Pan of “Pink”: or, my brother the asymptote

Posted on May 18, 2011 by markweiss86

What I’d rather read before Daniel Pink

Daniel H. Pink, “Drive: the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,”, 2009, Penguin, New York and London, took me about four months to open and amused me for about an hour. Two hours if you add this exercise. The book was a gift from my brother, for my birthday. Maybe it was his not so subtle way of telling me he thinks I am an under-achiever. Maybe he is projecting his own dissatisfaction as a Silicon Valley salaryman. (He seemed bent out of shape to hear and repeat the report of a high school classmate of his whom he was told pulled down $16 million on Wall Street one year; I in contrast thought about how to hit up said stud for a philanthropic project I was spear-heading; okay, I’m a little jealous too, and maybe constantly rationalizing).

Here are my notes on “Drive.” My list of somewhat promising (but ultimately disappointing, by a tally of 3 to 11 against) biographical citations in the index.

1. Peter Drucker, p. 197, something about “knowledge workers” and “self-management”; coincidentally, I met a guy recently who claimed albeit reluctantly to be Drucker’s son and had a keen interest in San Ildefonso pottery, circa 1910.

2. Julius Erving, p. 125. A quote in relation to Army studies on “grit” and persistence and discipline as predictors of success;

3. David Halberstam, especially “The Amateurs…” regarding 1984 Olympic rowers, training at Princeton; reminds me that my brother and I both read “The Shell Game” and that I was pleasantly surprised to learn that George Jenkins, brother of rock star Steve Jenkins, like myself and my brother all Gunn grads, has been coaching collegiate crew for many years, notably at USC, UC Davis, Kansas and Texas;

4. Brian Eno, p. 158, regarding “Oblique Strategies” and the set of 100 cards for such, that one can order from him, devised by Eno and Peter Schmidt, in 1975.  “Oblique strategies” is practically my middle name.

5. Robert B. Reich, p. 121 — actually three references, which I broke up into seperate entries rather than reading serially;

6. Fritz Scholder, p. 119, “walking the tightrope of accident and discipline.”

Scholder, “Zia” from El Paso show, circa 1976

7. Reich, p. 139, on “the pronoun test”: do people refer to their work and organization with “we” or “they”?

8. Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, pp. 36-37, refers to “Aunt Polly’s 810 square feet of fence” to whitewash: I was surprised by the quantitative detail. They, people like Pink I mean, refer to a Sawyer Effect of trying to turn work into play and vice versa.

9. Malcolm Gladwell, “Outliers…”; p. 190. Have not read but feel I have, by osmosis.

10. Reich, pp. 166-167, pronoun test again. (I struck through in my original notes.

11. Mark Twain, p. 211, more on Sawyer Effect.

12. Paul Cezanne, pp. 126-127: did his best paintings late in life; cf. a David Galenson, economist, University of Chicago (my Dad’s alma mater, BTW, and that of my Pop-Pop and namesake) studies the careers of artists; I recall another cite I am meaning to track down of a Princeton prof mentioned or quoted in New York Times — finally something I may be able to use, in comparing actual social scientists’ work, albeit from the Ivory Tower, to my own observations about the careers and satisfaction of artists. This section made me think of Steve Lacy, for his continual adaptation and growth over a long music career.

13. it takes a certain amount of discipline to learn to spell Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, severally, especially re “Flow” pp., 186-187; I wrote “stretched to limits” as in an important part of the process.

I also, diverting from my plan, noted Peter Senge, p. 194 quote “approached life as an artist would approach a work of art” and the phrase “take a Sagmeister” refering to the practice of taking five sabbaticals mid-career instead of retiring at an early age. I have taken about twenty Sagmeisters in a row at this point, thank you.

Pink’s main conceit is something about “Type I” personalities (for “intrinsic motivation”, versus “Type X” for “external” — it all sounds too much like Binet — I wish he had looked into Alecia Moore, Dr. Dre and Linda Perry, really).

Speaking of math (Pink, me) he reminds us that an asymptote is something we don’t quite reach, like a limit, but in his case he means that some people continually strive for improvement as opposed to resting on laurels or plateuing or reaching their goals. In the case of my brother, it also makes me think about how he does not like to hug anybody.

