Paul brody bay area klezmer trumpet in poland or germany?
Paul what are you up to?
We met years ago when you were on tour and played santa cruz.
my friend esther berndt but not her saxophone or clarinet said she found you in europe.
I am confused years alter if yo are germany or poland. area code 0049 is not poland a man in a cap who is not a labor activist but wrote a book called far from zion emphasis on far said.
are you still on the zorn dole? that is a bad jewish joke.
mark weiss
earth wise productions and artist management
palo alto ca
I write a blog now called plastic alto if yo give me something to work with
650 305 Aleph Bet Gimel shin put one in usa
jason francisco a photo scholar is the odd reference I just met here at peet’s not pails paul’s
that’s my dad’s name too
i am working on something about paul celan do you know the work? influenced by another zorn dude, dan kauffman…
Ben Field and Noelle Marie Fernandez of Labor Council briefing Santa Clara candidates, August, 2014, San Jose
Not really.
I saw a group of rather bored and uninspired people, checking their devices — about 8 out of 40 or so, or pack up their stuff and leave. I met my quasi-neighbor Gary Kremen, running for Water Board, but even he packed up in a zip and disappeared into the Willow Glen night, if not the willow or the glen.
I started to worry that Labor Council is no more representative of the working class than leadership here is of the rank-and-file, is it just another special interest? Certainly the local press – Weekly, Daily News and especially Dave Price’s Post — have no love for labor. Working title for this, scribbled on my notes: Labor’s Labor’s Lost — after Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.
I liked the labor rep and teacher of 20+ years longevity with a cool tattoo from Morgan Hill, (which I mistook for a part of San Jose, oops, Morgan Hill, not her tattoo — maybe because I came to the COPE candidates briefing after a relaxing and inspiring sojourn at Johny Grenado’s Five Color Cowboy, a couple clicks back up Alameda, Johnny the former Pioneer High football star, OG San Jo skater, business owner, philosopher, scissorhands, and what drew me into his realm, the original backer of art legend David Choe).
For the record: of the 12 candidates for five Palo Alto City Council seats, and six candidates for three PAUSD board seats, exactly ONE, yours truly, Mark Weiss, “Plastic Alto” bothered to hear labor out.
Ben Field claims that they have friends in Palo Alto in people they have backed before like Nancy Shepherd. ??? Maybe he meant Gail Price. I don’t think he meant Marc Berman.
I have more to say on this later. But listening to Corey Harris “Fire Go Come” on “Zion Crossing” I found considerably more appealing.
Ooogh!
outro (Corey Harris is a MacArthur Genius grant laureate from Denver, Colorado, Maine, New Orleans and now Virginia who studied to be a public school teacher, while at Bates College in Maine, then studied abroad in Mali where the guitar stylings of Boubecare Traore called out to him and set him on a journey of discovery and outreach via the blues and reggae, and featured in Martin Scorcese’s West Africa segment of his blues documentary, who I met and befriended when he and my then-client Henry Butler toured from San Diego to Maine in a bus in something something called Front Porch Blues tour. Forget labor, I want the rasta-vote; no I want both. Corey roar he):
Johnny inspects his Choe at 5 Color Cowboy, 1445 the Alameda, San Jose August, 2014
We did not discuss labor but I think the movement would find a friend in Jason Francisco a visual arts scholar and practitioner whose work treats we common folk, visiting Stanford from Emory
PREVAILING WAGERS: Earlier that day I had snapped this shot of two workers near the former JJ&F market in Palo Alto but am not sure if they are civic or private, union or scab; I know that they are 49er and Cowboy, if you check their head.
I NEVER DIED SAID HE — When Jenny Bilfield was at Stanford Lively Arts I pitched her Wayne Horvitz oratorio based on Stegner on Joe Hill; good luck to her at Washington Performing Arts in 20036 where she is President and CEO
ON A LARK – I fed Vince Larkin notes as he interviewed Foothill College dentistry instructor Ken Horowitz post-Council about YMCA losing its lease at Palo Alto Square
edit to add: besides following up with teacher Gemma Abel’s and preparing for the COPE Labor Council interviews next week, something tells me to become ally of Marsha Grilli of Milpitas, MUSD board member running for Council there. I also enjoyed being tutored by Dennis Raj, a Lynbrook and UC-Davis product two years into the fight.
past as prologue:
Hey Mark,
Thanks for the quick response. We would love to have you participate in our process. When we conduct our endorsement process it is to educate candidates about our issues and learn about your approach to public policy.
