She Mob Plays Live at The Octopus Literary Salon

She Mob opens for The Rabbles and poet Julien Poirier at Oakland's Octopus Literary Salon on Saturday, October 20th. Show starts at 7 p.m. -- a very humane time for a live-music/poetry show. Rock out, poets!

Women's March 2018 Oakland - we came, we marched, we had clever signs

It was a good Women's March, the massive sequel to last year's worldwide record-breaking demonstration. I hope we can do it again, but in celebration of a better government going forward. Here's to hope. Some photos and video and many good vibes to follow. Thank you, peaceful protesters. Now call and write your Members of Congress and tell them to impeach and/or 25th Amendment the obstruction-of-justice-in-chief and here's to the FBI's quest to oust the criminally corrupt from our Federal government.

The combined creative energy of this group could light up the Eastern Seaboard

Occupella sings "Bella Ciao" - an Italian anti-fascist protest song from the 1940s.




Here they come! Thousands marched through downtown Oakland on January 20th, 2018. The #Resistance is marching right into the halls of Congress - be sure to register to vote and vote for and support all the incredible candidates now running for office in the U.S.

Home Tour of the SLA Patty Hearst Kidnapping and Crime Spree

Patricia Hearst/Tania - identity crisis

I pitched my crime-spree home-tour idea to HGTV and they never got back to me, so I'll just post it here. Having finished reading Jeffrey Toobin's American Heiress - The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst, I was struck by how many Bay Area neighborhoods the self-proclaimed Symbionese Liberation Army took residence in during their year-and-a-half odyssey after kidnapping publishing mogul Randolph Hearst's granddaughter, Patricia (only her dad called her "Patty," but the name stuck from the seemingly endless media stories about her ordeal).

I was not quite ten years old on February 4, 1974, when 19-year-old Hearst was carried, kicking and screaming from the Berkeley apartment she shared with her fiancé Steven Weed (who she dated when he was her high school teacher — gross — that was the 70s, people). I thought the entire situation was shocking, like most of the country, and even more so when approximately a month later, Hearst in one of her taped communiques, denounced the "Pig Hearsts" and the "Pigs" in general, joining her comrades in fighting the "fascist insects that prey upon the life of the people," The SLA was committed to one thing: plotting (and more often than not bungling) ultra-violence while spouting meaningless jargon.

"Waaaah?!" I countered, along with the rest of the world, watching her rob banks in surveillance photos in a saucy beret while brandishing an assault rifle. Hearst and her gang became the most wanted criminals in the U.S. For all their ineptitude and confusion (and Toobin documents plenty of it), they managed, with the help of sympathetic cohorts, to avoid detection from the entire FBI, as well as local law-enforcement agencies for more than a year. This was a saga of the far-far-far-left, as well as a sort of overview of life on the lam in the downtrodden economic-times of the 70s, when inflation rose in absurd disproportion to salaries, and landlords were happy to fill their substandard housing with no questions asked.

Thanks to Toobin's impeccable research, I can now make sense of the SLA path to oblivion and jail-time as they traversed the country, renting safe-houses, apartments, farm-homes, roadside motel rooms, even living for a time in Manhatten. Let's take a virtual tour of the SLA's road to nowhere. Toobin supplied most of their actual addresses, which I called up on Google Maps, but I'll leave the house numbers off here, out of respect of the homes' current occupants. If you want to find them, read the book—it's a page-turner and offers a true slice of 70s living, horror, dark humor and all.

The kidnapping itself occurred in Berkeley, Calif. on Benvenue Avenue. Hearst and her older boyfriend/former teacher Weed were hanging out for a quiet night of TV and dull conversation when a tiny band of operatives calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army, led by their leader Donald DeFreeze ("Cinque"), burst into the apartment, pummeling Weed and a curious neighbor before hauling off Hearst into the trunk of their car. The apartment hasn't changed much in all these years.

The SLA had partially met at this communal house on Chabot Road in Oakland, after Cinque had escaped jail and was hiding out there with a bunch of lefty roommates. Cinque, who was black, gathered his troops, consisting of nine people, including two girlfriends, all of whom were white and involved in prison reform and pontificating. Wanting to make a splash in leftist underground circles and start a nationwide revolution, he and his girlfriends, Patricia ("Mizmoon") Soltysik and Nancy Ling, brutally assassinated Marcus Foster, the first black superintendent in Oakland, for the unfounded belief that Foster had catered to some idea of the "The Man's" concept of black and white relations. The murder was unanimously decried across all political and activist spectrums, and the SLA scrambled to form another plot based on South American guerrilla groups to get their muddled points across. Hence, kidnapping.

