BLUF: I make a pop culture reference below to a video with 750 million views and apparently a drug reference or organized crime, but when I say “Oaxaca” (wuh-hah-kuh) I am thinking about Palo Alto’s sister city exchange and or string cheese and I am not at all comparing Silicon Valley venture capitalists to Mexican drug cartels although the queso is muy RICO, carty.
The Palo Alto Weekly had something on their website, reprinted from San Jose Spotlight, whatever that is*, about the minimum wage rising in the county from $15.15 to $15.65 cents, up 50 cents or 3 percent. Meanwhile, a writer from the Chron, a propos of rich people backing an initiative to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, outed a VC named Doug Leone, of Sequoia Capital. It said that he lives in LAH: maybe he was once my neighbor. There was a VC on my block named Jim who bought the Collins house, or the Wray house rather. Also, we lived near National CEO Gil Amelio but it was not true that he had a helicopter pad only that his son was a pilot and landed once on his putting green. That I witnessed. Leone maybe gives money to Trump and the like because he’s an investor in TikTok. But it says that thanks to IPOs by DoorDash and AirBnB he is now worth $4B. So I tried to post to the PAW (who are programmed to delete me automatically) that although workers per se got a raise to $15.65, Doug Leone got a raise to $4B with a B, which works out to $50,000 per hour over a 40 year career in amassing power and worth. And I am watching this morning Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group — since 1998 — mention in passing inequality as a thing, or a threat (after global warming, political polar bears and Putin). Piketty, Robert Reich – -I just bought his new book, at Keplers. They did not have Zephyr Teachout tho the Times linked the two tomes. CBS This Morning, Morning in America, Childish Bambinos, whatever. When you were mine, you were kinda sorta a Democracy. I got the plug in Oaxaca, yo. My fav VCs are Nick Sturiale, from my Little League team, and Scott Sandell, my Dartmouth classmate. I probably know by name 40 of them, all time; I sold a truck to Nolan Bushnell in 1983, for his daughter Alyssa. When he was at Catalyst Technology. Nolan in a lecture four years later, at Flint, said that he got the lowest grades in his Utah engineering program but the highest starting salary. His net worth is $TK. Chuckie Cheese, you betcha. (“TK” was lingo for “to come”, according to my friend who interned at Time-Life in the 1980s, nb).
*by Lloyd Alaban of Bay City News which once employed my friend C___ H____ of Stanford class of 1981.
or:
I tried to post this to the Palo alto Weekly directly which reprinted your story but they have it set to automatically censor.
And I don’t think I’d heard of this fellow until he was mentioned in the Chronicle yesterday, but it turns out that Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital who may live in Los Altos Hills or Atherton, I am taking a wee bit of poetic license out of my math I believe works, Got a raise to $4.065 billion with a B — Something to do with Airbnb or door dash exits or ipos — they claim, works out to about $50,000 per hour over a life‘s work – – which I got by figuring 2,000 hours a year times 40 years.
Maybe he should retire and give us all a break.
Mark Weiss
In Palo Alto
I obviously don’t run in their circles but my favorite VCs of my generation are “next to reality” (Nick Sturiale) who was on my seventh grade basketball team seventh grade football team, three years of senior Little League, a year of tennis and we used to get 10101 and 10101 1010101 from our 101010 bars when we were still 1010101; And Scott said they’ll (Sandell) a college classmate who apparently once owned $300 million worth of a company my brother worked for at roughly $150k a year.
Sent from my iPhone
and1:
This is the book I bought, different edition. Amazon says it has been rated (or reviewed?) 700 times:
These millenials are talented and have an esprit de corps; one says “the noodles are ready” and the group answers “we are coming”; but they would have to work three milleniums sick to save the wealth that the VCs are holding or hording or slurping up a wee bit too loudly, imho.
andandand and:
Madrick, a Harvard grad who taught at the New School, on Reich and or Teachout:
A powerful money-fueled oligarchy has emerged in America that is an enemy of democracy, Reich writes. The self-interested power of the nation’s wealthy often goes unnoticed by voters, and is partly misdirected by right-wing rhetoric about issues like immigration. But it leads to lower wages, less product choice and abusive labor practices. Trump has harnessed the frustration of the working class, Reich says, but he was a “smokescreen” for the oligarchy. Reich has an almost unmatched ability to make insightful observations about the nation’s inequities, and in “The System,” he observes that the question is no longer Democrat versus Republican or left versus right, but “democracy versus oligarchy.”
