attorney for Buena Vista residents addressing Palo Alto City council, tuesday, April 14, 2014
9:40 pm i.e. three and two thirds hours into the hearing:
I’m going where there’s no depression
To the lovely land that’s free from care
I’ll leave this world of toil and trouble
I am thinking of the Carter Family song, “In Heaven There is No Depression” which to my peers gave birth to a movement called “No Depression”. It also calls to mind “Grapes of Wrath” by Steinbeck, which I read in 1980 at Gunn High. Leadership is saying something like we are losing this round but will win the war, so to speak, but I have my doubts. I have a sinking feeling. Why didn’t leadership get ahead of this long ago?
Has the Carter Family song I gloss been recorded in Spanish?
and1:
Uncle Tupelo version, and a quick search does not yield a Spanish version:
andand: meeting pushes on to 10:22, and I am thinking of Orson Welles as Harry Lime rhymes with slime in “The Third Man”:
Harry: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. [gestures to people far below] Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax – the only way you can save money nowadays.(graham greene, screenwriter and author)
American splendor self portrait by of Weiss in Feldman’s window, but reflecting on Harvey Pekar, 1954-2008
regarding Harvey Pekar, 1939-2010, whose book I saw in the window (I provided a link because I am going to rush back and procure from Mr. F tomorrow, to cheer me up for how I feel today, about BV. But I did buy a Twain paperback for $6, specifically, and I had already categorized this “ethniceities” on Jews)
Erica Escalante and family plea their case, for Buena Vista Residents association, before City Council, Palo Alto; she is a Gunn graduate
edit to add, the next day: I sat through the four hour public hearing on the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park possible closure or opportunity to convert to homeowners association, which featured about 70 brief speeches, the bulk of which were by actual tenants, many of those English is their second to Spanish language, some with interpreters and the most touching talks were by school children, pleading to remain at Barron Park School, Terman or Gunn.
I spoke for about 2 minutes. These are my original notes, which probably would have taken me 6 minutes to get thru. Plus I had the advantage of riffing off of what was already said. I will try to recreate the exact 500 words or so in a minute.
Notes on BV
Highest and Best Use is flawed, in that it does not weigh properly the covenant; Smith and associates april 18, 2013
2. Obvious pro-developer bias in the press, especially Jason Green’s reporting, on the ownership history and timeline.Jisser LLC of 2000, v. “Jisser family” 1986 blurred
3. Prometheus is irrelevent; don trump might pay $80 M
4. on the other hand, please disclose contact between this group and council?
5. Molly Stump was wrong to gag the candidates, this should have been solved long ago.
5.a burden this puts on the residents
6. todays’ Merc has something about rent control
7. todays Times has something about Blackstone investment in real estate. They manage $278 B BILLION IN ASSETS. in real estate along they made $2 Billion in profits in two years.
8. here in PA alone, its is a billion dollar industry, commercial real estate. apples and oranges thingy, or how monolithic, but pressures are considerable, incentives.
9..
if it were a dirt lot, yes its worth $30 M and you could move around the dirt. but there are people there, they are not dirt, cannot shovel them into bags, toss them on a freight train or something.
the clear moral choice is to force a deal and be done with the current ownership.
i’d rather be sued for leaning too far in this direction than to not do enough on this point.
it’s still one person one vote and not one dollar one vote.
Its sort of like Huck Finn, feeling he is going to hell for wanting to help Jim escape slavery.
When Enron went out of business, and we knew they were corrupt and going away, we still paid them $20M rather than fight, which is a disappointment;
per the recent GJR of 6/14, we tend to kowtow to power rather than stand by principles. that’s still a valid observation about leadership here, sorry to say.
its the greed of one guy or one entity versus the need of the 400 humble people, and I think the will of the people is to side with our morals and these people and not give in to mammon, or babylon or moloch.
John Barton backed by Gail Price and others on his board seemed to weigh in in support of the poignancy and humanity of rejecting the ownership entity’s designs on gentrification. Gail later made her own address.
