Future Twin
Despite all the various changes, shifts, ups & downs that have occurred in San Francisco & the Bay Area at large over the course of the past six, seven years & more; the one consistent revolutionary phenomenon has been Jean Jeanie & her consciousness expanding group Future Twin. Over the years we’ve talked to Jean & friends about local & universal humanitarian causes that matter & justice for all disenfranchised people. Furthering this message & more at the forefront has been the activism & the art that has spearheaded the rationales & reasons behind why Jean & company both create & confront to begin with. Today Future Twin premieres the video for “Hope”, directed & edited by Jean Jeanie in collaboration with Caroline Rothschild, Miles DeIaco, Lizzie Renschler, featuring cameos by Yayne Abeba, Tony Robles, Sellassie and the Frisco5 (with crystals courtesy of Mike Winkelmann). Featuring further support from Elizabeth Simon, Erica Merlot & Ripley Jene; “Hope” illustrates the solidarity that both our entire nation & world direly needs right now. At a time when the term hope itself has been peddled for means of claptrap rhetoric & capitalist didactic & no action—Future Twin makes a statement of inspiration & liberation now for people of all cutures, heritages, incomes, classes, colors, collectives & more.
Future Twin’s “Hope” begins with finger taps that lead to adventures out in the real world without fear & eyes opened wide. From here impromptu dances & special overexposure lens effects create layered imagery that creates a wealth of stimuli for the senses. From free-frolicking about local parks to taking part in protests in front of San Francisco’s City Hall to in front of the Mission Police Station with the Frisco5 & surrounding supporters—Future Twin keeps up the inspirational message that everyone with a heart can have a voice & take part in the conversation of dissent & political/social/economic change for the better in the hopes for perhaps a better future union. In our earliest conversations years back with Jean Jeanie about Future Twin, she always reiterated to us about how, “giving a shit was the new not giving a shit,” and everything Jean, band & friends have stood for ever since that iconic statement have backed up this philosophy even further with words, deeds & action put into visceral, effective motion. The triumphs & tribulations are seen in the video for “Hope” along the same line of existence where the natural & human-made worlds collide together in a clash of coexistence that instills a sense of hopeful anticipation for coalitions of justice & genuine human kindness that extends & exists beyond the buzzwords & lip surface of petty politicians & advertisement campaigns of capital interests.
Jean Jeanie of Future Twin provided us with the following reflective manifesto that provides a state of our world’s current union & more:
Why Try?
One could say we live in trying times.
What are we trying to do?
Recently the Zapatistas, from Chiapas, Mexico, announced their creation of a parallel government. If you’re not familiar, the Zapatistas are a group of mostly rural indigenous people that rose up against military, paramilitary and corporate incursions within the southernmost Mexican state, Chiapas, in 1994. Their autonomous way of life continues on to this day. Not long ago they teamed up with the Indigenous Governing Council (CGI) and will present a candidate for the Mexican presidential elections in 2018. The candidate will be an indigenous woman.
It’s damn inspiring to see people creating the world they want to live in. We talk about it, we imagine it, and often we manifest that imagined reality through the strategic application of action. Thus is the bulk of all things humans have constructed, from law to architecture to art..it was all prefigured before it became “real.” What constitutes action? More than talking about things of course…there’s showing up, participating in the world around you, often in a civil manner, finding and attending city planning meetings, volunteering for arts organizations, making a banner and attending the Women’s March happening across the country tomorrow. There’s also the discreet actions within one’s mind, the planning that goes into actions. Like a chain reaction, a revolution unfolds for each individual, a shift in thinking, as one’s ability to view the world in an open manner, to stay curious, maybe even skeptical, but never cynical. Because to think either wholly negatively or positively, is a human construct. It’s all subjective, cynicism just shuts down any sense of possibility or potential for change.
Revolutionizing our own thinking is just the beginning though, because ultimately we need each other. We have been taught to look out for ourselves, but what about looking out for each other? With mutual aid societies and consensus-based decision making, people are creating increasingly non-hierarchical, interconnected and cooperative ways of doing things. That’s the whole point right – to evolve? Is it possible that we only need to reach out? To participate? To prototype the society we want to see? Haha is this getting hippie enough for you yet? The point is, yes, things are overwhelming for many of us. Yes, there is seemingly insurmountable injustice everywhere. And yes, we are born every minute of every day, biologically but also…other ways. Can we, as a species, renew ourselves to a point where oppression, hate and injustice simply don’t exist anymore? What begets hate? What begets humans?
Ruminating on times when I felt hateful, I know I was almost always afraid, first. The adage fear of the unknown strikes here. Can we boil it all down to fear? Fear of…so many things, but basically still always fear? Well, then there’s greed. What do you think greedy people are afraid of? Can someone be essentially wholly greedy throughout every fiber of their being, or are they just acting greedily in certain situations to assuage their own fears? Are human desires so simplistic and essentialist that they are either right or wrong, left or right, black or white…? I often used to oversimplify complex issues in order to better understand them, but then I realized I was merely fashioning something in my mind to understand, and thereby missing the nuance of the myriad realities, thus missing everything. And who wants to be a fool who can’t observe and perceive the real world as it truly exists in all its complexity? Or at least make a consistent effort to be aware of WHAT IS and what could be?
It’s cliche but there’s something truly liberating about speaking one’s truth. I wanted to write a love song, but more an ode to a feeling. So I wrote “Hope,” because I’m in love with the feeling. And yes, it is entirely subjective. So it is a choice, to live with hope.
In addition to music, I spend my time in San Francisco helping on the housing front. Land liberation, I call it, coming into and out of various organizing around urban/community live/work spaces being threatened by unscrupulous real-estate speculators. In order to create or preserve more spaces that people can truly live and bloom in, without having to run a constant rat race in order to line another’s pockets, usually your “landlord.” I prefer the term building owner, as I feel landlord perpetuates neo-feudalism (tenement farmer, tenant, landlord, etc.) but I digress…
As for the video, I filmed it in Northern California where I live, with a few friends as we chased sun in various locations. There’s scenes from the Frisco5 Hunger Strike, where a group of five people, including a grandma and hip hop artists, led San Franciscans in a march on city hall demanding the resignation of a police chief caught in multiple racist scandals including numerous killings of unarmed people. It’s shot entirely on a phone, as you can probably tell. I wanted to make something with the tools of the everyperson. Own your tools of production, right? Soon after this march another unarmed POC woman was gunned down in the streets of SF by SFPD. The mayor asked for the chief’s resignation that afternoon. When the strike first started, the mayor and the chief said he would never resign. Things change. We make them change. There are more of us then them. We find and extend solidarity to each other. We live inspired lives, together, for and with each other. When we summarily reject outdated systems by creating solutions and demanding specific action, or taking it ourselves, we cannot be stopped.
It takes guts to be gentle and kind. And in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”
I’ll be releasing my next video in the series, “Head Like a Halo” filmed inside a living art installation known as the Dada Haus, in San Francisco, the night Trump was elected, in a few weeks.
If you’d like to get the singles for these songs, please consider supporting me via www.Patreon.com/FutureTwin. More info at www.futuretwin.com.
Special thanks to Yayne Abeba, Lizzie Renscler, Caroline Rothschild and Miles DeIaco for their cameos in this music video.
