Phil Helmuth of Palo Alto made seven final tables at the recent World Series of Poker. He won his 16th bracelet, the world record, and left with more than a million dollar’s haul. Overall more than 10,000 players competed in 88 separate events. There were close to 1,000 dealers enlisted for the gala.
Gunn graduates Steve and Eric Cohen worked as dealers for the Las Vegas event, logging nearly 50 days. “I counted 125 players who I recognize or follow” said Steve Cohen, also nearly famous for being in season one of Ally McBeal as a “Dancing Twin”.
One person at his table Maria Konokova author of “The Biggest Bluff”, a Columbia grad who studied psychology with Walter Mischel, whose daugther Rebecca was Steve’s (and my) classmate.
Apropos of the recent discussion of building a public sector gym in Palo Alto, I want to suggest a related but much cheaper idea, to rename the gym at Cubberley “Presley Pavillion at Cubberley Center”. Bud Presley was a Cubberley coach and later was successful at Menlo College. He preached a tough type of defense, including a drill wherein players practiced running over each other. My coach, Hans Delannoy, Cubberley ’70, won two titles at Gunn. (And later inducted into San Ramon of Danville, CA Hall of Fame). See bio below.
Elvis Presley of course famous musician. And the Pavillion in recent years is used for dancing. Swing, but Elvis sort of swings. At least between belly button and knees, as Ed Sullivan ironically made immortal. Five for fighting, six for lovin’ as we used to say. Leave it ambiguous which Presley takes charge or the charge here. Whole lotta South Palo Alto shakin’ going on. Mark Weiss
music and hoops guy — I was made to chime in here. Or woof like Payton, tired of waitin’, feel me?
in Palo Alto
Can we push Paly to let citizens use their gym more often? Also, Gunn has a new gym. Also Pinewood Private School has a gym, in nearby LAH but the land is actually owned by PAUSD. My idea might create interest in using the gyms at Cubberley. Let’s rename the other gym. There are two. I voted recently at the other gym. Clayborne Carson Gym? Also: somewhat related: I wore a Lew Welch shirt at my interview for Parks. Lew was a track champion at Paly before becoming famous Beat poet — and Huey Lewis’s father. Last: future and past mayor Burt knows that Los Altos High field is named Burt for his father, so this hits him different, I’m sure. Let’s discus, I mean discuss.
The Bud Presley Classic was created to honor the legacy of one of the greatest head coaches to ever roam the sidelines at Menlo College. During his 12-year tenure as head coach, Presley won 266 games and led Menlo to five consecutive Coast Conference championships. Bud Presley came to Menlo College in 1971 and took over a program that had won just 11 games in the previous four seasons. His first season with Menlo, the Oaks posted a 23-3 record and a conference championship and the legacy of Bud Presley had its foundation.
In twelve seasons at the helm from 1971-82, Presley guided Menlo to an overall record of 266 wins to just 88 losses. Presley-coached teams garnered five Coast Conference championships, three state runner-up finishes and one California Community College State Championship (1973-74).Presley’s coaching career included successful stints at Cubberly High School in Palo Alto, Santa Ana Community College, Gonzaga University and finally as an assistant at University of Las Vegas under Jerry Tarkanian.
Leslie Caron is Gigi, in 1958 thank heaven for little girls
There’s a group of four scholars here at the Cafe on Middlefield, one of whom has two books cracke (open) simultaneously; they are reading “Gigi” in the original — talk about cognate — and are charmingly subtle counter-revolutionaries. The woman at the counter, Tata, speaks un poo de Frenchy but cops to Persian or Farsi. I claim to be less funny in Farsi. I’ve annoyed them enough but I want to plus a cafe here in town also called Colette. We speak of a “gig economy” but I will woodshed a minute then report back about calls for a “Gigi economy”.
I carry about 10 things, in the Tim O’Brien sense. I have two hours or so until the chanukah chimes on my smart phone remind me where my buttered bread re-sides.
Earlier today I met a med student and her kid sister from Florida and Philadelphia. They had a VZ breakfast but I suggested that if she really wants lox and bagel there is a counter two blocks from her, though now 4 miles from me.
My wife took my bookbag that was loosely related to The Beats, or the SF poetry revolution that started around 1956 and is still not completely ka=put. I am wearing a howl cap. A cute soccer mom just made eye contact, entering. Ah, the stuff of dreams and revolution. Try the April Fish, its here early. My pineapple fruit salad is sufficiently rupa.
bw Still in reverie over the Jerry Jemmott show at The Bottom of The Hill. Spoke to Jerry earlier this a.m. Also: Gaye Adegbalola, just back from Denmark, Nancy Wright by text, Bob Margolin, Annie Hart, Aisha Ayers, back home to Denver, I was led to believe. Jimmy Pugh, Charles Rumback. My own romper room.
Keira Knightley is Colette
If you are playing along at home you might appreciate to learn that Colette shares a birthday with Mikail Baryshkikov or something the dancer, Alan Alda, Jackson Pollock and Claes Oldenberg. Also, there are Libras out there like Eden Ariel the Columbia Barnard bard and Diunna Greenleaf, two days apart. When I was in St. Paul at the St. Paul Hotel I happened to recognize Alan Alda coming out to a cab and yelled “Hey, Alan Alda you happen to share a birthday with Colette! and he said back “Good for her. Good for us.”