Two of the SLA (Joe Remiro and Russ Little) were soon picked up by local police while the collective was living in this suburban ranch house on Sutherland Court in the East-Bay suburb of Concord, California (where I grew up, amidst the cow-dotted Mt. Diablo foothills). The group was hiding out here after the Foster murder when Remiro and Little were stopped by an officer while driving a suspicious-looking van around the neighborhood.

What I especially like about this aspect of their saga, was that the men had gotten lost in a tangle of cul de sacs, trying to escape the police. So you could say that Concord's lack of city planning helped law enforcement nab their prey. Unfortunately for Remiro and Little, they would be found guilty for Foster's murder, while their comrades and actual murderers got away. But a much worse scenario awaited that core group.

In their haste to pack up their news clippings, political books and a growing stash of weaponry, the SLA attempted to burn the Concord safe-house to the ground to cover any remaining evidence of their tenancy. But like so many of their crimes, they botched the job and the house merely smoldered. And there it stands to this day, with drought-tolerant landscaping.



Onward, they drove in the dark of night to Daly City, the southern suburb of San Francisco, where the fog wafts thick the majority of the year. They first rented a house on Winchester Street, which Google Maps refuses to pinpoint with any accuracy, but no matter because they soon moved to another Daly City location, throwing a dirty foam mattress into a bedroom closet in anticipation of their next victim.

Here at the modest digs on Northridge Drive is where they pulled Patty Hearst from the trunk of their car, placing here in the closet for the next month while teaching her about their vision of overthrowing the conservative-pig government. They weren't clear about what to demand while they held her, although they hoped to spring Remiro and Little from the hoosegow. They settled on a food give-away program that Hearst's father paid for and brought to fruition in San Francisco and Oakland. It was poorly managed in the short span of time it was thrown together. Rioting and chaos in the streets ensued as crowds tried to get their allotment of goods as decreed by the SLA. And Hearst by that time had befriended one of her kidnappers, Angela Atwood, and taken up with another one, Willy Wolfe, who became her boyfriend.

They next moved to a dumpy apartment in San Francisco, on Golden Gate Avenue, to try and "blend in" a bit more, now that the kidnapping had been internationally reported, Hearst by this time was calling herself Tania and spouting "Death to the insects" rhetoric herself. Desperate for cash, the operative planned another attention-grabbing action, robbing the Hibernia Bank in the Sunset District on Noriega and 22nd Avenue. Tania would make headlines as a gun-toting urban guerrilla (which was the occupation she chose for her arrest form, but that comes later in the story).

The SLA was amused to learn that the city's FBI headquarters was only a mile away at 450 Golden Gate Avenue. In trying to locate Hearst, the FBI was fully inept, which gives me hope that Quentin Tarantino will someday sign on to direct a movie about this strange odyssey, so impenetrable in motive and indicative of a lost time and place.

An ill-conceived move to hide out in a small hovel on Oakdale Avenue in Hunter's Point, where the majority-white members, including the now-infamous Tania, stuck out in a black neighborhood. The house was barely habitable, and where it once stood is now the site of a new City College building.


Tiring of their downwardly mobile housing trajectory, the operative packed up their bloated arsenal once more, this time for the long drive to Los Angeles, where Cinque had grown up. They rented this place on West 84th Street in South Central, with no running water or working electricity. Once again, the nearly all-white household could rarely leave the house in the all-black neighborhood without drawing attention.

And one day, when Bill and Emily Harris drove the collective van to do errands with Hearst in the back, the SLA blew up, literally, not far from the West 84th Street house. That day the Harrises ended up in an absurd melee in front of a sporting-goods store when Bill tried to shoplift a small item and was accosted by a zealous store employee. Fisticuffs ensued and Hearst, waiting in the van, saw the commotion and decided to shoot up the front of the store from across the street with her semi-automatic rifle.

Miraculously no one was killed and the Harrises made their escape into the van. Zipping through the streets of L.A., they ditched their ride, carjacked a couple of vehicles, and wound up briefly kidnapping a high school kid who had agreed to sell them his vehicle. They all passed the night in a drive-in, watching movies, waiting for their cohorts to meet up with them, but their friends were no-shows.

