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Innocence and A Punjabi Experience: A Conversation With Baldeep Pooni

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There is a quiet confidence you can feel in people with conviction. Baldeep Pooni has conviction wrapped in a sense of deep consideration. What is happening right now? How is his presence affecting those around him? He speaks with purpose and explains himself carefully. I have met a lot of people in the city but how many people have I met who do that? Not many.

He has written a book titled innocence with his convictions, considerations and thoughts put down in prose that speaks like an older wise man trapped inside a young man’s body. Also, he recently released a short film exploring his grandfather’s life as a Punjabi farmer titled i never went to school. If you get a chance to explore either or both, you get a sense of what it is like to grow up in Chesterfield/Richmond born to immigrant parents — given a chance to create these works at all.

Deep was nice enough to come by the studio and here is our conversation.

baldeep pooni article
by Kimberly Frost

Baldeep Pooni: My name is Deep and I just published my first book, innocence. It’s a collection of short stories and narratives on the concept of ‘innocence’. The last few years, my work has been centered on spreading yoga and mindfulness and meditation. And so this book is an introspection into a different part of myself, a creative part of myself, and the concept of innocence is something that I expand upon and reinterpret as a subjective and objective experience.

R. Anthony Harris: What brought you to the idea to create this book?

BP: Really, I had no intention of creating something for a purpose, it wasn’t an idea to create a book. In April 2020, when I had this time and space during the holy month of Ramadan, which I decided to fast that month, in that time and space I had a lot of different emotions that came to me because it was also a period of rest. As I was resting, all of these emotions needed to be expressed and needed to be understood. And so I just started writing, in a very cathartic way, on paper, which also became some drawings as well — which you will see in the book innocence.

And with my meditation practice and with some of the vows that I’ve made in the past, when I create or express I normally would just destroy it, because it’s a transient experience — but I decided to share with a few people and they gave me some feedback, to share it with the world. After some reflection, I realized that was something that I also wanted to do. The idea of creating this book was more so a collection of what I had already expressed for myself, and then sharing it with people. Of course, that is a different process, and a bit more logical, but the inherent idea and the experience of it was more from the emotional spiritual experience that I had during those 30-plus days.

RAH: Being someone that is connected to your own spirituality, and I would assume balance in your life, how did the period of COVID affect you? Was that a sign of imbalance in the world?

BP: What is very important to me in life is accepting and understanding death as a concept and as a practice. When I began to notice that COVID was becoming a reality, which was early February, when I was noticing reports and everything from China, I could tell there was a change coming.

Also, as someone who has studied history as a profession and as a fascination, I knew what sort of pattern we were about to go into. COVID is a pandemic that is still going on — massive widespread death, hysteria — and typically, that leaves a lot of people in a state of imbalance, where people are pondering perhaps the deeper meanings of life.

For me, I didn’t really need an external stimulus. This was something that was internally a battle that would go on top of years of depression, and that depression, not in the western lens, but in a different perspective on depression, of just seeing reality in a ‘slower state’ and having the ability to speed up how I process time and the way I spent my time.

It was interesting because I had actually voiced something out to myself around December 2019. I was going to have a month of silence, which was supposed to be in June of 2020, but what I got from the natural world was the whole time period to do exactly that, be silent.

Honestly, it was very fascinating, because I was able to see the vibe that I would have for myself internally be kind of projected onto the world. And so, you know, one way or another it was actually like seeing an image or a visual that was painted inside for so long, be shown outside to people. And it led to a lot of different things. It sparked this collective experience of suffering, and the polarities of the experiences of suffering, but it also led to this heightened awareness of self that led to all these collective protest movements like the passing of George Floyd, and the protests in India for farmers rights, which is still been going on.

I really don’t think that would have been possible if it wasn’t for… in one way or another, if you see it as meditative or not, it’s essential to be able to sit with an experience. And I feel like that’s exactly what COVID [brought], through either losing somebody or just noticing all the restrictions and changes that we as humans have to go through. So for me, it was kind of an introspection that somehow was external.

RAH: I ask that question because for you to put out not only a book that is meditative, but a film about your grandfather this year — it seems like those seeds were planted last year, a time when everyone had to reflect on their own life and their own mortality. A lot of people made life-changing decisions last year, when they realized that whatever they were doing in their lives had maybe not as much purpose, or as much care, as they would like. I connected the two, the pandemic and your projects, in my mind.

Where did the want to do a film about your grandfather come from?

BP: I will say in terms of creating, I’m just kind of more with the spontaneity, and there are some things that are like foresight. Emotionally I feel something, and I want to create it. So for me, I really go off of emotional intuition. And if I feel like something is necessary or worth doing, then I start taking the time to explore what that feeling elicits in me.

The movie that I recently produced with two local film directors from Richmond, Virginia, is titled i never went to school. And honestly, if I were to sit here and describe a logical process of how it went, it wouldn’t be accurate, nor would it give justice to the aspect of how it happened. In the creation process, I had this idea initially to have a space where I would have my grandfather share something about his life, and perhaps I would be in some of the mix of that. It was just an idea. The reason for that idea was because I’m not someone that wants to take possession of “innocence” as a concept, nor as the book itself.

It’s been experienced and created through me, but as a concept “innocence” is a subjective and objective experience of one’s essence, and so what better way to witness that and explore that than to have someone explore their “innocence” in real time. My grandfather, who doesn’t speak English, has never done anything creative before. But in the aspect of his work he’s creative, he is a farmer. The creativity that is inherent in farming is that you take a seed and somehow miraculously, this seed, which you can relate to an idea, becomes something else, which literally becomes sustenance which you eat.

My book, innocence was so influenced by my grandmother’s passing, which happened over 17 to 18 years ago. For me, because I connect with death so heavily, I know my grandfather only has a certain number of years left. And because he only has a certain number of years left, I knew that I wanted to celebrate my grandfather’s life and who he is as a person, right now, before he passed. And so it was beautiful to witness how that turned out to actually become a short film, because it is inspired, in some ways, by the book, but it’s its own inherent creation. And I think that’s the beautiful part of this; how quickly and how organically the whole process came together.

RAH: And did your grandfather watch the movie? What was that experience like for you?

BP: (laughs) It was pretty surreal. So I premiered at the Byrd Theatre. So there was there was a lot of processing in terms of how to set that up, and what that process would look like. It was really fun, it was very engaging and to have a space that is set up exclusively for this purpose. And then for the entire community of people that decided to come out, as well as a heavy Punjabi community.

(Pause) For someone to be from the Punjabi community and watch a film essentially entirely in Punjabi, for that experience, to be something that they were able to experience directly through a person that they knew, in some aspects, was very interesting. And it was beautiful for me, because I was able to watch everyone really be ‘mindfucked’ a little bit about what the whole thing was about, but at the same time, really being open to the idea of something that was familiar as well.

baldeep pooni article
by Kimberly Frost

RAH: We had we had discussed this before and for people reading this, what is the distinction between Punjabi and Indian? To make a blanket statement to someone that is of a certain ethnicity, it is offensive in ways and/or is it an opportunity to educate?

BP: I always welcome moments of ignorance as not something that is inherently negative, but as an opportunity to grow and understand each other because that’s how knowledge is spread, right? It’s opportunity for conversation and dialogue.

So, when somebody refers to something as “Indian” or “India,” you’re talking about a nationalistic concept that became a country in 1947. That’s what “India” or “Indian” typically designates now. “India” for the word itself, as well as the concept itself, is very much influenced by British occupation. The people that took control of India were mostly British-educated, and most of them were Hindu in terms of their religion and spirituality and perspectives.

Now, “Punjab” (pause) “Pun” means “five” and “jab” means “river.” So Punjab is a region that is located in the northern part of the subcontinent. In order to make India — and also make Pakistan, because those two countries were made at the same time, because of British occupation — half of Punjab was divided up. So the lower portion went to India, and then the upper portion went to Pakistan. Essentially, East Punjab is in India and West Punjab is in Pakistan.

Now bringing the conversation back around to the Punjab that I’m referring to, there’s a heavy population there that refers to themselves as Sikh. Sikh is a specific religion, spirituality, and set of experiences that are different than the majority, the majority is 90% Hindu.

And so the laws, for example in the US, if you’re Indigenous, or if you’re African American, this country has been more designed for Caucasian white Americans. In the same ways in India, there is systemic oppression on many levels that are from that Hindu domination. The state of Punjab is mostly farmers, so it is the land that is heavily based on farming. And there’s now development of other cities in Punjab, but natively speaking, it is just a land of farmers.