For my actually address, I avoided using the name of the ownership entity, the so-called family.
I also shot and texted the photo or emailed rather to John Barton with Gail Price.
the meeting re-convenes today Tuesday at 6 p.m., with deliberations by our 9-member council. I have to admit the presentation by Ms. Nanda, attorney for the ownership group was impressive. She seemed to imply that the covenant, of 2000 (I thought it went back further, to the 1960s?) written by then City Attorney Ariel Collone (sp?) was pretty weak, weaker than we assumed. What popped into my mind is the Hebrew term “a stone and a stone” which is etymologically linked to the word “ebony” and the concept of false measure. As in, what we thought was rock solid was maybe just a dark wood that looks like stone. I continue to believe that The Will of The People is to save these 400 people, and let them become owners here.
I sat next to Joe Simitian — actually I sat by his assistant or aide Micaela Hellman-Tincher — Veronica’s grandkid and a fellow Gunn grad — and then Joe sat down and I noticed that despite pledging $8 M from county coffers that he did not stand with the people who were asked to stand if they support the residents. He is officially neutral.
My notes, rewrote in a book:
1. HBU ignores covenant >> unrealistic valuation
April 18, 2013 Smith & Associates device of “hypothetical value” inappropriate, caused damage, although I’m not a lawyer, I said
2. Press has run with this, fanned the flames. Pro-developer bias
–blurred the distinction between the ownership entities
since 2000, LLC
family since 1986
(I noticed that the attorney refers to her client as a “family” when in fact it is an LLC a corporation)
(also when I passed Jason Green of the Merc I held out Matthew Artz page one story Monday, “A New Call For Rent Control: With runaway increases displacing many, activists reviving progressive tool” but he ignored me; I had written he and his editor Mario Dianda five times on these same two points; when I pigeon-holed Jason on this a few months back he muttered “Property rights…property rights” which is a tell. But yes Jason you are right that I wrote in my blog that you were playing with a digital device at the candidates editorial meeting in September 2014 when you were actually scrolling thru a recording device, or not deleting, and I printed that verbatim).
3. Barton John former Council, PAUSD bd, architect
Paul George, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
Who are we?
What has changed since 1964, when we cut this deal?
>>
I submit that we will not be the same, Palo Alto, if we let this happen. To those Palo Alto family members.
Maybe we would have to change the name from Palo Alto, after I said Oak but I mean mighty pine to Palo Corto, Palo Bajo, Palo Flaccido, Mayfield or may not field? I gestured back and forth, our ambivalence and weakness of intention.
My outro which the buzzer barely permitted and I did push thru a click or two to the other side, Rabbi Janet Marder (I greeted on my way up, I also fist bumped Lydia Kou speaking before me) referenced Levitticus “love your neighbor” but I also know Matthew “that which you’ve done for the least of my brethren, so have you done for me” There’s a moral imperative here to help these people.
outro, Bill Frisell doing John Lennon, “Nowhere Man” and “Strawberry Fields”, NPR Tiny Desk concepts which has little or nothing to do with BV other than its a nice break from all this, if you have the full 20 minutes to listen to this, take a break. It dawned on me, and several of the residents said this, that the three year period of doubt and loathing exacts a toll as well. Frisell of course did two shows at Cubberley, including one solo guitars, in the late 1990s I set up, and Terry and I saw him but did not get back stage to greet him July.
“Herons” is a song by Hummingfish an indie band out of Portland, out of the 1990s.
Thoughts of which folded into this:
Hi, Bill.
I am the one that bought your BEML cd based on the fact that the first track was by Deb Talan.
I listened to the performance the next a.m., that song, ‘rock and water” or what not, and then hummed it the rest of the a.m.
Did not know the tune but cannot imagine a better performance than the version you and Megan created.
you own the tune now.
