When the first versions of A.I. were rolled out, their imperfections were many. For instance, A.I. had trouble rendering hands, often adding fingers. Those glitches have, for the most part been fixed. I have no doubt that many human artists and filmmakers will go the way of telephone operators and stage coach drivers,

One of the selling points of machine-based, “disruptive” technology over traditional, human-based methods is that the new technology removes effort, or “drudgery” as the technologists refer to it from work. Removing human effort from many tasks such as washing clothes or weaving cloth may seem at first to be a good idea, the effort required in these tasks was part of a deeper, human component that provides meaning to the task that could not be duplicated by a machine. Many efforts in the past to replace human work with mechanical “efficiency” have met with resistance. For instance, the replacement of home weavers by power looms led to the Luddite Rebellion.

I believe every human-powered effort required in many tasks has a spiritual component. For this reason, religious pilgrimages made on foot rather than motorized transport are preferred by the faithful.

Technology in the Modern Era has always played a key role in the visual arts. The press led to mass-marketing of culture. Hand-lettered and hand-painted images in manuscripts gave way to movable type and engraved illustrations. Improved printing technology gave rise to mass market newspapers and magazines which were mostly replaced by the Internet.

Now, as human-made art is being replaced with machine-made art, what role will human artists like myself have in the future? Looking at other professions that were replaced with machines provides a clue. Artists may find work as Williamsburg-style reenactors alongside weavers, cobblers and wheelwrights. Who knows?

I am making the adjustment by focusing on art that can only be made by human hands and ideally created in front of a live audience to prove the artwork is genuinely created by a human. I will continue to sketch in my journal. I will be painting on canvas. I will also, weather permitting draw on sidewalks with chalk as I did at an event in New Smyrna recently.

I will likely discontinue making films. A.I. technology will soon dominate the film genre to the point where my films will look absurdly antiquated.

I just completed a short film titled “Cruise Ship” and it will be posted here shortly after the soundtrack is finished. Stay tuned.

Decades ago, I supported a candidate for city council. He seemed like a decent guy. A few years after the election he moved to another state and got arrested for stealing credit cards. News articles said he had a long criminal record. This guy had stolen credit cards and harassed a woman even before he ran for office. I didn’t know. Nobody knew.

A few years after that incident, I supported another city council candidate in another city. She ran as a liberal Democrat. I did not know she had a previous political career as a conservative Republican, espousing completely different political views in another state before she married and changed her name. Nobody knew until after she was elected.

After those two experiences, I became cynical. I focused on my artwork. Then 2020 happened. Elected officials became tyrants. I got involved with politics again.

I wanted to get the tyrants out of office, particularly my city councilman who fanatically supported the mandates and lockdowns. I met his challenger. He seemed like a nice guy. I initially supported the challenger and almost donated to his campaign… until I learned he supported the brutal Covid crackdowns in China. I also learned , among other things he was a Satanist!

I should have learned my lesson, but I continued to believe in elections. I voted for Donald Trump because he said he was the peace candidate. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised no more wars. A year later, we are at war with Venezuela, Iran and possibly Denmark!

In a previous post, I mentioned I was supporting Aaron Baker, a candidate opposing the odious, cartoonish Congressman Randy Fine. I read an article today by an investigative reporter that exposed a number of things about Aaron Baker I did not know previously. While they are not crimes, these facts are very serious red flags for me. I have learned not to ignore red flags. Aaron Baker is a nice guy and he says a lot of things I agree with. I just wish he didn’t wait for a reporter to drag so many skeletons out of his closet.

From now on, I will focus on art & films.

I’m done with politics.

Unlike most of the sketches in my journals, this sketch was completed after the event from memory. I was doing an art thing on the street when this young fellow came out of a nearby coffee shop pointing his phone’s camera at me and shouted at me. He was joined by two other guys, his buddies who glared at me angrily. It was tense!

I was not about to get in a brawl with three caffeinated young guys, so I managed to talk my way out of it. I later learned who the young fellow was and why he was so agitated. It’s quite a saga. You can read about it in this article and this article.

I don’t know if it’s me or my artwork, or maybe it’s some people just need to rage on someone and I just happened to be there, but everywhere I go, I just keep pissing people off. There was that time when a security guard called the cops on me for sketching a billboard:

…and there were other occasions when I pissed people off for one reason or other, but rather than waste any more of your time dwelling on these unpleasant conflicts of the past, I want to look forward to a happier, brighter, friendlier future for everyone and I mean everyone… including that guy I sketched in my journal.

Happy New Year!

Ninety Years Ago on December 10th, 1935, journalist Walter Liggett was machine-gunned to death in front of his wife and daughter in an alley behind his apartment building, Walter Liggett was one of three journalists murdered by mid-century mobsters in the City of Lakes. For much of its existence, Minneapolis and its twin city, Saint Paul were notorious for being a safe haven for organized crime.

James Shiffer wrote the following in the Star Tribune”s Whistleblower blog, July 25th, 2008:

On the eighth of July, Marda Liggett Woodbury, a retired library director, died in California. She was 83. News of her death didn’t reach our newsroom until some time later, and I only heard about it this week.

I didn’t know Ms. Woodbury. I spoke to her only once, last year, when I called her after reading her book. But I found myself saddened, because she had been a living link, perhaps the last witness, to a terrible chapter in the history of Minneapolis.

