B. Dolan On Activism

Exploring Grassroots Activism, Private Prisons, and the Future of Music with B. Dolan.

In this episode, B. Dolan, a veteran artist and grassroots activist, shares insights on his recent activism work, the troubling landscape of private immigration detention centers, and the evolving challenges facing independent artists. His perspective bridges the worlds of community organizing, policy reform, and cultural production, offering a comprehensive view of what it truly means to be a cultural worker today.

Main Topics Covered:

• B. Dolan’s shift from touring to grassroots organizing post-health challenges

• The fight against private ICE detention centers, specifically the Wyatt in Rhode Island

• How artists can leverage their platforms for advocacy and change

• The impact of privatization on community safety and human rights

• The evolving landscape of independent music, AI’s threat, and community-based scenes

• Strategies for empowering local communities and rebuilding DIY networks

Timestamps: 00:00 - B. Dolan’s work on the ground post-touring career shift
02:37 - Role of artists in activism and community engagement
04:59 - Overview of ICE detention in Rhode Island and the Wyatt's conditions
06:53 - The private ownership and lack of oversight in ICE detention centers
08:48 - Historical incidents like Jason Ng’s death and ongoing issues in private prisons
11:27 - Legislative efforts to prohibit ICE private prison contracts in Rhode Island
12:29 - Underreported community issues and the importance of local journalism
14:34 - The chaos at courthouses and the need for protective legislation
22:26 - Challenges faced by artists with AI and digital distribution
23:54 - The decline of touring and opportunities through community-based music scenes
25:22 - The importance of local DIY scenes and resurgence of community-organized music events
29:36 - The role of art in shaping society, resisting commercial exploitation, and building solidarity
31:15 - The significance of artist-led networks and infrastructure for sustainable scenes
33:11 - How to connect with B. Dolan and support ongoing activism effortsResources & Links:

• Glaring Type-O Records

• AMOR Network

• Imbdolan.com - B. Dolan's official site

• The Artists Must Take Sides - People's Forum class

Connect with B. Dolan:

• Instagram

Transcript

unknown 0:00

B.

Bill Bartholomew 0:01

Dolan is a veteran American rapper, spoken word artist, activist, and screenwriter based right here in Providence. He emerged from the early 2000s NYC slam poetry scene and quickly established himself as a fierce independent voice in alternative and political hip hop, eventually signing with Sage Francis's Providence-based indie label, Strange Famous Records. But beyond that, and his extensive discography, he is well known and well recognized for his hands-on grassroots political activism and investigative consumer advocacy. What's up, man? Thanks for coming back to the show. Appreciate it. Chilling.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, thanks for having me back.

Bill Bartholomew 0:35

It's been a while. It has. And look, a lot has changed, honestly, since the last time we spoke. And you've been doing a lot of great work on the ground. I don't even know where to begin because it all encompasses such an important mosaic. Tell us about the work from your standpoint, what you've been up to.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Well, I think since we spoke last, uh I had an emergency surgery on my spine during the pandemic, uh, which kind of effectively ended my touring career. I did some touring afterwards, but immediately realized it wasn't in my best interest to keep trying to live on the road. Uh so I've transitioned a lot to working out of this home studio, um, started my own label to house my own catalog, uh, which is Glaring Typo Records, and through crowdsourcing, Patreon, weekly Twitch streams, uh, just kind of figuring out how to exist in the in the digital world, um, have managed to keep myself going uh as an independent artist somehow. Um, and at the same time, I'm trying to like change my activity of you know how I perform and how I uh interact. So, you know, touring for a lot of years, I'd always check in with local activist groups and sometimes we'd release singles and direct funds to uh a group. Um, but being here and really like rooted here over time gave me an opportunity, I realized, to like actually like embed myself with an organization, which I did with the Amor uh network. Um and that started, I guess, over a year ago. Um, at first working on the defense line, um, going down to the courthouses uh when people were spotting ice uh and doing the work there with volunteers. And um a couple organizations, PSL has been doing that as well. And then from there, like got introduced to Amor, got turned into part of their legislative team, became a lobbyist. I've been learning the ropes locally.

