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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.

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“Surfing the Internet”, “The Cloud” and other Silly Acts of Language Appropriation

 

Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation, is the adoption of elements of one culture by members of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.
Wikipedia

Among many segments of society there is a lot of attention to the issue of “cultural appropriation.” Researching it online you find that the phrase “cultural appropriation” goes back to the 1960’s. So much of that appropriation seemed to come about rather naively and certainly due to ignorance and insensitivity. The end result, besides being disrespectful was often downright silly. The Atlanta Braves. The Kansas City Chiefs, The Washington Redskins all seem to be names associated with a time when ignorance and a lack of cultural awareness was common and not even understood as a problem. Today, cultural appropriation seems to come to light mostly when a celebrity dresses in a certain way and does not understand the significance of the garb, or college students use “Day of the Dead” as simply an excuse to get drunk and try out new costumes, make- up, tequila and margarita mixes.

“Surfing the Internet”

But just as cultural appropriation was and is fueled by the marketing industry, so too is language appropriation. In the internet era there are many new marketing terms associated with the digital things that have metaphors from a romanticized analog object. The phrase “Surfing the Internet” conjured up in the mid 1990’s was a precursor for things to come. This phrase “surfing the internet” is simply strange for anyone who has ever actually surfed. When you surf, you often drive a car to the beach, paddle out past the incoming waves, wait for often a quarter of an hour for a set to come and fight off at least ten other people to catch a wave. Most of the time is spent far from any digital technology in the nature. As many big wave surfers say – “once you leave the beach you are in the wild.” Unlike being at your computer looking up websites, when you go surfing you do get a lot of exercise.

By contrast, when you open an internet browser you rarely get any exercise. You can instantly choose a website from a URL in your head, or go to an number of URLs that you have already visited. New pages flash in front of your face but you never get any of that energy that you get when you are in the ocean. The whole experience is actually nothing like surfing. Take up surfing. You will see what I mean.

“The Cloud”

Another silly term/metaphor is “The Cloud.” When I first heard this term in around 2005 the next weekend I was at a Super Bowl party with someone who is a network administrator and we were laughing about “The Cloud.” What is “The Cloud?” “The Cloud” is simply a server or data center connected to a network that can have redundancies and co-locations so that you can access data and applications from anywhere. The point is to make things secure, predictable and easy to maintain. It is also about monetizing software and data.

Real clouds, on the other hand are anything but predictable. They do not store any digital data and they often move in unpredictable ways, release large amounts of water, ice, hale and snow and sometimes play a dance with the earth and electricity. Real clouds are nothing like “The Cloud.” They are in the sky. Data centers are often those huge, nondescript warehouse buildings next to highways that look very nondescript.

Your data is not somewhere up in the sky floating around in a cloud. More likely it is along highway 101 along with a lot of refrigeration to keep all the servers from melting down. Sometimes the data center is in Florida as we know when there is a hurricane whole data centers can go down.

“You Guys” and the Death of “Ladies and Gentlemen”

I am not sure when this expression “you guys” became ubiquitous but among people under forty it is everywhere. I find it often used when a group of woman are together and one is addressing the entire group. “You guys, let’s go get some coffee!” Does the speaker not see they are addressing only woman? Do they not realize that their great grandmother did not actually have the right to vote and this may be insulting? But perhaps it is the informal nature of our society. Perhaps it is just an expression without any real thought. Perhaps it is, and this is my general observation, the new “ladies and gentlemen.” Indeed when I hear the phrase “you guys” over and over again, instead of wincing, in my head I just replace “you guys” with “ladies and gentlemen.” I do not dislike the “you guys” people. I just find the expression inaccurate and sexist and it plays into our misogynistic and patriarchal society. For woman, “you guys” is not empowering and should actually be insulting.

What is even more peculiar about “you guys” is that we live in times when whole generations, organizations and academic institutions are very sensitive about pronouns. “Please call me “he” on Mondays but by Wednesdays I usually am feeling very non-binary so on Wednesdays use “they.”” Good grief what a quandary! Perhaps we should all go by UGYZ the new “you guys” which is really “ladies and gentlemen” which doesn’t really have a gender, just like the phrase “mankind” which does not actually have a gender but in the end really just means “humans.”

UGYZ. Upper or lowercase. It means the same. Invented here on the pelicancafe.net. Use at your own discretion and now approved for use in Scrabble when you are having a problem getting rid of your “Z.”

 

 

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Lucca Ravioli Co., Nothing Lasts Forever

On Valencia and 22nd Street in San Francisco is one of those places where the first natives probably met and shared stories and perhaps some food – a cup of tea, some acorns. From that spot, if you look West you see two peaks later called Twin Peaks. In the summer, the fog bounces off those two peaks and coastal range and keeps the Mission District relatively fog-free.

There was probably fresh water close at hand. If you look for the scraggly lines on old maps, Mission Creek and others flowed at times – all a few blocks away. Anyone who has spent a few decades in San Francisco must have ventured into Lucca’s on 22nd. It was part vacation. Part cheap thrill. Part a journey into the land of culinary hedonism.

Do take a number from one of those old fashion number roles at the front, and when you are called, it was like you had just won the lottery. All the primarily male staff, dressed in white shirts wore aprons and those disposable paper deli hats. “Two trays of ravioli please, one vegetarian the other meat, a pint of sauce, that dill Havarti on sale – I’ll have a pound and a half of that please. A pound of the salami… no not that one, the one over there. A half-pint of those mixed olives. Don’t forget to charge me for these two bottles of Italian wine. This bread is incredible, by the way.” After they ring you up on a antique golden, ornate and, fully functioning cash register a bell ringing every time it is opened, you leave and proceed to eat a meal that you talk about for months after. RIP. Lucca Ravioli Co. Thank you, we will miss you!

  • Where they made the ravioli
  • A bit of a history lesson on these signs. Butcher paper as the means of communication gave this place its charm.
Looking West with Twin Peaks in the background.

Postlude

One of the wonderful things about Lucca’s is that it was an old world place and they treated kids with a lot of compassion and joy. I remember stopping by Lucca’s to buy some lunch in the late-90s. I had my 3 year old in tow. Soon they would hand him a fresh bread-stick just for fun. That was pretty special. A small business owner winning over customers, little kids and the neighborhood, one bread-stick at a time.


There is nothing permanent except change.

Heraclitus

I have no idea who in buying Lucca’s or what is going to become of the prime location, and it is really something beyond my control, but I do hope that whoever it is, can keep some of the good vibes going.

Remember Lucca’s on Valencia and 22nd? San Francisco just lost a piece of the magic. “I hear that the Mission was once an Italian neighborhood.” “Every neighborhood in San Francisco was once an Italian neighborhood.”

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The San Francisco Quarterly Report – March 2019

Weather

Since the last report there has been extreme weather. Late in 2018 a fire season began that was massive. Whole neighborhoods in Santa Rosa burned to the ground. The city of Paradise in the Sierra foothills burned to the ground. There were massive fires in southern California and all up and down the coast. In San Francisco the smoke was so thick you had to wear a mask to breath outside. From San Francisco, Oakland was not visible.

Then on Thanksgiving Day the rains came and it was a gift from the heavens. Since then the rain and storm dump on the Sierra. Snow-pack is at 150% of normal. For people who like to hike up to the tops of mountains and ski down – that activity will be available until the end of June. We are just now beginning to dry out.

Politics

Governor Jerry Brown has retired and been replaced with the former mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom. Jerry Brown has been a great public servant, and we will miss his generally good judgement, candid sense of humor, honesty and fiscal skills – why Republicans get the moniker of being fiscal conservatives when they always drive federal and state governments in to debt is strange.  Jerry leaves Governor with money in the bank. We know that with Gavin, at least we now have a Governor with way better hair but certainly less brains. Let us pray that Gavin uses good judgement. We know he has no sense of humor.

Sporting News

I do not pay attention of professional sports so this is about the local sports. The skiing is fantastic, there is plenty of snow. Biking is off the charts when you can hit a clear day after a rain, 50 degree weather. Great light.  Light winds. The surfing is off the charts with many head-high and overhead days with off-shore winds and long period swells.

Surf in Norther California – 2019

San Francisco Construction Boom

A few photos of San Francisco and the changing skyline. Building all over town is extensive. The new Warriors stadium is looking like it is on schedule. Warehouses are being torn down. Condos are being built in record time.

Below are the new buildings around 3rd Street. The Warriors new stadium is almost done. UCSF has an entire campus. Kaiser and a lot of medical, pharmaceutical and biotech companies abound. Not a single corner store anywhere in sight but massive concrete parking garages for all the wealthy professionals driving in from Marin and Walnut Creek.

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Thoughts on the New APA Guidelines for Men

Recently the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) published their new guidelines entitled the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for practice with men and boys . Writing and publishing something like the guidelines for practice with men and boys is a strange and ill-advised project. Creating guidelines for protologists on the use of the FOS-425 for colonoscopies on men over fifty seems like a good idea, but men are far too  varied and complex to create generalizations and guidelines.

Before you read further, I highly recommend that you read the actual paper. It is rather odd that like Moses’ 10 Commandments there are 10 A.P.A. guidelines for practice with boys and men. But perhaps it is more like an A.P.A. awards document as I am sure that of all the researchers and contributors who’s studies are cited celebrated this career triumph with a lot of wine and champagne to fortify their narcissistic egos. I believe the  guidelines will be viewed as a curious historic document, similar to writings and guidelines for women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when doctors and the medical scientists viewed woman as having the “woman problem.”  This is clearly outlined in For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Now that Western medicine has terrorized woman for over 200 years, for some reason they now have moved on to men. In fifty years, the  American Psychological Association’s guidelines for practice with men and boys will be embarrassing evidence on just how absolutely naive, cult-like, dangerous and  ignorant the A.P.A. is to history, philosophy, language and actual science.

Indeed, after the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for practice with men and boys were released it created a bit of a firestorm. People on the conservative right and academics of all walks often criticized the paper as either being an attack on men and traditional morals or simply inaccurate and absolute intellectual self-deception. The New York Times ran an opinion piece that basically side-stepped the issue and did a report of how various people and authorities on the subject responded to the “guidelines.” However, the critique I found most perceptive was by Jacob Falkovich and his essay Curing the World of Men

Curing the World of Men

This is, after all, the same organization that classified homosexuality as a mental disorder until the seventies, and whose members were not discouraged from recommending conversion therapy until 2009. You’d think being wrong about gays for a century may teach the APA some humility. –Jacob Falkovich

What I find alarming about the A.P.A. is the fabric of the organization. To me it has characteristics more in keeping with a cult or a religious organization than a scientific organization.  If you simply start with the “definitions” at the beginning  (gender, cisgender, gender bias, gender role strain, etc.)  you can see right away they are laying the ground work for current fashionable cultural assumptions and not science.   For example, the term “gender non-conforming,”  which is so in fashion in psychology these days, rarely gets scrutinized. “Gender non-conforming” – based on what? Is the A.P.A. now determining the “style” of a certain gender. Is a gender “style” for some reason now an important part of psychotherapy and also a subject of science? From the very introduction, the paper begins with some pretty shallow assumptions.

Boys and men are diverse with respect to their race, ethnicity, culture, migration status, age, socioeconomic status, ability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religious affiliation.

Seeing as men make up about half of the 7.5 billion humans on the planet, this statement seems accurate.  However, how can boys and men be diverse with regards to gender identity? They are both male. Last time I bought airline tickets I had to choose between either male or female in the gender dropdown. If the A.P.A. has discovered additional genders they perhaps should inform United Airlines. I do hear of non-binary as being another gender and there is of course intersex or hermaphrodite people but this paper and guidelines are for men. Then the next sentence gets to the core of how the A.P.A. defines gender.

