Makeda Best will lecture in Palo Alto on November 6.
Although I am having a hard time thinking beyond November 4, 2014, when Palo Altans take back our republic from the evil hands of the special interests and dollar-mongers, this is on my scope.
Reminds of a film I saw (most of) at UNAFF last week at Paly New Media center, about history of black images in photo, a film. Harry Davis Allen or something? I was gonna hang out and ask a question or make a comment about: Palo Alto Weekly in 2012 took my portrait, Ms.Webber took about 30 exposures. They ran the one of me looking stage left far into space, next to the look-into-camera portraits of the other five. (I had joked: don’t do me like the bird-call bit in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington!). This year, as I refused to even sit for Ms. Webber, who I actually like, they ran another from the same roll: me, glaring into the camera, under the headline or above the headline “The Agitator” (?!), all the others are smiling. Surely, Bill Johnson publisher and Webber photographer, you have a picture of my normal smiley easy-going (scorpio rising, Ok) self? I said: if I am “the agitator” in the Maytag sense, I am certainly on “gentle-cycle”. I say they are fixing me for an Andrew Goodman “outside agitator” state.
Makeda who I had never seen or heard of before five minutes ago, also reminds me of Makeba. I recall not knowing of Makeba when I wrote about Adrienne Rich “Fact of a Doorframe” for Tom Sleigh’s class at Dartmouth in 1985. And I really didn’t get Makeba until I heard her hiss and grunt for “When We Were Kings” shot in 1974 but released in 2000 or so. Did I read Makeba collapsed on stage during her last show? Or was that Cesaria Evora? I’ve quoted Rich on Makeba before, above.
Makeda Best, related perhaps to Jahvid Best?, I would want to know: Elizabeth Hutchinson also at Columbia Barnard, who was once my date to “Allegria” Cirque de Soleil and did one or two small carving commissions for me, 5751 to our 5775 –yikes!– and Julian Cox, of SFFAM, to her SF MOMA.
total gratuity: typing “elizabeth hutchinson” to my “tags” it suggests: elizabeth warren, elizabeth holmes, elizabeth streb, elizabeth sullivan of PACE gallery.
Makeda also hints at: nozo imanaka, akira tana. I’m so confused. I thought Stanford soccer frosh and Gunn grad Sarah Robinson was Eugene S. Robinson’s child and therefore “black” and not “japanese” or jad-fairish. (typing jad first they want to make it “had” and they “cal trader” or “jade villilon” villilon meanwhile becomes a villain; totally off the tracks: I told Lani Wui, Shannon Elizabeth Clark and “Patty” that I was going to suggest an Elisha Cook Jr Day in Palo Alto as a way to lure David Packard into my dark passage.
“one person one vote one dollar one vote”
“enforce the comprehensive plan don’t gut it”
I understand Palo Alto because I went to elementary, middle and high school here and after college came back to Palo Alto because I care about this city and I am concerned about:
enabling Palo Alto to raise their family
edit to add: what I actually say is “palo alto made me who I am more than anyone else on the ballot, can say; I’ve been here the 2nd-longest, 1974 to John Fredrich’s 1968, me to attend Fremont Hills Elem fifth grade and he to attend Stanford; there are only two of 12 of us who are products of PAUSD schools, me as a Gunn 1982 and Cory Wolbach, but I have lived half-a-life more than he, my 50 to his 35 or so; (I also try to throw in “Dartmouth ’86, where it fits). Ok that’s 124 words and counting. Who’s counting?
art by Terry from mailers, 2012 and commission of Terry to Rob Syrett, shown at WORKS San Jose in art show, fall 2012 — and they may still have some Weiss 202 buttons laying around
But concert promoter Mark Weiss dismissed the question as “biased” and said the city would be better off exploring rent control.
“How many houses would we have to build before the prices would become affordable?” Weiss asked. “No one has answered that at all.”
Forty-percent of us rent here. Personally, for my one bedroom at Oak Creek, it has gone from $2,300 in 2008 to $3,100 now, by my count twice the CPI.
I met a man and his daughter, roller-blading at Peers Park, who said “A new park in Ventura is fine, but they just raised my rent $500 and I’m not sure I can stay here”.
