 All right we're gonna get started. Lotus Miller is not here yet. Unfortunately Kim Shuck has had a back spasm problem and that's really sad. But we have Mary Jean Robinson and if Mary Jean can come up and then is Mr. Natural out there yet? If someone can tell him he can come through that way if he's taking the chair he can come up on the stage this way. And then blood flower and Howard Williams. If you guys want to come up to the stage and I'll always try to read who the next four will be so you have an warning about that. Okay and I think Mary Jean's on her way. That's right. Oh you're behind me already. I like you. You know how to scare the heck out of me. Mary Jean Robinson has been an activist. God probably all her life. She's a mainstay at KPOO Radio. She's been an activist forever and someone I have a great deal of respect for. And so here is Mary Jean Robinson. Hi I'm really glad I don't have to follow Kim Shuck because she's really good. And she's also a friend of mine and she was really upset that she couldn't be here Dave. However she did let me have two of her poems to read. So I wanted to share those with you before I started in on Diamond Dave. This one is Kim Shuck is a poet who was born here in the city. And she is writing some very special city poems. And she wanted to read some of her city poems for Dave Whitaker because sort of fits you know. So this one's called Contraband. No need to forbid the songs on a Monday morning with the cold shivering the lights near the mint and the braced gray buildings with their red blinking signals to airplanes. Beware. I think of a fortress as an old fashioned thing. And in a way it is but we are not singing and the barricades are up in some pretense of offense. The boats are in the bay and the songs are not being sung. Although we are allowed and revolution is a T or a jacket and does not lend support and still the street lights are trembling as the woman under them does not. And we will measure her worthiness for help her parents and her choices and the mess the bold fact of her there and she isn't singing either not soup or poems. No songs of any kind. Oh Mike it's all right. Not that kind of Mike. And then the others poem that she wanted me to share with you is social lace. Social lace. It's smaller so I have to close it closer. Social lace of drawn threads. The web continuous. A formal tablecloth that we save for best. It's fragile and it's more fragile with each neighborhood tradition clipped and slowly pulled from the fabric. The stalwarts for birthdays. The sometime weekend visit. The neighbor with the snapdragons. And the fabric gets more fragile and more fragile as we pull each thread. So thank you Kim Shuck. Now you know why I didn't want to follow her. Yeah it's her birthday today so you know you're not supposed to get sick on your birthday. I don't know it's not fair happens. Okay so I just wanted to say that I came to the city in 1969. It was a great year to come to the city. I just turned 21 and I don't know you know I worked for mob l. It's the time when the phone company was the phone company and nobody else was around. And I also went to San Francisco State on strike. Shut it down. S.I. Hayakawa go away. And you know hell no we won't go. Yeah we know all those good old chance and everything else and you know I I discovered a lot of little nooks and crannies in San Francisco and there was a little alleyway on Natoma Street off the 7th Street in the 70s. And it was dark and dangerous and a very interesting place to be. And every once in a while in all of these places like over at China Basin the SLA was having the free food giveaway and I was working for the phone company over there at China Basin. And San Francisco State was having their ethnic studies and then I started working at Natoma Street on KPO radio. So here we go. 89.5 FM. KPO loves you. You all are our supporters and we really are a community radio station. And you keep us on the air. It's not anybody else. It's all of you who listen to us. And so every once in a while everywhere I went for 20 30 40 years I keep running into this guy who's a little short and he talks very very fast and he keeps talking with his hands. So every once in a while I feel like channeling this really beautiful wonderful wavy gravy kind of Wally Olly kind of Sufi kind of you know all these wonderful people Sunday Monday night class strange communes in any kind of thing you'd always find this guy in a red hat or some other weird conglomeration and you know what he always told me he was native and I always believed him and he keeps doing that because he is yeah so what I want to say is there is something very very special about one of the very first rappers before it was popular because Diamond Dave can talk a mile a minute and he still rhymes you know I don't know where his brain goes but it goes into this really wonderful marvelous strange space and I just wanted to thank you all for being here to celebrate Diamond Dave Whitaker day and I hope the city still has some spaces that his key is going to open because I know if there are those places Diamond Dave will find them and that's a marriage that's the Red Voices KPO radio such good memories and the key the key the key does the key the anarchy and I want to say to the Kim poem take down the walls open the doors get rid of the borders to families bands tribes communities collectives I believe it lad but borders just a line on their map hey hey Richard take it away well you see you see he still speaks and rhymes I want to thank Mary Jane for her for her wonderful reading and stories first of all I want to say that if you're going to come up on stage please come up behind Dan Brady should be back there and advise you what's next you can you can you can run around anywhere you want this is your day bro Mr. Natural Mr. Natural is someone that if you don't know and actually I have found people who don't know who Mr. Natural is I think that has to be changed this man has got more information a mind as I mean he can he taught taught there was talking about musical score and I never heard a man talk about a musical score the beauty of it the way it looked on the page I mean the man almost was weeping because he loves it so much so I have a great deal of respect for this guy and he's here to honor Diamond Dave thank you everybody well I lived I was born and raised in Chicago and in 1966 I escaped and came to San Francisco and in those days I'm gonna try to take you back a little bit we had this thing we were called beatniks do you remember that and we beatniks ran around and pretty much we were the precursors to hippies I guess say we were concerned about ecology civil rights etc etc but we were also really consumed with the idea of non ego or existentialism at that particular time and in 1966 I went to this place called the spaghetti factory up in North Beach and just behind the spaghetti factory was a little cafe where a guy by the name of Alan had the the one-world family Alan used to sit there and talk about the old one-world family right and we were all Indians there were no chiefs anymore that there were no bureaucrats there were just ordinary people and that was the philosophy we all wore Nehru jackets internal neck sweaters yeah until they became fashionable I I remember walking down North Beach and looking at tuxedos and there was a turtleneck sweater and I said oh my god the movement's over we've got to do some we've got to do something else so I shaved my head and grew a beard I decided I would do the opposite of what all the other people were doing at that particular time so I thought well I'll shave my head and comb my face right and then I went to one of these things I was going to see Alan Ginsberg and furlough and Gettie and there in the audience was Dave and he got up and he was hosting this thing so I got to meet him and found out that he was going around to the library and various other places and helping poets find spaces to do their thing and I thought that was revolutionary and to this day he's still the number one entrepreneur of poets and wordsmiths in this town he has gotten more venues and more spaces for us artists to talk about than anybody else so I'd like to take you back for a moment here and see if I could do three things very quickly one I'd like to sing a song to go right to your heart about existentialism and this song is called what's the matter with matter well what's the matter with matter here's the matter with matter you see it doesn't matter but it does ask any Bodhisattva and they'll tell you matter just doesn't matter but it does death dies in a mutter and in a stutter everything you just wear everything you just had becomes a collectivity of debris that a moment ago meant something to somebody oh my god you think that somebody's me maybe it's you well that's the matter with matter in the long run it doesn't matter but in the short run you better believe it does baby and as I stand up here attempting to matter I ask you what the hell is what the hell is hey what the hell is going on I don't know what's going on I just haven't got a fucking clue you and now I went to my diary from June 30th of 1968 and pulled out one of these poems and this is one of the first poems I read and it's just simply called existentialism gold fires exploding in my head lighting the dark labyrinths of my mind light cycles moving through the shadowed pages of our two-dimensional consciousnesses and then Buddha smiles and a cosmic child kicks the walls of an infinite universe and in silence man whispers into that darkness I am and then God closes his eyes to sleep perhaps to dream of me that's that by mentioning Chicago you reminded me where I stood first started out rode a freight train into Chicago in 1955 and the first place I ever spoke aloud in public was in Buckhouse Square I watched it's great Washington Empire Washington Square and from the Newbury Library given by the Newbury Library and that idea that there'd be free speech there forever is am I right and I was given by one arm Charlie who is the dean of the square this poem the first time ever spoke up I just remember the last line the last of stanza that goes like this you haven't a pot to piss in or a window to throw you out throw it out but you place your hope in a day-go-pop to save your eye resole and that was but that was like elsewhere on a soapbox first time I spoke in public that was okay thanks to one arm Charlie who had lost his arm in the battle of the battle of yips at World War one so the beat goes on acknowledge the next few people who are coming up blood flower will be next and Howard Williams 10 Redmond and then Richard Ivan ho so be ready and diamond you're gonna introduce about the hey brother for sure I never I never regard whatever I'm doing a complete we've known each other he says it's 1966 but the poems of the Dome which is mentioned which I know poems of the Dome which is going to be coming up once again my 11th annual the open mic mother of all open mics in City Hall