Jess Rotter
Jess at Kemado
Cc: Jess at jess rotter
Dear Jess and or friends:
Hey, can you set me up an interview with Best Coast?
If they cannot respond from Europe, it can wait until July.
Aren’t they local here in Cali?
If not by phone, email is fine.
If not an actual band member, maybe a driver or sound person is fine.
Also, I noticed that you have a design company as well as doing pr for Mexican Summer bands – unless there are multiple Jess Rotters: maybe you can do a design or painting for me, a commission? My company started in 1994 – I am creeping up on 20 year or 18th anniversary – maybe I can put out a poster or something. Or just buy something for myself and write about it for my blog. (5 year anniversary: superchunk concert; 10 year anniversary, in year 14: Steven Bernstein concert; 15 year anniversary: 7 unknown acts workshopping new material; 16, 17, anniversaries: too busy writing a blog to remember to put on a show, plus times are tight).
Or I guess I can put on a show and then hire you to do a poster.
And don’t think of this as a bribe or related to wanting to interview Best Coast.
I know that if you already have New York Times and Drew Barrymore, you don’t really need Plastic Alto (that’s my blog).
My company, btw, and not to confuse you, is Earthwise Productions which started as environmental benefit concerts – your book cover with carrots and all that is similar style. If you don’t have time to do a commission for me, or I cannot afford you, maybe I can just download the cover art from that book and pretend you licensed it to me or my blog for “Earthwise Productions 18th Anniversary – the blog post”
Let me know about any of above.
My questions:
1) How soon until we have a woman rocker in the white house, and who amongst your peers do you nominate – I think you have to be 35 or so, but not to be age-ist but you would probably get more votes if you run before 50 or so?
2) How do you get that guitar tone?
3) What is your favorite pre-concert meal? Is the food good in the UK?
4) What surprises the fans of Best Coast about the distribution of labor among the bandmembers, perhaps along non-traditional gender lines, like are their non-girlish things that female member or members don’t mind doing, in the day to day running of a show or recording session or travel, and vice versa things that the male member or members do surprisingly willingly or well; this is an age old issue, co-ed or co-led bands, going back to, for example, Fleetwood Mac, Superchunk, X, et al?
I made all that up; if there is an actual interview I can prepare better questions.
Have a nice day and thanks.
Mark Weiss
Plastic Alto blog and Earthwise Productions
I did not know Kathi Kamen also known as Kathi Kamen Goldmark, although I recall meeting her at least twice and am pretty sure I have her old business card in my box that stores such. Maybe in the storage space that stores such boxes.
I am pretty sure I met Kathi Kamen at Cody’s in Berkeley, around 1990. I am pretty sure she was the driver or literary escort for Seth Morgan, who was reading “Homeboy”. Seth signed a copy for me, and it included something about the barker, George, at the strip club on Broadway. I lived up the hill, at Montgomery and Vallejo and then told this George that Seth said hi.
I had never heard of literary escorts before.
Then I am pretty sure I met her again at West Coast Live, the day that both Jim Brunberg and David Jacobs Strain were in the show, at The Exploratorium. I had remembered the name, plus had certainly read in the meantime about her famous band — the world’s greatest vanity project — the Rock Bottom Remainders, featuring famous writers like Amy Tan and Stephen King.
She was married to Joe Goldmark, who I am pretty sure I met with Stephen Yerkey when they played The Cub, and who once looked over my portfolio of concert poster samples, at Amoeba. He is a steel guitar player.
I saw Sedge Thomson of WCL recently in Mountain View, and wrote about he and his wife, my classmate Syliva Brownrigg.
I am on my bike today, downtown at Coupa, and as a tribute of sorts to KKG, will sign off here and write direct to Palo Alto Main library, to seek out the May 27 Chronicle and the page one article “above the fold.”
Even if I barely knew Kathi, as a concert promoter, book clerk and radio host she surely had an influence on me.
Actually what got me back to this post is that Rebecca Wallace mentions a kazoo in her article about Palo Alto’s upcoming street music event — I linked to a minute ago, below — and I recall reading last week that Kathi gave Leah Garchik and others a kazoo at some event. As further tribute, I will try to conjure from my pile of somewhat meaningless things — I think it is in the first or second drawer of the desk in my bed room — a kazoo from the ones I passed out at the Pinetop Perkins show, a few years ago. Maybe Pine and Kathi are now in a band together.
I hope it is more good than bad that my humble in the sense of scant recollection of Kathi Kamen Goldmark includes digressions into mentions of Seth Morgan, George (the Barker), Jim Brunberg, David Jacobs Strain, Amy Tan, Stephen King, Joe Goldmark, Stephen Yerkey, Sedge Thomson, Sylvia Brownrigg, Leah Garchik, Rebecca Wallace and Pinetop Perkins.
