Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

I wrote and thought about an upcoming land use proposal, which took me most of my morning. I am also prepping for a significant and real-enhanced little ten minute spurt, around 8 p.m. on Wednesday April 15 at 250 Hamilton, City Hall, when the nine or so current council member will vet my application for Human Relations Commission. I guess it’s natural to think about that a lot as well and meanwhile. To be, or not to be, a commissioner or board member. (This is my fifth attempt, or rather part of an ongoing process or six years. Or rather, part of an ongoing process of 25 years. Or rather, fifty one years. What I call “Area 51”, as in it’s a bit of a mystery. Rich Freed, a drew me a picture in my yearbook of a particular favorite teacher of ours, with a caption “coming or going?” Rich Freed, author of

1) “Wired Child: Debunking Popular Technology Myths”, by Richard Freed, PhD. (self-published, 2015, and he sent me a review copy). Dr. Freed is a former Gunn football player, and attended Cubberley as well. He is a CPA turned therapist, for Kaiser. I think he underplayed the fact that he also heard R.E.M and U2 before nine-tenths of their eventual planet, i.e. he has an ear for music and a left brain. I’d rather hear Rich’s voice more clearly in his long list of notes and sources (I think I counted 260 of them). I left him a voice mail that two of his sources, Alan Eagle and Walter Mischel, have Gunn connections, or that he shares with them this part of what Vonnegut called the granfalloon{edit to add: I mean karass}. I am trying to be helpful. For what it’s worth, and not to digress too far from children or media studies. when I met Kurt Vonnegut in 1983 he was younger than I am today — yikes! — and he apparently was one, two or three-sheets to the wind, speaking of a mediated experience. He told me that wearing an Oxford-cloth shirt did not make me Ivy Leaguer. I’ve only had a good hour or so to “meditate with great minds” (a Vonnegutism, on reading) with WCDPTM and the good doctor. And drinking strong Peets coffee I am flashing to, Dr. Billy Taylor and Nina Simone, on being freed. I wish I knew how it would feel to be free(d). Richard, please know your book help some.

I was also this a.m. between kissing my sweetie goodbye and hopping back on the old purple Schinn about Mark Twain or Sam Clemens and or Jim Cox and most specially, which i occasionally do do, focus, Huck and Jim. To wit: and there is “Cliffs Notes version” and hear either “Weiss notes version” or “Plasty” and this is probably where a thousand ships were launched and sunk by their undergraduate advisors, how dare you spend a mere hour or so, Freed (“Freeded”?) or not, on THE Adventures:

Huck lives Jim. Despite calling him “N”, or “N Jim”. Yes, you heard me. This is 1861 or so, a fictitious version of such. Jim is a “slave”. In America they’ve had nearly 100 years of such. “Democracy” + “slavery” (including “N”). (My computer wants to call “Huck” “Hunk” and who am I to argue?). Also, Huck thinks he is going to “hell” because he is breaking the law. The law says Jim must stay in Missouri but Huck thinks Jim is better off otherwise. He says something like “Well, if I have to go to hell because I love Jim, then I will go to hell”. Years later, we did change our little arbitrary minds or collective mind and restore the missing fifth of Jim’s 4/5s person hood and free him and we probably pardon Huck for his breaking of the law and the affront to the moral universe. I was thinking a version (better version) of this would be a neat intro for my one minute strutting my rhetorical and moral self on that brief candlezixed stage, April 15, 2015, from 8:00 to 8:01 and tying it in to Buena Vista. As in, the moral and ethical thing to do is to take the $16M and grab Jisser’s hand and grab the hand of the residents or their lawyer or their banker and broker a deal and then if we are sued for breaking the law, so be it. As in, (but don’t say this part), Huck and Jim are to the antebellum legal system what the public sector anti-lassivfearing with Buena Vista and their landlord or owner. Not sure why calling Jim “Nogger Jim” helps my case other than who are we to change, even years later, the words? It is definitely not a word I would in contemporary speech or apply to real and not fictional fellow citizens but rather to redact history is probably worse than not owning up to it. That we called our fellows such things and subjugated them 150 years ago and now choose not to is stronger than pretending we did not do or say such things. Those who don’t know their history are condemned to repeat it.

So cheaply goin back to Freed/2015 media of all types among its other faults, compared to actual real life experiences permits a sloppy revisionism. His book, is of course a medium, compared to Richard talking to me directly or 10,000 of us, sure. But I prefer the medium per se. The book works better as a book rather than part of a video game. And yes, I am writing this as a blog. I’d rather put the money into printing 1,000 copies of this and handing them out at Ki;king and Uni even, or tacking them to the doors of 250 Hamilton, 525 Uni, 431 Kipling, and dem.

I would think reading to children is a better activity than letting them play video games. If you, too, dear reader, were faster, stronger higher.

