Rob Lee: Music Welcome to the Truth In His Art, your source of conversations connecting arts, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to welcome a first-time guest, a civic leader and urban strategist who serves as the director of Baltimore's newly established Mayor's Office of Arts, Culture, and Entertainment, where he champions community empowerment through the arts. Please welcome to the program, Lindsay Jackson III. Welcome to the podcast.
Lindsay Jackson: Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Thank you for your flexibility.
Rob Lee: Absolutely. I appreciate you making time, and I'm glad we were able to. It's one of the things where, when I pull that lever, it's like reaching out to someone, doing the whole networking thing, and then able to have the chat, and then it's like, the person's cool, and then it's like, we can have a conversation. I'm looking forward to it. I've got the LJ LJ III on here, so I'm looking forward to this.
Lindsay Jackson: I love it. I'm glad to see you here.
Rob Lee: For the listeners who are undepth unfamiliar with you, and they probably know you in a sort of different capacity. You said this is your first foray into a podcast interview. Could you introduce yourself, talk a bit about your work, its connection to Baltimore cultural identity, things of that nature. Give us the intro. Great.
Lindsay Jackson: My name is Linzy Jackson. I currently serve as the director of the mayor's office of arts, culture, and entertainment. I know a lot of people are like, what is that? It is a new office that the mayor just announced that his state of city addressed.
I'm sure we'll talk more about that office going out on the cover. Me as a person, born and raised in Baltimore, East Baltimore, the Bidderwood, Patterson Park area for those of you that's familiar, went to Baltimore City Public School, went to Copham State University, and then studied at Morgan for a city and regional planning. I have a very unique background as it relates to work. I started in the mayor's office as a youth worker, a summer youth worker back in 2008.
I kind of joke, but I never left. I've been around government. Straight out of high school, my first and only job has been with the city.
My heart is basically in this. I've been in the mayor's office. I spent time at the Department of Public Works. I spent time in Baltimore City Recreation Park, and then now back here in the mayor's office.
Rob Lee: Thank you. And definitely hearing that, hearing the civil leader, public servant, all of that sort of stuff that's there. And I like that you were touching on sort of your hearts in it. You're in it. This is a thing. And early on when I was doing this podcast, folks were asking, what are you doing?
What is this about? I was like, I'm a concerned citizen. I was the way you said that. And the short-lived was definitely in that vein, and that's still what's baked into it. And it kind of inserts itself, that mentality, into a lot of what I do, obviously, for what your career is about. So, in thinking about your career path, how does sort of having this background in urban strategy and the sort of civic component and being around the mayor's office a better part of 20 years, right? How does that connect to what you're moving into now? What does that through line look like?
Lindsay Jackson: Yeah, so I would say, and I also say this about the mayor, because we both came around city government at the same time. For someone who's been around for the time that we've been around, you kind of know the ends and outs, right? Like you know the movers, the shakers, both in city hall and both outside of city hall. And because of that, you're kind of known as the person that kind of get things done. Throughout my time, which I didn't really just bring up, but I started doing the youth summer block parties.
And a lot of people know back, our parents' age, it was like operation tax. And when the mayor's office would pull up and then it's a huge block party for the community, that's what I started doing. Block parties all over the city. And back then our focus was like young people and trying to figure out how we can get young people involved in positive activity and also like expose them to the things that the city has to offer, which could have been recreation and parks, could have been school systems, just a ton of resources at that time. I was able to then grow from just doing block parties, I think just, but doing block parties to doing the African-American Heart especially, to doing Afrin, to being able to coordinate services for the running festival and the cycling classes and all of these large scale events. So basically any large scale event that come into the city, some shape form a fashion across my desk. And I'm the person that connected dots with the city team, your solid waste, your police, your fire, anything city, whoever the organizer is. And I think that's the segue into what we're trying to do here.
It's for a while, things have been kind of like parceled out. If you wanted to do something art, then you had to go here. If you wanted to do something music, you had to go there. Our immediate mission is kind of like to bridge that gap and be that direct line of communication between the creative community and the government and making sure that the government is not making things hard.
If you want to do a community event, it will have some early coming, paint some cars underneath the 83. It's my job to say, hey, not you can't do that, but to let you know how you can do it. And then how you can do it at a fast pace.
Like the regular six to eight months for a year turnaround, we can pull this off in a month. So I think like just being around, growing up and serving in different roles that I've served in different offices, it kind of just brought me to where I am, where my job is to be the connector.
Rob Lee: And thank you. It's sort of this example. I think it's a comedian, Kyle Canane, he would talk about my goal in life is not to be a goalie. I'm not preventing anybody from getting the things they want to get done.
And that's what I'm hearing. And it's like you're kind of touching on it where when there's parameters, when there's barriers, when there's just sort of things that are siloed, it's really hard. It can kind of like crush sort of that zeal. You want to make sure as let's say a creative person as a person with an interest in doing something, whether it be a mural, whether it be putting on an event, whatever, when there's things that are kind of like challenging to get around or feels like it's red tape. It's just like, can this be a more direct line?
