In this being my first column for GR Screamer, I don’t know if its going to be a constant thing, but I will do my best to keep something up here that I feel is relevant. Lately I have been talking with lots of people about capitalism and what capitalism is and what it does to us, and how we as a community of people can stand against it and make this world we live in just a little bit better for the small community we are all apart of. Something that keep coming up in conversation is work. Having a job and finding a job to make money to purchase goods can be very stressful and really take a toll on peoples health and lives in general. Also when working a job, you are usually doing something you don’t want to do, and possibly missing out on something you would rather be doing; maybe building a relationship with others, going to a show, whatever. Could be anything. When I look at our community we have all kinds of people. We have people who work part time, who don’t work at all, and people who work full time. Some people have to work more then full time just to get by. In thinking about this, and really pushing a community aspect, I think its really important for the people who don’t work to help support those who do work full time. And those who work part time to help those who work full time and don’t work at all. Because people who work full time need support too, just in different ways. And like it or not, we have to have money. Unless we live on a city block in Muskegon Hts all together with a 500 gallon beer brewing barrel and wrestling ring and show space and thunderdome, we are going to need money and will be forced to exchange money for goods. What really spurred this on was a huge worry that hit me one day, and that was that I totally support people being jobless and doing the things they really love and the things they really want to do. But I would never want a show costing money to keep someone who was living a jobless lifestyle from the scene and going to shows and sharing in that experience. But shows cannot be free, we are forced to rent out halls, pay spaces, stuff like that, and pay out of town bands gas money and stuff like that. Some of that is quite unavoidable. This is where everyone supporting everyone comes into play. The give what you have system works sometimes but only when you have all your close friends there and everyone has faith in that system. On a bigger basis, even with a bigger band, that’s really hard to do. So I would just ask that as a community of people we work harder to support those that are both jobless and with job and we don’t make money a requirement to being part of something bigger then all of us. These are all just small steps we can take as a community to make things better for all of us, to make things more accessible for each other. I understand what Ryan was getting at a few weeks ago when he said Michigan was an Anarchist paradise, that really Michigan is for the taking more and more these days. Just recently at the beaches of Muskegon I discovered that they don’t have enough money to hire park rangers anymore. We were able stay down there till 2 AM without having the gate closed and no one coming down to tell us to leave. The state of Michigan is losing badly right now. After this election in November we will see what happens, but right now the state is running out of money. And capitalism can’t really run without money. I know these thoughts are jumbled a bit and such, but hopefully you could take one thought or two from this.