The Haight’s Lloyd Francis sees your hope

My friend was at Fallujah. America 2025 won’t be as bad as that

Lloyd Francis, Jr is one of my most important comrades. He’s been an epic mentor in two categories: journalism and psychedelics. My interest in edginess might reach back to Richard Pryor and Jim Morrison, but my Jamaican brother Lloyd is also on the timeline.

Our October Q&A focuses primarily on his coverage of the Iraq War’s second Fallujah battle, as well as the battle’s aftermath, on account of the battle’s anniversary. Francis’ involvement is intense stuff, with eventual drug addiction and therapy and a buffalo hunt.

And a sweat lodge.

Before he was documenting war, Lloyd Francis was shooting news all over The States. I recall a front-page NY Times credit for one of the rawest LA riots pictures as well as a Barry Bonds’ record- homer shot. Lloyd did his best, most Pulitzer-nominated work at The San Jose Mercury News.

Photo by Lloyd Francis, Jr.

Like me, Francis started pro journalism in the Bee chain. He worked full time in Fresno’s photo department while I was a student sports correspondent. The Oakland native was more experienced. He quickly became my psychedelics guide. We’d eventually chill with rootsmen out around Canarsie and laugh our asses off in Harlem, high on Ecstasy.

The novel Rum to Roots was penned my friend. And it wasn’t too long ago that you could catch him playing piano at Cafe International.

I hope this conversation provides some semblance of what we’re like together. My man is an American original. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

LFJ: We have similar issues all up and down the coast. I mean, they could make this one state, put Gavin Newsom in charge, maybe everything will get better. [Laughter] But that's not the point. The point is that we share so many issues on a certain level. And not just issues that are internal, but issues with our relationship with the United States government, in that if the United States government comes in here and wipes out the workforce for agriculture? A lot of people don't know this, but tech is not our number-one industry.

DA: Our guest this week is the Honorable Mayor of Haight Street, Lloyd Francis. Welcome.

LFJ: Thank you. I'm glad to be here and honored to be here. Honored.

DA: Thank you. I'm so happy to have this conversation be broadcast outside that room that you're in right now, that blurred room that you're in right now.

I wanted to talk to you for a very specific reason: The 20th anniversary of your Fallujah photography, the pictures you took during wartime.

Photo by Lloyd Francis, Jr.

And I was keeping track of what was going on with you, but only so much. I was wondering if you could share this experience, take them where I've been, tell them like you're telling me.

LFJ: Well, this was back in 2004 in November. Basically I was in a situation where I was with a reporter and he wanted to go to the far north at this time to go cover some story in Erbil. And as we were getting ready to take off—knowing full well that the Marines were getting ready to assault Fallujah in what may be the largest battle since Huế in Vietnam in 1968–I called up my boss unsolicited and I said, You might fire me for this, but I'm going to Fallujah to cover this story. And I'm leaving right now. I hung up the phone and I got ready to go.

He called me back and I thought he was going to tell me, Don't you do this. But he said, Don't leave without the reporter. The reporter has to come with you.

So, the reporter and I got on a helicopter and we headed south, to a staging zone outside of Fallujah. We were attached to the 1-3 Marines Alpha Company and entered the city with them. I have to say, out of all the experiences I had in the five years covering combat and war photography or being in a combat zone, this was the only time where it was so intense, it seared itself into my memory such that it's practically the only thing I remember from all my war experience over there.

DA: Who were you shooting for in that moment, those five years?

LFJ: I was working for Gannett. Gannett had USA Today, but it had some subsidiaries. And one of the subsidiaries was Army Times Publishing Company, owned by Gannett, not the federal government. The Army Times, The Marine Corps Times, The Navy Times, The Air Force Times, The Government Times, Defense Intelligence Journal, and one other, I believe it was Defense Industry News. Yes, seven publications and I shot for all seven of them.

When I was home I would shoot for the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, for both The Government Times and The Defense News Journal. And then when I was overseas, I would be shooting for one of the three branches, the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, or Army, for one of the four publications.

