Eazy E tee or sweatshirt bought at Nordstrom — I don’t listen to N-words With Attitude, NWA nor did I really see or listen to either the movie or the documentary about them, but I couldn’t resist buying at Nordstro a gray garment “straight off the streets of compton” or Palo Alto or Stanford, but sales tax remit Palo Altans, though the university has a $30B billion endowment and another $18B worth of leases at their industrial park, which is now mostly video games not military industrial complex although some they say these devices are all part of a war, on class, or will be comandeered when the time comes, to keep us in line and separate the thinkers from the dutiful zombies. Feel me?
Ezel — Gwen of Letter Perfect sold me a deck of flashcards with info on the history of the language, the mother tongue as it were. And it was. So “Ezel” is a horse and from that we get easel. I will cross check this with both my Webster’s, Ninth and Eleventh.
Tree. As in Stanford unofficial mascot. And not the Cardinal color nor the Cardinals bird – -not even in Indian summer; it was 59 degrees farenheit when i got up and then in the high 70s and Mike from St. Mikes told me not to say that phrase. But what replaces it?
Tree — I bought a white cap at Stanford driving range gift show and “Fran” I think said apologetically “I’m going to have to charge you $50 for this cap?!” and I said “Stanford has a $30b endowment with a “B” and another $18B in leases, that’s why I moved here” which is a lie – when I moved here in 1974 the endowment was in the millions not billiions. But I meant I think its good if caps are $50 that means I can charge more for my goods and services.
Like my free concert coming up in about 31 hours at Lytton Plaza with Hawktail, Taylor Goss, Tommy Jordan’s Service Human, A Very Special and Surprise Guest, Jacob Savage and a Mexican-Greek American singer who can really bring it, like Janis even when doing Norah named Anna; maybe another special guest doing Frank Turner “reasons for being an idiot”
a book every politically sentient person should read — robert christgau, dartmouth alumnus on second avenue
ok,I can only read about 1/10th of Xgau book review before concluding I should definitely buy this book, I should definitely read this book and likely I will never read such book. Just a few pages or enough to tell everybody to do as I do — like its the new Octavia Butler or something. Speaking of “molten lava” I bought or the wife and I rather from an artist in his hillside bat cave studio near a very dry reservoir near what used to be Santa Clara Valley before all the groundwater pollution, pavement, relocated football franchises and traffic a 60,000 x scale hummingbeard skull with a beak that is somewhat flexible — looking — trompe lolol and all that — laugh out loud or lap or lick and suck, in a manly Dartmouth mid-1980s way — beak attached by a pin of steel to a piece of basphalt or basalt – I did take Rocks for Jocks with Reynolds but never got to see him fire his sidearm like the guys in Phi Delt did or claimed to..it’s about 400 lbs and its Frankenstein is a former small college high jump champ in 1966 — your age — from Albion college of Jackson MI not Antioch College of Ohio but he did compete against them and he had a nepwhen with a similar tell tale Germanic hiding as a Brit name — he literally called his granpa a “Nazi” — Middlebrook, David Middlebrook, a retired San Jose State professor of art — nephew rather who is also from Jackson MI — their father worked for Goodyear and David did too, as a teen, in between high jump and other flights of fancy and fuck or fight or go west young man — Middlebrook who pitched for Stanford just about 16 miles away then 8 decisions in the bigs but never saw him play — what that says or doesn’t say and I should not say about those siblings – -though I do say chutzpah nick little Jew scribe that I are or am or arse or worse. Weiss.And in Palo Alto we have, actually and sadly in a building that once housed artists or hosted them like Frank Lobdell and Nathan Oliveira and then a high end faucet store –like the ones in WI — I think Middlebrook says he has a piece in WI and Madison and knew about the niggerhead rock brouhahah excuse the expression but now has Institiute for The Future and I thought worse than the waste of retail or the lone duchebag cranking away on his box – not unlike me right here right now but I’m in a public plaza, near a place that sells $7 yogurt parfaits and $4 drip coffee — and I also joked to her, covering my embarassment that I had to ask — that I bought a cap from the Stanford golf driving range clubhouse from a retired white guy (wasp) named Fran a hat that is white on white with embossed lettering TREE that is referencing a 3rd generation stanford nickname and trope “fear the tree” the mascot is a tree, our mascot is a tree — palo alto — though apocryphal in that in 1769 — same year as Samsom Occum and two cups of rum or what not — when the Spanish got lost looking for Monterey by land not sea, Portola and 40 men and 40 mules – interestingly and not many know this they taught the men to walk on all fours and the mules to raise on their hind legs – -they called it Missionary position — a lot of the men would have to walk backwards, on all fours, or crawl backwards, crabwise — they got lost and marked a big tree “el palo alto” but telltalingly the tree that undred years later Stanford the rich white guy bought at the corner of his spread, near the crick was a double tree, two trunks so that would have been “Dos Palos” or “Palos Altos” — Stanford claimed his tree — which we still have and we water it with a doo-hickey — or half of it, the second twin, like Aaron Presley not Elvis or whatnot, fell in the crick like 1900 or so– in the era of Swede Oberlander or Harry Hillman training for the Olympics but not golding yet — his 13th Regiment ROTC track club in the Brooklyn armory won half of the US teams medals, he and Lawson Robertson later of Penn and 1936 Olympics, coaching and dissing Marty from Syracuse the Jew; I am saying that likely the big tree noted by Portola and them was cut down a few years later, like 1770 or 1771 and used to ford the crick, near Middlefield not El Camino (and not, of course, Middlebrook of the lava basalt, from Moses Lake, he says)And this is where we came in, my mother used to say, like the movies. You come as you are, watch a bit, and leave when you get to the point in the next showing.In I think of shit what is his name Peter Saccio’s class not shakespeare just rudiments of the tongue or written language there was something in Czech for some reason a fancy term for “the story” versus “how the story is told” — like “slgsljkdfket” versus “shdlaidfl di slgsljkdfket” or something — experiemnts in form. Or where I’m from as some say, sex or sez Xgau…
It shall be seen whether in the future when the humans leave and hummngbirds grow to 60,000 times their size whether this fetish will attract birds of a feather or “iron sharpens iron” in the sense of attraction and polarizing or will they be afreard of such.
