Intro 

Gill: 00:00 – 00:18

And so if you want to survive, people that are listening, you have got to be as weird as you possibly can, because otherwise you’re going to be swallowed up by the sameness. So what I learned at San Francisco State that was useful to me was to be passionately engaged in something that I cared about and wanted to know more about.

Interview

Latz: 00:25 – 00:26

Can you introduce yourself? 

Gill: 00:26 – 00:33

Yes. My name is David Gill. I taught writing and literature at San Francisco State here for 17 years. 

Latz: 00:33 – 00:38

Perfect. And then, can you tell me a little bit about how you got connected with SFSU?

Gill: 00:39 – 01:10

I transferred here as an undergrad student in, are you ready for this, 1999. And the journalism department, as a matter of fact. At the time, I was writing for a music news website and I’d taken a few journalism classes at [the] University of Hawaii. And when I transferred here, they wanted me to take a test like write a story from some facts to show that I was at the certain level that I could, I didn’t have to be remedial.

01:10 – 01:41

They gave me that test and they said I didn’t do well enough. And so, I was looking at going to more journalism classes again. So I transferred to creative writing, and I got a creative writing degree, which is, frankly, a whole lot easier and comes on the same piece of paper. And then I got a master’s degree in literature and a certificate to teach composition, and I finished that in 2005, and I was teaching here from 2006 until the fall of last year. It was my last semester. 

Latz: 01:41 – 1:45

And what are you doing now with your time? 

Gill: 01:46 – 01:49

I’m a reality investigator. 

Latz: 01:49 – 01:51

And can you tell us a little more about that?

Gill: 01:51 – 02:22

That’s not self-explanatory? Well, it’s a long, complicated story, but essentially I work for a tech bro who has some eccentric views, and I’m the head of something called the Point Reyes Reality Investigation Center, which is a independent nonprofit dedicated to studying the elusive nature of consciousness and also in preserving some of the weirdness of West Marin County.

Latz: 02:22 – 02:23

Nice. 

Gill: 02:22 – 02:41

So it’s a pretty plum gig. My interest as both a scholar and a fan was in the science-fiction writer named Philip K. Dick. He lived in the Bay Area, and I’ve spent the last 20 years studying his life and work, interviewing people that knew him and his wives, and I have a blog called “The Total Dick-Head.”

02:42 – 02:59

He lived in Point Reyes for a while, and I was writing about his life there and trying to find this building where he wrote. My boss, who happens to live in Point Reyes, was interested in Philip K Dick’s life there. I think you could probably just Google that. [He] somehow found my blog, been commenting on it.

03:00 – 03:10

And, about a year and a half later, here we are, creating some pretty interesting, a job for myself. I don’t know what else to say. Everybody I explain it to, they ask me to explain it again, usually. 

Latz: 03:10 – 03:11

Yeah. 

Gill: 03:11 – 03:12

And the second time doesn’t help. 

Latz: 03:12 – 03:16

Yeah. Did you grow up in Point Reyes? What’s your connection?

Gill: 03:16 – 03:41

No, I’ve been traveling up there since 2007. Philip K. Dick’s wife, third wife was named Anne and she lived up there. I wrote the introduction to her memoir, and I was pretty good friends with her. And I got introduced to the community at that point. And so, ever since, I’ve been going up sporadically. In the last year I’ve got an office now above the [Old] Western Saloon, which is a 100-year-old saloon, in the main strip of town.

03:42 – 03:50

I go up there about two or three times a week, and I’m just meeting all these wacky community people. And it’s fascinating and amazing. 

Latz: 03:50 – 03:55

Yeah, that sounds like a really interesting job. Like you’re always pretty busy. 

Gill: 03:54 – 03:55

Yeah. 

03:55 – 04:09

Well, I took my son to my job, and, at the end of about the four hours that he was there, he goes, “is this all you do?” [Which] was essentially, like, standing around and talking to people. I said, “no, it’s a little bit more,” but that’s basically it. 

04:10 – 04:38

Yeah. And I’m here with the message, and my message is, that only the freaks are going to survive. I was thinking about this on my drive over. I live in Oakland, and so, for 17 years, I’ve made this commute to come and teach. Every morning, I would always be lost in thought, thinking it, because anything that I found interesting on that morning drive, I could usually then bring in front of a classroom that was timely or philosophical or whatever.

