Plastissimo Alto: or, don’t walk away from the arts, Palo Alto

Posted on November 2, 2011 by markweiss86

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALCQVmtFlns

Plastissimo Alto and The Varsity: Part Ten

Or: Don’t walk away from the arts, Palo Alto

10:55 a.m., Wednesday, November 2, 2011, As I am walking north on the east side of Bryant, Mayor Sid Espinosa approaches; we are each talking on our cells as we grow nearer. Sid has the phone to his left ear and his right index finger in his right ear to dampen the din coming from construction at the former Nevada Building, on the corner.

http://www.amazon.com/Eugene-J-McCarthy-Selected-Poems/dp/1883477158

Me, to my phone: Here comes our Mayor, I’ll see if he can say hello.  (to Sid) Hello, Mayor Espinosa! Good morning!
My phone (to me and potentially to our Mayor, since I had her on speaker- phone earlier and she might not have gathered that I am now ambulatory and semi-private and she is not on speaker-phone): Hello, Mayor!
Sid Espinosa:
(The mayor smiles and nods and points towards his phone. He doesn’t know that he has missed saying hello the great-niece of a great American, the former U.S. Senator from Minnesota Eugene McCarthy, also a poet and presidential candidate. I never met the man, and am not sure even if I had heard of him during his lifetime, but I have lifted a glass to his portrait at least twice at the St. Paul Hotel, in the lobby bar, where they have a gallery of great men and women including Hubert Humphrey and F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is the third recent meeting or near-meeting I have had or fantasized about with Sid, in advance of his actual office hours upcoming this Friday. Previously I had written him about the possibility of coming by with Bill Kreutzmann, the founding drummer of the Grateful Dead, who is in a band and was in town with my friend Malcolm Welbourne; they play together as 7 Walkers. I am hoping to leverage my relationship with Mali into something that impacts Kreutzman’s legacy here, his hometown,  something like a Claes Oldenburg drum kit, a public monument, or traction regarding The Varsity Theatre using Bill’s name and influence. Also, second, I had wanted to send Sid a link if not an actual habeas corpus regarding Sara Moussavian, profiled in the Weekly recently for her advocacy for disability rights; I met Sara in Brian Evans’ macroeconomics course at Foothill, and said I would link her to Sid, one way or another (which could make a good pro-Ability slogan).  I do not bother to explain any of this to the woman not-on-speakerphone, the singer-songwriter and mother-of-a-four-year-old, Bethany Yarrow; when I met Yarrow previously, her daughter was in the arms of the tour-nanny, Mary Beth McCarthy Yarrow, Eugene McCarthy’s niece – I had always thought, for these ensuing years, that she was his daughter, the Senator’s, however; I did hear from her friends one night at the Daily Grill, after her show at the Getty, the story of how Mary Beth met Peter Yarrow, of Peter Paul and Mary fame, at a Eugene McCarthy rally, circa 1968. A man there at that post-show dinner, an activist, said he was in love with Mary Beth McCarthy but knew he was going to be aced out by Peter Yarrow. He was discussing it like it was from the previous week. I could definitely picture this, and found Mary Beth McCarthy still quite charming; I later sent her a note about being pleased to have met “three generations of lovely McCarthy-Yarrow ladies” or some-such.

I made a note to self to send word to Sid Espinosa explaining all this, then went back to concluding my nine-minute call to Bethany, at 10:48.

Let me retrace my morning, today, 11/2/11 (or as my friend the Tarot reading musician might suggest I write it, 11/II/11, for the six wands of communication, a good omen:

8 a.m. I speak to HRB regarding 456 University, Keynes and the semantic and philosophical distinction between “intervention” and “being creative and pro-active” a propos of the potential roles leadership (council, boards, commissioners) could play in actualizing the substantial public benefit of the Varsity Theatre reverting to a public hall and not becoming office space.

8:15:  I sit next to councilmember Nancy Shepherd and pass her a hand-written note summarizing the three-minute address I just made, and offering to send her a written version of it, for her records (as if she would not have time to find it here; as a convenience, or to reiterate). We have a brief whisper-meeting on these topics. Here I am not a lobbyist but a galley-ist, since we are in Council Chambers. She sits, at least in this instance, with the people, as Council liaison to the Historic Resources Board.

9:00 I leave HRB and happen to meet one of the other speakers, a woman named Ms. Rose, hand her my card and give her the elevator or in-front-of-elevator pitch about the Varsity and TLPW456. She says that coincidentally her husband (perhaps he is a Mr. Rose or at least and certainly a Ms. Rose’s husband) was on the board of Borders. Their architect –they are making a presentation about 601 Melville an historic 1905 home they own and or live in –Aino De Rosa, suggests that Laura Surma’s claim in a 2005 thesis at Stanford, that Borders had agreed in a lease to pay for the reversion of 456 University could be, if true, an important detail that I should forward to the bankruptcy judge.

9:05: Speaking of the Devil and Daniel Webster, (literally speaking), I run into City Attorney Molly Stump, near the Mildred Howard, and she asks me about the Varsity but I instead hit her (figuratively speaking) with my bit about Dylan and Newport and whether to plug in or not is content – she insists, in a friendly way, that they already checked that and believe to be in the right. We are both heading to Coupa Café where she fakes me into buying a pastry, but refuses my offer to split mine with her. She says she will invite me to her office some time to see the light installation her husband the artist has designed, site-specific but not earmarked for our otherwise excellent PAPAC collection; she has seen the Picasso however.