Now I also wonder if he paid $26.95 for this book, or got it cheaper. If he had waited until today (or until reaching the asymptote, even better), he could get it at leading online bookseller in paper (since April) for less than ten bucks. I note that 200 people have reviewed it there; and that RSA has a video derivative seen by 5 million people and commented on 3,500 times. Actually, not sure I had heard of RSA until just now. But willing to plug it probationarily.

It would probably take me more than 20 hours to actually read this more closely, but I would rather put the energy into the other 100 or so titles I’ve procured lately including (and these are the ones piled above) Al Young, “Kind of Blue”;  William Davidow, “Overconnected”; Tim O’Brien, “Things They Carried”; Louise Erdrich, “Books and Islands”, a work of non-fiction; a biography of Martin Luther King I found in window of Red Hill Books in SF by M. Frady; Ray Bradbury collection of stories lent me by my sister’s boyfriend called (the book, not the friend) “Cat’s Pajamas”; Rebecca Solnit “Infinite City”; Sun Ra “Pathways..” edited by John Corbett; Elif Batuman, “Possessed…” (actually, I will have to return and ETA the full title especially since when I found this book and author, thanks to a review in the Stanford Daily, drifting like a tumbleweed across campus, the title was mis-spelled, or miss-edited — it was spell-checked wrongly); Patty Smith, “Just Friends” — which reminds me that I grabbed a pretty mediocre or perhaps laughably bad Taj Mahal cd from the library, on Grammavision from 1986 solely on the basis of the Mapplethorpe cover art — too much trendy at the time synth; William T. Vollman, “Ice Shirt”, for my ongoing dialogue with the local Nordic couple; Wes Stace, “By George” and “Charles Jessman Considered as A Murderer”; and lastly, here at least, (and on my way to stall my coughing by heading to the bubbler here at Palo Alto Library, and it’s two-hours of free computing time, I snagged David Byrne “Bicycle Diaries”) “No Exit” by Sartre, but I am afraid it is not the Paul Bowles translation I saw reference to.

Not necessarily as a Nick Hornby reference but I buy maybe 50 books a year and read a couple hours worth from each rather than doing fewer books cover-to-cover. I go through phases at the library where I grab something that is on display or a new arrival, check it out, maybe flip through it or sit with it for an hour, keep it until it is overdue, then reluctantly feed it back to the machine — I am happy with the fines.

The W.H. Auden quote was worth spending another half-minute on.  “how beautiful it is/ that eye-on-the-object look” from “Sext”, 1955/

I am worse with my music in-box. Three songs, first 90 seconds each, then on to the next.

edit to add, three years later: have not cracked the book, by Daniel Pink, but I got admitted to a private function at, at all places, Palantir, who I call “Palo Alto’s hipster spooks”, and advancing that, found this photo of Pink, who gave a lecture to them:

pink at palantir

pink at palantir

I could probably update this with ideas about the various books I have presumably, made progress with. In terms of my technique or bad habit of making everything a “shaggy dog” story, Webster’s tells me this practice, or term, started in about 1946 although another source said to check Mark Twain, not TS, but “Roughing It” for earlier examples of the genre.  I know I read RI as undergrad and not sure if I still have the actual text. But a writer who wants to “drive” to improve his or herself, or her craft, might want to read and re-read Twain. My prof, James Melville Cox, suggested underlining the parts that make you laugh.

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JC Brooks is Passing Strange

Posted on May 18, 2011 by markweiss86

Bailiwick Theater in Chicago presents “Passing Strange” starring JC Brooks of JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound as the Narrator (Stew’s role). Hedy Weiss, no relation, but I did leave her a voice mail regarding Dao Strom at Uncommon Ground when I was last in the Windy City, gives it props.

Just ask the song, dudes.

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Thurston Moore and Alden Van Buskirk

Posted on May 18, 2011 by markweiss86

This photo of Alden Van Buskirk was forwarded by his champion Bob Rosen of Woodstock, New York.

