*DeVoted DeVore

{During the 2008 election night, I was reporting in my neighborhood for a class assignment. I met a wonderful woman who works as a poll inspector every election season.}

It’s moments after polls close their doors to count the ballots, and Eunice DeVore, takes the key around her neck to the voting machine. As she opens the machine, she picks up the ballots of the day’s election and sets them on one of the tables in her polling place inside de Avila Elementary School. As she waits for the results of the election, DeVore and her team of volunteers have to count all the ballots to make sure they are all there. The count in the electoral college’s votes is rising and they are about to announce the next president of the United States of America.

Devore, 62, a Haight-Ashbury resident, volunteers with the San Francisco Department of Elections, and has been doing it 18 years in her neighborhood. Devore first took the volunteer job when her church on Clayton Street, then one of the polling locations, was in need of volunteers. Devore stepped in and has been an inspector for her polling place ever since. For a few days every few years, DeVore balances her life and the life of an election poll volunteer.

When it is not election season, DeVore works at home as a caretaker for her two ill brothers and, also provides care for foster children. She is in charge of the chores, including cleaning and cooking. Her job as a polling inspector requires her to do a lot for one day of work and wake up early to get to the polling place.

“We have to gather our supplies in the morning and bring them over to the polling place which is only two blocks away from home,” says DeVore’s son, Samuel DeVore.

DeVore, like other inspectors, oversees the polling place, directs volunteer duties and she is responsible for solving any problems that may come up in the polling center. To DeVore, working one day as a poll inspector is a piece of cake compared to one day at home.

“This job requires people to follow through with the job,” says Gerry Ashley, a Department of Elections precinct coordinator. “Eunice doesn’t back down.”

However, her job is not that simple. At the end of the night, it is her and the other volunteers’ job to pick up all the ballots in the center and count them. She is also in charge and the only one with the key to the voting machine that voters put their ballots into at the end of their voting.

“This is actually a vacation from home,” Devore says.

She enjoys the perks of coming into the polling place and seeing the same people vote every election, as well as seeing new voters. She also finds the pleasure in helping out her community.

“I feel like it’s just so citizen like,” DeVore says.

Since the start of her part time career as an inspector, DeVore has seen the changes in the way people vote. DeVore recalls voters used awls to punch holes into their ballots when she first started voting.

“They’re continually improving their voting procedures,” DeVore says.

DeVore now manages the voting machines and has to assist voters with the change, while at the same time, adjusting to the change herself.

Over the years, Devore recruited her family to volunteer with her. In the past, her brothers and children have worked with her when it Election Day came. Now, DeVore’s children and grandchildren volunteer with her any chance they get. She hopes her family become better citizens by helping with little jobs as the one she has.

“She’s a good boss,” Samuel DeVore says.

Samuel and his sister both have been volunteering with their mother for almost 10 years.

This year’s election is very important to her because she is black, DeVore says. As the results of the election came in DeVore was still wrapping up her job at the precinct as well as watching the coverage of the election.

“I am very ecstatic. I never thought that in my life time I would see a black president,” DeVore says. “I don’t think of [Obama] as a black president, I think of him as a president who happens to be black.”

Her way of voting and looking at politics changed over the years. DeVore claims she would vote on instinct in the past and now keeps herself informed on the issues by reading up on them in papers and brochures.

“First time I voted I was glad to be voting,” Devore says. “I didn’t know what I was voting on, I just did what my mamma told me to do. Whatever you do, I do mom. I just followed my mom.”

Besides the presidential election, DeVore felt Proposition 4 was a very important issue to her and the rest of the propositions were very important to everyone.

“Most of the propositions I voted for went in my favor,” DeVore says.

Nicolai Safai, a student at International High School and a poll place volunteer says he enjoys working with DeVore and her family and has being doing for two elections.

“She a very curious and friendly person,” Safai says. “She knows everything and she’s pretty laid back and helpful.”

DeVore’s job this season is over. Though she enjoys what she does, she is not looking ahead to the next election season yet but is prepared to volunteer and vote again.

