Alejandro Escovedo in Kansas City and maybe Springfield

Posted on June 17, 2014 by markweiss86

alejandroOur music landsman in Kansas City, Doug Shevlin aka Scout, sends glad tidings from an Alejandro Escovedo show in Kansas City.

By the way, as you can see from that photo, the show was at Knucklehead’s, a great venue in Kansas City. Alejandro was the headliner; John Velghe & The Prodigal Sons were the opener and also served as his backing band for several songs. The event was a fundraiser for The Bridge 90.9, a local public radio station. More info about the Bridge at <http://www.ktbg.fm>.
Highlight of my night was Alejandro doing an acoustic version of “Five Hearts Breaking” from the Gravity album, with a local violinist providing backing. That was stunning. His cover of “Beast of Burden” was also stunning – it was about 15 minutes long and featured solos from the violinist and nearly every member of John Velghe & The Prodigal Sons (including a trombone solo, a sax solo, and a trumpet solo).
I’ll send along a couple more photos in a minute, in case they are better than the ones I’ve sent. Stay tuned.

Dear Doug:

I recommend for song of the day “Wave” by Alejandro Escovedo, from his 2001 Bloodshot Records release “A Man “, the first track. It would be fitting to feature Alejandro this week since down in Austin the music world is celebrating SXSW — South By Southwest — the huge, Texas-sized music conference, shindig and hoe-down. Twang-fest. Thinking about Alejandro, or listening to this song, is like a mind’s trip to Austin, which, come to think of it has a sort of on-going 24/7 365 music festival. Alejandro’s music reminds me of friends of mine down there like Laura Thomas of Combo Plate Booking, Matt the Electrician, Malcolm “Papa Mali” Welbourne, Slaid Cleaves, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Roggie Baer my cousin the booking agent, Friends of Dean Martinez, South Austin Jug Band, Asylum Street Spankers (Wammo and Catherine), Austin Lounge Lizards, Seymour Guenther and Nancy Fly, booking agents and yoga teachers. 

Alejandro plays Saturday night, March 15, (2008) at Maria’s Taco Xpress — I think that the restaurant is run by someone in his family. 

Its also noteworthy that Escovedo has been suffering the effects of a Hep C infection. He had curtailed his touring and recording for several years while he underwent treatment for this illness. Famously, the music community rose to the occassion to do a series of benefits on this behalf, in Austin, New York and many other places. I recall sitting in Brandon Kessler’s office of Messenger Records (Dan Bern, the late Chris Whitely) in 2003 and noticing a flyer on the coffee table about a show in New York on this topic. In 2004 Bloodshot Records released a compilation cd called “Por Vida” (“For Life” )that features covers of Escovedo’s songs by artists like Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Jon Langford, Chris Stamey, Charlie Musselwhite, Caitlin Cary, M. Ward with Victor Chesnutt, and more. Langford, who is best known for his work with Mekons the band, contributes an excellent cover artwork. The rock band Calexico covers “Wave” on this cd, the proceeds of which, I believe, are still earmarked for either Escovedo’s medical bills or a fund for musicians’ health insurance.

I’m not a big lyrics guys but I would venture to say that one could interpret “Wave” as a song about departure, or about mortality. The song speaks of waving goodbye to a train “heading for the other side”. It’s poignant but not cheesy. It’s definitely more like a savory plate of steak tacos like at Maria’s and not a Taco Bell special, you could say. I believe the timing of the cd coincides with the time Alejandro was first confronting his medical prognosis. He says “don’t worry I made it to the other side.” It also obliquely deals with issues of race and class, something about “golden hair” people and “rich” and “poor”. But again, despite your patholgist’s penchant for exposing and dissecting lyrics, I wouldn’t get too caught up on meaning. Also, truth be told I picked this song rather arbitrarily in that it popped up and started to play when I surfed his site today. I would say it probably is considered one of his finer tracks (0r at least among the top 24 or 30 that other people might cover — and by the way there is also a lesser known all -Canadian tribute album of his work) but I think Alejandro is more about being a living, breathing, working, emoting singer-songwriter — emphasis on performer, like a troubadour — than about the texts. You could probably watch him read aloud from his the phone book and leave the show reconfiguring your pantheon of musical heroes. If you cannot get to Austin, I recommend the Midwestern, middle-age-approaching doctor types (like Shevlin and Moore, and other readers of Music is My Savior) jumping in the Volvo and heading up to Iowa City, Milwaukee or Berwyn, IL — shut down the labs and hit all three!

 

 shall go to the Escovedo concert to represent the inimitable Scout Sjeblin and the incomparable Mark Weiss. I’ll try to get a selfie with Alejandro for you guys.Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 12, 2014, at 6:33 PM, Douglas Shevlin <XXXXXX@mac.com> wrote:
Brian should go.
From Don MacLeese in No Depression magazine, in 2006:

Following his April 2003 collapse from hepatitis C, cirrhosis of the liver and internal hemorrhaging, Escovedo spent much of his extended recovery avoiding such questions, laying low, refusing all requests for interviews.

For what could he say?

How are you feeling?

I’m feeling awful.

As someone who’d long enjoyed living in the spotlight — he was a star in Austin years before the rest of the world caught on — he now wanted no part it. After returning from his emergency-room hospitalization and subsequent convalescence in Arizona that spring, he stayed away from Austin. He lived on the outskirts of San Antonio and then moved to the small Texas Hill Country town of Wimberley, about an hour southwest of Austin, where he’d lived for more than twenty years as one of the city’s most prominent and accomplished musicians.

I would say, except for the fact that the three of us met via our connection to the medical community, you two as doctors and me as, well, part of a daisy link of friends, and musical fellow-travelers, it is not cool to harp on the hep c angle for Mr. E.

It also brings to mind, at least in Palo Alto, the passing of baseball great Tony Gwynn, in that he died so young and the disease — cancer, which presented as lip — seemed to ravage him with crazy force. Count your blessing, squeeze your babies and smoke ’em if you got ’em.

