JAMES KAELAN
ARTIST // POSTCAPITALIST
We're
Getting On
Novel
Author
Alephactory Press, $15
At a bar in Sacramento, a group of disaffected kids watch Saddam Hussein's trial on TV every night and compete with each other over who loves the tyrannical Middle East strongman most.
So when Dan, the charismatic-and-perhaps-despotic frontman of a popular local band compels four acolytes to follow him into the desert "to get to the bottom of this whole human condition," they're powerless to resist.
Originally published in 2010, We're Getting On reads now like a harbinger of America's accelerating economic stratification, political extremism, and environmental degradation.
LEONARD
Podcast series
Co-writer/Producer/Editor
In 1977, Native American activist Leonard Peltier was sentenced to consecutive life terms for killing two FBI agents. Then in 2000, a Freedom of Information Act disclosure proved the Feds had framed him. But Leonard's still in prison. This is the story of what happened on the Pine Ridge Reservation half a century ago—and the man who's still behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.
Escape Pod
The globe is warming. Machines are coming for our jobs. And the people who own those machines don't want to share their spoils.
Surviving the 21st century will require a radical rethinking what it means to be humans. Are we laborers who work so we can purchase goods in the market? Or are we animals living reciprocally in our natural environments?
Essay series
Writer/Creator
Bad CEO
Performance
Writer/Director
Andrew McCollum (Brennan Kelleher) isn't here to talk about how he captained two startups toward big exits. He wants to talk about his doubts. He wants to talk about how he became a bad CEO—and why you might want to consider becoming one, too.
Preview performance presented in collaboration with Free Machine & Ace Hotel, James Kaelan's Bad CEO is a a keynote by a fake founder having a real crisis of conscience.
Video Work


America the Beautiful || Teaser
Amazon Board Meeting || Music Video
