The Earth Wants YOU

Reverend Billy Talen

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780872867079
• eBook ISBN: 9780872867086
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Theatre
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"You must check out the newest from my favorite transcendent and down to earth preacher."--Laurie Anderson, artist, musician

The Earth Wants YOU is a motivational handbook, filled with inspired visions of a wild, creative, Earth-led cultural revolution. Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping offer up a heady mix of humor, insightful critique, passionate commitment, emotional catharsis, and example after example of vibrant direct action. Stop shopping and feel the love as you sign up for the struggle of our lives! Earthalujah!

Praise for The Earth Wants YOU:

"Singing instructions for joining the Earthalujah choir!"--Jodie Evans, CODEPINK

"My Earthmojis are smiling for Reverend Billy! And that's all the dirt you're gonna get from me. O;"--Justin Vivian Bond, trans-genre artist, Radical Faerie

"Mama Earth will shake us ALL off unless we shake shit UP and shut it DOWN!"--Bertha Lewis, The Black Institute

"This is what makes social movements succeed--it's the big love-slog we have to go through to achieve change."--Andy Bichlbaum, The Yes Men

"Join Rev and his merry band of activists as they imagine ways of arousing concern for the environment and racial justice."--Coco Fusco, creator of Eu Sou Um Consumidor

"When the singing activists hit the high notes in a bank lobby or a DARPA lab or the back aisle of a Walmart, they wipe away the veils hiding the madness of our corporate-controlled, consumer-crazed society."--Annie Leonard, director of Greenpeace USA

"Ssssh, listen... let the Church of Stop Shopping exorcise your fear, doubt and burnout, and join the Earthalujah Revolution!"—Jess Worth, BP or not BP?

"This call to action is at once sobering and encouraging. We have fucked up really badly, but the ability to see it—is the first and hardest step toward fixing it."--Douglas Rushkoff, author of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus

"Reverend Billy's ALL IN! bodies and voices... not just clicks and posts, for this small village we call Earth. Preach On!"--Obang Metho, Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia

"The Stop Shoppers packs a whoop."--Roberto Sifuentes, La Pocha Nostra

"In between satire and silence, there is a space of penetrating reckoning for all vibrations that flow counter to the balance of Nature. And from this dynamic and tricky space, the Honorable Reverend and his Holified Choir will shout, sing and sermonize a soul-bound love message of Truthalujah!"--John Sims, The AfroDixie Remixes

"The Church of Stop Shopping is in the vanguard of a new movement that challenges this consumer society that is killing our planet."--Mike Roselle, Climate Ground Zero and Coal River Mountain Watch

"Billy, Savi and the choir have love and optimistic humor, and they don't give up on people."--David LaChapelle

"He seems to be writing while his actions are going on, like he can write while he's hand-cuffed."--Benny Zable, The Nimbin Environment Centre, NSW Australia

"The Earth Wants You takes readers deep inside the heart, mind and balls of the activist-artist. Reverend Billy rocks hard!"--Annie Sprinkle, artist, ecosexual sexecologist

"He was a comic act. Now he's evolved into a man compulsively challenging the true extent of the right to protest."--Anohni, creator of the song "4 Degrees"

Reverend Billy and his choir of singing-activists are on the front lines of creative direct action, and here they offer up a distillation of the passion, the inspiration, and the hopes for love and survival that fuel their work. In a mix of essays, polemics, surrealist scenarios and news flashes from the frontlines, Reverend Billy answers the question, "What are we to do?" with a resounding chorus of "Take Action NOW!"

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• It’s a Life
• Shopocalypse
• The Golden Toad Goes Banking
• What Is the Name of This Storm?
• A Prayer to the Dead
• Good or Bad vs. Live or Die
• Exiles on Main Street
• River Song
• The Hudson Comes Ashore
• On the Subway with Lena and Dad
• Replacement Planet
• To Have a Voice, You Must Trespass
• Man Down
• To Save Your Life in Ferguson
• Amaranth, Action Hero
• The Fabulous Unknown
• Flying
• Robobees vs. Honeybees in the Ivy League
• Speak, Earth