always open with a four-direction ceremony by a man I've known since 1966 he tells me I'm talking about Hori Molina Hori coming up and I give us a four directions and this is bad because that's where about a little ceremony is a good thing who are trying to keep these traditions alive while modern living is encroaching on their territories let's send them love compassion and understanding to heal what's going on down in South America the oral industry spoiling the land poisoning the people pipeline destroying the planet they said love compassion and understanding industry making a profit while making a killing we send love compassion and understanding to all our brothers and sisters in the Middle East our elders there are dying the children the women the destruction love compassion and understanding our brothers and sisters in prison the largest growing industry on this country the prison industry our brother let no peltier our brother Lumia push him out these people need to be free to send love compassion and understanding to the people who are making politics on our behalf to take care of the people we don't want them a valgary and empty promises we want the people to work for the people love compassion and understanding each one of you representing a community each one of you carrying this power and this love but my friend diamond day and I don't so much for the communities the homeless food not bombs there's a concept there's a concept right now food not bombs food not bombs this is the love for this man brother let me give you a blessing so glad he he had those words to say to us today thank you very much your words were we're good best I can do anyway the next person who's going to give us his talents is bloodflower hey everybody just a short note about bloodflower I met him at Mutiny radio and let him talk and I find him a fascinating man he's a talented he's humorous he's a good human being maybe he doesn't think so because we all have our dark sides but I find bloodflower to be a good kind man so welcome him wow I well thanks I'll see you later oh no we don't do those here oh no okay good we did I'm gonna play a little I'll play a little music and hope you all dig it I knew I I've known diamond Dave going on like two decades now from spoken word from soup stock from common thread 21st and Florida Mutiny radio so yeah let's let me see if I can make some noise yeah Richard for letting me display my video work up here thank you very much thank you thank you bloodflower another round did a great job thank you brother thank you while we were we were having prayer the one thing I think we're all sort of neglectful of remind reminding ourselves of remembering is that we live on a lonely land so just remember the aloney people that we're here actually it there be haste but you know what the true story is so if you ever hear that the aloney people or the native people of California need your help such as maybe the windman went to when they raised the dam which you probably hear more about that we the people out here that I see who have heart soul and intelligence will remember anyway the next person is Howard Williams and Howard is a Michael well outside of being a pretty lonely recently really met him but I like his mind and Howard is like I say in my bike messenger and the reason that's important is because diamond Dave in 1956 was a bike messenger so welcome thank you Richard and thank you for saying that I am and Dave is a bike messenger because messenger is something you don't do and then stop doing it just keeps on to sample from a local rapper hip-hop artist priest you know it don't stop you know it don't quit because we stay on that messenger shit and the the profession of messenger has always had a certain edge to it a certain avant-garde this goes back to the beginning of the profession which because it was before literacy before writing the first messengers had to remember their messages and the best way they could remember was to rhyme so messengers had a hand in the creation of poetry and so though I usually do prose today in honor of my elder brother bike messenger David Diamond Dave Whitaker and all the messengers who have gone before us I'm going to do a poem the name of this poem is revealed in the last five words of this of the poem there it stood at the end of the cul-de-sac basketball backboard facing the long street that approached it it's back to the woods with the sun setting in his back he bounced the ball dribbling never palming took a shot in and out and in retrieved dribbled a few tricks behind the knee trying to be just like Walt Hazard left hand dribble 360 right hand shot in and out whispered curse twirl the ball on his fingertip remembered the day he helped his dad build this backboard remembered pops rule can't miss the last one taught the kids that same rule on this same backboard after 9-11 could not convince them to stay away from the army both kids went to Iraq one came back she went to college became a doctor she and her husband gave their parents two grandkids so far away dad she said a young family can't afford to live here anymore took a shot in and out the sun was setting another shot off the rim darker can't miss another shot the last one a brick only stars and one flickering streetlight another thought of her swish can't miss the last one I have to apologize that I have to leave early but thanks to Diamond Dave and many of you out there we still have City College and so I got to get to class it up again Tim Redman there he comes does anybody know not know Tim Redman does anyone here not know raise your hand well I don't have to say anything about him that huh well I'm gonna let him have the whole time because he's got some news for us to thank you all thank you all for coming celebrate my old friend Diamond D the news I have for you which some of you already know the Bay Guardian shut down about a year after I was summarily dismissed in the middle of the night for not getting along with the new owner and well we have reacquired the rights to the Bay Guardian we have raised enough money to begin the resurrection of the Bay Guardian thanks to many of you here he will not be putting out a weekly newspaper in print unless somebody here has like ten million dollars for me anyone yeah but we will be doing it on the web and we will be doing Guardian endorsements in the spring so we can help people understand what the issues are and how to vote that's enough about me I came here actually talk about Dave you know it's um it's not a great time for the counterculture in San Francisco in fact it's not a great time for anyone in San Francisco right now who isn't rich white a landlord a speculator a developer or someone who makes a lot of money in the tech industry the rest of us often feel kind of cast to the side and it's actually it's easy to get depressed I I live in Bernal Heights I ride my bike along Valencia Street and I think about what Valencia Street was like when I moved to the city in 1981 and I think about all the people and all the places that are gone and in fact I find myself I can't even make it down the bike lane on Valencia anymore because it's clogged with ubers letting rich white people out to go to the fancy restaurants that I can't afford to go to on Valencia Street and you know it's easy to just say oh you know that's the hell with it it's over we've lost and then I run into Diamond Dave and Diamond Dave is always a reminder to me that San Francisco is still here that it's still out there the San Francisco that so many of us came here for that some of us were born into that I came here is that you know white kid from the suburbs from the white bread suburbs in New York thinking I've got to get the hell out of here and go someplace where people are different and I arrived in San Francisco for people like to see people to meet people like Diamond D and every time I run into him and we talk and he says don't panic keep it organic I think we're still here we're still here San Francisco so I've known Diamond Dave for a long time we've won through a lot of things together we the Bay Guardian gave him an award for his poetry work and in fact what I realized when I was thinking about this is Dave is in a lot of protests he and I shared a lot of demonstrations at City College of late where I teach and he is a continual student because Dave Dave is a lifelong student of life and never stops learning and that what I thought about is you know Dave is actually an organizer not in the way that a lot of people think about political organizers Dave is a cultural organizer and he has really done more and when we thought when we wrote about him in the Guardian these years back we thought you know Dave has really done more than a lot of people to organize culture in the city to find places as has been talked about for poets to encourage people to get out there the way political organizers go out there and say you got to come out tomorrow and you got to vote you got to do this you got to go to this meeting Dave is out there saying you got to come listen to poems under the dome you got to make room for poets in the city and for that we will always appreciate him we'll also always appreciate him for things like one of my favorite stories and I'll end on this Diamond Dave and me were at City Hall about five years ago some of you know the story when the city honored another rebel poet named John Ross and after the you know they gave the ceremony and John gave a speech about how horrible San Francisco politics was and denounced all of the supervisors and denounced capitalism and then Dave and me and John and a few others were supposed to go to a reception and supervisor Rob Loser's office but the food hadn't arrived and they weren't ready so they sent us down to that conference room around the corner some of you have been to City Hall there's the board of supervisors you go all the way down around the corner and there's a conference room and they sent us down there to wait and of course it being 420 Diamond D looked around and said hey guys it's 420 and he opened a window and he lit up and so did everybody else in the room and the pot smoke starts billowing out the room of the conference room at City Hall and rolling down the hall and before long you can smell it in the board of supervisors chamber you can smell it everywhere and you know Dave and John and the guys are happily enjoying themselves and somebody in the board of supervisors chamber got wind of this so to speak and informed informed the sheriff so here we are me and Diamond D and John Ross and QR hand and a bunch of other rebel writers and poets and into the room comes two deputy sheriffs and I'm thinking to myself okay now we're all gonna get arrested and once again you know we're not gonna go peacefully and we're gonna be a mess and this is gonna be a god-awful thing and and the I remember the younger female deputy sheriff looked directly at Diamond D and said I'm sorry folks but this is a non-smoking building and we were