To Teachout, what’s behind our rigged system is the close cousin of oligarchy: corporate monopoly. Teachout lists her culprits, among them familiar names: Amazon, Google, Facebook, Monsanto, AT&T, Verizon, Walmart, Pfizer, Comcast, Apple and CVS. These companies “represent a new political phenomenon,” she says, “a 21st-century form of centralized, authoritarian government.”
There are at least 20 VC firms in Palo Alto per se, and Stanford supposedly was rebuilding the Ely Chevrolet car lots for office space to extend Sand Hill Road VC culture.
ok ok: Nolan ran an incubator not a VC firm and the internet says he is worth $50M with an em, and not the commas, so he is cool. Respect! I not attack you!
And to be clear, we are from Chicago but moved to Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley area) in 1968 and were in retail here for 20 years and real estate for 32 years, plus my brother is salaryman for the industry, whereas I am mostly Weiss-noise.
Benj Edwards of Fast Company wrote a comprehensive story recently about the legendary Nolan Bushnell. This looks somewhat dashed off but it took 16 revisits or revisions.
Bottom line on bottom or BLOB: do we love capital more than democracy?
Mark Weiss, Scott Sandell
andandand et al: Starting in November 2011, NEA sold or distributed to its investors the majority of its stake in Fusion-IO, Securities & Exchange Commission filings show. Distributing the shares is the equivalent of selling the shares in the venture capital game since most investors in venture funds trade out of their stock immediately after a distribution. Between December 2011 and September 2012 NEA distributed shares to its investors on days when Fusion-IO’s stock priced closed for between $23.02 and $31.59, SEC filings show. Using the closing price on the distribution days, NEA has cashed out Fusion-IO shares for more than $510 million. That’s a realized exit of more than 11 times NEA’s investment. NEA still owns Fusion-IO shares worth about $130 million. (Forbes – -no wonder he’s smiling — he literally said “Oh, I sold that!”)
To come Mark Weiss addressing City Council, on cable access (the guy in the back, Michael, always talks about fluoride in the water); staff at Ramen Nagi Palo Alto; Aaron Goldberg, piano, Josh Redman, Bing Stanford; ibid; Mark Weiss, a new knife, wearing a Native American themed ad buster Mutton Stew protective garb; KEEP TRYING THAT THING — art work from Works San Jose show; Mark Weiss on the way to a Giants game, upper Market; high school rock band Garage Mahal, Palo Alto World Music Day; ibid; ibid; Gabrielle Castro; Palo Alto Jazz Quintet featuring drummer Dan Adams, with Jim Adams in foreground; Mary Halvorsen Trio, SF Jazz; Julian Lage; cello player, Palo Alto buskers festival; Halvorsen; Jeff Parker band, June 2018, San Francisco; The Mother Hips at The Fillmore; merchandise worker, the Fillmore, selling me the last Yo La Tengo shirt; Mark Weiss Terry Acebo Davis, San Francisco; ibid, the Fillmore; Yo La Tengo the Fillmore; ibid; ibid; Mark Weiss Gary Davis, Giants game; Hutch; Madison Bumgarner at bat; the Fillmore; Giants at bat; hospice, summer, 2018; dog; Equator featuring Beauman Edwards, Lytton Plaza; Joe Zirker, FOG San Francisco; ibid; dog; fireworks at Sunken Diamond; the artists who made the Blue Trees, holding my dog; holding my dog; Terry Acebo Davis Phyllis Newhouse; the Oaxaca Kitchen; dog and man; “Hakan Sukor Best goals”; Bay Area folkloric dancers; Jon Ford Marjorie Ford at Whole Foods; Palo Alto Players rock themed musical, “Rock of Ages”; ready for the walk; (click on photo to reveal Hans Delannoy and Mark Weiss; illustration of Ralph Kiner from 1974; Terry Acebo Davis rooting for Hilary, election night, 2016 — November 8, 2016 7:54 pm; my dad somewhere in Northern California where he carried the Olympic torch in 1984; art work by Mark age 10; Tuck and Patti Rinconada Park Palo Alto music in parks series; ibid; Robert Reich not the economist; “Since the scope of truth is infinite, obviously there will always be unanswered questions” — Bertrand Russell; Ray Johnson Not Nothing; Sam The Sham poster, in collection of SF MOMA — the band featured Palo Altan Gregg Rolie later a founding member of both Journey and Santana 1966 Wes Wilson—no, wait; i’m confusing William Penn Five “Swami”. “He slept outdoors; People thought he was crazy” poster for BECH by Mark Weiss, Edwin Crayton and Luis Ruvalcaba, 1992; Chris Isaak in Redwood City; view from 101 Alma west; Mark Weiss and South African visiting potter at private pottery collection Palo Alto; human body studies in private collection, San Francisco Bay Area, photo by Mark Weiss; Dead and Company at Levi’s Santa Clara; Mexican folk art; Mark Weiss in snapshot circa 1990 holding Mexican folk art;
Dayna Stephens band at Earthwise Productions at Mitchell Park Community Center El Palo Alto room, August 18, 2019 matinee — because I had Stones tickets that night, and Dayna was in town to record with Josh Thurston-Milgrom – I hope he will air out these archetype songs live some day. And that’s an EWI he’s playing, with a soprano on stand-by.
