Original Body
pstrongTurd-Filled Donut zine at Artists Television Accessbr /
turns tables on the SFPD, the SF Examiner and thebr /
so-called “Mess on Market Street”.br /
/strong/p
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pby Gretchen Hildebrand/PoorNewsNetwork/p
pLast Saturday night at ATA, the writers of the zinebr /
Turd-Filled Donut and a standing room only crowdbr /
responded to the Examiner’s inflammatory “Mess onbr /
Market" series. The rowdy, lighthearted and incendiarybr /
evening featured a slideshow, oral histories, personalbr /
accounts, political rants and documentary videos thatbr /
turned the tables on mainstream media’s treatmentbr /
of people in the Tenderloin, and instead, celebratedbr /
their histories, lives, work and struggles in thisbr /
neighborhood./p
pFamed street-corner bluesman Carlos Guitarlos warmedbr /
up the crowd with his high-energy brand ofbr /
down-and-out blues, borrowing riffs from Robertbr /
Johnson and lyrics from Chris Daly’s campaign, singing “It’sbr /
about housing, don’t you know!”/p
pThis was a warm introduction to a slide showbr /
featuring the history of Turd-Filled Donut, a zinebr /
which 6th Street residents Iggy Scam and Ivy McClelland started 4 years ago to inspire positive action in their SRO hotel andbr /
community. Ivy read stories and showed slides of thebr /
neighborhood that document the zine’s projects.br /
These ranged from growing tomatoes on your fire escapebr /
to a city-wide treasure hunt for beer, as well as the spreading of thebr /
word about tenant’s rights 28-day eviction policies,br /
how to get a meeting with the Mayor and stories ofbr /
folks who fought their landlords and won./p
pThe most recent events in the TFD agit-prop historybr /
have been in response to the Examiner’s recent seriesbr /
about 6th Street and the Mid-Market area, which havebr /
targeted Tenderloin residents as “trash” and calledbr /
for the City to sanitize the area. The owners of thebr /
Examiner, the Fangs, are new property owners in thisbr /
area and sure to profit from this type of “cleansing”br /
and the subsequent anticipated rise in propertybr /
values. /p
pThe TFD and their friends took their issuesbr /
with this “story” and its hidden profit motive back tobr /
its source. They shared with the crowd a videotape ofbr /
the meeting where they confronted Examiner editorsbr /
with local responses to the Examiner story and to demand abr /
“full-page apology to Tenderloin residents”./p
pIn the video of the meeting, the editors of the Exbr /
intently scribbled on legal pads but failed to makebr /
eye-contact, much less answer essential questionsbr /
like, “Where do you get off describing people as abr /
mess that needs to be cleaned up?” In-between takingbr /
notes and checking their watches, the blank-facedbr /
editors stammered nonsense ranging from, “We agreebr /
completely,” to, “The police came to us…” butbr /
had no reply to the responses of actual 6th Streetbr /
residents to the paper’s series./p
pIggy Scam pointed out the failure of the paper’sbr /
journalistic integrity and asked, “Is it just lazybr /
reporting or a failure of moral resolve?” Or anbr /
obvious bid for gentrification by the Fangs? Thebr /
editors’ silence is golden. The answer, all of the above./p
pTFD also shared interviews they did on the streetbr /
with folks living and working in Mid-Market. Thebr /
voices of the people on the street described anbr /
atmosphere of police intimidation and harassment thatbr /
makes it difficult for them to live their daily lives.br /
A 6th Street resident at the show chimed in tobr /
describe how an environment of fear is part of the Mid-Marketbr /
agenda—police work hand in hand with hotelbr /
managers, raiding tenants’ private rooms and arrestingbr /
homeless folks./p
pMany people living in SROs in this part of townbr /
survive on a fixed income and have nowhere else to go.br /
In an interview, one woman described how hard it wasbr /
to find a room for her family because so few hotelsbr /
allow children./p
pOther residents’ commented that there should bebr /
more lights on the street at night, more benches forbr /
people to sit on, pay phones that cost 35 centsbr /
instead of 50 cents and hotels that allow visitors.br /
Paying weekly or nightly for an SRO is expensive, morebr /
than it costs to get a monthly room and yet SRObr /
tenants are still told when they can come and go, arebr /
not guaranteed privacy, and have to pay for guests tobr /
visit their rooms. As one woman put it, “We pay thebr /
rent, we should be able to have any visitors we want!”/p
pIggy Scam contrasted these first person accounts bybr /
reading letters in the police file that are part ofbr /
the “case” against the people and the neighborhood.br /
These letters complained that 6th and Market is full of “toobr /
much hard-core urban living” and that people were annoyed by thebr /