There is also enduring and endearing this:
edit to add, five minutes later: ok, it turns out that I had also met her a third time when WCL played the JCC about one year ago and got her autograph on my program, and asked her whether her band had played SXSW!!!! Bang, bang and god be with ye! self pasting from that:
Besides Shields, I got autographs (I like the ritual of asking, post-event) of Thomson, Cassie Gay (box office stalwart), Stewart, author Thor Hansen (who drew a feather) and producer Kathi Kamen Goldmark who I had met years earlier when she was a driver or escort for authors and also says she still plays in a rock band mostly covers (she steals material from songwriters rather than bothering to write her own material, which I mean to talk to her about, to suggest they try to write their own stuff) called The Rock Bottom Remainders. I asked if she has played the music festival SXSW and she said no only book festivals. (From “Shields and Yarns”, Weiss, 2011)
edit to add, 90 minutes later:
SEIZE THE SOUP
I am back at my perch, at Palo Alto’s famous Coupa Cafe, with my trusty Remington I mean Trendy 1’s and 0’s machine; a man at the nearby table chews a wheat crepe while talking about “opportunities in Brazil” and I am treating myself to Soup of The Day, of vegetables, well-chopped and salty broth. My order was #42 which I took as an omen, although I forgot to wave a towel last week for author Douglas Adams.
I did log off to search for an eight-day old newspaper, as promised. To myself and my 26 readers(!)*. When I got to my bike, parked in one of our nifty “bike corrals” I noticed I, like the character in a famous Ray Bradbury story, had missed a rare June rain. I left trusty post-Remington with Phyllis, of the famous Phyllis Store, who asked about my dear old mum.
When I got to Palo Alto Main, after first verifying that Palo Alto Downtown was taking the day off (“no shit” said homelessish guy camped hopefullyishly in its alcove, as I said “Gee, library closed.”), I waited with what became about four others until noon opening bell. I read my Shields — chapter “Q: autobio” from “Reality Hunger”– who I met at West Coast Live Co-Produced by Kathi Kamen Goldmark; Shields in this chapter explains that when I write of Kamen I write of Mark Weiss — “no shit”. I could not stop myself, during the 30 minute rain delay between arrival and Opens, to chat up a 16-year-old with a very heavy looking Crimson colored book-sack. I pedantically explained “ve ri tas” — as I saw it at least; she wore a Harvard sweatshirt, as did the bear dangling from the backpack. I gave a bad account of the statue of “three lies” — one, the date should say 1637 but doesn’t; two, that’s not actually John Harvard, three, beats me, give me a minute, give me a year.
Anyhoo the actual mission took about five minutes, while I fantasized about arguing copyright with an imagined-overly-zealous SEIU regular.
The obit was not actually above the fold, but there was a teaser above the mast! Or, as David Shields might say, it was above the fold in a lyrical poetic way.
I noticed a discrepancy between the actual head and what is listed online as the head; she is better known as Kathi Kamen as I have it or Kathi Kamen Goldmark, than Kathi Goldmark.
I quickly if gratuitously sussed “photo by Robert Foothorap” who appears to have been here since 1969 and shoots authors.
On the way back into Coupa I said hello to Linda who I had met a couple times at St. Michael’s Alley; I recalled to myself at least that I have in one of my notebooks a draft of a potential “oral communications” for City of Palo Alto Council meeting from last fall-never delivered, or previously published, noting the passings of Vernon Gates, Philip Kirkeby and Hannah Scher, all of whom were contributors to the cultural scene here, and are missed. Maybe I could rewrite same and amend to “Vernon Gates, Philip Kirkeby, Hannah Scher AND Kathi Kamen Goldmark” albeit a slight “stretcher” geographic-wise, as Mark Twain might have said, he whose obituary was “greatly exaggerated” or so them say.
*Another stretcher, asterisk as I asm, is my “26 readers.” That’s all day, since midnight, all 421 posts. Only 4 or so so far have read “Karen Kamen transition” per se, I admit.
I’m here all week. Try the soup.
Ms. Kamen shared a birthday with my nephew Aaron Thomas Lipinski.
The WCL site says the May 26, 2012 show featured a tribute to her.