And how does that direct line? And you touched on it, you know, if you have an idea like right now, and it's like, hey, you've got a solid pitch and it's something that can be done in three months. We don't need six to eight months of like, so you have to go to this person. This person is probably out of the office for a bit. Did you send an email? Did you send another email? And it kind of stems things like from happening, really cool things from happening. Yeah, correct. Correct. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: And I think, you know, the part that's just to add on to what you stated, you know, me or you as an external partner, I call everyone partners, you don't really know one like what the process is, right? And then if you call someone, you might get Lindsay today, or you might get Angie next to next week, you know, it's like you're starting the process over. So when Moe's is doing, you know, hey, we're going to walk you through that process. And we're going to do it at a quick pace. Love that.
Rob Lee: So going, going back a little bit, like, if they're an experience, because we're, we're in the same age for, I think, and is there an experience that comes out when you think about like just growing up in Baltimore, where you're looking at sort of how different things work here, how like sort of art or events, something around like arts and culture that really sticks out from your youth growing up here. And like that comes to mind. I think immediately of like parades for some reason, like the West Siders, what have you, like, oh, yeah, this is, this is pretty tight. Or, you know, I grew up a lot of your projects. I was, I don't know what job we're doing, but I was out there. And, you know, and then sort of being on the East side of Baltimore and having relatives over West and being able to kind of just see those sort of dynamics. So it's always curious as to growing up, what was culturally and artistically speaking, the Baltimore that you recall. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: So it's a little bit everything, right? Cause my mom, my mom was very big on just events period. Like she loved music and she loved anything that was free that she could have me attend or get into. I remember like going to the MLK day parade, you know, and sitting out there at least 30 minutes before it started. And if I don't remember anything else, I know that once I saw the street sleepers in the fight, I mean, in the police cars at the end, that the parade was over, right?
I remember like what I went to, to AFRAM back then. And I didn't know where I was at. I just knew it was nice. And I knew it was music.
I don't even recall who was singing most of those times, but it was just like the experience and what it felt like to be in environments like that. And that's kind of like what I kind of hold on to today is like those type of memories. So I know small, but very, very huge things. Like I just told you my childhood as an MLK parade, a city or goal. So now I know, like, regardless at the end of the parade, it will be street sleepers and it will be police lights, you know. And now I know at AFRAM, you know, we're going to make it feel like a family reunion because that's how it felt when I was growing up. So all the little things that my mom, and I told her this actually yesterday when I was taking her home, I was like, we were talking about AFRAM because Patty Rebell is going to be there. And she was like, you brought my favorite artist of all time. Oh, and I was telling her, I was like, my, you know, it's crazy how when you get older, you start to like think about all of these small things or they just pop up randomly. And I had to think of for that yesterday. It's very cool.
Rob Lee: That's dope. And we think about these things. It's experiential. And it's, I know that I've seen enough conversations around it in this podcast, this notion of like third spaces and opportunities for folks to get together. And you mentioned earlier, sort of one of the things you remember growing out was sort of like, there's a thing, whether it be music, whether it be food, whatever, but it's sort of like this free thing.
And it's something that's culturally significant, something that sticks in it's an experience. Um, I'll share one other thing in this regard that makes me think, um, like, yeah, I went to forget what year it was. This is maybe close to 20 years ago, which feels really weird to say. But, um, I just remember going to probably a little bit longer, you know, but I remember going to Artscape one year and Ray Charles performed. And I'd never seen like Ray Charles like, yo, and it was one of those things. And I was just like, we have this here. You know, it's kind of that stuff. And I think when things sort of shift, you, you, you want, you want what, you want these things that are going to leave lasting memories, especially when there's family and it's friends, you kind of remember these things. And that's a memory that feels as crystal clear now as it was more than two decades ago at this point. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. I was, um, out at Artscape last weekend and someone brought up the Ray Charles. I think they told me it was the first Artscape where they have Ray Charles. And then actually, um, last week I had my budget here, which is my first budget here.
And I was so nervous. One of the things that councilman Gray said was, you know, and I have to look into this, but Baltimore is one of the only cities where you have an Artscape, which is the largest arts free festival in the United States. That ad frame, which is the largest African American heritage festival in the United States.
And now you have like a charm live, which is being used as a beacon and somewhat revitalized all downtown district. At all of these festivals, we're bringing top tier talent, right? Like a Patty LaBelle or a Fantasia. Like I can't tell you who's going to be at Charm. But you know, like we're bringing top tier talent and what councilman Gray said was it's all free and accessible.
Yeah. And I think that's one thing that, that, you know, we're on to, um, so much so that other cities are calling to kind of figure out how we do what we do. Um, and I think, you know, for us to do it the way that we do it, um, not high level and the fact that other people are starting to hear about it. Um, we could really change the dynamic of how these types of cities, festivals and cities that are done across the United States. Yeah.
