{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/s17sn02h1z/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["James \"Rusty\" Smith, 2/21/2023"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eJames \"Rusty\" Smith is the singer of Venice rooted punk band No Reaction and a lifetime resident of Oakwood [at the time of this interview].\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["7/28/22 at 10:00 AM"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_031"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["James \"Rusty\" Smith (personal name)","African American punk rock musicians (topical term)","Punk rock music (topical term)","Cities and towns, etc.--Venice [Los Angeles] (geographic)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eJames \"Rusty\" Smith is the singer of Venice rooted punk band No Reaction and a lifetime resident of Oakwood [at the time of this interview].\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/210/735/small/Rusty_James.jpg?1713984681","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Rusty_James__VHM_SHORT-subtitled-.mp4"]},"duration":477.76896,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/210/735/small/Rusty_James.jpg?1713984681","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/210/735/original/Rusty_James__VHM_SHORT-subtitled-.mp4?1740166181","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":477.76896,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735/transcript/67656","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rusty James Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735/transcript/67656/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:05:02 - 00:00:07:21\nWow.   My name is Rusty James,\n\n00:00:07:21 - 00:00:10:23\nbirth date of July 31st, 1965.\n\n00:00:10:23 - 00:00:13:07\nI was born right here,  in Venice,  California.\n\n00:00:13:07 - 00:00:17:10\nWell, actually,\rmy mom had to drive to General Hospital...\n\n00:00:17:10 - 00:00:19:12\nthe summer of the Watts Riots,\n\n00:00:19:12 - 00:00:20:21\n1965\n\n00:00:20:21 - 00:00:24:00\n   My family has basically been here\rsince Abbott Kinney,\n\n00:00:24:00 - 00:00:26:16\n\rmy mother and father are both from Venice.\n\n00:00:26:16 - 00:00:27:18\nUh, well, not from Venice,\n\n00:00:27:18 - 00:00:28:19\nthey met in Venice.\n\n00:00:28:19 - 00:00:30:17\nMy father is from Texas.\n\n00:00:30:17 - 00:00:33:20\nGrandparents on my mother's side are Mississippi...\n\n00:00:33:20 - 00:00:38:15\nand what happened was... my sister...\n\n00:00:38:15 - 00:00:41:06\neldest sister of 16 of us, whole bunch of us, 11 of us,\n\n00:00:41:06 - 00:00:42:21\nshe's 16 years older than me.\n\n00:00:42:21 - 00:00:46:01\n\rHer family are related to The Tabors,\n\n00:00:46:01 - 00:00:49:05\nThe Tabors, that chauffeured for Abbott Kinney.\n\n00:00:49:05 - 00:00:52:21\nThen in the forties, um...\n\n00:00:52:21 - 00:00:56:00\nthe rest of the family came\rbecause I guess they needed blacks\n\n00:00:56:00 - 00:01:00:16\nto fill the canals\rthat didn't work or something.\n\n00:01:00:16 - 00:01:02:03\nI just, I know that\n\n00:01:02:03 - 00:01:07:06\none of the properties we got is through the war\n\n00:01:07:06 - 00:01:11:09\nwhen the, uh, the Japanese people had to leave\n\n00:01:11:09 - 00:01:16:06\nand they made them all go over there\ron Lincoln and um, Venice Boulevard, to that\n\n00:01:16:06 - 00:01:20:12\ncar wash, used to be\rwhere they housed all the Japanese people.