It has to be about time we rethink safety and policing, especially in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy. Like so many of us, we know things need to change. But what can we do about it? We grappled with this question and more in a crucial conversation with the thought-provoking documentary filmmaker, Matthew Solomon. His film, Reimagining Safety, challenges us to consider a more humane approach to policing in our communities. Together, we delve into the disturbing reality of over-militarization, the damage caused by societal biases, and the urgent need for police reform.
We don't just stop there; we also take a closer look at the importance of empathy and changing the narrative on "defunding" the police when it is really "reallocating" the police resources in ways that work better for everyone. Especially the police. As we explore the potential implications of this action, Matthew shares his fascinating journey from music school to filmmaking. From his passion for conflict resolution to his understanding of societal structures, we uncover the inspiration behind his impactful work and Rick and Maiya are right there to really help get into it. This episode promises to be a blend of serious discussions, comedic rug-pulling, personal anecdotes, and enlightening insights from a filmmaker at the forefront of social change along with 2 touring musicians trying to make sense of it all.
We also let you in on some secrets from the road with the launch of our new segment "TORROR STORIES!!!". Check out crazy tales from the road from @maiyasykes and @rickbarriodill that you can only get on StP. And finally, we discuss the significance of art and storytelling in driving societal progress. It's a jam-packed episode that we hope will provoke thought, inspire change, make ya laugh and ignite conversations. Reimagine safety with us and tune in, let's explore this together.
SLAP the Power is written and produced by Rick Barrio Dill (@rickbarriodill) and Maiya Sykes (@maiyasykes). Associate Producer Bri Coorey (@bri_beats), with assistance from Larissa Donahue. Audio and Video engineering and studio facilities provided by SLAP Studios LA (@SLAPStudiosLA) with distribution through our collective home for social progress in art and media, SLAP the Network (@SLAPtheNetwork).
If you have ideas for a show you want to hear or see, or you would like to be a guest artist on our show, please email us at info@slapthepower.com
It has to be about time we rethink safety and policing, especially in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy. Like so many of us, we know things need to change. But what can we do about it? We grappled with this question and more in a crucial conversation with the thought-provoking documentary filmmaker, Matthew Solomon. His film, Reimagining Safety, challenges us to consider a more humane approach to policing in our communities. Together, we delve into the disturbing reality of over-militarization, the damage caused by societal biases, and the urgent need for police reform.
We don't just stop there; we also take a closer look at the importance of empathy and changing the narrative on "defunding" the police when it is really "reallocating" the police resources in ways that work better for everyone. Especially the police. As we explore the potential implications of this action, Matthew shares his fascinating journey from music school to filmmaking. From his passion for conflict resolution to his understanding of societal structures, we uncover the inspiration behind his impactful work and Rick and Maiya are right there to really help get into it. This episode promises to be a blend of serious discussions, comedic rug-pulling, personal anecdotes, and enlightening insights from a filmmaker at the forefront of social change along with 2 touring musicians trying to make sense of it all.
We also let you in on some secrets from the road with the launch of our new segment "TORROR STORIES!!!". Check out crazy tales from the road from @maiyasykes and @rickbarriodill that you can only get on StP. And finally, we discuss the significance of art and storytelling in driving societal progress. It's a jam-packed episode that we hope will provoke thought, inspire change, make ya laugh and ignite conversations. Reimagine safety with us and tune in, let's explore this together.
SLAP the Power is written and produced by Rick Barrio Dill (@rickbarriodill) and Maiya Sykes (@maiyasykes). Associate Producer Bri Coorey (@bri_beats), with assistance from Larissa Donahue. Audio and Video engineering and studio facilities provided by SLAP Studios LA (@SLAPStudiosLA) with distribution through our collective home for social progress in art and media, SLAP the Network (@SLAPtheNetwork).
If you have ideas for a show you want to hear or see, or you would like to be a guest artist on our show, please email us at info@slapthepower.com
police academy spends 60 hours on firearms training, shooting, and only eight hours of de-escalation, and so they're taught to command and control the mindset that they're that Drilled into them is, when you walk into a space, you're the one in charge. People need to listen to you, you know, and if somebody pushes back, you know, the way that they prove themselves is they have to fight or arrest somebody, or right, you know? Right, tickets make a rest, so it's all like. None of that is about serving the community and de-escalating and taking care of people.
Speaker 2:Yo, yo, yo yo yo. Welcome back. Slap the power season two doos, doos, doos. I am your host, Rick barrio Do. My name is Maya Sykes, yes, and I am so glad to be back in the studio. It's been a long, long summer. We talked about this on the on the last episode, but so many things have happened and so many things to talk about and to get Into. But on the show today we're definitely, definitely gonna be Hearing from Maya Sykes, who's been you've been reporting out from the field on the strike I have a shout out to Kent and Chen and the unofficial singers committee on Facebook.
Speaker 3:So we as singers have been trying to make sure that we make a presence in the strike and on Tuesdays We've been doing our best to meet up. Sometimes I can't always go on Tuesdays because I teach, but I have been there a few Tuesdays and I try to go at least one day a week to some portion of the strike. But I'm shout out to all my singer friends who have rallied and done some really incredible things. They had kids version of singers come out two Tuesdays ago. They had a really big presence for the National Strike Day. That they did, you know, across unions.
Speaker 3:And our friend Fletcher, who sat down with KTLA to talk about why singers kind of had a dog in this sag after a fight, has been coming up with really cool jingles that we sing. So his Last one was a. It's the tune of Eye of the Tiger, but it's Lie of the Iger. Because we've been Cuz we've been. So the morale is still good because the the belief that is still carrying on is that this is kind of a now or never thing and that we have one chance to get this Right because it's been wrong for so long, and in doing so, we've really had to change the attitudes of what people think you get if you are in the entertainment business. Yeah, so I think that it's allowed for a transparency that people see why we're still fighting. Nobody wants to be doing this, but we've really been Impressed upon that. These studios do not want to negotiate at all and, one by one, industries are falling because they don't want to negotiate. So the latest dog in the fight is the voiceover and video gaming industry.
Speaker 3:That's coming down, that's it, and that's a big one you know.
