What We Talk About When We Talk About Alt-Weeklies

When Brontez Purnell first moved from Alabama to Oakland in 2002, at age 19, his new residence provided a great crash course in Bay Area culture. A warehouse helmed by the punk band Erase Errata, it was packed with nearly two dozen other wayward youth.

But he didn’t feel he’d really arrived here until a couple of years later, when he got his first mention in a local newspaper: a San Francisco Bay Guardian write-up following a debauched club night in the city.

“We were outside some donut place, everybody in the scene was there, and I just remember getting naked and dancing in the middle of Polk Street,” says Purnell, now a critically acclaimed writer, musician, and performance artist. The next day, the Bay Guardian’s Marke Bieschke wrote about it. “I think he said ‘Illegal-minded skate punk Brontez Purnell was there, dancing naked,’” recalls Purnell with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in a real place! There’s nightlife, there’s gossip columns!’”

Of course, there was also a society column in the San Francisco Chronicle. But if you wanted to read a first-person scene report about naked dancing on Polk Street, you’d have to pick up the Bay Guardian. A free weekly published from 1966 to 2014, the paper focused on underground art, culture, and the LGBTQ community. It covered local politics with a progressive point of view, published adventurous narrative features, and its writers weren’t afraid to express opinions. In the space of a few pages, you could read a sex column, a profile of a local hip-hop crew, and the latest installment in a three-decade war with PG&E. 

It was, in other words, a quintessential alternative weekly.