Because after the sporting-goods shoot-out made the news, the remaining SLA members, numbering six—four women, two men—ditched their ride and hid out at this location on East 54th Street. Several people were living in what Toobin calls a flop-house, including some children. When the SLA came knocking at 4 A.M., offering the gift of stolen bank cash, the inhabitants no doubt marveled at their new house guests as they hauled in a tremendous amount of guns, bullets (filled with cyanide—a Cinque calling card) and bomb-making equipment.

Meanwhile the police found a traffic ticket in the abandoned Harris van, with a nearby address, and soon zeroed in on this location, bringing the newly formed SWAT team to surround the tiny house.

Not the actual house, which burned to the ground, along with two other homes

Here's the story of the ensuing shootout, the largest in U.S. history, which the nation watched unfold in our country's first unplanned live news broadcast.



The amount of automatic fire-power blasting into and out of the little house for two hours turned the neighborhood into a war zone. The ensuing house fire could have started from the multiple rounds of tear gas thrown by the P.D. or a punctured gas can inside the house. Everyone in the house, hiding in the crawl space, firing away, was eventually shot or burned to death, which is nightmarish in the extreme. They would not surrender. It would be an era of inexplicable death-wish behavior, including the Jonestown Massacre and the assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone by disgruntled former co-worker Dan White.

The Harrises and Hearst, holed up in an Anaheim motel across the street from Disneyland, watched the news, just like the rest of us. Their tiny homemade army was now down to three members. No doubt in shock, they headed north the next day, staying in another hotel in Costa Mesa, then hiding in a former coal bin on Oak Street in their friend's San Francisco apartment. After the friend kicked them out, they settled into a run-down apartment on Walnut Street in Oakland. Toobin doesn't give an address, but I looked up Walnut Street and it's located by my son's former preschool. There's something about this story that hits home with me.

A guy named Jack Scott who wanted to write a book about the SLA, managed to track them down at this point and offered them his apartment in New York City on West 90th Street. They drove cross-country and stayed awhile (meeting up and living with sympathizer and partial babysitter Wendy Yoshimura) before Scott whisked them to a remote farmhouse he rented in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, where he hoped to interview them at length. Another farmhouse in Jefferson, New York, served as a hideout as the relationship between Hearst, Scott and the Harrises withered under the stress of being long-term fugitives and freeloaders.

Hearst would end up in Las Vegas briefly with Scott after he brought her back to California (she also traveled with his parents, who urged her to turn herself in, but no dice). Eventually the last of the SLA reconvened in Sacramento, on W Street, where they met up with some like-minded bombers (literally—the group was wanted for bombing various empty-building targets), which included brother and sister Steve and Kathy Soliah, plus Michael Bortin and James Kilgore.

Everyone worked on their bomb-making skills and planned a new bank robbery to take place at the Crocker National Bank in nearby Carmichael. This went catastrophically wrong when bank customer and mother of four, Myrna Lee Opsahl, was shot and killed by Emily Harris when her gun discharged as she ordered Opsahl to lie down on the floor. A teller later miscarried after Kathy Soliah kicked her on the way out of the bank, taking $15,000. Hearst drove a getaway car. Soliah would later face a day of reckoning for not only this bank job, but also for planting a bomb in a police car in Los Angeles that failed to detonate but would have killed many bystanders, including children, had it gone off.

Some miserable times were had in Sacramento after the botched robbery. The gang made their way back to San Francisco where they moved into two houses, this one on Morse Street in the outer Mission, where everyone but Hearst worked as house painters, building bombs in their spare time.

And this house, on Precita, not too far from where my Grandma lived for 40 years, off of Geneva, in the godforsaken San Francisco neighborhood we called "The border of Daly City." Here, Hearst lived a quiet, isolated existence with her new boyfriend Steve Soliah.

By this time, the world had figured out that the SLA was a bunch of fucking idiots. And dangerous too, so finding and convicting them was paramount. The FBI doubled down and followed some tips that led to the site of Steve Soliah's house-painting job. This led to some old-fashioned surveillance and stake-outs, and finally everyone was captured. Hearst was in the Precita house when the police came bursting in. As she was driven away in the patrol car, she famously raised her fist in defiance.