Speaker 3:I'm surprised that live entertainment didn't go, but I guess they were able to make a last-minute Contract negotiation. But at the end of the day, this is about making livable wages for people and not treating them Like they are underclass. Because they're asking for livable wages, and this is something that affects each and every one of us, unless you're in the 1% and if you're in the 1%, congratulations, but you still don't have the right to treat people like slaves and demand that they give you things just because you want them and you want to keep all the profits share. You do not have the right to do that.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful to see that people have decided enough is enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, I agree, and obviously everything is affected in our town, in Los Angeles, by by these strikes, and so we're gonna be doing an episode specifically devoted that towards that a little bit later in the season. And I also want to say on Tuesdays, let a brother know I'm gonna, I'll come down with you. Yeah, let a brother know and shoot, we could do a. We could do a. You know, shout out and helps. If you're in the Hollywood area, we'll try and figure out when we're gonna go and make a, make a make, you know, make a thing.
Speaker 3:We can do slap the power on the street.
Speaker 2:Oh shit, let's do it. Let's do it Also on the show today we're gonna be doing a repeat a little bit later of a new segment that we've got, that's called tour stories, that's we have to do that every single time that we say tour, because it just isn't effective without them.
Speaker 3:Wow, haha.
Speaker 2:I say it's calm, count chocolate. Yeah, all I can think of is when I do that is count chocolate I'm trying to give you like Vincent price hey, yeah it's the count from Sesame Street, like that's what.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm giving it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, and also on the show. A little bit later, we had the pleasure of interviewing in studio this, this brilliant, brilliant man, matthew Solomon.
Speaker 2:He is a documentary filmmaker and an activist, and a musician musician and he just did a film all on an iPhone and and shot it and it's actually it's winning wards all over the place, has been doing screenings all over town and now he's doing screenings all over the country. But the film is called reimagining safety. Sorry, reimagining safety and it's. It's really an examination of things in a post George Floyd world. And so stick around and listen. That the interview was really great. I learned a ton. I know we had a, we had a blast. You know, just actually opening this issue up and feeling like, okay, there are ways that we can sort of help and rethink about this.
Speaker 3:So that was really and there are ways to imagine a world in which the police force has a different purpose and there is definitely Going to be the unpopular opinion that the word policing is synonymous with militarization. So there's the impetus to try to change the word policing. Just in general, sure, but I think that, overall, we can agree that we need to give better support to our communities and we need to give better support to our police officers, because there's the missing link. So I really think that this film Educates you on how that's even possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:so reimagining safety movie Dot-com, I think is the website but we we touch on, we'll put it in the show notes and the interview is really, really great and you know. But first I actually it's this issue, reimagining safety is sort of when we get into this in the interview a little bit. But for me, you know, I've always been I associate, I associate with the black culture. I just, I always have, I've been, you know, the only white guy in all black bands of most my life. The music I listen to, it's all my heroes have always been black and it wasn't, it kind of almost wasn't, until I think they're us being trapped inside from the pandemic and having to look at Having and then George Floyd, and then having to look at a president Holding a fucking Bible upside down in front of a burning church At the where I was like that was the impetus for creating slap for me, because I kind of felt like, okay, we're not gonna be able to tweet our way out of these Events that keep on happening and I wanted to be able to put together a voice or at least a vehicle in a spaceship to be able to talk about these things and to be able to Try and feel like we have a little bit more agency by, by, you know, having a larger sort of Adiacy towards the communication and things, whereas you know you write a song and you write it about something like this, like George Floyd, and you know it's, it's amazing and the power of music is amazing, but it can take a long time for that to sort of Find its way back to you, you know, in the circle of trying to help people and Really trying to help people, trying to enlighten people and trying to figure out where the Venn diagram is, that that, especially, especially in policing, in an areas of Trying to love one another and trying to protect and serve, and so that you know that was the reason why I Created slap.
Speaker 2:I was because of in a post George Floyd world. I just feel like things are, things are different, and so we do have opportunities to let's get the facts together and let's figure out. Okay, well, if you know, if there is this budget, what? How can we, you know, help advocate for these things, whether they be Legislatively, or how can we advocate for, for, for better things?
Speaker 2:To where I remember being a kid, when I was a kid and the cops would come by, it was actually a good thing, right, you get at a certain point, until I, till I, was living in the, you know, the black neighborhood. It was a different story, but but I, when the cop would come by, it'd be a good thing, right? You were like, okay, cool, somebody's looking out for you, somebody's looking out for you. And then I remember being the only white guy living in this Project, in the project area, got shot at a couple of times, couple of bull holes in the back of my car and shit. And then I was pulled over every time I was there for being white in an all-black neighborhood, because they were like you. Well, you're just here buying drugs. That's the only reason you're here or supplying the drugs.
Speaker 2:I was applying the day. You know. You know it was a good week for me, this film had a different perspective.
Speaker 3:Maybe I bring a different perspective to the film because I grew up with police violence my entire life.
Speaker 2:That's what I know, that's what I've seen my for the people that don't know to what you were born here I was born here.
Speaker 3:I was born in Long Beach, I've lived in South Central, watts, hancock Park, venice and Silver Lake, so I've lived all over Los Angeles. And when we lived in South Central and when we lived in Watts, police violence towards people of color Was the norm. I would see People who were rounded up because they were wearing what was Classified as gang gear, but at that time it was. If they were wearing Nike Cortez shoes or Raiders fitted hats, they were automatically assumed to be gangbangers. So I remember many incidences that this the police Brutality towards black men specifically was so targeted and it became the norm. We all would just assume the position because this became the norm and you would teach your children this is what you do if the police pull you over, because it was survival right.
Speaker 3:So I always tell this story. When I was a kid, my mom got a better job and we were able to move. At the time we were living near USC and my mom, when she got promoted, was able to move us to the Hancock Park area. And Again, as a child I'm 11 at this point All I knew was the police rounding you up and whatever. At the time I was learning fractions in school. So my mother would do this thing, where we would cook, and she would change the Johnny cooks 1 8th of a crack rock.
Speaker 3:But more like you know, we're gonna make this recipe for eight instead of four or two instead of you know Whatever, and she would make me do all the math you know right, sure, sure.
Speaker 3:So I remember this very, very specifically because we moved just before Thanksgiving and Right around just before Christmas time, my mother had bought all these cookie tins and she said we're gonna make brownies and cookies and I was like, oh yeah, that's fun. And she said, okay, we're gonna, you know, make this recipe. It says it Makes 20 cookies, but we need to make a hundred cookies. So let's do the math. And I remember we did all the math or whatever, and we bought, you know, made the brownies and the cookies and then we went to the fire Department and the police department. And I remember this so specifically Because I didn't clock what my mother was doing until I was in my 20s.