At 9:04 I am remembering, I shot this photo of the “M” of the Mildred Howard public art piece “Clear Story” framing the American flag.

I also told Karen Imperial about the upcoming show and soiree tomorrow Thursday at Smith Andersen, featuring seven tattoo artists and or Enrique Chagoya, and music by Akira Tana, and promised to get back to her with any appropriate information about memorials for Philip Kirkeby who passed away last week. I had invited Joe Oliveira to play the event and sit in with Akira Tana and he wrote back to see we would have to continue elsewhere and otherwise. Also, Akira had said I could invite my other Gunn classmate, Esther Berndt to sit in on sax, if I can get to it.

The Times had an ad from the Soros Foundation about their grants for new Americans and it made me think about my potential client, a Vietnamese student I met who wants to do a Frank Sinatra inspired session — mayben Soros could fund that. I recall tracking a former Stanford music student, getting a PhD in UCSD, who I found through that same source, the Soros awards.

While enjoying my cappuccino and the New York Times – something about Ai Weiwei, something French for THE PEOPLE BEFORE FINANCE, which I think would be a good slogan for our

http://www.amazon.com/Day-Nina-Simone-Stopped-Singing/dp/1558616837

Fete De La Musique event coming up in June, 2012, — I had made a mental note to buy the Times for myself or at least check it here at Palo Alto Main Library, I also make quick not-terribly disturbing calls to my neighbors, to: Mia Levin regarding meeting her to bush in SF Friday, and Jeff Adachi, and Peter Kirkeby the framer, Lisa Fay Beatty, because I had promised to co-produce her monologue about Nina Simone – I am prompted by the book I check out the night before, “the Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing” by Darina Al-Joundi, a memoir of a lapsed Muslim living in Beirut and her father’s preference for American soul over the Koran – I thought about calling Gina Ali or someone as talented about trying to adapt that to stage, my version of what became “The King’s Speech” – previously I had offered to coach an Iranian engineering grad student to adapt for stage a story she told me about Pink Floyd’s the Wall, coming to Another Planet Entertainment stage I see Jim Harrington trying to tell me in the Daily News today, as an aside, I had also tried to reach, based on an item by Sal Pizzaro in the Mercury, Abilities United about their upcoming event here, Fran Arrillaga, the Matteonis (I think family members of a former little league teammate, or

Okay, it’s 11:35 now and I will have to stop here, in 23 minutes so here is an outline of what I meant to continue to say:

Dr. Kathy Johnson of Home Care Associates, ran into on sidewalk

A limo driver taking two parking spots in front of Coupa, I shot two photos of, idling with engine on. (reminds that one of the articles in Times was about the fact that it takes 916 gallons of water to grow and make Levi’s jeans, and we should perhaps freeze them to kill germs rather than washing them so often). I think limo was waiting for a French dude on a dog and pony but carrying a plush cat — was it a Jim Davis license — but his website seemed to be an Owl — owlpixels? 4 million users, 20 partnerships in only 4 months, blah blah blaw, hoo? hoo? hoo?

Leaving downtown at around 10, to avoid the dreaded over-parking ticket, I pass two uniformed Fire brass crossing Bryant towards City Hall and flash my NO ON D signboard as they traverse me in the crosswalk. I shout to them once they have reached safety that I went to school with the daughter of the man who wrote the purportedly offending collective bargaining law and they give me thumbs up and say “Yes, we know Mr. Alan Davis. Thank for your support.” As always I thank them for their public service.

Karen Imperial and Doug — she agreed in principle to play Lytton Plaza someday — she owns a gallery , Bryant Street Gallery, but also sings and writes and plays gutiar and mandolin; she showed me performance at El Cerrito Folk festival. She played “don’t Walk Away, Rene” which made me think of Bethany — who plays “Send me Home, cindy” and all this lead to a firm enough for Plastic Alto offer that I will send in writing to Bethany — she called me an “impetus” and I said “I’ve been called verse”. for Bethany and Rufus to play Bryant Gallery as an anchor some time. She is in studio now and finishing up with the four-year-old. Which reminds me that Mia Levin, who I met at Terman, said she could not busk today because she wants to find a new school for her 7-year-old — although she said her 20-year-old was doing great – and I had the chance to verify that for myself a few months ago when I rang them and daughter was holding down the fort.

Also Karen’s assistant Jeanne brought in a nice piece depicting a honey bear bottle – for donation – and was also featured or her work was — candy — in the Merc recently regarding the donation to ICA.

Karen and Doug, who had just finished sweeping the floors and self-effacing, also do “Find My Way Home” by Steve Winwood and or Eric Clapton Blind Faith.

1o:50 or so: I pull over. leaving my engine idling, in front of 601 Melville and snap a photo, and read the plaque and notice the Halloween decorations but I hope my photo reminds me of Allen Ginsburg “Howl” and Moloch — Ginsburg’s epic poem –about his fear of a nuclear Cold War anhiliation, was partly inspired by hallucination that a giant building was actually a monster; see also the recent animated about the haunted house. I also note that the Rose House — discussion of whose glassworks reminds me to ring my Gunn classmates Phil and Roger Bibo of Franciscan Glass — I don’t stop, won’t stop – the brothers are willing to work it out, yo — is so near to Lucie Stern and such a grand scale that it might as well be part of the master-planned civic cultural nexus. See also 431 Kipling where Gertrude Stein’s sister or sister-in-law once hung the first great collection of Matisses. Can I end — it is now no longer morning, it is 12:15 p.m. even though by poetic license I am claining it is still 10;45 a.m. — by saying that Matisse was once young and well-hung in Palo Alto, as was Eugene Robinson of Oxbow, House of Faith and “Fight” fame?

