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Jeanie. Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Ok. Sorry about that. I'll, how's that now? Ok, great. Ok. We're gonna start right now. Ok. After some technical difficulties, this is Fred and Melissa. Where true news we're interviewing Jeannie Eller today, Jeanie.

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What is the purpose of the National Education Association? Well, its purpose has changed over the years. Melissa, it started out as a professional organization. Actually, it was a compilation of a number of state organizations and that was in about the 18 forties, but in 18 70

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they changed the name to the National Education Association and it was still promoted as a professional organization up until about the late seventies when I was a young teacher. 30 years ago, we were encouraged to join our professional organization and we were told that uh, the

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purpose of it was for the betterment of the students and for the uh things for teachers. But as it evolved over the years, it's really turned into a labor union and now they admit that they are a labor union and their purpose now is more to

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perpetuate the bureaucracy than to actually do what is concerned with the education of the Children. So it's changed in its focus over 100 years. So you like in the N E A to a labor union, do you consider your, um, what would you consider yourself as

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right now a strike breaker in the sense that you're not part of the union anymore, even though you were, uh, well, I left uh the, the N E A in 1974 when I found out what they were doing at the national level with the dues money

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that they take from teachers because I disagreed with the things that they were doing and the issues that, that I found that they were involved in it, it didn't really matter whether I was pro or con those issues. For example, the things that, uh, that I

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recall 20 years ago now, uh legalization of marijuana, gay rights, abortion, things like that rather than academic subjects and, and doing things to improve the education of Children. And I felt like I didn't, I felt like those were political things rather than educational issues. So I

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chose to drop my membership at that time and I have not been a member now for over 20 years. However, the problem is that in states that have collective bargaining laws, teachers do not have that choice of not joining the union. The N E A is

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recognized as the bargaining agent for teachers in a number of states and teachers don't have the choice, their dues are just automatically withheld from their checks. And to me that is a monopoly. And of course, we already know that public education is a monopoly. So you

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have a monopoly on top of a monopoly. And that doesn't seem a very good way to run a system in a place like the United States of America, which is supposed to be a free republic. So that's why I'm very opposed to it. Um In Texas,

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you all are the same as we are here in Arizona, we are a right to work state. And so is Texas. So therefore, teachers in both of those states have the option of joining or not joining. But unfortunately, that is not the case in most of

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the states in the union. Uh if the N E A continued or went back to addressing the issues that was originally created to help with, um would there be organizations that could take the place in terms of helping the teachers get certain rights? Well, I think

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that the, the teachers rights are certainly secured and I don't think that the union is fighting for teachers' rights or students' rights. What they're fighting for now is the perpetuation of the union. They're more concerned with the perpetuating the bureaucracy and keeping the monopoly of public

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education and the monopoly of the union. They've become totally politicized. And for example, in 1983 when the report a nation at risk was published by the United States Department of Education. That report told us how bad the public education system was, the problems we were having,

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how the United States had dropped in literacy levels, how our students were scoring at the bottom of the barrel compared with other nations. And at that time in 1983 we could have fixed those problems in public education. But instead of putting all of their power and

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their efforts into fixing the problem, the N E A, the teachers union decided that it would be easier to just change the public's perception of education. So they told schools to hire pr firms, they told large districts to hire, hire small districts to hire apr person,

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large districts to hire a whole pr firm and change the public's perception by sending out glossy little newsletters telling what a great job they were doing and actually expending money for pr firms that could have been used for fixing the problems we had in education. So

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they have gone about trying to protect their turf more than being concerned with the education of our students. That's the problem. What issues do you feel the D A should be addressing? Well, they should be addressing the problems, the fact that last year we graduated 2.5

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million students from our high schools nationwide. 2.5 million. Now, I'm not talking about the dropouts, Melissa, I'm talking about the graduates 2.5 million, one million of them cannot even read their own diplomas. That's deplorable. That is absolute criminal negligence, especially when there is research, there have

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been 160 major studies done in the teaching of reading. And there is research to show to support what we need to do to fix the problem. But instead of fixing the problem because it's very simple to teach someone to read, it's inexpensive, the materials are reusable.

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The union through its membership of the book publishing industry promotes methodology for teaching reading that are not effective and that are not based on research. And that expend 10 or 12 years of the student's life and don't have the results that they could have in one

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year if they use the methodology that's supported by research. Hm. So how do you think the, the N E A has been uh um from promoting its its uh form of rote method method? You, you've been saying about textbooks? Do you think just because of uh

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using the same um style and format of textbooks? They, they haven't been able to break out of the mold and actually use what is more current, current, what current research suggests they should use? OK. My field is literacy uh teaching reading. So I can't address in,

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you know, in other areas. But in my field, let me just give you a real brief history of what's happened here up until 1932. If you have the opportunity to attend school. You learn to read in first grade. If you didn't learn to read in first

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grade, you didn't go to second grade because we didn't have reading class. We studied subjects and good literature. Then along came Dick and Jane Scott Forsman, uh which the book companies have all become members of the N E A that was in nine, in 18 70.

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They allowed the book companies to join to become uh members of the N E A along with teachers in 1932 Scott Forsman, which is one of the major textbook publishing companies came out with the Dick and Jane readers. Now that was based on the concept that

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if you taught Children to memorize words by sight, they could, they, that would speed up the teaching of reading. So they thought, well, OK, we'll use the first, the most frequently used 400 words in English. And we'll put those in the first grade books and they

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called that first grade level of reading. And then by the time the students got in sixth grade, they were supposed to have memorized 3000 of the most common words by sight. And that's called sixth grade level of reading. That's how levels of reading are determined. So

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the teachers who were in the schools in the days when that methodology came into vogue and it didn't actually spread around the country until after the second World War until the late forties, early fifties, those teachers knew that you can't memorize a million words by sight.

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That's not the way an alphabetic language works. It's not Chinese. You don't memorize whole words. You actually learn the phonetic system, the 75 g of English and that you read left to right. And that you read for meaning comprehension and that's the skill of reading. Very

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simple process. But the book companies loved that idea of spreading the teaching of reading out. Over eight years. You see, up until that time, reading had been a skill. You learned it. Once you used it for the rest of your life, you used it to study

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other subjects and to read for meaning and pleasure for the rest of your life. But when the book companies spread the teaching of reading out over eight years, then they made reading into a subject that Children were expected to study to learn how to read. And

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it took eight years absolute nonsense. But the teachers who were still in schools in those days, wonderful people knew how to teach the Children to read. So even though they were required to use these silly Dick and Jane type books, they still taught the Children to

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read. So many people will say, well, I remember those Dick and Jane books and I can read. But if you ask them, well, what did your teacher say when you came to a word you'd never seen before? Invariably the answer is sound it out because the