Dayna Stephens told me that 2020 was both his loneliest year and his most productive as a jazz composer. An annus horribilis plus. Besides two cds released and at least one other major commission, he wrote and demo’d a song cycle for Lions With Wings — my Bandcamp vamp — based on four archetypes: The Nomad, The Prophet, The Hero and The Artist.
Two of the archetype songs he had finished and mastered and have been streaming on Lions With Wings. Finished in the sense of making do during COVID times; I think there is an entire genre of bubble sessions or DIY or good enough for these times, the new normal, et cetera. In my case, I completed seven concerts as a promoter, cancelled another 10 onsales but pivoted to the online-project in June and have Dayna and several others at least keeping the devil at bay by not idling.
But then last night his texts punctured my NYE bubble by including what are somewhere between demos and finished performances. Instead of listening to the countdown of the ball on Times Square via CNN and Anderson Cooper I was listening to Dayna Stephens riffing on or transforming Neil Howe*.
I will set aside the source material for these works, for the moment. And let’s ignore the mixed metaphor of Lions With Wings, or the astrological Leo.
I am thrilled to be affiliated with this song cycle. I am the digital and moral steward of these works, although Dayna owns them. He was Downbeat’s Rising Star on tenor sax but he also gives Lions With Wings its lift.
In a related matter, Eric Cohen and I were discussing last night to what extent I am a Baby Boomer or a Gen X — my birthday is January 28, 1964. I was not alive when Kennedy was shot — JFK — but I’m certain I felt it through my mother. Likewise, I thought of myself as a Dragon when I first heard of Chinese astrology, but later realized I’m actually a Rabbit.
For Dayna, we have to consider whether these last two works are finished — even without a drum part he imagines — timed to the “crossing” his word of 2020 and 2021, or they are still in progress and process. and there is no auspice to finishing literally at stroke of 12 (PST) on 12/31/20.
I am guessing that all four tracks should be listened to in succession; maybe its the order in which he sent them to me, but who knows. (There are 24 ways to do this). If the drum machine, click track stuff is meant to simulate a human drum solo, I’d say that given the futuristic or prognostic nature of the source material, it’s ok to use weird modern substitutes. It all showcase’s Dayna’s unique analog song, although I really don’t know if he plays four or five parts or has some guests weaved in, epistolary manner. And in some cases he seems to be playing three horn parts, so obviously in a live setting he would have accompaniment.
And despite being a Luddite, it was cool to walk my dog around the block and carry Dayna’s music — or a very good simulation – in my hand, digitally, digging it all.