The experience of Punjabi people in India itself, as well as the experience of Punjabi people in general, even getting the opportunity to come to the US, is very different than other Indians — [those] that will claim themselves as Indians. Now, there has been systemic genocides committed by the Indian government from the 1980s onward, and some would say even earlier than that, on the Punjabi people. But because of the ties between India and the US, they did not recognize it as a genocide, even though people were forced to flee as refugees, just not designated as refugees. They found creative ways to get here and create themselves, which for me, as a first generation American, is very important, because my father struggled to get to this country. I’m not really going to get into depth about that, because I do have something in the future that I’m going to create surrounding that. But you know, connecting this with my book, as well as with the movie, i never went to school. It’s essentially connected to that experience.

I grew up in the south side of Richmond. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up. We grew up where we grew up, and that was kind of the vibe and experience. When I would go to school — and I went to schools that were a little bit more integrated with the deeper aspects of the suburbs, borderline in Chesterfield County — I would encounter Indians that had completely different experiences than I did. And they weren’t Punjabi. They were from different parts of India that typically have some sort of commerce or something that they developed in India, and they just simply carried it over or they were very educated. I’m the first person to ever go to school in my family ever, yet alone to produce a book.

I don’t find it offensive if somebody calls me “Indian” if they don’t know it, but I definitely find it offensive if somebody, for example, an Indian, wants to refer to me as “Indian.” It’s not something that I don’t allow myself to be referred to, but I am open to somebody calling me “Indian” and then expanding upon what that means, and reinterpreting the word as well. But I think it’s important to have that clarification, because I remember when you had said it — it wasn’t something that you said intentionally, it just triggered something inside of me, which was, “No, I’m a type of Indian that you haven’t seen before.”

And the other thing, India as a country, in many ways in terms of their culture, and Bollywood and other things in terms of art, they have appropriated Punjabi culture heavily. And they’ve always tried to portray Punjabi people as dumb and ignorant, even though they bite off of our culture — and some can say that’s adjacent in the US to Black Culture or Indigenous Culture to Latino Culture. That’s the backstory on it and as you can see, there’s so much layers and depth on is that you kind of have to compartmentalize all of that, when you feel triggered by that word.

RAH: I felt that was obviously very important to you, so I wanted to address that and allow you to expand on that conversation.

So as someone that’s on the outside looking in on the projects that you are taking on and the things that you’re contemplating, it feels like you are exploring your past, understanding how you feel in the present, and then having to all that done before being able to go forward. And so a good final question would be — where do you go from here? And what do you see in the near future and and down the line?

baldeep pooni
by Kimberly Frost

BP: Honestly, I don’t know. What I do know right now is that I’m going to be spending a lot of time just resting and recovering. Because that experience of innocence, and i never went to school came from like a deep state of rest.

I think more than ever, this is an important time to just chill, relax, enjoy the vibe of what I’ve been able to create. Just enjoying life for a little bit more and then spontaneously, whatever emotion or state nature that I’m in, that will kind of create itself. I don’t really have an idea of how I would want this to go, but I’m sure that one of the things that I’d like to do is throw up ideas into the air or emotions and then once I start feeling them out or processing them, then it’s very easy for me to bring it into manifestation. But if I am true, logical and grounded with what moves I am about to make next or things that I want to do, it’ll take away from this experience.

In other words, more invested in the journey and the experience rather than the tangible experience of what’s next.

RAH: Thank you so much for taking the time Deep.

BP: Thank you for the space and time to share this.

For more information, or to purchase innocence by Baldeep Pooni, please click HERE

Photos by Kimberly Frost

Why Vote No On RVA Casino? Here are a few local opinions.

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While the citizens of Richmond have been inundated with deeply-funded promotional materials touting the overwhelming benefits of the One Casino project, the voices of local residents who devote their lives to bettering the community have been largely drowned out. These are some of those voices, from the real people who make this city what it is, and work to make it the best that it can be.

This article was paid for by Vote No on RVA Casino.
For more information go to nocasinorva.com

Allan-Charles Chipman
Faith leader, Organizer, Policy Analyst

“One of the things I love to say is that just because something is current, doesn’t mean that it’s new. And Richmond is a city that is very much still trapped in patterns. There are different patterns. There are patterns of freedom fighters. You have your Barbara Johns and your Brother Gabriels, and people who fought for freedom. But there’s still very much a pattern of exploitation. And when you think about Bryan Stevenson saying “Slavery didn’t end, it just evolved,” a lot of the areas of exploitation in Richmond simply have evolved. Dr. King talked about how many people associate prejudice with racism, but have trouble recognizing the economic exploitation of racism. And so when we think about the monuments that just came down, that slavery was very much about prejudice, but it was also very much about economic exploitation. And I don’t think it’s ironic that in the same year these are coming down, there’s a new monument to exploitation that’s being offered, which I believe the casino is, as I jokingly call One Casino, One Colony. Because it’s very much an extractive measure. It’s very much a predatory industry, from the mouths of the people who are at the top of it themselves. So I got into the fight against the casino because it was another one of the patterns reemerging and evolving and presenting itself as an opportunity. But when you look from urban renewal to all these other types of attacks on – really on Black freedom and Black progress – they always are couched in good language.”

“The city has always had revenue coming in, but the problem is, it hasn’t prioritized the Black side of town, and the 8th and the 9th districts […] Gambling and casinos, 40-50% of their revenue – and this is from the Institute on American Values who did quite an exhaustive report on it – 40-50% of their revenue comes from people who are addicted to gambling. It really is mostly funded by people who are addicts. The DSM recently listed gambling addiction, for the first time in its history, as substance abuse, even though it’s technically not a substance, because they found that neurologically […] the same type of dopamine that’s released and the same type of fiending that occurs in a cocaine addict also occurs in someone who is anticipating a monetary reward while they’re gambling. So it’s very dangerous, it’s very exploitative, and I’m glad that people are looking beyond the talking points to really examine what’s best for Richmond.”

“Historically, there has always been room at the table for Black people who are willing to exploit their own. What happens when you have Black Power that has forsaken the politics of liberation and is about the politics of exploitation? Is wealth extraction and rigged gaming a part of the Black tradition? Or is it a part of the colonial-settler tradition? When we’re talking about exploiting people and the tradition that’s there, that’s not part of our Black tradition. When we think about Maggie Walker, her motto was, “We will put our pennies together and turn our pennies into dollars.” Her strategy wasn’t “we’re going to take your pennies so we can have dollars.” That’s exploitation using Blackness as a way into exploiting communities. Simply saying that because there’s a Black person involved in it, you ought to support everything that happens – that’s not true. And I think that’s using the sacred tradition of Blackness in a way that is shameful in my opinion.”

Aurora Higgs
She/Hers They/Them
Black LGBT Community Advocate

“A lot of the reasons for my personal objections to the casino are not even categorically around casinos. But it has a lot to do with our history as a city, and how I know that if we bring in a casino that so overtly values profits over people, our city is not going to have the cultural infrastructure to ensure that people are remaining safe, and have wraparound services when this massive build displaces people in a portion of Richmond that is already forgotten about, and is sort of left and neglected. There are a lot of people who still live in this area that is thought to be mostly industrial. That’s where a lot of low-income folks are living. That’s where I was living – in that corridor. The thought of there being such a massive build there, the traffic that’s going to come in, the impact on housing prices that it’s going to have on people who own property in that community while also furthering the agenda of gentrification in the surrounding areas, that’s going to make it hard for people like me. I’m privileged. I would not say I’m low income. I’m middle class, but I still can’t afford to buy a house in Richmond on the income that I have. And to be quite honest, some of the properties that I could reasonably afford would be in that exact area of the casino.”

“The casino is a business, so I don’t put all of the obligations for understanding how it impacts the humans who live there [on them]. I put that obligation on our city council, on our mayor. And from what I’ve seen, the money that we would get from an endeavor like a casino would not be used to lift up the people who are at the bottom, it would just be used to create more economic advantage in our community. But economic advantage does not equal human advantage. It means more people who already have advantage getting even more advantaged, and people who have historically been disadvantaged experiencing a wider gap between them and those who are at the top.”

“What I need from my community are leaders and representatives who can balance the needs of the people in the community as well as the needs of boosting the economy. I don’t believe that we’re in a place that if we brought a casino in it would do more good than harm. Until I see a plan for a more holistic set of structures and systems and institutions that are meant to benefit people first and the economy second, I’m sticking with no.”