Speaker 3:My mother went around going high we're new to the area, this is my daughter, maya and we made you these cookies and whatever, because you know she's learning about fractions yeah, we're learning about the different parts of the police department and did it at that. My mother was making sure these people didn't see me as a black kid, but that they saw me as a kid. My mother was protecting me and I didn't even realize that that's what she was doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she was getting them, and we did this every year. Yeah by the time you know, because everybody in the neighborhood we were one of like nine black families, they knew who I was and they didn't think I was an Intruder. Yeah, they saw me as a child, not as a black child who was there to start trouble, and my mother had to cement that into these people's minds Annually and I had no idea that that's what she was doing.
Speaker 2:That's great and I mean that's that's the word defund the police. It just it's, it's not a good faith argument and so that's why I'm glad we get into that in the interview a little bit later. It is, it's a. I do think there is an association. I love that story because I do think people it's community thing and people need to sort of be connected to their community more and that means the people like the police and the firemen that are working there. There should be a bond there because we're relying on them for when you know emergency strike and stuff like that, and they're relying on us for you know keeping the community, you know running and for you know building prosperous communities and stuff.
Speaker 3:Because at the time, especially when I was a kid, up until I was a teenager. Actually, this was quite a traumatic event. One of my classmates, her father, was shot and killed by the police when he reported a robbery at his own home and they mistook him for the robber and he was an aeronautics engineer for Boeing. He had three children that he sent to Ivy League schools and they shot this man on his porch because he called to ask the police to help him. And that is an attitude that we have to change if we're going to change anything about police brutality. We have to know that the police are going to protect and serve everyone, and we can't do that if we've over militarized the police, for sure, and we've criminalized all the aspects of community coalition, and we've criminalized them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I appreciate you saying that because it really really is. It's one of those things where there has to be options. I have a lot of friends that are policemen and I have so much respect for them and the job that they're trying to do and everything. But we can take funds and also bring in social workers. Bring in people that know how to deal with mental health.
Speaker 3:Bring in longer and better and more thorough education for police officers. Exactly, Exactly. I know this is an unpopular thing for a black girl from South Central to say, but what if we actually gave police officers the right resources? What if we gave them? You know, you can be a police officer in as little as three months. What if we made it a year?
Speaker 3:for training and you had to actually know de-escalation techniques. This would keep police officers safer. Why isn't that a thing that is met with just as much love? Because I don't think that we need to make it so that police officers aren't safe either. I feel like by saying, know your community, know who you're serving, that's going to make you safer.
Speaker 2:Exactly that makes total sense. Stick around in the interview. We do get into that a lot more. I learned a ton Same. It was really great Before we go to the break. I just kind of want to put this out. On the way over to rehearsal this morning, I heard of a friend that just passed away and I had I'm so sorry. Yeah, no, he'd been battling with cancer for a while and I had an appointment a standing appointment for him and I and my girl to get a photo shoot together and do all this. It had just been one of those things where it was like it didn't make it down low enough on the to-do list. That's not going to be doable anymore. I do want to say, in part of the gratitude and everything reach out to your loved ones. Make sure if there's somebody you haven't talked to in a while your mom, whomever make sure to tell the people that you love them, and this life is short. Take the opportunities that we get to love each other and to appreciate each other.
Speaker 3:I will say that I echo that sentiment because I lost a friend recently and the week he died he told me he loved me and after he died I really struggled with it, but I realized that he gave me just the most loving gift, that the thing I get to remember about him is at the end of this life. He told me what I meant to him and I think that that's a really powerful thing to be able to do for the people that you love. It's not something that we should take lightly. Loving on one another should be a daily exercise, not something that we do by happenstance or for special occasion.
Speaker 2:Amen, Take that to heart. Love each other, Love yourself. When we come back. Our interview with documentary filmmaker Mr Matthew Solomon, Joining us in the studio. Today we are honored to have Mr Matthew Solomon, director of the documentary Reimagining Safety, which is something that is definitely near and dear to Maya and I.
Speaker 3:For sure.
Speaker 2:And so welcome to the show, Matthew.
Speaker 3:Thank you for coming on down.
Speaker 2:Thanks Great to be here. Yeah, no, appreciate it, appreciate it. And for the people that don't know, go ahead and give us a little background on the movie and yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'll try and keep it short. I mean the movie actually. I mean really it's kind of like where my all the aspects of my life kind of intersected. So that's why I say I got to keep it short, because it really like I grew up here in LA, like you know, blocks away from this studio, I went to John Burroughs Junior High School, fairfax High School, which were very you know I'm 50. So late set. I was at John Burroughs in the late 80s, graduated Fairfax 91. So very integrated, like all my friends were, like every race, every religion at Fairfax. It was one of the first schools to have a gay and lesbian I believe it was a club or a center or something like that, and so, and I was a tap dancer, so I was.
Speaker 1:I grew up adjacent to us Hollywood was in, you know, the dance community and so, like my friends were always everybody. And so as a straight white male, jewish also, I saw that my friends had different lived experiences than I did and we talked about that and we knew that if we went to the Beverly Center they used to have an arcade at the top. You know like my friends would get looked at differently or whether they get, you know, followed around stores and so that that shaped how you know I like in school we're taught, oh, we're all equal and all of that, but then I would see it played out differently and my friends were telling me different. So you know it started with that. I went to music school. Out of high school I went to USC. I was a studio jazz guitar major, as you do. Yes, I do.
Speaker 2:So you're unemployed, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I actually you know, I dropped out of school ago be a rock star, so you know as we do we don't know how that goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I started taking sociology and anthropology classes while I was there and I was always fascinated with societies and how do we have societies that work and why do things not work? And we were learning about at the time they called it structural racism, not systemic, but structural racism, at the same time as the Rodney King beating and the LA riots. So I'm seeing it played out as I'm learning about it. So then, fast forward. You know, like I said, keep it short. You know, as in the music business, I got into filmmaking. I started doing conflict resolution because I was always fascinated with bringing people together and listening and getting people to hear other people's learned experiences and teaching people how to listen. For that, because when we do that, the stuff that divides us kind of melts away and we can really connect. And so, pre pandemic, I was traveling doing doing conflict resolution for corporations and colleges. Pandemic happens, can't go anywhere sitting around.