I listened to one song, thanks to NPR, of the new Thurston Moore session, “Blood Never Lies” and immediately posted here to pronounce that it could be used in Bob Rosen’s proposed movie about the poet Alden Van Buskirk, who died of a rare blood disease.

edit to add, September 3, 2011: I am working on an event to honor the 50th anniversary of “Lami” which includes a section called “Oakland, 1961” that is, fifty years gone. I have verbal commitments from Matt Gonzalez, who first hipped me to Van, and Jack Hirschman, who taught at Dartmouth when Van was there and we believe was also in part his teacher. I was standing in David Highsmith’s San Francisco/Castro store gallery and archives when I reached Hirschman, whose number Matt had given up a few months prior, but never worked before. Part of this story is that when David Hess and I had lunch at “Just For You” in Dogpatch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti happened to be seated at our table. When I asked the poet if he had ever lectured at Dartmouth, he said he had not been there since 1962 or so when he went to visit Hirschman. Later, when I related this story to Matt, at Smith-Andersen, Matt mentioned Van. I also asked Jack if I could interview him for the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and he at first said he was not interested. But when I put it in context of having also written about Don Cherry’s spell there, he capitulated. He said we could “yammer”. But he is traveling to Europe I think until Oct. 20 so both projects are put off until then.

Thurston Moore is appearing at HSB and Big Sur at the end of September so maybe that augers well for some of these projects, “Lami” and “The Last Picture Waltz” initiative — can you picture Thurston busking at The Varsity???

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Wesley’s new bag

Posted on May 17, 2011 by markweiss86

Wesley Stace, pka John Wesley Harding, read and sang and played guitar at Public Works in SF as part of Noise Pop recently, and I caught him there, and spoke to him briefly. I also shot my typically underachieving cellphonephoto portraits of him on stage (below).

John Wesley Harding and or Wesley Stace at Noise Pop 2011

Here, above, Eugene Mirman, the comedian, who does a voice for “Bob’s Burgers” (but alas, not for my hypothetical collaboration with Jen Dziura, a spoof on Zimbardo, using hamburgers as the maguffin) talks with Wes about his new novel, “Charles Jessold C0nsidered as A Murderer”.

And speaking of jingle-jangling my synapses this morning, I need to tell you dear readers that I also caught Princeton Professor Sean Wilentz at Stanford last week, talking about political post-partisanship, U.S. Grant and Andrew Jackson, but I did not have the nerve to corner him to talk about Bob Dylan, Dao Strom, my former client who views the Vietnam Era through her prism as a refugee and immigrant, and now novelist, songwriter and mom, “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson“, Christian Kiefer’s “Of Great and Mortal Men” or Alden Van Buskirk as I had been imagining. As a consolation I met History Professor Jim Campbell at the bike racks and gave him my spiel. He compared the info I gave him to “inside Baseball” I guess meaning arcane but perhaps of use to the obsessive.

Here is a link to Christian Kiefer’s project. (He and two partners wrote 43 songs about the U.S. Presidential succession, then got a bunch of special guests to record the songs with them, and played a few shows, and were brought to my attention apropos of my Stegner Tribute project, by Laura Thomas).

Certainly Wilentz and Stace deserve their own posts, and are perhaps only linked via my proprietary (meaning unique) plastic logic.

St Ace in read mode

Click this button and you too can have your own copy of “Bob Dylan in America” Mr. Wilentz’s 2010 biography of the guy we Jews think of as Robert Zimmerman from shul. (And I did actually meet a guy at my cousin’s wedding who knew him that way).

I think he reminds more of Elvis Costello but here is John Wesley Harding’s perhaps quintessential session, “Confessions of St. Ace”, from 2000, you can buy here (not sure, actually, how to punctuate that title):

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Fret de la musique

Posted on May 10, 2011 by markweiss86

Copyright Act of 1976 permits this transformative use of the Robert Johnson photograph, despite what bureaucrats and cowards say.

This is the poster art that Diana Hartman created for the first Palo Alto Fete de la Musique in 2009 but that the committee refused to print. Although a lot of good came out of my involvement, as a member of the founding committee that year, overall I have a bitter taste in my mouth, and have not worked on the two successive events, 2010 or the upcoming event, Sunday, June 19, 2011 .

I got involved with the event originally at the suggestion of Peter Drekmeier. I knew Peter from my days at Bay Area Action, where he was a director and I was a volunteer on an Earth Day event, in 1993. BAA used to feature a lot of music at events, and in fact the first Earthwise concert at Cubberley was co-sponsored by BAA, who received a share of the modest gross.