Each of these social identities contributes uniquely and in intersecting ways to shape how men experience and perform their masculinities – Introduction to A.P.A. guidelines

“… how men experience and perform their masculinities.” What a strange notion that a man simply performs “masculinities” as though a gender has no biological basis and is simply a “performance.”  This notion perhaps comes from the psychologist Judith Butler and her notion that gender is defined by “gender performativity.”  That the A.P.A. adopts this theory as being a scientific fact is rather odd. This is why the A.P.A. is more akin to say the Catholic Church. Indeed if you create a study that is peer reviewed and published that challenges another prominent researchers’ work, you immediately get called out for not towing the accepted line. This is exactly what happened to Lisa Littman when her paper Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports when data challenged the  assumptions of other scientists currently in fashion. That people like Diane Ehrensaf, PhD from UCSF dismissed the study outright just shows how political and cult-like is the field of psychology and the APA. As a scientist, you would think Ehrensaf would be curious. “Interesting. You are taking a different angle than I did and found that kids with Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria seemed to be due to environmental factors and a common feature was an addiction to the internet.”  Instead, Ehrensaf dismissed the findings outright even though her work is often based on studies that have yet to be replicated.  This is but one example of how the APA is not really interested in science but ideological conformity. Often, in the end they become the unknowing henchmen of the pharmaceutical industry.

 

Not related to men specifically, Drug Dealer, MD is an insightful look how the medicine in the United States is the cause of the opiod crisis.  That “pain” is now considered a vital sign has profound influence on the prescribing of narcotics and other prescription drugs.

 

 

While reading the comments from the New York Times article it was interesting to read that the guidelines use of the word “stoic” is actually inaccurate, shallow and lacking of historical perspective. It is almost as though the modern psychologist notions of the topic of men was informed only by time spent reading the latest studies, watching beer and truck commercials, John Wayne movies and never bothered to learn some of the fundamentals.  Three times in the paper it discusses how stoicism in men is a bad thing, that “not showing vulnerability, self-reliance, and competitiveness might deter them from forming close relationships with male peers.” A rather odd statement for anyone who has ever participated in athletics and formed bonds with teammates and opponents. Online, in the comments, someone pointed out that “Stoicism” as a ancient philosophy of life is very different than what perhaps how the APA defines stoicism.  Recommended reading was the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy Irvine, William B.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy Irvine, William B.
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy Irvine, William B.

It is good read and what you learn is that Stoicism as an ancient philosophy of life has more in common with Zen Buddhism than emotional repression and asceticism. I am certain learning about Stoicism is much more worthwhile than reading the APA guidelines. For when after the APA psychologist, who is having therapy session with your anxiety-prone child, decides “maybe its time to start medication or hormones” and suggests Prozac or Ritalin, you will need to consult some of the practical advice from the ancient philosophy of Stoicism in order to come to terms with your life’s turn of events.  But now I am going to stop writing, and as my father did before me, a very stoic creature,perform one of my many “masculinities” and do the dishes and clean the house.

Although there are differences in masculinity ideologies, there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population,
including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence. These have been collectively referred to as traditional masculinity ideology

– From American Psychological Association’s guidelines for practice with men and boys.

What a strange definition of something the APA calls “traditional masculinities.” Of all the thousands upon thousands of men I have known, I have yet to know any who embrace that list. To stereotype people is a sign of a shallow intellect and for health care providers a dangerous path.

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AJ Lee and Blue Summit – Don’t Miss this Band!

It is a strange thing that in this information age more people do not know about the band from Santa Cruz, California by the name of AJ Lee and Blue Summit. Last Sunday I went to the show at the Chapel and along with the usual familiar bluegrass community heard a really great line up of bands. It was the  Be Unbroken: Bluegrass Fire Relief Benefit Concert & Auction , a benefit for victims of the recent Butte County fires. On the bill were The T Sisters,  Lost Radio Flyers and Blue Summit. Blue Summit closed out the show and unlike other times I have heard them they were rightfully placed as the headline act.

Even though AJ Lee and Blue Summit are all under twenty five and AJ is just twenty they play and sing with a skill, soul and maturity beyond their years. That they have not been signed to a big record deal is amazing. That they often get called upon to play opening sets for bands way under their level is surprising. That they do not get called upon to play big festivals or even big local festivals like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is just strange. People in San Francisco into all genres of music should know about this band – they are that good.

Anyway, this post is a big shout out to AJ Lee and Blue Summit. AJ’s singing is steeped in the blues and when she plays the mandolin hold on to your hat because she can really play. When you do see them on some trendy late night show in a few years, just remember that I warned you, but I have been saying that for a few years now.

SEE: https://www.bluesummitmusic.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Week In Havana, Cuba

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to spend a week in Havana, Cuba.  I was tagging along with my wife as she was attending a Pan-America Nursing Conference. While she and her colleague attended the conference during the day, I explored Havana. The week was amazing.

Hotel National

People in the United States do not often think of the possibility of even going to Cuba. For so many years it was seemingly off-limits to US citizens, but in the last few years, midway through the Obama presidency relations “normalized” a bit – whatever that means. Getting into the country, flying in from Miami was no problem. A simple stamp on our flight boarding pass was all that seemed necessary. Checking the the box “cultural education” seemed the obvious choice but nothing was questioned. The usual custom form. Welcome to Cuba.

We stayed at the Hotel Riviera about three miles west  along the ocean of central Havana.  I can unequivocally say that the Hotel Riviera is a great place to stay. The rooms are fantastic. The staff is incredible. The pool is awesome. The buffet breakfast in the morning is awesome. When we left, we felt that we were saying goodbye to good friends and this is a hotel with hundreds of guests and 20 floors of rooms.

My main route into town was along the Malecon which runs along the entire north side of Havana. We walked this many times. It is a colorful place. The people. The architecture. The people fishing off the wall. Not far from the Hotel Riviera is the US Embassy.

Us Embassy in Havana

Recently there was a issue with these mysterious waves of energy that were targeted at US Diplomats and people in the CIA. At the time I did not think about that at all. Along the Malecon you would see trumpet players, even trumpet sectionals rehearsing, impromptu parties late into the night with live music, young lovers watching the sunset.  Often when walking this route someone would walk along side you and start up a conversation. “I work as at biologist. I make $50 a month salary.” Eventually the conversation would end up at “can I get some money for milk for my kids?”  This is what we soon realized was what we called the “Cuba tax.” Of course as the week went along we figured out how to avoid or ignore this scenario.

I saw Havana Vieja, The Museum of the Revolution, Hotel Nacional, Jose Marti’s birthplace, the Revolutionary Plaza. At nights we would venture out and hear some great music. The first night at a neighborhood social club, where in the back was a 12 piece Son band. Four trumpets invigorating themselves between mambos with a bottle of rum. Passing it around like a bunch of teenagers. The bass player, playing a home-made baby bass –  in the pocket and swinging hard, maybe a little bit more modern than the style dictated but he was in his 70’s so who is to say. Other nights spent at an extraordinary rumba concert where even Pedro Martinez played a solo set. A late concert with the group Interactivo that was fantastic. A few sets on the top floor of the Lincoln Hotel listening to the Septepto Nacional, a traditional son band that is an internationally touring act. All of these events and contacts courtesy of my son Kai who has blazed the trail in Cuba the last few years and made many friends.  Special thanks to Koton, Bencomo and Gioser who’s friendship we value like family.

Of course for people from the US, just seeing and driving in all the old Chevy’s, Fords, Plymouth’s from the 40’s and 50’s is a treat.  There is something a bit ironic about that fact that cars in the US now last often only 10 years. The old cars in Cuba are over 70 years old and probably because they were made to last to begin with they keep them running out of necessity. Often, they are completely reupholstered and the drivers consider them like a novia.

The historic city of Havana is a beautiful place even in its crumbling decrepitude.  Buildings are literally falling down. Balconies are falling off. People live in these 400 year old structures that are definitely not safe.

For a week after returning from Cuba, I could not help but think about the people and geography. Visit Cuba. 25 miles from the US mainland, it is a world way.

If you want to see an outstanding documentary to get an idea of Cuba, see Cuba and the Cameraman by Jon Alpert

 

 

 

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The State of the Narrative

“You know, whether you send a bomb or receive a bomb it’s important to remember that we have some very fine people on both sides.”

Albert Ross – Colorado
From comments to NY Times article After Bomb Scares, Trump Tries Bipartisanship, Then Blames the Media

Two weeks before the November elections and all kinds of stories emerge. We are guided by narratives which is really about shining light on certain realities.  Assassinated journalists close to home reporting on events far away. Strange, explosive packages in the mail. Disenfranchised, vulnerable people migrating north from Central America in search of peace and opportunity. All events true and all extremely symbolic.

I cannot help but think what is the big deal about the migrants coming north. There are so many crappy jobs to fill in the United States of America that we should just open the doors and let them in. “Here’s a pizza and I think there may be a gig cleaning toilets at the Trump hotel or gardening at one of his golf courses. But be careful. Many people in El Norte are pretty stressed and on narcotics.”

One of the narratives which is perhaps heavier than anything in the news is the latest story in the New Your Times about the sorry state of the Pacific Ocean off of California. California’s Underwater Forests Are Being Eaten by the ‘Cockroaches of the Ocean’

If our oceans die, we die. That should be obvious. The intelligence of homo sapiens is way over-rated.

Nevertheless, remember to vote and if you do not vote you are letting some nutcase determine your future and you have nothing to complain about.

…

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2018 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Awards

It is again a great honor and privilege to be able to bestow many of the great musicians and participants of the 2018 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival with the prestigious Pelican Cafe Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Awards. We have been giving these awards out for at least the last five years, and this year the committee had a hard time agreeing on some of the winners. So many acts! So little time!

Usually early October in San Francisco has people dialed into a local professional baseball team as the playoff games often conflict with the festival, but not this time. By the time the festival began, the scrappy Oakland A’s had already lost a one game wildcard playoff game to the Yankees, so the baseball distraction was never to be.  The San Francisco Giants season was pretty much over by the All-Star game.

Instead, the mood was rather one of shock as the only score that seemed to matter was the game in the U.S. Senate – it was on many people’s minds.  Brett Kavanaugh, with a 50-48 vote was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and once again the voices of women were disregarded and ignored. The court now has added a very mediocre mind,  accused sexual molester and rapist, conservative partisan ideologue to the court and you can safely say that the “old boys network” is still in charge.  One can only hope that the midterm elections puts more woman and progressives in the upper echelons of government. I am not optimistic. We are an illiterate populous and our media is controlled in such a way that the narrative is often scripted by the wealthy plutocrats and truth is in short supply..

But to take a break from that madness and sorry state of affairs there is the 2018 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and what a great time it was.! Music is the best medicine.

BEST WAVES AT OCEAN BEACH: Friday Morning

I always begin the awards with a weather round up. The entire weekend during the festival experienced beautiful weather – sunny skies, and while the wind was strong out at the ocean from the northwest, it was actually not bad at the festival. In terms of surf, Friday morning before the wind came up was the best to be had. The waves were about 6-8 feet and really fun. After that, the wind picked up and it was all about the music.

Ocean Beach on Friday

BEST FESTIVAL DOG: The pleasant female pit bull hanging out on the main lawn at the banjo stage.

Talk about a chill dog and this dog was really fun to hang with. She just chilled on the lawn and nothing phased her at all.  People walking by practically stepping on her, strange smells, food dropping all over the place.  She was at the next blanket over and we enjoyed Dave Alvin, Mavis Staples and Allison Krauss together.  Why does Dave Alvin play blues harmonica in first position, I will never know but it did not even get a howl out of this pooch.

