Thank you,  Kerry Yarkin and one other, for diverting the cavalcade of trolls who attacked me on the Weekly’s site, under the back-handed article about entering the race. What Gennady Sheyner strangely leaves out is that I got nearly 6,000 votes in 2012 and my residentialist campaign platform presaged the referendum on Maybell and was validated by the Grand Jury of June 16, 2014. No I was not the whistle-blower, but I’d like to be next time.

Taking a break from the campaign trail and “fear and loathing” I ducked into the new Richard Linklater movie, at Palo Alto Square. Besides being an interesting look at family, it features one of my favorite cities, Austin, Texas, and one of my favorite places to hear music, The Continental Club. The soundtrack made me seek out “Hero” by Family of the Year. The film is “Boyhood” by the way. I also recommend his 1988 debut “Slacker” and “Thru a Scanner Darkly” an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel.

I also watched exactly one hour, recently of the Planet of the Apes movie, then walked out — which means either the movie is really bad or I am already stressing about time management in this 100-day run-up to the polls. The way the apes could communicate, the makers would have you believe, with sign language and gesture — we saw the subtitled purported actual meanings – reminded me of my post earlier in the day about the three carpenters trying to communicate the rights of workers while standing in front of a wine bar on Emerson.

Anyways here is the song from which I crib my title here: I don’t want to be a hero, or a big man.

Posted by Kerry Yarkin, a resident of Palo Verde
on Jul 27, 2014 at 9:47 am

Good Luck Mark Weiss. You have my vote. It seems that you know a lot about the ins and outs of the development process here in Palo Alto. It is unfortunate for native Palo Altans (myself included) to see all this runaway development and loss of wonderful stores that once made Palo Alto a unique place. Your perspective will definitely make a difference on the status quo.

Posted by Weiss voter, a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 27, 2014 at 6:29 pm

Let the people decide. Weiss is a serious thinker whose only fault I see is underselling himself.

What GS said is accurate but I called him on deliberately provoking the trolls by framing the article as me being one of two candidates who has run unsuccessfully multiple times (the other being someone who does  not really campaign but qualifies for a ballot and is more known for challenging our sit-lie ban; I called GS and challenged him to support his claim or implication that I am not any more viable than that).

I did, by the way, greet Victor Frost my fellow candidate, who I spotted sitting in front of the stationary store near Printer’s Ink on Cali Ave.

This, by Gennady Sheyner, would be more objective outside of that framing. (Meanwhile I noted that Lydia Kuo, a realtor from Barron Park, got substantial play, especially in the print edition, while this story didn’t make the cut at all; notice that the Weekly is roughly one third realty ads).

Weiss, 50, has been vocal in his criticism of new development, particularly the proposal to turn Varsity Theatre on University Avenue into a hub for high-tech workers. He has also been a proponent for public art and an advocate for new performing-art venues. He is the founder of the concert-production company Earthwise Productions.

Weiss has also been critical of the 2012 proposal by billionaire developer John Arrillaga to build an office-and-theater complex at 27 University Ave., a plan that ultimately fizzled in the face of community opposition. In an interview Wednesday, Weiss told the Weekly that he believed that “the leadership is not listening to citizens as much as to downtown interests.”