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teachers still knew how to teach those Children how to read. But then those teachers started retiring. And by the late fifties, early sixties, late sixties, they were all gone. Then along came a book by Rudolph Fleisch called Why Johnny can't read because all of a sudden

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we started seeing kids in school go through eight years and not be able to read. We had remedial reading which evolved into special education learning disabilities. This huge big new Bureau, Rudolph Fleischer wrote a book called Why Johnny can't read and alerted the public and the

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teachers to the fact that the teaching of phonics sounding out of words, the alphabetic code had been removed from the teaching of reading by these basal reading textbooks. So the teachers said, whoa wait, you didn't tell us there was an easier way to do this. They

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demanded that it be put back in. But the book companies were not about to give up these eight years of selling textbooks. And I'm sure that you, you are familiar with in Texas, you have state adoption of textbooks as do 27 states where the committee decides

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which book company gets the big order and it's a multi billion dollar order in the state to Texas. So the book companies were not about to give up that idea of spreading the teaching of reading out over eight years. So they said, ok, fine, we'll give

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the teachers what they want, which is putting back the phonics, we'll do initial confidence in first grade, vowels in second grade are controlled vowels in third grade and we'll still spread it out. The problem is America is a very mobile population. So Children move around. So

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they're in Scott Forsman in one district the next year, they might be in the next year. They might be in ABC. And, and what happens is they do them in, in different orders. So the kids get all confused and they don't catch on, they don't crack

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the code, they don't figure out how the system works. Then the teachers started saying we don't want those basal readers, those don't work. The Children are not learning to read, they're creating learning disabilities. You teach kids to start on either end. And the next thing you

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know, they're labeled dyslexic, uh we need to have something else. So they came up, the professors actually came up with the concept of a whole language where you surround Children with written information, you encourage the Children to write, but you don't correct their spelling because that

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will stifle their creativity and they'll figure it out when they're ready. That methodology was not based on research, that methodology has no support other than anecdotal stories. And when they did the 160 major studies in the teaching of reading and the United States Department of Education

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compiled and put out the results of that in a document called what works. They determined that what we need to do to solve the problem is go back to teaching the Children how to read the skill of reading in first grade, using intensive systematic direct instruction

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of phonics. Now, you would think that the teachers union would say great. Now, we know what the problem is. We know why the school has got in trouble. We can fix it. Let's all, you know, get together here and straighten this out. But they're not going

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to do that because they have membership with all these big book publishing companies and they're not about to change that. So they still promote, the union promotes the use of whole language and psych over phonics, which is the only one that's based on research. Ok. Do

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you think that DNA should be done away with or revamped? And if so, what should it be doing to improve the education in schools? Well, I think the first of all, I think that the United States Department of Education should be done away with, I think

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the control should be given back to the local level, to the parents in the local community. And I don't think that the N E A is serving any useful purpose other than as a labor union. And I don't think we need that in academics. I think

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a professional organization would be fine, but it has evolved into a labor union that I don't know if it can ever reestablish its role as a professional organization because it's become far too politicized and too involved with the money from the book publishing companies and the

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perpetuating the bureaucracy. So I don't know if it's possible to tone it back down, but there is an article that people can get if they're interested in the research and, and what has happened, the history of the N E A in the Forbes issue of February

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13. Now that is no longer on the newsstand, but you can get it in the library. You can make a copy of it in Forbes magazine of February 13th. They did a seven page story about the N E A and it, it's very informative. They give

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you all the information about which states are collective bargaining states. So you can look and see what's happening, why the dues are withheld from teachers. They give you the history of what kinds of things the N E A has done, how they use their power and

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also they, Forbes has their suggestions of what should be done to correct the problem, to straighten out the mess of the monopoly on top of a monopoly in education. Tell us a little bit about your uh reason reasoning for going on the Oprah Winfrey show and

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other, other sorts of uh um, talk shows such as this and across the country is. What exactly are your motives behind this? I'm really glad you asked that, Fred actually what happened on the Oprah show is I saw Oprah talking one day on a show and

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I just happened to see her on the TV. And the person she was talking with on her show said, well, Oprah, the reason that Children cannot read today is because their parents don't read to them at home. And Oprah said, now, wait a minute, we have

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a lot of parents in America who can't read, who are poor readers themselves. How can they read to their Children? So I thought, ah, find me somebody's noticing. So I called the producer and I said, illiteracy in America is a big scam. I will prove it

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to you. I will come to Chicago and teach a group of illiterate people to read in two weeks. You pick the people and you fly me to Chicago and I'll teach them to read in two weeks. And the first thing they said was, who are you?

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And I, so I had to send them my credentials and they thoroughly checked me out. In fact, they even talked with Gordon Liddy because I had been on G Gordon Liddy show five times as well as checking out all my academic credentials and my, uh, uh,

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resume and everything. And then they said, ok, Jeanie, we're going to take your challenge. We are going to pick the people. We're going to get a group of illiterate adults. We're going to set up a room right here. In the studio, we're gonna fly to Chicago.

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We're gonna give you two weeks and at the end of two weeks, you're going on national television, whether the people can read or whether they can't. And I said that sounds like a great deal to me. So I went back there and they, they chose four

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people. They actually had about 400 people in the Chicago area from a announcing it one day on her show, 400 people that wanted to be in the project illiterate people. But they chose four people who represented the different types of adult illiteracy and because of logistical

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reasons, and those are the four people that they gave me to teach to read. The interesting thing was they chose one man who was supposedly dyslexic. He had been tested by the university. He graduated from high school with a diploma he couldn't read. He was told

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that he would never learn to read and write and, and that it was hereditary and he was never going to have Children. It was, you know, he was very sad. He was, he was happy that he wasn't stupid that he actually had a learning disability, but

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he was very sad that he was never going to be able to read and write. He was one of the four people. At the end of the two weeks, all of those people could read. They were on national television reading. And I proved the point that

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illiteracy is a big scam that it does not take 12 years to teach someone to read. It's a very simple process if you have the right information and that our teachers are not being given the right information. And that's why I also train teachers. Now I

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go around to other schools and train teachers and I speak on radio and television every opportunity I get so that I can share the information with teachers, with educators, with students like you are, I assume you two are uh upcoming uh people participating in our form

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of government and hopefully in a education and I also have a home program that parents can get now that they can use to teach their own Children to read or an illiterate person can use to learn to read in the privacy of their own home. That

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program is called the Fast Track and that's the program I use when I talked to people on the Oprah Winfrey show. It has nine hours of audio tapes. It has a video, it has 100 page workbook, it has everything we do when we do it live.

