Palo Alto’s chief animal doctor Bonnie Yoffe, DVM introduced me to her friend Shyloh, a lovable lass looking for a good family to bring joy to. Contact Animal Services or visit Shloh.
We miss Frida (our cocker spaniel) and have gotten to know Shyloh. Meanwhile, we should all bone up on the issues of whether to build a new facility for Animal Services. Bonnie says the existing facility is barely adequate. The PAW reports (get it?).
Check back to see if Terry posts here some amusing and embarrassing photos of my heart melting for Shyloh.
edit to add, next day: I marked the Weekly’s message board, on the topic of proposal for new facility:
This is a complicated issue.
The one thing I am sure of: Shyloh is a lovely lass and would bring joy to the home of any suitable Palo Alto family. Come meet her.
Also: kudos for Bonnie Yoffe for her public service to we humans and her DVM work for friends like Shyloh and Frankie.
So how do we go from not having the budget to retain traditional levels of service then we want to build infrastructure for this? Smacks of: we don’t have money to pay public safety what we were, but we want a new building for them.
Generally I am for maintaining in the public sector services we are accustomed to, and not privatizing.
Sometimes I feel like we cannot see the forest — City Hall — for the trees, and cell phones and coffee and billion dollar dreams. Wake up!
Statement of MARK WEISS, Candidate for
Member, Palo Alto City Council
Occupation: CEO of small business / activist / writer
Education and Qualifications:
I am running for Council in the tradition of Simitian, Fazzino and Yeh, who were student leaders here and evolved into public service. I am a Gunn Titan (class of 1982) and was graduated from Dartmouth College (1986) where I was an English major but also read philosophy, history and government.
My campaign expands on five years of serious study of and engagement with local policy and the growing sense that leadership does not represent the interests of the citizens, and instead has been significantly undermined by special interests such as commercial real estate developers.
Beyond gaining a Residentialist majority on Council, I believe, after reading Thoreau (1849) that a Democracy demands an engaged citizenry close enough to leadership to impact it or force it to “move on”. More recently, George Packer’s “The Unwinding” is a call to action, here.
I’ve posted more than 100 articles about local and national policy on my internet website and blog called “Plastic Alto”. People can read more there and add their viewpoints or contact me.
Much of my 2012 platform was incorporated into the new residentialist movement, the referendum on housing, and is consistent with the findings of the Santa Clara Grand Jury 6/16/14 about 27 University.
I feel that my qualifications and values best represent the rank-and-file citizens here, especially those who are the product of PAUSD schools or are long-term residents. I also plan to draw significant support from environmentalists, parks advocates and the 40 percent of citizens who rent.
I advise my fellow Palo Altans to lean in NOW on the Comp Plan ratification process. Why flush 120 years of history into the Bay for short term gain or greed?
edit to add, three months later, or two days ahead of THE DAY: Nancy Packer, mother of George Packer endorsed me, and I am making good on my declaration to her that I bought multiple copies of “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” at a discount and am getting the word out, disseminate as in used to say in The Orange Bible. Susan Charles endorsed me today; Jerry Masteller. G. Scott Rafshoon, Colin but not Griffin Bonini; Brian Moore; I think I am up to near 50 but lose track of some of them, and have no good way to get the word out. I sang a version of “sinner man” by Nina Simon to Yiaway “Asian Glory” Yeh and Cecilia Ma but don’t think that will get him off the fence. Mrs. Sandy Adams mother in law of our other ex-mayor Peter D I chatted up this a.m. and I forget how well it went. I wrote to LaDoris I letter that nearly made me weep, but will probably have to wait until a type of after-life to get traction with her. Getting Susan’s support, and a hug, felt great.
Dear God: please direct people to my 200 word statement. And thanks for the weather. Mark (dude 6,007, 456, 888 today).
Nick Larson endorsed me, I think, or hung a sign and posed.
