Nonogirl Radio

Youtube - Project: Report

My attraction to radio and the web has always been the do-it-yourself possibilities. Today's tools allow many different stories and perspectives to be shared to diverse communities. And with this Youtube initiative, citizen journalism is rewarded.

Round one asks you to feature someone in your community in under three minutes. I think the judging criteria is depth of reporting and strong narrative. Watch the video for more details.

End of the Road

I've been exploring the videos on Current.com and the work in their Vanguard Journalism section is impressive.

End of the Road is a solid piece of reporting by Jael de Pardo on the 60 mile break in the Pan American Highway. Although the tone is casual and verite, Jael conveys the danger in the area as well as the urgent challenges the people in the region face.

A brave, informative piece.

African Americans in Mainstream Media

Tonight the Bay Area bid farewell to KTVU's anchor, Dennis Richmond.

Not having grown up in SF and not being a regular TV news watcher, I don't feel a special allegiance to him, but I did watch the 10 o'clock news to witness the sign off.

While it's a major accomplishment for Richmond to have secured this prestigious position in a prominent media town while being African American, the person I'd really liked to have seen sign off is Petey Greene.

From what I can tell from the few Youtube clips and the film based on his life, he spoke his mind and he connected with the people.

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad

A testimony to the importance of being able to tell your truth and how most media serves the interests of the elite:

A woman who helped take over a television station in Oaxaca said they wanted an opportunity to tell, "a little bit of so much truth."

The truth about:

• the needs of the school system (the schools, the teachers, the students)
• the needs of the poor while the rich resources and Oaxaca benefit the rich
• the peaceful protest disrupted by strong armed police and military

I should start listening to work that produces work with that kind of direct service to the community, and immediacy. Would that be FSRN?

Under the Radar

I knew Theo Rigby as a photographer, but after viewing this audio slideshow, I now see him as a great interviewer and storyteller as well. We get an intimate look at one immigrant family and the challenges and fears they face living in the US without papers.

The SFAC recently awarded him with an Artist and Community Innovation Program grant where he's providing youth with cameras to photograph their surroundings while at the same time, he is photographing the youth. I look forward to see how this project turns out!

Joe Strummer - The Future is Unwritten

Before I took off for a vacation in Hawaii, I squeezed in an evening of alternative media and punk rock.

The Future is Unwritten brought perfect closure to the Bill Sorro project I'd been working on for the past seven months. RJ's video on Bill screened two nights before. One of the challenges he faced included a large quantity of talking heads on tape with little b-roll.

Julien Temple, the director of the Strummer documentary, spiced up the interviews by shooting them in front of camp fires. Bono in front of a campfire in Ireland, Strummers old bandmates in front of a campfire in England. RJ had an idea to do this with the theme of the dinner table. Bill and Huli's dinner table has a distinct green table cloth. RJ wanted to film each interview at a dinner table with the same table cloth, but we didn't think of this in time.

While this film goes in deeper to Strummer's psychology, I liked Westway to the World, the documentary on the band, much better.

"A Serving of Love" Website

Many of you know that I've been working on a project honoring the life work of Bill Sorro. In August we opened a gallery show. In October, the audio installation at that exhibit moved to Somarts' Day of the Dead exhibit. A couple weeks ago, we premiered a video produced by RJ Lozada. And now we have completed the "A Serving of Love" website.

The site is composed primarily of short videos including interviews with Bill, his family, and friends. This youtube clip is one example.

Please stop by the site, link to it, and share your own stories of Manong Bill.

Jawbreaker Documentary

Because I missed out on catching the Dinosaur Jr. show on Sunday, I popped on my prized Jawbreaker video--live at Gilman in 1987. I'll be parting with it for a bit so that Jawbreaker's drummer, Adam Pfahler, can make a digital copy of it for the upcoming Jawbreaker documentary.

Since I caught the Jawbreaker fever late (1995), the video allows me to catch songs they'd stopped playing by the time I saw them play live like Busy and With or Without U2.

They announce that it's their last show for a year or so because band members need to "return to college," and they still called themselves a band from Los Angeles!

One of the best moments happens at the end of their set when Gilman staff defend the no stage diving rule because a parent was suing the club for her son's injury while punk rock boys complain that it's cutting in to their fun. Clearly this was before the days where the debates were over who "sold out."

Living to the End

I'm working on building a website to accompany the gallery show about Bill Sorro called A Serving of Love: The Passion of Bill Sorro. This site will utilize the photos, video, and audio we've compiled for the show.

In researching ideas on how to best present the information, I found this amazing web project, Living to the End. This is a project of the Oregonian that follows Lovelle Svart's last days of life. She's battled lung cancer for over five years and in June, she was given a prognosis of less than six months to live.

Each entry is a deeply personal video. Viewers may comment. And as Oregon has doctor-assisted suicide, the viewers are provided with an intimate first hand account of the decisions made by someone who qualifies for the procedure.

This is an amazing use of the web that takes the genre of reality media to a new level.

A Serving of Love.

I've been working on several projects celebrating the life of Bill Sorro. Bill is an activist who integrates his values and politics into every aspect of his life. He grew up in San Francisco's Fillmore District, danced with the Performing Arts Workshop, visited Cuba on the Venceremos Brigade, organized to bring more people of color into the ironworking trade, worked in the Mission District for low income housing, and helped rebuild the new International Hotel.

Throughout this all, he raised seven kids and turned opened his home to countless people for dinner.

We opened a gallery show  of photographs, artifacts, and a refurbished version of Fireside Chat on August 4th during the 30th anniversary  commemoration of the I-Hotel eviction. It's called A Serving of Love: The Passion of Bill Sorro.

The gallery is open until the beginning of October. Still to come is a Talk Story of people sharing stories about Bill on September 8, the DVD release, and a website.