Actually, I was also reading about in The New Yorker, Kidzania and maybe wanting to go back to Bruno Bettelheim and the value of play. Maybe compare Kidzania to Freed. (The Kidzania article is in the issue that has Eiffel Tower as a pencil; it’s a chain of amusement parks that force children to not play but act like adults! reminds also of Vonnegut “Player Piano” or something.)

2) Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, or “Comp Plan” or “Enhancing The New Century: Palo Alto 1998-2010 comprehensive PLAN” government document, 1998 or so; I also ran into Rob de Geus, our newly promoted head of community services who agreed and confirmed and roughly quantified something that I suspected or knew anecdotally: we have cut, by measure of staffing, our WE The People policies and programs, from 100 to 70 employees, or nearly one-third, in the time he’s been there. It’s like we are asking him to do all these things with one-hand tied behind his back, or hopping around rather than walking with his legs belted together. Anecdotally, we have moved good and capable people like Kash Alegy from rec department to development; dealing with the billion dollar commercial real estate cartel costs us in terms of what we are not taking care of in services. (And we are constricted grammatically and linguistically, from “Arts and Culture Division” to “Arts and Sciences” — why are we short-selling “culture”?) I want to read up on commissioners per se, their selection, their purpose. Seems to me, for instance, that the Comp Plan is to be implemented or enforced, and amended, by commissioners, per se who act as volunteers or amateurs or because they love our community and not by professionals per se, or consultants, to the tune of $2M in this case. On the other hand, we should probably pay them a small stipend, as we did for a while or until recently, like $500 per term or per year, as an incentive to get good people and get good outputs.

3) “A Brief History of Seven Killings” a novel by Marlon James, about Jamaica or about Bob Marley, yet I wonder how it shapes my thinking on all these policy and life issues here, in the present, in Palo Alto, which even with NoLas and the coconut hut or whatever on High is about as far from the islands as you can get. I also have a clip or reference to a social science recent book on that part of the world. I didn’t realize that Ato Bolton Olympic sprint medalist was also a CCS champ for Piedmont Hills or something (thanks to Chris Rogers of Bay Sports and the late John Spalding for that nugget). You can fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, he say, the Snger The Singer (not the Singer, Peter, but worth checking, i missed here recently-lke). Him the cap fit he wear it, likewise. Ato the trini. as compared to ATO Records, Dave Mathews, an Africaner.

4) “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” by George Packer, and by the way Ann Packer was just here, and I missed again. Or tonight? At Keplers? And it has still not been in the papers at all her auntie, Jane or Jean, Nancy Packer’s sister who passed away earlier this year, I only know because she was for her last ten years a neighbor of my parents. I am wanting to re-read the section on Elizabeth Warren (“Prairie Populist” pp. 345-351) and maybe “Silicon Valley” (pp. 381-398) I have procured and disseminated 10 cpies of this me self. And who said there is no reading only “re-reading”? (edit to add, atypically mid-document and not at the bottom although I am thinking of remounting and revising this to clarify the Freed review intent, I did skim if not ponder-read the Elizabeth Warren chapter and found it inspiring; here is David Brooks on this 2013 tour da force and sorry Rich for the inter rupture. Is Freed inspired by Warren?

5) and this is totally random and out of the blue but there is a song from the 1970s “i’ve got my blue jeans on I’ve got my old blue jeans on” that is headline head-like in that Terry my Terry bought me a new pair of Levi’s 505 that I am wearing out today. or is that 2 mediums?

6) a self-publish limited edition thingy I guess “Heritage: Palo alto Jazz Quintessence” and I have to hcekc that title, it was bantered about an bowdlerized nd “de-niggerized” so to speak by the good people at PAHA, a quasi-governmental document of We The People or our NGO (nee-goes?) — better take our vitamins viet-amens — on the ngo — I mean to watch again the 60 minute version of the panel featuring Akira Tana, Seward McCain, Rebecca Coupe Franks and me Mark Weiss on jazz here. Maybe make and publish a transcript. Towards what ends.

7) way off topic: T.J. Kirk, former James T. Kirk, charlie hunter, will bernard, Scott Amendola and John Schott on Monk, James Brown and Roland Rahsaan Kirk, even if four were 1 20 years further into jazz and repeated listens to just tracks 4 and 5 can I begin to suss out the monkisms in the way walrath could hear from the next room “haitian fight song” in Jamie Cullum?

