Of his 49 projects this year, Matt Merewitz works with at least four that I have strong sense of. The artists, if not these new works. Not yet.
One, is Dave Douglas, for “Brazen Heart” a quintet that features Jon Irbagon but not Donny McCaslin, but I had brief mentions in Plastic Alto about his 2001 project “Witness” (RCA, at the time his 18th such effort) and for the composition from 2004 Bluebird set “Strange Liberation” “The Frisell Dream.”
Two is Jacob Garchik, for “Ye Olde” a self-release, but I saw him recently at Stanford where he was in the brass section i.e selfless, of a Darcy James Argue project. I don’t know Jacob. I sometimes say hello to his mother the journalist Leah Garchik, out and about (and in fact she sat behind us for the post-show Q&A) and I sent him a note once a couple years ago about my “Palo Alto” call-waiting project (there is a jazz composition by Lee Konitz called “Palo Alto” and I was trying to get them to play that at 250 Hamilton our city hall while you are on hold; I wanted someone to produce a performance for that purpose; Garchik sort of passed). *
Three is that Aaron Goldberg the pianist was John Ellis’ pianist when we recorded at Mike Brorby’s studio in Brooklyn, in 2004. My big role was to go into Manhattan in his car and fetch his keyboard from the shop — that didn’t merit an associate producer’s credit, but I did ask (“By A Thread”, 2nd of three on Hyena, by JAE that is). Aaron Goldberg who might have gone to med school, from a family of doctors. I think everyone who worked as a sideman for John in those days now also has a release or two as a leader. See Aaron Goldberg “The Now” on the classy label Sunnyside.
Four would be Ben Goldberg who I know and say hello to and arguably have done a tiny bit of work with or for via Tin Hat, Clarinet Thing but not “Go Home” which I’ve only seen. I saw Ben not so long ago at the DeYoung. And I did mention IN A VERY CONVENTIONAL WAY, OR SEE BELOW, his project debuting at Yerba Buena, “Orphic Machine” which is the group that Fully Altered Media is or was promoting or publicizing, which has among others Carla Kihlstedt, a founder of Tin Hat Trio (and Carla once opened for Steve Lacy in Berkeley, on my suggestion to the promoter — because she was booked elsewhere alas the night before, my Lacy show in Palo Alto — Ben loved Steve — see this all fits!)
Ben Goldberg clarinet with Taylor Ho Bynum trumpet, at Earthwise Productions of Palo Alto, fall 2014
Good luck to Matt and Steve(Buono, not Lacy). Matt cut his teeth in Philadelphia helping the pr great Don Lucoff.
*from the artist’s CD Baby page: Imagine a 2015 cover of the soundtrack to a 1970’s remake of a 1930’s movie about the Middle Ages.
YE OLDE IS:
Jacob Garchik – the Barrel Maker – trombone, alto horn, tenor horn
Brandon Seabrook – the Trickling Stream – guitar
Mary Halvorson – the Guardian of the Rock – guitar
Vinnie Sperrazza – the Merchant of Iron – drums
Jonathan Goldberger- the Mountain of Gold – guitar, baritone guitar
The epic tale of which I tell below
Takes place In Flatbush, 1000 years ago.
Our heroes met and formed a merry band
in order to defeat the evil plan
of architect Mortise Mansard the IVth
whose castles dotted the landscape South to North.
Upon a springtime walk around the town,
the Barrel Maker gazed upon the brown
and limestone ornaments he’d seen before
but never stopped to wonder what they’re for.
The architects of old hid secret meanings
in stonework, visible only by gleaning.
Acanthus, suits of armor, family crests,
led to the start of what became a quest.
Read together lurked a message hiding:
Mansard’s recipe for vinyl siding.
Flatbush would be a town of brick no more
But a sea of yellow vinyl from roof to floor.
To fell a foe with such a sinister scheme
The Barrel Maker had to build a team.
The Stream, The Rock, The Iron and The Gold
Together make the band which is YE OLDE.
I was just gonna leave it at saying I met Mary Halvorson once in Philly at a John Thicai show and Brandon in Santa Cruz with Paul Brody klezmer. Aaron Goldberg and Ben Goldberg should play together someday, as Goldberg Variations, perhaps with Scott Amendola on drums. And1: FAM has 6,000 twitter followers, which is very good (while he retweets Ted Gioia, who has 16.2K wow! Ted who used to work on Uni Ave in Palo Alto)
edit to add, a month later, and two days after Chanukah, a week before X-mas: NPR has a great piece on Garchik, “Ye Olde” which, if you didn’t get clearly from above, is about the old houses in Brooklyn that were designed to lure Jews. And David Harrington of Kronos, his kids went to high school with Jacob, in SF: which school? I’m guessing Lowell, but it could be an arts magnet. Leah? “Lowell….thanks for noticing. LG”
“By the way, he makes the best pasta around.” – Lucinda Williams, 1996
At 11:21 Laura Thomas of ComboPlate booking of Austin, Texas tex’d me to say that she had spoken with Kathleen Daly of Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park or Menalto, on border of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, or right across the crick, and that we were ok to produce a Michael Fracasso concert in her room next Thursday, November 12, 2015.
Kathleen said yes. I will call you back
in about five or 10 minutes – I need to
take care Of one other thing not
related
I wrote back:
Yeah!! (smiley face also known as “emoji”)
I said to myself and then later explained to Laura: wow, that’s my first b-to-b or business-to-business emoji. I’ve been using them in personal correspondence for severals months now and now I’ve had the opportunity to use one for business.
Apropos of this show, or prospective show and now, for about an hour confirmed show: Michael Fracasso at Cafe Zoe, Thursday, November 12, 2015, 6:30 doors, 7 p.m. show, $20 tickets, 50 capacity or so, (address of venue, phone). An evening with, i.e. no opening act.
There are approximately 10 days or 250 hours (plus or minus a good night’s sleep) until the event. As in, if I work around the clock for the next 10 days to bring a crowd and somehow profit to the tune of $250, I could make $1 per hour!! (smiley face)
Laura and I briefly discussed the difference between emoji and emoticon and I sais emoticon is when you type a colon and and close parens to get a smile. 🙂
Michael also did a show at my short-lived but legendary run at the little art gallery at the corner of Alma and Hamilton which is now office for a real estate firm, in 2004.
In fact we set up the series around the avails of Michael and my then-client Annie Lin, who I was also pitching to Laura as a potential client. I believe Annie is relatively inactive as a performer but works as a lawyer, sometimes in entertainment and also did some work with Brooke Wentz of The Rights Workshop. Todd Inoue, then of Metro, not to digress too far from Michael Fracasso, wrote up Annie and you can find that, as I did by sussing “michael fracasso” and “palo alto”. (I had sent just such a link to Laura).
In between all of these not quite causes and not quite effects, via Chaos Theory, I spent a month at La Casita, a house Laura owns in South Austin, in 2009.