Speaker 1:I decided to go back to school and so I went into a master's in public administration program, figuring that I was done with the entertainment business and I wanted to get into government or politics or policy making where I could use my privilege and access to help support social movements. And I was applying all of the coursework to the issues with policing, incarceration, post George Floyd and all of that. And so when it came time to do my final thesis, one of my academic advisors was like we know you can write a paper, but we know that you used to make films. Why don't you do something creative and do a documentary? And I was like that's a lot of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a whole lot of work, you know and she was like, well, you know, it could be like 10 minutes or something, and I'm like I can't cover this in 10 minutes, no, and she was like we'll do it anyway and I think I just needed that little push. Yeah, because I hadn't. I didn't scripted before, but not documentary. And so, yeah, I took, I took my iPhone and I interviewed 10 people and including the district attorney of LA County and mental health professionals and activists and former LAPD officer and Dr Joe Moran.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Because I remember with ties to the Watts profits and stuff like that. It was really nice to see that perspective. Yeah, yeah, and the film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wanted it to be. I wanted a variety of viewpoints so people couldn't say, oh, it's just a bunch of activists, you know, or something like that. And so I made this film as a student project, turned it in and got an A. And then I showed it to some people, actually at Jody Armors house, and they're like this is really good. You need to, like, you know, change this up, you know, expand on it. I'm not a graphics guy, you know, but stuff like that. And so I hired somebody to do all the graphics and tighten up the edit and mix it and we premiered in February 2023 at the San Pedro Film Festival, packed house, and it just kind of taken off from there. We've been doing screenings all across the country impact screenings, film festivals and all of that.
Speaker 2:The film is fantastic and one of the reasons we talked off camera, one of the reasons why I was so inspired to have you down and to talk to you, is because the sort of impetus for slap in general, our studio here and everything kind of came from a sort of helplessness that I felt in the pandemic. During the pandemic, like everybody you know, the George Floyd situation was a tectonic shift in some ways. But, as an artist, we immediately, as artists, we immediately went into what we always do, which is okay, let's, let's funnel this into our art. So we made music and videos about it and everything, and we were, you know, put it out and kind of this. We felt like this was our contribution back and yet we caught so much shit for it. We were immediately, we were anti police, immediately, it was the. It was how the sort of quote unquote, defund, the police thing got manipulated from a PR standpoint and I was like, okay, well, the next time this happens and it will, it's going to happen again. We can't tweet our way out of it.
Speaker 2:And it, you know you, with the same, with your iPhone, went out and have kind of. You know you got up into a lot of stuff and I was. I was just really, really impressed by it because I think we do need to figure out there's so much money in in it from a union standpoint that's controlling it. That you know. Usually we're pro union here until it gets to then the police unions, you know, because they're so over militarized and everything. What is, what is your from doing the film? What is the kind of biggest take that you've got? That is, that is the biggest challenge that you think we're facing in trying to reimagine how we treat safety in our communities.
Speaker 1:I mean, the biggest thing is really all the, all the ways that we other people like, we as people, we find ways to be like, oh, we're not like them, or oh, they're the bad ones, were the good ones, and that you know everybody's like, oh, we're the good ones. That's the hardest thing, I think, to push through, because even you know you're talking about unions, right, so we have, you know, the writer strikes been going on for 100 plus days, years. Yeah, yeah, you know that's 100 years war. Yeah, you know the actor strike and, and you know, online I see a lot of people being like, oh, they're just prima donnas, oh, they get.
Speaker 1:You know who get a real job, learn to. You know, hang drywall or whatever you know. And so even the people that are supplying entertainment. You know I have a have a cousin who's a very, very, very successful plumber, who you know was was trying to say that people in film you know I've never worked a hard day's work in their life and it's like, yeah, come hang out 17-hour day in. You know the hundred degree weather. Yeah, under a tent, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:Underwater, underwater, well now, yeah, right, yeah. So also, too, I think that one of the things I loved about your film was that it utilized the play on words of Reimagining, redoing, etc. Because I feel that once you put the label of defund the police on the situation, you made Upper middle-class white people nervous, so People didn't understand what was being asked for when they were asking for the things through defunding the police, and really what it seemed Like what they were asking for was a reallocation of funds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I feel like if they but you can't say reallocating the funds of the police, it doesn't have the same commercial glow yeah so one of the things I would love to get into is the there is so much backlash against the defund the police argument and there's so much backlash against the cities that have done so because they seem to To the untrained. I present a poor example of what defunding the police can do. How do we change the attitudes of people to want to reallocate funding in a police department? Because I think it goes down to that same psychology of you saying about people thinking that the actors and writers who are striking or prima donnas like no, there's an issue, there's a crisis. And when you break it down and tell people like no, this is what you used to get and this is why it's not a living wage. It almost seems like you have to sit somebody down and disrupt their consciousness. So how do we begin to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question and it comes up every time. You know, when we do the community impact screenings, there's always always somebody who says yeah, but can we call it something else besides defund Right? Because it has been, like you were saying, polarized and you know like instantly, instantly.
Speaker 3:I can use this, but it was almost like it was you, almost it felt like the minute you said that word you wanted it to be polarizing. Because the minute you say something like that, especially against the you know thin blue wall, you know blue lives matter type situation, how could it not be Polarizing?
Speaker 1:yeah, and it came out of protest movements and it was part of the Black Panthers 10-point plan, which you know how. How I grew up learning about the Black Panthers was that they, oh they were this violent, you know terrorist organization. And then I saw this documentary on them, you know, a few years back, and it was like, oh no, they're, they were community resistance, community resistance. They fed the kids. They were, you know, keeping each other safe from police violence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the best parties of all, yeah, all the panthers don't realize that the Crip organization came out good.
Speaker 3:The Crips were community resistance In progress, so they were. Look, that was what they were designed to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that.
Speaker 3:That was the initial gang initiation of the Crips. They were an organization called Community resistance in progress, so you would report any incidents of police violence, any incidents of Violence against people in your community. That was what, initially, the Crips were designed to do and Over time, blue, yeah, it became. Yeah, yeah. You know all the it became what it became. But initially, many of these groups that have been demonized in the public eyes started out as community resistance groups. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I just just getting back to your question about defund, one of the things has been really that I'm really proud of with this film is that I have friends who are white liberal women you know White liberal men but who see the film and they're like, oh, I was afraid of defund the police.
Speaker 1:Now I understand what it is, and then, though, they've gone and had conversations with their family members, so that's been great.
Speaker 1:I think you know what. Actually, there was somebody who worked in politics at one of our screenings, I think in San Jose. You know who was like oh, democrats lost all these elections because of defund, we need to change the title. And there were some black activists there who were like no, we don't need to change the title, this is what it is, and and it clicked for me that you know, on the right, their messaging is so like they just dig in and this is our message and this is what it is, and you know, fuck you, you know this one, and we need that on the left, and not only do we need that, but I don't think that enough of the people in leadership, in on the politics side, you know, are educated enough as to what it, because if I was holding office and that came up in a debate, I will, yes, absolutely. We mean defund the police, fund the communities, you know, fund the people. This people need resources.
