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.
The winds were about 15 to 20 knots out of the northwest. It was a bit gusty. The sky was overcast. I love to watch these guys fly. There are kites of all kinds at Fort Funston. High performance racers that do arching turns and loops. Larger, a bit clunkier tanks and slow tandems. Fun to watch!
Four years ago I made a call out to my friend Piers that I still had his surfboards. https://sfjournal.net/blog/piers-lewis-please-pick-up-your-surf-board/ Since then two of mine sort of bit the dust. After a while, surf boards get dings and become delaminated, sort of like their riders perhaps, and become too gone to repair.
At the present moment I am basically down to the Piers Lewis Nev and a SF Surf Shop big wave board called a gun. The summer is not a good time to surf around here, but I took the Nev out for a test ride today. Piers. The Nev has turned out to be a great board for summer waves around here. Those short period windswelly, shifty buggers. Thanks for letting me store it. Just let me know when you need it back. I will keep it safe and always remember to tie it down on the roof rack. Your friend, Paul
From April 2012…
PIERS LEWIS… PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SURF BOARD
APRIL 22, 2012 PAUL LYONS
Hi Piers,
It has been a long time. Actually a really long time. I hope you are doing well. Where you are, I have no idea. We knew each other back in “the day.” You took up surfing as you thought the paddling would help out the carpel-tunnel in the arms. Exercise. The remedy of last resort for the inflicted. Not sure if it worked but in the end you left town and your surf board ended up in my basement. It is an 8 foot Nev, well-built with very few miles. I have used it perhaps 3 or 4 times. Actually it was my friends who rode it when we were short a board on surf ventures.
The issue is this. I cannot find you anywhere. Not on Google. Not on Facebook. Not on LinkedIn. You have done it! You have maintained your sanity and privacy. In the future, when someone needs a privacy policy, I will just send them to you as you got it down. The only problem is, I will have no way to get a hold of you. Anyway, I really want to get rid of the Nev surf board. The surf season is upon us and I have eyes on a more high performance model. Maybe a 7 foot pin tail. Something that really carves. Let me tell you. That Nev is not made for carving.
So just email me before say Thanksgiving. Lets work out a deal.
Your friend,
Paul
The Mission District in San Francisco has changed a lot in the last five years. When I arrived 28 years ago, it was definitely more of a working class Latino neighborhood. Everyday you would hear a car go by with salsa blasting out of the windows. It was thought of as being a dangerous spot, but if you lived there for just a few weeks you knew right away where not to be at 2 am (these are actually the same corners today) and everyone scraped along to get by. It was possible to move into a place and make it as a young artist or musician. Rents where not extreme. We were lucky. There were still phone booths every few blocks and your best place to get the latest news was the corner store.
The changes in the Mission are not reported about very often in the media very well I think. Sure, there are a lot of pieces about the price of housing and all the “techies” moving in, but not much about what it actually looks like and how it has changed in terms of culture and human interactions.
One street that has gone through a lot of changes is Valencia. A few years back, a Mission neighborhood youth group was performing on Valencia. You know the usual story. Probably a summer program. Keep the kids out of gangs and away from drugs. Part of the performance was a percussion ensemble and that is when it got weird. The luxury, custom bike shop inside, came out and requested the youth ensemble to stop playing as it was interfering with the store selling bikes. A similar thing happened at a nearby playground when some techies reserved a soccer field that was used every afternoon by the local youth for pickup soccer games. Here you could see the insensitivity and sense of entitlement by the newcomers in the glaring light.
Gentrification is the new colonialism
– From a sign in a shop on Valencia
Most mornings during the week I bike to work down the bike lane on Valencia. Going the other way, heading south to Silicon Valley, are scores of “Google buses” – large white tall things with tinted windows where the passengers seem to be riding twenty feet up in air. They pull up to the stops and pick up the workers – mostly white – probably mostly software engineers or marketing coordinators, and take them of to their corporate “campuses.” In many of these companies, these workers have been instructed to not talk to the media. In the afternoon, these same buses come the other way. These same workers, returning from their isolated corporate enclaves returning to the city with the cool zip codes. While it is commendable that they sometimes take the bus, I find it strange that they do not look anything like the diversity of San Francisco. They are the reason that people have gotten priced out of San Francisco. I would wager that not a single person on these buses makes less than six figures. San Francisco teachers’ salaries top out at under 90k. Anyway, it would be interesting to do a study on why these new young techies live in San Francisco.