I also joked that our agreement has a force majeur clause cancelling me minus my deposit if the creek rises and Cafe Zoe floods. (They’ve been having actual such problems in Austin, Texas, no joke).
Michael is also an excellent chef, not sure how that works into this here show.
Maybe if you comment below, the first 50 or such that can be your COD list or reservations list for the show.(20) Twenty books(21) for the show is a little high by Earthwise Productions standards but probably worth it, and maybe a better value than the $200 or more I paid for four tickets to see Matt Nathanson and Train and the Fray at Shoreline. I had just come up with, apropos of something else, a $20 buck plus 20 mile rule on what I’d pay and how far I’d drive to see a show.
Above is an audio disguised as a video of Michael Fracasso singing “1962” (with Patty Griffin, his friend, WHO WILL NOT BE APPEARING) at WGSR in 2001. And below is an album version with only 9 views. Maybe I will keep adding to this post as a journal of the progress of the show. I wonder what I can accomplish towards helping out good ol’ Michael Fracasso on Thursday, November 12 if I focus. That I boast of a “Fast Cheap and Out of Control” style of eclectisim and unpredictability makes some (and sometimes me) doubt I can do just one thing with laser focus for 10 whole days or 250 hours (minus a good night sleep).
The previous installments of Earthwise Productions 20th Anniversary Series included performances by Curtis McMurtry (another Laura Thomas ComboPlate booking client), Jerry Hannan and Rachel Garlin (featured, since then, not necessarily catazlyzed by, KFOG local band compilation). Earthise has produced more than 200 shows since its 1994 founding, most notably at Cubberley Community Center of Palo Alto (including other Texas related acts like Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Slaid Cleaves, Bill and Bonnie Hearn, Gage and Albert, Asylum Street Spankers, Spoon featuring Britt Daniels who played recently at Neil Young’s The Bridge Concert at Shoreline, Gary Floyd of The Dicks not really but he owes me $100 or a piece of his visual art work, TK).
I don’t remember 1962 the year but I will update with a favorite baseball card of the era. That was the year that the Giants might have won the world series if Willie McCovey had hit a line drive past and not to Bobby Richardson of the Yankees. This Michael Fracasso dealio is arguably part of the player to be named later God’s way of making up for the mistake. Likewise when the Giants and Rangers were in the World Series I talked to Laura and a few others about an Austin w. SF compilation of songs about baseball, working title “Giant” like the Texas based Rock Hudson movie. Or was it called something “Humm Baby” question mark.
1962 leaders
I might also go ahead and make 50 or so hart ducats (but not heart attacks, sheer heart attack like the rock band queen or a michael fracas so as DYAC wants to put it), tickets, and sell them out of my back-pack like Adam Metz walking naked around Palo Alto High in 1995. Can you, Michael Fracasso, sing “1962” but change the lyric to “1995” in honor of young Mr. Metz famously walking naked for the sake of the student newspaper of the day, 20 years later? Hard ducats. Better would be just to call around and try to get media for this from college radio and what is left of the press. He is a good regional and national songwriter and s/s and worthy of the audience.
Welcome, Michael Fracasso.
Laura adds that Michael Fracasso has a new album coming out in January.
Notes or edits:
1. At 1 o’clock or an hour later or 249 hours until the show I wrote to Elizabeth of the Weekly and suggested she ring Michael about the show:
Elizabeth why don’t you try to reach Austin based singer songwriter Michael Fracasso about his upcoming Nov. 12 show at Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park?
Mark Weiss
earthwise productions of palo alto
2. Laura sends the press kit back to my electronically later that day including:
Born February, 10, 1952, makes him a fellow Aquarian!!
3. This is only the 37th post, of the more than 1,500 Plastic Alto installments that I have put in the category “austistic” which means “has to do with austin, texas the music capital, the 512, especially south austin, where I spent a month in 2009, slackers the movie, linklatter, austin street spankers, bands from austin who played the cub, crazy heart the movie, near kerrville, austin city limits the show more than the festival, papa mali, and or sxsw.” There are 20 categories total. Meanwhile I glossed Michael Fracasso in both my Rick Koster and my Guide to Folk Music. Also, I went thru every title of my comprehensive Earthwise Productions secret headquarters extensive library of digitized and plasticized music to find “A Pocketful of Rain” a Michael Fracasso collection, on Lone Star, from 2004 also known as Texas Music Group, and or simultaneous-like to his appearance in Palo Alto. Special guests on the cd, which Michael produced himself, include Patty Griffin, Eliza Gilkyson and Beaver Nelson. Oddly, or magically, as I put it in the player in my little chedder to hear “All or Nothing” (“we married for love/we were the best of friends…”) it reminded me of my parents, who were married 61 years and then my phone started to butt-dial by dad, who is recently deceased, and in fact Sunday was the memorial and I heard the phone ask me if I wanted to review my message to him –which I guess, if his ears are good, up there in Heaven, and better than they were, towards the end, down here, is “darling the love that you gave me” et cetera et cetera, the nearly angelic voices of Michael and I gather Patty” and also, when I grabbed the phone, contrary to the laws of California safe driving, to put all this together, there was my Dad’s face, smiling, a worldly or now otherworldly grin. Hey, howdy!
4. I forgot yesterday to call in or even listen to KFJC “Joe Ed Dick” and his songwriter show “Lubbock Or Leave It” but here is a link to his playlist. He ran thru sets by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Don Walser, Robbie Fulks and more.
5. Similarly, I pinged the great and lovely Bonnie Simmons via email hoping she bites on this for her Thursday night show on KFPA; I sent her a second note that maybe she can play either “All Or Nothing” or “1962” both of which feature Michael Fracasso and his pal Patty Griffin, on the strength of her being at the Fillmore last night.
6. On Kathleen’s advice, in between bites of a salami panini — an appropriate week before Fracasso meal, not to see his culinary skills short — I sent the photo to InMenlo. I recall meeting Mr. InMenlo here.
7. Responding to uber-attorney Barry Simons’ cue of a Flaming Groovies poster he circulated via text, I made a Robert Syrett ready-made e-flyer for our Michael Fracasso show and started sniping with that. Here you can drag, click and print or forward for yousselves (yousElvis? youSelfies?)
Michael Fracasso Cafe Zoe flyer
8. This is off topic but I want to suss “Landfall” which I think is written here in Menlo Park by Stevie Nicks used to promote some movie about womens gaining the vote, in England maybe?? (Robyn Sherwell cover of Stevie Nicks composition for Sarah Gavron film “Suffragette” says here)
9. I am also so far resisting actually running a photo of Bill Graham as Lucky Luciano in 1991 “Bugsy” as seperated-at-birth with our troubadour:
Not Fracasso
10. And I know I said I would focus laser-like on this show, which is exactly 171 hours away, give or take a good night’s sleep, but I did shoot 13 other things that I might or in a case or two post about.