Though this election season is over, DeVore encourages future voters to “stick with what they want,” and let their voice be heard.

*Jim Siegel Distracted!

{Written 2 and a half years ago for Reporting}

Jim Siegel left his home in Daly City 40 years ago, moved to the East Bay, and then move just north of his home town to become a hippie. Fascinated by the hippie movement, he settled in the Haight-Ashbury district at only 16 years old.

During the 30 years since his migration, Siegel’s adventures led him to keep some of the hippie history alive, open three shops, restore countless Victorian homes and run for district supervisor.

Surrounded by a collection of hookahs, bongs, clothing, posters of Bob Marley and hippie style art throughout the shop Distractions, and hundreds of rave flyers tacked to the ceiling in the hallway, Siegel, 54, walks around assisting customers selecting merchandise. While assisting customers, and hiding the techno music in the background with his voice, he points out his collection of old posters and flyers that make up the history he tries to keep alive.

Siegel dedicates his time to restoring Victorian homes, watching the Simpsons in his historic mansion, and running a favorite San Francisco head shop: Distractions. But life before wasn’t like that for him. His experiences with drugs, poverty, and contracting HIV led him in the direction he wants to go, to live life and enjoy it.

Siegel moved to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district at age 16, into a hippie commune in the district. The commune also served as a drop–in center for travelers and other people who needed to stay for just a few nights. During his stay, Siegel worked in the commune and helped people find roommates, and taught others how to live on welfare. He also made some health choices that were not easy to overcome and used drugs, like many of the people around him.

Prior to his current active and healthy lifestyle, Siegel is a former LSD user and claims to have used ecstasy at least three times a week for 15 years.

“I’ve done everything growing up here,” he says. “I smoke pot at night sometimes.”

Clean and sober now, Siegel carries a medical marijuana card and grows the medicinal plant in his properties up north.

“I’m less and less into drugs, if at all anymore,” Siegel says. “I find that if you do drugs, you don’t have time to have a full life.”

His life with drugs benefited him though. At the age of 18, Siegel filed for supplemental security income, a federal government disability program. The government found Siegel to be mentally unstable for work and gave him $5000, which he used to open his first store with a friend.

“I had to prove to the government that I was crazy so I took LSD every day and didn’t sleep for a week. Then I had friends burn me with cigarettes,” he says. “I went into the psychiatrist’s office and said ‘I hear Pink Floyd music all the time and I don’t even have a stereo. Then I asked if I could go to the bathroom and went to the corner and peed all over his plant.”

Siegel was only 19 when he and a friend opened up their first head shop in the Haight Ashbury district. White Rabbit opened on the corner of Haight and Shrader in 1976, where Zona Rosa currently resides. The Pheonix, a store on Haight Street in the 60s, offered Siegel merchandise to sell at White Rabbit, and kept the history of the neighborhood alive. White Rabbit burned down in 1973, and Siegel moved its location to the corner of Shrader and Masonic. Later, he went on to open and co-own Pipe Dreams, San Francisco’s oldest smoke shop, and then opening Distractions in 1982. Yet again, another fire in 1980s, caused by radicals, burned some buildings in the neighborhood, including Distractions. Siegel reopened his store at its current location, on 1552 Haight Street that same year.

As a business man, Siegel is driven and knows how to run a business, says Bette Mosias, of Mendel’s Far Out Fabrics, which is located next door to Distractions.

“He’s been a fine neighbor,” says Mosias.

His shop carries a large selection of bongs, and he takes pride in glass smoke pipes the store sells. He has a love for hand blown glass and his connections with various glass blowers for 30 years shows it. Siegel’s love for business and interaction with people is what motivates him to run his shop.

“I feel comfortable here,” Siegel says. “This is how I see all my friends. It’s my social life. I don’t really do it for the money, because I enjoy being here.”

Siegel’s business took a turn for the worst in early 2009 and put the store up for sale. Since then, business has picked back up and has gone through some redecorating inside.

Siegel hopes to open a salvage store in the future where he will sell furniture, fixings, moldings, and other décor he has saved from old houses. He has a license to go into old houses and save things that would normally be dumped, says Mira Bai, a long time friend of Siegel.