“Just because this casino is owned by Black business owners does not mean it’s for Black people. The argument that a Black owned casino will help Black people is an incomplete argument for me. I don’t understand what in there helps black people. I understand how it helps a handful of black people – those who own it. That is the most advantageous place to be in a casino, is if you’re going to be owning it. But who are going to be the folks who are losing their money, who are coming in and expressing addictive tendencies in a place that is ready to exploit those preexisting challenges with gambling? This is going to function as a place where the elderly and folks who already have issues with gambling are going to find a haven. And I think folks in those communities deserve a haven, but I think it should be one that’s not exploitative. And I think it should be one that sees the value in their contribution, and I don’t think that’s what a casino does. Once a casino gets built it has to continue to justify its expenses. It’s going to have to justify its footprint both on our environment and in our society. And that means it’s going to continually have to feed itself, and that’s a pretty big undertaking […] The majority of the revenue that this casino will need to justify its existence will be coming off of the backs of people who are already oppressed and already under-resourced relative to their oppression.”

“If it takes three hundred million dollars to keep this casino going, I would say that’s gotta come from somewhere. That is a lot of money. Where could that three hundred million reasonably go otherwise, is my question. I need for folks who are already experiencing hardship to be given a voice, not be taken advantage of. The famous saying in the casino world is “the house always wins.” And that also aligns with capitalism. They cannot function unless they are making more money than they’re spending. So it is by nature an entity that has to consume more than it gives back. Is that something I want in my community? No. I think that our community deserves more caring, careful, intentional and compassionate structures in it, so that one day if we do decide to have an entity that is one that makes money more than it gives money out, at least we know that we’re in a society that has those wraparound services to deter against victimizing people who are already victims. Right now we don’t live in that society. We don’t live in a fair society. And so we risk deepening the inequities that already exist. We live in the former Capitol of the Confederacy, and we just got one of the last popular Confederate statues taken down. Is this the legacy that we want to build in its place?”

Damon Harris
Real Estate Professional, Community Educator

“I’m Damon Harris. I am an original Virginian, born in and raised Petersburg. Grew up in New England, Rhode Island. I came back to Virginia 16 years ago just to come back home. Currently I own a real estate group where we focus on three things. I’m a former social worker, so all my work is socially related; somehow, some way, trying to service humans. So my real estate group is based off of humans, not property. So we focus on education, we focus on fighting inequality through ownership, responsible investing, as well as educating people on the history of Richmond real estate and Richmond housing. We’ve been doing this for about seven years. For some home buyers, our goal is to educate people on how to be responsible, and how to not gentrify a community, how not to displace people, and how to support legacy residents. So that’s how I find myself here, because one of the key things I believe is that people come first.”

“I don’t support [the casino] because of a myriad of reasons. I try to take a numbers approach to it because I am in real estate, so what I look at is the fact that there’s not enough housing for people. There’s not enough affordable housing for people. There’s not enough entry level housing for people. And ever since the casino got mentioned, speculators have been coming to the region, buying homes for AirBnB, buying homes that they assume is going to jump in value, and immediately – before even one quarter is put in a slot machine – you have people being displaced. So no matter what’s on the billboard, what’s really happening is people are going to have to go. And people can’t come back home, because they want another slot machine. And that’s my first reason.”

“My second reason is that because I’m from New England, we have different casinos up there. And they all came there with the same pitch: community, small business, community, small business. They just use that. They learned that word, community. And what happened was small businesses were pushed out, because the casino had everything that the smaller businesses in the community were once offering. I also found that the prices of rent went up, but no income went up. And the prices of rent went up not because there was a need, but because they thought that they could leverage the casino to have the people that worked there move there. And so I never saw anything in my own community that I left that benefited from a casino. So when One Casino started to come around, those buzzwords were back. And I felt like they began to leverage those buzzwords by leveraging other community members to get people to believe it, instead of understanding the true impact of what a casino means.”

“It’s not a Black casino. It has Black faces that promote and pump the casino. It’s an entity. It’s not a Black casino. It’s not a white casino. It’s a casino. It’s made for people to stop off the highway and gamble and keep going. It’s made for people to hope that they can pay some bills by hittin’ large on the slot machine, and be broke. It’s not a Black casino, it’s not a white casino. They have black faces on the front of the casino, but it’s an entity that’s owned by way more than Black people. They have Black heads of the corporation, but it’s not owned by Black people.”

“The outside money that I believe the casino would bring in is not directed to servicing the community, it will be directed to servicing shareholders, and the community would get a drop in the bucket to appease the community voices. I don’t agree with the fact that they’re leveraging Black faces to get Black votes.”

Jon Baliles
Former Richmond First District Representative

“Hi, I’m Jon Baliles and I’ll be voting no on the casino referendum on the back of the ballot on November second. I have been opposed to all four gambling proposals in this city, and I agree with Senator Kaine’s opposition, that there are better ways to enhance economic development in Richmond, especially south of the river. There are big promises that project the gambling revenues will be a big win for the city, but when casinos win, the people lose. In this referendum, I’ll be voting for the people, and no on the casino.”

Kwame Binta
Financial Educator, Community Organizer, Founder of Universal Negro Improvement Association Division 456

“We don’t need a casino in Richmond, Virginia. That’s just going to create more problems in the community. People are going to have this false hope that they’re going to hit this, and all their problems would be solved. What we really need here in this area, and really everywhere, is a real true financial education. Let me ask you something, if you lost 98% of your power, where would you be at? You’d probably be on life support or dead. And our US dollar has lost 98% of its buying power since it was created. So this thing called inflation has been robbing us since 1913. The dollar continues to get weaker, that’s why today people gotta work two jobs just to make ends meet. And then we have workers who are working who live in homeless shelters because they’re just not paying us. Wall Street investors are making record profits while the masses of people are suffering. We have people living right here in Richmond, Virginia under bridges, in parks, in cars, because they can’t even afford a place to live. A casino is not going to solve all the problems that we have.”

“As I see it, in the beginning there will probably be some excitement and stuff like that, and people will come there. But in the long run, it’s not going to sustain. I believe it’s going to create more crime and more poverty for most people, because the addiction of gambling is something that a lot of people might not have dealt with, but you put a casino here and I’m pretty sure that gambling addiction is going to rise in this area. I don’t see the casino, in anything I saw, they’re going to have some kind of support system for people who become addicted to gambling.”

“The people don’t have three-hundred million dollars, really. I don’t see how they’re going to extract three-hundred million out of people’s pockets who don’t even have the money, really, to invest in a project like that. And if they are, that money should be going elsewhere. We need better schools, we need better equipment inside our schools, we need to think about the environment that we live in and try to realize that we’re destroying our planet and focus on things that’s going to sustain this environment and life itself. We could use that money for a whole lot of other things other than building a casino.”

“Most people who hit the lottery, three to five years later they’re broke. Because they have no financial literacy. We need to educate the people on how to get free from this current system, this monetary system of debt and wage slavery. People are gambling because they’re looking for other ways to make money, because whatever they’re doing is not making it happen. There are so many people that’s going to be evicted from their homes because of this Covid 19, and a casino is not the answer.”

“I remember when they started the Virginia Lottery and they said all this money was going to go into the schools of Virginia. I don’t see it. We still got schools that’s run down and old and dilapidated. They gonna make promises like they always do. But do they keep those promises? Rarely do they ever do that.”

Mike Kemetic
President of New Air Richmond, Community Organizer, Music Advocate and DJ

“At its core I would definitely say that a casino, in just its general nature, is a predatory format, in my opinion. The typical statement is that the house always wins. That’s something that’s been known for a very, very long time. So when you look at that as something that you’re going to bring into a community, you have to really think about what the real objective is for the people that are pushing it, and what they’re really trying to do around the community. So looking at it from that base level, I kind of have a problem with there being a casino. As far as being here in the City of Richmond, I think there are a variety of different things. First of all, one thing I don’t think people think about is that there are already three casinos that are confirmed to be built in the state of Virginia. There are going to be two in the 757, and one in Danville. Why are we building a fourth one right in the same corridor like that? That doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s being called a destination point, but when you’ve got DC that’s already very well established with their casino, you’ve got two in the 757, and one in Danville, where are these people going to come from that supposedly want to come to Richmond?”