rescued from the police that time and Diamond D had had poems under the dome that night and we all lived to go forward which is what we're all doing and thanks to Diamond D for reminding us that we all live to move forward thank you my friend thank you for the past shakes hands of the future the now whatever members walking in and said oh no and hearing John Ross's son on the phone saying guess what my dad is smoking weed in the city hall and I said what is 420 you'll be the balcony go to those balconies and then the then the deputy came in smiling and said no where this is all right no smoking here please and there was six years ago so the statute limitations has run out and I was afraid of when the John obelisk heard about it it would be end of any commendation and he brought any key to the city because the key to the city is an anarchy and I know that but here we are hey thanks Tim what do you got next Richard Ivan or Richard and I coming up Richard Richard inherited on the page off the page an open mic which we did for a long long time and he still does at the park branch library up in the eight on Page Street a Richard I just I'm sorry to interrupt rainbow and drift you're up so if you kind of get it tuned up and then it's Calvin Welch then it's Judy Levy and Ramon Sender some of my favorite people all right so knowing that I'm following Tim I wanted to do something a little different along some of those lines I do have a poem about gentrification you can ask me about that later right now this one's called legend legends come from what we've experienced what we've read and what we've heard maybe you'll find some of each in this string of words rex trough Karowak Dylan furling Getty common thread rainbow family diggers rock and roll spaghetti cast a wide net homes under the dome food not bombs pirate cat labyrinth night Viracocha district elections save CCSF and still more than that on the page off the page occupy San Francisco vice president of cultural affairs black man's free store dinky town revolution cafe bound for glory wait there's still more hanging in hanging out hanging around enemy combatant radio we can do more together than we can do on our own free University of San Francisco between the lines of the New York Times Jack's pool hall history herstory hipster mutiny radio beatniks hippies punks hip hoppers 1% free returns to the community I'm sure I missed something and you're still catching on to that next wave so thank you local legend local hero diamond Dave and always remember don't panic keep it organic anybody hear that line in the movie recently oh okay well I was sometimes I have a I do have a TV is I mostly use it for background but there was Robert DeMiro DeNiro was using the line as oh my god well anyway it's Calvin Welsh here you're gonna be after this gentleman here so if you want to come on up all right so yes I want to say something about rainbow and drift again part of the common thread collective and when you hear his stuff it will take you where you need to be very very very gentle soul and the true meaning of what I think a hippie is thank you not wasn't his case and referring back to when it was and I I think he's another great guy and drift adds to his music and it takes one to know he's also he writes his stuff so okay this is drift on rainbow this is a song that was influenced by the grateful dead's turn on your love light it's called if love is a light let it turn y'all love you with the love that is true there's a correlation sweet pleasure and play feel so good but it hurts so bad I wake up glad but I retire sad even kiss the earth you walk upon anyone here not know Calvin Welsh 45 years ago I met David in a class that I was teaching at US David was my student over the 45 years I have continued to attend the University of Whitaker here in San Francisco worked in a community-based organization for a number of years 409 house and in the 8 Ashbury and one of the projects that we became involved with was creating a community radio station out of KPOL and a phone call came one afternoon asking if somebody could do a political program kind of a commentary program and none of us really wanted to do it and and David said I can do it I can do it and anybody who has lived in San Francisco over the last 45 years and has a love affair with the spoken word and the radio will have heard David over those years sometimes very loudly sometimes very faintly and in in many ways there are two audible tracks of San Francisco its politics and its culture over the last 45 years and one is Krasny on on KQED and the other is David Alan Whitaker and whereas Krasny has never met a polysyllabic word that he doesn't embrace and give a wet kiss on the lips to David has never met a multifaceted community-based organization or movement that he has not embraced but more than embraced sold to everybody who he can find that will listen David Whitaker is the most well read the most articulate the most incredibly creative political bumblebee that the city has ever known he has put people together who didn't even know that they were supposed to be together and didn't realize it for a decade or so David goes beyond perception David feels it David we are all in your movie we are all the notes of your songs we are all the words of your poems and thank you for sharing this city and your life with us all thanks Calvin as you have 45 years that's a good long time I want to mention the connection with the good earth commune because they're no long gone but there we were when they when after the death of the hippie when we stuck around and all my kids were growing up and we were doing it and to the good earth had access I could say it now because the statute of limitations is far far gone to good old ounces of good good ganja for only $10 an ounce back in those good old days when it didn't get in the way of what you did and enhanced what you did so Calvin brought all that back to me too and here we are still carrying on and I'm so glad to be here and going back to the first district elections Harvey milk and the first district elections Calvin the first community congress time to do another one thanks Calvin for come on through and everybody for being right here and it's about the midpoint I think of this this evening and here we be so thanks for coming brothers and sisters hey Richard and this Richard is doing this take it away Richard the next two people are coming up were the ones who were the first ones that let me read publicly so I have always got a soft spot and when they saw when I read a where I set a piece what I wrote and they were I think impressed and that's why they asked me so I want to thank you for that and I'm glad to see that they've made it is Judith Levy and Ramon Sender I share political affinity love city college save city college it's not over yet we're still working on it so thank you Dave because you're a touchstone whenever I go to a demonstration and Dave is there I feel very happy very reassured this is a found poem for an octogenarian would you believe he's an octogenarian 78 well my husband is 81 and I'm always you know respectful so we're looking forward not backwards dinky town Minneapolis diamond in the rough a rose is a rose is a rose no pose our connection Wendy John roses my aunt's nephew what a whirl of a world and you once bike messenger message foods not bombs in myth in reality inhabitant of paradise for cats with nine children or none the whole world is your child golden floor ground floor of occupy where once Bob Dylan crashed you are pietier radiologist who writes performs poems under below above the domes Dave Whitaker carrier carrier of wit giver not taker rad rock on tour rab browser real deal here since nation article in 55 always with city college demonstrations you who so widely cast the net find a common thread spread the word we can do more together than apart don't panic keep it organic organize every day summer of love long may you flourish thank you David I didn't hear a word no my ears are terrible that's what it is anyway I I was involved with the trips festival 50 years ago now and after it I thought well that's a good idea maybe I'll take a trip so I went off to the desert and visited the only commune I knew at the time which was drop city in colorado and came back looked up my new friend Lou Gottlieb from the limelighters who had told me before I left hey you know if you ever want to do anything in the country I've got 30 acres up in snowy county so we went up uh apple blossom time uh and uh I said I'm staying and I stayed and uh some friends came up and they said oh we're staying and friends of theirs came up and said we're staying so uh about six months later the San Francisco diggers came up and said hey Lou if we planted a garden and took care of the orchard could we have all the food to feed everybody and Lou said why not so we went from 12 people to 80 people over a period of weeks and the county began to show some interest anyway be that all that as it may it was an interesting experience a lot of people got busted and told either you're going to do time in jail or you're going to leave the county so a lot of them left the county and the and spread the message of of land access to which is denied no one and by the way we all talk we talk a lot about homelessness but homelessness is really a cover for landlessness and if we were all in Central America or South America we'd know immediately what that means because it's the lack of land ownership that's screwing everything up I think or a big part of it anyway Morningstar Ranched we had everybody we had we had the gurus the saints the bodhisattvas the down and outers the people who just couldn't make it on the street we had people addicted to alcohol and the alcohol thing was so heavy that we said well maybe if we put 10 tabs of white lightning in that gallon of magic mountain or whatever it was called maybe that would help well it didn't help so ever since then and I've gotten involved in various other things but in the back of my mind was isn't there something out there that can handle that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach that seems to bring people to the bottle and so I've spent a lot of years thinking about it trying out different things I learned how to purr for my cats and that's that helped a lot that really does dissolve that feeling but I finally settled on something that all babies do called sleep nursing and that is they they nurse while they're sleeping and adoring parents make videos of these and put them up on youtube so if you want to see baby sleep nursing look up sleep nursing on youtube and you can get many examples well I figured if babies do it it must feel good so maybe I can do it and instead of doing it asleep I'm going to do it awake so I taught myself how to sleep nurse it's sort of like sucking on your uvula if you don't know what your uvula is it's behind your soft palate but any actually after I did all this work and I wrote it all up I thought you know just