Marvin X reviews Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Fest

Today was a  sunny day in Oaktown, a perfect day to honor Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, the annual event produced by Eastside Arts Alliance, located at 23rd Ave. and International Blvd. Technically, their location might be called The Fruitvale, some call it the Ho’ Stroll, but it is a multi-cultural district. During the Crack Era we Crack Heads (including myself) called this area the United Nations because there were crackheads who smoked together from throughout the Americas, and so many beautiful Latina (OK, Latinax, since I’m X) Crack Heads. 

As per the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, the Covid Pandemic closed down ESA’s festival at San Antonio Park on E.18th and Foothill. A Miller Lite version was produced this Saturday: Miller Lite because it was scaled down will limited arts and crafts booths, mostly non-profit organization booths. 

Since my memory is failing (and what should one expect after a life-78, May 29- of drugs, alcohol, sex, rock n’ roll and revolution, exile, deportation, jail and prison, black listed and house arrest; so after a meeting with my printer and graphic designer in deep east Oakland, something–yes, that little black bird sitting atop our shoulder as we traverse our daily round, the black bird said go by San Antonio Park because that Malcolm X Jazz/Art Fest may be today. Well, my little black bird also told me to make my way from deep east Oakland by way of Highway 13, that tree-filled stretch of road in the Montclair District. The plethora of green gives me a moment of meditation. I turn my travel music down, Jimmy Smith, Hammond B3, music of my childhood in West Oakland. I depart Highway 13 at Park Ave. exit, take Park to 14th Ave. to 18th and Foothill, up Foothill to the park and the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Fest was indeed in progress.

Now the real fun begins. Firstly, when I departed my house this morning, my mind was on the 11 AM meeting with my graphic designer and printer. I am at the last stages of editing and publishing a book by US Congressman Rt. William L. Clay, Sr., Endemic Racism in America, Black Bird Press, Oakland, CA. Is this not the topic of the day? Brother Clay, one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, has given us a required text for American Political Science 1.0.

Firstly and lastly, it is an original source, a horse’s mouth! As my meeting did not stress me out, I arrived and drove my vehicle onto the grass, alongside other cars. Before I could get out, I scanned the scene of vendor spaces with knowledge that information booths had priority. Soon a young lady approached me with the message that if I was not a non-profit, there were no booths available and I should register next year. Now, if you know anything about the Outlaw personality known as Marvin X, you know he understands no party of no. The young lady and he went around and around in their linguistic battle but as the master linguists, she was no match and the conversation ended with her inviting him to have a space a few feets from where he was parked. She informed him to look at the space that had a table and chairs provided. He thanked her and she departed. 

Still, his memory failure had no allowed him to bring his tent and plethora of books he’s published and those of his associates Drs. Nathan and Julia Hare, such as his own manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy (Insanity). He only had three copies in his car and the same number of the Hare’s The Endangered Black Family: Coping with the unisexualization and coming extinction of the Black Race. But he did have ample copies of what he considers his magnum opus Outlaw Magazine #1, featuring The Mythology of Pussy and Dick, the now classic 18 page pamphlet that he toured with coast to coast, from the Bay Area to the Dirty South, i.e., Houston, TX, Beufort, SC, Jackson, Mississippi, Grambling, LA, Washington, D.C. (Spent a week at Howard University in the classes of Dr. Greg Carr and Dr. Tony Medina).

After setting up his table with mostly copies of Outlaw Magazine with the provocative headline The Mythology of Pussy and Dick; subtitle: Poetic and Prose notes on the deconstruction of partner relations in the #MeToo Era, he began passing them out. The magazine says $20.00 donation but those who know Marvin X know he’s gives away at least 50% of the 30 books he’s written.

Perhaps this is why one of his students said he was the poorest famous person she’d ever met. He says,”Do you think we made revolution for money? Of course there are opportunists in every movement, the revolution as well, people who pimped revolution to be come rich and famous. Did Malcolm die rich, Kwame Toure’, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus? The Spiritual Man and Woman are beyond material things. Fact check!

As people passed his table, he handed them the magazine, some gave the donation price of $20.00, some gave less. He gave it freely to those without money. He told them he was blessed and they were blessed that he was able to give it to them for free, especially since it did cost several thousand dollars. But he told several people they were covered by “the blood” of those inside the magazine. 