“On another level, I don’t know that the numbers are going to add up in the way that they’re being presented. Again, I look at the fact that there are three other casinos being built in the state of Virginia and they’re all kind of bouncing off the same numbers. And that’s why they’re in such a rush to get all of them built at the same time, because once one or two of them go up and the numbers start coming in, they’re going to realize that they aren’t the numbers they’ve been projecting. Because every casino is using the same numbers. Where are all these people going to come from?”

“Probably the third thing I would say would just be on a community benefit level in general. It’s just not a very positive way to build your financial future. If you have a variety of industries that are thriving, maybe sometimes you can do that. But it seems like Richmond always wants to take some big shiny thing and make it the silver bullet that’s going to solve the things for the community, without taking the time to build from the ground up with the community the things that need to be done that are really going to be sustained and have a lasting impact. So without those things being into the mix, there’s no way that I can really support it. A lot of people talk about the fact of it being a Black owned casino, but I don’t think a lot of people really know the intricate workings of how that is, and how this is really just a part of the same network that owns Colonial Downs and Rosie’s. So there is a big promotional push, as anybody with a mailbox in the city of Richmond has probably seen, because they realize it’s so important to be hammering away and hammering away at people with the numbers […] Because once you dig below that, you start to really realize what’s really going on, and most people wouldn’t support that.”

“They’re billing it as a destination casino, when really it’s going to be a local casino that a lot of local people in close proximity to that, mainly being Hillside Court and residents in that part of town, are really going to lose out on it. It’s already very clear that the majority of people that play the lottery are really the people who least should be playing the lottery in a lot of different ways. But it’s a desperation, you know, there are a lot of desperate people here in the city of Richmond, there are a lot of desperate people around the country, and casinos prey on that.”

“Even down to the fact that you can have casino machines that are programmed to whatever the casino decides they want them to give the return at. So if the casino decides, the popular term is “do you want to fleece the sheep, or do you want to slaughter it?” Do you want to keep getting people, giving them enough feedback to keep them coming back, or do you want to just have waves of people coming in that you basically just take everything that they have and then they go home broke. And so that’s part of the question that you ask based on the model that you want for your casino, and that you project for your casino. So with this it’s going to be a slow fleecing, because you want the same people in the community coming back and back and back.”

“I don’t necessarily see it as any type of beneficial or positive impact specifically for Black people in the city of Richmond. I think it’ll be a much clearer deficit to the people that are in close proximity. Which are overwhelmingly poor, and mostly poor Black people. There are a lot of poor white residents out there also. A casino by definition and by its structure is a predatory model. So regardless of what the return is, there are going to be people who lose a tremendous amount on that, and there’s no reason that you have to base your city’s economy on that. It doesn’t make any sense to make that trade off with part of your population.”

Chelsea Higgs-Wise
She/Her/Hers
Community Organizer, Co-Host of Race Capitol, Lead Cannabis Reform Organizer

“What brings me here today is I’m a longtime Richmond resident who understands that building this casino is not going to secure the future for my Black siblings, for the Black community, or even the needs of the daughter that I’m raising.”

“The core of my opposition is that casinos don’t help communities. The only way to win in a casino is to own one, and we know the basis of a casino is not going to be regenerative for our folks, which are being evicted, that are being gentrified out of good food source areas, that don’t have good, quality schools, that don’t have transportation. And so my core reason for resisting this casino is that this is going to further the detriment of the Richmond Black community.”

“I’ve witnessed Richmond under Black leadership for years, and unfortunately, many of the leaders that are proposing this casino have proposed the gentrified ordinances, have proposed the eviction ordinances, and so Black leadership in Richmond does not mean Black liberation. And it hasn’t for years, unfortunately. So a Black-owned casino, for me, does not equal Black futures, it equals wealth at the very top for a very few that have proximity to whiteness, and that are going to use the same tools of white supremacy and whiteness to extract from us.”

“Richmond’s legacy of proposing the main attraction is something that we have to recognize as a whole community, and resist continually. They already promised to bring this casino proposal back if they lose. And so it does not matter what main attraction they are coming up with this time, we have to understand that all of these proposals mean the same thing; that the top will get rich. And maybe this time it includes a couple Black faces. But we’ve always seen that – in American history, in Virginia’s history, and in Richmond’s history. There have always been Black faces at the top as they plan out the development for our death, and for our genocide, honestly.”

“Richmond is no longer a Black chocolate city. Our majority is being pushed out, or unhoused, or hungry, and a casino is only going to put us back in our place on the plantation to serve in hospitality, to serve the top, to be surveillanced in a new police precinct. How, after 2020, are we building a new police precinct? A hundred acres. Even the way they describe it in acreage makes me think of a plantation.”

“It scares me because it resembles too much of Richmond’s history that shows we have always been owned and operated by people outside of Richmond, while the Richmond working class, labor class, poor class, is here making the profit for others. And now that’s what we’re going to rebuild in this shiny casino with a hundred acres. Who in the world to they expect to maintain that land? And so the areas that we see people being pushed in and lived in are the new slave quarters. This is not for Richmond’s future, and we have to resist this casino.”

“I think it’s important that we start listening to folks that have read the fine print as well, and we open up space to hear folks that believe in this. I’ve asked them what they want; do you want better schools? Well this casino project only says that it may give money to schools. There are no promises to schools. In the fine print there are promises to the police. And so I think it’s important that we start asking; what do you want from Richmond? Do you want better housing? That allocation – that money for Southside – is not actually promised. All of the money is going to go to Richmond City, all nine districts. And if we look at the history, allocation of that money when it’s not in the fine print of exactly what district, what neighborhood, we see the money never trickles down to us. And so we ask ourselves, how do we get better schools, how do we get more housing, how do we get opportunities to bring in income so that we can survive? Well that starts from our own neighborhoods and not the Main Attraction. That’s always been the Richmond Hail Mary. Well look how it’s getting us. Look where it’s trying to take us. We are neglecting our arts community, we are neglecting our creators. We could be a city that attracts through our main events. And there are main events. There are plural and there are many, and they deserve to be invested in, instead of just one shiny object that’s going to bring in outsiders and make us uniformed servers to people that don’t care about us, that don’t care about Richmond.

“You’re not going to see your local artist on the stage. You’re not going to see your local painter. You’re not going to hear their voices unless they are cherry picked out. And you can tell who they are right now, because they are dancing around for this casino. They just want their spot. And unfortunately, if we see any history, they’re going to get left out too. So what I would say to people that believe in this, lets turn that belief back onto Richmonders, and not just the top one percent of Richmond that might look like us. Let’s turn it back on ourselves, that we see every single day in our community. Let’s turn that belief on us.”

Viola Baskerville
Virginia Lawyer and Politician

“I am a Richmond native. I grew up in the east end of Richmond, in fact I grew up in the community called Woodville, and you could see Creighton Court out of my back door and Fairfield Court out of the front door. So very much in the segregated community of Richmond. I grew up and went to public schools here, and actually graduated from the college of William and Mary. I’ve been in local politics for quite some time. Elected to office, city council in 1994. And then the House of Delegates, and then served in the Kaine administration as Secretary of Administration. So I know Richmond very well. I know Virginia very well.”

“I think in 1994 neighborhood safety, neighborhood development, city core development, and of course crime, was a big issue in 1994. People were afraid to come out of their doors at night, and of course murders were on the rise. And I think now, some of the same issues – what is our city going to look like? What is sustainable development? Who are we, as a city? How can we leverage our best history, how can we leverage what’s best in us? And most of the successful things that I think we’ve seen in Richmond have been organic. When we look at changes in zoning for downtown businesses and for people to live downtown, when we look at leveraging our art community, when we look at leveraging some of the physical spaces that we have, those have made the space and the City of Richmond successful.”

“I don’t think [the casino] is sustainable long term. I think casinos have mixed results. I’m concerned about the environment around casinos. I’m concerned about the story that’s out there, that no city resources will be engaged. Anytime anything is constructed you have city resources. You have infrastructure, sidewalks, you have the police that are going to be coming in for public safety. You’re going to have public resources go to this project. And the main thing that really concerns me, is that it’s not organic. It’s not from Richmond. It’s not created by Richmonders. It’s as if something foreign has been imposed upon the citizens of the City of Richmond.”

“Who is the casino depending upon to make the money, to put money into their coffers? Are they depending on the wealthy gamblers? Does Richmond have those high-ranking gamblers that are going to be putting all that money into the casino? Or is it going to be feeding off the individuals that are on fixed income, limited income, who are thinking that that fifty dollar bet is going to turn into a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand? What about the people that have serious gambling problems? What about the people who are just not able to sustain income coming out of their pocket all the time?”