go out and buy a lollipop and so I guess that's my ultimate message for everyone is if you want to dissolve that hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach keep a good supply of lollipops around you won't send her to cut to the chase every moment reminds me I should let people know that I now have 15 years of sobriety they means without a drink and they came to my native american side a mary jean called the red road I used to say I go to a meeting and makes me want a drink I go to his company night it makes me want to cry but then I heard the red road this is from Lakota and the red road is the warrior path the sober path and its prayer is great spirit whose voice I hear in the wind whose breath lives the world hear me I come to you you as one of your many children I'm small and weak I need your strength and wisdom may I walk in beauty it's also called the beauty way that's the red road and what you remember when you mentioned lugat libe I that took me back to another pivotal moment I hadn't mentioned well I'm walking I think on hate street and I see coming to me coming towards me a guy looking around like this and I said my god this guy looks like he's a classic indian guru we know about mary shea and this guy was lost on hate street what was his name he was lugat libe's guru he he was lost yeah see the care sure diva came out in the airport lugat libe was supposed to pick him up but they missed each other and then he came to hate street because that's all he knew and I brought him to I believe I brought him to hippy hill where they connected and that's where the family began and that's what you're talking about the family at a high point they had a bunch of houses right there on right there off hate street on what street on coal street no it's down no it's farther down in coal it was far I was on this side of the visit arrow exactly all these houses but they're around that share diva so that's the two things that you brought me back and his Ramon Ramon sender's father Ramon sender who really turned beyond when it was a soci anarchist the youth that's 16 or so and I found your father's book seven red Sundays about this anarchist role revolt in Barcelona am I right and his uh his by his book called counterattack in Spain about being an anarchist from an anarchist militia in Barcelona at the same time as georgia will go to homing to cannolonia am I right and then I find meet you and I say I knew about your dad and now I'm seeing you in the flesh and he's the old guy now too so life goes on that's what I have to say to you thanks you and thanks for coming you too elders elders lucky enough to hear this man's stuff his own stuff but he also renders a lot of people's poets who've passed he's got it all committed and a great just a great speaker and so far as I can tell a pretty well around man I guess is what you would say so howl thanks for coming and give it thank you I was once on pirate cat radio where Dave is now as it's a mutiny radio and moved briefly to FCC free radio and that didn't work out and ended up here I mean ended up at radio Valencia anyway I'm going to say a poem about a despised creature which actually is a necessary one in a spirit of charity which is the spirit that Dave inspired this is a poem by American poet David Bottoms called under the vulture tree we have all seen them circling pastures have looked up from the mouth of a barn the fences of our own backyards and have stood amazed by the one slow wing beat the endless dihedral drift but I had never seen so many so close hundreds every limb of the dead oak feathered black and I cut the engine let the river grab the john boat and pull it toward the tree the black leaves shined the pink fruit blossomed red ugly as a human heart then as I passed under their dream I saw for the first time its soft countenance the raw fleshy jowls wrinkled and generous like the faces of the very old who have grown to empathize with everything and I drifted away from them slow on the pull of the river reluctant looking back at their roost calling them what I never called them what they are those dwarfed transfiguring angels that flock to the side of the poisoned fox the mud turtle crushed on the shoulder of the road who pray over the leaf graves of the anonymous lost with mercy enough to consume us all and give us wings thank you Dave well I never speak that clearly um let's see here God get lost Allison B you're up is D Allen here where's D well well well Karen do you want to weigh a little bit or did you I'm sorry oh he oh you got him well okay well I'll tell you to ask him if he wants to weight one this way to catch it do you want do you want to come on up now all right well I just thought I'd give him a little breath all right there you go uh I am so glad I can't tell you how glad I am that Jose quayer is here that's right this is a man that we also here in a city need to recognize if you if you're not come to the mission or ever heard his music or heard how he thinks or knows the depth or hears the depth of the knowledge of music this is the man so give it up for Jose quayer thank you so much Richard thank y'all all my relations I really appreciate this opportunity to pay tribute to a dear friend someone who's been in a struggle and someone who got ripped off a number of times but have you noticed that that dirty grandpa ripped off don't panic keep it organic they ripped him off that's right so thank you for everything you've done David really love you really appreciate you and I'd like to play this inspiration on this uh little flute that I acquired a couple of years back at the Stanford powwow made by wahakan nash tevawa and uh an inspiration for you is that hey uh dr local hey jose nothing that comes through me belongs to me the understanding I have with the cosmos is that that which comes through me there's no copyrights that which comes through me is just to come through me like my latest when I bought turns I bought the turn 78 it came through me learn to love love to learn this never ends that if I if it gets to come through me it's where it's well anybody's welcome to it if I tried to copyright it would say it's mine or they ripped it off no no no anything that comes through me belongs to everybody that's to guarantee you will keep on coming as long as I'm here on the planet yeah okay and we're going to let that Karen melander magoon come up and then is Susanna wedgewood here who's that uh if you want to get ready or come come up to the stage so and then next person's ek if you want to come up to the stage and a minor announcement now the restrooms downstairs are unusable so you have to go upstairs so I'm sorry about that uh anyway yeah yeah but you have to go upstairs now because this down here is closed oh there's an important announcement yes honored to be here at the university of david ellen wittaker the university the synagogue the temple the city celebrating diamond dave activist poet co-create since 1957 is that right or anyway maybe before that part of san francisco's life from beginning and end creator of poems under the dome co-creator of san francisco history what an honor just to be here about dave and thank you for your raps your rhymes your egalitarian philosophy thank you for poems under the dome thanks for being a legend and I never heard that before but thank you for being a political bumblebee and I have seen this bumblebee at lots of demonstrations and always wondered how you could be so many places say the name of dave he can't be easily pigeonholed always inventing finding new perspectives larger than life only you must listen carefully so you don't miss the words notice he spends more time talking about others than himself an extraordinary poet speaking the poetry of mindfulness don't panic keep it organic and since I do have another couple seconds yes here's today it seemed appropriate just to talk about time time has no time it ticks endlessly into bells peeling air waving with fingers of god finding time irrelevant non-existent a construct of the imagination in imaging time time has no space it flows endlessly into orchestras of sound into orchestras of sunsets smells and tastes revolving and inventing time before their time lethargy of growing old juvenile birds remind one of eternity and youth energy joy children die in war dying before their time and I cannot give them my life my time I cannot wake them back into their youth energy and joy I cannot make life from their deaths cannot give them back time and yet today we see dave diamond who gives us all time energy and hope thank you dave hey richard i'm going on without you because here i go we have richard sandrel here and he put this together today with dan brady let's offer a little love and gratitude for our fearless organizers as a fearless organizer myself i know that these things are never easy or simple and it's been an ongoing honor since year one of poems under the dome to organize it with diamond dave and currently with val there she is there yay to them too so i'm regularly inspired by this question that dave asks what's wrong with a little peace love and understanding so here's three poems mostly about love tattoo do you have a tattoo who here has pierced ears what have you done for love and lost once there was a little known goddess of war and she was in love with the king of the gods and he loved her but she didn't know he was the secret love of the goddess of love so she asks a jealous friend for advice the love goddess snorts and says to prove your love cut off your ear and give it to him so she mutilates her body to make herself more attractive to her lover and he's so horrified so disgusted he turns his face from her kiss and the truth is scars are beautiful secretly we all know it's our imperfections that attract us to one another there's nothing more beautiful than a crooked nose tooth finger or toe and like a little known goddess of war we wonder who it will be who will look at our scars and love us narcissism the shadow of the Lorax plays on the walls of Plato's cave where christ was buried and on the third day sisyphus rolled the rock away and invented religion to fuel old feuds with folks who might yet be friends the world is small and getting smaller an unlikely oasis in space hi am you all the myths are true and of course we see ourselves reflected in every drop of water it is us and here's number three where's Dave where'd he go there he is outrageous beauty raged by noses that aren't small or straight by hair that doesn't lay flat by faces whose features refuse to conform to a common standard of beauty they tell us we are ugly to defend their common features they sell us funhouse reflections so we don't know what we look like i want to convert you to the religion of your own outrageous beauty i'll build you a church of mirrors and fill it with gods like us whose faces don't match thanks Dave absolutely all right uh let me go down my list um oh yes we have Alice and be you know and i'll just leave it at that because i think uh the