Kathleen Hughes and Charlie Hughes of Ada’s Cafe at Mitchell Park Center, and Mark Weiss of Earthwise Productions take una pausa muy breve after a banner day in which the cafe made 108 sandwiches, 10 of which were for La Doña Y Su Cuates, who played the nearby bowl. Earthwise hosts a two band bill, Vetiver and David James Mission Rebels next Saturday, from 2 to 5 pm. The City of Palo Alto then hosts a Twilight show at Rinconada Park with a special mystery guest.
I appreciate this column, Ms. Diamond. And I am well aware that I have been deleted numerous times from this forum — and automatically deleted from the news feed. And I have said some obnoxious things.
Nelson Rockefeller was my classmate at Dartmouth, as was his nephew Michael. Hardly knew him, but he pitched a story to me when I was an editor of The D and he was in the fraternity council — Theta Delt, with Brian Stretch the recent US Attorney for Northern Cal. The Boom Boom Lodge, whatever that means.
Rumor or the grapevine was that someone went up to Nelson and made a joke about his dad and Nelson cold-cocked him with one punch. The deans reprimanded the jokester.
Kirsten Gillibrand the US senator was also our schoolmate, and I went to two recent fundraisers in the area. People asked her about her take-down of Al Franken and she said “if he was innocent he would not have resigned”. I would say, you don’t make it to US Senator of Governor unless you can take someone out with an elbow, real or metaphorical. Another classmate, Maya Wiley, ran for Mayor of NYC. To the left of Eric Adams. Her people are grateful for giving it a go.
I would say a great day was when Anna Eshoo, Joe Simitian and LaDoris Cordell said jointly they do not support the recall of Judge Persky.
CNN today had a convincing rebuttal by a female attorney representing the Governor.
Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. And I’m sorry I called you “Double D”.
and:
Ok… my roommate at Dartmouth went to Gonzaga Prep to Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep and lived about 3 miles away in Chevy Chase and was a year ahead. I know a whole crew of rich, smart, funny, sometimes naughty white guys who joked about women and who boofed or biffed or bloffed or pulled a train or whatever. It’s worse that he lied about it than whatever these guys did when they were 17 or 18. But he definitely did all those things. Kavanaugh. Cuomo didn’t do any of it. A lot of this went on at Yale and Dartmouth and Stanford four years later. Read Tom Wolfe “I Am Charlotte Simmons”.
Gonzaga Prep is like Bellarmine while Georgetown Prep is like SI. Boys will be boys. It’s what he has done in the last 20 years that determine if he should lead or make laws. He was a pretty good JV basketball player at Yale. His roommate made the NBA. My teammate at Gunn Kent Lockhart played pro ball in Australia with Arnie Duncan who later worked for Obama.
My friend B_ said he recognizes Kavanaugh but does not know the guy. I would say that 30 percent of my Dartmouth class would report they were sexually assaulted at Dartmouth but only a tiny percent have. Actually Melinda Lopez my classmate wrote a play about someone at Dartmouth who falsely reported being violently assaulted.
anDD:
I would say its naughty to call you “double D” but not harassment. If I ran into you around town and you told me not to call you such things, it would make a huge impression and I would never do such a thing again.
The media distorts a lot of this.
I’d like to hear James Franco’s side of the story on his problems. I’d like to hear from Betty Franco. I would bet that people who know Betty Franco would take James Franco’s side of those stories.
I would say its naughty to call you “double D” but not harassment. If I ran into you around town and you told me not to call you such things, it would make a huge impression and I would never do such a thing again.
The media distorts a lot of this.
I’d like to hear James Franco’s side of the story on his problems. I’d like to hear from Betty Franco. I would bet that people who know Betty Franco would take James Franco’s side of those stories.
Vetiver joined the show when David James‘ project was moved from the cozy interior of the Palo Alto Art Center to Mitchell Park, at the suggestion of his agent, who is also the agent for a Laura Veirs show that was originally scheduled for Mitchell Park indoors, and is about to go on sale for November. Got that? I believe that the plan is to play with three musicians, i.e. guitar, keyboard and drums/percussion – -Vetiver is doing a show at The Ivy Room the night before, I believe.