Rob Lee: And it's good to be in that, that spot. Like I think, you know, Baltimore is really rich in arts and culture. That's at times not having that sort of reputation, but like folks that come here, folks that are here know that and recognize that. So having this office created, you know, it's new. It's a reimagining. It's a rethinking of things, I think, but we'd like to get sort of, you know, maybe some, some background on those maybe early conversations around developing sort of this office, um, that, that you're, you're headed up and you're leading because, you know, we've, we've had sort of different things over the last, at least for the life of, of this podcast of five years that I've been doing it, sort of this, we have all of this creative talent here. And it's sort of again, that, that silo thing, but having something that feels integrated and having someone who's a, a mover, anise shaker, I think you're both. I think you're a mover, anise shaker. Um, at the, at the helm, that's, um, that's a win, but I just want to get sort of the little background and that area from you. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: So, um, this conversation, you know, believe it or not, um, I thought it was going to be a hard one, but it really wasn't because when I asked for time to meet with the mayor about it, he was actually going to meet with me about the same thing.
I bought it. But, um, the way how I approach it, I'm going to tell you guys, like the real, um, the way I approached it was before my eight, um, you had, um, my partner, uh, Tanya Miller Hall, I think she was a guest here a couple of times, uh, the same year, by the, to the mayor. So you had Tanya Miller Hall, um, focusing on arts and culture by herself for the whole city. Um, then you had me focusing on, um, events, um, everything from baseball, football, CSG to the running festivals and everything else that I named throughout this. Um, I was also focusing on nightlife, which is everything in your entertainment district. Um, I was the liaison between all of your late night restaurants and your party and club promoters. If you needed to get something done, I was the person that you would call for all three of those things.
Right. Um, so when I started it, I'm like, Hey, I need help. Cause we're getting into busy season. It's a lot happening when the mayor, um, when I started to bring this up to the mayor after, uh, drafting the decision memo, um, he was like, look, what you and Tanya is doing is great. I want to give you guys all of the support that you need. Um, we need to coordinate all of these things.
Right. Right now, if it's a certain thing's just falling on time and she's just one person and that the three other things is just falling on you and you're just one person. Um, so I want to make sure that everyone kind of knows that they have an office that's designated for their needs. Um, that's here in the listening and then I help them get through all of the red tape that we're about to start, you know, tearing down. Um, this is just, you know, the first step to what Moe is really going to do. Like right now we're just focusing on standing up for office.
Um, and kind of, you know, making sure no one's getting kind of tied up in a way. But we're about to get into looking at policies and procedures that was put in place 20, 30 years ago. There's no longer that fact, you know, like those things, we just can't work.
He said it's all the time. The mayor, we can't operate the way we did. Then we have to start looking towards the future. Um, and it's like simple things from, you know, event hours or having an entertainment district hour, uh, extension to things like, and I'm talking about this in the next, the last two weeks, like looking at this hooker lounge. You know, saying, and then trying to figure out how can we make it easier for our, our artists to actually help transform a lot of spaces around the city. If you look at what we did for Artscape, we transformed that space with the lighting.
We transformed it with the numerals. Um, and we're looking to do that all over the city. But how can we make sure that, you know, after Lindsey's gone, after Tanya's gone, that the next set of Lindsey's and Tanya's or whoever it comes, you know, the foundation is set so that the artist has a straight path, not just to the office, but to actually doing the work without us. Um, and I think that's like one of the things that I pointed out, um, earlier on before we got to this point was like, Hey, you know, if you know Lindsey, you good.
Yeah. You don't know Lindsey. Then it's like, wow, you know, I no longer want to do the cool thing that I wanted to do because the city done put me through all of these loops, right? Um, so I want to make sure that you don't have to know Lindsey to do the cool things that you want to do without city putting you through loops.
Rob Lee: And that's, and that's, and that's a big thing. The, you know, trying to avoid those sort of loops. Um, and I think one of the things with sort of this season, the ethos around this season was prioritizing secondary interviews, follow-up interviews with guests that I've had on, and I was really aiming and looking at attrition. Like, can I get some motion? Like, how does this look? And, you know, sometimes folks will speak on like, Hey, I can't be in the place because I can't really see my vision through. And some, some of that is based in the aforementioned red tape. And other instances are just, you know, it's, it's, it's a hard sort of life at times.
It's not the easiest thing, especially now with some of the other changes that are even above both our pay grades, right? Um, that are more national as far as like grants and funding and so on, but it's already a challenging life to be a creative, to, to be an artist. So on a more local level, being able to have some access to be able to learn it and having that sort of transparency, but also just the red tape isn't as many layers as it's less. And it seems like that's really big and a really important thought in terms of sort of short term goals at a base. We need to tighten this piece up. And that's what it sounds like that you're really advocating and looking forward to. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: Yeah. Agreed.
