8.5/10

https://soundcloud.com/honchopgh/campoutseries-midland

The set begins with an interview Larry Kramer, about early activism organizing for Act Up! It's a beautiful start -- and hit in a particular place today, drawing the lineage of a society hopping struggle, to struggle, to struggle. It also hits because, thinking of late 80s-90s in queer organizing, thinking of SF, I think of The Stud, which has just closed its SOMA location. They had a farewell Twitch stream tonight, but too much else happening -- including the fact that I was working tonight -- to pay attention. But, further connection, I saw Midland in September 2018 (I had to check my phone for that one -- old text messages; James from Honcho sent me the link -- why was I in San Francisco in September 2018??? I think I went to this show with a coworker at Facebook -- was I in town for work?) -- in any case, it was a night that made me really appreciate what San Francisco has to offer. The Stud is something special (and I remember it being a great, sweaty, shirtless dreamland of a show -- and I remember thinking it was strange to take your shirt off at a bar, even it was a gay bar. Man how that has changed. Shit, am i circuit??)

Brief notes about protest today;
There was a strong critical mass, a strong energy when in the street, destination, chanting, a sense of purpose to it. There were community mics at stops, and, while I couldn't hear most of what was being said (the mics were not nearly loud enough fro the situation), I was still grateful to see (black) voices preaching to the crowd, and not just (a lotta white pp) walking, chanting, walking, a different chant, 'playing' protest (i count myself in that group, for what it's worth). It ended at city hall, where the same two factions from yesterday - the peaceful group who was plugging their instagrams outside of the burrito shop yesterday, and the aggressive group who was challenging the peaceful group to not stand outside of the burrito shop and instead get in the cops' faces at the police station (which, to be fair, was across the street). I appreciate the efforts of the peaceful faction, but their calls for peaceful protest were fairly dismissive (you are wasting your energy; this is not about the police) -- they had the platform they had the stage, but there was not a strong message. I think the strongest message to the crowd was emphasizing the importance of voting in November, as if this is all about Trump vs Biden ("When black people don't vote, we turn red") or something similar. it essentially became a rally for Joe Biden. Again, in favor of peaceful protest, but this -- sort of missed the point. An optimistic, and seemingly productive part, was the crowd kneeling, and chanting for the cops outside the doors of city hall to do the same. They (unsurprisingly) did not.

I came home and watched more on a very tense Twitch, with this Midland set playing in the background. The combination was good. The streams were stressful. A protester / leader in Portland handed a mic to the sergeant over a fence, so they could have a dialog, and get him to agree to demands -- in this way, it was a peaceful protest (like SF faction was trying to maintain) but was still challenging in good ways. Austin stream looked like it had mostly died down.

There is more to write about both this set and the Midland set. I can't place the song that closes out the midland set, and it is frustrating --I know I had it on one of those piles of burned mix CDs. No. What is this song? (Caribou! Niobe! - okay, i can sleep Ok)