But it didn't take much jail time and time with her family before Hearst turned on her former comrades, including her boyfriend, Soliah. The former revolutionary soldier claimed she had been tortured, raped and brainwashed and believed that if she didn't join the SLA, they would kill her. Which didn't take into account all the times she could have easily escaped. Either in Los Angeles, or in Sacramento, where she was left alone for hours at a time. It also doesn't explain why she felt compelled to shoot up innocent bystanders in Los Angeles, or continue on with the SLA even after their crimes escalated, resulting in more death and destruction.

Whatever her reasoning and state of mind, the kidnapping was no doubt a nightmarish and terrifying ordeal, and Patricia Hearst is a survivor. She was found guilty of bank robbery and served some time before being pardoned by Presidents Carter and Clinton. She married her bodyguard, appeared in some John Waters films, raised two daughters, and is known for her prize-winning pedigreed dogs. That is about as bourgeois as it gets.

The Harrises were convicted of kidnapping and bank robbery. The rest of the group spread out and went underground for more than twenty years before finally being caught and pleading guilty for the robbery that led to the murder of Myrna Opsahl. That is a story unto itself, but doesn't involve much real estate, unless you count the nice St. Paul Minnesota home Kathy Soliah settled down in, going by the name of Sara Jane Olson while living an upstanding suburban life as a wife, mother and community-theater player before she was identified on "America's Most Wanted." Wendy Yoshimura got a plea deal and now paints watercolors in Oakland. She paints vivid still-lives of fruit, which would look fine in any home environment.

Spot-on BART dancing

Take a break from our excessively distressing news cycle by taking a ride through the Transbay Tube with these fine BART dancers. There will be turfing and bone breaking and other fine self-taught choreographed moves. I shot this footage while on the way to the massive SFO immigration-ban protest, so I had my "good" camera. Jackson put it up on his transit channel. And here we go.

Hoping to see some lady dancers someday soon. Hoping I have my camera ready. 

Congratulations Golden State Warriors!

Maaaan, watta team. I stopped watching the Warriors many years ago because it was too painful for my delicate psyche, but I'm so glad I finally tuned in because this team was poetry on the court. Lovely people passing the ball with lightning-quick precision. Those charming three-pointers, impeccable defense (I have a thing for defense) and all-around team camaraderie. A+ sportsmanship, charm and coaching smarts. This year's Warriors had it all and then some (Riley Curry—mega-star).

And a special mention of my cousins, Gary, Barb and their daughter, Jamie, who've been season-ticket holders for decades—true fans who patiently and with good grace waited for this and are deservedly very happy tonight. Cheers!

All the way with the Oakland A's - Superfan Roundup

The Oakland Athletics have made the grade once again. Congratulations, AL West Champs! And now the playoff series begins. Here is a fine team to root for with excellent team dynamics, plenty of charisma, humor and humility. And superfans with enough time on their hands to go the extra mile for their team. Photos below.

I'm not going to write a bunch of facts on the A's. Looks like big media is finally picking up on their story, after the entire season has almost come to an end—right on time. The A's, as Rodney Dangerfield would say, don't get no respect. I hope they win and win big because they're more than deserving. When I watch the A's, I'm reminded of the spirit of baseball—that almost magical alchemy that comes from the field of good play, good intentions, good heart and of course, ability.

Hat's off.

Big-head A's racers - like Mardi Gras every home game

A crafty superfan - make this with items you find around the house

I hope this guy's a real fireman and not just pretending - still, good helmet

The dream parade

Almost scary, but mostly absurd

And these guys... A+

Any team that has Coco Crisp is a worth rooting for.

COCO! COCO! COCO!

Joyous Oakland A's Captured by Artist Ming Choi—Plus Balfour Rage

Oakland A's by Ming Choi, 2012

Keith and I actually went out the other night, which almost never happens, and while traipsing about San Francisco, fell in love with this little painting of the Oakland A's by Ming Choi. Choi is part of the artist collective at Creativity Explored, a studio for developmentally disabled adults. If you're ever in the Mission District, stop by and visit the Creativity Explored gallery. It is an eye-popping experience. There are so many wonderful artworks there from the very tiny, to the giant wall-sized. Plus sculptures and even sometimes painted furniture. It's art heaven, trust me, and very affordable.

This 8"x10" painting manages to capture a joyous Athletics season. The low-budget, scrappy A's won their division against all odds. Although they didn't make it to the final playoffs, losing to the best pitcher in the league in an epic and thrilling five-game series with the Detroit Tigers, they played with complete heart and soul on the field. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. Congratulations, Oakland A's—I treasure your memorable season and now we have some art to commemorate it.

