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Harry Belafonte – My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race, and Defiance – A Review

A good friend recommended Harry Belafonte’s  My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race, and Defiance. Knowing little about Belafonte beyond songs like Jamaica’s Farewell and Day-0.,  I bought it online for around five bucks with free shipping – basically I got the book for free. It is a hard cover version on that luxurious linen paper with wide margins –  a library discard from the Southwood Library in Calgary Canada.  That a book from 2012 is so soon discarded seems odd. That it is a memoir of Harry Belafonte, one of the most successful entertainers of the 20th century with an incredible life of civil rights work and activism, adds to the mystery. Everyone, including the dear Canadians – slow down. Indeed, value has been turned upside down. In the end, it was my gain and Calgary’s loss.

It is possible to learn a great deal about the civil rights era simply through the lens of My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race, and Defiance.  It is safe to say that Harry Belafonte not only was in the middle of the civil rights movement, he was a key historical figure and instrumental in the struggle for justice and equality. The book begins in 1964 like a screenplay.  Harry Belafonte  is attempting to convince his long time friend Sidney Poitier to help him on an unusual mission. He has $70,000 in cash in a leather doctor’s bag that he has raised and needs to deliver the money in person to the  SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) who at the time where doing lunch counter sit-ins and other non-violent acts of civil disobedience. The money was to help the SNCC in many ways but most  often for legal support and bail.  It was not the first time that Harry Belafonte had financially supported people and organizations in the “movement” during the civil rights era.  It would not be his last.

The beginning of the book is meant to draw you in to a defining moment in Harry’s life. This dramatic start of the book helps pull the reader in and is effective, but many other moments and amazing happenstances fill the pages.  When people live to be over ninety, often their lives take on an unreal, mythical,  Forrest Gump-type of narrative. Their lives become like historical fiction, similar to an E.L. Doctorow novel, where meetings and scenarios seem made up and impossible. These unbelievable scenes fill the pages. Not to spoil the book, let me recount a few in the remarkable life of Harry Belafonte.

Late 1940’s – Early 1950’s

After returning from his deployment in World War II, Harry studied acting in New York City on the GI Bill. In his class were Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau and Tony Curtis to name a few.  Pretty fine acting company. He then would go on to be friends with this group for his entire life.

At the same time, when he was but twenty years old, Harry would hang out at the Royal Roost in Harlem with the likes of Lester Young and other be-bop legends who encouraged his talents. Harry Belafonte was crazy about Lester Young. According to the memoir, the first time that Harry sang on stage, which happened to be an intermission gig at the Royal Roost, the entire Charlie Parker band, Tommy Potter, Al Haig and Max Roach got up on stage and backed him up.  You cannot make this stuff up. The musicians did it just to help the new kid out.

Early 1960’s

In little time his singing career took off and Harry was a leading voice in the folk revival of the early sixties.  It was a dynamic time when folk music had made its way into all parts of society.  In Vegas you could get the whole room to join you in Pete Seeger songs like If I Had a Hammer.  The next week Harry would be speaking at a demonstration,  on the street perhaps leading a song. The idealism must have been intoxicating.

Soon you learn that Harry’s hero is Paul Robeson, the great singer and political activist. He learns a lot from Robeson and is moved to activism by his spirit. Major figures of the 1960’s are his close friends.  Harry becomes the conduit between his good friend Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy, oddly bridging the racial and cultural divide between a Southern Baptist preacher and a blue-blooded northern Irish Catholic. He also talked regularly with Bobby Kennedy, then the Attorney General.

Another, interesting week is when he was asked to host the Tonight Show in the early 1970’s for and entire week  Harry was allowed to have control of the guests. He had Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Paul Newman and many others on. A week of interviews that would be interesting to revisit.