Bill Bartholomew 2:37

Yeah, and and so for anybody that doesn't know Amore, that's the alliance to mobilize our resistance. And it's I mean, it's it's in your vocabulary if you pay attention to Rhode Island politics on any real deep level. But I don't think a lot of people know the background there or even the coalition structure behind it. So your involvement there is both on the grounds work, but also it ends up being a vehicle for inf for getting people more and more informed about the work that's happening with the Moore or PSL or any of these organizations. How do you how do you look at your role? Is it more like, hey, I would be doing this no matter what line of work I was in, or is your role as somebody with an audience, does that change how you approach activism?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

On the one hand, I would be doing it no matter what type of work I was in. Um on the other hand, I'm I'm increasingly aware of artists as workers who are in as much trouble as workers are everywhere. Um, you know, we could get into a whole discussion about AI streaming payouts and uh live music venues and um the difficulties of art artists, even music artists like myself have as workers, um, and the need to organize with other workers. Um but yeah, and then as I started to do the work and just show up to meetings and show up at the Statehouse, I kind of realized that the B. Dolan stuff, my name is Bernard, by the way, you know. Like I introduced myself as Bernard. Uh the fact that I've created this B. Dolan brand and been, you know, not to think of it as a brand, but you know, I've been performing for a long time. And people so I've bumped into reps and senators who know my music and um have been able to establish relationships that way. So it's like, oh, you know, I I I maybe can be useful in that way. Or, you know, I never anticipated the B. Dolin thing being useful in that way, but it turns out it is a bit.

Bill Bartholomew 4:29

Yeah, it turns out it's a super essential component, I think, of getting the word out organically right now in a moment where everything is just by design so distorted across. And we'll get to, I definitely, now that you mentioned it, I definitely want to get to the AI slash reality of the world crisis that faces art. But I'm just curious, in terms of the work that you've done on the ground, what have you seen that in that sense of what's not being reported by mainstream or even sometimes the limitations are a reason why, but independent media doesn't get to everything as well. What are you seeing that people in this community should know?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Well, I've been following the ice bills really closely. Um so we um, you know, I like I said, I started working with the Ice Watch WhatsApp group that anybody can get their phone number, get on, and you know, you'll get alerts when iCE is in the community anywhere in Rhode Island. Uh, we respond there, go pass out flyers, go monitor what's going on, and go let people know uh what's that ice is in their neighborhood or around the courthouse that day. Um, and then from there, I watched a presentation about the Wyatt and got caught up to date with the Wyatt Detention Center, which is the priority of the Amore network is getting the ICE out of the Wyatt and ending the ICE contract with the Wyatt. Um, as it's the only place in Rhode Island that ICE is detaining people. Um so yeah, um from there, uh sorry, I got lost now.

Bill Bartholomew 5:55

No, I honestly, I mean, but but even stop me right there for just a second. The Wyatt is such a disgrace on so many levels, fundamentally, as just the notion of the private prison infrastructure, super sector, whatever, is just in and of itself disgusting. And look, Central Falls, the argument is they were faced with you can either have an incinerator or you can have a private prison pick one, and they chose the prison.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

That's the 90s imagination, right?

Bill Bartholomew 6:25

A nineties imagination, utter nonsense. And so now we face a moment where the fundamental groundwork is that this is outrageous, the the existence of this prisoner period. All right. Now the ICE contract. What what are the sp what specifically, what kind of relationship does ICE have right now with the Wyatt? How many people roughly are being brought in or out of that facility that are directly in ICE custody generally?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

So the Wyatt has about a hundred, maybe I I remember the figure, 111 beds that are currently being used by ICE as a result of this contract that the Wyatt made with ICE. And the Wyatt, in terms of how it's governed, is confusing on purpose. Um, it's it's referred to as a quasi-public or quasi-private because it technically has this board that was created. Um, but the shareholders are who really owns the prison, and the shareholders are like the worst of the worst. It's BlackRock, Invesco, their trillion dollar hedge funds. They're the same hedge funds that invest in uh Core Civic and Geo Group, which are the other big um private prison uh companies that are building detention centers in the US. So it's the same money. Um, but in the 90s, they did create this like oversight uh thing, this this um, you know, uh ability of Central Falls, hypothetically, to manage the prison. But the prison manager just reports to them and they run the prison how they run the prison. And when uh a prisoner died in ICE custody in 2008, there was huge protests. ICE withdrew its uh stopped stopped um housing prisoners there um after that happened. Then a second contract was opened in 2019 when Trump got in. Uh so ICE started using the beds again. At that point, the oversight board, the quasi-public oversight board, tried to say we don't want ICE here. At that point, the shareholders, the private shareholders, sued the oversight board so that these people were now personally in danger of like losing their houses and stuff. Uh so created this lawsuit, which created a situation where a number of people resigned from that board. Anybody else who remains in the city of Central Falls, because of that ongoing lawsuit, can't speak about the prison. Um, and so we're in the situation where the Amore network for 13 years has been documenting the prison and providing oversight of the prison when there is no federal ICE oversight, there's and there's a lack of state oversight as well. Yeah.