04:38 – 04:55

So it’s just a kind of a habit to be thinking in that space and just, even though I haven’t done this commute in a year, the minute I was back on and I was thinking again and what I thought, and what I wanted to say here, is that the only the freaks will survive, because just look around us, everything is getting more and more standardized.

04:55 – 05:19

Everything, right? I mean, just think about the red plastic cup, right? And the way in which that now is like a cup for so many people. Whereas throughout human history, cups were this incredible variety and almost everyone wore the handiwork that made it and the artistry that was involved in it. And what you get now are these homogenizing products, and they’re coming in a tidal wave. 

5:20 – 6:04

And what they’re coming to do is they’re coming to make you, a cog, a standard thing, because it’s much more efficient to deal with you as a client or a customer if you are just a single square rather than an individual person that has unique needs. So, we’re being smashed into this sameness, and now you’re adding into that AI, which is basically based on standardizing thought on creating the lowest common denominator of thought.

05:45 – 06:04

And so, if you want to survive, people that are listening, you have got to be as weird as you possibly can, because otherwise you’re going to be swallowed up by this sameness. And so, what I learned at San Francisco State that was useful to me was to be passionately engaged in something that I cared about and wanted to know more about. 

06:04 – 06:32

And that led me to a job, ultimately, that is paying me much more now than I made as a teacher here. And I didn’t see that in a lot of students. I saw students here coming, in essence, to become part of the machine, to make themselves a square, so they fit into a box. And I’m here to tell you that will not work in the future. The only thing that will work is to be as different as you possibly can be. Sorry. Rant over. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Latz: 06:32 – 06:40

Yeah, absolutely. Speaking again about your time at SF state, you were known for a lot of things. You were really well-liked by students. 

Gill: 06:40 – 06:40

Yes. 

Latz: 06:41 – 06:45

You were known for blasting “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols for your classes. 

Gill: 06:45 – 07:01

No, no, that was just a protest. The very end of my tenure, to try to get people to pay attention to the incredible cuts that were being made, at the same time that the administration was being treated like royalty and being paid salaries that are ungodly, unconscionable and disgusting.

Latz: 07:02 – 07:10 

Absolutely. Yeah. What kind of made you more appealing? Like, why were students so drawn to you? 

Gill: 07:10 – 07:23

Well, because I’m a great guy. Honestly, because I was being real with them. I thought of myself, I still think of myself as a student here because, I mean, I can remember walking these halls as an undergrad that felt like they didn’t know anything.

07:23 – 07:45

I’m a high school dropout. Everybody was always telling me I wasn’t working up to my full potential. And this is the place where I learned to at least work to some modicum of my potential. I saw that in students. I saw that a lot of them didn’t feel at home. They didn’t feel comfortable here.

07:46 – 08:04

They were intimidated. And so my job as an English teacher was to make them not intimidated, not intimidated by me. And then, as it is sort of by proxy, not intimidated by the English language. It’s very scary, especially if it’s not your native tongue, but the fact that you can use it for yourself, that you can use it to do what you want it to do, you can make it your own.

08:04 – 08:13

You don’t have to be the standardized thing where everybody’s writing the same. That I think appealed to people. And also I’m funny. I have a good sense of humor and that goes a long way. 

Latz: 08:14 – 08:41

So more on your activism, kind of going back to that. You were also the creator of the posters that were in protest of the budget cuts, with the missing persons lecture posters and the Lynn Mahoney salary posters. So, are you still engaged, at all, in any type of activism for teachers or has anyone picked up that torch for you? 

Gill: 08:43 – 09:26

I’m cringing and in agony because the answer to that is no, I’m not involved. I closed this door behind me. San Francisco State basically broke my heart. I mean, I gave my everything to teaching here. It became my identity. And after 17 years, they didn’t even care. They just wanted to get rid of me. They just wanted me out of the picture. And it hurts too bad. And unfortunately, this university can suck it. It’s basically my attitude.

09:27 – 09:42

I’m sorry. To the students who are listening, all I can tell you is go to a community college for your first two years, and don’t come here until you can find a major that you can make into doing something that you love, that not everybody else wants to do. And then it’s a good investment in. Otherwise, don’t set foot on the campus and don’t let him convince you otherwise. 

9:47 – 10:15

Because that’s the other thing that really drove me crazy was that they were pushing people to come here at the very same time that they were treating them so poorly. To change the admission rate from 65% to 95%, to bring in more students, because of the declining enrollment, without supporting those students. To put these new students who just a few months before weren’t deemed adequately prepared to put them in debt for an education that a few months ago we would have agreed they weren’t ready for.