11. Briefer bio of MF:
Upon arriving in Austin, TX in 1990 from New York City, Michael Fracasso was promptly voted Best New Artist in Music City Texas ‘Insiders’ poll and was able to record his first CD, Love & Trust which features a duet with Lucinda Williams. He has made two albums with producer/ guitarist Charlie Sexton (World in a Drop of Water and Back to Oklahoma) and also collaborated with Charlie to write and record the music for the movie Monster Hunter. His 2004 album, Pocketful of Rain featured a duet with Grammy winner Patty Griffin for whom Michael opened her Spring 2006 tour. He has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe and Japan. His 2007 release, Red Dog Blues went to #1 on the Americana Chart in Europe. For his seventh CD, Saint Monday (April 26, 2011) Fracasso returned to a harder-hitting sound of a full rock band and “…remains one of Austin’s most distinctive voices.” – Jim Caligiuri – Austin Chronicle. He was short listed for the Austin Public Library Award for literary achievement in 2011 and was on the “Best of 2011” list for several publications including Third Coast Music, San Antonio Express News and Austin Chronicle.
11. wearing my Freight and Salvage shirt today magically yielded the fact that Michael Fracasso played there in 2003 as part of a Woody Guthrie tribute. Here is Michael and a friend doing Woody’s “1913 Massacre”
12. I did not recall but it seems true enough that Michael Fracasso played the 2005 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Here’s a flyer, a Hatch print actually:
13. Saturday morning, or 127 hours until the hit: Terry boiled some eggs but for the more ambitious of you, here is Michael Fracasso’s recipe for Fig and Gorgonzola crepe, from his blog and meanwhile he is in L.A. to appear at McCabe’s tonight as an opener and I should probably do something more obvious like using my email list or go thru a box of business cards I’ve collected in recent years, to bring a crowd for Michael Thursday at Cafe Zoe:
Crepe Ingredients:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for cooking
pinch of salt
Filling:
12 fresh figs (or substitute dry figs)
8 ounces soft goat cheese (or substitute Gorgonzola for a richer taste)
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 sugar
3 oranges, zest and juice
1 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
Combine 2 tablespoons of butter, the almonds, and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a heavy skillet and cook at a very low temperature until the almonds brown (this may take up to 30 minutes).
Remove from heat.
In a heavy pan over medium heat, combine the orange juice and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Stir until the sugar melts and the juice begins to thicken. Add the zest and cook a few minutes more until it becomes syrupy. Remove from pan and reserve. Slice the figs in half and place face down in a pan with the remaining tablespoon of butter and cook for about 4 minutes.
Pour all the crepe ingredients into a blender, mix and allow to sit for at least 15 minutes.
Using a small crepe pan, add a little butter and heat to medium. Pour in a 1/4 cup of batter and swirl in the bottom of the crepe pan until the thickness is reasonably even. Allow to cook for a minute, then begin to peel it from the sides with a spatula. Flip and cook a few more minutes.
Place the figs in the crepes, sprinkle with goat cheese crumbles and fold. Top with orange sauce, candied almonds and fresh mint.
Lord willing and the crepe don’t rise, as they say.
14. I’m not sure how adding 14 addendums to a post about the Michael Fracasso show Thursday actually helps build the audience and advances Michael’s career, and my own, but couldn’t hurt, could it? This is just to say I’m glad that the “inMenlo” blog posted MF’s photo, as I suggested.
15. Tuesday, 9 a.m. am back at Cafe Zoe, advancing the show, which means looking forward to the show and thinking forward, backward and sideways, which is a type of prayer for Michael Fracasso and our show, some 58 hours ahead. I am further realizing and admitting that my blog, Plastic Alto, is more like a prayer than a poster, given the readership. The truth is out there, but who will find it? I’ve decided to make 10 calls, some from a big box of business cards I collected over the last 10 years but sorted and culled a few weeks back, and 10 more emails. Hey, I’m producing a great little folk concert Thursday, in Menlo Park, and you might want to check it out!! Meanwhile, Michael recalls his mother’s kitchen: In our house where I grew up in Ohio we had two kitchens. My mom kept an upstairs kitchen that was reserved for holidays and special occasions. At Christmas time she used the extra oven to bake massive amounts of Italian cookies and panetonne (Italian sweet cake). In the basement we had our everyday kitchen that was open to the garage and had a 1956 Mercury parked a few feet from the dinner table. It sat there with it’s two conical bumper extensions aimed at my head. During dinner we could hear it creaking and moaning while the engine cooled off. This was our 1950’s version of the “great room.”
My parents grew a huge vegetable garden and would forage in the woods and fields for wild mushrooms and dandelion greens. My father would graft limbs from other fruit trees onto his sizable orchard. Saturdays the egg man would come by and my mother would haggle over the price of his chickens and usually offer him a glass of homemade wine as a bargaining tool. Sauces went on in the mornings, greens were washed, chickens slaughtered and pasta rolled out and cut. Conversations at the dinner table always revolved around food. This is the environment which inspired me to love cooking.
16. Again, more prayer than shoe leather but I just found this weird video of basically paint drying in Mingo Junction, Ohio, which is both Michael Fracasso’s home town (the one he left, for New York and then Austin) and the backdrop of the movie version of “Deer Hunter”. And since I am celebrating Veterans’ Day all week (and truthfully, since August 25), maybe I will ask Michael to sing something influenced by Mingo Junction and or in honor of our Veterans. (That, balanced against reminding myself not to be a drag on my talent, the road is long enough, even with the tires tuned)
17. This is an actual footnote in that the pasta testimonial by Lucinda at the top is from Michael Fracasso’s liner notes to his 1993 Dejadisc debut but I found it in Michael Roberts’ 1995, an excellent primer. Apropos of my cheap trick claiming MF looks like Bill Graham playing Lucky Luciano, Roberts claims that Fracasso 1993 looks like Sal Mineo.
18. And Peter Blackstock posts a review of a recent concert (September) by Michael Fracasso and band that may hint at his set list this week: Opening with the brilliant melody of “Hospital” from 1998’s “World in a Drop of Water,” they moved on to many more selections from that album and the subsequent live set “Back to Oklahoma.” They also worked in a couple of covers, including Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.”… Bluesier numbers such as “Elizabeth Lee” and “Devil’s Deal” didn’t play to Fracasso’s strengths as much as chamber-pop tunes including “Gold” and “Jar of Pennies,” which were better fits for the singer’s high-register vocals. The title track to “World in a Drop of Water” also stood out, in part for a lyrical (Charlie) Sexton guitar solo.
19. Three hours later, that morning, and T minus 55 hours until the hit, Kathleen makes and posts a Michael Fracasso flyer for the door of her venue.