“Jim is more concerned with architectural salvage,” says Ayisha, an employee at Distractions.

Inspired by the hippie culture in which he grew up and his love for music and parties, Siegel spent several years throwing rave parties within the city. He was one of the first people to throw raves. For years Siegel had his own show on KUSF, known as Thump radio.

Siegel frequently has parties and invites musicians and international deejays to stay, at his Alamo Square home.

As a kid, Siegel watched the “Addams Family” and was fond of Gomez Addams, the combination that inspired his fascination with Victorian houses.

A long time passion and fascination with Victorian houses, Siegel found himself buying the famous Westerfeld House in 1986, where he currently resides. Siegel’s interest in the house was not only the architecture but the history behind it. The Westerfeld House was San Francisco’s first hippie commune in the 60s and many famous hippies, including Ken Kesey, lived in the house before him.

Siegel is a frequent buyer of Victorian houses that are threatened to be demolished. He currently owns 17 houses, valued at over $10 million all together.

When he is not working at Distractions during the week, Siegel drives to the Russian River and helps break down and rebuilds other Victorian style houses from around the country. Siegel’s company, Victorian House Movers, has restored about eight Victorian houses in the San Francisco area. Siegel is a member of the Victorian Alliance and has a contractor’s license in the state of California.

“They were selling this house back in east Ohio for a dollar, and he bought it,” says Mira. “He cut it up and put it on a big flatbed truck and he rebuilt it here in his property.”

The Philip’s house from Ohio is now on a 30–acre plot in Forrestville.

Even though he was never into politics, in 2004 Siegel decided to make another leap in his life and ran for San Francisco’s fifth district supervisor, the district Haight–Ashbury belongs to.

“I felt I was a good person to represent the district because I live here and I know the people,” he says.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 22 candidates campaigned for the position that year, Siegel being one of them. He lost.

“I will never want to do that again,” he says.

Nathan Guzniczak, a friend and employee, describes Seigel as a determined person.

Siegel is a neighborhood activist, and in 1975, protested with others against having a McDonalds in the area. More recently, he tried to stop Urban Outfitters to open shops in the neighborhood.

Siegel still tries to live with the philosophies of the hippie movement: to give back to society and the world, and leave the world a better place when we arrived.

“You have to dance in, and give back,” Siegel says.

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*Tapping into Success

Tap, tapitty clunk tap tap. Tap-tap… tap-tap… tap-tap. The sounds of cars driving on Market Street, or the crowds of people walking by and chatting cannot drown the sound of Edward Jackson’s tap dance shoes clicking on his small dance floor nor the melody of the funk music coming out of the only speaker he has.

The sun is out, with very few clouds in the sky. Cool breezes flow through the air. It’s still cold enough to wear a sweater but not cold enough to be freezing. It’s a Friday afternoon. School has just gotten out for students in the K-12 school system, and many kids are walking around Westfield Mall and Market Street to spend time together. The line to get on the next cable car is about 50 people long and even more people are buying tickets at the trolley booth just yards away from where the line is.

Meanwhile, Jackson, 41 is dancing his heart out. He’s wear his gray and beige colored trilby hat. A plain white tee is under a purple-with-blue-stripes button up tee shirt. He completes the day’s ensemble with black pants, right pant leg rolled up to his knees. His tap shoes are black, as most tap shoes are. They are worn out at the rims where the metal plates meet the sole. He has two more pieces to the ensemble that he has already removed: a scarf and a black leather jacket. Only a few songs after starting his regular performance, the first bead of sweat starts rolling down his face. It won’t take much longer for sweat to start dripping to the ground. The ever-changing crowd watches him, as he continuously taps from one song to another… to another. He only breaks for a minute or two before he starts with the music and dance. Sometimes he breaks for only a few seconds. When one song ends, a round of applause echoes from virtually every direction. He continues with this routine for three to four hours before taking a big break.