Beyond

There are many other interesting turns during this memoir, including all the work Harry did in Africa, his visits to Cuba and his relationship with Fidel Castro. The last fifty pages become less compelling reading, but you do learn that Harry Belafonte regards George W. Bush as a terrorist for invading Iraq – as always a pretty accurate assessment of the facts. Harry Belafonte – committed, intelligent and honest to the very end.

The memoir is a modern vehicle for story telling. With every memoir there is a natural tendency to tell the story from the most forgiving and perhaps self-serving perspective. Surely, history is part what actually happened but also the lens through which it is retold. His voice, now gone after decades of work as an entertainer, actor and singer, Harry Belafonte as of this writing is still alive, fighting the good fight. A remarkable life and a book well worth the read. It is almost 500 pages long, and when the book finishes you do not want it to end. Excellent story telling from the source.

FIVE STARS!

MY SONG : A Memoir
By Harry Belafonte with Michael Shnayerson
2012 – Knopf. 469 pp

 

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El Tapatio Closed for Good – Another Live Music Venue in SF Gone

SCENE 1:  Heraclitus and the River of Time

Cities change. Over time buildings are torn down. Businesses close. People move or get pushed out. New structures rise out of the ground. People move in. In San Francisco buildings and warehouses are being torn down and replaced at an alarming pace with large condos (most of them market or luxury rate). All that is left are the memories, echos and  photos of bygone eras. One such place is a large working-class dance hall in the outer Mission, a few blocks past Ocean Avenue but before Daly City called El Tapatio

At one point El Tapatio was a rock & roll spot.

“In 1967 it was called The Rock Garden. The Grateful Dead performed in this building 4 times in 1967. Jerry Garcia’s Mom was in the audience.” – slip n.- Laytonville, CA – Yelp Comment

SCENE II:  Five Sets a Night

In its last incarnation it was mostly frequented by folks from Central America and Mexico out on the town, all dressed up to go dancing, trying to forget the drudgery of life. There was a large wooden dance floor but outside of that the carpet floor of El Tapatio was a mosaic of discard chewing gum, so plentiful it looked like a pointillist painting. After visiting the club, the next day you would often have to scrape gum off the sole of your shoes. In the 1980’s and 90’s you could dance to a ten piece salsa band four nights a week. How do I know this? I played in a band that did five sets a night, Thursday through Sunday.  The gig started a 9 pm sharp and ended at bar-time around 2 am.

  • Two lead singers
  • Piano
  • Bass
  • Timbales
  • Congas
  • Four Horns – Alto and Tenor Sax, Trumpet and Trombone

In that band were some solid players. Bill Theurer played lead trumpet. Mario Vega on tenor, Donaldo on timbales. Carlos Ramirez, rest his soul, now deceased, held down the bass. Playing twenty hours a week the band got pretty good. We played the hits of the day. Bamboleo, Devorame Otra Vez, Lluvia probably.  Some salsa classics no doubt. Oscar De Leon. El Gran Combo, Hector LaVoe. Being in the Outer Mission we would also play a lot of cumbias and even Mexican rancheras. A lot of songs about food – Sopa de Caracoles, Patacon Pisao. I remember Perez Prado mambos and other odd classics from the 1940’s and 50’s.  Nelson, one of the lead singers had this huge voice and could sing bel canto. He would belt out, very dramatically, beautiful Mexican ballads.  The gig paid $55 a night. It covered my rent and helped put my wife through grad school. Friday and Saturday nights were packed and the owner at one point surely enjoyed the ride.

SCENE III:  All Night Long

San Francisco during the 1980’s and 90’s was buzzing with salsa and cumbia bands.  After working the El Tapatio we would sometimes head down to Ceasar’s Latin Palace, now Rocapolco, and hang out and hear such great players as Orestes Vilato, Anthony Carillo and Raul Rico.  At Ceasar’s you could still get a drink after hours but the liquor often seemed like something they found in the cleaning supply closet – dangerous concoctions that tasted like lighter fluid and could easily wear a hole in your stomach.

