Brad Newsham People in Common Transcript Updated as of May 26, 2026 Jama Adams (00:00) Brad Newsham, welcome to People In Common. Brad Newsham (00:04) Jama Adams, thank you for having me. Jama Adams (00:06) What a pleasure, Brad - just going to give a little intro and then we're going to get right into it. most of us know the feeling that you were probably having watching the news, maybe we're angry, and you actually did something about it. You stopped typing and went to the beach. So you started the human banners on Ocean Beach with people – you marked out 100 foot letters in the sand. assigned strangers to stand inside of them, photographed the whole thing from above, and there were importantly no speeches, no PA system, just people creating something together. And so 20 years and 36 banners later (37 were up to, oh, see, I stand corrected). This model has spread already, San Francisco to San Diego to Santa Cruz, Washington DC, and on March 28th, it was 7,000 people at Ocean Beach. Wow. Brad Newsham (00:48) 7. Jama Adams (01:04) So, today we're going to talk about how you figured out how to get people to work together and then how others can join you in this. INTRO - Jama Adams (01:15) Welcome to People in Common. I'm Jama Adams. This is a podcast where we talk to leaders about connecting their personal stories to what's happening in this moment. What are we supposed to do? How do we translate values into action? How can we be People in Common? Jama Adams (01:41) Welcome to People in Common. you. So happy to have you. Your first podcast. Brad Newsham (01:43) Thank you very much. My first podcast. I think one or two plus a few that my niece was part of. Jama Adams (01:51) Okay, well congratulations, niece, because you started this, this is perfect. We're going to get into it. We can start wherever you want. Okay. But I want to hear about you. Who is Brad? Tell me more. Brad Newsham (02:06) An old mentor of mine said you should be able to tell your life story in two minutes. let me give it a whack. Born in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., my dad was a cartographer for the Central Intelligence Agency. ⁓ wow. My mom was a coal miners daughter. She and her parents had walked out of Slovakia in 1910, five weeks across Ukraine and wound up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he became a coal miner. Jama Adams (02:11) All right, let's try it. Brad Newsham (02:35) and they were young and they had six kids. She was the six of them. And my parents met on the steps of the Christian Science Church in Washington, D.C. in the late 40s after World War II. so I grew up there in Alexandria, Virginia. And I remember, being in 1967, 15 years old, ⁓ Mowing lawns in the neighborhood where I grew up, Holland Hills. ⁓ The song, and if you come to San Francisco. Jama Adams (03:13) ⁓ Come to Sam- Yeah, we didn't practice that. I know it's hard to believe. Brad Newsham (03:24) Well on my third day, I think it was my third day or my third week as a cab driver I was in you know 33 years old a woman in the back of my cab asked me how did you become a cab driver and I told her some version of the story I'm about to get to Jama Adams (03:42) But what was the moment that you decided to go to San Francisco? Like you heard the song and who hadn't? But. Brad Newsham (03:49) ⁓ well, when I was in college, I played basketball. ⁓ Jama Adams (03:55) He is tall. might not be able to see him. Brad Newsham (03:57) I was 6'2' once upon a time. I'm not sure I'm still 6' anymore. ⁓ all I wanted to do was play basketball in college and I did it. in college, I realized all I really wanted to do was be the, you know, travel and be the best hippie I could be after college. Jama Adams (04:19) Be all that you can be, but a different version of that. Brad Newsham (04:21) Yeah, and that's all I really wanted to do. I wanted to see the world and, you know, have a good life and be as free as I could be. And I wanted to see all 200, at the time, national parks and national monuments. Now I think there's 400 entities. I never did get them all. So I visited all 50 states and I circled the world with my backpack four times when I was younger. It's been a while now. And I chose the place that most appealed to me. And I wrote something in the San Francisco Chronicle and in one of my books, the three books that I have written ⁓ about ⁓ in India. My first week, I was at a bus stop in New Delhi and a man asked me where I was from, an Indian man. I said, ⁓ I had just moved to San Francisco recently. And he said, how fortunate everybody All our gurus are moving to San Francisco. I said really why is that? You know news to a guy who's an American who's come looking for something better in India perhaps and he says everyone knows that it's the spiritual center of the earth and I said tell me about that and he and he did and You know, he said, you know, it's been in China, it shifts from time to time and it was China for a while near the Nile and Athens, it moves around and lately it has become San Francisco. And when you think about it, all the things that have come out of San Francisco in the ⁓ last few decades or more, from the gold rush on and horrible things too, the gold rush. Jama Adams (06:04) No, I was thinking like things we worship like our phones and you know like machine learning and things that are both freaked out by and and treat like a guru Brad Newsham (06:11) Move. Well, so I asked my desk clerk that first night, have you heard of this thing? And he said, yeah. And I said, well, what is it? And he said, well, that's easy. It's simply the place on the planet where new ideas meet the least amount of resistance. I thought. Jama Adams (06:29) We are ready for change around here. Brad Newsham (06:32) Yeah, well, if there's another place that fits that bill, I've not been to it or heard of it. Jama Adams (06:38) And that's saying something because as you just pointed out, you've been a lot of places Brad Newsham (06:42) There's a you know, if you circled the world with your backpack four times you scratch the surface is all you do There's so many places out there, but I haven't been to all of them But I haven't seen any place quite like San Francisco and it was time to pick a place. This was it. Yeah Jama Adams (06:58) This was your home. Tell me about who you were that that was what you were seeking, right? why you fit in here because you clearly are looking for new interesting ideas. But where did that piece come from? You mentioned your parents, which kind of