Rob Lee: And in terms of sort of like, and this is really broadly speaking, because, you know, I know that there are certain things under the embargo, if you will, but in terms of like longer term goals, like I had imagined that there is like research that goes into some of the events and some of the opportunities we want to have our own cultural thing right here, some of those hallmark events, but also looking at perhaps sister cities, brother cities of like, what did they do here? How can we Baltimore rise it? How can we add some obey on top of it? Yeah. How does that, what does that look like? It may be longer term goals.
Lindsay Jackson: So it's crazy. Probably AFRAM started to get a lot of attention probably about two or three years ago, right here. You know, like right before when AFRAM was at the stadium, it was like, that's pinnacle. You know, we've been kind of building it back up to that. And in doing so, though, just a shameless drug here. Moving AFRAM to one of the largest municipal parks in the country has actually like, show people that you can use park spaces and public spaces to do things like this.
So that's a whole nother conversation for another day. I told you I'm a city planner by trade. So I can talk about planning practices a lot. But to what, to the question that you asked, we've been having a lot of different cities, sister cities, mainly Philly, Cleveland and DC, come to Baltimore a lot to see what we're doing here, to kind of take back as well as we have cities like Chicago and New York, that or other cities that we bring here to kind of look at what we're doing and give us a constructive feedback.
And then I go out to other cities to look at what they're doing. But I know like one thing that was pretty big in the paper for Artscape. I know Artscape means has been all over the place.
But one of the things that we tried was to geofit the footprint for 911 calls. That was actually something that I saw when I was at South by Southwest. And I realized that, you know, while doing a tour with those organizers in the arts and culture, office of entertainment and office, you know, it's linked up. Which is, you know, I noticed that it was like a block that had all of their ambles, you know, all of their triage facilities, like everything was in a block. And I was like, Hey, you know, what's going on here? Like it's a separate event.
Like is it a conference in town? It was like, No, we geofit. And South by Southwest footprint.
And then if someone was to call 911 within this geofit, we're not pulling from the resources outside because everything is inside. In the Artscape, you know, we saw that what South by Southwest is not too long ago, this year, sometime earlier. And we were able to do the same thing for Artscape. And we didn't get that many calls because the weather was great. Everyone was having a great time. But the calls that we did get, we were able to use the actual resources that was allocated for the festival. So I grow out and as well as people come and then we have like external partners, if not cities. So like live nations, they hear a couple of times to look at what we do.
We currently have broccoli city come ahead to look at some things that we're doing as well. So it's like sharing. The one thing that I've noticed, because I'm always tell people like I'm not a creative, but I'm kind of a creator is the whole creative community. And the whole government like type community is like so close knit. Like everyone wants to see you when.
So you can literally send like a blind email to someone. Hey, I'm coming to your city for vacation. But I noticed you had that, you know, can I kind of tag along?
And I was like, sure, let me know where to pick you up. So it was, what's that? Something like that. Pick me up. Squirrel. Yeah.
We'll pick you up. So yeah, but I guess the short answer to your question is we do have a group chat about the city. And we're always paying ideas off of each other as well as checking on each other. You know, something was to happen, you know, at a major event in Philly, I would be the person that would reach out to my counterpart and say, Hey, do you need anything?
And then the mayor will reach out to the mayor. So it's a very close knit community. And we're learning from each other and where some of us pitch crazy ideas to kind of see if somebody else would do it first to see if it works. So it's a big thing.
Rob Lee: That's great. When I started this podcast in 2019, I did a bunch of interviews here, hundreds probably at that point. And not that it was getting stale or dry or anything along those lines, but I started just looking at the analytics and I had a lot of downloads coming from Texas for some reason, right?
And I just typed in, what's the creative city in Texas? And often came up. So I went there and did a series of interviews over the course of a week for this sort of sub series called Truth in the Sartre Beyond. And the first stop of that was like, how do I structure this? It's like being able to cook and that goes back to the red tape thing. And I like to stay independent a lot of times and what I'm doing because it's like, I have a vision. I know what the vision is and I know it has merit, but trying to pitch it to someone who may not even get it, it's like, that's not the point. So in reaching out, I reached out to a few internal partners who had those connections to other cities, to Austin, and they was able to help me get some funding to fund the Room and Borgans there for a week. And from there, at least I had some semblance of funding to be able to move things along. And then when I went down there, the original goal was to do maybe three to four interviews. I did seven while I was down there.
The first interview I did was with a docent from Visit Austin. And I get off the plane, I have my $7 latte. It's expensive in Austin for content. And I go over there, I drink it. I drink it slow.
I need to savor every dollar that this is cost. And I remember it headed over there to this dude at the interview with the docent, doing named Harrison Eprite, that the interview in his office, and was getting all of these different gems about sort of the history of Austin through his lens as a, you know, I think he at the time was like in his late 60s, late 60s, gay black man, getting that sort of context and getting sort of the history of Austin from his perspective. And, you know, naturally, and well, unexpectedly, rather, I have a sort of an interest of folks that I wanted to talk to and what my interest, where my interests lie, but I was able to kind of create narratively and through the storytelling, this arc of interviews with folks that were all people of color and getting context about what is Austin really like. And sort of we have the whole thing of keep Austin weird. And then we have the sort of thing, you have all of these different elements and really being able to build out a really solid body of work over a week and seeing some similarities and obviously some differences.