Kathi Kamen Goldmark, literary impressario, co-producer, musician, wife, ex-wife and mom, died last month in San Francisco, according to the Sunday Chronicle
Among the other potential edits, the wheat-crepe guy should say “with his mouth open, while chewing”; he is chewing his lunch and blabbing on about “opportunities in Brazil” with his mouth open, or was. Talking with his mouth open. I mean, talking while chewing. As I turned my head to see if they are still there, I realize he has switched seats and now is less than 12 inches from me. I guess I was checking to see if the plate that once held the crepe was still there, fact-checking or reality-checking or reality-hungering for the plate if it holds a clue, to the rest of the story. Also, “write” for “ride” or vice versa. I rode to library not merely wrote myself there. Et cetera. The words, the songs, they remain, remain the same, even as we players and singers and tap tap tap on the keyboarders may strut and split. Adieu.
From V. Vale’s newsletter is info I am lifting about Shig Murao, the clerk from City Lights who was arrested for selling “Howl” in 1957. Bell’s Books in Palo Alto is also a clearing-house for Shig’s legacy. Sunday in SF, yesterday, all my troubles were so far away, I was at Stanford Theatre watching O’Henry adaptation by Howard Hawks and sleeping through John Wayne “Red River” — I was rooting for the dudes with the feathers — but in SF they were feting Ginsberg’s 86th.
V on Shig:
FREE. Sun June 3, 7pm, Beat Museum, 540 Broadway/near Columbus, S.F.
Shig Murao Anniversary + Allen Ginsberg’s 86th Birthday – Soon after Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened the City Lights Pocket Book Shop in 1953, they hired Shigeyoshi “Shig” Murao as their first clerk. Shig was young and charismatic, with an infectious geniality that became as integral a part of the bookstore’s culture as the paperbound volumes on its shelves.
Shig Murao was born in Seattle in 1926. In 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he and his family were sent to a Japanese internment camp in Idaho. Afterward, he joined the Military Intelligence Service, and worked as a translator in postwar Japan.
Shig Murao hired your editor V. Vale at City Lights; City Lights was the address for SEARCH & DESTROY Magazine; RE/Search was the REvised Editorial Project of V. Vale, who writes this newsletter!
Although Shig was not himself a poet, he became a fixture in the North Beach Beat scene. He could frequently be found at the Caffe Trieste surrounded by his many friends, who included Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia, Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder. Ginsberg would often stay at Shig’s apartment on Grant Ave. when visiting San Francisco. Shig collected poems, collages, flyers, photos, and various other material from his Beat colleagues, and sporadically published the material in an eclectic zine called Shig’s Review. He would make about 20-30 copies of each at the nearest photocopy shop, then walk over to the Trieste and distribute them amongst his friends. He published about 80 [?] editions of his Review.
On June 3, 1957 (coincidentally Ginsberg’s birthday), Shig was arrested for selling an ‘obscene’ book to an undercover police officer. The book was HOWL and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, and according to Captain Hanrahan of the SFPD, was only the first in a long list of books the department had deemed objectionable.Ferlinghetti was arrested for having published the book shortly thereafter, and the trial that ensued was among the defining battles of the free speech movement.
Please join us at the Beat Museum as we celebrate the legacy of Shig Murao, “the enigmatic soul of City Lights and the San Francisco Beat scene” on the day of his infamous arrest, and Allen Ginsberg’s birthday.
Hosted by Richard Reynolds, who worked at Mother Jones magazine for thirty-two years, mainly in the role of communications director, and retired in 2010. In addition to his work at the magazine, he is a professional French horn player and has written numerous articles on music, food, and coffee. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Gourmet, Saveur, Salon.com, Gastronomica, Imbibe, Fresh Cup, and other publications. He and Shig met in 1976 and remained friends until Shig’s death in 1999. Reynolds created and operates ShigMurao.com
Also, I saw V. Vale at the Bruce Conner Mabuhay show at Paule Anglim and shot a photo of him on a disposable camera, then ran five blocks to get it developed, then came back and gave him the print, recently.
Endemic to the nature of the culture cloud is drifting from topic to topic, or is it just me? I started by going back into “Maynard Dixon” and after about 35 clicks I found myself on Marti Struever’s site looking at a pot by my friend Jody Naranjo. The Jody Naranjo “Hmm” pot is related to the one I am caring for called “The Pueblo Girls”. In the first case the pot depicts Jody and her creative process. It is self-reflexive. It shows her wondering what images to pot on the side of the expertly crafted and polished pot: “Hmm?,” it has the projected version of Jody wondering.
In the second case, one side of the pot shows three female figures set as a rock band, playing drums, guitar and base. The kick drum is labeled “The Pueblo Girls”. Jody said that she and two friends — all known Pueblo artists, one a potter the other a fashion designer — often attend rock concerts together, in Albuquerque, and that Jody sometimes imagines that the three of them have a band together.