Between 1934 and 1945, three journalists were murdered in Minneapolis. All of them were gunned down on the street in gangland-style slayings. No one was ever punished in their deaths of Howard Guilford, Walter Liggett and Arthur Kasherman. Over the years, the city salved its conscience by remembering these newspapermen as so scurrilous in their methods and reckless with their associations that they deserved what they got. In fact, each of them, with varying degrees of credibility, self-interest and skill, was attempting to expose the rampant corruption and gangster rule virtually ignored by the dailies, the predecessors of the newspaper I work for now. Guilford, Liggett and Kasherman were the bloggers of their day, attacked by the mainstream politicians and media alike.

In 1935, Marda Liggett Woodbury was 10 years old when she saw her father, Walter Liggett, shot to death behind the family’s apartment in Stevens Square. Liggett, editor of the Midwest American, was a vocal critic of Gov. Floyd B. Olson, whom he accused of tolerating corruption and betraying his radical principles. His daughter testified at the February 1936 trial of the notorious Minneapolis gangster charged in his death, Isadore “Kid Cann” Blumenfeld. That’s when her picture shown above was taken, her eyes glaring into the news photographer’s lens with a startling ferocity.

Blumenfeld was acquitted and went on to a long and mostly uninterrupted career in organized crime. Walter Liggett’s family moved away from Minnesota. Sixty years later, in 1998, the University of Minnesota Press published Marda Liggett Woodbury’s book, “Stopping the Presses: the Murder of Walter W. Liggett”. It makes a persuasive case that her father was assassinated because of his political beliefs and his willingness to speak out about them. It was the first step, and not the last, of historians re-evaluating the meaning of the three murders.

... it’s a good column, available on the Internet Archive.

Another excellent book about that period in Minneapolis history is Fred Friendly’s Minnesota Rag, a book about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Near vs Minnesota regarding Minnesota’s “Gag Law” which restrained journalists from publishing critical articles about the cozy relationships between public officials and gangsters:

In a Minneapolis newspaper called The Saturday Press, Jay Near and Howard Guilford accused local officials of being implicated with gangsters. Minnesota officials sought a permanent injunction against The Saturday Press on the grounds that it violated the Public Nuisance Law because it was malicious, scandalous, and defamatory. The law provided that any person “engaged in the business” of regularly publishing or circulating an “obscene, lewd, and lascivious” or a “malicious, scandalous and defamatory” newspaper or periodical was guilty of a nuisance, and could be enjoined from further committing or maintaining the nuisance. The state supreme court upheld both the stemporary injunction and the permanent injunction that eventually issued from the trial court.

Basically, the corrupt Minneapolis officials would get wind of an article they didn’t like in a muckraking, independent newspaper and order the police to grab copies off newsstands before anyone could read them. Describing this action as “Prior Restraint”, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state court’s ruling:

In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Charles Hughes, the Court held that the statute authorizing the injunction was facially unconstitutional, meaning the decision was based on an analysis of the law’s general applications, not the specific context of this case. The Court held that the statutory scheme constituted a prior restraint and hence was invalid under the First Amendment.

So, how bad was the corruption that it needed to be hidden from the public? Very, very bad. The enormous scale of official corruption, almost from the very founding of the city, is difficult to imagine. In his turn-of-the-century book, Shame of The Cities, Lincoln Steffens wrote about one notorious mayor of Minneapolis, Doc Ames:

Immediately upon his election, before he took office (on January 7, 1901), he organized a cabinet and laid plans to turn the city over to outlaws who were to work under police direction for the profit of his administration. He chose for chief his brother, Colonel Fred W. Ames, who had recently returned under a cloud from service in the Philippines. But he was a weak vessel for chief of police, and the mayor picked for chief of detectives an abler man, who was to direct the more difficult operations. This was Norman W. King, a former gambler, who knew the criminals needed in the business ahead. King was to invite to Minneapolis thieves, confidence men, pickpockets and gamblers, and release some that were in the local jail. They were to be organized into groups, according to their profession, and detectives were assigned to assist and direct them. The head of the gambling syndicate was to have charge of the gambling, making the terms and collecting the “graft,” just as King and a Captain Hill were to collect from the thieves. The collector for women of the town was to be Irwin A. Gardner, a medical student in the Doctor’s office, who was made a special policeman for the purpose.

The crooked police preyed on the honest, unwitting citizens of Minneapolis:

In a general way all this business was known. It did not arouse the citizens, but it did attract criminals, and more and more thieves and swindlers came hurrying to Minneapolis. Some of them saw the police, and made terms. Some were seen by the police and invited to go to work. There was room for all. This astonishing fact that the government of a city asked criminals to rob the people is fully established. The police and the criminals confessed it separately.

The list of notorious gangsters who did business in the Twin Cities is a long one. Isidore Blumenthal, alias “Kid Cann” and his brother Yiddy Bloom ran the rackets for many years. Kid Cann was suspected of ordering the hit on Liggett, but was acquitted. Kid Cann was also instrumental in tearing up and scrapping the much beloved Twin Cities Rapid Transit line. Wikipedia has a good article on Kidd Cann.

Wikipedia also has a good article on David “Davie the Jew” Berman, a gangster who ran the gambling rackets in Minneapolis and later Las Vegas. His daughter, Susan Berman wrote a book worth reading about her dad and his legacy titled Easy Street.

I doubt that Minneapolis will ever give up its time-tested tradition of corruption. When I lived there, I attended the trial of a City Councilman convicted of corruption. I also reported on and sketched at the trial of Tom Petters, who ran a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors to the tune of $3.6 billion. Tom and his partner, Frank Vennes Jr. donated money to prominent politicians of both parties, including a bunch of presidential candidates.

If you want to take a deep dive into the notorious history of Minneapolis I recommend Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl’s excellent 1995 City Pages article titled Minneapolis Confidential (archived on the Wayback Machine).