SCENE IV:  The Ghost of Perez Prado in the Halls

A friend of mine in the trades said that they are tearing down El Tapatio and building the tallest building on Mission Street, meaning at least six stories tall. It will be a large housing complex of some kind. I doubt that the first floor will feature a large dance hall, but probably the ubiquitous cold glassy retail space with the “for lease” signs in the window for perhaps years. Time will tell, but one thing is for certain – the ghost of Perez Prado will be wandering the halls late into the night shouting out mambos.

Still alive down the block is Taqueria Guadalajara, that has been there for at least thirty years. People “in the know” travel miles for Guadalajara. I walked by last week and a line stretched out the door.  Some things do stay the same. A carnitas burrito “super” hopeful never goes out of business.

Taqueria Guadalajara
4798 Mission St, San Francisco, CA
Closes at  1 AM

 

 

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The “Prime Directive” and the Master Plan – Atlantic Magazine

PART I: Jeff Bezos is The Borg

Some quotes from a great article about Jeff Bezos in the Atlantic Magazine Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan (November 2019). I never knew that the merchant to the world, Jeff Bezos is evidently  a huge Jean-Luc Picard fan and with their perfectly smooth, hairless heads, look somewhat like relatives. But unlike Jean-Luc Picard, thwarting evil, as  the quote cleverly points out, Amazon is the Borg!

If a business hopes to gain access to Amazon’s economies of scale, it has to pay the tolls. The man who styles himself as the heroic Jean-Luc Picard has built a business that better resembles Picard’s archenemy, the Borg, which informs its victims, You will be assimilated and Resistance is futile.

PART II: Taxes and the Front Seat in The Bus

And then there is that strange tax situation in the United States of America where companies run by billionaires and gazillionaires pay no, zero, zippo, nada in taxes. While Donald Trump tries to throw Jeff Bezos under the bus, one thing they have in common is tax avoidance. True villains… the both of them.

At the heart of Amazon’s growing relationship with government is a choking irony. Last year, Amazon didn’t pay a cent of federal tax. The company has mastered the art of avoidance, by exploiting foreign tax havens and moonwalking through the seemingly infinite loopholes that accountants dream up. Amazon may not contribute to the national coffers, but public funds pour into its own bank accounts. Amazon has grown enormous, in part, by shirking tax responsibility. The government rewards this failure with massive contracts, which will make the company even bigger.

PART III: Irony – Amazon Prime and the Prime Directive

Not brought up in the Atlantic article is that one of the important driving principles behind Star Trek Next Generation was the Prime Directive. The Prime Directive is defined as:

The Prime Directive prohibits Starfleet personnel and spacecraft from interfering in the normal development of any society, and mandates that any Starfleet vessel or crew member is expendable to prevent violation of this rule

which is the antithesis of amazon.com. Amazon sees all “channels” and businesses as fair-game.  Invade the channel. Destroy the merchants scraping by.  Make merchants sell on ridiculously small margins.  Take over the channel.

One wonders if Jeff Bezos will finally get it. Imagine a far off deserted island. The inhabitants have never interacted with the outside world. They live an idyllic life eating pineapples, yucca and wild boar. They fish ten minutes a day and have all the food they need for the entire day. The rest of the days they weave baskets, make love, sing, drum and dance.

That Amazon chose the name “Prime” for their service to subscribers is a bit ironic. Will Jeff Bezos allow a Prime Delivery van to crash the party and the Prime Directive or will Jeff Bezos simply push for next day delivery on Mars?

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2019 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Awards

The 2019 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park took place under clear skies, gentle 3 foot surf and mostly light winds and warm temperatures. For the last few years, the festival no longer has the Arrow Stage but replaced it with a much smaller Bandwagon Stage. Not to worry, all the stages were packed with incredible lineups of working bands. I went for three days and saw a total of 17 shows. Here is the 2019 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival SF Journal Awards.