“We know the history of casinos. They’re a mixed bag. They don’t necessarily produce the promised income, resources, commitment to the city. They don’t necessarily produce the economic growth that people expect them to. So regardless of who owns it, who runs it, a casino may not be in the best interest of the locality.”

Parker Agelasto
Former City Council Member of the 5th District

“I’m a resident of the city of Richmond. I’ve been here since 2005. Since that time I’ve served seven years on the Richmond City Council, and I’ve raised a family, and continue to raise my two kids in the city of Richmond. I’m married. And I would simply say that I’m here to support what is best for Richmond looking at the long view, not just the short term, and understanding what is impacting us today, but what will solve our future needs, and putting into place the structure governmentally but also socially that we need to advance everybody.”

“So Rosie’s for me, was a really difficult vote on the Richmond City Council. It was the opening of a door into a realm that the city hadn’t seen. It was no longer really off-track betting that the city used to have when Colonial Downs operated. It was now what was being billed as historic horse racing betting, but it was being done with slot machines, basically. It was a little bit of skill, but most of it was going to be luck, and you don’t have to have any skill to just go in there and throw your money in. When it was being presented there was promises of a lot of tax revenue. A real big number. And for a city that had a lot of needs – and still has a lot of needs – it’s very tempting to be lured by the big incentive of taxes that the council could then spend at a future date. For me, and looking it, just like I would look at any other project that came before the city council, my big question was, at what expense?”

“There’s opportunity cost, obviously. But for me, looking at the money coming in from a gambling operation, a betting operation, I was looking at it from what would happen to those addicts, what would happen to those who found themselves spending their paycheck, and their last option would be the social security, the social safety net that we offer. Going to the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, where we’ve increased that budget tremendously for addiction, whether that’s for substance abuse, or whether it is for gambling, it’s still an addiction. And so for me, I was very concerned about what the cost would be for the taxpayer at the end, on the back of essentially a single business.”

“At the end of the day, they offered more incentives, and more incentives, to get approval. And I think that is where one would have to be worried about what are the enticements. What is being offered to lure a vote, to lure the will or the commitment of the people for something that is ultimately going to benefit a private business? Because at the end, it’s not going to benefit the community when we have more people who are in a worst case scenario.”

“I would ask the question, too, of who do they anticipate to be in this casino? We’ve got what, five casinos proposed throughout Virginia? Rosie’s has now got five or six different locations in Virginia. You can go to Colonial Downs, to a Rosie’s in New Kent County. And in fact, New Kent County gets a percentage of revenue from everybody, at all Rosie’s across Virginia. So it certainly benefitted them. But really it is this smaller radius to get people here. People can go to West Virginia. People can go to Maryland. They can go to National Harbor. There are options all over the place. If Norfolk approves theirs, if Danville, if Martinsville, some of these other locations approve theirs, do we need it in Richmond? Is that the future of Richmond? Do we want to become a city known for anchoring with a casino?”

“I have never compared a Ten Best list with a casino city. I would think you would go to Las Vegas if you wanted to go to a casino. I don’t know what other cities look at having a casino as putting them on the Best list. Richmond is on the Best list because we’ve got fantastic talent, we’ve got creativity, we have an innovation and a soul that is authentic, that is being driven by the youth of this city, that is always the future if you really look at what is going to make a city on a Best list. It’s looking at the long run. Why do people want to live in Richmond? The river. Access to the outdoors. Jobs. Quality housing. Are they doing that because there’s a proposed casino? We’ve seen, and we’ve seen it often, that the types of jobs that would be offered by a casino are not close to the types of jobs that Richmond is seeking to attract. We seek jobs that are higher than average paying, that are going to commit to offering benefits, that are professional, but also accessible. And I don’t see a casino as necessarily creating those opportunities.”

“I think it’s fantastic that we have a business that is being led by African Americans who are driving forward business initiatives in Black communities to try to improve the lives of the community. I would support that hands-down in any other case. I don’t see that being the case here. I would like to ask, where do the majority of the ownership interests lay? Where is the real equity of the casino going to lay? If it is truly to support the Black community of Richmond, should it not be there to build wealth? Wealth is not built by gambling. You gotta be lucky. You build wealth by being a working and endeavoring person, to then have an asset, and that asset then has value in the perception of others who think I wish I had that. That asset is something that I will now go buy or invest in, because what that person has built has value to it. How do we build more wealth? And I don’t see it, if there’s no ownership stake in this, in the actual community.”

“The truth of the matter is that Richmond has a problem. It has a problem of not being able to focus on the true issues that Richmonders are concerned about. It is a focus issue where, here’s the next bright shiny object, here’s the next bright shiny object, and we will spend two years of our lives addressing the next bright shiny object, and we forsake every other thing that Richmonders actually care about. The problem is, somebody says, Hey! Look at me! I want this! Now, is that going to solve all the problems that Richmonders have? No. But it’s going to make that person a lot of money. People will say Gosh, what a great offer that you’re bringing to Richmond. We will consider it because the dollar amounts are so big and enticing that it’s hard to say no to. Until you start peeling the layers of the onion back.”

“That is what the council and what citizens need to do to understand, to become educated on the matters that are of importance to us, to the future of Richmond, and to be informed when we go to the ballot box. Because if you don’t know what you’re voting for, don’t go vote at all. In this case, with a casino, understand what it represents. Understand what it’s going to do for the Richmonders who desperately need the attention of their government. But if we are constantly dealing with baseball stadiums, or coliseum proposals, or casino proposals, and we can never get to the core of what we need to do, we’re just being distracted. And we are losing time. We are seeing generations of Richmonders get lost in that time, because we’ve gotten distracted. I’ve seen it first hand. I called into question a lot when I was on the Finance Committee, when I was on Richmond City Council. And I can guarantee any one of the colleagues that I served with would say Parker got into it more than any of us. He understood, and he asked the critical questions. Where are those critical questions today? Who is asking them? And if you do not feel like the questions have been answered, then the only thing you can do is vote no. It’s the only thing.” 

Kenya Gibson Press Conference on Voting No to RVA Casino

Paul Goldman former Chair of Democratic Party of Virginia on Vote No RVA Casino!

Comments compiled by S. Preston Duncan
Photos by Joey Wharton

Tragedy Has Given King John Coleman A New Perspective

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A few years ago ‘King’ John Coleman was hit by a car — he was bedridden, his body broken, unable to work, and eventually homeless.

Unfortunately, car accidents are a repeating theme for John, a terrible family legacy. When he was 10 years old, his mother was coming home to pick him up when she was tragically killed in a car accident. That sent his life spiraling into dark spaces, and he found himself in “survival mode” on the streets of Tidewater Virginia, making decisions that would chase him forever.

Later, he was on his way to prison when his father was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident. At 20 years old, he was at a crossroads.

Decades later, he would like to share his story. Thanks Kimberly Frost for putting John and I together for this interview.

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

John Coleman: My name is John Coleman, I am a personal trainer, I call myself a certified body builder by life experiences. I own a business called Mind Elevation Training. I like to train and get people healthy.

R Anthony Harris: Why is it important to you that people stay healthy?

JC: People don’t understand, your health is everything. My mom passed from a car accident when I was 10. My dad was hit by a car and paralyzed from the neck down. I had a car hit me three years ago, in 2018. Health is everything; without your health, there is nothing else.

RAH: So you take care of your body because you understand how easily it can be taken away from you.

JC: Health is very important. Taking care of my dad, I had to be physically fit to lift him up all the time. So I had to be in shape for that, which kept me on a path for taking care of myself, keeping myself up and at the same time, in that state of mind that if you don’t have your health — and I’m the only child, so losing my parents, my mom first and then eventually my dad, I only have myself — and without my health I don’t have anything. Without that I don’t even have myself, so it kept me in a state of mind that I need to stay healthy, to do whatever I need to do for myself.

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

RAH: So your mom passed after a car crash when you were 10 years old…

JC: …on the way to pick me up… she was home from the Army.

RAH: When did your father get into an accident?

JC: When I was 20 years old and had got locked up for the first time, my father was in a car accident two weeks later, paralyzed from the neck down. I didn’t see him until three years later, when I came home.

RAH: What was what was going on in your life when you were 20?

JC: The streets. I raised myself without my mom. I made a lot of bad decisions.

