One of the things that I think is true is that you should find what calls to you. It could even be rescuing dogs, but something that is in a positive nature, has to do with kindness, empathy and all the things that they’re trying to erase. Don’t think about whether or not that will affect the bigger scene — because it probably won’t. Probably nothing I do is going to affect it, but I have to do my calling, and the sooner you find your calling, the better it is for you and everybody. It might be something that doesn’t look that important at all, but if it’s positive, and it’s kind and it affects somebody else in a good way, I say, ‘Go for it.’” — Joan Baez, as told to Elise Andrade, April 2025
Presenting the band Russian Telegraph reminds me of living in North Beach, fresh out of college and the optimism I had, which was tempered by the realities of a big world that is largely indifferent to us. But I have distinct memories of climbing the Vallejo Steps, peaking at the apex and then descending down towards a cup of cappuccino at Cafe Trieste, and the myriad types one would meet there and still do. And the vista as you would look out from Telegraph Hill towards Russian Hill.
And the bowl it seemed to form, and the thought that there was a microcosm of the world formed in that bowl, maybe 5,000 people from all over the world. Various walks of life: investment bankers, ad slicks, panhandlers, merchants, students, tourists, Asians, Blacks, Latinos, bourgeois Jews like me who wanted to write a modern version of being 99.4 percent pure -pure what?
I’m tempted to invite the Russian ambassador, Michael McFaul to our concert Saturday at the Palo Alto Arts Center. Maybe he will read this post It is doubtful. He has more pressing matters, such as his fond hope against an indifferent world that something he can say or do saves lives in Ukraine and Russia, and to end a war. The only reason, the only possible reason, McFaul would respond to this message in a bottle –these lights, these ones 1s and zeros0000 is because I did once go to a concert with him.
It was 1982, me and him and our respective two friends went to see the Grateful Dead at the Greek Theater, which also, if not a bowl, at least forms an amphitheater, and people like Beth and David and Jerry and Bobby and Chris and Keith, and Phil and Billy and Kjell channel consciousness turned into vibrations, which are simultaneously amplified and dampened when 100 or 1000 or 10 thousand bodies are in the mix. But I’ll be honest: at Saturday’s concert it’ll be more like 50 people who wake up to decide that We Are The Eyes Of The World. However few or many, we appreciate your presence, brown, pink, and otherwise. Will that do anything? How do we know anything does anything? Other than when you put your lips as an embouchure or form your fingers trained around the neck of not your lover, caressingly or firmly, but a guitar descendant from a lute descended from perhaps a diddly bow, not a bo-diddley beat, but a samba beat in some cases; not jazz, but pop.
Not apathy, but trying in our own way to pop the bubble of hate or at indifference, to pierce it, to appreciate the presence of our fellow humans and the miracle of sound and harmony and rhythm. I am with you in rock-land, a tua presença.
THE BELLE OF THE BALL
THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN
Is it okay that I published this?
Briefly: quickly: Jenny; 456; pies; shirtless sax guy; Johnny A at Lytton Plaza by Randy Lutge; yours truly, my hound, a pair of twins in grad school who are future diplomats; Trish or Tina who hit the high notes in “What is Hip?”; scrimmage ND v SU; guitars at Gryphon; mazel tov to Molly Tuttle and Ketch; George Packer Emergency; Packer and Eggers at Kepler’s; Terry and I and an unknown bombing Yuman; **** review for Dayna and Ethans’ Monk’d; Silvana Estrada Sabre Olividar with 94,339 plays on Shazam; Ebuku Kotorie; football by Theo Bill Brown circa 1957; Katseye; Marylin Monroe ornament at Stanford Theatre; Matt and Bill at The Lyt; Thai Bui; Laufey on tv; candy dude.
to post a quick item about the occurrence of colorful garments in today’s times I don’t know why the blog wanted to link it to my concert Saturday, but if it sells a few tickets, that’s great