gives me a little clue. But if you had to trace it back. Brad Newsham (07:20) You know, I always wanted to have more fun. Yeah, growing up, I thought, why are we all taking this so seriously? Why aren't we all kinder to each other? I grew up in Christian science and yeah, well, I don't resent Christian science. I've made my complete peace with it. I did not like it being shoved on me, but Brad Newsham (07:45) But you know, there's worse things than to be brought up thinking that there is a ⁓ God out there who is always on your side no matter what and that everything is perfect. You know, that's not a bad thing to have in your background. I haven't called myself a Christian scientist for a long, time, but ⁓ there was that. And San Francisco seems like a fun place. Jama Adams (07:51) I knew I liked you. Brad Newsham (07:55) Let me go back to if you come to San Francisco. So I wondered about those people. know, who were those people? And you'd see them in Life magazine, the hippies and the hate Ashbury. And I was 15 years old and I thought, you know, maybe, you know, they look like they're having fun. They are not living the life that I'm living. I thought, you know, if I was out there, I might even get to kiss a girl or something like that. Jama Adams (08:39) This 15 year old boy you. Brad Newsham (08:40) Exactly, maybe two. And, I was there, it look likes it would be fun. And I wasn't in the in crowd in Virginia, but they didn't seem in San Francisco to be concerned about the in crowd. They were all, it was assumed if you were here, you were in the in crowd. Jama Adams (09:00) Belonging, belonging, inclusive of you. Brad Newsham (09:03) Yeah, and having fun. having fun. ⁓ And ⁓ hearing music too. But back in Virginia, when I was mowing lawns in Virginia, I wondered about ⁓ who those people were. You know, just what would it be like to be there? What would it like to be one of them among them? And to find myself having lived in the hate for 13 years, you know, when I first moved here and now at the center of these things on Ocean Beach and elsewhere, I know that there are kids out there mowing lawns or, you know, doing whatever they're doing in Kansas or Kentucky or, you know, wherever. And they have seen this imagery that I and my team, all the people that have supported and worked with me over the two decades now, that have created, these have it's out there. People see them. And I think they have to wonder, who are those people? And what would it be like? And wouldn't it be fun to be there? And it blows my mind to find myself sitting here talking about it, you know, and knowing that this is my lived experience now. Jama Adams (10:11) Right that you're talking to the 15 year old you yeah in all any of those Brad Newsham (10:15) And on those many times when I think, you know, I'm 75 later this year, and I think, you know, and you get tired when you get older and you've had enough at some point and you think... Jama Adams (10:31) Not so much you, but yeah. Brad Newsham (10:33) Yeah, you know, I don't see I can do this for another year or two or three. I can do this for another year or two or three maybe. It's been a heck of a 14 months and 14 human banners here. The pressure of it all. How much can you stand? On the other hand, who gets an excused absence in this time? Jama Adams (10:57) No one. This is if there were a moment to push through and keep going. Brad Newsham (11:02) Well, you've got to somehow find a way to unplug and relax if you can. Because I hate falling asleep at night. You know, the scrolling through my head of the 10, 20 balls I've got to keep in the air to make one of these things happen. And you drop one and the event can fail and you've disappointed people and all that. And it goes for weeks, if not months, in the run up to an event. So there's a lot of pressure and there's reasons to want to not do this anymore. But given this country we all love, who gets an excused absence? You talk about what do you want tell your kids to tell about you someday in the future? Well, I feel so much better being engaged than I did in the brief times that I've sat on the sidelines and just wished this would all go away get back to normal and I could be a hippie again and just go walking in the woods and do all the other things I like to do. Jama Adams (12:09) Let’s get into the model of the human banner. it's 2006 and you are kind of tapping away at your keyboard. ⁓ Brad Newsham (12:17) So I was the head of United Taxicab Workers in San Francisco for one year. I was the chair of the board. I came up with, you'll just have to trust me, a brilliant idea that would have transformed ⁓ cab drivers' entire relationship to City Hall, to the cab companies, to the industry. And it would have improved cab service and everything. It would have done everything. And my board, my board ⁓ voted me down. When I presented my plan, like five to two or seven to two, something like that, and I was one of the two yes votes. And I told myself in that moment, this is 1994, that if I ever came to feel so passionate about an idea again, I would design it so that I didn't need anybody's permission or anybody's help. And so that was 1994. Jama Adams (13:13) Wow. Brad Newsham (13:15) when George W. Bush came along and I did other things along the way between there and 2003. When the Iraq war came along, I think it was 2003, I told people, you know, he's got to do what he's got to do if they've got weapons of mass destruction that will take out Israel. Jama Adams (13:43) The whole argument hung on that, right? We looked and they believed it and we believed it and said, Brad Newsham (13:49) Yeah, he can't really ignore that. And it, and he's getting all the information that ⁓ when it came out that At that same time, he was telling the British government, I'm going into Iraq no matter what, you get with me or not. I felt personally violated, personally violated. Jama Adams (14:06) Yeah, you lied to me. I was with you. I was with you because you told me that that was what was needed to save lives and do the right thing and nuclear war and all the things. Brad Newsham (14:15) Well, how, you know, with all the information available to him, how would I overrule him and dismiss that and say, Jama Adams (14:22) to trust, right? It's a pretty basic human tenet, but certainly for the government. Certainly when we're electing people to represent us because we don't have access to all of that information, we need to be able to trust. Brad Newsham (14:33) I would think so. Anyway, I spent