Favorite dog

BEST HORN SECTION: Booker T. and the three guys just nailing the classic tunes

The Booker T.  show on Sunday at the banjo stage was packed with talent. Lead singers nailing the classic R&B tunes. The horn section, seemingly a bunch of youngsters, were never introduced but these guys sounded great and  played with both power and dynamics. At festivals like this it is often the supporting characters that are what elevate the whole experience. The Booker T horn section was outstanding.

Booker T.

BEST SET THAT I ALMOST MISSED: Don Was

I was hanging out with friends on the Gold Stage when I heard this amazing trumpet player. Who could that be? Turned out it was Terrance Blanchard wailing away. I made a b-line to the Swan Stage and caught the set from the road which is a good perch to see what is really going on on stage. Then Bob Weir was invited into the jam and he sang a tune “Days Between.” Very cool!

THE BOB WILLS AWARD: Aki Kumar

Besides being a great harmonica player, Aki puts on a completely entertaining show. His style is what has been called Bollywood Blues and he sings these awesome songs in what I guess is in Hindi. He has the ability to lead a group, play and sing extremely well, communicate with the audience with joy and humor and keep every tune playing back to back just like Bob Wills did it with the Texas Playboys. His band often used the sitar. Talk about some cultural fusion! What is also cool about Aki’s approach is he really lets player take extensive solos.

Paul with Aki Kumar.

BEST BANJO PLAYER AWARD: Tim O’Brien’s Banjo Player

I actually did not hear too many banjo players. The banjo player with Tim O’Brien’s band did not bother me too much. He gets the award.

Tim Obrien

BEST WOMAN TRIO: The Wailin’ Jennys

There seems to be more and more woman trios out there, singing great harmonies and pickin’ some fine mando. The Wailin’ Jennys put on a great set at the Swan Stage. Really good three part harmonies with some modern touches. They did an a capella versions of Paul Simon’s Love Me Like a Rock that was awesome.

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 – September 2018

As the news-cycle screams forward with ever-more velocity, here is your San Francisco quarterly report – a condensed look at all the really important things going on around San Francisco over the last three months. Perhaps this sounds presumptuous, but I think as a species we often have a difficulty slowing down and observing and taking note of what is going on around us and documenting these events and changes.

Politics
San Francisco elected London Breed as new mayor. She is the first African-American woman to be mayor. So far so good, but her election was one were the progressive side of the San Francisco Democratic party was left eating their lunch. As often the case, some pretty clever politicking ruled the day as Ron Conway surely pulled some switches with some big cash and clever strategies. Often in politics if there is no news that is good news and people are simply doing their jobs but you never know. It will be interesting to see how long the big open smile on London’s face will keep smiling. City politics always gets controversial in San Francisco but things are pretty much the status-quo. Homelessness everywhere. The Tenderloin full of junkies and shopping carts for storage and portable closets. Skyscrapers leaning evermore one direction and lots of cranes all over the place building condos and stadiums.  The Golden State Warriors stadium is being built in record time. Seemingly two feet above sea level and that place will have a shelf-life of twenty years or until the next iceberg melts.

The usual op-ed writers dig into familiar positions. The latest is Tim Redmond bashing Heather Knight.  I think that what really needs to happen is for BART executives to draw straws to get the job of cleaning the 16th Street BART station for a year . That would get people a bit more focused at the top and they could make a reality TV show about the whole thing and make millions. They could call it “Strange Smells” or “Altered States of Vomit.”

Weather
The fire season was pretty much on fire this summer. There were so many fires you kind of lost track. I am wondering if the next time I go up to Lake County there will be any trees left at all. I am sure there are still burns going on now as it has not rained yet. A few months ago, in San Francisco you would wake up in the morning to white ash dust sprinkled lightly all over your car. This is getting so common now that you hardly think twice about it.

We are heading into our Indian Summer weather but so far the North West winds have continued to blow and we have had just a few warm days. It really is anyone’s guess what kind of rain we get this year. I have always been of the mind that our water supply comes down to five really good storms that last about three days each and dump all that snow up in the Sierra. This happened in January 2017 but last year was pretty dry overall. Mother nature does always bat last even though we think we are omnipotent, she always has her way in the end.

Baseball
Speaking of batting, while the San Francisco Giants are almost in last place the ever-scrappy Oakland A’s are looking to be heading to some sort of playoff birth. I have not followed them this year but, being the fair-weather fan I am, will watch and root for them down the stretch. Barry Zito do you still have that curve ball?

Tech Industry and Google Buses
Here they are. A gaggle of Google buses. In the mornings they leave. In the evenings they return, pushing there way back into the city. Raising the rents and making it impossible for people not on the same pay-scale to live San Francisco. I hear this sort of tech-commuting is happening in other cities as well.

Here is a gallery of Google buses for those who are interested on what they look like up close. What is interesting is that they have no advertising on the sides. Sort of ironic as most the people in the buses are in the end working to market and sell something. You would think they would have the imagination to leverage the situation but then again perhaps they prefer to try to be incognito. Pretty sneaky.

Sunsets are Beginning
One of the things that keeps people living in this golden state are the sunsets. The fog is starting to push back and we are starting to get those great autumn golden colors and magical light with its sharp, crisp shadows. Hopefully by the next report I can talk about all the great rain storms we will be getting.

Until then.

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Epiphanies from Hotel Stebbins

On vacation for a few weeks. Out of the fog and fires of California it was good to be in Wisconsin for a family reunion then Minnesota for a week, working out of my sister-in-law’s house in Minneapolis. Ninety degree weather made for great working conditions, shorts and a t-shirt – the fan set to “hi” blowing the air around. Lots of recreation on water – a pontoon boat ride, canoes, sailing and kayaks. Much enjoyable visiting with family and old friends. My sister even got married and we had a nice memorial for my mother who passed away five years ago.

For a few nights we stayed in a hotel room in Algoma, Wisconsin at Hotel Stebbins, one of the oldest hotels in Wisconsin. I highly recommend Hotel Stebbins as the rooms are nice and it is pretty darn cheap. Also you are downtown and close to the beach, winery, antique shops and brewery.

“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

In all of the rural areas of the Midwest it seems as though people have gone flag-crazy. You see them flying up and down main streets in the front of most houses. It seems that all the Trump banners of 2016 have been replaced with American flags. I am not sure why people are now so obsessed with this symbolic emblem of our country but perhaps it is a sign of insecurity. I always liked the Molly Ivins’ quote “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.” which would be wise to post on large billboards in these fly-over states. Indeed, it would be good to hand out copies of the United States Constitution to all these flag waving mid-westerners for they surely need a refresher course.

In the hallway of Hotel Stebbins was a whiteboard with what were called “epiphanies.” Seeing as it is Sunday and a day of reflection, I post some of them here. Good stuff!

Never argue with an idiot, people watching won’t be able to tell the difference…
– Unknown source

You must do the thing which you cannot do
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
– R. Scott Fitzgerald

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Work hard in silence. Let success be your noise.
– Unknown source

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes
– Oscar Wilde

It always seems impossible until it is done.
– Nelson Mandela

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
– Helen Keller

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John O. Lyons (3 September 1927 – 7 September 2003) – The Wiki

“The self, as Hume saw, cannot be aware of itself, and as soon as it is it ceases to be a self because it is lost in the seas of influences upon it. Boswell begins his journal with the observation that the discipline of recording his experiences and emotions will lead him to an understanding of himself. No doubt the process of composition assist his memory of his life, and yet it also distorts that life.”
– The Invention of the Self: The Hinge of Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century, Southern Illinois University Press (1978)

Wikipedia submission – January 2018

John O, Lyons was a professor emeritus of English at the University of Wisconsin from 1960 to 1993. Previously he taught briefly at Bowdoin and Dartmouth. He received a B.A from Kenyon College in 1951, an M.A from Columbia University in 1952 and a Ph.D from the University of Florida in 1960.

He received two Fulbright-Hays Fellowships, one to the University of Baghdad (1964-1965) and another to the University of Tehran (1970-1972). Before entering Kenyon, he served in both the U.S. Army and Coast Guard.

Bibliography
The College Novel in America, Southern Illinois University Press (1962)

Studying Poetry: A Critical Anthology of English and American Poems, Southern Illinois University Press (1965)

The Invention of the Self: The Hinge of Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century, Southern Illinois University Press (1978)

References
The Invention of the Self: The Hinge of Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century [1] [2]has been referenced in numerous papers and articles ranging from history, philosophy to psychology.

Martin, Professor Jack; McLellan, Professor Ann-Marie (2013). The Education of Selves: How Psychology Transformed Students (1st Edition ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 256. ISBN 0199913676.
Martin, Professor Jack. “A Case against Heightened Self-Esteem as an Educational Aim” (PDF). Journal of Thought. vol 42 issue 34 (Fall/Winter 2007): 16.

Above is my Wikipedia submission

Above is my Wikipedia submission that still is awaiting approval.  For some reason there are not enough references. I have not time to dally in the bureaucracy of Wikipedia. I have the ability to add something to the internets. I thought it fitting that I post it here.

John O. Lyons was my father. He lived an incredible life. His book The Invention of the Self: The Hinge of Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century is amazing for its insight and depth. Like many books written in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s by the “Greatest Generation” that are now out of print, the authors were not out to make a buck. Instead, they were were scholars in order to uncover the truth no matter where it lead.  By the time John O. Lyons was 21, he had read extensively as during his tours of the Pacific during World War II in the Navy and Merchant Marine, he had absolutely no distractions and spent the entire time reading. There are few scholars today who are in that situation. If you are interested in his reading list at that time send me an email. This  reading list will give you an understanding as to the breadth of knowledge that was the foundation of his writings.

Below are some quotes for the book.

“The problem is perhaps most succinctly posed by Lichtenberg who goes back to Descartes and says that he should have said “It thinks,” not “I think” – which moots the whole question of personal identity.”

“My message is, put baldy, that the self, which modern doomsayers accuse of being invisible, was a fiction in the first place. This may not ease the pain and feeling of the loss, for a hypochondriac suffers just as grievously as the truly sick, but it may help us understand the illness.”

“The invention and spread of movable type is probably the most important mechanical contribution to the idea of the unique self, but other forces – religious and political revolutions, the rediscovery of the admiration for classical models of being – retarded the assertion of the self. The intimacy between the writer and the “dear reader,” which we tend to think of as beginning in the eighteenth century, assumes a situation that was rarely assumed before that time.”

Quotes from The Invention of the Self: The Hinge of Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century.

If you care to post here on this website and add to the knowledge base (that is essentially the concept of Wikipedia – a common accepted notion of facts and the truth), feel free to comment.

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YouTube’s Content ID – A Case Study

UPDATE: 2/2024: This Azabache CD published in 2000 had over 2 million streams and digital transactions in 2023. Each stream payed out 0.000758311565 US$ minus the 24% for taxes (7 hundredth of a penny). So the album is actually being paid more per stream than a few years ago. We are not sure why. The services were YouTube Music, Spotify, TikTok, Pandora Premium, Facebook, Tidal and others. One of the fascinating questions is what does YouTube Music and others pay for taxes in this arrangement? 

Between July, 2021, and June, 2022, YouTube paid more than six billion dollars to rights holders globally.
The New Yorker – Inside the Music Industry’s High-Stakes A.I. Experiments

If YouTube paid the same taxes as the artists (24%), this would amount to one billion four hundred forty million (6 billion * .24). I highly doubt anyone is keeping track of this.

UPDATE: 10/2023: This CD now streams at about $900 per 1 million views. For those keeping score. However, the streaming services and providers are now taking out about 24% for taxes off the top. 