Many times throughout the day, people from the crowd walk up to Jackson, congratulating him on his energy and telling him how much she wishes she could dance like him. Today, a mother with her two daughters, around the ages of 5 and 7, are doing some shopping in the area. They take a break and watch Jackson dance. Both girls, astonished by Jackson’s moves, start moving their little feet on the ground, trying to mimic him. Jackson notices, and with a smile of joy, taps his way toward them, and with one spin into their direction, he is slightly crouches down to their height. A-tap a-tap. He taps one foot the other less than a second later. A dap a dap. The sounds of the small girls’ feet trying to mimic him, cannot be heard but they are there. A-tap a-tap a-tap. The girls once again mimic him, a dap a dap a dap. The mother just stands there encouraging the girls to try their best. The girls are happy.

“I love the interaction with everyday people,” Jackson says. “I love seeing people happy.”

Minutes into the mid-afternoon, Jackson is joined on the open dance floor by his two of his friends, Tyler Knowlin and Mustafa. As Jackson takes a small break and sits under the shade of the plant pot and light post over his head, Knowlin and Mustafa take turns scraping and tapping on the concrete. Jackson jumps in. The three of them are taking turns dancing and showing off. For the next few songs, they compete with each other for the crowd’s attention. Jackson begins the competition. He finds an upbeat, funky song, such as James Brown’s “Get Up offa That Thing.” Again, he starts tapping on his dance board, getting on the tip of his toes, then returns to flat ground, and slides off his dance floor, and starts tapping on the pavement for sharper clicking sound.

Next Tyler takes over, and begins his set of improvised moves. He taps his foot against the light pole closest to the dance floor. The hood from of his sweater flaps up and down as he spins around.

“I’ve seen that one,” Jackson says jokingly, referring to the Tyler’s last combination of moves.

“Oh you have?” Tyler jokes back.

For the rest of day, the three of them take turns dancing for the crowd.

Jackson says he likes to differentiate himself and his friends from other street performers. He likes his audience to have a good time, and likes to interact with them during his breaks.

“This is a way to relate to people and be myself!” he exclaims.

Before taking the streets with dance, Jackson worked the retail and restaurant life before jiving into his late blooming dancing career. Edward left the retail and restaurant business after growing tired of working for others.

“I prefer to work independently,” he says.

He says he doesn’t like having signs asking people for money. He only has a small photo box, covered with a colorful patterned cloth. He likes the feel of people willingly going up to his box and dropping a few coins or dollars.

“I’m not a rich person,” he says. “This is my job. I don’t make much but I get by.”

The sun is now ready to set. The crowd is starting to die down. Jackson is starting to tire from his long day at work. He tries hard to hide exhausted body. His newly wedded wife, Yeye Jackson, emerges from the crowd from her day at work. Jackson is dancing his last songs of the day. Yeye gracefully dances her own style. She’s dancing the same way she did when they first met a few years ago in that same location during one of his shows.

“I just pointed to her ,” Jackson says, “ and said ‘hey you, come here.’ And the rest is history.”

As Jackson takes off his tap shoes and trades them for his street shoes, he keeps his iPod playing. Yeye, in high heels, continues to dance. Jackson and the crowd cheer her on. Jackson puts on his button up shirt, loosely ties a tie around his neck and puts on a dress coat. After choosing a slow pop ballad, he struts away from his sound system, toward Yeye. He embraces Yeye with his right arm around her waist, left arm up, holder her hand in almost a ballroom dance position. Still in the mood of the music playing, Edward and Yeye dance passionately in a slow blues like tempo, moving side to side, and back and forth. They dance for a few songs like no one else is there. The day is over. Jackson packs up his small sound system and puts them in his small folding cart. He and his wife, leave his stage, just a bit quieter than before.
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*Bound Together bookstore

It’s Thursday, around 7 p.m., and most of the shops on Haight Street are making their final sales before they close for the night. Travelers, tourists and locals wander the streets in search of a good place to sit down, relax, and eat after a good day of walking and shopping. Meanwhile, Bound Together Anarchist Bookstore stays open for another half hour before the old cash register closes. The front door is open, copies of a selected essay or book excerpt written by Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn, on anarchism, capitalism, or animal liberation, are stacked at the front desk for people to read as they walk in. It’s now 7:30, and the register closes. Volunteers start setting up for the store’s weekly discussion group, and people keep filing in, one by one, grabbing this week’s essay or excerpt. Finally, it’s 8 p.m. and the door is ready to close. Anywhere from four to 15 people show up. It is now time to discuss this week’s reading.