DISCLOSURE: This could be called more log-rolling ala my Beth Custer piece above (“Brava for Beth Custer”, she is a client) in that Karen and I shook on me writing about her if she agrees to play Palo Alto; the potential actual Bethany Yarrow show is not related). What got me from Karen Imperial to Bethany Yarrow was the leap from Renee to “Get Along Cindy” which Bethany performs, and it is a John Lomax song-catch that may have originated in the Carolina’s. I was calling Bethany out of the blue — having met her in 2007 and having saved her number in my cell — on that flimsy basis of identifying the song or distinguishing the two songs – of Renee and Cindy — and it morphed, for better or for verse, bad for Karen and her post here, good if Bethany actually takes me up on my bona fide offer — but I am also indebted to Astra Taylor and Rebecca Solnit for the strolling non-meeting with the Mayor conceit and who knows who to thank — I was improvising, while Beth Custer chatted and played live for or with Anthony Bonet at KALX — for delivering me Sid Espinosa. I get the impression — although he surely does not relish it or twist it or spin it the way I do here, in my 180th post — that Sid is constantly multi-tasking if not juggling ten or more projects and important matters.

Note: in addition to the book about the Muslim party girl and Nina Simone, I grabbed from the display a coffee table book about designer Alex Steinweiss and his cover art. I especially was struck by Negro Folk Symphony of 1963. I only permitted myself to have this in my circulation for about 20 hours:

http://www.amazon.com/Alex-Steinweiss-Inventor-Modern-Album/dp/3836527715

Posted in art, ethniceities, jazz, la la, media, music, Plato's Republic, sex, sf moma | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Come to think of it

Posted on November 1, 2011 by markweiss86

Here are the elements of a collage I made for Nancy Grippo’s psychology class circa 1981:
-Picture of a guy and a gal riding in an orange dune buggy through some oak trees (or between them, rather;
-words: THE DARTMOUTH PLAN;
– a right-handed tennis player with blonde wavy hair on a clay court preparing to hit a backhand; Vitas Gerulatis, perhaps;
-word: PRIDE;

-word: Stones;
– black and white newspaper photograph of Lester Hayes of the Oakland Raiders, flashing a victory salute (peace sign); caption reads: “Cornerback Lester Hayes in a victory salute”; a headline, downstyle “Super Bowl” pasted next to
-word: CHAMPS!;
-an Oakland Raiders ticket stub, from Aug. 24, 1974 (i.e. seven years prior), row 19, seat 20, $7.50 reserved, game 3 (pre-season — when they played 14 games with 6 preseason rather than current 16 games, bye week and four preseason), versus Philadelphia Eagles;
-photo of dude on a powered surfcraft, in an ocean with surf;
-picture of a beautiful Sports Illustrated model, perhaps Paulina P, her more salient parts obscured by:
– photo of old green car, license WDL-8, like an old Rolls, circa 1920s — my Dad could probably identify the manufacture, model, maybe the year; green;
-fading Kodak paper photograph of the Roman Coliseum, that I took on a trip to Europe when I was 16, the summer I lost my virginity to a fellow Gunn student, maybe I took the shot that same day;
-word: Performance
-picture, from an advertisement, of I believe a member of Cheap Trick, Rick Nielsen? from Springfield, Illinois? I mean Rockford, natch.
-word: VETTES;
– photo of a new (1980 or so)Chevrolet Corvette, gray with red trim, B.F Goodrich Radial T/A tires, in limbo;
-picture, on newsprint or pulp paper, cropped tight, of Lampoon (Harvard, maybe National) “64 High School Yearbook Parody” showing literally a cheerleader who forgot her panties;
-picture of a sandy beach;
-words: Editorially speaking;
–very nice picture of Christie Brinkley?
-words: SCVAL crown (cut from Gunn Oracle);

– radio station sticker: for KOME, but with basketball (Voit) filling fairly neatly the O;

-words: ORACLE: Henry M. Gunn Senior High (mast head, or nameplate);

-an arrow, from KOME sticker pointing from “SCVAL crown” to:

– words: No. 1 CCS (we actually came in No. 2);

-a photograph from Sports Illustrates of two Oregon Ducks (42 and 3-something) colliding goofily with one UCLA Bruins (34 I want to say his name is David Meyers), while Oregon 30 looks on and two Bruins, including something-5 look on;

– picture of a very skinny Earvin “Magic” Johnson of Michagan State Spartans, driving in lane with ball in both hands, but cropped fairly neatly to nearly obliterate, as Magic did figuratively speaking innumerable times, the rest of the combatants;

-picture of a beer bottle from a leading European for export to U.S. made in Holland.

-words: FEEL PROUD.

