Ai Weiwei

Photo by Ai Weiwei

Mike Giant

Slap tagging, San Francisco, 1994.  

Photo by Ben Lovejoy

Thursday Blog 1.7.16

Here is my first blog of the new year, and even though I’m looking forward to 2016, this is going to be a look back at Urban Guerrilla Zine in 2015.  I attempted to post a new blog every Monday towards the end of last year, which pretty quickly turned into every other Monday, but even so I’ve decided to commit to posting a couple a blogs a week in 2016.  Now, let’s take it back to time not so long ago.

In 2015, I managed to put out two zines, which isn’t that impressive.  On the other hand, when you’ve been putting out a zero zines per year for the last seven or eight years, two’s pretty good.  Urban Guerrilla Zine has never really gone away or stopped being active.  When there wasn’t a new issue of Urban Guerrilla Zine there were over a hundred UGZ Presents shows that I booked and promoted, like the UGZ Speed Trials for example, and when I stopped booking shows there was the internet.  When the internet started to feel a bit too isolating and detached, I decided to make zines again.  For most folks Urban Guerrilla Zine existed from 1997-2006, and that was pretty much it until 2015.

Urban Guerrilla Zine #17 was made to accompany a UGZ themed art show that took place in early 2015 at 1-2-3-4 Go! Records in Oakland, at the urging of Pat Libby for which I am grateful.  Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 was a half issue entitled “Summer Of No Love”, which was supposed to be out by late summer, but didn’t actually see the light of day until the fall due to issues with the printer.  In fact both zines had printer issues, and in both cases I found myself at Inkworks Press (a worker owned collective) in Berkeley, having to photocopy what were intended to be offset printed zines.  Inkworks doesn’t have the best copy machines, but they are well maintained, so the zines looked pretty good.  The biggest drop off from offset to photocopy would be the photo quality.  In the case of #17 I had to have it done in time for the art show, which we’d also advertised as a zine release party.  As far as the “Summer Of No Love” half issue went, I wanted that out as quickly as possible because I know me, and if I’d waited any longer then it would’ve ended up with all of the other unfinished projects cluttering my work area.

Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 is a very personal issue, but not a “personal zine”.  Maybe I should’ve made that distinction a bit more clear when describing it in previous posts.  I wasn’t that concerned with how much the graphics or stories resonated with the reader as much as I wanted to recreate this one summer in Emeryville, standing at a bus stop next to a casino that was in the process of being torn down, surrounded by elderly Asian gambling addicts and crack addicted prostitutes from the stroll a few blocks away on San Pablo Ave.  The vibe I felt while waiting to transfer to the bus I rode to my summer job at a bookstore, where I spent all day indoors when all I wanted was to hang out on Telegraph Ave with my friends.  I didn’t actually write any of that in the zine, but it’s there.

Looking ahead, I plan on doing more zines in 2016, one or two of those will be newer issues of UGZ for what has admittedly become a somewhat limited audience.  On the other hand, I don’t miss printing a thousand zines at a time, and distributing them, then trying to collect the money I’m owed from all the various distributors around the country.  I’m making zines at this point because I enjoy the process, and so I’ll see where that approach takes things from here on out.

If you didn’t get a copy of Urban Guerrilla Zine #17, the only remaining copies I know of are at Needles and Pens, 1173 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA

If you want a copy of Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 aka “Summer Of No Love”, then you can still purchase a copy at:

1-2-3-4 Go! Records, 420 40th Street #5, Oakland, CA

Issues Magazine + More, 20 Glen Ave, Oakland, CA

Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA

Bound Together Books, 1369 Haight St, San Francisco, CA

Monday Blog 12.14.15

There used to be a time when I’d think, “this is too much”, and, “they’ve finally gone too far.”  The first time I watched the Rodney King beating video I thought that, but then there was the trial and all of the officers involved were acquitted.  The L.A. riots that followed had flashes of sending a message, especially when they started to move towards the wealthier areas of the city, but in the end the folks who rioted only managed to burn and loot their own neighborhoods.  I should know better than to think that any one incident will turn the tide at this point because the list of demands from communities most affected by these types of incidents usually focus on reform, which is the same reform that previous generations have been calling for since the 1960s.  

