artMRKT and Modest Mouse

Posted on May 21, 2012 by markweiss86

I wore a fake press pass — from Microsoft opening a few weeks ago — to artMRKT in SF and publicist Wendy Norris upgraded me to an actual press pass.

I shot photos of Max Fishko, the co-founder of the event, who lives in Williamsburg, the 718 not colonial Virginia, and is profiled more fully and with aplomb by my dear friend and colleague Sarah Bailey Hegerty at the DeYoung site; Richard Misrach giving a slide show about toxics in Louisiana, a NorCal artist and photographer who had a studio near Joan Brown, three phases of my improvised sculpture also known as recylable trash. And then I snuck into the last five songs of Modest Mouse at Stanford’s Frost.

Modest Mouse at Frost, May, 2012

I’m doing the best that I can. With my trusty Samsung dumbphone.

Modest Mouse at Stanford Frost, May, 2012 but took me back to 1997

Henry Moore said that to be an artist is to believe in life.

Henry Moore said to be an artist is to believe in life.

Three more thumbnails of Modest Mouse and the Stanford kids:

 

 

 

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Willie Mays or unsubscribe

Posted on May 21, 2012 by markweiss86

This is my favorite “semi-span” that I sent to a list on my emails, and I just realized that it started with Leah Garchik; also, Maroon 5 was actually in town recently, at a promo at Stanford Shopping that I heard but did not see, “round midnight style”.

A fair number of people did “unsubscribe” over these. This is from May, 2004, eight years ago.

Leah Garchik reports in today’s San Francisco
Chronicle that Willie Mays received an honorary degree
from Yale last week.

That’s not really music news, but “Wow”!

Dr. Willie Mays!

Mark Weiss, a.b.
Earthwise Productions of Palo Alto

Ok, but she also mentions in same column something
about a new music organization AciveMusic that had
Bonnie Raitt and Roy Rogers at recent benefit. That’s
music news. And new Rolling Stone has article
describing Maroon 5 shows at Dartmouth College and
Yale, you see. And both Yale president and Maroon 5
singer are named Levine. (Jews?). And Maroon 5 is
currently #24 on Billboard. And Dr. Willie Mays is
#24. Get it?

btw or edita: Dartmouth ended up following suit and giving Willie a degree as well.

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Garchik chic

Posted on May 21, 2012 by markweiss86

— Mark Weiss saw a Palo Alto motorcycle cop with a framed license plate: “I know I know the light was yellow.”

Garchik is now two for seventy-six or so in terms of printing things I suggest to her, a much lower rate than for my neighbor Janice Hough.

edit to add, subtract and calculate: I think it is more like 5-for-31, which I got my scrolling through my email morgue. Although I also sometimes reach her or her machine by phone, so who knows. I can be an obsessive and make a list of things she chose not to write about, pasted in from emails. For the record, I was mentioned in Herb Caen once; cannot recall why. It may haver merely been that I was objecting to something he wrote about the other Mark Weiss. But I met Herb twice, and he signed an autograph on a detachable part of my Underwood: “from my Royal, to your Underwood. Herb Caen.”

Christina Cohen wrote me to say she saw the item.

which kinda reminds me that I sent a note to Garchik about her son and called it “jacobs adder”, but more that I had clipped a vintage Herb Caen column from the April 22, 2012 Chron (actually from October, 1969) but then my girlfriend just “Yesterday” threw it away, along with 112 other clippings and numerous less-processed newspapers; the Caen item was praising The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”.

I started to also note that the same Garchik column above also mentions Warren Hellman, my cousin Lisa Pritzker — although it is spelled “pritzger” –and Ron Turner who people were talking about at the SF Art Show, artMRKT, at Phoenix Hotel. I don’t know Turner but I know his Last Gasp.

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Clear story, obscured

Posted on May 19, 2012 by markweiss86

I ran into our former mayor Sid Espinosa and shot this picture of him doing a video pr segment for Palo Alto Art Center Foundation.
The mayor and I actually discussed via text messages whether this shot is appropriate for Plastic Alto. The mayor said he didn’t mind its use and said he would take my word for it that people would find it more charming than offensive, or just bad.
This was about 33 photos ago, in my constant cellphone>email>blog stream of images and ideas. This a.m. I am compelled to react to the excellent Sedge Thomson show, with Jonathan Richman et al, and offer my own less significant offering to the collective conscious.
For the record, the structure is called “Clear Story” by Mildred Howard and is on loan in front of City Hall. Or as Jonathan would say “I’m so confused…”?!

Jonathan Richman performs at Freight And Salvage Tuesday, a benefit for Wavy Gravy’s Camp Winnarainbow.

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Harbaugh comedic monologue take 3

Posted on May 18, 2012 by markweiss86

I did another 11-minute-23-second segment of my mock-Jim-Harbaugh tribute Friday at Philz, with the emphasis on mock.

I know if was exactly 11:23 because I did it as a “track act” talking over Pink Floyd “Pigs”.

Why “Pigs”? No reason. A neighbor had burned me a cd, which had recently been remastered by the label; “Animals” from 1977.

I was riffing on the nickname for the ball itself, pigskin. Also, the Pink Floyd album was riffing on George Orwell treatise “Animal Farm.”