 

Posted in music | Tagged | Leave a comment

John Vanderslice live in Palo Alto

Posted on June 17, 2014 by markweiss86
    • John Vanderslice live in Palo Alto: or, life among Palo Alto’s hipster spooks
    • Today at 3:06 PM

To
    • jv@tinytelephone.com

 

  • earwopa@yahoo.com

 

In olden days, Palo Alto rocked, outside, at the inside, or thru the silmariion looking glass

In olden days, Palo Alto rocked, outside, at the inside, or thru the silmariion looking glass

Hey, John.
I saw a flyer advertising a John Vanderslice show in Palo Alto, for Thursday June, 19, 2014 as in this Thursday. I saw the flyer on the window at what used to be sort of a venue. For years Mark Dickow the founder and owner of first Zebra and then Jungle Copy would occasionally push back a bunch of expensive equipment, for printing and copying, and then let a variety of local bands play free all ages shows in his space, on High Street, near what years ago was a venue, now long-gone, way before my time — and I am sort of a historian of the Palo Alto music scene — I had a quasi-residency at the Palo Alto History Archives, researching based on their files mostly, what became a 20,000 word treatise on Jazz History, there was a site on High Street where for example Vince Guaraldi (“Linus and Lucy”) had a residency, Outside at the Inside or something like that – I can link to it later, for veracity’s sake. So when I say a flyer it is probably the only flyer,

Pay no attention to the man behind the glass, unless you speak Elfish

Pay no attention to the man behind the glass, unless you speak Elfish

at what is now Palantir’s special lunch annex — I think, like a lot of their things, like their whole thing they have a pseudo-Tolkien vibe going on. Maybe they call it the Hobbitron or something. I booked a band called the Butchies into there once, out of respect, for free although I paid them a guarantee. As a promotion for Earthwise Productions my concert company. I was trying to think if they have a Tiny Telephone or JV connection, without looking it up, what I call consulting the search-injuns. There is some North Carolina connection to the now gone Butchies —maybe distro by Red Eye or more than that, on their label, whereas what I was thinking, for lack of an actual connection to you, I think I have not Six Degrees (which was a pretty good local label, world music, or trance, and or still is, is or was in Dog Patch) of Separation but 2. My Vanderslice number is 2. I think of John Vanderslice or Tiny Telephone as doing a lot of work for Merge Records, and I did a fair amount of work with Merge Records (well, not compared to you). Merge being from Carrboro — used to above Carrboro Mill but I think, — not having been down there in some years — I was last there I think it was 2002 or 2003 a blues band I was managing had a jones for Jimbo Mathus ex-of the Squirrel Nut Zippers (which is actually a Mammoth Band, dang — I hope I ate screwing the pooch here) and we all flew down to Efland North Carolina it was actually a property owned by the family of Jimbo’s then wife Katharine Whalen. To record. Ok, so Archers of Loaf, actually from there but not really Merge and I don’t think TT either, ok Superchunk, superchunkmbwSpoon Imperial Teen bands like that I sometimes lassoed into playing a former high school auditorium called Cubberley Community Center for shows, mostly in the 1990s, or 1994-2001 more specifically, like an average of 2 a month for six years maybe 150 total. And I do have an old bands rolodex ok I’m lying its more like a peechee folder flatter than a rolodex that lists an old John Vanderslice number that may still be current — I do recall scouting or reading about MK Ultra and maybe discussing my series with him or you or them and I would guess Tiny Telephone bands had played shows at Cubberley or other places, that’s why I am claiming a Vanderslice 2 number. Maybe a 3.There’s about five or six places downtown Palo Alto that I had put on little shows at over the years that are now gone, really gone and most likely converted from some sort of public amenity or public house like a bar or a club into office space, most office high tech but also real estate. Office space here can bring about three or four times what normal people and especially the arts or culture could pay in rent. There’s also a historic and beloved Theatre, the Varsity or New Varsity here that most people think of for movies but in actuality had seveal lives and connections to live music, like Social Distortion once played there, and Bill Evans jazz played there and virtually all the Windham Hill jazz acts and guitar weirdos like Michael Hedges, Stanley Jordan, Alex Degrassi all played there, in the courtyard like it was their home base. The Varsity is dark on the first floor and the courtyard chained up although if you are a tech investor, like Peter Thiel or something, you might be pleased to know that Samsung (the Korean I think big tech and electronics company) has what their landlord is proudly called “creative office space” they call it an Incubator or Accelearator and enter thru the rear, from a parking lot around back, near where teenagers and punks would spray paint grafiitti — and this is well before David Choe or Dabs and Milo — and smoke pot, even Michael Hedges and Hershel Yatovitz, from a local band signed briefly to Geffen Black Lab and fka Durham “Wash it Away” would smoke pot together after gigging or busking all day at,for Hedges, the Varsity and for H-man (or HY, to your JV) at Gaylords an ice cream parlor. Hershel is now, for about 15 holding down sideman gig with Chris Isaak, but I digress. A lot of people hoped and still hold out hope that the Varsity would come back, as a music venue – -it might fit about 600 and be like a Yoshi’s or Freight and Salvage or City Winery or The Independent or even that new non profit rock place set to open at The University Theatre in Berkeley. There’s actually no live music in Palo Alto these days, except of course what I take to be a private function for Palantir who think they own this place and not just the real esate — and ironically enough as I walked past the lone John Vanderslice flyer andn turned the corner to the main Palantir hobbit hatch or what not — it has a Philz which is open to the public and has wireless although I am certainly assuming they are scanning my email even as I write it and assessing my value to the new big day coming (not a Yo La Tengo reference clearly) republic — zilch, like in Jack London’s “Iron Heel” — I poke my head in literally to a food truck that was not actually selling food but cutting heads — onsite hair cuts dot come or something — and this indie chick with tats and all was indeed cutting some guys hair and another pseudo-hipster flipping thru either Juxtapoze or a manga version of Ayn Rand anthem — and she says “Do you have an appointment? Are you from Palantir?” and I go “No, I’m from PALO ALTO” and beat (not, or maybe is, a Keroac reference to the extent that the early poets and them did feel slightly, as I do in this very moment, beat down and marginalized) my retreat, to write this — well, its shaped like a letter or email message and in fact is on a screen of my new spiffy device my GF bought me, for my yikes 50th — I had for years prided myself as the last Palo Altan without a computer I would check email at the public library, about four blocks from here, even for the first 500 or so posts of my wordpress blog, now up to about 700 — funny thing as I am

i saw the best minds of my generation captured by orcs

i saw the best minds of my generation captured by orcs

tying this all together my one mole inside Palantir actually sits down next to me, young dude plays bass some times in the plaza — the one that otherwise bans, counter to the First Amendment, amplifiers — long story — and reintroduces himself or each other and I tell him I recall him as loving crossword puzzles – he had hipped me something I was curious about about the graffiti artist they had hired to do the interior — I almost or maybe did once write that up under a headline “Palo Alto’s hipster Spooks” on account of all their defense work. It still bemuses me, all this change, or is indeed mk-ultra? And not a change per se just a deeper penetration, so to spook. That’s funny cause I also live very near where the Acid Tests took place, Perry Lane it was called although I never heard about it until much later.I was wondering if indeed it was a private function strictly or might they open the doors to the public or let you have a guest list. (not that I have done anything to earn such a sorting, other than having chutzpah to ask about it, or having booked some mostly unrelated bands, a whiles back). I am wondering, partly as a Situationist mocking part out of respect of standing on the sidewalk outside the former Zebra Copy and trying to at least watch the JV show — like the scene in Round Midnight and I actually do do this sometime — you can sometime hear a show clear out to the street, depending on what type of glass is used in the club design, or how much class, or even how hot the evening is and what doors and windows are open. I distinctly remember having heard about Cake but before having seen them they had a sold out co-bill with Dick Dale (they shared an agent) and standing on 11th street getting a sense of who they must be. Also, I tend to figure if you go to even a sold out show, assuming you don’t have to inconvenience yourself too much to get there — and I live or my lady does only a few blocks from downtown Palo Alto — sometimes something does happen and you actually get in. I snuck into a Mary Chapin Carpenter show at Slims in 1992 because the power went out, the whole block and in the chaos I faked the doorman into thinking I had a handstamp. This was well before we all carried GPS and there was facial recognition and all that.