The Original Story from 2018

How much do artists get paid for YouTube videos? The other night I was going over some fascinating numbers for the 2000 Azabache CD that a few years ago we started selling on CD Baby which then registered the album on all the digital streaming services and affiliates – Amazon, iTunes, Deezer, Spotify… the list goes on. This article is a look, for those who are curious – and I am sure there are many, at what the accounting looks like from just YouTube when you get paid “royalties” though their Content ID system. Do let it be known that the payout to artists entering the program is 30% while YouTube gets 70%.

Below are the plays just on YouTube which for 2017 came to 2,561,994 – that is two and a half million plays for just one year of a CD that is now eighteen years old!

On that CD I co-wrote one of the songs and most of the arrangements. I had a feeling at the time that the music would resonate with people as everyone on the project was in the zone. I choose to not be paid as “work for hire” on this project but wrote up copyright agreements instead. Below are the YouTube royalty statistics for 2017.

Azabache YouTube  Royalties 2017 – $162.52

SONG PAYMENT NUMBER OF PLAYS
Cinco a Diez $9.48 72,473.00
This Moment $51.04 213,489.00
Luna Cha-Cha-Cha $0.01 42.00
Simplemente Complicada $0.63 2,523.00
Surrender $0.00 5.00
Montuno Street $19.71 257,237.00
Batman and Spiderman $70.44 1,982,296.00
Besitos de Coco $10.74 33,216.00
Thanks for the Mambo $0.47 713.00
$162.52 2,561,994.00 Plays

So if you were ever wondering how much the artist gets paid (if anything) when you listen to a song on YouTube it is $0.00006343496 – or around six thousandths of a cent.

1 view pays $0.00006343496
It takes 157 views to make 1 penny
1 dollar is made after 15,764 views

If each time a YouTube video was played it paid the artist a penny it would a different story 2,561,994 * .01 = $25,619.94. When was the last time you bent down to pick up a penny. I do it all the time now.

I do not know the whole story about the woman who stormed YouTube with a gun a few months back but I did hear that it had to do with the meager payouts. Perhaps the general population should be more informed as to these business arrangements as I often am amazed at how little people know about publishing and royalty payments in general – especially in the digital age.

So how did we get to this situation?  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 which I believe is against the spirit of the U.S. Constitution.

 [The Congress shall have power] “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.”

– Article I Section 8 | Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution.

The reason that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is so flawed is that it is impossible to have your music NOT on a platform. Meaning there is only an opt-in but no opt-out as the DMCA created a “safe harbor” which should now be obvious to anyone was a gift to the tech industry.  If Azabache decided to leave the YouTube program there would be no way to make it so our music would be off the YouTube platform. In what way does that qualify as the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries? There is nothing exclusive in terms of copyright when dealing with YouTube. Perhaps this is one of the many reasons for the huge income disparities in our society.

So each year we split up our meager earnings from this project. Create other works of art and music. Play our gigs. Teach. Do our day jobs. Bring truth and beauty into the world and keep the spirit whole.  Just like before the internet when music publishers screwed over the artists, the artists keep it real and bring the joy.

Below is an extended sample of a song called “This Moment.” I usually do not care for Latin music in English, but love this song and Manny Martinez’s lyrics and rhythm just work. 

This Moment
J.M Martinez/ (5:54)
Arr. Paul Lyons

You can no longer purchase the CD online however there is now a vinyl version that was created in Colombia.

The full original sheet music arrangements for many of the songs are available at Paul Lyons Music.

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San Francisco Jury Duty – A True Story

Mission 14x bus to 6th and Bryant Street

Called into jury duty after deferring once. I took the Mission 14x bus to 6th and Bryant Street. On the first day the vague details and outline of the case was explained. On 6th Street and Market in front of the Baltmore Hotel a murder had taken place in 2012. A man with a gun shot another man and there was an accomplice. Both defendants were African American males around the age of 25. Both were large, dressed in button down shirts and ties. One of the defendants seemed to have at one point been beaten as one of his eyes was at an unnatural skew.

The middle aged Asian judge was a rather playful fellow who talked incessantly about food and providing a lunch of sticky buns for all the chosen jurors  and that “wasn’t it great we were not at the dentist!” He tried hard to make jokes but the humour fell a bit flat. Good thing he is a judge and not a comic. He then proceeded to demonstrate his prowess in three Chinese dialects and said that if you were Chinese American and did not understand English it was not an easy way out.

5 Spice Chicken for Lunch – Reading Time – Really Bad WIFI

During the jury selection one of the defendants lawyers went to great lengths to try to find if people had implicit bias. It was interesting to hear from the diverse potential jurists and their takes on implicit bias which lead to the discussion of racial profiling. Concepts of data and metadata as relating to phone calls was brought up and interestingly the prosecutor seemed quite naive about such concepts. Let us explain. The actual call is the data. The time, date and location of the call, which the phone company surely knows, is the metadata. There surely is more to data and metadata in this case but that is the basics.Two younger folk in the technology industry were released. A few others were released due to past histories.

Mission 14X bus to 6th and Bryant Street

A few people called as potential jurors seemed quite intelligent. A few lawyers, a retired Professor named Brown who had written a book about police conduct in Los Angeles filled the room with interesting observations.  A few people related to police officers in the case were dismissed. A funny old Latina grandmother a bit hard of hearing and maybe with a screw starting to come loose upstairs admitted that because years ago her purse was snatched by an African American see could not trust “those blacks.” At one point people laughed and she shushed them which made it even funnier. She was dismissed.

Lunch in the Park on Harrison – Rain but Some Sun

We are down to the final jurors and the alternates and the judge states that juror selection is coming to an end. It is looking like the 80 or so people left in the room will not be on the jury. I am starting to relax and thinking how cool the whole process has been – how interesting the conversations were and how nice it was going to be to be in a building that actually had ventilation. For some reason the entire wing in this part of the Hall of Justice had no air. It was hot and the air was stale – a bit sufficting really. And just when I started to think how the poor ventilation systems probably made for some interesting escape attempts from the county jail I heard “Paul Lyons” and then there I was – “In the box.” Out of all the people in the room, I was the last juror called. I picked up my bag and took my seat.

Of course there is a list of questions on the board that I had to answer – occupation, family and years in San Francisco. The first defense attorney read my answers to the questionnaire that I had filled out a week earlier.

“I find it odd that the judge seems compelled to bribe the potential jurors with promises of food. I think that jurors should be paid a fair wage for their service.”

That is all that I had written thinking that I would never be called. The room burst into laughter.  I did not realize that I had used the words “bribe” and “judge” in the same sentence – not exactly prudent.

Next, the second defense attorney started grilling me to which the prosecuting attorney for the first time actually objected to a question – “Objection Your Honor!” – that I do not now recollect. Everything started moving very fast. I do not remember my exact answers to the next questions at that point but I remember stating that “the jury process, while not perfect is a good thing and the best that we have. I played my cards very close to my chest.”

Other recent seated jurors were asked similar questions. Due to the questionnaire we had filled out a week prior, one of the questions was about the ability to be comfortable with seeing photos blood and of gruesome scenes. Paradoxically the rather tattooed and pierced woman sitting next to me stated that she was “uneasy about looking at gruesome photos of blood” but in the end confessed that she would get over it and be a willing juror and could handle it.

A few minutes later the three lawyers and the judge dismissed themselves to the chamber in back  and came out soon after to swear in the three alternates none of which were me. In other words, I was dismissed.

A truly strange, interesting but edifying experience. Time to write the judge an apology letter and thank him for his service. I will mail it to him in May, long after this trial is done.

PROLOGUE

The two men in the trial were convicted of murder. Let it be known that the jury was quite diverse. There were three black people on the jury – one a black woman over 65.  An Asian man. People of all ages. The evidence must have been clear. I read online that the San Francisco district attorney expressed that both of the men would “spend the rest of there days in jail.”

The whole thing is a sad story. Two boys born into a society where the cards were stacked against them. A stupid series of decisions. A culture of poverty, probably struggling schools, violence and revenge.  I cannot help but think that the real crime goes much deeper. It is a crime against humanity – a failure of humanity.

 

 

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The Worlds’ Greatest Hitchhiker Quote

“This one little car ride instantly redeemed us and rejuvenated us, offering an almost irrational hope for what lay ahead down the road. This I realized was the real magic of hitchhiking: not how it supposedly affirmed your faith in the goodness of humanity, but how it could make and break the faith, over and over again, often multiple times in a single day.”

From The World’s Best Hitchhiker on the Secrets of His Success – The New York Times – 3/22/2018

Hitchhiking

The Sunday New York Times Magazine has been producing some very entertaining issues. In the travel issue was an article about a crazed Polish man, Aleksander Doba who obsesses about kayaking to the point where he has kayaked across the Atlantic three times by himself.
In the same issues is the story about “The World’s Best Hitchhiker on the Secrets of His Success,” quoted above. It is 2018. Rarely do we ever see someone hitchhike in the United States on America. There probably is an app for that, or perhaps just craigslist, of this thing called facebook. It is unfortunate that hitchhiking has died out as hitchhiking is ultimately a way to challenge people’s beliefs, perceptions of reality and has the potential to have people from very different walks of life and classes interact. It is a way of taking a true chance on strangers and humanity and in the end it can be profound. In the least, for the hitchhiker it can be a test of patience and a realization of how often it is more beautiful on the side of the road on an empty stretch of highway than in a car. How liberating it can be to throw off the shackles of time and schedules. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

Just about everyone over forty has a tale of hitchhiking. The cross country trip out West. The trip that got derailed in a rainstorm. The trip from New York to Key West Florida and the amazing sunrises in Georgia. The ride down the Snake River Canyon in the back of a pickup. So many tales. All of them true.

In the current fashion of personal narratives I will indulge the reader with my own experiences with thumb exposed. It started in earnest with a cross-state trip of about 150 miles to visit my older brothers who were attending a pottery camp in Iowa. I was just fourteen years old. My parents did not seem at all worried and basically said, “Sure, have a good time. Need a ride to the highway?” What different times we live in now.

I left early in the morning with a map, a backpack, some sandwiches and a few dollars for sure. I do not remember every ride but in the end it took over ten rides. I remember being picked up by farmers heading a just a few miles down the road. Truck drivers were always good as the ride tended to be longer and the chatter on the CB radio was always cryptic yet entertaining. One ride, out in that territory, maybe not on that maiden voyage, was perhaps my most dangerous. A large rusted-out Oldsmobile sedan stopped. Three people were in the car. I got in the back seat with one of the riders and soon discovered that everyone in the car was completely plastered out on a bender. In the backseat was a case of beer and I was immediately offered a beer which being fourteen I politely turned down. We then proceeded to drive away at breakneck speed, flying over the rolling farmland hills of southern Wisconsin. After about fifteen miles of so and going over 100 miles per hour we came to a crossing and the driver stopped, to which I departed the car and thanked them for the ride. I never heard later if they ended up driving off the side of the road or not as we had no internets at the time back then to scour the movements of other humans, but they probably made it home fine and ate brats and kraut for dinner… washed down with five more beers.

To be honest, I was not an epic hitchhiker by any means but I do remember some beautiful hitchhiking with an ex-girlfriend out West in Montana. I remember hitching from Bozeman Montana to Salt Lake City Utah. Somewhere along the way we were picked up by a fancy black BMW sedan. After about 5 minutes the driver’s “fuzz buster” made a sound and we slowed down to avoid the highway patrol and a speeding ticket. We had been moving so fast that when we slowed down It literally felt like we were going twenty miles per hour when we were now going sixty. In a few minutes we returned to the normal 120 miles per hour. Sort of the Montana autobahn perhaps. Rides in the backs of pickups were always a joy with the mountains and open skies, the padding of your backpack, which you used as pillow providing comfort. I remember a ride down the length of Wisconsin from Upper Michigan. We were picked up by a pastor who worked with Native Americans and he seemed like he needed someone to talk to to make the ride easier and perhaps clear his conscience. All of these rides courtesy of “the kindness of strangers.”