Google buses heading back down San Jose Ave…
Peaceful Demonstrations
This past year there has been a lot of outrage about police brutality. It got to the point where eventually the San Francisco police chief resigned – the pressure was just too much. One such situation was the shooting by police of Alex Nieto, a truly tragic event.
https://justice4alexnieto.org/alex-story/
One time while riding home from work, I stopped to take some photos outside of the Mission police department, where demonstrators were holding up signs. They where completely peaceful and it was a quite a sight. People of all ages and walks of life were there with their homemade signs. While trying to take some photos, the Google buses just kept blocking the view. One after another, like the buses were schools of fish.
Turn Down the Volume
One of the things that has changed is the number of white tablecloth restaurants and cafes. They are everywhere. Where are the techies going to plan there next IPO if there are not cafes where everyone is staring into their laptops?
One place that has been in the Mission for a while is Radio Habana, a little hole in the wall at 22nd street and Valencia. It is run by a long-time San Franciscan Leila Mansur. For years there has been a Cuban rumba on Sunday afternoons. Many great rumberos from all over the Bay Area would make a pilgrimage to hangout and play. The level of playing was often quite high and it was a serious place for Caribbean musics.
But alas, the upstairs neighbors started to complain about the music. Too loud I suppose. My comment to them is that you are living in the city. If you want a quiet suburb, move to Walnut Creek! This sort of stifling of performance spaces is going on all over town. Where ever the new condos go in, the culture gets zapped. This sort of cultural event is the reason many people live here in the first place. Fortunately, the Sunday rumba has moved to other spots but there is nothing like Radio Habana. It is a closet with soul.
Burning Down the Place
Then there is the mysterious burning down of some of the older buildings in the Mission. First it was huge building on Mission and 22nd.
Mission and 22nd before the fire
Mission Meat Market
This building was from another era, when people got around on horses. The first floor was a microcosm of San Francisco with granted a heavy Latin bent. You had the florist in front, the travel agent, the dress maker, the Asian butcher, the Mission Meat Market which was run by some old-school San Francisco white folk, the Latin grocery and produce store. It had an open market feel that seems to disappear once the old make way for the new. I remember buying fresh wild salmon back in the 90s when they were running. Delicious and affordable. It was a place where a variety of people did business and had to get along. Geographically, it was one of important soulful places in the barrio.
Mission and 22nd – 6/2016
Mission and 22nd – 6/2016
Mission and 22nd – 6/2016
Mission and 22nd – 6/2016
Mission and 22nd – 6/2016
It burned down and then burned down again. The rent-controlled apartments above are no more. The shops all just a memory. Now it is but a hole in the ground waiting to become yet another beehive of condos and apartments, priced for those riding the Google buses. Soulless places made of glass and steel.
In April I was given a painting by Laurie Wigham of this building after the fire, but before the tear-down. Thanks Andy!
22nd and Valenicia – Laurie Wigham
Then just last month further down Mission near 30th street, the building where Cole Hardware was burned down as well. All very mysterious.
New Buildings in San Francisco – The Private Life
New Condos
New Condos
The changes now are not only the people but the actual physical structures that have made up the fabric of the communities for decades. The very cool funkiness of San Francisco is making way for more modern cold geography. There are places south of the Giant’s ballpark that look like San Jose.
The topic of homelessness has been all over the news these days. Series in the San Francisco Chronicle. Radio shows. Magazines. One thing that seems to be missing to me is actual photos of homelessness. Mostly I see tents on sidewalks. Street after street. Housing in 2016. Brought to you by Coleman and the $50 tent.
One thing is true when it comes to homeless people. Everyone who is living on the streets is a unique story. There are the young artists who would rather do their thing than work for the man. There are the middle age men who are tired of the dead end jobs. There are junkies. There are the crazy people who just scream at the stars.
I work in a area south of market in San Francisco where there are basically encampments all over the place. At first it was primarily tents. Lately it has become plywood carts on wheels. I guess we still call this the first world.
Here are some photos from Carnaval 2016. After many years of camping in Humboldt during this weekend, we now stay in town and take in San Francisco Carnaval. This year we were at both the festival and parade. The weather was stupendous.