It’s kind of a weird thing this “will you endorse me” it ranks up there or down there with Terman 7th grade: “do you wanna go?”
I have written 140 posts on plastic alto slash platos republic since pulling papers in july, quite an output.
I am at Coupa writing my ballot statement and not watching the Giants or reading about Unlocking The Truth
(I am ensconced at Coupa this a.m. writing my ballot statement so did not will not and cannot read The Times; I could not resist, since someone had left a hard copy, noting the existence of three article I might or you might read, later; I also taping the Giants-Mets, and their odd 9 a.m. start
(Something about the really young rock band, signed to a major label, on C-1 — and not to be confused with the really young rock band I have seen three times, and written about, at Lytton Plaza.
(B-1 has a big photo — which caught my eye, the building — and article about “A News Giant Going It alone“, about Chicago Tribune, who owned the Palo Alto Times, when I worked there, in 1984.
There’s also a A-1 front page story about the middle class being priced out of the coasts and moving to Oklahoma City or El Paso.
Black and white nerds unite.)
I watched this 33 minute film, on mute or near it, while eating my eggs; the film belongs in the Smithsonian. I grabbed these three captchas, of the guitarist; at 20:05, first. At 22:20 there is his version of Hendrix at Monterey “Star-Spangled Banner”. The cameraman — a father of one of the young men — says that two of the boys are cousins. The last song at 27:45 they announce as a cover of Chelsea Green (?) “Red Green”.
I was drifting into some thoughts about a ballot statement that is based on “Rock and Roll Part 2”:
Been a long time since I rock and roll/
Been a long time since I did the stroll/
Carry me back, carry me back/
From where I came from/
(something about) moon light
Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
(that would be a 35 word platform, compared to my 70 platform in 2012 — a fifty percent reduction – -fiddy percent as they say in NYC, the 212. I would add about 10 notes, so it would be 35 word platform with 10 notes. I would be leveraging my long-time standing in the community, as a Gunn grad, PTT trainee, et cetera, plus being the catalyst to the New Residentialist movement. Might be too hip for the room).
So I am drifting pretty far from a rational defense of obstructionism as it pertains locally and currently to “dense packing / upzoning” versus “greenbelt alliance”, but the Led Zep slash Robert Plant ditty about “moonlight” — that I cannot even quote properly – -reminded me of something gleaned — by osmosis, maybe it was my roommate G_ who gleaned it, then shared his insight or enthusiasm for me, he the philosophy major to my English major merely reading Schopenhauer — 30 years ago, in undergrad survey courses, lower level, about values and aesthetics and humility. And I am grateful that in rebuttal to the trolls who attack me on the Weekly message board prima facie for not being more conventional that two or three replied in kind that I was thoughtful. I said at PATC that I prefer thoughtfulness to expediency in the public sector. It’s hard to say anything of substance in a 200 word passage
Schopenhauer’s moon was “an object of contemplation, never of the will. Further, it is sublime; that is, it inclines us to sublimity, because it goes along without any regard to us, forever alien to earthly activities, and sees all, but takes part in none.”
And not that I want to be compared to Plant, no way. My claim is that I managed Eugene S. Robinson, and his band, and that he can do a passable version of Plant, even at age 51 or what not. And people who heckle him are likely to be mule-kicked in the chin, and like it. I’d like to earn his vote. Only that maybe part of our problem is how stiff members of leadership our, certainly council, their minds clearly but also their bodies, their lower chakras. I noted a historic rockin’ moment when then-Mayor Yiaway Yeh danced or sang back-up for a teen rock group doing a dated and over-done cover in front of City Hall. That’s as close as we get to the public sector here noting a fairly significant social movement; that’s why I was psyched that mid-level civil servant Josh Wallace said he liked Spoon. And I contend, but it won’t make it into my 200 word statement, unless I do go-fully monty for Robert Plant, that we would benefit from an art-informed tip elf policy.