But there is virtually no discussion of rent control in the already short season of the Palo Alto City Council campaign; Jason Greens two brief graphs I reprinted above are about the only word on it.
I don’t even know if it will work — people tell me there are flaws and cheats on rent control — but I think it should at least be discussed.
I saw Garson Bakar’s name on the list of backers of a Joe Simitian soiree at Lucie Stern yesterday. I wish I had gone and could pigeon-hole his thoughts on this. Bakar owns Oak Creek and several similar properties; his name is also on the 4th floor of SF MOMA as an arts patron, and landsman.
(and I just revised to click “ethniceities” the Plastic Alto code for Jewish)
I was at Greg Brown’s memorial at Art Center and was late because I was chatting up Mr. Danner, the music teacher. I was two hours later (and $200 short) for Simitian and he was a week early for PAHA. We discussed Hank Thompson v.
edit to add, October 30:
Bobby Thompson.
I spoke on this theme for 3 minutes at ARB on Thursday, October 30. (I am also an applicant, as a non-architect design professional for one of the 3-of-5 seats on ARB set for design professionals; currently there are five architects on the Architectural Review Board; I am claiming that 2 of five would be plenty, and remedial, to all the log-rolling; Randy Popp, my childhood neighbor but not really an al, mentioned me, indirectly, before the gavel drop, apropos of my simultaneous more of less striving for both council and ARB seats; for the record, today, the board is Gooyer, Prichard, Popp and Lew).
I almost spiced up my little talk with reference to Isaiah the Prophet, the Book and a little quote I saw in a 1992 book on printmakers Terry had on her shelf this morning, selected to accompany a print by Ida Applebroog: I will go before thee, And make the crooked places straight 45:2. My mom, maybe as part of the presentation of her dementia, maybe not, said that Rabbi Sydney Akselrad of Beth Am, circa 1977 said of my singing and chanting voice “He sounds like Isaiah!” which is meant to say “loud” or as Michael Franti years later would say “loudy”. (“I like my bass loudy”
ok, permit me this digression, while a nice lady — I am at ARB listening to a presentation about 441 Page Mill, by Norm Schwab and John Northway — North Elevation adjacent to Paint Store discuss.
Every body on a move
soldier of fortune open your cookie
unfold the paper stop lookie lookie
then march to the kitchen
food for the masses
that’s the new mission
salaam shalom
shalom salaam
the one sound louder than a bomb
the whole world sings this song
check it
stop
rock
i like my bass loudy loudy louder
this track is love amplified
this track is love fortified
this track combats genocide
7 inch Jamaican 45
The thing about the rebbe, and I did speak to his daughter Lisa Akselrad, who ran an ad in the local paper about her personal assistance business (not exclusively for elders) about his considerable legacy; I borrowed a book for 24 hours from his successor Janet Marder of Beth Am about Rabbi Sydney; a couple years ago, 2007 or so, while living on Pepper — coincidentally a stones throw from 441 Pepper they are still discussing — Nielson Buchanan Terry’s neighbor the parking guru, lauding Amy French, not a bad singer herself by the way — a tape of my Bar Mitzvah and he said “I named you Moshe (Moses) because I expect you to be a leader”. Even reading two pages was a shot in the arm. And I shot a photo of a page, copyrights be darned. (I didn’t realize he was from Pittsburgh; maybe he knew or knew of Henry Ford the footballer).
Dartmouth also quotes from Isaiah in its motto: Vox clamantis en deserto. And 1: I re-met the charismatic young Christian bluegrass fiddler Isaiah Pekary busking on Uni the other night and offered to manage or advise him: no reply.
Anyhow there goes our 3 minutes.
don’t forget why you came to the dance…
the MOVEMENT is like a phenomenon.
Rent control.
I also said that in the San Jose Metro there is an article by Pam Malone about Mountain View council candidates not discussing rent control. I also borrowed a book from the new Paly Media center a student publication from somewhere with that as a cover story.