And as for you, loyal A's fans, perhaps the greatest performance artists in the history of professional baseball—we'll get 'em next year.

Balfour rage is the official headbanging, fist-churning cheer you exhibit when Australian relief pitcher and Metallica fan Grant Balfour is called into the game. It's especially prevalent in the right-field bleachers and is a great upper body workout.

It started out small.



And grew into a movement of sweeping magnitude.



There is no containing the Balfour Rage.



Bonus! A's fans are Moving like Bernie with Mayor Jean Quan.

San Francisco Haiku for National Poetry Month

April is national poetry month—not day, week, or bi-weekly—poetry MONTH. Because poetry is worth celebrating for approximately 30 days. So here are some San Francisco Neighborhood haiku, just in time for the tourist season. It's pretty much always tourist season in San Francisco and its surrounding environs, but spring and summer really bring it in a big way.

Nothing rolls out the red carpet quite like a series of haiku. At least in my estimation. Are you visiting San Francisco anytime soon? Take along these haikus and explore the wonders of 5-7-5-syllable travel.

SFO
landing in water
seems completely plausible
ha ha! Just kidding

Candlestick Park
freeway bay view park
wind blowing hotdog wrappers
baseball memories


The Upper Haight
Haight Ashbury sign
stolen again and again
boutiques sell their wares

The Lower Haight
do you need a drink?
or a falafel sandwich?
still affordable

The Castro
Rainbow flag above
an Art Deco movie house
welcome home, people


Dolores Park
Sunshine, royal palms
oops, I just tripped over
twelve fucking hipsters


Noe Valley
strollers, espresso
rolfing, yoga studios
and more: pilates

The Mission
when I was fifteen
my cousin brought me here
tacos from heaven

The Mission #2
dot-com boom brought change
invasion of the hipsters
higher-rent tacos


The Forgotten Zone
hello, Cow Palace
blocks away, Daly City
three o'clock windstorm

Golden Gate Park
greenery, horned owls
buffalo, model boat club
and sometimes a kid


Ocean Beach
whoa, whoa, whoa—don't go
in that wicked undertow
chill out, get windblown


The Hills of San Francisco
you're over the top
you're driving into the Bay!
ha ha! just kidding


The Marina
populated by
high school seniors all grown up
prom night royalty

North Beach
yeah, yeah, yeah, I know
this was a real neighborhood
good luck with parking


Golden Gate Bridge
iconic all right
made for crossing, not jumping
stick around, my friend


Bonus—Oakland haiku!
yes, visit Oakland!
New York Times gives the okay
organic sorbet

Photos are from the Playland at the Conservatory exhibit in Golden Gate Park (ends this week!) Be sure to visit.

Daniel Clowes Exhibition Coming to The Oakland Museum

Fans of Eightball, Ghost World, Wilson, The Death-Ray, and so on: Daniel Clowes has his first museum show at the Oakland Museum of California this April 14 through August 12. Marvel at the technical artistry and storytelling prowess of one of the greatest comic book artists of all time. It's not hyperbole if it's true! Photos here.

Will Clowes' rich storytelling abilities come through in a gallery-setting art show? I'm not sure. Comic-book art tends to wow me on the page, where I can enjoy not only the lines, shadings and colors, but also the background perspectives, dialogue bubbles, narrative boxes with their fine, even lettering, plus the page-turning qualities of the storytelling. Looking at illustrations on a wall is an entirely different concept. Still, the monograph, The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist, was compiled with his complete cooperation, according to the Museum site, so that's a good sign.



Dan takes the NY Times on a tour of his neighborhood columbarium in Oakland here. If you've never visited The Chapel of the Chimes, you really should go. They host jazz nights there. There's all kinds of happenings going on at the Chapel of the Chimes. It's a lively place, despite being a columberium. The Annual Summer Solstice Concert is something you will not soon forget.



"Nostalgia and Paranoia" - a 2002 documentary on Daniel Clowes.



Years ago I encountered Dan Clowes at a book signing. I had brought my copy of Eightball along and when I got up to the table, I admitted I couldn't decide where I wanted him to sign it—on the panel of a stand-in of himself, sitting at the back of a bookstore of a sparsely attended book signing while his protagonist, Enid Coleslaw, cowers in the shadows at the leering sight of him—or on the forehead of a bald, possible Satan worshiper that Enid secretly stalks through the streets of a Berkeley-like city.