The connection is that both pots are self-referential in that they depict things that only exist in Jody’s fertile brain.
I saw the “Hmm?” pot at Marti’s showcase after I had come to terms on taking care of the “Pueblo Girls” pot.
Here is 1’s and 0’s from Marti’s sight, conveniently arranged to appear as words and images:
The things that make you go Hmm. Jody Naranjo’s jar entitled “Hmm. . .” is a ode to her creative process. On one side this beautifully shaped, highly polished redware vessel, Jody has incised a picture of herself thinking up this actual jar. On the other side, there is a picture of Jody happily holding the finished piece. What an interesting concept. Underneath the larger action scenes are Jody Naranjo’s well-known tiny incised designs. The piece is quite large and heavy. It measures 11″ tall x 8″ wide. It is signed.
(and speaking of process, I have “pot” for “put” somewhere above and “version” for “vision”; the pot itself has “hmmm…” with three m’s and three dots, for your sticklers).
I talked to Jody just the other day, briefly. She is getting ready for Indian Market, in August in Santa Fe, and also has shows or markets in Indianapolis and in the fall here in Cali in LA at the Autry. Meanwhile, there are extant pieces in galleries in Scottsdale, Tulsa and Denver. In lieu of actual content or pictures of her work, here is a film of Journey the rock band in Albuquerque — pretty sure Jody told me she was attending that show:
Sunset Magazine’s annual fair included a rummage sale that featured at least two Maynard Dixon covers for sale, posters for $15 — the website indicates they were normally $50.
I may have to look into writing something more articulated about the relationship between Sunset Magazine and this famous Western painter. Sussing around the search-injuns yields a plethora of leads including papers at UC Berkeley, the state library foundation newsletter, two Maynard Dixon museum and the prominent Southwest gallery run by Mark Sublette, who wrote a book on Dixon.
There is also a famous post-Earthquake edition of Sunset from May, 1906 with cover and interior self-portrait by the artist.
Friday at Philz Coffee in Palo Alto, a stone’s throw from the Stanford football stadium where Jim Harbaugh led the Cardinal gridders to an all-time-best 11-win season, Mark Weiss, a concert promoter, arts activist and blogger, performed for the fourth time his workshop of a comedic monologue about pro football with a working title of “The Harbaugina Monologue”.
The 14-minute performance, conceived as part of an eventual one-act, 60-minute performance piece that might call to mind Spalding Gray’s “Swimming to Cambodia” and the George Plimpton book “Paper Lion” draws on Weiss’s antipathy for Harbaugh, who played three sports for Paly High while Weiss played basketball for rival Gunn High, and edited the student newspaper.
On April Fools Day, 1982, his senior year at Gunn, Weiss and his cohorts published a joke version of the Paly newspaper that mocked the worship of Harbaugh by their crosstown fellow students.
Weiss claims that his monologue, that recounts the history of his 31 years rooting against Harbaugh, and the dissonance of both hating Harbaugh and having a lifelong partisan interest in Stanford and the 49ers, is meant as a constructive and perhaps loving criticism of pro football; it is hard on the boy, so to speak, but also hopes to help its target mend his ways, for a utilitarian, Millsian outcome, or so he says. As in, winning is good, but it is not the only thing. (Compare also, for example, as precedent the recent Broadway show about Vince Lombardi).
Weiss admits that Harbaugh is or was an exceptional athlete but questions his leadership style and sportsmanship and whether the strong Harbaugh personality is good for his players, his charges and for society as a whole. He questions also, rightly or not, whether the winning seasons at Stanford and for the NFL’s Niners are attributable to coaching prowess or dumb luck. Further, he wonders if there is a Jungian-deflation ticking-time-bomb as evidenced by the coach’s flare-ups with peers like Pete Carroll and Jim Schwartz. Does winning per se have an eventual toll on even the most focused human psyche?
So far in four appearances at the “amateur night” entertainment forum — an open mic, at a coffee house, mostly for singers — the results have been mixed. People stare confusedly at the speaker, if they listen at all.
Weiss admits that partly the project is cathartic — there is something wacky and neurotic about a 48-year-old purported grown-up holding a grudge for so long, and talking about it in a public forum, but also reports that as he describes the project to people he does meet “fellow travelers,” people who augment his observations with their own critical observations on the the former Paly, Michigan and NFL star.