10:16 – 10:42

That’s unethical. That’s stupid, shortsighted and apathetic and, ultimately, blind to the plight of the students who are here. So, having said that, I don’t have time to come back and help people when the relationship is that thoroughly debased. I’m following it in the sense that I get the emails. It’s not going well.

Latz: 10:43 – 10:43

Yeah. 

Gill: 10:43 – 11:00

And, I came here. The first thing I saw when I came onto campus today was the huge new buildings down at the corner where the new freshman dorm stuff is. And I know the plight of Mary Hall and that we needed those buildings. And it doesn’t impact the way that teachers get paid.

11:00 – 11:12

It comes from separate money. But man, talk about a stab in the heart. Like, what are you building that for? And the only answer I can come up with is they’re building it so that they have a place where they can make everybody the same. 

Latz: 11:12 – 11:19

As the university, kind of going back to what you’re saying, you’re still receiving kind of emails. Are you receiving emails from the CFA or who?

Gill: 11:19 – 11:20

Yeah. 

Latz: 11:21 – 11: 39

So, as you continue to see more downsizing and cuts and they proposed an increase in labor load, recently, that the CFA is fighting. What advice would you give to lecturers or faculty that might be facing a similar position you’re in? 

Gill: 11:40 – 11:52

Look for another job. But that’s semi-serious. If you intend to stay here, I don’t know how you make this administration understand that they can’t cut their way to success.

11:53 – 12:14

And I mean, it’s so obvious, though. You have declining enrollment. At the same time, San Jose State has a burgeoning enrollment. The reputation of this school is garbage. You know, just among the people who are coming here and the fact that they know that teachers have been cut, that programs have been cut, that there aren’t any offering any dance classes. That makes people not want to come here.

12:15 – 12:40

And so, this idea that somehow they can cut their way to prosperity is going to end in a disaster, as far as I can tell. And if you can figure out some way to bypass that, if we can figure out some way to turn this stupid enterprise, well it’s not a stupid enterprise, this enterprise of enlightening young people and giving them the tools to make a quality life for themselves.

12:40 – 13:02

We have to restructure the basic way that this works. And so if you’re still involved, I would encourage you to be thinking about how we shift the paradigm completely. And I just want to say one other thing. Ten, maybe 15 years ago, we put in place English 104 and 105, and those were, we couldn’t call them remedial classes, and they’re really not.

13:03 – 13:27

They’re a stretch course where 114 is offered over two semesters to students who aren’t prepared. I saw the labor that went into creating those classes. It took the head of the English department every bit of political capital she had to make it happen. And within the span of half the semester, they decimated it. They tore apart all those cohorts and they nixed it.

13:27 – 13:54

And when we were facing cuts, earlier, while 104 and 105 were still in and functioning. We asked this head of the English department, as these cuts were happening, we said, “what do we do?” And she said very earnestly, “we fight it within the system. You stay within the system and you fight it.” And what I’ve learned is that was wrong advice, that based on what happened to that English 104, 105 department, that class, you cannot stay in the system and fight it.

13:54 – 14:03

You just get rolled over. So we have to figure out how to step outside the system to fight it and to make people see that it needs to fundamentally change.

Latz: 14:04 – 14:26

I’d say those are pretty much all the questions I had. I guess my last one would be, I know you’re talking about your drive over, how you would think about things and how this was really something you felt really passionate about. You dedicated a large portion of your life to. What would you say you miss most about SF State?

Gill: 14:26 – 15:00

That’s easy. The students. The people. I mean, the students put us in this set of roles that people, the young people. And to see people, at the widening of the eyes,  that life is a lot bigger. Nothing more wonderful than seeing some queer kid from Barstow, who’s had to live their whole life hiding who they are, walk through the hallways of San Francisco State and feel welcome enough to have this blooming and become who they really are.

15:00 – 15:26

And those are the most beautiful flowers. Being a witness to that transformation was the most meaningful thing in my life. And what I do now is kind of a pale imitation of that, but it pays better. And they frankly treat me a little better, I hope. We’re only one year in.

Latz: 15:28 – 15:30

All right. Well, I think those are all the questions I had for you. 

Gill: 15:31 – 15:32

Fantastic work. 

Outro

Latz: 15:32 – 15:34

All right. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

Gill: 15:34 – 15:36

Thank you for having that. I appreciate it.