Diatribes by Joah

What happens if Austin runs out of "tokens" like me?

I wish this wasn't the case, but my last blog - about tweeting during a recent Austin City Limits taping - was my most read in the last year. Does this mean I don't write about things that interest people? Perhaps. Although I did once write a blog about the Washington Elite that is still relevant today and continues to be among the most-trafficked blogs on the topic on the Internet. (do a Google search for the words “Washington elite”.)

But I actually think it says a bit more (possibly something disheartening) about Austin's residents. Often times, we are extremely short-sighted and can’t see the forest through the trees. We can’t see an in-show tweet as a sign of a new form of publicity for Austin musicians. We can’t see public transit, rail specifically, as a long-term answer to our traffic woes. We can’t see the Texas Legislature’s attack on public education as a long term effort to stiple innovation and economic solvency in the state.

Did you see the blog when I pointed out how dismal our African-American population growth is? By “growth” I actually mean that it’s on the rapid decline. It’s the only demographic – no other age or ethnicity is doing anything similar –experiencing a decline in the Live Music Capital of the World. What does this mean? Why is this happening?

Does anyone care? Will anyone be commenting on my Twitter or Facebook or blog about this trend? Will Austinites both new and old, mothers and daughters, friends and neighbors, because taking up arms about this issue? No, that’s way over their heads I suppose. Or maybe everyone has their token black friend and think they’ve done their part. Well, no, being my friend isn’t enough.

Because guess what? You keep this up, Austin, and there won’t be enough tokens to go around. No more rides on the merry-go-round for you in this city of creativity, fun and relaxation. The world of Austin, Texas, will have a lot less color. A lot less rhythm. Is that a stereotype there? Perhaps, but there aren’t even enough people concerned with the racial implications of this decline in the Black population to be up in arms the way people appear to be about my ACL/Twitter post. 

This is sad. I wish someone would tap me on the shoulder during an ACL taping and thank me for being there b/c it’s a rare occasion that this Live Music Capital of ours embraces the musical genres that embrace Black residents. Sure, we have Texas Relays but you all – yes, I said “you all” – seem to loathe it. We have hip-hop shows here and there, but they never have the momentum and support of those indie and singer-songwriter shows.

The remedy seems to put the word “Black” in your band name to get a little more attention, maybe from metal fans. I don’t know.

I’m just saying. Try caring about something more than whether or not my iPhone makes something less like it’s former self and care about the real things that make Austin a special place. We’ve been the token in the State of Texas for years.

But what happens when us tokens in Austin – yes, I realize that’s what I am when I’m out in social settings about 75% of the time - start to run out? What then?

 

Are Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake and Andre 3000 Sacrificing the Gift?

This is gonna be a super quick, but important rant. One of the quotes that I live by is by Steve Prefontaine. If you don’t know who he is, look him up on Wikipedia then watch Without Limits on Netflix or something. When the first Nike shoe is based on your foot and your life is turned into a movie titled Without Limits, you’re pretty much the perfect idol for me. OK, so he said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

What I think he meant is that once you find your true calling, your true passion and purpose – for Pre it was running  - then you have you do everything to do your best. Every time, all the time. The guy was famous for refusing to run below race pace in practices! Not the game, not the actual race, but practice! Allen Iverson left the NBA just a few years ago, but he already has less impact on modern day sports than Pre because he lacked this mentality. Anyway, back to my point.

I am a HUGE music fan. Got it from my older brothers, dad (read my Father’s Day post for more on him), and good friends over the years, I guess.  Regardless, the best way for me to demonstrate my music fandomness is to tell you that I go to Waterloo Records – one of the best locally-owned record shops in America – every Tuesday when I’m home in Austin to buy at least one new CD. Yeah, I still buy actual CDs. Don’t get me wrong, I love iTunes and Spotify. I’ve probably spent a good $5,000 on iTunes since college on music alone. My iPhone is Bluetooth-enabled in my car so I can start playing my iTunes playlists the second I put the key in. Still, I buy a ton of CDs. Something like 250 in the last two years. Also, I recently counted and it turns out I’ve seen over 400 different performances/shows/concerts since I moved back to Austin in January 2009. That’s something like two shows every week.