In the past, these awards where the “Pelican Cafe Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival  Awards,” but the Pelican Cafe got bought out by the San Francisco Journal, so the awards will take up this new moniker.

BEST SOLOIST – Adam MacDougall- Lebo and Friends

Adam MacDougall was playing the keys with Lebo and Friends Sunday on the Gold Stage. Behind what seemed to be about eight keyboards, Adam had command of each one. He would go back and forth between a Fender Rhodes and a Hammond B3 and then something else.  In a day when music is streamed endlessly and often becomes like wallpaper to people’s lives, Adam played solos from another era when really being able to play and having a distinct voice were the main objectives. Great solos with soul and chops.

SONG OF THE FESTIVAL – We Shall Overcome

Friday is probably the best day to go to the festival. Crowds are lighter and less rambunctious. The programming is less rock and roll and often a bit highbrow but always top-notch. During Bill Fisell’s set they did We Shall Overcome and sort of got the audience to sing along.  I then left and headed to the Banjo Stage where the Kronos Quartet did a tribute to Pete Seeger – Seeger at 100. Soon the Kronos Quartet did We Shall Overcome and this time the audience joined in with a bit more punch and participation. I forgot that Pete Seeger wrote so many  great songs. One that was sung was Where Have All the Flowers Gone.  It is an anti-war anthem that is timeless.

Where Have All The Flowers Gone
Pete Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

MOST TREACHEROUSLY CROWDED SHOW – Robert Plant

Somehow the word got out that Robert Plant was playing Saturday. The entire field by the Gold Stage was packed to capacity. Just getting up and down the hill was a strange exercise in physics. It was as if the entire area was some sort of new-found organism, thinking from some central command. You could sense a sort of claustrophobic anxiety in some people in the crowd. Fortunately, I made it to a good spot of the hill and was able to take in the entire set.  What a great band! The violin player was simply outstanding and a real powerhouse dancing and playing her fiddle with amazing sound and rhythm.

As the show went on people started jumping the newly installed fence that keep people off the back hill. In years past it was always good to take in a show from these hills where the eucalyptus grows. Though a bit far away, you can get your own space and often a very good view of the band.

BAND WITH THE MOST RAW ENERGY – Poor Man’s Whiskey

Sometimes your best-laid plans just take a detour. This happens most the time when you are entering the festival.  Heading in Saturday we passed by the Swan Stage and were drawn to the sounds of  Poor Man’s Whiskey. Poor Man’s Whiskey has played HSB so many times you lose count. They are one of the few local area bands beside Laurie Lewis that seem to play the festival every year. What is so charming about Poor Man’s Whiskey at HSB is that they bring the A team to the gig. Their music goes back and forth between electrified Irish fiddle tunes played at break-neck speed,  like a group of 20 somethings on an all night bender, to original ballads that are played with subtlety. Raw Northern California energy. I once was a bluegrass festival and hanging around the campfire were a few people from Southern California. One of the guys had an observation – “Southern California is where they sell the music. In Northern California is where they play – up here they pick.” Poor Man’s Whiskey keeps that tradition alive.

BEST CHORUS OF ANY SONG – Jesus and Elvis by Hayes Carll

Jesus and Elvis

Jesus and Elivs
Painted on velvet
Hanging at the bar here every night
It’s good to be back again
Oh, me and my old friends
Beneath the neon cross and the string of Christmas lights

Another anti-war song that is picturesque and very clever in that country sort of way.

BAND I MISSED THAT I WISH I SAW – Flor De Toloache

I am not sure how a mariachi band made it on the bill, but Flor De Toloache worked the Bandwagon Stage on Sunday. I was at a great set by Joan Osborne at the Rooster Stage where Joan eventually passed out with heat stroke. A good friend said that the all-woman band Flor De Toloache based in New York crammed the group on the tiny stage and played a great set.  In music festivals, with six stages, you cannot be two places at once.