I saw Hummingfish exactly once, dropping everything to zip up to Sweetwater Mill Valley to see their show, with another admirer of Deb and them. It was actually a tune called “Herons’ that me and this temporary fellow traveler bonded over; she had it as her outgoing message on her old school answering machine, this is 1996 or so. It turns out that “herons” was written by her then-partner and maybe that is why, despite others calling for it, or posting about it, Deb Talan apparently does not play it nor is it in repertoire of The Weepies. someone else wrote in to say that the song was not ornithologically correct in that herons do not travel in packs as depicted in song. Of course, my memory was of a bird entering the water as in your song choice not rising up to fly. But there is something great about her voice on that song, which she only co-wrote. the melody to his lyric.
And that Weepies years later were signed by Mike Kappus of Rosebud as r.a. if not also p.m. is to my mind the best imprimatur in the business and caught my eye even if I have not ever caught up with her or them, nor do I know their book.
Sad news you passed on about her health troubles. I perused their site and postings about such.
Another case I monitor is Candye Kane the blues singer fighting pancreatic cancer. Tough lady, raised a boy who graduated from Cal, and another son played drums in her band for a while. Candye in recent years hired a young guitarist from Mountain View named Laura Chavez.
And I also asked you about Danny Barnes. I once hired Danny Barnes Trio, not Bad Livers mind you, to play the Edge or Illusions in Palo Alto, circa 2002, a trio with Danny, Amy Denio on bass and Oliver something on accordion.
Mark Weiss
Earthwise Productions and Artist Management of Palo Alto
PO Box 60786
Palo Alto, CA 94306
(650) 305-XXXX
if your phone or office pinged briefly sunday a.m. I was fixin’ to ring you, moved by all this…
i also chatted up Mr. Spurgin about my Kerrville and Austin days, and Mr. Crary about Dao Strom who grew up in Placerville, lived in Austin, is based in Portland but coming thru town in June, s/s plus novelist…former client
edit to add, almost exactly one year later, or one year minus two days later: this thing is pretty darn post-modern and random so it does not dilute much worse to add this:
Back at Stanford, Brooks, who took classical voice lessons while growing up and was a member of the Stanford Chamber Corale, realized she would rather write her own songs than sing ones written long ago.
“I realized I couldn’t do this anymore,” she said. “What was I singing about? I had to do a performance that was more a synthesis of my ideals and my values. When I started playing guitar, I realized, wow, this was the medium I was looking for.”
Shelagh Sandstedt, a friend of Brooks’ who lived with her in Synergy, still remembers the first time she saw Brooks pick up a guitar.
“We were all sitting downstairs in the house, hanging out,” Sandstedt said. “She knew only two or three chords and she created this really humorous, great song. We were all laughing. And from that point, she was always creating. She was just totally enveloped in it.” which is by Heather Knight of the Chronicle in 1997, about Lisa Allette Brooks, and her cd “Silicon Valley Rebel”, Lisa who is now a PhD candidate in Sanskrit at UCB. It is Lisa’s pal Shelagh who was my companion the night we drove to Mill Valley to see Hummingfish. And kudos to Mark Buchanan who wrote this song and keeps fighting for all that is right, in Oregon, and whose comments follow, calling out my red heron of bad bird omenology or don’t bee leaf all that you reed on the internest.
I can almost conjure thru the synapses bits and pieces of that song but could not find, as I did once or twice before the actual or virtual digital simulacra of Mark/Deb and dem years ago or on an analog cassette I played once or twice. But I recall playing it years later and it still moved me. Buchanan is in my pantheon and I added his name to the tags here.
Kim Gordon “Girl in a Band” I procured this a.m. around 9:30 good start to the week, b/w the Brian Grazer book that Charlie Rose plugged the other night, and I used my buy 10 get the 11th kinda free, from Books Inc at Town and Country.
I laughed out loud twice in ten pages: that on her first trip to England a worker at the venue found a syringe and assumed it was from her band; that Henry Rollins invented “twerking”.