2.
edit to add or Part 2:This is perhaps an odd juxtaposition but as I re-read a note I actually did sent just now to John Vanderslice I was thinking also of something I wrote five years ago about the first Palo Alto World Music Day, in 2009, when I told the organizer and the then-Mayor of Palo Alto that in terms of artist relations they were being a little heavy handed, and that to not pay the musicians and then ask them to give the Police a copy of their drivers’ licenses and correspond thru Deanna Whoever the Compliance Officer was a mistake — and indeed some people, even with the new rules, dropped out. I said “Are you putting on a concert or running a dragnet?”I was connecting that thought — it is both paranoid and not just Orwellian but Philip K. Dick-like — that someone might pretend to put on a concert but was only trying to lure in likely suspects, those with guitars and ideas — like Scanners Darkly or something — to what I came to connecting my Mary Chapin Carpenter story to something about Palantir, what they actually do, as if we knew. I was implying that even if I snuck into the John Vanderslice show here Thursday night they could probably tell, by reading my cellphone or it’s GPS or who knows what, or by facial recognition software, exactly who I was and who I was not.John Vanderslice, for any of his fans who might see this, someday or this week or so, is playing a house concert in SF, a KC Turner production and also some kind of festival in Davis. Believe me it has occurred to me that maybe time is to move to Davis and give up Palo Alto. I also said something like, somewhere else, do you think the Ohlone tried to file an appeal with the Spanish or The Church, in 1769?Keep on rocking in the free world

To
  • Palo Alto World Music Day
  • Peter Drekmeier (then mayor of Palo Alto)
I’m a little afraid that this is still a little heavy-handed and not in the spirit of the event. Remedy: can we get something on the books about Palo Alto offering “busking licenses” to street musicians? Ie can we write a new law? Not in time for this event, but maybe to encourage street musicians in the future?Here’s a good article on Wiki about “busking”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busking I’m totally serious. To me this is about the First Amendment. We have the right to Free Speech. We have the right to Assembly. Personally, I believe the Arts — music, visual arts, literature — are essential to Democracy.
This still looks more like a Dragnet than an Arts event.
Can we just give Claude the names of people who want to sell their cds and therefore be protected from the Enforcement of the Peddlers Laws? These people are doing Palo Alto a favor, an in kind donation of their time and their craft, and we are treating them like potential criminals…If you are paying a musician $500 or more and need to inform the IRS then you get get their Social Security number — this is pretty close to contempt or harrassment. I feel pretty strongly about privacy rights, as well.Mark Weiss—
On Thu, 5/28/09, Palo Alto World Music Day <info@pamusicday.org> wrote:> From: Palo Alto World Music Day <info@pamusicday.org>
> Subject: Good News on Selling CDs at Palo Alto World Music Day!
> To: info@pamusicday.org
> Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009, 1:38 PM
> Dear Musician,
>
>
>
> Several of you have expressed an interest in selling CDs at
> Palo Alto
> World Music Day on June 21st.  I am very happy to report
> that,
> following discussions I had with the Palo Alto Police
> Department, they
> have agreed to waive the application fee ($133) and also
> simplify the
> application process for those of you who want to sell CDs,
> or other
> merchandise related to your musical group, specifically at
> Palo Alto
> World Music Day.
>
>
>
> If you are interested, here is what you need to do:
>
>
>
> 1.    Print and fill the attached one page application
> form
>
> 2.    Make a legible photocopy of your driver license
>
> 3.    E-mail a scan of these two pages (if you have a
> scanner), or fax
> them, or mail them, or drop them in person.  Please make
> sure you
> indicate that your application is related to Palo Alto
> World Music
> Day.
>
>
>
> Here is the contact information for sending your
> application:
>
>
>
> Deanna Eclavea
>
> Code Enforcement Officer
>
> Palo Alto Police Department
>
> 275 Forest Avenue
>
> Palo Alto, CA 94301
>
> Direct: (650) 329-2147
>
> Fax: (650) 326-8819
>
> Email: deanna.eclavea@cityofpaloalto.org
>
>
>
> Deanna will then issue you a “Solicitation Permit”.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Claude Ezran
>
> Palo Alto World Music Day
>
> http://www.pamusicday.org
>3.and briefly gained some national media attention for the single “Bill Gates Must Die” after concocting a hoax in which Microsoft supposedly threatened legal action over the song; Vanderslice then however had trouble manufacturing the CD because the artwork resembled that of a Windows installation disc, and at least one manufacturer was wary of legal action.[8] During the controversy, he was interviewed bySpin, Wired, and the San Francisco Chronicle.[8]Negativland, Call Your AgentThe last time we heard from John Vanderslice, he was trying to hoodwink a lot of people into thinking his song “Bill Gates Must Die” had genuinely angered the legal folks at Microsoft. Last week, however, Vanderslice’s Microsoft fixation ran him into a genuine roadblock. He wanted to press a few promotional copies of his first post-MK Ultra effort, Mass Suicide Occult Figurines, which includes the Gates track, and enlisted the services of Los Altos-based CD manufacturer Media Technology Services to do it. MTS, however, declined the job. According to Parvis Ghajar, sales associate at the company, the decision wasn’t a matter of censorship of the song, or even the song at all. The problem was the cover art Vanderslice submitted, which spoofs Microsoft logos and imagery. “By looking at [the CD], it implied that it was by Microsoft, and we didn’t want to have Microsoft come after this,” says Ghajar. A sympathetic Vanderslice has taken his business elsewhere; those curious about what the fuss is all about can find “Bill Gates Must Die” on Fortune Records‘ new local music compilation Fortune Cookies.(I am pretty darn certain that if I dig thru the boxes at my storage locker, under M for MK-Ultra I will have a bio and maybe a cover letter from John Vanderslice about playing the first round of Earthwise’s Palo Alto Soundcheck at Cubberley. I have a funny sinking feeling that if there was a cassette, it got dumped in my recent cultural cleansing exercise. Likewise I fret that I probably sold for less than 10 cents to Rasputin my copy of the Fortune Records compilation that had “Bill Gates Must Die”. Some lucky crate digger will find it, do noubt!)