BEST PICKERS – The Punch Brothers

I ended the festival at the Rooster Stage and heard the Punch Brothers. Every member of this quartet is simply outstanding. They redefine music and take it in directions that are new and original. You definitely had to be close up to hear this group as they play with a nuance, subtlety and ensemble that the SF Symphony only dreams about.

PROLOGUE

This year there was added security to the festival. National Rent-a-Fence surely made a lot of money fencing in the entire festival. This was a minor inconvenience but marked an end of an era where the festival had this magical pre-2001 vibe. Thankfully, there were no violent incidences. Perhaps instead of paying hundreds of extra policeman to stand around the festival, the festival could provide another water station out on the road by the Gold Stage. They had a water station at the Banjo Stage. It seems odd that that is the only one. In the hot sun you definitely need the hydration after all your beer and water runs out.

Until next year, that is the SF Journal 2019 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Awards.

ABOUT
The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco is a little like Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Big-name bands, many kinds of music and a festive atmosphere. One of the amazing things about Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is that even though there are tens of thousands of people, it is always a  peaceful event, and in the end people seem to get along just fine and often make new friends. Everyone seems to pack out the trash pretty well too. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Warren Hellman’s party.  Communal music therapy.

PAST AWARDS

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The Quarterly Report – October 2019

As the news cycle gets even shorter and shorter but justice and real change seem to take longer and longer,  and identity politics rules the day, here is your “slow news” report. In actuality, most news today is simply distraction and entertainment controlled by fewer and fewer very wealthy players. That people use social media as a news source is unfortunate and simply a “school for scandal. ” When high ranking officials actually go to jail that is news. When large icebergs fall off a  Greenland glacier that is news. When PG&E shuts off power to 300,000 people that is news. Otherwise, it all seems to be conjecture and a circus.

Weather

“I get the news I need on the weather report”
– Paul Simon – The Only Living Boy In New York

Late September and early October the Indian Summer snuck up on us folks in San Francisco. It is that magical time before the winter rains when the days are still long enough to surf either before work or after work.  The light is often golden and there is a peacefulness in the air. It is reassuring with all the uncertainty in the world that the seasons go on unchanged.

The first weekend of October is the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate park. There was not too much bluegrass  as Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs are all under ground and the booking committee seems to turn a deaf ear on the local young pickers – why A.J Lee and Blue Summit, Front Country never get a spot is just strange. Instead of bluegrass there was a lot of rock and roll, folk, Alabama soul and even some Americana jazz. An all-woman mariachi band from New York played as well. All together I saw 17 shows and will give a run down in a future post.

Politics

“Make sure you have the record player on.”
– Joe Biden ( at a Democratic Party Debate)

There is little to report on the political front. That Joe Biden is into turntables and record players was news to me. I agree completely with Joe. Get off your cellphone and your selfies and check out the whole vinyl experience. It will slow you down a bit and definitely improve your mental health.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill making it so presidential candidates will be required to submit the last five years of their taxes in order to appear on the state primary ballot. The Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act requires a candidate for president or California governor to file copies of their Internal Revenue Service filings for the most recent five years at least 98 days ahead of the primary election. Sounds like a good idea. Why would someone running for  the highest office in the land have any financial matters to hide. If they need to hide stuff, they probably should not run for office. The bill was immediately held up in court by the Trump lawyers.

On Tuesday, November 5th, 2019 there will be an election in San Francisco. One of the seats is for District Attorney. The San Francisco Journal is endorsing  Chesa Boudin for District Attorney 2019. Chesa Boudin parents (dad, still in jail) were in The Weather Underground, the radical political group in the early 70’s. Chesa is a very smart guy who is a good speaker, well read and knows what he is talking about and qualified to be District Attorney. He has lived the criminal justice system his entire life visiting his parents in prison.  Some of his major ideas is getting rid of cash bail. I met Chesa at a house party and was very impressed. Hope he gets the gig. Vote November 5th – Chesa Boudin for District Attorney.