So that was sort of a test for me, right? In terms of the whole visiting the sister city and the conversations that are there. And in that, two of the guests that I've interviewed have since moved up here to Baltimore. So that's wild in itself, right? And, you know, I've also gone to Philly, did a year up there back, not a year.
That sounds crazy. Like I did a year in Philly. I wasn't in prison. I was just up there doing interviews. There for to Philly for like every two weeks or about a year and did another extension of this truth and this art beyond.
And I was booking interviews. And again, that sort of, you know, folks that are from Baltimore that lived in Philly and folks that were like moving back and all of that stuff. So it was a connection and again, the, you know, connection to the podcast and the creative community out there and same thing in New Orleans. So in my own way, doing a version of what that is and seeing those similarities and Austin stuck out a little bit, but definitely Philly and definitely New Orleans had those similarities that I love about here embedded in their culture there. So I definitely see that overlap specifically when you were talking about Philly. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: Yeah. I'm, I'm actually going to New Orleans. Yeah. But as a festival. So I'm going to leave the day after 4th of July. I'm just going to date and I'm hooking up with my counterpart in New Orleans. But the reason why I know a lot of people, you referenced in Austin, right? But I think the big thing with Austin that I really admire is the fact of how that whole city was able to, to just gather around the creative community. Like Austin supports its visual artists as well as, you know, it's, it's, it's festivals and it's different types of entertainment, like no other city that I've seen so far.
So much so that, you know, and I tell my counterpart there, I'm like, you should be leading with this. Like Austin is there, they're bringing in, I think they say like over $22 million in just like the creative community. A lot of that goes back to the artists. I think if they were to like really put together like a how to do type book, it will sell out. Because they do it in a crazy way. Um, yeah, that's the thing about Austin.
Rob Lee: So, so in that, that's sort of a good entree into this question I have about, like, you know, one of the things that we think of a lot is sort of the impact, the ROI, things of that nature. This is successful for that. If X is successful, if it did, why? What does success look like for some of these initiatives that are forthcoming?
I granted, I really get it and I want to stress that it's very super early. But what, what are those sort of like thoughts around the impact of some of these potential initiatives and what does success look like in Everdard?
Lindsay Jackson: If, if I had to, that's a tough question. Actually, yeah, especially because like I'm doing my own, um, evaluation. Um, but, but I would say, um, just based off of your question, it kind of gave me a whole another idea of my answer. Um, and we need a state of the creative, like a state of what that looks like, what's all in it, you know how we have like the state of downtown, the state of the city, you know, the state of the visit Baltimore does with state of, you know, I think for us, we need to come up with or be able to formulate a report that kind of touches on all of this. And I'll take it a step further to say that we should have some type of green book. Um, whereas like if I'm coming to the city and I know that the city is not going to support me unless I'm hiring local artists, the city should be able to give me a book.
Right. Some type of database of those artists that I can kind of look into. Um, so I would say like those two things and those are two things that I haven't spoken to anyone about yet. And I will probably do this before this goes. But the state of the creative community, um, like some type of report as well as a green book where we can have all of this stuff. And I know it is some like, um, the black art district. I'm good friends with a Kenneth at the black artist district.
That actually, we brought them into AFRAM to actually curate the whole roots and family stage and they're pulling nothing but local artists to do that stage for both days. Um, and we're being able to like pay people that work. Right. Another thing that I'm real like title. Um, but they have a database for black artists where everyone kind of upload a profile and it's there. And then I'll just, you know, maybe figure out how we can duplicate that or just amplify that. I would say duplicate that to have our own, you know, artist database or green book.
Rob Lee: That makes sense. And I think it, it democratizes it in a way. And, but also it does, um, it kind of helps with some of the support you touched on earlier, um, that, you know, some of those initial conversations, it's just like, it's only one Tony.
It's only one you and there's a thousand things. So having something that serves as a shorthand of the, it's built out by people who are there to live in it. They're living it. They're breathing it. They know like this person is still making work.
This person is still local. It's sort of like sort of up to date. And I was the one of the things that, um, you know, in my, I think two years ago, I was asked to build out, like, can you put together an archive of the folks that you've interviewed, um, just doing it. And I, I was like, this makes sense. This makes sense to capture this and use a moment in time and really thinking about indexing and things of that nature.
So it's always in my head, right? Of like, who do I know that does really cool work? It's like, you put it on paper. You should put it on paper.
Actually, you should put it in a database. So having that effort and making that, because you never know what can be happening, especially if you're, you know, doing, doing so much moving and shaking to make all of these other things sort of like happen. And I think until one is behind the scenes, and I didn't really understand this too well until I was involved with like Artscape last year, right? That these are all of the things that go into a production. And it's just like, we're, we're so, I think a lot of times we're looking at the end result.
