[This "review" of the Ozomatli/Rage Against the Machine gig at the protest gig across from the Democratic National Convention on 8/14/00 was published in the 8/30/00 issue of Honolulu Weekly. My sources were there, but must remain anonymous. -- Doug]
The Dance
by
H. Doug Matsuoka
Yo Stu,
It was nice bumping into you at the Ozomatli gig at the Pier Bar [Honolulu 8/5/00] the other day, but we both missed what might have been THE Ozo gig of all time: the giant protest concert across from the Staples Center at the end of the "Human Need Not Corporate Greed" march on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
The gig was put on by D2K, the umbrella group for the other zillion protesters and protest groups at the convention. Help came from The Artists Network of Refuse and Resist, which is kinda ironic 'cuz Refuse and Resist was getting such a hard time from the security guard at the Pier Bar for displaying their "Free Mumia" banner. Well, the whole idea of D2K is to give a voice to those who are left out and excluded from the official political process in this country. Banners galore at this gig!
Actually, Rage Against the Machine was probably the big draw at the zero dollar cover charge gig. In all, 15,000 Latinos, hip hoppers, hippie-dudes, Commie mommies, punk anarchists, gay lez vego homeless houseless jobless...It was, "everybody, y'know?" instead of "everybody you know." You know?
I heard Ozo did a great 10-minute set. Yeah, little bit of a prob. Well, riot, actually. Why does someone always have to spoil it for the rest of us? D2K plainly posts their action guidelines:
1. We will use no violence, physical or verbal, towards any person. We consider speech or acts that are racist, homophobic, or sexist to be violent.2. We will carry no weapons.
3. We will not bring or use any alcohol or illegal drugs.
4. We will not destroy property.
So in blatant violation at least three of the four guidelines, 1,000 members of LAPD bust up the gig. Bust up the concertgoers, the concert givers. Didn't they read the guidelines? Wait, can they read at all?
Seems that when a protester started climbing a fence, LAPD's reaction was to let loose with rubber bullets, pepper spray, truncheons and all that. LAPD pulled the plug (actually cut the electricity from the concert) on Ozo's set, and galloped in on horseback!
But here's the cool part. It didn't stop Ozo! Remember at the Pier Bar where they dance on and off stage playing drums and chanting? Ozo dances INTO the crowd with the drums rattles horns. Pretty soon the crowd is dancing and chanting with them.
Must be some kind of Latin thing, I think. What political activists here call "The Work" or "The Struggle" my friend Augusto in Argentina calls "The Dance." When remembering fallen friends, he says stuff like, "the dead can dance." "Gotta keep the dance alive." Stuff like that. Now I get it!
Anyway, we shoulda been there.
Keep dancing!
-- H. Doug Matsuoka
Home.hawaii.rr.com/dougwords
Remember that the only way the rest of the world found out about LAPD
beating of Rodney King was 'cuz some guy was testing out his video
camera and caught it by mistake? Well, things are different now.
Camcorders all over the place. Of course, you still won't see any of
this on The News, they were inside the Staple Center where it's air
conditioned.
There's tons of coverage on the Internet, here are a few links.
Refust and Resist, and Ozomatli have a joint report and statement of police riot at http://mojo.calyx.net/~refuse/artnet/081700ozamatli.html. [Note of 9/27/01: Nope, this link doesn't work anymore. RnR's site is now http://www.refuseandresist.org, and their Artist Network is http://artistsnetwork.org.] If you go backwards one slash at a time, you'll get to the RnR Artists Network, then to RnR itself.
Both Ozomatli and Rage Against The Machine have statements and stories and pictures from the convention: Ozo at http://ozomatli.com , Rage at http://ratm.com.
D2K is at http://d2kla.org/
The Los Angeles Independent Media Center is a great resource. They were posting words, pictures, audio, and video as it happened. http://la.indymedia.org/ . They also have an E-zine called "Why" (as in "why protest? Who's crazy?") at http://la.indymedia.org/why.php3.
And for guys like me and the LAPD who can't read very well, here is Mark Vallen's Activist Artwork (c'mon, you gotta check this one out, it has a lot of photos of the convention protests too): http://www.primenet.com/~mvallen/
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