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It's a multi sensory program and people can find out about that by calling a toll free number 1, 807 323593. Um If you think that the Department of Education should be destroyed, what would you say should be put in its place? Ok. Uh First of all

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destroyed kind of indicates like I want to blow it up. I, I don't want to do that. Uh, Melissa, I just want to just ban this abolish it. Um, we don't need a Department of Education, a national Department of Education. We have a state department of

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education in every state. We have county superintendents in every county or parish. We have a superintendent for every school district. This is, this is a duplication of services. We don't need a national Department of Education with a cabinet position in the White House. It is absolutely

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ridiculous that we are expending that kind of money and duplicating the services when the money should be going down to the classrooms, to the teachers and the students see the problem is we have so many layers of management you would call it in business that in

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every well nationally. Let me give you the national statistics for every dollar that is allocated towards education. Only 30 cents actually gets down to the classroom level. And in some states, it's as little as 18 cents out of every dollar in every state in the nation.

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At least 50% of that state's budget goes to education in some states. It's as high as 70%. And yet we graduated a million students last year from our high schools who cannot even read their own diplomas after 12 years in school. This is not a very

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good return on our money. How would we maintain our national standards in education. If we didn't have a national governing body, we don't need national standards. We need state standards, local standards, we need to have those kinds of standards. What, by having a federalized system, we're

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not ensuring that our standards are being met. Don't you think that one of the standards? And I don't mean to be aggressive towards you, but don't, doesn't anyone think that one of the standards that we should be achieving after having students in school for 12 years

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is that they can read and write. We're not meeting that now. And what's happened is over the years in the greatest increase in the size of the N E A and the expenditure of money by our nation on education. We've seen the biggest decline in education.

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So there's no correlation between having a big union and spending a lot of money and getting results. I'm just getting back to your uh program for a second. I'm, I'm just not really sure. What is that? What is exactly the difference between, say your program and

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say uh other phonics or phonetic programs such as Hooked On Phonics or? I'm not really sure why exactly. Do you think your program has it been? Um I don't know, experimentally proven why exactly do you, are you promoting your program over other programs? OK. That's a

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real good question. Fred in 1974 when I was teaching school in Alaska, I was sent by the state of Alaska to find the best reading program in America for the schools in Alaska. I was sent to observe in schools for three months. I looked at every

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reading program that was published at the time I found a program called Action Reading and I took it back to Alaska and that's what we started using in our schools. That program was developed by a high school science teacher named George Curatin in Newark, New Jersey.

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He was frustrated that high school Children could not read their textbooks. He wanted to know how they could get to high school without being able to read. He went down to the junior high. The junior high teacher said they come to us this way, illiterate. He

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ended up all the way down in first grade and he ended up actually teaching first grade and developing this program called Action Reading, which was based on a phonetic approach, teaching phonics, comprehension, spelling, uh basic grammar, handwriting, penmanship, all the things that had been removed from

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the primary grades and his Children at the end of the first grade year could read the New York Times, they could read anything. That's the program that I took back. That program has had a 20 year track record schools that use it do not have Children

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who can't read the Children learn to read in first grade, second grade at the very latest. If they've had any difficulties been ill or been missed a lot of school or something. Um, that is the program I took back and that is the program that the

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fast track. The home version is actually part of, uh, action reading is the school program, fast track is the home program. It's actually action reading being taught to the student on tapes and with videos and workbooks. The reason that that program is so much more successful

00:23:57.229 - 00:24:12.189

than something like Hooked on Phonics is because it was developed by teachers who've actually taught people to read. It's had 20 years of trials within classroom settings and also in summer school and summer camp settings. Hooked on Phonics is a program that was developed by a

00:24:12.199 - 00:24:25.939

man who saw the business opportunity because half of the country is illiterate and he saw that opportunity for a, a program that to sell to those people. He went to the library, he got some books on how to teach phonics. He put together a program. It

00:24:25.949 - 00:24:43.456

has eight cassette tapes. There's about six minutes on each tape. It's not a very comprehensive program and it costs $300. The program that Dr Curri and I have developed from his action reading program has nine hours of instruction on audio tapes. It has a video, it

00:24:43.465 - 00:25:00.235

has 100 page workbook. It is completely comprehensive. It actually starts at the beginning. It explains where we got our system of reading and writing, where we got our alphabet, how those letters represent. Sounds how sounds, go together to make words. It teaches the person phonics, comprehension,

00:25:00.245 - 00:25:18.452

spelling and penmanship all at the same time. It costs $119 not 300. And it is absolutely guaranteed when a person goes through the fast track program, the action reading fast track program, whether it's a preschooler or an adult, they will be a fluent independent reader or

00:25:18.462 - 00:25:33.859

they get their money back. There's absolutely no questions asked. It's a complete guarantee. That's the difference between that program and any of the others that are on the market? Ok. Well, we're fast running out of time here. We'd just like to ask you one last question.

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What, what exactly do you think is the, uh, the future of America's education? Do you think we're going to be able to catch up to the rest of the world, say the European and Asian countries or do you, do you feel like if no one, ah,

00:25:50.420 - 00:26:12.319

readily accepts your program nation nationwide that will just continue at the rate that we are going? Well right now, Fred and Melissa, 85% of the schools in America are not teaching intensive systematic phonics. Only 15% are. And Albert Shanker, who is the president of the other

00:26:12.329 - 00:26:29.694

teachers union, the A F T announced last June at a meeting at Brookings Institute that if we imposed back on education today on the schools of today, the standards that we had in the, the testing that we had the standardized tests, the requirements to graduate and

00:26:29.704 - 00:26:48.719

so forth. If we impose those standards on the schools of today, we would have to close 95% of the colleges and universities and turn them into junior highs. And he also said that if we within the professional profession of education, do not fix the problems. Public

00:26:48.729 - 00:27:04.800

education as we know, it will end by the year 2000, it will be taken over by private enterprise and competition. And I couldn't agree with him more. If we within the education profession, do not fix what's wrong, then we will no longer have public education as

00:27:04.810 - 00:27:21.089

we know it because the public will not tolerate having kids go through 12 years of school and coming out illiterate. So it's up to us to alert the public and to give teachers the right tools and to get our schools back on track. Ok. Thank you,

00:27:21.099 - 00:27:52.140

Miss Eller. We uh thank you for taking time out of your day to give us this interview and um we'll return to regular broadcasts now. Thank you both. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you. Bye bye. I didn't realize I this is

00:27:52.150 - 00:28:11.719

the interview. Take 8000. Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Kru News. I'm your host, Jeffrey Rios. And this evening we're going to be talking to Joe Duran, a freelance television cameraman based in Paris who has recently been in Bosnia covering the Serb Bosnian

00:28:11.729 - 00:28:29.209

conflict from December 12 until January 30 th of this year, Joe was working out of Sarajevo, the capital of the Bosnia Herzegovina Republic. Tonight, we're going to be talking with Joe about his experiences living and working in a war zone. Welcome to the show, Joe. Thank

00:28:29.219 - 00:28:44.430

you. Now, before we begin, I'd like to say that we will be soliciting caller's questions over the course of the interview. If you're listening at home and have a question for Joe relating to Sarajevo, please call us up at 5274 oh five oh, and we will