Screen grab of Malcolm Brickhouse, guitar, in 2013 busking at Times Square
And oddly as I finish this off I am pinged by a note saying SXSW Austin 2015 is open for registration; truth be told I have not been to Austin or SXSW since 2009 for various reasons, including the fact that 100 to 200 hours in public hearings and meetings displaces time spent on the day job. Meanwhile the Giants-Mets I am not watching but taping is deadlocked 2-2 in the fourth with Hudson still on the hill, throwing the pill. Unlocking The Truth is, btw
I had a strange feeling that I have not quite reconciled last week sitting thru two hours as a guest of the Housing Element committee — there were about 16 of us there total — and then walking home, from Lucie Stern to Downtown North, passing by some beautiful and elegant Professorville Houses, chiefly on Melville and then Waverly.
We were debating how Palo Alto would change if we let R-30 be built rather than R-15, along El Camino for example. That’s 30 housing units per acre.
I don’t think any Palo Altan wants to live above or below another Palo Altan. People aspire to live, if not in an historic district then a cute Eichler in South Palo Alto.
After sitting thru several of these Our Palo Alto / Comp Plan / scoping meetings — some with hors devours and others with merely filtered water, if you ask the right attendant – I have a distinct distrust for the process. It seems we are under severe pressure by highly incentivized special interests to not resist both more office space and more dense housing and upzoning. The framing of the issues seem to assume we will not actually resist. The four choices are not choices per se. (And the “do nothing” option is given short shrift; it takes a tremendous amount of effort in recent times to preserve the status quo).
I am for a park at Ventura if Fry’s leaves, for example and not more housing, which is considered off the charts. I look at Greer Park as precedent (when the Drive-In failed).
I don’t think these issues are being debated as much as this is a dog-and-pony show. And we the taxpayers are paying $1.7 million to a consultant in Berkeley to guide us through this? (No wonder they are all dressed so nicely — some of us do this just for reasons of conscience and concern for our fellows).
And for the record I grew up here and am a renter. Someone brought up the issue, at the Housing Element meeting, that maybe as a type of resistance and a concerted effort to protect the middle class here, we should have a tenants union and maybe rent control and not just mandatory mediation (via Human Relations Commission) which to my mind is a landlord amenity.
I would think the same energy is needed and more timely to defend our neighbors at Buena Vista Mobile Park: leadership should broker a deal there.
Note: if you ain’t seen a film by the name of Fast Cheap and Out of Control you ain’t likely to ‘preciate this much. Or that story by Mr. Mark Twain (Shania’s grand-grand-pappy?) about that old ram…
Over the next 100 days, I am looking carefully at the canines, especially in my mini-universe of University Avenue, seeking clues about the politica animal, when to sniff, to run, to bow or chew, like Oso and Scout here
A dog named Oso blocked half the sidewalk and pre-empted my first notion of a post about the historic Varsity Theatre, 50 feet further up Uni and confronting your demons, or Ballrogs. In the end, slightly further down the stream of my consciousness, a dog named Nabby, for the goalie a shark and not the author a predator, and his companion set me to thinking about mortality. The journey of here to there, to connect those dots, ay there’s the rub. I am not sure if I can keep to this strategy of being seated to Palo Alto City Council, with 10,000 or so votes from my fellow Residentialists meanwhile not campaigning at all. That I chatted up the nice Canadian couple, companions to Oso and Scout, is not that atypical for me. My earliest memory, I often tell, is walking up and down the cabin, from section to section, on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, in 1968 — I was four years old — and greeting every person on the aisle and thinking it the greatest thing in the world: the people, not the flight per se, California or the orange juice and danish awaiting us in Los Gatos the next morning. I really do want to know something about each and every person I pass, or who passes me; what do you know and what I’ve seen so far. Part Will Rogers and part Stephen L. Carter saying that “hello” is the basic currency of a Democracy.
