the country,
certainly not just New York.
Part of that privatization also includes the Internet.
Because on the Internet, we started a sub-tree leading the way,
started a parody website.
It turned out that they had not defended any of their basic domain names.
UnionSquarePartnership.org was available.
Michael O'Neill, our web czar, discovered.
And we snatched it.
And the sub-tree performed a press conference in the parody website
in which she mimicked the executive director of the Union Square Partnership,
Jennifer Falk,
in which the sub-tree very convincingly pleads with an apology.
She says, I'm so sorry that we were taking the temple of free speech
and turning it over to the craft's commercial interests.
I'm so sorry that we're cutting down the old trees.
And I know that this is the people's park
and that the history here needs to be preserved.
You can see what happened.
Well, they discovered this, and they were just incensed.
And now this is where I start getting weaker in my details
and where sub-tree gets stronger.
Okay, we'll be talking to sub-tree and get the details of that,
but basically they came after you legally, I take it.
Yes, they attacked us in Switzerland,
and they attacked us in the local courts as well.
In Switzerland with the international domain name regulatory agency
and with that authoritative body,
and here locally they sued us with one of the big New York law firms.
Well, they usually get one of the big New York law firms,
but you had the Electronic Frontier Foundation on your side,
which was a good thing.
If I could just read a little bit from your press release dated February 2nd,
in a victory for free speech and political parody,
Salvatore Durkee, director of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping,
has successfully defended her right to publish a website
satirizing the Union Square partnership
and their efforts to turn the historic Union Square pavilion
into an upscale restaurant.
Durkee has settled the lawsuit brought against her by USP
so that she may continue to publish the website as part of her campaign
to preserve the pavilion as public space for public use.
So basically she said,
the settlement rather sends a strong message
to quasi-governmental agencies like the USP
that stifling legitimate dissent with frivolous lawsuits
will cost them money and damage their reputation.
Looking ahead, she believes settling this lawsuit
means we can get back to work convincing the USP,
council member Rosie Mendez,
parks commissioner Adrienne Benepe,
and Mayor Mike Bloomberg to abandon their plans
for an upscale restaurant in the pavilion
since no one except the USP's secretive donors and executive board
want it there anyway.
So where does that stand?
That's well put, isn't it?
Yeah, it is. Very well put.
I thought that was convincing.
We've been arrested in Union Square multiple times.
I was even arrested there reciting the First Amendment.
I was arrested a block away.
Were you?
Yeah.
On your bicycle?
No, standing in the street.
Standing on the sidewalk, actually, but we won't get into that now.
It's a place where many people come from all over the world to get arrested.
It seems to be, and there's a...
I think that's one of the reasons that
the website that criticizes
the wealthy people there
and their police force that seemed to work for them,
why it got so much attention, I believe,
is we all feel that we own a part of Union Square.
It's a commons that is so much a part of American history.
We all feel involved as citizens in that place.
So I think it was terribly important, and I really am grateful.
We all are grateful to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
for coming in, appreciating the importance
of continuing to be able to resist and defend Union Square.
Native New Yorker Terry Gross,
one of the founders of EFF, led the way.
And there were others as well,
but Sabatrees, we'll get the names pronounced right and so forth.
We met with them in San Francisco.
They were clear with us.
They only negotiated when they saw victory at hand.
They were very skilled at playing Mexican standoff with...
I'm sorry, was that a racist phrase?
...with these blue-stocking lawyers.
Reverend Billy.
Go ahead, Bernie.
Reverend Billy, it's Bernie S. here.
I wanted to congratulate...
Hi, Bernie.
Hi there.
I wanted to congratulate you and Sabatree
on this brilliant satire of making it sound
as if these corporate shills were apologizing
for their evil ways,
putting them in the position of having to deny
that they were apologizing for doing such evil things.
This is brilliant.
I love this sort of thing.
It's true media hacking, I think.
That's exactly what it is.
In fact, you guys must know the Yes Men, right?
We do, Andy.
Yeah, we identify with them
and when we find ourselves in the same room with them,
we have a good laugh.
Yeah, we like them a lot.
I imagine the pranks you guys pull must be epic.
Well, the exercising Starbucks cash registers
is probably our most well-known gesture.