The Artist’s piece had a subhead; it’s actually called, for now, “The Artist: Si, Grazie 2020”
*Neil Howe is actually from Palo Alto and went to Cubberley; not sure I want to know more about his thesis beyond knowing it inspired Dayna. I used to be into Joseph Campbell “The Hero with A thousand Faces” plus took a Jungian course at UC Berkeley Extension in SF once with a guy named Sherwood I think. Orestia et al. Plus, reading Faustus at Dartmouth with James Shapiro.
and1:
Eden Ladin – Piano, Łukas Vesely – Bass, Jaimeo Brown – Drums & Percussion, John Harvey – Master Engineer
(not sure if that’s for the whole session or the first two tracks; not sure who the vocalizing is by….worpdress ate a graph listing the names of his two releases, Liberty and Right Now…plus some links…likeWise I’m not sure why it’s above the photo but there are three draft versions of the scan or album cover in each case artwork by Dayna himself
My bandcamp collection has 27 items: Jeff Parker Cory McAbee Rachel Efron George Lewis The Sea The Sea (Todd Sickafoose) Jeff Parker Ben Goldberg Eddie Gale et al aka 6×6 Jonathan Richman (Please note that Jonathan Richman chooses not to participate in online culture and does not have any direct communication with Bandcamp. Everything is submitted and managed by his record label Blue Arrow Records) Fay Victor Josh Thurston-Milgrom San Kazakgascar The Variable Stars (Brad Johnson) Barbara Manning Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger Sam Gendel Original Cast album “The Other Side” by Eden Ariel Gordon Dayna Stephens Billy Riggs Band Dao Strom Gretta Harley Claire Daly Noruz (Cyrus Nabipoor) MC Lars
I bought this because I was looking for info on Curbfeelers also from Sacramento area
I sponsored these artists but admit I have not returned to listen to them. Also, the forms say I have 27 in my collection but I only found 24. In a related matter, I just sent a message to my 17 followers of Lions With Wings “pro” Bandcamp followers thanking them for their support but now there is only 16, so one must have unsubscribed.
I’m watching the Rose Bowl, reading the Times and Merc and Chron, and managing the new Dayna Stephens song-cycle for my Lions With Wings label, but thinking of Tony Rice. Plural. meanwhile Dovonta Smith of Alabama just caught td number 18
I greeted activist Herb Burok today, idling on Waverley near Hamilton and he mentioned that the recent election six weeks ago was a mixed bag: he noted that the losers got more votes than the winners. I’ll believe his math but say that Rebecca Eisenberg, Steven Lee, Cari Templeton and three others got more votes than Pat Burt, Greg Tanaka, Lydia Kuo and Greer Stone. Rebecca got 7,000 votes on her first try. Ed Lauing meanwhile got 10,000 votes as an also ran but he had been in leadership for about 10 years already. Which I guess muddies Herb’s point in that Rebecca works for change, Ed works for power.
I jumped on my bike and cruised downtown and shot about 32 photos that document our duality. We have sites associated with billionaires like Laurene Powell Jobs, Peter Thiel and Marissa Mayer and then places where I know I can find certain down and out people, the homeless, the humble, the great unwashed. Sure, homelessness is a complex issue and maybe dealt with directly and indirectly at federal, state and regional levels, but you would think Palo Alto could do better. Better than handing out some soup at First Methodist. If we had merely taxed the 10 biggest companies here, we’d have a billion in reserves and not be cutting library hours and the wages of librarians. We suck. But we rock. Roll with me people:
1. I noticed my neighbor pulling a tray of lemons from her tree, and stopped to chat. I had never actually noticed her tree before that moment. She offered me some but I said we had two plants or trees of our own. Or our HOA does.
2. I shot the driveway of this new house because 3 of it’s 5 bedrooms are underground. This was written up in the Wall Street Journal, maybe snarkily, hard to say. It’s certainly a corporate asset and rumour are that it is under the personal control of a notorious founder; when the guests arrive a team of security say “all clear” rather than “have a nice stay”.
3. Even with COVID-19 about a dozen people were lined up for Colette’s croissant. I don’t know if the owner is actually named Colette or it references the French writer (who shares my January Aquarian birthdate). See also: the former Ramona’s pizza, which my friend L_ said was also a character in a PIxies song. I was once L’s date to the holiday party of a start-up that was at Los Altos Country Club, if that fits here. (My dad was a member there, late in his life, as is my Dartmouth classmate Dr. Andrew Gutow, the hand specialist).
4. Another shot of the line for Colettes’. A former mayor lives on the same block, plus there’s a marker for a former medical clinic.
5. I don’t know this woman nor do I like their goods as much as my wife does, but I like this shot of the worker cleaning the glass, on Bryant Street.
6. Graffitto or tag on Federal property near Johnson Park. The lady who lives there is the mother of an old friend and enjoys yoga and biking.
