Views from the Corner: An Interview with Street Preacher Dave

Growing up in San Jose, I saw David Taylor preaching on the corner dozens of times before I met him. If you’ve driven around the East San Jose and Milpitas neighborhoods he frequents, you’ve probably seen him, too – wearing a Warriors hoodie and a smile, dancing and pointing at traffic. Our first meeting happened by chance, outside of a local 7Eleven. After chatting about rap music and writing, we scheduled a sit-down interview, but when the day came David pulled out – he was worried about sharing his story. About a week later, we tried again at a park bench beneath the midday sun. Birds chirped and pond fountains emitted a gentle gush. The first stray particles of summer charged the air with a buzzing heat. Across from me, David scarfed down a Big Mac and joked about his initial reluctance. 

 

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DT: I’ll say whatever. If they fry me or shoot me, it’s OK. Being a street preacher, you always have people trying to get in your mix.

 

MR: Why do you refer to yourself as a street preacher?

 

DT: Because that’s what other people say. A lot of preachers – I would say young people trying to get a start in church – they go on street corners and tell everybody they’re going to hell.

 

MR: That’s what I’ve noticed about most street preacher types. They’re all about sin and damnation. But when I’ve seen you on the corner, you’re much more positive.

 

DT: I’m positive most of the time. But sometimes I listen to so much Christian music that I feel so passionate, I preach more aggressively than I would when I’m just dancing. It all depends. Most of the time I’m cool, I’m chill. Because I get loosened up when I’m on the street. I feel like I have the Holy Spirit more than I do when I’m doing normal activities.

 

MR: Interesting.

 

DT: Sometimes I feel the Holy Spirit so much I get these very transcendental thoughts – I feel like calling out the devil, waking everyone up, you know? [laughs] It just happens like that. So what I try to do is when I get to that point, I become more animated and I do more dancing, more silly gyrations. But sometimes I have preached too hard.

 

MR: Too hard?

 

DT: They’ve called the cops on me before.

 

MR: Who?

 

DT: Just people in the city. Some people don’t like my dancing, they say I’m in the street. And other people, they didn’t like my passion. But I’ve never hit anybody or anything like that. I’ve had people try to do that to me. But most of the time, I’m very positive, very upbeat.

 

MR: I’ve seen you at a few different corners in San Jose. Do you preach anywhere else in the Bay Area?

 

DT: I never really decided to just go everywhere. Cause even when Jesus preached he stayed within a hundred mile radius. He mainly preached to the Jews. So I just stick with Silicon Valley. [laughs] I like the people here. And even though I’m Black, I’m not just into Black people. And I’m not so Japanese that I’m all about being Blasian or Asian. I’m into everybody.

 

MR: You don’t see yourself as part of a particular community.

 

DT: Not at all. We’re all the same. We have the same needs. I was a youth pastor in the Vietnamese church for three or four years, and the way they act, the way they talk, it’s the same as the Black church I grew up in. Same thing. Same people. Same gossiping problems, everything. [laughs]

 

MR: You mentioned music. Do you listen to music beforehand or while you’re preaching?

 

DT: While I’m out there.

 

MR: Do you ever have a plan for what you’re gonna do?

 

DT: No plan. I just go out there. Sometimes I hold the Bible. I’ll do little gestures, or sometimes I’ll all-out dance. I feed off people. People have hard days. People have worse problems than I do. I don’t wanna go out there and make their day worse. A lot of times when I feel like preaching hard, I’ll just dance anyway. I’ll groove it out, man. [laughs] I mainly listen to Christian music, but I also listen to rap sometimes. Last night I was listening to Jadakiss and Nas. I noticed when I listen to those rappers, I don’t really feel a religious burden. I just feel like vibing with people. When I listen to rap music I feel like I’m a gangster – with no gun. Or I feel like I wanna keep it one hundred, you know? The things we get involved with, they have an influence on us. And since I read the Bible every day, it has an influence on me. That’s all.

 

MR: Where are you at with that, by the way? With the Bible. You said you’re trying to memorize it?

 

DT: Yeah, I’m trying to memorize it. I first got saved when I was sixteen and I went through the whole Bible in like two and a half or three months. I finished it fast. If you were to average out all my reading from the different books, I’ve probably read it between fifteen and twenty times. But I never really focused on heavy reading until I was about 28. I’m 37 now. I always try to blend Bible reading, dictionary reading, and scholarship together. But now my eyes are so bad I can only read the dictionary in the morning for twenty minutes, and the Bible in the evening for twenty minutes.

