On Saturday morning, on my way to work, I got off the Muni at Embarcadero station and passed a heartbreaking scene: a man and his dog sleeping on platform.
Across the street at Oracle Park, a massive private concert was set up; it was hosted by corporate giants Genentech, featuring a surprise superstar music headliner.
My anxiety kicked in. My office was right next door to Oracle Park. Yet I was locked out of the biggest event in the city. The concert was exclusively for Genentech employees.
Welcome to San Francisco 2019, a city of great wealth with a hidden core of great poverty.
In 2018, I’d left San Francisco for New Orleans, but I was lured back with the promise of a well-paying city job and new civic leadership under a young progressive black female mayor, London Breed. I had indeed remembered SF as a fun and beautiful, the innovative city where you could achieve your dreams if you worked hard.
But upon my return from New Orleans, people in SF seemed younger, unfriendlier, bigger, stronger and faster than I was. I was paying the highest rent I’d ever paid in my life. (I’d even tweeted this fact to #45 when he said he’d done more for African Americans than any other president, but that’s a different dish).
After 25 years, I was still a struggling writer in San Francisco, floundering in the house that tech built.
I constantly questioned my self-worth: afraid to let my rich friends know how little I and afraid to let my poor friends know how much I had.
I’d returned to SF from New Orleans after being offered a permanent job with the City and County of San Francisco. I was a low-level bureaucrat; I made a decent salary which allowed me to scrape by in the most expensive and expansive city in the country.
Part of my job was selling parking passes and collecting rents and late fees from SF tenants. I still pursued what I was most passionate about: and reporting about music.
That day, I committed an outrageous act which I call the great Stevie Wonder Rebellion. Giving it an enigmatic name makes being fired and one step away from homeless myself seem less traumatic, don’t you think?
In a way, Stevie Wonder freed me from what could have been a lifetime of frustration and unhappiness.
So, this is what happened. The day of the Great Stevie Wonder Rebellion, one of our tenants with connections walked into our office and offered us access into the private Genentech concert, featuring none other than Stevie Wonder.
Stevie Wonder; an artist I had been chasing since I was 17. For the past two decades, there were times when Stevie Wonder was literally at my fingertips, but I’d never gotten to touch the Motown icon or meet him face to face. In 2016, I even sat right behind Stevie Wonder in the pews when I covered Natalie Cole’s funeral in Los Angeles for Streetwise Radio. In 2014, I sat in the VIP section watching Stevie Wonder soundcheck before the Soul Train Music Awards in Las Vegas, but security kept the press away. In 2015, my friend had been offered backstage passes to see Stevie Wonder at his tribute concert in LA, but she chose to have a meal in a trendy restaurant instead.
Stevie Wonder was again right at my fingertips. Maybe this was a sign.
My boss agreed to let us leave the office for a while to catch a few songs from Stevie Wonder and come back.
So, our connection escorted us inside of the venue; Oracle Park was transformed into a wonderland of perks for Genentech employees: free food, drink, an abundance of snacks, games and live DJs and other entertainment.
But five minutes before Stevie Wonder was scheduled to hit the stage, my boss called us back to the office and told us to come back to work. There would be no Stevie Wonder for me, she said.
Now, if you saw the movie, “Color Purple,” starring media mogul Oprah Winfrey, you may recall a scene where the mayor’s maid, Sophia, is given the chance to spend Christmas with her family after an eight-year estrangement. The mayor’s wife drops her off and Sophia revels in the joy and love and comfort of her family. But the mayor’s wife cannot drive home by herself, so she orders Sophia away from her family and back into the car after 15 minutes. That’s how I felt.
So, back in the office, I pleaded with my boss as Stevie Wonder and his band performed the first rifts of “As if You Read My Mind” from one of my all-time favorite albums, “Hotter than July:”
“Take a chance on the secret/That you hide beneath your dreams/Use your wildest imagination/You just tell me what it is and I will make it be…”
I could feel the bass, drums, and synthesizer in my feet. I snapped. My pleading with my boss turned into an argument, and then harsh words. I called her boss and said more harsh words and eventually, I got my way, strolling back into the concert in my sassy red sunglasses.
Thanks to my connection, I was able to stand right on the stage and watch one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time perform hits such as “Master Blaster,” “Living for the City,” Higher Ground,” “Overjoyed,” “Signed Sealed Delivered,” “Superstition,” “Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing” and “You are the Sunshine of My Life” up close and personal. Stevie’s setlist was prophetic, and my
connection grabbed it off a speaker and squirreled it away after the show. I was as scared and elated at the same time. This was my greatest act of rebellion, ever.
connection grabbed it off a speaker and squirreled it away after the show. I was as scared and elated at the same time. This was my greatest act of rebellion, ever.