Speaker 2:They only. The only pushback I would have on that is the defund from a from a from a marketing perspective Implies to most people take all the money away and so it's an easy sell on Fox News when they're like okay, enjoy your fucking. You know, enjoy the underfunded police. Yeah, not the police not showing up when you have your next problem and it's like but what we're looking at is demilitarizing the police.
Speaker 3:Hey, looking at that's a different yeah and that's a different, that's a horse of a different color. Yeah, it also, I think, should be pointed out that Police go through what? Three months of training. I just don't think that they're Well first enough to be police people. Like every other country. You have to be go through rigorous training and you learn Policing de-escalation techniques that don't involve weaponry.
Speaker 3:Yeah so it looks like, and I also Think that when you say the defund part, when you look at what police people have, a lot of times they don't have access to the right equipment. You know they don't have access to Up-to-date computer-ized equipment. So I've seen instances where people got sent to the wrong house just because the computers and the Vehicles didn't work properly. So that's when you start looking at oh, defunding the police means that you're taking away these resources.
Speaker 3:I'm like, no, if we maybe refunded Actual resources that weren't military, you know grade weaponry, maybe we'd be getting yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, so Maryam Kaba talks about police abolition and what she says is you know, we're not talking about cutting off all the resources tomorrow. Actually, it's said in the film by a couple people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought about you know we're cutting it off tomorrow and you know, good luck to everybody. You're all on your own. See you later. We're talking. You know Maryam Kaba talks about Coming to a place where police are obsolete. So by funding communities, by having housing, education, jobs, food you know all the things that, when you don't have them, lead to crime and this is, you know, shown statistically.
Speaker 1:When those things aren't, when you have those things, when those needs are met, then crime goes down and then you don't need as many police officers, you don't need the militarized Police, you know. So that's that's. That's one part in the film. Dr L Jones, who's in Halifax, wrote a commissioned report that's 200 pages on defunding the police and they actually Termed it detasking so taking tasks away, so not having police show up at mental health calls with so many tasks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah things that they're not trained for, like you were saying, right, and the thing is, you know, years ago, before I kind of ended up in, you know, the abolitionist space, I participated in role-playing activities tell me more with the With with the LA County Sheriff's Department. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:And so hey, they can party, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But it was interesting, you know, cuz I was. I, you know they needed volunteers so that the, the Could recruits, you know, could practice, yeah. And so the reality is, on the average across the country, police Academy spends 60 hours on Firearms training, shooting, and only eight hours of de-escalation, and so they're taught to command and control the mindset that they're that Drilled into him is when you walk into a space, you're the one in charge. People need to listen to you, you know. And if somebody pushes back, you know, the way that they prove themselves is they have to fight or arrest somebody, or right, you know. Right tickets make a rest. So it's all like. None of that is about serving the community and de-escalating and taking care of people like that. There's a former police officer in the film, you know. I asked her, I said you're not really taught how to, how to talk to people, and she's like no yeah, you know it's not their job to be Psychiatrists or I mean you're not trained.
Speaker 2:In a lot of situations we have such a mental health issue here, like, for example, especially in Los Angeles, that you know I've around my house. I actually have seen the police deal with, you know, the mental health issues of some of the homeless in a way that is actually it's been impressive. I don't know if you know how LA fares in that or whatever, but I can't imagine from the police that I have talked to and the police that are friends of mine and everything they don't. A lot of times they don't. That's not what they. They don't want to be in charge of that.
Speaker 3:They'd rather somebody that is, you know, higher more more qualified to do that kind of stuff, because that must be scary, exactly like you would.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just right and we don't I mean to their credit. I don't think that we Give enough empathy to Empathy to police officers in those situations, especially because they don't have the training. Sure, nine times out of ten to deal with it, that must be very, very frightening. So it's one of those things where sometimes I feel like the defund, the police aspect of it you get blowback because it makes by by saying we want police obsolescence, you're also saying that you want to take away Certain jobs you're yeah.
Speaker 3:And a certain Cemented a life that comes from having that kind of a government job. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally so. They make a lot of money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but they make a lot of money. Eventually, like when they come out of the academy, they don't make a lot of money, and I think part of the problem is a lot of these people are being Transferred to areas that they don't know anything about yeah, that they can't afford to live in, and so they don't know anything about these Communities, and then they're being asked to protect and serve these communities that they know nothing about. So I think that you're getting more instances of violence due to lack of awareness and just pure ignorance that Institutes fear Mm-hmm. So I just feel like in some way we have to find a bridge of Instilling community values back into the police department, because I was talking to a friend of mine Whose dad was a policeman and he said you know, back in the day he said I was a policeman in the 80s and 90s and I retired and like right around early 2000.
Speaker 3:But I served this part of South Central and this part of Venice and I knew all the gang leaders, I knew all the community activists, I knew all the drug dealers, I know who to talk to when things got spicy and I could make change. But now I don't feel like you have that with your police and they're almost encouraged not to do that. So what do we feel like? I know that there's so many perspectives in the film that show that part of this issue comes from an underlying psychological instillment of anti-blackness. So can you talk a little bit about that and what that underlying factor means and why it's hard to combat?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a big question. Unconscious bias, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, unconscious bias you can't train your Dr Jody Armour, yeah, you can't train your way out of unconscious anti-black bias. It's woven in. And, as a filmmaker, looking back at the movies and TV I was raised with and how black people are often portrayed, like the movie Hollywood Shuffle, it's like oh, I'm either a slave or a drug dealer or a pimp, or a pimp Shout out to pimps, yeah.
Speaker 2:You killed in my own youths brother.
Speaker 1:You killed in my own youths, brother, we're socialized most of us but as a white male, like we're socialized to see black people as dangerous, I remember being in second grade and the elementary school I went to was 75% black and most of those kids were bused in from South Central around there and so it was always like, oh, they get into fights more because it's a rougher neighborhood. There was no awareness or conversation about no, it's a community that's underserved.
Speaker 1:They don't have resources. They gotta sit on a bus for however long, wake up early, be here in this environment, go back there. Who knows what's up with the parents? Like, my dad taught elementary school in South Central, also for a number of years. So we have this socialized way that we look at who are the others, what are the dangerous communities, what are this and that, and then we just and it's easy to write them off. So how do we combat that?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think with post George Floyd, but I think even before that there was a lot more interest in anti-racism and people reading books or book clubs and then taking courses. I know, like I started taking courses around 2017, 18 that were specifically on anti-racism and decolonizing, and one of my teachers, reverend Bridge Feltas, has a course called Heal Thyself for People Racialized as White. Where we go through like these are all the ways that we've been socialized to lack empathy for black people, to see black people as the others. This is how it's affected black people, like the generational trauma through slavery and reconstruction and Jim Crow and like all of that, and so it's education the right kind of education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the right kind of education, teaching people how to be empathetic. I think that's a big missing. I think that's also part of what's caused us to. You know, like if cops back in the day were more like involved in the community, there was probably a sense of empathy there to some extent. That's not there, like I'll ask a cop you know I have asked in the past that cops for directions. I don't really talk to them anymore, but you know you just get this like flat stone face like you know, I'm like oh, how do I get to the?