"Well," said Daniel, fixing me with his laser eyes like a cobra on a rodent. "DECIDE!"

Instantly I ascertained that Daniel Clowes did not like me. Not at all. And I wasn't too sure I liked him either. I pointed to the dome of the Satan worshiper, where he signed his name very nicely. Then I scooted away quickly, without looking back—much like Enid Coleslaw herself. What a moment!

Here's a fresh-faced Dan Clowes interview from 1991 (at 3:10), talking about his early influences and Eightball. Back in the early 90s, Dan was the man. He still is. Kudos!



"Ghost World" trailer, from the screenplay written by Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff. This is perhaps the best trailer (of a damn fine film) made in the past two decades. A rare coming-of-age movie about girls worth watching.



"Art School Confidential," the second collaboration between Zwigoff and Clowes, made decent hash of the bullshit inherent in an art school education, but lost me on the noir aspects of the plot. Still—John Malkovhich! Always worth a look-see. Definitely get your hands on the comic, acerbic satire of the highest caliber.



Do yourself a favor. Go to your local comic book store and buy a bunch of Daniel Clowes books. Keep the economy running while enhancing your existence. A panel from Ghost World.

Scott Weaver's San Francisco toothpick sculpture - Rolling Through the Bay

Roger Ebert's twitter pointed me to this today and it's so epic, amazing and charming I thought I'd share. Scott Weaver spent the past 35 years building a model of the San Francisco Bay Area with more than 100,000 toothpicks. Best of all, it's kinetic. Beautiful, unreal and fun--just like the real place it depicts.

Scott Weaver's Rolling through the Bay from The Tinkering Studio on Vimeo.

On display now at the Exploratorium's Tinkering Studio through June 19th.

The John Brothers - recession-busting East Bay street performers inspire

They play piano at BART stations around Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. They were broke and jobless for seven months before finding their calling on the street. Now they impress and inspire in this age of jobless struggle for college grads (and everyone else). Kudos!



Source: Oakland North

Dot Racing at the Oakland Coliseum

Coming at you live! Dot racing is this dumb computer animation they put on the Jumbo-Tron at ball games and you're supposed to cheer on your dot (or cable car, or speed boat, or whatever it happens to be). The Oakland Coliseum adds its own whimsical touch and it is highly entertaining.

And the A's played really well against the Red Sox, who appeared to be hung over from their overnight stay in SAN FRANCISCO. Will an American League team ever stay in Oakland to wake up refreshed and ready to play the next day? Or will they continue to party across the Bay so they end up sluggish and slumpy on the field? It's a rhetorical question. Anyway, the A's looked good out there today and other than a couple of nice diving catches in the outfield, the Red Sox had some sloppy D.

Here's how the dot race played out. As you can see, in the race around the field, Blue Dot annihilated.


Hat's off to my friend Brian who noted they could all outrun David Ortiz.

And speaking of... I zoomed in so much to get this David Ortiz at-bat that it looks like the baseball toys my brother used to play with when he was a kid. At least it does to me. Zoom lenses can be mysterious that way.
Even miniaturized, Big Papi still looks pretty big.

The Uptones - Not From Here

The Uptones, the Bay Area's premiere ska band, will be releasing some new songs soon. This is good news because Uptones productions are not only danceable but soulful as well.

Case in point: The first time I met members of The Uptones was at the Port Lite bar in a dark, lonesome section of West Oakland. Three of the defunct Uptones had carried on as Stiff Richards and our band was opening for them. I may be fuzzing the details here but two songs into their set, I remember telling someone in my band to come inside and listen because, "These guys are really good." Four songs into their set, I realized they were professional-caliber musicians who happened to be playing on a linoleum floor in a dive where cockroaches roamed the bathrooms and the bartender snarled if you displeased her in any way. And those ways were generally mysterious and unknown to you.

Professionals with soul; they played ska but mixed it up with reggae, punk rock, classic guitar-driven rock and humor. All of this had chops and heart. At the end of the night, they pulled up in a series of tiny automobiles and loaded up and out like they had done it a thousand times before. And so they had. The Uptones began when they were in high school in 1981 and went on to heavily influence a lot of popular ska-pop-punk bands that I won't go into here because none of them are as cool as the Uptones and that's my professional-caliber opinion.