00:28:44.439 - 00:29:02.359

field your questions directly. Once again, that number is 5274050. For any questions you may have at this point. I'd like to say a few words for clarification to our audience regarding the history of the conflict. Not long after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the creation

00:29:02.369 - 00:29:23.609

of the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina was supported by a popular referendum which was presented to the EC in early 1992. Soon after the official recognition of the Independent Republic, fighting began to break out between the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats. After much international intervention over 30

00:29:23.619 - 00:29:44.410

ceasefires have been declared, none of which have held the most recent ceasefire negotiated with Jimmy Carter's help is still tentatively in effect. Sarajevo, the capital of the Bosnia Herzegovina Republic has been the center of particularly particularly intense fighting between the Serbs and Muslims. It is here

00:29:44.420 - 00:29:59.199

that Joe lived in work during his two month long stay in the Republic. Joe, could you tell us a little bit about the city itself? Many news reports seem to give off an impression of the city as a completely decimated war landscape. Is this entirely accurate?

00:30:00.390 - 00:30:15.300

There is a lot of destruction in Sarajevo and Sarajevo is, if you, as you know, it was where the uh Olympics were held, uh, a few years ago and it's a beautiful city. It was a beautiful city. There's a lot of destruction, there's destruction by shelling,

00:30:15.310 - 00:30:28.689

there's destruction. Uh, you know, there's been tank shooting at the, uh, uh, at the whole city and, and I think, uh, a lot of the destruction is mental. I mean, people are very, very tired of this war and you can see it in their faces. You

00:30:28.699 - 00:30:44.979

can see when they, when you drive around the town you can see people, people are really tired and, and you see that, I think mental destruction that I think you can't really write about. Are, are there still people trying to lead normal lives in the city?

00:30:46.250 - 00:31:01.939

The city is functioning there, there is electricity, uh, part of the day, there is water and gas, part of the day. And, uh, a lot of my friends that live there, they, they get excited on, on a day when they, they have gas, electricity and water

00:31:01.949 - 00:31:15.959

all at the same day because that means that, you know, they can get, get things done normally that, that you take for granted here. And uh and now they're, they, they have um although nobody really wants to acknowledge that they have a tunnel that goes under

00:31:15.969 - 00:31:31.500

the airport and through the tunnel because uh as you know, Sarajevo is surrounded by Serbs and uh and, and they do, they control what comes in out of Sarajevo, but there is a tunnel now under the airport and this tunnel. Uh they are bringing in supplies

00:31:31.510 - 00:31:45.510

and, and they say arms, we have never seen it. We have never really um got an acknowledgement from um the uh the government but, but everybody talks about it and, and uh my, my friends have told me that have been there and they, they explain what,

00:31:45.520 - 00:32:03.319

you know, what comes in and out. Um You, you mentioned uh friends in Sarajevo. Uh did you, so you, you um had a lot of time to uh to make friends in the city who actually who actually are, are natives of Sarajevo. Yes, of course. I

00:32:03.329 - 00:32:18.719

spent two months there and I spent two months in the area. I was based in Sarajevo. We traveled through, through the Republic into Croatia and uh the coastal towns. But I did spend most of my time in Sarajevo. I um I made a lot of close

00:32:18.729 - 00:32:38.589

friends because when you're in a situation where people are under siege for three years, they there's a lot of intense, um, mental. I, I think closeness and people really want to talk to, to people from the outside and tell them what's going on. And I would

00:32:38.599 - 00:32:54.790

go to this, uh, cafe called the, uh, I would go and spend hours, uh, every evening and, and talking to people after work and, and meeting people and getting them and getting to know them closely. And you see, and you see really what, what this war

00:32:54.800 - 00:33:13.219

has done to people, especially when they become your friends and they tell you stories that you'll never forget. Do you have any, um, such stories that you'd like to share with us? There, there's so many stories but everybody who you meet everybody who you talk to,

00:33:13.250 - 00:33:25.719

if you spend, uh, some time talking to them at some point when the conversation goes to, you know, and you, and you, they don't exactly right away. Tell you what's happened. I mean, like, for example, there was a girl who, who I knew for some time,

00:33:25.729 - 00:33:37.540

she was only 19 and, and we talked and talked and we walked around the town and she would point things out and, and tell me and, and she never mentioned, uh, till I think, uh, a couple of weeks after I knew her that she had been

00:33:37.550 - 00:33:50.780

shot in the leg during the first days of the war. She was 19, uh then, and she was probably, I guess 16 at the time. And she was shot in the leg by a sniper. And, uh, and she never mentioned this and, and, and I think

00:33:50.790 - 00:34:07.030

part of her family had, had died during the war and, and she never talked about these things. Another friend who I became very close to, um, her name was, she was, she had some horrible stories. I mean, she was, was wounded by, by shells and, and

00:34:07.040 - 00:34:20.189

she never really talked about and, and I guess they, you know, they have been living this for three years so they really don't talk about it as much and, and, and you have to really dig in and, and try to get some answers and, and find

00:34:20.199 - 00:34:39.389

out what, what happens to people's personal lives. Did, did you ever use, um, any of this sort of personal information in, uh, in, in relation to your job as a news reporter? Well, as a cameraman, I tried to put across some of the emotion, some of

00:34:39.399 - 00:34:53.689

the suffering that, that I hear about in, in my pictures. I, I'm, I'm in a cameraman and I work with video. And so when you're out there shooting, trying to tell a story and you have a sense of what's going on, then you look for faces,

00:34:53.699 - 00:35:10.850

you look for things that, that, uh, tell that story. So even though I was not, so I would, what I would do is even though I would not use their personal stories, I would try to think about some of those things they talked about because a

00:35:10.860 - 00:35:24.659

lot of times when you, when you become friends, they tell you things that you can't go on the air with, they tell you things stories that you cannot repeat. Um and that's, and, and so you try to get a story ideas and you try to go

00:35:24.669 - 00:35:39.639

out there and, and, and, and look for that kind of story. But often when you become close to people on a personal level, you can't use them uh to, to form a story rather just to, for background information. Are, are you still in contact with uh

00:35:39.649 - 00:35:56.669

some of the friends that you made in Sarajevo? No, there's not, it's not easy to, to be in contact because there's not a lot of uh communication in and out of Sarajevo. People are there, they cannot leave. Uh If you are, if you have, if you,

00:35:56.679 - 00:36:11.739

if you are local, you cannot leave journalists or people with special permits can come in and out but people there cannot leave and there's very little telephone communication in and out of uh Sarajevo and, and some of the, and, and some of those areas. But um

00:36:12.000 - 00:36:30.189

the few people that are able to leave once they leave, I have, I have some people I have heard from in London and they um you know, they're very happy to be out. Now during your time in Sarajevo, you stayed in the downtown holiday Inn where