What’s funny, if you excuse a bit about the promoter and not the bands, is that while fixing to re-start my concert series after more than a year hiatus, I was wanting to bring my series to the Mitchell Park Bowl, which is about a two minute walk from the ballroom, but I didn’t know which forms to fill out to do so. It took a bit of a row about the whole “mask mandate” before landing on this series. (which actually commenced three days ago, with Motoko Honda on keys and Phillip Greenlief on tenor, then alto).
I still recommend the art show called “the Black Index” at the museum another 12 days but not sure what that has to do now with these two upcoming concerts.
Also, I told David James that I would continue to work with him as he tried to develop his project called “Mission Rebel” which has to do with his relationship with his father, the Reverend Jessie James who was a labor leader and civil rights activist in the 1960s and 1970s in San Francisco, where David is from. Actually, Cecilia Peña Govea of La Doña is also someone who grew up in SF, slightly after David James, but with a family of activists and musicians. I don’t know as much about Andy Cabic of Vetiver but look forward to meeting him.
Please join us, for both shows.
Signed,
Mark Weiss
dba Earthwise of Palo Alto (and Plastic Alto blog)
PS David wrote to say Lisa Mezzacappa will be joining the show on bass. She, too, was scheduled to appear at the community center in 2020, leading a band. It’s great to have a project where you try to keep track of all the great musicians, and bands and then get them to pass through these parts, the 650.
and1:
Scott Amendola and Ben Goldberg are set to perform a happy-hour show at Lytton Plaza downtown, Emerson and University, a tribute to Thelonious Monk, who recorded an album here in 1968. This show is part of Mayor Tom Dubois‘ “Service Week” which is roughly a response to the destruction of the World Trade Center in September, 2001, which is 20 years ago now (whereas I started Earthwise in 1994 in reaction to the Gulf War, Rodney King riots, the Earthquake and the Berkeley Hills Fire. I was trained as a journalist, wandered off into the rough of advertising then pulled myself up by the boogie-straps to become a concert promoter and artist manager. I just made up the word “boogie-straps” a mix of “boot straps” meaning self-starter and “boogie” meaning you can dance to it.
Did I mention that La Doña y Su Cuate (and her buddies) has six musicians including I think 3 horns or reeds and her father Miguel Govea on either trumpet or accordion? So, all in I am wrangling about 16 musicians in the next month or so. Eighteen if you add back in Greenlief and Honda, to life, l’chaim.
The Norwegian runner named Warholm Karsten just broke the world record in the 400 m hurdles 45.94 —- sub 46. I had to look it up to know that my hero Harry Hillman won the 1904 version of the same race in 55 seconds flat. Thats about 16 percent in 117 years improved. Or its moved less than a second every decade.
The other detail this made me think of is that Don Burnham told me that Harry Hillman brought Gunder Hagg to Hanover to train, and it was likely the first time that fartlek was practiced here, speed play.
ok, since his name is Warholm I will mention that Harry Hillman and Lawson Robertson were part of an elite track team that was related to training young men to become soldiers, sort of like the modern ROTC. His Brooklyn unit was the nucleus of the US Track team that won all the medals at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics.
I caught up with Cecilia Peña Govea, performer known as La Doña at her mural, at Mission and 26th in San Francisco. The Giants commissioned the mural to thank their fans for their support. La Doña plays an Earthwise Productions free concert Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 2 p.m. at Mitchell Park Bowl, 600 East Meadow Drive in Palo Alto (originally schedueld for the Art Center).
Cecilia’s social media feed noted the juxtaposition in the Giants own media feed of their new leader Kris Bryant and her own face, on the mural, on the scoreboard. Let’s keep track of Bryant averaging 31 home runs per season so far in his young career. Ok, let’s hope he has as many hits as does La Doña — its a healthy competition.
Although I am a Sharks ticket holder, i’m not sure I had heard of this player until today’s headlines. When he filed for bankruptcy in the state of California although he has a Canadian passport he says he has 10 million in assets 27 million in liabilities including $1.5 million in gambling debts. At this rate he will end up governor.
Phillip Greenlief, alto sax, Motoko Honda Yamaha P-175, Mitchell Park Bowl, Saturday, July 31, 2021 presented by Earthwise of Palo Alto after a hiatus:
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