A white man took the magazine and asked if he could sit down at the table next to the poet, philosopher, planner, organizer (he recently received a $100,000 grant to organize black street vendors at Lake Merritt, from which he and other blacks were banned since childhood. The City of Oakland has tried every trick in their trade to terminate black vendors from Lake Merritt. Marvin X says, “It’s clear to me that the consensus of the black vendors is that they shall stand their ground, no matter what polytricks the polytricians configure, especially as election time nears and the polytricians want the votes of lakeside residents and businesspersons. Vendors as registered voters can challege the opposition with votes, not to mention that black vendors are in conformity with the State Law on Vending SB946.

Marvin X, speaking through his Black Street Magazine, calls upon vendors to STAND OUR GROUND, but also register to vote so we can challenge the polygtricians white supremacist (insane) lake residents and businesspersons who, after a lucrative business day of robbing the locals and the globals from Oakland to Palestine and Ukraine.

The white man took his time reading Outlaw Magazine. A few feet to the right of his stand a black brother stood reading the magazine intently for an hour or more. The white man finally said to Marvin, “It’s good to read something that inspires one.            

Marvin’s elder, associate and  advisor, Dr. Nathan Hare, Clinical Psychologist/Sociologist, said he read the magazine cover to cover. He agreed to write a review. Mar’yam Wadi, San Francisco State University mother of the Black Students Union and Black Studies, read Outlaw Magazine and said it was the best writings by the poet since she met him in the SFSU Negro Students Association before she forced the name change to Black Students Union and submitted the first draft curriculum for the Black Studies Department.

Brother Woody came by and was promptly given the magazine. Woody is one of our Sculpturists and thinkers. After perusing Outlaw, he said, and agreed to be quoted, “Marvin X is one of our rare black men who keep it real!”

Greg Morozumi came by and Marvin made him take a seat. He is one of the key founders of multicultural art in the Bay, also a co-founder of Eastside Arts Cultural Center. Greg has suffered a stroke and unable to speak. When he kept trying to tell Marvin about a young lady who gave a donation for Outlaw, Marvin gave him a pen and paper to write. He wrote that she was the daughter of Yuri Kochiyamam, one of the first persons to reach Malcolm X as he lay assassinated on the stage. As I didn’t know she was Yuri’s daughter, I was happy to meet her and told her how much her mother let me know she loved me. The said she recalled me and how much her mother thought about me.

As per review, when I arrived, music from New Orleans was playing. And then the festival musicologist Howard Wiley came on with a variety of blues, jazz and hip hop, including vocalist Martin Luther. Howard Wiley noted his performances at Malcolm X Jazz/Fest included performing with Amiri Baraka, David Murray, the Last Poets (and “Outlaw” Marvin X). I was elated to hear the brother playing the Hammond B3, as noted above, the instrument that takes me immediately to my childhood in West Oakland. 

Eastside Arts presented their poets and wannabe poets who were given apprecitation from the audience who were provided seats to enjoy the music and beautiful weather. 

On the political side, there was a speaker from the City of Oakland Downtown Plan for the next 25 to 50 years. He encouraged people to become aware and involved in the plan but in truth few black persons know about the plan since we are the last to know anything, especially about our future in Amerikkk. The Oakland City Plan has been in progress for several years. Why are you not fully informed about the plan and what is Black people’s plan in the plan? As we know, if you don’t have a plan, “they” have a plan for you. Does the 25 to 50 year plan include reparations, including land, housing and sovereignty?

On January 19, 2016, the City of Oakland established the Black Arts Movement Business District, since then the district has had no budget, no signage, i.e., banners, African Liberation flag displayed throughout the BAMBD. Alas, how many blacks know we have a Black Arts Movement Business District from the lower bottom of 14th Street to Lake Merrritt? Did you know there is a bust of Dr. Huey P. Newton on Mandela Way and a Huey Newton Way on Center Street? Did you know in the BAMBD dowtown area along 14th Street has been renamed Chauncy Bailey Ave., in honor of the slain Editor of the Oakland Post Newspaper. Alas, his death is no less significant than the death of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shot in the head by Zionists state murderers. Don’t cry for Ukraine if you can’t shed corcodile tears for Shireen, Chauncey and Gary Webb, let alone the tens of journalists killed in Mexico and Latin America, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

FYI, my concern is global, Pan African, pan Human. But, I am firstly a revolutionary Black nationalist. My life long desire is no different than the Palestinians, a nation of our own.  Or for that matter, La Raza, La Raza, La Raza. 