I also made this performance something of a “prop act” in that I turned a glass Philz coffee mug into a cowbell, read from both James Franco “Palo Alto” — something about his dad liking math — and a 1963 book about Y.A. Tittle.  A guy named Fabes joined me on stage to help spin the cd, on his Apple computer. I brought my egg-timer to help clock the 11:23. And I had an actual football, albeit a rubber Baden one.

No livestock was harmed in my presentation, although I did scarf down a sausage and egg breakfast burrito right after the hit.

The other acts were considerably better than me, especially Fabes, Remi and Chloe, Michael McCaul, AIR from Cal and Ami Pienkenaruga, who improvised a song about caffeine addiction. Plus our host Jessie. I met a comic Rob Goodman who wore a Spoon shirt and imitated Lil’ Wayne.

our host Jess, who shot the above photos of MBW

Ami wrote, strummed and sang on stage

 

edit to add, Tuesday:

From: mark weiss <earwopa@yahoo.com>
To: “sanjoseimprov@improvcomedyclubsonline.com” <sanjoseimprov@improvcomedyclubsonline.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: Gabriel Iglesias, Jim Jefferies, Bill Burr & More!

 

can i open for bill burr? I have a comedic monologue called “the harbaugina monologue” about pro football, machismo and homophobia. I’ve done three ten minute bits at open mike at philz palo alto. see my blog “plastic alto” for more info. i asked joe sib of san jose and “cali calling” monologue if he wanted to sign and record “THM” but he said “keep the day job buddy” which is just as well since i’m in the concert biz.
mark weiss
“plastic alto” blog
earthwise productions and artist management
“the harbaugina monologue”
650.305.0701

From: San Jose Improv Comedy Club and Restaurant <sanjoseimprov@improvcomedyclubsonline.com>
To: earwopa@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 8:58 AM
Subject: Gabriel Iglesias, Jim Jefferies, Bill Burr & More!

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Big man pig man charade you are

Posted on May 18, 2012 by markweiss86

edit to add, cuz someone clicked on this years later — something about Harbaugh

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Sissy Hankshaw lives in SF

Posted on May 17, 2012 by markweiss86

6 p.m. Wednesday May 16, 2012, Dog Patch. Photo by Mark Weiss

Cruising Third Street in SF at rush hour on my way to Meridian Galley downtown for the poetry art opening, (The Painted Word) this biker and passenger made excellent time, although I slowed to get them, thusly. Sissy Hankshaw the greatest hitchhiker would be proud if the rider upped the biker, or either way.

edita: the people I saw or spoke to at the actual event, but did not shoot, included Matt Gonzalez, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Peter Selz, Lillian Kaufman Cartwright, Wendyn Cadden, Julie Lala and John, Mario the jazz manager, Tony and Anne, Sue Johnson, Chris Felver’s printer, filmmaker Jesse Block, Garret Caples and John “Jack” Keating.

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Vest Coast

Posted on May 17, 2012 by markweiss86

I have this crude, dorky, mash-up bit where I post two youtube windows here and invite my readers/viewers to open and play both simultaneously. While I should really just be gushing about Best Coast, their hit on Late Night tv doubled with a New York Times preview and run out to buy tickets and get my “I’m too old for this shirt” bad self to Oakland Fox for their big shoe Saturday, I am for whatever Plasticky panicky reasons instead inserting the easily exploitable Vanessa Mae doing Donna Summer. So let’s do this:

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Love to love the Donnas

Posted on May 17, 2012 by markweiss86

I’d like to see Brett Anderson, Alison Robertson, Maya Ford and, for old times’ sake, Torry “Go Stanford” Castellano wearing satin dresses and covering this disco classic with a 1990s punk rock oomph:

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Harbaugh monologue part 2

Posted on May 15, 2012 by markweiss86

Mark Weiss at Philz Palo Alto downtown in May, 2012 doing his Harbaugh bit while the lovely and talented duo of Remi and Chloe wait their turn to sing that song that they used to know.

Two weeks in a row I have done my Harbaugh monologue at the Friday open mic at Philz.

The gist of it is that although he is or was an excellent athlete and a successful coach, I have not been able to shake my first impression that Jim was so into himself that he was a displeasure to play against (I was on the Gunn basketball team while he was on the Paly basketball, football and baseball teams –I have been carrying this feeling around for thirty years).

In spring of 1982, we the Oracle student newspaper at Gunn put out a fake Paly Campanile — The Crapanile -that played on the fact that the real Campanile used pictures of Jim for their Winter Wrap up AND their Spring Preview. We parodied this by writing ad nauseum about “Jim Harbarph” under the headline OUR BOY JIM DOES IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.

As I have admitted to people my misgivings, even as a Stanford and 49ers fan, people added to my rap by offering their own “Harbaugh hater” moment or story.

It’s beyond the Gunn-Paly thing, although come to think of it Jim Harbaugh may be the first blue chip Paly athlete who actually lived closer to Gunn. (And for instance, Paly’s top three athletes right now all live within a few blocks of each other in South Palo Alto…and that famous world-changing, Dirk-facing, billionaire in the making point-shooting guard, guess where he was supposed to go?)

Jim can make amends and save himself by quitting pro sports and learning to play hand-drums with a reggae or world beat band; believe me, this will heal him.

Until then, I am entitled to my opinions.

A comedic monologue is not stand-up comedy. I don’t tell a joke and wait for a laugh or not. I talk on and on for about 9 minutes — although I have about three hours of material — then a couple hours later you go “hmm..that was kind of weird!”.

Thanks to Shelley Barnea Smith for taking this photo.

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