Hawktail including Jordan Brittany Dominick Paul will play at Lytton Plaza Saturday but may also be Brittany Paul Jordan Dominick stay tuned as they will
I am debating whether to give a special name to my event Saturday which features Hawktail.
I am thinking of calling the event Softly Loosely Earthwise which references the name of my company Earthwise Productions of Palo Alto but also Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a much larger and more famous entity that produces, in most years, a big free concert at Golden Gate Park. In fact, Hawktail was booked into that event and only scheduled Palo Alto when the Covid crisis forced postponement of the event. Actually, HSB says the event goes on, on the internet.
Hawktail is a band with four members, based in Nashville and featuring Brittany Haas who locals have known for many years, as a fiddle player. Andy my sound guy claims she has a sister and maybe an Irish twin who also plays bluegrass, he’s worked with. My sense is that they reached out to Ray Sliter who runs a house concert series in Barron Park – -although the concerts are in a special building behind a house that is more like a concert hall. Hawktail perhaps played that series before they were famous and now want a guarantee which Ray is not in a position to offer. Or, he did a show with AJ Aisha Lee and Sullivan Tuttle and Blue Summit recently – I attended – and those people are friends with Hawktail and somehow that led to them calling me. Thru their agent. Or her assitant. From the former Monterey Peninsula Agency. Then the former Paradigm agency. Now Wasserman Group.
This may or may not be helpful but fits nicely loosely and earthwise this space
I’ve been Earthwise since about 1994 – -its a pun on my name. I literally just this a.m. sent a text to mayor Tom — not Major Tom —Tom Dubois. Saying that earthwise means moves like the earth in the way hands on a clock move clockwise or a crab moves crabwise. It means that I am small and adapted to my niche – -see E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. Tom was on KQED Forum not with Michael Krasny but with Alix Madrigal sometimes called Alexis. Or maybe “Alixis”. I know Michael Krasny slightly since he taught a class at Stanford recently but don’t know Alix Madrigal but always somehow that she was a woman. (I think my freshman girlfriend Charlotte from Dartmouth whose dad was a college professor in Hartford, CT had a baby daughter named Alix — also my roommate Brian Gaul had a kid sister named Alexis. I think Alexis has kids now too, mazel too. There’s a guy named Alexis Harte not from Hartford but went to Yale I think — but not with Meklit Hadero, whose hubby is named Marco like me and will be playing soon enough again in Palo Alto I think. Maybe the following week, at Lytton with Axion Orkestra or something – he played as Inspector Gadje on Cali Ave recently part of this run. Actually Jacob of Savage Band – I’m getting to, working up to, getting to ramp speed — says he knows Morgan of Gadje, the reeds player. But I digress).
This is a painted football by Richard Anuszkiewicz at Dartmouth and only marks the fact that Stanford plays Oregon Saturday sort of before Softly Loosely Earthwise and sort of competing with Savage Band
I might call my show with Hawktail at 7 pm. Saturday at Lytton Plaza as in about 96 hours “The Palo Palooza III’ because its the third time I’ve done an event that I called Palo Palooza in reference to Lollapalooza, which is in Chicago but used to be a tour. The first Palo Palooza was indoors at Cubberley and had Three Day Stubble and several other bands, in 1995. The second one was in 1996 and had Skankin’ Pickle unadvertised and several other bands, outdoors at Cubberley amphitheatre, very near where I voted recently. So I seem to be pretty surely adding a 2 p.m show with local musicians Savage Band featuring Jacob Savage and someone named Anna on vocals — they are the ones who played tonight at Ramona and University and pulled power from a white school bus. And then at 5, that is to say two hours before the Hawktail show, Tommy Jordan of Paly class of 1981 has a project called Service Human that will perform. I have no idea what they sound like other than they will march in and march out and set for a bit and play. Tom has played with people like David Byrne, Greg Kurstin, Jack Johnson and Tom Ze. He says this show is dedicated to his friend Chihsuan Yang, a violin player who was seriously injured in Los Angeles this month in a car accident.