00:36:30.199 - 00:36:47.320

most of the foreign press is located? Was there much, uh, sharing of information between members of the various news organizations? Well, yes, when everybody is, uh, staying at the same place, obviously you're gonna have a lot of, uh, intercommunication between everyone and everybody wants to help

00:36:47.330 - 00:37:00.020

each other in terms of trying to be safe, trying to find out what's going on. And, uh, and so, yeah, you talk to, you talk to each other and if, if somebody doesn't have transportation, you try to take them with you so that they don't have

00:37:00.030 - 00:37:15.889

to put their lives in danger. Um, and also you travel, you try to travel, uh, in groups so that, that if you are traveling around the area, you are not alone. Um, and therefore, you know, it's, it's just a little safer. Mhm. Did you ever venture

00:37:15.899 - 00:37:30.439

out into the city on your own? Oh, yeah. You, well, you go out into the city and, and shoot your stories and videotape your stories. Um, I, we, we traveled around the area quite a bit, not just in Sarajevo but to the airport. To the surrounding

00:37:30.449 - 00:37:48.949

towns. Pale, which is the capital of the, uh Serbian or the Bosnian side, uh Serbian Bosnian uh, side of, uh, the conflict is, is a small town that has become the, uh capital. And, uh, we traveled into the Crimea area in, in Croatia. But, um, in

00:37:48.959 - 00:38:03.090

Sarajevo, I, I did, uh, spend a lot of time there. So I, I would not only work during the day but I would try to explore on a personal level and try to walk the streets and see because even though we drive around in armored cars

00:38:03.100 - 00:38:19.219

and, and you feel safe, you see thousands of people walking to work, walking, to get water, walking, to get food and, and you sort of feel a bit odd because, you know, you're, you're this foreigner, you're there covering the war, covering the conflict and you're driving

00:38:19.229 - 00:38:32.429

around in an armored car. So I would get out as much as I could and it wasn't as dangerous as, as one might think. Obviously, you know, you always try to know where the Serb Hills are, where the Bosnian Hills are so that, you know, and

00:38:32.439 - 00:38:47.010

where the danger spots are so that you are not shot, you're not sniped and, and, and, uh, but you try to, to at least interact with people on the streets and, and, and I always, you know, I spent a lot of time walking the streets. Uh,

00:38:47.020 - 00:38:59.550

there's a 10 o'clock curfew at night. Everybody has to be off the streets and as a foreign journalist, you have a special permit, you can be on the streets and I just enjoyed, you know, being out there, uh, walking and getting to know people and, and,

00:38:59.560 - 00:39:18.810

and taking still pictures for myself. Um, did you do anything to try to make your, uh, your time staying in Sarajevo a little bit more livable. Uh, did you modify your hotel room in any ways? Well, the Holiday Inn, um, the whole front of the hotel

00:39:18.820 - 00:39:33.429

has been pretty much destroyed. It has, you know, has been shot at, it has been shelled, it has been rocketed and in fact, it got hit a few times while I was there. It's when, when the hotel gets hit, it's, it's not, um, such a big

00:39:33.439 - 00:39:49.110

impact. I mean, it wakes you up in the middle of the night. But the hotel room, the hotel part, uh where we live, the foreign journalist, it's towards the back and, and the hotel functions as a hotel. Um, we, they have a generator, they have water

00:39:49.120 - 00:40:04.110

and, you know, I, I would uh try to make it comfortable by, for example, um I putting, you know, art and stuff on the wall and, and just trying to make it a little more personal, I did spend a lot of time there and, uh, and,

00:40:04.120 - 00:40:17.149

and I had some music and I brought my CD player and I mean, you try, you try to make it a little more comfortable because working every day for two months in a place like that sometimes does get, um, tiring, makes it a little stir crazy

00:40:17.159 - 00:40:29.169

sometimes. Yeah, I think after two months I was, I, well, actually after a month I, I did not leave the city the first month and I got a pretty good idea. I mean, you, you got, I got used to being there. I got used to living

00:40:29.179 - 00:40:42.629

there. I got used to, you know, working there. But after a month I went to a split in Croatia where there is an, a war. There's, it's a beautiful town and it was very odd because, uh, you forgot what it was like to be outside of

00:40:42.639 - 00:40:56.050

Sarajevo. It was, it was, you know, the stores had food. Uh, there were, there were bars, there were discos, there were, there was everything and, and you were just used to being, you know, with very little and you got used to it and, and I remember

00:40:56.060 - 00:41:14.530

when I went to split, it was, it was odd feeling like it was like you were out of jail. Hm. Um Something else I'd like to ask you, um, since the beginning of this, of this uh present cease fire, um, the most dangerous threat in Sarajevo

00:41:14.540 - 00:41:32.709

seems to be sniper fire. In fact, one of the more notoriously dangerous locations in Sarajevo is a stretch of road referred to as sniper's alley. This road is a dividing front between the Serb and Bosnian factions. Do you have any personal stories to tell regarding this

00:41:32.719 - 00:41:49.000

dangerous site? Well, when you talk about snipers alley, it is the main boulevard that connects the city from the airport all the way to the old city. And on the other side, you have uh, a stream or a river on one side. You have that, well,

00:41:49.010 - 00:42:02.780

that's really the front of the uh conflict. Uh Even though there is a cease fire, there is a lot of, there are a lot of violations and they have sniping. So you, we, we, uh, the hotel is on one end of this Boulevard and the TV

00:42:02.790 - 00:42:15.510

station, uh, where we worked out of was on the other end. So we traveled this every day, every day and you would be traveling this road and then, you know, you, you start hearing sniping and you see people running and of course, you know, sometimes they're

00:42:15.520 - 00:42:30.570

just shooting. It's not always, you know, somebody gets shot but often you, you, you just don't know who they're shooting at or you, you know, you stop and shoot video and, uh, and you hear, you know, somebody shooting. But, um, I, I, I guess it's, it's,

00:42:30.580 - 00:42:45.149

it's a bad area because it's, you know, everybody knows about the, about snipers alley. My, one of my friends, uh Margaret Moth who was also, who worked here in Houston many years ago was actually um shot in the, in the jaw there on snipers alley and

00:42:45.159 - 00:42:59.780

has survived and, and, and, and has gone back to Sarajevo uh a couple of times. So, I mean, I know I, and I'm aware of, of the danger of snipers alley, but it's just one of many places in Sarajevo uh downtown. You could, you know, and

00:42:59.790 - 00:43:14.939

there, there's shells that hit downtown. There are shells that hit the hotel. But snipers alley is, is just notorious and, and, and everybody all over the world has heard about snipers alley. Were, were you ever fired at by snipers? Personally? Uh, I don't, we, I was,