“I’m not sure where this is going,” Weiss says. “I fantasize or worry actually that Harbaugh will hear about this and come to a show and kick my ass. Friends, including my girlfriend, have told me to ‘let it go’. Yet on the other hand, I think I am learning from and growing from the process, and in truth I wish Jim no harm. There are win-win outcomes I can imagine. And meanwhile it gives me an excuse to meet a lot of Spartans and Buckeyes and pick their brain for new material- that, plus I’ve seen some pretty promising singer-songwriters, like Jessie and Maddie.”
Philz open mic
Notes and quotes:
1) Meanwhile, in the San Francisco Chronicle, Eric Branch reports that “The Harbaugh Rule” works wonders in racing as well as football.
2) On page 66 of the pocket version of George Plimpton’s “Paper Lion” the author describes a “club rush” in which Bobby Layne hazed or disciplined the rookie runner Hopalong Cassady — the linemen let the defenders gang-tackle the cocky neophyte. Weiss’s treatise or treatment seeks to present the Harbaugh story in context with the various examples of leadership and maverick-ships in the rich fabric of football.
3) During Friday’s installment, Weiss quoted briefly or at least referenced an obscure book on sports psychology: “Problem Athletes and How to Handle Them” by Bruce Oglivie and Thomas Tutko (from San Jose State; 1966, London). Page 50 — “The Con Man — self-centered athlete”: “They have a serious problems in forming deep emotional ties with others”. The authors may be saying that some star athletes may have what is today described as “borderline personality disorder.”
4) Friday’s USA Today, June 1, 2012, had a cover story about Chargers great Junior Seau, who died suddenly a few months ago. Weiss glossed this during his presentation but emphasized that he was not making fun of Seau but merely striving to put his Harbaugh observations and views in the context of other contemporary discussions of pro football, such as the significance of the cluster of suicides related to CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
5) Weiss said that he is proud that his four installments of “The Harbaugina Monologues” were various and improvised; they covered about 40 minutes worth of material rather than a honed-version of the same “first quarter”, even if the reactions varied (he was not booed or heckled Friday but confederates reported a significant amount of disapproval in the crowd, whispering). Yesterday’s bit opened with a description of another influence, “California Calling” a music-business performed memoir by Joe Sib, the founder of Side One Dummy Records and 22 Jacks band, an associate of Weiss. Joe Sib has a riff about being a flag football player in junior high and worrying about the two different types of flags, snap-ons versus velcro.
6) Weiss said his pre-game meal was a “chicken Provence French puff” sandwich and an Orangina. On stage he quipped that the show now featured the soda as a sponsor and would hereafter be referred to as “The Harborangina Monologue”. Afterwards he ate a bacon and guacamole burger at nearby Gordon Biersch, sampled their darkest beer pint, and watched a few innings of shutout pitching by Madison Bumgarner of the Giants versus the Cubs.
7) Rather enthusiastic portrayal of Jim Harbaugh and USD quarterback Josh Johnson in the SF Weekly a few weeks ago by Albert Samahah, duly noted. Also: former mayor of Palo Alto Peter Drekmeier, a Paly ’83, said that he thought Harbaugh was especially inclusive of his teammates; “He made it a point to include everybody for example the kicker Drew Van Horn.”
8) Last week Weiss was introduced for the first time to another former Viking star, Mike Beasley ’81 who went on to star in Pac-10 action for the Washington State Cougars, and is now a banking executive in the Emerald State. He was in town for a fund-raising golf tournament, for Paly. He chuckled politely at the description of the “Harbaugina Monologue” and revealed that among the seniors during Harbaugh’s junior year their pet nickname for the star quarterback was “Peacock”, referencing his cockiness. Harbaugh was the missing link that piloted a core of blue-chip class of 1981 seniors – – Beasley, rb Marc Ford, Mark Johnson — to the CCS quarterfinals, but then slogged through a so-so senior year (although he did lead basketball to CCS semis; he was all league in three sports).
9) Weiss’s actual outline for the June 1 performance:
intro: JOE SIB
One: Fourth Installment
First with a sponsor
Harbaugh Monologue Sponsored by Orangina
two: 1982 Paly Campanile spring sports preview
three: NASCAR
four: Mike Beasley “peacock”
five: research – Junior Seau
six: best moments of my life involve football, but back in 1974
sevens: Rugby 7’s Dartmouth – Army — Will Holder — (NBC recently broadcast the 2011 collegiate rugby championships and the West Point team featured a former Paly baseball and football player Holder.)