Let’s talk. Or dance:
edit to add, two years later, August, 2016: I found a link to Jesse Arreguin’s proclamation that passed in Berkeley on pushing back against Costa-Hawkins. I believe earlier this year I sent same to both Marc Berman and Vicki Veenker running for assembly, hoping they would add a plank in support of renters. I sent a note to Steffen Eelgstrand, staffer for Jesse Arreguin, this post and a bit of who and why I was or am.
I would admit the above starts straight then explodes, like our universe into too many pieces.
Future bright for Gunn football versus Linval I mean Lynbrook which is subtle Bob Marley reference
I spent much of the first half of Gunn at Homestead talking to a white ex-pat Jamaican named Linval DePass whose daughter is a “flyer” for the GHS (formerly GSH or HMG) spirit squad (what we called Cheer Leaders).
You think your cool, but you don’t know who rules, as Tracy Turner would say. to the opposition. She was head Gunn cheerleader in 1978. I asked about her at the Gunn 50-50.
I met Professor Kasnik of the Stanfrord GSB and Israel Hebrew University of Jerusalem just as his Guy ran 90 yards tearing by for a score, and Mr. Sweat high-fived Kasnik who passed it on to me as well. We were discussing Dartmouth or Brown. I will write to Buddy and maybe Hanlon as well. I was going to write something longer about David T. McLaughlin visiting Monroe Trout or something the banker and Harvard player and maybe Hanlon should fly out here to recruit both Kasnik but this will have to suffice.
Earlier Kasnik looked to be held on a fourth-and-long from red-zone and his father said “he would not object like that unless there were cause”. There was also a fifty-fifty ball or dead duck pass that he almost came down with, so the TD, probably his first was timely, and at least avoided the shutout.
I mean to write a preview of Gunn-Lynbrook: Gunn Football Great Future which is or was a Bob Marley reference I cannot quite haul in this a.m. pre-coffee.
I will edit to add actually spelling of Kasnik. He estimated more than 500 Israelis in Palo Alto now. How many does Dartmouth have?
Guy Kasnik, who also plays soccer and track, missed a few games at start of season due to an injury sustained ironica enough at Buddy Teevans camp at Dartmouth.
Maybe when Professor Kasnik says “Oh, do you know Buddy?” and I tell my stories from 1988 and I said “His sister Moira was the year behind me, there were four or five Teevans at Dartmouth, football, hockey or track” he actually does know Buddy for being on faculty at Stanford together trumping my old boy routine.
Shinichi Hirano was greeted warmly by the stadium announcer from Homestead who I take it is old school. I was on campus Thursday at Gunn,, caught a minute of volleyball frosh-soph and said hi to Hirano. I was arranging something coming up for Chris Horpel and Jonas Haro of wrestling. I also have a meeting up coming with Tom Jacoubousky: where is Kent Lockhart’s red #25 jersey we donated item 1 and item 2 where is Gunn 1981 CCS runner up plaque or trophy?
We have the power to, we have the power to, prevail.
As Faulkner said: man will not only persevere he will prevail.
Or: you don’t have to finish but you cannot walk away.
Sidney Akselrad playing handball on side of shul in Pittsburgh.
actually dartmouth should take Kasnik, Dietrich Sweat and Nozo Imanaka and if they don’t play football would be great at rugby.
Reminds me of Raoul Israel Socher the Dartmouth rugger and Phi Delt asking Teddy Conway the Isadore Newman School of New Orleans WASP, does the Sphinx take Jews?
They do now, mother fucker. Shavoua tov.
And not one of my seed shall sit on the sidewalk and beg your bread, or so jah seh
edit to add, moments later: so we are talking about Ron Kasznik and Guy Kasznik; in Hebrew I am guessing or educated-guessing from a Beth Am reform Bar Mitzvah 35 years ago perspective that is Kaf, Shin, Nun, Kaf Sofeet. Four letters. He seems to say “cos-nik” like Bill Cosby but I am tempted to think “cash-nik” like somebody who has made bank. With the Shin (as opposed to poor Forrest Bubba Larson and his broken fibula) there is sometimes a little dot above one or the other posts, to be the literally shiboleth and siboleth of “s” versus “sh”. I tink. i link: RK
I also vm’d the man threatening to write both Teevens and Hanlon.
and 1:
I actually had to read this in college, Dartmouth in the 1980s, from 1975 but otherwise now obscure, Roland Barthes S/Z:
I went to a liberal arts college, Dartmouth in the 1980s, and we did not have modern pre-professional degrees like journalism or bean-bag-horse-shoe-pitching. But like Stanford in many many ways, now since and forever. Wah hoo wah. We got next.