Join me free Palo Altans, noses stuck to Windows, on High, to feel, see, hear or be John Vanderslice, live in Palo Alto:

4.

edit to add: I did attend the John Vanderslice show, a private function at a high tech start up, that I believe to be a type of defense contractor. John had read the note I had posted above, and was charmed enough or felt guilty about my pathetic state and arranged with the Event Ops person that I might be admitted as his guest, Terry too. The security people gave me quite the third degree, including asking if I was a U.S. citizen, before giving me a guest badge that they claimed would only let me in if that contact person walked me past the security at the venue. Not sure what to make of the whole thing. I respect Vanderslice’s work enough that I did submit to all that. Terry spent most of the show searching on her I-Phone info on our host, the start-up, including that their CEO is profiled in Forbes, and on Charlie Rose. I hope to write more later on JV’s music per se. He said he is building a new studio in Oakland. He acknowledged the quandary about playing a private function versus a nightclub gig. I also have a stack of his music to woodshed with. The event did include: two small bags of cheese chips, one small cup of ice cream, a ginger ale, a bag of sea salt chips, one bottle regional micro beer in bottle and a packet of little sticks covered in chocolate. Afterwards, John discussed the counterculture, 1964 to 2012, with an emphasis on San Francisco 1994. He sang “Look for America”, a cover, which seems appropriate even so many years later. We met a kid named Matt who was offered a job as a programmer, and also admitted to med school in New York. Good luck to Matt with his decision.

Dork that I am, or as Dar would say, as cool as I am, I absconded with the set list, John’s lyrics cheat-sheet for that Simon Garfunkel cover and the actual flyer, pictured above, that provoked all three thousand words here and my 2.5 hours as ONE OF THEM, “Palo Alto’s Hipster spooks”.

edit to add, August and everything after: Compare this project, the private lunch room for Palentir on High Street, that I lucked into one event there, with the proposal by SAP to take over the historic and beloved Varsity Theatre allegedly for a public use where you and I can eat there as much as we can stomach, for a fee, pay as you go, and their guys and gals pay in scrip or blood or whatnot, and it will have an interior stage, they call it capacity 100 (I was saying  600 for the whole place, as run, for example by Another Planet or Golden Voice). I am going to contact them and, as someone having produced 200 or more events here, offer to co-produce with them there. Meanwhile, I have an ongoing dialogue with the doorman or security chief of the Palantir HobbitHole, a thoughtful dude named B_.

Posted in music, Plato's Republic | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Steve Lacy tribute

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86

I wore my precious “Steve Lacy…on tour” t-shirt today because I read yesterday that it has been 10 years since his passing, and other Steve Lacy fans did tributes in the form of concerts or blog posts.

Steve was a famous jazz musician, and the first MacArthur Genius fund laureate that I ever met, and played two Earthwise Productions concerts hereabouts, in the 1990s.

(I realize there is a limit to how many selfies I can post without “Plastic Alto” being reduced to pure self-promotion — I certainly wish I can post about Steve to greater effect than this could ever do).

I wore a Woody Guthrie shirt to Palo Alto World Music Day yesterday not realizing the significance of this time space continuum apropos of Steve. I also took a meeting with a prospective City Council 2014 Election candidate and met briefly, because we passed on street, the Chief of Police, all wearing Steve. The politician asked about him.

I'm also still treating my computer as a new toy

I’m also still treating my computer as a new toy

edit to add: ROVA does a Steve Lacy tribute at Duende on Telegraph (near Fox Theatre) Friday July 11, 2014, ten years after.

Posted in ethniceities, media, music | Tagged | Leave a comment

From one old school First Amendment dude to — dear God — another

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86
Courtesy PAPD twitter feed, our Chief Dennis Burns, back in 1982

Courtesy PAPD twitter feed, our Chief Dennis Burns, back in 1982

 

I happened into our Police Chief, Dennis Burns, today in front of City Hall and pigeon-holed him on this topic. He gave me his card, so I didn’t want to lose pace hence:

  • mark weiss
  • Today at 3:33 PM
To
  • dennis.burns@cityofpaloalto.org
Dear Chief Dennis Burns:
I am wondering if you could personally look into the Gunn graffiti case of May, 2014, as I mentioned to you, in passing in front of City Hall today.
I wrote about this case on my blog, which is called “Plastic Alto”, and made some comments on the Palo Alto Weekly website.
My main point is:
How can something be a hate crime if it starts out with “Thank God…” ?
Sounds almost like a prayer, like something the First Amendment might protect.
I have a bone to pick with the media, the Palo Alto Weekly — have they distorted and sensationalized the case?
They quote our Lt. Zach Perron, the Communications Officer, which introduces the terms “racial” and “hate” I believe.
But isn’t it the District Attorney’s office that would figure when speech becomes a crime and the rare exceptions to the First Amendment guarantees?
Maybe my beef is with the law itself and both of above were doing their job to the letter. I come from the old school — when I studied Constitutional Law (undergrad) at Dartmouth College and in fact was a Nelson Rockefeller Center Fellow in Public Policy (sponsors of my journalism internship with Peninsula Times Tribune of Palo Alto — when you were already on force but not yet an agent — I saw an old picture of you posted on the Twitter feed) — the Supreme Court was led by Chief Justice Warren Burger  and there were no graffiti hate crimes.
My specific request –and excuse my verbosity here, above — is: I wish to know the exact contents of the messages found at Gunn High that day — are they a public record?
Thank you and your staff for your excellent service to our community and your timely response here.
Sincerely,
Mark Weiss
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 305-XXXXX
I didn’t have to mention that I was Candidate for City Council in 2009 (800 votes) and 2012 (4,500 votes) and may call when the bet comes back around the table to me this summer fall.
edit to add: two weeks later and no word. Coinkydinky, I ran into our chief later that afternoon, still in his nice suit, supervising some sort of bust or interrogation on corner of Uni and Bryant. I was checking out the scene from a safe distance, and watching the drama that also included a crippled panhandler named Zach — I wanted to see if Zach and Dennis would have a rapport. When I walked past Chief Dennis Burns said he had seen my email, my request for information about the Gunn graffiti case.
Meanwhile I noticed online a 2002 case that is precedent, including this quote, from a PAUSD administrator:

“Due to the fact that it had a negative comment about [an administrator], it sounded more like an act of graffiti [by a student] than a hate crime,” said Irv Rollins, assistant superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District, who would not reveal the name of the targeted faculty member. “I’ve been in the school business for almost 40 years and, unfortunately, we all have our turn.”