One of my first ideas for “Palo Alto World Music Day” was to invite Rupa and The April Fishes, and I confirmed their availability with their agent. Bandleader Rupa Marya is a Castilleja graduate but has never had a show in Palo Alto per se. But the format was to have only unpaid performers, which I thought was ill-conceived considering the valuable imprimatur the City was lending to the event, and the staff time, including a set aside by council decree for extra police hours. In contrast, I suggested we look for a sponsor for the proposed show, perhaps at Mitchell Park Bowl, that Rupa was holding the date for. Although I recruited some musicians for the first event, and even performed myself, as Beat Hotel Rm. 32 (an Allen Ginsberg “Howl” tribute, with my fellow Gunn grad Steve Rothblatt on drums), most of my suggestions fell on deaf ears. Worse, it seemed to me the poster idea (it was more than an idea — it was film-ready and the money for printing was set aside by Drekmeier our mayor) was killed purely because of a power struggle between myself and the event’s founder.  (He claimed he was worried about being sued for copyright infringement based on the poster depicting Robert Johnson; I claimed it was Fair Use; we both protested too much, methinks).

Further and perhaps more relevently, I continue to fret about the use of the term “world music” in the name of the event, since it does not intend to recruit (or pay for) international music. (I, in contrast, truly thought initially that that was the point of the event, that Council was honoring “world music” and not merely agreeing to put on a “Fete De La Musique;” among my suggestions was to bring in Neighbors Abroad, our Sister Cities group, and have music representative of those affiliated countries, like Mexico Japan and the Phillipines). But no, in Palo Alto “world music day” means “world-wide,” or that we, like farflung others,  are following the lead of something happening in France.

For a while I was forwarding said-music-czar links to world music events in other other parts, like the New York globalFest and Michael Orlove’s Chicago series, hoping he’d take my hint, but to no end. Granted there is no unanimity about what makes “world music.” Even David Byrne, founder of Luaka Bop Records, has his quibbles. Here is a link to David Byrne’s essay on world music, called “Why I Hate World Music”, from 1998. Don’t be confused, however. David Byrne loves the music of Brazil, Spanish-speaking countries, and out of Africa, surely. He doesn’t like the overly-broad term “world music” as it applies too often in the the market. I think he would agree with me that in the case of our upcoming event the use of the term “world music” is ludicrous, asinine and disingenuous — he would surely hate it. Since our local event is splitting from most other “Fete De La Musique” which take place on Solstice i.e. to take full advantage of the long daylight hours, and sticking to Sunday, Father’s Day, like in 2009,  — maybe they should call it Palo Alto Father’s Day Unpaid Musicians Day, which would be more honest, and unique.

Actually, the more I think about it, I realize that the great Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is taking place the same time as our little affair.  So I hereby declare June 19 the “Earthwise World Music Day in Boonville, California near Mendocino and Clear Lake” and suggest that all music-loving, open-minded and limber-hipped people boogie on up to the North Coast and check out Ozomatli (who played here in Palo Alto, at Cubberley, in 1998), Vusi Mahlasela (and on the previous day, Saturday, you can check out Thomas Mapfumo and Rupa Marya, among many others; it’s a camping thing more than a day trip). More than ten thousand people on that ubiquitous social media format “like” this event, which is worth the three hours drive (153 miles, according to that other ubiquitous site) if you like music from around the world, like reggae. But having done shows locally with Ozomatli and Femi Kuti, I think this “Palo Alto World Music Day” is a huge missed opportunity. For a taste of what I’m talking about, and the type of thing that motivates me,  here, as suggested by Warren Smith’s festival site, is a taste of Vusi:

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Why John Mickelthwait has 1.4 millions readers and I have 1.4 hundred

Posted on May 7, 2011 by markweiss86

John Mickelthwait posing for Stanford University photographer, May, 2011.

The editor of The Economist John Mickelthwait spoke at Stanford and here are my notes:

Five things.

Sitting in bed 1913 ordering tea, John Maynard Keynes.

Paranoid optimist.

Compare number of people who have moved from rural to city in China since 1998 to the number of people who traveled from Europe to U.S.

China is brittle.

The Stanford Daily had a coverage that seemed consistent with mine and noticibly better. Meanwhile I am occassionally confering with my former high school basketball teammate Brian K. Evans, who now teaches economics at Foothill College. I told him I had bought Stiglitz and he suggested that I read people I am not pre-sold on.