They are re-formed now and you can see them live in places where the bartenders are not quite as surly. But au revoir, Port Lite. Apparently it couldn't last out by the warehouses of Oakland. I miss playing there and also miss Emmett who enthusiastically booked local bands, always wore (non-ironic) trucker hats and played pinball throughout every band's set.

Not From Here from "Skankin' Foolz Unite!"

The Uptones Skank On

My favorite ska band, The Uptones (OK, truthfully, they're tied for first place with The Specials), were high school musical prodigies back in the 80s. But they're all grown up now and reformed (as of 2002). Here they entertain us with their excellent dance moves to the title song from their new CD, "Skankin Foolz Unite," which as one YouTube commenter succinctly put it, "is the shit." Indeed!



Get Out of My Way


Rude Boy


Not From Here


Bested by Pelicans


Ghost Town - The Specials' song destined to be covered for eternity.


Wiki
MySpace

XBXRX at 40th St., Oakland, 2003 or 04

This is at a secret punk rock warehouse located on a mostly residential block that I used to live near by. I'm visualizing the neighborhood now: sunny, wide street with flower-covered middle dividers (kept up by the neighbors), flooring store, former massage parlor (closed by the city for illegal activities), Japanese restaurant. Keep going up the little hill and you're in the Piedmont Ave. area--great food, great comic book store. If you turn right on Broadway you're on auto row. If you turn left on Broadway, you pass Oakland Tech. High School--huge historic buildng. Keep going past Rockridge and you arrive at Lake Temescal--jump in for a swim. Oakland is a good city in many different ways.

I only saw one show there and I wish it had been this one. I like the interactive yet off-putting aesthetics. It's now, it's happening, it's XBXRX.


source: KEVINBROWNSVIDEOS

Concord, CA, There I Was

I visited my parents for four days this week and if you know me, live in the Bay Area, and I didn't call you, it's because I was getting over a lingering three-week bronchitis-like cold and was feeling guilt for moving away from my parents in the first place. That didn't stop me from experiencing the splendor of the East Bay in February--a time when it starts getting weirdly hot before March blows in and reminds us that it's not quite spring yet people, even in California.

What did I accomplish on this truncated visit? So very much, thank you for asking!

Firstly, on Friday, Sue Iconolodge fed me some delicious Trader Joe's hummus. I'm not about product placement, but I had been seriously craving hummus all week and this TJ hummus is not fooling around: you need it in your life. It's got some kind of oily pine nut crust on top--look for that. I visited with Sue's house-guest who's involved in some kind of polyamorous sect based in Marin County, or possibly San Francisco. I couldn't keep track of the people involved or the terminology. As we left for the night, I wished him well in his polymorphous pursuits, which sounded right at the time, though he called me on it immediately and I tried to cover my tracks by describing it as meaning sex with a tentacled person. I don't think he bought that

We headed off into the night, driving alongside the Bay during a polymorphously orange sunset. The water was all choppy and shiny and though the traffic was like driving through a bog, our spirits were high. Because we were heading towards a party at Takara Sake in Berkeley where free sushi and sake would be served from 6-8 p.m. Takara Sake is a big warehouse full of sake, a sake tasting room, and a sake museum featuring all kinds of fabulous 19th-century Japanese sake-making tools. Sue looked at the sake-making pictograms and noted, "They didn't tell us that FEET were involved."

We tasted sake that was flavored with apples, lychee nuts and good old unfiltered rice (milky and cold), plus the usual dry, heated variety, and none tasted of feet. Meanwhile, our friends in The Uptones mingled and were very low-key about the fact that the gathering was a party celebrating the release of their new CD, Skankin' Fools Unite! There was no live music and no visible CDs and they wouldn't play the actual CD. Therefore it was a great marketing coup for sake. Tiny plastic cups in hand, we stalked former Beserkeley Records CEO, Matthew Kaufman (now head of Fun Fun Fun Recordings) and asked if we could see and touch an actual CD. Whereupon he disappeared into a closet and retrieved a couple for us. Thank you Matthew.