I also want to mention Walter Liggett’s excellent book The Rise of Herbert Hoover. You can find the book on the Internet Archive.

Tales of Paranoia is very wordy as you would expect from the subject matter - conspiracy theories. The artwork is top notch, as you would expect, but Crumb’s research and insights are the main event.

Robert Crumb analysis of the official narrative of the Covidian Era is awesome. He even quotes Robert Malone! I highly recommend this comic book.

Beginning in the last decade of the 20th Century, civic leaders in Indy, mostly Republicans decided on a different course. This was the era of New Urbanism - the movement to revive cities by encouraging life on the street. Bike lanes and transit allowed commuters and visitors to leave their cars at home. With more people walking, small businesses filled empty storefronts. More “eyes on the street” meant more people felt safe on the street.

And it worked. The project that most aided this transition was the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, a bike and pedestrian corridor that was also a linear park and sculpture garden. Developments sprung up all along the trail - over a billion dollars worth of residential and commercial buildings bringing residents and businesses back downtown.

Roberta and I moved to Indianapolis in 2017. We lived and worked on our artwork Downtown and enjoyed the vitality that accompanied the success of Indy’s urban revival… until it all came apart in 2020. I made a short film about what happened to Downtown Indy that year:

I began questioning the authoritarian policies, the mandates, the restrictions that reversed the progress the city had been making. Since those policies were made by a majority Democrat Party government, headed by Mayor Joe Hogsett, I was denounced and cancelled by his sycophantic supporters. I was particularly cancelled because I publicly supported restaurants trying to survive the Covid tyranny. I was on a community board and I supported a measure to keep the restaurants open. I also documented the precipitous decline of the city. From that moment, people who described themselves as urbanists treated me like I was an outcast.

This comment by “Jordan” a self-described urbanist on Twitter (now X) is typical of the verbal abuse I received at that time for criticizing the city leadership’s policies.

Downtown Indianapolis began to die the “Death of a Thousand Cuts”. The “Stay at Home” order emptied office buildings. The lack of law enforcement that led to an increase in crime. Small businesses complained and complained… but, to no avail. Many of them just quit, leaving a lot of boarded-up, deserted storefronts in their wake:

Even after the Covidian restrictions were lifted, Mayor Hogsett and his cohorts in the Council, continued their reign of destruction. Perhaps no better example is the epidemic of motoring mayhem that transformed Indianapolis into a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto. Partly, the problem is the result of too many drinking establishments Downtown. The major reason is the lack of law enforcement in the wake of the George Floyd incident. A little more than a year ago, the City leaders Announced a “Vision Zero” plan to reduce automobile collisions with bicyclists and pedestrians. Since it did not increase law enforcement, I predicted it would fail… which it did:

I now live in a small town in the Free State of Florida where none of these problems exist. why is that?

I have come to the conclusion that the people who govern large cities, mostly Democrats, are addicts, consumed by their craving for whatever substance or behavior that releases a flood of endorphins into their brains. They are drunks, druggies, gluttons, gamblers, sex addicts etc. The result is the governments of the cities are essentially run by brain-addled zombies who do not care in the slightest if the city goes to hell. Their cravings lead them into crime and corruption. They are not even aware the city has turned into a dystopian hellscape. There are no political theories, dogmas, or that can compete with this new pleasure-obsessed hedonist ideology.

What is even more disturbing is most voters are also zombified. How else to explain the fact that Mayor Hogsett, who cannot account for his whereabouts during the riots of 2020 was re-elected in 2023?

Now, I’m not a prude. I don’t care what people do privately. But, I do expect public officials to do their job. Hedonism, the singleminded pursuit of pleasure, no matter how weird or self-destructive has become the guiding principle of public life.

Speaking of hedonism, I wondered what happened to my aforementioned “urbanist” critic “Jordan”. So, I looked him up on X… and here he is:

… and we’ve been busy. Here’s an update:

A year ago, our yard was a dense jungle, infested with bamboo, vines, trashy trees, weeds and biting and stinging insects. Now, we have a tropical garden with ornamental plants and fruit trees. We work hard keeping the nasty jungle from returning!

We are active in the local art organizations, volunteering and participating in events and activities. Here I am posing as a cowboy for our sketch group:

Last month, I volunteered to conduct an after-school art program for teens. Here I am out in the parking lot, doing some chalk art with them:

Roberta found a studio in town to paint. This is her latest painting of the historic Lakeside Inn:

I’m working on a new film titled “Cruise Ship”. A couple weeks ago, the Enzian Theater screened “Courier 3” along with other films by local filmmakers. Afterwards I joined them on the stage:

I didn’t think I would get involved in anything political here, but not everything is perfect in the Free State of Florida. I live in Florida’s 6th Congressional District which is sadly represented by the odious Randy Fine who has celebrated the bombing of civilians in Gaza. I am supporting his primary opponent Aaron Baker, who is a good candidate, a patriot and a really nice guy. That’s Aaron Baker in the Minuteman uniform:

We’ve come a long way from the bleak times when I began this Substack. I think back five years ago during the Covidian era when I was cancelled and censored. I lost a lot of friends. Back then, Roberta and I did a lot of artwork protesting the authoritarian madness. I’m grateful to Paul Cudenec at Winter Oak for publishing Roberta’s painting “Grey World”. I am also grateful to Journal La Décroissance for publishing my illustrations then and now. Here is one of my illustrations in the recent issue:

… and most of all, I am grateful that I am Grandpa to this wonderful, new Floridian:

Then, the lockdown and unrest of 2020 -21 changed everything. Many downtown businesses shut down. Windows were boarded up. A once safe Downtown district was taken over by junkies and the mentally ill. I documented the decline of Downtown Indy with photos, video and sketches. I wanted people to see the depths that the city had fallen to, the filth, the destruction and the criminal element that had taken over the streets. November 12^th of that year, I was mugged and robbed by two druggies and was sent to the hospital with a broken leg and bruises. I made a video about that incident and what led up to it:

Instead of sympathy, I was condemned on social media by many people who claimed I was “exploiting” the homeless by documenting their plight. One of those leading the online mob to cancel and censor me was self-styled “urbanist” Jeffery Tompkins. Here’s a screenshot of one his tweets:

Since then, Jeffery Tompkins has been the go-to guy for local media about various matters regarding development, transit and pedestrian safety. Tompkins avoided talking about the major cause of the decline of Downtown Indy – the lack of effective law enforcement. Here’s a typical tweet in which he joins in the ridicule of the fact that Downtown Indy had become unsafe:

Imagine my surprise when Jeffery Tompkins recently posted on X his preference for law and order!

What changed his mind? Well, Mister Tompkins also recently announced he is going into the consulting biz. Mr. Tompkin’s new company is called Proformus. But what exactly is he selling? Tompkins is a big fan of “Tactical Urbanism” and “Place-Making”. Here’s a video in which he explains his vision (or lack of it).

The New Urbanist Movement, which began in the last century with intellectual giants like Jane Jacobs, William Whyte and James Howard Kunstler is now represented by mental pygmies like Tompkins. But, times have also changed the focus of Urbanist thought. The Digital Age has made cities nearly obsolete. Remote work has reduced the number of patrons for downtown businesses. Amazon.com has likewise helped shutter many downtown businesses. The increasing violent crime in the Indiana capitol has convinced many visitors to avoid “Murderapolis”.

But there is another, more sinister reason why Urbanism has lost much of its appeal; the “15-Minute City”, a scary concept that incorporates many aspects of Urbanism and environmentalism into what resembles a digital prison. The 15-Minute City concept is much admired by former leader of the WEF Klaus Schwab and other authoritarian Bond villains.

Speaking of the 15-Minute City, here is an illustration I did visualizing the concept for the recent issue of Journal La Dècroissance, now on newsstands in France:

The earliest, surviving prehistoric art we see in cave paintings and petroglyphs depicting the natural world humans depended on. Prehistoric art was realistic, but likely was created to invoke the essence of the animal and connect the viewer through the artist’s handiwork to a spiritual connection to the natural world — the art was evoking a feeling about the subject, not just portraying the ten thousand years ago, humans created agricultural and they were no longer dependent on the natural world for food… humans controlled it. The invention of agriculture led to the creation of government, an aristocracy that controlled the food supply with armed enforcers. Religions were invented to convince humans to turn their back on the traditional, nature-based way of life and follow this new human-centered way of life we call Civilization.

Art evolved. Humans and their institutions were at the center of the universe. Artists became propagandists for this new order, celebrating kings and the religions that anointed the kings to dominate and rule, especially over the agricultural workers, serfs and slaves that were essential to the system. From the era of stone-carved hieroglyphs to the era of stained glass windows in cathedrals, art was propaganda. The art of those times was stilted and otherworldly - no perspective or anatomical features.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment freed artists to once again, reconnect with nature and other humans. While many artists chose to continue being propagandists, other artists began to portray nature in a realistic way, informed by expanding scientific knowledge, humans with anatomical accuracy and landscapes with natural perspective.

Then came the printing press and artists, writers, composers and playwrights could now disseminate their creations and make a living without being propagandists. The artist and wrier had power, a power that could topple rulers — the pen, as the old saying goes was “mightier than the sword”. But, that power to create was derived from skill. The creation of art, music and literature required skills… skills that are no longer necessary after the invention of A.I.

Our Tech Overlords have sold A.I. as a tool to liberate ordinary people from the tyranny of skilled artists. Everyone can now be their own Rembrandt or Renoir. But, the invention that assists in creating this “art” is controlled by only a few people and the means to distribute the “art” is also controlled, as it was before the Renaissance and Enlightenment by only a few men.

Another feature of Artificial Intelligence is its ability to alter photographic images, even create new images so “real”, we are increasingly challenged to doubt the validity of photographs and video. Doubt is replacing “seeing is believing”. Reality is no longer provable. We are living in a post-reality world. That will have effects that go beyond culture. Will photography and video still be admissible in courts?

While acknowledging the catastrophic effects of this new technology, I see a path forward for myself as an artist. I will continue to do public art like sketching and chalk art that people can themselves witness was created without computers. People often ask me “did you just do that?”. Sketching on site is a skill that I want to keep alive. But, for me, sketching isn’t just a skill.

One of my favorite teachers in art school, Sandy Kossin taught the fundamentals of drawing like a drill sergeant. Every time I sketch, I imagine Sandy Kossin sitting on my shoulder reminding me about the importance of interesting shapes and line quality. But most of all, I remember him telling his students not to “eyeball” the subject; “You are not cameras,” he would say “Don’t copy what you see, draw what you feel about what you see.”

That is my way forward as an artist; I will be drawing, painting and making films about what I feel about what I see… that is something no machine, no matter how powerful and complex can duplicate.

Cheynet chose to write You Will Croak in the second-person, future tense that takes getting used to, but adds a “you are there” feeling that make the creepy parts way more creepy. For instructions how to order the book, go to Denis Cheynet’s Website.