When I find a new band or artist I love, I go hard for them. Whether it’s bands like Letting Up or 10YR in Austin or groups like Electric Wire Hustle and rapper David Dallas in New Zealand, I will rep hard for them. But I can’t stand when an artist feels entitled to give anything less than their best.

Like Dr. Dre and Detox. Like Justin Timberlake. Like Andre 3000. Hell, at least D’Angelo has cleaned up his act (pun intended) and appears to be working on a new album now. One of the greatest ever, Sade, went on a full-scale tour last year, which I got to see in Miami. Bless her heart.

Dre, Justin and 3000 are absolutely killing me right now. Artists who make excuses for not acknowledging and sharing their greatest gifts kill me! Dre is using his headphones. Justin is using his acting. 3000 is using his fashion collection…and Gillette commercials. Excuses, excuses, excuses.

All three of you are sacrificing your gifts.

Have you already done enough to make someone like me happy? Sure.

Dr. Dre gave us The Chronic album and Snoop and Eminem and 50 Cent.

Justin Timberlake gave us Cry Me a River and SexyBack and his “D*ck in a Box” on SNL.

Andre 3000 gave us some of the best verses ever heard in hip-hop and paved the way for rappers like Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne to express themselves through fashion.

I get it. But you’re not dead, so you’re not done. You shouldn’t be done. If you’re just taking a break, like one of those Sade seven-year breaks, then that’s cool. Just say it! Don’t keep us hanging around…everytime Dr. Dre says, “watch out for Detox!” I want to throw a tomato at him!

2Pac

Aaliyah

Big Pun

Donna Summer

Easy E

Heavy D

G.U.R.U.

Jay Dilla

Jam Master Jay

Left Eye

Luther Vandross

MCA

Michael Jackson

Notorious B.I.G.

ODB

Pimp C

Whitney Houston

They all died for different reasons and under different circumstances. Their reputations were all different in their final years. But, upon their deaths, the same reaction occurred: universal acclaim and gratitude for the fact that they gave something special while they were here on Earth.

I’m not saying these three musicians – Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake, and Andre 3000 – haven’t given us their gifts significantly already. I’m not saying we wouldn’t celebrate their lives and musical contributions if they died prematurely or suddenly.

I’m just saying that I keep asking myself…do Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake, and Andre 3000 take life and their gifts for granted – not to mention their fans – so much that they aren’t busy doing their best to share them with the world?

Are they intentionally letting the years go by, drawing closer to their deaths, without sharing their musical talents because they think they’ve done enough?

If they do, I beg them to watch Without Limits. I beg them to take heed to Pre’s words.

I beg them to take advantage of, and not sacrifice, their gift. Sorry, making headphones, acting and fashion design, are talents you may have, but the world already knows what your best gift is. Making music!

That’s the gift we’ll all be prepared to celebrate when you leave this Earth, too. Until then, share it with us before you end up in music history Heaven with the rest of the people on that list above; possibly dead before your final act could be performed as was the case with Michael Jackson, with millions of fans wondering what else you had left in the tank as was the case with Tupac and Biggie, with so much talent left to show as was the case with Aaliyah and Jay Dilla.

I can tell you this; no one ever wondered if Steve Prefontaine had anything left in the tank nor did anyone wonder what other talents he had to share...every distance runner, every Nike-sponsored athlete and every U.S. Olympian knows exactly what Pre had.

He gave it his all, every time, all the time. It's disappointing to look at some of my favorite musicians and wonder if that's something they can say for themselves, despite their God-given and awe-inspiring talents.

Black America Needs to Play More Baseball

I was having a lively discussion with two really good friends over dinner tonight, and I want to share some of my points. Although I have a 6 a.m. flight, this is the kind of heavy topic that prevents me from sleeping soundly.

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Black Americans are educated from one generation to the next. The analogy I’d like to use, a timely one I believe, is that of a game of baseball.  Black Americans are taught – self-taught, primarily - to bunt and hit singles, but then our only options are to stand on the base waiting to be driven home or to steal our way across the bases. We have an outsized need of help from others, or we take what hasn't been given. Government or prison.