Lori Kratzer the Police lieutenant meanwhile is quoted as insisting that these are indeed hate crimes — this one included swastikas, although the article implied that there were poorly drawn — which reminds me of the Monty Python sketch from Life of Brian where the Romans correct the grammar, the Latin, of the insurgents and their graffiti. I almost also wrote to Joe Simitian to look into this, based on someone pointing out to me his role in the history of PAUSD shedding property, and now a recent school building bill he sponsored, one of his last victories before being termed out at State level, now at County. I am claiming that Doe targeted N-Building perhaps partly as political commentary in our investment in bricks-and-mortar over better staff and teachers.

Posted in art, ethniceities, Plato's Republic, words | Tagged , | Leave a comment

For a park in Ventura neighborhood on Fry’s site

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Terman Middle School,

0 minutes ago June 19, 2014, after a ridiculous round of offline blather

Maybe your problem is your banana is stuck up your nimby.

Laffer all around.

Unplug.

Posted under their voodoo economics guy’s typical drivel:

 

So how about this: what about purchasing, in the event of Fry’s locating to cheaper and smaller brick-and-mortar site, in Palo Alto or elsewhere nearby for us, the land and turning it into a park, a large park, on the order of our investment, to marvelous effect, of Foothills Park (saving that from the developers at the time) or Arastradero Preserve? Wouldn’t a large park in the Ventura neighborhood help the gradual, organic, inevitable gentrification of that neighborhood, where average home is something like $1 million less than the average in our fair city? Isn’t that a better idea than letting large regional developer make their nut according to their, I can only imagine, pragmatic game-theory-computer-alogorithm? Of course it would involve a nearly unprecedented political will of citizens (and not media, and not current leadership or current Pravda-orient press and their lackeys) standing up to the developers, unprecedented as in every 30 or 40 years — no one remembers the last victory outside of Tom Jordan, Emily Rentzel and Enid Pearson.

How much more effective is stimulus spending on giant park versus relatively self-contained cluster of too dense too expensive housing-easy way to riches?

 

I walked the site the other day, from Ventura Community Center — which I remember as a school, feeding into Terman, the old Terman — to Cali Ave and got into a few nice conversations with the neighbors as I went. I wanted to get a walking feel for how close or far Cali Ave is from Ventura — there is a plan, which we seem to never look at, called California Avenue -Ventura Plan. I also lived on Pepper in a rental house for a couple years, before I got so sucked into the process. Actually, it did help activate me politically: my landlord, the former secretary of one of the largest developers here, and her husband, wanted to quickly dump the property they had held for many, many years, despite my lease, my 6-month renewal, to cash in on a reverse 1031 despite the fact that they were not actually, as the law would specify, trading like-for-like, and I called their bluff in trying to evict me. I recall calling Peter Drekmeir for moral support, to learn, for example, that Palo Alto has no rent board or tenants union and instead has Mandatory Mediation, which actually is a layer to insulate owners from the courts or their tenants, administered by Human Relations Council (which does not actually, as in would in other places, have a Police Advisory Board either – -we have a secret policeman’s club or something like that, if you excuse the digression).

I walked from Ventura past Fry’s all the way to California Avenue to try to picture how things are changing (with or without Jay Paul still salivating over office towers ) and how would a park where Fry’s is chill out the whole area — notwithstanding the Expressway going thru as well. I also posted recently something I never spoke up about at the time, about 400 block Page Mill, creating a small art-park accessible only via Pepper, and some kind of easement with Smith-Andersen Gallery there.

There’s also a plan, which may be fait accompli, about privatizing the public zoned parking lot so that yet one more developer can get his beak wet in the office tower race, at corner of Page Mill and El Camino. “Privatizing” a sub-category of “up-zoning” or vice versa.

Steve Levy’s column in the Weekly, which precipitated this burst, does the narrow-framing trick of saying the debate is between types of growth not types of use, or types of progress. It begs the question of whether rapid growth, what I call a five-year rout, shall continue.

The funny thing about Steve Levy’s column is either the irony or the cognitive dissonance of his flag-waving, “been here since the 1970s” Nixonian-Friedmanesque rhetoric and his downright Stalin-esque tactic of deleting (as in Great Purge) dissent. In my case he deleted not just my quote, from Corey Harris citing St. Peter Gospel, but that I posted at all.

I tag this “Ventura Park” but will revisit the idea of a more propitious name.

edit to add: my comments are verbatim and either have a follower or a troll being sarcastic. I added:

27 University plan includes not adding park like I advocate but raking it back, not to mention I count four War Memorials on the site, not to go too far off subject but you brought it up. I think the Billionaires and their grand ego-fueled plans are bad for America, as a Democracy. But that the 27 Uni plan seems to want to if not piss on than at least bulldoze and pave over the flag in so many literal ways, makes me wonder even more about those guys.

There already is housing on the site if you count the homeless curled up there, reading John Steinbeck “In Dubious Battle” and Jack London “Iron Heel”.

and one:

“It would be interesting for the city to enter discussions with Stanford about housing and amenities at the 27 University site”.

What parallel universe do you live in? The City does not enter discussions — our so-called leadership, elected Council, appointed commissioners and boards and staff, just wait for their marching orders from certain big players — including Stanford –and then do their best to please, like a legion of Cocker Spaniels. No disrespect but just observable phenomenon and fair comment. Jim Keane at least looks and sometimes acts like a Greyhound or some classy hunting dog, combing speed, smarts and charm.

The real estate industry, arguably is a billion dollar entity, well-motiveated well-organized and used to getting its way. It dwarves in size not just our entire government, at about $150 million but the entire pubic sector. The staff segment purportedly regulating that industry, the development office, is about $10 million of that, but they don’t feel their job is to regulate, more like enable, be of service. The industry practically can generate an app or computer program to jump thru the hoops we put up, although they then complain that “The Process” is unfair and unnecessary. QED, the industry is largely unregulated and does what it wants when it wants and how.

Stanford meanwhile, chartered as a school, runs more like a keiretsu, and seems fixated on building, growing, spending and managing it’s $30 Billion asset. The land guys and money guys make more than the professors.

I think we counted 20 or more public officials lining up to, for recent example, cheer on the $5 billion hospital splurge. How long will we all have to live — or die super slowly — to see whether that is worth the effort? No one of any credibility spoke up to question the big picture worth.

We also have some discussion in some neighborhoods about building on College Terrace and Cali Ave more Stanford housing. I wrote somewhere else, I wonder if the Ohlone thought to appeal the Spanish back in 1769.