Bill Bartholomew 9:02

And let's not forget the prison itself. And I mean it's it's always fair to say that things have been updated and the protocol has changed, but the facility was responsible for the death of Jason Ng in the the 2000s. I don't remember the year, but um 2008. Yeah. And he overstayed his visa and was dying of liver cancer and was left to die in that facility. So start start any anybody that's that I think that's why this is such an important message. We're talking about private prisons here contracting with a variety of different law enforcement agencies, and there's a total breakdown of oversight that allows for Mr. Ng's death, and then the type of even just some of the anecdotes or proven act actions that have taken place inside that facility. Um it's a terrible situation.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And it's a financial failure, and it hasn't it hasn't paid the city back what it was supposed to. It was built with a hundred million in bonds from the city. The the payments it's made back have never equaled that. Um, and uh they they stopped making payments for about a decade. They just restarted this year as a result, or you know, not we can't say directly as a result, but the timing is suspicious. Um, that the city just got a payment um all of a sudden from uh the prison. But uh that's the first time in years. It's never, you know, the the story was in the 90s this is gonna make Central Falls a million dollars a year. That never happened. Um, and like other private, you know, um endeavors, the costs got slashed. Um and yeah, medical neglect is a constant complaint. Amor just uh last year, I uh I think filed, I believe, 600 Freedom of Information Act requests um to try and get information from the prison. There's many reports of undrinkable water inside that gives people like E. coli type um symptoms. At one point, 13 prisoners got together to write a letter to Amor talking about undrinkable water and how they were melting ice to see if that could was drinkable and it wasn't. Um so uh so they got to buy bottled water um at $2 a bottle. So the prison is a uh, you know, they're overcharging for phone calls, they're a profit-making endeavor still. And that makes things more dangerous for prisoners and guards. Even correctional officers unions and in many other states have opposed private prisons. Private prisons are a failed idea.

Bill Bartholomew 11:27

Yeah. And there are other states where legislation on the state level has prohibited contracting between ICE and private prisons within that state. That I assume is the fundamental tenet of the legislation that you're supporting. I believe that's um uh Costa's one of the the names, and I can't remember who else, but uh Heraldo. Is that correct? Yes, exactly. Geraldo in the House is so basically that's the idea. Let's get legislation that would prohibit any private prison from contracting with ICE. That's the next step forward in this project.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Right. Our state property is not going to be used um by any federal uh agency trying to conduct immigration enforcement. Um so and people have had concerns about this this idea of this the supremacy clause and states not being able to tell the federal government what to do, for example, or how to run their agency. This is not that. This is just withdrawing the use of the public property um from the federal government.

Bill Bartholomew 12:23

What other areas right now, when you look at on a community level, are you seeing that are not getting the attention that they should? I mean, we could again do you have seven hours, but like people thinking about Trump and Heggseth or thinking about Israel or thinking whatever the situation is right now, or even thinking here about on a local level rent stabilization in Providence or the Washington Bridge or whatever the case is. But the truth is you just described something right there that is humongous in scope, yet is just one morsel of discussion and broader conversation of the pillars that actually matter on the ground. Yeah. What else, what what should people be talking about right now that they're not? What what what what should journalists be covering that they're not?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Well, the pat there's a package of ice bills to before moving off ice completely. Uh, there's a package of ice bills endorsed by the Riblia Caucus. Um, there's seven other bills that also would do a lot to make it either make it more difficult for ice to kidnap Rhode Islanders, operate in this state, um, would keep them away from our courthouses. The virtual courts one is really important, I think, because I really think we're right on the brink of something real bad happening outside of one of our courthouses as a result of ICE's presence there. I've been there a lot and I've seen uh defense line workers really trying to keep people safe, um, but it's becoming a more and more chaotic situation. I watched somebody who now impersonates ICE and just drives around the box panicking people and agitating people. So it's a circus down there. If you're a lawyer or a judge, I don't know how you're not lobbying for that one to pass immediately. Yeah.