short the better we've been doing stuff yeah if uh or you can use it this is okay yeah this is my height what one more thing i want to see the next people are here uh susanna wedgewood all right if you're here come on up and then we have um looks like valerie borough oh wait a minute somehow this guy mixed up susanna wedgewood did she do it she did it really oh well yeah i saw i did i miss you too it was i in the right order okay sorry just want to make sure i'm doing it right that's okay richard i think you're still trying to not panic yeah i think so i'll try not to panic up here i breathe sigh of relief when dave comes into my library about once every other month and says hey ellison how's it going and um one time my manager recognized him and she let us put it on our office door thank you dave and he knows what i mean he's a breath of fresh air he likes poetry and he's poetic he's a storyteller impresario and very well known humanitarian i made that up it means that he invites community and he promotes it and he reminds us that his goal is our goal always working for the common good he's also kind of catchy in tune and avant garde he helps get us back in place when we seem confused he sets us in the right direction he has a good word for everyone he's somewhat analytical but mostly optimistic to me he is a mystic sometimes he looks around the room reminds us take a moment to breathe it's always a place to create and then he reminds us to share our hearts with each other and take care of each other thank you dave thank you susan b i just met susanna wedgewood so i really can't say much but she seems like a nice person and i have to say that so welcome susanna and uh i grew up in san francisco i've known dave for a long time i've been away from the city for a really long time but when i heard that uh this was diamond dave day i had to get here and say a few things um what i'd like to do is just share with you some stories and memories that i remember from my childhood um i've tried not to write it down or think too hard about it but i would like to just share with you a stream of consciousness memories of uh my childhood and what i remember about dave wittaker um my family moved to san francisco in 1971 we lived in the hate ashbury we we settled in in haze valley and we had a little place on haze street um across the street from what is now the sacred ground i went to school in a little hippie alternative school and my mother johanna she had a job working in the coffee house on haze street and um when i first met dave wittaker it was around um 1974 1975 when this little hippie alternative school that was run by some some hippies and rastafarians that somehow they got a grant and they started the school and they were able to get a second facility down on uh hate philmore in a church where they ran a daycare center there uh they had a school bus and they took children a busload of children out of geneva towers over in hunter's point and brought them to the daycare center at hate philmore and they would take all the little kids on field trips and anyway uh right next door to the church there was a family they lived in a storefront and there was a man his name was dave wittaker and his wife and i believe her name was beaverly i'm not sure that's right that's what i remember and uh i remember that beaverly wore a different wig every day and she was very flamboyant um i remember hanging out in that storefront with them because they had nine children and uh the children that were around my age we played together uh ubi dooby uh opal no i'm sorry sapphire and joy and um i haven't seen ubi dooby in over 30 years and i was hoping to see him here today uh he had to work today but uh in any case he's my facebook friend so you know we're still connected uh somehow um and what i remember about dave wittaker was that he seemed to me like he was a straight guy so you know i lived in a hate with hippies and dave wittaker when i met him had a short haircut and a suit and i think maybe he was going to a job interview that at that time and and that was where it was um moving on though a few years later some years later um i was a teenager and dave was good friends with my mother uh jihanna wedgewood and i got to run with my mother on a lot of uh trips we went to poetry readings and musical events in places all around the city north beach the hate but there was a whole new scene that was starting up in in the mission around that time uh 1980 81 time frame and there were poetry readings uh in places i'll just name some of the events that maybe you'll remember them there was the the vats at the old ham's brewery there was the punk rock and and um when i was 14 i had a job working in this music studio at at the vats and there was the compound which was a very exciting place to hang out on 16th at this old fire station that was turned into a sort of an art collective project our toe thank you um there were many events and many things there i enjoyed i remember going to the the old spaghetti factory uh and going to the flamenco dance night and thank you thank you there's many things i've forgotten as well but um what i remember though was that there was a place on 22nd in valencia where there was an art studio called the offensive and yes thank you there were a lot of great parties there a lot of art events galleries uh dave organized poetry readings there and i just wanted to tell a quick anecdote about one time i went to the poetry reading with my mom and you know dave he was kind of a hippie an old hippie at the time he was old he was like 45 and when i was 14 it was my goal in life to just go out and raise hell and i had my head shaved and i ran around with black nail polish and i had a hobby of giving people free haircuts and i went into the poetry reading one night at the offensive and i offered people free haircuts and dave wittaker he said oh i need a haircut and do you remember this and so it turned into a kind of performance art haircut where he was in the middle of a room and there was a circle of people and i was giving him this haircut and i thought okay this old hippie i'm gonna blow his fucking mind and i gave him a crew cut and then on the back of his head i kind of left some long bits and some put in some bald things and i was pretty pleased that i could you know do that and what anyway dave took it in stride and dave was cool and dave he understood what the kids were doing you know and so then the last i really remember seeing him he hung out with my mom that was part of her scene you know i was just in and out of it she was a good witch and um the last i remember seeing dave was walking down the street with a motorcycle jacket and it with chains and safety pins and oh okay safety pins uh beatnik hippie punk skims a three-generation rainbow and i you know i thought right on right on you know he's uh he's one of us um i left the city in the 90s i did not see uh dave or anybody really for many years um and i came back for an event in 2010 at the sacred grounds poetry reading and i remember that night that i didn't really know anybody i mean there was still a lively poetry scene and there's this community of people but when david wittaker walked in the door i just thought oh how wonderful he's still alive and he he was alive and well and now i know that he uh he's done his a lot of activism he's still very active in the community he has his radio show um i'm really so happy that he is still walking this earth and that he is still on the street um connecting with people and that there's still this community which i thought was ancient history but there are still there are remnants of that and and it goes on and uh i don't know what's going on with david's hair now but i don't i don't think it really matters anymore because dav wittaker has transcended the beatnik hippie punk paradigm because he is now he is a star and he is like a shining diamond in the sky and uh he's still here and he's still uh he's still doing it again and so i'm so so happy and so glad to know that you're here so happy birthday hipster it's the punk rock street we had a fence house in 1980 when the two of them died up to stay remember and then right in 16th it was the death problem it was a real mess we're all the deathly black punk rock i don't know i don't know i don't know okay we better get moving well understand who we have but we have time we have time yes we're going to be the closers so all right so the next person who has come up to our stage do you think that was i wonder who did that i wonder who just whistled her anyway glad to see you um i i i want to say i'm so glad this person is here because well she controls that show more i mean dav does the talking dav does the talking but she's got control and i think it's a beautiful collaboration myself but um you know who am i but and as i say i'm really glad she's here i think she's a strong voice on the radio for women from what i've observed so number one i'm glad that's going on and uh not to belabor it but welcome valerie obama all right it's not about control it's about patience persistence and positivity yeah um so i'm a native san franciscan and i'm a poet and uh i've been writing poetry since i was about 12 but it wasn't until i was in my 20s when i realized i hadn't ever really read my poetry for anybody and so i had this idea and i was thinking about it and then i was on a bus so many of my stories begin i was on a bus and i overheard some people talking about a poetry reading at the page street library and the hate hosted by diamond dav who i didn't know at the time so i kind of made a mental note i'm like ah the hate it's like my backyard perfect i'll do that sometime and i didn't go and then another time i was on a bus and i met diamond dav he invited me down to the on the page off the page which richard is now hosting um so that was my first time i ever read poetry in public in san francisco um while i was there dav invited me down to his show at the time was at pirate cat radio still the common thread collective which we're doing every week at mutiny radio um and uh what we used to do is the opening of the show was to read between the lines of the new york times so i would go once every once in a while um go for the first 20 minutes of the show read between the lines of the new york times and leave um but then it was 2010 everything's changed and i started going more uh regularly and i could just feel that the momentum was building so for my uh new year's resolution which i've never made one for since uh for 2011 was i'm going to go every week and i started going every week and within a couple months i knew how to run the boards and i was co-hosting the show and dav and i have been working together ever since so being part of mutiny radio and thanks to dav for bringing me into this it's open many doors for me um a couple years after i started i got recruited by kpfa to do women's magazine which is a weekly show but i contribute to it periodically um it's monday is one to two of kpfa 