Dartmouth had a guy who looked kind of sloth-like and fleshy — big gut, not athletic, tough-looking. A scrum. He scored a try, though, surprisingly fast. Weird thing was he scored a try while simultaneously studying for his chemistry final. He had a book open, right there on the field, with reading glasses sliding down his nose — and made a one hand grab when the ball was tossed to him. He kinda faked them out; people bounced off him on his way in. (“I guess if I am suggesting some sort of reform to pro football, Canton-style football, it could take a tip from Rugby 7’s — maybe we can go back to players going both ways, offense and defense and they can wrap around not hit on the perpendicular.”
eight: John Paye – better person. Maybe I should praise Paye and not bash Harbaugh (“I did ring Paye recently and spoke for him on a different subject although we did discuss Harbaugh briefly; not sure if I mentioned this project; supposedly, Stanford passed on giving Harbaugh a scholarship, holding the spot open for Paye who was five miles down the road, at Menlo, although he was a year younger. Paye did start in football and basketball for Stanford and for five minutes in the NFL for the Niners”.)
nine: conclusion: Reggae or world music bands. Trying to heal help him. Problem athlete book Oglivie and Tutko.
10) If one types “harbaugh” into the search engine of Weiss’s blog, “Plastic Alto” which covers music, the arts, “ornette” and some local politics, the football coach is mentioned in 18 posts, including six about the monologue per se, mentioned in the heading. In terms of the laws on unintended consequences, Weiss’s comedic attack on Harbaugh might also serve as a leading clearinghouse for news of all things Jim for his many followers. Weiss did not Friday mention by name his former fellow high school editor Greg Zlotnick but made reference to a classmate “who was an All America kicker at Wesleyan.” Zlotnick is one of the friends who suggests, not unlike Lucy for Charlie Brown, Weiss “drop it.”
11) This is actual edita that I found while proofing above and not sure it fits here other than fact that this is mainly a music column with departure into football but Justin Combs son of P. Diddy will reportedly play for UCLA football next season; people are player-hatin’ in questioning why a millionaire’s son should accept a scholarship (valued at “$54,000”) but clearly John Paye and Steve Young for examples could have easily afforded to pay their own way in college.
12) more edita/addendums: a) the Lombardi show is closed but the website offers a 25-page study guide including discussion of St. Ignatius’s influence on that coach; meanwhile, while glossing my use of the term “a stone’s throw” in lead, I noted that the term derives from Gospel of Luke, 22-41, during the so-called “Agony of the Garden” and “Holy Hour” sections, and makes me wonder how to tie that in more directly to the Greatest Harbaugh Story Ever Told; also, there is a bit about stone-throwing in Rinde Eckert’s “The Idiot Variations” here and personal interviews, circa 2001. The actual distance from Philz at 101 Forest and Alma to Stanford Stadium is nine-tenths of a mile. I would estimate that Jim Harbaugh could toss a stone about 60 yards, or three-hundredths of a mile, but you never know. Rather, it might take him about 30 tosses to go from Philz to Stanford Stadium, but work with me, here, guys.
edit to add, morning is gone, sitting in Peets now, near Cubberley ie a couple hours into this, 2:30 p.m.: not sure what this means, and switching back to true first person rather than fake third person describing myself, but I have had the Bernie Taupin Elton John chestnut “Take me to the Pilot of your soul” in my head — it was also covered on “American Idol” recently I must have seen by Joshua Ledet and Fantasia — someone on youtube called him “Mantasia”. I am also referencing obliquely Mark Twain especially “Life on the Mississippi” his account of being a riverboat pilot. I am saying something about leadership and being the pilot, a coach and a quarterback are both pilots of the team — but also something of course Jungian. Outro to music — and see also below the Pink Floyd riff.
I met David when he was with Joey Baron I think, they played at Hotel Cabana, where the Beatles once stayed. No, it was the Leni Stern show. Those were the only two shows I did in the Cabana Room and I sometimes get them confused.
A couple years later I was in Williamsburg visiting David Beech and we were at this Jamaican restaurant that’s no longer there. I think it was called Bleu Drawers. The guy at the table next to us started gesturing a bowing motion with his arms. I asked him “Are you talking about Matt Haimovitz?” That was Gregor Asch pka DJ Olive; they were talking about Matt being part of the Ropeadope music tour, which I caught at The Independent on Divis which was formerly known as Justice League and Kennel Club.
Anyhoo, I am doing this shout out to the Mr. Asch because I was linking to his father or grandfather or great grandfather in the previous post. I didn’t realized he was also later in the Whitney Biennial. Good job. Good one.
As your eyes adjust to the dark you realize you’re on the balcony overlooking the tent. after a while your eyes adjust further and you start to make out the moose heads mounted at eye-level around the walls looking down onto the tent with sleeping people inside.
And it was Greenpoint not Williamsburg, Bleu Drawes Cafe.