Posted in media, music, sex, words | Tagged | 2 Comments

Jesus, Dartmouth and the Great Unwashed

Posted on November 1, 2011 by markweiss86

Reading the New York Times account of the Occupy Wall Street movement at a church in England, and the discussion of Jesus and usury, the money changers, made me think of my senior year at Dartmouth, 1985 fall, when anti-Apartheid (human rights) activist built a shanytown, to simulate the blight that marginalized poor in South Africa experienced, under a morally-corrupt (by our isolated, privileged Ivy League middle class American and Jewish standards, 12,000 miles away, or universal). But there and then, many people including myself, felt the protests had made their point and we started to find the spectacle an annoyance. I even went so far as to place a classified, unsigned, that said “Bulldoze now.”
And I think of all of these things, the values, the tactics, the media role, in context of my interest in Lytton Plaza here, in Palo Alto, and how I think I am speaking for the disenfranchised — though I rarely speak to these people, and they don’t necessarily ask me to get involved — although my former coach Bob Pritchett, a one-time Gunn Hall of Famer for football, now reduced to a wheelchair and bedridden most days, asked me for $20. Sue Webb called me when the police started changing their enforcements of noise ordinances, and we met with Councilmember Yiaway Yeh. I spoke at Parks and Rec commission meetig recently and tried unsuccessfully to send a follow-up letter to Council (it only went to certain council members and one staff member; I thought it would be forwarded as part of the official record).

Lytton is indirectly named for, or at least references Bulwer-Lytton, the writer, for among his coinings is the term “the great unwashed” ironically enough.

I will provide the link to the Times article inspiring and informing this, or as Richard Serra says “to fold, to crease” et cetera.

Matthew Wald wrote about Dartmouth shanty as did Buckley

edit to add, December 15, 2011: I posted on site of Palo Alto Weekly, about proposed changes to Cogswell Plaza, similar to Lytton Plaza in that it looks like developers are whispering into the ears of staff and commissioners:

Why don’t we wait until the giant new building at the corner of Bryant and Lytton is finished, and see if those new people — office workers, I presume — use the park and therefore make the homeless and at risk people less noticeable?

I am afraid this is the opposite — that the developers of the new property are asking us regular folks to subsidize them — to roust the alleged vagrants such that the prospective new tenants don’t see the great unwashed sleeping or smoking or what not across the street from their palacial new prospective digs.

I hope the commissioners poll some ordinary residents and not just listen to the developers. I hope staff — whose salaries we citizens pay — do likewise.

This is the same potential problem as Lytton Plaza where a small group of people have a disproportionate influence over what is supposed to be a public asset. For example, there is a proposed ordinance affecting “amplified music” per se which is really an anti-vagrancy act designed to give public safety rationale to hassle the people at the Plaza; this topic is now part of a sub-commission of the Rec commission. Existing noise ordinance is sufficient; the new ordinance may conflict with First Amendment rights.

I worry that this problem is endemic and epidemic, that developers have way too much say over policy in Palo Alto. That they pack council and staff and commissions with their operatives. It is hard if not impossible to get on a commission or council without kowtowing to this small group of powerful people, one of whose offices perhaps coincidentally is located across from Cogswell.

Cogswell Plaza is named for a longtime editor of the Palo Alto Times, which was kitty-corner to the park, replaced by realtors and vcs; the diminution of the press here — and nationwide — is a real problem, no disrespect to Gennady et al but they are not the Times Tribune. The real estate interests affect what is reported and how. More so at the other paper.

And further, the plans presented would make it impossible to bring back the Brown Bag; again, why not wait and see. Maybe the developers of the new massive building could underwrite the programming, which would bring people to the park and displace the ones who some find offensive-looking. $150,000 would underwrite about six seasons of Brown Bag.

As I was writing this I was somehow hearing JC Brooks version of Wilco’s “I am Trying to Break Your Heart” in my head, and started to paste that here –although I think I pasted it somewhere below and before — but then switched to a song and performance I don’t think I know, but it fits topically, Norah Jones (with Sasha Dobson????) doing a Wilco piece called “Jesus…”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments

New Careful videos including Elliott Smith cover

Posted on November 1, 2011 by markweiss86

Eric Lindley pka Careful is an emerging artist I met and keep tabs on. He has posted three new videos on the main site for that kind of stuff.

I would like to see Careful in the Bay Area some time soon. I once tried to break into Capitol Records in LA to give his previous cd to an A&R guy who had discovered Gnarls Barkley. I recall that there was flowers and candles that day near George Harrison’s Hollywood Star, a fact that helped said A&R guy distinguish me from being a crank call or complete out to lunch I couldn’t get into the lobby — not even by name-dropping the six or seven gold or platinum acts I had presented — and reached the dude by cold-calling his department, or more precisely called former extensions of his predecessors. He came out via the side door and gave me about 120 seconds of time to describe Eric Lindley pka Careful and what qualified me to schlep for him. It was definitely more Broadway Danny Rose than All The Kings Men.

edit to add, the new year, 2012: Here is humble video of Eric reading a short poem in New York:

Posted in la la, this blue marble, words | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Queen at Winterland

Posted on October 31, 2011 by markweiss86

My first concert experience was Queen at Winterland in San Francisco when I was in the 7th grade, a student at Terman Middle School in Palo Alto. I went with Andrew Zenoff, who hipped me to the group. Andrew later founded MyBreastFriend and DayOne although like myself he is a childless bachelor.