I was Fallujah for The Marine Corps Times, but my work was used in USA Today and in other publications for Gannett.

And so in entering these very, very intense places, we were doing house-to-house fighting, where we would enter a house on the ground, [search] till we were on the roof and then jump over onto the next house, on the roof, and then work our way down.

We would go through neighborhoods like this, and I got some incredible pictures: Pictures of people clearing rooms, pictures of people as they entered buildings, pictures of the reactions and faces of Marines as they were fighting.

It was a very intense period. And I walked away from that, realizing I had witnessed a very rare thing. It would amaze people that in a place where there's killing and hate, I never saw real love as I saw on the field, on the combat zone in Fallujah. It’s written in the Bible that a true friend will sacrifice and lay down his life for you. And I saw this happening again and again in Fallujah.

One story I could tell along those lines, I had just arrived in Fallujah that afternoon when a gentleman named Sergeant Alvarez came up to me and says, Why don't you come out with our unit? We spoke about it. But having just arrived, I decided to wait and get myself together and go out with another unit.

And it was a big mistake.

On that very patrol that afternoon, Sergeant Alvarez was forced to dive on a grenade. He blew himself up, saving the lives of this entire unit in a room that they were clearing. He got a silver star for that.

Those type of intense moments, those type of intense near misses, they really wear you down and left me in a state where I needed four years of therapy—weekly therapy—to get past the PTSD that arose from it.

But it was Veterans Day in November of 2004 that I had my most intense experiences. One morning when we woke up in an abandoned building; we used to bivouac in these abandoned homes. When we woke up and when one of our members of our unit went next door, he found cigarettes that were still warm. He found food that was still warm, which meant the enemy had been sleeping almost right next door to us.

So they withdrew from the position very carefully. I waited till the last man was there, and I left with him and took pictures. Those pictures ended up on the front page of USA Today. Very intense.

Because one never knows. It's interesting that you're not scared when you're there. You're busy, you're doing your job. That takes up all your mind at the moment. It's about you being in the moment. It's not about you being scared, but there's something about having to be that aware for that period of time, for that duration that wears you down and creates another problem.

DA: I know you contended with these things for a long time and I can't imagine it was easy. I'm curious though, like on a more theoretical level: How did it change your view of war, being that close to it?

LFJ: If was always a theoretical concept, this concept of war. But after seeing real combat, not an occupation, but real combat, where in a city… because there's a lack of food, because there's no water, because there's nothing, you come up upon half-eaten bodies.

You see things that human beings should never see. And you realize that this whole theoretical concept—spelled with only three letters, W-A-R, war—is actually something closer to what I would say a scene from a Charlie Manson murder scene looks like.

Lloyd Francis, Jr

It's absolute madness. It's human beings, not at its lowest point. It's human beings who cease being human. And it's forced upon one when one is there.

I have a very high standard. I'm a pacifist. And yet, being in Fallujah that whole month made me so callous to death itself that it shames me to think about how I looked at my fellow human beings.

You know what I'm saying? It just brings everything down to such a base level. It's a terrible, terrible affliction. And in my opinion, it's more than an event. It's a psychosis. It's a psychosis that can grow inside one to the point where you don't come back. It's more dangerous than drugs.

DA: You've been in contact with the people that you ran with there. Can you tell me a little about that?

Two years ago, I was contacted by Garrett Anderson, who was a communications radio specialist that I met when I was with the group. He told me of a gentleman who goes by the name of Cuts the Rope. He is a Nakota Indian who comes from a reservation in the northeast corner of Montana. He was a squad leader and at one point was severely wounded and his life was saved by his comrades.

So, 19 years later, Cuts the Rope contacted everybody in the unit and told them that they were going to have a sacred buffalo hunt and a series of rituals that will help, try to help, these warriors in their homecoming.

This is after 19 years. I was invited, as they thought of me very highly. They'd had many journalists attached to their unit, but they really felt close to me. I asked them why, and they said, it's because I never sought safety. I was always going out with the point man or trying to see if I could get better pictures by being closer or going in second on the stack.