I will follow up in the next round of blast emails with our questionnaire. I think you may also enjoy the candidate briefing, even if ultimately you decide not to seek our endorsement.
Thanks,
Dennis
Sent from my phone, please excuse brevity and typos.
On Aug 14, 2014, at 11:41 PM, Mark B Weiss wrote:
I don’t as a practice accept political contributions nor would I sign a contract pledging support to a third party or organization.
On the other hand, I am, in my opinion, consistently pro-worker, and went on record as one of only 50 Palo Altans to opposed Measure D in 2011 which succeeded in undermining cba of our public safety union.
Do you still want to meet me, given those parameters?
Mark Weiss
student of Bruce Nelson on labor history at Dartmouth, 1985
praiseworthy of William Gould in a puff piece on baseball history and labor
for rent control in Palo Alto
for minimum standards for musicians, based on union service model, at Palo Alto co-sponsored events ($75 per service for individuals, $150 for group)
On Aug 14, 2014, at 11:33 PM, Dennis Raj wrote:
Dear Mr. Weiss:
The South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, Committee on Political Education (COPE) cordially invites you to participate in our official endorsement process for the City of Palo Alto. The Labor Council represents 89 affiliated unions and over 100,000 union members in Santa Clara and San Benito counties.
To participate in the endorsement process, you will be asked to complete a candidate questionnaire as well as attend an interview with members of our COPE Committee. Questionnaires will be sent to you in a separate email with detailed instructions regarding their completion.
Candidate interviews are scheduled for the night of Tuesday, August 26 at the Labor Council, located on 2102 Almaden Road in San Jose. Due to the number of candidates participating in the endorsement process, the tentative window for interviews is 6:00pm to 9:30pm on August 26. Time slots for your jurisdiction will be confirmed shortly. Please be aware, each panel will last approximately twenty (20) to thirty (30) minutes.
You are also invited to participate in a Candidate Briefing with presentations by labor leaders and subject matter experts on Wednesday, August 20 from 6:00pm to 7:00pm. The briefing is an opportunity for candidates to learn more about the Labor Movement and to seek clarification on issues or terms included in the candidate questionnaire.
Please RSVP for the candidate briefing and interview by phone at 408-606-2062 or by email at dennis@southbaylabor.org. Also include your availability on August 26 to facilitate scheduling.
We look forward to the opportunity to consider you for endorsement.
Sincerely,
Dennis Raj, Political Director
South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council
—
Dennis Raj, Political Director
South Bay Labor Council
Cell: 408-455-xxxx
dennis@southbaylabor.org
Randy Lutge is the Les Blank of Palo Alto, and his New Orleans is the New Varsity. He has about 500 films of acts and artists performing live music there, 456 University, in the late 1980s and early 1990s when his family owned and operated what most people think of as a movie palace. (They also had a long-running Rocky Horror Show pageant, and I saw Bogard there, and Palo Alto film festival 1 there).
Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra was the main cover band or party band in the Bay Area during the time I was in or just out of college. They later became Big Bang Beat after some kind of internal dispute (probably not with the estate of the silent film star — I thought it was more band v. management). Someone on Amazon or Ebay is selling an old press photo, which lists Eliot Cahn as p.m. and Monterey Peninsula Artists as agency. Daniel Swan, a Brit and former member of The Sneetches, books the current Big Bang Beat, which features singers Keta Bill and Kathy Kennedy.