\n\n00:01:20:12 - 00:01:22:23\nWe got two of the properties\n\n00:01:22:23 - 00:01:24:05\n‘cause they made all them leave.\n\n00:01:24:05 - 00:01:26:07\nIt was 1944 or 45,\n\n00:01:26:07 - 00:01:28:20\nso my grandfather bought two properties.\r\n\n00:01:28:20 - 00:01:34:21\nMy mother ... was first\rblack Homecoming Queen of Santa Monica High School, 1962.\n\n00:01:34:21 - 00:01:37:16\nShe grew up in Venice,\rhad to walk to school every day\n\n00:01:37:16 - 00:01:40:17\nup at Fourth Street hill\rbecause of the “boycotts”,  remember boycotts,\n\n00:01:40:17 - 00:01:43:03\n1964, Martin Luther King, ‘62?  \n\n00:01:43:03 - 00:01:45:18\n  They voted her, uh...\n\n00:01:45:18 - 00:01:47:10\nHomecoming Queen, 1962....\n\n00:01:47:10 - 00:01:52:08\nLouise Beard, is my mother, 1962, Louise Beard,  \rfirst black Homecoming Queen.\n\n00:01:52:08 - 00:01:55:08\n\rWell, yeah, we're here and we've been here since,\n\n00:01:55:08 - 00:01:57:18\nI'll say strongly since the forties.\n\n00:01:57:18 - 00:02:02:04\nI grew up in the Oakwood community, it's uh...\n\n00:02:02:04 - 00:02:05:02\n...west of Lincoln, east of Abbott Kinney,\n\n00:02:05:02 - 00:02:07:21\n Rose, California.\n\n00:02:07:21 - 00:02:10:23\nWell, all as a child, I like I said, I did what, you know, \n\n00:02:10:23 - 00:02:13:20\nmost of the other black kids in my community did.\n\n00:02:13:20 - 00:02:19:10\nI wanted to play football, uh,\n\n00:02:19:10 - 00:02:20:06\nbarbecues,\n\n00:02:20:06 - 00:02:22:10\nfamily was very important...\n\n00:02:22:10 - 00:02:24:23\nI have, you know, there's 11 of us,\n\n00:02:24:23 - 00:02:27:10\nmy grandmother had 11 kids also.\n\n00:02:27:10 - 00:02:31:04\nSo she had 44 grandkids right there.\n\n00:02:31:04 - 00:02:31:23\non Brooks.l   Family,\n\n00:02:31:23 - 00:02:34:12\nfamily, family is all I did.\n\n00:02:34:12 - 00:02:37:23\nOne day, my mother decided to send me\rout of the Venice School District...\n\n00:02:37:23 - 00:02:42:17\nI starting going to school in\rSanta Monica and I heard different music\n\n00:02:42:17 - 00:02:44:20\nand my life changed.\n\n00:02:44:20 - 00:02:48:06\nUh, growing up in Venice was basically\n\n00:02:48:06 - 00:02:49:23\nwe did what our elders did.\n\n00:02:49:23 - 00:02:53:05\nIt was, you know, a black community,\n\n00:02:53:05 - 00:02:56:12\nsome Chicanos, and then, you know,\n\n00:02:56:12 - 00:02:58:17\npoor white folks.\n\n00:02:58:17 - 00:03:00:15\nBut I mean, I don't know how to explain it.\n\n00:03:00:15 - 00:03:03:14\nIt was, uh, lovely, beautiful, space.\n\n00:03:03:14 - 00:03:07:14\nI mean, the neighbors could discipline you or feed you.\n\n00:03:07:14 - 00:03:11:01\nThey would watch you or, you know,\rlet your parents know what you did\n\n00:03:11:01 - 00:03:11:16\nright or wrong.\n\n00:03:11:16 - 00:03:14:14\nIt was pretty much a tight knit\n\n00:03:14:14 - 00:03:18:04\ncommunity, family oriented at one time.\n\n00:03:18:04 - 00:03:22:04\nI went to Wall Grove in the sixties\rand if anybody knows Venice\n\n00:03:22:04 - 00:03:24:03\nIt was Wall Grove,\rI was only black kid there\n\n00:03:24:03 - 00:03:26:11\nand I got my ass kicked every day.