Last week’s Monday blog was about the SFPD’s execution of Mario Woods by firing line, which was all captured on video, from multiple angles in the city’s Bayview District.  I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see when Facebook autoplayed the first video I watched of Mario Woods being gunned down by the SFPD.  That’s a shitty function by the way, and who knows why Facebook feels the need to shove video content down the throats of its users, but either way I watched that video, and later the other videos from different angles before writing last week’s blog.  It was shocking, and after two years of protests around the country, and the Black Lives Matter movement, to think that something like that can happen in a so called liberal city like San Francisco just underlines the fact that we are way past the point of fixing things with simple reforms.  Oh, and if you watched the Mario Woods video(s) and thought, “this is too much”, and, “they’ve finally gone too far”, then you probably missed the video of Los Angeles police officers shooting a man 33 times as he attempted to crawl away.  The LAPD says they found a gun on the man they shot from behind, then continued to shoot as he crawled away, and they also claim that they received 911 calls from citizens in the neighborhood reporting gun fire, and that the young African American male they shot to death matched the description of the suspect.  If only we had a system where we could trust that all of those claims would be followed up on and properly investigated.

There used to be a time when people believed that art and music could change the world, but that got commodified and turned into art and music becoming a soundtrack for social change, then finally a soundtrack for a generation that once called for change in this country.  They protested in the streets and occupied their college campuses, then graduated and got married, had kids, bought property, turned their homes into apartments, and their backyards into apartment buildings, then rented these units to students so they could circumvent rent control laws, and so on.  That’s a different subject for a future blog perhaps; the Baby Boomer generation and the pitfalls of granola based diets.  

A creative, conceptual, free form approach to addressing the inequality and injustices in our society can change the world, as we observe it.  It’s not literally the art or music, but a state of mind.  I know that’s a fairly abstract statement to make without expanding on it further, but the point of these blogs is not to delve deeply into every thought I have concerning whatever subject I’m addressing, but it’s more of an immediate response to what’s most on my mind on any Monday morning when I sit down to write.  

Tharp World

Julie and Alison, both former contributors to our zine, got together for an episode of Alison's web series Tharp World, check it out.

Dominant Species

Dominant Species by ROA

"ROA travels the globe studying the relationship between human beings and animals. This video showcases the process of methods that went into a past in San Francisco of the same name, and also features walls that were painted in Miami, South Africa, Puerto Rico and across the United States."

Santa Muerte

Santa Muerte t-shirt design for 924 Gilman, based on Brian Stern's limited edition shirts he made for the EXTORTION/IRON LUNG show that we booked, along with Alejandra "Nunca Mas" back in 2009. The Gilman design is basically the same, except for the band names that were removed, and the bottom half which was decided upon after 15-20 minutes of emails between myself and Brian. We raised over ten thousand dollars (for Gilman) selling t-shirts and tote bags of this design. I also like that this Santa Muerte image is synonymous with UGZ, and our involvement with the club.

HIGH ON FIRE

HIGH ON FIRE live at the 40th Street Warehouse in 1999.  I miss this spot, especially the Nicholas Noisegate era of the warehouse, and I guess I miss living a block away from such an awesome space.  Aside from all the great bands (I once saw Dystopia and Talk Is Poison play impromptu sets at a Melt Banana show there), I remember attending some killer art shows at the 40th Street Warehouse that featured work from a bunch of my friends at the time, not to mention all the other cool stuff that went down there on any given night, not just weekends.  Someone posted a photo recently on Facebook from the last show ever at 40th Street, and I remember that bill featured a bunch of bands that probably wouldn't have been allowed to play there during the space's heyday, so in a way that was the perfect send off for a venue that always a little unpredictable.

The Black Dahlia

UGZ #15 visits The Black Dahlia's grave.