RAH: You think that was a reaction to losing your mother?

JC: Oh yeah, no question. I had a “fuck the world” attitude after my mom passed, and took life upon myself but didn’t know what living was then. I looked at my mom’s death as the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. You could take it two ways and my mind took the position to just look at it this one way.

So, it led me down a bad path, a lot of wrong decisions.

RAH: And you were in Richmond at that time?

JC: Richmond, Amelia, Tidewater…

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

RAH: At 20 years old you were in the court system. Your father was in a car crash, which leaves him paralyzed, and then you don’t get to see him for three years.

JC: I did three years for malicious wounding and selling drugs. But I got to see pictures of him. During that process I had a daughter that was born in ’94. Her being born kind of opened my mind, opened me up to be conscious about some things. I have a son now, and my kids played a big role in my consciousness because I wanted to be a dad. So I started thinking like a dad and started looking at things different.

RAH: And that’s after you got out. You were the sole caretaker of your father?

JC: I had to take care of my father. He was proud of that. My daughter had some issues later with leukemia, when she was 12 years old. It kind of pulled her away from me, and I struggled with that. Some things you just can’t hold on to, so you just have to let it work itself out. To me that’s a life lesson, because if we worry about things we can’t control — what good is that? What sense is that? Just stay positive.

RAH: And was that your attitude when you got out? When you saw your dad you were still a kid.

JC: I came home at 24. My dad was one of them people that loved attention. Now I am having to wipe my dad’s nose. And when I came out, I was one of those people that didn’t want attention. I wanted not to be looked at. But I had been muscular since I was a kid, so people look, and now I had to blow my dad’s nose and feed him in public. I wasn’t comfortable with that, but I love my dad. I had to get used that attention.

Our life wasn’t perfect but I knew when I came home, I would do right by him. My dad couldn’t do anything for me physically, but mentally he helped me every way he could. It was hard coming out and trying to start over. When he passed in 2005, he was keeping me straight mentally.

RAH: And how old were you when he passed?

JC: I was 32.

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

RAH: What led to you being homeless? You had been taking care of your father. Your daughter had leukemia. You have a young son. After your father passed — did you fall back to your old ways? You were dealing with a lot around this time.

JC: I couldn’t keep the house that we had in Newport News. Keep in mind, I never had a job — I was hustling. I had my son every day, and his mom only had him on weekends. When I got the job with the cable company, everything they taught me, I used that to better my situation for me and my son.

This is incriminating, but it’s the facts of my life. They taught me how to hook that cable up, and I used to sell it to people on the side. In my mind, it was better than selling drugs. That’s been my thing, like, I’ve been in survival mode since I was 10 years old and when I say I was a “hustler” — it wasn’t all the flashy stuff. It was strictly to survive. That’s been my mind state since I was young. It’s not to flight, it’s to fight.

So I move back to Richmond in 2014 and my ex left me in that year. So I am back here starting over again. I could’ve stayed with my aunt, but me being a man, I wasn’t going to do that. But God put me in this situation. My ex told me my son is going to stay with me over the summer and so I got a job. My friend got me a job at Legend at $8 an hour, and I walked every day to work and I got that apartment.

I had that apartment with my son for 6 months, and then child support locked me up. I lost that apartment and my son had to go back to Virginia Beach.

When I came home, Legend Brewing Company had kept that job for me. I’m just trying to keep this mindset that when I get out, I just want to get back to work. I just want to get everything back I lost. I want to get my son back.

I’m homeless when I come out of jail — I call myself homeless cause I was living out of my car in my aunt’s driveway. That’s where I felt comfortable.

Seven months later a car hit me. I was working two jobs and waiting on an apartment, which was owned by a person I was working for. The car hit me the day after Mother’s Day, and when I came home from the hospital, they still blessed me with an apartment. And that was where I was until later this year when somebody else bought the apartment, and they kicked me out — which led me to be back homeless once again, but this time my situation is totally different from before.

Now I haven’t worked in three years, nobody wants to rent me anything because I haven’t worked and disability has turned me down three times. Whatever God wants I need to stay focused on — I opened up a YMCA program for the kids and put all my energy into it — no matter what my situation was, I stayed focused on my training business, I had to put my energy into something instead of wondering what was what.

Moments after King John Coleman’s car accident

RAH: So Let’s go back. You were living in your car when the accident happened?

JC: I was living in my car at this point. I was just out after 7 months. I was working, I had just got a car, and I am happy. I went to Tidewater to see my son and his mother for Mother’s Day, spent the weekend down there — was just happy because my life was picking up. At eight o’clock in the morning I had just talked to my friend to pick me up to go to the gym, that’s why I am standing outside, waiting on him.

I look back at that video, and there is video — I can’t figure out why I went to the back door of my car to crack the window. It shows I walked around to the back and cracked that door and then just shut it — as soon as I shut it that car hit me and knocked me 50 feet up the street.

I never felt anything. I don’t remember getting hit.

When I came to, I didn’t know what was going on. I touched my dreads but there were staples in my head. My daughter said she told me numerous times I was in an accident but I just couldn’t remember. It didn’t dawn on me until I looked in the mirror after they took me out of the ICU and went to the bathroom. I cried for 3 days. Both of my legs were broke in half. I got rods.

RAH: What happened to the person that hit you?

JC: They put him in a home. His brain was like Swiss cheese and he wasn’t supposed to be driving. They told me if I wanted anything that I would have to sue his 94-year-old mother. I just looked at myself and said there is no way I could do that. And God has truly blessed me, I had no internal injuries and I am truly blessed.

RAH: And is that the attitude change you mentioned before? That after the accident, it wasn’t “why me?”

King John Coleman in the hospital

JC: I have to put this out there, but a lot of people in my family wish I was dead, because I have no brothers and sisters. I’m the only child. So when the hospital told my family that they thought I was gonna be a vegetable, and my cousin showed me the text messages, they were hoping I would die.

But I had to learn how to take the good from the bad. That car accident changed me for the better, because the stuff I used to worry about I can sit back and everything is different. Energy is everything, so what energy you put out is what you get back. My whole attitude has changed.

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

“That doesn’t mean a person is around forever; people are there for a season but most are there for a reason.”

RAH: You had to learn how to walk again, how to how to look at yourself again, how to eat, and you were homeless until 6 months ago. Then you started your business? What has been this last change?

JC: God set me down and make me realize what my problem was — I was trying to get everybody to love me when I did not love myself.

There’s some people that say “I love myself,” but I am looking at some of their actions and I can ask them, how much do you really love yourself? Because I had to ask myself this shit. I was put in a situation where I couldn’t even wash my ass, and nobody wanted to come over to help me wash it — but God allowed me to push through. I managed to make it. God sat me down and enabled me to watch people and understand.

All I ever wanted was motherly love, because my mama left me early. That don’t mean a person is around forever; people are there for a season, but most are there for a reason. I learned a lot of lessons. I’m grateful for life.

RAH: What would you like to tell people dealing with personal tragedy?

JC: I had to go through all that to change my thought process, to change me. And nothing is wrong with change — some people think it’s the worst thing in the world, but you have to change you to change your thought process. Once you become conscious of certain things, you will start moving different. Learn to love yourself. Once you love yourself, who gives a fuck how you are perceived.

RAH: John, thank you.

JC: Thanks so much.

Check out King John Coleman’s business HERE.

All photos by Kimberly Frost; you can see her work HERE.

Up, Down, Around The Music Business with Eddie Prendergast of Mikrowaves

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I hang out at Bamboo Cafe sometimes. Sometimes Eddie Prendergast is my bartender. A local music legend, which we have covered before, and someone I have seen over a dozen times through out the years with Bio Ritmo, Amazing Ghost to Mikrowaves. Always a great show. Big songs. Big sounds.

On this particular day, he passes me my usual and I ask, ‘what have you been up to Eddie?’ That turned into listening to his newest album 20 Up 20 Down months before anyone else had heard it. I immediately asked to do a video for one of the tracks and so began a long journey to get it done. You can see the fruits of that labor below.

I always wondered about his story, his full story, so I asked him. Here is our conversation on the ups, downs and around of the music business, no filter.

Mikrowaves, ‘Our Time’ Music Video

R. Anthony Harris: You have been making music for a while. What was the first album you put out and with who?

EP: I went to the University of Miami and started a band called Pencil Grass and it was pretty much a soul band. We had six or seven guys. We did pretty good. I was making songs, electro songs and so I got the guys to learn the songs — we’re jamming, had horns, keys, the whole schbang.