00:43:14.949 - 00:43:30.360

my car was never hit. I was never, I never, you know, heard bullets flying by. You hear firing all the time. You never know. And, uh, what people always talk about is they say uh the one that's gonna hit you, you'll never hear it. So you

00:43:30.370 - 00:43:45.600

know, you hear firing but you, you just assume it's not headed towards you and, and uh but I have never actually, you know, been fired upon like my car hit or anything like this. Uh We're gonna take a short break right now and we're gonna be

00:43:45.610 - 00:44:09.659

back with more of Joe Duran let us in in the early days. You could, you know, you could basically go anywhere you want it. Um drive around now. They, you have to ask for permission and, and they really, you know, if they don't want to let

00:44:09.669 - 00:44:25.189

you go to a certain area they don't. So we never admitted into. And if uh Mo Mo is a beautiful town that was uh also very, very destroyed by the war. They do have some uh a cease fire that is holding. But uh the one of

00:44:25.199 - 00:44:38.870

the most beautiful uh bridges in the world that was in Mozart and it was, it was completely destroyed. And uh as well as the uh old uh Islamic library in Sarajevo. It's a beautiful, beautiful building that was totally destroyed. And, and you, you think, how can

00:44:38.879 - 00:44:55.149

this happen? Uh would you, would you say there was more destruction in Mostar than there was in Sarajevo? Uh Well, most are, is, is, it's not as big as Sarajevo but uh there, there is a lot of uh destruction uh with, with the old front between

00:44:55.159 - 00:45:07.959

the croat and the uh, well, the, the opposing force forces, uh there is a lot of destruction. There are, there are buildings that are totally destroyed. You know, I, I don't, I, I don't know. The comparison one is more than the other Sarajevo is a much

00:45:07.969 - 00:45:22.280

larger city and probably has, you know, overall more, more destruction. But, you know, there are, there are whole villages that have been wiped out and as you drive through the countryside, you see all these villages totally destroyed. Uh Nobody, nobody there, ghost towns. And, uh it's,

00:45:22.290 - 00:45:39.050

it's a strange feeling as you drive through these places. How dangerous was it uh to travel from place to place within the Republic? Well, it's um depends, I mean, you, you travel either by yourself and you try to find out what, you know, what regions are

00:45:39.060 - 00:45:57.689

safe, but often you travel also with UN forces so that you have um, some protection and, uh, and, and and like I said before, sometimes you travel with other journalists to keep each other company and travel in numbers. Um I'm going to uh wrap things up

00:45:57.699 - 00:46:15.969

here with a call or a question from a caller. Uh The color says that uh before this war, Sarajevo was noted for being cosmopolitan and having di different ethnic groups living in harmony. This affected the culture of the city in a positive way. Has the war

00:46:15.979 - 00:46:28.850

broken down the harmony of the city as far as people getting along together? And do you think that after the war that things can ever go back to the way they were? Well, people always talk about uh how it used to be and, and it was

00:46:28.860 - 00:46:48.209

the one place where people really got along in Sarajevo. Um And everybody was completely taken by surprise when the war started. They couldn't believe that that actually Sarajevo would ever ever be in conflict. And uh and now the divisions are so strong that, you know, one

00:46:48.219 - 00:47:02.870

people are wondering whether they will ever, ever be able to get along. I, I guess, you know, only history will tell but, uh but people, I mean, there's such hatred between some of those people that it's difficult and, and, and maybe people don't want to admit,

00:47:02.879 - 00:47:23.250

but it's gonna be a very difficult piece. Um We're just about out of time but I'd like to thank you for coming by and spending time. Um talking about your time in Sarajevo and Bosnia, Herzegovina. Um, I was wondering if you had any sort of, uh,

00:47:23.260 - 00:47:36.570

closing comments for our listeners? Well, uh, it's sort of out of the news right now a little bit Bosnia but I hope that people make an attempt to keep up with what's happening because it is a horrible war and I think it's something that's probably not

00:47:36.580 - 00:47:53.120

gonna, um, be solved any time soon. Um, and I also that people be uh aware of what's happening and try to learn because I think people don't understand that conflict and it's, it's very complex and, uh, and that they just don't forget, you know, what's happening

00:47:53.129 - 00:48:06.520

and people are still suffering and, and, and uh is, is an area that is, you know, right now being destroyed. So as long as I think people, you know, it stays in the news and people have an interest, uh that maybe at some point there will

00:48:06.530 - 00:48:24.060

be a solution and, and they may have some peace. Thank you. Uh You've just been listening to an interview with Joe Duran, a freelance television cameraman based in Paris who has recently been in Bosnia covering the Serb Bosnian conflict. That's all for this edition of the

00:48:24.070 - 00:49:02.110

K T R U News. And we now return to regular music. Ok, thank you, Eric. Um I'm Jeffrey and uh this is a special edition of the True News. Um We're here right now with uh San Francisco Theater. Artist, Rodea Jones. Uh, she will be presenting

00:49:02.120 - 00:49:25.580

her work, uh, entitled, uh, Big Butt Girls, Hardheaded Women tonight and Saturday night at Diverse Works, which is located at 1117 East freeway. Good afternoon. Welcome to the show, Odessa. It's nice to be here. Um, I guess the first thing I would like to ask you

00:49:25.590 - 00:49:47.189

is, uh, you, um, could you describe a little bit about the performance that you will be doing? Well? Big bug girls, hard headed women is um my response as an artist to um the situation of incarceration. In 1980 seven, I was asked to uh go into

00:49:47.199 - 00:50:00.350

the city jail in San Francisco and teach aerobics. I'm a performing artist who's lived in and around San Francisco for a very long time. And I work for the California Arts Council, which is an arts agency, state arts Agency in California that chooses various artists to

00:50:00.360 - 00:50:14.320

work in various institutions. So when they asked me to go into this, the uh city jail and teach aerobics, I thought, well, this is a challenge and uh I went in and I realized of course, immediately that something else was gonna be called for that these

00:50:14.330 - 00:50:26.340

women were not interested in aerobics. And you have to realize that the, the uh where I was, where I had been assigned to work is the seventh floor at 8 50 Bryant Street, which is the holding tank. So it is, it, the place is filled with

00:50:26.350 - 00:50:39.979

women that are still, like, are screaming for methadone women who are splattered in blood mud. Uh, women who, uh, are, are just being freshly bandaged from, from battering. This whole, this was the, this was the city jail, the holding tank. And here I was supposed to

00:50:39.989 - 00:50:52.270

go in perky as I could be and encourage all these, these, these women to go to the gym and do aerobics with me and, uh, they, they had to go, uh, but when they'd get to the gym, they would just look at me. I mean, and

00:50:52.280 - 00:51:03.729

the other side of it was that I felt like a demolition woman. I felt like I had been dropped into hell. I felt like it was like, and these women had been stuck there for thousands of years. You've seen Alien, you know, the, the movie is

00:51:03.739 - 00:51:14.800

Alien and that when they always get to the nest where they, where they, where the people have been carried to and you always have half of bodies and faces that are sort of, uh, you know, they've been sort of meshed together with this slime. It felt

00:51:14.810 - 00:51:27.399

like that to me that these women had been, like, stuck in cement forever and ever, and their eyes were dead and they got into sort of watching me and I figured, what do I do? I'm a performer. So I created this sort of, uh phony because

00:51:27.409 - 00:51:39.449

I'm not an aerobics teacher. I'm a, I'm a mover. I'm a dancer. I was a T R P artist. So I created a whole sound and movement thing where I did cart wheels and I, and I rolled and I stretched and I talked about my life.

