Look, I don’t like this new Arizona immigration law anymore than you do, but it’s really starting to bug me that so many people—who haven’t even read it—are howling to holy Hell on Earth about it being racist.

Sorry, folks. I’ve read SB 1070 and I can say with confidence that, as of today, May 7, 2010, there is nothing racist about it.

For one thing, there is an entire passage (lines 30 to 34 of Section 2) that explicitly prohibits law enforcement from using “race, color or national origin” as a determining factor. The only other part of the bill that identifies when law enforcement is required to investigate the status of a person’s citizenship is this:

“WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.”

Jesus Cristo, I hate legal-speak! It’s almost as though all our laws have to get approved by Jenny Gibberish over at the Office of Redundancies and Gobbledygook to ensure the text and words confusing to people and humans it is. Allow me to rewrite:

“Law enforcement shall attempt to determine a person’s immigration status, where reasonable suspicion exists that he or she is unlawfully present in the U.S.”

The key phrase here is “Where reasonable suspicion exists.” It’s the phrase that proves it’s not a racist law.

I can hear your grumblings now. Oh, what a racist I must be for saying SB 1070 ain’t racist, right? Hell, I’ve already been verbally accosted by my wife, who said the law is “a slippery slope to the Holocaust, jerk!” My friend and colleague, Aaryn Belfer, said, “You won’t see Arizona cops stopping any tall blond Germans, fuckwad!” And CityBeat editor Dave Rolland, blurted, “Hey, assface [his pet name for me], the law gives cops with chips on their shoulders about immigrants a reason to harass Latinos!”

But SB 1070 does not embolden racist cops. The bill clearly gives “reasonable suspicion” as the requirement. Well, think about it. In a state consisting of nearly 1.3 million Hispanic citizens (roughly 25 percent of the population), it is absolutely, undoubtedly, irrefutably not reasonable to assume a person is illegal because his or her skin is brown. And any judge who heard a police officer testify that race was the reason he stopped the suspect, would be required—by the language of this bill—to throw the case out on its backside.

Of course, any cop can lie about why they felt the perp appeared “suspicious.” But that’s the cop’s bad, not the law itself, and saying so would be like saying that our laws against drug trafficking are racist because a police officer can stop a driver for being black, plant some drugs, then tell the judge he pulled him over because he was speeding.

Bottom line, you can’t say the law is racist because future racists might circumnavigate it.

Some have argued that the law is racist because it doesn’t go far enough to protect minorities. I don’t agree. SB 1070 specifically prohibits factoring race and color. However, even if it were true, it wouldn’t make the law racist. Calling 1070 a racist bill because it doesn’t go far enough to protect minorities is like calling our trespass laws homophobic because they don’t go far enough to stop people from walking into gay people’s yards.

Look, there are plenty of valid reasons to oppose this bill. Labeling it racist does a huge disservice to legitimate opposition because, the real problems are swept to the margins—problems like invasion of privacy, extension of governmental powers, erosion of civil liberties and the biggest, most glaring problem of all which, alone, should render 1070 null and void: the problem that it is already a law! Have a look at how the whole thing begins. It’s the premise, the thesis—the raison d’être—of SB 1070:

“NO OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE… MAY ADOPT A POLICY THAT LIMITS OR RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW.”

Oh, for crying out loud, can we get a law that’s written in English already!? It’s almost like they don’t want the general public to read or understand it. Again, a quick translation:

“The state of Arizona reserves the right to enforce federal immigration laws.”

There you go. Bam boom bang! SB 1070 gives Arizona the right to enforce federal law. But you don’t need a local law to enforce federal law. It’s already the law! It is already legal and mandatory for police to stop and interrogate people who are “reasonably suspicious” of having committed a crime. It’s called “probable cause” and probable cause is, simultaneously, a tool that law enforcement uses to investigate potential criminals, and a constraint that prevents them from harassing folk for no reason. If SB 1070 is a racist law, then so are all probable-cause-related laws.
Look, I know some of you are outraged over the perceived racial component of this bill. But the fact that you’re outraged proves my point. You’re angry because it’s unreasonable to judge people by the color of their skin. You are angry because it’s unreasonable for a cop to harass a person on the basis of being brown. And if any Arizona law officer acted in such an appalling manner, it wouldn’t be because of this law, it would be in spite of it.

