Just the local enforcer with a convenient pdf download, for when you are riding down Valencia and there is the Uber car with the flashers on for five minutes smack dab in the bike lane. The SFPD simply does not enforce this law and instead of getting pissed off I simply put these notices under the windshield of the offender.
As an added bonus, here is the chorus to a song called Bike Lane by Luke French
Bike Lane
by Lucas French
On that old bike Lane I’ll ride it once again. Just no longer will I ride with you. I saw you pretending indifferent. From the warmth of your automobile. This road has broken some strong ones. But it’s never gonna take my will. The path beneath us is wicked, and best traveled on two wheels.
“I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.”
― Molly Ivins
Heard this quote from a friend while riding bikes. Molly Ivins gets the point that’s for sure. If you have not read it in a while, The Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation are actually a really good reads. Highly recommended for people in Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
If you are in the north bay, a must check out show. Wil Blades is amazing. Joe Bagale is a great drummer and sings from the heart. If you are within 10 miles, drop everything. You will not be disappointed.
Wil Blades Trio
Thursday, December 1st
7:30-10:30pm
If you are within 10 miles, drop everything and go hear Wil Blades Trio at Big Easy in Petaluma. You will not be disappointed.
with:
Joe Bagale – drums
Kai Lyons – guitar
Big Easy in *Petaluma*
http://www.bigeasypetaluma.com/
Doctor’s Lounge
4826 Mission St, San Francisco, California 94112 Wednesday, November 30, 2016
8pm to Midnight
For around 3 years the amazing band The Beauty Operators has played a monthly, third Thursday of the month gig at The Doctor’s Lounge. It was one set then an open jam. Sometimes as many as 15 people would get up on “the stage” and join the effort. It has been a fun run.
But alas, the lease ran out and the owner of the building is upin’ the rent 80%. Good grief! Such is life on the Royal Highway now known as Mission Street. The Dr’s Lounge location has been a bar for over 50 years with a lot of history, some memorable, some probably people will want to maybe forget. I remember a few years back in December showing up for the gig and there was a fundraiser – a crab feed to raise money for a school I think. The place was all dressed up. White table cloths. Candles. The crab, garlic and white wine smelled like heaven. We serinaded them with a trio for the first set. Cool gig.
But usually the place is frequented by the locals. Working class folk. Most making an honest dollar. Retired longshoreman. Roofers. Handyman. Cooks and cleaners.
Anyway, if you are in the area – San Francisco, Mission and Onondaga, stop by by for a pint. They are five bucks. If they reopen as a bar I predict some major inflation.
Doctor’s Lounge
4826 Mission St, San Francisco, California 94112
Photos from the last night at the Doctor’s Lounge (click on images)
In San Francisco, 9 out of 10 people voted for Hillary Clinton. That is remarkable. Did people in San Francisco think Hillary Clinton was the perfect candidate? Probably not. But what they did do was take their responsibility to vote for someone who was a decent human being who spoke in complete sentences.
While there have been many downright creepy and dim-wit presidents, mark 2016 as when the United States of America elected someone who did not even pretend to be a gentleman or show social graces in any way. Reagan, the Bushes, secretive and criminal like many, but at least they appeared civilized. Now we are a barbaric tribe who is becoming more illiterate every day. There was a time when people would read and think about the Bible. Obviously in the Mid-West and South, this is a thing of the past.
On January 20th, Trump will take the oath of office.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
– Section 1:8
I do hope that between now and then he will read and study the Constitution of the United States. Please pay particular attention to these few details.
Section 4
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.
I particularly like this little ditty that has been trampled upon in the last 20 years.
8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
And that freedom of the press thing will be good to go over.
Article [I]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And now what all the Evangelicals that voted for Donald Trump have been waiting for – the religious posters. Hang these up in your kitchens and above your bed just to remind yourself how incredibly inconsistent you are in your beliefs. This courtesy of the Huffington Post.
“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
-H. L. Mencken
I do not know much about this character Mencken but what amazing foresight.
And something else to give you pause and maybe pull yourself together with.
We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids and we Democrats can go for a long brisk walk and smell the roses.