NOTE: Roberta and I are settling in here in Mount Dora. We’ve made a great deal of improvements to our house. I’ve cut down a huge thicket of bamboo, vines and trees. I’ve replaced the tangled jungle with a garden of flowering and edible tropical plants.

Now, I can devote more time to art and filmmaking. I’ve been notified that Courier 3 will be shown at the Central Florida Film Festival in January. I am beginning work on a new film, a sci-fi western… more about that later.

After identifying himself as a sitting Indianapolis Councilman Jesse Brown told the officer:

“Let me know if I can do anything for you.”

Clearly, the councilman is using his office to influence the outcome of his case.

Jesse Brown needs to resign.

You can watch the video on Stephen Whitmer’s You Tube Channel:

I documented the decline of Downtown Indy with sketches, photos and video. I posted much of this documentation on Twitter (now X). I also posted video & photos here on The Avidor Gazette of a growing population of street people, drug addicts and mentally ill took over the empty streets. Boarded up businesses and deserted sidewalks.

I thought that the evidence I presented would help stop the decline. It didn’t. Businesses kept closing. Essential services moved away. Visitors stopped coming downtown. City officials and the mainstream media ignored my evidence and their political allies (Democrats) attacked me on social media and denied that a problem even existed. One memorable tweet by a fellow named Jordon attacked me for my truth-telling efforts and assumed I was a Republican ( I was not) and that my motive was political (it was not).

Jordan followed up with a tweet demanding I get out of town: “Move to Florida and be with your people”.

I would read about other people moving out of cities like Indianapolis and wondered if Roberta and I would join the migration or stay. Two months ago, we made the decision to leave. We moved to Mount Dora, Florida in Lake County, Florida. Mount Dora is a wonderful town. We are happy to be here and I no longer have the “falling elevator sensation”. When I obtained my Florida drivers license, I registered as a Republican. Thanks, Jordon for the suggestion… I am now with “my people”.

Going forward, I will resume work on my film “Courier 3”. I have other projects in the works, and unless World War III intervenes, my time will be devoted to art & film, not politics.

One lingering question I had was why Indianapolis city officials and the media refused to do anything to save Downtown Indianapolis. The answer to that question was revealed soon after we moved to Florida when a minor, Me-Too scandal erupted in the media. Mayor Hogsett was accused of ignoring a pervasive climate of sexual harassment. Former Deputy Mayor Thomas Cook, apparently spent a great deal of time trying to seduce young women in the office. This sordid tale of sexual shenanigans at the City-County Building was embellished by perpetual candidate for public office Clif Marsiglio in an epic rant on Reddit.

So, what I suspected is now verified: The public officials governing the City of Indianapolis are in fact addicts, sex addicts, food addicts, drug addicts, gambling addicts, alcoholics etc. They are too busy chasing the elusive state of intoxication to care about anything else… least of all, the fate of the Downtown Indianapolis. The frontal cortex of their brains, the thinking part has atrophied and they only respond to primitive impulses from their reptilian brain stems. They cannot be reasoned with. The public officials in Democrat-controlled cities are zombies.

Get out while you can.

I haven’t written about Councilman Jesse Brown’s infamous boycott months ago of Jockamo’s, a pizzeria in Irvington. The owners of Jockamo’s had concerns about a planned Bus Rapid Transit line they feared would adversely impact their business. Instead of calmly negotiating a compromise as public officials usually do in these disputes, Jesse Brown went into a rage on social media and called for a boycott of Jockamo’s and other businesses.

February 9th, Jesse Brown met with two representatives of the Mass Ave Merchants Association at the Athenaeum. They shared their concerns that Jesse Brown might call for similar boycotts of local businesses. Jesse Brown promised them he would not attack a business in District 13. Here’s a screenshot of the post where he repeated his promise:

Only a few months later, Jesse Brown broke that promise and called for a boycott on Facebook against Cookie Plug, a cookie bakery in Chatham Arch, within the 13th District he represents.

I requested an explanation from Councilman Brown by email and this is his reply in full.

A large number of constituents and others from around the city brought up concerns about The Cookie Plug to me and asked me to support them in talking things out with the franchise owners. I went with a small group, introduced myself to the owners and made sure they had my card featuring my cell phone and email address. I told them that I was very glad to have new retail on that section of Mass Ave, especially given all the vacancies. But I let them know that I'd been hearing more and more concern from more and more people about the promotion of drug culture and the cultural appropriation of Black culture and hip-hop despite the owners not being from those cultures. Then I stood back and let the other folks lead the conversation. 

Throughout the conversation that followed, I saw a multi racial group of concerned citizens express their concerns, and the franchise owners become more and more defensive. Eventually the owners unilaterally ended the conversation and said they refused to change anything about their business. They've never called or written me. 

I posted a response on my Facebook to one of the many times I had been asked to weigh in on the controversy, and don't have anything further to say on the matter. I find their business practices unethical and tone deaf, and find it really regrettable that they've chosen to ignore good faith community conversations. I'm still happy to serve them as their representative but certainly won't frequent their business. 

It's never my intention to lead any sort of attack against a business, particularly one I have so little firsthand experience with. In this case, there were hundreds of Facebook posts detailing extreme concern from the community before I even learned about the issue. I've said my brief peace and don't intend to comment on social media further.

I visited the bakery Jesse Brown describes as “unethical and tone deaf” and found the staff to be very friendly and the cookies delicious. I found nothing controversial or disagreeable. Like Jockamo’s pizzeria, Cookie Plug is another victim of Jesse Brown’s addiction to drama and rage. He needs to resign.

