'Jamaica Plain Spoken' Video Interview Project
Jamaica Plain Spoken was a video/interview project that JP musician Rick Berlin started with his friend Todd Drogy after Dubya [George W. Bush] won again in 2004. “Let’s drive cross country and interview people and make a documentary,” Todd said. Rick replied “I can’t stop everything and drive all over the place. I think we should narrow it down to just here in the JP hood.”
So that’s what they did. Nearly sixty interviews with people of all genders, beliefs, ages and ethnicities. They bought Final Cut Pro software with a student discount, booked interviews, filmed and started to edit. Thing was, in less than a year, Todd enrolled in a grad school program in Canada. For the time being there was only one cook in the JP Spoken kitchen. Rick continued to interview, shoot and edit on his own. He described his work as “sketchy at best”. When he attempted fancy tags like a Channel 2 doc they appeared a little “slap dash and amateur”, but Rick was having a blast.
Then Todd came home and they realized there was a mountain to climb. That without a significant video/tech upgrade no one would show the project. No film festival. No TV station. They hit the grant writing drawing boards, but said that was a death knell for the project because (in their own words):
We had to use that horrendously frilly grant language; verbose, run-on sentences explaining what we were pretending to accomplish, but essentially saying nothing. A friend of Rick’s called grants: “welfare for ivory tower professors”.
We had to clarify that this was a community centric project worthy of real cash, but it wasn’t, not in any legit sense. The only thing ‘community’ about it was that everyone lived in Jamaica Plain. In reality it was just a bunch of local characters describing their lives and offering their opinions about JP.
Hardest of all, we would have to promise a storyline arc, a beginning, middle and end. We would need to select a restricted group of interviewees to build a narrative spine, leaving many fabulous interviews on the cutting room floor. Talking heads who had great stuff to say and who were, for years, part of the JP fabric.
So they killed it. They killed the project, dead in the water. The YouTube clips are all that remain. Those links are gathered here:
Gerry Burke, Sr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-a4npZTWM0
Aida Lopez (Being Cuban in Hyde Square, 35 years): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgsY5I2GWkY
Kathy Mainzer (Tireless Optimist and Activist): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbCFSqbVkb4
David Mittell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zra1Hyeb3NQ
Brothers (Have Seen It All): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_-NC59iLl0
2 Dads, 1 Family: https://youtu.be/6jZjpDvZ_UA
The Rosenbaums: https://youtu.be/tx9RZ5nLd0Y
Rev. Elizabeth Boulton: https://youtu.be/uZ-RgHUyl8I
The Whitehaus Family - Weirdfest: https://youtu.be/ZJOYH2aRFB8
Shawanda Patterson: https://youtu.be/EaG2FcDJV0Y
The Hanifins (A Family Seeing All Sides): https://youtu.be/c_2cQlAi87M
Transgender (An Interview with Gunner Scott): https://youtu.be/4_tvuS0MgOg
Last Karaoke (Another Old Man’s Bar Bites the Dust): https://youtu.be/eWCbn6RQ1rQ
Ryan & Sara (Friends in a Complicated World): https://youtu.be/VNt82t9BVyc
Eric Starsielki (Artist At all Times): https://youtu.be/4QlouVe4fsk
The Swim (Crossing Jamaica Pond at 2AM): https://youtu.be/q71nSB_E1VA
Polaroid Kid (Instant Art): https://youtu.be/N7fM0NrO1Mk
One Word For the USA: https://youtu.be/o_OiojHKtBQ
Evonne Wetzner (and the Video Underground): https://youtu.be/SlIBz0pJDNA
The Williams’: https://youtu.be/mYLxDKD3Qzo
Sal’s Barber Shop (All Kinds of people, all cuts): https://youtu.be/nqH0ofgQE70
Southern Boys (Out in Arkansas): https://youtu.be/Sz12YSRwVD4
Christine (Banker, Trinidadian): https://youtu.be/ZGPX0NfWaFs
Jake the Snake: https://youtu.be/t8B7JrsMeDw
Dru & Alissa (Questioning Art, Love and Pain): https://youtu.be/zawGrfS1NYA
Kostas (Learning to Box): https://youtu.be/RfQpVAIZeaQ
Lisa Osborn (Sculptor of a Forest of Human Beings): https://youtu.be/zwg-uGBWWho
Billy Charles (Haitian Cook at Doyle’s): https://youtu.be/SthoCLqWcms
Jorge Flores (Salvadorian Pupusa in Hyde Square): https://youtu.be/EFxYWOmz1x4
City Feed & Supply (Mom n Pop in 21st Century): https://youtu.be/kp0G9vyWDwM
Bob Larocca (Activist Where It Counts): https://youtu.be/GnrBGXbNa04
Rocky the Barber (33+ Years In The Hood): https://youtu.be/cu5M4RSZBBo
Three Friends (You Can Come Home Again): https://youtu.be/vnHSHnHeCRI
Flower Lady (Small Shop, Big Picture): https://youtu.be/tiK9BwhP9gE
Horace Small (Major Organizer for the Unrepresented): https://youtu.be/8mZBoTevaK8
Humanwine: https://youtu.be/HlM4Sqffk14
Tim Wright (Film maker): https://youtu.be/t8ER_U_Ph6A
Belt Sander Racing: https://youtu.be/Ry3jPpSKcx4
Andy + Tom (Friends/Songwriters: MITTENS): https://youtu.be/el4s0Gf5T7k
Food Wall (Best Chinese Outside of China): https://youtu.be/YqvgZNIXuys
Jaya & Jasper (Indian Ancestry, Facing Post 9/11 Heat): https://youtu.be/ITP1mjoP3fA
Max Frevert (Irish Guilt and Years of Beer): https://youtu.be/CmrOgbGWQLI
Laura Foner + David Weinstein (Open Family, Open Mind): https://youtu.be/UaXhTrWLmcI
Demaris (Latino Artist and Businesswoman): https://youtu.be/7bgLhMLYxxM
David Birmingham (Coming Out in Quincy): https://youtu.be/kCyPgXUmVTs
Les Grls (Queer is Hot in JP): https://youtu.be/4IC5s0W6JxE
Tracey & David (Sorting Everything Out): https://youtu.be/BAoWOJuoEyY
The Casilio Sisters (Three As One): https://youtu.be/SlA0yI8eheE
Best Friends (For Life with True Heart): https://youtu.be/5mZeF1n3Ads
Firehouse https://youtu.be/koNzsy6qc7A
Goodbye Party for Joey (Tattoo Artist): https://youtu.be/iQQzzP91DQc
Jazz Night @ Costello’s: https://youtu.be/WJbEP0tNaeE
Michael & Chelynn (And A 2000 Year Old Yew Tree): https://youtu.be/oZreTp96o48
Robyn Michaels (Selling ‘Gadgets’ on Centre Street): https://youtu.be/KFTOtXhCN8k
Art House Boys: https://youtu.be/Z9oq7XriMD0
Franklin Cabral https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEXnJjGChe8
Jamaica Plain Spoken - Sample Reel (13 minute edited version) https://youtu.be/4d1slVlmldY
Our thanks to Rick Berlin for allowing us to share the videos here and for creating this remarkable record about Jamaica Plain. Find out more about Rick Berlin at his website