You're considered "special" if you make it to 2nd base in life: white-collar work. Seriously, do you realize how many runners reach 2nd base that never score runs? Second base is nothing. It's just a stat. If people want to get credit for stats, then they should go play in the minor leagues. The big leagues are for winners, through and through.

This isn’t an analogy I use lightly. I know this may rub some people the wrong way, because it will seem like a gross generalization and maybe Black self-hate or something else that is customarily lobbed onto anything critical of the standard m.o. in America. So be it. This here is a diatribe. 

Us Black Americans need to learn how to move across the bases ourselves. I believe in agency, and my life to this point has been my best attempt to be the best agent for my own level of success in this world. Sure, I've had help from plenty of people, Black and White, but I can't credit anyone other than myself for getting my where I am today outside of my mother for birthing me and my father for leaving me.

White Americans have dominated baseball for decades, centuries even. I’m not talking about the Yankees. I’m talking about the Waltons, the Romneys, the Kennedys, the Zuckerbergs. This is a game as old as any we’ve played in America. It's a game of bases, four total, that take a generational - team - effort.

The first base/generation has a sole purpose. That is to reach base. Bunting with zero outs is not ideal. Preferably, you have a good leadoff hitter to reach first base on a single. This is a speedy, hard working guy who doesn’t hit for power but hustles extremely hard. These are many of our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents if you're lucky (for those HBCU legacies).

Blue-collar work is the duty of a first generation. Scoring opportunities are significantly increased with a runner on base. You no longer have to hope for a home run, the rarest feat for a generation, to score. The lottery, the get-rich-quick-tips...these are home runs as rare as no-hitters. 

The next step is advance the runner. You can do this in one of four ways:

1) A stolen base. This goes back to the hustle. You have to have that in order to be able to move yourself ahead in the game. Whenever people mention things like “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” they’re talking about stealing bases. Some people can do this, but it’s not common. Less common today, in fact, than ever. The gap is widening, stolen base kings no longer as prolific as the days of Rickey Henderson.

2) A sacrifice play. This is far more common. Far too common, actually. One generation making countless sacrifices for another. The common perception is that single Black women make these types of sacrifices to raise their young children. This is true, but I don’t think this is a female-only fact. Men make sacrifices, perhaps of their professional ambitions and dreams, to provide for their families. Advancing their children’s ceilings from blue-collar to white-collar work.

3) A base hit. A good team may have a batting average in the area of .280, meaning out of 100 opportunities to reach base with a hit, 28 are successful. Does anyone like that average for young Black America? One hundred students walking into a classroom and 28 walking across a stage? I don’t think so. We need better hitting coaches in America’s classrooms and, in many cases, home settings.

4) Luckily, there’s a fourth way: walks. Walks require lots of patience. Often times there is an intimidation factor as well; the pitcher has to feel you’re a threat to get a hit at the plate. So that patience, coupled with skill as a hitter, make for a stronger case to walk the batter. Walks aren’t extremely common, but they are common enough to indicate there is some discipline involved in generation advancement. My mother didn’t graduate from college, but I did. She’s been a secretary or assistant for many years of her career, and I’m probably in need of one of my own.

Third base is hard. Stealing third base is really difficult. Double steals (where runners on both first and second base advance to second and third, respectively) happen, but very rarely. If the previous batter reached on a walk, a consecutive walk allowed is highly unlikely. Another sacrifice play is possible, but the field of play becomes smaller to achieve the intended goal of advancing the runner without risking giving up a double play. Ground balls are not your friends, either. 

Long story short, you need a decent bat on the ball, there needs to be some power and loft with any contact. This is where a lot of generations get hung up. The right contact is never made. They leave too many runners on base and don’t bring enough runs home. Generation after generation, runners are left on first and second, blue-collar and white-collar work alike, yet never reach home. 

Whether your paycheck is for $7.25 an hour at McDonald’s or $75,000 a year as an accountant, you may not have scored a single run yet. You haven’t won anything. Sure, you’ve shown signs of success…you have potential…but your scoreboard still shows zero.

