Happy 50th anniversary of Woodstock to Palo Alto’s Gregg Rolie of Santana

Let’s put our hands together for Gregg Rolie


The New York Times did not mention him, but ran an interview with Carlos about taking mescaline with Jerry, but the Grammy homepage did have Gregg Rolie on the panel interview about their thoughts on rock’s big day out, 50 years ago this month.

It’s a Palo-centric view to say Carlos would never have made it that far if not for meeting Gregg Rolie at a Mountain View jam session a couple years before.

Who knows the real story of why Gregg and Neal Schon bailed to go form Journey. Ah, the road not taken!

Rolie is performing some Santana songs at Bethel Woods near Woodstock tomorrow night, with Ringo.

To the extent that Palo Alto seems to book often the Santana tribute led by local Leo Herrera, I always say “We should get Gregg Rolie!”

I’ll have to ask John Santos about Santana when he gets here next month. He played with that band, for a minute, he sometimes talks about.

Not sure the segue: Joe Russo Almost Dead, Saturday at Frost; Dayna Stephens at The Mitch Sunday afternoon; some old British blues band in Santa Clara Sunday night. Get yer ya-ya’s indeedy.

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Fake news I’m seeing little green men watching CNN

10FC3739-8253-4361-9EBD-3713ED0A62A8.jpegAbove, the world as it actually is, somewhere in Russia, a monument; below, similar info but in my limitless cave. I wrote “little” but changed to “limitlessly “.

link to the actual, If fake, story or transcript

F58DF3F2-1961-4ED8-9F7C-C366E0058A3BBw google doodle inside google doodle

A2F54771-EFB6-4783-B07F-C44B3373EE3C.pngI probably should not admit this but the reason I am watching TV and posting Ludicrously to my blog  is that it seems like someone has hacked my Yahoo! Mail in the middle of me sending out 2000 announcements about my Dayna Stephens concert. Or at least it suddenly logged me out and I don’t really know the password so I will have to change the password.  I’m imagining that one of the 800 or more people who have gotten that invitation to the concert, besides Jen Dziura Or Dave Douglas was some kind of Russian unemployed guy who just for yucks wants to make Dayna and my life that much harder,  or someone really does see me as a threat to their threat to democracy. Or a thread even.

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Jen Dziura’s upgrade from hamburgers to bull-sliders

66DC59E2-CFDA-4978-BA9C-6A7946FE02D8EF2914A8-63FC-489D-9D08-52916FFC7CA8E8F5858C-0828-49AB-8C5E-7499FE1BC9E3 In my 25 years in the arts a sub-project has been to cultivate a network of Dartmouth alums in those fields.  As distinct from the previous efforts to do so in journalism parentheses Paul Gigot, Budd Schulberg  or advertising – – check the eggs he can Roman Chuck Thegze Ken Roman.  The list includes: Aisha Tyler, Eric Lindley, Fred Haas, Pat Burtis, Joel Newton, Echo Brown, Ramona Falls — that’s a band.

When I caught up to Jen 10 years ago, she was a comedian and hosted a spelling bee and used to box, and debate.  She wrote something memorable about controlling the micro market for hamburgers with an invisible hand.

Now that I have reactivated my mailing list I’m getting blasts from the past and it seems her new thing is a conference built around “bullish”or “bullishness”.  I looked it up and the attributes of that animal as an adjective date to 1582 whereas as a positive force or heading towards improvement or with confidence dates back to 1862 although I didn’t figure out why .

Anyways good luck to Jen. Or as they say in the Carmen movie with black people, keep swinging until the bell rings

(The quirky headline or nut graph or Nidus, is that nowadays there are all these schemes for making upscale hamburgers, for example not using meat or using fresh meat, and the idea that I guess we could be eating ground up Bull as much is ground up cow. Unless we are Hindus.

I wonder if there are a bunch of cows who even in their own language – tone variances on what we hear as “moo” —are chanting or singing  “juice will not replace us” meaning extracts from the vegetable named beet and its seems stem cell derived non-meat thingy I think.

Jen’s bullish conference has every excuse the expression “manifest destiny “and that it spans are cotton in Brooklyn to Palm Springs.

This post today despite the fact I was trying to focus on my upcoming concert, Dayna Stephens, and then I realized that at my age I am not very funny. In that as I explained previously when I was 30 there was no one funny over 50. And therefore there is no one under 30 who thinks I’m funny.

Or as someone very famous who eats a lot of hamburgers says “everyone should be calm and safe“.

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Alta Weiss VS Lynda Benglis

C18A19EC-F60A-4E3E-86DE-D3576B2CB138.jpegAlta Weiss was a baseball player who defied gender expectations 111 years ago and then became a medical doctor.

Lynda Benglis is a sculptor  who works with fabric and has a show coming up shortly in Palo Alto at the Pace Gallery.  I had never heard of her until 20 minutes ago walking past the gallery.  There was a man in the window —this is seven in the morning —who is either a preparator waiting for his wing man or a security guard or just a ghost.

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Alta Weiss came over the transom so to speak from my friend the baseball scholar Ed Burns who also was once my editor in the sports department of “the D “ .  Ed and I drove to Yosemite together one summer, the year that Kevin Mitchell was on fire but thankfully Mariposa was not since we stayed in Mariposa.

More sensibly I should compare the shirts for sale commemorating Alta Weiss and Kevin Mitchell giveaway coming very soon. I have to admit besides the cornucopia of music events I am producing or attending that I’m going to two more baseball games, Giants versus the A’s and then

tk (wink, wink)

 

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It’s 2 bad I didn’t know this guy, nor his music

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Divid Shapiro of the Silver Jews, age 5too

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Prague police puppy pipeline

og

After City Council business I met Officer J. Tannock and Bohdan. She says his or her name means “given by God” and the dog arrived from Czech Republic where we apparently get all our dogs here. Thanks in advance for your service!

Tannock and Bohdan will be appearing Tuesday at National Night Out.

Personally, I’m looking forward to SF Mime Troupe “Treasure Island” at Cubberley Center outdoors, the amphitheatre. But if I happen on one of our eight block parties, I’ll try to sniff a few butts and get some paw.

g

 

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Assata Shakur (Kahlil Joseph) detail VS Miriam Schapiro detail, at Cantor

93EB808F-C9D6-49E0-8237-F2E849677EF1.jpeg

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Cliff Branch, Raider, dies at age 71

Cliff Branch was one of my favorite football players.

I got his autograph in the parking lot of the Coliseum in 1974, when I was 10, and he was 26.

The photo is by Baron Wolman

08CC1CBB-C770-4524-8A56-462E8305BEAA.jpeg

3A10D59D-360A-46A5-9362-1273FF286E4C.jpegThe Oakland Raiders team is fine

Their halfbacks and fullbacks burst through the line

Their receivers have zing

They’ll catch anything

Touchdowns they’ll make

On passes from Snake

I wrote that.

RIP.

 

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Chapman out at home VS White Sox reminds of Blue Moon Odom out at home, Morgan to Bench to end Game 5 of 1972 WS

The A’s beat Chicago 3-2 last week but Ryan Cordell’s peg of Matt Chapman trying to score from third had me sussing out the clip of Blue Moon Odom, a pitcher, pinch-running and trying to score on a short foul pop out in Game 5 of the World Series; Joe Morgan, who the announcer said was hitless that far in the series, threw to Johnny Bench for the game-ending out. The A’s of course won the 1972 classic, likely the first competition that I watched pitch by pitch. The other standout plays are striking out Bench on a fake intentional walk and Joe Rudi catch against the wall.