I almost wrote Kudzu for keiretsu: same difference, hard to stop the growth.

By the way, just wondering, notwithstanding the difference between b.a. in English and PhD in Econ, how does one get a job telling the very powerful what they want to hear? The closest in my work was King Lear and The Fool.

and once more, with feeling:

Posted by Crescent Park Dad, a resident of Crescent Park,

1 hour ago

Any progress on determining the combined job:housing numbers for SF, SC & SM Counties?I’ll do the math if I can get a pointer to the data. 

 

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood,

0 minutes ago

27 University plan includes not adding park like I advocate but raking it back, not to mention I count four War Memorials on the site, not to go too far off subject but you brought it up. I think the Billionaires and their grand ego-fueled plans are bad for America, as a Democracy. But that the 27 Uni plan seems to want to if not piss on than at least bulldoze and pave over the flag in so many literal ways, makes me wonder even more about those guys.There already is housing on the site if you count the homeless curled up there, reading John Steinbeck “In Dubious Battle” and Jack London “Iron Heel”.”It would be interesting for the city to enter discussions with Stanford about housing and amenities at the 27 University site”.

What parallel universe do you live in? The City does not enter discussions — our so-called leadership, elected Council, appointed commissioners and boards and staff, just wait for their marching orders from certain big players — including Stanford –and then do their best to please, like a legion of Cocker Spaniels. No disrespect but just observable phenomenon and fair comment. Jim Keane at least looks and sometimes acts like a Greyhound or some classy hunting dog, combing speed, smarts and charm.

The real estate industry, arguably is a billion dollar entity, well-motiveated well-organized and used to getting its way. It dwarves in size not just our entire government, at about $150 million but the entire pubic sector. The staff segment purportedly regulating that industry, the development office, is about $10 million of that, but they don’t feel their job is to regulate, more like enable, be of service. The industry practically can generate an app or computer program to jump thru the hoops we put up, although they then complain that “The Process” is unfair and unnecessary. QED, the industry is largely unregulated and does what it wants when it wants and how.

Stanford meanwhile, chartered as a school, runs more like a keiretsu, and seems fixated on building, growing, spending and managing it’s $30 Billion asset. The land guys and money guys make more than the professors.

I think we counted 20 or more public officials lining up to, for recent example, cheer on the $5 billion hospital splurge. How long will we all have to live — or die super slowly — to see whether that is worth the effort? No one of any credibility spoke up to question the big picture worth.

We also have some discussion in some neighborhoods about building on College Terrace and Cali Ave more Stanford housing. I wrote somewhere else, I wonder if the Ohlone thought to appeal the Spanish back in 1769.

I almost wrote Kudzu for keiretsu: same difference, hard to stop the growth.

By the way, just wondering, notwithstanding the difference between b.a. in English and PhD in Econ, how does one get a job telling the very powerful what they want to hear? The closest in my work was King Lear and The Fool.

Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest

,
Lend less than thou owest,

Ride more than thou goest,

Learn more than thou trowest

,
Set less than thou throwest

;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,

And keep in-a-door,

And thou shall have more

Than two tens to a score.

Although even Paul Krugman says that if you read King Lear merely as an economics text you are missing a few things.

To answer your question, when I speak of public policy I imagine a “we” not an “I” or a “they” — high school civics 1Ac courtesy of, for me, John Attig and Clayton Leo at Gunn High 1979-1981 circa. So “I” or “I and I” are not going to pay for this, other than fair show of taxes, to Feds and State, and I pay rent. And I shop, sometimes too much. For instance, as I write this, I am in a public house, having a cafe and bagel, $6.35, or about 50 cent to public coffers, although I crossed the creek to Menalto, not to make this too much more of a shaggy dog story, to continue (one of) my metaphors. So I am imagining that if the majority of the 60,000 citizens, and or 15,000 households, or 20,000 registered voters agreed that there is something to adding a park and slowing the “smart growth” or stalling ABAG or whatever, we could work it out, as the Beatles might say. (not quite a dog reference, I admit.. I could joke and say Beagles).

Column by column you, in my opinion, frame the debate in false terms: smart growth versus dumb growth (Duh!), fast growth versus super fast growth, dense versus superdense. There are people who want no growth. There could be moratoriums. And yes there could be condemnation if there were will. It’s part of Democracy. It’s in our tool kit.

And again, who besides Stalin is so quick to purge the world of dissent, as you do? Which is a comment on your tactics and not your person, and not an ad hominem attack. It’s a defense, like in chess.

 

I fouled out right around here, an hour in, and after missing first half of Belgium-Algeria:

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood,

0 minutes ago

When you say “this is not the blog for you” do you mean “blog” as in Steve Levy Invest or Die or do you mean “post” as in “Smart is SMART”? Are you saying that there is a litmus test, a compliance to ABAG, and that people who don’t see it the way you do should not read your writings period and certainly not comment? Or are you merely saying, did you actually mean to say something like “your ideas might fit in better if I chose to write on that topic some time in the future”?

Or are you saying The Palo Alto Weekly is basically an organ for the developers and its part of its deliberate editorial slant so don’t come here expecting objectivity or reporting or even fair play in its blogs? That I agree with. Further, I think the Weekly misses badly on a lot of its stories: about Happy Donuts, about Gunn Graffiti, and Karen Holman/ZaneMcGregor/”company-housing” – so maybe you are saying that if I care about Democracy, Palo Alto and the Fourth Estate I should take my eyeballs to one of the other 10 billion home pages on the internet.

Or you could be saying: write this on your own stinkin’ blog, as I do (I have 2,000 words on this topic including an archive off all the things you are deleting):

Web Link

It’s called Plastic Alto, which is a jazz reference.

I also fyi or for your trolls and occasional readers, have a lot of these ideas as a public record due to having three times applied for either Planning and Transportation or Library commissions, plus occasional letter to council. Some things written to staff may be public record, I’m not sure.

I think your comments on the Asian community and Yiaway Yey in recent documents are paternalistic, patronizing and borderline white supremacist, by the way. I plan to explicate that point later. Do you even know Yiaway Yeh?

edit to add, two months later, 30 days into my campaign for City Council:

I am sitting at PARC meeting, walking past 200 people at Reposado and a Giants game on at Old Pro. Waiting my item on the agenda, I posted to Weekly site:

from May, 2011, but people have commented this year:

See also draft white paper by Parks and Rec commission, August, 25:

“we are already 25 acres behind in our per capita goal” by the Comp Plan, so I say, and have said at Scoping, PATC (twice) and plan to tonight at PARC, let’s turn Fry’s into a new major park.

It’s 15 acres.

What is the will of the people: 500 new condos or a new park?

Guessing from comments above: parks in a landslide.