Por favor, we need to take cues from La Raza who have a thriving Latintown, as the Asians have Asiantown and the whites have whitetown. 

Isn’t it ironic Blacks celebrate Malcolm X in Latintown? Why don’t Latinos (I’m not playing linguistic polytricks with x,y, z, infinity!) celebrate Cinco De Mayo at Bobby Hutton Park, DeFermery in West Oakland?

People stopped at my table to do video interviews. They wanted to know why I wasn’t on stage as I used to be when Amiri Baraka, the Last Poets, David Murray and my  other peers came to town. I told then it was ideological or shall we say political. Some people play dogmatic polytricks. 

FYI, my politics are of, for and by the consent of the governed, the people. I don’t give a fuck about ideologies, sectarian religiosities and dogmatic spiritual mythologies. 

As a devotee of Sufism, I believe in the wisdom of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s The Religion of the Heart! What do masjids, temples, churches and holy places matter if the Divine does not dwell in your heart? You kiss the black stone and proceed to murder, you kiss the wailing wall and proceed to murder, you kiss the US Constitution and proceed to murder, and you murder with an annual defense budget of 700 billion dollars. After trillions wasted and unaccounted for in Iraq and  Afghanistan, you have now hurried your bitch punk ass into Ukraine for a most dubious engame most likely to end with nuclear war. 

In the hustler’s game they teach, “How you start out is how you end up!” The USA supported Ukraine without air support, some punk ass shit after repeated calls from their PM for air support. Alas, in the USA military/industrical/complex there is no need for air support, all we need is eternal war. War, what is is good for? I was happy to see one of my favorite Bay Area musicians JOHN SANTOS stop by and have a seat. John Santos reads my books as a  person of consciousness. I love John for his consciousness. 

Ricky Vincent, KPFA’s History of Funk, came by and departed with Outlaw. Several times I made people remove their funky masks so I could recognize them, especially since I am 50% blind. 

One of the Bay Area’s great choreographers, Traci Bartlett, got her Outlaw. When a dance segment performed, I’m didn’t check but I suspect Traci was involved in the choreography. We must give full credit to the Eastside Arts for training the next generation of radical artists, not weak punk ass artists who do art for art’s sake in the best tradition of european white supremacy, hereafter labled white insanity. 

When I recognized a woman from behind by her braided hair and gait, I called her and she turned around. It was Diva Carolyn Johnson of the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone. We were last together at the People’s Junkyard to organize the Black Vendors Association. Carolyn appreciated the black space of the People’s Junkyard and begged me to inform the Junkyard People that she wants to support the People’s Junkyard as a sacred black space in deep east Oakland.

From elder to young adults

The young man at the booth next to me, bought a copy of Outlaw and informed me he was a seeker of knowledge. I tried to inform him my duty is to share knowledge. We know the lesson from Elijah Muhammad: ”What is the duty of the civilized man?” The duty of the civilized man is to teach the deaf, dumb and blind the knowledge of civilization. Question: If the civilized man fails to perform his duty, what is the consequence? Answer: If the civilized man fails to perform his duty, he shall suffer a severe chastisement by Allah.

I, Marvin X, El Muhajir, confess I was chastized by Allah for failing to perform my duty: I was attacked, knocked flat on my back by youth, teeth knocked out, bum rushed and got away from the savages bleeding and bloody; knives and guns pulled on me, 

The festival was winning down. The Queen Mother of Eastside Arts came into my presence, Elena Seranno. Elena is a great cultural asset, especially as an arts administrator. We see her work so there is no doubt she is a true trooper, Greg as well. People need to praise and honor Greg for his work in radical arts of the people. He needs to be provided all the necessary physical therapy so he can speak again. His inability to speak is unacceptable to me. 

In conclusion, let the people know that whatever ideological and other differences I may have with Eastside Arts, there is one truth that united us which was the true and living spirit of Amiri Baraka. And he loved us all the same.

Back at the stage, Howard Wiley performed, then came dancers.Wiley blew again from the Black Classical Music Book, and then soon came Tongo, San Francisco Poet Laureate. And he came with music, too loud to honor the poet. Now Howard Wily performed too many years not to control the musicians who can get lost is the sound of their music to the neglect of the poet. Tongo’s poem was great  but the musicians drounded him. No matter, Howard introduced Tongo as having the spirit of Baraka, the Last Poets Marvin X, et al.

As far as we know, the event ended peacefully. 

–Marvin X

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