Palo Alto Historic Resources Board member Patricia DiCicco, who lives in an historic home (here){actually, she owns a home in Coronado, near San Diego}, said she recalls seeing Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra at New Varsity (which itself is slated or fated to be some kind of a public house AND a lunchroom for a German-based software company, with a stage). DiCicco and I idly discussed hiring Big Bang Beat to do a Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra Tribute at her historic home, some day, not necessarily between now and November 4{my bad, I thought she owned that home here, or one of our historic homes — people hear what they want to hear; but it is notable that she was appointed to this board, which enforces the historic nature of our property, as a public asset, based on that claim; by profession, she worked for parole board}. I sent a note to Keta on some of this. Keta I believe married to Joel Selvin, who I once hired to speak to Jewish Community Federation Young Adults Division YAD, circa 1988.
Windhover Contemplative Center at Stanford, featuring large-scale works on canvas by Nathan Oliveira, looks very near completion.
A little birdie told me.
I spoke to Palo Alto boards shortly after Nathan’s passing about the value of honoring his role in town cultural history, as distinct from the history of the university. Gail Price subsequently wrote a proclamation honoring the famous professor and painter, who I also thought of as the father of my schoolmate Joe or Joey Oliveira.
I also circulated — ok, it was more like a hectogram — an idea that We The People should purchase 209 Hamilton which was Nathan’s downtown studio in the 1960s and turn that into a museum for his larger works and revert the upstairs — the former stage — into studios. Ok, Stanford’s idea was better.
Meanwhile, we do have a large work in bronze at the Art Center.
The Windhover — named for the paintings not the man but actually a Gerald Hopkins Manly reference as well — is also notable in that it has no interior wiring. It is across from Roble Gym and next to the Papua New Guinea carvings — near the student Union.
The ARB Architecture Review Board meets tomorrow Thursday at 8:30 a.m., or in about 25 hours. I am attending, mainly to listen. Yet I feel compelled to add something to the discussion. Lean in. Stand up. Engage.
I left the June, 2014 Art in America in my man-cave/home office, but realize that thanks to this laptop thing-a-majig, I can find what I was looking for:
OfficeUS, part of the Venice Biennale on Architecture.
Can we contextualize our debate over the “downtown cap” in aesthetics, or an understanding of world-wide trends? Is there an aesthetics common ground distinct from the proverbial matters of taste?
Here is one photo, as synecdoche:
There’s also word of and maybe a link to Ai Weiwei, Sugimoto.
More to come.
I want to suggest a chap book, via Palo Alto History Association, on local architecture, especially commercial and public buildings, either by type or by time. (Like the books on streets, parks, trees — my proposed list of 500 jazz memes – I’m up to about 250)
Good morning, board.
The Sugimoto is called Glass Tea House Mondrian and apparently they serve Japanese tea in ceremony there, in Venice, Italy:
He is an artist, not an architect, please note; where did I start to see him: DeYoung, 2007; book on Serra in St. Louis, Pulitzer Foundation – that building is actually an Endo, I mean Tadao Ando, who is said to be self-taught.
My feelings about architecture are like my thoughts on the public art collection: I’d rather see less of it – -less change — but better, more distinct. It seems the industry has the expediency to cram more into a box and call it innovative. But their almost philistines, with due respect that there is some talent, method to their psychosis.
Ai Weiwei Forever Bicycles 11-79 and all that:
edit to add: I spoke to HRB today, about Windhover. I am interested in 385 Sherman, on the agenda at ARB Thursday. I may speak on that, rather than OfficeUS, or both.
Hey, Luke, may I use this on my wordpress blog, if I include a credit line, Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal?
Matt Gonzalez actually called back, between appointments, and added some additional critique to my efforts.
He suggested that even as the Residentialists are becoming bolder here in their push-back against the Developers, that people want a positive message.
I agree. Of course we want development and investment. We want to optimize it. We want to regulate it. We don’t want to strangulate it. (Cue the Bob Dorough…or is that Johnny Mercer?)
If there is a Matt Gonzalez Part 3, I would want to go deeper with him into issues like unions and pension. Jeff Adachi, Matt’s fellow Public Defender, ran for Mayor in 2012 and made a dent, and is pro-worker but also had incites into the need to reform pensions.
I wanted to ask Matt what he thought of George Packer, “The Unwinding” but also “Change The World”. I think of myself as a George Packer populist –okay, he works for The New Yorker, so my populist might be a relative term.
I appreciate that a commentator in the Palo Alto Weekly called me a thinker.