 

MR: The Bible must be especially tough. They usually have such tiny text.

 

DT: It’s hard, but the Bible I use is large print. I think I have to get my eyes dilated so I can find out what’s wrong with my eyes, why I can’t read more. I just bought Grey’s Anatomy, too. That’s on my bucket list.

 

MR: It seems like for you part of the appeal of memorizing things is that it unlocks an ability to express yourself.

 

DT: I heard back in the day when you were training in seminary to be a preacher, they would make you memorize the whole book of Psalms. I like memorizing things because they stick with you and pop up in your mind later. I don’t always remember everything I just read, but it comes back to me.

 

MR: It gets embedded somewhere.

 

DT: Exactly. I just like people who can express themselves well. I’m all for people trying to articulate who they are. That’s how you grow. I like people who are real. Some people don’t like Tupac’s message, but at least he was coming from his own perspective. When you listen to rap, you also find out that people came from totally different backgrounds than you. Even religiously, even though I’m Christian, there are tons of people who grew up Buddhist, who grew up Hindu, so I try to relate to them. That’s the main thing, relating. And the more you know, the easier you can get in with different crowds.

 

MR: Absolutely.

 

DT: But it’s about making their lives better. Not making your life better. Some people are charismatic because they want you to like them. I read in a leadership book that when you’re charismatic, you make other people feel good about themselves.

 

MR: I noticed whenever I’ve seen you preaching on the street, you have certain props with you. Microphone, Bible, and I think I’ve even seen a wrestling belt?

 

DT: [laughs] Yes, I didn’t beat Brock Lesnar but I have the undisputed WWE title.

 

MR: It’s funny because your microphone is never connected to anything. And you have the Bible, but you just carry it. You never read from it. Is it more about the overall effect?

 

DT: I’m glad you noticed that the mic isn’t plugged in anywhere. Because I want people to laugh at that. I have the wrestling belt. I probably had maybe seven in total. I actually gave my old pastor the world heavyweight title in the middle of a service. He looked at the designs, because it had different grappling scenes engraved in the belt. He’s a Bible guy so he’s all trying to interpret it.

 

MR: Like it’s the stations of the cross or something.

 

DT: Hilarious stuff. I know some church people that have given me a hard time because they’re like, “Well, we know you have the belt. We know you have a Bible. But what does it mean?” How do you not just find joy in this? What are you hating?

 

MR: I was curious about that, too. You mentioned different strangers having positive and negative reactions to your street preaching. But what was the reaction like from the church, from your friends and family?

 

DT: My dad is one of my big supporters. He didn’t mind. I don’t know if people have approached him and been like, “Your son’s out there acting like a nut.” I’ve been persecuted by church people, called crazy, called being on drugs. I’ve heard it all. I know my sister doesn’t really like me being a street preacher, but she supports me. I know she loves me in other ways. She just may not be down with that. One time we were walking through Target and I lost one of my belts. She was like, “You know I’m not gonna buy you a belt.” I hadn’t even asked yet. [laughs]

 

MR: That’s funny. She already knew.

 

DT: Usually, if somebody’s got something different or something new, people hate on them. Even Bruno Mars, when he came out with that dope album, with the 24 Karat and all that stuff? And he had all the ladies liking him? My friend said Bruno Mars could do so much more if he had a serious message. But you can’t hate on the guy. Once I feel like I’m jealous of somebody or I start to hate somebody, I just throw that feeling in the trash.

 

MR: You seem keyed in to how important it is to connect with people. Was that a realization you had over time or was it something you always knew? Where does that motivation come from?

 

DT: People told me they’ve had good days when they saw me. Once I heard that I said, OK, this is a good thing that I’m doing. I should do it as much as possible or until God tells me to stop. I try to use what I have to help people. Reaching people is the most important thing. I may reach people, but other people reach me, too. When I’m low, people help me.

 

MR: Are you still street preaching? I thought you said you were retired.

 

DT: I’m retired in the sense that I do it less and less. I used to do it basically every day. It was so tiring, man.

 

MR: How long would you be out there for?