Ed Decker
05.12.2010

Originally published in San Diego CityBeat

engage!

It started off with a bang. The minute we walked in we saw the Star Trek Captain’s chair and a group of Halo fighters walking around. Then some little girl walked by with a light saber and it was all over. Noah and Kelton went nuts.

Must.

Have.

Light.

Saber.

The entire first half of the day was spent trying to find light sabers and the second half of the day was spent trying to keep them from poking out somebody’s eyeball with their brand new light sabers.

Oh, and FYI, it is no easy task getting a light saber at Comic-Con. You would think the place would be crawling with them; that every vendor and their mother would have a freaking light saber for sale.

Not so. The only store/vendor that had them was the Mattel store. which, of course, takes an hour and a half just to find. But then wait… When you find it you don’t just walk  into the store and, you know, buy things. Oh noooo. You have to leave the concourse, go back outside, up the stairs, around the conference rooms, and into the sales pavilion where you must wait in a line to get a ticket that enables you to get in a line and spend money at the Mattel store.

Ok, so you’re getting an idea about what a clustertrunk Comic-Con is, right?

So, we secure our special ticket and start singing Willy Wonka’s, “I’ve got a golden ticket, I’ve got a golden Ticket” all the way back through the sales pavilion, around the conference rooms, down the stairs, and back into the main concourse to find the Mattel store where they permit you to get into a line that makes the Space Mountain line look like the line to get into the “Hard Punch to Your Face” store.

lines turn Uncle Ed into cold, murderous cyborg

Those of you who know me know that I don’t do very well in lines, so I started punching Noah in the face to pass the time. I figured he owed me that.

Finally, we got to the checkout counter. What a relief. The clerk delivered three light saber boxes (one for the other nephew, River, who could not be there) and off we went.

We found a cubby hole where we they could open the boxes and they tore into them like Winos tear into vodka gift boxes. And the pulled out the parts, assembled the sabers, and VOILA!…

No batteries.

Holy Mother of Christ in Heaven why have you foresaken me!

Well, it didn’t take long to figure out that nobody in this godforsaken place sells batteries, so, off we went, back through the concourse doors, back outside, across the street of death, over the trolley tracks of dismemberment, and into downtown San Diego which, itself, was a clusterfunk thanks to ComicCon, for several blocks until we found a liquor deli (and i’m seriously thinking about scoring a fifth of Bacardi at this point) which had – naturally – a line that wrapped around the inside of the liquor store twice-over.

We waited in that line, purchased the batteries, and, at last – functioning light sabers.

I gotta say though, nightmarish triple-line scenario aside, it was all worth it. To see those two kids’ faces light up when the clerk presented the light sabers, and when they went “zzzzssh,” when they were powered up for the first time, well, it was one of those moments when I understood why people procreate.

And let me tell you, these were not bullshit, cheap plastic, forget-about-them-tomorrow kind of  light sabers. These were exact replicas of what they use in the Star Wars movies.  Solid, heavy and realistic looking (if light sabers were actually real). And they make the coolest sounds when they power up and power down. And the coolest part of all, the kids knew how cool they were. Auntie W. tells me that Noah had been pining for one of these for ages. Can’t say that I blame him.

light sabers secured - universe safe

The only other thing I have to report from Comic-Con is that apparently, Barzilla sold relatively well at the Puna Press Table. I say “relatively” because Puna Press is really not the kind of publishing company for which the people who go to Comic-Con are looking. We do poetry and art and whatnot. Not really comic books.

Ted Washington - Founder/CEO Puna Press

Still, we think it’s important to have a presence there and – what they hey – a few people actually bought Barzilla. Of course, it was more for the artwork than the words (the artwork in Barzilla is astounding) but it got me to thinking about my next project, and I actually might follow up on it:

A Barzilla comic book.

Hmmm, could be fun. Could even sell.

Ed Decker
07.24.09

MORE PICTURES BELOW…

light saber make fierce warrior

Uncle Ed get's grumpy toward end of day

I saw this image on Fox News tonight of a couple of Arabs burning the U.S. flag while holding it upside down. Of course, the talking heads were getting all freaked out about such an image, but the first thing I thought was, Hmm. Doesn’t that cancel itself out?