Too many people confuse base hits, stolen bases, walks and sacrifices as runs. They are not. If you can’t get the runner over to third, you’ll never make it to the home plate. So what is third base if first is blue collar and second is white collar? Third base is creative professionalism.

It doesn’t mean you’re in Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” necessarily. You don’t have to be a web designer or writer or musician, no this creative professionalism is about how you utilize the hustle that got you to first base and the education that got you to second.

The combination of those skills and experiences is what has fueled a generation of tinkerers and thinkers whom are now creating their own jobs. Zuckerberg is a famous example, but there are millions of White Americans who've been able to do this for the last couple of decades. Sure, some of these jobs exist within corporations or organizations, but their existence is a result of the collective effort of many creative professionals. The pressure was applied to the pitchers so often that a pitch was met with a live bat. 

Unless you’re doing something you love, something you’ve been trained to do and trained yourself to master, and can make a living doing it, you’re not on third base. There are not many Black Americans on third base. I'm not saying there aren't any, I know quite a few actually like Johnica Reed and James Andrews and Coltrane Curtis, but they have thousands of Twitter followers and fans of their work because they are anamolies.

Black people: don’t lie to yourself if you’re on second. You’ll know deep down if the love and skill is there. No one else will tell you, but you should be honest with yourself and work harder.

Who knows, though, some people are happy with the stats of having reached base, gotten a steal or walk. But those stats fanatics aren’t the people winning the titles all the time. Sometimes, but not always. Why do you think Derek Jeter – and not A-Rod – is considered the Yankees great of today?

So reaching home is the pantheon of success.

You’ve hustled, you’ve been educated and worked hard, and you’ve been creative in paving your own way across life’s bases.

You want to score in this game? Score your run, congratulate yourself, then pick up the bat and hand it to a young Black American. They need us to help them learn how to run the bases too. My book “Real Role Models” and the numerous public speeches I give in classrooms and to youth organizations is my initial attempt to do just that, but I’m getting the itch to do a little bit more.

I can’t sleep on this one.

What Thoughts I'm Bringing to Austin's Downtown Commission

Last week, I attended my first Downtown Commission meeting as the newest appointee of the Mayor and City Council. This appointment was a result of my status as the Vice Chair of the Austin Music Commission, so it should go without saying that I plan to represent the heart of our city, particularly Downtown, which is live music.

One of the most dire and urgent issues our Downtown area is facing is the rapid decline of our urban core as the center of live music establishments in Austin. Several establishments along both the west side (e.g. Momo’s) and east side (e.g. Emo’s) have closed in recent months and left a giant hole in our musical portfolio. Emo’s and Beauty Bar have both relocated to East Riverside, planting their flags in what will soon become a popular district on the outskirts of Downtown. Momo’s, like Katz Deli, simply couldn’t afford to keep operating with Downtown rents being the way they are.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we still have Stubbs, the C3-operated venue with a stellar reputation, and Mohawk, the Transmission-operated venue with the most consistently dynamic booking record in Austin. With those companies operating at bigger and bigger levels each year, led by ACL Festival and Fun Fun Fun Fest respectively, their venues should stand the test of both time and the ensuing Waller Creek development. Red River may not have a dozen venues in 5 years, but it still has the foundation to remain the most important live music street in America. I can say that confidently because whether you’re an emerging band looking to breakout during South by Southwest, playing at a small venue like Head Hunters or Swan Dive, or a major act swinging through Stubb’s or Mohawk on your way East from Coachella, you’ll likely have a home base on Red River, which years ago replaced Sixth Street as the musical heart of Downtown Austin.

Add in The Parish, the most legitimate venue on Sixth Street, Antone’s on West 5^th, and ACL Live at the Moody Theatre – the crown jewel of Austin’s indoor venues that has hosted Jay-Z and Radiohead in the last two months alone -  and you have a solid roster of venues that give Austin a starting five that tops just about any city’s in America. But we’re losing our bench.