Who’s in charge here?

WE ARE.

more: Mary Ann Azevedo in Bizjournals.com said that the deal was a reported $80 M, and is part of a move north by Sobrato, whose asset-base is mostly South County, although John Sorbrato lives in Menlo Park. Also, I left a voice mail for Chase Lyman, the former St. Francis, Cal and NFL star who works there.

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Marine car wash Chicago 2009

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86

She told me she had enlisted in the Marines and was shipping out in a few weeks and needed to make some extra cash for some special uniform or accessories or maybe body armor, so was holding a car wash to raise the funds.

IMG_0598

Her name, and maybe her contact info, is in a small notebook from that trip.

If I had a car I would have gladly done my part, for our country. (I probably gave her ten bucks out of pocket).

IMG_0596

IMG_0597

 

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Street fair as shaggy dog story

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86

IMG_0858IMG_0819dog watching jazz pajq varsity IMG_0891dogdaymusicThe Weekly baited me into telling them how I really feel. Surprise, surprise. I almost never do this: I would say this is the cultural equivalent of government surplus cheese. It’s nice that the police got paid some overtime, however, if the musicians did not. By the way, First Amendment permits all Palo Altans to gather, sing, play, make music or noise up to a certain decibel limit, every day, all day, with few exceptions. Other than using an amplifier during business hours, which might distract the guys managing billion dollar hedge funds nearby, that is, at Lytton Plaza. By the way, whatever happened to our summer music in the parks serie? We have such nice parks, we should make better use of them. I would book some reggae and samba bands, with decent sound systems, into Heritage Park, Cogswell Plaza and Johnson Park playing all day and into the night (9-ish) for two or three days, and that would be a World Music Fest. Oddly, as we walked back home, even after an enjoyable couple hours, we were relieved to escape the din — most of those people are not used to playing in the streets and had really crappy sound systems. Palo Alto Jazz Quintet at 456 University had my heart skipping a beat in anticipation that someone with a clue would unlock the gorgeous courtyard of the historic and beloved theatre but that is too hip for organizers. Even letting Umami put a couple tables out in the vacant sidewalk (where Waverly t-bones into Uni) would have been a nice little touch, but no, Alo the manager said the City nixed this idea. Rupa Marya, a Casti grad who leads a world music band, would gladly play this event if someone would raise even the tiniest honorarium – -she’s never played here. She was holding the date the first year of this event but organizers wanted to hold the line on only unpaid musicians, like in France.

I think there should be a class-action suit in which anyone who has signed up and played this event, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 or yesterday should be retroactively paid $75 per service for individuals and $150 per group, which is union minimum for musicians. Why should starving artists work for free to support the spoiled and overpaid and greedy downtown landlords? One of these days the citizens of Palo Alto, artists and otherwise, organized around a variety of overlapping agendas, will take back the streets quite spontaneously, and with better music and more dancing. Much more dancing. In terms of a suit, the City, Downtown Business Association, The Rec Foundation or even the organizer as an individual are likely enough, deep pocketed enough and culpable for such. Friends of Lytton Plaza not sure they actually exist but as individuals maybe you could tap them too. Or as my friend Corey Harris, the Genius Grant laureate, say: If you don’t keep your culture along come many vultures

 

That’s great that the Weekly photographer caught Dave Hydie at Lytton Plaza Sunday — he was not actually part of the official state-sponsored event but was merely holding his ground against the heathen incursion. He is the one I am alluding to who was banned from playing Lytton Plaza 9-to-6 weekdays so as not to bother the hedge fund manager in the loud-mouth developer’s building.

If you don’t who gonna do it for you If you don’t stop crying these blues If you don’t put up a fight if not you then who

If you don’t who gonna do it for you
If you don’t stop crying these blues
If you don’t put up a fight
if not you then who

 

Posted by Frank, a resident of Barron Park
9 hours ago
@Mark Weiss – Boy, way to be a wet blanket on what is a nice event. Must everything be something to complain about?

 

 

Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Downtown North
0 minutes ago
Mark Weiss is a registered user.
Responding to “Frank” of Barron ParkSpeak truth to power with love.When they came for the underpaid street musicians I did nothing because I was not an underpaid street musician…

I did like: Palo Alto Jazz Quintet, Gaby Castro, Hannah May Allison, people with their dogs, the weather, Dave Hydie who performs often at Lytton Plaza not registered for this event but playing his normal place anyhow, and being pictured above by Nick V of the PAW, my burger at Umami which we ate outdoors within earshot of PAJQ.

I generally stop and listen for a song or two to street musicians, and encourage musicians of all walks of life to keep on keeping on.

I worked on this event the first year. Maybe that’s sour grapes or something, but in my opinion Claude Ezran is not much of a leader and not fit to hold elective office here, but voters can certainly make their own choices in November.

Maybe I have an axe to grind, which reminds me of a Bob Marley song about small axe and big tree.

My girlfriend thought they should have swept the streets before the festival. Too much trash and debris.

edit to add: Doris Williams, a Stanford music grad who specializes in Celtic Music and was part of the show Sunday, saw my comments and we eventually caught up by phone, to scheme about how to build on this event, perhaps with a nooner series at Lytton Plaza, underwritten by the Palo Alto Downtown Business Association, whose 700 or so members pay between $50 and $500 each so they would have a vested interest in bringing quality programming to downtown and especially Lytton Plaza. Not sure what happened to the word I was told about a local sponsor stepping forward to bring back Brown Bag shows to Cogswell Plaza.

I also post a bit, words and photos, about Hannah May Allison: “Hannah may Hannah will.” Succeed I mean. I have a track record.

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Tony Gwynn (1960-2014)

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86

Image

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Palo Alto poor

Posted on June 16, 2014 by markweiss86

palo alto poorI shot this photo in 2011. I am not sure but I think this is Bunny Good, who was homeless in Palo Alto for a number of years but died recently, winter 2013-2014. If it’s not Bunny, maybe it is Gloria: A homeless woman who was found dead over the weekend in a Palo Alto park was identified Sunday as 72-year-old Gloria Bush, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office. The office has notified Bush’s next of kin, said investigator Marcel Watson. Bush’s examination will take place early this week, he said. Around 7:20 a.m. Saturday, police responded to calls about a woman who did not appear to be breathing and was lying on the ground at Heritage Park, said Sgt. Kara Apple, a spokeswoman for the Palo Alto Police Department. The woman was pronounced dead at the park, which is located at 351 Homer Ave. From the Chron, recently. Good was well known in Palo Alto, where she lived within a three-block area around University Avenue. She lived behind the old Apple store on the corner of University Avenue and Waverley Street and behind the 7-Eleven on Lytton Avenue, where a cinder block wall had provided her with privacy and protection from the wind. Most recently, she took up residence across from the University Avenue Starbucks, Schupisser said. From SD at Weekly

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Mysterious photo of Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd at Cubberley, circa 1999

Posted on June 15, 2014 by markweiss86

The miracle that is the internet has brought us, not Slender Man but something almost as spooky: a photograph of Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, at Cubberley Community Theatre in Palo Alto, in 1999.