Sure, when Americans fly the flag upside-down it’s supposed to be a distress call, but when protesters fly it upside-down they are saying, “Down with America!” Same goes for burning the flag, which means you hate what that flag currently stands for.
But what does it mean when you burn a flag that is upside down. Seems to me you are saying, “I hate what the upside down flag stands for.” And since the upside down flag stands for “Down with America,” when you are burning it, aren’t you really saying, “Up with America!”?

I’m just saying.

Since I’m the only non-right wing conservative republican I know who actually watches Fox News channel, I figured I’d be your eyes and ears for the stupid shit they say there. I actually watch Fox for most of the day, and much of the night so the amount of stupid shit I am exposed to really is amazing. So much so that I figured I’d only chime in when the shit they say is REALLY stupid, as with the stupid shit I heard yesterday, not surprisingly, from the mouth of Bill “Oaf” Reilly.
Oaf Reilly was talking about President Bush’s Farewell Address and gushing over how great it was, and how Bush had the country’s best interest in mind, and how he kept us safe etc.

“It’ll be interesting to see,” he opined, “how the Left wing loony Bush haters will spin this tomorrow because decent people – and all the polls show this – like President Bush.”

Let’s look at that sentence again and marvel at it’s utter stupidity and gall. (I have rearranged the quote for clarity).

All the polls show that decent people like President Bush.

Wow! All the polls? Really? So, since Prez Bush’s approval rating is at 27 percent, is “Oaf” Reilly saying that only 27 percent of the country is decent?

Furthermore, who are these poll takers that are deciding who are the “decent” poll responders, and which are the, um, indecent ones?

Perhaps these polls to which he is referring have a question on the bottom that says, “Are you a decent person? Please check yes or no.”

And who are these people that check “no”?

To me, this quote goes to the very heart of what’s wrong with Bill “Oaf” Reilly, what’s wrong with Fox News as an institution, and what was wrong with this administration – a complete disregard for facts, common sense and a view of the world through the thickest of ideological lenses.

“You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.”

You tell ‘em Sarah. Fruit flies are ugly, and stupid, and they eat our fruit. What’s worse, they’re sexually dimorphic. Do we really need to be sending that message to the larvae? That it’s ok to be sexually dimorphic? What about the larvae?!
Besides, why do fruit flies need 200 thousand dollars? Can’t they go on with all their fruit-eating for free? Stupid fruit flies! Researching them never did nobody no good. Except, oh yeah, autism sufferers, and just about every biological and genetic researcher — to whom the fruit fly has been invaluable.
What a moroni!

“…The statements made by Senator Clinton,” said McCain, “about setting a specific date for [withdrawing troops from Iraq] is the first time, I think, in American political history, that a candidate of a major political party has advocated surrender.”

He’s been throwing around this, “Democrats want to surrender” crap since the start of the surge.

Apparently John McCain doesn’t know what the word surrender means. Because Senator Clinton is not suggesting the troops lay down their weapons, throw up their hands and deliver themselves to the mercy of the enemy. Nor does she propose that we abandon our overall war against extreme Islamic terrorists.

We’ve been told over and over that the war on terror has many fronts and that Iraq is just one of them. If that’s true then getting out of Iraq isn’t surrender. It’s a strategic retreat. Because if things on a particular front are hopeless, or, if that particular front is worthless in terms of military or strategic value, or, both — as is the case with Iraq — then the smart thing to do is retreat from that front and put your resources where they can be more effective.

You think a war hero would know the difference between retreat and surrender. Actually, he probably does know the difference. I’m quite certain McCain knows “surrender” is not what Clinton is advocating. But it doesn’t matter to him because it serves his agenda to portray Hillary as weak, timid, and afraid.

I don’t care much for Hillary Clinton, but she’s far from weak, timid or afraid.

Did you catch the Sean Hannity interview with Fred Thompson on Hannity and Colmes yesterday? The man is utterly uninteresting, poorly-spoken, and actually a little nervous in the spotlight (not that I was voting for him anyway).