Okay, tell us what that involves.
And there are three Starbucks around Union Square.
At least.
And they seem to come and go,
but making a parody of right-wing preachers
has become, over the years...
I didn't have a law firm telling me
I couldn't be an Elvis impersonating late-night televangelist.
I didn't have any late-night Elvis impersonating televangelists
come at me and demand that I change.
Those parodies have become actual prayers.
We have been able to get so much research
about how Starbucks is not a fair trade company,
how they impact local real estate economies,
kicking out the independent shops,
they're a union-busting company, so forth and so on.
Finally, it's very interesting that parody
and actual spiritual political force
are intertwined in complicated ways.
Now, the actual exercising of the Starbucks cash registers,
what's involved in that, and can anybody do it?
Well, last time we did it,
we went from the Dixon Place Theater on Christie Street
to, after our performance with the choir and the band,
down Delancey Street to a Starbucks there.
And we were singing a song as we entered with the choir
and the people in the audience who chose to come with us.
And we were all buzzed, and lots of the audience did come.
And there seemed to be a very stern security guy
that seemed like he was from Blackwater, USA or something,
standing near the cash register.
It seems like maybe they read our e-mails now.
But we had our bullhorn working,
and we just asked that wacky ampricillio
that drives that thing called life itself, evolution,
that gives us this juice, this holy jiggly today,
come down into my fingertips and drive this energy
into the dead president's leg on the back down there in the green paper.
And may the money blow the other way,
away from the pockets of the billionaire Howard Schultz,
back the other way towards the coffee groves,
towards the people that bring these beans to market.
May they have some doctors, some medical attention.
May they have some education for their children.
May they have some safety.
And may they live dignified lives,
bringing us our mild amphetamine thing.
And of course, you're also involved, I believe,
in altering the image of the famous Starbucks mermaid, right?
Yes, we have.
One of our rituals is to put the nipples back on the mermaid.
They were taken from the mermaid
by conservative marketing advisors years ago.
So when they thought they would have to go into Columbus, Ohio and Dubai and so forth.
She originally had nipples, you're saying, and they took them away.
Yes.
Back in Pike's Market, back in Seattle, there were nipples.
Very sexy at the beginning.
And you put the nipples back.
Yes.
We have a ritual where radical fairies apply very carefully with lipstick.
They put the nipples back on.
They look very good.
Amen.
And what's the reaction when you do this, usually?
Well, sometimes a manager stomps out there and washes it off or something.
And sometimes they stay on for weeks because they're not noticed.
Wow.
So, re-sexualizing public space, bringing humor into public space,
hacking, making things alive, singing.
I'm running for mayor now on the Green Party ticket here in New York City.
And so much of what we're trying to do is to humanize public space.
We're certainly trying to do that in Union Square.
I like the idea of re-sexualizing public space.
I've never quite heard that phrase before, but it sure sounds intriguing.
Reverend Billy?
Go ahead, Bernie.
Reverend Billy, I wanted to ask.
You mentioned the choir and your singers.
And from what I've read online, you have a first-class, world-class choir
full of world-renowned musicians.
Isn't that right?
Well, you know, in New York, we all come here to perform,
but not all of us get to be in Broadway plays.
Now, Broadway's mostly dark.
So, we hang out with each other.
And we have some remarkable musicians and actors in the
Left After Shopping Gospel Choir.
If anybody's interested, we have a big show coming up March 8th
at the Highline Ballroom at 2 p.m.
I'd actually, on this subject, I'd like to just play a short selection
that features this very same choir and invite the folks to stay tuned
because we're about to offer an incredibly interesting package
for people to call and pledge for.
But first, take a listen to Reverend Billy and his choir.