What I am actually carrying right here right now, what Jerry Jemmott would call inchinen the Buddhist word for right here right now:
Nirvana, special issue of Rolling Stone from 2019 and I am looking at their song “Pennyroyal Tea” apropos of an event concept;
NYT, from Sunday, November 28, which seems like just yesterday;
Chronicle, same date; same condition;
ibid, Thursday, November 25, 2021 for those wanting to take a deep dive into November, 2021;
USA Today, November 24-25, guaranteed to keep your fish fresh twice as long as other papers;
A Book of Days For The Literary Year (Thames and Hudson, 1984) – -I consider this a reference, but my wife refiles it or reshelves it as a normal book; she also through nine important books into recycling, or so I fear. That after flipping the light switch off twice as a I was pulling volumes, to save energy but not the marriage; 6.a I quoteth: 1814 Stendal’s first book is published, containing plagiarized biographies of Mozart and Haydn; 1973 Colette one L two T’s aka Sidonie-Gabrielle-Claudine Colette one L two T’s but friends call her “Gigi” is born in the village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. She will begin her career by ghostwriting stories for her author-husband “Willy” who locks her into a room until she finishes each assignment. 1939 William Butler Yeats dies at Roquebrune in France, aged 73. His gravestone in Ireland bears the epitaph he composed himself: Cast a cold eye/On life, on death./ Horseman, Pass by”. Whereas the aforementioned but relatively obscure yet still living Eden Ariel shares a date with Damon Runyan who wrote “Guys and Dolls” known as the Broadway Boswell” though some thing that is only in Kansas.
Miscellaneous correspondence from Bread and Roses by Heidi James
(Maya still lives in Palo Alto; I met her when she was 15. She was always the most inscrutable of The Donnas; then I learned that, like myself, she was Jewish and that explained a lot of the weirdness. She sent me this link, from Alternative Press. It also lauds groups like Fugazi, Toilet Boys and Alkaline Trio, that jumped from Asian Man. Maya is mostly retired from music to focus on finishing her art school credential, yet when I asked her to stash a guitar to keep my wife from finding out that I spent good money on something, Maya said she wanted to keep it. So who knows. She’s an American band, dudes and dudettes. It was Kid Andersen’s guitar, but I bought it for Laura Chavez, who I met at Foothill; if i was an early fan of Alison, Maya or Laura, I admit I didn’t join the Molly Tuttle bandwagon until summer, 2019 [update: Gretchen Menn; today, April ‘22, I read something about a Palo Altan female composer winning a Guggenheim).
(I also bought an album about Kim Fowley yesterday up in the City, at Tunnel Records near the ocean. Not sure why. The Donnas’ “Kim Fowley” were named Darren and Jon. Joe Paganelli and I offered to manage them but they said they were too punk to be managed. They said they prefer “she-nanigans” — get it? [update: never listened to the Kim Fowley tribute LP but coinkydinky I’m wearing a Tunnel Records t-shirt as I write this].
I met Kaya twice, last Saturday and again today. I admit I forgot her name, had to dredge it from my photo feed. I thought I had posted this photo, on the left, the before, also known as Kaya1 to Plastic Alto but it disappeared. The whole internet/blog thing still creeps me out.
But not everyone agrees that I can draw a line between using Yahoo Mail and having a WordPress blog but otherwise NOT doing social media — not using the two or three biggest aps or companies.
Earthwise my main project beyond blogging – and I’d love to someday just write like Jonathan Yardley stressed to Jim Yardley as relayed to me circa 1981 — was started to push back against media when media was television. So its good if the reason my shows has small attendence is that I don’t promote on social media. Yet I sell 90 percent of tickets on EventBrite.
I wish Apple would just let me figure out how to use my handheld and not keep upgrading al the time. And I will keep saying that music and musicians did far more for Steve Jobs (and now, Laurene Powell Jobs managing his moneymoney) than he did for them.
Maureen Dowd in the Times says humans are becoming pets of the AI thing.
Come see 11 musicians and performers honor two dead ladies Lisa Fay Beatty and Nina Simone. And maybe you will see Kaya, Kaya3 or Kaya4, tabling at one of my shows. She’s from New Hamshire and her group called LEAD deals with kids being bullied.
ed to ad an hor later: I wrote Geiger back to say “nevermind”. Also, I know that the agent of Trevor Noah does not get 10 percent of gross, as much as he may deserve such.
and another reason I took that down is that I ran into Kaya again; she’s from New Hampshire and is out here working for a non-profit that tries to confront bullying in schools. I thought I had put her picture on my blog previously but I don’t see it. The blog confuses me.
Here’s another try: I had also wrote “welcome to cali, kaya” on her youtube feed. I admit I had to scroll thru my photos on my cell to find that much info, her name. I meet a boat-load of people, excuse my middling and passing strange French.
guy A named Scott Thurston claims that he has siblings named Grant and Sheridan and that his father booked Carlos into the Palo Alto YMCA in that same era — the wiki says they played the San Carlos YMCA so could be; he said Hoffman ran the YMCA but Thurston picked the bands, inlcluding the Warlocks or The Dead.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 