Then we moved up to Connecticut to New Haven, because my best friend John Panos, he played trumpet, and he’s like my musical brother, but he’s from Hartford, and he was like we should move. He’s a compulsive liar. (laughs) He said we should move to New Haven, it’s got really good scene, its a half an hour from New York, and it’s pretty cheap. Aight yeah, so we got all moved up to New Haven, all six of us.

And we just started playing playing our backyard, for a Yale MBA program. We had a couple guys that were like starting first year live above us in our apartment and so they hired us to play in the backyard party like right when we moved up there, a barbecue. There was a woman that saw us play. It was kind of a music journalist and tastemaker in New Haven, she was walking her dog in the alley — and was like who is that? You know? We were going — we had the organ out there, the big organ put out in the backyard. And, so we kind of got a name, immediately, did really well in New Haven and made a record called The Bubble Gum EP.

I was always putting stuff out, like electrode stuff, but then we finally made with the band. And it was cool — ‘Too Much Booty For Your Pants’… uh, actually cut that. (laughs)

When I started Mikrowaves I wanted to just play all the songs I ever did with Pencil Grass, but with a trio — tuba, drums and guitar. And so a lot of those songs are Pencil Grass songs.

Anyway, so we were in New York, playing a lot of good shows. Then we just turned in such fucking messes up there in New Haven, it’s like a northern drunk fest, and a couple of guys quit the band — I was a mess. And kind of started trying to start over again.

So we got my boy Danny up in there, who wasn’t a musician, but he has an ear and he’s just crazy. Him and John Panos were friends but he was a divisive member, because everybody else was a musician, you know, music school. So he never felt he fit in with some of those guys and those guys really, uhh you know, we love Danny but… I love Danny.

Anyways, that’s when we started doing good, and we almost fucking hit it man, because we had residency in Knitting Factory and the hot shit party people in Brooklyn saw us one time, like at Bubble Party or something, they were throwing big parties that summer in Brooklyn. Anyway, they saw us and they came back with a bunch of people the next week to see us again like to show us off and book us for parties. And I think I was… I don’t know what the fuck happened but they stopped returning my phone calls, and I was probably too fucked up, the band was too fucked up, stuff like that but whatever.

But it’s kind of a bummer I always has a feeling like if we had gotten that gig, we would of catapulted up. So, then, should I keep talking?

RAH: Yeah, keep talking.

EP: Then, the drummer quit because he couldn’t take it anymore. And I was like, thats the drummer, the band is over. Then I got even more of a mess for next couple months.

And then Bob Miller, the trumpet player for Bio Ritmo, my good friend, I used to play in Bio Ritmo before I moved to Miami, called me in November that year. It’s freezing cold in Connecticut and I was hanging out with bad people, really, people that are, you know, just a bad scene. You get involved with people sometimes and think — how do we get out of this? Because it’s just there all the time… and so anyway, he called me up November, and he’s like, yo, you want to play bass with Bio Ritmo again? I said, fuck yeah. So I moved out and back down to Richmond the next month January 2007, making beats and writing some new songs. And I lived with these, uh… I don’t want to talk about that. (trails off)

Anyway, I started writing songs and put together Amazing Ghost, which back then was Matt White, Bob, Toby, I played bass and sometimes Ray or Justino from Bio Ritmo played timbales. I had my old Oberheim DX to make beats then I would play them using the foot pedal. They’re all like program songs. And that was fun.

screenshot from Our Time
screenshot from Our Time
From ‘Our Time’ music video

RAH: How are you feeling around this time? You’ve been in New York and saw the big show.

EP: Yeah, I felt good, I mean we were actually going up to the play shows in New York, doing a little tours and stuff like that. Hustling, trying to get it, it wasn’t like Pencil Grass, but it was good. We had a great time and we like blow it up, and it’s awesome, big parties and then some good shows or parties in New York. I mean, it was like a party band to me, but it was fun.

RAH: After Amazing Ghost, what happens?

EP: Once again, personal things get in the way. I kind of broke up, faded away.

And then I got a job in Miami, writing songs for licensing house down there. There were some guys that went to University of Miami, younger than me. They had a big studio in their little bedroom. So I would drive down — I had a conversion van and drive down all my shit, like all the drums, all my synchs and stay in a little bedroom for a couple months — write songs and that was called the Big East. They put something out, but I can’t find it. It was very produced and ultimately it didn’t get anywhere. I mean, they paid me $500 a month but you can’t really live on $500 a month.

RAH: And were you bartending down there?

EP: No, I wasn’t just writing songs and producing tracks, because they wanted to sell to the commercials. And yeah, if you did sell something, then you got more money, but they’re also trying to put out the record.

Now the fucked up thing, they say to me before I signed the contract for $1000 a month, they say, we are going to pay you $500 a month and use the extra money that we save to put out the record and use the rest for publicity. I was like sweet, I guess I can deal with that.

So did the record and then they come back and say — we’re just gonna put it out. I was like what are you talking about? We talked about the extra money and they came back with its not in the contract. Yeah, so they can just do whatever they want and they found that promotion doesn’t help anyway.

I don’t know what the fuck, so fuck you.

I never got anywhere with them, came back to Richmond and I met Claire, my wife. We fell in love, got married. Claire was pregnant, and I wanted to start playing guitar. I felt I could sing to the baby better with the guitar then. The bass. And so then I started learning my old songs.

I met Kelli Strawbridge, a couple of times, I really liked the way he played drums and asked him to join Mikrowaves. I want to start a band. Mikrowaves is gonna be these songs and we have some new songs too. Toby will play tuba. I’ll play guitar, acoustic guitar, and that was, alright cool, that was awesome. Bob wants to be part of it. We need percussions, we got Coca. Might as well get saxophone, John Lily.

And so that’s nice and I’m playing guitar. And we had a gig, Toby could’t make it, Toby hated playing tuba and so I was playing bass, and it was better, you know, I’m a natural bass player. So we got Toby to play trombone and Russel to play guitar. My neighbor Ken joined to play mandola.

RAH: You have a lot of people at this point. (laughs)

EP: Keneka started singing with us. Angelica and Keneka would sing with us. I think we had one gig with all those people on stage. (laughs) There’s was always somebody that couldn’t make it.

RAH: Those shows were really fun.

EP: They were a lot of fun, and we have one year where we played a lot of gigs. And then after that, we kind of stop booking gigs, because everybody’s got kids and everybody got their own gigs and everybody has to make money. You can’t do these fucking gigs where everybody makes 10 bucks, you know what I mean, after putting in the time to learn songs, practice… something’s gotta give.

And I wanted to do all these recordings I did with Mikrowaves I wanted to be as live as possible. You know just guitar, drums, play everything live, which was different from I used to do stuff electro, looping — I wanted that to be Mikrowaves just straight up, you know.

And then after like four years, I kind of started missing the other stuff like producing tracks, making tracks. So basically, 20 UP 20 DOWN is a return to my original song making technique which is the way most people do it now, use these drum machine in pieces and build the song like that, as opposed to having the energy of the band play.

RAH: So 20 UP 20 DOWN is the new record?

EP: Yeah, so that’s what this new record is.

RAH: Is that still Mikrowaves?

EP: Yeah its still Mikrowaves because a lot of the band are all over it, everybody from the bands plays on his record. So to me it was Mikrowaves, like last year Mikrowaves is still around. Now, to me, I now call it Mikrowaves last record because it’s just going somewhere else.

RAH: After such a long journey through music, how do you feel about it now? Like you’re about to put this album out and we did a music video together…

EP: Yeah, I mean it’s to me it’s always the same, like I am glad to get it out. So I have to put it out in my mind. So I could go what’s the next thing?

RAH: You have been doing some folk stuff? Is that what it is, folk music?

EP: Irish and Scottish songs, I am still writing some things.

RAH: You’re talking about traditional folk songs. Are you gonna put an electro to that?

EP: I don’t know. I was thinking just simple and beautiful lullabies. That’s why I started doing it — was to do with the sing lullabies but I have been messing around a little bit, I don’t know, I don’t really have the right combination there yet. I just hear them as just a voice, or maybe voice and guitar because that’s how they are played. I think I have a different enough ways where I can make it work.

RAH: For people with no idea, how do you create a song?