“non-stop crime”. Had these letter writers recentlybr /
bought lofts in the area in the hopes that thebr /
neighborhood would change to suit their upscalebr /
lifestyles? Maybe they, like the Fangs and otherbr /
speculators and developers, smelled money under thebr /
crumbling buildings of Mid-Market but weren’t sobr /
interested in the people who call this neighborhoodbr /
home./p
pFollowing the slide show and video was the writer Urg, whobr /
writes a workfare diary for Turd-Filled Donut. Hisbr /
writings tied the undeclared war on poor folks and thebr /
homeless together with the more blatant push towardsbr /
war happening on a national scale. He pointed out thebr /
connection between people on workfare and your averagebr /
Afghani terrorist—grinding poverty. Thisbr /
commonality explains why a war against terrorism inbr /
the Middle East also means a war against poorbr /
folks in the US. Why stop foot traffic on the Goldenbr /
Gate Bridge but allow cars to proceed? Maybe becausebr /
the rich and powerful are afraid of what a personbr /
without a car might do./p
pIggy Scam wrapped up the spoken word part of the evening with a storybr /
from the city’s recent past. He described how in thebr /
Mission, lawyers, landlords and the county sheriff wonbr /
a turf battle on San Carlos Street. Before this boom,br /
it had been a neighborhood and a street where peoplebr /
could tolerate and respect each other. He kept thebr /
audience enthralled with this comedy and tragedy of thebr /
last wave of gentrification in the Mission./p
pTimes have changed but the motives and methods ofbr /
speculators and merchants’ associations are identicalbr /
to the days before dotcommers lost their stockbr /
options. It’s the same story now in the Tenderloinbr /
with the Examiner doing the work to transform, in Iggybr /
Scam's words, “Greed into a moral force.”/p
pThe second half of the evening featured excellentbr /
short videos exploring the history and currentbr /
realities of life on the streets. Greta Snider’s videobr /
ITenderloin Shopping Cart/i shows the project that brings free booksbr /
to folks via shopping cart. The cart navigates thebr /
streets of the Tenderloin on Fridays from 12-3pm, bringingbr /
free reading material to folks in hotels and on thebr /
streets, and you don’t need a library card./p
pILooking for Compton’s/iwas a trailer for a longerbr /
piece by Susan Stryker of the LGBT Historical Society.br /
It introduced a little known riot in 1970 at a dinerbr /
in the Tenderloin called Compton’s. This was wherebr /
queens and their friends came to eat, drink and oftenbr /
get arrested for “perversion” or impersonating abr /
woman. This diner was also the scene of a showdown where cops were fought off successfully with hotbr /
coffee, flying plates and some knees to the groin.br /
Hooray to the director for unearthing this history ofbr /
resistance in the TL. Hopefully the full story willbr /
be coming to us soon./p
pThe Coalition on Homelessness also presented their ownbr /
version of ICops/i by turning the tables on police andbr /
interrogating them on camera while arresting andbr /
harassing the homeless. We saw cops ticketing folksbr /
for sleeping in parks at 6pm (it is illegal afterbr /
10pm), using excessive force and trying to stand withbr /
their backs to the camera whenever possible. Thebr /
police in the video don’t want to answer questionsbr /
about their actions and don’t quite understand all thebr /
attention (the most common response to seeing thebr /
camera being, “Can I help you with something?”). It wasbr /
chilling to see the cops in action—intimidating,br /
ticketing, arresting people and destroying the property ofbr /
people on the street, things they usually do without abr /
camera as a witness./p
pThe final piece of the night was IAnother Shittybr /
Movie/i which was made by homeless kids in the Haight.br /
The young people who made the video talk aboutbr /
why they are on the street and what makes their livesbr /
good and bad. While hitting all the negative points—br /
police harassment, hustling to stay well and find abr /
place to sleep—the youth also explain how they valuebr /
each other and how their community is essential tobr /
their survival./p
pIt was an excellent final note, a reminder thatbr /
beyond the plans of the developers, corporations, thebr /
Mayor’s office and the police, are the people. Andbr /
people are the first and the last thing that defines abr /
place. The beauty of a zine like Turd-Filled Donut,br /
as Urg put it, it that they are out there on thebr /
street “tearing things up”, reminding people that webr /
and our neighborhoods deserve to be cared for in waysbr /
that make sense for us. The entire evening was abr /
reminder to us all to talk back and that we have thebr /
power to fight for our lives and communities.br /
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