 

DT: About three, four hours. Sometimes five hours. My depression was so bad, I couldn’t work. So I was like, “What do I do?” You can’t read all day. Eventually you gotta release stress, you gotta meet people. You can’t just be in a room by yourself. A lot of the things I know about life, I know them from my own mistakes. I just figured that I could take my life, which is gonna be short, and make it count.

 

MR: You mentioned threats and assaults. Would you mind talking about that? What happened?

 

DT: I’ve had people threaten me all the time. One time I was in the street, just trying to fire people up. And this guy was like, “Hey, you’re in the way.” He parked his truck, got out, and grabbed my face like he was gonna put me in some hold. But I played possum, because I don’t want to fight anybody. While he had me in the hold, these two Filipinas that were outside of McDonalds – I guess God hears my prayers, right? – they were like, “Don’t hold him like that.” Eventually he let go. Some fights you can be smart. You can wiggle out of there. You don’t have to be Thor, you can be Loki.

 

MR: Right. You can be sneaky.

 

DT: One thing I like about being a street preacher is that I basically just interrupt people. If you want to change society in a funny way, at any time you can go on a corner and just poke fun.

 

MR: It’s so simple.

 

DT: It’s like instant access.

 

MR: That is a funny way of looking at it – being a jolly interferer, almost like a prankster.

 

DT: If Eminem were in my body and he were a street preacher, I think he would be even better, and I think he would be just like what you described – a jolly interrupter. Because he likes to have fun and toy with people. If you can interject without having a negative impact, and if you do something that makes people fall out laughing – like I’ve had people look like they were gonna lose their steering wheel, they were laughing so hard. And you know what’s funny about human laughter? If you take a picture of somebody while they’re just doing what they’re doing, you’ll get a mug shot, right? It’s funny to watch the mug shot go into an all-out laugh. It’s hilarious! People are driving by and they’re all serious.

 

MR: Everyone’s coming home tired and angry.

 

DT: It’s to die for.

 

MR: That’s cool. I can see you get a lot of joy out of that.

 

DT: Yeah. And I think that anybody who does what I do can get the same response. Anybody can go out there with a Bible and a belt and start dancing. People can do K-Pop out there, man. [laughs] You know, one reason why I couldn’t quit for the longest time is because it’s so fun. You feel like you’re a different person. But the sad part is when I walk to my car and go back to regular life.

 

MR: Ah, you get a come down effect.

 

DT: But you know what – one day I realized it’s good that I don’t stay up there in the clouds all the time. Because you couldn’t really function.

 

MR: That’s true.

 

DT: You’d be seeing everything, hearing everything. Normal life is good. You get a lot done. It’s good to have different things you can do.

 

MR: Speaking of getting things done, you said one of your ambitions was to open a church. What are your plans?

 

DT: Well, I’ve done all the studying and I know how to get in with people. I’m going to go online and post some Bible study lessons. I might be eccentric. I might do some weird things, some funny things. I’ll try to make it a little intellectual for people who would want that, give them something substantive. Also, I might do some Christian rapping. Eventually, I want to save up some money and rent a room on Sunday mornings. I think people will enjoy it. There’s a lot of work to do.

 

MR: Where do you get all your energy from?

 

DT: My energy?

 

MR: Yeah, you seem to have boundless energy.

 

DT: It comes from reading! I noticed that if you take the Bible and read it in a quiet place, especially if you read it out loud, it’ll change how you feel. For some reason, reading gives me energy. Also, people. Street preaching kind of takes it away.

 

MR: Do you think there are any misconceptions about you? Or about what you do?

 

DT: I don’t know. Some people get me more than I get myself. Some people label me as troublemaker, I’ve gotten that a lot. But I am! I am a troublemaker! But in a positive way. Everybody’s got their own way of doing things. Me, I’m like Klay Thompson – I just play the game. I keep doing the same crap, and God makes everything good. [laughs]

 

MR: So you think of yourself more like Klay Thompson, even though you like to dance like Steph Curry.

 

DT: Doing the shimmy, yeah. I’m just somebody that would like to be like Jesus. I want to know my role. I want to limit my regrets. Every person goes out into the world – you learn things, you grow. You try to put yourself in a position where people are astounded not necessarily with you, but at what a person could be.

 

MR: That’s a good way to put it.

 

DT: Cool! [laughs]