I told the Canadian couple that Montreal means: a Jazz festival with multiple stages and a large free element, Pedro Martinez slowly creeping into my consciousness with eight, nine, ten K’s — after a while, you start to notice these things; Schwartz smoked meat. The man looked pretty fit but denied modestly being any type of hockey player whose name preceded him, like a Cromartie or Le Gran Orange.
Ms. Chestnutt is probably not related to my Gunn classmate and Oracle colleague the PhD Beatrice Chestnut, nor the sport-eating king from San Jo. She said that despite the variant spelling for the recently deceased indie folk singer her heritage does include Macon, Georgia before being here for 100 years or so, so maybe she will look into “Coward” by Victor Chesnutt (no middle “t”) — I tried to boot up the video of his work but it would not comply to play. I suggested she look into the plans to tear down the Chicago Title building on her block or nearby and speak her piece (“peace”?); at least two other residents have, at the meeting I attended. The real estate people there, on Lytton, plan to tear down a fully-leased building and build a bigger one, just to make jake. (Same thing as 385 Sherman I wrote about below).
She did sign my petition, although, really, I am not campaigning. I am not a politician. I am just a guy who lives here and likes to speak my mind.
The Times obit, five years old now, of Victor Chesnutt, 45 (born same as me in 1964) says that after breaking his neck (drunk driving, he admitted later) he lay in bed for about a year before deciding he had something to say, and later recorded 13 albums worth. I have a couple of those cds, I enjoy enough. Never saw him live. Although it is completely true that I lent or gave one to Suzanne Warren when she booked, as City staff, the Twilight Series. We were fixing to have Victor Chesnutt and Kristen Hersh, as a co-bill to play Johnson Park, two blocks from here — I’m at Peet’s; I’m not sure where exactly it broke down. I have Kristen’s memoir “Rat Girl” in my little Chevy; I am fixing to give it my neighbor, the famous rock bassist: No but I have a “Rat Girl” for u. For your pipe.
I was gonna write about running into Chop Keenan and chatting him up for a full 30 minutes, around the corner from his office, up from Whole Foods. He says that letting a large software company have a commissary there, in the Varsity, at 456 University, will rock. He said that even I, Mark Weiss of Earthwise Productions will want to produce cultural events there, in this place named for a new platform. HANAhous. He said he was oh-for-five in terms of prospective tenants and that he coulda gotten a higher paying tenant but this was a better fit. He is not Alibi Ike, he is staking his rep on this. I told him that he could tell me if I have him wrong, and I can amend– the nature of a blog and all that.
He said he had never seen my blog but knew who I was based on my postings on the Weekly site. So, despite having posted that the current plan is a crock, and that people should pack the aug. 20 ARB or HRB meeting, I am now saying I am calling off the dogs (the Oso’s, the Scout’s, the Nabby’s — I was trying to see in their behavior something universal, that works for four-legged as well as for “linguistically conscious apes” — that’s a weak Cornell West reference — I am trying to find a type of politicking as natural as a dog either barking, or bending, case by case but with a pattern, a reason, a charm, and sometimes if really necessary, a bite. After so many posts and rants against what is happening at 456 and the man behind the plan there, could I really say “30 minutes of constructive engagement and he has won me over”. Does that make me a sellout? does that make me, despite saying I am not, a politician. I am certainly not taking a finder’s fee from the guy, or a donation. Maybe he is just fucking with me – -yes I am saying the f-word, 1,000 words into this shaggy bitch. Ok, I am going to check in with him on Aug. 31, 2014 and see where we stand, and yeah, if six months after opening HANAhous does not actually rock, he will hear about it.
function (F) or grawlix for 456
Chop Keenan told me he has a son about my age. He said that unlike the other most famous downtown guy, he never uses the PC. He said his son is called “Jamie” and lives in SF and does investments. Both he and two of his kids were water polo stars. Chop is Paly 1962. Jamie liked Dartmouth; Chop has enjoyed his visits to Hanover, NH, although when 4 and 5 went on a college tour the weather was nicer in Durham and the young ladies there wore less clothes so dad’s advice was the tobacco dynasty not the secret under-pinning of the revolution, but he was probably in the wrong there, as it turns out.