Speaker 1:oh, you go down there, and you go down there and you do.
Speaker 2:I actually had.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I grew up. I was born in Long Beach, I grew up in Wasen, south Central, and then, when I was 11, we moved to Hancock Park. But I grew up seeing you know slews of gang members with ties on their hands, or not even gang members, just black men because they had on raider caps, like being just zip tied, and I grew up with this. So I grew up.
Speaker 3:I remember they shot my neighbor because they had the wrong address Johnny Cochran actually represented the family because they shot him like 47 times. I remember when my great uncle and great aunt were alive there was some kind of shooting that happened two blocks away and they arrested every black man within a five block radius and at the time my great uncle was in his late 70s. So I grew up with this image of being completely petrified by policemen. And a couple of weeks ago I was in downtown and there's one stretch of downtown near First Street where all of the federal buildings are, where those meters are like $9 an hour or something like ridiculous, and they don't take cards.
Speaker 3:So I'm sitting there, I had to run in some paperwork to one of the federal buildings. I'm like great, I've literally put in $5 worth of quarters and that gave me 10 minutes and I'm just like it's gonna take me that long, whatever. And this man taps me behind my shoulder and it was a cop and I was terrified immediately. Like I was. Immediately. I was like I didn't do anything wrong. I would do that.
Speaker 3:He was like, ma'am, these meters are the worst. And he literally took out quarters from his own pocket and started putting them in the meter and he was like that should give you like 25 minutes. You need more than that. Just let me know.
Speaker 3:And I was like and I had to stop him and say, listen, I am from here and I have grown up with a bias and fear of policemen my whole life. And the fact that this just happened and that you were nice like single-handedly trying to be out here changing folks' mind, but the immediate terror that I felt by this man tapping me on the shoulder because that hasn't been the case with so many police encounters that I personally have had, and I know that there are good cops out there and they must be frustrated I wonder what we tell cops that don't wanna have that stigma attached to them to do.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, like in the same way that white people have a lot of responsibility in dismantling racism, whoever the good cops are have a responsibility in really understanding the impact of the culture of policing.
Speaker 2:That's a great point.
Speaker 1:And what policing represents, and we were talking about funding and that sort of thing. Like the reality is, nobody's been defunded.
Speaker 3:The they have more money. Yeah, they've been over militarized.
Speaker 1:They're over militarized consistently and Gina Viola says this in the film the budget for LAPD has grown 50% in the last 10 years, and between LAPD and the Sheriff's Department, we're spending over $7 billion a year.
Speaker 2:Now, is that the sorry to cut you off, but is that the unions now just have? So they know? This is cause I remember seeing some documentaries that, like you know, you have a quota for the DEA, which is why it's this ridiculous war. Right, it's like, and what you're finding from the film, that the sort of kink in the wheel is the unions, the allocation of those funds.
Speaker 1:We didn't really get into the union part of it. You know, I know that the unions are lobbying, you know, for more money and for more protections and all of that, whereas you know everybody else want more transparency and want resources to communities and that sort of thing, and so that wasn't really discussed in the film, although I've had discussions, you know, outside the film.
Speaker 3:That also seems like it'd be its own film.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, cause there's a, there's an aspect when you actually realize that, okay, we did something during the pandemic where we went to South Carolina, we shot this.
Speaker 2:It was on this, the site of the Cain Hoy riot, which was the largest race riot in reconstruction and you start to see almost the genesis post the Emancipation Proclamation of okay, well, we'll just move this form of slavery I think this is Eva DuVernay's point in her documentary and everything but we'll just move this form of slavery into incarceration of the black male and sort of destructuring the black family unit which you know, in a way that that's this, that's this giant systemic problem. But, as we've kind of gone on now to your point earlier, if it's not, if they're not finding, you know, getting in the community with people that live in the community and get to know people and can kind of solve these problems and everything, how do how? What was your finding? Or what do you think is the sort of way to get at? If you have almost a baked in sort of thing, the system is baked in and once you, once you're incarcerated black male, it's almost impossible to get out.
Speaker 3:And you talk about that in the film. You talk about how there were de-incarceration programs that were effective.
Speaker 2:Super effective.
Speaker 3:And working very, very well. It almost seems like the minute prisons became privatized, that went away. So is that the cause, or what is the cause, behind those programs being destroyed? I mean?
Speaker 1:you know if we're gonna be real and accurate. The cause is money, economics. The cause is capitalism. There's a financial incentive to locking people up and keeping people locked up, because you know either the private prisons are making money or that you know. Ava Divernade talks about this in 13th. You know almost free, practically free, labor. So, it's like the new institution of slavery is prison.
Speaker 3:You know I don't know if you've ever seen when Donald Glover hosted Saturday Night Live. He did this great skit about that where he showed all of these. They're like killers and gang bangers, but they're all working in prison at a call center. So they're like yeah, I murdered three people. Hello, welcome to Victoria's.
Speaker 1:Secret. How can I process your order but?
Speaker 3:that's really true. Almost all the call centers for almost every major retail brand. That's crazy. Go through process, Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I loved the point about how it's kind of easy when you look at it on a dollars and cents standpoint. It's $300 a day, I think they said in the film to incarcerate someone, and it's $125 a day to actually have a full housing rehab and give somebody a hand up for a job or a way Make them more functional?
Speaker 2:members yeah, Like, why would we not do that? And is it just when you say money? Is it just that? What's the way out of that? Do we just have to? Is it legislative and legislative only, or I?
Speaker 1:think it's a collective where enough people have to say no more, yeah, we're not gonna put up with this anymore. And you were talking about the good cops, or the cops that do good things at times. And one of the issues is that, as Alex Vitale says in the film, police are violence workers at the core of, like. Their base job is to handle people, and whether it's you know violently, or violently or not violently.