Chesa Boudin’s Platform

Baseball

There is only cryin’ in baseball
– Paul Lyons

In the San Francisco Bay Area the baseball season ended abruptly when the Oakland A’s choked in a one game playoff against the Tampa Devil Rays. For the Oakland A’s the last twenty years this seems to be the standard procedure. Play very well in the regular season. Win almost 100 games. Go to the playoffs. Lose in the first round.

The San Francisco Giants, by the All-Star break, never had a chance. Their manager Bruce Bochy who won three World Series with the team retired to a standing ovation.

I do not follow American football so you will have to ask someone else about that stuff. Grown men running into each other smashing each others skulls seems like a fool’s errand.

Sporting News

The biking is fantastic. The surfing is starting to come together. For the last two weeks, there has been a very small swell in the water and the winds have been light, especially in the morning.  A larger swell is due by the end of next week.

That is the The Quarterly Report – October 2019.

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AI and the Metamorphosis – The Atlantic Article

“The challenge of absorbing this new technology into the values and practices of the existing culture has no precedent. The most comparable event was the transition from the medieval to the modern period. In the medieval period, people interpreted the universe as a creation of the divine and all its manifestations as emanations of divine will. When the unity of the Christian Church was broken, the question of what unifying concept could replace it arose. The answer finally emerged in what we now call the Age of Enlightenment; great philosophers replaced divine inspiration with reason, experimentation, and a pragmatic approach. “

From The Metamorphosis, The Atlantic  – Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt And Daniel Huttenlocher

The Metamorphosis is a very interesting article in The Atlantic. Co-written by three very influential people it muses over the impacts of artificial intelligence which is all the rage now. Some of the three writers end with forecasts that are optimistic. Others are more skeptical. It is easy to figure out who wrote what in the article. The quote above is surely Henry Kissinger reminding the kids of some of the fundamentals of history in the West. It is rather peculiar that Kissinger jumps from the medieval period to the modern in one fell swoop but so be it. I highly doubt that most kids graduate from college these days with even the faintest understanding of the Age of Enlightenment or any notion of this concept of history and humanity.

The other unifying concept was of course the creation and notion of the “self” but that is far too complex for most people to comprehend in our current age of narcissism and selfies. You can get a better understanding how this is relevant  in the field of psychology by reading The Invention of the Self: The Hinge of Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century  by John O. Lyons, my dear old dad who’s ashes are floating around somewhere in lake Michigan.  Rest his soul.

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunday, September 29, 2019 – News, Opinions & Gossip

It is Sunday, September 29, 2019. I find it incredibly odd after reading the Sunday Chronicle “Fast and furious threat unlike Trump has faced before” by Julie Pace and Zeke Miller, that the journalism about President Trump and his arm twisting of the President of Ukraine and resulting whistle blower complaint and impending impeachment is often not about the facts but opinion and whether there is political momentum for impeachment. Editors and journalists should do themselves a favor and have the op-eds on the op-ed page and not on the front page masquerading as news. Opinion has bubbled up. This is sloppy journalism.

What would be better is not to assume that the reader is well-versed in civics and the Constitution of The United States of America, and rather explain exactly what laws the president may have broken. This would reinforce that we are still a nation of laws and not merely a place of perpetual gossip, where people can get away with crimes due to their position.

“The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

— U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 4

Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Seems like public opinion has nothing to do with this case. Just let Congress investigate and have the the chips fall where they may.

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Kamala Harris Taking a Stand

“I know predators, and we have a predator living in the White House, and let me tell you, there’s a little secret about predators. Donald Trump has predatory nature and predatory instincts. The things about predators you should know, they prey on the vulnerable. They prey on those who they do not believe are strong. The thing you must importantly know, predators are cowards. I have a background where successfully, I have prosecuted the big banks who preyed on homeowners, prosecuted pharmaceutical companies who preyed on seniors, prosecuted transnational criminal organizations that preyed on women and children, and I will tell you we have a predator living in the White House.”