Chop is turning 70 this year, but he would not say exactly when; I guessed he was a Taurus and he plausibly denied it. I am saying Scorpio, which means November. I am Aquarius which maybe explains why I am curious about every single person I meet, plus my moon in Cancer which is my sweetness but yeah I am Scorpio rising so if you cross me up, better watch it! I told Chop that I would work on getting Roy Orbison for his birthday. That would take some doing, Roy having passed in 1988, at 52 (to Vic Chesnutt’s 2009, at 45) but it is also true that Hershel Yatovitz, Paly 1982, has been Chris Isaak’s guitarist for about 20 years, and Chris covers or admires or channels Roy, and maybe met him – – I asked Kenny Dale Johnson about this once, I used to see him at Pat O’Sheas and Gordo’s both in the Richmond; incidentally as is Balboa Theatre re-founded by Gary Meyer who was Chop’s tenant at 456, Gary the co-founder — with a name that came to Chop more easily but has slipped past me, no Nabakov on this one — of Landmark films. I am pretty sure that Chris Isaak and therefore Hershel Yatovitz are coming around this fall, so if Chop will open the gates to the courtyard we can plausibly at least get H-man to busk there, probably not Chris; I can get an ask price on Chris, as a private function or some sort of private function with a public element, and then run it by Chop. Chop said that he let Gabe Harris play in the courtyard because he is good friends with Joan. So there is precedent and only so many fingers for so many dykes. O Brother. O death. Hot dog.
Happy 70th to Charles “Chop” Keenan admirer of “pretty woman, walkin’ down the street…kind I’d like to meet”
Chop Keenan and his sunglasses is I guess explained by his Roy Orbison thing.
Nabby is a hunting type dog and kept his eye on Laurie as we chatted. He is named for the Russian hockey goalie for the Sharks. She did not remember Larionov (which is how I remembered it, a skater for the Sharks and former USSR Olympian).
This does not imply an endorsement, from Nabby or his companion nor Chop. Nabby likely would prefer a pork chop. As would I, frankly.
Anyhow that is how I spend my Saturday morning. Thinking that I, too, like Victor, have something to say. I got one signature for my petition, my writ — I have about 55 total; you need 25 to qualify, but if you get 100 you get your $25 bucks back. I also did talk to, or by email that is, Kristen Hersh’s husband and manager Billy O’Connell about, in the wake of the suicide cluster, and in honor of her friend Chesnutt, would Kristen come back to Palo Alto to do some kind of benefit event or to make that statement. Maybe. Maybe in the courtyard of the historic and beloved Varsity, now that there is a dialogue and line of communication. a Hailing. Kenneith, what is the frequency? I wil be at the farmers market collecting a couple more signatures and peeing on or near where the other candidates might be tabling.
edit to add:
Meanwhile I picked up my first endorsement, from Chris Gaither. Interesting that I spent so much time recently speaking to a Libertarian (Chop) and a Republican. Thanks, Chris. Always enjoy and appreciate our dialogue.
2. La Hacienda Inn, in Los Gatos but on Saratoga and Monte Sereno borders, where I fondly spend my first several days as a Native California (of the kind born in the South Side of Chicago), was formerly Nippon Mura Inn and, coinkydinky or not, is part of a scheme now to be re-incorporated as part of Monte Sereno such that the zoning will change and Dingbat (not Chop Keenan, by the way) can tear it down and build housing. So it’s not just here. I bought a nice OJ from John Adams this a.m. for $2.50 and told him of my candidacy, which kinda reminds me of that first taste of California fresh-squeezed back in 1968. I can still taste it. My folks used to remind us that as we drove around the Bay Area we City Slickers were so not used to the terrain that we would retreat to the hillside of the back seat of our Chevy as we wound the curves of Highway 9 and the like. This was before car seats but after Ralph Nader unsafe at any speed; I guess we had seat belts but didn’t know what they were for. And yeah Moms was the type, even as my mass hit 200 lbs and she could not drive a golf ball as she once did, would put her right arm out to break my fall, at sudden stops, driving. Thanks, Mom.