I remember Fuchs and Arrow as names associated with our basketball team. Ken Fuchs was a senior when I was a freshman. Andy “Spud” Arrow was a manager of the team, the year behind me. John Taylor, years later, handed out flyers for my shows, at Gunn and managed a local rock band of his classmates, I booked, called Wikkit. I read somewhere that Amaryya Sen has a son in the music biz, a dj.

Edit to add, October 20, 2011: I am taking a microeconomics course at Foothill College with instructor Brian Evans. He recommends using a web site maintained by a professor Reff. I have a quiz tomorrow which will consist of drawing a lot of diagrams of supply and demand, as they are affected by various other inputs.

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Myself when I am Patch

Posted on May 6, 2011 by markweiss86

Mark Weiss rolling self-portrait

I have submitted two whole cloth blog posts to Patch, which is an AOL America On Line project which comprises about 900 bureaus across the U.S. that use a combination of staffed reports and community contributions (I fall into the second category; I am submitting content for free).

I took this photo, a self-portrait, while biking toward Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park, along the Palo Alto Avenue creekside.

Not sure if I will continue to contribute content to Patch, or how to balance adding info and energy to this relative to that. Or, further, how to balance writing about arts, technology, culture and Ornette with actually working with artists, art and life. Or, reading. Or exercise. It is true, at the very least, that my first two Patch contributions, essentially homages to Bill Cunningham, forced me by concept to interact with people I was photographing.

Myself when I am Patch, the phrase, references Charles Mingus saying “myself when I am real” which I think means when he is engaged in something hyper-real, like making music. When I am “patch” in contrast feels somewhat less satisfying.

edit to add, May 9: I was pleased to see a story, dateline Palo Alto in my bible The New York Times, about Tim Armstong, AOL and Patch. But I am a still a little confused on how to differentiate him from Tim L. Armstrong, the lead singer of the rock band Rancid. The boy’s a(ol) time-bomb!

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Dao, digressions, dreaming and diaspora

Posted on May 4, 2011 by markweiss86

Darcy was, it had been said before, a bit of a dreamer. Yet, her love for the cracked trembling voices of singers like Ralph Stanley and Hazel Dickens was true and heartfelt. She had recently uncovered what she believed was a significant understanding of the frequencies created by the stringed instruments and high careening vocal harmonies of old American music. They were tremulous, ethereal. But Darcy was not comfortable using the words “musician” or “writer” to describe herself, for she believed to label would be to defile.  (from “The Gentle Order…” by DS, 2006, Counterpoint Press)

Dao Strom reports from Portland that she was in the studio with Hershel Yatovitz, from Palo Alto, whose main gig has been as the lead guitarist in the Chris Isaak band. Hershel who at age age 12 jumped on stage to play “Johnny B. Goode” at my Bar Mitzvah at Beth Am, and I have the photos to prove it, beyond my memory.

Dao and Hersh were re-working her Wallace Stegner tribute, “Two Rivers.” That song is based on the 1942 Stegner short story of the same name, that was later incorporated into his novel “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” but as an original transformative piece of music is uniquely informed by her own experiences as a parent, and also by her experience as a refugee and immigrant and U.S. citizen from Vietnam. The short story is about a boy on a car trip with his parents remembering an earlier trip to a river (or does he sometimes make things up, or see them through a prism, or just “trip”?).

As Marshall McLuhan said, you cannot step into the same river twice. No, that was Myra Melford; McLuhan said you can’t step in the same river period.

I told Dao that I had mentioned her to my neighbor Marjorie Ford, a writing instructor at Stanford (and also the mother of musician Maya Ford, of The Donnas). I saw Marjorie and her class at the recent on-campus reading by Tim O’Brien, the Vietnam vet. I am hoping (and hypotheticalizing, imagining, –I used a word previously here called “mean-wiling” — I do a lot of that, all four actually, but mostly imagining; I am an Aquarius, a Dreamer) that Marjorie Ford would take an interest in Dao’s writing. Dao is a Michener Fellow, an Iowa Writers Workshop MFA grad, and the author of two published fiction books, with a third in the oven, so to speak. I think Marjorie could invite Dao to speak to her class and then Dao could use that opportunity as an anchor. She might also be able to perform, with administrative help from someone like me, at the CoHo or some suitably nearby music venue like Dana Street Roasting in Mountain View or  Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park. (Funny and sad that I think of places in these nearby towns but nothing here in Palo Alto proper).