Bill Bartholomew 14:04

Um and to that point, I will I'll say this. That's an interesting thing. We do hear from an oversized population of attorneys on the on WPRO in the afternoon. A lot of these people don't go on the air, but if we're talking about something like this, they'll be like, yeah, I'm an attorney and X even even if they don't practice at that courthouse, just the absurdity of what this is doing on a practical basis to the legal system. I think that's a strong that's an argument that should be made uh more and more and more that appeals to even people who are maybe in favor of what ICE is actually doing. Start with the idea that this is this is the stupidest thing that's this is such a stupid and ugly and vicious and ridiculous mockery of the of the tenants of the system, and it's just aggravating people in a way that is just completely absurd and obviously dehumanizing.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

And and it's a public safety threat. Even if you don't care about any of the the morals and you're not on the same side as us, somebody's gonna get hurt. I'm telling you. And it's it's not guaranteed to be guaranteed to be somebody who's not on your side or you, you know, it's just you can't have mass people kidnapping people in modern day America. Come on. Um But yeah, and and in general, I think um having you know talked to a whole bunch of lawmakers since January, I see I see trends in in the issues going on in the state as they relate to the suburbs. And I think when I look at Rhode Island and see that it's a democratic supermajority where it took like 10 years to pass an assault weapons ban, things that are kind of taken for granted as just bread and butter, like centrist liberal ideas in other places to and not to get into a conversation about assault weapons ban as an issue, but as to make a point, like Rhode Island Democrat does not necessarily equal to me, like invested in people's liberation and fighting fascism. Those two things don't necessarily go together in my mind. And there are some lawmakers who have a D next to their name, but um could very easily move big important bills that would protect thousands of people, that would protect working class people, um, and instead, you know, we see the results. And I think personally, for me, it's about um making them famous. Let's all know their names, let's all identify the cities they come from, where the where their districts are, and let's start going to those districts because I find that the people in Potucky, Central Falls, Providence, um vote how you would want them to vote if you are a progressive or a leftist person. And they elect people who go to the statehouse and try to do good work there and they put good bills in. And then I think we have some folks in other towns like Johnston, Coventry, Warwick, Cranston, who maybe don't do politics or maybe are not as engaged or paying as much attention or just are not as connected to the activist base. And I don't mean to slander those places because I've been phone banking in Warwick and I've been calling people with Italian last names in Warwick. I grew up in Rhode Island too, like I get it. I'm Italian American. Um, and I've been hearing people say, Oh, ICE is here in Rhode Island. Oh, I've been sending money to Minnesota. Oh, I is there's a there's an organization here I can get involved in. Like, there's good people in those towns who, if they were aware of what their representatives are and aren't doing, they would become active. So for me, I think the year ahead is going to be about addressing the suburbs and addressing some very particular lawmakers who, for whatever reason, seem a little too slow on some very important issues.

