Youth revolution takes root

I submitted a commentary to the Register in January in regards to the closure of Café Revolution. Despite the title of the article, “A Failed Revolution,” I foreshadowed the emergence of a movement.

I submitted that Café Revolution was, in fact, the catalyst for a revolution — a revolution of youth culture.
Months later, I am pleased to report that such a revolution has been sparked. The local music scene has begun to explode this year. For example, the recent Napa Battle of the Bands was put on by Wandering Rose and sold out the downtown Opera House. Meanwhile, metal and punk bands have been regularly drawing up to 100 kids to all-ages Rockzilla shows, not to mention the consistent crowds for local bands at Billco’s.

A local pocket-sized magazine called Napkin News has been documenting the progression of Napa’s scene.
There is an Internet radio show called North Bay Uprising hosted on ozcatradio.com in Vallejo that plays local and underground music fused with local news reports and radical commentary.

The Amnesty International Club is planning a human rights-themed art and music festival Oct. 24 at Napa Valley College.
Wandering Rose has also been organizing open mic night the last Friday of every month at the Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company. That event has been turning out 35 to 40 people each month and has included a wide array of talent from poets, singer-songwriters, belly dancers, metal bands and comedians.

The Nest gallery — which sadly will be moving Sept. 20 — on Main Street has been a friendly hub for artists and creative thinkers.

La Belle Terra — a wrought-iron showroom in Napa — hosted two well-attended and well-thought-out art and music shows in August and September that showcased the avant-garde of today’s local youth artists.

Additionally, there has been “The Really Really Free Market” that has been happening the last Sunday of every month at Veterans Memorial Park, where people bring clothes, food, books and anything else they don’t need in order that others may benefit, free for the people who decide to come.

Poets and musicians have historically had the willpower to develop and practice alternative ways of thinking, to organically integrate the common concerns of the community and question the prejudices that have been internalized by the dominant culture.

I have also noticed that people of all demographics in the Napa Valley are feeling empowered and beginning to question dominant paradigms. For example:

• Micah White, a contributing editor to an anti-consumerist magazine, Adbusters, will be a guest speaker at the Nest Sept. 19.

• Sonoma County activist organizations, such as Impact! and Copwatch, have built solidarity with Napa groups for a day of protest in Santa Rosa on Oct. 22 against human rights abuse by police, a campaign which has taken on the imagination of people across the North Bay who constantly face such abuse. Other activists from Free Mind Media Infoshop and People for Animal Liberation have been seen at a recent rock concert.

• At Napa Valley College, the Garden Club is preparing to create a campus garden, additionally Amnesty International and the Gay-Straight Alliance are launching campaigns for awareness of human rights.

• A cultural discussion and community activist circle called Gathering of the Tribes has been meeting to discuss ideas and plan actions promoting non-hierarchical egalitarianism, self-empowerment and DIY ethics (as in “Do it yourself”), which are much-needed philosophies during the economic crisis.

Countless times, Napa has been labeled a boring town that neglects its locals, and is widely perceived by many people in the Bay Area as a town that excludes the lower income, youth and counterculture while embracing wine and tourism.

The tide is beginning to shift as the youth in this town are beginning to forge a place where they can belong, and Napa is becoming a vibrant home for art, music and activism.