We're not looking at how the movie gets made. It was like, ah, that's easy. I was trash. It's just like, yeah, but you don't know all of the things that went into it. And I think having sort of that behind the scenes and what those considerations look like overall for, for whatever it might be, it helps.
And what I've heard from you thus far in this conversation, it's this thing around like transparency, this thing around like acknowledging some of the preexisting like challenges that were there of like, you said it a moment ago, make sure people are getting what they should be getting, you know, getting what they should be worth or what they're asking for. And it's, it's a win there. It's a really big win. It's really important. And there is important intersections between the civic component. You've touched that a bit and sort of the, the cultural and creative stuff. We don't want a monoculture. We don't want something that is not reflective of what's here. You know, like there's a black city, you know, and we like our music. We like, all right, we want things that are reflective of the people that are here. And you and I both being from here, we, we know it's like, yeah, that's, that's legit. That's legitimately Baltimore or like, oh, that's not as Baltimore as I thought it was.
Lindsay Jackson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can, you can definitely point it out when you want to laugh. You'd be like, ah, good try there. Good try.
Rob Lee: We're doing something new. We're trying something new. It was like, ah, and, um, and I think, and I think that's important because we're in these, these periods where when, and it's not purely the financial component, but again, I go back to movies. I think about that, you know, and I know that you're into pop culture, you're, you're a movie guy as well. And you think about some of these movies that are deemed unsuccessful, like the big blockbusters, you're like, this has 300 million dollar budget and it didn't break a billion. So it's unsuccessful. It's like, it was just under a billion though.
Yeah, not successful. We gotta move on. And it's like, how do we, from, from this scale, how do we look at something that is good and significant culturally, but it may not be in the first year. Going to turn that three X profit, that four X profit that people seem to be enamored with, because when it comes to things around people, it is risky. Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: I think he definitely hit it on there. I think, you know, one of the big things about art, um, that I've learned throughout my time in this role, which, you know, short time, but also with just being around the community is that a lot of people, um, is just looking for that opportunity or that space or that experience to kind of get reintroduced to it, right? And, uh, we, we use, um, just cause my background is heavy on, um, you know, festivals here, you know, just knowing that we use music for a lot of things. And, you know, I talked about the block parties earlier, you know, bringing the block parties in a community that had a high number of young people or had other issues, we knew we could tailor the resources to that. And we could get way more bang for our buck just at a three hour block party.
Yeah. We would spend the money on PSAs or town halls or, you know, you know, anything else. Um, so, you know, for me, it's always been about like meeting everyone where they are, like, where can I meet you? Um, and then trying to figure out, you know, how we both can kind of get what we're trying to get out of it. Um, and with art, um, I'm talking more, you know, just broadly, you know, it's like we can use the Patty LaBelle or the fan stage to get people to, to, to come to an event and then at the same time, going to the War Memorial building where you probably never stepped foot in and see Scout where it's over 20 local artists there that sold out that weekend. Right.
Or, you know, we can, we can use it to take you to the film event where we done double their yearly numbers and today, you know, so it was like, how can you kind of use what people like to provide these new experiences and like reintroduce people to things? Um, yeah.
Rob Lee: That's good. That's, that's important. And I like that you touched on some of the numbers that are, that are there. Or you hear a couple of days is like kind of increasing that foot traffic. That's a big win.
That's, that's huge. And I think in a vein where, you know, I follow these different accounts of places that I go and you see like stuff is closing because they don't get that foot traffic and I've done different events, um, to have like foot traffic. And it's not that the events are bad or what have you.
It's just, you know, I don't think they're bad and I'm on my own. I'm gasping myself up, but you know, it is one of those things where it's a challenge to get someone to come out to a thing. So to get someone to come out to a thing and then it's culturally rich, it's done well and they're able to kind of see what we have to offer here culturally as a community, as a artistic community.
That's a win. And it touches so many things that kind of going back to that thing, I was, I was kind of presenting this notion of it's very culturally relevant. It's culturally significant. It may not be that sort of biggest win on the ROI, but it's beneficial to that artistic community and making them sales. You know, they're making, getting those impressions, getting that traffic, having more people aware of it.
And it's good for those venues that folks are going out. I've never been there to the war where I've never been there to the peel. Well, you know about it now. And the peel has some significance here historically for, for Baltimore and for the sort of history around arts. So having folks, you know, I go, you'll have people in Baltimore, they'll go from East to West sometimes. Let them go out. Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: And you know, I tell people all the time, I'm blessed to be in the business. Just leaning back on festivals is that, you know, a lot of my counterparts and friends that I, you know, deal with in social spaces, they do it like as a business or they do it like, you know, for living.
And for me, you know, working for this administration and for the city, you know, we're not in anything that we do, right? To make money, right? Or to, to, to, to kind of meet some type of quota at the end of the year. The things that we do is for the community, it's for the city. It's to bring business here, bring people here, spending dollars, you know, it's, it's like for those type things. But, you know, I want to make sure whatever artists I can, you know, as long as we have the space, you're going to, I can promise that you can get some stage time in front of a hundred thousand people, you know, to showcase your talent.