Saturday Line-up
Fogo Na Roupa
Loco Bloco
Loco Bloco
Eating on Valencia
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Oscar De Leon
Rumba with Radio Havana Club
Loco Bloco
Loco Bloco
Julius Melendez with Caranson
Soltron
Soltron
The highlight of the stages was hearing Oscar De Leon on Saturday. At 72 years of age he is still singing great. He is an amazing musician. As is often the case at Carnaval the sound is terrible. This year it was JK Sound delivering the incompetence. Oscar got up on stage and after the first ten seconds knew he had to do his own sound check. He stopped the band and started with the congas, got that level set. Next the bongos. That was working. Timbales then bass came next. OK… those mics are on. Piano took a while but that eventually got some volume. He then adjusted the mix a bit and when his garden of sound was working go enough he went into a 90 minute set that was phenomenal. Of course in his improvised pregones he wasted no time in criticizing the sound company and sound guys. It was all pretty funny as it was all in fun and the sound people had no idea that Oscar was playing with them and cutting them down. Oscar De Leon’s band had six horns! Three trumpets and three trombones as well as a guitar. From classic hits to some covers, it was a great set.
The next day we watched the parade. Stationed at 24th and Mission we caught all the floats until about #55 and then left. Hopefully the photos give you an idea of the diversity of cultures. Everything from well-maintained old cars, some with hydraulics to Aztec dancing, to Central American to Brazilian. Fogo Na Roupa numbers were astounding.
We heading back to Harrison, with our very much appreciated folding camp chairs, and heard more local groups. Soltron played there unique blend of Bay Area grooves to an excited crowd.
In 2012 I wrote a piece here on this website called First Glance. It documented my introduction to large waves and surfing in general and talked about how the government was transporting sand from the north end to the south end of Ocean Beach in a valiant attempt to ward off the ocean’s constant pounding of the coastline.
Anyone who has surfed that place in the winter knows that the ocean always wins in the end. If the ocean wants to eat a parking lot for breakfast, there is nothing you can do about it. A big December swell and a 6.2-foot high tide and half that sand will end up back were it came from.
Below is what the second parking lot at Ocean Beach in San Francisco looked like in 2008.
Ocean Beach in 2008 at the Second Parking Lot
While I had not ventured out to Ocean Beach in a few weeks, I was passing by when I noticed that the second parking lot at Sloat Ave along the Great Highway was closed. It had disappeared. The ocean had taken a large bite out of it for breakfast, probably during one of the big winter swells we have had this year. All the sand that they had hauled from the north end to the south had disappeared. In about five years there will be no Great Highway here. Pretty soon the San Francisco Zoo will be underwater.
In the end, the ocean always wins.
Below is what the second parking lot at Ocean Beach in San Francisco looked like in March of 2016.
Ocean Beach – Second Parking Lot 3/19/2016
I find it a bit strange that the fact that the Ocean ate the parking lot of a major metropolitan city did not make it into the local main stream press.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Beauty Operators
8:30 – 11 pm
The Doctor’s Lounge
Late-night hangout featuring cocktails & standard comfort grub in an old-school, easygoing setting.
Address: 4826 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94112
Phone:(415) 586-9730
Yep. Third Thursday of the Month Show and Jam
But, you probably should not go there. Way too dangerous. Not far from Jerry Garcia’s house off Mission, and I am not talking about the ice cream flavor. Just two blocks over from where Patty Hearst was holed up in a safe house for a month – you know the place, and her image in the late 70s was pasted all over the 6 o’clock news for days on end. Same neighborhood where coach George Seifert’s in-laws lived, and that award-winning burrito spot down the block. Crazy Dan White had a house out there as well… no relation to Barry White. The Doctor’s Lounge this Thursday, 8:30pm. Bluegrass and originals about the treacherous life. Misery. Love. Treachery. And good beer.
THE BEAUTY OPERATORS (SF)
This stringband was born out of San Francisco bluegrass jam scene- on the mean streets of SF and its music venues and various flea markets. The Beauty Operators are known for their high-energy live performances, mixing traditional bluegrass, modern originals, and irreverent transformations of pop songs, and of course, cutting hair.
http://www.thebeautyoperators.com/
Members: Jeremy Pollock – guitar and vocals Perry Spinalli – fiddle and vocals Paul – Harmonica Jed – Banjo Matt Lauer – bass and more bass Lucky Luke – mandolin and vocals