3. translated from Plastic Alto to SWE:
I’ve changed my stance on this and am going to take Chop Keenan at his word that this hanahous is going to “rock” and that people like me, who has produced more than 200 concerts in Palo Alto, the bulk of which included national and internationally known acts, will be able to go up to the new tenant and work out a deal to bring great music to 456 Uni, the historic and beloved Varsity building, just as if staff and leadership had done as I suggested in 2011 and find a known presenter to take over the site as a music venue.
So it is not necessary, fellow citizens, to pack the ARB and HRB meetings and challenge this.
I also, as a hedge, checked with Brian Judd the historic architectural consultant to verify that yes the theatre engineering is still preserved underneath a false floor such that, if hanahous doesn’t work out and Chop someday sees the light, it can be, as demanded by code, reverted to theatre use.
But for now Chop Keenan is putting his reputation on the line and I am going to give him benefit of the doubt. (post to Weekly, which included a link or ping back to here. They removed the link, prompting a second post 7 minutes later: Fuck you, leave the link; not sure how long that lasted. I should really angle for an editorial meeting with Bill Johnson and Jocelyn Dong — how much do I have to agree to spend before they would cover me straightforward-like. I am the only person who posts by name at PAW and gets deleted).
edit to add: This item, 456 Uni, was agendized for the Historic Resources Board, August 6, 2014 and I am writing you from that event, in real time. There is a 10-page staff report by Steven Turner, Advance Planning Manager, one of his last acts before moving on, after 16 years here, to Redwood. I spoke at the meeting, during orals, about 261 Hamilton; I said “I’ve spoken my piece / peace about 456”. I should probably try to reach the tenant and feel them out and maybe influence how they do the stage part of their project: why 100 cap, I had it as 600 all-in?
edit to add, Aug. 9:
on Weekly, under Elena K:
I wrote probably 50,000 words in twenty or more posts about this, in opposition and spoke at public hearings a half dozen times, 1994 thru 2011 mostly, but have changed my stance because Chop Keenan, the owner, met with me for 30 minutes, on Channing Street, around the corners from his HQ, and gave me his word that this will “rock”.
It’s called “constructive engagement”. No money was exchanged.
I gave my card to Sanjay Shirole, Lead Global Alliances SAP Startup Focus, a Palo Altan who is the German software giant’s point man on this project — the name connotes a proprietary platform the cafe seeks to popularize, an acronym, HANA- and am offering to bring programming to the site via my company Earthwise Productions, which has produced more than 200 concerts, lectures and screenings here since 1994.
They are building a stage inside, and describe a plan to host 100-capacity events at least once a month (compared to the white paper I wrote for the City of Palo Alto wherein nationally-known concert entities might host 600-capacity events). Meanwhile, thanks mostly to Dennis Backlund and the Save The Varsity committee in 1995, the theatre still has the engineering structure to revert back from offices and lunchrooms to a theatre per se.
Welcome, HanaHous. I love Blue Bottle, from visits to SFMOMA.
Class act Jacqui Naylor, a jazz singer, lives in a dwelling in SF that once was home to Rube Goldberg, the inventor of oblique feng shui strategy, and builder of better traps-of-mouse.
Sam Whiting and Brand Chr says:
(and imagine a Led Zeppelin song played on piano as you read this)
Inventor and contraptionist Rube Goldberg San Francisco apartment is open today, July 31st, as part of a trunk show to raise funds and awareness to landmark the building at the corner of Gough and Oak Streets in Hayes Valley.