I remember we also snuck into the Clint Eastwood movie “The Gauntlet” and “Rocky Horror Picture Show” movie. I never would have imagined that 17 years later I would become a concert promoter, now with about 500 concerts of my own, as promoter or manager under my belt, a riff that would sustain and intrigue me for 17 more years so far. I also credit Mia Levin Simmons for inducing this labor of mostly love. Mia left Gunn High in 1981 to join Frightwig and then in 1991 or so she and her daughter Lalique literally ran into me — she was chasing her daughter — at BrainWash San Francisco. In October, 1994 I produced a Mudwimin show (Mia, Lisa Fay Beatty, Marie Riddle pka Bambi Nonymous and Sheri “Shug” Robinson) at Cubberley Center of Palo Alto, the first of about 150 shows I brought into the former high school campus 1994-2001. (Also, for instance, Penelope Houston, Dar Williams, The Donnas, Kristin Hersh, Rebecca Riots, Imogen Heap, Cheryl Wheeler, Stone Fox, Geraldine Fibbers, Beth Custer, Pee Chees, Rachel Z, Luciana Souza, Patricia Barber, Wendy Waller and some groups with men in them, like Pansy Division and The Negro Problem).

Zenoff and I also checked out a Day on the Green that I believe featured Foreigner, AC/DC, The Eagles and more.

At Dartmouth I recall driving down to Worcester to catch Elvis Costello. I set previously at Plastic Alto that myself and two friends went to a Grateful Dead show at The Greek in 1982, with Michael McFaul a Stanford freshman who later became a Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Ambassador to Russia. He is the son of a high school music teacher in Montana.

The most memorable or remarkable concert I ever saw might be Green Day playing the Cinder Block holiday party in 1998 or so. Billie Joe walked out on stage, started with the power chords from “Smoke on the Water” which he finished with an unusual riff, and then went into punk covers and some of his own songs. It took a while for me to realize what I was watching. My friend Tim Harris, a civilian but very musical — he went to the U.S. Festival — didn’t realize what that was until our way back to the car. I had shouted, over the din “THIS IS GREEN DAY!!” and he thought I was talking about the song, not the secret performance. The band never said “Hi, we are Green Day. We are playing this party because my wife works here. Please enjoy.” Based on that performance and Sapir Whorf, in my book it is not a “Green Day” concert unless there is an m.c. or someone who labels it as such.

I caught Dartmouth Aires doing a Queen medley on tv and it led me to this. I actually want to see a medley or mashup of Queen and “Dartmouth Undying” maybe through “Radio Gaga” (“dey oh”≥≥≥≥”days”) or “Somebody to Love”.

I also should pick up Queen at Wembly 1986 Freddie Mercury at height of his powers. Sasha Baron Cohen will play him in upcoming biopic.

In a related matter I notice that “The Rum Diary” a Johnny Depp film based on an Hunter S. Thompson story grossed $5 million at box office. I wrote about Thompson on my Dartmouth application. I said it was interesting the way he related to a variety of people from Hell’s Angels to Richard Nixon.

Wikipedia lists the bills for the Day of the Green shows, including the three or four that I caught.

I saw the first Bridge Concert (but none of the subsequent shows) with a clerk from Owl and Monkey. I saw the Amnesty Concert but walked out on Bruce Springsteen. I was there to see Tracy Chapman, and also recall how moving Peter Gabriel was, especially his apartheid suite.

Now I am just too jaded to be very impressed by much. I liked Wordless Abrazo the other night, at CoHo, with the epic World Series Game 6 playing without sound — blowing off the Dylan lecture next door.

The people whose styles and tastes and ears most influenced mine are Andy Dieden (especially “Ludwig Von Drake”), Andy Zenoff, Rob Lederer, David Hawkins, Eric Hanson, Danny Scher, Joe Paganelli, Mark Christman, Hans Wendl, Lee Townsend, Steve Lacy — he recommended Danilo Perez. Jenna Adler offered me a John Mayer show once.

A big gaffe was getting contacted by Dixie Chicks, listening to their cd with my stage manager but telling them it wasn’t worth opening the doors for them. Getting Ozomatli, I wrote somewhere, was due to Dana Beard describing a Chinese idiom I wrote as “Cheeto Molly” and pitched to American Sensei as a new name — they, or leaving members chose Oranger instead. The biggest gaffe that I wish I could have prevented (and thereby presented) was when Ian MacKaye called Cubberley to book his own show but they wouldn’t let him rent the hall. By the time I got word of it, the show was at the Edge.

The best show I wished I had booked or that inspired me is Ian Brennan doing Fugazi and Sleater-Kinney at Dolores Park.

Another big gaffe that I talk about now is Blind Boys of Alabama at Mitchell Park outdoors which was cancelled so that they could take a series of dates with Tom Petty. Danny Scher tried to intercede on our behalf with Chris Goldsmith — he had a flight log on his lap trying to route them seemingly two places at once. I used the money earmarked for that show via the sponsors hear music for Maria Muldaur and a Femi Kuti show (and did my first Henry Butler show around that time because he was suggested as a substitute and Danny liked him). I said recently to people that maybe Blind Boys could finally make good — ten years later, maybe at Martin Luther King Plaza in Palo Alto. I also used to joke that if they played Heritage Park (named for a housing complex i.e. it is an ad for the development) we could change that name as part of the deal to Fountain Park (for Clarence Fountain) — maybe we could do that for Lytton Plaza.

Wah hoo wah for the Dartmouth boys.

Posted in music, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Remi Benson serving our country

Posted on October 31, 2011 by markweiss86

Remi Benson from Alabama 1LT

I met Remi Benson at the airport in Birmingham, Alabama in 2002. I was on tour with blues pianist Henry Butler who was based in New Orleans. Henry did two nights in Huntsville and then I was flying home to SF. Actually, it was my first week on the job in that I had flown to New Orleans to interview, was hired on the spot and left to Huntsville by car the next morning with Henry and his assistant.