The last hitchhiker that I picked up was about twenty years ago. You simply do not see many hitchhikers today. It was some youngsters heading down the coast on Highway 1. I was checking out the surf at Ocean Beach in San Francisco and had a hunch that the waves were better down in Pacifica. The two people in their early twenties had a sign that said “L.A. Bound” and after telling them that I was not going but fifteen miles down the coast they said that it would suit them just fine. I let them off at Linda Mar Beach and by the time I got my wetsuit on I noticed that they were headed south, looking for a good spot to continue the journey. Free spirits on the road.

Hitchhiking. A way to connect with every walk of life and find commonality in the human condition. Way safer than the internets.

 

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Official Privacy Policy Updated – Pelican Cafe

There have been many requests for the Pelican Café to have a privacy policy posted and I think somewhere there is a law that states that we must. For crying out loud, we are only a little café! If you want privacy, stay home or crawl into a hole somewhere!!

Pelican Café Privacy Policy

Effective March 22, 2018

  1. The Pelican Café reserves the right to refuse service to anyone including people who never have visited the café or website. –So there! When you fill out one of the forms on this website, we may gather information such as your name and email address. We may use cookies. We may not. It all depends if we have a sweet tooth on that day and if we actually have eggs in the house to make cookies. We may some day even capture your IP address if we get around to it, but just let it be known, if you spend hours and hours in the Pelican Café, espousing your amazingly intelligent comments or blasphemous nonsense, we may simply email you and ask you to look out a nearby window, get some fresh air and get a life. But if you are worried about remaining anonymous in this world, we wish you the best of luck. Unless your name is Bill Smith, live in a tree fort in Maine and never have had a computer, just about anyone can find you, including strange people you do not even remember from high school.
  2. The Pelican Café may use your personal information for online promotions and special offers but this is quite unlikely. We are presently at a complete loss as to what these online promotions and special offers would be. We know that if we tried, our email promotions and newsletters would all end up in your email “spam-bulk” folder. We know better.
  3. The Pelican Café may indeed sell your email address and other important information (i.e. your name) to a large evil company that wants you to buy sexual enhancement drugs, a get rich pyramid scheme or home refinancing. We are presently fielding offers for the highest bidder. All of our readers are from that mysterious 1% of the most wealthy people in our society that seem to just get more and more loot, so make an offer today.
  4. Clothing is required at the Pelican Café. I know that many people like to use the café as a home base for their streaking ventures around the block, but using the café as base camp to bring back a fad from the 1970s is going too far. You have no idea how many miscellaneous items of clothing I find lying around behind the couches. The socks I can deal with but the underwear is sometimes really gross; please pick up your items from the lost and found. So let it be stated that the only place you can pull down your pants is in the bathroom stall and that is if you have to relieve yourself.
  5. Speaking of the bathroom, let it be known that we have but one bathroom and that it gets a lot of traffic. Please do not use it as your preferred place for reading. I know the batting averages of the National League West are extremely captivating and that you must read an article until the very end, but in the morning, after a cup of Joe, some people need your favorite seat as well. Remember to flush, turn on the fan and for the love of God, wash your hands.
  6. The Pelican Café is outfitted with a free wireless network. Being a café though we ask that you take the time to actually interact with your friends and others in the café. Instant messaging others who are just at the next table is just strange.
  7. On the topic of technology, let it be stated that it is fine to make cellphone calls from the café, but if you are going to rant and rave about the party you went to the night before, please take it outside to the tables on the sidewalk. Do realize that everyone within a two-block radius can hear everything you are saying, so choose your words and topics accordingly. Stories of so-and-so throwing up may be entertaining to some, but unappetizing to someone at the next table eating an “Omelet of the Day.”

Above is the Pelican Café Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to change any part at any time depending on whether it is to our advantage – SO THERE!

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Zorba the Greek and Thugs, Leeches, Shouting and Playing Piano in the Lobby

“ Mr. Fintiklis, 39, declined to comment, but he has made several notable — and provocative — appearances at the hotel in recent days. On one evening, following a verbal confrontation with Trump employees, he and his entourage of about a dozen people retired to the lobby and had pizza delivered from a restaurant on the property. Then Mr. Fintiklis played music from “Zorba the Greek” on the lobby’s baby grand piano while his friends sang along.”

From N.Y. Times – Thugs, Leeches, Shouting and Shoving at Trump Hotel in Panama (March 3, 2018)

This story in the Sunday N.Y. Times seems like the perfect material for either a documentary or a piece of historical fiction. We are at a point where in the world of politics, reality is stranger than fiction. Imagine Mr. Orestes Fintiklis, a young millionaire in a tussle with Trump and he uses art (playing a song in the hotel lobby) as a way to state his position. If this was a proposed screenplay it would never make the cut – too unbelievable. I like the fact that this really rich guy takes pleasure in playing the piano and singing songs from the mid-twentieth century. Imagine the party eating probably Dominoes pizza in the lobby hanging around the piano singing songs while the security in military garb and armed with AK 47s stood guard. What a bizarre scene.

Perhaps the movie would be called Orestes the Cypriate.

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It is all George Carlin’s Fault – He Died

…after George Carlin’s death there was an opening in the public performance space- let’s call it the “obscenity vacuum,” in the American psychic for a vile crude entertainer.  Americans love a sick joke and now we have one as president.

I miss George Carlin. It is too bad that he died, but he had it coming, what with all the jokes about and probably participation in hedonistic binge drug use and extreme risk taking. But George died way too young. George Carlin, the crude, brill÷iant philosophical comic left a cultural void in our society that perhaps was usurped by our current president. In no way am I saying that the present buffoon of a commander in chief is anywhere near as intelligent or brilliant  as George Carlin, I only mean that after George Carlin’s death there was an opening in the public performance space – let’s call it the “obscenity vacuum,” in the American psychic for a vile crude entertainer.  Americans love a sick joke and now we have one as president.

George Carlin was a brilliant observer of human behavior but also of language. He could riff for hours it seemed on how we take certain phrases and words for granted without really thinking about what we are saying.  He stated the obvious with such directness it was both deep and funny all at once.

George Carlin hated Republicans with such a passion that often he would begin his show with rants about their stupidity and contradictions. Today comics have it easy with the current batch of Republicans. Everyday there is a ton of material.  What routines would George have developed in 2018? We can only imagine.

 

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Mavericks Surf Spot Breaking

There is a large period swell hitting the West Coast of California this week. The Mavericks  Surf Contest may take place on Thursday (1/18/2018) but that does not mean people aren’t surfing all week. The photo above is from Monday morning. If you want to see the waves get a Surfline subscription or head on down to Half Moon Bay with some binoculars.  Afterwards, I recommend the Princeton Harbor Public House and Grill.

http://www.surfline.com/surf-report/mavericks-northern-california_4152/

 

 

 

 

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Observations on the Word “Feminism”

“According to Merriam-Webster’s “feminism” was the most searched-for word in its online dictionary, up seventy percent from 2016. But who in 2017 needed to be told what “feminism” means? Upon searching, these people would have learned from Merriam-Webster that “feminism” is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” Some number of them where probably relieved to learn that it is still just a theory.”

From The New Yorker – Jan 8th, 2018 – Talk of the Town – Words of the Year (Louis Minead)

There are some words that are confusing by their very sound and came to life in a way that in the end does not serve humans or the word well. “Feminism” is one. “Net neutrality” is another.  Wordsmiths and politicians conjure up others. Citizens United, the law that allows corporations to be treated as citizens is another and should really be called Corporations United to Screw You Over. But once a word takes life it is hard to undo the confusion and damage.

The reason why people were probably looking up “feminism” is because for many it conjures up an image of the feminine – perhaps lipstick and high-heels, but originally it was not meant to mean that at all, but I digress and am “mansplaining”  – a word that is quite good and accurate – way better than “feminism.” But I hope the people who looked up the word “feminism” are satisfied with the Merriam-Webster’s definition. That is how I have always had it defined in my head.  Equality. Maybe it should be “equalitism,” but that almost sounds like a mathematical theory.

It is strange that the UCLA feminist magazine and website Fem is staffed entirely by woman. https://femmagazine.com/about/staff-2015-2016/. I think it may have to do with the confusion about the word “feminism” and perhaps a feeling by men that they are not welcome. Surely nothing could be further from the truth. One of my friend’s kids that is off to college joined the  school’s Latin Dancing Club and is loving it. Very few men and a lot of woman who are eagerly looking for dancing partners. Smart guy.

Anyway, this little essay ,Words of the Year, is extremely well written and also pretty funny. I have been exposed to the New Yorker since I was young. When I was a little kid, I would eat my bowl of cereal and page through the single pane cartoons and never get a single joke. Now I look at the cartoons and marvel at how they came up with such great ideas. Usually the Talk of the Town is all about the dreary state of politics. It is good that they mix it up from time to time.

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The San Francisco Surf Report – November & December 2017

The end of 2017 has seen some very clean but small surf. Usually by December most days are double overhead. This year we have a high pressure system over the Pacific Ocean, what they are now calling the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.  This is the weather pattern that we had for many years starting in around 2013 and the years of drought. There is not too much snow up in the Sierra and it looks to be pretty much a dry year.

Drought years are almost always good surf years. The surf becomes tamer, chest to head high, and without all the storms there are more days to surf. Below are some shots from one of my favorite places along Ocean Beach in San Francisco. The crowds on good days get a bit too much but there is a lot of joy out there in the water. There is also  a mystery spot gallery down the coast.

[CLICK ON IMAGES +]

November 5, 2017

November 18 and 19, 2017

December 2, 2017 – Mystery Spot

December 7, 2017

December 10, 2017

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Why Facebook Really Sucks

Over five years ago I wrote a piece for this publication called THE VAPID STATE OF AFFAIRS – FACEBOOK AND THE NEW NARCISSISM (MAY 26, 2012). In it I mused over the Facebook IPO and whether it would survive as the revenue model was all in advertising and market share. I have never clicked on a Facebook ad in my life and I do not even remember what they are about except recently they have become a bit more aggressive as I am suppose to go to Kelly Slater’s surf camp next summer. Yeah right. I was wrong. Subliminal messaging is a gold mine. The new narcissism has now elected a narcissist buffoon as president of the United States of America. As a nation we are becoming less intelligent and self-absorbed by the second.

I have always been skeptical of Facebook and it’s privacy policy, the algorithm that determines my feed and just the weird way that Facebook has made it so it is actually more difficult to contact your “friends.” In this post, I will outline the features of Facebook that really suck. No one talks about this much but it is time to shine some light on this strange company, actually a monopoly,  that has crept into the private lives of so many people.