For me, the biggest disappointment with this whole election is there should be some level of decorum, respect and dignity when it comes to the election of the president. It just went out the window. Maybe we should’ve seen it coming over the last 10 years. You look at society, you look at what’s popular. People are getting paid millions of dollars to go on TV and scream at each other, whether it’s in sports, politics or entertainment. I guess it was only a matter of time before it spilled over to politics. Then all of a sudden you’re faced with the reality that the man who’s going to lead you has routinely used racist, misogynist, insulting words. That’s a tough one. That’s a tough one. I wish him well. I hope he’s a good president. I have no idea what kind of president he’ll be because he hasn’t said anything about what he’s going to do. We don’t know. It’s tough when you want there to be some respect and dignity and there hasn’t been any. Then you walk into a room with your daughter and your wife, who’ve basically been insulted by his comments, and they’re distraught. Then you walk in and you see the faces of your players, most of whom have been insulted directly as a result of being minorities. It’s shocking, it really is. We talked about it as a team this morning. I don’t know what else to say. Just the whole process has left us feeling kind of disgusted and disappointed. I thought we were better than this. I thought ‘The Jerry Springer Show’ was ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’ Watching the last debate, Trump would make a crack at (Hillary) Clinton and you’d look at the fans. The fans would go, “Oooh! Oooh, no he didn’t!” It’s like, “Yeah, he did. Yeah, this is a presidential election, it’s not ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’ I’m sorry, this is my rant and I’m disappointed in the lack of respect and dignity that’s involved. That’s the way it goes.
-Steve Kerr – Head basketball coach of the Golden State Warriors
Just one quote from the speech. How far we have come… or at this point in history be humbled by a great speaker and a bright mind. It is interesting how at the time the word “terror” meant missiles from Russia. I actual fear that today in 2016 we are living in a James Bond movie without James and Melania Trump may be a spy. That would not be good but with all the weird stuff that is going on not out of the realm of possibilities.
Also, one of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak”
“More reliable than anything else on earth, the road will force you to live in the present.”
I asked her how she has remained herself all these years. She looks at me as if at a slow pupil. “You’re always the person you were when you were born” she says impatiently. “You just keep finding new ways to express it. Gloria Steinem in conversation with ninety-eight year old former Ziegfeld Woman
All of my life campaigning have given me one clear message. Voting isn’t the most we can do, but it is the least.
All quotes by Gloria Steinem – from My Life on the Road (2015)
Available at your local bookstore.
Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users. wikipedia.org
It is 1998 – The Senate Now Has E-Mail
Let’s Have a Party!
18 years ago today the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed. I would wager that very few people even know what the DMCA is, but it has affected modern life substantially. It is in many ways just one more version of an old story of plunder by larger more powerful entities, and the taking advantage of the smaller, but often more vibrant creators. In many ways, it has made it so the copyright laws in such industries as music are pointless.
But let’s back up a bit. Everyone can remember the transition that happened when CDs came out and then everyone was ripping their CDs to MP3s and handing off 100 gig drives full of music files to their buddies. Then there was Napster that simply stitched all these drives together in one big mass orgy of free MP3s. Napster got the injunction primarily because the established music industry had no cut of the racket. Along come tech giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung and to cover their liability the DMCA made perfect sense. If someone has “illegal” music on their devices, they should not be held accountable. Furthermore, if someone uploads a Beatles tune as a video with a picture of Ringo Starr as the graphics to YouTube, why should YouTube be held accountable for such blatant infringement? All good and well. But that was 1998. Today is 2016. I am certain that in 1998 most members of the Senate had no idea the true implications of the DMCA. In 1998, most of the members of the Senate probably did not even know how to manage their own email. They were still licking stamps.
The DMCA’s principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of Internet service providers and other intermediaries. wikipedia.org
Let’s look back a bit. In 1998 the leading browser of the day was Netscape 2. Internet Explorer was at version 5.5. If anyone remembers IE 6, imagine how terrible IE 5.5 must have been. Windows 98 had probably just been released. Man, that is scary. My point is that the DMCA has not been updated for 18 years and is an extremely flawed piece of legislation. The large tech companies have in many ways based their entire industry on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It allows for basically everyone to break the law everyday and not have to worry about it. When was the last time that a cop pulled someone over and wanted to check if the person had pirated music on their phone? There probably is thousands of dollars of contraband on everyone’s devices. Ain’t gonna happen.