The Joey Baron band I am thinking of was JB, Adam Levy, Steve Cardenas and Tony Scher. The Leni Stern band would have been LS, David Binney, maybe Kenny Wolleson. Jenny Scheinman played with Leni later; I recall bringing them a North Beach birthday cake but did not make the show, the following year. I also recall that Joe Russo at one point worked in her office, and a lady whose name I do not recall but was an aspiring actress and I caught her playing a stiff on “Law and Order.” This is a little off topic from DJ Olive or is it?
I saw David Binney in Fall, 2008 doing a benefit for polio cure with some Indian Musicians, at Flint Center in Cupertino, with my dad, sponsored by Rotary Club.
edit to add:
I was checking on the DJ Olive site, to close this out, and I noticed it say that they are mastering a new cd called THWIS.
The young lady in this picture looks suspiciously like the lady I met and wrote about on 4-20. You can see me in the lower left corner. I shot this today.
Dear Moe and All:
Setting here listening to your Stella Brooks album sounds tough and good. Old timey sound of the backs her up “Little Piece of Leather” is onery, delightful and rough. “Gin’s gonna kill but they don’t say when.” I’m not specially convinced that “I’ll never be the same” gets out of the parlor. On the cover I’ve always thought that the Grateful Dead should be sponsored by the government. It should be a public service that they should set us up to play at places that need good music. We shouldn’t be a business per se. That’s the direction I’m convinced we should be heading. An artistic movement, albeit an organic and as-yet-unstated one is forming. What are its key components? A deliberate unartiness. Three days of world music. Jimmy Ciff. The Dennis Bovell Duo. The Twinkle Brothers. City Hall. “Raw” material. seemingly unprocessed, unfilterered, uncensored, and unprofessional. Randomness, oedipal accident and serendipity, spontaneity; artistic risk; emotional urgency and intensity, reader/viewer participation; an overtly literal tone, as if a reporter were viewing a strange culture; plasticity of form, pointillism; criticism as autobiography; self-reflexivity, self-ethnography, anthropological autobiography; a blurring to the point of invisibility of any distinction between fiction and nonfiction: the lure and blur of the real 3.
Posted 1 day ago on May 25, 2012, 10:50 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
On May 11, a group of students at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City booed Enrique Peña Nieto at one of his appearances. Peña – who was followed out of the building by students shouting “Get out!”- is the presidential candidate for the PRI, the party that ruled Mexico for over 70 years before being voted out in 2000. After this incident, supporters of the PRI in the mainstream media and on television news quickly demonized the dissenting students, claiming they were planted by their political rivals.
Students at Ibero fired back. 131 students from the university uploaded videos on Youtube and Facebook proving their identities. Soon, using the name #YoSoy132 (I am 132) in solidarity with the students who stood up to Peña, the protest spread from social media to the streets. One week ago, hundreds of students demonstrated outside Televisa’s broadcasting centers. The protests continued to grow, reaching a size of around 50,000 in Mexico City on Saturday, when marchers shut down Paseo de la Reforma, a main thoroughfare in the capital. Over 20 cities in Mexico have joined in solidarity so far.
Although press has covered the protests as a youth-led movement against the PRI, the organizers describe themselves as a nonpartisan, leaderless movement for real democracy. In fact, the corporate media have been some of the movements primary targets. The movement is upset that two corporations, Televisa and TV Azteca, own 95% of media in Mexican homes, and the companies both have been accused of showing undue favoritism to the PRI. During the 70-year rule of the PRI, Televisa largely acted as the party’s propaganda arm and continues to favor the PRI. Although Mexican media ignored the protests as long as possible, they were forced to acknowledge them after massive turnouts at Televisa’s headquarters. A Mexican political analyst told the Wall Street Journal: “The protest movement has already achieved the impossible: forcing Televisa to cover an insurrection by young people.”
But they are not finished yet. The #YoSoy132 movement is organizing a nationwide TV boycott during the presidential debates; on May 30 in Mexico City students from all schools and univerisites will gather for a joint General Assembly; convergences are also still taking place this weekend and beyond in Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico.
The #yosoy132 movement arose from social networks and the jeering of Enrique Peña Nieto by students at the University of Ibero. After this incident, the PRI accused the students of being planted. In response, 131 students uploaded videos showing their names, faces, account numbers, and credentials. Their videos climbed on Youtube and proved they were students from that university.
Then, the PRI was forced to admit that, yes, they were students but that it would be investigated. In response, users of social networks started the #yosoy132 (“I am 132”) movement, announcing they too were exercising their freedom of expression and that they supported the 131 students.