The apartment has its original wallpaper and fixtures when Rube built it an moved in following the Great Catastrophe of 1906. It was unchanged when jazz singer Jacqui Naylor moved in 25 years ago, and she has been careful to keep it unchanged.
It looks like an apartment in old Havana, curated with “managed decay” by Naylor, who has been given an eviction notice under the Ellis Act. Getting the Rube Goldberg Building landmark status may not save her from eviction but it may save the apartment from being gutted of all its history and charm. If you want to see what a classic city flat looked like in the 1920s, now is the chance.
The trunk show is by Jennifer George, Rube’s granddaughter and historian who is here from New York to sell her designs and tell stories.
The Rube Goldberg Building is at 182-198 Gough St. The open house event runs from noon until 5 pm on July 31 at 194 Gough St.
Here is a short video:
I last saw Jacqui in Philly, if that explains things, with Josh Jones and Art Khu.
COMING THURSDAY OR FRIDAY, AUGUST 14 OR AUGUST 15, 2014
August 14 – 15:
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) 7:30
d H. Bruce Humberstone. w Robert Ellis, Helen Logan, based on a story by Paul Burger. ph Daniel C. Clark. md Samuel Kaylin. 20th Century-Fox. 71 min.
Warner Oland, Katherine De Mille, Pauline Moore, Allan Lane, Keye Luke, Layne Tom.
Chan accompanies son Lee and his US Olympic teammates to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics. While onboard the ship, Charlie encounters spies, and Lee is kidnapped to ensure his silence.
Newsreel footage of Jesse Owens’ triumph at the Olympics (while Lee and his teammates cheer him on) enhance this entry of the series.
first played at the Stanford Theatre June 6, 1937; last played Feb 2004
The marquee of Packard’s movie museum brings me the news: more movies, old movies, including “Charlie Chan at the Olympics” from 1939. I doubt I’ve seen this. From first take, it reminds me that I have seen a glut of content at Stanford Theatre that I would call racist or sexist or anti-Semitic. Sometimes it looks like the scheduling was done to highlight the political non-correctness. (If I can think of my examples, I will edit to update).
Terry, my Terry, Terry Acebo Davis to you, did some work with Jessica Hagedon, who edited two books about modern interpretations of anti-Asian stereotypes in the media: Charlie Chan is Dead and Charlie Chan, too, is dead. Also, my former client Dao Strom (born in Vietnam) is a colleague of Hagedorn. Dao’s story “Chickens” won her the Nelson Algren Award (from Chicago Tribune) and other prizes and to my (not entirely unbiased) mind captures something real about the Vietnamese diaspora and what makes America. (More than this film does, today, 75 years later).
I’m also an Olympics buff, and wrote about Harry Hillman earlier. Hillman who boycotted the 1936 Berlin Olympics, while his friend and rival and coaching partner Lawson Robertson soldiered on, or didn’t care, or thought “constructive engagement” and Jessie Owens was worth sitting thru all the pageantry of evil.
This also makes me want to follow up and persist with my ROI about “the Gunn graffiti hate crime” case, or non-case. I think I am going to cold call Max McGee, my fellow Dartmouth intramural football hero — he for Fayerweather, me for Richardson — and see if he can get traction: how exactly did Juan or Dijon Doe depict Asians in his utterance?
This all fits together, here in Plastic Alto.
If you have 71 minutes, you can, it seems, watch the movie here, although I would recommend going to Stanford Theatre and its big screen effect nonetheless.