♪
♪ Stop stopping, I feel the stop starting ♪
♪ Get ready, the fear is departing ♪
♪ Stop stopping, I feel the stop starting ♪
♪ Get ready, the fear is departing ♪
♪ Stop stopping, I feel the stop starting ♪
♪ Get ready, the fear is departing ♪
♪ Stop stopping, I feel the stop starting ♪
♪ Get ready, the fear is departing ♪
♪ Start stopping, I feel the stop starting ♪
♪ Get ready, the fear is departing ♪
♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ♪
Start to stop, stop shopping Stop, stop shopping
Alleluia, strange alleluia, change alleluia We will never shop again, forever and again
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia We won't shop again
No, no, no, no, we're gonna put those Nikes down and we'll stop shopping, shopping
We're gonna put that Starbucks down and we'll stop shopping, shopping
We're gonna put that Walmart down and we will stop in the nick of time
No, no, no, no, we're gonna put those SUVs down and we'll stop shopping, shopping
We're gonna put those weapons down and we'll stop our shopping
We're gonna put those smart phones down for the land of the free
Start to stop, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
We won't shop again
All right, we're listening to Reverend Billy and his choir with one of many songs about
stopping shopping, the stop shopping movement, and wow, I'm pretty impressed, Reverend.
Amen.
Amen, indeed. Now what we're offering here, now maybe you can help me with this because
we're talking about this whole anti-shopping movement and now we want people to call in
and support us by getting something. How do we get over that? How do we not seem like
we're saying one thing and doing another?
We're making our own economy now.
Okay.
It's not, you know, shopping the way we use the word shopping. It's chain stores, it's big boxes,
it's Wall Street finance, monoculture.
You guys were on Wall Street.
Yes, we've been under the George Washington statue on the steps there at Wall Street many times.
That's one of our favorite spots. This is a gift economy. Here we're supporting
the free flow of information at BAI, which has been so important to our choir,
so important to the development over the last 10 years of this particular activism project.
The Church of Life After Shopping owes a lot to Pacifica and specifically to BAI.
Hallelujah.
We're glad to offer what we can.
Well, what we're offering here tonight for folks that are into this whole movement,
and it really is an exciting movement, a very spiritual and filled with soul type of movement,
we have a special package for you tonight.
Now, we have a CD that has many songs like this one from Reverend Billy and his choir.
We also have a DVD. That's right, a film entitled What Would Jesus Buy?
Described by Variety as seriously hilarious,
described by Ain't It Cool News as brilliant,
starring Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.
And in addition to that, we have a book that is basically entitled
What Should I Do If Reverend Billy Is In My Store?
So that's something that actually could be very useful for those people that aren't so into this,
to see just what Reverend Billy might be up to if he does walk through your doors.
For a pledge of $75, you get all three of these plus the Off The Hook T-shirt.
But we're only offering that for this hour, for this actually next 32 minutes or so.
212-209-2950.
It's unusual.
It's an incredible array of offerings that we have here tonight,
something that we don't usually focus on in quite this way.
I think it's a great inspiration to a lot of people that realize there are alternatives.
What do you advise people do who try to turn away from these major chains and consumerism?
Well, we try to entice people towards a kind of complexity.
If we accuse the chain stores of being the monoculture,
where everything's produced for that scale that they want, everything's the same.
If you back away from that product and take a more active interest in
discovering what you need to acquire, that activity might involve guessing, intuition,
mystery. It might involve doing more things practically with your own hands,
not deferring so quickly to the mediation of a corporation to solve your immediate needs.
It makes life—you live life with a certain grace if you don't let the
corporations run your life for you. That's what we try to remind people.
Well, it's definitely a lot of very interesting things to go through here—audio,
video, and reading material. It's all yours, 212-209-2950. We have a couple of calls on the
line. Sorry about the phone ringing before. I don't like that sound. A lot of people on the
radio station keep that up so you can hear the phone ringing, but I find it distracting.
This is something that I haven't heard this CD before. It's called the Shopocalypse.
Shopocalypse.
Shopocalypse. Okay.
Those are our most recent songs. There are 13 of them, and they include such hits as
Are You My Lover? or Are You My Logo?
Nice.
Or Can I Shop Enough for Africa? That's an anti-Bano song.
And so we just finished it about a couple months ago, and we're very happy with it.
It has some little mini-sermons sandwiched in between some of the songs.
We hope people like them, and certainly on March 8th at the Highline Ballroom we'll be
singing some of those very songs.
And tell us something about the film, What Would Jesus Buy?
What Would Jesus Buy was filmed on a cross-country tour in 2005 during the Christmas shopping frenzy.
We left Times Square on Buy Nothing Day, and one month later we were in Disneyland
where we jumped into the annual Christmas Day parade in front of Mickey and Snow White and
Pluto and so forth.