7. Hotel President apartments conversion to hotel called The Graduate is still a sore spot for many activists and citizen who think leadership kowtows to power.
8. Five hundred University is a new building with office above retail but I think the mix of shops was better before. There is an art space that is a token nod to there being more in our world and Palo Alto besides money money money.
9. This is either a very chill and humble CEO or a very tech oriented homeless guy. In front of a former yoga studio turned start-up turned start-up again.
10. My least favorite development was turning the Varsity theatre into office space for SAP and Cisco. “Cisco Tetration Analytics” is a cool name for a corporate division but what a fucking waste of a space. Cisco is a $TK B market cap and SAP is another $1B market cap so they don’t really need the cool “creative office” thing. Fuck you guys. The landlord said the meeting space with co-working on the first floor would “rock” but when I tried to put a jazz show there they said they don’t do live music at all.
11. I was targetting the labyrinth but duly noted “Margot’s Tree” at the church, All Saints Episcopal. I’ve seen concerts at this church.
12. Palo Alto Sport and Toy is gone, replaced by a spiffy facade for nothingness. At least they mended the Greg Brown (“Aunt Betty” approximated) mural when it was tagged.
13. Yesterday I saw a woman talking to the man in this car, late morning. Not sure how long he’s been in that exact spot. It’s a sad scene, that Toyota Cellica.
14. Across
Headquarters of Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Project, formerly the Nevada Building where poet Laureate Al Young used to write, as well as a studio for Terry Acebo Davis my future wife.
17. City Hall — we can do better; it’s a little disconcerting for government building to be closed, compared to letting citizens enter with masks to do business.
and and or bw:
under Dr. Steve Levy’s econ blog:
I’m not going to argue with you here, and having perused the report itself and your summary, but roughly speaking if Palo Alto had taxed just the top handful of corporations here, between 2009 when I started following local politics and when Covid-19 hit, as every other comparable City has done, we’d be sitting on a billion dollar surplus and not laying off librarians. Our version of “Triple E” is more like “Eeek!” leaders afraid of landlords like little old ladies afraid of mice, or they’ve trained us to run thru the maze for a nibble of their cheese, excuse the miced metaphor. Or, EEK A MOUSE
also i am recalling that my wife bought me a blue powder Robert Graham shirt for xmas
I counted 140 shots in the three minute video for “Dior” by the late rapper superstar meteoric success story or cautionary tale, Pop Smoke. This song was the first song I added to my Apple stream — I pay $10 each month for unlimited. I would say someone could write a master’s thesis on this video. I think my favorite part is the young man – not Pop Smoke – dancing. Maybe he appears two or three times, a continuation of the same shot or scene. There are also: cars, woman’s buttocks, money, smoke, food, shoes, jeans, women fixing their hair, a scene of Pop Smoke stepping out of character to put his arm around a young, shorty; (unless he’s just hitting on her – but it looked tender enough); I would say 80 percent or more of the people featured are people of color. There may be one white guy, or a very light-skinned mixed race person, on the the body guards or crew. I like when he makes a little trigger with his hands, in time to, I think “she likes the way that I …”. I think the name Pop Smoke is referring to the idea that when you pull a trigger the gun goes “pop” and you see smoke. I think Pop Smoke is a Faustian archetype, a deal with the Devil. The clock struck midnight pretty quickly for this young man. I am writing this on December 31 as I am trying to close out the year. There’s about 12 hours left in my year and five hours of daylight. For what its worth I am wearing a new Roberto Clemente replica jersey t-shirt from Lids, a new Raiders cap white with the logo but no city designation — I’ll call it Oakland — a Polo plaid shirt over the black Pirates t-shirt; a wedding band, hand-pounded by an artist; some white Pumas with a yellow or gold swoosh that I admit I bought from Bloomingdales as click bait; a COVID-19 protective mask, gray or blue from Marine Layer which I sometimes call Marin Layer — I wear it as a scarf – -it ties twice; and some Stanford themed socks that are too short — like the rapper. Also I have new eyeglasses that are Lunar from Rod of Uni. Or as Martin Scorcese would say: see this tie? Fifty dollar!