Times Have Changed – Google Is Our Master of Information
But this is what is disingenuous about the DMCA. Companies like Google know just about everything about you. What you buy. What websites you visit. Your birthday. Your favorite color.
In 2016 they have the ability to determine if a piece of music is copyrighted via matching wave forms, and indeed this is how they “monetize” this work. But YouTube refuses to acknowledge this UNLESS they are in a position to make money off of that music – they make money anyway but that is another post. The only way the copyright holder can get the videos of their music taken down is with take-down notices. If a song is popular, this can mean hundreds of separate videos with the same song on it. The artists cannot simply tell the ISP such as YouTube “I do not want my work on your network.” YouTube is sort of like that creepy neighbor running a crack-house who borrowed your weed-whacker last spring and refuses to give it back claiming ignorance. Musicians, songwriters and composers have better things to do with their time than chase down illegal version of their work.
YouTube is sort of like that creepy neighbor running a crack-house who borrowed your weed-whacker last spring and refuses to give it back claiming ignorance. Musicians, songwriters and composers have better things to do with their time than chase down illegal version of their work.
Which brings me back to 1998. Do you really think in 1998 anyone could predict such entities as YouTube or Facebook? And unlike the owners of these companies, I believe these entities are not just platforms, they are simply publishers with free content providers and creators. These publishers have to take responsibility as well for copyright infringement. It is within their technical realm but they are playing dumb as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 suits them just fine. The DMCA is to their advantage.
The real master of deception with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is YouTube. Facebook, Twitter and the like have simply entered personal lives and monetized birthdays and other important life events until people depart from this world. Personalized marketing on steroids that the users all agree to though without really reading the privacy policies.
But all such companies are the modern-day plunderers. Instead of grabbing continents, forests, rivers, enslaving the natives and digging for gold, they are plundering your personal events and consumer habits along with the likes of great artists like James Brown, Elton John, Charlie Palmieri, Vince Gill, Willie Green, Slayer, Bette Midler, Woody Guthrie (the list is endless) and any person who has recorded or published a piece of music in the last hundred years.
Conclusion
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act needs to be reexamined and rewritten every five years to reflect and take into consideration the changes in technology, creativity and platforms. It is an important part of combating the many inequities in our society.
It is with great pleasure that we were asked again to present The Pelican Cafe 2016 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Awards . So many great bands… so many stages. It is a world-class event still free to everyone.
As usual, I start this post with a brief assessment of the weather. The first week of October in San Francisco is usually the beginning of our “Indian Summer,” that two month period of time between the horrid fog of summer and the torrential rains of December, where we get some consistent sunlight and winds often blow out of the east. Surfers take to the ocean, as this time of year is when the waves are at their best. Last year during the festival was no exception, but this year during the The 2016 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival the northwest winds were already beginning to howl at around 9 am. Of course this made it so the entire weekend was not what surfers would call “rideable.” It also had another effect. On many of the stages facing west, the sound got literally blown away by the wind. It is not ideal to have these winds when putting on an outdoor festival.
The winds off Ocean Beach San Francisco on October 1, 2016
People (all three of you), who follow this publication, know that every year I give out these precious awards to the deserving people and musicians. It is a lot of work narrowing down the selections, but I think I nailed it this time around.
Outstanding Billionaire of 2016: Warren Hellman
It is easy when you attend a free festival to give thanks to the person paying for everything. In our winner-take-all economy, that guy is Warren Hellman, who now is somewhere six feet under and must accept this award posthumously. Unlike, one of the current presidential candidates, Warren Hellman actual had a passion for something other than himself. That was bluegrass music and the banjo, and he actually gave money back to the community. He spent his days as a banker and venture capitalist and somewhere along the way started the festival. He made so much money that he has funded The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival for a decade after his death in 2011. Mark your calendars. That would be 2021. Thanks Warren. The entire American Beverage Association and all the corner stores within a mile radius of Golden Gate Park really thank you.