We jumped in front because we'd been hiding in the Disneyland bathrooms.
We jumped in front of Mickey and paraded down what they call Main Street USA in Disneyland.
And we got out about three big songs and a lot of preaching before
we were finally flung into the Disneyland jail.
I'd love to know more about the Disneyland jail because a lot of people have mentioned this.
They've written articles for 2600 about the whole Disneyland tunnel complex and their
detention facilities that they have.
It's fascinating, we were sort of pushed against this wall and it opened up like a zipper.
And then suddenly we were like back behind the facade of Disneyland.
And the first thing I saw was this kind of bored method actor smoking a cigarette in
a complete Snow White outfit.
So that whole month of going across the country, going into Mall of America,
exercising the front door of Walmart and Bentonville,
going through Texas and having a tent revival.
All of that was filmed by Morgan Spurlock from Supersize Man in a five-person film crew.
And then it's been in 25 film festivals now.
And it was a hit in the United States last year.
And I'm sorry, 2007.
And then last year was its DVD year.
Now it's available on Netflix and so forth.
So we like to think it has made a difference.
It proposes that we must change how we in the United States celebrate Christmas.
All right.
And that DVD along with the CD and the book and an off-the-hook t-shirt are all yours
if you give a call now to 212-209-295.
Most importantly, you're keeping this radio station going.
And this radio station allows this kind of subversive speech and thought
to actually be broadcast over the airwaves so people like you can hear it.
Maybe you're hearing it for the first time.
Maybe you think it's outrageous.
Maybe you think it's a crime against humanity to have these kinds of thoughts and ideas.
But you're thinking.
You're thinking about something you were not thinking about 20 minutes ago.
And that's got to count for something.
So give a call for $75.
You get the book, the CD, and the DVD plus the t-shirt.
It's a great deal.
Only available till 8 o'clock tonight.
But you got to call now.
Support WBAI.
It's our final week of the fundraiser.
212-209-2950.
We just had three calls on the line.
Now we're down to two.
So that means a line has opened up.
212-209-2950.
Voltaire, I believe you had something.
Yes.
What can technologists and hackers in general do to help spread the word and the lord of
stop shopping?
Well, that's a good question.
Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Church, we are basically, more than anything,
internet phenomena.
Michael O'Neill is our lead, a group of people who keep RevBilly.com an active church website.
And we are able to talk to people around the world who are resisting the neoconservative
supermall agenda by way of this new technology.
So bringing people suggestions for activities, how to disseminate information about where
products come from, giving people ideas about how to make dramas and comedies.
All the, you know, we have ideas for making activism fun for local folks, especially young
people.
We think it's terribly important to drive progressive politics forward.
Open it up with humor and music.
Amen.
And so the technology has been terribly important.
The parity, saving that parity, the right to make a comment about basically a public
ripoff, a corruption of our parks, a stealing of our national monument, historic monument
Union Square by local cronies of Bloomberg.
We just really felt the importance of the internet.
People have emailed us around the world.
They're so glad that the parity website has been sustained.
So, you know, the internet really does make possible a universal language.
People really can take someone's idea of progressive action from 2,000 miles away.
They can take it into their into their own soul through the computer, and then they can
start talking to their neighbors.
And suddenly it's off the computer and it's in the local politics.
So, you know, you've got to have both.
Nowadays, in 2009, for political action, you have to have both.
You have to be in your body, in your neighborhood on the one hand, but you have to be online
as well.
212-209-2950.
Join those callers already on the phone and pick up the Reverend Billy and his amazing
choir on CD.
Pick up the movie on DVD.
Pick up the book.
What should I do if Reverend Billy is in my store?
Pick up the off the hook T-shirt.
All, all four items yours for a pledge of $75.
It's an amazing deal, but you got to call now 212-209-2950.
Join those people already in line to have the phone picked up.
Reverend, I know you have to leave soon.
Save your souls.
Reach down.
Reach down for that $75.
Save your souls.
Make yourself white as proven snow, free of sin.
You can, you can, you can ascend into progressive heaven, child.
Reach down.
Spend that money where it needs to be spent here.
But save it like a BAI.
Amen.