00:51:39.459 - 00:51:54.685

I talked about being an African American woman. I talked about uh having a baby when I was 16, I talked about my own dance with drugs. I talked about um abusive relationships. I asked questions. I, I wondered why this had happened to them and had not

00:51:54.695 - 00:52:09.445

happened to me. And they were really fascinated. They were really curious. So they started to ask me why was I telling them all this personal stuff about myself? And uh I, I talked about being an artist and they asked me what was an artist? And I

00:52:09.455 - 00:52:26.489

thought, what a question, you know, what a question in this, in this, this, this, this environment and how do I impact their lives with, with my, uh, with my career and my calling. And thus big butt girls is a series of monologues based on uh real

00:52:26.500 - 00:52:43.850

conversations with incarcerated women. And what? And, and it's part, uh it's a, it's really heavy um drama. I mean, it's really heavy drama because as a junkie there is a, um, a, a prostitute who's mad as hell. There is an old lady who's seen it all

00:52:43.860 - 00:52:56.159

and she's sick of all of them. And then there's a baby having babies, but it's very much hip hop theater too, the language, you know, because uh a lot of people in jail are very young. So what fascinated me was how they talked, how they perceived

00:52:56.169 - 00:53:11.590

of the world. We use uh bits and pieces of music from Marvin Gaye, from Public Enemy, from uh Tom Waits. Um Because all of this was happening in my life and in and around this situation. So it's a real journey into the jail, into the belly

00:53:11.600 - 00:53:24.709

of the jail in one day. And we get to meet all these characters. And this is a one woman show. It's a one woman show. I, uh, but my partner, I just a who is the, the, the stage director has, has created a sound score for

00:53:24.719 - 00:53:37.439

me. But because I've never been to Houston before I asked him to come out. So he'll be doing the music live on stage and he'll be doing all the sound, um, the sound score and he'll be interacting with his computer and with uh tapes and, but

00:53:37.449 - 00:53:52.989

he's a saxophonist. So it's very live, it's a very live show. It's, it's, it's, it's happening. It's going on. It's all that. Ok. Yeah, it's scary too because it's real ritual and making the work. I made it with the women in jail. I made it uh

00:53:53.270 - 00:54:08.620

uh after Regina who is a prostitute in the piece was murdered in real life. I'd gone off to Europe to do another tour of another piece. I I do with and we returned and I found that she had been killed and uh I just thought, hm

00:54:08.629 - 00:54:24.250

gotta do something, gotta say something, gotta make art, gotta remind people that this woman has died. And um I mean, I, I, I started to work on the piece and then the women in Theater festival in Boston, uh asked me to come and do the performance.

00:54:24.260 - 00:54:35.830

They wanted, they wanted an artist to make a statement about this kind of work. So it all happened at the same time. So thus big but girls was born. So these characters are based on real people and the women got to watch me do it because

00:54:35.840 - 00:54:49.784

I wanted them part of the women about the art, the art and the act of transformation. Because on one level as an actor, we, we are understand how it is what we're going through all the time, the real chameleon, you know, but for an incarcerated person

00:54:49.794 - 00:55:03.504

that was a whole other level, I was hoping subliminally would happen where the reality that if I could turn into them, they could turn into me or thus somebody who at least was living in the free, you know, and uh I don't know, I can't say

00:55:03.514 - 00:55:19.340

uh statistic wise how much it worked, but I think I turned on the light for a few, for a few people. Yeah. Um Something else I'd like to ask you about. Um you will be here in Houston for a total of two months. Uh And in

00:55:19.350 - 00:55:35.409

addition to your performance, uh big but girls, hardheaded women at diverse works. Uh You're also working on something called the parachute project Rites of Passage for young women and girls. Uh Could you, uh talk a little bit about this for us? Well, since I did big

00:55:35.419 - 00:55:51.770

but girls, I get uh I get invitations from all over the country to come and work with uh incarcerated people. My, now what I'm interested in is incarcerated women. Uh What I found over the last seven years is that the, the, the, the rate of recidivism

00:55:51.780 - 00:56:05.669

for young people is growing by leaps and bounds. So in coming to Texas, part of my agreement and participating in this re residency was that I wanted to work in a, in a facility in some sort of a detention facility. And what we found was uh

00:56:05.790 - 00:56:20.570

uh uh one of the detention centers, detention centers here in Clear Lake Texas. So I'm out there doing a piece with uh girls who are literally inmates. They're 12 to 17 years old and they're in, they're in jail. I mean, we don't want to use this

00:56:20.580 - 00:56:37.250

term politically. I have a lot of questions about the structure of things in Texas, but that's another conversation. But um these kids, yeah, they, they're, they're in, they're detained and at the same time, this is their last stop before county jail. This is the last stop

00:56:37.260 - 00:56:51.925

before they jump on the revolving door of jail. And, uh, so, and there's only 20 girls to 100 boys and chose to work with the girls. And so I go out four days a week and, um, we've, we've, uh, we began to tell our stories, we

00:56:51.935 - 00:57:06.159

begin to write and I want them to tell, I, I, I want them to look at their lives and I want them to hear themselves talk about drive bys and, and uh carjackings because I mean, on one level as a woman, they have all my admiration.

00:57:06.169 - 00:57:17.320

I mean, a 12 year old girl says, you don't know how high, what a hit it is to jump into a car with a gun, put it to an adult's head and say, I'm taking your car, you know, and for a moment this girl says, you,

00:57:17.330 - 00:57:28.459

you own the world, you're on top of the world. I mean, I think that, I think, I mean, I don't want to go out and carjack but I can get with that, the power, the power of it and it, yeah. And also she says she can,

00:57:28.469 - 00:57:39.280

she can hotwire any car and she's a, she's a burglar, you know, she's tiny. She says I can look like she says I can kick in your bathroom window, slide and take whatever I want out of your house and walk out your front door. And I

00:57:39.290 - 00:57:52.489

look like a little kid, nobody's gonna question that maybe I don't live there. You know, I mean, these are the kind of stories that they're telling me. And the other side of it is also people dealing with incest and the, the domestic violence that forces a

00:57:52.500 - 00:58:06.820

girl to run away from home, forces a girl to start acting out. One of my questions is, when did your life change? You know, when did it stop being, uh, a child's world? And, and it has to do with loss, you know, loss of respect for

00:58:06.830 - 00:58:21.590

the people who are supposed to take care of you. A loss of faith. The literally the death of a loved 11 girl was the last person to hold her baby sister. And then the baby suffered a crib death. And she, she, she has written about that.