Cafe Zoe, with Fracasso flyer on door
Sean, a musician who also runs the open mike here, and is occassionally the door man, asked whether Michael Fracasso plugged his guitar directly, because we will have only 1 mic, for the show
20. Kim Walter of Campbell plus one and Sarah Bellum are on the list as guests of KZSU Stanford;
21. bucks not books, I mean, although I told Kathleen that it’s actually a sliding scale if you read this or really have less money than Michael Fracasso.
22. I spoke to Michael today to advance the show and he promises to play “Red White and Blue” from his 2007 album in honor of Veterans Day and our campaign to make that song the official Veterans Day song.
23. 7:18 THURSDAY, LIVE STREAMING OF EVENT
A. Couple deville only thing that give me a thrill, something about cold steel in his pocket, for an enthusiastic group of old friends and Fracas-verts.
murder ballad at men alto
b. Eloise which apparently is about his daughter, don’t be sassing me, this life comes with no guarantee.
Anyhoo, thanks for playing along at home. “Courage”
I am not saying that an app targeted at 2 to 6 year olds to prevent bullying could not work.
(I happened to meet Rosie Linder of PeppyPals having a meeting on my right and across from me at the group table at Coupa Cafe, having flown from Sweden per se to the Swedish out post on Ramona Street; I suggested she meet Ken Dauber, a Google guy, PAUSD member and soc prof; I said some of the best ideas in Silicon Valley were started by people eavesdropping at others here).
We traded Swedish Reggae group (one of her co-founders) for Royal Concept, Larson I met last year in Los Osos. Jeepstarr could tour with Alpine Village People (Steve and Eric Cohen et al)
and:
i walked into the Swedish inovation center on Ramona, north of Uni, about a year ago to cold call and tell them the news about Royal Concept who I had just met on vacation in Morro Bay Los Osos. did not follow up.
They were just in SF apparently october 23 behind new cd smile but I was still in mourning or reverent seeking thinking napping. They were at Neck of the Woods on Clement in Inner Richmond which was known as Last Day Saloon.
(maybe ain’t nobody home, dove ventured — UPDATE: if this post were about lobsters and not jazz music I would add information about lobster references in “South Pacific”, “Ah, Wilderness” and the works of David Foster Wallace; and or, I might also re-mount this as jointly about Mr. Ruback and the Jamaican author Marlon James and call it “A Brief History of 20 Killings, “killings” being slang for “good” or “good works” and then go over not just the new cd but all 20 of his recordings, as referenced on his website, formatted to resemble the prologue of his Man Booker prize-winning book, i.e. a joint list huff huff of Charles and his 100 or so collaborators, maybe broken down geographically, if that help some)
i was an English major at Dartmouth and studied and worked briefly in journalism; I claim that listening to jazz music screwed up the way my brain works.
(Meanwhile, or 15 years prior, I did take an intensive seminar at Dartmouth with Chauncey Loomis, and read or was assigned to read about 80 percent of his oeuvre, but in actuality I barely passed the course). Although of course you end up becoming yourself
Deep down in there is a true anecdote about Dave Douglas having a dream about playing with Bill Frisell, or see he says. And I did like an idiot (full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, most likely) sent a note to Charlie Hunter suggesting he check out Jacob Garchik).
The only connection (I think) is that Jacob’s mother Leah Garchik is a gossip columnist and arts writer for San Francisco Chronicle, and sat behind me at the Darcy James Argue show, and I am meaning to send her this post and my headline/subject line “the mentawai went away”.
Rumba
This is a weird intro to a brief review or shout out to Charles Rumback “In The New Year” video embedded above: so i’ve just given that 2 minutes and 52 seconds of my undivided attention and absolutely if it cost less that $20 and was less than 20 miles away I would go here that band perform that book live, tonight even (although we were actually fixing, my lady and I to see The Martian, a movie, I mean we are, because you are obviously not in SF or San Jose or Palo Alto and I’m not in Chi-town, although I was born there and am itching to get back, but probably not in time for one of your 20 hits or so on your schedule page).
A wee bit skronky, but I like that. skronk, swing, miles davis, ornette…my list of 1,001 sax players(I will have to add this alto or alta to that), new artists on tour, people who book their own tour but will talk to me for 45 minutes when i cold call, nina simone “save me…yeah” project, compositions, instruments, artists, recordings, labels and people
I would not automatically guess that this piece was written by the drummer. I presume its an original and not your version of a cover or standard. and i’d honestly have to listen a couple more times to get what exactly I am listening to besides the drummer and Jeff Parker guitar, who Caroline is, who is the reed player or what exactly chords and timbre I am hearing.
And if I had infinite time I see about 20 cds I could sample and listen for what is a Charles Rumback drum sound, or his writing leading compared to his sidework, and maybe there is.
But since you (talking to his publicist, Merewitz, earlier today) sent me a note in real time, I pinged you first.
I will check out Rumback. (for 2 minutes and 52 seconds which reminds me of a really bad joke about the year the Bears won the Super Bowl)
I also use the term “full Herzenberg” which refers to Jana Herzenberg also known as Jana Herzen of Motema Records who produced a tribute concert here at Stanford when her father died (the father who made millions of dollars for Stanford and likely for himself, in his science lab — I presume part of the Motema Records story is that she uses some of that money, on tour support, or pays her publicist $5,000 an hour)*
* hey it’s also true that I suggested to Don Lucoff he pitch Jeff Gauthier of Cryptogramaphone — I am the Zelig of the jazz scene, which reminds me of the time that according to Will Friedwald (?), the singer Joan Bender used to frequent the Woody Allen residency in NYC at the Carlyle and he allegedly humble-bragged slash hit on her but said “don’t break my heart, sweetie”. (and allocuted)
luke i am your father
And yes, but you’d have to read carefully to find this, this entire exercize is woodshedding for the eulogy I am writing for my Dad for his memorial Sunday, and further that while not a big fan of Mark Murphy, reading of his recent passing (in The Times) is put into my horn, as Wynton would say (that everything you do or know, put that into every note.
image
Mark Murphy, an Unconventional Jazz Vocalist, Dies at 83
Mr. Murphy drew inspiration from such varied sources as the sound of his hometown factory whistle and the words of the Beat novelist Jack Kerouac.
View on http://www.nytimes.com
Preview by Yahoo
but in my humble opine, I do Faulkner proud relative to James Franco
As I Lay Dying (2013)
image
As I Lay Dying (2013)
Directed by James Franco. With James Franco, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Parrack, Ahna O’Reilly. Based on the 1930 classic by Faulkner, it is the story of the death of Ad…
View on http://www.imdb.com
Preview by Yahoo
mostly lobsters do the killing
a comedy troupe in SF, affiliated with Dave Eggers and 826 Valencia
but yeah I so dig Jeff Parker and wanted to commission him to write about Jefferson and his slaves/women, Parker from same part of Virginia fairly certain
From: Matt Merewitz
To: mark weiss
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Drummer Charles Rumback Releases “In The New Year” (ears&eyes Records) featuring Chicago Grown Talent Jeff Parker, Jason Stein, Caroline Davis, and John Tate
You write in a very Faulknerian style.