The controversy will have a short run in Cyberspace. Most people, in the real world don’t care what Jesse Brown thinks. The short time I was at the store, dozens of people came in and bought cookies. Cookie Plug will do just fine… the cookies are really good!

What do you, the boss do?

In our political system, public officials are employees. The citizens are the boss. We choose them through elections and the taxes levied on the citizens pay their salaries and benefits. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

13th District Indianapolis Councilman Jesse Brown has been in office barely four months and has gained a reputation for being controversial and provocative on his social media. His campaign to boycott businesses that disagreed with him raised a few eyebrows, but the most recent incident in which Jesse Brown, by his own admission flew into a rage at a young Black man has been received by the local mainstream media with a shrug.

This is not the first time that Jesse Brown was recorded losing his temper. Barely a year ago, April 24, 2023, Jesse Brown was recorded flying off the handle at a Indianapolis Library Board meeting. The article is behind a paywall, so I’ve posted the video below.

Do these two incidents raise red flags? Given that Jesse Brown has admitted that he is being treated for anxiety and depression, I would argue that waiting for another incident is irresponsible. The Councilman has a problem controlling his rage. Public life can be very stressful. Ignoring red flags like that in the workplaces and government can lead to tragedy.

Public service requires calm patience and even temper. Jesse Brown’s co-workers and constituents deserve nothing less. Jesse Brown needs to resign and take care of his mental health.

Here is the long version in full:

Wednesday night, while riding my bike, I was struck from behind by a driver, knocking me off my bike and splaying me across the pavement.  

With that emotional hook written, I’ll give you a spoiler alert: everyone involved in this story ends up fine.  But I learned powerful lessons here that I wanted to share.

Every time I get on my bike, I’m flooded with emotions.  I’ve never ridden anything a tenth as fun as my Radsport 6 e-bike. Thanks to the pedal assist, I can go further and faster than my unathletic 38-year-old body would normally carry me.  It’s an absolute joy to ride it.  I get to say hello to people I pass; I get to hear, smell, see my neighborhood and feel the wind on my face.  I collect more Vitamin D from sunlight than would be possible in a car.  I feel connected with my beloved city.

But I also feel afraid.  I always wear a helmet, and as I strap it on I think about how many cyclists die on the streets of Indianapolis each year - six last year alone.  And I think about how many total pedestrians and cyclists are injured by drivers - at least 50 in January and 52 in February this year. There is no safe way to travel in our city, so I don’t let this deter me - but every single time I ride, I think about it.

When I am forced out of a bike lane by city employees, contractors, delivery drivers, or others who use it as parking, I say a tiny prayer that I’m not killed for someone else’s convenience.

And when I am forced to share a lane with cars because my city values a “balanced budget” over the safety of its residents, I say a slightly bigger prayer as I never feel more afraid for my life than then.

Each and every time I take a trip more than a few blocks on my bike, I send a little message to my wife, just letting her know where I am headed.  Both of us always imagine the need for her to try to rally emergency help or otherwise find me after a potential collision or injury.

Wednesday evening, we were both glad that I had done so.

I had almost made it home.  I was stopped at a red light, waiting to turn left once the signal allowed it.  The light turned green, and I waited for oncoming traffic to clear so I could make my turn.

As I heard the driver of the car behind me step on their accelerator pedal, I immediately felt a wave of fear and time seemed to slow down.  

My first thought was that the driver was annoyed by me and was making a close, unsafe lane change into the right lane to avoid needing to wait for me to turn.  That’s happened to me before - sometimes accompanied by a rude gesture, profanity, or a shouted wish that I would kill myself.

Then I thought that the driver was attempting to intimidate me in retribution for causing them a few seconds’ delay.  Perhaps they were revving their engine while still in park to make me fear for my life - this, too, has happened to me with a fairly regular frequency.

It wasn’t until the car behind me slammed into the back of my bike that I realized I was being hit by a car.  All the joy of sensory experience that a bike allows for turned to terror.  My vision was a blur as my head whipped backwards, then forwards due to the unexpected impact.  I smelled car exhaust and motor oil.  I felt the impact on my back and my side.  I heard the car continuing to accelerate even after the point of impact.  

I was thrown off my bike, thankfully landing on my butt.  My left arm was wrenched and my elbow hurts, since it was fully extended to signal the turn.  My bike has some new battle scars and I’ll need to replace at least one part destroyed when it hit the pavement - but it’s operable.  All things considered, this was likely among the most minor and least life-impacting ways to be struck by a car while on a bike.  

It was also easily one of the most terrifying moments I’ve experienced in the last decade.  No car driving west so much as stopped, and had I been thrown a few feet over, I’d have been in the path of oncoming traffic and could have been killed even with such a light impact and at such low speeds.

As I managed to pick myself up, I turned around to see that the driver who hit me had not exited his car, nor put it in park, nor put on flashers to help protect the person he struck who was on the ground in the road in front of him.  I wish I could say I responded with grace and professionalism, but I did not.  

From the driver’s perspective, a tall white man in a red hat stood up and was screaming at him, obviously not thinking clearly or rationally.  Each of us was terrified that the other might be armed and might be wishing the other physical harm.  He was obviously extremely young and inexperienced.  He was terrified, and remained in the car with his hands on the steering wheel.

Still, he managed to immediately and repeatedly apologize. He asked me to come closer so we could talk, despite the fear in his eyes. He asked if he could send me a payment on his phone.  Offended and still enraged, I insisted that we had to call the police for the accident report.  But from his perspective, this angry white man was screaming at him and talking about summoning the police, as white people have done for decades, and as often results in both criminal records and brutality.