a year and half during which Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table, famously. And ⁓ it just made no sense to me. And I was one of those millions of people that exist today typing at our keyboards about how... Jama Adams (14:52) This is such a vivid image, right? You've written about this and talked about it and you're literally, you're sending notes because obviously somebody's gonna listen to you if you just keep talking and keep typing. Brad Newsham (15:03) Well, I realized it was all pretty worthless. Jama Adams (15:04) Right! Bummer! Well, fast forward 20 years, same Brad Newsham (15:10) I thought, we need some art. It took me a year and a half to mold this. And I was like, yeah, kind of, that's a long time to know that something's missing and you can't come up with it. Jama Adams (15:23) I know the feeling, right? Brad Newsham (15:24) Yeah, we all do, I think. Jama Adams (15:26) I think that's a pretty universal feeling at this point. Overwhelm, complete just lack of agency and just how it's it's it wears you down. It's exhausting. Brad Newsham (15:39) It takes our happiness away, our pursuit of happiness. we've we've it's really hard to maintain that given, you know, seeing the country we grew up in just spiraling the drain here. October 22nd, 2006, two weeks before the election, where it looked like the Democrats might take the House and the Senate and Pelosi would in which case Pelosi would be no longer the minority speaker, but the speaker. Jama Adams (16:07) I was actually in Pittsburgh calling back to your grandparents hometown ⁓ with my brother who was on a campaign there and so as our as was our tradition drop everything go and help and knock some doors see what you can do ⁓ And had worked for Pelosi who was then becoming the speaker. So I was personally I anyway, I remember the 2006 Brad Newsham (16:29) I guess you do. And I totally appreciate Nancy Pelosi. And there's about any politician and even about myself, not that I'm a politician, but about my. Jama Adams (16:39) Public leader, for sure. Brad Newsham (16:42) So we were my wife and my daughter and I were sitting at a our kitchen table on that Saturday afternoon late it was a beautiful day and our daughter said, ‘Have you guys ever heard of Google Earth? (And I was, am I going to rip something if I stand up?) I was simply lifted out of my seat and I'm walking around going, ⁓ Jama Adams (17:09) You saw Google Earth and you're like... Brad Newsham (17:12) I saw it. I saw it. And, and, and, ⁓ daddy, are you okay? Brad, what's the matter? You know, what's wrong? And, and I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm okay. And it took me two, three minutes because I had seen it in color. Thousands…I didn't know how many people were required at the time, but big letters on Ocean beach: “Impeach! Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I saw it and it yanked me there. I had no choice in the matter. It was, I was, Jama Adams (17:41) It came to you fully formed. Brad Newsham (17:42) Fully formed after a year and a half of driving myself nuts somehow. Jama Adams (17:46) In the wilderness, if you will. ⁓ And it came, this whole idea came to you - in visual form, I'll note. You must be an artist. mean... Brad Newsham (17:56) I'm getting some artistic tendencies now. Jama Adams (17:59) I think so because that was and you it just came through you. You saw it and you knew that it was you who needed to build it. Brad Newsham (18:08) No one else was. Jama Adams (18:09) Wow! I mean, I love this and I'm so impressed and also I'm thinking about all of us who are still in the wilderness, shall we? Brad Newsham (18:20) Well I’m still in the wilderness too - this didn't drag me out of the wilderness, but it dragged me into this arena. Jama Adams (18:28) Right, like, break down that moment a little bit more. You were obviously taken with the idea of Google Earth, right? Or was this the first time you had seen it? Brad Newsham (18:37) Let me back up a little. I didn't invent this idea. There was the Nasca lines in Peru. Jama Adams (18:44) I have witnessed those. Yes, they're incredible. And you just can't imagine. Your brain has a hard time processing that this can possibly be right for people who obviously had no access to drones, let alone airplanes or anything else. Brad Newsham (19:05) I have no explanation. I have no explanation for a lot of things. And I had been to Egypt and I had written about the pyramids and you learn some astonishing facts that, you know, they had visuals from above. They knew the scope and the shape and the circumference of the earth. They knew those things. You know, five thousand years ago or whatever it was. And ⁓ so I didn't invent this. And after I did the first one, Jama Adams (19:10) Yes, that is a theme. Brad Newsham (19:35) which I'll come back to. ⁓ I started getting pictures from people sent to me online by people. In World War I, like 1918-ish, the US Army built 80-foot towers and put a photographer up there. And they had 20,000 soldiers at their disposal. And they created images of the American eagle, of the Statue of Liberty, those sorts of things. And so this is not my new idea. Jama Adams (20:02) There was to reinvent it. mean, especially as a patriotic. Brad Newsham (20:05) I hadn't, I was unaware of anyone else doing this at that time. I'm talking about 2006 when that idea came to me, but back in the early nineties again, back living in San Francisco. My wife and I were walking by our TV in the distance and I saw something interesting going on and I looked over and what is that? And the people, it was a helicopter that was shooting from above. And there were people down on the ground doing stuff and they might have been an insurance company commercial or a tire commercial or some some corporate outing here. And they formed themselves - hundreds of people - into the logo of the company. And I thought that looks like fun. I would want to do that. And then continued on. And that was one of the elements. Jama Adams (20:45) you seeds were planted. Brad Newsham (20:52) And that earlier that earlier ⁓ summer in 2006, I spent a lot of time. flew to Slovakia and visited the village where my grandparents walked out of 100 years earlier. And they and it was a three when they left, it was a village of 300 people rural farming. When we got there, it was a village of 300 people in rural farming community with a few cars and and horse drawn carts. Jama Adams (21:19) I thought you were going to say 300,000. Brad Newsham (21:22) It