I do try.
I’d definitely rather be knocked out by the bell when my 3 minutes are up than learn to speak in nothing but sound-bites.
I also want to ask Matt about my public safety / militarization / privatization concern and possible platform plank — that I spoke about last night at Council.
I have to admit I was a little concerned he was calling back to qualify his endorsement: I hope over the next 75 days to solidify my platform and win the respect and vote of people like Matt and more importantly the Palo Alto voters.
I also say: it’s not so much getting 3, 4 or 5 “Residentialists” into office as activating 500 or so more people to go to meetings, call up their neighbors, check on old friends, check and balance the momentum, lean in, step up and all that. To wind the part of civic life that perhaps has started to flag.
I see:
1. colors
2. a shape, bunny rabbit? New England state known for leaves turning in fall?
3. numbers, letters, not quite words. Qwerty? Hazbot? Nimby?
4. Is this a reference to Raushenberg, Switters, Walker Evans or what?
(it it bad that I am answering a question with seven I mean eight ?’s)
5. a pretty cool freakin’ endorsement from a regional and nationally known political figure, although he also states, somewhere “I hope that someday they will say Matt Gonzalez is a visual artist who dabbled in politics”
Ok, Matt Gonzalez is a former San Francisco supervisor. He very nearly was elected Mayor. Gavin Newsom beat him by a few points and maybe another $100,00 here or there would have closed that gap, some say. He works as a public defender (he is a Latino from Texas, who attended Columbia for undergrad and Stanford for grad school — I told someone recently my three favorite Columbia grads are: Allen Ginsberg, Matt Gonzalez and Bill Campbell — plus June Omura for good measure). He helped Ralph Nader run for President, once.
I met Matt thru Beth Custer — he donated a work of art, similar in style to the one above, early Matt we say. I bought that piece. (This was 2006 or so). In 2011, December we co-hosted and co-produced a poetry celebration regarding an obscure Dead Poets Society / pro to-Beat named Alden Van Buskirk, in San Francisco.
Ten minutes ago, I said “Thanks for calling me back, I’m sure you are 10 times busier than me”. We talked for five minutes, and hope to meet up sometime in the late summer early fall.
“Use by name at least. Yes, you can say ‘an endorsement'”.
I think this is my 20th endorsement or so, including my Dad, Paul Weiss — the Rotarian and Jewish philanthropist — but this is a thrill for me because this is the first real politician, I mean artist, I mean politician I have had the nerve to try like this. Wah-hoo!
(And I am sitting in the courtyard of Palo Alto Art Center, about to take another gander at work of Joseph Zirker 90 — who also endorsed me — as I write this, although I am about to kick off for lunch, I had just blogged when Matt’s call came in).
I said he is a good writer and I learn a lot from his work. (He also said Tommy Ammiano the comedian is very serious at his day job and don’t go for the yucks, even if I think I am emulating Sartre and “No Exit” who said more of his work got by the censors when he gussed it up a bit, under occupation, like Newk’s famous fade).
MATT GONZALEZ, FORMER SAN FRANCISCO SUPERVISOR, KEY ENDORSEMENT OF MARK WEISS, PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL.
6. To answer the question, I see blue sky, and I hear birds not back-hoes.
P.S. Matt is from McEllend, Texas but I check “Austistic” meaning “Austin, TX or the 404” just for poetic effect. “Platos Republic” is my main category for things political and my campaign for council.
edit to add: ok, I am not sure, in this giddy state, — is that Delaware? — whether I am thinking Camus or Sartre and censorship, which reminds me that I am meaning to say something about the distinction between the lay sense of “animus” and the Jungian sense (“anima” actually). A troll or maybe the real Jim Baer described his sense of my discourse as “animus” which I think he meant in the sense of “hate” or “anger” or something — I thought it rather ironic, in a classic sense. Want to literally call him on that. I actually tried to bait J.D. Daniels to it, but he said he was not Jungian but a Burnsian or Beckian.
Patriot Julian Edelman, from nearby Redwood City, California, breaks open the NFL tilt with his electrifying punt return for a score.