In October, 2010 (and Plastic Alto post 9 of 800 — early works) Stanford Theatre, indeed for Halloween had Charlie Chan and I posted thusly:
Jumping to last night, Terry and I were debating the merits of checking out a “Charlie Chan” movie at the Stanford Theatre and we opted against it. Boris Karloff plays the Chinese-American detective. Is it playing because this is Halloween weekend? I.e, a European actor playing an Asian is good programming because we can think of it as his costume? Charlie Chan is Dead, guys!
edit to add: two weeks later, now i also have in my view cue several titles from library, “reefer madness”, ‘thirteen’ rachel ewen wood vehicle or whatnot, life of brian again, plus tivoed finish of all the president’s men, broadway danny rose and 30 episodes of Charlie Rose, a Bill Moyers or two, Lincecum’s last start, a loss, and more readings, and laundry and what about exercise?
Reporting live from Palo Alto Planning and Transportation meeting, a public hearing, sage and activist Bob Moss says, re “build to the line” proposal that the catch-word “Grand Boulevard” is “garbage”.
If I get the chance I will get Bob Moss to pose for a photo.
I am sitting next to Gennady Sheyner of the Weekly; I will scoop him on this in that I am publishing at 6:30 while he likely will not post (a longer more in-depth coverage, I admit) until about 10.
So I am scooping the Weekly again, by about four hours.
Mark Weiss
residentialist candidate for City Council (5749 votes in 2012)
blogger
former Times Tribune intern and, for four more weeks, $100 per week reporter
edit to add: at 6:40 I showed my post to Gennady and stopped working long enough to say “Cool”. But like the dynasty in 1226, as Mongol troops approached Wuwei, he does not realize this is the beginning of the end for Palo Alto Weekly and old school media. This type of computer-aided-populist-concert-promoter-wanna-be-Howard-Gossage-Award-winner-running-for-office-with-blog-as-machine.
Also, please note I wrote this in the 3 minutes Moss used. And amended during the attorney for 14 property owners additional time two minute. Pierce I think. Hanley spoke for her Dinah’s Shack, she says she owns.
Another picture of Moss:
colorized version of Moss
edit to add, two hours later: speaking of Garbage, PATC wants to forward the idea of using a particular tech platform, the one Obama used in 2009, to forward and streamline our little ol’ demotechy.
outro : sister shirley rains:
edit, next day: ok, this is not a scoop in that GS did not focus, as I did, in my 3 minute drill, on what Bob Moss says. I did add to his:
I lump this in with the unnecessary and possibly illegal noise ordinance at Lytton Plaza in that it looks like someone powerful led staff to lead commission towards messing with what is probably best left alone. It’s very hard to believe anything at face value coming out of 250 Hamilton. It will be interesting how we officially respond to the Grand Jury Report of June 16, 2014.
What else could we or would we be doing, as a community, as a civilization, if we weren’t under constant pressure to appease not the squeakiest wheel but this irresistible grinder of purported progress. What is the will of the people? Anybody out there?
There is a lungfish somewhere wishing he had never jumped out of the water.
Meanwhile I am pushing for: 12 acre park, called Ventura Park or maybe Fazzino Park.
and
Please note that the Weekly’s reporter left the meeting before a flurry of what I found disturbing discussion about using a technical platform to get between the people and their alleged leadership. The younger turks on the board — MA, GT and newby ER were practically ecstatic, while the liver spot dudes, MM, CK and AK were, thankfully, a little dubious.
To solve everything click here. (above — I guess I did scoop GS on this — Obama used this same platform in 2009; I believe in thoroughness and realness over efficiency expediency and the newest gadget or gimmick).
I’m not just a Luddite. I have issue with using public forum or limited public forum to beta test a newly designed bike rack — takes too much space. Does he pay us or we pay him? Sorry if i”m off topic, but all things are connected, as Chief Seattle says. (And I don’t mean that flashy defensive back who once lived in my building….)
henry butler, left and steven bernstein is always right
Henry Butler, a piano player from Louisiana, and Steven Bernstein a slide-trumpet player from Berkeley and New Yorker, cover new territory as the Hot 9.
They gave a taste of their sound at Yoshi’s last month.
We will probably see them, maybe in the 650, soon enough.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 