 Termite and Vine Corporation
FIRST BOARD MEETING
TERMITE AND VINE ARTIST'S AND MUSICIAN'S HOMESTEADERS COLLECTIVE CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION
NON PROFIT CORPORATION
we had our first board meeting today as a corporate entity and all the lollyfucks where freaking out in a good way.
actually being a corporation isn't really anything. we dont even know what it means that we just made ourselves a state non profit corporation. we did it cuz we're a bunch of weird little squatter pixies and we want to look really bad ass official so no one will ever take our house away. we also might get a break on settling our back taxes and we get %30 discount at the non-profit building supplies store. termite become her own ENTITY and she will own herself, and she gets a bank account. eventually we hope to get taw exempt charitable 501c which means that people can donate us tools, money, entire houses, and get a tax write off. and maybe get grant money....
its weird. i been thinking about this all day, that we've crossed a weird line, cuz 9 months ago we were wretched little criminal tresspassing garbage people who lived in a condemned building cuz we're too crazy and damaged to make it in the real world... and now we're having a fucking meeting where a bunch of "homeless" "unemployed" kids are arguing about who's pulling their weight and how to prioritize projects and saving money, and who wants to be on the board of directors and how we decide whos termite for life and what exactly it means to "own" a share of the house. I think about how we got here and i realise that we faked it in to reality.
before the begining of this year termite was a typical squat. a bunch of kids living in a condemned building and trying to go unnoticed. we tried to be low profile, and we were scared of the cops and the neighbours and the government. and for good reason. most of theese kids have been living like this for years. in my circle of friends and my own experiences working on squat projects theres alot of stories of kids being dragged out of bed by cops/feds/hired thugs in the middle of the night, kids going to jail for sleeping in abandoned warehouses, kids trying to make long term housing for themselves and having their place smashed up, burnt down, possessions confiscated. in march of this year termite and vine got evicted by the national guard. i moved back in 3 days later only to have federal agents bust in to the house at 3 am and sweep the place while i hid under a pile of clothes in the corner of my room hoping the flashlights and radios would miss me, trying to remember where my shoes and jacket were in the dark so i wouldnt be cold if they brought me to jail.
after that we started a bezerker campaign of research and networking and scheeming. i figured the best plan was to try to know everything about everything and pretend that we were a legitimate property management project and hide that we were a bunch of crazy messes. to do a better job of pretending we were legit i read law books and wiggled my way in to talking with lawyers and city inspectors and police commanders. i clean the side walk and talk up the neighbours and make friends with city hall people. i got a job so i could spend money on renovations. we got our electricity turned on properly so no one could come down on us for living with jerrybuilt 'tricity or living in the dark. i told people that we were allowed to have this house until even the former owners agreed. i told everybuddy we were a legitimat organisation so much that today we actually are one.
I was thinking about all this today while the board meeting was going down. Its a telling case of that alot of kids get told that their criminals often and loud enuff that we start to beleive it. the past 2 months have shown us that our rights actually work. I've been anxious and insomniac since march fretting that squatters rights, corporeal possession, civil right to protection from warrantless searches, i figured that the law and the city would have no obligation to honor our rights cuz we're disfunctional trash, obviously funnylooking and dirty and disorganised, with law students for lawyers and a ragged cardboard box of bad photocopies of 25 year old documents. now the national guard are friendly to us, the city is helping push our possession through, and every activist and volunteer organisation knows who we are and comes to us for information on how to start up homesteading campaigns.
After spending most of the year trying to disguise us as a legitimate organised opperation of responsible individuals we've actually become one. In the last 2 months of interacting with the electric company and our local law enforcement and secretary of state it suddenly dawned on me that we wern't fooling anybuddy. The national guard and the feds and city hall all know exactly what we're up to, and they see that we're organised and working hard and know what we're doing. we're succeeding in legally getting termite and keeping her and having a family home in a neighbourhood that we're part of.
I'm pretty sure the national guard and the feds have an eye on the termite blog. they have active files on enuff of my friends. the guard dont even question how our operation works, they just know. i'd really love to ask them what they have on us but i dont wanna strain our relations. WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT IS THIS: i thnk at this point we have nuthing to be affraid of and nuthing to hide. Termite is a legalised squat sibbling to the legalised squats of new york city, the $5000 houses kids buy and fix up in pittsburgh and st.louis, kin to so many fixer uppers that the old artists and musicians in this town own.
i made termite in to a corporation so people would know that we where serious about this and so we could command respect from the city who still have a hand in our fate. we are actually getting to be a tight operation, and i think that being a bunch of squatty wingnuts is a ripe asset that we can actually prroudly brag about. We are trying to gain respect as an artist's and musician's group after all, and as artists and musician we are demonstratably more devoted to our art than your average BFA toting, artist's statement writing, gallery opening wine and cheese eater. we all live our art 24-7 and people can smell that on us and it scares them with the violent beauty of our devotion.
As i told kids at the board meeting today that we had in termites scraggly back yard, we are a legit legal house, and a very real homesteaders non profit organisation. we are wickedly organised that we can have a corporate name like termite & Vine Artist's and musician's homesteaders collective co-operative association and have wingnut board meetings in mud. and Termite will always be lollyfuck wingnut core. Termite will always be the kind of house were i show up 2 hours late for the house meeting and the discussion about allocating responsibility for completing projects disolves in to an argument about if someone can build a secret passage through someone elses room, and we can meet everyones needs and be fair and organised with out having any of that rules or consensoud crap, and i can spend all day researching properties and talking about legal strategy and then get drunk and pee on kozmo's bed and then scream nonscence at kida and fall out a window and then wake up and write project proposals.
this seemed like a really important and profound rant earlier when it was rattling arround in my head all day. now i'm kinna looking over it and being like "what ??" but i still stand by my central point, which seems to be something like "y'all mentally ill, substance abused, unstable, space cadet, wingnut , lollyfuck scumbags are the bad ass revolutionary government of the future rise of the underground nation of filth. we own this shit.
Termite's electicty gets turned on !!
this is my new invention. i attached a bunch of power outlets to a strip (or bar) of wood with a lil switch.... i call it "the power strip"
whisky and brooke test the new construction site electrical pole.
dueling 'cordians
turkey party !!!
deep fried 17 lb turkey to celebrate that
1. we have electricty
2. we're a nonprofit corp
3. that 9 months ago we got evicted for having a BBQ and today we're can cook all we want on the stoop.
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