Mark Weiss for Palo Alto City Council, if you, dear reader, of Plastic Alto, permit me the indulgence of speaking of self in third person, although usually I claim this is sign of subject “jumbling the shark” or the presentation of severe personality disorder, “I and I” Rastafarians notwithstanding — and yeah that was me singing “not one of my seed….shall beg for your bread..I and I” in the showers at 7:45 a.m. today at Ross Road Family YMCA — the campaign picked up three endorsements from a diverse trio of people who knew him (me) in a former live, or the earlier incarnations of Young Weiss-ton.
BLUF (bottom line up front and no that is not a gratuitous Michael McFaul reference): Lisa Delong, Colin Bonini and James “Jamie” Lyons I communed with in various real and electronic ways and I’m happy to report they said, yeah, sure, whatever use my name (Jamie gave me a fist bump, or at least did not refuse mine; Lisa also know as Cammie’s mom or nowadays Cameron’s or Cam’s mom or also Mrs. or Ms. Dr. Nomi Khan the spine surgeon of Crescent Park or Center-ville made me some tea or chai or high end “d.i.y.” cafe-quality beverage although we had to guess at the flavor which was in high French or some uber-exclusive Swiss-French-German slang they don’t teach,, not Louis Weiss at least — still not my daddy, although I wish I had a nickel for how many times someone said, apropos of a French language teacher in PAUSD “Is Mr. Weiss your father?” and I’ve had to say “no?” or “non?”; Colin, taking a pass from his twin brother the judge Griffin Muff Bonini who said he could not endorse me, unless I was running odor judge — I’m going to leave that, that little computer-suggested amendment “odor” for “for” — is it saying something about justice writ large? – – Judge Bonini said he had fond memories of being my teammate and riding in my blue Camero and knocked on — that’s actually a soccer term — my email to Colin who sent a little quote:
“Mark Weiss is a fine fellow, this conservative Delaware legislator and former Wesley Wolf scoring leader doth say” –that’s a paraphrase and probably breaks both E.B. White’s first law “omit needless” words and is more like Joe Biden’s famous plagiarism or a violation of the Mann Act for interstate politico-babble than the direct quote — and keep in mind all I have to do is publish this and click six times like Dorothy in not-Kansas to cut-and-paste it in for real.
I also got a rather limp response from Anna Eshoo saying that she wrote this letter before I tipped my hand enough to reveal that the Mark Weiss running for Council and asking her endorsement is the same Mark Weiss son of Paul and Barbara Weiss she knows quite well– or Dad says, Mom used to say she adored Anna– so I actually feel sorry for Anna getting so far into the rabbit hole of Politics with a Capitol that she cannot remember the Nineties. Her current campaign manager Nikki something, all of 23 years old or so and an odd habit of snapping her gum as she chews actually had a computer program that says my dad doesn’t exist and my mom only gave $1,000 so I should watch the way I swagger thru her office there on Cambridge Street Palo Alto, back in an alley behind something and next to a parking lot, kind of near the post office, the Eisenhower Era one and not the nice one the sellouts and deposits are selling off — talk about boondoggle. If Anna’s letter had said “I’m sorry I cannot endorse you because I don’t really know you, say hi to your parents, Anna Eshoo” or “I cannot endorse you because, if you keep on modern genetics the way I do, the excellent traits I have noticed in your parents Paul and Barbara Weiss just as likely may skip a generation or two and I don’t have even a minute to eyeball you myself, even if you come to the Wojcicki and Codispotti $150 a plate soiree Saturday, but keep in touch”.