7 REASONS FACEBOOK REALLY SUCKS

  • 1984 and Rewriting of History: Probably the #1 reason Facebook sucks is that Facebook will delete your posts if you are critical of Facebook as though they are  “thoughtcrimes” controlled  by the Thought Police as described in the novel 1984. I have experienced this first hand on Facebook.  A few years back I made a post explaining that Facebook was a for-profit corporation and that the space is actually not public but private and while they try to appear public the key motivating factor is profit and money. It made for a lively discussion on Facebook and (not that I care) got more likes and interaction than I had ever seen for a post of mine. When I tried to find that post months later, it was wiped from the site. Creepy shit. Mark Zuckerberg’s plea that the platform promotes democracy is just plain horseshit. Stop deleting posts that are not out of line if they happen to intelligently critique you or one of your allies.
  • Mental Health: Your feed is like a lab rats sugar water bottle feeding you spiritually non-nutritious waves of energy. Harry Shearer calls it the “envy machine.” “Good grief! Look at Charlie  Jones on vacation having such a good time and his dog is just adorable.” “What the hell am I doing in this cubicle thinking about picking up that flea medicine for Fido.” In the hospital mental health wards in a few years there are going to be people with Facebook addictions and 12 step social media recovery groups.  People who feel let down that people simply did not read their posts. My 23 year old son says that the site should have a warning when you log in similar to cigarette products. WARNING: THIS WEBSITE CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH. IT HAS KNOWN TO CAUSE DEPRESSION, ANXIETY AND UNPREDICTABLE NEGATIVE REACTIONS. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
  • Terrible contact system: Contacting people on Facebook is obfuscated.  Do not even get me started with Messenger. It crashed my android phone.  By being able to control your method of contacting other people you are giving Facebook incredible power. How many people, your “friends” on Facebook do you actually have a mailing address, email or phone number for?   This is strange and devious.  Why can’t you just leave your phone number and email address on Facebook and get on with your life? These are your “friends” Here’s my number. When you are in town give me a call. I have left my phone number in a post and it is always wiped from the system.
  • Privacy: The sick concept of making money off of peoples’ intimate life experiences starting with your birthday. Why would users waste so much time contributing content to a website that could disappear in a flash or simply hold your content ransom? What happens in thirty years when you want to find something or someone you connected to on Facebook?  Will you have to pay to obtain the information you created? I simply do not trust it with any of my information. As they say, it is free and you get what you paid for.
  • All the bad parts of high school on steroids: Facebook is a bit like those cliques in high school but unlike in high school, you really have no idea who is in your clique. This is just creepy. Your feed comes up steering you psychologically in directions not of your choosing. It is like a carnival ride.
  • Facebook does not work for promoting local events If you play in a band Facebook is terrible as a platform for promoting an event.  You can invite people. Make a link to the event. It hardly ever works to get people out. The other problem is that your friends are all over the freaking world end up being the people who get more excited about your “local” event so promoting an event is pretty much useless. I get the feeling that the local people do not even see your post about the event.
  • San Francisco General Hospital This is something that is not written about in the news much, but it is the phenomenon of tax-dodging tech billionaires either building hospitals our making wings of hospitals and then having their names on the the front of the hospital. San Francisco General Hospital after Mark Zuckerberg gave 75 million dollars to the hospital is now called Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and the hospital had to go through the hoops of changing the actual acronyms of the hospital to ZSFG. What a jerk. “I will give you this money but only on the condition that you change your name and jump through these hoops.” Zuckerberg’s wife is a doctor/resident that works in that hospital. In essence he was simply making for better working conditions for her and twisting city higher-ups around.  This becomes even more disgusting when you realize that Facebook for many years has been avoiding paying taxes and offshoring capital.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/02/19/tax-increases-why-facebooks-billion-dollar-income-isnt-taxed-at-all-by-irs/#49d7aba0d92c

Benevolent player for the betterment of humankind? I think not. Just the same old greedy capitalist.  Giving money to public institutions should not make it so your name goes on the front of the building. Photos of the all the signs they had to change coming soon.

Now I could post this little piece on Facebook but it would be gone in a few days – dragged off in handcuffs to the great Facebook digital trashcan.″

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California Fires – News from Anderson Valley Advertiser

It has been hard to get accurate news on the fires. Today, on Saturday the air was better here in San Francisco. Searching around the Internets to see where the fires were burning I ran into these cool quotes on the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Glad the old school internet is working up there. What an interesting view into this little community. These are from the FAQ section.

Anderson Valley Advertiser

Q: Why didn’t the alarm at the Redwood Valley-Calpella firehouse sound Monday morning to alert people of the fire?

The fire department told the Daily Journal that the alarm — which sounds every day at noon — is manual, and no one was around to press the button due to all firefighters being sent out to evacuate people. While it was pointed out that the alarm might have helped alert people to the fire, law enforcement has been making a lot of noise and using bullhorns to wake people up during evacuations.

Roadblock officers will allow pot growers who have official approved cultivation permits and whose names are on their list into burned areas to attend to their crops. People with no permit or only permit applications will not.

Sheriff Allman noted that the aftermath of the fire will result in many unclaimed animals and he hopes people will come forward to adopt them.

A temporary cell tower is being installed in Potter Valley but no specific estimate about when it will be up and running. Presumably soon.

Sheriff Allman noted that organic grape growers Frey Vineyards “took a hard hit.” But Parducci Winery has said they’d handle their grapes for them to the extent possible.

Keep an eye on the Sheriff’s facebook page for current info and updates

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2017 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Official Pelican Café Awards

The 2017 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival was blessed with great festival weather – sunny and never too hot or too chilly and the winds never blew too hard. Out at the ocean there was a large short period swell in the water and moderate onshore winds in the afternoon so unlike some years in the past the surfing was not happening. Good thing there were over 100 bands and 6 stages to experience some great music. Coinciding with the festival were the Blue Angels flying maneuvers over the city of San Francisco. Sometimes a single jet would stall right above Golden Gate Park and then shoot like a rocket straight up only to then arch moments later with a big turn. Many oohed and aahed. Some who have seen the darker sides of war and reality and probably have been through this  routine before, looked to the sky with one-finger peace signs on both hands and sneers on their faces. The middle-aged woman M.C. at the new Victrola Stage just sighed and said something about if only we used all that money for the schools. Starting with Billy Bragg on Friday and going through many acts was a theme of political awareness and either concern for the state of things in the world or ways to contend with the fear and despair.

One of the ways was to simply enjoy all the music and friendly company. As you can see by the photo below, the festival began quite peacefully.

Stressful beginning. Victrola stage in background

BEST HORN SOLO:
Francisco Torres solo on Watermelon Man – Trombone

There are no trombones in bluegrass music  that is certain, but at the 2017 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival there were at least two. I heard more saxes, trumpets and trombones than I did banjos.  Both the banjo and the trombone have known to break up marriages as both are actually very hard to play. Francisco Torres plays trombone and plays it very well with Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz group. They played at 11:40 am on Saturday at the Swan Stage.  The crowd,  a bit subdued, seemed like they were either waiting for the coffee to kick in, the neighborhood blunt to take effect or maybe were simply biding time till “that cool band plays at 2:30.” Overall the band seemed a bit under-microphoned but Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz group band is full of veteran-pros and eventually you knew you would hear something great. I have heard Francisco Torres play trombone live before and was impressed. This guy has great chops and outstanding musical sensibilities and can even channel John Coltrane. His solo on Watermelon Man was outstanding.

MOST AMAZING SOUL SINGER OVER THE AGE OF 75:
Don Bryant

People who have been attending the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival for years know that part of the fun is discovering new musicians and bands.  On Friday I heard the The Bo-Keys. The horn section was fantastic playing with impeccable ensemble. The baritone sax had this beautiful fat sound and and held down the bottom like a anchor.  The arrangements were a little unimaginative but I am told that that is the classic R&B style (I guess Tower of Power never got that memo). Anyway, the second half of the set featured Don Bryant and let me tell you this guy is still going strong. Decked out in a gorgeous ornate black and silver jacket, at 75 he gave a clinic on singing R&B. He was channeling the voice of Otis Redding, James Brown and Sam Cooke all at once – all while having a  great time. The style of blues shouting has many casualties in the vocal world and I hear that people who sing in this style are often  frequent visitors to the  Ear, Nose and Throat clinics across the land. It is an especially difficult style to sing night after night. Don Bryant seemed like the Pavarotti of R&B  and for the entire set he  looked like he was having a gas. All the E.N.T. people should really just figure out how this guy does it. Case closed.

I would rather live a short life of love, than a long one of fear

Lucas Nelson

BEST stage TO BE ON SUNDAY:
Swan Stage

There are basically two approaches to attending the festival. One is to pack light, stake out your spot on one stage then meander over to other stages. This way you can maximize your band count. I know many people who do this and I have come to the conclusion that if you choose this route it is best to go the the festival solo. Alone, you can head off and hear Allison Brown in a moment’s notice. The other approach is to simply bring enough food and drink for the day and stay at one stage that your party has chosen as the best. Sunday I was traveling solo but nevertheless ended up spending four hours at the Swan Stage around a very friendly crowd. For me, the line-up of Poor Man’s Whiskey, Randy Newman and Lucas Nelson (Willie Nelson’s son) was the highlight of the entire festival. Outstanding!

Most Improved:
Poor Man’s Whiskey

Speaking of which, Poor Man’s Whiskey’s set was excellent. I am not sure if there are new members in the band or they changed their beverage of choice but these guys brought it on – great vocals at times, awesome songwriting and some truly interesting guitar solos. Their sound is many things – a bit country, a bit rock and roll, a little Northern California jam-band. During the set one of the band’s members proposed marriage to his girlfriend. That was pretty special.

It’s play time now. There’s no democracy. Democracy’s gone.

Randy Newman

BEST SET BY A MUSICIAN WHO HAS WRITTEN MUSIC FOR OVER 8 PIXAR FILMS:
Randy Newman

When musicians become commercially successful sometimes people no longer take them seriously. Randy Newman’s body of work is outstanding. Sitting at a grand piano playing solo he quieted everyone down and truly delivered. He played some new songs (a funny one about Putin) but also played classics like Short People.

MOST AVANT GARDE SET WHERE PEOPLE JUST GOT UP AND LEFT:
TIE: T-Bone Burnett & Ornette’s Prime Time Band Reunion

The Pelican Cafe has been giving out these awards for six years now and this is the first time that the judges have split their decisions. In the category of Most Avant Garde we have a tie! You had to have been there.  T-Bone Burnett did over an hour of a new direction he is going. Electronic music with prerecorded tracks, a drummer and T-Bone Burnett doing spoken word. There was some mention at the beginning of T.S. Elliot but at a festival like this, subtleties are lost.  Probably pretty cool stuff if you are in the right mood and a smaller venue. At a festival this size you need to paint with a fatter brush. Ornette’s Prime Time Reunion Band played many of the old tunes and sounded really interesting. There were loud like a rock and roll band.  I now am musing over what it would have sounded like if Ornette and Charlie Haden had done the gig as a duo.  Maybe they were up in the clouds flying around in those airplanes. Stranger things have happened lately.

>>>>>>>>>>>

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco is really 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

https://sfjournal.net/blog/2016-hardly-strictly-bluegrass-awards/

 

https://sfjournal.net/blog/the-2015-hardly-strictly-bluegrass-awards/

https://sfjournal.net/blog/2014-hardly-strictly-bluegrass-festival-official-pelican-cafe-awards/

https://sfjournal.net/blog/2013-hardly-strictly-bluegrass-festival-official-pelican-cafe-awards/

https://sfjournal.net/blog/2012-hardly-strictly-bluegrass-festival-highlights/

 

 

 

 

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2017 San Francisco Shakespeare Festival – Hamlet – The Review

Photo Center Lake” in McClaren Park

“Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. “

Hamlet in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare – Act 2, Scene 2

Almost every year we venture off to the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in McClaren Park, close to our house, and take in the free Shakespeare in the Park by the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. This year, on September 24th, 2017, a warm sunny day, we attended Hamlet. How to put on a 400 year-old play is something that leaves a lot open for interpretation. The playwright is long dead and the scholars, experts and academics have analyzed and argued about how to properly stage, act and produce the play. Sometimes companies attempt to go the route of “authenticity,” using the approved edition and dressing entirely in period dress. Other times they take more modern approaches and present the play in contemporary garb and modernize the language. To my mind, both approaches have their merit, but combining the two weakens the end product. While Hamlet, played by Nathaniel Andalis  and Hamlet’s uncle, King Claudius, -Jesse Cladwell, did a commendable job, the 2017 San Francisco Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet overall was simply third rate – dare I say terrible.

