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>>Female Presenter: Welcome everybody to this discussion of "Oakland in Popular Memory."
I'm very proud to introduce my friend Matt Werner today. And it's incredibly interesting.
I've read it and it's over here and you should definitely pick up a copy. His incredibly
interesting book. The image of Oakland, California has been tainted in the mainstream media with
salacious news reports focusing on street violence, shootings, gangs, and riots.
These reports, along with assumptions and stereotypes, feed the fabricated image that
outsiders have of the city. In "Oakland in Popular Memory," interviews with 12 cutting-edge
musicians from Oakland and beyond, Oakland native and former host of the award-winning
radio show on Fresh Air: The Alternative.
Matt Werner introduces a different narrative representing a collection of his best interviews
with leading artists from Oakland and artists who've influenced musicians from Oakland.
In the spirit of Studs Terkel, Werner conducted long form interviews from 2008 to 2012, which
cover the 2008 election of President Obama, the shooting of Oscar Grant, and the Occupy
Oakland protests.
Werner spoke with artists at length discussing topics like race relations in Oakland in the
post-Oscar Grant era, post literary theory, and the changing landscape of the music industry
during the Digital Revolution. And with that, and I'm sure you'll see significantly more,
I'm happy to introduce Matt Werner.
[applause]
>>Matt: Thank you.
[pause]
Little did I know, when I started the book, "Oakland in Popular Memory" in June 2011,
that I would get tear-gassed during my research. Little did I know when I started researching
Oakland's history, looking into ways to apply it to current events that it would set me
on a collision course with Occupy Oakland.
[pause]
I know that having grown up in Oakland, California, that it's several cities in one. But over
the past year, I've seen that Oakland is a never-ending conversation and it's greatly
misunderstood by the outside media. Take, for example, yesterday's New York Times Magazine
article titled "Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America."
It calls Oakland quote "a kind of Amish village for retro-radicals." And it portrays Oakland
as overrun with anarchists, communists, ineffective city leadership, and aging radicals. Essentially,
it portrays Oakland as a retirement home for radicals. Last Friday, I ran into Boots Riley
of The Coup at the First Friday Art Murmur.
And I asked what he thought of this article which profiled him so prominently in yesterday's
New York Times. And he replied quote that "Oakland isn't the end of an old radical movement.
It's the beginning of a new one." And I thought that was a interesting point that he made.
However, the Oakland that I've grown up and experienced is one that, it's quite different
from that. And it's this Oakland that I've grown up in is one that I wanna share with
you guys today.
So, I interviewed 12 artists and musicians from Oakland and those who've had a big impact
on Oakland artists. And I collected those interviews into the book "Oakland in Popular
Memory." And so, the structure of my talk is as follows. I'll read the afterword first
and then the introduction. The second part of the talk, I'll talk about the design, printing,
and the book binding.
And then, thirdly, I'll talk about how I actually did the interviews themselves on the radio
show I had in grad school. And then at the end, I'll open it up for questions.
[pause]
So, I'll begin reading the afterword, which is titled "Gertrude Stein's Oakland." And
I initially wrote this as a blog post for the Google Books blog on February 3rd this
year, which was Gertrude Stein's birthday.
[reads from book] "Ever since Gertrude Stein wrote of Oakland,
quote, 'there is no there there,' people have used this quote to condemn the city. But taking
a closer look at the quote and the context in which it was written, we can see it is
an expression of 'painful nostalgia' and not of disdain or insult to Oakland.
Let's take a closer look at this famous quote and how it relates to the artists interviewed
in this book, putting a new 'there' in Oakland. The quote comes from page 298 of Stein's 'Everybody's
Autobiography,' published in 1937. The full quote is 'what was the use of my having come
from Oakland. It was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or
anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.'
Stein's family moved to Oakland in 1880, when she was six. Her family lived in a home near
today's 13th Avenue and East 25th Street. She lived in Oakland until 1891, and left
at age 17 for Baltimore, after her parents passed away. Oakland was a much smaller town
back then, with a population of just under 35 thousand in 1880.
Nearly 45 years later, Stein returned to Oakland on a lecture tour in 1935. By that time, the
city had grown nearly ten times to over 300 thousand residents. When she tried to find
her childhood home, it was no longer there. When she published 'Everybody's Autobiography'
two years later, saying there was 'no there there,' it was written to reflect a painful
nostalgia about her home being gone and the land around it being completely changed.
The house where she grew up was on a sprawling ten-acre plot surrounded by orchards and farms.
By 1935, it had been replaced by dozens of houses. Oakland held a special significance
to her, and on her return, she found that Oakland had urbanized and changed from the
pastoral place she remembered. Gertrude Stein writes in her autobiographical novel, 'The
Making of Americans,' about her childhood in Oakland, where a child 'could have all
anybody could want of joyous sweating, of rain and wind, of hunting, of cows and dogs
and horses, of chopping wood, of making hay, of dreaming, of lying in a hollow all warm
with the sun shining while the wind was howling.'
Returning to her home decades later to find it gone and to find Oakland no longer a place
'of chopping wood, of making hay' struck her, and she wrote her famous 'no there there'
quote in response. This makes me wonder if one of the artists interviewed in this book
were to return to Oakland 40 years from now, would they recognize the city?
One theme in some of the interviews was a notion of disenfranchisement similar to what
Stein experienced by returning to a changed city. People are getting pushed out of Oakland
at an alarming rate. African Americans made up nearly 50 percent of the city when I was
born in 1984, and that number has dropped to only 27 percent today.
There were 33 thousand fewer African Americans living in Oakland in 2010 than there were
in 2000. Like Stein returning to Oakland to find it completely changed, would an artist
interviewed in this book experience a similar feeling returning to Oakland 40 years from
now? When researching Gertrude Stein at the Oakland History Room, the literary portrait
files had photos of Jack London, a contemporary of Stein's, who also grew up in Oakland.
The file included other famous authors who visited Oakland in the late 1800s, including
Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, and John Muir. Despite the misinterpretation of Stein's
quote, there had always been a 'there' in Oakland. Oakland has been blessed with several
waves of artistic movements, stretching back to these authors.
And in interviewing innovative artists and writers in Oakland today for this book, I've
seen first-hand that now, more than ever, there is a 'there' in Oakland."
[pause]
So that's the afterword that I conclude the book with. And I was very happy. The Huffington
Post recently ran that. And then, next, I'm gonna read the introduction, which is a little
bit more polemical. It's called "In Defense of Oakland." And this piece, it's a little
bit longer just to give you guys fair warning. I think it's around 15 minutes. So, just give
you guys heads up.
[reads from book] "When I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley,
I remember talking with a sorority girl at a party about where we grew up. She was from
Orange County. I replied I was born in Oakland, and I grew up in Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley,
and Palo Alto. She stared at me in disbelief. One word stood out to her. 'Oakland?
Oh, we don't go into Oakland.' When I prodded her some more, she said that Oakland was so
violent, and that there were so many murders, and that her parents warned her never to go
into Oakland. Eventually, I got her to admit that she goes Zachary's Pizza only a couple
of miles south of UC Berkeley and to Fentons Ice Creamery.
But she insisted that she didn't venture any further into Oakland than Fentons. It was
clear that the mere mention of 'Oakland" triggered something of a fear response in her. Her use
of the word 'into' was also very telling. In a sense, that one little word reflected
not only her fear but many people's ambivalence toward Oakland as well.
It was as if the locales of Zachary's and Fentons--upper middle class neighborhoods--were
not part of Oakland but extensions of Berkeley, and that the idea of venturing any farther
'into' Oakland was unfathomable. Fear is driven by the unknown, and the fact that she wouldn't
go any further into Oakland meant that she would remain fearful of Oakland--especially
if her only exposure to the city was through the media's violence-centered and racially-charged
depiction of it.
By not stepping outside her comfort zone to see Oakland for what it really was, she would
continue to harbor these thoughts about my place of birth. This encounter has stayed
with me because, for the first time, I began to consider Oakland through the eyes of an
'outsider.' This encounter is representative of the many I've had since, and it is these
misconceptions that motivated me to offer a different narrative of Oakland.
The Oakland I've grown up in has its challenges like any major city, but what stands out to
me is the cultural renaissance happening in Oakland today. I've been privileged to have
a front-row seat to witness what's been happening in Oakland, and this book is a collection
of interviews with those people who know it best--musicians and writers from Oakland who
are shaping its art scene.
Wanting to understand the outsider's perspective of Oakland, I wondered, why do even reputable
outlets like the Discovery Channel air sensationalist programming about Oakland? They have two shows
called 'Gang Wars: Oakland' and 'Gang Wars II: Oakland,' [laughter] which follow the
Oakland Gang Task Force.
So by a show of hands, I was wondering, are any of you guys familiar with these shows?
Have you seen the Gang Wars programming about Oakland? OK so, just a couple people, so all
cue you guys in.
The first episode begins with a deep voice-over saying, 'Oakland, California home to some
of the most violent gangs in America. Here, almost ten thousand gang members rule with
deadly force, recruiting teens, running drugs, selling guns, and murdering on a whim. Now,
an elite police unit made up of just eight men fights to bring justice to the streets,
and the top gang lords are arrested to make Oakland safe again, but something has gone
terribly wrong.'
The voice-over continues, painting a grim portrait of Oakland, calling it, quote, 'ground
zero in a new American war. Violent street gangs fight over drug turf, and the battle
is only escalating.' Comparisons to Iraq add to the already sensational tone, giving viewers
the impression that just below the surface, Oakland is fomenting with such violence, that
at any moment all hell will break loose.
With this much negative press, it's no wonder people are afraid to go into Oakland. Given
the presuppositions and stereotypes that result from such portrayals, it's hard for visitors
to experience the reality of what is presented before them because it clashes with the narrative
they've internalized from countless news reports.
People consuming this type of media go to Oakland expecting to find drive-by shootings,
roving gangs toting AK-47s, as well as pimps, prostitutes, and race riots. However, people
visiting Oakland are often surprised when they don't see this, but instead find several
avant-garde movements in art, music, fashion, urban farming, and local food. Chinaka Hodge,
an Oakland writer, whom I was fortunate to interview for this collection, writes about
the perceptions of Oakland in her blog."
And then, I wanna give a little extended quote from Chinaka here.
" 'I lived on the East Coast for a few years. Tell a New Yorker you're from Cali, and they'll
assume, eight times out of ten, that you're from Los Angeles. I live in LA now. Tell the
average Angeleno that you're from up North, they assume San Francisco.
Oakland is constantly upstaged, asterisked, and misunderstood. In my travels, I still
field questions about the 1996 Ebonics debate, I talk about a hoop squad that is more than
Latrell's hands around someone's neck, I remind that we are more than the riots that followed
the Raiders' loss at the 2003 Super Bowl.'
Hodge continues, setting the record straight about what Oakland is and what the city does
best. [beeping on screen] 'In short, Oakland is proud because no one else will be proud
for us. We exercise a rich cultural legacy, a policy for introspection and a knack for
finding the next. The town is a study in surprise, in artistic innovation, in movements foreign
to the rest of the planet.
We are the birthplace of leather jackets rocked with berets at free breakfast, where Skyline
High School taught Tom Hanks to act, the original terminal for all Pullman Porter activity,
where Walt Disney visited a theme park near a lake and began drafting ideas for Disneyland.
Here, we make ideas that power the world.
We do what no one else does, and we do it well.' Hodge's poetic description giving snapshots
of various periods of Oakland's history captures Oakland's free-spirited character that is
at once tough, artistic, and even sensitive--a character often misunderstood. But Oakland
is unapologetic. After all, it knows who it is--a strong city, that's gracious and accepting
of people from all economic and cultural backgrounds.