I saw Sonic Youth exactly once, opening for REM at Shoreline circa 1998 with half the staff of my Earthwise crew from the Cub, which is sort of like saying I’ve never seen them. I have to admit I never heard of Gerhard Richter until I met Terry my Terry or about 2009, so kudos for Daydream Nation and apparently the Death Valley ’69 single cover or something.
Jon Wuster never wrote back to say how useful or not my notes for him were, interviewing Kim at Cat’s Cradle last month. No worries.
At Cubberley, I remember patrolling the parking lot after a show and being too tired to pick up four semi-crushed beer cans. I said to self “only four cans”. Of course the facilities manager, in the City of Palo Alto Recreation Department, called me that Monday morning and said “Hey, Mark, we found FOUR beer cans in the parking lot…”.
edit to add: minutes later, sitting at Coupa downtown P.A. cannot help but overhear the banter of the next billionaires and think that I must have laughed out loud five times in the 30 minute season premier of “Silicon Valley” tm on HBO, which I noted had Roger McNamee as a consultant. I might have to re-watch to mark where the laughs lay. I am also re-thinking my chance meeting with someone who beliviaby claims to be a former Pandora employee, take the money and run, but that she said first that she was in advertising then that she did finance for Pandora, which might have meant keeping track of what passes for royalties and maybe she is just a great liar which helps meeting strangers in a cafe or working in Silicon Valley, I’m sure, but I would say probably does not deserve to wear even a quasi-lame Record Store Day t-shirt with a Crosley faux-retro turntable depicted, I own. I’m also over due on a 3-pronged “fox” story or post about cover of PAW, my and Syrett’s “fox says ding” and maybe that I met “fox-face” from hunger games who is enrolled at Stanford.
yeah yeah yeah i’m only making it verse to outro with this:
her the cap fit, wear it, especially if you can rock a Helen Kaminski kalava, at Malia Mills, at Town & Country, Palo Alto
In Palo Alto we’re talking a “Downtown Cap” although some describe it more like a halo, a scarf (scharff?) or hint, but a short stroll to Town & Country yields actual, practical wearable and stylish millinery objects, like at Malia Mills, where I cajoled Rhea to pose in a smart and classy Kalava hat by Helen Kaminski ($245).
Malia Mills has 11 stores, which kept them out of certain SF neighborhoods, to the Palo Altans advantage. Malia herself is a Cornell grad, but her brother went to Dartmouth. (I had name-checked Eugenia Kim ’96, which drew me further in, that Rhea, and then Jessica, kept me talking: Malia herself had addressed but probably not dressed the Dartmouth Club recently).
Come for the sonja pants, stay for hats by Tracey Watts, Lisa Battaligia, Kokia* or Kaminski.
Terry, my Terry, has a birthday coming up in June so we shall see. (Terry shopped and partied at “Malika’s” which added to my confusion. Oddly and not to ruin it, but I ran in to Christy Wolf, who said that Remi is at USC Thornton furthering her musicality; maybe deals can be made to dress or top Remi Wolf with hats by Rhea and Jessica at Malia Mills; if you get her going, but before getting 86’d, Jessica also can riff on Tim Draper and his proposal to divide The Golden State into six fiefdoms; she’s reading poli sci at SJSU; Plastic Alto the blog is a weird conflation of everything from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to Capri pants invented by Sonja, or am trying).
edit to add or and1 or and2: what draws me into to these situations, clearly I’m on thin ice, or thick fall risk ice, is that I once pitched the Raleigh, North Carolina milliner Mary Michele Little, circa 1992 and pre-dating Earthwise of Palo Alto, and that it calls to mind my Gunn classmate and Oracle colleague Jean Watt now known as Lucky Magazine editor at large former product editor Jean Godfrey June, although I hear tell months later that Conde Naste sold the title:
we knew her as jean jean
*I’m such a poseur: it’s KOKIN, darling.
two days later: I stopped Lori Hobson in front of Coupa Cafe on Ramona and channeling Bill Cunningham shot her in a Eugenia Kim she bought locally from a department store:
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 