Porno For Pyros News

(11/24/99, 12 p.m. ET) - Perry Farrell, Michael Franti of Spearhead, and actress Rosie Perez were on hand at New York's Wetlands on Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 22 and 23) to present two days of Spitfire, a tour featuring artists speaking about politically sensitive topics.

Perez was there to speak about AIDS, and tells LAUNCH that the disease is not a very popular topic right now. "People are so tired of hearing of it, but it sucks because people are tired of dying and suffering and living with it, too," she said. "So it's kind of sh--ty. For those who don't have it, we're in a fortunate place. We do unfortunately have that liberty to say that we're sick and tired of it. So I'm just trying to build up the spirit of advocacy, you know? It's not over. There's no cure."

Farrell discussed Jubilee, an idea gathered from the Torah, the spiritual book of the Jewish people. "Jubilee is the Torah's law for redemption," Farrell explained. "It's a system for freeing slaves. These days, we can look at the economy, the poor nations as economic slaves, and nobody has a solution to how we can get the world to be a little more evened-out economically."

Farrell added, "We've had these laws, the laws of Jubilee, in Leviticus for thousands of years, and what they say is that every 50 years at the end of a generational cycle--so that would be seven times seven, 49 years--on the 50th year we are to proclaim freedom [and] liberty, free the captives, drop the debts, [and] let the land rest."

Franti was on hand to talk about racism and prison conditions, and Todd McCormick spoke about the use of medical marijuana. The Spitfire tour has featured many speakers in its one-year-plus existence, including Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine, and Krist Novoselic, formerly of Nirvana.

Features on Jane's Addiction and Rage Against The Machine are available on LAUNCH.com.

-- Darren Davis, New York

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