Matt
On Oct 29, 2015, at 2:01 PM, mark weiss wrote:
“The mentawai went away”
From: Matt Merewitz
To: earwopa@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 10:05 AM
Subject: Drummer Charles Rumback Releases “In The New Year” (ears&eyes Records) featuring Chicago Grown Talent Jeff Parker, Jason Stein, Caroline Davis, and John Tate
Drummer Charles Rumback Releases Quietly Startling Quintet Album, In The New Year
Featuring Jeff Parker (guitar), Caroline Davis (saxophone), Jason Stein (bass clarinet), John Tate (bass)
Out December 4th on Chicago Imprint ears&eyes Records
As a drummer and composer, Charles Rumback personifies the inclusive spirit that has become a hallmark of the music scene in his adopted hometown of Chicago. But while he’s been a crucial part of numerous jazz and rock bands—as well as serving as an ideal rhythmic collaborator to singer/songwriters—Rumback is stepping out further as a leader with his new quintet disc, In The New Year (ears&eyes).
“I’ve been writing music since I was 19, but it was always for the people I was playing with—whether a collaborative group or whatever,” Rumback said. “As I started to get more work all over the place, it was great, but I was spreading myself too thin. I thought if I don’t start doing my own thing, there won’t be time for it to happen. So that’s when I decided to make an effort to make it happen and then it did.” I think the salient point is that there is new music, original music, respectful of the past, hopeful about the future, in jazz and it is for your people who have $20 to blow but not 40 dollars or more, which to me is categorically “classical” meaning only classes the rich can go there and jazz is not just a repertoire or putting on a pork pie hat like a costume or living in the past, it’s a breathing growing digressing devolving skronking if it wants to skronks new types of beauty and these young people like the Charles Rumbacks of the world they do deserve people to take notice, or giant lobster creatures yes just might be sent down from other South Side planets and crush yer head.
not sure what else got clipped from this as the ghost works its way thru WordPress or my version of it, but I also coinky-dinky bought a first edition this morning of Nelson Algren “Walk on the Wild Side” which is about New Orleans but he is from Chicago like our man of the minute the drummer Chaz Rumback.
This is a book about Jefferson written by a Dartmouth trustee, and I somewhat non-realistically think about trying to put her and Jeff Parker together for a thru-composed treatment of Jefferson ala Wayne Horvitz “Joe Hill” (Stegner)
If you are actually reading all the way down here searching for the part about MOPDTK jazz group their drummer is actually Kevin Shea (I had to look it up) and the line at the very top, “Dove” is from Nelson Algren, who actually does have some connection to Chicago, where Rumback is based; for instance there is a Nelson Algren Prize for writers, given out by the Tribune. There’s a literary theme here, kinda sorta. The famous short chapter of As I Lay Dying, My Mother is a Fish is what made me think quite naturally of lobster, chopped lobster and death. Chicago, my kind of town (we fled, in 1968).
I read some Faulkner a while ago and would love to make time to re-read but I also claim as an excuse for sloppy that I read aloud in front of an audience even Ginsburg “Howl” and do have this post-modern fixation and Fast Cheapand Out of Control act. I am at least faking a thought disturbance. The other book I am reading today, beyond Algren, beyond a David Foster Wallace interview (Lipsky) is the logic book (which is semantics) and there’s a funny story about an inmate and they say If we let you out will do you think you are Napoleon? And he says “No” but the polygraph says he is lying. As compared to G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell. “Have you ever lied?” “Yes” and Russell says that that is the only time Moore lied. Or the only lie Moore ever told. I mean I am no EI or DJA, who write beautifully but there is something about jazz is a lie, in a good way. NYEt. I did a similar thing jointly reviewing Cake and Gang of Four.
i mean I could not actualy say I like the way the alto sax and the bass clarinet dart around each other, but maybe Leah could
this is rich:
Hi there! I’m new here, but I’m hoping to get some advice.
I am props master for a production of Ah Wilderness!. The problem I have is that a family of 8 sits down to a lobster dinner. I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I was told by several sources to get real lobster shells and fill them with mashed potatoes. I attempted that, but the shells where just too gross and were not going to stay intact for a run. I’m thinking hollow plastic ones might do the trick, but would love some tips.
Has anyone done something similar before? Thanks.
re: There’s lots of lobster coming and you can fill up on that. (Richard suddenly bursts out laughing again.) Miller. (Turns to him, caustically) You seem in a merry
I was at Cantor yesterday, looking for the Lucy Lewis owl, but noted that the famous or infamous mentawai gibbons is gone. Could be merely moved, or probably rotated meaning stored, but I recall and dear readers of Plastic Alto might that a Mentawai named Jun Tulius gave a talk at DeYoung in 2012, a panel AOA called “Forgeries and Frauds” and showed a slide of a carved gibbons (monkey) from his people and that Stanford was slightly off in its understanding of this piece. Gerry Masteller and I, both Palo Altans but fans of DeYoung AOA looked at each other, consulted then approached Jun, and then the next morning I drove from PA to SF — it was the Stanyan Hotel — picked up the young, Holland-based oceanic, drove to Cantor, banged on the door, they opened, the person responding recognized him, an assitant to the AOA person there, let us in, Jun checked out in person the piece and basically tried to helpfully point out, as he had apparently been telling all comers, in his travels that yes the piece is by a master carver and is museum worthy, and he researched it pretty thoroughly back in the hood, but it was not as old as Stanford thought or had been led to believe, was not as ceremonial, that the carver was probably more market savvy and less primitive and that probably, and I may be embellishing here, the consultant who brokered or catalyzed the carved monkey — and I am flashing to the black dingus Maltese Falcon here but wood and a monkey not a bird – but I also saw those carved black stones start with an “a”, from Pacific Northwest, Stanford Cantor and not of course Anderson nor McMurtry — and I am flashing to the fact that there is or was an Anderson Murtang, from Borneo — may have been, as Madden would say, giving them the business.
There’s another funny coda about Jun Tulius and his magic fingers that may appear below but I will skip for now.
And Cantor is indeed probably my favorite cultural institute in the world and I’ve been there 100 times, it’s free and nearby and world class. And Go, Connie Wolf, who is appearing next week at a nooner on campus I hope to make lwatcdr.
I also, Cantor wise but not indigenously, have a bit of an update on the Hopper, and my quibble (that someone should tell the exact connection that so far maybe me, Connie and Jeff make) the connection between the Carleton Watkins show and the Hopper show.