Thanks to that, we organized and set up a march last Friday, attended not only by students from the Ibero, but also from universities such as ITAM and Anahuac. We marched on the sidewalk, without affecting traffic, and shouted slogans to Televisa and other mass media, demanding truthful information and the democratization of the media. We called, this time from many more colleges (public and private), to demand an end to media manipulation and the imposition of a candidate.
Then, we took to the streets, without party, without color, without violence.
#YoSoy132 is no longer a movement of students. Today we are a movement of ALL Mexicans.
The powerful media of our country (Mexico) want to impose a candidate (Peña Nieto) through the manipulation of information. The young university students at Ibero protested against media bias after the Peña Nieto’s visit to the university. This generated a physical and digital citizens’ movement against the Telecracy.
We are inspired by the 131 students at Ibero, who showed that the people are the boss, not a handful of corrupt politicians and businessmen who want to decide the future of the lives of millions of Mexicans and who lie, suppress, and deceive to do it, creating an environment not conducive to progress, freedom of expression, and truth.
Today I say to that small corrupt group of people:
I am the 132. I will not be fooled. I want a fairer, more free Mexico.
This is La Primavera Mexicana civil awakening against the manipulation of information. #YoSoy132 is a movement for truth.
tomorrow in Oaxaca
edit to add: I clicked thru to learn that Lopez Obrador is ahead by 59 points on the Oaxaca digital webpage. And there are 28,000 “likes” on the leading social media page for “Yo Soy 132”.
Terry Acebo Davis and Mamoru Okuno at the Commons of the Lucas Residences at Montalvo, Saratoga, Calif., May, 2012
At the after-party for Beth Custer’s show Friday at Montalvo, I spent some quality time with Mamoru, a Japanese artist-in-residence there. Mamoru — no last name needed; like Madonna or Beyonce — is a minimalist artist, who works with sound. He is from Japan but did spend five years in New York while studying jazz at CUNY. His English is excellent.
We missed his happy-hour show, as we opted to belly-up to the bar at a Saratoga Village hot spot and sample some wild boar prociutto from The Basin Restaurant — after being shut out of its sister restaurant Casa de Cobre.
Mamoru briefly described some of his work. For example, he has a piece or project that involves listening to the sound of saran wrap as it unfolds itself in a styrofoam cup. We talked about John Cage, but also Paul Bley, who was an influence of his when he was more directed to jazz. He has a blog, but was surprised that his family reads it, he reported. I passed on the news that someone was turning the Golden Gate Bridge into a wind harp.
I hope to delve deeper into Mamoru’s work. I wish him a happy and successful sojourn here in Santa Clara County.
やってきましたMontalvo。前回の記事でも書きましたが、カリフォルニアのサラトガというところにあるアートセンター内のレジデンス施設です。滞在先の目の前のハイキングコースを30分ほど上りきるとこんな風景がみられます。ブルージェイ（アオカケス）という青黒い鳥がとんでいたり、リスがいたり、野うさぎ！がいたり。。。施設の人達によればボブキャットやピューマもいるとか。。。と、なかなかの大自然っぷり。こっちで作らなくてはいけない音の１つは、この展望ポイントでヘッドフォンで聞く音源とうのがあり、ほぼ毎日往復１時間の山歩きをしています。また作品の内容は追々と。 I have arrived to Montalvo Arts Center a week ago. It’s in Saratoga, CA. It is a great place with hiking trail just infront of my studio. I can see blue Jays, some rabits, and according to the people here I might have a chance to see bobcats! or puma! Anyway in very short, it is full of nature here. I am making some sound that goes well with the view on top of this trail, so I am walking up to the lookout point almost everyday. It takes about an hour to get there and come back, so it is a great exercise, too.
edit to add, July 13, 2012 about five weeks later: I am sorry that time flew so quickly and I did not meet Mamoru again. I hope he enjoyed his visit. I will close with another long borrow from his own blog. When I think about this post, I worry that the title is too obscure: I reference a brand name, plus a song. Also, the word I use is very close to a word that is apparently closely monitored by the government. Below he uses the more generic “food wrap”:
I had a great time at the “Final Friday”, 30-40 min presentation. There were variety of people from children to senior, and It was well received. I introduced a video work about etude no.12 food wrap, and passed the cups with wrap in them. Also, I put up the hanger rack with hangers that I found in the venue, and the electric fan from my studio to do etude no.11 installation. There were about 40 people, so I amplified the sound. It sounded great. People seemed to have enjoyed the presentation and it was encouraging for me to have various responses. Thanks for coming out!
In Japan, Saran Wrap is a trademark of Asahi Kasei. a company with 25,000 employees. Here it is Dow. Other places generic. Since 1933.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 