We need to keep that missionary word going.
We need to go out and save more souls.
Bring them to the right thinking that will save our communities.
Amen.
Hallelujah.
You've got three people in the studio dialing in now.
It's a really effective technique there.
Mike, you had something.
Yeah, I know you have to go soon, Reverend, but I just wanted to ask you about the title
of your book.
It's sort of an odd title.
Where does it come from?
The, uh, store book sent out a memo to its managers in New York City.
What should I do for a bill?
It's in my store.
It was a memo which is printed on the first page.
A disgruntled employee came up to us after one of our fabulous worships and gave us the
memo memo.
And so we printed it in the, uh, what should I do for everybody's in my store, which is
published by the new press and I'm on green street.
I'm very grateful to the new press.
So yeah, so it's, it's one of the most interesting lines I think in the memo is, is, uh, they
advise the managers to, you know, say nothing because there might be press people around
him.
Don't give him quotes.
Only ask him to leave, count to 10 and call the police.
Right.
Count to 10 and then call the police or call the police and count to 10 or teach the police
how to count to 10.
You've got it in front of you.
You'll have to read it.
But the, uh, uh, the funniest thing is that they, they say he may jump up on your tables.
Wow.
And I, you know, I didn't do that.
I didn't jump on any tables until I read that in the memo.
And then I started doing it.
Wow.
Inspiration.
Well, some Reverend, we know you got to go.
There's some kind of big press thing happening soon.
You want to tell us about?
Sunday noon, uh, at the George Washington statue on the south side of union square.
We will be announcing our, um, uh, we will be kicking off our candidacy for mayor, uh,
of New York city on the green party ticket.
And I'm very interested in for the next nine months, uh, pursuing a citizen's retaking of,
of the mayor's office, which in New York city has been, uh, for the last 16 years,
Rudy and Mike have just been in a methodical, almost military assault on our neighborhoods
and communities.
I'm a very anxious to get going.
Get, get, get, get working on it.
I think it's a, it's an important venture.
Okay.
And I'd like to excuse myself because the Bronx greens are waiting for me to join them
right now.
And I'm going to ask them for their support.
So, okay.
Now, uh, as far as if someone is in the media, where do they show up on Sunday?
Noon at the, on the south side of union square at the George Washington statue, the famous
spot.
And, uh, Michael O'Neill can be reached through rev billy.com.
You can email us if you need more information.
That's a great site.
Thanks so much, Reverend Billy, for, uh, for joining us and for doing what you do.
Oh, I'm so honored to be on your show.
Thank you for talking to us about the website.
And we have to have you here in the studio sometime.
I imagine that will be an event if, uh, actually have you, uh, maybe you'll jump on our table.
Let's get on our knees and pray together.
Children.
Come on now.
Peace.
All right.
We're going to, we're going to, uh, we're going to start the second part of this in
just a couple of moments.
But first here's a, another selection of Reverend Billy's.
Welcome to the church of stop shopping.
I'm Reverend Billy with the stop shopping gospel choir here in the east village in
lovely downtown New York city here with brother James Solomon.
Ben.
Yes.
I'm here with your Reverend.
Today's message.
We asked the question who will be spared the coming of the shop apocalypse?
Yes.
Oh, we try to do the right things.
We try to honor our family, our great nation.
We maybe go to Disneyland or Walmart or Starbucks.
We drive and we walk and we stand in line.
We're Americans.
Yes, we are.
Amen.
But then we get to the cash register.
We turn and we notice our friends have burst into flames.
No, I'll say it isn't so.
Can you feel the burning?
Yes.
Do you feel that pain shopping?
No, no, no.
I'm standing in line all day with commercial foreplay pumped into my skull.
Finally get to the cash register.
Devil, devil, do it.
Get it over with.
Do it.
Convert me into a savage yuppie.
Cover me over with a style I have not earned.
Have mercy.
Let me chase the truly original people down to the dark alleyways and let me copy them
and imitate them until they die naked and astonished.
Let us pray.
Let us pray to the God that is not a product.
Let us put the odd back into God.
Hallelujah.
Are you there?
Will you be strange enough?
Can we change enough?
Yes, we can, Reverend.
We want to break through the retail wall.
Yes.