\n\n00:03:26:11 - 00:03:29:10\nThen I had to go home and fight because I did\n\n00:03:29:10 - 00:03:33:00\nhomework and the blacks were like,\r“well you do  white boy shit”,\n\n00:03:33:00 - 00:03:34:11\n‘cause I'm doing my homework,\n\n00:03:34:11 - 00:03:35:12\nand so I'm alone.\n\n00:03:35:12 - 00:03:38:16\nLike, enough's enough ‘cause I will fight,\n\n00:03:38:16 - 00:03:41:11\nand so, that's when I started\rgoing to school in Santa Monica\n\n00:03:41:11 - 00:03:46:19\nI met nice folks, and yeah, start going to\n\n00:03:46:19 - 00:03:51:10\nmusic events, skateboarding and um...\n\n00:03:51:10 - 00:03:55:13\na lot more social happy events\rthan what I was used to.\n\n00:03:55:13 - 00:03:57:18\nSo my life was in a different direction.\r\n\n00:03:57:18 - 00:03:59:11\n \rThen I heard punk rock.\n\n00:03:59:11 - 00:04:01:16\nSo when I started the band No Reaction.\r \n\n00:04:01:16 - 00:04:04:21\n \rI write the lyrics and I sing.\n\n00:04:04:21 - 00:04:06:20\nI,  I am the voice of the people.\n\n00:04:06:20 - 00:04:09:18\nThe music scene...\n\n00:04:09:18 - 00:04:13:07\nkept me from going in the gang banging direction.\n\n00:04:13:07 - 00:04:16:18\nBut if anybody knows Venice, I believe that\n\n00:04:16:18 - 00:04:22:12\nthe punk rock scene\rwas just as much detrimental to my health\n\n00:04:22:12 - 00:04:24:16\nand my well-being.\n\n00:04:24:16 - 00:04:25:14\nIt was dangerous.\n\n00:04:25:14 - 00:04:28:12\nPunk rock was dangerous in the eighties.\rI mean, if anybody knows L.A.\n\n00:04:28:12 - 00:04:31:14\nin the eighties,\reverything was dangerous in the eighties.\n\n00:04:31:14 - 00:04:36:06\nBut uh, yeah, it saved me from um...\rgoing in the direction of gang banging\n\n00:04:36:06 - 00:04:37:11\n‘cause I have Venice in my heart\n\n00:04:37:11 - 00:04:40:06\nand I probably would just follow behind family and done,\n\n00:04:40:06 - 00:04:44:04\nyou know, what my brothers or sisters and fathers do.\n\n00:04:44:04 - 00:04:45:06\nBut yeah, I love,\n\n00:04:45:06 - 00:04:48:11\nI love music,\rI love performing, I love feeling it,\n\n00:04:48:11 - 00:04:52:03\nI love hearing the cheers, the claps,\n\n00:04:52:03 - 00:04:54:11\nthe boos,\n\n00:04:54:11 - 00:04:57:13\nand punk\rrock in the eighties it was very violent,\n\n00:04:57:13 - 00:05:02:05\nvery fast,\rand I was very violent and very fast.\n\n00:05:02:05 - 00:05:03:17\nI was young and basically\n\n00:05:03:17 - 00:05:08:03\nI took a leap of faith and\n\n00:05:08:03 - 00:05:10:07\nI didn't realize\rwhat I was doing at the time.\n\n00:05:10:07 - 00:05:15:11\nI just knew, I hadn’t been in places\rthat I had to get out alive before.\n\n00:05:15:11 - 00:05:16:23\nand I come here to have fun\n\n00:05:16:23 - 00:05:21:03\nand if you try me, then...\n\n00:05:21:03 - 00:05:22:21\nyeah.\n\n00:05:22:21 - 00:05:24:20\nSo I just went with the flow.\n\n00:05:24:20 - 00:05:26:19\nMy very first punk rock show\n\n00:05:26:19 - 00:05:28:20\nI did think they were jumping me.\n\n00:05:28:20 - 00:05:30:14\nI saw a band,\n\n00:05:30:14 - 00:05:33:17\nit was at the Whiskey called Fear.\n\n00:05:33:17 - 00:05:36:09\nThey were playing one of their blues songs,\n\n00:05:36:09 - 00:05:41:18\nIt opens with a blues and I was standing\rthere in the middle of the pit, \n\n00:05:41:18 - 00:05:43:12\namazed, mohawks, and everybody there\n\n00:05:43:12 - 00:05:46:23\ncoming up and the guys said, “one, two,\rthree, four, one, two, three, four.