Well, if there’s anything we know about Downtown Austin it’s that a) people are moving there (see chart below), b) rent is increasing and c) live music is the top, not among the top it is the top, cultural asset that the City has to offer. No offense to the cultural arts downtown, the clothing boutiques along 2^nd Street, the bar scene and the restaurants, but live music is the alpha of Downtown Austin. Ripping out the alpha in Austin would be like ripping Austin out of Texas; things would only get worse from there.

So, no, Governor Perry, we don’t have you to thank for Texas’ stellar economy in comparison to the other states. We have cities to thank. San Antonio, Houston and Dallas are all outpacing other major U.S. cities in terms of net population growth, unemployment rates, job growth and affordability.

And it just so happens that the city I love and live in, Austin, outpaces them all in about a million categories of merit. This is why whoever said Austin would be the best city in America for the next decade was spot on.

But there are other risks facing Downtown besides the tenancy of live music establishments. As I serve on the Downtown Commission, I plan to bring forth my perspective on the following issues to ensure the City Council and Mayor are fully prepared to do what it takes to keep Austin thriving, keep our Downtown roots in place, and position the City for the future rather than diminishing returns on our past:

1. The extension of our Downtown perimeter. I understand that the traditional barriers of our Downtown core are Lamar to the West, Martin Luther King to the North, I-35 to the East and Cesar Chavez to the South. That doesn’t mean this truly reflects what Downtown living is. We need to have an open and honest discussion about the outer shell of Downtown Austin and what steps need to be taken, particularly on the East Side and South side (e.g. South Congress, South Lamar), to make our city more connected and livable for Downtown residents and outer-Downtown residents who don’t want to have to get in their cars every hour to be productive.
2. Which leads me right to public transit. I had a good conversation with a good friend from my political days in DC the other day about transit in Austin. I know I’ve talked about this a good bit, but I do believe rail will ultimately be our solution. But that doesn’t mean we have to start there now. If rail is too hard for some people to wrap their heads around, perhaps we can start with lower hanging fruit. Like getting a much more effective taxi cab system in Austin, particularly on weekends and around events. Uber-Taxi would be a great addition to our city. Car2Go, ZipCar, whatever else is needed should be encouraged through multi-modal transportation initiatives. Also, we should up-level our bus service to emphasize on-time arrivals/departures and cleanliness. In some cases, we may want to provide a financial incentive – perhaps through Austin Energy – for residents who use the bus system. Despite CapMetro’s reputation, our bus system is the best option we have today and we must choose to support it or replace it.
3. Livability and connectivity between Downtown residents and outer-Downtown residents. If you live along South Congress, South 1^st, South Lamar, Barton Springs, the UT Campus area or anywhere East from Riverside to MLK and within a mile of I-35, you should have the ability not only to get Downtown without a car on a rainy day, but you should also have multiple options to buy groceries, get dry cleaning done, go to the Post Office, etc. If the City is going to continue filling our Downtown area with more condos, offices and restaurants, we should focus on rounding out the Downtown experience from sunup-to-sundown. The Trader Joe’s announcement is a start, but we still have a long ways to go to truly make Downtown Austin comparable to the livability experienced in other great cities. On that note, I think the word "retail" should only be used on development projects like this if they actually mean retail. I heard some developers use the word interchangebly with restaurants during my first meeting and it pissed me off. This City has a ton of great restaurants and no lack of talented chefs and investors lined up to open new ones. What we lack is major retail. Second Street District has benefitted by the Urban Outfitters I'm sure, but more is needed. What about places like Uniqlo, H&M, Allsaints, Topshop...why aren't we recruiting them to our downtown for these "retail" spots? Bring their planners to SXSW and show them how amazing this city is for retail.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Hell, I probably don’t even ask all the right questions yet. But I am super passionate about Downtown Austin because it’s the most important cultural hub of Texas, period. What happens with Downtown Austin will pave the way for what happens in Texas’ other major cities, which will pave the way for what happens with our state, overall. And, if you’ve paid any attention, our state tends to have a lot of impact on the rest of the nation.

 

Yeah, Austin is the best.

Austin has been named #1 in just about every list of great American cities. Here's the quantitative data to back it up.