But first I need to make a disclaimer. In the mid-1980’s I worked as a musician/actor at American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  At the time the theater hired musicians and for Hamlet I played in the small pit orchestra. https://americanplayers.org/plays/hamlet-1986 These same musicians then made up “the players” in the play within the play. Overall, that summer I worked over 40 productions of Hamlet. Hamlet, the lead,  was played by Randall Duk Kim. Also on the stage in the role of Guildenstern, I believe, was the amazing Stephen Hemming who died way too young at the age of 37 from complications of AIDS. Paul Bentzen played Polonius and I think the grave digger.  I am spoiled to have been on stage with these greats. The depth and power of the American Players Theater 1986 production of Hamlet was extraordinary.

But I am digressing. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet had many problems, first of which was casting. While I have no issues with men playing women and women playing men in theater roles, it often comes off as amateurish. This is professional theater and indeed Polonius has a beard. To have him played by a woman outfitted like a salesperson at Mattress World simply does not work. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Hamlet’s childhood buddies and were cast with woman. It simply did not work. There was no subtlety in this pair, and just a small tip: people do not drink from flasks every five seconds – that is why they are called flasks. Then there was Ophelia who was cast with what seemed to be a transgender woman. A bold move but there was absolutely no chemistry between this Ophelia and Hamlet. Hamlet is too great a play to be cast like rolling dice or picking straws. Perhaps it is just the lack of local Shakespearean actors who are men or the politically correct culture in San Francisco. Maybe it is just a really small budget.

Hamlet is too great a play to be cast like rolling dice or picking straws.

Theater is but an illusion and when it is successful the audience is transported into another world and hopefully is entertained, enlightened and perhaps made wiser by the experience. Besides the casting, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet also suffered from terrible costumes and set props. It was a pathetic mishmash of old and new. King Claudius was dressed in a grey suit with a vest and looked like someone out of a Humphrey Bogart movie or perhaps a retired banker. The queen was dressed like a model out of a 1964 Look magazine feature – a slinky green cocktail dress in the style of Jackie Onassis. Also, there were simply too many people dressed in wrangler blue jeans and modern-soled shoes to give the ambiance any credibility. If all the cast had been dressed in a particular period or even century that would perhaps work, but then “the players” come out on stage and they are in pseudo Elizabethan garb – all very incongruous and uneven. Don’t even get me started with the binoculars, perhaps a hundred years out of place. Maybe it was a matter of budget and the Goodwill store was the only option. Art is hard work, and often expensive. Putting on a play is a monumental amount of effort. The costumes and stage props were a failure.

Soon enough, Hamlet mistakenly kills Polonius (played by a woman, of course), the queen drinks the poison (what was with the modern wine glasses!) and without much further ado, pretty much everyone is lying dead on stage. I put an Andrew Jackson in the hat as it came by. Better luck next year.

What a great play! What a mediocre production!

http://www.sfshakes.org/programs/free-shakespeare-in-the-park/hamlet

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News from San Francisco – Quarterly Report

The Weather

While the rest of the country is experiencing some pretty strange weather with the Hurricanes in the south and the cold in the north, here in San Francisco we have had two weeks of heat. While the heat records were broken in early September, the heat has not really subsided. Presently it is pretty muggy out there and as I write this I hear thunder and see lighting, both pretty infrequent in San Francisco on the coast.

Two weekends ago, starting September 1, the temperature rose to over 105 degrees and set all-time heat records for San Francisco and fortunately the waves at the coast were only about 3 feet high. The beach was packed and little kids were jumping and playing in the waves. Probably a weekend they will never forget. You could surf without a wetsuit and many went out simply for a swim in the ocean just to cool down. Try that in January my friends.

[CLICK ON IMAGES]

Construction and More Construction

While the tearing down of warehouses and the building of modern luxury condos continues at an alarming rate, everyone is simply trying to figure out how long it will take to finish the top of the Salesforce tower. This tower looms large and is visible from all over the city, but the top, last tip is taking forever to complete. What are they debating? Circumcised or uncircumcised? All glass or steel plates? Flags or no flags? Whatever happens no-doubt Mark Benioff will be up there peering down upon the hospital named after him and the rest of the city and thinking up new ways to leverage all the customer data he has in the vaults.

The Old-time San Francisco Does Exist

Contrary to many old salts, the old bohemian edge does still exist, you just have to know where to look. Most of the techies are oblivious to some of the amazing music talent in this town. You simply have to know where to go. Apologies to those looking for advice on the matter, as I like the places just as crowded as they already are – filled with old friends.

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In Europe – Photos and Ramblings

It is strange feeling when you are at a place a few weeks before a traumatic event. Barcelona in 2017 is just that sort of place for us. We were there in late July and now in mid-August we read and see of the tragic mayhem on La Ramblas. Sorry to hear about this. Barcelona will bounce back from this. To what end is this act of senseless violence?

Some of my ideas for writing blog posts, I found crumpled on a piece of paper in my wallet from this trip to Europe. Here they are as random ramblings.

The Barcelona Waitress
One night we searched out paella. In one restaurant the waitress/host said that they did not serve paella but that if we went to this other restaurant “they make the best.” After many turns though the narrow streets of Barcelona and up La Ramblas and then another turn we made it to the restaurant. The paella was indeed great and the food was all really good but what got me was the waitress. She spoke five languages really well. Spanish, Catatonia, German, French and English. I began to wonder if there are many waitresses that go on to careers in international relations. This woman, in her mid-twenties seemed a likely candidate.

Paella
Paella is not baked, boiled, toasted, steamed, poached or sauteed. Paella is drenched.

The Paris Waiter
Having waited tables for about 20 years in a former life, I am always fascinated by waiters and bartenders. I find a busy bar to be extremely entertaining. It is a place where, because of the business of the place sometimes, becomes a zen zone. Pouring beers while making change while creating a Moscow mule. All done with a rhythm and flow. In Paris one morning we had some coffee and a croissant at a cafe by a metro stop. The waiter, a career waiter you could tell, was perfect. Coffee and croissant in a moments notice, all a bit invisibly delivered. Check at the perfect time. All done. To the train.

French Bike Helmets
Not sure if it a style thing or tradition but people in France rarely wear bike helmets. Middle age men in suits and ties riding their ancient 3 speeds. No helmet. Maybe they just need more fashionable designs? Make one that looks like a baguette, or perhaps like some Camembert cheese. It was great to see all the folks on bikes. We rode the buses and trains.

[CLICK ON IMAGES]

Paris

Barecola

Norther Spain

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San Francisco Pride Parade 2017

June 25th, 2017 was the day of the big parade for San Francisco Pride – a celebration of diversity. For many years I had not paid attention to this event, usually trying to avoid the traffic congestion associated with such a large crowd in town. This time I had relatives and family marching along with the California Bluegrass Association Pride float. Below are mostly photos of California Bluegrass Association Pride float but I could not help myself to get photos of all the “diversity” and “causes.”

Intact Genitals are a Human Right
Intact Genitals are a Human Right

I vaguely remember the Gay Pride parade as being in the Castro but that was years ago. This year it was amazing how many sections were corporate – VISA, Google, Facebook, Workday, Wells Fargo, Intel, Bloomingdale’s, Levis just to name a few. These were all pretty tame in terms of visual presentation and you just had to wonder about the concept of punching the clock for your corporate job and walking down Market Street for your gay pals at VISA – how tame.

Foreskin is not a Birth Defect and It’s Not Your Mother’s Penis 

Signs at the SF Pride Parade

How times have changed as there are surely a few old timers in the gay community scratching their heads about the irony of success. Unlike a lot of parades the music in the Pride Parade is not really the showcase. When there is music it seemed to steer towards a prerecorded sort of night club drum and bass thing. Strange I never heard “I Will Survive,” Tina Turner or even Tony Bennett. There is a musical history to this movement.

Nevertheless, here were some truly interesting and bizarre groups. My favorites where the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” (just the name is awesome), Church Ladies for Gay Rights dressed in loose-fitted old fashion dresses,  and the many church groups marching.  -The group against circumcision – Foreskin is not a Birth Defect and It’s Not Your Mother’s Penis was an interesting juxtaposition to the many medically altered people marching.

California Bluegrass Association Pride Float
California Bluegrass Association Pride Float

Then the California Bluegrass Pride Float came by. The float was truly awesome with the rainbow colors and a sort of front porch theme. The band was picking some fast fiddle tunes when they went by our spot. I am not sure if bluegrass has been played in many parades but the high register of the instruments and the lack of brass and drums make it a bit tricky to garner much impact.  It sounded a bit like bees a buzzin’.  But overall it was truly great to see some headline acts participating on the float – veteran Laurie Lewis along with members of the band Front Country.

While in the San Francisco bluegrass community there are actually very few openly gay people,  you could tell it was pretty special for Brandon Godman who came to San Francisco after being outed and discriminated against in Nashville. Brandon is an amazing fiddle player and was welcomed into the San Francisco musical community with open arms. In San Francisco, people are usually not discriminated against for who they love and choose to sleep with. Just ask the Church Ladies for Gay Rights standing up for others in their community. Women have been shit upon and pushed around since the beginning of time so look out –  the Church Ladies got your back!

[ CLICK ON IMAGES + ]

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San Jose Ave in San Francisco Has Been Paved

Regular readers of this journal have noticed that I get a bit ornery about the poor state of San Francisco roads. How is it that a city that has a massive budget has streets that are in such ill-repair? It is one thing if you are in a car or Google Bus dodging potholes, but on a bike you sometimes head for the sidewalks just for personal safety. I wonder how many bikers have ended up in the emergency room after taking a spill from a pot hole. OK. I shall stop my rant as progress has been made!!!

After a few years the endless infrastructure upgrades (I have a feeling some of the sewer pipes down there are new) and maybe gas pipes (they do not really tell you) the road on San Jose Ave was completely repaved and the temporary lines drawn. Man this great!. I actually thought they were taking so long because they were doing secret archaeology of a long lost native tribe, perhaps under under Fairmount Elementary School.

I find it strange that Mayor Lee was not around to cut  a ribbon as this street is literally one of the main entrances from the south into the  San Francisco. In many places the lines are now just a scribble, like they were drawn by a drunk but eventually they will make them all pretty. I know the program.

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Skiing on June 15th in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

I have always wanted to ski late in the year during a big snow year. 2017 was that year. It is a truly amazing experience to hike up and ski off the top of a mountain in 70 degree weather. The sun bright and hot. The snow hard but not yet slushy in the morning.

We made our way up to the top of this undisclosed mountain along the Pacific Crest Trail. A mile in we ran into a group of six hikers with packs. As usual custom along hiking trails we stopped and drank some water and chatted a bit. These were six people hiking the PCT all the way from Mexico to Canada. They had all started out doing the hike solo but formed a group over time. One person from Oregon. Another from Albuquerque. Another from Israel and another from New York. I asked them if they could let me know one of their most essential tools in their pack. Something they value most of all and could not do without. They first said what all people who backpack say. “Just too much shit. You do not need much in the end.”  Then they stood and pondered and then one of the older hikers said, “You pack your fears. If you are afraid of being thirsty, you carry too much water. If you fear hunger, you pack too much food. If you are afraid of being cold, you pack too many clothes.” Some heavy trail knowledge – just in the nick of time.

“You pack your fears. If you are afraid of being thirsty, you carry too much water. If you fear hunger, you pack too much food. If you are afraid of being cold, you pack too many clothes.”

Hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail

We kept heading up the mountain. At times using skins and skis. At other times hiking straight up. We made it to the top and ate lunch. The top of the mountain is a unusual place. Life was exploding with bugs, birds, rodents, birds and butterflies. 9100 feet. At one point  a tiger swallowtail butterfly cruises by and you have to wonder what she is doing at the top of the world.

