A little bit of home...

Last night I had the opportunity to hear Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens) speak at Hollywood High School. He is doing this Question/Answer tour where basically he goes from place to place just answering questions of the people who decide to show up. I was very excited for this chance because Mr. MacKaye is very active in the local music scene in DC, went to the same high school I did and currently lives in the next neighborhood over from my family. Most of the questions had to do with his lyrics, relationship with former Minor Threat band mates, current state of Fugazi, his "straight edge" lifestyle and other fan related things. But I was incredible excited to hear him speak so much about the DC culture and Wilson High School specifically. He spoke extensively about being a white kid in a majority black school and experiencing reverse racism in pretty dramatic ways. I want to share a story that particularly resonated with me though...

At some point in the past few years, Nike began marketing a skateboarding shoe and used the cover from a Minor Threat record with the words "Major Threat" in an add campaign. Because of the wide use of this on the Internet, he was notified pretty quickly by angry fans. Nike received much hate mail regarding the issue and discontinued the poster and issued a public apology regarding the situation. People encouraged MacKaye to contact Nike for some financial retribution. He decided, however, that he wanted to money for this because it would be the same as selling their identity to Nike. Instead he developed a plan to ask Nike to pay him in balls which he would then donate to DC public schools. So, he basically asked Nike's lawyers for $25,000 or so in balls (soccer, football, basketball, etc...) at cost, not the massive mark up value. Because of the unorthodoxy of the situation, Nike suggested that they give him the money and then he purchase the balls. He refused and insisted on the physical balls. This story is all great, until it comes to actually donating them to DCPS. Mackaye reports he called and called and called DCPS and was unable to get in touch with anyone about donating the balls. He was finally able to get in touch with our (we have the same one) councilman who reported that DCPS has the highest per student $$ in the country, but it's one of the most corrupt systems. Mackaye insisted that the balls would prevent this situation and the councilman responded with: "Check E-bay the next day". He ended up getting the cash and has donated it to many local charities, which is awesome, but it was hard to hear about the mess in a school system I came through.

I'm sorry that story was kind of a downer, but despite the sad ending, I think it's great that an artist who could collect his cash and buy more worthless crap would think creatively about how to use it. On a side note, I chatted with him afterwords and discovered that his friends used to live in the house my family currently lives in back in the 80's. I think he was more excited to hear that than I was. All very surreal.