was changed in the regard that all young people had to go away to get work because that's just the way it is or was those days. ⁓ And so I spent a lot of time up in the sky looking down out the window. All that came together in that moment that lifted me out of the chair. And I spent the next 10 weeks figuring out exactly what needed to be done, which was get permits, had to get insurance, had to hire a helicopter, get a photographer, had to figure out how to recreate that on the beach. And I was at Ocean Beach all the time for the next many weeks. And it was 10 weeks from that day, cut to the chase, that it worked out just like I saw it. Just like I saw it. A thousand people lying down on Ocean Beach, 100 foot letters. I think it was 400 feet long and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. ABC put up their own helicopter. By evening, CNN had taken all around the world. My phone was ringing. NBC, CBS, NPR. Yeah. And it's continued on like that. I think in the next 15 years, did. And now I had help from, you know, never enough, had ⁓ Jama Adams (22:22) wow. Brad Newsham (22:46) had helpers, people, co-workers. Jama Adams (22:49) People who had seen it and we're super inspired to be part of it. Brad Newsham (22:52) Yeah, the first three people who showed up that morning. I spent 90 minutes in the dark down at Ocean Beach that morning, not knowing. You get out there and you just don't know how this is going to go. I could fail. Jama Adams (23:04) You sent the emails and you had done the organizing and you had done your best and people had promised to be there but you're busy you never know. It's literally dark. like it's because you're before dawn. want what time is the what time is what's call time when are people arriving? Brad Newsham (23:20) I think that one was ⁓ a I think, Helicopter overhead at Noon was my... Yeah, so it'd be there by 11 or 11, 11, 15, or whatever it was back then. Anyway, ⁓ 13, I was down working, pounding stakes and pulling tapes, and I hear a voice behind me (a 13-year-old guy who's now 33 and has been coming ever since) ‘My name is Sam Rubin’, running his video camera. Excuse me, are you Mr. Newsham?’ Jama Adams (23:25) I see you to get everybody over Brad Newsham (23:47) It went on and behind him a minute or two was his mom and behind him, Sally and then husband, dad, Ed. They've been coming ever since whenever they can. A couple of months later, I met Travis Van Brasch, an architect who showed up one morning and said, give me a job. What can I do? And saved that event that he showed up at because I don't think it would have come out unless he had done that. And so we've been The first guy I call is Travis these days. Anyway, so I've had a lot of help. But that first one I paid for. $3,500 bucks, I thought I could either take this out of my savings or I could go out and ask people for money. It's an easy choice when it's sitting there in the bank. And you could easily spend 10 minutes asking people for money. 10 weeks. And you may or may not get it. But there it was. It's like, dude, you got lifted out of your chair. Jama Adams (24:21) co-conspirator. This is for real. You have to do. I want to I know I want to stick on that moment a little because because I think there's a few lessons for like I said the the the rest of us here. You had a pretty serious and dramatic Inspiration, but what you've also told us is all of the seeds that were planted. First of all who you are and how you are in the world, right? But okay. You are joyful. You are adventurous. You want to do something, you Brad Newsham (25:20) have a family they hear people say these things about me they go Jama Adams (25:23) Uh-huh. He's also, you should see him, know, grumpy in the morning. Of course. Well, of course, right? Of course. But I think that, I think that's what's so interesting to me about this moment is that we're all feeling the overwhelm. We're all feeling the sort of exhaustion and the pressure and all of that. And it's so easy. And actually everything in the way that we live right now is kind of angling us toward just numbing out, whether it's doom scrolling or drugs and alcohol, whatever it is, it's like, and that was not. All of these seeds, talk about, yeah, so the seeds that were planted over all these many years and then that big dramatic moment. Brad Newsham (26:05) So there, at the first one, at the first one, people were so happy. know, people were so happy, you know, from a moment as dark as this moment, we roll it back and that's, you know, some people say it seemed like, you know, Jama Adams (26:18) Yeah. Brad Newsham (26:23) child's play what we went through back there. It was not. were all devastated. We were dropping bombs on another country that we invaded. And then without, we found out without any reason or truth told about the whole matter. And it was dark. And at the end, these people came and there were a thousand of us lying down on the beach and there was this helicopter. Jama Adams (26:47) Beats. Brad Newsham (26:48) You got a two and a half foot by six foot rectangle and that's your spot. And they're four wide, 16 long. 400 feet down the beach, impeach, exclamation mark, CNN, ABC, worldwide by evening. And yeah, it was pretty, and even before it hit the airwaves, the joy. Of people, you know, people laughing, lying there, laughing, giggling about it. And, you know, all these people that think the same way I do and, you know, are here for the same reason. And that has been a consistent ⁓ feedback. Now we get a lot of feedback from Mobilize US, Indivisible's tool that we use. Jama Adams (27:32) the tool you use, that's how you put it out in Brad Newsham (27:37) That's where people register at Mobilize.us. Jama Adams (27:41) They tell you, they commit to you, they're gonna show up on Mobilize. ⁓ Brad Newsham (27:44) That's right. Yeah. And that's really the trickiest part. Yeah. If I knew today that I was going to have 5,000 people show up on June 13th, that would be a whole different thing than knowing, you'd know what to work with. You'd know how to, what size you could imagine. Jama Adams (28:03) Pretty geometric. I mean there is some math. There's some art. There's some math you have to tell us you were Banging the stakes into the ground. So you yeah walk us through the mechanics of how do you make this work? Brad Newsham (28:17) Okay. Our latest movement is to this thing we call backyard banners. We think that anybody could do one of these and they could do them in their backyards. You don't have to