He drove away.  I screamed after him that he was committing a hit-and-run.  I wrote down his license plate number.  I felt victimized, shocked, and was still in the throes of trauma - as I’m sure he was.

I called 911, not even sure what I wanted out of the situation.  More than anything, I wanted a sense of closure and I wanted to stop feeling afraid.  The officer who responded was polite and respectful, but couldn’t offer me that.

At home later, I had trouble sleeping.  I kept thinking about the Scenario-Based Training, put on by the police department, which I had attended last week.

That training was incredibly interesting to me.  It involved being equipped with a sim gun (think of a paintball gun that is the size and weight of an actual 9mm pistol) and a holster and encountering a variety of situations and responding to them however we’d like.  Since I’m a pacifist, I had decided to do my best not to draw my gun during the training.  That was indeed the best action several times in these scenarios.  It was rare that there was any need for, or indeed any benefit from, using violence.  Then came a scenario where as I tried to use my calming, de-escalating voice, I was “shot”.  

I hadn’t even thought the actor had had a gun, and they had been moving with obvious intentional slowness to drive the point home.  Immediately following that scenario, I went on a “domestic violence call” and arrived on the scene to find a large man with his back to me, physically beating a much smaller woman.  Determined to learn my lesson, I drew my “gun” and demanded the man stop.  He totally ignored my commands, and for a moment I stood there thinking “surely I’m not supposed to just shoot this man in the back right now?”  It turns out the best answer was not to have a gun out at all, but just to jump into harm’s way to hold the man’s arms down to protect the woman.

I’ve had socialist comrades roll their eyes and call such training “copaganda” - attempts to show that the police do no wrong and are always the good guys, no matter what a given scenario might look like in the media.

Perhaps it would function as “copaganda” to some, but I didn’t take that from it at all.

Instead it confirmed my existing thoughts about the police.

I ran for office with this description of police and public safety:

“Indianapolis currently uses armed police officers to shoulder the burdens caused by ignoring root issues of poverty, inequality, mental illness, addiction, alcoholism, and more. As Fox News investigated, Indianapolis taxpayers paid $16 million to settle cases of police misconduct over the five years ending in 2020. Clearly, the solution is not to throw more police officers into this dangerous and unfair expectation; the solution is to fix the underlying problems that cause crime. I am an advocate of clinician-led emergency response teams, and see Indianapolis’s current pilot program as a small step in the right direction.  We should provide emergency responses to all of our residents’ needs, including those related to mental health, with respondents trained to help with specific needs, rather than armed law enforcement. “

When talking with my constituents, I often explained this stance using the analogy of my experience as a high school teacher.  When I was a teacher, I needed to make sure my students’ physical and emotional needs were met before they’d have any chance of sitting still for hours on end, much less actually learning anything.  One student routinely showed up late, and I lectured him until I found out that the electricity was shut off at his house and he had a hard time waking up without an alarm.  Instead of a lecture, he needed electricity.  But I didn’t have the tools to provide everything my students needed, and I was paid based on the students passing standardized tests, not based on them having secure home lives.

In the same way, I believe we are asking our police officers to respond to a thousand types of personal crises that our neighbors and we might experience, with the tools and training to resolve none of the root issues that led to these emergencies.  At best, our current criminal justice system is like sending someone out with a box of band-aids every single day but never stitching up a wound.  

At worst, it is giving stressed-out, scared-for-their-lives people guns and sending them rushing into potentially dangerous situations every single day, and then blaming them as individuals when that inevitably occasionally leads to horrific outcomes.

And it’s by far the biggest budget item in our city every single year.

My old teenage friends were victimized by the Indianapolis police. In my very first car I had as a teenager, my left-wing bumper stickers and my dreadlocks led to frequent interactions with police officers that treated me as an enemy.  Cops told me to my face that they hated my guts and thought I was a traitor to my country, due to my opposition to the war in Iraq.  To this day, I remember a state trooper in Iowa who followed eighteen-year-old me on the interstate for fifteen minutes as I drove in the right lane, five miles under the speed limit with my hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, until he finally pulled up beside me in the left lane, held up his empty hand like a gun, gestured like he was shooting me a few times, then sped off down the highway. There are definitely bad cops out there - I’ve run across them myself.

I have marched in the streets over and over again for the victims of police violence.  I clearly remember coming out for the Jena Six, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Aaron Bailey, Dreasjon Reed, McHale Rose, and George Floyd.  And I’m sick to my stomach to admit that there are probably many more marches, for more names than I currently can recall.  Many more times, I cried to myself at home.  I read books.  I organized actions.  I donated money.  I attended lectures. I absolutely do not tolerate police killings, and each and every one is a preventable tragedy that fills me with rage and sorrow.

But very often, I can believe what the officers involved in some of those incidents have said.  They feared for their lives.  They weren’t sure how many bullets they fired. They did the best they could with the information they had in front of them, and they were in a situation where they didn’t feel they could take their time to come up with the right solution - they felt they had to trust their instincts.

I had had a minor scrape on my bike more than 24 hours ago, and I was legitimately still flooded with adrenaline - the fear-induced rage lasted hours and hours after a scared kid apologized to me, drove away from me silently, and offered me zero threat.  

I had violated my own ethics by calling the police and screamed profanity at a scared child. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more ashamed of myself, but it took many hours before I was even aware of that shame.   The fear was that powerful.

It makes me ill to think of what it must be like to have similar surprise shocks to the system nearly every day, six days in a row.  Plus, there’s the risk of violence.  For civilians, studies show that the victims of violent crime are shot more often when they have a gun on them than when they don’t.  For shootings where the victim had a chance to defend themselves, it’s even more likely that the victim having a gun results in the victim being shot.  