Why does 2012 matter? #TrayvonMartin #HungerGames

Between those two teen girls and their YouTube rant, this shit I posted recently, what happened to Trayvon Martin and this racist Hunger Games crap, I have had enough. I've written about my first experience with racial profiling, but that was nearly a dozen years ago and there is still far too much racial insensitivity abound.

People say “it’s 2012 for crying out loud”…”it’s 2012 for Pete’s sake”…”I can’t believe this is happening in 2012!” Fuck that. Who cares what year it is, this shit is just harmful, ignorant, and reflects poorly on our society. More importantly, it reflects poorly on our youth. Yeah, Trayvon Martin’s killer was not even 30 years old. These people complaining about the race of key characters in Hunger Games, the movie, aren’t even 20 years old. This is my generation and the next one; I’m embarrassed and afraid.

People were saying “we aren’t slaves anymore…” then they were saying “the Supreme Court said…” then they were saying “but the voting legislation was passed...” then they were saying “didn’t we already fight this battle in the ‘60s and decades before?...” but in the form of “it’s the 70s!” or “it’s  the 80s!” or “it’s the ‘90s”…or “it’s 2000!” … now we’re saying “it’s 2012” which has a special ring to it because you’d think that our society has advanced pretty damn far since some people think the world is about to end and all.

But then this shit happens. First, some bright idea called “Stand Your Ground” does the exact opposite…it prevents someone like Trayvon from being able to stand his ground in America. It forces him to be profiled, followed and, ultimately, killed.

Then there’s this Hunger Games shit, which may not seem on par with the priority that we as a society should place on Trayvon’s case, but I believe is directly linked. You see the people who seem to have a problem with Rue’s character being black are probably Trayvon Martin’s age. Only they aren’t black. They have the benefit of being on the bullying side of racial profiling. Kids like Trayvon are the victims of racial profiling.

People like Trayvon’s killer are part of the problem, but the bigger part of the problem comes from a less scrutinized audience and is far more subtle. It’s in our pop culture. It’s in the assumptions we allow young people [for the purpose of this blog “young people” means those in my generation or younger] to make about race.

Who cares if it’s 1972 or 2012, we should not allow people to make the kinds of assumptions about people – be they real people like Trayvon Martin or fictitious people like Rue from Hunger Games – that aren’t met with facts.

Trust me, I love assumptions. I think assumptions save us a lot of time. But assumptions need to be backed up with facts.

Trayvon’s killer didn’t want facts, it seems. He just wanted to pursue someone “suspicious looking” as if he wore a badge.

Those young people bashing Rue being portrayed by a young black actress rather than the white one they’d imagined while reading the book didn’t want facts either. That’s why they missed the part of Suzanne Collins’ novel that read, “she has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor.”

The facts are that George Zimmerman was explicitly told not to follow Trayvon Martin. If he wanted to play soldier, he certainly did not understand how to follow instructions.

The facts are that Rue’s character was written with brown skin and brown eyes. It just so happens that the casting director did a good job in finding a little girl named Amandla Sternberg who has brown skin and brown eyes (and can act).

Who cares what year it is. We either decide to accept the facts or ignore them. If certain people want to ignore the facts, then the law shouldn’t protect them over a 17-year-old with Skittles in his hands. Nor should it negate the tremendous movie roles played by black actors despite their wishes for racial homogeneity.

One minute a Florida teenager is watching the NBA All-Star Game, and the next minute he’s shot dead. One minute the movie industry is abuzz about Hunger Games’ $150-million-plus opening weekend, and the next minute Twitter is trending with racist sentiment about key characters in the hit movie.

When it comes to racial profiling and negative assumptions, the year we’re living in shouldn’t even matter. Hell, the month/week/day/hour shouldn’t either. This is a minute-by-minute issue.

I’m not easily offended by racial jokes if they come from friends, but I’m going to become more adamant that these things stop because I do see a connection between my own acceptance of these stereotypes and this negative trend that FB/Twitter/YouTube definitely exacerbates.

I will say this about it being 2012, though. It’s about time we trained our selves and our young people to put the proper value on facts in order to reduce the reliance on negative assumptions about race.