Kamala Harris
U.S. Sentaor
Presidential Canidate
July 3, 2019

You can point to Bernie’s “billions and billions,” Warren’s epiphany to break up the monopolies in big tech, even Andrew Yang’s idea that we need to move to higher ground, but the quote above speaks to the reality of our current society. There are predators taking advantage of the vulnerable everywhere and it has unfortunately become acceptable and part of business as usual.

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Technology, The Digital Era and the Shaping of a New Geography

It took until I went to college in the early 1980’s that I learned that geography was not only about maps, states, countries and continents. I took a class by Yi Fu Tuan where I learned about spaces and places. That besides physical geography there was also the whole world of human geography. Inside of human geography there were many sub types, cultural and political to name but two.

Political geography is defined as:

“Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, political geography adopts a three-scale structure with the study of the state at the centre, the study of international relations (or geopolitics) above it, and the study of localities below it. The primary concerns of the subdiscipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory.” –
Wikipedia

I find it interesting that I have been unable to find any writings on how technology has affected human geography over time. Imagine with every technological change how our understanding of the earth, other spaces, places and cultures have been influenced. For instance, starting with the invention of the wheel the world has become a smaller place. People are always devising new ways to get around more efficiently, faster or easier. Fast-forward to 1450, in the West, the printing press made it so descriptions of faraway places were mass-produced and then could be consumed by many people. Notions of that world were given a perspective always from the cultural point of view of the observer. The telegraph made it so people continents apart could send messages instantly. Later the telephone, radio and then television perpetuated this phenomenon of space taking on new meaning. As time goes on, these technological advances have had profound effects on human psychology and geography. The world is no longer your family and farm, local community or village. It is seven continents and you can visit any one digitally and by pushing a few buttons. In our current world, this notion of space and presence has been invaded by the internet, but more significantly the cellphone and specifically, the “smartphone.”

From a human experience perspective, all of the modern communications technologies of the last 150 years have to do with changing this sense of space. A telegraph over the wire was like an arm reaching across an ocean. Radio had the effect of making it so someone hundreds of miles away was seemingly sitting in your living room. Television. simply added a visual component. At the beginnings of each of these technological advancement was a time of readjustment and decentralization of society and political power. Eventually, overtime, the power became monopolized by few powerful players. In television, in the United States it was the three major broadcasting networks. Now on the internet it is Google, Facebook and Amazon.

In 2019 the cellphone makes it so many people for most of the day are mentally not even in the physical location that they preside. I noticed this phenomenon when at the beach. It was a hot day and people went out to the ocean to cool off. I noticed a woman wading in the water while at the same time having a video chat with someone on her cellphone. Was the woman at the beach or was she with the person on the cellphone? Where was the woman? Is human geography simply where we occupy the planet or where we preside in our minds? The digital era makes it so geography no longer is a place at all but spaces that are digital and psychological.

The ramifications of this effect are many. We see it in the way the political systems around the world are in upheaval. No longer do you simply build walls and moats to keep away intruders as in the end the digital landscape has no borders. We see it in how political systems have become more reactionary and full of jingoism.

Furthermore, while people have this notion that they are in control, nothing could be further from the truth. The large internet companies are tracking everyone’s digital landscape and using techniques from behavioral psychology to reward or punish certain behaviors with the motivation of both political and economic influence. This has been dubbed the “surveillance economy.” George Orwell is surely snickering in his grave but probably not, as humour was not his strong suit. He is probably screaming – “I told you so!”

Where this will end up is unknown but for those who think that the digital era is a time of liberation and some sort of political and economic equalization are wrong. The same centralization of power that happened in previous technological eras has happened again. Monopolies have emerged as the powerful players. There are dangerous silos of digital communities that are like echo chambers reaffirming racist and cult-like manifestos based on ignorance and flawed science. This is happening in all spaces, both on the political right and left

What is the one constant is that the undesirable qualities of humans that have existed over centuries are unchanged – greed, vengeance, vanity, violence to name a few are still prevalent. In some ways, with the internet they simply are amplified.