my fave car brand is chevy but i admit we have lexus benz and honda
I think this video was shot in New York, where he lived, and not LA where he died. A reviewer claimed that Black Lives Matter chanted “dior dior we up in all the stores” which at first offended me but then I agreed that property is a construct — maybe looters are political. You know what’s weird, when I was 12 my rabbi Sidney Askelrad suggested I quote Shakespeare for my Bar Mitzvah speech, good enough. But over the years I think of Polonious as a false fount of wisdom, full of cliches. So if he famously said “who steals my purse steals trash” then maybe that was already a cliche. In my sophomoric address I talked about the trouble with people “cutting on” each other or ourselves in junior high. Hey, cut it out guys with all the cutting! Not sure what my more mature update would be, both with a better read of Shakespeare and maybe more realistic about human nature. Aphorism is a pretty flawed source of wisdom and yes going circular not sure how any song lyric acts as a chant for protest, other than it builds camaraderie. Also I was kind of curious about how my friend and collaborator MC Lars — aka Andrew Nielson would handle a cover of “Dior” and he said he didn’t like the genre and that he could not say “nigger”. Besides the young woman denied admission to University of Tennessee for saying the word “n-word” that I read about in the Times — three years earlier — there was something else I quoted herein that used the word verbatim. I’m def down to go with “Black” not “black”. And I’ll probably go with “n-word” not “nigger”, I figure. Lars said he liked “gecci” or 100 gecs I guess but I don’t quite get it.
(In theory I am going to return here with 140 or so screen captchas, yo)
i cat this “new yorks” and “filty lucre” and tagged it “pop smoke” and “Black Lives Matter”
and1: I bought the Times yesterday partly because it had a P1 obit of Pierre Cardin
andand: not sure what is “mark amori’ or how to spell it
I have a green felt pennant from the 1980s and a new cotton pullover with dueling Dartmouth shields. They both say VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO from Isaiah but the new one elides the two figures in the foreground (representing students, original students, students of Eleazar Wheelock, characters in a Richard Hovey drinking song and or mural or God giving all of us The Word).
Duly noted.
bw
Dayna Stephens made a cd cover or skin for his song “The Prophet”. It is based on a mural or mosaic he saw in Jersusalem. Although he morphed a few yuds and alephs with Arabic 1 and 0 characters I figured out using clandestine methods that the text references God giving humans the Torah. To do with that which they will. Dayna, a Leo, recorded this song for Lions With Wings whose name references a Stanford University landmark and or proposed mascot, and or Florence Italy and Leicester UK, ok? 👌
Edit to add or foot note: Isaiah 40:3 that presumes the Temple has been destroyed, compared to Psalm 139. Dartmouth was founded in 1769, admitted women in 1972, started a Native American studies program around that time, matriculated this author in 1982, abolished the Indian symbol as a sports logo mascot or asset gradually between 1972 and 1990, added some indigenous Americans by Orozco in the 1930s and removed a weathervane that looks like my pennant only recently i.e. in 2020.
I’m still digesting her album: Did You Know; Confessions (+); Black Vivaldi Sonata; Down On Me; Ballad of the Unhatched Twins; Green Eyes; Iceland Moss (+); Coming Up; House of Open Tuning II; Glorious; Stuck; Limitless (+); Honey, Pelicans in the Summer. (+ plus means those the ones that I think I know, the hook – – not necessarily what it means, what she trying to say).
She has an amazing array of videos, shot in locations like LA and apparently Africa. Her hair is amazing and variable, although in SF it was shorn; as it was also in the NPR tiny desk show.
I first noticed her in the NY Times story, which was triggered by the publicist for this cd. Also I was impressed that the label had a street team which put up a wall of posters in a storefront that was boarded up on Broadway in Oakland. Stones Throw. She is booked by Ali Hedrick of Arrival Agency, (who also booked NoName for a while). I put in an offer for that tour in February but they opted for a second Noise Pop show and I used the date for a Clarinet Thing Ellington program.
Still curious to read up and figure out where this act came from. And to see where it going. Up up up. I listened to the NPR interview and was struck by how humble she is — a contrast to the brash persona in her videos, it would seem.
Here is a snippet at end of her show, the applause (I have bits and pieces of three songs, maybe 5 minutes of material, some video, some audio only).