We want to be warriors of bilessness.
Can we be utterly inappropriate?
Yes.
Yes.
Amen.
We're coming back strong, Reverend.
There is a traffic jam rolling over me inch by inch.
And it is killing children on the other side of the world.
Can I stop my shopping?
Amen.
But we know also that we're learning to see and to feel that fire, the shpocalypse.
It registers as a kind of tempting dullness.
There's only this barely perceptible feeling that we have forgotten something about ourselves.
Yes.
Something very important.
All right.
Some more from Reverend Billy here.
And I want to thank him for joining us for the first part of the show
and invite people to continue calling in.
We're getting a good response here.
212-209-2950.
People will get all three items, the CD, the DVD, and the book, plus the off-the-hook T-shirts.
We're actually getting four items.
212-209-2950.
We're up to about 250 so far.
But they're still counting down there because they're short-staffed.
So let's get that number over 1,000, which is our goal for tonight,
as it is for all three weeks that we've done so far.
You get those four items plus the continuation of WBAI in this program,
which I think is worth more than any of them.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that's how we've stayed on the air since 1960, through people like you.
And I know times are tough.
I know everyone's feeling it one way or another.
But imagine if this place were not here and if we didn't have the way of being able to
speak out that we have used for so many years in so many different forums.
And Reverend Billy, just one of those.
But what an important and inspirational one this is.
212-209-2950.
Again, you'll get the movie.
What Would Jesus Buy?
You'll get the book.
How do you say it again?
I couldn't say it right.
That's a CD you're holding in your hand, but it's called Shipocalypse.
Shipocalypse.
OK.
The Shipocalypse.
I got to get that right.
And that's filled with all kinds of songs like what you just heard.
And the book, What to Do If Reverend Billy Comes Into Your Store.
Amazing read there.
Redhack, you're glued to it.
Isn't it something?
You haven't said a word because you've been reading that book the whole hour.
Right.
That's what's going to happen to you, folks.
If you talk too much, then this will shut you up because you'll just be diving into it.
I like this part of the Starbucks memo.
What does he say about Starbucks?
Reverend Billy says that our store's earth tone touchy feeliness masks corporate ruthlessness.
The leaflets that he hands out say that Starbucks is screwing the planet, the farmers,
the baristas, and New York's neighborhoods.
Wow.
We have six callers on the line right now, which is awesome.
And I want to thank those people who are calling in.
Hopefully, we'll get to thank you personally in just a moment or two.
But first, I want to introduce our next guest, Savitri D.
She's the director of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.
She joins us from New Mexico.
Savitri, are you here?
Yeah.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Great, thanks.
Congratulations on winning the legal battle.
Yeah, we feel really good about it.
I think anyone who's ever been sued knows how daunting a task it is.
It's pretty daunting, yes.
How was the suit filed against you, and why against you specifically?
Well, my name is on the credit card that pays for the website.
That's the main reason my name was on it.
But I also organized the construction of that parodic site.
And I don't know how much Reverend Billy told you about that.
But it was a kind of perfect mirror of another website, the Union Square Partnerships website.
Yes, yes.
I did a video there in which I impersonated the executive director of the Union Square
Partnership and apologized for our misfeeds.
And we sent out a fake press release.
And within about five days, I had received a takedown notice.
So you know, there's a long procedure there.
I say there's no reason to have a takedown.
So then it's up to them to sue me, basically, which they did just a few weeks later for
copyright infringement.
And interestingly, the infringement was not for a logo.
It was for the look and feel of the website, which, as my good friend Terry Gross said,
is a mind-boggling expansion of the notion of logo.
So, you know, we went through a number of long conversations with different lawyers.
And finally, we were lucky enough to be represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San
Francisco, who've done so much important work.
We can share that, because they represented us in our lawsuit in 2000.
So they step up to the plate when it matters.
They really do.
I mean, they took a long time to decide to take the case, because they're very careful
about what they take on.
But once they were on, it was incredible to be on the phone with five lawyers talking
it through.
And they really pushed right back.
And eventually, the USP just had to back down.
I mean, they were spending a lot of money on lawyers.
They had hired a very fancy uptown law firm here in New York City.
And the EFF had a number of arguments against their claim.