Meanwhile, and I apologize both for shifting back to first person and away from the promisingly amusing third — and that brings to mind Borges “Borges and I” (“Borges Y Yo”) and also my weird thing I wrote last night about Alexis Harte and the real Alexis Harte; I woke mentally writing him back and blaming it on Edward Allen Poe “William Wilson” or whatever it was called, he wrote in 1850 I wrote just as long ago or read rather in 1984, fittingly — or if you came tonight to hear about Lisa Delong and Colin Bonini and Jamie Lyons,I also met with Rabbi Janet Marder who lives in Plao Alto. After a nice 30 minute meeting that could have stretched to 35 but Laura Bandman, my idea of a Cantor with a canter, said she would be waiting in the next room, practicing her scales – and although I did not get an endorsement I left with a book, on loan, a private press oral history of my actual Rabbi, Sidney Axelrad — now that’s what I call Inspiration! After a rather satisfying end of day, sun falling in sky (actually, we spinning away from site of sun, do note) circle of East Meadow and Arbitus –new terrain for me, even, here since 1974 walking the precint or canvassing or pressing doorbells, I was so inspired I pulled over, despite Terry saying the beef borgnine in ernest would be ready at 6:30 and it was pushing 7, I called and left vm for RJM: hey, maybe you can endorse me as an individual. The Jews of Palo Alto will be glad to have something to vote for; you won’t regret it, et cetera. (I literally got cut off, ran out of time, but also paraphrased one of the lessons she let me: I don’t have to finish my work, but cannot just leave my work, her response to my pseudo-vedantic we have the right to work but not the right to expect to be paid in full.
So I am holding an office hour, from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. here at Peet’s near Cubberley if anyone reads this in real time and moseys by, please say hi. Jamie Lyons says he is working with Collected Works a producing org in Sf and did lights for something Russian sounding I did not catch the name but it does suss up proper like. I shot him here a month or so ago and maybe ran the photo here, or it is trapped with 1,700others in my phone.
I have my La Para La Selva breakfast klatch from 9 to 11, Paly media lab for UNAFF something black and or African Senegalese — for six minutes at 4 till about 6:30 then rushing down to Cupertino or Sunnyvale for Gunn v. Homestead, hopefully the first W for good old GHS which we called HMG. Or is it GSH?
Lisa returned a Dawn Richardson Mel Bay drumming book that hopefully spoke to then-Cammie a few years back. Lisa stopped her car to spy me as I stood in front of Enid Pearson’s house. Again, no endorsement but thanks for the inspiration! Likewise I rang the doorbell and left vm for her neighbor and doppelgänger Emily Renzel. I have photo of Enid, plus she has a flyer from 40 years ago saying the same thing: not everyone who claims to be a Residentialsit is one.
the owls are not what they seem.
The Cougars are not what they were.
Wear Sunsream.
We have the power to whip you.
What are the odds of a beautiful half-Swedish Palo Alto soccer mom slamming on the breaks of her Mercedes SUV to espy this piece or work, this not too solid piece of flesh, sagging Titan, point two seven points per game? Zero, minus the fact that Terry made me, Terry my Terry, the former two term Palo Alto Arts Commissioner, Terry Acebo Davis, the printmaker and installation artist, a cool poster, a yard sign.
Don’t vote for me, vote for my yard sign!
edit to add (that’s a lie, this is 1,354 and not published yet. Visuals?) I also saw Lori Davis Cottle and Sean Cottle at the Y; I am tempted to ask Lori to walk a precint with me. Twenty doorbells, try to place four signs, she does not have to talk unless they speak to her first, in and out in 2.0 hour, starting at her house. Game?
I also caught up with John Liddicoat’s dad, who said he wants to go back into business; if he cannot evict Apple from his old building, maybe go after that little VC firm on Kipling next to the wine bar. I’m all in with ya, big fellow. (He took a yard sign,although again,I would be fudging it to list him as endorsement. I will hit up Olive Borgsteadt when I see her, my 5th grade teacher, plus will try to yard sign that huge modern house or group of houses near The Adobe and Esther Clark, the one with the mizzuza and the modern or western art.
Somewhere between: John Adams or Sam Adams: there is nothing left here to forward our country and is it Perry “I have not yet begun to fight” ?? mixed with Hunter S. Thompson “When the going gets tough the weird turn pro” and John Wooden “be quick but don’t hurry”.
