“I submit that an individual who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’m into all that, except for the part about showing the highest respect for the law, and the part about accepting imprisonment. Basically I just agree with the part about breaking laws. Martin Luther King was talking about fighting segregation, and it’s pretty safe to assume that anybody surfing the Jux site would agree that he did the right thing there. Now clearly (and that’s Clearly with a CAPITAL ‘C’) I’m no MLK. I’m not even “like the white MLK” like that herb from the white rapper show.

But I digress. What about the 1.5 billion other laws that we’re supposed to follow? Laws that we had no part in bringing into effect, laws that are really only enforced to raise money for the government, to prevent freedom of speech and action, laws that generally suck?

What about all THOSE laws? All the so-called quality-of-life laws that Giuliani put in place during the big push to turn New York into the urban Disneyland?

A lot of us break a lot of these laws all the time. Laws against open containers, graffiti, vandalism, public urination, sleeping in public, and the list goes on. When we get caught we get a ticket, a summons, or a night in jail. Most of these laws were basically created to give cops a reason to harass homeless people, to keep them moving and out of the eyes of the tourists and the rich.

I’m here to say fuck all that. I’m going to break every single one of those laws, and I’m going to take pictures too.

Today I’m going to break NYC Administrative Code §10-125, or as it’s commonly known, the “open container law.” Nobody wants a bunch of drunk idiots running around starting fights and hollering at girls. Agreed. But why can’t I enjoy a nice cold beer on a sunny day without worrying about Johnny Law giving me a summons or dragging me away for the night? Maybe it’s because after a few beers I feel like punching cops in the face just for living. Or maybe it’s cause cops feel like they can do shit like this and get away with it:

To make things a little spicier, lets do this in a real out-of-the-way place, like outside of a police precinct. And yes that is an actual bottle of Gran’dad’s Nerve Tonic. It is a real beer and it gets you drunk too, very much so.

See you all next time.

  = baje