Bound Together is truly a bookstore like no other. Though its collection of books and other literary material cover all types of genres, from fiction to science to history and politics, there’s one thing that sets this bookstore from others in the area: Anarchism. Bound Together Collective Bookstore, is the only anarchist bookstore in the Bay Area and one the few remaining in the country. Its history has kept them strong, their books and philosophies keep customers coming back for more, and their projects keep the public who are not part of their collective interested.

Bound Together Bookstore opened in 1976 by a group of San Francisco neighbors who believed in the anarchist philosophy and wanted to promote their ideas through literature. Many bookstores, then, did not carry much anarchist literature, if any. The group decided to create a section dedicated to the anarchist philosophies and literature.

“In the late 70s when I got involved a lot of political books that you saw in the shelves were Maoist, Marxist. They just sat there,” says Tom Alder, one of the volunteers and owners. “At that time it was hard to go into a place and find a good selection of anarchist literature.”

They opened their first Anarchist bookstore on Hayes Street. The collective moved the store to their current location seven years later, in 1983, after their first building had been sold. Since then, Bound Together has been on 1369 Haight Street, next to the DeAvila School.

The store is under the management of a group of anarchists who call themselves the Bound Together Anarchist Collective. Unlike other bookstores, independent or corporate, all Bound Together employees are volunteers who dedicate a few hours each week and do not get paid. The volunteers of Bound Together come from different age groups, backgrounds and careers but all share their passion for anarchism, says Slava Osowska. Most of the volunteers hold other full time jobs, including a full time high school student, a Charles Schwab employee, a bike messenger, coffee shop employees, and retired bookstore clerks. To keep the store up and running, they still have to sell their books and other material, but their philosophies of no government still lay in the way the store is operated and the way the live their own lives.

“The anarchist idea is not lost,” says Jean Pauline. At 87 years old, she is Bound Together’s oldest volunteer.

Bound Together is known nationally and internationally. Tourists from all over the world visiting San Francisco try to Bound Together a stop on their list. It is mentioned in California and Bay Area tour guides and tour books in many different languages. Visitors unaware of the store are sometimes shocked and surprised, says Osowska.

The shelves on the wall of the 900 square-foot store are filled with books on pirates and buccaneers, women’s studies, books and essays by renowned anarchist Noam Chomsky, and political scientist Howard Zinn, and copies of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. On certain occasions, the two window displays in the front is decorated with books and literature dealing with current issues, most recently literature on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Shirts, posters on anarchist book fairs, leaders, and events from around the world, and an East Germany flag, decorate the rest of the walls where the shelves end.

Outside the bookstore, on the wall, adjacent to the store, lies a mural of American anarchists, including Emma Goldman, Brad Will, and the Parsons. Beneath the anarchist portrait is a quote painted in white and red “History remembers 2 kinds of people: those who murder and those who fight back.” The mural was painted by artist Susan Greene for the purpose of remembering American anarchists of the past.

When people step into Bound Together they expect to find books on anarchism, but many times people also look for mainstream literature and ask for other books of interests including cookbooks, art books, magazines and history books, says Alder.

People often ask for The Anarchist Cookbook, which Bound Together does not sell but has one copy for people to look at. When people ask why the store doesn’t carry the book the collective members says: it’s a really bad example of anarchism.

They carry a book with a similar name, called An Anarchist Cookbook, published by CrimethInc., which has a collection of less radical and less dangers weapons and ideas, such as pie throwing, and stenciling.

“People question our literature, but generally the questions are very friendly,” says Craig Hudson, 16, the store’s youngest volunteer.