\n\n00:05:46:23 - 00:05:50:19\nAnd I got crack, boom, socked in the jaw.\n\n00:05:50:19 - 00:05:52:02\nSomebody stepped on my foot,\n\n00:05:52:02 - 00:05:54:01\nsomebody pushed me, I fell down\n\n00:05:54:01 - 00:05:55:11\nsomebody stepped on my hand,\n\n00:05:55:11 - 00:05:58:05\nI yelled, ahhh, somebody kicked me in the mouth\n\n00:05:58:05 - 00:06:00:10\nand right then and there, I knew I had to get up.\n\n00:06:00:10 - 00:06:05:04\nWhen I got up, the music had stopped\rand people went to their alternate corners\n\n00:06:05:04 - 00:06:07:09\nand I was like, whoa, shit, they weren't jumping me\n\n00:06:07:09 - 00:06:08:12\nthis is how we do it.\n\n00:06:08:12 - 00:06:12:02\nAt the time, I didn't know what I was doing\n\n00:06:12:02 - 00:06:14:11\nI just knew I was having fun.\n\n00:06:14:11 - 00:06:17:11\nI come from a family of brothers and sisters\n\n00:06:17:11 - 00:06:21:14\nthat are shooting at the police\rand they're telling me I'm crazy.\n\n00:06:21:14 - 00:06:23:09\nI come home with purple hair\n\n00:06:23:09 - 00:06:26:17\nno eyebrows, I’m crazy.  So... right.\n\n00:06:26:17 - 00:06:30:03\nSo I was like, it kind of like fucks with you.\n\n00:06:30:03 - 00:06:31:10\nYou start thinking you're crazy.\n\n00:06:31:10 - 00:06:33:21\nbut I fell in love with punk rock music from that day.\n\n00:06:33:21 - 00:06:37:05\nThe you know, I came from violence\n\n00:06:37:05 - 00:06:38:17\nand into the\n\n00:06:38:17 - 00:06:41:11\nviolence and the violence just engulfed me.\n\n00:06:41:11 - 00:06:43:14\nNo,  I love life, man.  I love being free,\n\n00:06:43:14 - 00:06:44:16\nI ain't trying to hurt nobody.\n\n00:06:44:16 - 00:06:47:05\nIt ain't trying to hurt me, you know...\n\n00:06:47:05 - 00:06:49:04\nAnd you're staying in Venice ...\n\n00:06:49:04 - 00:06:51:17\nFor, yeah, well, I mean, where else you go?\n\n00:06:51:17 - 00:06:55:02\nI wouldn't be able to do, like, in the valley\n\n00:06:55:02 - 00:06:58:08\nwhat would I do? I take a bike ride at Venice Beach\n\n00:06:58:08 - 00:07:00:05\nevery morning.\n\n00:07:00:05 - 00:07:03:11\nI walk by the, by the ocean, man...\n\n00:07:03:11 - 00:07:05:02\nyeah, I see this guy sometimes.\n\n00:07:05:02 - 00:07:07:09\nYeah, this is this morning, right?   I live in Venice.\n\n00:07:07:09 - 00:07:10:03\nYou can't get this in the Valley and L.A., South Central.\n\n00:07:10:03 - 00:07:11:19\nWanna take a lap?  Right...\n\n00:07:11:19 - 00:07:15:04\nI went to the beach, smoked my herb and ...\n\n00:07:15:04 - 00:07:16:13\nYour connection to the ocean...\n\n00:07:16:13 - 00:07:20:01\nRight.  You can actually fulfill a dream,\n\n00:07:20:01 - 00:07:22:01\nyou know, wake up, do what you want...\n\n00:07:22:01 - 00:07:25:05\nand, uh, positive changes,  I see opportunity.\n\n00:07:25:05 - 00:07:30:09\nI see opportunity, that's what I really embrace about it \rand try to uphold...\n\n00:07:30:09 - 00:07:31:12\nStill to this day, to this day?   \n\n00:07:31:12 - 00:07:33:05\n  To this day, every day.  \n\n00:07:33:05 - 00:07:35:20\n  Venice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108838/file/210735#t=0.0,474.96533"}]}]}]}