I keep bouncing back and forth between my day job covering music and my waking nightmare trying to prevent Palo Alto from being overrun by this group of middle aged multimillionaires competing with each other to out do each other and put up the manliest phallic tower to their specialness, at Bryant and Uni, Lytton and Alma (“the Gateway”), Forest and Bryant, BUT NOT 456 UNI, Bryant and Lytton. 27 Uni (“the other Gateway”).

What about just getting high the old fashioned way, on life, on music? Here I dedicate a performance by my close personal friends and Chi-town soulmates Jason JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound doing a humble version of one of my favs “I Got High” in honor of the former Cogswell Plaza which is being, with vote by Recs commission, annexed to the building opening up across the way: they are tearing out half the grass and putting in benches — oops, there goes Brown Bag series, forever, buh-bye! — but the whole thing is really a vagrancy exercise to appease the builders and wash away certain people while they sell or rent out the units. And what happened to the trees on Bryant side? I watched the presentation on video City archives of architect saying “we are saving your trees!” then heard from a planner staff dude that they changed their mind and clear cut those bitches rather than having to slow down or be careful or be good neighbors. Lorax and Elinor Cogswell are rolling in their graves: