Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

1. I tried to post a comment to a Yahoo Sports story about a musician being ejected from courtside of an NBA game thusly: “coincidental, I was just re-watching ‘The Big Lebowski” and another member of RHCP not quite getting into a brawl; life imitating art imitating Andy Kaufman; (the witticism apparently lost in the cracks of cyber key loggers);
2. What I started to think about writing about, and maybe posted to New York Times, or tried to — they may have standards — was something comparing the Khashoggi Incident to the David Eggers book and movie starring Tom Hanks called A Hologram for the King, especially the real(?) life(?) bit about the Saudi’s having a middle aged fat guy dress in the dead man’s clothes and wander around Istanbul a bit post-mordem. Is that a dybbuk? I said the least they could have done was hire Tom Hanks to wander around town pretending to be a dissident and journalist, ironcially doomed, as a piece of performance art as tribute; 2.a Also reminds of the Hakan Sukor saga here in Plastic Alto (and in Palo Alto, on Bryant, near 250 Hamilton, near City Hall ) in that before he apparently and disapparently decamped for LA-LA land, the former soccer hero and political star was simultaneously we can only assume worried about being either extradicted by the U.S. and Trump Admin AND being attacked by 15 Turkish government thugs wielding baklava knives or spatulas (spatulae?) or cake cutters, or both? (ICE arrives simultaneous-like to the 15 Black garbed henchmen, in a shouskaka of bureaucratic evility. Elmore Leonard meets Amoz Oz meets what was the award winning book circa 2005 about the failed coup in a muslim dictatorship written as prison memoir? I was also going to write, ala “dial m for murder” “Dial MBS For Murder“. (here I tried to post or embed the trailer from Tom Hanks movie I once saw and recall)

3. 

   Send Tom Hanks to Istanbul for tribute to slain dissident

5. World traveling corporate exec type (yet berserker and Elvis fan and dog lover and not a founding member of either Impossible Burger or maybe he is or Norrunner european not sleepware but active wear) sent along what seems to be a sign of a coming politial coup in the other wise staid and organized and conformist Japan, Japan — a smiling or smirking or in pain guy with some gibberish to me and a yellow back ground. i like this guy, would vote for him wear him on my t-shirt or Polo Shirt.

6. 

   This guy was stalking him in Japan

7. In a horribly inconvenient segue, I spoke today for 45 minutes to an on-the-clock and presumably on-deadline journalist or editor who I played little league baseball either with or against in Los Altos Hills, California named Ethan Baron who is now a writer for the San Jose Mercury (the not the Hayes family, not the Knight Ridder families either but anyways excellent local rag). We lamented the loss of 2 of our former baseballers-at-arms, Jason Bermel and Jerry Dowd but speculated that about 200 of us were doing fine. I can at the drop of a hat recall probably 50 of such, and still see or email with maybe 12. (Joe Cassin, Paul Hanley, Nick Sturiale, Chris Kelley…)

8. 

   STUDIO 54s: Larry Garwin, Chris Kelley, Emmie Fa, Mel Froli, Mrs. Todd Kjos, Todd Kjos, Mark Weiss, Aaron Solomon — obscured –,John Jacobson event organizer, Brad Elman, Nathan dot com.Plus: Peter Kirkeby in reflection

9. I went to a Gunn reunion at Antonios Nut House on Cali Ave Palo Alto, the class of 82 36th or So, and saw: Lori Davis Cottle, Mike Blanchette (but didn’t say hi!) Mrs. Blanchette or Lisa I think (likewise, sorry, no “hi!”) –mother of a famous Gunn and UCSB soccer goalie; John Jacobson, my doggelganger —Saudi thugs take note — and his lovely wife Mrs. Jacoboson; the event organizers, or he and the information super high way; Peter Kirkeby, who is studying for his Bar Mitzvah; (whose mom intorduced me to TMW); Todd Kjos; Mrs Kjos — also named Lisa? Did everyone in our class marry a Lisa –who Brad Elman, another classmate — said he recognizes from the gym — and I stomped on his foot a little to keep the piece — err, peace — and I recalled although she claimed I was trippin’ that I met her once 40 years ago when Todd and I played frosh-soph hoops for Gunn and she baked cookies or brownies or cake for us, though she rooted otherwise for Los Altos — they are married 33 years and she got married to him at 19 and they have a boy or man playing football for Chapman in LA; Chris Kelley, who was a wild man and ladies man in high school, despite being late to the game puberty wise and growth wise — I recall pancaking him in junior high flag football, when I was 125 lbs and he was 85 of such — — and he told me leaving the Gunn 1982 20th and 25th and maybe the 30th to not tell his wife he was not shy in high school; wink, wink; Nathan Shedroff, who I’ve known since 1970 shul at not Beth Am but Emaneul of San Jose, whose brother is a Lietuenant Commander or Under-General in the US Rangers or something with a new wife-type and I admitted contrition for having bullied him, again, me at 125 pounds and he at 85 or 90; and then we had to get into the same carpool home from Hebrew School, with his Mom — people said I only won that fight because I wore a down jacket, which absorbed future-grappler Daniel’s blows — I think we were ifghting over whether Moon Dog Mayne or Frank Fudgehammer Nunley had nicer hair, or somesuch childish conceit; Emmie Fa and Dr. Mr Hon Lee father or parents of the fabulous ABCD’s let me see, Aubrey, Blaze, Cadence and Dashiell — they told me they are thinking of buying a vowel; Aubrey is not the lady I saw zooming by me in a motorized scooter the other night, Oct. 17, 2018 around dusk at Serra Mall but is entrenched or established at Google; Christina Osborne, likewise failed to greet, I apologize, gave a wave — I had to leave early because my wife TMW Terry Acebo Davis the artist and I and Gary and Ida were on our way to see Mitch Woods at Fremont’s not Hooters now Smoking Pig — I joked to Mitch “was a hooters, now a honkers (as in Honky-tonk) and he heard “hoggers” – and likewise Mitch Woods — not a Gunn classmate but a famous New Orleans style piano player and singer and party-leader from Brooklyn and Marin — had a bass player not a baseballer — named Michael Warren or so I heard so I yelled out “Hill Street Blues” (becuase a different Michael Warren — not a doppelganger or Saudi dupe but a namesake  — played hoops for UCLA with Lew Alcinder not Kareem — yet — timing is everything and “of the essence” — but also acted on a tv show of such nameliness — and Mr. Woods, not that he’s def but because its HIS SHOW said “Yeah, the BLUES, Fremont, we love the BLUES”; Brad Elman, aforementioned who like Kjos and he like Mrs. Kjos has been married 30 years and just married off one of his sons — not Spencer but the other one — Spencer Elman being another playground legend — or sandlot rather — and I think the other Elman brooder brudder also, like Ornette Coleman the deceased inpsiration for this blog the saxophone — Marie Miller, gave a brief hug to I think — Marie Ridley I think, who went to Barron Park, not also known as Mousie Marie Ridley, with many or our future gunn and Terman classmates but went to Cubberley and Paly and goes to a lot of civic reunion events and is apparently half-Norwegian like Kjos and Kirkeby (by marriage, though his father was rel
10. hours later, six, trying to pick up the same train of thought—lated to the King of All Things Nordic or Danish;
11. I spoke for 45 minutes unless I am repoeating myself to a journalist from the Merc named Ethan Baron who played five years in LAH Little League, one year behind me, but we must have overlapped in two of those years — and I recalled his name because our (Jewish) fathers knew each other. I recall his childhood name but will refrain from outing him here. You can move on from 12 to 6 and from 12 to 54 sometimes too (A typical story of his gets 400,000 readers if he mentions “pens”)
12. and 1: I found myself reading aloud the lyrcis of “Jesus the Pimp” for Faith Bell and two of her book-hench-men but before that Barbara from UNICEF store about sundry topics including my Timor Vermes book, the Hungarian Germ, Look Who’s Back
13. and and what I woke thinking about writing about was my conversation just after leaving Gunn 82 36th or So and before Mitch Woods Michael Warren Hill Street and Fremont Blues and Brisket Fantastic that Cory Wohlbach a former Gunn jazz band 4th trombone player — who drew to Calave better than our reunion did — and I promised him my vote such that 2 weeks before voting day I am now ACE not TEA. His mother, the Jefferson Award winner, said that he bought a keyboard with one of his first pay checks and I got him to admit that perhaps his musical training or interest could help him think on his feet or seat i.e. from the dais ie. during council deliberations — which is essential to what I have been saying for nine years. As an also-ran politician and not quite leader and nearly dissident or dissent and “agitiator” and aspirant board member candidate but not blogger per se. I posed with a borrowed long-neck banjo but did not let ‘THEM” play me like a fiddle.

also: rest in peace the father of my wife’s friend who lived in Los Altos Hills close to 60 years and helped establish the pathways (actual trails) there.