I’ll tell you what I found to be the most annoying aspect of the thing. It was how they billed the interview as “Exclusive First Interview with Fred and Jeri Thompson.” Indeed that’s what they had at the bottom of the screen, in all caps, for nearly the whole interview, for all of us to look at with pride and amazement of Fox’s exclusivity arrangement.

OK, for starters, I have always hated how the news media touts various interviews as being “exclusive.” They say it as though it’s some sort of benefit to us, the audience. But what exclusive really means is, “We did whatever we had to make sure that nobody else gets this interview,” which really — since they have denied anyone else from interviewing the subject — only reduces the information we may consume about him or it.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t try to get exclusives, sure, that makes good sense, but to brag it as this great favor to us that we should celebrate is bullshit since exclusivity only serves the media outlet in question and, in effect, screws us.
Still, it’s the industry norm so, whatever.

But this Fox tag line really bugs. “Exclusive first interview,” is dishonestly redundant. What does it even mean? That he’s not doing any other “first” interviews with anyone else? Of course not, duh! You can only do one first interview. And Thompson’s first interview happened to be with Fox, which should have been billed simply as a, “First interview.”

It’s a total manipulation of language. Because Fox News knew they weren’t going to keep Thompson from doing interviews with other media outlets. He’s a goddamn presidential candidate for crying out loud! Exclusives are usually reserved for one-timers in the news world. You know, a person who survived a plane crash perhaps, or a witness in a high-profile murder case. You can’t do an exclusive on Presidential candidates because they’re jumping at the bit for coverage. They would never agree to it. So Fox called it an “Exclusive first Interview” to make it seem as though they have more juice than they actually do because Fox News is more about licking it’s own balls than legitimately covering the news.

Some of you may remember a recent Sordid Tale about an encounter that occurred outside my favorite neighborhood slaughtering hole, The Tilted Stick, during which a guy named Scotty and several of his friends ambushed me because it was his opinion that I wasn’t local enough to patronize the establishment.

Well, two Sundays ago, Scotty and I crossed paths again.

I’ve dreaded our imminent reunion, largely because I didn’t want to be in the position of having to accept or reject his apology: I didn’t want to accept his apology because, well, how rotten-to-the-core must you be to gang up on a person over such absurd matters as his place of residence? On the other hand, I’m not a grudge-holder. I don’t give a crud about Scotty, except for the comedy of him, which I enjoy sharing with you. So, no, I didn’t want an apology, though I always assumed one was forthcoming.

Imagine my surprise to learn that not only was he not going to say “sorry,” but that this jackass would actually try to instigate another melée—“jackass,” incidentally, being the perfect word to describe him, as he is not quite a tool, not exactly a douchebag, nor hoodlum, hooligan, thug, punk or pissant, but, rather, a raging jackass with whom—on a lazy Sunday evening—I once again came face to face.

As it happened, the same two bartenders were present, as were several of the same regulars from the night of our first altercation. We were drinking and having a good time when Scotty came in. He made his rounds, hugging and shaking hands with everyone he knew. At first, he was oblivious to me, thankfully, as I enjoyed covertly observing him mingling about as if he were The Man, utterly ignorant of how not The Man he really is.

Everything went fine until about midnight, when I casually swiveled my head to steal a glance of my archenemy and—sure as rectums don’t like rolled tacos—Scotty was glaring at me with sweltering, red eyes.

“Is your name Ed Decker?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said, gearing up for a teary-eyed apology that I did not want.

“Are you the guy who writes lies in the newspaper?”

Wait, wait—what!? I thought. This is supposed to be the part where he tells me how drunk he was that night, how he acted like a jackass and that he is sooo sorry, followed by a slap on my back and an offer to buy the next round.

“Everything I wrote in that article was true, dude, and you know it!”

“Not the part about my mother having ‘scotch-sopped titties,’” he said, eyes glazed and burning red.

Oh, comedy gods, I thought, thank you for this gift you have given, the gift of the great giant jackass who brings joy to my otherwise joyless existence.

The passage to which Scotty referred came in response to his initial accusation about my not being local enough to be in The Tilted Stick: “I’ve been boozing in this bar since before [Scotty] was sucking on his mama’s scotch-sopped titty-milk” was the exact quote.