00:58:21.820 - 00:58:37.360

So it's, it's stunning work. And then I have a team of uh artists from Texas. I have a team of artists from Houston Annette Lawrence who's at the Children's Museum, who is a visual artist and uh uh Karen Sanders who's a videographer. Uh my, who is

00:58:37.370 - 00:58:53.179

a um dancer from Mecca and they go out with me, Sarah Erin and we go out every day and we take these stories, uh these um these realizations these, these Children will share and we do rap. We do, we do pop. Uh We create pop music,

00:58:53.189 - 00:59:09.550

we do uh African American Latino dances. We um we, we redesign Saturday night. I mean we do you know, we have a great section just on joy riding, you know, girls, joy riding a girl talking about being a member of a gang and, and having them

00:59:09.560 - 00:59:23.090

recreate the movement and the way the gang hangs out and, and making that a dance. It's fascinating how often do these workshops happen? Uh Right now I'm working four days a week here, but I've been all over the country. I was in Anchorage Alaska, working at

00:59:23.100 - 00:59:38.260

a detention center with young people back in November. Um I, I think it's the beginning of a, of a certain kind of trend and I hope so because I feel like as we move into the 21st century with the real reality of the, the political machine

00:59:38.270 - 00:59:56.770

as is this new Republican regime as is, uh it brings to mind what one of my quotes and that is, is that, you know, politics don't work, you know, religion is just a bit too eclectic but art, art could be the, the parachute, it could be

00:59:56.780 - 01:00:09.669

the thing that saves us all. And I've just seen uh people really respond when you ask them to create something out of their anguish or their pain. You know, because I'm not, I'm, I'm not about trying to tell you what you should or should not do.

01:00:09.679 - 01:00:22.120

Hey, I have a therapist. OK. So I'm not gonna pretend that I know all the answers, but I am a mother, I am a daughter. I'm a grandmother. You know, I have eight brothers. I have tons of nieces and nephews. So I guess my point is

01:00:22.129 - 01:00:34.800

is that I am you are, you are a member of the human family. And I think that that's what artists, artists have come down to, especially now with the, the face of diversity. It's like different kinds of artists from different cultures are saying, well, this is

01:00:34.810 - 01:00:53.060

really about ritual and religion. This is not art, art, art for art's sake. And then, but also there's the artists who make art for art's sake and we all bond and the vision is stunning, you know. Yeah. Um One of the things that uh you're not

01:00:53.070 - 01:01:09.459

actually working here in Houston with um but that you've done in other cities is worked with uh um working actually uh with women in prison, incarcerated women. Yes. The project, yes. The project theater for incarcerated women. Actually, the project is housed at the county jail in

01:01:09.469 - 01:01:25.389

San Francisco is ongoing right now as we speak, it has become a part of the, the educational curriculum. And thus I am developing a national model. So I travel all over the country. I was at in Tampa, Florida last year at a women's prison and Ocala.

01:01:25.399 - 01:01:37.820

Well, it was outside of Tampa Cala Florida. But that is like really uh so you're doing sort of a Johnny Appleseed thing with, yeah, I just think that uh it's a good way to sneak art in, you know, because right now art is not at the

01:01:37.830 - 01:01:52.110

top of anybody's list. You know, if you, when we get thinking back to the N E A and things that are happening in this country with questioning uh everything from a public radio to uh funding individual artists, artists like getting up seems like it's being pushed

01:01:52.159 - 01:02:05.729

to the wayside. And at the same time, artists like me, people who are running these institutions know that they, they, they, they like Malcolm X say by any means necessary. We've got to figure out how to, how to get through this darkness because we're living in

01:02:05.739 - 01:02:28.459

a very, very dark time right now. And I think art has a place, you know, um do you have any uh stories that you'd like to share with us? Parting words? Um Yes, I just remember the, the uh the first time that I went into jail

01:02:28.649 - 01:02:45.889

and uh I was sitting there being very innocent about everything and thinking I was really gonna affect change and, and I saw this woman coming towards me and she was chained hands and ankles and um she just looked like a Zulu Queen. You know, she was

01:02:45.899 - 01:03:01.100

like a concord, great colored woman and she was about 62 huge woman, not fat, but just like you wouldn't mess with her. And they were taking her off to Stockton, which is a women's prison. And I said in my best hippie laced voice, uh be careful,

01:03:01.110 - 01:03:18.540

take care of yourself. She just turned and looked at me and she said, oh girl, don't worry about it. And as she went, walking off her butt, her butt was like an army behind it. It was like, and thus the title of this piece. Big butt

01:03:18.550 - 01:03:34.770

Girls Heart of Women was born. On that note, I'd just like to invite everybody to come out. We're selling out. So people should come. I mean, I think it's, uh, I think it's an important show and I think Americans have gathered around it because we want

01:03:34.780 - 01:03:45.370

to hear, we want to know more than what the evening news tells us. You know, we want to know more about what's happening with incarcerated people and also with women because it's something that we don't even talk about. And if you and I mean, it's like

01:03:45.379 - 01:04:01.919

what happened with AIDS 10 years ago, 10 years ago, I remember going to a medical conference and a doctor spoke and said that in 10 years, every one of us would be touched by this disease. Be it? You either know somebody or somebody has died or

01:04:01.929 - 01:04:16.550

you know, somebody that knows somebody. And I think that the issue of incarceration has come around that way because it used to be primarily a subterranean problem. Drugs was a subterranean problem, ghettoized, you know, for lack of a better term. But now I think that if

01:04:16.560 - 01:04:28.745

we all think about it, there's somebody, we know who's either been in and out of jail and a lot of times it has to do with the dance with drugs, you know, in incarceration is touching us all as crime is, you know, I mean, I'm not

01:04:28.754 - 01:04:41.570

gonna say that crime isn't real or that these people, you know, that there, that there should not be jails. But I don't think the warehouse people is enough. I think we've got to really examine what's happening because, uh, either you, either you are the victim or

01:04:41.580 - 01:04:56.199

you're being victimized and either way we're all involved here. You know. So, I think that's what makes this piece very popular. And like I said, it's wild. It's a good time. I mean, it's, it's a scary but, uh, I, life is scary, isn't it? It's messy

01:04:56.209 - 01:05:01.459

and also it seems like you're, you're sort of giving a face to these women. Thank you very much. And the voice.