Here are some photos from that magical day.

[CLICK ON IMAGES]

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The 10th Anniversary of the Google Content Id System – BETA forever…

Photos is from the failed Ernest Shackleton voyage to the South Pole.   Sometimes it is just really hard and you get stuck.

Just putting this out there for the technology trades that the Google Content ID project has remained in BETA for 10  years. Man, I have worked at some slow projects in the software world, but 10 years! Hello people in the white buses…

Google (Alphabet, Inc.) has poured resources into automated cars, artificial intelligence, buses to ferry workers back and forth to San Francisco, gender qualifying in movies (creepy stuff), a more cryptic privacy policy and better marketing tools and analytics… but God forbid they get Content ID out of BETA. No money to be made there.

June 14, 2017 – 10 year anniversary! 

Google Content ID project has remained in BETA.

NUMBER OF DAYS content identification tools for YouTube HAS BEEN IN BETA

[getdays]

Why does this matter? The YouTube/Google Content ID is how Google pays the band. If you make it appear that you do not know the band even exists, then there is no one to pay and all the money just goes into Googles bank account. Brilliant plan for Google. Because of how the 1998 DMCA was written, there is no way (except for endless take-down notices) to get your work off of YouTube. For musicians, bands and artists – Google in the end is your master and owns you. My condolences.

“Imagine a business model where you are given all of the music publishing content for the last hundred years for free. After you build the initial interface, you basically do not have to do anything. The system is set up so that users and fans just give you content even though they have no rights to the ownership of that content. With much of this illegal content you garner about 50% of all advertisement revenue generated by that content. This can go on indefinitely. Sounds like there is no way you can fail. You will make billions off this stuff. YouTube just laughs all the all the way to the bank.”

Anonymous

BETA [bey-tuh or, esp. British, bee-] adj.
A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to try under real conditions.
– PC Magazine Encyclopedia

At what point will the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) of 1998 ever make it into the news? It is the basis of our digital world and the piracy it created was/is a huge giveaway from the creative class to the tech class.

from a few years back….

https://sfjournal.net/blog/digital-millennium-copyright-act-18-year-anniversary/

https://sfjournal.net/blog/breaking-news-after-over-8-years-googles-content-id-system-is-still-in-beta/

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News from San Francisco

People are making some sick money around here! I was walking down the street in SOMA and all these hundred and thousand dollar bills came flying out of  this Audi sports car and they just keep driving.

— Anonymous conversation overheard on the streets of San Francisco – 2017

The tents with the homeless surviving inside sort of move around and play musical chairs with the freeway on-ramps. That has not changed in the last 5 years. The road repair in San Francisco sometimes means that the streets start talking another language, especially when riding a bike.

What road repair can do to messages..

The season has turned from spring to  summer.  The fog is beginning to roll in and we head to the coast only at opportune times. Morning low tide is the best in the summer. If you land in San Francisco at SFO and head north up Interstate 101 in the afternoon, during summer the fog will dance with hills like two tango dancers. An amazing sight. Gives you hope that the house is not completely burning down. If the heat becomes unbearable out there on the plains, you can cool down here on the coast. Like winter in the Midwest a time to watch the weather report and nourish the few sunny days. By July 4th the fireworks will as usual be obscured by the fog.

Below are some photos from March and April 2017…

  • The parking lots are falling into the ocean. This is from March when the waves were better.
  • Two pickers at Sunday Streets on Valencia
  • People are making some much money around here, I was walking down the street and all these thousand dollar bills came flying out of Audi sports car.
  • Radio Havana on Valencia
  • Looking down Ocean

CLICK ON IMAGES +

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Where is Janice Raymond?

The Internet has a strange way of broadcasting value and worth. A forty-year-old book about transgender issues can be a cornerstone of critical thought at the time but then gets misquoted and passed off as old fashion. Today the book is out-of-print but fetches around $100 used on Amazon for a used hard cover edition. You have to wonder why the publisher does not make another printing? Modern books read like pop self-help books, quoting daytime TV shows and sourcing checklists of acceptable pronouns. The Transgender Empire written by a “radical lesbian feminist” (how did she ever get that label?) is both academic, historical and cuts to the chase and journeys deep into the topic. Below is just a short quote from the 1994 reprinting.

The medical model is also a disease model. And here exactly is the rub. If transsexualism is treated as a disease, then does desire qualify as disease? As Thomas Szasz asked in his New York Times review of The Transsexual Empire, does an old person who wants to be young suffer from the “disease” of being a “transchronological, ” or does a poor person who wants to be rich suffer from the “disease” of being a “transeconomical”? Does a Black person who wants to be white suffer from the “disease” of being a “transracial”?

All these questions, of course, raise larger social and political issues and remove these conjectural “diseases” from the medical/psychiatric framework.

From The Transgender Empire – Janice Raymond
Reprinted in 1994 by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Originally published in 1979 by Beacon Press
Copyright © 1994 by Janice G. Raymond

Download the pdf

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Hector’s Hauling & Clean Up

Hector’s Hauling & Clean Up – Out with the old, in with the new – (415) 215-9120

Best hauling service in the outer mission district of San Francisco.

Highly recommended! I always get a kick out of Hector’s truck. The hand painted lettering just lets you know this is your guy when you need a bunch of crap moved, and moved ASAP.

Here are the before and after shots of my summer project – replacing a retaining wall. Hector hauled the concrete off to the dump. Swept it all up. Great guy. Excellent listener.

With Fencing – Pros

http://www.withfencing.com/

Need a retaining wall, these guys do it all the time

Lo Buglio Design

http://www.lobugliodesignbuild.com/

Need someone to give great advice on woodworking and construction. Nick is the guy.

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Mission and Valencia Street Repair Finished

Pretty refreshing that the city got around to doing some road repair on Mission Street at Valencia.  Por fin! This is a very busy intersection and in the repair they moved the bus stop further north which was a good move. Below are some composite creations of the old fading into the new. They did a pretty good job overall. Did some drainage work. More concrete! More concrete! Those buses are heavy!

(click om images)

San Jose Ave
Now just repair San Jose Ave. San Jose is a disaster and I challenge any city official to ride a bike down that bike lane. San Jose Ave has been like Swiss cheese for years.

The other amazing thing about San Jose is that for nine months the city and sometimes a contractor parks a backhoe at the corner of San Jose and Dolores Street. I know parking is bad in the city but parking a backhoe from months on end at San Jose and Dolores, a main thoroughfare  is pretty ridiculous.  Just finish the job! Maybe by the year 2020 San Jose will be resurfaced?

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BREAKING NEWS! We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite – Temporarily out of stock.

$45.73 on amazon.com

Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we’ll deliver when available.

Great to hear that vinyl is still the go to medium! Booker Little on trumpet is completely amazing! This is an album that I am not familiar with that is perfect for these times. It is truly incredible that it is over 50 years since this was made. It gives you the feeling that in present times we are moving backwards

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Insist!

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San Francisco and the Saga of Terrible Roads

It was over a year ago in January of 2016 that I posted  the article below, imploring the San Francisco mayor Ed Lee to focus a bit more on infrastructure.  I called the mayor’s office and sent a print out of the post below to the mayor. No results.  The roads in San Francisco are simply terrible. It has been said that they are like the roads in a third world country. I must say that in most third world countries I have visited the road s are way better. Travel through Latin America. The roads are better.

https://sfjournal.net/blog/new-years-resolution-suggestion-for-mayor-ed-lee/

If you take the 14 Mission bus you get a feel for just how bad these roads are, as the bus is literally bouncing all over the road.  I mentioned this to a 14 Mission bus driver while departing from the bus and she said “all the roads in this city are really bad.” The wear and tear on the Muni buses must be great and the costs just get us down the road.

The San Francisco economy is bursting at the seams. Now is the time! How can the roads be in such ill-repair? One day last week while riding to work I saw a group of people meeting around a new sidewalk rock garden on Mission and Valencia. I asked a person what was going on and what was happening with the crappy roads. The man, evidently working for the city, said that they were schedule to repave this section of Mission this weekend but because of the rain it may be delayed. I asked about San Jose avenue a few blocks away and he said he had no idea. I am not confident anything will happen out here in the hinterland south of Cesar Chavez.

A year later here are the photos of the same places as the year before.

 

 

 

 

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A Day in the Post Office

Standing in line at the Onondaga post office, in the outer Mission in between Mission and Alemany I experienced an amazing moment of humanity this afternoon. I had just entered and was standing in the back of the line. A white guy around 35 years old, was yelling expletives at the post office teller, complaining that they did not have the correct size box. He was trying to mail a new skateboard deck and it did not fit in the standard size boxes. “What the fuck! We are living in California. No fuckin’ skateboard boxes. What the hell is this place? Give me a fucking box that will work!” At that moment a woman in line told the guy “Please stop swearing and treat the postal worker with some respect.”  The guy then sort of softened and confessed that his best friend had recently died and that he was in a real bad way.   He then tried to shove the skateboard into the box that was too small. Eventually, using two boxes and getting help from two people in line, they got the skateboard packed up. The woman, then at the teller expressed her condolences in a kind way. “ I am sorry for your loss.” “Yeah, it has been really hard.”

San Francisco. A place of many people. Asian, black, white, arab, latino all standing in that post office line, and at that moment the very fabric of society was at stake. Do we as a society accept the concept of people being rude and  abusive to one another? Is this a form of entertainment? Do we think that acting like a two year old when you are an adult is adequate? At that moment, the character of San Francisco was on display and we moved forward one small step. Civility and empathy these days  seems to be in short supply but I witnessed it there in the Onondaga post office.

A big thanks and shout out to Sandy Cressman. She was that woman in line at the Onondaga post office bringing some humanity to the situation.

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The U.S. Constitution and White House Interpretations

On the new United States President’s website https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/constitution is a page about The U.S. Constitution. What is strange is that it is not the actual U.S. Constitution but an interpretation of The Constitution – so inconsistent with the strict constructionism or originalists so popular with conservatives these days. Is Scalia rolling over in his grave? Why would the U.S. Constitution be presented on the whitehouse.gov website this way? It is actually a form of disinformation or what is often now called fake news. Kids, remember to always refer to the original source not some hack’s interpretation of the document.

Let’s do a comparison.

First Amendment

Actual U.S. Constitution.

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.

Trump’s Whitehouse Website

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So far pretty good, but why not just publish the actual text and not how to think about the text. Then things get weird.

Second Amendment

Actual U.S. Constitution.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Trump’s Whitehouse Website

The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms.

In Trump’s version there is no mention of the “well regulated Militia.” As always, people see what they want to see and disregard the rest. What we are witnessing here is what George Orwell called “Newspeak.” A simplifying of words, meanings and vocabulary.

You can read the novel 1984 or see more information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak.

Welcome to 2017. A few years late, but we finally made it to that totalitarian state.

Read the source!!!

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Double Parking in the Bike Lane

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.

V21211 – In the Bike Lane Notice – pdf

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.

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The Last Doctor’s Lounge Bluegrass Jam – San Francisco

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)

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Nine Out of Ten

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.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-vs-jesus-christ_us_5798e188e4b0d3568f85724a

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Quotes of the Week

“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.

-Garrison Keillor
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Garrison-Keillor-Done-Over-He-s-here-Goodbye-10604062.php

Good to know everyone has not gone mad….

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

http://www.sfgate.com/warriors/article/Steve-Kerr-vents-about-presidential-election-10605463.php

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Presidential Addresses

JFK

“Civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to truth.”

From President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address

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.

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Gloria Steinem Quotes – From My Life on the Road (2015)

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.