Peace in the Park

Saturday, October 3rd 2015

Williams Park, St. Petersburg FL

 

Originally published at Suburban Apologist 

Three gigs in two days.  Part two: continue!

I catch a bus to Williams Park.  By Valentines Day of 2016 that may not be possible.  Learning nothing from the overwhelming rejection of its business-centric and regressive Greenlight Pinellas package last year, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) have followed it up with a set of alternative reforms to the bus system that will continue to weaken our community.  It includes taking most of the buses away from Williams Park and spreading them throughout downtown.  Zero effort has been made to disguise the fact that one of the goals of this move is to discourage homeless people from visiting the park.  Today, opponents of the plan are coming together.  Besides performers, attendees and organisers, there are tables of support from the Green Party of Pinellas, St. Pete for Peace, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, and perhaps most fittingly, St. Petersburg’s brand spanking new Food Not Bombs group.

A good thought project for any campaign to engage in is what boardroom types call backcasting.  This means imagining your end goal and working backwards from it, to see what your path to success might involve.  In this regard it makes sense for the first act at Peace in the Park to be named Sonic Aftermath.  They are a hard rock and blues band from Clearwater and they sow the seeds of the day very well.  Their song ‘Radio Sucks’ focuses on the theme of tedious repetition, applicable also to local government crackdowns, or the working poor who take the bus to their corporate jobs only to hear endless loops of crap.

Next, Chuck Terzian (also known as Citizen Chuck) does a set of acoustic numbers and spoken word poetry.  Terzian quotes Dr. Cornel West -- ”Justice is what love looks like in public” -- in explaining his track ‘Justice Dust.’  As if to demonstrate a wide swath of influences, the spoken word piece has a Jedi structure, which appears to be a recurring theme with this citizen.

Cody Kingsley is even more laid-back, sitting down to mellow-entertain us, kindly being a last minute fill-in for Nicaraguan-born local hip hopper Pedro el Poeta Jarquin.  Fluctuating with musicians throughout today are speakers and poets connecting the dots.  These include self-proclaimed “revolutionary poet” Cali Poetik and Sarah Lain.  As diverse as these performers works are their origins (none come from St. Pete).  This mimics the diversity of Pinellas, that we should be celebrating with a modern, intelligent public transport system.

Joe McCutchen comments on Florida’s magnetism in his song ‘Southern Style.’  McCutchen is apparently the person responsible for local “thorn in the side” of the city, Reverend Bruce Wright, one of today's organisers.  That’s quite a notable bullet point on your resume.  He plays more pleasant acoustic guitar.  The continued family friendly tranquility is keeping away a weather blowout, which has been threatening all afternoon.

There comes a point though when you need to amp it up no matter how family friendly you’ve been, and local Krown Deon gets people moving.  Mainstay of every righteous musical event in the Bay Area as of late, as well as the Revolutionary Road Radio Show, his set even includes some of the programme’s classic production.  There’s further challenges through some sort of malfunction in the sound system, and a flex visit from friends of the homeless (and fans of smart black hip hop), the boys in blue.  Energy, positive and negative, goes up and down in the park.  Despite it all Deon’s ‘Fight For $15,’ ‘Everyday We’re Struggling’ and other tracks manage to inspire and entertain.

Following hot on his heels with heel-based problems, Trenchfoot Shindig sport a name that certainly promotes having fun in the face of adversity.  With a trenchy soup of reggae, ska and rock, the Largo band manage not to upset the serenity weather gods, even with the thrilling riffing encore that is the highlight of their set.  Unfortunately at this point I had to go, but other performers to come later were Refuge Beat Poets, Dream Window and Fall On Purpose.  

 

I’ve been sitting and walking around here for hours.  There’s no sense of the “bus enclosure” that officials claim exists, nor such a sense from the surrounding buildings for that matter.  In fact, it’s as a community green space should be: a sense of openness in an otherwise urban environment, where all are welcome.  A social space easily reached from anywhere and separate from the commerce and consumption that most of the bus line serves.  What PSTA is proposing with this hub removal is more marginalisation of the downtrodden and atomisation for everybody -- all to wring a few extra dollars out for businesses.  If PSTA wants us to believe that its transport reforms are in good faith and for the best of all, it will stop making its decisions at the behest of powerful interests in this county.