94.1 um and so i started doing my weekly show at mutiny radio women's magazine with global vow so i get to do that every friday before the common thread collective um i got a three page spread in my high school alumni magazine i grew up here i went to s i um so that was that was a pretty prestigious move because it was counter cultural and in other ways rather kind of no straight magazine um i also started helping ek with poems and the dome and then one day i was sitting there live on air and i met and vetted uh my my brilliant love over there uh the remarkable renaissance man and poet james zealous who uh himself had never performed in public before diamond david asked him to do so at some other venue um but being the co-host and the and producer of common thread collective has immersed me in in a whole new community it's not just reading the news but making the news we've been the real-time platform for the arab spring occupy wall street west occupy hurricane sandy the 2012 republican national convention protest where david was down there calling in hands up don't shoot one billion rising no to the excel pipeline no monster in the mission save cc sf vote 123 yes in my backyard and we were there the day that the un indigenous people's charter was signed last june and it came into our studio and we've been warmed and inspired by countless musicians and poets authors activists travelers and we must be striking a chord because in the last two years alone we've had almost 200 000 downloads who knew so it's a it's a privilege and a joy to be proponents of free speech uh freedom of peaceful assembly while also pursuing happiness and a more evolved humanity based on love and acceptance and positivity as diamond david says thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope and we're doing that every friday at mutiny radio dot fm you're free to join us at 21st in florida please come through and as a final final little poetic note um this is groundhog day and i thought it was symbolically appropriate because the groundhog we look to the groundhog right to to give us the signal what's coming next and dave's like that so i want to end with a little excerpt from a poem i wrote um two years ago i was recovering from a surgery and having wild healing dreams and they kind of progressed and became more uh realistic and so this one has uh diamond david made an appearance in it so i want to read this little excerpt for you as the afternoon starts to get late i begin looking for a quiet place to retreat but not before i stand on the brink i look to the street a canal paved for a system to flow and i have a vision that folks have looted or otherwise withdrawn all forms of metallic wealth coins bars ceramics and other instruments of man-made concepts of wealth and are literally pounding it back into the ground creating a new passageway out of the old for the real of human potential to flow once again and across the chasm i see diamond david and he's caught up in conversation over which i hear him laugh and say people always ask me what's the end of the world going to look like and i always tell him i think we know what we know when we see it so david thanks for being a visionary thanks for being our groundhog and thanks for all that you do well yes we we do but i we have we've had a little extra time so barbara bennett bobby colman come to the stage please and dan brady come to the stage at least with very info i have barbara bennett is somebody i met again at the collective see i started coming to the collective what about a year ago about that i think and but we haven't really had much conversation but she's always pretty laughing or you know has maybe sometimes a scowl so i think she has a lot of emotions and she'll show you so you know how to say hello or you know i'm a little bit like that and somebody looks at me and i'm not looking right so anyway barbara i'm finally glad i'm going to hear some of your things so come on up so the first time i met david was 1992 i was doing sort of a social work job and i saw some cool people down the street in an event and i said oh that looks nice i think i'm going to sort of get into activism so um i went to a food and all bombs house and i met david cooking vegetables in 1992 and so anyway i wrote this today as wavy david coined diamond dave is a mind in his own legend creation is perfect energy a projection of a magic wand finger that like the sun not everyone knows how to pick up on but david can figure out who can he doesn't trip because balance is tricky like sharp sharp steps on flat footed street walks randomly on purpose like white sheets of new grass or miles of shallow inland seas because there are rabid cities and time has already happened david forgotten said he was 60 at 59 and 78 at 79 or 77 and 78 and each of his feet lets the other one be in front like a human be in or a political punk hootenanny he doesn't get oppression as david likes to quote jesus the last shall be the first and the first last and a new one don't do what you hate because mere words are psychedelic clean hands that emerge from dirty clothes are children of living light where you don't have to be a wimp to be a hippie we are fish with frog's eyes blinded freedom in the face of ordered insanity because sometimes institutions are safe and sane and the street has bosses and rules so the only food to eat is the anarchist kind if you sit down with david the revolution cafe or as of yet there has not been a revolution and maybe you're broke or be or sick or beatific he might say that if you don't panic you can keep it organic so you leave scratching your head wondering what might happen to organic if i panic really good you know diamond somebody likes you i guess um next is bobby colman isn't this great this official recognition of dav wittaker isn't that fantastic he was at city hall and uh you know he got right in the mix there at city hall with the supervisors spoke his piece invited them all up for the photo you have to see the video you have to see the video because it's just classic it's really wonderful i think it's long overdue congratulations dav um that's the official thing and then there's all the wonderful things that have been said by the civic leaders and the poets and the musicians and people that love dav and have been in the life and civic mix of the city and also beautiful so what do i have to add just a couple of things everyone that i know and love loves diamond dav wittaker any day that you're lucky enough to see dav is a great day it's one of the great days of your life every time so i was thinking about it why is that as a poet dav is so full of joy as an activist dav is really dedicated and as a human being dav is genuinely full of love now when you reach a certain elder status things start to coalesce and what do you want to do when you love your fellow man and you're full of love you want to teach you want to share and that becomes your life it's deep within you and it's what you do that's what dav does he does it with everyone he meets like a bumblebee as calvin said he does it with everything he does he inspires young people intergenerationally like no one else he broadcasts spreads the word dav is highly intelligent and at the close of his comments at the board of supervisors today i may be paraphrasing i'll do the best i can he said live and learn learn to live this goes on man i love that so i'm going to read a short short poem see ever the educator i'm going to have to learn to get that right rocket so um short poem by charita pate as edited by my collaborator virginia barrett who also loves you type a poem is titled love and peace it's an acrostic poem so the first letter of each line spells out love and peace in this case a dav crostic poem lay your hand in mine our hearts are like the trees venturing up to the sky each with roots of peace awake with wonder we all know no one really lives alone deep we hold and feel and grow people of this planet equal with our certain gifts all is of the earth we share connecting us below above each we reach with love thank you so much dave thank you um i'm just going to take a little bit of time of me and uh diamond and i first met him a long time ago of course during the end of the vietnam wars and i saw him at the demonstrations uh and he was always there you know he was always uh supportive and he's always talked about vets as well and but he's also talked about the victims as well which is what i also admire because that's what we forget as well i'm a vet and i never forgot so uh i just want to do a short piece it's a healing piece it's called waiting um i think i read it on the radio just recently but i think it's appropriate because of what the last line is this is a healing piece for me as i said it's called waiting it was the african who turned me on it was the aboriginal from turtle island that gave me my heart it was the european that gave me my sorrow it was the american who sent me to war and tried to keep me ugly it was the vietnamese that gave me forgiveness may i forgive myself come back to the hoop the elders are still waiting thank you dave uh sometimes the best late plans don't get late as well because i'm i don't know i want to make sure i didn't see who i thought is there anyone here who's on the on the list who hasn't spoken tonight uh oh well i i don't have that checked off come you know tia cambia is it okay i mean this somebody just came in who's here in uh thanks sisters that's great well you never want to step on people's time you know time time well another person i've met at the collective and i'm sort of glad i've met him he's what's that radio show yeah i'm doing a shorthand i'm i shouldn't do that sometimes well welcome dj rubble yeah well dave did take me on when the common thread collective recently and it's something about dave because i've been around activist underground radio forever but disconnected from it and connected and collective things that for a few years and dave saw me at a rally and he's like hey old radio guy you know come on i was telling him you know i haven't been on a radio show and it's hard to connect with people sometimes but dave was just like you know come down to my show i'll get you in and it was as easy as that i met dave for the first time as a young man i came into this city 1991 from punk culture and organizing on the streets and it'll an early friend of mine james tracy introduced me to dave they were going to an event at the eye hotel and gave me a lot of history i've seen him at every radio station i've been around including the beginning of the micro radio stations after the battle of seattle we were together san francisco liberation radio he got my partner in on radio x i saw his name on the board and heard him on the radio bringing news audio into capoe i've also seen dave in a lot of activist places including showing up for rally in my old hometown in harlem and there's dave on the street telling me where to go and where food not bombs is and all of that and i've