Speaker 1:But if you don't comply, it becomes violent. So there might be individuals who are doing good things and trying to change things, and the police as a whole, the institution of policing, the culture of policing, has a very negative impact, especially on black and brown communities. So with that, with the knowledge that there are people who are getting rich off of the way things are and they're not gonna give up their money or power, I think enough of the working class has to be like yeah, no more, we're not doing this anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seems like you have to shame. The more you publicly shame those kinds of people into not wanting to do that kind of behavior, then the behavior doesn't become profitable anymore and they switch to something else. But it's getting that initial push to happen and that just seems like it's its own quagmire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and going back to the whole messaging thing, it's like whatever message that gets put out, there's gonna be a swift like even the whole CRT thing. Like I was literally reading Kimberly Crenshaw's paper on intersectionality, thinking wow, this is amazing. I love this, everybody should read it. And then, two days later, like CRT, is teaching our kindergartners to hate themselves for being white, no, no.
Speaker 3:No, it's not what it is, but I also feel like that happens because these people don't read these papers. They make this assumption about this, and then it's very easy to make an assumption about something you know nothing about.
Speaker 1:Well, like so the cousin of mine who's the successful plumber. He grew up in the valley and at one point recently, like within the last five or six years, he was ranting about affirmative action. He was like, because of that I couldn't be in the fire department because they had a quota or something. And I'm like, yeah, but you have this like major plumbing business because you didn't become a firefighter, you know.
Speaker 3:And so there's always this the affirmative action thing is tough for me because I know for college everybody assumed that I got into college because of affirmative action and I'm like, yeah, affirmative action mostly helps white women and they were the biggest proponents against it. But the single largest group that has helped by affirmative action in university in workforce period is white women. So the fact that this always gets turned around on black and brown, people is very infuriating because it couldn't be further from the truth and it's easily verified. That's a part.
Speaker 3:I'm like you came up with this bias because somebody said these black people got into college because of affirmative action. That is not the case, and the fact that anybody can use that and have it come out of their mouth as an excuse for why they didn't get something is crazy to me.
Speaker 2:Do you have a sense of hope, or do you have a sense of sort of feeling like, because I know we just shift from one industrial complex to another the pharmaceutical industrial, the military, and then now it's the incarceration complex and do you have a sense of sort of hope on where a movement is going or possible in a reimagining, safety in a post George Floyd?
Speaker 1:world. I do now. I didn't. Like a year ago, when I was working on the documentary, actually, chelsea Byers, who's a West Hollywood city council person she was just elected About a year ago we were having lunch and she asked me she's like, do you have hope? And I had to think about it, because usually, like up until 2020, even with everything going on I had a lot of faith in humanity and in people. And then seeing how people reacted to COVID and not believing it and all of that, and then George Floyd and then January 6th all of it.
Speaker 1:It was like, wow, we're actually not doing well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it just seemed like for a minute humanity just went from tripping to a full vacation for like four years.
Speaker 2:Who was in charge in the White House at the most of the time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, but even before that it's still.
Speaker 2:It just seemed like the floodgates of sort of the oh, I don't have to be closeted about my racism anymore. As a matter of fact, I can run strongly on it and win the Republican primary and I suppose that is.
Speaker 2:That's part of the systemic issue, that's part of the empathy issue, that's part of the education part, right, but is the hope, with the money that's out there, that's already out there for a very militarized police force and I love, I got a lot of friends with her policemen, I am very, I'm pro police I'm just trying to figure out, like, what is the bottleneck in the systemic breakdown on how there's all this money? Like you said, the LA police union is asking for more money. What you know, did they need more money for more bodies Because with $7 billion you should be able to do some stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's more money just for more money, because somebody's getting, somebody's getting it Because somebody's getting it, it's probably not even being allocated to your foot soldiers.
Speaker 3:It's going to superintendents and commissioners. A lot of cops are.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're making six figures. They're making $200,000 a year and up, plus pension and all of that, like a lot of people don't realize that. But getting back to your hope question, I do have hope and the thing that's been helpful for me is traveling around the country and when we do these community screenings and we have, you know, we do panels with local leaders and there's a community and people are involved, like they get inspired and a lot of times there's like a several different organizations will come together to host a screening and then they're building stronger coalitions with each other. And so you know it's a long haul and they even say this in the film. It's, you know it's not going to happen in our lifetime, and people are coming together and I see people's mindsets, you know changing, you know, in positive ways, I think you know also, you know talking about Trump and everything it became, you know, economically fortuitous, to be mean.
Speaker 1:Like being mean like and I think that started with, you know, with Twitter also but like, like all the reality TV shows that you know we had the Nat Jerry.
Speaker 3:Springers and the Norris and the Siamese, all of that.
Speaker 1:It's like, yeah, you know, and so, like it it's become, you know, a way to you know, move up the social ladder is by being mean, and so we have to, I think, combat that.
Speaker 3:And normalize, being kind yeah.
Speaker 2:I love the way the film kind of closed with it's not radical to defund the police. It's radical that they have tanks, you know, and then they've got all this and taser and lobblop this weaponry from wars, From war.
Speaker 2:And you know it's radical that we keep putting this much money into a sort of an aggressive police Cause you basically made them arms dealers. Yeah, yeah, you know, but I do. I liked that because it made me think differently. Already I was like, actually, yeah, that's not radical. You know what's radical would be to. You know that's radical having given them all this heavy artillery and given them, you know, the license.
Speaker 3:Batterams and what's that? Yeah?
Speaker 1:batterams and stuff like that, and so I mean, it's something like I forget the exact number it's around like 1,100 people were murdered by the police last year, you know, and that's with the budgets increasing.
Speaker 2:Three a day. Yeah, that's crazy, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:So how do we get more eyes to your film? Because it seems like the takeaway I have is that dialogue, and specifically dialogue within different communities, gets at ball rolling, and it seems like your film does a wonderful job. I, having seen it, think that your film does a wonderful job of evoking some of these questions in a way that makes a person not just think, but think critically. So how do we get more eyes to see this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thank you for that. So we're actually we were talking to some distributors, so I'm hoping that in the next few months it will be released on platforms. In the meantime, reimaginingsafetymoviecom is the website and reimagining safety movie is our Instagram account and you can go there. There's trailers, there's information about the film. We have like seven screenings coming up so far September, october.
Speaker 3:Okay, and we can list those screenings and on show notes for as long as possible and all over like.
Speaker 1:We're in Goddard College in Vermont, we're Seattle and Tacoma, washington, hosted by the Black Panther Party Washington State up there. So all over. And if you're listening and you wanna host a community screening in your community, you can reach me through the website and there's my email there and we'll set something up.
Speaker 1:And that's what we've been doing. Over a thousand people have seen the film since February and over 40 different organizations have worked together to host those screenings. And there's demand for more and people are always like, where can I see it again? Or work and I tell my friends to go see it, and so that's been really.