And also as I lay rising today and thinking this through — and there was a digression to Vietnam and Portland and Dao Strom day job in SF, imagined as a post-modern performance piece or workshop in SF, some day soon — I also wonder if I am the only one who knows that Nathan Oliviera “Battle of the Little Big Horn” which was on view as part of a set of lithographs and limiteds at Smith-Andersen recently is actually based on Red Cloud set of ledger drawings and not the historic event. It interprets a specific interpretation or is an homage.
And I also think that –and this is not not not a non sequitar — this sequits like the best of they, in mentawai –surfs up, on track, in the roll pipeline — Jacob Garchik could and should play with Charlie Hunter (who was offered “magic fingers” once in Austin, post show, because I was there, ich weiss ino ) but Darcy James Argue recently at Bing — not my fav, yet so near — about conspiracy or what not kinds blows, and not just the reed section and horns and is infereror to and derivative of Dave Douglas Witness, and Vijay Iyer Mike Mark Ladd “In what language” and maybe Negativland “communism is good, democracy is stupid”.
I go away now too.
and1: I started in Indonesia and ended up in Berkeley but I did just try to reach Charlie Hunter or his electronic avatars to ask him something about Jacob G — little schmoozer that I am, or interloper or nudge — noodge — and then flashed to hiring Charlie Hunter solo to play my dad’s memorial this sunday nov one all saints day just the guitar parts to not “mentawai went away” but “running in fear from imaginary assailants”. Stoff of dreams. Full herzenberg.
andand: no, seriously, and sorry if you read this enough to have heard all 50 anecdote over and over ad nausea but I did ask dave douglas once about him should play with bill frisell and then years alter dave has a dream that he is playing with bill frisell and calls bill and says “hey what is your song that goes from the minor fifth to the vibratto loop, or what not” and bill says I don’t have a song like that why and dave says um I guess in my dreams I just wrote that and why don’t you play on it? And he told me that later when he introduced or someone at IAJE had he and charlie on a panel and they played other dave douglas and a minute of “friends seen” by CHT, he told me he had brought my idea from dreamworld to his world and ours. Speaking of bird omenology.
Bruce and Clarence, by Laurie Paladino, circa 1984, but not in Palo Alto, not at the Keystone
If you look, you can find a review by Jeff Santosuosso in the Stanford Daily, from the December 3, 1982 show.
edita:
The Jerry Garcia photo, by Baron Wolman, makes sense, since he played there 81 times.
Jerry by Baron Wolman, a print of which you can see in lobby of 260 California Avenue, Palo Alto
The Ray Charles less so. Better would be something like Art Alexakis of Everclear, who I saw there and epitomizes the Edge “modern rock” vibe of the 1990s. Developer and landlord Mark Conroe tips his hat to the site’s rock days, and installed this hall of fame, but I wish someone had reached out to him about bringing a music venue — something acoustic — rather than a restaurant per se. Will try it and report back. Or maybe Mark will find another site, in town, for music, if there is a strong incentive, like a subsidy or TDR. He says he went to shows at 260 Cali The Keystone Palo Alto when he was at Stanford.
andand: this doesnt go here at all, except that the quirk of the internet falsely connected the two threads: the 2011 movie about Deadheads and neuroscience, “The Music Never Stopped” based on a 1993 essay “The Last Hippy” by Oiver Sacks, was produced I mean directed by Jim Kohlberg, a Palo Alto based (ok, Portola Valley) venture capitalist or financier. That would be another guy to get involved in getting a venue going down here. Somewhere at the time, and in a set of gratuitously oblique Plasty-alt ways, I either plugged or panned the movie. I remember thinking it odd that we waited so many years to tell the story, and that the essay was from a collection that pre-dated the more recent Sacks’ “Musicphilia”. The times reviewer noted an anachronism of vegatiarianism or something. The film’s title, which again, to repeat myself, differs from the title of the essay, is also that of a 1975 song on “blues for allah”.
andandand: this reminds me of when Terry and I were driving this spring to Seattle and back, we stopped in this little town in NorCal, I think in the area that Tim Draper wants to spin off as Jefferson, where the guy at the minimart sold me on buying “wet Jerky” and also pointed out the old inn across the way, shuttered and said something about Jack London. When you look it up, or read the plaque, or the AAA book, it says something about “people say that Jack London stayed there”. Not that he did, but people say it.
or the fake Jeremy Lin monument at Mitchell Park library court (where close to nobody plays and just as well: nobody over the age of 15 should play there, lest they brake an ankle. Maybe the counter-move is to claim this is where Jeremy broke his ankle)
15 Pueblo pots, considered, or 16 artists and their work
I recently became aware, or it drifted to the front of my mind, and to the top of my agenda today, although it took me until about 3 p.m to address it, a certain collection of 15 pots that to my knowledge became property of the DeYoung Museum of San Francisco in late 2013. They are part of the Paul and Barbara Weiss Collection of Pueblo Pottery. These 15 items bring the total of Weiss pots at the DeYoung to 59. (The original gift in 2007 was 32 pieces, 12 more, mostly minis were added in 2010; these 15 mostly or all black, joined that group in 2013. If you visit the museum this week, you will see about 12 of the 65 — I was there recently, mainly to see the Turner exhibit. The Weiss pots are on the first floor, past the giant Strontium German Painter(Gerhard Richter, of course; it’s a giant mural that looks like a photograph; it’s a blow-up of a molecule), on the way to the Saxe Glass Collection. Paul and Barbara Weiss knew or know George and or Dorothy and in some ways their favorites followed each other to SFfams.
19. SANTA CLARA BLACKWARE BOWL PRE-1940 UNKNOWN ARTIST
Helen Shupla (1928-1985) Santa Clara (photo at top)
52. SANTA CLARA BLACK MELON BOWL HELEN SHUPLA Carmelita Dunlap (1925-1999), San Ildefonso
Jody Naranjo
Santa Clara pottery by Jody Naranjo
Jody Naranjo
67. SAN ILDEFONSO MARIA MARTINEZ LIDDED POT Maria Martinez (1887-1990), San Ildefonso
70. SAN ILDEFONSO DESIDERIA MARTINEZ Desideria Montoya Sanchez (1889-1982) San Ildefonso
We call this circa 1960 beauty glossy black ware ceramic vessel with painted feather motiff, sometimes also “black on black”; or a mix of matte and glossy:
It’s about 18 inches high.
83. SANTA CLARA CHRISTINA NARANJO WEDDING VASE Christina Naranjo (1891-1980), Santa Clara
I will have to look up the relationship between Christina Naranjo and Jody Naranjo; I know that Jody Naranjo is related to Jody Folwell, although Susan Folwell is more her peer, the same generation. That’s my Mom in the background, Barbara Weiss. The photos are by Sarah Hogarty.