noticed over time that dave knows how to bring people together and he's consistent and when you see diamond dave you know what he stands for you know what he does i don't think he gets swayed by differences in people's personalities and things like that and the fact that he's out there now is great i also see him at all the concerts that are out there in fact i was to close up i was at a concert it was probably last year if not the year before our free one in golden gate park an older performer from before my year era in the early 60s talking about being a beatnik beatnik hippie freak and there's dave standing in front of me he walked right up to me and pointed to his chest and he said that's me a beatnik hippie freak and i said to myself yeah if he said it he is so you know glad to see dave getting his tributes while he's here and the last thing is he's not like some other people i know that start getting tributes that all of a sudden they're reverent to power and authority and looking down memory lane but he's still out there making things happen and so i'm glad to speak thank you okay uh we have somebody who's going to do a a very short piece i hear so it's chris look at me is he here there he's coming come on up and then uh we're going to have uh edwin lindo come up thank you uh dave we have time and people are sort of coming in and i've you know teo cambio has been very gracious to say that davis well i'm trying to have him close the show you know and i would love if they could and they're gracious enough to let it happen so all right love you dave i'll be real quick with this except to say that you make us individually and collectively better and that's a huge accomplishment thank you this is called diamond gem in the rough and i'm not going to really try to sing it but it i kind of wrote it partially to the tune song for woody the dylan tune so it starts off hey hey have you heard about diamond dave cool hip rad dude who gave and he gave us the vibe and the beat and the whole worldly love to live all those one tribe with no one above the rest i'm just going to read who dances and rhymes for revolution a radical heart opening evolution who weaves us together as one big quilt with passion and wisdom that will never wilt who threads us through dylan beatniks hippies punks and rainbows a tapestry of solidarity embracing all that shows together is truly the only way together to overcome life's throws now you're sailing on past 78 still three generations one idea love not hate dave keep weaving our common thread a rainbow love poem soul can never be dead keep learning keep uh keep letting the light through so we can all shine like you aging like fine whiskey forever young your wild open spirit will never be done hey hey diamond dave thanks for the magic and remember don't panic you are truly organic thank you we love you well we have uh had some surprises here some add-ons um i'm just going to simply introduce the next person who's running for board of supervisors and i've heard him speak and of course uh i'm never easily impressed but i sort of like his heart that's a start so anyway i give you edwin lindo there's some beautiful faces out here i love it so it's fitting that we're in the library because diamond dave is a walking library if you have a chance to sit with him and talk with him the knowledge he has goes back so many years that i literally sat down with diamond day for three and a half hours at revolution cafe and all i could do was listen uh and he has more sayings than a thesaurus and a dictionary put together and what i love and i remember one of the history lessons he gave me he said i started a radio show in the hate called one struggle many fronts capoe and it's more than just a title of a show and i keep thinking that it's kind of what we're going through today it's one struggle with many fronts and everyone in here is fighting different things we have the tenants union we have organizers we have the radio and the community media but everyone is able to fight understanding that we have one struggle that we want to overcome and we want to deal with the other saying that i love and diamond day seem to be running around i'm panicking and he's like don't panic keep it organic and i love it and i just wish i ate more organic foods because i'd probably be healthier i don't want to take too much of the time as mentioned i'm i'm running for district nine supervisor in the mission burnall heights and portilla and it's the district that i grew up in and diamond day of my dad actually came to san francisco around the same time uh my dad came here from nicaragua in 1958 straight to 20th and cap and there's history and there's history that he and my dad can relate to but it's his birthday i won't say the age most of you probably know but i want us to know what it was last week but we're celebrating we're celebrating diamond day and it's never getting closer to the end it's understanding that we're reimagining reimagining ourselves and having dreams for ourselves and so i thought it was fitting during black history month being in the library choosing a langston hughes poem that i i'd love to read for diamond day and the poem is called as i grew older it was a long time ago i've almost forgotten my dream but it was there then in front of me bright like a sun my dream and then the wall rose rose slowly slowly between me and my dream rose until it touched the sky the wall shadow i am black i lie down in the shadow no longer the light of my dream before me above me only the thick wall only the shadow my hands my dark hands break through the wall find my dream help me to shatter this darkness to smash this night to break this shadow into a thousand lights of sun into a thousand whirling dreams of sun diamond day thank you for the light and the sun that you bring to us every day you inspire me the first time i met you was in bernel heights in front of the bernel heights library and i was impressed from day one he said i still go to city college every single day to take my classes and he was in classes with friends who i have who are 18 years old and they know diamond david says he helps me any chance he gets and he inspires us in the conversation he brings to class you are as i said a walking library full of knowledge that's always seeking to learn and as the poem mentioned you're breaking through that wall of shadow to bring the light to us so thank you now the guy's a poet too so well you know a poet's supervisor well well i i want to first of all say a little bit about the next person yeah you know who it is it's dan brady everybody but i want to say i want to say i want to say so that dan brady is one of the other guys who gave me a feature and has been very kind to me at sacred grounds and and he's the co-heart of this event and i want to thank him publicly for all the hard work that he's done today especially because he's the one who's been running around and uh talking to people so all right so i want to welcome dan brady to the stage i'm posing so i can have my mouth close to the mic the way it should be i'm putting my eyeglasses on huh i have an air guitar i read them they're right over there anyway um in case you haven't seen this this is the one page poet's guide to all the open mics that i know of in the city and there's copies distributor laid out way up there so they don't look like this the back side actually has all the addresses and phone numbers so make sure you get a copy that has both sides because somehow the printer didn't do what it's supposed to do all right so i met diamond dave several times over the years in various places the hate street fair i think that was the first place i met him and it's been a wild and crazy journey ever since but what i'm about to read is in a sense born of of various things that relate to this i know you look at the news and you get sick and tired of the news and i was complaining one day about the news and my friend said well why don't you write a poem about good news and i thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and i think oh that's a good plan so this poem is called good news at him i want some good news people no not that born-again bible humping bullpucky you've heard tell of no i want good news and not just for a minute here or there like you get on kpfa fundraisers no not what you get on faux news on a slow days no by god i want the real deal i want a whole work week stuffed full of it with each book ending weekend fit to bursting i want to know what it's like to turn on the tv and feel good i want to feel good every time i think about anything i can think of i want to be double dipped full up schmierd with good news i tell you i want to look at the sky and not think about chem trail conspiracies i want to feel the air wind in my hair without wondering if the toxic crap being carried along in it is from the sewers of india china's deserts or japan's nukes i want to wake up and turn on npr to hear wonderful things expanding forests glaciers coming back along with fish populations safe cell phones that pay you to use them free food being given out rent reductions running rampant and the president giving back trillions of dollars to the people closing guantanamo giving up on nuclear power and bringing the troops home from iraq afghanistan yemen barain oman egypt jordan lebanon turkey iran kazakhstan malakistan turkmenistan venezuela columbia mexico and the other 123 i want to hear him thank you i want to hear him go on about perp walking bush and his whole suffering asshole crew placing a stay on every deck that rim jobbing bung humper ever did that prisons are being shuttered because millions of people have decided to care for one another that once godless heathen multinationals are hiring people because they're bringing back rock solid plan your retirement on them god blessed union jobs back to the good old usa and by the millions i want to hear about green houses green cars green factories green makeup green jobs in a green self-sustaining world i want to hear how every person entering the job market is saying the same ding dong thing gee i don't know which one of all these jobs i want and say why don't you ceo's take a number for christ sakes and mind you i want the good news to go on every fricking day i want to hear how millions are giving up cigarettes taking up pilates volunteering for charity work that everyone has two chickens in every pot a good well-built american car in every garage and by that i mean one that gets 500 miles per few up takes a 50 mile an hour ahead on crash with no damage or injury to its passengers is green lasts as long as you fricking want to keep it and gets free tune-ups break jobs and tires while you own it i want scenic passenger trains to make a comeback how scientists are being listened to hello got global warming on the run replaced coal oil nuclear power and natural gas found a way to prevent alcoholism using the cures for cancer that we already have and have begun terraforming the earth for god sakes i