Remi was flying out for active duty. We spoke for a few minutes. I recall learning that she was a first generation Nigerian-American, ran track in high school there in Birmingham, and that her mother was soon to be celebrating a milestone birthday. We traded contact info and actually a letter or two, when she was doing training somewhere in New York State.

So it’s good to see her smiling face on “Jason’s” photo page. He describes her as “our physician’s assistant.” I do recall that she wanted to be a medic and was taking chemistry.

It is also true, as I said in a previous post, that when I heard Beth Custer’s song “Home” I was imagining it as an anti-war or “bring home the troops safely” and had a pet title for the song “Saving Remi Benson.”

God bless Remi and family and I hope she does get back to Alabama safely. Thank you, Remi, for your service to our country.

Pretty random coda but I still wear two t-shirts I bought on that trip. I had some cotton socks I bought at a gas station near the airport — I had packed for a weekend not going on the road with my client. I used to think of those socks as my “Alabama socks” and thought they had hermetic powers.

Posted in Plato's Republic, this blue marble, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Jim Newton is scary smart

Posted on October 30, 2011 by markweiss86

Jim Newton was one of the brightest people I knew at Dartmouth. I would say he was among the ten brightest fellow students with whom I had any significant interaction. In statistical terms I think it could be said he was three standard deviations smart compared to the student body as a whole.

So I am looking forward to reading his much-praised biography of the former U.S. president and war hero Dwight David Eisenhower. This one:

I also recall that he was fond of whiffle ball, and that he wore a little button on his lapel with Karl Marx on it but said that if  a jock (a standard deviation or two in the opposite side of the bell-shaped curve) asked him about it he would reply that it depicted Santa Claus.

According to the Amazon entry I link to, Jim Newton’s book is praised by Robert Woodward, Diane Feinstein, George Schultz and John Kerry.

Posted in brain, la la, Plato's Republic | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Three thousand words worth

Posted on October 30, 2011 by markweiss86

Here are three recent snapshots, which I hope to describe in considerably less than three thousand words. I chose them from a recent set somewhat arbitrarily and only now am figuring if and how they are related. The first features the World Series trophy, that was on display last month in the lobby of War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, in honor of the Giants winning the 2010 fall classic, and a simulcast of “Turandot” to fans at the ballpark. The second picture is of the organist at the Packard Foundation’s Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto; he plays standards and “As Time Goes By” between shows.  I slugged the third photo “AaronHomers” because I was watching baseball on tv when I captured the image. It promotes “The Simpsons”‘ Halloween special which airs tonight, making this entry somewhat timely. My tag references the baseball great Henry Aaron whose name is a homophone to Aron Ralston the man whose arm was pinned under a boulder famously, the basis of the movie “127 Hours” which “The Simpsons” are parodying. Not sure how it fits but Homer Simpson is actually a reference to Nathanael West’s “The Day of The Locust” about celebrity and modernity, and the rapacious nature of a crowd. I sent the trophy image to my cousin Ryan Moats who had attended in person the historic World Series Game 6 in which his beloved Cardinals baseball team staved off elimination, like Mr. Ralston. The Stanford Theatre will never show a James Franco movie in David Packard’s lifetime, but they did show Andy Griffith in Budd Schulberg’s “A Face in the Crowd” if that is an interesting comparison. Also, whenever I hear the music in there, in their Wurlitzer, I wonder how someone like John Medeski or Wayne Horvitz would fare giving the thing a soul workout — again, not likely to happen.

My title “Three thousand words worth” references the adage about the descriptive worth of a picture, plus, gratuitously, the romantic poet Wordsworth. All of these words– 515  and counting — are dedicated to my former The Dartmouth editor Jim Newton (a James Reston intern at The Times, the editorial page editor of Los Angeles Times) who I will see today at a soiree in Menlo Park in honor of his recently published biography of David Dwight Eisenhower.

My voice proclaims
How exquisitely the individual Mind
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less
Of the whole species) to the external World
Is fitted:–and how exquisitely, too,
Theme this but little heard of among Men,
The external World is fitted to the Mind.
 edit to add: I searched “word salad” and then read the wikipedia entry on thought disorder. I presume my habit of trying to write about several topics at once is more a matter of style or a commentary on the nature of the media and internet than any organic change in my brain. I am also perhaps too into David Shields “Reality Hunger” (which is actually about appropriation) and Errol Morris “Fast Cheap and Out of Control” (which is about robotics, mole rats, topiary gardening and lion taming). 

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Macroeconomics at Foothill with Brian Evans

Posted on October 29, 2011 by markweiss86

Professor Evans agrees that Stanford was correct the first time picking Paye over Harbaugh

I am learning macroeconomics at Foothill College with Brian Evans. One of the oddities about this is that Brian Evans was my classmate at Fremont Hills, Terman and Gunn schools.  We also played together, as teammates or friendly competitors numerous games of, in descending order of relevance, basketball, ping pong, baseball, football, poker, tennis and fantasy football. Like the recently deceased Michigan State football and Lite Beer by Miller star Smith, Evans’ nickname for much of the seventies was “Bubba”. To continue just barely a football thread, I recently unearthed photos of my Bar Mitzvah — these were from 1977 — that included him and, among others Greg Zlotnick, a former Little All America placekicker for Wesleyan and Chris Strausser, an offensive position coach for BCS-bound power Boise State. Brad Elman an eventual Gunn football stalwart was there; i think of him as someone who ran past my hip five or more times for long runs on a draw plays (I was a guard on running downs and reported eligible to receiver on passing downs, as weird as that sounds, junior high flag football we are talking now); and Tommy Mell, the star of my 6th grade intramural football team who was a CCS champ or finalist in 1982 in 100 yards.