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San Francisco Carnaval 2019

Parade Around 11:30 AM

If you have never experienced San Francisco’s Carnaval it is probably time to put it on the calendar. The parade is always on Sunday Morning. Almost every country in Latin America has a float, a band, a few cars pulling something. Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil. We set up on 22nd Street facing East.

Around 1 PM

At the Main Stage – Orchestra Bembe

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SFSU Graduation – Nancy Pelosi Commencement Address – May 2019

Commencement 2019
Tuesday, May 28
5:30 P.M. – 10:30 P.M.

Experience Teaches

San Francisco Giants Stadium at 24 Willie Mays Plaza

Introduction

Life has important days of ritual, celebration, tradition and transition. College graduation is one of those days. Often it is young adults getting one last day to muse over their childhoods and head off into the full-on adult world. Many glad that all the formal education is finally over, eager for the next phase of life to begin. On Tuesday, May 28, 2019 was the San Francisco State University Commencement.

The day was partly cloudy and a strong wind blew out of the northwest. Looking out over the San Francisco Bay from Section 314 on the third deck you could see the smog blanketing the East Bay. The Port of Oakland, with those massive white cranes ready to unload container ships, visible through the mist. Barges and container ships at anchor going nowhere.

Our party of four ate ballpark food as the seagulls darted over the center-field, perhaps trying to get a cue for the timing of the seventh inning stretch. Confused, they noticed that no one was adjusting their jock straps or throwing baseballs around and soon left for more exciting territory.

The National Anthem, sung by a soprano in the music department, ending on a high screaming wale to great applause – SFSU President Les Wong introduction. speeches, acknowledgements. President’s Metals, a Posthumous Award and Honorary Doctorate, some of the people either dead or too sick and old to attend. Great, dedicated and fine people for sure. Graduate Hood recipients, the naming of the various departments (SFSU has a noted College of Ethnic Studies created after a long strike in the late 1960’s), a few other formalities and then the commencement address.

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives gave the commencement address. Earlier, during much of the ceremony you could see her in the front row on stage listening. She was also going over her notes and her papers blew and flapped in the wind. An experienced speaker, she gave a rather cautious address, calling on the young people to be courageous and to follow their dreams. That they are the future. The typist hurriedly transcribing her every word as best as possible made for some humorous typos and outcomes, all appearing as captions on the large screen. Pelosi brought up fighting for health care and mentioned her concern over the income inequalities in our society but gave no solutions or mentioned any causes. More “courage.” Near the end she pulled the clever political maneuver of quoting someone from the other party, Ronald Reagan, and an address he did stating the obvious – that the United States is a country of immigrants and how this is who we are and it is a good thing. A brilliant maneuver considering the makeup of SFSU. The Democrats should dig up more Ronald Reagan speeches and point out the irony of our times and the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Somewhere along the way she talked about San Francisco and it’s namesake, Saint Francis, his affinity for nature and the meaning of prayer. I do not doubt her faith but I never took Nancy Pelosi to be a very religious person, and it seems a bit odd for someone with so much power to reveal a tendency to resort to prayer as a practical solution to real problems. But she is a “thinking” Catholic, having been raised in parochial schools and surely understands the complexities of the “real” world. Life’s paradoxes and ironies do not phase her.

“There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.” 
― Niccolò Machiavelli

A long commencement parade where the traditional tunes were piped in on the stadium speakers – Pomp and Circumstance, Mozart in G, John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. Many tunes sounding oddly familiar but who’s titles are a mystery.

The epic Diploma Procession and like the piped in music, a modern touch. Four cameras and split screen shots up on the mega-monitor. No names announced but plenty of comic relief as many of the new graduates did dances and jigs and clever silly stunts. A lot of joy.

Life goes on. These youngsters are the future.