get 1000 people. You know, if you were going to do 8647 in your backyard, I've, I've fixed, I scoped this out, I measured it the other, you would need 10 people to lie down and create, you know, Jama Adams (28:25) Okay. Brad Newsham (28:46) two people create the top circle in the eight. You can figure two others beneath them and it goes right down and you 10 people. And if you get up on a second story window or in a tree or on a roof or you have one of those long selfie sticks, you can do that in your backyard. Someone else, I like it when I get ideas from someone else, but they said you could have a... Jama Adams (28:51) Yeah, touch each other on the top and the Brad Newsham (29:12) one of those cookie cutter neighborhoods where all the lots are all the same size. And you could have people in one backyard and then the next backyard and the next and the next and the next with a drone going overhead, catching them all. And after our, after that first event with a thousand people impeach exclamation mark, I was approached by national level organizers who said, if you will do another one three and a half months from now, Jama Adams (29:26) Okay. Brad Newsham (29:41) we will do the back end of it, all the technological parts that I know nothing about. And we will put an interactive map online. We'll create a website and a map, and we'll get people all over the country to do these in their own municipalities. ⁓ wow. And I said, sure. And we got 1,500 people to... to come to that one three and a half months later. And there were 120 other municipalities where people did the same thing. I think the second biggest one was 500 people in San Diego, and it went on down to a handful of people here and there elsewhere. So that model is already there, and we'd like to revive it in its way, but make it just backyard. And I think it's a really powerful idea. If it seems like I'm organized, it's a mirage because in 20 years you would expect that somebody who really was organized could pull that together. We're still in the stage of trying to pull it together again. Jama Adams (30:46) Yeah. I mean, right? And yet probably everybody, at least in the United States of America and many more around the world, have seen these images. This is a huge movement. People have seen these images. have interacted with them. They have been impacted by them. I take your point, right? And I think that's really important. Anyone can organize this. It's replicable, right? And we're going to put some resources online to make sure that everybody can access these kits, the backyard banner kits and make sure that's. And I guess I want to go to what, why, what, what comes from this? You know, what are the things, what are the stories you've heard? What are the looks on people's faces? The laughs that kind of make this all worth it. Tell me. Brad Newsham (31:42) I swear I heard this 50 times from other people before I let these words come out of my mouth. People have called us the face of the resistance. And you think about when they're doing the roundup of this happened in such and such a place, massive rallies, you know, throngs going through the streets. I've been to a lot of them. I call them…let's say some mythical civic center, city center, wherever you are. Through a bad PA system, you hear a roster of people that you don't know yelling at you. Jama Adams (31:59) Yeah. Brad Newsham (32:15) …and your energy is gone in five minutes. Jama Adams (32:18) For anyone who's been to a protest, I think anyone can relate. It's always a bad PA system too. I'm like, it is 2026, folks. Brad Newsham (32:28) And then when you've had enough or maybe before you've started the festivities, you do what I call ‘trudge your grudge.’ And I've trudged my grudges. Yeah. But this is so much fun. And you get people hanging out afterwards and they don't want to go home. And now we've been having music. You know, over the years we've had a couple of times we have music. But now it's like a demand from our participants. Jama Adams (32:59) It's like a dance party. Brad Newsham (33:20) It really is sometimes. Jama Adams (32:55) That sounds fun. Brad Newsham (33:06) We Are Family. (singing) Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Jama Adams (33:12) That's interesting. Like you I respect and love protesting and sometimes I feel called and compelled and I must protest I think but I'm also somebody who would do anything for a dance party. Everything is a potential dance party in my mind. And there's a lot of folks for whom protests have always been, they're just so foreign and for many of the reasons you laid out and probably a million more, right? This is something different. Who has shown up to Ocean Beach who would have never shown up (or maybe to San Diego or backyards or you know there's 120 that you talked about). Who is showing up and what are they feeling that's different from ‘trudge the grudge?’ Brad Newsham (33:55) Connectivity in a deeper way. And you feel some connectivity in the quarter million people that showed up in 2003. You feel that. And look around and see these beaming faces. Oh and the helicopters. We use drones mostly these days we've hired two helicopters this past year neither time could they get down through the clouds at Ocean Beach drones. Jama Adams (34:21) This is a San Francisco very particular to San Francisco problem: the fog. Brad Newsham (34:26) It was amazing until the popularity of drones, the reality of drones. kept getting these glorious days on our Jama Adams (34:39) That's interesting. Jama Adams (35:04) Divine intervention? Brad Newsham (35:05) I don't claim that. But it was amazing. We had a couple of bad ones too. When the helicopter comes over, you know, people are waiting, you know, we're, you know, people standing up. Because there's helicopters that aren't ours that come by. And we go, Is that all right? No, no, no, no, it's not. Jama Adams (34:56) Stand up straight. Lie down straight The message passes and you're playing telephone, right? That's like that's part of the connectivity. Like part of it is the getting ready is what I'm learning. Brad Newsham (35:12) Yeah, the whole, ⁓ it's, it's, I would think, and I've, I got to attend one recently that the SEIU put on the teachers union, was it, it was the teachers union, San Francisco teachers union. and I, anyway, I got to go as a participant. It was cool. It was, I saw how much fun people were having, I wasn't responsible for it. No, no. ⁓ Jama Adams (35:37) had no worries, had no responsibility. That's