The highlights of my football career were one, catching a fly pattern from Billy Parker in a 5th-6th p.e. class, fall of 1975, when I was a new kid at Fremont Hills, which earned me the shortlived nickname, given to me by Frank Kull, “Mr. Bomb” and two, although this is a kind of a lowlight, being thrown to, on the last play of the game, at the back of the endzone, a pass from Nick Sturiale, in 1978, the potential game winner, Terman versus Wilbur, foreshadowing Flutie to Brennan although I was ruled out of bounds. I still think about it wondering if instead of being surprised that I caught the pass, sliding, if I had jumped up and started celebrating could I have tricked the official into not noticing as certainly I had not noticed the barely marked endline. I actually mentioned this, 31 years later at a candidates debate, at that same JLS campus a propos of my abhorence of arbitrary power: what kind of official would negate a great throw and a great catch by two 14-year-olds — a game-winning play — over something like an unmarked endline no one would have been any wiser. No one but the official could see the thing or even knew it was there; in college women’s lacrosse, at least in the 1980s when I covered it for the Daily D, the ball was still in play as long as the defense continued its pursuit. Likewise boy do I hate for asethetic, philosophical and practical reasons, those football plays that distinguish NFL from NCAA rules, one foot versus two, et cetera: who wants to negate a great catch, by an inch or two, on a field that is tens of thousands of yards in area; an inch out is practically speaking still in. On the other hand, I think they should go back to the rugby rule and original intent of the football framers and not call touchdowns on any level unless the ball and runner actually touch down in end zone, like I did, that day that the also ran Palo Alto City Council candidate referenced years 31 years later, in 1978. Harbaugh sucks.

I hope I can fold this angst into my Harbaugh mononlogue which today was enhanced by a Mr. Bob Holmgren’s story about running into Coach Harbaugh on his way to Oregon State and Jim saying that their two boys should meet up there. Okay, point for Our Boy Jim. I also, to be fair, explained the Harbaugh-Chryst connection. But still the preponderance of evidence points to Our Boy Jim looking best with pie in face.

Brian Evans on the other hand is almost too good to be true, except his models of economics may be too simplistic and he dismisses Keynes as naive or what’s that word for people eventually proving you wrong, debunked?

Back to sports briefly, I recall that when my Dartmouth classmate Peter Gallenz asked my opinion, in 1989 or so about whether he should train for the Olympic Biathlon team versus going to grad school he said “That’s great you think I should train, since you are not an athlete” whereas my thought was “Hey, I’ve played numerous games of football, baseball and basketball so of course I am an athlete and not some puny cross country, track or Olympic biathlon plugger” Luckily I did not actually say that and Pete was not packing his rifle either.

I guess I should just be fortunate that having played even the tiniest bit of football that I did not suffer a head injury. Or not that I can recall.

edit to add, October 30: Keynes gets a reprieve in the form of the New York Times article about recent Nobel prize winner in economics arguing with being labeled “non-Keynesian.” It also suggests that if my use of term “intervene” a propos of city council with 456 University, I might have saved some time and gotten traction if I had suggested a “Keynsian” tack; Keynes is at times associated with intervention.