Service Human wears vests that call to mind, especially if you read this post, the vests worn by some dogs. Tommy likes dogs, he put one on the cover of his cd. He also wrote a song that was leased to Mercedes Benz, whatever that says about the universe. Tom Jordan is actually Italian. The family name was Giordano, he told me once. His father also named Tom Jordan lived on Churchill near the Lawn Bowling facility and was once my adviser when I ran for City Council. He also mentored Tom Dubois our current mayor.
Mr Jordan said “Find a parade like in ‘The Tao of Pooh‘ and jump in front of it”.
So to repeat Earthwise is producing a free event four days from now with three bands and about 12 or 13 musicans including Hawktail group at 7 (bluegrass) and Tommy Jordan Service Human (miscellanous music that is fun and includes at least some drums and horns, and they will march in and march out, and have a sick friend) and Savage Band (covers of songs like Stevie Wonder “Signed Sealed And Delivered” and and Norah Jones “Don’t Know Why” but with trumpet solos and a vocalist who can really bring it named Anna who is either Mexican or Greek or both) and I may also be referring to the whole farragut as Palo Palooza III or Softly Loosely Earthwise.
Hawktail is also Brittany Paul Jordan and Dominick but does not like to be called the BPJD Music Syndicate. Nor will they be taking batting practice for jurisprudence.
Jacob and Anna tonite at around 9
vintage shot of tommy jordan playing trumpet and bass same time
If you are still reading this it may interest you to know that the catalog for the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College says the football above is “liquidex” on leather which implies beyond a brand name a genre of acrylic paint whereas the wikipedia entry notes that they sell pigment; so the object is a pigmented pigskin, so to squeak or squawk like a hawk.
This asshole is named Plotkin and he invested $1B in Live Nation stock, which values the company at about $20B; however most of the blog-o-sphere calls him a short seller; and he worked for Steve Cohen – -not Eugene Robinson’s former house mate. For comparison sake, see below:LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 07: Brittney Parks performs as Sudan Archives live on stage during the second day of the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival at Camden Dingwalls, on March 07, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)
This is Brittany Parks pka Sudan Archive. photo by Getty images, obviously. Fair use. One of the last shows I saw before the Covid shutdown was Sudan Archive at Noise Pop at Swedish American Hall, I really dug it. I tried to book her the next night but they decided to add an Oakland show, not Palo Alto, fair enough. I have my own photos from that night. I did not meet Brittany — I didn’t want to spoil the purity of all her fans being young woman, many of color – and not old white guy in the biz. I did meet the support act from Montreal – hey, maybe she can play my Leonard Cohen tribute, just announced for 11/12/21 five years past his death. I mean the Montreal act, not Sudan Archives.
Terry was watching the Tonys when i got home from the Niners game; i like Alanis Morrissettes music better when perfomed by a Black woman; and Robert F.X Sillerman is still dead
sillerman as SFX bought Bill Graham Presents and numeros other regional promoters them sold it to Clear Chanel for bullions
Essentially when ticket prices jumped from $20 to $50 the delta went to this man.
Two of the members of my fantasy football league are tennis professionals, John Swetka and Kenny Arnold. They are good players and they own or manage a tennis shop, Swetka’s in Los Altos or Mountain View, on El Camino just south of El Monte. Ken went to my high school and in fact the neighborhood we moved to in 5th grade was the neighborhood his family moved to a decade earlier. Swetka I’ve only known since about 2012, when I rejoined a league I had co-founded in 1980. Swetka’s father founded the store and was famous for being ranked in his age group.
John has Swetka’s Sweet Team formerly Swetka’s TD Team. Ken has Kenny Second Half formerly Kenny’s Bling Bling. I have The Duffy Dogs — it’s named for my dog Duffy but is also a Michigan State / Bubba Smith reference. I was previously Beneath the Underdog (for Mingus), As the Backs Go Tearing By (for Dartmouth) and The Chip Hoopers (for Gunn tennis star, the current tight end of the Clevelands, and a former talent agent and nature photographer, my hometown of Chicago, Chi, and my love of basketball). We all look like we still could get the student rate, right?
Hey howdy local music teacher Carol McComb is part of a set of archival performances now made available from Smithsonian folkways on bandcamp
She or they or we do a traditional called “swallow song” which is about birds I think.
Remind me that I Saw Jack Tuttle a couple times recently and he told me that Gryphon is open but will not continue as a school it seems the teachers are left to scatter light dust in the wind.
I took this as a good omen for my Hawktail show coming a week from tonight at 7 PM at Lytton Plaza .
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 