“Dude,” I said, “that wasn’t a lie, it was a joke—a yo-mama joke.”

“You don’t joke about my mother.”

“I wasn’t joking about your mother. I was joking about yo-mama. I don’t know your actual mother.”

“That’s right, you don’t know her, so you don’t talk about her.”

“I wasn’t talking about her!” I spat again, trying to explain what a yo-mama joke is. “I was talking, in essence, about you!”

I really get a kick out of these Yo-Mama-Joke-Over-Reactors—the ones who become enraged at the mere mention of their mother. I never understood this response. If you never met my mother and know nothing about her, any insults to her character will carry zero weight. You could say my mom turns tricks to support a $300-a-day huffing habit, and I wouldn’t blink. I happen to know, for a fact, my mom is hooked on heroin. Point is, you don’t know my mother any more than I know Scotty’s. Like my mom, I’m sure his mother is very normal and nice. It’s hiz-mama that’s all messed up.

You following this, Scotty? Your mother probably doesn’t drink at all. But yo-mama is a lush! See the difference? Let’s try some more: Yo-mama drank so much when she was pregnant, she thought you were a beer belly. Or, yo-mama was so hammered when you were born, when her water broke, it was 90 proof.

In her defense, yo-mama wanted a natural childbirth—Natural Light! In summary, your mother is probably a sharp, grounded woman, but yo-mama musta been a stumbling rum-whore to have given birth to a jackass like you.

Anyway, being that Scotty was never quite able to grasp the concept, he reacted the only way a one-dimensional jackass knows how to react when confronted with even the most mildly intellectual premise, and that is to kick back his stool and challenge me to fisticuffs. And, being a bit of an un-intellectual jackass myself, I kicked back my stool and accepted the challenge, at which point everyone in the vicinity rushed to separate us. The bartenders ushered Scotty toward the door as he shouted that I should join him outside, while two or three of the regulars held me sternly in place saying things like, “It’s not worth it,” and promising to buy me a beer if I didn’t follow Scotty outside, which sounded like a great deal for me since I didn’t want to fight in the first place.

When he was gone, we drank and laughed about the comedy of it all. Thankfully, no one jumped me when I left the bar, though I was pretty skittish on the walk home—and I guess, in that sense, the jackass-orists always win.

click here to buy book

Cyanide Pill
(Rob Garbowski’s company, he designed this website)

Sweettooth
(Rob’s rock band)

Puna Press
(My publisher)

San Diego CityBeat Magazine
(My flagship paper)

CityBeat Blog
(Where we the writers of CityBeat all go to shoot the shit)

Below are 7 different festivals and/or events which I produce, organize or am in other ways involved:

1. Southern California Writer’s Conference
(I started working for them recently. Will probably start doing workshops soon. Stay tuned)

2. San Diego Indie Music Festival
(To hell with corporate. This is independant music. Independant!

3. San Diego Music Awards

4. North Park Music Thing

5. CityBeat Festival of Beers

6. Ultimate Music Challenge (a music competition in Viejas that I judge)

7. Ultimate Music Challenge Judges Blog

Tyler Jordan
(Tyler did a crapload of art for Barzilla and Other Psalms)

The Binge
(The only radio show that condones drinking, with your hosts Andy and Max)

Michael Steven Gregory
(Author, Independent film maker, executive director of the Southern California Writer’s Conference and bad-ass disc golfer to boot)

Winston’s Beach Club
710 Beach Club
(Two nightclubs where I bartend)

Mike Sager
(A fellow San Diego resident and friend to CityBeat, Sager is currently a reporter for Esquire . His former gigs include, staff writer for Washington Post, contributing editor for Rolling Stone, and writer-at-large for GQ)

Modern Drunkard Magazine
(A pulp tome of boozing and debauchery – featuring Sordid Tales)

Out of the Gutter Magazine
(A modern journal of pulp and degenerate fiction — featuring Sordid Tales)

Stairs to Nowhere (Tijuana Tales)
(A superb blog by my friend and colleague at CityBeat, Kinsee Morlan)

My Week in Music
(Scott Zensen, online San Diego music reporter: RIP 2008)