This run by Julian Edelman, of the New England Patriots, a former Woodside High and CSM football hero, makes me wish I had done my recent smog check at Frank Edelman’s A-1 AutoTech in Mountain View and Redwood City.
I noticed that the wikipedia page already updated to include tonight’s heroics.
edit to add, three years later, and during pre-season football:
and in related matter: I have some photos of City College of San Francisco Junior College football workouts, at their stadium, from August, 2014, i.e. last week. I went in to the City for a client meeting, or potential client meeting — a former Ivy Athlete turned activist and artist — and stopped by the besieged school to see the famous Diego Rivera murals, at their theatre. That was closed, but I shot some footage and stills thru the window, to amusing effect and tantalizing. The school has a sign about national champions there, recent, post-WWII and during the O.J. Simpson year or years, I am pretty sure, plus a list of two former NFL/CCSF players, who paid for the billboard. Also, being not a sportswriter (perhaps not even in the Richard Ford sense, talk about something long in my que), I met: an Asian professor and activist, a British emigre visual artist, a Guarani / Honduran musician — drummer, likes Andy Palacio RIP; I am jonesing to go back to shoot the mural or see it, for real. Rivals the Orozco mural of our beloved Dartmouth.
I tagged this: Julian Edelman, O.J. Simpson, Andy Palacio, Diego Rivera, Nicholas Wade, Brian Moore. And Dartmouth
At this point, Edelman has 10 touchdowns and 179 receptions after 64 games. He is about my size, 5′ 10″ 198 lbs — as a Terman Tiger 8th grader flag football I was 5’8, 125 lbs receiver, although I lined up as tackle on running plays and was end on defense. Ok, I am lying, I am 6′ even (actually 5’11 3/4 barefoot) and 205 lbs give or take a couple stuffed bell peppers, Ruffles chips in Rancho dip, Macapunas ice cream from Rick’s Rather rich, an egg for $1.75 from Peet’s this a.m., a medium cappuccino usually with whole milk although today they defaulted to skim, a great lunch salad yesterday from Joanies on Cali, Caesar with chicken breast, a Coke — if I can swim 20 times between now and Election Day, November 4 I will feel at least alive. I rode my bike to campus, to Coupa, for another latte, in the a.m. This is more a foodie blog than a sports blog, Remar Sutton. Leave the gun, take the canoli.
Mia Levin and I met in 1977 when we were both Terman Tigers and I presume virgins. Now she is Mama Mia to Lalique, 28, and Leon, 9. Wow!
She also has “put out” 10 cd’s, albums and tapes as: Frightwig, Mudwimin, ADSR, Close to the Ground, and Mama Mia D’Bruzzi.
I caught up with her at Palo Alto Farmers Market, on Cali Ave Sunday (after a Gina Dalma coffee clatch in “greater miranda”). I sang backing vocals on a Stones cover. I juggled shakers on an original, about income redistribution. She also has a pretty fair Guthrie tribute. As children wandered by, she switched it up to “the elephant sneezed and fell to his knees” medley — by Thelonious Monk — and drew in even more of the Gen Z’s and their Gen Y parents (to our Boomer or Echo generation — I was in utero when Kennedy was shot, and she might have also been).
Later we posed for photos next to the Huffman and the Johanson (but oddly, not the Piziali). I think she said she had heard Tina Age 13, by Chris Johanson.
Respect for Mia and the Mudwimin is the ship that launched 150 subsequent Earthwise Productions at Cubberley Community Center, fall 1994, to winter 2001.
I also ran into Dan Adams, our fellow Terman Tiger and got his endorsement for Council, and more importantly, news of an Oxbow record in progress. I did the least one could do and still be able to say I helped Dan fix something mechanical on his old Peaugot beater wagon.
Larry Klein, circa 2011, leans in on behalf of the wealthy oligarchs and his clients I mean the people
Lame duck Palo Alto City Council Member Larry Klein tries to quote basketball coaching legend John Wooden tonight from dias.
“As John Wooden would say (if he were polled on loop technology, or using staff time as a subsidy for Palo Alto downtown landlords and parking czars), ‘Hurry, but don’t rush.”