Oakland residents are resilient, free-spirited, and confident, qualities which keep the city
at the cutting edge and help it forge trends in fashion, music, dance, or as Hodge puts
it, making 'ideas that power the world.' These ideas are indeed powerful as they go beyond
individual expression and often speak to the collective soul of a generation or a group
of people.
Oakland often mediates the production of art, language, and cultural innovation for the
US and it has regularly produced some of the country's top talent."
So, I'm skipping ahead to the final section of the introduction. It's called "Oakland:
The secret is out."
[reads from book] "Ishmael Reed wrote in 'Oakland Rhapsody:
The Secret Soul of an American Downtown' in 1995, that Oakland is America's best kept
secret. Well, the secret is out. And the media is starting to take notice. The New York Times
ranked Oakland as one of the top five places to visit in the world in 2012.
The New York Times Travel Section gives credit to Oakland native chef James Syhabout, but
it also points that Oakland is now worth visiting because famous San Francisco chefs have decided
to set up shop in Oakland. But it's not only such entrepreneurial transplants that makes
Oakland worth visiting. Those in the know would say the media's recognition of Oakland's
thriving cultural realm was long overdue, especially given the city's growth spurt in
the art, music, fashion, and literary scenes in the last decade.
In the last few years alone, over a dozen new art galleries have popped up in Oakland's
Northgate-Waverly district, previously known for its auto repair shops and warehouses.
Such a Renaissance no doubt draws inspiration from Oakland's rich history as a cultural
destination in the late 19th century, hosting the likes of Gertrude Stein, Jack London,
Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, and John Muir, to name a few.
More recently, Oakland gave birth to the Hyphy Movement, the Scraper Bike movement, and turf
dancing, while Mac Dre, E-40, and Keak da Sneak invented much of the hip-hop language
used internationally today. Several local news sources have sprung up in recent years
to document this renaissance in art collectives, local food movement, urban farming, and music,
including Oakland Local, Oakland North, Bay Citizen, Oakland Seen, Thizzler, and 38th
Notes.
The Bay Area's indie and underground scenes are constantly studies in surprise. They've
historically been engines of innovation, creating new musical styles and language. What's happening
on the ground today in the Bay may take months or even years to become mainstream. Novelist
William Gibson said 'The future is already here--it's just not very evenly distributed.'
In the Bay Area, the future in music and language is already here. Each artist I interviewed
is innovating in his or her own way. You can listen to the future of music through these
artists. Oakland is a never ending conversation. In this book, I didn't have to set out to
curate viewpoints or quell perspectives that differ with my own.
And I don't pretend to have the city wrapped up. Studying Oakland's history and reading
books like 'No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland' by Chris Rhomberg
and 'American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland' by Robert Self, I've
found more paradoxes about my hometown than I can reconcile.
These artists who voice the paradoxes of urban America give us a unique lens through which
to view Oakland. These twelve established and up-and-coming artists give perspectives
on Oakland different from the usual media narrative about the city.
What I admire about these artists is how they've kept their authenticity as they've grown in
their music and how they champion the Oakland quality of having a knack for finding the
next. And as for the sorority girl at the beginning, I hope she visited Oakland while
she was at UC Berkeley. If not, she sure missed out on a lot."
[pause]
So that was the end of the introduction. So, now for the second phase of the talk, I'll
walk you guys through how I actually put the book together 'cause it's a fairly non-conventional
process I used. So, I have some photos here on Google+ which I'll flip through.
[pause]
So, I ended up. So basically, to give context, my cousin is a printer in Sacramento and my
uncle is a book binder in Berkeley. So I used the family resources and I printed and then
hand bound all the books myself, with help of family. So, this is my cousin Sean right
here. He's a master printer. And we actually used laser printers 'cause he has about a
hundred of them in his warehouse.
And so, this is him getting a duplexer unit ready. And then this is example of basically
how I printed out pages. And then there's Sean. He's, let's see. I have that he's checking
the toner density. And what was interesting is as being the author, I did the design,
layout, copy editing, proofreading, and I mean, I did have a group of friends helping
me out.