I can make sure that, you know, I have almost every food truck in the city at a festival that's getting 300,000 people, you know, just to make sure that everyone's getting a little piece of the pie. And my vendors fee is nowhere near anybody else's business fee because we're not in it, you know, to make money. Um, and that's like the biggest thing I think for me, that's kind of feeling is that, you know, I'm not doing this for me.
The mayor is not doing this for him. The team that's behind it, that no one really knows who they are, you know, who day job is to be a fire marshal, but you don't know that he's spending half of his day, you know, with me helping to plan a festival, you know, you know, or the solid waste guy that over all of your, like, landfills is actually putting together how the festival can be zero waste, you know, like, it's just like all of these pieces that people don't see, um, that come together for the good of, like pouring back into our artists, into our city, um, into whatever the mission is. Um, so that's like the biggest part that I'm proud of.
Rob Lee: That's so important and really big. And, um, I appreciate that. It's a, it's hard work, but it's a worthy effort. And I got one last real question that I'll ask you that I got like four rat to fire questions. And the last real one is oriented around like advice for someone who's you know, as I was joking about earlier, sort of the concerned citizen, the mover and the shaker who wants to be involved in that sort of doing right by the city and also through maybe this lens around like arts and culture, festivals, music entertainment, all of that different stuff.
And, um, you know, what would you say in, in like sort of that sound bite sort of way, what piece of advice would you impart upon someone who's, I want to take that path that you're taking? Two things.
Lindsay Jackson: I would say one thing would be for anyone to be consistent. Um, you know, it's, it's hard, especially when you're doing like good things to kind of be consistent. Um, make sure that you're, you know, one meeting the expectations of a lot of the things that you said, but as well, like a lot of people in Baltimore, Baltimore is a big, you know, like personal city, I guess I would say, right? So that one moment where they can say, or someone can say, uh, this is why I don't trust government. Like you got to start all over again to win them back. Right. So I think one thing that we've been able to do is to build trust. And now we're at the point where, you know, we're still doing what we do, but we got to be consistent with that and making sure that, you know, we're not losing the same people that we just won over. Um, and then the other thing I would say, because public, uh, I tell people, and you brought up a concern citizen. Um, I love when I get those emails that, you know, and the, I'm just a concerned citizen, um, because I've been telling people from the beginning, like, I'm not a politician.
I'm a public servant. Right. So like service has to be first, especially in this role.
I can't talk about any other role or, you know, any, any other job that you may have or want to get into, but if you want to get into a public service, then service has to be like your number one thing. Um, because it's not everything can go wrong.
Rob Lee: It can go around services that, uh, that H one keyword. So thank you. Um, so here's the thing, you know, the way you answered that, you earned another rapid fire question. So I got five of them now for you. You're good though. You're good. So let's shift gears into the rapid fire. And as I always, as I always say, you don't want to overthink these. I'm looking for those quick off the cuff answers. Um, you know, there's, there's softballs.
They're fine. Um, one of the things you touched on earlier, I recall is this thing of like everyone's a partner. Everyone's a partner. That's, that's important to you. Partnerships is important to you. What is a key characteristic of a strong fulfilling partnership? Share goals.
Lindsay Jackson: You know, um, I just actually today I was on a conversation that probably could have been 10 minutes, but it ended up being over an hour. Um, and I had to end it with like, what is your angle?
Like we both have the same angle. Right. You want to have a successful event. I want you to have a successful alignment.
How do we get there? Right. So, um, and I always level set that, especially when I know it's going to be like a tough conversation, like what I'll share goals. Like what is, what is our angle? Um, and I think that's what you need for a good partnership. Um, cause you have to have at least something that you guys, you know, agree upon or you reaching towards together to be successful. Good.
Rob Lee: Good. I agree. Um, so this is the one I kind of lobby to you before we got started. Cause I got a sense of you. You might, you might like a, an anime here. There's, I thought I'd ask, what was the first anime you really got into?
Lindsay Jackson: I don't know. Oh, so, um, all right. Crazy question. I need for you to this, I need for you to define anime, right? You define that for me. And then I'll tell you my answer. This is like a, like this from right here. You know, it causes a lot of problems.
Rob Lee: I'm just, I'm not even here for that. This is not even an anime podcast, but I'll say, you know, the, the one that I got into as a lot of us, probably of this age group was probably Dragon Ball Z. Nope. Well, wasn't for you then.
Lindsay Jackson: Never watched it. I would probably say I would, I would never watch Dragon Ball. I was a Pokemon guy. Okay. Pokemon is good. No, but, you know, that's why I think they animate. Cause I mean, cause I could probably also take it back to something that I was just singing this song a couple of weeks ago, really like a TV show though, but Arthur, big Arthur guy. Um, and then I went from Arthur to Pokemon and then I left Pokemon. I don't know where I went after that, but my favorite movies of all time is anything bad boys. So I'm like a bad boys one, two, three. I'm like a blue street guy with Martin Lawrence and anything Iron Man and Batman.