That was just my attitude.

DA: I don't want to cut off the story because it's huge, but that's one of my introductions to you. When I barely knew you, we were watching a documentary in like 1987 about the Dead Kennedys in San Francisco.

And then who throws themselves on stage at this real live punk rock show but you? You were on the stage with Joe Biafra and DK and all of them right there. I was like, that's a journalist, right? Never mind photojournalist. That's a journalist. That's never the sort of thing I wanted to do. I'm a critic. I’ll be watching, thank you. That was one of my first introductions to you, but please go on.

LFJ: They loved me because of that, and so they invited me to participate. Garrett is also a filmmaker. So Garrett approached me and said he wanted to do a story about this, a 19-year anniversary on this sacred buffalo hunt with these rituals.

So I journeyed from here in San Francisco to Montana and participated in a sweat lodge and a couple of other ceremonies with painted horses, and also a actual sacred buffalo hunt where we actually had to ride the prairie [laughs] looking for buffalo and we managed to bag two buffalo.

DA: Wait, how are you getting along the prairie?

We had to drive and then get out of our cars and walk about three or four miles.

And before we left the cars, they smeared us with this stuff that would make us smell like human beings. So we were really in the Indian mode. [Laughs] It was like this grease that they put on us.

They had the two best snipers in the unit take the shots. It wasn't everybody taking shots. It was just two people who were authorized to shoot.

DA: Do you need a sniper to shoot Buffalo?

LFJ: No. They had a contest before we went out on the hunt and everybody got two shots and two shots only to hit the target that was at 150 yards. The two guys that got to shoot, they hit it with both shots. They're really good.

So, it's not needed. That was the way they determined it, because not everybody gets to shoot the gun when the Buffalo’s seen, because that's craziness. [Laughter] They actually have a method approach. So that way nobody gets hurt when there's a missed shot or anything.

It was really fascinating because we really processed some things together. These men all were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of them had been in prison. Some of them had... many, many problems, marital problems, divorces in their past. And the VA, as they describe it, has been very ineffectual in helping them with many of their problems. It was really interesting to hear about that.

They used to be a cohesive unit, like they were one, but when Trump was elected, there were those that supported Trump and then there were those that were Democrats. And they began to drift apart into two camps. This became very painful for many of the men who used to have such a cohesion.

So, this was a chance for these men to come back and reconcile some of these differences, which they did over tears, OK?

It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. We went inside of this sweat lodge and we had a ceremony that had to deal with rebirth, because—as the as the medicine man told us—when you leave the sweat lodge, the sweat lodge is the womb and you're being reborn. You’re to leave everything behind.

That had an effect on us. Realize that we were in our shorts and that was all and it was four degrees above zero. When we went inside of that sweat lodge, it got so hot in there—a homemade little sweat lodge with sticks and rugs. And then when we left, it was like going back into the world, and it was cold. Oh, it was something.

DA: I want to ask, because you mentioned four years of therapy. Your marriage survived. You're okay. Do you think because you were just documenting the horrors and didn't actually have to cause the horrors and have to shoot anybody that that lets you off the hook psychologically?

LFJ: It's interesting you ask that because realize you said my marriage survived, but it almost didn't.

DA: Right.

LFJ: I had some major problems from things that I had seen. Remember, this was just the latest in a lot of wars. I had been to the West Bank. I had been to Iraq. I had been to other conflict zones and seen things. And I began to really suffer from, how would I put this, from being home and being bored.

And so what did I find? I found cocaine to help liven things up. And before you knew it, my wife had left me. I was totally alone on the streets and I couldn't figure out why this was happening.

It's something that I really planned to write about because it was miraculous. My son was born on the same night that I got a phone call from Washington, D.C. about a job. And my mother passed away a day later. Then going to Iraq in a month. I found myself overseas—from totally being lost on drugs to being overseas.