But it's very interesting then printing and then binding your own work 'cause not too
many authors do that today. But then, having all of this full creative control over the
book itself, I was able to do some special things with it. Oh, yep. So these are the
printers. So, it's good to have a cousin when you're a writer with these kind of printers.
And for those of you who were at my Tech Talk last year about my first book, I used pretty
much the same exact process from printing the first book as with the second one. So,
I ended up using Strathmore, 100 percent cotton paper which is perhaps the most expensive
paper you can use because it's archival quality.
And the reason I chose this is because when I was working at UC Berkeley as an undergrad,
I got to work in their Bancroft Library, which is their special archiving collections. And
if we wanted something to last for a long time, we would print it out on 100 percent
cotton paper because it'll last for hundreds of years.
So, I ended up going upscale with that one area. And then also, why I chose this paper
is that I used to intern and volunteer at McSweeney's Publishing in San Francisco. So
I was there for about five years and I got to work closely with the author Dave Eggers.
And on a number of the projects, they're very unique and special binding.
And they use very high-quality paper. And the reason for doing this is that in this
digital age, a lot of the large publishers now, they're trying to cut costs and bend
corners any way possible. So, a lot of them now are printing on newsprint essentially.
They're having the books printed in China very cheaply and then shipped here in bulk.
But if you guys have ever been to like, Wal-Mart or Target and you go to the book section and
you pick up the book, it doesn't really feel like a quality object. Whereas in this digital
age, I feel it's very interesting being a Google employee stepping back and saying,
"Well, there is validity to e-readers, but I don't think the printed book in its form
is gonna go out of fashion."
And so, as a counter argument, I've been going in the opposite direction of showing the staying
power of the book as a physical object and really making something beautiful and it be
coveted. So, that's a long explanation of why I chose the paper I did. And then, so
here we are now. This is my uncle's binding shop in Berkeley.
And so, that's my sister, Kelly, and friend, Sean. And basically, he sells these book binding
machines. And then this is also a foil printer. So usually, to be able to get foil on a book
cover, you need to get a stamp dye, but those are, it's very expensive. And I wanna keep
this low budget. So, it just happens that my uncle has these printers that can print
in gold and silver foil.
So, I ended up choosing silver with the black background to get the Oakland Raiders look--the
silver and black. [laughter] So, there's Sean doing quality control. So basically I printed
everything out on eight and a half by eleven paper. And then we used this paper trimmer.
We cut the manuscript in half. And then we would fold the halves back in to make a book
bundle.
And we put the two covers on both sides. And then, there's my brother. So basically, we
would put this binding strip in this machine and it would heat press the binding strip
onto the edges of the paper. And then once the glue that was super heated then cooled,
then the book was ready to go. So basically, I got all my extended family to come out and
help out.
So, I ended up making three versions of the book. On the left, you have the green and
yellow, which is the Oakland A's version. In the center is the silver and black, the
Oakland Raiders version, which was the one that I mass produced. And then I had the blue
and gold version, which is for Golden State Warriors, or UC Berkeley 'cause I'm a big
Cal fan.
[pause]
And then, by making these one at a time by hand, we could just do any kind of custom
cover combination we wanted, then be experimental and creative with it. Whereas, had I sent
it off to a large printer, I wouldn't have been able to have this artistic control. And
then this is my uncle ***, Jim Kelly.
It was great to have him on-site 'cause he helped create and invent these machines. And
so, if we ran into any problems, he was there to help troubleshoot. And then there's my
dad binding the books. And then you can see the black binding strips there that he inserts.
And that machine in front of the binder is actually a spine printer. And that's what
we used to print the spine.
[pause]
And there's the book being super heated in the press. And then there's my mom collating
the manuscripts into a book. So, I really got the whole family out there.
[pause]
OK. So that's the collection, a little bit of the book process. And then next, I want
to, I'm going to bring up, talk a little bit about the artist interviews that I did. And
then after that, I'll open it up for questions. OK. So, this is Chinaka Hodge, who is the
first interview in the book. I had a former classmate of mine from the University of Edinburgh,
where I went to grad school.