odombench75.pngThe catcher for the Sox here, the one imitating Johnny Bench is James McCann, who was a first time all star this year. He is from Santa Barbara area, played at Arkansas, drafted by Tigers then moved to Chi-town. He has a beautiful Christian wife, and twins named Christian and Kane — amazing what the internet tells us these days. When baseball cards came out around 1951, with Topps and Bowman, the cards were the primary source of info for fans about the athletes, augmenting what they could hear on radio.

champman.jpgTo reiterate: the A’s won that world series and 3-2 on July 14 despite the fine play by Ryan Cordell and James McCann.

morgancordell19

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Halliwell scoring for a baker’s dozen upcoming & classic movie bills at The Stanford Theatre

OR, A MOVIE-BILL FEAST

cregar

Laird Cregar in “Hangover Square” as a troubled pianist. He also appears in “Heaven Can Wait”. Cregar died at age 31 after a weightloss regimen but had made 16 fiilms, and has a star on the Walk of Fame.

Tonite: ***** (Five stars)
This Happy Breed**
Meet Me in St. Louis ***
Convenient and cheap, but I’d rather take the wife to see Tarantino “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” and I’ve seen it twice already. Certain I’ve seen MMIS a couple times, as well, here.
But I should say seeing a movie again at Stanford Theatre is still a splendor based on numerous factors such as: price, the crowd or co-responders; cheap popcorn and Coke; big screen, memories of seeing such with my father; or with The Cohens, who sometimes make a beeline to the threatre before dropping their bags off.

(edit to add, the next day: Terry, Phyllis and I saw Tarantino instead, me for the third time)

Wednesday:**** (Four stars, with a bullet or bang –!!)
Lust for Life **
Cabin in the Sky **
Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh and not, as far as I know, an influence on Iggy Pop. Is there a source of that phrase that pre-dates 1956?
blacked with: I don’t think I’ve heard of this, 1943 musical with: Eddie Rochester Anderson, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, “Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe”, “Li’l Black Sheep”, “Ain’t It De Truth”(sic), “Dat Old Debbil Consequence” — which reminds me, I used to think there should be a reality quiz show called “Toot or Consequences” in which if people get answers wrong, maybe questions on the arts, Jack Walrath will let them have it; “Honey in the Honeycomb” “Taking a Chance on Love”, “In My Old Virginia Home”; “Going Up” — I am breaking here, to add this to my electronic calendar — there are six chances, a 5:40 and a 9:45 three days running — and maybe that can be a folo in itself: what happened to these songs? Things ain’t what they used to be, indeedy.

Halliwell, 5th, has him as “John W. Bublett” yet wikipedia has him as “John William Sublett” pka “John Bubbles”, a vaudeville star

Saturday, 8/10:******(six stars, likely the pride of the pack)
Sunset Boulevard ***
Picnic ***
(not to be a spoiler but there is a dead body floating in the pool of the new Tarantino “….Hollywood” film, and a voice over I think by the Brad Pitt character)
and1: this is a William Holden gig; see also by William Inge, “Dark at The Top of the Stairs” a Jewish teen version of which I made a hash of back in summer of ’82; I memorized enough of the kid’s “hard-boiled” speech to be admitted to Rod Alexander’s acting workshop, wherein a highlight was doing Neil Simon’s “Odd Couple” one scene with a guy named John Glenn who claimed he was related to the Rockefellers but not the astronauts. I still somehow recall pacing in the shadows of Rollins Chapel as I worked on my lines, for the audition, Inge.

Wednesday, 8/14:***** (Five stars)
Cluny Brown **
Heaven Can Wait ***
There’s a metaphysical moral theme continued from the previous bill…which somehow makes me want to call Brown Clunsey as in Broonzy.

Saturday, 8/17- Tuesday, 8/20 ***
although I am producing or seeing 3 concerts that weekend — and I just noticed that from now to September 17 there are screening every night at Stanford Theatre ie 63 days or 9 straight weeks
So I’ll likely be attending the M or the T.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
that runs nearly three hours, matinee only on the weekend
And: I am producing a Dayna Stephens concert on Sunday at The Mitch.