It really demonstrated something to me when I did leave this job. I said, Something is wrong with me. And I didn't know what it was. Turned out it was post-traumatic stress disorder, which I didn't even know what it was, you know?

Those four years of therapy covered a lot of things and really helped me to bring a relationship about with my experience because I didn't have a good relationship with my experience. It's very important to be related to your past in a certain way. If you're not related, things happen in the present that are unexplainable. I managed to put that back into a proper relation through these four years, and to literally take some of these vivid memories that were live and in living color and fade them to black and white.

In other words, they weren't gone, but all of the emotional electricity was gone from it. It was there as a record and nothing else.

DA: Fascinating. You've done a lot, as you alluded to, West Bank, all these different war zones. Can you talk a little bit about your career leading up to? Let's talk this back to when I met you. You were still, you were like 27 when we met.

LFJ: Twenty-seven, and I was at the Fresno Bee. It was my first job ever.

I didn't graduate from college because I got offered the job on the premise that I would go to Fresno State. Well, the closest I came to Fresno State was the newsroom of the, what was the name?

DA: Daily Collegian. what are you drinking?

LFJ: I’m drinking uh this thing called “cannabis infused beverage the fizz 100 milligrams per can.”

DA: Whoa.

LFJ: Is that a lot?

DA: To me it is. You know what am I doing? I've been experimenting with minimalist weed lately.

I've been smoking, consuming as little as I can, but I was doing the whole teaching thing, you know? I was trying to stay away from weed so I could focus on these kids because they were hard. And now it's been like two weeks. I'm starting to ramp back up.

But 100 milligram bottles is a lot.

LFJ: I sometimes buy those thousand milligram bottles. Have you ever seen those? I buy those and I'm just like, Boop, boop, boop. Maybe about a third of it.

DA: I have rarely been more high than when I crashed with you back in the day, because that olive oil you had— that infused olive oil—that was just crazy.

LFJ: That gets us back to Fresno, because you see, that's the whole thing.

DA: There we go. Let's do it.

LFJ: You weren't there. I think it was just [Steve] Pringle, myself, and Master Lopez who went down to Bakersfield. I'm not saying...

DA: No, I was there. What are you talking about?

LFJ: That's true. You were there, weren't you?

DA: We have to let people in on this. You're talking about the era of a dry spell in town, in Fresno.

LFJ: Yeah.

DA: You could not find weed in Fresno.

LFJ: Before the dispensaries. Yes, that's exactly it.

DA: Eighty-eight, 87, something like that.

Right. When you could go to jail for some shit. Somehow it was so much nicer back, then because you were an outlaw, just possessing it.It was a wonderful feeling to that. Now it's kind of like, you feel like you're more corporate America carrying stuff in your pocket. It's not the same.

DA: I disagree because I had my time. Lord knows I had my time. And never mind Fresno, I did time in Ohio trying to smoke weed. And that glam, that allure and all that, I mean, I'm glad my kids don't have to do it. My kids are very cool with weed, I'm sure yours are too.

That outsider status was fun. It was like a moment in time. It really was. It was history up until 15 years ago or whatever. But I don't miss it. Anyway, what were you going to tell me about the Fresno period there?

LFJ: The Fresno period was very formative for me because I really learned how to tell a story with a camera at Fresno.

Photo by Lloyd Francis

I don't know if you remember the story that we did on teenage pregnancy back then. It was a huge project. I don't think I've ever gotten so much real estate in the newspaper for my work. It's massive, right? And that was the real culmination of a lot of real meat and potatoes work there. But I'll tell you something. I realized I couldn't stay doing small town community journalism. It wasn't what I signed up for.

I wanted to go overseas. I wanted to see things. Fresno really brought that to the fore, which is why I'll never forget it. I was driving away one day from an assignment. It was windy. They called me up and said they wanted pictures of the wind.

And I was like, you know? This is bullshit.

I called up the San Jose Mercury News. The Mercury News told me immediately, there's no openings, but we'd be glad to look at your portfolio. Then, after they looked at my portfolio, they were like, We have one opening. [Laughter]

DA: You did some of your most important work in San Jose.