She's a very good portrait artist, Laura Tomlinson. And I asked her to draw portraits of the twelve
people I interviewed. And I thought she did an excellent job just using pencil on plain
paper. And so, I had her draw the various portraits. This is Rafael Casal, who''s from
Berkeley. And how I chose the various people interviewed was I had this college radio show
in Scotland, but out there people were very interested in what was happening in the West
Coast hip-hop scene and the indie rock scene out here.
And so, I started out interviewing friends of mine and friends of friends who I had grown
up with through Youth Speaks doing poetry slams here in the Bay area. And so, Rafael
Casal is, he's a real well-known in the poetry slam and spoken word circuit. And he's just
now emerging as a talent in the hip-hop arena.
[pause]
And here's Dahlak Brathwaite. He's from Sacramento.
[pause]
So, this is Dave Smallen. We went to high school together at Bishop O'Dowd in East Oakland.
And he actually designed the cover of the book. And so, for the cover, I told him I
wanted something that says "Oakland." And so we have Oakland in the block letters. And
then we have the Oakland Tribune tower with an oak tree behind it.
And he actually created a linoleum block print. So he carved a piece of linoleum and then
put ink on it and then pressed a paper on it. And then I have the original that I based
the cover off of right over there. And then basically, I scanned his print and then yeah,
I made the foil version that you see on the final cover.
So, this is George Watsky. He was the first interview I did back in 2008 because he was
very obscure at that time. And I knew I could get him 'cause he was a friend of mine growing
up from the poetry slam circuit. But it just happens that, just in the last year, he's
gained a lot of notoriety because of a viral video he made on YouTube called "Pale Kid
Raps Fast," which has over ten million views.
And he got to go on the Ellen DeGeneres show twice this year to showcase his fast rapping
style. But I chose a picture of him where it showed his swagger and personality.
[pause]
And then this is Ise Lyfe. The interview I did with him was one of the most provocative
ones because it really made me question some of the assumptions and stereotypes that I
had of living in Oakland. And he really brought a much needed perspective. We discuss quite
a bit around race relations in Oakland in the post Oscar Grant era and also a legacy
of Jerry Brown's housing policy in Oakland and all these various issues of gentrification
in Oakland today.
And talking with him really challenged where I stand on various things. And it was very
interesting interviewing him because we've known each other since high school. And he's
been working as a community organizer in East Oakland, but he also has a thriving business
and he performs quite a bit with his hip-hop and spoken word.
And so, that was--. If you're gonna read one interview, it would be the Ise Lyfe one. And
this is K Flay. Another musician. This is Kid Beyond, who is a beat boxer. So, he, that
was one of the most entertaining interviews I did. And unfortunately, the text version
really doesn't do him justice because he did about ten different impersonations during
the interview.
He actually can do a spot-on impersonation of Barack Obama. And so, I had him do "Hey,
you're listening to the DJ Matt Werner show on Fresh Air: The Alternative, University
of Edinburgh student radio." But he said the call line in Obama's voice. And for a couple
weeks after, at school, at the University of Edinburgh, people were wondering like,
"How did you get Barack Obama to do the voice over on your show?"
Or, "How did you manipulate his speeches to say DJ Matt Werner and Fresh Air: The Alternative?"
So, yeah. He's a very talented guy. And for him, unfortunately, the text version, it's
good but it really doesn't do this range, this vocal talent that he has justice. And
so, that one, I do have podcasts of most of the interviews on my website.
Matts writing dot com. And then this is MC Lars, who his trademark is wearing an Oakland
A's starter cap. So, yeah. He's also from Oakland. And this was Saul Williams, a spoken
word artist. And the reason I interviewed him is that he's from Philadelphia. He's not
from Oakland, but he's had a real big impact on the style of spoken word that a lot of
the artists I interviewed.
So, I thought he would be a good edition to have in the book. And then, I also interviewed
Talib Kweli, who is from Brooklyn, New York. And then, he also has had a big influence
on the style of this progressive hip-hop that a number of the artists I interviewed shared.
So, that's why I included him in the collection.