This is a weird segue and maybe unfair to Brit but I want to digress both into Maya Wiley, my Dartmouth classmate running for Mayor of NYC and Venus Opal Reese who I booked once into my brief series at an art gallery on the corner of Alma and Hamilton. Venus was getting a phD at Stanford and I just noticed for the first time in years that Robyn Israel wrote a preview of the show, and name checks Venus’ performance piece or play called “Split Ends”. To wit: (from August 2004 ie sixteen years back in PAW)
In the summer of 1999, Venus Opal Reese traveled to Paris, France and Dakar, Senegal, where she conducted research for her dissertation. Though she could barely speak the language of either country, she nevertheless found common ground with black women in both countries.
“The women who were of African descent, we could bond over hair, even though my French sucked,” Reese said in a recent phone interview. “Same thing in Africa. No matter where I went, I could have instant sisterhood through hair — above culture, above language. It was just about hair. It was amazing.”
The phenomenon is addressed in “Split Ends,” a solo performance piece in which Reese explores the relationship between women of African descent and their hair. She will perform segments of “Split Ends” — along with some “edgier” pieces — on Sunday at Art21 in Palo Alto.
“Some people know wines. I pay attention to hair,” said Reese, who earned her Ph.D. in directing and critical theory at Stanford. “I’ve spent a long time looking at identity formation through hair.
“I want women to be aware of how hair confines us, but at the same time is our liberation.”
Inspired by “The Vagina Monologues,” “Split Ends” was conceived at the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas in Seattle. It began as “The Hair Monologues,” but evolved into more of a multi-media, multi-disciplinary piece incorporating vocals, video footage, historical and contemporary hair facts, mime, character work and movement.
Written and directed by Reese, “Split Ends” draws from interviews she conducted with women of African descent (she prefers this term over African-American; “I’m through with hyphens” she said) in Seattle. She asked the women a variety of questions, including “When has your hair saved you?” ; “When has your hair betrayed you?”; “When has your hair set you free?”
What she discovered amazed her.
“It became apparent that hair — and this doesn’t just apply to black women or to women in general — is a world in which you know yourself. It means something. It’s not just an attribute. It’s a meaning-making phenomenon.”
One interviewee was an accomplished trial lawyer who was caught in the rain en route to court. She arrived with wet, matted hair. Noting her appearance, the client fired her. After that, the lawyer wore weaves and wigs.
Another woman had a boyfriend who loved her long hair. When she cut it, he kept making comments about how pretty she used to look. She realized he was more in love with her hair and dumped him — leaving him with clumps of her shorn tresses.
Reese had her own experiences coming to terms with hair.
“As a black woman, I’ve been mindful of hair ever since I was young,” said Reese, who was born and raised in Baltimore. “I’ve been permed (the black term for ‘relaxed’), braided and had extensions put in. I’ve had my hair done in every style you would associate with black women.”
A turning point came when she was cast in a movie short, and spent hours trying to transform her hair into a bob, complete with a wholesome “Brady Bunch” look.”
“I stayed up for four hours to do that work,” Reese recalled. “I thought to myself: I had all these degrees, but I didn’t have the self-confidence to go onto a movie set with my hair just the way it was. I only considered my hair pretty if it was arranged around my features in a particular way. I realized I was hiding behind my hair.”
The epiphany prompted her to shave her entire head (“Hey, I’m an artist, I go to extremes,” she said) and grow it back, this time embracing the natural curl that all women of African descent inherit.
“I thought, ‘If I can develop my mind, I can develop my hair.’ I learned how to condition it, to do all those things I had never learned. I had to be willing to look in the mirror and love me. I saw freckles, dimples, full lips, small eyes, a defined nose. But there was a freedom and an acceptance I didn’t have before. I could actually see the beauty. It was like breaking out of prison.”
But many black women, Reese said, still reside in that “prison,” in which “good hair” means biracial hair. And straight hair equals beauty.
“It’s one of the unspoken benefits — long, straight hair is affiliated with whiteness. Look at Janet Jackson — her hair keeps getting lighter and longer. Beyonce, too. The ligher and the longer, the more beautiful you’re considered.
“Bad hair is called ‘nigger hair’: tight, close to your head, hard to comb through. That’s not all necessarily true, but we’re not trained to manage and cultivate natural hair that’s not chemically treated.”