LFG: That's true. That's true. But I got to say about Fresno has a special place in my heart. Maybe it's because of you guys. Maybe it's because of the Daily Collegian staff that I knew and hung out with. Because we were peers, really. Even though I was working at the time, we were peers. It wasn't like I was, you know, a grizzled veteran.

DA: Except where the LSD was concerned.

LFJ: Except where LSD was concerned. Yeah, 10 years earlier.

DA: You were a professional. [Laughter] But I couldn't have had a better teacher. I've said it before. I could not have had a better guide.

LFJ: I still remember those fog days and just being there. And then N.W.A., the culture was changing.

DA: When Fear of a Black Planet came out. You remember, you came and co-hosted my Saturday radio show with me? We played this entire album. It was a cultural event.

But that's the thing. In a town like that, people weren't going to get it without us. They needed that radio station.

LFJ: That's right. That's right. And they still do. And they still do.

DA: I believe 90 percent of our problems we're going through right now relate to the lack of local news. You can't demonize people if you see them at the coffee shop. [They] are not part of the conspiracy.

LFJ: That is one of the biggest losses we've had is local 100 percent drill-down-on- the-city news. It's so important and it's been eviscerated.

Now there are these regional newspapers, none of which can cover the local news like a local newspaper. So, you know, there's that too.

But yeah, Fresno has a special place in my heart. You guys really helped me. And I got a lot of really good work. But my best work was at San Jose Mercury News.

The San Jose Mercury News gave me a great opportunity. The one thing, they had a star system. The one star, the biggest star in the minds of the editors were great pictures. So, if you came up with the best pictures, you were the star today. You know that you are going to get rewarded with all kinds of good stuff, at least today. Tomorrow, they're going to look at you crazy, but today, you know.

DA: You had the crack-addicted mothers thing, and I know you covered LA riots. You knew Gary Webb. Didn't you work with Gary Webb on Dark Alliance a little bit?

LFJ: I didn't work with him directly on Dark Alliance, but I had worked with Gary on a couple of other things. And Gary, I will not forget, he had his victory party at the photo lab. And all these people came and Gary was there. It was about the Dark Alliance story coming out.

DA: This is a four-part series about the conspiracy for crack. What I remember most is this four-part series coming out, this in-depth journalism that indicts a lot of dangerous people, a lot of huge names in the government.And within 10 days, there were pieces in The Washington Post, New York Times, and LA Times, quote-unquote debunking his reporting. I had never seen a response like that before. You remember that?

LFJ: Yes, I do. There's a relationship between the media and the government. Always has and always will be. Especially today, it's the reason why the media has been so discredited. It's the reason why young people are no longer going to mainstream media for any news.

It's because they've been co-opted and they've sold out. To whatever power. I don't know if you were watching yesterday, I watched Morning Joe. I watch it like a scientist would watch two bugs under a microscope. And I noticed yesterday that they bent a knee to the Trump administration.

They got an off-the-record interview with Donald Trump. It just is another example of how access journalism—being bought by people having to bend their knee and kiss a ring—in journalism today is prevalent.

I canceled my subscription to the Washington Post immediately when I heard that they had done what they did with an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris. This is really not good, because what we have shaping up here is a direct oligarchic government, where billionaires have direct access, because people don't realize this.

When you say fascism, you think of racism. When you say fascism, you think of genocide. When you say fascism, you think of laws that suppress people and women. What you don't realize is beneath all that is a marriage between corporations and the government, the likes of which you see nowhere else.

DA: I heard James Carville, of all people, say about a month ago that he realized that the way we think is manufactured by corporations, all the ideas that are out there.

And, you know, that used to sound like a wild left thing to say that you would not hear a politician say—granted, he's at the end of the rope; he doesn't really have to care anymore. But I think about it all the time, how people don't really realize that there are a wealth of ideas out in the world. We're just kind of spoon-fed 17 of them.

LFJ: That much? Really? I thought it was about three.