Don’t go halfway, go Midway. (which is coded shout to Morton Benjamin Weiss the Southside playwright and developer)
outtro: and try to play both at same time, Patti Smith and Eric Bachman: (and it doesn’t fit here musically but like Ms.Mary on Romper Room and her magic mirror I also see Linda Perry circa 1993 at Paradise Lounge trying out or trying on “what’s up?/ what’s going on?, deserves its own post, this is 988 btw.
also nice meeting severin mathe of mn ymca
and 1:
Carlmont seemed to be in control after quarterback Nicky Thompson snuck over from 1 yard out, giving the Scots a 24-6 lead with 10:38 to play. Different Nikki Thompson I would think..???
This is not the real Alexis Harte but a collection of data that reminds me of him
I had a friend or at least business associate named Alexis Harte, a man a few years my junior who was husband and father and bandleader and played a couple shows for me, as Earthwise Productions of Palo Alto.
Right this very minute a complicated yet shiny machine is sitting in my lap, a type of lap dance I suppose, and I dare say that tonight at least it has displaced my human companion, Terry, Terry my Terry, and the machine replicates in certain ways, voice and a visual of the real Alexis Harte, who apparently, if you believe what you read, has a new song about sin and Halloween and I guess Fatherhood, and God, and better than that you too can “own” it, or have it, or control a version of it, a file with bits of data but placed in or on the right group of chips and dips makes something like music. For $1. Only. Just click here. (I was afraid to do it, yet somehow even worse it is controlling my fingers, this lap dancer; it is writing this, I am not. Free will. Or just programming and genetic code? ABCG, was it? ATCG? Who needs to know? I recall the c and the g link tighter than the a and the t. Thanks, Karen Antoun and family.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
What have you done, with the real Alexis Harte?
Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?
What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
good luck to Alexis and he is raising money for Doctors without Borders which I hope is distinct from Doctors without Bodies.
I saw a flyer on campus for the singularity, coming soon.
Beam me up, Scotty?
Dave, this is HAL. Quit asking about ALEXIS.
sing versus singularity, discuss
passing strange, doug hilsinger, ryan singer
The owls are not what they seem.
The talking birds of telegraph hill.
I think therefore I am.
After that, you am on u own.
All that I have is my should. (I wrote “soul” but the machine finished my sentence. a life sentence. a lite sentence. my kingdom for a horse
edit to add: from wiki and google, but I believe it to be true:
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
betsy hall, city hall, halloween, half-japanese, great american music hall — again, the machine offers this list David Levinthal: I took a recent photo thinking the statue in front of San Jose Museum mimics the Willie Mays photo on the banner
When I got to heaven, God said: forget Moses, why didn’t you try to be more like Weiss? (Rabbi Familant, circa 1990, my brother’s wedding, a story)
I never died said he (Joe Hill) I had a couple more lines but Terry is yelling at me so I forget the rest
I think of the internet as a business device but this is almost personal:who wrote “alone again” or who sang it? Stew said he is just the song. Just ask the song.
Parrots idiot. we’ll always have parrots.
Last word or thought: I have a ryan singer apron with this image:
ryan singer is navajo painter and pop artist, i met in santa fe, made this stew
I just wrote this into my notebook yesterday:James Gleick quoting someone else that you cannot stir things apart so take this:
early Alexis Harte,about early birds get the worm or something, sunlight loping, “Parrots” song, track 6 sho nut ya dig
Observing the vetting of five candidates for two seats on the important Planning and Transportation Commission by nine current City Council members at around 6:45 this evening, my attention was drawn to three half-eaten pizza pies at a table arms length from the action and a lunge away from me. Without disrupting the affair I reckon pepperoni, sliced tomatoes and combo. The box says New York Pizza, nearby, affordable but frankly second tier or worse.
Bottom line: I’d rather see leadership eating Pizza My Heart or Pizza Chicago at 20 percent higher cost, but I would predict a more efficient thru-rate.
Hot
Schmidt, Lippert and three rather unappetizing pies.
seat turns over from Claude Ezran who I recently upgraded from nemesis to potential ally to Art Keller who said recently and without explication that he is not voting for me. I think he goes by Arthur, like the rock group. Sorry I called you Kessler in a speech.