Bill Bartholomew 17:51

Yeah. And it's that Y10 thing or whatever that the Democrat Party is that that that in some ways they say this is the best thing that's ever happened. Look, this is actually why I'm in favor of a stronger Republican Party in Rhode Island, because the Republican Party in Rhode Island is a complete joke. You know, there's like I mean, it's it's like a sad thing to see. They have missed every opportunity. Like, how are they not doing press conferences on the Washington Bridge every week or whatever, like basic pictures? They're just they have no ability to operate as an opposition party or put forward any ideas into the conversation that are reasonable, save for this the inspector general idea, which in and of itself is a complete the way it's framed right now, complete joke. But this is the thing. We've got now this Rhode Island League of Businesses. I had one of these guys on live leagues, they wouldn't answer if Biden won the presidencies all over the place. Rank amateur, now they're calling up the radio, they get themselves in even deeper trouble, sound like a bunch of people have no idea what they're talking about because they don't. But the thing that scared me, why this moves me, and after that episode of uh television I did there, I'm thinking like, all right, maybe like my parents. Yeah, they don't live around anymore. But like Democrats, my mom's a teacher, my dad's a maintenance guy, whatever. They know they could they could tell you the governor is, probably lieutenant governors, but they don't follow bills. One of these guys knocks on their door from the League of Businesses and pulls some stunt and says, Oh, yeah, you know, your your person is like in favor of open borders, uh, they want to, you know, whatever. Pick your pick an issue and take it to a caricature level. But I'm a Democrat and I just want to be good for business. We need more business. And uh all I believe in all the Democratic values, yeah, the same thing you probably voted for your whole life. Yeah, I'm about that, but just let's bring it back towards a more favorable lying, garbage, thieves, fraudulent cheating, scumbag moves, grifters. And so that's what happens when you don't have a real Republican Party. You can't have an honest conversation about okay, we're that, and over here is the is the alternative. So you're right, that work of awakening the suburbs to the reality of who they voted for. I don't know if it moves the electorate, but it definitely makes people know a lot more about what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah. Or, you know, or we just have to find candidates in these places. And and, you know, like that moves the electorate. Um, but yeah, I I agree. I I think um unfortunately, like the MAGA thing has just resulted in a lot of people, a lot of working people, unfortunately, uh having like cult-like allegiance to something that clearly just makes no sense and is gonna implode. And you know, but uh, you know, the Republicans and the Democrats both have a problematic history with working people. And so um, you know, uh, we have a DSA here in Providence that's been putting forward candidates, and I love the fact that, you know, um they get to go to people uh who are angry who may be angry at Democrats and say, like, hey, I'm angry at Democrats too. All right, you know, like let's talk about rent here. What's rent like? Um, can you afford to pay for things? You know? Yeah. Um so I think we've seen those things be transformative in like New York. I think what David Morales is doing is really exciting, also. Um, and there's exciting stuff going around. Uh but yeah, reaching reaching out to the suburbs and those places where it's that way on purpose. The suburbs are designed to isolate people. And that whole project of white flight out of cities and, you know, the the fearful mind state of people with privilege who may be sheltered, um, leads to being ripe for Fox News and right-wing craziness to like drop seeds in their brain. You know. And you're not gonna be able to do that. Yeah, or even small businesses, right? You don't want to pay taxes, right?

Bill Bartholomew 21:44

You know? Yeah. And I think also local news. I think that's part of the problem as well. I mean, not to that there's a lot of great reporting that happens. I mean, you talk about what happened but what Target twelve at WPRI does, perfect example of when you give money to corporate news invests in like investigative journalism. That's good. Work they do, but in terms of the day-to-day, do you really need to watch the thing? It's a lot of making you feel a little bit uncomfortable, right? It's not necessarily a bath and good stuff. So it gives a ripe environment for people to be predatorial in the suburbs. You're totally right. Um let's I I wonder how to parlay this, and I think it's kind of the same, but kind of the same conversation, but AI and music right now, and just in general, what are you sensing? What are you seeing from your vantage point?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

It's been difficult. It's been difficult even to upload um music and get it distributed via the the normal distributor now. Um I've got an extensive back catalog, humble brag, and uh I moved it from one distributor to another, and some of the artists who featured on older tracks got flagged immediately as like a an AI danger, and suddenly the new distributor was coming to me like, oh, you need to get like extensive legal paperwork from any all these people. And I'm like, I worked with this person 10 years ago, this person, you know what I mean? But um so yeah, that has immediate, I mean, and that's a small thing. The next thing is like I just saw an announcement that Spotify has announced that anyone with under 10,000 active monthly listeners is uh won't it may might be classified as AI or they're giving out verification badge, gotta have over 10,000, which will mean many, many artists with decades of music who may not have hit that threshold will have their music demonetized. So yeah, it's it's pretty bleak. It's pretty bleak. Um post-COVID um touring, the touring landscape has become difficult. A lot of mid-level venues kind of got closed down or bought up by Live Nation. So places that used to book bands now have Taylor Swift dance DJ nights and club nights. Um and that was part of, you know, I I did uh I did a year of touring uh afterwards and just saw some of the deals being offered and was like good luck to any band trying to start out, good luck to working class musicians trying to live on the road and and spread their music that way, which again forces us back to the internet or or some new way. Um so that's what's interesting to me at the moment is yeah, artists, you know, just organizing, figuring out new things. Either this porch fest thing that's happening seems really cool. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh artists and and people who appreciate music and fans organizing outside of the traditional music industry, I think, is is the answer and what's gonna have to happen.

