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"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 05/31/2020 at 16:57 • Filed to: None

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This song is 32 muthafuckin years old and could’ve been written yesterday.

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When will the country stop condemning and start listening?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 17:02

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Seems like police, some of them at least , act a certain way, then we act a certain way, which make police act (more of) the same way, which gives us something to write a song about and make crap tons of money.

Textured Soy Protein > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/31/2020 at 17:06

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DipodomysDeserti > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 17:18

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My brother almost got hit by a bottle rocket fired by Logan Paul, yes, that Logan Paul, while covering protests/rioting at Scottsdale fashion square last night. Scottsdale PD let them do their thing until they tired themselves out as the majority of people were peacefully protesting.

Had a couple hundred kids who were just there to break stuff. Cops didn’t even move in until they’d been wrecking stuff for a while. 

Now we have a curfew because of these idiots.

Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan' > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 17:45

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I gotta admit, coming from Croatia to the Bay area to work and live there for 4 months was an eye opening experience. First time in the US. I knew there was some racism in the States, but I didn’t know just how BOTH very prominent and very subtle it was. The extremes are so much harsher than I ever imagined. It’s present in every layer of society.

I rented a room in East Palo Alto (which we later found out was once the “Murder Capitol of America” for a few years, yay). Comparing that to Palo Alto, just literally a few feet away, separated by a bush, was just incredible. These two images are 20 seconds apart, but a whole world away.

To see the disparity was shocking to me. We lived in a run down old flat with cages on the windows and 5 locks on the doors, on the street was an old 90s dented Camry with blacked out windows and freaking bullet holes in the doors. To the east was miles of this ghetto. It was sketchy, frightening and sad.

Behind the bushes to the west lay miles and miles of Silicon valley utopian gorgeousness, where every smallest sidestreet had rows of palm trees decorating it and 5 Lexus’ in the huge, clean and green driveways of mansions .

Almost all of the people living in E- PA worked to serve the PA people, be it in the service industry (like I did), or with manual labor carrying boxes in warehouses...

There was a situation in San Francisco where a few of us (early 20s, both guys and girls) were walking down the street, slightly and cheerfully intoxicated from a baseball game. A few guys coming the other way bumped into us pretty aggresively, and 1 of our group, and 1 of theirs came face to face with some cursing and pre-fighting stances, you know how it goes. Everyone else was chill and calming down the situation.
All of a sudden, like in a movie (to me everything there was “like in a movie”) a BUNCH of police appeared from nowhere. A crown vic pulls up with that singular woop-woop, and a few cops from each direction approach - their hands covering their guns or holding nightsticks. Very aggresively all of them shouting at us to get on the ground, to step back, to walk back - a lot of different commands, shouted loudly at the same time. I’ve never experienced such a contact with the police. Where I live the cops approach you slowly and inquisitively, with questions rather than guns (on a side note - the cops here can get in a lot of trouble for even reaching for their gun, or having their hand hover over the gun holster - I’ve never ever seen that happen IRL). I’ve never been so intimidated by another person. I stepped back and immediately put my hands waaay up like in a 70s cop film. Unfortunately for him, the guy from our group was black. He was the only one the cops grabbed, from like 10 people there . The cop grabbed him on the back and neck, slamming him on the ground face and knees first. He then put his knee on his head and yelled at him to be cool and calm down. The black friend was very chill and didn’t resist this at all. The cop was on him for a minute or two and then backed off a bit. Then we waited there for an hour until they finished questioning us and checked all our papers...

Afterwards, my friend (the one with a huge bruise on his cheek given to him by the concrete to which a cop slammed him into) was telling ME to calm down, trying to get me to relax, and that he’s used to it.

If that was my life... I’d be sick of it, too.

boredalways > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 18:29

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I feel ya. My mood :

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 19:57

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Please do not misinterpret what I wrote. The thing I am questioning is artists writing songs and making money from it. Maybe it’s okay. I don’t know. It’s a question, not a claim nor a statement.

Cash Rewards > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 20:04

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I feel like that about Rage Against the Machine. I wish it wasn't still relevant, but here we are 

Textured Soy Protein > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/31/2020 at 20:04

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At the time the song was released it made a ton of money because its message was something that many people were feeling but too afraid to say publicly. It was not a cynical money-making ploy by outsiders. NWA were talking about their real personal experiences and the experience of the community in which they lived.  They’re far from perfect human beings but they tapped into a particular zeitgeist and brought it to the attention of people who had no clue about it. It came out a few years *before* Rodney King happened.

Textured Soy Protein > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/31/2020 at 20:26

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The issue I took with your original post was not the question of the artists making money. It was your description of the supposedly reciprocal nature of the relationship between cops doing the oppressing and the people they're oppressing responding in occasionally violent outbursts. The oppression started with the oppressors and the oppressed are not at fault. It is not a reciprocal relationship.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 20:26

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Okay. It’s not money making by outsiders, but by insiders that concerns me.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 20:32

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That’s why I began my comment with the oppressors; they started it. I doubt there’s much daylight between you and me on any of this. The only way anybody can make a difference is by constantly checking assumptions. Like, every day. I worry that some expressions fuel the rage machine and that there’s profit to be made in that alone. If that’s not a layer here, then well and good. But I always question. That’s all I’m saying and the entire situation makes me ill and now we’re glorifying JR beating the crap out of some white dude in another thread... It’s all so ugly.

DipodomysDeserti > boredalways 05/31/2020 at 20:51

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Better step up. What are you packing?

boredalways > DipodomysDeserti 05/31/2020 at 21:05

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Not a gun owner because I have no desire to own a gun.

boredalways > DipodomysDeserti 05/31/2020 at 21:40

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I hope someone has video of Paul shooting the rockets, since he's claiming he was just there as an observer.

Textured Soy Protein > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/31/2020 at 21:45

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I read your initial comment as both-sides-ing. If that wasn’t your intent, fair enough.

I’m not sure your objection to making money off this song is necessary, however. Th ere’s a long history of people lodging valid protests through art. Why do you feel  the artists are obliged to not profit from that?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Textured Soy Protein 05/31/2020 at 22:37

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I wonder how much Picasso earned for painting Guernica... I wouldn’t say they are obliged not to profit. Rather, I would say that if they do profit, then they invite scrutiny of their motivations.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan' 05/31/2020 at 23:07

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Damn...