I’m thrilled, as the promoter of that show, that someone both shot a photo of the set and then years later put it up on the internet, for someone like me to cut and paste to my own blog. But on the other hand I am a little alarmed in that the famous Steve Lacy Roswell Rudd reunion tour and album did start with us at little Earthwise of Palo Alto but the show was not at Cubberley, it was at a fictitious (kinda like Slender Man) “LDR Studios in San Carlos.” LDR, meaning Location Digital Recording was the office space and warehouse space that is to say, storage, for our regular sound reinforcement contractor, Andy Heller doing business as LDR. I wanted to put on a Steve Lacy show but didn’t think it would fill 300-capacity Cubberley and for whatever reason, one of the stupidest things, or most stupid things I have ever done, got the idea of moving the show to San Carlos. (I saved $500 on the hall rental — maybe the sound reinforcement was thrown in because Andy and his partners got a generous guest list to let their friends and investors into the show — we  covered our tracks kind of by claiming that this was going to be some kind of live taping, although while agreeing to do the show, Steve, via his agent Eric Hanson told me DO NOT TAPE THE SHOW and we did not. Although who knows, maybe the guy with the camera also taped the show.

I did bring Steve Lacy back to the 650 a year later, to Cubberley, but it was a solo set followed by a Steve Lacy Irene Aebi duo show. (And Will Bernard Miya Masaoka duo premiered that night as opening act. Not sure they have played together since either).

This looks like it could be Steve and Roswell in San Carlos, but who knows. Another weird thing is that in one place is says photo by Pierre Something and in another place is says “S. Lahr”. Also it says variously 1997 and 1999. Shawn Lahr, sounds familiar, I just wrote to him, I think, to ask if he shot both shows.

I know that I dropped Steve’s trio at the space and watched them rehearse together for the first time in many years, with Roswell I mean. I know that the tour finished in New York at Iridium. I know that there was shortly thereafter a cd of the same material, I think in studio.

Anyhoo, here is the photo which may or may not be of that night:

970402_S.Lahr

I found this by search-injun input “steve lacy” and “palo alto”. Here is the link.

I got to this because Ben Goldberg had sent an announcement of a betsch of shows he is doing, on clarinet, and added some thoughts about having been Steve Lacy’s student, and then Craig Matsumoto aka Wedge reviewed on his excellent WordPress blog Ben’s show, which was actually a ROVA tribute to Steve Lacy. I know that I met Hilda Mendez who married ROVA’s Bruce Ackley at that Steve Lacy San Carlos show, if that ties it all together any better. Hilda worked part-time at Down Home Music and among other things told me about Elijah Wald and Sonny Smith, I am thankful for.

I am filing this under “ethnicieities” which is my code for “jewish”. Steve Lacy’s real name was Steve Lackritz and he once called himself a “jewgitive” which is “jew” crossed with ‘fugitive”. I am filing this in “words” as well.

Steve left this planet exactly 10 years ago this month although we can still hear him if we concentrate. Steve once made he and myself momentarily invisible — this is true — one day at Foothill College, before going on air at KFJC, he, not me, I was just the driver. Uri Caine, for all his talents, could not do the Steve Lacy turning invisible trick — I don’t believe — the best he could do was turn a fan into a wind-block.

Ben Goldberg has a thing called “hocus pocus” which is something he did learn from Steve Lacy and is has to do with magic being a type of logic.

I don’t know if Uri Caine and Ben Goldberg have ever recorded as a duo doing the Goldberg variations, but I would pay to hear that, and not merely steal like I did with this photo — although I can kinda sorta claim that I have some sort of copyright as the concert promoter. He (Fraisse or Lahr) is shooting something I set up.

I saw Uri Caine’s brother playing baseball with his daughter at Johnson Park in Palo Alto and was thinking it’s a good thing this little girl cannot hit otherwise Terry and I laying on a blanket 100 feet away are gonna get beaned. I was also thinking, she is getting a little bit better but in about three weeks, if they come back here, she will be too good to play here. I thought Uri Caine’s brother, god bless him, and today is actually father’s day, should have told her to choke up a bit. I was fixing to say, if the ball– they were essentially doing batting practice — landed on our blanket, I was gonna keep the ball and say “ground rules here are if the ball hits us we can keep it” and not give it back, but it didn’t come to that. I didn’t realize it was Uri Caine’s brother until later, of course. (and Uri Caine’s niece). Uri, during the time he turned me into a windscreen said he has a brother in Palo Alto. Steve recorded with Mal Waldron but probably not with Uri Caine. I saw a pretty decent piano player, on a Yamaha electric, on Uni Ave, named Terrigal Burn, today. Dan Adams called him “Terry” like my girlfriend who is also Terry, for Theresa.

I was reading David Shields probing biography on J.D. Salinger if that explains either the weird styling or the digression about an 11-year old girl.

edit to add: Ben Ratliff in New York Times, August, 1999:

So the significance of Mr. Lacy and Mr. Rudd’s reunion, which started earlier this year on the West Coast and continues this week, may pass by even some fairly astute followers of jazz. But it’s a warm, welcome combination, and it works as well as it ever did. The pair play through tomorrow at Iridium, 44 West 63d Street in Manhattan, in front of Mr. Lacy’s normal rhythm section of Jean-Jacques Avenel on bass and John Betsch on drums. Ben might have said, Ratliff, that the reunion started in a bar in San Carlos, before the jazz musicians had to retreat to make way for some karaoke-kamakazis and that Steve Lacy also conjured Don Cherry, who nobody had seen or heard from in about five years at the time, or at least that’s the story I’m telling. Steve did turn to me and say “we are talking about Don Cherry” and speak of the devil…

edit to add, an hour later, while Terry is sleeping with tv on, a PBS repeat about Sondheim:

Uri Caine if things get slow can do a music piece called Goldbug Variations, based on works or work of Edgar Allen Poe, with specific attempt to publicize the initiative to exhume Poe’s remains that are in Baltimore and bring them to Philly. New York Times, not so long ago, wrote about this. The Poe house in Phillly gets three times the visits as the Poe house in Balmer. I was telling earlier today Dan Adams (whose band Oxbow I once managed, who I’ve known since 1976) that I am doing more blogging now and less actual work and that at times I write about things as opposed (I fear) to actually doing them, this being classic example.

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