Picture of Christina Naranjo of Santa Clara Pueblo
This is known as a wedding vase It’s about 13 inches high. It’s from about 1972, although my parents probably bought it in the 1990s. We used to have all the provenance details quite handy and well-organized but I’m not sure that’s so true today. Likewise, it’s my impression that for a minute there the DeYoung would let you access this type of thing — items in the collection but not on view — but I’ve had less luck with that recently. You can ignore the little “83” in the foreground. This is one of the first 30 or so pots they liked. I think that’s an “avanyu” or snake motif carved around the base.
86. SANTA CLARA MARY SINGER TURTLE Mary Singer(b. 1939)
89. SANTA CLARA BOWL C. 1890 UNKNOWN ARTIST
(Ghent has this as “1900-1920”)
Here’s one that is from early 20th century and pre-dates the practice of the maker signing his or her (usually “her”) work.
Some of these pots are the work of one person, several herein are joint efforts, but we don’t really know who made this beauty; call it a group effort, or by a woman and her forebears.
It has a flared rim with a finely notched rim, you can see in this close-up:
118. SAN ILDEFONSO DORA TSE PE BLACK BOWL, INCISED Dora Tse Pe (b. 1939) San Ildefonso
This one is incised (‘sgraffito”) with red pigment rubbed into the carved area. I think they are San I maidens:
134. SAN ILDEFONSO CARLOS DUNLAP BLACK CANTEEN Carlos Dunlap (1958-1981) San Ildefonso
144. SANTA CLARA JODY AND SUSAN FOLWELL BLACK/BROWN W/GOLD LEAF Jody Folwell (Santa Clara) Susan Folwell (Santa Clara)
This is a mother-daughter collaboration:
152. SANTA CLARA TERESITA NARANJO BLACK CARVED POT Teresita Naranjo (1919-1999) Santa Clara
153. SANTA CLARA MELA AND NATHAN YOUNGBLOOD BLACK MELON BOWL Mela Youngblood (1931-1990) Nathan Youngblood (b. 1954)
154. SANTA CLARA JUDY TAFOYA BLACK CARVED POT Judy Tafoya (b. 1962) Santa Clara
194. SANTA CLARA EFFIE GARCIA SMALL CARVED BOWL Effie Garcia, who I met at Andrea Fisher Gallery and I also recall meeting her husband Orville, who was wearing a Chicago Cubs t-shirt. She made this:
addendum:
a)When Paul and Barbera first started collecting pueblo pottery, besides being a fun hobby to work on together, they thought of it as a type of exercize to stay sharp, the “use it or lose it” mentality — I remember when it was new to them and they found it satisfying to be able to recreate or recite the details of genealogy — of who learned to make pottery from whom — after Dillingham. The family copy of this book has little dots next to the creators’ names on the charts:
and I’m borrowing from “Ohioan” to crib it as such:
Hopi-Tewa –The Chapella Family; The Nampeyo Family; The Naasie Family
Acoma Pueblo –The Chino Family; The Lewis Family
Zia Pueblo — The Medina Family
Cochiti Pueblo — The Herrera Family
Santo Domingo Pueblo — The Melchor Family; The Tenorio Family
Santa Clara Pueblo — The Chavarria Family; The Gutierrez Family; The Tafoya Family
San Ildefonso Pueblo — The Gonzales Family; The Martinez Family
b) ok, 24 hours later I have 13 pots pictured, although some of them have a second shot or detail. There’s 18 potters referenced, because some our by a team. There’s two items referenced,but not necessarily shown, because some are unsigned, the two oldest items (although there is a dispute, by about 30 years, about how old one is). I should probably reference what makes what “black”. I hope to link to the artists’ sites, and give their year of birth, although especially for women they don’t appreciate this. There’s one head shot of the individual. I’d love it if an actual scholar wanted to take an interest in this, which is a microcosm of at least Santa Clara pottery; also, how far geographically is San I from Santa Clara?And how long until people -scholars, collectors, fans, the artists themselves– can see these and or verify my claim that these are in the museum? Can we access these online, I mean the DeYoung site?
c) Do people confuse the Weisel Collection and the Weiss Collection, both at DeYoung? And what does it mean that the museum claims that the Weisel gift, of 206 objects all in, includes money that can be used to further research the holdings?
d) San Ildefonso and Santa Clara are indeed near each other, although I don’t know if there is a technical or cultural reason their typical pottery are similar; I’ve never been to either place. They are both about 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, nearer to Espanola. There are 19 pueblos in New Mexico. Most and maybe all make pottery, among other arts and traditional activities. (see also: pottery from Arizona, for example, by Hopi). I have a rough sense of the distance between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but less so between Santa Fe and any pueblo. I have a sense of the distance between the Bay Area (SF, San Jo) and Santa Fe, by plane, or of its character. But I have not been out to the pueblos, or the casinos, except 40 years ago we took a trip by motor home and visited Hopi territory, i.e. I was 10 years old. (And we noticed Katchina dolls and rugs, but didn’t take much note if we saw any pottery). Link.
PoMo not Pomo or e) A little off topic, yet timely to ask if there are more black pueblo pot-makers or Pintupi line painters, although it would be better if I were talking in that case about Acoma fine line versus Pintupi???
f) certainly Maria Martinez merits entire books not footnotes here but I did take and recommend you do too, an your earliest convenience 25 minutes to view this 1970s educational film showing Maria and her son Popovi Da firing a batch of about 30 pots and plates. If I said “glossy” above I meant “highly polished” although she says “high polish” duly noted. Director Rick Krepela, it may also be available in a 45 minute format on the leading portal:
I thought I saw Robert Nichols name in the credits, as technical advisor, which would make perfect sense since before opening his Santa Fe gallery he was a producer for the National Parks Service. I should really read the Alice Marriottbook.
Paul and Barbara Weiss went to Mexico in July, 2005 to give wheelchairs to those needing. The obituary which appeared in last week’s Palo Alto Weekly claims this was 2011. Did he go twice?
edit to add: Brian Moore commented on the Weekly’s obit page, which I was somewhat pleased to notice my Dad shared a column, and in the print version the page, with George Liddicoat, the father of my friend John Liddicoat:
Posted by Brian, a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Oct 9, 2015 at 8:47 pm
Paul Edward Weiss, whose obituary appeared today, was a gentle, generous, and genuinely good man. He always seemed to have a slight smile on his face, as if bemused by life. It was always a pleasure for me just being in his presence. He made a difference, and he will be missed. (I made the point to Brian that my dad’s middle name was his dad’s first name, Edward Moore, and it stuck).
and:
Dear Fellow Rotarians, As you know, Paul Weiss passed away in August while visiting Santa Fe. Those who knew Paul well held him in high esteem as a long time Rotarian, a generous supporter of Rotary projects, a well known and respected Cupertino business owner, and a great family man. Condolences may be sent to the family through Paul’s wife, Barbara Barbara Weiss, …Palo Alto, CA 94301 In keeping with Paul’s love of Rotary, his family is encouraging memorial donations in Paul’s name be made to the Cupertino Rotary Endowment Foundation (CREF).