And Terry Gross, who was working with us, he was set to file an anti-SLAPP suit.
And I think the USP just thought there was no way they had the resources to fight us,
really, or wanted to devote their resources to fighting us.
And the anti-SLAPP statute in New York, there are statutory damages.
So we could actually file for damages in that case.
Wow.
Now, tell us something about the USP.
Who are these people?
The Union Square Partnership is a business improvement district around Union Square.
And they're the oldest and first business improvement district.
And those bids are all over the city.
And they are just what they say they are.
They're business improvement districts.
They're not community improvement districts, right?
Their interest is business.
Sometimes that's good for a community, right?
But in this case, their power is overreaching.
And they are planning and developing the north end of Union Square Park.
They want to put a high-class, four-star tablecloth restaurant in the historic pavilion there.
And as you know, that's a site of public assembly in New York City.
It's the last site for public assembly in Lower Manhattan.
And since we aren't allowed to use Central Park, it's virtually the only one at this point.
Yeah, it's really sad to see things like this happen.
And it's also kind of puzzling because with the state of the economy,
I'm seeing so many places being shut down and replaced with more expensive
places designed for higher-income people.
Does it really make business sense?
No, I don't think it does.
And Union Square has the highest density of restaurants
and the lowest density of public space in the entire city.
I mean, it is a saturated area.
There are over 200 restaurants within three blocks of that site.
So obviously, there's no need for a restaurant there except profit-taking.
That's the only reason for it.
Yeah.
And as you said, Union Square is this place where people publicly gather.
It's got this kind of magical appeal.
And it would be horrible to see that taken away or compromised in some fashion.
One of the fascinating things we've discovered in our research about Union Square is that
this tension between assembly and commerce has existed there for a long time.
In the 30s, Communist headquarters was on Union Square.
And a group of merchants formed a group called the USA, the Union Square Association,
to push back against all the gathering that was going on around Communist HQ out there.
So it's not a new problem in Union Square.
It's a very magnetic place.
Yeah, definitely.
Now, can people see the website at a particular location, your website?
They can.
Part of the deal of the settlement was that we couldn't use the words Union Square Partnership
alone.
But in an homage to our First Amendment friends on the internet, we found UnionSquarePartnershipSucks.com.
Oh, nice.
In a grand old tradition, right?
We've certainly had our share of run-ins with various organizations.
We had Verizon Really Sucks at one point.
And we had all kinds of things with TV networks and various other entities and
governmental agencies and things like that.
So it's really kind of cool to see somebody else going through the same battles and kind
of learning the same ropes.
Now, we're still taking calls, 212-209-2950.
It's kind of crazy down there, isn't it, Red Hect?
Yeah.
All right.
So we have people we want to thank.
So let's go ahead and thank some people.
We want to thank Brian, who's from Baltimore.
Brian from Baltimore.
Thank you very much.
We would like to thank Marie from the Bronx.
Michael from Chicago.
Thanks to Paul from Oakland, New Jersey.
Thank you, Catherine from White Plains, New York.
Represent.
All right.
Anyone else?
That's that.
I mean, there were definitely more pledges, but that's all the people.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
How about that?
A Reverend Billy song that completely ties into what we're doing right now.
Thanks to all those people calling in.
We're back with Savitri D., who has won the lawsuit.
You've won a tremendous victory.
And has there been much reaction since?
Not so much.
We're involved in such an extensive campaign against the Union Square Partnership, and
this is just one part of it.
So, you know, there's a big article in The Villager, and I think, you know,
that's the local newspaper around that area.
So as long as we're keeping the development plans on the table and out in the open, I
think we're doing great.
And it's very hard to keep people interested in these things, you know?
I mean, in spite of the fact that it's our only public assembly area, and it's just such
an incredible historical site, people just...
The fog of construction and the endless legal battles over construction and who can do what,
they just kind of...
People forget how to care about things.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
So we're just trying to keep it out there.
Yeah.
Now, obviously, something must have inspired you to get involved in this in the first place,
to start fighting these kinds of fights.
Anything you'd care to mention?
Well, I think I've been a lifelong activist in various ways, but I think when I moved
to New York, it became clear to me that neighborhoods were really threatened.