Rob Lee: Okay. So, so we got the anime one. We got, we got, we got Pokemon there. You know, that's, that's, that's in that frame. That's in that frame. Um, I had the, I had the books, got the cards. We good.
We good. Now see if I wanted to be a real troll, I'm like, yeah, so what's your favorite legendary Pokemon? You open up Pandora's box right there. I'm not going to ask that.
Lindsay Jackson: Well, hey, my favorite one. I'm trying to think of his name. You got me with that one. I was a big car man. It was, it was, it was, it was, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause it was, it was, it was a dinosaur. Right. He's like the dragon. Dang. It's always like it was, it was him. There was like one stuff above, but other than one stuff above the, that was me. Yeah.
Rob Lee: You, you're having to charge off cause Charmander was the smaller one.
Lindsay Jackson: They did. Charmander. They did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I also loved all of the water work. I don't know why, but I was like a water guy.
Rob Lee: Big man blastos. I like it. Um, so this is another one I got for you. Um, you were, you were touching on the movies or have you. And so I must ask, uh, what's the movie that you've probably rewatched the most?
Like the movie you've seen the most. Sand Boys 2. That one is, that's an interesting one. That one is, it has like a whole, it's not movies have like third acts. It's like that movie has a fourth act when they get to Cuba. I was like, I thought the movie was, oh, right.
The sisters, you got to get there. And I was like, oh man, they do that shot. But it's just like, man, that's just got real. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Lindsay Jackson: Sand Boys 2. They probably just overtaken Batman. That's great. Um, there's the last two.
Rob Lee: In one word, describe the creative energy in Baltimore right now. How would you describe it? Renaissance.
Lindsay Jackson: Okay. I'm going off of the marriage buzzword, uh, Renaissance. Cause I really believe it actually. I think we're at that point, um, in Baltimore's history where, you know, 50 years from now, they'll be saying they got it right. Okay. Good. Good.
Rob Lee: But, so here's the last one, uh, with the, the, the city, uh, planning Pacific mindset, you know, this one is like asking about, almost asking about like, so yeah, it was your favorite kid. This is this question. What is your favorite landmark here in the city? Wow. I know, right? City Hall. Uh, company, man. I like it.
Lindsay Jackson: Well, I'm a city hall nerd. Um, no matter what city I go through, I have to call about time to go to this city hall. Um, so I love city hall. I think one of my, I'm not even going to ask this question, but one of the greatest, I guess, accomplishments or events that I've ever done was Chum lives, um, because Chum lives, we were able to, to put that stage in front of city hall and have that city hall backdrop as well as just to reintroduce that space, um, to a lot of people. And I was, you know, earlier we touched on, you know, using festival event and music to kind of bring people places and provide resources for that first time we were able to have like a job, a job fair in 200 holiday, which if you say 200 holiday, like that's where I put my water bill at.
I don't know what else is in there. Um, we were had a job fair there. Then we opened up one memorial for something else. So it's like, you know, I just feel like, you know, city hall, any city hall is like my favorite landmark, but Baltimore is, is definitely fire right after uh, Billy, right before Billy's right after Baltimore city hall.
Rob Lee: Like I said, company man, but also I, I like both of that. I recently had a chance to get a tour of, um, our city hall here in Baltimore and getting some of the history and all, and it was, it was, it was very dope. And, um, and passing because of where my recording space at and Philly is I passed you know, through city hall and all and that area. I was like, yeah, this is, so that's, that's, that's good. That's good. Um, so that's kind of it for the pod. That's it for the interviews and for the conversation, the questions.
Um, so there's two things we want to do as we close out here. I want to thank you for coming on and spending some time with me. It's, um, truly been a treat. It's been insightful. We've covered a lot of ground and, um, and two, I want to invite and encourage you to shamelessly plug anything you want to cover in these final moments, um, where folks can check you out website, any of that stuff. Um, the floor is yours. Great.
Lindsay Jackson: So I mean, I want to thank you for having me here. Um, this has definitely been a pleasure. Um, my first pod ever. Um, so this is definitely, uh, a great opportunity. Um, I guess if I had to plug any of my where to catch me, um, on Instagram, it's sir.lj3. Um, I'm always on Twitter a lot. Um, I don't usually plug my Twitter, um, because I'm talking a lot about the Nick's and some other stuff, but, uh, my Twitter is policy, LJ three. And those are my own two social. So I'm not on Facebook or anything. Um, but Instagram sir. I LJ three and then Twitter is policy.
Rob Lee: And there you have it folks. I want to again, thank Lindsay Jackson, the third from the newly established mayor's office of arts, culture and entertainment here in Baltimore. Coming on to the podcast and for Lindsay, I am Rob Lee saying that there's art, culture and community in and around your neck of the woods. You just have to look for it.