8) this is one time item: “the times of Harvey Milk” by Robert Epstein and Richard Schmiechen 1984/2004 and by the way I double-checked to not disc out Richard Schmiechen sic Mike Weiss no relation although I met him at least once at really I cannot find that name, corner of Vallejo and Montgomery, talk about “area 51” not Printers inc but Caffe Trieste WOW! REALLY! ET TU BRUTE GREAY MATTER actually I left it at Terry’s “Double Play” I think, but there is an odd crossover the bonus material has a panel of a prosecutor a gay prosecutor or that matter and the defense team, Schmid and him and they refer to Mike Wise who may be in that house and dismiss some of his more cock-amine theories. I am oddly sympathizing or empathizing or finding some comparison to me and both Harvey Milk and Dan White. Or that Dan White lacked some artifice and technique in his political dealings, duly noted. There’s a photo of Dan White with shirt off and little tattoo on his right bicep or tricep that looks a little not honky or Huck-like but and not that I would really know “h” you “n” “k”.

this is one of the longest posts without posting let’s see I don’t get burned.

Note that the version of the book I got from new library is an update with a DVD and not first edition. The book came out in the 1980s, as did the film. How did they influence or contaminate each other? There’s also Shilts, better on Milk per se. Weiss has a pun on “white” and “milk”. I’m surprised there is so little backlash even 20 years but 20 blocks away on “got milk?”

Yesterday I also trolled San Jose and thinking “land use” w. “we the people”. I think of Palo Alto as both near and parallel and co-contamaninte with both San Jose and San Fran. There is a black or a plaque that says “First State Capitol” here. It’s funny to compare a sketch by Orozco of Quetzcoatl’s clenched fist (prefacing the Dartmouth murals) with the Robert coiled serpent (and damned if I cannot immediately without interuprture of flow find Angelica Houston’s deceased husband’s name). I tenet not to edit to fix tho s bublme bumble hog. humble blog. He does not sound Latino. Mostly female forms, like in Santa Monica or Venice, turnabout. Saw more work at Imago of Palm Desert. I’ll at least put the name in the tags.

7 or 8: The New Yorker, has a black guy staring into a smart phone, and a butterfly, by K. Nelson and here is weird shout out to Marsh McCall and his recent article or groping or grouping “Why I am Cool Enough For Your Band” which are remountings of things he wrote “Seriosly Folks” for Gunn Oracle in 1978-1982, Feb. 23, 2015 and Terry thanks for suggesting bit about Meyer the sound company by Alex Ross “Wizards of Sound: Retouching acoustics, from the restaurant to the concert hall”

and that got me back to something that flitted in and out of gray matters, gray being the new electronic version of the former bits of ink, black and white more or less by Hart Crane i think: the man I killed by Ernest Lubisch being serious and german and wow, dad and I took in at Packards film museum, 1931 or so, with Zasu Pitts as the maid, Lionel Barrymore as the dad doctor about WWI and afgermouth in Germany, Germans w. French and we as both partis, anti-war as it were.

Until dot dot dot color of a man’s skin, me say war. Everywhere is war.

If I do one thing, it is to read, for an hour, next session, this thing about the Meyers. We could probably use them at 456 Uni. The tags if you check back, should list about 20.

This is for Rich. Right on RTFO.

edit to add, minutes later: if you only have 7:32 for this and unlike today’s children described and prayed for in his secular and educated and caring way by Dr. Freed, who are foolishly like by a pied piper led downy he path of multitasking shorthand for attention deficty by design — they make money off of this, tons of it — you are old school and like to FOCUS, I suggest merely watching The Singer, Bob Marley “until the day that the philosophy that holds one class superior and the other inferior is permanently abandoned and discredited, we make this war” rather than sorting thru my ramblings. OR do check back as I add links and smoothing of edges:

Another one that i took in recently (two years ago) and is always in the fore lobe is Shields “Reality Hunger” both for the impossibility of sorting self from other but also truth from fiction. He says, for instance, that the very act of remembering is a type of composition and therefore a fiction. From whence I get this pseudo-sloppiness and tossed off quality. (In reality, this is hard)

And1: I haven’t strictly speaking stopped counting only that at 7,000 dead that’s a nice round number and I mean the number of American young people dead in Afghanistan and or Iraq and that’s not counting walking wounded and foreign killed. And why? How are actions today and here related, our choices, what we did with this place and time, to what happens, and in our name, there? Or what did you do in the war, daddy? Did you realize there was a War? And why not? Or as Jimi Hendrix and I am not sure if the title “wired child” is a pop reference, to a “wild child” (??) said in Berkeley 1968 “pick up an axe and fight like a farmer”. He did not say “x-box” or what not.

I likes me a Bob Mathias and a 12 foot pole and not Mark Zuckerberg and social whatever, for heroes. I’m old school, you betcha. Not a 12 billion ipo. Dig?

andand: kudos and there’s my Greek theme to Tommy Farley, nephew of Dar Williams, Julie Williams’ boy, formerly known as “Munchie” for his team-leading discus toss of about 140 feet — and he is a wrestler — and also to Jeff Heidenreich-Lee the basketballer for high jumping 6′ 2″ I think which surpasses Mr. Passell and here is for those who do the mathias:

Rich Freed in his youth looked something like Bob Mathias