want to hear day after day of good news so that by the time the fourth day dawns i'll have an idea of what life is like in a world that makes sense i'll be looking forward to the next blessed day so that i'll be glad to wake up donate to good causes of which there'll be thousands and everyone will be doing very much thank you i want all the guns in the world to be turned in broken up and melted down to make anything else i want to hear that every soldier intel walk officer commander or insurgent has renounced violence and is getting busy building shelters planting trees cleaning beaches counseling the hopeless caring for the needy handing out bread bringing in water giving emergency care to the destitute rescuing cats from trees and kissing babies i want to see them all get busy fixing every leaky toilet broken window noisy refrigerator and every dingblasted pothole in the known universe that they're working with farmers to grow more food unlocking potential opening floodgates applying bandages splints and helping helping helping i want reformed bankers making microloans giving grants that defense departments have been shut down that research and development in funding is allocated to make better computers cars planes trains tractors shoes lights batteries houses farms cities colleges schools basketball and food courts i want to hear about a better understanding between religions races politicians and historical enemies about how borders are being erased hatreds are evaporating ignorance giving away reason-running rampant and every form of love being accepted by everybody everywhere by god i want a week of such good news as people have never ever ever ever had so when i go outside and get my free cup of fair trade organic sustainable coffee and an organic everything bagel with wild caught salmon shears everyone will be walking around more than a bit dazed more than a bit confused but everyone will be happy happy happy so hallelujah brothers and sisters i yearn and dream and pray for such a week i say i want a week of good news of blood and ocean a sky full of wonders so that every morning memory of this time every memory of this horrific bust festering butthole this stupid ass jack shit fucked up universally acclaimed in god awful world of unholy rank fulminating postulate oozing scabs is gone i say i want a week of good news my friends can i have an amen out there i want to say a week of such good news that glory unbounded i say i just know we all want to see amen thank you so much thank you richard it really started with diamond dave and it was who he is that got this let me see i was going to say something profound and of course it left me already yeah it's okay when it took time all right nice uh is is is is there anybody else the reverend oh don't don't do that don't do that all right man good diamond dave for saving my life you found me in an alley in 2008 clarion alley you are performing for lit quake and i saw a man who was moving the crowd bringing people together and you invited me down to the radio show and gave me a outlet to give to have a focus on something other than myself introduced me to your co-host the love of my life miss valerie and fan jesca e-bar global val and i thank you for that too sir when you found me i was fully enclosed that is to say half dead with a focus that was the self-focus you let me do something else the world's so enamored within a road season vented by itself shall we define it self an invention of the brain constantly doing something becoming something doing anything really rather than see itself what it is a loose collection of beliefs attitudes and opinions which is nothing self constantly divided the judge and the judged one fake thing continually dividing into two in conflict with itself what does that look like i must be more generous i must be less selfish i must be something says a judge acting superior to the content judge to be inferior the observer is the observed judge is that which it judges it's all self so complete change never happens for human how could it as the problem pretends to be superior to the problem so that's not going away any soon time soon is it self constantly divided the judge and the judge maybe the question is that who are we or what are we but where are we and are we lost in thought just looking at it psychologically what am i a presence that which observes so where am i lost in the content in the thoughts that are observed keep looking at which you may observe in consciousness pretends to be an observer a very wily mischievous ruthless observer which is thought and thoughts not just observing thought is this judging then changing costumes a moment later to be rationalizing defending itself through attack essentially itself it's a wild thing thought freaking out in its cage biting its own arm and gently cooling itself to sleep stroking its pleasurable parts we'll call that memory is it as you see it with no judgment that's you see him and that's love and you are free in the way that maybe the only freedom available to humanity really freedom you'll ever need free to act outside the programming that patterns that petty games thought plays with itself pretending to be you laying that observer rain as you watch it lost in thought see it yeah you are found at the time thank you brother yo Richard yo dan come on up this would not have happened this whole afternoon on this uh proclame by the board of supervisors diamond day diamond day day in san francisco mother fuck would have as in it all have been all the ups and downs the lessons i first appeared here in 1957 to thank everybody for sitting through this hanging out through this everybody i've heard various various takes of um various interactions some of which i had no idea some of which i've forgotten some of which were fest my memory some of which were a total surprise but here we are i thought maybe a few people would come so that so thanks for coming brothers and sisters fuck yeah i can say in the library now diamond david i can say fuck yeah in the library that's good so i want to bring a trio cambio at least most of trio cambio because they'd be two of my favorite three band trio cambio come on up here sisters i want to say richard richard dan richard richard come on up here let me let's hear it for richard let's hear it for dan youtube for making this happen and while they're they're getting ready i wonder i was going to do a dead dead ted talk and that could be later i just want to say thanks for the praise but we have to look to the person next to you they're the ones that also made this happen people can have ideas but it takes people in other words the key you know it's another coalition uh that's uh has solidarity to it ooh remember that word the key the inner key and here's the poem how it works how it worked today well take what you need take what you need out of this afternoon give what you can where you can when you can however you can in other words it's about lending a hand strangers becoming more friends friends becoming family family becoming community and community in the move that's our movement because hey we were brought together for reason and that reason is we love one another brought together for reason that reason is that we heal one another brought together for a reason that reason is we complement one another brought together for a reason and that reason is that we complete one another like what yin and yang left and right up and down old and young man and woman rock and roll and here they are most of teal cameo my husband take it away sisters so i'm went song and this is cameo my and i met diamond david occupy so the first song i wanted to share was my occupy song and it's using a lot of a lot of chance that we sing on marches as inspiration it takes everyone to change the system talking about that good news world another world is possible stopable another world is possible get up on your feet marching down the street so come on america get up on your feet come to me just stay she's marching down the street another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable another world is possible we are unstoppable Another world is possible, we are unstoppable. Another world is possible, we are unstoppable. Another world is possible, we are unstoppable. Another world is possible, unstoppable. Another world is... And that's thanks to all of... It's up to us. One more song? Okay. We're gonna close it out with a Sufi song. Yeah. Camille also has a Vietnamese protest song that she wants to share, if that's all right. Okay, why didn't we let it down? Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. That's Sufi. It's a city on the grand ministry. The thanks be coming from these researchers to get away with you. Sufi one first? Sufi one? We do have a time problem because we have to be out by 7.30. It's the law here. We have to be out and it's already 7.16. Okay. And we gotta have him talk. So I have to apologize because I want to hear more. But Dave, remember this isn't mutiny radio. The library will kick our butts out at 7.30. You wanted 15 minutes. We were going to give you... We'll play while he walks up the stage. As loving you... Glorious sisters, glorious goddesses, glorious sisters, glorious new generation coming along. It's time for us dudes to step back because the sisters are stepping forward. Am I right? Yeah. That's right. Sister Wenzong and sister Camille, here they be. Peace, love and understanding. Pick up what we've... The seeds are planted every day and they planted these seeds. Take it out with you and keep on going and keep on flowing. Today is the first. The first day of the rest of our life. The first day of the rest of your life. And here we be as you see, saying indeed. So glad everybody came through. Everybody, the spirit said, I think I'll come by here and get it and make things happen. And that's what we're about. The past takes hands of the future through the now, right now. And then I went by saying dancing sideways down the ribbon of time. The path they had lit by the echo behind. All I've been through and all I'm looking forward to and so glad to be here. I'm just amazed. So, Camille, Wenzong, take it away. Thanks for coming, brothers and sisters. Oh, and I do get this. This is what the board of supervisors, they're... Take a look what they have to say. What they have to say of it right here. They call it Diamond Day, Puerto Corday, right here. And it's all even. One short announcement. The breasting brain, the snow will be coming. We're going to lock our little brother outside in his underwear when it snows. And we're going to have fun. Oh, thank you for playing with him. Pick up after yourselves. We have to leave this room as we found it. That's part of the deal. And I want to thank everybody for coming who's still here to hear it. And some really great stuff happened here tonight. I hope you enjoyed it. And that's it. I'm sorry I made that mistake. I'm sorry. Just say this was Margaret Cloudfeather. Margaret Cloudfeather, everybody.