Full disclosure I was Dao’s manager for 18 months. But now we are just friends, or she is a type of muse and inspiration to me. For example, this is the 105th post for this blog. Further I think about sometimes how I would love to get her to write for “Plastic Alto” some day, even anonymously (but not pseudo-guesting, like when I copied Robbie Fulks’ post from his own blog and pasted it onto mine. And not ethically stealing like when I pasted Mollie Tanenbaum’s preview of my 2005 concert with “The Evens” here because I felt it was not archived properly and because I was a source — Aaron Selverston of Patch chided me about this. “Fair Use” and “copyright trolling” perhaps could appear here separately some day soon).

I forgot to mention to Dao that I saw Robbie recently, at his soundcheck at Freight and Salvage. I could not attend his show (it was the same night as Rob Syrett’s opening at Public Works) but made arrangements to visit Steve Baker of Freight and Salvage that afternoon, watch Robbie’s sound check

Fulks and Gjersoe, soundchecking

, and visit with him briefly. I had offered to buy Fulks dinner but politiely he said he generally eats several hours before a show, and not any closer to the show, and preferred to spend the time practicing.

Dao and I met Robbie Fulks (and Robbie Gjersoe, his sideman) when we asked to open for him in 2009 at a public radio show in Springfield, IL. (We were on tour through Chicago).

Dao is revising the text to what she sees as a chapbook (hand-made, small edition) companion piece to a song of hers marketed as a cd or cdr single called “Origin Tale” which is about the history of Vietnam from its mythical beginnings (as opposed to what I called “hypothetical” above) to its recent history, and the Diaspora (the dispersal of millions of Vietnamese to Europe, The Americas, and all over).

I forgot to mention the passing of Hazel Dickens but we did discuss Hershel’s brother Seth.

Here is a video of Dao Strom singing “Caller of Spirit”:

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(good luck) finding jupiter at coho thursday

Posted on May 3, 2011 by markweiss86

http://www.youtube.com/FindingJupiterMusic#p/u/5/_ka0Sx58I2I

I just found out that the local band whose show I was plugging at Stanford Thursday had to postpone. So I have updated quite neatly my previous post’s headline to say “good luck” if you are trying to find the band Thursday (as in you are s.o.l) but also “good luck” to them generally (which also reminds me of the MTV film from a couple years ago that used Bonfire Madigan music “Better Luck Tomorrow“).

So until they re-schedule here is another video from Stanford’s one and only incomparable Finding Jupiter (although I am still wondering about Stanford Ska Project, I saw a flyer for, then I think the spearhead went to Japan or China to study — which reminds me of the time Kemuri the Japanese ska band on Roadrunner came thru town…I think both projects, Finding Jupiter and Stanford Ska Project, have links to LSJUMP)

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Larry “New Blood…New Ideas” Klein

Posted on May 2, 2011 by markweiss86

Speaking to his motion for council to re-appoint three long termed incumbants without further interviews, Larry Klein said "Incubants have served long tenures but I do like the idea of turnover and different views from time to time...I think we need to find some way to get some new blood from time to time."

Stop the presses! Or stop, using the DVR pause button, your telecast of City Council and run to your computer and post a picture of Larry Klein, a propos of the incumbent candidacies of three Historic Resources Board commissioners, at 8:38 p.m., on Monday, May 2, 2011, because I thought, and you can check the record, that he said the words or phrases or short syllables of meaning “new blood…new ideas.” Whoa. I mean, Wow! Or “PA!!!”

Or as another Larry (Fine, or was it Curley or Moe Howard?) would say: Hey, I resemble that remark!!!

Even Gennady Sheyner of the Weekly stated, in the nicest possible way, that Larry Klein has been in our government “a long, long time.” Maybe I should not be surprised that Mayor Klein (once you are  Mayor you are always Mayor) thinks like this, or knows to say it once in a while, for he is a Cornell grad with a Harvard J.D., and a former Army captain. Or maybe I was just excited because a minute before that Council member Gregory Schmid was quoting “Democracy in America“ by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Or maybe “new blood” is Larry’s way of admitting that he is actually an Anne Rice character.

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