The store is also known for carrying controversial literature, including the Northern American Man Boy Love Association magazine, as well as books on atheism and agnosticism. Such literature created hatred and criticism toward the store by several religious and other radical groups, says Alder.

“People who are really intense American nationalists come in and see all their institutions insulted and get angry,” says Alder.

Over the years the store has received several complaints from people who don’t believe in their philosophy and have threatened to boycott the store if certain literature, such as the NAMBLA magazine and gay erotica, was not removed from the premises.

“Rather than ask why we carry it [NAMBLA] or read the mission statement of it we get condemned,” says Jamie, another volunteer at the store.

People disagreeing with their collection of literature or their views, sometimes go in and question the collective’s motives. Some angry or confused people will even go into the store and “rant” against the collective and store.

“Sometimes people come in here who want to argue a point,” says volunteer Joey Paxman. “They’ll come in and ask for a specific book they know we do not carry, and then rant on why anarchism would never work and how it’s not practical.”

Hatred toward Bound Together turned into violence when a group of radical skinheads attempted to burn the store during a Without Borders conference in 1989, says Alder. The group of skinheads managed to pour gasoline through the door of the store and burned part of it before Alder hurried from the back of the store to put it out.

The threats and complaints have not disheartened the collective nor the frequent visitors and tourists.

Despite the controversial philosophies of the collective and some their controversial literature and propaganda, the collective and store are well liked.

“I totally disagree with practically everything they believe in form the premise to the execution but as people they are perfectly nice people,” says Bruce Lyall, owner of Recycled Records, next door neighbor to Bound Together.

Bound Together has become a popular attraction in the Haight, tourists from all over as well as locals pay a visit to the hidden store.

“We get a lot of European tourist and crusty punk types,” says Osowska. “About half the people are tourist, about a third identifies themselves as anarchists and the rest are people who are just curious.”

According to the collective and some customers, the curiosity sparks around a person’s own interest in anarchy, or his or her connection to the anarchy beliefs.

“There are many kinds of anarchism,” says Olmo, a tourist from New York who was visiting with his friend Erika, “I don’t want to have a master or a god or someone to tell me what to do. And that’s why I believe and came into the store.”

Other tourists and customers are glad the store exists simply for the reason of having a different view of reality in the neighborhood.

“It’s appealing that it’s explicitly anarchist,” frequent customer Finn Finneran says. “This is the only [anarchist] bookstore I’m aware of. It’s a stop in point.”

Bound Together and the associated collective have several public events throughout the year. Once in a while, they show movies on a small projector screen on their back wall. When the antique cash register closes for the night each Thursday, members of the collective gather in the bookstore along with anyone who wishes to join them for the evening, to read and discuss anarchist literature and other topics including capitalism, and elections. The collective also participates in other discussions with other anarchist groups such as the Alexander Berkman Social Club.

“One of the roles of the discussion group is to preserve and bring out this neglected knowledge to the attention of others,” says Andrej Grubacic, an author and volunteer.

Each year, in March, the collective puts on the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair in Golden Gate Park at the County Fair building. The two-day fair attracts thousands of people. In addition to promoting their ideas, their bookstore, and their books, the collective gets authors and panelists to speak at the fair. Another project that the Bound Together collectives started is the Prisoners Literature Project. The project is aimed at sending books to prisoners around the country, for free. Like the rest of Bound Together’s events and projects, the Prisoner Literature Project is volunteer-run.

The Bound Together collective will continue to put on events, educate others on anarchy, and provide a piece of history to San Francisco. It is a place to read and talk about global issues. Working together as a collective allows them to run the store collectively, and not worry about formal management. The store has worked that way for years and it has been successful.

“It seems that when you put anarchist principles in your life every day it just seems to work,” says Jamie.

Bound Together will continue to educate others on anarchism and keep the philosophies of anarchism alive as a collective and through their literature.

“I think it’s really important to support these types of institutions,” says Finneran.

Though anarchism is not practiced much in the United States, Bound Together volunteers feel it is important to keep the traditions alive.

“I know anarchism is a reality in this world,” says Pauline. “It’s not very big but it exists.”

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