I have yet to see researchers gather enough data to form a very certain theory about why this is, but I have a hypothesis:  When a person is actively frightened of life-ending consequences, they think less rationally and do what they feel they need to do to protect themselves.

Based on the interaction itself, I had no reason at all to think that the kid who hit me intended to do so. It sounded like the collision had messed up his car, he was very quick to apologize, and he clearly felt scared based on his behavior.  None of that speaks to attempted vehicular homicide or the behavior of a sadist.  And yet he was willing to commit a much more serious crime in order to run away, based on hearing the word “police.”  We all respond to trauma and fear in ways that are not ideal.  

My fear that the driver may have been intentionally trying to run me down was based on past experiences.  I’ve experienced aggressive driver behavior too often to count, including behavior that put my life at risk in order to teach me that I wasn’t welcome on the roads.

But I didn’t experience that behavior coming from the driver who struck me.  I allowed my fear and my past experiences to push me to do something that could be extremely harmful to a person who didn’t deserve that from me - and in the moment, I didn’t even care.  

Just like police officers who open fire on unarmed people, I was triggered by the fear and past trauma to make a snap decision that could mess up somebody’s whole life.  I angrily threatened a young Black man with the police.  And then I doubled down on that threat by filing a criminal report, even though at the time I didn’t think it would result in any harm to any individual.

The next morning, I got a surprise message from a detective stating that in fact, upon review, a small transposition error in the license plate had led to a misunderstanding.  The police had indeed been able to find the car in question, and went to the owner’s address to speak to her.  Her teenage son had been driving, and he was afraid for his life based on perceptions of how interactions with the police can go for young Black men.  She was afraid for him for those same reasons.

In this specific situation, the only people who were using their heads and not filled with fear and adrenaline as a result of the incident were the responding officer, district commander, investigating detective and chief of police.

I dropped the criminal case and asked for written confirmation that nothing bad will happen to the driver or his mother.

And I’ll live with my very deep shame and use it to grow as a person.  I shouldn’t have immediately started talking about the police to the young man who was apologizing to me.  I shouldn’t have screamed at him as he drove away.  I shouldn’t have had a criminal report filed. And I damn sure shouldn’t have posted on social media.

At every step in the interaction, I could have de-escalated and offered compassion.  Instead, I let the fear take the wheel even when people I love tried to get me to calm down first.

I’m a police and prison abolitionist who has been an activist for my entire life, and I embarrassed myself and acted irrationally in the context of fear and adrenaline.  I certainly hope that others are capable of better and more thought than I demonstrated in this scenario, but at the end of the day, I’m leaving this event more committed than ever to my politics.

To me, the next steps are clear.  We need to loudly, publicly, and transparently commit to Vision Zero.  Through this framework, we must design and build an environment that does not require throwing human beings into situations likely to provoke such powerful fear responses.    

We need to reimagine public safety and find opportunities to stem the flow of system failures upstream, rather than ask police officers to leap from crisis response to crisis response with no end in sight.

We need to reimagine our world and find every opportunity to offer empathy and compassion, not threats and the use of violence.

We need a politics of love and solidarity

After reading his overwrought confession, I am more convinced that Councilman Brown has a temperament that is unsuited to public office and needs to resign.

I have sent an email to Councilman Brown requesting he give the IMPD permission to release all information, written, audio, video pertaining to this case.

Stay tuned for more developments.

UPDATE: Councilman Jesse Brown has refused to ask IMPD to release information, audio, video etc. because:

I don't think any of these records are going to offer much insight to you or others, and don't think that it's worth the time and resources from taxpayers to ask them for these records. 

And:

I remain deeply embarrassed by the actions I outlined in my written piece, but I'm satisfied with the conclusion of the situation and I'm happy to be focused on the future. 

This is the second incident I know of where Jesse Brown has lost his temper. It fits a pattern. I predicted this would happen last December and I predict he will do it again.

.

After the April 1st Indianapolis Council meeting, I ran to catch up to Councilman Jesse Brown to continue our conversation, but he clammed up. Why won’t the self-described “police abolitionist” talk about the incident?

The Avidor Gazette will seek to figure out what went on that night. If the Councilman won’t talk, maybe the driver will come forward and tell us his side of the story. Stay tuned.

According to Councilman Brown, police arrived 40 minutes later. Brown claims the police told him the plates on the car were stolen and there wouldn’t be an investigation.

The Councilman, a frequent, outspoken critic of the IMPD, then made this comment:

Lol nope! Waited 40 minutes for @IMPDnews and turns out the kid had someone else's license plate on the car. Since I wasn't seriously hurt, they aren't even going to investigate.

Commit a felony against a city councilor in broad daylight! Why not? No consequences, apparently.

In summary, Jesse Brown, an outspoken, anti-racist “police abolitionist” who is proudly wearing a “Defund the Police” t-shirt in the photo below, had a minor fender-bender with a young Black man he referred to as a “kid” who tried to resolve the matter by paying Jesse Brown with a cash app. Jesse Brown refused the offer and called 911. The young man then drives off. Brown then complains about the police response, expecting special treatment because of he is a councilman.

There are way, way too many ironies to unpack here.

UPDATE: Councilman Jesse Brown has posted on X that he is changing his story. I will keep covering this… stay tuned!

In a more recent exchange on X, Councilman Brown confessed he bought and sold firearms in a careless manner that could possibly have violated Federal law.

Jesse Brown has in the recent past, asserted his belief that felons should be allowed to purchase and own firearms.