This ideal of black beauty did not begin with “Essence” or “Ebony,” Reese said, but rather stretches all the way back to the early 20th century. Many black magazines and periodicals advertised hair-straightening and skin-lightening products. That discovery caused Reese to rethink the whole phenomenon.
“We sold this to each other. To me that’s very compelling. But it’s also empowering. My focus can stop being on the white people,” she said. “I’m sick of black people talking about white people. It’s a different world when we start being accountable for our community.”
Reese’s own background can be an inspiration to women of all colors. Her 13-page resume describes her as an artist/scholar, with a bachelor of fine arts from Adelphi University; a masters of fine arts from Ohio State University; and masters and doctoral degrees from Stanford University. She studied mime with Marcel Marceau; dance with Gregory Hines and (Alvin Ailey artistic director) Judith Jamison; and acting with Vanessa Redgrave and Christopher Reeve, among others.
But her five-year experience at Stanford, she said, was “the best period in my life.”
“I was totally loved, appreciated and valued for what I brought to the table. I never had the experience of not being celebrated at Stanford,” she said. “My race, my gender, my economic background (were insignificant). And I come from an economic background that is not Stanford.”
She also learned a lot from teacher/actress/playwright Anna Deveare Smith, with whom she studied at Stanford.
“The political aspects of my work come from her, such as I how I use hip-hop as a historical framework. She inspired me to go beyond the topical level and delve into the social and psychological aspects of American culture.”
Reese had a far different experience at Harvard, where she spent a summer during her time at Stanford.
“You had to leave Stanford to appreciate Stanford. I just wasn’t related to (at Harvard). I felt like a second-class citizen. Getting into the library involved having to go through different people. I had money stolen from me, and a rumor circulated that I had lost it. I didn’t belong. I didn’t fit in.”
Adjusting to her new life in Dallas, where she now resides, has also been a challenge.
“It’s a whole new world! My first three, four months, were awful. Coming from the West Coast, which is so forward-thinking, to a place where people go, ‘How ya doin’ honey?'” There are still people with jery curls here — that was the ’70s!!!”
But the University of Texas at Dallas offered her a tenure-track position she could not refuse: assistant professor of aesthetic studies in the school of arts and humanities.
“There’s a lot of space for invention,” she said of her teaching job. “I can be an artist and a scholar. I can create my own classes. And I try to bring that same love and attentiveness I felt at Stanford to my students.”
So how does Reese, a self-described “committed, passionate person,” relax from her busy schedule?
“When I do my hair. I’ll listen to Erykah Badu, light candles and incense. I get in touch with my feminine side. I slow down and get to be myself. It takes me out of my world and I focus on me.” Arts and Entertainment Editor Robyn Israel can be reached at risrael@paweekly.com
Who: Venus Opal Reese. Reese will perform segments from “Split Ends,” as well as a medley of spoken word, vocal percussion and monologues. Presented by Earthwise Productions. (Opening act was Brad Johnson of Variable Stars who I admit I booked partly because he had nice, but very white, hair)
Where: Art21 Gallery and Framing, 539 Alma St. (corner of Hamilton Avenue) in Palo Alto.
When: Sunday from 7 to 8 p.m. Doors will open at 6:45 p.m.
Cost: Tickets are $8 in advance and can be purchased at http://www.virtuous.com; $10 at the door.
Info: Call (650) 566-XXXX or visit (defunct website). Venus Opal Reese will perform a longer version of “Split Ends” tonight and Saturday at Afro Solo Theatre , 762 Fulton St. in San Francisco. For more information please visit http://www.afrosolo.org.
and1: ok, this is not at all where I started at all but I just listened maybe for the first time to Brad Johnson from his recording with Allen Clapp shortly before taking his own life, in 2009 at age 31 — he was born in 1978. Lights Above Los Gatos (+). Maybe I can get Allen to let me stream on my bandcamp page Lions With Wings an alternate version of this or an unreleased track. Brad had swoopy hair, almost a pompadour. Or is that a cowlip? I had a friend, she was actually Rob Syrett’s friend who called Brad “the ska guy” for a while she claimed he was avidly following the Skalander (itself put out by a former Tennyson Student of Charlotte Gerstein, advisor of the Lancer Legend — tho not to confuse you Brad went to Homestead of Cupertino same school as Steve Jobs but later). Here
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 