true. You're constantly stressed about all the pieces and how it's all going to come together. Brad Newsham (35:49) And in the beginning, we would send out ⁓ postcards from each event. Thank you. It's like you thank people for doing it and they could see they get in the mail and they know they were in the P or the I or wherever. And I go over to people's houses, you know, 20 years later and there's a postcard from the first one and a few others. And it's just awesome. Jama Adams (36:14) And that's a really important part of connectivity is you thanked people. You thanked them with a physical representation, which, especially as we get farther along, we just don't do anything physical, right? It's so easy to send a text and a photo on... Brad Newsham (36:33) Well, I got to say we're trying to put to get back bring back to that. And the first shortly after our biggest crowd went from fifteen hundred. OK. All five thousand showed up. And it was just I think we even got postcards out for that event. I think we did. But it's just been too big to take that on and be putting on another event and another event and another Jama Adams (36:59) Got it. You've had to scale back the postcards. Well, mean, so people love how physically people are looking for themselves and they remember... Brad Newsham (37:10) They know they made a difference. There it is. There they are. There I am Jama Adams (37:14) Yeah, you can see it. And that, like we said, that image is being broadcasted all around the world. Brad Newsham (37:21) Well, yes, exactly. ⁓ So I actually, after 15 years of this, I got to where they were just wearing me out. And there was a couple I did that were really well done, well pulled off, timely messages, crisp, clean, beautiful, zero media, zero media. Zero media is like banner fatigue or what? You know, ⁓ one was Dump Citizens United. ⁓ Media didn't show up. important. Yeah. The other one was Dream Occupy, Tax the 1%. They were beautiful images. And it's really disheartening. And I said, I'm not doing this again unless I have in conjunction with an organization. you know, and so I got it down to one a year. Jama Adams (38:15) Okay, because this is what year is this about? ⁓ Brad Newsham (38:18) So the last time I had done one was in 2021 between 2007 to 2021. was about 15 years. And we did 21 events in those 15 years. And we had a total attendance, I think, of 17,000-ish. We went three and a half years, Travis and I, without a banner during the Biden administration, there wasn't much for us to protest. It's unfortunate that Jama Adams (38:24) And COVID, but yeah. Brad Newsham (38:48) We need a protest that people ⁓ care about to come out. Because I've always thought I would just want to do “Evolve.” But I don't think anyone would turn out. I'd be out there by myself. And ⁓ I think that's really needed. But people got lots of stuff to do here in the Bay Area. There's lots of competing interests. But when they're energized like this, it's easier to get crowds. And people have been energized these last 16 months. Jama Adams (39:18) Yeah, makes sense. And when you say energized, is it negative? I mean, obviously people are... Yeah, I mean, when they get there, it's not negative. Brad Newsham (39:27) This is funny, I think, because the closer you get to it, you know, know, we know why we're here, we know how we feel. But even just getting together and declaring we're going to do this thing, suddenly, and you got the work to do and the things to worry about. And as you get closer to it, forget why we're doing this. You forget what this is about. You need the portable toilets, you need the photographer and the drones. You need, you know, the tools and you know, you need all sorts of stuff. that the why we're here fades and it's and it's interesting, but the success or failure of the event becomes the primary motivation for a while. And until you've either succeeded or failed, then you can deal with either one. But it's better. Jama Adams (40:18) That's an important point too. I'm appreciating so much that you are being honest that, you know, it's not all rainbows and butterflies, right? There are moments where you felt, I mean, even the origin story, was so appreciating. You have personally sacrificed a lot for this and then nobody showed up, you know? Well, none of the media showed up to do the thing that you wanted to do. Brad Newsham (40:44) And we've had times with really ⁓ crowds we were hoping for more. Jama Adams (40:49) Interesting, and as people didn't show up Brad Newsham (40:52) Sometimes the weather has played a role and sometimes people had other things to do. It's the Bay Area, can to the mountains, the beach, ball games, Golden Gate Park. Anyway, ⁓ yeah, so there's been some losses along the way and there was a death threat along the way too. And that upended my family's life for about six months and knocked me way back. And that was no fun. Jama Adams (41:18) That's terrible. Yeah, that's terrible. What kept you going in the moments? The really hard one. Brad Newsham (41:24) Well, in there, for the six months that I just put my head down and licked my wounds, ⁓ I didn't do anything. And then I got contacted. And when I've gone a while without having done one, get a lot of, when, when, when. Jama Adams (41:46) Because people want to participate in them and you're, yeah. Brad Newsham (41:49) And then there was a day in 2017 when Alt-Right was calling for the riots in Berkeley, and two groups approached me to do something that day. So in the morning, Travis and I put on one with a group of women in Walnut Creek, 750 people spelling out END HATE Oh, cool. Walnut Creek's Civic Center. And then in the afternoon back at Ocean Beach, another group, we did a huge red heart with the American flag in the middle of it. Whoa. Yeah. They were both really cool. It was a great day and the media turned out for those. So the question you asked was what do we do? Jama Adams (42:31) moments. mean, when you had a death threat, how did you, you know, and it's not one thing you just said is that you took a pause. You didn't try to push through and just keep going and ignore it. Brad Newsham (42:33) Yeah. You know, actually, when again, I was approached by national level organizers who asked me to do that we did the 5000 person one and ⁓ You get some attention. At noon, again, I was a hero. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, et cetera. And in the afternoon, I got the death threat. And I sat on it for 10 days thinking, this can't be anything real. Doesn't everybody get these? And then I said, I can't really put on another one without going to the FBI. And I did. And they took six weeks to get back. And in that time, I had been planning to organize another one with these national-level guys and ⁓ I had to cancel it. I just had to cancel. Jama Adams (43:40) At a critical moment. Brad Newsham (43:42) With a week to go. Jama Adams At a critical moment. Do you feel like you're struggling? You're probably weighing like, this, you know, like this is the shot to go big and how, you whatever you're thinking about scale and. Brad Newsham Well, you do have those fantasies. You're human. I still have my backyard banners. I see how easily this could become a national day with us doing a big one on Ocean Beach and people everywhere. I don't see what there is to stop it except organization and energy. ⁓ But in that pause, on the day that. It was April 15th. were going to we were going to spell out was ⁓ ‘Show us your taxes.’ Jama Adams (44:27) Rght, right, which still hasn't happened. You could still do it. Brad Newsham (44:31) Right. But so on that day when we would have done that, but I canceled it, I went out by myself and I counted this as one of my 37 events because it's just as hard to plan and do one. And I spelled out Evolve! Jama Adams (44:48) Literally, you literally did evolve by yourself. That wasn't just a random example. Brad Newsham (44:52) That is true. Well, I don't know if I evolved, I presented the idea. Which brings me to the other point this last year. I started out, my intention was to do something I didn't have to ask permission or Jama Adams (44:58) Yeah. Thank you for coming back to that. That was a pretty deeply. That was a very hard lesson you learned when you didn't get to do, that you still to this day are convinced would have and probably would have changed the course, certainly the change of the course of Uber and Lyft and all of the things we see now, right? But you didn't get to pursue that because people did not share the vision. They heard what you said and they said no. And then you said, ‘All right, fine, but I'm not going to ask anyone in the future. Brad Newsham Not about something I care about. Jama Adams If I feel this way next time, I'm not asking. I'm not asking for permission. I'm just going to go. And you did. And it worked. Here you are. Brad Newsham (45:37) It did. It worked. And I was looking recently at my screen. There were 16 people on it. Everyone of making a contribution to this thing, an important contribution for the next event. Zoom planning. We have them before every event now. it took Jama Adams (46:03) You mean the Zoom planning meeting. Brad Newsham (46:10) The 14 that we've done in the last 14 months, ⁓ it's probably about the sixth one that it really kicked in that all of a people were clamoring. They were having such a good time at these. wanted, how do we participate and how do we help? And ⁓ it's really hard. One of the things here, and we have no budget. I have one credit card that I put all the bills on. I have a savings account in which I keep Jama Adams (46:38) Not a registered nonprofit. Right, you have a credit card and a group of people who want to help. Brad Newsham (46:45) Yep. Wow. but so we don't have a hierarchical organization. I call myself the central organizer. But yeah, it's been hard when people come and want to help. We don't really know exactly, you know, we don't have specified jobs. do. It turned out that people who show up on the day of an event, this is how I look at that screen and I say this is how they all got there. They showed up. They made themselves useful. Jama Adams (47:02) how to plug them in. Brad Newsham (47:15) They came back and before long they were part of the crew. ⁓ the crew keeps getting bigger here. It's like 25 people now. And the last couple of events I looked out there, I was standing up on the seawall looking out and going, my God, one, two, 40, 50 people out there doing this thing that I was out there doing myself. ⁓ Yeah. It's like incredible. Jama Adams (47:40) your stuff. Say the goosebump, like say the feeling that you just got that gave you goosebumps. it's the 40 or 50 organizers out there replacing the one of you. Is it like, that's the piece you're talking about. Brad Newsham (47:59) And here's a drone team of, you know, six or seven people working together. And there's the music people and there's the people laying in the big image. And there's the people spreading the tarps and outlining things. And there's the border to deal with and the flags to plant and everything. ⁓ And this is on the heels of three and a half years where I didn't do an event. And I thought I'm 70 now. This chapter that Jama Adams (48:16) Yeah. Gale, the sheer- Brad Newsham (48:28) human banner chapter of my life. It looks like it's over and I'm okay with that. And suddenly last, on March 1st, 2025, after three and a half years of not doing anything, I got a, at 9.30 at night, I looked at my phone and there was a one word text from Travis and a link to Trump's latest atrocity of the day, which I can no longer remember what it was. And the one word was “Beachable?” question mark. And I realized later, kind of like I'd been waiting for you to call for 20 years because no one had ever. This is the longest I've talked to the media about this stuff. Jama Adams (49:15) I still can't believe that! Brad Newsham (49:16) I can't believe it either. Never could. I've made myself available as possible. ⁓ You called last night. Jama Adams (49:25) Last night This was last night and and and then we got to know each other over email and I was like God I can't wait for this because I'm like I want to hear this story. This is you know From the perspective of People in Common. This is the proof of concept. What you have literally over 20 years offered people a joyful opportunity. Brad Newsham (49:49) Yes. Jama Adams (49:50) to be part of something that matters. And the whole ethos of this is Activate. And so can you, right? And to be able to talk about this and hear these insights, because I think, you know, there's so much, there's so much. Brad Newsham (50:07) It's and you know, there's event number 38 coming up here and Jama Adams (50:11) That's right. That's right. We're definitely going to put a link to. I had dreamed about talking to you, Brad Newsham (50:15) In October that we had the 7,000. No, that was, they're running together. We had 5,000 in November. So it was getting bigger. 