And then this is Victor Vazquez aka Kool AD. He's from this band called Das Racist. And
they have this very interesting style of post-modern hip-hop. And for him, I went to, basically
I went to grade school with him in Alameda. And I had been reading stuff about him saying,
well basically, articles had called him like a Brooklyn artist and then some had said he's
from Hunter's Point, San Francisco.
But then I wanted to set the record straight, like, "No, he's from Oakland and Alameda."
So, to claim that East Bay. So, I included him in the collection as well. So, that's
the conclusion of the overview of who I interviewed and a little bit of background about the book.
And if you guys would like, we have a microphone right there. You can come up and ask some
questions.
>>Male #1: Is this? I'm curious how you feel about the popularization of First Friday slash
Art Murmur in Oakland and the notoriety that's bringing to especially the visual arts scene
of Oakland.
>>Matt: So, you're question is how do I feel about the popularization of the First Friday
Art Murmur in Oakland?
>>Male #1: Mm-hmm.
>>Matt: Well, I think it's a very interesting event. I've been going there every month since
November of 2011, I've been attending. And I've written a number of pieces for Oakland
Local--the local news site--recapping what's happened at this month's Art Murmur. And for
those of you who aren't familiar with it, the first Friday of each month in Oakland
in this Northgate-Waverly district, it's a little bit outside of the downtown, right
before you hit the Broadway auto row.
There's now 25 galleries and mixed-use spaces that open up and thousands of people come
out in downtown Oakland between 6 to 10 PM each month. And it's really an amazing event
where there's yeah, all these artists in the galleries themselves, but then there's so
many different street performers, street vendors.
I was actually selling my book the last couple of months on the street. And people make their
own jewelry. It's very interesting event. But what's interesting is some of the people
I interviewed in the book have mixed feelings about it. I know Chinaka Hodge, she posted
on Facebook a while back where she was jogging through I guess that area of Oakland wearing
a shirt that said "Kill a Hipster, Save Your Hood."
[laughter]
And she was getting some kind of nasty looks or shocked looks. And then, I know Ise Lyfe,
his real name is Isaac Brown. He's been highly critical of some of Jerry Brown's 10K plan,
which a lot of people feel was the precursor to this wave of artists.
So, there are some in Oakland who argue that turning these auto repair shops into these
art galleries is actually really rising rents and pushing people out of this area of Oakland.
And I think that may be a valid argument. I haven't really researched it too much. But
the feeling of Art Murmur, 'cause I've written now a few pieces on this, and I interviewed
one woman a couple months back who, and I asked about the start of Art Murmur and what
she thinks of it now.
And she said when it first started up about five or six years ago, it was a lot of these
art students from California Academy of the Arts and it had this real hipster vibe. And
she called it like a 'too cool for school' thing. It's people come out on their track
bikes with the skinny jeans, drinking their Pabst Blue Ribbon, smoking their skinny cigarettes.
And it had this elitest-like, artsy vibe. But in the last like, six months though, I
felt that Art Murmur has become very democratic in that there's people from all areas of Oakland,
all walks of life, and they're there, a lot of people are there on the street just trying
to make an extra buck, you know, selling tamales, things like that.
And so, for me, I'd say overall it's a positive thing because I'd love to see Oakland get
known for its art, its music, its local culture, get this recognition as opposed to just people
fixating on the violence in Oakland, which is present. I'm not going to gloss over that.
But it's not the only thing happening in Oakland.
>>Male #1: Thanks.
[pause]
>>Male #2: You mentioned you were tear gassed. I'm assuming that was Occupy Oakland and not
at a party. But the, as somebody who was also there, I'm wondering what are your thoughts
and what are the artists thoughts on Occupy Movement, its surgeance and its vibrance in
popular media?
>>Matt: So, the Occupy Oakland question.
>>Male #2: Of course.
>>Matt: I was hoping someone wouldn't ask my thoughts and opinions of it. I'm torn.
It's very complicated. It was last October. It was in late October. There was the police
crackdown on Occupy Oakland where they came in and raided the camp. And then, the police
shot off the tear gas and then there was a veteran was shot in the head by one of those
tear gas canisters--Scott Olsen. And it was very tense moment.