EP: Yeah, usually you are at work and something fucked up happens and immediately in your head, you know like, goddamn that was fucked up. (laughs) You know, it’s kind of just puts itself in your head, and then you build a song a little bit at a time and then you figure, I got to make the song, I made the song, and then you make the drums and the bass and everything, and then you get like a month into it and you’re like, I hate this song! Or you are like wow that’s awesome, either way and then take it to the bands and you’re like, hey let’s learn the song.

RAH: Are you going to put out an album of songs you hate? The Songs I Hated, the album. (laughs) How you feeling about the year coming up?

EP: I am all in. Now Mr. Dad, straight up. I got the kids and run after the kids all day, and I try to stay up late and do my thing, and wake up early the next day. Thank god for nap time. I’m not rushing myself in anything. I just kind of doing it right now, just for me, without the audience stuff. A big part of that feeling was playing those internet shows last year, that there’s no audience, and it becomes more about yourself. That has kind of stuck with me, because before it was always about the audience.

photo by Kimberly Frost

RAH: Would you be excited to play in front of audience now?

EP: Playing with Bio Ritmo last week was great, just seeing people and closing your eyes. It’s always like how far am I going? Am I going too far or not far enough? Am I real right now when I’m singing? Or am I doing something else, am I not being me? I always try to go all the way past that and go inside, deep inside — and then come through where there’s no thoughts. That’s what I’m into about performing.

RAH: If you like this interview, say hi to Eddie at Bamboo Cafe and tell him how much you like the music. Thank you Eddie.

EP: Thank you.

Photos by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

The Constant Awareness That I’m Alive: A Conversation with Singer-Songwriter Jonathan Facka

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A few months ago while working on a music video for Richmond, VA based singer-songwriter Jonathan Facka and his song ‘The Tarmac‘, I got to know the guy and his music. RVA Magazine has covered him before but I found both interesting enough to ask for an interview. Dark, moody, self deprecating, but very funny and engaging at the same time; that is Jonathan, and this is our conversation.

If you get a moment check out his album, also called The Tarmac, on Spotify and the music video we created together HERE. Its all really good stuff.

Jonathan Facka: My name is Jonathan Facka. I’m a singer songwriter from Richmond, Virginia, born at MCV and in 2015 moved to Arizona — I was there for about a year and then I came back. I played clarinet in middle school, and then I transitioned to guitar class in high school. And I just liked it. I didn’t write a real serious song until I was about 27, surprisingly. Basically, a bunch of tragedy happened and I didn’t know I had anything to write about until that. Better late than never.

R. Anthony Harris: So your newest album is out, and has been out there. What is the inspiration for the album? There is a lot of emotion in there and you can tell there is tragedy, sadness, loss.

JF: Sure. Well, I wrote ‘The Tarmac’ and I had a collection of other songs, then it just turned out to be an aviation theme. I’m kind of afraid of flying on airplanes. So I met a guy who asked me to write a song for his wedding. It was called ‘The Terminal,’ another aviation theme, and the theme just started coming together.

Whenever you write an album, I think it’s important to tie them together in some way. Now, everyone’s focused on singles, but there’s an art to making an entire album, and I don’t want to see that go away. So I like making albums.

RAH: What is it about your fear of flying that influenced this album, or is it just fear in general?

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

JF: It’s just claustrophobia, this constant awareness that I’m alive, thinking about it. I walk around thinking about my breath — thinking, I could drop dead at any minute. That’s all I ever really think about, and it’s crazy. So just thinking about getting on a plane, I’m like, I’m out of control.

But yeah, the whole theme of ‘The Tarmac’ in general was once you leave the tarmac there’s no turning back, and sometimes you’re on a set path and there’s nothing you can really do. So you got to let Jesus take the wheel, you know? Did I answer the question? (laughs)

RAH: Well there’s a feeling of anxiety in ‘The Tarmac’ and having to make big decisions and maybe not being able to make them, or never making them. Are all the other songs reflective of that theme? How does the record move from the beginning to the end?

JF: So it starts off pretty fast paced, that’s how I started the first record, and it builds to a full band format by the second song — to show what the album has evolved to, because I didn’t have drums on my previous record. I introduced the cello this time around too. Then it moves into the terminal theme and I just kind of keep it going. Even in the first song, there’s a lyric that I’ve been locked in ‘tubes in the sky,’ it’s just a little nod to airplanes. It’s really loose, because I put the theme together late, but it works.

So it gets really sad at one point, then a little bit more hopeful, and I just kind of ended the album like The Sopranos, just black screen — just ended it in the middle of a phrase. I liked that ending. The audacity of that ending was incredible and I wanted to do something like that, because I thought it was impressive.

RAH: You had mentioned a number of Easter eggs in the album. We just talked about your love of Final Fantasy VII. What other Easter eggs are there? Do you want to disclose any of those?

JF: Okay, so really the only real Easter egg was in ‘Anew.’ I had the cello play the ‘Tifa’s Theme‘ behind the song in the beginning, because I like Final Fantasy so much.

As far as an obvious Easter egg, there was my father’s voicemails that I released to the public. I thought it would be really cool — because you know, (pause) he’s dead — to put his voice on my album and have him live on in that way. There’s something immortal about making music.

So I wanted to solidify his voice wherever, because he’s gone. (pause) My family didn’t know I had those. So, surprise! They were the voicemails that he had left me a couple days before he died. Those are real voicemails. Somebody asked me, what, did you just get some stock voicemails, or something like that? That’s really him. I had Google Voice and I logged into it last year, and there they were. I was like okay, I gotta send these to my producer, we got to put them on the album as a tribute to him. And the song is called ‘Stone.’ It’s about how I didn’t have enough money to buy him a headstone. So he was just laying in an unmarked grave.

He has one now.

RAH: I don’t know if you want me to ask you this, but I want to bring it up because I think it relates to the album. The story you told me about going to Atlantic City, where you had a little bit of cash…

JF: …and I don’t want to tell people that story. We will leave that off there, actually. I might have a song about Atlantic City, coming out on the next thing.

RAH: Okay, this will just be the teaser to that song.

JF: Sure, I mean, I’ve got some stories still left to tell. It’s just a dark… that’s a really dark story. I think this interview has already gotten kind of dark, you know.

RAH: No, I understand. That story deals a lot with the anxiety and uncertainty and decision making that flows through the album. But we can move on from that. What’s it like being a musician in Richmond?

JF: You know, Richmond has been evolving musically. For the longest time, they used to be like really big with metal. And then the jam bands came along, some ska. They still do, like, the party band thing. But I’m a singer-songwriter, and that didn’t really start being a thing until 2016, 2017 in my opinion — like singer songwriters really weren’t a thing [in Richmond]. But then Forbes Magazine called Richmond the ‘New Nashville.’ You’ll have to probably verify that but it’s what I heard [Editor’s note: Well, sorta, but not in so many words]. And yeah, it’s been nice, but there is still a ways to go for people like me getting the right crowds that will listen to you — they don’t want to just come drink and party and stuff.

So we’re getting that, we’re getting along, but I think I’m on the first wave. It feels like a new thing, the Richmond singer-songwriter. Maybe there was some kind of underground singer-songwriter scene that I wasn’t aware of. I’m sure there were always singer-songwriters and stuff, but I don’t know how long or where. There was a time, when I started in Richmond, there were a bunch of open mics. Then COVID came along and reset everything, and there aren’t any open mics, at least not as many as there were.

I don’t know what affect the open mics had on the growing popularity of singer songwriters in the Richmond scene, but I love it. I love going to an open mic.

photo by Kimberly Frost @kimberlyfrost

RAH: What do you hope people get from the album? To someone who listens to the album, what are you hoping to convey?

JF: I just wanted to make something that people maybe could relate to. Sometimes I feel like my problems might be pretty unique, but if you take a step back and you share your feelings you realize how much your feelings relate to other people, and that you’re not alone. So I think that’s why I’m making music in general. If there’s something I want someone to take from the album, it would probably be — I hope that you relate, in your own way, to my pain.

People ask me why I don’t like happy songs. If I’m listening to a song and someone’s talking about how they got a rose gold watch. I can’t afford that. So that makes me sad. You’re happy because you got a nice watch. But if I hear a guy talking about how sad he is, depending on the circumstance, I can go well at least I’m not that sad, but that makes me happy. So, just because I make sad music does not mean I’m not trying to make people happy. So I guess I want people to feel happy. (laughs)

RAH: (laughs) Perfect Jonathan Facka answer.

Fade to black.

Follow Jonathan Facka on instagram HERE.

Photos by Kimberly Frost