Schmidt, Lippert and three rather unappetizing pies.
Slice With Our City
Oct. 30, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
Various pizza places
Join us for a slice of pizza and conversation on Thursday, Oct. 30 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. with City Manager Jim Keene and other city staff who will be visiting various pizza places around town to talk about issues that matter most to the community. We want to hear what’s on your mind and share a lunchtime conversation.
Just to get things started, we are posing a question on social media: “Have you ever imagined Palo Alto 50 or even 100 years from now? What do you think it will look like? What sort of things will be happening here?” We look forward to hearing your answers as we continue our conversations about the future of our city.
Head to one of these local pizza places and have your voice heard:
Palo Alto Pizza Company – 2450 Park Blvd.
Pizza My Heart – 220 University Ave.
Pizzeria Delfina – 651 Emerson St.
Patxi’s Pizza – 441 Emerson St.
NY Pizza – 3235 Hamilton Ave
Howie’s Artisan Pizza (Town and Country) – 855 El Camino Real
Stanford’s Michael McFaul my old Deadhead buddy was on Charlie Rose the other night and other speakers but probably not he compared Putin to Catherine the Great, talk about pussy riot!
BLUF bottom line up front: I am comparing, as far as their knowledge of Vladimir Putin, Michael McFaul the former ambassador and Alexis Harte, a local musician. Maybe Michael, Alexis and I can jam together at Lytton Plaza, or Red Square.
I am trying to realize, meeting Michael McFaul for the first time in 31 years, that we are way beyond being old drinking buddies or concert going-chums (and besides I knew him indirectly in that we double-dated with my classmate his girlfriend at the time, his freshman year at Stanford, the three of us Gunn seniors, 1982).
So I will probably not suss out my thesis about whether being the son of a music teacher helps him hear false notes and propaganda in diplomatic channels. (I dropped this on him briefly at an Amanda Renteria for Congress event in Portola Valley recently, just missing him at the meet and greet at World Affairs council in Atherton some weeks prior).
Pleased to see him even in split screen on Charlie Rose the other night.
Thanks for the “BLUF” bottom line up front.
Interesting to say that he has been tracking Putin since 1991 because during glasnost a group of local elected officials, like Los Angeles City Council (and Zef TK, the one whose name is on side of Hollywood Bowl) went to St. Petersburg to meet their counter-part-counter-comrades and Putin was a low level admin of that, and Mike was already intrigued by the Soviets and there. He is Candi’s protegee but to her left. He was a Rhodes Scholar after Stanford 1986, Obama admin Security Council then Ambassador, until just after Sochi.
The crew on Charlie Rose kept comparing Putin to “Catherine the Great”.
I rang out of blue my former near-client and still-friend Alexis Harte because his song about George W. Bush has a line about Putin. Here is a recent video which may help.
I fantasized about inviting Michael to Dark Star Orchestra at Fox Redwood City recently. I am buying the line in Foreign Policy Review that when he got to Stanford he was struck by the indulgence per se of a dorm mate having 100 Dead tapes, not that he was a deadhead too. In Russia, he caught some grey-market jazz shows, they say. He did tweet about pussy riot. I think this is about my tenth McFaul citation on Plastic Alto; will give it a rest. I had invited Mike to see Taylor Ho Bynum event 9/20/14 at Lytton Plaza; he connected my name, the following week to that invite but didn’t let on if he remembered the exact connection, that I was friends with his freshman year girlfriend. ( I called her, now happily married to someone else, with 2 boys, almost men when Mike was named to Obama team and she said “I know, my dad just called.”)
Not to seque too far from Alexis Harte video name-checking or one-line summation of Putin, Vladimir “he is too highfalutin”? but Bill Murphy, a Paly 1969, playing guitar with Gunn 1982 Stanford 1986 Esther Berndt alto saxophone last night at CoHo claims that Jerry Garcia sat in with Vince Guaraldi at a residency in Menlo Park, didn’t realize, will, as Bob Marley says, suss that out.
The other day I wore a black knit cap from Riot, a new line in downtown near Broadway L.A.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 