Speaker 2:It's real. I love how it's real and to the point, and yet it feels like it's much needed. So the film is called Reimagining Safety in a Post-Jourge Floyd World. Matthew, thank you so much for coming on down and talking with us. Please keep us posted on everything that's going on with it and let us know how we can help in the future too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you Also. I love that your zigzag made community change. Yeah, that's pretty dope.
Speaker 1:Oh, through like my life. Yeah, no right, that's dope. Yeah, cause I always say if you think about it it doesn't make sense. But if you kind of take a step back, it's like oh, I can see how that feels. Wow that yeah. I think that's really dope and none of it was planned, except that I wanted to be a rock star out of high school and I was in music. But then, like, film wasn't planned, conflict resolution wasn't planned, making this certainly wasn't planned Like I thought I was done with film.
Speaker 2:Like I said, we were smart to stay out of music. I love music. It's ruined my life. It's great.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean I have a lot. I break up with music like every other day.
Speaker 2:Every other day, every other day it's like my weird abusive boyfriend. Right, right, I can't quit you.
Speaker 3:I can't quit you. It's my broke back mountain.
Speaker 2:Hey well, thank you again, Matthew.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, my pleasure thanks, all right, all right.
Speaker 3:Wasn't that good, it was amazing.
Speaker 2:I mean, I learned so much and I you know the film. I just love a film like that, that is not afraid.
Speaker 3:Plus, matthew was so even keeled and articulate about subjects in a way that I think is really powerful, because it just comes off as diplomatic, almost.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, no, amen. And so make sure to check our show notes. We'll have all the information on how to get ahold of checking out the movie and anything like that. And if you are a distributor, by the way, hit us up at HalaInfo, at slapmusicmediacom, we'll try and help the guy out with a distribution deal. Well, before we go, we're gonna do part of this new segment we're calling tour stories. Wow, and Maya, what do you got today for your tour story? These horror tour stories?
Speaker 3:This tour horror story is brought to you by a rock band that I cannot name, because if you saw our previous episode, you will know that your girl performs for multiple people in which she has to sign hefty NDAs to keep her job.
Speaker 3:So this rock band was no different and it was when I first started back up singing and I was very excited to get the gig. We were playing at a huge stadium and the lead singer is also an actor Make of that what you will and he sometimes thinks that he's Jesus. Make of that what you will. So at this very large venue.
Speaker 2:That's limiting it. I'm trying to guess. I know the people you've been out with. I'm trying to think, but go ahead.
Speaker 3:So he comes out in a fur coat, no shirt, pants, boots and a cowboy hat and he tells the audience do you love me? And of course they say yes. He says do you love me?
Speaker 2:And of course he says yes.
Speaker 3:Now he is on a platform because we are in a stadium and there is a cage and there's 20 bodyguards that are very, very burly.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:And he says if you love me, bless me with your spit. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, oh my God.
Speaker 3:The entire stadium of people spit on 20, I would say black guys. I'm just gonna go on. You know what and I don't remember there being a white guy there they spit on 20 black guys that look like the size of escalades, in security officer jackets, and then a riot ensued and then we had to leave.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that is definitely a tour story.
Speaker 3:I had to flee for my life. Thank you, holy shit Wow.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Bless me, bless you.
Speaker 2:You're spit, bless me with your that's, that's, that's all right, I mine. This tour story for this show is actually a funny one, and it is funny because it is. I used to. I used to say all the time I've got no limit soldier tattooed on the bottom of my feet too, because when you're in this game, you just don't know, you don't know how to quit, like we don't we, we don't know when to stop, we, we just we work, we're workaholics. We, every day, any day that ends in Hawaii is a workday. We were our manager shout out to Doc McGee, dear, dear, dear friend and our former manager, one of the greatest managers of all time.
Speaker 2:We were staying in Nashville and we had our first show was in Memphis, and so we at the time we didn't have a tour bus or anything. This, this was, this was vintage trouble, so it's, I'll say that because it's even more funny. So we were in a Sprinter van and we got maybe. We were so excited. We're like, why don't we to? Memphis is gonna be fucking great. We got a gig this night. It's gonna be really, really cool.
Speaker 2:We were Shlepping our own gear and everything and we're in the Sprinter and we leave town. We get about 10 minutes outside of town and the fucking this, the Sprinter breaks down. Of course, yeah, yeah, and we're like, okay, and it's hot as fuck and why okay? So finally we wait, we get it. We get a tow truck and the way I forget how it got broken up, but I want to say Ty and I rode in the tow truck and then we had somebody else who was, who had gotten a car, who was gonna drive in a car and put everybody else in that, and so the tow truck drives us to Memphis because we have to make the gig on time, right? No matter what happens, the van can break down.
Speaker 2:You got it you know, the show must go on, it does not stop. And so we get. It was like man, we're, are we gonna make it? And we're hustling, we're hustling and it's. You know, I'm in a tow truck. We pull up to the gig in a tow truck and it is a dive bar. It is a crazy car, they're just the smallest dive bar. We get out and it's about time for us to play and no one and I mean no one is there, zero. And so we play the gig and All of a sudden there's these two people to come in and we're like we got, we've got two people that are, you know, they're watching the show and this is great, but they have this giant wolf with them. Not a wolf, a wolf, a real wolf, that.
Speaker 2:So it's two people, a giant wolf and vintage trouble in this game playing the wolf comes up on stage, sits down and just chills and a wolf will do. And so you know we, we finish our set and it's all done. Come to find out we were opening up for those two people.
Speaker 3:No, you were not. We were opening up for the wolf people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were looking up. So these two people I think I want to say was either boyfriend, girlfriend or a brother, sister band, and then they had a wolf. That was part of the stage accoutrement, because the the wolf was was part of the back line. The wolf just sat up on stage. We're like are you gonna give them like ear earphones or something like that? You know, but now the wolf was just it, you know into it. Listen, it's so tow truck ride to a gig and a wolf on stage.
Speaker 3:You know you can that time you opened for a wolf?
Speaker 2:That time we opened for a wolf and it's not a step in well, no, no, no, no. So Thank you guys, as always, for listening. Make sure to reach out if you have any questions, any kind of shows you want to hear about. You know, we always, always look forward to your comments and we will see you next week. Slap the power.
Speaker 3:Slap the power is written and produced by Rick Barrio, associate producer three Corey audio and visual engineering and studio facilities provided by slap studios LA, with Distribution through our collective home for social progress in art, slap the network. If you have any ideas for a show you want to see or if you would like to be a guest artist on our show, please email us at info at slap the powercom.