No, sir, what he actually said, as my coach Hans Delannoy said to me, too many times,
BE QUICK BUT DON’T HURRY.
I actually passed this note on to City Clerk Donna Grider, and also to Gen Sheyner of the Weekly. Then posted this.
(I might outro with CSN song which comes to mind)
Also, I presume I was on deep background, but I made some sort of soft voice comment to GS about…Foreign Friends and not quite Wizard of Oz Scarecrow and Klein — I said the last name of the famous coach – -who by the way, had a losing record against Cal’s coach Pete Newell, and pointed to my head.
more Larry-mania: I mentioned in a Weekly post that I was “tough on Klein” here. When I went to speak my 3 minutes Monday — on public safety here — I noticed Klein was not paying attention, his head down, in my opinion trying to ignore me or psych me out. Similar to the episode a couple years back when Mark Peterson-Perez, an activist, and sometimes a fairly caustic speaker, spoke and Larry Klein and then in sympathy Pat Burt both turned their chairs around when he spoke. When I applied for Planning Commission I noted later –reviewing the tape, a public record — Larry Klein left the room, presumably to take a leak. I would say there is a definite pattern, and you can check it by referring to the public record, the video bank. (And I am in Sullivan v. Times territory here — it is not easy to libel a public figure or seated official, but for instance, if I cannot prove my pattern AND he can prove some damages — which becomes known as “reckless disregard for the truth” or “actual malice’ I could be in trouble — this is thin ice, or deep wading). When I ran for council in 2009 and Larry was also a candidate, I did seek him out at a post-event and try to shake his hand and say “I am not sure why I am so hard on you.”. Similarly, I caught Larry Klein napping once at Lytton Plaza mid-afternoon or lunch hour, and might have snapped an embarrassing paparazzo, but instead greeted him woke him, tried to shake his hand — he offered me his left to my right, clutching the paper with his shake hand — and made some reference to the noise ordinance at the plaza. But in the context of a perception that leadership caters to the powerful and does not listen to rank-and-file or grassroots, I would say it is fair comment to note that Larry Klein does not make eye contact or face me when I speak to council or commissions and he is on the dias.
In Weekly:
Rupert — if that’s your real name —
There’s confidentiality and then there is running around in a white hood. No, I don’t think we should have to sign our ballots.
I refuse to accept donations — and people offer — in sympathy with the concern over Citizens United and McCutcheon cases. To date, in two cycles (garnering a “combined” 6,800 votes) and three weeks into this campaign, I have spent ZERO on campaign per se (save filing fees, running tab $75).
This year, for yucks, I am likely to spend up to $1,000 out of pocket, if I can think of a worthy use of the money. Something arty, and smart not crass stupid and cliche. No yard signs. I am for a yartzeit on yard signs.
I asked other candidates to agree to a cap of $10,000 — that’s way above what I might spend.
And since this sometimes linked, and was in fact reported incorrectly in other papers, I sat thru a Union panel on candidates, that they might endorse, but refused to sign a contract that would pledge me to vote with them. I think of myself as pro-worker, pro-middle class, pro-democracy, but not pro-Union.
For the record, I worked on campaigns of: Jerry Brown, Becky Morgan, Tom Campbell, Jeff Adachi, Steve Cohen.
Here is an article on this by Robert Reich (my fellow Dartmouthian — he a few years ahead of me, I’m certain we had some of the same professors); I also recommend his film “Inequality For All”
I will keep to myself who among the candidates I am talking to — I would say at this point I have spoken, in the last three weeks, to 9 of the 12, and maybe 5 or 6 of the nine current council, in side-bars and in passing if not strategy sessions per se.
Although I get in their jock a bit, I would say I could work with anyone on council. I was pretty tough on Klein in my blog post last night, but in theory I could find an overlap and mutual common interest, for the good of the people, our community. (I attacked him for his habit of turning his back, looking away or leaving the room when I speak to or am interviewed by council…)
I hope people use the full 80 days to decide and do not mail back the ballots early.
But we need rank-choice balloting or districting or both, better than bullet-ballot scenarios.
Read my blog if you want more nuanced versions of how I think.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 