7,000 was just a couple months ago. Jama Adams (50:26) So just to be clear about these numbers: in October you had 5,000 people on the beach. Then just on March 28th at this latest no Kings there were 7,000 people on the beach. Now let alone how many are RSVP's because we all know we RSVP to things and then stuff comes up as you said. And then the email list really struck me too. There was 1,000 new signups for your newsletter in a single day. Is that right? Brad Newsham Sounds about right. Jama Adams You're now at 9,000 people who are on your regular email address or email list. Brad Newsham (50:57) Right. Last March 1st when Travis sent me that email, we had a 600 person, my personal 600 person email list. Jama Adams (51:14) And this is literally, who's on that? Your friends, your family? Brad Newsham (51:17) You know, I wrote three books and I had a lot of those people were on there. When I started this, I had 1500 people on my email list. And when I said I you know, I was trying to impeach Bush and Cheney and do this thing on the beach. Jama Adams (51:21) You started with ‘Beach Impeach,’ I don't know if we put that out there yet. We're going to have to get that original one on the website because it's just, it rhymes. You're lying on the beach. Well, when you told your 1500 list. Brad Newsham (51:44) That's almost overnight. Literally, my list was 1,100 and 400 people ⁓ unsubscribed. Yeah. Yeah. The books I wrote are about humanity and travel and bringing the world together and all that. Then I’m doing this thing to iimpeach the president. ‘Well, we're out of here.’ And so and by last year, it had shrunk down to the Jama Adams (51:51) Unsubscribe. Brad Newsham (52:13) The only good email addresses anymore were 600. 660 I think. Jama Adams (52:18) That was just last March after a huge, you know, you had taken that pause, you had done some, you know, there was a lot of history there, but then you had taken that pause. You're down to 600 on that list. You're like, well, it's been a great run. Brad Newsham (52:33) It's over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had other things I was doing and you know, it was fine. And then here we are. I just didn't expect this. Jama Adams (52:46) Thousand in a day and now you're so that 600 list is now 9,000 people. 7,000 actually showing up. Yeah, probably even right as we speak and hopefully this will lead to But seven thousand of those actually showing up. Brad Newsham (52:52) I should mention our website is humanbanner, one word, hyphen, S F dot com. HumanBanner-SF.com. And it's got pictures of most of our events and other stuff, some backyard banner information. Jama Adams (53:18) Yeah, no, absolutely. And we're going to make sure it's posted along with the podcast itself and the videos and the clips and things. We're going to make sure and in the true ethos of People In Common, this is about how do we offer this as an example, a case study, and also something that they can immediately support. Brad Newsham (53:39) You really get it. You said it better than I've heard it said. ⁓ That's great. That's what we're about out there. And it's hard work to pull it off. And it's so rewarding, you know, when it is. At the end of the day, I love it. We've adopted the tradition of walking down to the water's edge. ⁓ Jama Adams (54:02) You have to touch the water. You're on the beach. Brad Newsham (54:05) I do. It was a habit of mine when I drove a cab. Whenever I got out near Ocean Beach, I would park, I would walk down, I would dip my finger into the water. Jama Adams (54:13) Sometimes that was all that was possible because we know it gets cold. Brad Newsham (54:18) But it's just so great to see all those happy, lit up people that were glad that they took their Saturday morning or Sunday morning or whatever it is and came down and did that and saw all these other happy, smiling people with signs and costumes. I think it was last October, ⁓ No Kings, Yes on 50 event that brought 5,000 people out. And as I ⁓ was walking around, there's this guy up ahead. I was probably 40 yards away from him when I saw him. It looked like someone had pushed him out of the crowd toward me. And it was Mr. Rogers. It's look like Mr. Rogers look at Mr. Rogers is actually deceased, but. Jama Adams (55:02) I was gonna ask how this happened. Brad Newsham (55:05) wearing a red vest and a bow tie and... Jama Adams (55:08) He was honoring the true Fred Rogers. Brad Newsham (55:11) And I walked over and I said, come with me. I took his hand and we walked, I walked through the neighborhood hand in hand with Mr. Rogers. Jama Adams (55:19) Who are the people in my neighborhood? (music) Brad Newsham (55:22) Yeah, there you go. Jama Adams (55:24) People are coming in costume. They're lying on the beach. They're partying. They're dancing. They're singing. Brad Newsham (55:29) There's when Bette Midler put out this recent video with. you fascist bandoliers, it's an old Woody Guthrie, I Yeah. ⁓ you fascist bandoliers. And with a lot of artwork in the back. There we were. I think like the third image. Jama Adams (55:50) Bringing it full circle. You are the hippie in San Francisco. You made your own images back to the 15 year old you. What does it all mean? You know, a lot of people worry that like can it can it fix the world? write like when you get that question from yourself or from others What is it? said it was connectivity is one of the pieces of it. What is it? What does it do in the world to have this? Brad Newsham (55:58) I think it makes the world go round somehow. What if we didn't have this? We would just be a thoroughly authoritarian place. In those times when I wasn't doing banners, that was what I was putting. I still think what if we played here as a, a, there's more of us out there than there are of this little band of elite that up there that, that, are, that are, ruling classes. Yeah. Yeah. What if we had a game, you know, I, I, I come back another Jama Adams (56:39) For sure. I was gonna say this sounds like a part two Brad Newsham (56:56) Let me try that again and not stumble. To create a world-spanning event that all human beings will find irresistible, a global game the playing of which will immediately trigger an evolutionary leap of human consciousness with results far too awesome to predict. I like that. Jama Adams (57:13) ⁓ I like that too. And I just want to offer to you that what you've already done comes pretty close. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe at jamaadams.com. We’d love to hear from you on social media. Until next time, take care.