You might remember The Uptones from 1981 when they first formed in high school in Berkeley. They were teen-age ska prodigies who grew up, created some new bands then re-formed again as The Uptones. With the three core originators in place plus five more (including a three-piece horn section), The Uptones are an awesome live experience. And the CD is really good with a mix of new and classic Uptones songs; the production is crisply excellent. All the early 80s ska touchstones are in place: rebellious attitude in a porkpie hat: check; celebration of the outlaw: check (Bonnie and Clyde); Jamaican/British 2-Tone influences intact: check (The Specials, The Selector, English Beat, etc.). I especially love "Not From Here"--its theme of alienation couched within an epic chord progression. It will make you do the twist and feel years younger.

Even my mom was really impressed. She loves the horns (note: my mom has good taste in music--especially dance music). So if you're looking for that blend of 50s Jamaican influence in an American punk-rock dance band--here you go.

Paul and Eric of the Uptones have a musical secret: they can play really bitchin' Rolling Stones-like riffs from the Exile on Main St. era. If they ever want to get that stuff recorded, I'm all for that.

On Saturday I talked my parents into driving us up to the top of Mt. Diablo. 3,840 feet of plate-tectonic-produced land mass, rising up behind their house. February/March is the perfect time to go because all the foothills are green. I mean GREEN--Ireland green. And the scrubby old Oaks don't have leaves and look all twisty and artistic. We could see quite a lot from the top , though there was a slight haze. On days after a wind storm, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond. We then headed to Rock City to climb on the very amazing sandstone wind caves. If you are ever in a state park and you pass a sign that says "Rock City," you should turn off and go there. It will most likely be a good experience.
Wind caves are polymorphous indentations in sandstone, formed by wind. They're like if wind had a sculptural face, except they're covered with graffiti. You can scratch your name on sandstone with almost anything, including a finger, so people do. But still, they rock. Jackson loved finding left-over sand in the path as we mountain-goated through the rock formations. He kept bending down to rub his hands in it--little sand puddles.

After that I wasn't good for much other than art-supply shopping and the airport. I watched Bill Maher with my mom one late night. She and my dad are rooting heavily for Obama--I hope the democrats don't disappoint them. They're pretty depressed about politics and need a win. Maher's show "Real Time" was for the most part entertaining and thoughtful throughout. I like Dan Savage on the Obama campaign trail, asking college boys if they were a little gay for Obama. "We are, a little," they admitted. He also pointed out that security in Dallas was really lax. Federal agents took down all the metal detectors halfway through frisking the huge crowd. Savage asked why and they told him it seemed like a safe friendly crowd. Fuck you Dallas. Swear words I heard while watching HBO: fucking, fucked, and cock. That's the freedom of pay TV.

I put on the Uptones CD while unpacking today and could not help dancing around the bedroom. That is a good situation to come home to. Although it's raining here again, the sun keeps bursting through the clouds as if to say, "Hey there stranger! Remember me?" Yes--welcome back.

photo sources:
Pixieland Amusement Park, Concord, CA
Mt. Diablo Photos
Guide to the Geology of Mt. Diablo

Art, it's what's happening

I'm always happy to feature new and emerging artists, so here's Ben (from Jackson's Oakland play group) posing with his found-object sculpture, "The Native Americans." Ben's work is a prize-winner in the Re-Create Show at the Museum of Children's Art (MOCHA) in Oakland. The exhibit is up until December 16th--check it out! It's all made from discarded materials--timely and really fun; an excellent outing for kids and their adults. Place and time: 472 Water Street Gallery, Friday, 3-5pm, Saturday/Sunday, 10am-2pm.

Way to go, Ben (and his mom, Michelle).

Jackson Graduates

I didn't have any time before we moved to post Jackson's graduation-from-preschool-day photos. Our friend Monte took these. It's called "Key Day" and all the graduates get a key so they can always return to visit their school. Sniffle! Great day. Now he's in kindergarten--more sniffles. The cliche is true: they do grow up fast. They cross over a symbolic bridge into...even more childhood adventures, I guess. Kindergarten is really different because it isn't a co-op. I can volunteer for his class but his day is really separate from mine (for 3.5 hours at least). Today he told me they went to the music room and they all twirled around to music and the room was full of instruments. I thought, I wish I could have come! In a co-op, I would have not only been there, but I probably would have driven a few kids to the class and helped them with their lunches too.
That's Gail, early-childhood genius and humorist. She runs a fantastic school in Oakland. I miss her very much and we were lucky that we got to work with her and all the kids.

Today I walked along the Columbia River for over an hour. What a bee-yoo-ti-ful day. The sun came busting out of all the clouds at 2 p.m. and the water glittered and twinkled and made some waves along the beach.