And the thing that I love so much about New York is the street talk.
It's street life.
It's people talking together, laughing together, joking on the street, the way we're pushed
together in these weird combinations.
And we have to be with people who aren't like us and have to figure out how to work it out.
I mean, to me, that's the beauty of New York.
It's the power of New York City.
And I noticed a long time ago how much less space there was to do that.
You know, retail was bleeding out the doors of every shop, and these huge chain stores
were coming in, and suddenly the sidewalk in front of them was theirs.
And so I think I was responding, really, to a general trend in the city, which was a kind
of suburbanizing force.
And that's a bad thing in a place like New York City, because what we have is each other,
and we have to be together, and we have to have places to be together.
So, you know, if that's the street, if that's the park, if that's Coney Island, also under
threat now, you know, I want to fight for these places because they're not just fun
for me.
It's not just about fun.
It's also where we have and gain our democratic power, you know, and our ability to participate
in things.
And, I mean, it's no accident that we bought the war in Iraq, you know.
It's because we aren't with each other.
We're isolated.
We're alone.
We bought it like a product.
So, I mean, yeah, there are a lot of reasons I work against consumerism, against, you know,
globalized capitalism.
But currently, you know, the Union Square thing is, I think it's an emblematic struggle.
I think Union Square is at the heart of our city, and I think the fight for public space
is the fight for democracy itself.
Well said.
All right.
Well, I want to thank you so much for what you do and for inspiring so many people.
And again, this is not something that's confined to New York.
If you're anywhere in the world, this affects you in some way, and you'll get something
out of just hearing what's going on with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
and Salvatore and so many other great people like that.
And once again, our final push, it looks like it'll take maybe two or three more calls to
put us over our goal.
So you can be one of those two or three people and really feel a sense of empowerment.
You'll get the CD, the Shipocalypse.
Did I say it right this time?
Yeah.
Good.
Okay.
What Would Jesus Buy, the DVD, and of course the book as to what to do if Reverend Billy
comes into your store based on the Starbucks memo.
All that in addition, you'll get an off-the-hook t-shirt for a pledge of $75.
212-209-2950.
But you got to call in the next couple of minutes, literally, because we're out of here
in three minutes.
212-209-2950.
Anyone have any last words to try and get more people to call in?
So this is really the last chance for people to pledge to keep off-the-hook and WBI on
the air, this drive, right?
Yeah, we'll be back next week.
But the thing is, you're investing in this place to stay here and not be, I guess, overwhelmed
by something more corporate and more bland, because that's what will happen.
Voltaire?
If we weren't here anymore, instead of having Reverend Billy in the anti-consumerist church,
we'd have some fascist, homophobic, racist church on the air.
You'd have Reverend William or something, or some other reverend, but it wouldn't be
Reverend Billy, that's for sure.
And we'd certainly probably have ads for Starbucks.
It would be the opposite.
We would.
Let's not even think about that.
Folks, we're out of time.
The personal computer people are literally at my throat.
So, Savitri, again, thanks so much.
Thanks so much.
Best of luck to you.
Thank you.
All right.
Not that you need luck when you have right on your side, as I'm sure Reverend Billy would
attest.
212-209-2950.
Thanks, everybody, for calling in.
Please keep those calls coming.
Again, about two minutes left.
You'll get the book, the CD, the DVD, and the shirt.
We'll see you next week.
Thanks again.
212-209-2950.
Good night.
First of all, let's forgive ourselves.
It's backbreaking to go through your day trying to integrate an absurd world into your body.
The advertising, the commercial media, thousands of times a day, they have their way with us.
They dare us to shift to a more sensible.
But how do you delete their messages?
How did they normalize these?
Walking through their messages, some of them delivered by 10-story-high supermodels,
well, this is the hardest form that shopping takes.
How do you stop this?
Bombing is called security.
All day long, we walk through this.
Bombing is security?
And monopoly is called democracy.
What?
Gasoline prices are foreign policy.
Racism is crime-fighting.
Sweatshops are efficiency.
The supermall is my neighborhood.
Love is for sale.
Advertising is free speech.
Patriotism is shopping.
The market is God.
The market is God.
I don't believe in that God.
Do you?
Ooh, yeah, I think, I don't know.