Bill Bartholomew 24:40

I couldn't agree more, but I think it's coming back to community. I think back to like you know, early Def Jam, early uh even some of the Northeast punk or ska or whatever, some emo even one point. But but the the low the hyperlocalization of it where it was like all right, things are happening in place A. Maybe it's New York, maybe it's New Haven, maybe it's somewhere you've never thought of before. Like, wow, there's an unbelievable XYZ scene in Nashua, New Hampshire. Yeah, yeah. But that metastasizes and gets its own thing happening. It's almost like an island formula and it creates its own dynamic. And then somehow, some way, there's a pipeline built between like the other kingdom over here in in Philly or the other kid, whatever, and that creates this organic network. It's almost like we want to go back there, back to pre almost like the Telecommunications Act 1996 destroyed everything. So we have to go think about life before then and what it looked like. Because this there, yeah, the Spotify then give me a break. I mean, come on, how are you gonna how is anybody actually gonna build a career off of that without investing a ton of money in the whatever chaotic good or whatever the the promo there's a PR company, this band geese got blown up for spending like hundreds of thousands of dollars, yeah, to get their stuff to go viral. It's all bots and everything, right? And we're seeing all the blues, the blue dots and these huge tours post jelly roller or whatever it is, can't sell out that's right, can't sell 10,000 tickets or whatever because no one cares. It's fake. But on the community level, it's the opposite, it's everything.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yeah, yeah. This rapper LaRussell went so wrong so fast. But I was watching his career for years, uh a couple years before he became like big news and went viral and had a whole thing this year. And this it's a it was more of a shame than people realize because the story up to that point had been incredible. He just started, he started performing at his mom's house. He started throwing shows in his own backyard, and his mom would make food for everybody, and they would film it and put it on TikTok and it and they filmed it well. Um, so it, you know, they were communicating what they were doing, they're showing, but they were also building something very specific, very regional, and totally outside of uh and so he had a Patreon, shows got bigger and bigger. Now Snoop Doggs playing at his mom's house, you know, and like uh and through Patreon subscriptions, which I think if you were in at a certain level, you just got a forever ticket to any of his shows anywhere. Yep. Um, and the Patreon was up high enough that when it was time to book a club, he would just buy out the club for the night. No promoter, just him and his fans, and they walk in for free. And he says, I'm doing the show at 2 p.m. so that kids and grandmas can be there and go home early. Shit like that, like make up your own rules, find a way to get away from all this predatory bullshit in the music industry because it's designed to make you fail. Even if you are at the Grammys accepting the award, you're still might like it, still might go real bad for you. And we know that because we know the history of music. Right.

