Marchers Demand Justice For Nia Wilson, 26.7.18

On 14th and Alice in downtown Oakland about 11am this morning we ran into a group gathered across from the Malonga Casquelourd Center preparing to march to the KTVU Fox Channel 2 television studios. Presenters were reading the story of how KTVU intentionally selected a photo for broadcast portraying murdered 18-year-old Nia Wilson with the typical corporate television wash of poverty and violence, a tactic well-known to anyone who’s watched commercial television from Fox to CNBC. They called the decision “dehumanizing.” Other people online have published videos interpreting the meaning of the photo as well as gestures of sympathy.

The group was to march to KTVU and demand that KTVU publish an admission of guilt and that the producers in charge of the decision be held accountable. Artists present to help build the vibe included Khafre James of Hip Hop for Change and the group Samba Funk (hope the link is correct). Cops closed off two or so intersections to allow the marchers to fill the streets on the path.

In fact, East Bay Express’ Josh Slowiczek beat me to publishing this story by an hour, so you can read his more in-depth piece here. We can corroborate Slowiczek’s number of about fifty people in the march at any given time. Those interested in contributing should find the Facebook and Instagram hashtag #Justicefornia.

In order to understand, the reader must let go of the racist and classist conditioning that controls perception of people we see in media: the person of color is an aggressor, the white person the victim. Nia Wilson was 18. That makes her a fresh highschool graduate. She could’ve been any teacher’s student, any parent’s child.
Her skin color and socioeconomic inheritance put her in the lowest class in the US, a measly 12% of population for whom the country can’t find a shred of empathy. She was murdered at the MacArthur BART last weekend almost certainly by cracker John Lee Cowell, who was also charged with attempted murder of her elder sister Lahtifa (sources have also Letifah, Latifah; correct spelling unconfirmed –there you have it with the white media) on Wednesday according to SF Gate.

How Liberals Reason #2

Hate to repeat myself, but, this is the world I live in.

One thing liberals and conservatives agree upon, it’s the need to drive the rest of the planet’s lifeforms to extinction in order to please humankind’s every appetite and whim. They don’t seem to ever find this common ground, though, when you get them in a room together…

Laswell/Zorn, Konx Om Pax, Chapel SF 13.7.18

I saw fuckin Bill Laswell, the man, last night in SF with his frequent collaborator John Zorn doing a thing they call Konx Om Pax. I went with my old pal Diahrrio of A Fashionable Disease, the best band in Santa Cruz in the oughts, and his girlfriend Danielle, who together do various noise projects. One of my other old friends showed up at the Chapel by surprise and a fine time was had by all. Below is the lame cellphone proof photo of the Chapel, one of SF’s great newish venues in the face of so many old ones dying.

Laswell’s doing his Material bass thing with all the effects and Zorn’s farting into his thigh with those red army camo pants. Tell me he wears those around Manhattan.

The coolest part was after the end when the two retreated upstairs after an hour, having said not a fucking word to the audience. Me and this other cat waited at the bottom of the stairs and finally our main man, Security Fred, offers to take our records up with him and get them signed. Thanks Fred! Laswell signed my old Celluloid Records Time Zone single!! Fucking stoked. Thanks Bill!!! It was a once-in-a-lifetime show, and even benefited something about pretending to care about abuse and destruction of migrant laborers over the last 50 years.

For the uninitiated, it’s hard to put the scope of Laswell’s contribution to punk rock and alternative (in the true broad sense, not like the 1994 BMG catalogue) music over the last 40 years into a quick statement. Before and even with the internet, Laswell is the only reason we know about Fela Kuti in the US. He seems to have been playing a game of making the most connections throughout his life. His bands Material, Last Exit, and Praxis, just to name a few, touch punk, hiphop, new age, ambient, jazz, Coltrane’s biggest fans Pharaoh Sanders and Sonny Sharrock, Bernie Worrell, and the Primus guys. He’s all about collaboration and mutual aid amongst artists. If you play the six-degrees game in contemporary music, you will find Bill every time. That woozy light-funk bass he’s known for might sound goofy in today’s context, but remember that he did it first and never stopped. It’s further notable that both Bill and Zorn have worked tirelessly to unite musicians on both coasts.

Not until I saw the ad for the show did I really feel how much his stuff has informed my life. What a treat to see him play. You can look up the similarly-cosmopolitan Zorn, I’m not really an expert except to say that his record project Tzadik was the inventor of the $35 fucking CD in the 90s, so we never dared hear Naked City even though we knew it’d be the most badass hardcore skronk that we needed to hear. Diahrrio’s band A Fashionable Disease was just a little influenced by Naked City, as it happens.

It was an old-guy set, which I loved, done by 10, and we were in bed by midnight.