Chadrick Honore – Trumpet Player in Rebirth Brass Band
Outstanding Musician: Chadrick Honore – Trumpet Player in Rebirth Brass Band
I took off work early on Friday as I simply had to go see the Rebirth Brass Band play at the Arrow Stage. The band, with a long tradition and many members over the years, is playing really well these days. The trumpet player Chadrick Honore was simply on fire and the way he plays trumpet makes it look effortless. As usual, New Orleans’ musicians are much more than just playing an instrument. Chadrick was singing and working the crowd as well. But, his playing was truly outstanding. It is curious that as time goes on with The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival that there are more wind instruments and less banjos. I would wager there were fewer banjos this year than any of the last five. Perhaps the festival should be renamed The Hardly ANY Bluegrass Festival. But that is OK with me. Just bring on more bands from Louisiana.
This one needs to be replaced…
Terrible Speaker that Needs to Be Replaced Banjo Stage
With that Northwest winds howling and blowing the trees, I was wondering if that speaker about 100 yards down the meadow from the Banjo Stage was even on? Yes it was. But, let me tell you – it sounded like crap. Sometimes speakers like this just get old and fall apart inside.
Actually not a bad spot to see a show at the Rooster Stage. Jackson Browne, somewhere down there.
Best Babyboomer Singing “Life Soundtrack Songs” Jackson Browne
I have never been to a Jacksom Browne concert. Now I have. It was pretty good. He played a lot of his big hits, titles that I do not know but the melodies that have been ingrained in you somehow. He is a great singer-songwriter and I came to realize that what he really writes are simply hymns. Lots of IV to I. Lots of V SUS chords to I. All good. Not very bluesy at all. During one of his songs he got about 8 bars in and simply stopped. I have know idea if he suddenly forgot the words or the chords, but he just took a little pause and started it all over. I think half the audience didn’t even noticed. Performers take note.
Band that Never Made it Due to Flight Delays Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie
With a name like that, how would you NOT want to go all the way across town and check it out. But alas, the flight was delayed and they missed the show.
During Curtis’ set at the Arrow Stage
Amazing Special Treat of the Festival Curtis Salgado
Man, can this guy sing and play harmonica. A really special musician who has been there through the years. It is truly strange that he was not listed on the schedule. Curtis is the “real deal.” http://www.curtissalgado.com/
Strangest Aspect of the Festival So few San Francisco Bands
In the early days of the festival, word has it that there were actual a fair amount of San Francisco bands on the stages. Not so much these days. Sure there are local musicians like Boz Scaggs, part of the booking, and locals who get the gig playing behind him, but I find it perplexing that the band Front Country, a really good bluegrass band from San Francisco, is not on one of the stages. There are many other great San Francisco bands people in the area do not even know. The closest thing this year, was the showcasing of the Little Village Foundation, a local non-profit that is doing some really good work. Diverse and very Northern Californian.
Anyway, I caught about 12 bands in total, a bit less than years past but it was about right. All of The Pelican Cafe 2016 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Awards are guaranteed for 30 days from this reading. After that you are on your own. Go out and hear some live music from the locals. Until 2017…
I wanted to post this video back a while back and found it in my files. It is a trumpet section practicing in a neighborhood near Frenchman’s Street in New Orleans around jazz fest this past April. Unlike most of the world, I often like hearing musicians practice more than the actual performance. You can learn a lot just from how they go about breaking down the music and get a real sense of the amount of work it takes to play well. I do not know what this tune is but I was walking and heard this trumpet section practicing. A guy came up to me and started trying to bum some money off of me. I asked him to just give me a few minutes to listen to the horns. He explained to me that they were running the scales and that you get a better sound if you tighten your lips. We converse for a bit and I spotted him a few Washington’s for keeping the block safe.
The scale they were playing is what sometimes is called the diatonic bebop scale. I remember hearing that David Baker coined the term but it does not really matter, as I call it the New Orleans scale.
What I love about it is the tension of the I to VII to flat VII. How about the “Welcome to America” scale.