Bill Bartholomew 27:47

And it often does. And I think one of the things that is most impactful right now in music is just that if you are able to find any way to sustain at any level as an artist, that's a huge victory in a way that maybe it hasn't been before. And and there's a huge difference between artist and creator or whatever, but like actually making your work for taking your voice and putting it out there into the world or your vision or your whatever your soul has to say. If you're doing that in any kind of regular public-facing format, or even behind the behind closed doors, that's like a miracle in a world where Pete Hegseth is or whoever's doing push-ups at men's rooms at airports. Yeah, yeah. That's the reality where it's a complete so the opportunity to respond has never been greater. And I think that's that's the reality.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Yeah, and we are cultural workers and and uh also shout out to PSL because I've been taking this class with them from the People's Forum called The Artists Must Take Sides. It's dope, it's available online too. And uh, and yeah, thinking of thinking of art and culture as being the place that uh society gets our ideas from. And so, like, also it's important to remember that like music and art that uh glamorizes the ruling class stuff, the capitalism, the fascism, the consumption, all that, that stuff does well and makes a ton of money still. Like, that's billions of dollars, even in visual art, of you know, if if you're if you're with the current market, if you're in the current industry, there's plenty of money, but you have to be a certain type of way and you have to let a certain type of stuff slide, and you can't speak on a bunch of stuff. And um, if you want to go the other way, then you're on the side of the people, and you should expect that you're gonna have to be interdependent with other workers and people and fans. Right. You can't have the same like mentality going on over there, like where you're way up above people and you're the superstar, and they're the fans. Um so yeah, just getting getting artists to realize that that the goal is not a Grammy, that's not really success. That's that's a literally a fake thing. The Oscars were created because um set workers were gonna unionize. Hollywood executives were like using their set workers to like tile their house and stuff. And there was grumblings on the set, and they were mad. And lit this is documented that the the head of a studio was like, we're gonna have an award show, we're gonna give them a little gold award, and we're gonna make one of them the winner every year. And artists really have this mentality that we A, need to exist in isolation, B, you know, we can we can win at our art form, we can be the best. And we're trying to all everyone else is our rival and our competitor. Um, so all that, you know, poisons scenes, poisons that type of stuff. The opposite builds scenes, builds the type of thing that can host a band here, that can bring a band from from California here for the first time, stay at somebody's house, and now a band from Rhode Island gets to tour in California if they can get themselves out there. Like that's the DIY do-it-yourself network. It exists here, it exists in Europe. In Europe, they got a lot of venues that have a place and back where you can they got bunk beds so you don't have to buy a hotel that night for a touring band. That's everything to cut the hotel budget for a whole tour means a whole different class of band can go on the road.

Bill Bartholomew 31:14

Yeah, that that's it. It's it's completely there. And I think there's so much to learn from DIY music and and arts, but especially touring music and community-centric scenes. So much to learn from our own past here in Providence. I'm I'm amazed that it gets taken for granted, branded as the creative capital, and then is not only not protected, but is almost dismissed and then assumed, oh, it'll be there. We'll just throw a festival and everybody will turn up and it'll be amazing, and we'll be a marketable entity to the world or something. And uh the the the the reality though is that, like you said, it's it's it's physical infrastructure, but it's needs nurturing. And some places are great at it. In Europe, parts of the United States, South America, Canada, it's a lot better. For some reason, in this area right now, it's like almost impossible to imagine in the current climate really getting something going in Providence as much as people there are a lot of great things happening in Providence, but really getting that next really next level thing going. There's so many barriers that are not the artists' fault, and they're also not the fans' fault or the community's fault.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Right. So organizing is the only way forward. Organizing, yeah, and artists embedded in the organizations. I'm old enough to remember when a whole scene got pushed out of Oneyville, you know, um, and produced some of the greatest bands that I I would travel the world and and talk about lightning bolts, you know, like um so yeah, and people the people know the name Providence as a result of of bands like that. Um so yeah, and and and artists are workers, you know, these same musicians are waiting tables, are they have union jobs, they you know. Um so what's good for people will be good for music in Providence and elsewhere.

Bill Bartholomew 33:11

Bernard B. Dolan, a legend amongst legends. Did got to drop the Bernard now. Thanks so much for your time, man.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

B.

Bill Bartholomew 33:18

Dolan, total legend. Where where can people, what's the best place for people to connect with you? I know Instagram is that's where I follow you on a near daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Uh imbdolin.com has all the information, and the new album is out on all the DSPs and all that. Um the Amore Network is who I'm repping right now, and and for a long time to come. I'm part of the legislative team, and people can sign up and come to meetings once a week. We're going to the state house. Right now, we need everybody to call Senate President Lawson and House Speaker Lizuski and talk about the ICE bills and talk about the Wyatt bill. Um, because right now it's really just down to though the leadership. We're waiting for the leadership. The judiciary committees have heard it. I sat in the the meetings, no big, no big argument. Can't even hear the argument. I've talked to Jessica De La Cruz about it. She's not defending the Wyatt. The Wyatt isn't making anyone money, the Wyatt is bankrupt. Uh, so we're looking at possibly ending ICE detention in Rhode Island by passing a bill that no one's really standing in the way of, just waiting for the leadership to answer some phone calls and pay attention.

Bill Bartholomew 34:21

And we'll definitely follow up with uh both the president and the speaker on that one uh as well here on Bartholomew Town. B. Dolan, thanks for your time. Yeah, man. Talk soon. Peace.