I have written about or at least mentioned Lytton Plaza 28 times now at “Plastic Alto” (this blog).

I was going to mention in here today that early this morning I noticed an employee arriving for work at the pizza parlor at Lytton Plaza (it is a local chain, and advertises on televison). I was thinking of that old tv commercial about the worker waking up early and mumbling “time to make the doughnuts.”

I was assuming that this guy makes the pizza dough or something. He was wearing a hat or an apron with name of pizza parlor.

But about a second after he went in, the music turned on at Lytton Plaza. Music is piped into these little speakers inside some of the benches. It’s usually 1970s rock; for example, Credence Clearwater Revival, who I appreciate, but not coming out of the benches of a public park at 7 a.m. for fairly arbitrary reasons.

A city employee actually told me that he was told by his supervisor that playing rock music in a public park will cut down on drug dealing there.

Meanwhile, I did recall reading in the Chron that Another Planet, a venerable and influential concert promoter –they inspire me — crank music out of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium outboard speakers to rouse the homeless people who sleep there, in San Francisco.

Meanwhile I recall reading that in Iraq the U.S. Army was cranking AC/DC (who I saw at Day on the Green and more recently, post-Bon Scott, at Oakland Arena) to freak out Iraqis (who I guess strongly prefer Bon Scott to Brian Johnson or something). They call it “psy ops” for “psychological operations” — warfare — mind you — if your mind is still mine I mean yours to control. This was in the WSJ, pre-Rupert, pretty sure.

I am meaning to check up on this with my sources from another planet.

But here in Palo Alto, I would rather not use music so crassly as “psy ops” against the homeless or drug dealers.

I say just enforce the existing noise ordinances and yeah, if public safety sees crimes in commission, please act.

I wrote a slightly too emphatic and undisciplined note to City Leaders recently on a related topic – about live music at Lytton Plaza and the proposed new ordinance to ban amplified music there — and have been kinda shy about checking my email for responses. (I used the “f-word” — as a gerund, in the fifth paragraph or so, for example and was generally pretty stuffed with bravado, like an overly ambitious calzone brimming with  three cheeses,  five meats and seven vegetables, if you excuse the metaphor; the actual metaphor I used in my cheeky missive was something about a square peg being driven into a round hole).

But I continue to believe we can do better with Lytton Plaza and with music in public places (and secondarily, for homeless, drug users needing treatment and related social issues that are not my actual forte; music is).

“Time to make the doughnuts” >>”time to freak the homeless”. (whereas I live in a silver mine and I call it beggar’s tomb).

edit to add: post-posting, I found this discussion of the socalled “obscene gerund”. I also found the “Uncle John’s Band” video which is a bit of a red herring; I am playing with a spoof version ala Le Levy but about John Arrillaga and 27 University. On the doughnuts, there is a link to a SNL Jon Lovitz spoof of the famous commercials.