And during the week, I live here in Mountain View, close to the office. And then on weekends,
I go back to Oakland. And my housemates, who don't really understand Oakland, said, "Oh,
it's just people in Oakland are angry again. Oh, it's just riots again in Oakland." And
I became insulted. I was like, "How dare you just dismissively say 'Oh, it's just, that's
what people do in Oakland on weekends. They go out and riot.'"
And then the police need to go and control them. And I felt I had a lot of friends naive
comments about Occupy Oakland, so I was like, well I wanna go in and check it out. So, I
went in just a couple days after that incident where Scott Olsen was shot and I went into
the general assembly. And this was October 28th, 2011.
And I wrote a piece on it for Oakland Local and it was actually made into a play that
Theater Pub did in January of this year. And it was just called "My Visit to Occupy Oakland."
And I felt that I wasn't really part of the movement, but I was there more from a sociological
or cultural anthropologist perspective, there trying to understand what's going on because
it's like I was knee-deep working on this book on Oakland and that was by far the biggest
news happening in Oakland.
So I wanted to be there on the ground, find out what was happening. And then, fast forward
to, I believe it was January 28th of this year. There was a similar type of protest
and crackdown, except I didn't know about it. I was researching for my book. I was at
the Oakland Main Library and then I was cycling over to the Oakland Museum of California,
right there on the lake.
And it just happened to be that right on, I think it was 10th Street, all of a sudden
when I'm coming up, I see these road flares and I smell this really powerful smell. And
I think it's just road flares and stuff. And I see all these cop cars and unmarked vehicles
and then these protesters in those plastic handcuffs.
And the crowd had just been dispersed. And so I'm there and then I stop my bike and I
hop down and there's this photographer there. I'm like, "What just happened?" And then I'm
like, "Is that pepper spray in the air?" And then he's like, "No, that's tear gas. They
just shot it off." And I was like, "Oh, like I need to get out of here."
So, I felt that people just even living in downtown Oakland or passing through there
at any point like in the last six months, you would inadvertently be part of Occupy
or it would affect you in some way. And then, but as far as firmly coming down and saying
like, is Occupy Oakland good or is it bad? I'd have to say somewhere in-between because
now there's all these different factions of it that I don't fully understand like what
the goals of the Black Bloc are.
And it's this group of anarchists and but yeah. I don't really know too much more about
them to really make a informed comment.
[pause]
>>Male #3: So, Oakland has been on the frontlines of the medicinal marijuana issue and recent
crackdowns of the Oaksterdam back in effect. Just wondering what your feelings were about
that and if you see any changes, if your interviews referenced it. It's been, like it or not,
it's been a big part of the local economy. Not a lot of people are aware of that. But
it does actually affect a lot more people's lives than you would imagine even not the
people who directly are involved with it.
>>Matt: Yeah. So, at the First Friday Art Murmur, just happened a few days ago. Oaksterdam
actually had quite a big presence. There was their mascot was there dressed as a giant
***. And then they had people carrying the actual marijuana plants at their table. But
with Oaksterdam and the crackdown, it didn't come up in the book.
The book was more on how did the shooting of Oscar Grant by the BART police officer
really change things in Oakland. And the marijuana policy of Oakland didn't really come up. But
I know that is definitely one of like the top five issues in Oakland today because it
is a big tax revenue generator. And it actually has quite a bit of political support in Oakland.
I went to a Rebecca Kaplan fundraiser a few weeks back and she openly supported Oaksterdam
and the medicinal marijuana places in Oakland. And a lot of the council members are very
supportive of it and they were very angry that the Feds came in and cracked down, whereas
local law and state law allow it.
So, it's gonna be a very interesting issue to see how that plays out with local and state
politics versus federal politics. But I'm not really up on those set of debates. OK.
Thank you guys for coming out. And then I also have some photos from the book and you
can also purchase books over here for 15 dollars. OK, thank you.
[applause]