Quirkily more than curmudgeon-like, I pretend there are no classic movies since 1987

I’m not a Packard, and drive a Chevy but I would do “Picnic” b/w “Dark at the Top of the Stairs” or “Dark…” with “The Graduate”

Wednesday, 8/21:***** (Five stars)
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn ****
Curse of the Cat People *
James Dunn VS James Dean? He won the AA.
Not sure I get the implied connection here: childhood? Halliwell lets drop that there is a Cat People from 1942 — ** — by the same producer. I’d almost want to see “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” with “Can’t Stop The Music” the Greenwich Village vehicle Village People (1980). That also leads nicely, as a music theme, to…
(And while I am at it, I’d back “Cabin In the Sky” with Dan Pritzker’s new biopic about Buddy Bolden, which is being poorly received but has great music and beautiful Jim Crow era comfort workers).
andand: also, I would go “Pygmalion” 1940 GB with “My Fair Lady” — which they may already have done — and also all four (!!!!) versions of “A Star is Born”, 1937, 1954, 1976, 2018 — by the fourth version it seems Brad Cooper’s motivation is “Fredric March did it”, if you excuse the digression.

Saturday, 8/24:
Sun Valley Serenade *
Orchestra Wives **
Almost worth seeing — see above about Jack Walrath – – or Marquis Hill — about “Toots and Consequences” — just for the Nichlolas Brothers — and “I’ve Got a Girl In Kalamazoo” which as a kid I always thought was “I’ve Got a Girl who Swallowed a Kazoo”. Glenn Miller is in both flicks and his orchestra, but also Jackie Gleason and Cesar Romero, the Joker, which to me means Steve Miller.

interlude: equivalency of 2,000 words summarizing Cesar Romero:

Wednesday, 8/28: **** (4 stars — and in Halliwell system one star means reason enough to see it, four stars quadruply so)
The Heiress **
The Dark Mirror **
(Whereas I would do “Heiress” with “The Wolf Man” (Lon Chaney, Jr; 1940) just for the bad pun, even dropping a point)

Saturday, 8/31: **** (four stars)

The Mark of Zorro (1940) ***
Hangover Square *
Kind of makes me wonder what the very conservative David Packard thinks of DT.
Leadership, not delerium tremens. H notes that the lead of “Hangover Square”, Laird Cregar, “died after slimming for this role”. Morbid reason to see the film.
I also want a night or bill devoted to that guy from SF who plays the patsy gangster in two Bogart films, and David Thomson has an essay on him.

Wednesday, 9/4: ****** (six stars)
Now, Voyager ***
The Letter ***

Saturday, 9/7: *** (three stars)
The Ladykillers *
Importance of Being Earnest **

Halliwell gives The Ladykillers only one star (*) but I remember liking it, with Alec Guiness an Ealing Studio British film.

Wednesday, 9/11: ****** (six stars)
Stage Door ***
Bachelor Mother ***
Note: I am producing a John Santos concert at Mitchell Park on the Friday, 9/13.

Saturday, 9/14 thru Tuesday, 9/17: ***** (5 stars)
Double Indemnity ****
True Confession *
Raymond Chandler co-wrote with Billy Wilder the script based on a novel by James M. Cain:
kind of an awkward and lopsided bill, though both feature Fred MacMurray — is the connection that the famous prologue to DI is a “confession”?? Yet: I’ll be there, likely.

Ideally I’d like to go eight times to see these, between now and mid-September — a huge fan could literally go every night, for about $300, the cost of a good shrink! Tonite, I am more into binge-watching “Succession” of HBO — the faux Rupert Murdoch biopic series.

Hats off to David Packard, again, for making this fly. But I would like to see something with currently living people.

And I recommend Tarantino over this, in most cases.

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