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Brava for Beth Custer

Posted on October 27, 2011 by markweiss86

Beth Custer, flanked by David James and the drummer

My friend and kinda-sorta client Beth Custer is headlining a gala event November 10 at Brava Theatre in San Francisco. That’s conflict enough — disclosing that I am writing about someone whom I also list as a client (although truth be told, I have never accepted a fee for helping Beth, and have hired her for my own schemes and gigs about a dozen times). I am actually, by a strange twist of fate, also her Grandmother, which gets confusing, especially around the Ides of March, so click to something else if this disturbs your journalism ethics or your gender identity construct–and I just re-viewed “His Girl Friday” the movie version of “The Front Page” to see how far we’ve come Virginia, baby. But Beth and I made a deal — not Mephistophelean but not Muffuka Fallay either —  that I would blog about her today if she indeed, besides her masterwork on clarinet, two types of clarinets generally — I think there are four overall — she leads a different band with upcoming dates called Clarinet Thing — with Sheldon Brown, Harvey Wainapple and Ben Goldberg — that, I am certain, has four types of clarinet, in different keys — she is going to give a special nod to “Plastic Alto” the world’s most underrated — and I actually today saw a flyer for “Undarated Pit Bulls — $500 each” and am not sure yet if that is a typo, or a spoonerism regarding “under-rated” and “under radar” — or a breed — and so I am now filing this under “words” — Beth has agreed to perfom at least one note, of her 45 minutes to an hour set — did I mention above that she plays clarinet, piano, sings, obviously she writes and runs a label — ? — of music or sound or something in between, like in the continuum hypothesis — let’s call it imaginary irrational music — jazz chords — on a plastic instrument or toy — probably not on Ornette’s favorite white or cream acrylic Grafton — probably more like a melodica– so we have this log-rolling deal, like in “Sweet Smell of Success”, a tit-for-tat if you prefer, or tweet-for-twat, Joseph Pulitzer would not approve — a deal has been made, in a back room, actually I was at the old Cubberley High School campus amphitheatre on a cellular magic telephone, and Beth was in Hawaii, on an island, before that she was on an aeroplane, thanks to a dude named Bernoulli, but also she was talking also about having done a soundtrack recently for a film about a guy named Passarelli or something, but not a  Chico Marx character, a gay murdered Italian filmmaker, someone is making a documentary about him; and I also got the idea and verbal permission to use “There it Was” by Beth and her friend Octavio Solis — because of the word “lip-locked” — I want to use that as the theme music for my football-homophobia riff, a new act of my own, working title “The Harbaugh Vagina Monologue” — in which if Harbaugh punches me in the face I will shut up and donate $10,000 to charity, like a gym, for poor Utes or something, in Utah or Montana, for Cree sakes — or if he instead emulates his former mentor Rabbi Jesus Christ and turns my cheeks and plants one lip to lip — “lip-locked” — but it’s only gay, as my trainer — I am actually training for this, to be punched, to take the punch — Eugene S. Robinson says, “it’s only gay if you make eye contact.” If Harbaugh, who I mock mercilessly, a real player hater move, not at all “d and d” as they say on the waterfront, — Zizek says that to mock is one of the most aggressive things you can do — Schulberg on the other hand said, not to me personally in our too brief literally an elevator ride mutually sniffing each others low tide, at the Hanover Inn, where sometimes the water does smell like smelt – that people who can write about injustice and music must they we MUST speak out. Anyhow I will edit to add with more about Beth and her upcoming shows. We are also working on a reprise of Drone N Bone, her project with Glenn Hartman, perhaps with a suite called “Sussman Can’t Sleep” — that might or might not have Yours Tlury reading excerpts from “A Serious Man” while Beth and Glenn re-arrange Jimi Hendrix “Machine Gun” — it’s an anti-war thing. Did I mention that “1776” now means not just the year our great county was founded but now also I’ve noticed, in the New York Times news feature and agate type the number of dead soldiers we’ve lost in Afghanistan: 1,776.

We are working, beyond Beth’s show November 10 at Brava, and my thing that includes Matt Gonzalez and we hope Jack Hirschman, for “Lami@50” — the 50th anniversary of the publication of the obscure Dartmouth Beat poems of Alden Van Buskirk — December 14 I think it is at Books and Bookshelves on Sanchez — David Highsmith’s place — and I have Akira Tana playing at Smith-Anderson on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011 at an art opening –for tattoo art. And Beth and I may do Beat Hotel Rm 32 Reads Howl at a private residence in Menlo Park — or Sacramento or both — and while here at Cubberley — I am at the library where I booked blink 182 and others years before –I was gonna hold Jan. 27 and Jan. 28 for Glenn and Beth, but meanwhile Shia Geminder added at least hypothetically to our mutual and respective workloads a possible soccer clinic with Andrew Jacobson and Mellachy — two Gunn classmates both in the MLS. Details, always the details. Mies Van Der rose and and all that. (worlds worst Gertrude Stein references, the and and all that).Words. did i mention i am also psyched on “Native American Heritage Celebration” at Foothill College, especially Friday Nov. 18 rock concert with Medicine Road — but can we also sell Pueblo Girls t-shirts, like maybe a dozen of them? What is the price break? Beth would be a good advisor to Pueblo Girls as well as for PMSTA, I meant to describe more fully. I am also hoping to advance notions/ideas/concepts with Fernanda Castelo –for a dance company –and maybe Sara Moussavian, from Gunn choir and was featured in the Weekly — she is in Brian Evans’ macroeconomics class at Foothill that I also attend; she wants to lobby for a Disabled Rights Day in Palo Alto and I want to at least introduce her to our mayor, Sid Espinosa. Also I ran into someone I had met at Peet’s on Uni Ave, Amoriah Hartley, studying to get her degree in social work, who may qualify for a public service requirement if she helps with one of these projects — I had a previous intern who used that experience in her Foothill College curriculum — and I was once a Nelson Rockefeller Center Policy Fellow to work for the Times Tribune. But enough about me; what does Beth Custer think about me?

Beth Custer Ensemble, Eda Maxym and The Imagination Club and Trio Garufa, part of Sally’s Music Series, Brava Theatre, 2781 24th Street San Francisco, Thursday, November 10, 2011. 8 p.m. Tickets, $15 advance, $20 door. Info: (415) 641-7657

edit to add: for a while my favorite scheme for one of the parallel universes would be to send radio copies of Beth Custer’s “Home” to public radio under the title “Saving Remi Benson” Benson being a young lady in Birmingham, Alabama (near where Candye Kane was pulled from a blues show for being gay) I met at the airport there while on tour with Henry Butler — Beth didn’t gig with Henry although her friend Amy Denio did, at Oakland 23, as did Etienne DeRocher at DuNord — or am I dreaming? — in 2002. Now I forget why I went back to this…..because Joe Sib just returned my call and gave me 11 minutes of spit (that means things people say) about my The Harbaugh-Vagina Monologues” and basically said keep the day job, watch the parking meters, do a few more gigs before you book studio time or release the live album. Joe Sib was an 8th grade flag football legend in South County (Santa Clara-San Jose, 408) and an early raising the alarums not about CTE but snap-ons (not strap-ons) versus velcro. But go see Beth, which means in Hebrew both house and home.

Posted in ethniceities, film, jazz, math, media, music, Plato's Republic, sex, sf moma, sports, words | Tagged | 10 Comments