Their slogan is “The best decisions start here” so I’m sure they know what they are doing. My simple reaction is “good riddance” but my reaction is more nuanced than that.
Palo Alto, its physical site and geography, its culture, it’s leadership — elected, appointed and paid — is in many ways merely a subsidiary of 3000 Sand Hill Road (which is likewise NOT Menlo Park).
Survey Monkey, despite the fact that it is in industry parlance a feature more than a product or company — compare it to Apple or HP — is basically a “play”, a set of manuevers, a money grab, a sting. Sophisticated, despite its childish name and iconography.
101 Lytton was built with the realtionship with its tenant baked in; it got variances, used the PC zoning, as GS states. Likewise, at ARB they argued for variances to our laws regarding signage. They wanted bigger signs, better lit, more of them, for the stupid green chimp or whatnot. As I argued at those meetings, the signs do not, as one would normally assume provide way-finding to people for instance getting off a train and looking for a street address, but they point to Wall Street and the money-grubbers, their partners in crime. 101 Lytton is merely a giant billboard, despite the fact that people work there, 9 to 5 or whatnot and clearly desite the fact the many others 50,000 live nearby.
This is all calculated, by people who’ve done this many other times, to eventually and soon enough cash out of the $1.3 Billion valuation.
So office space in Palo Alto is ephemeral, despite being built of brick and mortar. And I don’t fret for the developer, the Smith family — odds are they are getting a slice of the IPO or exit, sort of the way David Choe got millions for a mural at the original Facebook, above Jing Jing.
As Bob Marley says: you can fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time: just at least the last three City Councils and numerous boards and commissions, unless they are in on the game in which case “fool” is not the word.
Twelve-twenty one p.m. on a Friday and I will take a stroll down to the gelato place and snap a recent photo of the building in question, and update, lwatcdr.
I would not call Palo Alto’s measure a “stict” limit as you do. If you follow the link and read the footnote on page 2 of that document, the staff report, our Comp Plan had a cap in place that would have triggered a moratorium on further office space. Instead of enforcing such, we are re-writing the Comp Plan and having annual metered extensions to the already overbuilt downtown.
andand:
Lost in the Fog by a mile.
andandand:
Mark my words, Bennett Porter and her ilk will take the money and run ($1.3 Billlion valuation) long before they ever move to Bay Meadows. And they play us (or our so-called leadership: elected council, appointed boards paid staff) for chumps at every step.
The building and it’s copious signage only exist long enough to signal the money people that the exit will happen as envisioned.
Our town is just a staging area for someone else’s drama. It’s not even an office park, it’s a lab for the VCs.
4) or so:
My blog covers “Plastic Alto” comprises more than 1,000 posts ranging from “butt rap” (a type of music, apparently) to live coverage of policy meetings.
I wrote and tried to link to a post on another blog that you did.
See:
(pingback)
I also ran for Palo Alto City council three times (8,000 or so cumulative votes, but needed about 9,000 at one time), and was a candidate or at least an applicant for board or commission here five times (two votes, all time, needed five at once — if you see a pattern here).
My concern about that blog, echoing your comment, is that I worry that the pro-growth short term developers could merely pretend to be transit-oriented and environmental (and Democratic, as compared to neo-Totalitarian or whatnot) as a type of greenwashing. Look at Michael Kasperzak, of Mountain View running for Assembly for lobbies for a 10 percent cap of rent increases and takes gifts from 30 different developers — and also pledges to stay within the $500,000 voluntary spending cap — that’s a lot of money!!).
Anyhow, thought I’d say “hey”. And I will give it a read.
5) and as I prattle on here I am thinking not of monkeys on a race track but the line about an infinity of monkeys pounding on computers:
I’m sort of continuing from a previous comment, loosely comparing my blog to your blog and a third blog on which we both commented. And I’m curious what the gist of a recent state university planning degree confers upon its students compared to someone like me from a previous generation (I’m 51, a product of the 1980s more or less), with a very different tack, I think.
And in Palo Alto policy there is a rough schism along both ideological and generational lines: Palo Alto Forward I call pro-development, they call themselves transit-oriented or what not but they are generally very recent voters or workers by my take and maybe naive (whereas I may be a moldy fig).
I think it’s great if this blog is so site-specific for that particular station, where CalTrain meets BART, and it’s neighborhood. But the reason it exists at all is that Millbrae is where? And there were or are no NIMBYs?
This might be a non-sequitar but you say you live in SF: Terry and I were in the City last week, first time in a while, at the Opera, a matinee. What struck me is how much growth there is — I lived in the City in the late 1980s, for four years. Specifically, from up Van Ness — we went thru a drive thru, in a car, to get a milkshake, if that doesn’t completely discredit me. But it was notable how dwarfed City Hall is now that several huge buildings seem to have sprouted around it, mostly to the South.
And then you see Ed Lee on tv commercials spouting platitudes about fair housing but the ad, for Prop A is underwritten by Lennar.
I tend to knee-jerk: if a big builder says they are for it, I’m against it.
For me, capital is organized and powerful whereas people are diffused and fairly week. Consistent with Citizen’s United and McCutchen, a disturbing trend. In Palo Alto, in my opinion, at least since 2009 (though I’ve been in the community since 1974 on and off) developers more obviously of office space always get their way and average citizens mostly tune out or are ignored when they pipe up. And the building industry arguably is under-regulated.
Similarly, (?), other developers want to build ultra-dense housing. A bowling alley, tear it down and put in RM-15 homes; or Fry’s, likewise.
But will this really make housing affordable for recent graduates in urban planning? Or does it cater to high-end and the elite (founders of tech firms, VCs)?
And what about the working class? What about rent control? (Not even discussed. State law caps that).
Thanks for the food for thought. I hope these comments are not too esoteric or naive.
—
Do you work for public sector, an NGO the industry or what?
this bit was for Jim Walks Near Millbrae Stations on wordpress, my new BFF
I mean JF Walks and i hope he doesn’t think me a Mule or like Steve Poltz a Mewel (he was the male Jewel) for saying that JF Walks not JF Walks Blog is the name of his blog (JF Walks Blog blog?)
6) two hours later, still no gelatto but Jason Green of the not-Merc reports that Steve Elliiott of Stanford land states that part of the purpose of 500 El Camino in Menlo Park (former car dealership lots) is to retain or enhance 3000 Sand Hill.
7) ugh:
Meanwhile in a related story Stanford now says that part of its rationale for 145,000 square feet of office space at 500 El Camino, not far from 101 Lytton, is to retain or extend 3000 Sand Hill the famous cluster of elite finance workers.
If you are not part of the elite, or working directly for them, you go the way of the Ohlone, basically. posted to PAW
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 