DA: You said oligarchy. At this point, I'll take an oligarchy over a kleptocracy. [Laughter] That's on the menu. Which one will you have?I'll have the oligarchy. [Laughter]

LFJ: What's the item with the least shit in it?

DA: Yeah. Speaking of shit, before we go we got to talk about politics in San Francisco. I know you watch closely and you just had some big turnover. Looking at it from afar, it seems like it's a lot more centrist and billionaire friendly? I don't know how would you describe the state of things.

LFJ: One hundred percent bought by billionaires, okay?

Let's talk about District 5, the district I live in, which includes The Haight and The Tenderloin. I could not believe that they brought in this guy, Bilal Mahmood, who's a billionaire. His occupation is philanthropist. I'm like, Who is this guy? I've never heard of him. He didn't live here.

What the fuck is this guy doing on the ballot?Versus my boy Dean Preston. And Dean. So he says a little bit of crazy stuff. You know, like capitalism is what's responsible for our fentanyl crisis. You're

going a little too far, but guess what? Everybody does. I'm all right with that. I can vote for him.

What I've noticed with San Francisco is a transformation that has happened over the last two years. This city is cleaner. This city doesn't have as much homeless. This city does not have tents everywhere. This city is clean. Okay? I can't believe it.

[Wife] Leanne and I walked down to Stanton and Eighth, which is always a place where all these denizens hang out.

DA: Yeah?

LFJ: Clean, clean. You can take your kids down there and let them roam and nothing's going to happen to them. I was blown away. You know, this happened quietly, right under our nose. And you didn't notice it happening.

DA: But why the change?

LFJ: Why the change? Exactly. Why the change?It's perception. It's the billionaires buying time on TV, constantly talking about how bad it is.

You see all these PACs. people for a better San Francisco, People for a more Tolerable Business Environment It's all these PACs and political action committees, tons of dark money. You'd love to see what color the money is, but no, you can't. It's dark money, you know? [Laughs]

DA: Do you have a take on the new mayor? I know he's one of the billionaires. He's a Levi's heir, right?

LFJ: He's a Levi's heir. His name is Lurie, his last name. The moment I heard Lurie, I was like, hmm.

DA: Wait, wait, explain why.

LFJ: Well, I don't trust billionaires. I don't believe billionaires understand me and my suffering. I am sure that some of them may have a good intention. Look at Bill Gates. He gives his money out to different things. He's trying to help the world. Some people would debate that, but he's trying something.

Bezos' wife, she has made it her mission, actually, to give all that money away before she dies. That's a big thing. But the majority of them ain't doing shit for nobody. Okay? They're just billionaires.

You look at Thiel, Musk, Bezos, all of them. And Lurie is no different. I don't see Lurie doing things that need to be done. I don't see him doing that. All I hear is about him doing that, but I don't see it. You understand where I'm coming from?

He has no city government experience.

DA: That's what people want now, or so they think. They want politicians who aren’t politicians.

LFJ: So, you know, like when I got prostate cancer, I could have used an amateur. Right? You got to be kidding. Nobody does that. And if you're not going to do it with that, why would you do that to your city government?

It's this whole idea that government is the problem when government has never been the problem, unless you have a problem with the government restricting you from doing things that would hurt people.

DA: I'm going to ask, Is it over or are we just going through a difficult period?

LFJ:,We're going through a difficult period. It's not over. I guarantee you that in two years, the Democrats will come back roaring. Buyer's remorse is right around the corner.

I say—it's my motto now—‘Give the people what they want.’ I have said this time and time again. Democrats should step out the way for now and say, you know something? We just want the people to have what they want. Let's hope it works out. Because you know it's not going to work out.

DA: On that note, I'm going to say goodbye, man. Anything you want to tell the people on the way out the door?

LFJ: Hope. And not hope from what you're thinking. Hope from what you're doing. Still take action. Still do what your heart calls you to do. Stand up for what you believe in and hope will come.

DA: Lloyd Francis, ladies and gentlemen, words to live by.